The Jump City Docks were always a place to be wary at night. With millions of oil and other goods being imported from rival companies overseas and domestically, it is a prime spot for such excursions. One could easily sink the fortunes of a major company by destroying the numerous supertankers and cargo ships that docked incessantly, with little to no safety regulations being followed. The criminal assassin Slade's new mission as issued by his agents was to take out a rival's supertanker. Slade himself found that this was an easy mission for himself. He was sitting in a car about 200 meters from the entrance of the docks in the dead of night. Sabotage wasn't his speciality, he preferred more personal targets than a explosive floating can.
"Only the finest port authority in all of the west coast. Not to mentions those kids over there. You ready kid?" Slade looked over his shoulders to his new potential apprentice, he was armoured in some type of beige ceramics and carrying an specialty assault rifle equipped with a shotgun and side-mounted grenade launcher. His face was covered by a helmet with light blue visor. The apprentice looked young due to his statue, being no taller than six feet. He checked his weapon's status, and nodded.
"Good to go."
"Now, I don't know the hell why they thought I would waste my time on this op. It's too easy, they could have hired some kid off the street to do this. Especially if that kid somehow has his own personal armory." Slade mulled over the docks' entrance. The two had been there for hours scouting the place and waiting for the tanker to dock.
"Which is where I come in?"
"Exactly, now I ain't going to waste my time with this, so your going to do most the work. Think of it as a initiation mission. In fact if you screw up, don't expect me to bail you out. You're just going to JC-JCF like all the idiots who think they can take on the kids by themselves." Slade had abandon any attempts to get Robin as an apprentice. Though he lucked out with the one in his car. He caught him robbing the Bank of Perez and actually getting away with it. The apprentice had no presence other than such, even then, he wasn't on the JL database.
"Got it, so what is my plan."
"Infiltrate the docks, access the Port Authority Computer systems, take the data, wipe the system clean. Locate the "TI Oceania" and destroy it. It's loaded with over 3 million barrels of crude oil, so destroying should get everyone's attention. Use any means necessary to retrieve the data and destroy the supertanker. I managed to smuggle some your gadgets inside, more on that later though."
"How long I have until the kids show up?"
"They're out eating tonight, probably drunk as well, so we should have about 5 minutes. Follow the exit plan I laid out and you should easily out maneuver them. If they do show up."
"Any personal stuff?"
"Neutralize the Captain, he's an old rival of mine. You have your orders, Siege, carry them out." Slade cut his words short. The op was simple, he didn't need to go into much detail.
Siege nodded and exited Slade's car. How he completed the mission was entirely up to him. He placed the rifle on his back and began to walk to the right of the entrance. He analyzed the walled off sections of the port. He looked for any cameras that might catch him. He remembered a section that was empty in the coverage network. He approached a section that had the hole in the network. He made a quick dash across the street, as it was the dead of night, the streets were empty. He hugged against the wall and reached for his utility belt. He grabbed a small device from such and stepped back. Two bright plasma beams emerged from the device, and begin to spin into the concrete wall. It drilled through the wall making an ample tunnel through which Siege could enter through. Siege knew that the alarms were not going to trip, perimeter security parameters were literally just cameras. The heavy stuff was inside the docks.
"Nice, those things actually worked?" Slade said, he was looking through a camera feed on Siege's helmet.
"I wouldn't have risked it, if I didn't think it would." He said while he crawled through the hole the device dug through for him. He entered into the ports unknown, though he would have to make quick pace if he wanted to stay that way. He took cover beside a nearby building just a couple feet in front of him. He edged up to the corner and spotted the tower where the main computer systems were located. Siege calculated a pathway to the Port Authority main computer. He saw nearby officers, he reached for his rifle and backed off. He took a moment to scan the area, it was busy. Siege thought that they were beginning preparations to unload the tanker.
"Lot of activity here." Siege begin counting the number of guards. He would be hard to notice if he kept to the shadows. Vehicle patrols passed by intermittently.
"Over a billion dollars in assets in this ship alone, with a hundred fifty million dollars in crude oil. Losing one of these is going to put a dent in someone's wallet. I don't like sabotage but it's an effective way to send a message than just killing someone. Not to mention it's going to destroy those kids' reputation."
"Certainly going to spike up the pump. Trade is going to stalled for a couple of months."
"Good thing I stocked up on my commodities." Slade let out a rare joke.
Siege circled around the warehouse midst the conversation. He infiltrated a vehicle warehouse. There were a couple of patrols around the area, Siege took cover behind the numerous vehicles and waited. Two officers passed by him. Siege listened on the conversation, he aimed his weapon, encase they turned around.
"Yeah, bigass ship here today, Al." The officer on right side.
"Man, this shit is so stupid. We still got five hours before unload even begins."
"Yeah, but the pay is pretty great."
"Couldn't they just get those kids to watch this tanker? Damn, I'm tired."
"Nah, they probably let the tanker run away if it could."
The two officers opened a door and left the warehouse. Siege continued to follow the path to the tower. He slipped by numerous patrols inside the warehouse before exiting the warehouse. He again took cover against a power box sitting on next to the street. Siege calculated he had about 150 meters to go to the tower. The patrols were frequent. He turned back to face the warehouse he just came out of. He marked it on is heads up display with an X. He turned back to face the guarded entry. He notice his pathway had an O in front of the entrance. Siege sighed, it meant that he would have to break cover.
"Slade, got a map of the area? Front entrance is heavily guarded." He whispered into his radio.
"From what I am seeing, your only way is through there, unless you got a pair of wings."
"I'm going to need that to get on the ship. Where did you place it."
"Should be out of sight, in a container near the crane."
"Change in plans, I going to arm the explosives first. Then get the data."
"Your mission, your rules, your clean up."
Siege backed off from the heavily guarded tower, he made his through alleyways and streets to the site of the ship. He whistled at the sight of the ship, it was longer than the Empire State building tall. He located the crane Slade was taking about. Remarkably the dock itself was pretty empty. Siege reasoned that there is probably a rotation shift and that patrols would resume shortly. He found an marked crate with Slade's logo on it. He took a knife from his utility belt and drove it into the box. Carefully he opened the box to reveal an attachment for his suit and a couple of explosives.
"Nice, low-yield fusion shells. Should send this behemoth to the sea floor."
"That took a lot of effort to get in, make it count. You have only one shot with the jump. They'll notice it."
Siege equipped the flight suit onto his back. The controls were simply two buttons jury-rigged to two solid rocket motors. He placed the fusion shells on his utility belt and sheathed his knife.
"Start timer, input five minutes. Start in 10 seconds." The timer began to countdown on the right hand side of his HUD. He looked around and saw a light coming through an alley way. Soon some guards came around the corner. They were immediately dropped by Siege's rifle. The Flight suit took flight and Siege jumped onto the Tanker. He landed in front of the crew. All Siege had to do was point the weapon.
"Holy fuck! Sound the alarms! Get the Army here! We're under attack!" One the crewmen said while dispersing. Siege didn't care he begin to sprint to four locations on the ship. He began by running towards the bow of the supertanker. The alarms tripped and the five minute timer began running. Running was a brisk for Siege, since his suit was powered.
"Did I hear an alarm Siege?"
"Correct. The top deck was still crewed. They evacuated for now. Moving to designated locations and planting charges." Siege voice was calm and cool. Slade found it professional that he didn't scream or yell under-pressure.
"Provided that you get the information from the Tower, I'm moving to extraction. The scanners are buzzing with activity. Not long before you have the entire port bearing down on you. Make it quick."
Siege encountered a group armed guards that prepared to open fire, Siege activated his grenade launcher, and fired a salvo at the group. The explosion neutralized the group instantly, Siege moved into the first location and slid under a pipe. He took a fusion shell, clamped it to the underside of the pipe, entered a four digit code, and armed the shell. He rolled over and fired his rifle's main gun at the incoming guards. He stood up and dropped several guards approaching his location. The guards were powerless to stop him, their firepower came no where near close to breach the suit.
"X-1 placed moving to X-2."
Siege's timer was down to three minutes and twenty seconds. His armor was heavy enough to block basic bullets from port guards. He easily dealt with the guards that tried to neutralize him. He reached X-2 and proceeded to arm the second fusion shell. He continued down the length of the ship placing the third Fusion shell just on the door of entrance into the ships interior. He made way to the top of the ship, and busted down the door into the bridge. The Captain was already evacuated from the helm. Siege grunted that he missed the opportunity, though that Slade's personal stuff.
"No captain." Siege scanned the room. It was empty, computers were still running however.
"I know, bastard left soon as you went loud. You won't have time to reach the Tower before the kids arrive. So what's your plan? You want to fight them."
"I'd rather not if I can. What I am going to do will suffice. Simple, place the last fusion shell on the bridge, and access the mainframe from here. Get ready for an upload" Siege placed a fusion shell on the floor of the bridge and accessed the tanker's computer systems. He took his knife and slammed it into the USB port on the side. Instantly he gained access to the tanker's system. He bypassed into the Port Authority's main computer systems by initiating a wireless link with his hacking knife. He confirmed this by taking control of the cameras inside the tower's room.
"Alright, remotely accessed the computer system. Beginning transfer to your location."
"You used the knife didn't you? Who would've thought that thing would be useful."
"Download 60% percent complete. ETA till exit?"
"Just give me minute, right over your position. Got any distractions, there's a massive force heading to the tanker." Slade connected a camera to Siege's HUD, he saw a pop-up window of the response force heading towards them from above.
"Matter of fact I do." Siege said, he looked over to the vehicle warehouse where he sneaked through. He sent a signal to the marker, the X turned into a check, and a large explosion followed taking a significant portion of the port. A trademark mushroom cloud formed. Siege huffed at the effectiveness of the device.
"Needed to test these fusion shells anyway. Download completed. Beginning wipe." Siege said. He still had thirty seconds before the kids showed up.
"T-car sighted, make your way to the deck, I'm landing there. Better hurry up, unless your want to go to the Juvenile Correction Facility."
"Do you really think I won't just blow this tanker up instead? Setting a timer for the fusion shells, you got 1 minute to get me out of here."
"Preparing for landing." Siege noted a fast moving large stealth helicopter onto the deck.
Siege saw Slade's aircraft landed on the deck and activated the timer. He broke the window from the deck and dropped onto the deck with a colossal impact, denting the steel platform. He then sprinted to the getaway vehicle taking out several resistant guards while hopping to the aircraft. Slade turned his back to see his apprentice boarded.
"30 seconds." Siege said, while guarding the entrance of right side of the helicopter
Slade lifted the handle on the craft and took off from the tanker, he gained altitude rapidly, Siege noted that the Titans were blocked off because of the rubble created. He sent four signals to the fusions shells. Immediately four bright blue explosions decimated the enormous supertanker, the air rippled with thunder sending superheated that destroyed the neighbouring crane, capsized the ship to the right, spilt it half. Then an enormous fiery explosion that sent shock waves that even knocked the aircraft off course and consumed the surround area in fire as the cargo exploded. All that was left was a smouldering crater that was being filled with water, with raging fires spreading throughout the port. Slade and Siege circled around the area, recording the damage. Windows were shattered for miles. Slade whistled at the scene.
"Damn, Siege, I'm impressed you did the op almost clean and fast, found solution to problem thought you would never figure out, and did it successfully without those kids even knowing what hit them, this is surely going to sink their company. Jump City Docks is going to be out of commission for months." Slade surveyed the damage. Siege definitely showed promise.
"Only the best get to work with the best."
"Continue like this and the Titans will be out of business by the end of this year."
"And to note, there were no causalities, at least no caused by myself. All shots were non-lethal."
"They were still obliterated in that blast."
"Tough luck, at least the crew had the sense not to challenge me."
"Interesting." Slade glanced You managed to get information that the Titans were supposed to patrol tonight. I guess my agents can leak this out. Oh, and your pay. Should be securely deposited to your parent's account."
Siege's HUD received a notice that his account received 100 million in compensation. To be paid in 1 million dollar payments over the course of the year. Siege gasped at the amount of money, it would surely help with the bills and receiving better equipment.
"Looking forward to continue working with you, Slade."
"Already have another mission planned, you're hot on the books so it will be in couple months, and I don't want it seem that your apprentice just yet. I can tell you it's an assassination. Lay low for while. Don't spend the money like an idiot. Use it keep your hold above the water, but most importantly to help acquire more of your gadgets. I could've used some fusion shells before. Make sure that your persona disappears off the Titan's watch-list. Do this, and I can offer you the position with gratitude."
"Will do, I'll break into some easy JL terminal and erase it from there. Actually, I'll probably be at the Titan's Tower itself today. They won't notice me at all." Siege noted his schedule.
Slade landed the aircraft just above a small household just outside the city. Siege waved off and jumped off the craft into the fenced off yard. He took off leaving the armoured criminal by himself again. He entered into a back door of his garage after walking to the left. The garage was tidy and clean but filled with tables with unfinished works. Siege unlocked his helmet to reveal a face that was very young, no more than 16 years old. Brown eyes and brown hair, mixed skin, and beared a scar on his forehead. He placed his helmet on one his numerous desks and unpacked his armor from off of his self. The ceramic armor was modular and was easy to remove if one knew how it was built. He sat on a bench and began to remove the upper half of the armour. Under the suit of modern armor was standard ACUs for the Army. Siege was undoubtedly in shape but not stacked with muscle, because the modern armor did most of the movement for him. In which he had to get up. He didn't remove his leg armor until he sat in a wheelchair. He raised the the calf-strap to a nearly horizontal angle and removed the leg armor.
Unfortunately for Siege wasn't the perfect able man, he was paralysed from the waist down from a deadly operation on his spine when he was a young boy. The modern armor compensated for such, however, he couldn't walk around with highly advanced tech, now could he.
"There we go. Damn, the legs' are always the hardest." Siege placed the leg gear onto the table behind and began to cart himself out of the garage. His HUD which was integrated into his functional nervous system and read 2:07 am for the time. Siege yawned, he skipped dinner to prepare for the op, but he was too tired to be hungry. Using the armor put a drain on him. The rest of the household was deep in sleep. So they didn't hear him cart into his room. He lived in the suburbs with his family of just him and his single father, that sometimes brought a girlfriend over. Siege through himself in bed, he couldn't wait for the morning news in few hours. He did have school, he didn't went to learn, just to keep down the suspicion. His father already knew his condition and his engineering genius, but didn't knew of his criminal past. He would have liked to have an chaotic introduction to the Teen Titans, but ultimately he had no idea he would have been able to escape from that mess, and he had no point to. He fell asleep, his alarm was 6:30 and he intended to wake up on the dime.
Meanwhile at the destroyed ship and docks the Titans were only beginning to understand what happened. The five were standing within a safe distance to witness the awesome explosion.
"Dude! Didn't the mayor specifically ask to protect this ship?" Beast Boy said.
"Did they use some-type of nuclear device on the ship. I am detecting some level of radiation. But yeah the ship is toast man." Cyborg said.
"The entire system is wiped clean as well. So the Port's systems are compromised. Incoming ships can't be processed. Someone wants to cause an embargo on the city." Robin thought, he sighed, this was a big loss for his team. But nevertheless he wanted to get to the bottom of this.
"Is there anything we can trace back?"
"I noticed two people on the deck as well as pretty large helicopter taking off just before the explosion. My guess, with the docks being so close to us, someone is sending a message to us." Raven informed Robin.
"Message sent indeed." Starfire noted, as she hovered behind the team.
"It couldn't be too many people, I'm already down to few people who could pull this off. It had to be one relatively smart and know their way around. Slade comes to mind, but he wouldn't waste his time with this. I'm positive that H.I.V.E couldn't do it as well. Cyborg are you picking up any other distress calls"
"No major attacks yet. Looks like this event is isolated."
"Man this is going to spike gas prices through the roof." Beast Boy complained, though he wasn't certainly unjustified.
"Report back to the tower. We need to get to the bottom of this. Any evidence here is likely destroyed."
"You still think Slade could have did this?" Cyborg asked.
"I'll sleep on this. 5 minutes to take this thing out? Yeah, I leaning on Slade. Especially they struck when we were busy."
The Titans headed back to the Tower to regroup on the situation. Robin could not understand how Slade managed to sink a supertanker in five minutes, there was something missing.