Begin Part VI 

 McNihil and Banning, team five, and Do and Feller, team four, had entered 
the building via the front door and a vigorous application of explosives. 
The six pirates guarding the door were still groggy from the shock wave of 
the explosion and offered no resistance to the four men who came through the 
door. Those seconds were all it took for McNihil and Banning to secure the 
room, and Do and Feller were already running for the stair well. 
 Team five paused long enough to disable all of the elevators in the 
building, and then cleared the first floor and following team four up the 
stairs. In theory the plan was rather simple, each team took a floor while 
the other made sure no one moved on the stair well who was not supposed to. 
In practice they never got past the second floor landing before getting 
bogged down in a vicious fire fight with one of the roaming teams of 
pirates. 
 Meanwhile team one, composed of Howard and Reeves, and team two, Stevens 
and Garfield, took that same plan but in a downwards direction with better 
results. O'Muirdagh and Koffler ended up supporting Rickabee and Stecker in 
trying to clear the hall in front of the conference room. 
 O'Muirdagh and Koffler crept up behind team three and peeked around the 
corner to look at the pirates at the end of the hall. There seemed to be 
about six in evidence now with four on the ground, motionless, and a lot of 
property damage. Halfway between team two and the pirates barricade there 
was a door blown in and what appeared to be another pair of feet sticking 
out into the hallway. 
 "Three-one, this is six, I'm right behind you now and moving in." 
 "Roger that, six." Stecker turned back to make sure it was O'Muirdagh 
and Koffler, and then signaled for them to move forward. "We got quite a 
little cluster fuck, sir. Those idiots at the other end of the hall got 
things set so we can't move forward without revealing ourselves. We know 
there are still hostages alive in that room with the broken door because 
somebody pulled the dead guy's gun and didn't come out." 
 "We got lucky then, must have been a hostage with enough common sense not 
to walk out into a fire fight. How you doing for ammo?" 
 "Not that bad, sir. Two and I just fire off a burst or two when we see 
somebody dumb enough to stick a body part out. Other than that no really 
serious rock and roll, yet." 
 "Okay well I never really liked waiting." O'Muirdagh said, reaching into 
his vest pouch and pulling out a cylinder with a series of buttons on it. 
He punched one button, then a second, looked down the hall, hit a third and 
waited. "I'm going to toss this thing just past their barricade, it should 
go off on impact. After that we clear the hall and get the fuck out of 
here." 
 "What kind of grenade, sir. It isn't one of the ones they gave us," 
Rickabee said before turning and putting another burst down the hall towards 
the pirates. "I mean it might be kind of nice to let us in on the plan." 
 "Makes sense. It's a special little concussion grenade, a flash bang I 
got a guy back at KJM to make for me special. The shock wave will confuse 
the fuck out of them and give Koffler and I time to get to that doorway and 
check on the hostages. If those damn pirates get things together before we 
hit the door you better keep my ass alive." 
 "Works for me, let's do it sir." Stecker smiled, while Rickabee turned 
and fired a series of bursts back and forth across the hall. O'Muirdagh 
popped up and chucked the grenade as hard as he could to put it over the 
barricade. 
 Luck was with him that day when Ratislav O'Muirdagh threw his bomb over 
the pirate's head and it hit the wall behind them. The grenade bounced off 
of the far wall and miraculously failed to go off until it hit the inside 
edge of the barricade. The blast was perfect as every pirate had seen the 
grenade arc overhead and followed it to see where it landed. One or two had 
the sense to start moving when they saw it rebound but they were still 
looking at it when the flash blinded them and the sound wave hit. 
 Koffler, Stecker, Rickabee, and O'Muirdagh were all looking away from the 
barricade when the grenade went off. Team three spun around and fired down 
the hall catching two pirates who had reflexively stood up when they were 
blinded. Koffler led off, and O'Muirdagh followed as they charged down the 
hall to the door and leapt into the room as one pirate let fire with his gun 
in any direction. 

 Hobbes nearly pulled the trigger when the two men in gray jumped into the 
room but the first one managed to kick the gun out of his hands before he 
could react fully. He rolled back onto his butt and watched as the two 
surveyed the room and one said something into his mike set. 
 The second trooper into the room slung his gun where he could reach it 
easily and raised his goggles to rub his eyes. 
 "So, Hobbes you do this sort of silly shit often?" 
 Hobbes froze in the act of getting up as he tried to recognize the voice. 
"O'Muirdagh, what the fuck are you doing dressed in that silly ass 
outfit." 
 "Saving your ass, sir. I'd like to present the thirteenth squad to you 
but most of them are around taking care of other business. So why don't you 
just tell me how things are going and we can get most of these people out of 
here." 
 "Well, we got here for a visit, the shooting started, a few explosions 
and of course things were rather relaxed after that until you showed up. As 
usual you had to go and ruin a perfectly good hostage situation by going and 
killing all of the terrorists. Of course this means that Filitov wins the 
bet, he said it had to be Fleet to be doing silly shit like this cause his 
army doesn't have the personnel or the facilities. So where does the fleet 
have the facilities?" 
 O'Muirdagh smirked: 
 "You know damn good and well that that is classified, Hobbes. Anyway 
it's a long damn story and I really don't have time to tell it right now. 
Are there are injured or missing hostages?" 
 "No," Hobbes replied. "Everybody who has at the conference or even on 
the top two floor's is pretty much in the room. We don't know about anybody 
down below for sure." 
 O'Muirdagh paused to talk on the radio to Stecker and Rickabee and to 
check in with the other teams to see how things were going. Teams four and 
five had made it to the fourth floor and would be moving on shortly with no 
losses so far. There had been a group of hostages on the third floor but 
they had been freed without complications and were right now exiting the 
building, under the care of local police. Teams one and two had cleared the 
sixth and fifth floor and were trying get down to help out four and five but 
the pirates were getting desperate now that they new their time was running 
out. 
 O'Muirdagh was about to move out of the room when his radio squawked and 
he froze just inside the doorway. 
 "This is six, go ahead." 
 "Six, this is Three-two. You got a couple of pirates moving in towards 
your position. We can't take them out with grenades because they figure 
that trick and are using shields now. Looks like two of the them are using 
a pretty solid table that we can't get any bullets through. Get ready their 
almost to you, over." 
 "Three-two, this is six, that's a roger." O'Muirdagh signaled for Hobbes 
to get back and took his rifle off of his shoulder. Grabbing the door jamb 
with one hand he leaned out of the door and leveled his gun at the closest 
pirate. The pirate was just some poor joke who never even looked up until 
the gun was nearly in line with his body. There was a second of eye 
contact, before O'Muirdagh held the trigger down for nearly a quarter of the 
clip. Bullets riddled the pirate in a moment and blood was thrown against 
the other pirate and the far wall. 
 O'Muirdagh let go of the trigger for a moment as the body collapsed into 
the ground with a sickening squish, and then pulled it again. This time his 
target was the second pirate still in shock from the blood covering his 
body. Only a few shots hit the second but these did a greater damage, 
slamming into first the arm, then the torso, and finally three bullets 
passed through the man's skull. 
 Rickabee stood up exactly as O'Muirdagh rolled out of the doorway and 
fired a burst into the group of pirates that suddenly charged out of the 
stairwell down the hall. Pirates scattered to the walls and mostly used 
each other as cover. Ratislav used the momentary confusion to dive back 
into the conference and get ready for the next push. 
 He wasn't even looking when Kristin grabbed him by the arm and yanked 
away from the door so that some explosion just missed him. When he looked 
back into the hall all he could see was smoke pieces of shrapnel from the 
blast. Turning back to look at Kristin, he saw that she had streaks of 
blood where pieces of the boor jamb had grazed her face. For some reason he 
was overcome by the simple need to just watch her face as she stared at him 
and so he didn't even react the first time Stecker's voice sounded in his 
ear piece. 
 "Six, this is Three-One, are you all right in there?" 
 "Three-One, this is Six, we are okay. The blast must have been deflected 
around the doorway. What the hell was that that just went off out there. 
 "It was one of the pirates, sir. Seems that one of them had a dynamite 
pack strapped on him and made a move to head for the conference room. 
Three-Two got off a couple of good shots and took out his legs, we didn't 
know the bomb was already armed until it went off. Quite a blast, must have 
been something special to do the damage it did. Wasn't very well planned 
though because it looks like it killed or wounded most of the pirates we can 
see from here." 
 "Alright then, we'll use this to get the hostages out of here. You guys 
cover and we'll keep them all on one side of the hallway so you have clear 
lanes of fire. Once they're out of here we wrap this thing up and get to go 
home." 
 "Sounds good to me, sir. Lets do it." O'Muirdagh flashed a couple of 
hand signs to Koffler, readied his rifle and moved towards to the door. 
Koffler slid up behind O'Muirdagh, and when the Lieutenant nodded, moved 
outside to the far side of the hall. O'Muirdagh followed him out and 
covered the near side, and then told Hobbes to lead the people down the hall 
towards Rickabee and Stecker. 
 It looked like things were going to take all day when O'Muirdagh turned 
around and realized that the only person left by the door and not moving 
down the hall was Kristin. He was just turning to grab her and move out 
when Koffler let off a burst of shots in the direction the pirates had come 
from. He didn't even turn to look back, he just yanked Kristin along and 
took off for the cover that Stecker and Rickabee had set up earlier. 
 Koffler let off two or three more bursts as four pirate kicked the door 
to the hallway in and charged into what they had thought was the last clear 
floor. The first dropped in a flash when the bullets struck him, and then 
two more went down with the surprise shots from Stecker and Rickabee. The 
last one dove back into the stairwell and took off before anyone could get a 
shot at him. 
 O'Muirdagh pulled himself together enough to talk to Kristin: 
 "What the hell were you doing still waiting behind me. You should have 
been long gone. Im thankful you pulled me away from the blast but you have 
got to take care of yourself." 
 "Look, Lieutenant. I just saved you ass and then I made a very simple 
realization, there are two groups of people with guns in the building. The 
group that you apparently came in here with, and the groups of guys who came 
in here to take it over." 
 O'Muirdagh was just about to reply when Zimmerman's voice cut in over the 
radio in his ear. The trooper was trying to report a shuttle circling over 
head that looked like it was about to land. Zimmerman might have ignored it 
except that it didn't have any local or government markings and wasn't using 
any sort of known communication equipment. Pickering confirmed this report 
and commented that the landing spot was definitely going to be the roof, 
because he could see something moving but never enough to get a solid shot. 
The two agreed that it would be on the roof in less than two minutes and 
could be gone in just about five depending on how long it took to get it 
loaded. 
 Shaking his head, O'Muirdagh stepped into the stairwell leading Kristin 
and found Hobbes waiting for him. Ratislav yelled at Hobbes and people in 
general because it seemed like only the people under his command were taking 
his orders seriously. He shrugged it off and told Hobbes to take Kristin 
outside and wait for him there, he would have to go to the roof to take care 
of something. Before either of them could reply he took off up the stairs, 
giving orders into his radio as he went. Hobbes was at a loss for words and 
only managed a confused grunt when Kristin took off after Ratislav. 

End Part VI