Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Mobius City Of Gaia. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Elba; Beyond Elba
Topic Started: Jul 22 2014, 08:47 PM (184 Views)
LinaHaeden
Member Avatar
Queen Overlord


Beyond Elba



Two weeks after Haeden's capture...

By the time their special cargo had arrived at the Marina De Campo airport, it had changed hands at least 20 times. Contained in a packing container small enough to tucked aboard an airfreighter, the receptacle in question was the size of a small cell or room besides. Nevertheless, many pieces of cargo of such size or greater toured the logistical maze that made modern commerce possible on a daily basis to make this particular piece of cargo insignificant to anyone that was watching. By the time it made its way to Russia, those 5th International agents originally in possession of it no longer had any idea of where it would be getting to, for security reasons (albeit, not for those ones which they might assume to be true). By the time it found its way to Elba, all connection to the original senders had been erased.

UniFold regularly received parcels of similar size or greater at this location and others. It was a heavy industry firm, after all, and heavy industry cargo was quite large. The cargo was also often delicate, consisting of sensitive electronic components and sophisticated sensory apparatuses, many of which could not repaired or re-manufactured on site. As such, the care with which Company personnel dealt with the cargo container on its arrival should have aroused little suspicion. Some particulars that differed from usual procedure, however, included three men that were in attendance. One of the men was an Auxiliary field medic, hired by the Company straight out of the French Foreign Legion. The other two were a pair of Technorati, both dressed in khakis, black boots and turtlenecks, with shaven heads and pale skin. Both wore sunglasses against the bright Tuscan sun. One was willowy and tall, the other comparatively short and stout. The three men looked on as the air freight work crews finished off loading the container.

"So is this our special cargo?", asked the medic, smiling amiably. The taller Technorati nodded.

"A long, strange journey from New Mobius for her, but the alternative of falling into the hands of the men of the Communist International would have been worse for her." He stopped speaking for a moment, looking in the direction of the container as a subtle shudder passed along the concrete from it being set down. "A dozen other sets of hands were looking to pick apart New Mobius yet again; she's fortunate to have fallen into the most civilized of them"

The medic instructed the workmen away, telling them they could handle matters from here. After they were alone, he took a ring of keys from his belt and used one to remove a lock, letting the door creak open. Within the crate was an oblong cylinder large enough to hold an individual, connected by fiber-optic cabling to what appeared to be a medical display. The monitor showed all signs nominal for an unconscious individual.


-------

Two Weeks Ago

Following the instructions of the Commissar to the letter, Jonathan had intervened to prevent Lina Haden from sustaining any life-threatening injuries. Before the operation kicked off, the Accountant's assumption had been that he would be the one at risk of killing her. Orders were orders, however, and so as lights fell dark in New Mobius, the Interpol gunship began stumbling from the sky, and as the possessed Samuel unexpectedly lurched, Jon acted, snatching away a winded and staggering Lina. Victor moved to protest, but he shouted before the older man could. “I've got her! I'll keep her safe”, he yelled, then drew his dazzler and flashed what was actually Tipahurate in the face with it, leaving him in even worse shape. He dragged her away stumbling behind him. Victor tried to intervene, but couldn't be heard above the din of gunfire and angry, frightened voices.

The helicopter hit the ground between them in the meantime, driving the final wedge in place. Lina Haden to himself, Jonathan led her further along a seemingly random path, one which he'd memorized step-by-step in the days leading up to this one. He looked for the signs from his comrades; the fresh gash in the oak tree, one of his compatriots wearing a fedora and leaning against it. Lina was mostly out of it, taking the moment to catch her breath. He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder to get her attention.

“Don't worry, Ma'am, you're safe now...”

Then he gave her a dose of dazzler; the conceptually sensitive were more susceptible to epilepsy and other neurological conditions induced by sensory influences. He couldn't tell whether her reactionary conniptions were seizure-driven or ordinary, but their substance mattered little. Blinded and disoriented, Lina Haden stumbled in the direction of his compatriot, who had in hand a prefilled syringe of Sheer (a powerful sedative designed with post-humans in mind).

“....Very safe.”

Incapacitated, Jonathan and his partner silently moved her just past the hill to a ramshackle deuce and a half that had been sitting there for a week, thought to be in a severe state of disrepair. While a cacophony of gunfire, explosions, screams, and patriotic music filled the air, the two stowed their cargo and started the engine on the ancient machine. In the chaos, no one noticed the decrepit vehicle crawling along and away.


Designing and building a mechanical body to meet the Company's specifications had been a trivial matter; after all, UniFold had experience in the field, particularly in regards to constructing prostheses and androids for combat use. Nevertheless, even before intelligence forensics had become an issue insofar as reconstructing the founder's neurological profile, secrecy had been of the utmost import. The man had possessed enemies; he may have exited the stage called Life, but few (if any) of his enemies had shown the good grace to follow suit, or at least bury the hatchet. Moreover, the Master had been presumed dead only to resurface two times before, further ensuring the vigilance of their adversaries.

The are different kinds of secrecy. Some organizations choose to keep everything a secret, hoping the concept and its details will be such a shock to the uninitiated that the affect will be all the more notable. Others air their secrets in abundance, and openly, such as the United States in the late 20th Century, with their Stealth program, or Israel in the 21st with its nuclear weapons. UniFold opted to take a mixed approach; they omitted information on the program from any of its public releases, while housing the project in a secured area of an existing complex already functioning as a power relay station for the Company's Heliophile satellites, overlooking the western cliffs of the island nation of Elba.

The historical context of leaving the Phoenix Project on Elba was primarily accidental. The power requirements of the program were considerable; the excess power processed by the facility daily was more than sufficient for this, and easier to use than store. There was also the matter of additional facility space; UniFold had anticipated providing comms and radome support to Elba's defense forces at a discount, sweetening the deal to round up the Company's investment to something more profitable. The government of Elba didn't bite, however, leaving UniFold with a secure facility with no operational purpose.

Despite all the pieces falling neatly into place, however, the flirtation with destiny was not lost on Company leadership, least of all former-General Tan Tianfu. Elba was the first exile of Napoleon I, before he returned to Europe to reconquer it, with a cadre of less than a thousand men at his command. Forgotten by a populace that largely didn't realize the Modern Era had begun with the invention of the Gutenberg Press in the 16th Century, the use of the island to resuscitate a leader was a mixed omen. Whatever peril the omen suggested, however, Tianfu had known what his former (and prospectively future) superior would say.

Full steam ahead. Let us see what the future brings...


JULIAN DATE: 0222212
TIME: 20:53 HRS.
LOCATION: NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, VA

Steely eyes scanned over black-and-white text. They followed the words of their briefer, the so-called "Admiral", Rear Admiral Chase Cartwright to be precise.

"The package arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia this morning at 05:00 hours Zulu time. INTERPOL has been providing near-real-time tracking information via the MIL-STAR network since its departure from New Mobius. New Mobius itself has been torn apart for the umpteenth time in the struggle that caused our query, one Lina Haeden, to fall out during the fighting. UniFold beat the 5th Internationale to the punch, and seized the opportunity to extricate her."

Most of it was beginning to sound eerily familiar. He was taken back for a moment to March of 2008, and his one opportunity to eradicate UniFold from the African continent, during their operation in Sudan. Lina Haeden was a recent development, in so far as causing the world any real headaches was concerned. It was only months after the incident in Iceland that he learned who was truly responsible. The speed at which they were able to refurbish Cypress' core infrastructure, although not completely unsurprising, was still nothing short of astonishing. Especially considering the heavy fighting, and all the indescribable carnage, that went on there during what was then-CONCORD's rendition of the city.

The 5th Internationale, although not totally unknown, is still rather enigmatic. It was plain to see why they may be diametrically opposed to UniFold, a quasi-capitalistic corporation versus a cadre of radicalized Communists. For what it was worth, he had to admit that the late Seth Mayvus was a shrewd but equally discreet and cunning entrepreneur; albeit a touch unscrupulous, reckless and bold too would fit on some occasions.

"INTERPOL was able to sift through the decoys and falsified records to determine that its final destination is to be the island of Elba, at Marina De Campo airport." They eye the pictures of the unmarked AN-124 that delivered the container to St. Petersburg, as well as the markings on the big metal box. It's a climate-controlled unit. There's also warnings for electric shock, compressed gas and explosion, indicative of a power source and air supply. They're transporting her in a most likely heavily sedated or comatose state.

"Judging by the length of the airstrip, they'll have to use a smaller aircraft. Nothing greater than a C-130 in size. We also suspect that it, too, will be unmarked. That's where you boys come in. Your mission is simple: you're to eliminate Lina Haeden while she rests at the first opportunity. You must confirm the kill. You are to engage and destroy any hostiles. Persons to be deemed hostile include: any combatant, who is any individual whether associated with the principal or not that fires upon you or shows determination to the same; any associate, who is any individual safeguarding the principal who attempts to impede your efforts to eliminate her."

"As always, you are not to engage civilians unless they present themselves as combatants. You are to avoid any collateral damage at all costs." In all their endeavors thus far, they've done a marvelous job of achieving the goal of no spilling of innocent blood. A miracle, some might say, considering the places they have gone and entities they've battled. Still, it can never be overstated, and its a critical mission criteria that Arthur took very personally; as did every member of his team.

"You will fly straight in from here and be inserted by air, a HA-LO jump from 31,000 feet. The best FFP we could find is on this hillside, almost exactly 1,000 yards from the terminal." A psuedo-3D photograph was taken of the area, with their proposed firing point marked off to the east of the airport. There were absolutely no obstacles to speak of, though they would be firing over several houses, and they had a crystal clear view of the entire runway from end-to-end.

"Your flight will last approximately 18 hours, and departs in 4. Gather your gear and be on the flight line by 21:00. You're dismissed."

With that, all six of them file out of the briefing room and march down to the armory. They waste no time getting fitted out in their improved third-generation PC armor, providing neck-to-ankle protection against blast, fragmentation, incendiaries and small arms to up .338 Lapua Magnum AP. Pouches are moved around, added to and taken from their load-bearing vests. All manor of weapons are issued, all tailored specifically for the roles of their masters.

Arthur chose a big-bore H.T.I.. He had sorely awaited its release after testing the prototypes, and to finally have something more compact and lightweight without sacrificing power or accuracy, as he would have with a 20-inch barreled version of his old standby (the Barrett M82/107 series), is a most welcome surprise. Barring any unforeseen threats, a bolt-action .50-caliber would surely fit their needs. Although they were engaging a soft target, they needed the assurance delivered by a projectile that is capable of not only penetrating any constructive obstacles such as aircraft bodies, shipping containers and medical apparatus without significant deflection, but to also retain enough energy to kill.

Every piece of kit that each man carried was accounted for and safety checked by each member of the team before it is committed to their load-out. Especially the Faraday cages and ESD-arresting foam imbedded in every compartment, protecting their sensitive equipment and EMP-hardened items alike. The overriding suspicion is that the UniFold technocrats already has or will either deploy or train 5th Internationale operatives to employ ECM/ECCM defenses and weapons. They've even gone so far as to tune the polarization and light shielding of their HUDs to protect against sensory attacks reported by Sudanese and Eritrean guerrillas, already having long since conscripted to the use of dynamic noise-cancelling hearing protection originally meant to prevent hearing loss from repeated exposure to gunfire.

The sun had set hours ago by the time they set foot on the tarmac. They herded onto their "Commando II", and started going over pre-jump checks as soon as they reached cruising altitude. They would be joined later by two X-02C "Wyverns" over the Mediterranean, dispatched from the Gerald R. Ford carrier battle group that also loiters in the area, for escort during and immediately after the drop. When the ramp dropped and the green light shone, they met the frigid minus-50-degree air, and soon reached terminal velocity. At a predetermined altitude, their chutes open, and they drift silently through the sleepy night sky. They land at the bottom of the hill they are to engage from, a little than 24 hours before the scheduled arrival of the 5th Internationale.

Sometime in the night, they arrive at their perch, gaining an unobstructed vantage point of the entire Marina De Campo Airport. Wilks and his assistant, Hue, sets up his machine gun, a MK. 48, firmly planting the bipod legs in the dirt. Eying up the airport with a 6-power optic at 1,000 yards is difficult, but the heavy-duty suppressor affixed to the muzzle will leave his enemies guessing where the first sighting shots will come from. Hudson got behind his R.E.P.R and started making minor adjustments to his zero using his ballistic software, in case Arthur needed a second or third gun. Arthur himself was making the same effort, after helping Hudson square away their 40-power spotting scope. Saunders and Siegfried were pulling perimeter security, stringing up passive sensors, trip-wires and new optically-camouflaged thermal nets.

Almost a day-and-a-half passes. Their luck was holding. Their final firing point was off a path less traveled, it seemed, and they hadn't had a single local come within at least two football fields of them all morning and into the afternoon. To their relief, it also appeared that no other heavy assets arrived ahead of the delivery. Hudson peaked at his watch.

"They should be here any minute now." Arthur concurs, peering through his binoculars to the north, from whence the flight is appointed to arrive. "I think that's them. A few miles out." The aircraft fit the description of the transport mentioned in their intel. The landing lights were on, and it looked like the landing gear was down. They were on final approach. "Pucker up, ladies. The guest of honor is arriving. Touch down in.. 3 mikes."Hudson, Arthur and Wilks all hunker down behind their weapons and prepared for the long-distance assault.

Three pairs of eyes watch the aircraft as it drifted down the runway, and slowly taxied to the terminal. UniFold personnel swarmed the loading ramp as the container was slowly eased out of the belly of the transport.

"Those are UniFold colors, all right." Hudson remarks, peering through the spotting scope. "I see 'em." Arthur confirms. "How's getting us that feed, Saunders?" The Marine in question was driving a micro quadrotor UAV, optically camouflaged and floating near the southern end of the runway over a half-mile away. "I'm right there. He's opening the door." Their Cross-Comm came alive with highly-magnified, high-definition video. Observing the man unlock the crate, he steps in. Therein, a bright LCD display with thin, moving lines. It's what appeared to be a monitor. Heartbeat, EKG and brain activity. Siegfried knew it well. "There's a large cylinder in there. Big enough to house a person. Gas bottles, too. Can't figure out which one's which, though." Saunders remarks. Hitting an oxygen bottle would be the highlight of their night, to say the least. "Welp, we definitely got the right box. Now all we need is confirmation, and then we can reduce the target." Arthur muses.

"All right. I'll give you your firing solution." Saunders starts. "The crate is a standard stainless steel ISO 6346, and according to its reporting marks it's eight-and-a-half feet tall, eight feet wide and twenty feet long. The cylinder rests six inches off the ground, it's two-a-half feet tall and three feet wide. I can't tell from here exactly how long it is or where it sits in the container. For balance purposes, I'll estimate that it rests somewhere closest to the exact middle and that it's no longer than seven feet."

Arthur reviewed this information silently, his left hand slowly and subtly turning the monopod in the butt of his rifle. His right went to the turrets, adjusting parallax and magnification, before slowly wrapping around the grip and poising his thumb to sweep off the safety. Reading the wind, he adjusted his hold. He started to slow his breathing. Gently digging his heels into the dirt and lightly pressing forward on the bipod, he directly aligned his body with the rifle to minimize recoil.

Don't fear The Reaper.


12 hours before the arrival of Lina Haeden on Elba...

Tianfu's office (and formerly Seth Mayvus') had become much more organized in the months that had followed his consultation setting with the abrasive geneticist Yakub Asa. It had taken the former military officer some doing, but through time and effort he'd found acceptable margins for his own duties while delegating the rest away to a cadre of officers that had distinguished themselves via energy and dedication. He'd had to fight against his earliest training in the PLA when selecting them, in guaranteeing that none of them were competitive simply out of any personal loyalty to him, or to the deceased former leader. No, even if there was a good chance that they could successfully resuscitate their former leader on Elba, Tan Tianfu considered it a matter of life and death that the Company be prepared to stand on its own two feet, regardless of future efforts to decapitate it.

The successful efforts by the Americans to do just such a thing had led to UniFold accelerating its efforts to endow as many of its heavy-industrial systems as possible with the capacity to carry out one or more military functions as well as their designated civilian ones. This initiative had begun immediately after the events of Faux Crimea, and had been difficult, considering the extent of preexisting infrastructure which had been designed with entirely peaceful purposes in mind. The program had ultimately been cut short as the period of sharp paranoia immediately following the death of their leader had come to an end, and the terrific expense involved became all-too apparent. One project that had barely exited its infancy at the point of Mayvus' death, however, would morph into the poster-child for the initiative; this program was the Heliophile Satellite Network.

The short version was that the Company had determined that it would be a waste to put the new network in orbit withoutinstalling the most cunning such package they could devise. It could be concealed as part of the fail-proof targeting system devised to ensure the microwaves tightbeamed to earth several times a day made contact only with the receiver dish, with little margin for error. Elba, as the site of one of the receiver stations in the network, was exposed to regular passes of these satellites. As such, over the course of the last 24 hours that had passed since the team arrived, the Company had ample time to detect the presence of warm bodies utilizing optic camouflage to mask their presence, then confirm and enhance the intelligence with two more passes, each by different satellites.

This intelligence was then passed through the Cassandra-net, which determined that it ought to find its way to Tan Tianfu's desk. It found him at 5:00 in the morning the following day, sipping his morning coffee and looking much better rested then he would have just a month ago, looking over the datapad his orderly had handed to him. With the coffee and the pad had come a plate of two eggs, some bacon, and some potatoes. He looked over the conclusion as well as the three separate intelligence reports used to confirm them, as the young woman that brought in his breakfast waited for him to finish either reading or eating, whichever came first. He then looked back up at her. "And this is confirmed? Six warm bodies, trying to obscure their presence with thermoptic camouflage?"

She nodded, tray flat against her stomach, hands crossed over it. "Yes Sir. The first sweep couldn't confirm it, but the second and third did. You may recall the Battle for Sudan Port City during the Modernization Wave. A unique Anglo-American Black Ops team using similar equipment?"

Tianfu laughed bitterly. "Of course I remember. Even with the unanticipated rout of the enemy main force, that unit nearly cost us the battle." Sighing, the gaunt asian sank back in his chair. "I wonder..."

He sat up and smiled. "See that this makes its way to our liaison with the authorities on Elba immediately, and have Hunin diverted in case air support may be necessary. I will not start an unnecessary war. That will be all.”

The orderly turned to go and carry out these instructions. Executive Tianfu dipped a slice of potato in the spreading yolk of one egg before chewing the morsel. He paused for a moment before swallowing, however, another idea occurring to him. He spoke again. “Wait.”

The orderly stopped at the door, turning around. “What is it, Sir?”

“Send Colonel Kirkland in to see me."


-------

The hallmark of the training of all UniFold Technorati was an inculcation of the discipline necessary to withstand and become accustomed to the excruciating pain the Master's mutations inflicted. These composite mages also lost their sexuality as well, removing one of the peskiest weaknesses to tie humans together. This conditioning and training didn't make it easy for the taller one to conceal his awareness of their watchers, however. Like an itch he couldn't scratch, his inability to look in the presumed direction of the interlopers on the distant hill, or scan them with his artificial eye, left his immense curiosity perversely unsatisfied. Instead, he distracted himself by standing in the doorway and looking in while the medic went back and forth through two weeks of detailed lists and charts, taking his time, having been left unaware of the danger for operational reasons.

“If it's okay, I would like to begin resuscitating her here. Our guest has been under for a while, and the longer we keep her under the more dangerous it will be. Sheer does that, you know, degrades the Hippocampus, if applied continuously for long lengths of time.” He was quiet for a moment, as he clicked back to a chart he'd brought up a moment ago, detailing the dosage of drugs and gasses administered in the stasis pod. “See, this record is remarkably exact, but I'm not sure how much I trust it, and like any unnatural state, the human body should avoid being in it for too long.”

The shaven fellow at the door straightened up. “Out of the question, unfortunately. Instructions are to delay unpacking the cargo until we have arrived at our first stop. This is a sensitive situation, Monsieur Clemence. So long as she can answer our questions...”

The medic clicked forward a few charts, then back one. “Understood.”He scratched the stubble on his chin. “It should be fine if we keep her on ice for just a bit longer, I suppose.” An inaccurate characterization; the stasis pod was purely chemical in its operation.

The medic put the display in power conservation mode before walking back towards the mouth of the container. He then stopped, his attention captured by both echoes of commotion in the distance and the Technorati turning towards it, a thin smile touching his lips.

"What's going on?"


-------

It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

~Niccolo Machiavelli

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LinaHaeden
Member Avatar
Queen Overlord
-------

The X-02 Wyverns flying support for them would have doubtlessly spotted the Italian Republican Guard soldiers mustering and boarding helicopters at the nearest station, but whether they would have reported it to the death squad on the ground was questionable; in such operations, radio silence was a golden rule, and were there conditional communications permitted, there was no telling where they were going. If in some unlikely event the Italians had spotted them and were acting on it, they would be on top of the squad before either they or their support were aware they'd been made.

The pair of Chinooks circled the airport one before coming up on either side of the designated hill. A Through-V suite (a week old Company gift), mounted in a ball socket on the underside of one of them, painted the hills where they were located with a burst of flickering light, the characteristics of which varied by the nanosecond, the intent of which was to outline targets using optic camouflage, possibly even overloading the system in the process.

The other helicopter put its loudspeaker to use as the prior searched out the interlopers. "Halt! Intruders, lay down your arms!", came an Italian voice, preceeding this with an identical line in Italian and French first. "Please remain calm and stay where you are! This is Sovereign Italian territory!"

Rappel lines went out all the doors except those leading to the pilot cabins. Eight men in each Chinook were readying themselves to rappel down, excited to have what might finally be a real-world test of their anti-terrorism training and HK416s. Contrary to what uninformed onlookers might think of the visual display, however, and to the thinking of the Italian paratroopers, the field was severely weighted in favor of the real world experience of Arthur and his compatriots. They had already been enough of a distraction, however, for the Technorati and medic to lock up and drive the flatbed behind the terminal; out of sight.

"Spotter's on." Chimed Hudson.

"Shooter's on." Parroted Arthur.

"Hold scope. Prepare to fire." Hudson instructed. Both the shooter and his spotter are classically trained scout/snipers, comparatively equal in skill and patience. It would be several more minutes of agonizing wait until Saunders spoke up.

"Hold fire. Hold fire. I'm getting radio traffic from the local marine base." Their M/AV was not only an extra set of eyes, but also an extra set of ears. The powerful radio transceiver used to transmit the raw video data to their CROSS-COMM doubles as an ELINT device, sifting through captured channels; especially those identified as military and municipal law enforcement. Using the team's wearable wrist computers as an ad-hoc network, it can even unscramble and decrypt encoded signals -- to a point, and it does all of this passively through tight, UHF burst transmissions.

"What's up?" Hudson asked.

"They've got aircraft scrambling in the next 20 mikes, and it'll take a lot less to get here. It's not an exercise, Boss. They knowexactly where we are..." Saunders reported, almost disbelieving himself as he spoke.

"How? Our camouflage isn't faulty, is it?" Wilks inquires.

"Negative. Whatever the case, we need to move -- now. Rally at O.P. 2. Strangle all comms and everything goes into Autistic Mode." Arthur ordered. There was no time to speculate or argue. Within minutes, they had abandoned the use of their optic camouflage altogether and had taken down their perimeter defenses. With their thermal nets secured, they donned their TIC suits; a modernized, breathable ghillie that used the same kinds of technology that went into their thermal nets to achieve proper mitigation of infra-red transmission and reflection. Little did they know that UniFold's overhead satellites, which the Wyverns had begun tracking through their Distributed Aperture Suites in the middle of the night previous, did not have the ability to track Arthur's team through thermal imaging. Their thermal nets took care of that. The fault did in fact lie with their optic camouflage, as Wilks suggested, as it is currently incapable of refracting ultra-violet or infra-red light in real time the same way as it does the visible spectrum. Saunder sent one final command to the M/AV before departing and the initiation of complete radio silence, and that was to track and follow the flat-bed wherever it went. It quietly gained altitude after taking detailed pictures of the truck's and container's markings, as well as the crew that would be driving it. It would be totally out of sight and observe from afar, unheard from the ground, and its camouflage deactivated to conserve power.

The Marines had ample time. About fifteen minutes to cover a little less than a half-mile, which would take them to the southern end of their hillside, well away from the prying eyes of the Italian authorities. Not a moment after they had hunkered down to watch their former post, they heard the droning of the familiar double-beat of Chinooks. Two of them. Saunders had only just finishing hanging up the thermal nets when they appeared over the horizon, swooping in low and fast. Even from over 700 yards away, they heard the mottled echoes of the loud-speaker addressing them. Through his rifle scope, Arthur noticed something peculiar on the underside of the nose one of the helicopters. Some kind of optical suite, he assumed.

"See that, Hudson?" He points out as his comrade steals a glance through the more powerful spotting scope.

"Yeah. And-- that light. Like a strobe. Looks like something UniFold would cook up all right, maybe to overwhelm our camo." Hudson muses.

"Precisely." Arthur confirmed. "We'll have to pick apart the imagery after we get back. Depending on the frequency, it's highly unlikely that it would. At least according to the Japs in Section 9. But then again, they somehow found a weakness in our concealment, so I ain't making any assumptions just yet. Speaking of," He turns to Saunders. "The camouflage ain't on, is it?" His novice compatriot answers with a curt response.

"No, Sir."

"Good. We won't be using it from now on. I'll let the Admiral know when we get back. Maybe the eggheads at Crane can give us an answer. I've also got a bone to pick with The Major." Arthur concluded, practically growling obviously irritated, his eye glued to the helicopters.
While this fiasco unfolds, their target slips away, as Hudson attests as he chances a glance at the airfield. "Uh oh. Looks like Sleeping Beauty gave us the slip."

"Well, let's hope the A.I. in the M/AV can stay on top of her. Who the hell knows where she's going to end up. In the meantime, we're going to observe these fine gentlemen doing their job and see if they can find six needles in a hay stack."

Five minutes had panned out since they'd arrived at the Hotel Il Magnifique. In that time they'd removed the pod from the container, the cargo from the pod, and rested her still comatose in a comfortable bed and tucked her in, at a ground level suite overlooking the water. The taller Technorati and the Medic oversaw the recovery of Lina Haeden from a two week long stay in stasis, which seemed to have taken away as much as it had given back, helping along her recovery from the beating delivered by Tipahurate.

"Is she awake?" The taller fellow was hunched over their unpacked cargo, satisfying his curiosity by scrutinizing her. He drank in signs of muscular atrophy and malnourishment, as well as changes in her electro-conceptual demeanor. If he was to place her in a currently known state, he would have assumed that their cargo was transitioning from Stage 4 sleep directly to Stage 2. The medical training enjoyed by he and his colleague was limited, however, thus the presence of the medical specialist in their company; the medical specialist that was shooing him out of way so he could push back her eyelids to inspect her reactions with a flashlight.

"No. She's still effectively sedated. I would give her ten, maybe fifteen minutes before she begins regaining consciousness." The Technorati frowned.

"We may not have that long, assuming that the Americans were less than...discrete, in dealing with our springing their own trap on them." The Medic shrugged. "Which is why I suggested we skip this stop and just move along to the next stop on our itinerary.” The Technorati shook his head.

“Out of the question. While Ms. Haeden may be in exile, she is to think of herself of a guest while on Elba. A guest of a significant power does not wake up in the middle of an industrial facility to strange men levying strange questions. It would be better if our guest doesn't start to think of herself as a prisoner, and therefore become...uncooperative.” The Medic nodded.

“But that can't very well be helped now, can it?” The Technorati sighed; a rare show of emotion, let alone of the negative variety, from his kind. Their situation wasn't one to be envied, however. He and his partner were members of a crack team, but intelligence indicated that the force that had been spotted was also top caliber, well suited to killing them and their guest, and outnumbered them on an order of 3 to 1. The odds of successful engagement were highly unfavorable. However--

“This situation may yet pan out in our favor...” The taller fellow sounded almost surprised.

“And how is that?”, the Medic inquired.

“Let us worry about that. For now, make her primed to wake as soon as is safe for her to do so. We'll have to move out within the hour. We'll need her mostly ambulatory when that time comes. It will also serve our purpose for her to not only see our kindness, but also what awaits her outside the sanctuary we have to offer.” The chubbier fellow chose that moment to walk into the bedroom with a plate. He'd just gotten done raiding the well stocked fridge and had already taken a bite out of the Reuben he'd made from its contents.
------- Ordinary men died, men of iron were taken prisoner: I only brought back with me men of bronze. ~Napoleon Bonaparte -------

“I have a job for you...,” he'd said, immediately after she'd walked into the office. She'd come in assuming she'd be shot, or possibly fired. “A mission that's appropriate to your history and talents.”

In the dimly lit confines of the troop and cargo bay of their Poison III, Colonel Kirkland tightened her grip around the barrel of her Mk. II Gamma Rifle. Dressed in a thick, gray environmental suit like the rest of her Gamma Troopers, if she'd been buttoned down it would have been hard to tell how much she'd changed in the last year and a half. She'd not, however, and she looked worry worn and emaciated to a point that made her look ten years more than her natural thirty. Like Executive Tianfu, the stress of the job had gotten to her in a bad way; the difference between them was that he was on the rebound, while she was still circling the drain of self destruction. Another difference was the nature of their stress. Tianfu had only suffered temporarily while adjusting to a job with a difficulty level that far exceeded his expectations. The de jure leader of the Gamma Corp, on the other hand, was suffering for things she'd already done, things that she could never hope to take back, namely the mountain of irradiated corpses she'd left at Faux Crimea. Like turning a knob...

The operation had been far more involved and difficult than that, but looking back on things always made them seem so much more casual and easy. She could now count herself among the users of deadly microbes and poisons in combat, from WW1 to present, though the disgusting history of those and actions and similar went back so much further than that. The flinging of dead animals and diseased bodies (via catapult) into siege camps and castles under siege. The poisoning of wells and the trading of blankets fresh from smallpox wards to unwary natives. The story of poisons, germs and gasses in war went back well into prehistory. Still, it was different when you were the one committing the atrocity. She wasn't the only one that had been affected by that action. Other Gamma Troopers that had a part of that platoon had also shown signs of mental malaise. Of the fifty that had comprised it, five had committed suicide. Ten were found unfit for duty for psychological reasons, and another five had committed various infractions and crimes, of which three had been significant enough to warrant long term incarceration. Still another, a family man before the operation, had gruesomely murdered his wife, his mother, two lovely children and his brother in law, when the adults had begun to pester him to start attending Catholic mass with them, as he had beforehand.

Several transfers and opt outs from the unit later, and only twelve of the original fifty remained. They'd been hardy men and brilliant engineers before. The action at Faux Crimea had galvanized them, however. She'd considered shedding this skin for whatever eternal punishment awaited her so many times, she could hardly bring herself to look on them. But Tianfu wanted her in command for this mission. And though a pale shadow of Mayvus, goddamit, Tianfu got what he wanted. The intercom of the Poison III dinged.

“Attention, this is your pilot speaking. We're within 100 miles of our destination, and have descended to 68,000 feet. We will be separating from Hunin in three minutes. Please buckle down and prepare for turbulence. Thank you.” Every set of eyes in the cabin were raised at the notification. She'd been looking to address them properly before now, but the opportunity just never seemed to present itself. Now, though, she seemed inclined to do so. So she stood up, set her weapon down and walked out to the head of the cabin.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” It came out much more authoritatively than she'd anticipated. Her face was stoney, the bitter, hardened demeanor that had come to replace her tired world-weariness prior to Faux Crimea showing in spades. “It's been a long time since we were all here together. It's been two years since that nasty piece of business at the Gezira Scheme. The Company has gone to great lengths to repress and placate the restlessness that has touched each of us since.” She chuckled bitterly, placing a hand on the shoulder of one of her comrades, a stout male with a flamethrower in his lap. “So much for all that, I'd wager...” Several others shared the moment of black humor with her. “At least we work for Capitalists, however. In a political pecking order, some useless bureaucrat or elected representative would be taking the credit for what we accomplished, while either denying or punishing us for the means it took to get there. In the Company, we can freely put it on our resumes. Coming together, we made a little history in Faux Crimea, ladies and gentlemen, and all it took was 14 hours of recalibrating a reactor cradle, and a bloody burden spread across all our consciences.”
She took her hand back and placed both behind her back, pacing down the aisle. She stopped when she she got to the other end and looked back at them. “There's another piece of history that many of you have in common aside from this one too, though. Of us thirteen, and including me, eleven were on board prior to the Battle of Port City. Obviously, all of us survived it. Before we were the Gamma Corp, we had a run in with an American Black Ops unit during that battle. 60 out of the 90 Technicians present weren't so fortunate, however. We were caught unawares, unprotected and unprepared. Today, the tables have turned, however.” The Colonel ran a hand along the case of a U15-RAR (Radiological Assault Rocket), technical successor to the M202 FLASH, a wire-guided quad-rocket with integrated, each round containing a Thorium-TPA mixture. “Satellite and human intelligence have spotted what's left of their unit trundling about in Company affairs on Elba. This is a threat to vital interests in place there, so we've been called upon to reinforce them. You already know this deployment pays substantially more than most others currently available. Consider this opportunity a sweetener to the deal.” She paced back up the aisle, taking the packed up rocket with her as she did, placing it in the hands of a young woman that couldn't have been a part of the unit much earlier than Faux Crimea.

“Today, the Gamma Corp is a better trained, better equipped and better supported force than any of its antecedents ever were. And we're battle hardened. Really, there's no force quite like our own in existence today.” The Poison III shuddered as it detached and began flying under its own power, but Colonel Kirkland kept her standing, her expression unchanged. “We have the unique opportunity to settle scores on this mission to Elba. Let's not disappoint.” Voices of agreement rang out for the next two minutes, a smile on every face, here a cackle, there a laugh. Colonel Kirkland sat back down as the Poison III completed the last leg of its journey, eight uF-20Z drones and the Grippins they were shadowing forming up at optimal ranges around it. There was no way of confirming it, but signals aberrations and experience told Company Security Forces that X-02 Wyverns were somewhere in the area. Orders from on high were that there'd be no unnecessary losses on either side this time around.


Far away from the whining of the Lycomming turboshafts circling the far hills, far above the downwash of beating rotors, a silent sentinel quietly glided through the evening sky as the failing twilight began to give way to the creeping night. There was very little to conceal its query. No stretching tunnels. No long line of broad overpasses. Just the usual clutter of trees and utility lines. No chance for a decoy, or ye ole' switcheroo. It was almost a wispy thing, that tiny pair of beady little eyes high in the sky. There was hardly anything to it. A compact tubular chassis of carbon fiber and PVC, brushless electric motors, bearingless rotors and some lithium batteries. One could easily slip it into a laptop bag and forget it was even there. It would be preposterous then, to be noticed as easily as its handlers were, minding its own business at four-thousand feet. Just tracking down a known dangerous entity. Nothing to see here.
Meanwhile, the ground-pounders had been steadily creeping down over the crest of the hill and were almost at its foot, waiting with baited breath as their would-be adversaries repelled down from their Chinooks. They had no doubts at all about the skill of those brave Italian operators. They may have even trained with them, in a past life. Arthur could see the door gunners squinting through his scope, methodically scanning the blustering dust and vegetation for anything out of the ordinary. Hudson compulsively checked the tightness of the suppressor affixed to the end of his REPR. They knew the search would be thorough, and would leave no stone unturned. The burning questions were, just how far would they extend their grid and whether or not a general alarm would be raised? It would be a win-lose situation, then. Off-island travel would be severely restricted just as a matter of course, even for UniFold, by the government. Even so, the same government making it harder for UniFold to leave would be the very same government that make it harder for Arthur and his team to maneuver. So, a decision had to made. Either wait and see, and risk certain discovery and capture, or escape the drag net and regroup to see just how far their target had gone away from them.
Consulting with prior aerial surveillance data, the team had decided on a point that lay on the northern side of the hill. Logic dictates that UniFold brings their cargo into the city that would be in their full view at that observation point, though exactly where in that city was still anyone's guess. This is because, judging by the markings and apparent content of the container, they would eventually have to wake her up so as to spare her from any permanent harm from being sedated for two straight weeks. Even a proper medically induced coma, which would allow them to keep her "on ice" for longer with fewer risks, still carries the burden of the increased likelihood of brain damage. Though it's not known what kind of medical apparatus or treatments that UniFold's technocrati had brought with them, Siegfried had already suggested that it would be a long, slow recovery. Slow enough, he surmised based on his extensive experience in the medical field, to buy them time enough to intercept and eliminate their target before they're well enough to travel again. In the meantime, they needed a quiet and relatively secure location for that recovery. What could be more low-brow that a hotel? With these deliberations concluded, and well before the Italian authorities would begin expanding their search to other parts of the hill, they started trekking west around the foot of the hill.
--
Off the coast of Lybia, some one-hundred miles or so northeast of Tunis, sat an airborne leviathan. Originally developed as an alternate aerial platform for the Institute of Isabelle following an incident with The Opaque Brotherhood, it was slowly become an integral part of the Navy and Marine Corps special operations inventory. The "Sphyrna" essentially serves the same role as an ocean-going aircraft carrier, but is much more versatile. At first glance, it appeared as a traditional, powered dirigible. It assumed a long, mostly cylindrical shape not too dissimilar from a Goodyear blimp. But the likenesses end there. At just over nine-hundred feet long, three-hundred feet at the beam and two-hundred twenty feet high, it rivals even a Nimitz-class supercarrier. It's main strengths lie in its speed. At its core are two A1B nuclear reactors, each capable of generating over 350 mega-watts of power; together providing four times the power generated by current the Nimitz-class A4W reactors. That power is put to use driving one primary fan near the rear of the dirigible which is responsible for propulsion, and two opposable accessory fans mounted each on a pylon on either side of the hull for maneuvering. Together, they give the Sphyrna a cruising speed of 220 knots. Flat-out, she'll reach a maximum speed of 280 knots. The massive propeller of the main fan has some 60 blades, whose outer diameter is shrouded in a cowling that muffles the sound of the blade tips as they approach the speed of sound at maximum RPM and more efficiently directs the thrust produced. The smaller maneuvering fans have 35 blades, also shrouded in a noise-reducing cowling. This is no Graff Hindenburg, either. Her heavy composite armor can withstand 40MM anti-aircraft cannons and can normally shrug off smaller warheads carried by both surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles.
Traditional 20, 25 and 30MM aircraft cannons would be hard pressed to penetrate it. And that's if any aircraft get through her broad array of defenses. The Sphyrna carries several solid-state radars, some that can reach over-the-horizon in all directions out to 1,200 nautical miles, and have enough resolution to identify aircraft type at maximum range. These are coupled with a system similar to the Distributed Aperture Suite used by her compliment of X-02s, as well as other electro-optical sensors and Doppler weather radars. She carries a variety of anti-aircraft, anti-ship and cruise missiles. From RIM-161 SM-3's, which can intercept targets at ranges in excess of 250 miles and launch from one of several Vertical Launch Systems embedded in the Sphyrna's skin; down to RIM-116's, a close cousin of the famous "Sidewinder" missile to be used for point-defense and are launched from several eleven-cell turrets. The massive 700+ mega-watt power supply also provides energy for up to four 15 mega-watt free-electron lasers, which can be used quite liberally if needed. It's also parceled out to anti-thaumaturgical defenses, a lesson also learned from the same incident that brought about the Sphyrna's development. Every deck and bulkhead has, sandwiched between the plates, a coil that can radiate thaumaturgical fields on-command to completely arrest the abilities of meta-humans.
This system can even differentiate between crew members and intruders. Then there is her air wing, and while configurations can vary, a standard compliment consists of about 28 fixed-wing and 6 rotary-wing aircraft. Why so few, for such a large vessel? An appropriate amount of space are taken up by self-sealing bladders, which keep helium that holds the Sphyrna aloft, while others hold jet fuel for her aircraft and emergency generators. As the fuel bladders empty, they fill with an inert Argon gas to prevent explosions even in the presence of incendiary agents such as thermite. Deep in the heart of the beast, a radar operator spots a large contact, unidentified contact almost due west of Elba. Its signature is familiar, though. It was added to the database after the assassination of Seth Mayvus. It just hadn't received its reporting name yet.

The skipper had been briefed on the mission that Arthur's team had undertaken. Realizing its speed and heading would take it directly over them, he alerted the orbiting Wyvern via coded message. The alert fighters are scrambled, and within 15 minutes, four Wyverns were airborne and ascending to a cruising altitude of 65,000 feet. New variable-cycle engines allowed them to super-cruise at high altitude without increased fuel consumption, as well as allowing the use of after-burners above 55,000 feet. While closing on the air carrier at 1,200 miles-per-hour, they constantly receive updated telemetry from the Sphyrna's radars without giving themselves away. The Wyvern orbiting Mario De Campo airport is ordered to fly higher, to 75,000 feet, near the edge of its operating envelope. That pilot has been on-station for several hours, and likely wouldn't have the fuel to spare for dogfighting. Their relief has been scrambled, and would be arriving soon. Much sooner than the four-ship detail trying intercept the air carrier. Along the way, however, eight "Zekes" and at least two "Gryphons" had been spotted escorting a Poison III.

UniFold was trying to dispatch its own ground team to stop the Marines from completing their mission. The green light was summarily given to engage and missile fire started at 100 miles as each Wyvern loosed two AIM-152s, which quickly went hyper-sonic, to intercept the Zekes first. A second volley was scheduled when they had closed to less than 50 miles, to conserve their long-range missiles. All guidance corrections were provided by the Sphyrna, which was also on the move towards Elba, as the X-02s had their radars and data-links switched off.

Once they had been assured by the medic that Lina would recover from her forced hibernation, both briefly and fully, the Technorati took over the role of oversight. It wasn't as if they hadn't been paying attention; far and away, the twain had been observing her transition from a medically induced coma to to a waking state, her brainwaves transitioning from delta, to theta, to alpha, and now beta waves, as she approached a phase of wakefulness and awareness. More important to the Technorati than her mental state, however, was a specific surge in her thaumaturgic presence. Devised by Seth Mayvus himself with the conceptually gifted in mind, the Technorati specialized in checking and controlling the grand spectrum of abilities available to those that could use their minds to pierce the veil of the consensus reality. Neither of them were weak in this fashion; there were no two Technorati more powerful than either of them in the entire Company. Individually, they were formidable, their combined wills difficult to measure. Still, there was something more immeasurable still in the soul that surged to life in her; and before she'd even come back to the world of the conscious and fully living, her subconscious was taking steps to protect the vessel that was her body such speed and force that the taller of the pair held his breath for a moment as he diverted most of his attention to memorizing even the most minute of the changes, should the need arise to exploit that knowledge in interference. His silent partner showed similar signs of unease at the organic and increasing complexity of her weaves and wards, rising from his kitchenette chair and placing his half finished Reuben on the corner, sliding the plate away from himself.
Time seems to flow slower when you’re trapped in the cold of darkness. Normally the loneliness hurts. The last, most crucial moments just before you fell into the darkness are all you remember. Be them good or bad, you cannot stop replaying them in your mind. Lina was to the point of breaking. She had accepted death and welcomed it with open arms. The one she trusted most, with her secrets, was among the betrayers. How pitiful. She didn’t want to leave this place because of being so naïve. She prefered to lurk in the darkness no matter how cowardly it seemed to her pride. If she could just remain here, in this cold dark purgatory forever, no one could ever harm her again. Ironic that a being with power among gods decide to exists within a solitude of darkness.
Pathetic…
This was not the ending she saw. She had began to wonder if it were all a lie, or if something may had changed it. Was this the future she created for herself?
Failure..
Warmth suddenly burst through the cold darkness and the red head felt her heart beat.She could hear it echoing throughout the darkness she floated aimlessly in. The small tingling sensation reminded her that she was still alive. As much as she wanted to be dead, it just wasn’t a reality. Not yet, this wasn’t the end… It was only an intermission perhaps. A place to reflect… Lina knew exactly what she was supposed to do, but she had no idea what the next step was...However, She was perfectly fine. She hoped to wake to a new world. Gaia would be nice, but the human’s had already summoned her back once. Lina’s senses started to come back one after the other, sound, smell, taste, feeling in her body, and lastly her sight. Her eyes remained closed as she listened to her surroundings, it wasn’t as quiet as she would have liked. The auditory sensation let her know full well where she was… Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? Let her be at peace?

Because Lina Haeden was a powerful weapon.

Over and over again, mankind had managed to manipulate her actions and emotions, and things often ended the same. So why wake a failed experiment? What plans did they have for her next?

The taller one nodded, making his thoughts known across the thaumaturgic connection that made them all the more a pair. Yes....it could be dangerous to look away from our quarry. Her breathing changed, and as it did the fluctuations in her energy levels and forms accelerated. Her eyes fluttered open with the languid suggestion of bodily exhaustion, for which her spirit was clearly compensating. Her first reaction was to escape as quickly as possible, but a sickening throb rang in her head and out her ears. She clutched her head and stomach and gave off a small grunt.The taller of the two remained seated in a chair just beyond the foot of her bed, his body's eyes closed, but those of his mind open. Then, as he felt her slip from sleep to fight and flight, then give up on it, he let out a long, relieved breath. For now at least, there'd be no more violence than what was necessary.

“Ms. Lina Haeden...welcome back to the world of the living.” His shorter, pudgier counterpart stood up in the kitchen and entered the room. He differed from the other in that he'd anticipated a violent outburst from her and was surprised when it did not come. The taller one did not allow this knowledge to silence or delay him.
She just stared. She had no idea who these men were, and had never seen them in her life.
“You doubtlessly have many questions, Mrs. Haeden. We have little more time than enough for you to recover your bearings, however, so I will answer only the most obvious ones. At present, you are on Elba, at the Hotel “Il Magnifique. You were captured by the 5th International, but are safe now.” He decided it best to omit the details of how she had come into their custody...for now. He opened his eyes and looked to the kitchenette and the door beyond, using the gesture to emphasize the urgency of what he had to say next.
What was the last thing she could remember? What was it that haunted her in her long sleep? Lina’s eyes fell shut. At the moment she couldn’t care enough that she had been taken hostage. Samuel’s voice played through the depths of her mind and everything came back to her like a substantial flood.
"Quite the little crowd you have gathered Lina. So popular," came the familiar voice of Samuel Killian. "You know better than most on how I feel about the difference between humans and post-humans. The gap needs to be bridged. Now, things seem to be taking a turn for the worst. I suppose it is to be expected since this world is so imbalanced. How can the world go on as normal with creatures like you and Tipahurate roaming it. You're a blight. There is no even field to be had. You will always be a threat. It is high time the world figured out who truly is deserving to continue dominating this planet. Life certainly isn't fair. However, I will see that it is just. Look at me, Lina. Everyone around you gets hurt. You know you can't be free. So I'm afraid there is only one thing I need to know. Are you going to come with or without a fight?"
That wasn’t Samuel, he’d never betray her. He’d never hurt her. The whole thing was constructed by Marquis. He set everything in motion by convincing Lina to build upon New Mobius again. All in all, he just wanted to have documented proof that she was working on the wrong side of justice. She funded his post human prison, and he waited for the right moment to let her know that she was going to be the most infamous prisoner within. And where was Victor in all this? Victor Vicious did protest her capture, but with a gun pointed at her, not the enemy. A gun designed to kill beings just like her. Who could design such a weapon without knowledge from Gaia? He was aimed and ready to kill, there was no sense of emotion coming from him at that exact moment. Victor was dead to the world before that helicopter fell upon them. Marquis was working for the United Nations. The Accountant was working for the 5th International. Axis had many reasons to dispose of her. But who was Victor working for? Her hand fell from her head to the bed sheet where she gripped it tightly.
“Sadly, while we've managed to keep you free of the clutches of the Communists, Interpol managed to follow you to us, here on Elba. They mean to kill you, while we mean to keep you alive. We have a small task for you, suitable to your qualifications. And we mean to pay you for it, beyond the scope of what small protection we have extended to you here, and are prepared to continue extending to you indefinitely." Carefully, he tucked away a snarky line that threatened to vocalize itself through his mouth. After all, drugging and transporting you against your will hardly constitutes an implicit contract.
She had managed to prop herself up while the man before her explained their current situation. Some things never change. Wake up, normally nude, and get the battle armor on, they’re carrying pitch forks! She tugged at the sheet and wrapped it tighter around her chest.
“I don’t need anything fancy..” She cleared her throat, it was softer, and crackled, more than likely due to not using her voice for however long.
“Just tell me what the hell is going on out there and what the fuck you want from me?” It’s so rude to wake a woman up from her much wanted eternal slumber, didn’t they know that?
-------

The medic had been trained on the T(C/NE)-3C2 “Wisp” before being transferred to Elba nine months ago. It had an impressive array of weapons, from the M-20 derived recoilless rifle mounted over the right shoulder, to the primary sensor module located on the left. There were the flak and flare dispensers dotting the area on the back of the lite-mech's manipulators, and the 20mm multi-purpose machine guns built into the forearm of each manipulator. Most impressive to him now, however, was the fact that it could be tucked away in a 6x6x6 crate, albeit with the some assembly required; the recoilless rifle and its auto-loader system were stored separately.
As the nomenclature indicated, the Wisp was based on the chassis of the now defunct “Minerva”, which like most of the Tres Program from which it had originated had been deemed too expensive to field and maintain. Tianfu was a more practical man than Seth Mayvus, and thus emphasized the creative use of existing arsenals and associated conventions. Minerva's carbon/composite shell had been the cheapest part of the original unit, with fifty of them produced before the design had been discontinued. Only the arms required any original fabrication, and this had been completed in a day. The “dirty drive” was replaced with a web of capacitor banks in parallel, wired to mimic the nullentropy configuration of the last Tres-body implemented. The medic whistled to himself as he put the R-Rifle on its mount, confirming on the main monitor that the fire control system recognized it. He loaded the ammunition for the guns and ran a diagnostic, looking from the monitor to the part being tested, confirming that the arms, the weapons, the thrusters and the sensors were all functioning within parameters. Satisfied, the medic-turned-mech-pilot climbed into the weapon the Company had issued him. The armor shell slid shut around him. He took a step with the Wisp, and then another. Using a gaze cue, he opened up the encrypted comms. Preloaded was the earpieces for the Technorati and the two Company Infantrymen already on-site; the five of them were all that was securing the Hotel Il Magnifique and UniFold's guest temporarily housed there, but the force-multiplication potential the Wisp provided meant they stood a reasonable chance of suppressing the Coalition death squad.

“Wisp calling Entourage”, he said quietly over the encrypted comms channel. “I'm prepared to sortie. Bogie status confirmed?”

“Bogie status confirmed”, replied the talkative of the Technorati.

“Confirmed Coalition Squad evaded Italian Counterterrorism Party. Signs of boots on ground, five to eight pairs of them, but they were gone before perimeter closed. The Italians were not pleased, meaning we're alone now.” The Wisp pilot sighed.

“Understood. Heading out now.” The voice of one of the Infantry entered the channel.

“We'll be covering the interior. Odds are they're marksmen, so no point exposing any skin to the open.”

“Agreed. We will prepare to move our Guest when ready, and serve as last line of defense. Stay alive, Johann.” The multi-tasking Company man nodded, firing up the hoverjets to maneuver the Wisp into the lift. He rode it to the ground floor, then fired up the jets again, handily navigating his way to the parking lot. He came to a stop for a moment to consider his surroundings, scanning them with the optic views available. The clutter of the densely packed shrubs, vehicles and buildings meant that he had ample cover, should he choose to use it. He watched as hotel staff and guests vacated the premises, however, and rejected the option. There were too many people that might get hurt if he used the site to soak up some of the fire he'd doubtless be taking. There was another option, however. “The hills.” To the northwest were a number of them, providing overview of the area. If he were a sniper, he'd want to be there. If he were to stop the death squad, he'd want to be there, too. The squad had optic-camouflage. His Wisp had a similar trick of its own. Push coming to shove, he could turn that area into a killbox. Firing up his hoverjets again, Johann fired what looked like a metal stake into the ground. It was a high definition motion sensor, adding the 100 meters around the hotel to his sensor range. Just in case the squad was stupid enough to attack the site directly. The Wisp carried two of them, one in each leg. He started off in the direction of the hills, intent on finding a depression or crevice to deploy the second one in before the shooting started.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LinaHaeden
Member Avatar
Queen Overlord
-------
It was not for any lack of technical proficiency that UniFold lacked a dedicated Stealth Fighter. It was rather because they didn't need one that significant resources were never devoted to producing one. Not when negating the effectiveness of stealth fighters in the field was as simple as augmenting existing radar telemetry with the supreme bird's-eye-view of an orbiting satellite. Just as UniFold's 24/7 coverage of Elba by the Heliophiles had enabled them to located Arthur's death squad lying in wait for Lina on the ground below, other systems aboard these same satellites were able to identify locate and scrutinize the Sphyrna the moment it had entered nearby airspace. From there, it was simply a matter of waiting and watching as the enemy mothership plodded along its flight path at about half the usual cruising speed of the Hunin and a slightly greater fraction of its altitude, which kept its distance from the area of action; it didn't need to be directly on top of the action to work with relay satellite intelligence to its fighters, nor to provide radar coverage of its own.


When the Sphyrna deployed additional Wyverns, the Company fighters tightened their formations. When missiles away was confirmed from the enemy, their formation tightened even further Spacing went from two, to one, than a half a mile apart between vessels; an unusual choice in tactics, given that the point of air operations was to take advantage of superior aircraft cruising speeds and weapons range. As Coalition forces had discovered since the surprising turn of events during the Battle of Sudan nearly a decade ago, however, most of UniFold's fighters were actually unmanned; instead of the onboard AI brains being networked together as a Hive, however, the F-20Z Wasps behaved more like betas in a wolf pack, combining careful and precise coordination with deference to the manned Gryphon units. The distinctly suicidal tendencies of the Wasp AI had not been removed with the operational changes, however. With danger to their Alpha confirmed, each V-shaped squadron transitioned to something that looked more like a skewed “A”, the Gryphon in each falling back, letting the Wasps take the lead. One of the squadrons and the Poison III they were escorting broke off from their current course, changing to one that put greater distance between them and the Sphyrna. The other continued as they were, however, drawing the fire on their formation. As the AIM-152s closed to range on the decoy group, the Gryphon broke away in a spiraling descent, gradually leveling off while deploying countermeasures.
The Wasps in its pack followed suit, also deploying their ECM/Thermal countermeasures while spiralling out of harms way before regrouping, the missiles becoming confused and veering into course away from the adjusted Gryphon and Wasps to detonate harmlessly; the net effect was a coordinated cascade of jamming designed to create a traditional targeting blindspot, lasting five seconds. The Squadron slowed, resuming aV-like formation with the Gryphon at its heart...only this time, it was inverted, a mouth opened in the direction of the Wyverns; a four dimensional pincer formation. The Decoy Squadron was now the Kill Squadron. As the five fighters closed to range on the four, the pilot of the Gryphon initiated another coordinated action with the disposable Wasps; it prepared to fire a "Hansel/Gretel" pair of uAAM-35Bs. On cue, its four pack-mates each fired five Micromissiles at the enemy, each choosing an optimal target to engage. The Micromissiles had little to no chance of hitting their targets, but what they would succeed in doing was suppressing and diverting them. Physical threat aside, the guidance in each Micro would distract the Wyvern, pilot and plane both, with several frivolous lock-on notices. Meanwhile, the Gryphon would take its shot. Two bits, not visually unlike a missile, would rocket forth to engage one unlucky Wyvern. As earlier versions had several years ago, they would signal back and forth on which of them was in the best position to fire first. That one, designated "Gretel", would follow the trail of breadcrumbs left by its "Hansel" to validate its own targeting data. Explosively pumping its X-Ray Laser, "Gretel" would fire on the Wyvern, followed by "Hansel" a millisecond later. Meanwhile, the Kill Squadron would be preparing to deploy countermeasures and commence fancy preparatory maneuvers again.

The team's third eye settled over a small resort to the north, floating harmlessly in the sky and out of sight of even UniFold's seemingly omni-present Heliophiles. Its operators had meanwhile literally circled right around the backs of the Italian authorities, only ever being about a quarter-mile from them at any given time, as they continued to scour the foothills around Mario De Campo Airport. Before the orbiting Wyvern left, the pilot used their data link to tight-beam one last coded message directly to the Marines before it fled Italian airspace to be relieved, managing to get a fix on their location before the next pass of Uni-Fold's satellites. Once alerted, the strike team stops just short on a small gulley to give it a once-over. Within were detailed information of the schedule orbits of the suspected snoopers, including pictures comparing their new orbits to those of all other known satellites that passed over the island. It also gave them the holding position of their MAUV, and its status, as well as the location of their target. There were other surprises in the brief communiques between it and the pilot, to include the discovery of additional UniFold personnel in and around the hotel. They presumptively labeled them hostile and expendable, and were probably there for physical security. But most humbling was a glimpse of never-before-seen hardware, and something the crew had unanimously agreed must have been inspired by Japanese anime.
"So, they've got a mech now -- of sorts." Mused Saunders, who rechecked his compliment of 40MM grenades.
"Seems that way, Corporal." Arthur replied slowly, studying it intently in the failing light of the evening.
"Can the fifty penetrate that?" Asked Hudson.
"Dunno. If that thing has any kind of useful mobility, I'm going to assume -- and damn well hope -- the armor's light enough. Failing that, I know I can disable it." Even considering the distance between their FinalFiring Position and the hotel, picking and choosing between big blocks of metal was an order of magnitude less difficult than engaging personnel, and even that much is well beyond the scope of the skills afforded to anyone who wasn't as practiced as himself. What scared them most were the 75MM recoil-less rifle and its dual 20MM Mauser cannons, both of which could easily challenge them at long-range despite the superior precision of their sharpshooter thanks to their overwhelming rate-of-fire and superior payload. In any case, Arthur never forgets his old stand-by, unloading his armor-piercing match solids and reloading with one of two magazines worth of Grade 'A' Mk.211 rounds.
"All right. Next verse, same as the first. Our next F-F-P is a little ways back from a large clearing here." He begins, marking it on their HUDs "This will give us an almost uninterrupted view of that little villa down there, and about a seventeen-hundred-yard buffer between us and the hotel. The only thing they have at-present that can touch us is that mech, and I've already got that covered. The rest of you will just have to hold the fort like you did last time. Thermal nets. Motion sensors. Claymore mines. Three-sixty security. The whole nine." The cadre then headed due north at first after coming down and around the back of the hill, risking discovery while crossing a two-lane road between Vigne Guinche and Colle di Procchio. Thankfully, the tour schedules they were given were correct, patiently waiting out the time between bus runs and using lush vineyards, hedgerows and low walls for the journey back onto the high ground. They often resorted to low-crawling in the dense brush and scrub. But when it came to the dense pockets of houses that lay between them and the hillside facing Procchio to the north, they are forced to wait for a window when UniFold's Heliophiles aren't overhead to make a mad dash under the cloak of their therm-optic camouflage before disappearing into the woods again.
Once at the foot of the next hill, they stalked west-by-northwest, keeping well-clear of a dirt path that ran along the ridge line to their left. It would be hours before their trek was complete, night falling by the time they reached their FFP. Imagine-intensifying night sights and thermal imagers would be attached to every primary weapon and in front of day optics on pre-marked t-slots, eliminating the need to adjust their zeroes. Even with almost no moonlight that night, the skies were clear allowing ample starlight and light from the village surrounding Marciana Marina -- only a short distance from from the hotel -- would make up for it. Arthur eventually spotted the lite mech after an intense search of the village, then the hills behind it. Even the best electro-optical camouflage is far from flawless, and even those small refractive errors in visible light can be noticed by keen eyes day or night; and by orders of magnitude under the scrutiny of high-resolution night-vision that captures light in the spectral range. The pilot will be quite hard-pressed to retaliate. With TIC suits and thermal nets both arresting thermal emissions and being non-IR-reflective, it would be extremely difficult to tell their heat signature from the background around them, and detection by night-vision is reduced to under 300 meters in most circumstances. The ceramic finishes on their weapons as well as their face paint are also non-IR reflective.
"There you are, you fat bastard. Gimme the range on that beast, Hudson." Hudson consulted his laser-range finder, which uses a convenient short-wave infra-red laser that can't be detected by imagine-intensifying or thermal imaging sights, as either operates in a radically different frequency range to be effective.
"Two-thousand, eighty meters. That's a far piece, Boss." He remarks, getting back behind his night-vision adapted spotting scope.
"Yep." Arthur murmurs, adjusting the dials of his scope.
"This'll be one of the farther shots I've taken in my career." He adds. This wasn't like the thin, crisp air of the mountains surrounding Sha-I-Kot Valley in Afghanistan or the hot, dry deserts of Iraqi Kurdistan north of Baghdad. He was shooting into much cooler, much denser and very humid sea air, which is like comparing split-pea soup to bottled water in density. Even with his elevation and windage drums maxed out and his canted scope rings giving him extra elevation, he still has to hold over 8 mils vertically; 2 to the left to compensate for wind, spin-drift and the rotation of the Earth while the bullet is in flight for five seconds. His breathing and heart-rate begin to slow significantly. By digging his feet lightly into the grass and letting his body weight push forward on the bipod, while his non-firing hand deploys the monopod in the buttstock and using it to adjust his hold accordingly, he can steady his rifle with very little fatigue. He enters the familiar "time-warp", when his surroundings slow almost to a halt while his mind and his senses and his nerves work at lightning speed, getting fully "in-the-zone". His thumb brushes over the safety lever, putting the weapon on "kill".
Ready to fire, his finger touched the lower part of the trigger, slowly and easily applying pressure to take up all the slack until he feels the staging of the sear. The cross-hair on the stadia line steadied over the "guts" of the mech's recoil-less rifle, meaning to disable it by punching a hole through the breech. Ideally, it would be loaded and ready to fire, and the high-explosive incendiary round would detonate the shell and utterly destroy the cannon with the secondary explosion. Holding his breath at the natural pause before the exhale, he counted his own heartbeats.
One.. Two.. And in between the second and third, he gave his finger a straight and smooth pull to the rear. The trigger "breaks" cleanly, and he feels the bite of the .50-caliber rifle as it jumped back into his shoulder, his body barely moved under the will of over thirteen-thousand foot-pounds of torque. All that comes out of the muzzle is the loud super-sonic "crack" of a bullet as it goes airborne at almost three-thousand feet-per-second, coupled with the momentary "hiss" of escaping gasses following it, these being the hallmarks of a controlled explosion effectively tamed by a sound suppressor. The pilot would be caught completely unawares, facing to the west as the attack comes from the southeast.


Rule #23: If you think you're being watched, you probably are.
The Sphyrna was quickly made aware of UniFold's orbiting spies via MIL-STAR network as the Wyverns orbiting Elba traded patrol duties, and began plotting their orbits by radar for a possible strike with anti-satellite missiles. Meanwhile, the Sphyrna's Captain ordered a flank around to the rear of the impending furball, and began it slow circle to the northwest. This allows them to close with and harass the Hunnin without ever breaching sovereign airspace. This took place after the launch of eight additional X-02s, launching in pairs as little as thirty seconds apart, to reinforce the alert fighters already tangled in a deadly embrace with upwards of ten enemy fighters. Within half an hour, there would be nowhere for the UniFold pilots to run. Captain Kei Nagase. Modern-day jet 'Ace' and also claims Seth Mayvus' Poison transport with a matte grey symbol below and behind her canopy. The Time-To-Target counter on her HUD quickly ticks down as their hyper-sonic missiles close on the Zekes. With just some sixty miles separating them from the Poison III and still closing at close to Mach 2, they have the option of simply barreling past their escorts and striking the transport directly. The good Captain orders the latter, a speedy approach right on their heels, while their adversaries are breaking into a delicate ballet to avoid being rendered to burning metal scattered across the Mediterranean.
The pursuing interceptors reveal themselves only for a moment, energizing their powerful radars only to generate enough ECCM interference to not only overcome the jamming emitted from the Gryphons and the Zekes, but to reduce the resolution of their attackers' sensors to render them all but useless. They pay particular attention to the flurry of incoming micro-missiles, NATO reporting name "Helix-1", and are the primary focus of each of the Wyvern's four radars. Radio beams are focused to one-degree elevation and azimuth, with each aircraft focusing on five Helix pairs, and powerful enough to either destroy guidance systems or reduce capability to a point beyond usefulness. Even those that happen to wander close enough are quickly dissuaded with a cloud of chaff and flares. Thankfully, they were close enough to capture the Poison III visually with their Electro-Optical Targeting Suite, with the integral laser range-finder able to give them accurate closing speed and a Time-To-Target with their next salvo. Without warning, twelve more missiles are flung into the deep blue in rapid succession. With just 30 miles between them, two AIM-120D "AMRAAM" missiles are aimed at each of the guard fighters plus two more for the Poison III, nearly exhausting their compliment of medium-range missiles in one strike. The "D" model keeps the clipped wings of the preceding "C" to allow internal carriage, but incorporates a seeker capable of "home-on-jamming" once entering terminal guidance and is capable of discriminating between jamming signals and the scattering characteristics of chaff once in range. Through a cloud of forced confusion, their enemy strikes with as little regard for their decoys as a charging lion has for a fawn.

The pilot of the Gryphon leading the guard squadron smiled as the orders he'd been told to expect finally made their way to the comms set in his helmet. A sound not unlike a dial up modem preceded the audio, an effect of encryption lag. 'Mother to Child, this is Mother to Child. Fog is rolling in, repeat fog is rolling in, torches at ready, over.' As was the procedure, this order was repeated twice, but by this time the attack squadron had scattered once again, as if the choice of the enemy to position themselves to plow through to the carrier had sent the parasite fighters into disarray. The truth was far more inconvenient for Kei Nagase and her fellow pilots, however.
Fog is rolling in... UniFold was intimately familiar with the reconnaissance potential its Heliophile network provided it with. This included the issue of the five minute lag in coverage that came with every eighth pass of the circling satellites. The Company was also aware that any of its enemies could figure out this weakness and capitalize on it. It had been subject to US military contracts in its younger days and done much work pertaining to the Mil-Star network. It's own satellites orbited at a similar range, their ellipses reaching a zenith that exceeded most of the earth's other artificial satellites. There was more than one way to scrutinize everything that happened on the battlefield. Hugin's compliment of fighters had been outfitted with one such technology prior to being sent on sortie. Each aircraft carried a module similar to what the Wisp had deployed near the hotel Il Magnifique before moving off to the hills. As the aircraft in the chase group scattered a second time, each deployed one of these, composed of a small silvery orb. These orbs used a technology similar to the Tesla anti-mechs that had been so effective at Port City, and functioned as radar beacons and comms relays, extending the effective reach of the fighter group considerably. By using electromagnetic displacement effects to maintain altitude, their varying positions and altitudes provided an effect similar to that of an AASR system. Each was too small of a target for the Wyvern's to attack with any of the weapons in their loadout, and each was programmed to generate a directed feedback pulse in the event that they submitted them to the same treatment with their own targeting radars that they had the micro-missiles moments ago.

The Gryphon and Wasps in the attack squadron regrouped to go after the Wyverns forming up on the trajectory of their mothership. This network was barely active for a second when the Poison III and its guards were targeted for destruction by the enemy. The deployment of the beacons had been planned, though, so the aircraft in the guard group suddenly had location and status information on HUDs, of which they made immediate use. Torches at ready... The Gryphon pilot made quick use of the information that told him that they had just been read by targeting radars and high-speed missiles were inbound against each of them. Using eye movements he'd practiced extensively both in training sims and in combat operations, he identified the “Zeke” in the optimal position and sent it special orders before sending general orders to all fighters. It was time for them to deploy their own radar beacons, though differently from the other squadron. With the Gryphon taking the lead, the Poison III took up position behind it, the Wasps forming up tightly around it. From this position, each fighter bomber released its beacon, the Gryphon included. Unlike before, however, these beacons came together and as the aircraft used a slipstream effect to speed along, the cluster affixed itself to the rear most Wasp. Like a Japanese kamikaze pilot, its mission was now to sacrifice itself to preserve its pack mates and mission. It did this without complaint. If it were capable of anything resembling emotion, it would be possessed by a sentiment similar to religious euphoria.

The scapegoat adjusted its position carefully, and when the missiles had closed to range sent the information to its bundle of Tesla Beacons, which reacted in a way similar to their predecessors. They unleashed a cone of electromagnetic force that halted and detonated the incoming missiles, while simultaneously overloading the host Wasp. As the Wasp was overloaded, its components overheated and many of them exploded, causing a cascade in which the Wasp itself erupted in a fireball. A high cost to pay, but war is a harsh mistress. Some solace could be found in that the production costs for that single "Zeke" were less than half that of the munitions it had prevented from reaching their targets, speaking in terms of pure economics. The beacons that had been riding the aircraft used the force of the blast to scatter, assuming varied positions and altitudes, completing the portable AASR net the Company had intended the Hugin's compliment of fighters to test. The test was a successful one.
“Mother, this is Child", the leader of the escort pack signaled back. "Torches are away. Repeat, torches are away.”

Meanwhile, aboard the Hugin other preparations were being made. The Hugin was built to serve primarily as an airborne aircraft carrier, but it also carried a sizable compliment of its own weaponry. Like the Sphyrna, it was capable of engaging the enemy solo, if need be. Unlike the Sphyrna, however, it did not need a direct line of sight for engaging the enemy with its most powerful weapons, because plans for large scale directed energy weapons had been phased out in favor of long-range missiles. Within missile tubes located snugly at the bases of the wings, warheads and bodies for Charity I-B cruise missiles were being prepared to engage the enemy. As with the original Charity I, this updated version carried multiple-warheads, to a maximum of eight under optimal operating parameters. Unlike the original, the warheads being loaded were actually Hansel-Gretel type laser bits; the Charity I-B was a multipurpose weapon, and in this case intended as a missile bus. The Hugin had four missile tubes, but crew enough to service only three of them. Two crews constructed and readied their missile bus to accommodate a Resonator, like the one employed against the Opaque Brotherhood carrier three years ago. With the third, the extra space was allocated to three additional Tesla Beacons, configured to provide targeting assistance against enemy fighters.
The Hugin's point defense was brought to bear as it slowly took on altitude. It was careful to keep itself out of range of the fearsome array of directed energy weapons satellite-photography had betrayed the Sphyrna as possessing, but it also wished to have an altitude advantage against oncoming fighters, should its gambit fail and it become directly harassed. Look down, shoot down; that had been the logic of Seth Mayvus. The Hugin deployed its first missile bus as a massively anti-aircraft measure, it's bright, fusion-powered scramjet painting the sky a brilliant, blatantly atomic blue as it rocketed in the direction of the bogies forming up to assault the mothership directly. When it was at optimal range, it would break up in mid-air, directing missile spam right back at the very people that had started it lost a friend to oceans, lost a friend to hills. The beacons that Johann was deploying in the hills had quite an effective range of their own. Being seismographic instruments, they didn't need to actively pulse for information. Instead, they simply stayed where they were while listening for nearby movement. The Wisp was nestled deep in the center of the hills, well out of sight of Arthur's approaching death squad by the time it planted it's last one. It now had detailed topographical data on the hills and other terrain surrounding the Hotel Il Magnifique.
Johann lit up the hoverskirt of the lite mech and began slowly floating up a hill, moving southwest. A comm line hissed to life through his head-set, prefaced by encryption/decryption lag; they had no satellites overhead at the moment, after all. 'Johann, enemy aerial action has been reported. Have you engaged the ground threat yet?'
“I still haven't made contact with the enemy, so please...” A yellow alert from his console brought his attention back to the situation at hand. He had movement on the scope, reported by the beacon he'd just planted. It was several seconds old, telling him it had stopped; the direction it had been moving in told him it likely had eyes on him. He corrected the thrust vectors of his hoverskirt to bring him back down the hill he'd been wandering up, just in time for a shot intended to disable his recoilless rifle instead to pass within a centimeter of it, the incredible force behind the round scraping through all-weather sealant.
“Damn! Clever dick. Enemy is on me, repeat, enemy is on me. Advise move package while engaged.” The Wisp drifted to the bottom of the hill it had first drifted up, Johann bringing it to a pause at the bottom. 'Understood. We'll move our guest as soon as possible. Stay sharp, Johann.'
“Roger that.” Johann checked the larger intel-net. No Heliophiles overhead for several minutes. Clever lads. These ones don't miss a trick. One trick they seemed to have missed was that they were in hilly territory. They were foot mobiles. He was a high-mobility lite mech. Lighting up his hoverskirt again, Johann used the knowledge of the local geography his beacons provided him with to navigate a path through the hills that brought him, unseen, up a hill to their far left. He kept an eye on what movement the beacon detected. He would expose himself to them only long enough to let fly with an HE shell, disused guidance wire trailing, before retreating backwards, using the hills for cover. Whatever equipment they had in addition to their thermoptic camouflage, Johann had only been able to make out their location by seismograph and return-fire capabilities. Similarly, Arthur and his squad would have difficulty determining the exact position of the Wisp, aside from the sound of its hoverskirt, distorted by the acoustics of the hills, and the muzzle-flash of its weapons.

As can be expected, the "Zeke" fighters either shirked the incoming missiles, or were ordered to physically intercept the missiles bound for the Griphon and the transport. Either way, there was at least one less pop-up displayed against the inside of their canopies.
K.3: "Knight One, Knight three, message."
K.1: "Knight Three, send traffic."
K.3: "Additional contacts being marked on your display."
K.1: "What are they?"
K.3: "Unknown at this time. Contacts at variable altitude. Advise L.P.I. warning with active cancellation."
K.1: "Copy. Knight One to all call signs this net. Adjust radars to maximum output. Close to engage primary targets." With the Captain's orders disseminated, each aircraft sources the interference based on the telemetry from one Lieutenant Michael Tanner, call sign Knight Three. With their carefully crafted stealth severely compromised, they are left with little choice but to employ violence of action. Knights One and Two easily chase and over-take the Poison III itself, buzzing the hapless transport by closing to within one quarter of a mile off its four-o'-clock before zooming up into a hard loop, completely blowing through the tight perimeter formed by the Griphon and its Zeke counter-parts. All the while, they set themselves up for a gun-run from six-o'-clock high as their escorts struggle to catch up to the high-speed marauders. Knights Three and Four, cognizant of the other half of the escort package, decide that there is more prudence in relieving their adversary of their advantage. They easily locate them, first by radar, and then using their EOTS to get a more precise fix. The liberty is also taken in photographing the beacons in high-definition, and through several spectral filters. Using the built-in laser range-finder, complete with altitude and azimuth measurements, they plot intercepts for each beacon and pre-program this data into their remaining AMRAAMs.

Without further adieu, the pair's last medium-range missiles are flung into the darkening skies. Within seconds, guided visually via data-link, two of the beacons are destroyed. Whether the missile's radar was crippled or not made no difference, as its Link-22 remained intact and allowed the launching aircraft to communicate with it.
K.4: "Knight One, this is Knight Three. Two radar beacons destroyed. Be advised. Still receiving critical L.P.I. warning."
K.1: "Copy that, Knight Four. Advise inbound reinforcements on intercept of beacons."
K.4: "WIL-CO, One. Knight Four to all call-signs this net. Transmitting telemetry of ECM beacons. Provide visual guidance only for missile intercept. Repeat, visual guidance only."
K.5: "Acknowledged, Knight Four. Receiving data. Will continue tracking beacons. Advise defensive posture. ETA is 8 minutes."
K.1: "Knight One to inbound flights. Redirect all aircraft to our A.O. for assistance."
K.5: "Copy, Knight One. ETA is 8 minutes."

In an instant, as the other Knights were pulled off from their attack against the Hugin, they had effectively tripled their fighting strength physically out-numbering the Uni-Fold squadron caught in the pincer. Even their numerous external racks now bristled with nasty rocketry, a point in exercising their time-tested tactic of over-matching their adversary. The Sphyrna continues to monitor the orbits of overhead UniFold satellites, too far away for a high-altitude intercept. Its radars reach over the horizon to see a missile launch from the Hugin, whose heading, speed and altitude is immediately disseminated to all friendly aircraft. With all call signs having been retasked to assisting the embattled interceptors, more time is afforded to avoid the retaliatory strike. The belligerent contrail left by the missile's nuclear SCRAMjet is easily identified, even at great distance, by any one of the nine cameras embedded in the skin of each Wyvern that made up its advanced Distributed Aperture Suite. It was immediately targeted by the trailing aircraft in their formation, and an AIM-152 "Lance" was heaved at it.
--
Sometimes, all of the careful planning in the world goes out the window if you don't include your adversary's level of situational awareness. That is something highly prized by both UniFold and it's numerous enemies, and they'll be slow just as to admit that those unscrupulous technocrats often times have the edge in this area as UniFold will be to take advantage of it. Hudson calmly observed the trace as it arced up into the night, and both he and Arthur fully expected to see a light show. They did, but not the kind they were expecting. A shower of sparks from a ricochet, and the brilliant flashing of the mech's thrusters.


Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LinaHaeden
Member Avatar
Queen Overlord
"Shit!" He swore under his breath, having already jacked in the next round.

"He's spooked. Wilks." Hudson directs.

"Get your eyes on the hotel. There's no way he's not gonna' tell 'em to try and move the principal while we have our attention focused elsewhere. They may evacuate the hotel, too, so don't lose them in the crowd." Without a word, Wilks is glued to his spotting scope, watching the parking lot for any suspicious movement. All the while, their most valuable asset tracks the movement of the mech under Saunder's command, still silently hovering somewhere over the resort. Something the mech pilot hadn't counted on, and still nicely balances the scales of situational awareness between them. Arthur's immediate objective remained the same: disable that big damn recoilless rifle. Any lateral movement on the pilot's part would likely mean damage to some other crucial component, either the skirts and the hover-jets within, or the headpiece which probably contains its optical sensors. Which leaves the option of dramatically increased or decreased forward speed, and even still risks damage to the barrel or its feeding mechanism. The sudden move to cover suggests that the pilot had not yet precisely pin-pointed the location of their aggressors, and even a second attack is highly unlikely to out-right give them this information if all due diligence is applied. However, if this second attack also fails, the risk of detection and subsequent retaliation will be too high to risk a third attempt.

"He's moving South-Southwest. Speed 20 knots. Your lead is... 27 mils." His spotter informed him. A gloved hand cranks the magnification ring back just a little, revealing enough of his reticle to count off the necessary hash marks. The mech is also moving farther away from them as it makes an attempt at slinking behind a far hill, prompting an additional 5 mil vertical hold-over.
"Last chance we'll get." Hudson warns.

"No pressure." Arthur whispers on his exhale, and uses the natural pause in his breathing to hold his lungs empty before taking the shot. A second high-explosive bullet is sent screaming into the night with a 'crack', while its messenger reflexively cycles the bolt of his rifle in plenty of time to see its results. As they tentatively watch the trace, Arthur began quickly formulating a brand new strategy.

Colonel Matthews, commanding officer of the aerial mothership “Hugin” since its launch, frowned as two beacons were destroyed by missile fire, reducing (if temporarily) the effectiveness of the beacon network they had been vital nodes of. He looked to his signals and munitions officers, seated (respectively) to his forward left and right. He opened his mouth to ask how this was possible when the SO beat him to the punch, speaking quickly in professional shorthand.

“Two beacons down, enemy missiles. Default configured to auto-intercept on radar lock, local radar not in use. Patch deployed, beacons switched to gravimetric P&S sensors in five seconds.” The colonel swallowed and nodded.

“Good. Stay on top of the situation, and try to figure out how they're hitting their marks without radar.” He turned to his munitions officer.
“What's the status on our own missiles?”
“Charity launched almost in range with bogies closing. Hugin sensors tracking and forwarding bogie status to Charity. Second Charity is now ready for launch against enemy mothership, complete with ablative sheath. Third Charity is in tube and will be ready for launch in two minutes.”
“Permission to launch second. Prepare third for second mothership barrage, complete with resonator. Ready point defense for enemy breakthrough. Engineering?”
“Yes Colonel?” The EO looked up from his own consoles behind the CO.
“Ready our Spiders for launch on Elba. If we are unable to hold this position....” He didn't feel he needed to finish the sentence.
“Understood, Colonel. They'll be ready in five minutes.”
-------
The AIM-152 fired after the first of the Charity 1Bs deployed was spotted and identified in less than a second by sensors aboard the mothership. Given course and speed it was determined that it would not reach its target till approximately two seconds after it had successfully separated into all its separate components. Potential error in this calculation was determined to be too great for comfort, however, and the bus was instructed to separate one second earlier than previously determined optimal; timing and distance were determined more minor of concerns. By the time the AIM-152 was closing to range the Charity was breaking up. The warheads and the layers of material encasing them were discarded like the elements of an over-engineered sabot. The fusion scramjet, meanwhile, plunged forward like the dart component. The beacons separated from the delivery system milliseconds before the AIM-152 struck it, spiraling away. One was lost in the resulting explosion of debris and blue plasma, but the rest made it safely to their intended positions. With the sensor suite of the Hugin already pointing in the direction of the fighters forming on it, the two Torch beacons put in place extended and enhanced targeting solutions to the degree that all of the H/G bits could engage their targets simultaneously, not needing to independently target the enemy; an ironic reversal of the battle's circumstances. Taking immediate advantage of this sudden change of fortunes, the Hansel/Gretels found their targets and opened fire. Smaller balls of the same blue plasma dotted the sky, as lances of concentrated x-rays sought out Wyvern hulls, electronics, and pilots to melt, pulverize and vaporize.
-------
The enemy was very clever, taking advantage of the slackening of the guard formation to target the Poison III directly. The Gamma Corp soldiers aboard it were the reason for the massive dogfight at hand, after all, with the Hugin and its compliment of fighters being secondary targets to be attacked only out of operational necessity. The first error that the Americans and their Coalition allies had made was getting greedy and splitting their forces to engage the Hugin directly. The second was closing to a combat range more favorable to the Poison III and its escorts. The Poison III present incorporated the upper and lower multi-turret from the previous two models rather than the bomblet dispenser popularized after. The reason for this had been simple, with UniFold doing it's best to honor Italy's distaste for weapons systems that could be described as “nuclear” in nature. With Torch beacons saturating the sky and correcting the radar gap the Wyverns' stealth features provided, the close approach of the bogies gave the shuttle's defensive weapons suite the perfect environment to operate in. The multi-turrets installed in this particular aircraft replaced four proprietary 10mm mini-guns in each with four 20mm, electronically fired, stacked-shell autocannon systems. Based on the ground-breaking work done by Metal Storm on systems designed for use on the ground, this configuration allowed for precise grouping and quick point-defence response time. Each “stack” carried 50 rounds and came in pairs, the container also serving as the barrel. Whenever a stack was exhausted it would be simultaneously replaced and discarded by a rail. Six stack pairs were loaded in each side of each turret. With the effective range of these high performance autocannons being beyond what Knights 1 and 2 had closed to, they were satisfactory on their own for addressing the threat of the fighters. As if this were not enough to address it, however, each turret carried eight micro-missiles and two H/G bits.

The Poison III struck first. The Torch network gave it an early warning advantage, while it's own preponderance of laser rangefinders and other optical devices were used to finalize targeting solutions. It unloaded all four stacks of the top turret in a tight, arced group. The grouping was intended to cover evasive maneuvers that intelligence collected so far deemed likely, based on tactics and capabilities observed of the unknown aircraft type. The leading “Knight” would almost certainly be perforated (90% certainty), with the other less likely to be struck, but possibly (45% certainty) nevertheless. Two of the micro-missiles in the turret were also deployed. No frivolous radar locks were registered, unlike before, as these were loaded with gravimetric proximity-charges. Before coming close enough for the Wyverns to fry with radar, they exploded with loud, dull thuds, their debris interfering with infrared scopes; countermeasures. The patch, meanwhile had taken hold with the Torch network. Even as Knights 3 and 4 engaged them, their proxy-guidance trick ceased to work. As each AMRAAM closed to range, a radar beam was fixed on it. Instead of a soft kill, a hard kill was delivered. Instead of confusing the missile, each Torch physically detonated what was being thrown at it.

The Torch was designed to force a gun-run, similar to what Knights 1 and 2 had tried, while still giving the modules a good chance at using focused radar beams on the aircraft itself, threatening the lives of machine and pilot alike. As the beacons dealt with these new missiles handily, this reality was no doubt sinking in for the pilots engaging them. Each beacon had as good of odds of killing them with radar beams as they did the beacon targeted with a run-&-gun; better odds, in fact. The Poison III began evasive maneuvers of its own, accelerating and cutting altitude, as its escorts used their air-brakes to fall behind it, to deal with the threat. The Gryphon stayed with its charge, while two of the remaining wasps deployed their H/G bits ahead of them. These performed a wide-loop, using guidance provided by the Torch network through their respective “Zeke” fighters to engage what remained of Knights 1 and 2. The Zekes, meanwhile, used this close range to capitalize on their micro-missiles, each firing four from their stores on the two bogies. Four more blue balls blossomed painted the sky with short-lived neutron decay as x-ray lasers lanced towards symbols of over-engineering.

As a second nuclear contrail peeled across the sky from the Hugin to the Sphyrna, a very similar situation was forming up on the ground. Johann didn't change his planned course of action; he had no reason to, seeing as the members of his death-squad hadn't moved to any appreciable degree. He had no way of gauging with seismic sensors in what direction they were pointing their firearms, and no reason to believe that they could pin-point the exact direction relative to their possible range of fire in which he would emerge. This placed the Wisp and its pilot in the best position they could have possibly planned for. Sadly, as is often the case in war, their best simply wasn't good enough. Most of the targeting solution for Johann's first use of live-ammunition with the Wisp's recoilless rifle had already been resolved by the computer before he came up a hill southwest of the position the enemy had chosen to hold at. The medic-turned-pilot had none of the nerves of experience that Arthur's squad brought to the fore. Nevertheless, automation here allowed him to get his shot off before Arthur did. A 75mm rocket roared across the distance like a banshee, followed by two loud cracks, the sniper's gunshot followed by its impact near the reload mechanism. Inside Johann's cockpit, a dozen red lights began to flash and a clever status diagram told him where he'd been hit. His eyes widened, but he kept his cool, drawing on what he'd learned of composure at Faux Crimea; he purged the weapon with its compromised magazine, a system like an ejector seat flinging the weapon above and behind him quickly. As its arc brought it back to earth ten meters behind him, an explosion rocked him frightfully from behind him, the magazine cooking off, the mighty rounds turning the weapon into shrapnel and flinging up a dense cloud of debris. In the distance, another explosion roared across the hills, the bright orange fireball of the round he'd gotten off subsiding, having hit roughly in the middle of where the death-squad had been when Arthur had fired. Aside from the psychological effect, there was also presumed lethality. He glanced at his seismic sensors, but they were useless for the moment; his own damn fault. He had no way of knowing whether he'd succeeded in putting down the squad, or even a single member of it. For all he knew, they could very well have scattered, and all he'd accomplished was scaring them by churning up the landscape.

He leveled his heavy machineguns in the direction he'd just cleared out one way or another and laid down two hundred rounds worth of suppressive fire. Eyes still wide and pupils narrow, he retreated in a zig-zag pattern, backing diagonally into the obscuring cloud Arthur's clever shot had coincidentally stirred up for the pilot to use. Johann resumed using the hills for cover, stopping behind one to appraise damage reports. He had no more red alerts, but several yellow ones noted dents, divots and scarring. The Wisp remained operational, but had taken serious cosmetic damage from the fiery baptism its cooked magazine going off nearby had put it through. He checked his comms system; still intact. Johann opened a channel. 'Johann, we read you, are you alright? Please respond. Johann!' The mech pilot began moving his mech again, heading southeast by east, back in the direction of the Hotel Il Magnifique.

“If you're going to move, get ready to do it now. I'll be covering you directly, but situation is FUBAR.” 'What was that explosion, Johann? Is the threat neutralized? Are you hurt?'
“I'm fine. Don't know about the enemy.” He came to a stop again, though, a thought occurring to him. “I think we're being watched, though, so be very careful. I repeat, situation is FUBAR.”

The relay race of telemetry was in full swing and, despite heavy ECM concentrated in the fur ball, they were neck-and-neck with their UniFold adversaries. The calm and quiet of "The War Room", wherein all this data was processed and disseminated, never changed despite the pitched battle. The "Lance" fired at the Charity missile-bus had successfully forced it to deploy early; early enough, in fact, to make sure its payload of "Helix" missiles would struggle to reach them at the edges of their operational range. Just like the Torch Network had done to their AMRAAMs, the Wyverns were far enough away to slowly deliver a hard kill on each of them as they inched closer without drawing its ire. The second launch was detected immediately as the Sphyrna spied directly on the Hugin through the many eyes of its deployed Wyverns, allowing it to concentrate its immensely powerful search radars and effectively negate its stealth while still maintaining enough capability to provide 360-degree awareness for itself. Intercept times for its complement of SM-3s were plotted against the speed and trajectory of the threat, and before the missile-bus was even 150 miles from home, two contrails stretched skyward from the back of the plodding leviathan just seconds apart. The trick was to neutralize the treat at the theoretical 300-nautical-mile threshold of its anti-ballistic missile defenses, while it continued on an intercept course towards the Hugin itself.

The intercept officers in the War Room watch intently as the first-stage boosters separate, and the second stage booster takes them out just out of the atmosphere. The third-stage motor pulse-fires as the kinetic warhead is steered towards the shining star at the head of the brilliant blue contrail. Thirty seconds out, the third-stage booster is discarded, and the throttleable divert and attitude control system takes over. At this stage, its electro-optical seeker takes over as it closes on the threat at over 5,000 miles-an-hour. The first hit would be sufficient to vaporize the missile outright, and the second would sweep away what little was left. After averting destruction, The Sphyrna would turn into the wind once more and all of her remaining operational aircraft would take wing. Five EA-18Gs and 11 F/A-18Fs are launched, to create a buffer between the Hugin and the Wyvern squadron. Even with the advance of the Sphyrna, it would be some time before the jammer aircraft could envelop the battle-space with their blinding fog of white noise. Meanwhile, Nagase and her squad mates remain in a pitched battle of wit and technological wizardry. As she and her wingman dove upon the Poison III, their aircraft automatically responded with Direct Infra-Red Counter-measures; an ultra-high-output infra-red laser designed originally to blind heat-seeking missiles. But in a pinch, can also frustrate laser rangefinders and target designators at short range.

The point defenses of the transport were literally unable to find the Wyverns bearing down on them with their 25MM cannons, which far out-ranged their 10 and 20MM munitions. By now, the second flight of Wyverns had arrived and had forced the Zekes chasing Knights 1 and 2 to give up or be eaten by Sidewinder missiles regardless. With 32 more hostile radars, it would be a true wonder if the effectiveness of The Torch network hasn't begun to degrade by now; if not, it certainly will when the jammers arrive in half an hour. The pair opened up on the Poison III as it began its dive at 2,500 meters, only able to let off a short burst before being forced to turn away by the tracers spewing from the dorsal turret as they closed the gap. Knights 3 and 4 simply set up their pursuers for the oncoming reinforcements to engage and, hopefully, destroy.
__
It was the instant after the felt the bite of the rifle in his shoulder that Arthur completely changed his strategy, and thus, the course of the battle."Move on the hotel. Now." He barks, snatching up his rifle. None of them stopped to watch what it was that caused the brilliant flash of light behind them as they disappeared over the crest of the ridge.
The next thing they hear is a loud although muffled 'boom', and the next thing they feel is a rush of hot wind and a shock that nearly knocks them off their feet as they scamper down the hill.
"Whatever you were aimin' at, Gunny, I think you hit it." Remarked Saunders, almost giddy with the sudden adrenaline spike. He didn't respond immediately, but instead started running towards the hotel. The rest of his team follows, forming a narrow wedge with Wilks and his assistant gunner, Hue, on their left flank without a word.
"That motherfucker had a 75MM recoil-less rifle.. and two 20MM cannons.. the latter of which just wasted our hide.. the former of which.." They slowed as they hear the thumping of heavy guns, and the flashing of payload munitions striking around the impact site, rubber-necking to catch the sparks out of the corner of their eye.
"The former of which is all he has left now." More deep, muffled thumps come from their direct left.
"Did you hit the magazine or something?" Saunders queried.
"Seems like it.. Either way.. it's gonna' fuck up his ability to track us. I suspect.. he's using a directional mic.. or something similar.." Their breathing is heavy, and they are wheezing under their heavy load-outs as they make a mad dash to the hotel.
"Something like a Boomerang?" Siegfried asked.
"Yeah.. something like that.." The Team leader answered.
"They tried to.. get me to mount one on my M4 once.. I told 'em to shove it.. Too heavy.. Can't see the fucking sights.. And then I get to this outfit, and we have one.. that I can wear on my face as a.. pair of glasses almost.. I wonder what else Crane wants us to test.." The medic continued.
"Well if you wanna' find out.. we gotta' get the fuck outta' here in one piece." Arthur reminded him. They stop under the canopy that had hidden them for so long from the prying eyes hundreds of miles above them, and after sprinting for over a half-mile, Wilks and Saunders being the most heavily burdened the group, were looking a little green around the gills.
"Doc.." Arthur started, resting his hands on his knees for a moment or so.
"Doc.. Make sure Wilks and Saunders are okay.. Everybody practice their breathing like we learned on our exercises.." Before long, hurried panting began to slow into coordinated, timed inhales, holds, and exhales. Exhale, four seconds. Hold empty, four seconds. Inhale, four seconds. Hold,four seconds. Exhale, four seconds. Ad nauseum, ad infinitum. They did this until they could get their heart rates down to where they needed to be, and they could re-hydrate and reorient themselves after establishing 360-degree security.

"I see the damage you did to the mech, Gunny." Says Saunders, who then relays the feed to the group on their ad-hoc network.
"Looks like you caused a chain reaction, and that forced him to shed the gun. I'm going to take a stab and say his sensory data comes from seismic sensors. Here, and here." He marks the positions of the suspected data hubs on their Combined HUDs. One was sunk into the ground not 100 yards from the resort, and the other is about 100 yards to the east from the first.
"I might be able to hit them with EMP grenades. They're just like the medium-velocity "Mercury" rounds, and they can be programmed to burst at an altitude where the burst will disable them both." Arthur nods as he processes Saunder's plan. Medium-velocity 40MM grenades have a maximum range of about 900 yards if they're treated like a mortar, versus just 450-yards with standard low-velocity munitions.
"I like it. If you can hit those, you can juice the resort and disable all the vehicles in the parking lot as well. Make 'em move out on foot, and it'll be easier cut 'em down. Make sure the MAV stays on that damn mech, too. Do it." He orders, and Saunders complies. He opens the breach of his M320 grenade launcher slung under carbine and extracts the High-Explosive Dual-Purpose round, and exchanges it with a EPFCG charge on his grenade belt around his waist. Calibrating a ballistic reticle on his Combined HUD designed specifically for indirect fire with medium-velocity grenades, he centers the circle of estimated coverage while setting the detonation delay so that it will encompass both elements of the sensory array and impart enough wattage to short them out.
"When I let this shitter fly, I suggest we start runnin' again, gents. It'll be about 10 seconds before it goes off."Saunders warns as he steadies himself, aims, and fires. Catching the spent casing, trading it with a fresh grenade, and getting it on-target over the hotel as quickly as he could, the team rallies behind Hue (their Point Man and Assistant Gunner) and form that familiar heavy-sided wedge again as they take off running again.
"Go, go, go." He says afterwards, and they all follow the hill for about a half-mile more, being careful to avoid the residences and the scattered gardens and vineyards. They don't stray too far, however, and purposefully make it difficult for the Wisp to engage them directly without risking collateral damage. By now, everyone on the sleepy island within earshot of the fiasco with the Wisp is awake, and there's little doubt that the authorities will be summoned once again. They lost most of their large thermal nets and most of the perimeter defenses after the mech retaliated, which on the bright side they didn't have to worry about because it was all likely vaporized or damaged beyond recognition. Nevertheless, time was again decidedly not on their side. Arthur instructs Saunders as to how to use his complement of grenades.
"Ready another EMP. We may be able to disable the mech without having to engage it directly."




Lina took several moments to wake and steady herself completely before responding to the news of recent events as imparted to her by the taller Technorati.

“I don’t need anything fancy...” She cleared her throat, which understandably grew congested after having spoken last nearly a month ago. “Just tell me what the hell is going on out there and what the fuck you want from me?” The taller Technorati smiled coldly.

“Yes, the personal shock Victor subjected you to at New Mobius far and away exceeded your ability to adapt, or so debriefings we...recovered...from two separate factions indicated. Nevertheless, it's equally bad form to look a gift horse in the mouth, isn't it?” He turned away, walking back in the direction of his associate, who was silently finishing the last few morsels of his meal. Her brows fell to show her displeasure of the current subject matter being addressed. The last thing they needed to do was prod a bear that just woke from hibernation.

“Someone in our chain of command determined you could provide consultation as we conclude a project that is of vital importance to us. We may be meddling corporatists, but do consider the situation, your options, and the alternatives. Our values are few but firm; we will pay you, just as we pay everyone that does work for us. We will protect you, so long as you are in our employ. We will not sever our connections until our business is concluded or you violate our trust, whichever of those two things happens first.” He continued towards the door, mindful that their guest seldom had a thing covering her, save the sheets and blankets. He and his associate hardly had any sexual interest in their charge, but it was common for members of either gender to become much more reserved in their compunctions when confronted with situations such as this one.
There it was. Something she was needed for. Whomever had contacted this, 5th International, had made sure she was brought to them. She was sure at this point that it probably didn’t matter if she wanted to go with these men or not. They say they’ll pay her, protect her, and they will trust her. Trust was such an empty promise to her. However, she was starting to wonder if maybe their services couldn’t be of use to her, but at what price?

“We managed to acquire some clothing and other articles similar to those to which your file showed you to be partial. They are in the chest of drawers and the nearby wardrobe. Our intention had been to give you time and leisure in which to absorb everything that has transpired, but the persistence of a mutual adversary has driven up our time table. We'll need to depart to a more secure location in as few as twenty minutes, so please wash, dress and refresh. Everything will be made clear shortly.” He motioned to his stout companion to depart the room with him. The man had just finished the sandwich he'd prepared from the contents of the refrigerator. They left their guest in peace.
With that said, and the echo in the quiet room of the door closing behind the strangers. She looked over to the chest that held her personal objects. She loathed when people packed for her, not to mention undressed her while unconscious. Without much thought she threw the sheets back and climbed from the bed. Twenty minutes wasn’t much time to do any showering. That was something that was just going to have to wait for things to settle down. Lina stalked over to the chest and wardrobe, collecting her items promptly and laying them upon the bed.

-------

While the larger rounds of the Wyvern cannons did indeed out-range those of the 20mm cannons mounted on the Poison III's multi-turret, this mattered little. The two fighters had flown inside that range to engage the transport. This quickly became evident for both parties, as they began chewing away at each other; the Wyvern's attempted to suppress the shuttle's compound sensors, but hadn't included countermeasures for at least two of them. As bullets were traded back and forth, all involved would take a pounding. The difference was that the Poison III was designed to take one, being of the type up-armored for disgorging soldiers into areas saturated with ground fire and recovering others from it.
The proximity of other aircraft to Knights 1 and 2 made the situation doubly dangerous for them. More important was the mere handful of seconds between the exchange beginning and the troop transport passing into Italian airspace and safety. The Poison III emerged from the exchange with numerous dents and dings, but still operational. In the confusion that arose from the arrival of additional Wyverns and the immediate shift of maneuvers from nearby UniFold aircraft, the fates of Knights 1 and 2 could not be ascertained. Those Wyverns that had broken off from angling for attack on the Hugin to engage the Torch-net were left in a far more precarious position, however. With the sudden arrival of fresh Torch-beacons and the adaptation to oncoming fire with all of them, the beacons were now able to go with 1-for-1 odds with the fighters engaging them in a similar fashion. Factoring in the sudden arrival of the H/G bits from the first Charity 1B and suddenly for the first time since this battle began, UniFold stood to prevail in part of it. While several failed to complete the leg of closing to their targets, the vast majority (five total) succeeded in doing so. Their rocket motors had range equal to the Lance they'd attempted to intercept the bus carrying them with moments ago, and the added reach of their explosively-pumped laser stage served to defeat the logic of the Wyvern's own active defenses, striking before those systems would normally be prepared to receive them with a hard kill and doing so lethally from beyond their means for a soft one.

The overlay of the primary radars from the Hugin on the area further contributed to the formation of what could only be described as a killbox. Despite these successes Air Combat Control was aware that conditions remained unfavorable. Fresh Wyverns on the scene changed the dynamics of combat entirely, while similar relief forces were hours away for the present mothership. Hugin and Munin were neither the only nor the most capable airborne aircraft carriers in the Company's extensive arsenal. Being the products of one of Seth Mayvus' vanity projects they were prototype weapons rather than production models. Great strides had been made since the introduction of the Hugin in the proper application of force projection technologies in the form of air-warfare platforms. In the time that had transpired since the death of UniFold's leader, however, many of these advances had never made their way back to the vanguards of the UniFold air-warfare model. As was often the case, UniFold was fighting the last war they had won, trying to do what they had done even faster and better than they had before. So too were the Americans, in a sense; their battlefield prestige had centered around their air-warfare, this philosophy having given rise to the F-22, F-35, and finally the X-02 Wyvern.

Fortune had chosen to smile on their conceit rather than that of Tan Tianfu and what remained of the Company, however. “Weapons lock detected from the Sphyrna towards the Charity closing on it. Properties indicate it's some sort of kinetic intercept vehicle instead of the lasers. Orders?” The commander of the Hugin glanced at the main display . The intended trajectory of that missile-bus relative to the action had it currently at a range that was well in striking distance of all currently engaged aircraft. Projections for a fast moving, long-range kinetic intercept vehicle had it striking not far after that. The likelihood of one-shotting the Sphyrna had made it an iffy proposition from the get-go, but evident defenses that out-ranged the operational range of the Hansel/Gretel bits made destroying the opposing carrier at best a pipe-dream. Steps could be taken to salvage the situation, however.

“Is the Torch net still operational?”

“It is, Sir, but just barely. Forecasting remaining uptime of two minutes. That still leaves an entire minute until satellite coverage returns.”

“Separate the second Charity now, and switch targeting for its warheads to enemy fighters in the main battlespace. Provide sufficient relief for our remaining aircraft to be recovered by. Have the Wasps guard the lives of the Gryphon pilots.” The effectiveness of premature separation for the second Charity 1B would doubtless be less effective than it was for the first one. No additional Torch beacons had been dispatched with it, so the H/G bits would be of greatly attenuated effectiveness. As the warheads separated from the bus, the superior speed of the kinetic strike vehicle was also demonstrated, plowing into the Resonator section. The resulting explosion destroyed both and four of the H/G bits, leaving four to close the range to harass enemy aircraft. This was adequate, given that intent was to delay rather than destroy, especially as ECW craft were being detected at the edge of the Hugin's sensors. This was not a situation for a vanguard model airborne aircraft carrier and its complement to get bogged down in. The complement piloted through what remained of the Torch-net, while carefully distributing its unmanned fighters to defend the Gryphons as both systematically withdrew and retreated.

Meanwhile, two other signatures would be detected launching from the Hugin, inbound for Elba. No visible contrail, but a familiar electromagnetic displacement could be detected. The signature was similar to the Tesla, but the airspeed was well in excess to that on record. If the Wyverns were employing PII-based counter-detection suites, they would note that their computers detected that the unknown aircraft had passively scanned them with a gravimetrically-cued MRI-battery, originating surface undetermined in the object, but no weapons lock was detected alongside it. As the two objects passed them by, no interest would be paid to them assuming none of them opened fire. The objects were moving at close to Mach 3.5 as they spiraled by the Wyverns, paths coiling around one another. Shaped like seeds, these “Spiders” had coiled their legs into their primary section as they sped towards their destination. Attempts at penetrating scans would reveal nothing but a robust power output, indicating a larger version of the bus-type fusion plant that drove the H/G bits and their larger Charity-1 Type cousins, with other evidence indicating its Tesla heritage.



‘With all the noise going on outside, I think I’ll just play it safe for now…’

As if coming from her pores, the dark metal of the Lance began to cover the most delicate parts of her body. It spread centrifugally from those areas, giving Lina the full coverage of a suit. She grabbed Kaizer’s forest green cloak and threw it over her shoulders, and the proceeded to put the rest of her effects into a small burlap sack that hung off the bed post. She caught movement out of the corner of her left eye, and when she turned to face the interloper she stood staring back at a reflection of herself. She froze completely and took in the view, inch by inch. How ironic it all was that this close to the end, she’d be the one wearing the cloak of darkness. Kaizer would have been proud to see her now, if he were still alive. He may not have been her real father, but he was the one to raise her and teach her every pitiful thing she ever knew. She tossed the sack over her shoulder and lifted the green hood to cover her head. What was she even doing in this world anymore? Why was she even considering working another mission for the underground world created from the Mobius effect? Even more ironic was that she found herself in Elba. Where the shortest man in history ruled over most of Europe. The shorter the villain, the more they feel they have to prove perhaps.

There was one thing she hadn’t accomplished yet. Giving the chance to get whatever she wants, she knew most definitely what she would take as her reward.

Lina Haedan would likely be shaken by the shattering of windows throughout the Hotel Il Magnifique. The blast occurred more than a mile away, but the sheer magnitude of the blast resulting from the Wisp's 75mm magazine cooking off was still sufficient to rattle the hotel severely. Moments later, the Technorati were at her door, the taller one knocking on it.

“Mrs. Haedan, are you decent? That sound you heard is the enemy bogged down not far from here. We need to move out now. A more secure location is already prepared.”

Just as a devious smirk grew over her features, the glass to the windows blew in. Lina did not falter, she just stood, satisfied with the reflection staring back at her. She knew what she had to do now, and she would destroy the whole world to accomplish her one and only true desire. Knocking drew her attention towards the door.

“Alright.” She replied. The Dreadnoughts that had already been on sight had self-mustered to see them off.

“We'll cover your retreat, but only so far as seeing you back to the road. We didn't sign up to be peeled by the vultures out there.”

“Understood,” replied the taller Technorati.

“I expect you to make full use of cover and to merely lay down suppressing fire. I've no intention of ordering you to your deaths, even if I had the authority to do so.”

The regular closest to him nodded. “Hopefully that fellow with the mech finishes them before they even get here.” The Technorati nodded, sharing the man's desire for a quick ending to this nightmare. The Technorati advised their cargo to take cover in the cabin of the truck, putting one more barrier between her and potential gunfire. They had opened the gates on the side of the building opposite from which the action was occurring when the power went down, following a flash overhead, followed by a muffled pop. The other Dreadnought looked down his AUG's holographic sight, perplexed.

“What in blazes...?”

“It was an EMP,” explained the taller.

“Small, probably just a 40mm EPFCG. Enough to knock out your sights' batteries and that of our ride. Give them to me, quickly." He then glanced to his partner. The shorter Technorati nodded to him, opening the hood and placing a hand on either lead of the battery of the simple engine. A scarlet crackle reverberated as he felt out the displaced electron structure and set the balances to what they were before, the EMP having not been an especially powerful one and the engine reliably simple. His partner, in the meantime did the same with the Company Regular's weapons, using his abilities to locate and repair the damage done to the simple circuits. Johann wasn't having such an easy time, however. The EMP destroyed several transistors on his boards. Even if he'd had a Technorati of his own on hand to to fix them, it would have taken several hours to reverse the damage. One fortuitous feature of the design of his mech was that his systems were mostly otherwise immune to the tactic, elements of the "dirty drive" logic underpinning a lot of UniFold machinery having been incorporated into the Wisps internal structures. He could still maneuver just fine, his weapon systems were uninterrupted and he seemed to have most of his onboard sensors. Comms were on the fritz now, though, and his seismic beacons seemed to have gone silent. Whether it was permanent, he couldn't know. He switched to his rear camera for a moment.

"Good." Yes, the Technorati were making off with their guest. The stout one had fixed the truck, because now it was moving. It was currently driving away from the action, Johann between them an oncoming action, their guest presumably in tow. One thing that caught his eye that he didn't like, however, were the two Dreadnaught regulars forming up in a dried up storm drain, using the firm concrete for cover. He frowned, having no way to tell them off before they got their heads shot off. Of course, that was assuming the coalition death squad were aiming for them. Johann brought his attention to his forward sensors just in time to catch Arthur and the others scrambling into position. He floated backwards on the Wisp's air-cushion, placing himself between the truck and them as it hurried to get out of view; fortunately, the time found the streets nearby largely devoid of traffic. Thinking quickly, he deployed a flare, hoping to distract the attackers while attracting local authorities, the bright point of light hanging in the sky. Many of the nearby residents and visitors to the island were opening windows and coming out of doorways to loudly complain about the racket and now all their electronics going dead. He dare not open fire. There was a strong chance, here out of the hills, that he might hit something aside from the men he'd been fighting the last several minutes.

Thankfully, the two regulars seemed to get the same memo. Hopefully, the enemy was equally hesitant to openly engage. He noted he could see them in his infrared scope. This meant they weren't using the equipment they were before; had he destroyed it? On another note, Johann noted he had limited connectivity to one of his seismic sensors now. The enemy had attempted to fry both with one airburst. Like his mech, though, the modules had been designed to be more sturdy than that in ECW terms, and like the truck the susceptible circuits were relatively simple.

They were out of the building in no time at all, and Lina found herself climbing into the cabin of a truck. If only she had a nickel for every time she found herself riding in the back of a truck. Then she’d have two. She took a seat and made herself comfortable. Gods knew how long the ride was going to be.

The only question now, was who was so desperate for the help of the infamous Lina Haeden’s help?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Enjoy forums? Start your own community for free.
« Previous Topic · Cypress (Final) · Next Topic »
Add Reply

Theme CREEP Created by .Xstinct of GFXSouls.net
Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved
\ Free Domain Name .co.nr