All search and rescue personnel assemble in the squad room immediately. All search and rescue personnel assemble in the squad room immediately. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.
Aliena Trivala, Pilot Noble and Commander of the Sikuria Sirens, stood with her back to the squad room’s door as she scrolled through the information coming in rapid-fire on her tablet. She flicked her fingers, sending information from her tablet to the holographic screen floating in the air in front of her, the entire thing hovering above a large round table. The screen would afford everyone around that table ample view of what needed to be seen, so no one could claim they hadn’t seen it. Her fingers flicked again as more information poured in; images popped up onto the holographic screen, joining the text of the ever-changing situation, as well as the requested maps of the area. Her eyes trailed over all of it, her face set decidedly in a frown.
Something that should’ve been routine and simple had very quickly become a disaster. Since the incident was in Solarta, and since the Valkyries were the closest, that squad was already on the scene, dealing with the Trapdoors that - at the time of this image, anyway - might or might not be emerging from the sinkholes. The Angels had also been activated to help care for the wounded and those lucky enough to have climbed their own way out of the sinkholes. And, now, the Sirens had been activated to find those that hadn’t been so lucky, and had been swallowed up by the earth. A plan was already forming in Aliena’s mind, but until she was actually there on-scene, she refused to have a single, solid, concrete plan. The situation was fluid; so, too, would she be.
The rest of her squad arrived shortly after the last of the dynamic reports came in on her tablet.
Aliena didn’t bother to look at any one member of the Sirens until they had all filed into the room, including their current attaché, Pilot Echo Nasuhito Kagura. He’d been temporarily assigned to them as part of their training, but he had experience in situations such as these, so Aliena had hailed him privately and told him to report along with the Sirens. Only then did she turn her attention to each member, ensuring that they had arrived suited up for work. Like their Commander, each member - save for Nasuhito, who had his own combat uniform - was dressed in their armored and padded uniform, trimmed in the Siren colors of white and gold, and they each held their helmets under one arm, with their backpacks and kits firmly strapped to their backs.
She met her sister’s gaze. She could tell that Chinta was both nervous and excited, and was somehow managing to keep a straight no-fun-here-I’m-all-business face. Then Aliena focused on Xalk, and noted that the boy’s eyes were riveted to an image displaying the sight of a Trapdoor spider emerging from one of the sinkholes, only to be met with the fury of Valkyrie firepower. She slid her gaze around the rest of the room, finding the rest of her squad in varying states of determination, nervousness, and awe.
“As you can all see,” Aliena said, her voice firm, “the spranger ranch has become a disaster zone. There are a number of personnel missing, both civilian and military. The Commander of the Solarta Valkyries, Pilot Royal Yavul Hyakinthos, is also missing. However, our priority will be the missing civilians, followed by the military personnel.”
“And then Commander Hyakinthos?” asked one of her squad.
“If we manage to locate the Commander, we will do our best to retrieve him,” Aliena said, keeping the tone of her words clipped and cold, “but he is not our priority. We’ll be going by air, as the rails into Solarta have been shut down. Ostensibly, they’re shut down for repair and updating, but with the land as unstable as it is, we’re simply avoiding more casualties. Also, we are secondary medical. The Angels are primary.”
Chinta raised her hand. “So we’re bringing people out and giving them to the Angels, then going back in.”
Aliena nodded at her sister, then turned her attention back to the screens. “We’re going to do this systematically. Chinta, you’ll be on point with Nasu. You two,” Aliena pointed at two others, “will follow them. I want you to start at the closest of the sinkholes and search for signs of life. Thoughts, feelings, anything you can feel. If you sense something, Chinta, you start digging. You two will back her up, and Nasu, you’ll watch their backs.”
She turned her attention to Xalk then, her expression cold and severe. “As for you, Xalk, your priority will be taking those we retrieve to the Angels. You, you, and you,” she indicated three others of the squad, “will assist him as needed.”
Aliena shifted to begin uploading the maps of the area to each of her squad members’ bracers. “I’ll coordinate and update as we move. Once we clear a sinkhole entirely of Aedolian life, you,” she nodded toward an eighth member, “will ensure that nothing can come up out of those holes again. Once cleared, I’ll mark them off. We’ll keep in radio contact with the Valkyries in order to keep out of their way and with the Angels to inform them of incoming patients. We will only withdraw once all civilians and military personnel are accounted for.”
With that, she dismissed her squad, and they moved with assurance and purpose toward the roof of Anthemusa, where Illysia, Zhev, Trosko, and Aiseki waited upon the wide, flat surface. As soon as their Pilots were mounted and settled, the four dragons launched into the air, their talons scoring the already scarred concrete launching platform. Once the four were airborne, the other dragons took turns alighting upon the platform and taking off again, until the entire squad was in the air and flying with all haste toward Solarta. As they needed to get to locations quickly, taking the rails was out of the question; they would take far too long and they weren’t guaranteed to be working, as they were not in this situation. Aliena kept monitoring the situation as they were in transit, coordinating with the units already deployed.
When they reached the spranger ranch, the Sirens didn’t wait for their dragons to land before dismounting. They leaped clear as the dragons swooped close to the ground, their drop packs stabilizing their descent, and as soon as they were on the currently-solid but potentially-treacherous ground, they burst into movement.
Aliena quickly set herself up as the communication hub between her subordinates, to coordinate with them as Chinta, Nasu, and the others raced toward the first designated sinkhole. She linked each of their minds with hers, so they could communicate quickly and easily, and so that there was no delay in information being passed back and forth between them. It would be easier that way than trying to use traditional communication techniques, as the area was full of noise from the efforts to keep the spiders at bay, if not eradicate them entirely.
First sinkhole cleared, Chinta’s voice echoed through Aliena’s mind, and she relayed it to the other Sirens. No signs of life. Moving to second target.
Chinta jogged lightly across the distance between the two sinkholes, the others keeping pace with her. She cast her mind outward, trying to focus on sensing the roiling emotions she expected to find when someone was trapped underneath several hundred feet of earth and still alive. The terror a person would feel - both from being so close to death by both the crushing earth and the Trapdoor spiders - would be like a homing beacon for her. The first sinkhole she’d checked out had had no response to begin with at the distance in which she’d started from the yawning maw in the earth, nor had there been any response when she’d gotten closer. It had been utterly silent. Either there was no one there, or they had survived and moved on to try and save themselves, or, worst case, they were dead and well on their way to becoming bug food. Either way, Chinta couldn’t expend her strength shifting several hundreds of pounds of earth on the chance that someone might just be down there. She ran just as much a chance as releasing more spiders than she did recovering a dead body.
But this second sinkhole seemed to be different.
Even at the distance of fifty feet, Chinta was picking up pure unadulterated terror. It slammed into her like a gale wind, making her inhale sharply. At a curious look from Nasu, she shook her head and continued bulling forward, reaching the edge of the sinkhole. Now the gale wind had become a wrecking ball, and she was able to pick out four individual minds, each one flavored with their own brand of absolute nightmare-fueled panic. Before she could get to work shifting the earth to free them, though, she had to let them know she was coming. To that end, Chinta alerted her sister and the rest of the Sirens as to her discovery, then looked at her companions.
“Your telepathy is stronger than mine,” she told the other Siren, “so you can reach them faster than I can. Besides, I need to start moving this earth now, and I need all my concentration.”
Her teammate nodded and shifted back toward the sinkhole, and the moment Chinta saw the connection of communication, she looked toward Nasu. “Ready to shoot some spooders if they come out at me?”
Nasu smirked and chambered a round in his rifle. “Are we keeping a count?”
“Are you afraid I’m going to squish one before you can shoot it?” Chinta grinned. She didn’t bother to wait for his reply as she stepped right up to the unstable edge of the earth and focused on the churned earth below her.
She still somewhat had trouble envisioning telekinetically moving things without a physical response, but right now, that really didn’t matter. So her hands rose into the air, fingers curled into fists, as if she were gripping the earth like she would grip a blanket, and tendrils of her power hooked into the debris. With a breath, Chinta yanked upwards on the earth, her arms swinging high over her head before moving in an arc to her right. A fountain of earth, easily three hundred pounds, shot up into the air following her movements and smacked down onto the ground outside the sinkhole, piling up into a small mountain there.
She could feel more acutely now the terror - and the fierce hope the four minds now felt - as she moved yet another heavy pile of earth, and knew exactly where the four individuals were. That allowed her to shift the earth in more controlled and concise movements, so she didn’t cause yet another collapse, and so she didn’t accidentally end up being the one killing those she was trying to rescue.
The first person she unveiled was a farmer, and as she held the earth in place, she reached out to the man and used her telekinesis to pull him free. It barely winded her, and she brought him close enough for her squad mate to grab. She didn’t bother to watch the next step, already knowing that her squad mate was handing the farmer off to Xalk and his small group to take to safety. Her attention turned to the second mind, and she performed the same actions to release the second farmer from his earthen prison. The third and fourth minds were a little harder to get to. They had struggled to free themselves, and in doing so, had sunk even further into the bowels of the earth. It took Chinta several minutes to move enough of the dirt and rocks to free the second to last person, and when the woman was clear of the crushing earth, Chinta lifted her out of the deep hole into the waiting arms of those who would take her to safety. Then she turned her attention to the last mind she felt.
And felt the hope that had kindled in that mind suddenly snuff out, replaced by gut-clenching, bowel-watering, mind-numbing fear.
Chinta worked as fast as she could as carefully as she could, not wanting to crush the person she was trying to rescue trying to rescue them. She reached for the last bit of earth covering the person and yanked it free-
There was a bright flash of light and concussive thunder as Nasu pulled the trigger on his rifle. The bullet struck the Trapdoor spider between its numerous beady eyes, splattering its ichor over the rocks and earth. Chinta heard another blast but ignored it in favor of grabbing the last man with her telekinesis and yanking him free. Nasu continued to fire.
As soon as Chinta handed off the collapse victim, she whipped around to face the Trapdoors that were still coming through despite Nasu’s attempts to keep them at bay. She focused on the large bastard in the lead and struck it hard with the earth she’d removed earlier. She drove it back into the tunnel from which it had emerged and wedged the hole shut with the earth. A second spider met a similar fate, only Chinta didn’t bother to drive it back. She simply dropped the heaviest amount of earth she could lift on top of it, crushing it under the weight. And then she was joined by the squad mate Aliena had assigned to close the sinkholes, and with Chinta and Nasu providing the offensive support, the three of them managed to seal off the sinkhole entirely.
“Well,” Chinta panted, her face flushed with exhilaration and a wide grin plastered there, “that was exciting, wasn’t it?”
Nasu shook his head and laughed, but didn’t reply, for Chinta was already moving on to the next sinkhole.
Systematically, their team went to each of the remaining maws and rescued several more people, mostly civilians that hadn’t been able to escape when the ground beneath their feet just suddenly began to vanish. The few military personnel they rescued had either just begun to try and rescue themselves or had tried to rescue themselves and had just been too wounded to do more than struggle to keep their airways clear. Not always was the rescue smooth, as the invading spiders sensed an easy meal and attacked without warning. Chinta struck back at a Trapdoor that had gotten far too close to her current target by snatching hold of one of its legs with her telekinesis and wrenching it clear off, before she focused on the spider itself and slammed it into the wall of the sinkhole so hard the monstrous creature actually exploded into ichorous bits. Other times, her squad mate either managed to intercept a spider and kill it, or Nasu managed to shoot the spider dead before either Chinta or her squad mate had a chance to divide their focus.
By the time they reached the final sinkhole, the chaos had swelled to such a point that it was clear that something else entirely was going on, but that something was hidden under the miasma of rescuing survivors of the disaster and ensuring that the spider invasion hadn’t progressed any further than this single ranch. The squads worked around each other and with each other like a well-oiled machine, moving in each other’s wakes with cold, sharp precision.
As the chaos finally began to ebb, the Sirens regrouped with Aliena, who was running the names of those they had rescued against the names of those that had been reported as missing. Whether they had been recovered alive or recovered dead - or, worst case, only a piece of them had been recovered - it seemed as if the Sirens had retrieved everyone.
Everyone, that was, except for one.
Aliena lifted her gaze from the list of names to meet the eyes of each member of her squad. She knew what they were thinking. She knew what they wanted to do, what they ought to do, but her orders were clear.
As much as it went against her sense of duty, Aliena forced herself to say, “We’re to give a final sweep of the area, in the event that someone wasn’t reported as missing and survived. We’re going to move in a grid pattern, with Chinta on point. If she feels something, we’re going in to investigate. No one is to go off on their own, and we are to stay in contact at all times.” She took a deep breath, and added, “Commander Hyakinthos is, unfortunately, on his own. May whatever gods there be watch over him.”
