Asteroid Blues

Infinity

Dungeons and ass-hats

300 POINTS
NA-2
CAPTAIN YURI
VS Ariadna
Ijin

Frontline vs TAK

A simple job my ass! Captain Yuri pulled her malfunctioning night vision goggles of her head. This piece of junk had been old even when Earth was the only home humanity knew.

“Dozer, it’s broken again!”

“Captain, have you tried turning it on and-“

Yuri punched in the direction of his voice, missed, probably by a lot but it at least made him shut it.

A simple job, her employer had said. Just an uneventful escort mission. Just see to it that Dr Ijin could access the deeper parts of the old tunnels beneath the Xarakn missile battery.

Why? Because he had to sample some exotic fungi down there.

Yuri had almost burst out laughing, fungi?

Well, it was his money.

Oh, and one more thing. No light, the fungi was highly sensitive to light and the good doctor needed sterile samples.

So there she was, stumbling along in the dark with equipment slightly less useful than an asshole in an armpit. She could hear her soldiers spread out around her but couldn’t see a damn thing.

“It’s working now, Captain.”

Yuri activated the googles and was greeted by the green, fuzzy world of ancient night vision tech. She could see but not great.

Not that there was much to see anyway. They were in a damp cavern that smelled of earth and ozone. Excavation had taken place here back in the days when the missile silos far above them were built. Thick bundles of cables vanished into the darkness. Probably power to the silos or something similar, she was no engineer and couldn’t care less.

A few metres ahead Dr Ijin was happy as a pig in the mud. Humming to himself as he studied a white stupid-looking mushroom through his much more advanced ocular device. He was a big guy with brown beard and smelled of expensive shampoo.

Yuri never trusted the well-groomed types.

“Done soon, doctor? This place is getting on my nerves.”

“Professor.” His voice was calm and smelled of synthetic mint. He sounded like the Scottish Ariadnas she met a few years earlier, only not drunk.

“What?” Her impatience was hard to miss.

“My title is actually Professor, I left the medical field a few years back. I shall require half an hour more on this site, soldier, and then we can move to the next cavern for a second test.”

“Captain.” Yuri’s voice was like ice. The kind you slipped and broke your neck on. She really hated smartasses.

“Huh?” He was caught off guard.

“My title is actually Captain, and I’m here to inform you that in fifteen minutes we leave this dark, ass-smelling cave with or without you.”

The professor sighed but made no other reply. Bullying academics always made Yuri feel better.

lothing accademics is standard for Yuri

The sound of something large moving right next to her made her draw her sidearm and spin around, but she relaxed as she saw the hulking shape of Mr Wolf.

He had been pacing back and forth in the cavern the whole time, he really didn’t like cramped places. A bummer when you’re three metres tall and almost as wide.

“Can you smell it, Captain?”

So many sarcastic answers popped into Yuri’s head so quickly she almost felt ill. A joke about his own body odour? A sarcastic remark? Dry humour mocking the doctors shampoo? Before Yuri reached a final verdict mr Wolf continued.

“Two hundred metres that way, a group of armed soldiers. They’re speaking Russian and are carrying a lot of weapons. One of them drank some damn fine vodka this morning.”

Yuri raised an eyebrow at Wolf but the well-rehearsed gesture was hidden behind the cumbersome goggles.

“Why the fuck would the O-12/Ariadna delegation send a squad to mess with us? We have filed all the right paperwork. We have permission to walk these tunnels and no one I brought has any outstanding warrants. I checked myself this morning!”

She had indeed checked every soldier handpicked for this assignment. Had she picked from her old Ikari soldiers no one would have been approved. A soldier without five to ten warrants for assault, drunken misconduct, petty theft, not so petty theft and petty arson was not a real Ikari soldier. Either theses Dahshat mercs concealed their crimes more carefully or they were just lesser soldiers, probably a bit of both, as far as Yuri was concerned.

But if her problem was not her soldiers, then what? Yuri eyed the doctor taking samples from a sickly looking fungus. Of course. She reached for her commlink.

“Gromoz, Yuri here. Run a crim search on our good doctor here, cross reference with crimes committed in the vodka heavy parts of Dawn. Hurry, we’re about to have company and I need answers.” With her crappy googles she could hardly see Gromoz on the far side of the cave.

“Yes, Captain, should only take a second. The Maya reception down here is crap, though.”

Five seconds ticked by on Yuri’s commlink, she really wanted out of this dark and damp hellhole.

“Ding! A goldmine, Captain! Doctor Ijin is wanted for murder, extortion and corruption in the Kazak parts of Ariadna nation. No bounty, but they want him bad, really bad. Also, he is not a professor, he is actually not even a real doctor.”

Yuri was angry and happy at the same time as she walked over to the doctor. He turned and looked at her just as she punched him in the kidneys as hard as she could. He went down like a wet sack of shit.

“Uuuuaaaarrrrroooo”, he gasped.

“We are leaving you here, ass hat. The Tartary army Corps will be here any minute and they’ll probably arrest you or kill you. I’m fine with either.” Her knuckles hurt a bit, she had really put her weight into that punch. Felt great.

She was just about to tun when Ijin managed to open his mouth again.

“You took my money”, he muttered though the pain.

“We sure did, had a contract and all. But you forgot to mention the extra risk we’d be taking. Going into an area controlled by Ariadna when you’re wanted by them. That ticks of box 48 in the contract’s fine print leaving it null and void. Please have your Geist read it to you as you are fed to the Antipodes.”

She turned, and prepared to either leave, or hear him say the magic words.

“I’ll triple the pay!”

Yuri was not superstitious, but some magic she believed in.

Who said CC under 20+ is worthless?

“All forces, this is Captain Yuri, we have a code red, I repeat: code red. Double hazard pay for anyone left standing after this assignment. An elite force of Kazaks are approaching and they must not take out our good customer professor Ijin.”

Yuri confirmed that the money from Ijin had reached her account before continuing.

“Mr Wolf, follow the smell of vodka and hit them, hard. Gromoz, you and the Rui Shi are the second wave. Follow Wolf closely and jump on any opportunity to punch through.

Assume every hiding hole is either mined or full of angry antipodes. Shotgun first and shout questions later. Move out!”

Yuri liked yelling orders and seeing soldiers jump to obey. She really didn’t have to shout as much to get things done in the Dahshat company as in her old Ikari one. Still, she missed the company of stupid Tanko brutes and sweet matcha cakes.

Elsewhere

Hacker specialist Gromoz was having a great day, double pay for hanging out behind that rather hot werewolf. She had synced her googles to the Rui Shi’s hyper advanced sensors, so to her there was no darkness, no secrets and nowhere to hide.

Behind her, Burt was stumbling along, loaded up to his ears with ammo.

“Think you got enough rounds, gramps? Your servos are protesting.”

He’s reply was strained from the weight. “No youngster, that’s my natural knees popping.”

Old Burt always made her smile. He was also a mean shot, although nowadays the trio mostly let the remote handle the shooting. Burt preferred it that way, since every death was a stain on his soul. Gromoz rarely thought about things like that.

Mr Wolf stopped and made a few fist signs that could mean exactly anything, but her internal database translation gave her a good idea. The enemy was close and Mr Wolf was about to engage.

Into the fray!

Gromoz slotted her attack programs into place. No need for defensive countermeasures when facing such low tech enemies. She over-clocked the remote and pushed its efficiency well into the red zone. They had about five minutes, give or take, before she needed to replace the crystal coils. Until then her remote was pure murder.

Mr Wolf ran in and they followed.

It was fucking carnage!

They instantly encountered firm resistance from camouflaged scouts and small arms fire. Mr Wolf went through these like a machete through butter. Hard and fast.

Anything or anyone trying to flank Mr Wolf was instantly vaporised by Gromoz’ lethal remote. The trio had to run to try and keep up with the bloodthirsty werewolf. The remote detected, analysed and terminated targets left and right. Every shot was a kill, no survivors.

In her commlink Gromoz heard Burt pray for the lost but he dutifully fed more ammunition into the murder machine.

It was a glorious fight!

The remote was almost on the point of overheating when they reached the great brawl. Mr Wolf was standing on a mountain of corpses outside an rusty cargo container. He was wrestling with three huge special forces soldiers who tried stay away from his lethal claws and get a clear shot in with their pistols. There was blood everywhere, and the fight moved far too quick to follow with unaugumented eyes.

Gromoz dumped the remote’s mobility core, rendering it a sitting duck but giving her valuable seconds before the coils would blow. Wolf needed her now.

TARGET LOCK 26%

Mr Wolf tock two shots to the chest, but didn’t slow down in the least as he tore an arm from the socket. The stench was horrible, raw and moist.

TARGET LOCK 59%

OVERHEATING IMMINENT

The largest soldier threw dirt in the werewolf’s eyes, levelled her shotgun at his head, and said a one liner in Russian. Gromoz didn’t have memory capacity to translate.

TARGET LOCK 100%

EXECUTING

OVERHEATI.....

The Rui Shi emptied its magazines into the brawl just as the shotgun roared. Blood splattered the rusty container, and warning signs from the malfunctioning remote flashed before her eyes. Then darkness. Gromoz googles were still synced to the overheating remote, so she tore them of.

“Burt, light!”

The old man in power armor activated his shoulder mounted flashlight and the horrible scene was revealed.

Not Mr Oinkerz!

Nine dead enemy soldiers in various states of dismemberment. Most were torn to pieces, a few shredded by the grenades Mr Wolf carried in his bandolier. The one with the shotgun and dirty tricks had died to pinpoint accurate fire from the remote, but she had not gone down alone.

Mr Wolf was bleeding from a massive hole in his neck. Even his abnormal werewolf metabolism struggled with a trauma this severe.

Gromoz activated her commlink.

“Captain, Wolf is down. It looks bad. He need a med-evac double fast or he’s gonna need a brand new head.”

“Gromoz, this is Captain Yuri. We have secured the field, hold fast. Medic is on the way. Try to keep Mr Wolf alive until he gets there.”

Gromoz looked at the size of the hole in Wolf’s neck. What was she supposed plug that with? Her boot?

“Understood, Captain.”

In the end she and Burt salvaged enough bandages from the dead but well prepared enemies to keep the bleeding beast alive until the medic could work his magic.

The Rui Shi needed maintenance and she needed to wipe the blood of her grimy boots. Hard to say if this was worth double pay but it sure didn’t hurt.

“Let’s hit the road, gramps, I’m buying the first round at Harry’s.”

The old man nodded. “The road home is always easier, partly because you always spend the ammo I carry to the fight.”

“Is that from the good book, old man?”

He laughed. “Modern interpretation, youngster.”

End

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