Sitting on the ship on our way to Mort from Orange-Crush. Today we said our goodbyes to about 98% of the stormers who went to Dante. They knew they were going to die there, probably during their first 24 hours, still they were all excited – death is always hardest on the people left behind. It was not like the fortune teller had a better glass sphere set for us. 50% of all newly ops die during the first year of service – we knew the statistics.

Most of the passengers in my compartment were loud and pumped up. Yeah – they thought themselves the badest mofos ever seen. Even the stormers who had been selected for service on Mort were with it; probably trying to fit in. Find a place in a world owned by humans – I´m glad I´m born the old fashion way

(…)

We had agreed to meet at the parking space infront of Slayer´s Crib at 8am. Our first BPN and one of the others, Jim something buisness package, weren´t even there. The other two, a wraith Investigator named Insight, and Apnea, kick murder frother, were clearly agitated. I tried to calm them down – you can´t judge another person for one wrong, especially if that´s all you know of them.

(…)

Four hours later in the Crib. That guy Jim finally showed up and then went missing again. Can´t be that long queue at the vending machine, but anyway, he resurfaced before we finally hit the front desk. Could hear my farthers voice ring loud and cler in my head: “Put on the game-face! It´s 3-5 hours culminating in about 2 min. Don´t fuck it up!”. It was everything as bad as in the stories. A sickingly obese man sits in the booth. He scratches his cheek as I approach – something looking like plaster falling off from the sore. His odour nauseating, this must be the latter part of his 12 hour shift. I smile at him, when I hand over our squard number. He takes a look over our dossier and grins with malicious surprise: “Boy, who did you fuck over?!”. He gets out of his chair to have a look at us, his sheer size now really obvious: “I´ve seen DarkNight with better referrals than you bitches”. As he sits back down again, he takes time to place his belly onto the table. I resist the immidiate urge to tell him that I´ve seen carnavirous pigs who were more fuckable than him, and instead reply with a boring: “Uh, I don´t know. Hopefully a typo”. As he rolls over the floor to the printing machine I can hear the crackling of old candy paper littering the floor. “Ok, take this one. Protect warehouse in downtown sector 613 from 10 pm – 8am. It´s the best I got”. Surprisingly I believe him. I must have landed in the most crappy squad in Mort.

(…)

We agreed to meet at the nearest Shiver station around 8pm. Two whole hours should be enough as a buffer for any unexpected delays on the gauss trains. Still at 8 am that guy Jim hasn´t showed up yet – I guess I´ve found the reason why our dossier seems to be written in faeces. But what can I say. I try to reason with Insight and Apnea, who sound like they are ready to make a soup tareen of his ass. This is why we planned with the buffer, so I guess we can´t allow ourselves to be mad at him for using it. The shivers starts to make a parade. Obviously. They drag around every whore, scumbag, and ganger infront of us – it´s like a social gatherring. “They might as well distribute our family photo. Im gonna make them stop this charade” mutter Insight as he raises him self from the chair. I grab his arm as he passes me: “There´s no need, buddy. They are fully aware of what they are doing. Telling them isn´t going to help dip shit. They wan´t every gung-hoo out there taking shots at us, ´cause they are probably getting a cut. Try calling Jim instead”.

“Uh…Im on my way. It´s just. The train…I´ll meet you out at the warehouse”. Insight turns off the loudspeaker and closes his cellphone again: “What an idiot”.

(…)

The warehouse is beneath a structual pillar, meaning that the rain is somewhat less, but still pouring down heavily in some areas where the drainpipes have corroded. It´s perhaps 2000 * 500m and 10-13 stories high. I got no fucking idea what they are keeping in there, because everything seems to be abandoned inside. It sits like a giant rock in the middle of this industrial area – quite fortified, with pressurized doors and absolutely no windows. We meet up with the squad who´s shift just ended. They look nothing like us. 9 guys. Heavily armed and protected. Why the hell weren´t they given the night shift? One of them gives me a quick walkthrough. A plastic shed in the middle of the parking lot. Press the button every half an hour or fail the BPN. “Sleep tight, wankers!” says one of them as they leave – probably the guy who left the present in the shelter, a green stinking turd.

If we are gonna press the report pannel in due time, we´ll have to split up. I go with Insight. On our second lap Insight notices a trip wire in the distance. We proceed with caution. Suddenly the fence surrounding the yard blows up, making a 7m wide opening about 400m from our current position. I drop down, flat on my stomach. “We got a breach” says Insight on the com, actually sounding quite excited. I check out the hole with my scope, though all the crap and waste from the drain that litter the concrete makes it almost impossible. Most of the light poles has long since been ran over or shot. I really miss the Power reaper I used to train with on Orange – but the starting alootment only left me with a Fen AR and a Paperback armour. Eventhough nothing has showed up yet, we know it. We are in over our heads. I popped a UV as our shift started, but still the fear kinda gets to me, or at least the anticipation of what the fuck is going to peep out though that hole. Then they come. About 12 armed men. A can´t see what they are sporting – but it sure as hell isn´t CAF. 4 of them move in to secure the area. I think they got us spotted but still they don´t make the shot. The rest starts to move in, heads down – these guys got more combat training than they learned at the school yard, that´s for sure. From what I can make out, some of them are carring something between them. Something heavy. I let loose. Trying to put down surpressive fire to stall them, but at this range my AR has the same chances to hit as to spontaneously start brewing coffee out the butt. My buddy also opens fire. Standing up, spraying with both his 603´s. They must have been in a funny mood on Polo when they named that guy. The enemy makes it to the building and arm their oversized lunchbox, then retreat, still no shots fired from their side. I stand up, lowering my gun. I can´t stop them, can´t disarm their bomb, and Apnea and Jim are still 4min away. Helplessly I watch as the bomb tears a huge hole in the armed concrete and my very first BPN fails. Utterly fails.

Then again nothing. The enemy runs through the fence and away. It´s all quiet. I wait for the sniper shot to hit me, but it never comes. Insight rushes ahead, and climbs into to hole to secure it from the inside – that wraith really hasn´t figured this one out. What the hell, I might as well join him. I call up the shivers as I go: “we´ll be there in 2 min”. Yeah right – a shiver wouldn´t even have that response time if his shoes were on fire. Im stoked as they call me up again about 1min later saying that they would like someone to let them through the gate down by the shed. A Shiver APC rolls in from the hole in the fence; 12 shivers rush out to secure the area and to have a look at us. “Are you all right sir?”, says their captain to me. I stand up and brush off the grime from my armour. All confused I nod at him. This gotta be the most exemplary shiver unit ever seen. Everything by the book. Still they only got their Brow beaters. Astoundingly. The fairy-tale squad, and still they won´t do any good unless they outnumbered the enemy by 5 to 1 and were standing on their toes. Then it comes. Suddenly they all turn their guns at us. “Please put down your weapon, sir”.

(…)

12 hours of questioning by Shiver IA. 40c + ammo and drugs expences down. SCL 11.9 – biggest laughing stock in the Pit. I might as well have gone to Dante. Yeah Fucking A! love being a SLA opperative.