Chapter 103: Angels On Our Shoulders.
"That's our first target down there," Seven called to Visa as they circled the dimly lit town far below them still obvious from even up as high as they were because of how far light travels in the night and especially when in an unpolluted zone.
"Shall we go and take a closer look?" Visa called back swivelling her horned head to track the town as Seven circled.
"Probably best to do it from the ground just in case," Seven replied and then swooped down at a steep angle putting some distance between them and the town so as to not get spotted in the moonlit night sky.
As they touched down the pair crouched and listened to make sure their approach and arrival hadn't been detected but there were no shouts of alarm or angry yells from the town, just the buzzing of badly fitted and maintained electrical systems and the chugging of a generator.
Keeping low and using the terrain to their advantage Seven and Visa approached the town's outer wall quietly, the whole place had been boxed in with corrugated metal sheeting affixed to what appeared to be tyres filled with concrete and jammed into a boxy metal housing frame.
There were two guard towers one at either end of the small town but Seven couldn't see any guards in them or any light from them, so they were either that confident that no one would attack them or which was more likely the case the raider's occupying them were tripped off their tits on jet and had passed out.
"First thing we need to do is find the fucker in charge, they are likely to be the one with the remote for those collars, I can't imagine that they were that numerous that every single raider has one, my bet is at most there will be two of the things both held by the two most senior people but I'd bet my bottom cap that there will be only one held by the head honcho of the place and they shouldn't be too hard to identify they'll either be the craziest or the most cowardly," Seven said.
"The latter worries me more, cowards tend to act out of spite when they are outmatched or out manoeuvred that sort of person wouldn't think twice about killing everyone in here to buy themselves time to escape," Visa said in a low snarl and Seven nodded in agreement with her.
"Yeah so they have to die first and that remote disabled, hopefully, we can capture one of the things then maybe Eve or our own tame scientists can study it and work out how to rig up some kind of jamming system that will block the signals and prevent them being used at all," Seven mused.
"Sounds like a solid plan to me my love, so how do you want to play this?" Visa asked.
"Silent and deadly until the shit hits the fan, don't want to tip our hand until the commander is toast and that remote secured, after that, it's angry claw in a box time," he said grinning under his helmet.
"Why would anyone put an angry claw in a box? That would just make them even angrier," Visa said in confusion.
"You've never seen a Jack in the Box, have you? You know what never mind, let's just get in there and see what we can do," Seven said standing up so he could hook Visa under the arms and silently he lifted the pair of them up and over the wall depositing them down on the other side.
It's kinda hard to move quietly in power armour even if it has run silent servos and quiet hydraulics, it's still about a ton of heavy metal moving about on a frame and even with cushioned padding on the feet its footfalls are still pretty hefty.
By contrast despite her size Visa was as quiet as a mouse when moving, well a vastly oversized scaly mouse with anger issues and giant claws anyway.
The pair peeked from in between some old boarded-up houses that were blatantly being used as storage areas into the main street of the shanty town, it appeared that it had once been a kind of display area for plants that had been engineered to grow in Nuka Cola's colours by the old faded display billboard that stood towering over the four large greenhouses that stood in the centre of the town.
But now it was obviously being used to grow food for the raiders and managed by their captive slave labour force all of which seemed to have been confined to three heavily guarded houses that were little more than large two-story pens with iron siding.
As he panned his head from left to right Seven spied both their armoury, guard barracks and the commander's hut, all easily identifiable even in their ramshackle makeshift state.
"Alright that's our first port of call, the commander is most likely going to be in there, hopefully, we'll catch the fucker sleeping, or better in a drug-fueled coma," Seven said pointing towards the guarded hut that had two very bored looking guards sat on chairs at its door.
"Lead the way, my love," Visa said and Seven stuck to the inside of the wall until they reached the gates where he used the guard tower to slip unseen across the open street with Visa slinking along behind him.
Even as they got close Seven could hear the soft snoring of the two guards on duty outside the commander's place and from inside they could hear muffled chatter but the metal walls.
Visa mimed that the commander was still awake with her large hands and Seven nodded, it wasn't ideal but they had no choice but to press on, Seven mimed taking out a guard each at the same time and Visa nodded her head before silently slinking off to circle around the house from the opposite direction so she'd come up near the other guard.
Seven moved into position and when he saw Visa's horned head pop out of the gap between the houses he stuck out his hand and counted down from three, when he closed his fist to hit zero the pair moved in perfect sync around the walls and grabbed a guard each, Seven's hydraulic enhanced strength snapping the sleeping man's neck before he even had the chance to make a murmur other than the long drawn out sigh of his final breath escaping over his shoulder blades.
Meanwhile, Visa had opted for something a little more direct and had simply driven her claws up through the chin of her sleeping guard and punched out the top of his head, neither man made a single noise as they passed and rather than drag them both away the pair simply placed them back in their chairs and propped them up, with Seven even turning his guard's head back round the right way to look more natural.