Sergei Shadrin and Meg Crycroft sat nervously inside the
Hovercar. The small vehicle hovered above Megapol Station
3, waiting for the Lieutenant's vidlink. Their monitor came
on. Lieutenant Isaki's bland and thin face appeared, and he
spoke in his usual dry, clipped manner. "Officers Shadrin
and Crycroft. I suppose you know what you're up against
here."
The two nodded, remebering the briefing a few hours
back. "I'll review it for you, anyway," said Isaki. He
bent down and shuffled some papers. "You two, along with
Chekhov and Trindell, are about to embark on a very, very
dangeroud mission. You are to raid a slum building called
Scrooge Mansions, believed to be a dwelling place for a
particularly unsavory gang called Osiron. Your objectives
are to secure as many suspects as possible, and destroy the
heroin before it gets to its contacts. You're up against
heavily armed thugs, so be very careful."
Shadrin patted the extra Lawpistol stuck in his belt.
His backpack bulked out with a Stun Grapple, and several
Stun Grenades hung loosely with the extra Lawpistol.
Besides that, he had a Mindbender lugged inside his
backpack. This was unknown to many people, of course; he
encountered enough prejudice and fear just because of how he
looked. What would happen if they knew he was using
Psionics?
Shadrin was a Homo Xenosapiens, a hybrid between the
Sectoid and human race. His genetic heritage gave him the
blessing (or curse?) of enhanced psionic powers, but it also
gave him the disadvantage of being physically weak.
Besides, it also gave him a very alien look, with a
triangular bald head, with luminous eyes. Many people shied
away from him, alluding to the wars against the aliens so
many years ago. Many called him an alien agent, knowing
that his kind was once used by aliens to infiltrate
governments and make them serve the aliens. It was not a
comforting thought, but Shadrin had learned how to insulate
himself against such discrimination. At least he thought he
did.
The Hovercar zoomed towards Scrooge Mansions.
Very soon, he saw the familiar blackened hulk of a slum
peeking around Mega-Primus' wall. He readied both his
guns. Crycroft touched a few buttons, and the monitor read
"Craft Weapon Systems, Armed and Standby."
"This car may look civilian, but I'm not taking any
chances," she said. She pulled out her Sniper Rifle from
her backpack. A M4000 Machine Gun would have been much
suited for this mission, but Megapol discouraged all their
competitor's armaments from being used by its personnel.
Dan Trindell and Linstradt Chekhov's Hovercar hovered
near them. Trindell's voice came over the comm. "Alright,
everyone, on my count, we begin the raid, just like we
rehearsed it. Mark one, two..."
Shadrin suddenly remembered that they were supposed to
capture live suspects for this one, so he hurriedly jammed
his pistols back in his belt and armed his grapple.
"...Three!" Crycroft accelerated the Hovercar toward the
slum's roof. Below them, Trindell had swooped downward,
aiming for the entry hole beside the building.
Their Hovercar reached the roof in a matter of moments.
Shadrin quickly opened the door and rolled out, taking cover
and readying his grapple. "Sergei, you stupid alien, you
trying to cover me with that weapon?" Crycroft said,
pointing the barrel of her gun this way and that, ready to
fire.
No guards. Not yet, anyway.
Shadrin retorted, "Plant the HE and let's get on with
it, Meg. We're supposed to capture lives here."
Crycroft planted a High Explosive onto the roof's
floor. "Well, if you expect them to stand still and let you
fire that thing, you're in for a big surprise. Now get to
cover!"
Crycroft ran toward the car and ducked behind the
Cadillac-inspired vehicle. They would come in with a bang,
taking the gang by surprise.
The roof shuddered with the explosion of the High
Explosive. Debris and smoke flew through the air, and the
two police officers rushed toward the hole the explosion had
carved out. Without hesitation, they jumped down, weapons
at ready. Their feet hit the floor, hard, but their knees
bent to absorb the impact. They rolled to the side as a
precaution, and well they did, as several bullets streaked
past them. Crycroft swung her rifle around and fired, the
laser beams streaking out. They could see three men, one
with a Machine Gun, the rest with pistols. The lasers
missed them by a long shot.
Shadrin quickly pulled out a stun grenade from his
belt. He shouted, seemingly to no one in particular, "Point
25!" The grenade's voice activated timer unit acknowledged
the command, and he flung it toward the criminals. One
fourth of a second later, the grenade detonated. A greenish
gas seeped out, hissing cruelly. Two of the criminals were
caught within the gas' radius; it wasn't long before they
stumbled and fell, unconscious. The third was busy
squeezing his pistol's trigger, running from the two.
Bullets zoomed past Shadrin, and one grazed the side of
his torso. He uttered a short cry of pain, and
instinctively pulled the trigger of his stun grapple. Its
three claws glinting menacingly, the grapple zoomed toward
the criminal, a silver wire unreeling behind it. It fell
embarassingly short of his target, and the gun automatically
reeled in the grapple again. There was a strange,
high-pitched shriek, and the man fell as his chest lit up.
Crycroft had fired her rifle.
Crycroft bound up to Shadrin. "You okay?"
"Yeah, it just grazed me."
"Next time, use your guns." She turned away, disgusted.
Shadrin tucked the grapple inside the backpack, then
pulled out his pistols, one resting comfortably in each
hand. He and Crycroft then advanced.
***
Shadrin gripped his lawpistols, his palms sweating. So
far he had managed to down four men, counting the two he had
stunned earlier. Crycroft had killed three, kneeling behind
Shadrin and using the sniper rifle to bring them down. They
had encountered the men while going down the stairs, a
calculated ambush of four men. Trindell and Chekhov had
contacted them after that, updating their positions. The
heroin had not yet been found.
"This is Chekhov. Trindell and I are on the basement
level. All clear, no heroin. We got four live ones.
Over."
"Crycroft reporting. Fourth floor all clear. One live
one. Over."
They were now on the third floor, going down. The
hallway they had been on separated into two passageways;
Shadrin had taken the right. Not far from him, Crycroft was
walking carefully, the dim light making flickering shadows
across the moldy wooden floor. The obsolete incandescent
lights were too dim - they were used to the energy-efficient
ion lamps that could floodlight a large street.
Suddenly, there was a sharp retort of gunfire, and he
heard Crycroft running. Turning, he ran towards Crycroft as
the wall near her was sprayed with bullets. She crawled
down as one gang member rushed from around the corner, his
M4000 blazing. Shadrin ducked as Crycroft fired. He fired
his own pistols, but missed. Meg had done better; the
criminal's arm had a smoking burn. She fired again, and the
man rushed back to the corner.
"They're in here!" Shadrin heard him cry. He went
forward, rejoining Crycroft.
"There are about three guys in here! Be on the
lookout!" she hissed at him. She switched on her
floodlight, and the hallway was bathed in the bluish glow of
the lamp. All at once, their was the sound of pattering
feet, and three men charged, moving across them, their guns
barking sharply. Shadrin instinctively fired both his
pistols, and one man fell, his kneecap shattered and two
bullets in his chest. Sergei felt a sharp pain in his
abdomen, and he knew he had been hit. He moved laterally,
strafing the corridor. Another man fell - the wounded one -
as Crycroft burned his face clean off with laser fire.
Gunfire splattered the walls as the last remaining guy
fired. In his peripheral vision, Sergei saw Crycroft fall,
when suddenly a small sphere bounced to the ground near
him. There was a small explosion, and the hallway was
enveloped in black smoke. It filled his eyes, making him
tear. He coughed and stumbled around. He nearly fell over
Crycroft. He reached down and grabbed her. Slowly, his
eyes brimming with tears, he dragged her away from the
smoke.
"Nukin' smoke grenade." He examined his abdominal
wound. It wasn't that deep, in fact, his bullet-resistant
jacket had nearly stopped the bullet. Crycroft was much
worse. Her chest was dark with blood, and she groaned.
"Don't worry, Meg. We'll get you outta here."
"Crycroft? Sergei? Chekhov? What's happening? Update
me!" Trindell's voice came over the comm.
"We were attacked by three guys. Crycroft's badly
wounded, we need to get her outta here!" Sergei tried to
tend Meg, but he had no time. Reinforcements might come.
Why couldn't command issue them with medkits? Stupid,
budget-conscious bureaucrats!
There was a crackle of static over the comm. He heard a
scream, then more static. "--- elp! ---ing att---!
Ambush!" A deep Russian bass. Chekhov. "They're throwing
those Diablo things! Can't h---!" The comm dissolved in
static.
"Hell! Chekhov! Chekhov!" Trindell was panicked.
Technically, he was in command, and the mission seemed to be
falling apart. Diablo things? What was Chekhov talking
about?
Trindell seemed to be saying something, but Sergei
couldn't bother with him now. Reinforcements had arrived.
Two men, one with an M4000 and the other with a lawpistol,
ran down the corridor, their guns trailed at Shadrin and
Crycroft. Sergei quickly dove to the side, firing. Bullets
tore ragged holes into the floor. He heard Crycroft
scream. Oh no! He fired, downing one. The other - the
M4000 guy - aimed the gun at him. He dropped one of his
lawpistol, then rolled to the side, grabbing a stun grenade
from his belt. The wall beside him became peppered with
holes. He pressed the switch in the grenade, shouting,
"Point 25!" He flung it in the air within milliseconds,
just as the gangster fired again. The gangster miraculously
missed, but the grenade did not. It clonked him in the
face, and greenish gas squirted out. The man registered a
look of surprise as he slumped forward.
He rushed to Crycroft. She was dead.
"Hey, Trindell," he shouted over the comm, "I think ---"
A small canister landed beside him. He backed away from
it, for a second unsure what it was. Suddenly, he felt
liquid splatter over him, and he knew then what it was. He
ran, panicked, just as the canister exploded. Compared to
the other, more conventional grenade, its explosion was
extremely weak, but the oil droplets the canister had
sprayed out suddenly caught fire. The hallway burst into
flames as the burning oil droplets landed on the moldy
floor. Shadrin quickly backed away, watching as Crycroft,
his lawpistol, her sniper rifle, the other corpses and the
unconscious man were quickly covered by the fire.
Incendiary grenade. Developed by the notorious gang Diablo,
Osiron must have stolen the technology. So that was what
Chekhov meant.
Well, no more deaths in this team. He would miss
Crycroft. No more fiddling around with these guys. He
gripped his lawpistol even tighter as he pulled the
Mindbender from his backpack. Trying to see his way through
the smoking inferno, he could just make out a hazy outline
of a man. Pointing his mindbender, he activated it.
Immediately, his senses became heightened, his perception
aroused. It was as if he could hear the crackle of every
flame. Time also seemed to pass more slowly. His brain
seemed to have switched to a higher form, a more advanced
one. That was only partly right.
He stretched his perception outwards. Milliseconds
crawled by as the mindbender reached out to his latent
psionic powers and amplified it. He touched the
consciousness of the man who had thrown the grenade. A
whole new world of thoughts and emotions careened through
Shadrin, threatening to overload his senses. Shadrin almost
felt his brain expanding, taking in the information. He
touched the man's consciousness again. Focusing intently, he
tweaked the man's neurons, filling them with illusory
stimuli at a fantastic rate. The neurons passed on the tons
of information on to the brain. The stimuli flooded the
thug's brain, and his senses became overloaded. His brain
automatically cut his consciousness, and he buckled forward
He had stunned the criminal using psionics. The man was
knocked senseless, his brain suffering a kickback from the
neural overload he had just been given. Shadrin smiled
grimly, then continued his search, the flames casting odd
flickering lights in the hallway. He walked away from the
fiery hallway.
Soon, he came to a anti-grav lift. He stepped into the
greenish beam, and immediately he was no longer bound by the
Newtonian law of gravity. Some laws were meant to be
broken, after all... He went down. "Trindell? I'm going
down to the second floor."
His comm came alive with the rapid staccato of gunfire.
"Shadrin? Thank God you're still alive and kicking. I
can't raise Chekhov, and I'm under heavy fir---" The comm
was awash in static as the gunfire went on. Then it cleared
up again. "This is Trindell to command! Trindell to
command! We need heavy backup here at Scrooge! I have two
men dead, and the raid looks like it's about to fail!
Repeat, this is Trindell requesting heavy backup.
Uh oh. Shadrin stepped onto the anti-grav lift. Looks
like Trindell needed help. "Trindell? Trindell?" As he
went down to the first floor, he suddenly heard a sharp
report from above him. He ducked, and the greenish beam
rippled as more bullets passed through it. His descent
stopped, and he aimed his gun upwards. The thought passed
through him, not for the first time, why anti-grav lifts
didn't affect bullets. Something about low mass, or
whatever, he could never get those scientist types. Looking
at his assailant, he saw a ragged woman holding a
lawpistol. She fired again, and the bullet dug into the
wall near him. He fired, and the woman gripped her arm and
screamed. In a flash, she was gone.
He chased after her, shouting, "This is the police!
Drop your weapons and surrender yourself!" He rounded a
corner, and there, a blackened, burnt hole in her chest, was
the woman. Now how did that happen? Before he could wonder
anymore, he heard a rapid succession of very loud gunfire.
What on earth could that be? It seemed to come from
outside. Remembering Trindell, he quickly returned to the
grav lift. He descended to the first floor, shouting into
his comm, "Don't worry, Trindell. I'm coming on over."
He arrived in a small room with a door in front of him.
Walking in front of it, it automatically opened. He heard
the report of gunfire, and he automatically duck into a
corner. Looking out, he could not believe what he was
seeing.
He was looking at the parking space outside of the slum
building. Behind an old, broken car, he could see Trindell
firing his M4000 at several gangsters running around. The
gangsters were running around, the bullets kicking holes on
the asphalt. Trindell was under heavy fire, though, from
about five gangsters. But that wasn't the unbelievable
part.
Above all of them, a Hovercar in Megapol colors streaked
down, its 40mm autocannon blazing loudly. Ahead of it was a
small red hoverbike, desperately evading the deadly rain of
bullets. The backup from Megapol command had arrived, but
two Osiron hovercars and three of its hoverbikes were
dogfighting the two dispatched vehicles. The hoverbike
streaked upward, and it turned against the police car,
firing small laser beams. The car was hit, and it pulled
up, turning in a wide angle, trying to get shots on the
others. The other hoverbikes scattered, and the Osiron
Hovercars were busy engaging the other Megapol craft.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Trindell running toward
the lift. Shadrin's mind snapped back to ground level, and
he ran quickly towards his companion. He fired his pistol,
fired again, as bullets danced around the two of them.
***
Dujardin moved toward the windows. Touching the
shutters lightly, he opened them and peered out. He could
see Shadrin and the other policeman fighting it out with the
gangsters. The two Megapol hovercars were also having a
difficult time, their guns missing the evasive hoverbikes.
But it was Shadrin that caught his attention. It was his
duty to keep an eye out on him.
Finally, he was satisfied. He touched a button on the
side of his helmet, and the helmet camera was turned off.
The tape would help in Shadrin's assessment.
Looking down, he fingered his laser rifle. He hated to
kill civilians (in fact, policy strongly discouraged it),
but she had been armed. She had shot at him, and he had
replied in kind. Now she had a smoking, blackened chest.
It was good that Shadrin hadn't seen him, it might have
jeopardized his mission.
So far he had found two, but that wasn't quite enough.
He would look around some more. But it was important for
him to keep an eye out for Shadrin.
END. Issue 2 concludes Shadrin's raid on the Osiron slums.
But who's this mysterious stranger who is tailing Sergei,
and what's his agenda? Next week provides the answers.
Lio Mangubat
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