“The corporate security forces have noticed one of their squads lost contact and begun to adjust their positions!” Juny announced before I’d taken more than ten steps. I clicked my tongue. Fighting intelligent enemies is the worst.

“Give me the details, please,” I requested as I checked the map. I was currently at one corner of the section of town they’d occupied and could go either left or straight, but going left would get me to the destination more quickly.

“They have left two squads on each of the routes you are mostly likely to take and are withdrawing the rest to the building Alana and her squads are barricaded in,” she explained as position markers moved around on the map. They must have realized they were too spread out to defend effectively.

Did that only occur to them now? Or were they only prepared to fight the Stalking Tigers? Maybe they didn’t have a choice but to deploy that way initially since concentrating their forces from the start would have given them less time to prepare when I attacked. Certainly leaving four squads behind as they were right now was to buy more time. I knew they were probably trying to get to Alana before she could recover, but maybe they needed time for something else too.

Knowing where the enemy was positioned could allow me to go around them…if I wanted to. But they’d still be there. Nothing would be stopping them from turning around and following me. Much as I didn’t like it, I was going to have to clear them out before moving on. I decided to go left first, but both were going to have to go.

I advanced carefully this time, as the dust cloud was already beginning to settle a bit. Only a thin layer had accumulated on the ground, but I could now make out vague shapes from a few feet away as opposed to having no sight at all. I relied on my augs instead. It was like being underground again with nothing but a wireframe to guide my way.

Eventually I came upon the next enemy position. They had huddled down behind barricades like before, but with two squads this time they had been able to spread out. I spotted a pair of snipers a few stories up within the buildings flanking the enemy squads, and there were multiple lines of barricades so I couldn’t just jump over and gun them down.

“Is there anyone in those buildings other than the corpo guys?” I asked first.

“All residents were evacuated to designated shelters in anticipation of the landslide’s effect on the air quality!” Juny replied. Even though it was my plan I hadn’t actually accounted for that; someone else must have organized it while I was busy buying vehicles. That meant I didn’t have to pull my punches.

I ducked down an alleyway and headed for one of the buildings hiding a sniper. Leaving the alley unguarded was a mistake I couldn’t even fault them for under the circumstances; while the enemy troops had full-face helmets, I was pretty sure their sensors were a lot more nearsighted than mine were right now. Getting in was easy- it was an apartment building and the fire escape was down, so I just climbed right on up and slipped in through a window.

While I already knew where my target was, I wasn’t exactly equipped for stealth. The moment I crept up on them the fighting was going to start. I stopped outside the door to the apartment to consider my options. Just shooting the guy and disappearing into the depths of the building would probably draw some of them in after me, and I’d have the advantage if I laid some traps, but that would take too long. I didn’t know how long I had before the main group broke into the bunker Alana was in.

So, I was going to want to get the first strike in instead. My guns were powerful, but the moment I popped up the sniper across the street would react, so I would have to kill them before I could target the guys below, giving them time to react. But maybe I could kill two birds with one stone with a fun little thing called ‘defenestration.’

“Juny, I need an Instant Star. Five second timer.”

“Of course!”

I put my assault rifle away and accepted the sticky grenade with one hand while I opened the door with the other. As soon as it was open I retrieved one of my submachine guns, readying it before I entered. The apartment was empty- it looked like they’d actually claimed one that hadn’t had a tenant to begin with, judging by the lack of furniture. A single bedroom door was open at the corner of the building.

There was no way I could mask the sound of several hundred pounds of armor against the floorboards, so I needed to make this quick. Instead of creeping closer I hurried through the empty living room and burst into the sniper’s next with a total lack of subtlety, which is when I was reminded of an important fact: snipers worked in pairs. A sniper and a spotter.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Two armored figures reacted to my entrance, but only one of them was actually holding a gun. No time to think. I crossed the room in a few long steps and knocked the sniper’s gun aside before he could bring it to bear, primed the grenade, stuck it to his chest, and shoved him out the window. He fell in eerie silence, any sounds he might have made muffled by his helmet.

Now I had to deal with the spotter, but that wasn’t much of an issue. He’d pulled out a submachine gun that had no chance of getting through my armor. It would have been easiest to shoot him, but I hesitated- my own SMG would tear the man to pieces even if it wasn’t as powerful as the assault rifle, and I’d be able to see every detail clearly. When he opened fire I reacted reflexively- by kicking him out the window on the other wall.

At the same time, I heard an explosion below. Hopefully it caught a few corpo bastards in the blast radius.

An instant later my shields popped and I was reminded that I had one more sniper to deal with. I ducked out of view of the window while my shield recharged and swapped to the assault rifle, only stepping back out of cover when I had my extra layer of protection back. The man was fast, firing off another shot before I even had time to aim, but he couldn’t chamber the next round before I returned fire and killed both him and his spotter.

I was forced to back off again when the people below began firing up at me, their rounds mostly burying themselves in the ceiling or pinging off the concrete exterior of the building. Unfortunately it seemed the spotter had been too much of a distraction after all- if I hadn’t needed to let my shields recharge, maybe I could have gotten the rest of these goons before they could react. Too late now. Jumping out the window and bringing the fight right to them was still doable, but I’d prefer not to risk discovering Juny or I had missed something while I’m free falling.

Instead I headed to the interior stairs. I could just head down and engage them from the lobby, where their barricades wouldn’t do them much good and I’d have the building’s outer walls as cover. The corpos had reacted quickly, though- if I hadn’t upgraded my motion tracker I wouldn’t have picked up on the fireteam coming up the stairs after me. If I’d stayed upstairs they may have even been able to catch me from behind just like I’d done to the snipers.

Smart, but they stood no chance if I caught on to them, so now they were screwed.

Crouching around the corner of one of the landings, I waited for them to reach the bottom of the next half-flight of stairs. The moment the corpo team was in place I stood and stepped into the open, both SMGs raised and ready. Before I’d even finished aiming all four team members had opened fire on me, but nothing they had was a threat. It just bounced off my shields until I pulled the trigger, and even the weaker rails of my SMGs were enough to reduce the entire group to bloody chunks.

Even though I’d hesitated to shoot because I saw this coming just a few minutes ago, I’d actually forgotten in the heat of the moment. I froze. There was blood everywhere. A pink mist was still settling inside the stairwell and the walls, floor, and even ceiling were dripping with viscous red fluid. Their innards…god, they were everywhere. I took in a shuddering breath, struggling not to throw up.

It took everything I had to fight back my revulsion and move my feet. I lurched forward after gathering every bit of resolve left in me and jumped over the railing, falling down the empty space in the center of the stairs rather than walk through that mess. Once the sight was no longer burning itself into my eyes, resentment started to build towards the man that’d put me in this position. True, I’d jumped to conclusions by assuming it was Thompson…but if not him, then who else? If I didn’t find him working closely with the corpo security forces I’d track down my mangled cosplay helmet and eat it.

By the time I reached the lobby the rest of the enemy forces had changed positions and they were now in the building across the street from me, using its outer walls as cover the same way I had intended. Neither building had floor to ceiling glass windows. But while their weapons could be stopped by concrete, mine couldn’t. And they couldn’t remain in cover all the time anyway, while my shields meant I essentially always had some.

I ran to a window close to the front doors and smashed it out so I’d have clear line of sight. The group across the street had already done the same, and they were ready for me. Numerous rifles filled the air with gunshots from positions on the first two floors of the other building, and someone fired a grenade launcher my way to boot. I just raised my guns and started shooting, taking out two targets at a time.

With their close-faced helmets it was easy to think of my opponents as drones, silently watching their teammates be gunned down and ignoring it to keep on fighting. But under those helmets there was probably a lot of comm chatter. Team leaders exhorting their men to hold the line, squad members panicking when their command exploded, pleas for someone to order a retreat, and maybe even cold, calm casualty reports. Either their discipline was iron-clad or they had taken my threats to heart, because not a single one broke and ran.

Instead they died to a man accomplishing nothing more than making my shields recharge somewhat.

“Good news!” Juny reported as I stared cold-faced at the carnage. My weapons had blown holes in the relatively thin concrete cladding my targets were hiding behind, and although I couldn’t see it from here, I knew there had to be a mess just out of sight. “The other teams were in contact with this one, and their fate appears to have had an effect on morale! The two squads blocking the other street have dropped their weapons and are fleeing, and enough personnel have deserted the main force that they were forced to abandon their positions and retreat further inside the building! Would you like me to track their locations?”

“No. Let them run. The fewer people I have to kill today the better,” I said in a voice that sounded so dead inside that even I could hear it. “Just tell me if they turn around.”