“Huh,” Jocasta said, giving Dirk the side eye as they coasted in to the beach with a crunch. She reminded herself there was a lot she didn’t know about her putative partner and his history with Neo-Mecca was far from uneventful. That might or might not be a problem, though this was hardly the time to think too deeply on it.

 

They were clearly getting closer to the heart of this hap hazard little party now. Jocasta had sent a drone to watch the port, which was separated from the communications island by about a kilometer of open water. That was a sensible security precaution as it made it difficult for someone to take control of the docks and the communications hub before the alarm was raised. These yahoos, whether by luck or good judgment, had obviously managed it.  The feed from the port was a little problematic. A dark gray dragonfly drone, one of the small portion of her fleet hijacked by Cygi, was dog fighting with her own but the pair of them managed to make up a decent feed between them. Barges were beginning to arrive at the docks laden down with credit chips, liquor, jewelry, paintings, bedding, and anything else anyone might think of carrying off. Teams of men were hauling the loot from the boats to a docked luxury liner registered as The Lady Godiva. These men were not dressed in armor, but a mixture of clothing that ranged from the gaudy to the ridiculous. One man was dragging a marble statue while wearing a suit of white silk with a half dozen pea cock feathers sprouting from a kaftan. It was far too small for him and the seams at the arms had burst open. Another man wore a fantastic dress of nebula silk, its flaring red fabric really setting off his stubble and prison tattoos. Jocasta shook her head unable to credit it.

 

“It dosen’t look like our friends are planning on being here in…”

“Smoke, smoke, smoke!” Dirk yelled and shoved her bodily over the side before diving on the beach after her. His armored form landed atop her, arms and knees bent so as not to crush her. A trail of smoke and fire ripped from a grove of palm trees and smashed into the airboat with a cataclysmic boom. Pieces of debris pinged musically off Dirks armor as the heat and overpressure passed them by. He stood up and started firing his blasters at the grove, which was now on fire as a result of the backblast of the missile which had evidently been concealed there Jocasta spat out some stand and started to run up the beach towards the cover of the expensive landscaping, her drones zipping along in front of her in a flying V. A man wearing an armored chest plate stepped out from behind a fountain and swung a rifle to bear. One of the drones cut past him, ducking its wings in as it went so that the molecules thin wing membranes cut across his cheeks like flying shrapnel. He yelled and swatted at his face before the blue beam of Jocasta’s pistol removed cut and face in a sizzling blast of energy. Across a manicured lawn she saw a half dozne men burst from the main communications building. One of them was piloting a suit of armor so heavy it might have qualified as a mech, each leg easily as thick as a full grown garamon tree and as wide across the chest as a dumpster. The air split as he fired the machine guns attached to each arm in the air, raining down flaming palm fronds and coconuts. 

 

“huh…” Jocasta temporised, and then turned and ran back down the beach as fast as her legs could carry her.