The tilt-wing sliced through the night air, a ghostly shadow wrapped in the concealing magical protection of the invoked spirit that Tads had called to protect them at dusk. Down in the ruins of the city, occasionally a soft sigh could be heard, enough to make one of the sinless raise their heads and look around in concern – but no roar of engines or characteristic beat of propellors could be heard echoing through the shattered city.
Within a few minutes they arrived at Qaem Park, Marius flying a cautious orbit first to check out the lay of the land. The park was roughly rectangular, the short sides of the park to the north and south, forming a break amidst the ruins of the city. Trees, bushes and grasses had grown wildly in the years since the destruction of the city, and the original paths were long overgrown and destroyed by questing roots and branches. A lake to the north west was fetid and looked more like a bog than a patch of water, and Marius gave it a suspicious look – thinking back to the previous encounter they'd had in Tehran. Over to the east, though, was a clearer area, a large plaza that was surrounded by small buildings that looked somewhat intact. As he closed in he guessed it was some kind of civic space, with buildings surrounding it for selling drinks and food – long since closed, but having escaped the destruction wrought on much of the city.
It was the best place he was likely to find, so he transitioned to vertical flight and spiralled in carefully, watching his sensor feeds for anything that would cause him alarm, and keeping an ear open for any of the magical members of the team in case they spotted something. All was quiet though, and he continued to drop until the bird was down on the cracked and uneven paving flags. He ran a full sweep on the sensors, and when they came back clear, he throttled the engines back to the idle setting and keyed the intercom.
"On the ground, ready to deploy."
"Hold on. Got something." Hunter butted in quickly. He sounded distracted, and indeed didn't speak for another twenty seconds. "Sorry, right. Found some info – don't know if it makes a difference. Lemme read it out." He coughed as he tried to clear his throat, and took a quick swig of water from his canteen, his noisy gulps transmitting over the throat-microphone to the rest of the team.
"Sorry. Right – there's a bunch of posts here from Shadowland. Lots of different posters, all talking on the same thread – it's an anarchists' sub-forum, off the main Berlin page – took me a while to find it. I'll read each one out, then give you the name of the poster at the end, ok? Right, here goes…"
"Guten Tag! Just heard the news that a rare piece might be up for sale in Berlin in the near future - being sold by everyone's favourite art smuggler Herr Gustav Liebhermoster. Anyone have the skinny on this?" He paused for a moment. "That's from a poster by the name of 'Edelweiss'."
"Invites went out a few days ago to an "exclusive event" hosted in the old Berlin University art campus, with a gallery of twelve unique pieces being offered. So far I've heard of three distinct pieces - Gorlagg's 'The King of the Trolls', a life-size oil painting of King Berthold on his throne, the day of his inauguration, Schmitt's 'Cruelty', a sculpture depicting a mother and child killed by gas during the Eurowars, and Laurianellis' 'Cleansing', an abstract art piece. Of those three the first is supposedly slightly magically active, thanks to the subject - as long as you subscribe to the conspiracy that King Berthold is actually Kaltenstein. Make of that what you will. 'Cruelty' is a superb sculpt, showing the ravages of war. It's as mundane as they come, but a very powerful piece, and widely regarded as the sculptor's best work to date. And 'Cleansing' is, according to a friend of mine, actually a powerful shamanic formula for a cleansing ritual, used by some mages to push back the Black Tide." He paused again for a moment, checking the details. "Ok, that's from Seraphim, I've heard of them. Generally good rep."
"I can confirm the rumours about the formula - it is a powerful spell that was responsible for much of the cleanup along the Pomeranian coastline and the reforestation inland from there. It's highly likely that the owner and author of this piece is trying to track it down and recover it. Deep Green – they're quite active in the eco-info forums, but they don't seem to be a whack-job."
"They would be if they were still alive. Word is that they managed to track it down to a tender that services several of the arco-blocks, hinting at Proteus involvement. However there was a vicious fire-fight and a number of corporate security teams hunted down and sunk a fast civilian vessel in the area, which was lost with all hands. Ecotape. Not heard of this one, no info on them.
"That 'civilian' vessel was run by the Dortmunche brothers, and was a well-equipped and tough cookie. If Proteus took it down, you can bet they lost some assets during the fight. The brothers never scrimped on their hardware and equipment! My guess is that the ritualist hired them for the infiltration, but the extraction was botched and noisy, and once the ant-hill was kicked, Proteus pulled out all the stops to hammer them flat. Krabbe. Ok, some info on this dude – he's some kind of smuggler or paramilitary type, working the north coast and the Scandi coastlines."
"All of these pieces discussed so far are valued mostly for their unique forms or subjects - while not exactly the standard fare for a corporate lobby or executive dining room, they represent a powerful draw for the private art collectors looking for something special. Corpshark. Major rep on this guy, lots of economic activity and posts on the big ten."
"Liebermoster is a powerful figure in Pomerania - very well connected with all three of the ruling noble houses of Reanka, Sarentin and Telearn. Though he'll never be admitted to the nobility himself, they all value his ability to obtain things for them, providing not just artwork but also items like rare coins, historical artefacts, banners and heraldry. Many of their "trappings of nobility" have been provided after some museum or art display was raided and ravaged. Sociallite. Not much I know about this one."
"I heard he's a dragon in disguise himself, and that he uses his powers to help him steal the art work. Lapt" There was a pause again, then a snort. "Ok, maybe don't take this one seriously. Next post will explain."
"Maybe you should go discuss that with Dragonslayer, Lapt? Seems like the right kind of crazy to work with... Conspir-I-see. Don't think I need to add much to that, do I?"
"He's no dragon, but his bodyguards are not to be trifled with. Someone very nearly assassinated him at a meet a few years ago, and that lesson sunk in good and fast. He's been seen at a number of black clinics with his "staff" getting some fairly extensive body-mods installed in them, making sure they're up to the task of keeping him safe when he's dealing with both buyers and sellers. Tin Man. This poster seems to be well regarded in the body-mod community. Lots of comments on where the hottest ware is coming from, and some info about Chiba and the Swiss clinics. So, they're probably in a good place to judge on the augments for these dudes."
"Those guys freak me out! I ran into them at an art expo last month, and they gave me the willies. They all look so similar, and they just have such a cold, detached aura to them. Like they're barely human. And they have such a cliched look - black suits and shades with white shirts. So last century. That's from Jelly Donut, never heard of them, not many other posts either."
"That's because they're close to being zombies. He stuffs 'em full of cyberware to keep them performing well, and to keep tabs on 'em. Ran into them when we were handing over some artefacts a little while back. Pretty standard smooth glide of well-tuned wires, and their skin has that plasticky look - good quality dermal overlay. But there's a bunch of other stuff in them as well. My EW operator said there was a mesh encrypted network set up between 'em, locked down tight. Still, we were selling, he was buying, and he paid for his stuff, so what do I care? User handle is Big Bad Beeste – ok, seen them before as well, hanging around on the black market SIGs and stuff like that, generally seems to know what the skinny is. After that it wandered off topic on the dude, talking about running the border into Berlin, where the meet was likely to be, speculation about other pieces and stuff like that."
"Well… if I understand all of that right, I'd suggest we wait until after the deal is done. Germaine doesn't seem to want the painting, and this man seems to be keen on getting it, and has bodyguards. Why take them on if we don't have to?"
"I agree, Tads. If those posts are even partly true, then we are taking on a number of additional enhanced fighters, and that's a potential risk." Aswon adjusted his grip on his rifle. "We are well equipped – but why go looking for more trouble than we have to?"
"Agreed, Aswon. Our beef's not with him – it's with the other team. We can wait until after either he or they have gone. If we crash their meet, they're both going to turn hostile, aren't they."
"Probably. If we were very surgical, then perhaps not – but I don't think I want to run the risk. I can be precise, but if you start firing that cannon in, it's all going to get a bit indiscriminate. And not anything to do with your accuracy, Hunter – but it's a weapon with a small blast radius. There's only so precise you can be!"
"So – what is the consensus? Are we launching an attack now with the element of surprise, or waiting until later – possibly after the meet and exchange?" Marius kept his engines ticking over, maintaining a sensor watch. He didn't like being in this position – the concealment should keep them safe, but their signature was still much higher than if he powered down, while his manoeuvrability was pitiful while on the deck – it bought him the worst of both worlds.
"I would rather not attract their attention. We're here to hit the other team – that's the job from Germaine – not to recover the painting or get her goods back. I doubt she'd complain, but that's not what she engaged us for. And whilst normally we don't do hits or wet work, having seen the trail these assholes have left behind them, I'm willing to make an exception." Aswon looked around and saw answering nods from the team – including Tads who seemed to have fully come around to the idea of putting them down.
"It's possible the rest of the team don't know about the butchering," she saw a couple of eyes widen and held up her hand, "It's possible – I don't think it's likely, but we've seen some pretty strange things. I actually think they know exactly what's going on, and that's why I have no problem with them being dealt with. Well, given my repertoire of spells, it's most likely you lot are going to deal with them, while I keep you all safe from magical assault. But I have no problem with them being dealt with. At least one of them has butchered and maimed innocent people, and that's wrong, and they need to be stopped. And we're here, and we can stop them – so we should. But we can also let Germaine know about that art sale that's happening – maybe she can make use of it. The information, that is."
"I don't know…" Aswon shook his head, but grinned as he did. "You know what she's going to ask if she knows the painting is there…"
"I am not going to Berlin. Or to Germany. Nein! Traipsing around in the heart of Saeder Krupp territory is not a good idea!"
"It's a free city now, isn't it? Walled off and run by the anarchists? So we're not going to find much in the way of corp activity."
"That is besides the point. It is far too close to their influence. Nein."
"Ok, so what are we doing, then? It sounds like we're not so keen to hit them both now… are we waiting for one of them to move off from the deal?"
"It sounds that way, Kai. Marius – is your drone still in the area? Can you get us some visuals?"
The screens in the tilt-wing flickered for a moment as Marius connected to his rigger-deck and then to his drone, and the picture swooped rapidly as he took control of the drone and moved it from its loiter position. The camera view pulled out rapidly to the widest setting, showing the ruins of the city laid out in a monochrome vista before the low-light sensor feed attached to the drone's belly. The hospital had been in the centre of a neighbourhood of mid-rise apartments, most of which had been reduced to rubble or had collapsed from the years of neglect. The hospital itself had stood considerably taller, more than a dozen stories high it seemed, though it had collapsed significantly – several stories worth of rubble had plummeted down from the top of the tower and slammed into the apartments to either side, leaving only the warped and distorted concrete core and some partial floors, the buildings spine exposed to the night air. The damage to the building was light though – it appeared that the hospital had been spared from the direct assault that had caused carnage in the surrounding area.
"I wonder if they spared the hospital because it was full of sick people, or babies or something like that?" Aswon mused. "It looks to have collapsed more from incidental damage and near-misses rather than a direct assault. Some of those apartments though took a fireball straight through the windows – look at the blast patterns! But the hospital looks pretty intact for the first few floors and looks like the most sound building in the area – though that's not saying much."
"From my experience of deals, they're normally negotiated beforehand – one of the parties arrives first and secures the area, they wait for the other party – doesn't matter if it's the buyer or seller. But they normally sort out who's going to leave first as well, to make sure there's no surprises. Sometimes it's first in, first out, other times it's first in, last out. There's not really any protocol that tips one way or the other, it really depends on the two parties dealing. But they do normally have it decided between them how they're going to handle it. Cuts down on arguments at the meet, when both sides might be twitchy."
"So we don't know if our team are going to be first out or last out, Kai? Damm." Aswon turned back to the screen. "Marius – it looks like there's a canopy or something. Can we get under that?"
The view blurred momentarily as Marius moved the drone, before the image stabilisation caught up and the detail sharpened once more. The hospital was set back from the main road, with two access roads set on sweeping turns that connected on a short parallel road set back from the main road by about ten metres, with most of the smaller road being covered by the canopy. In between the access road and the main road were a riot of plants – overgrown lumps that spread creepers in all directions. Presumably at one point they'd been decorative planters, but with nobody to maintain them, they'd overgrown their pots and spread out in all directions. To either side of the access ways were more ponds of vile-looking swampy water, surrounded by rocks and boulders. Before the fall of Tehran they'd probably been very pleasant ornamental ponds, a place to sit and admire nature for those waiting for news from the hospital, or for patients to come and get some fresh air. Now they looked like a dank swamp and it wouldn't have been good for anyone's health to sit there, even if no critters had moved into the water.
The short roadway under the canopy was two lanes wide, but had six large bays perpendicular to it, leading to three large sets of double doors. At one point the ambulances would have driven in on one side, along the access road and then turned and reversed into the bays, able to offload their patients under cover of the canopy and through the doors into the hospital receiving bay. Now though the western most bays were blocked by a mass of falling debris that had partially crushed the canopy and had flowed in from the neighbouring building, a huge mound of crushed and burnt masonry and flooring, shattered roof tiles and crumpled furniture. The remaining four bays were occupied by two large vehicles. Next to the mound and parked at a jaunty angle was the long stretch limo that had first attracted Marius' attention. It had reversed in across the two bays, so the front was angled towards the exit road and the rear right corner was closest to the hospital entrance – anyone leaving the building by the middle doors would be covered and obscured by the vehicle from anyone approaching via the main road.
Next to it, in the two easternmost bays was a large transport vehicle, displaying familiar livery and colours – the enemy team they'd been pursuing. It, too, was positioned at an angle, covering the eastern approaches and aligned for a quick get-away around the access road. Litter and debris filled the area around the vehicles, but they could see a few clear trails where people had walked, from both vehicles and also from the main road. Presumably other people either lived here or used the hospital in some way.
"Can we steal their vehicle, Marius? I mean, can you use your rigger box thing and hack into it and just drive it away?"
"In theory, yes – as long as I am in range, if I can defeat the security on their vehicle I could seize control. However, it is likely to be very well defended – much as I would defend our vehicle, and I would likely set off alarms and find myself engaged in a direct contest for control with their rigger. So in practice, probably not. Much like you vying for control of an enemy spirit, I believe – technically possible, but unlikely against their will.
"They do have some cover there – the canopy shields them from overhead attacks unless we get down quite low in the street. But if we see them come out and we're close, we could drop in a hover and just hose them down with two of the guns – one from the side and one from the rear?"
"We would be sitting ducks for return fire though, Aswon – I would have no room for manoeuvre. I would instead suggest letting them leave the area, and taking them once they have cleared the hospital. The building and canopy does limit our options significantly."
"Is it better elsewhere, though? I mean, the city is trashed wherever they go…"
"Indeed – plenty of cover to the sides, but much less overhead. If they head into the city centre, then the ruins are higher, and we're looking at more of a 'canyon' style environment – but they are at the bottom of the canyon and we can fly overhead and duck out of sight behind the rubble if we move swiftly. If they head out of the city towards what used to be the suburbs, then the ground and rubble is a lot less dense, and they have more room to move themselves – but they have much less to take cover behind as well, and we can track them far more easily. Either way, we have a distinct advantage from the air."
"If they're in motion, I can maybe try to get a spirit to affect their vehicle – cause some kind of accident or error, maybe throw a tyre or hit something in the road. It depends how they have defended the vehicle, and if they have their own spirit on guard or not."
"We're pretty sure they have a mage, so they should have some kind of defences." Aswon theorised, "but if they're inside the vehicle, it's probably going to be a passive defence, like a ward. They're unlikely to be actively protecting it unless they can see something coming, and they'll have to be able to see the outside of the vehicle to be most effective. While the mage is inside, if he can't see the wheels, he can't defend them magically. At least not as an active act of will… Perhaps we should take off and go loiter up from the hospital a bit, and be ready to strike?"
"We will use fuel up if we are in a hover, at a significant rate. And there is a higher chance of being spotted, the closer we are to them."
"True enough, Marius, but I think between how stealthy the bird is, how good you are as a pilot and Tad's spirit guarding us, plus the darkness – it's a pretty low chance that we could…"
"Wait one," Marius interrupted. The drone moved slightly, shifting the position of the camera and they watched as half a dozen people came out of one of the doors in the hospital. Flickering light spilled through the open doorway, as if the interior was lit by a bonfire rather than electrical lighting, each of the bodies appearing to flicker as the light danced in intensity. The people were dressed in ragged clothing, torn and dishevelled. They moved out past the two parked vehicles and left the approach road, fanning out slightly and taking up positions in the overgrowth stemming from the planters and former garden, resting in the concealed positions with small arms aimed out in a rough arc. Marius zoomed in slightly on one of the people, trying to get a good read on them.
"Looks like a low-end sub-machine gun, possibly a machine pistol. Low calibre and does not look like a known brand. Clothing is somewhat bulky – I suspect a limited amount of armour underneath. Low end muscle, dangerous if they swarm us, but no real threat."
"But why are they out here? Unless they're checking the area out for someone else? But who bought them? They don't look like they belong to either the art dealer or our team?" Aswon leant in closer to the screen as if he could somehow determine this detail.
"Well, they do not appear to have spotted the drone – so that is good. Your spells are no doubt assisting with this, Tads."
"No problem. Hey, Marius – can you see their vehicle clearly? If you can zoom in on the people, can you do the same with their truck? Maybe I can spot signs of magical protection."
"One moment, I will see if I can find a vantage point." The view was obscured for a moment by a blurry wall as Marius swung the drone around, trying to find a place where he could keep the drone mostly obscured and hidden from view, but allow the sensor to zoom in on the enemy team's vehicle. "There. I will sweep from the front to the rear as slowly as I can." True to his word, the camera panned slowly over the vehicle, zoomed in far enough that the entire frame of the picture was filled in from top to bottom with the truck. In the pilot's seat, Marius monitored the feed, and his eyebrows started to head towards each other as his brow furrowed. He studied the vehicle more closely himself, and then looked at the previous footage, comparing the position of the truck against the limo.
"This… this does not make sense. Well, not all of it." Marius sighed and ordered his thoughts. "Ok, to start with – their vehicle sits quite low on the ground, indicating they are carrying significant load. I suspect they are heavily armoured. That is hardly surprising. The limousine is also low on the ground, but that model is well known to carry significant armour as standard. But the truck is…well, the shape is wrong. It has bulges where is should not, and the windscreen is at the wrong angle, and the spacing on the wheels is just wrong… the design is not correct."
"By not correct, you mean?" Aswon asked.
"No vehicle would be designed in such a way. The aerodynamics are all wrong, and it makes no sense from a strength or capacity perspective. The shape is just wrong in a number of small but significant ways. I cannot fathom… unless…." He fell silent for a moment. "It is possible that they have an unusual or experimental armour design. Perhaps spaced armour? Or possibly abltative? Hmmm."
"I don't know what those are – but would they protect the top of the vehicle?" Tads asked.
"Yes, in fact especially so. At least given the design we are looking at. And now that we are studying it physically, note that it is a six-wheel design, much like our truck. Taking out a wheel is going to be proportionally less effective than it would on a standard car. We should be wary of this vehicle. That hull could hide all manner of nasty surprises."
"Ok, perhaps a new plan is in order then. We follow them when they leave the meet, tail them with your drone. Get a good sensor lock on, and just track them, to wherever they're going afterwards. Wait until they stop for the night, and then attack them there, once they've wound down for the day." Aswon zoomed the map out and looked at the city. "I guess they've probably got more range than us overall, but they're much slower. So in terms of how far they're going to go for today, it's limited to a few hundred klicks at the most – and we can get that far no problem. But I think they'll bed down somewhere closer for the night."
"Can we get one of those activate-on-demand tracking things on their vehicle?"
"We can, if someone goes and plants one, and they don't have an anti-intruder system built into their hull. But I don't fancy finding out the hard way it's set to give you a few thousand volts if you mess with the vehicle, Tads! Maybe one of your spirits could try and attach it."
"We would need to position it carefully to avoid detection, Aswon," Marius noted. "I am not sure if a spirt could position it precisely enough. But it could go and manifest next to the vehicle and check for any defences. They're unlikely to be able to harm it."
"Time is up!" The engine noises increased immediately as Marius fed fuel to them, and they felt the airframe quiver. A moment later they saw why as the camera feed from the drone showed movement. Marius swung the drone around, trying to get a visual, but they moved quickly from the door to their vehicle, ducking behind the bulk of the large truck and getting out of the open as if they expected to be attacked at any moment. Barely a few seconds later their truck quivered as they started it up, and it pulled out around the limo and drove around the approach road, heading for the main street – clearly moving away from the hospital without delay. As they watched, they felt the tilt-wing lift and angle backwards while Marius climbed in place, slowly spinning with a touch of rudder control until he was facing towards the hospital.
"What are going to be the weakest points on their vehicle?" Kai asked over the intercom.
"Driver's windscreen. Wheels. Transmission, if you can get underneath them. All of those can and probably are armoured though, but there is only so much you can do with those. I am heading in their general direction on autopilot, and jumping into the drone." Marius keyed in some basic parameters and they felt the nose level out and then drop a degree, as they started to drift forwards, moving slowly towards the enemy. Marius meanwhile plunged his conscious thoughts down the radio link to his drone, using his rigger interface to take up possession in a smaller and more cramped metal body.
Next to him, Hunter unbuckled and grabbed his rifle, slinging it onto his back and then squeezing through the doorway from the cockpit into the troop bay and pushed his way through to the cargo area, starting to clamber over the various supplies and equipment until he could reach the rear ramp. Shimazu was standing in the rear of the vehicle, checking his sword hung correctly and adjusting his armour – then attached his sturdy waist belt with a cable to each side of the hull.
Kai moved to his left and Aswon to his right, each grabbing a harness as well and strapping in to the cables attached to either side of their doors, before opening the large panels that ran down the rear-seam of the doorways, unlimbering the machine guns. The weapons popped free on their recoil mounts, swinging down smoothly to hover in front of them, the weight of the weapon expertly countered by the stiffness of the mounting arms, while the powerful hydraulic and spring assembly was primed ready to counter the punishing recoil of the heavy weapons. Tads tightened her harness, firmly pinning herself in position and then cinched the optics down tighter onto her head, ensuring it wouldn't come loose suddenly. By the time they were all ready in the front, Hunter had also strapped himself in on the tail ramp and was carefully unpacking the Panther cannon from the storage box, slapping in one of the massive magazines full of 20mm high explosive shells. The ka-clack sound of the cannons action cycling was loud enough to be heard all the way to the front of the troop bay, even over the engine noise, and several of the team turned to see Hunter grinning like a child on Christmas morning. An answering metallic noise, not as loud but just as definite sounded as Aswon readied his 12.7mm sniper rifle before clipping it down next to the door and checking the machine gun over.
Back over the city, the drone turned in pursuit of the truck, following it from a few hundred metres back and up, keeping to what Marius hoped was a safe distance as he watched them navigate down the cluttered streets as they headed east. He sent through a continuous feed and update back to the tilt-wing, keeping the rest informed about what they were doing.
"Heading east, now turning…south. Moving around some burnt-out cars. Ok, one block, then turning north again, and then back east – ok, just gone around a single block. Still heading eastward. Looks like they are heading to the expressway. Yes, closing now. If they turn north, they are heading for the centre. South is out of Tehran and into the suburbs. Closing on the main road. Still driving steady, avoiding holes and wrecks. No sign of activity…. Closing… Enemy turning north, north, north – heading for the centre of Tehran. Picking up speed. Now driving at five zero, six zero. Seven five. Eight zero kilometres, heading north in lane two. The expressway is three lanes either side, a small median separating the two lanes. Infrequent entrances or exits to the sides. There are some wrecks on there, but it looks like they have been cleared or pushed to the side in the past, most of them clear to the shoulder. Lanes are mostly navigable, as far as my sensors reach."
Kai and Aswon swung their doors open, and the noise of the wind climbed sharply as it rushed through the large openings. To the back the rear ramp whined as Hunter lowered it, then strode forwards with the huge cannon held in his meaty arms until he stood with feet shoulder width aside, like an armed colossus as he leant into his own harness and trusted the cables to hold him in place.
"Continuing along lane two, heading north. Speed constant."
"No changes."
"Still heading north."
"Lane two, speed eight zero. No changes."
"Achtung! Enemy sensor sweep! LIDAR LOCK!" There was a pause, and each of the team braced themselves, looking out into the darkness of the ruined city, waiting to see what would happen.
"Backing off, dropping back and opening range. They definitely picked up the drone for a moment, though."
A gout of orange light arced up out of the darkness, briefly illuminating the cockpit and nose of the tilt-wing, as well as the buildings around the launch point. Aswon and Kai craned their heads out of the doors, staring into the slipstream as the firebolt lanced up from the road into the night sky and struck the drone. Flames exploded outwards as it struck the drone, despite Marius's best efforts to dodge, engulfing the chassis in a burning mass of energy. Just as quickly, the light faded as the firebolt was consumed, leaving the stricken drone spiralling out of the sky, the meteor-like path of the magical blast nothing but an after-image in their eyes.
"Marius – you ok?" Hunter called out over the comms. He'd been piloting the drone, his mind jumped into the body and it looked like the drone had taken fatal damage, which had a habit of feeding back destructive energy over the link into the vehicle control rig – and that was wired directly into the rear part of the brain, which tended not to like sudden bursts of energy applied to it.
"Ja – I am fine. Levelling out now."
"It looked like the drone was totalled!"
"I let it spiral, to get it out of line of sight. It is damaged. Badly damaged – but still functional. Setting down on a rooftop now – we can collect it later." There was a pause, then the voice resumed, stronger now and with an edge of anger. "I am back in our craft now. Closing on the enemy."
"Well, I guess that settles it. They've scratched some of Marius' toys now, so they gotta die…" Hunter stared out of the rear ramp, eyes flicking around for any signs of trouble or third parties that might have been interested in what just happened, a huge grin on his face. Marius didn't say anything in response, but the engine noise rose dramatically and the tilt-wing surged forwards, rapidly accelerating to over four hundred kilometres per hour. In the pilot's seat, Marius lay still, head flopped to one side as the VCR controls locked down the responses of his physical body while his mind was melded with the vehicle. The tilt wing was incapable of facial expressions, but if someone had looked at it from the front, the set of the flaps and angles of the engine pods might have given them the impression that somehow it was very, very angry about something…
"That firebolt was pretty high force – it was more powerful than anything I can do!" Tads called out once she was sure the others had finished talking. That drew a glance of surprise and apprehension from the team in the back – Tads had grown in power significantly over the last year of their adventures, and along with Shimazu she was a significant and potent magical threat. "And I don't just mean because it was a combat spell. That had a lot of power behind it – normally vehicles are pretty resistant to magical attacks and damage like that, but it was slung with enough force to overcome that."
"We will see. I am closing on their position – coming in low and from their six o'clock position. When we reach engagement range I will bank port and up, giving you raking fire first, Aswon, then bringing the rear ramp into position."
"JINK!" The warning cut over the end of his sentence as Tads cried out in alarm, and the tilt-wing skittered sidewards as he jammed the rudder hard over, dropping power to one engine and maxing out the other, sending them sliding almost sideways towards the ruined tower blocks that lined the main road.
Another blast of magical energy launched from the truck on the road below. Unlike the firebolt, this was a blast of pure magical force, manifesting directly around the tilt-wing, rather than travelling through the intervening space. It was invisible to Hunter and Marius, but the others could see the flare as it slammed into the shield of protective energy Tads had extended around the tilt-wing. For a moment their astral senses were treated to coruscating blue lightning dancing over the shield, questing fingers of energy trying to find a weakness in the defences and force their way in, before the energy leeched away into the aether.
"That was a stun ball – I think they were trying to take out the spirit concealing us. Their mage definitely has eyes on, somewhere from the rear part of the vehicle now. The firebolt was from somewhere near the front – I guess they've got a few windows or something to look out of."
"Is the spirit still in place?"
"Yes, Marius – undamaged, and still concealing us."
"Good. I can feel their radar and other sensors sweeping over us – but they have not locked on, so far. Coming up on attack position – stand by. Banking!"
Strapped in and warned, the team expected the manoeuvre, and they all were braced at their various doorways or positions as the sleek attack craft turned left and pulled back sharply, soaring into the air. By using just his rudders rather than banking, Marius put more strain on the vehicle, but kept Aswon facing directly towards the enemy vehicle. As he executed the pop-up attack, Marius also threw his electronic deception systems to full power and then blasted his sensors out, running the flux on his systems up to their limit. Thousands of watts of power burst from his own sensors, locking up the enemy vehicle completely and blinding their sensors with the sheer amount of power being detected. If their rigger was jacked in, he'd just taken the equivalent of having someone throw open the curtains in a darkened room and finding themselves staring straight at the sun…
Aswon had his snipe rifle snugged in tight against his shoulder, and he leant forward against the harness, the scope settling over one of the wheels of the truck as it motored down the highway. He aimed slightly forward, allowing for the gusting wind and slipstream and gently stroked the trigger, almost missing the crack of the silenced round as it left the large suppressor mounted on the front of the barrel. A moment later, he was rewarded with an explosion of material erupting from the wheel as the 12.5mm armour-piercing round slammed into the side of the axle, digging deep into the sturdy armour before shredding it.
Tads adjusted her viewpoint, looking up at the road ahead of the speeding truck and concentrated, throwing out an illusion of the scene. Mostly it was the same picture – the road and median, ruined buildings… but she swapped over the positions of the wrecked cars with clear lanes and the clear spaces with the tangled ruins of crashed cars, inverting the safe driving positions ahead of them – with any luck the driver wouldn't be able to work out what had changed and would make a poor decision.
The plane continued to climb and turn to the left, G-forces starting to mount as Marius reefed around in a tight turn. Hunter was waiting, staring out of the right side of the ramp, Panther canon held at his hip with his smart-link tied in tightly to the massive gun through his palm induction pad. The targeting caret drifted across the scene below him, predicting where the round would impact, and it was relatively easy to lay it over the top of the truck and allow it to settle for a split-second before firing. The recoil was spectacular, making his arms and torso ripple as the huge forces slapped back into him, but the round flew straight and true, impacting on the top of the truck. A bright explosion ripped out from the strike zone, and bits of twisted metal and plastic blew out dramatically as the roof shredded under the attack, sending material spiralling out in all directions and littering the highway behind them, while Hunter whooped in delight.
They continued the turn, and Hunter fired again, being rewarded with still more material exploding off the top of the truck as his second round hit home. Aswon tried to fire again, but they turned so quickly he couldn't lean out far enough to maintain line of sight, so instead he called back to Kai.
"Get ready Kai! Coming round to your side in 3…2…1…"
"I'm seeing some kind of concealing spell on their vehicle – looks like it was partially under the roof? I'm not sure – but it's hiding something!" Tads warned them as she switched her attention back to the vehicle, part of her mind concentrating on her illusion and maintaining it across the road ahead of them.
"Still looking for us – still no lock. Keep firing!" Marius commanded. As the turn continued, he eased up on the rudder a little, and began to bank, levelling off his altitude and knowing that the angle of the tilt wing would benefit them now, allowing them to get a good bead on the enemy vehicle.
The deep bark of the cannon sounded again from the rear ramp, but this time barely any debris accompanied the bright explosive flash as the round struck the truck roof once more. Hunter frowned as his hit failed to replicate the earlier successes, and he swung the cannon down and out of the way, letting the sling rasp over his armour as he tried to slide it completely behind him.
On the port side of the aircraft Kai waited, the heavy machine gun held in both hands. The banking had tilted the aircraft so he was looking down somewhat, and he had to elevate the gun to keep it looking in the right direction – but that was a lot easier to do than aiming down. He saw the truck appear, sliding into his field of view as the tilt-wing continued to turn, and he aimed the gun as best he could in the right direction.
He lacked the cybernetic smart-link that Hunter was equipped with, the advanced image processing software tied to a ballistics computer that took into account atmospheric conditions, speed, range, barrel wear, heat, ammo selection and a host of other factors to predict exactly where the shot would go.
He lacked the incredible kinaesthetic sense that Aswon had, the uncanny ability to feel when the shot was right, and the experience of years of hunting – both animals on the plains of Africa and the more dangerous metahuman targets the average mercenary was faced with.
He lacked even basic aiming benefits like a laser sight – something rarely seen on heavy weapons like these where the engagement ranges often far exceeded the distance a laser dot could be seen at. Instead he had a rudimentary post and ring set on the barrel, giving him a general indication that bullets would go 'over there, somewhere, probably'.
He wasn't even highly skilled with the guns. They'd all done some practice, achieving at least a modicum of familiarity with the door guns. He knew how to load and clear the weapon, deal with jams and do the basic maintenance. They'd shot off some rounds to get a feel for the system, and how effective the recoil dampers were. But he'd not put in the hours and hours of range practice that a military gunner would have benefited from.
An uncharitable observer might have noted that even a broken watch was right twice a day, and started to talk about infinite numbers of monkeys and typewriters to describe what happened next. Others might remark on the vagaries of the universe, and how some people just seemed to be lucky – to be in the right place at the right time, or just somehow emerge from a shower of shit smelling of roses.
It was hard to say which was right. It wasn't even as if the two explanations were mutually exclusive. Whatever it was though, as Kai grabbed the firing spades and pulled back, the gun sang and a stream of heavy fire spat from the barrel. The heavy machine gun was also chambered in 12.5mm, like Aswon's sniper rifle. While his barrel floated free of the stock and was milled with exquisite care and attention, making a weapon that was superbly accurate, the designers of the Tormenta de Fuego heavy-machine guns had settled for a reasonably accurate but basic design, with very heavy fluted barrels and a lot of surface area to dissipate the heat of continuous fire. The sniper rifle fired a single 12.5mm round from a cartridge over 20mm wide, and nearly 140mm long from tip to tail – almost as long as the average hand. The machine gun fired a burst of six though, each one also an anti-vehicle design with a specially hardened penetrator tip and a small explosive charge buried deep inside – designed to blast into the armour plating of a target and then explode inside, sending spalls of material out in every direction and shattering the defensive systems of the target.
The first few rounds hit and shattered the thick armour on the side of the enemy vehicle, digging deeper and deeper into the hull. The final rounds penetrated deeply enough that fragments of white hot metal burst through into the interior, sending the occupants diving for cover, while a shower of sparks erupted outwards into the night sky. Marius watched in satisfaction as the vehicle lurched to one side, badly damaged. A cloud of blue smoke burst from the exhaust, indicating engine trouble or some issue with the transmission.
At the door gun position, even Kai seemed a little stunned with the impact, before a slight smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He wasn't quite sure how he'd managed it – but he'd just scored a very telling hit on the enemy vehicle, that much was certain!
"Radar still tracking. No lock!" Marius continued the turn, the aircraft starting to shudder as it hit it's G-limit and the airframe protested as they turned in an tiny circle, barely giving the enemy team time to evade and escape. The combination of the spirit's protective embrace and the electronic deception jammers, the radar absorbent materials and the generally stealthy design of the aircraft denied the enemy team the lock-on they so desperately needed.
A laser-like stream of fire erupted from the top of the enemy truck as they abandoned the effort of getting that lock, as frustration and fear over-rode professional training. Whatever was concealed on the roof of the vehicle behind the remaining bits of shroud and concealing magic spat fire at them – a lot of fire. It wasn't directed tightly, and the gunner was aiming mostly at the general source of the jamming and electronic footprint – clearly hoping to get lucky.
Marius banked hard, turning the craft on its side. Kai found himself looking straight down at the ground, the highway screaming past him at two hundred kilometres per hour, feet dangling in front of him and arms hanging onto the machine gun for dear life as he bent double around the waist, held in place by his safety belt. Opposite him Aswon found himself bending the other way, and gave a strange 'hunf' of effort as he tensed his stomach and core muscles to remain in place, staring up at the star-filled sky above him.
A moment later, the sound caught up with the light show and they heard the 'brrrrrrrrt' as scores of rounds sliced through the air around them as the minigun flexed up and down, the tracers flexing up and down like a whip as the fire undulated through the sky. Marius kicked the rudder hard, pulled the power down and kicked out the flaps and speed brake, and slammed the aircraft around in the sky like he was turning a corner, sending the stream of fire wide past them.
"Well, at least we know what they were hiding under that camouflage now!" He reversed his settings, throwing power on and kicking the nose back the other way, picking up speed again and closing once more on the enemy team.
"Incoming spirits! We've got half a dozen fire elementals, closing FAST!" Tads called out, frantically adjusting the viewing prism as she tried to regain her composure. "They're going for Kai and the unwarded door!"
A moment later Kai was silhouetted to the rest of the team in a brilliant fiery hue as the elementals darted into view. The sky visible outside the door of the tilt wing was filled with fire, a mass of brilliant reds, yellow oranges and white as the vaguely humanoid creatures latched onto the edge of the tilt wing, a ravening pack all trying to get through the opening of the ward and into the vehicle at their enemy.
"Lean left." Shimazu's voice was conversational, calm and focussed as he wiggled his feet to be sure of his stance. Kai leant over at once, and a moment later the steel blade lashed out like a striking serpent, the weapon foci slicing through the elemental's form with ease. A second elemental was inside the doorway, and met the backhand sweep, also dying despite its futile attempts to defend itself. The others managed to pull back, recognising that to approach Shimazu in that narrow opening was to die. Creatures of elemental fire, consumers of life and oxygen and harbingers of destruction, it was a novel experience for them to suddenly discover fear and recognise their own destruction in another – it was not an experience they relished.
Aswon had managed to get his rifle out of the way and grabbed his spear, and Kai managed to grab his own weapon foci in one hand, and the elementals suddenly found themselves facing three enemies with the means to hurt them easily, and despite still outnumbering their foes by four to three, the ease with which Shimazu had dispatched the first two of their number made them hesitate, and then a moment later flee, fading back into the astral realm and travelling with enormous speed down to the savaged truck below them.
With the spirits defeated – or at least routed for the moment – they turned their attention back to the ground, and saw that the enemy vehicle had turned sharply and had crashed across the median, then crossed the other side of the road and was heading for a side street between two long blocks of ruined buildings. Rubble lay all around them, with the top two storeys being nothing but burnt out and collapsed ruins, but the ground and some of the first floors appeared to be intact – or at least still standing. What condition the insides were was impossible to tell from here, but they were potentially habitable.
The truck was belching smoke now and skidded to a halt, wedged onto the corner of the building before a side door was thrown open and the crew bailed out, running for the cover and protection of the buildings.
As they ran, Marius managed to turn and get his sensors training in on them, while several of the team managed to zoom in with their weapon sights or their own enhanced vision.
"Oh, well that makes sense." Aswon said in a flat voice, as they saw Modulo and the rest of team 'Unsubtle' running to get into cover, dragging or carrying weapons and boxes of equipment with them. The lithe but large form of the ork wearing her jumpsuit, currently bathed in purple flames sprinted ahead, a pair of swords in her hands, while the massive troll hauled a huge load along behind him in a net, long plastic flight cases bouncing over the uneven terrain behind him. Last out of the vehicle was a slender human – the one member of the team they'd not seen before. But his blue shock of hair looked to be an identical match for 'Dice' from their briefing dossier…
Marius banked to the side and put them into a gentle orbit, while they looked down at the ruin of the other team's vehicle, wondering if it was actually as ruined as it appeared and Marius monitored his sensors – checking to see if anyone or anything managed to get a lock on their vehicle. The stream of minigun fire had given him notice that the enemy team only had to get lucky once – and much like Kai, if you threw enough shit at the wall, eventually some of it would stick.
"So… are we going to leave it here and let them be?" Kai asked. There was a loud metallic sound from the rear ramp as Hunter ejected the partially spent magazine from the Panther cannon and slapped in a new one, then hefted the weapon into a ready position. Next to him he heard the subtle creaking of the leather binding on Shimazu's handgrip as his hands tightened, and Tads stared at him with defiant resolve. "Nah. Didn't think so either. Ok – let's find somewhere to land, and root out this infestation…"