Dark clouds massed to the east, driving westward with uncanny speed as the team flew southward above the towers. “Roaring norther coming in,” the pilot told them. A quick infonet search told Noo this was the local name for a variety of coastal storm system that in reality originated from the south. The spinning winds of the system, though, assailed the coastline from the northeast. ‘Roaring’ was the right adjective, she thought, with typical wind speeds in the eighty kilometers-per-hour range, and ‘pockets of extreme turbulence’.
She tightened her straps and pulled an airsickness bag into her lap. Ogun’s balls, I hate coming down here.
The team was split between the two large aircars. She rode with Fari and the Kochi liaison in one while Teng, Ogawa, and Zheng followed in the trailing craft.
Kochi constables piloted the cars and filled the remaining seats.
The high-rises gave way to low-level blocks reminiscent in overall form, if not architectural style, of New Abuja as they progressed southward. They descended, following the monorail line as they approached the industrial park. Noo spotted a column of vehicles she pegged as Constabulary reinforcements headed to reinforce the officers on the scene.
The manufactory proved to be a nondescript two-level building located near a major intersection. The pilots put them down relatively smoothly despite the increasing winds as scattered raindrops speckled the pavement. Noo ran a finger under her collar, freeing her jacket’s hood, and pulled it over her head before ducking out of the aircar. The armor vest borrowed from the Constabulary tactical team made that a little trickier than it would have been unencumbered, but she welcomed the trade-off in mobility for the extra protection. She jogged across the street to join the rest of the team where they huddled at the rear of a Constabulary ground car which had pulled into the lot just as they landed.
“Surveillance got a probable hit on Mizwar about five minutes before the locals got here to set up the perimeter,” Zheng said, flipping data packets to them all. Noo popped it open and watched a video clip of four hooded figures carrying duffel bags exiting a van, who then entered the building as the van pulled off. The locals would handle the vehicle. Another clip, from cameras across the street, showed the quartet in profile. One of the figures was captured face-on, and with a start she recognized Mizwar. She felt a flush of exultation. Got you, you scum-sucking prick.
“What’s the plan?” Fari asked.
Zheng introduced Lieutenant Yazumi, the senior local officer, who ran down the situation. “We only got here a few minutes before you. I’ve got two teams covering the back and sides. The special operations squad is en route but they are about ten minutes away. District headquarters has rousted out all the standby teams and we’ll have a full incident-response contingent in about twenty—”
The muffled sound of gunshots reached them from inside the building, and Noo’s jubilant mood evaporated.
“Civilians inside?” Zheng asked.
Yazumi cursed, then nodded once. “Supposed to be five in there. Dammit. Duty of care. New plan. We go in now. Hue!” Ze shouted the name. A lean constable with a weathered face, bearing a shotgun, responded. “Breaching protocol! Entry team, stack up!” Hue sprinted across the lot, taking up position beside the door, his shotgun leveled against the knob. Another constable grabbed a ballistic shield from the trunk of the car and took up station along the wall next to the door, opposite Hue. Noo, Fari and the others from the station raced across the pavement with the locals, finding places in the line of bodies behind the lead constable. Yazumi pushed another shotgun-wielding constable into place behind the shield-bearer, took the third position for zerself, and drew zer sidearm. “Go!” ze shouted.
Hue blew the doorknob out, then shot away the hinges before stepping back smartly. The door fell outward with a crash, barely settling to the ground before the lead constable pushed into the building, shield raised high. The rest of the breaching party snaked into the building behind him.
Noo felt a tap on her shoulder and glanced to see Ogawa, right behind her, flip a packet her way. She opened it to find a floor plan of the building. A wave of her hand and a mental command projected a wireframe diagram of the hallways, doors and rooms ahead of them, even as she wondered how Ogawa had obtained the plan.
The officers in the lead rushed down the hallway at Yazumi’s command. Yazumi zerself remained in the foyer, directing the remainder in pairs to sweep through the manufactory. Teng pulled Ogawa out of the line, gesturing for her to remain in the foyer despite her brief but fruitless protest. Noo’s heart beat a trip-hammer rhythm and she forced herself to breathe evenly as she and Fari padded down the hallway. Fari took up position next to their designated doorway and Noo slid up to the other side, next to the handle. Huntress, watch over us and ours.
Stunner in hand, Noo flipped the door open and Fari swept into the room, weapon up, Noo at her heels. They found themselves in a feedstock room, bins and tanks of chemicals and materials for the fabricators stacked and racked on shelves. Two doors led out of the room, one across from the way they’d come in and another to their left. They took up positions around the partially open door on the far side. Flipping it open they found another storeroom.
And a pair of bodies.
Fari guarded the door as Noo knelt down in what she already knew would be a fruitless check for life signs, judging from the wounds and spreading pools of blood. Both victims had been shot twice, once in the chest, once in the head. Noo informed Yazumi about the bodies. The lieutenant acknowledged and directed them to continue their sweep.
They took up positions next to the next door when a shotgun blast ripped through the quiet from somewhere deeper inside the building. Fari kicked the door open with a snap of booted foot as a staccato of pops answered the shotgun. Within seconds a full-blown firefight was underway.
Noo stood dumbstruck for precious seconds even as Fari dropped into a crouch and scuttled through the doorway. That’s an automatic weapon. How the fuck did they get those? Hastily scrunching down herself, she patted the armor vest. Would it help against that kind of firepower? She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and duckwalked forward into what the floor plan claimed was the main hall of the manufactory.
Thighs screaming with the effort, she made her way around an idle pair of mover bots to where Fari crouched. The younger woman sheltered behind a large fabrication tank, the gleaming metal vessel festooned with pipes, hoses, and other feed mechanisms. Fari swapped her stunner for her flechette pistol. <Are you sure you want to use that in here?> Noo sent as she came up to kneel beside her partner.
<Lethal force all around,> Fari replied.
Noo tapped her on the shoulder, then pointed to a feedstock tank just a few feet away. Physical and AR signage announced CONTENTS UNDER EXTREME PRESSURE and FLAMMABLE. The other fabber vessels nearby displayed similarly dire warnings. <Just because those dung-brains don’t care if they blow themselves up doesn’t mean we should follow them,> she sent. With a grimace, Fari switched weapons again. A new fusillade of automatic fire rang out.
After the initial shock of contact, Yazumi’s people proved well-disciplined. The shooter’s probable location was triangulated, and ze calmly directed zer officers into flanking positions, but ordered them to stay under cover. “We just need to keep them contained until the tacticals get here,” ze ordered. “Keep them away from any surviving civilians but otherwise don’t risk yourselves unnecessarily.”
The gods of entropy had something to say about that, of course.
“Hold a moment,” Ogawa said over the tactical link. “Aminu, turn back. No, left. There, hold. Shit. That’s an explosive charge. Yazumi, they’ve rigged the place to blow up.”
Three louder cracks followed by the crash of falling masonry drowned out the gunfire for a few seconds. They heard more shooting from a different direction, further away by the sound of it. Fari’s head swiveled, looking for new targets while Noo covered her own sector.
“That’s from outside,” Teng said. “Shit, they blew a hole in the side wall.”
“Yazumi, you need to get your people out now!” Ogawa’s voice was insistent. “They’re using classic insurgent tactics. We were lured in.”
Yazumi cursed and ordered zer people to withdraw. “Closest exits,” ze said. “Go go go! Exterior teams, try to contain them.”
“Check the emergency exits for booby traps before you open them,” Teng said. “I’m going outside.”
Noo and Fari scurried back the way they’d come as fresh bursts of automatic fire, answered by shotgun blasts, echoed through the cavernous interior. They came across a constable struggling to drag her wounded partner down the main access hallway. Fari darted forward and helped hoist the injured officer into a chair carry while Noo covered their withdrawal. The shooting intensified, seeming to come from all directions now.
“Fuck, they’re going for the aircars,” Teng said. Noo cursed as her little party hurried down the corridor.
Automatic-weapon fire continued to rattle from inside. A stay-behind? Noo wondered as they burst into the foyer. Zheng, one hand clamping a bandage to her bleeding forehead, motioned them through the exterior door. “Move! We’ve got to get clear,” she shouted, as they passed from one bundle of chaos into another.
Rain crashed down on them; big cold drops that hit like rubber bullets, stinging and chilling all at once. Noo was instantly soaked despite her rain jacket. The wind buffeted them, pushing them off course as they struggled towards the dubious safety of the closest aircar. She heard the steady popping of a single weapon and spotted Teng kneeling as he emptied his magazine at one of the aircars as it rose, slightly wobbling. The car steadied into a smooth, curving climb as Teng’s rounds bounced ineffectually off the armor.
They’re getting away. Sudden rage filled Noo. Her quarry was so close.
The other aircars sat there, beckoning.
Noo grabbed Fari’s arm, tugging hard. “Come on!” She yanked with all her strength. “If we go now, we can follow them.” Fari stopped to lower the wounded constable to the ground. They staggered and slipped, fighting both the wind and the rain-slicked concrete as they lurched across the parking lot to the second aircar.
Zheng seemed to have the same idea. She fumbled a fresh magazine into her pistol as she plunged through the howling storm, her forgotten bandage behind her on the pavement. Ogawa emerged from between the shelter of a ground car and raced towards them.
Rain blinded Noo as she fought the headwind. It seemed like all the wind in the world blasted her, sucking her breath away. Lightning flashed, rendering the world white-blue. Roaring thunder followed almost immediately, a deafening blast that she first mistook for the bombs in the manufactory going off. Hoarse, shocked voices echoed across the team link as Yazumi struggled to get a head count, trying to determine if all of zer people had gotten out.
Where the fuck are the reinforcements?
She must have said it aloud, or at least subvocalized it into the link. <They’re having to divert around an accident,> Zheng sent across their link. <A couple of auto-lorries crashed, and there’s a chemical spill.>
Noo’s breath came in ragged gasps as she struggled across the last few meters to the car. Fari, a few meters ahead, banged on the door. It opened and Fari scrambled in. Noo’s foot slipped on the rain-slicked concrete and she would have fallen, but someone grabbed the back of her jacket and arrested her descent. She glanced back and discovered that Ogawa had caught up with her, breathing hard but not nearly so much as Noo herself was. They made it to the car together and Fari’s outstretched hands pulled them inside. Seconds later, Zheng arrived and scrambled in herself. Ogawa reached across the constable and closed the passenger compartment door.
The pilot goggled at them in his rearview mirror. “What are you waiting for?” Noo growled. “Get us up in the air and go after them.”
“Are you out of your minds?” he said, and his copilot turned in her seat to frown at them. “In this?”
“I’m a licensed investigator in hot pursuit of a suspect,” Noo said hotly. “I suggest you comply.”
“They just shot up some of your colleagues,” Fari shouted. “They planted bombs in the factory—”
“Yeah, we heard,” the pilot snapped, cutting them off. “But I’m not taking off in this.”
Hot rage washed over Noo, and she yanked out her hand cannon and leveled it at the pilot’s head. “I’m not asking, constable.”
The pilot’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re bloody insane. Dead now or dead when we crash, what’s the difference?”
“I’ll do it,” the copilot blurted out. The pilot glared at her. “I’m serious. She’s right, it’s dangerous as hell, but we’ve got to go now.”
The pilot cursed, hit the quick release on his harness, and slipped out of the aircar. The copilot spun the engine up as the door slammed closed. Someone banged on the passenger compartment door, and Noo turned to discover Teng hammering on it with his fist. Ogawa popped it open and he jammed himself inside as the copilot took off, spun around to the west, angling the car up between the tempest-lashed towers of Kochi towards the looming Black Claws.