Continued From E2:P2

Lion smiled as he fired another burst from his AKSF-101Y model assault gun. The recoil from the weapon pressed it back into his shoulder, the sensation was as familiar to him as his own heart beating at this point. The assault on these stupid police was going well, much better than he had been expecting.

He had grown up on the streets of Cheenha’s old inner city. The harsh nature of survival in such a place made him a desirable candidate to employ in the Pit Vipers combat squads.

He looked around, the enclosed office space they had chosen to set up their beachhead in was in shambles now. They had pushed over the desks and cabinets to make a rudimentary barricade to take cover behind. His comrades were all in cover behind the toppled furniture as he was. They periodically leaned out to take shots at the cowering police officers and other randoms that had been caught unawares by their lightning assault.

It had gone extraordinarily to plan so far. They were holding ground, providing a distraction while the other groups worked around the flanks and rear of the trapped officers. In fact, he thought he could just see the movement of something on his left. The corridor was one of the prime locations they had been told to take by Tekk’nak.

While he didn’t know exactly the purpose of their attack, he knew that the powers that had orchestrated it were not to be trifled with. If they had asked for the city to be brought low, then by all means they would find a way to make it happen such was their power and influence.

He stalked around a nearby overturned filing cabinet. The archaic paper files scattering from the toppled furniture as he sighted along the barrel of his gun towards the holdouts. Before he could fire again he heard a tremendous crack and snapped his head to the right as he saw something flash in the corner of his vision. He looked just in time to see Peter’s corpse flung back against the pillar behind him hard enough to crack the dark grey carbcrete. Flakes of the stuff raining down on their broken corpse as the room seemed to fill with a deadly calm.

The sheltering police had stopped firing for a brief moment, as had his own men. Many of them looking at the faintly glowing blue trail that had intersected the man with wide eyes. That looked like hypervelocity ammunition, and not one from any of his backup. Deep dark, that wasn’t a good sign. That meant that the police had control of at least one of the nearby armouries.

He leapt to the side as the fine scales under his chin itched, a sure sign that they were about to get hit with some manner of ill luck or other danger. It was well that he did so, a bright blue flash cutting through the filing cabinet right where he had been sitting only a moment before. The projectile pierced through his cover and then smashed through the wall behind him without so much as slowing down.

“Hypervelocity gun!” Another of his troops shouted loudly.

That was bad. They were not nearly equipped to counter such heavy weapons. What were they doing with the thing anyways, hadn’t Ombera reported that she had taken the nearby armoury? Lion pulled up his wrist worn assistant and made an attempt to contact her.

The line rang for a solid ten seconds, no contact. “Drek!” He swore loudly and then popped off a few shots back towards the hunkering bluecoats. Now wasn’t the time for them to be interrupted by some hero with a high powered rifle, he took a minute peek over the top of his cover towards where the shots had come from. It looked innocuous enough, nothing immediately standing out to him.. ‘Wait! What was that?’ He thought frantically as a huge black coated figure seemed to blend from the shadows briefly in between the flickering alarm lights.

Lion wanted to get a better look at them, but they moved too fast for him to get a clear picture. Far faster than anything of that size and apparent mass should have been able too. With a shudder he saw the gleam of a single cybernetic eye under the brim of a large hat. The sight sending a ripple of unease down his spine for some reason. It was as if some manner of eldritch entity had stepped straight from his nightmares and into the real world. A hulking figure cloaked in shadow that glared at the world through a single baleful green eye.

He shivered a little as he jerked back into cover. But he wasn’t about to let something like a little self doubt and fear get in the way of his mission, not for what they had been offered in return. He stood and yelled as loud as he could, his gurgling scream of anger causing the figure to halt. He fired his assault rifle at the thing, laughing savagely as it was struck multiple times across the chest and legs. It went down to one knee and for the barest of moments he allowed himself to hope that he had hurt the monster.

He hadn't though he realised as it stood back to its feet a moment later, not even close.

The dark figure raised its huge gauss rifle and shouted its own challenge in return. Lion only had a second to glimpse a craggy and scarred face masked by a terrible rictus of pain and misery before the weapon fired and his head was turned into a fine mist that drifted over the surrounding area like a morning dew made of pale purple fluid.

**********

Balinski depressed the trigger on the GR74F-8, the weapon slamming into his shoulder with tremendous force. His cybernetics whined slightly as they compensated for recoil that would likely have disabled a regular human twice over, the bright blue streak of ionised air stabbing out seemingly instantly to take the head clean off the criminal that had just succeeded in pouring what felt like an entire magazine into his chest. He grunted as he moved back into cover. That had hurt, but scratch one more criminal.

He looked back towards the way he had come, Siyel was creeping up towards him with Caesar watching her flank. As they reached him he nodded to both of them and then asked, “I can’t get a bead on the other ones. There are at least four more, maybe six. It’s hard to tell with all the crossfire coming in.”

She crept around his side, pressing close to his chest as she leaned out around the corner to take a look. The tips of her large swept-back horns making her a bit more conspicuous than she might have otherwise been as they sat right under his chin. After a moment she darted back as a flurry of shots were lobbed in their direction and she pressed her back to the wall next to him. Balinski nodded to her, “It’s a little hot out there at the moment, like I said.”

She frowned, the look on her face somewhere between annoyance and rage. “These fathersuckers think they can just waltz in here and kill my officers, my family? Balinski, what do you need?” She asked almost desperately, and he could very well feel her pain. He had felt the same soul crushing agony as his own brothers in arms had been slain that dark fateful night years ago.

He looked around, pointing to a nearby wall he asked, “What is the composition of these walls?”

She looked a bit confused but responded quickly, “They are mostly just carbcrete and laminate. What are you..” Balinski nodded and waved a hand, effectively cutting her off mid sentence before pulling out his ThunderEagle and reloading it.

He had to eject the spent casings one at a time and replace them, and he did so with practiced ease. Replacing the ball ammunition with some of his very limited supply of HEDF rounds, the explosive projectiles were designed to detonate inside the target for maximum effect. He reupholstered the hand cannon then placed the gauss rifle down against the opposite wall and rolled his shoulders, his cybernetics sending him positive feedback signals.

Siyel stood back as he looked at her and smiled, “I'm giving us another angle of attack.” He shoulder charged the wall, hoping that she was right or this was going to hurt like a mother…

Balinski crashed through the wall in an explosion of dust and fragments of dark grey carbcrete, the shattered masonry scattering all across the room like a bomb had gone off. Balinski picked himself up from the floor amid a tangle of cracked and splintered wood from the innocent desk he had obliterated on entry. Siyel and Caesar popped through the wall after him a few seconds later, the former waving a hand in front of her face as she coughed.

“Well, that was certainly one way to make an entrance. I'm taking this out of your payroll by the way.” She said with a stern look, he wasn’t sure if she was joking or not though. Her face had the hint of a smile but it was mitigated by the hard look in her eyes as she stared at him from the jagged man-shaped hole in the wall.

He shrugged as he stood to his feet and stepped out into the hall briefly to grab the gauss rifle. Making his way back into the room he gave her a light pat on the shoulder as he stepped past, “If you feel inclined to do so, then by all means. In the meantime, I am going to waste these bastards.” He set the gauss gun down again. It was far too heavy and unwieldy for close range assault, and he wanted to get right into the thick of things.

He peeked out through a nearby window that showed the firefight. He counted five more bad guys, the two he had killed were still lying where they had fallen, the other insurgents still firing at the officers that were sheltering in the jumble of toppled office furniture. He needed to move on them fast, he could probably take out two or three with his revolver before they realised what was happening.

He turned to Siyel, “Hey, If I set that gauss rifle on the desk do you think you can aim it effectively?”

Siyel shrugged. “Maybe, I have no idea. The recoil is still going to be pretty spicy, but I think I can get away with it if I turn down the power setting a little.” She seemed reasonably confident and so he hefted the heavy yeown designed weapon onto a nearby desk, the false-wood furniture groaning slightly under its bulk as he shifted its position to be more optimal.

He nodded at his handiwork. “Alright, wait till I make my move and then do what you can.” He looked towards Caesar, the cyberhound had been awfully quiet and so now he waved to her. “Alright Caesar, you are coming with me. When we get out there I want you to watch yourself, these guys are heavily armed and armoured. So please, don't do anything rash.” She gave him a quiet bark and a headbutt to let him know she was going to be fine and he scrubbed her fluffy head affectionately. “Good girl. Okay, get ready, Siyel?” He nodded to the police commander.

She gave him a ready gesture, her tail flicking behind her nervously in opposition to her stoic features. Balinski steeled himself. He wasn't afraid, not really. The way he saw it he should have died in the fire and death that had claimed all his brothers in arms back on Zaphron-IV, the fact that he was still alive as this ghost of metal and pain was still a mystery to him. Why had he been spared?

Balinski didn't really consider himself much of a religious person, sure he said a chant to Lady Luck on occasion and liked to participate in the yearly festival of giving. But what did he actually believe? He wasn't sure he had the answer to that, not right this moment anyways. Caesar seemed to detect his hesitation and pawed his thigh, her small whine telling him all he needed to hear. She cared about him, she needed him. That was enough for him.

Balinski crouched low and crept under the window until he had reached the door to the office space beyond. He took a deep breath and shouted, “Do it now!” Before he kicked the door as hard as he could.

The result was an explosion of splinters that showered the nearest gunman causing them to flinch away from him as he raised his ThunderEagle and fired on another one of the criminals. The HEDF round pierced the slaaveth’s side and detonated in their chest cavity, a spray of purplish blood jetting from the wound as they jerked unnaturally and crumpled like a sack of flour dropped down a flight of stairs. Caesar took advantage of the first thug’s distraction to leap upon them, grabbing their right arm in her powerful cyber-enhanced titansteel jaws. With a simple squeeze she had snapped every bone in their arm causing them to screech and drop their weapon as they flailed impotently to detach the fifty-kilogram cyberhound.

Balinski kicked their legs out from under them as he rushed by, allowing Caesar to get to work mauling their armoured rig. He ignored the screams and fired his weapon again, this time taking another of the gangsters in the upper torso. The bullet failed to penetrate their armour but still detonated, this sprayed a fan of deadly shrapnel that hit them under their scaled chin and pierced their throat. They clutched their gullet as they stumbled, their gun dropped as all their will to fight drained from them like the lifeblood that gushed from between their clawed fingers.

They were already as good as dead and so Balinski drew a bead on his next target, a tall Slaaveth armed with some manner of large calibre weapon. It turned out to be a shotgun loaded with slugs as he took two directly to the chest. He grunted in pain as the power of the shots stopped him dead in his tracks, damn that had hurt.

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Balinski dove forwards and to the left as the man crouched and fired once more, one of the rounds close enough to tug at the brim of his hat as he hit the floor hard. The breath was driven from his remaining biological lung as he fired, the high explosive round hitting the slaaveth woman directly in one of her pitch black eyes. Her head snapped back before the round detonated and pretty much turned her head into soup, the remains of it dribbling down her chest rig as the very dead invader slammed to the ground bonelessly.

He turned just in time to dodge a series of automatic gunfire from the last remaining one, but he tripped over a piece of broken debris and swore loudly as he went down hard again. The man strode around the nearby pillar with murder in his soulless black eyes. His gun raised and Balinski once more prayed for a miracle. He shook his head in disbelief as a bright blue streak hit the man in the shoulder, the hypervelocity slug tearing through armour and bone alike as the last of the thugs was sent to the abyss without so much as a sound. The harsh crack of the gauss rifle lingering in the deafening silence that now filled the smoke and dust filled office.

Balinski rolled over and pushed himself to his hands and knees, he was tired and sore. His back and chest were bruised under his heavy armour and at least one of the shots to his legs earlier had dented his knee servo. It didn't seem to be hampering his mobility at all, but he didn't like the look of it, he would need to get it repaired as soon as he had the chance.

Caesar trotted over to him happily, her muzzle dripping gore as her fluffy tail wagged happily. He shook his head, “You are one crazy mutt, you know that girl?” She dipped her head and then stiffened, her triangular head suddenly alert as the sound of approaching footsteps was heard.

Balinski found himself under the barrels of no less than seven service weapons as the once embattled officers had moved in to see what had taken out their opposition. He raised his hands as one of them spoke. Their uniform marked them out as a police sergeant Juur’nek, rank O-5. By the haggard look of the human, they had been having a rough time of it. The look on his face made it clear to Balinski that he was completely through playing around.

Before Balinski had time to plead his case another voice called out, it was Siyel. “Stand down Sergeant!” the man glanced her way and went paler than he already was.

He lowered his gun and stuttered, “Commander Siyel! We had been told that you were missing in action. Oh, it’s good to see you alright. What are you doing with this.. Man?” He seemed to be especially wary of Balinski, which he understood. He was a stranger, not an officer clearly and wearing dark clothing not exactly reminiscent of what one might consider a hero.

Siyel walked right up to Balinski’s side and gestured at him, “This is Balinski, he’s employed by me personally as a void warden and consultant. And right now he is the reason I am alive, so I would ask that you treat him with the same measure of respect you would show for any fellow officer.” The way she jumped to his defense once more spiked a strange flutter in his chest. He pushed the feeling back down, it wasn’t the time to start thinking about such things.

Instead he just nodded to Siyel and spoke confidently to the officers, their beleaguered looking faces gaining a bit of hope as he pointed at the dead gunmen. “They are nothing but petty criminals. Highly trained and well-armed as they may be, they die just like any other scumbag when you start poking holes in them.”

He watched the various officers perk up at his comment. Sure it wasn’t a rousing speech by any means, but he had told them exactly what they had needed to hear at that moment. The goal wasn’t just to survive the onslaught, but it was to take back their honor and their home from these interlopers. Balinski looked at Siyel, “Where do we need to go now?”

She answered quickly, “Communications center. We need to find out the true extent of this invasion. And then we need to nip it in the bud.” She turned to Sergeant Juur’nek, “Sergeant, I need you to take a squad and reinforce the interrogation wing. The armoury on the way should be open, use passcode nine-eight-charlie-tango-five to bypass the locks that aren't open.” The scruffy human officer nodded and then started to shout instructions to some of the assembled officers.

Balinski and Siyel started to move out when the man shouted for them to wait. “Hey, take Terry and Ulinis with you, they have special training in data analysis in case you need them.” The two officers in question stepped forwards.

Terry was a human woman with cropped black hair carrying a battered MR-12 that looked like it had been through more than just a warzone. Ulinis was different, a young razah’vool in a form fitting navy blue jumpsuit and carrying a Colt 3011. The pair walked to them and Siyel gave them both a nod before turning to Juur’nek and waving.

“Thanks again, safe journey be upon you friend, till we meet again on the other side of hel!” She shouted a traditional farewell to the man, he waved and the two groups split.

It seemed as though they now had two additional members to their little posse, they gave Balinski a bit of space and Ulinis kept casting curious eye glances at Caesar. The young razah’vool man’s strange alien body plan meant that she could not turn her head. Her eight eyes were spaced around the circumference of her wide and mushroom shaped head though and Balinski knew she could see better than him in all likelihood, even with his cybernetics.

He heard the razah’vool male speak quietly to Terry, their accent a little muddled through their lipless mouth at the top of their head. “Who do you think is behind it?”

Balinski heard Terry mutter in reply, “I don’t care who it was. They are all criminals and need to be eradicated like the vermin they are.” The acid in the woman’s tone surprised him a little. They must have lost somebody close to them due to the rampant crime in the city, maybe even due to today’s assault.

He made a mental note to keep the two on a short leash, anger was all well and good until it made someone act stupid to get revenge. He shook his head, he was one to talk. He had fallen into that trap on more occasions than he cared to admit to himself.

The four of them moved along the hallways in a loose group, it wouldn't do to fall victim to a single grenade or other fragmentation ordinance should one happen to be triggered. Balinski was the leading point, Caesar at his side with her nose in the air. He looked both directions at the next hallway intersection and then turned to look at Siyel, she had one hand gripping the handle of her weapon so hard her skin was turning a shade of magenta.

“Which way to the operation room or whatever it was?” He nodded towards the three way choice. It wasn’t behind them, that was all he knew. He followed Siyel’s direction as she gestured to the left and they trotted down the hall. Only a few dozen meters further and he thought he could hear more gunfire in the distance, but it was nearly impossible to tell which direction it came from in the precincts warren-like halls.

They continued walking and eventually turned another corner to a much larger hallway. The ceilings were a good four meters tall and the walls almost five apart. It looked big enough for vehicles to travel along, and indeed that may well have been the case at some point in its past. But the periodic doorways and lack of floor reinforcement made him assume that those days were long behind them.

Siyel pointed to another offshoot of the hall, a Y bend where the path split. “It should be just down the left hand corridor. I hope there are no more fathersucking gangsters down there.” He heard her mutter under her breath as he stepped towards the left.

Once more she had that same fury in her tone as he had noticed earlier. Not for the first time he wondered what had happened in her past to make her hate criminals as much as she did. He hated them too, for their selfishness and lack of empathy towards others, yes. But she seemed to harbor some much deeper personal hatred, the kind of hatred that burns deep in one’s bones and is impossible to extinguish. Her people were generally seen by many as cold and dispassionate, but nothing could be further from the truth.

He knew that feeling of deep bone freezing anger all too well, he desperately wanted to find those responsible for the death of his entire squad. He had suspicions that there had been foul play involved, and not just from the rebels. But without definitive proof he had been ignored, and so he had opted to retire from the military life. At least for a few weeks.

He looked at the gun in his hands and could feel the bruises on his back and chest stinging still. Here he was anyways, right back into the thick of it. The killing, the blood. His chest tightened as he thought about it, but Caesar let out a comforting whine he steadied himself. No, now was not the time to succumb to his own weakness. He would go and do the duty for which he had been commanded, regardless of his personal hangups.

The left hall was dark and dusty, he noticed as they reached it. The lights flickering as if damaged, lines of dust drifting from the cracked ceiling tiles and rubble strewn all across the floor. He paused, suddenly wary. Turning to Terry and the other he said, “Terry, take the left. Siyel and Ulinis stay behind us. Caesar, do you smell anything?”

Caesar lifted her snout and snuffled the air. She seemed to have a problem with the dust though and sneezed violently before growling in apparent annoyance. Alright, it seemed they were going to do this the old fashioned way. Balinski motioned for them to move up slowly, he raised the gauss rifle up into a low ready position. His cybernetics made holding the heavy gun as easy as breathing.

He slowed again as he heard something, Caesar’s advanced hearing picked it up too as he noticed her head cock to the side, her ears perking up as if trying to make out the voices echoing faintly from up ahead. As they crept ever closer to the sound the others started to hear it too. First Ulinis with her sensitive receptor tendrils that hung from under the mantle of her head. Next Siyel and Terry seemed to pick it up too, and by then Balinsky was starting to be able to make it out.

Before he could determine if it was a friend of foe Caesar gave a happy woof and rushed ahead. He cursed and made a grab for her, what the shit was she doing? She was going to get them all killed acting like that. He glanced at the others before swearing again and rushing after Caesar, all thoughts of stealth forgotten as he chased after his wayward friend.

She rounded the corner into the room before he was able to catch up and he tensed as he came skidding around the corner, his gun up and ready to lay waste to anyone that dared to harm her. He froze instead, the figure inside leveling a truly impressive array of weaponry back at him with her ten arms.

“I thought I recognised this one. Hello Balinski, good to see you in one piece in this shitstorm.” Daryon said, her antennae raising in her species equivalent of a smile. The large vinarfel replaced the myriad of weapons back into the many pockets of her specialist armour as she turned back to the surveillance computers. Or what was left of the computers anyways.

The array of communications equipment sparked and fizzed, smoke rising from torn cables and cracked view screens as he watched in dismay. It was clear that somebody had shot the place up, the bodies of two officers had been laid in one corner of the room neatly. Their dignified poses are entirely different from the ungainly heap of corpses in the other corner. It seemed that Daryon had not taken the room bloodlessly, though from the state of her dead opponents they had never expected the pure speed, strength and lightning fast reactions of a properly trained vinarfelien special task force operator.

He had seen her in combat once before, and he wasn’t sure that he could take her without some manner of fair warning, if at all. She was over three hundred kilograms of armoured muscles and short stabbing legs after all. He shook his head, putting thoughts of combat out of his mind as he approached her, weapon lowered but not fully put away. “What happened in here, Daryon?”

He asked as neutrally as he could, the alien woman didn't seem to have a detailed explanation for him as she shrugged. “Bad guys tried to kill me so I killed them first.”

He was about to ask what she meant more specifically, but about that point Siyel and the others skidded around the corner. They had their own weapons drawn and ready to lay down the hurt but Balinski threw up his arms and shouted that it was alright. Siyel motioned for Terry and Ulinis to be calm and then strode into the room with an expression of muted disgust on her face.

“More officers dead. I will find out who is responsible for this..” Balinski heard her mutter as she passed him. She walked gracefully to Daryon who saluted her crisply with two arms. “Officer Daryon, report!”

Siyel’s tone was clear and stern, leaving no room at all for misinterpretation. Daryon seemed to hesitate, her head not moving but giving the impression she was glancing around the room. Balinski could see her pseudo-pupils looking at him, but it was simply a trick of the light on her compound eyes. “I was getting ready to head to the wreck room for some downtime when I heard a commotion from down the hall. I went to investigate and then heard gunshots, by the time I had gotten here they had already executed the two..” She made a multi-armed gesture to the dead officers.

Siyel nodded and made a motion for her to continue as Terry and Ulinis approached the sabotaged equipment. Daryon nodded, her antennae dropping in what was most likely disgust or sadness, “Well, I took care of the invaders. They seemed to be trained cannon fodder. I don't think this was the same crack team that managed to bust into the precinct, more likely this was simply the hired muscle doing damage and trying to slow down our response time.”

He looked at the large insectoid’s blue eyes, it was hard to tell vinarfelien emotions. But from the tone of her voice and the way her antennae were lowered almost flat down her uniformed back, he had to assume that she was being honest. And what reason did he have to doubt her in the first place? She had been by his side the entire time they had taken on Slake’s operation. No, he trusted her. He had too.

Balinski stepped towards the pair and asked, “How are you holding up Daryon?”

The woman seemed to perk up immediately as he approached, her faceplates opening in surprise to reveal the underlying pink flesh of her jawless mouth. She spoke, the plates moving slightly as she responded quickly, “Oh I am fine.. thanks for asking, Balinski.” Her antennae fluttered slightly as she said it, enough that he noticed.

Siyel pointed to Terry and Ulinis. “Daryon, I assume by the fact you were still here that you were attempting to fix the surveillance equipment?” The large colorful insectoid gave a thumbs up and replied in the affirmative. Siyel continued, glancing at Balinski. “Okay, you stay and help Officer Terry and Officer Ulinis get the station back up and running as best you can. Balinski and I are going to try and make it to the main breech.”

The big woman once more made an affirmative gesture and scuttled her way over to the other two officers. Siyel let out a breath and turned to face him, her eyes lined and her posture a little weary. “Okay Balinski, we need to move out. I want to know what’s happening as soon as possible.”

Balinski looked back towards the other officers and then nodded. “They will be fine with Daryon to keep an eye on the situation. Alright, but let me take point again. Caesar, stay with Siyel no matter what.” Caesar, who till this point had been slinking around the dead bodies of the criminals, ran over and gave him a stubborn growl. Siyel gave the pup an apologetic look as Balinski reiterated, “No matter what. You got me?” He stared at her till she gave a little doggy eye roll and he smiled.

He stood straight and drew his ThunderEagle with a free hand. He slung the GR74F-8 across his back as he reloaded the handcannon. “Let's head out, we have to find out what’s going on.”

Continued In E2:P4