Natasha woke early. In fact it was almost two hours before she normally got up. She wasn't tired anymore though, so she climbed out of bed and pulled on a pair of lycra bike shorts and a sports bra and made her way down to the gym. To get started she spent several minutes on the variable treadmill. Once she was warmed up sufficiently, she eased herself down onto the padded part of the floor to stretch thoroughly. Doing this showed she had a few sore muscles and she guessed they were the result of her evening's activities. Dancing for that long would have an effect, but she wouldn't trade the minor stiffness that resulted for pure gold. Last night had been too good! Apparently though it had highlighted some muscles that needed a little more attention in her exercises.
She pushed her stretching exercises to her body's limits and a little beyond, making a kind of mini-workout of it. From there she preceded into a martial arts tension series concentrating on the parts that were sore from the night before plus all her usual targets. Then she moved into the forms and through them all to her highest level of completion. Then reversed the series until she was all the way back to the basics.
By the time she'd finished there was no more soreness anywhere and her mind was aglow from the endorphins released during exercise. She began a long cool down stretching series allowing her muscles to relax slowly and naturally. When she was finished she made her way back up to her lav and slipped into a hot bath where she soon drifted off to sleep again. The warmer pumps kicking on brought her awake with their gentle hum and the stirring of the water.
She sat a while longer before washing thoroughly and letting the water out. Next she moved into the shower to wash her hair, then extended the shaving bench from the shower wall, lathered her legs and shaved them clean, enjoying the feel of her smooth skin as she did. She finished by shaving her underarms and standing under the running water to rinse.
Now that it was a saner hour of the morning, she went down to the kitchen and set the unit to prepare her breakfast. While she waited she activated her computer and went into the G-Pol files to find out what she could about Karl. She was curious about what had really happened on Ceres and knew she had gotten a rather distorted version of the story from Dumerk. It wasn't good to take the word of someone who didn't like the subject in a situation like that. Everything said was likely to be heavily biased against them.
The file on his most recent exploits was remarkably complete and detailed. She made a note of the reporting officer's name as someone to respect. He obviously cared about his duties and responsibilities and took them very seriously. He also seemed to have quite a bit of respect for Karl's actions in the incident.
He'd been tracking two high level arms dealers who were responsible for at least a dozen murders between them and were suspected of several more. He'd located one of their weapons stashes and had staked it out in hopes of catching them there. While in position, he'd noticed a G-Pol team backed by a squad of the dreaded Ceresian Marines setting up a raid on the same location. What none of them knew, was that the suspects were inside and had been since before any of them arrived. What was worse was they knew about the raid, having been tipped off ahead of time by an informant. They'd watched the preparations on vid monitors from inside and knew the locations of all their opposition. All that is except Karl, who'd taken a position further away and was relying on his suit's sensory equipment to observe the goings on.
Noone was sure what the building had inside, but they suspected the usual military grade weapons, explosives and body armor such traders made their living by. None of them expected the infantry fighting vehicle that crashed through the doors in a rush. The model was an eight wheeled all terrain amphibious type that had been especially designed to traverse very steep and difficult terrain. It was also well armed with a twenty millimeter railgun along with a fifty millimeter automatic grenade launcher in its main turret and two independent laser weapons, one in each side.
One of the Marines was killed immediately as he was run down by the fifteen ton behemoth. One of the G-Pol officers was nearly killed next except Karl managed to fly down and snatch him from in front of the fast moving vehicle which crushed the car he'd been hiding behind.
The cities on Ceres are all underground because of the extreme cold on the surface. This protected the citizens from the snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures, but it also made situations like this one far more dangerous. Stray shots from projectile weapons could and did ricochet off the stone cavern walls and ceiling.
The armored car hurtled down the streets of the subterranean city while the madmen inside fired their military grade weapons at anyone they could see. Karl knew this would end badly if they weren't stopped immediately, so he gave chase, soaring low over the tops of buildings to avoid being seen until he could find a clear shot at the vehicle without endangering any civilians. As he did this he contacted the G-Pol office and the city's Ceresian marine command center to keep them up to date on the suspects' position and activities.
Soon he was joined by two Ceresian Marines also in flying power armor. When he saw he had some help he flew in directly above the vehicle where they couldn't fire on him and used one of his non-lethal weapons. It was a chemical restraint foam that hardened in less than a second to a material strong enough to hold a man in power armor or a full conversion cyborg immobile for several hours. He got as close as he could and shot it onto the side laser guns freezing them in place then did the same to the weapons on the turret, and the turret itself. The foam wasn't strong enough to keep the turret immobile, but it did block the sensors mostly blinding those inside and prevented the main weapons changing barrel elevation, dramatically limiting their arcs of fire. The two inside kept firing indiscriminately, obviously not caring what damage they did, only seeking to instill fear and incite chaos.
The vehicle struck a building as it entered an open square, the laser on that side setting the building alight. The square had been cleared of people thanks to Karl's constant monitoring of the situation. This gave the local police the time they needed to get everyone under cover. Now Karl and the Marines had a clear lane of fire. Karl fired first, sending four lightweight short range missiles designed for use by infantry with armor piercing warheads into one side of the vehicle. The Marines fired two each of the heavier faster full scale version into the other side. The vehicle was shredded, with pieces tumbling off in all directions including five of its eight wheels. What was left skidded into another building on the other side of the plaza and set it afire as well. The two perpetrators were killed. The investigation showed the power armored men had done everything as they should, and though six civilians were killed and twenty one injured, they were all caused by the fire from, or being run over by the vehicle and not the actions of the power armor pilots. In fact it was suggested that the restraint foam Karl had attacked the vehicle with had significantly reduced the damage. He'd been given the reward for the capture, but he'd given it all and donated some of his own money to help the owners of the buildings that had been damaged and the families of those who had been killed in that murderous rampage.
The story was nothing like that told her by Dumerk, and Natasha was disgusted with the man. An all out firefight in the midst of a city would've been devastating. Dozens ore even scores more civilians could've been killed or injured if that vehicle hadn't been blinded and had its fire limited as it had.
