Brian Thrush was seated in the control room watching the feed from the cameras and listening to the chatter between the incoming bullheads and the ground crew. One aspect of life in the Vacuo desert which had persuaded Nicholas Schnee to recruit Mohawks for external base security and accompanying convoys travelling overland was that paranoia and careful observation were qualifications for survival. You did not ignore unexplained dust clouds, tremors in the ground or assume that the small herd of Grimm in the distance would leave you alone. You certainly did not pretend to yourself when all three were present that it would be alright on the night. Currently there were too many small things which were odd happening as well as the new shaft being worked for the first time today.
He saw the CSM enter the mine after a nod from the Major. Maybe it was nothing, but he could not think of a good reason for the man to enter the mine and was puzzled by what the Major was doing here without a team from the mine inspectorate. This coupled with the earlier conversations with the mine management and the fact that the new workers had been housed separately from the others made him suspect that something was up. He sent an alert to his men to partially activate their auras if they had them and to double check that their weapons were loaded and to be ready to disengage the safety features.
It was also a little odd that the second shift in the main mine workings had been delayed an hour. Apparently there was a safety lecture taking place, but normally these were timetabled to take place before the shift started rather than during the shift. It had meant that the new workers had been taken underground without mixing with the established workforce.
He was also inclined to take the warning about the White Fang seriously. He had served through the strike period and had seen how the SDC and in particular Raddock and Crimson had crushed the strike. While the other multi-kingdoms had behaved similarly, the SDC had been the first to change the working conditions and the battle had been most hard fought at the Rising Sun mine. He was paid to think about worst case scenarios and his belief was that it was only a question of time before the White Fang escalated its campaign. The Rising Sun mine had been the first mine where the new working practices had been introduced and the mine where the first brandings had taken place. Symbolically it would be a logical place for an attack.
He had spent time brainstorming with his men how they would go about raiding the mine if they were the White Fang. For this reason, the night shift had infra-red goggles to watch out for surprise attacks and as a matter of course he asked the pilots of the supply planes about any signs of movement near the mine. He had decided years ago that the greatest danger would be an aerial attack. Two years ago, he had persuaded Crimson to sign off on the purchase of some surface to air weapons and a few missiles for each of the mines which the Mohawk tribe was responsible for. He had got away with it by underspending his budget for the year to such an extent that a major item of expenditure was needed to avoid the budget being cut the following year. Crimson had complained about Thrush leaving it so late to fend off the bean counters but had agreed to the expenditure. It had helped that there had been reports of the Mistral military selling off surplus and outdated bullheads to criminal organisations.
He watched the safari convoy draw up to the gates to the mine. He recognised the guide and frowned. The man hated the SDC and Atlas and knew about the excesses of the strike period. He had once in a Vacuo bar accused the Mohawks and Brian in particular of being a torturer's assistant and had thrown a punch. He was surprised that he was thinking of paying money to the SDC although he supposed that simply asking for water would not involve adding to the SDC's profits. He looked more closely at the pictures and decided something else looked odd. Normally safari tourists were either retirees or the privileged young who dressed flamboyantly. They also tended to be curious about mines and join in the discussions with the guards. In this case the tourists were younger and fitter than he would have expected and were dressed sensibly. They also had kept the vehicles between them and the gate and some had been wearing hats as they got out of the DesertRovers rather than donning them after they got into the open. He sent a message to his nephew Rick to keep a careful eye on the contingent as something looked off about them.
He was also a little disconcerted by the behaviour of the bullheads. They were actually doing everything by the book and had arrived in textbook formation. Perhaps this was because they had seen the military bullhead and had responded accordingly. Certainly, that explained the absence of banter from the ground crew, but normally there would have been some joking by the pilots. Still, it added to the various things which were odd about today and he told his second in command to unlock the armoury. He also dictated a note for his log explaining why he had taken these steps, omitting the movement of the CSM towards the mine and the training session.
He ordered some of his men to take up positions which they would recognise as being designed to deal with a potential riot and told Rick to cut any conversation with the guide short. He hoped he was just being paranoid but better safe than sorry.
He swore when he heard the explosion and the klaxons, but his training meant that he moved into automatic pilot. He activated his aura and took stock of what was happening. The SDC was responsible for security inside the mine and for rescue missions and his main task in the case of accidents was to secure order and prevent rioting. If, as he suspected, the explosion had happened in the new shaft then the workers could be angered by the belief that the management had killed workers by cutting corners and taking risks. It would be even worse if they suspected as he did that this was a premeditated murder. He sent a message "Activate auras, lock down the barracks other than designated rescue teams. Get rid of that ass at the gate, Rick."
He looked at the screen showing the scene at the perimeter gates and watched with horror as he saw armed Faunus wearing White Fang masks exiting the DesertRovers and opening fire at his men on the gate. Seconds later around twenty emerged from the bullhead on the ground and some others jumped from the second bullhead as it approached the ground.
He called to his second in command to broadcast a red alert and to notify the two Atlas military bases. He sent a message to another of his men to collect the SAM from the armoury. He spoke to the head of security over his headset and asked, "Do we fight or surrender, sir?"
"Frack, we are going to have to fight as when they find out about the dead Faunus in the mine they will not be happy. If you can get to the mine and defend the entrance. Do not bother protecting the dust ready for transportation or controlling the workforce."
He reviewed the options quickly. He sent a message to the man with the SAM to fire at the third bullhead. If what he thought had happened in the mine had happened, surrender was not a safe option and his men and the SDC mine security team were already badly outnumbered. If he had to die today, he preferred to go down fighting. Also, while he despised the mine management team, his duty was to protect them and by showing that he had the weaponry to bring down their transport, the Mohawks were now target number one and perhaps it would give the Atlas pilot a chance to launch his ship.
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Major Bronze had been strolling quickly towards the mine and telling anyone else looking like going in that direction to keep back. The mine manager was heading towards him. The Major hoped he had remembered to tell the mine rescue team to delay entering the mine until it was clear that there were no aftershocks or in reality until CSM Verde had confirmed to the Major that there were no visible branded bodies or people who had been shot rather than crushed. His first reaction when he heard shots was that he had told the CSM to use a silencer, but he swiftly realised that the shots were coming from behind him.
He saw that streaming from the bullhead which had just landed were around thirty members of the White Fang. To his absolute horror the mine was under attack at the worst possible time. While he suspected that they had frontloaded the troops into the first bullhead, the likelihood was that there around the same number again in the last two bullheads. The question of how they had got hold of three SDC bullheads could wait until after the raid was over. He just hoped that he would be alive to participate in the inquest.
The overseers were not making a move to fight and were relying on the White Fang being reluctant to kill low ranking employees of the SDC. The Mohawks instinct was to fight the intruders and they were clearly seeking to delay the Faunus emerging from the area immediately adjacent to the Bullhead. However, there were fewer Mohawks than he expected. At that point he realised the shooting must have started at the mine's gates and that the attackers had planned to distract some of the defenders. This suggested that the White Fang were rather more competent than he had given them credit for. The head of mine security was moving towards the mine entrance and was being followed by those of his team who were near him. The others had joined up with the Mohawks. The mine workers had sensibly taken refuge in their barracks.
The Major knew that if the White Fang suspected that the explosion had been deliberate his men and the mine employees would be lucky to escape with their lives. He and the CSM would certainly be executed as would the mine manager and the head of security. While it was tempting to simply make a dash for it in the military bullhead, he knew that he had to stay put for now. If obvious evidence of a massacre of branded Faunus existed, then his involvement could not be hidden from Magenta and Ironwood. Besides which running away leaving civilians to face the White Fang alone would be seen as cowardice in the face of the enemy and he doubted that the job offer from Raddock would survive the disgrace. He cursed the fact that the pilot had followed protocol when parking the bullhead as it would not be possible for the pilot to bring the front cannon and guns to bear on the attackers.
He wished that he had not selected his accompanying troops for stupidity. Still, he had no reason to doubt their bravery and ordered two of them to cover the retreat of the management team and himself towards the mine and to then join him there. The advantage of the mine was that there would be a narrow entrance which would reduce the importance of the numerical disadvantage and allow them to keep the White Fang at bay. If this were primarily a demonstration of power and a heist, then perhaps they would content themselves by stealing the dust and blowing up the management buildings. To increase the attractiveness to the White Fang of this option he ordered the other two soldiers to capture some Faunus workers and take them to the mine with them. His aim was to use them as a form of hostage/Faunus shield. The thought of killing some of their own may dissuade the White Fang from a frontal attack.
He heard rather than saw the launch of a surface to air missile which hit the main engines of the third bullhead. While he hoped that it might reduce the odds a little and perhaps have taken out the leader of the attack, it would not have improved the mood of the attackers. He turned round and saw a Mohawk carrying the missile launcher retreating back to the armoury. It did rather suggest that the head Mohawk had guessed that the explosion was no accident and had decided that surrender was not an option. It looked as though at least one person on board the bullhead had unlocked their aura to judge by the lack of hesitation they showed in leaping from the falling aircraft just before it exploded.
He ordered the pilot to notify home base and Captain Schnee. He also tried to contact CSM Verde but did not get a response. He then heard a second explosion from within the mine followed by the sound of gunfire. The latter suggested that the CSM still had some bodies to bury. The strategic withdrawal to the mine would need to be rather slower than he would have preferred.
He turned round as he heard a third explosion from the mine and saw someone moving incredibly quickly emerging from the mine entrance followed shortly by a rather damaged looking CSM Verde. The CSM fired again and hit the moving object. The Major saw an aura shatter and the CSM fired again. This time the wound seemed to be fatal, but the Major was certain that he was not the only one who saw that the dead Faunus had the initials of the SDC branded over his eye.
This was confirmed by a roar of anger from a bear Faunus who charged the soldiers he had sent to take hostages. The bullets they fired bounced off his aura and they turned to run. It did not do them any good and the other two soldiers' shots were also ineffective. The bear Faunus seemed to have a berserker semblance which did not augur well for survival of any human at the mine.
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Winter was scrutinising various photographs which had been sent in by multi-kingdom supply flights. Not for the first time she realised the value of having an intelligent local guide who could identify the various nomadic tribes quickly. So far they had seen nothing which had cause them to alter their course, although she had alerted a few mines that some vehicles were in their vicinity and to take precautions. She was in the command part of the ship with Lieutenant Amin, Sergeant Hartnell and Mr Corkran.
She checked in with Major Magenta and Specialist Ebi who had nothing substantive to report either. Suddenly the comms technician switched on the intercom and said, "Captain, I have an incoming call from the Rising Sun mine reporting an armed attack by the White Fang with multiple hostiles."
"Who is calling, and can you patch them through?"
"I have Pilot Ambrose on the line."
"Patch him through to me. Alert the Major and Specialist Ebi that we have a probable incident. Lieutenant Amin tell the pilot to head at maximum speed for the Rising Sun mine."
"Immediately, Sir."
On the screen in front of her she saw a clearly terrified man saying, "Pilot Ambrose, sir."
"Captain Schnee here. We are heading in your direction. Could you report on the position at the mine?"
"The mine is being overrun by the White Fang. They must have hijacked three SDC supply ships and came in on them. As far as I can tell the ships were expected. At the same time a small group attacked the front gates. There are at least forty of them. The Major is retreating to the mine along with the staff and hopes that they will merely steal the dust and blow up the office buildings. However, just before they arrived there was an explosion in a newly reopened shaft in the mine and there are multiple dead Faunus workers. The local mine security force has just shot one of the Bullheads down with a surface to air missile. I would try to take off, but unfortunately I was in the process of refuelling when the attack started. My co-pilot is trying to disconnect the fuelling pump so I can safely take off, but the attackers are prioritising my ship as a target. I need to defend the ship."
Lieutenant Amin returned and placed a bit of paper in front of her saying ETA 1 hour 30 minutes. Winter nodded and said to the pilot, "We will be with you in 90 minutes, Pilot Ambrose. Good luck."
Winter thought about the report. If the White Fang had hijacked three bullheads then they must have come from somewhere. "Lieutenant Amin, contact the SDC in Atlas and ask them where the supply flight originated from and if there were any scheduled stops before it arrived at the mine."
The comms technician said "Sir, I have alerted Major Magenta and Specialist Ebi and they are also heading towards the mine. I also have a member of the Mine security team on the line. Shall I patch him through, sir?"
"Do so."
The face of an older man appeared with a distinctive haircut. He must be one of the Mohawks. She gestured for Corkran to join her and put the man on speaker.
"Brian Thrush of the Mohawk tribe reporting. There are approximately fifty hostiles in all of whom five appear to be wounded. Some must have died in the crash of the third bullhead. They have one squad targeting the armoury and another Major Bronze's ship. The Atlas soldiers accompanying Major Bronze are already dead. I started the feed to the black box at the first sign of trouble. The hijacked convoy was SDC convoy 30 which was scheduled to make a stop at Supply base 16 before landing here. The guide accompanying the hostiles who attacked the front gate was Archie Gris. Your Mr Corkran will be able to give you more background on him. If you have the band width I can leave a camera showing the screens on my control desk and attach it to the second external CCT line. I suspect that the cameras will all be taken out shortly, but it may give you useful intelligence."
"Mr Thrush. Please do so. The more real time intelligence we have the better."
"Doing so now."
The comms technician was told to record the pictures and put them up on the main screen in the airship.
"Mr Thrush. We are at least 85 minutes away from you. If you are unable to join Major Bronze in the mine, then I would suggest that you surrender. The White Fang has not in the past shown themselves to be ruthless towards security employees who are merely doing the job, especially when they are not citizens of Atlas or Mistral."
"If I thought it was feasible, I would."
"Please explain why it is not."
"To do so would be in breach of my tribe's contract with the SDC and with the Schnee family. I am not at liberty to discuss these further or to provide footage unless I am ordered to by the SDC or a direct descendant of Nicholas Schnee."
Winter took the hint, "I am captain Winter Schnee, the oldest grandchild of Nicholas Schnee. I order you to disclose to me the reasons why you do not believe that surrender is an option." She thanked the fact that her grandfather had taken the view that he wanted to ensure that people did not justify keeping him in the dark on the basis that it was best for the company if he did not know all that was being done.
"Winter Schnee, these words are for you only. What you do with them afterwards is your own affair."
Winter took him off speaker and said, "You are now talking only to me."
"Just before the attack started there was an accident in which it is likely that around fifty Faunus workers died. The circumstances were suspicious. The workers who were underground had arrived within the last week and had been kept separate from the rest of the workforce. They were working in a part of the mine which has been closed for three years because it was considered dangerous and against the wishes of the mine engineer. Major Bronze arrived here three hours ago and spent time in the workers barracks. I am now sending you an edited recording of some of the security footage from the time just before the explosion in the mine to the start of this call. It is marked for your eyes only and the code is Honour. I suggest you watch carefully."
He paused, and said to Winter, "If I die today, I suggest that you allow Mr Corkran to break the news to my family. He will know what to say."
"Understood. Should I let you return to the fight or is there anything more to report."
"The tapes say it better than I can. Do not trust Umber Raddock. Please consider my tribe's request for employment."
Winter saw that Mr Corkran had scribbled a note to her with some words on it.
"Over. Today is a good day for your enemies to die."
The man laughed and said before he hung up "Always preferred that version."
Winter spoke to the comms technician who forwarded her the link marked for her eyes only. She typed in the word "honour", and she watched the footage of an Atlas CSM shooting an unarmed Faunus in the back and saw that one eye of the Faunus advertised the SDC. She hit the table hard.
She looked at her three companions. "If anyone asks he refused to disclose confidential information to captain Schnee as that would be in breach of his tribe's contract."
She then contacted Colonel White. "Sir, I have reason to believe that the White Fang may have taken over SDC supply base 27. I recommend that you send the nearest bullhead to that base to investigate. I would suggest that the crew assume that the white Fang have weapons which are capable of shooting down an airship and take all necessary precautions. I would also suggest that the SDC is asked to contact the base in an unobtrusive a way as possible."
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General Ironwood was watching some of the fourth-year students having practice bouts and considering where would be the most appropriate place to post them next year when they graduated when his scroll buzzed with the alarm which meant that a serious incident was occurring. He strode out of the arena and made for his command room.
Clover Ebi was holding for him so clearly something was happening in Vacuo.
"Specialist Ebi, report"
"Sir, there is a White Fang attack underway in Vacuo at an SDC mine called the Rising Sun. Captain Schnee is the nearest to the mine and expects to be there in around eighty minutes. There are around fifty hostiles. The mine is sending its security camera footage to Captain Schnee although some cameras are already offline. She is forwarding it to Colonel White. Sir, it appears to be a major escalation by the SDC. The main attack was launched from three bullheads which they had hijacked from the SDC. There are already casualties amongst the mine staff. In addition, there are military casualties. Major Bronze was visiting the mine with his CSM, a pilot and co-pilot and four privates. We do not know why he was there. It appears that there was an accident in the mine immediately before the attack took place."
"Thank you. Please keep me updated. I trust you, Schnee and Magenta to make the right call without referring back to me. Obviously if you do need my input do contact me."
He then contacted Colonel White and ordered him to transmit the footage over the secure military line. It was not as though the fact of the attack could be hidden for long and the line was reasonably secure. He then called Jacques Schnee's office. He did not insist on speaking to Jacques but left a message that the Atlas military was responding to the attack on the Rising Sun mine in Vacuo and saying that he anticipated that the SDC would provide all the assistance needed to deal with the attack.
Still the fact that the White Fang had finally escalated its campaign would cause major ructions in Atlas. He concentrated and recalled his contingency plans and applied his semblance mettle to their implementation. He expected that the fallout would lead to others accepting that the military was the one institution which could be trusted to put the good of Atlas above all other considerations.
Clearly there was going to need to be a massive increase in security at Atlas multi-kingdom installations and at embassies. He anticipated that the multi-kingdoms would demand a subsidy from the Atlas government or at the very least a low interest loan and his plan would be that the trade-off would be a significant increase in the annual payments made by the multi-kingdoms to the military. They may even be desperate enough to offer an equity stake although in the long term that would risk a conflict of interest.
There would be scope for a trade-off between financial and political costs. He was ready to pull the trigger on the revelations about Atlas Gold's involvement in the attempted assassination of Parsifal Campion. Marigold would have to resign from the council and once he had gone he would demand that multi-kingdom's give up their seat on the council for it to be replaced with an elected seat for which Mantle residents would vote. At the very least the Campion/Marigold partnership would be split. The other multi-nationals would probably prefer to lose the seat and have a reduced payment to the Atlas military rather than fight among themselves for who would succeed Marigold. Jacques Schnee would be the obvious choice, but in the past he had taken the view that he preferred to exercise his influence indirectly.
Perversely the fact that Jacques Schnee's advisers had been cleverer than those of his competitors gave him an additional weapon in agreeing with the multi-kingdoms that they should forfeit their council seat. The fact that the SDC was less vulnerable to being required to compensate its workers for its pricing practices for company stores in the past meant that they would be desperate to get him to agree to forget about forcing them to make good on their past breaches of the rules. Still, they were all going to have to obey the spirit as well as the letter of the rules in the future. He was sure that Sleet and Camilla would agree with him that suspending the order to recompense the employees would be conditional on good behaviour.
Some of the multi-kingdoms would no doubt threaten to relocate to Mistral, but the reality was that Mistral did not have the military capacity to cover locations outside Mistral. Actually, they had given up having an effective military presence in around a third of the kingdom and simply told people to pay the Branwen tribe and others protection money. One downside of that was that the Branwen tribe had become a de facto government and their main fighting in the last few years had been mopping up the other tribes and appropriating their loot. This left an interesting problem when they had finished the job of whether they would then expand their activities into more of Mistral. The Atlas intelligence service had picked up rumours that towns outside the Branwen tribe's traditional stomping grounds were offering them incentives to take care of other less disciplined tribes.
He did wonder what Bronze had been doing at the mine with so few troops. Clearly he had not suspected that there would be an attack. He wondered whether he would get the chance to ask him.
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Umber Raddock had cleared his diary for the time when the burying of the evidence was timetabled to happen. He knew that he needed to report the incident immediately to Jacques Schnee and be ready to blame the engineer at the mine.
The call came through on time, but the content was not what he expected. The manager shouted at him "We are being attacked by the White Fang. They arrived at the same time as the accident."
"What accident?" Umber was not risking leaving something which suggested the accident had been pre-arranged and hoped that the manager would take the hint.
The manager did and replied, "The new shaft caved in and set off an explosion. Fifty workers, the chief engineer and four overseers are believed to have been caught in the collapse."
"How many White Fang are there?"
The man explained about the bullheads carrying White Fang troops and that the Atlas military were about ninety minutes away. He said that the security chief was contacting Winter Schnee, and Bronze had ordered them to retreat to the mine. Umber could hear the sound of gunfire and then the sounds of more explosions.
"What is happening now?"
"The Mohawks have just shot down a bullhead with a rocket launcher and there have been additional explosions in the mine."
"Look after yourself and I will speak to you later."
He swore to himself. This was a horrible coincidence. Still perhaps he had bought it on himself by boasting about the potential new seam at the mine and then delaying the accident until the bullheads were about to land at the mine.
Still, he must not panic. He could still come out on top provided he did certain things by the book and lied about others. He picked up his scroll and called head office in Atlas to speak to Jacques Schnee. He needed to report before the military did and he could always say that it was too early to give Jacques any substantive details and that he needed to take charge of things in Vacuo.
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Rouge cursed when he heard the gunfire from the gates of the mine. Understandably those with the DesertRovers had mistaken the explosion in the mine for the attack. He sent the codeword for all-out attack to his troops and encouraged the pilot to speed up the landing. To his relief no more Atlas troops appeared, but the security guards with the weird hair had clearly decided to make a fight of it rather than surrendering instantly. Still, he could not blame then as the DesertRovers contingent had seemed to open fire before giving those at the gate an option to surrender.
He sent a message to Bruno to send some of the troops with the strongest aura to capture the military bullhead. If that got airborne then it could really cause problems for them and could at the very least take out the bullheads so they could not make a getaway.
He heard the pilot gasp and turned round to see an old guy aiming a rocket launcher in his direction. He switched his aura to the maximum and made for the exit. His odds of surviving the drop were greater than those of surviving the explosion. He had just jumped when the bullhead exploded. He felt most of his aura disappear as the explosion hit and more by instinct than design landed on the ground feet first and with bent knees.
He must then have passed out for a time as he awoke later after a stiff jab in the ribs to find himself being given water by Bruno. "How long was I out for?"
"About 30 minutes. We have won, but at a cost. You are the only survivor from the bullhead they shot down and another four died at the gates. We have seven wounded who should survive."
"What happened to the workers?"
"The one's outside the mine have all survived. Boss, the explosion which occurred as we were landing came from inside the mine. We have looked inside the mine and there is little chance any of them survived. The miners estimate that there would have been around 50 workers. The miners are adamant that the deaths are down to the SDC. The only argument is whether it was criminal negligence or cold-blooded murder. I know it is the latter."
"Why would they kill 50 workers? Even Adam says they preferred to make individual examples rather than go in for mass murder."
"One of them ran from the mine before he was shot in the back by a warrant officer. His eye was scarred in the same way as Adam. Before he died he said that there were another thirty like him in the mine and the warrant officer had set off explosives to bury them."
"How did he get out?"
"The explosion activated his aura and he discovered he had a speed semblance. He apparently nearly trapped the warrant officer by setting out an explosive he had prepared in case the first two failed to get everyone."
"Can we prove this?"
"Probably not. He died after telling Lawrence this and he did not think to activate his scroll to film. I have taken pictures of his eye, but we know they will say that we faxed it after death."
"Do we have any prisoners who might testify as to what happened?"
The bear Faunus paused and said, "No. For once it was not my fault. The mine workers scragged most of the overseers while we were fighting the people with hair and the soldiers are all dead. I killed the Major myself in hand to paw combat. We tried to get some of the security guards with the odd hair cut to surrender, but their leader said he preferred to die quickly."
"The managers seemed to be heading to the mine when the bullhead exploded. Did you get them?"
"The miners estimate that there were about six there including the manager and the human head of security. We captured an Atlas military ship and Winston thinks he knows enough to fire the missiles into the mine entrance and bring down the rest of the mine on top of them. Seems only just."
"Do so. We need to get out of here quickly as no doubt they got out a warning signal."
"They may have been bluffing, but before he died the leader of the silly haircut men said that an airship carrying Winter Schnee, and a fully armoured squad of Atlas soldiers was within an hour of the mine. He suggested we make our escape promptly and take some of the workers who killed the overseers with us."
"If we can use the missiles to blow up the mine and blow up the management buildings then it sounds like good advice."
"Rouge, the workers and some of the men were rather angry about the explosion in the mine. I am afraid that none of the bodies are a pretty sight. It did not help that I activated my semblance when I saw the warrant office shoot an unarmed Faunus in the back and while I was berserk eviscerated the soldiers including the Major. Some of the miners decided that this was a good example to follow."
Rouge winced; it was clear that Atlas had the ammunition it needed to accuse the White Fang of atrocities. It might have been better if Adam had led the attack.
"Ok, tell the miners that everyone involved in scragging the overseers or who mutilated the bodies had better hightail it out of here with us. No need to spell out that someone will rat them out if they stay behind."
Bruno breathed a sigh of relief, "I hoped you would say that."
Rouge nodded. He was finding it hard to concentrate. "Bruno, how badly I am hurt."
"Pretty bad. Bill said that you might stand a chance if we could get you to a hospital, but otherwise the only option was to pump you full of morphine to mask the pain."
"Thought so. Look if the man was not lying about Schnee then we need to run a diversion. Do we have six people who do not know the coordinates of the rendezvous point with Adam and would welcome the chance to have a pop at a Schnee? Preferably ones with more brawn than brain. Explain that it is likely to be a mission with zero survival chance."
"For a chance at a Schnee there are many contenders."
"Look, I have seen her fight. Unless they are incredibly lucky, I will be amazed if they even cause her to change her cloak. I presume that you have been unable to find the homing device in the Atlas ship."
Bruno looked blank, "The what?"
"Atlas is paranoid about people stealing their ships. There is an automatic identification signal in each ship which can be used to track them. They can be switched off in time of war, but there are some security protocols which need to be gone through. They may think that we do not know about them and so will follow the Atlas signal rather than hunting for your two ships. I got the SDC pilots to show our lads how to switch off the tracking devices on their bullheads. Greater risk of bandit attack in Mistral means that the option is easier to implement. You fly the two bullheads and meet up with Adam. I will take the military ship in the wrong direction and hope they all follow me. Actually, leave me with that rocket launcher, it may allow us to take some more people with us."
Bruno nodded and held Rouge's hand. He would miss the longnecked Giraffe Faunus.
Rouge looked around and said, "That building looks surprisingly intact. How come?"
"The silly haircut man told us he had booby trapped it. No one was firing from it and all we could see in it was a row of security screens."
"Throw some grenades at it. We do not want them to have full coverage of the raid. You did shoot out the security cameras?"
Bruno equivocated and said, "Too much was happening early on to devote time to them, and it hardly seemed worth the effort afterwards."
"Blow it up now. We want to leave them with as few clues possible about our escape route."
Rouge coughed and prepared himself for his last hours. "Bruno, tell Julie that I cared for her and that I am sorry for being a jerk about what she did for the cause."
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Adam was being driven towards the rendezvous point. This was the frustrating part of the mission. There was nothing he could do now. He would not know what had happened for hours. He held Blake close to him and blew in her ear.
The supply base had been left intact and the civilians left after being tied up and given a mild dose of tranquiliser. They had been warned that the main headquarters building was booby trapped and that a bomb would go off in three hours. Unless they were incredibly stupid the Atlas authorities would work out where and when the White Fang had hijacked the bullheads. For the moment, the supply station was playing a recorded message that there was a technical issue with the CCT equipment and that it was not receiving calls. They had left the supply base shortly after the bullheads had taken off and the manager had confirmed to SDC headquarters that the bullheads were on their way to the Rising Sun mine. There was five hours until the next supply bullhead was due and there seemed to be nothing to be gained from sticking around.
It was amusing seeing Beige realising quite how much he had been played for a sucker. Ilia had opened his lap scroll and was busily identifying the choicest extracts to be leaked to the Menagerie and Vale press. Julie was telling him how proud he should be to be the most effective double agent the White Fang had ever had within the SDC and how completely he had betrayed Jacques Schnee and Umber Raddock. Adam made a note to himself to make certain that the man was kept in a room without sharp instruments and to confiscate his belt and shoelaces.
Fifteen minutes after the expected time of the raid starting two messages were received on the lap scroll of particular interest. The first was an instruction to all SDC staff in Vacuo to go into lockdown mode and to provide full assistance to the Atlas military if requested. The second was a personal message from Umber Raddock to Beige ordering him to cut short his vacation and head back to Vacuo.
It was clear that the attack was underway.
I probably have only three/four more chapters to go on this one. For those who read the fight scene at Junior's in Learning to lead, Learning to Follow, Bruno's ability to withstand bullets here but not in that one is down to the fact that bullets fired by Coco using her semblance and a blast from Oobleck's weapon are in a different league from bullets fired by ordinary soldiers. It also means that him carrying on charging was not a totally irrational choice in light of his past experience. I have made a few small adjustments to chapter 21 of Learning to Lead, Learning to Follow to reflect changes to the time of day of the attack. Any remaining inconsistencies are deliberate ones and reflect a decision by the narrator of the story to ease over embarrassing facts.
