Continued from last week... (Just out of curiousity does anyone even glance at this besides Laz and Tim? Just wondering...)
The emperor shook his head and grinned at the former IMF agents coyly. “I’m afraid you won’t be escaping this time, Cruise. Your fate is finally sealed.” He pushed yet another button on his desk and the floor that Tim, Emmy, and Ryan were standing on slowly started to slide out from under them. “You’ll find that my piranhas are anxiously waiting for you at the bottom of that hole,” the emperor gloated.
“How many freaking buttons does he have on that desk?” Ryan muttered.
“Oh crap,” Tim groaned. “This is not good.”
“Any other startling revelations?” Emmy asked sarcastically.
“Stop it, just try to find something to hang on to,” Tim ordered.
“Like what? We’re in a glass box!” Emmy exclaimed, starting to panic. They only had half as much floor to stand on now, and the space they had was slowly growing smaller.
“I’m slipping!” Emmy said, now in full panic. “I can’t hang on any more!”
“Don’t panic,” Ryan commanded her. He switched places with her so that she was standing farther away farther away from the hole. “Here, get back.”
“That’s not gonna matter much in a few minutes,” Emmy pointed out.
“I was just trying to be nice,” Ryan said.
They had hardly anything to stand on now, how they were still hanging on was beyond Tim.
“Man, oh man,” Tim groaned. “If we make it out of this I’m never doing anything adventurous again.” They could hear the piranhas in the water below them, splashing in anticipation.
“Guys,” Emmy said. “If we don’t make it, there’s something I want to tell you both.”
“Yeah?” Ryan looked over at her, still just barely hanging on.
Just then someone screamed and hurdled their body into the emperor’s and knocking him to the ground. “NO! Stop!” the person cried.
“Sarah?” Ryan exclaimed. Apparently the bullet he’d put in her shoulder had not killed her, just temporarily taken her out of the action.
Sarah slammed down on the button and the floor stopped moving.
“Sarah, I knew you’d turn around!” Ryan exclaimed.
Sarah hit another button and the glass cage disappeared back into the floor. Tim, Emmy, and Ryan tumbled to the ground, relieved that they weren’t tumbling into a pit of piranhas.
“I couldn’t let the emperor kill you,” Sarah said.
“Cause you realized that you really are good inside?” Ryan guessed.
“No,” Sarah shook her head and laughed. “Because I wanted the pleasure of doing it myself.” She brought her gun to Ryan’s head.
“I have to admit, that wasn’t he change I was hoping for,” Ryan said, never missing a beat.
“You always were a wisecrack,” Sarah said, disapprovingly. “Even to your grave.” She squeezed her finger harder on the trigger. Ryan closed his eyes and waited for his fate. There was a soft Pftt! Sound, but Ryan’s head didn’t explode; he didn’t see any white light and the angel of death didn’t greet him. In fact, nothing happened. Ryan looked up and saw why. Sarah hadn’t pulled the trigger. She couldn’t have because there was a large bullet hole in her forehead. Sarah dropped to the floor, dead.
“Who was that?” Emmy asked from behind Ryan.
“Who do you think?” came a soft, unemotional voice.
“Jason!” Emmy exclaimed.
Indeed standing by the broken window was Jason Scorn, silenced rifle in hand. He motioned for them to come to the window. “Come on I’ve got the chopper waiting, let’s go.”
Ryan started towards the window, but then suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his wrist. “Ow!”
“What is it?” Emmy asked.
“It’s a GPS chip,” Ryan said, staring at his arm. “I’d almost forgotten about it.”
“GPS chips don’t hurt,” Tim observed.
“This one’s different,” Ryan explained. “It sends a pain through my nervous system when it’s actkvated.”
“So it’s been activated?” Tim asked.
“Yeah, that’s something they’d only do in case of emergency. Derek must really be in trouble.”
“Derek? Why Derek?” Emmy questioned him.
“Because he’s the only one with the code,” Ryan replied. He turned to Jason, “I need your phone.”
Jason shook his head. “We need to get out of here, now.”
“This is urgent, just give me the phone!” Ryan ordered.
Jason stared at him for a minute, and then tossed Ryan the phone.
Ryan caught it very stylishly in midair and then hurriedly dialed Derek’s number. “This had better be good,” he muttered.
Derek stared at the screen, shocked. “What in the world is he doing there?”
“How should I know?” Cathy shrugged.
“He’s certainly kept himself busy in his absence,” Chris observed coming up behind them.
“And without me!” Laz lamented.
“What does it matter,” Kayla mumbled. “He’ll be dead soon anyways, thanks to the both of you.”
Derek flinched, but Cathy acted as if she hadn’t heard the comment.
“What do we do now?” Chris askgd.
“Wait for him to contact us,” Derek answered. Almost before the words were out of his mouth, Derek’s phone started ringing. He snatched it from his waist and glanced at the I.D. “It’s Cruise,” he announced.
“Put him on speaker,” Cathy ordered as Derek answered the phone. Derek obliged.
“Hello?” Derek shouted into the receiver.
“This is Cruise,” Ryan’s voice crackled from the phone. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Normally I’d ask what you’re doing in the emperor’s office, but that’s not important at the moment,” Cathy spoke into the phone. “The reason we contacted you is that there’s a missile headed straight for our camp.”
“And you want me to stop it, is that it?”
“Well we were hoping,” Cathy admitted.
“How would you suggest I do that? Throw a rope around it and veer it off course?”
“No, we believe that the emperor can control his missiles from his main computer. And since you’re in his office at this moment, it all works out.”
“All right, all right, I’ll do it. How do I get to this missile program on the computer?”
“Listen closely,” Cathy replied. “I’ll give you the basic rundown.”
Chuck Morris stood in the Imperial camp’s observation tower, overlooking his mighty army. “And to think this is only a fraction of the emperor’s power,” he spoke to himself. “The entire world will soon belong to the emperor.” His fantasizing was interrupted, however, by one of his henchmen.
“Sir,” one of his men tapped him on the shoulder.
“What?” Morris snapped, irritated that his daydreaming had been cut short.
“There’s been a disturbance at the emperor’s getaway palace,” the man replied.
“So? How is that my concern?”
“Sir, we believe that it’s Cruise.”
Morris looked away and scowled. “Bring me a chopper.”
“Okay,” Ryan nodded, receiving the last of Cathy’s instructions. “I’ll let you know when the missile’s launch has been cancelled.”
“Hurry,” Cathy urged from the other line. “There’s less than 15 minutes until it launches according to our source.”
Ryan snapped the phone shut and flipped it back to Jason. “We have a missile to stop before we go,” he informed him.
Jason’s squinted. “You’re pushing it…”
“Don’t I always?”
“Good point,” Emmy said already firing up the emperor’s computer. “Great,” she hissed. “There’s a password.”
“Of course there is,” Tim said, coming over beside her.
Ryan joined them. “Well, break the code.”
“This would be easier if Laz were here,” Emmy whispered. “He can do all this stuff a lot better.”
“Laz isn’t here,” Tim reminded her. “Just type in some possibilities.”
Emmy obeyed and typed in a few random numbers. She pressed enter key but the code was rejected.
“Four more tries before alarm is triggered,” the computer informed them.
“Great!” Emmy slammed the desk. “I’ll never get it in four tries!”
“Just keep trying!” Tim ordered.
She tried a couple more but they failed as well. “There’s only two more tries,” Emmy announced. “If I fail them both the whole computer will lockdown.”
“Try again,” Ryan said, absentmindedly.
Emmy tried once more, but once more her effort failed. “One more try,” she said, nervously. She started to type another code, but Ryan stopped her.
“Wait!” Ryan cried. He grabbed the keyboard and punched in a different code.
“Access granted,” the computer announced.
“You did it!” Emmy shouted, clapping her hands.
“What was the code?” Tim asked, as Ryan searched for the missile launch sequence program.
“World domination,” Ryan replied. “Aha!” he exclaimed. “Here it is! Oh great! There’s another password!”
Suddenly there was a loud explosion and Ryan, Emmy, and Tim were all thrown up against the wall. A whole section of the roof caved in on the other side of the room and Jason was knocked from his perch by the window into the courtyard below.
Ryan glanced up at the gaping hole in the emperor’s office ceiling and gasped. “Helicopter!”
To be continued...
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
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
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
Saturday, 23 August 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 15
Okay here is the long overdue next part of Mission 5. Hopefully whoever still reads this thing will appreciate it, and maybe i'll get to the end eventually...lol
Continued... from ages ago... when IMF was still slightly relevant in our daily lives... or not... anyways...
Tim and Emmy searched the helicopter, frantically. “Sarah!” Emmy hissed.
“Look, it’s useless,” Jordan shook his head. “She’s not here.”
“Where is she then?” Tim asked.
“Where do you think?” Jordan said, pointing towards the mansion.
Tim sighed. “Oh… great.”
Ryan stood on one leg with his hand touching the ground and his rear in the air, with his other leg sticking out at an obscure angle. “You know,” Ryan grunted, trying desperately not to touch the lasers surrounding him. “This is really awkward…”
Jason, who was slightly ahead of him, just grunted in response.
“Sooo…” Ryan ventured. “What’s next after this?”
“We’ll find out when we get there.”
“Ok fine, just wondering.”
Jason made it to the top of the stairs and leaned against the wall, breathing a little heavier than usual. A few minutes later, Ryan weaved his way through the last set of lasers and sprang into the hallway. He drew his sidearm and swept the area.
“Relax,” said a woman’s voice.
Ryan and Jason both jerked in the direction of the voice, trying to find its source.
“Who said that?” Ryan asked, weapon extended.
“Don’t worry, I already took care of the guards,” said the voice.
“Who are you? And Who’s side are you on?” Ryan continued the line of questions never lowering his sidearm.
“A friend,” said the voice. Then the woman stepped out from the shadows, holding her a Beretta in her right hand.
“Sarah?” Ryan said, finally lowering his weapon.
“Come on, the emperor is in his office, we don’t have much time.”
“I thought I told you to stay put!”
“None of that matters now! Come on we need to get to the emperor.”
Sarah ran down the hall but Ryan pulled her back by the arm. “Wait? What’s going on?”
“We’ve got the emperor right where we want him, that’s what’s going on! Come on!”
“Something doesn’t smell right…” Jason spoke up.
“You put on deodorant this morning?” Ryan quipped.
“Funny, Cruise, you know what I meant.”
“Yeah, I have the same feeling,” Ryan said, glancing at Sarah.
Sarah had already reached the emperor’s office however. “Who wants the honors?” she asked.
“I’ll do it,” Ryan said, still wary. He reached for the door handle and twisted it slowly. The door opened slightly. “Here goes nothing…” Ryan opened the door the rest of the way and scanned the room. It had the same layout as the emperor’s office at the Imperial Palace. There at the other end of the room was the Imperial desk. Behind it sat a tall chair with its back turned towards them.
Ryan glanced back at Sarah, who silently urged him on. Neither she nor Ryan seemed to notice that Jason had suddenly vanished.
Giving his trademark cocky smile, Cruise advanced slowly towards the emperor’s desk sidearm extended. When he had nearly reached the desk, a soft cackling noise could be heard. Ryan frowned, trying to determine where the noise was coming from. The cackling gradually grew loader and loader, until it reached a full-blown roar of laughter.
Suddenly, the emperor’s chair spun around to reveal the emperor himself, howling with laughter.
The emperor caught his breath and wiped tears from his eyes. “Ha ha, oh my, Ryan Cruise you couldn’t have possibly thought it would be this easy, could you? And you were supposed to be this great thing. This incredible agent, descended from the great Evan Hunter himself. Perhaps I was wrong about you.”
Ryan froze and his eyes opened wide, he started to say something but then he heard the click of a gun being cocked… right next to his ear.
“I’d be much obliged if you’d hand over your weapon, Cruise, or should I call you Hunter?”
“Cruise,” Ryan replied, handing her his gun. “Tell me this is some kind of joke. Am I on Candid Camera?”
“This is no joke, Cruise,” Sarah replied, tossing Ryan’s sidearm to the emperor, who set the weapon gingerly on his desk.
“Then who are you? And why are you working for him?” He spit out the last word like it was a bad vegetable, (which is a very nasty food product in the first place even when it is “good”).
“I’m just Sarah, like I told you,” replied Sarah, mimicking his ever so confident grin.
“So… no masks? No tricks?”
“No,” the emperor answered. “That gets a little old after a while.”
Ryan nodded. “You do have a point there. It was almost getting predictable.”
Sarah smirked. “Heaven forbid.”
“Anyways…” the emperor interjected, coughing. “Back on topic, now that I have you captured, Cruise. There will be nothing to stop me from slowly picking apart the rest of IMF and that pitiful little rebellion. And once I have finished doing that, the path to world dominance will be mine!”
“Don’t you already control most of the world?” Ryan asked.
“Well yes, but I want all of it!” the emperor said, slamming his fist on the table for emphasis.
“But why?”
“Well because I, uh… Its because I… because I must have world dominance! Every knee will bow before me, I, the great Emperor!”
“Okay, that was weird,” Ryan rolled his eyes.
“This is nothing,” Sarah said. “He plans his own assassinations to.”
Ryan gave her a look. “You know I’m probably going to kill when this is over, right?”
“Not if we kill you first,” Sarah said.
“That’s never been done before, and not for lack of trying,” Ryan pointed out.
“There’s always a first,” Sarah shot back.
“Not with me there isn’t,” Ryan gave her another one of his grins.
“This won’t be the first time you’ve been wrong.”
Ryan still looked confident. “And it won’t be the last.”
“Wait…” Sarah gave him a confused look. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s why I said it.”
While Sarah was still occupied with trying to decipher his remarks, Ryan took the opportunity to grab her wrist and twist the gun from her hands. She cried in pain and the gun slid from her grasp, sliding across the floor. Ryan gave her a swift uppercut to the face, knocking her to the ground. Then he performed a very stylish slide across the floor and retrieved the gun. Ryan grabbed the gun and pointed it towards the emperor, who, much to Ryan’s surprise, was still laughing.
“Very good, Cruise, very good. You did not disappoint me after all. But you didn’t really think it would be that easy did you?”
Ryan frowned then pulled the trigger. All he got in return was a soft clicking sound. Ryan laughed nervously. “Heh Heh, well I was hoping.”
“It’s over, Cruise,” the emperor said. “Put down the gun, and surrender.” The emperor glanced up, “guards, take him into custody.”
Cruise looked around him and saw a half a dozen guards, who had seemingly come from nowhere, training their weapons on him. “Where do you get all these guys? A website?” Ryan quipped.
The emperor failed to find humor in this remark, he simply ignored his comment altogether.
Over in the corner, Sarah got up slowly, rubbing her chin. “You didn’t even trust me with a loaded gun?” she snapped at the emperor.
“I don’t trust anyone, relax.”
“You trust those guards!” Sarah hissed, pointing at this body guards, who were slowly approaching Cruise.
“That’s because they’ve been thoroughly brain-washed.”
Ryan Cruise rose to his feet and placed his hands on his head. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in considerable danger, but the one question running through his mind was: Would it be the last?
to be continued when i write the next part...
Continued... from ages ago... when IMF was still slightly relevant in our daily lives... or not... anyways...
Tim and Emmy searched the helicopter, frantically. “Sarah!” Emmy hissed.
“Look, it’s useless,” Jordan shook his head. “She’s not here.”
“Where is she then?” Tim asked.
“Where do you think?” Jordan said, pointing towards the mansion.
Tim sighed. “Oh… great.”
Ryan stood on one leg with his hand touching the ground and his rear in the air, with his other leg sticking out at an obscure angle. “You know,” Ryan grunted, trying desperately not to touch the lasers surrounding him. “This is really awkward…”
Jason, who was slightly ahead of him, just grunted in response.
“Sooo…” Ryan ventured. “What’s next after this?”
“We’ll find out when we get there.”
“Ok fine, just wondering.”
Jason made it to the top of the stairs and leaned against the wall, breathing a little heavier than usual. A few minutes later, Ryan weaved his way through the last set of lasers and sprang into the hallway. He drew his sidearm and swept the area.
“Relax,” said a woman’s voice.
Ryan and Jason both jerked in the direction of the voice, trying to find its source.
“Who said that?” Ryan asked, weapon extended.
“Don’t worry, I already took care of the guards,” said the voice.
“Who are you? And Who’s side are you on?” Ryan continued the line of questions never lowering his sidearm.
“A friend,” said the voice. Then the woman stepped out from the shadows, holding her a Beretta in her right hand.
“Sarah?” Ryan said, finally lowering his weapon.
“Come on, the emperor is in his office, we don’t have much time.”
“I thought I told you to stay put!”
“None of that matters now! Come on we need to get to the emperor.”
Sarah ran down the hall but Ryan pulled her back by the arm. “Wait? What’s going on?”
“We’ve got the emperor right where we want him, that’s what’s going on! Come on!”
“Something doesn’t smell right…” Jason spoke up.
“You put on deodorant this morning?” Ryan quipped.
“Funny, Cruise, you know what I meant.”
“Yeah, I have the same feeling,” Ryan said, glancing at Sarah.
Sarah had already reached the emperor’s office however. “Who wants the honors?” she asked.
“I’ll do it,” Ryan said, still wary. He reached for the door handle and twisted it slowly. The door opened slightly. “Here goes nothing…” Ryan opened the door the rest of the way and scanned the room. It had the same layout as the emperor’s office at the Imperial Palace. There at the other end of the room was the Imperial desk. Behind it sat a tall chair with its back turned towards them.
Ryan glanced back at Sarah, who silently urged him on. Neither she nor Ryan seemed to notice that Jason had suddenly vanished.
Giving his trademark cocky smile, Cruise advanced slowly towards the emperor’s desk sidearm extended. When he had nearly reached the desk, a soft cackling noise could be heard. Ryan frowned, trying to determine where the noise was coming from. The cackling gradually grew loader and loader, until it reached a full-blown roar of laughter.
Suddenly, the emperor’s chair spun around to reveal the emperor himself, howling with laughter.
The emperor caught his breath and wiped tears from his eyes. “Ha ha, oh my, Ryan Cruise you couldn’t have possibly thought it would be this easy, could you? And you were supposed to be this great thing. This incredible agent, descended from the great Evan Hunter himself. Perhaps I was wrong about you.”
Ryan froze and his eyes opened wide, he started to say something but then he heard the click of a gun being cocked… right next to his ear.
“I’d be much obliged if you’d hand over your weapon, Cruise, or should I call you Hunter?”
“Cruise,” Ryan replied, handing her his gun. “Tell me this is some kind of joke. Am I on Candid Camera?”
“This is no joke, Cruise,” Sarah replied, tossing Ryan’s sidearm to the emperor, who set the weapon gingerly on his desk.
“Then who are you? And why are you working for him?” He spit out the last word like it was a bad vegetable, (which is a very nasty food product in the first place even when it is “good”).
“I’m just Sarah, like I told you,” replied Sarah, mimicking his ever so confident grin.
“So… no masks? No tricks?”
“No,” the emperor answered. “That gets a little old after a while.”
Ryan nodded. “You do have a point there. It was almost getting predictable.”
Sarah smirked. “Heaven forbid.”
“Anyways…” the emperor interjected, coughing. “Back on topic, now that I have you captured, Cruise. There will be nothing to stop me from slowly picking apart the rest of IMF and that pitiful little rebellion. And once I have finished doing that, the path to world dominance will be mine!”
“Don’t you already control most of the world?” Ryan asked.
“Well yes, but I want all of it!” the emperor said, slamming his fist on the table for emphasis.
“But why?”
“Well because I, uh… Its because I… because I must have world dominance! Every knee will bow before me, I, the great Emperor!”
“Okay, that was weird,” Ryan rolled his eyes.
“This is nothing,” Sarah said. “He plans his own assassinations to.”
Ryan gave her a look. “You know I’m probably going to kill when this is over, right?”
“Not if we kill you first,” Sarah said.
“That’s never been done before, and not for lack of trying,” Ryan pointed out.
“There’s always a first,” Sarah shot back.
“Not with me there isn’t,” Ryan gave her another one of his grins.
“This won’t be the first time you’ve been wrong.”
Ryan still looked confident. “And it won’t be the last.”
“Wait…” Sarah gave him a confused look. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s why I said it.”
While Sarah was still occupied with trying to decipher his remarks, Ryan took the opportunity to grab her wrist and twist the gun from her hands. She cried in pain and the gun slid from her grasp, sliding across the floor. Ryan gave her a swift uppercut to the face, knocking her to the ground. Then he performed a very stylish slide across the floor and retrieved the gun. Ryan grabbed the gun and pointed it towards the emperor, who, much to Ryan’s surprise, was still laughing.
“Very good, Cruise, very good. You did not disappoint me after all. But you didn’t really think it would be that easy did you?”
Ryan frowned then pulled the trigger. All he got in return was a soft clicking sound. Ryan laughed nervously. “Heh Heh, well I was hoping.”
“It’s over, Cruise,” the emperor said. “Put down the gun, and surrender.” The emperor glanced up, “guards, take him into custody.”
Cruise looked around him and saw a half a dozen guards, who had seemingly come from nowhere, training their weapons on him. “Where do you get all these guys? A website?” Ryan quipped.
The emperor failed to find humor in this remark, he simply ignored his comment altogether.
Over in the corner, Sarah got up slowly, rubbing her chin. “You didn’t even trust me with a loaded gun?” she snapped at the emperor.
“I don’t trust anyone, relax.”
“You trust those guards!” Sarah hissed, pointing at this body guards, who were slowly approaching Cruise.
“That’s because they’ve been thoroughly brain-washed.”
Ryan Cruise rose to his feet and placed his hands on his head. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in considerable danger, but the one question running through his mind was: Would it be the last?
to be continued when i write the next part...
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 14
continued from the last time i decided to post...
Tim walked forlornly down the road towards the beach house, with Emmy trudging beside him. They both were drenched for a heavy rain had just begun to pour down on them and they were not dressed for the occasion.
“How’s your Scottish accent, by the way?” Emmy asked.
“Pretty good, Chris slips into a Scottish accent all the time so I’ve been around it a lot.”
“Well mine’s not so polished so you do the talking.”
“Ok, sounds good. Remember what our story is, right?”
“Yeah… why do we have to be Scottish again?”
Tim shrugged. “Well because it sounds so much more deceptive when we’re using a different accent of course.”
“Oh… that doesn’t make sense.”
Tim sighed. “Never mind, just stick with it okay?” Just then the guardhouse came into view. “There it is, remember your lines!”
Tim walked up to the gate and was immediately stopped by two guards. “Wait! You can’t go in there!”
“Well why not?” Tim asked in a slightly perturbed Scottish accent. “I was invited by the Emperor, was I not?”
The guards frowned. “We have no such appointment on the schedule.”
Tim sighed and slapped his side in frustration. “Well doesn’t that just make the day!” He turned to Emmy. “Can you believe it sweetie? First our car breaks down, then it decides to rain on us, and now this!”
“It’s unbelievable!” Emmy echoed in her own Scottish accent.
The guards were by now starting to get a little skittish and the ruckus had caused several guards to leave their posts and check out the commotion at the front gate, which was exactly what Ryan and Jason wanted.
Realizing that the plan was working, Tim continued to play out the act. “All I’m trying to do is take my fiancée to a dinner we were invited to, by the emperor I might add!”
“Sir, this is a private facility,” one of the guards said. “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”
“I will do no such thing, isn’t that right sweetie?”
Emmy stepped up behind him and grabbed his hand. “That is exactly right, we will stand here in protest!”
The guards sighed and one of them spoke into his radio. “We’re gonna need some backup at the gates, please.”
Good, Tim thought. Just what we need, this should get them through.
The distraction was working perfectly Ryan realized as they made their way towards the wall on the opposite side of the beach house. Every guard was now distracted by the diversion; this could actually work without them being shot two feet inside the walls!
Jason threw a grappling gun at Ryan. “Here, shoot this at the wall and we’ll pull ourselves up.”
Ryan and Jason both aimed their grappling guns at the wall and fired them. There was a soft clink as they hooked onto the wall. Then Ryan and Jason climbed the wall, working their way to the top.
When they reached the top, Jason whispered to Ryan. “Block the cameras with one of those pictures in your backpack.”
Ryan gave him the thumbs up and selected a picture of the same scenario that camera on the wall was trained on, only from a few hours ago. “Good to go,” Ryan whispered after he’d placed it in front of the camera.
Peter Long sighed, working security for the emperor had to be the most boring job ever, but nothing could be more boring that watching security cameras all day. Unfortunately though, that was his job. He swore that he’d die of boredom before he reached thirty. But wait! What was that! Camera 32 had just changed. It was now displaying the same area, but in daylight! That didn’t make any sense it was dark outside. Peter immediately picked up the phone to call the supervisor.
Jason peeked at the picture in front of the camera and sighed.
“What?” Ryan said.
“You put the wrong picture in front of this thing! It’s supposed to be dark not daytime!”
“Oh, whoops…” Ryan quickly changed it.
Just as Peter was dialing the number, however, the picture changed back. “Huh, there goes any excitement.” He hung up the phone and went back to drinking coffee.
Ryan and Jason dropped to the ground and quickly pulled out their backpacks. Inside each backpack was a guard’s uniform. They hurriedly pulled them on and walked casually out into the courtyard.
“Where’d you get these by the way?” Ryan asked.
“I found them,” was Jason’s simple reply.
“Well, they smell kinda funny.”
“That’s cause they’ve had a dead man in ‘em.”
“Oh… great.”
Back at the gates, Tim and Emmy were still causing a ruckus. “We wish to see the emperor this instant.” Tim demanded.
The guard sighed. “The emperor doesn’t see anyone right now.”
“He’ll see us!” Emmy insisted.
“We’re gonna have to escort them off the premises,” one of the guards said. They nodded to each other and each one grabbed one of Tim’s arms.
“No, no, don’t take me! You can’t take me! This is and outrage!” Tim cried still in a marvelous Scottish accent.
“Come back my love!” Emmy called, also giving an Oscar-worthy performance.
While all this excitement was going on, Sarah was stuck in the helicopter with Jordan, waiting for someone to check in.
“Come on, come on, it’s been too long!” Sarah said, stressing.
“Just be patient,” Jordan said. “These are my boys they’ll come through.”
Just then Ryan’s voice came over the radio. “We’re in,” he informed them.
“Copy that,” Sarah replied. Sarah sighed, “this is boring.”
“Welcome to my life,” Jordan said unsympathetically. “Course, I do get to fly.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and sighed. Then a thought came to her, why sit and wait? Why not just act? That didn’t sound like a bad idea at all…
With their guard uniforms on, Jason and Ryan easily made it past the few guards. They received only slightly curious glances, but none that warranted a call for security. It wasn’t until they reached the house that a guard approached them.
“Hey, what are you two doing here? What area are you supposed to be patrolling?”
“We’re your relief,” Ryan informed him.
“That’s impossible,” the guard shook his head. “I’m not supposed to be relieved for another hour.”
Ryan shrugged. “We thought we’d relieve you an hour early.”
“That’s not how things work here…” he paused and gave Ryan an inquisitive look. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“No, I don’t think we’ve ever met,” Ryan stuck his hand out and the guard reached out to take it. “Ryan Cruise,” Ryan introduced himself as he grasped the guard’s hand. The guard gasped in recognition as he heard the infamous name, but before he could react Ryan clenched his hand. There was a soft zapping sound and the man fell over unconscious.
“What was that?” Jason asked.
Ryan revealed a buzzer strapped to his hand. “It was IMF’s newest gadget; I’ve been waiting forever to try this thing out. It’s kinda like those things you get your friends with you know, zap their hand when they shake yours.” He glanced at the fallen guard. “It has a little more kick though.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
They hid the body and work their way to the side of the building. “How are we getting in?” Ryan asked.
Jason pulled out a couple of guard I.D. cards with their pictures on them. “These should get us in the first line of security.”
“And from there?”
Jason shrugged indifferently. “We’re gonna have to improvise.”
“Great… that’s my specialty.”
Jordan sat in the cockpit of the helicopter, waiting for Tim and Emmy to report back. “Things are going well,” he commented to himself.
Just then Tim and Emmy ran up to the helicopter.
Jordan turned around. “Where are the guards?”
“We parted ways a mile down the road,” Emmy informed him. She glanced around the helicopter and frowned. “Where’s Sarah?”
“What do you mean?” it was Jordan’s turn to frown. “She’s right…” he trailed off. “Uh oh.”
“What? What?” Tim demanded an explanation.
Jordan swallowed nervously. “I think we have a serious problem. Sarah’s gone.”
Jason Ryan had made it past the first line of security now without innocent. “This is too easy,” Ryan commented.
“It gets harder,” Jason warned. He pointed to the stairs, “We need to climb those to get the emperor’s office.”
Ryan started towards the stairs. “Well let’s go.”
Jason’s arm shot out and stopped Ryan from going forward. “Wait, something’s not right. Put on your infrared goggles.”
Ryan pulled the goggles out of his backpack and put them on; Jason did the same. The entire stairway was covered with an intricate web of infrared lasers.
“Wow, this is gonna be fun to climb,” Ryan shook his head.
“Let’s get started,” Jason said, stepping towards the stairway. Suddenly, there was a click beneath his feet and the tile sunk an inch into the ground.
Jason and Ryan both froze. “Don’t move,” Ryan ordered.
“I’m not moving,” Jason replied just a tad testily. “Find a way to keep this tile from popping back up.”
“What happens if it pops up?” Ryan asked as he searched for something to pry into the tile to make it stick.
“We both die.”
“You are a man of many words my friend, you know that?” Ryan said sarcastically.
“Just find something!”
“Showing emotion are we?”
“I will show plenty emotion if you don’t just shut up and find something to pry this tile into place.”
Ryan dug through his bag, searching for anything. “How about a hairpin?”
Jason glared at Ryan. “I’m gonna kill you when this is over.”
“Ok, ok, I’m sorry. What can I say? Sarah packed this bag.” He glanced around their surroundings. On a mantel across the hall sat a bust of the emperor. Ryan grinned and walked over towards it. “Would this work?”
“How heavy is it?” Jason asked.
“Heavy enough to hold that tile down,” Ryan replied, he picked it up off the mantel and grunted. “Yeah, it’s heavy.”
“Ok, let’s make the switch… carefully.” Ryan carried the bust over to Jason and slowly set it on the tile. Jason carefully slid his foot off the tile as Ryan gradually moved the bust to replace it. Finally, Jason took his foot completely off the tile and they both held their breath. The tile stayed in place and didn’t move. They both sighed. “That was close,” Ryan said.
They turned back towards the stairway. All of the sudden, the tile clicked again and pushed back up, Ryan and Jason both stopped.
Ryan closed his eyes and waited for the imminent alarm, explosion, or some other booby trap that was bound to come about as a result, but nothing happened. “Soooo… what happens now?” Ryan asked.
Jason walked over and examined the tile. “I guess it was just a defective tile.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “You know I think this will be exciting enough without any false alarms.”
Jason ignored his comment and started to weave his way up the stairs, using his infrared goggles to guide him past the lasers.
“This will be fun,” Ryan commented. “It’s too bad I don’t do gymnastics anymore.”
“You did gymnastics?” Jason asked.
“When I was like five, yeah. Didn’t you?”
Jason shook his head. “No. What did your parents make you do it?”
“Yeah, foster parents.”
“Might come in handy now.”
“Well, we only learned how to somersault, it wasn’t anything too complex.”
“Then shut up and concentrate,” Jason snapped.
“Yes sir, wonder if Tim and Emmy are still out there? That was amusing.”
To be continued...
Tim walked forlornly down the road towards the beach house, with Emmy trudging beside him. They both were drenched for a heavy rain had just begun to pour down on them and they were not dressed for the occasion.
“How’s your Scottish accent, by the way?” Emmy asked.
“Pretty good, Chris slips into a Scottish accent all the time so I’ve been around it a lot.”
“Well mine’s not so polished so you do the talking.”
“Ok, sounds good. Remember what our story is, right?”
“Yeah… why do we have to be Scottish again?”
Tim shrugged. “Well because it sounds so much more deceptive when we’re using a different accent of course.”
“Oh… that doesn’t make sense.”
Tim sighed. “Never mind, just stick with it okay?” Just then the guardhouse came into view. “There it is, remember your lines!”
Tim walked up to the gate and was immediately stopped by two guards. “Wait! You can’t go in there!”
“Well why not?” Tim asked in a slightly perturbed Scottish accent. “I was invited by the Emperor, was I not?”
The guards frowned. “We have no such appointment on the schedule.”
Tim sighed and slapped his side in frustration. “Well doesn’t that just make the day!” He turned to Emmy. “Can you believe it sweetie? First our car breaks down, then it decides to rain on us, and now this!”
“It’s unbelievable!” Emmy echoed in her own Scottish accent.
The guards were by now starting to get a little skittish and the ruckus had caused several guards to leave their posts and check out the commotion at the front gate, which was exactly what Ryan and Jason wanted.
Realizing that the plan was working, Tim continued to play out the act. “All I’m trying to do is take my fiancée to a dinner we were invited to, by the emperor I might add!”
“Sir, this is a private facility,” one of the guards said. “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”
“I will do no such thing, isn’t that right sweetie?”
Emmy stepped up behind him and grabbed his hand. “That is exactly right, we will stand here in protest!”
The guards sighed and one of them spoke into his radio. “We’re gonna need some backup at the gates, please.”
Good, Tim thought. Just what we need, this should get them through.
The distraction was working perfectly Ryan realized as they made their way towards the wall on the opposite side of the beach house. Every guard was now distracted by the diversion; this could actually work without them being shot two feet inside the walls!
Jason threw a grappling gun at Ryan. “Here, shoot this at the wall and we’ll pull ourselves up.”
Ryan and Jason both aimed their grappling guns at the wall and fired them. There was a soft clink as they hooked onto the wall. Then Ryan and Jason climbed the wall, working their way to the top.
When they reached the top, Jason whispered to Ryan. “Block the cameras with one of those pictures in your backpack.”
Ryan gave him the thumbs up and selected a picture of the same scenario that camera on the wall was trained on, only from a few hours ago. “Good to go,” Ryan whispered after he’d placed it in front of the camera.
Peter Long sighed, working security for the emperor had to be the most boring job ever, but nothing could be more boring that watching security cameras all day. Unfortunately though, that was his job. He swore that he’d die of boredom before he reached thirty. But wait! What was that! Camera 32 had just changed. It was now displaying the same area, but in daylight! That didn’t make any sense it was dark outside. Peter immediately picked up the phone to call the supervisor.
Jason peeked at the picture in front of the camera and sighed.
“What?” Ryan said.
“You put the wrong picture in front of this thing! It’s supposed to be dark not daytime!”
“Oh, whoops…” Ryan quickly changed it.
Just as Peter was dialing the number, however, the picture changed back. “Huh, there goes any excitement.” He hung up the phone and went back to drinking coffee.
Ryan and Jason dropped to the ground and quickly pulled out their backpacks. Inside each backpack was a guard’s uniform. They hurriedly pulled them on and walked casually out into the courtyard.
“Where’d you get these by the way?” Ryan asked.
“I found them,” was Jason’s simple reply.
“Well, they smell kinda funny.”
“That’s cause they’ve had a dead man in ‘em.”
“Oh… great.”
Back at the gates, Tim and Emmy were still causing a ruckus. “We wish to see the emperor this instant.” Tim demanded.
The guard sighed. “The emperor doesn’t see anyone right now.”
“He’ll see us!” Emmy insisted.
“We’re gonna have to escort them off the premises,” one of the guards said. They nodded to each other and each one grabbed one of Tim’s arms.
“No, no, don’t take me! You can’t take me! This is and outrage!” Tim cried still in a marvelous Scottish accent.
“Come back my love!” Emmy called, also giving an Oscar-worthy performance.
While all this excitement was going on, Sarah was stuck in the helicopter with Jordan, waiting for someone to check in.
“Come on, come on, it’s been too long!” Sarah said, stressing.
“Just be patient,” Jordan said. “These are my boys they’ll come through.”
Just then Ryan’s voice came over the radio. “We’re in,” he informed them.
“Copy that,” Sarah replied. Sarah sighed, “this is boring.”
“Welcome to my life,” Jordan said unsympathetically. “Course, I do get to fly.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and sighed. Then a thought came to her, why sit and wait? Why not just act? That didn’t sound like a bad idea at all…
With their guard uniforms on, Jason and Ryan easily made it past the few guards. They received only slightly curious glances, but none that warranted a call for security. It wasn’t until they reached the house that a guard approached them.
“Hey, what are you two doing here? What area are you supposed to be patrolling?”
“We’re your relief,” Ryan informed him.
“That’s impossible,” the guard shook his head. “I’m not supposed to be relieved for another hour.”
Ryan shrugged. “We thought we’d relieve you an hour early.”
“That’s not how things work here…” he paused and gave Ryan an inquisitive look. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“No, I don’t think we’ve ever met,” Ryan stuck his hand out and the guard reached out to take it. “Ryan Cruise,” Ryan introduced himself as he grasped the guard’s hand. The guard gasped in recognition as he heard the infamous name, but before he could react Ryan clenched his hand. There was a soft zapping sound and the man fell over unconscious.
“What was that?” Jason asked.
Ryan revealed a buzzer strapped to his hand. “It was IMF’s newest gadget; I’ve been waiting forever to try this thing out. It’s kinda like those things you get your friends with you know, zap their hand when they shake yours.” He glanced at the fallen guard. “It has a little more kick though.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
They hid the body and work their way to the side of the building. “How are we getting in?” Ryan asked.
Jason pulled out a couple of guard I.D. cards with their pictures on them. “These should get us in the first line of security.”
“And from there?”
Jason shrugged indifferently. “We’re gonna have to improvise.”
“Great… that’s my specialty.”
Jordan sat in the cockpit of the helicopter, waiting for Tim and Emmy to report back. “Things are going well,” he commented to himself.
Just then Tim and Emmy ran up to the helicopter.
Jordan turned around. “Where are the guards?”
“We parted ways a mile down the road,” Emmy informed him. She glanced around the helicopter and frowned. “Where’s Sarah?”
“What do you mean?” it was Jordan’s turn to frown. “She’s right…” he trailed off. “Uh oh.”
“What? What?” Tim demanded an explanation.
Jordan swallowed nervously. “I think we have a serious problem. Sarah’s gone.”
Jason Ryan had made it past the first line of security now without innocent. “This is too easy,” Ryan commented.
“It gets harder,” Jason warned. He pointed to the stairs, “We need to climb those to get the emperor’s office.”
Ryan started towards the stairs. “Well let’s go.”
Jason’s arm shot out and stopped Ryan from going forward. “Wait, something’s not right. Put on your infrared goggles.”
Ryan pulled the goggles out of his backpack and put them on; Jason did the same. The entire stairway was covered with an intricate web of infrared lasers.
“Wow, this is gonna be fun to climb,” Ryan shook his head.
“Let’s get started,” Jason said, stepping towards the stairway. Suddenly, there was a click beneath his feet and the tile sunk an inch into the ground.
Jason and Ryan both froze. “Don’t move,” Ryan ordered.
“I’m not moving,” Jason replied just a tad testily. “Find a way to keep this tile from popping back up.”
“What happens if it pops up?” Ryan asked as he searched for something to pry into the tile to make it stick.
“We both die.”
“You are a man of many words my friend, you know that?” Ryan said sarcastically.
“Just find something!”
“Showing emotion are we?”
“I will show plenty emotion if you don’t just shut up and find something to pry this tile into place.”
Ryan dug through his bag, searching for anything. “How about a hairpin?”
Jason glared at Ryan. “I’m gonna kill you when this is over.”
“Ok, ok, I’m sorry. What can I say? Sarah packed this bag.” He glanced around their surroundings. On a mantel across the hall sat a bust of the emperor. Ryan grinned and walked over towards it. “Would this work?”
“How heavy is it?” Jason asked.
“Heavy enough to hold that tile down,” Ryan replied, he picked it up off the mantel and grunted. “Yeah, it’s heavy.”
“Ok, let’s make the switch… carefully.” Ryan carried the bust over to Jason and slowly set it on the tile. Jason carefully slid his foot off the tile as Ryan gradually moved the bust to replace it. Finally, Jason took his foot completely off the tile and they both held their breath. The tile stayed in place and didn’t move. They both sighed. “That was close,” Ryan said.
They turned back towards the stairway. All of the sudden, the tile clicked again and pushed back up, Ryan and Jason both stopped.
Ryan closed his eyes and waited for the imminent alarm, explosion, or some other booby trap that was bound to come about as a result, but nothing happened. “Soooo… what happens now?” Ryan asked.
Jason walked over and examined the tile. “I guess it was just a defective tile.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “You know I think this will be exciting enough without any false alarms.”
Jason ignored his comment and started to weave his way up the stairs, using his infrared goggles to guide him past the lasers.
“This will be fun,” Ryan commented. “It’s too bad I don’t do gymnastics anymore.”
“You did gymnastics?” Jason asked.
“When I was like five, yeah. Didn’t you?”
Jason shook his head. “No. What did your parents make you do it?”
“Yeah, foster parents.”
“Might come in handy now.”
“Well, we only learned how to somersault, it wasn’t anything too complex.”
“Then shut up and concentrate,” Jason snapped.
“Yes sir, wonder if Tim and Emmy are still out there? That was amusing.”
To be continued...
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 13
Continued from last week...
“What do you mean, ‘you’ve been tricked’?” Jason asked, glaring at Ryan. “These are your friends, right? Don’t you recognize your own friends?”
“No, these are not our friends,” Ryan shot back. “They’re wearing masks to disguise themselves as our friends.”
“Masks?” Jason asked, bewildered.
“It’s an IMF thing,” Ryan explained.
“What is IMF?” Jason asked.
“Oh, forget it!” Ryan shook his head.
“Silence!” cried the one who was impersonating Tim. “Or I will shoot all of you!”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ryan held his hands out then he slowly lowered them to his side. “I’m not getting my gun, I’m slowly reaching for… these.” He snatched his shades from his belt and slipped them on. “Okay, now I’m ready, do your worst.”
“You are pathetic,” the Jordan impersonator muttered.
“A lot of people have said that,” Ryan said, holding his finger in the air in a very prophetic and cool manner. “But all of them are dead now. Turns out they were more pathetic.”
“No,” Sarah, or the one who was pretending to be Sarah, spat. “You are just lucky, but you will not be this time.”
“Or they’ve just been unlucky, but I’ll let you think about that for awhile. God knows you militants don’t have the best brains in the world.”
“Ryan, we’re prisoners here, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to insult our captors,” Emmy said in a worried voice.
“So you’re stupid too,” Jason muttered.
“A lot of people have said that too,” Ryan admitted.
“Shut up!” the fake Sarah screamed. Just then, a shot rang out. Sarah clutched her neck and fell to the ground without making a sound. The other two imperial agents ducked behind the helicopter, the one that was impersonating Jordan screamed and grabbed at his leg.
“Come on, let’s go!” Ryan yelled, tugging at Emmy’s hand and pulling her away from the gunfight.
“Who is that?” Emmy yelled above the gunfire. Then suddenly, it all stopped. The echoes of gunshots faded into the woods and all was silent.
“Ryan!” someone called. “Emmy!”
“That’s Tim!” Ryan said, he started to make his way out of the brush, but Jason grabbed his arm.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, positive,” Ryan assured him. Ryan turned around and nearly ran right smack into Tim. “Hey buddy,” Ryan grinned. “Where ya been?”
Tim laughed and shook his head. “You always were the cavalier one.”
Ryan shrugged. “Yeah sure, whatever that means.”
Tim slapped him on the back. “It’s good to have you back, Cruise.” Then he turned back towards the helicopter, “guys, I found him.”
“So what’s new?” Ryan asked.
“Oh nothing, we just had to practically escape from the Rebel base to come and rescue you though.”
“Really? It was Cathy wasn’t it? I knew she never got over our little bungle at the mall.”
“That was pretty bad,” Tim pointed out.
“Well, we got away just fine, thanks to our buddy Jason Scorn here.”
“Who?”
“Jason Scorn,” Ryan repeated. “And he’s got a plan that you need to hear.”
“What plan?” Tim asked.
“One that involves getting the emperor, for good.”
After a whole round of hugs, exclamations, and heartfelt words, (which will not be recorded here mainly because it would be really boring to read them and even more so to write them) from Sarah, and Jordan, mostly Sarah, the group entered the helicopter.
“So,” Tim ventured, as they prepared to take off. “What’s the plan?”
“Well it’s really very simple,” Ryan explained. “You see we just walk in and shoot the emperor right in the face, just like that.”
Tim stared at him. “Just like that,” he repeated.
Ryan nodded. “Just like that.”
“Are you nuts?”
Ryan heaved a long sigh. “You know, people keep asking me that and I keep telling ‘em, yeah I am okay! Can we move on?”
“You seriously agree with that plan?” Tim asked.
“Yeah, what’s not to like? It’s simple and to the point. We get in, we get out, the emperor’s dead, just what we want, right?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Tim shook his head. “You always did have a knack for making things seem simpler than they are.”
“And you have one for making them seem harder than they really are,” Ryan pointed out. “Look, it’s a great plan, I wish I would have thought of it myself.”
“What’s to think of?” Tim shouted.
“Shhh, not so loud,” Ryan shushed him, motioning towards the others. “Jason and I don’t want them to know yet until we have you on board.”
“Jason and you, huh? You’re both crazy.”
“Yes, that we are,” Ryan grinned and clapped Jason on the shoulder, who just glared at him. “We’re like two peas in a pod, blood brothers--”
“Dumb and Dumber,” Tim interrupted.
“Well, I wasn’t gonna use that one, but you could.” Ryan laughed. “Jason’s like me without the spice, you know?”
Tim just gave him a blank look. “No, I don’t.”
“I’m more fun, duh.”
“What the heck is with you, man?” Tim asked.
“I gave him a shot of adrenaline before we left the terrorist’ den, must still be working,” Jason said. “About the plan, he’s leaving out a few important details, like how we’ll get in, and how we’ll get out.”
“I figured he was,” Tim glared at Ryan, who just shrugged.
“This adrenaline stuff’s like a caffeine high,” Ryan laughed.
“Someone shut him up,” Jason mumbled.
“Don’t worry,” Tim said. “You learn to ignore him. So tell me, what’s the plan?”
Jason cracked a small smile; the first time Tim had seen him smile since they’d first found him. “It’s good, I think you’ll like it.”
Katie was busy handing out rations and supplies to lines of soldiers when she was approached by Daniel.
“Care to give a poor soldier a few supplies?” Daniel asked.
Katie nearly dropped the water canteen she was holding. “Oh no Daniel, not you too?”
Daniel gave a grim smile. “Yes Katie, they need every man they can get out there.”
“But you’re not trained for combat, Daniel. You’re a doctor, not a soldier!”
“You’d be surprised, besides, they could use a good doctor.”
“No, I won’t let you go, Daniel,” Katie shook her head.
Daniel laughed. “Katie, I’m a man, I think I can make my own decisions.”
Katie grabbed Chris, who just happened to be walking by, by the arm. “Chris!” she cried. “Tell him he can’t go!”
Chris gave Katie a bewildered look. “Why?”
“Just do it!”
“Okay, okay,” Chris turned to Daniel. “You can’t go.”
Daniel shook his head. “I’m going anyways.”
“There you go,” Chris said, shrugging. “I can’t stop him.”
“Daniel,” Katie protested. “You can’t go!”
“Katie, I’ll be fine,” Daniel assured her.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Katie said, tears coming to her eyes.
“You won’t,” Daniel promised.
Suddenly, Laz coughed from back in the corner. “I hate to break this up guys, but you’re really starting to get on my nerves. This whole romance before going off to war thing is great and all, but… its kinda worn out.”
“I have to agree with him on that, could you guys take this somewhere else please?” Chris spoke up.
Katie frowned. “Why you guys couldn’t--”
“Katie,” Danny interrupted. “Ignore them.”
Katie smiled. “Okay, I will.”
“All right,” Laz said. “I’m gone.”
“Me too,” Chris seconded. They both got up and left Daniel and Katie to be alone, shaking their heads in disgust.
Just then Kayla came running up. “Hey guys, have you seen Ryan?”
Chris and Laz shook their heads. “I haven’t seen Ryan, Sarah, or Tim in a while,” Chris said glumly.
“Where the heck is Cruise when you need him anyways?” Laz asked no one in particular. “He would have said something funny, made Katie hopping mad and ruined the mood.”
“Yeah, I wish he was here,” Chris agreed. “I wonder where he is?”
“Where are we?” Emmy asked as she peered through a borrowed set of binoculars.
“The emperor’s secret getaway,” Jason replied, pointing at the beach house/fortress hidden behind the hill. “Top surveillance at this place, but not nearly as good as at the palace.”
“Then why is he here?” Sarah asked.
“Because it’s secret,” Jason replied stoically.
“If it’s secret, then how do you know it’s here?” Emmy questioned him.
“It’s secret to most,” Jason corrected himself. “Now please, no more questions; let’s get down to business.”
“Which is?” Sarah, who had still not been fully informed of the plan, continued to grill him.
“You girls sure do ask a lot of questions,” Jason said, shaking his head.
“Don’t all girls?” Tim muttered.
“I heard that, Tim,” Emmy shot back.
“Look here’s how it goes,” Jason said, laying out the plan. “Tim, Emmy, you guys will provide the distraction, while Ryan and I infiltrate the hideout. Jordan, you wait in the helicopter as our getaway pilot.”
“Yes sir,” Jordan saluted only half-mockingly.
“What about me?” Sarah asked.
“You, Sarah,” Ryan said, grinning, “Get to wait in the helicopter and copy.”
“Copy?” Sarah gave him a confused look.
“Yeah, you know, when we talk in the radio, we say, ‘do you copy?’ and you say, ‘I copy’ got it?”
Sarah glared at him. “No way, that’s a boring job.”
“Exactly,” Ryan clapped her on the shoulder.
“Look, if you’re trying to protect me, don’t. I want to go in there with you.”
Ryan just grinned and started walking towards the beach fortress. “Trust me, I’m not trying to protect you; I’m trying to annoy you.”
Sarah stomped her foot on the ground. “Well you’re doing a real good job of it!” Then she stormed off towards the helicopter.
“What was with that?” Tim asked, a frown on his face.
“Who knows?” Emmy replied, shrugging.
Tim walked up to Ryan and grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him around. “You really seemed to tick off that young lady back there,” he said
“Who Sarah? Don’t worry about her,” Ryan said, shrugging him off. “She’s fine, we always fight.”
“How long have you known each other?”
Ryan sighed. “It feels like years, but probably only a few weeks, and I’ve been ‘dead’ for a long period of that time.”
“I’m not sure it was wise to isolate her like that,” Tim said.
“Look,” Ryan said, pointing his finger at Tim to emphasize his words. “You just stick to what you do best, which is killing, and let someone else play psychiatrist, okay?”
Ryan peered at the emperor’s fortress from their new position. “Man, this is gonna be one for the record books!” he whispered, handing the binoculars to Jason.
“If we can pull it off,” Jason added. Then he turned lowered the binoculars and turned to Ryan. “Before we go in, I want to warn you, I’m wanted by the C.I.A., which means now you are too.”
Ryan shrugged. “Psh, I’m wanted by everybody, what difference does it make?” There was a pause, “Why does the C.I.A. want you?” he ventured.
“I don’t know,” was Jason’s simple reply.
“You don’t know? How can you not know?”
“I can’t remember,” Jason said. “I can’t remember anything, I don’t even really know who I am.”
“Some sort of assassin probably,” Ryan guessed.
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Well duh, who else can kill like that? I can assure that you’re not a construction worker, or the C.I.A. wouldn’t be trying to kill you.” There was another long pause. “So you can’t remember anything?”
“Yeah, I just said that.” Jason replied.
This was followed by yet another awkward halt in conversation. Then Ryan spoke up again, “Okay, so just wondering, but do you ever talk in an excited voice?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, your voice is always monotone, do you have any emotion?”
Jason looked at him. “No, not really.”
Ryan sighed. “So much for conversation.”
Just then they saw a flash of light in the trees a mile to their left. “There’s the signal,” Ryan said, relieved that the wait was over. “Let’s go.”
To be continued...
“What do you mean, ‘you’ve been tricked’?” Jason asked, glaring at Ryan. “These are your friends, right? Don’t you recognize your own friends?”
“No, these are not our friends,” Ryan shot back. “They’re wearing masks to disguise themselves as our friends.”
“Masks?” Jason asked, bewildered.
“It’s an IMF thing,” Ryan explained.
“What is IMF?” Jason asked.
“Oh, forget it!” Ryan shook his head.
“Silence!” cried the one who was impersonating Tim. “Or I will shoot all of you!”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ryan held his hands out then he slowly lowered them to his side. “I’m not getting my gun, I’m slowly reaching for… these.” He snatched his shades from his belt and slipped them on. “Okay, now I’m ready, do your worst.”
“You are pathetic,” the Jordan impersonator muttered.
“A lot of people have said that,” Ryan said, holding his finger in the air in a very prophetic and cool manner. “But all of them are dead now. Turns out they were more pathetic.”
“No,” Sarah, or the one who was pretending to be Sarah, spat. “You are just lucky, but you will not be this time.”
“Or they’ve just been unlucky, but I’ll let you think about that for awhile. God knows you militants don’t have the best brains in the world.”
“Ryan, we’re prisoners here, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to insult our captors,” Emmy said in a worried voice.
“So you’re stupid too,” Jason muttered.
“A lot of people have said that too,” Ryan admitted.
“Shut up!” the fake Sarah screamed. Just then, a shot rang out. Sarah clutched her neck and fell to the ground without making a sound. The other two imperial agents ducked behind the helicopter, the one that was impersonating Jordan screamed and grabbed at his leg.
“Come on, let’s go!” Ryan yelled, tugging at Emmy’s hand and pulling her away from the gunfight.
“Who is that?” Emmy yelled above the gunfire. Then suddenly, it all stopped. The echoes of gunshots faded into the woods and all was silent.
“Ryan!” someone called. “Emmy!”
“That’s Tim!” Ryan said, he started to make his way out of the brush, but Jason grabbed his arm.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, positive,” Ryan assured him. Ryan turned around and nearly ran right smack into Tim. “Hey buddy,” Ryan grinned. “Where ya been?”
Tim laughed and shook his head. “You always were the cavalier one.”
Ryan shrugged. “Yeah sure, whatever that means.”
Tim slapped him on the back. “It’s good to have you back, Cruise.” Then he turned back towards the helicopter, “guys, I found him.”
“So what’s new?” Ryan asked.
“Oh nothing, we just had to practically escape from the Rebel base to come and rescue you though.”
“Really? It was Cathy wasn’t it? I knew she never got over our little bungle at the mall.”
“That was pretty bad,” Tim pointed out.
“Well, we got away just fine, thanks to our buddy Jason Scorn here.”
“Who?”
“Jason Scorn,” Ryan repeated. “And he’s got a plan that you need to hear.”
“What plan?” Tim asked.
“One that involves getting the emperor, for good.”
After a whole round of hugs, exclamations, and heartfelt words, (which will not be recorded here mainly because it would be really boring to read them and even more so to write them) from Sarah, and Jordan, mostly Sarah, the group entered the helicopter.
“So,” Tim ventured, as they prepared to take off. “What’s the plan?”
“Well it’s really very simple,” Ryan explained. “You see we just walk in and shoot the emperor right in the face, just like that.”
Tim stared at him. “Just like that,” he repeated.
Ryan nodded. “Just like that.”
“Are you nuts?”
Ryan heaved a long sigh. “You know, people keep asking me that and I keep telling ‘em, yeah I am okay! Can we move on?”
“You seriously agree with that plan?” Tim asked.
“Yeah, what’s not to like? It’s simple and to the point. We get in, we get out, the emperor’s dead, just what we want, right?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Tim shook his head. “You always did have a knack for making things seem simpler than they are.”
“And you have one for making them seem harder than they really are,” Ryan pointed out. “Look, it’s a great plan, I wish I would have thought of it myself.”
“What’s to think of?” Tim shouted.
“Shhh, not so loud,” Ryan shushed him, motioning towards the others. “Jason and I don’t want them to know yet until we have you on board.”
“Jason and you, huh? You’re both crazy.”
“Yes, that we are,” Ryan grinned and clapped Jason on the shoulder, who just glared at him. “We’re like two peas in a pod, blood brothers--”
“Dumb and Dumber,” Tim interrupted.
“Well, I wasn’t gonna use that one, but you could.” Ryan laughed. “Jason’s like me without the spice, you know?”
Tim just gave him a blank look. “No, I don’t.”
“I’m more fun, duh.”
“What the heck is with you, man?” Tim asked.
“I gave him a shot of adrenaline before we left the terrorist’ den, must still be working,” Jason said. “About the plan, he’s leaving out a few important details, like how we’ll get in, and how we’ll get out.”
“I figured he was,” Tim glared at Ryan, who just shrugged.
“This adrenaline stuff’s like a caffeine high,” Ryan laughed.
“Someone shut him up,” Jason mumbled.
“Don’t worry,” Tim said. “You learn to ignore him. So tell me, what’s the plan?”
Jason cracked a small smile; the first time Tim had seen him smile since they’d first found him. “It’s good, I think you’ll like it.”
Katie was busy handing out rations and supplies to lines of soldiers when she was approached by Daniel.
“Care to give a poor soldier a few supplies?” Daniel asked.
Katie nearly dropped the water canteen she was holding. “Oh no Daniel, not you too?”
Daniel gave a grim smile. “Yes Katie, they need every man they can get out there.”
“But you’re not trained for combat, Daniel. You’re a doctor, not a soldier!”
“You’d be surprised, besides, they could use a good doctor.”
“No, I won’t let you go, Daniel,” Katie shook her head.
Daniel laughed. “Katie, I’m a man, I think I can make my own decisions.”
Katie grabbed Chris, who just happened to be walking by, by the arm. “Chris!” she cried. “Tell him he can’t go!”
Chris gave Katie a bewildered look. “Why?”
“Just do it!”
“Okay, okay,” Chris turned to Daniel. “You can’t go.”
Daniel shook his head. “I’m going anyways.”
“There you go,” Chris said, shrugging. “I can’t stop him.”
“Daniel,” Katie protested. “You can’t go!”
“Katie, I’ll be fine,” Daniel assured her.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Katie said, tears coming to her eyes.
“You won’t,” Daniel promised.
Suddenly, Laz coughed from back in the corner. “I hate to break this up guys, but you’re really starting to get on my nerves. This whole romance before going off to war thing is great and all, but… its kinda worn out.”
“I have to agree with him on that, could you guys take this somewhere else please?” Chris spoke up.
Katie frowned. “Why you guys couldn’t--”
“Katie,” Danny interrupted. “Ignore them.”
Katie smiled. “Okay, I will.”
“All right,” Laz said. “I’m gone.”
“Me too,” Chris seconded. They both got up and left Daniel and Katie to be alone, shaking their heads in disgust.
Just then Kayla came running up. “Hey guys, have you seen Ryan?”
Chris and Laz shook their heads. “I haven’t seen Ryan, Sarah, or Tim in a while,” Chris said glumly.
“Where the heck is Cruise when you need him anyways?” Laz asked no one in particular. “He would have said something funny, made Katie hopping mad and ruined the mood.”
“Yeah, I wish he was here,” Chris agreed. “I wonder where he is?”
“Where are we?” Emmy asked as she peered through a borrowed set of binoculars.
“The emperor’s secret getaway,” Jason replied, pointing at the beach house/fortress hidden behind the hill. “Top surveillance at this place, but not nearly as good as at the palace.”
“Then why is he here?” Sarah asked.
“Because it’s secret,” Jason replied stoically.
“If it’s secret, then how do you know it’s here?” Emmy questioned him.
“It’s secret to most,” Jason corrected himself. “Now please, no more questions; let’s get down to business.”
“Which is?” Sarah, who had still not been fully informed of the plan, continued to grill him.
“You girls sure do ask a lot of questions,” Jason said, shaking his head.
“Don’t all girls?” Tim muttered.
“I heard that, Tim,” Emmy shot back.
“Look here’s how it goes,” Jason said, laying out the plan. “Tim, Emmy, you guys will provide the distraction, while Ryan and I infiltrate the hideout. Jordan, you wait in the helicopter as our getaway pilot.”
“Yes sir,” Jordan saluted only half-mockingly.
“What about me?” Sarah asked.
“You, Sarah,” Ryan said, grinning, “Get to wait in the helicopter and copy.”
“Copy?” Sarah gave him a confused look.
“Yeah, you know, when we talk in the radio, we say, ‘do you copy?’ and you say, ‘I copy’ got it?”
Sarah glared at him. “No way, that’s a boring job.”
“Exactly,” Ryan clapped her on the shoulder.
“Look, if you’re trying to protect me, don’t. I want to go in there with you.”
Ryan just grinned and started walking towards the beach fortress. “Trust me, I’m not trying to protect you; I’m trying to annoy you.”
Sarah stomped her foot on the ground. “Well you’re doing a real good job of it!” Then she stormed off towards the helicopter.
“What was with that?” Tim asked, a frown on his face.
“Who knows?” Emmy replied, shrugging.
Tim walked up to Ryan and grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him around. “You really seemed to tick off that young lady back there,” he said
“Who Sarah? Don’t worry about her,” Ryan said, shrugging him off. “She’s fine, we always fight.”
“How long have you known each other?”
Ryan sighed. “It feels like years, but probably only a few weeks, and I’ve been ‘dead’ for a long period of that time.”
“I’m not sure it was wise to isolate her like that,” Tim said.
“Look,” Ryan said, pointing his finger at Tim to emphasize his words. “You just stick to what you do best, which is killing, and let someone else play psychiatrist, okay?”
Ryan peered at the emperor’s fortress from their new position. “Man, this is gonna be one for the record books!” he whispered, handing the binoculars to Jason.
“If we can pull it off,” Jason added. Then he turned lowered the binoculars and turned to Ryan. “Before we go in, I want to warn you, I’m wanted by the C.I.A., which means now you are too.”
Ryan shrugged. “Psh, I’m wanted by everybody, what difference does it make?” There was a pause, “Why does the C.I.A. want you?” he ventured.
“I don’t know,” was Jason’s simple reply.
“You don’t know? How can you not know?”
“I can’t remember,” Jason said. “I can’t remember anything, I don’t even really know who I am.”
“Some sort of assassin probably,” Ryan guessed.
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Well duh, who else can kill like that? I can assure that you’re not a construction worker, or the C.I.A. wouldn’t be trying to kill you.” There was another long pause. “So you can’t remember anything?”
“Yeah, I just said that.” Jason replied.
This was followed by yet another awkward halt in conversation. Then Ryan spoke up again, “Okay, so just wondering, but do you ever talk in an excited voice?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, your voice is always monotone, do you have any emotion?”
Jason looked at him. “No, not really.”
Ryan sighed. “So much for conversation.”
Just then they saw a flash of light in the trees a mile to their left. “There’s the signal,” Ryan said, relieved that the wait was over. “Let’s go.”
To be continued...
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 12
Sorry about the delay guys; I promise it won’t happen again, unless there’s another delay. I wrote parts of this one while I was sick and slightly feverish so… if there’s parts where sentences are repeated and stuff, you’ll know why. If there’s parts where sentences are repeated and stuff, you’ll know why. If there’s parts where sentences are repeated and stuff, you’ll know why. Lol Sorry, I couldn’t resist resist. ;)
Continued from two weeks ago...
Tim and Sarah were quickly strapping on their equipment as they explained the whole story to Jordan.
“So… they disappeared?” Jordan asked for the third time, he appeared confused and leaned against his helicopter for support.
“Yes,” Sarah snapped, stamping her foot on the landing platform. “They disappeared; they are no longer here; we don’t know where they are. Got that?”
Jordan frowned. “Yes, but it doesn’t seem very likely that Ryan would be caught off guard. He’s a professional; he knows what he’s doing.”
“Look, all we need is a ride, flyboy,” Sarah said. “Are you going to help us, or not?”
“Of course,” Jordan replied, throwing up his hands. “Anything for Ryan, you don’t have to get so testy about it.”
“I’m not testy!”
“Yes, you are,” Tim agreed. “Too testy, you’re gonna need to calm down.”
Jordan glanced behind him too see Clarence running towards them, his arms waving. “And we’re going to need to get out of here before Clarence crashes the party,” Jordan observed.
“She wouldn’t,” Sarah said in disbelief. “Forbid us to go and look for Ryan and Emmy?”
Tim glanced at Clarence, who was now frantically motioning for them to stop and come down from the platform. “She would,” he muttered.
“All right,” Jordan said, swinging himself into the cockpit. “Prepare yourselves, we’re in for a bumpy ride.” There was a closable hole in the ceiling, which Jordan had opened moments before, that was used for aircraft. This hole was slowly closing, however, which would make the take off that much more difficult.
“The opening is closing,” Tim noted.
“I see it,” Jordan barked, flipping switches and starting the lift off. “This is gonna be close.”
“How close?” Tim yelled over the roaring engine, but Jordan couldn’t hear him. He lifted the helicopter off the landing pad and they started to rise towards the ceiling.
“That hole is getting smaller,” Sarah warned.
Jordan gritted his teeth and flew straight for the hole. “Come on!” he yelled.
“We’re gonna hit,” Tim groaned.
“No we’re not!” Jordan exclaimed. He approached the hole; it was going to be close. If one of the blades so much as scraped the sides, they were done. Jordan was fully aware of this and he was sweating bullets.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. They passed through the opening and out into the open. “Yes!” Jordan cheered, with Tim and Sarah joining in.
“We made it!” Sarah screamed. Then her face turned dark. “We could have died, I can’t believe that Cathy would do that!”
“Neither can I,” Tim agreed. “But we better get out of here.” The opening clanked shut behind them.
“There’s no going back, that’s for sure,” Jordan observed.
“Take us to him, Jordan,” Tim ordered. “Take us to Cruise.”
“So where’s Emmy?” Ryan asked Jason for the second time.
“Hang on a sec, I’m gonna give you a shot of adrenaline,” Jason replied. He took out a long needle and syringe. “You’re gonna feel this,” Jason warned.
“Ha, ha, no kidding,” Ryan chuckled nervously. “Look at the size of that thi—Aaaaa!” Jason didn’t wait for him to finish, instead he stabbed him in mid-sentence.
“Whoa!” Ryan yelled, shaking his head. “This is great, I’m ready now, man! Wait, wait,” he snatched his shades from the table in the interrogation room and stuck them in his belt since it was too dark to wear them. “Now I’m ready, let’s go.”
“Come on then, Cruise,” Jason led him through a doorway. Inside was a huge brawl, with one person in the middle, holding her own.
“Heeya!” Emmy cried, kicking one of the five men in the groin who were currently attacking her. The man groaned and fell over.
Jason pulled out his pistol and shot the other four in quick succession. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I could have taken them,” Emmy protested.
“I’m sure you could have, sis,” Ryan said. “But let’s get going.”
“Who is this guy? What’s he doing here?” Emmy asked.
“I’m here for the same reason you are,” Jason replied.
“I don’t even know why we’re here,” Ryan mumbled.
“Because we all want the same thing, the death of the emperor,” Jason informed him.
“So these guys were working for the empire?”
“No, I have no idea whose side these guys are on, they just like to blow things, including themselves, up.”
“And they like to torture people, apparently,” Ryan added.
“Yeah, but that’s beside the point.”
“What is the point?” Emmy asked as they continued to make their way through the dark underground tunnels of the terrorists’ lair.
“To kill the emperor and then disappear as if we never existed.”
“Want to go over that last part again?” Ryan shouted as they ran.
“Do you really think they’ll let us live if we just go in and shoot the emperor; no, we’re gonna have to fake our deaths or something.”
“How do you know we even want to kill the emperor?” Cruise asked.
Jason Scorn stopped and turned around; he looked Ryan straight in the eyes. “Who doesn’t?” he asked.
Ryan nodded. “Good point.”
“Come on, let’s go then, I have a plan,” Jason started running again, and Ryan and Emmy quickened their paces to catch up.
“What’s the plan?” Emmy asked.
“To kill the emperor,” Jason replied matter-of-factly. “Without getting killed in the process.”
“What do you mean ‘Laz has been put in charge of supervising’?” Cathy nearly screamed into the phone.
On the other line, Clarence winced and held the phone away from his ear. “Precisely that madam,” he replied, rubbing his ear.
“How much damage has he done?” Cathy asked in a slightly calmer manner.
“Well, he hasn’t caused as much as we thought, he’s been overruled on almost everything by Christophear.”
“Thank God,” Cathy breathed.
“Hey, I heard that!” came Laz’s voice from the other line. “Where’s Ryan? I want to speak with him.”
“He’s currently unavailable,” Cathy said coldly.
“Since when? He’s always available unless…” Laz trailed off. “You sent him on a mission without me, didn’t you?”
“I did no such thing!” Cathy lied.
“Why would you do that?” Laz cried. “He never succeeds when he goes on a mission without me.”
“Laz, he doesn’t succeed when you go with him either,” Cathy muttered.
“Exactly my… wait, what’d you say?”
Cathy sighed. “Laz, just put Clarence back on will you?”
“Fine, you obviously don’t want to talk to me,” Laz shrugged and handed Clarence the phone.
Just then Chris approached Laz, “Any luck on finding Ryan?” he asked.
“Nope,” Laz shook his head. “I wonder where he is?”
“Where the heck are we anyways?” Ryan asked.
Jason Scorn simply kept walking and didn’t answer.
Ryan shrugged. “I love how talkative this guy is.”
“I dunno, I think he’s kinda cute,” Emmy said, softly enough so Jason couldn’t hear.
“Oh please, that’s just stupid,” Ryan rolled his eyes. “I mean he’s a killing machine.”
“So are you,” Emmy reminded him.
Ryan nodded. “That’s true but I’m not cute.”
Emmy nudged him. “Fine, he’s hot then.”
“That’s better,” Ryan laughed, but suddenly he halted. Ahead of them Jason dug into a crouch as well.
“What is it?” Emmy whispered, following their example.
“Helicopter,” Ryan hissed. “Get into the brush!” They all sprang for the trees and amongst the branches, hoping that the helicopter would pass, but it didn’t appear as if they would have such luck. The helicopter started to slowly descend towards their position, heading for a small clearing a few hundred yards away.
“It’s landing,” Jason said softly.
“Well I’m glad you’re here to tell us that!” Ryan snapped. “What’s next? The emperor is trying to kill us?”
“Hey! Who saved your butt back there at the terrorist’s little hideout, huh?” Jason broke his usual code of silence.
“I could have escaped without your help,” Ryan said defiantly.
“Yeah right, how?”
“I don’t know I didn’t have to! I would have thought of something though.”
“Shhh!” Emmy hushed them. “They just landed.”
A pair of boots stepped out from the helicopter, followed by another. Then the pilot himself stepped out. All three of the figures were fully decked out in combat suits and fully camouflaged. That didn’t keep Ryan from recognizing them, however.
“I know who that is!” Ryan exclaimed. “It’s Tim, and Jordan, and Sarah.”
“Who?” Jason asked.
“Friends of ours, come on,” Ryan waved him to follow and approached the helicopter.
The instant he stepped within sight, all three figures whirled around and trained their weapons on him.
“Relax guys, its me,” Ryan held up his hands and motioned for Jason and Emmy to do the same. Tim, Sarah, and Jordan did not lower their weapons, however.
“Guys, its me, come on,” Ryan chuckled nervously.
Sarah reached for her radio carefully and clicked on the transmission. “We have the fugitives in sight now, sir, awaiting your orders.”
“Oh no,” Ryan shook his head in disbelief.
Jason Scorn scowled at him. “Some friends of yours.”
“These aren’t our friends,” Ryan groaned. “We’ve been tricked.”
to be continued...
Continued from two weeks ago...
Tim and Sarah were quickly strapping on their equipment as they explained the whole story to Jordan.
“So… they disappeared?” Jordan asked for the third time, he appeared confused and leaned against his helicopter for support.
“Yes,” Sarah snapped, stamping her foot on the landing platform. “They disappeared; they are no longer here; we don’t know where they are. Got that?”
Jordan frowned. “Yes, but it doesn’t seem very likely that Ryan would be caught off guard. He’s a professional; he knows what he’s doing.”
“Look, all we need is a ride, flyboy,” Sarah said. “Are you going to help us, or not?”
“Of course,” Jordan replied, throwing up his hands. “Anything for Ryan, you don’t have to get so testy about it.”
“I’m not testy!”
“Yes, you are,” Tim agreed. “Too testy, you’re gonna need to calm down.”
Jordan glanced behind him too see Clarence running towards them, his arms waving. “And we’re going to need to get out of here before Clarence crashes the party,” Jordan observed.
“She wouldn’t,” Sarah said in disbelief. “Forbid us to go and look for Ryan and Emmy?”
Tim glanced at Clarence, who was now frantically motioning for them to stop and come down from the platform. “She would,” he muttered.
“All right,” Jordan said, swinging himself into the cockpit. “Prepare yourselves, we’re in for a bumpy ride.” There was a closable hole in the ceiling, which Jordan had opened moments before, that was used for aircraft. This hole was slowly closing, however, which would make the take off that much more difficult.
“The opening is closing,” Tim noted.
“I see it,” Jordan barked, flipping switches and starting the lift off. “This is gonna be close.”
“How close?” Tim yelled over the roaring engine, but Jordan couldn’t hear him. He lifted the helicopter off the landing pad and they started to rise towards the ceiling.
“That hole is getting smaller,” Sarah warned.
Jordan gritted his teeth and flew straight for the hole. “Come on!” he yelled.
“We’re gonna hit,” Tim groaned.
“No we’re not!” Jordan exclaimed. He approached the hole; it was going to be close. If one of the blades so much as scraped the sides, they were done. Jordan was fully aware of this and he was sweating bullets.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. They passed through the opening and out into the open. “Yes!” Jordan cheered, with Tim and Sarah joining in.
“We made it!” Sarah screamed. Then her face turned dark. “We could have died, I can’t believe that Cathy would do that!”
“Neither can I,” Tim agreed. “But we better get out of here.” The opening clanked shut behind them.
“There’s no going back, that’s for sure,” Jordan observed.
“Take us to him, Jordan,” Tim ordered. “Take us to Cruise.”
“So where’s Emmy?” Ryan asked Jason for the second time.
“Hang on a sec, I’m gonna give you a shot of adrenaline,” Jason replied. He took out a long needle and syringe. “You’re gonna feel this,” Jason warned.
“Ha, ha, no kidding,” Ryan chuckled nervously. “Look at the size of that thi—Aaaaa!” Jason didn’t wait for him to finish, instead he stabbed him in mid-sentence.
“Whoa!” Ryan yelled, shaking his head. “This is great, I’m ready now, man! Wait, wait,” he snatched his shades from the table in the interrogation room and stuck them in his belt since it was too dark to wear them. “Now I’m ready, let’s go.”
“Come on then, Cruise,” Jason led him through a doorway. Inside was a huge brawl, with one person in the middle, holding her own.
“Heeya!” Emmy cried, kicking one of the five men in the groin who were currently attacking her. The man groaned and fell over.
Jason pulled out his pistol and shot the other four in quick succession. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I could have taken them,” Emmy protested.
“I’m sure you could have, sis,” Ryan said. “But let’s get going.”
“Who is this guy? What’s he doing here?” Emmy asked.
“I’m here for the same reason you are,” Jason replied.
“I don’t even know why we’re here,” Ryan mumbled.
“Because we all want the same thing, the death of the emperor,” Jason informed him.
“So these guys were working for the empire?”
“No, I have no idea whose side these guys are on, they just like to blow things, including themselves, up.”
“And they like to torture people, apparently,” Ryan added.
“Yeah, but that’s beside the point.”
“What is the point?” Emmy asked as they continued to make their way through the dark underground tunnels of the terrorists’ lair.
“To kill the emperor and then disappear as if we never existed.”
“Want to go over that last part again?” Ryan shouted as they ran.
“Do you really think they’ll let us live if we just go in and shoot the emperor; no, we’re gonna have to fake our deaths or something.”
“How do you know we even want to kill the emperor?” Cruise asked.
Jason Scorn stopped and turned around; he looked Ryan straight in the eyes. “Who doesn’t?” he asked.
Ryan nodded. “Good point.”
“Come on, let’s go then, I have a plan,” Jason started running again, and Ryan and Emmy quickened their paces to catch up.
“What’s the plan?” Emmy asked.
“To kill the emperor,” Jason replied matter-of-factly. “Without getting killed in the process.”
“What do you mean ‘Laz has been put in charge of supervising’?” Cathy nearly screamed into the phone.
On the other line, Clarence winced and held the phone away from his ear. “Precisely that madam,” he replied, rubbing his ear.
“How much damage has he done?” Cathy asked in a slightly calmer manner.
“Well, he hasn’t caused as much as we thought, he’s been overruled on almost everything by Christophear.”
“Thank God,” Cathy breathed.
“Hey, I heard that!” came Laz’s voice from the other line. “Where’s Ryan? I want to speak with him.”
“He’s currently unavailable,” Cathy said coldly.
“Since when? He’s always available unless…” Laz trailed off. “You sent him on a mission without me, didn’t you?”
“I did no such thing!” Cathy lied.
“Why would you do that?” Laz cried. “He never succeeds when he goes on a mission without me.”
“Laz, he doesn’t succeed when you go with him either,” Cathy muttered.
“Exactly my… wait, what’d you say?”
Cathy sighed. “Laz, just put Clarence back on will you?”
“Fine, you obviously don’t want to talk to me,” Laz shrugged and handed Clarence the phone.
Just then Chris approached Laz, “Any luck on finding Ryan?” he asked.
“Nope,” Laz shook his head. “I wonder where he is?”
“Where the heck are we anyways?” Ryan asked.
Jason Scorn simply kept walking and didn’t answer.
Ryan shrugged. “I love how talkative this guy is.”
“I dunno, I think he’s kinda cute,” Emmy said, softly enough so Jason couldn’t hear.
“Oh please, that’s just stupid,” Ryan rolled his eyes. “I mean he’s a killing machine.”
“So are you,” Emmy reminded him.
Ryan nodded. “That’s true but I’m not cute.”
Emmy nudged him. “Fine, he’s hot then.”
“That’s better,” Ryan laughed, but suddenly he halted. Ahead of them Jason dug into a crouch as well.
“What is it?” Emmy whispered, following their example.
“Helicopter,” Ryan hissed. “Get into the brush!” They all sprang for the trees and amongst the branches, hoping that the helicopter would pass, but it didn’t appear as if they would have such luck. The helicopter started to slowly descend towards their position, heading for a small clearing a few hundred yards away.
“It’s landing,” Jason said softly.
“Well I’m glad you’re here to tell us that!” Ryan snapped. “What’s next? The emperor is trying to kill us?”
“Hey! Who saved your butt back there at the terrorist’s little hideout, huh?” Jason broke his usual code of silence.
“I could have escaped without your help,” Ryan said defiantly.
“Yeah right, how?”
“I don’t know I didn’t have to! I would have thought of something though.”
“Shhh!” Emmy hushed them. “They just landed.”
A pair of boots stepped out from the helicopter, followed by another. Then the pilot himself stepped out. All three of the figures were fully decked out in combat suits and fully camouflaged. That didn’t keep Ryan from recognizing them, however.
“I know who that is!” Ryan exclaimed. “It’s Tim, and Jordan, and Sarah.”
“Who?” Jason asked.
“Friends of ours, come on,” Ryan waved him to follow and approached the helicopter.
The instant he stepped within sight, all three figures whirled around and trained their weapons on him.
“Relax guys, its me,” Ryan held up his hands and motioned for Jason and Emmy to do the same. Tim, Sarah, and Jordan did not lower their weapons, however.
“Guys, its me, come on,” Ryan chuckled nervously.
Sarah reached for her radio carefully and clicked on the transmission. “We have the fugitives in sight now, sir, awaiting your orders.”
“Oh no,” Ryan shook his head in disbelief.
Jason Scorn scowled at him. “Some friends of yours.”
“These aren’t our friends,” Ryan groaned. “We’ve been tricked.”
to be continued...
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 11
continued from two weeks ago...
As soon as he heard the scream, Tim knew that they’d been tricked. He and Sarah both looked at each other and then whirled around and started tearing pell-mell through the forest, looking for Ryan and Emmy. They kept their weapons in ready position constantly scanning the perimeter for any danger. No one could be seen, however, including Ryan and Emmy.
“They vanished,” Sarah gasped.
“It looks that way,” Tim replied, still searching for any signs of Ryan and Emmy’s whereabouts.
“I should never had left him,” Sarah groaned.
“I hardly see how you left him,” Tim disagreed. “We were on a recon mission, you and I had the eastern side of the camp and they had the west. How does that qualify as ‘leaving him’?”
“Shut up Tim,” Sarah muttered. “Just let me sulk, will you?”
Tim shrugged and sarcastically mumbled something he’d heard Ryan say a thousand times, “women.”
“What do we do now?” Sarah asked in a distressed tone.
“We have to tell Cathy about this,” Tim decided. “But first we need to get out of here.”
“We’re just going to leave him here?”
Tim sighed. “Last time I checked they’d both disappeared, which means we would be leaving ‘them’ behind not ‘him’, and yes, we are; we have not other choice.”
“I said ‘them’,” Sarah protested.
“No you didn’t,” Tim said.
“I did too.”
“Of course, of course, whatever you say.” Then he mumbled to himself again, “women.”
When the black bag was finally pulled from his face, a glaring white light instantly blinded Ryan. “Whoa there, turn the light down a little, will you?” Ryan also noticed that he was strapped into a metal chair in a very uncomfortable position and that the room had no windows.
“You will not find yourself so trivial in a minute, Mr. Cruise,” a heavily accented voice said from behind the light. He sounded Arabic but Cruise couldn’t imagine an Arab getting into the empire, the emperor had set up strict immigration laws that banned all Arabs and Mexicans from even entering the empire.
“So you’re the one that kidnapped us then, huh? Where’s Emmy, is she okay?”
“She is fine, worry about yourself.”
“I’m not too accustomed to that.”
The accented voice laughed. “You will learn quickly then.” He turned on a radio and heavy metal music started blasting from the speakers. “Are you familiar with this method of torture, Mr. Cruise?”
“Yeah that’s Slayer,” Cruise replied, never letting the boyish, cocky grin fall from his face. “Great band, love their music.”
“Aaaaa!” the interrogator slammed the radio and the music stopped. “You stupid infidels!” he yelled to someone outside the room. “I told you to get different tools for torture you stupid fools! Cruise likes loud American music with heavy metal guitars, get something else.”
“How about rap, like 65 Cent or Pee Wee Daddy?” a suggestion came from one of the ‘infidels’ outside.
“That’s some pretty sic stuff, bring it in,” Cruise replied.
“Ack! No you fools, try something else!” the interrogator yelled.
“Michael?”
“Sweet, what albums do you have?”
“Try something else!” the interrogator screamed. “Do you hate any music?” he asked Cruise.
“No, not really,” Ryan shook his head.
“What about punk?”
“Bring it on.”
“Pop?”
“Sure, whatever you got.”
Suddenly, a grin spread across the interrogator’s face. “What about… country?”
Ryan inhaled sharply. “NO! Not that, anything but that!”
“Bring in some country, men,” the triumphant interrogator bellowed. Then he turned to Ryan Cruise, “you will tell me where the Rebel base is, or you will listen to trashy American song about girl who hates cheating boyfriend over and over again.”
“Noooooooo!” Ryan yelled.
15 minutes later…
“Please,” Ryan cried. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, just don’t make me listen to this song again.”
The interrogator smiled and turned of the music. “You see that this form of torture is much more effective than say… beating you within inch of your life.”
“I’d prefer that,” Cruise admitted. Then he added. “What is it that you want?”
“I told you already you stupid agent! I want your Rebel base!”
“Why?”
“So I can blow it up, why else would I want to know?”
“But why would you want to blow it up?”
“Because…” the interrogator paused and scratched his head. “I never really thought about that,” he said more to himself than Ryan.
“How exactly would you blow it up?” Ryan pressed.
“By strapping deadly explosives to my body with adhesive tape and screaming ‘Allah Akbar!’ and then pushing red button and blowing place to smithereens.”
“Wouldn’t that blow you up too?” Ryan seemed confused by the whole thing. “Why would you want to do that?”
The Arab paused. “I never thought about that either.”
“Wouldn’t it be a lot more beneficial to you if you just planted a bomb and blew the place up from the outside?”
“I suppose, but then no one would know I did it.”
“Exactly, and you wouldn’t be dead,” Ryan pointed out.
“I suppose that’s true, but what about my virgins that I’m promised in heaven?”
Ryan grinned and looked at him. “You seriously think that Allah has that many virgins, just waiting for every man who blows himself, and several small children, to pieces? Come on, he’s probably run out by now. I mean, if it was that easy to get twenty-one gorgeous women, everyone would be doing it. Not to mention that that doesn’t seem very honorable to me, blowing up innocent people because of your own religion.”
“That’s not true,” the Arab disagreed. “There will be twenty-one virgins.”
“Maybe, but are you willing to take that chance? Besides, you don’t need to blow yourself up to get a girl. How selfish is that anyways? I thought Islam was a ‘peaceful religion’, if blowing up innocent people is ‘peaceful’ then I’d hate to see a violent religion.”
“Shut up you infidel! You defy Allah!” The interrogator screamed and smacked Cruise on the face, then he turned the music back on and left Ryan to suffer.
Cathy gave a miserable sigh and rested her head in her hands. “Are you sure that they’ve disappeared.
“Without a trace,” Tim replied with a slight nod.
“And why do I get the impression that that doesn’t bother you?” Sarah struck out, showing her frustration.
“Because I know how to keep my emotions in check, as should you,” Tim answered.
Sarah ignored him and turned towards Cathy. “We need to launch a rescue mission, immediately. They’re still out there somewhere.”
Cathy heaved another long sigh. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
Sarah could hardly believe her ears. “Why not?”
“Because,” Cathy paused, searching for the right words. “In technical terms, the mission was a success, we’ve identified the camp as nothing more than a decoy. Ryan and Emmy’s loss was definitely a huge setback… but there’s nothing we can do.”
“Sure there is, we can rescue them,” Sarah pleaded.
Cathy shook her head. “We can’t afford to use our troops for anything other than this attack. We strike tomorrow morning, as soon as the sun hits the sky. We need every man and woman we can get, Sarah.”
“Then we need Ryan Cruise, you know that,” Sarah pressed, not giving up.
“It would take too many of our forces to rescue him or Emmy, and I’m not sure whether he would give us the advantage we want.”
“So that’s it,” Sarah replied, disgusted. “You’re thinking tactically, is that it?”
“One has to,” Tim interjected. “But I would like to point out that your words are somewhat cold, Cathy.”
Cathy glared at him. “And I’d like to remind you that he’s partially responsible for the death of one of my dear friends.”
“And for saving your life a hundred times over,” Tim shot back.
“Ryan Cruise never sacrificed himself for anything other than his own personal gain and glory. Obviously he’s seen that we’re in an impossible situation and persuaded his sister to run into hiding with him, or perhaps even betray us.”
Sarah’s mouth fell open and she started to object, but she was cut off by a very pissed off Tim.
“Now just a minute, Cathy. Ryan has sacrificed himself a thousand times for nothing other than what he thought was right. I admit that his ways are somewhat… different, but he would never betray us, he’s our friend!”
“Dismissed,” Cathy said.
“If you don’t rescue him and Emmy, then we will,” Sarah said, arms folded.
“That would be disobeying a direct order,” Cathy informed them, daring them to do so.
“Watch us do it,” Tim said, answering the challenge.
Then they walked out the door together, disgusted at Cathy, at the empire, and themselves.
Cathy just shook her head as she watched them leave. “They don’t understand, I’m only trying to do what’s right for the Rebellion.” Then she picked up the phone on her desk. “Clarence? Yes, it’s Cathy. Yeah, listen; I want you to move the attack up. Yes, make it tonight. Yes Clarence, I’m sure, it’s now or never.” She hung up the phone and repeated her words. “Now or never.”
Ryan had been listening to the worst country song in the history of bad country songs for over an hour now, and his ears were screaming, or they would have if they’d had mouths.
The terrorist entered the room again, once again repeating his demand. “Where is the Rebel base?”
“Whom are you working for?” Ryan whispered. “The Empire?”
“Do not insult me,” the terrorist scoffed. “I wish to destroy both the Rebels and the Empire.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to destroy the Empire first, since they’re stronger?” Ryan offered. “Two smaller adversaries could much more easily take down a bigger one. Then when we’ve won we can turn on each other.”
“You suggest this?”
“Sure, it’s been done a thousand times, just look at the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.”
“You make good point, Cruise,” the terrorist stroked his beard. “But I still want to kill you.”
“That comes later,” Ryan tried, but to no avail.
“No, it comes now.” The Arab drew a knife from his belt and stepped towards Cruise. Ryan flinched and prepared for the blow. He had a feeling that he couldn’t survive a point blank knife stab into his heart, which was no doubt what the Arab intended to do.
The terrorist raised his arm and then paused. “The heart is in left ventricle, no?”
“No, it’s in the right,” Ryan lied.
“You lie.”
“Yep, you’re right.”
The terrorist paused, confused. “Wait, do you lie then, or lie now?”
“That… is a very good question.”
Just as the terrorist was about to say, ‘screw American games’ and stab Ryan in his heart, a knife blade sliced through his own heart, sticking out his chest and revealing it’s tip to Ryan.
“It’s on the left,” a man’s voice said from behind him. The terrorist groaned and dropped to the ground, dead.
The man turned off the light and removed Ryan from his torture chair.
“Who are you?” Ryan asked.
The man looked at him with a serious face. “Jason Scorn,” he replied.
to be continued...
As soon as he heard the scream, Tim knew that they’d been tricked. He and Sarah both looked at each other and then whirled around and started tearing pell-mell through the forest, looking for Ryan and Emmy. They kept their weapons in ready position constantly scanning the perimeter for any danger. No one could be seen, however, including Ryan and Emmy.
“They vanished,” Sarah gasped.
“It looks that way,” Tim replied, still searching for any signs of Ryan and Emmy’s whereabouts.
“I should never had left him,” Sarah groaned.
“I hardly see how you left him,” Tim disagreed. “We were on a recon mission, you and I had the eastern side of the camp and they had the west. How does that qualify as ‘leaving him’?”
“Shut up Tim,” Sarah muttered. “Just let me sulk, will you?”
Tim shrugged and sarcastically mumbled something he’d heard Ryan say a thousand times, “women.”
“What do we do now?” Sarah asked in a distressed tone.
“We have to tell Cathy about this,” Tim decided. “But first we need to get out of here.”
“We’re just going to leave him here?”
Tim sighed. “Last time I checked they’d both disappeared, which means we would be leaving ‘them’ behind not ‘him’, and yes, we are; we have not other choice.”
“I said ‘them’,” Sarah protested.
“No you didn’t,” Tim said.
“I did too.”
“Of course, of course, whatever you say.” Then he mumbled to himself again, “women.”
When the black bag was finally pulled from his face, a glaring white light instantly blinded Ryan. “Whoa there, turn the light down a little, will you?” Ryan also noticed that he was strapped into a metal chair in a very uncomfortable position and that the room had no windows.
“You will not find yourself so trivial in a minute, Mr. Cruise,” a heavily accented voice said from behind the light. He sounded Arabic but Cruise couldn’t imagine an Arab getting into the empire, the emperor had set up strict immigration laws that banned all Arabs and Mexicans from even entering the empire.
“So you’re the one that kidnapped us then, huh? Where’s Emmy, is she okay?”
“She is fine, worry about yourself.”
“I’m not too accustomed to that.”
The accented voice laughed. “You will learn quickly then.” He turned on a radio and heavy metal music started blasting from the speakers. “Are you familiar with this method of torture, Mr. Cruise?”
“Yeah that’s Slayer,” Cruise replied, never letting the boyish, cocky grin fall from his face. “Great band, love their music.”
“Aaaaa!” the interrogator slammed the radio and the music stopped. “You stupid infidels!” he yelled to someone outside the room. “I told you to get different tools for torture you stupid fools! Cruise likes loud American music with heavy metal guitars, get something else.”
“How about rap, like 65 Cent or Pee Wee Daddy?” a suggestion came from one of the ‘infidels’ outside.
“That’s some pretty sic stuff, bring it in,” Cruise replied.
“Ack! No you fools, try something else!” the interrogator yelled.
“Michael?”
“Sweet, what albums do you have?”
“Try something else!” the interrogator screamed. “Do you hate any music?” he asked Cruise.
“No, not really,” Ryan shook his head.
“What about punk?”
“Bring it on.”
“Pop?”
“Sure, whatever you got.”
Suddenly, a grin spread across the interrogator’s face. “What about… country?”
Ryan inhaled sharply. “NO! Not that, anything but that!”
“Bring in some country, men,” the triumphant interrogator bellowed. Then he turned to Ryan Cruise, “you will tell me where the Rebel base is, or you will listen to trashy American song about girl who hates cheating boyfriend over and over again.”
“Noooooooo!” Ryan yelled.
15 minutes later…
“Please,” Ryan cried. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, just don’t make me listen to this song again.”
The interrogator smiled and turned of the music. “You see that this form of torture is much more effective than say… beating you within inch of your life.”
“I’d prefer that,” Cruise admitted. Then he added. “What is it that you want?”
“I told you already you stupid agent! I want your Rebel base!”
“Why?”
“So I can blow it up, why else would I want to know?”
“But why would you want to blow it up?”
“Because…” the interrogator paused and scratched his head. “I never really thought about that,” he said more to himself than Ryan.
“How exactly would you blow it up?” Ryan pressed.
“By strapping deadly explosives to my body with adhesive tape and screaming ‘Allah Akbar!’ and then pushing red button and blowing place to smithereens.”
“Wouldn’t that blow you up too?” Ryan seemed confused by the whole thing. “Why would you want to do that?”
The Arab paused. “I never thought about that either.”
“Wouldn’t it be a lot more beneficial to you if you just planted a bomb and blew the place up from the outside?”
“I suppose, but then no one would know I did it.”
“Exactly, and you wouldn’t be dead,” Ryan pointed out.
“I suppose that’s true, but what about my virgins that I’m promised in heaven?”
Ryan grinned and looked at him. “You seriously think that Allah has that many virgins, just waiting for every man who blows himself, and several small children, to pieces? Come on, he’s probably run out by now. I mean, if it was that easy to get twenty-one gorgeous women, everyone would be doing it. Not to mention that that doesn’t seem very honorable to me, blowing up innocent people because of your own religion.”
“That’s not true,” the Arab disagreed. “There will be twenty-one virgins.”
“Maybe, but are you willing to take that chance? Besides, you don’t need to blow yourself up to get a girl. How selfish is that anyways? I thought Islam was a ‘peaceful religion’, if blowing up innocent people is ‘peaceful’ then I’d hate to see a violent religion.”
“Shut up you infidel! You defy Allah!” The interrogator screamed and smacked Cruise on the face, then he turned the music back on and left Ryan to suffer.
Cathy gave a miserable sigh and rested her head in her hands. “Are you sure that they’ve disappeared.
“Without a trace,” Tim replied with a slight nod.
“And why do I get the impression that that doesn’t bother you?” Sarah struck out, showing her frustration.
“Because I know how to keep my emotions in check, as should you,” Tim answered.
Sarah ignored him and turned towards Cathy. “We need to launch a rescue mission, immediately. They’re still out there somewhere.”
Cathy heaved another long sigh. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
Sarah could hardly believe her ears. “Why not?”
“Because,” Cathy paused, searching for the right words. “In technical terms, the mission was a success, we’ve identified the camp as nothing more than a decoy. Ryan and Emmy’s loss was definitely a huge setback… but there’s nothing we can do.”
“Sure there is, we can rescue them,” Sarah pleaded.
Cathy shook her head. “We can’t afford to use our troops for anything other than this attack. We strike tomorrow morning, as soon as the sun hits the sky. We need every man and woman we can get, Sarah.”
“Then we need Ryan Cruise, you know that,” Sarah pressed, not giving up.
“It would take too many of our forces to rescue him or Emmy, and I’m not sure whether he would give us the advantage we want.”
“So that’s it,” Sarah replied, disgusted. “You’re thinking tactically, is that it?”
“One has to,” Tim interjected. “But I would like to point out that your words are somewhat cold, Cathy.”
Cathy glared at him. “And I’d like to remind you that he’s partially responsible for the death of one of my dear friends.”
“And for saving your life a hundred times over,” Tim shot back.
“Ryan Cruise never sacrificed himself for anything other than his own personal gain and glory. Obviously he’s seen that we’re in an impossible situation and persuaded his sister to run into hiding with him, or perhaps even betray us.”
Sarah’s mouth fell open and she started to object, but she was cut off by a very pissed off Tim.
“Now just a minute, Cathy. Ryan has sacrificed himself a thousand times for nothing other than what he thought was right. I admit that his ways are somewhat… different, but he would never betray us, he’s our friend!”
“Dismissed,” Cathy said.
“If you don’t rescue him and Emmy, then we will,” Sarah said, arms folded.
“That would be disobeying a direct order,” Cathy informed them, daring them to do so.
“Watch us do it,” Tim said, answering the challenge.
Then they walked out the door together, disgusted at Cathy, at the empire, and themselves.
Cathy just shook her head as she watched them leave. “They don’t understand, I’m only trying to do what’s right for the Rebellion.” Then she picked up the phone on her desk. “Clarence? Yes, it’s Cathy. Yeah, listen; I want you to move the attack up. Yes, make it tonight. Yes Clarence, I’m sure, it’s now or never.” She hung up the phone and repeated her words. “Now or never.”
Ryan had been listening to the worst country song in the history of bad country songs for over an hour now, and his ears were screaming, or they would have if they’d had mouths.
The terrorist entered the room again, once again repeating his demand. “Where is the Rebel base?”
“Whom are you working for?” Ryan whispered. “The Empire?”
“Do not insult me,” the terrorist scoffed. “I wish to destroy both the Rebels and the Empire.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to destroy the Empire first, since they’re stronger?” Ryan offered. “Two smaller adversaries could much more easily take down a bigger one. Then when we’ve won we can turn on each other.”
“You suggest this?”
“Sure, it’s been done a thousand times, just look at the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.”
“You make good point, Cruise,” the terrorist stroked his beard. “But I still want to kill you.”
“That comes later,” Ryan tried, but to no avail.
“No, it comes now.” The Arab drew a knife from his belt and stepped towards Cruise. Ryan flinched and prepared for the blow. He had a feeling that he couldn’t survive a point blank knife stab into his heart, which was no doubt what the Arab intended to do.
The terrorist raised his arm and then paused. “The heart is in left ventricle, no?”
“No, it’s in the right,” Ryan lied.
“You lie.”
“Yep, you’re right.”
The terrorist paused, confused. “Wait, do you lie then, or lie now?”
“That… is a very good question.”
Just as the terrorist was about to say, ‘screw American games’ and stab Ryan in his heart, a knife blade sliced through his own heart, sticking out his chest and revealing it’s tip to Ryan.
“It’s on the left,” a man’s voice said from behind him. The terrorist groaned and dropped to the ground, dead.
The man turned off the light and removed Ryan from his torture chair.
“Who are you?” Ryan asked.
The man looked at him with a serious face. “Jason Scorn,” he replied.
to be continued...
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 10
continued from last week...
Ryan chuckled nervously. “You’re not Sarah, are you?”
“You just figured that out? You’re dumber than I thought, Cruise.”
“Well, before you kill me, do you mind telling me who you are?”
“I was sent by Chuck Morris.”
“Of course, the classic ‘lure him with a girl’ approach, did the emperor cook this one up?”
“Who cares?” the spy who was impersonating Sarah said, her finger tightening on the trigger. She started to pull back on the trigger but there was suddenly a loud crash and the spy’s eyes rolled up into her eyelids and she fell to the ground. Standing behind her was a familiar girl, holding a now broken vase.
“Sarah!” Ryan said. “Where’d you get the vase?”
“Next time you impersonate someone,” Sarah said to the unconscious body. “You should check and see if they’re still around first.”
“I don’t think she can hear you,” Ryan muttered as he bent down and handcuffed the unconscious spy.
Sarah put her hands on her hips. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Ryan asked.
“Do I get a thanks, or not?”
“Yeah, thanks for saving my life,” Ryan thanked her unenthusiastically. Then he added, “come on, we got a lot of work to do.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and followed him.
Ryan quickly informed the first two guards that he saw of the unconscious prisoner who needed to be locked up. The guards quickly picked up the spy, and carried her to her prison cell.
Still upset that yet another spy could have gotten inside the rebel base, Sarah had quite a talking-to with Clarence. “As the head of security, you’ve got to make sure that no more imperial spies can get through those gates,” she said, pointing at the front gates for affect. “We need to be running full DNA and fingerprint scans, not to mention checking for masks.”
“Of course ma’am,” Clarence agreed, not wanting to argue with an already angry woman. “We’ll make sure those changes are made as quickly as possible.”
“We should probably report this to Cathy,” Ryan said.
Sarah nodded. “Definitely, have you finished gathering together the troops and transporting supplies?”
“No,” Ryan admitted. “But they know what to do, I already laid out all the orders, they just need a supervisor.”
“Let Laz do it,” Sarah suggested.
“You’re kidding, right?” Ryan nearly laughed.
“No I’m not, we’ve got more important things to discuss right now, come on,” she jogged towards the HQ with Ryan jogging right beside her.
“What exactly are we discussing?”
“You mean besides the fact that somebody tried to impersonate a high-ranking former IMF agent and kill you?”
“Well yeah, that’s not worth having a whole meeting over, it happens all the time.” Sarah hit the button for the elevator and they waited for the doors to open
“Not all the time,” Sarah disagreed, holding the elevator door open for Ryan.
“Look, you’re new to this team, trust me, it happens all the time.”
Sarah would not budge, however, and insisted on reporting directly to Cathy. When they reached her office, Sarah burst through the door. “Someone tried to kill Ryan,” she blurted breathlessly.
Cathy looked up from the papers that she was reading and adjusted her glasses so that she could look and see who had just flown into her office without so much as knocking. “So?” she replied.
“’So’? What do you mean, ‘so’?”
“So? It happens all the time, when is someone not trying to kill Ryan?”
“I told you,” Ryan said, coming up from behind Sarah. “Let’s just go back to gathering the troops together.”
It wasn’t until then that Sarah noticed that they were not alone. “Tim, Emmy? What are you guys doing up here?”
Tim and Emmy were both sitting down in chairs opposite Cathy, as if they had been receiving orders from Cathy before being rudely interrupted.
“I was actually just about to call you two,” Cathy explained. “I have a recon mission for you.”
“A recon mission, I thought we were preparing for a preemptive strike,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
Cathy ignored his comment and continued. “I want to know exactly what the emperor has in store for us. We are planning to launch a preemptive strike against the largest military in the world, I want to know what we’re in for.”
“I’d say we’re probably in for, death, destruction, and more death,” Tim replied.
“Did you mention death?” Ryan asked sarcastically.
“Oh guys, don’t be so pessimistic,” Emmy said.
“I’m afraid they might be right,” Cathy solemnly told them. “That’s why I want to know exactly what we’re up against, so I can decide if a preemptive strike is really the best idea. Word has it that the emperor has moved his troops from the palace, to a location in the forest, closer to the rebellion.”
“So you want us to sneak into their camp and take inventory, is that it?” Ryan asked, getting to the point.
“Not exactly in those terms, no.”
“Well, that’s pretty much what it comes down to, isn’t it?”
“That’s impossible,” Tim declared. “Like you said, they’re the strongest military in the world.”
“But not all of the military is in one place,” Emmy pointed out.
“That doesn’t matter, they’re still stronger,” Tim shot back.
“Guys, guys,” Cathy interjected. “What I want to know is can you do it?”
Ryan grinned and spoke up for the group. “When do we start?”
Ryan carefully and silently made his way through the forest, keeping his silenced MP5 in a ready position. His face and arms were painted in combat green and black, and he was fully decked out in a combat suit. Beside him, Emmy crept along as well, wearing the same apparel. Tim and Sarah were in another part of the forest, working their way towards where they believed the camp might be as well.
Ryan clicked the button on the radio. “I’m not seeing anything,” he whispered.
“Okay, don’t worry, we’ll find them,” Sarah replied through radio. “Just don’t spaz out.”
“Excuse me?” Ryan frowned as he replied. “I don’t spaz out.”
“Whatever,” Sarah whispered back.
“That woman,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
“Just forget it,” Emmy hissed. “We’re on a mission, remember?”
“Yeah, next time I’ll talk to Tim,” Ryan agreed.
“You guys would make a great couple though,” Emmy speculated.
“Shut up, we fight all the time, remember?”
“Exactly,” Emmy said. Then she crouched down and motioned for silence. With her hands she pointed ahead. Ryan followed her fingers and saw what she was pointing at. It was a camp, there were guards posted around the perimeter, but not nearly enough for it to be an imperial camp.
“Isn’t it too small?” Ryan mouthed to Emmy.
Emmy just shrugged. She and Ryan crawled as close as they could to the camp without being seen. Ryan peered at the arrangements through his binoculars. There was no doubt that this camp was way too small to be the imperial base. It wasn’t even big enough to hold a small army. “It’s a decoy,” he muttered.
“No it’s not,” Emmy breathed. “It’s a trap.”
Suddenly, Ryan felt an explosion in the back of his head and he crumpled to the ground. The last thing he heard was a man laughing and Emmy screaming, then everything went black.
To be continued...
Ryan chuckled nervously. “You’re not Sarah, are you?”
“You just figured that out? You’re dumber than I thought, Cruise.”
“Well, before you kill me, do you mind telling me who you are?”
“I was sent by Chuck Morris.”
“Of course, the classic ‘lure him with a girl’ approach, did the emperor cook this one up?”
“Who cares?” the spy who was impersonating Sarah said, her finger tightening on the trigger. She started to pull back on the trigger but there was suddenly a loud crash and the spy’s eyes rolled up into her eyelids and she fell to the ground. Standing behind her was a familiar girl, holding a now broken vase.
“Sarah!” Ryan said. “Where’d you get the vase?”
“Next time you impersonate someone,” Sarah said to the unconscious body. “You should check and see if they’re still around first.”
“I don’t think she can hear you,” Ryan muttered as he bent down and handcuffed the unconscious spy.
Sarah put her hands on her hips. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Ryan asked.
“Do I get a thanks, or not?”
“Yeah, thanks for saving my life,” Ryan thanked her unenthusiastically. Then he added, “come on, we got a lot of work to do.”
Sarah rolled her eyes and followed him.
Ryan quickly informed the first two guards that he saw of the unconscious prisoner who needed to be locked up. The guards quickly picked up the spy, and carried her to her prison cell.
Still upset that yet another spy could have gotten inside the rebel base, Sarah had quite a talking-to with Clarence. “As the head of security, you’ve got to make sure that no more imperial spies can get through those gates,” she said, pointing at the front gates for affect. “We need to be running full DNA and fingerprint scans, not to mention checking for masks.”
“Of course ma’am,” Clarence agreed, not wanting to argue with an already angry woman. “We’ll make sure those changes are made as quickly as possible.”
“We should probably report this to Cathy,” Ryan said.
Sarah nodded. “Definitely, have you finished gathering together the troops and transporting supplies?”
“No,” Ryan admitted. “But they know what to do, I already laid out all the orders, they just need a supervisor.”
“Let Laz do it,” Sarah suggested.
“You’re kidding, right?” Ryan nearly laughed.
“No I’m not, we’ve got more important things to discuss right now, come on,” she jogged towards the HQ with Ryan jogging right beside her.
“What exactly are we discussing?”
“You mean besides the fact that somebody tried to impersonate a high-ranking former IMF agent and kill you?”
“Well yeah, that’s not worth having a whole meeting over, it happens all the time.” Sarah hit the button for the elevator and they waited for the doors to open
“Not all the time,” Sarah disagreed, holding the elevator door open for Ryan.
“Look, you’re new to this team, trust me, it happens all the time.”
Sarah would not budge, however, and insisted on reporting directly to Cathy. When they reached her office, Sarah burst through the door. “Someone tried to kill Ryan,” she blurted breathlessly.
Cathy looked up from the papers that she was reading and adjusted her glasses so that she could look and see who had just flown into her office without so much as knocking. “So?” she replied.
“’So’? What do you mean, ‘so’?”
“So? It happens all the time, when is someone not trying to kill Ryan?”
“I told you,” Ryan said, coming up from behind Sarah. “Let’s just go back to gathering the troops together.”
It wasn’t until then that Sarah noticed that they were not alone. “Tim, Emmy? What are you guys doing up here?”
Tim and Emmy were both sitting down in chairs opposite Cathy, as if they had been receiving orders from Cathy before being rudely interrupted.
“I was actually just about to call you two,” Cathy explained. “I have a recon mission for you.”
“A recon mission, I thought we were preparing for a preemptive strike,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
Cathy ignored his comment and continued. “I want to know exactly what the emperor has in store for us. We are planning to launch a preemptive strike against the largest military in the world, I want to know what we’re in for.”
“I’d say we’re probably in for, death, destruction, and more death,” Tim replied.
“Did you mention death?” Ryan asked sarcastically.
“Oh guys, don’t be so pessimistic,” Emmy said.
“I’m afraid they might be right,” Cathy solemnly told them. “That’s why I want to know exactly what we’re up against, so I can decide if a preemptive strike is really the best idea. Word has it that the emperor has moved his troops from the palace, to a location in the forest, closer to the rebellion.”
“So you want us to sneak into their camp and take inventory, is that it?” Ryan asked, getting to the point.
“Not exactly in those terms, no.”
“Well, that’s pretty much what it comes down to, isn’t it?”
“That’s impossible,” Tim declared. “Like you said, they’re the strongest military in the world.”
“But not all of the military is in one place,” Emmy pointed out.
“That doesn’t matter, they’re still stronger,” Tim shot back.
“Guys, guys,” Cathy interjected. “What I want to know is can you do it?”
Ryan grinned and spoke up for the group. “When do we start?”
Ryan carefully and silently made his way through the forest, keeping his silenced MP5 in a ready position. His face and arms were painted in combat green and black, and he was fully decked out in a combat suit. Beside him, Emmy crept along as well, wearing the same apparel. Tim and Sarah were in another part of the forest, working their way towards where they believed the camp might be as well.
Ryan clicked the button on the radio. “I’m not seeing anything,” he whispered.
“Okay, don’t worry, we’ll find them,” Sarah replied through radio. “Just don’t spaz out.”
“Excuse me?” Ryan frowned as he replied. “I don’t spaz out.”
“Whatever,” Sarah whispered back.
“That woman,” Ryan mumbled to himself.
“Just forget it,” Emmy hissed. “We’re on a mission, remember?”
“Yeah, next time I’ll talk to Tim,” Ryan agreed.
“You guys would make a great couple though,” Emmy speculated.
“Shut up, we fight all the time, remember?”
“Exactly,” Emmy said. Then she crouched down and motioned for silence. With her hands she pointed ahead. Ryan followed her fingers and saw what she was pointing at. It was a camp, there were guards posted around the perimeter, but not nearly enough for it to be an imperial camp.
“Isn’t it too small?” Ryan mouthed to Emmy.
Emmy just shrugged. She and Ryan crawled as close as they could to the camp without being seen. Ryan peered at the arrangements through his binoculars. There was no doubt that this camp was way too small to be the imperial base. It wasn’t even big enough to hold a small army. “It’s a decoy,” he muttered.
“No it’s not,” Emmy breathed. “It’s a trap.”
Suddenly, Ryan felt an explosion in the back of his head and he crumpled to the ground. The last thing he heard was a man laughing and Emmy screaming, then everything went black.
To be continued...
Tuesday, 22 April 2008
Mission 5: Payback part 9
Continued from last week...
“You let them what?” the emperor screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
Chuck might have flinched; it was hard to tell with the huge bandage over his face. He mumbled something in response, but his words were so muffled that the emperor couldn’t understand.
“What?” the emperor asked, making face. “I can’t understand a word you just said behind that stupid bandage.
Chuck roared and ripped the bandage from his face. His skin was puffy and bright red; burns covered the right side and his left side looked slightly scorched.
The emperor gave a look of horror and turned away. “What in the world happened to your face?”
“Ryan Cruise happened,” Chuck growled, giving a menacing look that was amplified by his highly disfigured face.
“Well, what do expect? Marching your troops into hell like that wasn’t the smartest thing in the world. Did you really think he would just sit there and watch you kill him? He’s a trained IMF agent, remember that.”
“Well maybe you trained him too well,” Chuck mumbled.
“Excuse me, are we questioning my judgment?” the emperor’s hand hovered over the same button that had sent Michael down a trap door earlier.
Chuck stared at him. “Of course not, emperor.”
“Good,” the emperor put his hands back down on the desk. “Now look, if you’re having so much trouble with Cruise,” he paused, enjoying the increasing redness in Chuck’s face. “If you’re having so much trouble with Cruise then you should just… readjust your approach to capturing him.”
“How?” Chuck asked.
“You really are all brawn aren’t you?” the emperor said, rolling his eyes. “Use some bait, to lure him in.”
Chuck nodded. “What kind of bait?”
The emperor gave an annoyed laugh. “Are you really that stupid, Chuck? Lure him with a girl, Chuck, lure him with a girl. Every last agent has fallen for that trick, even his father,” the emperor cackled. “His father fell for it to the very end.”
When Jordan landed his helicopter on the Rebel airstrip, there was quite a commotion. The first one to meet them as they landed was Derek.
“Cruise, Laz, its good to see you again guys!” he exclaimed hugging them and slapping them high fives. “And who’s this?” he asked, pointing to Tim.
“This is--” Ryan started to say, but he was interrupted by a chorus of screams coming from a crowd of girls rushing towards them.
“Tim! Ryan! Laz!” they screamed. It was Cathy, Kayla, Emmy, and Katie, of course, all rushing towards them.
“I can’t believe you’re still alive!” Kayla said. “I haven’t seen you guys in forever! Where’ve you been?”
“To hell and back, Kayla, but I’m definitely glad to be back,” Tim replied.
“Well, enough of the chit chat,” Ryan said, breaking into the excited chatter as the girls giggled and wondered at their reappearance.
Just then, crushing arms wrapped around Tim, Ryan, and Laz and squeezed them together until their lungs were nearly suffocated. It was Chris, of course. “Ryan, Tim, Laz! Buddies, how you doing? Its good to see you again!”
“Its good to see you to,” Ryan gasped.
“Yeah, how about letting go now, so we don’t die from lack of air?” Laz wheezed. Chris let go and they fell in a heap. Ryan instantly popped to his feet, pretending that never happened.
Emmy hugged Ryan. “I’m glad your back, big brother,” she grinned at him.
“Yeah, so am I,” Ryan said. He glanced around. “Where’s Sarah?” he asked.
“Right here,” someone tapped him on the shoulder. Ryan turned around, and there was Sarah standing behind him.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Sarah smiled.
Ryan just blinked. “Wait, that’s it, I’ve been gone all this time and all I get is ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do’?”
“Well we do,” Sarah defended herself.
“I was expecting something a little more… I don’t know… exciting?”
“What do you want me to do, Ryan?” Sarah frowned. “Run up and hug you and give you a big kiss?”
Ryan shrugged. “Well, that would definitely be better…”
Sarah smacked him on the head and stormed off.
“Hey, I was just kidding!” Ryan said, jogging after her.
Sarah spun around to face him. “You’re always kidding, it’s irritating!”
“My foster parents used to say that.”
“There you go again,” Sarah said, throwing up her hands.
“You’re just saying that because you’re trying to find something wrong with me,” Ryan shot back.
“Well, that’s not to hard, and why would I want to do that anyways?”
“Because you like me, admit it,” Ryan grinned.
“Me? Like You?” Sarah laughed spitefully. “You’ve got to be joking.”
This didn’t faze Ryan however, “Deep down inside, you know you’re captivated by me,” he insisted.
“You really need to bring that ego of yours down a notch, Cruise,” Sarah said shortly, and then she walked away.
Ryan shook his head. “Women,” he muttered.
“What about them?” Katie spoke up from behind him.
“Nothing,” Ryan waved her off.
“Having some personal problems with your friend there?” Katie asked, smugly.
“No, thank you very much.”
“You really think she likes you?” Katie pressed, not willing to back down.
Ryan sighed. “I’m not sure if I like her. Sometimes I just want to strangle her, and other times I want to ask her to marry me,” he paused. “Well, maybe not marry me.”
“Girls are pretty hard for guys to figure out, I’ll give you that one,” Katie admitted. “Tell you what, do you want me to try and find out how she feels about you?”
Ryan grinned. “That would be awesome, thanks. By the way, I’m really sorry about your car, we’ll scrape some money together to buy you a new one when this is all over.”
“Wait,” Katie frowned. “What about my car?”
“Oh,” Ryan tried to stop the mischievous smile from spreading across his face. “Tim didn’t tell you?”
“Ryan Cruise, what happened to my car?” Katie shouted.
“Never mind, I didn’t say anything,” Ryan started to walk away.
“Did you wreck it?”
Ryan thought for a minute. “I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.”
“What way would you put it?”
“Well, how about this? Your car’s a lot hotter now, literally.”
“You blew it up, didn’t you?”
“Not quite in those terms, but yeah, pretty much.”
“I can’t believe this!” Katie pulled her hair. “My car!”
“I can,” said Kayla, who had just walked in on their conversation. “Leave it to Ryan to bring about plenty of explosive results.” She waved for Ryan to follow her, “Cathy wants to speak to you Ryan.”
Ryan glanced back at a seething Katie. “Don’t worry I’m coming,” he said.
“TIM!!!” Katie screamed. “You’re gonna pay for this!”
Tim was talking to Emmy and Laz when he heard his sister’s scream. “Oh crap,” he groaned. “Ryan told her about the car.” Then he took off sprinting in the opposite direction, with Laz close on his heels.
Later, Ryan and the rest of his team were gathered in Cathy’s office. “…Pat claims that an imperial strike is imminent,” Cathy was saying. “The question is, whether or not to believe him.”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” Jordan spoke up. “I don’t think we can afford not to. When I was flying towards Imperial Bridge I saw quite an army being amassed near the Imperial Palace. I’m not sure what they were gathering for, but I can only guess.”
Cruise nodded. “Jordan’s right, we have to assume that the emperor’s going to strike, and possibly even consider a preemptive strike.”
Everyone in the room appeared stunned by this suggestion.
“What are you saying, Cruise?” Cathy asked.
“What I just said,” Ryan replied, casually slipping on his shades. “We strike before the empire can strike us,” he leaned back in his chair and grinned.
“Are you crazy?” Kayla blurted.
Ryan just lowered his sunglasses and raised his eyebrows.
“We’ve already established that,” Chris said, rolling his eyes.
“I think he’s right, though,” Tim spoke up.
“You do?” everyone in the room spoke at once, even Ryan.
“Yeah, a preemptive strike would have tactical surprise. Thus, catching the empire completely off-guard, perhaps enough to give us a steady victory.”
“Perhaps?” Emmy questioned. “Frankly, it doesn’t seem like anyone has any answers.”
“I’ll bet my life it will work,” Ryan challenged.
“In the end, that may be what it comes down to,” Cathy pointed out.
“Besides, you’ve bet your life before and lost,” Laz said.
“Not my life,” Ryan shot back.
“Yeah, but you lost the bet,” Laz retorted.
“All right, all right, you all have valid points,” Cathy raised her hands in order to stop an argument from forming. “Sarah, you’ve been quiet, what do you have to say?”
Sarah sighed. “I agree with Ryan,” she said.
Once again, this was received with a shocked expression from everyone in the room.
“You do know that April Fool’s was a few weeks ago, right?” Laz asked.
“Yes, Laz, I know,” Sarah said with an irritated edge in her voice, as if she were upset with herself for agreeing with Ryan. “I just think it’s actually a good, strategically surprising idea. Let’s do it.”
Just then, there was a loud beep from Cathy’s desk. Cathy hit a button and Clarence’s voice came through the intercom. “Cathy, milady? You’re going to want to see this message I’m dispatching to you.”
“Can it wait, Clarence?”
“Trust me, milady, it pertains to your meeting.”
Just then, a large screen TV lowered from the ceiling. Ryan whistled. “That’s nice,” he commented.
“The emperor’s was better, though,” Laz said.
“True, true,” Ryan nodded in agreement.
All of the sudden, the emperor himself popped onto the screen. “Greetings, you despicable rebels,” he began. “I’m sure by now that you’ve gotten wind of an imminent invasion on your pitiful rebel base. As your emperor, and since I’m such a forgiving leader, I’m giving you exactly ten minutes to get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness. Otherwise, I will be forced to wipe your poor excuse for a rebellion from the face of this earth,” the emperor paused. “Is that it? How do you turn this thing off?” then the screen went blank.
After a long silence, Cathy finally spoke up. “That does it, Cruise, gather together the troops and prepare for a preemptive strike.”
Cruise grinned. “Right away, ma’am.”
Later that evening, as Ryan was gathering together the rebel forces and giving commands, Sarah came up to him.
“Ryan,” she said in a soft, smooth voice. “How are you?”
Ryan looked surprised at her friendly tone. “Fine, and you?”
Sarah smiled. “I’m doing fine, even better now. I want to ask you something.”
“What?” Ryan asked.
“Well, let’s go somewhere private, where we can talk alone,” Sarah whispered.
Ryan grinned. “I knew you’d warm up to me.” He followed Sarah to a deserted sector of the rebel base. “What is it you wanted to ask?”
Sarah pushed him into a corner of a building. “Something important,” she said. Then she shoved him against the wall.
“What the heck is your problem, Sarah?” Ryan asked, suddenly realizing that Sarah was not acting at all like her normal self.
“You are my problem,” Sarah hissed, pressing up against him and drawing a Glock from her side and pointing it to his head. “But I’ll be sure to end that problem real quick.”
To be continued...
“You let them what?” the emperor screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
Chuck might have flinched; it was hard to tell with the huge bandage over his face. He mumbled something in response, but his words were so muffled that the emperor couldn’t understand.
“What?” the emperor asked, making face. “I can’t understand a word you just said behind that stupid bandage.
Chuck roared and ripped the bandage from his face. His skin was puffy and bright red; burns covered the right side and his left side looked slightly scorched.
The emperor gave a look of horror and turned away. “What in the world happened to your face?”
“Ryan Cruise happened,” Chuck growled, giving a menacing look that was amplified by his highly disfigured face.
“Well, what do expect? Marching your troops into hell like that wasn’t the smartest thing in the world. Did you really think he would just sit there and watch you kill him? He’s a trained IMF agent, remember that.”
“Well maybe you trained him too well,” Chuck mumbled.
“Excuse me, are we questioning my judgment?” the emperor’s hand hovered over the same button that had sent Michael down a trap door earlier.
Chuck stared at him. “Of course not, emperor.”
“Good,” the emperor put his hands back down on the desk. “Now look, if you’re having so much trouble with Cruise,” he paused, enjoying the increasing redness in Chuck’s face. “If you’re having so much trouble with Cruise then you should just… readjust your approach to capturing him.”
“How?” Chuck asked.
“You really are all brawn aren’t you?” the emperor said, rolling his eyes. “Use some bait, to lure him in.”
Chuck nodded. “What kind of bait?”
The emperor gave an annoyed laugh. “Are you really that stupid, Chuck? Lure him with a girl, Chuck, lure him with a girl. Every last agent has fallen for that trick, even his father,” the emperor cackled. “His father fell for it to the very end.”
When Jordan landed his helicopter on the Rebel airstrip, there was quite a commotion. The first one to meet them as they landed was Derek.
“Cruise, Laz, its good to see you again guys!” he exclaimed hugging them and slapping them high fives. “And who’s this?” he asked, pointing to Tim.
“This is--” Ryan started to say, but he was interrupted by a chorus of screams coming from a crowd of girls rushing towards them.
“Tim! Ryan! Laz!” they screamed. It was Cathy, Kayla, Emmy, and Katie, of course, all rushing towards them.
“I can’t believe you’re still alive!” Kayla said. “I haven’t seen you guys in forever! Where’ve you been?”
“To hell and back, Kayla, but I’m definitely glad to be back,” Tim replied.
“Well, enough of the chit chat,” Ryan said, breaking into the excited chatter as the girls giggled and wondered at their reappearance.
Just then, crushing arms wrapped around Tim, Ryan, and Laz and squeezed them together until their lungs were nearly suffocated. It was Chris, of course. “Ryan, Tim, Laz! Buddies, how you doing? Its good to see you again!”
“Its good to see you to,” Ryan gasped.
“Yeah, how about letting go now, so we don’t die from lack of air?” Laz wheezed. Chris let go and they fell in a heap. Ryan instantly popped to his feet, pretending that never happened.
Emmy hugged Ryan. “I’m glad your back, big brother,” she grinned at him.
“Yeah, so am I,” Ryan said. He glanced around. “Where’s Sarah?” he asked.
“Right here,” someone tapped him on the shoulder. Ryan turned around, and there was Sarah standing behind him.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Sarah smiled.
Ryan just blinked. “Wait, that’s it, I’ve been gone all this time and all I get is ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do’?”
“Well we do,” Sarah defended herself.
“I was expecting something a little more… I don’t know… exciting?”
“What do you want me to do, Ryan?” Sarah frowned. “Run up and hug you and give you a big kiss?”
Ryan shrugged. “Well, that would definitely be better…”
Sarah smacked him on the head and stormed off.
“Hey, I was just kidding!” Ryan said, jogging after her.
Sarah spun around to face him. “You’re always kidding, it’s irritating!”
“My foster parents used to say that.”
“There you go again,” Sarah said, throwing up her hands.
“You’re just saying that because you’re trying to find something wrong with me,” Ryan shot back.
“Well, that’s not to hard, and why would I want to do that anyways?”
“Because you like me, admit it,” Ryan grinned.
“Me? Like You?” Sarah laughed spitefully. “You’ve got to be joking.”
This didn’t faze Ryan however, “Deep down inside, you know you’re captivated by me,” he insisted.
“You really need to bring that ego of yours down a notch, Cruise,” Sarah said shortly, and then she walked away.
Ryan shook his head. “Women,” he muttered.
“What about them?” Katie spoke up from behind him.
“Nothing,” Ryan waved her off.
“Having some personal problems with your friend there?” Katie asked, smugly.
“No, thank you very much.”
“You really think she likes you?” Katie pressed, not willing to back down.
Ryan sighed. “I’m not sure if I like her. Sometimes I just want to strangle her, and other times I want to ask her to marry me,” he paused. “Well, maybe not marry me.”
“Girls are pretty hard for guys to figure out, I’ll give you that one,” Katie admitted. “Tell you what, do you want me to try and find out how she feels about you?”
Ryan grinned. “That would be awesome, thanks. By the way, I’m really sorry about your car, we’ll scrape some money together to buy you a new one when this is all over.”
“Wait,” Katie frowned. “What about my car?”
“Oh,” Ryan tried to stop the mischievous smile from spreading across his face. “Tim didn’t tell you?”
“Ryan Cruise, what happened to my car?” Katie shouted.
“Never mind, I didn’t say anything,” Ryan started to walk away.
“Did you wreck it?”
Ryan thought for a minute. “I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.”
“What way would you put it?”
“Well, how about this? Your car’s a lot hotter now, literally.”
“You blew it up, didn’t you?”
“Not quite in those terms, but yeah, pretty much.”
“I can’t believe this!” Katie pulled her hair. “My car!”
“I can,” said Kayla, who had just walked in on their conversation. “Leave it to Ryan to bring about plenty of explosive results.” She waved for Ryan to follow her, “Cathy wants to speak to you Ryan.”
Ryan glanced back at a seething Katie. “Don’t worry I’m coming,” he said.
“TIM!!!” Katie screamed. “You’re gonna pay for this!”
Tim was talking to Emmy and Laz when he heard his sister’s scream. “Oh crap,” he groaned. “Ryan told her about the car.” Then he took off sprinting in the opposite direction, with Laz close on his heels.
Later, Ryan and the rest of his team were gathered in Cathy’s office. “…Pat claims that an imperial strike is imminent,” Cathy was saying. “The question is, whether or not to believe him.”
“With all due respect, ma’am,” Jordan spoke up. “I don’t think we can afford not to. When I was flying towards Imperial Bridge I saw quite an army being amassed near the Imperial Palace. I’m not sure what they were gathering for, but I can only guess.”
Cruise nodded. “Jordan’s right, we have to assume that the emperor’s going to strike, and possibly even consider a preemptive strike.”
Everyone in the room appeared stunned by this suggestion.
“What are you saying, Cruise?” Cathy asked.
“What I just said,” Ryan replied, casually slipping on his shades. “We strike before the empire can strike us,” he leaned back in his chair and grinned.
“Are you crazy?” Kayla blurted.
Ryan just lowered his sunglasses and raised his eyebrows.
“We’ve already established that,” Chris said, rolling his eyes.
“I think he’s right, though,” Tim spoke up.
“You do?” everyone in the room spoke at once, even Ryan.
“Yeah, a preemptive strike would have tactical surprise. Thus, catching the empire completely off-guard, perhaps enough to give us a steady victory.”
“Perhaps?” Emmy questioned. “Frankly, it doesn’t seem like anyone has any answers.”
“I’ll bet my life it will work,” Ryan challenged.
“In the end, that may be what it comes down to,” Cathy pointed out.
“Besides, you’ve bet your life before and lost,” Laz said.
“Not my life,” Ryan shot back.
“Yeah, but you lost the bet,” Laz retorted.
“All right, all right, you all have valid points,” Cathy raised her hands in order to stop an argument from forming. “Sarah, you’ve been quiet, what do you have to say?”
Sarah sighed. “I agree with Ryan,” she said.
Once again, this was received with a shocked expression from everyone in the room.
“You do know that April Fool’s was a few weeks ago, right?” Laz asked.
“Yes, Laz, I know,” Sarah said with an irritated edge in her voice, as if she were upset with herself for agreeing with Ryan. “I just think it’s actually a good, strategically surprising idea. Let’s do it.”
Just then, there was a loud beep from Cathy’s desk. Cathy hit a button and Clarence’s voice came through the intercom. “Cathy, milady? You’re going to want to see this message I’m dispatching to you.”
“Can it wait, Clarence?”
“Trust me, milady, it pertains to your meeting.”
Just then, a large screen TV lowered from the ceiling. Ryan whistled. “That’s nice,” he commented.
“The emperor’s was better, though,” Laz said.
“True, true,” Ryan nodded in agreement.
All of the sudden, the emperor himself popped onto the screen. “Greetings, you despicable rebels,” he began. “I’m sure by now that you’ve gotten wind of an imminent invasion on your pitiful rebel base. As your emperor, and since I’m such a forgiving leader, I’m giving you exactly ten minutes to get down on your knees and beg for forgiveness. Otherwise, I will be forced to wipe your poor excuse for a rebellion from the face of this earth,” the emperor paused. “Is that it? How do you turn this thing off?” then the screen went blank.
After a long silence, Cathy finally spoke up. “That does it, Cruise, gather together the troops and prepare for a preemptive strike.”
Cruise grinned. “Right away, ma’am.”
Later that evening, as Ryan was gathering together the rebel forces and giving commands, Sarah came up to him.
“Ryan,” she said in a soft, smooth voice. “How are you?”
Ryan looked surprised at her friendly tone. “Fine, and you?”
Sarah smiled. “I’m doing fine, even better now. I want to ask you something.”
“What?” Ryan asked.
“Well, let’s go somewhere private, where we can talk alone,” Sarah whispered.
Ryan grinned. “I knew you’d warm up to me.” He followed Sarah to a deserted sector of the rebel base. “What is it you wanted to ask?”
Sarah pushed him into a corner of a building. “Something important,” she said. Then she shoved him against the wall.
“What the heck is your problem, Sarah?” Ryan asked, suddenly realizing that Sarah was not acting at all like her normal self.
“You are my problem,” Sarah hissed, pressing up against him and drawing a Glock from her side and pointing it to his head. “But I’ll be sure to end that problem real quick.”
To be continued...
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