Chapter Eight
"Sir! I found a clear frequency!" - the tech specialist motioned Zelazny over, just as he and Vande caught sight of the rest of the squad, gathering near the ship's rear anchor wells, where their catamaran was silently and stealthily still docked at.
Zelazny held up a hand briefly, looking over his men... noticing that two were missing.
"Where's Ellis and Kayashima?" - he asked.
"I sent them to check on the diversionary team – they thought they saw what looked like weapons fire near the conning tower." - a fire-team corporal reported. At this, Zelazny scowled in disapproval... being on their own made those two vulnerable.
He turned to glance in that direction, his scowl deepening... before he moved over to the tech specialist.
"Show me."
...giving Irwine and the mohawked thug, peeking under the tarp of one of the upper-deck lifeboats where they observed the gathering from, a clear look at his face.
The ex-Marine swore quietly under his breath, quickly pulling the tarp down to a crack. It was him. Michael Zelazny. Suddenly his hands were itching to have any kind of rifle in them, as he visualised himself squeezing off a shot, right between the large cyborg's eyes. At this range, roughly 60-70 metres, even through the downpour, it would've been the easiest shot ever. But all he had was his Diamondback. And even with his marksmanship ability, it would be a tricky shot with a pistol. And... he was a rifleman. That's where his long-range skills lay. With a pistol... not really.
And if he missed... or hit him anywhere but the head, given the heavy-duty segmented plating Zelazny was wearing... all he'd do is give away their position, and not do anything to Zelazny.
But it was tempting, as he had to restrain himself from taking the shot. If it were half the range... and if he didn't care about giving away their position...
Soon, fucker. Very soon.
"You know that big hanzer?" - the thug muttered, glancing sideways at him, as they hunkered down again.
Irwine took a second, before he answered in a growl.
"Yeah. I do. C'mon, out the back, nice and easy... let's get below decks, and see what they've got down there at the stern. My guess is some kind of stealth ship. Only way they could've sneaked up on this thing."
He instructed, as he back-crawled towards the other end of the lifeboat, slipping out from under the tarp. He motioned to the thug to follow him, as they vanished into one of the doorways leading back inside.
On the upper walkway beneath the conning tower...
The two Inter-Guarda troops spread out, covering with their Sanctions, as they cautiously approached the unmoving bodies of the ship's captain and the night-shift crew.
"Eight casualties. Small-arms fire, looks like the bridge crew." - one muttered, checking one of the bodies.
"The fuck happened here?! Let's check the bridge... and where the fuck's the patrol boat?" - the other glanced in the direction of the bow, where the Coast Guard vessel was supposed to be docked, squinting through the rainstorm.
The EM vision mode his helmet was in, made the rain effects all the more... intrusive and static-y, but their orders were clear. Even if by now, it was starting to give him a slight headache.
The two advanced up the stairs to the conning tower, keeping their heads on a swivel, before they caught sight of the inspection team... five more bodies, clad in Coast Guard armour, including their man, the 'leader' of the 'inspection team'.
"Shit! There's Bascom... check the others!" - one rushed over, motioning the other to inspect the rest of the bodies.
"Stab wounds... temple, throat... ribcage, left side, on this guy... right between the plates to the heart, my guess. Jesus fuck... no shell casings! None of 'em even got off a shot at whoever butchered 'em..." - the other trooper reported in a slightly shaky tone, standing up and quickly looking around, his knuckles white on the Sanction, trying hard to keep the mounting... feeling of exposure... from gaining traction. He was very glad indeed, that the EM vision they had, would at least give them a fighting chance...
...hopefully.
"Fedorova?" - the first trooper growled, getting up himself, from the leader's body.
"Who else?" - he retorted darkly.
Suddenly, a welcome voice manifested itself in their minds.
~"Charlie Team, report!"~ - slightly crackly, but legible.
~"Boss! Am I gl- y-yes sir! Diversion team's dead, bridge crew's dead. It's a bloodbath over here! We think Fedorova's handiwork, given the method. She could still be around!"~ - the first trooper reported.
~"Get back over here as soon as you can! We'll meet you amidships, top deck, then start hunting. Do NOT expose yourselves, do NOT try to be heroes. Just meet up ASAP!"~ - came Zelazny's reply.
"Everyone, sitrep!" - he barked, as the seven people gathered around.
"Enemy activity near the conning tower, we've lost the diversion team! Likely the primary target. Weapons hot, we're meeting with Charlie atop! Stay alert and keep your cool. Shoot only at a confirmed target, since we've got civvies around now. Let's move!" - leading the way back towards the front.
As the heavily armed squad traversed the corridors and hallways, quite a few passengers were already out and about, wondering what was going on... so the troops now had to split their attention between intimidating the civilians back to their rooms, and keeping a lookout for Yelena's EM signature.
And the nerves were fraying.
"GET BACK to your room! NOW!" - one of the troops barked at a loud, curpulent Hispanic woman aggressively pointing a finger at him, demanding answers. Then he suddenly riflebutted her to the deck, not getting compliance.
"I SAID, GET BACK!"
"Six, stand down!" - Vande barked, catching sight of the scene, before her eyes suddenly widened... at a glowing EM shape appearing behind the man, in a cross-corridor... a static-laced shape of a tall, limber female figure, aiming a pair of weapons at his back.
"DROP!" - the Dutch woman yelled, snapping up her NRG plasma rifle to track the shape... but it was too late. Six went down in a burst of suppressed fire peppering his back, while the shape leapt to the side, out of sight, even as a pair of plasma bolts went flashing down the corridor, exploding in a brief burst of superheated gases, as they impacted the far bulkhead, leaving behind a pair of char marks. Another civilian nearby, screamed in pain, as the supeheated plasma-discharge wave swept across his face in a glancing sweep, blinding him, sending him riving in pain to the deck, covering his eyes.
Ena Vande's breath caught in her throat. As temperamental and fiery as she was – she did have a heart. Possibly more of it, then her late, ice-cold sister.
I'm... I'm sorry...
She bit her lip, even as more passengers went scrambling out of the way, now in full panic mode.
"SIR! Contact! She's over there!" - she yelled, putting it out of her mind, as she pointed down the corridor, more troops converging.
"We've lost Six." - she nodded at the unmoving armoured body, fifteen paces down. The curpulent woman was still there, nursing a whale of a black eye where she was riflebutted, in total shock, staring at the soldier's body.
"Watch your damn fire! And you're with me. There's only two ways off this deck, she'll be going for one of 'em." - Zelazny growled, leading the way down a perpendicular corridor.
They barely made it fifteen paces, before an EM signature manifested itself on the man's half-functional HUD radar readout... coming from the other end of the deck, towards the front.
"Hold on... she's moving this way... how the hell did she get here so fast... ?" - he snapped, turning into a cross corridor leading towards the ship's bow sections, instantly turning on his Smart Vision, his rifle up and tracking, as he expected to see a shape, moving beyond the bulkhead.
But there was nothing.
"Sir..? You sure? I just saw her down there... !" - Vande protested, pointing down towards the stern. This made the man pause, frowning... before he scowled, getting a precise distance-lock on the signature. It was beyond the boundary of the deck, somewhere up on the ship's superstructure.
"Bait. Probably some kind of modified electronic device..." - before he turned towards a pair of troops with them.
"You two, lock down this corridor. Do NOT move past this chokepoint. Just in case." - getting a nod, before he added subvocally, ~"Beta, report!"~
~"Nothing out here... if she went in this direction, she hasn't shown up. We've got the two exits here covered, and there's no other way out to the deck."~ - the two troops covering the stern section reported.
Zelazny was about to sign out, before...
~"Contact!"~ - the subvocalised exclamation came, from one of the two, followed by a distant detonation.
"That sounded like a grenade. MOVE!" - Zelazny barked, sprinting back down the corridor, Vande hot on his heels. Beta team had the grenade-launcher equipped trooper with them.
~"Status!"~ - he demanded, rounding a corner before the exit to the rear deck, his Smart-Vision active... just in time to see a wireframed shape, leaping upwards to the observation deck, then sprinting with inhuman speed across, above his head, back towards the front.
"Nevermind..." - he growled to himself, turning around and dashing back the way he came, looking upwards to keep a bead on Fedorova's movements above. For a man his size and bulk, Zelazny was surprisingly quick when he wanted to be.
"S-sir..? What's goi-"- Vande panted at his heels, a little confused by his sudden change of direction. As one of the E-grade assets, she wasn't equipped with Smart-Vision.
"I've marked her... keep up!" - he growled, cutting her off.
At a dead run, they came to the same corridor where the two rear-guard troops were still locking down.
"Two of you, with the sargeant! Get up this mid-well to the deck, and engage! She's right above us... I'm gonna cut her off from the front!" - he barked loudly, to make himself heard over the gabble and confused screaming of panicked civilians, pointing at the stairwell back past the corner, leading up. He didn't slow down, rushing out towards the front exit, determined not to lose the wireframe shape he was still tracking through his Smart Vision.
Thanks for the advance warning... whoever you are.
Yelena scowled to herself, her cochlear implants having overheard the yelling below. This was not good... whoever this operative was, he could see her through the walls. And was fast enough to keep up from below. She had to get out of his Smart Vision radius. Dropping her cloak to conserve her bioenergy level, now below 50%, she routed additional power to her leg servos, then sprung into a sideways-leap, hoping to throw him off long enough to make some relative distance between them.
Normally, she could literally run like the wind, given a flat, unobstructed surface, and outrun anything alive, aside from antelopes and cheetahs. But the ship's upper deck was cluttered with deck-chairs and closed-up parasols, not to mention very slippery, given the pouring rain. Her metallic feet offered decent traction in dry conditions, but on a wet, polished deck... not so much. Her gyrostabilisers had their work cut out for them, to keep her from slipping.
Not to mention, she was still shellshocked from the grenade explosion, and a deep gash in her side was trailing blood, where a piece of shrapnel sliced her open. It hurt, but for Yelena, pain was an afterthought. The loss of blood, even with the healing enzymes doing their job... not so much. The absence of her armour suit was certainly felt. At least the subdermal plates were still there... but they certainly had their limits, and the seams between them were vulnerable.
A plasma-bolt whizzed past her shoulder, singeing her hair, followed by a staccato of flechette shots, one grazing her arm. She dropped out of reflex, into a balanced slide, which took her behind cover of the same soda machine where they put one of the jammers, a few hours ago. Then she let out with both TMPs, short controlled bursts, tracking the three shapes behind her, through the thick downpour. The one in front appeared to be the one equipped with a plasma weapon.
The three scattered to their own pieces of cover, but she thought she saw one of her shots strike home. It didn't drop the target, however. Letting out a few more bursts, to keep them suppressed, which expended the rest of the magazine on one of the TMPs, Yelena glanced at her side. Blood was still gushing, but a good portion of the gash was half-coagulated... the healing matrix at work, confirmed by her ongoing yellow-lined status readouts on her HUD.
Vstavat'!
She mentally snapped at herself, getting up again and rushing on. Given what that man yelled below, she would be pincered at any moment, and she HAD to get off the upper deck. She couldn't afford to let those three slow her down, and allow him to complete the pincer move.
Zelazny came to the foredeck at a dead run, ahead of Fedorova's dash above, as she had to take cover and repel the attack. The comm chatter from Vande made that clear. This bought the man a valuable half-dozen seconds, to prepare his own ambush, as he hugged the bulkhead right below the outer stairwell to the top deck, keeping quiet.
Not that it was that difficult, the panicked passengers inside were making a lot of noise, which would no doubt interfere with his quarry's ultrasonics, not to mention the continuing raging storm.
She had no hope of picking him up amongst all that white noise. Sure enough, she reentered his Smart-Vision's radius a few moments later, still staying on the same vector... right towards his position. Expecting her to jump down directly over him, he took aim, expecting to get a good shot at her as she sailed above... but at the last moment, the wire-frame shape swerved-off to the side, and leaped diagonally forward, making his timed shot miss her, by an arm's length. She must've seen him below, at the last moment, before she landed atop of a lifeboat on the far side of the foredeck.
He corrected his aim, tracking, even as the tall, graceful, whipcord-framed cybernetic figure raised the twin TMPs towards him and fired, at the same time as she dropped lightly behind the lifeboat, taking cover. The timing was perfect, as her drop allowed her to let out a full burst, while still being in time, to block his return shot.
No exaggeration, huh? She's good. And... damn! A looker. What a waste...
Was Zelazny's fleeting thought, feeling some blood flowing... downward... as his own reflex-booster kicked in, sending him leaping for cover behind the metal doors. A pair of 9mm rounds caught him in the left torso plate of his armour, without making much of a dent in it, the rest of the burst spattering off the doors' surface as his own plasma blast impacted the nearer side of the lifeboat, burning a charred hole in it.
He advanced on the lifeboat, determined to reacquire her behind it via Smart-Vision, keeping up the cover fire. Three more blasts burned holes in the plastic, sending black acrid smoke wafting up into the stormy sky, making for an impromptu smokecover, all the more intense from vapourised water mixing with the polymer smoke.
Shit... ! Didn't think of that...
The man scowled, rushing forward to get inside the radius, before she took advantage of it and bolted... but she was gone. There was nobody behind the boat, or anywhere ahead, near the bow.
"How the... where'd she go?!" - the man muttered aloud, as he looked around. Nothing. Then he happened to glance down... reacquiring her wireframe shape on the lower deck... about five-six metres below.
He leaned over the side to take a look... noticing a line of windows on the ship's hull below, one of them with the glass broken-in. She clearly vaulted over the edge, and somehow managed to kick her way into the lower deck through the window, without just sliding overboard into the sea.
In less then five seconds since they broke visual contact. He grimaced.
Holy shit... ok, so she's a Cirque De Solei performer! Got it...
~"Converge on Deck B, fore section! Lock down all access points to the mid sections! I'm tracking her... Standby for real-time updates!"~ - he instructed the squad through the Infolink, keeping up with her movements below, gaze fixed to his feet, and hoping for another access point that would let him descend, without losing Smart-Vision contact, and before she found a way to descend further down, and out of radius.
As much as he would've liked to follow her route below... he knew that he would end up in the sea, if he tried. He just didn't have that level of bodily coordination.
You're a real piece of work, lady...
He thought, impressed in spite of himself. But he did spot some blood, being washed off the deck by the rain... she was wounded.
"Well well... what do we have here? Sneaky bastards..." - Irwine murmured, looking out of the Queen's transparent rear jet-ski bay doors on Deck F... at a dark, stylish-looking catamaran-styled vessel, almost unnoticable against the dark backdrop of a stormy sea, sidled-up against the larger ship's stern. It was roughly the size of a large fishing trawler, or a corvette, by the looks of it.
"Nice ride. Think we should take it?" - the mohawked thug sniggered. Irwine's expression was deadpan.
"Yep. Let's go." - briefly checking his Diamondback and it's AP ammunition, leading the way to the jet-ski bay's control console, looking over the levers for the one to let him lower the doors.
"Wh-what..? You fuckin' serious?" - the thug stammered in shock.
"With all the troops out hunting for us, they probably got a skeleton crew left aboard... and sure as hell won't be expecting any guests. Can't think of a better time. Why? You don't feel like going for a swim?" - Irwine glanced at him.
"Ummm... I guess..." - before the ex-Marine added, "And you get to have your gun back! Plus a good chance to use it." - with a grin, which turned a touch brittle.
"Just one rule. Don't point it at me, or I'll blow your brains out. Deal?" - clapping the punk on the shoulder, with a 'friendly' squeeze and a wink, which carried at least as much veiled threat.
"I mean, y-yeah... s-sure! Damn cabron, you're more crazy then some guys I used to run with back in Panama!" - the thug gave a slightly nervous laugh.
Irwine nodded to himself, satisfied. He'd seen gang mentality at work before... and he knew that shows of strength, daring, and calculated intimidation went a long way to impress these types of people. Plus the guy was as dumb as a bag of rocks... and clearly afraid of him.
"Here you go. Start stripping, we don't wanna get soaked when we have to shoot our way aboard. Down to the skivvies." - handing him his gun, as he started undressing.
"Uh... right. B-but how do we get in there?" - the thug blinked, pointing at the dark shape. Irwine squinted at the ship.
"That looks like some Jackhammer knockoff. Maybe DA10 or 12... maybe 14. Modified, but I did a stint on one of those, back when – nevermind. I mean, mine was an 8, but it's basically the same design, just souped-up. If it is, it's gonna have a hatch between the floats... near the stern. Maintenance access. We swim out, get in, and shoot the place up."
"How many you think on that thing right now?" - the man asked.
"We'll see. But it's an assault craft... standard crew maybe... twenty. Tops. Since this one's used as a staging base for this black ops team, I'd say less. They wouldn't wanna have anyone they don't need snooping around, so maybe 5-6 crewers and maintenance guys, plus a skipper. Nothing we can't handle. We just need to catch 'em with their pants down." - Irwine assured him, stripping down to his boxers.
Then he ripped-up the hood of his raincoat, into an impromptu waterproof satchel, and pointed at the thug's weapon.
"Give it here. We'll wrap our guns up so they don't get soaked in the water. Ok... there we go." - he tightened the bundle up. It would not hold up against prolonged exposure to the sea, but for the couple dozen metres they needed to cross over... and given the fact he'd try to keep it above the water surface, for most of it... it should be sufficient.
"Ready?" - he asked, as he pulled the lever that began lowering the transparent doors.
As soon as they did, a wave of clammy, rain-soaked air blasted them in the face, as the thunderous storm welcomed them back into it's fold.
"Yeah... just hope I don't end up sharkbait or somethin'!" - the mohawked thug smirked, trying to keep his mounting nerves under control.
Then the two men jumped into the sea, swimming out of the jet-ski docker, towards the dark, foreboding shape. For Irwine, it brought back memories of the amphibious assault drills he went through, as a Marine.
Then again... we never drilled anything THIS crazy... hell. A two-man frog squad! Maybe Yelena's fuck-it-all attitude's starting to rub off on me! But if we can take over this thing, we could just up and get the fuck out of here, and leave those assholes high and dry, to explain why they shot up a cruise liner! Not as satisfying as putting a bullet in Zelazny, but... AND we'd have a fully-functional Jackhammer assault craft to play with, down the line! Stealth-enabled, too.
Soon enough, the two were clambering atop of the left float, on the inner side, and onto the narrow walkway. As Irwine anticipated, there was a hatch there, near the stern.