Published: 27 Apr 2017

Chapter 15 – Styles of Command

With the machine base clear and no signs of other threats, Cory put his full attention into finding the ‘brain’ behind the machines. After nearly twenty minutes of looking, he pulled up the panel the machine boars had come through and saw some lights, “Ah, there you are. Not nice hiding from me.”

While the others worked on their heavily damaged frames with a great deal of help from Liam, they heard a zap, followed by Cory letting out a string of curse words. Paula moved up to the panel and looked in, “Hey, you OK?”

“Stupid computer has some sort of auto repair thing that it just zapped me with! Let’s see how it likes not having any power at all!” After a few seconds, there was a loud buzzing, then what lights were left in the entire base went out.

“Cory!” Karen shouted as she found herself looking at nothing but the glowing tip of an armor liquefier.

“Sorry!” Cory shouted out with a snicker. “Give me a second or two! Kind of hard to see in the dark and all.”

“Yeah, tell me about it!” Saul responded as he clicked on his frame’s spotlight to give everyone something to see with. “Lucky this thing has a battery and is not run through the frame’s computer!”

“Real lucky for me!” Cory shouted back. “And even luckier, Liam knew how to use it to fire his machinegun.” There were some more grunts and a few muttered curses before Cory’s voice got louder, “Ah, here we are!”

A few seconds later, the few lights which were not destroyed by the electrical surge pylons, flickered and came back on. A couple of minutes passed before Cory reappeared, “This place had to have been built before the computer was put in. There is a main coupling and all the subsystems were hooked into the computer thing, which I guess is an Ultra, but there is a manual switch as well. It took me a couple of minutes to realize the power either went through the coupler and into the computer thing, or bypassed it totally. Still, I wanted to make sure, so I unhooked the coupling, pulling the computer out of the loop. As soon as I flipped the manual lever on the power flow, everything came on, so I think we’re good.”

“You think?” Saul asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Best I can do until I start really digging into the panels on the floor.” Cory growled harshly, then paused as he saw the looks all the others were giving him. “Look, guys, most of you don’t really know I am good at this, but I am. I unhooked the computer from everything… I mean, I know it is unhooked from the power coupler and all the connectors it had coming out of it are disconnected. I even crawled under it to make sure there are no wires and can’t find any antenna arrays, but I can’t be sure if there is another one, or even more of it below. I’m not even sure where it drew power from, since the power coupling for the big central mass goes down into the floor.”

Seeing Terrin and Karen nod at the others, Cory continued with a great deal less anger in his voice. “Look, I traced the power and relays as far as I could without really digging in to what is underneath us. I did take a look though, and there is nothing coming up from underneath except the newer looking power coupler.

“There is some mining robots down there and some other stuff, but they all stopped as soon as I disconnected what I have to think is the Ultra. A few small robots tried to move in with a replacement coupler but once I shot it, they all stopped as well. There is a large bin with what I think are repair parts, but nothing is moving toward them at this point. We should keep an eye on it though.”

Liam nodded in understanding, “My frame is over ninety percent. I can keep watch to make sure nothing tries to get it back on line.”

Cory pointed through the passageway, “The platform the Ultra is on isn’t very big. Maybe you can use your frame’s power to shove it out this way so it is even harder to connect.”

Karen followed Liam, “My frame has just armor damage, so I can help him. Anything else we need to look out for, Cory?”

“Any moving repair bots. We can’t let anything try to reconnect it to the base. But I want it in once piece. I’m going to make it talk to us.”

Terrin cocked his head to the side, “You are really going to interrogate an Ultra?”

“Damn straight! We need to know how those things are communicating.”

“And how do you plan to make it talk, Cory?”

“I’ll dig into it, hook up a mic and speaker, then if it doesn’t talk I will start seeing what damage I can do without killing it!”

“You are going to try to torture an Ultra?”

Cory took a deep breath as he looked at Terrin, “I think, if you recall New Bravaria, you already know the answer, Terrin.”

“It’s a thinking thing, Cory…”

“Yeah, and so was the EC guard at the core entrance. She talked before I was halfway done. This is no different. If it thinks, it can be forced to feel fear and I will scare it into talking.”

Stella eyed the two younger boys, “Um, while this is interesting, um… disturbing, but interesting, don’t we need to really know for sure this place is safe before we go trying to beat on an Ultra?”

Cory glanced over, “Beating on it may break it. I need it to survive long enough to tell us what it knows, so I will find ways to make it talk without major damage. As far as the base goes, once you see it you will understand. There is a lot of systems and junk below, but most is power and some mining tunnels and garbage. The nucleus of this place, what everything I could find is tied into, has to be the computer on the tracked platform. As soon as I got it unhooked, I could see there was still power to this base because of a red light on the wall. It’s weird, really, but there is also a massive manual breaker, which makes me think most of this was here before the machines took this place over. Anyway, I was able to flip it and give us normal power. At least, from what I can tell, there is no sign it is being run through any advanced computers. There is a monitoring station below, but it looks and acts like a normal human operated console. It doesn’t even have security lock out protocols enabled, although it does have them available.”

Terrin spoke up, knowing if the others continued to question Cory’s abilities, the boy could go from friendly to angry, to even hostile, especially toward the newer members who Cory had yet to establish any real trust with. “Sounds like you did the best you could. So, what does an Ultra look like, Cory?”

Cory fired a rather disdainful, ‘stop patronizing me’, look at Terrin before he moved back to glance past the open panel he had crawled out of, “It is a really weird computer thing, but still looks like a computer to me. Actually, it looks like a bunch of them. It has nine cubes of nine cubes all hooked to a big orb thing. The orb still glows, so it has some kind of power backup, so I bet the orb is a memory storage. Everything else went dark within seconds of me cutting the power flow to the whole unit. All of it is on a set of tracks, like a big armored platform, but it is a flatbed platform with no driving compartment. Along the sides there are scores of small open box-shaped compartments.” He knelt and picked up one of the destroyed spiders, “Most are just about the right size to fit these things. The others are larger, and probably had some of the tracked droids. It also had a turret with a trio of the pylon things, like the ones that zorched you all, but it couldn’t spin because of all the cables connecting it to the subsystems of this base. I took out the pylons just to make sure, though. It still kept some defenses, including a trio of spiders and it zapped me with a micro laser as I unhooked it from the power core.” Cory held up his arm showing a bad burn mark on it with circular blistering rings radiating outward from the point of the laser hit.

Tracy moved up with a great deal of concern, “Cory, it’s a laser burn, you need to cool it…”

“Already did. I spit on it and pressed it up against the cool metal of the tracked platform it is on until the burning stopped.”

Tracy’s eyes went wide, “But… doesn’t that hurt?”

Cory shrugged, “Not too much. I’ve felt way worse.”

Terrin spoke up again, “Paula, would you get the med kit and get a burn pack over his arm while the rest of us finish repairs?”

Liam called out from the other room, “My frame is good. I can patch yours, Cory…”

Terrin cringed and started to say something but was cut off by Cory.

“As long as it is only you or me who works on it, fine, but no one else touches my frame. Got it?”

Liam shouted back, “Sure, not a problem.”

Even as Paula pulled out a cold wrap and crunched it inside the wrapping to activate the cooling effect, Terrin glance over at Cory, “You’re going to let someone else work on your frame?”

Cory held out his arm, as he decided it was just going to be easier to let Paula wrap it and shut the others up, than tell her she was wasting a perfectly good burn bandage. At the same time, he looked over his shoulder at Terrin, “There isn’t one of us here who could have pulled off the power override to a machinegun, and I happen to like Liam. You got a problem with it?”

Terrin took an involuntary step back, “No, not at all, it’s just… Well, you don’t even like BH techs fixing your frames!”

Even as Paula listened to the boys talk, she started to put the bandage on, but stopped, “Cory, unless I can fully wrap this burn, you are going to have a bad scar and the third blister ring goes all the way up to your shoulder…”

“I’m fine, really…”

“Oh, come on!” Paula protested, “Just take your shirt off so I can wrap it!”

Seeing Cory’s eyes narrow, Terrin spoke up, “Just wrap him the best you can and let it go Paula.”

“No!” Paula fired back, “A laser hit blister ring has a higher chance of getting infected than a regular burn and we don’t have a hospital, so it is either this or he jumps inside a auto-med unit!”

The left side of Cory’s mouth twisted upwards, “You going to make me?”

“If I have to, yes.” Paula stated even as she kept a grip on Cory’s arm. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Cory, so if you want to show me what you got, let’s tango. But I’m going to kick your ass, so I’d prefer we do it while you are at a hundred percent. As it is, there is no way you are with a fresh micro-laser burn on your arm. I don’t want you to be able to make excuses. So take your damned shirt off!”

At this Cory actually smiled as he used his other hand to pull his shirt off, while allowing Paula to help him slide the material over the burn on his arm so the blistered area didn’t pop, “Oh, hell, yes! We are going to tango all right! But fine, I’ll let you keep some respect by not wiping the floor with you while I have a burned arm.”

Paula rolled her eyes even as she started a re-wrap of the burn. “Don’t go crying to mom when you have to tap out to me, Cory.”

Cory openly laughed, which was the first time the vast majority of the kids in the room had heard him do so, “Crying to my stepmom would be a total waste of time, besides, I don’t cry.”

“You will…” Paula stopped speaking as her eyes fell on the pendant on the necklace around Cory’s neck. “What the…” Her hand reached out but was stopped by Cory’s other hand.

Cory’s voice hardened as did his eyes, “You can look, but don’t touch. It’s mine and no one lays a finger on it until I’m dead.”

It took a moment for Paula to nod, since she found herself both astonished by how fast Cory had reacted and how strong his grip was. However, her eyes never left the medallion. It was a small triangular disk made to look like a pyramid. The top of the pyramid was cut off and engraved to look like it was at an angle to the rest of the structure below. The top part had an eye in it, and the center of the eye was a blood diamond.

Her hand moved back slowly, “That is Earth Core’s Eye of Mars!”

Terrin spoke up even as Tracy and Saul, moved up for a closer look. “Come on guys, let Paula finish wrapping him up and give him some space.”

Saul shook his head, “But if he is caught with a fake one of those…”

Cory turned sharply. “It isn’t fake! I took it fair and in combat!”

Hearing Terrin sigh and seeing him nod, Tracy spoke up even as Paula finished the bandage. “You took it off someone who earned the highest honor in Earth Core?”

“Might as well tell them Cory,” Karen all but begged from the other room.

At the same time Terrin took another step back and nodded, “She’s right, Cory. Everyone here has seen it now.”

Cory glanced over at Terrin with a nasty looking twist to his lips, “When are you going to stop being afraid of me?”

“Um…” Terrin droned on for a couple of seconds, “probably never.”

Paula moved to stand between the two boys, “OK, enough of this garbage. Ever since I joined BHJMA I have seen most of the kids maneuver well clear of you, Cory. While a few, very few, like Joel, Karen, Brandon, Jennifer, Chip, Gabriel and Beth treat you with a huge amount of respect. And of those, only Chip, Joel, Karen, and Gabriel, in that order, really seem to be your friends. What is the deal with you?”

Karen came out of the other room so she could stand next to Cory, “You sure you are OK with this…”

“Yeah…” Cory let out a long somewhat uneasy breath. “It’s not like we didn’t all help to kick Talborne in the nuts. I just wish I had been the one to get the kill shot on his kid.” He paused as he saw Saul look down. At the same time, Liam poked his head out from the other room and turned away. “Hey, you two survived when many others didn’t. You both have been stuck on this rock for months. Yet it didn’t break either of you. I bet this place has torn the soul out of many, if not most, but here you both are, fighting right next to us. Hell, I bet both of you would have graduated out of the Mars Farm Basic.”

“Mars Farm Basic?” Liam asked with a cock of his frame’s head.

Karen forced a smile, “Umm, let’s just say he’s giving you both some high praise…”

Cory gave a slight grin, “A few notches above high, actually.” He then turned to look at Liam, “And you, dude, I owe and could really start to like you.”

Terrin glanced over to Liam with a hint of jealousy, “Very few have heard those words come out of Cory’s mouth.”

“I’m just a wrench monkey…”

“No! Never say those words again!” Cory barked out more forcefully than most thought could come out of such a small and innocent looking boy. “You are fast with the mind and calm under pressure with the best I have ever seen. Combat skills can be gained, earned, and improved. Thinking under fire, like you proved capable of, is in the very fabric of a person or not. You got everything you need inside. Before you leave this rock, and as long as you want to really learn to fight, I can get you past a point any cadre member who ever taught you would have thought possible. It won’t be easy and it will be painful, but I can sense the ability in you. It just hasn’t been honed to fit your heart and your core.”

“Don’t say yes unless you are sure,” Karen warned. “What he put Joel, Chip, Gabriel and me through was right on par with any hell out there.”

“I’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain…”

“You’ll lose sleep, pounds and sanity.” Karen snickered. “But, you’re right; there is more to be gained. But before you are halfway through, you will think it isn’t worth it.”

“Being a low grade grunt the rest of my life and only getting respect when something needs fixed isn’t what I want out of life, but living in the crime projects of Ratone Prime’s capital is even worse. If I got a shot at something better, then I’ll take it. It’s how I got into Ratone Command College to begin with.”

Cory chuckled as he put his shirt back on and nodded to Paula as a way of saying thanks, “Yup, Liam, I knew I liked you!” He then glanced back at Terrin, “So you want in this time?”

“I’m not that stupid, Cory.”

“Your loss.” Cory responded blandly.

Saul eyed Liam and Cory, then glanced over to Karen and Terrin. The looks on the last two’s faces could not have been more opposite. Karen’s face showed disapproval in Terrin, while Terrin’s showed some disdain and maybe even fear toward Karen. After a few uneasy seconds of silence, he spoke up, “How do I get in on this, Cory?”

Cory turned with a raised eyebrow, “You asking to join?”

“Are you offering me a chance to learn whatever you seem to have?”

Cory chewed on his lower lip, “Sure, but you are either in or out. There is no halfway and there is no jumping ship once we start. When I say I will beat you into submission to make sure you don’t quit is an understatement.”

Getting a nod from Saul, he looked around the room, “Anyone else?”

Paula nodded without any hesitation. “Sure, but then you learn the Katana under me!”

“No downside there.” Cory responded with a glint in his eyes, “How about the rest of you? Tracy? Stella?”

Tracy quickly nodded, “Hey, if Chip went through it, I need to as well. He is taking me out once we get back to Forest Garden, so this will help me know more about him and maybe me as well. But, come on, if you are really so… I guess the word is skilled… how did you learn it? You have to be younger than me!”

“I am, almost a year younger. But I have years more combat training than anyone here. Probably more than any two of you put together, with the exception of maybe Paula.” He glanced over at the older girl, “You reversed my arm grab with a wrist lock, so you are damned fast!”

“I’ve been doing this for a while too, but you countered my lock, which is really rare, so I am looking forward to see what you got. It sure is more than just frame combat.”

“What I am going to teach is super light on frame combat, but will then translate into becoming way better at frame fighting. This will be heavy in unarmed once we really get going, then it’s infiltration, perception, and deception to name a few. But it starts, really starts, with pain tolerance, endurance, anti-interrogation, feeling nullification, and body regulation. We will end with assassination techniques.”

“Assassination?” Stella asked from on top of the hover tank.

“Yeah,” Karen answered, “his assassination training and contests bring it all home. By the time we got to them, I even found them fun, but Chip and Joel took to them with a twisted zeal…”

“They are naturals,” Cory responded with a true smile. “But, hey, you are really good.”

“Sounds awesome,” Tracy stated with total sincerity, “but what’s the deal with the necklace?”

“I’ll give you the full story, if you want to hear it, after the training, but I’ll tell you this much now. This all springs from the attempt of Earth Core to take your home, New Bravaria. Earth Core was on the verge of winning, and probably would have, but Earth Core lost its command ship and allowed the defenders to regroup using some of the equipment in the wreckage to help them fight back. But there was far more to it than a loss of a command ship. When it went down, it killed thousands of framers and crippled command and control. It also killed a nephew of the Emperor, along with a well-liked great grandson. The EC Emperor was beyond furious. He sent in his most vicious and bloodthirsty commander, also one of his most trusted and highly decorated leaders.

“Field Marshal Kormar was given the task and the full resources of his entire command to find who was responsible for the death of this nephew and capture or eliminate them. While most of Kormar’s forces were shattered trying to land by Blood’s Honor, Kormar managed to get ample reinforcements to the Earth Core units. He also managed to push back units around the crash of the Fluvius Camillus and found out the responsible party for her demise was the O’Connell Grenadiers. He even found enough of a surviving record to pinpoint a particular target; a kid by the name of Robin Lerrik. It had been Robin who had really caused the Fluvius Camillus to crash.

“Now this gets confusing, but as it turns out Robin and several other O’Connell Grenadier kids had been rescued by Joel along with Gabriel, Chip, and even Karen here along with some of the others of us following Robin’s escape from the Fluvius Camillus. The two groups actually fought an EC armor unit and was about to be overrun until BH dropped in supporting units. They got to Robin just in time. He was close to death and was sent to a hospital with a rejuv unit. The hospital was attacked and was destroyed, but Robin had been extracted hours earlier by Blood’s Honor, along with all the staff and injured. It was just in time, too. The fight over the empty hospital destroyed it but also wiped out a good portion of Kormar’s remaining frontline units too. In fact, it left him so short on veterans, the tide of the battle for New Bravaria turned irreversibly against EC and they were on the defensive for the rest of the fighting.

“This only made Kormar more angry. He ordered the Grenadiers wiped out and a huge reward for Robin to be captured. Word somehow got back to Blood’s Honor about this and I volunteered to prove my loyalty to them. Well, really to Joel, Gabriel, Karen and Chip, but I guess Colonel Price as well. To make a long story short, I infiltrated the EC command center, detonated the power core, and eliminated Kormar before he could send his report back to Earth Core, so all Earth Core knows is the O’Connell Grenadiers were on New Bravaria and had taken part in the fighting, which led to the destruction of the Fluvius Camillus. As part of this, I procured the Field Marshal’s of his Eye of Mars, knowing it would lead to horrible consequences to those who let it be taken. I was correct. The remaining units were declared Ronin and were forced to flee from Blood’s Honor, the ABR, and even EC. Those who survived are almost all wanted criminals and have probably transitioned into merc units. It would not surprise me at all if many of them didn’t get hired to be part of the raids on Andar IX. This is especially true, since many of the units who hit us there were previously unknowns, but had some really good EC equipment.”

Tracy stared at Cory, “Oh, come on, I was there and I know of the Grenadiers! They saved my life! But you were what, nine-years-old?”

“Yeah, just turned nine when I hit the base, blew the command center power core, and with it all their intel on the Grenadiers along with dozens of other units. They are hated and still marked for extermination, but so are several hundred other merc units, including Blood’s Honor, so being on the marked for death list doesn’t really mean much. It’s just a way to make the Emperor feel good about himself and to insure none of those units are ever hired directly by EC. Indirectly, like it seems they did for the taking of Andar… well, EC has very few real hard and fast morals… However, there is always a large reward if some unit does wipe out a marked for destruction unit.”

Stella shook her head, “Sorry, I’m not buying any of this and I sure don’t want to go through some kind of pain tolerance and assassination training, even if it is true!”

Karen looked over at Stella, “It’s all true, and more. And, the pain tolerance isn’t as bad as the endurance part.”

“Oh, screw that,” Stella shook her head vehemently. “I’ll pass.”

“Whatever,” Cory shrugged as if it made no difference to him. “Since you and Terrin don’t want to be part of this training, why don’t the two of you go out and let Joel know we have the base. We need to find out what he wants us to do with it before I can really start to play with the Ultra.”

“Sure.” Stella nodded as she slid back into the hover tank.

Terrin shook his head, “Cory, I still outrank you.”

“Yeah, and if you want to change things up, you can. But you know this is the best use for yourself unless are you really going to stick around. Are you really willing to watch the first round of training a second time without jumping in?”

“You’re a jerk, Cory.”

“And you’re a lazy turd, Terrin. But BH says you outrank me, so if you want to change the orders, do so. However, your frame is in the worst shape and this portable repair kit isn’t going to fix much of it. So why don’t you go limp your wussy butt over to the hover and go fix it back at the Dagger. Or you can go cry to your CO again… But since it is Chip, it won’t do you much good…”

“I never cried to anyone.”

“No, you just reported the extra-curricular training and almost got the rest of us in trouble…”

Karen cut them both off, “Cory, Terrin, knock it off. Terrin did what he felt was right and you know it took a royal decree directly from Colonel Price to overrule the junior instructors and let Cory put us through the ringer. Both of you get over it. The next one of you two officers to speak poorly against the other, I am going to beat the crud out of! Got it?”

Cory grinned, “It would be fun to see you try, but I got it, Master Command Sergeant!”

Terrin rolled his eyes and climbed back into his damaged frame. As soon as he pulled himself up onto the side of the tank he slapped the side, “Get me out of here, before I shoot Cory with my stunner.”

As the hover tank maneuvered back up the tunnel and out of sight, Cory grinned, “Been there, done that, and didn’t fall down. Now, the rest of you get to learn how to do the same!”

Karen snickered at the looks directed at Cory, “I warned you the endurance training is worse than the pain tolerance! Going through hell and slapping Satan himself very well might be easier than your next few weeks.”

Brice hit the floor harder than he expected, which caused him to crack the floor and fall. Still, this didn’t prevent him from dishing out a little damage. Since he had dropped directly behind the line of frames holding hostages, he put a laser shot into the side of an enemy Striker class frame.

The pilot spun his frame as the computer chirped out armor damage. In doing so, it exposed the painted-on unit crest to Brice. With a snarl of rage, Brice rolled right at the frame, reached out, grabbed the ankle support rod of a Striker frame, and twisted as hard as he could. His frame took a burst of machinegun fire and a gyro round, but he ignored the mounting damage. Instead Brice lashed out with his foot into the knee of the opposing frame even as he jerked at the ankle support rod with everything he could muster a second time. His actions were rewarded after only a couple of seconds as the support rod buckled and with it the frame’s ankle. Those close by could hear the scream of the pilot as his ankle folded inside the frame.

This caught the attention of a second enemy frame. The pilot turned and swung a carbon steel axe at Brice’s frame’s outstretched arm.

Fortunately, Colonel Price was right there to use his very heavy frame to block the incoming attack directed at Brice. He stepped in front of what would have been a devastating blow and took the impact in the center of his frame’s chest. He then put an octet of micro missiles into the offending Commando class frame’s head and left shoulder. At the same time Commander Gem moved forward rapidly and used her frame to grab Brice’s frame and yank it back up to a standing position.

Even as Colonel Price finished off the Commando with a pair of electron cannon shots, Commander Gem pulled the boy away from the damaged area of the floor and spoke to him, “You OK?”

Brice winced inside his frame since he had banged his elbow unit badly enough to do some damage to his own elbow but kept any hit of pain out of his voice, “Fine, but I must look like junior cadet!” At the same time, he pulled up his other arm and started to shoot his machinegun only to find it wouldn’t fire.

From in front of him, Colonel Price spoke to Brice through his radio, even as another Blood’s Honor frame fired a pair of lasers into the Riot frame Brice had aimed, at causing it to back off behind a wall. “Brice, look at your weapon availability grid! I pulled a command lockout on all auto-fire weapons in the team. There are unarmored civilians up here and our primary goal is to keep them safe. No auto-fire and try to stick to energy only unless a team-mate is in danger. We want as little shrapnel and ricochet fire as possible up here.”

“Oh, come on, dammit!” Brice roared as he pulled up is other arm and put a laser into the leg of the Riot frame just before it slid totally out of the line of fire. “I had the bastard!”

“Brice!” Colonel Price barked sternly into his radio, “Calm yourself, NOW!”

Brice punched a hole into the nearest wall with his frame’s fist but his voice dropped several notches, “Sorry sir, but you could have warned me and I wouldn’t have had you change out things in my frame the way you had! Now I can’t even finish off this jackass with a single full volley!”

“This is pretty rare, son,” Commander Gem spoke calmly to the obviously angry and befuddled boy. “Keep in mind this is a soft target rescue op. The last thing we want to do is to take chunks out of those we are trying to protect by inadvertent fire or bits of metal spraying off the armor of frames.”

Brice frowned deeply even as he put a laser into the back of the frame he had ripped the ankle support rod out of, “Stay down, and pop surrender smoke, or so help me… Better yet, don’t! Give me an excuse!”

Colonel Price turned around sharply at the sound of Brice’s aggravated voice but noted Commander Gem was right there next to the boy to keep his anger in check. He said nothing, deciding to let Commander Gem handle it. Instead he moved forward while lowering his shoulder. With a loud clang of armored frame against armored frame, Colonel Price caused a Scout class frame to fall flat on its back.

Before the pilot of the toppled frame could do more than fire a pair of light lasers and a burst of machinegun fire upwards, Colonel Price slammed his foot down on the Scout frame’s chest and fired electron cannon shots on each side of the head. The pilot inside the frame got the message loud and clear, popping white surrender smoke and powering down the badly damaged light frame.

Slightly behind Colonel Price, Brice’s frame clenched and unclenched fists, duplicating what the boy inside was doing even as the fallen frame sent out a plume of white smoke. Commander Gem spoke firmly yet evenly, “Brice, you were given mission command, what is going on inside your noggin?”

Brice took a deep breath and looked up at the woman, “Sorry, ma’am, but this jerk is from the same unit who took my mom and dad. I just so badly want to…”

“Take a step back,” Commander Gem ordered, while moving to be a barrier between Brice and the crippled framer.

“No, it’s OK. I got it, ma’am. What I want to do and what I am going to do are not the same. I’m not about to sink to the level of these morons!”

“Do you still have a command picture, or do you need one of us to take over?”

“No, no… I got it…” Brice’s voice did little to hide his aggravation. As if to prove he still held the whole battle picture in his head, he spoke into his radio, “Ollie, we have three frames pinned up here, and I have eight others tagged by others on my team below us. I count fourteen not in frames that look armed and seventeen others who are not armed. They are scattering. Move in and secure ground level. No one gets out into the street!”

Once he got a verbal confirmation from his brother, he punched another wall and took a deep breath. After another moment, he gazed back at Commander Gem, “No one leaves this building until I let them, but some of those on my HUD are captives and probably have kids like me. I’m not going to get stupid and kill a mom or dad when all I really want is mine back.”

Commander Gem nodded and patted Brice’s frame on the back hard enough to where the boy could feel it even as she spoke into her radio, “Command authority is still with Brice Mathis!”

Colonel Price fought hard not to spin and look back, knowing to do so would show some disapproval toward the decision and Brice as a whole. Instead he switched over to a private frequency, “You sure, Kim?”

“He’s stressed and we happen to be engaging hostiles from the exact same unit who took his folks, but his heart is in the right place. Actually, given the circumstances, he is dealing with this pretty well, sir. I’ll stick close, but I see no reason to yank his command authority at this point.”

“OK, but there are non-combatants up here, so if you sense he is losing it, take away command. I don’t want some dead civ because we have a kid who is pushing too hard or is too pissed off to think.”

“I’ll stick right next to him, but he still has the full picture in his head and has verbalized his desire to not kill any hostages.”

“Alright, but we need him commanding all of us, then. I still need to see what he’s got.”

“Give me a second and I think you’ll see the same thing I am.”

Commander Gem then turned back to Brice. “You pinned them, but we still have hostiles and civs intermixed and frames on the floor below us are taking fire.”

“I’m on it.” Brice all but growled as he switched back to command frequencies, “Squad One, push them down. They don’t have a clue we control the lower level at this point. However, they are intermixed with those not framed up. We are still good on armor, so go to stunners and take down all non-framed people you can. We’ll sort out who is who later. If we can separate the frames from the non-framed Colonel Price, I’ll need you to reverse command lockout on auto-fire. If this happens I want everyone to aim high and force all frames down to the second floor. This will take pressure off of those who jumped through the breach holes I put into the building.”

“Confirmed, Brice.” Colonel Price responded instantly, clearly liking what he was hearing.

Brice pulled up the Battle Map HUD and scanned everything available as his orders were executed flawlessly. Within a minute only a few non-framed people were still moving and they were keeping their heads down or were grabbed and forced down to the second floor by enemy frames. This, in turn allowed Colonel Price to fully activate frame weapons for the Command Team. The sixteen Blood’s Honor frames made it very clear who had the firepower advantage, which in turn caused the Riot frame to fall to incoming fire and the final nine frames to form a hasty defensive line to keep control of the second floor.

“Ollie,” Brice spoke as he saw the new situation. “We now have the two top floors and some hostages, but there is movement below our recon squad and they have covered the ramp, so we will take heavy fire if we try to assault them. A couple have even moved down toward the first floor but found you all waiting and have cut off an easy attack from you as well. Fortunately, everything they got is now on the second floor.”

“I concur, bro. They are pinned between the two of us, but a direct assault will probably kill the hostages they managed to get down to the second floor. The only ways up or down by frames are the elevator and the ramps and they have good coverage on the ramps.”

“Yeah, I noticed. At least there is no way they are taking the frames on the steps. It’s too narrow. Also be aware, they already used fake hostages, so we really have no way of knowing who is who! Don’t go thinking someone is a hostage just because they are not framed up. Also, break off a couple of your smaller frames and cover those steps in case some of them try to sneak down. No one leaves this building until we say they can!”

“Just don’t let them get to the roof, Brice. We’ll cover the ramp, stairs, and the elevator. We’ll starve them out if we have to…”

Brice’s eyes narrowed inside his frame, “No…”

“No?” His brother asked. “What do you mean, no?”

“No…” Brice repeated as a new plan came to him. “Let them use the elevator shaft but cut off escape to the first floor. I want them to go to the basement.”

“Why would they pin themselves down there, Brice?”

“Normally they wouldn’t, but I am looking at the blueprints, and there is a viaduct running down the street to the west of us. There’s only a meter of reinforced ferro-crete between the west storage room and the viaduct. They’ve shown they know the place inside and out and could use energy weapons to break out into it. It is an escape route they would not expect us to be ready for.

“I heard you give the order to open the dam bypass, so the viaduct is underwater by now. If they don’t know it, it will take them by surprise and we can rush them as they deal with it. If they do know it’s flooded, they will think it would be a great distraction since it will force us to save the hostages as water floods in. All we need is Delta Three, who I really hope is Wheeler, to be waiting for the breach. He can park a few of his frames on each side and wait for them to break through. He can then move in and engage from underwater even as we move in from behind. They surrender, or we breach their frames and they drown. I’m fine with it either way.”

“Yeah, it’s Chris, but he hasn’t exactly done me any favors tonight, bro.”

“I heard, but I ever so much want him to be put under my command… even for a little while!”

This got a snicker out of Oliver, “Don’t be too mean on him, Brice.”

“Is it possible for me to be too mean to that dick-weed?”

“No, but I still have to at least say I said something.”

Colonel Price broke in on the conversation with some humor in his voice, “Boys it’s not polite to be evil to a not-so-nice senior cadet.”

Brice quickly responded with a wicked tinge to his voice, “Well it’s a real good thing being polite is not a command requirement.”

Colonel Price couldn’t help but chuckle. “Is he really that bad?”

“Worse,” Oliver and Brice stated at the same time.

A few others in the Command Team snickered even as Colonel Price snorted, “OK, fine, I’ll let you play with him, Brice. But nothing too over the top.”

“OK, fine…”

Colonel Price nodded and verbally changed to a new frequency, even as he called in for an action report on the cadet he was about to speak with, “Delta Three, this is Colonel Price.”

The only sound to come back over the radio was a gulp.

“I gather the sound I heard over my comm was you, Delta Three?”

There was a couple of hard breathing sounds before the voice of a young man responded sounding more than a little scared. “Yes, sir. This is Delta Three.”

Colonel Price scanned the information on the youngster’s performance over the last several hours even as he spoke. “Well, Delta Three, I’m hearing from some of my people you haven’t been very helpful tonight which is pretty much the opposite of most of the other leaders from your academy. What’s the problem, son?”

“Ah…. um… well…. I… um…”

“Delta Three, you are supposed to be a unit commander. Are you able to command or not?”

“Uh… no… I mean yes… yes sir… I can command…”

“I’m glad to hear you can command. But being able to and doing so are not the same. Understood?”

“G…gggg..ggg… got it sir. Um… yes sir. I’m in command of my team sir.”

“Perfect. Then I need you to start commanding! Get your stuff together for us and get ready for a priority mission.”

“Ah… Yes sir. Um… Do you need us somewhere, sir?”

Colonel Price glanced over to Brice with a smirk, speaking directly to him rather than using the radio. “OK, we still need to give him a shot, but if you pull his command and give it to someone under him, you’ll get my support. But, Brice?”

“Sir?”

“Be fair. Give him a real chance and, as tempting as it may be, don’t set him up to fail.”

At this, Brice actually looked a little hurt over the idea anyone would think he would endanger those under him out of any kind of spite, however, he gave a sharp nod, “Understood, sir.”

Colonel Price nodded and turned the radio back on, “OK, Delta Three, we do need you somewhere. You are our only full unit out in the field with blue-green lasers for underwater combat in the immediate area. Your unit is all at over ninety-five percent effectiveness. This is partially because you haven’t been able to find a battle other than to run from the first encounter, which we patched you up from. We all get it. Bad things happen and combat is confusing. It has happened to all of us at some point. However, you are a high-ranking cadet officer and one of the oldest ones out here from your academy. BJJMA has shown me they have some outstanding young men and women and the combat ability from your fellow cadets has been exceptional out here tonight. Now it’s time to push back your earlier problems and show me and Blood’s Honor why you were promoted to such a high-ranking cadet officer position. In simple terms, it’s your turn to put up or shut up, son. I’m really looking to see some leadership out of you tonight.

“Now, because of your underwater capability and the fact you are close to full in combat effectiveness, I am turning your unit over to one of the younger cadets who has a pretty good plan. Let me be very clear about this. He has full command authority of you and your team, and I am expecting good combat mission execution out of you this time, understood?”

Everyone listening in the Command Team and over in Oliver’s command group could all but hear how badly the last set of words stung the senior cadet. There was no doubt the young man on the receiving end was close to tears, but he answered as evenly as he could force himself to do so, “Yes, sir. Command of Delta Three is now passed to a new commander.”

“Good. As of this moment you are under Brice Mathis’ command and I am expecting you to follow his orders, but you will be on station not him, so you need to execute and command your team. Colonel Price, out.”

Joel moved away from the back of the Dagger and did a quick scan as he saw Terrin jump off the back of the hover machine and almost fall because of leg damage to his frame, “You OK, Lieutenant?”

“Fine, but my frame is royally screwed.”

“What about the others?” Chip asked with a great deal of concern.

“Thanks to the new kid you found, fine.” Terrin grumbled as he limped over to the Dagger before popping his back hatch and climbing out. “The Ultra almost had us, but that Liam kid, along with Cory, dealt with it. Oh, and Cory really likes Liam and has even found some volunteers to get their butts handed to them for the next several weeks, including both the new kids.”

Hearing Terrin say Cory liked someone caused Joel and Chip to exchange surprised looks, but Chip recovered and spoke while eyeing Terrin, “You not joining in this time either?”

“Like I told Cory, I’m not that stupid. But I’m not sure how we are going to stay as separate units with Cory teaching some of each group… Oh, and then Paula wants to teach him the blade she carries.”

Joel smiled, “She already started teaching us. She really knows her stuff.”

Chip glanced up toward the mines, “There is no way BH Command will let us take a shot at cohort if we fall under you command, Joel. We need to figure out a way to stay two units, even if we do some cross-training…”

Joel eyed Chip with a raised eyebrow, “Chip, is there something going on in your team?”

“Yeah,” Chip sighed, knowing he would not hope to hide the full truth from Joel. Still he was not about to tell him about Candice. “We started off so piss poor we really lost continuity. We are getting it back, but… well I really wonder if Jason would not be a better leader than me.”

Terrin fought the desire not to tell Joel the truth but held his tongue as Stella climbed out of the hover, “Jason already says you were given command and you pulled us back to a team. You’re doing fine. We have frames and we can now do our mission. Jason will help, but you know BH, not he.”

“Not him.” Derek spoke up, knowing all the kids from New Bravaria well enough to know they liked to get their English corrected when they didn’t use the right words. Over the past several weeks the constant corrections had really helped all the kids from NBJMA to communicate better with those around them.

Stella nodded to Derek in thanks before hopping down from the hover machine. “I think Chip be right. We need to be separate even if we work to… um… as a one unit.”

“I think the word you wanted is together, Stella.” Derek responded.

“Yes, thanks again. Separate but work together.”

Joel frowned, now certain something was being kept from him, “So Candice is totally out of command.”

Chip nodded, “Totally took off her rank.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out the lieutenant pins Candice had left on the pillow. “She demoted herself.”

Terrin could see the other two were still not willing to let the cat out of the bag, so he reluctantly decided to play the game with them. “If you ask me she is wearing the rank she deserves. She was a mess from the start, Joel. Without you, I don’t think we would have gotten off the base with half of what we ended up with. Even then, we didn’t even grab a spare antenna array or enough paint. Besides, Chip really took over crew assignments and junk. She couldn’t even do the basics. It only got worse once we were out on our own. It took Chip getting in her face… Something I didn’t have the guts to do…. but anyway, it took Chip offering to sign a write-up before she finally realized she was making everything Chip, Jason, and even me, tried to do worse. She totally screwed it up from the start and once she figured out how bad she was doing, she took off her rank and gave it to Chip. Technically, Chip was field promoted over me by Candice, so he is the legit team leader.”

“You outrank Chip… I should talk to her…”

Terrin shook his head, “Only because I can pilot better than Chip and got my full Frame Pilot Certs, while Chip only has his Basic Certs. He is doing just fine in command. Besides, the move has both Cory and Jason’s support, and you know darn good and well I am not about to push back against Cory unless I have to.”

“Cory still has to follow chain of command, Terrin.”

“And he does. Candice gave Chip command, and he is still willing to take orders from me, so we’re fine.”

“Still, you hold rank and…”

At this Derek spoke up, “Sir, far be it for this dumb grunt to tell you officers anything, but unless you are going to take over their team, you really shouldn’t go poking this deep into their business…”

Joel turned and looked at Derek with a look of confusion. “Why not? Am I not the commanding officer here?”

“You are sir,” Derek looked down, “but the orders you showed us were pretty clear. We are supposed to be two separate units.” Derek looked back into Joel’s eyes. “I also know I am nowhere near as smart as you are. On the other hand, I know back on Black Jungle when I fought for and took over as a squad sergeant, leadership of those under me was given to me. I could not have forged my guys into a good squad if someone tried to handle problems within my squad for me before I asked for help. All I am saying is, they are not asking, or really needing your help at this point. So, unless you are going to take control of everyone, you need to let the leadership of the other group deal with their own problems or they will never be a cohesive unit.”

Joel scratched his head, certain he was not getting the full story, but could also see the wisdom in Derek’s words. After a few seconds he nodded over at Derek, “You are way smarter than you give yourself credit for. As much as I hate being wrong, what you just said makes a great deal of sense to me. Terrin, if you are sure you are OK with Chip being in command…”

“He’s doing great since taking over, and Jason seems to work really well with him. If anything, I am more like number three now and I’m fine with it. Now if you want to field promote Chip so he is a senior lieutenant and Jason a lieutenant so the new structure has the right rank to go with it, I’d be cool with it.”

Joel looked up, knowing everything he was hearing was off. First, Chip never wanted command before. Second, Terrin did want command and had some really good leadership instincts. Cory and Jason seemed to be wild cards, which was OK, but then why would a kid who was older than any of them be OK with Chip in command, when in all rights, Jason probably should be the one to take over. None of it made much sense.

After a few seconds, Joel nodded, “OK, Terrin, as long as you are good with this, so am I. Chip, I want you to put on Senior Lieutenant pins and give those pins to Jason so he is an officer. You will need more officers once we hit a few of those camps anyway. I’ll make logs in this Dagger and mine so BH knows who was field promoted and junk. I don’t know if any of this will stick once we get back to Forest Garden though.”

Joel then stared right at Terrin, “The one thing I do want is for you to let Candice know she can come talk to me and or Karen, though.”

Terrin glanced over to Chip, not knowing what to say.

Chip looked quickly over to Joel to cover for Terrin, “As soon as we see her, we will, but I don’t think she really wants to have to talk about this whole thing, Joel. As it is, I really feel bad about how hard I came down on her.”

“Don’t.” Terrin responded instantly and with a great deal of conviction. “I should have, but I didn’t. She totally screwed us from the start.”

“Yeah, well…” Joel let the word drone on as he refilled the last of his missing micro missile ammo and jumped back into his frame. Even as he powered it back up he glanced over to Terrin, “Just make sure to tell her I said she needs to get over it before she gets herself or one of you killed. She is still one of us and our friend, but if she ends up getting one of you all hurt or killed… Well… I am pretty sure doing so would be about the only way for her to stop being one of us.”

Joel then turned to Derek, “Come on, frame up and let’s see what the base looks like. We need to check how many of these shot-up machines we can drag in there. We’ll need all the equipment we can manage if we are going to free some of the prisoners taken from Andar and put a real hurting on Talborne.”

Candice hopped out of the Slasher and looked around the still burning base. Behind her the two Zenith APCs pulled to a stop on either side of her. One was driven by an armor platform cadet from Andar, while the other was piloted by an infantry cadet from Lexus IV. The final APC was trailing well behind since it was wheeled and had a slow leak in its back right tire from shrapnel from the cannon round Candice had put into the guards. Much like the Slasher tank she was driving, the Javelin was a Zip Tech produced vehicle and its auto inflation unit was not doing its job in keeping up with the leak. Xylon, however, decided to get it up to the burning base and see if any repair equipment could be found to patch the tire rather than leave it behind. As it was, the three APCs were loaded to the gills with cadets and a sextet of adults. Four adults and five kids who had been closest to the guards had been killed, eight others had been wounded, and several others had run once the fighting began.

This bothered Candice, but there was little she could do about it. As Xylon pointed out, the dead were dead; the injured would receive as good of treatment as was available, and trying to go after those fleeing, with reinforcements on the way, was simply not an acceptable use of resources. Up in front of her, Xylon and a trio of other cadets fired lasers into a small outbuilding where someone had unwisely shot an infantry laser at them from. Over two-dozen dead Ulysses infantry were scattered across the grounds and another half score of platform crew could be identified around the Bulldog Armored Platform Candice had put a cannon round into. She also noticed the remains of at least five others who had Ulysses framer vests on. All five had been caught in the explosion of the main fuel tank so there was not enough left of them to tell much else.

An older girl piloted the Viper frame over to Candice as she looked around at the carnage, “So I hear you want this?”

Candice eyed the frame and nodded, “Definitely. You know how to operate a Slasher?”

The girl popped the back panel and climbed out even as she answered, “No, but there are a few others from Lexus IV’s Infantry Academy I know who have some time in armor. I just hope we can get the Astro up so I have a frame, too.” The girl stopped as she glanced inside the tank and back at Candice, “Where is the rest of your crew and where did you come from, anyway?”

“Got separated from my… um… salvage group…”

The dirty and exhausted looking girl gave Candice an understanding nod, “I was born into the Battle Rippers, so I get it. Mercs, especially small and poor units, have to do whatever it takes to survive. While you may have killed a few of us and busted up a few others with the main gun, you did good in my book. Even more amazing you did it alone. You must be from a damned tough unit. Any chance we can get a ride off this hell hole with them?”

“If we can find them, but I have no idea which way they went. I’ve never dealt with a sandstorm before and this planet has magnetic high spots, which totally screwed up my compass readings, so I don’t even know exactly where I am. I just got super lucky, cause they left the scrambler codes in this platform, so I heard radio chatter about a drilling station. I pulled it up on the navigation unit and let the computer point me here. Where this is from our rendezvous point is… Well, the truth is, I’d have just as much luck spinning a bottle and going where it pointed me, and even then I would have needed to get there almost ten hours ago now…”

The teen let out a long breath, “Then we’ll have to steal a lift from Ulysses somehow.”

Candice managed a slight grin, “Actually, I think it would be fun to try.”

This caused the girl to snicker, “Oh, yeah, merc to the core! I don’t even know who you are, but I already like you!”

“Thanks. I’m Cand…” Her voice trailed off as she realized she could not say who she really was. Her name was known by Lord Talborne and probably on a list known by other high-ranking military members.

The girl once again snickered, this time a little louder, “Candy, huh? Yeah, I’d have a hard time saying it if my folks gave me such crappy name.”

Candice frowned for a split second but just as quickly brushed off the rather mean words, chalking it up to the fact the older girl in front of her had been held captive for several months and had been in a forced labor camp with poor care, not enough food, and probably some other horrors. At the same time, she realized the girl had given her an out, “Nickname, but yeah, I hate it. But my real name sounds like a boy’s name, even though it ends in an ‘i’ so it is spelled like a girl’s name. I hate it more than Candy. I still think Dad wanted a boy and Mom made up for it by calling me Candy.” Candice held out her hand, “I’m Danni.”

“Not an easy choice, but I’d go with Danni if I were you. But, hey, you killed off a butt load of Ulysses punks, so I’ll call you whatever you want. The frame is all yours. I reset the password to ‘tri-viper’.”

“Thanks, but I’ll give it my own. I still can’t believe they left them powered up.”

“They didn’t use to, but a few work details got ambushed by machines early on, so they started leaving them powered up and sticking real close even when taking a break outside them. It worked real well against machines, but not so well against a shrapnel burst from a platform heavy cannon round. So your unit showed you how to pilot?”

Candice decided to stick with the teen’s assumption of her being from a poor merc unit. “Yeah, somewhere along the way we captured a couple of intact Micro frames and a trio of beat up Blades, so the lieutenant gave all us kids a chance to learn frame piloting and shooting. Those who are good enough, get to stick with it. I’ve been framing for almost five years now. I have full AIM Certs in Pilot, Frame Laser, Frame Ballistic, Frame Heavy Ballistic, Frame Sonic, Frame Advanced Beam, and Frame Missile. I only have Basic Certs in Platform Pilot and Gunnery.”

“Wow, at your age? Pretty awesome.”

“Not awesome when all I end up finding is a Slasher that I can’t even fix right and no idea how to get back to my unit.”

“Well, as much as it sucks for you, there are lots of us who are happy you ended up alone out here. But if you can’t fix Zip Tech armor, you must not have much in the way of platforms in your unit, huh?”

“Mostly frames, and I can patch them up pretty good. Working on those stupid Blades to keep them going was a big part of learning how to be a framer.”

The girl nodded in total understanding, buying the story hook, line, and sinker. “Well, you earned this, so take it. How’d you end up on your own, though?”

Candice decided to stick with a large measure of truth, since it would allow her to continue with easy to remember lies. “The weather on this world is totally crazy. I got separated in a sandstorm and came across a wrecked Ulysses lander with this in the hold. Took it and was trying to figure out what to do when I came across you all. As luck has it, I met Xylon a while back when I was with my unit and knew he couldn’t be part of what was going on. Anyway, I saw the whole thing, got Xylon and his friends to help, and figured I may be able to… um… well, here we are.”

The girl nodded as she moved to look at the Slasher’s track. “Yeah, here we are. So, you sure those Ulysses kids are on our side?”

“I wouldn’t have been able to get you all without their help, and yeah, he is a good guy.”

The teen looked skeptical, but was simply too tired, hungry, and worried to argue about it. “So, what’s the plan now?”

“Um…well… I’m not real sure…”

The girl started to cock her head to the side when the radio in the Slasher came to life. Xylon’s voice came over the radio, “Base armory went up, so there isn’t much left as far as weapons and ammo and we had to take out the base command, so not much in there either. There are several infantry weapons we can take off the dead, though. Also, the repair garage is damaged but usable and there is a pair of Javelins in it, along with some repair stuff for the Bulldogs. I think one or maybe even two of the Bulldogs can be fixed, but I’m not a platform jock. A third one is screwed, but it’s external, so we can salvage what’s inside.”

Candice hopped back into the Slasher, “If we have time, we need to fix the track on this and the wheel on the other Javelin. Also, if the damaged Bulldog has a full ammo load, it has the same gun as this does so we could replace the main gun ammo I spent. What about food?”

“Main kitchen is screwed, but the food and water storage is behind it. We got lucky there, since it only had part of the drilling tower fall over it. We can get most of what is in there. Let’s get those who are not hurt out and salvaging things. I just got a radio message asking for a SitRep from a patrol heading this way. I didn’t answer, so they went on to say to hold and button up if we can hear them. They are less than fifty-five minutes out.”

“What about air units?”

“They may do a fly-over, but the airfield isn’t even close to done, so they don’t have anywhere to land and they lost a Black Comet a while back, so they are keeping them grounded as long as there is heavy winds and sand in the area. My guess is they will just have the patrol deal with this, but it’s a patrol in force, so they will be veterans and ready for a fight. We need to get out of here, find a place to hunker down, and come up with a plan to get off this rock.”

“OK… So we are secure?”

“As best as we can make it. There may be a few stragglers though.”

“Xylon, we can’t afford to leave anyone alive to tell whoever shows up what happened or what direction we decided to go…”

Xylon whistled, “Wow, you really have jumped off your unit’s ship, haven’t you?”

Candice made a growling sound, “Yeah, well right now it is us or them… and I really don’t want to talk about it, OK?”

“Whatever you want. You want no survivors; we’ll make it happen. But we could use your help out here, so get framed and send the girl who was in the Viper to the backside of the tower with five other framers. She’s one of the oldest and biggest, so she will be one of the few who can pilot a Mercenary frame. Tell her there is a small frame bay with four Riots and a pair of Mercenary frames. Not sure why they didn’t get to them, but they are here and since you took out the woman who was in the Viper, I was able to pull her command override codes off of what was left of her and powered them up. Everyone else needs to grab food, water, anything else they can find, and repair what we can. I figure we have thirty minutes before things get a little too interesting for my liking. So we don’t have much time!”

Candice glanced down at the remnants of the frame pilots and cringed knowing she was looking at why no one got to the frames. Like many of the armor crew, they had raced out of the barracks only to get caught in the fireball eruption of the main fuel supply tank. On the other hand, the fact they were dead and their frames were fully intact was a huge bonus. After a moment, she looked back over her shoulder at the older girl, “You hear all that?”

The girl looked scared and weary, but nodded, so Candice pressed her. “Look, I’m just a lone merc kid. You’re one of the older ones and must know some of the others. You probably know who is framers and who is armor. I need you to get them moving in the right directions and jump in one of those spare Mercenary frames, so you can help load heavy stuff. Besides, this way you’ll have a decent frame so you can take out a few Ulysses jerks too. If we leave anyone alive, they will know what happened before we can get clear of here and will come after us. I mean I know it sounds cold, but…”

The teen nodded and even sent Candice a smirk, “Believe me, killing Ulysses punks won’t be a problem for any of us.”

“Good, ’cause the clock is counting down fast, so I need you to move!” Candice waited until the girl sprinted off before she climbed into the Viper, did a system’s check, and closed the back hatch. The size adjustment tech put air into the lining pads until she was snug and could pilot. She took a moment to force a yawn; a trick taught to her on almost the first day of training to get her ears to pop after the pressure change caused by the inflation of the auto size adjustment unit inside the frame. Next she reset the security codes so no one but her could easily use it. With the basics done and finding the frame in great shape, she went on to move things around on the HUD to where she liked to have them.

Next she did a weapons check and grumbled. The former pilot of the frame she was in had chosen a combination Candice was not at all thrilled with. First and foremost, it had a light auto-cannon. While this was a powerful weapon, the ammo for it was heavy and didn’t hold as much as a machinegun would. While this would not have been a problem in Blood’s Honor, the three hundred rounds of ammo was all she had with no way to know when or how she could find more. The other problem with the auto-cannon was it took a great deal of room, which in turn limited the amount of other weapons the frame held. The only other weapons systems were one medium laser, one large laser and a stun rifle. This worried her, since once she was out of cannon rounds, she really only had a pair of lasers remaining to fight with. Finally, and almost as bad, the former pilot had been wearing perfume and the whole frame smelled of a heavy lilac scent mixed with the body odor of a teen who had not been allowed to bathe nearly enough. Washing the inside of the frame would have to be a priority as soon as it was safe to do so.

She changed the radio over to the frequency she had been talking to Xylon on, “Hey, make sure to grab any cleaning equipment and fluids for the armor and frames. Also, is there any extra frame weapon systems in the frame bay?”

“Already on the repair, upkeep and fluids. I’ll make sure to get us all some pad cleaning solution as well. And sorry, no extra weapons or ammo. I bet whatever they had was all in the armory and ammo storage. At least there is a pair of repair kits and several extra armor patch rods. What’s wrong; don’t you like the config?”

“If I had extra cannon ammo, it’d be OK, but once this beast is out, I’ll be real light on firepower.”

“You’ll have to deal with it for now unless you want to switch with one of us…”

Candice chuckled at the clearly hopeful tone in Xylon’s voice, “No, but good try. We’ll just have to take down a couple of frames and see what we can salvage off of them. Oh, and since it is just us who knows who I am, call me Danni from now on.”

“Danni it is, and I’ll pass it on to Basil and Sofia. They know of you, since they were each in a competition with you. And I’m fine with knocking off a couple of frames and taking what we can, but not against what is coming at us. We are in no shape to fight a full veteran unit. Remember, most of these captives have not been in a frame or shot a weapon in months.”

“From what I’m seeing, none of them; they aren’t in any condition to fight. Um… Are you sure the other two are really with us, though?”

“They went through the same thing I did, so yeah, they are fully with us. Once you hear what happened, you’ll understand.”

“OK, looking forward to getting more information. What about a place to hide and figure things out though? Any ideas on where to hole up where your people won’t be able to follow us or find us?”

“From my planet yes, my people, no.” Xylon corrected Candice, “But if we can get clear of here, I’d vote to do what we did while out on overnight patrols. We tended to sleep in caves. There are plenty of them to the northeast. Even better, the ground is rocky with some scrub plants. Once on the rocks we won’t leave much of a trail and the wind is still pretty heavy and supposed to stay bad for the next twelve hours or so, which will also help hide any tracks in the dry ground. I say we get to the rocks, move further up into the hills, find a few caves, hunker down until night, then move deeper into the hills. With any luck, we will be able to find someplace with big enough caves or overhangs to hide for a couple of days and plan.”

“Sounds good to me.” Candice answered with some relief. “And since you know the area better than me, how about you take charge?”

“You sure? I am Ulysses and some of those you just helped to rescue will not like it or me. Many of us have been anything and everything, except kind to them.”

“Oh, yeah… um, well what do you think we should do then?”

“How about you stay in charge?”

Candice shook her head even as she responded over the radio, “No, nope… I’m no leader.”

“Bullshit! You just took out like a hundred troops, which is not exactly what I would expect from someone from your academy, but hey, you kicked some serious ass and rescued over three dozen work prisoners!”

“Yeah, I can fight, but you don’t want me deciding what to do outside of a fight… no one does.”

Across the compound, Xylon frowned deeply as he could have sworn he heard a light sob come over his radio. While confused at the words and the tone he took a breath, “OK, I really don’t understand why you would think you are not a good leader, but we don’t have time to argue about it. I’ll stay in command until we find a safe spot and can really talk this over. However, I’ll pass everything to you and you can give the actual orders. This way those who have every good reason to hate me and my whole world are not taking orders from someone in a Ulysses uniform. Cause, I can assure you, they have already had way more of it then they can stand.”

“Yeah, fine. I can handle passing orders down. I think I am actually OK at it, you just don’t want me in charge.”

“OK then… I guess you need to start prodding them to move faster and keep them covered. Anything we can’t get fixed enough to take, we burn. We are down to twenty-five minutes before we all need to be clear, so push them hard. They are used to it by now anyway.”

Brice listened with growing concern as the Black Jungle cadets commanded by Cadet Lieutenant Commander Wheeler started to get confused as they moved deeper into the flooded aqueduct. It was clear by the chatter the visibility was low because the murkiness of the water, while the pitch blackness of being underground was scaring many of the kids. Before the team of frames got into the main aqueduct over a dozen cadets had gotten separated from the unit and many of them were panicking. At the same time, Wheeler was pushing the rest to stay closer and continue on, telling those who had gotten separated from the team to figure it out.

Brice glanced over to Colonel Price, only to see the man’s face was totally neutral. Part of him wanted to ask what he should do, while the logical side reminded him this was his command and leadership test. As a leader he would be expected to have to handle matters like this and even worse. The problem was, this was life and death, and those in the aqueduct were there because he had ordered them in. The fact his current subordinate commander was doing nothing to help those who got separated bothered him greatly. He also realized he needed the bulk of the team in position, so he couldn’t totally fault Wheeler. However, there was no question the older teen could have handled the whole situation better, including keeping track of those in his team so they didn’t get lost in the first place.

Brice’s brother, Oliver, radioed over to Brice, “Dude, their frames only have a hour or so of breathable oxygen left since their filters are getting clogged. If they lose it down there…”

“I know, but there are hostages and…”

Colonel Price interrupted the chatter, “Oliver, I gave Brice mission command. You have your set of orders and I don’t want you using your position as older brother to interfere with Brice’s decisions making. Do I make myself clear?”

Oliver swallowed hard, “Understood, sir.”

“Good.” Colonel Price barked, then switched frequencies so he was just talking to Oliver, “Son, I know this is hard, but even as your brother commands, he is being graded and we are building a profile and getting information we need for an after actions report on his performance.”

“But some of those are my friends getting lost down there and we need to get them out!”

“We’ll make getting to them a priority, but Brice cannot know this. He has to lead how he sees best for us to find where his strengths and weaknesses are.”

“OK, sir, but still, the whole reason we opened the dam and flooded the viaduct and aqueduct systems was because there were infantry and framers trying to use them to escape. Those getting separated could run into frames…”

“And if they do, they will have to fight their way out. They have blue-green lasers and IR, which should give them a huge advantage. It will have to be enough until we see how all this turns out. If we radio them, try to calm them down, we’d be letting your brother off the hook on one part of the whole. If at any time he hands control over those who are lost over to you, then, fine. You can take over and help get them out. But right now, he is not asking for help, so I really need you to let him handle this as his command.”

“What if he asks me for help?”

“Then you give it to him, but only as much as he asks for. A good leader needs to know when to reach out for help or recommendations. If he doesn’t, it will be a good lesson when we point it out to him.”

Oliver took a deep breath, “OK, but it seems like you are needlessly endangering a few of my buddies.”

“Endangering, yes, needlessly, no. And, Oliver?”

“Yes sir?”

“I expect you in an after actions class as well when this is over.”

Oliver made a light groaning sound, “All of this is also letting you grade me too, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is. Now let’s allow your brother to lead without getting in his way.”

“Yes, sir,” Oliver grumbled at both the order and the realization Blood’s Honor was probably looking at all of the Black Jungle Junior Military Academy cadets and grading them in one way or another. The fact he had probably just lowered his own grade was almost as aggravating as the fear-filled voices of fellow cadets in his class as they got turned around in the muddy, swift flowing water.

While the side conversation was going on, Brice was getting more and more agitated by the inability of the older cadet to get his frame team where Brice needed them. “Come on, Lieutenant Commander, what’s the problem?”

A bitter sounding response came from Chris Wheeler, “You don’t get it! Every step is hell to take. The current is forcing us to plant one foot before we move the other and we can’t see shit even with IR!”

Both fists of the frame Brice was piloting clenched as Brice did the same inside the frame.

Commander Gem started to move over to the boy, only to see Colonel Price hold up a hand to have her stay clear. She nodded in understanding but didn’t look at all happy about it.

A few second passed before Brice’s voice came back over the radio, “Chris, you have a flare launcher on your frame, how about you use it?”

“What for?”

“Oh, come on!” Brice snarled as his patience came to an end, “They added flare launches to half your underwater combat frames because they work underwater! Fire a damned flare already! They burn underwater and are hot. It will let any of those who are separated from you to find you and you will be able to use IR to watch it as the current takes it. It’ll tell you the basics of the direction you need to go, since you need to travel down the main channel to get to the branch to the right. As long as you are where you are telling me you are, you have it made. Just stick to the right wall and you’ll get to where we need you!”

There was a long pause followed by a Chris sounding angry, “OK, yeah, so what? As dirty as this water is, there is no way to see the exits out of this aqueduct. Without those, I still won’t be able to tell when I am in position!”

Off to the side of Brice, three of Shadow Brigade’s Command Team noticeably cringed, two others shook their heads and at least one made a disgusted sounding snort. At the same time Colonel Price and Commander Gem both turned to look at Brice, fully expecting the youngster to lose it altogether.

Even as Colonel Price readied himself to take over mission command, Brice slammed his frame’s fist into and through a wall, but remarkably kept himself from totally exploding. “Wheeler, are you serious?”

“Yeah, you don’t get it! We can’t see shit!”

Brice couldn’t help himself, he busted up laughing, “So you’re telling me you have been navigating based on ladders and exit points this whole night?”

The older teen’s voice took on an indignant tone, “Yeah, smart-ass, what would you have me do?”

Brice couldn’t hold back any longer, even as he snickered he spoke as clearly as the situation and him wanting to go into laughing fits would allow. “Chris, you’re an idiot.”

“How dare you…”

“Newly demoted team member Wheeler, shut the hell up, you are no longer in command,” Brice barked as best as he could between snickers. “Shelly O’Bannon take over command of Delta Team Three now. First let’s see if you can get your lost puppies back with your team. I want you to fire two green flares and tell those who got separated to hold. If they don’t see the flares in the next few minutes, they are behind you and need to move to catch up, if they do see the flares, they are in front of you and need to move back to link up. If neither one happens, then they somehow took an offshoot and aren’t even in the main aqueduct any more. If they are, well…” Brice openly laughed, “then they need to find an exit and get street side and turn their frames in to BH and go back to the starport. Maybe BH can teach them some basic navigation or something. One way or the other, I don’t want any lone frames down there, so if they can’t find your team, or at least link up into a group of five, they need to take the first exit. There are still some 979th frames down there somewhere.”

Brice paused to shake his head and take a few breaths, “Lieutenant O’Bannon, as you wait for your scattered team members to find you, I need you to figure out where in the hell you are, cause I am betting you aren’t even close to where you think you are, let alone where you are supposed to be.”

The voice of a teenaged girl came over the radio, “Um, can I first get some confirmation as to this being a legit change of command…”

“Young lady,” Colonel Price responded, “command of this mission is under Brice Mathis, and he is a part of my Shadow Brigade Command Team. He has full command authority over all of you, understood?”

“Yes sir!” The girl responded without further reservations. “Brice, I wouldn’t mind a few pointers on how to figure out exactly where we are…”

At this Commander Gem couldn’t help it. She broke in to join the conversation. “You all really are lost?”

“Um,” O’Bannon responded, “not sure who you are, ma’am, but yeah. I think we have been pretty much all night!”

Brice took a knee and shook his head, “Lieutenant, are you sure you’re in the aqueduct main line?”

“I think so… I mean, I don’t see how we couldn’t be. We’ve stayed in the biggest sewers the whole time.”

Brice hung his head, “Are you really saying you haven’t set your transponders for position location?”

“Our what?”

Oliver rejoined in the conversation at this point, no longer being able to hold his tongue, “Little bro, I’m not sure what you are talking about either. I mean I know what a transponder code is, but what does that have to do with navigation down there?”

At this point, Master Sergeant Tenner spoke up as he realized what the problem was, “Brice, you were on a city skill set, you told us very few of the others were. Is it possible they were not taught or only breezed over underground city fighting?”

“Oh, shit!” Brice muttered as he stated nodding vigorously, “Shelly, is there anyone in your team who took urban fighting?”

“Yeah… um… Mitch Peller… But he isn’t with us… Chris told him to take a hike over an hour ago because he kept trying to tell Chris what to do…”

“Probably because he is the only one who really knows!” Brice shouted with a great deal of fury, “Mitch you listening to this?”

Shelly answered, “Chris booted him from the team frequency because he kept interrupting, so no he isn’t listening. You can get him on Delta’s overall command frequency or his squad’s. He’s part of Charlie Two’s Squad.”

“Oh, for the love of God!” Brice snarled, “What a circle jerk!” Brice cut off his radio feed and glanced over to Colonel Price, “Sir, how do I find what frequency Delta Three Charlie Two is assigned?”

Colonel Price held up his hand to cut Brice off and spoke into his frame’s radio, “BH TOC, I need a flash download to Brice Mathis’ frame of all Black Jungle and BH freqs with voice change over protocols enabled now!”

A voice came over Brice’s frame radio from Blood’s Honor’s Tactical Operations Center almost before Colonel Price stopped speaking. “Give us just a couple of seconds and we will encrypt a file and send it to your frame, Mr. Mathis. To decrypt and download use your Jump Pack Master’s name and rank followed by your date of birth in numbers only starting with the year, then month, then day. You will only have three seconds from the time it asks for the password before it self-scrambles.”

Brice’s eyes went wide as he heard this. Less than five seconds later he had full access to every frequency being used by Blood’s Honor and Blood’s Honor allied units within a hundred kilometers of his position. With only a slight hesitation, he spoke to his frame, “Computer, pull up Black Jungle Academy Delta Three Charlie Two and leave it open.”

As soon as he spoke, a new set of voices came over his radio. While part of him was overwhelmed with how fast and easy such a massive remote download could be done, he shook off his astonishment rapidly, “Hey, this is BH Command Squad member trying to talk to a Mitch Peller. Are you on, Mitch?”

“Yeah,” the higher-pitched voice of a boy whose voice had not broken yet responded. “This is Cadet Corporal Peller. Are you sure you don’t want to be talking to my squad leader, um… sir?”

“No, I need you, and relax. I am with the BH Command unit, but this is Brice Mathis, a year behind you at BJJMA. At the moment I am being tested on my command ability though, so I really need you.”

“Just so you know, I do know the basics of what’s going on and who you are. If I can help, I will.”

“Wow, so you know the whole plan?”

“Pretty much,” the older boy responded with a hit of annoyance in his voice. “My squad leader has been keeping me in the loop since Wheeler cut me out of the team freq. I didn’t know this was a test of sorts for you, though.”

“Yeah, they gave me full command to see how I do and I’m getting graded on it!”

“Wow, pretty cool! Let whoever know I’d be up for one of those tests!”

“Sure thing!” Brice snickered. “But for now, I need your help if I’m going to pass this test, cause Wheeler is screwing me!”

“He hasn’t done anyone any favors tonight. To be honest I’m glad he cut me out of the team, cause we are really going to be the laughing stock of the whole academy.”

“No, it’s all on him, not the rest of you.”

“Glad to hear, but it would be nice to turn this whole thing around because being part of this farce will stick with all of us. You know how the word spreads!”

“Yeah, I was being made fun of by kids I didn’t even know within hours after signing up for urban combat.”

“Exactly!” Mitch basically shouted, “So tell me what you need. I’ll do what I can to keep this whole muddle screw pinned on Chris!”

“Well, you know I went through the urban combat set, too. This means I also know you are probably the only one in your whole team who really gets what to do down there. No one knocked out the transponders, so you should know where you’re at, right?”

“Within a few meters. I wish someone would have let Commander Wheeler know…”

“Don’t worry about him. Where are you now?”

“Um, just for the record, I did exactly what Wheeler told me to and left the team. Cadet Master Sergeant Sastana decided to keep our squad together and told Wheeler he was wrong, so he told her and anyone else who didn’t like the way he was doing things to get lost with me. She took a poll and my whole squad went with me and so did Charlie Three members Four and Five, because they knew I could find my way around down here. Also, just so you can pass it on, we took out seven light frames in sector one eight four November grid, to boot. BH might not be too happy, though. None of them got out. We framed breached all of them and let them drown since they refused to give up. Four of them tried to run once they realized we were blue-green armed, but they didn’t have much of a chance since Sastana went with my recommendations. My whole squad loaded missile racks with torpedoes, so those assholes didn’t know what was happening until we gave them a bunch a full spreads of micro torpedoes in the back. We shredded them so fast, they were drowning before they realized we were torp armed.”

“This is our world! They picked the wrong place to attack and got what they deserved, so don’t worry about it. What is your status after the fight?”

“We pretty much stayed out of range of what they had and what they were able to hit us with was badly degraded because they were using standard lasers which lost punch fast, so we didn’t even come close to breaching. We took time to go topside and clean our filters though, so we are good on air. While we un-gunked our filters, we were also able patch the couple of dings we took, since I grabbed a armored backpack with a repair kit. After our first epic flub earlier tonight, I didn’t want to be caught without one. As luck has it one of the others who joined us had the same idea, so we have two repair kits with us. All seven of us are totally submerged combat ready. We won’t be able to do squat above ground, though. Since Chris volunteered us for underwater duties again, we each pulled all but one gun, dropped in only a few kilos of ammo and added power units and lasers during our repair from screwing up so badly. Also, since we are using blue-green, our ranges and damage will be way down and our missile racks only have backup ammo supplies of a few full shots each.”

“Not a problem, cause we need you down there swimming. Do you know what the game plan is?”

“Yeah, Sastana has been feeding me updates as best as she can and figures Wheeler is way lost. My bet is he isn’t even in the aqueduct, since the current here isn’t as heavy as it sounds like he is dealing with. I bet he is actually in the main spillway at this point especially since he is going against the current and the turnoff he should have taken is with the current. It would have been an easy mistake to make since the turn up to it is a gradual slope and curves. It’s also as wide as this aqueduct and has a flat bottom, but if you can get him to listen, if the walls are not curved, he is in the damned spillway, not the city aqueduct.”

Brice let out a long breath, “I’ll find out in a minute. Right now, I need to know more on your status. Where are you?”

“The truth is, while they are wandering around like a bunch of clowns, we aren’t. In fact, we’re real close the spot you need us since Sastana gave me command of the squad even though I am the most junior member in it. The reason I am on freq two is because she bumped me to her second before we even jumped in to the sewers.”

“Damn, all five of you are almost to the target?”

“Seven. Like I said, Charlie Three, frames Four and Five joined us.”

“Awesome, but can you handle another group of five to ten frames with only seven of you?”

“We already took down seven and don’t even have an armor scratch since we patched up after the last fight and are all over seventy-five percent torpedo loads, most of us still over ninety percent, so yeah. But if you get the others to us, we wouldn’t mind… Well, as long as Wheeler isn’t in charge.”

“He won’t be, but I’m not sure if the others will be able to reach you in time. I need you to be ready to do this without them.”

“We will be where you need us and ready within just a few minutes. Um, any chance you can reconnect me to the team freq? If you can, maybe I can find a few of the others who got separated and if they are in the aqueduct and not the spillway, I should be able to guide them to me.”

“Good idea, but I’m not sure if we can do it, hold on. I’ll find out.” Brice looked over to Colonel Price who nodded and gave him a thumbs-up motion. “You’ll be back in the loop shortly.”

“Access just lit back up in my frame. Thanks.”

“Thank BH; their tech is amazing.”

“Tech is one thing, guts and toughness is another, and I think we got them beat on both of those two.”

Brice cringed and looked over to Colonel Price with a great deal of fear since he knew the man was listening. While the others in the Command Unit looked miffed, the colonel just snorted and shot Brice a strange looking grin. With an impish return grin and a shrug, he turned his attention back to the situation at hand, “Delta Team Three, yet another change of orders, as of now Corporal Peller is taking over navigational command. Follow his orders. Shelly O’Bannon, you still have command of the bulk of the team. Sastana, I would like you to be second in charge of the units in position to stop the jackwads in this building from escaping. Peller needs to stay in command though since he knows what’s going on. All Delta Three members hold position until Peller sees if he can locate you and get you to him.”

Corporal Peller gave it a second then spoke, “Shelly, can you at least tell me if the walls of the passage you are walking in are curved or straight?”

“Straight,” the young lady responded all but instantly.

“Crap.” Peller sighed, “Brice, they are way out of position and walking right toward the lake, which is why the current is so strong. They totally botched it and are in the main line. They need to get out of there. If they go too far they may even fall in the lake itself and there they won’t have concrete floors. They’ll end up stuck in the mud and will suffocate from clogged filters.”

Brice drummed his fingers over the helmet of his frame causing a loud clicking sound for a few seconds before he spoke, “O’Bannon, turn around, find the first exit and get out of there. I want you to radio all the others, if they are in the passage with the straight walls they need to go in the direction of the water flow, not against it, and get out of there. Peller, I have no idea how many may be in the proper passage. You may be doing this with just the seven of you.”

Corporal Peller responded, “I just fired flares downstream and am having Master Sergeant Sastana and the others with launchers move to side tunnels and do the same. If anyone sees a flare they can move to get with us. All others need to get topside, especially if they haven’t cleared their filters recently.”

“OK, but we don’t have much time, so if you don’t hear from anyone, you will need to move up and get in position. Keep in mind, they will have to breach the wall four hundred and nineteen point two meters upstream of beacon niner six seven foxtrot. You will need to have frames either side but far enough away to not get hit as they shoot through and you will all have to brace, since the flow will violently change as it rushes in to fill the basement of this building.”

“Understood Brice. I sure wish Wheeler did. This whole thing has been the worst nightmare of my life and he will submit all sorts of reports to guarantee I will never see a promotion, if I even get to stay and graduate.”

“Corporal Peller, this is Colonel Price of Blood’s Honor,” Allen jumped in suddenly. “You have zero bad marks going in your file at this point and no one is going to put one in them. You also have my word before the sun hits the streets above where you are fighting you will outrank your former commander. For now, focus on the mission as handed to you by Brice. Colonel Price, out.”

Peller was silent for nearly five seconds, “Brice, was that really…?”

“Yes it was, um, is. Anyway, you heard him, stay alive and wipe the floor with these punks. They are from the unit who took my mom and dad!”

Peller’s voice hardened, “Consider them fish food, Brice.”

“Just try to save any hostages. Some of them are moms and dads too!”

“We’ll do what we can… Good news, Sastana just heard from two who saw flares and are moving this way. We should have nine of us… ten, Sergeant Pezz just turned the corner. She was up stream but saw a flash from down here. She was real close, but her radio is out. I bet some of the antennas are mucked up, there is a whole lot of nasty crud down here.”

Brice didn’t respond into the radio, but instead looked over to Commander Gem and Colonel Price, “Wheeler lost at least a fifth of his team! Ten frames… and if others are lost… He can’t have but what, a half of a team left? His status updates don’t show a degradation of fighting ability…”

Gem nodded, “Good observation. Let me deal with the others and see just how bad it is. You focus on the rescue effort.” She then took a deep breath, “Ms. O’Bannon, just how many of your team are you with?”

“Including me?”

“Yes, young lady, including you.”

“Twenty-seven, ma’am.”

“How many of the missing do you have radio contact with?”

“At the moment, seven, but six are with Corporal Peller. I have Private Elgen, but he says he’s totally lost and says he can’t reach anyone above ground and no one in Corporal Peller’s group can’t hear him, so he is way deep or something. I was just trying to talk him down, since his is scared shitless.”

Most of those in the Shadow Brigade Command Team lowered their heads even as Price shook his head. Commander Gem took a long and deep breath, “Young lady, hand off communications of Elgen to someone else and tell whoever is talking to him to activate his emergency beacon and fire off one of his five trackers every five minutes. We’ll start scanning for him immediately. Now, I know you were just handed command, but there is something you need to do right now.”

“Name it ma’am.”

“I know you were all briefed on this but fighting underground in water filled sewers means we couldn’t put tracker bots down there to keep tabs on you, underground radio transmissions are dicey, and the crud collecting on your frames is slowly degrading your antenna’s ability to send and receive. This also means we don’t have a force status on you like we do those fighting above ground. We don’t know where any of you are and have been relying on very inaccurate data supplied by your former team leader. I need you to switch over to BH Command and send a full Situations Report, including disposition of force and fighting strength. We also need a list of missing framers, so we can dispatch rescue teams set to their emergency beacon frequencies. Do it now!”

“I’ll be sending a Sit-Rep in a few seconds, ma’am.”

“Good. Keep the rest of your group together and get you butts topside. If you run across any lost framers from your team update the Sit-Rep immediately!”

“Understood, ma’am.”

Allen looked totally frustrated and angry as he spoke into his radio, “SAR Command, I need sewer teams. It seems we have lost about thirteen kids from BJJMA who got separated from their commander. They could be almost anywhere. I also want a rescue team to check the lake bottom just below the spillway gate. It sounds like some found their way into the spillway and may have gone too far. We just don’t know for sure.”

The Search and Rescue officer responded, “Sending in teams now, but sir, if one or more fell off the edge into the lake bottom…”

“I know Major, I know. Let’s just hope it didn’t happen, and if it did pray we can find them in time. Price out.”

Knowing the adults were focused on those lost in the sewers allowed Brice to really focus in on his plan to eliminate the remaining threat while rescuing as many hostages as he could. “Ollie, I have Peller and nine others getting in position, I want you to hit them hard and fast, but leave access to the elevator. It is the only escape route they’ll have left. Remember to stun any out of frames you can. Hostages or not, at least they will not end up in a torrent of water flooding the basement. I doubt any will be able to swim at first, not with the water rushing in.”

“Got it. Moving in two minutes, give us upper cover fire so they think it is a dual pronged attack.”

“Such is the plan.”

Brice started to move to the ramp going down but was stopped by Commander Gem, “Being in command means you hang back, son. You need to tweak things as they come up, not be in the frontline fighting. Jump in only if you see a need you can’t fill with a quick order to one of us.”

Brice took in a deep breath, “Gee, being in command isn’t as fun as I thought it would be.”

This got some snickers out of everyone even as Brice stepped back, “Ollie, Peller says he’s ready, but only has ten including himself. I want you in there busting frame heads so our guys don’t have to fight all of them. We can’t afford a frame armor breach.”

“I got carbon steel fists on this bitch, bro. Be happy to rearrange a face plate or two with them!”

“Just hit one for me. I have to stay back and command.”

This got a burst of laughter out of his older brother, “Mom always said being in charge sucked!”

“Yeah, I am just starting to see what she was trying to tell us. Fifteen seconds.”

Oliver Mathis moved his team up and opened up with lasers on frames and stunners on a couple of people without warning. This caused heavy fighting to quickly break out on the floor below. Price and Gem gave Brice a nod and moved down firing from the ramp. They were followed by others from the BH Command Team in groups of two. Within seconds, it was clear to those they were attacking they had only one direction to go.

Ten minutes later the sounds of water pouring into the basement could be heard, followed by shouts of fear and confusion. A minute later three 979th frames came back up, arms pointing down and white smoke sputtering out of their backs. Behind them Corporal Peller, Sastana and those with them came up out of the water. Seven of the ten cadets held onto bodies, only four of which were breathing.

Price moved up and pushed one of the surrendering frames into the wall hard enough to cause cracks in the reinforced concrete to get it out of the way, “I need medical teams now!”

Fifteen minutes later, with the area scouted and declared secured, Colonel Price stepped out of his frame and moved over to a large group of Black Jungle cadets. Seeing all of them start to stand, he motioned for them to sit back down. “Finish eating, kids; you deserve it!”

Corporal Peller pushed his plate off to the side and shook his head, “No I don’t. I really screwed up down there.”

“Dude,” Oliver spoke up, “every one of us would have done the same damned thing. I would have never even thought about the concussion wave of a torpedo explosion and what it would do to those not in frames!”

Colonel Price moved over to the teen, “Son, I listened to your comm chatter. You made sure to tell everyone else to switch to lasers only after you saw what happened. You did the best you could.”

“Only after I killed half a dozen or more!” Peller looked up with tears in his eyes. “I was down there to save them, not to kill them.”

Allen knelt and put a hand on the fifteen-year-old’s shoulder. “You were tasked with preventing escape first and rescue second. You did both and did it well. You also learned something you were not really taught to consider. An underwater explosion is a force to be respected and feared. Also, like it or not, you may have saved most of those you all were able to pull out. We got all but one’s heart restarted. You also breached the frame you torpedoed, so you took their commander out of the fight before he could organize any sort of resistance. You did your job down there. Now, eat up and hop into the supply shuttle. I want you to get debriefed by a specialist in post combat health back in the command ship before you hit the sack.”

“I don’t need…”

“Not a request.”

The young man’s eyes went wide, “Yes sir!”

Colonel Price squeezed the boy’s shoulder and gave a nod, “Also, as promised, your new uniform and rank will be waiting for you.”

Seeing several of the others eating, stop and look over, Allen smiled, “Mitch Peller, I have signed off on your Advanced Frame Pilot Certs along with Basic Underwater Fighting, Laser, Torpedo, Missile, and Standard Ballistics Certs. I will have you tested for other weapons upon your request as well. In addition, you will be getting a BH Courage Ribbon, a Mission Command Ribbon, and am granting you introduction rank of Lieutenant into Shadow Brigade’s newest attached merc strike squadron under Lieutenant Mathis, soon to be Commander Mathis. We have already been in contact with your father and he has agreed to a lateral move into BHJMA with the full expectation of this becoming a permanent slot.”

Allen then turned to the rest of the kids, “BJJMA cadets, Mitch is not alone in needing to talk through this combat experience. I want you all to talk things over after this. In fact, I expect you to see Lieutenant Mathis, so he can get you slotted some time with a PCH Specialist over the next forty-eight hours. Anyone who does not will get a reprimand from me and will be sent back to the rear areas. Combat related health isn’t just about physically being fit, it is also keeping your mental faculties intact, and the first major fight is the hardest to come to grips with. This is especially true for kids, but rest assured, every member of BH goes through PCH talks after their first combat and gets slotted for follow-ups randomly and after every major battle. Even I go through some. It is nothing to be ashamed of. Not getting your head screwed back on straight and risking the lives of your buddies is.

“Once you have been signed off on by Shadow Brigade PCH specialists, you and those with you will all get a BH Hostage Rescue Ribbon with clusters, Underwater Combat Ribbon, and a Black Jungle Combat Ribbon. All nine of those who were with Mitch will get Frame and Known Weapon Certs and I will be offering them slots in Shadow Brigade’s newest strike squadron as well. The rest of you will get, at the very least, Combat Ribbons and some certs and most will get an offer to join the new squadron. Those under the age of sixteen will need parental or guardian permission. If any lost contact with or simply can’t find guardians at this point, we have a member of the Black Jungle government willing to transfer you over, but you will have to see her and request it in person. You can all talk to her, so she can get you in contact with guardians or sign you over once you are passed by PCH.

“This new squadron will be a mercenary cohort combined arms group of still undefined size, so I am putting it down as a legion. If you do sign on, you will be expected to finish all schooling. Instructors will be provided, as will what I call shadow officers. These men and women will be the core of your instructor group and the command team’s guides. They can overrule any order, but for the most part are there to advise, teach and mentor, not to run the squadron. Trust me when I say these shadow officers will let you make big mistakes but will try to prevent catastrophic ones by overruling and if needed, taking over. Pay will be one half rank until graduation. Officers will be required to take an extra six-month study in leadership and a six-month class set in tactics for what they are commanding to graduate. Senior NCOs will get a three-month and three-month in the same. Junior NCOs three months of leadership.

“At first rank will be fairly static, since this will be a cohort, but I am keeping it open to become larger by listing with AIM as a legion. This means if it is successful, and it better be, there will be room for advancement as new units are added. Also, as some leave to explore other options, ranks will become open, but I know it will be hard for those who get offers as privates. You will most likely be stuck being one for several months. However, the very fact I am attaching this fledgling unit under Shadow Brigade ought to tell any of you who get offers you don’t have anything to be ashamed of and you will be listed as attached to Blood’s Honor with AIM. I think you all know what having time attached to BH will mean if you do decide to look for other offers at some point.”

Seeing the almost all the kids vigorously nod, he continued. “Those who don’t get an offer by noon tomorrow will be allowed to come to BH Command starting tomorrow evening at dusk and apply, but for the most part, even those who got turned around will be offered slots. I am impressed with the vast majority of you.

“I also want to make it very clear the only ones who can offer slots in this new strike squadron are members of my command team, but you first must volunteer. Getting the offer only tells you, you have been pre-approved. You still need to come in and meet with us and it will be up to you to get released to us by guardians or the government if you are under the age of sixteen, which pretty much all of you are. I don’t think anyone in this group here is under the age of thirteen, but if there is, Black Jungle will release you under the condition you join as a cadet, not a combatant. Thirteen-year-olds can join but as combat support, since AIM downgrades any unit with frontline fighters under the age of fourteen. No one under age of eleven can join at all since AIM hammers any merc unit with a single ten-year-old in it with a four-level downgrade until they really step up. Right now, I only know three merc units with a higher than a C minus listing in AIM with ten-year-olds listed with mercs and as I am sure you know, until you reach age ten AIM will not touch you. However, if I find any who did fight with you all tonight who is ten, then I will give them a chance to join as a cadet as soon as they turn eleven. I’m pretty sure the youngest out here was almost twelve though, so we should be fine. Finally, I feel I also need to tell you all, one Cadet Wheeler will not be one of those we will approve. As of this moment he is the only one I have crossed off the list, but I am sure there will be a few others once we go over battle recordings.”

This got some cringes on some faces, but most were smiles and there were more than a few snickers. Allen let this fade while smiling. “It will be up to Oliver Mathis to assign slots and offer ranks in conjunction with his command team and their shadows once my team approves them. However, Mitch, I am putting you in command of an urban warfare and sewer fighting team with potential for growth to a full force. Having such a specialized fighting team has been a back-burner project of mine for a few years and you seem to be the right person to make it happen. I will bring in a couple of special advisors for you, as long as you want the slot, son.”

“Oh, yeah! Thank you, sir! Um, sir, can I get first pick of any urban warfare cadets from Black Jungle?”

Allen rubbed his chin, “Sure. I will give first pass over on all UWs who apply, Mitch. I will also bring in a few I think may be a good fit for you, but you will get final say along with your shadows and whoever you pick as an XO.”

Brice looked over, “Sir?”

Allen looked over with a knowing smile, “Let me guess, you really would like to be his number two and Tactical Officer but don’t want to feel like you are ditching us?”

“Yeah, but um, I don’t… I just want to be with other kids. Being with you is awesome, but I’m like the mascot…”

“Hey, I get it Brice. You did great and you can always come back to Shadow Brigade whenever you want. I will leave the door open to you. But I fully understand, and this is a great opportunity for you. You will get to go to classes with other kids and be doing exactly what you wanted, specialized urban combat. Keep in mind, you have a Mission Command Ribbon coming and a few others including your Combat Jump Ribbon. I’ll also make sure your AIM file will show you served on my command team during combat and you earned a Combat Bravery Ribbon while doing so. Both of you will have Multiple Kill Ribbons too, so you will be a good backup for Mitch and both of you will start out in your new slots as highly decorated officers.”

“Right on! Thank you, sir!” He looked over at Mitch, “So, can I be your XO?”

“Hell yeah!”

Commander Gem smiled, “I’ll make sure command gets you an ensign’s uniform, Brice. It was a pleasure serving with you.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Allen moved over and gave Brice a light hug, “I want it on record, the internal drive of most of you Black Jungle cadets, soon to be former cadets, is amazing. The vast majority of the new squadron will be Black Jungle, but I am also going to send for senior cadets we rescued from Andar IX. They will be here in a week or so. This will give Oliver time to finalize his command team and Mitch and Brice a chance to wrap their brains around putting together what I hope will become one of the most elite city fighting frame teams ever. The rest of you, this new squadron is my baby, and I expect it to be great. I am sure, with you all in it and with our help, it will be.”

Allen gave everyone a few seconds to talk before he cleared his throat, “So how many of you are interested in becoming part of this cohort squadron?”

Allen smiled as every hand in the group went up. “Then eat up and get with Oliver so he can set you up with PCH. Again, it is a requirement for you to have PCH sign off on your health before you can take the next step. Also, don’t be afraid to seek out any Blood’s Honor veteran if you need or want to talk. They will make time for you all.”

As he moved out of ear shot of the kids Commander Gem looked over, “So what about Joel and the others on the field study? They have no access to PCH.”

“They have been through two full PCH assessments, and the others one very comprehensive set after Andar. We’ll get them all in with PCH when they get back, but they are fighting machines, not people, and shouldn’t be seeing hard combat.”

Joel scanned the area even as Brandon and Stella used one of the captured and repaired eight-wheeled machines to tow up the shot-up machines from the ravine one after the other. At the same time Karen and Gabriel were doing the same to larger machines with a tracked repair platform Liam managed to repair from the Black Comet.

It had been four days since they had taken the Ultra base, but other than pulling in scores of shot-up machines they were no closer to having a good plan than when Joel first outlined what he wanted. The idea was sound. Fix up a bunch of the machines, split into two groups and each assault a prison compound. Make it look like the work of the machines, then take those they rescued, outfit them and then start hitting Talborne supply bases.

Eventually the Blood’s Honor SFC would pick up enough transmissions to realize there was major problems and go get help. The problem was, how to find and hit two work camps at the same time, then pull out with those who could fight and form real fighting groups. A quick recon of the work camp Saul knew about turned out to be a dead end, since it was shot up and some of it still burning. Making matters worse, Talborne infantry and armor were scouring the area in force, meaning Joel couldn’t do more than take a look at the place with a telescopic which was a bit fuzzy because of background magnetic interference. What he saw though, told him whatever had happened had been bad. The walls were breached, there were two dead heavy tanks in the crater below along with destroyed construction equipment. While he could not clearly see who, there was also an infantry team tossing bodies into a depression. One thing he was certain of; the number of bodies was very high.

Joel guessed machines had hit the place and had killed off several of those he was hoping to rescue. While this was hard to deal with, Joel bet this action would cause Talborne forces to more closely protect other hostages, making it harder to free them.

His thoughts were interrupted by Tracy who came up holding her hand and biting back tears of pain. The girl said nothing to him. Instead she sat on a rock, wiped sweat off her brow, tucked her hand into her stomach and took a long drink of water with her other hand holding the canteen.

Joel looked over, “You OK?”

“NO!” Tracy snarled, “Did you go through this, really?”

“With Cory?”

Tracy nodded, “Yeah!”

Joel shot her a smirk, “I did.” He looked at her hand and noticed it twitching uncontrollably, “Shooting practice with an electrified grip, huh?”

Tracy used her non-weapon hand to pull her fingers straight on her shooting hand, “Hurts like hell and there is no way I am ever going to hit the targets!”

“Yes you can, as I am sure Cory showed you.”

“Oh, he did, but I can’t see how he could of done it at full power like he said! Half power caused my whole stupid arm to cramp up!”

“Oh, he did it at full power and so will you before this is over. You will not make it look as easy as he does, but you will do it. Next time he shoots, watch what he does and look at his muscles.”

“Why?”

“I’ve already told you more than Cory would like. Keep in mind, though, once you can learn how to shoot accurately with a weapon grip shocking the crud out of you, the next time you are in combat with a normal weapon you will find your marksmanship will have improved a great deal.”

Tracy pulled her arm straight and forced her fingers flat by pushing down on her hand. “It’s only day three and I am freakin’ beat.”

“Don’t worry, you will get so tired you’ll find the overdrive switch sooner rather than later. Just be glad you don’t have school work to keep up with like most of us did while we were going through this.”

“Oh, screw that. All I want to do is eat and fall asleep, but he has some sand test scheduled for us next. Can you tell me what it is about?”

“I could,” Joel stated with a cringe, “but Cory would beat the snot out of me, and probably make me do it again, so I won’t.”

Cory’s voice came from just inside one of the upper caves, “Yes I would! Come on Tracy, I gave you a five-minute break, which was three more than I ever got and I was way younger when I went through these trials!”

Tracy gritted her teeth, took another long drink and forced herself to stand, “OK, let’s do whatever this sand thing is!”

Joel scanned the horizon again even as he spoke up, “Cory, any luck with the Ultra?”

“Not yet. It is like nothing I have ever seen before… Are you trying to give them a few extra minutes of rest on me, Joel?”

“It did cross my mind,” Joel admitted as he looked back, “keep in mind, if we are spotted we still need them all to be able to fight, Cory.”

“Don’t worry. I had to jump into a Micro frame for a twenty-four hour combat test after I got done with this and I had the nose and mouth plate trial to deal with before framing up. You only got three-fifths of what I did, and after you went through, your dad dropped it down to half for any future cadets.”

“Make sure you only give them half, Cory. Out of everything you put us through, the mask was the worst. Even Karen said there was nothing half as bad as the final three-minute mask.”

“Try five minutes at age six.”

“No thanks. Three, five times, spaced a minute apart really did about kill me.”

“No, you just thought it was, which is kind of the point.”

“It was the only thing you did that gave me nightmares, and they lasted for weeks. I’m pretty sure my dad made you drop it to half because of me waking up with cold sweats.”

“At least you know your biggest fear and faced it. Let’s see what the others are afraid of.”

“You know, you never told me what you fear was, and you promised you would if I made it.”

Cory moved up, made sure no one else was around and whispered, “The water box, and those bastards knew it. Had to do it bi-weekly for six freaking months. The last time was for sixty hours and almost washed me out, but I used the breathing hose on the guy who was laughing at me for bawling when they pulled me out and busted his nose with the mask. I then jumped on him and bit off a hunk of his ear before they pulled me off. For me, it was probably the difference between graduation and wherever they sent the washouts. For the guy I bit, it meant being sent to the front. I heard through the grapevine I owe you, since you killed the SOB.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. He was the orderly who had half an ear.”

Joel’s eyes went wide, “The guy who tried to put the needle in Robin’s IV?”

“One and the same. He was EC Special Ops Training Division until I bit off his ear, chewed, and swallowed it so they couldn’t sew it back on, too. It lost him his slot, since all EC SOTs have to be in perfect physical health. Having a guy with a missing ear as a trainer means he made a mistake, and mistakes are not tolerated by any of the conscripts. Therefore, there can be no signs of mistakes in the trainers. So, did you kill him or not?”

“Chip and I did, yes. Chip knocked the needle out of his hand with a shock from a heart stimulator and I jabbed it in his neck and injected it while he was strangling Chip… So, he was an EC trainer, which means he went through the shock grip and the shock plate thing. No wonder the stimulator shock didn’t do more to him.”

“Probably was set on the highest power or it wouldn’t have even caused him to drop the needle. It also explains the turtleneck collar Chip wore for a week after. It was to hide the bruises, right?”

“Yeah, his neck didn’t heal right either so they finally rejuved him. The guy must have been real close to crushing his throat.”

“I’m sure you’re right. He liked to pick the conscripts by the neck and toss them when they screwed up. More than one didn’t get back up.” Cory shrugged it off with smile. “You sure you don’t want to come down and watch? This next part will tell me who is going to last. Standing in deep sand as it slowly gets hotter is what caused Candice to fold like a badly worn wallet. The first mask test will probably wash another. I’ll also give you five credits if you can guess today’s overall winner.”

“I’ll put my money on Tracy. She is dead set on impressing Chip, but I’ll pass on watching. Having gone through it and your occasional refreshers are more than enough. Who is your money on?”

“Hard to say, but I really like Liam and he’s got a real chip on his shoulder, so I think I will put my five on him. But I can tell you Jason, Paula and Derek are tough bastards.”

“What about Law?”

“Kid keeps surprising me, but there is something soft about him. I bet he makes the cut of forty degrees, though. The others will push the limit all the way to forty-five, but between forty-two and forty-four most throw in the towel. The mask may finish off Law though.”

“I doubt it. He’s got real heart. You know, I made it to forty-five degrees in the sand, so I guess I am not too bad. What about you?”

“I can do forty-nine for about ten minutes, but by then it is doing real damage, so I come out slightly burned with some small blisters. BH says most I can go is forty-eight and thermal protection must be worn around the groin now, which really cuts down on wanting to get the hell out if you ask me, so no one is going to get more than red skin and maybe a few real tiny bubbles.”

“I wish they had instituted the groin protection before I went through it. That was the second worst part!”

“I know, believe me I know. Wish I could do it to them the right way, though.”

“Let them know they are supposed to wear the protection, but the first group didn’t and see if any offers to forego it. Nothing BH will say if they decline, especially since I will put it in my report that they refused, not declined. But if they do, I want it kept to a max of forty-six, forty-five left my nuts swollen.” Seeing Cory grin, Joel changed the subject, not wanting to dwell on the fact he would be responsible for causing at least a few a great deal of extra discomfort over the next couple of days from a very tender groin area. “So how did you learn about the guy going after Robin, before BH pulled everyone out and set a trap for EC?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Cory let out a rare snicker, “Since when are things really kept secret from me?”

“I’m just going to take a quick patrol and forget I found out you know about the infiltration of the hospital.”

Cory grinned, “One of these days you will realize I know way more than I should.”

“Oh, I know, Cory, but sometimes you come up with things I know darn good and well you shouldn’t have any idea about. Chip and I were both threatened with being sent away to Dust Storm XI for the rest of our academy years if we so much as breathed a word about the assassination attempt to someone who didn’t already know.”

“Well, I know, so you should be good.” Cory joked. “And I do owe you for taking out Trainer Twenty-three. He was a mean bastard even for our EC Mars Farm. Only Trainer Eighteen was worse, and I am not going to be satisfied until I find and kill her.”

“If EC is really helping Talborne, maybe we’ll run across her.”

“If we do, she dies slow, and I don’t give a shit what BH has to say about it.”

“Chip and I will make sure to forget to add any such actions in our report should it happen, Cory. She’s all yours. But if she is half as bad as some of the things you have hinted at, and you want or need assistance, I am sure Karen, Chip and I will be willing to help.”

Cory gave Joel a smirk, “And all this time BH has been hoping you would all rub off on me.”

“Oh, we have, but we’ve picked up a bit of you along the way.”

“More than a bit, if you ask me. Talk to you later, but if you are going out on a patrol take someone with. This damned planet is humming with bad guys who aren’t supposed to be here and way more machines than we were ever briefed on.”

Cory started to walk back down into the base but stopped, “You know I can get into any base these morons have and kill most of those guarding the place before they even know there is a problem. Give me a couple more weeks to find a good second, probably Paula since I can already tell she has gotten training on near my level, and we could take one base while the rest of you team up on the other.”

Joel glanced back, “It’s an option I have already thought about and am keeping open, Cory. Hearing you say it moves it up on the list of good ideas though.”

“Get us a couple of possible targets and let me scope them out so I can give you a yes or no, but they aren’t EC, just backed by them, so I’m sure I can get in and do what I did to EC Command on NB, only worse. Especially if I have one other to watch my back. It would make a great graduation test for overall winner of my training.”

“And give you something to look forward to, right?”

“Damn straight. Haven’t been able to use all my skills at once in a long time. I’d love a chance to shake off the rust and leave a pile of dead Talbornians in my wake. They killed your mom and shot your brother, after all, and we haven’t even started to make ’em pay for it.”

The only payment our authors receive for their efforts are your emails. Kyle deserves to hear from you if you are reading his stories, especially if can give a good critique. leecolo at Gmail dot com.

If you are using webmail please include, on the subject line, [CR] (name of story). This let’s the author know 2 things: Where you read the story and which story you are writing about.

47,986 views