When Sachmilli and his crew reached the aqueduct's service door, kitted up in battle gear, Mel lifted up in a vertical swoop and dead dropped through the narrow induction hole.
He gave the immediate area underground a flyby; when nothing stirred, Mel switched out the functionality of the coned probe attached to the left side of his helm.
A standard IR lens pushed out to the side, and chilly cryon flowed into the conic chamber along with the sound amplification unit. Mel lined up a series of maser pulses at the interior side of the door to check for traps.
Once satisfied from the feedback that there were none waiting on his crew to trip up, Mel relayed, Clear, back to Sachmilli.
Mel's next assignment was to find the lead walkway that led to the pump station. He hovered near the connector ports just beneath a set of buttressed arches that held the stairwell firm.
A spiral ramp circled along the edge of the cistern's mouth. Due to the swirl of glowing ascospores below, the ramp's shadowing was stark and harsh.
Where the ramp ended along a cement floorboard, two bridges jutted out.
One pointed southeast, and its twin pointed straight north.
Mel sent a video feed to Sachmilli.
"Interesting," Sachmilli relayed back to the Nightwing's voice receiver embedded in the nanotech of the right cochlear implant.
"Which path leads to the pump house? Any audio clues, Mel?"
I hear the snoring of a thousand bats.
The server AI interrupted.
—Bats identified by species. Currently in hibernation cycle. Recently disturbed by something within the cavern far below. Most likely source for disturbance . . . a retrievas drone now in slumber mode.
Yvoty, the onboard AI, meant by this the dragon Mitra. Reverse engineering of a captured specimen revealed the origins of the nanospore dragons began with naval warfare drones shot on rail-ballists at enemy ships to hug on their hulls and take over their electronics before capturing them intact.
Whatever they were, Mel was relieved he would not have to deal with either the dragon or bats, so it appeared.
Their assignment seemed quite simple, Mel thought as Sachmilli explained it. Find out where the skate punks were keeping Matzi and retrieve the mobster.
The most logical structure for which they were aware would be the pump house. Mel listened for physical cues in the flow of fluid and the chug of mechanical devices.
So far, Mel heard nothing of interest in the audial channels he sorted through. Once more he switched out the conic probe; this time the Nightwing plugged in the large array quad multiplex of antennas that shot overlapping pulses every five degrees between the polar axis defined by his beak and his tail feathers.
That was when the insects caught his attention. An invisible swarm twenty yards to his north and downwind had somehow crept up without his notice.
Yvoty chimed in: Vivi vidros.
Living Glass. A species of locust that fed off of the remains of dead ascospores.
With the bats in hibernation, there was nothing to keep the locust population under control.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Mel immediately pitched rolled to the southeast. Now the chatter of their wings grew into a frenzy as they zigzagged along his course.
While he maneuvered, Mel queried the database AI chipped into his right cochlear implant.
I am not its natural prey; what gives?
Yvoty answered:
—There is an ongoing telemetry at 2.4GHz between transmitter and receiver parties. Do not take for granted that you are not their natural prey. They remain highly dangerous to flesh on contact.
Realizing someone sent the locusts to kill him, Mel arched upward in a hyperbolic twist, flipped back, and fired off the quartz flechettes in a tri-burst.
The first shot smacked into the carapaces with immense frictive-static discharge that spread out like chain lightning across the living glass.
With the discharge absorbed to the breaking point, the second shot burst through, and the third one cleared the area out for Mel to fly through.
It stung mightily against Mel's flesh as he did so, but fortunately the locusts dissipated from the flechette discharge to the point of evaporation, so he did not suffer cuts, and his hood and sternum plate protected his vitals.
Sachmilli paged him.
—Mel? What is happening? Action going on is much too kinetic to follow the feed.
Mel looked for his people for eyeball confirmation. The three of them were set in position on the landing balcony.
Mel relayed back:
Attacked by locusts, those nasty vivi vidros, but I have them temporarily incapacitated. They are controlled by a third party. AI has the culprit party's coordinates locked in place.
Light them up with tracer rounds, and I'll swoop in.
—Copy that.
Mel circled once more; his scanning revealed the swarm was indeed discombobulated by the center mass attack disrupting the transmitter signal.
He knew not for certain if they could regroup to once again receive the signal, but Mel planned to stay clear of them nonetheless.
—Get ready, Mel. Tasìa is downscoping on the party at the moment. She says for you to aim for the one wearing a helmet. The control is in his hands. What? She? Correction: her hands.
Mel ruminated on his duty as the punterogallo on this mission as he switched to the .33, customized for his kit, sniper round. Most likely, the thief would have preferred to make the killshot herself, but he planned to record the execution in full array mode for informational retrieval.
In moments of distress, events often revealed hidden clues to the subterfuge that underlied why an enemy was an enemy. It came naturally for a scavenger crow to think in these terms.
Humans had to be taught.
When the little thief fired off the tracer rounds, Mel swooped between the two arches on the far western side of the cistern. Below him by a good two hundred meters, another balcony set inside buttresses.
It led to an industrial building, which he assumed, safely from the large-scale pipework, was the pump house. It also butted against the massive cistern wall.
On the balcony, four individuals returned fire. They were oblivious to the Nightwing.
When Mel sighted the one female, he realized right away who she was:
Fiona Caza.
The double agent that embedded in Green-Eyed Elise's team. Mel got a clear snapshot and sent it to Sachmilli.
He dived down, while maintaining his sight on the back of the woman's yellow helmet. When he reached thirty meters, the Nightwing fired the blunderbuss.
The helmet tumbled upward and ricocheted off the side of the building only to be tossed down into the cistern abyss.
The woman lunged forward and smacked the floor hard. Blood trickled from the back of her head.
Something made of metal rattled on the floorboards of the balcony, and it didn't strike like a tracer round. Mel swooped to avoid contact with the balcony and then circled in a hover.
"Don't shoot! I give up!"
It was the leader of the skater punks. He had thrown his pistol down, and that caused the clang. The other two punks did likewise.
Mel landed on the balcony rail. As he appraised the three, he realized he recognized them as well.
He lit up the leader's PA, to which the skate punk answered, and Mel's audio sounded like an action star actor from the turn of the century.
"Gertrod! Why is your ear damaged again?"
The skate punk's eyes narrowed on the prone, rotund body of the woman. Now the blood soaked deep into the back of her tank top.
"She and two of her goons tortured me to work for her when my brothers and I backed out of a project."
"Goons? Where are they now?"
Gertrod shook his head, and he bristled noticeably.
"They are part of a cult. They tend to the dragon. Took part in an operation while we helped Birddog with this business. We haven't seen them since. I have to warn you there are plenty more—look out!"
Something skipped across the floorboards. Mel rose up to avoid it. He caught sight of Fiona Caza in motion.
But it was too late. Mel recognized the implosive suck of an EMP grenade, and it caught him in its field.
The goggles froze dark. His instrumentation controls locked up in a hard scramble that surged through his cochlear implants.
Mel tumbled into the Cistern of Soul's abyss.