Fire Night
"The liquid natural gas storage facility by the docks." So they'd be operating around several thousand tons of highly flammable, highly explosive natural gas. There were muttered expletives over the armored trooper team's channel. Pucker factor, K-11-2 reflected grimly. As if being out fighting boomers in an armored trooper wasn't enough to make you clench.
"I want well-aimed, controlled fire people." K-11-2 said. He thought about adding something, but the consequences were pretty clear already. "Stand by to drop."
They dropped into darkness. "McNichol, what gives?"
"Power's cut. Boomers rampaged through the substation before we got here. One of them got a little screwed up in the process and we popped him, but there are eight more at least. All of them are 55Cs." Leon replied over the radio. "Evacuation's out to a block so far."
K-11-2 popped his chute . "You thinking it's legit?" The ADP wasn't the best-paid bunch in Megatokyo. That didn't make them stupid. After-action reports, examination of dead boomers, analysis of attack patterns, all of that had indicated that boomer attacks fell into two categories. Some of them were genuine rampages, undirected and generally messy. Some were too directed, too controlled, and most of all too coordinated, with Boomers ganging up on response forces and employing tactics.
Those were the ones that weren't legit. K-11-2 could almost hear the shake of Leon's head. "If it were legit we would have popped more than one."
K-11-2 blew the explosive bolts that held his parachute on when he saw flashes of weapons fire in a nearby building. A rough landing on jets was better than getting blown away hanging from your 'chute. He touched down two seconds later, suit jets flaring.
Something came flying through the wall ahead of him, on a perpendicular course to his line of fire. He tracked it with his weapon, but it was obvious the flight was uncontrolled so he didn't bother firing.
A green hardsuit. His weapon snapped back to the hole in the wall and he opened fire before the boomer even showed itself. "Two is engaged." A moment later his shots began hitting the boomer as it came after the hardsuit.
"Four-Four, should I move to support?"
"Negative." The green hardsuit was definitely Saber Green, but she wasn't getting up. The boomer paused, torn between a high-priority target and a high-threat target. That cost it badly as K-11-2 had a moment to tighten his shot grouping and batter the Boomer's head to pieces. "Two is clear."
"Two, Four-Eight, the boomers have started a fire by the docks."
Oh fuck. "Clear out. Four-Four, get to work on evacing buildings. We don't have much time."
"Two, you're not coming with?"
"I'm going to see about what kind of safety measures I can trigger." And I can't exactly leave a Knight Saber here to fry.
He approached the green hardsuit at a run, his external speakers clicking on. "Saber Green, if you can move you need to do it." No response. Dammit. He reached down, carefully, and lifted the hardsuit. It was much smaller than his K-11, and surprisingly light. The total of suit and wearer couldn't be more than a hundred and fifty kilos, probably less. A K-11 suit weighed slightly more than half a ton, and easily lifted such a light weight.
He turned, holding the hardsuit gingerly in one of his own suit's hands, noting that it appeared to be locked up; it didn't dangle limply. Well, that was probably good. Back towards the control building, and surveyed the hole in the wall. Still had power inside, backup generator of some sort. Probably safety measures he could trigger. "McNichol, have you got the yard engineers handy?"
Linna Yamazaki came to quickly. Tried to move. Found she couldn't. At the same time she realized she was looking at the ground from a distance of at least a meter.
"Linna!" Nene's voice.
"Here." Linna replied tersely, more than a little stressed out trying to figure out what was happening to her.
"What's going on? Your suit's telemetry isn't working." Sylia, this time.
"I honestly have no idea." Linna replied. "I blacked out for a moment. Hardsuit is non-responsive. Diagnostics are non-responsive. Joints are locked." She glanced towards the blue leg next to her. "There's an ADP armored trooper here. Must have killed the boomer I was fighting. I think he's trying to get me clear."
"Keep broadcasting. We'll triangulate and home in." Sylia replied. She looked towards Nene. "And get me the ADP frequency, I want to hear what the armored trooper's saying."
Safety measures in place. Hopefully it was enough. K-11-2 turned and then immediately threw himself behind a concrete dividing wall at the faint infrared traces down the hall leading to this room. Weapons, cannon and laser, blasted into the wall.
"Two is engaged. At least two of them." He killed his transmission and used his speakers. "Sorry Saber Green, this might get a bit rough."
"Four-Four, move to support?"
K-11-2 switched transmission back on. "Negative, keep moving. Safety measures don't necessarily work."
"That's him." Linna said. "Two is him."
Priss snorted at the obvious professionalism in the ADP's communications, but now was not the time to actually comment and even she knew it.
The military-issue 20mm kicked harder than the ADP's K-11 was programmed to deal with, requiring the pilot to actively manage the recoil. The heavier round and higher muzzle velocity were more than adequate compensation, actually able to pierce the armor of a combat boomer at short ranges. K-11-2 demonstrated this by blasting a tight cluster of holes in one of the attacking boomers, knocking out its power system. The other was much too close and there was no way he'd get the gun around in time.
K-11-2 hit his suit jets out of desperation, trying for a leap back in a room that wasn't quite high-ceilinged enough to allow it, counting on the fact that most corporate space has a false ceiling to hide the ductwork and the like. Ceiling tiles flew everywhere, fluorescent lighting shattered, and the K-11's head broke at least one sprinkler line. The landing wasn't steady and there was a ringing in his ears from hitting the pipe, but he'd bought a precious two and a half meters to blow the boomer's head clean off even as it tried to employ its mouth laser against him.
"Two is clear. How's the fire?"
"Burning the wrong way so far-" The transmission cut off in an earhurting squeal. Jamming, his suit's comm had squelched the noise a moment later.
"Shit." K-11-2 muttered. Not good.
Moments later Liquid Natural Gas Tank Number Three, about two hundred meters off, exploded.
"Saber Green. Can you hear me?"
Linna opened her eyes a second time and beheld a blasted, flaming cityscape. For a moment, she thought that she had died, and this was hell. But they wouldn't call me Saber Green in hell. She could move now, a little. The arms and the head appeared to have come unstuck. Next to her knelt a scorched but otherwise intact K-11 suit. On her radio was only the static of the jamming. "I can." The speakers and their deliberate distortion still worked.
"Can you move?" The K-11 asked.
"Legs are stuck." Linna replied. "Might be able to crawl."
"Not good enough. I'll piggyback you out."
Linna almost snorted. "So the ADP can arrest me?"
"You got an external temp gauge?" K-11-2 asked. "It's over a hundred and fifty degrees and getting hotter. There's the mother of all natural gas fires barely a hundred meters from here in two directions. You stay here, your suit's environmentals get overwhelmed or you run out of power, and you cook like an oven."
Linna broke out in a sweat, and it wasn't the heat. Sylia hadn't built the hardsuits to military spec, because there were things the military needed that the Knight Sabers didn't. Like heavy-duty cooling or heating for extreme climates. He was right. Unless she moved she was going to die. "All right."
The K-11 offered a shoulder and she took hold of it. "Watch our backtrail. There might still be boomers around here and I'd like us to live to tell," K-11-2 warned.
"Got it." Linna replied. It made her feel a tiny bit better that the K-11 pilot was not being dismissive, and allowed her at least the illusion of some control over her own fate. Maybe it was even real, too.
Sylia bounced an armored fist off the side of the transport truck. Her suit wasn't currently powered, though, so she didn't damage anything. "Mackie, tell me there's been some word."
"Nothing on ADP channels," Mackie replied. "The jamming is playing hell with it though, everyone's communicating through land lines. I'd know more if we were at base."
"How long the on the recharge?" Worry about the things you can change.
"Fifteen minutes to get Nene to full charge, thirty for whoever's next. I have satellite footage of the dock area-" Mackie's voice abruptly stopped. "Sis. It's bad. You remember the Nagasaki pictures?"
Priss and Nene were mercifully silent. "Yes." Sylia didn't want to hear more, but she knew she had to.
"It's like that. But on fire." Mackie's voice had dropped to a whisper.
Linna was beginning to wonder if it was possible to go to hell without dying. That would have explained much. Their trip across the blasted urban landscape was conducted in silence. It was quick at first, and Linna thought the K-11 pilot was trying to stay ahead of the flames. Now it had slowed, become more cautious.
There was a soft "son of a bitch" and Linna glanced forward again. ADP, foot types. Dead. Linna was struck by the fact she'd become inured to seeing dead ADP officers so much that she didn't give them a second thought. To the K-11 pilot, these were people. Maybe even friends. Linna silently cursed herself for being callous while the K-11 made it's way over and took their rifles and ammo, slinging them around his suit's head.
"What's that for?" Linna wasn't sure why he'd take them when he had a weapon already.
"I don't have an infinite amount of ammo. There should have been a truck here with reloads. They must have been able to get out when things went to hell." There was a muttered comment her hardsuit's damaged mics didn't pick up clearly.
K-11-2 was swearing bloody vengeance on whoever had left these two poor bastards here, whether they'd been dead when they were left or not. Being tight-knit was all the ADP had when it came to offering something unique, and so they took it deadly serious. No officer would willingly leave behind another officer.
Linna spotted movement. "Dead rear, two hundred meters."
K-11-2 swung around and raised his weapon. Two hundred meters. Good optics, good eyes, on that girl. He saw it too. A form, semi-human, emerging from a building. Two hundred meters was more than enough room to blast it before it got close. He edged towards a building regardless, in case he needed cover himself. "This might get-"
"A little rough. I remember." Linna was worried. Her hardsuit was running on emergency batteries, she'd been able to determine that much. She hadn't been very active moving or the like, and she'd turned off a number of non-essential systems so her power reserves were going to last awhile. But it wasn't infinite. "There's a chance my suit's going to run out of power soon."
"That would complete the evening's going to shit." The K-11 pilot's sardonic comment was surprisingly appropriate to how Linna felt. "I know that thing's pretty light from when I picked you up the first time. Can you still move with the power off?"
"For a while, but not well."
"Goddammit Chief we have people still in there!" Leon McNichol had a cut on his face that was still bleeding. He looked rather insane because of it, and because he was only a few moments from beating the hell out of his superior officer. Daley restrained him with a hand on the shoulder.
"I know that! But it's not safe. We'd have to send in armored troopers if we sent in anyone and the fire department needs their help building firebreaks so the whole damn city doesn't burn down. Now stand down, Inspector."
"Priss, no buts. The whole city is going to hell and the fires might beat the fire department. I need Nene's suit and its extra sensor gear with me. Go with Mackie." Sylia's voice had taken on the hard edge that even Priss was reluctant to argue with. If the fires swept over one of the Knight Saber's hideaways, someone had to make sure it was empty first. That meant using a hardsuit to do the heavy lifting of packing stuff away.
And there was no way Sylia was leaving Linna out there. She was going to find her, fires or no fires.
"How many?" Linna asked.
"Can't get a good count. Four combat types, some others. Which means someone blew the initial count or the local service boomer population isn't taking the disaster well." They hadn't known each other long, but they were working well together all things considered. The K-11 pilot clearly respected her, which almost had her laughing. The first man she'd ever met who she thought really respected her, and they'd never see each other's faces. The sheer disgusting bitter irony of it all, Linna reflected, and cradled one of the assault rifles close. Without being able to move her legs, her usual means of fighting boomers didn't work. On backup power, her lasers would have just left her helpless after a couple of shots.
The 20mm cannon K-11-2 carried spat a dozen rounds at a combat boomer, which took about half of them in the torso and right arm. The resulting explosion of several rounds in an ammo feed for the boomer's arm weapon tore the arm off and took a chunk out of the torso, but it got back up. K-11-2 resisted the urge to shake his head. If he ran out of 20mm ammo and there were still combat boomers around, they were screwed.
Linna dragged herself forward with one arm, grabbing what was left of the concrete wall they were using for cover, and started looking for things that she could hurt with the rifle.
"I've got a locator beacon." Nene said softly. "I think. Stupid jamm-"
"Now is not the time." Sylia replied. "Lead the way."
Linna swore aloud as a combat boomer, the last combat boomer, bounced several rounds off her armor, but didn't stop her effort to kill the waitress model that had delusions of posing a threat. At her feet was a small pile of expended cartridges from the rifle, the result of several minutes of fighting.
K-11-2 shot the combat boomer, twenty rounds, all he had left for the twenty millimeter. It was enough, and the combat model came apart in a most satisfying manner. "Still with me?"
"Yes." Linna replied, terse and controlled, a brief burst from the rifle she was holding tearing the head off the waitress boomer.
A note of grim humor entered K-11-2's voice. "Good, because one of those laser shots fuzed this suit's left knee joint, so I can't run or manage a landing from a jump. And," he tossed the 20mm on the ground and tore his rifle's shoulder sling pulling it to a ready position from where it hung around his suit's head, the human-sized weapon looking like a toy in the K-11's hands, "I'm out of twenty ammo."
Linna almost laughed. She would have never thought she was susceptible to black humor, but she was rather enjoying this K-11 pilot's take on it. "But your trigger finger still works."
"Small mercies." K-11-2 heard jump jets behind him and turned. There was little he could do to a Boomer with jump jets right now, but damned if he was going to go down in any fashion besides guns blazing. Not a boomer. Two Knight Saber hardsuits. "Your friends are here."
At the same moment the jamming died away.
"Linna." Sylia said over the radio.
"Here. Still not really mobile, legs still don't work." Linna replied. "But I've made a friend, so it wasn't that bad."
Sylia looked to the K-11, which had gone back watching for boomers. A cool one, this ADP pilot. She hit the speakers. "You seem to be doing reasonably well for yourself."
Her reply from the K-11 was a derisive snort. "Sure. Practically in paradise. If you're asking permission to take your friend and go, we both know you don't need it." A pause. "Though Saber Green, I'd ask a favor." The K-11 shot another waitress boomer to pieces with its borrowed rifle at a hundred meters and made to swap mags.
Sylia blinked under her helmet. Not a bad display there. She and Linna could have managed to both talk and target like that with an unfamiliar weapon, Priss...maybe, but Nene would never have managed it. Linna didn't consult with Sylia before answering, though, which got Sylia's attention again. "What do you need?"
"The rifle you've got? Fire it at the back of my head. It won't do anything serious, but I need an excuse to say my black box is broken so the chief doesn't fire my ass for doing my job and saving lives, even Knight Saber lives." K-11-2 said it matter-of-fact. He had faith in his suit, a rare thing for an ADP officer. Then again, he was the only one with reason to have faith in the K-11.
Linna took aim and fired a short burst, then tossed the rifle on the ground. The K-11 rocked just enough to be perceptible at the hit. The pilot waved his free hand. "How long do you need to get clear before I can pop my locator beacon?"
Sylia stared at the suit's back. "Why this much trouble?"
"Because I'm an ADP officer and you're the goddamn Knight Sabers. Who do you suppose is more useful to the city overall?" K-11-2 replied.
Linna almost giggled. This K-11 pilot reminded her vaguely of Priss, same sort of thought process and manner of speech, but without the self-centered hostility. Then she felt sick. She was actually going to miss a man, and...unfair didn't even begin to describe this situation.
For the first time in her life she regretted being a Knight Saber as Sylia said "Two minutes." and the other two Knight Sabers lifted Linna by the arms to carry her to safety.
"LEON!" Daley was agitated, in itself a rather rare thing. "We've got an armored trooper locator beacon from inside the fire area."
Leon grinned fiercely. "Knew they couldn't kill him. Bastard leads a charmed life." He turned back towards the man he was conversing with, an armored trooper transport pilot. "I have a man down out there and he needs help. Get this bird in the air in the next two minutes or you have my word I'll shoot you and find somebody who will."