The rest of the morning felt like an anticlimactic eternity, so Harry decided to drift back to the food and strictly soft drink. His culinary skills back at the main house were decided adequate enough for three top-class gourmets, but he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to experience varied kinds of taste as the opportunity might give him a note or two from the delicacies presented for his cooking experiments later. Also it was as good a vantage point as any to enjoy Sofia's performance from. It seemed that she had regained her former composure, though now and then, when their eyes transfixed, she would began to blush and look away with haste. It was also, as he'd learned since from uncountable similar affairs, the best spot to be caught off guard, since the noises gravitated there sooner or later; the abundance of people made it hard to detect an intently approaching presence.

Thus it was that the boy made the acquaintance of Kimberlee, without the faintest presentiment of the trouble that innocent conversation would lead to. If anything was to be lacking that had lead to trouble, Harry supposed, then it was his height to blame as he came simply to fill a plate of assorted desserts, few were presented too damn high on the top columned dishes. If he was to reach up, then there would be a slime chance of knocking the base plate over, as his centre of mass could have shifted, so he was trying to work out a way of getting to them when a thick arm reached across to pick up the dish.

"Allow me." The voice was lively and slightly muted, presumably because of a restrained laughter at watching a child seriously combatting the bourgeois of desserts, and struggling with bondage of heights. Harry transferred a couple of the delicacies to his plate, and found himself addressing the "interesting man in the broader sense of the word" to quote Laggera. In a brief interval, Harry caught the sight of the man: he was in his late 30s, and his facial features were rough with a tender edge to it: a face of a man who smiled and laughed by his heart. He dressed in a simple black jacket over his white shirt. The long pure black trousers only served as the elipsis for his towering heights. "Thank you, sieur Kimberlee," Harry said. "You're most kind."

"Have we met before, child?" His eyes tuned into an inquisitive gaze, as Harry noticed the irises were almost icy blue contrasted deeply with his glossy shade of black hair; the combination of which had an unnerving piercing quality that increased his already striking resemblance to a dictator with a toothbrush mustache.

"Your reputation precedes you," Harry said blandly, letting him make of that what he would, though as common sense dictated, it would be most imbecile for a guest to not know of his host. ", though your shadow even precedes that." Harry titled his head towards the man in the black glasses overwatching both of them from the bar, sipping his mucky glass of who-know-what.

"I'm sure he does." He chuckled heartily, realizing that the child was pulling his leg. A rather experienced hand at reading people too, he surmised, "You seem to have rather sharp eyes for one of such age," Kimberlee said, and a momentary smile surfaced on Harry's face.

"I often get that compliments."

The man took one of the pastries for himself. "So, where did you learn of me, child?"

"A local priest by the name of Laggera Primapice told me of his experiences with you." Harry answered ingenuously.

"Local priest, why, of course." Kimberlee bit into the delicacy with a grin. There was something about the statement Harry made that had struck his sense of humor. "A great bridge builder, too, that man."

"It seemed that another noble is making his entrance," Harry said, noticing the flunkey was clearing his throat at the entrance, looking a little flustered. He'd called out a number of names since the Dursleys had made their entrance, but it was clear that this time he seriously expected to be listened to.

"Indeed. It seems to be so." His voice was level again. "As the host, I have my duties to pay them proper respect." His smiled then was without any of easy going attitude, but a professional business smile. "We shall meet again, Mister Potter." Harry shot a grin at the man. How scary the man was to notice such a trivial presence of Harry. "Your reputation precedes you too." Kimberlee laughed.

And then he was gone, leaving Harry pleasantly entertained. He didn't have long to enjoy the amusement of playing with an old hand in the game of words, though, because the flunkey, who'd announced his miserable status of being an attached to the Dursley, was pounding a staff on the polished wooden floor, and the mindless babble of voices gradually diminished, Sofia's soprano voice trailed away in mid-chorus, which was a real shame. The flunkey's chest inflated with self-importance.

"My lords, ladies, and gentlemen. It is my honour to present His Excellency Zhao Li Hao, Ambassador of the People's Republic of Shina."

ONE THING Harry would say for the Shinese, they certainly know how to make an impressive entrance. Zhao Li Hao, or rather, to the western standard: Hao Li Zhao, was draped in a traditional white robe inscribed with simple floral patterns, which made all the Britiss noble dignitaries look ridiculously overdressed, and was surrounded by his body guards, who in contrast attired fully in western suits. There was no mistaking who was in charge, though, as his imperial charisma immediately filled the room with silence, his entourage swiftly followed in his wake as he strode confidently across the polished wooden floor towards Kimberlee. Harry didn't realise at the time how apt the mental image was, of course. What he did notice almost at once was a familiar glint in his murky brown eyes, and the rigidness of his compatriots at the center of attention now that they had stopped in front of Kimberlee to exchange pleasantries.

"Mister Li Hao is looking very confident today." Laggera stood by Harry's left shoulder, with the words delivered through almost motionless lips as he came into brief eye contact with the Ambassador and made the holy sign in greeting. "May the Lord guide his poor soul to the righteous path."

"What do you mean, sir?" Harry inquired, more out of politeness than actually expecting an answer. The problem laid with the fact that the People's Republic of Shina was firmly establishing itself as the shadow gorvernor of the South East Asia region. But that was it. Shina was all but officially declared containment within the SEA region. To the north, there was the highly militarized Soriet Union aching for a provocation in any form to invoke total war to politically remind its people of the utter necessity of the Communist Party within the dissolving Union. To the east, Kourea and Japon were under the close over watch of the United States of Amirca, whose harrier fleets were on constant high alert patrolling the coasts of Okinawa, seeking for a daring challenger to utilize all of their experimental weapons for target practice. To the south and west, there were Oustralia and Lindia, both of whom had been under the Dominion of the Crown, and even after they regained independence, they still catered closely to the market of the Commonwealth. However, as the Crown's official presence in the SEA region was very distant, lingering only as a meager shadow, the Shinese took the liberty in invading the growing Indian markets with their abundant materials and human resources. Investment of Shina into Lindia rose overnight, and within a month, the capital poured into the home of Hinduism reached a tremendous amount, practically established Shina as the de facto patron of Lindia. The Prime Minister and the Parliament did not responded to this bold movement, seeing as India had initially been established as an open market, which doubled as an unruly center of trade and shipping now somewhat brought to control, and as long as the Commonwealth could secure its source of interests in India, other local political matters were not of the Crown's concern.

But ironically, they bloody were. The People's Republic of Shina ignited a political war for territorial claim by submitting a dated document inscribed with exploratory note from a historical excursion of the Nanfang Hai to the Representatives of SEA regions. The response was very much predictable. Protests, claims, summits, meetings and many more meaningless events were orchestrated as a distracting show to draw attention away from the private meetings and discussions of Shinese officials and their interested partners within the government of other countries. The representatives of Shina single handedly fanned the flames of conflicts in the official conferences, and held the key members of other governments in their pockets behind the scene. All was to ensure a single mutual (constructed) decision between all parties involved. Thus There was declared a state of temporary Naval Lockdown of the South China Sea, and by an extension, the Indian Sea, under the pretense of not risking "further escalating tensions in the region" by any intervening naval forces from the West. The lockdown would be lifted only when all the claims were resolved within conference peacefully, completed with the handwritten letter of confirmation for the abolishment of the Naval Lockdown state from the effective Leader of every country involved. All unidentified foreign freighters, which incidentally included all frequent cargo ships carrying materials of interest from Lindia headed for the Commonwealth and its allies, would be met with lethal response from any present naval forces without needing confirmation from higher authorities. Others small class ship operating on the waters would be put on close inspection by present naval forces, and could be apprehended to the nearest port should such a need arise. The Eastern Patrolling Fleets were thus formed multinationally by all involved naval forces to independently act as the "fair" enforcers of peace in the troubled waters. Most of the funding for the EPF came from Shina, though, just for the rather non-existent record. And the initial presentator of the dated document, head representative of Shina that single handedly brew up such a complete shit storm in Aria, the head official that allergedly negotiated under the table with multiple Shinese personnels of interest? Most Certainly Not His Excellency Zhao Li Hao.

"That man has sinned greatly." Laggera watched with dull eyes as the Shinese delegation made its bow greeting to Kimberlee.

"I think that all humans have sinned, and that all sins are equal." Harry responded unenthusiastically to the priest accusation. "A sin is a decisive act of violating the God's will. All crimes must be regarded as sins, and no sin should be regarded as greater than others. There will be no minor errors, nor will there be deadly misdeeds. All sins result in just an accumulation, which had always been purposefully geared towards building the total corruption of mankind. The accumulation must, eventually, be purged."

"I see your view, my child." Laggera smiled at Harry, and looked at him with the gentle eyes of an experienced missionary converting a heretic. "But then, what would the common punishment for the sinned be in such a constricted world? Death? Imprisonment?"

Harry did not reply.

"It troubles me very to see one of such precocious age to have such ominous view of this world." The priest worriedly pinched his nose bridge. "Let me give you some advice, child. It may help you to make at least some sense off this twisted world of trifling wars and needless deaths. I believe that you find life infested with punishable sin because you consciously force yourself to think there are only the bad people and the worse people. You think you have seen bad people sinned in every way imaginable. But you are wrong, and if you continue to think so, you will be dead wrong. So your parents were killed by bad people, who got away with it. However, there is no need to brood over what had happened. You have said so yourself. 'I don't need anything more.' Then stop. Stop your stubborn pursuit of the perpetrators for the sake of keeping your new family … wholesome."

With a heavy sigh, he continued his stern preaching. "You never know what you could hear in the local confessions, my child." Laggera shifted his posture lightly, and casually indicated Harry with his right hand. "Now, let us discuss this matter free of the sentimentality of your parents' death. By your original definition, the essence of the world is depthless darkness; I ask of you, what is soul-crushingly evil about a newborn child? Do children still have to unquestionably paint themselves as being "on the right side?", and to elaborate: by what means and standards do you judge the virtue of the other side, if there is one at all, being worse?"

"What is evil, Harry boy? I think that Evil is simply resentment, perhaps? One that the mass emotionally perceives from witnessing certain events or actions caused by an individual or a group of human beings; you cannot really say that a natural beast is evil, can you? I did say that human "perceive" evil, because, for all that matters, anything goes against the annex of society formed by human is evil, so logically human rejects evil, but it is not very effective. An example will suffice here, I think. Let us presume that you are being followed by a stalker, who expressed feeling of love to you. You can reject a stalker confession of love for you, but it doesn't necessarily result in immediate abolishment of the stalker distant voyeurism, if not agitating negatively him to take his action to a whole new level. In your eyes, the stalker is disgusting. In the eyes of the society, the stalker is disgusting. In the view point of the stalker? His actions are but just few of the many repressed forms of his feelings. Romantic, enthralling, captivating … addictive, even…

"Then, as time passed, as a lawful member of society, you will seek help from others when the pressure from the stalker started to get too overboard, which will lead to the over taxation your mental capabilities. The help will always come timely if you ask just the right place, namely the local law enforcer. After filling form, attending courtroom and such, you will be able to return to society, to the tranquil that once was the norm. However, you will gradually feel out of place, submerged in stagnate air of anxiety, because you have been changed, permanently scarred. At the point you have consciously realized that you still feel the uneasiness from the whole ordeal, you will come to experience the fear poured forth from your own unconscious suppression during the circumstances. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You will dream of the most horrible of nightmare in the world of your mind, and you will live through restless night, entrapped in the claustrophobic fear of being captured by the hideous stalker right in the blanket where you are curling in.

"You will certainly regret not personally having taken actions against the "criminal". So what is the moral of the story, Harry boy?"

Harry pondered uncharacteristically for a second, and answered with a flicker of uncertainty. "That … you should take action preventatively before evil can manifest?"

"An incomplete anwser, as you realized it yourself. Prevention can only lead this society into a monochrome life. Grey, dead, and strangely … uncanny. The steps leading to such would be …." Laggera shifted his vision to Li Hao, and trailed away, keeping the brutal answers from a child …

"Induction of fear, gruesome display of public execution, justification of corporeal punishment, forced mass re-education, perpetual examination of privacy, and finally accumulation … accumulation through an extended period will result in a new generation …" …which was pointless, as it seemed.

"… of something that can no longer be called human. I take it that you are rather familiar with the processes, Harry boy?"

"Removing evil is not the same as creating good." Harry simply answered. "I will have the answer for the moral of the story by the next time we meet."

"Young child, just don't grow up like him. That man inspired belief that harm people."

"Are you referring to the Conflict of Pryhis?" Harry asked, poking a needle at Laggera's mentality as a little prank from a student against his lecturer. However, the priest must have detected something in his intonation because the dull eyes shadowing Li Hao were switched sharply to Harry at once, a sensation the boy found mildly amusing.

"Yes, and no, generally." he said evenly, watching Harry's face for a flicker of reaction. Well, good luck to him, the boy smiled in his head – six years of televisual meeting had left Harry's body language and facial expression virtually impossible to read in that way, if he was focused on the task, that was. Harry indicated the Dursleys with a tilt of his head, they were watching the exchange between Kimberlee and the Shinese diplomats in restrained contempt, trying not to look as though they were paying it any attention from the otherside of the dining hall.

"Uncle had quite a streak of all nighters dealing with the protests of His Excellency," Harry said. "And through the rare stern voice Uncle sounded through the living room, neither of them seem terribly happy about it."

"Good grief, a man of his caliber took a meeting of that importance in his living room, while threatening an Ambassador?" Once again, Harry found himself in the middle of an endurance contest. Emperor's bowels, the boy thought irritably, why did everyone always play right to his tune of retort? "That is surreal." The priest unconsciously made the holy sign.

"Mister Kimberlee said he was just going to exchange with them some simple pleasantries," Harry said, shrugging because he did not remember what exactly the host had said. Still the greeting farce had been on for quite a while. "Evidently getting on the robes of an Ambassador is pleasant enough." Harry looked at Laggera and saw the priest sighed heavily.

Bang!

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Four barks of a pistol going off echoed around the ballroom, and Harry immediately dived for cover behind a nearby overstuffed sofa even before the rational part of his mind had identified the source of the sounds. Harry could easily pass off as being invincible behind his executioner mask, cladded in the abundance of equipment, but when he was out of all those mechanical accessories and thick platings, the common sense to take cover for bullets might do the part of keeping him alive just fine, like then. His survival instincts still displayed excellent response time for one who often indifferently experience invulnerability within his heavily customized armor of power.

Harry quickly located Laggera, who was crouching behind a table, still gaping in disbelief, as the room chaotically erupted in panic and screams. The guests started scrambling to the particular direction of their trusted guards. Those guards were professionally standing their ground, waiting patiently for their masters to come at their side, while taking out their side arms with haste and aiming it around to identify the hostile forces; the sight was breath taking, literally, as every kind of sidearm imaginable suddenly appeared in hands on every side, aiming at each other, waiting for the shooting to start again.

"All of you …" Zhao Li Hao, with all his menacing empirical majesty of the east, mocking bellowed at the sight of mass confusion, on his hand a peculiar kind of Shinese handgun, which were still menacingly smoking, from the recesses of his now dashed with blood robes. Kimberlee was down, his hand clutched tightly at Li Hao's robes as if it was a last attempt to warn his guest of the murderer, his blood started to leak everywhere on the shiny wooden floor, and Harry knew from rather recent experience that he wouldn't be getting up again.

For the record, two rounds had pierced through his skulls, redecorating the puddle of flowing blood with murky brain matter. One round was, apparently, shot at his neck, as the bullet made a gaping hole through the back of his neck large enough to jack him in the Matrix. Another made a hole near left shoulder blade, presumably aimed at the heart. Harry knitted his brow at the sight the unusual throughout and decisive kill. Four bullets to four vital regions. Even the doctor with the patched face would have to reluctantly let this life go to God.

"… shall die." Li Hao howled from the carpeted entrance, eyed viciously at the panicked Dursleys at the opposite end of the vast hall, and his entourage started shooting with controlled bursts, taking down still astonished guards of nobles and celebrities, advancing steadily towards the where the Dursleys were standing. "For the greater good."

"Nexus!" Harry shouted in combead in his ear, bullets wheezing past the sofa he was taking cover behind. Acting as the hapless nephew be damned in all this chaos. "Where in the bloody hell are you?"

"Over by the stage, sir." He lifted his head for a brief moment to scan the room filled with anguished cry of the dying, and located the stout Sergey as he was returning fire unsteadily with his right hand; his left was keeping Sofia's head down, which was turning to look at the killing fest as though mesmerized.

"Did the Ambassador shoot Kimberlee?"

"Affirmative, sir." Sergey hesitated a fraction of a second, then added. "Mister Kimberlee seems to have noticed something when Li Hao shook his hand."

"He paid the pleasantries alright," Harry said. "He had not known better than to look into Shinese hanging sleeves." Literally as that bought the rather amiable host a free ticket to the underworld.

Practically guards with a sidearm was firing for effect in a panic-stricken reflex at the Shinese delegates, except for a few, who knew when to fold and was evacuating their clients quickly.

"Savages! Is this how you propose peace?" A gun-waving noble was getting hysterical, firing his weapon wildly at Li Hao, who levelled his gun at his enemy face in a fraction of a second, and calmly pulled the trigger between short intervals to re-adjust his aim after each shot. It was a bloody public execution as the noble caught the entire clip of ammunition unto his face, Harry had no intention of getting caught in the middle of it.

"Galaxy," Harry voxed. "Berry. We're leaving now. There may be heavy resistance."

"Sir." Hans "Galaxy" Rivers' voice was as phlegmatic as ever, taking Harry's demand for transport as it simply was, without needing even a tiniest grasp of context. The man climbed back inside the vehicle he had just got out to have a smoke, and started the engine methodically.

"Sir?" Barbara "BlackBerry" Lazaridis' voice was, however, inflected with her natural query, which hailed from the disposition of being too well-trained to ask. But Harry wasn't about to let the honour guards wander into a firefight without warning. He was going to need them if the Dursleys were to be expected to get out of there as fast as possible.

"Attention, all active units. The host, Mister Wolf Kimberlee, has just been assassinated by the Shinese Ambassador and his attendants," Harry said with a firm voice, which was meant to be heard in every secured listening post on his side. "Rendezvous at point Alpha. The primary objective is to secure the D-Party ASAP, and head back to the PD (Private Drive) per course Main 25 or Alternative A2. Other rescue attempts, and the elimination of the Shinese delegates are of secondary importance."

"Commander?" Lily "Valley" Riviath responded to Harry's orders immediately, her voice carried a little bitter scent. "Shouldn't we try to help?"

"Optimus, reporting in, sir. T-T-There are ….szzzszz…. unidentified armoured vehicles ….szzzzzz… Point Alpha from Caterham ….zzssszzz… Westerham. ETA: 20 minutes." Kuu "Optimus" Li-Ra voice was dashed with the wheezing of the strong wind in the background, presumably resulted from her current observation from a vertical vantage position, as she was calmly breaking the bad news to her tactical commander. "Multiple unidentified foot-mobiles are engaging ….tsszzzz…. law enforcement's headquarters ...zzzzssszzz… military barracks."

"Confirmed. All S-elements reroute to pre-determined position to cover course Alternative A2." Harry scowled at the news of the sudden appearance of an unknown military force, and Lily's natural tendency to do good deeds. Help a bunch of gold-plated nancy boys and their dwindling guards to hold a virtually indefensible fixed position against the current internal assault by a fully armed of god-knows-why-blood-maddened lunatics, and not-very-distant external seige from their armmoured division getting here in twenty minutes? Not even if Harry had anything to do with it, but if given the observer seat, he would gleefully (which would not be visibly displayed on his face, but of course) watch it unfold from beginning to end. However, as he was the effective commander, he needed to put it a little more tactfully.

"Valley, everyone has sentiment and moral, even me," Harry stated simply. "But I suspect acting it, under the circumstances, would be very unwise politically," Harry paused briefly for his subordinates to figure out what would have gone wrong if they had intervened the massacre. "Unless I'm misreading the situation, of course."

"I don't think you are," Minato "Xperia" Morita joined the channel, a little reluctant to agree with Harry. Following his mindset, Harry wouldn't be too happy to see a real fight in the vicinity slipping rapidly away, either. "At the intermediate moment this is general Britiss – Shinese matter."

"Whereas if we get involved, we run the risk of reminding the Queen of whom accord did all of this started, and now that the conflict of Pryhis has opened a path to deliver enough niche supplies for this island to last another three year or so, they will very likely tap us unsympathetically on the bollocks and leave us to death with the Shinese hyenas, somehow." Harry finished. "Which would single us out for open war against the eastern superpower ofShinese. A single conglomerate versus an entire country. Intervention is, thus, limited to secondary objective."

"Roger." Harry could easily imagine Lily's soft face fell to her conscience, and he suddenly realised that she'd been hoping for a chance to redeem herself and her reputation.

"Good," Harry said. "Rescue still retains as secondary objective."

"Affirmative, sir." she said cripsly, though with a fervent air of hope to save some lives.

Well, Harry would still have to get to have a chat with her latter about her guilt-driven actions. Latter, that was.

"Anyways, three chocolate cookies on them armors being Shinese forces." Fededrik "Lumia" Mekeline cheerfully chipped in in channel when Harry could finally concentrate to make some logical assumptions out of the reported information of Kuu Li-Ra. "Anyone?"

For a moment of insanity Harry seriously considered sending Fededrik to the MRI labs as live material for extreme brain experiments involving cookies and cake, which was a lie, when common sense reasserted itself, hard, back to his brain. There hadn't been time to fool around.

"Nexus, get to the D-Party through the backstage route, get the package along too" Harry said, eyeing at the regrouped guards firing off a concentrated bullet storm that had broken the unflinching walk of the stout Shinese, sending them to covers behind flipped buffet tables and lead-scarred buttresses. Harry recalled the vicious glare Li Hao directed at the Dursleys. "The assassins' primary targets were initially the D-Party, and they had confederates who were advancing toward to this position to bail them out from the hot zone."

Harry brows knitted into a scowl as the event began to shape into a cohesive figure in his mind when he was suddenly reminded of the priest.

'Yes, and no, generally._' the voice of the priest rang within his head.

"This event was aimed to eliminate the immediate figures who were directly controlling the Dursleys Industry, along with his successor, and the chooser of the secondary successor. After three main figures are unable to provide a capable successor; which was caused by indecisiveness, illness, or death, then the power to choose the next chairman will fall to the Board of Directives, whom include a Chair of quarter-Shinese descendant, if my memory is to be trusted….

"This new chairman, insulated with a falling power in the eyes of the mass, will logically "retain" from entering India's territory again to avoid escalating the fragile situation between two super powers to consolidate his position, and the Dursley Industry will withdraw from Asia, which will gradually deflect Great Britain's interest away from India. There was no peace negotiations in the first place. They are here to fulfill their quest."

"With all respect, sir. Our prime concern must remain to be the welfare of the D-Party," Minato as-a-matter-of-factly asserted the initial priority of the channel back in discussion. ", this is not the time for speculation and the likes."

"Warrior 1-1 has been dispatched," Galaxy calmly joined the vox channel. "Warrior 1-1 will be reach the Alpha Point in 5 mike, be advised."

"Say again, Warrior 1-1 … Warrior … What Warrior!?" BlackBerry's casual birdy voice turned into a deafening shriek when she realized the absurdity of the prospect of driving the Warrior through the Alternative A2 route, for she was also in charge of generating general emergency exit and live-time mobile security of almost all operations.

"WHERE THE HELL DID YOU PARK THAT!?"

More importantly, Berry, how the hell did he drive it to the parking space without creating any ruckus? Harry thought.

To somewhat sympathize with Berry's train of thought, one must know that the Warrior is a tracked infantry fighting vehicle. The Warrior incorporates several design features in keeping with UK battlefield experience. In particular, there are no firing ports in the hull, in line with British thinking that the role of the armored personnel carrier/infantry fighting vehicle (APC/IFV) is to carry troops under protection to the objective and then give firepower support when they have disembarked. The absence of firing ports also allows additional applique armor to be fitted to the sides of the vehicle, which is invariably applied to Warriors involved in active operations. The cage armor used at one stage was replaced in 2007 by "Wrap Two" applique armor. The basic armor provides all-around protection against 14.5 mm armor-piercing ammunition.

The crew of a Warrior are the driver, seated in the front hull, and the gunner and commander who are seated in the turret. The embarked infantry section can number up to seven soldiers, who are seated facing each other in the rear hull compartment. Passenger access is through a single electric ram powered door at the rear of the hull, rather than a drop-down ramp as in the Amirca M113 APC and M2 Bradley IFV. Warrior Section Vehicles are able to carry and support seven fully equipped soldiers together with supplies and weapons, including a number of anti-tank weapons, for a 48-hour battlefield day in nuclear/biological/chemical conditions.

The Warrior is driven by a Perkins-Rolls-Royce V8 Condor engine through a four-speed automatic gearbox. It is capable of a road speed of 46 miles per hour (74 km/h). The Warrior has the speed and performance to keep up with a Challenger 2 main battle tank over the most difficult terrain.

The vehicle is fitted with a two-man DI Mankey turret, armed with two detachable 30 mm RAIDEN cannons capable of destroying most modern APCs at a maximum range of 1,500 metres (1,600 yd), and two additional AnA-113 EX-34 7.62 mm Fughes Helicopters coaxial chain guns. It is also fitted with two clusters of four defensive grenade launchers (usually used with Visual and Infrared Screening Smoke – VIRSS).

With all the prospects of this fighting vehicle in mind, Harry grimaced when he imagined dealing with the resulting paperwork for driving this 24 tones monster down New Cross Road in the astonishment of London coppers and the Queen's sentries; however, he did realize that having armored transport was optimal under the circumstances, for the Shinese confederates also had armored vehicles, most likely IFV.

"Keep channel discipline. Warrior 1-1, stay on course. Do not engage any armored hostiles. Get to point Alpha ASAP."

"Roger wilco." Hans River replied plainly, and his feed went silent.

"And in the meantime, I will have to do something to ensure the personal safety of the D-Party. All unassigned elements, secure the west wing exits." Not that he had the time to ease on tactical conversation, even if he still had the inclination. Radio traffic from local enforcement and defense forces leeched to his vox caster was getting more urgent: the situation surrounding London was deteriorating rapidly.