Lightning Strikes Twice

[etcircenses]

Who| District 13 Mission-goers
What| Time to rescue what District kids have survived
Where| Near some edge of the arena
When| During Week 4
Warnings/Notes| Please put any necessary warnings in your thread headers.


There were no sign ups involved this time, this was an off-worlder idea which means the off-worlders clearly have every desire to see this through; you signed up with your consent. The mission is to be held in the evening, so the morning is spent preparing, stocking up the hovercraft with medical supplies, arming everyone, donning the now familiar all black attire. When the alert is sent out, it's simply to gather in the hanger and begin loading.

As promised, there's no sign of a 13-issued leader involved, it's on the mission team and it's assigned tactical head to lead themselves; all Webb gives the group is a chipper smile and 'Good Luck.'

The sun is just beginning it's descent when the hovercraft leaves the hanger. The flight isn't nearly as long as the one to District 3, but it's long enough that the sun has dipped below the horizon when the hovercraft stops. Stopping doesn't mean landing, however. The team's resident off-worlder pilot comes on over the speaker with given instructions: time to strap up and get ready to do a little sky-diving.

The plan is simple really. Should the hackers do their job, the storms will do as they're told and strike the dome below the hovercraft all at the same time, breaking the barrier and making a hole big enough for the strike team to carry out the rescue. Hackers strapped in and strike team ready to zipline down, the hovercraft's door opens to the windy outside, allowing a wonderful view of the bright flash and deafening crash a minute later as the weather codes carry out their destruction.

Time to move.

Comments

[the_marshal]

Wyatt turned with the blow, not especially painful, but surprising. Twisting back, he blinked at her, eyebrows cocked.

"Hello to you too." Snorting, smiling, he rolled his shoulders, resettling his pack with a little jingle of zippers. "We've come for the kids. Ya don't happen to have any of 'em on ya, do ya?"

There was a twinge of regret there at the end, his voice dropping just slightly. Sorry that it was just the kids they'd come for. That she, and the rest, would have to stay.

[earthborn]

"Not at the moment," Shepard waved off his sympathy with a rough gesture, as if swatting a fly, "I'm glad to hear it, though-- these kids aren't tributes, they're practically hand-picked, sacrificial lambs."

That much was obvious, at least to her, but knowing the meaning of an action, and knowing that those intentions had been deliberate, were two different things.

"I got that much from the intel we've been gathering. The point of this whole thing is to try to split the off-worlders from the districts, incite a little old-fashioned bigotry around here."

Bargaining shouldn't be a factor, not with this; Shepard should follow Wyatt's directive, Wyatt shouldn't have to make a deal. And yet. And yet, this is the Hunger Games, after all. Shepard will die, slowly, painfully, days or weeks from now. A sip of water from a canteen is easily missed, among all else.

Shepard takes a deep breath and prepares, once again, for the impossible.

"Tell you what, got any water? I'll find you people a kid."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's eyebrows dipped and his mouth pursed wryly as he replied. "Ya can jus' ask for water, Shepard. Ya don't have to try an' bribe me."

Holding the rifle with one hand, he reached to his hip with the other. Unsnapping the canteen from where it was held to his belt, he held it out.

[earthborn]

"Sure," She mumbled into the mouth of the canteen, but it wasn't convincing. I hope you don't mind not getting any back, Wyatt-- because it's only after the water is drained that Shepard realizes exactly why that might have been insulting, "Sorry. You know how it is."

The wince is slight, but real, as she surveys the landscape, weighing her options. The comparison between them is impossible not to make, emaciated and filthy against well-supplied and well-armed. But still, she thinks this could work. Okay. Alright.

"I have officially been in this for too fucking long if I start forgetting who my friends are. You keep going here, I'll head that way," She pointed, off in the direction of her hidden vehicle. Trust, it was all about trust, "If I find anybody, I'll bring them back for your team here-- it is a team, right?"

God help us all if Wyatt Earp was all the Rebellion could muster.

[the_marshal]

He nodded, the plan simple and easy enough - and more than he'd expected. All the kids they could get, the faster, the better.

"I'm the only one in this area, an' we've got an hour to get 'em an' get out," he cautioned. "So if ya don't happen on one before that..." His shoulders raised and lowered, and he shook his head. "Ya jus' carry on an' take care of yerself, alright?"

[earthborn]

"Wyatt Earp, did you just suggest to me that I should murder a child."

Shepard isn't sure whether she's horrified or charmed. She's certainly impressed, at the very least. Didn't know you had it in you, cowboy.

"Look," she's smiling, smirking even. God damn it, Wyatt, if nothing else, she is happy to see you, "Don't tell me how to do my damn job."

[the_marshal]

The dry frown was back, Wyatt looking at her flatly, knowing she did it on purpose.

"Go on," he drawled, turning back the way he'd been headed when she'd interrupted. "I got work to do."