2078: Highriders - Chapter 11

We let our Sandevistans lapse and reduced the relative speed of our cyberspace back to normal meatspace, returning our perceptions to human standard.

“Who are you, Earthers?” asked an Eclipse, the presumed leader of the party stepped forward to gather our attention.

I almost laughed, it was a neat trick. The actual one who had spoken was to my left, bouncing his radio signal among his fellows before it reached us. My head tilted slightly towards the bait offering, showing to them that I had made the assumption they wanted me to make. In one glance, I scanned all of them, feeding their body profiles and proportions into my database. Hopefully, Gakulu would have a database of his own to make potential matches. Who knew there’d come a day where I missed the ol’ NCPD database. The highriders undoubtedly had their own version, but their police force assuredly did not subcontract to Edgerunners. It was more likely that even the highrider database didn’t have a full listing of elusive workgroups like the Eclipse, who could have members born to it that wouldn’t even see Tycho city before they were full adults.

Johnny and I had made sure our own weapons stayed down as we landed, no need to trigger this off earlier than it had to be.

“The name’s V, next to me is Hollow.”

“Understand this, V, Hollow,” said the leader. “The only reason you aren’t sucking vacuum through new holes in your suit, is because you did us a favor in getting rid of those umdaka-nuka (dirt sniffers) who were going into our territory.”

“Kufuneka sibabulale kwaye sithathe izixhobo zabo,” (We should just kill them and take their gear.) said another Eclipse to our right. Our translation soft kept up nicely, though it was making some educated guesses as this workgroup was isolated for long enough to develop some of their own vernacular and spin on the general highrider language.

“Yes, let’s anger the most powerful Starjack tribe there is,” said a female Eclipse sarcastically, one of four amongst the ambushers. “I’m sure that orbit will go smooth the next time we have to trade with them.”

“So you know who we work for?” I asked, letting some surprise color my tone.

“We do, it seems old Gakulu is up to his usual tricks. And no, Earther, I will not tell you how we know,” said the presumed leader.

“Siyamxola Gakulu, siyi-Eclipse. Sihlala sisindile. Sibathatha!” (“Screw Gakulu, we are Eclipse. We have always survived. We take them!”)

“Nahola, I have spoken,” said the leader to the belligerent one. The various Eclipse around us grew tense in their postures and I could see their body heat begin to spike in anticipation. The actual leader stepped out of the circle surrounding us and pointed to Nahola. “Are you challenging me?”

“They have taken from the tribe, Yawa. What was on the umdaka-nuka, who trespassed on our territory, all their lives and equipment are forfeit to us, by our laws,” said Nahola, gesturing with his left hand in agitation, his right hand straining hard on the handle of his railgun.

“We will gain good salvage from the umdaka, the remains of the linear frame alone will be worth more than the workgroup could make in half a year,” Yawa argued passionately, taking his hands off his own rifle and opened his palms towards his interlocutor in an imploring gesture. I could see the subtle potential for violence in that stance.

“We kill these two, we will get all that and more. They also trespassed. You are not upholding our laws, Yawa. If you refuse-”

“Our workgroup’s laws are not inflexible barriers, it’s at my discretion, especially when dealing with all outsiders.”

“I invoke-”

The discharge from the pistol at Yawa’s hip was impressively fast, to a degree that showed that he definitely had a reflex bioware.

Nahola stood absolutely still for a moment, his hand coming to clutch at his neck, but his legs were already crumpling in, unable to hold his weight up, as he fell slowly to the regolith.

The blood leaking directly into vacuum began instantly boiling, before the inherent cold flash froze it into a fine crystalline mist that pushed out with every beat of the dying man’s heart.   

I saw his suit instantly try to seal the breach smartly with a hardening fluid layer, but the damage to the spine was catastrophic.

He didn’t even twitch, utterly paralyzed and struggling to breathe.

I looked around as Nahola’s fellow Eclipse members didn’t move a muscle to help their dying tribemate.

What sort of cultural shit I had just witnessed I couldn’t even begin to guess. If any nomad on Earth had challenged their family’s leader in such a way, in most cases, it would be settled non-lethally, with varying ways - a wrestling match, a target shootout or even something as civilized as an on-the-spot election, such as what the Aldecaldos generally did. The harshness of survival on Luna seemingly brought an entirely different set of priorities in the people living on it.

Yawa holstered his pistol and looked around at his fellows, talking to them on a different frequency for nearly three minutes.

I don’t know what he was saying, either pleading the case for his actions or just giving a speech or perhaps inviting anyone else to challenge his leadership. There were seemingly no takers and with a gesture from him, two Eclipse members grabbed their deceased tribemate and jumped down the nearby crater with the body.

“Now that that problem is behind us, I take it you’re mercs?”

“Correct,” I said, falling into the familiar cold mindset.

“Interesting that Gakulu would be hiring Earth mercs, when he has more than enough homegrown talent that could do the job or perhaps it's just that he needs the deniability for some reason.” We naturally didn’t respond to the obvious bait. We could hear the grin in Yawa’s voice, “Good to see he went with true professionals. Now, whilst I am going to let you go about your way. I am going to insist that you do a simple delivery job for me in return. Nahola was arrogant and spoiling for the fight you took, which was why he was so insistent on killing you. However, he was technically correct and so I need to extract some concessions from you.”

I gave Johnny a look.

‘Careful V, guys like this. It’s like dealing with the Raffen.’

While I doubt that the Eclipse workgroup would appreciate being compared to nomad criminal outcasts who lived outside the bounds of even that loose society, they had a seemingly similar level of extreme disregard for life. If they could invoke duels to death for leadership so quickly and with little fanfare or preparation.

“What do you need delivered and where?” I asked.

“Nothing strenuous, a shard and coordinates for the delivery will be written on it.” He reached into a pocket of his harness and held out the shard in question.

I carefully let my SMG dangle from my chest rig and made a single slight hop forward, holding out my hand.

Yawa put the shard into my palm and immediately closed my hand around it, not letting me see the coordinates.

“You do this properly, V, Hollow, then consider yourselves having the right of passage through any Eclipse territory and conduct operations within it, as long as you agree to a 50/50 loot split.”

“Your territory is not exactly drawn on a map,” I retorted, rightly questioning the value of what he was offering. Sure, he was seemingly letting us leave with our lives, but the moon was still a big place, relatively speaking.

“From our point of view, all of Luna belongs to the highriders and Eclipse territory is where our tribe currently rests. Suffice it to say, we are nearby and in the future our paths may cross again if you’re going to keep accepting work here.”

I pulled my hand away from him, “Fine. Deal.”

He nodded and hopped away from me, gesturing high in a circular motion, “Eclipse, siyakhwela!”

They immediately began a general retreat, hopping in reverse, not turning their backs to us. One group disappeared into the void of the nearby crater, whilst the other quickly crested the nearby hill.

When we were left alone the lunar night, I opened my hand and regarded the shard, briefly flaring the IR illuminator in my suit to get a read on what was written on it.

I snorted in amusement as I quickly referenced the coordinates.

“What is it?” Johnny asked

“The shard is referencing Gakulu’s office on Tycho, precisely.”

“Fuck, more double blind spy shit,” he groused.

“Certainly seems that way, or we’re merely go betweens in a highrider pissing contest.”

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A full Earth day of boring travel later, in which we had to go through the motions in keeping the cover that had been developed for our undercover journey, we were back at last in Tycho City.

Gakulu listened to our report, his arms folded and leaning back in his office chair, his eyes mostly staring into the screen on his desk. 

It was displaying an image series and video, mostly taken from our own optics, RALF and satellite imagery of the battle aftermath.

“Nicely done, the both of you,” he eventually declared, tapped a few keys on his computer and my accounts instantly registered the agreed payment plus another 10k eddies. “Consider that a bonus for the impromptu Eclipse job and not opening fire on them off the bat. Most mercs in your position would’ve shot first.”

I nodded, “It helped that the Eclipse actually talked first after springing their ambush. The lead would usually be flying first in any other situation like that.”

“Nevertheless, thank you. I know both your capabilities and you most likely could’ve mowed through them. They might hold themselves apart from the highriders for the most part, but they’re still part of us. Each unnecessary highrider death is a permanent loss that we’re not getting back in number easily.”

“Yet the Eclipse seems to find it very easy to just enter into abrupt death duels,” Johnny commented.

“As you’ve surmised, each workgroup will tend to develop its own subculture. From the Eclipse point of view, they have one less troublesome mouth sucking in air or eating food. Everything Nahola had will be recycled or reused. One of their women will have already received permission for pregnancy.”

Gakulu reached over his desk and palmed the shard from Yawa, before slotting it into a separate air gapped reader. He stared at the multitude of files that sprang forth on his screen.

“He’s your… contact in the Eclipse. Spy is the wrong word because he openly gave us this shard in front of all his men,” I surmised.

“You could say he’s the closest thing to a representative that the Eclipse has with the Confederation. As much as they loathe the idea of our form of governance, they understand its necessity in the face of outside pressure from Earth corps and governments. It’s also to make sure that Eclipse does not go too far off the rails, as that would just invite corpos to start a crackdown and go hunt them down. It’s not ideal communication, slow, but at least it’s there.”

“I guess it’s also lucky that Eclipse was in the area, they’ll do the site sanitation for you and when Arasaka investigates they’ll find only what you want them to.”

Gakulu gave a small lopsided grin, “Yes, lucky indeed. We’ve incidentally confirmed that the SovOil facility has been compromised by Arasaka. In just a few days, the accidents will begin.”

“Good to know, but we don’t need to, Manager Gakulu,” I said, giving him a flinty eyed stare.

“It’s something you’re no doubt going to find out yourself anyway, V. I know you netrunner types.”

“Fair enough,” I admitted with a mild smile. “Any new gigs on the horizon?”

“Always, but these need to simmer a bit first. Take a few days on the town with your well earned eddies or if you’re that eager, by now word of your presence will have made it to many workgroups. You can expect to find customers knocking on your door when they muster up the courage to actually approach.”

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We had barely dropped and settled our gear back in the apartment on Tycho Heights when Johnny decided to fully embrace Gakulu’s suggestion.

“See ya later, V,” he gave a brief wave and headed for the door.

“Don’t go too crazy, okay?” I said insistently, knowing full well what a Johnny bar hopping spree involved.

“Fine, at least there’s no real cars for me to total out here.”

When the front door closed behind him, I whipped into existence a quick custom spy daemon that would keep tabs on him from cyberspace, just in case someone decided to give a drunk Johnny some trouble. I was more worried about the other guys though, as anyone stupid enough to irritate Johnny Silverhand in the current state-of-the-art Edgerunner body he had inherited from me deserved to be educated. The problem was that his current non-existent rep as Hollow was not enough to keep the low level riff-raff at bay and they would try their luck.

On the bright side, that moment was also when a ping came through that Panam had received and read my message.

A quick check of the apartment to secure everything and I flung myself onto my bed and dove into cyberspace.

My avatar instantiated above the datapool and I hovered myself down to the deck chair, my mind already opening a virtual infopane in front of me that was plunging the data link through satellites towards Southern California.

Another stealth ping brought me Panam’s handheld phone location as being just six miles from LA’s northern outskirts.

It also allowed me to see a total of three spy daemons that were just waiting for her phone to pop up back on the grid. Naturally, they were from Arasaka and NetWatch, but I struggled to identify the last one. It was very slippery, hiding quite effectively and it was only when I asked Butcher for a little help that it allowed me to see that it was an FIA daemon.

Now why would Reed and by extension the NUSA be wanting to keep tabs on Panam?

Was she flagged as a person of interest simply because, as a nomad, she’d be more likely to be traversing through NUSA at some point and I’d definitely be contacting her in the future for some reason?

FIA paranoia at its finest.

I killed the two corpo daemons out of hand with no more effort than a gesture of code deletion, but encased the FIA spy bot in an infosphere that would feed it believable bullshit for the duration of my call.

Reed taught his lessons too well. 

“V! Oh, I just knew you’d manage to do it!”

I was treated to a view out of the tiny cam of her phone. Panam Palmer’s big smile was sprinkled with the dust of the desert, her dark smoldering eyes twinkling with eager excitement. Her back was leaning against the door of her Thornton and I could see in the background the beginnings of an Aldecaldos camp taking shape. Dozens of people moving about, unloading supplies, pitching desert rated tents, the trucks unfolding into the mobile structures that held the essential services needed.

“Good to see you too, Panam. How’s the family?”

“Fuck V, you call after all this time and that’s what you ask?”

“Panam, you somewhat know the deep shit I was in. No way I’d ghost my second unofficial family forever.”

While I hadn’t been initiated into the Aldecaldos formally, they still considered me part of their family anyway. The only reason that branch of the greater Aldecaldos still existed as a flourishing, cohesive whole, was due to my intervention in a number of critical situations.

“Good to hear. I can tell you, Mitch and the family are going to throw a party the instant I tell him this good news.”

“Make sure he downs an extra Broski on my behalf,” I laughed with delight, already imagining the kind of celebration it would be. The Aldecaldos generally didn’t do things by half-measures, especially now that Panam and Saul, the original leader of the branch, had joint leadership of the clan.

“I’ll do that. Now where the fuck are you, V? You look like you’re at your mansion sunning yourself in a bikini I wouldn’t wear in a million years.”

I made a quick mental calculation of her position and the current relative phase of the moon. She would perceive it in a waning gibbous phase, which was good enough. “Look up and to your right, about twenty degrees to your north-east.”

I giggled at her cute confused frown as she tried to comply, her head looking up and tilting as she stared into the bright daylight sky. Her eyes widened as realization washed over her.

“Fuck… the moon?!”

“Got it in one. Check your news feeds for the Crystal Palace as well.”

“Let me guess, a gig that made international news?”

“You know me too well, Panam.”

“Girl, you are going places!”

“I suppose I am, but with regard to space and the moon, don’t believe all the marketing hype - it also has a shithole.”

“Like anything, not that it should surprise me and you’re probably dealing with that shit right now.”

“Perils of being an Edgerunner,” I shrugged.

“So, just to confirm, you’re fine? No problems?”

“Perfect health.” It was the best I could say at the moment and it had the virtue of being quite true.

“Fuck yeah-”

The video feed jerked, shuddered and I heard the distortion through the audio pickup in her phone, which suddenly spiked with a sound so intense it could only lead me to one conclusion - a nearby explosion.

For a moment, all I wanted to do was shout ‘Panam!’

I overrode that useless impulse and dialed the cyberspace to meatspace dilation up as high as I dared.

With a thought, I moved through Panam’s phone firewall with no more effort than walking through a wet paper bag.

I started slashing through the onboard bloatware and useless programs that took up precious bandwidth and system resources. My hard won merc and spy instincts coming together to practically scream at me that there was no overkill in this situation and that the Aldecaldos were under attack.

A swipe of my digital hand, with programs shooting out and burrowing into the system architecture, brought me access to the rear mounted camera on her phone.

She was still in the process of reacting to the first explosion, her right hand moving slowly from left to right and the rest of her was instinctively ducking down. It would take her another 1.9 seconds to complete the maneuver and judging by the internal accelerometer readings she was aiming for the cover behind the engine of her Thornton.

Annoyingly, that camera had no view of anything suspicious. Her big armed nomad pickup was parked on the edge of the camp perimeter. A quick algorithm on the explosion soundwave gave a rough estimate that it had originated to the eastern side.

Another swipe and a virtual mesh model of the camp itself appeared to my left, based on the video data.

“I have a possible match on the explosion sonic signature,” Butcher appeared next to me, streaming the data.

“A car mounted Militech smart mortar. Scan for any other data sources or phones in Panam’s vicinity.”

At this point I had basically turned her phone into a remote terminal whose job was to facilitate my access to anything within range and even deliver quickhacks. It’d be laggy as shit, by my own standards, given how many data pipelines I was working through, but it was the best I could do. No way would I let my extended family fight alone when I could do something about it.

“Panam’s own Thornton is the best candidate for gaining tactical intelligence.”

I wanted to kick myself for not doing that already. Her Thornton ‘Warhorse’ was a custom rig with its own mounted turret in the roof with full interface capabilities. I had worked on that soft myself to improve it and even solved the annoying tendency that the turret had to jam.

A quick streamline of her phone resource usage, and I practically waltzed through the Warhorse’s firewall given that I had backdoor access keys.

The turret optics sprang to life and immediately began pulling on the truck battery, since the engine wasn’t running.

I sent the command for the pickup to start its engine, which would take at least four seconds as the images began streaming, zooming in and resolving to finally give me a good look at the direction I wanted.

“Fucking Raffen!” I snarled.

Somehow, nine enemy vehicles had managed to reach mortar range of the Aldecaldos camp, including what looked like nineteen combat drones screaming through the air above the cars.

I knew their procedures and precautions, they always had scout perimeters stretching out for kilometers. Neither Panam or Saul were incompetent gonks when it came to home base security. It meant that either a scout had fucked up royally or there was a traitor, leading the enemy Raffen straight through the outer and inner security perimeters.

These Raffen wore the symbol of a coiling viper on their cars, which were painted in desert camouflage browns and whites. It was in stark contrast to the Wraith gang which had plagued the Badlands around Night City - who didn’t give a shit about being seen coming.

A quick meta search of the symbol and I had everything about the Raffen Dust Vipers at my digital fingertips.

The organized military assault formation I was seeing these vehicles adopt was explained due to the Vipers being led by someone called ‘Cobra’ Reyes, a Militech deserter turned cyberpsycho-adjacent warlord. He was a towering figure at over six and half feet tall with no apparent surgeries done to get him to that height. Otherwise, despite being a Maelstrom wannabe with all the chrome he had within him, he was the typical lead-through-fear type and he kept his gang loyal with the crazy promise that they would someday get a ‘New Eden’ out of the ruined sections of LA.

Butcher tapped my shoulder and had further streamlined our takeover of Panam’s phone for just enough bandwidth throughput that I might as well be standing right next to her. He had also commandeered her Warhorse’s internal computer for more system resources. The issue we’d have to be careful about was our footprint through the various sats we were bouncing the signal through. Too much and we risked tripping the ICE and fighting a war on two fronts. It limited the queue I could push through simultaneously and it meant I might have to chance viral self-propagating hacks, which carried the minor chance it would also hit an Aldecaldo.

Panam had finally reached her cover, her left hand shoving the phone into her jean pocket and her right hand was pulling out her trusty modded DR5 Nova revolver. 

I struggled with the frustration at the glacially slow meatspace speeds relative to my own and pinged Panam’s Agent to give me a direct holo into her optics.

It experienced its own version of a bloody heart attack when it was suddenly confronted with what seemed to be two AI that was knocking politely on the firewall.

The Agent recovered quickly and visualized itself as an ephemeral butler to my eyes, complete with moustache and a prim attitude, “How can I help you?”

“Relax, we’re here to help. Just need a direct line to Panam, please.”

It stared at me and then at Butcher, and despite knowing it would be hopelessly outclassed in a digital slug match, it stood its ground, “I see, you will wait for me to ring the tone.”

“I’m using my holo ring ID, she’ll pick it up,” I rolled my eyes in exasperation.

“We’ll see about that.”

Panam had just about settled into her cover now and my holo ping came into her vision, showing the stylized, ghostly ‘V’ that was composed of thousands of small 1s and 0s.

From the Warhorse’s cams I could see her frowning with indecision before popping up to get a look at what was actually going on and stop acting on instinct.

She finally engaged her own Sandy, ducking behind the hood just in time to avoid a machine gun volley from a Viper car…

 - and picked up the call.

I wanted to shout to the heavens in celebration, About fucking time.

“V? This is not a good-”

She was startled when her own car started up without her.

“That’s me, get in, think of it as me riding shotgun.”

“The fuck, did you just hack my truck through a holocall?!”

“Yes, now get in,” I insisted as I assumed full control of the turret, aimed and fired a triple burst of explosive ammunition that swept four Dust Viper drones from the sky.

It allowed a group of Aldecaldos who had been stuck in the cover of the water truck to run towards their nearby cars. Marking the first signs of defense coming from the nomads.

She blurred with a Sandy speed and it made me wonder just when she decided to get that upgrade. It wasn’t anyone who could just chip that without potentially going loco and her speed told me she at least had a mid-grade.

She shoved the car into gear and went full pedal to metal.

The Warhorse’s engine roared in defiance as it accelerated, spraying rocky gravel and sand behind it.

Four mortars streaked through the air from the rapidly advancing Viper line.

Impact points would be smack in the middle of the ‘Caldo camp and potentially kill many who were still fleeing to grab heavy weaponry or just find cover, which included a number of children.

I titled the turret upward, streaming a salvo into the sky that intercepted every mortar round.

Assault rifle fire and tech snipers began firing from the ‘Caldos aiming for the Viper’s engine bays and any Raffen that dared try to shoot out of their car window.

The first armed ‘Caldo cars were also surging out, their mounted weapons barking weapons fire and smart rockets into the air.

Unfortunately, the smart rockets hit absolutely nothing as they just began spinning uselessly in the air, unable to find target and self-detonating for safety.

That was definitely enemy action.

Cyberspace of the area told the story.

One of the Viper cars or even multiple were packed with jamming ICE and there was even an automated ‘netrunner’ setup, much like what I had used with El’Capitan’s auto heist operations in Night City.

If that wasn’t found and killed soon, the ‘Caldos would begin losing control of their own cars.

“Panam, I need you to open a port in your firewall to let me access your optics.”

She turned the wheel to avoid the large tent that I knew housed the ‘Caldo’s Basilisk tank and support equipment. Now that would’ve been a wonderful asset to introduce the Viper fuckers to, but the thing required too much physical prep time and elbow grease before it would even start its own engines. I could feel its dormant systems operating on standby and battery power only.

“I could begin remote startup procedures V,” suggested Butcher.

“We can’t afford the spare bandwidth.” I pinpointed the two cars that were lit up like the Crystal Palace with EM emissions 

“Done!” she responded and slapped a large button on the dash.

With clear access to her optics, I highlighted the netrunning cars. “Those two need to be gone in twenty seconds or the ‘Caldos will begin losing vehicles to autohacks.”

“Got it!” I felt her opening a radio call to a ‘Caldo frequency. “This is Panam, all fire onto the cars I’m piping through to your links.” She let her Agent do the nitty-gritty work of managing that.

She twisted the wheel, aiming straight for the ‘runner car on the right flank, which was roaring towards us at 200 meter range and closing fast. 

Five armed ‘Caldo cars surged out of the camp alongside us.   

A ‘Caldo sniper scored the first real kill with their SPT Grad - the anti-armor rifle punching straight through the driver side crystal glass and pulping the head of the driver.

The Viper immediately lost control, barreling straight into a nasty bit of terrain, flipping ass over teakettle and crashed ahead of the advancing enemy line.

It would’ve been nice had it pancaked a nearby enemy car, but luck and physics wasn’t on our side.

More mortars were launched, forcing me into intercept duties again.

“Fuck yeah, V! When did your aim get so good? I mean it was always awesome, but you’re acting like a fucking CIWS!”

I let my bikini-clad avatar shrug, “Let’s just say I got a few upgrades on Luna.”

Relative cyber dilation kicked in as I analyzed the enemy netrunner vehicle. It had begun life as a Thornton Colby, then heavily retrofitted with armor, Crystal glass, and forward facing guns, with the rear cargo bed entirely devoted to the auto netrunner gear. Normally, this needed obvious outward antennas that quickly gave the game away, but somehow the Vipers had the technical knowhow to equip a protected military style com array that was blended into the rear facing of the car, protecting it from damage and incoming fire.

This could only be done the hard way then.

I shifted the Warhorse’s turret on target, gave it a slight upward inclination and let loose with a stream of explosive projectiles.

The first few burst and pinged harmlessly off the frontal armor, but the rest tracked perfectly into the marginally exposed right wheel.

A few milliseconds later there was no rubber at all to greet the earth there and the vehicle rims bit hard into the ground, sawing through and bottoming out the vehicle.

Momentum demanded its due and got it.

It flipped and rolled, bouncing hard and stressing the outer body in ways it was never designed for. The internal roll cage did its job though, but the delicate stuff was utterly trashed in the crash.

Panam grinned in triumph, twisting the wheel, bringing a Viper car in line just as the two charging lines of vehicles entered accurate gun range of each other.

“Eat shit!”

Her fingers pushed hard on steering wheel triggers. 

The two internally mounted machine guns popped out from behind the headlights and sprayed fire into a Quadra 66 Viper variant.

Sparks and explosions riddled the forward hood and crawled up the front windshield.

Simultaneously, I triggered the Warhorse’s turret to swat multiple drones out of the sky that had clearly locked on to us as the biggest threat on the battlefield.

The enemy Quadra returned fire as well, its rounds alternately bouncing off and biting into the Warhorse’s armor.

Panam abruptly veered off to prevent a collision from the impromptu game of chicken she’d been playing with the enemy. She may have lost, but I made sure we won, by sending out a burst from the turret directly down into the driver side window.

An outside observer would not have believed that any human controlled turret, even with computer assistance, could make the shot. It was easy for me and the explosive bullets penetrated and turned the driver into chunky salsa as the Warhorse roared past it.

I watched as a ‘Caldo Thornton Galena got totally wasted as a micro-rocket barrage from a Viper Colby slammed into it.

That deserved a response as I hammered through a car hack that badly strained my connection, but it was very satisfying nevertheless watching the fucker explode from a ‘Self Destruct’ CHOOH2 fuel ignition. 

The two lines of opposing forces intermingled, with a second wave of ‘Caldo cars making it into the fray.

Conventional sight was completely gone as cars were kicking up waves of dust and sand into the air as they jockeyed for prime firing positions on each other.

It seemingly didn’t matter to either side as I perceived each ‘Caldo car had a rather crude IFF pinging on another frequency that was being piped into Panam’s optics by her Agent.

Figured that nomads would have a solution for a situation like this.

It was still a mess.

A Viper car tried to ram itself into the right rear of the Warhorse.

Panam’s Sandy, which I noted with no surprise, was actually optimised for combat driving conditions. She twisted on the wheel, using both handbrake and pedal brake to swerve her car out of the way, resulting in the Viper missing the Warhorse by inches.

I pounced on the opportunity, swiveling the turret and hosing down the forward windscreen with explosive rounds from the Militech MK31 HMG.

The screen practically shattered under the assault, becoming shrapnel that turned the remains of the driver and co-driver into more like the results of an industrial blender.

The car continued onward under momentum only and vanished into the choking dust clouds surrounding us.

“Still need to get that last netrunner car, Panam. It’s already managed to hack-”

“Working on it!” She said with gritted teeth, as he twisted her Warhorse to evade another ramming attempt. Taking the opportunity to fire her forward guns into a Viper that had the misfortune to drive into the crosshairs.

The first rounds bounced off or just exploded against the side armor, but did the job for the following rounds to bite into the weakened structure.

She twisted her steering right and rammed the left rear axle of the Raffen, pushing it contemptuously out the way.

It lost all control and clipped something in the uneven terrain that sent it into a crashing roll.

“Got the fucker!”

She threw the Warhorse into a right drift that landed us right on the tail of our target.

In a moment of complete synchronicity, we opened fire together.

Three heavy machine guns belched fire.

Sparks and explosions erupted from the rear of the Viper Colby as round after round wrecked the integral antenna then started biting right into the auto netrunner gear mounted on the back.

It took no more than two seconds of sustained fire to wreck that function, as it vanished from cyberspace.

Panam wasn’t satisfied and surged the Warhorse forward, turning left then right, swiping the left-rear axle of the enemy Colby.

It began an almost artistic, yet uncontrolled flip, landed on its side and was beginning another roll, when our own speed carried us beyond it.

She gave a look through the battlefield of competing cars, regaining her tactical awareness.

“Everyone push in towards 060. Mitch take four and turn left, Cassidy your group go right, we circle the remaining fuckers and cut them off!”

“Roger, Panam!”

“We’ll get’em darlin.”

It was fascinating to watch. I’d always heard that sometimes nomads fought like this, armed car vs armed car in brawls, but it was a rare thing. Simply because their cars were so precious to them and it would only happen in situations where it was home turf defense, ie where survival of the family was on the line.

There were only three Vipers left at this point and they were attempting to retreat.

Panam wanted to make an example and stamp the Aldecaldo’s presence in the regional map.

It took less than thirty seconds afterwards, with coordinated fire and maneuvers to reduce the last Vipers to burning wreckage.

“All right everyone, bring it in,” said the deep voice of Panam’s fellow leader, Saul ‘Old Man’ Bright, “Damage assessment and body count. I’m leading a salvage team. Good work everyone.”

Panam turned the Warhorse around and after a few seconds of top speed parked on the outskirts of the home camp.

The damage seemed fairly cosmetic, with stray bullet holes and the odd fire in a tent that was already being attended to with extinguishers. The only critical thing I could spot was damage to the water tanker, which already had many ‘Caldo’s quickly working to patch the leaks. Even more critical, I spotted a number of people carrying wounded towards the med trailer. Where Doc Hutch Spindler along with a number of other med volunteers were applying triage care.

On a whim I did something I’d been dying to try for a while, given I had been on the receiving end of this for so long, first from Johnny, then Songbird.

With my access to Panam’s optics, I cut off the small holo pane that only showed me in 2D and manifested an image of me virtually sitting in the right passenger seat, wearing the last outfit that Johnny had put together for me.

Panam blinked, briefly startled before realizing what I had done, giving me an appraising look, “Wow, V, life on Luna agrees with you.”

“Thank you,” I smiled, folding my arms, making a show of looking around. 

She laughed with a hint of bitterness, “You always just show up when the shit hits the fan, don’t you?”

“You know I don’t do this on purpose, Panam.”

She sighed wearily, leaning on the steering wheel, her hands twitching slightly - an aftereffect from extensive Sandevistan usage. “Yeah, once again pulling this family’s ass out of the fire. Without you, we wouldn’t have even figured out that those ‘runner cars were out there until it was way too late.”

“Our family,” I corrected her firmly. “I might not have joined you 100%, but I’ll always consider you as such. My situation just doesn’t allow for it and all I can say is that my gig for the NUSA had some dangerous complications that I didn’t want to bring down on the family.”

She nodded in acceptance, “I- We trust you, V, as family should. Even though I still insist we should’ve marched into Arasaka together.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, Panam.”

She gave me another long look, “So is this the real you?”

“If you mean, how I look currently in meatspace? Yes. Just came from my first major gig on Luna, when I received the ping you had read my message.”

“How was it?” she asked eagerly. Reminding me that for all Panam was currently a nomad family leader, she was also a fellow Edgerunner merc at heart.

“Imagine crossing a few hundred miles of awful terrain in a moon rover limited to 25 kph. That’s just to get where you’re going.”

She shuddered at the thought, “Yeah, no thanks.”

Our convo was interrupted when a familiar military grade, artificial hand knocked on the armored glass. Panam was startled again, then lowered the window, “Fuck Mitch, give a girl a chance to recover from Sandy shakes, will you?”

Mitch Anderson hardly looked any different from the last time I saw him, except his hairline had receded even more. To the point where he really should’ve either fixed it or just shaved it all off. His blue eyes gave Panam a critical assessment, “Just checking you’re not hit and bleeding out in here, girl. You also looked like you were talking to thin air. Ghost in your car, Panam?”

“Ah no,” she chuckled. “Though on second thought, you’re actually right.” She pointed at her head. “V is on the line.”

“No shit, are you messing with me?” he laughed with delight.

“Swear it, she’s right here with us. She called just before and helped with the fight. Hacked my optics and is to my eyes, sitting right here.”

It was slightly borderline, considering the limitations I was working under, but I managed to bridge out another connection, ghosting through Mitch’s old firewall - which was military grade, but already solved.

“Fuck!” He jumped when I also appeared to him and waved.

“Hey Mitch.”

He stared incredulously at Panam, “You weren’t kidding. You sure it’s her?”

I manifested an accurate digital replica Scorpion’s Stinger throwing knife in my left hand and more importantly, a unique Action Figure toy that Mitch had given to me when we had both arranged for Scorpion’s faux viking funeral via sending his car along with the body, into a ravine whilst on fire.

My hand twitched the figure to him, “Still have it in my house, on display sealed behind a collection of other memorabilia.”

His face showed his relief, even as he was irritated, “Coulda just called like a normal person, choom. You’re liable to fry my optics doing this trick.”

“Relax Mitch, there’s no more data-”

He held up his hands to stop me, “No need to explain that netrunner crap to me.” He gave me an appreciative nod, “Anyway, it’s good to see you, V. Guess you were the reason the Warhorse did a fair impression of C-Wizz? And why these Raffen assholes got their butt kicked. Carol was screaming at me about those ‘runner cars, but they were gone before I could do anything about it.”

“Guilty as charged,” I shrugged. “Oh, Panam, I kinda bricked your phone in the process of facilitating my virtual presence here. I’ll have a new one delivered to you from LA.”

She waved me off, “Small price to pay. Mitch, how many…”

He sighed heavily, rubbing his face. “So far, Lena, Tomas and Carla are confirmed. Might lose a few more, but Doc Spindler is confident they’ll pull through.”

“Fucking RAFFEN!” Panam raged, slamming the palm of her hand into the steering wheel. “We took every precaution! The Vipers should not have gotten as close as they did.”

Butcher streamed to me a data package that contained everything he had found regarding the Vipers, from a meta-search and a heuristic extrapolation from corpo and government sources he had outright ghost hacked. There was so much, I had to hurriedly initiate a compression algorithm that would allow it through.

“Yeah, Carol is already working on the answer of how. My gut tells me one of our scouts screwed the pooch, got grabbed and they either forced or tortured them for info. Led them straight through, hacked all our remote sensors with those fancy ‘runner cars.”

“Here,” I said, making my finger gun gesture to Panam, uploading Butcher’s intel file on the Vipers.

Her eyes glowed and she let her Agent run a standard malware search, before allowing it to unspool within her own vision.

“V. Did you just… hack the Vipers? Already? You’ve practically given me their home turf on a silver platter already. Routes, strike points, known ambush spots…”

“You know what happens to anyone who harms friends and family with me around,” I said with a dangerous smirk. “With that intel, you have a huge advantage to avoid them and when the time comes, a retaliatory raid on their Palms Springs main camp. I don’t know if I can make it back before you launch that, but if you do, let me know. I’ll knock on the doors of some reliable mercs to back you up - naturally the expense of hiring them will be on me. All else fails, I’ll just do a repeat of today, with proper tech and groundside support.”

Fuck, I’d hire the dedicated sat time and bandwidth from the Highriders, have Rogue refit one of my off-roaders, the Beast, into an netrunner support and deliver it to the Aldecaldos.

Activations in the ICE of one the corpo satellites I was using to daisy chain my connection, let me know that I had finally tripped the suspicions of a security algorithm.

“Listen, I have to cut this connection, I’m not exactly ‘legally’ making use of it.”

Panam reached out instinctively to slap and bump fists with me, only to get thin air for her trouble. “Stupid, yeah, thanks for everything, V. I’ll let everyone know you said ‘hi’ and that you’re back in contact. I think you can expect a call from Carol and the other vets at some point.”

“I’ll look forward to it. Cheers, Mitch.”

“Yeah, yeah, just go already before you get caught and my optics burn out,” he grumbled.

With a small wave I cut the connection.

I pulled a blanket over me, did another security check of the Tycho apartment to satisfy my paranoia, before engaging a sleep cycle for my Gemini.

All of my external awareness shrunk into the datafort and the digital me floated off the deck chair. A wave of my hand materialized a drink of Cenzon tequila that I plucked out of the air.

I raised the glass, “To Lena, Tomas and Carla.”

I hadn’t known them beyond their faces. The Aldecaldos who had come to California numbered in the many hundreds, spread across multiple camps in the extended environs of the Badlands of NC. They had all moved shop to LA and…

Now there were three less and maybe more.

The Raffen Vipers had fucked with the Aldecaldos where it mattered most and I would make sure they went the same route as the Wraith.

Functionally extinct.

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A/N: In the game, I'd always wanted to have an almost Mad Max style mass car duels or battles against the Raffen with the Caldos at your side in their cars as well, kicking ass and taking names,

Hope you enjoyed, have a great weekend and as always, stay awesome folks.