Sarkosh City, Sarkosh
Harzish System, Razon Conflict Sector
One their approach to Sarkosh City, Ik'Idassen had gotten quite a good look at the mass of buildings that was a city. It was a hodgepodge mesh of two cultures. First, the Razon nation that had once existed here, then the Huerdaen who had fought over it for years on end. This city encompassed bothe, with rounded spires of the Razon rising out of the slowly expanding mass of Huerdaen modular construction, slowly seeming to rise and consume it. Several buildings had only one or two floors above the mass of black structures before they were capped in the elaborate rounded domes, and yet that very suddenly dropped off, where battle damage and destruction separated it from the Razon sector. It looked like someone had taken a giant blade and slashed through the city, leaving a massive gash that exposed the sides and internals of several buildings on both sides. It was clearly an orbital strike, some sort of beam cutting through the city that had no chance of defense against it. At the time, it had been a terrible massacre, but it made the city a thing of interest on approach. It also served to house thousands of people who didn't belong anywhere else.
Even as they passed over it to the well-maintained rail yard on the Huerdaen side, she could see the small fires in barrels as night was coming, and figures huddled around them. It was a partially lawless sector, a scar on the city and the world that had not yet fully been healed. She'd be tempted to say they hadn't tried, but she knew better than to assume that regarding the Viprans. No doubt, they simply had larger concerns to worry about. There were seemingly hundreds of ways that had already been rebuilt over the chasm to cross between the two sides, with large, reinforced bridges for freight, and a number of smaller footpaths. One or two even appeared to have been crafted by locals, either for personal use or for something a little less than lawful.
The far side was the Razon half, the Spires. Most of the city had built up before Vipran or Huerdaen influence, and much of the city still stood as a proud monument to their architecture. The Huerdaen 'rat maze', as it was often called, centered mostly around the industrial sectors, with major corporations paying large sums to rule from up in the towers that still poked out of the mass of hardened boxes. They controlled several of the remaining massive factories the Huerdaen had used for munitions and vehicles in the past, repurposing them for more civilian needs now that the fighting had finally ended.
On the Razon side, things were less overtely competitive. Most of the people lived across the scar, descending into the Rat Maze only for work or to make use of the large transit hub that still existed there. It brought a strange sort of dynamic to the city, with the close proximity of the rat maze suddenly sheared off and traversed by always-packed thoroughfares between the two sides. It was something of an amazing dynamic that Ik'Idassen openly appreciated as she looked on. Behind her, the General spoke, gruffly.
"Ik, sit down. You're acting like a tourist."
Chuckling, she just shrugged and nodded. "I am, aren't I? We're just here to meet people, it's as close to tourism as I've ever gotten."
She turned to the man where he sat, in a common businessman's suit for the area, sitting calmly as the railcar raced over above the city and began its descent toward the Rat Maze, where they would change rails to go to the Razon side to get to the hotel. They were alone in the train car, having come in and taken the time and effort to bypass the worst of the Vipran security with their local contacts.
Most of the time, it would seem that a place like this would have limited security, where three cultures clashed, but the truth of the matter was that the Viprans never let down their guard in this sector any more than the Huerdaen did. So instead of having three seperate systems all trying to watch for intrustion in their own areas, you ended up with three seperate systems all overlapping to create a maze of defenses and loopholes that became an excessive pile of routes and re-routes to avoid detection. It had taken almost two days to finally get everything in order to actually enter the city, and they couldn't be sure they hadn't been flagged somewhere along the way. Still, the small team didn't LOOK like any trouble, so the chances of being picked out were a bit less likely.
So she stood at the wall of the rail car watching the vehicle descend into the blood-red lighting of the Rat maze. Enclosed as it was, the lights in the car suddenly went from mid-afternoon daylight to a crushing dark. The sudden shift caused Ik'Idassen to grip the upright pole next to her tightly, in case of unseen turns, but the ride continued smoothly, flashing through the underground complex like a bolt of lighting in a night sky. After a second, yellow lights came on, flickering to life as if an afterthought, bathing the inside in an almost foreign color. With the strange lighting, she turned to look over the other passengers, the railcar empty except her security team, and the man they had to protect.
It really was a bit of an odd group. Sergeant Sanada was her right-hand man, and despite being an orange-furred kitsune who pretty much matched the ideal kitsune tod of his age, with the exception that his tail had been amputated so he could wear the powered armor of the Imperial Shield. He sat at the far end of the rail car, opposite her, with his eyes out the windows, depite the light reflecting back to them in the low-light settings. His ears were up, but not in the playful way one would normally see among kitsune. Instead, he was alert, and his eyes were hard, as if he was simply waiting for someone to show up so he could punch them. He was angry most of the time, deadly-serious, and had no sense of humor. He was dressed in a laborer's overalls, and sat next to a solid metal lunch box, concealing the broken down Siren pistol, the only weapon they had snuck through security for this leg of the trip.
Near the entry was Si'Akai, a much younger girl, just fresh out of boot. She had dyed her hair a bright green, with blue tips that shone in the dark, matching up with the standard Huerdaen raver girl, and had picked out a set of clothes that matched the appearance, showing off both her navel and shoulders. Her 'shirt', such as it was, was a bright blue cloth wrap that displayed the undersides of her breasts and shimmered in the same blue as her hair with every movement that shot tiny currents through the material, and was supplemented by a black vest that held it all in place and hung by a single golden clasp in the front. She wore jet black trousers that clung to her hips and shone with the same blue, but were wide enough to completely hide the contours of her legs as she sat with her feet up on a nearby seat, arms crossed behind her head as she napped contentedly across three seats.
Ik'Idassen wasn't dressed to any particular archetype. In fact, she hadn't tried to conceal herself at all. She wore her own clothes, from when she was back on Pantos, living in one of the suburbs of the capital. Browns and grays in light clothing, including a long jacket and trousers with pockets, where one hand was calmly stuffed. What made her stand out was her height, standing at 5'8", she towered over the others, and her naturally red hair made that even more obvious. Most wouldn't pick her out as Huerdaen at all, but most homeworlders didn't join the Shield, or any other Arm for that matter. Her hair was also let down, reaching down to the center of her back in long strands, and carefully brushed. It was comfortable, for once, almost like leave if not for the empty holsters hidden under the jacket against either side of her torso, waiting to pick up their gear.
Just as suddenly as they had disappeared into the rat maze, the vehicle came to a stop, using the inertial dampers to make them barely feel the sharp decelleration. They were there only a moment before the car shifted to a different track, giving them less than ten seconds to see the rest of the railcraft starting to disembark, before their own shot off into the darkness once more.
And then they were out in the light again, rushing across the chasm out of one of the jagged cuts in the Huerdaen structures. The blast had cut straight down, leaving whole sections open to the wind, and she could see among them people sheltering from the elements, with makeshift ladders and pathways granting access to the oddly-exposed unnatural shelters, like a cross-section of a honeycomb with the bees still living within. But what was before them caught her attention before they got anywhere near the heart of it. When the Huerdaen withdrew, the people of Razon went back to building their own home, so some of the construction was new, merely...attached to the Huerdaen rat maze that loomed like a dead beast over the new heart of the city. Roads and paths led to ground level and hundreds aerial walkways or roads for light traffic led up into the brightly-colored spires of red and gold, stitching the two halves of the wounded city together like barely-holding sutures.
The view was breathtaking, as they shot between the glittering rounded domes on either side, headed toward the far side. An open-air market passed on their left, with thousands of people buying and selling in one of the richer parts of the city, exposed to the bright sun and gentle winds, and able to look across the entirety of the city where they bartered and sold. Nearby, she caught a glimpse of one of the restaurants that was famous for its view down into the chasm, built on the underside of a platform and held in place by artificial gravity. Culture, despite the two militant nations that had vied for the planet for years, still thrived, turning death and horror into a beauty all its own, of a world rebuilding.
All too soon, though, the trip was over, and their railcar came to a stop near the bottom of one of the spires - an area for middle class, possibly a little luckier. The small group hurried out to see a few other cars that had connected to theirs, as they disembarked, and for a moment, she watched the other people, until a barking yell caught her attention.
"Ik!"
Garosch drew more attention than she wanted, and stormed up to her in an attempt to appear friendly. With a solid punch, he slammed his fist into her upper arm, then threw an akward hug around her, and proceeded to shake the hands of the others, pulling them along to get them away from the rest of the crowds.
"We're this way. All your luggage already arrived. I'm glad you could come."
Despite his words, his tone was gruff and practiced, as if he didn't really mean what he said. Still, he made a concerted effort to get them out away from the others and into private quickly, where he let the act drop at the first moment it was possible, the unnerving smile dropping from his hard, alien face.
"We got only one room for the five of us. Everything arrived, but I couldn't stash much of it in the city. Just the small stuff. Big stuff is out near the meeting point."
At her nod, he continued, giving his report. "We have planned 6 days on the planet, and the meeting is on the fourth day. We don't know when the other party will arrive, but we don't need to know. Both teams are operating seperate until the meeting, to decrease risk. We meet in the maze, in Level 23-Sub-4, an old abandoned barracks that had power and is near a lively nightlife sector that goes day-round, like in the Empire."
The doors open, revealing another short lift that they stepped on, and finally deposited them before a modest room, into which the squad and their charge finally relaxed. All except Garosch, who saluted smartly.
"Orders, ma'am? Traps? Gathering explosives? I've already secured against bugs or spies."
With a sigh, Ik'Idassen lay out on the all-too-soft bed, groaning. "How about drinks for the team, and a place to hit the club tonight? I'm hiding as a tourist. I'm gonna find a bitch and fuck her tonight. Maybe tomorrow, too. And wake up with a hangover each morning."
The general glowered, setting up his work station in the corner, and leaving her to it, but when Garosch started to protest, she just held up a hand. "Two people are here at all times. We'll go in pairs. But we need to keep up appearances."
Grinning, she looked from Garosch to Asahi. "I want to see you BOTH wasted at one point."
Asahi shot her a look that made her glad the pistol he brought hadn't been constructed yet, but she knew she could trust them both to follow orders. For the Star Empire, of course.
