Dark Arrow Ch. 08

Ren was bloody, hunks of flesh missing from the exposed portions of skin, and anger flashed hot and fast through her as her eyes roamed over the evidence of torture that had already been started. Her eyes met his though and her mood softened. Pain, regret, failure, and despair wared in his expression. Yet beneath that were hints of pride, respect, and though he was clearly angry with himself for it there was satisfaction and happiness that she had come for him.

"What the fuck are you doing here," he grunted. "I told you to get the hell away from here!" The figure next to him chuckled and she recognized the voice of the man who'd spoken to her in the hallway. He'd seemed to be the man in charge, but he was standing here alone. Her eyes darted around the hallway. Six cell doors lined the hall, three on each side, and only the one to the right of the man at the end of the hall was open. She paused as she considered her options and eyed the man.

"Hush Ren, the adults are talking." She hissed as she tried to determine when and where a counter attack was going to come from. Ren growled and she smirked to herself. "After the stunt you pulled getting yourself in this predicament you don't get to have a say in how this plays out." The man roared in laughter at that and shifted just enough to confirm her fears. He had a gun to Ren's back and some form of wire hooked to the chair. Either a deadman's switch or some form of razor wire that would kill Ren if she went for and got a lethal shot.

With a sigh Erillia took off her helmet and sat it at her feet. The man paused and issued a surprised grunt that she'd removed part of her armor, damaged though it might be. His body language demonstrated shock as she also lowered the SMG.

"You wanted to talk before," she said quietly. "Now I want to have a little chat. We both have insurance policies in case one of us gets the idea to go for a kill, and I want you to look in my eyes and see I mean what I say." There was a moments pause and then the man nodded slightly. Taking the pistol, he'd held behind Ren to his chest and reached up to remove his own helmet.

Erillia was surprised as his face came into view. He was not as old as his voice made him sound. She'd have placed him slightly older than Ren but seeing him now she had to guess he was probably four or five years younger than Ren.

She fought not to shake her head. What must it take to make someone willing to do the kinds of things the Advocacy did to their prisoners at so young an age. She could kill, and she could wound and maim now if needed.

She'd felt nothing but grim satisfaction for the men she'd put down today. But even for her torture was a step too far.

"So what is it you want to say. You claim to have insurance but I hate to tell you those breaching charges you planted on your way down the stairs aren't enough to be a significant concern down here." She smiled darkly at him. Pulling the detonator out she showed it to him.

"Five hundred pounds of XE357 tied to timer, trigger, and my vitals. There was never a chance you or your men would walk out of this alive. The breaching charges are only there to fracture that central support from the stairwell and make sure this whole tower comes straight down on your head." His eyes went wide for a moment and he swallowed a curse.

"Oh and in case you're thinking of stalling me and finding the trigger you only have 20 minutes left and there are multiple trigger circuits. Even if you found some of them I've made sure at least one will stay out of the way until it goes off. It's all sequenced so no matter what trigger detonates they'll all go up." He scowled at her as he contemplated the information she'd just given him.

"So what is it you want. You know I can't let you walk out of here. If it means I have to die so be it. His hand drifted upwards again with the pistol aiming towards her this time.

"Really? Even when it won't matter anymore? The data Ren stole is what you're really after right? Making sure that doesn't get out is the point of this mission isn't it?" He hissed and paused as he regarded her.

"It's part of it," he admitted grudgingly. "Making sure you and anyone else who might know there might be an illegitmate heir to the throne is dead is the rest." Erillia smiled.

"Your mission is a failure. It was a failure before you even started. Ren released the information before he went and got himself caught. All this," she gestured to Ren, "was a setup to give the information time to spread." The man chuckled and finally openly guffawed.

"If that's true then he's a fool and my mission is a complete success. We cut off communication the moment we entered system. People won't even realize it because com glitches happen all the time but there's no traffic in or out of this systems relays until we've cleaned the data and made sure nothing we are looking for gets out." He was laughing so hard he didn't see Erillia's smirk for a long time and Ren shaking his head at her.

"Don't," Ren gritted out through clenched teeth. His captor's eyes snapped first to him and then to Erillia. For the first time since he'd been captured Ren felt a tremor of fear run through the agent. Dorance had been one of the newest and most vicious of the recruits when he'd been part of the Advocacy unit. Even then nothing had phased him and Ren couldn't remember ever seeing him uncertain or in fear.

A small part of him felt a flush of triumph that the man finally realized he wasn't in complete control, but still he begged Erillia not to reveal anything more about the data. It was the one thing left that might save her if she'd only leave him and get herself the hell out of here. Though if he was honest with himself it was a pipe dream now that she could escape. Now that they knew she was aware of her past they'd never stop and she'd be lucky to even make it out of the tower let alone out of the town or off this rock.

"Yes that's SOP for you all isn't it," Erillia said with a chuckle. "Didn't it occur to you though that if that was standard then Ren would be prepared for that? I'm guessing that while you stopped all normal channels you didn't stop the hardline feeds that you run did you." Ren could feel the shake in Dorance's hand as he gripped the chair Ren was restrained in.

"Impossible!" He gritted out, causing Ren to smile. "We monitor those constantly. If he'd sent anything over those lines we'd have seen it immediately and he would have needed access to the lines here at the tower."

"It was sent through in the white noise. Ren picked up a few tricks while he was AWOL. He figured out how to pulse data out with the regular data stream on your hardlines and hide it in the noise. Each piece is minute enough not to be picked up but if you know it's there and you know how to pick the information out of the white noise piece by piece it builds a file. A file that you've been trying so very very hard to find and bury. A file that your superiors should never had let exist in the first place."

Dorance had to fight down a scream of rage and denial, but he stared hard at this girls face and saw only absolute certainty in her eyes. Reaching behind her, she pulled an info pad from a sealed pocket of the suit and tossed it towards him.

"Don't believe me read it for yourself. He got caught on purpose, and the damage was done before that ever started. Your mission was a failure from the start, but now you have a choice." He carefully retrieved the data pad and glanced through the message Ren had written to Erillia. He glared at her as his stomach knotted up and he tried his best to maintain the confident front and not show her how deeply the information had shaken him.

"What choice is that. If what you say is true I'm better off dead anyway. If Renald told you about us, then I have to assume you know I

wouldn't survive returning from this with the news that this data has been released." Erillia smiled crookedly at that.

"Normally no, but you have a trump card. You were able to retrieve confirmation of what Ren did and how he did it. If you die here that information is lost and the data can continue to spread. If you leave though and run back to them with the information they have a chance to try and track it and stop it spreading." He started as she said that.

"You know who we are. You'll be able to find us again, and in the end we're just two people that almost no one knows and for whom almost no one would fight. If that data is found and destroyed we're cut off and no longer a threat. If that data isn't found, then killing us won't mean a thing in the end. Ren isn't the threat, and neither am I. The real threat is people finding out what happened to Roman DeGraw and his daughter."

His confidence wavered further as she spoke. There was truth in what she said. If she turned the tower and the three of them into a smoking crater, then the Advocacy wouldn't know the danger until the data had spread enough for rumors to crop up. By then it would be in enough hands that retrieving it and destroying it would be next to impossible. If he left tough and they escaped they could halt all traffic off world and have the jump points monitored.

If they were confined to the planet, then they could be dealt with at leisure and if somehow they managed to slip away on an illegal ship they would either be caught or one of the smuggling jump points would be discovered and could be closed. They might run for months, maybe even years but they'd never be able to stop long enough to create a threat and rally friends to their cause.

"So you suggest I simply let you walk away and you'll refrain from destroying the tower if I refrain from killing Ren," he ground out. Hating that he was in a position of negotiating.

"No," Erillia shook her head. "The tower falls. What I'm suggesting is you, and the two other members of the unit you have hidden here somewhere make a run for it now while you can still get out of the blast radius and you let us run too. You need this tower destroyed so it cuts the lines and prevents more data from being sent. As long as those lines are down we can't send the data even if we still had it and could retrieve it."

He contemplated for a moment. What she said was true. If he let them go, there was a high probability that he'd be executed on return. Still the Advocacy rules did say that if a situation ever arose where direct and immediate threat to the Advocacy came to light they were to immediately break mission and return for debriefing. And despite the odds he didn't doubt this slip of a girl had been trained in explosives enough to know what she was doing.

There was a small chance he might live through this if he took her offer and he could show that the damage of letting them escape was mitigated though not completely gone by this course of action. In all his missions with the Advocacy he had encountered a few times where things had not gone as planed. He'd been in a handful of missions where things went sideways and several where people had tried to make deals with them.

Never in all his years with them had he seen a situation go as spectacularly tits up as this one had though. He'd never actually had to consider and offer or had a target that was able to create a true Xanatos gambit. Gritting his teeth together he growled and watched her tense. He sighed inwardly. He hadn't been kidding when he said she was a worthy adversary and discretion was the better course here no matter how odd it was. Finally, he met her eyes.

"You know this only buys you a brief reprieve," he spat. He saw a glint of humor in her eyes.

"If you ever find someone that makes you feel the way Ren makes me feel you'll understand that even another second of time with him is worth any cost." He took a deep breath. And nodded finally as he made his final decision.

"Deactivate your deadman's switch and I'll disarm mine. Ren told you more about our unit than I'd ever have dreamed. The other two men are on the transport. One to man the ship and the other to run the extraction shuttle. I'll take your offer, but know that I will be back and I won't underestimate you next time." Erillia glanced at Ren.

"Is that true about the other two men," she asked sharply, "was that standard procedure?" Ren's nodded stiffly. Heart pounding in his chest as his mind sprinted ahead trying to figure out how he could still save her after this.

"When I was in that was the procedure if we took our own ship," he hissed through clenched teeth. "I doubt they'd bring anyone else along on something like this. Too many mouths to silence and too many inquisitive noses. I've never seen the entire unit deployed on the same mission though." Erillia nodded.

"I accept the terms." She moved forward letting her weapon drop completely. "However I'll go second. No offense but I have no reason to trust you," she said with a chuckle. "Disable and removed your device and I'll disable mine. We've only got 10 minutes now though so you'd better hurry or none of this is going to matter." Nodding quickly Dorance reached behind Ren deactivating the clustered explosive charge he'd placed on the chair and tossing it in front of Erillia.

"Done." He said harshly. With a nod she deactivated her trigger and stripped off her suit to show it was done. Dorance didn't stop to threaten or talk anymore. Ten minutes was barely enough time to get safely out of the blast zone from that kind of explosive charge. Grinning he rushed to the locked steel reinforced door that guarded the cellblock exit to the tower's car garage. Stepping quickly through he punched in the code on the far side again slamming home the door and locking out the interface.

Erillia might be able to blast her way through that he mused but Ren was injured and wouldn't move quickly, and blowing the door would slow them down further. If he was lucky they wouldn't even make it out of the building and he wouldn't have to explain his decision to let them live. Chuckling to himself he rushed to the cars. Maybe his number wasn't up yet after all.

"What the hell were you thinking," Ren roared as soon as the door slammed shut. Erillia didn't bother responding. She dropped to her knees next to the chair. Drawing her knife, she slashed the bindings loose from his legs and arms. Thanking whoever was listening that they had use the plastic ties rather than metal restraints.

He jerked as she pulled a nanite injector from the bundle hanging from the RPG she carried and slammed it into his thigh. She grabbed him and hauled him out of the chair and away from the door. Shoving him against the wall when they reached the stairs to the lobby she shrugged the rocket off her shoulder.

Bringing it up to sight on the door she pressed the trigger and the roar of the rocket and deafening boom of the explosion echoed through the room preventing any conversation for a moment. She nodded in satisfaction as she saw the door twisted and gaping open.

"I didn't sacrifice myself so you could do the same thing," he screamed at her. "Now we're both..." He never got to finish his thought. Erillia turned and gripped him by the shoulders lifting him from his feet and slamming him into the wall.

"Obsidian!" She screamed in his face. He blinked at her for a moment.

"What the hell," he murmured under his breath as she started to shake.

"Obsidian," she gasped out as she started sobbing. "You said if it was too much, if I couldn't do it to just say that word. Obsidian." Ren stared at her for a moment, mouth agape.

"I love you Ren," she said straightening up and locking eyes with him. "I don't know if you love me for sure and I don't know what's going to happen now." Tears poured down her cheeks but her voice regained its strength and she no longer shook with sobs. "I do know that I refuse to live without you or to leave you here knowing I could have tried to do something about it."

Ren stared at her for a moment as shock reverberated through him. He'd known she had developed feelings for him, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't have feelings for her as well. Never the less he'd assumed she'd be able to set aside her emotions and do the only thing that made sense and run. Then he shook his head and had to chuckle. If it had been him he would have fought his way through to her and damned the odds. After all of that time spent training her to be his equal in combat, he'd screwed up and not considered her an equal in determination as well.

"We need to talk, but I'm assuming you weren't bluffing about those expolsives. Let's get out of here or it won't make any difference because we'll both go out with a bang." Erillia sniffed and nodded starting to turn but Ren's hand held her shoulder and stopped her. "One thing before we go," he said softly, reaching up and wiping away a lingering tear. "In case we don't make it out of this you should know that I love you too little one."

Her breath caught in her throat and her heart stuttered to a stop for a moment. Staring into Ren's eyes she saw no deception and for the first time she could see there was nothing held back. He was hers, and hers completely.

"Right, follow me." She said smiling despite the gravity of the situation. If the world ended right then and there, she couldn't have cared less. She loved Ren, and he loved her. For that moment in time nothing else mattered.