“That’s right. This has to be the biggest and most successful raid on the Underground factions since the founding of the Mega-city Neo-Tokeyo,” said Kommy.
As their armored vehicle shot down the main streets and headed to their destination to try and intercept the target, Arron and the others watched the news to see how well the other raids were fairing.
On the projected holo-tv screen there were over 20 smaller screens each showing the view from one of the news drones that had followed each M1 team to their main targets.
“Ah! Look there,” said Fela pointing at one of the small screens. With just a tap, one of the small boxes was enlarged and took up most of the screen.
A reporter on the scene squeezed her way through the crowd and managed to get right in front of the three people, one female and two men who were being led out of the building in mag-cuffs. The female and one of the men were both half-naked as they were being led through the crowd.
“Party member Stooni. Why is M1 escorting you out of this building? Who are your friends next to you?”
“No comment!” said the stony-faced and half-naked party member.
The reporter kept pace with the three mag-cuffed troubled suspects while turning to the hovering news drones and spoke in a loud voice for all to hear, “This is Stooni, a party member under Mother. He is married, and the woman next to him is not his wife!”
Arron muted the news as they started to gossip about the party members’ relationships. Everyone just paid attention to the smaller boxes of the other teams. Most of them had already captured their target. There were still some in shootouts with their target and the news drones were happy to show them live on air.
“This is so messed up!” grumbled Kix, “We spent so much time undercover with not even one slip-up or anyone finding out about our operation, but as soon as the order was given to take down the targets, the news showed up at each of the raids.”
Ping!
Captain Pointer’s face appeared in front of Arron as the call was automatically accepted.
“Kix, Arron! Your patrol APC and hover-cycle are waiting for you at the previous coordinates! Most of the teams are too far away to help so I need you to use them to help block off any additional escape routes and intercept anyone trying to reinforce the main target!” said Captain Pointer who looked to have recovered slightly after getting field treatment for his wounds.
“Understood!” said both Kix and Arron before Captain Pointer ended the call.
When the armored vehicle halted for a second Arron and Kix both hopped out and then slammed the door shut. It did not stay still for long as it shot off to new coordinates to try and intercept the main target from a different direction.
Arron rushed over to the waiting Hover-cycle hopping onto it and started going through the startup process while Kix jumped into the APC.
When both vehicles were running they plugged in the coordinates of the fleeing target and shot off down the street headed towards one of the main highways of Sector 1.
The sirens on both vehicles blared out and echoed all around them as they traveled at a high speed down the streets. The auto-driving vehicles with civilians all moved slightly to the side allowing them an easier time to weave in and out of the busy traffic.
“The main target has entered onto the main highway and is coming right at you Arron and Kix!” said Captain Pointer over the secure comms.
The main highway of Sector 1 was built high above the smaller streets below and had over ten lanes that were always packed full of fast-moving hover-vehicles of all types as they were trying to get to one place or another.
With the increased traffic Kix was lagging behind as the automated vehicles took a few seconds to adjust their position to allow the APC to pass through.
Arron had no problems with the increased traffic and did not slow down as he continued to weave his way through the parting vehicles at a high speed where everything passed by him so quickly.
If viewed from above, the vehicles moving to the side for Arron would look like an arrow parting through a large wave of water.
As Arron looked at the floating holographic map with a blinking dot that represented the target he saw that it was now blinking faster and faster as it was approaching him.
Arron unholstered his service weapon with one hand while still holding the hover-cycle’s throttle to the max.
“I have the target in sight! Do I have permission to engage?” said Arron over the secure-comms.
“Affirmative! Stop them at all costs! If it is not possible then try to lead them to the checkpoint that has been set up!”
A speeding gray armored vehicle was driving in the middle oncoming lane in between two large hover-semi’s as it tried to hide from those chasing it.
As the distance between them closed Arron slowed down as he took aim and opened fire.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The bullets slammed into the vehicle’s armored windshield only leaving small indents. The gray armored vehicle immediately pushed the brakes and slowed down until it was hiding behind one of the semis blocking Arron’s aim.
Arron activated a constant repeating command that ordered all vehicles in the area to stop.
As he shot down the highway towards the gray vehicle there were only three vehicles that continued to move!
The two large semis plowed through the stationary vehicles sending several cars careening to the side and crashing into others. The semis did not stop as more and more overturned and crushed vehicles began to pile up in their wake. There were even a few that had been pushed off of the highway!
Several of the damaged hovercars burst into flames burning alive those who were inside.
The two Semis had changed course and were headed right towards Arron due to the large open path behind him that had been cleared to allow him and Kix to reach the target faster.
They were quickly closing in and were trying to squeeze into the tight spot while blocking the path to protect the gray armored vehicle behind it.
Arron had only a few seconds to make a decision on what to do as the semis rushed toward him.
He holstered his weapon and grabbed the handles revving the engine speed to its maximum and shot forward right between the two large semis.
Bam!
Just as he shot out from between them, they slammed into each other trying to crush him.
Arron used his brakes to slow down and did a sharp U-turn as he skidded over a hundred feet, nearly crashing into a few of the wrecked cars.
In the distance, he could now hear Captain Pointer’s sirens fast approaching as it made its way through the carnage. He did not let this distract him as he revved the hover-cycle to the max and shot off after the armored gray vehicle that was right behind the two semis which were now plowing through the small path that had been opened.
“Kix, two semis are coming your way!”
“Go it! I already got permission to set up the countermeasures!”
Arron’s speed was far faster than the semi’s and he was able to pull up right beside the gray vehicle.
He slammed his fist on the car several times to distract the occupants from his discrete actions of placing a more advanced tracker on the vehicle. This tracker also had the ability to try and pierce the vehicle firewall so that he could take control of its command system.
“Occupants inside the gray vehicle! By order of Mother and Father you are to pull over now!” shouted Arron using his helmet’s external loudspeakers.
He knew this was useless but if he didn’t try commanding them like this then the Office of Reason and the news would complain that he was a thrill-seeking junkie and was just messing around with his gun and not taking his job seriously.
The gray vehicle’s window opened slightly only enough for an arm to reach out and throw a flaming Molotov cocktail at Arron!
Fwoosh!
The Molotov cocktail crashed into the ground in front of the hover-cycle which flew right through the exploding fireball unable to dodge in time.
Arron’s control of the hover-cycle loosened and he nearly fishtailed out of control from his knee-jerk reaction to the fireball that washed over the lower half of his armored body for a brief second as he shot through the exploding Molotov cocktail.
It was only through sheer willpower that he managed to hold back his fear of the fire and straighten his hover-cycle.
As he sped back up and trailed behind the gray armored vehicle he took out his service weapon and opened fire trying to hit the sensitive parts underneath to disable it.
On both sides of the car, arms reached out holding guns that returned fire causing Arron to weave erratically left and right out of their view.
“I see you! Activating countermeasures!” said Kix.
A small square barrier rose out of the highway and stopped when it reached waist height.
The speeding semis were unable to stop in time and slammed into the barrier. The lower half of the semis was smashed and shredded while the upper half continued forward over the barrier carried by the remaining momentum before skidding to a stop.
The gray armored vehicle which had been lagging behind the semis and shooting at Arron swerved to the side dodging the barrier and…
…flew right off the highway landing on the street far below.
Arron grit his teeth and followed right behind it, not slowing down.
As he shot into the air he fell over 5 stories before nearly pancaking into the street below, he was only saved by his hover-cycles hovering mechanics groaning loudly as it strained to keep him from crashing.
The rear of the hover-cycle scraped against the ground sending large sparks trailing behind it before regaining altitude above the road. If he were to try something like this with a civilian Hover-cycle he would have definitely been heavily wounded or dead.
The gray armored car was once again speeding away. It looked horrible as it had lost large chunks of its body from the crash which now littered the street.
As Arron sped up to chase after the fleeing targets he saw that on every side of the road they were on, the round road barricades had been activated leaving only one path on the road they were speeding down.
The gray car noticed this as well and decided to go even faster to try and ram their way through the hastily erected checkpoint that was most likely at the end of the road.
High above the roar a large hover-copter shot past Arron and the speeding gray vehicle. It was carrying several M1 officers in exoskeletons and its speed was far faster and quickly disappeared from sight.
After a few minutes of wild chasing down the street, they rounded a corner and saw at the end of the street the checkpoint that had been set up.
The occupants of the car had given up shooting at Arron and started to shoot at the gathered exoskeleton M1 officers that had just been dropped off by the hover-copter a few minutes before.
As they were trying to capture the main target alive they had set up less-than-lethal roadblock measures to stop the car. Using both their APCs and a type of metal strip net that could capture the speeding car. Of course, the net was still in its testing phase…
CRASH!
The front of the gray car was totaled as it tried to ram its way through the APC’s and the metal net that shot up around it.
Arron slowed down as he saw the crumpled wreckage tangled up in the metal net.
“The main target has been stopped!” shouted someone over the secure comms.
BAM!
One of the armored doors was kicked into the air and a black exoskeleton exited the car and Rushed at the gathered M1 officers who were not wearing exoskeletons.
They were forced to open fire with their small arms but the bullets did little damage as the exoskeleton rushed forward with its arms held up as shields.
Before it could reach the soft armored officers hiding behind their APCs the M1 exoskeletons intercepted it by grabbing it and slamming the black exoskeleton into the ground.
The target’s last-ditch attempt at escaping had utterly failed but he still fought until he had no energy to fight.
The exoskeletons wrestled for over a minute before being able to pin the black exoskeleton to the ground and tear off the exoskeleton face-mask revealing that it was indeed the ‘Old man’ of the Ryu family.
“The target has been secured,” said Knox, who was one of the exoskeletons holding down the target.
“Great work everyone. The Office of Reason will be sending someone over to pick him up shortly! Now that the hard part has been taken care of, you just need to keep him safe until then!” said Captain Pointer.
