2.14.2

Heavy Resistance

With that, Astrid nodded to Romo, and the man fell in position next to her, his gun drawn to cover, while she sharpened her sensitivity once more.

Her nerves recovered, but not with the precision she typically commanded. She struggled to pin the pull to an exact location, but with the limited tunnels before them, she could follow a general direction. After a few wandering steps, she felt them clearer. Two more young Channeler signatures, and two Statics.

She lit out once more in a jog, and Romo gave chase.

They arrived in a smaller cavern on a dead end, to a cluster of four bodies. But this time, the pair worked together. Two more S.O. operatives, a man and woman, hauled a set of Channelers, a boy and girl, by the arms.

One of the S.O. carried an energy armament at his side, another a traditional pistol in her gloved hand.

The Aldebaran duo divided their targets.

Astrid dove for the children and broke the hold the man held on a Channeler’s thin arm.

Astrid and Romo enjoyed a short advantage, as the invaders seemed to have let their guard down and didn’t expect such a struggle.

The man drew the energy gun from his waist while Astrid shoved the boy and girl into a corner and shielded them with her body.

He raised it to fire, and she lifted her own hand to seek the familiar burn of fusion energy that warmed at his command.

When he squeezed the fancy weapon, it whined pathetically. Astrid’s hand lit with the energy stolen, and she got only a brief glance of the man’s horrified face before she shoved it back at him.

The bolt caught him in his chest right over his heart. With such a direct hit, his body went rigid with shock, stiff as a board, before he convulsed into a pile.

Astrid turned just in time to see Romo finish his own combatant in three sharp pops of gunfire.

He and the woman scrapped while he tried to prevent a wild shot from either that could hurt those nearby. But once he kicked her far enough from the others to get clear shot, he unleashed three.

Blood marked the cavern wall behind the woman’s fallen body. Astrid went immediately to the children, relieved that these two must be at least a few years older than the young boys they’d just run into.

“You two alright?” She asked of them.

Neither answered. Stunned faces blinked back at her.

“Incoming! Incoming, you two in position?!” In Astrid’s ear, Tenya warned.

“Shit!” Astrid hissed. Again, her eyes met her partner’s. “In route!”

“Come on,” she then turned to the pair of Channelers they couldn’t leave undefended. “We’ll take you to Riley.”

With Astrid’s crystal now outside her gear, and her Channeler abilities on display, they required less convincing. At Riley’s name, the children went with. Though they didn’t speak, nor did they seem trusting enough to be held or touched.

The adults instead kept their weapons drawn and filed the children between them. Astrid in front to sense anyone who approached, and Romo to guard their backs.

They could only spare a knock at the door when they returned to the hall from whence they came, and to the adjacent playroom.

“Riley, we’ve got two more out here! We have to move!”

A scrabble came from beyond the door, and satisfied the teenager understood, the two pushed their newly freed charges against the entrance and whispered for them to stay low and quiet.

But feet thundered ahead. Through the largest of passageways, and toward the way out.

Astrid could feel it wasn’t her Statics that led the charge.

She ran for the main passage to find a grouping of six or seven bodies already slipped out of reach.

“Abort, we’ve got Earth Service here! Move out, move out, move out!” One of the S.O.’s men shouted while they ran.

But the fighters carried bodies with them. Some unconscious, some awake, slung over shoulders and in arms. And some others, shaking and sweaty from the after-effects of a pulsar exposure. Channelers. Children.

And not all were so docile. Three, those awake and tugged by their arms, struggled against their kidnappers. The children screamed, and the lanterns in the hall flared with the disturbance. Their cries vaulted Astrid into the stream of retreating Statics and their captives.

Afraid she could hit the children, even in a cone blast, she could only wrestle away the nearest kids.

Some of the Opposition now on the retreat deemed the fight unworthy, and easily relinquished their prizes to keep up with the escaping maneuver instead.

Others, however, would not give up the fighting children, and utilized another pulsar to render them submissive.

Unfortunately, the splitting burst cast Astrid away as well. She, and the other Channelers, cried. She barely managed to throw her body over one of the younglings and drag him with her to the floor, and away from his captors.

Romo barreled through, clear-minded, and wrangled away two more from the passing procession. He targeted the operative that wielded the pulsar, and up close and personal, Romo switched to his blade to jam it between the woman’s plates and up into her rib cage.

The agent covered the woman’s mouth to muffle the screams and not terrorize the children further. And when the body collapsed, Romo immediately grasped for the buzzing stick to power if off.

While Astrid retched, she crawled to the other kids and guided them into the smaller hall, out of the main corridor. They all stumbled, weak on their hands and knees, out of the pathway. And Romo turned to the remaining stream of Statics that trailed after their fellows.

The tail end held no captives. And in that, no hostages. For them, Romo employed his gun.

Astrid hauled herself to her feet. With herself planted as a shield to the gathering of children at her back, a hand cannon joined Romo in the assault while he blocked the way out. She and her companion littered the hall with the bodies of those unprepared for ambush.

Behind her, Astrid heard Riley call to the others, and kids bolted for the known voice. For if they recognized at all they’d been rescued, they still did not know their saviors.

With one look back, Astrid spotted Riley’s ginger head at the deep end of the smaller passage. She wanted to be mad the teen didn’t stay put. But trusting that Riley would lead the newly rescued back to safety, she granted herself permission to pursue those that got away.

She couldn’t let them go so easy.

After that second pulsar hit, she found herself rattled and mute. She acted on instinct now, however inelegantly she collected herself and staggered through the trashed hall.

Romo reclaimed his knife from one of the bodies and ineffectually wiped it before he slid it back into place.

Pressed for time, he looked to his partner, and Astrid gave him a nod.

Specialist and agent both raced through the main passage, through the caverns, past windows and portholes.

Astrid worked to regain herself in the time it took to navigate back through the subterranean structure. Her legs felt a little wobbly at first, but she found her footing by the time they caught up with the bulk of the retreating force on the stairs.

Sunlight poured from the open crack in the vault door and illuminated the escaping S.O. that still bore a small prize of Channeler captives.

Astrid itched to flare another cone, to slow them. But over jogging shoulders, large innocent eyes filled with fright, vulnerable.

It wasn’t until at the top, where the Opposition loaded their captured children into the pods, that once again Astrid could better separate targets from victims. Her eyes again, flinched at the drastic change of light in her environment. She blinked away the sun while she surveyed the field.

Conditions above sea level shifted drastically from when they left.

Guardians now lay as spread and depleted as the S.O.’s forces. The only remaining company to speak of followed Dell, who did his best to control the situation.

Astrid felt relieved to see he’d made it to the Keeper and the reinforcement Guardians.

But pod after pod still sealed shut.

And just as Astrid got a handle of the situation, the sky darkened with the arrival of a rounded vessel she didn’t recognize. Like the Aldebaran before, the ship came to hover over the yard. Though, without the grace Ricks managed.

What it couldn’t close in distance, the pods did, as one at a time, jets lit in bursts of power at the base of each. The bottom of the overhead ship opened, and one by one, the pods jettisoned into the air to board.

“Stop them!” Astrid screamed to any that could hear. “Keep them on the ground!"

Humans still poured from the Sanctuary’s vault. More Opposition. More children. And more Guardians, led by Anders and Tenya, with the same hostage issues standing in the way of their will to fire.

Dell and his contingent moved in to meet them, as all attention turned to the pods.

The specialist advanced on the nearest, to a brunette woman that hoisted Channeler children inside.

Astrid yanked the operative by the shoulder. The stranger blinked, and Astrid punched her as hard as she could.

The young woman spun against the pod. She gripped her jaw and spat a swear word. “Bitch!”

Astrid kicked her down, but instead of wasting another moment on the woman, she rotated to pull the children back out of the machine.

Nearby, the rest of the Aldebaran team did much the same. They made the S.O. scrap for every life, even their own.

The Opposition grew unnerved. Perhaps because their other ops never encountered this much challenge. More and more pods bolted, some empty of captives, or close to. The ship above whirred a warning that it revved for ascent, and those below rippled with panic that they might be left behind.

The last of the bodies that flooded from the vault door and to the pods, included a male and female teenager. One of each.

The young man Astrid couldn’t know, but she presumed by the oversized hood that shielded his eyes from the sun. And by the familiar redhead towed behind.

The young children Riley protected weren’t among those now being loaded up, so she seemed to have at least succeeded in her self-assigned task to hide them.

Nonetheless, Astrid made a beeline to free the teenagers next, while Anders and Tenya circled up on a pod out of reach for the specialist.

The Service Channeler descended on the first Static she came to. And after a few solid strikes of fists and forearms, managed to tear Riley from a man’s clutches.

Riley spun away, free. Only to run to the nearest pod and help Romo stall another.

Astrid noted the teen girl refused to stay out of the way. In fact, now that the Sanctuary put up so much of a fight, more teenagers, inspired to resist, took action.

And in doing so, put themselves directly in harm’s way.