Chapter 39 - Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

Day 30

Mid-Morning

Moon/McGibbons/Jackson Household

Erin and Sydney were barely inside the front door when Ms. Jackson confronted them, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Noah's missing!" She yelled, not consciously in control of her emotions or her volume.

Eun-ha tried to hold the terrified mother back, but she shrugged the woman off and approached Erin.

"Please, Erin! Find him!"

Erin pulled the other woman into a hug to reassure her, then said, "We're going to find Noah, Ms. Jackson. We'll find him, and whoever took him will be getting a Come To Erin moment."

The light joke wasn't meant to be funny, but a small snort escaped Ms. Jackson.

"I have to ask something very difficult of you first, though." Erin put as much compassion into her voice as possible, "I have to ask you to be patient. Our town is under attack from the military. I can't run after him right away, but I know who took him."

"How…?" Ms. Jackson asked.

"Turns out arrogant women who crash funerals like to talk." Sydney said.

"So…she has him?" The confusion was evident.

Realizing the confusion, Erin said, "No, the military does. Seems they want him for his genius. I'll explain later, but right now I need to get out there."

Turning to her mother, Erin said, "Time to go to work. Love you, Eomma."

Eun-ha wrapped her daughter up in a tight hug, returning the affection, "Love you, Ttarai. Now go kick some butt."

Lastly, she turned to Sydney, "Plan?"

"You smash, I shoot?"

"Good plan." Erin leaned in and gave the woman one last chaste kiss, then she was out the door, launching herself high in the air.

Directing Ki out below her to slow the descent, Erin spun in a circle to assess the situation. Smoke billowed up from too many locations in town to count, bringing a pang of concern to Erin before she pushed it down. From the east side of town, she thought there were muted sounds of gunfire. If she squinted a little bit, Erin could also make out a handful of vehicles, some tan, some green, but they were pretty far off and positioned on a hill with a clear line of sight to town.

Stopping the flow of Ki downward, Erin let herself drop. Hitting the ground, Erin sped down the street to catch up with Sydney, then wrapped an arm around her waist. "Goin' my way?"

Sydney smiled at Erin, "You bet. Mind given' a gal a lift to the edge of town?"

Erin took off again, angling towards the edge of town.

When they landed just inside town limits, Sydney gave a playful salute, then ran off to find herself a perch. Erin turned to look out at the battlefield.

Already, she could pick out bodies where the foliage wasn't too severe. Some trees at the edge of the forest had chunks missing, and a couple trees had fallen over after taking too much damage. Just past the defenses Noah had erected, a smoking husk of an armoured vehicle sat as a warning to anyone else who tried to enter the city by vehicle.

Something pinged off Erin's forehead, then clinked to the ground. She bent down to pick it up, spinning it around in her fingers. While she was no expert, it looked to her like a bullet that had pancaked against her skin.

She tossed the expended munition over her shoulder, waved in no particular direction beyond east with a big smile, then released her first tail and went into super speed.

East Edge of Middletown

Sydney shifted her armour into something that protected her whole body, then added an active camouflage effect. Satisfied, she climbed up some deliberate debris setup beside a house at the edge of town. High crawling across the slope, Sydney moved to a position she had prepared in advance.

Retrieving her rifle from inventory, Sydney rested it on a makeshift support, then pulled her spare mag as well. While one magazine could replenish itself, the other could not. When planning for this event, she decided to empty rounds from the replenishing mag into her inventory. While sitting around one evening, she created a stack in her inventory of 999 before the next round started a new stack. Now she pulled 20 from that stack and set them beside the spare mag.

Taking her time, Sydney got the stock comfortable against her shoulder, looking out through her combo sight of red dot and magnifier. Scanning the field, she located the trees she placed range markers on, giving a mental nod to the five Ps. "Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance."

Sydney focused on her first group of targets, a squad moving cautiously through the forest. Switching to her monocular, Erin tried to determine their target, leading her to one of the defensive positions Anderson's team had put together. Two of his soldiers pinning down another team.

Switching back to her rifle, Sydney picked out the most likely senior soldier based on body language. Aligning the rifle, she breathed out, then squeezed.

The rifle kicked, but with her stats it barely twitched off target. As she lined up the next shot, Sydney could see the urge to rabbit in this soldier's body language. Even with her limited zoom, her target was visibly scared. "Shouldn't have come here, kid."

Sydney squeezed the trigger, and another round found its mark down range.

This repeated twice more before the squad's remaining members broke cover to retreat. Her goal accomplished, Sydney scanned the battlefield for more targets to eliminate or harass.

Enemy Line

When Erin came down behind the enemy's armour line, the military forces were slow to react. Despite intel they had almost certainly received, it was like they never expected to face her. Maybe they thought Zara would kill me, or at least keep me tied up, Erin thought.

"Hawthorne!" Erin yelled, "Get your ass out here!"

A few soldiers had started registering a stranger in their midst, but when Erin yelled for Hawthorne, she drew the attention of every gun with a line of sight, including the mounted guns on two armoured vehicles. A twitchy fingered kid was all it took, the first shot not even hitting her, as the kid was shaking too much.

That started a fusillade of bullets that almost made Erin flinch. She switched perception into high speed, causing everything to slow down from her perspective. At that speed, it was a wall of bullets moving towards her. A lead tsunami, threatening to crash over her body and pull her under. She wasn't even a little concerned.

Switching back to normal perception speed, Erin stood there while the bullets slammed into her body. After the first hundred or so, she flared her Ki, causing all subsequent bullets to melt into slag before they reached her.

The infantry started to taper their shots off after they emptied a magazine or two into her with no effect, but the mounted guns didn't stop until their box mags ran dry. Barrels glowing, the gunners started swapping in fresh ammo, when one of the soldiers stepped out of the line and held up a hand. "Hold fire, men. Hold fire!"

Walking up to within two meters of Erin, the man introduced himself. "Captain Schofield, I'm guessing you're the one we were briefed on. Erin?"

She nodded.

"Clearly we can't hurt you, Erin." Looking down at his rifle, Schofield shook his head, "So what is it you want?"

"Hawthorne." Erin kept her tone neutral, but clipped.

"General Hawthorne isn't here, and even if he was we couldn't just hand him over."

Erin stared at the man for a moment before she asked, "You would defend a coward and murderer?"

Schofield's nostrils flared, and his tone became more defensive and irritated, "Like you defend that cowardly traitor, Anderson?"

"General George Anderson has proven himself to be a man of honour and principle." Erin retorted.

There were scoffs among the soldiers within earshot, and Erin took the challenge they implied. "When Hawthorne sent his son to murder me, my friends, and my family it was General Anderson who helped protect those friends and family." Murmurs started through the crowd at that declaration, so she decided to stoke the flames a bit more and see if she could start a rebellion among their ranks, "That's when we found out that Lieutenant Hawthorne murdered the Sergeant in his unit en route because the man wouldn't turn on Anderson."

The conversations got louder, and Captain Schofield started looking around at his soldiers, seeing the conversation was getting away from him. He started to speak up, but Erin kept going, talking over him.

"Moments after that I turned Lieutenant Hawthorne into a red puddle in the forest…somewhere over thereabouts," Erin gestured roughly where she thought Hawthorne's landing zone was, "Because he threatened my mother with a gun, and despite tensions being high, I was nearly killed protecting two of his soldiers, Johnson and Brown, from an attack." She paused to take a breath, hoping the names would stand out in their minds, "While I was in the hospital, in a coma, General Hawthorne was sending orders to Anderson to murder me."

"You don't have to take my word for it, though. I can have my tech friend pull up recordings from his bots…oh, wait, no I can't, because your General ordered him kidnapped during this attack!" Erin let anger seep out, and flared her Ki to drive the point home, "A fifteen year old whose only crime is designing the non-lethal defenses your people are running into."

"Not all of the defenses are non-lethal." One voice yelled out

"No, they're not," Erin replied to the unknown voice, not having definitive knowledge of where the lethal defenses came from, but she had theories, "Other people in our town pitched in because we're a small town, and Hawthorne threatened us with annihilation."

There were no replies to that statement, but she wasn't done, "You fired mortars into our city. How many of those do you think hit civilian targets, as opposed to military targets?" She paused for effect, "It's really easy math. 100% of your targets were civilian, because we don't have military targets."

"Do you people know what I was doing when Hawthorne's pet assassin showed up?" Erin saw a few heads shake, "I was at a funeral for my friend! Younger than me, he died defending children from a gang that Zara Moreau stirred up and turned on my students."

Erin could feel her anger flaring, and took a breath to get it under control. She didn't want to wipe out a bunch of kids in uniform. Half of them were probably her age. "His name was Zack Silverton, he was 17 years old, and he was my friend and my student. I had to face his parents at his funeral, Donald and Susan Silverton. You know what they told me?"

She put a fist to her mouth, fighting even now to keep herself from sobbing, "That he respected me, and that I inspired him." A tear escaped Erin's eye, rolling down her cheek, and she looked Schofield straight in the eye, "Do you know what it's like to feel responsible for the death of a kid who isn't even old enough to enlist?"

The Captain averted his gaze as guilt, embarrassment, and anger fought for dominance behind his eyes.

Shifting her tone to a softer one, Erin said, "So I ask once more. Where. Is. Hawthorne?"

It only took one brave soul to break from the pack. One person with the courage to stand up for what was right. Erin didn't know if she would find that here, but she had hope.

When someone finally spoke up, Erin turned to see a young Black woman, Johnson on her nametape. "He took over Anderson's old base, ma'am."

"Johnson…any relation?" Erin asked, stepping towards the soldier.

"Uhh…yeah, second or third cousins. How's he doin'?" She seemed a little embarrassed to admit she knew him.

"Last I saw him, safe." Erin reassured her.

"Still a smartass?" She asked.

Erin smiled broadly, "Very much so. But he's brave. He and Brown refused to leave my side when I was injured, and he never hesitates to stand up for what's right."

The young soldier hesitated at that, "That doesn't sound like the cousin I remember."

"Hopefully he's changed for the better, then. Please, what can you tell me about the base?" Erin tried not to sound pleading, but she needed intel.

"There's a minimal guard right now," She started, before another soldier interrupted.

"TRAITOR!" The soldier yelled, lifting his rifle to fire at the younger Johnson family member.

There wasn't a second of hesitation as Erin switched to high speed perception, stepping in the path of the bullets and plucking all three from the air. As she was doing so, Erin took notice that Captain Schofield was in motion. Watching the slowed motions, she saw him spin and bring up his rifle. His economy of motion was nearly on par with her martial art forms as he locked the rifle to his shoulder while taking a stance, aiming at the soldier who fired.

Captain Schofield fired one round while Erin watched. She observed it leave the barrel, traverse the distance, and impact high on the soldier's chest at an angle. It entered his body just below the left collar bone, cutting clean through his vest and uniform, and didn't appear to exit.

Letting her perception return to normal, the soldier Schofield shot collapsed like a sack of potatoes just as soldier's on either side of him were attempting to move in and tackle him. Flinching back from the shot, when they saw him go down they shifted to separating his weapons from him and then checking for vitals.

Schofield lowered his weapon, then released it to rub gloved hands over his face. "Fuck!" He yelled into his gloves, then louder, "FUUUUUCK!"

Erin turned to check on her charge first. Once she confirmed Johnson was okay, she stepped up to Schofield, holding out her hand. When Schofield held out his palm, she dropped the three bullets into his glove, the only sign of damage or wear from the firing and traversal through the barrel.

He stared for a moment, then looked at the man he shot. "You…could have stopped him…you could have stopped me…" His voice was resigned and exasperated.

Erin's reply was matter of fact, "I wanted to know what kind of man you are, Captain Schofield. More importantly, I won't protect a piece of shit who would kill an ally in cold blood."

Schofield sighed, then looked around at his soldiers. They looked nervous, but more than a few gave him nods to say they were with him, whatever he chose to do. "Order a full retreat behind our armour lines. Avoid firing at the other side unless absolutely unavoidable, and even then suppressing fire only." Looking at Erin, "Can you please call off your people?"

Nodding, Erin pulled up Party Chat.

Party Chat

Erin: Cease fire, everyone! Captain Schofield has ordered a retreat.

Anderson: Copy

Johnson: Copy

Cohen: Copy

Sydney: Copy

Brown: Copy

Kowalski: Copy

Lopez: Copy

Erin: …Dubois?

Kowalski: Uhh…Dubois…didn't make it.

Erin: Understood. I'm sorry, Kowalski.

Erin closed Party Chat and cursed.

"Something wrong?" Schofield probed, concern on his face.

Sighing, Erin said, "We lost Dubois. Part of Anderson's original tank crew."

Schofield's concern deepend, "Are we gonna have a problem?"

Shaking her head, Erin said, "No. My people all acknowledged the orders. Anderson will make sure they comply."

Relief flooded Schofield's face, "Good. What next, Erin? You're the strongest person on this battlefield by a country mile, so I think it's safe to say you're calling the shots here."

"I'm not looking to order your people around, Captain. Not unless I have to demand they leave the area because they're a threat to my city and its inhabitants."

"I appreciate that, but if what you said is true, going back to Hawthorne under these conditions is a death sentence for my men and I. Maybe he lets them off, but I'll definitely be hanged for treason."

Erin smiled cordially, "How about we figure out how to help the civilians in my city? Then we can talk about a parley."

"Let me know when and where."

Erin saw a notification for a friend invite pop up. She accepted the invite, then said, "Good call. I need to check on my people, we can work out the details over chat."

Before she could take off, Johnson spoke up, "Sir, with your permission, I would like to go with her. If, heaven forbid, there's something fishy going on, my cousin would be honest with me, and you're only out a private."

"You can be honest, Private Johnson. You want to see your cousin." Schofield said, a smirk on his face.

"Yes, sir. Well, he might be older, but my parents asked me to watch out for him when I joined up. Keep him outta trouble and all that."

Schofield chuckled, "And here he is getting you into trouble. Go ahead, Private. I expect regular reports though."

Private Johnson came to attention and saluted, "Sir, yes sir. Thank you, sir."

She didn't even have to ask, as Erin walked up and wrapped an arm around Johnson's waist, then said, "Hold on, and keep your mouth closed or you'll catch bugs."

Erin launched them into a wide arc across the sky, heading back into town.