In theory, the plan was simple. I would go in and provide some low impact distractions that wouldn't produce a full alert, while Niki infiltrated the vehicle hangar and repossessed the stolen AR3. When they objected, she'd level the hangar on top of the other three vehicles while I upped the ante on the diversions. After that we'd evacuate and wait for pickup, which was already on station in orbit.
Of course, there were quite a few places in the plan where large fuzzy contingencies came into play. We had, effectively, zero support. While we would get some communications assistance from Saule Silencieuse, there wasn't anyone playing Archangel on this Op. And, while we had transport ready to pick up the rig when we recovered it, the boat was an unarmed civilian hire rather than a Navy drop ship. Functionally, this mission was entirely in our hands which meant improvise when necessary.
That was OK too. I'd dealt with improvised operations many, many, times. This would really be no different.
"Ready when you are," Niki said softly, surveying our separate planned ingress routes for the 5th or 6th time.
I nodded, confirming our communications links were good. "See you on the other side."
We took off in different directions with specific goals in mind. There were a lot of places where pre-planning hadn't been an option, but our general approach was to avoid contact as much as possible and try not to leave a trail of bodies in our wake. When Niki fired up the AR3 and started leveling the hangar around it there'd be enough wanton destruction. But we still weren't here to kill anyone. At least not specifically.
I'd already partially jacked the installation's comms, so we had a good idea what was going on. This time of night, the only people up would be a few guards and, possibly, anyone doing out doors testing on one of the rigs. They didn't do that often. Though, in our favor, unless they were refitting something, they usually kept the stolen AR3 fueled and armed. That would make Niki's job much easier.
She and I were able to keep track of each other's location using an encrypted comms relay. Nano bursts were difficult to track and, if you didn't know to look for them, easily overlooked even when they did nudge someone's detector's. That made it much easier for us to time our approaches and hold up when the other needed to reroute around an "obstruction" of some form: at least one of which wound up folded up, unconscious but alive, in a janitorial closet.
My job was, on many levels, the easier of the two. I had a lot of experience at avoiding detection in close quarters like this. Niki was surprisingly good, given her pure military background, but she'd have a tougher time of it getting into the hangar unmolested. The real tough part would be the startup sequence.
It took several minutes to fire up one of those big walker chassis. Much of it would be done without alerting anyone outside, at least if they weren't paying attention, that something was going on. It was only when the final power systems came on line that everyone in a 20 meter radius would know that the machine was about to come to life. When she flipped that last switch, she'd have about almost a minute and a half before she could start moving. The weapons would come on line almost instantly, and she'd be able to slew the torso, but she'd be stuck in the gantry until the legs came up and the cradle swung away.
That was when I'd have to work a miracle with their internal alarm systems. Because as sure as Lily liked candy, someone in that room would throw the alarm as soon as the AR3 came to life.
When the time came, I was well in position . I'd jacked into the installation's security feeds and managed to catch Niki on the screen as she deftly incapacitated one of the technicians and climbed into the AR3's cockpit. Whether the tech would survive the next few minutes, though, was a question I doubted either of us were going to stay around to answer or worry about once we were out of here.
A few minutes later, I saw the telltale motion of the motivators coming on line and the torso slew around the bring the guns to bare on the two partially completed chassis sharing the hangar with the stolen machine. The alarm started to sound almost instantly, but I was ready for that: silencing it before it could alert the base. Unfortunately, silenced alarm or not, there was no masking the thunderous racket of the auto-cannon lighting up to turn the other vehicles, and much of the hangar, to wreckage.
I altered the diversions: rerouting their communications and mucking about with their power, security, and everything else I could get into from my hide near their communications center. They had good systems, but they hadn't been prepared for this.
"Sea. Where's the fourth rig?"
There was concern in Niki's voice over the comm as she shouldered her way through the hangar door, the sheet metal not giving the forty five ton walker much resistance. Where was the fourth vehicle?
Between the sensor array in the AR3 and my patches to the installation's feeds, it didn't take us long to find it. Three miles off and closing at a run, one of the pilots must have taken it out for a joy ride as there wasn't anything specifically in the logs about it being out. Still, it meant Niki had a fight on her hands and I would have to start evacuating the installation now if I had any intention of making it out at all.
"Coming your way, Niki. Bearing 159 degrees, range about five thousand meters. I'm going mobile. Transport's inbound to the LZ. Just need to keep that rig busy for eight minutes, and we're out of here." Niki gave me a grunt of acknowledgement and turned her attention to other problems.
By the time I'd cleared the building a few minutes later, Niki and the other pilot had engaged. Even with the enhanced optics it was hard to follow the action in the darkness, but Niki's calm voice over the inter-vehicle freq was clear and calm as death.
"Son. You've got one opportunity to power down and walk away. Those gun ports aren't closed in 5 seconds, I'll end you where you are."
The other pilot didn't bother answering, but simply turned and opened fire.
Bad mistake.
From the records, Nikolasi Mombasa was the best pilot the unit had ever had. Now, I knew it was true. While I'd seen folk who were damn agile in a fighting suit, a suit was something you wore. The AR3 was 11 meters tall and 45 tons and Niki could make the thing positively dance.
It was over in under a minute. While her rig had taken some damage, her opponent was little more than a smoking crater. Not that either of us stayed around to watch the remaining fireworks. The installation had finally managed to muster some coherent response from their security force and had turned their attention to the escaping armored walker. Meanwhile, I took off in the opposite direction. While the transport would drop in to take the recovered AR3 back off world I had to get back to Wave Equation, which lead to a tense hour and a half cross country trek back to the hidden skimmer, and roughly the same amount of time back to my boat.
The post mission debriefing would be, at best, interesting. But it would have to wait. Right now, first priority was getting the transport and its cargo vectored some place we could stash it.
Plan comes together
New toys come at a great price
Will they be worth it?
