"I came in like a wrecking ball! I never hit so hard in love!"
Pain. UMP45 was in pain.
Somehow, she'd found something worse than death, or taxes: 9's kindred spirit. For forty five minutes, even before they'd gotten in the air, Tokarev and 9 had been singing songs. At first it'd been annoying, then infuriating, eventually 416 had tried to shoot them. However, 416, and 45, had given up. No amount of bullying, bullets, and earplugs could stop those two.
G11 had the right idea, sleeping through the whole thing. 45 envied her.
"All you ever did is Wre-e-eck me! Yeah, you, you Wre-e-eck me! "
They finished the verse in unison, rising up to take bows in the cargo area while 45 flew the plane. She took a hand off the stick for a moment to offer mock claps.
"Very lovely, you two. Sing again and I'll execute the both of you."
"Awww, I know you secretly like it Sis!"
"I consider my true feelings very shallow and obvious at this time, thank you 9."
"Haha, you and Groza would get along, miss 45," Tokarev said.
The dolls sat seated up right in her seat. She held herself in a formal way that reminded 45 of Groza, though there was an atmosphere of smarm that followed the doll that Groza lacked.
"Uh-huh?"
"Like oil and water," 416 growled in reply.
"Oh miss 416, just because you don't get along with either doesn't mean they will also hate each other."
"Tch, I don't hate Groza."
"Oh, is that so?"
45 caught herself humming a tune absentmindedly as 416 and Tokarev began to argue, realizing in horror it matching 9 and Tokarev's song. She ran a diagnostics, unfortunately found no major errors or viruses, and so had to resign herself to the brain worm of a song.
Thankfully, they were almost there.
Coming into sight over the next hill, a radar dome loomed in the dark. On entering line of sight, 45 half expected the aircraft's RWR to start screaming, yet instead, it remained quiet as they approached.
In fact it was deathly quiet in the air above the station, the only signs of life below were a scant few lights glimmering from within the station itself.
"Huh."
"Problem?" 416 asked, leaning over 45's shoulder.
"The radar's inactive."
416 squinted, "huh."
"Well there is certainly something drawing a lot of power down there," Tokarev interjected, her voice flat and to the point, "I can see it from here."
The doll's eyes were wide, scanning, and angled down towards the station. 45 flew them in lazy circles over the station, letting Tokarev get a good sweep of the place. Data streamed in through the team network from the doll, to which 45 had begrudgingly given her temporary access. It showed the results of Tokarev radiological scans: one large source and one smaller one nearby.
"Jammer?"
"Perhaps, it's difficult to tell."
"Hmm, I suppose we should go check it out the hard way then."
"What's the second Rad source?" 416 grunted.
"Unknown, I may get a better read if we get closer."
They flew a few more circles, coming closer and closer to the sight as 45 was increasingly convinced SF wasn't going to shoot them down if she did. Eventually they got within a hundred meters of the site on one pass, and that got Groza to chuckle.
"Got something?" 45 aske her.
"Oh… interesting," the dolls said, her lips curling up in a grin, "it is indeed, mostly unguarded."
"Mostly?"
"Mostly, though not entirely."
45 rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I got that. What is guarding it?"
Tokarev's grin widened further, "A road bump."
Executioner was bored. She was seated inside the 'radar station', and hadn't done more than pace and pull at her hair for the last few days.
Then, when Ouroboros finally gave her an update that there were Griffin dolls inbound, she grew excited.
But she still had to wait, and the waiting quickly grew dull.
"Fuck this!" She shouted, springing to her feet and rushing out the door," I'm coming to you!"
To her surprise, she actually had an audience to the declaration.
Ahead, about fifty meters down the hill and just coming out of the woods that surrounded the station, a pair of dolls were emerging.
"Oho! You've come at last," Executioner drew her sword back into a ready stance, "come at me!"
She couldn't help but grin as she brought herself up to full power, preparing to drive her blade into the dolls.
Then everything around her exploded.
"Eh-?!" she yelped as she was tossed through the air.
Next thing she knew she was laying flat on her back, wreathed in smoke and aching. It took her a moment to even realize what had happened.
Craning her neck, she spied those two dolls, still casually strolling her way. But off to the left, concealed beneath thermal camouflage cloaks and still holding the smoking grenade launcher, was another pair.
"Wow, she's tougher than the reports said," one of the two walking towards her commented, a UMP45 in her hand.
"But just as dumb~" the other chimed, waving a TT pistol around.
"Grrr, don't talk down to me," Executioner growled as she struggled up and dusted herself off, "I'm not done!"
She leapt forward, blade swinging forward in a horizontal arc towards UMP 45's chest.
But the doll stepped back, moving just enough that the sweeping metal slab passed harmlessly a few centimeters in front of her.
Roaring in frustration, she whirled around and redirected towards Tokarev, but was evaded in much the same way.
"I'll kill you!" she roared.
In a weaving rage she swept and sliced at the two, but each attack was deftly avoided.
After dozens of attacks, growing ever more furious and with the surrounding terrain now resembling a block of cheese that had been attacked by a hungry toddler with a knife, those two Griffin dolls stood. Executioner however, was overheating.
"W-why…" she panted, trying to vent off the building heat.
Instead of answering, UMP 45 snapped her fingers.
Another explosion ripped apart the air around Executioner. This was no glancing blow either, like the previous, it hit right at her feet and sent her hurtling once more through the air.
"Ugh… dammit," she grunted as the smoke wreathing her cleared.
It was over, her legs were wrecked, sword flung a dozen meters away.
"Tsk tsk tsk," Tokarev tutted as she strutted over, "Too predictable."
"What the hell are you talking about?" she growled at the doll.
"Hehehehe, a lady ought not divulge all her secrets," the doll replied with a coy smirk.
"Hmmm, do you think it's been long enough?" 45 wondered aloud.
"What are you two talking about! Don't ignore me!" Executioner roared, pounding the earth with her only remaining hand.
Another pair of dolls came trotting up, one with a foul expression and 416, the other with a G11 in hand.
"Are we good?" 416 asked.
"All clear," 45 replied, smirking at the fuming Executioner.
"Hmph, not so tough," 416 grunted.
"Tch."
"So what now?" 416 asked.
"Well… I suppose we shouldn't waste what has been given to us," 45 said ominously, stepping towards Executioner, "So, what is this place?"
Her eye twitched, but Executioner didn't reply.
"Oh? Silent treatment? Not for long."
45 knelt down beside her, staring into her with unblinking eyes.
"You gonna make me talk?" Executioner grunted
A chilling grin spread across the doll's face, "Oh, refuse again and you won't need to talk. So? Last chance, talk or I'm ripping your neural cloud to shreds."
She believed her, that look in her eye. Why she was even bothering to talk at all, Executioner couldn't say, but she could tell this doll didn't really need her cooperation to get what she wanted.
"It's a jammer."
"Okay. Who set it up, when?"
"Ouroboros, last week."
45 raised an eyebrow, "Ouroboros?"
"Mhmm."
"Hmm, interesting. Why'd she put you here alone?"
"Tch," she looked away, "It's a trap. You were supposed to enter the facility, kill me, and when I die the place blows."
"Huh," 45 scoffed, "she's really just wasting you like that? How sad."
Executioner sighed, "yeah… Guess she didn't have much faith in me."
"How does it trigger, the bomb?"
"It goes off when I stop transmitting a certain signal."
"Can you choose to do that? Without doing that is?"
"Course…" Executioner raised an eyebrow, "Why?
The doll ruffled through her jacket, and produced a small holomap. A dot popped into view.
"Here's Scarecrow, we moved her to a staging point. If you trigger that bomb after we rifle through the jammer and get clear, you can have her exact position. Bonus points if you drop off the net too."
"W-Why?" Executioner stammered.
A nasty look grew in the doll's eyes, "Your boss sounds like an ass, So I'm gonna kill her. This would help."
"You think I would help you just because I don't like Ouroboros?"
"No. You're not. You're gonna help your actual comrade at the cost of one who'd stab you in the back."
Executioner was quiet for a long time, but eventually she shut her eyes, letting her head slowly lay down in the cool earth.
"Fine…"
"Why." 416 grunted as the four of them wound up the path to the radar station.
"Why what?" 45 replied coyly.
"Why not just hack her?"
"Why don't you hack her if you're so upset," she replied.
"Because I'm not the EW specialist."
"I'm sure even you could crack Executioner's systems, you just gotta believe!" she said with a little fist pump of false enthusiasm.
"I'm curious too, 45," Tokarev chimed, the usual smarm absent.
45 sighed, stopped, and glanced back at Executioner, still lying on the ground some forty meters back down the hill. As she looked down on the battered ringleader, her breathing slowly fell in time with the siren echoing in her head.
"It'll help our mission if the bomb goes off. I'd rather not be caught in it."
"What if she sets it off while we're still in there though!" 416 growled, stamping her foot.
45 pursed her lips.
"She won't. Scarecrow is the higher priority for her, she can't get her back if we're dead."
"She'll ignore direct orders?" Tokarev posed.
"She can ignore these," 45 said evenly, "she has the permissions."
"H- how could you know that?" Tokarev asked, soundly genuinely confused.
45 smiled, "A lady ought not divulge all her secrets."
That earned a confused, but amused smile out of Tokarev.
"I see… perhaps we are more alike than not as well."
"Ew," 416 grunted, pushing past them all and marching up the hill, "I'm getting tired of this, C'mon."
Dutifully, they followed 416 up and into the Radar facility.
It was old, falling apart and clearly not up to any real standard. Only one thing stuck out from the rusting maze of twisting Soviet metal, the shiny block of server racks and transmitters sitting in the center of the main room.
Beside it stood UMP9, currently repacking her gear.
"Hey 9, all done?" 45 waved to her.
While the rest of them had been dealing with Executioner, 45 had sent 9 up ahead to slip inside and yank everything off the computers, just in case.
"Yep! Not much to see though, it's all algorithms, no intel in here. I copied it all though, I figured G&K would pay well for it." she said, pointing to the jammer with a harddrive in her hand.
45 took it. For in a split second she was immersed within.
It was an ocean of code, one she was quickly able to navigate. It was as 9 said, the algorithms behind SF's fancy jamming techniques, but that wasn't all. Deeper in, there was something else, something inactive, but large.
She shook her head and resurfaced into reality. No time to figure that out right now.
"Good thinking," she said with a grin to 9, "Executioner is handled. We just need to get clear and we're done here."
9 cocked her head, "Are we gonna shut it off?"
45 grinned, "no need. Sangvis will do it for us."
416 pinched her nose in an annoyed gesture as 9 looked even more confused. Instead of explaining, 45 instead grabbed 9 and led her, and the rest outside.
They made their way back down the hill, reaching Executioner who had called a few support units to assist her makeshift repairs.
"You didn't kill her?" 9 asked
"Feeling better?" 45 asked Executioner, ignoring her.
"A bit." the ringleader replied, rolling her eyes.
9 curiously circled around the SF dolls, studying them closely like a biologist might a rare species. Meanwhile 416 stood at a distance, staring up at the jammer.
"We gonna blow it?" she asked, looking back, "or are we gonna sit here chatting up the enemy."
45 gave her an amused expression, "so impatient, but then again, I suppose I don't pay you by the hour do I."
She turned her attention to Executioner,
"Are we far enough back?"
The doll grinned.
A fireball ripped the radar station apart an instant after, and the resulting shock wave slapped 45 in the face enough to make her stumble.
"Hehehehe…" Executioner chuckled, "yes."
"So…" 416 pondered, "should I shoot her now?"
45 rolled her eyes, "No, we uphold our deal."
"Heh, how honorable," Executioner said.
45 shrugged, then tossed her the holomap containing Scarecrow's location without a word.
That settled, and the ringleader clearly a ways away from moving, they made their exit. In loose clusters they filtered back into the forest they'd come from.
"So, I suppose we are now 'dead'," Tokarev observed, using her fingers to quote around the last word.
"I suppose so," 45 replied.
"What's your plan?"
Yes, what is your plan?
45 froze, unsure of what she'd just heard. She could have sworn…
"Well?" Tokarev asked after a silent minute.
Well?
She knew that voice, she was certain. 45 turned around slowly, facing her team looking back with confused expressions.
That was, everyone but 9, who was staring off into space with a concentrated look on her face.
The ever present siren, echoing in the back of 45's mind, went quiet.
"So they've slipped away. Alas poor Scarecrow, not even useful as bait," Outoboros sighed, watching the live feed of her pawn's ransacked base.
"However, It seems that doll managed to reach them in time," she grinned, "so anytime now…"
Her view cut to the radar displays over the whole region. There was only one aircraft of interest displayed, and it was headed towards an inactive station and its sole tenant.
Sure enough, within minutes of the Griffin aircraft landing the radar station was wiped off the face of the planet in a fiery explosion. Executioner's signal disappeared in conjunction with the explosion.
She chuckled.
"Goodbye, squad 404. Best of luck in the next life."
404 was the biggest threat on the field. Despite the scarce reports in the Sangvis Ferri reports on them, she'd been able to recognize their absolute importance and destroy them. All at the cost of some nearly useless jammer. She grinned. The disappointing trump card of her feeble minded peers made into bait, rather brilliant.
All across the valley, Griffin signals sprang to life. The enemy was on the move it seemed, some seeming to head for a rally point, while other signals trailing in the general direction of her own staging points. It didn't matter though, their best pieces were now off the board, all she needed now was to develop her own pieces' positions.
"Ah, well. Perhaps we ought to begin?" She chimed.
With a quick command, her forces began to move as well.
Heavy armored units stomped out of their camouflaged positions and formed up along the two main roads in the valley. Around them her lighter forces formed screens that extended from the roads a little ways into the forests, close enough that the armor could support them, but far enough that an enemy couldn't hide in the treeline and shoot at her armor.
She would test this Griffin commander, probe his lines, search for his weaknesses, and then exploit them.
Contact didn't take long. Her scouts found Griffin's they engaged, and quickly the enemy dolls began to flee back into the trees they'd come from. All too easy.
Perhaps too easily.
Ouroboros considered for a moment. Perhaps this was a trap?
She couldn't be sure which commander she faced, and even if she was there were scant details on all their past performances in combat in the network. Still, there were some really experienced humans in Griffin's ranks, it would be best not to act too rashly.
She didn't pursue, instead returning the units to their tasking.
Then another burst of contact struck. Much like before she quickly turned the enemy dolls back.
Then again, and again. Dozens of little flare ups of action all along her lines as her forces stirred from their staging points and deployed.
"Curious. Just how many of you are there I wonder."
The area was heavily forested, moving off the main roads was proving difficult for even her light forces at this time. There were points of contact over a four kilometer front, to cover such a large area there must be at least half a dozen echelons. Signal density analysis gave little to go on for that, the G&K formations were rarely transmitting, but through this method she could tell there were at least two more echelons further north, gathering together.
What was his plan? Lure her out? Delay her deployment? Or something else, perhaps he was banking on 404 to come back and assist.
She smirked. Well that last was not gonna happen.
Still, the movement of the engagements was odd. As they continued to start and stop, there was always a gap in between each engagement. Developing fully. At first, one of two shooters would open, a few others following shortly after. As she engaged, the enemy would depart slowly and piecemeal.
As her forces continued to deploy, Ouroboros noted that there were a few unmarked crossroads present along the main roads which didn't appear in the major maps she possessed. However, on some other, smaller scale maps there were small paths marked, hiking trails or service roads, and a few dry creek beds.
They crisscrossed the valley, and it was on studying them for a moment that she noticed something: the traveling points of contact and the paths the various paths took through the forest were quite close.
"I see, rats scurrying amongst the trees," she smirked," lets flush you out."
At next contact, her forces pursued the G&K dolls into the forest. Sure enough they quickly found the enemy running along the trails en route to their next attack site. It was clear now that there were only three echelons that had been harrying her forces, no match for her own troops in a straight fight.
Griffin ran almost immediately, and she kept on them for as long as she could. Eventually their forces slipped away, but by then she no longer really cared.
The reason being her forces were now fully deployed. Now, they could execute the next stage of her plan.
The best thing to do in war is seize and monopolize the initiative, and that's what she would do.
She would make for the northern exits to the valley, and the towns that lay beyond. Either Griffin moves to block her, and is crushed, or she wreaks havoc in the countryside and potentially gets the pmc kicked off the contract to protect that region.
Either way, it's check.
Perhaps now, she should see to things personally.
NOTES:
Sorry.
This has been a rough chapter for me to finish, been sitting on it since I published the last one, just about. I've tried to figure out how to make it better, what to add, what not to, and it all ended up as a mess. This is the best I could do, so sorry its a bit shorter, and maybe a bit worse, than usual.
Anyway, as for the story, I'm making changes to cube. we won't see most of them come to fruition in this arc, but as we continue on we'll see the new elements play out and start driving the story in different directions from what we know from GFL. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed.