Raptor went first, then Valerie.
Jessica positioned herself on the edge of the deck for a better view, then peered through the smoke using thermal vision.
"Floor 75 comes with several unknowns!" she said. "The level below that is empty!"
"You can see what's going on?" said Shannon.
"I can."
Pisces' airship began patrolling the exterior. It circled the squads' advance every step of the way, while carnage of varied degrees echoed from within.
When Raptor, Valerie, and the team touched boots to the surface, Jess committed their thermal impressions to memory. Their wobbling forms quickly stomped to the other end of the floor, across blown office space, training rifles around every corner. A single unknown humanoid remained, and as the team advanced closer, the individual raised a handgun. Raptor fired a single shot that dispatched the unknown quantity.
"75 clear," he said into the mic.
Blood had been spilled. Instead of dwelling, Jessica upturned from the gunfire to Beelz's team on the 80th floor, adjusting the X-ray sensor until she noticed something else. "There are multiple Azareans on 77," she said. "I think they're expecting you, Raptor."
"Copy, Lynx. Raider 5!"
A breath of turbulence, then a gunship hovered into her 2:00 field of view. Its silhouette froze before its hull-mounted minigun ignited a blue flame and a deafeningly loud volley. Flinching, Jessica watched the Azareans on 77 get torn to pieces.
When the volley ended, Raptor and his team diligently proceeded up the stairs, while an airship reinforced the room with another squad through shattered windows.
Two souls managed to survive the airship, their bright yellow outlines cowering on the floor. Jessica pressed her microphone and spoke fast. "You've got two people who I think are non-combatants, Raptor."
"All the corpses belong to Goliath internal security," he replied, angling over the dead. Further inward, he reached the cowering people Jessica mentioned. "Two civilians. Standby..."
The lights powered on. Their return cranked Jessica's nerves into overdrive as a rotating turret lowered from the center of the ceiling and set its sights on Raptor's group. She blinked.
"Geddown!"
Raptor and his people dove for cover, but two were immediately carved by a barrage whose lethal cadence matched a bell chime swooning a thousand miles an hour.
"We're pinned down!" Raptor cried.
In the middle of the chaos, Jessica activated the Vambrace. "Target that turret, Babel!" She pressed herself against the rear of the cabin to compensate for the airship's motion.
"I've locked onto its targeting parameters," Babel said.
Jessica tapped a few final keys. "Shut down!"
The horrifying noise ended. Jessica found her feet, took a position beside Shannon, and surveyed the building. Several seconds passed before the dust settled and Pisces peeked to at the remains. Raptor crouched over his subordinates, checking their pulses out of mere habit.
Jessica couldn't stop drumming her foot. "Val—"
"Checking the room now," Valerie cut off. She emptied her gun clip into the ceiling turret and watched it collapse into scrap. "You should be able to come down now."
"Right."
Fingers clasped, Shannon prayed in silence.
"Get ready," said the pilot. A soaring screech then skipped across the sky and collided into the back of the airship. Fast and fierce, the world spun. The pilot lost control.
"We've been hit! Mayday, mayday!"
Jessica and Shannon clung for dear life. A swirl of scenery passed outside the cabin, and turbulence squeezed their muscles until they ached. This couldn't be the end.
"Land on 75! 75!" Jess cried.
"Hang on!"
In battling physics, the ship beak tipped toward Goliath HQ. In battling the joystick, the pilot eventually rocked and swerved into the 75th floor. Rubble and debris quickly rained every tumble of the way, but Jessica held on even after it hurt.
"Raider 1! Raider 1! What's your status?"
A resonant hiss resounded in the ears. When everything stopped swirling in a haze, Jessica inched her head above the overturned cabin. She was still alive. Her first concern, Shannon, had already risen from the metal husk, leaning out of the crooked doors to survey the room.
"Everyone okay?" she said.
"Part of me might be," moaned the pilot, trying to lift himself out of the tilted cockpit.
Jessica groaned and dizzily hauled herself out, nearly falling flat when the bottom of her feet hit the ground. Then, rocking, she tip-toed over to Shannon, which was a matter of eluding the glass and the flames. Regaining her senses, she leaned over the dented beak of the airship and helped pull the pilot's arms. His torso then legs eventually slid out of the steel frame.
"Thanks!" he panted.
"Can you walk?" said Shannon.
"I think so."
Eyes firing in every direction, Jessica veered from the pilot and crushed her knees for a second to breathe. "You managed to land without killing us, so we seriously owe you."
"Consider us even when you're done with this place."
"Jess!" Down the stairwell stepped a lean operative. The open visor revealed Valerie. She canted from a frown to relief. "Are you guys alright?"
Jessica glanced at the ceiling, mind on the battle above and the surprises lying in wait. Then she lowered to Shannon, who was sweaty and clearly rattled. "You okay here?"
"I'm alright. Why?" she replied.
"Whatever shot us down came from above." Jessica jogged across the room. "We can't afford to slow down." As she scurried up the stairs, Valerie nearly stumbled in watching her back.
Glass and splintered laboratory space littered their surroundings, the resinous scent of smoke proliferating the 77th floor. Raptor stood in the middle of it, over the sparks of the turret heap. Nearby, a stranger in a white lab coat was cowering in his broken nook, the subject of Raptor's interrogation. Alongside the lab coat stood a calm stranger in a blue jumpsuit. The scientist slipped peeks at the black pillar just left of him, a cylindrical block somehow left undamaged by the chaos.
"What's inside?" said Raptor.
The scientist hesitated, so Raptor looked to the mustached Janitor whose jaded frown disguised any sign of trauma. "I wipe the floors," he gruffly complained, "and I'm quitting after today. Someone else cleans whatever's inside that." That's when a Pisces operative stepped closer, ready to snap.
"The lieutenant's talking to you, Azarean lapdog!"
"Getting him excited is zero percent effective!" Jessica retorted. "We need answers, not some scientist dude quaking in his boots." Raptor glanced at them both before he fixed on his subordinate.
"Keep an eye out."
As the operative begrudgingly started patrol, Jessica crouched beside the scared scientist. "I need you to assist with a few security protocols before a bunch of innocent people become victims," she said. "I know about Goliath's secrets – Biogenetics, Artificial Synthesis, and Mutant Biopsy are just a few. There's no accounting for the sum of their weirdness, so do any of my mentions relate to whatever the hell's inside those black walls?"
The scientist, slowing his breath, nodded. "I'm a biologist," he muttered. "I study terrestrial fungi and bacteria then extrapolate their viral potential. We synthesize certain values from our experiments that, in scarce circumstances, lead to weaponization."
"English would make this go a lot faster," said Raptor.
Jessica leered over her shoulder. "Goliath is studying biological warfare."
"It is not predetermined!" the scientist defended. "Inside that safe room, you will find canisters to unique depressants and hallucinogens. A unique batch. We wouldn't house biochemical agents in the city."
"That's... good to hear?"
"They're still worth looking into," said Raptor. "Can we get in?"
"These were synthesized for Azarean subjects," the scientist hesitated. "But if you insist—"
"I insist."
ns 15.158.61.20da2
