"K, thanks."
As soon as Caduceus appeared to be finished with his instructions, Copperhead angled the drone for its ambush location on the far side of the mountain, descending as she went. She wanted it to be down with the engines off as quickly as possible to maximize the time for the surrounding weather to cool her heat signature. She parked the vectored thrust device, extending the landing feet and adjusting them so she was almost completely concealed behind a boulder, a strange weathered area providing an excellent view of the road for her gun-cam and LMG. It was like the rock had been set there for the purpose. It would have been hard to see her in broad daylight. With the cloudy moonless sky, the mountain blocking a large portion of Seattle's endless glow and the swirling mist enhanced by the spirit, she was as close to invisible as it was possible to be without magic. Or without much magic, anyhow.
She adjusted controls to disable unnecessary sensors and anything else likely to consume power or boost her heat signature, then accelerated the van, closing the distance with her target and aiming to be just outside line of sight of the speeding sportscar when it reached the ambush site.
For good measure, she killed her headlights. Anyone approaching from the other direction would be seen first by her drone, so there was little risk to driving in the dark. And her passengers in the back were looking at her thermographic and radar images anyhow. They wouldn't have a chance to panic at the fact that she looked like she was driving blind.
She monitored the tracker signal, watching for any shift in speed not tied to the road conditions she'd already mapped out that might hint awareness that something was off. A mental twich flicked the safety off and shifted the ammo feed to EX rounds. A second adjusted the visual filters on the gun-cam to thermographic.
Regular visuals would have been ok if she wanted the engine block - just aim between the headlights. But that carried too much risk of fire or explosion. Both gasoline and high-performance batteries tended to not react well to the penetration and sparks associated with large calliber ammunition. So she wanted to take out one of the tires. And those would be glowing even brighter than headlights on her thermographics as the speedster dumped energy approaching the corner.
She set the van on auto-pilot given that Noruas hadn't seemed overly enthusiastic at the notion of driving. And given the steep drop-off beside the road, she frankly hadn't been overly enthusiastic either. Him manning the rifles to provide an extra set of eyes and source of cross-fire would be sufficient.
It was too bad the mage was out of commission already, but the concealment he'd provided would hopefully make his other skills unnecessary. She'd try to make the ride back into town a bit more relaxing. No need for the same speed. It'd be fine for their captives to stew a bit. Noruas could have a stab at their comm devices and White Duck could apply his talents to convince the pair that cooperation was in their best interest. If they needed magical persuasion, they'd just have to wait a bit.
She'd actually prefer if they could get what they needed without magic. Threatening to slice off someone's cahones she could handle. But somehow the notion of someone's mind probing another's left a sick feeling in her belly. She was sure there were worse things to do to a person, but she wasn't sure it was a long list.
quote:
17:46, Today: Copperhead rolled 16 using 6d6 with the Shadowrun, Open Test with rolls of 2, 6+4, 3, 5, 2, 6+6+4. stealth - drone.
Base signature is 4. + 6 for the spirit, +2 for tight terrain, + 1 for fog. With the rock, I don't think he has direct line of site, though if you want you could do a -1 for partial line-of-sight. So overall TN is 28 or 29. I think we'll avoid honking or doing anything to wake the driver up from their nighttime joy ride.
quote:
17:52, Today: Copperhead rolled 11 using 6d6 with the Shadowrun, Open Test with rolls of 1, 6+5, 1, 3, 4, 6+2. Stealth - bison.
Base signature is 2, + 6 for the spirit,, +2 for terrain, + 1 for fog and no line of sight so final TN is 22
I'll wait to see if anything intesting happens before making my attack roll.