Nicholas Schuster

Recaptured HPG Complex, northern Artic Tundra North of Bascombe, Concord II Concord system - Free Worlds League May 27, 3031 (Friday) ______________________________________________ The heavy footsteps of Idris’ power armor and the chatter of Steve and Jack faded off into the lower levels of the station as we split up to search the creepy facility, which looked like an LED-bedecked Count Dracula’s castle meets an old movie called "Blade Runner," minus the wacky lights. If you added those back in, of course. Flickering faux-candle lamps cast an ominous glow over every room we passed, while motion sensors surveilled everywhere us from the gloom, switching on and then back off old area lights that followed us along our path. Try as I might, I couldn't shake the feeling that we weren't alone. But then again, maybe it was just the overall aesthetic getting to me, one that felt it had to have been inspired by a really unfortunate era in ancient Terra’s décor. Although, the blood on the walls definitely wasn’t doing much to instill confidence that a fresh coat of paint was the only thing we needed to worry about. "Man, I really hope we find some survivors." Orlex muttered, mirroring my own reservations. "I don't think I can stomach another massacre." "Amen to that, Commander." I replied, my voice bouncing off the cold, weirdly bland walls. I’d only ever been in the customer areas of HPG stations, and those tended to be laid out like cathedrals to technology, all gleaming chrome and holograpic projections. By contrast, every inch of this place was a dark, gothic nightmare covered in entrails. Suddenly, our comm units blistered to life in tandem, causing me to whip my laser rifle to the ready and simultaneously grunt in pain as the motion caused my sore ribs to remind me why I should probably limit my movement, if only slightly. Fortunately, the traffic turned out to be a fairly routine conversation between Captain Maxwell and Levi. Unfortunately, Levi was calling the Captain to notify him that the uplink between the Command Van and Curie’s terminal in the Pandora had shit the bed. Our weather radar was no more. "Well, that's just frakking perfect." I growled, banging a gloved fist against a nearby bulkhead as we rounded another dark corner. "Without that system, we're basically blind out here. We won’t be able to see anything coming at us until it’s practically on top of us." "Blake damn it, calm down." Orlex swore, the expletive sounding out of place coming from his usually stoic mouth. "Let’s focus on what we can do. If we can’t gather much intel out there, it’s all the more reason to figure out what happened in here. We need to find a working terminal so you can patch into the local net." I raised an eyebrow. "You want me to hack ComStar stuff. With a only a noteputer and a pile of scripts?" Commander Jaeger shot me a side-eye and I immediately regretted my words. "Want isn’t it," he growled as he led the way through a doorway labeled "Most High Holy Command Center," clearing the room quickly with the flashlight slung under the barrel of his rifle. I expected eyes to be looking back at us, but all "We need." he continued. "Besides, you’ve hacked all kinds of next-level stuff in the past. Including the Crayven Corporation. You’re our best shot at figuring out what happened here before either Trinity's Onyx Vagabonds or ComStar themselves try to reclaim this place." He had a point. We were bound to get hit by something. It would be bad if it was the Vagabonds. But it would be far worse if it turned out to be ComStar. No matter what the case, we needed to know what we might be up against. As I followed the Commander into the dimly lit room, I spotted multiple terminals of all types and configurations spread out before us. The automated lights built into the ceiling and walls slowly glowed to life, revealing an awful scene. Out of every room we’d been in so far, the Command Center had clearly been hit the hardest by the Vagabonds. Consoles and system terminals were smashed, monitors cracked, and a sickeningly sweet smell hung in the air that of coagulated blood. The giant glass dome looking up at the HPG dish itself was shot full of holes through which snow billowed in, slowly covering the carnage in a white shroud. "Gods." I muttered, my stomach twisting at the sight. "It looks like ComStar made their stand here." "Yeah." Orlex answered, his voice grim. "And here I thought busting security was gonna be the hardest thing we’d have to do. Finding a working piece of machinery to do it on is looking to be a bitch and a half." "I can rewire something if I have to." I offered, mentally girding myself for what was sure to be a difficult if not impossible task. "Worked on worse." "I know you can." Commander Jaeger said, patting my shoulder. "Just be quick. I’ll cover the door while you get to work." I nodded and slung my rifle over my shoulder, walking carefully through the room and making a visual scan of the damaged systems. As I suspected, most of them had taken kinetic or energy weapon hits. To my surprise, however, a few of the more intact consoles looked to have been deliberately smashed by hand. That might have been the work of the ComStar Adepts as they attempted, in futility, to stop the station from being captured. "Commander." I called out, kneeling down next to an overturned monitor that still emitted a faint glow. "I think I found a survivor." Orlex was at my side in a blink. "Hang on." he ordered, kneeling down beside me and checking for traps. "Clear." he added as he carefully turned the computer over. "Great, so first litmus test passed." I nodded as I helped heft the computer on top of a debris-strewn desk. "We didn’t blow up. Now for the hard part. Time to see if I remember my ComStar." I retrieved my noteputer from my rucksack and connected it to an available data port on the salvaged terminal. Double-checking to make sure that the ComStar computer was physically connected to what I assumed was the local network, I hit its power button to bring it out of standby. "Here goes nothing." I muttered. Predictably, the computer booted to a lock screen that read, "THE MOST HOLY BLAKE REQUIRES YOUR CREDENTIALS." "Alright, you fanatics." I snorted, firing up a standard porthack routine that I hoped would connect my noteputer directly to the terminal. "Let’s see what you’ve got."

Somewhere in the Arctic Tundra North of Bascombe, Concord II Concord system - Free Worlds League May 27, 3031 (Friday) ______________________________________________ No sooner had I left the maximum weapons range of the Aces Wild safety perimeter than the enemy artillery began its chorus of destruction. Blinding explosions erupted around my 'Mech, sending shockwaves that rocked Perses like a ship on stormy seas. While the shells Trinity's Onyx Vagabonds were using didn’t have much penetrating power, their concussive output was nothing to scoff at. The detonations felt like depth charges going off around me. Even inside the 'Mech, the vibrations rattled me to my bones. "If someone wants to take out that Thumper, it'd be much appreciated!" I yelled into my comms, as another shell exploded too close for comfort. Just then, my threat indicator board lit up like a Liao New Year festival. A large blip, fast and closing from the east, marked by the distinctive IFF tag of the Archer that Markus Drake and his lancemates had run off earlier. Even though it had gotten its ass handed to it earlier, the heavy ‘Mech was still a menace. My sensors indicated its twin LRM-20s were still online and capable of raining destruction from afar. I quickly skimmed over the status of its other systems: its armor was Swiss-cheesed, but three out of four lasers were still good. The wireframe of its right leg was highlighted in orange - a clear indicator that it had nearly been gimped but was, for the moment, damaged but still functional. And now its pilot was driving toward me like a mad bull. "Great." I muttered as I kicked Perses into gear, lining up my AC/10 on the Archer as it came into view. Twin plumes of orange flashed from the enemy BattleMech’s missile racks as it launched its first volley. There was no time to think. The salvo raced towards me at breakneck speed, arcing over the snowy landscape in a curtain of destruction. I jerked the Orion’s yoke hard to the left and pushed my speed up to full, pivoting Perses’ torso back toward my target. Then, I took aim and let loose a salvo from my autocannon. The weapon roared, spitting shell after shell at the charging Archer, shells leaving contrails of snow vapor in their wake before slamming into the enemy 'Mech. Unfortunately, my HUD flashed with warning indicators as the LRM salvo connected with Perses’ left torso and arm. My Mech rocked violently, shards of armor plating crumbled under the force, sensor arrays flickered in and out, and my left arm control went haywire. I braced myself against the console, trying to keep my senses against the disorienting roll of the cockpit. "Time to return the favor." I growled, finding the Archer beneath my crosshairs. I triggered the Orion's LRM-15 and SRM-4 launcher sequentially. A swarm of missiles streaked across the white expanse between us, bathing my forward viewport in a wash of orange and red as they found their mark. Then came the shockwave. The Archer took the hits square on, and one of its ammo bins detonated in an exaggerated fireball. It stumbled aimlessly for a second, its right arm blown clean off and its chassis ravaged by the explosion. But to my surprise, it regained its balance and snapped off another round of LRM-20 missiles in my direction, following that up with a barrage of medium laser fire. An unexpected iciness swept over me as the missiles exploded against my Orion’s hull; this was not a fight I could easily win. The Archer was being piloted by a madman. Or a genius. Whichever it was, he was damn good. But so was I, and I had no intention of being second best on this snow-covered battlefield. I figured if I could close the distance, get in under the rain of his missiles, I could gain the upper hand. So, muttering a quick prayer to whatever spirits were out there, I forcefully jammed the throttle forward and launched into a sprint. The Orion's feet crunched through the snow and ice as I charged the beleaguered Archer. I fought to draw a bead on the most heavily damaged areas of its body as my targeting reticle bobbed and weaved with Perses’ movements. "Alright, let's dance!" I shouted, igniting my medium lasers and SRM-4. Half of the shots flew wide, but two drilled into the Archer's chest, melting armor and cutting deeply into its torso. The enemy pilot returned fire with his two remaining lasers, the beams of light cutting through the swirling snow to score across my hull. I barely registered the hit as I focused on getting close to the enemy Mech. My mind raced with different calculations and strategies, but I discarded each of them as quickly as it came. This wasn't a game of chess. It was a dance of death, and my dance partner was trying desperately to step on my toes. Once I was sure I was inside the minimum effective range of the Archer’s LRM-20s, I leaned heavily into Perses’ charging momentum, using the force to twist and pivot, bringing my AC/10 to bear on the gaping hole where the enemy ‘Mech’s right arm and missile launcher used to be. A slug of high-explosive ammunition cored straight into the Archer's exposed internals. I saw the explosion light up from within, splinters of steel and flashes of sparks spewing out in a gruesome display of destructive power. The Archer stumbled stumbled back, nearly falling in the deep snow, but the pilot managed to keep his balance. He fired his lasers again, one shot searing left shoulder, further damaging the armor and blowing something out in my cockpit that sent a plume of ozone-scented smoke billowing across my field of view. The other shot grazed my 'Mech's canopy, momentarily washing out the glass with a blinding glare. "Shit!" I yelled. I really didn’t understand how the Archer was still in the fight. Pushing Perses backwards, I again fired my AC/10 into the gaping wound I had cut into the Archer's side. As the shell connected, it further tore apart the 'Mech's internals, revealing actuators, servos, and other delicate internals that should never have been exposed to the daylight. The Archer rocked to one side, and its movement stalled momentarily. "Give it up!" I yelled at the Archer, knowing full well that the pilot couldn't hear me. But I needed to vent my frustration. That damn 'Mech should have collapsed already. It was like a holo-zombie from some cheap horror holovid; relentless and seemingly impervious. Suddenly, the Archer’s pilot began pivoting the ‘Mech’s uninjured side toward me, bringing the good LRM-20 launcher and remaining two medium lasers to bear. My heart pounded in my chest as I found myself nearly in the crosshairs. "You're not the only one who can still throw a punch." I muttered grimly under my breath. In a split second, I’d chain-linked the firing controls for all my weapons together and aimed them directly at the savaged beast’s vulnerable wound. With a smirk of determination, I fired everything I had. The resulting barrage sounded like thunder as three medium lasers, the AC/10, and a storm of missiles from both my launchers converged into the Archer's open torso in a brilliant blaze of destruction. Slamming through its fragile internal bulkheads, the broadside quickly found the ‘Mech’s remaining ammunition bins, and with a thunderous roar, they exploded in a blinding flash of fire and shrapnel. "Eat that, you bastard!" I shouted as the Archer's torso blew apart, torsional forces hurling the upper half in one direction while the lower section plowed a crater into the frozen ground below. In the midst of the hellish scene, an escape pod rocketed skyward before arcing down into the snowy landscape. The pilot had grievously miscalculated his trajectory and ended up plowing deep into a snowbank, the pod half-buried in powder. "Damn." I gasped, hands shaking on the controls as the adrenaline of combat began to ebb. The Archer was down, finally. My heart pounded against my sore ribcage and I could taste the coppery flavor of adrenaline on my tongue. "Rebus to all units: tango down. Archer destroyed." I reported, before gathering my wits to assess the situation. Squinting through the wintery maelstrom, I could see the ominous HPG station protruding from the snow-covered landscape like an icy monolith. It was still in enemy hands, and we were far from done.

Somewhere in the Arctic Tundra North of Bascombe, Concord II Concord system - Free Worlds League May 27, 3031 (Friday) ______________________________________________ “I need you to get Archangel back to the Pandora!” Captain Maxwell’s voice shouted in my headset, his words backdropped by the explosions of combat and artillery fire "We need her watching the Doppler radar so that we’ve got eyes in this goddamn mess.” I shoved Perses’ throttle to full, narrowly avoiding the impact of another artillery shell that would have blown Idris completely off the ‘Mech’s shoulder. Curie, in the rumble seat behind and to my immediate left, gave a surprised yell as I veered the massive BattleMech sharply to the right, almost on instinct. My head swam under the effects of the cocktail of Vitamin K and prothrombin complex concentrate that she’d injected me with to try to balance out the blood thinner keeping my nanites flowing. "Copy that, Eden." I responded, glancing apologetically at Curie. "Sorry, this is going to be a rough ride." “OK.” she responded tersely, her face a bit pale as I flipped the ‘Mech into full sprint towards the safety of our command vehicle. The hard turn made us lurch violently to the side, the Orion’s feet losing traction on the snow and ice. "Easy there Rebus!" Idris barked through the comm, his voice laced with an edge of fear. “I am barely hanging on out here.” I looked at the external feed and saw his power armor was clinging to my ‘Mech’s hull for dear life. "I'm doing what I can, but it's a damned war zone out here!" I called back apologetically as another artillery round exploded directly beside us, jarring the cockpit and causing my ribs to protest in pain. Even though Curie had done what she could to get my torso bandaged up, there was only so much she could do in the cramped confines of a moving 'Mech. It felt like the world had transformed into a seismograph as we ran, each step of the Orion shaking us violently. “So, look, Juniad, when we get there, I think you’re gonna need to scoop up Curie and - “ I began, but my words were cut off and we were abruptly thrown forward as forty long-range missiles and a blistering pounding of medium laser fire smashed into Perses’ rear armor, the alarming shriek of metal and alarms blaring in response. “Nick…!” Curie stammered as the impact almost knocked us flat. "Hold on!" I barked, bringing the Orion about and trying to identify our assailant. The cockpit bucked violently again under another devastating impact of missiles and lasers. “Junaid! You still alive out there?” "Jah, but...barely!" Idris managed to reply through heavy gasps. The battlefield was a blender of chaos and destruction. Aegis Division’s ‘Mechs were all in a pitched brawl with the Onyx Vagabonds, trading punches with high-impact weaponry that would make lesser machines crumble. Artillery rained from the sky like a deadly hailstorm, turning the ground into a treacherous minefield of explosions, craters, and debris. All the while, the looming blizzard progressively blotted out the sun more and more, casting the environment in an ominous twilight. As I caught sight of the offending BattleMech, a monstrous Archer painted blood red, I instinctively drew a bead on it and cut loose with Perses’ AC/10 and LRM-10, flinging an angry volley of ordnance back at the assault ‘Mech. The Archer recoiled slightly as my slugs and missiles tore into its armor. But the hulking machine barely paused in its movement as it returned fire with a backhanded sweep of medium laser fire, the green energy bolts cleaving through the frigid air and striking my Orion's center of mass. "Fuck!" I yelled as the assault rocked the cockpit. “Not much armor!” Curie pointed out, her voice strained. "Need…move more!" “Where the fuck is Aces Wild?” I asked, gritting my teeth. To my surprise, Markus Drake’s gravelly tone cut across the comms. “We’re posted up to the east of your position, Rebus.” he replied. “Currently dug in providing overwatch for Pandora and adjacent support units. If you can get to us, we can get that Archer off your back.” "Appreciated." I responded, my words punctuated by a grunt as another salvo hit the Orion. Quickly, I slammed my ‘Mech into an evasive run, weaving through the artillery fire while periodically pivoting its torso to sling autocannon, laser, and missile fire haphazardly back at the Archer. Under the dual onslaught of my own wild shooting and occasional friendly artillery fire from its own flanks, the Archer started to give ground, but it didn't abandon its pursuit. Undeterred, I pressed forward, barreling through the icy landscape towards Drake's position. Soon, I could see the hulking shapes of a Manticore and three Rommel tanks looming ahead in the snow. Their turrets swiveled towards us, watching the unfolding chase with predatory ease. I felt a sudden wave of relief wash over me, followed by a surge of renewed adrenaline. "Rebus." Drake's voice crackled again. "You have three seconds to clear our firing line. Make it count.” “That’s all I need.” I advised as I drove Perses at a stupidly reckless speed towards the line of tanks. “Three.” Drake’s voice counted off, as clinical and detached as if he were announcing the time of day. I could feel every thud and clatter as the Orion lumbered the uneven ground, missile and laser rounds occasionally striking the rear armor, making its chassis creak and wail in protest. “Two.” Drake continued, the tension in the air rising with each passing second. Curie clung to the safety harness, a wide-eyed expression of concern set on her face. The distance between the Archer and my 'Mech was shrinking dangerously close. "Ready?" I asked her, not taking my eyes off the rapidly approaching line of friendly tanks. She nodded, gripping the edges of her seat tighter. "Ready." she murmured, her voice barely audible over the deafening alarms and weapons fire. As we breached the firing line, I swerved hard to the right, throwing the Orion into a power slide, veering sharply to one side. "One.” Markus' voice was ice-cold, the single syllable echoing in my cockpit. His tanks opened fire, sending a salvo of shell, energy, and missile blasts rocketing past my 'Mech into the pursuing Archer. The ground shook from the barrage, and I clenched the controls to steel us against the shockwave that rattled through Perses. The Archer, too close to retreat, was engulfed in a storm of fire and shrapnel. It staggered, caught off-guard by the onslaught, its armor cracking and smoking. As the enemy pilot regained his footing and began reversing away from the defensive line, the combined forces of Aces Wild fired again. This time, the Archer's left arm armor disintegrated in a blinding flash of light and smoke while its right ammunition bin spontaneously exploded, its torso twisting violently in response to the blowout. The enemy ‘Mech, now a walking inferno, stumbled backward and faltered, its movements jerky and uncoordinated. Struggling for control, its pilot turned away from the engagement and made a run for it, dragging the Archer’s damaged body off into the snow-streaked landscape. “Thank you, Dragon lance.” I called out on the radio. “Don’t mention it.” Drake replied. I steered Perses alongside the Pandora BRV and brought us to a rough, skidding stop. The blizzard was almost on tope of us now, and the world outside my cockpit into a white maelstrom. "Curie, we're here. You ready to disembark?" I asked. Curie looked up from her grip on the safety harness, her eyes meeting mine. "Ready." she said, her fingers tightening around the metal supports. I nodded. “OK. Go ahead and get your stuff together. I’ll page your ride.” Keying the comms microphone, I hailed Idris. "Juniad, this is Rebus. Requesting immediate extraction for Technician Franklin. Over." "Copy that, Rebus. Tell me when to pop the hatch." came Idris's calm reply. Even after everything we’d just been through, he was still unflappable, something I admired about the guy. I turned to Curie, who had unbuckled, gotten herself fully attired, and had her medical bag slung over her shoulder. As we made eye contact, she raised an eyebrow. “Fly…again?” she asked hesitantly. "Yeah, but just a quick one this time. And, thanks...for patching me up." I smiled. Curie nodded. "Take care...of you." she said, then looked up at the cockpit hatch. "Be safe." "I'll try." I replied. But I knew I could only do so much.

Somewhere in the Arctic Tundra North of Bascombe, Concord II Concord system - Free Worlds League May 27, 3031 (Friday) ______________________________________________ In what felt like a split second, we went from trudging through frozen, empty wastes to full-blown combat. Captain Maxwell's King Crab was slugging it out with a Guillotine, Sergeant Jenkins was tangling with a Vulcan, and Commander Jaeger's Black Knight, flanked by Private Whitley's Merlin, was in hot pursuit of a speedy Ostroc. Lieutenant Lennox, piloting a Marauder, and Lieutenant Blackwood, in a Catapult, stood guard on either side of First Lieutenant Maxwell's Raven to ensure no one could disrupt the powerful jamming field she was broadcasting. Meanwhile, I had somehow managed to get the attention of the ENF-4R Enforcer, and we were now circling each other in the thickening snow. Perses, my Orion, felt sluggish under me, probably because I still wasn't used to piloting something as heavy as 75 tons. As I engaged the enemy pilot, I watched as the smaller 50-ton Enforcer sidestepped to its left, trying to stay out of my forward arc while trying get a bead on me with its right arm-mounted large laser. I pivoted Perses in the same direction, keeping the brunt of my 'Mech's armor facing the enemy. The Enforcer fired the first shot. Bluish light sizzled through the air and splashed against my Orion's torso, melting snow and burning paint. “Junaid! You still in one piece out there?” I shouted into my headset, worried that the technician, who was riding on Perses’ shoulder in his ICE-S armor, might have gotten hit in the process. My ribcage screamed in protest from the exertion of yelling as I adjusted my aim for a counterstrike. "Indeed, Rebus." responded Idris’ stoic voice. "No need to worry about me." "Good." I whispered, lining up a shot. The Enforcer was moving fast, and with the blizzard bearing down, visibility was getting worse by the second. I squeezed my trigger, sending a volley of autocannon shells and medium laser fire back at the enemy. The shot was good, hitting the Enforcer square in the chest, sending sparks flying and armor slagging off into the snow. The Enforcer stumbled back, but got its footing back quickly. Then, unexpectedly, it fired its jump jets and soared over me, landing directly in the Orion's rear arc. "Rebus, hostile has landed on your six!" Idris quickly reported. “Blake damn it!” I cursed, feeling the impact of the Enforcer's AC/10,small laser, and large laser slamming into Perses’ rear armor. "Roger that!" I grunted in response, twisting my Orion violently around. “Whoa!” I heard Idris shout in my headset. “Do not forget I am riding on top here!" My broken rib also protested. The pain now felt like a white-hot lance stabbing through my side. I was also surprisingly out of breath, something Curie had warned me was a side effect of the blood thinner. But there was no time to succumb. As the Enforcer came back into view, I could see that the ‘Mech was already lining up for another shot. I knew I had to act first. Not bothering to dial in my aim, I simply blind-fired all three medium lasers, the AC/10, and even the SRM-4 launcher. The resulting explosion of light and heat was blinding, even through my cockpit's polarized canopy. I saw the Enforcer stagger backward as its armor cracked and split, but it still managed to return fire with its AC/10, large laser, and small laser. The depleted uranium rounds, ruby, and emerald beams sliced through the swirling snow and slammed into Perses, sending a shudder through the ‘Mech's massive frame. Warning indicators lit up my HUD, and I pushed the throttle up, trying to start a Circle of Death around the Enforcer. Perses bounded forward, the cockpit and my targeting reticle swinging wildly as I tried to track the Enforcer's movements. Even though my Orion and the Enforcer were matched for speed, the smaller 'Mech moved deftly despite the pounding it had taken, and I had trouble keeping it in my sights. Meanwhile, its pilot continuously took potshots at me, slowly whittling down various sections of Perses’ armor. "Juniad, hang tight!" I called out to Idris. Ignoring the pain in my rib, I threw Perses into a skidding halt that sent tons of snow flying. The Enforcer's pilot didn't anticipate the sudden change in direction, and his last volley went wide. That was the opening I needed. I twisted the control sticks hard, twisting Perses’ torso toward the enemy ‘Mech, and fired. The Enforcer's exposed side was hit with a barrage from my weapons, the force of the blast propelling it sideways. Its pilot tried to compensate for the sudden shift in balance but ended up stumbling over a frozen outcrop instead. Before I could push through the pain in my side and the blurry headspace I was feeling due to the blood thinners, though, the Enforcer's pilot fired the ‘Mech's jump jets. The next thing I knew, the Enforcer was airborne, and a hailstorm of bullets and energy was pounding down on my Orion. I tried to maneuver away, even tipping Perses’ torso up to try to get a shooting solution, but then… “Shit! Rebus! It's a Death from Above!” “Bail out, Junaid, bail out!” I screamed, now in full panic mode. The last thing I saw was Idris in his power armor, launching off Perses' shoulder and into the swirling snow just as the Enforcer came crashing down. With a thunderous impact, the enemy ‘Mech landed on top of Perses. The impact was like an earthquake, throwing me violently into my harness. My vision blurred further, blood roared in my ears, and as both ‘Mechs crashed into the icy tundra, the searing pain from my broken bones reduced my senses to a swirl of bright lights and garbled-sounding sirens. “Fuck…” I moaned, fighting through the haze to stand Perses back up. “Juniad to Rebus, are you alright?” Idris radioed, panic in his voice. “Been better.” I replied. Suddenly, a dull thud vibrated through the hull of my Orion, followed by another and another. Perses began to falter, unable to rise under the impacts. “He's trying to beat you to death!” Idris warned. "Like hell he is!" I snarled back, fighting hard against the controls to get Perses onto its feet. With a surge of adrenaline-fueled determination, I yanked hard on the controls, getting Perses fully upright. The Enforcer kept raining down blows that felt like hammer strikes. The damage alerts were shrieking now, flashing warnings about armor breaches. Once my Orion was on its feet, I reversed hard, hoping to put enough space between us to regain some control over the situation. The external camera that tracked Idris showed him standing a short distance away, waiting helplessly for us to reclaim the upper hand. The Enforcer had other plans. Like an enraged animal, it barreled toward me with raw power, all of its weapons spitting fire. Then, with another impact that nearly made me black out, it slammed into Perses, the enemy pilot leaving his throttle wide open to ensure that both ‘Mechs remained tangled together. As he used his machine's massive gun arms to land hit after hit on my Orion, my vision began to darken around the edges, my body overcome with pain and shutting down from lack of oxygen. “No…” I whispered to myself, clenching my teeth. “Junaid…need help.” What happened next felt like watching some improbable superhero movie, the whole thing playing out on my cockpit monitors like a slow-motion, drug-induced dream sequence. After only a moment's hesitation, Idris, small and insignificant against the hulking BattleMechs, sprinted forward, his power-armored form almost lost in the increasing snow. The camera followed him as he neared the Enforcer and fired the jump infantry pack we'd slotted onto his ICE-S exoskeleton for this mission. The next thing I knew, he'd landed awkwardly on top of the Enforcer’s chassis, though, due to the situation, it was more of a crash that nearly sent him flying off the other side. But, somehow, Idris managed to cling on, his gauntlets finding purchase on the ‘Mech’s armor plates as his boots skidded against the slick surface. As the Enforcer continued its assault and I attempted to fend it off in a drunken haze, Idris forged ahead to the top of the enemy pilot’s cockpit and placed…something…against its access hatch. A split second later, Idris was taking cover as a massive, shaped blast sent the entire hatch assembly spinning off into the blizzard, causing the Enforcer to stagger back in surprise. Idris ran back toward where the hatch had been and pulled out a grenade. I was so close to the Enforcer that I could see the enemy pilot, confused and disoriented by the sudden intrusion, reaching for his sidearm. But Idris was faster. A flash of movement, and the Enforcer’s cockpit was engulfed from within by a bright orange fireball. Idris leaped away, his parafoil deploying and carrying him away from the explosion. There was a brief, glorious moment when the Enforcer stood, frozen and silent, in the midst of a swirling snowstorm. Then, with a final convulsion, the machine fell to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. “Tango down.” Idris’ voice crackled with a hint of exhaustion. “Enforcer eliminated.” “Thank you, Juniad.” I sighed, bringing Perses to a halt and leaning back in my cockpit seat as I tried to steady my breathing. "That was something else." "Anytime, sir. Coming back up now." As I tried to take in controlled breaths, I felt a stabbing feeling in my lungs. That broken rib was making itself known again. Suddenly, as though she could read my mind, Curie’s voice crackled in my headset. “Rebus. You require medical attention.” This time, it wasn’t a question. “Yes.” I sighed. “But we gotta keep moving. We can’t stop the whole damn convoy just to bring you over.” As Idris acknowledged that he was back aboard, I pushed the throttle forward, and Perses started to lumber through the blizzard. Pain radiated from my side with each step. “You require medical attention.” Curie argued. "Your vitals…not within acceptable parameters." "I know." I winced. "But we can't afford to halt our progress. Not now."

Concord II Concord system - Free Worlds League May 27, 3031 (Friday) ______________________________________________ My Orion hit the ground with incredible force, much worse than I was expecting since, even though the drop had been turbulent and anything but a smooth ride down, I had managed to brace myself in the cockpit. But I wasn’t used to landing a 75-ton BattleMech. The Orion was the largest thing I had ever piloted, and there was only so much that parachutes could do before they, and the machine they were attached to, reached the ground, and you had to take over. I’d definitely stuck the landing, and now, the Orion was reeling drunkenly, threatening to crash over. The inside of the cockpit was bathed in red warning lights as I wrestled with the controls to regain stability. As I fought to keep the ‘Mech standing, I suddenly felt a horrible pain in my side as one of its erratic movements slammed my ribcage against the pilot’s seat. I powered through it, focusing completely on the task at hand. I yanked the controls to the right, just in time to counteract a particularly strong gust of wind. The Orion steadied out, its balance and mine finally equalizing. I took a minute to breathe, listening to my comm unit as the other members of Aegis Division experienced their own versions of the descent and planetfall. But the sharp stabbing feeling on my side never went away. I looked down to see blood oozing from my athletic t-shirt, staining the black fabric a dark crimson. I shifted in my seat and grunted in reaction to the surprising amount of pain. I pulled my shirt up a little to gauge the extent of the damage, seeing that I’d obviously collided with some sharp edge of my chair at just the right angle, but luckily, there were no bones poking out. But, once I poked at it, I realized that it felt like a broken rib. Fuck. Just what I need on top of everything else. The nanites will get it, though. I thought to myself. But then, I remembered. They were offline to prevent them from replicating so much that they clogged my arteries and caused me to stroke out, or worse, die of a fucking heart attack while still in the cockpit of my 'Mech. "God damn it." I grimaced. Breathing hurt, but I pushed past it. There was no choice but to proceed. Falling apart now wouldn't do anyone any good. As Steve radioed in with an especially wild-sounding landing, I reached for a small med kit stashed near the bottom of my control console. Its contents weren’t very fancy or advanced, but it was all I had. And all I needed right now was the roll of athletic bandage. Once I had it, I unwound the roll with my teeth. Then, I pressed the dressing against my side with a wince, wrapping it tight around my torso. The pain was sharp, but bearable, and after a few minutes I felt steady enough to grab the controls again. But just then, the last voice I wanted to hear crackled in my headset. "Corporal Schuster. Your vitals spiked." It was Curie's voice. I had forgotten she was monitoring my medipack from Captain Maxwell’s ‘Mech. “Yeah.” I played it off nonchalantly, knowing full well that I was caught. "Just a slight mishap when I landed. Nothing to worry about." Her pause said she wasn't buying it, and I cringed. “Nick. Don't lie.” she responded. Her tone was gentle, but firm. “Alright, Curie.” I admitted. "You got me. Cracked a rib or two during the landing. But I'm fine." "You are hurt. You require…medical attention." she said with obvious worry. I grunted again as I pulled my compression t-shirt back down. “I appreciate it, but I am not gonna ask you to have Captain Maxwell pull his ‘Mech over for this. You know what the best thing you can do to help me right now is?” I asked. “Repair your injury?” she responded. I had to laugh at that, even if it was grimly. “No. Don’t tell Levi. Or Captain Maxwell. I don’t want to end up giving my boyfriend, who already has enough to deal with, a heart attack, or getting benched for this mission by the Captain. I need to be useful, not a liability. You get that, right?" There was a long pause before she answered. "I…do not…lie." “I’m not asking you to lie, Curie. Just…” I sighed, running a hand over my face. “Just don’t mention it unless it becomes an issue that affects the mission.” There was a longer pause this time, and I really thought she was gonna refuse. Instead, what I heard surprised me. "Understood." It was blunt and robotic. I could almost see her nodding with deep disapproval but agreeing to my request all the same. "I'll…keep an eye on it.” I promised. “OK.” she answered back, then disconnected. Just then, Jack Whitley cut into the general comms, saying some asshole thing to Steve. A couple seconds later, Captain Maxwell himself came on the line, looking for me. “Alright, that’s everyone except Rebus. Rebus, advise status.” "Rebus on the ground and ready to rally, Captain." I replied, trying to keep the pain out of my tone. There was an awkward pause from the other end before the Captain's rough voice cut through again, and I had to wonder if he’d heard any part of the conversation I had just finished with Curie. "Alright, get up to the regroup zone safe but as quick as you can.” he finally said. He sounded like he was filled with concern. I hoped it was concern for the mission and not me. I wasn't sure if that made it better or worse. "Understood, Captain." I acknowledged. I pushed the throttle of the Orion forward, the machine responding to my command with a surge of raw power. In short order, I’d found the rest of the group, and was in formation, ready for whatever the enemy forces, and the weather, threw at us.

Earlier that morning… MRCN Sturmfänger Nadir Jump Point Concord system - Free Worlds League May 25, 3031 (Wednesday) - 04:37 hours ______________________________________________ I woke up with an inadvertent yell. The pain burned through my veins, like an inferno. It wasn’t a simple muscle cramp or joint ache. The pain was overwhelming and felt like a bunch of tiny hornets coursing through my blood. My hand went to the bedside to turn on my light. In my panic, I knocked over the glass of water I'd left there, and it smashed to the floor. In agony I hauled myself out of my bunk. I staggered toward my locker, reaching blindly for my noteputer and the bio-scanner dermal patch Doctor Halsey and I had built. My knees buckled under the sheer intensity of the pain. I could somehow feel the nanites in my bloodstream, like thousands of tiny, hot needles jabbing into my veins. As I found the devices, I felt a wave of nausea wash over me and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. Almost collapsing onto the floor, I threw my noteputer onto the bed, flipped it open, plugged in the scanner, and pressed the device on my wrist. My eyes strained to keep focus on the noteputer’s screen through the pain. Eventually, a diagnostic scan popped up. My blood pressure was critical. My heart rate was dangerously high, and the bio-scanner detected a rampant increase in my nanite count. "This can't be right." I groaned, squinting at the red figures on the screen. The pain was getting worse and now I had an understanding of why. The nanites had somehow started replicating, which we had thought was impossible. It looked like they were replicating out of control. I managed to stand, grabbing a set of clothes from my locker. I needed medical help, and fast. But the only people who had any understanding of my nanites were Alyssa, Mallory, and Curie. Most of the crew would be asleep at this hour, it wasn't ideal to disturb anyone, but I had no choice. Curie’s room was right near mine, and if anyone had in-depth knowledge of how this LosTech worked, it would be her, after the way she figured out how to use them to literally repair Alyssa’s brain. I staggered out of my room in the ship’s crew quarters, the hallway outside lit by the dim emergency lighting that never switched off. I could hear nothing but the low hum of the ship's engines and my ragged breathing. Before I knew it, I was at Curie’s door. I slapped its heavy metal surface over and over with my palm, my strength already diminishing. After what felt like an eternity, the door swung open to reveal Curie. She was dressed in a gray t-shirt and shorts and her hair was super disheveled. She didn’t even have her scarf on. I had never seen her looking anything less than prim and proper. "Nick?" she asked, blinking from her sudden interruption of sleep. "I need help." I gasped, letting go of the door frame, my knees failing. She quickly wrapped her arm around my waist to hold me up. "You're pale." she added as she hurried me into her quarters and plopped me down onto a bean bag chair. It felt absurd but it was better than standing. "Nanites." I wheezed, wincing as a fresh wave of pain hit me. “They’re replicating. Look.” I pressed my noteputer into her hands. As she looked at the screen, her eyes went wide, and she suddenly moved with a frightening speed. "Stay still." she ordered as she pulled my shirt off and slapped the dermal patch containing the sensor directly against my chest. I watched as she launched the admin section of the Nanite Interface v0.8 application on my noteputer, the program that Doctor Halsey and I had cobbled together last year. My vision started to blur. "Nick, stay conscious." Curie demanded, her voice suddenly even more authoritative. I squinted at the screen, trying to keep my mind focused on something, anything. Just then, she issued one of the few commands that we had figured out how to make work with the nanites: SHUTDOWN. A second later, the noteputer flashed a warning: GLOBAL SHUTDOWN ACKNOWLEDGED. Curie flipped back to the diagnostic scan. The nanites had suddenly stopped moving. “They have stopped replicating.” Curie announced, her tone colder and more mechanical. I could tell she was working hard to remain collected. “Well, shit, I could have done that.” I joked weakly, trying to reassure her. “How come I still feel like I’m on fire?” There was a long pause, and I saw Curie furrow her eyebrows in deep thought. “Your veins are congested. With nanites.” she responded. “Obstructing blood flow. That's why." "I thought they were supposed to help, not turn against us." I said, gritting my teeth. “You need blood thinner.” Curie replied. She reached for her medical bag and rummaged through the various vials. Eventually, she looked up at me with a sense of urgency. "None here." she explained. “Come with me. To med bay.” Curie took my hands and pulled me to my feet with surprising strength. Then, again supporting me with an arm around my waist, she led me down the hallway. It would have been a comical scene if it weren’t for the circumstances. Me, shirtless and looking dazed out of my mind, being propped up by Curie. Her, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, barefoot, scarfless, hair sticking out in every direction. We could have been mistaken for the aftermath of one of Steve’s late-night ragers in the motor pool. I don’t remember most of the walk to the med bay, but eventually, we reached it. “Lights on!” Curie commanded as we entered the darkened room. The overhead glow panels flickered to life in a sterile blue-white. The sudden brightness felt like it tore through my eyes straight into my aching skull. “Lay down.” she instructed, steering me over to one of the empty beds. I complied without a word, my knees buckling again as I practically fell onto the thin mattress. Curie grunted softly as she tried to control my descent. She wasn't really successful, but I appreciated her effort. I watched as she practically ran to the medication cabinet and swiped her finger over the reader. She froze for a moment, then swiped her finger again. Then, frantically, she pulled repeatedly on the cabinet’s handle. Eventually, she let out a surprising cry of frustration and pounded the heel of her palm against the metal surface. “No fingerprints!” she exclaimed in panic. I had never seen her lose her composure before. Her disheveled state seemed to become worse, and her eyes were wide and frantic. I tried to get up to intervene. But my body was slow and unresponsive. “Curie.” I moaned. “I think I can help with that. In the R&D lab. Levi finished your biometric gloves yesterday. We were just letting them cure overnight. If you can get them…” “The lab is far!” Curie responded, now in a full-blown panic. She walked quickly over to me, looking around the room as if she hoped a solution would materialize out of thin air. "I can't leave you alone. You can't move!" I laughed painfully. “I’ll be fine-ish. There's no other options. Go.” Relenting, Curie bit her lip and nodded. "Be strong." she said before turning away and sprinting out the door, nearly falling over herself. I could hear her awkward footsteps growing fainter and fainter as she moved farther away from the medical bay. Eventually, all I could hear were my own shaky breaths that came in painful gasps. I don’t know how long she was gone, but eventually, Curie came back, blood streaming from one of her knees as she focused on pulling on the gloves we’d built for her. She must have noticed me watching because she looked over at me. "I fell down." she explained, and then turned back to the medication cabinet. This time, when she swiped her gloved hand over the reader, it beeped cheerfully in response and the door unlocked. She quickly found the blood thinner and loaded it into an auto-injector. "Are you ready?" she asked as she limped over to me. Her calmness was back. She seemed like she was fully in control of the situation. I nodded, my own panic calming a bit as well. Curie injected the medication into my arm. I barely felt the sharp sting through the immense cloud of pain I was already experiencing. "That should help." Curie explained. She stood by my bed in silence, the overhead lights amplifying the tiredness and worry on her face. "Thank you. What do we do after that?” I asked. “Baby steps.” Curie replied. “I'll stay. Monitor your vitals.” “You don’t have to - ” I protested. But she cut me off mid-sentence, giving me a hard look. "I do. It is my job. And my choice." Later that day… MRCN Sturmfänger Approaching Concord II Concord system - Free Worlds League May 27, 3031 (Friday) - 13:35 hours ______________________________________________ Throughout the course of the briefing, I kept getting brief stares. Mallory’s were concerned. Curie’s were analytical. On the other hand, Captain Maxwell and Commander Jaeger seemed to be sizing me up. I wasn't sure if they were worried about my health or assessing whether I was still fit for duty. When the subject of our support and medical assets being potentially unable to get to where we were going to drop came up, Captain Maxwell looked sharply in my direction. I decided to obliquely try to reassure him that I felt up to dropping with the rest of the team by asking a question in response. “Yes, Schuster.” Commander Jaeger said flatly. "Assuming we can make this drop without getting blown to atoms by the storm, is there any way to drop the M.A.S.H. ambulance with us to at least keep us patched up until the cavalry arrives?" I asked. "Or somehow get one or more of our medics down to the drop site with us? Holes in armor we can handle. Holes in bodies seem like a much more immediate problem."

Site 187 Outskirts of Gellen's Heights Sheratan, Tikonov Free Republic April 14, 3031 (Thursday) ______________________________________________ "Whitley, go ahead." Captain Maxwell prompted. Whitley? I thought to myself. It wasn't a name I had heard here before. I started to turn my head to see who the asker was, but before I could even finish the movement, the voice struck me dumb. "I just wanted to be crystal clear on one thing - looks like you folks are running quite the charity here. I like to pick who's on my six, and it sure as hell ain't gonna be Butt Cone over there. I hope what you're trying to tell us is that we are gonna choose our lances when we get to Concord." I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as the gravely growl, the cocky tone, and the slight sinister way he said everything hit my ears. The last time I had heard it, I was on Nirasaki...betraying Hauptmann Albrecht, Aegis Division, the Crayven Corporation, and my own morals as I led Jack Whitley and all of Black Phalanx into what turned out to be a massacre, all because of my horribly misguided sense of duty to my country. I felt like had come a long way since then. Most people didn't know about the crimes I'd committed or the fate I had consigned Whitley and all the others to by driving them right into their own obliteration. I even had a new identity, and William Kauffman and Captain Maxwell had worked hard to clear my charges and try to give me a new life. But now, a man who knew all those secrets, who had every reason to want to settle the score with me, and who held all the keys to undoing everything, was sitting behind me in a briefing for a mission where we'd be lancemates. As I slowly turned around in my seat, my eyes accidentally locked with his, and I could tell he saw me. Something twitched at the corner of his mouth. I couldn't tell if it was trying to be a grin or a frown. He nodded subtly before looking back at Captain Maxwell without saying a word. "What's wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost." said Levi as I turned back around to face the dias. "I did." I whispered.

CPC Bacchanal Geostationary orbit, Gellen's Heights Sheratan V, Tikonov Free Republic March 26, 3031 (Saturday) ______________________________________________ "Stop hitting me!" Levi shouted. I stumbled to my feet, dropping my lockpicking tools all over the place. Before I could say or do anything, Steve Jenkins came FLYING out of left frame like you see in martial arts video games, landing a flying kick to the red face of the red haired and red-eyed Extended Warranty Car Cartel guy in front of us. The mook fell back into the painting I had barfed all over and went slipping down onto the floor of the hallway. At the same time, Levi and Steve were also trying to pick themselves up off the floor because Steve's aerial assault had ended with Levi flattened underneath a thrashing and giggling Steve. "Did you see that, Nick?" Steve shouted. "Bet you didn't think I could pull something like that off!" But before Levi could answer, the red-haired man roared like a man-bear and charged back at us. All we could do was brace ourselves for impact. I fumbled to pick up my lockpicking tools, swearing in German under my breath. But then all of a sudden, the door to the suite I was trying to pick open banged wide. "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON OUT THERE?!?!?!" shouted an enormous, broad-shouldered Asian man with the thinnest goatee I'd ever seen and wearing a black suit and tie. He looked shocked at the sight of Levi pinned to the floor by Steve, the red-haired man running at us while making animal noises, and me, desperately trying to collect my tools while muttering drunken things and trying not to heave again. "It's the Extended Car Warranty Cartel!" I impulsively screamed in reply as even more of the gang came pouring out of the suite at the opposite end of the hall and charged toward us shouting war cries. The giant Asian man's eyes widened in realization before he turned to face the oncoming horde, pulling a handgun from his waistband. "I HATE THOSE GUYS!" he bellowed, his voice echoing through the corridor. He opened fire, causing several of the gang members to dive for cover, their war cries turning into screams of surprise and fear. Meanwhile, Steve managed to scramble off Levi and pull him up, and then Steve, in reckless abandon, charged right back at the red-haired man, who was now running away in the opposite direction. "Asmodeus! What the hell is going on out there?" somebody yelled from inside the Asian man's suite. "As it turns out, we're having a goddamn party with the Extended Car Warranty Cartel!" barked Asmodeus. "You're all invited!" "Party? Hell of a way to RSVP." I muttered, trying to regain my footing. "Oh man, we hate those guys!" a bunch of voices responded from inside the suite, followed by a stampede of heavily armed men and women who looked like legal aids and other suits charging out and joining the melee. The air was filled with gunshots and yells of both pain and glee. "Finally! Some back up!" Steve howled, his words slurred, as Levi took cover and I dove into the now-empty suite to avoid the hail of bullets. The room whirled like an out-of-control merry-go-round as I hit the floor, the combined effects of my inebriation and adrenaline rush making it hard for me to stand up. "Either I'm really out of shape," I muttered into the plush carpeting, trying to steady my breathing, "or maybe it's the vodka." As I stood up, I looked around the private suite. This one had a long, u-shaped sofa that ran along the wall to the left of the doorway. There was a table in the middle of the room piled high with bags of what I was pretty sure contained Booger Sugar and a bunch of different house currencies on it. On the other side of the room was a massive floor-to-ceiling wet bar stocked with every brand of liquor you could imagine. At the sight of all of that booze, I started to vomit but managed to close my mouth quick enough, swallowing it back down. "God." I coughed with a loud belch, pounding my chest a few times to stop the burning in my throat. "Nice place you got here, Asmodeus!" As the gunshots and Steve's battle cries continued in the background, I looked around the suite, trying to figure out what was missing. Then I remembered: Duke Dresari. Either Steve's instincts were really wrong or Duke Dresari was just really good at hiding. Or, considering the state of my mind at that moment, it could have been a hallucination brought on by too many Tharkad Nichtlagers and not enough oxygen. But whatever the case may have been, I was sure of one thing - I had to use the bathroom. Bad. Scanning the room, I noticed a door on the far side of the suite, partially hidden behind a shimmering beaded curtain. My bladder was yelling at me louder than Steve's war cries, so I scrambled to my feet and made a beeline for the door. As I stumbled through the curtain and into what I hoped was a bathroom, I turned on the light and nearly peed my pants when an unbelievably familiar voice scared the hell out of me. "HEY, WHAT UP, MY DUDE?" The voice was unmistakably that of Duke Dresari. I looked to my right, and there, tied up in the bathtub, was the Duke himself. He was more disheveled than I thought a disgraced royal could ever look, with his clothes torn and tattered and his hair a greasy mess. But, implausibly, especially for a man tied up and held prisoner, he still had those aviator sunglasses on and a smile on his face. "Dresari?" I stuttered, my booze-addled brain having trouble processing the sight before me. "What the hell are you doing in the tub?" "Just bein' held prisoner, my man!" he laughed, flashing me a grin. "Care to join me?" I really had to pee but I really had to rescue Duke Dresari. I stumbled back, staring at Dresari who was absurdly cheery despite his predicament. "Wait here." I slurred, racing out of the room before my bladder exploded. I found an umbrella stand, did my business, and safely returned to the Duke. "So the Marik Coke Cartel found out you sold them a metric assload of waffle mix instead of Booger Sugar, huh?" I asked as I frantically worked to untie the Duke. "Looks that way, don't it?" Dresari smirked. "But, hey, they should have tried the waffles. They're magnificent." I was too consumed by the knots to laugh at his joke, "Damn, Dresari. Who tied these?" "Oh, that'd be Asmodeus. He's a weird dude. Guess you kinda gotta be to work for Man-TLE." Duke Dresari laughed again. "Takes his knot tying real seriously, that one." I cursed under my breath and fumbled with the knots a bit more before they finally loosened. I yanked the ropes away from the Duke, who jumped up from the tub with surprising agility for someone who'd been tied up in a bathtub for, well, ever since he'd gotten dragged off the Bumper Dance Floor stands in the middle of a drunken rendition of the Chicken Dance. He was still a bit wobbly, and his expensive designer suit clung to his skin, soaked through with water and god knows what else. The Duke didn't seem bothered at all. "Now that I'm free, mind helping me find my pants?" "We don't have time!" I shouted, pulling Dresari by the arm. “We need to get out of here now!” “But I can't go out there with no pants! What will people say?” Dresari whined, but I was already dragging him towards the exit. "So we're just gonna leave my pants behind? Just like that?" He seemed genuinely upset at that prospect. I couldn't really blame him. Those were some fancy pants. I charged out into the hallway with the Duke in tow, the huge melee between the Marik Coke Cartel and the Extended Car Warranty Cartel still in full swing. The deafening roar of ballistic firearms filled the fancy hallway, punctuated by the occasional explosion of a tiny missile finding its mark. "Where's Steve?" Dresari shouted over the cacophony. I looked around, realizing that, in the midst of the orgy of violence, I'd lost track of Levi and Steve. "Crap!" I yelled, scanning the chaotic scene. Then, I spotted Steve excitedly karate-chopping some lady in a gangster suit while Levi had tackled another from behind and was now riding him haphazardly like a two-legged horse that was trying to buck him off. Steve was clearly having the time of his life, his face split into a wide grin as he delivered another chop and sent the gangster lady crashing into the wall. "Steve! Levi!" I shouted. Thankfully, they heard me, and as if on cue, both turned their heads in my direction. Steve let out a loud whoop, while Levi just gave me an incredulous look, as if he couldn't quite believe this was happening. "Nick! Where are the Duke's pants?" Steve yelled back, causing several gangsters to pause and glance at the pantsless Dresari. "Stop staring at me!" Dresari barked, trying to cover himself with his hands. I tried to suppress a chuckle, but it came out more like a snort. Meanwhile, the violence resumed full-tilt. "We don't have time to mess around with that! Come on! Let's get out of here!" I yelled, grabbing the Duke with one hand and Levi with the other as Steve fell in with our group. Using the crazed cage match that was exploding around us as cover, we somehow managed to make it all the way back to the Ficus Door, where Steve gleefully waved his ticket and the door opened with a bizarre "FICUS DOOR OPENING" announcement. We quickly ran out into the safety of the club and banged the door closed behind us. "Wow." I heaved, trying to catch my breath. "That was..." "AWESOME!!!!" Steve hollered.

CPC Bacchanal Geostationary orbit, Gellen's Heights Sheratan V, Tikonov Free Republic March 26, 3031 (Saturday) ______________________________________________ The Bumper Dance Floor grudge match between Steve Jenkins and Randy Whatshisname exploded across the bumper car and dance floor rink with a ferocity that would send a sober person into epileptic shock. The bumper cars buzzed around like hornets in a tin can while drunken dancers with no sense of self-preservation danced, twisted, and twirled between the cars, some getting run over in the process. Meanwhile, hundreds of spectators blasted air horns and hollered encouragement. "Oh my god!" I belched as I watched Levi, who was standing on the dance floor attempting to negotiate a truce with Randy's "Second," Bruce, nearly get mowed over by a green car that was wrecking with an apocalyptic fury that seemed really disproportionate for what's supposed to happen when a bumper car gets bumped. In the blink of an eye, Levi saved Bruce's ass, pulling him out of harm's way seconds before he became roadkill. My heart jumped into my throat and my vision swam as I drunkenly pulled out my noteputer and attempted to boot it up. I had a plan. I WAS GOING TO HACK THE BUMPER DANCE FLOOR MATCH AND KEEP EVERYONE SAFE. But, my noteputer kept prompting me to do...things. And the letters were swimming around the screen and refusing to fall in line. Dammit, I needed them to cooperate. "Argh, you traitorous piece of junk." I slurred, slapping the keyboard. "What's wrong, dude?" Duke Dresari asked, scooting in way too close to me and looking at my computer screen over the top of his sunglasses as another huge wreck unfolded in the bumper rink. When did he get here? "I'm tryin' to save Levi's ass out there, is what's wrong." I hissed, my words slurring together. "And the goddamned letters won't stand still." Duke Dresari squinted at my noteputer screen. "You know you're just beating at an alphabet soup there, right?" he asked. "Yeah, and?" I mumbled back, my fingers struggling to find the right keys as I fought to navigate through the mass of prompts in front of me. Damned drink had turned all my protocols into scrambled eggs. WHY WAS THIS SO HARD? Dresari shrugged, taking a huge swig of some kind of glowing drink. Or, at least, I think it was glowing. It was hard to know. Everything had light halos around it now. "I bookmark everything so I can drunk drive my computery things. Nothing sucks more than getting locked out of your porn 'cause you can't type your password right. Anyway, keep trying, dude." Dresari said, giving a thumbs up and belching a cloud of alcohol fumes at me. "YOU CAN'T HACK A BUMPER CAR WITH BOOKMARKS!" I hollered, swatting at his thumbs up. I guess I swung too hard, since the next thing I knew, Duke Dresari's drink had gone airborne and was smashing down somewhere else in the stands. "Sorry." I grunted, returning back to my noteputer. Levi was probably going to die horribly in Steve Jenkins' bumper car duel if I couldn't get into the system and shut it all down. "No big deal, brozio!" Dresari answered, retrieving another fully prepared beverage out of one of his robe pockets. "I came prepared for shenanigans." He gave me a sloppy wink before flooding his face with the glowy liquid. I leaned into my noteputer again, squinting at the prompts, all of which were just blurs at this point. "Wait." I added. "Did you say 'computery things?' Is that where Steve got that expression?" Duke Dresari gave me a big, sloppy grin. "Yeah, and I got it from my seventh wife. She was a tech queen or something." He shrugged, the motion making him wobble on his seat. "Loaded though. Man, the alimony." My fingers danced across the keypad, forcing their way through the drunken haze. At this rate, Levi was going to be a bumper car pancake. ENFFFRR URRSSRRRNM N PSSWWWRRD, the screen blared. I growled in frustration, bashing on the keys with more force than necessary. I'm pretty sure a couple of them broke free and rained down on the spectators sitting in front of us. "Damn it! Why did I drink two bottles of Vega Lash???" I yelled, falling all over my noteputer as another spectacular explosion lit up the bumper car arena. The crowd roared with delight. "Beats me, I told you to go easy, brozio." Dresari mumbled, idly wiping some spilled drink off his knee. I could barely see through the dizzying swirl of my bloodshot eyes but I could make out Levi's distressed face down on the Bumper Dance floor. I grumbled incoherent curses under my breath, making another wild attack on the noteputer's keys. I was officially out of time. Even if I managed to get into the system now, Levi had about as much chance as a Pop-Tart in a toaster convention. The screen flickered for a moment before bleating out, PSSSRRD NCRCT! TRRGGNNN! I swear, the damn thing was mocking me now. "Just put in your password." Duke Dresari belched as his eyes, glazed over from one too many drinks, lost focus and drifted towards the chaos on the rink floor. "If you're such a computer expert, why don't you put it in FOR me?" I spit back as I slumped half-collapsed on the noteputer's screen. To my surprise, Duke Dresari shoved his drink into the crook of his arm and pushed me back in my seat. "Sure, dude, what's your password?" he asked. "Over my dead body." I snapped, squinting at the screen through blurry eyes. "It's 'cabbage'. With a capital 'C'." The crowd erupted into another bout of cheers as Steve's car ran headlong into Randy's, sending both cars flying into the air. Through my blurry vision, I could make out Levi running away from another wrecked bumper car that was spinning helplessly out of control in the middle of the chaos. Shit. Duke Dresari quickly hammered out my password, or at least I think he did, but I guess I'll never know, because at that exact moment, three thugs with blurry features, blurry clothes, and blurry intentions stumbled down our row in the stands and grabbed him forcefully by the collar. "Hey, what the hell?" Duke Dresari barked, sloshing booze from his cup onto their blurry leather jackets. The thugs were blurry and unsteady, or maybe that was just my vision. Either way, I saw trouble coming. "I believe you owe us some money, Dresari." one of them said. "For all that waffle mix you sold us." "Yeah, well, I believe you owe me a dance, ugly." Dresari belched back, swinging a sloppy punch at the biggest thug. Unfortunately, it missed, and the only victim was Duke Dresari's latest drink, which spilled out in a glorious but tragic arc. "Just waffle mix?" I slurred, my laughter almost drowned out by the din of the bumper car arena. "If you're gonna shake down someone, at least let it be for something more glamorous." One of the thugs swung his blurry gaze towards me. "You better keep out of it, unless you want to go with him!" I squinted at the thug, then back at the arena where Levi was doing his best not to be smashed into oblivion. "Look, I've already signed up for the boyfriend protection package. I don't have room for any more subscriptions." I hiccuped, shaking my head and grimacing. "I'm full." I expected a punch, but the thug just shrugged. "Suit yourself." He turned back to Dresari, who was now attempting to karate chop one of his assailants with little success. "You! You're coming with us." the thug shouted at Duke Dresari. "Let's go." As the mob of thugs began to drag Dresari away, I made a valiant effort to stand, my legs acting as though they were trying out for some sort of drunken ballet. "I'm coming!!" I yelled with a hiccup thrown in for good measure. "Mighty heroic of you." Dresari grunted as he was manhandled towards the exit. As I crumpled down on my knees, I heard the horns blast, signaling the end of the bumper car duel. My heart sank at the sound...I had lost track of time. "Levi!" I called out, scrambling back up to my feet as best as I could manage. I squinted at the contenders on the rink floor until I found him. By some miracle of Blake, he was there, unharmed, heading toward me with a manically happy Steve Jenkins in tow. I gestured wildly, my thoughts returning to what had just played out with Duke Dresari. We had to save him.....right?????

CPC Bacchanal - Room 2024 Geostationary orbit, Gellen's Heights Sheratan V, Tikonov Free Republic March 26, 3031 (Saturday) ______________________________________________ With a flourish, Duke Dresari climbed out of the chili-filled hot tub, a huge amount of stewed beef, tomatoes, sauce, and other ingredients splattering out of his Speedo. his bulge leaving little to the imagination other than an explosion on the floor that Doc Mallory would probably describe as a "gastronomic massacre." The right bikini woman and the left bikini woman stood up and followed, their bikini bottoms appearing to be sealed much better against what Dresari himself had described as "a tremendous burn," which I was subconsciously thankful for because getting chili powder up in there? Damn. When they got out of the tub, their emerald swimsuits were hardly visible beneath the dripping layers of meaty debris. The duke's laughter echoed through the room and then he and the ladies disappeared into a private bathroom. The doors slid shut behind them but the sounds of "fun" were still pretty loud. I looked at Levi, his nose wrinkled at the leftover smell of chili and perfume and he said nothing but looked unsettled. Steve Jenkins, on the other hand, seemed happier than ever, turning toward our group, waving and proclaiming,"ISN'T HE Awesome? OK, NOW EVERYONE GO GET CRAZY!" "Well, I have no idea how I'm going to top that." Orlex chuckled, scratching his head and ambling toward the door. "I mean, after you've seen a grown man bathing in a vat of chili before you're even inside the circus, where could the evening possibly go from there?" "Yeah." I agreed. "I feel like I need a shower after seeing that." Levi thwapped me on the shoulder. "Not yet you're not. We're gonna check out the circus! Um, right?" I watched as the majority of our entourage dispersed, some heading towards the bar, others into the thumping heart of the circus. Then I said, "Hold on a second." I looked over at Curie. She was standing there, next to Mallory, with her eyes wide. She had tried to ask some questions when the Duke was in the room but didn't really get much in the way of satisfactory answers. I tugged on Levi's sleeve. "Come on." Then, I walked over to her. I don't know why I hadn't done it before. Maybe it was because I hadn't had much interaction with the person she was before now, Kat, and so I didn't feel particularly drawn toward her. Or maybe it was because I remembered who she was before...an AI named Curie, who I did consider my friend...and she might be different. But there was some part of me that knew I had been intentionally avoiding her, even if I hadn't meant to. She looked at me as I approached. Maybe I misremembered, but she felt shorter or smaller than I remembered her from before. The way her messy hair fell down over one side of her forehead reminded me of Kat. The expression in her eyes didn't. There was somebody else there. "Hey." I greeted her. Curie's eyes took a weird amount of time to respond. Not long exactly, but like, there was more stuff going on behind them than there normally would be. Then they fixed on me, and I wasn't expecting the effect that would have. It was like they were holding me there and looking into my soul. I had felt something similar before, but I couldn't put my finger on when. "Hey." she replied, uncertainly. I was surprised that she chose that word, because up until now, I'd just heard her saying various flavors of hello. "You doing OK?" I asked, while Mallory looked on protectively. Curie's eyes raked over me. If part of her was really what Captain Maxwell had briefed us on it being, she was probably processing who I was and looking for a match. To my surprise, her eyebrows raised a little bit. "Trying." she said. Then, "Legs?" I looked between her and Levi in confusion. "Legs?" I asked. Curie nodded slightly, then looked down at my legs. "Legs. Bus." A feeling of shock washed over me. She was referring to the rehabilitation she'd done with me, months ago, after I'd been hit by the bus and the nanites healed me. That memory predated Kathryn Franklin completely. This was, somehow, an echo of the Curie I had known. My expression faltered, which I hadn't been expecting, fighting back tears. I wanted to give her a hug, something I couldn't do when she was a bunch of code and a projection coming from a pile of hacked TV parts, and tell her how glad I was she was OK. Welcome her to this crazy human version of existence. Tll her she was going to be OK. But I didn't want to scare her. So instead I stuck my hands in my pockets. "You remember that." I replied. Curie nodded, a little nervously, which was so different from both Kat and the Curie I knew. "Legs?" she asked again. Her eyebrow went up a little bit, the first expressiveness I had seen from her that was directed at me. "They're fine." I said. "Thanks to you and forcing that stupid awful rehabilitation routine." Curie's eyes got super serious and she looked at me like she was trying to figure something out. I held my hands up. "I'm joking. They work great because of you." Curie gave a curt nod and what I think was an attempt at a smile. Then, she simply said, "Good." and turned toward Mallory. I put my hand out and took hold of her left arm. She froze and looked at me. Her expression was somewhere in between fear and curiousness. "I want to ask you something, Curie." I said. Then I waited to see what she'd say. Eventually, the silence got awkward, but I waited. After a long enough time, Curie's eyes danced over me again, and she said, "Ask." I took a deep breath, trying to recall that conversation we'd had so long ago. "So, remember what we talked about, back when you were torturing me, about being human?" I asked. Curie looked wildly confused. The old Curie would have almost immediately thrown an exception and asked me what the hell I was talking about. I had to get used to the notion that this one was different, more reserved, more fearful about asking things, maybe. "I'm joking again. Do you remember when you were helping me with my rehabilitation and we got talking about whether you were curious about humanity and how you were doing things that were kind of awesome emergent behavior?" I explained. Curie thought about it for a minute and then said "October." My eyes got wide. "Yeah? I think it was October." Levi cut in. "It was definitely October. Of all the things I can forget, you getting hit by a bus isn't one of them." I looked at Levi and then gave him a hug. Curie watched inquisitively. "You need October?" she finally asked, her tone hopeful. I was really baffled what that meant for a second, but then Levi looked at me. "Do you need October? Is she asking if you wanted to know what month that conversation happened in?" he asked. Before I could really think about it, Curie nodded slowly. I realized she was trying to understand if she'd gotten to the objective of my question and answered it correctly, and I felt a little bit of heartache. She was really trying to do the right thing, even if she didn't know just what that was, a staple of the Curie I'd known. "Yes. That's perfect, Curie." I reassured her. "But I have a question for you. About you. When we had that conversation...in October...you said you wanted to know what it was like to be human. To experience emotions and sensations. Now that you're there...what do you think?" Curie's eyes got narrow again as she processed what I'd said. Then, they widened a bit. She looked away, not at anything specific, but down at the floor. Instinctively, I reached out and took her hand, her fingers weirdly cold compared to what I was expecting. My gesture startled her, and she reflexively yanked her hand back from mine and grasped it with her other hand, almost like I'd damaged it. Mallory put his arm around Curie's shoulder to try to settle her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." I said. "I get that it's probably a hard question." Curie looked up at me. "Hard." she agreed. "Being human...is hard." I nodded. "I couldn't agree more. But you know what's not hard?" Curie looked at me, confused. She didn't know what answer I was looking for. "Being there for someone." I explained. "We're all in this hard, confusing, crazy human thing together. I'm there for you, OK? Just like you were there for me. I know somewhere in that crazy number of memories you have, you understand what I mean by that." Curie's eyes alternated between wide-eyed processing, narrowed analyzing, and distant recognition of my words. Eventually, her expression softened, and she simply said something I wasn't expecting and which almost knocked me off my feet with its meaning. "Nicholas Schuster. Root. Admin." Mallory smiled. Meanwhile, I nodded, speechless. I didn't know what else to say. "Yeah, Curie. It's me. I'm still here. I'm your friend. Always have been. Always will be. You need me to get around a problem, I'm here." She took a moment to process that, then nodded. By now, it was just me, Levi, Steve, Mallory, and Curie in the room. The absence of anyone else was powerful and felt like we were being drawn toward her, this impossibly powerful mind in a small body who I now recognized as the same person, yet different, I hadn't seen in almost 3 months. "Me too." she concluded. I smiled and tried for her hand again. This time, she took mine in hers. I gave her delicate fingers a gentle squeeze before letting go, which she answered with a small nod. "Go now." she replied. At first, I thought she was trying to dismiss me before I realized she was tugging on Mallory's Hawaiian shirt. "Pool." she added, to which Mallory laughed. "You're still on that kick, huh?" he asked. "Alright. Let's go look at the pool. Anything to keep you out of a food jacuzzi I guess." I laughed. Levi tugged on my arm. "Speaking of that, what do you want to do?" he asked. "I was about to ask you the same thing!" I replied. "We're VIP celebrities after all."

Site 187 Outskirts of Gellen's Heights, Sheratan Tikonov Free Republic March 26, 3031 (Saturday) ______________________________________________ The van lurched up to the front entrance of Site 187's lobby. It was an old thing, with a couple of smashed in quarter panels and a missing wheel cover, hardly the kind of vehicle that said "flashy entrance" but I guess when you're a gun for hire people aren't as interested in what you're driving as whether it's shooting at them. The good thing was that the van wasn't shooting anything much except an occasional burst of fire out of its fusion wastewater outlet, which I suppose could also be misinterpreted as gunfire, but since we were only going to the spaceport, and since the van was clearly anything but a war wagon, I wasn't overly worried about it. Steve hopped out of the driver's seat in a bright colored ensemble that looked like it included every medal he'd ever been awarded, his Dust Up Dome championship belt, a sash that said BUSINESSMAN, an Aegis Division patch haphazardly adhered to one shoulder, and his Sergeant's patch on the other. As he saw me he struck a pose. "Uhh...hi Steve, I didn't realize this was a...formal affair." I said, setting my overnight bag down and taking off my sunglasses. Steve laughed and shut the van door. Then he walked over to stand next to me, where he struck another pose, looking out over the green grass of the base toward the city. "Oh it's not, I just wanted to show Duke Dresari how much business success I have did since he was in prison, he was my business Sensei after the Gray Death Legion didn't work out," Steve explained. "Oh, by the way, here's your VIP pass and vouchers for an assload of tokens, hotel room, and all inclusive access to the Drunken Grizzly Bonanza Bar." I took the pile of cards and tucked them inside my jacket. "Thanks, Steve, you really look up to that guy, don't you?" "Hell yeha!" he said, taking off his sunglasses and looking at me enthusiastically. "He taught me a bunch of secrets that made me the business obelisk I am today." "Right..." I nodded slowly, unsure of what a business obelisk was but too scared to ask. "Well I'm really glad you get to see him again, and it's really generous of you to share your vouchers with all of us. Speaking of which, where is everyone?" Just as I asked that, Levi came running out of the lobby at a full tilt, carrying an enormous suitcase. He hurtled toward the van, only stopping as I stuck out my hand to prevent him from adding another wrecked quarter panel to the mix. "Whoa, cowboy, slow down, you think we'd leave without you?" I smiled. "I wasn't sure." Levi replied, setting his suitcase down with a huge thud. "I got caught up in the vehicle maintenance bay with Mallory and Curie. By the time they left to go talk to Captain Maxwell about the trip, I was like 45 minutes behind in my rounds. So I basically dumped my footlocker into my suitcase and ran up here." I raised an eyebrow. "Why was Curie in the vehicle maintenance bay? That seems incredibly dangerous for someone who's..." "She was looking for distractions and must have slipped down when my safety officer wasn't looking. Luckily she managed to find Mallory before she ended up..." "...getting permanently distracted, got it." I nodded. "Yeah." Levi agreed. "Hopefully this trip helps get the distraction urges out of her system. It's all I can manage keeping the people who do work down there from doing inadvisable stuff." I raised an eyebrow and slowly lowered my sunglasses to look over top of them at Levi. "Wait. She's coming with us? To the..." Levi nodded. "And Captain Maxwell is cool with that." "So I've heard." said Levi. I let out a low whistle. "Not it!" I exclaimed, touching my index finger to the tip of my nose. Steve quickly imitated the gesture. "Me either! I have important business Things to do with Duke Dresari!" he added. "Hey, did you guys bring costumes?" "Yeah." I replied, pointing at the outfit I was currently wearing. "Off-duty MechWarrior. And Levi's my plus one, Quartermaster Avoiding Lawsuits." Steve let out an exuberant laugh at the joke. "WELL, if you do get sued, you know who to call!" I rolled my eyes and chuckled. "Hey, I wonder who else is coming?" I asked, looking back toward the door.

DropShip Gambit Demeter Forest, Eleos Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 3, 3031 (Thursday) ______________________________________________ In a matter of seconds, complete chaos had broken out in the cargo hold. Alarms were wailing, bullets were flying, and to top it all off, the enemy crew themselves had apparently put the ship into some kind of lockdown, which meant that we weren't getting out the way we came in, and there was no way I was going to be able to hack our way out of this predicament with the orgy of violence unfolding around us. I took cover behind a stack of crates, the sharp sounds of gunfire reverberating through the air. My heart pounded as adrenaline surged through my veins. This was not how I had envisioned this mission unfolding. We were supposed to be the ones in control, but now we were being funneled into Blake-knows-what. "I need fire support over here!" Commander Jaeger suddenly shouted. I looked in his direction to see blinding floodlights pouring out of the one open hatch that he and Idris had been investigating just moments ago. The blinding light made it difficult to see, but I could make out the silhouettes of enemy soldiers advancing towards us. "Bastion, this is Rebus, moving up!" I replied, shouldering my Magna laser rifle and peering through the scope as I crouch-walked toward Orlex and Idris' position. The heat from the rifle radiated through my shooting gloves, making my hands slick with sweat. I adjusted the power modulator, dialing up the energy output to maximize the damage. It was time to show these bastards what we were made of. As I emerged from behind the crates, a barrage of bullets whizzed past me, tearing through the air with deadly precision. I threw myself to the ground, narrowly avoiding getting hit as I crawled toward Idris and Orlex, their rifles filling the room with thunderous reports as they fired almost blindly into the adjoining compartment. Idris, with his broad frame and imposing presence, was slightly closer to me and was holding his ground like a fortress. I belly-crawled toward him, shouting into my headset. "Coming up behind you, Juniad! Any chance you can fire a grenade or two into that hatch? I can't see shit because of their floodlights and I feel like they're gaining ground." I could tell by the fact that I was now seeing distinctive muzzle flashes behind the floodlights that the enemy soldiers were getting dangerously close, and we needed to thin their numbers before they overwhelmed us. Idris snapped off a few more shots into the morass of hostiles and shook his head. "No can do. We don't know what's being stored in that room and my grenades are too high-yield to risk." "Alright, well, I've got another option, maybe." I answered, my mind racing for a solution. I glanced over at the Nakajima laser pistol holstered at my side, an idea forming in my head. "Bastion and Juniad! Cover me!" I shouted, grabbing the pistol and unclipping it from its holster. I crawled backward, keeping low to the ground as I scooted up against a bulkhead and dropped the weapon's power cell out. Reaching inside the frame of the pistol, I unscrewed a small, cylindrical device. It was the arming pin for the custom explosive payload that the arms dealer back on Sheratan had sold me with the gun. At the time, I'd bought it out of paranoia that one of the Great Houses was going to come and snatch me off the streets for my warrants, but now I was grateful for that paranoid purchase. It seemed like the perfect tool to turn the tide in our favor. Quickly, I inverted the arming pin and screwed it back into place, its reversed orientation triggering the explosive charge. As the small accessory clicked into place, it lit up with an ominous red light, indicating it was armed and ready for detonation. I carefully reinserted the laser pistol's power pack and tucked the gun back into its holster, unshouldered my rucksack, and rummaged around until I found the remote detonator. Yanking its telescoping antenna out, I held the device between my teeth while I shrugged my rucksack back on, pulled both a flashbang and a stun grenade from my belt, and crouch-ran back to Idris and Orlex, this time taking up position behind the commander. "I think we hit a few of them." Commander Jaeger advised. "Good, hopefully, this'll clean up a few more without blowing off half the ship. Cover down! Grenades out!" I shouted through clenched teeth, arming both the flashbang and stun grenades, pulling my laser pistol from its holster, and hurling all three projectiles toward the enemy crew. The flashbang exploded first, engulfing the corridor in blinding light and deafening sound. The stun grenade went off half a second later with a concussive blast that rattled the walls of the DropShip. As confused and disoriented shouts from the hostile crew replaced weapons fire, I pulled the laser pistol's remote detonator from between my teeth and forcefully mashed its trigger button. A shrill, electronic shriek echoed from the enemy position as the Nakajima laser pistol's power pack and explosive payload deliberately overloaded, followed by a moderate explosion that still managed to pack a significant concussive punch. "Well, that was less than I was expecting." I started to say, but then, the sound of various chain detonations and magazines cooking off filled the air, accompanied by ear-splitting screams and the fiery spectacles of secondary explosions. The enemy crew's grenades and ammunition had been caught up in whatever kind of plasmatic inferno had been triggered by my remote detonator, quickly turning the compartment beyond into a chaotic inferno of swirling flames and billowing smoke. The floodlights that had been held in our faces with total conviction flickered and sputtered as whatever crew had survived frantically tried to take up new positions and open fire with whatever weapons they had left. "You definitely took out a handful!" Captain Maxwell observed as he moved up to provide overwatch, the furious bark from his Martial Eagle machine pistol matching the pace of his trigger finger. "Keep them pinned down!" he yelled, dropping three of the remaining soldiers and causing a momentary lull in the chaos. "Let's see if we can move up!" Just as I was about to reply in the affirmative, I heard an unusually loud, single gunshot, followed by a blood-curdling scream. It was Steve, and whatever was wrong was serious. Steve's normal screams were over-the-top and comical, often unintentionally so. But this time, I only heard raw emotion in his voice. Whatever it was had to be truly horrific. Without hesitation, I swiftly turned around to see Steve hunched over a crumpled, still body, her small frame encircled by a pool of blood. Kat was down.

Clothing: Long-sleeve mock turtleneck shirt (black) Outer jacket (olive drab) Tactical desert scarf wrap (brown) BDU pants (brown) Combat boots (black) Undergarments (socks, underwear, undershirts) Electronic eyeglasses (Crayven Corp prototype) Features: Facial recognition Targeting protocols Night vision Load-bearing tactical vest Rucksack Tactical gloves Aviator sunglasses Belt with utility and ammunition pouches Hip holster Armor: MechWarrior Combat Suit Combat helmet with High-Capacity (HC) Micro Power Pack, Military Communicator, and Infrared (IR) Scanner Equipment: High-Capacity (HC) Power Pack (for electronic gear) Rangefinder Binoculars Holomap Barrel-mount flashlight for primary weapon Tactical flashlight with spare batteries Noteputer with armored bracer Interface module for noteputer and electronic security bypass kit Remote modem for noteputer (think future version of a cellular/satellite modem) Electronic security bypass kit Multitool Multi-terrain Pattern (MTP) camouflage netting Water hydration system (in rucksack) Weapons and Ammunition: Primary Weapon: Magna Laser Rifle Weapon accessories: Infrared scope Prototype modulator to change output power on demand Secondary Sidearm: Nakajima Laser Pistol Weapon accessories: Built in explosives Remote detonator for built in explosives Ammunition for primary and secondary weapons Magna Laser Rifle: High-capacity power pack (energy cell capacity 15 shots at standard setting) Power pack + recharger Nakajima Laser Pistol: High-capacity power pack (energy cell capacity 5 shots at standard setting) Power pack + recharger Spare magazines: 6 power packs Weapon maintenance kit Ammunition bandolier Weapon sling Combat knife Stun grenades (3), flashbang grenades (3) Medical and Survival Gear: Medipack Asthma inhaler Vacuum-sealed bedroll Emergency rations (3 days' worth) Thermal blanket Water purification tablets Compass Fire-starting kit (lighter, waterproof matches, fire starter) Signal mirror Insect repellent Sewing kit Miscellaneous: Identification tags (dog tags) Aegis Division insignia patch Aegis Division Field Manual Crayven Corporation nanite activity log (to record field observations about injury healing and death) Dermal sensor to connect to noteputer for nanite management USB drives with various hacking tools, operating systems, exfiltration software, and viruses Crayven Corporation Security Manifest Override v3.27 (cracked, appropriated from Crayven Corporation) Irian Damocles Star v8.37 (retrieved from Bishop's Nighthawk armor) NickOS v1.07 (homebrew version of Future Linux that includes a mashup of the Crayven Corporation + Irian cyberwarfare suites, includes deployment stuff) Nanite Interface v0.8 (beta software cobbled together after Nick and Dr. Halsey finally got into the nanites, it interfaces with the dermal patch) CurieOS v0.3 (beta software built by Nick to set up and fine-tune Curie's holoprojector stuff) Configuration disks for DropShip and site-based networking gear Aegis Division Locura virus suite Security Trace tracker Connection bouncer Forkbomb LAN Tools LAN spoof LAN scan LAN probe LAN force Crackers Password Breaker Dictionary Hacker Decypher Decrypter PortHack SecureShellCrack File Utilities File Copier File Deleter I will fill this out more completely after I go through my posts and find everything I mentioned in the past, a lot of the basic utilities are inspired by Hacknet so assume Nick has everything on the list here Network cable (6 meters) High-speed data cable with universal adapters (1.2 meters) Assorted computer hardware tools Paracord (15.24 meters/50 feet) Personal hygiene kit (toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, etc.) Notepad and writing implements Spare batteries (for all electronic devices) Position marking smoke

Demeter Forest - Gambit emergency landing site Eleos - 16th moon of Epsilon Eridani VII Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 3, 3031 (Thursday) - Very early morning ______________________________________________ Approaching the other door in the corridor, one that was marked Maintenance in bold lettering beside it, we couldn't find a service panel to manually open the door, and even when Orlex cut his own access panel into the bulkhead with the laser in his prosthetic arm, there was no convenient manual switch or hydraulic pump to force the door open. That was extremely weird. "That looks like an after-market lock panel." Levi observed. "N-, uh Rebus, can you take a look at this?" "Definitely seems out of place." I began as I looked at the hardware. It in no way matched the rest of the gear we'd seen on the ship. Although it wasn't uncommon for ship maintenance crews to sometimes resort to using whatever parts they had on hand, especially when the vessel was old, and parts were scarce, it still didn't explain the presence of a lock panel that was clearly not part of the original design. I pulled out my pen light and ducked down to get a look underneath. "Oh yeah, this was added in later. Just give me a sec here." I observed, getting a multitool out and prying at the unit's cover. "Aaandd there we go. Yep, I thought as much, this panel's a standalone system. For whatever reason, it's not tied into the rest of the ship's systems, meaning we can basically hot wire it, and nobody would know." "That seems odd." Commander Jaeger replied, concern lacing his voice as his brow furrowed. "Are you certain it's not connected somehow?" "I can't be certain that it's not wired up somehow to alert someone if the door opens or something, but this panel has no wired data connection into or out of it, and there's nothing in it sophisticated enough to be wireless. Even the power supply is a D-I-Y job that looks liable to burn itself out with the first power surge it sees." I shrugged, as I continued to probe the mechanism's inside with my hands and penlight. "Alright, can you get it open?" Orlex finally asked, exchanging a worried glance with Captain Maxwell. "Shouldn't be a problem, just give me a minute here." I acknowledged, and I set about probing some more into the wiring and circuitry of the control panel. After a few minutes of fiddling around with the wires, I managed to rig up a bypass that would allow us to pop the lock without alerting anyone on the ship. With a final twist of my multitool, the lock released with a SHOCKINGLY loud bang, echoing throughout the corridor. We all froze, glancing at each other with wide eyes. I mentally cursed myself for the noise. The last thing we needed was to alert the crew of the Gambit to our presence. Slowly, Jaeger and Idris pushed the door open, revealing a dimly-lit, extremely cluttered hold beyond. It was full of blind corners made of crates haphazardly stacked on top of each other. As we stepped inside, the pungent smell of sweat, rust, and desperation filled our nostrils. I looked back at the hatch through which we had just stepped and noticed that there were no lock controls on this side of the door. Whatever this space was, the security on the outside had been meant to keep something in, not necessarily to keep people out. We moved cautiously through the cargo hold, scanning the area for any signs of life. It was eerily quiet except for the occasional sound of something shifting in the piles of crates and containers surrounding us. We had no idea if the noises we were hearing were coming from the diplomats we were tasked to rescue, or if they were crew members who had been alerted to our presence. "Home Plate to Eden: advise status." Alyssa's voice crackled through my earpiece. Captain Maxwell raised his hand, signaling for the rest of the team to freeze. "We're in." he whispered. "We've located some kind of a cargo hold, although it isn't the one we thought we were looking for." "Any sign of the OpFor?" Alyssa asked. Her transmission was barely audible over the sound of our own breathing as we moved deeper into the hold. "Not yet." Maxwell whispered back, his grip tightening around his weapon. "We're proceeding with caution." Suddenly, Idris threw his arm out to stop the captain from proceeding. Charles gave him a steely, confused look, but it was then that we heard it...a soft whimpering coming from one of the corners of the hold. We slowly moved towards the sound, weapons at the ready.

Demeter Forest - Gambit landing site Eleos - 16th moon of Epsilon Eridani VII Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 2, 3031 (Wednesday) ______________________________________________ "It's dark as shit out here." Levi whispered, casting a resentful glance up at the clouds that had moved in front of the moon, making the already-dark forest even harder to see in. I nodded in agreement, squinting over the landscape to try to make out the locations of the laser sensors. "Just gotta trust our instincts and our gear." I replied, adjusting the straps of my ghillie suit. We were perilously close to both the Gambit and the encamped crew, and operating on borrowed time. Our sabotage of the seismic sensors had taken nearly forty minutes, and in that time, I was sure we had nearly been discovered three times. I took a deep breath, letting the cool night air fill my lungs, and began to methodically scan the ground surrounding the DropShip for the tripwire nodes. In the darkness, everything looked like a stick or a rock, and it was almost impossible to distinguish between them. Worse still, my corrected vision lent itself much better to the helmet of a BattleMech than to seeing nearly-invisible stuff in near-total darkness. I had to rely on my instincts to locate the tripwire nodes, which were hidden in plain sight. As I crawled on my belly, I felt a sudden jolt of dread in the pit of my stomach when I heard a branch snap just a few meters to my right. I froze, holding my breath and praying that it was just a small animal. Levi must have heard it too, because he stopped moving as well. We waited, tensed and listening, for what felt like an eternity. Finally, after what must have been only a few seconds, the sound of movement dissipated, replaced with the gentle rustling of leaves in the wind. I exhaled a silent sigh of relief, trying to slow my racing heart. "You OK?" Levi whispered, his voice barely audible in the darkness. "Yeah." I whispered back, giving him a reassuring nod. "Just got spooked." Levi returned the nod, and we resumed our slow crawl towards the DropShip. As I inched closer to the Gambit, I found myself growing increasingly nervous. There was only so close we could get to the remaining functional part of the seismic sensors before we triggered them and alerted the crew. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were pushing our luck too far. "This is bullshit." I fumed. "We aren't kitted out for this kind of recon. If I knew we'd be looking for lasers, I would have brought special equipment." Levi chuckled softly. "You telling me you're not enjoying crawling around in the dirt in a ridiculous suit?" I grunted a response, too focused on finding the tripwire nodes to dignify his comment with a proper retort. But then, just as I was about to turn back, a haze of smoke, carried on the wind from the crew's campfire nearby, caught the red beam of one of the further laser diodes, revealing its position to me. I took a deep breath, my heart racing with excitement and nerves. "Of course. Why didn't I think of that?" I whispered. Levi tilted his head in confusion. I didn't explain, instead pulling a smoke grenade out of my pack. "You got any duct tape?" I asked. "Nick, you're scaring your boyfriend." Levi joked, but the tension in his voice betrayed his nerves. "What are you about to do?" "I want to use a smoke grenade to find the lasers, but the raw output is gonna be too noticeable. So, I'm going to tape a small piece of cloth over the hole in the grenade to diffuse the smoke and create a subtle plume that we can manage." Levi's eyes widened in surprise. "That's...really clever." he said. "But how are we going to make sure the smoke doesn't drift towards the crew's camp?" "Wind's blowing away from them." I pointed out. "But if it shifts, we'll just have to improvise." While Levi rifled through his rucksack for the tape, I tore a length of fabric from my camouflage scarf and wrapped it tightly around the smoke grenade's emitter. Working quickly, we taped the improvised diffuser into place, then primed the grenade and waited. Moments later, the grenade started to billow smoke, but the effect was subtle, just as I'd intended, and I inched toward the breach we'd made in the seismic sensors, directing the smoke ahead of me as I moved. We were in luck. The wind held steady, and the smoke caught the ruby beam of the tripwire grid in its haze. Slowly, painfully, we inched toward the closest intersection we could see in the grid. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and my palms were slick with sweat inside my gloves. The grass rustled beneath us as we crawled forward, inching ever closer to our target. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we were within arm's reach of the node. "Alright, Mr. Wizard." I whispered to Levi, "you're up. Time to work some magic."

Demeter Forest - Aegis Division base camp Eleos - 16th moon of Epsilon Eridani VII Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 2, 3031 (Wednesday) ______________________________________________ As the sun set behind the thick line of trees surrounding our camp, Steve came blazing into the tent, panting and sweating, itching his ghillie suit like crazy and throwing the camera directly at me. "Here!" he shouted before running back out of the tent and making a beeline for the campfire. I caught the camera without thinking, turning toward Levi and raising an eyebrow at Steve's frenzied demeanor. Idris followed, saying nothing, but casting us both a knowing look as he passed us his camera and headed for his tent. I brushed the dirt and debris off both cameras and connected them to our terminal, scrolling through the pictures to see what Idris and Steve had captured. My eyes widened as the images came into focus. The bastards from the Gambit had been busy. "Levi, check this out." I said, tapping him on the shoulder as I continued to scroll through the images. "They set up a perimeter of seismic sensors all the way around the Gambit, and inside of that's another perimeter of sensors. Can you make out what they are?" Levi turned around from his perch at the makeshift desk, his face lit up with interest. "Shit, you're right." he said, leaning over my shoulder to get a better look at the pictures. "The casings on those vibration sensors...they're definitely not consumer grade. This is military gear." After staring at Steve's series of hastily-snapped pictures depicting the second line of sensors, Levi continued. "Can you zoom in here?" I nodded and zoomed in to the area in question, looking at the blurry image perplexed. It was as though there was something important there, but it was beyond my grasp. Levi grabbed the mouse and started to zoom all the way in, muttering something to himself about the resolution. I watched as he made a small exclamation and pointed to the screen. "What do you see?" I asked, intrigued by his interest in the sensors. Levi tapped on the display excitedly. "These are laser tripwires!" he exclaimed, his eyes scanning the images. "If there's one thing I know, it's lasers. This is some seriously advanced tech they're using here. They're not messing around." I leaned closer, studying the images with a critical eye. "They really don't want anyone getting close to their hostages." I said, my mind racing. "This is going to make our job a lot harder." Levi looked at me in surprise. "Can't you just, like, hack your way in and shut it all down the way you normally do?" I shook my head and sighed. "No. It doesn't work like that with these sensors. They get deployed and turned on and send one-way telemetry to their receiver, which is presumably somewhere aboard the Gambit. Even if I could hack into them, it's not like I could do anything that the people monitoring the system wouldn't notice. Sensors like this don't have a "spoof" mode. They're either on or off. And turning them off would definitely provoke a reaction." Outside the tent, I heard a bunch of screaming near the campfire, and looked to see a nearly-naked Steve Jenkins attempting to burn his ghillie suit in the flames. I sighed and leaned back in my chair, feeling a sinking sensation in my gut. This mission was getting more complicated by the second, and we were running out of options. "We need to figure out another way in." I said, my voice low. "Something that won't trigger those tripwires or alert the Gambit to our presence." Levi nodded in agreement. "I have an idea about the seismic sensors." "Oh?" I asked, letting my chair tip back onto its front legs with a loud thunk. Levi leaned forward and pulled out a tablet, quickly typing a few commands into it. "Yeah. Seismic sensors don't actually have anything to "trip" them except vibrations, right? I mean, there's no line of sight that's going to be broken or anything if someone goes in between two of them, is there?" I leaned in closer, intrigued. "No, there shouldn't be. What are you thinking?" "Well, what if we could gently pluck a few of them out of the ground and hoist them in the air, like, from a tree branch or something? Not super high up, but high enough to let a few people pass through?" Levi asked, drawing a quick illustration on the tablet. "We could use some kind of adhesive to hold them in place, and then just let them hang there without anything vibrating them." I looked at the drawing and nodded slowly. "It's risky, but it could work. We'll have to come up with a way to prevent them from triggering when we pull them out of the ground." Levi grinned. "I thought you'd see the potential in my plan." He stood up and began pacing the tent, his tablet still in hand. "We'll need to send in a small team to carefully remove the sensors, one by one." I smiled at Levi's enthusiasm but then held up my hands. "Whoa there, slow down, cowboy. Your genius idea might get us inside the vibration sensors, but after that, there's the laser net to contend with. Got anything inside of that big brain of yours to handle that?" Levi paused in his pacing and looked at me, his expression thoughtful. "To defeat lasers, we'll need to shoot our own lasers of the correct frequency into the receivers. Finding out that frequency will be hard unless we've got the make and model of the laser gear and can just look up the defaults." I turned back toward the computer and hurriedly clicked through all of the photos from Steve and Idris. "Unfortunately, all we've got are some blurry-ass distance pictures of the laser emitters and a closeup of Steve's hand, for some reason." I sighed and rubbed my eyebrows with my fingertips. This was going to be a tough nut to crack, and time wasn't exactly on our side. The longer we lingered, the more likely it was that the Gambit's crew would get the ship fixed up and take off. But then, a glimmer of an idea came to me. "Could we sniff the frequency of the lasers being emitted from the diodes and and use that to determine the frequency of the receivers?" I asked, turning back to Levi. Levi's eyes widened, and he practically bounced over to me. "That's it! We use a spectrum analyzer to find the frequency of the lasers and then program a device to emit those same frequencies into the receivers. It might take some trial and error, but it's definitely doable." I grinned, feeling a surge of excitement. Maybe we had a chance after all. "Alright, then, I guess we know who our field operatives are going to be. I hope those ghillie suits aren't as itchy as Steve makes them look."

Demeter Forest - ~30 mins from Gambit emergency landing site Eleos - 16th moon of Epsilon Eridani VII Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 2, 3031 (Wednesday) ______________________________________________ I raised my hand again. "Schuster?" commander Jaeger asked. "I think Kat's idea has merit, but I have two concerns. One: wouldn't triggering a lockdown condition also lock us behind our own impenetrable door? And two, the instant we trigger a disaster failsafe, the crew is going to know. How do we ensure we can get out from behind our lockdown and get to the hostages before they can recover the system and start opening the doors back up?"

Demeter Forest Eleos - 16th moon of Epsilon Eridani VII Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 1, 3031 (Friday) ______________________________________________ I raised my hand and Commander Jaeger called on me. "Yes, Schuster, go ahead?" I stood up from my chair and looked between the Commander, Captain Maxwell, and First Lieutenant Maxwell. "Thank you, sirs, and ma'am. Permission to speak freely?" I asked. "Always." said the Captain. "Thank you." I replied. "So, with all due respect, I feel like we're putting the cart before the horse. While this is an amazing amount of information to collect in less than a day, I still feel like we are missing crucial details that we need to have. How many will we be up against? How are we planning to get the hostages out of the Gambit once we've freed them? What sort of weapons do we think the abductors will have?"

Demeter Forest Eleos - 16th moon of Epsilon Eridani VII Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 1, 3031 (very late Tuesday night) ______________________________________________ We lay there in the quiet,, the world outside our tent seeming distant and inconsequential. Levi's fingers traced abstract patterns on my arm, which silently acknowledged the unease that had settled between us. "I feel like one of us is supposed to say something reassuring, but..." Levi's voice trailed off, leaving his thoughts hanging in the air. I sighed as I struggled to find the words to reassure both of us. "All we can do is be careful and hope for the best?" Levi shifted his position, turning his head to look at me. In the dim light, his eyes were looked vulnerable, but also determined. "Yeah." he replied. "I guess that's all we can do. But......sometimes I wonder if it's all worth it." I looked at him concerned. "What do you mean?" Levi let out a heavy sigh. "I mean, we've seen so much, been through so much. It's been such a crazy ride since you picked me up on Oberon. Back then I remember feeling as much of an outsider as Kat probably does right now. But now, for me, it's family. I have a life away from the gangs and pirates that were always on me. Bald Chuckie never crosses my mind anymore. And most days, this life is a lot of fun, but other times, it's terrifying, and I never know what we're gonna get. And that's hard. What if someday, those little robots in your blood decide they're done, and it's at the wrong time, and you don't come back to me?" I pulled Levi closer to wrap an arm around him. My heart ached hearing his concerns. I couldn't deny that I'd had the same moments of doubt that crept in during the quiet hours of the night. "Levi..." I said, "Even when we choose our paths, life has a way of pulling us along, sometimes in directions we didn't anticipate. We've chosen this path, and life did the rest. In spite of the way the course has shifted over time, I think we've made the best of it together. And I don't see any reason for it to stop being great." Levi's eyes gazed into mine with a mix of love and fear. "I know, Nick. I just...sometimes I can't help but think about the what-ifs. The universe is a brutal place, and it doesn't discriminate. Sometimes I wonder what a simpler life would be like." I kissed his forehead gently and tried to hold him reassuringly, as much as I could, in the close confines of our tent. "We can't control every variable, Levi. Whether we do this job or something else. All we can control is how we face each day. And we'll face it together, just like we always have. And we'll come out on top." Off in the distance, I thought I heard Idris yelling something about the toilet in the shared tent being stopped up. A moment later, I heard the trademark mournful and guilty-as-sin shriek of Steve Jenkins and the sound of rapid footfalls headed for the treeline. Looking back at Levi, I couldn't help but giggle. "Besides which, do you really think we'd get to meet people as interesting as that if we weren't living this life?" I said, grinning at the thought. "I mean, where else would we find a guy like Jenkins?" Levi chuckled, his uplifted mood a warm comfort in the night. I could see the corners of his lips twitching up in a smile. "You're impossible, Nick." I grinned, feeling a sense of relief wash over me at the sound of Levi's laughter. I understood his doubts. The life of a mercenary was a perilous one, filled with danger, betrayal, and uncertainty. But there were also moments like this, where we could find joy in the midst of chaos, and the knowledge that we were doing something important. "I love you, Levi. No matter what happens tomorrow, we'll make it through together." Levi wrapped his free arm around me and pulled me into a hug. "I love you too, Nick. Always."

Demeter Forest Eleos - 16th moon of Epsilon Eridani VII Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 1, 3031 (Tuesday) ______________________________________________ The fire popped and crackled as Idris stoked its flames high and Commander Jaeger and I carried a bunch of ready-made food packs over to the griddle. Although we were roughing it in the woods, the MREs had a lot of variety, consisting of beef stews, chicken creole, and spaghetti with meat sauce. As we put the dinners on the flames, I overheard the tail end of the conversation. "It's not easy," Captain Maxwell admitted. "But it's worth it. Like any relationship, it takes work and communication, but the reward of having someone who understands you in a way no one else can...it's priceless." Steve, Idris, and Kat nodded in agreement as I moved to sit down next to Levi. No sooner had I done so than Levi threw his arms around me and smiled. "Well, this guy makes it seem easy. Though I don't really understand how? It seems like you're having a near-death experience almost every mission. You would think that would make working with your significant other really stressful." he said with a chuckle. I nodded my agreement. "Yeah, it definitely adds another layer of stress to an already stressful job. But I guess when you're meant for each other, that's all that matters." "Hell yeah!!" Steve suddenly blurted out. "Jing Li works at the base carwash and that's the most dangerous place I've ever been to." A sudden silence followed his statement. Eventually, I decided to go down that rabbit hole. "How is the carwash the most dangerous place you've been to, Steve? I mean, we've been working in warzones for years." Steve's eyes got big as he took a swig from his canteen. "Did you SEE what it did to my car?" The group let out a collective groan as Steve continued to bemoan the state of his car. I rolled my eyes and took a sip of my beer as everyone laughed. "What about you, Kat? Do you have anyone waiting for you back home?" I asked. She had been relatively quiet throughout the conversation. Kat shook her head and hugged her knees to her chest, staring deep into the forest. "For a while, but it didn't last. Being off-world a lot meant that Paul and I didn't get to spend much time together. Eventually, he found someone closer to home." The campfire crackled and hissed as we all fell silent, lost in our own thoughts. After a few moments, I decided to break the silence with some levity. "Well, at least you don't have to deal with Steve's bad driving." I joked, earning a small smile from Kat. "Seriously, you wouldn't believe the things he's put that car through. I always fear for my life whenever I'm in the car with him." "And that's why Jing Li is my girlfriend and you're not!" Steve retorted with a grin, causing everyone to laugh again. A few minutes later, Commander Jaeger pulled the food from the fire and put it in a bin that got passed around so we could each choose our food. "We might be roughing it, but at least we eat like kings," he grinned. "Eat up, folks. We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow." When the bin came to me, I pulled out the chicken creole and unwrapped it. Meanwhile, Levi chose the beef stew while Steve grabbed the spaghetti. As we all settled in to eat, I thought about the simple freedom and camaraderie that we were enjoying, while only a short ride away, there was a group of people who'd had that taken away from them. I knew that whatever happened tomorrow, we were going to do everything we could to give that freedom back to them.

Mosbyville, Eleos - 16th moon of Epsilon Eridani VII Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 1, 3031 (Tuesday) ______________________________________________ The daylight beat down on us as I stared in complete loss at the herd of animals the locals considered "steeds." The air had taken on a heavy, foreboding scent you get right before a mission. "So, Nick, you ready for this rodeo in the morning?" Levi asked, a hint of concern in his voice. "Rodeo? Shit, you do remember that I have a bad track record with I've never been good with animals, right?" I replied, frowning at the line of horses, mules, and those weird reptilian-like steeds they called Bluebacks. Levi chuckled, "Yeah, I know. But you'll be fine. Just pick something sturdy and stubborn, like you." I rolled my eyes, scanning the animal lineup. "Stubborn, huh? Well, that narrows it down to... all of them." Levi laughed and pointed at the arrangement of mules standing there, looking as bored as I was. "What about them? They're as stubborn as they come and as good a choice as any." he asked. I followed his gaze just in time to see Steve Jenkins apparently get kicked in the balls by one of them. With a scream, Steve collapsed to the ground, holding his crotch, but fortunately still awake and lucid. I shook my head and turned back toward Levi. "I'm not sure the mules would warn up to me very quickly. I put all of my skill points into electronics, and unless these animals have flight controls I just can't see..." I replied "These animals are really easy to please." Levi explained, leading me to one specific mule and handing me a small bag. "Here's some oats. Give him a little treat. It might make him like you a bit more." After giving the mule an initial olive branch of food treats, I patted its flank and said, "Alright, buddy, we're in this together. Hope you don't mind an unqualified moron on your back." The mule didn't respond, but it hadn't tried to kick my balls off yet like Steve's had. "Nice work, Nick." Levi congratulated me. "I'd say you at least broke the ice with this one and haven't shit your pants while trying to do it." "What? Pants-shitting?" I looked over at Steve and saw he'd managed to develop an enormous brown spot on the seat of his trousers. "Oh. That's fucking gross. Speaking of, you made sure I got all the tech I need for this mission, right?" Levi nodded and handed me a saddle with familiar looking gear attached to it: my modified Sunbeam laser pistol, a collapsible armored shield, and a valise containing a small cutting torch, my noteputer for breaching security systems, several replacement batteries for my laser, and my thermal binoculars. "Everything's there, Nick. I sorted it out while you were browsing earlier. Don't worry, I've got your back. Your rucksack with your personal stuff, your helmet, and your MechWarrior combat armor are over there, waiting to be loaded onto the cow thingy for our little jaunt up to the base campsite. " I smiled. "Yeah, I know you do, Levi. I'm just nervous about what's ahead. Especially the part where I actually have to get onto this animal." "I have faith in you. And, I'll spot you while you get saddled up, OK?" I nodded. "That would be awesome." We shared a quick, determined kiss, and then, we worked together to kit the mule out without either of us getting brained or racked in the nads by its jackhammer feet. Then, I cautiously mounted the mule, easing into) onto the saddle with a sigh. The animal made some angry noises but didn't fight me. "Well, partner, let's hope you're more reliable in the woods than some clumsy BattleMech." I joked, patting the animal on its head. "Levi, now that I'm on, how do I make this thing go?"

Eleos - 16th moon of Epsilon Eridani VI Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic February 1, 3031 (Tuesday) ______________________________________________ "That's some good stuff," Levi quipped as Steve sagged down to the ground,guided by Nurse...Doctor...Medic Franklin, I don't know why we were calling her. "Fucking mercenaries," she grumbled as she stood back up and handed a bandage to Levi so that he could address the blood on his face, and then backing away from the angry guy with the gun and the big loud dog that was barking its' head off at us from across the street. "Sorry, he gets space sick real bad," Levi said to the scary guy with the gun. "We really did just come here to buy stuff, we heard you have the best... mules?" The lead outlaw, who still had a gun in Captain Maxwell's face, made a confused expression. "Are you OK?" I whispered to Levi, gesturing subtly toward the trickle of blood, trying to avoid raising the hackles of the outlaws even more. "Yeah, it's just a scratch." Levi nodded. Then, he smiled and added "Thanks for asking." "Of coursel, I'm not going to let my significant other get his ass kicked by Steve Jenkins, TDS lunacy or otherwise." I responded. As Levi chuckled, I looked back at Captain Maxwell, who was slowly raising his hands in surrender, the cold, hard barrel of the lead outlaw's gun pressed against his forehead. The tension in the air was palpable. I couldn't believe how fast the situation had fallen apart. It seemed like our mere arrival had caught the attention of the wrong people. The lead outlaw was a grizzled man with a bunch of scars, and he stared at Captain Maxwell with a steely gaze. His eyes were like chips of ice, and I could tell he wasn't the kind of person familiar with the concept of patience. "I'll ask you again. What brings you folks to our neck of the woods?" Captain Maxwell cleared his throat, clearly trying to keep his voice steady. "I told you. We're just passing through. We heard there might be some trade for us in these parts, and we're looking to make an honest day's pay." The outlaw leader didn't seem convinced. He pressed the gun harder against Maxwell's forehead, causing a bead of sweat to trickle down his temple. "You expect me to believe that? You and your crew don't look like no honest folk to me." I watched tensely, feeling helpless to intervene given the other two outlaws who were watching us like hawks at the moment. But Charles met the outlaw's icy gaze with a defiant glare of my own. "Look, friend...what was your name?" "Giancarlo Rodriguez. Why? Who's asking?" "Giancarlo, we don't want any trouble. I'm Charles Maxwell. We're just looking for information. There's a...cargo ship we're trying to track down, and we heard it might have passed through here. We're willing to pay for any leads you might have." The outlaw's grip on the gun loosened slightly, and I saw a flicker of curiosity in his eyes. "A cargo ship? What's so special about it?" "It's got something on board that belongs to us. Something valuable. Nothing to concern you. We're not interested in causing any trouble. We just want to get it back." The outlaw looked like he was considering the Captain's words. Then he started smiling devilishly. "Valuables are definitely my concern. In fact, that's a damn fine idea. You turn over your valuables, and we give you unfettered access to our fine little community here. Call it a processing fee for confirming y'all aren't going to be murder any babies or something. My blood began to boil. It seemed like we weren't going to get the information we needed without a shootout. But just as I started slowly reaching for my holstered laser pistol, a powerful voice rang out across the small, dusty plaza. "Ginny! Unhand that man! What have I told you about harassing our visitors?" Captain Maxwell, Giancarlo, and I all instinctively looked in the direction of the voice. There, walking toward us with a stone-faced expression, was a man in a long Marshal coat and badge, carrying the largest and most heavily modded laser rifle I'd ever seen. He weilded the weapon effortlessly, like it was a child's toy. "How many times have I told you not to call me that?!!?" Giancarlo bellowed, lowering his weapon and releasing his grip on Captain Maxwell. "And how many times have I told you that I could have your ass in a permanent sling for all the problems you've caused this town, Ginny? Hmm?" the Marshal asked as he walked up to stand between the outlaws and our group. "Now I suggest you tend to your men here and make yourself scarce. Clear?" Rodriguez made a disgusted face and looked back and forth between Captain Maxwell and the Marshal. "Perfectly." he growled. Then he gestured at his two subordinates and stormed off down the street, henchmen in tow. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Marshal Jacob Evers." the officer continued. "You folks need some assistance? Looks like you got a man down there."

A few minutes before Steve's post... MCRN Tachi, somewhere ... Epsilon Eridani System - Tikonov Free Republic January 29, 3031 (Saturday) ______________________________________________ The total mayhem playing out on board the Tachi was really unsettling. We'd come out of the jump and almost immediately gone into a state of emergency. The entire ship had gotten an initial alert about a misjump, but after that, the next update we got came in the form of blaring alarm klaxons and automated prerecorded computer dialog telling the crew to report to shelter stations. This wasn't the same as battlestations. Shelter stations meant that someone up on the bridge thought that near or total catastrophe was imminent. Since I wasn't a senior officer anymore, I didn't have the inside scoop about what was going down, but I could tell it wasn't good. The Tachi's gravity was fluctuating up and down, which meant that our speed was going all over the place. Not good. On top of that, I kept feeling aggressive lateral maneuvers, which you wouldn't normally feel in space except under the most severe ship handling. Also not good. And to top it all off, all of this shit was happening while we were supposedly still strapped to the JumpShip, which no pilot in their right mind would fly in the manner we were feeling. Really not good. If I had to guess, our misjump had put us somewhere terrible, and the JumpShip's crew was trying to avoid a firey death for all of us. Sure, I could have hacked one of literally dozens of the onboard terminals to take a peek at what was happening up there, but if we survived whatever fresh hell we were currently dealing with, I'd rather not face the consequences of getting caught. So, instead, I did what any level-headed person would do in this situation...I went to the nearest shelter station and strapped myself in. A few minutes went by, and then from out of the blue, a trauma team and emergency repair crew went running past me, heading towards the docking bay. About 30 seconds later there was a terrible noise of straining, failing metal coming from the direction of the docking bay followed by a sudden lurch that almost threw me out of my seat. From what I could gather, we'd just experienced a docking collar failure and now we were floating free of the JumpShip. "Fuck this noise." I thought to myself. "I don't want to die ignorant. I'm gonna find Levi for the inside scoop and then see what I can do to help hold this bucket of bolts together." *** I burst into the engineering bay to find Levi and the Tachi's chief engineer, a burly guy with a nametag that said "Riggs" frantically trying to stabilize the ship. Sparks were spouting out of a junction box, and I could smell a fire burning somewhere. "What the hell is going on?" I shouted over the chaos. Levi turned to me with a grim face and wild panic in his eyes. But to his credit, his tone stayed level and controlled, which was equal measures impressive and a little worrying under the circumstances, since I was used to being the one not to freak out in situations like this. "We misjumped, the JumpShip got caught in a gravity well that it couldn't recover out of, we evacuated its crew onto our ship, but during the evacuation, the JumpShip's KF boom overloaded and fried our avionics. Helm switched to manual steering to try to get the evacuation complete, which we did, but we couldn't get the backup avionics to connect to the network and eventually the strain of manual course corrections caused the docking collar to rip off the JumpShip, caught in ours. Now, we're pushing away from the planet to go find the kidnappers and me and Riggs are stuck trying to figure out how to start backup avionics that sat exposed to Quentin IV's environment for years." I nodded slowly, trying to process all the information. "OK, so, what can I do to help?" Levi looked at me with a surprised expression. "Since when do you know your way around a ship?" I shrugged. "I don't know the first thing about avionics. But I do know about computer programs and networks. A lot." "Too much." Riggs interrupted. "I'm still scraping pieces of your last hack out of our systems." I rolled my eyes. "Right now I'm the best shot at getting those backup avionics online." Levi nodded in agreement. "Nick's right. Riggs, you should log him into the system and let him work his magic. We need to catch those kidnappers before they get away with those politicians." I flashed a flirtatious smile at Levi. "I knew there was a reason you kept me around." Levi smirked back before turning back to the console. "Just get us back online so we can catch those bastards." Riggs grumbled but reluctantly gave me access to the backup avionics systems. As I dove into the system, I wasn't prepared for what I saw. Program modules, applications, and code snippets that looked like they were straight out of the early days of space travel. "Alright." I sighed to myself. "So let's figure out what the procedure is to bring backup avionics online for the space shuttle." The command prompt greeted me: chiefEngineer@tachi: ~$ The lime green cursor blinking impatiently on my screen was a constant reminder of the ticking clock that was running out for the kidnapped politicians. But the first step before I could do anything was to access the primary system and disable it temporarily to avoid any conflicts with the backup. Since it wasn't doing squat for the helm right now, it wasn't a huge risk. With a few keystrokes, I navigated to the directory containing the primary navigation system's configuration files. Bracing myself, I typed in the command to disconnect the primary avionics: chiefEngineer@tachi:~$ cd /etc/navigation chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/navigation$ sudo systemctl stop primary_nav The screen flickered and went black for a moment before the backup systems lit up with a flurry of code and warnings. Eventually it will displayed a confirmation message, indicating that the primary navigation system was now offline. "OK, Levi!" I shouted "Mains are down!" "OK. I'll let the bridge know. I hope it doesn't end in firey death." Levi said skeptically. "You have such a flair for the dramatic." I shot back dryly. "There's nothing more dramatic than being reduced to superheated plasma and component parts streaking overhead at someone's bar mitzvah while everyone cheers for the new mentsh." Levi answered. "That was weirdly specific." I laughed as I turned my attention to the backup navigation system, stored in a different directory. I accessed the configuration files, which were thankfully untouched and up-to-date. chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/navigation$ cd /etc/backup_navigation chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/backup_navigation$ ls config.cfg backup_nav I confirmed that the backup navigation software was present and ready for activation. Then I issued a command to list the network interfaces: chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/backup_navigation$ ifconfig -a The output displayed a list of network interfaces, including our primary LAN adapter, eth0, and our backup LAN adapter, eth1. The connections appeared stable and ready for use. Now came the critical moment – connecting the backup navigation system to the ship's LAN. I assigned the IP address and subnet mask to the eth1 interface: chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/backup_navigation$ sudo ifconfig eth1 192.168.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 up The terminal confirmed that the interface was up and running. I double-checked the connection by issuing a ping command to our LAN gateway: chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/backup_navigation$ ping 192.168.1.1 A series of ICMP echo replies indicated that the connection was solid. With the backup navigation system now online and connected to the LAN, it was time to perform a series of tests to verify its functionality. I initiated a self-diagnostic routine: chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/backup_navigation$ sudo ./backup_nav diagnostic The program began running a battery of tests, including sensor checks, star tracker alignment, and GPS synchronization. The terminal displayed a stream of data as the system meticulously analyzed every component. Once the diagnostic tests passed without errors, it was time to simulate various navigation scenarios. I initiated a test scenario to mimic a sudden loss of the ship's position: chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/backup_navigation$ sudo ./backup_nav simulate_failure The backup navigation system sprang into action, recalculating our position using onboard sensors and star trackers. The terminal displayed real-time telemetry data, showing how the system compensated for the simulated failure. After a series of successful tests and simulations, I was confident that the backup navigation system was ready for prime time. I gracefully shut down the backup system, brought the primary navigation system back online, and ensured that all connections were restored: chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/backup_navigation$ sudo systemctl stop backup_nav chiefEngineer@tachi:/etc/navigation$ sudo systemctl start primary_nav "OK, I think we're ready!" I announced. Levi and Riggs ran over to my station, where Riggs starred at me dubiously. "You think we're ready?" he asked. "It's the best I can give you." I replied with a frustrated frown. "Unless you want to slam into something at sublight speeds when the navigator who's flying by hand inevitably has to sneeze or something, I suggest you take it." "Good enough for me." said Levi as he punched a comm button on the wall. "Wright to the bridge!" "Go ahead, Levi." Captain Maxwell's familiar voice responded. "You should have basic navigation back up now. Can you give it a shot?" "Well, that's some of the better news we've had today. We'll try it now. Nice work." answered Maxwell. "Actually, it was Nick who got it working. His special brand of techno-mancy wizardry." Levi clarified as he looked at me with a smile. I grinned back at him. "Good job, Schuster." the Captain added. "Not a moment too soon, either. We're catching up on the Fury. The plan is to disable it once we've overtaken and then carry out a boarding action right here in the spacelanes to get our diplomats back. No muss, no fuss, no 'Mech battles or anything complicated. Clean and efficient." I felt a cold chill and a feeling of impending doom overwhelm me. I wasn't thrilled about the bad news I was going to have to deliver. "Captain, I think that's a great plan, but it has a fatal flaw at the moment." I began. There was a long pause during which I could clearly see Captain Maxwell's confused, irritated expression in my mind. It was an expression I'd been on the receiving end of more times than I wanted to remember, and here I was poking the bear yet again. "Go on." he finally answered. "Captain, the backup cutover is at the software level only. That means that whatever connected nodes still work, it'll try to use. But precision autothrottle, RCS, and position holding are still offline, because the entire subsystem's blade is fried. We can fly and land without any issue, but docking with a moving target and performing the kind of stationkeeping a docking action requires isn't available, and, with all due respect to the help team, trying it manually would probably result in a repeat of what happened at the JumpShip at best and a horrible interstellar collision between ships at worst." Despite the loud equipment running around us, my words resonated in the noisy bay as an uncomfortable silence followed. "Alright, I appreciate your candor, Schuster. Go ahead and get things buttoned up down below and then report to your battlestation. We'll try to wear down the Gambit as much as we can and then weigh our options from there."

Gellen's Heights Spaceport Gellen's Heights, Sheratan III Sheratan System - Tikonov Free Republic January 26, 3031 (Wednesday) ______________________________________________ I sat in a jump seat at one of the workbenches in the back of the Pandora, plugged a network cable into my noteputer, set it on the tabletop, and listened to its quiet whir mixing with the sound of falling rain from outdoors as it powered up. My assignment was pretty straightforward: breach the spaceport's mainframe and find the security footage that might hold important details of the abduction of four diplomats. As soon as the noteputer finished booting to a command prompt, I started typing furiously on its the clunky keyboard, each keystroke echoing through the empty bay. The first step was to establish a connection to the spaceport's mainframe. I had observed a microwave received on a nearby conning tower, so, very carefully, I pivoted the Pandora's dish toward it and tried to initiate a shell session. shell ssh -l admin 54.38.91.110 The terminal blinked back at me, prompting for the administrator password. I entered it with a bead of sweat trickling down my temple. ACCESS DENIED "Damnit!" I shouted. The screen continued to taunt me with the grim, blinking "Access Denied" message. With my heart pounding, I launched a brute force attack to try to crack the password, unleashing a relentless storm of possibilities at the system. shell hydra -l admin -P forkyou.txt ssh://54.38.91.110 Minutes passed like hours as the script ground away at the task. Finally, the system yielded. Password found: Ne0N_Thr1LL I smirked in triumph. The door to the mainframe was now open. My heart raced as I dug deep into the spaceport's digital labyrinth, navigating through directories and deciphering their cryptic names. The security footage had to be here somewhere. I began with a directory listing. shell ls -l /var/security/cctv/ The terminal spat out a list of directories, each named with a string of alphanumeric characters. I took a shot in the dark, selecting a directory at random. shell cd /var/security/cameras/R3l1qu4ryP1X/ Inside, a maze of video files awaited me. The terminal scrolled through a flurry of timestamps, and there it was...a video file from just before the time of the attack on the capitol, named "sect3bay17cam01_210923.vid." My pulse quickened as I copied it to my local machine. shell scp admin@54.38.91.110:/var/security/cameras/R3l1qu4ryP1X/sect3bay17cam01_210923.vid ~/Downloads/ The file transfer progress bar inched forward. "Come on, come on!!" I shouted, and eventually the video was in my hands. But I wasn't out of the woods yet. I still had to crack the file, which was protected by a strong encryption algorithm. shell openssl aes-256-cbc -d -in ~/Downloads/sect3bay17cam01_210923.mp4 -out ~/Downloads/sect3bay17cam01_210923_decrypted.mp4 -k Ne0N_Thr1LL My noteputer whirred with activity as the decryption process unfolded, and a sense of relief washed over me as the decrypted video file finally appeared in my downloads folder. I watched the footage, but my excitement was short-lived. As I was contemplating my next steps, a blaring warning message erupted on my terminal: INTRUSION DETECTED - Unauthorized access detected from IP: 203.128.55.77 My heart pounded like a drum, and cold beads of sweat formed on my brow. Someone had caught wind of my incursion and they were hunting me in this digital labyrinth. I realized that I needed to act fast. shell ifconfig eth0 down ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55 ifconfig eth0 up dhclient eth0 My IP address changed, but I knew this would only buy me some time. The counter-hacker would adapt. So I patched any vulnerabilities I could find, fortified my firewall, and created a bunch of decoy connections. shell ufw enable ufw default deny incoming ufw default allow outgoing ufw allow 22/tcp ufw allow 80/tcp ufw allow 443/tcp ufw deny from 203.128.55.77 The terminal lit up with a barrage of output, but not in time. My trace tracker shrieked and displayed the last message I wanted to see. TRACE ATTEMPT DETECTED "Fuck!" I shouted in frustration. This was a dangerous game of cat and mouse, and the stakes were higher than ever. I couldn't leave any evidence behind that I had ever been in the mainframe. So I spammed a web of proxy servers and decoy connections to try to throw my pursuer. shell proxychains scp ~/Downloads/sect3bay17cam01_210923_decrypted.mp4 admin@203.128.55.77:/dev/null This kept the counter-hacker chasing ghosts long enough for me to completely wipe the connection logs from my final hops. As soon as I did that, the warnings in the terminal ceased, and a tense silence filled my cockpit. With a grim smile, I returned to the decrypted security footage. As I played it, the video revealed the aft cargo bay door opening less than 20 minutes before the explosion at the capitol happened. I tensed up. If I was right, this was the smoking gun we needed: a video showing how many insurgents had stormed the conference, their gear, and maybe even their identities. Perched on the edge of my seat, I was consumed with the playback when it abruptly cut to black. It was as if the world had swallowed the spaceship and all of its secrets whole. I rewound the video, hoping it was a glitch or a loss of signal, but the result was the same. The footage ended at the same spot every time. They'd cut the power and all of the failovers exactly when and where they'd needed to. A sense of frustration gnawed at me, but I knew I couldn't dwell on it. I had the decrypted video in my possession, and despite its enigmatic ending, it held valuable clues. I fell back in my chair and let out a frustrated sigh. Then, I opened a comm channel to Captain Maxwell and Commander Jaeger. "Rebus to Eden and Bastion." "Go ahead, Rebus." came Maxwell's reply. "I've got good news and bad news....."

Capitol Complex Gellen’s Heights, Sheratan III Sheratan System - Tikonov Free Republic January 26, 3031 ______________________________________________ The Capitol Complex was a mess. Even though it was raining cats and dogs outside, smoke and dust choked the air as the remains of what was once a towering symbol of power lay strewn across the landscape. I took it all in from the cockpit of Avenger as my 'Mech stood amidst the wreckage, dwarfing emergency personnel scurrying around its huge feet. Captain Maxwell's orders for this mission, if you could call it that, were to assist Levi, Steve, and Idris in rescuing survivors trapped beneath the collapsed complex. But as I looked at the devastation around me, I couldn't help but wonder if this was too extreme a task for a BattleMech that was never really designed to deal with challenges on the ground, especially picking things up off of tiny human bodies. From my time as a Special Operations agent in the LCAF, I was no stranger to chaos and destruction, but this was something I hadn't attempted before. Levi's voice came on the comms. "Alright, Rebus, hold still. We're attaching the chains now." I shifted nervously in my seat, locking the controls as I squinted through my helmet at the group of brave souls who were in the process of attaching heavy chains to my Rifleman's arm-mounted gun barrels. These chains were meant to help me lift sections of fallen walls and debris, a makeshift solution for a makeshift rescue operation. It was a crazy plan, but sometimes you had to get creative when your 'Mech had no hands. The chains clanked as they were secured between the huge section of fallen wall I was going to try to lift and Avenger's wrist joints. I could feel their weight as the haptic feedback controls pushed against my hands. About two minutes later, Idris came on the channel. "Rebus, this is Junaid. The rescue team has given the green light. Start the lift. Straight up in the air." "Roger. Beginning the lift." I replied. Then, I took a deep breath, trying to calm the racing of my heart, and engaged the 'Mech's hydraulic systems. The massive arms moved, slow and deliberate, as I applied just enough pressure to the chains. I watched the debris begin to shift, the sound of grinding concrete and steel audible. It was a delicate dance, a balance between power and precision. I had to get it right. "Easy does it, Rebus." Levi urged, his voice tense. I didn't reply because I needed my entire focus to avoid overcorrecting and causing another disaster. Gradually, the section of fallen wall started to lift, revealing a small pocket of space beneath it. I held it aloft, giving the rescue teams on the ground a chance to pour into the chasm and do their jobs. And sure enough, gradually, survivors emerged from the darkness one by one, relief, shock, and gratitude on their dirty faces as I watched them being led to safety. It was a rare moment, a chance to be a hero without the need for destruction. Once the ground crews gave me the signal, I gently lowered the debris back into place. As the chains were detached, Levi called me again. "Rebus, the coordinator says thank you, and that before we celebrate, he needs us to go to the underground parking garage to the south of the CIC." Levi explained. "He says that when the west wing came down, the force of the collapse caused the garage to partially cave in on itself. He needs us to clear a path to help reach the survivors." "I'm on it. See you over there." I replied, turning Avenger around and stomping toward the scene. As my Mech strode towards the entrance of the parking garage, the sky grew darker and the rain began to fall even harder. I turned on my Rifleman's floodlights, illuminating the wreckage that lay ahead. The scene was nothing short of nightmarish, with crushed vehicles, shattered concrete, and twisted metal forming an impassable maze. It was like a steel jungle, and I was the behemoth that was about to try and navigate through it. I carefully maneuvered my Rifleman down the garage's entrance ramp. Idris forged ahead of me in his power armor, using its enhanced strength and agility to scout out the wreckage and point out the pieces that were safe to move. Over and over, I drove Avenger's arms down into the rubble with brute force, using the barrels of its autocannons to flip the debris out of the way. The awful grating noises of steel dragging against concrete and the crash of shifting debris filled my ears as I carved a path through the ruins. "Rebus, I'm seeing survivors just ahead, slightly off to the right." Levi's voice came over the comm. As on edge as I was, hearing him speak was reassuring, even if it was to tell me that I was about to need to do more harrowing recovery things. "It's that giant piece of courtyard terrace that's all smashed down into the payment lane. Can you pry it or lift it out of the way?" "I'll try." I replied, my heart racing as I steered toward the location. The idea of live people right behind the barrier I was about to smash through put me on edge. But I couldn't afford to hesitate; their lives were on the line. Quickly, I grabbed the microphone for Avenger's P.A. system and used it to broadcast a warning to get out of the way as loudly as I could. Then, I extended the 'Mech's arms, using the gun barrels now as makeshift lifter arms. I carefully positioned them beneath the massive chunk of ferrorcrete, and in a slow and deliberate movement, I began to lift, fighting to keep my Rifleman from stumbling as it bore the weight. "Easy, Rebus." Levi guided me as Idris gave me hand signals from down on the ground. "You've got this." "I really hope so." I replied with strain in my voice as I concentrated. Inch by inch, the slab rose into the air, loud scrapes audible as it slid against the parking garage's foundation. As a clearing opened, I could hear the survivors' cries of relief in the background of Idris' radio. It was a sound that made every ounce of effort worth it. With a heavy boom, the slab of ferrocrete fell backwards into the courtyard as my Rifleman pushed it above the level of the parking garage entrance. Then, rescue teams on the ground quickly moved in to attend to the victims. Meanwhile, I stood guard, ready to intervene against anything that might happen while the rescued individuals were being led to safety' "Nice work, Rebus and Junaid." Levi's voice broke through the comm. "That was amazing." "You're damn right. We're HEROES!" Steve added. I rolled my eyes at his comment. "Just happy I could help." I replied. As the last survivor was led to safety from the collapsed parking garage, the situation took a turn. The rain that had hampered the rescue efforts suddenly intensified into a torrential downpour. The raindrops pelted my Rifleman like bullets, the deafening noises echoing within the cockpit. My Mech's floodlights struggled to penetrate the deluge, and visibility became a serious concern. "Rebus, Dionysus, and Junaid, we've got to pull out of here before we end up being the people needing to be rescued from the mud." Levi ordered. "Let's regroup at the incident command area." "Understood. I'm on my way." I replied, reluctantly disengagong from the rescue site, navigating around waterlogged rescue workers on the ground who were scrambling for cover. Levi was right. It was time to withdraw. In moments, the incident command area came into view, and I pulled Avenger up alongside Commander Jaeger's Merlin. As I exited the Mech's cockpit, my hair and clothes became immediately plastered to my body, soaked through by the relentless rain. I rejoined Levi, Steve, and Idris, who were similarly drenched and seeking shelter under a makeshift canopy. I also spotted Captain Maxwell, Commander Jaeger, Lieutenant Maxwell, and Tribune Montgomery. They were huddled together, discussing the incident and the ongoing rescue efforts. Captain Maxwell, noticing our arrival, motioned for us to join them, his eyes showing a mixture of concern and determination. "Nick, Levi, Steve, Idris, glad to see you're safe. There's been some developments that have caused us to reassess our situation."