“One year on this dirtball, it’s almost like I’m back home.”
She muttered aloud, her throat dry despite recently drinking. With a sigh she
pressed a couple buttons on her data assistant and the onboard display on her
mask came to life, the radio crackled with her name.
“Deliah come in, can you hear me Deliah?” A high pitched
corporate suits voice was in her ear, he sounded louder than usual today.
“This is Deliah over.”
She withdrew from the car and moved towards a burned out building
nearby; the being out in the street chatting on the radio didn’t seem like a
great idea even without there being visible enemies. The building was at least
four stories though most of it had been holed from fighting; she heard a faint
groaning from the girders when she got inside which was one of the reasons she
chose to sleep on the street the night before.
“Where have you been Deliah? You just now switched on your
onboard, we figured you were KIA.” Riobeck was the corporate suit in charge of
the operation. He wasn’t even on New
Lork, instead he was in a ship high above the atmosphere with the rest of
management. They were supposed to be
supplying intelligence and directing the conflict, but instead they’d mostly
been squabbling with each other and getting people killed, a normal Op for the
Drydek corporation from what Deliah had seen.
“Sleeping Riobeck I didn’t want your voice waking me up,
tends to leave me angry.” It had been a day since she’d last gotten a night of
rest, weeks for it being a full one on an actual bed and not just sacking out
on the dirt.
“Are you near something tall? I need you to scout out a
location for an Operation.” Scouting, that’s what she had been doing as of
late, separated from the main force running around in bombed out buildings
without support, and “scouting” always for some mysterious operation that never
occurred.
“How tall? I’m in a building looks about four stories, what
do you need scouted?”
“Get to the top and get me a feed Deliah and I’ll let you
know.” Riobeck had been her handler since the start of the operation, he was
the guy who recruited her and bunch of other mercenaries. The others were already dead and buried, they
had recruited for numbers not skills, it made Deliah smile to think it was her
alone keeping Riobeck in his floating prison above New Lork. She coughed a fuck you under her breath and
found a way up the broken stair wells to get to the top of the building. Deliah kept her head low, the rebels weren’t
the best shots from what she’d seen, but that doesn’t mean you stick your head
up like an idiot. Up top things didn’t look any better; the building she was in
was the tallest remaining one still standing (and standing was kind of
stretching it from the buildings condition), everything else was a collapsed or
cratered.
“You getting this?” The mask had an onboard send and receive
component, mostly used for the send part, as the only information she’d
received for the last few months was payment delays.
“We receive you clearly, hold please while we analyze the
data.” The building groaned, Deliah had a moment of panic as she considered how
fast she could run down the broken stairs before getting crushed.
“Hold where asshole? This building isn’t exactly the most
stable.” Anger mixed with anxiety colored Deliah’s voice.
“I understand that Deliah, but we’re paying you, so when I
say hold princess, you fucking hold.” The radio cut indicating Riobeck was no
longer on the line.
“Asshole,” Deliah unslung the sniper rifle and took up a
position on the north part of the roof, she scanned the surrounding area more
intently, if they wanted her to remain in position she was going to make damn
sure she wasn’t about to become a tax write off. The gunfire from earlier was
getting closer, its why she chose the north side of the building as that’s
where it sounded like it was coming from. Deliah waited and heard nothing, a
couple call signs into Riobeck got no answer, nor did her messages to any other
operatives in the area. Something felt very wrong. Deliah killed the send
uplink on her data assistant and shouldered the rifle, she started to make her
way back down from the building. Her
radio sparked to life.
“You’ve killed your data uplink Deliah, everything all
right?” Riobeck sounded different now, almost worried.
“I’m hunkered down on the roof Riobeck, I think the rebels
hacked my feed, I’ve cut it and I’m trying to trap trace their location.” Total
lie, but Riobeck had proven in the past quite idiotic so Deliah figured he
wouldn’t catch on to that. She got to the bottom of the building and started
running, she didn’t exactly know what was about to happen, but whatever it was
she didn’t want to be there when it did.
“The Drydek corporation thanks you for your contribution
contractor Deliah, but we regret to inform you that your services are no longer
required.” The building behind her vanished in an explosion that threw Deliah
forward into more rubble; the armor protected her from getting skewered, but
did little to shield the impact of being tossed like that, nor did it prevent
her sniper’s scope from getting broken.
Deliah did a quick pat check to make sure all her parts were accounted
for, no obvious injuries. Deliah killed her com signal altogether hoping she
did it in time so that they wouldn’t suspect she survived the orbital
bombardment. The building had been hit
by what looked like a sustained plasma burst, probably from the flagship up
above. The bastards had been making sure they didn’t have any splash casualties
when they planned on taking her out. She had scouted her own orbital strike.
Deliah had to get moving, the strike was going to be
followed up with a hit team, and she wanted to be damn sure to be ready for
them. The strike actually was helping
her by obscuring her movements against her enemies, all the dust and debris
made locating her by satellite or scan much more difficult. It also made it hard to see amidst the
swirling dirt cloud, even with her onboard vision assist Deliah was limited to
an arm’s length in front of her. Stumbling around she bumped into the car, now
overturned, where she’d started her day, figuring it was as good a place as any
to stage her ambush she laid down and waited for the follow up team’s arrival.
She still had no idea why she had been specifically targeted, and in such a
showy fashion. Orbital strikes are expensive, messy, and tended to draw
attention. Deliah must have pissed off someone up high to get that kind of
attention, but for the life of her she could not recall what that was.
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