Asteroid Blues

Myongsun took a moment to wash his face and gather his composer. He had been leading Kuang-Shi for years but leading a team was different. The relationship between Kuang-Shi and controller made one forget the normal tools of command. The ways of being feared and liked in just the right mix to build respect.

He could remember the first Paradiso offensive where he had first met Yu-wen. Amidst the horrors of the assault on district 19 he had walked into the overwhelming chaos and created a calm that pushed it back.
Shame it ended the way it did for him. Myongsun used to think time would heal the Hsien's wound, but he had been trailing him for years now in his pseudo-exile.

Drying his face carefully -nothing worse than a damp helmet- he caught his own eyes in the mirror. 'Would I follow me?' he held the gaze for a moment and tried to make them commanding, penetrating -like jin Yu-wen's always were- but they just seemed cold. Cold and tired
.
He checked all the straps on his armour and gear quickly, tucked his helmet under his arm and strode out the bathroom as he approached the entryway where his troops were waiting for him he put on a confident stride and walked into view while placeing his helmet on his head.

He intended to say something motivating but in the end “lets move” was all he could conjure.

His tactical visor showed him the route they needed to take as well as the location of the bio-dome's emergency vehicles. With the excuse precaution and with the intent of practice, Myongsun set routes for his squad to follow to avoid ambush and set up flanking maneuvers to counter an attack that he knew would not come. Not yet at least.

With his mind focused on the retinal controls he almost missed the small flash of bright colour on the dusty floor. He almost left it as it was a few strides out of his way, but then he realized what it was. The odd little toy Hu-Wen's daughter had given him back on Paradiso. Hu-Wen would not just want this, he needed it.

He slipped it into his gear an set out to the garage then in pursuit of the Speculo's tracker. The lost little shishi doll got him think about who he had ended up unseen and unknown at the edge of the galaxy.

After the first Paradiso offensive Hu-Wen had requested that Myongsun be assigned to his specialist team that at first hunted for CA agents as their skills at infiltration became apparent, and morphed into a capture, research and interrogation in more and more unusual locations that the trail took them on.

It seemed ideal for Hu-Wen’s personal problems and the hunt had been going on years now.
After the Wotan gate attacks, the team had been performing unsanctioned searches on random small vessels used for trading of dubious legality.

The tactics had proved effective. Most ships opted to accept the searches over risking blowing a hole in their own hulls with small arms fire. Those that did fight normally did so via their ships weapons.

It was an interesting role as far as military service goes, but it was not the path to promotion that Myongsun had first thought it would be when a Hsien requested him personally. Their work was largely unseen and unknown despite its effectiveness at tracing avenues of infiltration back towards the sources.
It was a path that had lead to them spending the past few months going after vessels leaving Novy Bangkok spaceport with some interesting results. Now they were as close as the could come to that shithole without some serious back up.

The Speculo's trail had indeed lead to one of the occupied habitat domes for the Jiyuang mine workers. As they entered Myongsun was joined by a Su-Jian and a Sophotec and Dakini who would be able to assist in weeding out the Shavastti agent.

A more comprehensive ISS force was being organized at ISS undercover base at the facility, but it would take more time than they had.

After presenting his credentials -and a few of Hu-Wen’s- Myongsun took charge of the security forces in the dome and proceeded to layout a plan of action. The area the Sophotect seemed to be going to ground in was a residential zone an had a few more hours of it's daylight shift so it was currently void of most of its inhabitants who were at work in the mine.

The plan was I move in and immediately follow the hull rupture protocol that would set the large isolation barriers off and trigger evacuation to the underground sections of the habitat.
Myongsun’s team would start in the vacancy of the underground access point and scan the remaining civilians with biometric visors. They would catch the Speculo or know it was trapped in the zone a sweep for it.

The first steps of the plan had gone smoothly the barriers were up and the evacuation alarms had sounded. A majority of the civilians had been scanned and cleared with no one suspecting anything beyond some over zealous safety precautions.

Myongsun took a moment to check the domes scanners to see how many civilians were left in the zone. It was then that he noticed they had been cut off. He tried calling the control hub. No response.

He knew in his gut things were going south. It was time to be take the initiative and be more aggressive in finding the Speculo before anything else went down.

The Su-Jian was the first to be sent forward to do a rapid sweep of the area to determine the best routes his team could take to eliminate the possibility fake civilians.

Movements after he set off the sound of gunfire and explosives echoed through the zone.
Switching to the Su-Jian's vision for a second Myongsun was able to identify an Aleph presence. Panic erupted among the civilians. It was time to move fast.

Myongsun ordered the dakini forward to start cleaning civilians and directing them to the evacuation point, but the Aleph tec seemed to be malfunctioning. Just when he was thinking the Aleph tech and been accessed by a built-in backdoor it started working and cleared a potential target. It continued to another civilian but was struck by a series or rockets before it made it.

Cover fire erupted from the Aleph lines allowing a myrmidon team lead by Machaon to surge forward and start hunting through the confused civilians as they huddled around cover to avoid the gun fire.

The bastards had waited till his team have done most of the damn work and it looked like they were on track to take the prize they let lose in the first place.

They kept on sweeping across the zone from his teams west to East and before just before they were going to have to come closer an young women who had been trying to stay out of site suddenly lunged forward at the Aleph doctor and planted a knife into the top of his neck and up through his skull.

Withdrawing quick enough to dodge the stun rounds fired by another member of the team but failed to get close enough for a strike. She was not so successful dodging the next shot and in her dazed state the two myrmidons managed to incapacitate her before picking her up and making a retreat.

Myongsun called in the Ruishi and smoke support in hopes of breaking the Aleph cover fire being laid down by Thrasymedes and Teucer.

The Ruishi took shots at Thrasymedes with some support wear from the Celestial Guard hacker, before it took the opportunity to mow down the Myrmidon carrying the Speculo, before ducking back to make sure it was not exposed when the smoke cleared.

Teucer was entrenched on the far east of the zone, with the ability to pin down any approach towards the Speculo by the Su-Jian. The advanced HI decided to take a chance and dove round a corner and exchanged fire, landing 3 shots as an explosive round missed by a hair and blew a hole on the ground behind it.

Before Myongsun could react to this rapid change is firepower dominance, the last Myrmidon dragged the Speculo round a corner just out of site of the Ruishi before carrying her to a police station where Myongsun could only assume he was waiting for some planned extraction.

The remaining Thorakitai laid down cover fire to add an additional road block.

The only thing that could definitely get to the Speculo with any speed was the Su-Jian, but Myongsun did not want to risk being slowed down by a firefight with the Thorakitai, so he sent to Su-Jian through the front of the police station.

It crashed in and squeezed its way through the secondary narrow doors. It was not very stealthy, but it was faster.
The Myrmidon was waiting, and caught the Su-Jian in a chain rifle blast, but the Su-Jian being what it was took it with a calm grace and put a bullet between the Greek's eyes.

It then took possession of the Speculo and moved deeper into the facility.

The Su-Jian settled down to hold back a final assault whilst back up caught up with his advance. His systems sensed movement just in time to drop the Speculo as she was about to strike. Her head struck the floor and the Su-Jian gave her a kick and she was back out cold.

The Aleph forces sensed they had lost this one and prepared to withdraw. Myongsun's relief was short lived as HQ announced an Aleph transport inbound.