Pixy: Blog

Min Soo dressed quickly in his armour as the data still streamed in, as usual, short on actual specifics. One of their shipments had been intercepted apparently, propriety tech stolen. Initial intel was saying that it was an ‘opportunistic heist' and that the thieves had no idea of what they had stolen. His own enquiries as to what had been stolen, what the 'propriety tech' was, just come back as 'restricted' Fair enough, but there were aspects about it that he needed to know if he was going to be recovering it. Things like size: Could it be carried by his team, or would it require recovery by specialist equipment? What it looked like: Was it in containers, was it data? He couldn't rescue something if he didn't know what it looked like. Did it have special transport requirements? Was it likely to do something unpleasant to him and his team, like go 'Boom!"? These were all mission critical points to which he was receiving no constructive replies.

He collected his rifle as the status lights of his squad turned green. Min Soo gave the order to board the two APC's. Normally they would have gone in fast via an air drop, but intel was insisting that there appeared to be anti air on the target buildings roof, so foot it was. The two APC's moved out as he tried again for more information, only to be rebuked yet again.

: Restricted :

Which given his rank and position in the company was a little, hurtful. There was little he did not have access too, no property in the company's portfolio that he couldn't access. After all, what was the point of having a special ops section if it couldn't go anywhere or didn't know a thing.

Min Soo had a bad feeling about this one. It was too rushed, had far too many holes. He sent another objection up the chain of command with his reservations. If everything went South, then he wanted as many 'I told you so's’ as possible on file to back him up. No. It was too rushed, too scant on details. A perceived threat level of "Resistance minimal" did not go with the possibility of fixed air defences. From a tactical point of view, the pairing made as much sense as pairing fire with water. If you had the capacity to fend off an air intrusion, then you were going to have ground protection as well as less physical protection like electronic countermeasures.

His first official concern had been overruled by a suit. A cloth one, not an armoured one.

Someone must have fucked up pretty badly if they were trying to sort it out before the board noticed. In his experience, this was exactly the type of situation where one individuals fuck up, became a company wide cluster. It was his job to stop that happening and he had the horrible feeling that he was failing. Had failed, and he simply just didn't know it yet.

The building schematics he called up were so out of date to be almost useless. He seriously doubted the floor plans looked anything in reality to those currently scrolling by on his HUD. And why half way up the building? The one minute warning chimed. The APC's slowed and Min Soo stepped out followed by the rest of his team. Bel-Dair stepped out of the other APC, followed by his fire team. Both teams moved into cover as the APC's retreated to a safe distance.

Min Soo gave the order and the two teams moved out, Min Soo on the left side of the street. Bel-Dair’s on the right.

The street looked quiet, deserted, but that meant nothing in the Lowers. They entered the target building, leapfrogging and checking rooms. Min Soo looked at the thick layer of dust on the floors, lightly disturbed in places, but not to the extent he would have expected for a bolt hole, illicit rendezvous point or Gangerz hideout. This just didn't feel right. He didn't broadcast his feelings to his team, because he could see by their readouts, that they were just as unsettled by this as he was. No. This wasn't right, he activated his line of sight coms.

"This doesn't feel right. The environment doesn't match the scenario. Either we have been supplied the wrong location, or this is a trap. Act accordingly." Min Soo kept an eye on the confirmations as he sent a priority message back to command asking for the data to be checked.

: Proceed : The reply came back far too quickly for any oversight to have been carried out.

Shit fest it was then. They climbed floors, no sign of the power cables that he would have expected for roof mounted surface to air missiles, or even a rudimentary command post. There was no way that they could use the existing power infrastructure. It was so decrepit and ancient, that he doubted it could carry the energy requirements to recharge his battle armour let alone power heavy weaponry without immediately melting. They continued their slow climb, still no signs of traffic in the dust, unless the Gangerz had another means or avenue of entry and exit.

Min Soo sent off another secure priority message, asking if this was definitely the location.

: Affirmative :

He was going to be in trouble when he got back for querying command so much, but when they dragged him in for a rebuke, he was going to insist that he saw the intel and it's source.

Coms started to glitch, spooking Min Soo even further. The secure data link to operations failed completely. There was no reason as to why it should. Min Soo changed from line of sight coms to secure broadcast. "All call-signs converge and abort. I repeat, Abort."

"There is no conformation from command." Bel-Dair queried.

"They are not here, I am. Acknowledge abort command." Min Soo repeated.

"Team two aborting and rendezvousing at your location." Bel-Dair acknowledged.

Coms suddenly started to break up between the two teams.

"Active signal jamming in progress!”

"Fuck. They knew we were coming."

"We leave now!" Min Soo commanded. The two teams met up, communication between them now reduced to hand signals and line of sight suit to suit tight beam. The speed of their abort was what probably saved them, coming across black armour clad commandos climbing up the stairwell. The two forces stared at each other in surprise for a moment before the stairwell lit up with gunfire.

"Contact front!" Both sides fired upon each other as they took hasty cover, trading fire that blasted large chunks from the walls. Min Soo sent off a distress call, doubtful that it would get through the jamming. The oppositions uniform armour, their uniform weapons, the controlled and aimed fire telling Min Soo that they faced another company’s commandos. These weren't Gangerz. His intuition had been correct. They had been set up.

"Fight through!" Even as he gave the order, he realised the futility. There were more of the enemy in front than made up his two fire teams, and he was also detecting signal shadows from either side. Far too many shadows. "Belay last. Tactical retreat." If they could just get out of the signal jammers range...

Like the well-oiled machine they were, they carried out a controlled fast retreat. The benefit of hundreds of hours training together as a team along with countless combat operations coming to the fore.

"They are too well armed and armoured."

"And too many of them. This is a Corporate venture."

Which was exactly what Min Soo was thinking. You don't invest that amount of firepower and manpower unless you fully expected to see a worthwhile return on your investment. Something slammed into his chest armour, knocking off a large chip and bruising his ribs underneath. Those weren't normal rounds if they could break off chunks of composite. They retreated up another flight of stairs, their attackers pushing hard, not allowing them any respite. Min Soo thought about it tactically. They had surprised their attackers on the way down, which meant they had expected to engage higher up the building, and they were pushing hard, which implied they were being herded towards something.

They needed to stop climbing. Min Soo unclipped a grenade and tossed it down the stairwell. A dangerous manoeuvre in any building and positively suicidal in one this old and structurally precarious, but they were playing for keeps. The stairwell shook, part of it had definitely collapsed judging by the plume of smoke and dust spiralling upwards. Stairwells tended to be strong points in a building, take them out and you risk collapsing the building. Would their armour protect them from a collapsing building? He didn't think so and was in no hurry to find out. Yet.

An Icon on his HUD flashed red " Shang, How bad is it?"

"Flesh wound." Shang replied, the stress in her voice casting doubt on her prognosis.

"Telemetry is saying otherwise..." Min Soo warned.

"Fucking spy in the suit.." Shang grumbled.

"Loomis, take point.” Fuck it. Min Soo threw another grade down the stairwell.

"Trying to bring the building down on us boss?"

"Something like that."

"Did anyone ever tell you, that your plans are shit.."

Another red icon on his HUD. "Loomis, report!"

Loomis changed magazine, fired off another burst. "Fucker got me in the knee joint..."

Shit. "Can you walk?"

"No, not really."

Shit. "Freya, help Loomis."

"Contact above!"

"Numbers?"

"More than three. Commandoes."

" Trix, blow the stairs.”

"Yes sir."

"Freya, get back here, throw a grenade up if you can."

Continual firing from below and now above and they couldn't go left or right because of the buildings height in relation to its neighbours. A perfect trap. They had known Min Soo and his team were coming. An alert flashed up on his HUD.

: Message. Unknown sender : What's the bet that it's a command to surrender... It was a data code. He told his suit AI to check it. : What is it? : He asked.

: Company identification code : Was his suits AI response.

: Really? :

: Yes. It's old, outdated, but it's still logged on the system as active :

This whole operation was turning to shit. : How's it getting through the jamming? : Min Soo asked of his AI.

: Brute force and the originator is nearby :

: Nearby? :

: Yes. I can't locate accurately due to the interference :

Another red icon. He was running out of options : Quarantine it and open :

: Opening. We have a data link to the company and Mother :

: Really? :

: Yes. I have checked and the Relay is secure :

: Who is the relay? :

There was a pause and Min Soo changed mags as there was an explosion from above that dislodged parts of the ceiling. : Our clearance is not high enough. :

: Our clearance isn't high enough? : He was really going to have to have words with the chain of command and Mother about that. He was being told that his clearance wasn’t high enough too much lately.

: No :

: And it's genuine? :

: Yes. It contains data :

: What data? :

: A route and extraction point :

His grandmother had always told him to never look a gift horse in the mouth... The phrase had always perplexed him as he had never been able to find out what a 'horse' actually was. When asked, she didn't know either, it had just been something her grandmother had always said. There had been no record of 'horse' in any of the data vaults, Public or corporate.

: Show me :

A map appeared on his HUD. It wasn't far away and up two floors. It looked do-able. "New extraction point." He sent the route to his team.

"Extraction point? You do remember that we are sixty odd floors up?"

"How do we get there? I've just blown the stairs?"

Min Soo highlighted the specific point on the overlay map, “Get to this point here, sticky charge the ceiling..." Energised by renewed purpose and a goal, they moved out running through the floor, putting as much distance between themselves and the stairwell as the building would allow. The sticky charges were set and they moved back. "Blow it." Min Soo ordered. The charges went off and the ceiling, came down, filling the floor space with thick dust. Min Soo's visor switched over automatically to a partly thermal medium.

Not all the ceiling had collapsed, some of it was still hanging down by ancient re-bar forming a steep jagged slope to the floor above. They scrambled up, Min Soo stopping half way up to help the injured. He nodded above. "Blow it."

Orders had finally come in from corporate and Mother, his AI had verified them. They were to extract. A V-TOL was transporting medics and emergency supplies and would meet up with the APC's, who would meet up with them at a secure location as deemed by Min-Soo.

"How's going higher getting us lower Boss?"

Good bloody question. "Why isn't that roof down?" He said instead. The ceiling came down and they climbed higher. That must really be confusing our ambushers. They staggered to the indicated spot, near the outside wall of the building. "Pol! Do we have any charges left?"

"Just the one." Pol informed him.

"Blow the wall." That's what the female voice had commanded over his coms implant. They had stolen a march over their opponents and had earned a brief respite, but he knew the forces above and below would be quickly re-organising. Trying to work out what they were up to. Another red icon, another team member down. The outside wall blew out as Min Soo spotted movement two floors down at the base of their impromptu ramp. He threw the last of his grenades down the ramp, no point in keeping it.

An Incoming request to use his optics. Was this really a saviour, or an exceptionally insidious attempt to view his team and threat level.

: We don't have time to dally Min Soo. : said the unknown voice that had identified itself as Selene. Min-Soo allowed visual access to his frontal optics. : Please stare at that beam. : The structural ceiling beam was highlighted on his HUD and a red dot appeared upon it a moment before something smacked into it. A wire hung down leading into the building opposite.

" Pol, Beach head." He commanded over tight beam.

"Beach head. "Pol confirmed as the wire drew tight, even as he hooked himself on.

: Go! : Said the female voice

"Go!" Min Soo shouted over tight beam. And Pol launched himself into the air. Min Soo dared not get his hopes up that they might yet get out of this mess. Maybe not all in one piece, but at least alive. Min Soo brought up a picture within picture feed from Pol's helmet, apprehensive about what was awaiting Pol and hoped that he hadn't just sent him to his death.

The destination window hurtled closer and Pol was through it like the professional he was. Unhooked and weapon ready as soon as his feet hit the floor. The camera view swung wildly as the room was scanned for threats. There appeared to be just the one figure in the room the camera moving on.

"What the.." The camera whipped back as though Min-Soo controlled it. Pol Obviously thinking the same as Min-Soo. The view steadied briefly on the figure. It was hard to make out in the small screen. But it looked as though Min Soo/Pol were looking at some strange animals head. The eyes of which glowed red. Min Soo felt a shudder make its way down his back.

"One unknown, room clear, link to Mother established."

So, Pol was out of jammer range then? His choice was clear "We go. Send the injured." Min Soo turned off the feed to Pol's camera, he needed all his attention on the job at hand.

Ulo, the worst injured and barely conscious, was lifted up, clipped on and sent on his way. "Keep it fast, but don't overload the cable.”

The enemy had reached their floor and were slowly advancing. Probably because they thought Min Soo and his team had nowhere to go. That would quickly change and they needed to make the most of the time. The badly injured were gone, which meant those still firing were next and that meant a continual decline in suppressive fire. He was going to be a sitting target. A hand clamped on his shoulder, Trix’s. Min Soo shook his head and nodded at the wire. Trix ran, leaping into the air, clipping on even as she sailed through the gap in the wall. Min Soo fired off the last couple of rounds in his magazine, changed to his last full mag and fired off the entire contents in one long burst, turning to run as the working parts clicked back on an empty chamber.

Running for the wire, he hooked on just as he committed to air. He was halfway across when something smacked painfully into his back, spinning him around. He quickly checked the readouts. His armour was breached, but most of the rounds velocity and power had been lost when he spun. And then he was in the room. The cable whipped past, already cut. His team that could still fire were at the windows returning fire. As all his systems came fully back online. The first thing Min Soo did as he removed the spent magazine, was open his own direct link to Mother, updating her of the situation and verifying all previous communications. The logs matched. He pulled a couple of fresh mags out of Ulo's harness and slipped them into his own.

This close to their rescuer, that helmet was even freakier. The damn thing had bloody ears and a snout and Min Soo couldn’t see any practical reason for either. That wasn’t all, the eyes, and there were two of them, not a visor, really did glow red. Yet, there were some design similarities between their armour and…Hers? As though they might have come from the same fabrication line. The form did look strangely female, it even had breasts moulded into the breastplate. Which in itself was unusual, female commando’s always opted to have their breasts removed to enable a better fit with their armour.

He snapped a picture and sent it to Mother to check against the companies data banks. No hit. He searched the initial data identifier and was greeted by the restricted access message again. A mystery for later. A new rendezvous point was arranged, medicover was being brought in and Min Soo requested and gained an air strike on the building opposite. It was obvious now that the whole thing had been a set up.

They moved out, slowly, as they had injured to carry. The stranger keeping up, covering his blind spots, and by doing so revealing tactical awareness, certainly training. They reached the RV point and he sent the pickup sign. The two APC's breached entry into the building and the medics leapt out and went straight to work. They were in command now, at least until further contact was made. Things were calming down. The injured were being treated and loaded into the transports. Min Soo tried a cautious and gentle hack upon the new-comer and was immediately rebuked.

"Please do not do that." Came that feminine voice again. So their saviour had current anti-breach programs running. He filed the information away. The medics signalled that they were ready as the building shook under the blast wave of a large explosion. Good. Min Soo hoped that the enemy forces had lost a lot of expensive hardware. Corporate Commando armour was not cheap. Nor was the wetware inside.

Gunfire sounded as the stranger fired down a corridor and Min Soo gave the order to retreat. There was not enough room inside for Min Soo to enter and give the medics the space they needed to work, so he hung on to the back and gave the order to go. He motioned for the stranger to hang onto the back of the other one. He wasn't prepared to lose a potential asset just yet. The figure raced for the back as Min Soo's APC accelerated through the building out onto the street. There were no shots fired in their direction and he hoped the collapsing building had taken out most of their ambushers.

Coms was busy and he knew the debriefing was going to be interesting. A lot of questions, but he doubted that there was going to be as many answers. The APC's slowed down for a junction as the traffic was getting busier, then sped up again, Min Soo catching a
brief glimpse of their rescuer as she stepped away from the back of the other APC. She gave him a casual salute and he raised his rifle is reply.

I've been somewhat derailed recently by writing Zenobia's 'Emily', anyway that has been put to bed for a moment, and I'm back on my main pet project, which is;

An abused young girl (Remuluss) briefly meets a boy in the street (Sam), goes on a murder spree which is being investigated by a copper (John). During an investigation into a train crash (Penny) John is abducted and tortured by the gang who caused the train crash in order to rob jewelry stores. John is freed by Remuluss, whilst (Karen) watches details of the crash on telly.

Remuluss was on the way to kill (Aran) who was part of a pedophile ring she was killing, but she missed him by bad timing whilst he was on his way to commit suicide. The act of his suicide is investigated in turn by (Nina) who's friend is the sexual partner of Remuluss. One of Nina's university pals is the daughter of (Alec).

Meanwhile, a pissed off Chinese national (Li Jie) develops a disease to punish the world (The Fall) and spreads it via himself whilst traveling the world, the process of which he meets-and infects- (Siobhan), who infects the UK (Suzy).

So, lots of anger about the way S&M was finished. From my POV it was the best way to end a story/subject I am not that interested in. I liked it, thought it ended well. It would appear that I am in the minority, going by the angry private messages. Fair enough.

Since the majority of the complainers feel that I am duty bound to pander to their desires, I have done something I thought I would NEVER do. I have put it behind the pay wall. I may take it off completely if it's going to cause this much hassle.

Seriously,you are (well, past tense now, so 'were') getting it for free, and yet that wasn't enough?

It's depressing that things have got to this stage, but hey ho...

Pixy.

I made a decision a few months ago to start being more productive in the writing department, and so far, so good. One of the things I wanted to do was finish off uncompleted stories. That hasn't gone as well as I planned. In fact, I have just finished writing a new chapter no one asked for to a story that was finished... Go figure...

I've never been one for 'blogs', which is why my blog page is about as productive in content as politicians are over Brexit, jeesh you muppets, do SOMETHING! Stay, go, whatever, just pick one and do it…

Anyhow let's move swiftly away from politics.

I have two works in the pipeline. For some strange reason I have had a fixation for Cyberpunk lately. Don't know why, but it's an itch I have decided to have a go at scratching. The first introductory chapter is nearly done and 'Nina' should drop at the end of the week, sometime.

The other piece is the snappily titled 'The crazy 15' (working title) which grew from a comment in the forums about what were the most avoided tags on the site. Lazeez revealed them to be (in no particular order); Scat, snuff, necrophilia, gay, MM, mm, Mm, Trans, herm, x-dress, fart, beast, shemale, torture and Zoophilia. And I thought, as you do, that that would make a great story. Possibly. So I'm giving it a go, get your '1' bombs ready! LOL