Afterlife CH 31: Engaging the Enemy

 The landing zone looked empty as Chime carefully led her comrades between cover.  The dropship had already taken off again, and the street seemed empty with no sign of anything amiss.

 She stopped the group beside a small building.

“Katrina, watch our backs.  Rook, take a quick peek,” she ordered.

 He nodded, getting low and quickly ducking his head around the corner.  He only stayed there a couple seconds before moving back.

“Nothing moving right now, but I picked up something in a doorway.  I think it was the barrel of a gun or something,” he reported.  “It was pointed at the other end of the street, though, like they’re holding out against something down the road from us.”

He took another quick look, before ducking quickly back out of sight to the sounds of gunfire, the others all readying their weapons in response.  It was only a couple shots before it stopped.

“They see us?” Chime asked.

“No, it came from up the street.  I think some cops or someone’s in a standoff with the Kingsmen,” Rook explained.

 Chime thought for a second, taking a quick look at their surroundings.  They were in an alley that connected the two streets.  It was decent cover for sneaking around, but if they tried to engage from here one well thrown grenade would be all it took to clear them out.

 The buildings to either side of them were fairly small and wouldn’t provide good vantage points for her rifle, and from their hiding spot they couldn’t even get a clear line of sight on their enemies.  They’d need to draw them out; preferably from somewhere they could be easily seen.

“What are the buildings like down the road?” she asked.

“Mostly small ones like these,” Rook said, patting the wall they were hiding behind.  “There was an office building at the end of the block though.  Maybe seven stories or so.”

“Better than nothing,” Chime muttered.

“So what’s the plan?” Baerill asked.  “I’m guessing we head for the offices?”

“Me and Rook will,” Chime stated.  “You and Katrina stay here while we get to a good spot.  Just stay hidden until we can get a better grip on things.”

“Why can’t we go too?” Baerill asked, half complaining.

“You two can’t move through walls, me and Rook can.  It’ll be safer for us to go straight through the buildings rather than around them, so we’ll get to the offices that way and force the Kingsmen from their hiding spots.”

“I guess that makes sense...” Baerill mumbled, resigning herself to simply waiting.

“So we just wait here, where we can’t be seen or shot from, and you two do the work?  Fine by me,” Katrina joked with a nervous chuckle.

“Be careful,” she added as the two turned and stepped through the wall to their side.

 They’d walked into a hardware store.  Chime smiled under her helmet.  There were plenty of displays set up for them to sneak behind.  The next one over would be the end of the block.  All they had to do was head to the roof.

 A couple new shots from down the road, this time accompanied by distinct return fire from Kingsmen weapons, spooked the two.  Both crouched low, Rook raising his gun.

“May as well put these away, they’ll make too much noise if we do run into anyone,” Chime said as she hefted her own weapon.

“Good point,” Rook said, slinging his SMG over his back.  Chime did the same, though her rifle didn’t sit nearly as comfortably as his weapon did.

 Rook gave his left hand a flick, the blade of his spear and part of the handle growing from his palm, which he gripped without extending further or switching hands.  He looked to her, his face obscured by the dull grey visor beneath the hood of his Defiler suit.

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” he asked as Chime unwound the chain connected to her weapon from around her shoulder.  “I’ve never seen you practice with it.”

“It does exactly what I want it to, how am I supposed to practice that?” she said, the chain making a soft clinking sound as the hooked knife jumped a couple inches, seemingly of its own accord.

“Point taken.  We gonna go?”

“Yeah.  Take it slow.  They probably can’t see us from here, but better safe than sorry, right?” Chime suggested.

 They crept behind the displays and shelves, exposing themselves to the shop’s windows as little as possible.  Rook scanned the shop as they went.  It was completely abandoned, luckily.  Whoever owned it must have been hiding somewhere, and there were no opportunistic looters to draw attention.

 Reaching the far wall, Chime gave Rook a sharp nod, who stopped and leaned forward as he made himself ethereal.

 I’ll never get used to this, he thought as a solid darkness covered his vision, knowing full well that a concrete wall was actually occupying the same space as his brain.  He couldn’t breathe when he was doing this, as there was nothing for him to breathe.  Even if he tried, physics itself simply ignored whoever used this particular power, so nothing would even be sucked in anyway.

 When he could see again, it was on the other side of the wall in a darker room.

“Okay,” he started, leaning back again and waving Chime forward.  “Looks like a storeroom or something on the other side, we’re safe.”

 Through the wall again, they stood in a dark room, the only light coming from beneath the door.  To Rook, that was all he needed to clearly see the shelves covered with spare office equipment.

 Chime felt her way to the door, lacking Rook’s heightened vision, to check the next area.  When she stood back upright, she simply opened the door and walked out, signalling her partner to follow as she made her way toward the stairs.

 They dashed up the stairs, flight by flight through the empty building, until they hit the fifth floor.  Rook was impressed that people managed to clear buildings like this as quickly as they did given how short notice the attack was.  Odd to think it was probably like this all over the planet, the entire world coming to a standstill over their organisation.  It was also odd their enemy hadn’t tried to use this same building for anything, it was a great sniper nest after all.

 Chime headed to a window to get her vantage point, Rook scanning the streets and nearby buildings for Kingsmen.  He noticed the windows weren’t designed to open and wondered if they should move to the roof to avoid smashing them.

 Chime drew a finger across the lower part of the glass, making a scraping sound, then down, eventually drawing a small box in the window.  As she pulled her hand away, the glass fell into her hand.

 Clever, Rook thought, grinning.  Just cut the glass.  Why didn’t he think of that?

“We’re in position,” he said into his radio.  “You guys doing okay there?”

“No trouble here,” Baerill replied.  “Anyone think it’s weird there aren’t more Kingsmen here yet?”

“Maybe our guys in space are keeping them busy.  Anyway, we’re going to try to take a few of them out, just wait there,” Chime said, setting herself up at the window.  “Do your job, spotter.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rook sighed, crouching down next to her.

 From here, he could see much better.  There must have been a dozen Kingsmen along the opposite side of the street, but he still had no clue how many could be just beneath them.  They were taking cover from the forces firing at them occasionally, but they clearly weren’t expecting an attack from this particular angle, since they were completely exposed to Chime’s fire.

 Up the street he could see some movement from what must have been police or some local military, slight things a normal human eye would miss.  The occasional glance around a corner or barely exposed shoulder as someone shifted their position.

“Rifleman near the rear.  He’s watching their backs from that clothes shop,” Rook said, Chime adjusting her view to get a sight on Rook’s designated target.

“I got him,” she replied, lining up the shot.

 More movement caught Rooks eye closer to the front of the Kingsman unit.

“Wait, I have a new one, near the front there.  I think he’s the one giving orders, he just waved some of his guys forward, the one hiding behind the pillar at that bank,” he corrected.  If they could take out their leader first, this would be even easier.

“This would be easier if they had markings or something on their armour, like stripes,” Chime muttered, finding the new target.  “They’ll know we’re here once we fire, so we’ll hit one or two and move.”

 Rook simply nodded, watching their target.  Something seemed different about him.  He wasn’t being as cautious as his men, he exposed parts of himself more often and his only gun seemed to be a pistol of some kind.  What he had instead seemed to be a number of knives sheathed at various spots on his armour.

 Hang on, he thought, are his eyes silver?