I just sighed and brought my Gamma and Delta inside. Saeed and Saleet El-Tamer the twin dancers were at a table in the cavern on the big radios. Adeeb Al-Radi was also there looking at a large screen. There was news footage being broadcast all over the kingdom. Abushawai and Sufahan were both in the northwest. The victories there put the kingdom on the backfoot. The rebellion was threatening to take the whole northern half of Hutania by dawn. Taimi was a city near the border near Oplixo and that had been a pyrrhic victory. The third faction were militants that worshipped the sun. That made things very complicated. It looked like the fate of the city was too contested to tell what would happen there. That left the fourth target. We wanted some news on how it went. P01 Beta was paired up with P02 Zeta. Neither of them had returned to us yet. I was concerned. Adeeb was finally able to find a channel covering the situation in Mastooha. We saw some news where they went into a play by play of the fight. Unlike my clique, P01 Beta had no real experience fighting on the ground.
She was totally unprepared for the fight. She was trying to do air control, but P02 Zeta could not help even when she was able to point things out. Eventually, the police and military were able to take them out from anti-air tank shelling. The aeromorph was strong too. He beat the shit out of them in the air because they were so distracted by the other stuff going on. When a lucky hit from a tank knocked Beta out of the air, the enemy aeromorph just shot all his missiles at her. That killed her instantly. With that, Zeta was distraught. Understandable, but the wrong time to freak out. The aeromorph capitalized on it. He caught her and slammed her on the ground. He made use of the size difference and cruelly ripped her wings off her back. He then raised his DDM and proceeded to rape her in the middle of the street. It was hard to watch. I looked at the others and they were a mix between disgusted and outraged. We were going to have to do something about this. Adeeb looked at us and said "Friends. We have to honor the fallen with prayer and remember their sacrifice. Victory is at hand."
That got him some dirty looks and he turned to the screens. "You are warriors created for this purpose. To fight and bring glory on the battlefield. This here is the reality of war." he said as he pointed to the one with Zeta on it. I looked away. "You are now fully entangled in our struggle for freedom. I thank you and will do my best to protect you. We are so close. There are only 2 more aeromorphs on the Sultan's side. We have the east. We'll soon have the North." he begged. I spoke up to get us to move along. "We will have to kill that guy hurting Zeta anyway. We'll call it revenge." I said. That seemed to get them to come around. Adeeb looked genuinely regretful. "I still implore you to remeber them as heroes. We will leave for now. There is planning to be done and you look like you would like to mourn in peace." The humans then left us alone in the caverns. We refueled and continued to look at the screens. The rebels in Abushawai and Sufahan triumphed in the streets as expected. Taimi actually fell to the sun worshippers. The military and Lunusaris took each other out. That was bad.
