Between a Rock and the Knife's Edge

Posted on Fri Jul 1st, 2011 @ 9:17am by Lieutenant Commander Aral Aix & Lieutenant Xishaal Idrani
Edited on on Fri Jul 1st, 2011 @ 9:18am

Mission: Too Close for Comfort...
Location: Archadia
Timeline: Current: Before Whispers in the Dark

Lieutenant Xishaal nodded her understanding of Commodore Cowell's order and began retracing her route back to the landing pad where the Phoenix was waiting. Should their meeting with the First Minister not go as planned and they need an immediate extraction, beaming them from the surface would be the best option, that is unless the Archadians actually fired upon them.

As she made her way back to the space port, she became acutely aware that she was being watched, no followed actually. The subtle changes in the wind patterns and the scarcity of pedestrians also set alarms off in her mind that something was wrong. Xishaal wasn't an intelligence operative by trade but all Andorians, paranoid by nature, suspected everyone and trusted no one. Passing by a store front, she paused to look at the wares displayed, using the reflection in the mirror to get a better sense of who exactly was following her. Andorians were very difficult to sneak up on but whomever they were, two things became immediately apparent. First, they were Archadians and second, there were growing in numbers, clustering into groups of five and moving rapidly to surround her.

The trap was set, thirty Archadian security officers moved to encircle the Andorian. The officers, all of them large women dressed in black and sporting berets, carried hand guns and ruthless looking black batons. The closed in, taking one jackbooted step after another.

Xishaal cursed herself for being so careless, too busy looking behind her that she didn't realize that they were moving in front of her, out flanking her. They were still a short ways off but soon, the proverbial noose would begin to tighten. Taking her PADD, she quickly entered her security code and brought up the systems display for the Phoenix. A cursory check on it's external sensors told her that a number of heavy vehicles had also moved in around the shuttle and from the energy readings, heavy weapons were being set up in case she showed up to attempt an escape or rescue.

She didn't have time to fly the shuttle remotely, the best she could do would be to activate the shuttles shields and lock anyone but herself or the Commodore from entering. "Thank you Mr. Price..." she said to herself. The Archadians were less than 20 meters and closing, time was running out.

Xishaal spotted a squad approaching brazenly five abreast coming towards the very store she'd ducked into, armed with batons and riot gear. Turning to her left she ran down a narrow gangway, drawing her phaser as a last resort. She briefly considered what a JAG would have to say to her for drawing a weapon on relatively unarmed, giantesses wearing riot gear and carrying clubs.

Now 10 meters, 5 behind her, closing at the same steady pace as before, like they knew exactly what her position was and were in no hurry to capture her just yet. Looking overhead, she'd wondered if they employed sub-orbital tracking systems. Something suddenly screamed within her mind and she just manage to duck as a long cylindrical shape passed where her head once was. Falling forward, she twisted and fired her phaser at her attacker at near point blank range. The quickly disintegrating form of the Archadian who'd tried to bash her head in was now just a memory.

The disintegrating Archadian revealed a black tower of smoke and ash that rose into the sky. It was accompanied by a loud series of explosions. The darkness in the sky radiated out, its tendrils eating away at the cloudless blue canopy that had covered the planet mere moments before. The Archadian officers were caught off guard for a moment as they stared at the carnage that was raining down on their capital.

Xishaal ducked reflexively at the sudden ground shaking explosion. She sensed that the direction of the blast was somewhere in the vicinity of where she'd left the rest of the team. The sounds of heavy ground vehicles screeching their tires, boots on the ground running everywhere!! This time shouting, alarms, sirens! 'Damn, how were they able to track her so quickly?' She thought as she continued running, this time not bothering to hide, phaser in hand. How could she? A tall blue skinned, white haired off-worlder on a planet full of taller pink-skins.

As she ran, clutching her phaser in one hand and her PADD in the other, a door suddenly slammed into her sending her sprawling into the street, her phaser and PADD out of her hands. The only good thing was that at the same time, the door knocking the two stunned guards back into the store. "Just my luck," she cursed as she scrambled to her feet, they seemed just as surprised as she judging by their slow reactions as she continued running.

The Archadian officers, having been distracted by the explosion, had made up for their momentary lapse by pursuing the blue off-worlder with even greater urgency. One of the concussed Archadians pointed in the direction their quarry had ran with her baton, "She went that way!" "Get her!" Two heavy duty military truck-loads of Archadians acknowledged the order and sped after her, their tires screeching on the road surface.

Tires screeched behind her, she didn't have to turn around to know how this was going to end, they had her completely surrounded now. Now where to run, no where to hide. She hit her comm-badge "...Xishaal to Alpha team, Commodore Cowell..." She was rewarded with silence, they had jammed their communications.

One of the Archadain women held a small device, it hummed and flashed with several lights, "Your communications will not work." She took a couple of steps forward as a several of her colleagues approached Xishaal from behind. The circle of officers closed further behind her; as lugubrious as the Archadians were, they clearly had sensed the danger a cornered Andorian posed.

She put her hands into a guard position, set her feet and prepared for the worst. If they were going to take her, she wasn't certainly going to make it easy for them. "..Round and round the widening gyre, things fall apart, the center cannot hold..." she said softly as the first five closed in upon her, clubs and shields in hand. It would seem that they too, had no intention of making things easy for her.

"You are coming with us." Said the woman holding the jammer, "conscious or otherwise." She gave a hand signal and her team extended the batons in unison, making a sinister swoosh-click noise.

Xishaal just got her answer, though she'd killed one, and bloodied maybe two others, they still seemed intent on her capture. That little fact alone was enough to make her smile slightly. She knew what she was about to get herself into yet she refused to be taken without putting up a fight.

"...And why are you so intent on taking me with you?" She asked, if only to buy a few more seconds

The officers answered her question by taking a step forwards together. She was lost now, well not really lost in the directional sense but rather at a loss as to what her next move should be. If they had sent this many after her, what happened to the rest of the team. "You lying fatherless curs! You want me? let the bravest among you step forward and prove themselves the fool then!" Xishaal challenged.

"We'll do this our way, thank you." Replied the officer that held the jammer as twenty of her colleagues set upon Idrani.

The torrent of violence that rained down upon her was too much for even she to withstand for long. In the end, they got what they came for and though it cost them, Xishaal eventually was rendered unconscious and taken away.