JB LXXXI: Soldiers of Fortune
Financier Sykes considers the situation.
The Euthanatoi want to rescue hostages. He believes them. They're too willing to talk if they're really trying to help the shapeshifters. That means the shapeshifters are taking hostages - why? Breeding stock? Unlikely - they don't need to go after a hard target to do that. Why would they go after the hard target of an ally of a Traditionalist - one liable to cause retaliation? Well, probably someone set them up. But what's the
internal logic of the shapeshifters? Someone might be playing them for fools, but they'll have something they think they're doing.
Wracking his brain, Donald tries to think like a spirit-consorting genocidal shapeshifter. What would your goals be? Why would you kidnap a Traditionalist ally? What will they do in there if they're not stopped? He thinks of a few possibilities. Maybe they aren't allies anymore and they want to act to punish said former ally. Maybe they're doing a favor for another group of Traditionalists. Maybe they're kinfolk, and the shapeshifters get notoriously possessive of said kinfolk if they find them, due to their emphasis on breeding stock. And maybe they need them for something else.
Shit. His eyes snap open. Consors are - by definition - more accepting of contrafactual beliefs. They're already members of cult groups, after all. And that makes them more suitable to being inhabited by EDEs. It's one of the risks that that Traditionalists brush over. It's one of the risks he saw back when he was on the other side.
Donald makes a snap judgement. He knows about these guys. He knows they work for pay. He knows they've worked for Union pay before. And he knows that the Iterators in the subdimension must really be suffering. They'll need more numbers. They'll need meatshields who aren't so reliant on high tech.
And the nasty little ice cold bit of his brain which is feeling the sobriety points out that "Shapeshifters will kidnap your friends and family and turn them into hosts for EDEs" will be an
excellent marketing campaign for levering apart the Traditions and werewolves. The Syndicate will have a field day with it, and he'd bet vast amounts that the New World Order will be positively gleeful.
"I think our interests align," he tells the Euthanatoi. "Intel reports suggest that the shapeshifters are planning to use their captives in some kind of ritual. Neither of us want that to happen. And to provide an incentive for you to maintain a truce - and so we know what terms we're on - I'm offering five primal energy as a contractual payment under the auspices of Project J for assistance rendered." He pauses. "That's after I deducted the damage you already did to Union assets in the field, of course."
Even if he doesn't get clearance for the funds from Project J, the amalgam still has at least that much spare tass from the last group of shapeshifters. Even if he can't claim it back, he can afford it.
"Langley," he sends privately to Henriette, "if they take this, I'll need you to take over the defense for this sector against the unknowns." He looks at the last camera footage from one of the groups of Bobs, and the characteristic image corruption around the edge of the foremost BMP. Back in the old days, he used to look for EDEs - well, spirits back then - with just a polaroid and a lot of drugs.
Well, right now he has much more expensive cameras and is sober. The faint blackish crinkling around the edge of the picture, almost like it was photoshopped, indicates that it's concealing its appearance in some way. And none of the Iterators have flagged up the signs of hypertech in use.
That makes it extradimensional in origin, the one thing that Iteration X sensors would have problems flagging. And the distortion... it makes him very wary indeed. Only one group would do this sort of thing and have access to armoured vehicles like this. He's met them before. Donald Sykes doesn't think fondly of the Special Projects Division. And those bastards jumped overboard before they were pushed, and took up employment with Pentex.
If this is their handiwork, he'll have no moral objections at all to telling the Iterators to break out the warcrimes.
Cromwell responds to the initial offer quickly enough. "Bullshit. Five primal energy wouldn't cover anything. You lost a zero or something? Going rate I've heard is 25-50 for this."
Donald smiles. It wouldn't, that was the point. He opened with an insultingly low offer to see if they were willing to negotiate. If they had accepted-well they'd almost certainly be on the shapeshifters' side and he'd have told Henriette and Antoinette to open fire. Given that they seem to know the going rates-he knows they're definitely reliable. Those aren't published anywhere, so they'd have to have heard from word of mouth or personal experience.
"Yes, but the going rate doesn't assume that a bunch of combat synths got their faces blown off. Twenty prime energy."
"They're just robots, they're cheap, and I'm sure Iteration X can fix them by replacing their brains or something."
"Cheap compared to a HITMark, perhaps, but you've heard the 'pork trimming' going on in governments and the focus on 'efficiency' and 'accountability' now. How can we fund our secret robot army when we can't steal as much from black budgets?" Donald says.
Cromwell laughs, but only a little. "You know, this is a high risk job. Only twenty tass to kill a bunch of werewolves? I think we should be paid commensurate to the risks."
"Only twenty to do something you were already paid to do, and I assume fairly generously." Donald says. "So if you think of it reasonably for a few moments it's like I'm paying you a fairly significant sum to literally do nothing."
"What's the catch? Suits like you always try to sneak something into the fine print."
"No catch. Mr. Js always pay you on time, as agreed to in the letter of the contract. We don't stab you in the back when you come to collect, and we pay in any reasonable format. I believe those terms will be acceptable."
He isn't wrong. "Acceptable. But if you don't have the goods on time,
you don't have the protection a Technocracy princess does."
"Are we going to shoot them yet or are they going to leave?" Antoinette asks. "I'm getting a bit impatient."
Donald politely doesn't tell her that he's seen men like Cromwell disassemble powered armor with just a steak knife and their own martial skills. They might not have the toys of the Union, but they've gotten very good at making up for that. "Neither. You're going to allow them through the lines."
"
What?" Antoinette and Henriette sputter simultaneously.
"You heard me." Donald says sternly. "They have a mission to do, which involves killing werewolves. I believe your organization said it was short on manpower and firepower to do werewolf-killing. I think this is an excellent chance to get acquainted."
"And what if they're lying?" Antoinette asks. "They could be spies!"
"If they were lying, I'd have told you about it. Look, Antoinette." Donald says reasonably. "You want to build more trust inside Iteration X, right?"
"Yes, but-" the young woman replies, in the tone of a teenager who thinks her crazy idea is
the most reasonable thing in the universe.
"So why not start with building trust between Conventions? Sometimes you can accomplish a lot more with some capital outlays and a smile than you can with even a hundred HITMarks."
A Damien education doesn't make up for a lack of real-world non-lab experience, Henriette thinks smugly. "Look, he's right here." She can't give up an opportunity to show up the
princess, after all.
"...Fine." Antoinette says, lowering her weapons from the Reality Deviants. "But if something goes wrong..."
"It won't." Henriette responds, with a lot more confidence than she actually feels. But Donald's insistence is infectious, which is nice.
The five Superstitionists give a brief nod and disappear again into the forest, while Donald prepares a message in Morse to be sent into the pocket dimension. Radio doesn't work properly - it just degrades to incoherent static at ranges of more than a few tens of meters. The team will probably be just yelling at each other or throwing around hand signals. But radio can still be used. Increase the power and the error-checking at the cost of finesse and bandwidth. A digital communications system-either the radio is on at max power or off.
HAVE HIRED RD ESS STOP THEY WILL ASSIST YOU REPEAT THEY WILL ASSIST YOU STOP CONSIDER THEM EXPENDABLE ASSETS STOP DO NOT ENGAGE REPEAT DO NOT ENGAGE UNLESS THEY PROVE UNRELIABLE STOP
THEIR EXISTING MISSION IS HOSTAGE RESCUE STOP STAT PROJECTION FORECASTS WWOLVES MAY BE MAKING EDE HOSTS REPEAT WWOLVES MAY BE MAKING EDE HOSTS FROM RD SYMPATHISERS STOP THIS WILL DISCREDIT RD SLASH WWOLF PEACE STOP THIS IS IN LINE WITH UNION GOALS STOP
GOOD LUCK STOP
He hopes it's enough.
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There are a few disgruntled noises about having to work with Reality Deviants in the strike team. Only a few. They are often too busy wading through shapeshifters and EDEs with degrading equipment to care. The Damage Control constables have it better on the technology front, which means that they also have a lot more time to spare bitching about having to work with "fucking wizards".
"Why do we need those fucking baby-killing mass-murdering psychopaths again?" Constable Cortez says, as she extricates her viral blade from an unfortunate shapeshifter who decided to bring a oversized sword to a biotech armor fight. There are a couple of wounds which weep hyperox blood in her biomechanical armor-but the vibrant nature of this subdimension, the oxygen-rich atmosphere that corrodes and damages Iteration X equipment so badly, is letting it heal itself and seal wounds even faster than normal. The raid has become a slow slog through enemy territory as stealth systems gradually fail. There's only so much mud and camo paint can do against superhumanly keen senses, especially as various damping systems fail and human weakness is matched with inhuman savagery. Stealth has essentially failed at this point.
"We're conserving resources by using them. Their goals are not opposed to ours, apparently." Major Clarent responds. "And we don't have the assets to engage them
and the furries." She's grimly aware of how she hasn't taken any losses yet, but that's solely because of luck. One of the power-suited soldiers has lost an arm below the elbow, black carbon muscle and primium skeletal elements simply
ending. There is is a slow trickle of blood, evidence that the pilot's medichine infusions and the muscle suit's medical systems are no longer working at 100%.
At least Kessler seems like he's doing fine in this environment, but he would. He's fought for decades in a place like this, and his borrowed shapeshifter sword-a "klaive", in their parlance, the increasingly-unreliable tactical information assistant in her cranial implants is telling her-is stained with the ectoplasmic stuff of spirit-matter.
"If we're conserving resources there's better ways of doing so." Cortez responds, reloading a needler. Silver coated needles, microexplosive heads and fast-acting carcinogenic payloads. It's lower-tech than Iteration X hyper-V firearms, at least hardtech-wise, and it seems to work better in this tech-hostile environment. She's seen how they disintegrate shapeshifters into a horrifying mass of unidentifiable polyps. "We don't need their help and we don't want it."
"Yeah but better them shooting at them than at us." the injured softsuit wearer, Folsom, says, as he hefts his plasma carbine experimentally with one hand. When just about everything is unreliable in this world, you might as well take whatever has the most firepower possible. "We're not even close to 100%."
"We don't need to be." Another one of the Damage Control operatives responds. "We can do this ourselves."
"We're here to fight shifters, not each other, and not RDs. We can deal with RDs who act up later, if they act up. Who knows. Maybe they'll be impressed by us and see the error of their ways."
That gets a few laughs.
"Yeah. Let's not waste ammo, it's expensive, okay?" an Iterator wearing a 4m-tall slave unit says. There is a wound where a RPG has hit on one arm, revealing primium mesh and buckygel backing over black carbon musculature. The oversized limb moves sluggishly due to actuator damage. Its adaptive camo has long since become useless, flickering from gray-green-desert-brown-black-night in a random pattern.
"Oi. Someone talking about us?" Cromwell says, appearing as if out of nowhere. "Look, I know you don't like us and you don't have to. We're not here to fuck up your little genocide field trip, because the best way to describe the Garou is 'had it coming' and the second best is 'deserve whatever they get'. And frankly, who are we to disagree?"
That gets a few chuckles from the Iterators, at least. "As long as you don't get in our way."
"We're pros. As long as you don't shoot us in the back. You have beacons?"
Clarent nods and hands out IR beacons. "Might not be the most reliable. You're familiar with Technocracy SOP." It's a statement, not a question.
"Killed some Nephandi in Iraq back in '08."
"Really?" The slave unit's driver says. "Dieter Astor. I was there on that operation. Good job."
Cromwell nods. "It was just business."
"Yes. Now if we're done making out..." Cortez snarls. "We actually have a job to do. Don't get in our firing line."
The ground rumbles underneath them, an act too full of
will to be considered something merely normal for this strange hellscape.
"One klom to the altar and a few hordes of genocide puppies to murder. Piece of cake." Kessler says.
Jane nods, even if she doesn't believe it. Symbols are important. "Follow the big outdated oaf."
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Smoke-Before-Thunder is angry. Well, livid. More livid with anger than normally. The weaverspawn
dare to desecrate such a sacred place, and do so so obviously. The spirits of the forest are angered enough that they are charging the guns of the horrid drones of Stasis, dying in droves-but they know they will reincorporate sometime, and they do not care.
It comes as almost a relief when they come at her and the most trusted members of her pack. All veterans who have survived the brutal cullings of Garou youth, hardened by war and wielding weapons with the gifts of Gaia. They are no longer trying to hide, wearing their technology, their
human weakness, on their sleeves. Their lack of fear, though, betrays them. They are corrupted by the Weaver, a force as insidious and destructive as the Wyrm, and so they cannot understand the purity of animal emotion. They probably have their ability to feel excised, emotionless killers all.
"So the Weaver's brood dares to attack us in our sacred clearings? Fools! Here your machines and toys will no longer work! Here only the spirits of warriors apply!" she snarls. And she invokes Gaia's gift, the ritual to invoke a return to nature, to destroy the technology of the enemies.
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Sullivan Cromwell is a member of the Euthanatos because he thinks that sometimes bad people need killing, damn the consequences if everyone could kill bad people without remorse or pity. Utilitarianism is nice in moderation, but when you shield people from consequences merely because those consequences hurt others-he thinks moral hazard is a threat rotting society from within.
But he likes technology. He uses plenty of it in his work, and he likes flushing toilets, refrigeration, and air conditioning. He likes being able to ride his motorcycle at speeds charitably described as 'illegal' and less charitably described as 'insane' through streets. He likes having currency that he can use to make purchases.
And so when he feels the spirit-working to disable all technology, he acts, pulling one of the tangles of string that he uses to shift fates onto others. He sees the Technocracy use their own countermeasures-Primium, preventative maintenance, multiple-redundant systems, taking the brunt of the weakened blow. Across London, computers suddenly fail for no reason, cars stall, phones restart.
"You're welcome." Cromwell says, and starts shooting at the Garou. They're like so many fanatics he's dealt with, both as a sleeper and as a mage. So convinced of the righteousness of their cause that anything is acceptable. So evil. He always wonders if he's the same-but he's willing to compromise, isn't he? He's willing to accept that the other side might have a point, even if misguided. He's not going to kill thousands of innocents just to make a point to the Technocracy.
He scans the battlefield, looking for threats. The guards and their minions have thrown themselves at the Iterators, and have considered his merely fleshy comrades a non-threat, ignoring that there is no such thing when dealing with magi. He lets them do so as he moves his team through-sees the ritual. He can sense the ritual is nearing completion, the summoning almost done. He fires simultaneously with his team on the shaman, and the magic stops.
"Let's get the hostages and get out." Cromwell says. "Some of the Garou are going to be chasing us-engage them and only them."
He's not here for the Technocrats, and they can handle themselves. They've helped enough for this fight and done exactly what the Syndicate has paid them for.
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Donald checks his contacts again. He's making a weighty decision which may literally kill people, he doesn't want it to be unnecessary. No, he's not talking about authorizing the Iterators to fire on the incoming vehicles if he's
right. The EDE-possessed and soul-eaten don't really count as people anymore, and killing them would be a mercy. If he's wrong, though-
But he's not wrong. They're clearly questionably legal armored vehicles purchased by a questionably legal PMC's questionably legal enforcement division which has questionably legal authorization to do questionably legal things under the guise of 'training exercises' for 'counterinsurgency advisory' in South America, where Pentex is engaged in a jungle war with the Garou and the Technocracy is more than happy to let both sides kill each other in a bloody constant stalemate.
"Those IFVs are registered with Murklake, a Pentex subsidiary. Free fire is authorized." Donald says. "They might look human but they're likely either shapeshifters, Nephandi, or EDE-infestees, so they're too far gone for saving. Beware of ambushes or exotic EDE abilities."
"All right!" Sylia says, as she rushes out to engage the APC. "This is my kind of action." The APC notices her lunge out of the forest, turns the turret towards her, but is too slow. Explosions harmlessly detonate around Antoinette's armor as she jets out of the trees. The complex 'wings' on the back of her armor split open, launching a brace of concealed micromissiles. The tiny 20mm micromunitions lance upwards, avoiding the Sleeper-tech active defenses of the lead Murklake vehicle, and stab downwards at supersonic speeds, punching through thin top armor and setting the vehicle alight as ammunition and fuel cook off.
"Oh yes! Got one!" Antoinette shouts enthusiastically. "See?" She's happy for about five seconds, before gunshots start glancing off of her armor. Some of the Murklake employees have survived. Or 'survived'. One of them has been horribly burned, revealing that underneath his skin is some sort of rotten maggot-infested flesh, the worms twisting to hold ruined dead flesh together. Another has a carapace grow around his body, protecting him from flames and shrapnel.
Yet another is a mass of bulging muscle and obscene viscera twisting towards her, drawing her into a bladed, many-toothed maw that was once its torso. And then there's the
real obscenities, things that show exactly why demonic gifts are generally a bad idea for people to seek. "What the shit." Henriette says, looking at the feed. "What the hell is this
perverted demon shit."
"I don't know! Just help me kill it!"
"I am! Just give me a minute to get out of this goddamn forest! It's your fault for leaving me behind!"
"It's your fault for being too slow!"
________________________________________________________________________________________
Be Clarent
[ ] Insult the Euthanatos for being cowards.
[ ] Politely insinuate the Euthanatos are cowards.
[ ] They killed the shaman and marked themselves for revengeance by anyone who works with them, so they were at least somewhat helpful. Let them do what they want.
Be Kessler
[ ] (1.5x) Slay the warlord.
[ ] (1.25x) Be a gigantic beefslab meatshield for the lighter armored Iterators.
[ ] (1.25x) Pretend to challenge the warlord to a bullshit Garou fair fight ritual.
[ ] And fight fairly.
[ ] (+.25x) And use it to kill her off ignominiously.
[ ] Write-in
Be Henriette
[ ] (1.5x) Snark at Antoinette for being bad at this.
[ ] Feel some sympathy.
[ ] Write In: How are you fighting Murklake?
Be Antoinette
[ ] (1.5x) Work more aggressively against the Pentex people.
[ ] Appreciate Henriette's field advice. She's just trying to help you!
[ ] Write In: Fighting Murklake.
Bonus Points:
[ ] Also submit the opposing force's point of view for the Henriette/Antoinette engagement.
