A Night On The Street: ADP

"Quiet evening." Leon observed. Most people assumed, from Leon's style of leadership and his actions, that he was a hard-core adrenaline junkie. This did him a considerable disservice. Leon jumped in and lead from the front because when you got down to it, he might get paid a good bit better than a JSDF lieutenant, but his role was not very different in terms of the objectives assigned and the tools given to accomplish them. A platoon leader's job was as much inspirational as it was tactical, and no ADP Incident Response Team commander who lead from behind was doing their job in Leon's opinion.

"There are ways to fix that." Daley replied, with a grin.

"Sorry, prefer not to have my balls ripped off by an irate girlfriend." Leon said.

Daley chuckled. "How is Priss?"

Leon shrugged. "Well as she gets." He exaggerated. Priss had been irritable, or at least more irritable than normal. Leon had known for years that Priss was Saber Blue, but had never told Priss, or Daley, or anyone. It made him...understanding, moreso than anyone else at least, when it came to her behavior. Leon wondered if it also made him a fool. "I'm just hoping we don't have to fight the Reds, still."

The Reds was the ADP nickname for the new group in town. Some people thought they might be some kind of Knight Sabers splinter or front group, others they were a corporate hit squad from Gulf & Bradley. All anyone could prove was a violent antipathy towards Genom, military-grade equipment, and machinelike precision. Best guess put them at between four to six small battlemovers or large armored troopers. They had hit non-Genom targets too, though not nearly so many, and there were rumors of their operating in China and the US as well.

Somebody had decided to fight a war on his home turf. Leon didn't mind that much, primarily because to his mind it didn't change anything. The war on the streets of Megatokyo had been going on as long as he'd been part of the ADP, possibly longer yet. Genom versus the world. He was a bit player, really, the peacekeeper, his role and mission strictly defined so that he couldn't actually stop the war. But he could limit the damage.

Leon grinned to himself. And unlike most people who were dismissed as ineffectual, he could actually hurt those who had done so. It wouldn't be easy, of course, but Leon knew it could be done. That thought kept him going a lot.

He was not without friends, either. USSD had renegotiated the treaty that let them use Far East Command and keep it as extraterritorial. This version had included a clause about "responding to hostile acts within a twenty-kilometer radius" and whoever had signed the treaty hadn't paid enough attention to the wording. It was essentially a license to show up at any gunfight in Megatokyo. And though the Chief might rant and rave, Leon was glad to have the extra guns if he needed them.

Good people. Tough, well-armed, ready to pitch in. He'd been leery about them, they were military, but in the end his people were also military in all but name. And Leon knew that Sanderson at least could be trusted in much the same way that Leon trusted his sidearm.

The alarm rang.

Leon shook his head. "Missed 'em again."

Daley grimaced. "Thank god for that. Getting here on time wouldn't be fun."

Leon managed not to grimace, but inside he agreed. It wasn't that the crime scenes were particularly neat, since usually they weren't. When the Reds came they often seemed to leave nothing standing But the destruction was always sharply defined in limit, and the way they dismantled defenses like Boomers was often remarkably surgical. The Reds weren't uncontrolled about destroying things, they were thorough.

"Team Lead, Hornet Two, we have an aircraft inbound. No squawks." No ID code. That'd be the Knightwing, Leon and Daley both thought.

Leon pulled his radio off his hip. "Confirm it's the Sabers and then leave 'em alone." In all likelihood, even that wouldn't happen. The Knightwing was even more camera-shy than the Sabers' hardsuits and any ADP pilot who managed to get footage of it with his gun camera would have trouble buying his own beers for a week or two. Another aircraft had approached and gone away already, the USSD's own rapid-deployment VTOL, which had just passed overhead as they arrived. Leon had a standing call in with Sanderson regarding backup on Red incidents.

They'd done a little bit, mostly documenting the scene, when the usual asshole in a suit showed up and shooed them off. Leon grumbled. Daley was philosophical. Life went on.

Getting there on time wasn't any fun, like Daley had thought.

Leon McNichol had been reasonably sure he was going to die many times. And as the Red battlemover, he was sure it was a battlemover now since it moved in a way that the human body could not have replicated, turned towards him with weapons raised he was quite sure he was dead. He raised his sidearm and put all three rounds into the thing's visor, while rifle fire from his team washed over it. It didn't appear to care.

"Inspector. Go home." The mechanized voice was gravely, amplified over the gunfire. Then the red machine turned away again and moved off.

Flames and smoke. It was impossible to tell how many there were. Leon and his squad stumbled around, trying to interdict them at least a little, but they couldn't seem to do anything to the heavily armored machines. Their rifles and even the RPG they had simply weren't gutsy enough to bother the battlemovers, and the battlemovers appeared to be deliberately ignoring them.

Leon swore and pulled his people back to the APC, not surprised to see Daley's squad a step behind him. They stood in the lee of the armored carrier, peering around the side, watching the red-painted battlemovers went about their work, methodical and quick, while the flames roared around them. Daley's expression was unreadable. Leon was openly pissed off at being ignored, but glad to be alive.

Then the Sabers showed up. And the USSD troops. Both arrived by aircraft, and the Reds shot at them before they could deploy troops...and Leon watched, incredulously, as the Reds beat a jamming system that had defied the best efforts of the ADP and many, many Boomers. They actually hit the Knightwing, damaging it. The Knightwing reefed around in a tight turn and climbed, aborting its deployment run. But the USSD aircraft shot back with rocket pods and held its course into a deployment run, hatches opening to drop troops.

By the time the first USSD armored trooper hit the ground, the Reds were gone.