Snippet #2721370

Luciana strolled in with four cups of coffee, two precariously balanced in each hand.

“Hey, Lieu’ Nikos.” With flair, Luciana handed her the first cup. “No cream, three spoons of sugar. Is the sweetness to compensate for your personality?”

Ioanna’s stare was unimpressed, but she downed the coffee and continued to suit-up. “It is to compensate for the headaches you cause me.”

Soren Farwell, the other pilot, laughed. “It seems like most of your headaches were because of the MCU today. How was the meeting?” He also accepted the coffee with a contented sigh and mumbled ‘thanks.’

“It was interesting,” said Ionna, drier than the irradiated Sahara. “But not as interesting as the mission we have.” It was Soren’s turn to experience her glare. “Frost, suit up. Drink the coffee now or leave it.”

Luciana swiveled around. “Where’s Marat? I got a cup of motor oil for her, but I guess it’ll have to wait.”

“She is ready. Unlike Frost, Lily suited up the second she heard the order.” Ionna put on her helmet. It let out a pneumatic hiss as it clicked into place, and a gentle pulse of light along the arms and torso confirmed the locking of her inner suit.

Soren scoffed but put his cup away, quickly putting on the multi-layered suit.

“Alright, alright.” Luciana pulled up her hair. “I’ll get—”

“Not you, Officer Chavez. You are now a probie for the MCU, remember? Look at the briefs like the rest of them. There was one I flagged; you might like it more than the rest.”

Chuckling, Soren adjusted his boots. “They real serious ‘bout that integration stuff, huh? Well, good luck being a paper-pusher, Lucy.”

“This is total ji-ral,” complained Luciana. “Why’d they pick me as the test guinea? Hey, Farwell’s nice and unthreatening. He’d be a good chico, much better than me.”

Ionna didn’t bother with a response as she exited.

Soren followed behind her, helmet in hand. “Have fun!” he crowed as the door shut.

Sipping her own lukewarm coffee, Luciana scowled as she accessed her DNI and skimmed the available briefs. Most of the interesting ones were taken, save for the one that the lieutenant had flagged: something about bagging a Neo-Terran terrorist. Apparently, they ‘d recommended back-up and heavies along with a detective, but Luciana was the heavy back-up. It struck her as a two-for-one deal. Her bad mood began to dissipate. She wouldn’t get to bash as many heads as the squad, but Luciana could work with this. With a blink, she accepted the brief. Then, a message popped into her interface.

//Lu, did you hear about the murder? Do you know anything about it? Are the same people targeting other families? Will Kee and Akio be safe?

With exasperation, Luciana sent a terse response to her sister. As much as she loved her, Maria tended bombard Luciana with questions whenever something bad happened on the news.

//don’t kno. prob just Nansoko but be careful. must work bye

With that taken care of, excitement coursed through her as she prepared to suit up. Despite Soren’s expectations, she might actually have some fun today.

---

Unfortunately, Luciana didn’t get to immediately get going. After paperwork, some mandatory whatevers, and some other stuff she nearly fell asleep during, Luciana was finally given the go-ahead. It was past evening by then. With nightfall, the city had burst into artificial lights. The neon was bright enough to rival the sun, but there were still enough shadows that Luciana’s mech-suit could blend in. She finished suiting up and grinned. The matte-black and special synth panels made her hard to see by both the naked and augmented eye. It would be a simple in and out. From what intel had said, the flower girl—Naima something or the other—was in her apartment tonight. Luciana shut down non-essential communication interfaces and activated combat-mode.

“Hammer to HQ, preparing to depart for bagging. Over.”

The cool voice of the operative responded, “Copy, Hammer. This is HQ. Interrogative: are you certain to proceed without backup?”

“Affirm, keep them on standby. Well, if there’s anyone who is on standby. We’re a bit stretched thin, huh?”

As usual, he ignored her extraneous comment. “Very well. Hammer, you are cleared to depart.”

“Wilco. Hammer, out.”

The propulsion on her mech pulsed, and she took to the air. The flight was short, and Luciana could probably have driven there on a motorcycle. In her experience, though, no one looked up. She landed on the roof of the building, but before she could take another step, HQ’s smooth voice murmured in her ear.

“HQ to Hammer, be advised that target has broken routine. Cameras note that she is en route to the flower shop.” A pause. “Pardon, she is already inside the shop.”

“Roger, HQ, but didn’t intel say that she was in her apartment just ten seconds ago?”

Silence for another moment. “Affirm. There must have been some error with the tech.”

Error with the tech? While hunting a cyberthief? That wasn’t a likely coincidence. “Roger. I’ll proceed with bagging.”

“Take caution.”

“Maybe! Hammer, out.”

With a leap off the building, Luciana took to the skies again.

---

She crouched on the roof opposite to the flower shop, interface activated. Luciana whirled through the different ray-vis: infared, heat, x-ray, and so forth. All of them only showed one person in the building, and she’d bet it was the target. As she cycled through the different settings one last time, something caught her eye. Ah-hah! Visible only in x-ray, all the way in the corner, was one more person. They must have a pretty decent cloaking device. One heavy and a squishy cyber-thief? Luciana could handle that.

“HQ to Hammer, external cameras are on-loop. You have go for extraction.”

“Wilco and out.”

With ease, Luciana flew—though it was more like an extended leap—and landed on the third-story balcony that gave access to the flower shop. The cameras were no issue, and she’d be fast enough that the security alarm wouldn’t cause any trouble, so Luciana crushed the doorknob and burst into the room that had the two life-sigs.

Instead of seeing Naima and one other person, Luciana found herself in a room with at least ten people.

“Fuck.”

Several things happened in the next few seconds.

First: her interface scanned the faces of everyone present. Most of them were low-level NTS operatives. One was her target, the woman with her back against her wall. Another was a… sarariman? One who worked for Sans Limites? The hell? That puzzle was quickly forgotten when she saw the two people in the back. The first was a pale, handsome man with yellow eyes and wide grin—Cael Meint, one of the faces of NTS. Shit. Even worse was the black woman beside him: there was no information about her at all.

Second: the low-level operatives all raised a variety of weapons at her and Naima, the terrorist-sponsoring cyberthief she was about to capture. Another person grabbed the sarariman, while the two big-league terrorists didn’t bother moving. Naima slammed her hand, which expanded into a spindly appendage, against the desk and connected it to some sort of port, and a shimmering orange bubble surrounded the desk. Sirens began to blare, and lights flashed.

Third: Luciana tackled Naima to the floor while activating her own meager energy shields. Bullets ricocheted against the walls as the various operatives surrounded the desk Luciana was using as cover. She fired back, but their shields were a much higher quality than hers... save for the unlucky few who were shot by friendly fire. Diverting energy to her boosters, Luciana prepared to do something reckless.

“Hold fire, please.” It was the smooth voice heard in a hundred propaganda videos, and all the personnel were quick to obey. They kept their shields up, though, and their guns pointed at the two. Luciana glanced at her captive, whose spider-like hands were wrapped around the mech armor, and likewise kept her guns aimed.

The alarm went silent, but red lights continued to flash, casting an intermittent shadow over everyone present. Heavy footsteps started and stopped. From her position on the floor, Luciana could see steeled-toed boots. Then, the person crouched down, and Cael Meint smiled at her.

“Hello, there. Now, where are you from? Who are you with?” he mused in that same silky tone. “Your mecha isn’t… standard for any of the organizations that might be interested in us. Why don’t you tell me who you might be?”

Luciana hissed into her internal channel, “Securité, securité, securité. HQ, this is Hammer. I’m standing in front of a high-ranking NTS operative. Don’t worry about it, my ass! I think I’ll need some help here!”

The channel was silent.

“HQ?”

Cael Meint tilted his head and frowned, contorting his perfect face—it had long been rumored to be artificial. “You’re being awfully silent. See, I’m trying to be nice. Why aren’t you cooperating?”

He nodded at one of the lackeys, and she brought forward the poor sarariman. The man looked terrified, a logical response considering the gun pointing at his head.

“If you don’t speak,” said the infamous terrorist, “I’ll kill poor little Avinash.”

The hostage in question began sobbing and begging for his life. "Please, p-please don't, just please—"

Luciana activated the voice modulator, changing her voice into a mechanical, crackling one. “Go to hell.”

Cael Meint sighed. “How cliché. I thought you’d be more… entertaining. Now, please do answer my questions. Who do you work for?”

“And you call me cliché?” she shot back. Luciana prepared herself. She was stuck with a bunch of terrorists, an uncooperative cyberthief, and a terrified civvie—and Luciana was about to do something really, really stupid. “And what makes you think I work for someone? Perhaps I’m someone taking revenge on this thief here.” She shook Naima by the neck for good measure.

Meint gestured with his hand. “I don’t think so.” The lackey slammed the butt of her weapon against Avinash’s head. “Are you going to tell me the truth or not?”

Luciana scoffed, though it sounded more like a cough with the modulator. “What makes you think I care about that man?” She had a slight advantage here, from a certain point of view. A very slight one. There were so many lackeys that they had to be careful of friendly fire. And, despite what she wanted to do to those terrorist bastards, all Luciana had to do was get out of here with two civvies. She didn't have to fight. Just run. She could do this.

“Oh, so you’re not with Sans Limites? I assumed as much, considering that your first move was to take down our lovely mutual friend, but I thought I’d confirm my suspicions. So, that leaves—”

She activated her propulsion jets and dashed forward. Naima's own personal shield covered herself, so Luciana could focus on tearing right through the lackey’s gun-arm, thus placing the mechsuit in front of any bullets. Grabbing Avinash, Luciana activated her flickering shield and covered all three of them from the hail of gunfire. Cael Meint, however, was having none of it. His fist went right through her shield, splintering the last of it. Luciana responded by shooting him in the face.

Unfortunately, thanks to his own shimmering energy field, it didn’t even leave a scratch. Still, Luciana took the opportunity to burst out of the side of the building, Avinash and Naima in tow. Gunfire followed her, some even hitting her bulletproof armor, but she rapidly ascended high enough that it was no longer a problem. For the third time, Luciana flew freely in the air, though the two screaming captives put a damper on her joyride. Cristo, that had been close. Luciana tried not to think about what had happened, instead taking the time to enjoy the adrenaline pumping through her. However, her relief and excitement was soon interrupted by a familiar voice.

“Hammer, come in! Hammer? Hammer?” For once, HQ’s usually placid voice sounded stressed.

“Hammer to HQ, copy. Have you been screaming my callsign for the last ten minutes? How do you receive me?”

“Reading you Five, finally! Hammer, where the hell were you? What happened? Why didn’t you respond?”

“Well, HQ, I was in a standoff with a bunch of terrorists, there’s a hole in one of the commercial buildings, and I captured an extra captive, but… other than that, I’m fine! Thanks for your concern. Wow, we must be really low on personnel if you couldn’t send me any backup. Oh, and I think they were using a jammer. I sent out a couple distress calls and you didn’t reply.”

“… say again?”

“Eh, I’ll explain it in debrief. Hammer, out!”

Naima had never really been screaming in the first place (she hadn't said anything this entire time, actually), but Avinash had finally gotten used to the flight and shut up. With both HQ and the captives quiet, Luciana had time to think. She was no fancy logical detective or anything, but she wasn’t dumb. Through this all, there were a few questions that were bugging her. How was this sarariman involved and why hadn't they shot him to begin with? Why did high-ranking NTS operatives show up in person to meet with a woman who’d formerly contacted them only through the net? And perhaps strangest of all, why had they been shooting at Naima?

She mentally shrugged. It wasn’t her job to find the answers... just to deliver the cargo. Still, Luciana couldn’t help but wonder how complicated this “simple” extraction job really was.