Crillion King
Nos Astra – Day 4:
Something crashed in Jackson's kitchen, waking him up with a start. He heard a yelp shortly afterwards, and leapt out of bed. He ran to his duffle bag to throw on some pants, only to find it ripped apart.
"What the hell?"
He heard more noises in the kitchen and someone yell, "Get away!" He found a pair of sweatpants in his newly stocked closet, grabbed his pistol, and rushed out to the kitchen to find a very amusing sight. His salarian "handler," Shiova, stood on the kitchen counter, and pressed her back against the cupboards. On the floor a crillion chittered up at her while snapping its large claws.
"Well, that explains my duffel bag," he observed.
"Jackson!" she cried. "Get this monstrosity away from me!"
He laughed and took a seat, letting Shiova sweat a little before he helped.
"This isn't funny, Jackson! Get it away!"
"If you ask me, this serves you right," he said, smirking. "Maybe you should stop breaking into my place."
She scowled at him in response.
"Don't look so smug. Just get your guard … crillion away from me."
Jackson sighed and headed for the fridge.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Let's see here, mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon …." He paused and looked at Shiova and then at the crillion. "Yeah, you've earned it."
He pulled out a strip of bacon and threw it to the crillion which chittered excitedly and scurried back to the bedroom. Shiova watched the crillion disappear into the bedroom before she finally crawled off his counter.
"Technically, this is the organization's place. We're letting you live here," she said.
"Perhaps it's time for me to get my own place then." Jackson sat back down on one of his barstools.
"I'm sure your quarian friend will help you with that," she said, sarcasm dripping with every word.
The fact that she spied on him didn't surprise him. He expected it, actually. The way she said it, though, was something else altogether.
"Are you jealous?" he asked, smirking.
"What? Me? Jealous of a quarian and a human? Please, don't make me laugh." She scowled at him and pulled out a datapad. "Here's the info on your next mission. The deadline is in two days."
Without further explanation, she hurried out of his apartment, looking toward the bedroom before running for the door.
"Well, that was interesting," he said.
He stared at the door for a few moments before he headed to his bedroom.
"All right, you little bugger. Where ya at?"
A clicking noise from the bathroom responded to his question. He put his gun away in his nightstand and proceeded into the bathroom. The crillion still nibbled at the strip of bacon with tiny mandibles. When it saw him, it gestured at him with the bacon in one of its claws and made a short chirping sound.
"Lia wasn't kidding. You may look like a crab, but you are definitely a lot smarter, aren't you?" he said. "I should probably take you back to the beach." The crillion continued nibbling on the bacon. "Then again, you seem friendly enough. And you certainly know how to make the trespassers feel unwanted, even though I'm sure you just wanted food. Silly salarian. Am I right?"
The crillion finished its bacon and started to explore the apartment. He followed it around into the bedroom, and then the living room where it stopped.
"I bet you're looking for water. Give me a moment."
Jackson grabbed a large bucket and ran out of his apartment. Since it bordered the sea, it didn't take him long to get to the shore and scoop up some of the sea-water. He rushed back to find he had another visitor.
"Did you take a crillion home with you, Jackson?" Lia asked.
She was a lot more relaxed around the creature than Shiova. She sat on one of the couches while the crillion chittered at her from the floor near her feet.
"More like it hitched a ride in my duffle bag. I'm going to need a new one," he explained.
She looked at the bucket he carried.
"I take it you intend to keep it?"
"I'm thinking about it. It's got personality. It also scared the shit out of an annoying salarian who likes to invade my apartment."
"Your handler?" she asked.
"That's the one."
He found a shallow container to dump the water in. The crillion practically jumped into the container when he poured the water in.
"There you go, buddy. Enjoy!"
He grabbed the datapad from the counter and joined Lia on the couch. She turned on the vid screen and found a news channel to watch. It provided some background noise, which he appreciated.
"I take it she gave you a new job?" Lia asked.
"Yeah," he said, scanning through the info on the datapad. "Looks like an espionage job."
"Really?" Lia perked up at the mention of espionage. "Can I see?"
He handed her the datapad so she could look through it. She didn't say much, mostly "ooos" and "hmmms," and when she finished she handed the datapad back to him.
"They aren't messing around, Jackson. They want you to temporarily shut down Tesale Prime Security's network. They're a private security firm, and very well guarded."
He stared at the datapad, thinking about the implications.
"Why? What are they planning, I wonder?" he asked.
"TPS provides security for a lot of companies, both physical and technological," she explained. "Knocking out their network would effectively render those technological security measures, like alarms and automated turrets, useless."
He thought for a moment, letting her information sink in.
"So they're probably planning a heist of some sort at one of TPS' clients."
"That's my guess. They're giving us the hard target, though. Our job will be much harder than the heist itself."
"Us?" he asked. He smiled, already knowing her answer.
"Of course. You didn't think you'd actually do this alone, did you?" she asked.
He put the datapad on the coffee table and leaned back on the couch.
"You guys already have a job to do, and they didn't give me very much time to do mine in," he explained.
"Two days is plenty of time. We can plan your job while we finish the rescue. In fact, Tullius should hopefully be checking in soon. I can have him start working on TPS' main office security."
"Sounds like a plan," he said.
He tried to get up from the couch, but Lia sat on his lap, forcing back down.
"Oh, no, you don't! You're going to stay right here," she said.
He sighed and let her get comfortable on his lap. He smiled when she started playing with his hair.
"So, tell me," she said. "Other than any mission planning, what other plans do you have for today?"
He laughed and thought about the question for a moment. He hadn't really thought about what he would do today. He looked at the container where the crillion still sat in the water. He laughed again when he thought about earlier, with Shiova standing on the counter to get away from it.
"You know? I think I may look for a new place to live. Some place to call my own and not owned by this organization."
She gasped at the news.
"Keelah! I know just the place. Right next to the sea. No surveillance bugs, no nosey salarians, and no weird asari cartoons."
He looked into her yellow visor and smiled, mostly only seeing his own reflection.
"Sounds like heaven, considering," he said.
She got up off his lap and pulled him to his feet.
"As much as I like seeing you shirtless, you should go get ready. I'll feed the critter." She looked at the crillion that now stood at their feet looking up at them. "Does it have a name?"
Jackson thought about it for a moment as he headed to his shower.
"I think I'll call it Neptune, after a human mythological god of the sea," he called from the bathroom.
Before he turned on the water he could hear Lia speaking to Neptune in the other room.
"Neptune. Neptoooooon. That's a silly name," she said, making him smirk. He heard some clicking noises and a bunch of squeaks in response. "Of course, you're a silly critter so I guess it fits."
He smiled as he got into the shower. Things appeared to be getting better every day. He had new friends, a potential pet, a job, and maybe even a new place to live that wasn't owned by this organization. The thought of the organization gave him pause.
I don't know who you really are, or why you wanted me, but I will find out, and then find a way out from under your thumb.
"I thought humans sang in the shower," Lia said behind him, startling him.
He barely turned to regard her when he thought better of it.
"No, please, continue turning," she said.
He looked over his shoulder while he rinsed himself off to see Lia leaning against the entryway to the bathroom. She waved back at him.
"How long have you been there?" he asked.
"Long enough."
He shook his head and smiled. He turned off the water and reached back, gesturing for a towel. Lia handed him one.
"As much fun as that was, we need to go. Tullius sent me a message. He's going to meet us at the place I wanted to show you," she said.
"I hope this place's bathroom has a door," he called to her as she walked away.
"I'll make sure it doesn't," she called back.
Jackson sighed and laughed as he dried himself off.
"Yup, interesting new friends," he said, quietly.
"Thank you for coming, Tullius," Lia said.
The golden turian met them at a medium-sized cabin bordering a private strip of the beach. Jackson liked the look of the place. The white sands of the beach were bordered by large walls of black rock, providing privacy for both the beach and the cabin. A small dock and boathouse stretched into the water, but no boat to accompany it. The dock and boathouse were made of a black wood that matched the cabin itself. The cabin was octagonal with rectangular windows in the walls he could see. What he could see of the roof had light gray, wooden planks for shingles.
"This is a nice stain job on the wood," Jackson said. "Turned out a nice, even color of black."
He ran a hand along the scaled wood which was smooth to the touch, like a snake. He'd never seen wood like it before.
"Actually, that's its natural color. It's imported from Rannoch. It's called "tika" if you wanted to know," Lia explained.
She punched a code into a panel on the wall, and the door opened, letting them in.
"Shouldn't we wait for a landlord or something?" Jackson asked.
He watched as Lia moved about the cabin with familiarity, turning on lights and running fingers along pieces of furniture. She pulled down some chairs from on top of round table and offered him a seat.
"That would be me," she said. "This was my safe house. Now, it's yours if you want it."
Jackson and Tullius each took a seat at the table, and Tullius, wearing another Hawaiian shirt, this time red, started working on his omni-tool.
"So, instead of living in an apartment funded by a shadowy organization, I'll be living in a solitary cabin owned by a shadowy quarian." Jackson smirked at her when she leaned back in her chair.
"Shadowy, am I? At least I won't be leaving bugs in the ferns," she said. She looked around for a moment. "In fact, I'm pretty sure there are no ferns in here."
Jackson looked at Tullius, who continued to work on his omni-tool in silence.
"As long as there are no salarians showing up uninvited," he said.
"I can guarantee the no salarians part at least. The intruder part though, well, it is my cabin so I guess I wouldn't really be an intruder." She giggled and gently kicked his leg under the table.
"Do you two want to be left alone?" Tullius asked, no longer working on his omni-tool.
They both just looked at him in response.
"No? Okay, then. I'll send the info to your omni-tools now."
Both Jackson and Lia's omni-tools beeped when they received the information from Tullius. Jackson opened the file and browsed through the information, which consisted of an address, building schematics, routes, and surveillance footage lifted from nearby security feeds.
"Looks like they have regular shifts of sentries to watch for potential threats," Jackson pointed out.
"Tullius and Cyana can take care of that," Lia said. "They'll provide a distraction while you and I take this back way in." She pointed at an alley that led to a back freight door of the warehouse. "Fewer cameras for me to hack on the way in."
Jackson looked around for a moment, noting that Cyana was nowhere in sight.
"Where is Cyana?" he asked. "Shouldn't she be here for this?"
Lia didn't stop looking over the details.
"I'll give her the details when she calls in at ten," she explained.
Jackson checked the time on his omni-tool.
"That was over an hour ago, Lia," he said.
Both Lia and Tullius stopped looking at their omni-tools. Though he couldn't see Lia's face, she became fidgety, and Tullius did look worried.
"She's usually very punctual with checking in," Lia said while wringing her hands together. She quickly gathered herself and opened her omni-tool again to send Cyana a message.
"Maybe she's just indisposed," Tullius offered. He tugged at one of his mandibles nervously.
"No. She hasn't let that stop her before," Lia stated.
There was an uncomfortable silence as Lia waited for a response. Moments passed before Lia finally moved.
"You two wait here. I'm going to go check something," she said.
She left them in the cabin. A few moments later, Jackson heard her skycar start up and fly away. He walked to one of the windows and looked out. She was already gone by the time he reached the window.
"What's she doing?" he asked.
Tullius leaned against the wall next to the window and looked at him.
"She's trying to find out what happened,' he answered.
There was a pause between them until Tullius broke it.
"Jackson. Now that we're alone, I need to talk to you."
Jackson started looking around the cabin, contemplating moving in like Lia offered. They were in a large rectangular room that ran the length of the house. Several rooms and a vault lined the sides of the room. He decided to check out some of the rooms while Tullius talked to him.
"I'm not sure what you did to gain this type of trust from Lia, but she's bringing you into our operations and giving you her safe house to live in after only knowing you for, what is it, three days?"
Jackson stopped looking around and turned to Tullius. He no longer leaned against the wall, but instead stood in the middle of the room near the table and stared at him.
"I didn't even know about this safe house, Jackson," he said, gesturing to the cabin around him. "… and I've worked with her for five years."
"I don't know what to tell you, Tullius," he said as he walked into the kitchen that was on the opposite end of the house from the entrance. "I've been trying to figure her out as well."
The kitchen had a modern design, with some strange machinery he wasn't familiar with; though, if he had to guess by the clean tubes lined up on the counter, they were for making sterile feeding tubes.
"Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm pretty sure she has a thing for you," Tullius's gravelly voice claimed from central room.
"She just struck me as overly friendly," he said.
He moved across the central room from the kitchen into the bedroom. The bedroom was fairly sparse, much like all the other rooms. Nothing adorned the walls and the only furniture found in the room was a queen-sized bed, a couple of black, wooden nightstands and a vid screen.
"She's friendly, but not that friendly with people she barely knows," Tullius said.
He sounded a lot closer and when Jackson turned to leave the room, Tullius blocked the door.
"She's putting her life in your hands, after only one mission with you." Tullius gave him a hard look. "Don't let her down, Jackson."
Tullius left Jackson alone with nothing more to say. Jackson stared at the wall for a little bit, letting what Tullius said sink in. He ran his hands along the cool, metal walls that made up the inside of the cabin. After a few moments of reflection, he walked back out to the central room to find Tullius sitting at the table again. He stayed quiet as he walked around the room. There was only one other room that caught his attention, a locked room with some serious-looking locking hardware and software across from the bedroom..
I'll have to ask her about that later, he thought.
He looked at Tullius, who stared out one of the triangular windows from his seat at the table. He took a seat next to the silent turian. He decided to try and break the awkward silence.
"So, what's with the Hawaiian shirts, Tullius?" he asked.
"I like them," Tullius said.
Tullius said nothing further to explain himself and continued to just stare out the window.
"Okay, then," Jackson replied
He decided to get some air and left the cabin to go out to the beach.
"That was awkward," he mumbled.
He kicked around some of the white sand of the beach and made his way to the dock. The boathouse was small, and when he opened it, he found it to be empty.
"Not much of a boathouse." He looked over the small, black dock. "Of course, there's no boat either."
He walked to the end of the dock and took off his shoes and socks. He sat down and let his feet dangle in the warm, dark-blue water. Tasale hung high in the sky and its light felt warm to his skin. He lay back and gazed into the sky. Perfect clear skies, with a few white, flying creatures, filled his vision. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the sounds of water lapping against the beach and the dock. He relaxed so much he didn't notice when someone approached him.
"Jackson!" Lia cried, startling him. "We need to go!"
He stood up and put his socks and shoes back on. He noticed that the sun already started setting.
I must have fallen asleep, he thought.
He looked at Lia, who wrung her hands and started to head back toward the cabin.
"What happened, Lia?" he asked. "Did you find out something about Cyana?"
She rushed away making him run after her to her car.
"Cyana's mark saw right through her. The gang kidnapped her and took her to the hideout where they're keeping David," she explained. "We're doing this now. Tullius is meeting us there."
Jackson waited on the passenger side of the car until it opened so he could get in. He noticed a change of clothes as well as his pistol and glasses in the back seat. Lia said nothing as she started the skycar. He decided to change into the black clothing she brought him.
"What are we going to do, Lia?" he asked while he pulled off his clothes. His concern increased when he noticed she still wore the same enviro-suit from earlier that day. "Am I going in by myself?"
"Yes. The distraction is a team effort, and we're one person short."
Lia looked at him as he pulled on his black, long-sleeved turtleneck shirt.
"Are you ok with that?" she asked him.
He prepared the M-12 pistol and glasses, putting in a fresh thermal clip and putting a few more in the cargo pockets of his pants.
"Not the first time I've had to do something like this alone," he said. "At least this time I'll have a distraction team."
He smiled and winked at her, hoping to ease some of her tension. He could tell she was worried. Her hands shook on the steering wheel, even her head twitched a little as if she looked around nervously.
"Oh, umm, those glasses are different," she explained while her voice shook. "I only made you use those inefficient ones because I had nothing else at the time."
She giggled quietly, making him feel a little better.
"I mean, really, a flashlight and sunglasses that work together to illuminate an area? Sounds fancy in writing, but inefficient in practice. The glasses you have there are much better, capable of night vision and IR without the need of a peripheral."
"Excellent," he said as he put the glasses on.
He acquainted himself with the different functions of the glasses for the rest of the trip, so he wouldn't have any surprises while on the mission itself.
"I'll tell you the rest later," she said, her voice unsteady.
"I'll do my best to get her out of there," he said, trying to reassure her.
She just nodded in response. She still shook, though; he noticed it even more when he touched her arm.
"Is this the first time you've been faced with a situation like this?" he asked.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself before she answered.
"We've been in danger before, obviously, but I've never had one of my partners kidnapped before. Usually, we're together when we're in danger. Not knowing what's happening to her is killing me."
He nodded in understanding as the skycar decelerated. Though he wasn't fond of Cyana since she treated him as a second-class citizen, he knew how it felt to have people you care about in danger.
The skycar dove down through traffic until they reached the ground. They now travelled through a seedier part of the city. Grime covered the metal walls of the buildings, which all had barred windows. Garbage covered the streets and vagrants walked, sat, and lay along the sidewalks.
"I can see why gangs would set up shop here," he noted.
He checked his pistol again since it looked like they were almost there. He didn't need to check the pistol again, but it helped calm his nerves, which were growing each moment they got closer.
"This is where I lived when I first got here," she said. Her voice shook less again. "I was a vagrant, like them."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean …"
"No, you're right. The Nos Astra security forces, police, or whatever you want to call them, have no presence down here. It is the perfect place for gangs to set up operations because law enforcement hardly ever comes down here, unless absolutely necessary."
He let that sink in: just them and the gang. He realized just how hard this could end up being, especially for Lia and Tullius.
"How do you guys plan to distract them?" he asked.
"Let us worry about that, we're here."
She turned down the pre-determined alley. The skycar opened, allowing him to get out. He prepared to head down the street when Lia called to him.
"Jackson, you need this," she said, handing him a shield generator. "Be careful, please."
He clipped the small device to his belt and activated it. A brief flare of blue light surrounded him and faded, indicating that his personal shield activated. He gave Lia a farewell salute, and headed down the street into the dark.
Lia landed her skycar behind a building a block away from the warehouse and made her way to Tullius's hiding spot.
"Where's Jackson?" he asked once she took cover behind an abandoned, torn-down skycar.
"He's heading to the back of the building. He'll let us know once he's in position," she explained.
She peered down a gap toward the back of the building, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
"He's going in alone?" Tullius asked.
He looked through a scope, watching the gang members' movements. She asked for the scope and took a look for herself, trying to formulate a quick plan for their distraction. Her hands wavered a little, making it hard to keep the scope steady. She thought about how she almost broke down in the car.
Stupid bosh'tet! Get ahold of yourself!
"You need someone here with you for the distraction. We'll be taking the brunt of the force once we start. Just need to figure out how we're going to distract them," she said.
She took a deep breath and started assessing their options when Tullius chimed in.
"Already taken care of. Their skycars are primed to overload and explode."
All her shaking stopped and she giggled at the thought of all the skycars going up in flames.
"Tullius, you're my favorite turian," she said.
She could see a slight turian grin form on his normally stoic face.
"Just have your drone ready," he said.
He grabbed a large red and black rifle from a bag next to him.
"A Revenant? Really?" she asked.
She prepared her own rifle, an old Mattock that her father gave her a long time ago for her pilgrimage.
"Hey, you made me part of the distraction," he said. "Loud and obnoxious is a distraction, no?" He gave her a sideways glance as he propped his rifle on the skycar. "Of course, your bright-yellow enviro-suit will probably distract them as well."
She scoffed in response.
"Says the turian wearing a light blue shirt with red flowers on it. What did Jackson call it? A Hawaiian?"
Her omni-tool beeped with a message from Jackson indicating he was in position.
"Alright, Tullius," she said. "Showtime."
Jackson had barely sent the message when the ground shook from multiple explosions. The night lit up from bright flashes that occurred in front of the hideout. He saw blue flames flare up into the sky and reflect off of the metal surfaces of the buildings.
A small eezo explosion. Nice!
The door into the hideout burst open, and two gang members, a human and a batarian, rushed out with weapons drawn. They looked around the area, but didn't see him, and rushed to the front of the hideout when loud, automatic weapons fire drew their attention.
There's my cue.
He ran for the door but stopped right before heading inside. A large, metal box bolted to the ground caught his attention.
Target of opportunity, he thought as he shot the box.
The lights went out in the street and when he opened the door to the building; no light or guards greeted him.
Better hurry before someone comes to investigate.
He double checked his shield generator and brought the building schematics up on his subdued omni-tool. The dark red display contrasted just enough against the black for him to see it. Once he got his bearings, he activated the nightvision on his glasses and proceeded into the building, carefully checking his corners as he made his way to the room they thought the prisoners were being held. Fortunately, he continued to be met by empty corridors. He heard some shouting echoing through the building in response to the firefight outside.
Stay safe out there.
He approached a stairway to his right that led to the second floor. Their prisoners were most likely up there. He carefully took the steps one at a time, his weapon out in front of him.
"This dark makes me nervous," a gruff voice said from up ahead.
He couldn't see them, which meant they were either to the left or right at the top of the stairs.
Sounds like batarians, better be careful.
He peeked one eye around the corner and saw two heavily armed guards in front of the door to the room he looked for.
Too far away for me to sneak up on.
He readied himself, finger on the trigger, and reviewed their positions in his head. He breathed deeply and calmed his nerves.
This is for your new friends.
He exhaled, emptying his lungs to increase weapon control, and spun around the corner, quickly getting a bead on their heads and firing. Barely a sound issued from his weapon as he fired two shots. The guards' heads snapped to the side in turn, and their bodies crumpled to the ground.
No kinetic barriers. How convenient.
He stepped over the corpses and hacked the door lock. He scanned the room, seeing two prisoners, an asari and a human, bound and gagged on the floor. A nearby workbench had a strange-looking assault rifle sitting on it. He went to the asari first.
"Cyana!" he whispered, hoping it was her.
The asari looked at him; the purple markings on her face contrasting against her blue skin confirmed it was her. She mumbled something through her gag. As he got closer to remove the gag and her bonds, he noticed the bruises.
"Looks like they worked you over pretty well, Cyana," he said.
She glowered at him and hissed when he removed the gag.
"Fuck you, human! Get me the fuck out of here!"
That's gratitude for you, he thought while untying her hands and feet.
She slapped away his hand when he offered to help her up.
"That's David over there," she said as she struggled to stand up. "Grab him and let's be done with this shit."
He heard her grunt while he rushed over to David.
Lia wasn't kidding about her being rude, he thought.
"Alright, David, follow my lead and keep quiet. I'm getting you out of here," he whispered to the red-haired, freckled human. Bruises adorned his face as well.
"More like you'll get us killed," Cyana mumbled from near the door.
He scowled and looked over his shoulder at Cyana, who picked up one of the rifles from the corpses outside the room.
"Don't listen to her, David. She's just grumpy. We'll get you out of here," he assured the prisoner.
He helped David to his feet and guided him to the door, suppressing his mounting hostility toward Cyana so it wouldn't compromise his judgment.
"Wait, sir," David said in a deep voice unbefitting one who looked so small. "We should take that rifle on the workbench with us. It's one of a kind, and they made me build it."
Jackson grabbed the rifle and a solitary blue thermal clip that he slid into the rifle and primed it.
"No one appears to be coming," she informed him when he reached the doorway.
At least you're being useful.
"Follow me," he ordered.
He started down the corridor when the lights turned back on. He flinched, expecting pain from the night vision flaring, but the glasses automatically adjusted, preventing the flare.
Clever girl.
"I wondered when the back-up generator would kick in," Cyana said.
"We'll joke about their poor infrastructure later," Jackson said. "Let's go."
They reached the stairway he used earlier and took up positions on either side. He and Cyana peered around their respective corners before continuing down the stairs. David stayed behind him, doing a good job at being quiet. When they reached the bottom, Jackson and Cyana leaned out, checking the corridor behind each other. Once clearing the corridor, he retraced his steps through the maze of door lined, sterile corridors. Now that he could see them better, the corridors looked a lot cleaner than the outside.
This place is a little neater than your garden variety gang's hideout.
He put it out of mind, concentrating on the task at hand. Two humans in green body armor rounded the corner with their weapons pointed at the floor. Before they even realized they weren't alone, Jackson and Cyana took aim and fired. His rifle fired at a rate he'd never experienced before from an assault rifle. His target's shields flared and failed within a second of him pulling the trigger, and the ganger was torn to shreds by the hundreds of rounds the rifle spat out.
Cyana's target went down a few moments later, not nearly as mutilated by the Avenger rifle she picked up.
"Holy shit! What kind of rifle is this?" he whispered while inspecting the first corpse.
Shouts echoed through the hallways and Cyana joined him at the bodies while watching their backs.
"We'll ask him later. We need to go," she said.
"Right."
He grabbed David and they rushed down corridors. They fortunately didn't meet anyone else before they got to the rear door.
"Where is everyone?" Cyana asked. "There's no way this place has so few gangers.
Jackson smiled as he opened the door and they were greeted by the sounds of distant gunfire.
"Lia and Tullius?" she asked.
They crossed the alley that gave them a brief glimpse of the main street. A few bodies littered the street and several skycars lay in pieces and on fire.
"Yup, Lia and Tullius," she answered her own question.
They continued down the back street. Jackson sent a message to Lia to let them know they were out.
"You're going to have to find another way to escape. We can't extract you and crossing the street is inadvisable," Lia said over their omni-tool link.
"Tell me about it," Cyana snarked.
Jackson stopped at another alley and peered around the corner. A large freight truck sat in the alley giving him an idea for their escape.
"Go, Lia. We've got a way out," he said. He motioned for Cyana and David to follow him to the vehicle.
"Do you know what you're doing, human?" Cyana asked once they got in the vehicle. She sneered at him, making him wince.
He decided to ignore Cyana, instead concentrating on hacking the truck. The instrument panel lit up and the vehicle hummed to life. When they left the alley, rounds pinged against the back of the truck. He watched Lia and Tullius's skycars accelerate out from behind the buildings across the street and he attempted to follow, though their vehicles were much faster than the truck.
"At least we make a good bullet blocker for the others," Cyana said as the plinking of rounds against their truck increased.
The rear window shattered when several rounds crashed through it. Cyana cried out in pain as one of the rounds ripped through her shoulder. He weaved to make them a harder target, hoping any further rounds hit the bed of the truck instead of the cab as they climbed.
"How bad you hit?" he asked when the truck got far enough away to stop getting hit.
"Just my shoulder, I'll … survive," she said.
She sounded drowsy. He looked over and saw she was losing a lot of blood. She leaned against the door as David attempted to stem the bleeding.
"Use medi-gel, man!" he yelled at David, who fumbled around Cyana's wound.
He programmed the truck's navigation to guide them to the nearest hospital. He couldn't see Lia or Tullius's skycars anymore, so he sent a message to Lia to let her know he was taking Cyana to the hospital.
"Hold on, Cyana," Jackson said. "I'm getting you help."