Triss, as a sorceress and as a successful mastering weapon in the form of a pistol, stayed next to Kiwi, Lucy, Judy and Panam. Panam, however, was quite capable of defending the Raners, but I gave the girls additional reinforcement in the form of Triss. Becca and I walked slowly toward the harbor.
"What do you think? Is it worth it to continue working with Bestia considering that for some reason of her own she has become so tight with Arasaka?"
Becca asked me over our internal channel.
"What's there to think about? it's already been decided. Soon the clan will be moving to Triss' world. Most likely we will move there too, here we will appear to fulfill orders from Bestia and Regina, by the way, when the clan will be secure and have a base that the corporations themselves can not get to, then it will be possible to take orders against corporations. We're taking them anyway. now we're zeroing in on Smasher, we've had a run-in with Biotech before... but it's more of a one-time job, and with a reliable rear guard behind us, we can start taking them on a permanent basis.
"Uh... you didn't answer my question..."
Becca shook her head disapprovingly.
"Actually, Jell-O answered. If we have a base behind us, we can continue to work with Bestia, but if we don't have a base, we have to cut off this contact. Although we have a good relationship with her, but to risk my neck and the clan...
I shook my head.
"I see..."
"Okay, the way ahead is clear, the workers have gone home, only the duty shift is left in the port, but no ships are scheduled to arrive this night. So you're good to go."
"Thank you, Mentor..."
Becca and I moved forward, only if she decided to use an invisibility spell, I activated the optical camouflage system I'd managed to build into my hump. Eh, it's times like this that I start to regret that my sandi is experimental. No, in my mind I realize that without it I would have died on the first order from Regina, but when on a stylish black suit I have to wear a technological hump that spoils the whole look ...
Yeah, it's pointless to regret something like that, especially considering what ninety percent of Knight City's residents are wearing these days, but I don't give a shit about the others, but my appearance... my sense of beauty is going into convulsions.
On the mini map in the corner of the view I saw a green dot that marked Becky's position, she saw the same dot marking my location and thanks to this we could not collide even though in reality we did not see each other.
"We walked in..."
Two words, but we did enter the port, and let the girls see it all on the map, but nobody canceled the chain of command. Becca and I, after my report, began to move further along the port, or rather the part of it that was littered with containers.
But many of these containers were not cargo containers, or rather they were, but they were not used for cargo transportation for a long time, they were "mobile" command centers or rest rooms where there were either observers or guards. And it is more convenient than the usual stationary points by the fact that when the cranes work these containers can be moved to other places. Thus, to know the location of these containers a week and sometimes even a day ago is simply meaningless.
Past the first part of the journey...
I reported to the raners that we had passed the area with containers and were on the dock, but there was more than one ship here, so we had to move around the dock and carefully search for the ship we needed, because the place of its mooring was not marked in the port documents that the girls had broken into before Becca and I got inside.
It took us about thirty minutes to walk along the entire pier and make sure that the right ship was not there...
"What the fuck?"
"Quiet, I have some bad news..."
"Listening to you Snowflake..."
"Clever girl dug up some data, the ship we're interested in left port three hours ago and berthed in the distance from the harbor."
"Wait a minute. you're telling me that point on the horizon is the ship we're interested in?"
"Probably yes."
Snowflake said it with a sigh, and I couldn't answer her, because only swear words came to mind. But it wasn't her fault, so there was no point in swearing at her or the other girls.
"Shall we wrap it up?"
Smarty's voice sounded somewhat guilty.
"Okay, stand down. Good girl, Mentor, I'm going to run through the harbor and put some splinters in here, your job is to break in as quickly as possible. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes! (Laughs)"
Snowflake, your job is to try to find a communication channel to Ebunike, if there is one, then carefully hack it.
"What are we supposed to do? So we hack the port through the splinters and then what?"
"And then find all the Malstrom connections they have, all the contacts, the account numbers they use to pay. Everything. I want to keep Malstrem out of any more suspicious business, so they need to be taught a lesson."
"Got you... although that's hardly helpful."
"I know... well at least they'll have far fewer opportunities to replace chrome, which means they'll either have increased irrecoverable losses, or they'll be a little more careful at least for a while and not take such bad smelling orders."
"You're a fucking dreamer."
Becky's voice broke into our dialog.
"...you know I've got some family members who used to be in this gang. Well, I'm telling you, they're more likely to take more risks."
"Well, the Malstroms will be greatly reduced in number, of course they'll be active again, but maybe they'll just be swept away while they're weakened. If we weaken them enough."
"Whatever you say, Tihonja."
"You're the boss."
Kiwi answered a little later than Lucy, but I could hear from their tone that they didn't really care what happened to Malstrom, especially in light of the plans I'd told them earlier.
I walked to the edge of the dock and looked carefully at a point on the horizon.
There was no way to get to her on short notice and something tells me the ship won't be back in port until Smasher is back on her feet. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
No way. It's just that this particular order is going to take a while to fulfill, which I need to tell Regina...
After running around the port and sticking chips in the computers as promised, I left the port leaving Becca to keep an eye on things, I finally sat down on one of the benches that stood in the port and contacted Regina.
"Quiet?"
Her voice sounded like Like she was dozing, or sleeping...
"Hey, there's been a little hiccup..."
"A hiccup?"
"The ship has left port. So there's no way to get to it without being seen."
"What if it's underwater?"
"Are you serious now? Do you really think Eubunike doesn't have good sonar that can detect the approach of a swimmer?"
"Well..."
"If you're referring to my cloaking system, it'll be useless here, you know, I didn't count on having to swim underwater to get to my target."
"What do you suggest?"
"Waiting..."
"Hmm?"
"Well, I'm gonna run down to a place to get some equipment, and we're gonna set a trap for Smasher. It's the only place he can get back to relatively safely in this town anyway."
"Okay, uh. go ahead."
"Oh... And also..."
"Uh-huh?
"The malstrom gang is going to have some financial problems soon, if you want to get rid of them in your territory, I think in 24 hours you can get into action."
"Hmm... I'll keep that in mind. Is this info private or can I pass it on to some ficsers?"
"The main thing is not to cheapen..."
"You don't have to worry about this set."
Regina grinned and the connection broke.
"Okay, Witch for the older one, Cherry, in the car..."
"Hey! I didn't agree to that call sign!"
Triss was clearly very much perturbed.
"It's pointless, as someone who originally had the call sign Gluttony I can give advice..."
"Come on..."
There was apprehension mixed with interest in Triss's voice.
"Show him a side of you that will allow him to give you a different nickname. Preferably a side that will shock him, I for one like to read paper books..."
"What's the big deal?"
"It's commonplace for you, but in Knight City."
Speaking of Knight City, Becca emphasized it in such a way that it was immediately clear that she was referring not only to the city, but to our world as a whole.
"...that's very rare, and given my looks and explosive personality..."
"Yeah, well. it does seem a little out of step with your image and this town. So we need to shock him with something?"
"Uh-huh...
"What about the rest of you?"
"Well... The only one who resented the nickname was Mentor, but it was a bit vague and she accepted it pretty quickly. The rest of us were just lucky to have nicknames."
"I see..."
"And yes... I'll complement our Scribe, sex probably won't help here, as otherwise we'd all have changed nicknames by now..."
It was Kiwi who decided to intervene in the conversation.
"Hey! Who do you think I am?!"
"For the one who agreed to the harem, having obtained permission to join it from all the participants of this action ..."
Judy intervened in the conversation.
"Hmmm..."
I pretended to think about it.
"Hey! Forget it! Forget I said forget it!"
Triss was scared out of her wits.
"Well, actually I was thinking of assigning all the girls the call signs "Concubine One", "Concubine Two", etc..."
"Forget it!"
The chorus of cheers from all the girls made me laugh. And that's when I got to the car.
"Where to?"
Panam was already sitting behind the wheel and looked at me carefully, frowning slightly, showing that she had not forgiven my joke yet.
"To the clan, we need to pick up some equipment."
"Roger that."
And I only had time to buckle up, when Tortik2 tore out of his seat, pressing me into the back of the passenger seat. I didn't feel comfortable driving at such speeds, but I kept quiet, because I trusted the Pans, and we really needed to get to the clan as fast as possible, and then get back as fast as possible.
The whole way I was tossing from side to side, and Panam was casting unkind glances at me, occasionally making some very steep turns, which, even an amateur driver like me realized, were unnecessary. But we got to the clan parking lot in no time at all.
"Okay, wait, I'll be right back..."
And I immediately hid in our Hippo, where I got to the armory and got all the sniper rifles I had bought from Regina, and it was with them, as well as with comfortable mats that I went back to the car.
"This is..."
"Yeah, we'll set up an ambush for that Borg."
"Okay, what about Ciri?"
"What about Ciri?"
"Well... in case you haven't noticed, the intensity of opening portals in the city has become much less, which could mean that the Wild Hunt doesn't have the energy left to open them with the same intensity, or that they've somehow made a deal with the powers that be... And given Yerinobu's words when you met him..."
"Yes, you're right, the second option is much more realistic. But what are you suggesting?"
"We can at least take her with us..."
I looked at Panam and thought. On the one hand she had no business being there, even Triss didn't need to be there, but she was almost part of the family and so I was starting to involve her in the family craft. And she, from what I could see, wasn't against it...
On the other hand, this way we'll take the clan out of the picture and see if they're tracking her movements? Although it's clear that within the world their search is somewhat limited. Otherwise, the clan parking lot would have already been attacked by the forces of various corporations, and Yerinobu wouldn't have tried to negotiate with us...
Although... maybe his words about attacking the clan to pressure me were a lie and they actually tracked down Ciri somehow?
Fuck! So many questions!
"Ciri."
I contacted the girl who answered my call fairly quickly.
"Am I listening?"
"Come on to the parking lot, you're coming with us."
"Need help?"
"No... it's more about trying to find out exactly why Arasaka attacked the clan. Was it to pressure me, or did they track you down somehow?"
"Okay, uh. I'll be there in five minutes."
"Uh-huh, and also, when you get hooked up to the common channel, your call sign will be Princess.
"Pfft!!!"
Tsiri expressively snorted showing her attitude to such a call sign, but that was all that was limited, and we had to wait for her and go back to the port, where my girls were already waiting for me...