<Wow, I can make out what she’s saying from here,> Jenisa laughed.
<Look up there,> Fred said while highlighting the mezzanine level on the team’s HUDs. <Looks like that took fire from the chaingun.>
<That too,> Kor highlighted a deeply pitted balustrade.
<OK, so Alison bailed out of the diner, took cover behind that barrier, and then jumped up onto the next level.>
Fred worked his way across the concourse to get a better view of the second level. On his right, in the direction they’d come, people were milling about, but to his left, there was a long space where only a few police were visible.
<Damn, she went away from the ship,> he said.
<Guess she didn’t want to bring the heat down on us,> Randy suggested. <Sure wish we could reach her.>
<I’ve been working on that,> Kor said. <I think the LC slipped some sort of override into the ship’s comm system. I can’t verify from here, but it lines up.>
<So how come we can’t reach her now?> Jenisa asked. <We’re not routing through the ship anymore.>
<I know, I—> Kor stopped and let out a long groan. <That sneaky bitch. Damn, if only she used her powers for good and not evil.>
<What is it?> Fred asked, wishing Kor would just spit it out.
<She planted a fun little worm in the software we use for our combat networks. We established the network on the ship, and when we moved off the ship, it mapped all the exclusion rules she’d put into place. I’m going to kill this combat net and establish a new one.>
Fred saw the active channel to the combat net disappear, and then a new team network came up. He joined the channel and was immediately bombarded by Alison’s anger-filled voice.
<Where the hell have you been?!> she demanded. <I’ve been trying to reach you for half a fucking hour!>
<Sorry, Sergeant,> Fred apologized. <We lost you and feared the worst, but Kor just figured out that Alice left a worm in our combat net software. We think she excluded you from comms back when we were on the ship, and then it propagated.>
<I’m gonna propagate her,> Alison growled. <That fucking woman used me to make her clean getaway. When I find her, I’m gonna—>
<We’ll cheer you on, Sarge,> Kor said, his tone vehement. <But for now, where the hell are you?>
<I’m halfway across the frickin’ station. I was heading toward you, but I got cops all over me like cockroaches on last week’s beef stew, and didn’t want to bring them on you. I don’t have my outer armor or helmet, and I forgot my cloak in the diner when those asshats blew it to bits.>
<It’s still over half there,> Randy supplied. <Not quite blown to bits—the diner, that is.>
<Seriously, Randy?> Jenisa asked. <Is something wrong with the flow armor in your skin, Sarge?>
A groan came from Alison. <Yeah, it doesn’t work so well when I’m caked with blood and my gun’s hot. I forgot that the new hotness we have from the ISF can clean armor, so I have that going now, but it doesn’t help much with a hot GNR.>
<Saw your handiwork down here,> Fred said. <So what do you want us to do?>
<Oh, shit,> Kor muttered. <There’s a Nietzschean garrison here. It didn’t show up on the public network, but folks are chattering that ‘The Niets have deployed to find that crazy mech.’>
<Crazy?> Alison all but shouted in their minds. <Damn ingrates.>
Kor passed the information he’d gleaned on the public feeds, where people were helpfully posting where the cops and Niets were.
<Looks like you have a lot of company around you, Sarge,> Fred said. <We can cut in through that central shaft on the station, mow down a few Niets, and then get youuuu…damn, get you where?>
<Good point,> Alison said. <I’m guessing it didn’t take these guys long to figure out that Alice and I disembarked from the Karl’s Might.>
<They came by for a visit,> Fred replied. <Didn’t find us, though.>
<Either way,> Jenisa added. <Karl’s Might would take about two shots from the station’s point defense guns, then that would be that.>
Alison made a hmmming sound. <Here’s how I see it, then—shit, just a sec.> She went silent, and then resumed after half a minute. <Found the Niets. OK, where was I? Oh, right. Two options. First, we find something tough enough to take a pounding and get off the station. Either drop down to the planet, or just pick up and leave the system.>
<Those the only options?> Fred asked when Alison paused.
<No, sorry, I was busy killing someone. Some merc…I think. Anyway, our third option is to take the station.>
Jenisa made a strangled sound. <Sorry, what?>
<There’s still the local police patrol craft,> Randy supplied. <We saw a lot of their fast pursuit ships on the way in.>
<Right,> Alison replied. <But they’re not gonna fire on the Maltese Falcon. And if we have a destroyer’s worth of Nietzschean hostages, that cruiser’s not going to blow us away either.>
<Not right away, at least,> Jenisa said warily.
<Don’t forget, we got word to Chase,> Alison replied. <There are more Marauders inbound; we just have to hold out. I, for one, would rather do it up here than down at the bottom of a gravity well.>
<I second that,> Randy added.
<OK, Fred, Kor, you two go for the station’s command center. I’ll head for where the Niets are docking. Jenisa and Randy, meet me at the location I’m sending. I—>
Alison’s voice cut out, and the combat net registered a full disconnect from her.
<What the hell!> Randy swore. <What now?>
<Damn, she’s totally gone,> Kor muttered. <Could be a local relay outage or something.>
<OK. Jenisa and Randy, you two get down to her last location, it’s close to those coordinates. Kor and I will head to station command like she said.>
<You sure?> Jenisa asked.
<The Niets haven’t docked yet, so either the cops got her, or this Huro gang did. Either way, two mechs should be enough. If it was the cops, they’ll take her to their central holding, which isn’t too far from command.>
<Good deal,> Randy said. <Let’s move, Jenisa.>
<Way ahead of you,> Jenisa shot back, her location marker already halfway through the cordoned off space in front of the diner.
<Dammit, woman!> Randy swore as he took off after the SMI-4.
ESCALATION
STELLAR DATE: 12.23.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Quadaros, approaching Maltese Falcon, Malta
REGION: Iberia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
“OK…” Saris said, her brow furrowing. “This station was nice and quiet twenty minutes ago, and now it’s like all hell’s broken loose.”
“Mechs,” Borden muttered, shaking his head. “This is why we can’t have nice things.”
“How do you know it’s mechs?” Lieutenant Gemma asked from her seat behind Saris.
“Really?” Saris asked, remaining focused on her approach vector. “Flip on the public feeds. There’s video of Alison leaping onto a mezzanine level and firing a DPU at some truck with a chaingun in the back.”
Gemma didn’t respond for a moment and then sighed. “OK…mechs.”
“What do you think is going down, Colonel?” Saris asked.
Borden grunted and shook his head. “Damned if I know. My money is on Alice using the mechs as a distraction to do whatever the hell it is that she came here to pull off.”
“Which is?” Saris pressed.
“Lieutenant, what do you think I am, some mystic who is gonna roll the bones and divine that woman’s plan? She’s here to get something that she lost
during the war. It’s either a person, or something of such immense value that it’s worth throwing away everything she’s done since to get it.”
“Which is unlikely,” Gemma added. “Just the armor we provided the Marauders is enough to set a person up for life in a lot of places. If she wanted to live large, she didn’t have to sneak in here.”
“What if her play is selling five mechs, upgraded by the ISF, and with said armor?” Saris suggested.
“Good point,” Gemma replied.
Borden shook his head. “Won’t work.”
“Oh?” Gemma glanced at him. “Why not?”
“Our people saw to it. They left the ports for the Discipline chips in there, just in case they want to fake anyone out, but they won’t work anymore. Try to chip a Mark 4, and you’re in for a very, very bad day.”
“Huh,” Saris grunted. “Sneaky.”
“Finaeus’s idea. I think sneaky is his favorite way to operate.”
“There’s another angle,” Gemma suggested. “This could be some sort of revenge play on Alice’s part. Maybe we got close to Iberia, and she figured with a few mechs in her back pocket, she could get some payback against someone who wronged her.”
“I think that theory falls under my ‘person’ category. There’s one other possibility, though,” Borden ventured, drawing the words out. “She could be operating on orders from her organization.”
“The Marauders?” Saris asked. “That would be a dumb move. They’d lose Rika in a heartbeat.”
“Think so?” Gemma asked. “She’d just ditch her outfit?”
Saris twisted in her seat to meet Gemma’s eyes. “If they treated her mechs like they were expendable? Anyone who does that better start running now.”
Gemma’s lips twisted under Saris’s steely gaze. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Rika doesn’t have a lot of patience for that sort of shit.”
“Any commander worth their mass doesn’t,” Borden interjected, then paused and shook his head. “Shit. Station just reached out. They’re denying our docking request. Telling us to move into a holding pattern.”
The two lieutenants looked to him, eyes questioning.
“Oh, cut it out, you two. Gemma, get back there and make sure the teams are in order. Saris, keep us on course for our berth. I’ll just give them the fuel excuse, and tell them to shoot us down if they feel so strongly about it.”
“Stasis shields make you bold, sir,” Saris said with a soft laugh.
“Well, unlike that contemptible woman, Alice, I’m not going to leave our people high and dry.”
“The Marauders are ‘our people’ now?” Saris asked with a smile.
Borden frowned at his lieutenant and still-bedmate. “Don’t give me that. You know they are. Now get us down there already. Mechs like to blow shit up, and it would be nice to not have this station falling through the atmosphere by the time we reach them.”
“I kinda like to blow shit up, too,” Saris replied quietly.
“I’m sure you’ll get your chance.”
LAST KNOWN LOCATION
STELLAR DATE: 12.23.8949 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Maltese Falcon, Malta
REGION: Iberia System, Old Genevia, Nietzschean Empire
<We’re almost there,> Fred announced over the team’s combat net as he and Kor crouched behind a counter in a furniture shop. <They’re throwing everything they have at us, but we’re driving them back.>
<Would already be there if they hadn’t wised up to our stealth,> Kor added, and Fred turned to see the other mech trying to wipe some of the white paint they’d been sprayed with from his armor. <This paint just won’t come off.>
“Forget it, Kor,” he said aloud, gesturing to the concourse they had to cross. “Door to the command center is just on the other side of that nice little road out there. Well, other side and down a few hundred meters. We get over there, get in, and take control of this station.”
<Paint?> Jenisa asked with a laugh, responding to Kor’s prior statement. <Your armor should be cleaning that off automatically.>
<You’d think so,> he shot back. <It’s some sort of ceramic coating; the armor’s working on it, but it’s slow going.>
<Just be happy they didn’t get it on our heads,> Fred replied, then chuckled at the white splotch on the left side of Kor’s helmet. <Well, not too much at least.>
<We’ve avoided paint-induced catastrophe so far,> Randy joined in the conversation. <I’ve had to hole a few of these Huro Girls, though. There’s a lot more of them than just those two who got away up at the diner.>
<No sign of Alison?> Fred asked as he sent a fresh set of drones around the corner to survey the command center’s defenses.
<Well, there are signs all right,> Jenisa said. <We’ve come across a few slagged examples of her handiwork. So far, no sign of her, though. We haven’t run into the Niets yet, either.>
<Keep us posted,> Fred ordered.
<Oh? Really?> Jenisa barked a laugh. <And here I thought you wanted to be kept in the dark.>
Fred considered a response, but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
“There’s a lot of shit out there,” he said to Kor. “I count at least fifty cops. They have CFT and grav shields set up in four locations, plus I see a lot of autoturret portals.”
“Sure wish we had Potter here. She’d knock that shit out.”
Fred patted the railguns mounted to each of his forearms. “Well, I suppose these’ll just have to do. I hear they can take out autoturrets, too. OK, here’s the plan. You backtrack into the service corridor behind the shop, and then come out at the position they have set up on the right. Do what you do best. Once you have them engaged, I’m going to hit them in the center, and we’ll see if we can make them break and run.”
Kor lifted his arm, and they smacked their railguns together. “Let’s ring their bell.”
“Eh?”
“Just made it up. Trying some new sayings.”
Fred shook his head and turned his focus back to the feeds from his drones as Kor moved to the rear of the shop. One of the enemy emplacements was directly ahead of him, and had a clear line of sight on the storefront. He knew that if he engaged it, they’d light the whole place up before he could get past their shields.
Think, Fred. There’s gotta be a way to take them without going into that killing field out there.
He studied the corridor, his examination moving to the overhead, which was vaulted with transparent plas, providing a clear view out into space between support arches. It probably looked beautiful once, but in the years the station had roved around Malta, someone had seen fit to add a series of conduits and pipes above the concourse. One bore the unmistakable markings of a water main.
Oh, yeah, this’ll be good.
He waited patiently for Kor to launch his assault. It didn’t take long; just a scant minute later, the sounds of weapons fire erupted from further down the thoroughfare.
Having pre-set his weapon’s aim, Fred moved through the furniture store, each arm aligning with the ends of a thirty-meter stretch of the massive pipe.
He braced his right foot against a column a few meters back from the front of the store, took a deep breath, and opened fire.
Railshots blasted through windows and streaked up toward the pipe, striking it on either end of the segment, blasting holes clear through it—a few slamming into the thick, clear plas overhead.
Fred was unconcerned with a vacuum breach—in fact, he’d welcome it. Many of the squishies on the concourse weren’t wearing EV-capable gear.
What he was concerned with was that the pipe hadn’t fallen, though water was spraying out from the holes. A few shots came his way as he fired at a brace in the pipe’s center, and then again at one on the far end. Following his final rounds, there came a thundering groan, and the massive main finally came down on the defensive emplacement.
<Shit, man, why didn’t I think of that?> Kor a
sked.
<Corporal’s stripes, Kor.>
<Really doubt those make you any smarter, Fred. Prettier, but not smarter.>
<Shut up.>
Fred took aim at a group of enemies—no, just local cops doing their jobs, he reminded himself—who were retreating further up the concourse, sloshing through the water that was now ankle-deep, as a torrential flow still came from one end of the broken main.
Fred wasn’t shooting to kill, but the cops fell further back, a few flat-out running to the next position further to Fred’s left.
A high-pitched whistle caught his attention, and he realized that the rounds that had struck the clear overhead must have cracked the thick plas.
With the corresponding arm still firing pot shots at the retreating defenders on his left, he raised his right arm and sent a series of rounds toward the weakened plas above.
Each of his rounds hit the same location, their staccato impacts audible over the general cacophony. For a moment, the plas held, but then, with a terrible screech, an entire ten-meter section fractured and exploded out into space.
“Hell yeah!” Fred shouted as he stepped out and took aim at the autoturrets further down the concourse, as the human defenders began to retreat further from the mayhem.
Emergency grav shields snapped into place high above, their fields holding the air in the station, but Fred casually fired at the emitters, blowing away enough of them that the air once again began to vent out into space.
<Oh, they don’t like that,> Kor laughed, and Fred saw the other AM-4 a hundred meters further down the concourse, laughing as he fired at an armored personnel carrier that was backing away, then Kor shrugged and lobbed a thermite burn stick at it.