Shattergrounds

Smoke pools in the corners of the ceiling, no fancy air scrubbers to clear the air of the office I find myself in on Concilium. The overhead light barely brighter than the cherry of my lit cigarette as I take another long drag. As an alien to the humans, I have always known it was better to keep my head down. As a Cube Jager investigating the dirty underbelly of the Human Sphere's criminal networks for the whereabouts of a highly dangerous fugitive, keeping my head down was even more of an asset. Now? With the O-12 effectively giving carte blanche to any human with a gun, or pointed stick, who wants to call themselves a bounty hunter to start taking pot shots at any Tohaa, or spiky haired individual in the name of serving a warrant? Now my head is so low I am plowing the ground with my face, and that dirty underbelly is now looking down on me. Though I take some solace in knowing that one Hsien Agent is probably hyperventilating at all the Durian's being shot up in all the chaos.
I wish if I knew anything of the planned betrayal some spiral agents harbored, I would have told someone who could have prevented it, or if I did, they would have, but there is a reason why there no-one should edit a cube, let alone their own. You keep wondering what was edited, and if you are able to determine what it was, if you will keep making the same decision to erase it. Pretty soon you end up with a memory a full of holes as a chunk of Swiss cheese that a rat has gone at with a melon baller. The more you dwell on it, the more likely it is to happen. As I stub out my cigarette and take a long pull from the bottle I keep in the lower drawer, I look over the reports from the QAZs and wonder if it already has. Then again, with beings from outside of physical possibility seen ripping through buildings and battle TAGs, maybe being a few issues short of the full catalog would play to my advantage. Couldn't hurt anyway.

Edda's Rhodan Spaceport was were I wanted to investigate first. As the main artery for off-world space travel it seemed to me to be the easiest place for one to slip in among the confusion of the general evacuation. The team assembled had just pulled away from assisting with the civilian evac to obtain the identification records presented by the passengers who have already been evacuated to determine if Lou had already come this way. Two Taquel officers were coordinating this mission one advancing up the left flank with its Spitfire, along with a support heavy weapon Chaksa. The other took the right, along with a Kealtar and Kriigal agent. They were accompanied by a Motorized Bounty Hunter who took up the center, taking the contract with the hope that working alongside Trident forces would give her the best opportunity to collect on the O-12 reward for Spiral agents. The rest of the team was made up of a Liberto and a Ohm Beast Hunter who were scouting ahead.

Our team had just recovered one data set, and were advancing towards the next when we saw that it was already in the hands of Yu Jing operatives. These weren't the normal group of Durian Inspectors I was used to dealing with, these were White Banner operatives, and whats more, they were after the same data set. Lead by Qiang Gao, a team of Jujak and Bixie, took up their right flank, covering the advance of a solo Shaolin Monk. Liang Kai advanced with pair of Shaolin on the left, covered by a pair of ChaiYi.

As the solo Monk rushed forward, Bixie led took point and ran the heavy infantry team towards our right flank, making short work of the Liberto and Beast Hunter before moving to engage the Taquel officer who had taken cover on the catwalk. The exchange of fire was fierce, but with some help from the Bounty Hunter, Bixie became will have to operate under the new title, the Crimson Champion.

With the rest of the heavy infantry falling back to defensive positions, the Taquel led her team forward in attempt to overpower them with pheroware, however after several attempts failed, I saw they could use a hand, and I had two to spare, so I parachuted in.

I was staring down the barrel of the Jukak's shotgun, but before either of us could react the Taquel officer decided it was time to take a different approach and gunned down Qiang Gao with her viral rifle.

Seizing on the confusion at the loss of their lieutenant, the Kriigal agent was able to jam the comms of the remaining Jujaks.

Liang Kai and his acolytes raced up the field, with Liang Kai taking the lead advancing on my positing he leapt atop a staircase, and just before he could make another jump to to my position, he was blinded by a flash pulse from the Kealtar.

At this, the forward Jujak doused its position with a gout of flame that the Taquel and Kealtar narrowly avoided, while the other Jujak retreated in attempt to repair its comms. I attempted some nanoespionage, but the shot didn't land.

With some of us pinned down by the Jujaks, the Taquel Lieutenant sprinted to a position that would allow her to take out the Jujak with the flamethrower.

While this took care of one of the problems, the other Jujak was still a big threat, so the closer Taquel took aim with her viral rifle, and was engulfed in the explosion of the Jujak's panzerfaust. Leaving her dead on the ground.
Unable to extricate the rest of us from the situation the Taquel Lieutenant focused on our operational goals, and advanced towards the unprotected data set, at the same time overloading the solo monks senses with a burst of weaponized pheromones, knocking him unconscious.

Recovering from his temporary blindness, Liang Kai hopped down from his perch with me in his sights. I attempted to dodge out of the way, but was blasted apart by his shotgun.

The Jujak made a run towards our data set, finally repairing its comes, but just as it tried to contact its superiors for orders, the Kriigal agent overloaded its systems again.
One of the remaining Monks ran raced to engage the Taquel officer, but was taken out before it could get her in its grasp.

Seeing near open path the Taquel Lieutenant created a cloud of impenetrable haze to hide her position from the Jujak, least she meet the same fate as her fellow officer. The remaining Monk was dispatched with a burst from her viral rifle, as it blasted her with its chain rifle, killing her armor's loyal 'mate. In a final dash, she was able to copy over some of the data before our team needed to withdraw from the escalating situation.

As for me, what could be called my mind was bouncing around several spy satellites and antenna to be downloaded into another bargain rate Lhost, all I could afford in these shattered grounds.