[SR][Tales from the Star]Reign of the Gun (Revised)

[Serious Paul]

The City Master was lit by the faint glow of LEDs and a single display screen set into the wall in front of him, dimly displaying the quiet pulses of the team’s biomonitors and comm “keep-alive” chatter, but with his cybernetically enhanced vision it may as well have been high noon. He mentally switched the data scrolling on the display screen to the Star tactical overlay of the local high-traffic drone images, symbols signifying the progress of the Street Patrol units that were beginning to form a cordon to block the escape of their prey.

Eyeing his people, Adam was as proud as the father of a newborn babe. They were Team One, the most elite Lone Star Security Services Fast Response Team. If the Star was the can that held the garbage, FRT was the lid. Team One was the best at what they did, and tonight they’d prove it once again.

Each of them were dressed nearly identically, head to toe in black, their boots buffed nonreflective, wearing six-pocket fatigues with nomex hoods and gloves, kevlar composite helmets with flip-down face shields and kevlar vests studded with impact plates that could stop a high-powered pistol round dead in its tracks. Emblazoned on the back were those three little letters every gutter punk and scumbag feared: FRT. Their modular load-bearing vests were configured to maximize each team member’s function - grenades; extra magazines and various pieces of equipment were slung across their chests, backs and hips, balanced to allow smooth and silent movement. Each wore a three-way holster with a heavy pistol on their strong-side thigh, and a combat knife on the opposite.

Tiner, to his immediate left, carried a silenced HK227 with all the bells and whistles – second generation smartlink, custom grips, gas vent, custom blued-steel folding stock, a generous extended clip and a sling you needed a buzz-saw to cut. His trigger group was removed, so the weapon could only be controlled cybernetically, and the biometric security system assured that only a member of Team One could fire it at all; anyone else would receive an unpleasant surprise. With six extra clips and a half-dozen flash-bangs, Tiner was the team’s point man. His cybernetically-enhanced reflexes and muscles made the menacing-looking human unbelievably fast - like a chipped mongoose.

Next to Tiner was Hill, the only elf on the team and their physical adept. She was powerfully built, with broad shoulders for a woman, particularly for an elven woman. She carried a Franchi SPAS-22 with a specially-built under-barrel flame-thrower - the Shiawase Blazer. In burst-fire mode, the recoil of the shotgun was truly intimidating, but whereas most people wouldn’t have been able to fire the weapon without a gyromount, Hill used it like a surgeon’s scalpel. Combined with her mystical combat abilities, she was a force of nature. Her broad, still face was illuminated softly by the glow from her headset, a wireless unit gently clamped to her lobe-less ear, extending its monocle over her left eye; it was her lifeline to the team, to their rigger, to their intelligence and tactical data, as well as her own smartlink.

Big Bear sat beside Hill, silent as always. The amerind ork was massive even compared to the muscular elf. Against his broad shoulders he rested the teams’ entry ram, a 50-kilo stainless steel two-handled tube they used to batter down locked doors. Next to him, pointed muzzle-down, was his Ares Alpha Combat Gun; Bear’s cybernetically replaced arms and specially braced torso let him wield the weapon like a child’s toy. It, too, was matte black, from the short tube of the grenade launcher to the skeletal titanium stock.

Across from Bear was Miller, their mage. She was the least conventional them all, her helmet decorated with various sigils and her LBV dotted with fetishes, seemingly harmless trinkets that were actually tools of power. Slung across her back were a matching sword and hammer set. A Wushu 9-Ring Broad sword, and a small matching war hammer, both with ornate black grips. These archaic weapons were weapon foci, imbued with mystical energies that allowed the sword to cut through the strongest metals, the hammer to smash even the strongest ferrocrete into gravel.

Miller was joking with Ash, whose silenced HK227 tricked out almost identically to Tiner’s. Ash was the poster boy for Lone Star recruiters everywhere, tall, broad-shouldered, with chiseled features and an easygoing demeanor that played off his good looks. Adam knew that Ash was perhaps one of the best shooters to wear a uniform, and the man had been through drek and back- Ash was the senior man on the team next to him.

Cruz sat next to Ash, his muffled voice somber as he prayed. Cruz was a Catholic, and often acted as the team’s moral code - he’d stopped some serious drek from happening just by being there. He was a calm man under fire, and one who was willing and able to deescalate a bad situation before it got worse. His fully automatic M3 “Jack Hammer” combat shotgun cleared up any doubts about where his loyalties lay.

The final member of their breach team was Anderson, the stocky hobgoblin whose thick forearms were covered in scars and whose green eyes saw everything. Anderson had been vice before he’d come to FRT, and he had a reputation as one chilly character; if the rumors were to be believed, he was crazier than a chipped devil rat, and more dangerous, too. His heavily modified Colt M23C3 utilized the .300 Whisper Cartridge, which combined with his specially-modified silencer earned him the nickname “Butterfly” on the team.

Sandy was behind the “wheel” of their modified City Master. A rigger, Sandy didn’t need to use the redundant secondary controls that were there for the rest of the team to use just in case - a situation Adam didn’t want to even think about. Sandy was dressed in black fatigues, but her armor was the huge machine they were nestled deep inside, her mind directly linked to it through a jack on the lower right side of her head, just behind her ear. She could control every function of the vehicle with a thought, like moving her own body, making her an invaluable asset to the team. Her drones doubled their firepower: with a simple command she could shift the balance of event the worst firefight.

Adam had absolute confidence in every single one of them; they were world-class operators, on top of their game. Highly trained, impossibly deadly, absolutely professional. Sometimes, he had his doubts about Anderson, but some people needed emotional distance. Anyway, the Sargeant would come to him the instant he felt his performance was degrading in any way; no one stayed in FRT forever. No one could.

He brought the mission profile to the fore of his vision, transparent sheets of information hovering as if suspended at arm’s length. He rolled his eyes behind their magnetically attached covers; a gang of Russian werewolves? “Don’t get hairier than that,” he mumbled.

“What’d you say. Ell Tee?”

Anderson’s question shook him out of his reverie, and he smiled briefly. “ I was just thinking of a bad pun Sarge. A bad pun about Russians, dogs and werewolves.”

Anderson nodded as if this somehow made sense, his Zeiss eyes glowing their cold shade of green, and said quietly, “Five minutes out: should we review the plan again, sir?”

Anderson was always so formal; he wondered what the guerillas at Vice would have thought? Vice cops had a reputation as being loose with the rules and informal at best when dealing with supervision, belligerent at worst. Anderson was none of those. He was always reserved; quiet and soft spoken-he carried himself with a stiff air of formality. “All right Sargent, bring up the display.” As Anderson tapped the keys on the small pad he produced from a pocket, Adam Gordon cleared his throat. “Listen up people.”

“We’re going to go over it one more time.” He ignored the feigned groans of protest and continued. “Street Patrol units stumbled into an OC bust, Vory v Zakone and a werewolf go-gang, an arms deal-and things went south fast. We have two officers down, and another three wounded pretty badly. There are least two more units currently on scene, screaming for back up. SWAT is tied down with the Turner Building fiasco,” he only grinned as a few softly spoken curses were spat out questioning the lineage of various SWAT officers-the rivalry between SWAT and FRT was deeply seated, and in his opinion generally SWAT’s own fault. “So we’re it people.”

“ We have Street patrol people sealing off streets in the five square blocks around our target zone. They’ll set up as we roll into the target area, hopefully cutting off any escape and evasion routes. We have Air Patrol back up enroute, but their ETA is at least three to five minutes after we hit the target's front door. The target zone is a large ware house.” As he spoke Anderson pulled up an image they’d managed to snag while loading up from the public grid, from all things a Real Estate brochure. The property, which was apparently for rent-of course after they were done it wasn’t likely that anyone would want what was left.

“From these enhanced images, and with what we’re getting from units on scene the bad guys are here.” He pointed at the central portion of the warehouse, marked in red on the screen; “It’s a large loading dock area-about fifty meters wide by a hundred in length, at least ten meters in height. Units on the scene say there are least twenty bad guys, maybe more. They’re armed with high powered assault rifles and at least one grenade launcher.” He paused to let them take it all in one more time. They were professionals and none showed the fear anyone would be experiencing in a situation like this. Twenty armed gangsters-especially Russians-was no easy task, even for them.

“Unfortunately at least five seem be werewolves, or maybe shape shifters-we’re not sure. There wasn’t anyone available from the Dip’s to make a fly by in astral so were going in blind.” That’s why he’d had his people load every third round a silver bullet. The Captain had screamed bloody blue murder about the expense, but he didn’t care. “ We’ll hit the north side of the building, here.” The screen flashed a 2D picture of a side door, large enough for the average Ork to enter comfortably. “Heat signatures place them opposite of this room, in the central warehouse. Through this door according to what we can get, there is a ten-meter hallway with some adjoining offices. We’ll sweep the area quietly, and then take the target down.” That was code for they’d make it up as they went along. “Any questions people?”

The team was silent, everyone was quietly confident of his or her role in the upcoming street war.

As the City Master cleared the last rally point they crossed into Forward Edge of the Battle Area, and everyone had their game faces on. “Lock and load people.” Almost as one he heard bolts racked as they chambered that first round and thumbed their safeties off. Anderson helped Adam into his Gyro mount and he hooked his GE Vindicator LMG up, and keyed the electronic ignition. As the barrels began their distinctive whir, he charged the Max Gyro system, and swung his two extra support arms forward to grip the weapon. A lot of people were wary of the Lone Star Lieutenant who had four cybernetically enhanced arms in place of his two flesh and blood arms, but Adam Gordon got results. Using his upper left arm he gave Sandy the thumbs up signal as Anderson fed his belt into the weapon. They were ready to rock and roll.

For an eternity all they could hear was the electronic whir of the Vindicators barrels, and the noisy turbine driven engine of the City master, then the small light pad above the rear hatch went red. One minute to show time. Everyone stood, grabbing a cargo strap (Aptly nicknamed the “Oh Drek” strap) to hold themselves steady. The light flashed once, twice and then went green. Show time.

As the hatch dropped, Gordon dropped his vindicator into the ready position and began to scan for targets. Even with his custom fitted Gyro mount harness Gordon could only move at a trot as his people fanned out. The warehouse was gunmetal gray, with sheet metal sides and a flat roof. It was exactly fifteen meters in height according to his range finder and smart link system. They were no apparent signs of any contact from this side of the warehouse, if you ignored the smoke and the sounds of automatic gunfire from the other side. The door they were going to breach was a drab metal security door 3 meters in height, and a meter across. A sign halfway down declared “Employees Only.”

They quickly stacked along side of the door taking care to not silhouette themselves in any windows, Big Bear and Anderson swung out in front of the door with the Ram. With a silent nod Tiner swung over to the other side of the door and Hill slid up close to the frame with her Shotgun at the ready. As Tiner brought his weapon into the ready position Big Bear and Anderson smashed the door open with a single blow from the heavy ram. As they dropped the Ram Tiner entered first, cutting the corner hard.

Hill followed, but cut opposite so they could cover the whole room. The rest of the team followed, and with a hand signal the room was designated clear. Gordon nodded to Tiner to continue, so far so good. As he slowly moved through the office space Gordon took note of a number of small but useful bits of information. The power was on-several clocks had accurate time, and somebody had made coffee inhere recently. Not good that meant they used this place, and they could run into someone well before they had the space to spread out and capitalize on suppressive fire and maneuver.

Miller used a small can of red spray paint to mark the wall with a small “x”. This would let anyone that came behind them know that the room had been cleared. As Tiner and Hill scanned the door for any signs of booby traps, Miller closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Even with her eyes closed Gordon could tell she was staring at the door-and she likely was astrally assensing the room for any surprises. When she opened her eyes she held up two fingers and nodded towards the door. There were two bad guys on the other side. Tiner nodded and used his thumb to select single action on his HK227, and ash moved forward with his own silenced weapon. They dropped to one knee, side by side and Hill slung her shotgun-the combat sling allowed her to keep the weapon level with one hand-and carefully slid her hand onto the doorknob. With a nod, she slowly slid the door back a couple centimeters, and peeked through the doorway.

Two men were about halfway down the hall with their backs turned towards them. Both were large human appearing white males carrying what looked like Kalishnikov’s. She closed the door and bumped her mike twice. A second later she swung the door wide open, and before either man had man had a chance to even register any changes two silenced 9MM weapons fired nearly in unison, and the men dropped. The bodies hadn’t even hit the floor when the team began to move. Tiner sprung forward, his wired reflexes made him move like no normal person could ever hope to move.

Hill was second with Ash following her, and then Anderson. Miller, Cruz and Big Bear follow them.

Tiner hugged the left side of the hall, with Hill on the right and Ash stacked behind her with the barrel of his HK227 resting just above her shoulder. Miller stepped into the hallway, but held back just off to the side of the door, quietly sliding a black nylon bag off her shoulder onto the floor next to her. Cruz passed by her moving swiftly but silently to take his place just behind Tiner. Anderson and Big Bear went last, while Gordon stood just inside the doorway the Vindicator trained center mass down the hall.

Miller unzipped the bag and pulled out two small drones the size of Big Bear's fist. Mike and Ike were spider shaped drones Sandy could use to scout ahead of them-Gordon wasn’t going to risk sending Miller astral to scout, not with the werewolves and this many unknown bad guys. As she set the drones down they extended their legs pushing themselves off the floor. With a scuttling movement they quickly rotated once then they scurried up the walls and forward. The drones would let them see what was ahead.

“Delta Alpha” Sandy’s voice was barely a whisper on their Comm links. The drones were active-inside and outside. Gordon bumped his mike once in acknowledgement and then mentally shifted his field of vision to the new overlay the feed from the Drones created. Silently thanking the people who invented Battle-Tac Gordon watched as the two spider drones made their way down the hallway. Partitioning the screen he also was able to watch as the gasbag drone Sandy had lofted took its position 200 meters above the building, providing the team with one hell of a view of the warehouse and the surrounding block. “Willis”, their Steel Lynx drone was in position in front of the large warehouse doors.

Gordon groaned inwardly as he brought Willis’ view up on the display. Just in front of the large warehouse doors were two Lone Star modified Ford Americar’s riddled with bullet holes, their paint scorched and the metal twisted. He could the unfortunate driver of one slumped behind the wheel of his vechile, his burned corpse staring sideways forever. His partner was on the ground beside the vechile, his mangled corpse had obviously been torn apart by something with teeth. The other car wasn’t much better. Shit. This was bad, four cops were down, and at least three more were wounded pretty badly. They had to move fast. He blinked, and set all his feelings aside for now; he’d deal with them, maybe long hours into the night – if you didn’t, you’d burn out, a cinder of a human being - but right now, his responsibilities didn’t allow him the luxury of emotion.

The spider drones moved quickly through the hall, there were four offices adjoining the hall, none of the doors were closed-luck was on their side. In the last office on the right side were hostages-three women obviously bound and gagged, with a tall blond man in a tan suit and an UZI III submachinegun in his hands behind the desk. Had he heard the teams’ first shots? Gordon shook his head to clear those thoughts from his mind. They'd find out soon enough. Nodding to Tiner and Ash, holding up his upper left hand he pointed at the far right hand office then held up one finger, then he leveled his hand so the palm was facing the floor and moved it back and forth in a slow chopping motion. He then clenched his fist, and the men moved out.

Tiner sprinted down the hallway his footsteps muffled by the thick carpeting, Ash in trace. Stopping at the corner of the door for only a brief second the two men faced each other then Tiner whirled and dropped to a knee just inside the door as Ash went around him to his left and pushed into the room. The man behind the desk barely had time to utter a surprised expletive when the silenced 9MM rounds started slamming into his body jerking him up and out of the chair he was sitting in. Tiner and Ash finished the drill- two rounds each center mass, one to the head to ensure fatality.

“Tango Delta.” Ash spoke quietly as he bounded up and over the desk his weapon at the ready. Tiner kept his weapon at the low ready-they’d learned not to trust the actions of hostages, all too often in this city they were chipped out on some sort of drek; precaution now, compassion later. Ash poked the dead man once with his forward foot, then turned back towards the hostages.

The three women were human, younger and dressed expensively- revealing electric dresses that changed hue, high-heeled shoes, and the latest Med-felini breathers. They were scared; huddling together as Ash approached.

“We’re the police, don’t be afraid.” He judged from the blank expressions on their face that they didn’t understand English, and he repeated the phrase in Japanese, Spanish, Esperanto, and City Speak. “Shit.” Nodding to Tiner he said softly, “I’m thinking unless anyone speaks Russian these three aren’t going to be too damn useful.” Mentally keying his mike he subvocalized, “Six this is two, we have a problem. Any one speak Russian?”

“Two this is six, bag ‘em and tag ‘em. We’ll let them sit until this is over.” Gordon didn’t have time to hold anyone’s hands on this. “We move.”

Ash and Tiner moved the women gently back into a corner then while Tiner covered him Ash used flexicuffs to secure the women face down on the floor. Leaving the sobbing women, Ash also flexicuffed the dead man and dragged his body out of the women’s sight, returning with a thick woolen sweater of Russian military issue for the former hostages. They’d have to come back for them later.

Stepping back into the hallway, Tiner and Ash resumed the positions and with a hand signal from Anderson they moved out. The door connecting the office space to warehouse was a solid metal reinforced door with a small window in the center. Using the spider drones to sneak a peek they could see that the other side was a break area, and behind it were rows of stacked crates.

The break area was between four large metal pillars, and consisted of a sloppy soy dispenser and a coffee machine with two picnic style tables opposite it. Three men with Kalishnikov’s were arguing with a single man whose shirt was covered in blood.

The man in the shirt was squat but powerful looking-his broad shoulders and thick arms gave him the appearance of a wrestler, or maybe a running back. He had long black hair down to his shoulders-the muscles in is neck were bulging out as his pointed his finger angrily at smallest of the three other men. He appeared unarmed but a hand signal from Miller let him know that the man was a werewolf.

The two in back were obviously muscle to protect the shrimp-both were well over six feet tall and probably weighed 150 kilos or more each. They stood impassively, each holding an AK98 assault rifle with practiced ease, the squat cylinder of the standard grenade launcher .

The smaller man was balding, with bright red hair slicked back over splotchy skin. He was wearing a military style flak vest with a bandoleer of grenades and two large caliber revolvers jammed into his bulging waistline. He was ranting in what Gordon thought Russian sounded like, spittle flying from his mustachioed lower lip.

His team stacked up on both sides of the door and Cruz stepped forward. First he checked the doorknob-you never knew-but it was locked. Then after giving the slash card reader a once over he stood up and placed the muzzle of his M3 on the doorknob. It’d be a hot breach.

The shotgun blast blew most of the door handle off, and the circuits powering the electromagnetic locks. Ash and Tiner kicked the door open and nearly off its hinges. Gordon watched as the team pressed through the door weapons blazing, his smart link system designating friendlies with a faint red outline around them, and hostiles with a green outline. The system also compensated for light, wind and kept track of his ammunition.

The two goons with the Kalishnikov’s went down first; Ash and Tiner used their silent weapons like scalpels. The little man went next as Cruz and Hill put a 12-gauge slug in his chest and through his chubby little head. Anderson and Big Bear were next through the door; their assault rifles were set on burst, but the wolf man wasn’t holding still, and their first bursts hit the wall behind where the man with black hair had been.

As Cruz and Miller cleared the door Gordon saw the wolf man leap through the air at Anderson. Keying his weapon’s fire control mentally he put a ten round burst into the leaper and the wolf man went down hard.

“Is it dead Miller?”

Miller kneeled by the werewolf as the rest of the team spread out; they’d have company quick. Closing her eyes briefly she scanned the body astrally, “Negative Ell Tee. Hurt bad, but not dead.”

“Cuff him, and lets move.” Miller bound the things' hands with thick cuffs and then muttered something under her breath briefly-Gordon figured it was a spell of some sort.

“That should hold him until backup arrives.” The team moved. As they fanned to their right, towards the large warehouse doors, they could hear shouting in Russian and English. Confused cries of alarm-they’d heard his war pig, even a ten round burst is a distinctive sound from the Vindicator. GE always did bring good things to life. As they moved he gave the hand and arm signals for his people to fan out in reverse wedge formation. Ash and Tiner broke in opposite directions and clambered up the crate stacking system quickly while Cruz and Hill covered them. Gordon soon found himself at the center of their formation-he’d provide fire support. They didn’t have to wait long before they engaged.

“Contact right!” Ash's voice was barely above conversational tones. Something a lot of rookies made the mistake of doing was yelling into their mike. The mike relayed the human voice with near perfect clarity (even with Lone Stars use of basic encryption these days) and yelling was an uncouth way to blast someone’s eardrum out or a sign of a rookie. Team One had done this sort of thing before-they were professional predators-the Great White of the Streets.

Gunfire erupted everywhere at once. High powered assault rifle rounds chewed up the wooden crates to Gordon’s right. They were using a combination of Kalishnikov’s and Steyr AUG-CSL weapons, and his tactical computer began to designate targets. The hail of bullets the Russians were sending their way drowned the hushed sounds of his teams silenced weapons out. Spray and Pray may work on the streets Gordon thought, but it won’t cut it here. Time to teach these bastards what suppressive fire really is. Gordon spread his feet shoulder width apart leaning into his forward foot slightly and keyed the Vindicator’s full auto command. Rock’n’Roll.

Hot lead streamed from the barrel, the tracers making it seem like a laser weapons steady stream. He didn’t bother to worry about collateral damage chewing through crates, beams, walls and bad guys alike. He skipped rounds over his people, his smart gun link keeping him from putting any of his people in any danger while he fired danger close. His Tactical computer designated downed targets with a faint yellow glow. Gordon didn’t realize he was growling until Miller’s voice on the Comm-link interrupted his concentration.

“Watch the rafters the Wolves are coming out of the rafters!” Shit, he’d damn near forgotten about the mystical beasts. His ears had cut out as the noise level from his War Pig had kicked up beyond acceptable levels-he didn’t have one of those filter things like Ash and Tiner did. Silently cursing himself for getting so worked up over the dead cops he scanned the area.

“Give me a Sit-Rep people.”

The warehouse was a wreck; tracers had ignited wooden crates, paper and cloth clogging the rafters with a thick black smoke. Bodies were strewn everywhere; blood coated the concrete floors making them slick. Other than the crackle of flames the loudest sound in the warehouse was his weapons rotating barrels. Gordon scanned the billowing smoke, shifting his vision overlay to Thermographic. His tactical computer immediately began to compile data and offer possible targets and concerns. The creatures were smart, using the heat from the fires and the venting system to camouflage their movement.

“Miller how many are we dealing with here?”

“Five maybe six, Ash took two down already.”

“All right converge on me,” He’d pull his people in tight and then they’d make these furry little bastards regret they’d ever crossed path with FRT, “Sandy.”

“Yeah boss?”

“Bring Willis in.” They’d use the drone to flush the critters towards the team.

“Roger, stand by.”

A moment later he heard the drone crash through the large loading dock doors. Ash appeared at his side, with Miller, Anderson and Hill in tow. They formed up, and picked Cruz, Big Bear, and Tiner up. With Gordon in the lead the team slowly pushed forward into a large open space.

“Contact rear!” Tiner had his weapon shouldered and began to hose down the biggest damn wolf Gordon had ever seen. The creature leapt to the side, but one of the silver bullets must have hit it, because it howled in pain. Anderson and Cruz opened fire catching the beats as it was trying to roll out of Tiner’s field of fire. The creature didn’t even have time to howl as the full auto shotgun tore him apart; Anderson’s silver .308’s finishing the job.

At the other end of the warehouse they heard “Willis” open up with his Vanquisher Auto Cannon. Sandy’s voice came over the mike, calm as always. “Charlie is making a move towards the rear doors boss, moving in pursuit.”

“Frag!” They’d been had. The creatures had lured them away from their egress route-there was no way they could cover the ground in time. “Miller, drop some confusion in their laps. Ash and Cruz stay here and watch her. Everyone else double time to the rear doors.”

Before he’d even managed to jog-no one really sprinted in a Max Gyro-mount- Sandy was already astral; her unconscious body in a death like trance. Tiner and Hill moved inhumanly fast, and easily beat the rest of the team to the rear doors. “Boss Willis is down!”

Gordon shifted his view to “Willis”, overlaying the drones sensor output across his field of view. The drone was lying on its side, and one of the Wolves was stomping its primary camera with a bare foot. Adam’s brow furrowed; god damn wolf, stomping on Willis. The drone rocked with each kick. Clearing the rear doors Gordon saw his people running across the parking lot firing at the wolves, who were amazingly out running his people. Christ they were fast.

“Clear my line of fire: I’m bringing ’em down!” He brought the Vindicator into firing position and just let the weapon pour out lead like water from a hose. He chewed up concrete as the five remaining creatures zigged and zagged. Suddenly the wolf in the rear faltered slightly, just enough for Gordon to lace it up with twenty or so rounds.

As he went to shift his fire he saw the other creatures were down, rolling on their backs and bellies, slobber frothing at their mouths, retching and howling. He shared a smile with Anderson and cut his weapons feed. Over the sound of the slowing, steaming barrels, he yelled: “Miller’s got ‘em down. Let’s make the most of this, people!”

Slinging his H&K Tinier was the first to hit the pile of snarling and snapping wolfmen. At times like these Adam was glad they wore gloves, and the Star provided the best medical coverage for its street assets. Tinier and Hill were wrestling the thrashing creatures into restraints-Sargeant Anderson held his weapon at the ready covering them, with Big Bear breaking to his left to set up a cross fire.

As they loaded the last of the snarling wolf men into the wagon, Gordon unhooked his Vindicator, and pulled the quick release tabs on his Gyro mount. Dropping his gear into the back of the City Master, he pulled the chinstrap of his helmet loose and dropped the pot on the ground. His team was sprawled out on their web gear cleaning weapons. Some were also giving statements to the Organized Crime Detectives that had been assigned this case, or talking with Crime Scene tech's who were scouring the area for evidence. Grinning Gordon nodded his head.

They’d done well today.

[Serious Paul]

Okay two things. I am pimpin' for commentary, and credit is due to 3278 who has edited a large amount of this. This has become his project as much as it is my own. We have a series of tales that we hope will illustrate daily operations in Lone Star-from FRT to pencil pushers, from Seattle, to Austin.

I'd like to know how this reads, how it feels, and anything else you may notice. I welcome all comments.

[3278]

I have...well, a lot of commentary, but between job-hunting, trying to get the Cadillac fixed [after my intake modifications had some unforeseen consequences], and being just really really nauseus, I think I'll wait until I'm back home and can just do this in Word and in person.

I want you to be thinking, though, Paul, about how this can tie into the bigger picture. As the story stands, it's an introduction to the team, followed by a big hairy furball where all the bad guys are mindless fur-and-fangs types, and Our Heroes mow them down. We should try to figure out what, exactly, these Russians are doing here, and how that ties in with the larger story arc. We should have a larger story arc.

I have a dialogue in my head, a post-climax conversation with Miller wherein she confesses [very subtly] that she knows a shapeshifter, in contravention of both departmental procedure and UCAS federal legislation, that she could ask about these half-feral Russian wolfmen and her astral perceptions of them. But we'd likely want to consider adding little corroborative details like the Russian wolfmen being half-feral and her having astrally percieved them. But I want to go back through the entry with a fine-toothed comb and a Paul-drawn map as if we were IA in a Stallone movie.

Anyway, it's this kind of big-picture stuff that I want you to be thinking about. I know I am.

[crone]

This isn't really my kind of story, so I don't know how much use my comments will be to you. iIt's got too much focus on things (esp. equipment) and not enough on people, for my taste. I like the bits where you focus on Gordon, and what he is thinking, or doing. I'd like the descriptions of the people better if they included some kind of mental comment from him, his opinion of them, like you did with Anderson.

There are some nice lines, like this one:

If the Star was the can that held the garbage, FRT was the lid

In some places the words just plod along and sentences like that add interest. There are a lot of long sentences. Maybe you could break them up a little.

I don't know what the point of the dead cops was. They add a bit of drama but there should be enough there already, what with big guns, werewolves, and hostages. The pacing is very even throughout. It could use some tension in the fight scenes, I think. You wrote it would be tough, even for them, but it seemed more like a cakewalk.

I like the ending.

[MissTeja]

Sorry for the delay in getting to this, Paul. As I read it, I'm reminded of how creatively talented you are, this just being yet another facet of it.

As for constructive criticism, I have to kinda lean with crone. While I, too, may not resemble your target audience with such a story, I still felt as though we were rushed a bit into the character introductions. I read through that whole portion and felt a tad bit overwhelmed. Their introductions seemed somewhat list-like, and I think it may work better if they were introduced a little further apart in order to give the reader more time to remember them all and accurately be able to distinguish between them.

You may want to focus on more of their physical and personality traits to add to characterization, as well. Though you wrote two decent sized paragraphs on Miller during the story, for example, all I really know about her beyond who she associates with and what kind of equipment she carries, is that she's an unconventional, astral-powerful mage. How should the reader think of her? Is there any characteristics that you may want to list now for later use, like her nationality, body type, demeanor, etc?

Just a thought. However you choose to do it is going to be good, Paul. Plus, you have much more exposure to how this type of writing usually goes than I. You make excellent use of imagery and metaphors in your writing which helps a lot. I would lastly like to suggest that you go through sometime when you have time and look at each individual sentence seperately. Don't pick at it too much, but some of your sentences are full of that imagery you seem to be so good at, and then the reader is hit with a sentence like, "There were two bad guys on the other side." It seems too simple of a sentence using terminology like "two bad guys" to fit with your detailed style of writing.

Overall, though, nice freaking job! Keep it up man.