Chapter 64: One Jump

Day 130

“It sounds like things aren’t going well out on the front.” The taller of two Cybran guards said to the other shorter one. Between them they carried one massive lump of mass that was a UEF colonel. The man was completely limp and leaving behind a trail of blood as they dragged him. They were not at all surprised to see the massive and normally fearsome man like this as the ever frightening Mist had taken him under her care for a full six hours. Just the smell, a smell vaguely reminiscent of a mix of burning, blood and sweat, in the room where it had taken place was enough to convince them not knowing what had happened there was probably best. Even now the colonel reeked like a charred piece of rotten meat.

Despite the fact that the colonel was quite obviously unconscious, the shorter of the two guards nonetheless muttered quickly, “Shut it. We’re not to talk of that in front of the prisoners.”

“Come on! He’s completely out.” The bigger guard replied, shaking the limp body of the colonel to prove his point. “He ain’t hearing anything.”

The smaller one momentarily glanced at the ridiculously heavy body and then murmured, “I suppose. . .”

“Well, did you hear about Henkel 7? Ten commanders were wiped out the moment they landed. It wasn’t even a battle.” The large guard said. As he spoke he changed his grip on the UEF pilot as one of his arms was tiring rapidly.

“I heard. . .” The smaller more timid guard replied softly. “An old classmate of mine is out there somewhere. . . SCU. . . He told me about it. He said it won’t be long before those Aeon will be landing on the first of our planets.”

“‘Our’ planets?” The large one sneered. “As far as I’m concerned the Aeon landed on ‘our’ planets as soon as the landed on the first Sol 3 and New Lupus planets.”

The other pursed his lips for a moment. He didn’t see the Cybran ‘Nation’ as a unified whole, but he understood what the other guard meant. “Well, either way, they’re not far from here anymore.”

“Yeah. . .”

They arrived at the door that led to the laser-barred cells. As the door opened they saw the other two prisoners were still in their cells, obediently wasting their time by staring at the bland walls. At the press of a button the lasers barring one cell shut off and the large guard dragged the colonel into his cell. He then placed a bucket of water and a towel in the cell as well. After checking to make sure none of the man’s limbs were in the way of a laser he then vacated the cell. The smaller guard by the wall-mounted panel then pushed the same button, turning the lasers back on. Both then quickly vacated the room to continue their earlier discussion elsewhere.

The two other prisoners turned their attention from the leaving guards to the horrible mess that lay in the adjacent cell. Blood seemed to be oozing out of every pore. A horrid smell of burning wafted up from the body. It seemed impossible for there to be any life left.

Then the body moved.

“Nathan!” Sarah immediately called as she moved as close to the laser bars as she could without burning herself.

Sluggishly the colonel moved. By the grabbing the bed he managed to pull himself up somewhat and then place a hand underneath him to push up. As he moved up he left behind a large red stain on the ground. Both of the other captives looked on in amazement as someone who should at the very least be thoroughly unconscious got into a seated position against the side of his bunk.

Upon gaining a more or less upright position Nathan rumbled just as slowly as he’d moved, “Oh yeah. . . That woman’s got a real gentle touch. . . Best massage I ever had.”

As he reached for the towel Sarah exclaimed, “Goddamn! Why aren’t you unconscious?!” Several seconds later she added more softly, “You had me worried.”

“I don’t need your worry.” Nathan growled in return. He then looked to Frank and rumbled, “I think you ought to have a go now.”

Quite disgusted at how badly the colonel had been messed up, Frank could only answer weakly with, “No thanks. . .” Then, almost admiringly, he asked, “And you didn’t break?”

“Of course not!” Nathan quickly spat back, shooting a bloodshot glare towards the traitor as he did. “As I said. . . She got a real gentle touch, I’m sorry it ended so soon.”

“Yeah yeah. . .” Sarah said unconvinced as she waved his words away. “And now for real.”

There was no answer, though. Partly because there were no words to describe the pain, but also because he didn’t want to talk about it. Instead he rumbled, “I overheard the guards who brought me back talk about the Aeon invasion.”

While he dipped the towel into the bucket and then started rubbing away blood from his face, Frank inquired, “Invasion?”

“Just how blind are you!?” Nathan retorted instantly. “You really didn’t notice all the reports about Aeon activity along the borders a couple days ago?”

Only now remembering he had noticed such reports, Frank decided to just stay quiet and not be yelled at again. Instead he let Sarah be the one to ask, “Well? What’d they say?”

“That the Aeon are kicking the Cybran’s butts. Have you heard of the planet Herkel 7?”

“Yeah. A New Lupus planet not far from Steeltip space.” Sarah said, as she recalled the local map of the stars and planets.

“The Aeon took it.”

“That’s really damn close.” She remarked as she estimated how many jumps it was from Herkel to Urial, the Steeltip capital planet.

“Right.”

Sarah knew the Steeltip node’s population was mostly concentrated on Urial. She also knew the node kept a lot of military toys on the planet. Taking it would be a hard task. Still, she would rather not be around when the Aeon arrived. So far, though, it didn’t look like diplomacy was going to get her out and she certainly couldn’t count on the Cybrans getting her off planet safely in case of a defence breakdown.

A look at the lasers that made up the bars of her cell showed they were obviously still in place. There was no way she could get out without lethally injuring herself in the process and the only way to switch the bars off was on the far wall. Not even managing a lucky throw at the switch would turn the lasers off as it was a touch screen that wouldn’t react to something that wasn’t a living finger. Really the only way she had any hope of getting out was if one of her fellow captives got out first and operated the switch, but just who’d do that?

For a moment her gaze flickered to Frank. Sure he wasn’t feeling very welcome now, but given the situation she was sure he was more than willing to simply sit tight and wait things out.

Her gaze then settled on Nathan. He now held his head back and pressed the towel against his nose in the attempt to stem the flow of blood from it. Though he obviously didn’t have anything to gain by staying, what did he have to gain by leaving? That said, with his thick body he had the greatest chance of making it through the lasers and still having enough life in him to switch the bars off. Survival also wasn’t much of an issue for him anymore. . . Or, maybe. . .

“Eh, Nathan. . .” She started and he looked to her while still keeping his head tilted back. “If we got out of here, I could probably get you a place in my. . . Node.”

To her utter surprise he even smiled as he replied, “Heh heh, while the opportunity of working with all those toys sounds nice. I’ve got to say no. Besides, how are we gonna get out of here?”

“Why?” She asked, surprised he wouldn’t be interested in at least some kind of home. Hell, she would even be there, even if they could never go back to the way things were before.

“The only home I ever had was my ACU, alongside my fellow pilots.” He rumbled softly.

“I see.” She had another idea in mind of how to get him to traverse the lasers, but she didn’t want to use it. If the lasers didn’t kill him outright, her idea might. Not only that, but she had no desire to manipulate him.

So once more she muttered, “I see. . .”

# # # # #

The air was heavy in both their cockpits. An hour ago Lexa had for the first time allowed Sledge to establish a channel with her again. For that entire hour they had been quiet.

And after that hour it was Lexa who spoke first. “I reviewed the data of the battle.” She said slowly. Sledge only nodded, letting her take her time. “The data from our ACU’s, the last data sent back by him, the data from ops. I reviewed it several times. Dozens of times. And. . . It all paints the same picture. It really happened. A strategic bomber and--” She snapped her finger. Again Sledge nodded sadly. He didn’t have the stomach to say anything to her.

To his surprise she then smiled. It was a sad smile, but still. . . A smile. “Remember that time he had pissed you off and you went chasing him all over the gym? Twice! He stumbled on a weight and you picked him up right off the ground.”

Sledge tried to smile as well, but only got halfway there. “Yeah. . .”

“He never could tell when he had picked a fight with an opponent who was out of his league.” She remarked as she looked down.

“A--” Sledge started, but his throat involuntarily closed up. It took him a while to force the words out. “A-- Are you alright?”

She looked away and muttered, “I’m fine. Life goes on, and so must I.” She then looked back to Sledge and showed she didn’t wasn’t at all over it, yet. “Still, if I see those that-- That-- Well, they’re dead.” The words were spoken so calm and determinedly that it positively frightened Sledge.

Fortunately for him Division Commander Sarren provided a distraction by appearing on their screens. “Glad to see you back on your feet commander Lexa. I’ve got someone to get your team back to numbering the usual three. Or rather, you’ll be joining him.”

A split second later another man appeared on their screens: Grav. “Eh, squad mates!” He said as he appeared, trying to sound cheerful despite the situation.

“I’ll leave you to it. Grav, you know what to do, right?” Sarren said and disappeared from their screens when he received a quick nod from Grav.

Once the Division Commander was gone from their screens Grav first collected himself a moment before turning to the Lexa and Sledge. He looked like he too had seen far more than he had wanted to see, but he tried to hide it by seeming his cheerful self. “Well, you guys will be my bodyguards of sorts. As Force Commander I’ll be heading to planets to oversee their evacuation directly, you guys get to make sure I don’t kick it. Got it?”

“Yes, commander.” Lexa immediately replied, taking the opportunity of responding to orders to get her mind off a certain subject and back on track. “What is the situation on the front, if I may ask.”

Grav looked ready to tell her to drop all sense of formality, she had never been one for it anyway, but he knew why she did so he didn’t. “Things are settling into a drawn out game of speed chess between Barret and the Lord Crusader. As things are now she has the advantage in more experienced pilots, but soon we’ll be getting a large influx of pilots from the Zulu node, who are all veterans. With them we’ll be able to start pushing back.

“For now all we can do is hold our ground. Most of the civvies have been evacuated to either Bern 4 or Urial. We don’t expect the Aeon to intervene while we evacuate the last couple of planets, they’re too far away, but in case they do we’ll be there to stop them. Okay?”

“Yes, commander.” Lexa replied again. Then, softer, she asked, “How’s Trinity?”

“Trinity’s fine. The rest of my pilots. . . Well, they’re still on Herkel 7, so to speak. That’s why I got transferred from Dekker’s command to here, no one left to command.” He told them the last pre-emptively so they didn’t need to ask. “Anyway, we’ll meet up on Athena 2 and evacuate that planet first. Understood?”

“Yes, commander!” They both replied in unison.

# # # # #

This battle of wits was getting to Barret. As he stood over the holo table he wished he could decide the fate of the campaign in a single duel between him and Amalda. In a one-on-one duel with her there would be even less of a chance of defeating her, but at least he would be out of this stuffy room. Compared to his ACU, this room and that holo table were far outside his comfort zone.

He pushed the desire away. His feelings and desires had nothing to do with this campaign. He could not let himself be distracted by them.

Movement by the door drew his attention. Mist had just entered the room. She moved to stand across from him at the holo table and looked at it for a while. A frown had brought a slight kink to her normal emotionless mask. At a glance the situation depicted by the holograms seemed stable, but nothing was less true. Behind the displayed numbers and symbols a vast amount of strategic manoeuvring took place.

“How’d it go?” He finally asked when she had yet to speak after a long time.

She looked up, perfect emotionless mask back in place. “The AI’s been made permanent and the colonel is still alive. I expect he’ll overcome the physical shock easily enough, if he hasn’t already. The rest will have to wait until later.”

“Good.” Barret muttered, hoping this would conclude the torturing done under his command. “I’d like you to report to Dekker. The region under his command is expected to come under attack soon. I want you there to do your thing.”

“Any pilots in specific you want marked for death?” She asked, calm on the outside, but excited on the inside over being able to get back in her ACU and finally fight against those that were threatening her node.

“Hmm. . .” Barret mused as he looked to the information displayed on a side monitor. “Any Grand Crusader really. Be careful when you see either Saphire or Tallen, though. They’re both very dangerous, probably more so than you. Also, any member of Lord Crusader Amalda’s old battle group. You remember them?”

“The pilots from that op last year? Yes, I remember.” She affirmed as she recalled the joint operation with the Diamond Spear and the UEF against the Aeon from a year before.

Upon getting the confirmation, Barret said softly, “They killed Danko.”

The response was immediate, Mist clutched a hand into a tight fist. “I’ll keep an eye open.”

“Thanks.”

When she was about to turn around to leave, her attention was grabbed by the holo table again. It held her eyes for a while until she finally wrestled them loose and looked back to Barret. “Will you be alright?”

A sad chuckle. “Oh my, what has the world come to? Concern? From you?” He sighed and then muttered, “Really, I don’t know. The Lord Crusader’s good. . .” He paused for a bit. “Too good.”

Mist watched as he hung his head. It was too embarrassing for her to witness. Dropping her emotionless mask, she called, “Barret! Pull yourself together!” In an instant his head was level again and he looked at her. “I said it before, if there is anyone in this node who can do this, it’s you. I don’t know anyone else who’d be better.” As she spoke she walked around the table towards him. “So get it together!” Accompanying the words was a smack over the head.

Barret’s eyes remained momentarily unfocused after the smack, but he soon looked back to her. “Yeah, I guess I had that coming.”

“Damn right.” She said as she brought her right fist up to chest level and pressed it against his chest quite forcefully.

Duplicating the hand gesture, Barret muttered, “Thanks.” For a short while they stood like that until Barret retracted the fist and shouted, “Now get your *ss into your goddamn ACU! MOVE IT!!”

With a slight smirk, Mist replied fiercely, “Yes, commander.” And she was off.

He watched her leave and for a few seconds stared at the closed door when she was gone. Then, with renewed energy, he turned back to his duties.

# # # # #

“I am worried, my child.” Doctor Brackman, the disembodied leader of the Cybran Nation, said to Nine as he appeared in her office. An expression of clear concern could be seen on his holographic visage. “I feel there is so little I can do for my children right now.”

“You and I feel the same.” Nine said to the old doctor. “And how many times did I tell you to stop calling me your child?”

Ignoring her question, Brackman inquired, “You feel so too? But, this is your node.”

“But it is no longer in my hands, doctor. All I can do is support Barret as much as possible when he needs something from the node and ensure the people remain calm. He’s the one doing the fighting.” She replied, slightly irked that he had once again lain her request to not call her his child aside.

“I see. Oh yes, I do. My children are always fighting, yet I am almost never the one to tell them to. They fight on their own. Even now they fight the UEF and Aeon on different fronts. There are almost no pilots available for reinforcements.”

“Do the other nodes not see how dire the situation is here?” Nine asked angrily.

“The situation is quite dire elsewhere as well, my child. If pilots leave those nodes to help you, those nodes will be in just as dire trouble as yours. We are in a bit of a bind, oh yes. Your node will unfortunately be on it’s own for a while.” The fact that he was deeply troubled by that observation could quite clearly be heard reverberating in the doctor’s voice. “However, if the situation changes, I will immediately let you know.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

# # # # #

The recuperation room of the temporary headquarters on the planet Reranda was bustling with activity. Well, as much as any room filled with followers of the Way could ‘bustle’. About a hundred pilots, ACU and SCU, were making use of the large peaceful room to rest as much as they could before they’d be sent out again.

Phebe and her entire battle group were no different. Over the past few days they had been pushed to their limit and after getting some sleep they were now recuperating as much as possible in this room. So far their group had been lucky in that they had suffered no casualties. Other battle groups hadn’t been so lucky.

Of course Knight Fran had insisted it was their skill and fearlessness that had prevented members of their group from dying, but Phebe knew that was not true. Pilots more skilled than them had died at the hands of the Cybrans. It really was just the luck of getting the right assignments and gating onto a planet at the right time.

Staphan had his own theory on the matter. “Maybe the Cybrans are just afraid of us. . .”

“Why would those abominations be afraid of us?” Templar Obu, the other male in their group, inquired sceptically. “They have no reason to be anymore afraid of us than we of them.” He gestured at a nearby group of pilots which during the fighting had been cut down to five members from the usual eight. Crusader Inasha nodded slowly in agreement with the Templar.

“Well, altogether we have taken down six of them and lost none in return. It would seem as though it’s just impossible to face us.” Staphan, always the boisterous one, explained. In fact, by Aeon standards he was almost sickeningly boisterous.

“You’re letting your ego run wild again, Knight.” Inasha pointed out. Templar Tyrana, confused by any topic that could not be reduced to very literal concepts, could only look on with a raised eyebrow. While Knight Shila looked like she wanted to defend Staphan, she also knew better than to start crossing blades with a Crusader.

Staphan did not budge so quickly to the Crusader, though. “And Phebe, she made the kill that led to the collapse of the Cybran defence of that one node’s capital. Cybrans may be monsters, but they don’t easily forget.” Phebe didn’t even want to be reminded of that battle and turned her attention away from the discussion. It continued on for quite a while with the lowly Knight opposing the Templar and Crusader. Then, abruptly, it ended.

A sudden increase in activity elsewhere in the room drew their attention. A large group of pilots was entering. The two pilots leading them headed straight for the Lord Crusader, who had been in conversation with Grand Crusader Samin. Phebe and the rest of her battle group quickly made their way closer to listen.

The four high ranking pilots went through the traditional greetings and then got right down to business. One of the newcomers, an old pilot who looked far beyond the age at which a pilot was normally considered of no more use in the field, was the first to speak. “Lord Crusader Amalda, Grand Crusaders Numeria and Esther are here to report for duty.”

They were the reinforcements? Phebe wondered as she let her eyes pass over the pilots that had followed the Grand Crusaders into the room. Compared to the pilots who had been part of the campaign all along these looked fresh-faced in more ways than one. Of course they were well rested as they hadn’t just spent over two straight days fighting. However, they also looked fresh from training. Almost all of the Knights amongst them looked to be around Phebe’s age or even younger.

It was to be expected. Lord Crusader Amalda had put together her force by picking the most suitable pilots and battle groups. That had left the less experienced pilots in reserve as possible backup.

Even if they were less experienced they would be a useful addition, though.

# # # # #

Indeed, over the following days the reinforcements proved to be of much influence. Despite losses from the fighting Lord Crusader Amalda’s forces numbered over a hundred and seventy ACU pilots with the inclusion of the reinforcements, and even more SCU pilots.

On the other side of the equation Barret had also received reinforcements from the Zulu node. However, earlier losses meant that the combined forces of the Steeltip, Sol 3, New Lupus, Zulu and various other smaller nodes numbered only slightly more than Amalda’s. It came down to a battle of wits of those in command.

While Barret’s strategy of trying to restrict the movement of Amalda’s forces by shutting down part of the quantum network seemed to be working at first, it was quickly rendered almost completely moot. While he retained the ability to place a pilot on any of the planets that the Aeon no longer had quick access to, Amalda made that a none issue by focusing on only a narrow path that led directly to the Steeltip capital. Ground stations that connected to the quantum gate network maintained the network within that corridor for the Aeon.

Barret had considered using his own quantum gate network to send pilots directly to the planets behind the Aeon lines to destroy the ground stations there and effectively cut off access to the rest of the network. It would be a risky operation for which he right now had too few pilots available, though. The ground stations would constantly be well defended and the reward would right now be only marginal. Sure Amalda would not be able to move her forces back as quickly, but right now their goal lay ahead of them, not behind them.

So that narrow corridor through which Amalda hoped to gain access to the Steeltip node’s central systems was where all the fighting took place. If those systems fell, the node would lose so much of their population that they would effectively cease to exist as a node, even if they still had military assets to continue fighting. That would mean a successful end to Amalda’s primary objective. The Steeltip node’s outer systems, which had up until the recent merger still belonged to the Dark Moon node would then be next.

The size of the corridor was negligible compared to the territory that had already been conquered by Amalda. Yet, that ‘tiny’ bit of space involved more combat and took more time than anything that had come before. The commanders in charge were constantly trying to trump each other and continuously getting better at it as well. Several times the front lines swayed back and forth, but in the end it was Amalda who won out more often than Barret. It was at the cost of many pilots, though. On both sides the number of destroyed ACU’s was over fifty.

However, Amalda knew the result was undeniable. As she looked at her screens she knew two things for sure. One: Barret had been a very worthy adversary. And two: Only one jump separated her from the Steeltip node’s capital planet as well as another important planet, Bern 4.

# # # # #

Day 134

“The bunker in your sector is nearing completion, please have your people stand by.” The SCU pilot said to Zip.

Since yesterday Zip had taken it upon himself to aid in ensuring the safety of the civilians that had sought refuge in capital city as well as the safety of it’s regular inhabitants. Barret had ordered the construction of bunkers underground to safeguard every civilian on Urial and Bern 4. All nearly three billion of them. It was a nigh impossible task even with ACU’s and their nano-lathing. The bunker that was now just about done was just outside capital city.

“Thank you, Ben.” Zip said to the SCU pilot. He then turned to the people nearest to him. Although the effort it took to guide these people was still great for his wrecked body, an extra dose of drugs was keeping him on his feet. “The bunker is just about done.” He said to them. “Kline, I’d like you to tell the first group to line up so they may calmly enter the bunker when the all clear is given.”

Kline, a former bartender, nodded immediately. After turning to his wife, Mira, and softly saying something to her he was off. Zip then turned to Mira. “Get the second group ready to go as well. Make sure none of them are carrying too big a bags. There’s too little room in the bunker as it is.” Mira too was off quickly. To the last member of his company Zip said, “You stay with me for the moment, Mac.”

“Yes, sir.” Mac replied immediately. Since evacuating from Julius he and Kline and his wife had stuck together. When they had been caught trying to organise the people in the refugee camp by Zip the old man had given them guidance.

The elderly former Prime Advisor turned his com device back on and contacted SCU pilot Ben again. “When will the tunnel connection be done?” Every bunker would be connected by tunnels, though these tunnels would be built by a simple nanolathing mechanism built into the bunkers themselves. All bunkers together would create a maze of tunnels that make it possible to transport people anywhere underground without the Aeon ever being able to reach them. Well, at least without repeated use of very heavy ordnance or by reclaiming the ground itself to dig down to the bunker.

“The first tunnel should be done somewhere in the night. After that additional tunnels will be done much quicker. Hopefully you won’t need to use them, though.” Ben replied, clearly hoping on the latter.

“Agreed.”

A couple minutes later Ben announced, “Alright, the bunker is done. I‘m moving on to the next.”

“Thank you.” Zip said and then switched the com device of again. “Mac, head on over to Kline and tell him to get the first group moving in. Then go down yourself and head to the bunker’s control centre. Make sure that nanolathing mechanism is actively digging the tunnel. When you’re done come back up to me.”

“Alright.” Mac quickly replied. A moment later the former mercenary was off to do as instructed.

There was only a short period of rest for Zip, though. Now Nine was contacting him. She looked supremely worried and he knew her well enough to know all of that worry was for him. “Are you doing alright out there?” She asked just as worried as she looked. More than anyone else she knew that the slightest breeze could snap his bones and cause lethal contusions.

“I’m okay, really. You don’t need to call every five minutes.” He assured her.

Looking no less worried, Nine said, “Just promise you’ll come back to the CGC when the Aeon land.”

“Are they really going to get here?” Zip asked with more than a little shock. The bunkers were being built as a precaution. He hadn’t expected that the Aeon would actually get there.

His lifelong partner looked away a second and then said solemnly, “Barret told me they are already in range and that they are probably working out their plans for the assault right now.” She really didn’t want to see her city come under siege, but the way things were looking a lot of rebuilding would be necessary.

“What about our defences. He’s working on them right?”

“Of course!” Nine immediately replied. “And we still have the three Purgatory artillery cannons around the city. But just this city is big enough to require more pilots than we have to defend every inch of it, and there are more cities on this planet as well. Bern 4 is probably also going to come under assault. ACU’s are not really meant for battles on this sort of scale.”

“I see. . .” Zip said, suddenly feeling a bit less confident about his node’s survival. He had never managed to fully grasp how ACU warfare worked, his expertise lay elsewhere. “But I have to stay here for these people. If I leave now, they might panic.”

It took her a long while, but eventually Nine finally said, “Alright, fine. Do what you can. Just don’t get killed, okay?”

“I’ll be fine, really.”

# # # # #

Straight from the last Steeltip planet to be evacuated, Grav, Lexa and Sledge arrived on Urial. Their arrival zone was to the north-east of capital, almost directly next to their new objective. Gladius, the commander in charge of this section of the defence, contacted them the very moment they landed to explain their new orders.

“Commander Grav, per orders of Barret the three of you are to construct bases at these locations around the objective and defend it.” A look at the map showed they had landed almost perfectly in position, with each of them at the tip of a triangle around the objective: One of the massive Purgatory artillery pieces that had been built over two hundred years ago. “The other two are under the protection of commanders Trinity and Hektor with their squads. Ours is codenamed Emperor, the others are named Tsar and King.”

“How simple an objective for what is probably going to be a very not so simple battle. . .” Grav mused to himself before inquiring of Gladius, “Do these relics still work? Have they been tested?”

“Over the past two days they have been cleaned and double-checked and triple-checked. We’re about to test this one. The area directly around it is being cleared as we speak. Get to your positions until we’re ready to fire.”

They did and set up some rudimentary early bases while the personnel cleared the area around Emperor. All three pilots couldn’t help but marvel at the enormous barrel poking a hole in the sky. The platform on which the gun rested was bigger than a small base. No wonder the Purgatory had never been used in combat. The battle would have ended, the pilots gone home, gone to sleep and gone back to work before anyone could get such a thing operational.

A set of four special shield generators placed around the cannon protected it with their larger than regular shield domes. Normal generators would have been insufficient due to the platform being to big to protect and the barrel poking through the top of a shield even if the generator were somehow built at the exact same location as the gun.

Finally the personnel had cleared the area and Gladius contacted all pilots in the vicinity as well as Barret. “All personnel has left the area, Emperor is ready for a test shot.” He paused a moment, then ordered the gun’s operator, “Acquire target.”

The operator, an SCU pilot, responded with, “Yes, commander.” And Emperor’s barrel promptly started shifting. It pitched down a little and aimed directly to the west. “Target acquired. Ready to fire.”

“Fire.”

A second later the barrel had kicked itself backwards dozens of metres, the very air around the gun compressed and depressed in a shockwave, dust was kicked up off the ground and an earth shattering sound echoed across the plains. Afterwards residual vapour wafted out of the dangerous end of the barrel before it started moving back to it’s original position. The shell itself was on it’s way.

“Emperor has successfully unleashed a shell.” The SCU pilot announced, barely audible over the astonished gasps of some of the listeners. “Impact in. . . ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.”

A light burst into being fifty kilometres away, visibly illuminating the sky over the horizon. Had they been closer the sound would surely have deafened them despite their ACU’s, but even at this distance it could be clearly heard, though the sound waves took well over two minutes to arrive.

Smiling at the sheer power of the gun, the SCU pilot said, “Impact approximately two hundred metres from target. Target annihilated.”

On the channel shared by just the three of them, Lexa couldn’t help but exclaim, “Those Aeon don’t stand a chance!”

While Sledge could only happily agree with her, Grav was more sceptical. “Except there is this little issue with targeting. If we don’t know where the Aeon are, it gets hard to hit them.”

“Can’t we use satellites for that? There are satellites around Urial, right?” Lexa countered, not wanting to join in the scepticism just yet. This was the first thing in a couple of days that had been able to excite her, she didn’t want to lose it.

Grav, knowing she didn’t need him to prove how limited the use of Emperor would actually be just yet, only nodded a little and said, “I suppose you’re right.” What he didn’t say was that satellites could be shot down, and that that could be done from outside the range of Emperor or any of the other Purgatory artilleries.

The former SCU pilot had more pressing issues on his mind than the effectiveness of Emperor, though. He turned to Gladius again and asked, “What about the city itself? Can’t the Aeon land directly within it?”

As if it confused him a little as well, Gladius replied, “Barret tells me it’s not possible. Something about some sort of experimental quantum disruption device.”

Immediately understanding what Barret had told Gladius about, Grav said to him, “Ah, I see.”

# # # # #

“The quantum gate won’t lock on to the coordinates.” Grand Crusader Samin reported calmly to Amalda. “Something appears to be blocking every attempt to lock on.”

Lord Crusader Amalda looked at one of her screens which displayed the date concerning the malfunction and concluded that her adversary had done exactly what she had expected of him. This was in no way due to the Cybran Barret having become predictable. If he hadn’t used it, it would have been a gross mistake on his part. She would have been more than a little disappointed with him in that case for making it to easy.

It had to be that he had implemented the quantum disruption device she had encountered on Beta Ysera over two years ago. Within it’s field of effectiveness it was impossible for any quantum travel to occur, making it impossible to arrive at or leave from any point within the field. He must have used several to make something as large as the city directly inaccessible, ensuring she would first have to fight her way through the surrounding defences. Of course nothing could be evacuated from within the field either, but considering the situation evacuation was out of the question anyway. There were simply too many people to evacuate.

Similar reports arrived from Grand Crusader Tallen, who had been scheduled to lead the assault on the planet Bern 4. Many of the larger concentrations of refugees on that planet had been protected by a quantum disruption field as well. Though she hadn’t expected Barret to use the device on Bern 4 as well due to the smaller concentrations of people, she had a plan ready for that as well.

“Then we shall proceed with the original plan. Grand Crusader Samin, commence the first phase of the assault. Grand Crusader Esther commence cleansing duties elsewhere on the planet Urial. Tallen, proceed with the secondary plan for Bern 4.” Each Grand Crusader responded positively and went to work, leaving Amalda to watch as everything started moving.

Her hands moved to the controls of her ACU as if of their own free will. Now that she was this close to placing the noose around Barret and his node, she had become anxious to get into battle. If she could, she wanted to finished this herself. So she too was waiting on the planet where all the pilots had gathered, directing operations from her ACU which had specially modified for Lord Crusaders with extra equipment. Once Samin gave the all clear and Saphire had initiated the second phase of the assault she would land as well and do her part. Tallen and Numeria could handle the battle for Bern 4 well enough on their own.

The next few hours would decide the outcome of the entire campaign. It could still go either way.

Chapter 65: Invasion

Day 134

In her more than thirty years of piloting an ACU, Grand Crusader Samin had never taken part in anything quite like this. Two simultaneous operations on two different planets involving far too many ACU’s and SCU’s to keep track of. The operation closest to this level that she could recall had been a planet wide battle against the UEF on one of their core planets. It had been a long time ago, in a time when she’d been younger in so many different ways and had been a mere Templar. Quite nearly the UEF as a whole had been defeated back then, but fate had apparently been on their side. They had won the battle, and with it regained their footing against the Illuminate.

Would this battle end like that? Samin wondered. Surely this was the pivotal battle that would decide the ultimate end of the campaign. The victor got everything, and loser would lose everything. Experience told her it was never quite so black and white, but a lot still hinged on this one battle.

Oh well, it wasn’t her job to worry about such things. Her objective lay above her. There the satellites that provided the enemy with information were looking down at her, spying. Taking them out was crucial, as they would otherwise provide targeting coordinates to the three Purgatory artillery cannons that the briefing had mentioned. With those satellite out of the way they could wage war against the Cybran capital city without getting vaporised the moment they arrived. Sure the artillery could still fire at anything within a ridiculous radius, not to mention the nukes they probably had stockpiled, but the Cybrans would have to provide the targeting information the old fashioned way with radar and scouts.

The enemy wasn’t letting her get away with firing weapons at their satellites, though. A couple of Cybran pilots had landed near her battle group to stop her. The same was going on for her other four battle groups scattered around the planet.

It didn’t matter, she only needed to defend long enough for the anti-satellite weaponry to do it’s work. Experience had not been able to completely ward of the effects of age, and on her own she was probably no match for the Cybran pilots who had come to stop her, but her battle group consisted solely of clearheaded veterans. Defence was no problem for them. In a couple of hours the skies would be clear.

In a rare moment of rest Samin looked outside her ACU and at the nearest AS launcher. Just then it launched another missile destined to destroy a satellite. In a way she felt a little sorry for the Cybrans. Once the satellites were out of the way, Grand Crusader Saphire would arrive near the capital city. If Samin was no longer a match for most veteran Cybrans, then most of those Cybrans were no match for Saphire. Combine that level of skill with over thirty pilots who shared her fierceness and eagerness, and you get the kind of army that will not stop until you are dead. Preferably in the most humiliating way possible

“Hmm, poor Cybrans. . . Not even they deserve that. . .” She muttered as she went back to work.

# # # # #

It had been a week since his ‘capture’, Frank realised. Since the very first day there had not been anymore interrogations or questionings. Couldn’t those Cybrans simply make up their minds already? Either they trusted him or they didn’t, it was that simple. Or was the campaign that was apparently going on really so bad that had all but forgotten about poor old him? They could have at least told him something about his status, though. Couldn’t they?

For seven days he had been thinking about this supposed ‘home’, this node that had chucked him into a jail cell with two of the least conversational cellmates. Sure, life in this node been nice for a while, but even if he was eventually released, would he just be thrown back in the moment something suspicious happened? If there even was a chance of release to begin with. . . If what the colonel had told him was at all reliable, the city might not be there for much longer.

He glanced over at the colonel, who had been sitting quietly for the past few days. Despite a now permanent AI, the man looked no different. At most he looked angrier than he usually did, and even that was pushing it. Aside from the occasional exercise, he just sat there, staring at the ground. Every now and then he closed his eyes for a while, looking calmer when he opened them again.

His other cellmate had shown a change. Every now and then she would look at Rathburn deep in thought, as if in conflict with herself. She had done so more and more since four days ago.

The absolute silence in the room was broken when an alarm started blaring, accompanied by a red light pulsing next to the door. The alarm was soft, distant, and probably came from beyond the not completely sound tight door.

Immediately all three inmates looked up from their pondering and paid attention to the muffled words that could be heard coming from the PA system beyond the door. Frank couldn’t quite make out every word, but it was enough to get the meaning of the message. “Attention! . . . Aeon . . . Sighted . . . Away from capital city. Be ready . . . ” The rest of the message was too muffled for Frank to make out.

So the Aeon were really coming for capital city? Immediately his heart went racing up into his throat as if Aeon units would come bursting through the walls in mere moments. It wasn’t safe anymore.

He looked to Sarah again and saw she was looking at Rathburn, making up her mind. The colonel himself had gone back to looking at the ground.

Sarah finally made up her mind and whispered to the colonel. “Eh, Nathan.” As she whispered she didn’t actually look at him, and instead remained in her usual position sitting on the side of her bed and staring at the ground.

It took a good while of whispering before Rathburn actually reacted and looked at her. He noticed how she purposefully wasn’t looking at him and did the same. Frank wanted to know what she had to say to him, but to his annoyance she apparently did not feel comfortable saying it in plain old English. He couldn’t understand a word of what she said. Perhaps that was exactly her reason, or perhaps it was to confuse the Cybrans who might notice the clandestine conversation.

They both originated from the UEF mining colony of Xerion Prime which, as a matter of cultural pride originating with the original founder of the colony, maintained the German language as a second language. It was in that language that they spoke.

“Eh, it’s been a while, so excuse me if I’m a little rusty.” Sarah started, keeping her voice low to not attract attention from the Cybrans. “How about getting out of this cell?”

“Hmm?” He rumbled softly. But instead of the obvious question of ‘how’ he asked, “Why should I?”

“Going home.” Sarah answered, instantly getting the colonel’s undivided attention, though he managed to not react physically. “My people are, as you well know, further ahead than the Steeltips in terms of tech. When Mist told you that little UEF gizmo fried your AI and made it impossible to be removed without killing you, she was right. But, I’m pretty sure the physicians where I’m from could rewire the facial circuitry, make it sub-dermal and mask the AI itself. It would still be there and it would still do it’s job, but it would be undetectable even for advanced UEF sensors.”

Having the utmost trouble keeping his voice soft, Nathan asked, “Are you sure?”

“I’m not saying it’s without risk. The surgery involves poking around in your head, so there’s always the risk of. . . Well. . . Death. Amongst other things. But if it’s successful, I’m pretty sure I could convince Krieg to get you back to UEF. If you make up a fancy story as to why the AI’s gone to tell your people, you could go home just fine.” She explained, feeling torn whether she wanted to Nathan to bite or not. It was very dangerous.

“And you’re sure the masking would fool the most advanced UEF security scanners?” Nathan inquired, not quite convinced yet.

“Pfff. . . Who do you think you’re talking to? Our tech is miles ahead of the UEF. You’ll have retired, died of natural causes and been put in the ground before the UEF ever got the tech to detect it.” She answered, irked by his apparent underestimation of the Diamond Spear’s technological capability.

The colonel looked straight ahead for a while, thinking, before glancing at her from the corner of his eye. “Then the next question: How? Those are some serious lasers.”

“Hmm, I got an idea. Listen. . .”

Frank tried to understand what they were saying but could only pick up the occasional word that sounded similar to English. They talked for quite a while, never raising their voices. He doubted the Cybran guards would have noticed anything going on.

After a while the whispering stopped, but nothing consequential happened afterwards. It was as I nothing had happened. After a minute or so the colonel did a couple of sets of pushups and Sarah hummed a tune, things both had done before from time to time. And after that still nothing. Nothing at all. Were they waiting to see whether their conversation had been heard?

He decided not to ask them about it, for fear of raising suspicion. If their conversation had been about escape than he didn’t want to hinder them. In fact, he had made up his mind and wanted in on the action!

# # # # #

“Sorry, I couldn’t stop them all.” Mist said apologetically to Barret even as a mushroom cloud floated away on the wind a couple of kilometres to her east. She had aimed for Grand Crusader Samin, but the Aeon pilot had gotten away. Instead an Aeon Templar and three SCU pilots had fallen. In the past few hours, during which the Grand Crusader had continuously been shooting satellites out of the sky, one more Knight and two other SCU pilots had bitten the dust due to Mist’s attacks. It had not been enough, though. The Aeon had succeeded in their mission, and whole hordes of pilots were now being sighted near capital city.

“It was inevitable.” Barret replied, barely looking her way as he was too busy organising the battle. “Get back to the city and pick up a quantum teleporter from storage so I can deploy you where I need you.”

She nodded, was about to close the channel, but then asked, “Has Amalda’s battle group been sighted yet?”

Barret shook his head. “No, but they’ve probably landed close to the city by now. . .”

# # # # #

Indeed Phebe had only just arrived. Vast dunes with the occasional rocky outcropping set against the light of a setting sun greeted her eye, the desert surrounding capital city. There was no time for sight seeing, though. Every second wasted was a second closer to having one of the stockpiled nuclear missiles land on her head. A race to get the proper defences online started.

As the minutes ticked away she, luckily, remained undetected. Others were not so lucky, though. A different battle group not far from them was detected by spy planes and was subsequently targeted by one of the many artillery cannons. Their bases were far from capable of standing up against even one of it’s shells. The first pilot targeted fell immediately, the others that were detected managed to get away by means of air transports and started anew elsewhere.

All around the city this phenomenon repeated itself. Pilots were targeted by artillery, bombers or nukes. Sometimes they were unable to escape, but more often than not they managed to get away safely and start anew elsewhere. But no matter how powerful the artillery pieces were, due to their slow firing rate there were more pilots then they could effectively drive away.

Still, it halved the number of pilots the Aeon could effectively field. One half could fight effectively, while the other half functioned as bait for artillery and nukes. The half that could fight was then faced by a large number of Cybran pilots. Phebe and the rest of her battle group found themselves in that half.

As always, Crusader Inasha was organising her battle group to combat the Cybrans effectively. “Fran, Shila, Staphan, take point. Concentrate your efforts on getting through to that artillery. Tyrana, run interference here. Obu, you do the same here. Phebe, Provide the Knights with experimentals as soon as possible. They’ll need them.” The Crusader herself concentrated on the defence and resource aspects of the battle.

While the point team repeatedly clashed with the Cybrans, Staphan contacted Phebe. “A while ago I promised I’d protect you in return for saving my life, but. . .” A battle group near them absorbed a hit from an artillery, the sound clearly audible from their location. “But. . . Against such weapons I feel there’d be little I could do.” He smirked displeased as a nuclear missile turned his carefully prepared assault force to vapour before it could get anywhere near it’s destination.

Unable to believe he was still honouring that promise made in the heat of the moment, she answered, “You don’t need to worry about me. I can protect myself just fine. Why don’t you vow to protect Shila instead?”

“Wh-- What?” Staphan mumbled. “I-- I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Phebe managed to stop herself just in time from winking suggestively, as it would probably have been a bit too ‘Cybran’ for Staphan to understand, but she nonetheless smiled amusedly at his frantic attempts to sound as if he didn’t know what she meant. Her amusement was cut short by Shila, though, who apparently shared a constant channel with Staphan. “Could we please save such subjects for after the battle? And Templar, please try not to get your own squad mate killed by distracting him.”

Cracking another smile, Phebe said, “My apologies, Knights. . .”

Hmm, yes, maybe the Cybrans had after all left a lasting effect on her. Phebe thought. She would never have made such remarks otherwise, nor smiled at the results.

Responding to something spotted by her spy plane, she alerted the point team, “A Grizzly has been spotted approaching Fran!” It was back to work for her.

# # # # #

“There they are!!” Lexa called out. “That’s them! That Crusader and Templar!” She added as she double checked the data sent back by the spy planes. “Send new targeting data to Emperor!”

“Hold it right there, Lexa.” Grav intervened calmly. “This is no time for rash decisions.”

“But that’s them. Crusader Inasha and Templar Phebe. Kill ‘em! NOW!” She screamed, only barely holding back.

Grav would not lose his cool, though. “And I see those that wiped out my commanders on Herkel 7 around as well, but I’m not ordering Emperor to fire on them, now am I? They’re too well entrenched, they’ll absorb too many shells from Emperor before we’d get near a kill, shells we can put to better use elsewhere. Got that?”

When Lexa refused to actually answer, Sledge said, “Yes, commander. Understood.” He then glared at Lexa.

“Thank you Sledge. And commander Lexa, I’d appreciate if you didn’t shout at me again.” Though he said the last seemingly calm and kind, it would have been a grave mistake to assume Grav wasn’t vexed by Lexa’s tone. She wisely took his advise to heart and kept her mouth shut. Satisfied that his subordinates wouldn’t be a problem, Grav provided the SCU pilot in charge of Emperor a new firing order. “Please make this Aeon assault force go away.”

The enthusiastic pilot happily replied with, “Affirmative. They WILL be dust!”

# # # # #

The massive shell landed perfectly on target, wiping out the whole assault force. What had previously been a force large enough to wipe out a base in a normal battle was now replaced by a crater. Amalda was quite surprised by the firepower displayed by this weapon.

Templar Phebe had told her about it in her report, but had not been able to accurately describe the exact firepower. The firepower displayed now was enough to go beyond what the Lord Crusader had expected from more than two hundred year old artillery pieces. Still, she was confident that she would be able to prevail in the end, even with such firepower arrayed against her.

The maps of the city and the surrounding terrain provided by the Templar had helped her greatly to plan the assault in advance. All around the city pilots were executing her strategies as close to perfection as she could ask. Even the less experienced reinforcements were doing their part, thanks in great part due to the guidance of Grand Crusaders Samin and Saphire. The previous was even doing an admirable job of managing the battle around the city as a whole. Amalda hardly needed to intervene.

That was her cue, she decided. It was time to head to the battle herself and call out her opponent. Barret had yet to appear in an ACU, but she wanted the opportunity to show him she was superior in direct combat as well.

“Grand Crusader Saphire. . .” Amalda started as she opened a channel to the pilot in question. “Please prepare a landing zone to the south west of the city. I will be coming down myself.”

“Understood!” Saphire replied excitedly, the battle getting her blood flowing. “It will be done in about five minutes.”

“I await your response.”

Her hands rested on the controls of her ACU. It had been a while since she had last seen direct combat, but she was confident she could overwhelm Barret if he chose to face her willingly.

# # # # #

Another tremor caused by a nearby nuclear detonation shook the bunker, nearly tossing the fragile Zip to the ground. Only the quick reaction of Mac prevented him from painfully collapsing. “Are you okay, Zip?” The much bigger Cybran inquired with clear concern for the former Prime Advisor’s well-being.

“Really, I’m fine.” Zip quickly replied as he steadied himself against the security console.

Seconds later Kline’s wife, Mira came rushing into the bunker’s control room. “The ceilings in parts of the bunker are starting to crack. They won’t take much more of this!”

Turning to Mac, who stood closer to that particular console, Zip asked, “What about the tunnels? Are they holding up?”

“So far, yes.” The tunnels were sturdier than the bunker itself, as they needed to give those within the bunker the opportunity to leave in case of an emergency.

“Then get the people moving, to any place that’s not here.” Another tremor shook the bunker, sending the handful of objects that weren’t tied down hurtling across the room. This time Zip did fall down, even Mac couldn’t prevent it. But the very moment the tremors died down again he called to Mira with all the strength he could muster, “Go! Get them out of this tomb!”

She was going immediately, leaving Mac to tend to Zip. As he felt around the leg and hip that had taken the brunt of Zip’s fall he noticed the grimace of pain. “You’re not fine this time. This is bad.”

“I know. My wrist too.” Zip said haggardly, breathing heavily. “Get my pack. There should be painkillers in there.”

The former mercenary went and got the pack and fished out the painkillers. As he looked at them he wondered out loud, “Should you really be taking these? You’re already on far too many times your usual dosages.”

“I’ll die from sheer pain if I don’t take them. Now give them to me.”

While Mac tended to the elder man, Kline contacted them via an audio only channel. “Zip! We’re well on our way with getting the people into the tunnels. They’re moving along quickly. We’ll be done in under two minutes.”

After swallowing the last of the pills Mac had handed him, Zip asked, “Any casualties from the tremors?”

“There’s a couple of bruises and sprained ankles and wrists, but nothing major. Those that can’t walk are being carried.” Was the immediate reply from the former bartender.

“Good work.” Zip said, starting to feel drowsy almost immediately after Mac injected something into his shoulder. His voice slurring slightly, he advised, “Get your wife and get out of here. Don’t wait for me.”

“I’ll take care of him.” Mac added to reassure Kline.

Another tremor. This area was right smack in the middle of the Aeon’s favourite assault routes. “Alright.” Kline replied when the shaking had stopped.

Replacing the tremor was the distant thumping of something large slowly making it’s way towards them. And right on cue SCU pilot Ben contacted them. “You’ve got a Galactic Colossus headed straight for your position. Has your bunker been evacuated yet?”

“Just about.” Zip replied labouringly. In the mean time Mac put everything back into Zip’s pack in preparation of leaving. “But we’re underground. A colos--”

Ben didn’t wait for the slow talking Zip to finish. “There’s a key base on the other side and it’s barely protected now. A Colossus can wreck it completely. They want to nuke it before it gets there, except that puts your bunker right in the middle of it. So, has your bunker been evacuated yet?”

Not knowing how many people were actually left, Zip decided to take responsibility. “Yes. Just do it.” The SCU pilot wouldn’t say it was a key base for no particular reason.

“Alright. The nukes will be there in forty seconds.” Ben said, closing the channel afterwards.

Sighing briefly, Zip asked, “How quickly can you move while carrying me?” When Mac hesitated with the answer, Zip ordered. “Get out of here. I’m comfortable right here.”

Knowing there was no time to spare, Mac only hesitated for a single second. Then, without a word, he got up and sprinted out. Pushing himself to the limit he then made his way through the bunker until he finally made it to the tunnel, mere seconds before impact. Despite the tremors he managed to keep running while in the narrow tunnel until he finally made it to the last few people that had left the bunker.

Back in the bunker’s control centre Zip sat propped up against the wall. Forty seconds was suddenly quite a long time when it involved nuclear weapons. Oh well, at least this way he didn’t die of his illness while lying in a hospital bed. He thought to himself. He couldn’t complain about this end.

# # # # #

“What the hell are they doing?” The Cybran guard muttered to himself as he glanced at the screen displaying the situation in the cell block. His superior had told him to keep on paying attention to the prisoners, but with the situation around the city that had been easier said than done. But now those very prisoners seemed to be doing something rather suspicious.

The big colonel was. . . Well. . . He couldn’t quite make out what he was doing. It looked like he was doing badly performed pirouettes of some kind. It certainly looked just as silly. The female prisoner was using the powerful lasers that made up the bars to craft something curious out of parts of her bunk. The third and finale prisoner was only looking on in bewilderment, just as confused as the guard was.

“What the hell?” He wondered again, and then contacted the two guards currently stationed outside security office. “Hey, you guys, go check in with the prisoners at cell block B. They’re doing something suspicious.”

“Roger that.” One of the guards replied.

# # # # #

“Here.” Sarah said as she handed her creation to Nathan between the laser bars. “It should do the trick well enough.”

“Thanks.” Nathan grumbled, then fastened it to his left forearm using ripped strips of his bed sheet. It was a small shield of sorts, just a couple inches longer than his forearm and hand combined. Then with the shield attached to his forearm, he again practiced the same thing as before. He held his left forearm over his head and tried to manoeuvre his considerable bulk underneath it.

“I still don’t get what this is supposed to do.” Frank muttered confused.

Grinning mischievously, Sarah remarked, “You’ll see.” Then, abruptly, she went from mischievous to dead serious in a split second. “Nathan. The door!”

The colonel turned to the laser bars separating him from a direct path to the door and, much to Frank’s surprise, charged straight at them without a second’s hesitation. Then it all clicked into place for the uninformed observer. Holding his shielded left forearm up high, Nathan blocked the lasers coming down from the ceiling. As the lasers did their job and rapidly burned through the shield and into his forearm, he twisted his body underneath and stepped through the ‘doorway’.

Only the combination of the shield plus the fact that his prosthetic left forearm wasn’t regular flesh allowed him to do this, and even then his shoulders got caught outside the protective zone and were instantly cut. Not to mention the deep wounds burned into the forearm itself.

Despite the wounds he charged straight ahead right at the two guards who had just entered the room. The first he caught straight in the face with his right fist, sending the guard to the ground perfectly in the path of the door, keeping it from shutting itself, though that was more luck than anything else. The second guard, already having had his weapon ready upon entering, got off a shot before receiving a heavy boot to the chest.

After giving the second guard a crack over the head he dragged him over to the control panel and forced his thumb onto the control that shut off the lasers. Just in time too, for the guard in the security office was now a split second too late with hitting the override, letting Frank and Sarah step out of their cells safely. A second later the override kicked in and reinitialised the beams, too late.

A kick to the face and the second guard was out for the count, permanently. The first guard however had recovered somewhat and was pointing his weapon straight at Nathan, who ignored that tiny detail and was smashing his right fist into the guard’s gut. The weapon went off, but was then immediately batted from the guard’s hands by a backhand from Nathan’s cut up left arm. Ignoring the pain for the moment the colonel grabbed the now disarmed Cybran by the head and smashed his skull into the doorpost repeatedly until a sickening crack signalled the guard’s demise. After smashing the head into the doorpost one more time for good measure, and reducing it to a bloody pulp in the process, Nathan let go.

“Impressive.” Sarah admitted as she picked up the laser rifle of the second guard. “Did you get hit?”

Already replacing the improvised shield with a just as improvised bandage, Nathan grumbled, “It doesn’t matter. We have to get out of here either way.” The fresh blood collecting on his shirt however was proof enough that he had in fact been hit at least once.

Sarah had to agree, though. There wasn’t much time. So she turned to Frank, who was looking disgustedly at the bloody pulp that once been the head of a Cybran guard. “So? How about it? Shall we get out of here?”

“Uh. . . Uhm. . . What?” He asked, looking unsteady after having looked at the bloody mess for too long.

“Are you coming with us? Or am I leaving you behind?” Sarah asked again, clarifying.

Forcing the bloody imagery from his mind, Frank inquired, “Is there really a choice involved?”

Speaking honestly, Sarah replied, “It’s up to you. Make your choice.”

“Allow me to make the choice easier.” Nathan rumbled as used his one good arm to point the rifle of the other guard at Frank. “I still have a mission. According to that mission you are to no longer be working for the Cybrans, one way or the other. As far as I’m concerned, if you go with her that fulfils the objective. Not to mention it would piss off general Yamamoto. That’s always a plus.”

“And you wouldn’t kill me if I do that?” Frank inquired sceptically, knowing the colonel would gladly do far worse to him than he had just done to those two guards.

Grunting disapprovingly, Nathan pointed out, “Don’t think too highly of me. If I killed you, Sarah would probably make our deal void. Right?” He glanced to her.

“There’d certainly be some revisions.” She said, nodding.

It didn’t take Frank long to find his answer, though. He had already decided he wanted to get out if his fellow prisoners somehow managed to get out of the cell. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Finding the answer the best he could have hoped for, Nathan turned his attention down the hallway, where a pair of fresh guards had just arrived.

# # # # #

The Cybran guard looked at the screens while desperately encouraging his comrades to take down the escapees. It was no good, though. The big colonel and the woman, who was surprisingly good with a rifle despite her supposed status as a civilian member of another node, were cutting through the guards at a rapid pace. The former UEF defector was trailing behind as they made their way through the hallways.

The guard made his way to the door of the security office while keeping an eye on the screens. The escapees were making their way to the office. With the cameras giving him information, he could get the drop on them. And it worked. Sort of. . .

The colonel and woman stopped on the other side of the door and the guard clutched his gun, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Cautiously, the colonel edged closer to the door. He was about to reach to it when the guard violently opened it outwards, smashing the edge of the door into the colonel’s forehead.

It didn’t have quite the desired effect, though. The colonel hardly budged at the impact and had enough presence of mind to grab the guard’s gun by the barrel the moment it appeared from the behind the door. Twisting it, he forced the gun from the guard’s hand, disarming him.

The guard wasn’t useless without a gun, though, but only got as far jabbing the colonel in the throat and dodging a heavy fist before the woman appeared and shot him in the leg. With a pained yelp, the guard fell and clutched the bleeding leg. A second shot to one of the Cybran’s arms ensured he wasn’t a threat anymore.

“Not so fast, kid. . .” Sarah muttered to the Cybran as she stepped inside, followed by Nathan, who rubbed his bruised forehead where the door had hit him. “Now, how about some directions to the nearest aircraft with a cockpit and passenger capacity?”

“I’ll never tell you.” The guard blurted, grunting in pain.

“Oh, come on now. Don’t be boring.” Sarah insisted.

Nathan then stepped up, pointing his own rifle at one of the guard’s knees and asked, “What if I ask nicely?”

# # # # #

Dust and smoke shot up as another tall building came crashing down, crushing units underneath it. Fortunately virtually every building was empty, keeping casualties down. All around the city the scene was repeating itself in some way, as the Aeon slowly pushed their way inwards.

Compared to the gargantuan size of the city it was agonisingly slow, though. Really, so far things were looking more like a draw than anything else. The number of pilots on both sides was roughly equal, but the Aeon were kept down by the artillery and the Cybrans couldn’t effectively counterattack as that would take away too many pilots from the defence of the city, leaving gaps in the perimeter.

Barret very much disliked this situation. There had to be some way to tip the scales in his favour permanently. Some strategy to either take out many pilots or some method of pushing the Aeon back effectively. But everything he could come up with took too many pilots away from the defence. At least things seemed to be the same for the Aeon. The Purgatory artillery was playing havoc on their forces and seriously reduced the speed at which they could construct new bases.

Then, quite unexpectedly, Division Commander Sarren contacted him. “Commander, I have been contacted by the enemy Lord Crusader. Apparently she is on planet and wishes to speak with you.” The look on his face suggested the experience of talking with the Aeon pilot had not been a pleasant one.

“Put her through.” Barret ordered, curious as to what Amalda could possibly want to speak of in the middle of a battle.

The moment she appeared on his screens he wished he hadn’t chosen to speak with her, though. Just looking at the Aeon officer made him want to strangle something. Amalda looked a great deal calmer, though. Probably because she didn’t have a node on the line. “I will skip the obligatory request for surrender as I am sure you would not oblige. Correct?”

“Pretty much.” Barret muttered angrily.

“As expected. Then face me. In an ACU. Come take your revenge for all the dead Cybrans.” She stated calmly, daring him.

“Pah, you need to work on your delivery if you meant that as a serious taunt.” He mocked, snorting disdainfully.

Without changing her tone of voice, Amalda then stated challengingly. “As I thought. A Cybran is too cowardly to face his opponent in direct combat. He would rather let his subordinates be killed than take responsibility.” This did send Barret’s blood boiling and the Lord Crusader evidently saw as much. “You know where I am. Come face me.” Her transmission then ended.

He checked his screens and managed to easily locate her. Reconnaissance suggested she had a fair base online, but nothing outrageous. If he took over a nearby base he could easily catch up to her.

“I think this is a bad idea.” Sarren, who had listened in, pointed out. “She is about as close to perfect in ACU warfare as a pilot can get.” He didn’t say it, but he clearly didn’t expect Barret to win.

“I’ll think of something. . .” The Army Commander replied, already considering a variety of strategies. “Take care of the city’s defence while I do.”

“Right. . . By the way, I’m senior to Dekker, right? You know, just in case.” Just in case one of the Division Commanders had to take over as Army Commander?

“You really don’t have any confidence in me, do you?”

“I’m sure we’ll all be laughing about this some day. Or, well. . . Not.” Sarren then closed the channel, leaving Barret to fulfil his promise to the Lord Crusader and face her in an ACU.

But something came up before he could head over to his ACU. He was contacted by the CGC’s security force with the disturbing message: “Sir, the three prisoners in cell block B have escaped. We have reason to belief they are heading to the landing pad near your location.”

This day just keeps getting better and better. “How the hell did they get out?!” Barret roared furiously as he stepped out of the room and headed down the hallway. “Never mind that. Where are they now?” The security guard passed the information. They weren’t even that far, if he hurried he could get right behind them.

Hmm, the Lord Crusader is just going to have to wait a little while. . . He thought to himself.

# # # # #

“It shouldn’t be far.” Sarah announced after they had been running for the past five minutes. The CGC was quite a large place.

They hadn’t gone very fast, though. Frank wasn’t very physically adapt and it was now pretty clear that Nathan had in fact been injured far more severely than only getting his forearm cut up during the jailbreak. At least there hadn’t been much opposition. Surprisingly little of it in fact. When Frank had pointed out as much it was suggested by the other two that it was probably due to the city being under siege and the personnel being needed elsewhere.

They ran on and ahead of them they saw the elevator that would take them to their escape craft. Frank didn’t cross the final distance, though. Walking past a window had drawn his attention outside. “My god. . .” He muttered as he looked at the smoke blocking the horizon in the distance. Every now and then a bright light lit up that smoke. Almost constantly shells and lasers that had not hit their target could be seen speeding across the darkened sky.

The other two joined him by the window and also gazed at the slowly expanding devastation. “For the Aeon to do that here of all planets, they must really be putting a lot of effort into it.” Sarah muttered amazed.

Nodding, Nathan rumbled, “How many ACU’s do you reckon? To get here?”

“To get from the original borders between the Aeon and Sol 3 to here. . .” She considered it for a few seconds. “At least a hundred and fifty. And countless SCU’s.” Turning to him, she pointed out, “I really had rather by out of this city as quickly as possible.”

“Is that even possible now?” Frank asked. He had worked on enough units to know escaping in an unarmed craft in a situation such as this was about as close to suicide as escapes could get.

Or so he thought. Sarah didn’t, though. “Hmm, if we were flying as low as normal combat aircraft it wouldn’t be. The jet can get sufficient altitude to fly overhead, though, out of range of their sensors. Not to mention it’s pretty quick. As long as we don’t attract too much attention we should be fine.”

“Unfortunately for you it’s not going to get that far.” An awfully familiar voice from behind them announced. As they turned around in unison they saw it was Barret. A laser pistol was in his hand. “Turn back and sit peacefully in your cells please.”

“I’m not terribly inclined to fulfil the request of a lone person with just a pistol.” Sarah replied calmly, pointing her own rifle at Barret. “And we both know you’re not going to shoot me.”

Having expected as much, Barret switched targets and aimed at Frank and Nathan. “Then what about them?”

Suddenly frightened at having a gun pointed at him, Frank shouted, “Huh?!”

“We don’t have time for this. . .” Nathan muttered under his breath. Then, quite roughly, he wrapped his injured left forearm around Sarah’s throat and pointed his rifle at her head. “You’ll let us go or I’ll put some extra ventilation holes in her head.”

Surprised by being grabbed so suddenly, Sarah yelped, “Wah! What are you doing!?”

“Quiet!” Nathan grumbled in return, and then bellowed at Frank, “Materza, get your *ss to that elevator!” He then went and dragged a struggling Sarah along with him. All the while Barret followed them and kept his gun aimed at Nathan, looking for an opening. It never came, though.

They stepped into the elevator and upon Nathan’s command Frank pressed the button for the top floor. Only when the doors had fully closed did Barret lower his gun. He then stepped into the elevator right next to the one the escapees had used, but instead of going up he went down. He couldn’t afford playing around with those guys when he knew it was useless anyway. Amalda wouldn’t wait forever.

Within the other elevator Nathan let go of Sarah, who promptly turned around and let out a sigh. “Man, that was quick thinking there, Nathan. Good acting. He would never have risked me getting shot.” She complimented.

“Who says I was acting?” Nathan rumbled, shooting her a glare.

“What?” She asked perplexed, but quickly thought better of continuing the subject. She might not like what she found out.

While they waited for the elevator to reach the top floor and let them out onto the room, Frank noticed how the colonel was starting to slump into a corner. He now constantly held one arm around his waist, and sometimes grabbed at his chest. The left arm hung uselessly. It must have been excruciating to grab Sarah around the neck with that arm. A little bit of blood was making it’s way to the floor.

“Are you alright, colonel?” He asked as they neared the top.

“I’ve had worse.” The colonel immediately bit back aggressively. Whether that was true or not, Frank didn’t know, but it clearly wouldn’t do his fellow escapee any good to go without medical attention for much longer.

When the elevator doors opened, they saw a transport jet directly ahead of them. It, amongst others nearby, was ready for takeoff. There were no Cybrans around. Within seconds Sarah had installed herself in the pilot’s seat and was going through the motions of bringing the aircraft to life.

“Can you fly this thing?” Nathan inquired as he leaned on a panel within the narrow passenger compartment to look into the cockpit.

“It’s got the standard Cybran control configuration. I’ll manage.” Sarah replied. “Strap yourselves in. I’ll be pushing the throttle.”

As the craft started moving, Frank muttered to Nathan, “I still don’t get what the deal is between Sarah and the Steeltips. What the hell is going on with that?”

Already starting to slump back against the side of craft in his seat, Nathan rumbled softly, “I think you’ll figure it out in an hour or two.”

“What? Can’t you just tell me? We’re no longer being watched by the Cybrans. . .” There was no answer, though. The colonel was grabbing at his chest, obviously in pain. “Colonel?” Frank inquired with some concern. “Colonel? Sarah! How long until. . .Well. . . How long until we get where you’re going?!”

“Ten minutes maybe. It’s a fast plane, this is.” She replied.

Frank then turned back Nathan and started, “Eh, colonel, just--”

“I heard. I’m not deaf you idiot.” Nathan growled angrily and then went back to clutching at his chest. One shot had punched a hole in his chest and punctured a lung. It was only now that the initial shock and adrenaline surge of getting shot yet again was wearing off and the pain of a collapsing lung was making itself felt in full force.

Then this was what Phebe had to go through on Feros Prime, he thought as he continued clutching at his chest.

# # # # #

Shell after shell pounded the Galactic Colossus’ armour, denting it and eventually punching through it. It took many hundreds of shells to finally shred the armour, but then it was over almost immediately. The massive bot’s internals were shot to pieces. Quite anticlimactically the experimental simply shut down and collapsed without the slightest explosion.

The two Grizzly experimental assault bots responsible for the Aeon unit’s downfall then turned their attention to the second Colossus that was bearing down on them. It was already almost upon them and retreat was out of the question. The base had to be protected. If it fell, Emperor might well follow.

So the two Grizzlies pulled all the stops and pushed their weapons to the limit. Vaporised coolant was flushed out of every port and the weapons themselves were starting to show signs of overheating. And still it was not enough. The sturdy Colossus got in range and fired it’s phason laser at the first Grizzly. The, compared to the Colossus, lightly armoured Grizzly could not stand up to sustained beam’s firepower and gave way easily. The beam weapon cut straight through the Grizzly, bisected it at the spine and destroyed it’s reactor. The chest portion of the assault bot exploded violently, sending shrapnel everywhere.

The second Grizzly fared little better, but at least it managed to do some damage to the Colossus before it went down. Lucky hits to the knee made the Colossus incapable of walking and turning around. Though it was far from falling down, it was now easy for other units to get behind the huge unit and attack it without fear of reprisal. So they did. Loyalists, Rhinos and even left over Mantises contributed their firepower to bringing the monster down.

Satisfied that his base had once again been secured, Grav took a moment to assess the situation at the bases of his direct subordinates. Sledge, better at defence than offence, was holding up quite well. Surprisingly so, in fact, considering the opposition. Lexa on the other hand was being too offensive. She was leaving her base open far too much and had needed to be bailed out several times already. She wanted her revenge too badly to remember defence was the priority here. Right now she was starting to do better and was more focused on the actual objective.

Confident in the skills of those below him, Grav looked elsewhere around the city. Nearby Gladius was keeping his portion of the city’s defence perfectly secure thanks in great part due to the fact that Grav and his team were soaking up most of the units by defending Emperor. On the other side of the city Trinity, defending King, was having a great deal more trouble. A Grand Crusader by the name of Samin had chosen King as her objective and was slowly edging towards it. The final Purgatory artillery position, Tsar, under the care of a New Lupus pilot by the name of Hektor was also starting to feel the pressure of a Grand Crusader: Saphire.

But the one Grav was most concerned for was Barret. Facing a Lord Crusader, especially one by the name of Amalda, was no easy task. To his credit, Barret was holding up so far. This despite the fact that when it came to one-on-one ACU warfare he was far outclassed.

Or did it only look like he was holding up well? Was he being beaten at every step, or was he beating her? Grav honestly couldn’t tell. During the previous couple of days those two had pulled tricks out of their hats that had made him think very different things were going on.

Oh well, he just had to believe that Barret knew what he was doing.

# # # # #

The city had disappeared behind the horizon when Sarah had put down the plane. And she had put it down right smack in the middle of another base. Though none of them could actually see it, she knew it had to be there.

“We’re here.” She said to her passengers.

Within seconds Frank had made his way to the cockpit and was gazing out through the windshield, but was visibly disappointed. “There’s nothing here. Just empty land.”

Barely managing to stand, Nathan also looked outside and remarked. “The ground is a little too flat if you ask me.”

Grinning, Sarah said, “Exactly.” She then sent a transmission. “Eh, you guys! Come on out! It’s Sarah! Let’s dance!”

“What? No codeword? No password?” Frank asked surprised, having expected something far more complicated.

“Actually, that was the password.” Sarah pointed out. “That exact phrase.”

And indeed, a couple seconds later the ground shifted, followed by several dozen tonnes of dust being blown into air, creating a thick cloud all around them. When the sand had settled an entire base had appeared. An entire base made of structures Frank had never seen before.

“Huh, those aren’t Cybran structures!” He called out, amazed. “But they’re not UEF either! This is. . . It’s. . .”

While he continued to try to comprehend the situation, a transmission was received from the owners of the base. “You’re late. We’ve stayed longer than Krieg’s deadline should have allowed us to. He really doesn’t want our base found by the Aeon.” It was Barge.

“Welcome back.” The much older Hannibal then added.

“Yeah, that too.” Barge said.

“Thanks. I’ve got some extra passengers, though. Bring my ACU out and make it lie down. Also, Hannibal you’ll take a passenger as well.” Barge quickly confirmed the instructions and gave her ACU a move command to come out from the underground bunker. Hannibal quickly followed in his SCU. Not much later Hannibal appeared at the hatch of his SCU and let down a rope ladder.

Upon seeing Hannibal, Sarah turned to Frank and told him, “Alright, Frank, go on and climb up to him. He’ll make sure you’re comfortable until we get off this planet.” She then said to Nathan, “Now I’ll have to get you to my cockpit. Can you walk?” He could, barely, but it was enough. Once inside and with the ACU back upright, Sarah strapped herself in and said to Nathan, “Don’t get too comfortable. Hopefully we’ll be out of here in a couple of minutes.”

Then, upon opening a channel to Barge and Hannibal, she managed to catch the tail end of Barge’s report to Krieg. Krieg immediately noticed her joining in and requested her to give him a brief report on what had happened.

Once she was finished Frank, from behind Hannibal, asked quite confused, “Could someone please tell who you people are?!”

Krieg, not feeling like dealing with that particular issue now, calmly told him, “Please remain calm for now, Frank Materza. I will personally explain everything to you once you come to my planet. Do not worry. You are in good hands.” Frank immediately quieted down, letting Krieg focus back on Sarah. “I want you to do something. It goes against a dozen rules, but right now I’m willing to overlook them.”

# # # # #

Quite to his surprise Barret found himself being contacted by Sarah, the very person he had pointed a gun at a couple of minutes ago. He was quite busy with dealing with the Lord Crusader, but something such as this was important enough to divert some of his attention. The Army Commander also noticed colonel Rathburn slumping behind the TDF pilot.

“Commander Barret. I have a message from Krieg.” She started. “Your node is on the brink of destruction, but he wants to give you something to might give you an extra chance. We’ll need at least an SCU pilot of yours at my base to make the transfer.”

“So what is it? Tech?” Barret asked hurriedly even as he pushed back yet another assault from Amalda.

“No. I’ve got an experimental at my base, ready to be used. It will be loaded with a thorough self-destruct programme to prevent you from reverse engineering anything from it. Hopefully it will help.”

“An experimental?!” Barret asked wide eyed. “A TDF experimental?!”

“A Crimson, to be exact.” Sarah clarified, instantly reminding Barret of the operation over a year ago.

Barret immediately went through a list of pilots he could trust with a mission such as this. When he found one he asked Sarah, “Where’s your base located?” Mere seconds later coordinates were transferred to his ACU. Upon realizing where the base was located strategies started forming in his mind. Quite outrageous strategies.

He then contacted the pilot of his choice, “Mist, there is something I need you to do.”

Chapter 66: Reign of the Emperor (Part 1)

Day 135

“They’re trying again!” Lexa warned as a multitude of unrecognised unit signatures appeared on her sensors. “This time from the south west, about a hundred total, plus light air support.”

Just as she was about to order her two Grizzlies to take off and assault the approaching units from above, Grav intervened. “Don’t respond. They’re planning on you sending Grizzlies in gunship mode. There’s probably a large force of air superiority fighters waiting for your experimentals. I’ve got a little surprise for them, though.”

So she held her position, keeping her Grizzlies back, and waited for Grav to spring whatever trap he had planned. The second before he actually sprung it, she saw what it was. Without her knowing it, Grav had managed to establish a small but solid outpost near her main bases. And in it was a single Scathis.

When the Aeon assault force was well beyond the point that it could retreat in time, Grav let his Scathis fire away. A virtual hailstorm of artillery shells landed amongst the assault force, tearing apart everything. There wasn’t any particular accuracy involved, but when facing assault forces numbering at least one hundred units, accuracy becomes less of an issue. Shoot somewhere at random and there was a distinct chance of hitting something.

It was the same everywhere else. All around the city, there wasn’t a single piece of uncontested land. Some areas were more hotly contested while others had lain silent for some time now, but everywhere charred remains of combat vehicles could found, some still burning or smoking.

All the commanders had their own little patch of land to defend or conquer. While they might know how they were doing individually, very few had any clue as to how the battle as a whole was going. Whether it was the Aeon or the Cybrans getting closer to the win few of them knew. However, the truth of the matter was that neither side made any particular gains. If in one location the Aeon pushed in towards the city, elsewhere the Cybrans pushed outwards. The same was true for the other hotly contested planet, Bern 4. No real progress was made by either side there either.

The city itself had taken damage, but relatively few civilians could be counted amongst the dead. Only at the edge of the city had a few bunkers holding civilians taken enough damage from bombings to crumble. Everywhere else the bunkers held up perfectly. The landscape around the city was looking more and more like a nuclear wasteland, though. Indeed the many nuclear detonations, especially from Cybran nuclear devices, had irradiated the landscape thoroughly. If it ever came to that, cleaning up the mess would take quite some time.

Nuclear waste wasn’t exactly the first thing on Barret’s mind, though. His mind was focused solely on finding ways to deal with Lord Crusader Amalda. He suspected that if she fell, it would throw off her forces enough for them to be pushed back. The only real weakness in Amalda’s campaign strategy that he could see was the fact that she was here now, in person, making herself a target. If that could be called a weakness. It was Amalda after all, supposedly second only to the even more legendary Avatar of War.

He felt quite good having already held for over an hour against her. An incident from a year ago came to mind. The Lord Crusader, then still Grand Crusader, overwhelmed colonel Fletcher quite easily in one-on-one ACU combat.

Whether he was actually better than Fletcher, Barret couldn’t tell. It certainly would be a close call. So why was the Lord Crusader having trouble? One conclusion that came to mind was that she was spending at least some of her time organising the rest of her forces while at the same time dealing with him. It was a faulty tactic to do both at once, but Barret couldn’t take advantage of it. At least not while fighting fairly, one-on-one. Not that he had ever intended to take on Amalda fairly and expect to win.

But simply calling more pilots to his side would do him no good. Upon getting a few glimpses of her ACU he had managed to determine that Amalda’s ACU was a heavily modified one only issued to commanders who needed to command large numbers of pilots while being in the field themselves. Features such as larger cockpits with more screens were undoubtedly present, though no Cybran had ever seen the inside of one of those cockpits. What they did know was that such ACU’s had a few more gadgets added to them. Gadgets that also happened to make them harder to produce and more energy heavy to transport through a quantum gate. He knew that amongst those features were an emergency quantum teleported and heavier personal shields.

If he called more pilots to his side she could always teleport out the moment she was overwhelmed. No, he wanted her dead. Only the most abrupt surprise attack would do for that.

To see how his surprise attack was coming along, he contacted Mist. She appeared on his screens instantly, looking more than a little tense. For good reason. If she was discovered, there was little she could do to defend herself. “Commander?” She inquired upon seeing him.

“How is it coming along?” He asked.

Mist looked elsewhere in her cockpit for a moment and then replied, “All four SCU pilots are working at full speed, we have adapted the process to be as quick but also safe as possible. I expect we can be in position in about an hour. Will you hold that long?”

“I’ll certainly try. Keeping her in her current position is the main objective, though. If she moves, we’re done for.”

After a moment’s thought, and without any regard for what her words implied, Mist wondered out loud, “Perhaps we should trade positions?”

It took Barret no time at all to reply with, “Yeah, wouldn’t you like that. . .” But a moment later he replied more seriously, “But no, she’d probably notice if we trade places, even if we make sure to swap ACU signatures. There’s always something to give it away.”

Unable to provide a counterargument, Mist could only nod. A moment later she wondered out loud, “Why is it that other pilots always say how she’s supposedly the greatest pilot in the galaxy, yet both times I’ve seen her in a battle, she was defeated?”

“A stupid question made under an incorrect assumption.” Barret pointed out in between a couple of commands he issued to his units. “The first time, on Beta Ysera, she wasn’t defeated. We managed to escape, that’s all. The second time, last year, it was the TDF who defeated her, and only through superior tech. And before that she had already wiped the floor with both colonel Fletcher and Grav.”

“So why are you still alive?” Mist then remarked deadpan.

Ignoring the insulting part of the comment, Barret replied, “Luck and the fact she’s probably busy commanding her forces. I gave that particular responsibility to Sarren. Right now the only thing distracting me is you.” He promptly closed the channel and refocused on the battle.

# # # # #

Shockwaves spread out over the shields as Phebe’s base absorbed a hit from the nearby Purgatory artillery installation. All shields located at the impact point were obliterated instantly and all the shields elsewhere in her base were pulsing madly as they strained to maintain their integrity. Most everything underneath the shields that had taken the impact was destroyed. Her ACU, which stood but a hundred metres from the impact point, was flung onto it’s back, but the personal shield held.

Rattled from the impact, it was hard to focus on her screens. Her base had taken a massive hit and a hole had been blown into it. The moment some of her vision came back into focus she hurriedly gave her engineers the task of building new shield generators. By the time of the next impact her other shields would have recharged, but that wouldn’t prevent more from being taken out. In time her base would be reduced to nothing.

“Templar!” Crusader Inasha called out, followed a moment later by Staphan as well. “Are you okay?” The Crusader then asked.

Just as she was about to answer that she was, she noticed that she was still lying on her back. Her ACU wasn’t getting up on it’s own. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, though. “My ACU’s been damaged. The right ankle and knee joints have been severely damaged, I am unable to get back up!” She reported, feeling some fright creeping into her voice.

“I’m co--” Staphan started, but he was cut off immediately by the Crusader.

“You’ll stay where you are, maintain the front.” Inasha ordered. “Can you board a transport?”

“I can’t, I’ve fallen right in between two large wrecks!” Phebe explained, feeling less and less at ease as she could almost hear the next shell flying towards her.

Inasha nodded her understanding and after ordering the two SCU pilots in her base to maintain it for a while, she announced, “I’m coming myself.”

The second shell impacted not far away, punching through shields and hitting the ground underneath, rocking it with unbelievable force. The shields around Phebe gave way instantly, but once again her personal shields managed to hold. She was still thrown around again, though. Like a rag doll her ACU was thrown into one of the large piles of wreckage next to which she had lain.

After commanding the SCU pilot under her command to take over the base, she focussed all her attention on getting out of harms way. No doubt a shell was heading straight for her now, but Inasha said she was coming, so she had to do her best.

Taking personal control over her ACU, she made it do something it most definitely wasn’t designed to do: crawl. Using the ACU’s arms and one good leg, she crawled out of the tangled wreckage of the shield generator and tried to get clear of it. She wasn’t quick enough, though.

Nearby Inasha landed, but was forced to back away when the third shell impacted. With less in the way of shields to protect her this time, only some wreckage protected her from the blast. Though the afforded protection was little, it was enough to ward off instant obliteration.

Not enough to ward off her ACU getting tossed around again, though. Several times it rolled until crashing into an anti-air missile launcher. Upon impact the already weakened right leg broke away completely and the left was almost twisted loose from the hip socket, followed by the rest of her ACU crushing the missile launcher and then rolling into a factory.

She was unsure how much time passed between her ACU coming to a rest and her coming back to her senses, but it surely was too much. Even with her head still spinning and pounding madly she tried to get her ACU moving again. It was only after crawling a couple dozen metres that she realized a leg was actually missing completely. Mercifully Crusader Inasha then appeared and hooked her ACU’s arm around Phebe’s and then dragged her away.

“Huh? What?” The Templar muttered while looking at the Crusader through blurry vision. She was dizzy. Really dizzy.

Before she knew it Inasha had dragged her ACU clear from any surrounding rubble, allowing transports to pick both of them up and fly them to safety. Then, still quite dizzy, Phebe noticed she was in a different and completely pristine base.

“Templar. Templar!” Inasha called, attempting to get the Templar to return to her senses. “Are you still with us?”

Several times her eyes spun around before finally settling on Inasha. “I’m. . . Fine. Where. . . Where am I?” She looked at her screens, but her foggy mind prevented her from really seeing what she was looking at. Elsewhere on her screens she also noticed Staphan looking quite relieved at seeing her not being dead.

“Our backup base. It’s outside Cybran sensor range, remember?” The Crusader replied calmly, confident that her subordinate wasn’t going to pass out quite yet.

Slowly it all came back to Phebe. The battle, the impacts, everything. And with her memory came the realization that she was bleeding and that her head was aching badly. For a moment she brought a hand up to the wound on the side of her forehead, but quickly determined the wound itself wasn’t too bad. Certainly she had had worse. “Yes, I remember.” She then replied.

“Good.” Then, after considering something, Inasha asked, “Do you feel well enough to provoke the Cybrans into attacking?”

“A taunt?” Phebe inquired, and after receiving a nod from Inasha she replied with a slight smirk, “Okay.”

# # # # #

“It’ll take more than that to kill a true believer of the Way!” The extremely pesky Templar proclaimed in her transmission to Grav and his subordinates.

“Son of a B*TCH!!” Lexa screamed at her screen. “Why won’t she goddamn die?!”

She was about to press the button that would allow her to send a message back, but Grav stopped her. “Get a hold of yourself already! Take your finger off that button and cool down for a moment. Can’t you see they’re provoking us and that you’re doing exactly as they want?”

“I don’t care! They--”

“I said cool it!” Grav shouted, losing his own cool for a moment. “Now, listen up already. The Templar is out of the equation. She is probably being kept somewhere safe and judging by how she looked, she probably won’t be terribly effective for the rest of the battle. If you want to kill someone, focus on that Crusader instead. How does that sound?”

Lexa wanted to protest some more, but Sledge was all ears. “How?” He asked.

“Tactics, boy. Tactics. . .”

# # # # #

It was like the defence of the Sol 3 capital was happening all over again, except played in slow motion. That was the impression left on Gladius as he glanced at the screen displaying the city wide situation. Except this time there would be no retreat.

He had no intention of letting this city fall, though. The portion that had been placed under his care was holding fast, and all those under his command were holding as well. It did not diminish the feeling that this defence was going to fail eventually, though. And this time his own family was present in the city as well. Not the most comforting thought.

“We cannot hold this position anymore, we need to retreat!” A voice called over the emergency channel shared by all senior officers. It was Trinity. “We cannot hold off that Grand Crusader anymore!”

Quickly, Gladius looked to the Purgatory that had been under the command of Trinity’s forces, King. The bases around it were being ground to dust by the Aeon pilots and King itself was now only a few minutes at most from being destroyed. As if the different Battle Contingents were racing to complete their objectives, namely destroying their assigned Purgatories first, Hektor reported calmly and curtly, “The defence of Tsar is failing as well.”

Acting commander of all forces Sarren quickly ordered both to, “Fall back and take up positions at the secondary defensive line! If you must retreat, ensure the artillery is destroyed. Do not give it to the Aeon!”

“Yes, commander!” Trinity replied, followed quickly by Hektor.

And indeed both pieces of strategic artillery were taken down within minutes of each other. Tsar was destroyed by Hektor himself while King fell to enemy fire. Weapons-fire destroyed the hinging system that kept the barrel pointing upward, sending the massive thing pitching downward uncontrollably until the base of the barrel impacted the base of the gun platform. The whole barrel tore at that point and the top portion crashed to the ground. The gun was ruined and would never fire again.

The Cybran pilots did exactly as they had been ordered. They retreated to the secondary defence line, suffering only a single casualty in the process. Of course the Aeon immediately followed and laid siege to that line as well. And now there was no heavy artillery support to aid them anymore.

Well, not quite. Emperor still stood strong and was firing at a steady rate at anything that looked vulnerable. Since the start of the battle it had racked up so many kills of units and structures that the estimated number was getting close to five digits. A single glance at the pockmarked landscape gave the distinct impression that that number should be far higher.

There was no time to consider improbable statistics, though. More units were incoming. There were always more units coming. And Gladius would always be there to ward them off.

# # # # #

Quite nearly Inasha let loose with an expletive when an artillery shell from Emperor wiped out another of her carefully prepared ground forces. Truly, land forces larger than a couple dozen units were almost useless as they were too big a target for Emperor to miss. And no amount of mobile shield generators could defend against that firepower. Yet focusing on air units yielded no progress either. Gemini Stealth fighters intercepted anything she or her battle group could think of to attack with. If only she had more forces like the Grand Crusaders attacking the other Purgatories had had. . .

No she would just have to make do with what she had. But despite her conviction to continue it was looking rather obvious that she simply couldn’t muster enough forces to push close to that infernal artillery, not without leaving her base too open to attack.

She and her battle group tried again. A new assault force was put together and transferred to the command of the Knights forming the point team. This time the ground forces moved in a very wide pattern to reduce the number that would be destroyed in the event of a hit from the artillery, while air units moved ahead to intercept bombers and gunships.

It was no use. Gemini fighters intercepted the Aeon air units and kept them busy while a Grizzly in gunship mode barged through the chaos of dog fighting aeroplanes to engage the ground units. Ordering their fighters to attack the Grizzly left them open to attack from the Cybran Gemini’s, while grouping the ground units together so more of their anti-air units were in range to counterattack would also make them a much more vulnerable target for the artillery.

“That Grizzly will tear up those forces.” Templar Phebe, who had been assigned as a glorified SCU pilot to Inasha’s base due to her head injuries, pointed out. Her ACU had been patched up. It wasn’t pretty, but it could walk again. “I’m not sure sending our remaining air force to take it out is a wise idea, though. We’d be sacrificing too much for too little gain.”

Under normal circumstances Inasha would agree, but they had already tried the careful method. If that didn’t work, it was time to get bold. All of her career she had preferred to play it safe, but now that age was starting to chip away at her skill, she felt it necessary to compensate with aggressiveness. “We need to push forward somehow. Send in the air force. Take that Grizzly down, now, then turn the air force back around immediately.”

“Very well.” Phebe replied.

The backup air force abandoned their regular patrol route and flew to intercept the relatively slow moving Grizzly. Almost all at once the Corona air superiority fighters fired their main cannons at the massive experimental unit that looked like it didn’t belong in the air. The first salvo only tore away pieces of armour, but otherwise did little actual damage to internal systems. The experimental’s own anti-air weaponry was wholly unsuited for the task of defending against so many fighters. As the fighters came around again and again for additional passes the Grizzly started faltering, but Gemini’s also joined the fray and started picking off Corona’s.

By then the Grizzly had reached the ground force and was firing it’s weaponry at them, but it wasn’t given the time to do much damage. Blue bursts of light and Flak impacted the experimental all over it, prodding at every weak spot that had been uncovered during previous salvos, slowly witling away at it’s delicate internals. First one of it’s gatling guns failed, followed by a couple of secondary thrusters that kept it airborne, though it managed to stay aloft despite that. Finally the very much accidental impact of one of the Corona’s crashing straight into it’s weakened chest brought it down to the ground.

With the air units out of the way the ground force advanced as per the original plan, guided by the three Knights, each of whom commanded a part of it.

“Air units approaching our base!” Phebe suddenly warned.

Two air units, probably Grizzlies judging by their speed, approached Inasha’s base from the south while a larger and faster group was only just being picked up to the north-west by her omni sensors, stealth aircraft. They had to be Revenant strategic bombers. How in the Princess’ name had they managed to get behind her base without being noticed? No, more importantly, what was she supposed to use to fend them off? And why had she not seen those two signatures to the south approaching her base earlier?

“Get those Coro--” Inasha started to order, but Phebe was already ahead of her.

“They’re coming, but they won’t be on time to intercept.” The Templar replied, having quickly estimated the time those units would need to return. She was still looking a bit fuzzy, not quite capable of fully focusing her eyes on anything, but her mind still worked well nonetheless.

It all went extraordinarily fast. One of the Grizzlies stopped to engage ground targets, taking masses of anti-air fire in return, while the other steamrolled ahead deeper into the base to find something more vulnerable: ACU’s and SCU’s. Aside from Phebe acting as an SCU pilot, there were two more who were actually supposed to be such.

The bombers, approaching from the optimal angle to do so, headed straight for Inasha’s power generators. The generators had been grouped together, but not so close that taking out a few would cause a chain reaction that destroyed all of them.

Through excellent timing of the payloads the minimum required number of bombers managed to punch through all of the shields and reach the generators underneath. Most of her power generating capacity was gone in an instant, pretty much bringing her production to a halt. To make matters worse, that meant there was not enough power for her to keep her shields operational, either. Only quickly reducing her base’s power consumption prevented her ACU’s personal shields from deactivating as well.

“Crusader! Over here!” The young Templar called. The Templar operated her own miniature base right outside of Inasha’s. It had it’s own power generators to operate a comparatively huge number of shields and a few mass fabricators. All of it combined made it a incredibly well shielded factory for experimentals.

The Crusader did not intend to take refuge in that mini fortress, though. There were still some shields around her, and the bombers were quickly being taken down. All that rested was taking care of the Grizzlies, especially the one that was actively hunting for her.

It had already located her and was bearing down on her, but instead of running Inasha stood her ground and turned to face it. Her ACU had no specialised anti-air weapons, but she didn’t need them. Ignoring the fact that a hail of proton shells would greet her, Inasha gritted her teeth in preparation, took personal control of her ACU and headed straight for the flying experimental.

She was in range of it’s weapons before she could fire back at it, but momentum quickly brought the experimental in range. The Grizzly’s gatling cannons spun up and fired the moment they locked onto her, but through having studied the unit over the past couple of days she had been able to predict how long it took for the weapons to spin up and how fast the shells flew. With that information she managed to sidestep the initial barrage and get her own weapon in range and lined up. The very moment the Grizzly adjusted for her change in movement she let loose with an overcharged shot.

The very moment her shot left the barrel, the first proton shells impacted her ACU, rattling her to the bone. Her shields took the brunt of the blow, though, leaving her ACU intact. The overcharged shot, aimed personally, impacted with pinpoint precision in the Grizzly’s chest area, obliterating one of it’s main thrusters. With it’s balance gone, the experimental stopped firing and instead diverted all power to it’s remaining thrusters in an effort to remain airborne. It was unsuccessful, though, and it’s owner ordered it to land.

With momentum still bringing it closer to her, it looked like the Cybran owner was aiming to land it right on top of her. Obviously, this was not a desirable outcome. Utilizing the ACU equivalent of a dive, she dove her ACU to the side. An ACU was not built for such ridiculous manoeuvres, but it was enough to get out of the experimental’s path. Her several dozen metre tall war machine crashed to the ground right beside where the experimental landed, then quickly managed to get back to it’s feet.

Though inertial dampeners were supposed to reduce g forces to more manageable levels, Inasha was feeling quite rattled by the time she stood again. Nonetheless she turned to the Grizzly immediately and through blurry vision managed to acquire the easily spotted target that stood only a couple of metres away from her.

It was already turning towards her and was using it’s flexible spine to twist towards her more quickly as well, letting it’s main weaponry acquire her frighteningly fast. But before it could fire she brought her own weapon around again and unleashed another overcharged shot, letting it dig right into the experimental’s knee, avoiding the thick thigh armour by mere inches. The lower leg was blasted clean off and the experimental crashed down to the ground. Inasha only barely managed to get out of the way.

A third shot decapitated the experimental, sending an impressive array of shrapnel in every direction, but otherwise having less of an effect on it than she had wished it would. Like some headless demon it remained operational and frantically tried to get one of it’s weapons aligned with her. A fourth shot to the already damage chest finished it off, though.

Feeling reinvigorated after her victory over something that was normally far more powerful than an ACU, Inasha looked to the other Grizzly and saw that a combination of ground based anti-air and the returning air force had taken it down.

There was something far more worrying on one of her tactical screens, though. The distinct sign of a large artillery shell heading straight for her. . .

So I overlooked something after all. . . She thought to herself.

# # # # #

“Crusader. . ?” Phebe wondered softly as the dust clouds reached for the sky. A brief burst of light and it had been over, even though it had looked like the Crusader was about to get away completely unscathed.

Before even one of their battle group managed to respond to the new situation, Amalda was already contacting them. “Templar Obu, confirm the death of the Crusader.”

Though shaken, Obu was quick to respond. “Confirmed. Crusader Inasha has fallen.”

“Templar Obu, you are second in command of your battle group, take over in the Crusader’s stead.” Amalda ordered, wasting no time.

By far the quickest to recover from the incident, Obu replied, “Understood, Lord Crusader. We will continue our mission.”

“Good.” Amalda replied, and then added a lot softer, “Be careful, do not lose anyone else.”

Obu nodded and Amalda was gone from their screens again. As one all three Knights sighed heavily, while Templar Tyrana looked somewhat troubled by this development.

“How can the Crusader be the one to fall?” Staphan wondered out loud, sounding as if he didn’t quite belief it had happened yet. “Hasn’t she seen more combat than even the Lord Crusader? How can she be killed?”

“Chance. Nothing else could have bested her.” Shila said, unable to imagine that anything else could have done the Crusader in.

Templar Obu, now the one in command, wouldn’t have any more speculation, though. “We can discuss this later. Focus on the battle for now.” Though he did a good job at hiding it, Phebe clearly saw the strain on his face. It was only natural. Besides Amalda, he had known Inasha longest.

# # # # #

For as long as Amalda could remember Inasha had always been her second in command with only a few short intermittent periods where it hadn’t been the case. She had been a good second, always ready to do her job no matter what it might entail, sometimes offering advice, but never complaining. Only when Amalda had risen to Lord Crusader had the gap between them grown too large for Inasha to remain her second.

They were days she would miss.

And these Cybrans would pay for the life they took today, for all the lives they took today.

# # # # #

“Yeah! Take that!” Lexa screamed at her screens in sheer unbridled glee.

“I love seeing Aeon ACU’s cook off.” Grav muttered a little more reservedly. “Good work people. We bagged ourselves a Crusader.”

“Yeah!” Lexa repeated happily. An instant later she was pointing at her screen and shouting, “There’s that Templar!” And a second later their sensors revealed the Templar was gone. “Cr*p. . . Teleported out.”

“Don’t worry. There’s still time.” Grav advised sagely, following it by instructing, “For now, focus on those three Knights at the front. We’ll give them a good pounding, and hopefully split their forces in two. Then we’ll take out one side at a time. Sound good?”

“Absolutely, commander.” Was Lexa’s enthusiastic reply.

The more reserved Sledge didn’t reply. He wondered how Lexa could possibly be so enthusiastic now. Yes, the Crusader was dead, but didn’t bring Danko back.

A counterattack from the Aeon quickly convinced him that thinking of such things was not advisable right now, though.

# # # # #

Not good, not good! Barret thought as he looked at the slowly expanding territory the Aeon had conquered. His strategic map did a good job of painting a clear picture of where the ever shifting lines were located. And since King and Tsar fell those lines moved ever more quickly in the Aeon’s favour. Right now it looked the scales had been tipped in Lord Crusader Amalda’s favour, but perhaps not irreparably so.

“Mist! Are you in position, yet?” He asked as he opened a channel.

“About ten minutes. We encountered some resistance along the way.” She reported as calmly as ever. “Will it be in time?”

“Hopefully. We lost King and Tsar and the Aeon are making use of that. If we don’t do something soon it’ll be over.” Barret replied, stressing the importance of her mission.

“Nine minutes. We’re moving as fast as we can. Just give us the Lord Crusader’s position and we’ll do the rest.”

Barret did exactly that and then went back to the task of keeping Amalda in that specific location. She possessed two main bases, each operated by two SCU pilots, and numerous smaller forward bases, most of which operated automatically. He had four somewhat smaller main bases, but less forward bases, and had a total of five SCU pilots aiding him. He had started out with seven such pilots, but Amalda had quickly picked off the more careless ones as if they were nothing.

Six minutes remained.

He ordered his various armies to move. There were umerous Grizzlies backed up by large numbers of Loyalists and various sorts of support units, including the ever useful mobile stealth generators to keep everything from being immediately detected. Spy planes flew ahead to detect sensors outposts that might pick up the armies on omni sensors and bombers and gunships followed to destroy anything the spy planes found.

Amalda countered by taking out the air units with precisely timed attacks from Corona air superiority fighters, but by then the sensor outposts were already gone. A few of Barret’s individual armies were discovered by Corona’s passing overhead and Amalda quickly concluded that there had to be more. Her own spy planes soon discovered the remaining armies. So far it had been exactly as Barret had more or less expected. Heavy artillery and nuclear weapons soon obliterated his two largest armies. Considering how many nukes she had used up until now he was fairly sure she had none left.

So he moved another army onto the board. This one larger than either of the two she had just taken out. Soon enough it was detected and indeed no nuclear weapons greeted it. That did not mean she was powerless however. Two large wings of bombers moved around the smaller armies in front and attempted to flank the larger army. Gunships followed behind. Barret countered by moving in his Gemini’s to intercept the bombers. But Amalda was good. She anticipated the fighters and sent in the Corona’s from earlier.

The ground forces had been arranged with their anti-air units at the flanks however and as per the plan his SCU pilots moved them towards the bombers and fighters. The Gemini’s lured the Corona’s in closer and then got out as quickly as possible while the mobile flak units filled the air with Flak. Nearly all of the Corona’s were destroyed or at the very least heavily damaged, letting the Gemini’s come around and go after the remaining bombers with minimal resistance. The army, still mostly intact, moved forward.

Further ahead the other smaller forces had engaged the forward bases belonging to Amalda. Assault experimentals of both sides exchanged fire while here and there a CZAR appeared and rained death from above. Most of the forward bases managed to hold, though, which wasn’t exactly what Barret had hoped, though it did serve his ultimate plan better. He didn’t want Amalda suddenly moving away in fear of his forces after all.

One minute.

His main army moved at the sluggish pace of it’s slowest components, taking out stray Aeon units along the way. Engineers moved along with them and built radar towers every kilometre or so to provide the ground units with accurate information and more importantly, keep track of Amalda herself. She was still in position in the safety of her base, using her ACU to build more Galactic Colossuses.

His remaining army was large enough to punch right through her damaged forward bases, so Amalda sent her own ground forces to counter and retain as much ground as possible. Exactly what he had hoped she would do. It reduced the number of units in her main base, leaving her more vulnerable to attack. Of course normally that wasn’t much of a problem. She was using her army to take out the sole enemy army she knew still remained. He had a trick up his sleeve, though.

“In position.” Mist reported.

“Perfect. . .” Barret muttered more to himself than to her. “Proceed with the plan.”

“Acknowledged.”

Chapter 66: Reign of the Emperor (Part 2)

Barret has to have some sort of plan. Amalda thought to herself as she looked at the approaching army. He is feeding me resources in the form of his armies and he knows they’re not enough to defeat me. Or at least he should. What is his angle?

She knew she was the better pilot, this battle with him had proven as much as it was easy for her to battle him on equal ground and still have enough time to control the rest of her forces. But even if she was better, he was more than good enough to know this tactic as it was looking now would only end badly for him. He was depositing experimental units full of precious mass right at her doorstep ready for her to reclaim them and use their mass for her own armies once this particular battle was over. There had to be something else for him to gain.

Then it happened. The impossible happened. Explosions rocked the shields of her main base, punching through several of them at the first salvo. Less then twenty seconds later the second salvo of four shells impacted, bursting more shields and obliterating much of what was underneath them. One shell even found it’s way to her ACU, nearly toppling it with a tactical nuclear detonation.

Where was this coming from? According to her sensors the shells were coming from the south west, but there was nothing there that could fire with such force. There was nothing at all. Radar confirmed as much. Or was there? While moving her ACU to the safety of other shields she noticed some strange sensor readings being picked up in the area where the shells seemed to be coming from. Scouts flying over that area a mere minute ago had shown there wasn’t anything there, but perhaps. . .

The scouts soon flew overhead again and showed her worst nightmare come to life. A tunnel! That sneaky Cybran monster had dug a tunnel. And standing in the mouth of it was the largest behemoth of a unit she had ever seen. The second of it’s kind she had seen. A Crimson! Just how had he managed to build a tunnel big enough to move such a thing?! Where had they gotten it?! Was the TDF here?!

The strange readings on her sensors were being caused by the Crimson still being partially inside the tunnel. Only it’s barrels and the very top of it’s torso stuck out from it. The numerous heavy Flak cannon along it’s top quickly acquired her scouts and blasted them from the sky. The very last of them managed to send back images of the Crimson firing it’s main weaponry again. And sure enough the four shells arrived almost precisely at her location, bursting shields all around her and leaving her almost completely unprotected.

She sent what little bombers she had at her base to attack the relatively unknown unit, but they were insufficient. The Crimson’s mighty shield deflected all damage easily. It fired again.

This just wasn’t fair! What was the TDF doing here?!

Three of it’s shells hit the ground all around her, whittling away at her modified shields, and the fourth hit her dead on. It was almost as if her cockpit fell to pieces. It contorted and buckled inwards, the lights popped, most screens burned out and small bits and pieces of glass and metal flew everywhere.

When the ACU stopped groaning at the impacts, there was pain and she was sure that she was bleeding, but at least she wasn’t unconscious. Or was she? Perhaps she was already dead and she had truly become one with the Way as they said would happen. No, it wouldn’t be like that. It had always been her understanding that she wouldn’t be bleeding upon becoming one with the Way. No, this was still her cockpit, but it was dark. And in that darkness, she was helpless.

She felt as if she were being pushed into her chair. Was her ACU on it’s back? Probably. But perhaps she could move it.

As she moved her hands to where her controls should be she felt her pain spiking. There was something quite wrong with some part of her body, but in the dark she couldn’t make out which of her different pains was the truly dangerous one.

Ignoring the pain, she moved her hands to her controls and grasped them. Nothing happened as she moved them, though. Her ACU remained motionless.

“In the name of the Princess, damn the TDF!” She cursed loudly as she let herself sink back in her chair.

# # # # #

The Lord Crusader’s battered ACU lay on it’s back, motionless. A wicked smile spread along Barret’s face as his spy plane moved out of range, leaving only the signature of Amalda’s ACU on his sensors. Four more shells were already on their way. This battle was over.

His smile faded abruptly when the shells impacted. The Lord Crusader’s ACU vanished from his sensors, but there was no satisfying mushroom cloud like the one he wanted.

“Did we get her?” Mist inquired, asking for confirmation the moment she saw the ACU’s signature vanish.

“Wait one.” He replied as he ordered another spy plane to fly overhead. It found four fresh impact craters from high calibre weapons, but no sign of the Aeon ACU. Not even individual parts of it that should be there if it had merely broken apart while somehow avoiding a catastrophic failure of it’s reactor. “Damn it! She isn’t there! No explosion and no ACU. She teleported away!”

“What?!” Mist exclaimed, momentarily losing her composure. “I was watching. She had personal shields. An ACU can’t have shields and a personal teleporter!”

“She had a modified ACU for Lord Crusaders. It’s probable it has a teleporter for emergencies.” Barret reasoned, followed by a furious, “Damn it!”

As the Crimson kept on firing at the base, wiping it and it’s resident SCU pilots away at an absurdly high pace, Mist offered a possibility. “Her ACU looked very battered. It’s possible Amalda’s at least incapacitated.”

“I don’t want her incapacitated. I want her DEAD! If she isn’t, even if we win here today, she’ll be back eventually.” He looked away for a second, and then muttered, “Oh well, at least we should make use of what little confusion we created with this. Wipe out those bases and then attack the pilots to the east.”

# # # # #

“We have located the Lord Crusader.” A Templar reported to an anxious Samin. The Templar had been sent immediately to search for Amalda. Her emergency gear had activated and teleported her away, but after that the only contact they had had was an emergency beacon. “The ACU is severely damaged and only it’s emergency beacon is responding. It appears the reactor has shut down.”

“Check the Lord Crusader’s health and set up an emergency evacuation.” Samin quickly instructed as she followed the proceedings on one of her secondary screens. They needed Amalda for this battle. The original battle plan had been changed and tweaked by her during the battle in such ways that only she could know what they were actually supposed to do now. Without her things would fall apart.

The Knight that had accompanied the Templar disembarked from her ACU and made her way on foot to the Lord Crusader’s cockpit. The Templar in the mean time set up a base with a quantum gate for the evacuation. So far they remained undetected and as they were far away from any fighting that probably wouldn’t change.

While the Knight worked on accessing the cockpit Samin looked back to her strategic screens, which now displayed not only her own section of the battlefield, but those of the other Grand Crusaders as well. It had now fallen to her to direct the others. And their pilots. All of them. An impossible task by the looks of it. How was she supposed to oversee four other Grand Crusaders spread over two different planets, not to mention all the Choirs that worked behind the scenes. She felt a new respect for the Lord Crusader as she realized that Amalda had done all of this and still been able to fight one-on-one with the enemy commander, an able to pilot who would probably defeat Samin easily.

And what was that massive unit that had so quickly wiped out the Lord Crusader’s base? Even now an image of it was displayed and still she could not recognise the unit. Not even the vaguest memory of anything like that being mentioned came to mind. How could this be a Cybran unit? Even something that size should not be able to project such vast amounts of firepower, not with the current level of technology. Numerous theories came to mind, but none of them seemed to make any sense. At first she thought it might be a UEF unit, considering the design looked nothing like what Cybrans usually favoured, but what could the UEF be doing here? And where would they have gotten the technology?

The priority now was ensuring Amalda’s safety, but Samin wanted to find out more about this. If anyone knew, the Avatar of War would. So she contacted the Templar again and asked, “Have you made any progress?”

“The entire hull of the Lord Crusader’s ACU has deformed. The hatch is buckled and stuck. The Knight is unable to open it. We don’t have any tools to get through the hatch.” The Templar replied, sounding sorry for her failure to make any progress.

Improvisation being her specialty, Samin was quick to lend advice. “Use your ACU’s nanolathing equipment to reclaim the hatch and anything else that might be in the way. You will need to override several security protocols, so I will send you the codes to do so. But be careful. Don’t reclaim too much. Contact me when you’re done.”

“Understood, Grand Crusader. We will do as you say.”

Samin quickly sent the security codes and then sent a communiqué to Seraphim 2 requesting to speak with the Avatar of War. To her utmost surprise it was the Avatar himself who responded. Around this time it should be night for him. “Grand Crusader Samin, have you started a recovery operation for the Lord Crusader?” Apparently he was aware of Amalda’s unfortunate incident, but was not yet up to date on all the details.

“Yes, we have located her ACU and are attempting extraction now. As of yet we do not yet know if she injured. However, what I wished to speak of was this.” She sent the images of the unknown unit to Avatar Marxon and explained, “This is the unit that overwhelmed the Lord Crusader. I have never seen anything like it.”

Was that a slight widening of his eyes she detected there? If so, nothing else indicated any sort of reaction to the news. He looked at the images only briefly and then asked of her, “Have any other unfamiliar units been detected alongside this one?”

“No Avatar, it was accompanied by Cybran SCU’s.” Samin replied.

“Then this unit is your new primary objective. Destroy it as soon as possible. Destroy it with overwhelming force.” Avatar Marxon then stated with raised voice, indicating how serious he was about this.

Samin was not one to back down from even the Avatar, though, not when his words appeared to endanger the success of the mission. “But if we do that we’ll take away forces from the campaign for the city. We cannot afford that now.”

Glaring at her with an ice cold steely gaze, Marxon said, “Let me make this very clear. That unit is more dangerous than entire armies combined. Take it down now, or you can forget about the city.”

Understanding she was now threading on thin ice, and realizing that the Avatar would be so adamant for a good reason, Samin quickly replied, “Understood Avatar.” But she still dared to ask of the obviously vexed Marxon, “But where did it come from? Even Cybrans could not possibly have built something so powerful. If they had that technology they. . . This war would have ended decades ago.”

Now Marxon’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he peered at her angrily. “Leave the investigation to me, Grand Crusader. I will find out where it came from. You will focus on destroying it. Understood?”

“Y-- Yes!” The veteran pilot stuttered.

A moment later she had mercifully been released from the Avatar’s gaze and looked back to the progress on the Lord Crusader’s ACU. The Templar had only just managed to reclaim the hatch, opening the way for the Knight to look inside. Soon after the Templar appeared on Samin’s screen again. “The Knight has found the Lord Crusader. She is severely injured and losing blood. It appears she has also sustained head injuries. It may be dangerous to move her.”

Shaking her head, Samin said, “Her ACU can’t possibly survive travel through the quantum network. Either you get her out, or she dies. Get an emergency transport vehicle and sent her straight to Reranda’s headquarters when your gate is ready. Waste no time. Understood?”

Once the Templar acknowledged the command, Samin turned her attention to that mysterious unit. It had to be destroyed. Considering it’s location, this was probably a better job for Saphire.

“Grand Crusader, I have new orders for you.” It felt more than a little strange to order another Grand Crusader anything, but she wouldn’t let something like that stop her. “There is a never before seen type of experimental unit west of your position. It must be destroyed at all costs.”

“Is that the thing that ambushed the Lord Crusader?” Saphire inquired, and when Samin nodded she said fiercely, “Then it will be destroyed!”

But she didn’t destroy it. Though it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Her first attempt consisted of a small wing of strategic bombers to probe the unit’s shield. They were promptly shot from the sky by a combination of heavy Flak and missiles. Next she upped the ante by launching a nuclear weapon straight at it. It managed to avoid a direct hit and the missile landed right next to the shield, which pulsed madly at the impact, but otherwise remained intact.

Next she tried a nuclear weapon trap, expending her remaining nuclear weapons. Six nuclear missiles were launched in a hexagonal pattern, ensuring one of them hit the experimental dead on. The mushroom clouds melded together, but that terrifying unit was still striding through them undeterred. It’s shield had given in, but the surface of the unit was barely more than singed. A few of the smaller weapons looked to have been damaged, but the main weaponry still looked fine.

There was no time for more tactics as the unit had made it to a well defended Cybran outpost. From there it started firing it’s main weaponry at everything identified as Aeon within range. It was painful to watch for Samin as entire armies were wiped away and outposts were levelled in mere minutes.

“This is impossible!” Saphire called out as the units and structures belonging to one of her subordinates were obliterated. Soon the pilot had to teleport away, but one SCU pilot wasn’t so lucky.

As the mysterious experimental moved to a different Cybran outpost, this time supported by an army of Cybran units, Saphire tried more tactics. Bombers and gunships were thrown at it en masse, whole legions of Harbingers opposed it and a combined total of a dozen Galactic Colossuses and CZAR’s attempted to bring it to a halt. It was to no avail.

Half of the bombers and gunships never arrived thanks to intercepting Gemini’s, and those that did were taken out by copious amounts of Flak from both the experimental and the surrounding ground units. The four CZAR’s met the exact same fate. One was even sent crashing to the ground by an accidental hit from the artillery. The army of Harbingers was wiped away the quickest of all by a generous sprinkling of tactical nuclear shells.

Only the Galactic Colossuses managed to do something. Two were taken out before even getting in range, but the other six managed to move in close while the Harbingers were being wiped away. One Colossus fell in due time to the Loyalists escorting the beast, but the other five managed to at least get past those. One caught a salvo of four shells straight in the chest at what basically amounted to point-blank range, actually blasting it of it’s feet. Another caught a shell in the knee and was made useless as a result. Though it was still online and dangerous, it could no longer move in close enough to fire it’s weapon.

The remaining three managed to get close enough to fire their weapons, but by then the shield had come back online. In return thick blue beams buried themselves in one of the Colossuses while the artillery was used very much counter to it’s intended purpose by aiming at something extremely close to it. To do so the entire unit had to pitch down a little bit. A Colossus was beheaded when it fired. Or rather, everything above the arms, including the shoulders, was blasted away. It’s arms went flying and what remained of the unit collapsed backwards immediately.

The remaining two managed to finally breach the shield, but one of them was unable to do much else as the blue laser beams had whittled away it’s armour by then and were obliterating it’s internals. The last remaining Colossus at least managed to bury it’s Phason laser in the front of the other experimental’s torso, taking out the laser turret there. It burned through a few of the Flak turrets along the top as well, but after that the artillery had acquired it’s new target. Though the Colossus miraculously managed to survive the initial barrage, the lasers soon finished it off.

After that there was nothing stopping the unit from reaching another Cybran outpost, repair itself, and repeat the cycle.

Samin and Saphire were both baffled. There was just no way either the Cybrans or the UEF could possibly have made such a monster.

# # # # #

“Good work, Mist!” Barret applauded as he witnessed the carnage wrought by the Crimson. Mist was guiding the Crimson from base to base, while moving along a different path to those bases with her ACU. “Have the pilots you pass keep adding units to the supporting army. Let there be no chance of the Aeon getting in a lucky strike.”

“I do know what I’m doing, you know.” Mist quickly quipped. She then added more seriously, “I just hope I’ll never have to face this thing.”

“I completely agree.”

The cycle kept repeating itself, and every time more units were added to the supporting army. Even half a dozen Grizzlies now moved alongside it. For the most part they attempted to avoid nuclear strikes by moving from outpost to outpost as quickly as possible, but sometimes a few nukes wiped out groups of supporting units. The Crimson always survived, though, and Grizzlies mostly remained airborne, making it easier to avoid nuclear strikes for them. Gemini’s meanwhile kept the bombers at bay.

As time passed it became more and more like the Aeon were getting out of the way pre-emptively. This was especially true for their ACU and SCU pilots, none of which dared to get anywhere near the thing after more than a few of them had fallen to it’s shells. Of course there was no shortage of units, experimental or otherwise, that were sent to stop it. Every time the Crimson entered a new area, more Aeon units had been readied, quickly ballooning the confrontations to absurd scales.

And in it’s wake, the Crimson left only craters and easy to pick off bases. The Cybran pilots were extremely grateful for this and made sure to retake as much land as possible and drive away all the Aeon pilots that they could. Eventually even the much feared Grand Crusader Saphire was forced into a retreat after the Crimson had passed her by.

Then the inevitable happened. The Aeon got desperate.

“An Aeon ACU just teleported in right next to the Crimson!” Mist reported.

The newly arrived ACU immediately turned it’s weapon up towards the Crimson and unleashed an overcharged bolt, obliterating one of the Heavy DeltaWave laser turrets mounted on the sides of it’s torso. The many, many Cybran units around it immediately turned to fire at the newcomer and Mist was only just in time with ordering them to hold their fire. She had no intention of letting a detonating ACU ruin the Crimson.

The ACU flung another overcharged bolt at the Crimson, this time hitting the underside of the torso. All that did was blow a chunk out of it, though. Everything that was hit had replacements ready to take over elsewhere in the unit.

Mist took control of the Crimson herself and attempted to move it away from the ACU, but due to it’s particularly slow acceleration the ACU managed to keep up just fine. So she had to improvise. In an attempt to floor the ACU she stomped the ground with the Crimson, hoping the tremors, would throw the ACU to the ground. No such luck, though. The Aeon pilot was actually quite good despite her obvious suicidal tendencies. Then why had she not figured out simply self-destructing would be by far the quickest way to do this? Perhaps she hoped the fear of a detonating ACU would keep Mist from shooting at her, letting the pilot repeatedly use overcharged shots to eventually bring down the giant and then teleport away?

There was no way Mist would let that happen.

The stomping didn’t work, but Mist wasn’t done yet. Manipulating the unfamiliar controls of the Crimson she tried to use one of the Crimson’s massive feet to push the Aeon ACU away. It worked only marginally. The ACU was dented and temporarily thrown off balance, but still remained upright.

Time to get drastic, then. She turned the Crimson just right for what she planned. In the mean time the ACU got off another overcharged bolt, this time hitting a more sensitive system: The internal portions of the Crimson’s radar. Repairs would be in order.

But the Crimson was now in position. She rose the right foot and drew it back while balancing the gigantic unit on the other foot as well as possible. Then, with all the force she could draw from the awkward controls, she brought the foot forward rapidly, essentially kicked the ACU straight in the chest. To her relief the ACU did not spontaneous detonate upon the impact and it instead went flying as she had hoped. Upon coming down again it rolled several times before coming to a halt. By then it was so deformed it was impossible to identify the faction that had built the ACU. But somehow it still remained operational.

Mist didn’t wait to see how much power the Aeon ACU pilot still managed to draw from the battered machine. She turned the Crimson around and put some distance between it and the ACU. At the same time she had a portion of her army surround the ACU so it couldn’t escape, while the rest of the nearby units vacated the blast radius of the war machine’s inevitable destruction.

To Mist’s amazement the ACU pilot wasn’t dead or even unconscious from the impact and even managed to get the ACU to stand upright and attempt to break through the surrounding units. It was almost a shame to put an end to such a persistent pilot, but Mist nonetheless let her units have their way with the ACU once the Crimson was far enough away. The nuclear detonation that followed hardly affected the Crimson’s shield at all.

“Nicely done.” Barret complimented. “I got worried there for a moment.”

Apparently others had been able to listen in on Barret and Mist for a while now, for Grav suddenly pointed out, “Are you feeling alright Barret? You’re complimenting her an awful lot today. . .”

“Truly. At least I’m not the only one that noticed.” Trinity soon added.

“Perhaps you expected us to exchange hateful comments at all times?” Mist inquired completely deadpan, countering the argument of both pilots.

And to add to the counterattack, Barret growled, “Don’t you guys have better things to do than comment on useless things?!”

“Just saying. . .” Grav piped, intimidated. He then frowned, looked at Trinity with a clear question mark on his face and finally simply closed his end of the channel. Trinity soon followed suit.

“Ugh. . .” Barret looked back to Mist and said, “Just continue with what you’re doing.”

“Gladly.”

# # # # #

Samin watched it all fall apart. The east flank pushing into the city was slowly crumbling under the weight of that damned unit. An attempt to use commanders from the west flank to aid the east had only resulted in the west weakening enough for the Cybran pilots there to mount a counter offensive. Elsewhere on the planet Grand Crusader Esther was having a great deal of trouble maintaining her own offensives as well. Only the situation on Bern 4 remained stable, with Grand Crusaders Tallen and Numeria fighting the Cybrans to a standstill there.

But all depended on this city. The victor here would have the pilots to spare and sent elsewhere. And so far it looked like the Cybrans would be the victorious side. The numbers certainly didn’t lie. On the east flank casualties were now far higher on the Aeon side. And it was only getting worse.

This battle had turned. Even if she devised some tactic to repel that monstrous experimental, it would take so many units and so much resources that they wouldn’t have enough left to throw back the Cybran counterattacks. The Cybran commander in charge was no fool. He would not rely on that one unit as his one tactic. Already he was probably devising other strategies to remove the Aeon from his planet.

But what now? Simply uproot all Aeon pilots immediately and retreat? What about elsewhere? Bern 4? Things had not yet turned against them there.

A rough plan came together in her head. She was going to have to improvise most of it as she went along, but at least the outlines of it were clear.

“Grand Crusader Esther.” She started as she contacted the other pilot. “Our offensive of the Cybran capital city is failing. We will execute a controlled retreat. It will fall to you to distract the Cybrans while we do so. Focus on the largest population outside the capital city and force the Cybrans to send additional pilots to repel you. This will give us the opportunity to gradually retreat while reducing the chances of being overwhelmed. Once our retreat is finished we will draw the Cybran pilots away from you to other planets, allowing you to retreat as well.”

“Understood.” Esther replied instantly.

Next came contacting Saphire and she explained the plan to her as well. The other more experienced Grand Crusader would be amongst the last to leave the planet as to ensure the retreat went smoothly. Samin would be amongst the first to retreat to organise the retreat from a different planet. A portion of her pilots was sent Bern 4 in the attempt to aid Grand Crusaders Tallen and Numeria. Perhaps this way she could force a breakthrough on Bern 4.

# # # # #

But it was not to be. Barret quickly noticed what Samin was doing and countered by not sending his newly freed up pilots to Bern 4, but instead to a different planet altogether.

“I see what you’re doing there, Aeon. . .” He murmured more to himself then anyone else. On his secondary screens several highly placed pilots had gathered waiting for his instruction.

“What are our orders?” Gladius, setting aside his pride, asked of the one who in years past would have been a bitter rival.

Barret didn’t explain immediately, though, but instead first made sure they all knew one important thing. “They are retreating. This battle isn’t over yet, but we have won!” He paused a moment to let it sink in. A few tired eyes glittered again at the thought that they had succeeded. He then said, “But this campaign isn’t over. First we need to take back the planets that once belonged to the Steeltip node. And then we will push forward and take back what belonged Sol 3, New Lupus and all those other nodes. Only then will we be done.”

“And that starts now.” At the press of a button a map displaying what used to be Steeltip space appeared. Three planets in particular were highlighted. “These planet are our new objectives. The Aeon commander in charge thinks to distract us with Bern 4, but we will not bite. These are three of the planets where the Aeon built ground stations to maintain their portion of the quantum network. We will sent pilots and destroy them. If even two are destroyed we will strand all the remaining Aeon pilots on planets where we can easily reach them, while they will only have a severely limited ability to move from planet to planet.”

“There’s too many pilots to take out all of them and the rest will manage to escape eventually, but by then we will have made them pay dearly with the blood of their pilots. They will be running with their tails between their legs and we will follow to take back our territory!” Several of the pilots nodded vehemently as he spoke. Any sign of weariness from having fought for hour after hour seemed to have vanished.

“So for starters, we will need three teams. . .” He said as he looked at the likely candidates to lead such teams.

This battle had been won, but the war would continue.

# # # # #

How could this exist? Frank asked himself as he looked out of the window. Why had he never known all of this existed? He wondered while looking out at the city that lay beyond the window.

The city was large, though he expected it was far from the Steeltip capital city’s size. Tall spires reached for the sky like in any other city, but what was most wondrous about these was the sheer variety in architectural styles. Some looked Cybran, others UEF and some even had that distinct Aeon feel with their soft curves and pristine colours.

“That’s our capital city. Your new capital city.” A voice coming from the side stated. He looked and saw it Sarah. His amazement was apparently clear on his face for she smiled and said, “I can see you wondering how all of this can possibly be out here, deep in uncolonised space. All of that will be made clear, but for now let me keep it simple.” She stepped up next to him, looked out at the city for a moment, and then said, “This is the Diamond Spear, home of the TDF military force. Our leader, Star Commander Krieg, was once a member of the Steeltip node, but grew discontent. He and his followers, in one of the greatest pieces of unnoticed strategic manoeuvring, came out here and settled this city.”

“Wh-- Why?” Frank stammered as he looked at the city again.

“As I said, all will be made clear in time. For now. . . You must be tired.”

He sighed. He wanted to know more. His curiosity demanded it. Still, there were other things he also wanted to know. “Did that blasted colonel die yet?” He was more than a little conflicted as to what he wanted the answer to be. On one hand he would rejoice if he never saw the man again, but on the other hand he would still be in that prison if it hadn’t been for him.

“He was unconscious by the time we arrived here, but Nathan’s in surgery now. Apparently he’s going to be alright. We’ll see how long that lasts, what with the AI and all.” Sarah answered. Though she was obviously worried, she was also relieved that at least he was now in professional hands.

“Ah, here you are!” Another voice called out. It was Barge who came jogging towards them. “I just realised I forgot to tell you something!” He announced as he looked at Sarah with lively eyes. He then bent forward and planted a kiss on Sarah’s lips. “Thanks for coming back in one piece.”

Acting nonchalantly, Sarah replied, “Ah, you know me, I was never in any real danger.”

“You say that, but I have trouble believing that after seeing what happened to your old buddy.” As if only then noticing the shorter Frank, Barge gasped theatrically and apologised. “Oh my, I didn’t notice you there! Sorry for not introducing myself sooner. I am Barge.” He extended a hand. While Frank took it and shook, Barge was already pointing behind him with the other hand and said without looking at what he was pointing at, “And the old guy standing in the shadows over there is Hannibal. Say hi, Hannibal!”

“Hmm. . .” The more reserved Hannibal muttered from his position half obscured by the shadows while waving a little at Frank. Frank hadn’t even noticed him there.

Barge looked towards Sarah for a moment, asking a silent question, to which she merely shrugged. He then turned to Frank again and said, “I can’t be sure of course, but considering how we did things in the past, I’ll probably be the one to help you get settled in these first few days as well as showing you around the city. So let me get started right away!” He stepped towards the window, spread out his arms as if trying to engulf the entire city and said, “Let me be the first to welcome you the Diamond Spear!”

Neither Sarah nor Frank could resist letting out a chuckle. The very first thing that came to Frank’s mind was that this Barge was quite a lot like Grav.

For what felt like the tenth time, he stood at the start of a new chapter in a new environment. So far his luck with finding a home hadn’t been very good. How long would this new one last?

Chapter 67: Counterattack (Epilogue)

Day 138

Fuzzy.

That was the word that could describe how Amalda felt as she opened her eyes. Tired was another, even though she had only just awoken.

A pleasantly lit ceiling, neither too bright nor too dark, greeted her still a little blurry eyes. Subtle and simple carvings decorated it, depicting various peaceful scenes. Even though she could not at that moment remember why, she was surprised to see such a ceiling. Shouldn’t it be very dark instead?

Slowly it all came back to her. Everything. That monstrous Crimson included!

The very moment that her memory came back, she jolted up into the seated position. At least, she would have if not for the gut wrenching pain in her abdomen that prevented her from moving in such a manner. With the pain now taking priority, she more carefully sat up in her bed and looked down at the aching area. There were bandages in place, a lot of them.

“Lord Crusader, you’re awake.” A soft voice remarked from her right. Amalda looked and saw another patient sitting by the nearby table: Templar Phebe. There was a big bandage on the side of her forehead and the look in her eyes suggested the light might be bothering her. On the table in front of her lay a variety of cards that Amalda didn’t recognise, but she thought they might be part of some sort of game. There was no one else in the room.

“Templar. . .” She muttered softly. Then, as she recalled they were no longer in their ACU’s, she corrected herself with, “Phebe. . . What. . .” She grasped at her aching abdomen and couldn’t help but grunt at the pain.

“You shouldn’t be sitting.” Phebe explained as she pulled her chair closer to the bed. “You sustained a very deep wound there and tore the abdominal muscles, amongst other things. Just rest for now.” She paused a moment, then said with a soft reassuring smile, “I’ve been told your son Jarod wanted to come see you, even though you weren’t awake yet. He’ll be here in an hour or two.”

“Thank you. But. . . Why are you here?” Amalda asked, letting her eyes go to the bandage on Phebe’s head.

The Templar brought a hand up to her head and said, “Concussion. More severe than they initially thought.” And when Amalda was about to ask why the Templar was here in particular, the young Templar quickly headed her off. “Someone had to be here for you. I’m mobile enough for that.”

“Thank you. Again.” Amalda lay back for a while as she got her thoughts straight. Finally she asked, “What happened after that Crimson appeared? Did the TDF intervene?”

“No. That Crimson was the only TDF unit we saw. After your ACU teleported away, Samin took over. But she couldn’t stop it. Eventually she ordered the assault of the city to be broken off. From what I’ve heard, she tried to keep the campaign going after that but. . .” Phebe’s voice trailed off.

Confused, Amalda inquired, “She. . . Tried. . . ?”

“An hour or so after I was sent back here to Reranda for treatment, contact was lost with her and the rest of the pilots. The Cybrans took out several of the ground stations. So far we’ve been unable to get a message through.”

“How long has it been?!” Amalda demanded to know as she almost got up out of bed, ready to slug her way through any Cybran pilots to get to her comrades. A second later she crashed back into her bed as her pain overwhelmed her.

“Don’t force yourself, you’ll only delay the healing.” Phebe said quickly, placing a hand on Amalda’s shoulder to keep her down. When she was certain the Lord Crusader wouldn’t try again, she answered the original question. “It’s been fifty-two hours since contact was lost.”

It took her a moment to accept the fact that it had already been so long. “Samin’s a good pilot. . . I’m sure she can keep it together.” A sigh later she asked, “How long until I’m out of bed?”

“Out of bed? Tomorrow. Getting back in the cockpit will take longer, though. A week at least.” Phebe explained, keeping her hand on Amalda’s shoulder as she did to keep her in check if necessary.

While the hand wasn’t necessary, Amalda still quite fiercely stated, “Not good enough.” Following it up with, “Phebe, please, I’d like you to organise for me to have a connection to my headquarters from this bed.”

Instead of resisting or otherwise questioning Amalda’s state of health, Phebe stood up from her chair immediately. She then said, “Alright, I’ll do so immediately.”

Just as the Templar turned to the door, Amalda quickly said, “Thank you.” The Templar merely nodded and went to do as she had been asked to immediately, leaving Amalda alone with her thoughts for a while.

What would Inasha say about her insisting on this? Probably that she was pushing herself too hard. . .

It occurred to her that even though she and Inasha had never been real friends, Inasha had never complained about always being second in command to her. At least she was glad Inasha had met her end in a dignified fashion, standing her ground all the way.

# # # # #

Day 139

“What is this about?!” Barret inquired more than a little irritated of the hall full of council members. “Why have I been called away from my duties at an important time like this?!” He made sure to let his tone of voice reflect his thoughts on the matter perfectly.

Next to him, Nine remained quiet. She had an empty look on her face. On her other side sat Damian, with a look that wasn’t all that dissimilar from Barret’s. It seemed that for once they were thinking alike. And even though he disliked it, it was Damian who stood up and explained. “It has come to my attention that several Councillors, and a fair few of the Advisors. . .” He beamed an annoyed glance to the side at the table where the Advisors in question sat. “. . . Want to organise a temporary ceasefire with the Aeon invaders.”

To Barret’s right sat Gladius as representative of the nodes who had lost their territory. Perhaps the Council had chosen him expecting him to be less politically savvy than other potential candidates. No amount of political understanding was required to understand what was going on, though. Furious, Gladius whispered to Barret, “What the hell are you blasted Steeltips up to?!”

“I’ve got this. . .” Barret whispered back, before inquiring of Damian, “Are there any specific reasons for this?” He asked without any of his earlier tone of voice, which was visibly putting off several of those who had called this meeting.

“What!?” Gladius whispered again. “I thought you were going to handle this?!”

“Quiet.” Barret whispered in return, giving Gladius a deadly glare in the process.

In the mean time Damian was explaining. “These members of the Council are convinced that avoiding further combat against the Aeon will convince them that we do not intend to strike back and in return the Aeon will halt their own operations as well. A truce will allow the node rebuild in peace. It has been said that we as a node will not be able to survive another assault in our home system.”

Damian sat back down in the believe he had explained well enough, letting Barret stand up. He did and was quick to state what he thought of the Council’s reasoning. “Bullsh*t!” He shouted at the gathered Councillors and Advisors. “Those who called this meeting are COWARDS! We are not the only ones to have taken blows in this campaign. In fact, we took the least blows. Sol 3 and New Lupus have lost all of their territory. The Nexus Twelve node even lost all of their pilots. And now you’re saying that we should stop after we have barely recovered a portion of what was lost?! And then what? Let the Aeon keep what they’ve taken? Let the other nodes live without a home?!”

He paused a second before shouting at the now steadily shrinking Councillors, “Well F*CK that! I made a promise to those other nodes that their territory will be recovered and I damn well am going to keep that promise! So go ahead and keep calling for a ceasefire like a bunch of spineless whiny cowards, but know that you’ll have one extra problem if you do that. And that problem will be me!” With that he promptly turned around, pushing over his chair in the process, and left, leaving his chair where it was. Gladius was quick to follow.

It remained dead quiet for a while. It was a silence that Damian could practically taste. And it tasted good. Those Councillors absolutely deserved the verbal thrashing they got. When he was sure the words had sunken in he rose from his seat and asked of the Council with his booming voice, “Can I assume this meeting is adjourned?” Soon after the Councillors were starting to file out of the large room.

“That was good. . .” He then heard Nine mutter under her breath. He looked at her and saw her eyes were fixed on the exit through which Barret had left. “Zip would have liked that.”

“I think so too. . .” Damian added as he lay a hand on Nine’s shoulder and tried to prod her into standing up.

Walking down a nearby hallway were Barret and Gladius, the latter of whom was quite excited. “Oh my, I take back all the nasty things I ever said about you!” Gladius called happily. “That was good!”

“Just remember it wasn’t for you.” Barret grumbled in return, hardly looking at the other pilot as he did. “I just don’t go back on promises.”

“Still, that does not take away what you just did.”

Barely a second later Barret was being contacted on his data pad. He took it out and saw it was Mist. He quickly accepted the channel and the very first thing she said was, “Very nice. . .” And she did with a very much approving but also mischievous tone of voice.

“Don’t tell me you heard that?” Barret asked immediately, fearing the worst.

“Yes, I did. As did all the other pilots. And they liked it.” Mist replied.

“How? Wait-- Trinity right? She tapped into the broadcast system didn’t she?” She’d done so before after all.

“Possibly. . .” Mist replied teasingly, but then her voice grew cold again and she said, “Apone of the Zulu node has requested to speak with you. I’m putting him through.”

A moment later it was Apone who spoke. “That was a very nice speech. So nice in fact that I have decided to revise what I was originally going to tell you. Now that the most immediately danger has passed, I’m forced to recall my pilots and divert them to new hotspots. The UEF is making a push again, probably to take advantage of the current situation. However, thanks to your impressive speech I’ve decided to let you keep Axel and the rest of the pilots that helped you during the training of your new pilots. They’ve agreed to do this free of charge. Hopefully they will be of help.”

Although he resented the fact that the UEF was now being difficult as well, Barret understood Apone’s position well enough. “Thank you. I’m sure they will be.”

“Good luck.”

# # # # #

Day 140

“I. . . I. . .” The young woman could not speak the rest of her thoughts, though. She remained completely silent for a long while as she stared at her hands resting on the table. While waiting patiently, Sledge watched her carefully for a reaction. It seemed she wasn’t particularly heartbroken over what he had just told her, even though he had expected as much. It seemed as if she just didn’t know what to think.

Jez was her name, Danko’s sister. Sledge had tracked her to the former Dark Moon node capital city and had used what little free time he had to tell her what had happened.

Finally she spoke again. “Thank you, for telling me. We were never a close family, but it’s good to know what happened, and that he was happy at least for a while, rather than always wonder about his fate. Thanks again.” She paused a moment, then asked, “Did he ever tell you about his life before joining?”

Sledge chose to be blunt. “I overheard him speaking to a mobster who had tracked him down. I guess I should somehow let them know as well, so they’ll stop shadowing you.”

Jez seemed unsurprised at the fact she was being followed by mobsters. “I had a feeling I was being watched. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s one near the entrance of this building. A short fellow. He’s always there when I enter or exit the building, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him follow me elsewhere as well.”

Knowing there wasn’t really anything else for him here, Sledge stood up and said, “Then I’ll see about making it clear to him.” He offered a hand to Jez. “I don’t think will meet again.”

Grateful, Jez took the hand and shook it. “Thank you, commander Sledge.”

A couple minutes later Sledge stood outside. This was quite a backend part of the capital, an area that had yet to be renovated after the merger between the Dark Moon and Steeltip nodes. There were all sorts of dark narrow alleys. Glancing around him as if looking for his way back to the gate complex, he searched for anyone that might be watching him. And exactly as Jez had said, there was a rather short guy standing against a wall and watching Sledge out of the corner of his eyes. The man must have seen him meet Jez.

Sledge didn’t approach him, though. That was likely to scare him off. Instead he walked a short way down the street and then headed into an alley, a short cut to the gate complex. As predicted the mobster followed him.

Once they were a ways down the alley Sledge felt something metallic pressing against the back of his head, a gun. Just as the mobster was about to say ‘Hold it.’ Sledge whirled around, bashed the pistol from the mobster’s hand with his let forearm and stomped him in the solar plexus with his right fist in the same move. For good measure he then grabbed the man’s head and roughly shoved it into the nearest wall. Mist’s brutal training was good for something after all.

“You have no more business here.” Sledge growled at the short man plastered against the wall. Never having spoken that way himself, he tried mixing the coldness of Mist’s voice with colonel Rathburn’s gravely one to do it.

“Wait, wait! Don’t--” The startled and winded mobster started immediately.

“Shut up!” Sledge barked at him. “The one you’re looking for, Danko, is dead. Your boss should be satisfied with that, so leave Jez alone.”

Despite his head still being pushed up against the wall, the mobster argued, “And I am supposed to believe that?”

“He’s dead!” Sledge reaffirmed angrily, not liking the need to dwell on the matter. “I’m sure your boss can check the registers. Danko’s registered as KIA. Deliver that message to your boss and leave Jez alone. Understand?!” He added some extra force against the mobster’s skull to make his point.

“Yeah yeah! I got it! I’ll tell him!” Finally Sledge let go of the man. The mobster rubbed his aching head for a bit. When he looked back up he was surprised to find Sledge handing him back his weapon. “I’m never messing with a pilot ever again. . .” He muttered under his breath before taking the gun back. “If it isn’t true, though, you’ll have that girl’s blood on your hand.”

“It’s true. Now get the hell out of my way.” Sledge growled at the man before pushing him out of the way as he went back to the street. Now only one question was left in his mind. Should he tell Lexa what Danko was like before? But perhaps this was something he shouldn’t tell her. It was probably better to leave her with the memories that really mattered.

# # # # #

“How are you feeling?” Sarah asked of Nathan as they stood side by side in the elevator. On his face was no longer any trace of the AI. Not even the slightest mark remained. The surgery had been successful. The injuries sustained during their breakout were healing as well. “Does it feel any different from before?”

“Aside from a pounding headache, not really. I’m a little surprised, though. That facial circuitry is supposed to do something right? So how come they can just remove it?” Nathan replied while keeping his eyes straight ahead. Any movement of his eyes tended to aggravate the headache.

“It’s not as simple as that. It’s all hidden away deeper now, or something like that. . . That’s what the doctors told me anyhow. As for the headache, it should go away in a while.”

A few seconds of silence followed after which Nathan inquired, “So why don’t you have an AI, seeing as you people can even make them completely undetectable?” He had quickly noticed that upon returning to the Diamond Spear the facial circuitry Sarah had worn had been removed same as his.

“AI’s tend to make you think logically and efficiently, making you more predictable in combat. I like my illogical old self better for that sort of thing.” She explained. “Haven’t you felt it as well?”

“Well, while in that cell I did get the urge to fall into a certain supposedly efficient routine.” He murmured as he recalled all the little differences he had noticed since getting the AI. “Mostly I ignore it, though.”

“In combat having a clearly identifiable routine can get you killed. Cybrans specifically train to get rid of that tendency.” Sarah pointed out as she glanced at the display that showed what floor they were on. They were almost there.

“No kidding. How many times did a pilot get nailed because his early strategies were always the same?”

She suppressed a laugh and remarked, “Many times.” And a second later she announced, “We’re here.” The elevator came to a gentle halt, making it hard to notice their own momentum pushing them down into the elevator floor. As they stepped out Sarah said, “I’ll wait here for you to return.”

There was only a short hallway that led to only one door. And beyond that one door was a room no larger than a good sized office. And Krieg was there. The man who was permanently stuck in a suit that sustained his life stood bent forward over a holo table.

He was apparently unaware of Nathan’s arrival and continued to look at the holo table as if plotting some grand scheme. That was quite possibly the case as Nathan recognised the colours of the different factions denoting various territories amongst the holographic stars. Was the Star Commander really that careless? Or was he perhaps looking for a reaction?

Nathan remained completely silent even as he stepped over to the other side of the holo table to stand across from Krieg. From there he could clearly see that what was displayed was a theoretical battle plan for an invasion that targeted Earth, Seraphim 2 and Minerva. And it seemed Krieg had planned for him to see it, for he asked, “Do you like it?”

“It’s a little ambitious, considering how many pilots you have available. . .” Nathan remarked as if attending a strategic meeting with general Fletcher. “And rather flawed.” He pointed at a couple of glaring holes in the plan.

“Well, I’m obviously not going to show you the actual plan. . .” Krieg pointed out as he looked up at the colonel. “You don’t live as long as I have by making mistakes like that.”

“Probably not. So why are you showing it?”

Krieg gestured for Nathan to follow as he walked over to a nearby set of couches that stood across from each other. “It is one of my intentions. One that may be realized within your lifetime.” He explained as he sat down, and the colonel quickly followed suit.

“Your intention is to invade all three factions at the same time?” Krieg nodded. “And you expect to win?” Nathan remarked dryly. Though the Diamond Spear and TDF had impressive technology, they were far too few in numbers to make any sort of serious dent against all three factions.

“There is no winning in this war. Too much blood has been spilled in this ‘Infinite War’ for any side to win.” He gestured back at the holo table. “Your generals probably expect something like this is being worked on by me. If they don’t they’re idiots. But the reason I showed you this is because I wanted you to know what you might one day be up against. You have seen what my pilots can do.”

“Yes I have and it’s impressive.” Nathan replied. “But the answer is no.” Krieg cocked his head to side in a questioning manner. “You want me to work for you. And that is just not going to happen.”

As if he had everything under control, Krieg said nonchalantly, “While I’m a little disappointed, I’m still confident you’ll benefit my plans no matter where you are.”

“Oh really? Am I that predictable?” Nathan asked nicely, while balling a hand into a fist.

“Not really. When the time comes I see several courses open to you. While I can’t say for sure which you’ll take, each is beneficial to me.” Krieg replied confidently, as if he weren’t at all conversing with a possible enemy.

“How nice for you. . .” Nathan remarked. Bored with the strategic bluffing, he then asked bluntly, “Since I doubt you want to keep an unwilling guest around to screw up your plans, when are you going to put me down on a UEF planet?”

“Tomorrow, after the doctors clear you for gate travel.” Was Krieg’s quick reply.

Surprised that there was absolutely no hesitation to just let him just go, Nathan fumbled for his words for a moment. “Well. . . Uh, thanks, I suppose. For this too.” He knocked against the side of his head with his knuckles, and immediately regretted it as the headache flared up.

“You did help one of my people escape a possibly sticky situation.” Krieg said as he gestured at the door. “Thank you for coming by, colonel.”

As he stood up and turned to the door, Nathan muttered under his breath, “Right.” Once outside and walking back to the elevator he muttered to himself, “I really should stop being the pawn in a general’s game.”

He was still cursing both Krieg and the equally manipulative Yamamoto when he arrived at the elevator. As if she didn’t notice his cursing at all, Sarah asked cheerfully, “How was it?”

“Infuriating.”

# # # # #

“All pilots have reported ready for duty, Lord Crusader.” Phebe reported after checking the list of pilots on her screens. A total of ten ACU pilots was ready for the strike.

Grand Crusader Samin had yet to make contact so now a plan had been created to find her and the rest of the pilots that were still stuck out of contact.

In the past few days Phebe had helped the weakened Amalda with the plan and now she was the one who kept the other pilots supplied with instructions. In combat the actual pilot in charge would be a Crusader, but when they were no longer in direct contact with Amalda Phebe would be the one who kept the operation going, despite being only a Templar. Phebe didn’t particularly like it, but she knew the plan better than any of the other pilots and Amalda was not yet fit to pilot an ACU herself.

It seemed the entire plan had been created for naught, though. Just as Amalda was about to give the signal to proceed, a quantum wake was registered not far from their position. A split second later a broadband transmission was received and displayed on their screens. “This is Knight Fran of the invasion force reporting!” an extremely haggard and tired looking Fran called. “I. . . We. . .”

Phebe quickly contacted her and softly said, “Calm down Fran, it’s Phebe. I’m going to redirect you directly to the Lord Crusader.”

“Thank you!” The utterly exhausted looking Fran said gratefully.

After putting her through, Phebe contacted the Crusader and said, “The strike is on hold for the moment.” The Crusader nodded understandingly.

In the mean time Fran was already reporting to Amalda. “Lord Crusader, we have gathered on the planet Herkel 7. Many of our pilots have fallen and the Cybrans have further isolated us by eliminating more of the accessible quantum network. If nothing is done soon they’ll pick us off one at a time.” Though Fran was usually so very eager for battle, it seemed that several days of straight combat had seriously reduced her spirit.

“How did you get here?” Amalda inquired while she was already looking into adapting her original strategy for a new purpose.

“Several groups of three pilots were sent out along different paths in an effort to make contact. I-- I think I’m the only one to get here.” Fran answered unsteadily, looking as if she might collapse in her seat. Worried that members of her battle group might have been amongst those others sent out, Phebe checked the logs of Fran’s ACU, but was glad to see this wasn’t the case.

“Alright, thank you Knight. Can you fight?” Amalda then inquired as she put the last touches on her revised plan.

“I will do what I must.” Fran replied fiercely.

Amalda nodded to the Knight and then turned to Phebe. She sent her a revised version of the plan and explained. “In short, ignore parts B, D and F completely, and for part E head straight for this other planet instead and construct a ground station there. That should allow me to communicate with both you and Samin.”

“I understand, Lord Crusader.” And Phebe quickly relayed the new plan to the Crusader.

This then was the start of a new campaign, Phebe thought. A campaign where the Cybrans were on the offence and they were on the defence.

# # # # #

Day 141

It was getting late when Captain Sylphia Simmons slowly trudged toward the mess hall through UEF HQ’s hallways. She had just finished the debriefing of her latest mission, a solo operation. The debrief itself had taken far longer and far more out of her than the mission itself had. Being questioned about her every move by an Earthcom officer who didn’t like special ops pilots was not high on her list of favourite things to do.

The mess hall was mostly empty, though she did see a couple of familiar faces. Those that she wanted to see in particular, David and Jill, were nowhere to be seen however. So she made do with the next best thing: Lieutenant Carter and captain Maddog. Despite there being no love lost between those two they could almost always be found together. It cut her deeply to think that her next best friends were those two, since she didn’t particularly like either.

Maddog hardly looked up from his paperwork when she sat down at their table, though Carter at least cast her a drowsy looking glance and asked, “How’d it go?”

Though she would have preferred to sit silently rather than actually converse with these guys, she still answered, “It was over in under half an hour.”

“Nice!” Carter exclaimed as he turned to Maddog, “That’s twenty credits then.”

The captain shot him the same murderous glare he gave everyone and reluctantly admitted, “Fine. . .”

“You had a bet on me?” Sylphia asked softly, a little offended.

“We have bets on everything.” Carter explained as he accepted Maddog’s payment. “Don’t think too badly of it. It was just about the time it would take you to complete the mission, not whether you died or anything.”

“You make bets for fun?” She asked a little sceptically.

“It’s just to pass the time, really. And for me to make some money off of my unlucky companion here.” Maddog immediately glared murderously at Carter again, but the latter had experienced such often enough not to be fazed by it. In fact, he hardly took note of the glare even while he glanced around the room looking for some betting example. It seemed he was unable to find one, for he merely shrugged and said to both of them, “Like whether colonel Rathburn’s coming back or not.”

Maddog instantly looked up from his paperwork and said, “He ain’t coming back. He’s listed as MIA. That’s pretty much the same as KIA in this business.”

“Don’t say that!” Sylphia blurted before she could stop herself.

Thankfully, neither pilot took note of her outburst, though. The lieutenant glanced at the captain challengingly and said, “Wanna bet?”

Grinning madly, the captain said, “Yeah. Fifty credits.”

“Nah, how about we raise the stakes a bit. Two hundred credits.” Carter countered with a mischievous smile.

“Easy money! Deal!” Maddog replied in acceptance. It was a second later, when he looked back down at his paperwork, that he noticed the shadow engulfing him. He turned to look at what was blocking his light and was quite speechless for a second. Sylphia too looked at the cause and was just as speechless.

The man who stood there was none other than Nathan himself. “Hey guys! Missed me?” He asked.

While Sylphia was still looking at him incredulously, Maddog was turning back to Carter while growling, “You bastard!” A moment later he was lunging over the table at the lieutenant.

As if not caring that he was being taken down to the ground by someone prone to disproportionate violence, Carter merely reminded the captain, “That’ll be two hundred credits please.”

“You bastard!” Maddog repeated as he slammed Carter into the ground.

He was stopped when Nathan grasped his shoulder and pulled him back up, though. “Down boy! Relax already.”

It was only then that Sylphia managed to speak. And even then it was only, “Nathan?”

He glanced at her and for the first time she could clearly see how tired he was. An almost imperceptible smile of reassurance tugged at his lips as he looked at her. A moment later he was looking back at the two men. “Anyway, I should be going over to general Yamamoto for a bit.”

“Two hundred credits dude! I’ll buy you a drink when you get back!” Carter called after the colonel as he walked off.

Sylphia immediately followed him. The very moment they were in one of the empty hallways Sylphia lunched at him and wrapped her arms around him in a hug as well as she could, bringing him to a halt. It had been weeks since she had last been able to speak with her only real friend.

A little flustered by the sudden unannounced contact, Nathan muttered, “Wow, when did we go down this road?”

Sylphia immediately let go and fumbled for words as she tried to correct herself, “I just. . . It’s. . . There’s no one else to talk to really talk to. . . For me. It’s not like, like--”

“I know.” Nathan rumbled reassuringly. “But you should really work on that.” He muttered as he started walking down the hallway again. “I’m not going to be around forever, you know.”

“I find that hard to belief. . .” She replied with a smile. “You came back this time!” For a while they walked in silence, taking their time to get to general Yamamoto’s office. After a minute or so she asked, “Did see David and Jill already?”

“Yeah. . .” He murmured as if it was a mental image he was trying to get rid off. “I went by the house and, uh. . . Caught them at a bit of an awkward moment, so to speak. . . They were not amused.”

Instantly uncomfortable, Syplhia turned the subject in a very different direction. “But how did you get back?”

“With a bit of a detour. I’ll tell you all about it later if you want. As for getting in here.” He gestured at the HQ building all around them. “It’s amazing how far you can get when a bunch of tired guards recognise you. Even when you don’t have any valid ID whatsoever on you. They should really do something about that. . .”

The door to Yamamoto’s office appeared ahead. As they paused a moment in front of it Sylphia wondered out loud, “I wonder what his expression will be. . .”

Grinning at her, Nathan advised, “Then keep the door open for a bit. . .” He then approached the door and after pressing a button just to it’s side it opened to let him pass. Inside was Yamamoto at his desk. Nathan wasted no time to reintroduce himself in a, to the general at least, highly irritating fashion. “Hey general, your favourite colonel’s back!”

The general’s face was completely stuck in look of absolute surprise and confusion, perhaps even a little fear. And as she kept the door open for a bit, Sylphia saw every tiny detail of it.

Nathan too saw the look and abruptly said, “Infiltrating the Cybran Nation, two pints of blood. Taking a detour to the Diamond Spear, one pint of blood. Seeing your face stuck like that, priceless!”

Finally Yamamoto managed to wrench his face loose of the surprised expression, and instead slowly adopted a look that showed just how annoyed he was. Warning that Nathan was now getting awfully close to crossing the line, the general growled, “Colonel!”

Not wanting to get dragged into this, Sylphia closed the door and started back through the hallways. She did so with an immense smile, though.

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