Moon was mostly reassured by what the beekeeper’s cameras had shown her.
She counted around forty selves in the open space inside the compound or up on its walls. There could be more in the main building but the walls were too thick for the drone’s thermal sensors to penetrate. Still, it was reasonable to assume that most of the on-site security would be deployed to stop people getting into the compound in the first place.
The selves she could see were armed, but their weapons didn’t look any too impressive and none of the guards had visible augments. Given the level of technology suggested by the vehicles and the buildings, the worst the strike team would be facing would be projectile weapons and maybe some chemical-based anti-personnel stuff.
On the whole she was inclined to just break the doors down and go in hot. Her squad would be outnumbered but they would be hefting much more firepower than anything that could be brought against them. That, plus their Cielo augments, ought to be enough.
Nkanika’s vagueness was the only thing that bothered her. At first, she thought he was hiding something. Then she realised it was just gabber-smear, the mess the drug made of your head if you were a long-term user. It was fucking aggravating all the same, since Nkanika was supposed to be providing local intel, but you took what you could get.
And she didn’t see any point in wasting more time. The twenty minutes weren’t quite up but she assembled the squad, all except for Chiomis and Wuxx. Chiomis would stay up on the comms rig and Wuxx would guard the Step plate.
“Nobody touches it,” she told him. “Nobody goes within ten feet of it until we get back. Yes?”
“Yes,” Wuxx agreed. “Got it.”
What she didn’t say was that he would mostly be guarding the plate against Vemmet, who was also staying behind. Vemmet was still controlling the plate through his array and he had refused to share the code so Moon couldn’t lock him out. She didn’t want to retrieve the rabbit only to come back and find that he’d been panicked by a loud noise or his own bad conscience and run away, taking their exit with him.
Okay. She switched to voke, making it clear that she was addressing the whole squad now. We’re moving out. Silent running all the way – no talk, no signals, no accessing local feeds. Nkanika knows the ground and he’s going to be leading the way. If there’s any interaction with locals, fall back and let him handle it. Unless it gets physical, in which case fire at will.
She chopped the air twice with her right hand.
With me.