CHAPTER 27: MONITORING

Tarifa stood by the window in the office building, her thoughts not at all good. She had hoped to lead Marcus and his Corporate Alliance dogs away from the Holy One, and then disappear into the forest. That had not been the case, as he had hounded her and her diminishing party ever since those first hours. They had come half way across the entire state, and to the only place she thought would be safe.

The Elf Sacred Ruins.

Her people were exhausted, both physically and mentally. Elves they may have been, but they were not inhuman. And Tarifa feared their plight was not over. She had always made it a point to never be caught out in the open, or trapped like an animal. Marcus had been after her for three decades, and her memories of the four days she had spent in his clutches before her warriors had rescued her forty years ago was still a vivid nightmare. He had raped her brutally and without regard for almost the entire time of her captivity. He was like a rutting bull, and he did vile things to her, and when he grew tired he gave her to his men to use while he slept.

Tarifa shook those thoughts from her mind. She would kill herself before allowing that to ever happen again. Yet now, she felt the noose was closing around her. She was without the usual massive numbers of High Elf warriors she traveled with since her capture so long ago, and she had brought them to a place where they could not run any further. The Book Cliffs were far too massive to try and climb down or go around, and the sacred ruins were sitting directly in the path of them. Tarifa knew that Marcus would attack the ruins looking for her, regardless of the legends of mass slaughter that had taken place when Alliance forces had attacked the ruins before.

Tarifa feared she had run herself and her followers into a death trap and there was no escape. None of her people looked hopeful, and the only one who seemed in the least bit relaxed was the male Elf who had saved her from the Grizz beast. He kept looking at her with a lustful stare, and Tarifa knew what was on his mind.

Tarifa let the tears come from her sapphire eyes, for she knew what lay in their future.

Martin turned from the monitor as Tarifa's tears began to fall and Danny and the others came into the command center. He casually flipped the monitor he had been watching off as he settled back in his chair.

Danny settled into the chair across from him and set his HK on the console while unzipping his fatigue top and removing his combat vest. "Reactor is running smooth at eighty-six percent Skipper. Cody has already started downloading the core information to a portable data storage unit so we can link it to the Raptor."

Martin looked at him." Why couldn't we do a direct connection?" He asked.

Danny leaned back in the chair." Tina didn't want to take the chance of corrupting the Raptors systems with whatever the core collected over the past four hundred odd years."

Martin nodded. "I never thought of that. Do we have enough data storage units?"

Danny nodded." I found four more in the computer lab. I checked them out and they work fine. Thats going to be a lot of information boss. Time stamp on the last data entry is 2287."

They both turned as Julie and Anja came back into the command room followed by Pablo, Kevin and the Master Chief. All of them had their arms full of rations.

"We hit the jack pot!"Julie exclaimed." I managed to crack the code on the galleys locked warehouse and we found a veritable treasure of old rations that have a shelf life of well forever. She dropped the pile in her arms on the table, as did Anja and the others. Some of this stuff is pretty good too."

Martin and Dan came over and they all began sifting through the pile of rations. Julie stepped over next to Danny and held out the package. "Here you go lover." She spoke.

Danny took the brown plastic container and read the contents, his face lighting up. "Beef stew! I loved these things in basic!" He spoke, beginning to tear open the package. Julie smiled and looked at Anja and winked. She didn't see Dans head come up and look at her strangely.

"Whats that smell?" Danny asked.

Julie looked at him. "What smell?"

"I know that smell." Dan said. "It smells like..." Dans eyes went directly to Anja, who did everything she could to maintain a straight face and keep from turning a bright red. After what seemed like a long, non-breathing moment Dan bent over and nuzzled Julies neck. Its you Jules. He said. "You smell like honey."

Julie smiled at his show of affection, and her eyes went to Anja at the word Danny used. They had both tasted Anja's passion, and they both knew it was Danny's way of telling Anja he could smell her scent all over Julie.

"I smell like shit in a barrel!" Julie popped with a smile." Now eat your food big boy!"

Danny grinned and looked over to where Anja stood, and his eyes grew a little wider when he saw Anja wink at him. Danny looked at Julie, who also saw this display, and she smiled up at him her eyes bright as they realized that Anja had made her decision. Martin had witnessed the entire exchanged, and he looked at a blissfully stupid Kevin Graham as he tried to figure out how to open the ration pack. Martin smiled to himself and went to sit in his chair, unsure of what he felt at seeing the obvious affection Anja was showing Danny and Julie.

The soft chirping alarm brought them all too full alertness, and Julie discarded her ration pack to move to the station she had been sitting at earlier.

"It's another security breach Skipper!" She spoke as she took in the information from the computer screen, "Northwestern Quadrant! I estimate at least seven individuals by the number of motion sensors tripping."

"Can you get any video?" Martin asked moving over to her side.

"Checking It looks like they are coming in around behind the others we discovered earlier. "She said.

"Others? You found other people on the base?"Danny asked.

"I'm switching to an exterior feed in that sector. "Julie spoke, her hands moving over the console. "I'll put it up on the main screen."

Martin and the others turned to look at the huge screen as it came alive with dimly lit buildings and an abandoned street. Rusted and twisted vehicle frames littered the street in both directions.

"It looks like they are headed for the Air Wing BAQ offices." Julie spoke." They can infiltrate into the main building from there. "She looked at the screen. "There got them!"

They could all see the seven shadowy figures moving very professionally directly towards the building Julie had said they would.

"Can you get closer?" Martin asked.

"Working on it:, Julie spoke, adjusting the camera until they saw it moving in closer on the lead figures.

"What the fuck is that? " Master Chief Brown exclaimed.

All of them stared at the picture Julie had frozen on the screen. The man they were looking at was definitely human, but his face looked horribly misshapen, and two very large fangs protruded from beneath his upper lip.

"I don't suppose they are dropping in for a friendly visit uhu?" Julie asked to no one in particular.

"Do the Elves know they're coming?"Martin asked, causing heads to turn in his direction.

"Elves did you just say elves?" Kevin spoke.

Julie shook her head. "They're fat dumb and happy Skipper! They got only two sentries out, and the first of these things is almost on top of them."

They turned back to the screen and saw the first two creatures move with lightning reflexes around the corner and they fell upon the two Elf sentries before they were even aware they were dead. One of the creatures took the first Elf in his hands and simply twisted the womans slender neck viciously until her head was torn from her body. The second one had used a savage looking blade, and was now watching with an amused expression on his face as the male Elf slowly slid further down the large blade, his blood splashing wetly on the floor below him in copious amounts.

They all were silent, and no one turned to the sound of Kevin falling to his knees and vomiting the contents of his stomach onto the dusty floor.

"Danny, is the Tram powered up?" Martin asked.

Dan turned to his friend and Commander, knowing what was going through his head." Yes, but I got something that will get us there quicker. Pablo got three Hummers primed and running in case we had to make a quick exit. We can be there in four minutes."

"Skipper we aren't supposed to get involved. "Julie spoke, attempting to be the voice of reason, but not doing a very good job.

Martin looked at her. "Anja, we might be coming back with wounded, can you make the infirmary workable?"

Anja nodded quickly. "I'm on it!"

"Jules stay here and give us a blow by blow. Danny, Trina, and the Master Chief are with me!" Martin lifted his silenced HK74 and headed for the exit.