Abel poked his head around the corner. “Okay, I see the observer, it looks like they are unarmed, but they have binocs of some sort. Potentially even infrared. Wait, he is turning around, he just went back inside the building. Come on, we gotta move!”
With that the big man took off like a shot from a cannon, his heavy steps sounding somewhat muted as Bittu puffed to keep up. He wasn’t out of shape by any means, but weighed down as he was with his armour and weapons he made poor time in comparison. As he skidded to a stop on the opposite side of the street Abel hissed.
“Whew, that was close. I don’t think he saw us, he isn’t raising any alarms.” Abel had poked back around the corner, now he slipped back over to where Bittu was panting slightly.
“We should move around the side of this warehouse. I don’t think it’s fenced off, and if it is I can just bust a hole in it.” Bittu just nodded and followed him as he tried to catch his breath fully. Damn, he was in worse shape than he had thought. To many Shabino’s cold cuts on his slow nights, he didn’t regret a single one of the tasty sandwiches though. Okay, maybe one or two that had sat bad with his gut, but he didn’t care. The soft mushroom bread and tasty fungus based proteines mixed well with the sauces and such. He had to shake his head to derail his train of thought and focus back on the present moment.
They crept around the large dark building, its brickwork old and crumbling in places, in others the walls had been patched with rusted metal plates. The construction had an air of extreme age about it, like some ancient relic of a forgotten time. Bittu tried to keep his nightvision preserved as best he could, the city's main overhead lights were off in order to simulate night time. But there were sparse round auxiliary lights giving just enough light to make out shapes, where they had not burned out that was. It gave about as much light as a small moon, enough to see by but not at all clearly.
Abel held out a hand in the halt gesture and Bittu froze. His partner must have seen something to cause alarm. After a tense moment Abel waved the all clear and started forwards again, his large gun slung across his back making the slightest of clanking noises as the man walked.
Bittu himself was making almost no noise at all, deftly avoiding broken glass shards and gravel in order to progress as silently as a spirit. After another minute of this they reached the end of the massive warehouse and Abel peeked around the corner.
He jerked back and swore. “Damnit. There are two guys, dark clothes, armed from what I saw. They are walking away, but they are directly between us and where we need to go.”
Bittu twitched his tail but otherwise was perfectly still. After a moment of thinking he glanced around then asked “Wait, what about a distraction? How far can you throw this?” He asked his partner, scooping up a knuckle sized piece of broken brickwork from the ground.
Abel nodded in understanding. “This could be risky, I recommend you unholster your sidearm.”
Bittu grabbed his side, unbuckling his Port-25 pistol and gripping it in two five fingered hands. “Okay, I’m ready. I don’t want to have to shoot these guys though so make it count.” Abel just whipped his arm around the corner without looking then peeked a second later.
Bittu heard a distant clatter followed by raised voices. “Go!” Abel hissed intensely as he bolted down the alley.
Bittu followed, again a little slower than he would have liked. He saw the two men disappearing around a nearby corner as he skidded into another alley about twenty five meters down the gap. He was breathing a bit heavier this time, he wished he had adrenaline like Abel did. His body was adapted to conflict, but not the same kind of constant danger that humans had evolved to endure. As such, his system was not as minutely tuned to sudden bursts of extreme activity.
As he finally caught his breath Abel motioned for them to continue. “Come on, that will only keep them distracted for a few more seconds. We need to get moving, the main warehouses we need to check are just around the bend.” Bittu sucked in a huge lungful of air and nodded as he tried to slow his heart rate. It seemed to help a little, or maybe it was the cool night air. Either way, he and Abel walked along the cracked wall until they reached the far end of the building.
Bittu slowed as they reached their destination, in front of them was a large open space, lit sporadically by flickering lights and covered in large metal shipping containers. The void-tight ones generally used on Galaxy pattern starfreighters to ferry cargo between planets.
He grabbed one of Abel’s shoulder as the big man tried to slink off into the darkness. “Abel wait..” He shuffled as Abel turned to look at him, his one blue cybernetic eye flashed dimly. “Are we sticking together or should we split up? I mean, do you think it’s a good idea to stick together?”
Abel thought it over briefly, the man’s cognitive implants must have been working overtime as he replied after only a second of consideration. “Yes, we should probably split up. We need to cover both of these warehouses, you know how to pick E-locks right?”
Bittu nodded. It was as simple as finding the correct computing quantum sequence to bypass the data codelocks. He had learned how to do that as a youth before.. He cut off his train of thought, instead answering Abel. “Alright, but please be careful. I would feel terrible if anything happened to you man.”
Abel patted him on the shoulder in response, “Yes. I know, me too. If you find anything feel free to document or take samples. Radio silence from here on, this entire area is lit up like a giving tree during festival.” The recommendation was obvious, but he felt better that the other man had said it. He wouldn't be the one to break the silence, no way.
He turned to look across the lot. “Okay then, I’ll take this one.. what?” Abel was gone. “How the hel?” he muttered. He had not even heard the man’s footfalls as he slipped away. No wonder he hadn’t been worrying about being caught, if anyone was going to blow the operation it would be him.
He cursed himself for not having grabbed thermal goggles, his multispec goggles would work, but not nearly as well as a dedicated pair. It mattered little, the warehouse was easily visible in the near distance. All he had to do now was cross the potential minefield of observers, cameras and motion sensors while simultaneously gaining entry and finding evidence of guilt. “Piece of pie.” he muttered to himself.
He hunkered down and flicked the safety off on his pistol. Slowly at first and then with growing confidence, Bittu slunk across the crowded lot. He made sure to avoid the light poles at all costs, only flashing through one of those brighter pools of light when he saw no other choice. Much sooner than he would have assumed he was on the other side, crouched in the shadows between two large corroded crates. He leaned on the nearer one and used the zoom function of his goggles to get a clearer picture of what he was dealing with.
Not for the first time he wished he was cold blooded like the slaaveth. He would have been invisible to thermal and nearly invisible to the naked eye, their dark blue scales helping them blend into the shadows. His own bright pink skin was like a neon sign whenever the light touched his exposed face and arms.
He cursed under his breath as he was able to make out not one, but five roaming guards. All of them armed to the absolute horns. He saw MR-12s, shotguns and one of them was even carrying a sonic pulse rifle. He did not want to get his insides turned to liquid tonight, no thanks.
He thought about the best course of action when suddenly he heard a noise from right behind him. Whirling, he saw the surprised features of a human female, her gun was held at a low ready and her eyes widened with surprise as she saw his tactical gear.
“Who..” she spat, her gun rising towards his chest. He moved faster.
The woman’s head snapped back, her body almost immediately crumpling as her gun clattered to the ground from spasming fingers. He had managed to put three rounds into her, two in the throat and one in the eye socket. He shook slightly, his perception of time seeming to slow slightly as his body responded to the near death situation, he felt calm. His resolve laser focused and his body now ready for further action.
He turned from the rapidly cooling corpse and stepped out into the light, his hands moving automatically picking out targets before each triple pull of the trigger brought down a new target. In a flash three of the nearby thugs were dead, the other two far enough away not to have noticed the commotion of the silenced shots.
He rushed over and quickly spent a few moments dragging the bodies into the nearby crevices of the warehouse. He probably shouldn't have done that, but he had seen no other way to gain entry without resorting to at least a degree of violence. The building was simply too heavily guarded to be infiltrated with stealth alone. He didn’t feel much remorse for the slain, he was nearly completely sure they were hardened criminals.
Bittu walked carefully around the nearer corner of the building. As he did he heard a creaking from above, it was some sort of raised walkway that spanned a series of the large containers. Looking closer he saw that several of them had been converted into a rudimentary bunker of sorts, bags of duracrete piled up along the sides. They looked to have been hardened in place, forming a substantial protective barrier for a fraction of the effort of an actual prefabricated drop-bunker.
He shook his head, he needed to be fast. The thugs he had killed would probably be missed soon. Without another wasted second he zipped across the open space in front of the bunker, using the shadows to creep next to the warehouse itself. Soon he found himself at one of the building’s side entrances.
He pulled out a small quantum decoder and attached its interface to the door’s keypad input. After a minute of fiddling around he heard the lock click and stuck his foot in the door before it could close again. Bittu repacked the decoder and slipped inside as quietly as he could manage, the door shutting softly behind him. As he turned around he was immediately struck by the large open space that the inside was. His door seemed to be on the far end of a narrow windowed hall with several adjoining rooms, one of which he slunk into while keeping an eye out for more goons.
The room was full of boxes, or crates if you wanted to call them that. He walked over to one and pulled off the lid before cocking his head in surprise. He lifted out one of the small round metal containers and held it to one of the light beams that was filtering through the slatted window shades.
“Nakachen caviar?” he read aloud. What the hell was Oorin doing shipping in controlled foodstuffs? He would have thought for sure he was into bigger stuff than some contraband fish eggs.
He whirled as he heard a noise behind him, but he saw nothing out of place. He switched the optical mode of his goggles, the faint green glow switching to a muted red as he looked around the room in infrared. He peered around again and sighed as he saw the cause of the noise. It was just a rat. The small four limbed creature quickly scurried away when he took a step towards it.
He shook his head and switched his goggles back to the regular visible spectrum. He placed the small tin of illicit foodstuffs into a pouch he was wearing at his waist and closed the box again. They would likely know that somebody was prowling around due to the missing guards, but there was no sense in advertising what he had been tampering with.
He crept back out of the room and checked the hall, it was still empty. He could hear distant footsteps however, he wasn’t exactly sure where they were coming from and so he slunk along the low dividing wall between the hall and the warehouse floor. The many grimy widows offering him a somewhat impeded view of the main floor.
From what he could gather the whole place was full of illegal goods, maybe even worse than the nakachen caviar. The only way to know for sure would be to take a risk and investigate the entire premises. He prayed to the powers that be for the bodies to remain hidden as he crouched around another corner.
He made a small startled noise as he found himself right behind another guard, they hadn’t seemed to notice him though as he pulled back around the corner with a slight hiss. ‘Whew!’ he said to himself silently. That was..
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“Hey, you! Get up!” Another voice shouted at him loudly from the way he had just come.
Bittu whirled once more with his arms outstreched, this time towards the large human man that was walking towards him with a handgun raised threateningly. He made a move towards his sidearm but stumbled as his arm was grabbed from behind. Of course, the other guard had heard the call and came to detain him.
He was pushed forwards out of the relative gloom and into the sputtering light of a single hanging bulb. The first man spoke again, this time a smile cracked his features. “Well, well, well.. what do we have here? Another blue blood dancer sneaking around my house? Hey Telvan, you remember the last cop that came snooping around here?”
A slightly gurgling chuckle issued from directly behind him. The other one, apparently named Telvin, answered in a gurgling slaaveth’s voice. “Oh yes, and what a nice little piece of meat she was. Heh, I'm not quite as partial to bluebloods, but I would be willing to give them a taste.”
The other one, the human, just nodded with a cruel grin. They raised their wrist to their mouth, the small assistant on it lighting as it detected the movement. “Overwatch position three, this is Garmen, we have a..” He never finished the statement though as the man’s eyes widened in sudden fear.
Before Bittu could even begin to process what was happening the guard holding him was suddenly catapulted over his head and into the human. The impact driving the air from their lungs in a pained grunt. Bittu half turned in time to watch as Abel charged past him and stomped the activated assistant with the heel of one armoured boot, causing the man to cry out in shocked pain as his wrist shattered.
The slaaveth leapt to the side before Abel could deal with them, pulling a sidearm from their belt and aiming it squarely at the big cyborg’s armoured faceplate. But Bittu wasn’t sitting idly by. He was quicker, pulling his own Port 25 and putting a full five round burst into the head and upper torso of the man. Their body dropped as their head was caved partially in, their heliotrope colored blood leaking onto the concrete below as they crumpled to the cold floor.
Abel gave him a nod as he punched the other man in the face, breaking his nose with a satisfying crunch and knocking him out cold. “Thank you again Bittu, I likely would have been perfectly unharmed from such a low caliber weapon, but there is no way of telling without having tested it first. And you will understand if I’m in no hurry to get shot in the face.”
Bittu chuckled, holstering his gun. “Yeah, we need to get out of here now.”
Abel raised a hand. “I checked the other warehouses, they had nothing conclusive though. One was full of styrene products and the other was just a full warehouse full of sting bulbs and the machinery used to render them.”
Bittu thought hard as the mention of the sting bulbs chimed something in his memory. “Hang on a minute.. I think…” He was cut off by Abel as the big man shook his shoulder slightly.
“Think on the fly, we are about to get a lot of company.”
Abel started off in the direction of the hall Bittu had been attempting to traverse. He followed as quickly as he was able, the bigger man’s pace clearly enhanced as Bittu struggled to keep up. They scurried down the dark corridor for a number of meters before Abel took a sudden turn and led him through another storage room, this one filled with white medical crates.
Abel stopped by one briefly, its lid removed and sitting bent and twisted on the floor next to it. “Look.” The man said simply.
Bittu gave the open crate a look, and was not really surprised by what he found. He was however surprised by the sheer quantity. He reached in and pulled out one of the contents, a small simple vial with a simple white label. “Blitz? They are storing Blitz here?”
Abel shook his head. “No, well yes. But also no.”
He looked at the small vial. So innocuous, so seemingly harmless. And yet the powerful stimulant was running rampant on the streets. It was said to both heighten and clarify mental functions allowing for incredible feats of mental fortitude for a short period of time. But it came at a terrible cost.
Bittu looked at the mass of vials packed in protective foam and looked back at Abel. “You don’t think that Oorin is the primary supplier do you?”
Abel took the vial from him and placed it inside a secure evidence compartment on his thigh. “No, I don’t. But they are storing and distributing all of the ingredients to manufacture it in extremely large quantities. We are talking about hundreds of millions of osmir worth of narcotics. They have to be shipping it somewhere, potentially even off-world. We should attempt to investigate a bit further, but first let’s get out of here.”
Bittu nodded then turned his head as he heard distant shouting. “Solid plan, but how, I am pretty sure the exit I used is compromised by now and there was only one other door that I saw.”
He watched as Abel lowered his visor, “Follow me.” was all he said before he sprinted at the wall.
Before Bittu could so much as utter his shock, the heavy armoured cyborg had bum-rushed the outer wall, bursting straight through the sheet metal reinforced brickwork like a bullet through a side of beef. The hole he left was easily big enough for Bittu to fit through and he leapt into it as the angry voices drew ever nearer.
He landed on the ground outside a bit roughly and was helped up by Abel. “Thanks, now what? Do you remember which way the car is?”
Abel nodded. “Yes of course. We should take a roundabout approach as there are many..” He was cut off as the sound of automatic gunfire rattled nearby, the sound of bullets whipping past making Bittu dive for cover behind a nearby electrical box. He felt the metal box shudder from the impacts, the sound of ricochets zinging off into the distance making him wince. This was definitely not ideal.
He gave a short chuckle and glanced over at Abel, the large man flat against the wall beside him. “I guess that answers the question of whether or not they are happy to see us. What were you going to say? Something about there being criminal activity ahead?”
Abel gave a small head shake, “Yeah. Something like that.” Bittu watched as the man drew the modified EMP-50 at his waist and leaned out of cover. He popped off a few shots with the electromagnetic pistol, the incoming fire slackening somewhat. But whether it was from direct hits or just the enemy reacting to incoming fire he couldn't be sure.
Bittu crouched, drawing his own sidearm and flicking the fire selector to burst. “We need a clear path, do you think we can make it to the cover of those crates?” he motioned towards the wall of containers beside them. They were a good twenty meters away, twenty meters of open killing floor.
Abel shook his head. “No, we need another angle, we are going to have to go through the warehouse, punch a hole out the back maybe.” Bittu nodded. It seemed like a solid plan.
“Okay, I'm behind you though, if that’s alright.” Abel looked at him, his expression indiscernible through the combat visor he was wearing. “I mean, you are the heavily armoured one.”
“Yes, I am also the one that can take a few of the bigger hits and survive, that’s what you are implying I assume?” Abel said a bit quickly. Bittu nodded and Abel just stood before popping off another trio of shots down the alley. “Okay, stick close. Move fast.”
Bittu followed the larger man as they dived back into the warehouse. The shouts from inside were now right on top of them and Bittu looked for cover as the door was kicked in. Abel on the other hand stood his ground, firing on anything moving.
Bittu grunted as he was knocked off his feet, a stray round sprayed into the room catching him right on his armoured chest plate. He stumbled back, losing his footing before falling to the ground with his back to some of the boxes.
From his sitting position he saw two of the criminals smashed back through the doorway, fist sized craters blown through them. A nerivith female in body armour dashed across the opening firing a high powered rifle through the door. The rounds had almost no effect on Abel and he braced against the impact. Bittu saw him aim through the wall and fire a single shot, the sound followed closely by a wet thud as the nerivith’s body collapsed to the ground in the doorway. Her blue blood pumping out on the dark duracrete as she writhed, her body stilled after a moment though.
Bittu stood and surveyed the scene, coughing slightly as he winced at the stiffness in his chest. “Wow, that was intense. I’m glad you are on my side, Abel.”
Abel gave him a nod as he saw that Bittu was alright and strode out of the room through the carnage, Bittu followed close behind with his Port-25 held at the ready. It was a simple affair to make it to the other side of the structure, but they would not get to leave without additional resistance. Because of course not he noted as he ducked behind a pile of boxes, Bittu swore internally as more bullets and a few lasers whipped past his cover.
He dared to poke his horned head out, firing off a burst towards the holed down baddies. He didn’t hit anything that he could see but he heard some swearing coming from the direction of their antagonists. Abel shook his head suddenly.
“No, this is taking far too long. I'll take care of this.” The big man holstered his EM pistol and took the light machine gun off his back. Bittu followed suit, holstering the Port-25 and drawing his MR-12 from the strap across his back. “On the count of three, dive to the right.”
“Okay, what are you planning?” Abel shook his head and counted quickly.
“One.. two.. THREE!” Bittu dived to the right as Abel roared and put his shoulder into the pallet of wooden crates they had been sheltering behind. It crunched inwards then began to move, slowly at first and then gaining speed as Abel pushed it towards the hunkering thugs at a full run.
The shooting turned quickly to shouts of alarm and then to screams as Abel smashed through the criminals flimsy cover and blasted everything with his LMR, bullets and blood making a mess of everything in the cybernetic killer’s vicinity. In an instant it was over and the slightly tired looking Abel waved him over. Bittu ran past the corpses of four more goons and after Abel as the large man repeated his previous stunt of running straight through the warehouse wall.
Bittu slipped through and cocked his head as the cyborg dusted himself off and picked up his gun. “How do you know that there wasn’t like a metal I-beam or something in the wall there? Do you have x-ray vision in there?” He pointed to the man’s head.
Abel chuckled and motioned for them to move out. As they jogged into the cover of the nearby crates Abel just answered simply. “Lucky guess, I guess.”
Bittu ran after the man as they weaved through the large stacks of cargo crates. “Do you have any idea where they were distributing to?” He asked his partner as he ducked under a low hanging support spar, the tips of his stubby horns brushing the beam as they poked from two holes in his helmet.
Abel shook his head. “Not a clue, but I am sure there are a few reputable dealers who would also like to know that as well. All we have to do is find a Blitzer and follow the trail. We have evidence of possession, but not of intent to distribute unfortunately. So I don’t think the case is strong enough to stand on its own yet.”
Bittu slapped his gun in frustration. “There is no way I'm letting these hel hecklers get away with this. I swear to the powers that be, I will take Oorin down as many pegs as it takes to get this operation silenced.” He spoke with venom in his tone, he truly hated the drug and what it did to people. He had seen first hand people he cared about destroyed by the powerful narcotic, their minds withering away in a haze of drug induced stupor.
Abel just gave him a terse nod, the larger man seemingly not at all concerned with their current predicament. Bittu supposed that if he had been made of armoured plates like them then he would have been less worried about getting shot as well.
They wended their way through the maze of containers, there must have been thousands of the large metal containers. He peered at one as they passed and took note of the extreme age it seemed to exude. Its yellow paint had largely flaked away, the thick chips of rust mounding about it on the ground forming a large enough deposit for small weeds to take root in the metal rich soil it had created. The duracrete was cracked and pitted as well, as if it had not seen repair for decades or longer. He noted that many of the crates in the massive terminal seemed similar. He once more wondered what they might have contained, but they didn’t have the time to check them out.
He heard distant shouts getting closer and tried to pick up his pace, but he couldn't. He was exhausted, the heavy gear he was wearing was starting to drain his stamina more and more with every other heavy step. He felt more tired than he could remember feeling in ages, lack of sleep and a busy last twenty hours had seen his energy reserves dangerously depleted.
He was debating the consequences of just ditching his heavy armoured chest plate when he heard Abel shout a warning. Bittu whirled in time to see a raised gun pointed at him from less than twelve meters away, one of the thugs having caught up to them. He tried to raise his own weapon but was too slow due to his mounting fatigue and the dull ache in his bruised ribs. He heard the heavy steps of Abel as the man rushed to cover him, but it wasn’t nearly fast enough.
The criminal fired their weapon, a trio of shots striking Bittu in his lower abdomen. He screamed in pain as he felt something white-hot tear a hole in his belly before falling as the kinetic impacts knocked him to the ground. He gurgled as he bit his tongue when he landed, coughing out bright blue blood as the coppery tasting liquid filled his mouth.
He was acutely aware of the bright point of pain in his gut, he had been hit. And it was pretty bad too if the pain was any indication, he could feel that something was terribly wrong. It was as if somebody had heated a piece of steel rebar and stabbed it through him, the sensation was followed by a horrid pulling sensation as the heat seemed to spread over his midriff. He raised his head, eyes blurry from the pain. He could just make out the large shape of Abel as the man violently kicked something on the ground a little ways away. But then his strength was spent and his head fell back to the ground.
His vision started to darken as his body started to fall into shocksleep, the self preservative coma would likely save his life. But only if Abel was able to evacuate him and get help that was.
He vaguely heard a voice calling his name, but by then he was largely out. His higher consciousness shutting down as the base survival functions of his body took hold of his damaged frame. The last thought that passed through his mind before he was completely swamped in darkness was the regret that he had not managed to avenge his parents after all.