Benton crouched behind a low block-wall. He was outside the cone of light cast by the nearby streetlamp, and a few scraggly bushes concealed him from the few cars passing by out on the main street.
Peeking over the top of the low wall, he could see the house that belonged to Richard Merk. Off to his right, farther down the street, Sitto lay concealed in a large trash dumpster, keeping his own vigil. At least that's what Benton hoped he was doing. Knowing Sitto, he was just as likely to have fallen asleep during their long nighttime surveillance.
After the nefarious Admiral Maruu had been killed by Commander Kalimar, Colonel Chee and Mister Burgos, and the Kullinari Mother-parasite had been destroyed, all the subordinate parasites infesting Maruu's agents had died as well, freeing their human hosts from their control. With the demise of the Kullinari conspiracy, the hunt for the members of the Virgo RPG had almost ceased.
Almost.
it was Benton's and his teams' job to round up the remainder of Maruu's agents -- those that had not been infected by the Kullinari and therefore were still fully functional and dangerous. Before the humans from this era could be returned to their former lives, the threat against them must be neutralized. Thus the stake-out at the Merk residence.
Benton checked the compact combat tricorder strapped to his forearm. Still nothing. It was 3:00 in the morning here in California, and the only thing still awake at this hour was himself, the driver of the occasional car zooming by, and surprisingly, Sitto. He glanced over the wall again for a visual scan just in time to see a shadowy blur slink from around the corner of the house and slither toward a window. A second figure emerged from the darkness on the other side of the house and made its way toward a different window.
The enemy was here! He checked the tricorder again, but the readout was still negative, which meant the shadowy figures had some sort of sensor-blocking technology. And if they could block his tricorder, they could probably also tap into his communicator signal, so he couldn't alert Sitto that way without giving away their presence.
His Kelvan mind quickly ran through his options and decided on one. He unholstered his phaser, and with his free hand fumbled around the ground around him looking for a small rock. Finding a suitable candidate, he glanced toward the house to make sure the shadows were still occupied with breaking in, then chucked the rock at Sitto's dumpster.
His aim was perfect. The rock skipped on the ground once before lightly tapping against the dumpster's metal side. The dumpster was far enough from the house that it was unlikely the shadows heard anything. Sitto heard though -- it had probably scared him to death -- and Benton saw him poking his head warily out the top of the container. When he caught Sitto's eye, he motioned with hand signals indicating he was moving in and that Sitto should cover him. Sitto acknowledged with a curt nod.
Leaving the bushes and the low wall, Benton dashed across the residential street as quickly as he could, making for the cover of a tree growing in the house's front yard. The shadows had gained entry into the home and were undoubtedly ransacking it looking for their quarry. Relatively safe behind the tree trunk, he signaled for Sitto to advance, then aimed his phaser at the open window where the first shadow had broken in.
Sitto sprinted across the street, making for a neighbor's car, but right before he reached its safety, a green beam of energy brilliant in the gloom of the night sliced out not from the window, but from the other side of the house and hit Sitto square in the chest. The impact spun him violently about and he toppled heavily to the ground, momentarily stunned by the leftover energy not dissipated by his body armor, but somehow managed to drag himself the remaining few feet into the car's protective shadow.
Benton fired blindly into the darkness from where the weapons fire had come, and was rewarded by a choked-off grunt and the sound of snapping branches. He guessed he'd hit his opponent, who had then fallen over onto a bush or something. Snapping a sonic grenade from his utility belt, he set the circuit, lobbed it into the open window and clapped his hands over his ears. A second later, there was a brief sub-sonic blast inside the house, and then everything was quiet.
By this time, Sitto had recovered and made his crouching way over to Benton's tree trunk. He looked slightly frayed around the edges and the tips of his hair were smoking. Benton only spared him a passing glance though before returning his attention to the situation at hand.
Motioning Sitto to circle around to the other side of the house from where his assailant had fired, Benton himself darted for the open window. Phaser at the ready, he risked a quick peek inside. All was quiet. He could just make out the outline of a body lying on the floor in the middle of the living room. The sonic grenade had done its work. He hoisted a leg over the window sill and clambered into the house.
A quick visual check of the interior verified that there was no one else here. He went to the sliding patio door and opened it, and Sitto came in dragging the other agent after him. He dropped the body next to the first in the center of the room. "I checked the perimeter. Looks like these two are it," he reported.
Very good," said Benton. He tapped his combadge and said into the air, "Benton to Virgo. Four to beam up."
As the scintillating transporter beam began taking effect, Benton could be seen sniffing the air. "What's that smell?" he asked.
Sitto looked at him with a disgruntled expression and muttered, "Next time you hide in the trash dumpster...," and then the house was empty.