Debris and the husks of steaming containers littered the floor and the air was thick with cordite and soot. We had just found the bullet-ridden bodies of a handful of Shivers and the smoldering remains of what were probably dockworkers, but no definite Interceptor kills. Whatever had laid the proverbial hammer down here not only had pasted these guys into pate, but also had enough power to blast a hole in a three-inch thick dock door and it had hit from this side. I hoped it was just a case of a demolitionist setting a shaped charge and screwing up, but it could have been some heavy WW ordinance instead. I wondered where the hell Casper had gotten too since this breach was new and they had to be further ahead of us.
Whistling under my breath, I gingerly traced the edge of the smoking hole with my hand, feeling the heat through my armor. Yes, something big and bad had come this way and we were of course right on its heels like good operatives. I crouched to listen, and then went through when it was silent. A moment later, K'rth follow me and hissed angrily as he burned his arm.
"Love the smell of cooking lizard in the evening," I whispered and he cursed as he took a position next to me.
We waited for the rest of the squad and then I took point down the single flight of stairs into the black ink that was probably hiding a floor. The dim amber light had made the shadows thick enough to cut and I couldn't see what I was stepping on. My footfalls seemed loud and every movement created a faint echo.
"Watch for traps," K'rth rasped and I nodded.
"Easier said than done," I thought to myself as I probed the steps below me with my toes. It was so dark that I could barely see the stair's outline, so finding something like a tripwire was out of the question. I thought about pulling my flashlight, but that would have made me an easy target for any sniper and I wanted to avoid getting shot at as long as possible. Ahead of us, the stacks looked dark enough that we might not have a choice but to risk it soon.
Once I hit the floor I moved along a corrugated wall and crouched with K'rth close behind me. It was a larger room than I had expected and from this angle, I could see that there were rows after rows of crates ahead of us with a distant yellow glow behind them that probably was the docking area. It also looked like there was only one way through the stacks, but it probably branched out somewhere further in. God only knew what was waiting for us out there, just out of sight.
"This place is absolutely labyrinthine," Gael whispered and her voice came across raspy over the mike.
"It's what?" Angus asked, turning around and making entirely too much noise. He had been so quiet for the past few minutes that I had almost forgotten he was with us.
"Labyrinthine," she started. "A big maze."
"Oooh, I get it. Kinda like what you get a monster hiding in, eh?"
God, I hoped not but you can never tell in SLA Industries.
This section had been labeled "Quarantine 2" and considering the damage its door had taken, I was praying that the name meant it held items for customs as opposed to contaminants or industrial waste. Someone must have thought the same thing because a moment later, I heard the beep of a sniffer followed by a deep "S'okay" that caught my attention. The idea that my favorite big guy would even think about area hazards was a bit of a shock, but I saw that he and Angus were reading one together. That made me feel a little more secure, but who thought of it first? The old line about how many Stormers/Frothers does it take to screw in a light bulb came to mind and I pushed it aside.
"Casper, McNeil, where are you? What's your status?" I asked into my mike, trying to be both loud enough to be heard but quiet at the same time. I got an ear full of silence and looked at K'rth who hissed in frustration and shrugged back.
"Okay then, we have to go in without them."
In times like this, we normally split into two groups plus the 714 to and Nix pulled at my arm as we began to stack up. When I stepped back to see what she wanted, I saw that she was agitated and trembling. It didn't take much to figure out why because even on the best of days, she's claustrophobic and the high, dark walls ahead were a little much for her. She took in a deep breath and then gave me a hand signal that said she was going solo. I waved ok and started to fall in, but she bounded back to take point for the second group. Giving in to her fears must have been harder than facing them and I admired her courage.
When I thought about it, I wondered about my fears. Would I have to live with Cloak looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life - I mean, more than they look over everyone already? Would they ever get bored and move along? This wasn't the time to start thinking about things like that and I patted the old man on the shoulder. He nodded and started forward into the stacks. I forced my mind back onto what we were doing and smiled when I began to see the details in the shadows. I'd be a lot happier if we kept the handlamps out of this and relied upon stealth until we got close.
Scorches and pockmarks scarred everything, but for all the collateral damage there was only one body and we found it just inside the second row. It was in Shiver armor and I knelt next to it while K'rth covered me. The center of the breastplate was cracked open and showed stippling from a close range powder burn from a heavy caliber slug, definitely larger than a 10 mm. The round had gone clean through, taking the guy's spine with it and smashed one of the crates next to me, so I knew someone had dropped this guy right here. McNeil was packing a Blitzer and a dark thought occurred to me - there was no guarantee that the corpse was actually an Interceptor. I shook my head and stood up to look at K'rth. We certainly would have a lot of things to sort out when this was over and he nodded, reading my expression.
"There's something on the other side of this mess," he said into his mike as he tossed his head. His dreadlocks looked like snakes in the dark and his eyes glowed like obsidian. "Through there."
Gael nodded, looking at her Oyster again. Her face was pale and ghostly in the green light from the unit's display. "That's the main lock to the second holding area. Whatever they're after is probably there since it's the largest section and it's supposed to be the most secure."
"Great, a bug hunt" Nix mumbled, but the mike picked it up clearly. I winked at her but she was too tense to even fake a smile.
We fell back on standard Strike team tactics, leapfrogging forward by groups until we ran into what became a particularly tight area. Each group barely had enough room to get past and it made it pretty uncomfortable with the longer equipment. As I got flattened into the wall by the passing Chagrin for the second time, I knew that it would only take one grenade to end this for us. Fortunately no one took advantage of us, but I kept feeling like we were walking into an ambush. I think the others did too because K'rth and Nix kept looking upwards, but nothing moved in the darkness.
If the tight quarters weren't bad enough, Angus was making it a point to elbow me each time as he went past. After the third or fourth pass, I had had enough and straight-armed him into the plastic partition across from me. This was no time to clown around, but he didn't agree and smirked back.
"Watch it Jackass!" I mouthed, but he but he just laughed and kept moving, probably planning to keep it up until I finally clocked him. A moment later, I wish we both had been paying a lot more attention.
The crates around my head clicked and rattled as slugs tore past and someone screamed near me in the dark. Sparks of heat lit up my ribs and sternum as my armor's laminate spat and cracked, and I stumbled back only to feel my feet leave the ground. Everything happened at once and I couldn't see clearly to fire back. As the action dragged into slow motion, somebody yelled "AMBUSH!" and I mouthed "no shit" back to no one in particular.
My ears were ringing with Obie's roars and the boom of someone firing and then everything was muffled as something powerful and quick slammed me through the side of a crate. Before the packing material fell over my head, I saw the reflections of muzzle flashes mixed in with the fireworks behind my eyes. It was my own damn fault for not wearing a helmet and I tried to shake it off. Blinking, I concentrated on what had grabbed me and traced the vise-like clamp on my chest back its owner with the red dot from the Blitzer. What had just happened to the squad clicked in time to keep me from pulling the trigger and making things worse.
Obie had gone ape-shit, knocking everyone down and tossing Angus and Gael out of harms's way. He was also the same battering ram that had put me through the side of a crate filled with dishes and it damn near killed me in the process. As the porcelain and plastic tinkled down my neck, I felt the sharp jerks of impacts as the rounds tore into his chest. I pulled at his wrist to try to get him down, but he was entirely too pissed to respond and just snarled defiantly. His earlier mood was at a peak and he looked like he was about to charge.
"GET DOWN YOU STUPID BASTARD!" I yelled, but the 714 wouldn't budge. He took two more solid hits in the chest but didn't pay attention because he was staring at Angus and standing over Nix who had gone prone. The Frother's legs were sticking out of a crate and I saw them kicking, so he was at least alive. Next to him, I heard Gael curse and saw the crackle of energy as she probably healed herself or him. A heartbeat later, Nix bolted forward away from the Stormer, pulling her holdout pistol and rushing the shooter. There was heard a pair of low cracks and she vanished from my sight towards where K'rth had been standing.
Suddenly it was quiet again, with the exception of the Chagrin who was still snarling and heaving. Angus slid out of the crate he had been tossed through and tossed a couple spent kickstart vials away. Seeing my expression, which had softened considerably by now, he winked at me playfully and gave me that stupid grin of his. The stupid bastard almost got us all killed and I wasn't sure if I wanted to hug him or shoot him.
"Just a scratch. You too?" he grinned and I nodded back. My armor was cracked up pretty good, but nothing got through. It still stung like hell, but not enough to pop a kickstart. Besides, I wanted to save them in case someone really needed it later. Mac was torn up, but the magic potions he carries seemed to have him doing well. He happily punched the Chagrin in the kidney and stood there like we weren't on the receiving end of an ambush.
Right then, the bad guys started shooting again and everyone but Obie took cover. He was still standing in the middle of the row and seemed intent on providing the best possible target while still holding me pinned to a crate. Both of my feet were barely touching the ground and I kicked him to get his attention. It worked and he let me go, now if I could only get him out of the way.
"TAKE COVER, YOU MORON!" I yelled and dove into him, slamming my shoulder into his chest. I took more hits on my shoulder and arm, but again nothing got through. My full weight didn't even move him and he looked at me with a grumpy puzzled sort of stare. A moment later, he did what I wanted and smashed into a crate next to me, which at least got him out of the shooter's line of sight. His wounds were already closing and that meant the shooter was probably using something smaller than 10mm. The big guy would be fine in a few minutes, provided he didn't get riddled with holes in the meantime.
"They made you tough big guy, but they didn't make you bulletproof!"
He looked at me again without an expression, and then leaned around the corner to look for the shooter. With his big head in the way, there was no way I could shoot back and I backhanded him in frustration. I needed him out of the way, and out of the row so he didn't get himself killed.
"Watch our backs, they're going to try to flank us," I said as I pointed back the way we had come.
"Onit," he boomed and shuffled off to cover our six. I wasn't sure if they'd try to circle around or not, especially since we hadn't found another way through but at least it got him out of the fire corridor. As he passed Angus, he pushed the Frother off his feet again and out of the way. Maybe he didn't appreciate Mac's sense of humor much today either?
The shadow must have felt lucky again and leaned around the same corner to take another shot, but K'rth was waiting for him and had pegged the corner. There was a boom and the hostile's head vanished in a dark spray as the body flopped backwards into the darkness. The Shaktar held the stance for a few seconds and started forward when nothing else moved. I shuffled in beside him and with Nix behind us, we cleared the corner and found three bodies waiting for us. K'rth had dropped two of them with single shots and nodded happily. I guess Nix took the other one, but I hadn't seen that either.
"How many do you think we're up against?" I asked as I covered the left. The corridor was a T-section and he watched the other way.
"I don't know," he whispered. "Maybe five or six more after the pile of bodies back there. I thought they were importing arms and soldiers for some sort of general trouble making, but there is certainly more since Cloak is involved. I still believe that there are a lot more resources committed here that I'd expect."
"What if Cloak are the ones behind it? Maybe for an - umph" I started, but Nix hit me sharply with her rifle stock to shut me up. When I glanced over my shoulder at her, I saw that she had lifted her visor to growl and I nodded because she was right. You don't accuse Cloak of anything, regardless of how secure you think your comlink is - Station-Analysis is always listening. I nodded and turned back to the threat at hand since that would get me killed slightly more quickly than the shadow boys in black Crackshot. I glared back at her again because she had hit me in the same place I had taken a couple slugs and now it was throbbing like hell.
Slipping between us, Nix took point to the left, alternately crouching and sniffing as she went. After she gave the next intersection a good look over, she slung her rifle and sunk her claws into the plastic shrink-wrapping of the containers. With a vertical leap, she had quickly scaled the column and folded herself into the tiny crawlspace between the top one and the ceiling. In a blink, she was gone into the shadows twenty feet above me.
"What do you see, Nix?" Gael asked as she covered the second prong of the T shaped intersection that Nix had checked. I looked the Ebon over and saw that her face was bruised or dirty, but she seemed okay also. She braced against the side of a crate column with her flintlock and sighted on the next turn while we covered the right. Behind us, Angus was playing with the power on his Claymore and randomly sticking crates.
"Wait a moment..." came across followed by a rustling sound as she repositioned. " There's some activity about thirty meters to the northeast. I see Shivers, a couple guys in Crackshot, and a lot of workers in blue. We've also got hostiles, probably a dozen or so, coming though the crates towards us. Plenty of longpig to kill."
"HOT FUCKING DAMN!" Angus laughed and Gael spun to try to shut him up. He once told me that he gets a weird reaction from Kick Start Solo and from what I've seen, it's true. It makes him hyper and giddy, just like he was now and that meant a couple things. The first is that we were about to have a raving lunatic on our hands and the second was that he just got shot up badly enough back there to use up the rest of his standard KS. I'd have to keep an eye on him and make sure I was near if he took another bullet.
He started giggling, and then danced around, pointing at his watch. "What Time is it? OH YEAH MORT! IT'S 11:52! DEATH TIL DAWN BABY! IT'S GOREZONE LIVE AND DIRECT!" It was the same lead-in Chrysalis Blue, the porn star turned Gorezone announcer screams every night at the show's start. Mac worships her and knows all of her lines.
"Shut up, you're going to tell them RIGHT where we are!" Gael snapped and he stifled his laughter into chuckles. Nix and Obie both love a good fight as much as Angus, but at least they don't get hyped up on drugs and start shooting. You could say that they're a little more controllable, at least until someone draws blood on them.
"Hold your fire as long as you can," I said, trying to ignore him and looking up to the shadows where I thought she was crouching. Where in the hell had all these mooks come from? This was becoming a damn convention.
"Uh-huh," she replied in a voice that said that she didn't need to be told how to do her job. That was twice tonight and if I didn't learn sooner or later, she'd probably give me a more pointed reminder. I still had the scars down my spine from the stitches she gave me from one of the last friendly reminders.
"LET'S GET 'EM!" Angus spouted, yelling at the top of his lungs. He was so far into the green that he overly anxious to get bloody. I wanted to ignore him, but then I remembered to grab his arm to keep him from running off until we were ready and caught him just in time. Fortunately, Obie had doubled back and appeared behind him to loop a claw through the Frother's braided mane. He jerked it back like a leash and Mac's head bobbed around like a marionette on Alice. He might be immune to pain, but he wasn't going anywhere without losing his scalp. Or at least, not without dragging a Chagrin along behind him.
"I'd like to take these guys down in hand to hand instead of using firepower," I said to K'rth and Gael. I was deliberately not looking at Mac, but that didn't stop him from talking. He was well on his way to becoming a Gorezone cheerleader.
"DAMN STRAIGHT! LET'S CHOP 'EM!" the Frother yelled again as he charged, but Obie reeled him back in like a little dog. That last outburst was loud enough to give away our position to the small number of Interceptors that weren't entirely deaf, so I knew we had to move now. Growling, Obie slapped a big hand over the little man's face and pinned him in place against his chest.
"We can try," K'rth answered as he pulled his power disk in his off hand and tested its charge. Its edge blurred, then went back to normal and he lowered it to his hip.
"Alright, let's pair up again. It's K'rth and me, Gael and Angus, and then Obie and Nix are indies. Clear the hostiles and make your way towards the dock at the rear of this damn maze. We're going hunting. Oh yeah, Obie you can let Mac go now."
"Awright."
I grabbed Angus as he started to run past me and pulled him onto his toes with both hands. He was slobbering like the maniac he claims to not be and his eyes were wide and wild. He reminded me of a magic eight ball on UV and I shook him until his eyes floated around to meet mine.
"You watch yourself. I don't want you doing something stupid and getting yourself killed. Okay?" He didn't answer me, so I shook him again and his eyes refocused. I've found that if at first you don't get the answer you want from a Frother, shake them until you do.
"Okay, Okay! Look Alex, quit acting like m'Mum and let's do this! I'm ready to kick some Dark Night ass!"
I let him go, more than a little worried that he was too hyped up to be dependable. Even in his current state, he knew how serious I was and punched me in the arm. Maybe I was being too serious, but I felt like we were still in trouble.
"Don't be a ninny," he said. "We all gotta die someday."
As he trotted off, Gael squeezed my arm as she passed.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of him," she said as she followed. I stood there for a few moments, debating if I should have gone with him instead of letting her back him up- as if I could keep him safe from himself. Something heavy tapped my head and I looked up, stepping clear of the tusk.
"Meetoo," Obie said and followed.
I know this job is dangerous, but we were cutting it a little close tonight and the odds still seemed stacked against us. As goes Angus, I know I'm more protective of him but I'm not sure if it's because he reminds me of someone or if watching over him has become second nature. Maybe he just needs help more than anyone else I know. Whatever the reason, if he gets himself wasted tonight, there would be no way for me to kick his ass like he deserved. I really hoped he had listened to me.
K'rth patted my shoulder, and I fell in behind him, knowing that it was time to get to work. It galled me that Angus was right about this - you have to be a professional and like he said, you can't be a ninny. And yes, everybody dies someday and a lot of people were going to die tonight. I didn't mind as long as I got to choose who and Bayer was at the top of my list.
As we slipped into the shadows between the columns, I pulled my MAC in my left hand and measured its weight. Blades have always been so much of a better fit to me than any handgun and I snapped my Blitzer away in its holster. My confidence built as my focus shifted to the business at hand and my training began to take over.
This is what I was made for. This is what I live for.
I just hope that I can face my fears too.
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