Ambush

"So, today I have a good news and a bad news for you guys" Vladmir said while they were getting on the platform.
"Nothing like starting the day with an containment mission right on the morning" George was doing stretches.
"How can you be so excited this time of the morning?" Anna asked and Rafael agreed.
Vladmir cleared his throat "Well, I will start with the bad one. Remember when you were told that the things were slowly going back to normal, forget it, the city woke up today upside down, conflicts happening in more than half of the sectors"
"all at once??" Rafael was shocked.
"But that doesn't happen since the false alarm of corruption attack, more than a month ago" Anna had a worried expression.
"And what are the good news?" George asked.
"With all this chaos, we were assigned to a quite normal task, stop a power stealing. It will be your first, but we used to face it quite a lot before this crisis"
"Oh, great news" George was complaining with a sarcastic tone "Perfectly balanced"
"You want good news George? There is no one near the deploy station, for a first time, we will get to the surface without explosions waiting for us" Lucy happily said while the platform was rising, and the gate opening.
"Whoaa, made my day" George kept with the sarcasm.
"All right George, silence" Vladmir looked serious "I don't want you to concern about the rest of the city right now, contain a power stealing is a... delicate mission. Usually, they bring trucks or cars to carry their batteries with stolen power, our main objective is to retrieve those cars. And they don't surrender kindly"

The platform arrived at the surface, they were one hundred meters away from the electrical station, two people spotted them and ran inside the station, probably to warn the other thieves.
"And for that, we'll have the help of other three squads, they were already been deployed on each side of the station, to cover all possible escape routes" Lucy explained while putting in movement the SCU.
"So it will be four SCUs and twelve ARCs?" Anna was thinking out loud.
"Easy peasy" George back to his state of excitement.
As all of them were leaving the platform, Rafael looked to his rifle, he had glued a small photo of his family on it, took a deep breath "for them, right?" and stepped out of the platform.

"Stay sharp, they have already spotted us, at any moment they can get out of there running" Lucy was explaining while slowly approaching the station "so be ready to receive targets to-"
"Shoot their legs" George cutted Lucy to mock about Rafael and Anna.
"I'm going to shoot you, George" Rafael replied not very happily.
"You heard that sarge? sounds like treason to me" George, the clown of the squad.
"Shut up, George" Vladmir roughly answered.
"This is odd, we are almost arriving at the station and nobody got out of there yet, did really everyone choose the other exits?" Lucy was wondering.

Then, Anna approached Rafael, who was closest to her, and opened her helmet.
"Are the comms offline?"
"What?" Rafael made a confusion expression.
"Look to George, he is clearly talking, but I don't hear a thing"
"Actually, we don't hear anybody"
Vladmir, at this point, noticed both of them talking, and realized what was happening. Opened his helmet and gave George a nudge.
"There is something really wrong here, the last thing that could go offline was our communication, I will try t-"

Suddenly, out of an alley, appeared what seemed to be a robotic suit, had more than two meters of size and had wheels on its feet. It attached a grappling hook on Lucy's back and started to perforate the SCU's torso with a laser drill by the left.
"Whoa, whoa, WHOA, what the hell is that??" George screamed in panic.
"I- I- I don't kn-" Rafael was trying to process what was happening.
"SHOOT, SHOOT, SHOOT" Vladmir ordered hastily.

Lucy had little time to react, she even tried to took that thing out of her back, but it was too late. The SCU fell on his knees to the ground, could be heard Lucy's screams from the SCU. Then, the small mecha roughly landed near the ARCs, knocking them back, and disappeared in another alley as quickly as it showed up.
"Can someone explain to me, what th-" George was terrified for what happened.
"SOLDIER, HOLD YOURSELF TOGETHER" Vladmir said firmly "Rafael, help me take Lucy out of the SCU"
"Sargent, look out" Anna warned screaming, after all, the comms were still offline.

A group of people got out of the station, with improvised shields and bombs, advancing towards them.
"Shit, Shit" Vladmir cursed while thinking what to do in that situation, his squad was scared, waiting for his orders. But the SCU, with its right arm, grabbed its handgun and began to shoot. A pistol of that size packed a huge punch, killed dozens with one shot and scattered them right away.
"LUCY! LUCY! Are you okay?" Vladmir asked, and the squad gathered around the hole on the mecha's chassis "Don't move, we will take you out of there"
She did not replied, but made the SCU crawl back to the deploy station, where had a repair bay.

As Lucy arrived, the repair bay automatically hooked the mecha and started to fix it. They all rapidly went up the repair bay's stairs to reach the SCU's hatch, once they opened it, they saw a hole in the cabin, a lot of blood, and Lucy, who looked back to them for a short moment, and fainted.
"Anna, try to communicate with the base through the deploy station, report what happend, ask for reinforcements and urgent medical attendance. Rafael, help me take Lucy out of there" Vladmir was trying his best to hold his nerves.

George was sitting on the floor, he had calmed down. Rafael and Vladmir did what they could to stop Lucy's bleeding, but her left arm was almost cutted off.
"I'm sorry about before, I panicked, so I couldn't aim precisely. I guess I could-" George was ashamed.
"It's fine, no one was expecting that" Vladmir sighed
"Sargent, if what you said earlier is true, there will be no reinforcement any time soon. If they flee right now, they would already have stolen a lot of energy, this was extremely planned, and we need to stop them" George stood up.
"We can't, without the SCU, it will be too dangerous, not counting that freaking flying robot or whatever"
Anna then arrived "Sir, medical attendance is on their way, but there will be no backup, it's just us"
"I told you"
"But we still can't-"
"I can pilot it" Rafael promptly stood up.
"What?" George was extremely surprised, and not only him.
"Well, the repair bay is done, the SCU is ready for action"
"How can you pilot it? You don't have any training" Vladmir was starting to get mad.
"I mean, my whole family is military, sometimes they let me into the mecha's hangar and thaught me how to pilot"
They kept on silence for a moment.
"Worth a shot, I'm on it" George got his rifle and was ready for action.
"Well, if it is for the best of the city" Anna was also ready.
"Ahh... I'm going to regret this. Get in there" Vladmir gave in.
Little they know that Rafael lied. 

"Anh... General Astrea, you might want to have a look at this" Tanya nervously talked.
"We were going so well, then the city explodes again" Astrea was complaining, stressed "What you have Tanya, good news I hope"
"Sooo... remember those six electrical stations that were under attack? we are receiving reports of complaints about their comms going offline and a..." Tanya paused for a moment, wondering how to explain "Giant ARC with wheels, grappling hook and a laser drill taking down SCUs" Tanya made a weird face expression, like even her was not believing in what she was reading.
"What??" Everyone at the command center exclaimed.
"I- I- I don't know, but we have right now more than twenty SCUs down, and not a single one of the power stealing were interrupted" Then Tanya lowered her voice a little "and their are all asking for reinforcements"
"This better not be a joke" Astrea was really angry.
"I swear I'm not fooling around"
"Shit" Astrea punched the electronic table.
"Almost every unit we have are fighting, it will take a while to gather enough forces to deal with this... big ARC" Ian was calm, or at least for the outside.
"This is the worst possible situation we could be" David was already panicking.
"Contact Captain Kouri" Astrea ordered with a serious expression.
"But the Fenix squad wasn't supposed to standby, in case of the corrupti-" Ian was questioning, but Astrea interrupted him.
"Yeah, but they need a city to protect. Request Creator, it will handle our problems"