Asteroid Blues

Indirah spat with disgust into the dust of the abandoned souk deep within Novyy Bangkok’s Gallery Maze. Her high end Lhost normally didn’t have that capability, due to its clean metabolism, but she had gotten the mods that produce saliva installed on her own, for occasions just like this one.

It wasn’t the area that she was disgusted with, however. The abandoned Haqqislamite architecture was still incredible to behold, despite apparent years of disuse, and the thick coating of dust on every surface did little to obscure the graceful curves, tall spires, and artfully carved parapets of each building, which seemed to flow almost organically out of the pale stone found within the Gallery Maze.

No, Indirah was disgusted with herself. Twice, so far, she had been in command of missions on Novyy Bangkok, and twice her missions had ended in failure. The fact that her team’s first mission on this forsaken asteroid had been a training exercise did little to take the sting of failure away, especially when it had been the exact same Ariadnan that had taken her down in the following covert investigation action, when the stakes were the highest. She also couldn’t ignore the expense. The typical Asura body cost roughly the same as the GDP of a small country, and she had gotten one shot to pieces after less than a week on station.

Her superiors had been so displeased with her performance, that she had been given a body that was ten years out of date when she was called up for this mission. It was…serviceable, at best. She'd had to frantically scramble in the hours before the operation’s start to get a few of the most basic custom mods she was used to having in her Lhosts. The only nagging problem was the left hip actuator of this body, which occasionally emitted a soft whine while moving at speed, and she could feel a slight shuddering vibration as it moved. Hopefully, if this op was successful, she would be granted the cutting edge body she knew she was entitled to.

She shook herself and gazed out at the empty buildings once more. Command had seen fit to task her with a new team, and a routine patrol, deep into the heart of the Gallery Maze. With rumors of Shasvastii infiltration burning through the Sphere’s datanet like wildfire, it would be advantageous to find some actual Combined Army operatives to kill. Or, conversely, it would be nice to have a quiet, uneventful patrol, she thought to herself.

“Axton.” Indirah said wordlessly over the datastream connecting the team

“Ma’am?” The Shukra answered. He had removed the paraphernalia of a Yadu and had resumed his role as her second in command for this patrol.

“Multi-spectral is having difficulty cutting through all the dust and chaff floating in the air. Are you picking up anything through the biometric?” Indirah asked.

“One moment. Piggybacking on local camera feeds.” Axton replied

There was a pause for a few moments.

“Confirmed. Movement on the right flank. Designation unknown. Size is…large. It seems to have some kind of active thermal masking, I’m only picking up the faint outline of it as it moves forward.”

“Dakini team, prepare for engagement.” Indirah ran a quick check on the remote team’s data protocols, and set them to be autonomously defensive, turning the group of five into a hardened firebase in their elevated positions.

“I am assuming direct control.” The Apsara Kashvi intoned, transferring her consciousness to the Dakini armed with a sniper rifle, and using its senses to actively survey the area.

“Target confirmed. Running IFF sequence…Target designated Xeodron…wait…there are two moving up the right flank, both have similar heat masking. There is a smaller mass of darkness moving along with them…suspected Umbra controller.” Kashvi relayed calmly.

Indirah stifled a shudder as her emotional dampers clamped down, purging her mind of fear, trepidation, fight or flight, and excitement, and replacing it with the calm clarity of cold machine logic.

""Kashvi, the right flank is yours." she stated "Do not let them past."

"Affirmative." Kashvi replied evenly, and the entire right flank of the ALEPH battle line erupted in gunfire.

"Target is nearing suboptimal range." Kashvi reported, punctuated by the slow, steady report of a high caliber sniper rifle. "I am switching to heavy machine gun platform."

The Dakini designated as Support-H43.a messaged the datastream. "Target designate Umbra approaching, severe risk to combat chassis imminent."

A final round from the sniper rifle brought the lead Xeodron down, its head disappearing in a fountain of shattered armor plates and gore.

"Assuming control." Kashvi replied

As her vision shifted to the Dakini team member closest to the approaching Combined forces, a billowing mass of shadow resolved in front of her. Sinister, glowing armor plates glinted unnaturally in the dim light, and in it's hand, the Umbra held an arrangement of wickedly sharp serrated blades. Kashvi willed the Dakini to bring it's combi-rifle up to a firing position, as the Umbra drew it's arm back to throw the strange weapon.

"Engaging." Kashvi said coolly, and the soft pop of the Dakini's rifle was almost lost beneath the staccato bursts of heavy machinegun and red fury fire echoing through the souk.

"Target is down." She reported, a moment later "Remaining target continuing to advance."
Indirah watched as the vitals for one of her Dakini winked out, it's position raked by high velocity rounds from a red fury weapon.

"Switching back to heavy weapon platform." Kashvi said, and Indirah noted the undertone of pain in the Apsara's voice. As useful as it was to piggyback on the visual and auditory feeds of the soldiers under her command, she knew full well that it took a different type of mind entirely to be able to project one's full consciousness into a different body on a whim, and assume full control. One of the drawbacks of assuming full control was having to deal with physical sensory feedback. Indirah gave Kashvi's vitals a quick glance. They were within acceptable levels, but starting to deteriorate. Indirah doubted the Apsara could remain in control of the entire Dakini team for more than ten minutes longer.

Kashvi jumped into the machine gun-armed Dakini and had the whole team redeploy away from the approaching Xeodron. Sprinting down a nearby ladder, the agile remote slid to a stop behind its unmoving, battle-damaged teammate, and leveled the barrel machine gun at the torso of the nearing TAG.

"Eradication protocols engaged." Kashvi said, through gritted teeth, as rounds bounced off the Dakini's frame, and began tearing through the corner of the nearby building.

At this close range, she almost didn't have to aim.

The heavy rounds from the machine gun sent the lead Xeodron staggering, black ichor spurting from half a dozen holes in its armored carapace. It collapsed onto the ground a moment later with a grunt, and lay, unmoving, in a spreading pool of liquid.

"Right flank secure." Kashvi reported, the strain evident in her voice "Switching team to automated protocols, beginning sweep and clear."

The Combined Army advance had been halted, but there were still enemies on the field, and they showed no signs of fleeing.

"Airborne assault package, you are cleared to deploy and engage." Indirah said, calling in the Garuda she had brought along on the mission. Despite being in a cave network deep within Novyy Bangkok, she though the high speed remote would prove useful, and had sent it on a wide, sweeping path to outflank any hostiles they happened to encounter on their patrol."

A green indicator winked on in her vision, as the Garuda wordlessly acknowledged her order.

On the far side of the souk, near the area where Indirah suspected the remaining Combined forces were holed up, the scream of a turbine engine announced the arrival of the Garuda. Though normally reserved for slowing its descent through atmosphere, the engine could also provide a surprisingly unexpected burst of speed to the combat remote.

The Garuda crashed through a decorative planter, scattering dried leaves and twigs in its wake, as it barreled up the field, blindly shooting its spitfire into the area the teams combat awareness software predicted the Combined Army forces were most likely to be.

The combat awareness software had gotten the location right, but it failed to take into account the fact that the Combined Army soldiers had been allowed time to dig in and fortify their position, and the Garuda was, in fact, hurtling towards a wall of readied guns. The answering fire from a Unidron's spitfire sheared off one of the Garuda's legs, and sent it careening into the wall of a building.

Indirah grunted in acknowledgement as another one of her team's status indicators winked out in her HUD.

"Devas, with me." Indirah ordered "We end this now."

Indirah and her pair of Deva's began a slow walk up the battlefield, their weapons leveled, laying down a withering hail of fire as they advanced on the remaining Combined Army forces.

"Scirocco, use active sensors. to root out any infiltrators. Daksha, take that row of planters. I will move to that doorway-"

It was at that moment that the faulty hip actuator in Indirah's body decided to fail completely, its normally soft whine suddenly increasing in pitch and volume, as the joint fused itself together and then shattered while she was in mid-stride, sprinting up the field. Indirah didn't even have time to curse, as her leg buckled beneath her, and several spitfire rounds from the Combined Army's Unidron sentry slammed into her torso.

She looked down in disbelief at the blood rapidly darkening her clothes.

"No..." was all she was able to say as she collapsed in a heap.

"Continue the press." Axton's voice came over the comm "Daksha, take the lead."

Daksha had been caught in the open as when Indirah fell, with no easily available cover nearby. She looked down the field and saw the Unidron had her clearly in its sights, and was moments away from pulling the trigger.

Her body seeming to move in slow motion, Daksha frantically activated her last line of defense, the anti-aggression, crowd dispersal, and intimidation protocols her body was equipped with.

Her eyes flared a brilliant, incandescent red, bathing the area in sudden, stark, jagged patches of light and shadow. Her jaw unhinged, and dropped down to her chest, widening and lengthening to become the cone of a megaphone-esque speaker, as her thickly corded hair began to whip back and forth like the snakes of the Medusa, borne on a wind that seemed to effect only Daksha. As she raised her rifle to fire, a battery of sonic amplifiers within her chest sprung to life, and she began emitting a sound like the wail of a thousand frightened animals mixed with the crashing boom of an avalanche.

To Daksha's immense surprise, and despite the Unidron having wholly inhuman sensory apparatus, the sonic assault and light display achieved the intended purpose, smashing into the Combined Army remote like a physical blow, and causing it to flinch back, granting Daksha the extra second she needed to pull the trigger.

The Unidron was annihilated utterly.

Daksha kept emitting the crashing, keening wail, and kept the trigger pulled, until her spitfire ran dry and clicked on an empty chamber, the indicator in her HUD telling her that she was out of ammunition a moment later.

"Well shit..." was all Axton could think to say, as he watched Daksha's face reassemble itself into some semblance of humanity.

"Dakini team, Devas, status of sweep and clear?" he sent over the comm a moment later.

"Zone secured." Came the matter-of-fact reply of one of the Dakinis, as the sounds of gunfire slowly faded from the area. "Combined Army presence terminated. Suspect one enemy operative successfully cleared the A.O."

"Very well. We return to HQ for debriefing. High Command and O-12 need to know what happened here."

As the Dakini paramedic busied itself cutting out the cubes of the fallen combatants, Axton allowed himself to feel a moment of dread.

This had not been a clandestine group of Shasvastii infiltration elements, these were operatives of the elite Onyx Contact Force, and they had made it this deep into Novyy Bangkok with heavily armed and armored assault units, despite the actions of the entire Human Sphere. He shuddered to think what other elements of the Combined Army were waiting in the depths of the asteroid for the order to strike.