The Boeing C-25 Cargo Aircraft was the most commonly used vehicle for mass transportation by Arasaka. A mammothian eight-engine subsonic jet airplane capable of hauling up to 500 fully armed Arasaka soldiers, six AV-4s, four Combat Tens, two dismantled Ospreys, or various combinations of such across intercontinental ranges. Its top speed was around 600 miles per hour, and it carried enough fuel for 8000 miles of continuous flight. It was considered the budget option for mass transport these days, each unit costing around 1,115,250ed. Inflation was a bitch that way, they used to only cost around 75,000ed.
They were not the most capable mass transport option that Arasaka owned, that was the Kujira ACPA Carrier, but they were the most affordable in terms of overall logistics. Arasaka owned around fifty of them, and they were in constant, round the clock use to shuffle the vast resources available to the corporation around the world without having to pay another faction to ship them.
Of course, they would not do in this particular scenario, as the Old Man wanted him over in Night City as soon as possible. Apparently Maelstrom finally decided it was clobbering time and they left him out of the action, which was somewhat infuriating. The Old Man decided it would be a waste of time to send him over until after some big ceremony he had planned.
Then someone decided to bring down a section of the Blackwall, the Old Man changed his mind, and now everyone was going to go to Night City. Everyone important anyways.
Saburo Arasaka, with a full crew complement and military force, would be sailing upon the Kujira to Night City. It would take the ACPA super-carrier about five days to cross the 5.3 thousand miles or so across the Pacific Ocean.
Hanako Arasaka, with her bodyguard and 'handmaidens', would be flying on an executive jet. She would be arriving around one full hour after he got there, and her duty would be to aid in the patching of the massive hole now letting somewhat insane AI through.
Adam was going to be flown in alone, on a drone-rocket, from which he is going to be dropped overhead and landing directly into Night City. The rocket traveled at around Mach 9.3. He would be arriving in Night City forty-four minutes after lift-off. His duty was simple, and he was looking forward to it immensely.
He was tasked with killing any and all hostiles in the breach-site. He was in his DaiOni, he was fully stocked with ammo and weapons, and he couldn't wait.
The rocket rumbled ominously as he shattered through turbulence and screamed across the sky. The relevant messages of what exactly a rocket moving this fast across the sky had already been forwarded to the relevant parties, and thus no AA guns would be taking him out of the air on his trip.
Well, they could, but then the Old Man would just make it very apparent to every news media outlet in the world that he had been assassinated while on his way to fight off a level-four breach. The political backlash would probably end whatever faction decided to do that, and it probably wasn't worth the risk.
Breaches were one of the few things that just about every meatbag on the planet agreed was a very bad thing to let happen. Even some AI agreed with the assessment, and thus everyone had a vest interest in making sure it wasn't allowed to progress any further than possible. Some meatbags liked to cause smaller breaches, summoning particular lone AI across the wall for a specific purpose.
But even Net-cultists tended to agree that anything bigger than a level two incursion was a bad thing. Of course, he didn't know most of this beforehand. This was all shit Uriel had found out. None of it was especially relevant to him in particular, all he needed to know was that there were going to be cyberforms piloted by hostile AI and he was allowed to kill everything that shot at him.
'At least DaiOni is quiet right now.' Uriel commented, scrolling through his list of prepared AI countermeasures. He had been assembling them for weeks now, ever since they established the pattern of other AI wiping the floor with him. Uriel grumbled but didn't disagree.
'Nothing to target, still in transport. It'll be annoying once we get there.' Indeed, the DaiOni was effectively napping right now. It's presence was still in his virtual 'shadow', swirling in pent up targeting enthusiasm.
Pretty soon, that would be changing, yelling about all five-hundred ways he could kill the old lady on the side of the road. Why would he do it in five-hundred ways? He could just shoot once and hit her alongside fifteen others on the same sidewalk!
He stopped when Uriel noticed the DaiOni starting to perk up. Calmly, Uriel reached in virtual space and slowly pushed until its head was laying flat on his lap once more. As it turned out, the IG Algorithms worked both ways, and manipulating lower-grade AI was as simple as 'physically' interacting with them. Uriel had been abusing that discovery to keep it quiet for most of the time they were in this body.
'Good job Uriel, you're finally useful.' He snarked to fill the time.
'Good job Adam, hurdurdur.' Uriel very cleverly responded as he debated on which, if any, strategy to use in this situation. Neither of them were expecting a level four breach to happen, after all.
The plane interior beeped twice, the tiny AI guiding the missile lightly 'smacking' him on the 'forehead' of his ICON.
'Destination approaching. T-minus 2 minutes. Please prepare to be launched, payload-san.' The tiny virtual fairy with mechanical wings spoke robotically. Uriel, clad in the armor of Adam's ICON, reached up to rub it's tiny head with a single clawed finger. The tiny AI leaned into the finger for a moment, eyes closing but face emotionless. After a moment it pulled away and began to count down.
Most things had a little AI like this, as it turns out. Not really sapient, but it was there and you could theoretically interact with it if you wanted to. Uriel had found that out by accident one day, and started actually focusing on things in virtuality from then on to find that, indeed, most things had a tiny AI to run its systems. Which sorta made him question what the Blackwall actually did, but oh well.
Adam started up the 'descent' protocols of the container he was in. It would be deployed with a mental command once he was allowed to drop out from the rocket, and it would take him a few minutes to land once he did start falling. It would be a rough, but survivable landing for meatbags, so he would be fine.
Of course, that's if he decided to drop normally. He had already decided that it would take too long. He had an idea, and Uriel had already crunched the numbers on it. It was well within his capabilities to do.
'Arriving at the destination. Goodbye payload-san.' The tiny AI finished its countdown, waved an emotionless little hand, and shot him out of the back of the rocket to slow him down a tad.
Immediately tumbling through the air in an aerospace coffin, he activated the descent protocols in full. Stabilizing fins emerged from either side of the coffin, eventually turning his tumbling into a steady and stable plummet.
Uriel connected his vision to the sensors of the coffin, letting him 'see' just as well as it could. They were currently breaking through the cloudline, rushing acid mists screaming past him as his cocoon punched a hole through the sky.
He checked the altitude meter as they rapidly fell, already at terminal velocity by this point.
7000.
6500.
6000.
5500.
5000.
The coffin started to deploy the massive parachute system to slow his descent. His speed rapidly began to drop as the three-stage chute's first stage deployed, the sudden Gs from slowing down still well within human tolerance levels.
Now, once his drop stabilized, the system would deploy the second, slightly bigger chute and slow him even more. After that one stabilized, it would deploy the third and final chute to slow his descent down to 'wouldn't even break a meatbag's bones' level of landing. It was in three stages to prevent the sudden decrease in speed from making the meatbag pass out or die.
However, it would also take around seven minutes to finally land. He really didn't feel like waiting that long.
He raised both clawed arms of the DaiOni to his side, even as squeezed as he was in this truck-sized coffin. He raised both legs too, letting his knees press against the sides of the chamber.
He began to push outwards with all four limbs. He was greeted by the groaning of metal twisting and bending when it didn't want to, the coffin straining under his strength from inside. He paused briefly, waiting for a moment.
The second parachute deployed, he threw out all four limbs as hard as he could.
4000 feet in the air above Watson, he exploded out of a metal shell like a grenade. The scrap was rapidly pulled up and away from him by the parachute, while he started to drop like a rock.
He tumbled for a section, eventually stabilizing himself by simply spreading out his arms as far as they could go. The air screamed past his body as the buildings rapidly approached.
3000 feet.
The coffin was going to drop him off in Arasaka Waterfront originally, but his impromptu exit diverted his course a tad. He experimented a little as he fell, raising and lowering his arms and legs to make sure he had the mechanics of twisting himself midair down.
2000 feet.
Oh goodie, look at that, a shootout down below. He twisted for the things he could see with more chrome. The DaiOni woke up fully, excitedly beginning to list off the few ways he could kill them immediately rather than in a moment.
1000 feet.
He twisted to where his legs were braced up against his torso a tad, ready to kick the ground when he made touchdown. He extended both monoblades in the arms of the DaiOni.
500 feet.
He narrowed his optics.
250 feet.
He grinned sadistically.
100 feet.
He started to laugh. The non-strommers saw him approaching, yelling and pointing behind their cover.
50 feet.
This was going to be so much fun. The group of strommers finally looked up.
10 feet.
He activated his sandevistan. His speed of approach was dramatically slowed. He readied his stance as he fell.
Just before he hit the ground, he kicked the ground, and let his vibrating foot-talons dig into the concrete. Immediately, the force of the blow tried to slowly turn him into scrap.
There was definitely one advantage to fighting those panzerbots.
His legs vibrated in turn, the force of the impact traveled through his body on a wave of his own micro-movements.
It traveled all the way up his legs, into his pelvis, then torso. He then split it in two, and let one half of the kinetic impact travel into either arm, into either monoblade.
Said monoblades that he had just stabbed into the ground to either side of him. He looked up and locked eyes with a horrified strommer, eight orange optics conveying a mechanical terror, chromed mouth opening in slowed terror. The others didn't even know what was about to happen, their speedware wasn't activated.
Clad in the form of an 11 foot, 2240 pound humanoid warmachine, he gave a murderous grin beneath his helmet. His optics glowed a happy red through the heavily-reinforced visor.
The highway just outside of Konpeki Plaza, the most prestigious hotel in Night City, exploded in dust and rubble. The force of the impact could be heard all the way down in Pacifica, the dust cloud rose halfway up the side of the luxury hotel. All at once, for a brief moment, combat ceased in Watson as everyone glanced to where the explosion had just occurred. It shortly began again, the lull not worth taking their attention from their current fights for more than a moment.
In virtuality, observers noticed a different event.
Just as the streets before the hotel exploded, a great pillar of many-colored fire burst into life in the same location. It roared brilliantly, and began to move slowly forwards, traveling about as fast as a man might jog.
Adam Smasher emerged from the cloud of dust. Standing taller than any man, either in or outside of power armor, talons digging grooves into the asphalt as he walked. He carried a railgun that belonged on a tank, much less in the arms of a pitch-black demon. One of his clawed hands opened and closed impatiently, frustratingly unstained with gore.
Uriel coalesced from the pillar of fire. Standing on par with the DaiOni in realspace, a man of multicolored fire clad in the armor of a bone-white demon. He carried a Sword program in his right hand, and a Shield program in his left, both of which burned with his own fire. Chains writhed around him, moving idly with his gaze.
Uriel stepped up once, hovering slightly above and behind Adam. He beheld the whitewalls that now surrounded him, unsure of what exactly they were.
A furious Imp approached in the Net. Spitting a weak flame and directing a nearby turret to fire upon the black titan. The flames were banished with a glance. The bullets bounced off the titan's skin, leaving no mark. Chains immediately bound the Imp and tore it apart.
Adam and Uriel stared at the scrap-code for a moment.
'...Is that it?' Adam asked, slightly confused. The last two AI had wiped the floor with Uriel, this was somewhat anticlimactic.
'I-I guess?' Uriel replied, equally baffled for a moment. Imps were low-tier demons, capable of killing inexperienced Netrunners at a reliable rate. He had no illusions about how good he was, having less than a year of experience.
'Yer muther sucks cocks in hell!' A whiney scream issued forth as another burst of weak fire crashed against Uriel's shield, They turned to see an Imp on a nearby rooftop. It turned to moon them, slapping its ass twice.
Uriel thought for a moment, the chains growing spiked tips. The Imp was promptly impaled several times.
Adam stared for a moment. He then snorted, the frame of the DaiOni making it sound like a low-powered gunshot. 'You can handle this Net-shit, I'm going to go kill things now.'
'Have fun.' Uriel replied, rising up into the air on a pillar of flame, letting a single chain lengthen out to connect him to Adam just in case. From here he could actually see the warring ICONs of thousands of demons and hundreds of Netrunners clash. Programs constantly hurled, screaming through the virtual air.
No wonder there were only two Imps so far, most of the fighting was going on over there. He thought about it for a moment, before deciding to be smart about his approach.
He kicked off the virtual air, floating over to a nearby data-tower. Once on top, he dismissed his Sword, moved his Shield to his background programs, and summoned a Longbow program.
He gazed over at the fighting, focusing on what was probably a Balron for a moment. He waited until he had its IP, then drew the fiery string of his Longbow back.
An arrow of light manifested, and he held it only for a moment.
It screamed across the distance, bouncing through data-terms until it burst out of the nearest one to the targeted Balron. The arrow practically exploded into a pillar of light, immediately punching a beam-like hole through the center of the Balron.
Distantly, he heard it roar and struggled to trace where the attack had just come from. He smiled when he saw others immediately take advantage of it's distraction.
A rogue AI that took the form of a screaming mass of skulls shaped like a whale moved to swallow the ICON of what looked like a tiny girl in a fluffy dress. It was probably a 40 year old man, if he was being realistic. A bolt of furious light punched a hole through the roof of its mouth.
These weren't proper Demons, of course, proper Demons were actually used to operate the defensive systems of a given building. Those were the AI that were responsible for shooting the nice mounted sentry guns at intruders, for example. These were more like… parody demons?
They didn't look right to his virtuality gaze, probably because they came down from that big funny hole in the sky.
He threw himself back as a monster covered in writhing green tentacles crashed down where he just was. His chains burst forth, stabbing it over and over again. It screamed at him and began to snap the chains of fire, rushing for him again.
His Shield was pulled from background programs to active programs, and his bow was dismissed. The Balron's clawed fist bounced off the burning shield. It roared and lashed out again.
His Sword was re-summoned, Uriel lashed out.
The Balron's hand was cut off at the wrist. It staggered back, moving to kick at him.
Uriel moved forwards with it, bashing his Shield against its writhing form. He re-summoned more Chains, burning fire moving to bind the now-weakened Demon.
Fun Fact, his current Adam-clad ICON was on eye-level with a Balron. A Balron he promptly bisected as it struggled for a moment in his chains.
The two halves of scrap code began to fall in virtual space, sinking to the 'ground' of the local server.
Uriel turned to see more Demons and AI starting to approach him, both from above and from the main battle to the east. Well, he supposed it was high time for him to link up with the non-invaders, otherwise he might be overwhelmed in a hot minute.
He dismissed his Sword, and summoned his Wings. In a burst of speed, he began to fly over. As he flew, he let his vision travel down his lone chain connected to Adam, linking his senses to the DaiOni for a moment.
Vision that was currently obscured by a fresh layer of red gore, shaking rapidly as Adam crushed the torso of one ganger over his head in one clawed grip. Adam was roaring in laughter, his other hand firing a railgun that punched a hole through a strommer, his cover, and the wall behind him.
Adam was doing fine.