Mission 5: Payback part 16

Continued from ages past... when Bush was still president...

Christophear and Laz looked on in amazement at the myriad of lights slowly moving in their direction.
Chris gasped. “Holy…”
“Crap,” Laz finished his sentence for him. “That’s the emperor’s army?”
Cathy, who was standing beside them watching from the rebel army’s temporary headquarters, gave a slight nod.
Laz whistled. “Their lights must outnumber ours three to one.”
“Most likely ten to one,” Chris corrected.
“Whatever! It’s hard to count lights okay, they keep moving…”
Cathy grunted. “This will be our last stand. We will forever be remembered for our courageous, seemingly hopeless struggle with the emperor’s vast armies.”
“Who cares about glory if we’re all dead?” Laz muttered.
Chris frowned. “There has to be a way to obtain glory and still be alive to enjoy it.”
“Well when you find out what way that is, be sure and let me know,” Cathy said.
Laz and Chris fell silent, contgmplating her words. Suddenly, a loud whistling noise broke through the silence. It screeched towards the rebel camp and exploded with a mighty. Rebel soldiers went flying across the camp, and they could hear several loud, blood-curdling screams.
“Missiles,” Laz gasped.
Cathy nodded. “And so it begins.”

“So…” Ryan ventured. He was still standing at gunpoint with his arms raised above his head. “How are we going to do this?” His question was directed at the emperor.
The emperor peered at him inquisitively and shook his head. “I never understood you, Cruise.”
“Neither did my mother,” Ryan interjected. “Or any of my teachers for that matter.”
The emperor rolled his eyes and continued. “Even in the face of death, you continue to wear that stupid grin as if nothing were wrong. Why?”
Ryan shrugged and started to answer but something caught his eye. Someone had moved past the window outside. Jason! It had to be! Ryan snapped his attention back to the emperor stalling for time. “I guess you’ll never know. So what’s it gonna be, emperor? Death by firing squad? No, that’s far too simple for you. How about the electric chair? No, too humane. Perhaps a good old-fashioned hanging? No, too old-fashioned. Hmm… Oh! I have it! An alligator pit!”
The emperor chuckled. “Very close my old friend, but you will not have the pleasure of alligators. No, you will die feeding my piranha collection!”
Ryan yawned. “That’s been done before, I was really hoping you would come up with something new.”
“There’s only so many ways to kill a man!” the emperor snapped.
“Well…” Ryan continued still stalling for time. “You could hang me with barbed wire.”
“Barbed wire?” the emperor said thoughtfully. “Has that been done before?”
“Not since Hitler,” Ryan replied.
“Oh Hitler! My role model, how perfect!”
“Of course you’d have to video tape it as well, and then watch it in your private theater,” Ryan added.
“Oh yes of course, guards go get my video—wait what am I saying? Darn you, Cruise! Guards, take him away and see that he has his wish, a hanging with barbed wire!”
Just as the guards started to drag Ryan out of the room, a window crashed and the room erupted in gunfire. Ryan took the opportunity of the guard’s distraction to dive to the floor and trip the two guards who had been holding him. As the two guards fell to the ground their guns clattered on the floor. Ryan reached out and grabbed the fallen sidearm to his right and kicked the other one to his left. He brought the gun in his hand up and shot two of the guards. Then he trained his gun on Sarah and squeezed the trigger. Sarah jolted backwards and slammed to the wall. She fell to the ground unconscious, clutching her shoulder where the bullet had struck her.
Across the room where the window had broken, Emmy and Tim climbed throwgh the broken shards of glass, automatic rifles in hand. Tim walked over to the emperor’s desk and slammed a button down, filling a nearby guard with bullet holes in the process. The doors to the emperor’s office slid shut and locked into place.
Tim eliminated the last of the guards in the room and then turned to the emperor. “Checkmate,” he growled.
“Checkmate?” Emmy smirked. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know,” Tim muttered, embarrassed. “I just thought it would sound kill to say. Checkmate, you know like in chess when you… Oh never mind!” Tim focused his attention back on the emperor. “In any case, we finally got you, dirt bag.”
“Congratulations,” the emperor threw up his hands, looking rather calm.
“Man, am I glad you guys are here,” Ryan spoke up, picking himself up off the floor.
“Why because you thought you were finally going to die for once?” Emmy said, half-serious.
“No, because it would have been a lot harder to get out of this mess without you two,” Ryan replied.
Emmy just rolled her eyes and pretended to gag. “Ach, help your ego is so big its choking me.”
“Very funny,” Ryan said, frowning.
“Guys!” Tim snapped. “The emperor…”
“Right, of course,” Emmy said, snapping to attention. Then she noticed Sarah, lying on the ground, unconscious and bleeding from the shoulder. “Sarah!” she exclaimed. “What happened to her?” she started to go over and assist her but Ryan grabbed her arm to stop her.
“Leave her,” he commanded. “She’s betrayed us.”
“Sarah?” Emmy gasped in disbelief. “Not Sarah! She was one of us!”
“Apparently not…” Tim muttered.
“I never did understand her,” Ryan shook his head, still in disbelief himself. He stared for a few seconds and then snapped his attention back to the emperor. “But at least now we have you,” he said.
The emperor eyed Ryan, and spoke. “Looks as if I’ve finally met my end, but if you’re going to kill me I want you to do it right.”
“What according to your fantasy?” Ryan asked, taking a step towards Emmy and Tim.
“Well yes… I would prefer to be stabbed in the back, it portrays betrayal and I’ve always known that one day I would be betrayed.”
“Sorry emperor,” Ryan said, taking a couple more steps towards his fellow agents until he was standing by them. “But your days are up, and we will be the ones to decide how they end.”
The emperor grinned and cackled. “Oh to the contrary my young friends, it is your days that are up.” Before any of them could question his comment the emperor slammed his hand down on yet another button. In the blink of an eye glass walls surrounded them and a glass ceiling was slammed into place from above.
The emperor smiled his evil smile. “Fancy, eh? Its my latest addition to my series of traps that ensure no man will ever leave this building alive unless I will it.”
Ryan raised his gun and aimed it at the glass prison that surrounded them.
“Oh, don’t bother, Cruise,” the emperor said in a taunting tone. “I’m afraid that your little glass cage is completely bullet proof. Trying to shoot your way out will only deafen you and nothing more.”
Tim reached up and tapped on the glass. “He’s not bluffing, it’s bullet proof.”
“What do we do now?” Emmy asked in despair.
Tim turned to Ryan. “Well, how do you usually get out of these jams?”
Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know, things just happen.”
“Well you better hope something does happen,” Tim replied. “And fast.”

Derrick awoke from his temporary nap with a start. The explosion had rattled the entire campground and as the newly promoted commander of the ground forces Derrick was very much in all of the action. He rolled off his cot and blinked from the bright light caused by the flames in the middle of his army’s camp.
Just then Daniel burst into his quarters. “Sir, we’ve been attacked!”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Derrick roared. “Now get over there and help them put that fire out!” He grabbed the earpiece sitting beside his cot and spoke into it, “prepare to return fire!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came the response. “Ready to fire when you are, sir.”
“Fire now! Fire!” Derrick yelled.
“Understood, sir. There is no need to yell.”
“Sorry,” Derrick mumbled. “Got caught up in the emotion.”
“Understandable, sir. You have been under a lot of stress lately…”
“Just fire the missiles! You can play doctor later.”
“Right away, sir.” Derrick felt the tremor in the ground as the missiles were launched in response.
Suddenly, a new voice crackled onto his headset. “Derrick? This is Kayla. We need you in the observation room immediately!”
“Can it wait?” Derrick asked, slightly annoyed. “I’m kind of busy right now with the new promotion and all.”
“I’m afraid it can’t,” Kayla replied. “Cathy wants you up here now, its urgent.”
“All right,” Derrick grumbled. “I’m on my way up.”
Derek made his way up to the observation room a few minutes later and burst through the door. “What is it?”
Cathy was standing by a large table with a map of the battlefield on it. There were little figurines scattered across the table, some were blue and the others red. He scanned the room, only three other people were there: Chris, Laz, and Kayla.
Derek glanced at the table. “Is that a layout of the battlefield?”
“Nah,” Laz waved him off. “It just looks professional.”
“The reason I called you here,” Cathy interjected. “Was to inform you that we have a missile crisis.”
“Well thanks a lot, ma’am but I’m afraid you’re a little late,” Derek replied somewhat irritated. “The missile already killed over a dozen of my men.”
“No, I’m not talking about that kind of a missile. I’m talking about the real thing. That missile will seem like a toy compared to this one!” Cathy had beads of sweat dripping from her nose.
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean we were going to launch a preemptive strike, but the emperor beat us to it with that last missile, and now he’s going to finish the job. If this missile hits us it will destroy the whole camp and everyone in it.”
“How did you find out about this?” Derek asked, sitting down hard.
“We have our sources inside the empire,” Cathy replied.
“What do you want from me?”
Cathy sighed. “This whole showdown thing was foolish, we should have stayed hidden in the rebel base.”
“We tried to point that out,” Kayla said. “This is not how Ryan would have--”
“I don’t want to hear how Ryan would have done it!” Cathy interrupted. She sat down and sighed again. “But we do need his help. As much as I hate to admit it, if anyone can stop that missile he can. Derek, where can we find him?”
“I wouldn’t know--”
“Oh cut the bull, Derek,” Cathy snapped. “I know has a GPS tracking chip inserted in his left arm; the emperor put it there himself for ‘emergencies’.”
“That’s not just a GPS tracking device, its poison!” Derek yelled. “The tracking device was inserted in case Cruise was ever captured or turned on us. It was so we could tell where he was and ensure that he was eliminated.”
“Yes, I know that,” Cathy replied. “Although I still can’t understand why the emperor hasn’t activated it yet.”
“That’s because he can’t, I only I know the code to activate the chip because I changed it.”
“That’s why we need your help, Derek.”
“Your asking me to sentence Cruise to death, Cathy… I can’t do that.”
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you!” Cathy shouted. “It may be the only way to save us.”
Kayla spoke up, her voice shaking a little. “You can’t seriously be suggesting that we--”
“Yes, I am!” Cathy was clearly desperate.
“We can’t let you do that,” Chris protested.
“Not Ryan,” Laz agreed.
“Look, its either Ryan, or all these people out there,” Cathy pointed outside towards the camp. “Its your call, Derek.”
Derek put his head in his hands, the decision torturing his mind. “Cruise is a good friend of mine,” he said, almost in defeat.
“Derek,” Kayla said worriedly. “Derek, don’t do it!”
“Ryan would have wanted it this way,” Cathy said forcibly.
Derek glared at Cathy. “Yes he would have but it is hardly up to your or I to make that call.”
“Ryan isn’t here to make the call,” Cathy shot back.
“I know,” Derek whispered.
“What’s the code, Derek?” Cathy demanded. Derek stared at her, incoherently. “What’s the code?”
“3681007,” Derek mumbled. “God forgive me,” he added.
Cathy walked over to a nearby computer and punched in the code. “You’ve don the Rebel alliance a great service,” she said.
“No,” Derek shook his head. “Ryan has.”
Kayla, Chris, and Laz just stared into space, the realization of what had just happened sinking in.
Cathy gasped from over by the computer.
Derek looked up. “What is it?”
“I don’t believe this,” Cathy whispered. “Look at this.”
Derek walked over and looked over her shoulder.
“I don’t know how he found this place but he’s in the emperor’s office at his secret fortress.”

To be continued very soon... I promise