20 minutes later...

"This is insane." Taya said to the other two, now sitting underground in Magdalena's "home" with the others. "You can't possibly be suggesting what I think you are." The girl looked at Neil to see if he would be any voice of reason, but one look showed if it wasn't his idea, he still thought it was hilarious. "You need to at least WARN Saxon before you have a hundred people trying to go and kill him!"

"Look, of course we're going to warn him." Neil said, though he had this smile on his face that spoke volumes on the mental image he had in his head. Which for the record, was Saxon being assailed on all sides by men, left alone on this planet as Neil flew the Highlander away. He looked like he had to snap himself out of it. "In fact, he'll be elated. I bet he hasn't killed something in far too long. His bloodlust will be up and ready."

Sayeeda cleared her throat loudly, drawing Taya's and more importantly Neil's attention to Magdalena, her squeamish husband, and her multiple wide-eyed children staring at them. Neil took a sip of the water they had served them, nonchalantly drinking it as if he'd said nothing out of the ordinary. Sayeeda turned to the family, arms crossed under her chest. "You might want to send your children in the next room. We're about to speak business, after all."

The husband decided to usher the kids into the room, and in his no doubt infinite wisdom, decided to join them. Junebug tossed Neil his sidearm, having just cleaned it while Neil and Taya were talking. The Captain had her rump planted on the table, one knee up and foot on the back of a chair. "So, Magdalena. We've been thinking... We've been needing some money recently, as we're a bit dry. Luckily, we're not dry on ordinances and blood to sweat. So here's the deal." Neil watched Magdalena, guaging her reaction to Junebug. "You pay us 20 Terran Imperial credits and make us another meal, and we'll solve your problem."

"My...'problem'?" She asked, not understanding.

Neil grinned. "We'll kill the Scorpions and the Spiders. Sounds good?"
@Penny

“You are going to fight the Scorpions and Spiders? For twenty pesos?” Magdalena asked, clearly thinking she had either misheard or misunderstood. Junebug nodded her head sagely and Taya grinned openly. The idea had gained traction after the firefight at the unnamed village when the villagers had enthusiastically thrown the bodies of their oppressors into the flames of the burning processing shed. The locals had begged the off worlders to stay and celebrate, regaling them with tales of the brutality of the gangsters as they enthusiastically incinerated the bodies.

“But you said… you said it would take a… regiment?” Magdalena asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar words but with growing hope in her eyes. Junebug nodded and ran a hand through her hair. She wanted to get back to the highlander and take a bath and change, mud from the sluice trench had dried on her pants and in her boots, but they still had some things to do.

“I did, but I’ve been thinking about it, and it occurs to me that maybe there are two rather shitty regiments already here,” she explained. Magdalena’s eyes brightened.

“You mean the gangs, you are going to get them to fight each other?” Magdalena guessed, proving that even in unfamiliar territory her natural intellect stood her in good stead.

“They are not supposed to fight each other, the cartel on Kimberly tolerates the gangs so long as they keep the drugs flowing but if they go to war…”

“We are going to convince them that they can have the situation sewed up long before anyone on Kimberly even knows the balloon has gone up, trust me, these greedy bastards will go for it.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked with wonder in her voice. Junebug shrugged uncomfortably. The type of people who hired armored cavalry regiments were rarely people filled with light, purity and a genuine desire for the advancement of the human condition. She had suppressed rebels, crushed dissenters and captured empires for whoever was paying the Armored to do it and she hadn’t really worried too much about the morality of any of it. It was Andor who made those contract after all and she was just fulfilling hers with him. Now though, she was picking the job, a fact which made her feel a little guilty she hadn’t consulted with Neil or Taya before putting their necks on the line, and although she doubted she was about to become a crusader for Truth, Justice, and the Terran Way, there wasn’t any reason she always needed to work for whoever was worst in any given situation. She smiled crookedly, ironically if Stinger had just paid out at the get go Junebug would have been honor bound to support her. It was a funny universe.

“Most places you go, the rot and corruption is so baked into everything that there is no way to ever get it out… here though… maybe its possible, even if it is going to be very, very, bloody.”


Night was beginning to fall when they stepped out of the small shop. Magdalena was already closing up and barring the doors and windows before heading for her subterranean home. The rumble of trucks was already evident in the distance as the gunmen rode back from the fields, eager for booze, women and violence although not necessarily in that order.

“So how are we going do now?” Taya asked, excited but uncertain. Junebug drew a cigarette from her pack and ignited the striking pad with a flick of her finger.

“Well, Neil is going to go and report to the Stinger about how we were ambusheds by Spiders. You are going to go back to the ship… me… I think I’m going to get a drink…”

Neil slid an apple down his arm and caught it nimbly, spinning it on his finger before plucking it out of the air. Whatever Junebug decided, he was on board for. He was just excited to get things going. Not having his conscience dirtied was a definite plus, and whatever loot they got from destroying both of these gangs was likely worth it. Though his Captain's orders caught up with his head before he bit the apple.

"Wait...What!?"

Fast forwarding an hour later, Neil had procured a ride from some of Stinger's associates who he had convinced it was in their best interest to get him to Stinger as fast as they could. There were three of them. One man was young and red haired. with a wild smile on his almost too-wide mouth, hollering and hooting at anything that looked vaguely female as he stood atop the passanger's seat. The driver was far more level headed, though suspicious. Neil couldn't quite get a bead on him, his face concealed in a strange mechanical mask with only one eye uncovered through a high tech optic scope.

Neil sat next to something that was either once a man, or a humanoid alien. The thing cackled louder than the douchebag up front, his body covered in fur and his face very Hyena-esque. At least he wore loose pants and a jacket. Neil was not prepared to be bumped into by some mutant/xenos and their junk.

As they approached, Neil saw guns trained their way at the bunkered, barbed wired fence. The lowest dregs of thuggery stood watch, various mechanical and organic vagaries attached or warped about them. Neil no doubt thought they would be formidable to fight in hand to hand or ranged, which was likely why they were the first line of defense. The one at the gate was the criminal Neil had seen last time he came here, when it was the first time. He had a large gun, likely 20 MM rounds.

"You got some balls coming back here." The man said, barrel on Neil. Even the Hyena-man had the good sense to move away. Neil didn't seem perturbed, though he held his hands up.

"Hey, hey! Come on, what's that for? I'm coming back to explain stuff."

"Well, if you've got a good explanation as to why Miguel and a dozen of our lads disappeared, maybe you can make it out alive." He chuckled, then screamed at the others. "Let them in!"

The rumbling of the cars were drowned out by the laughter of the watchmen, and Neil tried not to get nervous. Oh, he wasn't nervous about if Stinger was angry at him. Neil had been beaten, humiliated, and even tortured once or twice as a Highlander Crewmember. He was mostly afraid of Stinger's interest of him, and he would rather leave by giving her vague promises of some nature rather than having to refuse her and fight his way out. Not only because it would hinder their initial plan to pit the Spiders against the Scorpions, but because he wasn't about to betray Junebug's trust. When he told her about it though, she laughed and told him to be firm like she knows he can be. He had no idea what to make of that.

Pulling up to the fortified, ruined mansion, Neil hopped out and told them to keep the car running. Even without being able to see his face, the masked man gave Neil a look that essentially loudly asked if he was kidding. Neil just grinned and headed inside, past three men playing Bazrika, a fun electromagnet drinking game, and headed upstairs until he was ushered in to see Stinger. He sighed before the curtain was drawn, and stepped inside the room. He hoped she was in an agreeable mood, but not too agreeable.
@Penny

Meanwhile...
Taya stumbled through the debris, catching herself on her front foot and turning, gun barrel leading. The young woman saw no one following, but the amount of thugs on this world she didn't trust simply not being able to see a foe. Holding her position for a few seconds, once she was satisfied Taya turned and hurried down the alleyway, finding the main road that led to the launchpad that held the Highlander, still stationed where the three had left it. This world was a bit poorer than most, and even now as she walked under the archway to the hanger she felt the dust and grime on her skin. She didn't say it, but she was still very much used to being pampered on her homeworld. The Captain and Neil's stoicism in the face of all they've had to deal with kept her mouth shut over broken nails or lack of hygiene, but now that she saw the Highlander before her, she wanted nothing more than to take a bath and wait for further instructions.

Once she put in the code, the Highlander's entryway door slowly lowered, air seeping out of the pistons, giving a hiss like a viper as it moved. She forgot how much she missed the sound of her boots on the hollow steel of the fallen door as she stepped into the ship, quickly placing in the code to close it behind her. Once the door was closed, she finally noticed the lights were out, and there was a hint of a strange smell in the air. Sniffing, she couldn't tell what it was. It was faint and likely unnoticeable if her senses hadn't already been on edge.

Groping in the dark, her fingers ran over the lighting toggle on the opposite wall. She gritted her teeth and lowered the thing, glad it wasn't stuck fast like it had been before. It creaked, but once it hit bottom the lights flooded the ship's interior. Now she could see everything in front of her, but nothing seemed different. Well, why would it be? She thought, and Taya began walking toward the cargo bay. Just put your gun up and go take a bath. Neil didn't install the bathing area for it to go unused. Her smile bloomed on her face, and she shimmied down the stairs leading to the cargo bay.

Once down there, she abruptly turned to the left where most of the arms and armor was stored, unstrapping her submachine gun and placing it carefully on the rack. She felt competent with it, but she knew the other two felt she had a lot to learn and she guessed she couldn't blame them. Losing your cool in a firefight was not entirely safe.

"Where are the others?" A deep voice sounded behind her. Her soul left her body for a brief moment before she recognized it as Saxon, calming down. He made her nervous at the best of times, but at least he wasn't an enemy out for her blood.

"They're still in town. They said they would call us whe-" She turned and looked behind her, her words drowning out in a scream of terror. Even a hardened soldier would have been disturbed at the sight. As she looked across the cargobay, she saw what looked to be Saxon's corpse on the floor, hollowed out and filled with various juices. Beside it stood a beast that resembled him, and she knew must be Saxon. It was clearly a Hexanagallion, but he had gone through some sort of metamorphosis! His massive, brutish arms now had bones like spikes protruding out of his arms, each a meter long. Under them on his broad chest were two smaller arms, now curled up. Smaller being relative, as they were thicker than Taya's limbs certainly. Other than those, the further bone-like protusions along his vital areas acting as a sort of natural armor, and the wet stickiness clinging to his naked skin (which had likely been the source of the smell) it was Saxon. So that was what he had gained from his healing?

"You uh...you look good." She said uneasily.

Saxon smiled. "I feel good."

Junebug wandered through Teosinte, making her way to what a shocking number of gang tags identified as the Spiders end of town before the groups of blustering thugs flooded the streets. Even though the field guards weren't in town yet, there were plenty of unfriendly glares from partisans of both gangs, and from locals who assumed that anyone going around armed must be affiliated with one or the other. Realistically, Junebug had to admit she had been in more unpleasant places, there had been gangs of cannibals in the ruined cities on Segovia and children routinely went missing in the night. In her mind those situations were temporary, the results of wars that Andor's Armored was in the business of brining to an end as swiftly as possible. Andor was no humanitarian, but his interest in warfare was economic, and finishing a contract quickly was always to be preferred. That being said, any local thugs who bothered the mercenaries and the locals the recruited as camp followers and to help with their logistics train, could expect to learn what a couple of LAVs and a company of infantry could do to pissant indiges who got above themselves. In Teosinte there was no such force, and this wasn't a war, this was everyday life for these people, and it would go on till everyone on the planet was in one gang or the other. Or dead of course. That was the more likely outcome for most people. Sayeeda wasn't a humanitarian either, but she was here and she could do something, and so she would.

The bar she selected was called the Aracnophilla, or at least, Sayeeda presumed that was what the artists semi literate scrawl was supposed to say. It did have a fairly artistic rendition of a spider buggering a chained scorpion above the door. The interior was as promising as the outside, a single large room with a dozen tables infront of a dingy bar. At the back of the room was a stage on which a tired looking woman gyrated, shaking nude and unlovely flesh at a few patrons gathered around. The men seemed to be whipping at her with what looked like piano wire attached to wooden handles. She flinched from each blow but the vacant look in her eyes made it clear she was too stoned on something to much care. An interlace of old scar tissue suggested this wasn't her first, and perhaps not her hundredth time at the particular stage show.

Junebug slid up the bar and ordered a whiskey, motioning for the bartender to leave the half empty bottle. She sniffed at the neck of it, making sure it was of a high enough proof to kill bacteria before taking a sip. It was raw and oily, with very little to recommend it except for the bite of what might have been pure ethanol mixed with water and food coloring. She grinned, she was just going to have to get Neil to take her someplace nice next time. She didn't realise the thought had made her laugh till someone grabbed her wrist.

"Something funny to you bitch?" a slightly overweight looking gangster demanded. He was clearly compensating for his balding patte by growing a full beard, which was none to clean and none too good.

"None of your bussiness yokel, why dont you fuck off while you still have your legs to carry you hey?" she suggested. Predictably his eyes narrowed with anger and he yanked her towards him. Junebug spun into the motion, using it to add momentum to the elbow which she drove into the suddenly shocked thugs stomach just below the sternum. Air whooshed from his lung and he began to choke as he simultaneously tried to gasp for air and vomit. He fell to his knees and sprayed out a mouthful of his stomach contents before collapsing into a wracking cough. Junebug kicked him hard in the kidneys and then again in the stomach as he rolled over. He coiled up, desperately trying to cover his vitals, he was crying now, but Junebug had learned in a hard school that it always paid to put the boot in while the other fellow was down. She raised her boot to kick him in the teeth.

"I think he learned his lesson," a deep basso voice said, punctuated by the click of a hammer drawing back. Junebug paused in mid kick and looked up to see a man with crossed bandoliers and spider tatoos on the top of both is hands looking at her in what might have been amusement. She grinned back, her smile as hard and terrible as a glacier.

"Oh I don't know, never hurts to drive home a lesson for the slower ones," she responded, though she was already stepping away, reaching back to the bar to retrieve her bottle.

"Never the less, maybe we leave poor Jorge alone right?" the man persisted. Junebug took a sip directly from the bottle and shook herself like a wet dog, trying to speed the adrenaline from her system.

"Whatever you say," she responded indifferently. The man watched her for a minute and then eased back the hammer on the handgun and slipped it into a cross draw holster above his hip.

"Your that offworld mercenary, working with the Scorpions right?" he asked.

"I'm from offworld, you can tell by the fact I still have all my teeth and a full set of chromosomes," she rejoined with a cocky grin. The newcomer didn't rise to the bait, merely watching her.

"As for working with the Scorpions, no, right now I'm not working with anyone, just looking to get a drink and..." she nodded her chin in the direction of the fallen Jorge who was crawling away towards the back of bar, if the man had friends, they weren't in a hurry to assist him, "enjoying the night life." The man nodded agreeably.

"Well my name is Talin, and if you aren't working with the Scorpions, then I have someone who I know is dying to meet you," Talin said with an oily smirk. Gunfire sounded off in the distance.

"Not really looking for company friend," she said, nodding again at Jorge as a couple of thugs scopped him up by the arms, shooting baleful looks at Junebug.

"I am afraid that I must insist, and if you refuse, I will have to get as many men as I need to make you comply, and that would really start our relationship off on the wrong foot don't you think?" Junebug took another pull from the bottle and slapped it down on the bar.

"Well, if you insist..."

The curtains were pulled, Neil taking a deep breath and stepping in. The floor was wooden paneled, half draped in carpets with a various mix of designs. The walls were half laquered by a specialist who had likely been shot before he could finish, considering there were three bullet holes near a partially finished piece of the wall. Curtains covered the far side of the room's corner, but Stinger wasn't there like she had been last time. Instead she sat on the comfortable couch he took to be her perch, deceptively dainty shoulders outstretched, her arms resting atop the back of the couch. There was something about a woman's narrow shoulders that men found appealing, likely the biological equivalent of a woman enjoying the strength and breadth of a man's. Neil had to appreciate the view, even moreso when he found a gangly man in goggles was finishing up a tattoo on her left shoulder. Opposite of him was a mutant fanning her with a torn bit of plasteel from an overturned military ground vehicle from some unknown intervention in the past.

"Yo, we need to talk." Neil said. The two around her seemed bewildered he spoke to her in such a manner, but she merely turned her head, eyes peeking through the coy wave of her dark hair. She smirked, her full lips curved into a predatory smile. She let out a 'tch' to the tattoo artist. He scurried off like the rat he epitomized, passing Neil and clutching his 'tools' with him. The mutant followed, pushing past Neil by shouldering him. Neil grinned, somehow getting a sick kick at anyone who was unnecessarily hostile towards him. No wonder he got into so much trouble back on Fotus.

"Sit down, scuttler." She offered him; commanded him he felt.

She patted the seat beside him, but he pretended not to notice, sitting across from her. The ruined coffee table both polished and roughed up through various wear and tear. She grabbed a bottle of some dark liquid on the tabletop and took a swig of it, never taking her eyes off him. The bottle firmly in her lips as she practically inhaled the rest of the drink, likely suggesting what else she might do with her lips by the glint in her dark eyes. When she finished, she wiped her mouth and let out a herculean burp that shook Neil's ears. Somehow she reminded him of Junebug in a fashion in multiple ways, though in a lot of ways he saw how dissimilar they were.

"So, what can I do for you?" The mob leader said, splaying her hands out to hear him. Her hands rested on the back of the couch once more, her heroic bosom thrust out, shapely legs crossed. "Your captain's not here, I see. Or the little girl. I was planning on getting you alone, but not in this circumstance."

"Oh you mean your twelve dead guys?"

"Uh huh."

"I saw it happen-"

"Let me guess..." She said, sardonically. "You and your team didn't lose a member but all of my men died miraculously in a freak attack from my long time rivals?"

"Are you saying you wouldn't believe that if that's what I said?"

"I'm saying I don't lose twelve men and not kill someone." Stinger remarked, and with the look in her eyes he fully expected her to be able to kill him. Whether it was a gun hidden in the couch or from sheer will. Neil still acted casual as she continued. "You're hot, but that won't save you if you can't convince me that whatever you're here for is worth my while. Maybe I'll kill your team and make you my bitch before killing you, that'll settle things."

"Hold on," Neil laughed, holding his hands up. "What is with all this hostility? Look, I didn't kill your team. And I'll do you one better...I and my team are prepared to make an attack on the spiders. We know where they keep some of their drugs, and we're going to raid it with your go ahead. If you want to join us, feel free, but we interrogated a spider before we killed him. Not only that but-"

"You," She said menacingly. "are not off the hook. But..." Her words turned husky. "Maybe we can work something out, if the prize is big enough. But that is a big if, scuttler. We can discuss your debt to me after we take the drug house. You and your team are going to be on-call, as it were, to attack when I say with my team, within eyesight of me at all times. If you get off your leash, I'll sic my other dogs on you. If you're good, I'll see to it you live, along with a fair amount of pay. Deal?"

She leaned forward, holding her hand out to shake. He thought for a moment, and realized he had no choice. He held his hand out to shake. She took it, and with surprisingly strength she yanked him across the table and grabbed him by the neck, nose to nose.

"Don't fuck up." She warned, hot breath on his face. Her fingers clenched on his jaw, opening it involuntarily as she kissed him, hungrily and thoroughly. Neil did his best not to kiss back, and he stumbled away when she pushed him off. Pointing at the curtain, she dismissed him and plopped down on the couch again. "Now scuttle off and tell your crew my terms. If they don't agree, you're all dead."
@Penny

I bet Neil is having more fun than I am Sayeeda thought to herself as she was marched down the street and through the chainlink fence that surrounded the old cannery. Like the Scorpion's base, pillboxes of sandbags and courgated iron had been errected so heavy weapons could be pointed back towards town. Improvised towers, made of structural girders from the long derelict factory stood at the corners with watchers mounted in look outs. They two had heavy weapons, but Junebug suspected that firing them from such precarious perches was far more dangerous to the shooters than the enemy. Given the fact that the thugs had bothered to cut the grass around the fence, and the care they took not to touch it, Sayeeda had to assume it was electrified. They had taken her weapons belt and her side arm, which was smart, but they hadn't conducted a proper search or made her remove her body armor, which was very stupid.

"Love what you have done with the place," Sayeeda commented ironically, guesturing to the dilapidated cannery. Sections of roofing had been torn away to reveal girdirs within and improvised electric lights hung from strings. Rust was everywhere giving the place a stink of decay and old steel which offended Sayeeda's tankers soul. Talin guffawed as though it were a hilarious joke and slapped his belly.

"Hey, its not much to look at, but it is a fortress! The Scorpions don't dare even think about attacking it," he boasted. Unless of course they had a half dozen good snipers, or mortars, or even some half decent machine gunners to knock out the towers Sayeeda thought, but she was being unduly pessimistic, the odds of the Scorpions having such skilled people, or even the imagination to try such an assault were low which mean Talin was probably correct. They walked passed the check point and Sayeeda ignored the chorus of cat calls and improbable sexual suggestions from the half drunk half stoned gang toughs. Talin waved three of them over as an escort and took her through the front doors of the place. The interior was a maze of girders, conduits, gangways and other industrial fittings, many of them had deep bright scuffs in the steel as though cut by the claws of some vast animal.

"Just so you know we done playing games, you lie to the boss, we shoot you dead," Talin said, his voice now carrying a hint of nerves. Sayeeda wondered what would happen to Talin if she didn't play along and if he were in more trouble than she was. She wished Neil was with her, an extra pair of eyes would have been welcome and his smart ass witicisims would have bouyed her spirits. Well, she thought with a grin, she would just have to be be obnoxious enough for both of them.

"Wha..." Talin gasped, clearly taken aback by her sudden smile.

"Just thinking about something funny," she said smoothing her face with some effort.

"Care to let us in on the joke?" he demanded. Junebug shrugged.

"Maybe later."

Further conversatoin was interupted as a dark shape dropped from the ceiling. There were a seires of deafening clangs and sprays of sparks as the thing fell, striking gangways and and girdirs as it came, sending showers of orange sparks flying into the air. It hit the ground in a spray of concrete chips, one of which scored a line across Sayeeda's chestplate. A creature stood in the center of the room, not a creature exactly a cyborg with the torso and head of a man, but with its legs replaced by eight augmentic limbs that hissed and popped with hydraulic pistons. Each limb was nearly two meters long and tapped the floor with a decidedly arachnid affect. They were tipped with sharpened wedges of metal. The man atop the thing was fat, rolls of flab hanging down and concealing the augmetic joints of his body and cybernetic legs. The legs made his arms look rather stubby and he was completely bald his skin shining with oil. Sven would have been disgusted by such a crude union of man and machine. Of course he might have shot the thing for offending his sensibilities or offered to help fix it.

"The Spider, I presume," Junebug said with a slight bow, making a show of not being impressed. The Spider scowled clearly used to his guest recoiling in horror.

"You presume correctly mercenary," he said in a voice that was probably meant to be intimidating, but had a slightly breathy edge which robbed it of gravitas. Sayeeda wondered if his diaphram had been damaged in whatever accident had left him in his current state.

"Well I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you, but your goons here," she made a gesture to encompass the four guards, "didn't give me much of a choice."

"We don't take kindling to the Scorpion's hirelings wondering into our territory," he threatened. Junebug snickered and the Spider's eyes blazed with fury.

"Something amusing mercenary?" he half snarled.

"If you really thought I was working for the Scorps you would have had your boys kill me rather than drag me in here to suffer your overly dramatic theatrics right?" she asked. The Spider lurched forward, one of his legs, equiped with a gripping pincer seized her around the chest. The armor creaked but didn't give way.

"Watch your mouth, you think you are the first off planet big shot to wind up in a shallow grave?" he demanded. Junebug resisted the urge to go for a concealed pistol with an effort.

"Probably not, but I'm the first to drop 12 of the scorpions in one without so much as a scratch," she responded levelly. The Spider snarled and let her go.

"You have an awfully large opinion of yourself for a freighter captain," the Gang boss growled.

"Look if we are just going to talk about me, Id just as soon go back to getting drunk," Sayeeda replied levelly.

"If you are going to try to kill me, go ahead, if not say whatever it is you are going to say and let me get on with my evening," she said, her tone that of a teacher who has been asked a stupid question one too many times.

"Is there a good reason I shouldn't kill you? Just to be on the safe side?" he asked, eyes narrowing dangerously at the emphasis she had placed on the word 'try'.

"Plenty, starting with that trying to kill me definitely wouldn't be on the safe side, but more importantly would cost you millions of credits," she returned levelly. The Spider gave her a slit eyed glower but predictably the mention of money caught his interest. He clattered eratically on his legs, his torso remaning steady but the limbs adjusting to balance some problem in weight distribution.

"Millions of credits, what are you talking about?" he demanded.

"Before I killed those Scorpions they tried to recruit me on a raid, targeting your drug storage facility." That did get his attention and he reared back on his limbs as though about to strike her, the guards around her edged back gasping and muttering.

"What nonsense those fools don't even know here it is!" the Spider all bout screamed.

"You mean they don't know its in the old quarry west of town?" she asked sweetly. That drew definite gasps of shock from all concerned. Truth be told the Scorpions hadn't know before Neil had told them. It had taken her all of ten minutes and nothing more sophisticated than the sensor reading from the Highlander on approach, but even that basic piece of intelligence gatherings was probably beyond these dim wits.

"When is this raid happening?" he demanded, stalking back and forth, two legs half climbing a network of pipes, ripping one of them open to spill foul smelling steam by accident.

"Tonight I heard," Junebug responded with a shrug.

"If you are lying to me I will feed your your own..." the Spider began but Junebug burst into action. She drove her booted foot into the instep of the nearest guard with a crunch of bone, in the same motion she ripped a stun baton from his belt and hurled his body into Talin sending them both down in a pile. She whipped around in a snap kick that caught a second guard in the stomach, sending him tumbling back, vomiting bile and gasping for breath. Letting her momentum carry her around she smashed the stun baton into the face of the final guard with an electric crackle that filled the room with the smell of burning hair. Before the fellow collapesed she snatched a heavy chemical pistol from his belt and pointed it at the Spider, tossing the still arcing baton onto Talin and the first guard she had assulted absently, sending them both to the ground in spasming heaps.

"Lets keep the threats to the woman who just gave you invaluable intel to a minimum shall we?" she asked, thumbing back the hammer of the pistol for dramatic effect. The Spider was pale, obviously caught between striking and cowering from the gun that was suddenly pointed at his face. Boots thundered as men rushed into the room from outside carrying weapons. Junebugs pistol didn't waver so much as an inch. The Spider began to laugh.

"You have some balls, Ill give you that," he rumbled and the tension in the room eased.

"In exchange for this information, you are free to go, my men wont stop you. Ill have men in place to make them wish they had never been born," he rumbled ominasly. Junebug snorted a laugh.

"Something funny mercenary?" the spider asked, his eyes narrowed with rage. Sayeeda kept her face calm but inwardly was worried she might be pushing the mobster too far.

"Look you want to be in the bush leagues forever, that isn't my problem," she replied, holing up her free hand in a theatrical shrug.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded.

"Look you know where a good portion of the Spiders are going to be, great, but then you also know where a good portion of them aren't going to be right?" she explained, wincing at the obviousness of what she was doing, but then these weren't exactly people for whom subtle had an appeal. The Spider seemed to consider it for a moment and then a broad nasty smile spread across his face.

"You mean they won't be at the mansion defending the Stinger?" he asked in dawning realization. Junebug nodded.

"Why are you doing me this favor mercenary, you clearly believe you could get out of here even if I told my men to kill you." Junebug shrugged, she certainly could have gotten out before all these thugs came running, now even with her Terran enhanced reflexes, she would be pushing her luck.

"Look I've met the Stinger and the bitch gets what she deserves for hitting on my boyfriend," she admitted, lowering the pistol. The Spider gazed at her incredulously for a moment, and then began to laugh.

If Neil had seen Junebug work, he would have been proud of her. As it were he was stuck in the shit can of an aircar he had come in on with the gangers and mutant, now heading out of the base and heading toward the Highlander. The scorpion boys knew they were going to be apart of Neil's squad as both back up and insurance; making sure Neil's crew stayed true to their word. It was the driver Neil was most concerned with. The mutant and the howler monkey of a shotgunner could be unpredictable but at least they were stupid. The cyborg kept a level head and maintained an eye on the road, though as soon as they reached the Highlander they would know they weren't heading to where Stinger had told them to go.

As they rumbled through the wasteland of a town, the last of the planet's suns was beginning to set. It would only be another hour before Stinger's men attacked the Spider compound. If Junebug hadn't made it out of there by the appointed time he was going to kill her. He honestly wanted to get off this planet when they could, but he guessed he can take some profit from the two gang's mutual destruction before they left. Sounded fun.

The mutant let out a jabbering cackle as a few of the townsfolk scattered like mice at their passing. The front man banged on the side of the car, laughing.

"I just saw some ass, stop the car Foga!"

The cyborg didn't reply, merely giving a glance at his companion's position before they zoomed toward the Highlander's position. The vehicle rounded the fence and entered the landing area, the Highlander's cargo bay open as if to unload a battle tank. All three of the gangers turned to look at Neil since he was the one that gave them the coordinates, clearly wondering why they were making a pit stop here, or if he had simply tricked them.

"Oh, we're just picking up some backup." Neil assured them, though he looked just as surprised as they did when Saxon stepped into view not a moment later. His transformation didn't make him much more intimidating, but he was certainly even more dangerous than he had been previously. The mere sight of the Hex gave the three brief pause, and even the cyborg seemed perturbed.

"A friend of yours?" He asked, trying to keep his voice steady. Taya bounded out of the ship and into view, waving at Neil. She was getting so used to weird situations she didn't even question the armed and deranged murderers and thieves he was riding with. Saxon pointed his wrist mounted rocket at the car, and though there was no love lost between he and Saxon, Neil was pretty confident he'd only fire if things went south.

"He could be a friend of yours too if you guys just hear out a small proposition I have for you."
@Penny

The carousing was in full swing as Sayeeda was shoved none to gently out the front gate of the old cannery. With deliberate ostentation she shot the cuffs of her jacket and then began to walk north east towards the spaceport. The road was littered with drunks and junkies so she cut cross country through the cactus festooned scrub land. This place was not entirely free of the human ruin of Teosinte but such desperados and burn outs as populated the place gave her a wide berth. Pussy was cheap in the city and an obviously armed woman with a clear goal in mind apparently didn’t tempt anyone overmuch.

Out away from the town itself the landscape took on a more pleasant air. Sayeeda wondered if more normal people might have enjoyed the warm night breeze and the subtle perfume of cactus flowers rather than calculating 290 degree sightline out to 15 clicks, noting several small gullies in which a half squad might be concealed, and mapping a line of retreat back to town and a break out towards the spaceport as possible options if attacked. Well she was who she was.

The spaceport lights, never entirely shut off grew brighter as she hiked across the increasingly barren landscape. Not many of these burned but several ancient flood lights provided a significant beacon. Not for the first time Sayeeda considered how shabby Teosinte was. There was plenty of money in the drugs that were produced here and it should have been enough to give the place at least a twadry splendor. Both gangs were clearly squeezing the people as hard as they could to hire gunmen and import the weapons and arms needed to keep them in the field, to the extent that term had any meaning to such bands of armed thugs, and the result was that what might be a tolerable place to do business was dying slowly on the vine. Not for the first time Sayeeda considered whether it might be better just to blast off now they had the charts the needed, find some other place and… and what? Find some other less risky more rewarding fight? The thought sobered her enough that for a moment she wished she had stopped at one of the bars for a bottle.

“Get your head in the game,” she whispered harshly to herself as she reached the chainlink fence which served as the outer perimeter of the spaceport. She had notice on her initial landing that not only did it lack electricity or sensors, but it was so rusted that its use as a security screen was laughable. She parted it by the simple expedient of driving her boot into the ancient corroded links close to one of the support poles, close enough that the tension tore the metal appart with a musical twang. Slipping through she began to trace the blast wall, walking counter clockwise till she reached the back gate within thirty seconds of her mental projected arrival. It wasn’t locked but their was a bar with several empty cans tied to it which would make noise if hastily removed. She pulled it aside with a clatter, cycled the door open and then slipped through, locking the door behind her. Passing through the underground access way, recessed into the dirt to prevent blast damage from obliterating the all she emerged onto the cracked concrete of the landing field. She could see the light of a jeep across beside the bulk of the Highlander and saw the familiar shapes of Saxon and Neil as well as Taya’s golden hair. Saxon appeared to be holding a gun on several locals who seemed to be very sensibly avoiding any sudden movements.

“I’m coming in from the west,” she broadcast over the comm after twigging the transmitter with a rewired nerve impulse. Saxon probably wouldn’t shoot her by accident, but startling a team member in a tight situation wasn’t a good move. Taya and Neil glanced her way and she jogged across the tarmac to join them.

“It is getting to be nearly time,” she informed them, ignoring the locals, both of whom had their hands up. She squeezed Neil’s shoulder briefly, glad that the Stinger hadn’t decided t have him killed out of stupid spite.

“Just got to get some gear.”

Neil grinned at her as she stepped past them, glad to see they had both made it back alive. In fact his eyes followed her until she entered the ship whilst Taya had to snap her fingers in front of his face to bring him back to reality. Just as he came back to his senses, he realized Saxon was growing impatient and was more like as not to shoot the three they had with them.

"Alright fellas, moment of truth. What'll it be?" Neil said. He had his experimental rifle trained on their position. Even Taya had a submachine gun, though Neil had made sure it was put on safety. The pilot never thought he'd find someone who was more impulsive with a firearm than he was, but he guessed anything was possible.

The mutant gave a low 'hyuk hyuk hyuk,' a sound that would have been comical coming from a human but sounded downright bestial from his strong inner throat. He spoke in garbled Terran, tongue likely a bit too cumbersome and long for him to effectively communicate like his brethren. "S-s-o as l-long as we transmport y-you to where y-you need to gco, y-you'll let us l-live and be the bosses of what's
l-l-left?"

"As long as you treat the civilians right, sure. But we'll come back if you don't." Neil replied with a shrug.

"N-n-no eating t-them?"

"No, no eating them! ... I mean I guess you can eat jerks and stuff, but they had to have done something really terrible." Neil said and Taya giggled. He was glad the movement hadn't made her submachine gun go 'click.' "So, are you guys in or do we have to kill you?"

"We're in." the Cyborg said merely a moment before Neil was certain Saxon would have obliterated them. The pervert seemed to have sobered up quite a bit, though Neil wasn't so sure he liked him like this. He seemed even more prone to being trigger happy than Taya. Saxon seemed unhappy he didn't get to destroy something, but Neil knew there would be plenty of that very soon. "I've always wanted to put a gun in that bitch's mouth and pull the trigger, and I have no love for the Spiders either. As long as you promise to get rid of them both, we're in."

"SOLD!" Neil said, walking up and shaking the stunned cyborg's hand. "Good doing business with you. We don't have a document to sign, so we'll just use your lives as collateral." As soon as Junebug was ready, they would depart for the Drug Factory, just in time to meet the other forces of the Scorpions.
@Penny

Junebug came down the ramp in a series of rattling thuds that drew all eyes to her.

"Whoa," Neil commented and even Taya who had been privy to what Junebug had been spending her time on during Neil's 'funeral' ceremonies on Cyloneika, looked impressed. She had changed out of her familiar battlegear and was dressed now in the suit of powered armor she had began work on years ago. The suit was of the same brownish tan ceramic her chestplate was made of, indeed the repair kit for her original armor had been used to provide the outer layer of this suit, the inner core consisted of sandwiched layers of kevlar/monocrystal composite, which was relatively light weight though the armor would still have been hard to maneuver without the power assist of the servos built into it. The mechanical guts of the armor had been cannibalized from a mobile surgical unit whose laser scanners and other imaging software as well as ultra precise servo controllers kept the armors guide points a few millimeters from Sayeeda's skin as she moved, giving her a fluid control that differed little from her natural movement. A pair of power cells were perched between her shoulder blades, protected by sharply angled armor plates. The helmet was also based on her usual commo helmet, though the addition of sensors, an imporved heads up display and a more sophisticated commo suite had bulked it up to a point that it didn't seem out of place with the extra three inches in height she gained from the armor. The faceplate was matte black due to simple filtering, though it could be changed on command to be clear or mirrored. Slung across her chest was a two millimeter rail gun. The weapon had three barrels, each of which accellerated a small glass pellet up a spiraling track before they exited the barrel at close to a hundred thousand feet per second. It was designed to be a vehicle mounted point defense weapon and would have had two much kick to wield without the extra mass of the armor, even so a boxy gyroscopic stabalizer hung just forward of the magazine, designed to cut down on the prodigious torque the weapon would create. A large pistol designed for the larger hands of a Hex hung at her belt as a back up, and her familiar submachine gun, looking toy like against the bulk of the new suit, was strapped to her thigh in case of real emergency. The final touch to the small arsenal was a wrist mounted grenade launcher, its drum magazine cannibalized two wrap around her right arm in a spiral, allowing her to select from different munition types on the fly. Sayeeda would have preferred just to hang grenades from her armor, but Taya had pointed out that the kind of fine motor control she needed to use them might be harder in the armor and that hanging a bunch of munitions where they could be cooked off by enemy fire somewhat defeated the point.

"What?" Sayeeda asked innocently as she climbed into the jeep beside Neil, the suspension creaking under the sudden addition of the armors considerable weight.

"If I'm going to go to the ball the least I can do is dress formal," she said with a grin that was audible through her helmet speakers.

"...Did I give you that suit?" Neil asked, trying to drudge up a vague memory of an early gift he had gotten her. It was before they had even started dating.

"You gave me the prototype of the prototype that served for the basis of this model, only in the loosest sense I guess." She replied casually, her smirk beaming through the reinforced glass of her helm. Neil sat there, marveling at Junebug in her powered armor, giving him cheek while he was her unarmored designated driver, within a stolen vehicle surrounded by conscripted mutants, a young aristocratic stowaway, and a giant lizard alien. After hesitating, he shook his head and muttered. "I'm going to marry her, I swear." As the vehicle cranked to life, the engine thrumming with power as the thing began to wobble from the sheer weight of the party, particularly Saxon and Junebug in her armored state. Checking the meter of the weight limit, he saw the bar nearly at the tipping point.

"Try not to move around too much! We're only going a short way, but one big lurch and we'll bank into a building!" He warned. Taya clenched her teeth, feeling hot breath on her cheek to see the hyena-mutant smiling at her, though whether it was because he thought she was attractive or just something to devour, she wasn't sure. Thankfully, Saxon sitting head and shoulders above the rest kept the mutants in check as the aircar sped off out of the hanger and over the causeway that clung to the diameter of the town. Even as they rode, the streets were all but deserted as if from a natural phenomenon like the calm before a vast storm, and the men and women who they caught out scattered into their homes as first sight of them, clearly thinking they represented one of the two gangs.

The town was now to their right, the lights dimmed by the bulk of the buildings, though they still served as a beacon of civilization. It wasn't long before they wound through some of the dead hills right outside where they promised to rendezvous with Stinger, the hills giving good cover to them so her embittered rival wouldn't see them despite his plans to bypass her and attack her base, courtesy of Junebug.

"So, we have a few options babe." Neil started, wind whipping his dark hair. "A few of us could jump out and we go and surround a perimeter, we could all stop at a single place and sneak in, report to one of the bosses or just ram this aircar up their asses. What do you think?"

"I think," Junebug said, toggling through thermal imaging on her visor, "that our friends would be sad if we started the party without them. It took her a frustrating heartbeat to make the interface do what she wanted even though she had modeled it after her normal combat helmet. It probably wasn't the best idea to have her first live fire run in the armor be in combat, but she would feel like a real sucker if she got killed with this thing still in the bay of the Highlander. Besides, as the old saying went, there was no kill like overkill. Ahead of them, pointing guns nervously from the lip of a gully, were thirty or so gang members from the Stingers. Presumabley these were something of an elite, picked for the raid on the drug warehouse. An icon blinked in her visor and she opened it with a flicker of her eyelash. It was a video feed from a camera that had been placed in the main street of town by Taya. All was quiet there, which was an obvious difference from the normal chaos of the drunken night time revel. Things were going to kick off their soon and the locals could sense it in the air.

"We supposed to wait all night for you big shots?" A dirty looking gangbanger with an assault rifle asked as Neil pulled the jeep to a halt. He had obviously planned the speech before he had seen Junebug and his eyes were wide with shock, giving his voice a whining quality. Not, Junebug thought, that he would have been intimidating under normal circumstances. She steeped from the Jeep making the struts squeal as they let off pressure.

"I mean you guys look like you could handle it without our help," Junebug observed. She thought her voice was devoid of emotion, but a snicker from Neil let her know that the insult hadn't been missed by at least one of those present.

"Hey," Another said looking at Saxon, "didn't you say it was a Hex what whacked our guys out in the village?" Junebug made a dismissive guesture, she had wondered if anyone was clued in enough to notice.

"Its fine, he is with us," she explained, though that didn't make any sense it wouldn't matter so long as it didn't become a discussion.

"The Stinger didn't come herself?" she asked, the light enhanced vision having already confirmed that was the case. The leader, Junebug decided to call him Paco, shook his head and thrust out his chest.

"Nah, she is too important for this kind of stuff, she sent me instead," the thug bragged. Neil snickered again but Junebug refrained from comment.

"So what is your plan Big Shot," Paco asked. Junebug squatted down with a slight hiss of hydraulics and touched a control on her arm. A small hologram shimmered up from her arm, depicting a map of the area made from the Highlanders cameras when she had landed. Paco goggled at the technology for a moment and then closed his mouth, all of the gang bangers closed in to ooh and ah. Stars it was a good thing the opposition was a crappy as these losers Junebug thought.

"There are two bunkers guarding the entry to an old quarry," she said, touching two rectangular structures at the entry way to what had once been a rock quarry. Calling them bunkers was a stretch, in reality they were block houses made from unfished timber that had been sprayed with layers of industrial adhesive and gravel. It actually wasn't a bad improvised fortification given the relatively low level of technology here, better than concrete or another composite which could have been shattered by sonics.

"There are two machine guns in each bunker, positioned to sweep the road," Junebug explained. "There is razor wire and some anti vehicle spikes to stop us from just rushing in."

"Probably there are only a half dozen guys in the storage facility other than those guys who are probably drunk or stoned or whatever anyway," she explained. Junebug suspected there were a good deal more than that, she had told the Spider the Scorpions were planning this raid and while most of his thugs would be preparing for the assault on the Scorpion Compound, doubtless his security here was keyed up.

"We can't face down machine guns!" one of the thugs all but shouted. Junebug rolled her eyes, though it was invisible to anyone but her, and she shouldn't have done it because it screwed her interface up for the moment it took to reset it. Another bug to work out.

"It won't be a problem," she assured them, "Ill take out the gun pits, and you guys move in as fast as you can, clear the wire and keep moving, once you are through the gates, the facility is yours, you can start loading drugs onto the trucks."

"Won't they call for help?" Paco demanded. Junebug shook her head.

"We are jamming all comms, we should be able to clear this place out before anyone is the wiser." That was a lie also, it would probably have been possible to do so, but it seemed a waste of effort. Paco and his goons ate it up though, a real life covert operation.

"Get your men ready and get inside as quickly as you can," she told him.

Fifteen minutes later everyone was in position. Neil had unslung a grenade launcher and Junebug crouched just out of sight of the bunkers, her body shielded by a shallow depression. Paco and his thirty desperados crouched behind them. It was a miracle none of them had given the game away by accidentally letting off a shot by accident, but even amatuers got lucky she supposed. Besides, they were an elite afterall.

"What are you laughing at?" Paco demanded. Junebug shook her head, watching Taya's video feed. Headlights were coming on and the lens vibrated slightly from the roar of engines. The Spiders were bringing up their vehicles.

"Alright Neil," Sayeeda said and stood up. With ease of practice she hefted the rail gun and aimed it at the bunker nearly a hundred feet away. There was an electric whir and a crack before an explosion converted the right side of one of the bunkers to blazing white fire, the plasticizer and the gravel both burning under the kinetic impact of a glass bead accelerated to near light speed. Neil's grenade launcher banged against his shoulder and a white flash lit the inside of the second bunker. Scream tore the night, sounding tinny and washed out by the railgun blast as fingers of white phosphorus belched from the bunkers windows. Junebug fired twice more blowing the first block house to pebbles that rained down on them even out here. Machine gun ammunition cooked off, roiling the smoke and giving color to the violence without adding to the destruction. The old quarry echoed and doubled the explosions till it sounded like a tank battle rather than a few shots.

"Go! Go! Go!" Junebug yelled, grabbing Paco and thrusting him towards the mouth of the quarry. In her haste she forgot the power assist and practically flung the man through the air. He lost his feet and sprawled on his face a moment before a burst of gunfire ripped out of the smoke. One of the rounds ricocheted of Junebug's chest plate, she targeted the blob of heat, an enemy soldier who had been unreasonabley lucky and pulled the trigger, ending his luck for the night and forever. Paco's men surged forward firing more or less at random although there were no targets. Still that was the right reflex. The reached the razor wire and began cutting at it with powered cutting bars pulling it aside as they went. The screams of pain that echoed back indicated that at least a few of them had cut themselves, but then they were through and into the facillity. Niel raised the grenade launcher and fired three rounds with a tap tap, pause tap. One of the grenades sailed into the doorway of the facility, the other two crashed into the rocky sides of the quarry, one on the east side and one on the west.

"Well that was easy," Neil observed. Both of the rock penetrating rounds detonated with a thunderous roar that doubled and intensified as thousands of pounds of rock was ripped appart and slid down to bury the entrance to the drug warehouse. A great cloud of dust roiled out, coating them with a spray of grit. A static charge kept Sayeeda's visor clear though Niel merely reached into his pocket and pressed his sunglasses down over his eyes. It was night time, but Junebug had to admit it looked awesome.

"You wasted a shot," Saxon hissed, irked not to have been involved in the fighting so far. There was a third boom, this one hollow and bass enough to rattle Junebug's chest even through the armor.

"Nah, just timed it right," Neil snickered. The third charge had been a bunker buster, the force of which had been sealed in by the collapsing hill side. Anyone inside the facillity whould have been pulped by the overpressure.

"Hot," Junebug observed as the rubble settled once again. There was a moments silence.

"I was promised a chance to kill," Saxon hissed, somehow contriving to sound sulky. Junebug turned and headed back towards the car. Judging by the video the shooting was just getting started in town.

"Don't worry, no more tricks, and plenty for everyone," she said with a smirk that only Neil could hear in her voice.

Neil grinned, emboldened by his theatrics and Junebug's approval. The fire from the detonations were a sheen off his glasses, and he turned to follow his girlfriend and superior officer, hefting his gun and reloading three grenades in it. Junebug had more hands on experience than Neil in ground operations, but he was still a veteran compared to most his age, and if there was one thing he knew, it was explosive devices.

Behind them, Saxon snorted. Though Neil guessed it was a huff of complaint, the big xenos stamping his hoofed feet in the dirt of the wasteland. "Do you suggest we leave these men here?" He growled from deep within his throat. "Once we start shooting, they'll turn on us and be at our flanks!"

Neil and Junebug turned back at him simultaneously, Taya jogging past him to get as far away from the annoyed Hex and the gangers now looting the drugs as she could. It was only the mutants that had stayed at the vehicle that kept her from leaping in, though Neil had to admit he was surprised the three hadn't driven off. He guessed they were afraid enough of Junebug's armor and Saxon to really mess with the group. Neil also had to admit Saxon had a point when it came to the group they had just worked with, as they'd betray them on a dime once the real shooting started. Though the pilot also knew Saxon's real reason for giving such sound logic: He was impatient for action.

"Well, I don't see the problem with Saxon taking out this group while we move on ahead. Do you, captain?" Neil asked aloud. With the glare of the fire, he couldn't read her face. But she turned, her voice echoing out of the speakers of the suit. "Fair enough, just kill paco quick. He was a funny one." She quipped, now moving forward again. She added a last addition as she stepped past the vehicle. "And don't take long! We'll probably need you soon."

A Hexanagallion's smile was a disturbing sight, even to someone who was more learned in their physiology like Neil. Saxon craned his head high, stretching his neck as he overlooked the area, before lowering it and turning his hulking, saurian form towards the warehouse, just as the men began piling packages of drugs and other goods into the trucks. Neil made a sign to Gideon, then ran to catch up to Junebug.

"What about us!?" The lead mutant asked, but Junebug had already marched out of earshot. That or she deigned not to acknowledge their presence. Neil halted at the aircar and shrugged.

"You fellas were good set pieces, but now we kind of don't need you anymore. If I were you I'd get the hell out of here, or keep Taya safe in the aircar." Neil casually let his grenade launcher rest on his hand, the barrel pointing straight at the vehicle to showcase just what would happen if they took any advantage of Taya while they were gone. "In fact, you're going to guard her. Taya, get in the driver's seat and keep the aircar out of sight until we call."

As if he had plucked the beacon out of the air, Neil planted a small device on the hood of the vehicle. It gave a small light that flashed every other moment, softly enough not to be seen at any great distance. "If any of you three don't keep her safe and unharmed, we'll follow you to the ends of the galaxy and buttfuck you out of existence, sound good?"

"No need to threaten us." The head mutant said, visibly shaken. "We'd cross Stinger before you guys, even if you weren't holding us at gunpoint." Neil believed him. Their group was pretty intimidating and fairly technologically advanced for such a backwater world. With that, Neil jogged after Sayeeda, ready to take on both gangs at once.

By the time they reached the city the party had well and truely kicked off. The night was rent by the clatter of gunfire and the whine of plasma blasts, the backwash of which reflected off the sides of the taller buildings like flickering blue witchlight. Sayeeda hoped that the local civilians were keeping their heads down, though there would be no such thing as safety tonight. Well perhaps in Magdelena's subterrainian dwelling and places like it.

Neil and Sayeeda headed for where the gunfire was thickest. The bodies and damage grew increasingly heavy as they moved towards the Stinger's manor. Infact they were less than a street away when they encountered the first spiders, a trio of men huddling in an alleyway trying to keep out of sight.

"Kill them!" one of the men shouted, his eyes white with terror. Neil shot him through the bridge of the nose, the heavy round smashing him back into the alley wall with a spray of blood. Sayeeda's railgun split the air, cutting the second man in half and shattering the adobe wall behind him. The third thug managed to half turn before a second round from Neil excavated the back of his skull. They moved up the alley without words, peering from the end of it towards the manor. They were behind a ragged line of Spiders, all taking cover behind wrecked vehicles and tumbled walls. It seemed their improvised combat vehicles had been of little help as both converted tractors were burning and spewing thick black smoke. The spider attack had obviously caught the scorpions by surpise and they had nearly won the day based solely on that single stroke of initiaive. The attack had finally bogged down at the gates of the Scorpions mansion, where the improvised earthworks and heavy weapons had provided natural rallying points for fleeing Scorpion gunmen. Fire whipped between the two positions and men shouted and cursed, or screamed in terror as they continued to fire in almost blind panic.

The crack of Neil's rifle resounded only after the slugs had torn through two of the Spider gangmembers, leaving exit wounds you could slip your fist through without fear of bloodying your hand. To his right, Sayeeda had vaulted over a dismantled car and disptached two others, though Neil didn't see the gritty details of what transpired. He only saw her walk out and blow a bit of hair out of her eyes. He noticed she would need to put it in a bun soon. It would probably be a good look for her if she let it continue to grow.

"Rearguard is down." She said conversationally. They weren't far from one another, but it was still more expedient to use comms than to draw attention to themselves. A few stray gunshots weren't likely to draw attention, but unknown voices were a different story.

Neil grinned, reloading his gun. Not that he wasn't going to use it for his next trick. He reshouldered the strap on it and pulled aside his grenade launcher, the familiar weight of the loaded weapon somehow intensely satisfying in his hands. Neil saw Sayeeda give him a movement signal, something she had begun to teach him a few months previously. He wasn't 'fluent' if that was the word, yet. But he knew she meant to go further right, and Neil already knew his next position. He passed by a few scrap heaps of burning metal, vaguely aware they were aircars that had exploded. Likely from explicit detonation. The pilot made it to a rudimentary dumpster and climbed atop it, before vaulting onto the roof of a outerlying, boldly placed home. It was still a good distance from his position to the fence that guarded the Scorpion base, but he had used grenade launchers enough to know if something was too far to be out of effective range. It was right in the sweet spot.

He only caught another glimpse of Junebug's lithe form slinking through the dark, until she was completely out of sight. He got comfortable, placing a foot on the edge of the roof and resting his grenade launcher against his shoulder, leveling its scope with his eye. He waited, watching the night flash with gunshots and laser beams, accompanied by muffled shouts of curses and threats. He almost started to idly whistle, but he received his captain's "in position" not a moment too soon.

"Show time, babe." He told her on comm. It was the last thing she'd hear of him before there was a brief silence, followed by the destruction of vast swathes of the scorpion fence, along with dozens and dozens of wounded and dead spiders at their vulnerable rear. Shrapnel and flame whipped out and cut through tendons and sprayed blood along their comrades. Neil felt somewhat guilty about the PDST he was causing for some, but it was swiftly lost by the beautiful spouts of flame and destruction he had caused.

This time he did whistle. Appreciatively.

"Hot," Junebug commented. Softly as the rear of the line exploded in great geyzers of rolling flame. For a moment she felt like she ought to be ordering a platoon of tanks forward into the breech torn in an enemy line by an artillery barage. But there were no tanks, only her and Neil. Junebug raced forward through the smoke, leaping over a ruined adobe wall. All was chaos now. The Spiders and Scorpions had never been soldiers, but now any semblence of discipline was gone. Junebug saw one spider, stunned and bleeding, shoot another simply because he was a shape moving in the haze. Many more were simply throwing down their weapons and fleeing. Junebug fired her railgun methodically, every two seconds, simply swinging her reticule onto one heat signature after another and squeezing the trigger, careful not to overheat the weapon. Even so she felt the heat of of the glowing barrel against her armor, make work done in the hold of the Highlander not quite up to the task of properly cooling so potent a weapon.

A knot of resistance was forming at the entrance to the Spider's compound. The Scorpions had taken the worst of Neil's efforts and the Spider's were beginning to capitalize. Sayeeda targeted the strong point and fired, blasting sandbags and the weapon behind appart in a spraying fireball of white hot glass. She pulled a grenade from her belt and tossed it over the ruin, waiting a second for the concussive pop and the fingers of white smoke spread by the grains of white phosphorus. Scream tore from the a dozen throats and burning men scattered in all directions, clawing at their flesh. Sayeeda charged into the breech, her armor protecting her from the unspent grains which still hissed and popped. A spider leaped at her. She caught him, servos in the armor whining and then pitched him sideways into a concrete pillar with an audible crack. He slumped, legs slack and screaming. Junebug put a round through his chest, unwilling to leave a crippled man who could still pull a trigger at her back. A bullet spanged off her breastplate and she spun, dropping another attacker with a punch that shattered his jaw in a spray of blood and bone. Swinging her railgun she smashed the skull of a cowering thug and then felled three more with a long burst of atomized blood and burning clothing. The gangsters, accustomed to swaggering casual violence, were unable to handle the sudden and savage concentration delivered by a professional. They broke and ran. Junebug followed rail gun cracking as quickly as her optics could pick out targets in the smoke.

"I think we are going to..." Junebug's trasmission cut off suddenly as something massive and hot slammed into her chest. The sky cartwheeled overhead and she crashed through the adobe wall of one of the dwellings which had survived Neil's detonation. A table broke beneath her in a spray of splintering timber and the breath was driven from her chest. She lay there, stunned and unable to move. Electrical discharge sparked over her chest and the reek of burning insulation filled her nostrils.

"I knew it was you bitch," a voice called from the hole she had blasted in the wall. Sayeeda couldn't turn her head. Her eyes flicked downwards moving through menus of her armors display. They flickered and disolved into static, a confused mass of damage reports and critical failure messages. The Spider stepped into view flanked by three thugs. She was in battle dress and carried a light anti tank rifle. A single shot piece which Sayeeda knew to be effective against light armored units at close range. The Spider was either very good or had gotten very lucky to hit her. Or both of course. The woman stood over her, thumbing another fist sized charge into the smoking breech of her weapon.

"I told your boyfriend not to fuck with me. Apparently he didn't convey my message..."

Stinger's grin was lost when flame and shrapnel erupted behind her. Had she not been sporting her armor, she might have been seriously wounded. As it stood, the grenade had passed her and hit the back wall within the compound, engulfing one of her gangers and knocking the other two against the wall. The mob boss was flung forward, her body and rifle slamming into Junebug to send them both tumbling into the grime and dirt.

"Dammit," Neil cursed, lowering his weapon when he saw he couldn't shoot one without killing the other in the process. He holstered the grenade launcher on his back and swung about his rifle, flipping off the safety with a 'click'. "Guess it's a cat fight." He quipped, joking of course. Despite the dismissive name, he knew if he leapt into the tussle he'd have no better chance than either of coming out on top. Junebug was more than a match for him in their wrestling matches most of the time and Stinger looked like she was used to killing men larger than her to reach her position.

He leaped off the roof of the building and aligned his battle-rifle to his eye. Immediately the darkened night was flooded with light through the scope as he surveyed the area quickly. The explosions had cast the battle into an all-out quagmire. Bullets and laser rang out through the night across battleline. Neil saw two mutants struggling on the ground, both stabbing at one another with strangely shaped knives. Upon further inspection, he saw they were shivs made from broken aircar parts. Neil passed them, hefting his rifle and discharging a shot, taking a spider in the next. His next shot blew a gout of blood out of the head of a scorpion that had poked his head out too far from the sandbags.

A bullet punched into his flack fest, causing him to grunt. He turned from where he felt the bullet hit and fired at a ganger caught with a dumb look on his face. The round punched through his groin, sending him to the ground.

"Gotta get to Sayeeda..." He told himself.

Junebug was momentarily face to face with the Spider, the woman's face contorted in shock and fear. That momentary startlement transmuted quickly into rage as she realized she hadn't been badly hit. She rolled on top of Sayeeda and pulled a knife from a sheath at her waist, the point glinting above Junebug. The armor was proof against most attacks but she didn't doubt a determined enemy could find a seam to work the blade into. She paged frantically though the restart menus but couldn't get the armor to boot up. Whatever damage the anti-vehicle round had done, it had been severe.

"Can't get your fancy suit to work?" the Spider sneered, leaning down to drag the point of her knife across the visor of the helmet. Gunfire was beginning to slacken outside though the goon who had survived Neil's grenade attack was firing his rifle out into the night, using the hole her armor had punched in the adobe wall as a firing port.

"That is the problem with all you offworlders who come to Teosinte, thinking you are so fucking clever, you always get too clever for your own good." The stinger stabbed the knife down at the visor. It struck the plasteel and deflected away. Cursing the gang boss tried again with as little effect. Getting wise she found the neck seam and began to probe with the point.

"You just lay there and die like a good little..."

Junebug triggered the suits critical fail. Spending a life in armored vehicles gives one a healthy fear of being trapped inside after the vehicle has been crippled. More than one tanker ended their days screaming as fire consumed their vehicle as they pounded at a stuck hatch. Junebug had harbored similar concerns about the suit and had allayed them by spreading an ounce of blasting paste along a machined grove where the armor mated. She triggered it by doubletapping a small switch in her right gauntlet. The armor burst away from her body in a wash of heat as its connections were literally blasted appart. The Stinger screamed and tumbled back, beating a flames on her leggings. The effect was stunning, but Junebug had been ready for it. She rolled free of her ruined armor and snatched for one of the fallen rifles. The Stinger, her reactions damned quick despite the concussion of the blast, lunged forward with her knife. Junebug parried clumisly with her weapon as though at bayonet drill and then drove the butt of it down into the gangsters chest. Whatever armor she had there cushioned the blow but it was powerful enough to send her crashing back into a ruined cabinet. Junebug swung the rifle up and pulled the trigger. The weapon clacked and seized as one of the brass cartriges fouled the loading mechanism. The Stinger barked out a laugh and lunged at her with the knife. Junebug tried to parry but her opponent was wise to that and the blade raked up her arm shredding the body suit she had been wearing and sending a flash of pain through her body. Sayeeda drove a knee up in a blow that would have broken bone if the Stinger had been unarmored. As it was the knife weilding woman was lifted an inch from the ground and staggered back. Junebug delivered a spinning kick which connected with her opponents shoulder, pitching her back across the room and slamming her face against the wall. With the agillity of a street fighter the Stinger came round, blood on her lips and knife in hand.

"You will have to do better than that, I've been killing with a knife since I was a child," the bloodied gangboss snarled. Junebug rolled her eyes.

"Do you ever shut up?" she demanded, raising both her fists into a guard posture. The Stinger shrieked in rage and rushed forward, blade held low. Junebug stamped on the edge of a piece of shattered timber, spinning it into the air and spoiling her opponents footwork. The Stinger stumbled but came on slashing with her blade. Junebug struck out with a feint that lifted her opponents gaze and then delivered a punishing strike to her opponents elbow, forcing her to drop the knife. Pivoting off the momentum she delivered a stomping kick to the inside of the Stinger's knee. THere was an audible pop and the woman screamed and went down. Junebug took a step towards the downed woman but the Stinger came up with a grenade in her hand, handle primed.

"Over so quickly, well I guess I can take my time with your boyfriend when I find him, I'm going to..." the threat trailed off in a scream made tinny by the boom of Neil's handgun. The Stinger's wrist exploded like a tree bursting in the winter frost. Without thinking about it Junebug kicked the hand, sending the grenade flying out into the night where it burst with a crump that threw Junebug to the ground. She blinked the spots from her eyes and then saw Neil's face appear in the hole in the wall. He looked down at the Stinger but she was already dead, having caught a piece of grenade shrapnel with the back of her skull.

"That," Junebug commented, "Is fucking team work."

The Highlander was unique in many ways, but it certainly sounded like a ship. There was always an ever present hum in the air, from the power, to the engines, to the small beeps the various computers would make around every corner. Tanya had finally begun to get used to it, but Neil and Sayeeda were accustomed to it for many years, albeit through different circumstances. It was nice to be back there after being so long planetside, particularly in the dump they had just left. Neil still felt like he smelled like mutant gangers everywhere he went. Thank Gideon it was worth it. All that stolen ordnance and a few thousand units of credit added to their databooks for their trouble, most of it illicit but that didn't matter worth shit.

Saxon had begun hibernating again. He had slaughtered most of the spiders, and even a few scorpions; devouring the men he could and spitting out the particularly mutated, commenting on how sour or unpleasant they were. He equated it to eating a burnt piece of meat. There was a bland, disagreeable quality to them if they were heavily irradiated enough. Neil had never tried human, or mutant for that matter, but he would take Saxon's word for it. It seemed his evolved form had a high metabolism and needed rest if a lot of energy was expended, and so now the hulking bounty hunter slept peaceably for once in the cargo hold.

"Glad t' 'ave you lads and lasses back, first mate. But ye havnae given any coordinates." Lonney remarked, being given his default 'highland' voice setting.

"That's because we don't know where the fuck to go yet, Lonney." Neil remarked, slowing down their sublight engines so they could orbit a nearby moon, switching off all power but life support, gravity, and the auxiliary, making the ship undetectable to anyone that wasn't specifically looking hard in their area. The pilot placed his hands behind his head and kicked back, feet on the dash as it were. "Me and the captain will need a word before we go anywhere, and she's somewhere around here."

"Aye, lad. In the meantime, we 'ave heated water an' coffee. 'Ad plenty o' time to heat stuff up while you lot were down there, ya ken?"

"Yeah, it took longer than I thought, I'll admit. But all in all, it was a bonding experience." Neil replied, gazing out of the display. The moon, Gamera IV, was purple in hue and littered with so many craters it nearly had a uniform, smooth look to it.