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Sing, Little Caged Bird
Posted By: soulguard<gouldbowman@hotmail.com>
Date: 19 November 2007, 3:14 pm
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To Kill A King
Part 2 of 3: Sing, Little Caged Bird
Rachel held her head as high as she could and braced for the blow. Her head snapped to the side as the man's fist collided with her head. Blood from a previous hit flew from her jaw as her head rocked to the side. The plastic cuffs on her hands held her in the chair as the man that punched her lifted her head in glared into her swelling eyes.
"It doesn't have to be this way." The man said sternly. "You'll go to prison for few years, but at least you'll be alive." The man let Rachel's head go as he walked out of the spot light that sat over Rachel's restrained position.
Rachel could barely think straight, blood dripped down her face and onto her shirt and pants. How many times had he hit her? She lost count after ten. She moved her tongue around and felt a lose tooth. She spat it out in a pack of blood and saliva.
"Give us the names of everyone who was on your team." A man in the shadows stated. His voice was different then the man that had beat her. Through a swollen eye Rachel turned her head in the direction of the voice and tried to see who it was. The spotlight swinging overhead made that impossible. "We don't like doing this, but you aren't making this any easier on yourself. Who else was on your team?"
A thought crossed Rachel's mind. Was she truly ready to die for this? She thought back to the plan. She and David had spent the better part of three weeks putting it together with the others, and they thought it was fool proof.
Looks like she was the fool.
It all started three weeks ago, the day after the fake ONI spooks showed up at her and David's apartment. Rachel knew something wasn't right at that moment. Number one thing on her mind was who sent the men after them? Number two topic was why they brandished ONI identification cards? And the last thing was how they knew exactly where their apartment was?
Her mind glazed over to that next morning. Sleeping in the hotel bed wasn't comfortable, but it was better than worrying about a flock of men bursting through the door with assault riffles. David had stayed up all night watching the doors and windows, and thinking about the three questions Rachel had raised.
"I think it was the Marines, or the UEG Secret Service." David stated as Rachel sat up from her hard sleep. Rex lay next to her silently resting.
"The SS was cut up last year." Rachel moaned as she stretched. "There wasn't enough funding to keep them together. The UEG requested more funding but the UNSC denied it. I think it was another Military faction."
"Section 3 perhaps?" David questioned. "Giving their men fake IDs to throw us off?"
"No, Section 3 wouldn't send untrained spooks to get us. They'd use the Black Ops in a situation like that."
"Then who?" David sighed as he lay on the bed beside Rachel. "It couldn't be Section 1. They're just a bunch of paper pushers, but they do control the funding for all groups. They are involved in nearly everything. They just don't question where the money goes."
"I think we should worry more about how they found us." Rachel added. She stood from the bed and pulled on her pants from the prior night. A quick saunter into the bathroom and she started to clean up. "They knew us by name, and location. They even knew what we've been up to." She shouted back to David.
The rest of the day was a combination of guessing and contacting the rest of the team. The meeting with the team went as planned; there were no discussions about the target or how they would achieve the objective. The only thing on their mind was getting to know one another, learning each others traits, and establishing a team leader. Rachel, as always, won that role.
The next series of meetings were more focused. Securing their meeting hall was a bit of a challenge. They needed to make sure it wasn't bugged and that there weren't going to be any interruptions. They found a decent location in Europe that was easily remote, but within driving range of supplies. Even Rex became the team playful mascot whenever they met. Rex was always with David and Rachel until they actually had to go into action. Three weeks came and went, and finally Rachel felt her team was ready.
She thought they were truly ready.
The day came for the plan to unfold. Rachel did her duty. Using her day job handle as an ONI Section 2 intelligence operative, she boarded the shuttle that would lead her directly to the unveiling of the Ark. Lord Hood had finally lifted the veil of secrecy surrounding the Ark Portal Generator and made it openly available for Civilian viewing. No one could enter the Ark, but there was no longer a need to hide it. For the last three years the entire area was locked down. After the unveiling, Hood would return to High Command for a series of meetings. During his transit back to HighCOM was when Rachel's team planned to strike.
The public unveiling of the Ark Portal Generator went off with an uproar of cheers from civilians that had learned to embrace their Forerunner history. Reclaimer this and Forerunner that; it was the new craze sweeping the world. Even off world colonies that were slowly rebuilding had begun to embrace the lost Forerunner technology. Once the Ark Portal Generator was unveiled humanity embraced the Forerunner lore even more than before. The crowd spanned all sides of the Ark and Rachel made sure she was as far away from Hood as possible. Massive holo screens, scattered around the Ark, showed high ranking UEG and UNSC officials speaking to the crowded onlookers that were too far away to see them. Later in the video broadcasted speeches, the idea of sharing knowledge with the Elites became the main topic. Rachel had no desire to listen so she quietly left the celebration. It wasn't until few moments later that she realized how big of mistake that was.
"Excuse me ma'am." A man stated as he walked up to Rachel. She stopped and turned to see that it was a marine in full formal wear. He removed his hat before speaking. "I happened to notice that you were here alone. It's such a wonderful event that I didn't think it fare for you to experience it by yourself. Would like a drink?"
The man was older, highly decorated and charming, but he was also an unneeded temptation. After all, Rachel was only a woman. She loved David, but she knew a good thing when her eyes saw it. "Thank you, but I really must be going. I have work to do."
"This is a world holiday." The man countered with a smile. "Nobody works today." Rachel smiled and held up her ONI Badge. "Oh." The man laughed. "The Office of Naval Intelligence. Sorry to hear that. You are the unfortunate minority on this planet." He leaned closer and looked at the name on the card, "Miss Wilson."
Rachel knew that her name had been comprised, so an alias was needed. "Patricia Wilson." She extended a hand and the marine graciously kissed it.
He looked up as he released her hand. "Funny, because you remind me a lot of Rachel Simpson." The man's smile quickly faded. Rachel held her smile, though her heart dropped into her stomach.
"I don't think I follow." She forced a straight face as her eyes picked up movement at her side. She had been flanked by another marine. She watched as the older man that had so swiftly charmed her unfastened the buckle on his side arm, but did not draw.
"Come with us, ma'am." The man stated more sternly. "We will shoot if you refuse."
That was the end of her operation. She couldn't fight back. Marines were everywhere and she never figured they would single her out amongst a crowd of millions. Her location was remote, she wasn't even near Hoods platform in Voi, she had stayed on the New Mombasa side of the Ark Generator; nearly ten miles from where Hood was making his speech.
The marines carried her to a warthog and drove off. They took everything from her except her glasses, and thankfully that was her means of communication. She faked as though she was adjusting her glasses, but actually she pressed a button that signaled her team with a preset order; "Abort".
After three hours of driving, and two hours of being hit on by single Marines who didn't know why she was being arrested, she was dragged into a closed building on a distant airstrip in Mombasa. The next few minutes were a mixture of interviews and idle threats to her life. But nothing was worse then the man who walked into the room and hit her full force with the stock of his pistol. Rachel went unconscious from the blow and awoke in the dark room, cuffed to a chair and blinded by an overhead light.
"I'll ask you one last time, Rachel," the man stated, pulling Rachel back to the present moment, "who else is on your team?"
Rachel quickly pondered if this was worth dieing for, and then she thought of David. She smiled. "Huey, Duey and Luey." She laughed as her swollen face began to tingle with the effort of smiling.
The man that had stepped into the light sighed heavily and then turned to the darkness. Another man's voice echoed, "We're done here."
Rachel thought back on how she wished she and David had more time together. She raised her swollen eyes and smiled as the marine pulled out his M6 pistol and placed it to her forehead. She never had the chance to say goodbye to David or Rex.
Rachel stated directly. "They killed billions of us. They burned our worlds. And you want to make nice with them? They aren't human! They don't bleed like we do! They don't give a damn about us!"
The man flipped off his safety and huffed. "When the flood landed in Voi, three elites dragged me out of the city and protected me from a swarm of Flood infection forms. All you did was hide in the bunkers and pray for someone to save you. The elites came. They came when we needed them the most and they died fighting just as we did. But you wouldn't understand that. You don't even care that the elites are doing everything they can to make amends for what they've done. For what they were forced to do! You don't care because you refuse to care. And people like you will never change."
"I lost my father because of them!" Rachel screamed.
"I lost my wife!" The man countered. "But being a soldier means following orders, and that was what they did! I can't hate them any more then I can hate myself for what I was forced to do when we captured elite and grunt survivors."
"Sergeant!" The man in the shadow snapped. "She won't break. Put her down and move to the next target."
The marine flipped on his safety, his idle threat to kill her didn't work. He turned the gun over to its stock and slapped it across Rachel head. She blacked out instantly.
The marine wiped the blood from his gun, walked out of the room and into another room at the end of a long hall. The other men that sat in the shadows of Rachel's interrogation followed him. They were a mixture of Commissioned Marine officers and ONI personal. The door opened into a pitch black room. The light in the center of the room turned on and the door closed behind the group. Under the light sat a cuffed young man sitting in a chair. He lifted his head and squinted in the blinding light.
The Marine Sergeant stepped forward into the light and smiled at the young man. He knelt down to face level and said, "I just spent the better part of the afternoon beating the crap out of your girlfriend. She's dead now. I put the bullet in her myself." David growled in a mixture of anger, sadness, and rage, but he couldn't free himself from his bonds. The sergeant cut into his tirade. "Now kid. You tell me everything she didn't. Who was on your team, and which one of you shot Lord Hood?"
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