Chapter 6: Aggressive Hitchhiking for fun & profit
Emiya pressed the haptic interface button on his omnitool, the call immediately dialing.
They had pulled back from the road, deciding to trust in the cover of jungle until the problem of the sniper was resolved and not wanting to be forced to fiddle with their suits in the middle of a call. The omnitool dial tone rang twice before the call was picked up.
"Gunnery Chief Thomas speaking."
"Serviceman Emiya calling."
"Alright, what is it? Keep it short, serviceman, we're busy here." The voice at the other end of the comms said.
Shepard kept intensely looking at Emiya, listening in to the conversation with such rapt attention while holding so quiet that she had almost stopped breathing.
"I'm having a bit of a problem with a gun. The safety software doesn't seem to be working properly, so I don't think I can use it, sir," Emiya explained.
"Hmm? The safeties are off? Are you sure the gun still works? Gun malfunctions as a result of a failed hack are still a part of the simulation," Thomas answered, seeming to grow more interested in the conversation. A faulty gun could cause personnel injuries if left unattended, after all.
"Yes, sir. It fires just fine, but the output exceeds the safeties."
"That shouldn't be possible. Outside of very specific armaments, the hard cap on velocity should not be possible to remove during this operation. What weapon are we talking about here?" The skepticism was clear in his voice now.
"It's a sniper rifle, sir," Emiya said.
The comm went silent. And after five seconds, as no response could still be heard, Shepard began to look with alarm at Emiya.
"Yeah, about that, Serviceman Emiya, you newbies don't have access to that weapon — you don't even have the clearance for the ID-lock. Your waste of my time has been noted and you will be called in for a disciplinary hearing following this—"—boom!
Emiya pulled the trigger.
The silence on the other end of the comm was almost deafening and Emiya had to hold back a smirk.
"Sorry, sir. My finger slipped."
"...Hold on, let me pull up your camera feed..." Thomas hastily said, and there was another moment of silence. "—Serviceman... newest batch, pistol and light hardsuit training, no hacking training or software..."
Emiya could barely hear the Gunnery Chief muttering on the other end, as Thomas must have been going through his records. Emiya looked down at the Frankenstein's monster of a cobbled-together sniper rifle, waiting for the other end to finish whatever they were doing.
It didn't take long.
"...Holy Mother of God, what the fuck am I looking at?"
"Ah, well. We took out a hostile sniper and took his gun. Figured we could use it since our pistols were proving a bit anemic. But as it turns out, the firmware update didn't carry over so it's a bit too—shall we say—vigorous for our purposes," Emiya said, holding back all the smugness that he could. It was barely enough, as there was a certain enjoyment to be had in all this.
Beside him, Shepard was grinning from ear to ear, though careful to keep the hell out of his camera's view.
"Don't... Don't move. Don't hang up. Don't do anything. I need to get a superior officer for this..."
The voice broke off and Emiya then had to smirk. Beside him, Shepard had less success in holding back her mirth as her shoulders were shaking with quiet laughter. A few minutes passed by and Shepard received another update on the happenings in town from Cassani, who remained wholly unaware of what they were doing.
Finally, after ten minutes had passed a new voice came through. A much darker and more somber voice, speaking of years of experience in command.
"This is Major Maeda, what's the problem?"
"Sir, we have acquired a sniper rifle and its safeties are off, rendering it too dangerous to use. I am requesting for the ID-lock to be disabled," Emiya explained.
"Denied. This was explained to you before; appropriated armaments must be hacked using the outlined guidelines; failing that you have ruined the weapon according to the simulation—
"Sir, they've physically bypassed the serialized parts and firmware lock using another gun—" Thomas' voice interjected.
"Which was also outlined in the guidelines under the section for physical tampering. Tampering with Alliance Navy equipment is grounds for a disciplinary hearing. That the safeties are off is exactly why these things were taken off the table; playing cowboy with the rules like this gets soldiers killed." Maeda was having none of it.
"Yes, I know that, sir. But—
"But what?
"Sir, they're recruits. E6, the entire team. They haven't been told any of this; they don't even have hacking utilities or the clearance to carry sniper rifles." Thomas explained. That seemed to bring the Major up short, as the comm went silent. "Moreover, the Navy techs have been working on this stuff for decades. The guns should be physically hack-proof with the stuff they have." A moment of silence, followed by a quieter: "They've found some loophole or exploit we've completely managed to miss, sir."
Another long moment of silence.
"Hmm. I see. Well then, have him called in after the exercise for a briefing. Well done, serviceman, the Alliance is always willing to reward those who help it improve its cybersecurity. Now, if there's nothing else..."
"Actually, I would still like for the ID-lock on the gun to be taken off," Emiya said before the Major could get off the line.
"Excuse me?" He actually sounded confused, as Emiya had expected.
The flipside to the strictly ordered nature of militaries was that oftentimes the officers did not come into contact with people who did not follow the exacting rules and protocols that had been set down. It was the job of the NCOs—the non-commissioned officers who handled the day-to-day business—usually to act as the immediate enforcers, keeping the 'dumb grunts' in line. This meant that they acted as a sort of filter, allowing the officers to retain much of the authority they had without fear of familiarity breeding contempt.
But it also meant that they did not always have the full range of experience necessary to handle an uppity serviceman.
"Well, given that this is a simulation, and I have successfully acquired and re-purposed a weapon used by the opposing force snipers, I believe I should be granted the use of the normal simulated firing operations of this rifle. The only reason it is unusable is that my methods were unexpected and novel, which should not be grounds for punishing me," Emiya said, carefully keeping his voice neutral.
"And how would denying you this be a punishment? I believe that in not already having you sent before a disciplinary hearing that I am being quite lenient with you."
Emiya smirked; an NCO would have simply slapped him down here for speaking out of turn, ignoring anything he had to say on the grounds of its inappropriateness. But this Major, at the same time held a respect for his men, as well as an unfamiliarity with how to deal with a case such as this.
It gave him the in he needed.
"Sir, the use of physical interference was never forbidden to us and there is explicitly a side objective listed as capturing enemy personnel or weapons available to us. I have acted exactly as instructed and have the vid feeds to prove it. Certainly, the side objective says to 'hack an enemy weapon successfully', but given that neither 'hacking' nor 'physical interference' has ever been clearly defined for us and that I have successfully managed to appropriate an enemy's weapon and made use of it, I do believe that I have done no wrong. As per the rulebook, that means it's your fault, for not fully explaining the rules of engagement properly to me and my team.
"Moreover, I have wasted over an hour on this rifle. Time, during which we could have been moving towards our RV point for extraction, or achieving other goals. We have set up an ambush alongside a road to commandeer a vehicle for the transportation of a wounded teammate. If we are denied this weapon, the ambush will not only not work, but we will also have wasted precious hours of our time. How else should this be taken if not as a punishment, when I have already demonstrated that I have made the weapon functional, exactly as the objectives have instructed me to?"
Emiya stopped speaking, holding his fingers crossed out of the camera's sight, showing it only to Shepard who was staring intently at the glowing omnitool.
A long pregnant silence followed, finally broken by a sigh at the other end.
What had gone unsaid, but both understood implicitly, was that no one had explained anything to the newbies because they were simply supposed to be running around like headless chickens for other soldiers to hunt down. But he who lives by the creed of 'RTFM' shall be put down by the creed of 'RTFM'.
"Thomas, what do you think?" Maeda asked, the sound of his voice lower as he had apparently turned away from the receiver.
"Sir... I do think it would set a poor precedent if we didn't reward their creativity and initiative. Leave a poor aftertaste, for all their hard work, and all that... Sir." Thomas answered in the background.
Emiya smirked, throwing an out-of-sight thumbs up to Shepard, who reciprocated with a grin of her own.
"Very well. For the duration of this exercise, the clearance to use the Avenger II long-distance rifle will be granted to their team. But given that they lack the training for it, they will require constant oversight. Chief Thomas, given your involvement you will be held responsible for their actions and are from this moment forward re-assigned to keeping an eye on them for the duration of this exercise. I expect you to step in and pull the plug if it is necessary. Understood?" Major Maeda spoke, the tone of finality clear in his voice.
"Yes, sir!" Thomas answered vigorously, the salute almost audible through the comms.
"Yes!" Shepard whispered, fist-pumping with a grin.
The sounds at the other end of the line scrambled, hinting at the Major leaving.
"Well, then. Serviceman Emiya, get your guns back in normal order and once I have confirmed that it is functional again, you will be granted user access to that weapon." Thomas spoke a few seconds later. "Oh, I will also be henceforth monitoring your activities; don't worry, it's normally just done afterward when your instructors review your footage, so it's nothing to worry about happening live."
"Yes, sir. I'll get right to it," Emiya said, wiping the smirk off of his face as he got serious again. He turned to Shepard who was giving him a thumbs up with a wide smile. He nodded, the smirk returning all on its own. "Alright. Shepard, go get Franco ready while I get these things back in two pieces."
"Gotcha, I'll be back in half an hour," She said, jumping up to her feet and running off. After thirty seconds, she was completely gone, as even the sounds of her running were too muffled to be heard through the general cacophony in the distance.
He unplugged the pistol from his rifle and began to re-assemble the guns back into their original forms, while narrating what he was doing for Thomas' and the recording's benefit.
"Christ, how did a fresh recruit like you figure out all this..." Thomas's voice whispered through the comms as Emiya's hands moved rapidly through the parts. Lacking proper tools, he had to use his set of ad hoc tools, which forced him to do it in a slightly different order than the Chief was used to, eliciting more than a few comments. It was possible to put that piece back after the other one, even though it made more sense to do it the other way, for example. But doing it like that allowed him to use it first as a shimmy for another part, and so forth...
"Hmm, the comms are still on, sir," Emiya spoke, respectfully. Now that he had someone breathing down his neck in real time, he would have to be extra careful.
If the recordings had been watched afterward and Emiya had done something out of the ordinary, he would have had plenty of time to figure out an excuse before someone noticed. But now, he might be called in to explain his actions seconds after the fact, which left much less time for inventing plausible explanations.
He was lucky that he had actually been curious about all the things that were required for this little field adjustment he had performed. There was an extranet trail showing that he had researched and studied all of these things in great detail, making it only very implausible rather than outright impossible for him to have figured it all out on his own.
"Don't worry about it, serviceman. Just looking here. Mind telling me how you figured it out? It would simplify explaining it up the chain of command for me later," Thomas suggested, chuckling. "I mean, normally we don't get recruits running around with Avengers."
"Well, after I was issued the pistol, I simply read the manual that they gave us access to on our omnitools, sir," Emiya said. It was the first thing he had done too, actually. As the pistol had been entirely void of previous history for his Structural Analysis, he'd had to actually read the manual to get the full picture.
And while a lot slower a way to learn, the manual did its job as it was damn well supposed to.
So he had learned quite a bit about the pistol and mass accelerator technology in general, prompting not only his second and third readthroughs, but his forays into many, many other manuals and schematics made available to him. It helped that the standard for manuals was quite high, and that it had been written in language simple enough for even the dumbest recruit to understand the basics.
He had gone beyond that in his analysis, of course.
Weapons were something of a passion for him, and he made sure to understand them, not just out of personal interest but also to make certain he would never be let down by them and that he could repair them with his magecraft.
But technically the manual was enough for his explanation.
"After that, I just looked up each part on the extranet and reasoned out how all of it worked from the manufacturers' specs. It wasn't really hard to then compare it to the sniper rifle since the basics are the same." Emiya said with a shrug, even though he was sure Thomas couldn't see it.
"Hah, well, the Infiltrators and Engineers will have a field day with this. For once, someone actually read the fucking manual and it ends up being a completely new exploit no one's ever noticed before."
Emiya winced.
He hadn't intended to leave any marks of himself in history or on other people like this, but what was done was done. To be fair, to him it had seemed a rather simple and easily noticeable exploit in the weapons' designs. Even if he'd had to go through two simpler versions of it, which had been apparently found before, to get to this point.
Then again, he did have a unique way of looking at weapons. They were not just things, but records.
"Alright. It's done," Emiya said, holding up the pistol in one hand and the rifle in the other.
"Good. Now, I'll disable both, so point them at the ground away from you and pull the trigger on both. First the pistol; we're just testing to make sure. At this point if something goes wrong, we're both screwed, you know. Well, more you than me. I'll just have a mountain of paperwork. Actually, less than if you do succeed. Huh..."
"Aye, aye, sir," Emiya said, ignoring the Chief's rambling.
Emiya aimed the pistol at the ground fifteen meters away and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
"Good, everything green. Enabling pistol, safeties on and working. Another test shot, go ahead."
He repeated his earlier action, but this time there was a soft kick and sound as the gun fired.
"Good. Next the rifle."
Emiya holstered the pistol by his hip; the gun collapsing into a smaller form and attaching itself to the Van der Waals-strip. He raised the sniper rifle, took aim and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, again.
"Heh, everything green. Enabling sniper rifle, safeties on and working. No need to try it. Congrats, you've got yourself an Avenger II now. I think that's a first, too. Okay, so I'm shutting this line now and I won't be in contact unless something strange happens. If anything is about to go horribly wrong, I'll step in, so just act as you would normally."
"Understood," Emiya replied and collapsed the rifle and threw it over his shoulder onto the Van der Waals-strip there.
Now then, time to finalize the ambush and catch a ride.
;
Emiya prowled around, checking and re-checking the location they had chosen for their ambush.
The road that went through the jungle was one that offered enough of a detour and concealment from the city, that he had reasoned that some would seek to use it for fear of getting stuck inside the narrow alleyways or crumbled streets. And in that regard, he had been proven right.
Already four different vehicles had passed by since he and Shepard had originally come here.
The road was quite narrow and had plenty of craters and holes, as the heavy rains often bombarded and played havoc on the surface of the packed dirt from above at the same time as plants tried to invade and grow on the open space, their roots pushing through from beneath. From the sides, plants and undergrowth hung over the road as tall trees formed a wall that made the road almost look like an underground tunnel. Above, a dim jagged line of light ran along the road as on the sides the canopy was thick enough that no direct sunlight could break through.
Emiya inspected the road, specifically the small turn that they had chosen.
He eyed both ways and looked around, noting his surroundings as he waited for Shepard to return. He climbed up beside the tree Shepard had chosen and checked that the top was sufficiently entangled with its counterpart on the other side of the road that once one fell the other would follow. This part was rather delicate as even under controlled circumstances with a chainsaw, getting a tree to fall the way you wanted was always tricky business. This is where the two trees being bound together would help, as they were already leaning into the direction they would be falling towards and would not be able to deviate too much since they would be falling as one.
Emiya had a fair bit of experience with these kinds of traps before; mostly when he simply wanted to deny passage or to repel enemies, as he had tended to eschew lethal means. Those tended to be too indiscriminate for his liking. He checked and double-checked the trees, marking the spot she should target to ensure a controlled fall when it came time.
It seemed to him as if it would work.
Then he simply moved around, noting details here and there in preparation.
If it came to a fight, knowing where every root and every hole lay could make for the difference between a catastrophic failure and a resounding success. If he'd had some more time and this was a real ambush, he would have dug pits under the cover of big leaves and built rudimentary traps to further restrain and slow down the passengers of the car at the point where it would be stopped.
But this would have to do.
He walked up and down the side of the road, fifty meters in both directions from the spot where the trees would fall down on the road, investigating everything he thought might prove useful, moving a few vines to act as possible trap hazards, but not much more.
Then he began to look for a final firing position.
With the sniper rifle, they now had considerably more options available to them, but it had certain limitations which required careful consideration.
Due to the low rate of fire, he would need to be at a sufficient distance from the ambush spot so that he could exert pressure on them without having to worry about retaliation, but not so far away that the turn in the road left him blind.
For example, lying prone with the sniper rifle propped against the ground, his accuracy would increase considerably, but it would make it more difficult for him to make large adjustments to his aim. If he was so close that his targets could run far enough to the side that he had to lift up his rifle, it would impact his force projection considerably during the ambush. Thus the further away he was, the further those targets would need to move to achieve such a thing, angles and distances being what they were.
The road also worked as a perfect funnel in that regard, giving him a clear line of fire to shoot down, and forcing anyone wishing to rush him to brave his continued shooting, while also slowing down anyone trying to flank him through the jungle. It would make everything much messier if that happened, but it did serve as entangling ground well enough to momentarily render anyone who tried to escape to the trees harmless.
Of course, the further away he was, the harder it would be to hit his enemies... but that was hardly an issue for him. A distance like this would never be an issue to anyone classifying for the Archer class in the Moon Cell's records of Heroic Spirits. Well, not that he could bull's eye every shot with the Chief watching every second of his helmet feed. But he would take the shots that mattered.
There was also the matter of the range calculations he had previously noticed.
A little bit of experimenting revealed that if he switched between aiming at a nearby target and something far off in the distance, the trigger would disengage for a second. But at the distances he would be planning to operate, it would not be a problem. Switching between 10 meters and 100 meters, for example, took less than half-a-second for the computer to adjust, which should be fine.
The plan was fairly simple.
He would take position down the road from the bend, far enough away that he could use the rifle from concealment under a particularly thick bush. Shepard would hide behind one of the trees by the ambush spot, ready to use her pistol to shoot through the rest of the trunk to cause it to fall over and pull the other tree with it, which had also been weakened sufficiently to not resist overmuch.
Once the tree-trap was sprung, Shepard would stay down and wait for an opening to act once the vehicle's passengers exited to respond to the ambush.
Given her proximity to the road, she would be vulnerable to detection by their sensors, which meant some extra care had to be taken. It would necessitate her kinetic barriers being turned off, as the trees simply would not provide enough occlusion, and her hardsuit and omnitool being in low power mode, which meant she could not be anywhere near the fighting before she turned on her own gear, nor could she maintain an open line of communication with either him or Cassani.
Meaning she would be laying low entirely on her own, forced to use her own judgment for when to boot up her kinetic barriers and start her own assault on the enemies' flank. If timed right, it would allow her to inflict disproportionate amounts of damage even after the initial advantage of the ambush and sniper rifle had worn off, which would allow them to tip the scales of the confrontation.
Finally, Cassani would be placed to hide at the outside of the bend in the road, on the other side of Shepard, giving him a clear view down both ways of the road. Since he was 'wounded', he would simply be working as another pair of eyes for them, unable to do much else but call out what he could see. With him placed beyond the firefight but behind the vehicle, he would be able to call out enemy movements to them where their own lines of sight might be broken.
Cassani had suggested that he could write up a camera-sharing script that would give them a live feed through his camera onto their omnitools, but it would only make them easier to detect by sensors tuned to electromagnetic waves and communications, which would undermine the entire ambush.
Besides, Cassani couldn't exactly write up the program in his current condition.
So calling it out over the comms after the ambush was sprung it was.
Once Emiya was certain that he had the whole thing planned out, he hunkered down to wait.
A while later, Shepard returned. She looked around, not entirely certain if this was the place, as a lot of the jungle looked exactly the same even once you got to know it. But she had hardly gotten used to walking through it, so the effect was magnified to truly unnerving proportions.
"Emiya...?" she called out.
"Here," he said, standing up behind her.
"Whoa!" Shepard jumped a foot in the air, pulling her pistol and dropping Cassani as she wheeled around to look at Emiya. "Don't. do that," she said, glaring at him, practically drawing a bead on him.
"Ow. Yeah. Less of this, please," Cassani complained from the ground, spitting at a plant that was sticking into his nose.
Emiya merely smirked and shrugged.
"I tested around a little with the suit some more. I think I've figured out the optimal way of hiding. The boot-up takes just 5 seconds," Emiya explained and Shepard blinked, realizing that she hadn't spotted him on her radar despite the relatively short distance between them.
Her vicious grin all but demanded that he show her, her still drawn pistol reinforcing the notion.
;
The plan was set, he had explained all of their roles and set them up into their respective positions.
Now all that was left was to simply see it through.
Emiya lay to the side of the road beneath a thick bush, almost in the ditch as he held onto the collapsed rifle. He inhaled slowly, his ears straining to listen for any unusual sounds above the normal cacophony of wildlife around them and the fighting in the distance. There had been a noticeable peak in conflict half an hour ago but it had died down ten minutes ago, he had noted.
There must have been a concentrated effort on the city front by one or more factions. Still, no cars.
Wait... I hear something.
The low thrum, so soft that you had to feel it more than hear it.
He raised his head up until he could see Shepard in her hiding place past the trees and bushes. They had agreed to minimize comm use, as there would be no way to communicate once they went cold. And there was also no way for them to know whether those could be detected or worse yet, hacked. That was also the reason why he had avoided explaining anything over the comms, whenever possible.
Opsec starts with the smallest things.
He raised a hand and she nodded in the distance. That was the agreed-upon signal for someone coming down the road from his way. Since Shepard couldn't look at Cassani while looking at him, Cassani's signal was a loud whistle; the only thing their 'wounded' was capable of doing at the moment, really.
Emiya moved around, careful to avoid disturbing the plants around him as he turned to look down the road. He needed eyes on the vehicle to make a judgment call on whether or not it was a suitable target.
It approached; definitely coming down this way.
He raised his hand again; the second signal, signifying to go completely cold.
Emiya waited until her presence on his radar disappeared before he turned off his own suit and rolled into the thicket to hide from sight.
The vehicle approached: another six-wheeled car, again without any external guns. But this one had less armor and as he peered he could see inside of it through the windshield. It had at least six seated people, counting the driver as well. Spotting the bend up ahead, it was starting to slow down.
A light Armored Personnel Carrier. Not perfect odds, or even good ones really, but I'll take what I can get. It's already past three and we don't have all day.
Emiya pushed with his heel against the tree behind him lightly, shaking just it enough for the topmost leaves to shake. The third agreed-upon signal; this one green-lighting the ambush. He had just enough time to see Shepard's back before he heard the first muffled report of the pistol.
Someone in the car seemed to notice the sound, but it was too late.
Five pistol shots punched through the already gouged tree's trunk and it began to creak, the sounds so muffled that Emiya barely heard them. The timing was a little off, but it was only a bit too early which was still within acceptable limits. The car came driving down the road at a sedate pace, bouncing just a little as it rolled over the numerous potholes and bumps dotting the surface.
The trees began to fall, almost agonizingly slowly and the driver apparently noticed as he began to slow down further. But the APC did not stop, Emiya noted as it went past Shepard's hiding spot. He rolled over slowly and carefully, still hiding and avoiding looking out too much as he slowly got into a firing position, not quite out on the road yet.
The sniper rifle extended into its full form and he raised the scope to take a closer look, his finger still off the trigger.
Those in the car must have already suspected something, as trees rarely fall on their own like this. Two of them at the same time, even less commonly. But he had a poor angle at the occupants, he noted as he looked through the scope.
The chassis was still fairly thick and angled to deflect rounds besides, he noted. Moreover, they must have some kinetic barrier as well, he reasoned. And a vehicle like that could just drive over the trees, he knew.
He refrained from acting just yet, riding the moment. Prudence was key right now.
It was now a coin toss as to what the passengers would do.
He exhaled, lifting the rifle and scooting half-out onto the road, and setting up his shot in the prone position again. The scope returned to his field of vision and this time his finger found the trigger gently, his breathing slowing down so much it almost stilled completely as he began to line his first shot.
Emiya's heartbeat slowed down along with his perception of time.
Observe...
He eyed the back of the car, the roof, and then the wheels and what little of the bottom he could see. He only had one definite shot: the wheels. But if he shot out too many and actually immobilized the car, repairs would slow them down later. But he needed to incapacitate the APC with the first shot. But if it had strong kinetic barriers, then they could simply drive off the moment they detected danger, while their shields still held.
The multitude of possibilities washed over him and through him, leaving him unaffected as he simply continued observing.
For a car that size, generating a kinetic barrier must be a massive drain. Of course, the eezo core and batteries could be proportionally much larger than the ones in their suits.
The question was what role did the car really fill? What was it built for?
It would not be able to take a single powerful round from anything aimed at true armored vehicles like tanks. No, this was a faster mode of transport, meant to avoid direct combat and to allow a small team to move around and behind enemy lines. He assumed it fit the role of a lighter scouting vehicle, not meant for the fronts. Just enough for small arms fire not to punch through and put the personnel inside in danger, not so much that it would be picked up by long-range scanners looking for energy signatures.
During his era, one didn't try to fit thick steel plating onto a simple pick-up truck or land rover, when it would be far better served by its mobility. The Toyota War had been a clear example of that doctrine, where sheer speed utterly defeated land mines meant to prevent vehicle assaults. It made no sense to invest in a powerful kinetic barrier on such a light and nimble-looking vehicle.
Emiya's eyes narrowed, flicking on a higher magnification of the scope, poring over the paint on the car. Nearly flawless, besides the dust. One scratch that looked like the thick tires had kicked up a rock. No pockmarks of gunfire or any real damage anywhere that he could see. This exercise had already been raging for several hours and judging by the thickness of the layered dust along the bottom of the chassis, it had been driving all day.
They have steered clear of combat.
It would only have the bare minimum when it came to defense then, he wagered.
If it had some kinetic barriers, they wouldn't extend much past the chassis either. On their hardsuits, the kinetic barriers barely projected a few centimeters off of the suit. The smaller the mass effect field, the more efficient it could be.
The car slowed down, finally coming to a halt before the trees.
Emiya strained and he could hear some kind of muffled argument from within the car. Someone probably suggested driving over the trees, but someone else was objecting, he guessed from the fragments he could hear. One person in the rear was wildly gesticulating at the jungle beside them, while the driver was growing increasingly annoyed with all the different people shouting different things at him.
He waited, flicking his scope to the lowest possible magnification to give him an overview of the entire car. He was still only observing, noting the behavior of those inside to better read them. He aimed his scope to the driver's side, using the driver's side-view mirror to look inside at the faces of the, ticking up one level of magnification.
Just enough for a little more detail on their reflected faces without sacrificing the view of the rest of the car.
Those inside the car had readied their weapons and tools, scanning their surroundings for the ambush that should have already been sprung.
Emiya lay as still as a rock, half-hidden beneath the overhanging undergrowth from the side of the road. Shepard was hiding behind the trees, down low to the ground and waiting for his opening move.
But nothing happened.
Those in the car must have been anxious; their nerves strained and straining further. But no one jumped out, no one threw a grenade at them, no one rushed them with guns blazing. No more trees fell down to box them in. Nothing. It must have confused the people in the car as they seemed to relax a little after a few seconds. The possibility that they were facing a foe without the same level of armaments and munitions must not have occurred to them, too used to the uniformity of these exercises.
It was a terrible habit: growing used to things and becoming complacent.
That, and they must have reliable radars, seeing as how many of them were constantly glancing at their glowing omnitools. But the jungle was one thick mess of sweltering heat and life, leaving only active kinetic shields as legible for sensors. And the only active kinetic barriers within a kilometers radius of this location were their own. No one would be so cocky or dumb as to turn off their shields, right?
Once again, Emiya considered how much trouble he might be in for playing around with his hardsuit, but seeing as how Chief Thomas hadn't said anything... Well, it wasn't a problem for right now.
He could tell they were relaxing. They looked around and checked their gear and omnitools, but there was clearly no danger here.
But that was wrong. The most dangerous moment is not when you are your most tense, but when you start relaxing just after you think all the danger has passed.
C'mon, be stupid. You're driving a two-tonne armored personnel carrier. You already made three mistakes and you're flustered and confused. But you're invincible inside that thing and you know it, be overconfident dumbasses...
And just then, the driver did something incredibly stupid, having had enough of everyone shouting at him.
He leaned out of the car to look out through the side window, just to get a better look around the car.
It would have been less than a one-second glance at the trees on the road to judge whether they could be driven over, but the sniper rifle was already aimed there, the scope was already zeroed in, the finger was already on the trigger. After all, the only shot that could swing things in their favor would be the one that completely incapacitated the APC.
Emiya smirked.
Exhale; respiratory pause; pull—boom!
The head jerked forward with the shot, and then went utterly stiff as the suit simulation pronounced him instantly dead from the perfect headshot.
Emiya inhaled, absently powering on his suit and riding the rifle's cooldown.
Got the driver. They'll hesitate between ambush doctrine stating to make an immediate retreat and counter-attacking to take out the lone sniper on their radars who just shot their driver. Hovering indecisively between head or heart is how you die on the battlefield. So, time to taunt them.
Emiya lowered the sights diagonally, aiming at the rear tire on the right side of the car, where one of the more aggressive passengers who had been wildly advocating for responding to the ambush before was seated. Emiya angled it such that it would only pop the rearmost tire, without hitting the metal rim or the axles.
Pull—boom!
A kinetic barrier flashed but fizzled out as the sniper rifle's round loudly popped off of the tire, but didn't break it. Emiya hesitated for a moment, at how easily the kinetic barrier had broken; he had honestly expected more, even though he had reasoned the barriers to be somewhat weak.
Well, not that he was complaining. Just one more shot.
Inside the car, the passengers' jerked around to stare at the direction of the second shot; they had pulled the driver back in as they had just now realized that they were in fact under attack, and were finally scrambling to do something. I have their attention. But it wasn't enough. He needed them off balance. Angry.
Pull—boom!
The tire exploded into thick bands of black rubber, the car dropping a little as the tire that had been bearing weight at the moment deflated with a loud pop. Gravel and sand were pushed up in a small cloud as pieces of rubber landed everywhere.
The target of his taunting was trying to leave the car, but two pairs of hands were holding him back, shouting at him to calm down.
Not enough pressure yet, he needed more.
Something dramatic enough to get all the passengers' attention, he thought as he inhaled slowly again. Shepard still remained cold, waiting for her opening. The car doors—massive steel slabs that would have been decent protection against even full power mass accelerator rounds—were still firmly shut, with all but the driver's window closed. She wouldn't be able to do a thing until the people in the car came out of their own accord.
He looked at the shape of the car, considering acoustics as he had an idea.
Even a direct hit won't do much, but the sound it will make inside the car will be quite loud, won't it? Emiya thought, this time aiming at the rear window.
Pull—boom!
Those in the car reeled around again, whirling at the impact behind them. The rear window, a small thing on the large reinforced slab of a door, cracked with a spider-web of threads extending all the way to the corners.
Emiya was rather surprised at that; he had expected the car's kinetic barriers to have recovered already. Another shot and he would punch through; the full power rifle would have already done so with the first, too. Someone inside the car shouted, apparently having had enough of doing nothing even as the one in the front passenger seat was trying to get into the driver's seat to allow them to drive away.
The rear right-side passenger door opened and the angry man jumped out, pulling a rifle off of his back and jumping into the undergrowth for concealment as he went prone. A rapid surge of suppressing fire answered Emiya's earlier taunting shots, forcing him to roll off the road and into the jungle. He collapsed the rifle and quickly rolled for cover as he could hear two other doors opening and men jumping out to fire at him.
They still hadn't noticed Shepard or Cassani, which was good. And his suit power was finally on at full power, so he wouldn't be dead the moment a bullet hit him, which was always a good thing.
Emiya got up, opening the rifle again as he went to one knee and took aim once more. He was behind a large tree, taking support from it for both cover and for the sniper rifle's stability. Several bullets hit the tree, gouging out pieces of cellulose and splattering sap everywhere, but remaining ultimately harmless.
He could smell the sweet scent in the air, somehow refreshing as he took aim and lined up his next shot.
Pull—boom!
It struck the right shoulder of a man from the left side of the car, causing him to stiffen up and then fall over.
It wasn't the aggressive one from earlier either; that guy was just too good as an anchor to keep the rest from escaping, given his choleric disposition. The shot man's legs still kicked despite his falling over, pushing him back behind the cover of the car, so the shot must not have been deemed instantly lethal.
Emiya could have claimed another head, but had deliberately not corrected his aim. Just good enough of a shot to work, but not so much so as to raise eyebrows. Well, not too many eyebrows and not too much. It wasn't that he was intentionally failing, rather that he was simply half-assing it and not taking the effort to correct his aim at the last second with proper follow-through.
Besides, with the sniper rifle's rate of fire, he would be overwhelmed if all of them rushed him at once. Wounding one would distract the others, causing hesitation and one or more of them to rush to aid the wounded, rather than to concentrate on offense.
It would buy him more time, in other words.
One of the men leaving the car turned around to go help the wounded one, leaving now only two to shoot at Emiya; one of them the angry man lying prone in the undergrowth, shouting loudly as he fired away, and another kneeling behind the car's armored frame.
"Two guys taking cover in front of the car. One looks wounded. The other is patching him up, I think." Cassani chimed in from his location, far away from the thick of things.