Cybersix looked in the pocket mirror critically, checking her camouflage paint. She applied a bit of the gooey stuff to her cheek. Nodding, she folded it up and glanced at the others in the red-lit cabin of the gently swaying walker.

Everyone was quiet. Thinking or concentrating on preparations. It was this way with all warriors just before beginning an offensive. "We are so much like real humans," she thought, "But we’re not."

She checked each of her people over. Terra was at the front, watching as the walker picked its way though the jungle. "Probably the first time he’s been out of the compound, and he’s fascinated," she thought. "Good thing he’ll be with me, although he stands the best chance of surviving this."

Kayla sat behind Terra, and wore her black ninja costume, katana strapped to her back. Her eyes were closed. "I’d like to know what you’re thinking, sister. Probably meditating to prepare yourself for the task ahead." Kayla didn’t blink when Cybersix had told her what her role would be, as if it was expected, "I hope all those rumors about Ninja stealth are true. You sure are acting like they’re true." She thought.

Across from her, Grizelda was checking everything in her tool belt and lashing it down so it wouldn’t make any noise, "A pro in every way." Cybersix mentally included Kayla in that estimate with a flick of her eyes back to her sister cyber. Both had taken well the placing of Grizelda as head of the penetration team. Cybersix made a mental note to have Kayla regraded on Stealth: her scores were old, from the time before she became a ninja. Specials didn’t have to be retested, but it would be good to have some fresh scores in case things didn’t go as smoothly in future operations.

Cybersix turned to the rear and exchanged smiles with Cyberdragon, who had been watching HER. She had a headset on and a channel control strapped to her belt. The radios they were using were very low power to prevent detection, and Cyberdragon was carrying the signal booster and would act as communications officer and recon. She was kneeling on the floor, leading forward slightly so as to not let her wings touch the floor and be rubbed as the walker shifted around. She was dressed in blue jeans and a black shirt.

Cybersix returned her gaze to the front, her eyes resting on Jose, who was uncharacteristically quiet, moving only to fiddle with a control.

Cybersix and Grizelda had met the clone on the way to the field, and he had arrogantly demanded if Cybersix was still dawdling on the operation. He seemed to turn into jelly when Cybersix asked him to be the team driver and to suggest a way to get there.

Grizelda’s look of doubt registered her opposition to the idea, but she had gone on to leave the two alone.

"Y-y-you want me to drive you there?" Jose stammered, shaking.

"I do. I need a way to get there that Cornazon won’t think of, so he won’t trace us back here. Knowing you, you’ve got something, don’t you?"

"You need me, don’t you?"

"Well, yes, I do. And so does Type 37 and father."

She wondered at the sudden transformation from arrogant child to something almost resembling an adult, "I’ve got something. It’s been tested and works great! I’ll get it ready and meet you at the field!" he turned and scampered off, the cyber watching him go with bemused wonder.

The clone had never ceased to puzzle everyone from the day he was born. A young techno, worried and anxious about the future, had come up with the idea of cloning the bodies of father and mama from cells he had obtained from their dirty laundry. He would grow them to the age of teenagers and then replace their brains with those of his parents.

The techno had good intentions, and was uncommonly good at the skill of "scrounging around" for the necessary equipment to pull it off. But he rushed things too much and his skills were inadequate for the task. On top of that, the eleventh batch of 500 cybers were close to being born, and Marryn, remembering how she’d almost lost Kayla, wanted everyone ready and available to help with their birth and take care of any complications. He tried to keep it a secret, but couldn’t juggle the time demands of growing two clones from less than optimally picked DNA and his assigned tasks with the cybers. A furious Marryn, finding him gone from his post, had tracked him down to the abandoned section of the lab, discovered his little project, and had called in the Von Richters immediately.

Father hated surprises like this. He dressed down the techno in no uncertain terms, loudly wondering what the hell he, the techno, was thinking of doing with the brains of the former owners: Put them in panthers? Immoral! Insane! Ridiculous! Throw them in the garbage? Grind them up? Murder! Theft! Completely intolerable!

Maria didn’t say a word at first, but just wandered from tank to tank, first gazing at one grandchild, then the other. Then she walked up to the techno, looked him in the eye, and asked sadly, "And why did you believe I would let you do that to my granddaughter?"

It was a complete mess. He had not picked the right cells to use for his source of DNA, and had not screened for obvious flaws. Jose’s eyes were overly light sensitive, and his pituitary system was shot. The condition of Genesis’ lungs gave father nightmares. The techno was relieved of duties and put under a suicide watch. Cyber 29 had been one of the monitors, and had cut him down on his third attempt when he had left him alone for the few seconds it took to talk to his relief. When it was Cybersix’s turn, she just walked in and punched his lights out, agreeing with Quaren, who had suggested the idea, that it was for his own good.

Jose came out of the tank surprisingly well, all things considered. It was poor Genesis, swathed in long, flowing red locks, who suffered terribly. She struggled to breathe and had to be put into an oxygen tent. Maria stayed with her constantly, barely eating or sleeping, holding her granddaughter’s tiny hand, singing, talking and teaching her to talk, making jokes and funny faces, encouraging her. Anything to make the child smile and laugh. Finally, the small, all-too-human body just gave out. In her final moments, with the last of her strength, the child gazed at her grandmother with huge green eyes and barely gasped out, "I-love-you," before closing them forever.

"We’re here!" Jose crowed, rousing Cybersix from her memories. The swaying of the walker had stopped, and the door was opening.

"Okay," Cybersix said, feeling resolute from the memory, "We know what to do, and how to do it. We just need to do it in the right way. Kill no one unless absolutely necessary. Is that clear?"

"Of course." Terra said. Kayla nodded, as did Cyberdragon.

"Humiliation optional." Grizelda said with a grin.

Cybersix gazed at her. "I mean it." She said, slipping the strap of a huge crate over her shoulder and lifting it easily.

"Not a problem. Too messy anyway."

"Okay, We drop off everyone here. Skyhook goes high. Golf and Kilo head over to where the prison is. Tango with be with me, going to the northeast side."

Terra looked around, "Why are we playing a game?" he asked.

Kayla laughed and clapped Terra on the side, "YOU are Tango. T from Terra. Skyhook is Cyberdragon. Grizelda is G, so she’s Golf. I’m Kilo, because it starts with K, just like Kayla. Cybersix will be Sierra, from Six."

"Who am I?" Jose asked.

"Jose starts with J, so you’re Juliet." Cybersix said.

"Juliet? That’s a girl’s name from Shakeyspeare!"

Cybersix started to make a face, but then stopped and grinned, "And how did you know?" she asked him slyly.

Jose started to sputter.

"Okay, then Juno. That’s the wife of Zeus, by the way. Let’s go!"

"A goddess! Hmmm. Not bad. Wait a minute! That’s still a girl’s n-"

But the cabin of the walker was empty.

"AAAARRRGGGHHH!" Jose pulled at his hair and flopped into the pilot’s chair. He punched a few buttons, and the TV screen that served as the electronic console of the walker turned into a video game with the cyber and four specials as different colored and shaped dots on the screen. The speakers came to life.

------

With powerful strokes, Cyberdragon rose into the air, flicking the radio on, "Testing testing." She said as the wind rushed warmly past her face, "Skyhook here! Check in!"

"Sierra here." "Sierra check"

"Terra is here." "You’re Tango, Terra!" "Oh. Tango is here." "Tango Check!"

"Golf here" "Golf check."

"Kilo here" "Kilo check."

Silence, "Juno?" "AAARRRGGGHHH!" "Juno check."

Cyberdragon smiled as she punched the light button on her watch and started the timer, "Time zero and counting!"

"Now lets just glide over there and see if there are any surprises the satellites didn’t get." Cyberdragon stopped stroking and began to glide, cutting through the night air swiftly.

------

Grizelda and Kayla darted from shadow to shadow, sliding around the edge of the compound toward the northwest corner until they could see a building with iron bars near the center, surrounded by other buildings. They stopped and began to count guards and other wanderers.

"Better go in over there," Kayla pointed to where a tree grew near the fence. The branches reached over it.

Grizelda tisked, "Sloppy gardening. Let's get close, then wait for the signal, Kilo."

------

Cybersix made her way through the jungle quietly but rapidly, Terra following like a slinky, throwing a slug of himself forward, then pulling the remainder of himself to it, which then was thrown forward again. Circling around in the opposite direction of the penetration team, they came to the stream that ran at an angle to the northeast corner of the compound. Crouching behind the rocks that littered that side of the stream, Cybersix let the crate down, pried the lid off with her bare hands, and began to pull out and load AK-47s from the ammo boxes supplied.

"Guns are dangerous, Sierra." Terra commented, worry in his whisper, "Tango doesn't want to hurt anyone."

Cybersix smiled at him, "You catch on, Tango. Really, I don't EXPECT you to hit ANYTHING with these. Just do what you did with your puppet show, okay? Make lots of noise and hit the buildings when I tell you. When you run out, just drop the gun and I'll reload it."

"Tango will try."

"That's all I'm asking for, brother."

------

"They don't suspect a thing."Cyberdragon thought as she glided over the compound, "They are alert, but seem very confident. Then again, Kayla said there were no plans for a government or police attack." She saw Cybersix and Terra getting the diversion ready, but couldn't see Grizelda or Kayla. A good thing too. If she couldn't see them, then the men down there wouldn't either.

She hadn’t seen anything at the southeast corner or under the tree that looked suspicious. Then again, she had to be cautious and not get too close to arouse any suspicions either.

She felt a thermal, and let the rising warm air lift her up higher. She glanced down at Cybersix and Terra, changed the channel selector to Sierra, and waited for the signal.

------

"Ready?" Cybersix whispered.

"Ready sister Sierra." Terra replied.

"Don't start until I tell you!" She whispered. She turned on the radio pickup and tapped three times on it.

------

Cyberdragon heard the taps, spun the selector to Golf, and whispered, "Go!". She began a lazy turn to glide toward the southeast corner of the compound to check out the escape route again. Something told her she had to check it out again, just to be doubly sure. Cybersix had sounded doubtful when she had put her finger on that corner and said it looked clear. If Cybersix was worried about something, it would be worth while for her, Cyberdragon, to worry about it too.

------

Grizelda nodded, "Go!" she whispered. A cackle of sparks, and she was invisible. She glanced to her left, where Kayla had been, but she wasn't there. She glanced toward the tree, but thought she saw a shadow move behind a building.

"Damn, she's good!" she thought as she ran up to the tree, leaped up lightly onto the branch, ran on it over the fence, and jumped down on top of a guard. She punched him out cold, pulled out two hooks from her belt, and drove one through each shirt shoulder and into the building. When she let go, the guard was still standing, albeit a bit slumped over, as if looking at his shoes.

She slipped around to the other side to attack the other guard. Picking up a stone, she tossed it lightly over his head to divert him, but he didn't move when it hit the ground on the other side. Wondering, she went up and tapped his shoulder, only to have to catch him from falling over. Chagrined, she pinned him up too, "Slick trick Kayla, getting them to stand up without hooks," she thought, starting to feel a bit outclassed.

She slid along the wall, then dashed across to the prison block. She slid up to the corner nearest the entrance, keeping under the windows for insurance.

"Just about now." She thought.

------

"CORAZON! GIVE YOURSELF UP!" Cybersix shouted in a passable male voice. No self-respecting South American Revolutionary/Drug Lord was going to listen to a woman!

Terra popped himself up. He had stretched himself into a long snake with 15 bumps, each bump formed into a passable Federale holding an AK-47. Mud projections came out of each hand, closed over the triggers, and began to squeeze them in short spasms. Lights came on all over the compound at the sound of the gunfire from 15 AK-47s. There were shouts and curses, then men poured out of the nearest building with weapons. Cybersix fired a long burst into the ground, drawing a line of bullets at their feet. The men fell over each other in their mad dash back inside. They prudently opened the windows instead and started firing.

She dropped her AK and started jumping from one mud peace officer to another, reloading the AK-47s and shoving them back into whatever passed for a hand. Bullets whizzed everywhere, and she could hear the thuds as some hit Terra. She felt a spatter of mud on her cheek.

------

Cyberdragon smiled as she heard Cybersix's shout, "Not bad. Not bad at all." She thought as she glided around the southeast corner.

"Ahhh! What the hell?" she gasped as lights suddenly came on in the huge tree that dominated that corner of the compound, "Oh NO!" her heart sank at what she saw in the glare of the lights.

------

For a moment, Grizelda thought the Federales had indeed arrived. She didn't think Cybersix was actually going to use all those AKs!

The guards standing at the front of the prison block turned toward the commotion. A shadow whipped out and felled one before he took a step, while Grizelda clotheslined the second with her forearm as he ran past and caught him as he fell.

"Ahh SHIT!" She growled in as rough a male voice as she could manage.

"What's that?" The two men inside ran out and turned left. Once again, Kalya brought down the trailing one while Grizelda punched out the other as he bent over his sleeping comrade.

Grizelda slipped inside and saw that Kayla had already picked up the keys and was running down the cell block, looking in each cell.

------

"Terra! Are you okay?" Cybersix crawled to the head of the mud snake, "TERRA?"

"Sierra forgot Terra is Tango." Terra said, amusement in his voice, "Tango getting pretty good, right?"

Cybersix couldn't argue with that. He was shooting the molding off the windows and causing intact glass panes to fall out and crash on the unsuspecting shooters. He made neat round holes a little below waist level into the walls, and judging from the curses coming from inside, sending bullets through them, and through the legs of the men standing behind them. For someone who had warned that he’d never handled a gun, Terra was handling them very well, "Good thing you’re on our side!" She told him.

A man shouting orders came around the building, waving a gun.

"Cornazon!" Cybersix identified him.

The gun flew out of Cornazon's hand. He gaped at his empty hand, then scampered back when his cap flew off too.

"Few bullets!" Terra warned.

"Right!" Cybersix marvelled as she grabbed a handful of clips and began to reload the dropped AKs.

------

"This is bad." Cyberdragon began to climb, setting the selector to Sierra. She had been told explicitly by Kayla and Grizelda NOT to call them, for silence was essential to their success, "Sierra! Sierra!" she began, deciding to brave the northeast corner of the compound.

------

Kayla found 37 in the next to last cell, cooly reading the Independent. He looked up when she unlocked the door, "Got the Meridiana Times? He asked.

"It's officer 338 sir! Time to go, chief!"

"What?" He blinked, then scowled as he got up, "Who's with you?" he asked as he grabbed the keys out of her hand.

"Terra and six outside, Grizz and yours truly inside, with the dragon lady upstairs."

"Great, a rescue party composed of a mud ball, a nature photographer, and a girl who runs around in her jammies, all led by a Lit teacher. It inspires confidence!" he said as he tossed the keys into another cell as they ran out.

------

"What is it?" Cybersix grunted into the pickup as she rammed a clip into an AK.

"There's a watchtower on the escape route!"

"What?" she demanded, shoving the AK into a mud hand.

"It was hidden under the branches of that big tree! I didn't see it on my first pass! The lights weren't on!"

Stupid place to put a watchtower, with more than half its field of vision cut off, Cybersix thought angrily. She shouldn't have assumed Cornazon was THAT smart! And she didn't dare break radio silence with Kayla or Grizelda! "Check to see if the prison has been breached, then call up Grizelda if it has been!"

------

Kayla and 37 came up to a large pile of bodies lying on either side of the door.

"They came to kill the prisoners." Grizelda's disembodied voice informed them. Then, "What the hell did you do, 37?"

He shrugged, "They're just simple but brave farmers who didn't want to cooperate with Cornazon. I couldn't leave them behind."

"We can't take them all," Kayla said, looking outside. She glanced up and waved at Cyberdragon.

------

"There's a watchtower under the tree along the excape route!" Cyberdragon yelled into the mike, seeing Kayla wave at her.

"Turn the channel! You're talking to Sierra!" Cybersix snapped back.

Cyberdragon's fingers shook as she turned the selector. "This is my fault! I should have looked more thoroughly on my first pass!" she thought frantically.

"There's a watchtower-" she started.

"Tango not a girl." Came Terra's calm voice.

"Aaahh!" she spun the selector again and got static on an unused channel, "I've got to do something, but what?"

------

Grizelda led the way, with Kayla and 37 behind him. She didn't want to be in the room when those farmers found the weapons on the men she'd knocked out, or in the locked box whose cover Kayla had ripped off…

------

"Keep it up Tango!" Cybersix said as she pulled out the last six clips from the last ammo box, "We're almost done!"

------

"I'm not strong like Cybersix or Kayla or Grizelda, but strong enough to get into trouble!" Cyberdragon thought miserably as she looked at the selector dial that she had snapped off in her urgency and let it fall from her hand. She started to climb, looking for signs of the penetration team’s progress, "What can I do? I'm so weak!"

Then, she remembered. Dr. Zack. He had been interested in her wings, and had asked to take a look at them. She knew of his talent, and so let him do so out of curiosity.

"Those are impressive wing bones you have," He had said to her afterwards, "As close to monoregular calcium that I've ever seen outside of my basement. They must be stronger than steel girders!"

------

Cybersix grabbed the AK-47 off the ground, pulled the empty clip out, rammed in the last one, then turned to Terra, "We're out! Finish these then let's go!"

Suddenly, gunfire erupted from the other side of the building. Cybersix blinked, "What in the world is happening in there?"

The AKs sputtered out of bullets one by one. Terra snapped each one in half and shoved a bit of himself into the mechanism to render them useless to Cornazon, "Tango done now!" he announced after destroying the last one.

------

"Oh shit!" Grizelda groaned as she crouched beside the last building at the edge of the clearing at the south end of the compound and reappeared with a cackle of electricity, "What the hell is that?"

"What?" Kayla came up from behind, "Oh no! We were wondering why he didn't have a watchtower! It was under the tree all along! We didn't think he'd be that stupid to put it there!"

------

"Dr. Zack is a smart man." Cyberdragon thought as she wheeled over in a half stall, "He knows stuff father doesn't! I should trust him, like I trust father or Cybersix."

------

Cybersix and Terra ran like mad along the stream. SOMEBODY had started firing at the defenders from WITHIN the compound! Otherwise, she'd be dodging bullets right now.

She cut into the jungle, Terra following her. She ran for a few seconds, then cut back to the compound, stopping just outside the foliage to get a better look.

The lights of the watchtower swept around, then came around and caught her in the open. She jumped out of the way instinctively. A hail of bullets from a large calibre machine gun sprayed bits of rock and hot metal around her lower legs.

"Oh no! They'll be slaughtered!" Cybersix thought desperately.

------

The wind rushed against Cyberdragon's face as she went into a dive.

"My body is weak," She murmured, "But my wings are strong."

------

"That is NOT good." Grizelda muttered, hearing the machine gun fire directed at Cybersix.

"We could try sneaking up on them." Kayla said.

"And leave 37 here?" Grizelda shook her head, "I like their spirit and the way they're protecting our ass, but those farmers stand little chance against Cornazon's boys."

"One or two were ex-Army." Type 37 said, "They'll put up a good-"

"WHAT!!??" Kayla gasped as she noticed the shadow that flicked across the face of the moon.

------

"I'm going to run out there and draw their fire." Cybersix told Terra, "That may give them a chance to run for it."

"Terra can stop bullets. Cybersix cannot." Terra pointed out.

"No! They mustn't see you!" She got up, gripped the AK firmly in her hands, and charged out of the jungle into the searchlights that snapped almost immediately upon her.

------

"I am weak." Cyberdragon thought as she extended her wings out fully. The rushing wind grabbed at them and pulled her up out of her dive. "But my wings are STRONG!" she thought as she drove straight at the watchtower's supports. She shut her eyes.

------

"LETS GO!" Grizelda ordered when she saw what Cyberdragon was doing, "COME ON, FAT STUFF!"

Kayla and Grizelda took off across the field, half pulling, half dragging 37 behind them.

------

Cybersix was about to fire a burst into the air when she heard the snapping of wood. The tower wobbled, and the searchlights came off her in time for her to see Cyberdragon's wings cutting through the second pair of poles, splinters flying everywhere. She turned and ran alongside as the watchtower crashing down onto the fence, her eyes on Cyberdragon, "Come on Sister! LIFT!" she urged with all her being.

Cyberdragon seemed to wobble for a moment, then her wings began to pump and she rose into the air, making a sharp turn to avoid the jungle trees.

"YES!" Cybersix skidded to a halt and glanced back at the fallen watchtower. Kayla and Grizelda were flying over it 37 draped over Kayla’s shoulders. They hit the ground, then leaped again.

"LETS GET OUTTA HERE!" Kayla shouted as she sailed over Cybersix.

She turned and caught sight of Terra heading into the jungle in the direction of the walker.

"Yes. Retreat would be in order now!" she thought, not minding Kayla temporarily taking command.

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Chapter 2
Chapter 4 (Light Branch)
Chapter 4 (Dark Branch)