Explosive Rescue
Prologue - Laws of attraction
The orbital mechanics of a three body gravitational system is, in general, quite complex, and doesn't have an analytical solution; the orbits of the Hueos planetoids, however, could almost always be well approximated considering a two body coupling between Huey and Louie, and then between their center of mass and Dewey, by virtue of the third twin’s much larger orbital radius.
Traveling on this longer distance, engines switched off after a short acceleration burn, the Bring Guns to Bear silently approached its destination: Porto Interplanetário, Huey’s first stop for any Nomad ship in need of repairs and resupplying. They also needed to unload the “legally confiscated” goods from the raids around the smuggler’s moon, and had received a secure channel confirmation that an unofficial Nomad distribution center had been set up in the spaceport to ferry cargo to and from the Commercial Mission.
The trip across the system would last several hours, and had been scheduled during one of the crew’s night cycles. Mariam usually had no problems falling asleep during space travel, both in light acceleration and near zero-G - perks of being born and raised in Corregidor - but this time, she had been strapped in her bunk for almost two hours without so much as a hint of drowsiness.
She loosened the strap along her waist to turn on her side - not that it really changed anything when you were weightless - and turned on the holoscreen of her comlog.
Arachne seemed even slower than usual, struggling to load the images of the local news article she had started browsing - a piece on HE Neuwus, the hundred-thousandth channel with an “uwu” in the name to cater to the bakunian audience - or maybe it was just affiliated with the Universal Warcor Union - with some memes on the current situation around the three planetoids.
Apparently Whole Protein - a big panoceanian conglomerate - had bought the lawless pirate den they were orbiting just a few hours prior; a strange move for sure, but she didn't care enough to ponder on the possible reasons behind it. Then you had the usual hate on Aleph, that had officially expressed the desire to “share and cross correlate” with the EI itself - unbelievable how the rest of the Sphere still trusted that dystopian nightmare to make decisions on their behalf.
A message notification from her geist derailed her train of thought: it was a simple “Still up? ;)” From Zuri, two bunks above her - she could almost feel the reprimand behind the emoticon
“Sorry LT, can’t catch any z’s” she preemptively justified herself
“Neither can I. Wanna grab something to drink?”
Huh. That wasn't what she expected.
She unclasped the bed’s security straps, and silently floated out in the dark room, trying as best she could to grab her magboots without waking up Uzoma, the third occupant of the cabin.
Zuzu was right behind her, and a few seconds later the door to the corridor hissed open; they cleared the dimly lit crew quarters without speaking, and passed the pressurized hatch to the common area. There the lights were more lively, and one of the night shift engineers - a red haired tunguskan, with a hot coffee globe in hand - waved to them while they laced up their shoes.
“Long night, right?” smiled Zuri, starting to head for the cafeteria, the slightest hint of sadness in her voice
“Bet. It felt like one of those unskippable ads they put on Maya - I was about to gouge my eyes out from the boredom”
She gave a brief laugh, her many braids bouncing weightlessly, wriggling like the snake hair of a gorgon.
“You’re so dramatic!”
Mariam’s eyes hesitated on the other woman’s figure for a moment - she suddenly felt very aware of why the machinist had aimed that slightly-too-wide smile at them: they were both wearing work trousers and black tank top, and Zuri’s green eyes and tawny brown skin - crisscrossed by the bright pink strokes of her scars - were more than enough to make heads turn in their direction outside of Corregidor. On the mothership the saying was “only outsiders stare”, but she always felt like it applied to some Nomads too. She nervously bit at a fingernail, scanning the cafeteria tables; luckily, for the moment they were alone.
Meanwhile, the sergeant had vaulted the bar counter and was looking for something in the refrigerated compartments “So, what are you taking? Want me to whip you up a Terrance?”
She blinked, confused “A what?”
One raised eyebrow emerged for a moment “Didn’t you hear the news? They found one of O-twelve’s Primes - this officer Terrance - in a waste bin with a ton of bottles of beer. It was the funniest headline, and that clown Obasanjo made up a drink on the spot in honor of this guy - and to be honest, it came out pretty good: agave - of course - beer and some lime, fresh and easy.”
Now it was her turn to smile - sometimes being a loner made you lose on some authentic gold
“Yeah, sounds good. Uzoma must be useful for something after all, right?”
“Yep. Two Terrances, coming right up!”
The hours rolled by one after the other in laugh and conversation, and, before she managed to find the nerve to ask the Sergeant why she couldn’t sleep - and the reason behind that uncharacteristic sortie - the artificial dawn shimmered in the ambient lights of the ship, and the cafeteria started to become more and more populated by whispered conversation and people, either waking up or going to bed.
She had just decided to go for the third coffee of the night, when suddenly a red warning flashed on her digital patina, and on all the holoscreens: ALL CREW ON ALERT - DISTRESS SIGNAL RECEIVED
She hurried back to their table, seeing Zuri speaking with someone over call. She raised her eyes from the comlog and mouthed “It’s Okiro - We’re deploying”
Ten minutes later, the whole team was boarding the Which Way to the Beach: Oni was still half asleep, helmet closed to hide his dozing off; Olujimi was basically bouncing in place like he had one too many coffees - or something stronger altogether, and Obasanjo was resting his forehead on the butt of his rocket launcher. With them embarked two jaguars - she recognized the blue haired one: Lottie, their bodyguard in the previous mission - Lily the Jazz lookalike, Widget the laconic Evader, and the bulky silhouette of Lieutenant Okiro’s Mobile Brigada armor.
“G’morning team” he started, as the shuttle took off with a jolt “for those that didn’t manage to take a look at the briefing, we received a distress call from Porto Interplanetario’s corregidoran workers: an Imperial Service ship has landed almost one hour ago, and the Agents are combing through the docks and depots looking for irregularities - let’s say that we have to dissuade them from searching too hard.”
Some heads nodded, some bobbed in the middle of turbulence-napping
“One more thing” continued Edward, pretending not to notice the sleeping Wildcats “High command thinks that the EI is infiltrating the forces of the other powers, especially Aleph. Our intel says that we should meet some Dakinis and Devas on site together with State Empire troops - let’s try to get a close look at them if possible, and check for alien tampering.” He imperceptibly tilted his head, receiving information on a private channel “We’re landing in one hundred seconds - your assigned positions are highlighted on the terminal map. On your marks, and ready for touchdown.”
Mostly Hostile Contact
They jumped down the ramp while the Shuttle hovered about forty centimeters from the ground, and they ran to their positions, rifles shouldered. They rapidly reached the inside of the deserted spaceport terminal while the Which Way to the Beach regained altitude behind them and the command team secured the residential structures on the opposite flank.
“Welcome to the party, four-oh-four.” came a voice on the tactical channel - the source was a friendly IFF less than twenty meters ahead of them “Masai Hunter Michael Madaki, at your service. You’re terribly unlucky it’s only me today, usually we have one or two Intruders among the longshoremen.”
“Nice to meet you Hunter Madaki, I’m CO Edward Okiro, and we’re grateful for any help we can get.”
“Hostiles have fanned out in the structures ahead of my hideout, they have a robot sniper set up in a nest overlooking your position ‘cat team, be careful when you peek around.”
“Roger that, thanks for the heads up.” answered Zuri, giving Uzoma a pat on the arm and the signal to advance.
“Maaaan, what’s up with the spoilers!” he groaned in the common channel “I don’t need no forewarning to send this piece of junk to the scrapyard, watch this!”
He jumped out from behind a concrete pillar, rocket launcher flaring to life with a deafening roar - and just as quickly flew backwards, an impact on his chest making him spin like a pinwheel hit by a leaf blower.
“Yeah, you missed him.” noted the Moran “Everything alright, big guy?”
“Fuck no! I’m bleeding sarge, call the doctor - we do have a doctor right?”
“Shut up Obasanjo.” answered Zuri, passing a hand on the faceplate of her helmet “Press on the wound and stay put, you’ll be fine. Olujimi, take point, see if you can find an opening to bring down that sniper - Mariam, I’ll need you to stay here with Obasanjo and keep him safe.”
“I knew it. I’m gonna bleed out, you’re leaving me with the bald witch to die.” he muttered
“Okay Zuz - Sergeant. You’re sure you don’t need me for that check on the Aleph REMs?” spoke Mariam over him “I mean, big F for Uzoma, but he’s basically a goner.”
“I’m right here you heartless bitch!”
“Cut it out, both of you.” interrupted them Zuri “You’ll have to run the analysis soft’ from remote, I’m sure you can manage it.”
A long burst of automatic fire from the opposite side of the pillar, followed by a “Wohoo!” and loud cheering in Spanish informed them that Olujimi’s spitfire had indeed found an opening.
“Good job Dinka, we’re moving.” congratulated him Zuri, giving Mariam a gentle squeeze on the shoulder before disappearing beyond the short corridor to join up with him and Oni.
Mariam sighed, and sat down opposite Uzoma, who had closed his mic and was talking to himself - probably insulting her and everyone else. She ignored him, and initialized the VR environ of her hacking rig: camera feeds and quantronic zones started popping up in her field of view as she gained access to the spaceport network by brute forcing through its firewall - Lily was already there, the strands of her monitoring programs drawing a spider web around her ID.
She accepted her link-up request, to share processing power and available systems, opening a private vocal channel through the network
“Hey Takeshido, you’re on backline duty too today?”
“Looks like it. How’s the sitch?”
“Quite good for now - the connection is stable and we have a ton of cameras.”
She flipped through the screens to find a view on the landing pad the team was entering: most of the available space was taken by a small suborbital transport, while a shuttle service bus was parked in the back. They were advancing towards the low structure where the Dakini had been perched - her vantage point allowed her to see five more hostiles hiding behind it on ground level: another Dakini, a Deva, a brainless Kuang-Shi and two Celestial Guards were scattered over and around the metal scaffolding of a temporary structure.
She passed on the squad channel, while Lily was busy directing the arrival of reinforcements from the Which Way to the Beach: an Hellcat was dropping in to support the advancing Wildcats, while a Tomcat had found a landing spot behind enemy lines.
“Team, got eyes on your position. You have five targets behind the building at two o’clock, and Hellcat support coming down in twenty.”
“Roger. We’ll wait for them to show up, or they’ll miss all the fun.”
Sudden shouting from Lily’s channel caught her attention:
“Pedro what the hell are you doing!? Just shoot her, you’ll have time for questions later!”
She switched over to the camera Lily was connected to, where a Tomcat was diving into a long haired Bounty Hunter, pistol shots bouncing on his body armor. They tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs, the woman trying to point her gun to the assailant, while he held her wrist away and fumbled with a portable bioscanner with the other hand. She couldn’t hear the audio feed, but they were clearly talking during the scuffle, and the merc froze in shock in unison with the resuming of Lily’s outraged screams
“ARE YOU SERIOUSLY ASKING HER OUT FOR DINNER PEDRO? I SWEAR I WILL COURT-MARTIAL YOUR ASS”
Mariam withdrew back to her channel, glad that at least they weren’t the platoon’s least professional soldiers.
On the landing pad the airborne trooper had caught the enemies by surprise, managing to decommission both Aleph operatives while covering fire from Olujimi downed the Kuang-Shi, but the Hellcat had become in turn engulfed in a cloud of flesh-dissolving nanites from the dying Aleph aspect, and her bloodied figure had collapsed to the ground in a heap before the Wildcats could run to her aid.
Then she saw it: movement inside the deserted bus - another Dakini!
“On your left, enemy inside the vehicle!” she hurriedly pinged on their HUD.
Olujimi’s reaction was almost instantaneous, the spitfire turning to face the new threat in a bright fan of tracer rounds; the rainbow paint on the metallic side of the bus exploded in a cloud of smoke and sparks before the android could acquire a target, parts of his broken porcelain-white body flying out of the shattered windows.
“Bro, that was clean!” resonated Oni’s deep and booming voice, together with a skull-rattling slap on the comrade’s back.
They quickly gained the cover of the building - only stopping behind the maneuvering fins of the parked spacecraft to shoot at a Bounty Hunter standing guard near one of the terminal entrances - and swiftly flanked the two remaining Celestial Guards, Oni’s shotgun shells unceremoniously disposing of them while their panicked return fire wildly missed his stout frame.
While he and Dinka moved to watch over their surroundings, Zuri approached one of the damaged Dakinis, using a Link-spike to connect to its data core - by, well, stabbing through it.
“Are you getting this Takeshi?” she asked, her breath still slightly labored from the adrenaline of the assault
“Loud and clear.” answered Mariam, a data stream quickly scrolling in front of her “It’s standard Aleph encryption - it will take a while to decipher, but any external modification should stick out like a sore thumb in pattern analysis.”
Surely enough, after a few seconds, extraneous strands of code started getting highlighted in red by her geist: behavioral routines, target selection matrixes, movement processes… all the combat systems had been slightly modified with Combined Army data structures.
Even worse, she noticed, some of those edits dated back just a couple of minutes - so their author could still be around.
She launched a wide network scan, and… there it was!
A civilian comlog pinged from inside the terminal lobby - out of sight, but close to Madaki’s position. She switched to the main tactical channel
“Hunter, what’s your status? You have a possible HVT near your position, we suspect a Combined Army asset.”
“I’m a little tied up at the moment, there’s one of those damned Ninjas stalking about, and my Koalas can’t track him down.” He answered, a tinge of worry in his voice
“I don’t think he’s coming after me though. Maybe he’s going for the operations manager in the terminal control room - turn left at the corridor in front of you, and then it’s the second door on the right.”
“Roger, I’ll keep an eye on it - see if you manage to scan the guy in the lobby.”
Mariam moved all the VR screens to the edges of her field of view, and fiddled briefly with the controls of the multispectral visor to put it in differential mode - a greyscale view of the world, where only the variations in electromagnetic emission were highlighted in rainbow intensity spectra.
She shouldered her rifle and aimed at the door, the dancing pilot flame of the underslung flamethrower the only visible speckle of color.
Nothing.
She eyed the tactical map in the corner of her vision: near her and Obasanjo - still conscious, but definitely incapacitated - there was only Lottie. She signaled her to close in, as added security.
The jaguar pranced happily to her side, glad to finally have something to do, and started intently inspecting the corridor with narrowed eyes.
“Scan complete!” The sudden sound of Madaki’s voice made her jump “Biometrics are inconclusive, but the guy’s suspicious as hell, I’d bet you ten skenders to one that he’s a damned Speculo Agent.”
“Good work.” Interjected Okiro’s voice “Secure him quickly and get the hell out of there, the Imperial Service is converging on your position.”
Mariam lost the thread of the conversation - was that a blur of movement? She turned towards Lottie, who shrugged. Maybe it was nothing, but…
A sudden alert from the network - something was landing behind their Moran: a Garuda tacbot.
She opened a hacking dial with one hand and sent out a CLAW script to try and stop it in its tracks - but she was too slow, as the robot managed to fire a slug into Madaki’s back before her and Lily’s efforts turned into an expensive modern art piece.
“I’m fine! Ballistic vest blocked the shot.” Coughed the Masai Hunter “...Oh crap that's an Hsien.”
The sound of gunfire drowned his voice, and for a moment only static feedback resonated in comms. Then the transmission resumed, words barely discernible between broken gasps of breath
“Took… bastard down… I’m hit… Can't complete… mission…”
“The enemy is falling back to their ship! Get the wounded to safety, do not pursue!” quickly commanded Okiro “I repeat, all troops: disengage and withdraw!”
In a matter of minutes, the YuJingese spacecraft had taken off, and the wounded were being ferried to an improvised field hospital in the spaceport’s infirmary.
Later a report came in that Joline Sandoval, the corregidoran operations manager, had indeed disappeared - right under her nose. Damn Ninjas.
She took some consolation in the fact that two of the three wounded, Obasanjo and Madaki, were not in life-threatening conditions - the Masai Hunter’s heroic efforts had even won him a commendation from the High Command, and a bottle of expensive vintage Tequila from the Bring Guns to Bear’s crew. The third injured, Widget, had two heavy machine gun bullets lodged in the right lung, and had to be transferred to Averroes Hospital for emergency surgery; there was instead nothing to be done for the brave Hellcat sergeant Luisa Beceril, except for the extraction of her cube and the cremation of her remains.
Mariam was just walking out of the brief funeral ceremony, morale as low as it could be, brooding on how next time it could be her turn - or Zuri’s - when her geist drew her attention to an incoming priority message from the Nomad High Command ship, Bulls on Parade, forwarded to her by Lily:
Congratulations for the excellent results on your investigation, 404. We received the data you extracted from the corrupted Dakini, and we believe it will prove very valuable in our case against the nefarious alliance between the EI and Aleph.
Keep fighting the good fight comrades.
She turned towards the other woman, three paces behind her in the crowded corridor, meeting the familiar eyes of the Nomad hero Jasmine Caticovas. Not-quite-Jazz gave her an encouraging smile - Maybe they were really making a difference after all.
This narrative follows a game of Cloak and Dagger, my Corregidor versus Drop Bear’s Imperial Service. If you want a more accurate look on what happened (and more photos!), check out his battle report:
https://dropbearslog.blogspot.com/2024/08/cloak-and-dagger-operation-edgelord.html
Here are the table setup, and the list I used for the game:
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