"Put that out, you fucktard."
"Ptthu?" The young Reploid, garbed in light blue and royal purple armor, almost swallowed his cigarette as the apparition appeared behind him. "Jesus God in his heaven, Kyle, don't scare me like that!"
"Put it out, Bitter," the human behind him repeated. He was a short, wiry man, not intimidating… until you looked carefully at his eyes. They were dark brown, and hard as stones. "Or I swear I'll shoot you. Right now." Eyeing his companion nervously… he had his sidearm out… Bitter decided that he wasn't willing to take the chance that he was serious and quickly stubbed the cigarette out.
"Jesus, Kyle, it's just a cigarette." Bitter said sullenly, raising a hand to run it through his hair. His hair fell down a bit past his shoulders, dark brown and silky. He liked to play with it when he was nervous.
"Just a cigarette," Kyle snorted. "I saw your 'just a cigarette' from Demon One." Bitter swallowed. That was a good long ways away. "And then I hot-footed over here to save your pitiful life. And why haven't you applied your camo screen yet?" That was a quick paint coat that would conceal Bitter's brilliant armor with a typical camouflage pattern.
"It makes me itch," he mumbled. "And I can never get my back right." There was a pause, then a resigned sigh.
"Give it here." Kyle took the canister, and quickly applied it. "And remember, no damned cigarettes. I saw a man get shot in the head right after he lit one, once."
"You mean you…?" Bitter asked, appalled, and Kyle snorted.
"Not me, idiot! A sniper got him. The light travels a long fucking way, and it's noticeable as hell on infrared."
"Oh. I'm sorry." Bitter said meekly. He really hadn't considered the dangers of infrared. Kyle shrugged it off.
"Just don't do it again. I don't give warnings twice." Bitter opened his mouth to say something, then closed it with a snap. Kyle was already gone.
Back at Demon One, Kyle reappeared as seamlessly as he had left. But unlike Bitter, the sentries at Demon One were not surprised. Kyle would have been quite disappointed if they were. The core of his team was not, perhaps, quite up to the standards of the Hunters… but they were close. Close enough that the Hunters would have snapped them up as recruits and given them that extra bit of polish Kyle just couldn't provide in an eyeblink. But they were still quite good, and Kyle ran his eyes over them appreciatively. Their command post was heavily camouflaged and almost invisible, unless you knew exactly what you were looking for. Two weapons were trained on him, saying very good things about their owner's alertness.
Kyle slipped into the command post, soundlessly, and a female Reploid walked to his side. Ordinarily, her armor was bright pink and yellow. Right now, it was fully camouflaged.
"Did you rip my brilliant brother a new one, sir?" She asked, a twinkle in her eye. The 'sir' was a military courtesy Kyle usually did not insist on, although he was technically their commander.
"Indeed." Kyle looked her in the eye, expression serious. "Sweet, if he doesn't shape up, he's gone. If this were the Hunters, I would have failed him already." Sweet winced.
"I know, sir. I'm sorry. He really seemed motivated when I told him about the opportunity. He's just so… so…"
"Lazy and unmotivated." Kyle supplied, and she winced, but nodded. "I'll give him one more month, but that's all."
"Fair enough, sir." Sweet said, resigned to reality. Kyle didn't go easy on any of them, and while his standards were slightly lower than the Hunters, he still insisted on a certain degree of competence. Sweet didn't know a great deal about his history, just that he'd once been a Hunter in the 15'th unit. And that he'd left after only two years, under some kind of cloud. From what little Kyle would say, she thought he had barely avoided legal prosecution, and only because of the chaos the Elysian incident had caused.
But their current employers could not have cared less. He had no actual criminal record, and he'd made some rank in the Hunters, which was pretty impressive for a human. Sweet sometimes wondered if they realized how much of a treasure they'd managed to scoop up. Kyle was a good trainer, a good tactician and strategist, and had a knack for inspiring loyalty. Under his tutelage, they were becoming an efficient little killing machine. Very impressive, given their grab-bag assortment of qualifications. For one reason or another, none of them were willing to join the Hunters or a regular army unit… but they still wanted to fight Mavericks.
Target Beta is moving. Came the whisper over their communicators. That was one of their forward scouts, a teenage girl named Sahara. They're following Butterchurn Road
Target Alpha is also moving, Came a second voice, a second later. That was another of their scouts, a brilliant young male Reploid named Nike. Over the Western hills.
Heading five-six-niner. Plotting now. Came the cold voice of Annunciata, a former Navigator for Repliforce. She was performing the same duty for them, now. Kyle keyed his datapad to the tactical plot, and nodded.
"All Demons, Demon Leader. Execute plan Shiva. I say again, Shiva is now in effect." Moving with choreographed ease, two other teams, Demon Two and Three, began to move. Kyle led Demon One out, as they took a course that would let them intercept Target Alpha.
"Time to earn our pay," One of his soldiers joked quietly with Sweet, who smiled, amused. "From those without the testicles to pick up a gun themselves."
"Don't diss our employers, Tariku." Sweet replied easily, as they began to move out. "Without their money, your guns would be as small as their testicles."
"Ouch!" There were several soft chuckles, and then they got down to the business of destroying the Mavericks that raided one of Minnow Arms storage facilities. Minnow was their primary employer. There was a law against forming militias, and underground organizations like Red Alert were semi-legal at best, but companies could sponsor units like theirs for self-defense. For most companies, the expense was prohibitive. Minnow was an exception. They produced a wide variety of civilian and military hardware, so outfitting their little mercenary company had been cheaper for them. And they were totally pissed about losing all kinds of facilities to Maverick attacks. The Hunters tried to help, especially with military-grade manufacturing plants, but they had a lot of commitments on their hands.
Right now, they were ambushing the Mavericks who had chosen to raid a large Minnow supply depot. It had been on the outskirts of a small city, and the attack had been strictly a smash and grab. The Hunters had repulsed them from the city, but didn't seem to care how many arms the Mavericks had gotten away with… or that the forces they had destroyed had been deliberately sacrificed, to cover the retreat of the ones carrying the weapons. If Kyle was willing to be honest, he would have to admit that the Hunters probably did care… they were just too hard pressed to hunt the Mavericks further. But he wasn't willing to be charitable, and neither was the board of directors for Minnow Arms. Some of the youngsters Kyle had trained had been in place at the depot, and they'd quite cleverly followed their orders in the case of an overwhelming attack… they'd managed to hide, lay low, then carefully follow the Mavericks as they escaped. Sahara and Nike were both up for some serious bonuses, if they survived.
The Mavericks had stopped to deal with something… the scouts hadn't been sure what. But it had provided them with an excellent opportunity, and they had made use of it by mining the most likely paths the Mavericks would use to leave. Then they'd noticed that the Mavericks seemed to be splitting into two groups. The sheer volume of weapons that they had taken couldn't be teleported, and only a fool would use a shuttle still in Hunter territory. So, presumably, they were going to split the weapons and take them to different groups of Mavericks. So now, Demon Two and Demon Three were going after Target Beta, while Demon One was going to take on Target Alpha.
A shocking explosion rang out as Target Beta hit the mines. A moment later, unable to stop in time, Target Alpha hit the mines. There were screams, clouds of smoke and fire, chaos… before the Demons opened fire.
Surprise was total, and the first few moments were a massacre. Then the Maverick resistance stiffened, using the crippled transports as cover for their own fire. Kyle smiled viciously as he sent a Maverick reeling from a careful shot. He'd anticipated that tactic, and come prepared. He touched a particular button on his PDA.
Low flying drones buzzed past their positions, over flying the Mavericks. The Mavericks managed to shoot down most of them, which exploded into fragments. But several made it through, and dropped plasma grenades on the enemies. There were more screams, and for a moment the Maverick fire almost ceased.
"Rush them! Rush them now!" Kyle commanded, and led the charge, his own beam saber out and ready.
They suffered their worst casualties in the final charge. Like a wolf brought to bay, the Mavericks turned on their enemies, intent on not going down alone. Perhaps ten of Kyle's command perished in the final push… but no Mavericks survived.
Kyle grimaced, and keyed his communicator. "Demon Two, begin gathering the bodies." They were not leaving their dead behind. "Demon Three, get the transports." Several teleport beams activated. "Demon One, begin gathering the items." He wasn't certain how much of the cargo had survived, but it would be quite a bit. Weapons and armor were naturally built to be durable. They had brought transports to take what items they could. "Claymore, Fantasy, recover the mines." They had mined several different pathways, and many hadn't been triggered. Fortunately, they could remotely disable the mines and gather them up easily. Leaving them behind would have been very irresponsible.
"Sweet?" He frowned. She was kneeling beside a body, her face in her hands… he walked over, and took a deep breath as he recognized the dead soldier. Bitter had been shot in the chest, tearing through the hard titanium and detonating his generator. The secondary explosion had torn him apart. "Sweet."
"It was my fault," he could barely hear her, even when he kneeled beside her. "My fault. I never should have told him about the opportunity… I knew he was stupid, I knew…"
"Sweet." Kyle rested a hand on her shoulder and she looked up, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "This is not your fault. He died well." Bitter had followed his orders to the letter… but there were always casualties, in the end.
"I… I know he did." Sweet whispered, closing her eyes in pain. "But it hurts so much…" Kyle watched her, as she regained control of her emotions. "Sir… what should I do?"
"Begin gathering the items," Kyle said gently. He would have given her time off if he had thought it would do an ounce of good. But Sweet would do better if she had a task to take her mind off her grief.
"Yes, sir." She slowly stood, and went to help with the loading.
In the end, they gathered up almost half of the weapons and armor that had been stolen from the Minnow Arms depot. Kyle smiled thinly, satisfied. They had just paid for their own existence, and the board of directors would be pleased.
But before he went, there was something to do.
"All Demons, Demon Leader." Kyle announced himself, and everyone paused to listen. "Good work, all of you. We'll all be getting Christmas bonuses this year." There was a titter of laughter from somewhere. He ignored it. "Sahara, Nike, you're up for commendations and performance bonuses. Well done." Shadowing the Mavericks had been a difficult task. He could see both of them from where he stood, and they were both pleased and proud.
And they have reason to be, Kyle thought, almost fondly. This is a wonderful little team I have. We'll make the Hunters jealous, someday. He was looking forward to that.
"All Demons, convoy positions. Let's move out." On foot and hoverbikes, with the lumbering transports in the centre, they began the trip home…