"Shit," Jocasta observed as she reached up to touch her nose. Blood was running out of her right nostril and she tried to brush it away, succeeding only to the extent of smearing it across her face. Psychic Techniques or P-tech, worked best in controlled environments where preparations could be made and abilities honed by the use of various drugs and amplification techniques. Direct mental assault, a dream of spooks and assassins everywhere, was an extremely dangerous business which was as likely to injure the attacker as the victim. Even a child possessed resivours of mental strength generated by their neural networks which powerfully resisted disruption, even though Jocasta's mind was disciplined and skilled, she still had to project herself into the mind of her victim and the difficulty increased logarithmically with distance.  

"That looks ridiculous you know," Jocasta commented as Dirk once again sipped beneath his helmet. She underscored the point by sticking a napkin up her nostril to staunch the bleeding before slipping the heavy bore capacitor pistol back into its sheath. She was relieved it hadn't come down to a fire fight. Her pistol might stop a light armored vehicle, but three rounds, no matter how powerful, wouldn't have ended this fight. She clicked her wrist twice and two thumb sized drones whirred off following their almost attackers at a discrete distance using preloaded recce sub routines. It wasn't as good as the constellation she normally would have deployed, but she suspected that their hosts might not take it kindly if she appeared to be spying on them.

"Some of those guys looked familiar," she commented after a moment, arching an eyebrow at Dirk.

"Friends of yours?"