Ring! Ring! Ring—Beep-beep.
Shortly after the Special Operations Director's convoy lost signal following the attack, inside the Arasaka corporate residential community in Westbrook—home to the Russell estate—the stationed security officers froze for a second.
"Assassination? Ambush?"
As the cybernetic glint in his optical implants flickered, the officer's brows knitted sharply. Then, in a single motion, he rose to his feet and barked, "Security Division, full combat readiness! Lock down the entire district!"
"Gather your teams! Seal the entire community! After this, I don't want to see even a scratch on the estate of Director Russell!"
Without another word, he slammed on his tactical helmet, holstered his favorite sidearm, and stormed out of his office, sprinting toward the mansion marked Russell at the center of the community.
Then—vrrrrr… vrrrrr…
Outside the Russell manor's ornate wrought-iron gates, the air was already alive with movement.
Hovercars and heavy drones filled the air, their vector engines roaring overhead.
Catching sight of the crowd, the security officer clicked his tongue in irritation.
Damn it! One after another—why are they all here? Since when are they this eager?
The presence of the Intelligence, Security, and Mobile Guard units made sense—but why were the Administrative and R&D departments showing up? Weren't they supposed to be off-duty, enjoying their precious rest hours?
Hell, he even spotted a Night City Councilor among them.
Technically, the corporate community bore Arasaka's name, but its residents weren't limited to company employees. Influential politicians, investors, and social elites who aligned with Arasaka often made their homes here—for safety, of course.
All of them were sharp, well-connected opportunists—ambitious, sycophantic, and always ready to climb higher.
Still, curses aside, the officer's pace quickened too.
...
Less than a minute after the first explosion echoed across the Jackson Plains, Vela had already received word of Abernathy's attack.
Indoor shooting range.
"Director, there's been an incident."
The head of the estate's security unit snapped his heels together with a clack, bowed, and reported: "Director Abernathy's convoy was ambushed in the Badlands."
"Oh? Is that so?"
Whatever thoughts her subordinates might have had about the situation, Vela remained calm. She opened a local network window, glanced at the Intelligence Division's urgent red-flag email, marked it read, and then—without haste—continued her firing test.
She raised her right hand, encased in gleaming silver armor.
Click!
A crisp sound rang out as the wrist-mounted cannon, shaped like a folding wing, expelled not kinetic, solid, or tracking rounds—but a luminous blue beam.
No—"beam" wasn't quite right. It was more like flowing light.
The gunfire wasn't loud, similar to a Centaur-class thermal cannon, but its impact was tremendous.
Boom! Boom-boom-boom!
A burst of azure energy bolts slammed into a reinforced composite target designed to withstand tungsten spike rounds from the Tsunami Nekomata. Within seconds, a deafening roar filled the range.
Blue light turned red. Heat surged. The focused energy rounds detonated, melting through steel plating as molten slag and debris sprayed outward.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM…
Only after the magazine ran dry and the weapon clicked empty did Vela lower her wrist cannon.
As the settling dust cleared, the composite target now bore a massive, rippling crater—its surface warped as if molten wax had cooled mid-drip.
High penetration. High heat. Explosive impact.
"Fortune and misfortune are two sides of the same coin," Vela murmured, turning her head slightly. "The ancients did not lie."
That was, of course, a lie.
In truth, it was a double blessing—but for the sake of solidarity, she kept her smile restrained.
How amusing. Of all days for Abernathy to get attacked—it had to be today.
Because today, the [Power Armor] system's next subproject—the [VARIS] (Variable Ammunition Reactive Impact System), originally designed for Knightmare-class mechs—had finally achieved successful miniaturized integration.
Tap, tap.
At that moment, more footsteps approached.
Personnel from the Intelligence Division—mid-level managers—entered cautiously, their eyes fixed on Vela's back, waiting to report face-to-face.
The gathered personnel had no idea what was running through Vela's mind. To them, it seemed as though she had taken the news of the attack with anger—venting her fury by unloading ammunition on the targets.
Among them stood the Security Division officer from the community's defense bureau—admitted only after being scanned and cleared by the cyber-ninja guards.
The latter, as retainers of the Arasaka family, did not interfere in corporate affairs. Their sole duty was to protect Vela.
"Why are you all running to me? I want results—alive or dead. Find out who made the move."
Without turning, Vela rotated her wrist with a metallic click—tss! The segmented grooves of her arm cannon slid open, ejecting an empty metallic cartridge roughly the size of a 5ml ampoule. She pulled it free and replaced it, selecting a new one from a reagent-box-style container on the nearby table—its vial brimming with a viscous, cherry-pink liquid.
With a firm press, the Sakuradite energy cell locked cleanly into the arm unit.
Time for a different output mode, she thought.
Vela shifted her stance and switched the [VARIS] system from Focused Beam Mode to Hadro Mode.
The folded "feather" panels of the wrist cannon spread open with a low hum.
The Sakuradite's energy converted in an instant, coursing through the system. Through the neural interface linking her body to the armor—like a second living skin, a hybrid of Quinque-bioware technology and advanced neuro-network integration derived from Germany's GSG-9 and Japan's Public Security Section 9—Vela mentally pulled a trigger that did not physically exist.
The recoil was tremendous, vibrating through her arm. The gust it generated blew loose strands of her pale-golden hair into the air.
Light for her—but enough to dislocate the shoulder of most cybernetic users not built for combat.
Whoosh!
The air distorted violently as a dark crimson beam tore through the range. The blast's trajectory carved a glowing line through the air before obliterating the already-wrecked composite target, then the second, then the third. The reinforced target wall crumbled like a child's toy structure.
Within a second, the concentrated beam faded.
[Energy Depleted.]
The system message flashed in her visor.
Though far weaker than the prototype [VARIS] mounted on the [Lancelot]—whose single shot could pierce an entire valley—the output level for a single arm-mounted unit was more than sufficient.
After all, she wasn't a single-minded perfectionist. Portable miniaturization had its place, just as heavy mechanized weaponry did. If only the Sakuradite could be mass-produced—using it so sparingly wasn't a long-term solution.
Ignoring the stunned silence around her, Vela mentally evaluated the [Power Armor] system's progress. With a single thought, the entire arm unit began retracting. The memory-metal structure shifted seamlessly, folding and reshaping—the angular [VARIS] cannon morphing back into a sleek, fitted forearm guard.
Streamlined yet lethal.
Calmly finishing her day's calibration routine and confirming no oversights, Vela finally turned around. Her indigo eyes swept over the crowd of staff gathered nervously by the shooting range entrance.
"Where's the support unit now?" she asked.
By rank and assignment, one of the senior officers—tasked with reporting to the Board in Abernathy's absence—stepped forward respectfully.
"They've already passed through Heywood, entering the Badlands via Pacifica. They're approximately five to seven minutes away from the point where the signal was lost on the Jackson Plains."
"As for the border checkpoint, their clearance wasn't high enough to receive the alert, but the Security Division's Mobile Response Unit stationed in Dogtown has already mobilized under rescue protocol."
...
Dogtown.
Inside the Arasaka garrison.
The roar of vector engines filled the hangar as armored hovercraft powered up and heavily armed personnel boarded.
The sudden incident in the Badlands had disrupted a rotation schedule for one particular three-man squad.
"Hey, Katsuo—what's the situation?"
"David, Suneo—big one this time. A Director-level executive convoy's been hit."
The team shifted into professional focus at once. The vehicle interior fell silent, broken only by the metallic clicks of weapons being prepped.
...
Two minutes earlier.
Jackson Plains canyon region.
BOOOOM!!!
Missiles snaked upward, colliding midair with countermeasure flares. The escorting Octant-class heavy drones launched defensive rockets. The sky filled with chaos—flames and shockwaves blooming in random, overlapping bursts, painting the air with destruction.
The central armored hovercar had clearly begun turning back.
"Knew it! That bitch is trying to run!"
From within a hastily dug trench, Jackie—shouldering an EMP missile launcher—slapped his thigh and shouted, "Panam! Is it time yet? My big sis gave us all this gear—hurry up and blast that middle one with your EMP!"
"Shut the hell up already! That vehicle's a Zetatech surveyor unit! Big frame, sure—but it's fast, accelerates like a jet, and it's got next-gen shielding! EMP resistance isn't exactly weak!"
Lying prone on a small dune, Panam held a binocular scope in one hand and a detonator in the other, her position covered by a desert-patterned thermal camouflage tarp. Her PDA nearby was on speaker mode.
"A regular EMP rocket won't trip it. It's got two 'Octant'-class gunship drones escorting it, plus four unmanned troop carriers. I've gotta time the buried EMP bomb perfectly—one big hit, all at once. Otherwise, we're just wasting ammo and time."
"Damn it! Hit that thing from above—force it down! Maine, where's your firepower?!"
Beep-beep.
[Maine: Goddamn it, grandma, give me a second! I'm already drawing fire for you—shit! It spotted me! Kiwi, jam its targeting systems!]
[Kiwi: Already on it!! Lucy, I need backup!]
[Lucy: On it.]
"It's coming!"
Panam's eyes locked onto the target—forced into evasive maneuvers by Maine, Scorpion, and Mitch's missile fire. The hovercar's course shifted, moving right into her trap.
She raised the pressure detonator, voice tight with focus. "Vehicle entering marked trajectory—Scorpion, Mitch, hold steady… just a bit more… okay—now! Detonate!"
BOOM!
The explosion erupted beneath the hovercar's left flank.
A burst of electric-blue arcs surged across the airframe. The speeding hovercar sputtered violently, its thrusters coughing sparks. It tilted, wobbling as smoke trailed from its engines.
No sooner had the words left her mouth than—whoosh!—another missile streaked upward from a distant stretch of wasteland.
It was faster—far faster—and its exhaust plume was thicker, brighter than anything Panam's crew had fired.
That's not ours, she realized, squinting. One of Jackie's corpo contacts, maybe?
There was no time to think.
BOOOOM!
A deafening explosion split the air. The hovercar burst into flames, fragments scattering like shrapnel as thick black smoke billowed. The once-pristine corporate transport spiraled downward—crashing hard into the desert below.