A woman coughed and said, "Sir, second battalion and the rest of the HQ elements are down. Pathfinder company that jumped in are engaging with some local criminal elements right now, with the assistance of a few local intel assets. A few were wounded, but no KIA yet. We're using the stadium field for dustoff flight ops for casevac, and we should have the local area pacified shortly. No response from the city government or local constabulary as of yet."
Colonel Hansen glanced out of a window at more than a dozen heavy transport aerodynes and helicopters sitting in neat rows on the football pitch, "And why the fuck am I looking at almost an entire god-damned aviation battalion without my fucking soldiers on the wire guarding them with heavy weapons and AD? One fucking kamikaze swarm and we'd lose all those fucking assets. Major, you need to pull the stick out."
The woman shrugged, "Teams are in position, but the heavy weapons and man-portable air defence systems were considered a second priority by the CAB CO. We should have them within the hour, though. For now, I have shifted e-war specialists to the roof with their gear. We'll have a warning, and with luck, they'll be able to infiltrate and disable any drones spotted."
"For fucks sake," the Colonel growled, but he couldn't take it out on anyone here. It was some fucking asshole sticking their dick into his cheerios and fucking up his assault plan. He was borrowing the aviation assets from someone else, so they weren't technically in his chain of command. Suddenly, he grinned, "Major, find out when the last flight is going to leave. Make sure at least six of those AV-8s stay behind. I don't give a shit about their pilots, and they can go back with the rest. We have enough qualified pilots in our HQ element to operate them."
"Sir, the brigade CO will have kittens," she said warningly, "Plus, those birds are all obvious Army assets, with NUS ARMY stencilled on the side. The few AVs we got for this operation were purchased on the civilian market. We're supposed to be incognito, after all, sir, right?"
He waved a hand, "I don't give a fuck! We're not in the Army again until this op is done, and he doesn't even outrank me. He'll bitch to his CO, and I'll get it in the ass from mine, but they'll understand. They only gave us fucking four AVs for a battalion, and they're all fucking unarmed. Major, get it done, but don't let them get any warning. Otherwise, Colonel Buttfuck will shaft us somehow. Get some fucking spray paint to cover over the Army markings before we operate in the city with them. It's just supposed to be a figleaf, anyway. Everyone knows who we are, and we know that they know, and they know that we know that they know. " He paused at the end as if the level of recursion there confused him for a moment, but then he nodded to himself.
"Yes, sir. Next item, we have an intel update on the situation on the ground, as well," she said. The Colonel made a 'get on with it' hand motion, which she nodded and pulled up an overhead map display, "There is a new player in the north of Pacifica. S-2 is waffling over their confidence rating whether it is a gang or a paramilitary group." The map highlighted an area of a few blocks centred on a ten-story building, "This is the Siren's Call Amusements, a braindance parlour."
The Colonel took in the situation rapidly and seemed annoyed, "You are the fucking S-2. You know I hate it when you talk in the third person. That's not in our planned AO, either-they will be 1 ID's problem. Why do I need to know about a new gang centred around one building?"
She nodded, "Anomalies. They don't appear to be acting like a traditional gang. The building was purchased by an unknown local party, so they aren't squatting like everyone else. Intel sources suggest that the same shell company purchased a half million Eurodollars worth of military surveillance and combat drones from two foreign Corps, two-thirds of which are still yet to be delivered. They hired a switched-on mercenary company for little more than keeping the peace around their building... Lastly, and this is the most suspicious-they are paying all of their bills, electric and net access, on time. Oh, and the entire gang consists of full-body cyborgs, and this is the leader."
A high-definition video played of an obvious Dragoon full-body replacement stepping out into a street, glancing at an approaching mob of rabble before the MG attached to its shoulder riddled every single one of them with bullets. Surprisingly, the Dragoon then conversed with a few armed men and then walked casually back down the street. The Colonel whistled appreciatively, "Don't see many of those fuckers anymore. How can that be the leader? Most Dragoons can barely fucking say their own name, much less think tactically, heavens forbid... logistically." The idea that a full-time Dragoon user would have the brain cells to pay their electricity bill was ridiculous. There were only a handful of men like that in the world.
"Unknown, sir. The red book has a Dragoon on the level of a feral guard dog-albeit a feral dog that can annihilate a full company if not taken seriously, so I was a bit curious, too," his subordinate replied, referencing the NUSA Army guidebook on expected threats and how to counter them.
He nodded, "Okay, good to know. Major, make sure at least two of those AVs we acquire have a full load-out of AGMs. Bonus points if they are the thermobaric ones. Just in case."
The Colonel had a straightforward philosophy about what the most effective way to clear a building full of deadly Borgs was, and it usually involved guided 175mm artillery shells delivered from at least thirty klicks away.
That wasn't going to be on the cards this time, so he would have to make do. He continued, "And start a new file on them. Gang, my ass. If they're paramilitary, who is funding them and to what end? Are they more fucking advisors from the far east? Hopefully, it won't be our fucking circus or our fucking monkeys, but it'll be my ass if they end up surprising the brass during the invasion."
It was the Colonel's private opinion that the war would have been over a long time ago if not for a ridiculous number of scarily competent military advisors that the Free States had, who suspiciously always looked Slavic or Japanese. The fact that half the war material utilised by the Free States was foreign in origin was also a big clue.
"Alright, anything else?" he asked, finally.
She shrugged, "The ROWPUs and FKUs are being driven in for some ungodly reason. But I've already dispatched a platoon from Charlie company to meet them at the edge of the city. Otherwise, those drivers would be murdered and the precious cargo stolen."
The Colonel sighed. The mobile reverse osmosis water purification units and field kitchenery units were a priority if he didn't want a mutiny. Nobody knew if they could trust the water here, after all, and the food had always been questionable. Still, there were some kitchens available in the half-built stadium that they could use if worse came to worse.
"Fine. Now, let's be about it," he concluded the briefing.
About The Same Time
Pacifica, Night City
Pacifica Serenity Bible Church
The woman who called herself Marie Antoinette returned to one of the headquarters of the movement. They had taken over a mostly built but abandoned church that had been intended to serve the spiritual needs of a resort that would never exist. The location was prime, located right over one of the district's main network access junctions.
There had never been a sermon spoken in this place, and in her opinion, it was a little ironic that they used a place of dead, sterile spirituality as a base-their own gods were dead, too, after all.
Another woman in a very similar form-fitting netrunner's one-piece met her amongst the pews.
"Well, you're still alive, Marie," another woman said affably, "We thought the worst when you dropped off the net, ya?"
Marie sighed and nodded. She wasn't precisely sent as a sacrificial offering, but she volunteered for the task, knowing it was possible she would never walk out of that building alive. She almost hadn't.
Even before she entered the building, she had noticed that the local subnet was locked down tight as a drum, with no exterior wireless access points activated at all. The jammers had taken her by surprise, and her first instinct was to hack the nearest available device to create a proxy via the building's hardwired connection. That had been a mistake, one that nearly killed her.
Thinking about the dangerous entity that had threatened her, Marie shook her head before saying, "I think we'll have to change our plan. If they're crazy, then it is like the fox, no?"
"Tell me more. I just finished a deep dive into their subnet after we lost contact. I managed to infiltrate beyond some rather tight security, but there wasn't really much to see, beyond a half dozen people playing Adam Online and Elflines," the woman said, sounding amused but also concerned, "All of their security systems and some of those large aerial drones we saw must not be connected directly to the net."
That wouldn't always stop a good runner like Brigette, but there wasn't a lot you could do if the goodies were on a separate air-gapped system, assuming you couldn't compromise a vending machine and then use that as a bridge for a direct wireless attack. Things were a lot more interconnected these days, but high-level net running against private subnets generally still required physical penetration or suborned access.
Nobody was going to volunteer to sneak into that building. She hadn't even been brave enough to "accidentally" drop a battery-powered proxy bridge, which they might have been able to use once the jammers were deactivated. She had thought about it before but decided against it. She had barely even seen that giant monstrosity move before he had a sword of all fucking things to her throat.
Almost as startling was the quality and quantity of ICE protecting the giant Dragoon. When she had started hacking it, it had been a reflex, but she had followed through when she had realised what she was doing. The giant borg wasn't a surprise; they had been seeing him off and on for weeks. But his cyber warfare suit was. She had used a number of alleged IEC vulnerabilities. It had been decades since they had last been updated, so one would think that it would have worked, but it hadn't, which meant his firmware had been updated in a custom manner.
She took a breath while packaging up the BD she had scrolled through the whole encounter. She'd explain, then Brigette could watch her virtu. They might still be able to get some use out of this gang, but not how they originally planned.
January 2068
Gallileo Cylinder
L-3, Terra-Luna System
I landed a straight punch on the chin of the second assailant, and with my enhanced strength, I shattered his jaw and rendered him unconscious. He froze in a classic fencer's pose that indicated a serious concussion, and the hypervelocity pistol in his hand dropped to the deck. I kicked it away and turned to the first guy who had attempted to momentarily distract me with a knife, but he had his hands up and yelled, "I didn't know about any guns! He just paid me to distract you."
Ah, this guy was smart then. I nodded slightly and walked over to pick up the pistol, never turning my back or letting myself get too far from the guy I was guarding. Already, local voluntary constables were rushing over. After all, the second guy had fired a gun, and it penetrated the bulkhead. There was a loud hissing as the atmosphere was escaping into the void. I handed the pistol to the first responding constable and went back to the guy I was being paid to guard.
I had lived here long enough that this was fighting the immediate instinct to rush with a patch kit and stop the pressure emergency. We all liked to breathe up here, but a savvy assassin could use a double fake-out like that, so it was important to stick with my principal, even if I was a bit annoyed with him. This was supposed to be a simple job that I was using to get time to go to the Crystal Palace. In fact, we were leaving today.
While space wasn't entirely safe, it was a lot safer than most cities back on Earth. So crime, especially assassination attempts on foreign visitors, were quite rare. The guy I had laid out was a groundsider as well. I could tell from his clothes, especially his shoes.
I helped my guy to his feet in time to be approached by one of the constables, still putting his official brassard around his arm. He said imperiously, in a thick Nigerian accent, "Woman! What's all this about then?"
I had no doubt that they had video surveillance, but still, I shrugged and pointed to the guy they were dragging away, "He tried to shoot this gentleman, who I was hired to guard. The local claims he was paid to distract me."
The man nodded, ejected the magazine on the pistol and held it up, shaking his head, "Full-metal jacket. Not even frangible, ja ?" He glanced at the guy who had the knife and said, "Bill, take that guy back for questioning." He then made a humming noise and, with a Gallic shrug, said, "Okay, I don't need anything else." Justice up here was very simple, especially in this case.
I escorted the groundsider back to the hotel, and he asked, "What are they going to do with that fucker who almost shot me?"
I glanced at him sideways, "If he just had attempted to kill you with a knife, or maybe even if it was just frangible ammo... he'd have been fined. But he used armour-piercing ammunition inside the hab, causing a pressure emergency. He'll be deported. Immediately."
The man seemed shocked and offended, "Is that fucking all? I need to get his name so I can fix his wagon when he gets back planetside."
I shook my head wryly, "You misunderstand. He will be immediately deported and without the benefit of a pressure suit. We take breathing up here pretty serious-like."
Comprehension flashed on the man's face, and emotions quickly traversed from shocked, surprised, to gleeful. He nodded, satisfied and amused, "No long appeals process up here, eh?"
I shook my head. There were no prisons at all. If you violated the law, you were fined. If you couldn't pay the fine, you had the option of accepting what amounted to a period of indentured servitude, or they would ship you back to Earth. Except for a few crimes, like intentionally or through reckless negligence damaging the life support systems or causing a pressure emergency in public cubic-that was the death penalty. I said, amused, "Justice delayed is justice denied, and all that."
"What if an innocent man gets accused of a serious crime like that?" he asked, curious.
