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[i]Slums - Beiguang Autonomous Region - Xiang Cooperative Dialogue[/i][/center]

	Cecilia steered her Kirin around a corner, leading with the barrel of her autocannon. The FRAME was no longer a pristine, blue-grey, but a dusty brown, dotted with metallic specks where the finish was chipped. The Panthers decal on its right shoulder was barely visible beneath the muck. At the height of her career, Cecilia would never have let her machine down the ramp in such a state; but nowadays, apathy had become standard operating procedure in the unit. 

	After failing to secure the HFI, Cradle let the Panthers go. That was a big hit to the unit's income. Before long, news circulated quickly that they'd botched the operation. Underground circles made it a point to avoid contracting the Panthers, and the jobs that did come were far beneath the unit's caliber. As if that weren't enough, many pilots and personnel aboard the [i]Samigina[/i] moved on or passed, manpower slowly declining to a minimum. Cecilia had seen comrades come and go, and although Bentz managed to retain most of his original staff, she knew they were loosing their touch. 

	This street was clear, save for a stray dog and lines of clothes that danced in the breeze. The Kirin rolled past neglected storefronts before coming to a halt at the next intersection. Maybe if she'd done things differently, the Panthers would be serving multinational corporations again; rolling in paychecks. Maybe if she'd been a better leader- 

	A fast blur across her monitor tore Cecila from her thoughts. Just a startled flock of pigeons. [i]Cool it, Cecilia. An op's an op. Even if you're scraping the bottom of the barrel.[/i] Then, she'd noticed more flocks of birds, taking flight a few streets away. Something had evidently startled them.

	"Heads on a swivel, Panthers. I don't think we're alone here."    	

	The Panther's suspicions were conformed when a blip snapped onto her sensors - big enough for the system to suspect a threat. Cecilia slid her optics around the corner of the intersection, trying to get her eyes further down the road. 

	[i]Movement.[/i] Not much, but something caught her eye through the other side of an open window a few blocks over. She waited, the tension creeping to her fingers, as it always did before an engagement. And then, the silhouette of a re-purposed utility FRAME emerged, brandishing a cannon. 

	"Contact! 500 meters, northeast. One... no, three... six, now. Six civvie FRAMEs with military-grade arms." Cecilia watched the patrol linger, before continuing on its way. It was flanked by a truck; the contents of which Cecilia could only speculate were small arms, or drugs, or both. Cecilia plotted the coordinates of the gangers on her GPS and shot them to the rest of the unit. 

	"Easy pickings. Time to earn our keep, folks." It was also a waste of time, but she kept that thought to herself. Cecilia exhaled a deep breath from her lungs to clear her head, lined up her weapon, and fired off the first round of the day.