Second Contact
"Saber Lead, Zulu Two. You here to dance solo or with partners?" An oblique reference to command and coordination on an open frequency from the USSD suits. Sylia didn't reply. Jumping directly into the firefight would be suicide. There was no meaningful cover out there with the weapons being used and they didn't have the armor to play that game.
"Take the alley and get concealed." Sylia said to her subordinates. She needed to decide how best to approach this situation.
In a moment of clarity, Linna saw it laid out before her. She could jump there, hop, somersault, cut left... They could not stop her. Half a dozen Boomers down. It would cut the heart of the Tower Defense BU-12s. She lit her jets, ignoring the reprimand from Sylia.
Green had to be crazy, leaping out like that, and yet-
Her arms lashed out, nanocutters slicing through one Boomer, leaping over it, landing lightly, arms out, pumping a burst of laserfire into another, literally using it as a pommel horse, igniting her jets to blast another in the face with the exhaust, cutting left around a charging one and hamstringing it. Impossible grace, belonging to an Olympic gymnast and not a suit of armor as she tore through the main force of the attacking Tower Defense group.
God help him, it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "Able Zulu! Clean up what the lady drops!" His K-12Z shifted from the backpedaling motion as his team covered the retreat of of the ADP suits into a forward charge, going from defense to offense, and the 30mm cannon hammered a Boomer flat with AP rounds.
"Linna you crazy bitch!" Priss swore over the radio.
Linna dodged aside to avoid a BU-55 and gave it a dose of lasers into the back that caused it to collapse. She was happy now, and her reply to Priss was filled with mocking laughter. "You coming, tough girl?" She performed a graceful turn on one ankle and ducked low, causing another Boomer's planned tackle to go wrong as it slid over her, and she stepped back and stomped on its head twice before giving it a brief burst of the suit jets, firing at yet another. It was suddenly all so simple, so easy; like dancing. Like breathing.
The BU-12s were all dead by now. They'd tried to reorient to cope with Saber Green's attack only for the K-12Zs to take up the offensive, using the breathing room to set up their shots and instead of merely suppressing start killing.
And a BU-55 was no match for a K-12Z. Sanderson backhanded one to the ground, something he would have been dead long before attempting in his ADP days, and killed it with the laser built into that arm. Nara's K-12Z was next to his, hammering away at a cluster of BU-55s with its cannon and both lasers, cutting them down. The Knight Sabers were rolling up the flank near them, belatedly joining Linna in her attack.
Had the Boomers been human, they could have been said to show the finest human courage and contempt for the odds. Instead they kept fighting because they didn't know how to surrender to save themselves. He kept hammering, kept killing targets. Another thirty seconds later and the last one slumped over, spilling metallic debris across the ground. "Cease fire!" he called on speakers, over the sound of one last cannon burst from another of the K-12Zs.
Less than ten meters away was a hardsuit. Saber Blue, in fact. He switched to radio, the frequency used by his team only. "No sudden movements," he breathed. "Let's not provoke them." As far as he knew, this was the closest anyone had ever been to an armored Knight Saber. They couldn't like this; his suit was within thirty meters of all four of them, which was about seventy meters closer than any ADP K-suit had gotten during his time on the force. The Knight Sabers didn't like letting people near them, didn't like being recorded. And K-suits were always recording. "Leave your electronics in their current modes. Cannon down."
"They're talking among themselves." Nene said nervously. "I can't crack their encryption."
Sylia was about as nervous as Nene sounded. She was proud, very proud, she had never lost a Knight Saber. If the USSD armored troopers went hostile now, if someone on either side felt a little threatened and fired...Sylia believed in her people and her hardsuits. She thought they could do anything, but only if they were given the chance to dictate how the battle was fought. Under these circumstances, bloodbath was probably a good description. "Take it easy," despite her nervousness, her tone was calm, cool. "They're probably as spooked as we are."
"They're not looking too spooked." Priss sounded uneasy, and her arms turned towards the dark gray suit nearest her, with the UN/USSD crest on one shoulder and the marking 12Z-2 on the other.
Fuck, don't do it Blue. "Weapons tight," Sanderson said softly over the ADP frequency. "Able Zulu, weapons tight. The Sabers are not a valid target. Individual acknowledgment. Now."
"Zulu Three. Acknowledged." "Zulu Four, acknowledged." "Zulu Five-"
"Their commander just told them to stand down." Nene said, relieved.
"Let's go." Sylia replied tersely.
They didn't even feel like talking...well, one last thing to do. A bit of quick electronics work gave him the frequency the Sabers talked to each other on. "Guess that makes us even, Saber Green."
The way that the Sabers froze momentarily as they turned to escape told him he'd been heard. Yet they didn't stay that way long. He hadn't expected an answer really, but he was still disappointed. Part of his mandate for being in town was to reach out and make friends with local forces. The Knight Sabers were local and a force.
"You were missed, Eleven-Two." The voice was not the distorted and unidentifible mess that the Knight Sabers used when they had to converse with anyone else normally, but clearly female, shot through with both mischief and warmth.
His eyes widened under his helmet.