Chapter 9: Raid
"You took your merry time", Lilith greeted Maya, as she strode into Raider's HQ. "And apparently you've jammed Sanctuary's Commerce Grid for at least a regular day. And you brought a bunch of mercenaries along, minus their captain."
"Caffeine", Maya demanded and dropped unceremoniously into a chair.
"Thank you for putting it that way." Lilith fished a package of coffee powder from the small galley and tossed it over. Her fellow Siren ripped it open and dipped the contents into her mouth without further ado. "Must have been a night of hard work."
"Don't mention it." As she had just acquired a crew of mercenaries who were eager to show their bought loyalty towards the Crimson Raiders, Maya had decided to just complete the salvage run properly. The wannabe-pirates were already pretty familiar with construction tools, so it hadn't taken them too long to dismantle the capital weaponry on board the wreck. It came down to eight heavy anti-ship guns, four AA-cannons, a number of mortars, Big Bertha and quite a stockpile of powerful surface-to-air missiles including fire-control radar for the bigger ones.
The tiring part had been to haul all those pieces of the deconstructed weapons, which didn't fit into a handheld SDU (read: the majority), to Liar's Berg and painstakingly feed every single one of them into the Commerce Grid. The Grid was one of the oldest pieces of Digistruct-technology on the planet and Scooter had once compared it to a mule: it was slow, it took some real effort to make it move in the right direction, but once on its track, it trudged on with incredible reliability.
"Scooter will love you for this job", Lilith continued, a teasing smile on her face.
"Scooter loves everything that isn't male, including his own sister", Maya retorted and licked the last remnants of coffee powder from her lips. The caffeine was already doing an admirable job, but it was a last-ditch effort. Even a Siren couldn't stay awake indefinitely. "Though, maybe I can squeeze a little monetary thank-you out of him. You know, like in the old days. When he was still managing to man all his garages himself and we weren't making crazy money by means of exporting Eridium and... bug-DNA."
"Give it a try. It might work. What did you do about Scarlett?"
"We tried to raise her on the ECHO and when that didn't work, we left a Surveyor at the Soaring Dragon. Maybe she'll come back. Looking at the greater picture, I don't think she's a major problem. I mean, she was trying to weld the holes in the Dragon shut, how desperate can you be? But on the small scale, I feel very satisfied about headhunting almost her entire crew. It's just... did you ever fight a Rakk Hive inside an enormous Sandworm? She still owes me at least a couple of teeth I would like to send out her mouth."
"But you don't reckon we should hunt her down."
"Nope. That would be a waste of resources and men and speaking of men, is there a chance that you might replace Noah Burns and Joseph DeStepan at Ferry Port? 'Cause these two truly did a decent job down there."
"Shouldn't be a problem. I..."
"Great, in that case, I'll be in my bunk." Maya forced herself out of the chair and made a beeline for the nearest cot. "Don't wake me unless something important happens. And when I'm talking about important, I'm talking about another Hyperion invasion, that scale."
"Go ahead", Lilith said smiling. "I'll be up and try to figure out a way to breach Control Core Angel. You've still got... twenty hours of night time left."
"That should definitely do the trick."
Hox awoke, when his Runner had already passed the metal walls protecting Ellie's Garage & Junkyard. Hastily he folded his legs back inside, which he had been dangling over the brim of the turret, put cushion and blanket back into his SDU and donned his gasmask, his goggles and his helmet.
The intercom crackled. "Test, Test, rise and shine!", Linda said.
The accelerating Runner blasted a stream of cold air in Hox' face, waking him up extremely quickly. "Test, Test, very funny."
"That's what the others think."
He sighed and did a quick 360° check, noticing several sneers and occasionally open laughter from other gunners and the boarders in the back of the technicals. He ignored them and checked his primary weapon, an AL-69 grenade launcher, crossbred with a couple of grenade-mods in order to deliver the appropriate ammunition for the enemy at hand. "Primary weapon check. Turret mobility check. Gunner check. All systems online. Ready to rock and roll, wherever we're going."
"High command green lit the raid on Convoy L5", Linda replied immediately. "We should be back in a couple of hours. Hopefully with some Rakk Ale to feast."
Hox nodded slowly and looked around. The raiding party consisted of ten Outrunners, five technicals with boarders in the cargo area and Gaspard's Monster. An impressive force, more than enough to deal with Convoy L5, which according to the scouts was barely six vehicles strong, two of them unarmed transporters. Actually, this was an overkill of biblical proportions, but that was what they were supposed to do: Intimidate the shit out of the Hodunks. It was the only language these people understood. Rhyme or reason or the fact that the Raiders could get almost limitless off-world supplies didn't bother Jimbo Hodunk the least and he who does not listen is consequentially the one who gets his ass handed to him.
"How long till engagement?", the gunner asked. Usually, Outrunners didn't need an independent intercom, but they didn't usually feature a closed, bulletproof cockpit either. They had made countless customizations, modifications and repairs over the ten years on mercenary road. Eventually they had earned themselves a permanent discount at Scooter's even before they had taken a contract with the Crimson Raiders.
"In the sense you're meaning it: twenty minutes at least. And in the sense you're not meaning it: never", Linda said sweetly and laughed.
"Oh no, all the years, all the kisses, all the sex... for naught", Hox muttered.
"You left your com on."
"I know. Do I need to fear reprisal for this comment?"
"Depends on the reprisal. I've had something in mind for the last couple of days, but that would require you to sleep in a place that differs from the turret."
"Could be arranged."
"In that case: You should be scared!"
"It just occurred to me, aren't we a tiny bit hypocritical, with us deliberately not using the official ECHOnet channels because they're jammed with so much unprofessional nonsense?"
Laughter mixed with static. "In a way we are, in a way we aren't. After all, we aren't jamming anything with an on-board intercom."
"That's true." Hox straightened up and looked around. To the west Goose's Roost and the infamous Ramp Rock were rapidly appearing over the horizon, some rocky outcroppings dotted the seamlessly endless sands, Elpis stood bright and stoic in its geostationary orbit and illuminated the whole scenery.
"Beautiful night for such a thing!", Private McSantosh shouted from the turret of the nearest Outrunner and gave him the thumbs-up.
"Beautiful night", Hox agreed silently.
Mitchell Darsher was sitting behind the technical's turret, the only place where one was safe from the strong airstream, and fidgeted with the controls strapped to his forearms. He had donned his gear in a reasonable hurry and even though he had dumped a lot of the safety protocol over time (which wasn't very long to begin with), there were still some things he preferred to check on before seeing combat.
The rest of the cargo area was crammed with six other men, all of them Slabs who had managed to talk Harker into repainting his technical, so it fit the Clan colors. Brick had picked the sanest and brightest of his men to support the operations in the Dust and neither criterion was telling much, but so far, it worked great. All the boarders were bandits; it was the only sensible thing to do. No mercenary and not even the dyed-in-the-wool revolutionaries from the first generation of Crimson Raiders were even considering to board a moving vehicle at full speed. The bandits didn't have these restraints.
In some, strange way, Mitch admired them. Given a pen and paper they'd probably eat the paper and pop someone's eyeball with the pen, but they were not stupid. They possessed the shrewd, intuitive intellect of people who had stood up to an incredibly hostile planet for years. These guys knew what they needed to survive and they did everything necessary to get it. If survival required drinking Stalker piss, cutting steaks out of a living, sleeping Rakk Hive or taking everything from some old, helpless miner, so be it. Do or die, thus was the policy of Pandora and there were lots of people who couldn't handle these realities one way or another. The Slabs were brutal, trigger-happy and immoral, but given the fact that they lived and were able to form any sort of society, they were winners, dancing on a tightrope high above two chasms called death and insanity.
"Alright, boys!", Harker shouted, his booming voice carried from the cab over to the holding area. He was a big man with a strong dislike of brakes. "We should see them soon. How's our engineer?"
"Ready to rock!", Mitch reported.
"Hasn't puked yet", a Slab by the name of Scarbelly added and his companions broke into throaty laughter.
"Still deciding who to hit", Mitch retorted, causing even more raucous guffaw. It was true, though. The first time he had ridden in the cargo area of a technical, he had thrown up violently and although Harker's driving wasn't as much to blame as the little stupid bet about an old Atlas ration, the crew hadn't stopped teasing ever since.
"Right then, getting serious now!", Harker announced.
"Duh", someone commented. "I thought the fun was about to begin. Wasn't it, Shotty?"
"Quiet on the peanut gallery. We've got visuals!"
"Which means, we can see them", Mitch translated quickly, earning a collective: "Aha!", from the Slabs.
"Alright, boys, Convoy L5 at the ten position, repeat, ten position", Sergeant Masha Wheatgrinder announced into her ECHO. "Four technicals, two transporters. Moving away from us. Harker, Penrose, you take the left transport. Bracundo, Van Heerlen, right transport. Left flank Outrunners, take care of the aft security, right flank move up and intercept the front security. Gaspard, move up with them and block the transports. Give them a couple of shots across the bow, if they don't get the notion immediately. Over."
Just a second later she was slammed into her seat, as Waddell activated the booster, flooding the engine with a surplus of fuel and half a can of nitro. The rest of the fleet followed suit, closing in for the kill.
Even if the experience of a whooping three-g acceleration was momentarily causing her to grey-out, Masha still focused on the approaching convoy. L5. The designation simply meant, that it was the fifth convoy Loggins had spotted.
"Escort vehicles turning around for defense", she said through gritted teeth. "Transporters... stopped. Repeat, the transporters stopped. And now... the escorts are collecting the drivers from the transports."
"You've got to be shitting me!", Van Heerlen chimed in via ECHO.
"They run like scared little puppies!", Waddell chuckled next to her.
"Did ya see that? They drive away! They frigging drive away!" That was Harker. He could hardly make himself heard over the Slabs in his vehicle hauling abuse at the fleeing Hodunk vehicles.
"Sarge, this is strange", Corporal Derleth added, from his Outrunner on the left flank.
"Ha, these assholes finally learned their lesson, didn't they?!", Gaspard boomed, almost audible without the ECHO, as his Monster was pretty close to Masha's command-technical.
"Everyone, stay off the ECHOnet, unless you've something important to say!", she roared.
"Copy", Linda replied nonchalantly and for a moment Masha was really grateful to have at least some professionals with her on this raid. The former Atlas soldiers could easily function as an efficient, military force, but the bandits, adventurers and even some of the freelance mercenaries lacked discipline. Poor old organized, purposeful Roland would turn in his unknown grave, if he'd had to hear all the chatter and nonsense tarnishing the ECHO-frequencies.
The Outrunners had already reached the abandoned transports and circled them carefully. "They left the doors open!", Derleth announced.
"No other life forms aboard", Private Nelbert added from the turret of another Outrunner. "The only thing showing up on thermal imaging are the engines."
"No one enters these things", Masha ordered. "Harker, Bracundo, send your engineers in. I want them to check these transporters thoroughly. They're possibly mined."
"Sarge, I know this looks like a trap", Gaspard chimed in, "but did it ever occur to you that the Hodunks aren't the brightest lamps in the shuttle cockpit?"
"I'm not taking unnecessary risks." While the technical slowly rolled to a halt, she switched the radio device on her ECHO off and send a call back to Ellie's Garage. She shared Gaspard's opinion on the majority of the Hodunks, but she was not going to underestimate the duo at the head of the Clan.
Ellie picked up almost immediately. "Hello there, sweetie! How is your raid going?"
"Surprisingly peaceful. Get Loggins airborne and send him to our coordinates. Something strange is going on here. I really want some air recon."
"Something strange? You're not telling me these morons actually conceived a plan of sorts? When we used to live with them, I remember them being too stupid..."
"Air recon. Now."
"Whoops, sorry. I'm on my way!"
Mitch knew a thing or two about explosives. After all, he had worked for Torgue, before joining the Raiders. He had never booby-trapped a vehicle, of course, but that wasn't saying he couldn't have.
The engineer quickly checked and double checked the critical locations, where he would have planted a bomb, then he checked every nook where a bomb could possibly hide from plain view and eventually turned up empty handed. The Cara-Van was clean. At least the interior.
"Hey, folks, I need one of you to check the underbody", he announced, turning to his crewmates.
"Why's that?", Scarbelly asked defensively.
"I don't fit under there", Mitch explained, pointing to his metallic backpack which housed all the SDUs necessary to digistruct his exo-skeleton and assorted weaponry.
"Well, deploy your little suit then and lift the fucking car up", another bandit suggested.
Mitch shook his head patiently. "I don't have indefinite juice for the... suit. I really don't want to waste it unnecessarily."
"Alright, alright." A scrawny guy who Mitch only knew by the name of Spider, grabbed a flashlight from his SDU and crawled under the Cara-Van. "What exactly am I looking for?"
"Any blinking lights?"
"None that I see. It's all quite plain down here. Hard to hide something."
"Look around the axles. Behind the wheels. And while you're at it, check the exhaust vent."
"Alright. Come out, come out, little bomb, wherever you are!"
But a minute later Spider shouted: "Clear!", and his comrades dragged him out from under the car by his feet.
"Clear!", Mitch conveyed the message to Sergeant Wheatgrinder.
"Ah, Hodunks!" Scarbelly lifted his mask high enough to spit in the dirt. "They've always been cowards and drunken sister-fuckers, haven't they been, boys? 'Course they would eventually run."
"Slabs!", someone shouted excitedly.
"We slap 'em well an' hard!", the other bandits roared in unison. Then they laughed and exchanged high-fives with each other and Mitch. Was it a bad sign that he felt good about it? But then again, he had volunteered for the Horde of Horrors. Who was he to judge?
Loggins' Copter rose high over the nightly desert, until it was out of reach of anything but a long range SAM. The stars seemed to be close enough to reach for them and Elpis seemed to be close enough to crash straight into.
The pilot did a quick system check. Routine. On the ground, he was a nobody, but in the air, no one was able to hold a candle to him. With lots of stolen Hyperion hardware crammed into his bird, Loggins was the eyes and ears of the Crimson Raiders during every bigger operation. Furthermore, he had his nose-machinegun, two rocket pods and four Surveyor drones, fastened in the benches for paratroopers, if the situation called for some mass destruction.
All the systems proved to be fine and working and Loggins sped off towards the coordinates Miss Ellie had given him. Radar and cameras provided him with a perfect view of the landscape more than two kilometers below him, for miles and miles. Additionally, the sensors were picking up any radio traffic from Hero's Pass to Three Horns, analyzing it, and playing it out loud if a certain number of key words was uttered. Technology was amazing.
Then the computer gave the first warning: It had picked up an unidentified vehicle, or more specifically, a heat source that fitted a vehicle. Loggins flicked a number of switches to get a hologram of the problem. Even before it came to life, the computer warned him about three other vehicles. Steering the bird with one hand, the pilot enlarged the scale of the hologram and the instruments complied, showing him a perfect simulation of the Dust with four bandit technicals speeding through the sand. They were going the same way as Loggins.
Hm. That was a problem.
Quickly, he activated the radio. "Ground Dust, Ground Dust, this is Gods Eye. Be advised, four enemy vehicles approaching from the east. ETA ten minutes."
"We copy, thank you, Gods Eye", Sergeant Wheatgrinder replied.
Loggins passed over the four technicals, when the computer more or less exploded with alerts. He already had a hologram up and running, so he only had to move the camera. What he saw felt like a punch in the stomach. "Ground Dust, saddle up and get out of there at once. I advise you to leave the transports behind. Move out to the north."
"Gods Eye, keep calm, we can handle four vehicles."
"I don't doubt it. But by now I count fifteen." A gut feeling made Loggins veer off to the south, powering up the engines until they had reached maximum speed. For a second the sensors reported nothing of interest, then the alerts went flashing again. "Ground Dust, I have spotted another force of twenty vehicles moving in from the south. I repeat, get the hell out of there." The alerts changed in shape and color. "Oh, and they've got three Copters with them, too. I'm off for a little dog-fight. Over and out."