[Continued]

Brax kicked the gate. It was one of those lightweight wrought-iron ones, and not meant to stand up to a big troll backed up by bioware muscle augmentations. Another hard kick popped it off its rails, and from there it was a simple matter to shove it out of the way. Brax stepped aside. "Crunch, you got point."

The three runners and the host of drones made a beeline for the factory floor. At the door, Crunch turned and watched the grounds as the rest of the team huddled around the entrance. A hovering drone the size of a softball extended a small metal probe. A few seconds of beeping and booping passed.

Akisi's voice came out of the tiny grill. "Yep. They got a hella good system. Everyone back up." The drone bobbed out of the way, and a larger one took its place. A small articulated arm extended from its complicated-looking guts. Brax and Ria edged away as the drone began cutting the lock with a high intensity laser. Melted steel ran like butter and solidified in a puddle on the ground. "Okay big guy. Give it a kick and we're in."

Brax did so. No alarms sounded. "Akisi? Aren't there usually sirens and crap when we do that?"

"Not here. They got all their alarms set up for remote triggering. I rerouted them so instead of ringing the security team, they're prank-calling Stuffer Shacks all over town. You guys got thirty minutes before about six hundred deep-dish pizzas show up. Lemme send in a boomer drone."

A drone that looked suspiciously like a grenade with a hoverpad went zipping inside. The hacker drone kept talking. "Hmm... No, I don't see anyone alive in there. If Ria can't see anyone cloaked, then I'm gonna have to say it's all turrets and drones from here. They got the place shielded, so I can't get a direct signal, but as long as the relay drone stays up, I can still gets some eyes inside."

It was at that moment hell broke loose.

An armored truck smashed through the wrecked gates. Crunch shouted a warning to his team just before he opened up with both guns. Bullet belts rattled as they fed out from under his coat. Other than shredded tires and a marred windshield, the truck wasn't affected.

"INSIDE! Akisi, boomstick! Brax, watch for flankers! Ria, do your thing!"

Crunch maintained suppressing fire as the truck braked hard. The grenade-drone that had gone inside zipped back out as Brax and Ria ducked inside, using the doorway for cover. Crunch stomped after them, shedding smoking bullet casings as he went.

As a dozen black-suited security personnel spilled out of the truck, the boomer zipped beneath the engine block and detonated. The vehicle tipped backwards, spilling out the rest of the occupants, then smashed back to earth again, dropping most of the engine. The guards' discipline showed as they stayed focused, half of them staying behind the wreck laying down cover fire as the other half got out of Crunch's firing zone. One of them threw a grenade.

Brax let the cybernetics deep in his central nervous system kick in. he saw the grenade arcing lazily, could almost see the stray bullets zip past like fat bugs. He stepped forward and swung his combat axe, swatting the grenade away. A bullet caught him in the shoulder, but he didn't feel anything more than a slight shove. Ducking back inside, he listened as the grenade went off. Wired nerves still on, he listened to lots of wet, soft sounds of impact. Body parts.

Ria stuck her head around the doorframe and looked down the wall at the four men there. A flickering of willpower send a bolt of energy towards them. It hit and burst with a dull thud. Three of the men were tossed to the ground and stayed there, probably unconscious. The fourth was tossed back by it, but was alert enough to send a few bullets at the streetmage. One glanced off her helmet. Way too close, she thought as she ducked back inside. "One more this side!"

Crunch let a Gahump hang by the strap around his next. "Grenade left two by the truck. Can't get 'em."

One of the drones chirped. "The other four are opening the side door! Fifty feet to your left! Get them, I got the ones at the truck!" A gundrone, a fat disk a little less than a meter across with a light machine gun slung under it, whirred out the door and went airborn, popping off shots at the pair behind the wreck from a high angle.

Brax sprinted for the second door, his long legs and bioware-enhanced body covering the distance shockingly fast. He reached the door just as it opened, axe ready. The first guard saw him and let off a three-round burst as he backpedaled. One went wide, the other was caught by the kevlar chest-piece, and the third smacked hard into the faceplate of Brax's helmet, splitting it open.

It was too late for any more shooting. The 700-pound, artificially enhanced troll went wild with a 60-pound axe. The first took the lead guard's arm off at the elbow. The backswing removed the top of his skull. A kick knocked the corpse into the other guards, bogging them down long enough for him to butcher another one. Guard three scrambled backwards fast enough to dodge a swing that would have split him straight down from skull to belly. Guard four darted his hand forward, discharging the stun glove's electrical buildup into the troll. It would have reduced a human to a convulsing mess, and it was strong enough to rock the troll back.

Both guards got their guns up. Brax's wired nerves were still running full power, allowing him to grab the gurd that had stunned him, breaking his arm in the process, and shift him in front of the other guard. Another three-round burst rattled off, leaving just one guard to worry about. A savage hack, and there were none.

Brax glanced over at the wrecked truck. The gundrone was buzzing around, trying to hit the guards that had ducked back inside it. The fire in the cab would force them out in a minute or two, but the runners didn't have that kind of time. He was ready to go mop up when he saw what Crunch was unclipping from his belt. Hell, he's got it.

The bionic dwarf calmly walked around the side of the truck, where the guards couldn't see him. The drone plinked a few shots off, just to keep the guards worried. Crunch stood just around the corner or the wreck, satisfied smile on his bristly face. Grenade in hand, he let the arming handle flip off, cooked off three seconds, and whipped it into the truck.

The armor was good. Crunch wasn't even scratched by the grenade, and the guards were turned into chunky salsa. "Okay, Akisi. Since your pizzas aren't coming after all, we'll let you bring the van around."

Ten minutes, one nasty supervirus, and half a million Nuyen worth of computer parts later, the team was rolling out the gate. Ria sighed contentedly as she snuggled into the comfortable bucket seat. "That went as well as could be expected. So what time is the show tomottow, Brax?"

__________________
"There are three kinds of plan. The fast plan, the good plan, and the sneaky plan. The fast plan works because by the time anyone knows you're there, you're already stabbing them in the face. The good plan works because they know you're going to stab them in the face, but they can't do anything about it. The sneaky plan works because while you were listening to me explain all this, I stole your sandwich."