All eyes were focused on my girls as they acted like we were the only ones in the club. To be honest, I wasn't sure how I felt about the leering grins and greasy looks from the predominantly male patrons aimed at my girls, though I couldn't argue they weren't doing their best to gain their attention.

They were certainly making the best of the situation while they 'worked', the club music turning my girls into a horny writhing mass of flesh as they completely let loose their inhibitions on the dance floor. Conversely it gave me a headache, give me heavy metal any day.

:// That's six, one to go.

Daniela curled the right side of her upper lip at me from across the dance floor as she writhed in time to the beat, grinding herself into the palm of Brianna's hand as the girls danced. The large 'x' of the fluorescent tape across her nipples doing nothing to restrain the bulk of her mostly naked flesh. Slapping Bri's ass in dismissal she danced across the floor with her arms held over her head, her upper lip still curled almost in a snarl as she eyed me with intent. My eyes traced hungrily over her naked skin in encouragement, the miniscule fluorescent green t-string left next to nothing to the imagination, the only piece of clothing that she wore. The girls were redeploying now the endgame was near and preparing for our exit.

Twenty four hours ago we had returned from the dead zone, as it turns out both I and the girls, at the very least owed the Cypher our thanks. He had acted of his own accord and infiltrated the facility several days prior to the Wildcats deployment, with his inside knowledge he knew the Draugrs were going to be deployed on an assault operation the moment I had returned to active duty. When the order crossed his desk two weeks prior he had baulked at the five percent probability of success. But he still wasn't going to act. Then he quickly realised that he was never supposed to have seen the details, a clerical error had resulted in it being forwarded to him as the designated liaison for the Israeli Wildcats, a group that no longer existed as a detached military unit. The only conclusion he could draw was that the special operations addendum to their inclusion within Draugr cell had somehow upset the paperwork applecart, but it certainly drew his focus and he wanted to know more as a result. The red flag that actually set his own plans into motion however, was the fact that the orders for the assault were unsigned, and no one in the military chain of command was questioning them. He made no secret of the fact that he would not have acted if it weren't for that final piece of information peaking his interest, and that had only occurred as he had neither seen nor heard of such a thing during his extensive career.

In other words, he had acted on gut instinct to save our collective asses and had intended to shutdown the facility defences prior to our assault. He was successful, the Draugr Wildcats had only faced the emergency defence systems, the last line of defence against intrusion. We didn't know it at the time, but the buildings surrounding the factory complex were filled with hundreds of sentinel warbots. He was very sketchy and far from cooperative in providing further details from there, particularly where the severed head came into the picture, apparently having filled us in as much as he was going to. Even then he was only willing to share what he had for two reasons....

Dani pulled up the bent over party girl currently griding her groin into mine roughly by her green hair. The woman arched her back and threw her arms up around my neck, pointing her bare chest at Daniela and silently daring her with a grin to make her move. Dani, the far more experienced of the two in dealing with multiple lovers placed her hand on the girls swaying hip and kissed her teasingly, drawing her lips upwards with want and need as she sought the mexican woman's lips. Talia danced away at my side with a jealous pout at the three way kiss Dani had drawn the girl into.

Sorry... where were we? Oh right. Two reasons. The first being we had actually saved his ass right back, he was genuinely trapped under the machinery where we had found him. The second, he was starting to sway his opinion to my way of thinking and was considering the very real possibility that the wolves were a completely separate issue to what we had faced in the dead zone. He wanted our help in tacking down leads.

I gave Daliah a hard stare and waited for her to open her eyes as Dani moved to my back, a string of saliva still joining our lips as she sandwiched me between the seductive movements of herself and the party girl. Daliah was moving her body and tracing her fingertips along the curves of her armour in sympathy to a deafening beat with closed eyes, the problem being that she was the only one of my girls that was currently clothed in more than tape and underwear in her role as my bodyguard. Her eyes flicked open when she realised what she was doing, I gave her a wink of approval as she again straightened and focused on the task at hand. She turned to quickly survey the gathering crowd looking down at our private party with a heat in her cheeks.

It was still unclear as to exactly which group was behind the facility, though with very serious consideration now being given to my corporate espionage hypothesis we needed to determine if there actually was a link between the potentially separate threats of wolves and sentinels. For me, that's where my money was. There was only one corporation that held the patents to the sentinel design, Peralta Defence Contracts. If it were proven they were incapable of maintaining the integrity of the sentinel war machines as a whole, the contract would automatically be open for general tender. The wolves were a Chinese design and in my mind a completely separate, but still very real threat.

Daliah allowed a girl that I had never before laid eyes on entrance to our party, she was immediately beset upon by Anika. She was quickly joined by Brianna in the fondling and touching welcome of the new girl as the three of them danced. Their movements a cover as they checked her over... very thoroughly I might add, for concealed weapons. The seventh indentured club employee was all to willing and allowed the members of my team to strip her down, throwing her scant clothing to the floor in the process as they danced. The idea being to remove any tracking devices that she may or may not know were on her person. They led her back to the final private booth with a promise of cash, drugs, sex, and anything else her little heart desired. The tracking device in her collar would need to be disabled off site with the assistance of our new Cypher ally.

:// That's seven, but we might have a problem. Angry... someone incoming.

I watched with a bored expression as a hulking brute of a man attempted to force his way past Daliah, the expression on his face priceless when the reaper, diminutive by comparison, didn't move so much as a millimeter at his brutal shove. She didn't hesitate and shoved right back, forcing the shirtless, heavily tattooed man to take several steps backwards to prevent falling on his ass. He had a mek arm and skull cap sure, but they were civilian issue and not even remotely in the same class as the upgrades all my reapers had.

"Private party." Daliah's voice boomed sweetly over the venu speakers, drawing every eye in the club. It took me a moment to realise the music didn't start again, the silence it's own kind of deafening noise after the hours long assault of the dance music.

:\ That's our cue ladies, secure the prisoners and head out the back door, bring up the Spearhead.

We were strictly off book for this job, no tactical network or associated combat overlays to be relied upon. The Draugr girls were somewhat used to this however, as we had all taken the odd private contract from time to time. The Wildcats were... stumbling, to say the least. More than a little lost at the lack of available information, no target designation their primary cause for concern. For this reason I had each Wildcat teamed up with a Draugr, making a total of seven two 'man' teams. The left over numbers meaning the two vehicle crew were on station nearby ready for extraction, the final girl, Daliah, would assist me in covering our retreat with the seven drugged women... speaking of which.

I traced my fingers up the flat stomach of the party girl, she obligingly lifted her hands above her head absolutely blitzed out of her brain to grant me easier access with a little moan escaping her lips at my touch. Dani reached from behind and pulled backwards on her hips to hold her in place as Talia stepped from my side, gently kissed the girls lips and placed the drug patch on her neck. She collapsed unconscious immediately. I passed her off to Dani who quickly threw one of the unconscious woman's arms over her shoulder and headed for the exit behind us with Talia trotting over to the nearby tables to recover their sidearms from the bags that had been strategically placed around the room.

The tattooed man paced back and forwards in furry, glaring hate at Daliah and waiting for an opening. She wasn't going to give it, she simply walked backwards with her ACR held loosely to her front. I had no doubt there were plenty of armed club security around, that was why as soon as we started moving I had Daliah activate the hologram that identified her as a ringer. The thugs in the club wouldn't have hesitated to engage the police, ringers were another matter entirely. Why? Ringers worked under military law, we had zero restrictions in our engagements, we were both ruthless and relentless, and we had the full support of every law enforcement data base in the country. In short, you killed a ringer, you sure as shit knew you would be dead within hours, if not minutes of pulling the trigger. Well... if those ringers were on a sanctioned OP at any rate, which we weren't. I planned to be long gone before anyone figured that out though.

Daniela was the first out the back door, my heart stopped at the horror in her scream. Behind me Daliah let loose a short burst of her rifle. To my front I could see Dani firing her sidearm again and again as she fell to the floor. There was no way I could get to her, I would need to wait for the other girls to clear the hallway.

The Spearhead skidded to a halt, the rear ramp slamming to the bitumen of the carpark as Shai emerged from the darkness of the armoured personnel carriers interior like a wraith. The muzzle flash of her rifle sucking all colour from the world as she added her own fire to ensure Dani's target wouldn't be getting up again. Shai's jaw dropped, she covered her mouth in horror and looked up at me, her eyes immediately filled with tears.

Time froze, yet advanced far faster than it had any right to. Standing in the doorway I could see that Daniela's target was dead, but she was likewise laying motionless on the ground looking up at me with sad eyes, afraid to move. She coughed once when she tried to talk, instead blood sprayed in a cloud to spatter into my face as I knelt by her side to check over her wounds. She'd been hit with a stripper, they normally weren't deadly... but with the location of the wound...

"Shh baby. Don't talk. We got you."

Clea walked over after depositing her prisoner in the APC, and looked down at Dani laying in a pool of her own blood. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped her recovered sword with a grim determination. She spun on her heal without a word and with Lilou by her side, stalked with hate filled eyes towards the motionless gangers milling around nearby, the fog of the drugs clouding their minds lifted at the approach of the reapers. They ran, or tried to. The pleas that met their head on sprint fell on deaf ears, neither legionnaire hesitated. Body parts flew and blood flowed from the devastating wounds inflicted on every gang member stupid enough to be in attendance.

Shira, the Wildcat medic bolted down ramp, her medic bag already open before it hit the ground. Dani grimaced up at me in pain, squeezing my hand tightly with the side of her face continually twitching and repeating the movements of her pain filled grin as the synthetic fibres of the flesh stripper virus that had been transferred from the blade burned into the muscle mass of her neck, severing the nervous fibres of her flesh as it progressed. Her throat was a ruin and there was nothing I could do but watch on helplessly and try to comfort her.

"Don't you pass out. Be a shame if I tell you I love you and your all passed out and shit. And I do... you know?"

I gave her a shit eating grin like every other time I had teased her. She tried to suck in breath a couple of times around the ruined muscles of her throat, the noise both horrific and heartbreaking.

...the twitching in her face stopped, replaced with a sad smile of defeat...

...she lay still, her grip in my hand loosened...

...her dead eyes stared at me accusingly.