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From:	shadowtk@*********.com (Paul J. Adam)
Subject:	Heavy Overcast and Increasing Precipitation
Date:	Wed Oct 10 16:20:01 2001

Message no. 1 *****INTERNAL: VAdm J Kowalski
>>>>>[We're working on the lost stuff. But this is what we got out of...
recent events, I guess.

+++++begin video
The forest is oppressive, overgrown, and far too dark. In the deep
shade, there's too little light for even image-intensifiers to be much
use, while in the darkness and shadow everything's the same temperature
and so thermal imaging's almost blind. EyeLights give you visibility to
avoid tripping over your own feet, but the darkness swallows their weak
glow within a few yards.

Lynch is taking point: perhaps because he's best suited, more likely
because anyone skilled enough to dispute his choice is wise enough to
let him *have* the most dangerous position. He pauses, the PSG-7 held at
high port, studying the forest ahead: the rest of the team, behind him,
also halt.

"Is there... a... problem?" Cypher enquires in his soft, sepulchral
voice.

"I don't know. Something feels wrong." The Marine replies, almost
inaudibly, still examining the trees.

"*Everything* feels wrong." whispers Willow. "This place... this place
screams with horror."

"Yeah." Lynch nods. "But there's more than that. Or else my famous
intuition's screwed again."

"You got a feeling that something's wrong ahead?" Ironguard suggests.
"Like, that terrain feature would make a nice defensive position, or at
least a great OP? I was thinking that too."

"Especially because I don't know where to go to get through it. That
hill feels too exposed, but the re-entrants either side are deathtraps,
and if we detour around we add two, three miles and we won't make it
into the base before sunrise. Opinions?" Lynch asks.

"The... valleys are... more dangerous." Cypher suggests. "If the hill...
is... clear then it is... superior. Perhaps it could be... quietly
_made_ clear."

"I'd put an OP on the hill, looking out and down. Anyone in those
re-entrants is pretty much blind. They could react, but they can't see
jack." Storm comments. "But it _looks_ clear. Maybe they just don't have
enough people here to patrol and secure every approach."

"I can't look. I _can't_." Willow rubs at her temples. "This
*place*...." She leans over and retches, just dry heaves: Guilas trying
to comfort her, the mobster out of his depth in these fearsome,
pitch-black woods.

"Okay. How about we just go right up the middle over the top of that
damn hill, quick and sneaky, watching our flanks and being quiet as
fucking church mice? If we meet anyone we kill them fast and sneaky like
*homicidal* church mice." Lynch suggests, once the silence is long
enough that nobody else has anything to add. "It's a shitty deal but
it's all we've got and we're running out of night. Dissenting opinions
welcomed."

"I don't like it." Guilas admits. "But everything else I can think of is
worse."

"Welcome to my world." Lynch nods. "Anyone else?... Okay, shake it out
and stay loose. If we hit the shit..." he pauses, suddenly realising
that these aren't troopers he's trained, who have clearly defined and
well-practiced 'Actions On...' for various contingencies, who can't be
launched into an organised and rehearsed flanking attack by a simple
shout of 'Ambush Left!', and that his usual litany's not appropriate.
"Listen for my orders and stay alive." he finishes slightly lamely. "Not
*necessarily* in that order." he adds with a flash of humour.

The group moves off, still with Lynch leading, the other five members in
loose double file behind him, weapons and eyes searching the forest for
threats. Still, it turns out, they're looking in the wrong place.

Lynch, Cypher, and Storm all shout variations of "GET DOWN!" in the
heartbeat before the rushing _whoosh_ and the savage silver light
freezes the scene. Schermurly paraflares, at least eight, each over a
million candlepower of fierce blue-white light. Rising fast on their
rockets, then coming down slowly under their parachutes.

"JASON LYNCH! YOU ARE SURROUNDED!" an amplified voice booms, and another
light source is added to the fierce glare. "DROP YOUR WEAPON AND RAISE
YOUR HANDS! ALL OF YOU!" The helicopter gunship's Spectralab spotlight
overloads Lynch's headware camera and he looks away, to where black-clad
FRAG troops are coming up the hill from either side. They didn't choose
either the valley or the spur... they covered both, with a stealthed
gunship for backstop and support.

"Do we...?" Guilas asks, the muzzle of his shotgun shivering in his
grasp.

Lynch transfers his rifle to his right hand, holding it by the forestock
well away from his body, then dropping it carefully to the ground.
"Herve, possono ucciderli in qualunque momento. Mentre siamo vivo,
possiamo ancora fuoriusciamo."

"Si, patrone." Guilas sighs, unslinging the weapon. The others get the
gist, even those that don't speak Italian.

The helicopter's downwash blows leaves and dust around, and the
spotlight is still painfully bright even as the flares burn out.

"Jason fragging Lynch. Meant to be some sort of Superman." The senior
FRAG trooper says contemptuously.

"Actually, I'm a burned-out relic who's been superseded by progress."
Lynch replies cheerfully. "And only the most cluelessly inept soldiers
should be unable to resist my-"

The FRAG captain tries to buttstroke Lynch in the stomach and finds he's
swiping his rifle's stock through empty air.

"See?" Lynch chuckles. "Want to dance?" Suddenly, his right hand grows

three murderous blades from its knuckles. "Your General says you'll cut
me to pieces easily. Come on. Fight me. Your boss says it's easy and you
can't lose. Come on. Fight me. Kill me. Pop your spurs and fight me.
Come ON! Fight me! I'm old and obsolete and past it! Fight me! Fight me!
Fight me! Come and-" Lynch is advancing steadily on the trooper -

"Enough, Colonel Lynch." A voice from the left. Lynch freezes at once,
retracting the spurs and then relaxing into a casual stance that would
take a fatal quarter-second extra to attack from.

"Well done, sir. Nice try, good moves, good manipulation. Lieutenant,
you are a fragging *buffalo*, you have no clue, sir. Colonel Lynch was
about to kill you the moment you went for him, and use that confusion to
attempt an escape. Am I right, sir?" a third party suggests.

"Precisely right...?"

"Master Sergeant Tonnant, sir. And Sioux terrorists killed my parents."
The SPAS-22 aimed at Lynch's head - from just far enough away that he'll
be dead before he reaches his opponent - doesn't waver.

"Very sad, Sergeant. You want to try counting relative atrocity?"

"No, sir. Are you able to let Abilene pass?"

"The United States is dead. So's President Jarman. The scumbag camp
guards who killed for fun and raped for sport are dead or hiding in
terror. Abilene was *over* before I was born, even though my grandmother
died there after a bunch of US soldiers decided she was pretty enough to
play with.." Lynch turns, keeping his hands raised. "I'm here to stop
the second round of that war-"

"Shut up!" Tonnant snaps.

"Hey, First Amendment, right of free speech!"

"You have *no* rights except what-"

"So you're not a UCAS soldier?"

"If I suspend your rights then-"

"Then it don't mean *shit* because you *can't* do that!" Lynch snaps.
"You _defend_ the Constitution, you do *not* rewrite it!"

"Oh, _frag_ that liberal bulldrek-"

"Yeah, hell with the right to free speech! Fuck the right to trial by
jury! Screw the right to silence! You and your Hitler Youth death squad
hold the power of life and death over the UCAS and you *love* it, don't
you?" Lynch is actually advancing on the sergeant.

Tonnant's knuckles are white on the shotgun. "It's lucky for you I'm a
professional soldier-"

"If you were a professional soldier you wouldn't be hiding on
Madagascar, behind a lying scheming sack of shit of a boss, who's
violating the Constitution you swore to defend." Lynch says coldly. "Why
doesn't your Commander-in-Chief know what you're doing?"

"Desperate times demand desperate measures." Tonnant says coldly.

Lynch laughs wryly. "Yeah, Sergeant, they always do. That's what Stalin
and Beria said. That's what the Gestapo said. That's what the Abilene
guards said. That's what SAIM said. How long a list do you want? You
won't find any congenial company there, though."

"You're a traitor and a renegade, Colonel. You're opposing the best
interests of the UCAS."

"I'm protecting the Constitution and defending my country against its
enemies. Foreign *and* domestic. You're shitting your pants because you
*are* one of those enemies."

"I don't have time for this." Tonnant snaps. "You put your hands behind
your head and you stand damn still. Move a muscle or say one more word,
and I'll kill you myself, and then I'll kill all your buddies too. You
talk all you want, Colonel, but you're a traitor and we'll kill you the
moment you pose a threat."
+++++end video

Are those guys for real?

How the _hell_ did they get into the Army?

Sir... this is not good news. I hope it gets better before it gets too
much worse.]<<<<<
-- SSgt T R Porter <21:11:39/10-10-62>
Data Extraction & Recovery
Cyberspace Special Forces

From:	shadowtk@*********.com (Paul J. Adam)
Subject:	Heavy Overcast and Increasing Precipitation
Date:	Thu Oct 11 12:35:01 2001

Message no. 2 *****INTERNAL: VAdm J Kowalski
>>>>>[That sequence from the aircraft, before they set down... turns out
it was a double POV, interleaved, no wonder it wouldn't play.

This should work.

+++++begin video
The Indian Ocean is lightly ruffled, the waves and an occasional white
horse glittering in the amplified quarter-moon. It's also rushing past
beneath the aircraft's belly, much too close for comfort.

Lynch is flying the amphibian in surface effect, maybe twenty feet ASL,
holding it steady through the low-level buffet at one hundred and ten
knots indicated airspeed. Slow for most aeroplanes, but this low at
night it still feels far too fast. Ahead, a dark shadow lies along the
horizon.

The island of Madagascar.

In the co-pilot's seat (but keeping his hands firmly away from the
controls), Herve Guilas looks a little green as the floatplane hits
another pocket of rising air. Someone in the passenger cabin astern
loses their dinner, hopefully into an airsick bag (Guilas has one ready
too).

"Is this safe?" the mobster asks.

"Define 'safe'." Lynch replies cheerfully. "We could fly higher, that
would involve less risk of hitting the water. But then we'd have more
danger of being seen, and then they might shoot missiles with big
high-explosive warheads at us, riddling the aircraft and its passengers
with red-hot razor-sharp fragments of flying metal and turning us into a
cartwheeling inferno of fiery destruction. And then we hit the water
*anyway*. On balance, I think I prefer 'low', don't you?"

In the back of the plane, someone starts to wheeze horribly before
there's the sharp hiss of an inhaler.

"When you put it like that..." Guilas grins weakly, before the amphibian
flies into a downdraught. Lynch pulls it out of the sudden dive, and
surely the faint shudder surely can't be the aircraft's hull clipping a
wave top? "Are we going to get there alive?"

"If I fuck up, I'm dead and so's Lilith. Oh, yeah, and so are you guys.
I've got incentives."

A call from the back interrupts the discussion. "Lynch? How long?"

"Five minutes, Dona. Brace up and get set."

The dark mass of trees is becoming more distinct from the dark ocean, as
the floatplane approaches: Lynch pulls the nose up, holding his altitude
steady as he throttles back. "We'll come in slow and quiet and as cold
as we can."

"Cold?"

"If they've got radar, it's major-league LPI kit, because I'm hearing
nothing but skywave from Antsiranana ATC and weather, and a few C-band
and I-band civilian navigation sets - merchant shipping. Nobody's even
got secondaries on us, let alone skin paint. But they might have passive
IR, or soundranging gear, for coast watch. If we come in low, at minimum
power, we make less noise and we're less noticeable on infrared. Plus
it's easier to land and beach her safely from a low-and-slow." The
Marine puts down ten degrees of flap, lets the nose rise further. Now
the floatplane's wallowing slightly, less responsive to the controls,
lurching along at sixty-six knots (ten per cent above stall speed,
according to one of the diagrams in the corner of Lynch's eye)

"And if they do see us?"

"We'll be ambushed on the beach. Or shot down before we get there. If
that happens, remember your ditching drills..." By now, the dark bulk of
land has an iridescent band of surf-swept beach at its base. "'Thirty
seconds. Stand by." Another ten degrees of flap, and a little more
power, not enough to stop a slow steady sink rate. Lynch nudges back on
the stick and the aircraft's descent accelerates slightly even as the
nose rises.

Individual trees becoming visible, and the gently sloping white sand
beach getting clearer, as the boat hull touches down with a jolt:
skidding over several wave tops, dragging at the aircraft as Lynch chops
the throttle and lets the aircraft belly down into the water. The left
float bites in and he jams on right rudder to hold it straight, letting
the aircraft coast through the water to come to rest in the breaking
surf. A tug on one lever, and a Danforth anchor drops to secure it in
place for now: and then the Marine shuts down the turboprop engine, and
the loudest noise is the soft roar of the gently breaking waves.

"Okay, anyone know how to paddle a boat?" he asks with slightly forced
good cheer.

+++++pause
+++++change POV
+++++resume
Minnie sits in her bucket seat, webbing casually fastened across her,
trying to gather her thoughts. Around her is a motley crew of mobsters,
assassins, mercenaries, shadowrunners....and one fat, scared, orc Ph.D.
student, called Bungle.

She smiles at him, eliciting a weak nod in response. He looks like he
hasn't washed for a year, she thinks....How on earth did he get mixed up
in all this? Someone, probably Lynch has given him a gun of some sort -
looks like a cut-down Valiant, the sort of thing you'd usually see a
simsense version of a Navy SEAL carrying - but he's got it or the seat
next to him, as far away as possible.

Minnie can hear voices from up ahead - snippets of Lynch's voice
discussing their arrival plan with Herve Guilas. The mobster sounds
slightly ill as Jason cheerfully describes the 'cartwheeling inferno of
fiery destruction' that may be the next significant stage in their
itinerary.

She smiles, listening to her normally unflappable lieutenant audibly
turning green. Low level coastal assault flights are not the normal
stock in trade for a senior mafioso...well, not *this* century, anyway.

Sitting across the aisle from her is the skeletal mercenary, Cypher.
He's deep in conversation with the dwarf, Irish. She picks up snippets
of their conversation - it's all trajectories and payloads, burst rates
and suppression cones. Hi-tech death, as discussed by two academics.
Listening in with interest is the shadowrunner Jazz, leaning over the
huge, snoring form of the troll mercenary Frog. Minnie smiles, seeing
the boyish face of Jules, unblinking in the gloom, as he watches the
sleeping figure of Alba. Minnie frowns slightly at this - she knows that
there's history between them, and hopes it won't affect the mission.

Holden, the second largest man there, is also sleeping, muffled snores
emanating from the khaki hat slumped over his face.

A small group of shadowrunners down the far end, Ironguard and his
friends complete the group, involved in an animated discussion that
appears to be concerned with zero gravity sex. Still, they look relaxed,
which can only be a good thing. Minnie passes over the still form of
Bungle, still locked in his own misery and comes back to Bob Laconi,
sitting next to her.

Bob looks up from the Uzi he's cleaning with occasional mute advice from
the palefaced assassin sitting opposite, and nods at her.

Minnie snaps out of her reverie and pulls the velcro edge of her webbing
aside.

"Lynch! How long?"

The call comes back - five minutes. Minnie steadies herself on a cargo
net strapped to the wall for that express purpose, and addresses the
group.

"Right. Listen up.... We're almost there. On Madagascar...."

As if on cue, the mists they've been flying through open up, to reveal
a moonlit scene of eerie beauty. The island lies ahead of them, as the
plane skips over the sea, from one sparkling wave to another. There is a
casual menace to the island - the forests exuding a deep, dark
discomfort that chills even the most hardened shadowrunners to their
hearts.

Even Minnie is transfixed by the scene, and for thirty seconds, all is
still as they crowd round the portholes, soaking in the argent-soaked
vista.

"OK, "she says, slightly shakily, "When we land, get off the plane and
into the inflatables, ASAP. We have two boats - one for each team.
Sorry, should have really told you before - we simply cannot afford to
stick together, as comforting as that may be, so....Team A will be led
by the ubiquitous Colonel Lynch."

"...Yes Ma'am!...." floats through from the cockpit, followed by an
Italian accented chuckle. Minnie aims a hard stare at the curtain. "And,
I think, Mr Guilas will be wanting to be in that team too, yes, Herve?"

"Yes, Dona..." comes a contrite response, as the chuckle is cut off
abruptly.

"Ironguard - your team, along with Willow and Irish for heavy weapons
support." Willow is a beautiful elven mage - well dressed in worn combat
gear, and a SMG over her back, she has a certain self-possession and
beauty that causes the eye to always linger on her slightly. At the
other end of the plane, there couldn't be more of a contrast. The
dwarven mercenary, Irish, is not nearly as pleasing to the eye, and his
clothes look like he's been dragged through a firefight with a group of
cows with bad gastric problems. His reputation, however, precedes him,
and he's a popular choice with Ironguard and the rest of his team - Void
and Storm - as heavy weapons backup.

"My team will be the others - Bob Laconi, you all know, as with my other
associates, Jules and Holden..." The british ex-army officer elbows his
companion in the side, eliciting an "Oof!" as the bush hat slides from
Holden's face and he blinks sleep out of his heavy eyes.

"Alba and Frog will be providing our main firepower..." A slender
Aztlaner woman nods curtly, as a counterpoint for the wide, beatific
smile bestowed upon the rest of the passengers from the Troll physad.
"Last, but not least....Cypher. I think you all know what *he* does."

"Ha......ha......" The face belies the words. Cypher is not smiling.

"Well, at least, in the conventional sense."

"ONE MINUTE!" comes the call from up front.

"OK, kids, buckle up and let's stay sharp." sings out Jules, as he tests
Harold's, then Minnie's, bindings before looking around for anyone else
who might need a final check. "I'll be in charge of your disembarkation.
Thank you for flying Crazy Sioux Airways and have a nice day."

"...I heard that...." comes a good-natured grumble from the
flightdeck...
+++++end video

The footage from the penetration and the raid on Ernang's outfit is kind
of messed up. We're trying to piece it together as best we can.

Didn't help that that crazy Marine carried the damn chips around in a
pocket for a couple of weeks. Doesn't he know what that does to unfixed
optical storage?

Okay, scratch that, sir, I'm sure he had a lot more on his mind than
proper data hygiene.

What we're getting... is pretty weird drek, if you'll pardon my French.

Did anyone actually _approve_ the crap Ernang was ding?]<<<<<
-- SSgt T R Porter <22:52:26/10-09-62>
Data Extraction & Recovery
Cyberspace Special Forces

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