MGiS 6 - Proportional Response - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The supply lines, the false leads, the escape routes, everything. All of this speaks to a level of preparedness that factions like this cult normally are not allowed to gather. It means that, not only do they have numbers on their side, but they also have sponsors. I expect there are far deeper roots of treachery along the border than we expected, and we should be prepared.

Even if we hadn’t had the first-hand reports generated by McLaughlin in his numerous run-ins with them, and the former princess’s testimony to go with it, this wouldn’t have remained concealed for much longer.

But we have a head start now, and I swear on my honor that I will make the most of it before these monsters can harm more innocent people. Life on the frontier is hard enough for folk already.

The other questers have agreed to allow me to direct the investigation for now, as my searches have had the most luck thus far.

I’m just not sure if the reason for my success is because of McLaughlin and whatever fate the stars have in mind for that man, or just luck. Since he has also taken up the burden of concealing the former princess as well, I owe it to him to at least keep the man appraised at the very least.

As such, I am filing formal permission to draft one Desmond McLaughlin into temporary service aboard my flagship for the foreseeable future. Failing that, I am requesting to have his clearance upgraded and annotate his official records in the quester’s hall.

~Faye Un’Killandra, a report sent back to the Throne. 

“All I’m saying is that for any other adept besides you, Desmond? I’d fully expect them to take more advantage of the fact that you only deploy for duty once every few weeks normally,” Bell said as she hefted her oversized battle-rifle to her shoulder and took aim.

They’d retired to the weapon-range after lunch, with Arsenal inviting Bell along to do some shooting practice during their normal training time. The Gaur woman joined them regularly enough that there was no problem simply integrating her into their rotations.

“Some people are stupid,” Desmond replied blithely from his spot in the next lane over, his hands flying over the desk as he reloaded his magazines at a speed that would have been impossible for a non-adept.

“Most would take exception to that statement, Des,” Chloe warned him from his other side moments before she pulled the trigger on her own sidearm and the weapon thumped in her hand before shattering the holographic target roughly twenty yards down the lane.

“I refer to the previous statement,” Desmond replied with a shrug. “I could spout some flowery phrase about the importance of our jobs and the numbers of lives that hang in the balance as a result of our actions in a Rift to justify the training if you want?”

“I’m pretty sure your whole team is aware of the consequences of failure, Desmond,” Bell replied before Chloe could, firing her own weapon with a far louder zip-crack of discharge as the high-powered slugthrower coughed out its shell and shattered it’s target at the hundred yard mark. “You’ve mentioned the story of the disaster often enough.”

“Because that story is important,” Desmond replied, slipping his magazines into their slots at his belt and setting his sidearm into the drop holster on his leg. “It’s where we met Sasha.”

“Yeah, and you got to see firsthand the sort of devastation that a Rift going nova could do. Not downplaying that part, just saying that we all know about it too. But I, at least, know the real reason you train so much,” Bell said before squeezing off another shot, tagging the second target in her lane a bare second after it materialized.

“Yeah, well I don’t try and hide it that well really,” Desmond said with a shrug. “Being betrayed by your nation and people like that changes a person. I don’t intend to ever end up in a situation where I’m helpless again.”

“The idea of you being helpless is laughable, and that’s before you include how loyal your guards are. If I could get the security teams to drill as regularly as you all do, then I’d be a happy woman,” replied the Gaur, shifting her stance and flickering her wings.

“But they do drill more often, if only to watch Des show off,” Chloe teased as she traded out power cells in her rifle.

“It’s not showing off,” Desmond said gruffly, pressing the button on his lane to begin the simulation and cranking the dial on speed to three-hundred percent.

“Suuure,” Chloe drawled playfully before the beep of Desmond’s lane starting up cut her off.

“Draw,” Desmond growled as soon as the light on the console lit up, allowing the enhancement to his reflexes, aim, muscles, tendons and bones flow out of his cache and into his body.

He’d been standing with his arms crossed and legs spread wide, but slid his right foot back to brace even as his right hand dipped down and snatched his sidearm from the drop-leg holster where it sat in a blur.

Desmond’s first three shots came from the hip before his arm shifted and brought the pistol up to his shoulder, where it barked twice more before he pushed it outwards in to meet his left hand.

Holographic targets appeared and disappeared like winking lights on a console, none spending more than half a second in view before being shattered by the flying shards of metal spat out of his pistol.

The first magazine dropped free, falling barely an inch clear of the gun before being bumped aside by Desmond’s left hand as he slammed a fresh magazine home and continued.

To the women standing on either side of him, it sounded like three long crackles of discharging energy and buzzers, each one taking around five seconds to complete as Desmond poured over a hundred rounds down the lane using a semi-automatic pistol in under fifteen seconds.

The finishing buzzer sounded at seventeen seconds. Desmond ejected his last magazine and set his sidearm down on the desk in front of him while allowing his enhancement to lapse away.

“I’m an adept,” Desmond said with a shrug while squatting to collect the two discarded magazines from where they’d landed on the padded flooring of the practice range. “It just makes sense for me to train while using my mana.”

“It’s not like you wouldn’t be just as deadly accurate without it too,” Bell laughed, her hairless brows wiggling in amusement as she set her own weapon down. “But you and your girls train every day. Either here or in the gym. Most of the other adept teams do one or two days a week to keep their skills up, but I swear you all are trying to polish your skills enough to reflect a laser beam.”

“Audra—” Desmond started to explain, nodding to where the Nagat woman sat two lanes down from Chloe, working on her aim with the auto-shotgun that Raegan had lent her while the friendly Uth’ra gave her tips in a low tone. But Bell cut him off with a flap of her wings that stirred his uniform around.

“Audra needs the practice, sure. But you don’t have to be here for it. And your group did it before she joined your team,” Bell said firmly, repeating the conversation that they’d trod over several times already. “If it wasn’t for the fact I know you and your girls, I’d be worried. But this is just who you are.”

Desmond shrugged up at the Gaur woman, studying her bright pink eyes and the cute way her button nose wrinkled in a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

“Does the idea of training that much bother you?” Desmond asked calmly. “You just mentioned that you wished the others in security trained as much as we did.”

“Working a nine to twelve hour shift tends to leave people without much energy to train,” Bell said with a sigh. “Sure, we don’t have a lot to do while everything is going right, but staying at attention and focused for that long is mentally draining. I know the reality of it, so I suppose that I envy your girls for having that energy.”

“We have just as long if not longer shifts,” Chloe said without looking up from her lane as she keyed in her next shooting drill. “Des has been trying to get us to move to shifts, but we all stick with him constantly. We rest when he does, and I’m just glad that he doesn’t abuse his ridiculous endurance.”

“Might just be my mind saying things are better on the other side of the fence then,” Bell shrugged, her wings rustling nervously again, something that didn’t get past Desmond as he studied the winged woman.

He’d been thinking about the discussion with his other guards for several hours now. Chloe had already given him her approval to offer the last team slot to Bell, and the other girls had rallied behind that. Even Audra, who had been surprised when the girls had urged her to voice an opinion.

Something is holding me back though, and I don’t know what it is, Desmond thought as he turned back to his bench and began reloading his magazines once more, not bothering to speed himself up this time.

“It’s a different sort of work,” Chloe continued to speak in between bursts of laser fire. “Honestly, when you ran with us on that station it was pretty close to our day-to-day. Most of the time it's nothing, but we always have to be ready to protect Des. Especially because he seems to think it’s his job to protect us instead.”

“It’s only fair,” Desmond grumbled playfully as he set the last of the three magazines down on the bench with a quiet thump as he glanced back towards the Gaur woman who was staring past Chloe.

Staring at Audra.

Bell’s words finally clicked in his mind, and he could understand her issues a bit better now. Bell was jealous of Audra, and she did have a right to be. Desmond had been seriously considering her before Faye had pushed herself and Audra onto Desmond’s team.

Won’t lie, Desmond thought with a near imperceptible smirk, part of me wants to fill the team out just to prevent someone else from breezing along and using me as cover again. I understand the reason, but that doesn’t mean I liked it. Sure, I got Audra out of it, but that was blind luck.

Now that he knew what it was that had been niggling at his mind, the odd turn that Bell’s attitude had taken and would continue to lean towards on occasion, he could address it.

“Bell, do you want to join my squad?”

The Gaur woman had been turning back towards her bench to pick up her rifle once more, but when it clicked what he was saying, Bell’s grip slipped on her rifle. The Gaur woman’s reflexes kicked in and she was able to catch the weapon before it fell to the floor, but her wings also flicked outwards to help balance her.

Desmond was jerked off balance to his left as Chloe’s hand landed on his shoulder and yanked him out of direct harm’s way, but the bony finger at the top of Bell’s wing still connected with his hip solidly.

“Oof, shit girl if you didn’t want to then you could just say no,” Desmond said with a laugh, rubbing his hip while Bell stared on in horror, clutching her rifle to her chest.

“I am so sorry, Desmond! I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine, Bell. If I thought you were actually trying to hurt me, I wouldn’t be joking. If Chloe thought you were actually taking a shot at me, she wouldn’t have just yanked me out of the way.”

“Damn right,” growled the horned woman from behind Desmond. “You are going to have to be more cautious with your wings going forward, Bell.”

“I… what?” Bell asked, her pink eyes still wide in surprise as she looked between Desmond and Chloe before looking past them and widening further.

Desmond took a moment to glance over his shoulder to find the other four girls on his squad all staring at Bell with different expressions. Audra had a look of honest concern on her regal features, the Nagat woman glancing between Desmond and Bell worriedly. Raegan was smothering laughter, while Sasha was actually glaring at the winged woman while her tail flicked in anger. Lila had her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised questioningly.

Since no one was speaking up, Desmond turned back to Bell with a questioning look of his own.

“Well? Is that something you might be interested in?” Desmond asked, his words making Bell flinch again, though on a far smaller scale this time.

The winged woman bit her bottom lip, apparently realizing she was still clutching her rifle and set it carefully down on the counter once more before turning back to Desmond.

“Are you serious with that offer, Desmond?” Bell asked calmly, though he noted that her wings were flexing nervously behind her, the mobile appendages wriggling like wringing hands.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t serious, Bell,” Desmond said simply. “We’ve been running a few people down because we weren’t in a rush to fill out the team. But recent circumstances have been reminding us all why we could use the extra hands. You already get along with my girls and I’ve seen you under pressure.”

“I’m older than you, though,” Bell protested weakly.

“So?” Desmond replied with a snort of amusement, crossing his arms over his chest. “Age doesn’t matter to me since apparently adepts have longer lifespans than normal anyway, and no one knows how long Terran’s will live when exposed to mana. This isn’t a forever thing, Bell. It’s just my squad,” Desmond said firmly, watching the winged woman carefully.

He’d known Bell for a few months now, talked with and flirted with her on occasion too. Bell was one of the few that hadn’t ever really officially challenged his girls for a fight either. She’d sparred, sure, but had remained respectful and distant. But Desmond wasn’t an idiot. He’d had that beaten out of him by Chloe early on.

So when Bell’s face fell slightly and her pink eyes dulled at his words, he had the answer to one of his other questions that he hadn’t bothered to ask the girls.

Bell was attracted to him, enough that she’d likely been hoping for a clan invite as well.

It’s not that easy though, Desmond thought, remembering his conversations with Gregor Skytreader. The family is an Uth’ra clan, and my four mates all were part of the founding. To join now, though, requires that challenge.

But haunting the back of his mind was a whole different question that Desmond barely bothered acknowledging, despite the insistent voice it spoke in.

Did he find Bell attractive?

Sure, she’s got wings, gray skin, no hair, and black teeth. But that’s not the strangest thing I’ve found hot. I mean, Raegan has a mouth like a bear-trap, so the teeth don’t bother me. Gray skin doesn’t bug me either, since three of my four mates have odd skin tones. Wings? Meh, doesn’t bother me. Audra has a tail as long as a city bus and that’s not even an issue. The fact that she’s hairless being the oddest part is so small of a thing in light of the others that I can’t even really compare it. Between Chloe and Raegan’s Uth’ra manes and the sheer volume that Audra and Lila have between them, I think there’s enough hair for us.

The thoughts ran through Desmond’s mind as fast as his shots had raced down the firing lane earlier, leaving him with the realization that he did find Bell attractive. The fact that his ‘most normal looking’ mate—at least by Terran standards—was a nearly eight-foot-tall mountain of muscle and femininity with foot-long black horns protruding from her head definitely said something about Desmond as a person, which made him smirk.

“For now at least,” Desmond said.

“What?” Bell asked, blinking rapidly at his words.

“It’s just an invite to the squad,” Desmond repeated a little slower. “For now at least. We can worry about the rest as we get to know each other. Choice is yours, though. Just be sure before you accept it. I know they don’t let folks swap around team members easily, and I don’t know what it’ll do for the rest of your term of service. So take that into account too.”

“It doesn’t affect it. Any years I’ve served up until now is added to the ten-year stint expected of an adept-guard,” Bell answered automatically, her pink eyes darting between Desmond and Chloe now. “I’m halfway through my term, so I’d be with you for another five years at least. At that point, I’d be offered a provisional contract for whatever was left in your term, or I could retire.”

“Huh,” Desmond muttered, rubbing his bare chin with one hand thoughtfully. “Makes sense. I was half worried that they’d force you to sign for a matching stint to mine.”

“No, normally retaining their veteran guards is up to the adept to ensure. I know Mia cuts in her veterans for a slightly higher percentage of their take, but not equal shares like Arsenal does,” Bell said, referring to the seniormost adept team on the Fist of Defiance.

“Anyway, don’t stress on it too much. I’m not asking you to decide right now, Bell,” Desmond said with another shrug. “I just wanted to offer you the slot first before anyone else.”

Desmond wanted to say more, explain the whole thing with Faye and why he’d held back even after that. Knowing that Bell had been jealous of Audra was a point of contention that he was worried might grow into something else, but that would only become an issue if Bell actually elected to take him up on the offer.

“I… can I think about it for a few days?” Bell asked, her pink eyes darting down to meet Desmond’s. Something that she saw there must have reassured Bell, because a good chunk of the tension faded from her body as she locked eyes with him.

“Sure, a few days is easy enough to ask for,” Desmond answered with a shrug.

“Three days, Bell,” Chloe said over his shoulder and Desmond glanced back at his closest guard and lover.

Chloe was staring at Bell with an understanding look on her face but her hand was still locked on Desmond’s shoulder as she continued.

“Just because my idiot of a mate surprised you with the offer, and I imagine that you have other things you might need to check on. Family to talk to and the like.”

“No family,” Bell answered quickly, shuffling back and forth nervously. “At least, not close family. My parents won’t really care since this is my job and they are used to it by now, but no other family…”

Well that answers the question if she had a partner, Desmond thought while muffling an amused sound. Thank you, Chloe. I’d forgotten about that until you mentioned it. Was too caught up in trying to figure out when it was best to make the invite.

“I don’t… I mean… Ugh!” Bell stammered before stomping one foot in irritation.

“Take your time,” Audra suggested kindly, drawing everyone’s attention to her. The Nagat blushed faintly but ignored it for the moment to offer reassurances to Bell. “I’ve only been with them for a short time myself, and I can already tell that they’d want you to take your time and be sure rather than rush and regret it.”

Surprisingly, Audra’s words actually eased some of Bell’s tension, and the Gaur woman sighed and nodded.

“I should go,” Bell said after a moment. “I need to talk to Security Chief Powell at the very least.”

“Ah, I hope Elle doesn’t get pissed that I’m trying to poach her best sergeant,” Desmond said with a grimace that got a chuckle from Bell.

“Sure, we can pretend that might happen,” Bell muttered before shaking herself and straightening. She gave Desmond a sharp salute as a mundane to an adept before turning to collect her things off the bench and marching off as soon as Desmond returned the salute.

“Well, that went as well as I could have hoped,” Desmond muttered once Bell was gone, ignoring the stares of the other regular marines on the range right now.

“I think it might have gone better,” Chloe said, shifting to stroke her hand through his hair reassuringly. “But it definitely could have gone worse. Let’s get back to it, though.”

Desmond nodded in agreement, turning back to his shooting bench and focusing on the moment for now, rather than worrying about the future.

Got way too much to worry about as it is, he thought. I don’t need to borrow trouble. It likes to stop in for coffee without calling already.