Deadly
Game
Chapter
Six
By
Fade
The next day was spent examining the information that Peter had sent Hammer. Shiver and Hammer had quickly realized that there were several potentially important details that had been left out, so during the course of the morning several calls were made to Peter to request that additional information be assembled and sent to them. Silk had fumed at the thought of being stuck inside, but grudgingly agreed that it was best to understand what was going on before running around with guns blazing.
Hammer had finally agreed to let the mage go out and purchase some ritual materials so that she could construct a circle and summon some elementals. Shiver had accompanied the other elf on the trip, while Shadow stayed behind and started reading over the information.
The elves returned from a blessedly uneventful trip to find Hammer reading information from two pocket secretaries and the wall screen, while Shadow was surrounded by piles of paper. When Silk commented on the paper Shadow looked up from the printout he was examining. “I couldn’t concentrate on what the words meant when I was reading on the screen, so I made a quick trip to pick up the hardware we needed to print stuff out.”
“He probably could have done a lot more than just pick up some hardware in the time you two were gone,” chided Hammer. “I’ve heard about smuggling runs through Tir Tairngire that took less time than your little excursion.”
Shiver grimaced, and pointed at Silk. “Had to go shopping.”
Silk stuck her hands on her hips, and put on the face that indicated to the others that she wasn’t going to back down. “I’ll have you know that I went shopping for the good of the team. All the gear you got us is wonderfully hi-tech, and it should stop bullets just fine, but it does nothing to help us blend in. Not only that, but the only clothes we had was the stuff that was stocked in the safe house, which means none of it fits well enough to convince anyone that we are normal people. I got some casual clothes for each of us, and then some worn out stuff incase we need wander around the barrens or someplace else trashy. Lastly, I got you all suits and a evening gown for me incase we get invited someplace nice.”
Hammer shook his head in disbelief. There was no doubt that Silk was exaggerating the condition of the team’s respective wardrobes, but she did have a point about the fact that they would be needing additional sets of clothing before trying to blend in with normal people. “I don’t suppose any of it fits considering none of the rest of us were around to try anything on.”
Silk shook her head looking really mad. “I can’t believe you said that. Of course it fits. All of it fits. I even took into account the fact that you’d all be wearing vests underneath. Go ahead. Try it on. I dare you.”
Shiver found himself curbing a sudden desire to stick his tongue out at the pretty young elf. It is amazing how someone else reverting to childish behavior can make one want to respond in kind.
Hammer seemed to be trying to put together a comeback, while Shadow was sitting back in a chair with his eyes slitted in a way that Shiver was starting to suspect indicated that the shape shifter was trying very hard not to laugh. The laconic elf finally decided there was really only one way to solve the issue. Looking over to Hammer he shrugged before turning to Silk and holding out a hand. “Faster this way.”
With what looked suspiciously like a pout, the mage pulled the plastic cover off of a suit and handed it to the elf. Analyzing the pout, Hammer wondered. Is that because we didn’t believe her, or because Shiver didn’t put up more of a fight before trying the clothes on?
In a relatively short time Hammer found himself in his room with what looked like a fairly expensive suit, a flak jacket, and instructions to hurry back out so that everyone could see him in it. Amazingly enough, an hour later the three men had tried on every article of clothing that Silk had purchased and found the fit to be pretty much perfect.
Still slightly astonished that the mage had gotten everyone’s sizes so close, and picked out outfits that made even a three meter tall troll look good, Hammer found himself inclining his head towards Silk who was sitting in the corner with an air of satisfaction that was more cat-like than anything Shadow had ever done.
“Next time you boys will all have to come along so we can get things just right,” yawned the mage.
It is the stretch and yawn combination, decide Hammer. Only a feline can do that and pretend that it doesn’t have a care in the world when it really knows it has you infuriated. Shaking his head for what seemed the hundredth time in the last hour, Hammer decided it was time to get everyone back to work.
The next few hours saw the group do just that. Silk bowed out of the planning stage saying she would feel much better once she had some elementals summoned as a backup for the team. Shadow thought about teasing her about just trying to get out of the work, but ended up being glad that he hadn’t said anything. After a couple of hours of chanting in the kitchen, Silk still hadn’t finished the summoning ritual, and had sweat streaming down her face from the exertion of maintaining an almost constant mana flow to avoid aborting the summoning.
For all that it was obvious that Silk was working very hard, six hours later all three of the men would have been willing to trade her places. After the third call to Peter for additional data, it became quite obvious that the data, while quite impressive, simply didn’t contain enough detail to crack the puzzle of who was attacking the fixer’s organization. Peter had simply commented that if Hammer thought they needed more data, then he would do what he could to get the troll more data. A few minutes later the team was put in contact with one of Peter’s most trusted deckers with instructions to funnel all information requests through their new contact.
Shock, as the decker was called, proved to be a plain, young human female with a passion for talking. Hammer soon realized that underneath the ditzy exterior, a true professional lurked who was more than able to obtain the kind of information they needed from Peter’s organization. The never-ending requests for additional information and detail soon wore down even Shock’s youthful exuberance, and before too long the poor decker limited communications to the minimum required to pass along her findings and receive the newest information requests.
Hammer and Shiver found themselves very thankful for their cerebral boosters. Shiver especially found that the bioware modification, when combined with his mnemonic enhancer, allowed him to juggle more information, and to hold elaborate theories in his mind, rotate them and test them in every possible way before discarding them as unlikely.
Shadow had read extensively on the cerebral booster implant, as well as just about every other type of technological modification one could make to their body, so he was familiar with the advantage that it gave the other two in their effort to figure out what exactly was going on. When all was said and done though, the shape shifter realized that the same modification wouldn’t have helped him out in this case. The kind of inductive reasoning that the other two were using depended on a lifetime of experience with a world that Shadow simple didn’t know very well yet.
Instead, the shape shifter used what Brother Simons had called deductive reasoning, and painstakingly began reasoning from the general conditions of the situation to specific instances. Eight hours and about 20 Samurai Power bars later, the physad hit upon something that he believed was worth further investigation. A small amount of the group’s data was based on subjective judgments, but this relatively small amount of data involved relatively important items. Shadow put a request for actual descriptions of several items on the list of things to request from Shock when she called again, and continued browsing the information that they did have.
An hour later, the information the shape shifter had requested started flowing in. Twenty minutes of analysis led Shadow to decide his findings merited the attention of the others. “Pardon me, but I believe that I have found something.”
Hammer stretched slowly, making both his joints and his chair creak, and turned to Shiver, who had been shaking slightly while analyzing the information. “Lets go find out what our feral friend has found,” said the troll with a smile.
In that moment, the chanting paused, and a muffled voice came through the wall, “He isn’t furry.” The three men looked at each other for a second as they tried to understand what the mage had just said. As they realized what had just happen, even Shiver broken into laughter. The laughter must have carried through the wall because, although the chanting had resumed, several sharp kicks were inflicted on the wall between the kitchen and the living room.
“I think we are probably fortunate that Silk is so occupied right now, or we would be paying for our amusement,” rumbled Hammer.
“I think we will probably be paying for it later instead,” growled Shadow marveling that people wasted so much energy on dealing with events that had occurred in the past. The past was the past, and things done in the present did nothing to change that which had been done in the past. Then again, the present isn’t the only thing that matters; there is the future too. Maybe revenge in some cases is to avoid possible problems in the future. Lost in the contemplation of this new insight into metahuman thought processes, the shape shifter had to be addressed twice before Hammer could get his attention.
“What have you found,” asked the big troll rubbing his massive shoulder. This can’t be good, my shoulder has cramped up just about every day since I took that last wound. I’ll bet the vat-grown muscles took enough damage that they are going to continue to cramp up until I get them replaced.
“I don’t know if it will lead us anywhere, but I realized that some of our information is faulty because it consists of subjective judgments by different individuals.”
Both of the other men immediately realized what Shadow was talking about. Shiver didn’t have Hammer’s many years of experience with ferreting out secrets and analyzing things, but his quick intellect made up for the deficiency. Pouring over the data provided by Shadow, Hammer felt stuff start to come together.
Half way through the next day Silk had summoned her full complement of elementals, and the men had managed to come up with some very good leads as to how the bad guys were taking apart Peter’s organization.
“They have compromised massive portions of the lower levels of your organization,” Hammer was telling the fixer. “Initially, we couldn’t figure out how since you use such a cellular construction. Even torture shouldn’t have been getting these guys anywhere because most of your people don’t really know anything outside of their narrow area of responsibility. Shiver hit on it though, you use special identifiers on a lot of your people, a white scarf, certain tires on their bikes, various things that let them know when they run into someone else from the organization.”
“Si,” responded Peter, “Peter knew that this was a weak link in the organization, but he wanted his people to be able to help each other out. We change the identifiers every couple of days though. I considered this possibility before, and these men are taking my organization apart much too quickly for it to be that they just know some of our identifiers.”
Hammer nodded. “That is what we thought as well until we realized that if they had compromised enough of your organization before they started killing people, then it would explain the speed with which they can find and kill your employees.”
Peter paused for a second as he thought through the implications of what had just been said. “What you mean is they already know who most of my people are, and just kill the ones that can’t really lead them to anyone else.”
“Yes, we recommend that you leave you people out there, instead of pulling them in. Based on what we know now, I believe we can figure out who the next set of targets will be. A carefully planned set of trails and ambushes should be sufficient to net you some further information on what organization is behind these actions.”
* * *
The next couple of days saw several other sets of ambushes that took out another large part of Peter’s remaining organization. As discouraging as this was, Hammer and the crew were able to accurately predict who would be taken out, and even pinned down some of the likely places and times that it would be done. Peter and Hammer had agreed that the tailing operation should be performed by a group of Peter’s mages who had worked extensively together. Drones and vehicles were considered as well, but in the end the two rationalized that magical surveillance would be much harder to shake, especially if the other guys weren’t expecting a serious attempt to follow them.
Silk had immediately demanded to be let in on the action, but relented when told that her team would need her help on their assignment. “Using only magical assets to tail one group means that Peter can use teams like us to try and eliminate the other guys’ hit teams when they strike. Peter set up a pretty impressive set of precautions to make sure that all of his people seem to be going about business as usual, when in fact all the people we designated as probable targets have been replaced and backed up by some top talent.”
“We’ve been tasked with taking the place of a Mr. Orange, who bears some resemblance to Shiver. Orange generally ends his Tuesdays by spending a few hours in a bar watching unarmed tournament matches. I will set up as a squatter in the alley outside where we think the ambush will take place. Shadow will set up across the street so he can come in from behind and make sure we trap their entire group. Silk will set up inside the bar with two of Peter’s lower level talent. Vixen and Ox will keep an eye on things while you can pretend to be passed out from all the alcohol you’ve consumed, and maintain a good astral over watch.”
“Peter has some narcojet pistols on their way here, so we’ll try and take prisoners instead of just killing the entire team. If push comes to shove though don’t worry about whether or not to use lethal force-taking prisoners is the ideal situation, but even reducing enemy soft assets is better than getting ourselves killed.”
Shiver indicated that he had a question as Hammer paused for a breath. “Enemy backup?”
Silk felt her insides go all tight remembering Shadow’s description of the force that had shown up after his first run in with these guys. Hammer didn’t seem excessively worried though as he continued his explanation. “Currently, backup is our biggest concern. The size of the forces we are allocating to the counter ambushes should be large enough to take out the initial opposition. The op response team could be quite a bit heavier than we saw last week. The enemy forces took a pretty good hit during our extraction, but it hasn’t seemed to slow their operations down at all. On the other hand, I don’t think they expect any serious resistance yet, so they aren’t going to want to clog the streets with too many riot control vehicles-Lonestar has noticed the higher tension in the area, and after the hardware that came out of the woodwork last week, they are keeping a presence in the area.”
Shiver was still listening to his teacher, but didn’t seem to be very comforted yet. Hammer continued on aware that things could actually go quite a bit worse than the scenario he was indicating. “Peter agreed that it would be foolhardy to just hope that their response team would be late, so we’ve taken some steps. We’ve tried to estimate which teams are going to be exposed to action first. Snipers are going to be stationed with these three teams, and we will try to ambush their response team as it comes in. Assuming that we can take the response team out, we imagine that the op forces will either decide we lucked out, or that they have been compromised in some way. If they decide we lucked out, I’m guessing we’ll see strikes across the board in an effort to eliminate our people since they know we can’t have that kind of coverage on everyone.”
Shadow chimed in now, “if they decide we compromised them, then they should pull back giving our mages a chance to trail them back to their base.”
Hammer nodded, “Peter has set up two mobile response teams that should be enough to help any teams that get into trouble. We are figuring a five-minute response time, so they should arrive about the time the bad guy’s response team does. Also, as teams deal with ambushes, they are slatted to rotate back to strong points that other teams can use as havens if things get really bad. We’ll have some fast transportation to help get us out if it comes to that.”
Silk still looked a little doubtful. “It sounds like we have a really good plan set up. The mages can trail, we can capture and interrogate, and we can also potentially get ritual samples that can be used to track the bad guys down. I‘m just a little worried, none of our plans ever went as planned while I was with Doc Wagon.”
Shiver shrugged, “Welcome to game, have fun while lasts.”
Silk looked like she wanted to stick her tongue out, but instead looked at the picture of Orange that Hammer had given her earlier, and smiled. “As long as we are having fun, do I get to dye your hair?”
* * *
Adolph wasn’t very happy right now. His dad hadn’t been very understanding about what happened last week. “I can understand you desire to fight that keeb, or even the big trog,” his father had said. “I can even understand loosing-from all reports those two were hyped way past anything you legitimately could have been expecting. Things probably would have still turned out in your favor if that stupid human would have sided with his own kind instead of joining with that swine.”
Adolph had felt pretty good until his father had continued. “However your use of our organization’s resources to launch that ridiculous hit was way out of line, and calling up our reserve squads to try and hunt those four down after your assassination attempt went awry was inexcusable. Now, we are involved in a war with this stupid Aztlander, and the men don‘t trust you because the squad that you didn’t bother accompanying got killed.”
The fact that Adolph’s father had chewed him out wasn’t too bad, but having his funds cut was extremely distasteful, as were the extra two ‘minders’ his father had assigned him. Luckily, Adolph was still able to go out and help in the attack on this Peter and his organization.
Remembering the satisfaction he had felt from breaking the legs on that tusker two days ago, Adolph smiled--nothing made a racist like him feel quite as good as hurting someone they didn’t like. It was really too bad that his father had assigned minders who weren’t true believers. The one, Carbon, had actually thrown him across the room and killed the ork to put it out of its misery.
Richard walked up and tossed his friend a gun from the armory. “Hey omae, you ready for the hit tonight?”
Adolph nodded as he caught the gun. Inspecting the weapon the big human extended his arm spurs and sighed. “I wish we could go out with some real firepower instead of these stupid pop guns.”
Richard shrugged. “Your old man has a good point about making sure we don’t turn the heat up any more by letting it out who is doing these hits. Besides that, these shadowrunners are incredibly stupid. They still don’t know who is hitting them. Heck, we could probably go in with fragging blanks and still take these guys.”
“Ok, you have a good point. Lets go do this stupid keeb.”
* * *
A couple of hours later, Adolph and his four friends were in a plain brown van waiting for the go ahead from the minders. Axle, a human nearly the size of your average ork, was the head minder. As such, the human found himself in the bar watching their target get incredibly drunk. The elf never even took his eyes off of the vidscreen that was displaying the latest unarmed tournament.
Stupid elf, thought Axle. Rule number one is you never incapacitate yourself anywhere that you could be threatened. Of course for Axle, that meant you never got drunk anywhere. You never knew when a teammate would turn on you, or the victim of an old job come back to settle a score. In the perfect example, of what not to do, this orange-haired freak with a mohawk had made himself a very visible person, which made it ridiculously easy for this old job to come back and remove him from the equation. At least this one should be quick and easy. After Carbon threw that punk kid across the room he shouldn’t get in the way.
Carbon, just like Axle was a professional. Once you took the money, you made sure the job was done regardless of what it cost you. Unfortunately both of the samurai had lately been feeling that the money wasn’t worth the torture that went along with this job. Eliminating a rival organization was one thing, but letting some punk kid beat on someone still in their teens was just wrong somehow.
The newfound concern of right and wrong brought with it some big problems. The racist organization that the two samurai now worked for, was highly unlikely to just let the two of them walk away. Carbon had indicated he had a plan in the works, so Axle was forced to just wait until the other got things worked out.
Focusing back on the job at hand, the samurai carefully checked the bar. The target was still at the bar, and none of the patrons looked like they were backup for the keeb. There was a trio in a booth on the far side of the bar, but the one girl was passed out, apparently from the large quantity of alcohol she had imbibed, and the other two looked more like wannabes than real runners. The armor plates on their dusters were obvious, and spaced so far apart, that if they intercepted a bullet, it would be nothing more than sheer chance.
“Status,” sub vocalized the samurai.
“Green light,” replied Carbon from outside in the alley. “Alley is clear except for one old troll-looks like he is missing an arm.”
“Green here, Two has the kids in the van still.”
I hope Two sub vocalized that, thought Axle. Otherwise those ‘kids’ are going to be pissed and even harder to control.
“In the slot and ready to roll,” came the reply from Sugar. “Can we get on with this before my nails need to be repainted?”
“Careful Sugar, keep clear of Adolph-he is out to corner you. Don’t tease him, or you’ll end up having to hurt him and that would be a bad career move.”
Axle knew that his warning wouldn’t do any good, but had given it out of a sense of duty. I may not like her especially, but she’s my responsibility so I have to try and keep her from getting herself killed.
The tournament ended, and the target unsteadily stood up to leave. “Moving out the side door,” warned Axle.
A rapid series of acknowledgments told the team leader that his people were moving.
Sugar started across the street, only a few meters behind the kids and Two. Where’s the target, where is the target?
The orange-haired elf exited the bar into the alley. Axle came out of the door four seconds later, and events started happening almost faster than Sugar could follow.
The kids all spread out over the front of the alley, still sheparded by Two. The target turned and seeing Axle behind him, drew that ridiculous looking katana from over his shoulder, and prepared for a fight. The kids reached into their coats to draw pistols, when the troll squatter at the front of the alley leaped to his feet and started taking them down. “Backup, six needs backup,” screamed Axle as he pulled out a gun, before slumping to the ground with a knife sticking out of his back.
Not looking good, thought Sugar as she reached for a gun. Before the female samurai was able to clear her holster, the elf had reached Two and cut him down. You may be good with a sword, but that wont help against explosive rounds. Sugar’s smile of satisfaction as her Colt started up towards the target, went sour as she heard steps behind her.
Shadow, who had setup so that he could watch the enemy’s van, delivered a strike to the back of the female’s head just before she was able to bring Shiver into her sights. The physad grabbed the samurai before she could hit the ground, and hauled her into the alley. Hammer and Shiver had just finished up with the last of the ambush team, and Silk was coming through the door with Vixen and Ox.
“Why where there so many of these guys,” questioned Silk as she pulled out syringes and ran over to the big human that they had run into before. The mage only drew blood from the one human before Hammer was on the radio demanding everyone clear out.
“Move people, this is bad. Not only were there more targets than expected, but ours was the first hit, so the op response teams are on their way. Drones report we have only 30 seconds before the op forces get here.”
The team ran out of the alley towards the vehicles only to see a pair of cars come skidding onto the street. As figures exited the cars, Hammer, Shiver and Shadow all saw guns being drawn.
“They’re hostile, weapons free,” yelled Hammer as he leveled the huge machinegun he had retrieved moments earlier from a pile of trash. A short bust saw one samurai go down, even as Shiver took down a second, and Vixen and Ox opened fire.
The two temps only had pistols, but they used them to good effect, combining to take down what looked like the enemy mage. Shadow had taken off at a sprint towards the cars, snapping off one shot, which was sufficient to kill the driver of the second car.
As the second car slammed into the first, Silk hit one of the op teams with a heavy-duty sleep spell. The enemy team slumped into unconsciousness, and Hammer came over the radio. “Head through the opposite alley, we don’t have time to escape on wheels. Hopefully, they will leave us alone if we bug out and leave what is left of their team alone.”
The runners had just made it to the back of the alley and found a door into the office building that bordered the alley, when the first city master rolled to a stop right on schedule. Finding that the door was locked, Hammer kicked it in and motioned Shadow and Silk through. In that moment, the op team spotted the group and opened fire.
Shiver, Vixen and Ox were serving as rearguard when the bullets started coming in. Shiver used his amazing speed to reach a dumpster where he could return fire from partial cover. Vixen and Ox both tried to make similar cover, but lacking equal speed they took bullets before they could take more than two steps.
“Men down,” yelled Hammer. “Silk, we need some healing and area effect spells. Shadow, they are going to be coming into that building, keep a route open for us please.”
As Silk came back through the door, she saw both Hammer and Shiver toss a variety of grenades out into the street. Pulling the mana into her hands, the mage gave it a flick with her wrists and cast another stun spell at the group in the front of the alley. As two or three of the op force swayed, and another hit the ground, the grenades went off, filling the street with smoke, and concussive blasts that further stunned the other group. Not enough thought Silk, as she caused her summoned spirits to manifest.
From the pavement at the mage’s feet, two human shaped earthen figures took form, even while a pair of fire elementals took form next to an air elementals. As the elementals looked to Silk for instruction, the mage gestured to the op forces. “Kill these people who are attacking my friends.” Nodding, all five elementals turned and started moving towards the mouth of the alley.
Covered slightly by the smoke and waste heat from the grenades, Shiver pulled Vixen behind the dumpster, while Hammer ran forward and grabbed Ox. Grunting from the impact of a few stray bullets which came through the smoke, the troll carried the big human back to Silk. While Hammer ran back to help cover Shiver, Silk put a hand on Ox’s neck.
Finding a pulse, the mage reached again for the mana. Reaching through her drain, the mage found that the energy was unresponsive and truculent. This is going to be close, she thought wrapping the healing strands of energy around Ox.
____
Shadow listened to Hammer’s instructions, and then put his pistol away as moved quietly in the direction of where the door should be. For a moment the shape shifter contemplated shifting to his tiger form, but was forced to abandon the idea. Although a tiger would be easier to hide in the cubicle environment of the office building, it was important that Shadow maintain contact with his teammates.
An insubstantial rustle ahead told the physad that enemies were drawing closer. Here is to hoping that none of them have a highly developed combat sense, though Shadow as he spun around the corner and cut down the first enemy. The second samurai didn’t have a chance to do much more than register his comrade had just been killed before he too received a lethal strike from Shadow’s centuries-old katana.
Unfortunately, the enemy team was being smart and moving two at a time, so the other half of the team was far enough back that they would be able to bring weapons up before Shadow could reach them. Instead of pressing the issue, the physad restrained his desire to rush the two remaining foes, and faded back before the second body hit the ground.
The two
remaining samurai sprayed fire in the direction Shadow had retreated hoping to
take him down with a lucky shot. “Backup,
we need backup,” screamed one of the samurai into his radio as Shadow backed
further away. One of the bullets had
made it past his armor and hit him in the arm.
Stupid cubicles let you hide, but they don’t do anything to stop bullets, though Shadow as his body pushed the bullet out, and stopped the bleeding. Circling back around Shadow found a hall that ran parallel to the one that the samurai were in. Moving as quickly as he could without causing noise Shadow made it back nearly to the front of the store before he found a way to get back to the hall that his enemies had been on.
Waiting for a second, the physad’s acute ears picked up the sound of footsteps passing just before the sound of a second city master pulling up covered any further sound from inside the building. Making a quick decision, Shadow jumped into the hall and attacked the two anchormen who had just passed. Two slashes and Shadow was running after the point men. By the time the bodies hit the ground, the shape shifter had covered a quarter of the distance, and was sure he could take out the two samurai in front of him before they could turn and bring weapons to bear on him.
Unfortunately, the odds caught up with Shadow at that point. People from the street had realized what was happening, and with a hail of breaking glass opened fire on him from outside the building. The shooters seemed to be having a hard time tracking such a fast-moving target, but with the volume of fire being unleashed, rounds were still hitting Shadow, and about half of them were making it past his armor.
Reaching the now-turning samurai ahead of him, Shadow struck them both, grinning ferally, as he passed. Both gillettes crumpled to the ground, more as a result of the hail of friendly fire, than as a result of Shadow’s strikes.
Ducking into another hallway, Shadow quickly realized that it stopped thirty feet after it started.
____
Hammer looked back at Silk just in time to see her succumb to drain induced unconsciousness. I hope she got him healed, I’ve only got one med kit, and Vixen is going to need it. Hammer slid the med kit across the alley to Shiver who quickly placed it on Vixen. The female razor stopped moaning as the diagnostic computer on the med kit administered painkillers.
The troll saw another samurai throw a grenade in their direction, only to have it fall well short of its target as Shiver hit it with a three round burst which slowed it down considerably. Hammer was still amazed by Shiver’s speed since coming back from Chiba. That kid is moving close to 30% faster than I am. The increase in Shiver’s speed has helped him settle down-once he gets used to his new capabilities, he just might be able to take me in hand to hand.
Luckily,
the opposition hadn’t seemed to realize that the grenades where being
intercepted before reaching their target, so the operatives at the front of the
alley weren’t making a concerted effort to really take Hammer and Shiver
down. They’ve got to be figuring we
are about ready to go down from all the grenades-if I wasn’t seeing Shiver take
them in the air, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible.
Another grenade came sailing through the air in ultra-slow motion, and Shiver brought his gun around to target the new threat. The smartlink system in the gun interfaced flawlessly with the dermal link in the elf’s right hand, sending information to the processor mounted slightly behind his eyes. The processor instructed the cybereyes to add a small red dot to the information they were supplying the visual center in Shiver’s brain.
The end
result of all the photons being sent up the fiber optic cables was that Shiver
was able to see exactly where any bullet sent from his gun would end up. Waiting until a microsecond before the
grenade was about to intersect the red indicator, Shiver triggered off another
burst slowing the target down enough that it went off well short of Hammer’s
position.
The seven elementals had run into an incredible amount of resistance. The op forces must have included at least one mage, because four incredibly large earth elementals had manifested and turned on Silk’s elementals. The remaining elementals had caused some havoc, but had been dispelled before being able to eliminate more than one or two samurai.
At that moment, the first city master began rolling away from the fight. Realizing that the response team must have collected the still living members of the ambush team, Shiver threw his remaining grenades hoping to take out some of the opposition before the operatives who had been covering the pickup in the other alley joined the firefight.
Hammer finally got a clear shot, and dropped what looked to be a physical adept with a hail of bullets from his machine gun. As the round counter in the upper right corner of his vision dropped to zero, the troll ejected the spent clip and replaced it with his last full clip.
As the remaining enemy operatives got into position the amount of fire being directed at Hammer’s position doubled, forcing him back further into the doorway. Just as worrisome, one of the enemy elementals had destroyed the elementals fighting it, and was headed down the alley.
“Fall back Shiver,” directed Hammer. “My position has become useless, which means they will have the angle to overrun your position.”
With a slight burst of static Shadow reported in. “The escape route has been compromised, I am trying to open it back up, but they now have eight to twelve operatives in the building.”
Adding Shadow’s information into the mass of variables in his head, Hammer still concluded that the team would have to go through the building. Throwing his last smoke grenade, the troll ran to the doorway grabbing Silk even as Shiver picked Vixen up and a woozy Ox followed the other runners into the building.
____
From his hiding place above the ceiling tiles, Shadow felt a brief flicker of distress upon hearing that his teammates were being forced to pull back into the building. It was possible that choosing to attack with his katana had been a poorer choice than simply trying to gun the opposition down. Pushing doubts aside, Shadow reported the compromised status of the escape route before getting back to the business at hand.
The false ceiling created by the tiles had proved to be an effective enough hiding place to allow the shape shifter to evade the team that had come into the hall after him, but it soon became evident that moving around while hanging from a variety of pipes wasn’t going to be a good way to cover much ground.
Deciding that the opposition had probably spread out by now, Shadow hung by his legs from a pipe, while using his hands to slide a ceiling tile out of the way. Dropping from the ceiling, Shadow drew his katana again as he flipped around to land on his feet. I hope they aren’t close enough to tell where all that noise came from, though the physad as he moved to the door.
Exiting the room in which Shadow found himself, he came around the corner only to literally run into the first enemy samurai. The range was too close for weapons, so the gillette and his five companions extended spurs and razors as they surrounded Shadow.
The first attack sliced overhead as the shape shifter ducked slightly. The next razor tried to disembowel Shadow, but found his attack stopped by an elbow to his forearm. The next three attacks came in simultaneously, making it unfeasible to avoid them all. In a move that surprised his opponents, the physad didn’t try to avoid any of them. The third strike came in from the left, impacting against the steel plates over Shadow’s kidneys. The fourth strike was another slash to the shape shifter’s midsection, just below his vest. The fifth strike was from the right, involving hand razors in an effort to open up the veins and arteries along the outside of Shadow’s arm.
The fourth strike was potentially the most dangerous, and the razor delivering it knew that. Consequently, he expected Shadow to pull back to avoid it, possibly taking damage from the other two samurai. Operating on this assumption, the razor had moved in fairly close to insure being able to reach his target. A sharp kick blew out the knee of the fourth razor, even as he scored a deep slash on the shape shifter. Settling through the pain, Shadow tapped the third samurai on the forearm, hitting what he had come to call point fifty-four. As the fifth razor shredded Shadow’s arm, the physad managed to touch the outside of the other’s little finger, hitting point sixty-two left.
Backing slightly away from the opponent with the broken knee, Shadow continued to soak up incredible amounts of damage, while avoiding what he could. The two opponents that had been nerve struck were in tremendous amounts of pain, and slowed down enough that they had a hard time contributing. Thirty seconds later, Shadow dropped the last three samurai with a quick series of kicks and blows.
Bleeding from seven or eight fairly major wounds, Shadow bent and retrieved several grenades. As the shape shifter stood back up, he heard steps coming from the front of the building. Smiling now that his wounds had healed, Shadow pulled the pins, and threw all the grenades in a blur.
All four grenades bounced around the corner right into a group of four very surprised gillettes. Shadow had timed things almost perfectly, so even the incredibly wired samurai didn’t have a chance to do more than blink before the detonators went off. The walls in the hall were much sturdier than those of the cubicles, so the blast was somewhat contained wreaking even more damage upon the razors.
Turning, Shadow ran back towards to back door to meet up with the rest of the team.
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