Chapter 57: Most. Obvious. Ambush. In. History.

  “Don’t stick your dick in this, it’s fucked enough already.”

  –Expansive Ross’s PMC sergeant, ordering her troops not to move on a detected antithesis ambush, 2051.

  ***

  “So, what’s it looking like?” I asked Gary, my most important enforcer at the moment. Since we were preparing to approach ‘the dropsite’, aka ‘handing me my nephew’, recon was our number one priority. The whole team’d been here and on overwatch for over an hour! Right now, we just let Gary’s drones do their work. The meeting was supposed to be at four, but we’d had eyes on the site since we got the news. Oh, and we hacked the surveillance log of nearby buildings, of course.

  “I’ve found eighteen… No, that’s a charge, nineteen explosives so far, might find more. Lots of demo shit, not anti-tank. At a guess, he’s hoping you’ll take off your helmet at some point, or that you’ll get buried in the rubble and become an easy target. 86% disarmed, working on the new ones, I’ll know when they try to blow. Whoever got hired for this gig didn’t skimp. Think they might have seen the footage from those bounty hunters, boss.” He said, a grin pulling up one side of his mouth.

  “Clearly not, they wouldn’t have taken the contract.” I answered with a short chuckle echoed by every enforcer in the APC.

  “You know Louis, they might have only seen the memes…” Lila dropped that bombshell to my unending horror!

  “Plural?” I asked, my voice small and hesitant.

  “Oh yeah, plural.” She confirmed with a horribly cruel smile in her voice. Given the mission’s objective, I wouldn’t be surprised if my sister was trying to distract herself.

  “Altany, how sure are you we, or Gary’s drones, haven’t been spotted?” I needed my own distraction…

  I can predict we have not been observed with 91% certainty. The technologies available to mundane humans are too limited for the extra camouflage. However, it is possible he may have purchased vanguard equipment without my knowledge, but that is unlikely according to my searches. The sensor suites that could pierce our camouflage are kept out of humanity’s hands in general, mostly because of precisely this situation.

  I nodded. Good to know. Element of surprise did a lot. “Good work Garry and Altany. We’ll have to be careful, this is going to be a long-range slug-fest probably. Keep the APC flying and ready to scoot. All guns in. I expect a fight but I don’t want to start it and, well, we’re ever so slightly more solid with them tucked in…”

  I looked at our meeting spot. A fucking abandonned parking garage. This shit was a grave insult to my intelligence. Seriously…

  “Bella, Rosalie, you girls ready?”

  “Overwatch 1 ready…”

  “Je suis prête. / I’m ready.”

  “Gary, Altany, nearby buildings, anything?”

  “Quiet, boss, don’t like it.”

  I can see no source of alarm.

  The quiet was alarm enough. People around here knew when to hide. Maybe someone saw the guys planting demo-charges, or just some mystical ‘calm before the storm’, who the fuck knew. “Okay. Let’s spring this trap.”

  We unstealthed and… no shots. So far so good.

  Belany and Busan, aka ‘the B’s’, my militia door gunners, gave me the all-clear with M1 eyeballs from their perspective, or at least the one the projectors created inside the door. Again, so far so good…

  “You got me covered?” I asked Altany, just to be sure.

  As always. If you stay within the distance parameters, I’ll be able to deflect with the Panda Litter Carrier.

  I groaned inside my helmet, but I had to admit that it helped my nerves.

  We didn’t have to wait that long for the corpo-sec guys to show up, and boy did ‘show’ up fit. At least four tanks, six APCs, minimum sixty soldiers, ten in heavy armor. Fucking hell, that was a lot more than the morons who tried last time!

  Then, one of them, sporting lighter armor and an AR, came forward and removed his helmet!?

  It shocked me so much it took a while to recognize Cole stepping forward. “Hi hum… Mister Panda.”

  “Hello Cole. I’m going to guess my nephew’s not here.”

  He actually looked a bit surprised at that. What the flying fuck? “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware Ir-Lila had a brother.”

  Ah, yeah, made sense. “She does now.”

  He ‘Aaaahhh’d’ in understanding. “That kind of brother, I got a few myself.”

  I nodded back. I could tell, he knew the feeling. “So, not there?”

  “Oh, right, no hum… There was a school…”

  “Uhuh, you know, this could’ve been an email. Also, lots of backup for delivering a message.”

  Cole flushed a bit. “I was ordered to bring all my troops, my employer feared that you’d take it badly.”

  O-kay, I was done, removing the helmet had really thrown me for a loop. “Alright, seriously, Cole, you know this is an ambush, right?” His eyes widened in surprise.

  “You’re here to ambush us?”

  “What!? No, you idiot, you’re here to ambush me!” He blinked a few times. “Oh, come on, you can’t be this dense!” I turned to his guys and raised the volume. “Show of hands, who knows this is an ambush?”

  At least eighty-percent rose their hands tentatively. “Put your fucking hands down!” He barked at them, which they did. “Look, my orders are to bring the message, that’s it! I won’t have my guys start a fight!” He said, obviously eager to diffuse this situation.

  I closed my mic. “Altany, can you ask for Bytal’s help to know if he’s lying?”

  He appears to be telling the truth.

  What in the ever loving fuck? “Uh… Cole, you say that, but I got twenty-one demo-charges that say…”

  *BOOM*

  A pillar pretty far away from us exploded. “... twenty-two demo-charges that say different.”

  “Sorry, boss, looks like I missed one…”

  “Meh, a bit outside mission parameters at that dist…”

  A sound like glass breaking a dozen times and fifty times faster heralded the arrival of a ball of ridiculously black… stuff at supersonic speed skipping off the concrete close to me. “Cover!” Cole and I shouted at the same time. He put his helmet on and I found the spot with the most pillars between me and the direction of that shot.

  “Railgun?” I said as my APC scooted to the side to get the potshot-taking assholes out of LOS.

  Yes, the projectile was deflected successfully. I estimate the speed to be around Mach 7 upon arrival. It must have left the barrel significantly faster given the distance.

  “Potential locations given the buildings that had an angle on me?”

  The shot wasn’t aimed at you.

  My eyes narrowed. “Those horse-cock sucking prolapsing assholes were aiming for my APC!?”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Yes.

  “Oh no they did not. B’s, get ready to put some fire down on those assholes, high-ex, full power. This just became a no-prisonners mission.” Trying to kill me? That’s one thing. Trying to damage my fucking ship!? Oh, and, yeah, all my friends inside too.

  “Blue-Cola building, fourty-seventh floor, only place that makes sense.” I turned to Cole, bewildered by the bit of help.

  Infiltrating their network… I see visual distortions indicating the footage is being altered in real-time. No civilians within explosive range.

  “You know what to do!” A moment later, the Armored Panda Carrier rose and moved to the side, presenting a target they’d need to adjust for. The HFUG fired a burst at full power in an arc and forced the APC back a few meters! In the distance, concrete became shrapnel even before a massive explosion tore through whatever would potentially be left.

  “Jesus…” Cole muttered next to me.

  Suddenly, two panels rotated and the auto-cannons unfolded and opened fire on a rocket fired from a much closer window! “M’en occupe…/ I got it…” Rosalie muttered in comms. A feed from her sights appeared and I saw some… Not IR imagery but something else, whatever. Many shapes were apparently coming closer real fucking fast near that window.

  A moment of adjusting later, she started firing through the walls, every shot so powerful they pierced concrete and the spalling hurt the guys next to targets. “Osti qu’t’es rendu rapide avec ton straight pull… / Fucking hell you’re gettin’ fast with that straight pull…”

  “Merci boss. / Thanks boss.” She said, clear pride in her voice in that cool calm way Rosalie said things.

  “Panda!” I turned to Cole, hunkering down close to me. “My contacts are informing me of large troop movements coming for this position. Troop transports, APCs and gunships.” The guy sounded calm and professional. I had no clue what he intended to do.

  “You know they’re coming for me, right?”

  “I do.”

  “And your boss hired them.”

  “Probably, yeah.”

  “So… You’re going to do your job?”

  “Yup.” I tensed up, but he just turned to his second. “Defensive positions, hunker down behind the tanks, assume three-sixty assault, have heavy-armor cover the gaps. Assume AP rounds at all times with this bunch. Get Joseph moving with those reinforcements, I want every angle of attack covered in thirty seconds or it’s your ass.”

  The second turned to him, calm and ready. “ROE?”

  “They’re armed, clearly hostile and coming for an assault on our position, fire when you have a shot.” Huh. Okay, nice surprise.

  “Cole, open a port, I’ll connect you to our battlenet.” He did, which kind of surprised me. “Enforcers, disembark near my position. Carol, get in the middle of their formation, be ready for medical assist. Ripley, add yourself to their mechs. Katy, find a nice hiding spot near the egress points. Gary, I need a tactical analysis for counter assaults. Lila, Roger and Synthia, you’re sticking with me. Francis, get behind their tanks. I know that new armor of yours can take a beating but I’d rather it didn’t have to. B’s, you’re probably going to be a target in the APC, want to get off?”

  “Fuck off, boss.” Was the only answer I got, in unison even! Alrighty then.

  My beautiful vehicle got another shot deflected, but this time they had a position for it. Some kind of pitch black glass-like material I didn’t notice the first time showered the ground near us.

  Everyone, strap-in. Cole, tell your men the remains of the diamond like coating you see on the ground are extremely sharp. It may outperform diamond in certain applications.

  I understood why she asked the people inside to get ready when the coilgun she talked up so much opened fire after quite a bit of adjusting, forcing the whole thing back at least twenty meters!

  She showed me the long-range imagery from the ship, a big chunk of a building’s corner being erased from existence with nothing but kinetic energy. I could tell where the shot went since, well, the air kind of turned to fucking plasma in its wake!

  It’s from your Esoteric Large-Bore Ammunition catalogue. You cannot fire it yourself as it is not self-accelerating, meaning you would have to reach the required velocity yourself. Mach 8 anti-friction coated explosively-expanding surface-area kinetic striker. On contact, the surface area the shot hits instantly increases twenty-fold, hence erasing this part of the structure from existence. The shot is not so expensive since the vehicle-mounted coilgun accomplishes most of the work.

  My ship set down and its damn tail deployed in shielding mode. Moments later, my enforcers came out. Francis seemed perfectly at home with Cole’s PMCs, which made sense given his background. Carol set down her medical-pack and started looking over Cole’s guys like their own mothers. No one saw Katy get off, good girl.

  Ripley’s mech unfolded upon exit and, even through her discomfort, she got accepted pretty well by his mech forces who admired the damn nice piece of mechanized destruction. The woman had been able to add quite a lot more weaponry to it, including an HMG, rocket pod and another arm-mounted AR with a grenade-launching attachment for both.

  Another god damn railgun apparently got in position as a shot was deflected into the ground, poking a big god damn hole. “Jesus cat fisting christ they brought a lot of those. Altany, please buy more deflector thingies, don’t want my baby to run out.”

  Done. Would you like me to use it to draw fire and eliminate threats from above?

  I hesitated, but… Fuck, alright, it made sense. “I… Yes, alright, all guns out, don’t leave survivors who could fire a smart rocket. Please don’t let them scratch my poor APC!” Lila chuckled as she came next to me, followed by Synthia and Roger.

  I turned to Cole, the man obviously ready for battle, checking his weapons and making sure his guys were ready. “Cole, I’m trusting my people’s safety to you.” A silent agreement passed between us, which I usually sucked at but I felt we understood each other on a certain level. He gave a fuck about his soldiers’ safety, a fuckload more than the piece of shit PMCs I usually dealt with.

  “That medical officer, she’s good?”

  “Samurai good, yeah.”

  “I’ll keep her safe like she was my own.” We nodded at each other, more silent communication I couldn’t quite understand or put into words, but still… felt all the same.

  “Alright, Roger, Lila, Synthia and I will be mobile assault, it’s what we do best. We’ll have to stay away from the edges.”

  Cole agreed with a nod. “We know how to do defensive, don’t worry. I got every way in covered, they won’t make it close.”

  “Call out most likely ways in, Katy will sneak around over there, decapitate leadership.

  “Understood.”

  “Got outside assets? The Armored Panda Carrier will stay up, draw fire and call out enemy positions for my overwatch.”

  “Yeah, got reinforcements coming in, they have long-range options.”

  “You sure about this?”

  The man turned to me in surprise. “About what?”

  “Your job’s pretty clearly to take me out. You could also just, you know, fuck off.”

  “That’s not my job.”

  The animated eyes on my helmet blinked a couple times. “What?”

  “That’s not my job. Doing what the boss ordered is part of it, somewhat, but that’s not my job. The orders I got were to deliver a message, then defend if attacked. You didn’t attack, the fuckers coming over did. I’m respecting orders.”

  “Then… what is your job?”

  “Keeping my men safe and making sure their families can eat. No way I’d take you, or any of your guys for that matter, out without incurring severe casualties. The fuckers coming in hot? Yeah, those I can take easy.”

  I reassessed the man. The guy had been nice, polite and pleasant at the courthouse. The contract with Rodrick was work for him, but still just a contract. His duty was to his men, like me. I understood that very well. Had to wonder why Rodrick picked his company to do the job… “I feel ya. We’ll talk after this.”

  “Deal.”

  Welp, time to kill some evil mercs… Again.

  ***

  Stupid god damn corporate and their stupid fucking mission… No matter how insane the pay, this wasn’t worth it, no fucking way. Baker wanted to talk back but, well, job’s a job. Still, they’d pull an insane payday for taking out that Panda guy! The bounties for proof of death were crazy on top of the money they got for this assault!

  Also, hey, there were, what, two hundred of them converging on that position? He’d let the other groups surround and exhaust him, it’d be fine!

  They turned a corner to quite a terrifying view! In seconds, the mission turned from dangerous to FUBAR! Three suits of heavy armor, two HMG gunners and a god damn tank opened fire down their corridor! Half the advance team got cut down in barely two seconds! “Sergeant! We’re facing ten times the expected resistance, have to adjust our battle-plan!”

  Silence.

  “Sergeant?” She asked, dread entering her voice. She turned to see the decapitated corpse of her superior and no indication on how the fuck it’d happenned. Actually… Was that a red stain on… “Watch out!” She screamed before raising her gun. Too late.

  Some invisible fucker opened fire behind them, two streams of rounds appearing from thin air, surrounded by six corpses that’d been stabbed to death! She took cover, but whatever that bitch shot destroyed most things in its way while somehow not making enough noise to be noticed over the chaos!. “We need fucking reinforcements!”

  Now, they were properly fucked! Couldn’t advance against the firing squad down and had to take cover from an enemy behind them!

  “On the way to–fuck!” The silent gunfire stopped but she heard shots coming from their route in! Hell, had that been an explosion? They must have blown up a wall!

  It sounded like a pissed off shotgun and some anti-material rifle! If she strained her ears… Yeah, definitely a few pistols in the mix, what the shit?

  It took less than a minute before things got quiet. That is, until someone appeared around the corner… The one where all their backup was supposed to come from. The silhouette had some kind of furry ears on their heads… “Throw out your weapons or die.”

  That voice was so cold it chilled her to the bone. She could tell, either options worked for them. Taking the initiative, she threw her rifle as fast as possible, encouraging her eight remaining people to do the same. That armored figure kicked a box over at them. “Tie yourselves up, I’m busy.” Then? They walked off!

  Baker didn’t take any chances, grabbing the manacles and sharing them around. No pissing off the super deadly samurai! Nop!

  Fuck this FUBAR mission!