While the Ailians and the Spetsnaz troopers dealt with the rebels, the SAS commando teams got to work placing explosives in several positions on the roof. They didn't have the time to bother with forcing through any of the doors which accessed the top of the palace, and intended to blow holes directly into the building. Once the explosives were in position, everyone moved as far away from them as they could, and then the commandos detonated their charges.
The whole building shook as the roof was blasted inward, and the rapidly-clearing dust and smoke revealed that the charges had done their job correctly. Three wide holes now provided access to the upper floors of the palace. The soldiers divided into their teams, and still under fire from the remaining rebel troops they dropped down through the holes to get to their tasks inside the palace.
******
“What was that?” Brooke whispered frantically.
“No idea,” Jack hissed back. He tightened his grip on his stolen rifle, looking up at the ceiling. Both of them had felt the vibration and heard the muffled booms. Jack knew it had been explosives of some kind, but his hearing wasn't finely-tuned enough to let his perception be more specific than that. For all he knew, somebody could have been dropping bombs on the royal palace.
After leaving their cell in the basement, he and Brooke had not yet encountered any rebels. They were moving carefully through the halls, alert for any sounds that people were ahead, but so far they had been lucky. Whatever was going on above, probably the rebel forces were more worried about what was going on outside than what might be occurring inside. Evidently the calls of the guard before Jack killed him had gone unnoticed or been ignored. The two humans had gradually made their way out of the cellar and up to the next underground level. He was assuming they were still underground, anyway, because he hadn't seen any windows. Jack was uncomfortable in that he had no idea where he was going. When he had been given a tour of the palace by Li'ren the first time he'd been here, what seemed like years ago now, she had only shown him the more public areas of the palace: the gardens and the first and second floors. He was totally lost in the basements, relying on the guidance of Brooke, who herself had limited knowledge of other parts of the palace.
“Let's just keep moving up,” Jack told her. They were walking down a long hallway now, doors on either side of them, heading for a T-intersection. “We'll get to the top eventually if we keep going, and maybe then we can get outside and find some friendly-”
Just then, as they rounded the corner, Jack gave a startled yell as he was faced with a frightening sight. He had never seen anything so terrifying in his life, and that was including any of the worst encounters he'd had with wildlife after his crash. As soon as he came around the corner, he got his first face-to-face view of a Pteryd. The insectoid alien seemed just as surprised to see him. This was clearly a soldier, its iridescent carapace clad in black-and-crimson armor and wielding a rifle. Apart from the weapon it was carrying, the arms of the Pteryd sported natural blades that looked to have been sharpened into fine edges. Its bulbous eyes focused on him and Brooke, and it clacked its mandibles in alarm as it recognized a human carrying a weapon. Because of the stolen gear he was wearing, it seemed for a few seconds to think he was one of its allies, but then it leveled its rifle in his direction.
Not waiting for what came next, Jack threw his arm back and pushed Brooke into the hallway they'd come from, and he pulled the trigger on his rifle and fired a few rounds at the Pteryd. That made the alien jerk back as it dodged his fire, but it was quick to respond with a shot of its own, and a charged energy beam sizzled through the air millimeters from his head, close enough that he felt the heat from the shot. Jack immediately retreated around the corner, but quick skittering sounds told him that the alien was in pursuit.
“Get in there, get in there!” he yelled at Brooke, reaching for the first door handle he found and pushing it open as fast as he could. He shoved the girl inside just in time for the alien to come into view. This time Jack was ready, and he held his trigger down at point-blank range. The Pteryd came crashing into him as multiple bullets tore into its body, enough of them finding gaps in the armor. They both toppled to the floor, with Jack clenching his eyes shut as he waited for the soldier's blades to slash into his skin. But when they came to rest, he felt the Pteryd twitch violently for a few terrible moments, and then it lay still on top of him.
Realizing he was still alive, Jack heaved with all of his strength and managed to roll the corpse off of him. He sat up, shaking and confused, feeling himself all over for signs of injury. Miraculously, he seemed unhurt. Then he looked through the doorway, panic rising up as he saw Brooke lying prone on the floor, but then he sighed with relief as he saw the girl pick herself up. Though she looked just as shaken as he was, she also didn't look injured.
“Come on,” Jack said to her, getting up and helping her to her feet. He noticed that his rifle's bolt was locked back, empty, and he reloaded it. “You're okay, you're okay. Let's keep going.” He was all too aware of the perilous situation they were now in. He remembered everything that Aria had ever told him about Pteryd, especially that they were a telepathic species with something of a hive mind. He was one hundred percent certain that any Pteryd in the area now knew that there were two human prisoners loose in the palace. “We need to get moving before this place is crawling with Pteryd.”
Breathless, Brooke nodded. She looked shocked enough that she didn't seem to have the ability to feel fear anymore, just blind acceptance. Dragging her out of the room, Jack began to run with her, his only aim right now to get as far away from the dead Pteryd as possible. They could worry about stealth again once they were clear of the area.
******
Aria was surprised to find very few rebel soldiers inside of the palace. The arrival of the United Nations forces seemed to have been totally unanticipated by the rebels, with most of the soldiers having been caught outside by the sudden attack. But she wasn't about to let her guard down. From the sounds of things, the enemy outside was getting hammered by sniper fire and the circling attack helicopters, and they were liable to retreat inside at any moment. As Aria knew, fights inside of buildings could be nasty affairs.
Upon entering the palace, Aria and a squad of her Royal Guards had split off from the Spetsnaz and SAS troopers. Their primary goal in the palace was to find the Empress, but ever since arriving on the roof, Aria had realized she had a much different objective in mind. She reasoned that there were plenty of friendly troops around, and someone was bound to come across the Empress if a thorough search was conducted. Aria wanted much more to find her mother, or better yet, to find Jack. She doubted that her mother would have bothered to have him taken to a different location.
They'd started their search, naturally, on the highest floor of the palace, but Aria knew that the best places to search would be the lower levels, down where the throne room, meeting halls, and more private residential areas of the palace were. Leaving the top to the rest of her allies, she brought her group to one of the side stairwells to head for the floors below. The Royal Guards moved swiftly but carefully, all of their senses heightened as they descended. The palace corridors reeked of the stench of Pteryd, but so far they had encountered none of them.
-Be careful,- Aria growled to her soldiers. -There will be trouble, of that we can be sure. They will not have left these halls totally unguarded.- She was walking in rear guard, keeping an eye on their backs as her soldiers walked in front of her. Their heads were turning in all directions, watchful for anything that might signal an attack.
Most of the doors in the palace seemed to be unlocked. Upon coming to a door, one of the guards would stand off to the side and push it open, keeping back so that the rest of them could sweep inside and clear the room beyond. Of the people they had encountered, all of them had been palace servants hiding from the commotion outside. The Royal Guards instructed them to remain where they were, of course after checking them to make sure they weren't rebels in disguise.
After clearing most of the second floor, with no signs of any enemies or prisoners, Aria's team descended to the first floor. Her fur was bristled up. She knew that they ought to have been faced with some kind of resistance by now, and the calm inside of the palace was becoming unnerving. The bottom of the staircase they were in would lead them directly into the main meeting hall of the palace. Before making entry, Aria keyed up her radio.
-Anyone on this channel,- she called. -What's the situation outside?-
The first voice to answer her was General Soumaren's. -We are being held firm outside,- the Nuretan commander informed her. The background of her transmission was filled with scattered bursts of gunfire. -Rebel soldiers have good cover in the gardens and at the entrances to the palace. We're not able to break through without heavy losses, even with our air support, but the Pteryd airships have been mostly cleared out. What's your status inside?-
-We are clearing the palace floor-by-floor,- Aria replied. -We're about to enter the main hall. No signs of our primary objectives yet.- She put her ear up against the door that would open into the meeting hall. She heard nothing. -Mari, what can you see from where you are?-
-Very little,- her executive officer radioed back. -There are perhaps one hundred rebel soldiers scattered around the outside of the palace.- After a brief pause, Aria heard the very loud crack of a rifle shot over the radio channel. -Ninety-nine. But I have no view inside. The windows are shuttered.-
Aria nodded, though the gesture could not be seen over the airwaves. Things outside sounded well in hand, though she would have liked it if the allied troops could breach the ground entrances to the palace. But for now, that was of little concern. They were held down out there, so for the moment there was no chance of enemy troops coming back in. She clicked off her radio, considering her next move. The meeting hall was one place that needed to be checked, but she had been hoping that Mari or one of the other snipers could have given her some idea of what was inside. The lack of view through the windows was problematic. She pressed her ear against the door again. Again, she heard nothing.
-Alright, what do we do?- she asked her soldiers. -We can go in, or look for a better way around. Let me hear your thoughts.-
-I say go in,- the most senior soldier, a sergeant, with her said. -We shouldn't risk the delay of finding a longer route. Push in now, clear the room, and keep going. That's my vote.-
-Concur,- another soldier said.
Aria looked at the other two Royal Guards in the squad. They also looked as though they wanted to push forward. She didn't have the best feeling about it, but they were right. Time was of the essence. Reluctantly, she agreed with them. -Very well.- She stepped back from the door. -Sergeant, take the door. Two left, two right, I'll cover from the entryway. Let's go.-
The soldiers all snugged their weapons tight to their shoulders, as the sergeant reached for the door. She tested it once, and found it unlocked like most of the other doors they'd come to. Holding up one hand, she gave a slow countdown from three, and then grabbed the door handle and twisted. Just as she pushed the door in and the soldiers began moving, Aria got a jolt of premonition shooting up her spine that made her tail stand out straight.
-Wait!- she shouted, too late. All four of her soldiers went through the door just as they'd been trained to, and as soon as they did so they were met with a hail of gunfire. Taken by surprise, the guards barely had time to respond with a few shots of their own before they were cut down. Aria hunched against the wall on the stairway side of the door, feeling thuds through the walls as bullets struck the opposite surface. In a matter of seconds, the gunfire stopped, leaving the area eerily quiet apart from the lingering ring in Aria's ears.
She was almost afraid to do so, but now that she was here it was likely just a matter of time before someone came after her. Preferring to meet them before that point, Aria slowly and carefully poked her head around the edge of the doorway. Her eyes flashed as she peered inside the meeting hall. Standing on the far side of room, weapons raised, were five crimson-clad Ailian rebel soldiers. And standing behind them...
-Ahh, Aria,- Ara'lana said, a falsely welcoming smile on her face. -How nice of you to join us. I was so hoping you would live long enough to find me.-
******
Lieutenant Kozlov and his Spetsnaz troopers were facing their own set of problems in the meantime. After they'd come in through the roof, the Royal Guards had headed downstairs and the SAS had set about securing the highest floor to prevent enemy troops from following them, leaving the Russian commandos to go about searching the rear portion of the palace, where a lot of residential and office areas were located. The palace was like a maze, and the human lieutenant had to really focus on where they were going to keep from getting lost, which was no easy task since he and his soldiers had been given barely an hour to look over the layout before making this assault. They'd split up into five groups of four commandos each, taking a sector of the palace to cover. Going room-to-room, exactly as they'd trained so often, they cleared each room one by one. The operation had been uneventful at first, but they had run into a snag once they'd gotten deep into the back of the palace.