Dark Shadow of Revenge (Opus X: Fleet of One Book 2) by Michael Anderle

Author:Michael Anderle [Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798885412155
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2022-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Cyrus stood in the cargo bay of the Argo in his tac suit, inspecting his rifle. Kat frowned at a helmet atop a crate before nodding at Jade, who’d chosen a bright yellow tac suit for her outfit of the moment.

Kat didn’t have much reason to complain. Jade couldn’t accompany them in nanocloud form, but it was hard to shake the feeling that the AI was somehow mocking them.

They’d gathered to decide on their final tactical plan. It’d been less than two hours since their meeting with Agent Zubiri.

Jade hadn’t reported anything unusual from the police or the militia. Her long-range scans of the unassuming building had revealed an uptick in deployed bots but no other obvious activity. She hadn’t risked flying her drones closer, at Kat’s direction.

“I’ve integrated the nav programming on your PNIUs with the blueprints,” Jade explained. “Even if they jam you, they’ll lead you to the storage rooms as long as the current owners haven’t radically restructured the interior.”

“We’re not sure whatever they have is in a storage room,” Cyrus replied. “If it’s special, they might have somewhere else—a safe, maybe.”

Kat nodded. “That’s true, but it’s a good start. We can check other rooms as necessary, and we can’t assume we won’t meet resistance.” She brought up a data window with one of Jade’s feeds and magnified the image of a six-legged security bot armed with a stun rod. “There are a lot of bots there for a place that is officially all but closed. What I’m not seeing is a lot of drones.”

“Bots are easier to preprogram for defense,” Jade observed. “They also have less of an annoying tendency to fall on people when they’re destroyed.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. That also means the insurrectionists know they’re going to have trouble giving orders on the fly, which all but guarantees they’re going to use heavy jamming.”

Cyrus set his rifle down. “Have you spotted any heavy-duty security bots?”

Jade shook her head. “All I’ve seen is standard, low-end, mass-produced models armed with stun rods.”

Kat motioned at the data window. “They could be hiding others inside, though it’s a lot harder to smuggle and hide a Torch Dragon than a few guns. If they were smuggling that kind of thing here, Zubiri would know.”

A wireframe hologram of the security bots appeared, with a section near the center of the body highlighted in red. The image rotated.

“A single high-velocity armor-piercing round through that location should disable this model,” Jade explained. “There is no evidence of extra armor on these bots, but given the number of access vents, I would assume a large number of them are available.”

Kat replied, “We don’t want to end up swarmed. We’ll have to rely on distraction.”

“I’ll help with drones and bots as best I can,” Jade announced. “An attack opposite your entry point should accomplish what you need.”

“Good thinking.” Kat gave her an apologetic look. “There’s a good chance you’re going to lose a lot of your new toys.”

“I care far less about the destruction of property than Lanara,” Jade replied.

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