Asteroid Blues

"This is ridiculous!” Shinji Ng, president of Kitsune News 5 shouted as he slammed his fist into his broad mahogany desk. “What kind of amateurs are you sending out there?”

He was, of course, referring to Adam Tangle, the rookie Warcor sent with the local Ikari forces for their propaganda campaign. Tangle was the interim replacement for Kisha Katayotta – interim in the sense that they were working on getting Kisha’s cube loaded into a new Lhost with a new identity to play off the sympathy angle for as long as possible.

Tangle had been deployed with Lieutenant Makiko’s squad in their standard ‘arrangement’, but didn’t even make it a day in the field.

“Honestly, if you can’t even be trusted to find competent camera jockeys that can keep their heads down, then what am I even paying you for?” he lets out a long sigh, visibly calming himself. “What even happened to the kid?”

Daiyokai Yusuf Nakayama was all too familiar with the jammer technology wielded by the infuriating Ghazi Muttawiah of Haqqislam. Their orders were clear, infiltrate the Jiyuan Pit Operational Hub, then take control by force. Along the way they were to implant a tracker in a high ranking Haqqislamite politician to help the Japanese nation keep tabs on their would-be ally’s movements within Novyy Bangkok. Lieutenant Makiko had been her usual perky self when relaying the orders earlier that day, and was equally enthused to introduce the new “accuracy correspondent” Tangle from Kitsune News. Nakayama remembered thinking he really wasn’t up for baby-sitting duty.

Luckily, that didn’t matter so much anymore. Tangle had been shot clean through the head by a high velocity round from a Lasiq sniper. Nakayama was fairly certain is was a Lasiq, because before his body even touched the ground, Tangle’s head was a mushy pulp as the live virus began to eat away all traces of bio material.

As for Nakayama, while he was tasked with controlling the right flank and pushing up to secure the right-hand objective, he had no intention of running straight into the jammer net of a couple of the Ghazis. Locked down and jostling for a clean shot, he had to wait until Yojimbo was able to clear the path.

Although Kitsune News is tradionally pretty good at filtering their footage to capture the Ikari in the best light, they still had to be on their best behavior to ensure no rogue footage got out. With Tangle down for the count, that was no longer a concern.

As Nakayama broke from cover to secure the right flank, he could see the two Yuan Yuan psychopaths running full tilt at the enemy. The first fell in an exchange of chain rifle death to a Ghazi, and the second engaged Tariq Mansuri, only to die in a haze of nanopulsar particles.

The fire base core of the division was not fairing much better. As a Rajik dropped in behind their lines, they found themselves pinned between a close range shotgun, and the overwatch of multiple HMGs and the Lasiq.

While nearly breaking into an all-men-for-themselves free-for-all, Nakayama and Makiko knew that they could still scrounge some semblance of progress out of this mess. Akima – the strictly off-the-books Ninja – didn’t need to be so subtle without the aerocam drifting overhead. He successfully grabbed a package from the right flank and retreated into the shadows.

Under cover of Nakayama and Makiko, Dr Shue ran up the field to intercept the Haqqislamite politician. Not the most subtle approach, but he succeeded in his ploy of appearing to conduct an assassination while successfully implanting the tracker. For his work, the good doctor was rewarded with a hail of HMG fire, shredding him in an instant.

“That’s one way to earn your hazard pay,” Nakayama mumbled to himself, as he held the rearguard. The remaining Ikari troops retreating back to their base of operations at the entrance to the Jiyuan Pit.