Shadowrun: Tower of the Scorpion: A Shadowrun Novella by Mel Odom

Author:Mel Odom [Odom, Mel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2019-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Below Rashida, the maze of streets spun dizzyingly. The wind rushed up against her, raking tears from her eyes.

“Rashida!” Kao yelled in disbelief. “You did not just do that!”

Holding onto her calm even as adrenaline spiked through her system, Rashida called to a wind spirit she had standing by for tonight’s invasion. The transparent lines of the spirit were all but invisible as it manifested on the physical plane, and if Rashida hadn’t been looking for it, she wouldn’t have seen it.

Its upper body was humanlike and bigger than a ’roided-out troll, but its features were unfinished, blunt and disturbing. Balancing on its spinning lower half, it reached for Rashida with massive arms. Almost immediately, her plummet slowed, but she knew the spirit couldn’t stop her from falling to her death because it wasn’t strong enough to hold her back from insistent gravity.

Even worse, in another second or two, she’d pass the target floor on the tower assault parameters, unable to help her teammates. She threw her arms and legs out in a parachutist’s starfish pattern, riding the gust raised by the wind spirit and closing on the Saqr Tower eighty meters away.

A short distance behind her, Dolgor held onto a zipline spun by one of Kao’s drones from the balloon and sped toward the tower where the other end had attached.

“Rashida,” Kao called. “I’ve got a line coming to you now from your balloon. Look for it.”

Turning her head back to the balloon she’d just leaped out of, Rashida stared through the glare caused by the bright flames crowning the envelope. The balloon struggled to stay aloft, and was holding its own for the moment because the hole blown into the Nomex sheets wasn’t as large as the ones in other balloons.

“Lighting the drone up!” Kao said as small lights suddenly flared to life. “Look for it!”

“I see it,” Rashida responded. She knew lighting the drone could be—probably was—a tactical error because it would stick out later in any sec vids, although with all the fires going on aboard the balloons, that had to be questionable. She hoped the lights weren’t enough to later lead investigators to the team, but she prayed it was enough to save her life.

And allow her to take part in the run.

Swiftly, like a spider descending a web strand, the drone spun out the buckyball string behind it as it flew toward Rashida. At least, she hoped it was there. That was the plan, but, at only a few molecules thick, the strand was too thin to be visible in the darkness.

As the drone swept by, Rashida unfastened a bracelet on her left wrist, twisted the two halves, and locked it into position, making an S-hook that she caught the drone’s trailing strand with.

“Got the line,” Rashida said, still falling slowly, but picking up speed now that the wind spirit was growing weaker.

“Line’s gonna go tight…now!” Kao yelled as the drone smacked into the Saqr Tower with a small collision that was audible over the wailing sirens in the streets below.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.