| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | First Field Operation |
| Date: | Thu, 21 May 1998 22:40:50 +0100 |
>>>>>[Okay, he's stable and under control. Doesn't know you're pulling
his strings, believes he's thinking for himself. And the conditioning
hasn't touched his abilities, he's still shit-hot in a fight.
Turner might be a problem when the time comes, though.
+++++begin diary transcript
My first field operation for SIGA. Still medically unfit or not, they're
giving me something that I can actually do well, instead of sitting in
that claustrophobic little office and arguing with Lieutenant Lynch. I
don't know what annoys me most about her: her you-want-it-but-you-can't-
have-it presumption that any man who meets her will lust after her... or
the fact that, damn it, she's right. I'm only human, and even in that
flight suit she's a knockout. If only she weren't such a bad-tempered
bitch...
Well, I guess I'd be a little snappy if the person I loved most had been
murdered not a month before. Especially, as that hippie staff-sergeant
pointed out, since Aztlan are fighting to have his fucking _corpse_
extradited. Guess the guy did some good there, to piss them off that
much that they got to get that petty. So she can't even declare him
dead, bury him and move on until that gets thrown out of court... yeah,
she'd be in a foul mood, I just wish she wouldn't take it out on me.
Janet's 'I like you a lot but can we just be friends' speech arrived,
probably along with a new patient for her to nurse: guess she only likes
the sick ones or something. So now I'm back to magnificent solitude.
And to cap it all, Kathleen heard about my injuries: she didn't do
anything nice like write me to find out how her ex-husband clawed his
way back from certain death, she just got her snotnose lawyer boyfriend
to send me a pompous e-mail telling me I owe her 40% of any additional
income I receive as sick pay or health benefit, while reductions in my
income due to loss of hazard pay, sea pay or other "emoluments" do not
count towards any reduction in my "obligation" to my beloved ex.
Why the hell did I marry that woman? Because I was thinking with my
dick, I suppose. Six months of great sex and vicious arguments before I
caught her in bed with that snivelling little shit of a lawyer.
Shouldn't have broken his jaw, I'm still paying for that one punch now,
but the sight of the smug I'm-fucking-your-wife-and-there's-nothing-you-
can-do-about-it smile falling off his face - along with half-a-dozen
teeth - was almost worth it.
Good to be out of the office, though. Don't know what I'd do without
that Tarkington guy: aviator or not, he's damn good at keeping the place
running. Amazingly enough, he's applied for a second tour there, where
he could have gone back to the Fleet and flying... except, I suppose,
that there are so few night-attack Mustang squadrons that his chance of
a flight billet are minimal, and he'd end up pulling the same duty
except on a carrier out in the middle of the Pacific, three months in a
steel prison with maybe a two-day trip to Penang as sole compensation.
Yeah, even I'd take SIGA over that.
Anyway, enough of these damn musings, I'm here to work.
I'm at the jumping-off point, a firetrap ten-floor tenement that Thunda
burned out last year, in an area pretty much abandoned by everyone
except the squatters and the chipheads now. I can't help but wonder if
this is a real operation, or some sort of staged exam.
The 'secret knock' - shave and a haircut, two bits - and the door (a
sheet of corrugated iron on crude hinges) swings open . Inside is
Turner, waiting for me.
"You were briefed, Mitch?" Turner says, and I nod. "Good. Ten minutes to
gear up." He leads me upstairs, up and up and up through the smoke-
stained stairwell, to where Monroe returns to his surveillance gear:
including a drone watching the alley. They don't _only_ rely on the
secret knock, it seems. At least I brought the right equipment: I've got
civvies and an armoured jacket to get here, could work in them in case
we were in mufti. But Turner's in black 'operational' fatigues and
assaulter harness, just like the rig in my kitbag, so I change quickly.
It feels good, I realise, the weight of the harness on my shoulders and
hips: knowing that weight is live ammunition that I'm about to use in
action. I didn't like being sick and I didn't like the long trek out of
Aztlan: this, this focussed and controlled violence, is what I do and do
best. Janet, Kathleen, all those problems stop seeming important when
you focus on "will I still be alive in half an hour?"
Turner checks me over quickly, looking for loose items that might make
noise, bright items that might catch an unwanted reflection, but I've
been doing this longer than he has, he finds no fault. I go over his
equipment for him next: but the word on the street is right, he's a
sharp operator, there's nothing wrong with his preparation. Oh, some
differences from his time on the other coast, they all seem to carry big
Gerber or Cougar knives on their shoulder harness, hilt-down John Wayne-
style, but it's taped and secured and it's his problem not mine.
"Four minutes." Monroe says quietly. "Some movement, two guys in the
loading dock. No weapons obvious."
Turner nods. "We'll stick with the initial plan. Backup is, if it goes
down the pan, make noise, withdraw and keep them penned in the building
until the cops arrive. Sound good?"
I nod, taking the small compact out of a pocket and quickly camouflaging
my face. Lighter greys in the shadows and hollows, black and dark tones
on the higher points, then a quick smear of the black over my neck and
ears. Kill the pale shine of skin, is the main thing. The Army pukes
swear by the fancy camo scheme as having miraculous properties of
concealment: the Marines call it a waste of time and just smear green
and brown everywhere: I just like it because it makes you damn near
unrecognisable, all the visual clues that let you remember a face and
describe it later messed up.
Another buddy check, and Turner rubs some grey near my jawline where I'd
missed a patch of skin, and I dab black under his ears. He chuckles. "I
always hated putting that stuff there. Years of Mom nagging me to wash
behind my ears."
"It's the small things that get you killed..."
"Tell that to the guy being trampled by elephants." He picks up his MP-
5, adjusts the ride of the assault sling. I've checked and rechecked
mine, I don't fiddle with it now. "Alex, how are we doing?"
"Truck coming. It's the one." Monroe replies. "Route in is clear: ready
when you are." He darkens the room, uncovers a firing slit in the wall,
picks up an Accuracy International sniper rifle: their .655 silent
elephant gun. Not a bad piece for a Matrix-jockey to be using.
"Showtime." Turner whispers, taking a magazine, slapping it into the
palm of his hand to settle the rounds, and locking it into his MP-5. I
tap mine twice on my bootheel, load it, check safety, chamber the first
round.
I'm surprised at how calm I am. The last time I went into action like
this... better not to think about that last time, the long swim from the
sub, fighting through the surf, then the flares bursting overhead -
DON'T THINK ABOUT IT!
I'd expected the shakes, a cold sweat, a gutful of butterflies. Then I
remember that damn move-by-wire system, doubtless sitting there at the
base of my skull rejecting those signals as 'inefficient' and declining
to pass them on. I still don't like being so dependent on the damn
thing, especially when it decides to run my life for me.
Up the ladder to the roof, and I cover Turner as he picks up the grapple
gun and fires. Down below, a big panel truck is backing cautiously into
the goods-in bay of what used to be a supermarket: with the tenement
gone, so was its last customers, I guess. The watchers around the truck
- now they have rifles in plain view - haven't noticed us yet, but
that's bound to change.
"You first." Turner grins at me as he secures the line. A thirty-degree
death slide, straight onto our target's roof. My concern must have shown
on my face, because he clarifies "I'll cover, then you distract them
while I join on you."
Well, he always did have a reputation for insanity even in Annapolis,
but then he also had a reputation for getting the job done. And do I
really want to live forever? I snap my descender onto the thin line,
crouch on the parapet, leap.
The monoline buzzes through the descender's loops and I slacken my grip,
letting gravity speed my flight, knowing the thin mosquito whine will
attract attention -
One of the guards looks up. He takes a second too long to react - a
black blur crossing the dark sky with a faint whirr, he's curious rather
than alarmed - and before he's decided what to do, he falls backwards,
dropping his rifle with a clatter. I don't hear Turner's shots, and it
sounds like none missed. Shouts of alarm from below anyway, a man down
is hard to hide.
I clamp hard on the descender, braking my speed, and hit the quick-
release to roll and land on the supermarket roof without breaking bone:
the sheet metal booms under my impact, though. Now they know we're
coming.
I throw four grenades out over the side of the building. Flash,
concussion, flash, smoke. Bullets punch holes in the roof, pinpoints of
light appearing almost magically, and I dance aside away from the blind
fire as I hear Turner coming down the line, controlling his descent with
one hand and using the other to spray the goods bay with inaccurate but
enthusiastic fire, bullets slapping and ricocheting off the concrete. I
pitch another concussion grenade into the area to keep the natives
subdued, as he hits the roof and bounces to his feet changing magazines.
"Are we having fun yet?" he asks me, grinning like a Cheshire cat. More
wildfire comes up through the roof, and he fires a long raking burst
back, a skylight shattering under his bullets. I pull another concussion
grenade off my assault harness and throw it through the broken glass: he
does the same with three or four of his own, and as the shockwaves shake
the sheet-metal roof under us the crazy sonofabitch simply leaps through
the skylight.
My conscious mind is running through the dangers of jumping into such an
unknown situation, landing on a tangle of shopping trolleys or worse,
breaking limbs under fire, arriving in the midst of armed alerted
enemies. This is a Bad Idea.
My training simply shouts that a fellow SEAL is in harm's way and I have
to go to his aid, the cyberware listens to the training, and I'm falling
into the building even as my consciousness whines _this is a *really*
bad idea_...
I land on an aisle of shelves, the flimsy structures collapsing and
tearing, absorbing my impact. Turner's on the other side of the aisle,
and there's a skinny teenaged girl gaping at me in shock. I've reacted
to the rifle in her hands and shot her in the head before the stark
terror on her face sinks in, and I know already she's going to have a
starring role in tonight's nightmare.
We're seperated and that's bad, but I can hear his suppressed MP-5 and I
know he's up and fighting so I take a risk and sprint for the end of the
aisle, rounding the half-wrecked shelves, Three down, under a sign that
proclaims BAKEWARE, a troll fires his Ares MP-LMG at me, missing high,
and I loft rounds back at him as I skid between rows. Turner spares me
one glance and three hand signals and I keep running past him, firing
towards the enemy I haven't seen but he says is there.
I will say this for his lunatic scheme, it's surprised them as much as
it surprised me, except I'm recovering faster and I'm doing rather than
being done unto. There were maybe half a dozen people inside the old
supermarket when we started this, five seconds and a lifetime ago, and
they're already down to three. Two, as someone fires from behind a
plastic bread rack, and I remind him that bullets will penetrate that
flimsy structure without even slowing down, riddling the rack and the
man both.
Reaching for a magazine as I step back, something slides wildly under my
boot. An empty case or three, acting like roller bearings and dumping me
on the floor with an unloaded weapon, and that Troll with the LMG is
coming into view only a few paces away as I bounce.
He wastes time sneering in triumph, I just point my arm, and the
buckshot erases most of his face. Rolling back to my feet, I finish
reloading and check the next aisle. Empty. Behind me the troll makes a
bubbling, snuffling sound, and I take the seconds to kick his weapon out
of reach before continuing my advance. I hear Turner on the opposite
side, also clearing, making sure we won't be surprised by unfriendly
natives. I reach the door of the storeroom, hearing movement inside,
wait for him there: he joins on me shortly.
"Clear behind. How many?" he asks, quiet over our tac radio link. I hold
up two fingers, then four. Smoke still curls from the palm of my hand:
that shotgun's gonna get expensive if I want to wear decent gloves, I
realise.
He nods, braces by the door. "On three." I suggest. "One. Two."
"Whoa!" I pause, tense. Turner's tone is urgent, alarmed, there's a
problem -
"What? Problem?"
"Yeah. Is that one, two, three, _go!_ or is it one, two, _three!_?"
"What?" I'm puzzled.
"Which version of go-on-three is it?" His eyes are wide and innocent and
he's grinning again. It's got to be some kind of shadowrunner joke.
"On the three. Okay? One. Two."
"Three?" Turner jumps the gun, crashing through the door, leaving me to
catch up. He's gone in high and right, so I break left in a crouch.
Different sized targets, different directions, it can confuse the enemy
for a vital split-second - long enough for me to spot my target and put
a short burst into him, knocking him sprawling, as Turner fires at
someone else. With a bellow of anger, a big Ork woman rises from behind
a row of packing crates, an Ingram Supermach in each hand: Turner's
rounds slap into her chest before she fires, and my double-tap hits her
in the forehead and the nose, blowing the back of her head apart.
There is a long moment of silence, as the last few cases ring on the
concrete floor and the echoes clear. Even with suppressed SMGs and
hearing dampers, a firefight in confined quarters is _loud_.
"I got that last one." Turner chuckles. "You were late."
"You wounded her, I killed her."
"Hey, I hit her first." His grin is still insubordinate, considering
I've got two years' seniority of commission on him.
"I hit her hardest." I reply, before I realise I'm being drawn into his
childish games. Then I pause, and I ask myself, is that so bad? I look
around at the chaos and carnage we've caused in the last thirty seconds.
He's good enough to get away with his infantile humour. By all accounts,
he _needs_ it, he works better that way, Turner always was a maverick.
What the fuck. This isn't the Navy, I'm TDY, and Turner's date of rank
precedes mine. He wants to play the clown, as long as it works, why the
hell not?
The truck is halfway into the storeroom, engine still idling. The
driver's door hangs open, the driver sprawled half out of the cab where
he made the mistake of trying to shoot it out with Turner. Outside,
there are four bodies, one of them moaning softly. Nobody on their feet,
nobody trying to kill us.
"Good haul." I suggest. "Got some prisoners, too."
"Yep." Turner nods, picking up a wrecking bar and popping the lid off
the nearest crate. "Ouch. Lookit all this bad news." He steps back,
covering us, while I do so. In the crate (claiming to contain some sort
of revolting nutrisoy candy bars), packed in shaped foam restraints, are
the olive-drab cylinders of manpack missiles. Yellow script (in German)
and cartoon drawings show how to load them into a launch unit, lock onto
a target and fire.
"Not good." I agree. These would give most gunships or APCs a hard time:
cop cars, helicopters, civilian aircraft would be in deep shit with a
couple of these inbound. Twelve to a crate, three crates. Bad news.
"What now?"
"We pull out our badges while Alex gets us backup." Turner does just
that, and after a moment so do I. That feels odd, hanging a Federal
badge on my web gear... "You know, Mitch, you're not bad. Stuffy and
hung up, but you're a good operator."
"Yeah, well..." I shrug. "Just glad to see both parts of your rep were
true."
"Both parts? Which one?" Turner's grin is impish and I suddenly see
where he got the nickname.
"You're crazy, but you're good."
"Hope you can live with it, we're likely to be doing more of this. Once
we can interrogate our prisoners, we can figure out if this was Curry or
someone else."
Almost on cue, Monroe comes over the radio. "Cops en route. Two
cruisers, ETA thirty seconds. They know to expect us. Ambulances two
minutes behind them." His timings for Lone Star are precise almost to
the second, both cars pulling up outside and policemen in body armour
with SMGs piling out, covering the building.
"Ah... my public." Imp strikes a pose, then calls "Clear inside!
Hostiles down, some wounded!" before cautiously emerging into the
headlights: motioning me to stay, and to keep an eye on the casualties
in case any discover some last-ditch friskiness.
+++++end diary]<<<<<
-- Furrow <22:40:32/05-21-59>
