Chapter Thirteen
Not getting any response, from either Irwine or their VTOL, Yelena had to make a judgement-call. Go to the roof, gambling on the assumption that their bird would be there to extract her and the marks. Or go to ground and hide until communications could be reestablished.
"YA govoril tebe. Eto ne budet imet' nikakogo znacheniya." - the curpulent board member spoke into her momentary indecision.
She looked at the man again. There was no gloating or smugness there, just an almost – fatalistic – conviction. The other board member stared off into some undetermined spot on the wall, her expression blank.
For a fleeting moment, Yelena was about to snap at them to enter the elevator... but the expression on the man's face...
"Chto ty imeyesh' v vidu?" - she asked the board member. He nodded back at the corpses of the Tai Yong delegation.
"Datchiki zhizni. Kazhdomu iz nikh bylo implantirovano po odnomu. Postoyannoye sputnikovoye nablyudeniye. Kak tol'ko oni umerli, srabotal mekhanizm bezopasnosti." - scowling.
The aquiline woman's face soured, as she resisted the urge to literally kick herself. Of course! The dead-man's switch.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid... did you forget what happened two years ago in Haifa?!
Back then, Namir and her were assigned by the cabal to intercept a shipment of chemical weapons bound to Israeli rebels, and assassinate the intermediary – an ex-Mossad operative. They succeeded... only for his death to trigger a failsafe that activated a broad-spectrum dampening field over the whole area, and alerted a cleanup squad to their location. A cleanup squad – and hunter-killer drones.
They barely made it out alive, between the drone swarm and the rebel squads coordinating with them.
And this time, she was on her own, with Irwine... somewhere outside. Likely trying to reach her, without any idea what was going on.
She looked around the wide foyer, suddenly feeling very exposed. This hotel was a perfect hunting ground for the Swarmers. Operating in concert with however many Tarvos troops were left below... if they went to the roof now, they'd be trapped up there. Even if the VTOL came in to pick them up, they would likely get shot down by the drones, each of them equipped with a chaingun.
What did we deal with back then... AS-21's? Thermal-seeking... primary staging point was... the activation-protocol location.
She glanced again at the corpses... right here! This is where they'd first come, then spread out from here... and lead the troops in their wake.
And that was back then... obsolete models from the black market that the rebels got their hands on... this time I don't think I will be that lucky. They... don't use substandard equipment. So... probably AS-30s. Maybe even those experimental AS-43s. Cloak-capable. And EM spectrum imaging. So they will be able to see me... and I have no Smart-Vision. Lovely.
"Dvigat'sya!" - she snapped under her breath at the two, shoving them away from the elevator doors, and down a perpendicular corridor, leading to more empty rooms. Non-relevant areas of the floor.
Primary protocol... cover all the main transfer points. Elevators. Exits. Shafts. Maintenance tunnels. That would be their... standard containment programming. Right... ?
She thought, remembering the briefing she received two years ago. At the same time, she routed additional bioenergy to her cochlear implants... she needed as much early warning as possible. Especially since hunter-seekers were designed with minimal subsonic emissions in mind, to mask their approach as long as possible, even from augmented individuals. These were not your standard scout/recon drones, used by police for area security. Not even a typical loitering assault drone, used by the military in the field.
These were automated assassins. Equipped with sophisticated neural-net brains capable of independent decision-making and programmed with advanced prediction subroutines, that put the combat AI of most bots to shame. Quick, agile, and relentless.
They came in three waves of three, roughly pizza-box sized, black winged shapes with twin protrusions under their 'beak' – the twin flechette-autocannons using small-calibre caseless ammunition. Near-silent in flight, each emblazoned with an eye-of-the pyramid emblem on their dorsal surface.
Not Tarvos-issue. The final trio... they looked a little different. Sleeker. As they spread out to cover the corners, all three – vanished into thin air, with a brief flicker of displaced light.
AS-43s.
Their front-mounted IR cameras of the first two trios, AS-30 models, briefly focused on the slowly-cooling human shapes on the ground, as they ran an analysis... before they flitted away in different cardinal directions, spreading out from the foyer, then camera-vision switching to EM mode.
Behind them, the same Tarvos squad that Yelena ran into before, piled in.
"Shit... ! All dead? Who-what the fuck could've done thi-" - one of the troops gasped, the woman's tone trying very hard to suppress fear, before she was cut off by the sargeant's hard tone.
"Shut it. Two-by-two, everyone. Stick with the drones, let them take point, and keep your visors in EM mode. We're dealing with a high-profile stealth unit, with two VIPs as hostages. You two, hold position here near the elevator. Lock down the floor." - he glanced at a pair of Exoframe-clad heavy troopers that were the last to enter the foyer.
"Yes, sir. Nobody's getting past." - one's heavily filtered voice replied. One of the cloaked Swarmers stayed with them, the drone taking up a hovering posture high up near the vaulted ceiling. The other two advanced models flitted away in the wake of their more visible counterparts.
With his one functional hand, Irwine managed to wedge the blade of his combat knife into the seam between the door's frame and the lock. The pain scraped away at his concentration, and the inability to use both hands made this tricky... but the sound of running footsteps on the stairwell below, gave the man more then enough incentive.
Scowling, he glanced down at his feet, at the trail of blood he left behind, leading from the balcony inside. Hastily, he used his sleeve to wipe off the nearest part of it... it wouldn't fool a forensic sweep, or even a sniffer dog, but... it should buy him a few minutes, assuming this maintenance door actually led to anywhere useful. If not – he was trapped. The footsteps were getting louder, now accompanied by raised voices in German...
Probably cops... lucky me. Still, I'd like to miss the party. Foreign operator without a merc contract – I'll be charged with terrorist activity, and murder. I'd like to think the Collective would pull some strings to get me out, but... ehh. Not something to rely on. And that's assuming those Tarvos assholes don't just take me out on the way to the precinct!
Was the ex-Marine's thought, as he finally wedged the knife's blade in position... then measuredly yanked it upwards, putting enough force to lift the pin against the springload system keeping it in place, without breaking the blade. He smirked despite the pain he was in, as he opened the door. Then he slipped inside, closing the door behind him, keeping the pin lifted with his knife's blade as he did, careful not to release... until the door was closed again... and re-locked as he released the pin.
Old-style mechanical locks... love 'em. Loose clearances... when you're too cheap to spring for a keypad door, and too thick to at least get a security-lock. Then again... they'd probably assume nobody'd be breaking into a maintenance junction...
He looked around the darkened chamber, keeping very quiet, as outside, the voices were now in the hallway he just left. Not a moment too soon.
Empty... empty... everything empty. Probably most of the upper floors. The arrogance. Just clear out the entire hotel, ruin a few hundred peoples' week of vacation, to have a meeting. Instead of having it somewhere private and secure. Authority. Power. Conceit. Showmanship.
Was Yelena's momentary, disgusted thought, as she explored the expansive maze of hallways and rooms, looking for an alternate way down. At the same time, she had to keep a close eye on the two marks... and the incessant spikes of subsonic activity her cochlear implants were picking up.
The drones were nearby. And it was now a race against time to find a way down, before they zoned-in on her. She kept her pistols ready in her hands. The hotel was large, and each floor was a maze of it's own... but there were only so many places to hide.
"Yesli oni nas naydut, oni nas vsekh ub'yut. V otvet Madalyuku. Ty khot' predstavlyayesh', chto delayesh', ubiytsa?" - the male board member growled under his breath.
She scowled hard.
"Tebe luchshe nadeyat'sya, chto ya eto sdelayu. I... mir polon ubiyts. Bol'shinstvo iz nikh priderzhivayutsya meneye prakticheskogo podkhoda, chem ya. Oni moyut ruki i pryachutsya za fal'shivoy moral'yu. Naprimer, tvoi... druz'ya... v Tai Yong Medical."
"Oni ne moi druz'ya. No oni yavlyayutsya neobkhodimym zlom." - the man countered. Yelena just grimaced in disapproval... and the persistent pain in her thorax.
"Uberite slovo «neobkhodimo» i ya soglasen. Teper' molchi. YA pytayus' slushat'." - she growled.
They turned a corner, leading down what seemed to be a dead-end hallway. Yelena frowned for a moment. Why would there be an empty hallway... then she noticed a small locker at the end with a lightning symbol on it.
Electrical box? That means... that means there should be a major power junction for the floor, behind it... which means a maintenance shaft behind the wall... no ingress point here, but... if I knew exactly which section of wall is thinnest...
The woman thought, mind racing. Briefly she toyed with the idea of wrecking the box itself, but realised that the power outage would put her at a disadvantage too – the drones would be unaffected by low-light conditions, while she'd have to use the low-light goggles. She wasn't equipped with Smart-Vision.
If I ever do get rebuilt, something to consider. I love my natural eyesight, but...
Banishing the thought, she started tapping her metal foot against various sections of wall... listening carefully to how hollow the impacts sounded.
"Dumayesh', smozhesh' prolomit' stenu?!" - the female board member asked, incredulously, in a shaky voice. Yelena glanced at the pale-faced middle-aged woman. It was the first time she heard her speak, so far.
She nodded with a grimace, as in... 'if I'm lucky'... continuing to tap the wall. The male board member just crossed his arms, looking unconvinced, as he nervously glanced behind him, back the way they came from.
Suddenly, right next to the box, a segment of the wall sounded – more hollow then most. Yelena couldn't gauge just how thin, but... it was the best chance she'd get, so far.
Motioning the two to step back a bit, she took a half-step back from the wall herself, judging the best possible distance... then slammed her hard metal foot sideways into it, in a devastating side-kick. Once. Twice. A third time. Each time, sizable chunks of crumbling brick and mortar came off. As she kept at it, she couldn't help but think how Barret or even Namir, could break through this without a second thought. But she wasn't enhanced with brute force in mind, nor did she have their sheer body mass.
Still, her legs were powerful, her kicks, especially reflex-enhanced, were very fast, and the narrow hardened points of her metallic hooves, only served to focus that power and velocity into a small impact zone. On a fourth kick, she broke through, revealing a head-sized hole in the wall, about twenty-five centimetres through it. Turning to glance at the two, she flashed an involuntary smirk, at their stunned faces.
Behind them in the hallway, a slight flickering of displaced air caught her eye, accompanied by a low-intensity buzz on her subsonic registers. Her smirk vanished in a flash.
"Vniz!" - she snapped, throwing herself at the two in a rush, in pure instinctive reaction.
A burst of flechette fire zipped right above their heads, even as she began squeezing off the first shots. One hit home, throwing off sparks, but the rest missed as the cloaked drone did an insanely quick strafe to the right, back behind the corner.
I hate it when I'm right... AS-43s...
She thought with a scowl, keeping up the cover fire, yet conserving the ammo, as she yelled at the two to begin widening the hole she made, and get through it. With the wall already weakened by her kicks, it wouldn't take too much extra kicking, even by normal human force. And the male board member was certainly heavy enough to be able to put some force behind it, even if it would be unfocused.
She was relieved to see them do as they were told, without hesitation. Meanwhile she continued firing at the corner, gambling on the fact that the drone's sophisticated evasive protocols wouldn't allow it to round the corner again, as long as it registered as 'under fire'.
As advanced as the AI for those drones was, it was still artificial intelligence. It couldn't disobey it's programming. As long as the device thought it was 'pinned down', it wouldn't even try to attack. Either that, or it would try to circle around them – except there was no way around. This was a dead-end hallway. That put the AI in a bind.
Mentally, Yelena kept a running tally of how many rounds she fired... a habit drilled into her over the long years of experience. Each Zenith held twelve rounds, for a total of twenty-four. When she was halfway through both mags, she allowed herself a split-second to dip one hand into her belt satchel, keeping up the cover fire with her other gun – as she felt around for her last two grenades.
One more concussion grenade, and an EMP one. For a briefest half a second, she was about to toss the EMP grenade out – then thought better of it.
AS-43... probably EMP-shielded. No.
Instead, she primed and held the concussion grenade for a pair of seconds, then tossed it out. With any luck, the loud, violent blast and reverbrating shockwave would convince the drone it was under greater threat, making it pull back further from the corner – and buying them an additional few moments. It wouldn't disable it... but a few moments was all they needed.
As the grenade went off, she turned around, joining the two people desperately kicking at the weakened wall. They made some headway, sweat pouring down their faces, widening the hole to about shoulder width of a small child... but it took a few more side-kicks from her, to finish the job.
Unceremoniously she shoved them through, following... just as another burst of flechette fire came from the corner – this time a pair of rounds burying themselves into her left hip and upper thigh. Sparks flew from it, as she felt another spike of sharp pain, and a red-hued damage report scrolled across her HUD.
Her left leg was leaking hydraulic fluid. The onboard failsafes would attempt to isolate the affected musculature, and prevent total loss of functionality, but it would make her more sluggish on her feet.
If I get out of this alive, I'm never gonna complain about muscle cramps again...
Irwine thought, gritting his teeth, as he one-arm-crawled through a narrow vent shaft, into the bowels of the broadcast tower. The confined space, combined with the armour he still wore, made it a very – cramped – experience. Fleetingly, he remembered a scene out of the movie Die Hard, where the main protagonist was similarly crawling through a tight space.
Yep. Except he had both arms... and I'm bleeding like a pig from a sniper-calibre hole in my shoulder... I already got you beat, McClaine! Amateur...
Was the man's mental smirk. Still, by all accounts, he needed to count his lucky stars. That the maintenance closet had a vent, and that said vent was wide enough for him to crawl into. Usually, man-sized airvents were a thing in the movies or videogames, not something one might expect to find in reality.
That didn't make his voyage through one any less arduous, however. Claustrophobia was not something he ever suffered from, but if he did... he imagined he'd be hyperventilating by now. Holding a small flashlight between his teeth, he kept going. Where, he had no idea. For right now, 'away from the cops and the Tarvos mercs' was the objective.
He paused briefly, reaching to his collar to try the Link again...
"Mantis... this is Hawk. You there?" - trying to keep the pain out of the voice. But as before, no reply came. Not blocked, not static – just – not there. He grimaced, then briefly dropped the flashlight, to use his teeth and his good arm, tightening the tourniquet a bit harder around his shoulder. He could smell his own blood.
He kept going. Each metre was an exercise in agony, but the draft from somewhere ahead told him that he was at least going to come across a wider area, before too long.
This tower's not too wide... probably an elevator shaft. If I can climb it down, I might be able to get to street level. If.
Up in the sky, neither of them was aware of the drama unravelling. Their VTOL was running for it's life, from a squadron of hunter-killer drones in pursuit. Screaming low across the craggy, hilly landscape, the pilot had his hands full just using the terrain for cover and staying out of the thermal sights of his automated pursuers. A dozen holes in the bird's rear fuselage bore mute evidence that his efforts were not entirely successful... but at least nothing critical had been hit. Yet.
The aircraft was faster in a straight line then the drones, so there was a chance he could outrun them... but to do that, he would need to rise above radar level. In theory, the stealth-coating would help, but... the fact that the VTOL was damaged, meant that the radar cross-section of it would be more pronounced. For the time being, until he could find a valley below the hill-level to dip into and step on the throttle properly, without risk of being lit up on any local radar stations, using the hills around as cover... he had to hug the terrain and engage in a tense session of terrain-following-flying.
~"Home base, this is Nest... mission is a scrub. Request instructions!"~ - he tried a narrow-band Infolink channel to the Collective. But no reply came. It must have been some kind of dampening field... which meant he needed to get outside of its radius of effect.
Just another reason, if one was needed – to put some distance between the VTOL and the city.