She could hear them talking long before she got to the vent above the large room. From her vantage, she could see forty-six individuals, mostly men. She counted seven women among the supers. A large crowd was gathered around two men arm wrestling across a small table almost directly underneath the vent. Another group was playing cards on a table in the corner, and a few supers were cleaning guns and checking electronic equipment.
The two men grunted and growled at each other as they struggled. Neither seemed to have a distinct advantage and they swayed back and forth, neither getting enough leverage to even be near winning. There was a loud crack and the table broke in two, and the men let go.
“That’s the third one—you guys are disqualified! Ya can’t press down, ya idiots!” an older man with a cigar shouted. The men threw up their arms in protest, and the others in the circle jeered and laughed, some exchanging money.
Aurora looked over the group, trying to assess what their abilities could be. This group had mercenary written all over them. They wore no cohesive uniforms among them, although a couple had black patches attached to their suits. Their levels of hygiene and rough appearances made it obvious that some of them didn’t have the discipline that an academy would provide. She doubted that there were many supers with Psi powers, but it was better to not take any chances. She decided not to get too close or stay too long. As long as she had no flares of emotion, she should be okay.
She could see at least ten fliers in the group, and a couple acrobats, detecting them just by the way they moved. Aurora’s eyes tightened, noting that the ones in the corner were probably augments, having powers that synergized with their weapons or electronics, if she had to guess. Eight of those. The others were wild cards, probably Minmaxers, who specialized in one stat boosted to obnoxious levels at the cost of others. Usually fliers had other, more significant powers, so on average were more dangerous.
She wanted to observe more, but forced herself to silently slide backward, making her way back to the ladder, taking it up to the top floor. This floor was usually only captain’s quarters and the bridge, and she made her way forward to the front of the ship. The passageway widened a bit to compensate for the increased amount of connections and sensors that had to be connected to the bridge.
She froze when she heard a familiar voice. It was the same one from the torture chamber. She inched forward looking through the grate.
“How far are we? It feels like we’ve been in the air forever,” he barked.
“We should be there in about an hour. We are approaching the origin of the signal, but my orders were to maintain a distance of at least fifty miles, find an island nearby, and you would proceed from there,” a quavering voice replied, obviously wary of provoking whomever was talking to him.
“Fifty miles? That’s a bit far, but I guess I’ll make do,” the voice agreed, grumbling.
“There is a chain of islands in this area, so we should have a lot to pick from, sir.”
“Good, at least there’s that. Patch me into shipwide comms.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, everyone, report to the bridge. I’m going to go over the mission ops and how we’re going to play this. Touchdown is in an hour, so be ready. Basileus, out.”
A short time later, the crew rolled in. Aurora accidentally sniffed a dust bunny up her nose and massaged her nostrils in an attempt to stay silent. She looked at her gray, dirty hand in disgust as she pulled it away.
“Everyone here? Good. Alright, like you may know, we don’t really know everything about the situation we are going into, so we’re going to have Fade and Sideshift do our reconnaissance on the island. You two are not to engage, got it? I want to know what the situation is, estimated numbers, and types of defenses we can expect. The tech should be around fifty years old, but they may have come up with something new in the time they’ve been off the grid, so don’t get sloppy and keep your eyes open. Plus, we need to be quick about it before the Factions get wind of what we’ve found; we know Purple had a special interest in our target.”
The twinge returned and Aurora buried her nose in her shoulder. If she sneezed, everyone would know. She took silent gulps of air through her mouth, blowing out her nose in an attempt to dislodge the offending particles.
“Based on what they find, we may go in quickly or in waves. I personally doubt there will be as much opposition as what you may have been briefed on. One more thing: there may be some infected individuals still on the island. If this is the case and you see anyone, do not allow them to have any physical contact. Shoot for the head and get out. If you have no ranged attacks, fall back and we’ll have our augments take care of business. Any questions? No? Then, dismissed.”
Basileus gestured, calling Fade and Sideshift over to him. The woman and man came closer and Basileus’ voice dropped to a whisper. “You share your findings with me and only me, got it? I’ll determine what the plan needs to be. All three of us know some of these mercs are volatile. I need them though, and I can’t have anyone buggering out before this mission is done. There’ll be something extra for you two if you can handle that. Deal?” He looked at them and they both nodded. “Good. Remember, stay out of sight. They should never know you were there.”
The supers
