JB LXXIX: Collision Course
Serafina freezes in place. She could push past Elsa. She could shove her way past and she... well, she'd probably not be stopped. She could go back to her apartment, all on her own. Rose probably isn't there. And if she is, they'd probably start screaming at each other again. So she'd be alone again.
She isn't sure what she'd do then. Get drunk, maybe. Maybe more. It'd be so easy to end it all. She could head into work. Grab a few things. Some of the termination drugs for test subjects, maybe. It'd be painless and clean. Get away from herself.
Except it wouldn't be the end. Her parents would make sure she got brought back. Again and again. Even if she didn't leave a body, they'd have her backup - and she has one made only a month ago. Someone who's her in all the ways that mattered would wake up knowing what she'd done in Moscow. And then they'd poke in her brain. Her parents would remove the trauma. They might find out about Threat Null and cause a civil war. Or go over to those once-human freaks in space. Either way, they'd make her... someone who didn't care that she'd done terrible things. Or they'd just remove the memories and... and she'd go dig them up again.
Like she'd dug up what they'd done to her as a child.
No escape. Not even from herself. Not without being
made into someone else. Someone she doesn't want to be. She can't even die on her own terms.
Serafina sags against the wall, her mussed dress crinkling up. She takes a deep breath. "It's Moscow," she tells Elsa. She can't meet her eyes. She can't even bring up the will to say no to the questioning. Nothing she can do will matter. "I can't... I just can't. I don't. I
can't."
She feels herself being gently guided to somewhere to sit. It's a rather smaller apartment than hers. She notices the hands - which don't feel quite like human ones in the way they exert pressure - are being gentle. Like she's a fragile china doll. Like she's literally breakable.
"You're having nightmares too, yes?" Elsa says gently.
Serafina nods, and swallows.
"I'm pretty sure we all are." Serafina feels the weight of an arm being wrapped around her shoulders. "Are they getting worse for you?"
"It's not so bad during the day," Serafina says weakly. "I... I can throw myself into my work. Try to make up for everything. But when I'm left with time to think about things, I... I can't stop thinking about it. About what I could have done differently. How maybe if I'd made another choice, I could have stopped the ten EDEs warping in. And I've had to... to go over the events, again and again and again, for the Tribunal. J-justify everything I've done. And... and I keep on... I keep on thinking of ways I might have stopped it."
Elsa swears in Russian. "That sucks," she says.
"Yes. It does suck," Serafina says, sniffing. "Last night, I was wondering if... if it really was all my fault. I caused it all. I was the one who made Director Belltower take a day off."
"Um. Uh. How does... oh, because you blame yourself for missing the signs?" Elsa asks.
Serafina doesn't reply, merely hanging her head. Big fat tears roll down her cheeks, splashing down onto her legs.
Elsa gives her a hug. "I guess you got the blame game worse," she says. "I... I just ask myself if I could have saved a few people by going another way, or... or if my gun hadn't jammed and I'd been able to take down that HITMark fast enough." She shakes her head. "I'm glad I wasn't having to make any big decisions there. I guess we all have our own guilt to bear."
"You don't understand," Serafina wails, wringing her hands, the words forcing themselves out between the sobs. "It was me! I was the one who... who gave the order to drop the bomb. I... I can remember thinking about the 'acceptable losses' and... and I was thinking of it as a good trade! A hundred thousand people for three enemy mechs! Because the choice was that, or destroying the whole city! And I hate myself for it," she adds, in a whisper. "Do... do you hate me? Now that... that you know that? I'd hate me, even if I wasn't me. And... and I... I probably killed people you knew with that. And I nearly started WW3. And now they're going to invade North Korea and it... it's because of me." She takes a deep shuddering sigh. "You... you can hate me if you want," she says with fake bravado.
There is a long pause. Then;
"No wonder you're a mess," Elsa says. "Fuck." She takes a breath. "I'm not letting you leave this room unless you're in the company of someone who can stop you from doing something stupid. I nearly ate a gun after I got fucked up and put in my first cyberbody and... and having to learn to walk again doesn't compare." She pinches the ridge of her nose. "Fuck. For... for what it's worth, I... I don't hate you." She squeezes Serafina.
"But I..."
"Maybe if you were some... some emotionless mirrorshade-wearing bastard who was being smug about how they'd found the best way... yeah, maybe then. But I just watched you drink yourself half to death, and here you are, sitting on my couch, crying and blaming yourself for not finding a better way. That hot chick you were dancing with said you were in a bad state, but I thought she was just talking about the fact you were wasted. The fact that you're falling apart is... well. You're not some monster or transhuman experiment. You're just a person who had to make a terrible choice and... and for what it's worth, it was the right one. And that sucks. That really, really sucks." She shakes her head. "You need to find someone to talk to. Someone professional."
"I know," Serafina says quietly, wiping her eyes on her bare forearms.
The clock ticks in the background, cutting away the seconds.
Elsa takes a deep breath, clearly putting on a fake aura of cheer. "Well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to make both of us breakfast, while you see if you can think of someone you can call who'll be there to watch over you and stop you doing something badly thought out when you leave. Because I'm not letting you go until you find someone who can take care of you. And," she force herself to smile, "I don't think I'm quite ready to ask you to move in. We haven't even had a proper date yet."
She pauses.
"Okay, you're not letting go of me," she says, after trying to get up. "Okay. This just means we're both having to go through to make breakfast."
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Hereford
The War Room
Face lit from below by the glow of the screen, Jamelia stared at the team leads. "The primary objectives of this mission are to first eliminate the hostile shapeshifter presence currently occupying this node, and then to secure the node for processing and development. To this end, we shall isolate the location from backup and reinforcements, and then systematically secure it, while a strike team moves to decapitate the command and control capacities of the shapeshifters. Major Clarent?"
"Yes," the red-haired cyborg said. "Shapeshifters have a small minority of veterans who provide the tactical acumen and most of the RD reality-warping - their 'warlords' and 'shamans' and 'loremasters' - while the majority of the population are mentally more akin to wolves and while they are very dangerous at a personal level, tactically and strategically they are much less of a threat. My strike team, along with Sgt Major Kessler, will move through the variant dimensional space within the location to eliminate those specialists. Thanks to the scans Senior Operative Belltower has obtained, we know the rough structure and the location of several primary locations - there appears to be several 'villages' which are where the human carriers reside, while wolf-carriers roam free in the rural landscape."
"This will make elimination of the breeding stock more difficult," one of the Tyrants remarks.
"Yes," Jamelia agrees. She noticed how Major Clarent referred to her as 'Senior Operative'. Was that an insult, or a mark of respect that she has the title while anyone could get 'Director'? She mentally sighs. She shouldn't get distracted by that. "The human element is predicted to be deployed in defense of the location, but hunting down the wolves will be more complicated. That is why the priority is to eliminate the senior shapeshifters, who have the capacity to engage in point-to-point spatial warping using their so-called "moon bridges" - wormholes, in other words. The location of one such wormhole within the extradimensional space has been located, at the center of some standing stones, and Damage Control has volunteered to isolate and contain it to prevent its use as a point of ingress or exit."
"We're loaded up with plenty of ARG-X37 mines and paralytic agents," Constable Bhatti said, his dark brown eyes gleaming, "and we've managed to get our hands on some lupine-tailored SpaySpray. Wonderful stuff. We'll contaminate the area, so even if they try to get out via that way and get through the minefield, their carriers won't be having kids. They walk into the right mine, they'll find themselves riddled with paralytic-tipped silver flechettes. Might even be able to take some of them back to the labs."
"I'll also be assisting them," Iterator Sajaki says, in their mid-tone voice. "I'll be moving more mine-dispersal mules in. Nothing should be getting in and out from there."
Major Clarent tilts her head. "That route looks secure," she observes, "but what about the outer perimeter?"
Jamelia nods. "Textbook multi-stage defense line," she says, promptly. "Outer layer is entirely mechanised, and issues a formal warning to any unknowns who approach from designated expendable light assets. The NWO has standard warnings for combat operation areas designed to de-incentivise involvement by external parties, so we'll use one of them.
She sips from her glass of water, then continues.
"This line does not return fire unless ordered. We also have screening mechanized elements hidden there with anti-tank and anti-air weapons, but they'll only fire when ordered, or if the unknown bypasses the outer layer. We'll be operating a ST deceptive defense line for the inner line. If the unknowns ignore the warnings, they'll be flagged as hostile, and funneled into killzones. If they're trying to aid the shapeshifters, we don't want them getting into the extradimensional space - but if they're Traditionalist allies rather than more shapeshifters... well, they're not the closest allies. There are known tensions between them. If they're sensible, they won't attack after being warned, or at the very least will try to talk to us."
One of the Tyrants smiles a rather sinister smile. "And if they are sensible and pull back, we'll be able to let it leak to the shapeshifters that their Traditionalist 'allies' prefer to save their own skins than hold to their agreements."
"Quite so," Jamelia agrees, smiling the same NWO smile. "If they're Traditionalists trying to raid the location to steal RD artefacts under the cover of our raid, we'll talk to them. That stops them attacking us immediately and gives us more time to destroy the artefacts or capture them and make fake-tagged copies so we can trade them to the RDs and track them back to their base. And if they are members of the RD-aligned Nephanic Pentex group, we want to wipe them all out, and thus by making it look like we're trying to negotiate, we can locate them all with scans and then drop artillery on their heads. No survivors."
There was broad agreement among the Technocrats in the room that this was an entirely appropriate response to Nephandic allies.
"If they do attack, that means we'll need to move more forces in to occupy the node while processing begins," Henriette observes, eyes narrowing. "They'll want to control a node we just killed all the shapeshifters in."
Jamelia nods approvingly. "We must consider the risk that they already know where their shapeshifter enemies are based, and so will take the chance to attack, trying to use us as patsies," she agrees. "Or try to take it from us while we're still setting up defences. Fortunately, their heaviest elements will likely be either EDE-puppeted humans or Nephanic lupine shapeshifters, so we can approach the appropriate load-outs for counters as the same. The inner line will have mobile heavy elements capable of reinforcing weak points, and also being deployed to aid a breakout if the attack inside the variant dimensional space has to retreat."
"Going back to the point of Pentex involvement - you seem to be assuming that they only have light-by-Masses standards assets. What if they're heavier?" Major Clarent asks softly. "The Murklake PMC is Pentex-owned, and they have attack helicopters and Russian-made IFVs. Intelligence reports they may have fused some of these vehicles with EDEs. What's our planned counter to that?"
"Demon helicopters and IFVs?" Pondsmith drawls. "How original."
"Any major incursion will be immediately flagged to local command," Jamelia says, ignoring him. "We have anti-tank/shapeshifter and anti-air assets." She purses her lips. "There are also two NWO F-35s on operational readiness, which will be prepared for fast launch if we need them."
"Noted," Major Clarent says.
Jamelia grips the table. "Remember," she says, "most of the shapeshifter elements are mentally more like wolves and thus will act like them. They'll try to hit and run, wear you down, and get you trying to flee so they can cut you down. Keep in close communications, don't let them draw you off from the rest of the group, and keep an eye on the feeds from the sensory gear. We've weakened them already by drawing out some of their forces and exterminating them, but the data we're getting indicates that they have plenty more inside. We mustn't underestimate those smarter shapeshifters. They live for war and they've been honed in the brutal Darwinian culture they live in.
She pauses.
"And we're not underestimating them. That's why we're focusing on killing them first."
General Garrison nods his approval. He's an Iterator visibly in his 40s, having used a minimal anagathic regimen, head shaved for better cooling of his cranial implants. She can see his pains from cybernetics with minimal maintenance, the little twinges that briefly show on his face when he moves his left arm. Her field medic training covered cybernetic maintenance-she guesses that his organic musculature isn't quite what it was, and is pulling away from the synthetic stuff. The bone lacing is probably poisoning his bloodstream with metals the human body wasn't designed to process. Nevertheless, despite his weakness-despite how she could probably take down this old cybersoldier with ease, he dominates the room.
All this, because he loves his soldiers so much he just takes the minimum amount of maintenance man-hours to not drop dead from organ failure. It's no wonder the Hereford Iterators love him, would die for him. He's a hero.
A paladin. A man who believes in just war, wouldn't order any of his soldiers to do anything he wouldn't do. A person who may have done his share of killing, but has tried to do it... perhaps not mercifully-he's still a soldier of Iteration X, responsible for many constructs being purged... but at least avoiding more butchery than he has to.
Someone she can work with? Perhaps. He has his own work here, coordinating this extermination of shapeshifters with the large-scale plans of the Union. Jamelia doesn't envy him, even if he may be a long-term problem. She can't spare too much attention to it, she's busy trying to plan out the formations in a way that the combat synths can understand.
It reminds her why she dislikes using Victors. Combat synths are all too similar-unthinking meat-robots with perfect memories but no
comprehension. They need to be told what to do, babied through tactical plans, micromanaged like mindless drones. Something Iteration X didn't mind, seeing human cognition as a weakness, but it strains her multitasking skills to the limit, even with Serafina's augmentations. When a Void Engineer marine calls her, it's the breaking point.
"This is an emergency line. We are currently engaged in a high-priority operation. Identify yourself. If this isn't important I'll have you sanctioned." Jamelia snaps.
"I'm rookie Elsa Naryshkin." the voice on the other line says, voice raw. "And your subordinate, Serafina Rosario, needs help and needs to be put on suicide watch."
Jamelia very rarely swears. "
Fuck. I'll be there immediately." She turns to the room. "Kiet. You have control. I'll send you an advisor immediately."
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London Geofront
Aquinas Financial Monitoring Institute
Donald is busy trying to figure out how to leverage Rose's actions into a better position when his phone rings. His
custom ringtone tells him that Jamelia's the caller, which means it's probably important. "Is there a problem?" he asks. No time for niceties, if she's calling in the middle of an op it's probably critical.
"Have you ever done military advising?"
"Once or twice in my associate rotations?"
"Good enough. You're going to have to take a temporary advisor position in this operation. You won't let me down." It's a statement, not a question.
"Of course not." He's already fumbling in his desk for the detox patches he keeps. This is one job he's doing absolutely sober-well, he'll still be chemically enhanced, but those are
human augmentation drugs, and they don't count as an addiction. He rolls up his sleeve, puts one of his patches on his elbow, and feels the weight of the world rest on his shoulders. "Oh what the hell, I wanted to take a break from hedonism anyways." Donald mutters.
But-doesn't the weight of the world always rest on the shoulders of men like him? He's spent a lot of time volunteering at charities, looking at people he's actually put out of business. Just because his job doesn't directly kill them doesn't mean that they don't end up just as dead. The Syndicate jokingly calls people like him 'corporate warriors' or 'corporate samurai', but it's often surprisingly true. Even so, when dealing with finances and probabilities, there's always the insulation of uncertainty and indirect action. This time he's going to kill people, or save them, or spend their lives, in the most literal way.
He takes a few deep breaths, thinks of the lives he can
save instead of those he's going to end up throwing away. Always concentrate on the profit to be made. Remember that magnanimity is a luxury reserved for the victors. And he's talked to the Glass Walkers and heard of their honest appraisals of werewolf society. In his opinion, they can go fuck themselves with silverware.
He's going to own this assignment, and he's going to show the werewolves that Syndicate fat-cats can play hardball just as well as any super-commandos.
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Operational Area
Location Confused-Phase Space Overlay
Swerving the VGV to a halt and transforming it back into car mode, Henriette uploads the TACSAT feed into her ADEI. Spotty, breaking up in places - 82.8 percent chance of secondary EDE interference - but it's a TACSAT feed, and if Moscow taught her anything, having an eye in the sky really helps for coordinating defense.
And that, after all, is her duty today. Even if the chances are slim that anyone would be dumb enough to try to attack an Union cross-convention assault team, the rearguard exists for a reason. And if she remembers what Director Belltower told her about shapeshifters, there's a good chance that either Pentex - bloody Syndicate! - or disparate shapeshifter battlegroups will try to break through for their own reasons, like 'oh no, they're stealing our kills' or 'oh no, they're wiping out our equally genocidal shapeshifter buddies!'.
There'll be nothing of that, not while she's here. She sends a wide-area ready check to all ItX forces, followed by a readiness report to the local commanding officer.
.001 seconds later, her ready-check pings inside her own head.
"Was zum-" Henriette curses. How'd
she end up as the most experienced Enlightened Operative on hand? Her stomach falls a little when she realizes that's because the only
other Enlightened is Iterator Sylia. Great. A prissy princess who thinks that all you need is super fancy tech instead of fancy tech and a good idea what your foes are thinking. (A small part of her mind wails something like 'Oh no, Director Belltower is infecting me! Help! Help! I'm being oppressed by the NWO!', but she tunes it out.)
Okay. Okay. I can deal with this. Securing the outside of a Shapeshifter nest against forced entry can't be harder than a one-on-nine giant robot fight. Right?
Henriette, her eyes still closed inside the VGV, goes through the ready-checks of her assets.
Combat synthetics... 73% operational. Ground-mobility issues due to soggy terrain. 37% report scanner black-/white-outs due to unknown interference. TACSAT uplinks inoperable due to damage or interference, 49%. Cover: Negligible. Status: Unacceptable.
At the speed of thought, the light Iteration X forces outside start to organize.
"Director Belltower." Her voice is flat, almost robotic from the strain as the combat synths start piling shapeshifter bodies away from the entrance to the nest. "Requesting permission for fire mission for area-denial munitions, antipersonnel/anti-armor FASCAM, along following coordinates linked to my ADEI targeter."
"Director Belltower is indisposed. I have assumed temporary command." Kiet says.
"Oh." Henriette responds. She doesn't know how to respond. Director Belltower must be doing something important. Henriette tunes her comms to be in line with Iterator Sylia.
"Yes?" The young woman's voice carries a slight tinge of resentment, as if she's unhappy about Henriette having field command for some reason (again, that small voice at the back of her head: she's older than Henriette, and in good standing with Comptroller Lovelace at that, but what does the little princess know of fights? She wasn't in Autochthonia, she wasn't in Moscow.)
"Your suit has a portable N-fab, correct?"
Antoinette blinks in the AR window projected onto Henriette's eyes through their ADEIs. "Er... yes? Assymetric nanoforge layer in the arms, extruder ports at the palms and fingers for field-repair and maintenance with optional flash fab capacity for emer--"
Henriette cuts her off. Good gods, does
she sound like that when she's talking about tech with Director Belltower? Gah! "Good. Slave synth groups One, two, five and ten to your suit and get them to move shapeshifter bodies out of the way -"
Antoinette frowns. "I assume you need Angel's nanofab to field-armor the Synths and improve the field defenses?" To her credit, Iterator Sylia stops hauling plascrete plates out of the supply drops that thunder to the ground to set up fortifications.
Henriette flashes the other Iterator a grin, despite herself. Well, she might be a princess but she's thinking quickly enough. "Yes." An alert beeps on her ADEI AR. "We've got -
mark - twenty-five minutes until the first FASCAMs start dropping, and probably not much longer until any sort of interference arrives." Their ADEIs start a synced countdown.
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The 7th Paratroop Artillery currently on field maneuvers weren't too terribly happy when an oriental woman in a suit and a shady spy type showed up to interrupt their exercises. The frustration mounted as the two mysteries got waved into camp, the soldiers undoubtedly expecting the cancellation of the maneuvers. It had to be somebody complaining about either the expense of proper training or the 'environmental impact' of said training. The phrase of the hour was "fucking treehuggers."
This distaste lasted all of two minutes it took the Colonel to read the orders one Jones Burling, NWO operative, had passed on with a slight Scottish accent. They were to target a different set of coordinates for their training, but they were given a lot more practice time.
Colonel Aldridge carefully folds the orders up and slides them into his chest pocket, a quiet smile on his face. He'd been demanding more training time and ammunition but he never expected it to actually happen. "Lieutenant Mercer, move sharply and get the cargo truck unloaded. We've gotten even more rounds to practice with tonight."
"Well over three hundred rounds for practice. Do mind the color coding for alternate warheads," Yuuki stated. "I apologize about the short notice, but better now than never, right?"
"Yes. Better now than never." Aldridge says. Unbeknownst to him, all of the rounds are live, most prefragmented-silver HE, some with concussive payloads intended to burst shapeshifter eardrums or pheromonal smoke to ruin their sense of smell.
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Sullivan Cromwell,
bani Euthanatos, Knight of Radymanthys considers two things.
First, he has never abandoned a mission. He has failed a few times, but never by giving up. "Who dares wins", after all. Second, he and his four chantry-mates are very tempted nevertheless. The forest that the witch led them to via her scrying cauldron (a primitive affectation-Cromwell prefers awakening the spirits of his GPS navigator or just outright hypertech) is currently a hellscape. His inhumanly acute sight, a side effect of the divine blood rushing through his veins, sees artillery rain down on the forest, white phosphorous burning trees and producing thick toxic smoke as high-explosives hit. He can see the figures of Technocratic robots and soldiers moving through, engaging Garou.
Cromwell has seen this only once before-back in '91, a Taftani chantry in Iraq was targeted by the Technocracy. Under the cover of the Gulf War and the consensus shift from the United States demonstrating an entirely new way of warfare, they leveled the hidden fortress with artillery and superfighters.
His honor and his sense of self-preservation war for a moment-and then he decides. Muslims have a good word for it-Inshallah. God wills it. Maybe this is his time, maybe it's not. It's all up to the wheel of fate. But he's not going to run away from destiny.
"This is my fight. If any of you want to leave I don't have any objections. This is probably going to be suicidal, and I don't think throwing away five magi for a consor is a fair trade in any circumstance."
Jennifer Block shakes her head. "I always expected to die in my personal Ragnarok. This might be it." She checks her dolled-up Ares LMG-1. The blessing the war-god gave to the firearm bearing his name is a living thing, murderous and sentient. Cromwell can feel its disturbing anticipation of the slaughter.
Byrd Alston talks next. "Fuck no." He has a revolver rifle, a reliable weapon that'll work without any fancy tricks in the paradigm of the Caern. Each one of his shots is a killer bullet, fated to slay whoever they encounter. On them, in Greek, is engraved "To Whom It May Concern".
Reed Hubbard agrees with them. "Fuck no, we're not letting you go to hell without some backup." He has a rifle, but that's his backup. He carries a lot of knives, and Cromwell knows
exactly how good he is with them. He's seen the man take down a HITMark V with just improvised weapons.
Erin Paternoster is the last to agree. She's always been quiet and careful, thinking before she acts. "We're all in. Let's commit." She carries with her the spirit of warfare yet to come in the form of a XM29. It was canceled-but nevertheless it still
stands for something. And even in the Traditions, expensive smart munitions are... sourceable, especially if you have tass to spare.
"All right. Let's do it." Cromwell says. "Remember that we're not here to kill Technocrats-just to get that consor out. So if they're not firing on us don't shoot them. Avoid contact in general, it's a rescue not a combat sweep." He parks the SUV. "Everyone out. Let's get this done."
The five Euthanatos mercenaries move through the forest quietly, with the precision and expertise nearly identical to NWO combat operatives or Syndicate legbreakers. Between their enchantments on their black fatigues and their own personal skill, they are nearly invisible. But nearly doesn't imply fully, even if they penetrate well within the second ring of defenses before the number of eyes, human, cyborg, and microdrone, end up catching them. Cromwell hears the bloop of a grenade launcher, hits the ground just as the airbursting round explodes above him, shrapnel miraculously missing. Pulse rifle rounds tear into the brush around him, multiple shooters, probably synthetics instead of NWO agents. The too-precise pattern of the firing implies more than human coordination.
Well, he thinks. They brought it onto themselves. They could have just pretended to not notice, but that's their problem. One of them approaches slowly, firing-and then his weapon jams. Good. It'll take him a few seconds to clear it, and he rolls out of cover, knife in hand, rifle on a sling. A combat synthetic is stronger than him, and somewhat faster, but nowhere near as skilled and oh-so-predictable. And unlike an old HITMark with a metal endoskeleton-they're biomimetic. He slashes its Achilles tendons through the (non-knife-rated, clearly) armor it's wearing, does the same for its arms. He spins it to absorb fire from its partners, and dives away as they perforate the android with light armor-piercing ammunition.
"We can assume that whatever's here, the Technocrats really, really don't want us getting there." Cromwell says. "I suspect they know of the consor and want to use her as a spy. So we're on a tighter schedule." And that means that they're going to be doing a lot more shooting, he doesn't finish.
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Kessler is creeping through the phase-space hell jungle of the shapeshifter hive, stealthed alongside Clarent, a couple of other high-spec cyborgs, and the four GT-symbiont armored Damage Control cops. He's normally a fan of heavy assault, but he understands the need for stealth. Quietly creep through while they think the primary attack is significantly more deliberate, and then assassinate the leadership. Easy. They're all pheromone-masked and stealthed both optically and acoustically, so they should be invisible as they creep through the overgrown Umbral jungle, avoiding contact. It should be a cakewalk with the shapeshifters as distracted as they are.
Werewolves rush around him, sometimes bare meters away, without noticing the commando team. This should be a cakewalk. And then he hears the worst possible statement.
"RD! RD! We have confirmed superstitionists!"
"Two synths are down, they may be allied with the shapeshifters!"
"We're going to need some reinforcements topside! We're not rated against superstitionists!"
"ID?"
"Neg ID! Black body armor, tactical gear, could be just about anyone who doesn't hate all technology." The speaker doesn't realize that the Euthanatos are channeling the animist god representing the consummate commando-the godform, as House Thig would see it, but they can tell that there's something abnormally dangerous about this team that works as a well-oiled machine.
"Do you need us to assist?" Kessler subvocalizes.
He hears Henriette on the channels. "I'm moving to intercept them. The Interceptor has heavy Primium, it should be fine."
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Remember Donald's dossier about how he's normally friendly and easygoing? This is Donald in Seriousface mode, the one which let him pull himself up to a Syndicate leadership position as a defector with no contacts in less than 10 years, with his own bootstraps. Are you scared yet? Yes? Good. Donald's Entropy is worse than Jamelia's but he has a lot of Correspondence, Spirit, and Primal Utility to use.
Also spoilers: Five disciple-to-adept level Euthanatoi supercommandos versus Jamelia & Friends' split attention is actually very good at just forcing their way through your Entropy procedures. This is the first time you're fighting serious magical firepower, so a lot of your previous strategies
are not going to work.
Jamelia Belltower:
[ ] You are going to need to
talk to Serafina.
[ ] Sternly.
[ ] Not so sternly.
Jane Clarent:
[ ] (1.5x) Release the big oaf to fight the RDs. He doesn't seem like a ninja.
[ ] (1.5x) Pick up the pace! You're on a tighter schedule now.
[ ] Continue your mission as planned. The RDs are irrelevant.
Donald Sykes, Chief Execution Officer:
[ ] Deal with the Traditions intrusion first.
[ ] Let the HITMark do what he does best.
[ ] (2.0x) Convince Kiet to not actually murder the fuck out of them, because that's: 1. Terrible for business, 2. Likely to cause some severe injury.
[ ] Pull perimeter assets to breach the hive.
[ ] Continue the mission as planned.
[ ] (-1.0x) Panic.
[ ] Write-in.
Henriette & Sylia
[ ] (4.0x) Go hunt down the RDs. Stupid ecoterrorists interrupting your normal routine.
[ ] Avoid the RDs like
cowards.
[ ] Write-in.
