Sulis/Starfire: The Brotherhood

The child still hides in the corner. We shut off our radios in hopes of not freighting the kid. Clara attempts to contact the child in hope of bringing her guard down.

"Hey." She says, "We are not here to hurt you, see?"

She lays down her weapon on the floor.

"See?" she continues. "We are friendly."

The child blankly stares at us. She is still terrified and won't move an inch. Oniv and Dern round and corner and enter the room as she still talks to her. Dern's surprised look tells me he was also in the dark on this. Oniv on the other hand seemed like he knew exactly what to do.

"Is that a kid?" Dern asks, lowering his weapon

Oniv approaches the kid, tapping on Clara's shoulder as he crouches down to her height. He lowers his tone and speaks softly to her.

"Hey," he says. "Don't be shy. We are here to take you home."

"But...they might hurt me." The kid says.

"Who would hurt you?"

"The men in black suits."

"Black suits?" He says, turning to Dern at the same time. Dern seems to get the message and bolts out of the room, to call on the radio.

"What suits are you talking about? Where did they go?"

The kid doesn't answer. Then something hits me. I don't know how to explain it. A feeling of sorts, like another sense kicking in, warning me of danger. I look around the room for it and a slight shimmer catches my eye. A distortion of sorts, and it was moving fast, right behind Clara. Oh shit! I deploy my hammer and activate the rocket.

Oniv, not knowing what's about to happen calls out to me as the kids hides in the corner.

"Ax, stand down!"

"Clara get down!" I yell.

Clara spots me and ducks as fast as she can as I swing the hammer like a bat toward the invisible shimmer. It makes impact. Someone is hit on the other side, hard enough to shatter the cloaking system he had on and sends him flying into the wall next to us. They crash through it and land on a table on the other side. Clara, having shielded her head and fallen to the floor, stands back up and inspects the damage.

"Clara, takes the child, we are getting out of here." Oniv says.

"But sir."

"Get the child, it's an ambush!"

Another soldier comes out of cloak and attacks Oniv with a sword. He blocks it with his weapon before pushing him down and fires a single shot at him. Another charges into the room but is stabbed by a glowing electric sword through the stomach.

 Dern is seen on the other side as the soldier falls to the ground.

"Sir." He says.

"I know! We are leaving!" Oniv pulls out his radio, "Team, we are moving to secondary extraction!"

Clara grabs the child who is now cowering in fear, kicking and pulling on her clothes as she carries her. We stand in a diamond formation and exit the room, running down the hall back to the exit point. More troops reveal themselves and start shooting. Bullets riddle the walls and floor. Start shooting back, making to not stop moving to prevent us from being surrounded.

We finally arrive at extraction at the back of the building. The two other teams have already beat us there and were under heavy fire. We rush to them to provide assistance. Suddenly everyone is in a gun fight. Bullets are flying everywhere, and the kid is hidden behind a thick appliance to keep her safe. Oniv pulls out the radio again.

"Rom, do you copy?"

"Go ahead boss."

"We need an orbital strike on our position now!"

"Sir? I cannot fire until you have left the building!"

"I know! We are working on it! Fire after the evac ship has left."

"Yes sir."

Then, the shooting stops, someone on the other side is yelling to hold their fire. After a few moments, everything is quiet and a voice calls from the other side.

"Hey, we don't want to continue this if you let it. Just give us back the child, we will let you leave." It says.

"Who are you?" Oniv yells

"That's not important, what is important is if you want to make it out of here alive."

"I could say the same thing."

"You will not like how this ends. You are messing with the wrong group, blue!"

"What? Blue? We are not working for your queen."

The evac ship fires into the wall behind us, blasting a hole and providing an avenue for escape. The enemy troops surround themselves with shielded men and star marching forward. Oniv grabs the kid and boards the evac ship shooting at the shielded men who are not budging. As we board the ship, and the doors close, the kid makes one final cry one that would haunt us from this day forward.

"Daddy, help me!"

The look of horror on Oniv's face after that, I couldn't explain it. His eyes widen so much, I question if they will pop out of his head. He turns back to the wall of troops, who dismantle as we fly away. A man stands in the middle, looking up into the sky and closes his eyes. I do the same. Light flashes from the location of The Brotherhood and strikes down the building with one shot. Smoke, dust and debris fly into the air in all directions. The building tumbles to the ground in a mere few seconds until there was nothing but dust in its place.

The kid, clearly upset, scratches Oniv in the face and runs for Clara, hiding next to her before the ship starts to climb back into the atmosphere. Oniv stands there staring out the window. He says nothing and shaken by what has happened. He only says one thing before returning to his seat and not say a word for the rest of the flight back.

"What have we done?"