Chapter 22 -2

=== LUNGMEN ===

Ch'en wasn't officially meant to be here. She didn't have the clearance after getting fired. But that didn't mean there weren't other ways to gain entry.

No, she didn't break in.

She was allowed in.

Perks of friends in higher places. Said place being her former position, and said friend being her former subordinate.

The wall of screens across the former Chief Superintendent showed a map of Lungmen and the surrounding landscape. A few hundred kilometers away, the red blip moving across the blue screen sent out signals as it raced towards Yan's border.

"Why is it sending out signals identifying itself as Chernobog?" Ch'en demanded the closest officer.

"We're not sure ma'am. It was one of the first things it did before it started moving." He answered out of impulse, used to being ordered by Ch'en back when she was the Superintendent of the LGD. Not anymore. It didn't register in his mind that he was responding to someone who wasn't supposed to have clearance. Still, his new boss was standing behind him as well.

"Even after being fired, you still pretty much belong in here..." Swire shot Ch'en a smug look. "Maybe I should have you work under me as my secretary." The same way you did to me once.

Ch'en shot her a glare then looked back at the screen. This was probably her last time being in this position for the foreseeable future. She needed to make the most of the opportunity.

"We had some teams watching Rhodes Island. I need to talk to them." Ch'en toldSwire.

"A moment." Swire pulled out her phone and dug through her new contacts. Her new position opened up a lot of departments that she could tap into. "I haven't actually seen the orders, you'll have to find it yourself." She handed over the phone to the Draco. Ch'en took the device and navigated not to the department head's contact, but straight to the leaders handling the teams.

"Meeting in 10 minutes. I want a summarized report of all your findings." Ch'en ordered the very instant the officer on the other end answered. They didn't even get to answer before she ended the call and moved on to the next team leader.

.

.

.

10 minutes later, Swire and Ch'en were alone in a room with a few other people- surveillance team leaders Ch'en picked for the operation before she was sacked.

The officers looked between the former and current Superintendents and came to the conclusion they were working together despite the announcement that Ch'en Huichieh was no longer a member of the LGD.

"Reports?" Ch'en demanded.

The five team leaders in front of them gave quick rundowns of their investigations. The orders were given out early in the week back when Ch'en attended the meeting between Rhodes Island's leadership and her uncle.

"Your base was attacked?" Ch'en repeated after the officer of D team.

"By Sarkaz, ma'am. They halted our operations and made us track the Fuyuki doctors."

Fuyuki doctors.

Ch'en remembered seeing them arrive with the LGD's target. She tried to arrest the target with them but was rebuffed by Kal'tsit. Ch'en couldn't do anything at the time because most of the LGD's manpower was devoted to protecting Lungmen. She could force some to detain the Chernobog scientist's daughter, but that meant drawing away precious support from other more important roles at the time.

So, Ch'en was forced to let Misha go.

"These Sarkaz, Reunion I'm guessing?" Ch'en asked. The officer nodded. "So they set aside a group to hunt down Fuyuki doctors." Obviously an objective. Two more Oripathy doctors would grow the Reunion more than any other recruiting campaign they could pull off.

Swire stood beside Ch'en organizing her own timeline of events. She wasn't aware of the operation on Rhodes Island until her recent promotion so she was doing her best to catch up.

"Wait." She interrupted Ch'en. "It says here that you called for help after escaping. But then another team reported that it was Rhodes Island who apprehended the leader of the Sarkaz team who attacked your base."

Since everyone was reporting at the same time, they were slowly learning more details from one another, connecting puzzle pieces together.

"This happened a little past 1400 hours yesterday, then E team reported watching one of Rhodes Island escorting the captured Sarkaz leader a few minutes after at 1405. How did they know about the attack before we did?" Swire asked.

Ch'en paused.

"Didn't the Sarkaz leader contact the Fuyuki doctors around 1300? They arrived at the walls at 1330." That was when Ch'en found out the Fuyuki doctors somehow had Misha. The surprises didn't end there when she learned that they also were working with Rhodes Island.

Rhodes Island was working behind Lungmen's back.

Not that it was shocking. Many companies did. It was just that they were clearly trying to force her uncle's hand into accepting their request...whatever it was. Something important enough to use the Reunion as a bargaining tool.

"The Sarkaz girl was clearly against the Fuyuki doctors heading in the direction of the main force from the record." Swire swiped through the logs on the screen in front of her. "Nothing was mentioned about their location. I don't think the Fuyuki doctors had any way of knowing where she was. Yet Rhodes Island was informed beforehand, leading to her capture. Either way, knowing how they did it can be done another time. The question now is why?"

Why were the Fuyuki doctors with Rhodes Island?

"They're not the only party involved. The Laterano ambassadors met up with Rhodes Island too." Ch'en informed. "I was there when they met up, though nothing really happened."

"We still have some transcripts here." Swire opened up a sound file. "B team grabbed this audio recording of the surrounding areas of your bunker."

"Alright, let's hear-"

"Ma'am, I think you might want to hear this." One team leader quickly interrupted while sharing his feed. "There's no video, but audio is clear."

The feed was black, but everyone could hear the conversation going on.

"Most of the preparations are finished. It will take us a few hours to debrief our operators before we head over to Chernobog."

=== CHERNOBOG ===

Nearl shuffled behind Shirou.

When he asked for her help, she wasn't expecting this.

Nearl looked up at the large hulking commander that captured her following the disastrous fall out of VTOL aircraft that was supposed to evacuate the Rhodes Island rescue team. Beside him was a smaller girl probably a few years younger than herself. The two of them looked at her, then at Shirou.

"This was your plan?" The younger girl asked.

"She can help with the prisoners. Make it easier for us to handle Talulah." Shirou nodded.

"Very well. Miss...Nearl, right?" Patriot asked the blonde Kuranta. He overheard whispers about the Kazimierz Champion from the Reunion. She was obviously famous, but Patriot was never one to give celebrity news attention. He was more focused on keeping track of threats. "I know that we are...enemies." For a lack of a better term. "But are you willing to cooperate with us? I shall explain the situation if it helps settle your concerns."

"That would be preferable." Nearl looked at the map including what seems to be hastily drawn troop movements and notes. Arrows scattered around the map, but their general directions led towards a few focal points.

One of which was Chernobog's control tower.

"We have reason to believe that Talulah intends to crash the city core into Lungmen." Patriot went straight to the point. "Not only will it cause countless deaths of both Lungmen citizens and Reunion members, but will likely ignite war between Ursus and Yan."

That was all she needed to hear.

"What?!" Nearl slammed her hands on desk in horror. "Why?!"

"Shirou believes that Talulah is being controlled. Or is working with the Ursus forces." The Cautus commander answered. She looked at Shirou blankly, hiding her real thoughts on the topic.

Nearl looked at the archer behind her. "How did you reach that conclusion? Charging Chernobog's core into Lungmen is dangerous. Not even she can escape the blast radius." It sounded crazy from a logical standpoint. Nearl couldn't understand why the Reunion's leader would do such a thing.

To push forward the Infected movement? She'd sacrifice herself for that cause? Unless one was insane, or was out of options, such a move would hurt the strongest Infected movement on Terra.

It was just...inconceivable.

Leaders were smart. They weren't suicidal.

Shirou steeled himself. It would be hard to prove his point without evidence. But Terra was different. The world had its own magic and it was a part of everyday life. Here, he could be more open. Exposing a little bit of what he could do was not a problem.

"I can read the history of objects."

The looked at him weirdly.

"I can tell you who made them, when, what they're made of, and everything they've been through." Shirou paused before looking at Patriot. "That includes places, events, names, and everything that is part of the weapon's history."

"I know Grrovae'zzeal. I know Angelina. And I know Maria." Shirou ended while watching them perk at the names. Each one drew a different reaction from the three as he uttered each one individually.

"I can tell more, but I believe that's enough to prove my words."

FrostNova looked stunned, Nearl was stared at him as if he crossed a line, and Patriot looked distant.

"I can't explain how Talulah is being controlled, but there are clues." Not enough to prove his point though. Shirou was looking at an incomplete puzzle. He had to make do with what he had.

"This is your best chance at taking over Talulah." He faced Patriot. "Once Chernobog reaches Lungmen, the rest of the Reunion will be here to help her." That was if they even got on the speeding city plate. If Talulah was really aiming to ram the Chernobog core into Lungmen, then everyone would be dead anyway.

The Reunion would be in shambles, stuck between two nations who would rip them apart in their war.

"...you can read an object's history, right?" Patriot grabbed a small trinket within his chest pocket. He showed the jewelry to Shirou. "Then...who did this belong to?" He needed to confirm again.

"Your wife." Shirou answered instantly. "Helen."

That was enough for him.

"Then let us begin." He pocketed the wedding ring. "Here are the prisoner camps..." Patriot began circling areas for Nearl to see. "You'd want to start from the center and work your way outwards. The fights will be everywhere, but the intensity will be focused on towards the center of the plate. By then, the prisoners would be in the thick of it."

Meaning they couldn't escape. Nearl understood why the senior Reunion commander prioritized them. "Head east afterward. Free the camps there and make the prisoners flee south before heading west."

"How will we get them off the plate?" Nearl asked.

Patriot was silent.

"They'll have to head below the decks to the lowest part on their own." FrostNova answered. "Jump off the exit hatches at the bottom."

But that meant...

"The exit hatches for the service are several floors off the ground! You're going to get half of them killed just getting out of Chernobog!" Nearl raised her voice.

"What else can we do? Have them wait on the west side of Chernobog without a plan?" FrostNova glared at Nearl. She had lost many friends over the years. Yetis and Shieldguards alike killed in the middle of combat. Loss was expected. Even the best plans didn't assure the survival of everyone. It just reduced the chances of losing lives.

"If we fail, the west side will be the safest when Chernobog rams into Lungmen. That's if the core doesn't explode from the impact..." which it likely would. FrostNova didn't need to say.

"Enough." Patriot's voiced thrummed with finality. It stopped Nearl and FrostNova from arguing further when they heard his tone. "We will provide rescue teams. Scavenge rope and whatever we can use to make the drop safer. Have the people climb down the rope close to the ground before they jump."

It's the best we can do.

Still, a lot of people will still be jumping off Chernobog at speeds beyond 30kph several floors above ground level. Many will die if they succeed, or everyone dies if they fail.

===

Author's Note

...

This chapter (and next couple) has been specially brought to you by Unoriginal Name. Thank you to Dovar for another donation too!

Sigh, this chapter was supposed to be done last week but I didn't manage to finish it. Even now it feels half-assed after looking at it for the third week. The stories were true. When you write, everything looks like shit after you finish it.

Each little donation helps me out and motivates me to finish chapters earlier, so it would mean a lot to me to have your support!

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