User Guide

promise of the new Istanbul, one of a
thousand stalkers prowling her streets in
search of the few jobs available at the
time. Merc employment was difficult to
come by, since the market structure was
only beginning to form, and those
corporations who had engaged murderers
privately were still leery of pursuing their
bloody vendettas in the light of govern-
ment sanctioned respectability.
Still, the promise was enough for us,
professional killers offered a haven for our
dark craft. Some of us were veterans of
dozens of wars in every imaginable
theatre, obviously dangerous in the
natural, off-hand way that a savage
animal, even slumbering, prompts you
to pass it quietly and with downcast eyes.
Others such as I, young and compar-
atively inexperienced, muddled through
that back alley world with jaws self-
consciously squared and eyes glazed with
a layer of icy hardness that was often
thinner than anyone might suspect.
I will not go into much detail regarding
my background, for the obvious reason
that I wish my true identity to remain
unknown even today. You need only know
that, although I was new to the ways of
the street merc and professional soldier, I
had nevertheless received extensive
training in covert ops and crack assault
termination techniques. How I escaped
the service of my “masters” with such
classified knowledge in my head is
another story, whose telling must wait.
Though I was more qualified by training
to kill than some of those around me with
greater experience, I was unproven to the
powers that channeled human commerce
in Stamboul. So I hung around the bars,
following leads, biding my time, awaiting
only an opportunity to display my wares.
That opportunity came with the
destruction of the Claws.
Those who have resided in Istanbul
since 2004 are doubtless familiar with the
circumstances surrounding the massacre
at Clairborne Aerospace. Sampras
Aerospace, a rival in aerial weapon
systems, hired the Claws to launch a
Grade One assault against Clairborne.
The Claws were, of course, delighted to
receive such a high-dollar, high-profile
assignment. They assumed they’d been
granted the contract because of the
superior quality of their squadron.
Little did they know how carefully
they’d been chosen, or for what actual
reasons.
Sampras sent the Claws in against
the Clairborne facility armed with faulty
intelligence that greatly underestimated
the strength of Clairborne’s defensive
forces. The Claws were unprepared for the
ferocity of resistance they encountered.
Which is exactly what Sampras was
counting on.
Executing a brilliant piece of sub-
terfuge which would later become all-too-
common, Sampras had set out to hire a
powerful, though limited, squadron that
would serve their special needs. They
wanted a squadron strong enough to
wreak terrible destruction on Clairborne,
but not strong enough to survive the
encounter.
In this way, Sampras hoped to both
trash their rivals and avoid paying the
bill. A crippled, broken squadron would
be unable to collect on a defaulted
payment, the Sampras Board of Directors
reasoned. Any remaining force would be
too small to contend with Sampras’ own
defensive wing of F-15s.
In this assumption the Board was
correct. The Claws were caught off-guard
by wing after wing of Clairborne Harriers.
They put up a valiant fight, causing great
damage to the facility. And just as the
Sampras Board had hoped, the Claws lost
over 95% of their squadron in the process.
SUDDEN DEATH •
July 2011
25
“So I hung around the bars,
following leads, biding my time,
awaiting only an opportunity to
display my wares.
That opportunity came with the
destruction of the Claws.”