View source for Redemption

The Nighthawk drifted roughly one hundred meters over the carnage of Southeast Redmond as an invisible wraith.  No machine on the chaotic battlefield below or above had even a faint chance of piercing the digital cloak of it's Electronic Counter Measures.  No optical sensor was going to be able to see through the Ruethenium sheathe that kept all but the rotors completely invisible.  No listening device could hear the percussion of the rotors over the thirty-three individually attenuated sound canceling noise generators.  Even magic had little chance as Instinct, the squad's senior Combat Mage, kept the entire machine shielded in an elemental and foci assisted anti-magic shell, all conveniently astrally cloaked behind the masking of his ancient Wind Spirit.  Nothing saw, sensed, or even dreamed of the Nighthawk as it invisibly surveilled the disaster below.  The machine held Paul Stevens and his "more elite than elite" team of Spartans.

Paul momentarily lapsed into memories of just a few short months ago when he set the stage for this disaster.  Over the course of roughly five years Andy, Julie, Dennis, Daniel and himself had infiltrated Neugenics at the bequest of Davis Gentry.  They used their high ranking positions to get Neugenics, a relative unknown at the time, to resume the research that had lied dormant since Project Epsilon was secretly shut down by the Corporate Court in 2051.  He could still remember the look of disbelief on Robert's face, the CEO of Neugenics, when he informed the man of what had happened before offering him the impossible choice of the bullet or the pill.  It's a hard thing killing a man with whom you'd spent five years watching his children grow up, eating dinner with his family, playing poker weekly in his game room.  Life is full of regrets and some days regrets were all Paul had left.

But then everything went wrong.  Dennis defected and a shadowteam appeared out of nowhere and started to unravel pieces of the truth.  Shiawase briefly got their hands on Dennis and Rowena and the Butcher got some play.  The first shadowteam checked out at the butcher's hands but a second sprouted up.  It wasn't hard to tie the shadowteam to Rowena and just as he was preparing to eliminate them once and for all "she" showed up.  Denise.  She changed everything.  Alive, here in Seattle, and somehow involved with these shadowrunners ... half a decade after she died to him.  With just that passing glance in the cryo facility he knew her goal and it was one which he had unconsciously longed for most of his life.  Redemption.       

It did not take him long to decide and Julie and Andrew came on board shortly thereafter when Gentry effectively had Yang killed by sending him as part of a team to recover data from the Alpha facility.  The plan would have been flawless but Gentry started to figure it out when he finally ID'd Denise himself.  Paul knew Gentry was going to have his shadowteam eliminated but somehow they kept slipping away, just one step ahead of Gentry's goons.   

And then today came to pass.  The team had more than a few tricks up their sleeve.  From what he could tell they coordinated one of the largest battles in Redmond history.   They somehow convinced Rowena, the Butcher, Hanzo, Akira, Shiawase and several unidentified shadow teams all to meet on less than cordial terms right below him here above the Alpha complex.  Meanwhile they laid out a fairly explosive smokescreen of external attacks on the Beta facility while they gutted it from the inside.  Gentry was caught with his pants down with most of his team helplessly deployed to downtown.  Still Gentry was not completely played out.  He still had Andrew and had taken one of the team members before they escaped the Beta facility.  And even now he had seen Gentry's squad enter the Alpha complex just after midnight. 

He looked up to Johnson who sat on the combat bench across from him, his eyes searching.  "Gentry is going to be too much for them."

Johnson rolled his eyes.  "You're starting to worry like an old man Paul.  I put three 12 gauge slugs in that chica's abdomen and she still humped it over a kilometer in less than 10 minutes.  There ain't anything out here that's too much for her."

Paul just let his eyes drift outside to the fires and blasts below.  Johnson shifted forward and continued.  "Hell Paul forget about her.  Look at all this."  He gestured to the burning battlefield below them.  "Look what your little pet team has accomplished.  You underestimate them.  Those slitches are way more crafty than you ever thought.  Gentry better watch his hoop if that slitch intends to face these mother fraggers."

Paul was about to point out the obvious flaws of his "pet shadowteam" when Jinx's voice crackled through his comm and cut Paul off.  "Sir I just cut through Gentry's team's crypto.  Apparently there was some kind of altercation in the control room.  He claims to have geeked the woman but then creeps overran his position and he was forced to retreat.  The status of the rest of the team is unknown but it looks like he lost a lot of Spartans in the exchange."

For a moment Paul sat motionless, feelings of dread and loss and anger freezing the analytical, the rational professional that was able to perform horrific and amoral acts.  It was only a moment, but Paul quickly pushed past his confusion of emotions and let his instincts take over.  "What kind of a delay did you have to cut the crypto?"

"Ten minutes sir."  Jinx's voice was an automated facsimile ... the Decker was strapped to the bench beside Johnson with his consciousness firmly anchored in the deck in his lap.

Paul stood up and immediately pushed the breach button over the side door, opening to the outside world a bizarre looking portal in the middle of night.  He ignored the protests from the pilot and his eyes quickly found the rooftop he wanted.  "That one, Jens I need you to clear me an LZ on that roof."

Jens took one quick look at Johnson who was technically his squad leader before popping out the bi-pod and bracing himself by the doorway ... his eyes already mechanically finding and tracing signatures near the rooftop.  He plugged a cable connected to the datajack at his temple into an open port just below the bench seat ... his targeting system would now integrate with the feedback systems of the Nighthawk and would automatically account for all momentum shifts.

"Click." 

The first signature stumbled and then jerked clumsily to the ground as its brain stem was severed by the 7.62mm round, leaving the nervous system in short term shock as the chemical neurotransmitters continued to fire in the rapidly dying body. 

"Click."

Another body fell to the ground, shaking in an inhuman seizure as it expired.

"Click."

Johnson unbuckled and stood so his face was close to Paul's, holding onto the safety bar above the open portal.  He unconsciously spoke in hushed tones even though some part of his brain knew every pair of ears in that cabin could easily hear any noise he could produce.  "What the frag do you think you're doing?  You go in there and you're made."

"Click."

Paul watched for a moment as Jens worked.  Those dead and dying had no idea why they were dead.  They weren't really securing the location, they were simply unlucky enough to be in the area.  Paul vaguely recalled a very young pair of barrens children, a brother and sister to be exact, who once upon a time were also unlucky to be in the area.

"Click."

"PAUL!  You going in there isn't going to change ANYTHING for them or HER!" 

Paul looked up at his old friend.  "But it might change something for me.  Don't you see it?  This is it.  This is my last chance.  She's down there making things right while I sit up here and watch vicariously.  I've tried to be the good soldier and tow the company line and I've betrayed friends and watched them die by my own hand.  Then I tried to set the wheels in motion by playing the puppeteer and getting those shadowrunners to make things right for me.  But that's not how it works."

"Click"

Johnson had known Paul Stevens for thirteen years now and had never seen him so lucid. 

"Click."

It scared him because one day he might have to face the same demons now haunting his friend.  "Well how does it work Paul?"  

"Click"

"By my own hands.  She knew that.  She's down there in that hole and maybe she's dead or dying but it doesn't matter because she's earning it ... she's fragging earning her redemption.  Well now it's my turn."

Johnson could feel a palpable chill run up his spine.  'And one day it will be mine too my friend.'  He nodded silently as Paul hooked the descender to the chassis.  Jens had reloaded and was watching the ground but the LZ was clear enough.  It didn't really matter, no ten men on the ground could pose a threat to a man of Paul's caliber.  He looked up at Paul who's face had a look of zealous determination painted clear across it ... he was a man who knew what he wanted for the first time in a long hard life.

"What about the rest of them?  What if they make it out alive?"  He somehow figured the previous orders which involved more of Jens' handiwork were now down the drain.

Paul looked back and smiled a toothy grin.  "Do the right thing, Josh."  And then the only friend he had ever had in his own life of cold mechanical misery disappeared down into the chaos below.  Joshua Jacob Johnson slumped down on the combat bench between the catatonic decker and the infinitely aware sniper, staring blankly at the empty spot where Paul had sat only moments before and hoped that he too could one day find his forgiveness.  His redemption.