They nodded and gave him a salute. The general looked them over a final time before saluting them as well. The AEP units went with them. The large screen had all of their feeds. We watched as they went inside the mechanic shop for the first time. They looked around together for anything that might seem like a way down towards the transmission hub. It was hard to wait for them. Especially when we knew what was coming after they found it. It was one of the researchers that looked under a car in the back and saw there was a wooden trap door under it. Calling everyone else, they looked at it for a bit. Alex volunteered to go open it as they were the leader. Everyone agreed with it. They had to push the car from the door. When Alex lifted the door, they got a shotgun blast to the chest. That was another one of their traps. It would take much more than that to keep an AEP down. The whole group destroyed the mounted gun by returning fire. Once they went down the ladder, Zayne, Ryder and Maroon all winced. I looked over at them. "The transmission hub sent the alarm signals." Zayne said.
Engines and shouting could be heard from all around. They also had the whole day to prepare for this. We were going to be fighting against cyborgs in cars and motor bikes as well as on foot. I got out of the command center. It was time to fight for our lives to give them the time they needed. All I could do was hope that they could make it. It was a massive battle from the very beginning. It was simply wave upon wave of hostile PEP units. Just when we thought there was a lull to the fighting after the fourth wave, 3 combat helicopters appeared. The gun turrets on the sides mowed down several of our men. Green haired PEA units rappelled down, kitted out for murder and warfare. Brett and Paul were able to get the helicopters to crash. Brett drained the energy from one of them. That made it slam into another. The third was shot out of the sky by a rocket launcher Paul spawned in. The PEA unit commandos were pesky to deal with. There were 12 of them. Each of them were badasses in their own right. These were grunts from the syndicates and military. It was like tearing up tissue paper.
At a certain point we had to pack it in. The general had unilaterally did all of this via calling in certain favors. He was not in a position to call in any reinforcements to help push them back. The syndicates were, but the cooldown on their big assassins was still a good 15 minutes off. The head researcher was getting surrounded when the general and I had to rush in and save him. "Thank goodness you guys are still here!" he yelled. "I thought you would have abandoned us by now." the general said, snapping one of the PEA's necks. "Cameron, the blond with the lotus sticking out, comes from my clan. He's like a nephew to me. Our liege, Cold Clan was too stingy to actually send one of their own and risk them." The general rolled his eyes. "Those things don't value family ties." he said. I just looked at them and smiled. "Besides. The coalition has to keep all of you guys alive. You're the first ones that they've come in contact with. This is our first mission. We cannot afford to fail. We also can't lose the only human allies we have. Luckily, the Advocates lead the coalition." He sighed. "I hate this."
Nancy shook her head. "Trust me. I've been there at the Toxic hub. It was just as fucking hopeless as this. We just have to hold out until the cyborgs can hack that thing and the hostiles will stop attacking." Marrion nodded "That is much easier said than done though." Terrance pulled out his gun and checked the magazine. "There were 2 mechanic unaccounted for, right? They must be down there." he said seriously. I shrugged my shoulders. "You only need 3 to hack the transmission hub. We sent down a good 9 of them. That will make it easier. I'm just concerned for all of the researchers with them. They did not look like they had too much combat training if things go south down there." The general scoffed and said "Trust me. Those researchers had to take a combat training course to be chosen for this mission." I hoped they would be okay. I looked at the general. "What are we going to do? It's not good to be sitting ducks here. Should we follow after them to back them up, or do we have some ace in the hole that can help us keep this position!?" I asked him. He smirked. "I got something."
