The Real Deal
"LOA? Clearly, someone's trying to screw over this shipment. Stay sharp—we might even get hit by a hijacking."
Militech Convoy.
The convoy consisted of a Six Emperor Ragnar and two Behemoth APCs.
Inside the vehicles, apart from two small flat-nose trucks, there were also various military-grade equipment and high-tech signal transmitters.
Most of it was preparation for the upcoming mayoral election, such as:
Two full crates of weapons for the Sixth Street Gang, in exchange for promoting the corporation's chosen mayoral candidate.
Placing signal jammers near the opposition candidate's campaign broadcasts, turning their TV appearances into pixelated messes.
And, of course, some of it… were samples.
Militech personnel faced little trouble at the border checkpoint. The automated clearance system let them through with minimal hassle—no clueless guard dared demand a "toll fee." The drivers and security didn't even have to step out of the vehicles. The barricades lifted smoothly, allowing the convoy to proceed unhindered.
As the vehicles exited the checkpoint, the driver of one of the Behemoth APCs turned his cybernetic eye northward, zooming in on a scene a kilometer away—
There, in the distance, lay the biggest shitstorm the company had dealt with recently:
A gap in the border wall.
The driver whistled. "Damn. Insane, huh? See that? Word is, Lizardmen and Wraiths blew that thing open. The U.S.-Mexico border's crawling with people now."
The soldier in the passenger seat clutched his rifle and spat. "Lizardmen? Bullshit. If Lizardmen were real, I'd eat this damn truck."
"Hah! You got an appetite that big? Night City's been buzzing about it!"
"Yeah, well, Night City also claims Johnny Silverhand and Kerry Eurodyne were a thing."
"Wait, that rockstar? That one actually sounds kinda legit."
"Only an idiot believes everything they hear."
Suddenly, a furious roar came through the comms:
"Quit the damn chatter and focus on your job!!!"
WHOOSH—
Almost instantly, the lead Six Emperor Ragnar was struck by something!
Light traveled faster than sound—by the time the explosion erupted, every high-ranking soldier's Sandevistan had already activated!
They saw it.
A shell—incoming.
BOOM!
It wasn't just one shell. But the rest missed horribly, detonating far from the convoy.
Smoke and dust erupted—
"AMBUSH! Deploy the drones!"
But their comms were jammed—some of those shells exploded in midair—EMP blasts!
Not far away, in the Badlands.
A makeshift mortar sat on the ground. A real scav-job, but it had Maelstrom's signature flair.
After one barrage, the mortar's barrel was completely shot.
The gunner, equipped with a cybernetic eye, scanned the battlefield. His sensory implants measured wind speed, and his processor crunched a rough trajectory calculation—
A tech-based artilleryman.
Brick smirked as he watched the black smoke rise.
Normally, Maelstrom only messed around with cyberware and high-tech augmentations. This mortar was something he'd only recently discovered.
"Hell of a toy. Might as well keep a few for future carjackings, huh?"
Of course, since it was newly cobbled together, its accuracy was absolute garbage—out of ten shells, only one actually hit something.
But the EMP rounds? Perfect.
They could be launched from a distance, shutting down the convoy's communications before they even had time to react.
Only downside? Burned through mortar barrels fast.
A Maelstrom ganger stretched his neck, his cyber-eye zooming in. As a combat-grade mechanical eye, it even extended outward—turning into something like a makeshift telescope.
"Direct hit!"
Through his cyber-eye, the lead Six Emperor Ragnar had come to a stop, black smoke billowing from it. The Maelstrom grunt watching was ecstatic.
But Militech wasn't about to roll over.
Their vehicles suddenly accelerated, and from the windows, long gun barrels emerged!
BANG!
A sniper round exploded in a shower of blood and cybernetic parts—the Maelstrom spotter on the rocks was instantly taken out.
A Nekomata sniper rifle!
Brick pulled out an inhaler and took a deep breath.
"Ahhh! FUCK THEM UP!!"
At his command, Maelstrom's vehicles roared to life, swarming from all directions, forming a near-complete encirclement around Militech's convoy.
Militech may have had Nekomata snipers, but Maelstrom had plenty of heavy firepower stolen from corps.
Rocket launchers, sniper rifles, all manner of firepower—every window became a firing position.
The Militech soldiers, tasked with security, suddenly found themselves in the chaos of an all-out battlefield.
This was Night City's true flavor—military-grade combat on every street corner.
BOOM!
Rocket launchers fired relentlessly at the convoy. The soldiers inside could hear nothing but explosions and bullets hammering their armor.
One of the Six Emperor Ragnars took a direct hit, faltered, and slowed down—a Maelstrom van immediately rushed in.
The gunners inside the van grinned cruelly, reloading their rocket launchers, ready for another hit—
But then—
The cargo door of the Ragnar burst open.
A heavy machine gun aimed directly at them!
RATATATATATAT—
The machine gun spat fire, bullets ripping into the Maelstrom van, sending sparks flying.
The hastily welded armor plates peeled off under the hail of bullets, tangling in the wheels—
Too late.
In just those few seconds, the MK31 machine gun had torn the van apart, shredding the driver and passengers inside.
The vehicle, now driverless, veered wildly.
CRASH!
The van exploded, flames engulfing the machine gunner's view. He stopped firing.
"One target down. Report vehicle status."
WHOOOOSH!
Before he even finished speaking, a Columbus transport truck burst through the smoke.
A huge Maelstrom brute was perched on the front seat, one massive arm holding a heavy machine gun, his upper body sticking out the window.
He was laughing madly as he opened fire—like a hunter spotting fresh prey.
Brick, Maelstrom's leader.
His bullets shredded through the Ragnar's cargo hold, turning the gunner into Swiss cheese.
Two more rockets streaked over Brick's head, slamming into the armored vehicles ahead!
BOOM!
A second Columbus truck overtook Brick's vehicle.
The one firing was none other than Royce, his right-hand man—a hulking brute with a rocket launcher in each hand, half his body hanging out the window.
It looked like he might fall out at any second.
"FUCK YEAH, BRO!" Brick roared, unleashing another hail of bullets, forcing the Militech soldiers to duck for cover.
Royce grinned viciously. "Brick, this job's turning out great. Time to crack open those cargo holds!"
One of Maelstrom's vans, now fully engulfed in black smoke, suddenly accelerated.
The driver floored the gas, sending the vehicle straight at the Militech convoy—
At the last second, he bailed.
BOOM!
A car bomb!
Militech's forces were completely rattled.
The last surviving Six Emperor Ragnar locked its armor plating, desperately trying to power through the ambush.
Both the Behemoth APCs and the Ragnar had completely sealed interiors—but the combat engineers inside were panicking.
Even so—
They wouldn't break.
Because their cybernetic augmentations and military training had turned their minds into something extreme—either they shut down or they remained ice-cold.
The EMP had damaged their vehicles' main circuits, but in 2076, all military-grade hardware had backup systems for EMP attacks.
The engineer's job was clear: restore power, reboot the system!
The driver screamed, trying to be heard over the gunfire and explosions.
"FUCK! Is power back?!"
"Almost… almost there…!"
"HURRY THE FUCK UP!!!"
BOOM!
A final rocket hit the last Six Emperor Ragnar, flipping it over as it sped down the road.
The remaining Columbus trucks closed in on the still-moving Behemoth APCs—
The final step—time to hack into those military-grade ICE systems, just like always.
The battle had lasted forty-two minutes—
From the first mortar shell to the final Ragnar being destroyed, the convoy had traveled nearly four kilometers.
The battle line was long, but compared to the vast Badlands, it wasn't that far.
Brick tossed his smoking MK31 into the back seat. A Maelstrom grunt immediately handed him a fresh machine gun.
"Have we hacked in yet?"
At the rear of the convoy, Maelstrom's hackers were eagerly preparing.
"Almost, boss."
His hands were trembling from excitement.
He dived into the hacking interface, connecting his consciousness to the military-grade systems—
Thanks to a Militech mole, Maelstrom already knew the ICE bypass protocols.
But then—
[YOU ARE NOTHING BUT TRASH. WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT.]
Bright red text flashed across their screens.
Their processors instantly overheated.
BANG!
Their cyber-brains fried.
The driver of the same vehicle saw the hacker convulsing, then dropping dead, and screamed:
"SHIT! BOSS! OUR GUYS—"
Brick and Royce said nothing.
Because they saw it.
One of the Behemoth APCs was slowly opening its cargo hold.
And they recognized that movement.
It meant this wasn't a supply truck—it was a troop carrier.
As for Militech's soldiers…
The last time they made headlines, it was for a battle called—
"The Metal Wars."
Their main combat forces were never human.
Inside the Behemoth, a soldier raised his weapon.
A plasma cannon.
The glowing red barrel was reflected in Brick and Royce's horrified faces.
"FUCK! A CENTAUR MECH!!"
Brick screamed in despair.
Because the plasma cannon was aimed directly at his vehicle.
BOOM!