[Chapter 8: Cavalry]Captain Simeon Kindlot, leader of pararescue Team 5 and part of the 48th Rescue Squadron, gripped his weapon off the side of the helicopter, waiting. His warm breath thickened into a white mist in the cold air.
The last two hours had been the greatest example of organized chaos he had ever seen, and he knew it would only get crazier.
A set number of the men assigned to the mission had been equipped with specialty weapons and tools. Unfortunately, the number of ultrasonic weapons and shields were limited, and they had been told the ammunition that had been used to kill the other parasite would not arrive before they wanted the mission carried out.
Superman had no time.
"Roach has left the building. Operation Steel is a go," a voice crackled in his ear from his radio.
Three helicopters took off and Kindlot was certain they were incapable of going any faster. Five minutes later, they were hovering over the old abandoned paint plant with the sun just over the desert horizon.
"Teams 5, 6, and 7 are over the drop off point," the pilot reported.
"Go, go, go!" Kindlot ordered the three teams, repelling down and landing on the roof.
Team 6 quickly took defensive positions on the roof while team 7 secured the ground and surrounding area before entering the building to work their way up the five story structure. While they did that, Kindlot's team hurried to the door on the roof to head down. It was hoped this strategy would help them find and retrieve Superman much faster.
Kindlot kicked down the door and his team hurried into the stairwell, utilizing the map they had all memorized. He ordered his second to take point and lead the clearing of the fifth floor, beginning the dance they all knew quite well.
They went room by room swiftly, scanning the old offices and cutting down the halls. The floors and windswept walls were caked with dust from the desert. Debris and graffiti from decades of vagrants and explorers lay throughout. Silently, they moved down to the fourth floor and continued the search.
They exited the stairwell, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the far end of the open floor where a crumpled form lay thirty feet away. This could only be one person. He saw Superman's exposed back and shoulders, his bare skin riddled with what looked like reddish brown handprints. He could also see that Superman’s right ankle was gripped by a chain secured to a support column. His red cape, now utterly filthy, was partially wrapped around his leg and chest. From where he was, Kindlot couldn't tell if the Kryptonian was breathing.
"Eyes on Keystone," Kindlot declared into his radio as he moved forward. "Fourth floor, northeast side, near largest window."
"State?" Command asked as four of his men took defensive positions around the room while the remaining two followed him.
"Standby," he answered as they immediately got to work.
Jamison, his team’s devoted combat medic, placed the stretcher beside Superman and Daniels, the secondary medic, began pulling out special equipment while Kindlot focused on assessing Superman.
Kindlot tried to keep himself emotionally distant from what he was seeing, but even he, a combat veteran who was also highly medically trained, was unable to fully squelch his horror at seeing the condition the world's hero was in.
The dirty handprints he had seen from afar were actually burst capillaries clustered around what looked like deep impact bruises in the shape of misshapen hands.
Kindlot carefully turned Superman over, and he wasn’t yet sure if he was merely unconscious or if he was dead. He laid him onto his back, noting his blue lips and how ice cold his skin was, but that was the least of his concern. The handprints were all over the Kryptonian’s chest, not just his back and sides, and they were also on his arms and neck – some more vibrant than others with a few overlapping.
Kindlot swallowed as he privately estimated that the Man of Steel had lost at least thirty pounds. Now that he was close, the Captain could see the shadow of Superman’s skeletal structure in his face and chest. While he wouldn’t consider this anywhere near the worst case he had ever seen, the fact he was seeing it at all on the person who had literally saved the world was terrifying.
He checked Superman's discolored neck for a pulse.
“Unconscious, pulse thready, uneven breaths, ice cold, covered in severe contusions. Will activate lights shortly,” he reported concisely as he nodded to Daniels to cut the chain with the bolt cutters.
As Daniels did that, he turned Superman to his side and Jamison slid the board into position before they eased him back down. The chain was cut a moment later and Daniels wordlessly freed Superman’s leg from it.
"Hook up the battery," Kindlot told Daniels as he and Jamison retrieved two fluorescent tubes from his pack and placed them on either side of Superman right between his arms and sides.
Daniels turned the special lights on as soon as they were in place and Jamison placed an oxygen mask over Superman's nose and mouth before sticking electrode stickers to his marred chest. With that done, they covered him with a foil blanket and strapped him and the support equipment to the board. Lastly, they covered his ears with one-way headphones in case by chance they needed to talk to him during the helicopter ride.
"Keystone is secure. Team 5 heading to extraction point," Kindlot said.
They rushed to the roof where the helicopter was already waiting above. Everyone worked like a well oiled machine and, within two minutes, they were back in the sky.
“Flagstaff Medical Center, ETA, 42 minutes, straightshot,” the pilot said. “So some civilians are going to be surprised.”
Kindlot couldn’t help but laugh. They tended to avoid flying in airspace over residential and even commercial areas, but current needs overrode such usual protocol.
Less than ten minutes in the air, Superman's heart rate began to improve and his breathing leveled.
"Looks like the light is helping," Jamison said, before they all noticed Superman's pinned right arm strain to move against the restraints.
Kindlot immediately placed his hand on Superman's covered shoulder in an attempt to reassure, but unfortunately it had the opposite effect before he could even try to speak. Superman flinched with a gasp, and the only reason why he didn't move away was because he literally couldn't. But that was secondary to Kindlot and his team.
A thick heaviness suddenly pulsed out from Superman's form. Alarm and confusion not their own brushed against their surprise, and only through their years of training in self control did they remain collected.
"Superman, it's okay. We got your messages and just got you out of the factory," Kindlot assured, talking into the radio keyed to all of their headphones. "We're taking you to the nearest medical center and Dr. Klein is meeting us there."
He felt the aura swirl around him before Superman exhaled, his relief palpable as deep gratitude bled through a second later.
The Keeper of Earth slowly opened his eyes.
/Thank you./
Kindlot smiled, even as some of his team members startled at hearing Superman's tired voice in their minds.
/Ta'peel?/
"We don't know where that parasite is. But as soon as we detected he had left you, we went in," Kindlot said.
/He went to find his son./
"His son is dead. A team killed him late last night in Florida," he explained.
Superman's eyebrows rose, but before any of them could comment further, their radios sparked to life.
"Teams, Roach was engaged and is now enroute to your position! Get out of the sky!" Command ordered. "Land now!"
Kindlot looked outside of the helicopter as they immediately began to descend. The other two helicopters did the same.
He frowned. There were commercial buildings below them.
“We’re over civilians!” he shouted.
“I know! Can't be helped!” the co-pilot acknowledged. “I see a clear area. I’m taking it.”
“Land, land, land!” Command reiterated. “Roach is now in Arizona airspace, heading due west to your position!”
“Everyone who has one, turn on your gauntlets. Team 6, take outer perimeter as soon as we land and identify the nearest defendable position you see. Team 7, come in close to us to help us defend Keystone as we navigate to Team 6’s target location,” Kindlot ordered over the radio.
They touched down and immediately rushed out with Daniels and another teammate carrying the stretcher.
They had landed in a fairly empty parking lot of a large fitness gym, across the street from a grocery store and gas station. All the civilians in the area immediately stopped and stared at the three military helicopters and the three teams clamoring forth.
"Everyone, get inside! Take cover!"
"Parasite is incoming! Go! Go! Go!" the other two team leaders warned loudly to onlookers, already taking positions around the choppers.
/Remove the straps. He's fifteen seconds away./ Superman said.
"Put him down! We have ten seconds!" Kindlot ordered, unclipping the straps securing Superman to the stretcher in record time as they placed it on the ground.
A sonic boom made it to their ears a moment later as a crack of concrete came with the appearance of Ta'peel standing in the middle of the now damaged road.
Even with his alien face, his expression was clearly one of rage.
"I'm going to kill every last one of you!" Ta’peel roared.
Everything seemed to slow as the purple alien blurred.
Several of Kindlot's men fired their sound weapons, but Ta'peel was too fast.
A blink later, two men went flying back, rolling across the pavement like rag dolls. But then Ta'peel's form bounced off a third, deflected by the wall of sound generated by that soldier's gauntlet.
Getting up, Ta'peel's slit eyes glowed red and the helicopter of Team 7 burst into flames from the targeted beam before he brought the red hot line across the men to the right.
Shouting out in pain, half of Team 7 dropped and rolled to put out the resulting flames as the two remaining ultrasonic weapons were fired and blasted Ta'peel to the ground. They maintained their focused assault.
With Ta'peel occupied, Kindlot turned to Superman who was trying to get to his feet.
"Pull back, get away from the fuel tanks!" Kindlot ordered the teams.
The men quickly did as ordered, helping those injured to regroup with them while Kindlot began to help the Man of Steel to his feet.
"GRRRAHHH!!!”
Ta’peel’s eyes flashed red again, two quick bursts at those pinning him down with sound, shattering the remaining high-tech weapons. But he wasn't done.
He passed his eyes over them all, flashing them red a few more times in targeted shots.
Kindlot couldn't help but yelp at the spike of heat against his arm as he quickly yanked off the now sparking gauntlet. He didn't need to be told there were no more functioning gauntlets.
Ta'peel wasn't stupid. After all, sound was no challenge to lasers.
Ta’peel straightened with a sneer.
“And now, I'm going to enjoy this,” he stated, his eyes brightening again, but then the bright red haze stuttered and he shook his head, blinking.
Angry, he rushed at the nearest soldier, Daniels, greedy hand extended.
Kindlot pulled his service pistol, knowing it likely would do no good, but he couldn't do nothing. He fired, joined by another from team 6 who had a clear shot, but the bullets only ricocheted off and he had to stop or risk hitting Daniels as Ta'peel closed the distance.
Daniels defended himself as best he could, utilizing all of the hand-to-hand training he had ever received, but Ta'peel was still stronger and faster - superior - and made contact.
Daniels screamed, spasming as Ta'peel held firm. Kindlot moved to run forward, but then he felt something firm brush past him, almost knocking him over.
It was Superman.
In less than a blur, but still abnormally fast, Superman tackled Ta'peel, forcing him to the ground and breaking him off Daniels. A blink later, the Kryptonian's fist struck the side of Ta'peel's head with a satisfying crack.
He successfully followed it with another hit, impacting Parasite's chin, before expertly restraining Ta'peel's long left arm with his own - keeping the dangerous hand from touching him - but as he moved to trap the other, Ta'peel moved. His knee slammed up, hard, into Superman's heavily bruised side, allowing Ta'peel's free hand to avoid entrapment and latch onto Superman's face, with his fingers covering his left cheek and his thumb going over his eye and above his eyebrow.
"Roach has Keystone!" Kindlot told Command. "We have no means to assist!"
Ta’peel began to leech at Superman’s life force. Superman gasped out in pain and struggled, but it was too late. Instantly, Ta’peel had the advantage and his other hand was free, immediately placing it on the other side of Superman’s head as he sat up, laughing.
His eyes flashed red, showing off his reclaimed power, as he slowly stood up, lifting the Man of Steel up by his head as if he weighed nothing.
The bare, bruised skin of Superman's arms and torso were in plain view as he held onto Ta'peel's wrists, quickly growing too weak to even make an attempt to resist.
"This is where you die, Kal-El. I have decided," Ta'peel declared, lifting him even higher as he siphoned more and more power from Superman. "And then this world will see my wrath!"
Superman arched his back as the marks of Ta'peel's drain began to expand well beyond the places of contact which were now turning black.
Kindlot and those watching felt utterly helpless, certain this was the end. They were going to see Superman die. After everything, they had failed.
O o O o O
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