Multi-Raid Assault on Cobra Cartel
[Jacy(#7868)] Finally, everything is in place, clocks are synchronised, and everyone is ready to go. The small dropship that Dan's in is flying towards the target, and this time the pilot isn't swerving and dodging and weaving; it's just another cargo shuttle, right up until the time that the rear doors open and the joint DAS-Marines force rapel out. Rapel? Right down into the compound of a slave 'storage' area, where reconnaissance suggests half a dozen slaves are being held by an equal number of slavers. It's at an industrialized area of Ariel, far from the glassy skyscrapers shown on all the tourist brochures - a dismal urban sprawl of factory units and cracked concrete roads and chain-link fences. These particular slavers have taken over an entire block, fencing it in such that there's only one exit in or out and a maze of buildings opening into a central area, where the slaves are permitted just a few minutes exercise a day. Dan's strike leader recommends a dawn strike, when the slaves are hopefully safely in their sleeping quarters. Dan's comm crackles with the other teams statuses - one team has aborted with mechanical trouble to their shuttle, but the others are on target. <English>
[Dan(#18843)]
Dan is extremely appreciative that the pilot isn't weaving and performing other nausea-inducing maneuvers. He has enough to deal with what with the nanobots and all the pressure he's under right now with this mission. Michelle's exact words - 'Don't fuck this up, we need a win right now'. Pressure! As they come in over the compound, the fed swears softly at the abort message that comes in, but he shoulders his rifle and preps for his turn at the line. When everyone rapels down, Sabo goes too. The orders are to try and take the slavers alive, but capturing them (dead or alive) is higher priority than risking any escaping. Once everyone is on the ground, he glances around, then points, calling through the comm unit in his suit, "Recon said that's the most likely building, let's go!"
[Jacy(#7868)] The shuttle is already roaring away. A sleepy-looking slaver appears in a doorway, still yawning, but he's holding a gun; he stares stupidly at the oncoming phalanx of good guys, opens his mouth, and a rubber bullet hits him in the chest; the shout of warning is lost in the "Ooof" of air leaving his lungs rapidly, and he tumbles backwards into the doorway. And then the strike team are pouring in silently, clearing room by room. A couple of suspected slavers, woman and man, are intimately wrapped together under a blanket on a filthy mattress; they're separated before they can get fully awake, cuffed with plastic ties. The woman opens her mouth to scream but is tased before the scream can make it out of her lungs, and the man just stares at her twitching form in shocked silence. And then, right in front of Dan, comes the sound of a toilet flushing, a zip being zipped up, and the bathroom door starts to open.
[Dan(#18843)]
Dan stays towards the rear of the group, knowing he needs to keep an ear open to the other teams in case they need direction. While the skilled operatives clear the building and expertly take down the hostiles, he's skimming for clues.. Cobra tattoos, slave collar remotes, or keycards that might lead to secret lockers or rooms. As the bathroom door beside him opens, he snaps his attention over and raises his sonic rifle, then gives the door a good kick and pulls the trigger on the stun weapon.
[Jacy(#7868)] The man is flung backwards, hitting his head on the wall behind the toilet and slumping down with his legs spread wide. Dropping to the floor from his hand is a little device, a slave-collar remote, and on his rolled-up sleeve is the Cobra tattoo - indeed, on all the slavers captured so far. But the sound of the crash has woken up another slaver, and there's a burst of gunfire, answered in kind by the strike team. All the time, Dan's comm unit is scrolling with updates; team Foxtrot have taken a slave ship with no casualties; team November have come under heavy fire and are pinned down. Then someone's yelling, from the next building: "Throw down your weapons or I'll kill all the slaves! Do it! I want to see you all in the compound, faces on the ground! I'll do it!" <English>
[Dan(#18843)]
Dan watches the man slump long enough to be sure he's out before he reaches to snatch up the remote. He's had time to study the device he took from Clavells, so he's working at deactivating it when he hears the threat from the next building over. He freezes for a moment, then looks down at the device. She switches the mic on and speaks through it, "I don't know who you are but I know you're a slave. I'm an Alliance fed, we're here to rescue you all. Everyone needs to take whatever cover you can immediately. Warn the others. It's about to get ugly." Well, that's the best he can do. Whoever has the collar on probably won't do a thing, but he tried. Over his own com he asks his team, "Anyone got a bead on this guy? Anything? Take the shot if you have it. We need to put an end to these bastards." Sometimes you have to make the hard decisions. He'll try to ease over to window or doorway to get a look.
[Jacy(#7868)] "No shot," mutters the sniper on the team, crouched down an alleyway. Another of the team makes a flanking run across the compound to try to circle around, but there's a burst of gunfire from a window and she goes down, screaming in pain; there's instantly a heavy response from the DAS-Marines team as they throw up covering fire, two of them darting out to drag the wounded Marine back under cover. "This guy is starting to piss me off," mutters the Sergeant as the Marine is tended. The building that the slaver is holed up in is a low, one-story concrete blockhouse, perhaps once a storeroom or warehouse; the windows are heavily barred, devoid of glass, and the door is closed. <English>
[Dan(#18843)]
Dan grimaces when the marine goes down, but puts his eyes back onto the building. There's no way he's going to tell his team to surrender their arms. That's that last thing that'll happen. "Flashbangs for cover, then someone can run in and throw gas grenades in the window." He says over the com. And while they're prepping that, Sabo calls out in response, "Airstrike is coming in! You're surrounded! Last chance to get out of this alive!" He turns back, lowering his voice, "Any of our captives still awake? Ask if there's another entrance into that building." <English>
[Jacy(#7868)] Some of the captives are awake, but they're not talking, staring sullenly at Dan and his troops. "Who's got the best arm? Rodriguez, Martin, the two of you," growls the Sergeant, "Flashbangs, like the good little gentleman said." And Rodriguez and Martin nod, prep their grenades, glance at each other, and then step out into the open and hurl them in a manner that would make a baseball pitcher proud. They bounce across the weed-infested concrete and go off within seconds of each other....and then the troops are moving forwards. One of the DAS operatives has a gas grenade in his hand, makes a darting run, jumps up like a basketball star to one of the high windows and dunks it through the bars inside. There's gunfire, but then it dies away as the gas billows out of the windows, thick and acrid and choking.<English>
[Dan(#18843)]
Dan dismisses the captives after getting a look at them. He wouldn't trust what they have to say if they were sharing anything. When the flashbangs are thrown, he pulls down his visor to avoid getting blinded, then watches as the operative so expertly dunks the gas grenade into the window. "Nice work." He says over the com. The gunfire that rings out puts Sabo on edge, but there's nothing to be done for it. If the slaves are getting gunned down, that's on the slavers. After the gas starts billowing out, he calls to his team, "Let's go in!" There's a moment to make sure someone is staying to guard the captives, and he'll follow the team over to the other building, trusting his helmet to filter out the crap in the air from the grenade. <English>
[Jacy(#7868)] The room is thick with the acrid mixture, a combination of thick black smoke and choking gas. There's a fellow on his knees, retching and clawing at his eyes, a gun beside him. In the dim corners can be seen other figures, six of them, curled on the floor; a couple are twitching and coughing, and one isn't moving at all, a dark stain spreading out from under him. The DAS and the Marines are good at what they do, and what they're good at is room clearance; slaves and slavers alike are cuffed and searched roughly for weapons. Cuff them all, and let Dan sort them out. The flickering displays from the other ops continues to update. A good three-quarters have secured their objectives in surprise attacks with little or no casualties, either DAS/Marines or rescued slaves. The news from the others are mixed; a couple are pinned down in stalemate-like firefights and are requesting heavier air support, and the Bernadette team, force 'Oscar', is not replying to comms at all. <English>
[Dan(#18843)]
Dan frowns when he sees what looks like a slave bleeding out, but he doesn't have time to dwell on it. He moves out of the way while the marines do their job, keeping out of line of sight of any doors or windows so that he can consult his HUD. As he looks at the status of the other teams, he flicks through each one and stops at the Bernadette team. He patches his com through to DAS HQ, "See if we can get arial recon to get a look at what happened to the team on Bernadette, we lost all communication with them. Are they compromised or is a communications malfunction??" Then he looks back to the room around him, "Move these captives over to the others, let's keep clearing the compound. There's bound to be more." He moves to the slaves to see if any of them are wearing those self-destruct collars. If they are, he'll seperate them from the rest of the captives and team members, just in case. (The slavers might have decided to get messy with that kill switch) <English>
[Jacy(#7868)] There's bound to be more, and there is...in a comms room, a young woman with frizzy blonde hair, desperately trying to get through on to a Cortex address; "Comeoncomeoncomeon..." she's muttering, but she's just getting static; maybe she's trying to get through to one of the other addresses that Dan's teams have hit. And then she's hit in the back with a stun round, slumping over the console. And that's the last of the slavers in this particular encampment; she's secured with the rest of them as the strike team clear the rest of the compound to make sure. Dan's control center comes back: "Satellite imagery shows a burning dropship, sir, but there's an active firefight going on there. Unable to confirm status of the strike team." The slaves here on Ariel are a sad collection as their collars are undone; one is indeed beyond help, but the others are, in varying degrees, scared, miserable, hurt, grateful, or vengeful; one is begging to be left alone with the prisoners for five minutes. <English>
[Dan(#18843)]
When they come upon the woman at the computer, Dan will move in quickly to pull the slumped body out of the way, trying to get a look at what she's accessing. He'll snap a quick picture with his smartcom of the address, then pull the unconcious woman out of the room himself. "Don't let anyone come in here and touch anything, we want to get a specialist in here to look at it." He says to his team. Computer systems are definitely not his area of expertise. He's no Suzi Flynn.
As the compound is secured, he helps with the slave collars, but his attention is mostly on the progress of the other teams. He relays to the control center, "Are there any SRTs on Bernadette that we can get in there as backup? Or air support? Send in reinforcements!" He moves on to check on the other teams that were mired down under gunfire, seeing how they're faring. <English>
[Jacy(#7868)] She was trying to access a Cortex address here on Ariel, and even as Dan stares at the screen, it flickers to life. An obscenely fat man is sitting behind a desk in a large office; Dan gets a glimpse of light, a panoramic view in the windows behind him over the city skyscrapers; and then the man must have caught sight of Dan for he breaks the connection with a snarl of rage.
Bernadette can provide support in twenty-two minutes; twenty-two minutes of wait for the men and women on the ground there. The other firefights are, if not over, at least under tight control, with no more than a handful of casualties and, it appears, only two deaths; the Sentinel armor has earned its keep today. <English>
[Dan(#18843)]
Twenty-two minutes is shitty, but these are trained strike teams. Maybe they can hold out. "Send in the reinforcements. Tell them to get *any* local law enforcement to move in around the perimeter of the target area and run sirens, maybe it'll scare the slavers into backing off, thinking they're getting surrounded." Dan looks back towards the communications equipment, "Get some R&D people on tracing all the cortex connections from my location made in the last thirty minutes. Highest priority. I'm sending through some pictures I just took, see if they can trace who it is and his location. We might be able to net one of the leaders behind Cobra if we're fast. Send another shuttle to my location to pick up the captives so we're ready to pursue." He'll transmit the snapshots he just took over to HQ, then check back in on Bernadette's debacle. Man it's hard being in charge of all of this. <English>
[Jacy(#7868)] Gradually the updates become fewer from the other strike teams; 'Objectives secured'; 'Objectives secured' flash up on Dan's screen. Until there's only Bernadette. Nothing from the original strike team; just satellite imagery of heat signatures moving about; the nearest SRT giving a clipped, terse update on their ETA; a local law enforcement feed that would be comedic in their incompetance and sluggishness if it wasn't so serious. <English>
[Dan(#18843)]
Dan keeps his attention divided between the Bernadette situation and any feedback that might come in from R&D on that trace. It's a long shot, but maybe they'll get lucky. At some point he remembers to tell the other teams they did a good job, but it's brief. He moves back to the first building they secured and moves to sit down, hands trembling under the armor. He shifts the data feedback to his smartcomm so that he can pull off his helmet, his hair wet with sweat and his face flushed. In a sudden spike of irritation, he calls to central, "What's R&D doing? Sitting on their asses?!" <English>
[Jacy(#7868)] The on-call face of R&D, a cadaverous-faced young man with pale bleached hair, comes on Dan's comms unit. "S-sir, facial recognition indica-cates that the m-man in your p-picture is this m-man." And he presses a button, and a civilian file appears on Dan's cortex feed. Wilhelm Schmidt, 47, 325 lbs, 5'8". Professor of Urology at the teaching hospital on Ariel. It's the same obese man that Dan saw, this time pictured in the official ID mugshot. <English>
[Dan(#18843)]
Dan eyes the picture of the professer, then nods. "Good job. Central, get local law enforcement to lock down the hospital, no one goes in or out. Send out an APB on Wilhelm Schmidt, I want a manhunt on this asshole." He rounds up his team, and if it's feasible, will try to get a group of them on the shuttle so that they can go fetch themselves a urologist. He can't do much else about Team Oscar. He's a planet away. <English>
[Jacy(#7868)] The Ariel locals are way ahead of the Bernadette locals in response time and competance; a young corporal comes up to Dan as he dismounts from the shuttle outside the hospital, salutes smartly, and says, "Sir, we have Schmidt in custody. He tried to exit via a fire escape, but fortunately we had a man covering it." Schmidt is sitting in the back of a police MULE, cuffed, sweating profusely and demanding a lawyer. "I got right!" he is blustering, "I'm going to sue the last credit out of every man, woman and child involved in this farce!" And as he spots Dan approaching, there's just the merest flicker of recognition in his eyes. <English>
[Dan(#18843)]
During the trip over to the hospital, Dan drank an entire bottle of water, then remembered that he has those pesky nanobots trying to put him into an early grave. He uses the self-testing kit he got from the hospital and gives himself an insulin shot, then it's back to business. When they land, Danobot grins when the corporal reports in, "Excellent!" He says with enthusiasm, striding right for Schmidt and rattling off flippantly, "Professor Schmidt, you're bound by law and going into custody of the Department of Alliance Security for aid and affiliation with the slaving group known as Cobra. You don't have any rights at this time." He grabs for the man's arm to start dragging him over to the shuttle. "Send investigators in to secure any office he has at his job and his home." He calls to the local law boys, then he calls central back, "What's the status on Oscar?" <English>
[Jacy(#7868)] Schmidt carries on blustering, but Dan's an artist and should know an actor when he sees one. He's dragged, still yelling about DAS brutality; but he wasn't joking about the lawyer. Somehow, on his way out, he'd called one, and so Dan's going to have his hands full (or, at least DAS legal department's hands full) with emergency judge orders for Schmidt's release on multiple reasons, because Schmidt, either on account of him being a senior professor at an eminent teaching hospital, or on account of him being a greedy little shit of a slaver, can afford a very good lawyer indeed. Dan is going to have to claw in every favor he can with the legal department to keep Schmidt incarcerated.
