Hound's Warstory
From the Journal of Daniel Whitefeather
Grandfather suggested I start keeping this journal a long
time ago, when I was first trying to find my way. Well,
I can't claim that I've found my way yet, but at least I'm
on more of a path than I used to be. So in the spirit of
the new year, I resolve to keep this journal as a record
of my thoughts and deeds, at least until I get tired of
writing and start to procrastinate again.
2059 began on an unusual note. A couple of days after Christmas,
Piker called the usual team members together for a run,
but it was no ordinary run. For one thing, she was paying
for it out of her own pocket. But when we found out what
the run was, that made more sense. Seems that Angus, the
guy Piker thought was her father, was actually just raising
Piker while her real father was rotting in an Azzie secret
prison under this piece of drek border town called del Fuego.
Piker found out about him and immediately decided to go
rescue him. She offered to pay us, but we all went for free.
In fact, Kuma was the first one to turn the payment down.
That surprised me, but pleased me too. There may be some
hope yet for that cold mercenary heart. We also called in
Jack for decker duty, and he got paid, which is only right.
He's not been along on most of our runs, so although he
and I are close, he doesn't owe any loyalties to anyone
else on the team.
Anyway, we all pack up and Val gets us on a sub heading
down the coast. We make port in Party Town, but we only
stay there long enough to buy a cheap van, and then we're
on our way to del Fuego. This place sucks. The locals are
just trying to survive, and the non-locals all look like
predators. We get some rooms in a hotel, and almost immediately
Kuma finds some bugs. So right off the bat we know that
this whole town pretty much lives and dies by Azzie rule.
Oh, and to make matters worse, the place is crawling with
Dune Stalkers, so Ajax's options are fairly limited. We
split up and try to get the lay of the place, some of us
in different ways than others. I swear, Ajax will stick
it in anything that doesn't try to get away, and then he'll
claim it's for the good of the team. And I've constantly
got to keep an eye on Piker. Sometimes I feel like she's
just in this for fun, and doesn't realize how serious things
are. As cold as Kuma is, at least he knows his job and gets
it done.
So just by looking around the place we figure out a few
things. First off, the prison must be hidden under the City
Hall, but we notice that there's a separate jail. After
observing it for a day or so we notice that some folks go
in, but don't come out, and other folks who come out never
seemed to go in, so we figure that there's a tunnel or something
under the building. We also spot 4 guards up on various
rooftops, but in the end we never had to deal with them.
We made a plan to go in to the jail on New Year's Even,
when there might be some extra noise from the locals. Jack
used a wiz decker device that let him tap into a line outside
the jail, and so he determined that there were only two
guards immediately inside the door. He was also able to
figure out that the whole second floor was communication
gear, but he could block any message, so Kuma and I just
rolled in and cleaned house. I felt a little bad that I
had to kill one of the prisoners in the cell, but when dealing
with the Azzies, the fewer loose ends the better.
So Jack comes in and sets up shop in the commo room, and
from there he leads us right to Piker's father. There's
some guards between us and him, but most of then never even
got off a shot. I guess Piker took a bullet or two, but
she hardly even feels that anymore. So once the guards are
no longer a problem, Jack pops open the right cell and we
go in for Piker's father. He's propped up against the wall
in restraints, but he's also almost in a coma. We managed
to bring him around a little, but about the only thing he
said was to Piker, asking her to free another of the prisoners,
a troll woman who I figured was his wife. We ended up just
getting all of them out of there, figuring that if the Azzies
wanted them here, then freeing them could only be a good
thing. Plus, they were all magically active, and I couldn't
help but think about the way we all met. I didn't like the
idea of these people being used for anything like what we
were being used for, so I was happy we could set them free.
From there we headed out to a conveniently located Azzie
VTOL they were kind enough to leave guarded by only a couple
of punks, and from there we headed back to Seattle. So now
I'm sitting here wondering what I've gotten myself involved
in now. But a part of me doesn't care about what happens.
We did something good this time, I can feel it. And for
now, that's enough.
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