Asteroid Blues

Khawarij Kiraz Terzi reviewed her orders aloud, as much for herself as for her team. "We have Ariadna holdouts in this section of the battery." These were well-trained and carefully selected taskforce operatives. They all knew the mission. "Our contacts within the Ariadna camp say they're taking orders from an O-12 liason. If that's true, you all know what that means. Until then, no engagement. Carmen, pop smoke."

The mercenary, living up to her reputation was already driving forward. Without so much as a response, she fired a smoke grenade from her bike's launcher. If this turned out to be a false alarm, she would have to be dealt with before the situation turned into a full-firefight.

The pair of quadruped remotes scuttered through the complex, behind the cover of the smoke. One ran its new biometric scanner. Two hidden forward operatives. Typical of Ariadna, but nothing too noteworthy. The second scanner ran, focused on the O-12 liaison. Kiraz held her breath. She had been told these new scanners worked, but had yet to see one in action. Finally, the results came in. Shasvastii.

"Secure the site."

The order to engage came with the constant popping of automatic fire from both remotes. The aeromobile operative leapt up through the smoke and over a stack of crates. He drew his blade and barreled out of the smoke, toward the nearest infiltrator. Before he could bring the sword down, the soldier met with enemy fire from all sides.

"Navid, give me smoke." The mercenary's pet dog had sniffed out a sniper on a rooftop. Kiraz scanned through her visor until she saw her target. A figure, silhouetted in the distance. Kiraz gave a quick burst from her Mk12, but the sniper dropped behind a parapet before she could land a hit.

Three gray figures bounded from behind one building to another. "Dogs on the move!"

In the distance, a camouflaged figure rested a machine gun against the corner of a building. Zaman lined up her shot amidst a hail of bullets. The sniper calmly loosed a pair of rounds, one into the kazak's hand and another into his head.

An antipode came out of nowhere, jumping up on top of a building. Half the taskforce team responded to the distraction, while the strelok commanding it carefully placed a mine behind that same building.

The smoke cleared on a pair of irmandinhos attempting to hack apart the sensor remotes. One remote slid over to line up a shot, but was torn apart by a blast of glowing shrapnel.

Kiraz had dealt with mines before. It was a simple matter of running just into range, then ducking, ideally behind a corner. A simple matter that worked most of the time. This time, it didn't. Which is why Kiraz made sure to have a doctor right beside her when she attempted it.

Kiraz continued forward to the corner to engage the strelok that had been harassing her team. Even this close, with no tricks, she made quick work of her adversary.

The mercenary swore that the antipode's sense of smell helped it throw hammers around. Something about being able to better triangulate the position of moving targets through obstructions. This made no sense to Kiraz, but she couldn't argue with the results.

Bâtard continued its attack run, taking out both a strelok and a second irmandinho before finally succumbing to its wounds.

The sniper finally reared his head once more, this time taking aim the namurr attached to the team. Qadir responded with her spitfire, easily bringing down the sniper.

The strelok behind the crates started making a move toward the hotly contested antenna, only to take a blast of light and data to the face.

The pack of antipodes finally descended on the Haqqislam team. Kiraz desperately tried to fend one off with her pistol, only to fall to the other. The remaining two descended on Qadir, who responded with her pistol. The creature's knife dug into her armor, nearly bringing her to her knees. Qadir raised her pistol to it, only to have it stop and turn away. Qadir, confused, lowered her pistol. "Move up. Get Kiraz back in the fight. Patch me up."

A flurry of data passed through the kameel's processors. Telemetry, targeting, communications, everything. The kameel gave over a significant portion of its processing to the fanous remotes on overwatch, as if to remind the combatants it was still there.

The nearby strelok made her move on Qadir and the central console. Her antipode rushed the console, while she fired from a rooftop. Qadir returned the fire, trusting the team behind her to deal with the antipode.

Qadir barely dodged a rocket buzzing past her head, exploding on the wall behind her. She recovered to respond with her spitfire, but the frontovik had already backed around the corner of the building.

One of he sentry remotes reported the final strelok moving toward Qadir. Qadir attempted to duck behind the console, but not before taking two shotgun rounds to the chest. On the other side of the crate, Qadir heard the explosion of one of Navid's grenades. Qadir risked to peek out, revealing the body of the strelok blasted against the wall.

In the distance, Zaman spotted a tankhunter attempting to take Kiraz by surprise. The initial ploy failed, with the two exchanging fire for a few moments. A few moments were all Zaman needed to line up her shot.