NP opened his eyes, the semi-conscious entity that was PA's de-centralised mainframe had been rebooted and he had been kicked from his own skull. Smiling a real life smile, he opened a good old-fashioned terminal window on his pda and started a search programme. He knew what to look for, and it was only a matter of seconds before he detected the node that had controlled his assets so efficiently. He followed the data stream and saw what was going on as Dau K-10. He opened a link to Naoko and sent her a message about what had happened, and what he was about to do. Grinning fiercely, he started entering commands the old fashioned way with a keyboard and in raw code.
###
Gramps walked into TGFT command, nodded politely around and stepped up to Ecka's chair. Ecka looked at Gramps who nodded in return. Ecka sighed a breath of relief, reached behind his chair and grabbed the bottle of Phylatis Delicht from which he poured two drams, handing one of them to Gramps. They looked each other in the eyes before drinking the fiery liquid that balmed the soul all the way down while raising the temperature several degrees. Gramps held the cup out gain for a refill, one dram was hardly enough.
"Sir, it has been solved. The dockhand has agreed to a compensation of one point three million credits and all expenses paid regarding his hospital stay. He then drops all charges and claims it was an accident"
"Tis nae as bad as feared Gramps, wiel done."
"I wish. There is another small item, but I hope I can work that out as well. He wants Buzz to apologise, and you know how Buzz is"
"Aye, Ah kenn Buzz, It cannae be done. Unless ye can git Waldoze o Fluffy tae blether im into it."
"I'll see what I can do Sir. I'll get on it right away."
Gramps held his hand out for another dram, he had deserved it.
###
The corridor was cloaked in black, which was precisely what the strike team wanted. So far Cat had located all the roaming guards before they had detected the team, dispatching them with taser shots and letting Skull tie them up and gag them. Two corridors down and they would be able to enter the unmarked centaur that psych0cobra was waiting in. Cat turned the corner, taser at the ready when the light turned on. The safety filter in her goggles turned them off, blinding her for half a second before the override enabled her to see in light conditions. She saw the blast door close in front of her, and heard the warning claxons start up.
"INTRUDER ALERT INTRUDER ALERT, SECTOR A-29-G."
Not slowing a second, she switched weapons to her preferred heavy calibre gyro stabilised rocket gun, or gyrock, dropping the taser unceremoniously on the floor.
"Corridor closed, need alternative exit." She kept watch towards the blast door, nobody would come through and live to tell.
Red Tide sent a query to the jacker and came up blank. Calling up a virtual map, he found a possible route to the centaur.
"Chainsaw, cut the wall here and here."
He sent a tactical overlay to Chainsaw's HUD showing an outline on the bulkhead. The blast doors were made to resist most things, and were made of xithricite alloy. The bulkheads on the other hand, were made of plasteel. Chainsaw turned his xith toothed saw on and started cutting a hole in the wall. Once more the corridor filled with the infernal noise from the super charged engine as the one centimetre wide blade shredded the wall. After cutting the three sides, he stepped back and let Skull smash the wall in. An empty cubicle. Chainsaw stepped through and set the blade to the next wall. This was going to take longer time, but it would still be faster than going through the blast doors.
###
The claxons were sounding on all levels, even in the TGFT autonomous part of the station. Vardonx and Neagoth looked at each other before grabbing their weapons and body armour. If there were intruders, they wanted to be part of the tag team. They ran outside and into Fluffy who was standing with his pda, rapidly punching up data.
"Fluffy, you coming or what?"
Fluffy looked up at the two pumped traders in full kit with something like fear in his eyes.
"They are punching through the walls. This way."
Vardonx and Neagoth exchanged looks.
"What, where? Show us where they are." Vardonx was demanding from Fluffy, who pointed at the nearest door. "Right, lets move then."
Vardonx drew his two large bore slug throwers and walked over to the door. He nodded to Neagoth who swiped his special security all access card and open the door. Inside was a bewildered Plissken caught in the middle of filing a 251-D Request for Purchase of Non-Standard Sleeping Gown form.
"Recruit, get out and report to headquarters. This is no place for a young ensign."
Plissken looked confused around; just what in his issued cubicle was deemed unsuitable for him? He could see that Vardonx meant business with the implied threat of the two guns, so after grabbing his form, he ran to TGFT operations to report. Being new in TGFT was sometimes very strange.
Vardonx stood still and listened closely. That bulkhead, the noise came from that bulkhead. He braced himself and pointed both guns, motioning for Fluffy and Neagoth to be ready. Not carrying a gun, Neagoth drew a four foot long slightly curved blade and positioned himself to be able to attack the first person through the bulkhead. A large crash from the cubicle next wall over, followed by several "Boom-swoosh-Crack" that punched holes in the wall immediately in front of them. The high pitched whine of an auto needler played second fiddle, followed by a man's scream. Vardonx bit his teeth together, they were NOT coming through him, not alive. "Boom-swoosh-Crack-fwump-Gung", and silence from the room.
"Fuck, they have a gyrock gun."
Vardonx slowly nodded and replied with clenched teeth.
"It appears you are correct. What fun we are having."
###
It didn't cost him much to gain access to the forensics file from the Divinia station cops. He had found that with the low salary of most cops, asking to see relatively harmless information for a "donut contribution", was really no problem. He sifted through the names and DNA tags, fearing to find the one that matched. It took him half an hour, but in the end he didn't find his match. Sighing with relief, he looked down at the German Shepherd that had been at his side all the time, scratching it behind its ears.
"Looks like the assholes missed her buddy. What do you say, should we get back at them?"
The dog closed its mouth and turned its head sideways, its ears standing.
"I'll take that as a yes boy."
The dog started wagging its tail. He got up and walked out to his vulture, the dog at his side. He had been in hiding long enough. He had actually believed that if he disappeared from active duty, his enemies would stop the efforts to hit him via his family. He should have known better, after all they had no inhibitions when it came to making a profit. They had shown before that they would kill off an entire population and destroy a planet to gain wealth, so the torching of an orphanage to get to him was nothing. He was going to come back, he was going to find the ones responsible and make them suffer.
