But by the yellow Tiber was tumult and affright;
From all the spacious champaign to Rome men took their flight...
Aged folk on crutches and women great with child,
Mothers, sobbing over babes, that clung to them and smiled…
A mile around the city, the throng stopped up the ways;
A fearful sight it was to see, through two long nights and days.
Now, from the rock Tarpeian, could the wan burghers spy,
The line of blazing villages, red in the midnight sky.
The Fathers, in the Senate, now sat all night and day,
For every hour some horseman came with tidings of dismay…
Horatius at the Bridge, Macauley
The Native Californian uprising across Calfree was driven swiftly out of San Francisco by both the Imperial Marines and the MPA. Even down the peninsular around silent Colma, Norton's Army had been moulded by Orion into a capable force, extending protection for miles. In Sacramento, however, the National Guard was not deployed. Chico was the Native Californian's stronghold, where the police even assisted them in hanging or burning all metas who lost any time fleeing to Sacramento or Redding. But they found nowhere to flee to; Native Californian bands controlled the freeways. The humans finally killed them when they could run no more, mocking their emptied weakness and terror.
The Agricorp security forces couldn't even protect their own convoys; almost as many tankers were blown off the road and seized as refugee parties were encircled and massacred. The only law across the valley, as always, was the Rangers.
Persi was a simple, free-spirited valley ork, with a knack for machines, who'd always been proud of her smart sister with a thriving talismonger's business in Redding. When she got the call and heard what the NCs had done to Hrafna, she punched the wall until the pain drowned out her own screams. Then she pulled on her leather armour, and her Ranger badge. Swung into the cab of her six-wheeled battle rig. Roared down the highway, until her aerial spy-drone pinged two pick-ups full of gunmen, speeding away from a burning hamlet.
"No shame in waiting for backup, girl!" Ranger Ollendorf boomed over Persi's comm, "Never forgive myself, if the worst happened."
There was a twinge of fear, that Persi cursed to the deepest drekhole. The Rangers were full of metas and sworn enemies of Humanis–but they did have more dwarfs among them than orks, and a lot more boys than girls. It was everyday patronising bulldrek, it was nothing next to the evil that had marked her sister… but it hurt even more, today. Maybe everything would hurt, until the last monster was dead. She wiped something from her eye, checked her autocannon turrets. Floored her accelerator, as she growled back;
"What do they say down in Texas, chief? One riot. One Ranger."
-0-
Law enforcement in Redding ran to a few elected sheriffs and deputies, who dealt with fistfights or minor shootings, as well as one Lone Star precinct which only handled business or personal contracts for monied SINers. There wasn't a ghetto, but there were poorer streets with more metas, as in any place. Hotspur and Tomas led one of several parties that went out to such streets, the day after Hrafna had been attacked.
She was in the Ripperdoc clinic they'd set up at City Hall. Scarred but alive, conscious but unresponding. Every human in the mob had committed their hearts to race and nation, with blows and kicks–for even an ork to survive such punishment had been incredible. Deputies had recovered the bodies of the ork trucker who'd been shot dead trying to help her, and the elf girl Hrafna had tried to protect.
The blonde NC woman had cut the elf girl's cheeks and lips; no need to spell out UGLY. Thrown her on the fists of her men; but she'd slashed the elf's throat before they succumbed to temptation and defiled themselves. The girl's name had been Lucia; she'd been a seventeen-year old part-time barmaid.
Even such a death might have been easier–Ilsa considered, in the silence of the abyss–than living longer in a brutal world. Susan didn't think so; she met Lucia's parents, told them on her knees that she would fight for Never Again. While Hailey had located a Redding NC lieutenant through his comcalls and had him sniped in front of his men, earlier that morning.
She hadn't yet located the blonde ringleader, one Amy Noble; the NCs also had tough deckers. This woman was currently informing Redding via the net and the radio that trogs had beaten and raped her when she'd been fifteen–but neither that nor anything else would stop her cleansing the world of their evil. Hailey, Sarah, Susan and Ilsa had all quietly resolved to kill her, whether she was lying or not.
"Our inhuman enemies, poised to flood from the valley into this peaceful town, will find no welcome while I draw breath. Come elf, ork, troll; parasite, rapist, monster! I swear upon my sword this oath, Calfree and I stay human both! To all who say that Calfree is a failed state, to our own leaders who will not defend our borders from invasion, our cities from monstrous terrorists, or even our homes from their cruelty…to all who call us ignorant and powerless, the ones bloated with the profits of selling OUR COUNTRY to Jap gangsters and elvish whores, I say, we will show you our strength!"
Hailey was frantically getting a counter message onto the Net; who Redding's Defenders were and who were her enemies. But the quickest way to show what you were about was doing it; visible protection.
"It's too quiet." Tomas growled, gazing over the empty streets, "Feels like Redding should be howling out, today."
Hotspur could already sense the gunman drawing a bead on him, from a window on the next block. He guessed that another NC sniper was targeting Tomas, correctly...
Sarah, leading another patrol across the town, didn't sense the sights on her–but Ilsa was by her side, and her Watcher spirits already had. Archangel, the Runners' sniper, headshot the NC gunman from a crumbling church spire above them. Smoothly took out a second gunman in another window. The third one got off one shot, but it took more than a bullet to stop an angry troll. Sarah marched on.
Kali's handpicked Runner, Angel 'Archangel' Florez, had seen his parents gunned down by Aztlan agents for opposing the El Salvador annexation when he'd been twelve. He had curly black hair, and a heart-stealing Latino smile that didn't change a bit when he killed something. Although these were the first kills for some time he'd actually felt good about.
The snipers targeting Hotspur's party had come with Invisibility spells from an NC support mage, and ready to spray more bullets than the chief race-traitor could dodge. Hotspur had overwatch from Will Casper, however, Hawk shaman and sniper. Nothing could hide from a hawk spirit soaring above the battlefield. The scrawny dwarf's dead-dull eyes rolled back, as he put three bullets through three sockets from his hide in a tall tree.
Norton had marched out alone to preach forgiveness and forbearance in another quarter. Hotspur had sent a few Redding fighters to tail him–but Norton's blazing six-winged summon spirit, along with his hellhounds, was quite enough to rout the gathering mob. Selene, Kali's quartermaster, was working non-stop to link up with the Redding militias and sheriffs. Hailey had been torn between using the Matrix to expose the NCs' plans or track their bases and leaders. To mobilise Redding, or take down the lies about metahuman atrocities that were flooding the Net...before Anya Kotto, digital ork, had rested a virtual hand on her avatar's flank.
"Chummer. You came. So wiz!"
"To fight these Humanis dreks? Always. Deal with the message, girl genius, make it good. I'm going to shut down some fascists. If they won't stop trying to kill my people, then I'm never going to stop fighting."
-0-
"…can't shoot every human in Redding who just doesn't much care for metas." Sweat rolled down the sheriff's dark, weathered face, as he met Hotspur's eyes across the street, "On this border, shouldn't be surprised if we never trust an elf. Or if men who say they've come to fight the Tir look safer to some…than angry metas and Corp mercs, shooting folk in the streets. I know we can't fight you, or the NCs, but I know this is a day for men to stand up and speak. What do you mean to do in this town?"
Hotspur smiled pleasantly and wondered how many Badges he'd cut down, up to now. Could an outlaw guide a city's people out of anarchy? This city, now, perhaps…but he wasn't prepared to make nice, or talk the Badge's language, when people had died.
"My wife and her chummers want to find everyone who was in that bar, and probably kill them. Women, you know? The kids with sniper rifles back there want to shoot NC recruits in their homes, then burn them–that's how the Azzies do it in Columbia, and Tir runs the same playbook. Chip truth. It's just me and him–" He gestured to Tomas, "–your new best friends, stood in the way of all that. The NCs are looting human homes and killing race traitors right now, all through the valley. They turned your people who just didn't care for metas into murderers!"
"Guess you know about murder. The guys in that bar, I'd known some since they were kids." The sheriff's voice cracked; his fists clenched down at his sides, "They ain't monsters, they weren't…but the elf and the ork weren't even bad girls. What the frag can you do against that brainwashing sickness? Frag you, what can we do–!"
"Save our city, Frank!" Tomas burst out, stepping past Hotspur, "The NC are outsiders, crawling up from Chico. Spreading their lies, sucking desperate folk in– but since '36 we've lived in peace here, human and meta! We all knew we'd need to stand together against Tir one day, and now this is the day for men to stand up and fight! Everyone knows you love this city. Tell them what we're doing, and they'll listen! We'll run the NC out of town, and face Tir Taingire with a hardened people's army."
"Frag, I can see it already. Well, I didn't take this job for the money. I'll do what I can."
After they'd shaken hands with Sheriff Frank Olsen, Hotspur put it to Tomas that he would do better with Selene's job of connecting their work with Redding's community. He was their link to Redding's community, not someone they could afford to lose.
"…you know what I thought, when I saw Hrafna? That if Redding unites against the fraggers that did this, we could come out stronger…frag me, from an ork girl scarred and that little elf dead! I've thought about war, with the Tir, since I was knee-high, but frag…I never thought I'd think that drek. I need to be here at the front, or I'm no leader, I'm drek. You understand…? Guess you know about blood and drek."
"Something like. I wanted to be a Runner, not lead an army, or a crusade. Last time I tried was an incredible frag up, but it seems like I get to try again. I can tell you there's drek on every path ahead, and it's only going to get thicker."
There were others on the streets who called the Runners killers and megacorp lackies–Hotspur applauded their courage–but more who asked where to sign up, to keep Humanis out of Redding. Local community leaders, even churches, were already preparing food, shelter and hope for the coming metahuman refugees. They could also anticipate that they'd need protection.
And orks, trolls and dwarves, ranging from small-time toughs to homeowners with handguns, had turned out to protect their neighbourhoods at a minutes' notice. They had little to say in words, but their eyes and iron-tense shoulder spoke resolution and endurance. Ilsa, as she passed, could predict that the metas would need both.
-0-
When night fell, two armoured vans sped and screeched. Reddingites with fresh-shaven heads and N.C. daubed on their shirts, struck at the gathered metas with firebombs and assault rifles. The metas scrambled for any cover of a wall or car; many of them had known nothing of real, bowel-wrenching combat, but within sight of their homes very few of them ran. More stood and fired back. Burnt to the bone, or went down.
If the NCs had slot and run after their first devastating volley, they would have won–but their will was to root out every stubborn cockroach. A neighbour hidden under her kitchen table, however, had already called the number that Hailey had sent to every comm in Redding.
A Bulldog van smashed into the NC vehicle's side. Fighter dived out, hit the street, came up swinging–a gunman shattered against the asphalt like a sack of plates. Her eyes were savage, in the light of a burning storefront.
Still, they were too few to be everywhere. Anya seized every security cam in Redding, but that wasn't so many. Recruits, humans and many metas, kept coming steady over the coming days; the Runners made sure they had a gun, explained basically 'rules of engagement' and 'staying alive in a gunfight'. Then they sent them all over the city, and the Reddingites' work simply amazed them.
But then another elf family were shot dead in their outlying cabin. Humans who'd posted online about volunteering at City Hall were attacked. Two survivors had been beaten and raped; it was hard for Fighter to sit with them and tell them to keep fighting, when she felt she'd failed them. When she only wanted to crush the monsters who'd done this to a paste...but she had to sit and weep and wait so they could live on and fight, as she had.
The NC deckers made sure that the whole city heard of the twitchy dwarf volunteer, who'd shot an unarmed teen screaming Halfer scum at her in the street. Anya dug up that the kid had logged hours on Humanis websites, but Susan, again, chose the path of going to his parents on her knees.
"I trained that woman to kill. As much as I could, in less than a week. I need to do better, for your city…I'm so sorry for what happened to your boy."
By the week's end, the two most 'anti-Tir' of Redding's small self-defence groups had folded into the Native Californians. The other four had aligned with the Redding Defence Force, and Anya had located all NC officers for assassination, bar Amy Noble. The NC's only option short of flight was to send every man with a gun to City Hall that night, calling on Redding's people to kick out the metas and shadowscum. Even their own marching recruits, however, knew the side Redding had already taken.
"How the Tir elves must be laughing at us, my friends!" Norton called, striding out with remarkable vigour to meet the mob, "Their forces may be crossing our border even as we stand here! Carry your arms in a better cause. For Calfree's people, not against them."
The NC recruits were ready to flee when Ilsa's fireball burst overhead, and they did–but Noble had planned for that. The hardcore of NC fighters from Chico had set an ambush in the street behind the march. They shot down their fleeing comrades in the crossfire as Sarah stumbled under three bullets. Ilsa quickly Healed her, as she pulled her chummers back with a magically amplified shout.
Under Casper and Archangel's sniper fire, the NC fighters slot and ran, leaving scattered bodies and total defeat. Fighter still whispered to Hotspur, it felt more like they'd slaughtered Redding's people than saved them.
"We're not done, angel. Neither are they."
-0-
There were a few survivors for the sheriffs to deal with–Harry talked with all of them first. And broke one man's jaw, who asked–hadn't he got off on watching trog gangers rape his wife? Wasn't that why he was selling Redding to the defilers?
All of three of the prisoners were from Redding; one had been a trainee forester, one more had occasionally worked in a garage. With the incredible corruption in Sacramento, there were few jobs and less hope across Calfree. College grads in other cities could fight for Corp wageslave slots, but not in Redding.
Growing up in a city without change or action, Harry could imagine their frustration–but never how they'd been seized with the idea of killing metahuman scum. A week's confinement in an NC chapter house, all the lies NC could baptise them in…still needed a flaw in the soul, before monsters called the women they raped trog-loving whores.
One nineteen-year old NC fighter had heard Hrafna's groans and Lucia's screaming in his head, every night for a week. Harry sat down and told him from his own heart; sometimes men did things they did regret. The boy wept like a child, begged Harry to kill him. Or let him tell everyone, the NC were murdering liars. He could fight the Tir daisy-eaters, with Redding's Defenders. Show the world it was never too late to change…
Lucia's parents were volunteering at City Hall, preparing meals and organising the patrol schedule. They had the distant manner of people who had to keep working to stay sane.
Susan was sitting in the basement with Hrafna; a heavy bandage obscured the carving on her brow. The young shaman was hunched over a datatablet with a determined expression.
"Surgery for these fragging scars means nyuyen," She explained, "Frag knows when I'll have the guts to go outside again…I built up my magic business face to face, but now it seems like I'll have to learn Matrix. I mean, I always knew my magic isn't strong, I could never fight or protect…but aren't there kinds of strength?"
Susan hugged her and said that there were, there were. She sat with Hrafna until another volunteer came; leaving her alone meant alone with her nightmare.
Susan sat down with Harry and heaved sobs into his neck. He had to cling to her a long time.
"I should kill every one of them. If it had been you…"
"…I want to kill them. Even for breathing in the same building as that girl's mother and father…! But we can't kill them all."
"Not if we want to save this city. There has to be a way back for the NCs that isn't in a bodybag."
"You always find a way. My love, my love…"
The young NC made a full confession to the sheriffs and went quietly to jail. As meekly and manfully, perhaps, as he had gone to the Native Californians.
-0-
Hand in hand, Harry and Susan went back up to City Hall, which looked more like a refugee camp than a military base. Their office was full of Hailey's prized tech. The main hall had a few gun racks and some screw-together bunk beds, for the few recruits onsite. The space between was full of elf, ork, dwarf and troll families, or survivors of families, with a hundred needs and a thousand stories.
There were human Amindians, and magic-users–the NCs weren't even killing magic-users yet, unlike Humanis, but the refugees naturally hadn't wanted to wait. Some of them had joined Redding's Defenders, but courage for most was simply stepping out to look for a job and a squat, in these violent days.
Archangel was deep in conversation with a stunning Hispanic elf lady, who wore a ripped and dust-marked designer suit. Some tiny dwarf children were climbing over Bummer, Lazarus and Pup, unafraid of dogs who could've made them a mouthful.
"We can run either a soup kitchen, or an army." Selene shook her head, "They'll have to go."
"When we have enough fighters to protect their new homes," Ilsa responded, with curious detachment, "How many warm, armed bodies do we really have?"
"A few hundred recruits on paper, but they're mostly still at home, coming in for a few shifts a week." Selene informed her, "We've started turning recruits away– we can't even feed or organise the ones we have. Good news time; I've sorted out that contract for security on Agricorp convoys through the Central Valley. It only needs your sign off."
"Security, with our kids?" Harry moved in quickly, with Susan almost ahead of him, "Selene, they signed up for Redding. Most of them had to bring their own guns. They're not security trained."
"I'm aware. However, the NCs through the Valley are cutting off supplies and water shipments to both Redding and the farmlands. The Rangers are too few. Defending Redding from impoverishment, getting resources from the Corps to build a real army–means taking the fight to the Valley."
"It means people who trusted us dying for the Corps."
"It's our decision–though not really a choice, I fear." Ilsa sighed, but her gaze was iron, "When you've got a tiger by the tail, you can't let go."
An hour after the Runners signed, the City Hall's windows shook–the first NC nail bomb had gone off in a Stuffer Shack down the block. It already seemed like a month, not a week, since they'd come to Redding–but Harry and Susan couldn't see themselves leaving her.
-0-
Central Valley, March 2053, one month later
"…so, Fighter and Wizard." Susan grinned at Ilsa across the gulley, "Running the Shadows again. It's been too long."
"I recall I worked rather well…with your husband, saving you from Shavarus. I trust we'll at least get through this with our lives, again."
"Ooo, if I don't punch you out myself!"
"Feeling a little frustration, Mrs Fawkes?"
"Yes! I need my man every morning, I need his lurve…but frag it, I couldn't just stay at home. I guess we needed a break, and an epic reunion."
"Tragically, Hotspur remains better placed in Redding than on this mission. Also, reunions are properly placed at the war's conclusion."
"Feel like joining in this charming banter, chummer?" Anya growled to Sarah; the custom Guardian hover-drone she was 'riding' butted the troll's arm in solidarity. Susan scowled, even if she felt shame.
"I…think it's good you love each other, even in this drek world," Under tusky harshness, somehow, Sarah's voice was soft, "Can't see myself with a man, like that, ever…but I still want it."
The three women were huddled together, waiting for their fifth nakama. Ahead of them, the junkyard sprawled in the setting sun; a bloodied steel graveyard that smelt like drek, death and afterbirth from downwind. A fitting rathole for the Native Californians–and finally, they were poised to purge it.
For over a month, the Runners had fought a guerrilla war from the wrong end. In Redding, far from Chico, the Human Supremacists were still broken and not destroyed. But across the central valley the NCs were smoke; nowhere and everywhere. Their farmboy conscripts knew the country, their supply of missiles and explosives was unflagging, and a fanatic could evoke more terror with a two-nyuyen knife. Ilsa and Susan had seen the net-vids of their own Redding recruits, taken in ambushes on Corp convoys. Broken into confessing every crime the NCs desired before their executions on live-stream.
Ilsa had watched the vids all through and her silence had worried Susan for weeks. She herself had thrown all her rage into training the recruits that had never stopped coming. Until she'd almost killed an ork volunteer in a grappling lesson gone wrong.
She'd longed with all her passion to make victims into fighters, make them strong and unafraid; her failures had struck to her heart. You couldn't hold back with killing, that was all she knew…painfully cut off from the earnest volunteers all around her, she'd dumped the leadership of Redding onto Harry, and left a while to do more killing.
They'd turned back ambushes, made better plans. Ilsa had stage-managed some false convoys, ambushes of their own; they had seen a lot of dead NCs, in the last month. So, the attack last week–Redding fighters, who'd gone from victims to hardened troops within a month, mown down like mere flesh–had hit their courage hard again. Susan didn't know if she could've stood up and told their poor kids to fight on, without Sarah's indomitable stand at her side.
The Agricorps had come through with supplies, weapons and even advisors, who'd run tankers through the Valley bandits for years. Metas and humans from ravaged settlements kept coming to join Redding's Defenders–some even wildly maintaining that Fighter and Hotspur might push Tir Taingire back to the Oregon border, when the NCs were finished.
Even Ilsa and Anya's contacts in the People's University had misdirected arms shipments, meant for the Imperial Marines in 'Frisco, to Redding and Colma. The ultimate purpose of the Runners' present road trip was travelling down to Colma and bringing Norton's Army back with them to Redding. Once they'd cleared their way, by finally taking out the largest NC base outside Chico.
For years past, a Humanis chapter had occupied the junkyard, setting bombs in metahuman farms and poisoning their fields into barrenness. The place was filled with hidden paths and hiding places, as well as the poisonous rust-shards the NCs packed their bombs with. Thinking of the wounds she'd seen on her chummers, and the littlest refugees in Redding, made Fighter's eyes leak and her fists ache. Their old Ranger chummers, Ollendorf and Ballou, would throw a net of drones around the perimeter–but Susan was done watching brave kids die. Five veteran Runners, striking fast, could take a scrap-metal fortress.
"Did the fraggers even think they had a chance?" She muttered, "Against the metas, the Marines and the Tir, all they could ever do was kill and torture helpless people. That drekhead, Ork Slayer, how did he get so many fraggers to fight like this? For nothing but death!"
"Could be he's got an angle." Anya offered, "We don't know where they got their guns, if it was never Saito."
"For some, power is its own reward; not rule or victory, only the stamping boot." Ilsa stared wearily away at nothing, "Followers who forget they had a choice; leaders who never gaze back on their own abyss of monstrosity. It is a fearful thing to face."
"Dr Tresckow?" Anya was speaking only to Ilsa, now, "Susan is Susan, I'm only in this until the NC drekheads are out, but you're the smart one. Why did you leave Halferville, take this job? Leave that guy you loved, in a way, and tie yourself to this runaway train?"
The young mage, who had sacrificed Anya's meat body and more lives than she could recall, drew her cloak around and bowed her head. She'd done it for revenge, that had seemed so meaningless when she'd found the PU and her Henry–but that life had grown unreal even as she'd lived it, then sickened and died. She was a Shadowrunner; she burnt sacrifices and healed fresh wounds with all her wit and strength. The shadows were where she belonged. Planning, killing and dying, one day …
"…Ilsa? Smile. We've endured the past. You deserve a future."
Susan was gazing past her chummer, at a figure in dark armour, moving swiftly through the dusk. Their fifth crew member–Paladin–looked with astonishing calm into Ilsa's face. She gazed up into his blue eyes without flinching.
"Ilsa. Are you well?"
"Actually, I have no idea. David. Of all the wars, in all the world, you could have walked into..."
"To protect innocent lives from murderers. With or without Ms Lei's invitation, I would have joined you in the Shadows for this. I would have come to Redding, but I was needed here in the Valley."
"Quite understandable. I incidentally heard of you destroying that vampire coven in Los Angeles; gut gemacht."
Ilsa then gave Susan an icy look, which she turned from with all the pride she could muster. Harry had suggested over a month ago that mixing war with romantic meddling was a dubious idea. She would've told him not to be stupid, if he'd been wrong, so she'd batted her eyes at him until he'd let it pass.
Trying to give what she and Harry had won to her best friend, and the man who was turning from her eyes to watch their perimeter–while people were being killed, raped and crushed by despair from Redding to San Francisco–was it unforgivable? Didn't need they need to laugh and love, even as they fought, when all the death in the world wouldn't bring back one girl's life?
Sarah was looking away from Susan too, which left her with Ilsa. Without meeting each other's eyes, the two women inched a little closer together.
-0-
It turned out that Paladin hadn't come alone. He'd been leading a gaunt woman with empty eyes, and limbs it seemed it touch would snap, buried under a mass of copper hair. Paladin had found her kneeling in the dust among a few skinheaded bodies. She had the smell of the junkyard on her; the marks of horrors and years.
Sarah knelt with her, knowing there was nothing she could say. Susan gently gave the woman some water, told her she was safe, and what was her name?
"…Tabitha. Thank you, child." The woman's heavy gaze bore past Susan, to Ilsa's strangely unsettled eyes, "They hurt…the ones who are not like them. The ones who fill this land, and fill it with violence. Why do they do so?"
"Metas and magic users, metas and Japanese, Jews and chimneysweeps…" Ilsa's voice was very strangely distracted, now, "Any hate will do. They only seek power, or the illusion of it."
"…I think they're afraid of us." Sarah spoke quietly, "When you don't believe you have any strength, fear can make you do terrible things for a lie."
Tabitha turned to Susan. Hollow like a well, her gaze almost seemed hypnotic.
"Are the other lands like this one? Is there violence, poisoned earth, hatred between the races?"
"…some places are worse. But I still think the world is better."
"They say that war has come and is coming. What does that mean?"
"That we have to fight for the ones who can't. Whoever comes against us, we will not give up."
"So, many more people will die, and without an end. Let the circle remain all-broken. Sea, give up your dead, and drown the world…"
Tabitha looked away at no one; Susan felt a rush of pity. Scraps of wisdom and strength, scavenged from the wreck of insanity. She was a little like Norton, only more pitiful–but Ilsa's expression still had a hint of terror.
"Who are you–?"
"One who will not interfere with your purposes, here. If I meet with you again…I will be more myself."
Then she vanished without a sound. A raven flapped off into the dusk before the Runners' eyes.
"Hoi, omaes?" Anya chiming in, "What the frag just happened?"
"Ilsa," Paladin's voice barely remained level, "Her Aura…?"
"–could not be seen. Scarcely any metahuman magic can hide an Aura, and I sensed a great deal that was hidden. Madness can alter magical powers dangerously…I must commend your chivalry and courage again, Paladin, but a little more caution may be desirable."
Susan kicked herself for not checking Tabitha's Aura. The Astral of El Infierno, and even her ex-ghoul-nest Valley home, had been so hideously toxic that she'd got used to keeping her third eye shut. She looked up at her chummers, though, and spoke firmly.
"That woman felt like something special. Harry was always saying, shadowrunners can even change the world–and times like these, we've got to. If we don't know what that woman meant, or what she means, we know what we came here to do. Make some changes for those NC fraggers, and all their victims across Calfree, when we take that base and kill them."
Sarah answered with a hard nod. Ilsa took a deep breath, smoothed her hair and checked her equipment. Paladin didn't look happy about No Quarter, but he'd seen teenage NC conscripts torture and rape; young minds trapped with all-corrupting ideas very rarely came back. They were going in too few and too fast for prisoners; that was the shadowrunner way.
-0-
Sarah wouldn't be dissuaded from taking point. Her shoulders straightened, her eyes grew bright, as she put a burst from her Czech Semopal rifle into a sentry. Paladin shot another guard through the temple, and quickly finished Sarah's still-writhing target. Fighter had raced in and kicked two more gunmen down, against the immobile van that blocked the side gate.
Sarah charged past; summoned her Ki as she dropped and gripped. Roared out, and the van crashed onto its side. Ilsa, covering the adepts with a flamestrike glowing in her palm. Anya veered off to cover the perimeter with Ollendorf and Ballou's drones, messaging the Rangers that it was game on.
"We're in the air, sweetheart!" Ollendorf cheerfully called back, "Ready to whack the rats that run. Don't get too close to those gun platforms, near the centre–but you know why no NCs are decent riggers? Drones need love and they ain't got none, the fragging animals…"
Ilsa focused on the path and the mission. Sarah was pounding on, between high walls of heaped scrap metal. Susan was right behind her. Paladin, guarding her back; he moved with the deliberate stance and awareness of a veteran warrior. He reassured her, maddeningly so…it was wonderous and appalling how he hadn't changed in the least.
Sarah didn't stop at the first corner. Fighter had to seize her jacket, heave her back, as the bullet-saw of a Stoner Ares MMG tore the air. The NCs had crates of them. Shadowrunners ran from machine guns–but they weren't ordinary Runners, by any stretch.
"Sarah! Ilsa! Cover me!"
Quick and easy as a stolen kiss, Ilsa threw her Haste spell. Around the corner, her flamewall roared up. The Stoner Ares kept throwing bullets through the fiery screen; machine guns didn't have to aim. But Fighter was tumbling over the flames, and the bullets, into a crouch half-way up the side of a junkdrift. Stoners had more accuracy than spread; she'd been warned never to bait-and-switch an Ultramax HMG's lead-wall, but just charge it.
As the bullet spray swung towards Fighter, Ilsa stepped out, throwing her fireball. Sarah flung a grenade at figures stumbling from the blast–adepts or cyborgs could throw back grenades, so you threw magic first. A few screaming skinheads still emptied their guns, as Sarah thundered in. Bullets whipped past Fighter as she ran sideways along the wall. Stumbling once on loose rebar, before she dropped, spun and kicked to shatter a jaw. Sarah pulped a skull with one punch, and the way was swiftly cleared.
"Shifu…I've taken bullets before." Sarah growled, "I could've shielded you. I've learnt Pain Resistance and I won't die here!"
"Don't bullets from those hateful dreks hurt your spirit? You're strong but you're not our shield. You're our chummer."
"No. That's why I've got to take the bullets. I can take them! It's not bullets that hurt me. If I could ever be your chummer, I need to fight!"
"If Ms Lei is your teacher, listen to her," Paladin broke in, "More can come of your life than you imagine now. I cannot know how you, hurt, but please, treasure your life."
Even the haste and brazenness of his words, as he never stopped watching their backs, well expressed his conviction. Sarah hung her head and moved further into the junkyard, more slowly.
They'd gotten a route to the nerve centre out of an NC prisoner. The tunnels of packed trash, dripping with dark waste, threw up enemies in their faces as they ran. A sudden turn or hidden passage, shadowed by the roof of camo-netting, spat out tattooed thugs swinging machetes. Through darkness and adrenaline, Fighter only saw weapons and snarling teeth. One of them hacked Ilsa in the leg, but Paladin darted in, took the next blow on his arm, as Sarah smashed a skull with her rifle stock.
There were tripwires leading to nailbombs, buried in heaps of scrap, which Ilsa even had to get down and disarm when they couldn't get past. Narrow passages, and the unit of NC gunmen who'd gotten behind them, catching up…Paladin was already poised. The first NCs whose Colt M23s appeared behind fell prey to his Ares Alpha. He aimed through the darkness at the faint gleam of shaved heads.
"Trog-lovers! Shadowscum!" Somebody shouted, "What the frag are you doing for Calfree?"
Ilsa called up a flame-licked spirit. At her command, it floated high enough to blast the unseen NC squad in their rear with a fireball. Before a heavy machine gun sounded and it burst in mid-air.
"Raised firing platforms, for drone defence," Ilsa noted, finishing with the tripwire, "Don't walk in the centre of the path; don't hug the walls to hard and hit a booby trap."
A sniper on a junkheap put a bullet in Sarah's arm. She was too big to hug the walls; they could only keep morning.
Ilsa was sending out Watcher spirits ahead of them, but there was evidently an NC mage or shaman out there, since fewer were coming back. They had little warning of the machine gun nest ahead, that they had to keep moving into–then it was a four-way junction, two Stoner Ares a long way back, and the magic-user. Ilsa had to counter the Slow spell that would have sealed Susan's bullet-ridden death–even as Paladin shoved her prone. As Fighter and Sarah started to run, with bullets thrumming round their heads.
No time for tricks. Brave men had charged machine gun nests with one grenade since their invention, and not all of them died. Sarah poured Ki through her pillar-thick legs and floored the distance. Fighter wove a tight zig-zag path, kicked off a wall, and flew towards the second MG like a hawk. She couldn't dodge, fast as she ran, her life was nothing but luck–but she couldn't consider that. Only that she'd rather do this a hundred times than tell a hundred men and women to charge machine guns, like a gutless, poisonous Corper.
Her frag grenades fragged the gunner to bits, before he could knock them away. Sarah roared as two heavy bullets hit her, but she got her grenade away. Paladin covered her with burst-fire, as Ilsa sent her a Healing spell and then slung a fireball. Fighter corkscrewed two kicks into riflemen, rolled under a shotgun blast and punched out a third. She was bleeding–and a stinking green mist was rising above her knees.
Ilsa stared at the NC shaman. He had more tattoos, but his leathers were no different from the gunmen. To racist fanatics, magic was another tool for killing. Their shaman was screaming about the metas raping, polluting, poisoning Calfree…
…once again, Ilsa thought, as the toxic spirit congealed into existence above them, Nazis created a monster without to turn their eyes from the monster within.
The spirit's head was an eyeless, bird-like skull. Pale pustules covered its wings and rat's body. Grass sprang up where Norton's nature spirits walked; the toxic spirit splashed through a midden.
Ilsa threw a powerful flamestrike, as the shaman whipped up the cloud of poison gas to towering hights. The flames roared past the spirit; it leapt through the fumes without pause. One solid hit would destory it, but it had no concern except getting to Sarah. She raised her fists, though Ilsa knew it only had to touch her–
Paladin was about to run, to push her out the way. Ilsa recalled the strength he had shown in Berlin, dragging a wounded troll to safety who she had murdered the next day…she couldn't think why, but she realised she had seized Paladin's wrist. He could've broken her grip in an instant, but he was staring, shocked, into her eyes.
It was Fighter who charged, breath held firm as iron. She stepped a side kick into the toxic spirit– which flowed up her leg, around her body, like a demon's grip. Susan gasped in a lungful of the gas, and fell down, twitching.
-0-
It was hard to tell who'd finished the toxic shaman, especially from what was left. As the gas dispersed, the NCs sprung a desperate counterstrike with all their remaining forces. The NC leaders, mages and bodyguards charged from their central base ahead of the Runners, while their surviving troops came from the other side. Ilsa's first spells, with a snap of fingers, were flamewalls behind their foes so that they could not run.
Sarah's hellish, heart-broken battle cry drowned out the roar of fireballs–though not the screams, as more vicious flamestrikes charred flesh from bone. Tears flew from Sarah's eyes, as she sidestepped a burst of acid like a 200 kilo dancer–she'd wanted to be a dancer, once. Tears mixed with blood splatter as she struck and struck. Braced on one knee, then rolling aside from counterfire, Paladin grimly shot through smooth heads until they all fell down.
It was very quick and messy. Sarah finally saw that the human under her foot couldn't be older than fifteen. He had the Californian bear crudely tattooed on his cheek, and two fingers pressing his bullet-slashed carotid. His eyes were more helpless than anything she'd seen, even as he called her a trog.
She wouldn't hate him. He probably knew nothing else to say. She asked if he wanted to go; he nodded carefully. She unshipped her rifle, took a minute. Gave the quick death he might have deserved, and collapsed like a mountain by his side.
Ilsa wouldn't move away from Susan. She was still out cold, her aura looked fearfully darkened, almost ragged, but she was alive.
Paladin and Anya had to forge on to the centre. They found battered and hollow-eyed metahuman prisoners, and far more former prisoners, heaped up on their way to a pit. Paladin bowed his head and prayed to God they might be free now, at peace. A few of the survivors prayed with him.
Anya hovered over undestroyed computing devices she'd found, waiting impatiently for the big human meatshield to collect them. She considered that gangsters or soldiers would have brought comfort women to the base where their mission had tied them together, and some Humanis chapters worked like that. Conversely, it seemed the Native Californians were a pure and dedicated family–it was the duty of the weaker conscripts, male and female, to service their brothers.
"Can't we do anything to save them?" Sarah whispered to Ilsa, even as she held Susan's limp hand between her finger and thumb, "Even if they're monsters, even if all of them are…won't we be monsters if we don't try?"
Ilsa's eyes were a very dark green, in the gloom; Sarah flinched from their depths.
"There are wild monsters and tame ones. Monsters that the humble, ordinary people need. A monster is a monster, damned to eternity…but if you can ask, you have some time left."