Diaz

"I'm bored," Nye stated around hour six of their trip via private net. "What do you think the package is this time?" Diaz started to form a response centered around professionalism and what curiosity often yielded, but she carried on before he could get a word out. "It's gotta be Narcos or Stims, right? You wanna get Tony in on this too?" Nye gestured to the box with the chin of her helmet, then to Tony more subtly. "If it were legal, then they wouldn't be worried about the patrols or getting boarded. But they wouldn't need this many hired guns to do what a decent smuggler could for a tenth the cost."

"No Tony," Diaz said. "He's too opinionated about… everything. Boomer or Princess could take care of counter-boarding without any of us here to twiddle our thumbs. Not that any of these local goons could pick up the Cat on sensors in the first place. Aside from muscle to move that thing, there's no need for us. This is too much manpower for, what… two-ninety kilos at most of what they might be selling, and half of that's probably just box. Did you have another guess?"

"I just guessed, you pitch an idea." She retorted while Diaz hunched over, resting his suit's gorget on his fist in mock concentration. It was practiced motion considering he lacked any tactile feedback, except in the palms of his gauntlets and even that was limited. Their suits were great for what they did, but soldiers and mercs alike paid for it in so many small ways.

"So long as he pays up, I don't care what it is. You shouldn't either."

"Come on, you've got to be curious what's worth all this fuss."

"I am, but I have standards. If you want to play guessing games, bother someone else."

"If it's such a bother, then maybe I will." Nye said with a humph before disconnecting the net.

It hadn't actually been a bother, but she was gone and Diaz embraced the solitude of his suit. No matter how many times it was damaged or abused, his war plate was an immovable pillar of commiseration. Indifferent of his flaws and uncaring of his faults, yet always willing to lend its strength. The long waits of transit didn't sit well with him. Too much time to overthink and remember. Too many chances for his lack of social graces to come to bear. If things went as planned, then there'd be no chances to burn off this stored energy that was building inside him as the solitude endured. But if things went poorly… at least then he'd have a chance to play to his strengths.

His train of thought was interrupted as the dropship banked sharply, the shuttle's inertia winning out against the crew cabin's weak dampening field. Diaz was pressed into the wall behind him while Nye and Tony splayed their legs to lean towards the new sense of gravity. While the passengers braced themselves, the mystery box in question slipped from its magnetic fasteners again, ending its journey crammed against the cabin's right wall and stubbing many mechanized toes as it settled.

"Seat belts back on. Got another rough patch." Shores chirped over the squad net before leveling out and dropping engine burn to ease the forces on the dropship. The whims of physics settled to manageable levels. Diaz relaxed onto the bench he shared with Jhordan to the rear and further to the nose, Boomer.

"Warn us first, jackass!" Princess growled just before the nose climbed rapidly and the box slid the length of the cabin, stopping on the rear ramp. "And someone strap that down already!"

This being the third instance of the box breaking free of the mag-locks in the floor, Tony and Jhordan set about employing a millennia-old method instead. With all the grace Diaz expected from her three-fingered gauntlets, Jhordan located several ratchet straps and pinned the box to the floor, Tony mirroring her motions less awkwardly on the other side. They worked in silence from the outside, but to a keen observer, they betrayed their conversation with short head bobs and periodic glances to each other. The two powertechs working opposite each other filled the ship's width, forcing Nye and himself to slide further up the wall-mounted bench.

Nye's 'eyes' rolled around the cabin, to what end he didn't know. She might have been about to hurl, or she could just be bored. He certainly was, but boredom came with the job. A majority of merc work was long uninterrupted boredom briefly interrupted by frantic, life-or-death conflict. Days—or sometimes even weeks—on end spent inside a set of warplate tended to grow rather tedious. He'd knew scores of soldiers and mercs who'd never been able to adapt to the claustrophobic sensation of being bolted into your armor.

When you got locked in and moving, your mind was too busy to work itself crazy thinking about how you were effectively trapped in your own gear, like some two-legged casket. But when you could just sit and think… At least the Heavy Infantry pattern Nye shared with Tony and himself all had emergency blow-off plates so they could avoid dying slow if their suits failed around them. Should Jhordan's larger, older Bulwark pattern fail, they'd have to cut her out or drag her to someone who could. One of the downsides of her being six-foot-eight, well endowed and of proportional mass, no one wanted to make anything in her size— or so she loudly and regularly complained. Even at a respectable five-foot, ten-inches Diaz was pushing the height limits for his own, largely unmodified, plate. Nye kept moving her gaze and the Black Cat gave her no shortage of things to look at. He mirrored her to pass the time.

The Cat was small, as far as dual-pilot atmosphere-capable ships went, but what was done inside the shuttle made it unique among its class. The flight seal on the rear ramp was probably the only shuttle part that wasn't modified or fully retrofitted. While an unarmored person might find the crew cabin fairly roomy, he and the other powertechs needed to hunch down to avoid scraping their helmets and pauldrons on the ceiling. The four of them inside their walking coffins—as he grimly liked to think of them—took up slightly more than half of the Cat's crew cabin. Which left enough room for Boomer and Princess to stretch their legs or walk around, as Princess demonstrated by pacing back and forth. She had her helmet off, and she kept re-reading her data feed as if it had changed from the last dozen times she'd checked it. Aside from the narrow wall-mounted benches, gear stowage, the roof and floor emergency exit hatches, the remainder of the crew compartment was rather plain. The only other feature of note being the thin 'hall' leading to the cockpit, which could double as a bulkhead style airlock.

"Brace!" Shores spat over the squads net just as instantaneous acceleration threw Princess, the only one not planted on the benches, to the floor. A millisecond later, something rammed into the Cat from below, throwing all of its occupants into the air or—in the case of Princess and Boomer—the ceiling.

"What the hell was that?" Princess shouted, half-dazed from a bloody gash across the crown of her head, her silver hair shifting to darker hues under the flat red light before a thin stream of blood trickled down her right cheek. Fumbling, she donned her helmet and repeated the question over the squad net.

"Something small and fast." Shores said. "Did it leave a dent?"

"You could say that." The dent in question looked more like a half-crumpled section of paneling to Diaz. It was amidships, about two feet in diameter and nearly a foot in depth. If it had struck any closer to the rear, it would have given their package a stylish new aesthetic. Inside of his suit, he didn't bother trying to stifle a grim chuckle as he pictured Princess trying to explain that hypothetical scenario to the Client.

"It came out of nowhere," Shores said, "we're lucky it didn't punch through at that speed."

"Yeah, lucky." Princess pushed herself upright and paused to examine the dent that had formed inches from her head. She swayed from side to side then cocked her head in the universal gesture of curiosity. Diaz followed her gaze, focusing on one very specific point of the dent and saw nothing.

"What are you look-" He started.

"Move the package!" Princess roared as she flung herself at the gear stowage bin with her equipment in it. Jhordan and Nye just watched her, Tony started asking questions and Boomer followed her lead and started arming himself. Diaz followed orders without hesitation. Princess had retrieved and was loading her semi-automatic, mag-fed shotgun while she elaborated. "We're being boarded. Shores purge the air."

Diaz was already prying open the first ratchet strap before the remainder of the squad got their arses in motion. The cramped quarters of the Black Cat's crew compartment became a writhing mass of gunmetal grey limbs in a flurry of activity by the time Diaz finished with his strap. As the ratchet-head clattered on the floor, he saw the early hints of an orange glow coming from the dent. Jhordan and Tony were working on the remaining two ratchets, so Diaz left the package to them and tackled his own equipment situation.

Seconds ticked by; seconds to open his stowage, seconds to take his rifle from flight-safe to combat-ready, half seconds more to load a high-capacity beta mag full of high-velocity, tungsten-cored armor-piercing rounds. He turned to find that in the seconds that had passed, orange had turned to bright, red-white. No sooner had he taken in the sight than the remaining air violently ejected from the cabin in a whoosh. The cabin lights flashed red and, had there been any air left to carry the sound, warning sirens would be blaring too. Heat was bleeding over to other panels now, the softened metal losing its color in the shuttle's alarm lights.

"Hurry up Tony." Jhordan said. She was just behind him, but in the vacuum, Diaz couldn't hear anything outside of his armor.

"That's not helping." Tony replied.

"Hurry. Up." Princess added.

"The thing's stuck!" Tony said.

A massive, single head breaching drill punched through the floor in a blast of superheated shrapnel and clouds of flash-freezing gases. He flicked his eyes to scan his arc of fire. His shot wasn't clear. Diaz didn't pull the trigger. Princess and Boomer did, dumping round after round of solid slugs into the whirling drill bit to little desired effect. Smashed lead slugs scattered through the cabin, the ricochets—robbed of speed but not mass—walloped into his plates.

"Tony, now!" Princess bellowed.

"I can't!"

The drill retracted and Diaz, Jhordan and Nye inched closer, weapons ready. A blur of segmented metal darts through the expanded opening, looking like a grotesque shoulder and deformed multi-jointed arm. In a savage swing, it strikes Nye across the chest with enough force to send her flying backwards over Princess and Boomer. Metal crunches as she slams into the dividing bulkhead connecting the cockpit and the crew cabin. Searing laser fire bursts for the half-second duration of her flight as she snatches her weapon's trigger on reflex, scorching plates and panels but killing no one. The crew cabin becomes a nightmare of scorching rays and flashing silent metal.

Any living creature would have been rendered into a fleshy pulp under the massed fire from two shotguns, a high-output pulse repeater and a pair of high-caliber rifles, but not the machine. Solid shots ricocheted from their assailant after hammering and gouging the limb's plating, scattering around the compartment and splattering against cabin walls and plates. In a spastic motion of blind violence, the tri-clawed manipulators ending its stalky limb groped from helm to stern, reaching towards the package Tony was still fumbling over. Diaz kicked out at the box, twisting it under its lone restraint to fill the width of the shuttle while knocking Tony against the rear ramp.

"Should I try and shake it off!?" Shores voiced from the cockpit, all the while keeping their flight hurtling through the void. Diaz felt a shove from behind as Jhordan barged past, throwing her considerable strength against the limb in a melee.

"It's latched on. We're not. Keep us level." Princess said, her voice steady under pressure, befitting of a demolitionist— or a leader. With Jhordan grappling the limb to a standstill, Boomer darts in for its exposed shoulder joint. He slapped a magnetized shaped charge into place just as the machine's clawed talons secured a crushing grasp around Jhordan's vambrace and began to cut deep.

"Firing!" Boomer's thumb clicked home. A noiseless flash blinded Diaz an instant before he felt it reverberate up his legs, first as a sharp note of explosive precision, then a flurry of scuttling metal on metal impacts.

"It's not done yet." Diaz warned as he fired half-blind out of the hole. His words became reality as a new limb, identical to the one still latched onto Jhordan's arm, stormed the breach.

"Same as last time!" Jhordan bellowed, and as if it had heard her, the new limb speared directly for her legs. She tried to backstep, to make room for the engagement, but her elbow connected with Diaz's shoulder plates, fouling his aim and stumbling her for her attacker. The blow hammered home against her lower left greave, and again when she tried to back away or widen her stance but her unwieldy suit caught on her surroundings. She fell, right onto the package and Tony behind it. Diaz heard more than felt the clashing of metals. He didn't turn from the enemy to investigate.

Nye flanked the limb with him, Princess and Boomer both behind her with explosives in hand. They just needed an opening. Tossing his rifle aside, Diaz moved to create one.

Their attacker felt his movements and responded with a broad sweep to try and slam him against the wall. The blow landed but instead of sending him sprawling, Diaz had taken the impact that would have crushed a lesser man and latched on to the limb's many joints, barring it rigid above the shoulder. The limb writhed like a hose with too much pressure bleeding from it, smashing him into everything it could to try and hammer him loose.

"Any time now." He growled. His world was spinning and thrashing. Even within his suit's protective confines, it was like being thrown down a stairwell inside a rubber ball. He could feel his organs being thrashed about with every sudden, hammering blow before accelerating into the next and stopping just as viciously. Throughout it all, something steely scraped and clawed across his backplate like an assassin's dagger. Then a jarring impact raced up his arms and legs, he crashed into the wall—or the floor, or ceiling—and staggered in the direction he thought up was.

"Shores, scrap that bot." Someone said from a fuzzy place near the back of his skull. The world savagely flipped and spun once more, throwing him onto something that crunched. Then things grew still. Diaz was no stranger to the violence of war, but it paled in comparison to void combat on a grand scope. The personal savagery of ground combat was replaced with the wide-scale, indifferent destruction wrought by naval engagements.

"Squad. Sound off." Princess said shakily.

"Boomer, rattled but fine."

"Jhordan, this thing's still on me. But I think I'm good." No one spoke for a beat, and Diaz groggily realized it was his turn.

"Diaz, shaken like a rat, suit's intact, unarmed, no lasting injuries."

"Tony, pinned by our resident amazon, but okay."

"Nye, health bar's full."

"Princess, a little battered but all in one piece, thanks Nye. Shores?"

"Our boarder is taken care of, but now we're bleeding heat and atmo. We'll make it to the drop, but we'll be there a while. And… scrap, looks like one of the locals might be able to see the fireworks… Yep, they're turning."

"Keep the Cat as quiet and cold as you can. Is there anywhere we can hide?" Princess ask.

"The debris field our friend just jumped out of is the only place handy."

"Out of the question."

"Then no."

"Hell. Okay. Make best speed for the drop site. We'll have to lay low after we drop the package… The Package!"

Diaz's brain finally stilled enough to make sense of what his eyes saw, and it wasn't encouraging. Jhordan's hulking suit sat sprawled atop the package, its flat lid now forced partially open by a combination of the twisted ratchet strap, Jhordan's noteworthy weight and Tony's inept attempts to extricate himself.

"Shite." Diaz cursed, but he retained the professionalism to keep it off the squad's comm net. He reached down, drawing a long seax from its mag-lock sheath along his shin and with a punctual thrust and pull, he cut the ratchet strap.

"What is that thing?" Tony asked once Jhordan had cleared off of him.

"A rouge bot-" Jhordan started.

"Can-opener." Boomer and Nye said at the same time. After a pause, Nye waved the explanation over to Boomer, who continued. "They're fighter hunters from later in the war. We're lucky that one was in such bad shape. Otherwise, it would have started with our pilot or our engines."

"Luck had nothing to do with it." Shores added.

"Fascinating, really. But I actually meant that pig-sticker in his hand." Tony said while pointing.

"It's a knife." Diaz replied.

"Why do you have a knife?"

"Every soldier should have a knife. They're useful."

"I guess I'm not a soldier then?" Tony said as he lumbered clear of the package so it could be inspected properly.

"Obviously."

In the cabin's dim red lights, Diaz couldn't make out any detail inside the box. The lid was definitely compromised but not enough that he could see the contents within. No alarms or sensors cried their protests against the hard vacuum. If they did, they went unheard. If the box had bled any air during the fight, he hadn't noticed. Nothing looked like it was pulled out by any escaping air at a minimum.

"At least we know why the Client didn't hire smugglers," Nye said. "That can-opener would have torn them apart and scrapped the package."

"The Cat's built for orbital flights. It'll take more than a little brawling to ground this kitty." Boomer added.

"That bot probably made a mess of the hull though, that'll mean a few weeks in the Shadow's repair bays. As it stands, things might get a bit frigid back there." Shores said with a note of melancholy.

"We'll tough it out."

The package appeared much the same as before; a long, sizable crate of plain finished, dull metal. Diaz was fully expecting to see a damaged panel or a segment where the metal had buckled and blown under the multi-tonne stress it had endured, but the box was intact. Its lid had merely slid a few inches to the side. With one hand on the box's lid and the other on its frame, Diaz tried to force the two back into place, but for all his enhanced muscle, the cover stood fast.

"Jhordan, get on that side. Tony, make yourself useful over here with me." They did as he beckoned. The three of them pressed together with the raw power customarily found in an industrial press, and the lid remained unmoved even as the Cat's damaged floor began to buckle.

"Whelp, brute force and ignorance is out. What next?" Tony asked.

"Expert opinion?" Diaz offered.

"Not yet. Shores, trade off with me and take a look." Princess said.

A few minutes later, once the Black Cat's cockpit was sucking vacuum—same as the rest of the ship—Shores made his appearance. Shores looked small to him, even though unarmored Shores stood an inch taller than Diaz. He was a bit pudgier than most of his fellow mercs, but he couldn't be a kilo over ninety-five at standard gravity. His tech-gauntlet gave him the boorish, lopsided appearance of someone with too much free time and not enough gratification, while his wide-visored EVA helmet appeared insectoid in nature.

"Lights." He said. Diaz and the other powertechs obliged, bathing the cabin in flat white beams that cut through the omnipresent red. Shores tinkered on his gauntlet, performing technical marvels Diaz could only guess at the nature of until the lid shuddered once and fell open. Within the box was a single object, or more accurately, a single occupant.

"Is that a body?" Jhordan asked from her place in the rear.

"Great, so we're transporting a corpse." Princess said from the cockpit.

"Not exactly," Shores said. "This guy's still breathing."