From Darkness

[Manticore]

LISA

The wire charge blasted through the door in a white-hot flash, briefly illuminating the now darkened warehouse. James burst through, weapon at the ready. Lisa followed close behind, desperately trying to remember everything from the shooting lessons he'd given her.

James put on the thickest Houston accent he could fake, and screamed at the folks inside.

"LPI, MORONS! GET ON THE GROUND!" She also saw him activate the tactical light on his weapon – effectively blinding the hostiles through the gloom.

For her part, Lisa elected to remain silent. Her unique Rheinlander/Bretonian accent would certainly spoil the ruse. She kept her weapon up at the ready, and watched as the group of men in front of her hit the deck obediently, while the group of men across the warehouse ducked to cover under a cloud of vile cursing.

"Suspects taking cover, open fire!"

Lisa watched James squeeze off a quick burst of fire that caught a Xeno who had been too slow to reach cover. The wounded man writhed to the floor.

"One down!" he shouted, slipping on the accent now. Not that anybody would really notice at this point.

Lisa abruptly realized she was still standing in the open like an idiot. She squeezed off several wild shots and then slid across the concrete floor to take cover behind a large crate.

Catching a glimpse of James behind a pillar across from her, she quickly ducked out from cover, bringing her pistol up and instinctually squeezing off several more rounds at the dim shape of the cluster of crates the Xenos hid behind. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Junkers still flat on the ground. Several seemed to be scuttling towards the closest exit.

"JADE, make sure you're painting those targets for James!" she shouted as she popped out to fire wildly into the darkness again.

James shouted to her. "Cover me!" He then broke from cover, moving to flank. With the suit's assistance, the glimmer of his movement was eerily precise, verging on being robotic. Unlike for Lisa, the darkness was not a hindrance for James.

Lisa popped from cover again, wildly firing more rounds towards the crates in a panicked effort to cover him. Through her earpiece, she heard the rumble of James’ laughter as he opened up with the flash of a precise burst of fire. She marveled at how well the suit worked in action.

Lisa’s pistol clicked after it discharged the magazine's last round, and she promptly ducked back into cover to reload.

When she emerged from cover again, it was already over. She stood, making her way to James just as the last Xeno babbled out his surrender, his gun already on the floor. She glanced at the Junkers, noting that two had crawled away in the dark confusion and only three now remained.

"The area is secure," JADE piped in, "and three Junkers are in custody. There is also a wounded Xeno on the south side of the building in addition to this one. I will bring the lights back up now."

James nodded, turning back to the surrendered Xeno as the lights began to snap back to life, one by one. "Stay. Here. Take this biofoam hypo, fill up your friend's wound cavity with it, and go find a hospital. AFTER I leave.”

The Xeno nodded rapidly, quickly snatching the hypo from James' hand and rushing over to his friend.

Seeing that James had the situation under control, Lisa stepped over to monitor the Junkers still lying prostrate on the floor. "What's the plan for these Junkers? Since I think I know your intention for the munitions..."

“Junkers, I assume have already received the pay for these goods? If you walk away now, you get to keep it. If you won't keep quiet, then I will find you, and I will put a bullet in each one of you. Have I made myself clear?"

They nodded, and then scurried away as quickly as possible.

“JADE, which crate are the munitions in?” After a pause, he spoke again. “Thank you,” he said, walking over to a black crate. Lisa assumed JADE had simply painted it as a target on his visor.

"Might as well check it out. I'll keep an eye on these." She nodded towards the Xenos.

"This had better be good stuff…" James muttered as he unsealed it. He let out a low whistle as he perused the contents. "There's enough in here to arm half a company!”

He took out various items, inspecting them. "Ys-35 tachyon rifle. Eh, energy weapons are for plebs. Powerful, though. Vaegir handguns. Common things. Bison 890 sniper rifles. Fair enough, but I already have Old Faithful…”

He paused, continuing to talk to himself as he rummaged through the contents. “Oh… hey, Lisa! Check this out! They have missile launchers and high-yield explosives in here too, enough to blow up a space station." He paused again as he found something particularly interesting. "Hellooo, where have you been all my life?"

The thing he pulled out of the crate was about as long as he was - a complex power mechanism was housed in the main body, with a magnetic rail covering the length of the barrel. "A Harkannon Multipurpose Railgun! This piece alone probably cost a couple million credits. I never thought I'd see the day…"

"That's... a gun? Looks like it should be mounted on a ship or something.” She frowned, not seeing the practical value in such a monstrosity. “There wouldn't happen to be any electronics in there, would there?"

He took out one of the missiles, turning it over in his hands. "Well, no actual computers, but these things have some fancy tech in them. Guidance and control systems mostly. I think you might find it useful. I think I also saw some military grade ship-based sensor modules. That’s pretty powerful hardware."

Lisa nodded. "Yeah, I could probably use those. Maybe make a fancy toy or two." Glancing around, she added, “Let’s bring one of the ships in here and load up the good stuff."

JADE had access to the piloting computer of Lisa’s Sabre, so she brought the ship into the warehouse through the bay door. Lisa and James loaded up the munitions.

"Well, job's done. Wanna get out of here?"

"Yeah. We should probably start tracking down a place to settle in and establish ourselves. Houston's not the best spot for that, but it is the best spot to get the real low-down on what's going on in Liberty."

James nodded. “Good idea. I’ll see you in space.”

(Credit to l3wt for his character's portion of this chapter.)

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