HAWK

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DELIVERANCE (5/6)

Three men entered, each wearing identical stealth suits to Kas, though they were void of WASP masks or any carbachrome plating. They had been laughing over an unheard joke as they stepped inside but they quickly went quiet when they saw Captain Mack standing before them. They halted at once and clicked their feet together in unison as they placed their right hands on their left shoulders in salute. Kas looked down and pretended to adjust her right arm plate, but she was actually looking at the three men through the top of her visor. Aside from their strong physiques, they couldn't have looked much different.

The brunette on the left was as ugly as he was muscular. In the middle was the shortest of the three - an austere looking guy with black hair and the downward angled eyes that determined him as Sharanese. And on the right was a pale-skinned redhead with bright blue eyes that were staring directly back at her.

'Relax, boys,' Mack said, and the three men lowered their arms. 'What're you doing here?'

'Sir,' said the Sharanese one in the middle, apparently the trio's leader. 'We were just on our way to get some combat practice in the yard.'

'That's good to hear. Not enough of you guys do manual practice. Most of you spend too much time in simulations.'

'Not us, sir. We practice twice a week for two hours.'

'Excellent, I'm impressed. Perhaps I'll have to join you some time and see if I still have what it takes.' He raised his fists in a playful fight stance and the three men smiled politely, unsure if he was joking or not. 'Anyway, don't let me slow you down. Give each other hell.'

'Will do, sir.'

Mack turned to Kas and nodded. 'We'd better get going.' Kas nodded back. They'd barely taken a step when one of the soldiers spoke up.

'Vale?'

Kas didn't think. She knew the name was directed at her and couldn't help but turn to the one who had said it. She regretted it immediately. The redheaded man was looking back at her with a highly confused expression that marred his boyishly handsome face.

'How long have you been back?' he asked. Kas glanced at the captain through the side of her visor and saw the panic brewing behind his eyes. She realised any prolonged silence would only make her look more suspicious, so she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

'A few hours.'

'I thought you were on a six-month deployment...'

'She was,' Mack interceded. 'And she'll be going back as soon as she's done here.'

'What are you even doing here? Why didn't you let me know you were coming?'

'I... can't really talk about it,' Kas said, realizing the conversation had to end immediately.

'We really have to go,' Mack said. He continued towards the door and Kas followed as casually as she could.

'You're not even going to say goodbye?' the soldier said. Kas heard the change in his voice and didn't like it. There was a sudden coldness to it that bore the shadow of suspicion. Kas ignored it and picked up her pace, but the hand had already grabbed her wrist. She halted and twisted her neck to see the redhead staring dubiously into her visor as though the nitroglass didn't even exist.

'Let go of me,' Kas growled, but the redhead didn't budge.

'Turn off your veil first.'

'Soldier!' Captain Mack barked. 'Let go of her at once!'

He didn't. He seemed to be trying to stare a hole through Kas's mask. His grip on her arm was only getting tighter. 'Turn it off,' he reiterated.

'Let go of me,' Kas threatened.

'You're not Vale. Who are you?'

Kas didn't speak. She angled her head slightly and her visor's enhanced peripherals showed the other two soldiers tensing up behind her. Captain Mack strolled over to Kas's side and looked hard into the soldier's face.

'Take your hand away from her, soldier, or I will be discussing this with Governor Swanne.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' the man replied without looking at him, 'but Eidol law states that any suspicious or unauthorised identities must be apprehended and detained. Unless lieutenant Vale here can simply show me her face, I am required to escort her t--'

Mack's fist struck the soldier's throat and folded it in like paper. The redhead dropped to his knees while his hands grasped hopelessly at his breathless windpipe.

Kas reacted as though she'd been waiting for it. As soon as the grip left her wrist, her right hand snapped to her left forearm and stole the nightstriker from its place. She was already spinning when the attack came in. The brunette's kick connected with her right knee, but the carbachrome plating did its job and prevented a nasty break. His foot ricocheted off the side instead and gave Kas the millisecond she needed to activate the nightstriker. It hummed in her hand as she speared it at her attacker's chest. He saw it coming, but his block arrived a fraction of a second too late and he was sent flying backwards through the air like he'd just taken a hit from a wrecking ball. He landed on his backside and rolled clumsily into the far locker with a crash. He stayed down.

Kas spun to take on the Sharanese soldier but he was already occupied with Captain Mack. Unfortunately, the captain's second fight wasn't looking to be so easy.

Following his assault on the redhead, Mack had immediately tried to follow up with a similar attack on the leader, but the black haired guy was no rookie. As soon as the captain made the surprise strike on his friend, the Sharanese soldier had gone into combat mode and deflected Mack's follow up attempt with ease. By the time Kas had turned her attention on them, the flurry of punches were all coming from one side. Captain Mack was doing everything he could to block them, but it only took a couple to break through his guard and rattle his skull like it was a child's punching bag. An uppercut finished the job and sent the captain flailing against the wall before sliding down it and into a daze.

Kas covered the small distance in half a second, her right arm pulling the nightstriker back for its second attack. This time, however, the soldier saw it coming and dived dramatically out of harm's way with time to spare. He rolled expertly over his shoulder, putting another ten feet of space between him and Kas. She wasn't about to let him get any kind of advantage and was already coming at him by the time he'd got back to his feet. She propelled herself from the floor and extended her left leg so that her foot became an arrowhead soaring through the air, aiming straight for the soldier's head. He twisted deftly out of the way and the kick grazed his cheek as lightly as a mother's kiss. Kas landed as best she could while her right hand carved a horizontal path with the nightstriker at his head, but he ducked it and chopped down on her forearm. It didn't hurt, but that wasn't his intention. The nightstriker broke from her grip and tumbled to the ground. The soldier was ready for it and kicked it across the floor sending it spinning towards the far end of the room.

Kas put her fists up and got ready for some hand-to-hand combat.