COMMANDER Root was sucking on a particularly noxious fungus cigar. Several of the Retrieval
Squad had nearly passed out in the shuttle. Even the pong from the manacled troll seemed mild in
comparison. Of course, no one said anything, their boss being touchier than a septic bum boil.
Foaly, on the other hand, delighted in antagonizing his superior. 'None of your rancid stogies in
here, Commander!' he brayed, the moment Root made it back to Ops. 'The computers don't like
smoke!'
Root scowled, certain that Foaly was making this up. Nevertheless, the commander was not
prepared to risk a computer crash in the middle of an alert and so doused his cigar in the coffee cup
of a passing gremlin.
'Now, Foaly, what's this so-called alert? And it better be good this time!'
The centaur had a tendency to go completely hyper over trivialities. He'd once gone to Defcon
Two because his human satellite stations were out.
'It's good all right,' Foaly assured him. 'Or should I say bad? Very bad.'
Root felt the ulcer in his gut begin to bubble like a volcano.
'How bad?'
Foaly punched up Ireland on the Eurosat. 'We lost contact with Captain Short.'
'Why am I not surprised?' groaned Root, burying his face in his hands.
'We had her all the way over the Alps.'
'The Alps? She took a land route?'
Foaly nodded. 'Against regulations, I know. But everyone does it.'
The commander agreed grudgingly. Who could resist a view like that? As a rookie, he'd been
placed on report himself for that exact offence.
'OK. Move on. When did we lose her?'
Foaly opened a VT box on the screen.
'This is the feed from Holly's helmet unit. Here we are over Disneyland Paris...'
The centaur pressed the fast-forward.
'Now dolphins, blah blah blah. The Irish coastline. Still no worries. Look, her locator comes into
shot. Captain Short is scanning for magic hotspots. Site fifty-seven shows up red, so she heads for
that one.'
'Why not Tara?'
Foaly snorted. 'Tara? Every fairy hippie in the northern hemisphere will be dancing around the Lia
Fáil at the full moon. There'll be so many shields on, it'll look like the whole place is under water.'
'Fine,' grunted Root through gritted teeth. 'Just get on with it, will you.'
'All right. Don't get your ears in a knot.' Foaly skipped several minutes of tape. 'Now. Here's the
interesting bit…Nice smooth landing, hangs up the wings. Holly takes off the helmet.'
'Against regulations,' interjected Root. 'LEP officers must never remove -'
'LEP officers must never remove their headgear above ground, unless said headgear is defective,'
completed Foaly. 'Yes, Commander, we all know what the handbook says. But are you trying to tell
me that you never sneaked a breath of air after a few hours in the sky?'
'No,' admitted Root. 'What are you? Her fairy godmother or something? Get to the important bit!'
Foaly smirked behind his hand. Driving up Root's blood pressure was one of the few perks of the
job. No one else would dare to do it. That was because everybody else was replaceable. Not Foaly.
He'd built the system from scratch and if anyone else even tried to boot it up, a hidden virus would
bring it crashing about their pointy ears.
'The important bit. Here we are. Look. Suddenly Holly drops the helmet. It must land lens down
because we lose picture. We've still got sound though, so I'll bring that up.'
Foaly boosted the audio signal, filtering out background noise.
'Not great quality. The mike is in the camera. So that was nose down in the dirt too.'
'Nice pea-shooter,' said a voice. Definitely human. Deep too. That usually meant big.
Root raised an eyebrow. 'Pea-shooter?'
'Slang for gun.'
'Oh.' Then the importance of that simple statement struck him. 'She drew her weapon.'
'Just wait. It gets worse.'
'I don't suppose you would consider peaceful surrender?' said a second voice. Just listening to it
gave the commander shivers. 'No,' continued the voice. 'I suppose not.'
'This is bad,' said Root, his face uncharacteristically pale. 'This feels like a set-up. These two
goons were waiting. How is that possible?'
Holly's voice came through the speaker then, typically brazen in the face of danger. The
commander sighed. At least she was alive. It was more bad news though as the parties exchanged
threats, and the second human displayed an uncommon knowledge of fairy affairs.
'He knows about the Ritual!'
'Here's the worst bit.'
Root's jaw dropped. 'The worst bit?'
Holly's voice again. This time layered with the mesmer.
'Now she has them,' crowed Root.
But apparently not. Not only did the mesmer prove ineffective, but the mysterious pair seemed to
find it amusing.
'That's all there is from Holly,' noted Foaly. 'One of the Mud People messes around with the
camera for a bit and then we lose everything.'
Root rubbed the creases between his eyes. 'Not much to go on. No visual, not even a name. We
can't really be a hundred per cent sure that we have a situation.'
'You want proof?' asked Foaly, rewinding the tape. 'I'll give you proof.'
He ran the available video.
'Now watch this. I'm going to slow it right down. One frame per second.'
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