The anti-impact drives engaged full thrust as the pod gently touched down at a large empty field just outside a surrounding wall of less densely packed neighborhoods, attracting much attention from those nearby. The moment the first loading ramp opened, two small passenger vehicles drove out and headed for the edge of the nearest neighborhood and towards an approaching off-road vehicle. Not long after, a group of officers walked down, one of them being Director Channing.

“Director Channing, ma’am, I highly advise you to stay on board. Your safety cannot be guaranteed outside the safe zone,” an officer spoke to her from behind.

She turned to calmly respond: “I highly doubt they reach us on such short notice. We landed in the safest possible location, and I saw to it we did. Go ahead and send the security package to the rendezvous point.”

“But, ma’am, the payment collection envoy?”

“We can’t wait,” she flatly snapped back. “Time is ticking and who knows who is closing in on us as we speak. Send them.”

Behind them came a dozen cargo vehicles alongside three armored carriers. Each cargo truck spread out before unloading their LTAC cargo, standing each one up. They stood the same height and of the same stature as the MI-r but with a sleeker, more up-to-date, and more modular design. Each shoulder had a painted marking Ai-20 as their designated model number. Each had holstered riot shields, multi-round rifles, and fragmentation grenades.

In a group of a dozen pilot suited crewmen, Sam was walking alongside Burnley from earlier as they approached their Ai-20 fleet. She didn’t appear to be as bothered as she was earlier but was still just as nervous. “Pretty sure I got everything. I will keep my eyes off any distractions and just watch your backside.” But this environment, she thought to herself as she held her hand up, blocking out the intense sunlight beaming down from a cloudless summer sky. I didn’t experience anything like this level of brightness, heat, or humidity before.

As they arrived, each one loaded up their bags into the small storage compartments underneath their seats of their cockpits before climbing up. They sat in the same ergonomically forward-angled positioning as well, keeping the cockpit space minimal. The cockpit doors closed, leaving the same head-width gap between their nose and the padded door, only a helmet-mounted visor providing outer visuals and assistance.

Sam pulled her helmet down over her head, locked the chinstrap, and folded the visor down, automatically powering the display inside. As her surroundings were softly brought to light, comforting memories of training months before at Jazira Station. Right, all I have to do is just follow protocol. I feel like I’ve done this so many times already. Just need to stay focused on that and I’ll be fine, she told herself as she confidently gripped the controls.

“A-One here, orders are to move to rendezvous point as marked,” Burnley’s voice came up over their speakers as each Ai20 stood up and began moving down the field. “We will take the cleared highway to Bosa Linda, then turn for the park at Timiza Lake in Kennedy. Our boys are meeting us there. City requests we don’t make any jumps; no clear landings and don’t want to risk civilian injuries or damaged infrastructure.”

Sam’s hover drives activated as they followed the lead armored carrier at a cruising pace of about 40 km/hr down a wide road marked “Carrera 87B” that took them into their first neighborhood. Sam stayed at the back as she was ordered but found herself unable to resist the urge to take long looks around town. Most buildings were two to four story-tall apartments, many having stores or shops packed in-between spaces as available. Cars had been forced to the sides of the roads as they parked halfway on the sidewalks already busy with pedestrians. Sam couldn’t help but notice how each stared at her as they passed. A stop light warning came up on her screen as she caught the group slowing down to a halt.

Up ahead at an intersection the police were still trying to clear the road for safe progress. Sam switched her view to show her rear camera, seeing the police following them while holding back oncoming traffic. She felt a sudden strong, overpowering sense of being trapped, heart now racing and her fingers gripping the controls more tightly. Calm down, nothing’s happening. Just people going to work or to the store.

She continued to look around, noticing many looking down from balconies. The honking noises began to increase in magnitude as each second ticked by. She then heard the distinct sound of LTAC feet hitting the pavement as they turned off hover drives to conserve fuel. She eyed her fuel cell reserve condition before following suit. At least at this rate we can recharge the cells enough for a jump boost in case something does go down. But the following silence only worsened her nervousness as her eyes darted back and forth across the surrounding crowd. Why do we have to stop this long?! What is wrong with this city!?

▽　▽　▽

There was far less noise in the area surrounding Lake Timiza where Sebastian and Renzo were waiting inside their own MI-r units while the rest of their crew waited behind them. Dani waited outside of her truck while the others stayed inside their trucks. She then put her mobile up, tossed her cigarette, and headed for Renzo’s MI-r which was a few meters ahead by the lake shore’s open grass lot. [Renzo, what the hell’s the hold up? No word?]

[No one on this whole damn planet is ever on time these days,] Renzo fussed as he opened his cockpit door, allowing the sunlight to pour in. [I saw them get stopped at the big roundabout in Bosa Linda. Traffic is always a nightmare over there. Some genius decided to route them like that.] He then looked over to Sebastian’s MI-r. [Hey, Bas, why so quiet? You’ve been in a funk since you took that house out on accident. You know it was empty, right?]

[No, that’s not it.] Sebastian kept an eye around the map looking over the gridlocked highway network near the Infinity Security Group’s locale. [This whole delay… I don’t think this is a coincidence. I think they are trying to piss them off enough to reroute south through Central Bosa where they had that police bombing last week. Now, police don’t go there anymore, right? Something seems wrong. Just like yesterday.]

[I get what you mean, bro, but think about it. If that was the case, that’s a lot of firepower they would face. Also, Rochas don’t even come this far into our territory.]

[But they did just that last week. They are everywhere these days. More and more money means more and more followers and they keep getting weapons from someone or somewhere.]

Renzo then noticed something appear on his map from the view in his visor. [Oh, look, the envoy has made it.] He closed the cockpit door once more as he saw Dani and several other crewmen walk up towards the edge of the parking lot.

“Sorry to be late!” a Hexa official spoke as he got out of the car which had been brought in by police escort. “I didn’t know the best route!” He then glanced at Dani with a perplexed look, noting not only the paramilitary’s field camo she wore but also the chest rig and the slung assault rifle on her shoulder. “I thought they were sending the Galeano’s.”

“We can’t trust anyone,” Dani spoke in a burdened, thick Colombian accent and not a trace of patience. “We lost our delivery men sent yesterday. We won’t be the same. We can protect ourselves. Do you want our payment?” She then motioned one of the crewmen to deliver the envelope containing the digital payment code.

“Well, thank you anyway. Do you need word from our director?” the Hexa official continued.

“No. Just bring your people here. Quickly. And don’t go anywhere until you do. OK?” The officials returned to their armored car as Dani turned back to the others. [Anything new?]

[Damn it! I told you!] Sebastian shouted in frustration as his MI-r powered up its thrusters’ nitro converters. [They just got diverted south! I can’t just stay here! That’s our package! Renzo come-]

[-Bas settle down! We can’t leave Dani here! This might be what they wanted, damn it!]

[Then I am going! If I am wrong, I will just walk with them back here, OK?] Without waiting for a response, he hit the jump boosters, leaving a faint trail of reddish-brown exhaust behind him. A bright red and yellow light up top his right shoulder unit started to flash, indicating to the locals of his emergency response status. He gently touched down in an abandoned parking lot just directly south of the location he saw the Infinity group headed down, now taking his time to carefully navigate the less crowded street parallel to the busier highway nearby. This is all really starting to work my nerves. When will they give us a break!?

Sam was immensely relieved to finally see everyone’s catalyzers* starting to wind up again as they started a slow crawling pace on under-foot rollers due south of their roundabout position. She heard over the radio “New route. We will take a south then east approach instead of east then south. Much easier to navigate.” Not long after, each Ai20 was now engaging their hover drives, getting up to about 15 km/hr. “Looks like…” the man continued on the radio, “… looks like we are picking up trace NOx trails on the scanner. Brecht, Philman, you two run a NOx air diag. Knight, Huynh, open up explosives detection to our south.”

Now that’s just what I didn’t want to hear.

As she opened up the screen for explosives scanning, she remembered that NOx scanners were used to pick up LTAC presence as they lacked the catalyzers that convert the reddish-brown gas back to the colorless, odorless elemental nitrogen. Sensors remained calm as they continued their pace down the highway, approaching a large clearing at the center of a roundabout. Before they reached the roundabout, the leading vehicle once again came to a stop.

“Not again?!” a voice shouted over the radio.

“Keep it bloody down, will you?!” Burnley’s voice shot back. “Alright, forget the traffic. Make the jump and get to that clearing ahead. We will forge our own path from there. Command, relay that to their officers!”

Without hesitation, each vehicle and LTAC found their way to the clearing as they allowed the escorting police truck space to make its way back to the front, but when they looked for it, it was gone.

“Bloody hell, this can’t be good,” Burnley continued over the radio, triggering the same stomach-gripping nervousness in Sam as whatever traces of confidence that remained had completely vanished. “Command, we got stranded. Orders?” Silence caused the rest of the crew to grow equally nervous. “Command?” He continued. “Director Channing!”

“The director is missing! I repeat, Director is AWOL!” a voice came in response soon after.

Huynh’s voice popped up next. “Captain, we got explosives detection signals around us – looks like they’re bringing something up top! Heads up 3 and 5 o’clock!”

The squad radio continued with its barrage of responses: “NOx sensors detected in this area! The last exhaust activity only fifteen minutes ago!”

“NOx sensors picking up new signal at our six!”

“Explosives confirmed! Rocket pods to our 3 o’clock!”

“Security Group B move south now! Jump the traffic do anything to get through to the rendezvous point! Group A we are standing here to hold up the back!” Sam heard as she grew to the point of nearly getting sick right there on the spot. She saw six of the twelve Ai20s jump-boost out of the area as she instinctively armed her riot shield in left hand.

All of the surrounding four to six story buildings nearby were now suddenly being evacuated as the roundabout suddenly began to empty as traffic came to a wild halt. As the car occupants began to flee, Sam noticed a red object acquisition pop up on visor. Down the street ahead she saw a tank roll around the corner and head for them, taking aim. “Tank!! Shields up!” she shrieked out in knee-jerk fashion, throwing back her rear support beams as she brought her left arm around in front, holding the shield up firmly. In that same instant, she heard explosives detection signals blaring as rocket fire poured in from above. The shields each of the six Ai20s hid behind held up against the small rocket fire fairly well, but the tank round shot from ahead had no problem shattering the squad commander’s shield as he was thrown back into the Ai20s behind him. Lucky, she had been at the back of the squad, as it didn’t take more than a second to regather her bearings. Over the next seconds, smoke and dust rushed in and enveloped all standing within the clearing.

“We need to retreat! We aren’t equipped to handle tanks!” one of the pilots shouted.

“Commander Burnley is down! I repeat, commander down!”