Freyr and Five Nine Five were crossing the road to the front doors of her apartment building when small arms fire crackled across the wide expanse of the park. Freyr looked back, but it wasn’t long before the agent pushed her head down and hauled her inside. “Lock the doors, let no one in or out!” The agent ordered the concierge droid, who bowed as the double doors next to him slammed shut and a metal roller shutter began creeping down the glass.

[hr]

Five Nine Five’s Skinner sighting and subsequent call for extraction created a high priority flag in the Babylon law enforcement command system. A team of special counter terrorism firearms officers, stationed a mile away from the park, were put into action after a short delay. Their armoured truck lifted off from a side street, rose to just above tree level and powered through the dark until they could see a brightly lit cobbled square underneath them. There was a disturbance in the park, but their primary objective was to extract the VIP. Five Nine Five’s extraction pin was located in this square, so without any further info they came in for a fast, quiet landing.

The large vehicle crushed several of the stalls underneath it’s vast bulk. A ramp descended quickly at the back and a dozen heavily armoured soldiers crunched out. Their uniforms were black, with 'CTSFO' printed in white on the helmet and variations of ‘Caution’ printed on their chest in three languages. They were all droids, but it was almost impossible to gauge that from the exterior. Every inch of a human’s flesh would be covered by the armour they wore, from the gloves to the opaque helmet.

The droids fanned out, quickly moving to secure the extraction zone. They quickly identified two heat signatures on the ground and moved to them, looking to identify the VIP. It turned out these two were unknown, alive but immobilised by specialist nerve rounds. The order came in from their handler to detain them, so a droid easily picked up each of the prone figures and took them toward the waiting truck.

The rest of the officers moved to secure each of the entrances to the market. The gunfire from nearby had now ceased, and instead the droids detected the whirr of non-Human dropships overhead and the wail of approaching police sirens. Three of the droids were just moving to secure one of the archways when an unidentified, non-Human entity came running through it. All three of the officers raised their heavy rifles, and one addressed the alien in a deep, commanding Human voice.

“Firearms police! Get down on the ground!”