There had been a moment of hanging doubt. Silence, after several prolonged minutes of cacophonous noise. Gunfire, explosions, shouting—the usual fanfare of conflict that sparked adrenaline in the moment, and cold sweat in the nights long after it.

Silence is suspicious at first, but as it goes on, one carefully checks to see if all the limbs are attached. Once that business is finished, one makes sure everyone else is in the same condition. Then you could dare to stand and survey the damage to inanimate things. A torn up park, this time, and those who were uninvolved had been smart enough to scuttle away.

Wildwing was missing.

There wasn’t a trace. There wouldn’t be. It still felt important to look, instinct tells you to look when something is missing, but the lack of evidence was the only evidence required. The Saurians had lifted him straight from the middle of the battle, and vanished.

“It’s not fair!”

Nosedive knew he was being childish. He knew it, everyone else knew it, he could see it on their faces, but no one tried to stop him. He was going to scream at everything and nothing and they were just going to have to endure the ten minutes or so it took for him to revert back to functioning.

It was unfair. They had done their job. They had chased a tyrant off their planet, out of the damn universe, and then sank him at the bottom of an ocean. That was far more than anyone had originally asked. It hadn’t been enough, despite the monumental effort and sacrifice. That there was more work ahead was just so unbelievably unfair.

It seemed justified to be righteously pissed about it.

Everything in that now blemished park got quiet, and it became clear that the Saurians had appeared once again with the single objective of abducting Wildwing. Where they had taken him remained a mystery, but so did why. The silver lining was that Wildwing was more valuable alive than dead. It was not a large comfort, but it was a little hope to cling to.

Leaving the spot of the abduction felt like admitting defeat, but there was nothing to be learned from standing there, and the Saurian mode of travel was not one that left a trail of clues. The Pond was safer, and it was where the vast majority of their resources were. Drake One, a small arsenal, and the teleportation shield. There was no better place for observation and defense.

It’s what Wildwing would have told them to do.

The levels of the base beneath The Pond were cavernous, usually occupied by six people and rare visitors. Behind the necessarily gigantic walls lay the latticework of the shielding, it’s redundancies and fail-safes impossible at smaller scale. The result was the Ready Room, their central meeting spot, was vast, housing a few vital pieces-–Drake One, elevators, power connections that were themselves the size of buildings-–but was otherwise a massive empty space. One might have expected the sound of Nosedive’s tantrum to echo, but instead it was swallowed whole by the cavern.

There was a bit of spectacle to it, he got to express the frustration that all the mature people were supposed to keep to themselves. There was a catharsis, where he could be childish on behalf of himself and everyone else. It was selfless of him, really. But that moment of screaminghad to pass, because it wasn’t productive, and fixed nothing. He got out his unmitigated anger, and then it was time to do the next thing.

Tanya was the first to turn away and refocus, putting her attention into Drake One and letting the others catch up when they were ready. She waited for what felt like an appropriate amount of time, looked over her shoulder to see that, indeed, they were watching her expectantly, and said “Okay, I have an idea.” It helped ease the collective anxiety.

The last time Wildwing had been separated from them had revealed some concerns with the command structure. Mainly, that there was none. During theWildwing-less crisis, they had tried to adjust on the fly, and hand out a field promotion, which turned into several field promotions, which turned into disaster.

Yet, since then, no one had sat down and drawn out a chart, literally or otherwise. There still had been no formal discussion. Tanya was not in charge, and neither was anyone else. What they had come to realize was that Wildwing’s style–-and thus that of anything that followed–-wasn’t a hierarchy, not really. He provided direction, and let the rest of them do what they needed to.

It would be a bit harder to make decisions, but it would not be impossible. Five was enough to vote, if it really came down to that. They had been through enough together that they could trust in that.

“The Saurian teleporters have a short range,” Tanya said. “The farthest we’ve observed the Saurians move on Earth is about 8,000 miles.”

“Short,” Mallory repeated flatly.

“On... certain scales.” Tanya allowed the correction. She gestured to the supercomputer’s large display, showing a radius coming out from what was likely the park’s location, spreading out in every direction, presumably to cover 8,000 miles in every direction on the globe. It did not look like area that five people could cover in a reasonable amount of time.

“Dragaunus must have worse circumstances now, right? The Raptor was heavily damaged, and that was his main power source. Saurian tech is integrated across systems. Damaging the gateway generator sent feedback through the whole ship, just like the master tower.” The display before them added concentric circles within the large radius, smaller than the original. “It’s possible that this happened today, instead of yesterday or any other day, because we happened to enter the range of what he can reach now.

“I’d propose a search pattern staring from the abduction point, radiating outwards. I’d wager the Raptor isn’t all that far from there.”

That was the hard part done, coming up with a plan. The easier part was delegating tasks. They all knew their individual strengths.

“Whatever we do, we’re not splitting up,” Mallory instructed. With Wildwing gone, she took it upon herself to stress the points of safety he otherwise would have.“It makes for easy targets. No one’s going anywhere on their own.”

“I would…prefer to stay here, it’s easier to direct Drake One’s monitoring in person,” Tanya said, fidgeting as she did.

“I will remain,” Grin offered, and Tanya acknowledged him with a tilt of the head. Grin, even when anxious, was able to contain himself and refrain from interrupting her concentration. He was even good conversation and logic, when asked the right questions. The others would have channeled their unease into irritating distraction.

“That’s the three of us doing the legwork then,” Duke stretched, as if preparing to do a literal sprint. “Aerowing’s going to be the only thing with that kind of range.”

Nosedive’s opinion did not have to be asked. He would be on the rescue team, because no one was going to try to stop him.

Mallory took a step back and looked between them all, appraising. She gave a satisfied nod, and in the most confident voice she could muster, declared “Okay everyone, today’s mission is: Fuck These Guys.”