Asteroid Blues

Faisal stood atop crouched in cover, keeping his breathing steady and his mind focused. He always felt the fear worse shortly before battle was met. He had never fought Aleph and felt strangely guilty at the thought of confronting mankind’s protectors. Orders were however orders, that data stack needed to be destroyed before it was loaded up.

“GO”

On his word McMurrough let out that chilling howl and charged down the allyway, even as he took fire he accurately threw a smoke grenade.

“Are you good Terlach?” Not McMurrough, never call him MucMurrough. The ex-clansman was ashamed of the name.

Terlach’s voice synthesiser growled over the comms “Took one to ma’h leg boss, ah’m good. Three contacts. One sniper one hmg and I dunno, one more”.

“Take five. Chi, you are up”

“On it boss”

The cocky but skilled operator moved his Ru Shi out of cover and with it the two Kazak bounty hunters, Li Wan the Zuyong and the kid hacker Gromez in tow. Three lots of five bursts later and the allyway was quiet.

“Think we are good boss”.

“Terlach get the stack but be careful”

Faisal knew McMurrough had a burning need to prove himself and his loyalty to the company. It made him reckless and although the Galwegian warrior was tough, he wasn’t immortal.
McMurroughs wound made his run into a lopsided skip but it didn’t slow the old dog down. Through his chestcam Faisal saw him draw his trademark sword and in three strikes smash the chest to pieces. McMurrough froze and Faisal heard him sniff. Faisal had known McMurrough long enough to know that he was about to do something altruistically suicidal

“Pull back Terlach”

”Sorry boss, a’h smell an ambush”

“TERLACH HOLD!”

Too late, Faisal saw a posthuman and what looked like a hired gun. The crack-hiss of chain munitions crackled the sound feed. Even after that barrage both enemy were still remaining. Faisal swore he could hear whistling.
Then the gunfire. McMurrough was suddenly face down and immobile, the whistling came closer.
The allyway was a flurry of activity. Eclipse grenades detonated in sucession, causing panic amongst Li-Wan’s fireteam.

“Chi?”

“I can’t see boss. Hey can you hear whistling? Wait, I got him”.

The Ru Shi suddenly want dark. Faisal heard Chi groan over comms, the operator would hafve experienced feedback and likely be having a nosebleed.

“Chi anti-colags, don’t want you stroking out”

“yes boss, sorry boss”

“Boss its Machaon, its f***ing Machaon”

Li-Wan was both exited and terrified in the brief moments before she was gunned down.
More smoke, more carnage as the mad doctor cut and shot his way through the team. Gromez was sobbing, Yuri was screaming in pain. Then he could hear it with his own ears, the whistling. Machaon was around the corner.

“Everyone co ordinate fire. Follow my tracer, in your own time, FIRE”

Faisal broke cover and fired full auto at the shimmering form that was Machaon. Gromez was firing wildly from the floor and the remaining Bounty Hunter Maria joined in.

After the smoke cleared Machaon was down, riddled with bullets.

“Mission accomplished, well done everyone. Get a perimeter around Terlach while he heals and someone get Li-Wan’s cube”.

Faisal looked at the carnage Machaon had caused just to be sure he walked to the mad doctors now useless body and shot it once more in the head. Xai Lau the Zencher, a new addition to the unit pipped three times on comms to confirm that he had secured the second objective.

Faisal heard a crash behind him and a patter off footfalls in the rain.

“Lau pull back, think we got a drop troop trying to flank us”.

As he planned the next move Faisal whistled a tune.