Davis looks for a spot where he's sure he won't be spotted, trying to get a different angle on the target from the rest of the team. Once he's in position, he stays behind cover, waiting and listening for anything out of the ordinary. He's still waiting for the other shoe to drop on this whole plan, and is fully expecting to be ambushed any minute now.
The faint blue edge of dawn peeks over the horizon as the team settles down into their ambush positions. Hugh and Dunamis stroll the large river bend; the water never reaches above their knees. The slip-slap of rubbery aquatics adds percussion to the bubbling water.
Above Hugh and the prisoner, Semo, Luis, Arketta, and Max lie under the cover afforded by the concave cliffs. About 50 meters down the bend, Davis, Ngawai (her increasingly-battered suit wrapped with airsealed patch tape), Mellish, and Angel count the minutes.
The feeling of exhaustion creeps up on the team as they wait. Car chases, battle wounds, gunfights, hard work climbing canyons scouting for foliage or chopping up vehicles, it's all taking its toll. Mellish and Ngawai are the freshest; Ngawai had her post-limb-severing nap, followed by a rampage through the autochef, while Mellish found a quiet place to bunk down while everyone else was playing Monster Garage. The rocks are hard, the air cold, but most of the team can't help but think that lying here waiting for Hugh to tell Dunamis to call his ship is actually pretty comfortable.
Once they reach the bottom, Hugh says "That's far enough."
After a few slow breaths to take in the ambiance, he grabs the vox.
"Here's what's going to happen: I will give you the vox, you will switch it on and tell your friends to pick you up here, then you will switch it off. You do something else, I will shoot you. Nothing personal, just wanted to be clear on this. Are you ready?"
If Dunamis answers in the affirmative, Hugh will throw the vox to him, rifle trained at the apprehender at all times.
Dunamis Kon nods and catches the vox. He keys it on.
"Mortician calling Body Snatcher, Mortician calling Body Snatcher, come in Body Snatcher. If you're out there, pick up for First's sake-"
*I read you Mortician. Where the fuck have you been? Why are you on this freq? Where are Boone and-*
"Shut it and listen, Body Snatcher. I need immediate pickup." Dunamis rattles off the coordinates needed to guide a ship to their cratered ambush spot.
*Copy, Mortician. We're on the-*
Dunamis clicks the vox off, tossing it back to Hugh.
"Should be two of them. Rand's the human. Clubby's the Whiirr."
"Right. Let's watch the show from the good seats, shall we?"
Hugh drops the vox on the ground, using his boot to shove some dirt and gravel on top of it. With Dunamis in front of him once more, he leads the apprehender back up to the overhang. Up there, he hands him off to Semo.
"Cuff, blindfold and gag him, Sarge. Don't want any stupid things to happen while his guys are on the way."
That taken care of, he turns to the assembled masses.
"Fireteam A, we're going to move to one side of this overhang, spread out a little bit but clear of Team B. We've got the interesting job, that is, we're the guys who pop up and demand that Dunamis's friends surrender when they've landed. If they start blasting...take cover. Team B, you're the ace in the hole. Keep the guys in your sights. If shit gets heavy, you fry them from your positions. According to Dunamis, we're onyl dealing with two tangos, one human, one Whirr, but...I wouldn't be surprised if there's one or two more inside the ship. We've got cover and high ground, don't expose yourselves too much and we'll be fine. If the turai show up, we wait until they're on the ground and then we do a good old Alpha Strike - all we've got, on my signal. Questions?"
Davis gets on the radio in English. "I think we should get Team B deeper under cover and move us behind where the ship will be facing. If their ship really is armed, they'll probably leave someone on board at the weapons controls to provide covering fire. Ngawai's still got that stealth suit, she can get on board and capture whoever's at the controls, or at the very least make it easier for us to get on board. That way, we have control of the ship's weapons, and they should surrender pretty much without a fight."
"Great idea," Hugh radios back. "Next time, mention it before I lay out the bait."
He scratches his head.
"Wouldn't hurt if Ngawai went down there, though. The suit will keep her hidden no matter where she is, that would be a good ace in the hole."
He turns to Ngawai.
"Ngawai, Davis suggested that you go down there with your stealth on and sneak aboard the ship when it lands, to take over their shipboard guns. It'd be a nice backup plan, but I realize that it's dangerous and could leave you exposed. Do you feel up to it or do you want to take your chances up here?"
Davis looks over at Ngawai. "While you're down there, check for any cover for the rest of us. If they leave the Whirr on board, you'll probably want the backup."
A red dawn rises slowly as you wait. Semo can hear Dunamis' breathing through the dirty gag. Clicks and whoops of early morning creatures echo faintly through the canyon. A wind picks up, rustling the scrub clinging to the rock walls and scattered around the edge of the shallow river pool.
Luis and Angel hear the ship first. A bassy hum soon fills the canyon as a fanged midnight dart of a ship hovers over the coordinates Dunamis gave them. It's about three-quarters as long as the Morningstar but much narrower. There is a mantaship-style accelerator screen between its forward stablizers, and a beam turret scans the rocks from its ventral side.
Dunamis wasn't lying about the naked woman either; 20 feet of painted flesh lounges across the front left fuselage. Body Snatcher is emblazoned above the "nose art" in calligraphic Imperial.
Everyone stays down, trusting in Hugh's choice of terrain to shield them from whatever sensors the vehicle might be running. A minute passes without much change, then the black ship settles down, landing struts folding out from either side. Ngawai rolls to avoid being crushed but soon locates the bottom hatch and waits where she thinks she'll be concealed from anyone exiting the craft.
A second dorsal ball turret scans the "death bowl" the ship's landed in but doesn't appear to notice any of the waiting Deltas.
Ngawai motions to the half-buried vox but her stealth suit precludes anyone from actually making sense of her signals.
A burst of recycler feed kicks up a dust cloud, then the Body Snatcher's hatch cracks open and folds down like a C-130. As luck would have it, Team B (Davis, Mellish, and Angel) have a better view of the shaggy Whiirr cautiously exiting the ship, no doubt sent outside to find out why their boss isn't answering his vox. "Clubby", as Dunamis referred to him, is a good half-foot taller than Swims and is considerably younger and broader. His already ugly tusked pig-ape face is further marred by horrid scarring that leaves the side of his face looking like fleshy cabbage. The beast carries some sort of black cannon adorned with a spiked collar round the barrel, making it into a sort of mace. Clubby is further attired in clumsy but thick armor plate, a twisted version of Swims' Caretaker armor.
The unmarred side of Clubby's face has an earvox, and it is through this that the Whiirr appears to be getting directions. He steps off the ramp and onto the ground, apparently looking for the vox Hugh left in the canyon bowl.
Hugh inches forward from behind cover until he's got a clear shot at the Whirr.
"I'm really quite sorry," he shouts, "but Dunamis is our prisoner. I've got enough men and weapons to kill you and destroy the ship. That said...that is merely my insurance to keep the conversation civil. Now, if you and your friend would kindly step away from the Body Snatcher..."
Davis knows what he's looking for, and sees Ngawai's blur move past the Whiirr and up the ramp.
*You're them, aren't you? The Narsai?* the Snatcher's loudvoxes crackle. *Good luck with that, boss, sorry.* The ship's impellers start powering up again.
The Whiirr becomes agitated, looking back up the ramp and then towards Hugh. He seems all too aware that he's got no cover and his erstwhile teammate might be about to leave him.
The wet burst of a pulse-beam hitting meat splorches out over the loudvox. The impellers die off.
Clubby raises his cannon, clearly meaning to put Hugh's threats to the test.
"Well, that was over fast," Davis says. He motions for the others to follow him, vaults the ridge line and runs down to the ship and inside. "Ngawai, Mellish, let's sweep this thing. Luis can take care of the wounded. Look for anything that looks like a booby trap or a secret crawlspace. Also, let's find the shipkid if it has one."
Luis grabs his medkit and frisbee. He'll see to the wounded prisoner than get him secured. Once that's done, he's headed to the Body Snatcher's bridge. He wants to familiarize himself with the ship's controls before he has to fly it. He stiffles a yawn as he stars treating the prisoner. Under his breath, he mutters, "And then, idealy, some sleep."
Max is first up the Snatcher's ramp, his boots leaving grit on the decks as he makes for the flitcraft's controls like a kid at Christmas. It's really more of a cockpit than a bridge; positioned above the accelerator weapons and with a high view over the downward-sweeping forward stabilizers, Max has a good view of the canyon. The holographics are nowhere near as state-of-the-art as the Morningstar's, with simple screens projecting the outside view below, behind, and to either side of the ship. A battery of actual physical yokes, switches, and pedals are spattered with Rand's blood - a still-smoking hole in the pilot's couch matches up nicely with the wound in Dunamis' henchman's back.
A wound that Luis attends to quickly. The foreign material from the couch and the burnt fabric of Rand's suit flakes off as new sheets of muscle and spongy lung tissue begin their inexorable regeneration. Rand coughs once, twice, heaving up gobbets of bloody meat before settling into a normal but ragged breathing cycle.
Ngawai, Davis, and Mellish move into the ship, progressing far more slowly than Max. No shipchef. A cargo bay that might hold the warsled and some personal items, no more. Bunks for six people. Two suitlockers that have been converted into cells, presumably on the cheap judging from the construction. Engineering is a crawlspace underneath the purring oversized engines. At least they look to be in order. No shipchildren of any kind, although Davis does find a maintenance drone ensconced in the engineering crawlspace. It is powered off awaiting instructions.
The cockpit has a copilot's couch which is unmarred by gore or pulse-beam. Both sets of controls seem to be capable of flying the ship and firing weapons. Max figures out that the Body Snatcher is still prepped for takeoff, its weapons (grappler drone, two beam turrets, and a killdrone accelerator) are hot, it has five decoy drones, and perhaps most importantly it has clearance for Aikoro airspace due to its registration under a licensed Apprehender team.
It takes no more than a minute for Semo to have Dunamis trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Then he settles into waiting.
Now comes the tense period as they hear the ship approach. It seems to be carefully searching the area before landing. But if finally does and disgorges a Whirr. Hugh tries to avoid confict, but of course the mercenaries don't go for it. Instead, they turn the Whirr into small chunks of bloody meat while Ngawai subdues the pilot.
Once the emergency is ended, Semo fetches the gravsled and brings it down near the ship.
"No, Sarge, you grab yourself some strong arms and strip loose gear from the ship."
He turns to the assembled masses.
"Stanhill, Bello, Mellish, Arketta, you're with me, we've got people to collect. The rest of you, load up on the sled and leg it back home."
Next stop, Davis and Rand.
"Hello, you must be Rand," he says to their newest prisoner. "As you may have gleaned from our little ambush here, we're dangerous people, so I recommend you get with the program and tell my good friend" - he indicates Davis - "everything he wants to know. You'll see that we treat our prisoners fairly, but we don't have time to mess around. Now, let's try this question-and-answer thing: Are there any hidden security features in the Body Snatcher we should know about before we take it for a spin?"
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