The pink Rev C docked at a sedate 70 m/s in the docking cradle of Remley Orbital. A faction rating that was just a smidgeon above hated ensured a welcoming committee to Azumi when she vaulted out of her ship, the knee length tartan skirt with calf high white socks and white shirt not quite what the guards expected. She ignored the bruises on them as efficiently as she ignored them, turning her back to rummage through the hold. Finding what she needed and calling a high pitched "Golly" when she did so; she turned and stared directly into the eyes of the largest of the guards. She took the lollipop she had found and inserted it between her black lipstick coloured lips, twirling one pigtail at the same time.
"Did I do anything wrong Mr Officer?"
The guards hesitated, they had been told to expect a vicious pirate with a lot of innocent traders on her conscience, not a schoolgirl. The guard in charge managed to move a step forward.
"I am sorry Ms, I am going to have to see some identification please."
Azumi looked at him over her lollipop and popped it out of her mouth slowly. The guards never knew what hit them. After they woke up they could watch the surveillance camera feed and see the slender bald man with a tattoo of twin snakes that twisted from his neck up and over his bald head calmly walk over to them and put a stunner to each of them in quick succession. They could also see the man smile at the young girl and extend his palms to her so they could touch palms in traditional Itani greeting. She smiled a crooked smile to him, placed the lollipop in her mouth and did a pirouette.
"Do you like my outfit?"
"You knock 'em dead babe. I especially like the Hello Kitty bands in your hair, immensely cute, yet deadly."
He knew what she hid in her hair-band, and he knew very well that she was as skilled with that monofilament wire as with her Rev C.
She feigned innocence and smiled broadly. Motioning for him to follow, Retractile and Azumi walked together into the station.
###
The noise from a chainsaw revving to high sounded very loud in the cubicle, and Vardonx flinched as the first series of plasteel splinters cascaded onto him and the rest of the room. The chainsaw cut a line five feet high, then extracted and did the same on the other side, turning near the top and connecting to the other cut. The chainsaw was retracted and silence followed. Neagoth looked to Vardonx for support but he was immensely focused on the wall. A large boom, and a single figure crushed through the wall, quickly followed by a series of high cracks as Vardonx shot several large calibre soft-nosed bullets into the first person, following him as he tried to roll away. A string of grenades were popped from Fluffy's 40 mm automatic grenade launcher, impacting in the room behind the hole in the wall. A mix of tear gas and flash-bangs, they were mainly for nuisance and confusion, not deadly. He didn't know it the civilians were alive after all. Vardonx only stopped firing when the figure was near Neagoth, and that was enough for Neagoth to take a step forward and swing his blade. A non-trained person would cut against the main mass of the target, and a non-trained person would then smash the sword on the armour plating covering the intruder. Neagoth had trained for this for many years, and he chose to strike at where most persons are vulnerable; the ankles. Cleanly separating the Achilles tendon from the foot, the target dropped like a sack of flour unceremoniously to the floor, not a sound emanating from the man. Neagoth was about to swing once more, taking the other foot out, and perhaps do the same to the knees.
Boom-swoosh-Crack, Boom-swoosh-Crack, Boom-swoosh-Crack, Vardonx threw himself out of the room to get in cover from the gyrock gun, taking Fluffy down with him. Neagoth tried to blend in with the wall, and crawled behind a table that had overturned, covering up to it like a turtle to its shield. A noise like an angry swarm of bees clashed into the table as he dropped behind it, protecting him from the thousands of needles that would have reduced him to a bloody pulp had he not reached cover in time. He hugged the floor, any second fearing the stinging pain from the needler. Boom-swoosh-Crack, a hole the size of a fist appeared in the table just about his head. Boom-swoosh-Crack, another just to the side of his head. Neagoth froze, he was actually going to die now, and by someone he had never even seen.
###
The plan had worked okay so far; they had cut themselves through the plasteel walls easy enough, not meeting anyone until that last room. The man and woman had been surprised, but not enough. The man had been holding a gun in his hand when the wall crashed in, enough of a threat that Cat hadn't hesitated a second, stitching a pattern of bolts across the wall towards him. The woman in the bed had risen and taken a bolt as a direct hit in her left leg, blowing it clean off and showering the room in meat, blood and bones. That was enough for the man to loose focus and stand still for half a second, which was his undoing. The shot of needles from Skull hit him on the chest and left arm, turning it into a bleeding raw wound and dropping him fast.
Chainsaw had entered the room with the saw and started cutting once more, allowing Skull to crash open the section. Several bullets hit his chest immediately and would have been deadly if they hadn't impacted on his armour. At the same time, several grenades flew past him and impacted on the back wall, covering the room in smoke and debris. Even though the armour took the brunt of the damage, Skull still reeled from the force of the impacts and tried to get out of the line of fire to the left of the room when someone or something cut his foot in half.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, they are three. Cat, pepper it. Ah, Lady Serco this hurts."
Cat heard Skull over the team radio and replied with a string of bolts that hit the far wall, making holes in the plasteel as neatly as a sewing machine through fabric. She moved up to Skull who was lying on the ground, shooting deadly canisters of needles into a tabletop that covered most of one side. Unable to see the target behind, she flicked through her vision modes until she had a vague blob behind the cover. Smiling inside the helmet, she aimed at what she felt was the head or feet and shot one single rocket. Boom-swoosh-Crack. The target moved slightly. Boom-swoosh-Crack. Once more the target moved, this time away from the hole in the tabletop. She had him now. She aimed at the head of the man and slowly depressed her finger.
###
Most of the systems had been restored to normal, and NP slowed a smidgeon. He had delegated internal systems to Naoko and continued to lock the outer systems from the attacker. Finally he had the surplus of time to begin a counterattack, or maybe just a detection probe to find out who it was. He sent a query to Naoko to see how she was handling the defence and chuckled. He had to remember to take her out to dinner one day; that was one devious lady. And she had saved him as well not to forget.
