The metallic taste of adrenaline-fuelled urgency coated Amis' tongue; it was palpable in the air, in the repetitious rattle of scientists' fingers flying rapidly across keyboards, in the hushed and carefully-controlled breaths of soldiers anticipating a rough fight. Tension laced through the air as it did through the fibres of their muscles, growing thicker and more oppressive the closer they got. They knew how bad the situation was. They knew the potential consequences of failure.
The GravStabs were the only chance of stabilising the building enough to evacuate the residents. Sixty-thousand of them, though many could be seen flitting past the troop transport as they approached the towering, teetering structure, pilots ignoring police cordons in their desperation to escape. Beyond that, even, were the political repercussions of the building coming down.
"The CGB will just about piss themselves with excitement if this doesn't work, y'know that? If that building comes down... it'll be a media feeding frenzy. Fuckin' reporters." He didn't hear who specifically spoke the words, but it didn't matter. The sentiment was shared by the whole team. All of them glared at the reporters now buzzing like flies about the corpse of the Project tower. They had firsthand experience of the violence arising from increasing instability and discontent amongst the populace, and desperately wanted to avoid this event becoming a catalyst for further revolution.
Amis cleared his throat; spoke softly. "It'll work."
Each of them underwent their own quiet routines in their heads, preparing for the task ahead. Another silence fell; but after only a moment, the sacred moment of heart-steeling was broken. Beep. From up front; an emergency beacon was pinging them. What? Beep.
There was a flurry of radio conversation from Silver, the pilot, who, for the purposes of this aerially complex mission, was acting in a command role, before she patched them in in the informal, decidedly non-military manner the SPEC-RED operatives were known for.
"We're getting pings from a stranded SRTU officer. Fuckin' nuts, what a mess. Amis, I'm dropping you in to pick up this guy; I'll be back for you five minutes after I drop you. Don't mess 'em around, 'cause SRTU don't fuck about. Get in, make contact, and get out."
He grinned shakily. On the one hand, being trusted to act alone was a sign the more senior members of SPEC-RED were coming to respect him as an operative in his own right, not just a brainbox researcher. In the same hand, he anticipated the thrill of the fight; this is why SPEC-RED was infinitely better than working on his research anywhere else.
On the other, he was heading into one of the largest urban conflicts in recent history alone.
After a moment of silence, he realised a response was expected. "They don't fuck about? Well, we do. Our acronym's longer than theirs, and you do know what they say about big acronyms..." He threw up a barrier of his typical snark, allowing the bold words to fill him, remove his doubt. Simply forcing oneself to smile had been scientifically shown to make you feel happier long, long ago, on Earth; the same can work for bluster. He got a few chuckles from the men and women around him, all of them aware of his less-than-upper-class upbringing, each of them now individually and collectively braced for the onslaught awaiting them. It was now that he realised it had been Silver who'd first spoken, about the media feeding frenzy.
"Big words, Amis, big words."
He mumbled. "Big words to match our big acronym and our big...."
Silence fell again, this time even more profound. He bit his lip; then gnawed it. He stopped. He did it again. His brow furrowed as he grew annoyed with himself over it. They were close now. The narrow view he had of outside the transport was a muddled confusion, unclear and indecipherable, madness in visceral form. His breath caught.
"Move, Amis. Now."
With a degree of trepidation, he moved to stand by the doors as they opened. Time slowed. A scene from a nightmare unfolded: flame and blackened metal, destroyed homes, a chaotic evacuation and signs of ongoing fighting - Hades himself had called to arms his carrion birds, and they loomed over the battle, cackling as destruction of both the physical and metaphorical kind unfolded before them. He grimaced, not unused to such sights now, but never finding them pleasant. His sharp eyes worked up the building as he figured out where he was headed - the landing pad of the 39th floor. The wind rushed past him as the transport approached the pad, any loose equipment jostling against him uncomfortably. The air was hot from the roaring flames - even though they were several floors below and still a goodly way away. Smoke writhed about the building now, and the heat brought a sweat out on his forehead despite the protection of his biosuit. His breaths came more heavily as he braced himself, mind moving at lightning speed, as he tried to take in the chaotic scene before him in the brief moment he had.
Thank God for implants.
There was Thegn, sprinting toward a black vehicle. No point in targeting him, it'd only draw fire from the bruisers waiting for him in the van. There were bigger problems than Thegn now. The pad itself was swarming and heaving with the bodies of fighters on all sides, an impenetrable mass, writhing like parasites through a rotten apple. Blood sprayed; he could not tell what was mowing down so many so fast. His eyes darted, thankfully protected from the wind, trying to pick out SRTU armour amongst the mass, but couldn't - there was no sign of the officer. Silver shouted something to him. Good luck, maybe. He didn't hear. They approached, the madness looming closer; his breath hitched; his muscles bunched, tight, tight; he lowered himself out the door, waiting; he felt the eyes of his comrades on his back; and then he spotted the source of the massacre, the mech hulking, and he knew it was insanity to face it on foot, and he tried to tell Silver he'd need air support, he tried; but he was thrown free as the transport shuddered under an enormous impact, his heart in his throat; and gravity accelerated his motion and the world was spinning and there were almost forty floors down and holy fuck, had he misjudged the jump? His implants fired spasmodically, trying to make sense of the situation and failing, fear for himself and his comrades detracting from his ability to make sense of the world – what the hell was that collision – and then the air was driven out of him as he landed, badly, skidding across the pad. It took a moment, but his training kicked in as he rolled to his feet, his armour scraped but not damaged.
Dizzy and uncertain, he scrambled behind the nearest cover, a vehicle damaged beyond operation – inadequate, leaving him naked and vulnerable to the strafing fire that hammered through concrete and creature alike and filled the air with shrapnel made of glass and bone and red mist. He dared to snap a look at his comrades' ship, and immediately wished that he had not – the transport itself had not been hit, but one of the fleeing ships had decimated one of the GravStabs they had been escorting, and already the SPEC-RED operatives were rushing to stabilise the stabiliser, to rescue their only chance of rescuing the some sixty-thousand residents and their homes.
He fought to place himself and his surroundings; but chaos waits not for the order of a man's mind to establish itself, and he was drawn into the fight as one of the madmen sought to take cover behind the vehicle too, saw his BESC armour, and charged. Amis' Maglev rifle was useless at this range, and so, adrenaline pumping without restraint, he acted instinctively. He simply sidestepped and threw all his weight behind the butt of his rifle, aiming for the man's temple. His assailant dropped, noiseless - and Amis went with him, crouching as machine-gun fire tore through the upper portions of the vehicle, his teeth gritted as metal and glass rained down upon him. He forced himself to focus on the task at hand, trusting his fellow SPEC-RED officers to cope with the GravStab emergency. He had to find the SRTU officer and, as Silver would likely be unable to evacuate them now, find an alternate way out of the collapsing Project.
"Fu- gah!" A crack, sickening; a spine broken. He had managed to defend himself from another close-range assailant, Amis' muscles straining as he flipped the man over his crouched form. He shook his head, clearing his mind, and hefted his Maglev, poking his head out of the relative safety of his cover to scan for the SRTU officer.
The floor of the hangar was inundated with viscera and gore, bodies torn and twisted beyond recognition by the heavy fire of the mech, or by the collapsing building, or by crashing vehicles. Bullet holes lined every vehicle, every wall, the mech's fire indiscriminate in its targets. The sound of the mech's fire was deafening, a constant, repetitive sound that dominated all others. His eyes scanned, searched. He prayed he wouldn't see a BESC uniform amongst the dead.
He heard fire; controlled, measured, utterly opposed to the raw destructive power of the mech. There. Finally! In cover behind an old sedan, snapping off shots at any assailants who dared to come near, and grinning like a fucking maniac – an SRTU uniform, minus the helmet, the auburn ponytail and the vibrant gore spattering her stark against the white of the armour. He grimaced once more – without her helmet, he couldn't radio her. Even if she had an augment, he would have to know the specific address of the augment to communicate with her directly, and he had no desire to broadcast across all channels with so many unfriendly faces nearby.
He craned his neck, searching for the mech. It was faced away from him, its fire slowly but surely chewing through a concrete block, behind which several rebels cowered. He grinned to himself, unable to deny his enjoyment of the flood of rich, sweet adrenaline as he prepared to dash from cover towards the sedan, knowing he was toast if the mech happened to turn towards him. The path from him to the woman was clear, her fire driving off the rebels temporarily. His implants crystallised the situation, his focus laserlike, his muscles tense as he sprinted out from behind his vehicle, covering the distance in seconds that felt like eternities – and then he slammed into cover beside her, once again safe, releasing a heavily held breath as he spoke, one eye on the woman beside him, one on ensuring no assailants got near.
“I heard you needed an evac?”