The Hen swallows the WormShe eyed herself in the mirror, only occasionally, glancing up to meet her reflection's gaze and quickly darting her eyes away, as if she had locked stares with a stranger, briefly, scandalously. In one hand she rigorously inverted a cocktail shaker, the other inspecting the scars across her face and clavicle. That day was a good day, the flesh was an ugly pink and the blisters were at a minimum, better than worse days, when her face burned and cracked like splitting, spitting coals. No scar that extensive ever really healed.
Skyldig placed the shaker down on the synthetic wood of the cabinetry, producing a small sieve from a drawer and placing it over the awaiting maw of a seltzer bottle. Emptying out the shaker, the fluid trickled freely through the tightly woven metal mesh, meanwhile, powdery detritus and the undissolved shells of various pills found themselves separated. She tossed the sieve aside, the cleaning bot would retrieve it, clean it, replace it in its designated shelf. Capping the seltzer dispenser, Skyldig fitted into it a shiny ampule of CO2, discharging a sliver of it into an awaiting tumbler to prove to herself it functioned.
Picking up the glass, she gestured it towards herself in the mirror.
"
Your drink, Miss."
Before sipping on the narcotic concoction.
The Fox kills the HenThe single light that hung in the center of her modest cabin burned like the filaments of an oven, bearing down on her as she stripped down her fighting rifle. With the rim of a 6.5mm case she pried up the lip of a pin and pulled it out, retaining it in hand as she worked the bolt handle back, tilting the gun so that the other side of the receiver faced her. Using the pin as a punch she let out another pin below the ejection port, sliding off the bolt handle and placing it aside.
Skyldig worked quickly, methodically, spider-like hands crawling over the gun as she extracted pins and pried on screws, dropping everything in a bucket of acetone that sat on the ground beside her cot. On which she sat cross-legged, pulling off the fore-stock and placing it down on the blanket. From the whole assembly she produced the gas system, fiddling with internal components, all the while lining them up to make the bolt extraction easier. Within a few short moments all the small pieces were being stripped of their gunk in the bucket, as Skyldig rammed a patch down the barrel and polished essential baring surfaces. The disassembled firearm lustered, gleaming as she brushed the parts liberally with oil. As much as the rifle was a glutton for pain she didn't like to be fired dry.
Skydig put the parts back together in a matter of a minute, drawing the charging handle back a few times to ensure proper cycling before leaving the gun aside to load magazines. Which lay stacked and strewn around the room, like some kind of sheet metal confetti.
The Man shoots the FoxHer armor was not too dissimilar from the set she wore for the clans, though then her armor had been emblazoned with crests and awards, and was painted a deep... Grey. The idea of color was still alien to her, everything was a tone of black, except when in the woods or standing over a body of water, only then would she experience the faintest hint of this strange phenomenon. Color. The lightest twinge of some foreign sensation, that for all she knew could have been an optical illusion, or a parasite living in her eye. She drew the buckles and fasteners, wearing them tight enough to be uncomfortable, something that she could power through nonetheless.
Over her underwear was a one-suit of ballistic weave, to catch any kinetic projectiles that might breach through the upper layers of armor. Over which she would wear a tight lattice of mail, tightly packed rings of bi-metal looped together, to catch spalling and shrapnel that might come loose from the inside of the armor plates. Though this only covered her upper body. And finally the plates, shoulder and neck guards, fore-guards, thigh plates and greaves, gauntlets and gigantic segmented boots. These performed well against some energy based weapons, despite getting very warm upon impact. Less so against ballistic weapons, that had a tendency to dent painfully inwards.
All of this made the armor almost unbearably hot, it would have, had it not been for her body modifications, systems to cool her vital organs and major blood ways.
In the mirror Skyldig polished the plates on her shoulders, rubbing a rag in round rapid motions across the metallic surface. Her waist was dangling with ammunition pouches and hand grenades, like a violent belly-dancer's veil. On her left hip was the seltzer bottle, primed and ready for dispensing, on her right a high-gain communicator, for contacting the ship from planet side. She glanced at herself one more time before pulling on her helmet, and storming through the door, the various articles hanging off her body knocking against each other metallically.
The Devil hunts the ManThe sound of air tattering through the open maw of the cargo hold's rear door reminded Skydlig of the sound of a blowtorch, burning close to her ear. Though of course she knew that from experience. The sky turned, almost suddenly from black to an off white as the Molotov broke through the atmosphere, and the sound of planet wide alarm reached them even from such a height. Meanwhile, she stood there perfectly still despite the juddering of the ship as it slammed through turbulence, threatening to shake apart.
Behind her, FIDO tended to the cables, though she did not approve of the plan, Skyldig admired how the robot would take orders and shut the fuck up.
As the Molotov closed with the building, and flack and rockets rained inwards from roof mounted batteries, explosions rang out in a distance. No doubt the Yokai softening something that didn't require his attention. First thing was first though, in order to capture the vault the ship would need a window of opportunity, away from the fire of the Home Office building. That meant taking out the batteries.
Skyldig began to move towards the exit, as the rear of the ship swung around, facing the roof of the building. The lights in the hold blazed brightly, the thumbs up to make planet fall, a mile above the actual surface. Her brisk walk turned into a trot, the trot speeding up to a jog and then a run as she approached the edge of the platform.
"
Good luck!" FIDO called out after her, as her feet become free of the platform, weightlessly careening forwards into the open air.
"
Fuck off!" She called in response, not turning to look at the robotic laborer, one hand moving to disengage the safety on her rifle as she approached the asphalt surface of the roof. Her feet crashed into the ground first, left before right, cracks sprawling out from the point of impact as asphalt flaked off the ground. The world seemed to slow down at that instant, as the guards on the roof came to the quick realization that she had landed. Skyldig's forward momentum carried her forwards, as she jumped off the ground the moment she landed, rolling before coming to an abrupt, upright halt.
"
Computer, play that good shit." She
commanded, as she opened the mouthpiece of her helmet and jammed the nozzle of the seltzer bottle into her lips. Pressing down on the lever a sudsy jet emptied a quarter of the narcotic solution down her throat, her heart and brain responding almost instantly. She went through a series of sensations, ranging from elation to pain to calm to pain to anger to numbness, in the span of time it took to shoulder her rifle and kill the first man she saw.
