Published: 6 Nov 2023

Chapter 18 – Darker Sides of Humanity

The Brile star was rapidly receding as Chip entered the compound. While he was still shaken and sickened at the realization he had directly contributed to the death of so many, his primary concern turned to getting the captives out of the old chemical plant. First, as was just proven, the main product, diborane, was extremely hazardous. However, not far behind manmade chemicals, was the native wildlife of Brile. With darkness and cooler temperatures, the Hexa-lizards would come out in force.

Deeper inside the compound, Paula and Liam, in captured battle armor, cleared buildings. Cory moved through, in, and around the structures looking for other survivors. The laser mounted on his battle armor fired a few times, but a trio of others failed to see danger since they were in captured armor with a Ulysses paint scheme. Those who thought they were seeing an ally fell to the sonic stun rifles they procured off those who had already been taken down.

Like Cory, Paula and Liam found little resistance. Only a smattering of Ulysses uniform clad men and women emerged with hands secured with rigid disposable quick-cuffs Cory had found inside the main gatehouse. All were badly disoriented and all but one was injured. Occasionally the pops of gunshots echoed over the compound. When this happened, Jason would move in. When his frame appeared, three more surrendered on sight. Four others were added to the large numbers haunting a facility that certainly had seen its share of death dating all the way back to the Machine Wars.

Suddenly, Cory’s voice came over the radio, “Breaching charge! Stay clear of the back of the motor pool!”

Chip and Jason both spun to point their frame weapons at a building next to the motor pool as a particularly large blast sent debris flying out from under the back of the building. This was followed by around a dozen smaller explosions from deeper inside and under the building. Chip started to move in even as muzzle and laser flashes blinked through the thick smoke. However, before Chip made it to the underground entrance, Cory emerged from the smoke dragging a couple of smallish bodies with the help of his battle armor.

Cory dropped both kids, pointed for Chip or Jason to cover them, then disappeared back through a large, mangled, roll-up door. A few more laser and muzzle flashes pierced the smoke before he reemerged with two more bodies.

As he deposited them beside the first two, Chip noticed all four wore Ulysses Academy cadet vests. Three had frame vests, the other wore a vest signifying he was in battle armor training. Chip’s arm-mounted weapons pointed at the four unmoving figures, “Ulysses’ thugs? What are they doing here?”

Cory responded by external speaker even as he moved back under the building. “Judging on the fact all were locked in three small brig-like rooms and how beat up they are…” An exchange of fire between a laser and an automatic weapon cut off the rest. A shrill scream of a woman, followed by an agonized shout of a man with a deep voice cascaded up the ramp.

Seconds later Cory reappeared. While damaged, his armor wasn’t breached. However, it had blood on both fists, across his chest, and on one foot. He carried yet two bodies wearing cadet battle armor vests with Ulysses patches over the right breast. He dropped the two girls next to the four boys. “They really should have done better security sweeps. They didn’t detect any of the shrapnel charges I set up down there the last time we penetrated…” He snorted and shrugged. “And while I need to patch and wipe down this armor, the makeshift repair, frame, and battle armor bays are secure.”

Cory paused to shake some blood and gore off the left hand of his battle armor, then pointed to the boy in the framer vest and a girl in a battle armor vest, “As I was saying, not only are they beat up, I know she was a master sergeant, and he was a senior sergeant on Andar, but both are now wearing private rank. I’d say, much like the kid Candice found with the ruptured spleen, these six pissed in someone’s AIM rations and have been paying for it for quite a while.”

Cory ripped one of the vests off a battle armor cadet and used it to wipe off some blood. He spoke coldly as he did so. “There were four more in locked rooms the last time I went down there, but either the last two jack wads I just eliminated let them out or one of my shrapnel charges fully breached their doors. Either way, I’m not sure it’s worth trying to save them, but you’re the best medic we’ve got, so you can try.”

Jason’s frame quivered as the teen did the same inside his frame. “Cory, you…”

Chip spoke up as he moved down into the former secured bays, “I’ve tried to tell you all, he’s off. Without cadre, he is taking it to a whole new level.”

Cory glanced back over his shoulder as he made his way toward the captive area. “No, what I do hasn’t changed. I just don’t have to be as cautious to not get caught without cadre. Kind of takes the fun out of some of this.”

While Jason’s frame stood motionless, Chip ripped a section of the metal roll-up door so he could more easily get his frame into the underground garage Cory had exited.

Cory shook his head, “Be warned, it’s a mess. There were at least nineteen adults and two cadet lieutenants down there. Most didn’t handle the breaching and shrapnel charges very well. The others looked like they wanted to get to the Slasher, Squalls, frames, or battle armor, so I didn’t leave enough of them to ask what these six did wrong.”

Just as Cory finished, Jason’s frame spun as a burst of automatic fire lit up a window in the corner of the largest building in the compound. Flashes and pops continued for several minutes, even after Jason moved his frame to support. Light auto fire peppered his frame. It didn’t last long. A long burst from his frame’s heavy automatic shotgun ended enemy resistance toward the front of the building.

Weapon fire increased in the back corner for almost a minute. Cory rushed over to the window and jumped through.

Jason got to the side door just as two distinct bright flashes blew out the windows on both sides of the door. This was followed by at least one scream. A man’s body crashed through the broken window Cory had jumped through. Seconds later Liam and Paula emerged with light combat damage and fresh blood on the outside of their armor.

Paula’s blade also dripped vital juices. Behind them, Liam shoved a bloody-faced teen, wearing senior private pins and an infantry badge on his uniform, hard enough to send him sprawling. Liam then disappeared back inside.

Jason almost said something but stopped as Paula held up her hand and shook her head. As Paula panned her laser over the area, Jason scanned the area with his frame’s arm-mounted weapons.

“We’re clear, Liam!” Paula called out.

Liam reappeared with his helmet off and motioned for someone to come out. It took close to a minute before two small, wobbly-legged kids with tear-streaked faces peeked out from around the doorframe.

Liam knelt, “Come on, get out of the fumes… You’re safe. All these guys are with me and will protect you, promise.”

Both emerged cautiously. The only way to tell one was a boy and the other a girl was the tattered remains of undersized military academy vests. Both showed them to be junior academy frame cadets with private ranks. The blond-haired kid’s vest had a style normally worn by girls; the brown-haired lad had on a boy’s. Under their vests they wore too-large, odd-looking, one-piece outfits. They were plain dark grey with heavy reinforcing on the knees and elbows. Additional reinforcements surrounded the collar and ran down the inner and outer arms and legs. Small metal rings hung off the reinforcements. The boots looked equally odd. They came up to the outer calf and were secured with five pull-lock buckles. Like the outfits, the boots had small rings just above the heels. Everything they wore looked worn, but still serviceable. They moved just beyond the doorframe before they dropped to their knees, took deep breaths of fresher air, and grabbed hands. It took several seconds, but they both looked up and around with complete fear.

Jason’s eyes narrowed. “Junior academy cadets? What are they doing here?”

“Being treated like shit, like every person Talborne brought to the world.” Liam stated with fury. “Looked like these two were assigned to keep the officer’s quarters clean and… I don’t even want to know what else. But they ain’t the only ones on this rock.”

Liam took a deep breath, but it did little to hide the anger in his voice. “There are scores of junior cadets scattered across this crappy rock. Talborne’s goons had lists of names. If the kid was on it, they didn’t care how old, if they had medical issues, or anything else. If you were on the list, you came here. If we weren’t on a list, but a Ulysses punk took notice for some reason, any reason, and they didn’t kill us, we got shoved on the same ships with those on Talborne’s lists. A glare, real or perceived, a badly timed spoken comment, or even just because someone took interest for whatever reason got some sent here. Others were simply shot. After being here for months, I have to wonder if those who ended up with a bullet or laser didn’t get the better end of the deal.”

Liam pushed the helmet back on and adjusted the battle armor’s auto-sizing as he turned to the two youngsters. “You saw me. I’m a kid too. And like you, I was also put into a work camp. But thanks to those with me, I escaped. Now it’s my turn to help you get away from this shit-hole installation.”

The two youngsters eyed Liam with a mixture of uncertainty and hope. But both turned their attention to the teen Liam had tossed with fear etched on their faces as the young man managed to get up to his hands and knees.

Cory came out the same window he had jumped through with a badly bloodied and unconscious teen wearing a Ulysses aerospace cadet vest with warrant officer rank on what was left of his uniform’s collar in one hand. The other held a kid wearing what amounted to rags. As soon as he was clear of the window, a series of small explosions seemed to cascade out of nearly every window in the building. He spoke as he lowered the kid in rags gently but dropped the cadet warrant officer face first. “As long as you swept the other buildings, we’re now clear. Any left inside this one are dead or wished they were…” He stared at the younger kids for several seconds, cocked his head, and glanced down at the senior private.

Without warning he turned and shot the uniformed senior private with the stunner rifle he carried, glanced over at the wide-eyed kids, shrugged, took a couple of steps to the side, and shot him twice more at point-blank range. “There, he won’t bother you again, or anyone else for a bit. Now, are you Brood? And if you are not, why are you wearing Brood clothing with non-standard sleeve cuffs?”

As both kids gulped and exchanged worried glances, Liam spoke. “Cory, we’ve been on this rock for months. Many kids outgrew what they had. Others needed replacements when what we were wearing became so tattered it wasn’t worth putting on. We all kept vests, and for some reason, when they wear out, they tend to give us replacements with proper patches. Probably since they grabbed a bunch when they took Andar. Plus they are warm, and I’m sure they wanted to know where and what we were being trained in. While they don’t really care about our health, they still needed us to work, and we’ve all worked in some real cold and nasty crap. And while this is just a guess, them knowing what our skill sets are allowed them to keep better tabs on us.

“Regardless, what I was captured in was all but ragged scraps after just a few weeks here. When it happened, most of us got tossed spare clothing that looked like it was out of some prison for kids or something. It was dark green with reflective orange on the sleeves and outside pants legs. But I think they ran out of little kids’ clothing, cause smaller kids started getting those after the first month or so.”

Liam took a deep angry breath, “Those who gave anyone problems were shuttled to the hardest labor camps and were… are… given two sets of those as well. Also, as spare reflective clothing for older kids started to run short, those one-piecers became more and more standard. Both Saul and I have a couple back at the aluminum smelter where we were normally kept.

“But there are a couple of common things about those one-piecers. They’re always used, and normally too big for us, probably because it’s almost impossible to wear holes in them, so they figured we’d be able to use them for a long time before we outgrow ‘em. They’re also heavy. Sucks when it’s hot. But whenever we travel, like when Joel found us, we wore what he found us with, fairly new cadet clothing. I think it let them, and those we were forced to help, identify us from the permanently assigned forced workers.

“Adults got different looking jumpsuits. They are made out of the same tough stuff… But, lucky them, they don’t have restraint rings. But most of the clothing they gave the adults had lasers burns, bullet holes and even some blood stains. Saul and me guessed the former owners aren’t alive to need them no more. From what I saw while you were penetrating this building the last time we were here, I bet well over half of those we are going to pull out of here are wearing what these two are.”

“Closer to seventy percent,” Paula confirmed. “All the others are in the green and orange. Uh… what do you mean, restraint rings?”

Liam flipped one of the loops hanging off the single piece outfit on the kid wearing the boy’s vest. “These. They like to use little, super strong, electronic locking clips. They can lock any ring to any other. Normally just our hands or feet together, but if you piss off whoever is above you, or they just get a wild hair up their ass, they can lock arms to legs, hands to back of boots, or even cross arms and all but tie you in a damned knot. Only those with the electronic key for the clips can let you out…” his voice faded and he shivered at clearly unpleasant memories.

As the two youngsters continued to take deep breaths and cry, they nodded.

Cory let out a grunt as he removed his helmet. “Sounds like someone from Earth Core showed these Ulysses punks some tricks. However… did you get hung up by the heel loops with your arms locked to your legs, and your legs locked together?”

“NO!” Liam shouted. “Thank God! What they did do was enough to make me do what they wanted.”

“We got hung up when we screwed up, sometimes for a day or more. Those who called out to be let down were first punished, then if they didn’t learn to just hang there, they were removed from the Brood. If we really blew it, like do serious damage to a frame or other equipment because we were careless, or if we were deemed to be seriously slacking, we got hung up and five to ten other Brood members had to use us as punching bags. It was one of the few punishments where open crying was allowed, but we were not allowed to plead for it to stop. Those who did got another group of Brood lined up and were pummeled all over again. Those who pled for it to end a second time were taken out, normally on a stretcher, never to be seen again… We thought they killed them, but now…” He pulled up the boy’s arm and looked at the Latin writing on the sleeve cuff and frowned.

“Didn’t you see captives wearing these suits when you came in and hung up the rope around the pipe you had me shoot?” Jason asked.

“I didn’t get a good look at the prisoners when we infiltrated the facilities the other day. Liam and Paula did external scouting and handled the equipment marking.” Cory let the kid’s arm go snickered. “Besides, I had more exciting and fun things to do.”

“Like what?” Jason demanded to know.

“Oh, crud,” Chip sighed as he emerged from the underground bunker carrying one boy with an infantry vest and a shake of his head. “Cory, what you did down there… No words and I sure ain’t going to tell Joel or command… and Jason, there are questions you shouldn’t ask… ever!”

“But he did.” Cory responded with satisfaction. His grin turned malicious at best to flatly evil at worst. “Oh, let’s see… I grabbed a few things, damaged seals of scores of emergency breathing masks, sabotaged a few senior officers’ sidearms, got into the command safe, planted some radio activated motion sensored shrapnel charges, took some pics of the command override codes for all equipment assigned to this station… And a few other interesting and entertaining activities. Problem was, it took a while. The prisoners were already inside by the time I got out of this building.” He pointed to the building the kids had come out of as he moved to look down at a young woman in a senior private uniform who had started to crawl. He grabbed the back of her head by her hair and smacked it down hard into the ground. The body went slack.

Chip blinked in amazement and cringed at the same time, “You have the override codes?”

“Of course!” Cory snorted as he poked at the body hard enough to push it to the side by half a meter with the foot of the power armor. The woman didn’t move. He looked up with a smirk. “Figured you would have guessed, since I told you we could pull out with any equipment we didn’t damage.”

“Damn, he is good!” Jason snickered.

“And explains why there were dozens down in the command center all with breathing masks on!” Liam remarked with astonishment. “Their masks had bad seals!”

“And why the senior lieutenant and captain’s laser pistols overloaded when they pulled them and tried to shoot these two kids,” Paula added. “The lieutenant’s dead. The captain was breathing but his hand and upper arm are a blackened mess. Don’t think he has long.”

“Guess they didn’t check their emergency gear or sidearms since the last time we were in here,” Cory snickered. “Shame on them. I sure hope it hurt before it killed the one jackwad.”

“Damn, you are… Gruesome!” Jason barked out, but still chuckled.

“Don’t encourage him,” Chip warned. “Liam, Paula, Cory, I didn’t get a good look because of the smoke and… what’s left of the pilots, techs, and guards…” He stopped as he saw the kid Cory came out of the window with get up on his hands and knees and cough hard. “Fletch?”

Cory held up a hand to stop Chip from saying more. “Yeah. They had him in the infirmary with this kid.” He pointed down to the warrant officer. “They both were on oxygen, but they still got some diborane exposure, so give him some time.”

Cory paused and looked down. “I knew he was up there. He, and those two,” he pointed to the junior cadets, “are the reason I didn’t radio detonate the shrapnel charges I placed the last time I was here.”

Chip started to move forward anyway, only to have Cory step in front of him, “We can talk to him later. You were about to give orders. What were they?”

Chip shook his head to clear it but couldn’t take his eyes off the boy. “Um, yeah… we have things to do. There are frames down there and Cory has the codes. Those of you in battle armor switch out. Now, how is Fletch here? And what is this about them wearing Brood clothing?”

Cory eyed the two smaller kids with a scowl as he spoke. “Don’t know why Fletcher is here, but I know he is friends with a lot of you going all the way back to New Bravaria, and really close to Brandon, so I prioritized getting him out. As for the frames, I already changed the command codes on the two Vipers for me and Liam. Liam, the Viper with the sonic blaster is yours. I set the command code to your full name and home planet. Change to what you want. It’ll make a good primary for you. Your Sniper can be a backup this way. Or the Viper can be your second if you prefer, but we all know Archer Industries Vipers and Brave Humanities Warriors are the nicest frames allowed for senior cadets in competitions. But just because I promised… Keep the stunner on it.”

Chip’s head jerked to look at Cory, “Vipers? Really?”

Cory took his eyes off the two junior cadets long enough to nod. “Pretty sure they belonged to the two cadet lieutenants since both have cadet lieutenant ranks and names on the right shoulders. Their former owners’ conditions preclude them needing a frame. So, I procured them. I earmarked one for Liam, unless you…”

Chip shook his head. “Cory, I’ve never seen you befriend someone like you have Liam, so I’m not going to stop Liam from being in a top-notch frame. Besides, this is combat salvage, your salvage. I’m not getting in the way of you giving your salvage to him.”

“Good, cause Liam deserves the best we can put him in.”

Cory shot a quick grin to Liam, then glanced over to Paula. The moment she made eye contact, he tossed over a small holographic recorder. “Full copy of all command overrides. How about you make sure there is no security measures at the holding area, then get everything in the motor pool fired up while Liam guards?”

“Sounds good.” Paula nodded. “Once we get everything up and running, we’ll break the captives out and send them to the platforms.”

“Just don’t tell any of them anything other than order them to grab as much supplies, including food, as we can fit in the transports with them,” Cory warned. “We need them doing exactly what they are told until we get well clear. We also need to send out a message to cover for Candice. If we get real lucky, we may make contact with her.”

Paula glanced back to the platform they had come in, “Unlikely, but we can hope. How about we pull all the weapons out of the Javelin and set the radio for a general freq and do a retrains? We can jam the steering and throttle, so it heads out into the plains. It’ll be a great way to get rid of the captives. All we have to do is stick them in the back. It’ll take a couple of hours, if not more, for one of them to break the restraints and get to the driver controls. As long as I set a charge to fry the radio after we’re done, they will be stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing other than the shell of the Javelin that will be low on fuel.”

Paula smirked as she continued. “If these jerks are lucky, they will be able to get free and get upfront before machines find it. It’d be even better, and extremely nice, if Ulysses pricks and machines respond to where we use it to transmit from and they’ll get into a shootout with each other.”

“You two are…” Jason turned his frame and started to walk to the prisoner building. “Disturbed and scary.”

“Thanks!” Cory called out with a snicker, before turning to Paula. “I think we got lucky, cause there are more frames down there than the last time we were here. I bet they had a patrol come in last night and were on rest. I checked. Standard command overrides work on all of them. There are two Bandits, four Strikers, a trio of Aggressors, and four Razor Frames not spoken for yet along with sixteen more suits of Guard class and two Rebel class Battle Armor through the breached door under the building closest to the motor pool. There’s ammo and some repair equipment as well.”

Chip pointed down at the kid he clearly knew. “Get Fletcher in one of the frames of his choice if he is at all up for it.”

The boy looked up, shook his head, winced, and looked up again. Confusion was written on his face. “I… I can still pilot… But what…? How do you know me? And… Who are you?”

“Relax Fletch,” Chip commanded. “It’ll make sense shortly. Just get your head screwed on straight so you are ready to pilot. And… While a couple of us know you, I’d like to know why you were in medical.”

“Got mouthy with the guards when they went after Alric again… I hoped it would get me out of the prison bunker. It worked… too well. The captain… He decided to let the detachment focus on me instead. Not one of my better moves. Bet I’m even higher on his shit-list now.”

Paula spoke up. “You’re talking about the tall blond-haired guy with the bad comb-over with the captain rank on his shoulders?”

“Yeah, Captain Sigijento… former supply officer of the Ulysses 6th Armor.”

“Former is a good word,” Paula stated. “He was almost dead after his laser pistol overloaded. Judging on the explosions, his almost dead status has made a turn for the worse.”

“Maybe for him…” Fletcher forced himself up to his knees. “For me and several others it is very much for the better…” The kid looked around and blinked as he saw bodies littering the grounds. “Damn! What’d you do, kill everyone?”

“Most.” Jason stated.

“At least ninety percent,” Liam added. “Not including work prisoners, of course.”

Paula sneered. “Pretty sure you’re low on overall percent.”

Fletcher ran a hand down his face and forced himself to stand with a wince. “The more the better… Mind if I grab some weapons off some of these assholes and go back in there and get my gear bag, electrostatics, and uni’s?”

“Gear up, but make it fast. Just make sure whatever you grab will fit in the back of a frame since it sounds like you are getting one.” Cory stated, then turned to Chip.

“Most of the frames are small and have SAT so we should be able to find pilots for all of them as long as there are enough frame pilots in the holding area.” Cory paused to glance over to Fletcher.

To his credit, the boy caught the look and knew he was being asked a question. “There are probably twenty-five framers… A few are too badly beaten on to help, but most are still pilot capable. The problem is, from the way it sounds, it’s been months since most have jumped into one. Not nearly as long for me, but I’m sure I am going to be rusty, especially in a frame I haven’t piloted before…”

“You were a Grenadier,” Chip responded. “It’ll come back fast for you.”

Fletcher stared at the frame Chip was in, “How…? You really do know me!”

“Yeah,” Cory answered, “a couple of us do. You’ll see more once we clear out and link up with the others.”

Fletcher looked back at Cory, “I… I don’t recognize you.”

“Probably because you didn’t trust me. Congrats, the shoe is on the other foot. But at least I’m willing to give you the benefit of doubt.”

Cory focused back on Chip. “Some of the battle armor is clearly for cadets, but we’ll need bigger kids or adults for the rest. Maybe we can find pilots for most of them. Use the command codes to give maintenance access only. It’ll lock out weapons. But me, I’d say let’s get captives into everything we can take. Any battle armor we can’t use, we’ll toss on top of the platforms. If nothing else, they’ll give us parts.”

Liam spoke up, “Tell all the captives to grab everything they can fast. Tell them…” He glanced up at the main storage tank with the flashing light. “Tell them they don’t have much time before the tanks blow. Let them know they get everything loaded or we’ll leave them here to get blown up or eaten by Hexa-lizards. It will, or should, get them moving. Make them do the work, because it’s what they will expect. It’ll help us grab supplies we need and stop them from asking questions until we get back to the Ultra we took.”

Fletcher nodded, “Not sure what’s going on, but we all know to do exactly what we’re told… unless you want to look like I do. Make commands forceful and everyone will do what you want. If you do it from inside a frame…” he cringed, “let me put it this way. Give orders from inside a frame, no one will argue. Even if told to run naked into rocks where the Hexa-lizards are. At least with the Hexa-lizards you have a chance.”

As Paula and Liam got new filter masks on the two junior cadets, Cory turned to Chip, “Sounds like the best way to keep everyone motivated is to give orders from inside a frame. Make sure to keep your sensors and guns up and ready in case we missed anyone, but unless someone hid real well, we’re clear. I need to make sure the surprises I planted in and around the buildings are primed for when Ulysses jackwads send in people to see what is left after we blow the main tanks.”

“We were only inside for a couple of hours!” Liam gasped out. “How in the hell did you do so much?”

“These pricks screwed up my chance to take first in the infiltration competition,” Cory grumbled. “So I figured I would make them wish they had let me finish. With any luck, by the time I’m done on this world, they will beg me to take the damned trophy.”

“You’d have to leave some alive to beg,” Chip responded dryly and with a shake of his head. “But what’s the deal with the suits those two are wearing?”

Cory moved up to the two junior cadets. “These are Brood standard training suits. We wore them from the last year in the Hive until we saw combat and were given the two-piece flak shirt and blade resistant pants. It’s why you had to use armor piercing tranq darts. Normal ones wouldn’t have penetrated the clothing we were given.”

Fletcher turned sharply, “Brood?” His eyes told everyone looking at him his brain had made the connection. “You! You’re the Delta Brood kid Blood’s Honor took in!”

“Congrats,” Cory responded. “Your brain is finally clicking. And, just to make sure everyone here understands… This is the second time I’ve saved your butt. Now chill and shut up before I regret pulling you out of there before I set the shrapnel charges off.”

As Fletcher stared and Chip let out a long breath, Cory moved between the two small kids. “Relax, I’m not going to hurt you, but I need to see your right sleeve cuffs.”

“It’s OK, he’s a good friend,” Liam added softly.

The one who had on the girl’s vest took a nervous breath but moved closer and held out an arm.

Cory knelt. His voice went cold, “Spawn Nine One, Omicron Hive. No Brood designation but was in the 17229 Hatching of Epsilon Pod…” He moved his hand and checked behind the kid’s ear. As she gave a scared yelp, he let go with a shake of his head. “Not hatched… and female, no chance she was part of the Hive.” He eyed the boy for a second before he grabbed the boy’s right arm, “Spawn Four Four Four, Omicron Hive, Zeta Pod 17229, Omicron Hive… and again, no Brood designation.” He didn’t give the boy a choice. He grabbed the boy and looked behind the ear.

Cory glanced over to Liam as he let the boy go, “Did you see where these,” He tugged on the loose-fitting outfit on the girl, “came from?”

“Not really. Saul and I…”

Chip moved up, “Guys, later. We need to get this done.”

Cory took one more look at the sleeves of both kids, shook his head, and moved to the main door of the command building. However, he paused and turned to Liam, “Chip’s right. You said yourself the main tank didn’t look great. We need to get the prisoners, grab everything not welded down, and get out of here. But the old guy and the kid we stashed at the gatehouse comes with us.”

Cory paused and looked down at the kids wearing Ulysses academy uniforms. “Chip, I want these captives. Our first two and these kids,” he pointed down at the Ulysses cadets for emphasis. “Shove them in the back of one of one of the Zeniths. Lock them in. Maybe one of them knows something about these Brood suits or can give us other hard intel.”

Liam pulled off his helmet again so the kids could see him. “Come on guys, time to get you out of this hellhole.” He pointed to the Javelin just inside the main gate. “Stella’s the driver. Tell her to drive over to the motor pool and grab a frame. But before she does anything, say Liam said to give you a deluxe AIM ration pack and a soda.”

“Really?” The one wearing the girl’s vest spoke with hopeful eyes.

“Yeah, we got a few of both left. But you better run before we free the others. I’m sure there’s not enough for everyone.”

The girl turned to the boy, “Come on Octavio! We get a soda!”

The pair released each other’s hands and raced toward the APC but had to use hands to keep the long legs of the strange jumpsuits from getting under their feet.

“Softy,” Cory snorted as he continued to move away.

Liam sent a glare at Cory, “They’re not even old enough to have AIM numbers, Cory.”

“Neither was I when our Brood instructors sent us to clear minefields,” Cory countered. “Or when I picked off, then gutted three EC pricks and did interesting things to several others who grabbed Fletcher and his three Drago buddies, along with those others in the deep woods of New Bravaria. But I’m not totally heartless. The ration pack I get, but a soda too? We didn’t grab dozens of cases like Gabriel did for their guys.”

Liam snickered, “From what Paula told me, he didn’t grab a thing. He ordered the others to load them all on the fuel trailer while he drank a couple.”

“I’d have done the same thing if I had thought about it,” Chip admitted. He paused and glanced down at the senior private. “I gather he wasn’t being nice to those two?”

“Understatement, at least judging by the looks they gave him.” Liam growled as he put the helmet back on and walked toward the underground bunker. “But he was in the outer room like some kind of guard. It was in a secure area, so the fumes didn’t get to the other three who were higher ranking… He was on the floor with a breathing mask on when we broke through the damaged outer door, so he either grabbed one of the masks Cory screwed with and got some fumes or part of the concussion wave, maybe both.”

“Where are the other three?”

Liam looked down, “They joined the vast majority of the others who didn’t make it out.” He held out a blood-coated fist for emphasis. “But this dickweed… I know he hurt those two. He had the controller for the electronic locking clips. Both of them were secured to hooks in the wall next to small cots in a side room by a thin cable to the ring on the back of the neck. The front of their collars were also clipped so they couldn’t even take off those damned one-piecers. They are terrified of him.”

“He was their watchdog,” Cory concurred. “He was making them clean the officer’s mess when I penetrated the building the first time. But they were wearing ragged clothing like Fletcher here, as they scrubbed the floor on hands and knees. It was clear he had full authority over them. And while only a senior private, the kid looks a whole lot like the captain, so…”

Cory’s words were cut off as Liam’s stunner barked. Another shot slammed into the already unconscious senior private. The whole body convulsed.

“Yup!” Cory grinned, “The more I get to know you, the more I like you.”

The head unit of Chip’s frame rotated back and forth as he looked between Liam and Cory. The looks he got back were cold. “I’m sure I’m missing something, but I also bet I don’t want to know.”

“You don’t,” Liam confirmed.

Fletcher spoke with underlying anger, “He’s a mean piece of shit. And yeah, he is Captain Sigijento’s kid. And while a senior private, he’s more like a… warrant officer, cause no one can tell him what to do other than his damned old man.”

Chip moved toward the prisoner area, but paused long enough to point his arm-mounted stun rifle straight down at the motionless senior private. “I don’t know, don’t want to, not even going to ask. But I am more than sure you deserve this!” The screech of his weapon caused the whole body to jerk yet again. “Cory, before we leave, stuff this jerk in a light E-suit so the lizards don’t eat him. Then drag him far enough out so he doesn’t get caught when we blow the chemical tanks. If his eyes so much as flutter, stun him again. We leave him behind with NOTHING!”

In front of him, Liam and Cory exchanged fist bumps.

Chip moved up to the low wall with electrified wires around the top. He noted Paula as she worked on a power box outside the only gate into the prisoner area. “Go grab a frame and make sure Fletcher gets one. Jason can help me here.”

Paula glanced back, saw Chip raise his frame’s arm and scrambled back. Moments later a trio of very sharp extremely fast disks sliced into the main power cables leading to the wires. The main gate succumbed to a vicious punch combo only a few seconds later.

“Chip,” Jason shouted, “you just killed power to the entire holding area!”

“Don’t care,” Chip responded. “The speaker announcement said to kill power to the building itself, so all I did was take out any security they may have connected to the power junction box.”

He moved through the mangled gate and panned his arm across the small inner yard. Nothing moved. He looked at the building. As he scanned it, he realized it looked more like a hardened ammo storage or explosive storage building than holding area. It made him shudder to think this windowless bunker had been home for whomever they found inside, probably for months.

He looked over his shoulder, “Jason, you need to order them around. I can’t make a deep voice if I had to.” He then darkened his faceplate so no one could see him.

He moved up to the large metal door and used the strength of his Warrior frame to break the heavy-looking lock. Without any hesitation, he grabbed the thick metal door handle and yanked it open.

Behind him, Jason stepped in and used his frame’s speaker. He shouted, “Gas Leak! We leave now! Everyone out! Move!”

Over two score of kids and adults shielded their eyes as the low sun-blasted light through the open door to a totally dark room. Most looked stunned and scared.

“Now!” Jason barked. “Grab clothes and other items you want! Get to vehicles! Follow orders, you live!” He followed this up with a carbon steel fist punch to the doorframe. A chunk of the old, reinforced building flew off. “I said MOVE!”

A woman on the left side of the building stood, “You heard the man! Let’s go! Grab clothing and what little we have!” She turned to look at a boy wearing an aerospace cadet vest who had jumped up as soon as the door opened. “Konstantin, help Chauncey if they’ll let you.”

“Help any who need!” Jason ordered but his voice slipped. “All other, load supply at vehicles! Do as told you come with. You do, you live!”

The woman eyed Jason’s frame, but quickly shrugged and pulled a couple more up off metal cots anchored into the wall and helped them to stand. “I smell weird fumes! Alfred, help Doug! Omura, you get Faye! Gresham and Vitale, you two help Rusty. I’ll carry Vaughan!”

She scooped up a small boy with one arm and pointed to two older kids with her other. “Absolon and Léon, no one does anything stupid. We do whatever they tell us. You two get to help me keep everyone doing what they’re told!”

This seemed to get the others moving. Those inside made small bundles out of spare clothing and ran for the door. Jason moved out of the way and pointed to Chip who stood at the destroyed prisoner area compound gate. Chip pointed toward the motor pool.

“Waste no time! Run!” Jason shouted through his frame’s speaker.

Joel stayed focused on the two transports. He could do little else even as occasional gunfire echoed out of two installations at the mine complex. His mind was simply overwhelmed by the level of death and destruction around him. His only saving grace, at least he hoped it was, were those in the back of the two wheeled trucks.

So focused was he at getting to them, he missed a couple of radio transmissions. Finally, his mind caught the tail end of one. It was Gabriel’s voice. “… his radio must be out. He isn’t responding. Andar One and Two, cover him. T1 and T2, move into the upper complex and clear it. J, B1 and B2, the southern complex is yours. Overwatch, keep your eyes open for reinforcements and stragglers. Remember, we to need to have complete control before we can let the prisoners help gather equipment and supplies.”

Confirmation of orders came through rapidly. Still, Joel said nothing. He found it hard to walk, let alone talk. Only one thing kept replaying in his mind. It was when two of the officers pulled him and his brother aside. Before they spoke, Joel knew by looks alone, the news was bad. Yet nothing prepared him for when they told him. Not the talks of Mom and Dad about a worst-case scenario, not the classes all Blood’s Honor dependents had to take. Not even having helped friends when one of their parents hadn’t returned from the field of battle. Word his own mother was gone hit him worse than a frame punch.

The exact words came back to him. “Kids, I think you can tell… And we are both so sorry to inform you… Your mother did not make it off Andar and is assumed dead.” He vividly remembered his brother refusing to believe even as tears poured down both their cheeks. The pair of adults had to restrain his brother after he demanded to see his mom’s body, then smashed his head into a bulkhead when the adults told both of them their mother’s body hadn’t been recovered. Even as one wrapped his brother in a bearhug and the other clamped down the kicking legs, they explained they hadn’t been able to get to her, but her frame had put out red smoke and was breached in multiple locations… It wasn’t until they grabbed him, and other kids told them he had been hit, did they realize his younger brother had a laser burn… His brother screamed in a combination of mental and physical pain until he had nothing left.

Joel put one foot of his frame in front of the other and focused on the back transport. Every few steps his mind seemed to scream out. ‘How many kids are going to get the same message because of what I just ordered?’ His internal question was followed by vivid memories of the looks on the faces of the two officers. A look kids back on Ulysses would see in men and women who came to where they lived.

His mind regained enough equilibrium to hear another exchange. Once again it was Gabriel’s voice. “Black Jungle and Sarge, any activity on the road?”

“Negative,” Karen responded. “But someone needs to keep an eye on Command. He is totally exposed!”

“I’ve got his back,” Gabriel answered.

“He doesn’t look right,” Derek commented.

“I’m sure he’s fine. He’s going after what we came here for. I need everyone focused until we can figure out what is wrong with his radio. I’ll get up close and check on him as soon as I am sure we’ve secured everything.”

“Go,” Terrin demanded. “I think Black Jungle is right. Besides if his radio is out, he may have taken a head hit.”

“OK, fine. Andar One and Two, keep me and him covered as I move down. While I do so, I need a rundown of ammo remaining and armor damage. Report in by rank.”

Responses came fast. Joel blinked yet managed to tell his battle computer to pull up readouts. His eyes scanned the data, but not even this totally sank in. However, he did note both Karen and Brandon had areas showing orange on their frames. This meant heavy armor damage. He also saw Lawson was the only one with a weapon system below fifty percent ammo. However, it was only a machinegun, and still had over a hundred rounds left.

As his mind started to shift back to those under him, some of the visions and memories faded. Still, he knew if he spoke, everyone would hear it in his voice. His mind also realized just enough to know Gabriel had done a good job of taking over. To this end, and to give himself more time to reset his mind, he voice-ordered his radio to scramble the secure transmission codes. This would cut him out of the conversations and give him a viable reason why he had dropped out as commander of the assault.

Even as he did so, he knew he was breaking regulations. For the first time since he could remember, he didn’t care. He not only wanted but needed someone else to be in command who had a clear picture, because he knew he didn’t. He also knew he could do a tight-beam or short-range non-encrypted communication transmission to communicate.

As the radio chatter in his frame stopped, he was able to blink out more tears and focus on getting to the back transport. While he desperately wanted, needed, to not take a life, he panned his arm weapons across where the transports had stopped.

Instinct took over as he spotted a couple of Hexa-lizards move toward the trucks. His medium rifle barked. The larger lizard was thrown back from the bullet’s impact. The second lizard froze at the sound. It made it an easy target. A second shot ripped through its side and left it twitching.

Joel moved up, stepped on the dying lizard, and scanned the rocks closest to the transports. His rifle coughed again, as yet another lizard moved down. This time toward the lead Zephyr. A headless lizard’s body fell on the road. This seemed to send a strong message. A few other lizards darted back up into the rocks. Both Zephyrs and the remaining Zenith were badly shot up. No one moved in or around the escorts.

There was no sign of life from the back of the transport either. Joel’s heart sped up. If they were empty, all of this had been for naught. He stumbled at the thought. However, the momentary distraction of almost falling allowed him to dismiss the irrational fear. The transports had been guarded. Many with Joel confirmed there were prisoners in the back when the assault started. He shook his head in frustration. He could never remember being this out of sorts.

It took a couple of deep breaths to center himself enough to even jump up on the back of the wheeled truck. He paused in momentary confusion as he pulled the cloth flap back only to be confronted with a metal enclosure with large metal lever. “What is this?” he muttered softly even as he grabbed the lever with his right arm and prepared to fire either his laser or stunner with his other. He took a moment, made sure he was focused, yanked upwards and pulled.

Shouts, many terrified, greeted him. The inside of the metal enclosure was dark, but he could clearly see those toward the front. All were hunkered down. Most covered their heads and faces with arms. Filthy streaks of sweat dripped off the faces of those he could see.

Sensor readings in his frame also told him the temperature in the back was over forty degrees. Still holding on to the door so he could stay on the back of the transport, he raised his left hand to convey he was not a threat, jumped down, and motioned for everyone to get out.

He spun at the sound of metal crunching rock. He saw Gabriel’s frame and breathed a sigh of relief. He switched to an external speaker as he finally found his voice, “Gabe, get the other truck open! They are in metal boxes and are cooking!”

Joel watched as Gabriel sprinted by to move up to the truck higher up on the switchback, However, his friend did send him a questioning look as he ran by.

Joel ignored it. Instead, he focused on the enclosed back of the truck. “Come on, get out!”

A tall skinny older kid wearing an aerospace vest with senior sergeant ranks and no patches moved forward and peeked out. “What about the lizards?”

Joel scanned the area, “Clear for the moment. Come on, get out and… I bet there are weapons you can grab off those who were driving and out of the back of the Zephyr…”

The teen raised an eyebrow, grabbed the side of the enclosure, and leaned out. “Holy shit! You shot up the escort? Where is the trailing guard transport?”

Joel moved close to the edge and pointed down.

The kid jumped down and scrambled to the edge. He gasped as he looked down. “Daaaaammmnn!” He shook his head then stopped as he stared at the multiple plumes of smoke coming from the lower southern complex. “And blasted the crap out of the ore sorting and smelting area!”

He turned and stared at Joel’s frame with wide eyes. “Um, well, shit! OK, you sound kind’a young, but you got our attention and are in command. But what the hell is this?”

“A rescue… At least of sorts. You one of the leaders of the prisoners?”

“Um, not really… Sergeant Bea and Sergeant Riley are. Me and Jayanne help out some…” He pointed to the lead transport. “Sergeant Riley is up in the main compound on half rations and medical. They broke his leg when he tried to stop Master Sergeant Sedgewin. It didn’t work… Anyway, Sergeant Bea should be in there.”

“Gabe!” Joel shouted, “I need a Sergeant Bea out of there!”

“Ok,” Gabriel answered as he jumped off the back of the lead transport. He partially ripped the right-side door off the enclosure as he did so. “But, you OK? You haven’t been on the radio since the attack started and aren’t even using codes…”

Joel smacked the side of his head unit. “Crud, sorry… yeah, I… My radio… Secure transmission codes are gone. It has me totally discombobulated!”

“Never heard of a glitch like that! You take a head hit or something?”

“Don’t think so… Got peppered pretty good from a wall gun before Andar Two took it out though, so I might have. I know I am going to hurt tomorrow!”

“Most of us will,” Gabriel responded with a chuckle. He looked into the back of the lead wheeled vehicle. “Is there a Sergeant Bea in there?”

A woman wearing a gray jumpsuit stuck her head out of the back. “I’m Sergeant Bea…” her voice caught in her throat as her eyes scanned the area. “What just happened?”

The kid Joel was talking to stuck his head out from behind the large back wheels of the transport so he could be seen. “The kid in the frame here says this is some kind of rescue, Sergeant. He told me to get weapons off those in the cab and from the Zephyr, then asked me who is in charge.”

The woman pointed down at Gabriel and Joel, “Right now they are!”

“Same thing I was thinking!”

The woman hopped down and took a long look around. “Um… So… Right…” She took a couple of long breaths. “So you aren’t telling us to grab weapons so you have a reason to shoot us or nothing… Right?”

“No!” Joel and Gabriel shouted at the same time.

Gabriel was first to find his voice. “Why would you think such a thing?”

The kid from the second enclosure answered with a mixture of fear and disgust. “’Cause the last time one of us kids grabbed a weapon left lying on the ground, she was shot and left in the pit for the lizards.” He gave an involuntary shiver. “They made us clean up what was left the next day.”

Joel took a step back and almost fell, “No…”

“Yeah,” Sergeant Bea nodded. “The lower camp commander made all of us watch as Ryan, there, and a few others were forced to clean it up and bury Daphne. Looking back, pretty sure the whole thing was a set-up to send all of us a message.”

“If it was, it worked,” the teen responded.

Gabriel shook his head violently, “This is no trick. All you have to do is look around. But we don’t have a lot of time.”

Sergeant Bea jumped down, moved up to the cab of the transport and looked in. She quickly pulled her head back. “OK… well then… You sure you’re ok with us being armed?”

Gabriel glanced at Joel. When there was no response, he took over. “More than sure, Sergeant. The game plan is to get you all armed with whatever we can find and bug out with as much as we can take before Ulysses forces figure out there is a problem. This includes frames, platforms, battle armor, ammo, food… you name it, we need it. And we need as many of you armed and ready to help us fight as are willing.”

The woman opened the driver’s door, pulled the body out, and looted everything of value. Even as she did so she shouted, “Jayanne, Ryan get the kids moving! Get some armed! The damned lizards are going to be drawn to all this blood!”

Gabriel and Joel exchanged glances as the woman became more focused with each passing second. “Harlan! Wilber, you two are driving these rigs. Ulva, you and Sadie grab weapons and check out the cockpit of the lead Zephyr. If the drivers aren’t dead, finish them. If it is drivable, it’s yours for now!”

She eyed the other two still running escorts and shouted out loudly, “Ryan, let’s see what Nikodem and Karina can show us. Have them grab a Zenith!” She poked her head into the back of the transport she had been in. “Martin and Eddie, there is another Zenith. It’s running but full of holes. See if it’s drivable. If it is, you two crew it!”

She stood and moved up to Gabriel, “You sound like a kid, you want to stay in command I’m not going to argue, but we know these complexes. How about you let me get us out of here, then you can have command back until we have a chance to figure out what the hell… who the hell… Oh, crap, you know what I am trying to say, right?”

“Sure do Sergeant!” Gabriel responded with wide eyes.

“Good, give me a SitRep!”

“We have a total of eleven frames. All known defenses are down, and we are sweeping both complexes. Still have pockets of resistance, especially below us. Tell us what you need, where you need us. We’re all yours!”

Sergeant Bea gave Gabriel’s frame a hard slap. “I’m gunna hug you when we get our shit together and you get a chance to get out of your death machine. In the meantime, you two hop on the back of these rigs. Harlan and Wilber were civies but know how to drive. They will take us up to the armory and upper motor pool. Clear ‘em so we can empty ‘em. I’ll get the rest of these youngan’s moving!”

She continued to bark orders while two men scrambled out of the back of the enclosures and took control of the large transports. She turned to Gabe, “I said get on the back of the transports! Move so you can fire over the cabs and keep your guns ready. If your people haven’t taken them out, there should be a pair of battle armor inside the gate house. They’re yours!”

She slapped the side of the transport she had been in, “Wilber, this thing is a beast! Don’t stop when we get to the top. Speed up, ram the gates, and get us to the loading docks!”

Gabriel did as he was told while sending a tight beam message over to Joel. “I think we found a military vet sergeant.”

“Oh yeah!” was the only response could give, while silently, he thought, ‘Thank God!’

Chip continued to direct the captives with a point of his frame’s arm. He was surprised at how many there were. The small ammo or explosive bunker must have been exceedingly unpleasant to stay in with over forty people crammed inside. His thoughts were shattered as one kid ran by him.

Chip reacted out of instinct. He reached out and grabbed him.

The kid let out a scared howl.

A few of those who went by turned, but a well-built teen gritted his teeth and pulled a couple of others to keep them moving. “You’ve seen shit like this before, guys. There is nothing you can do! Keep going and do as you are told!” However, he did move back and put up both hands “I know you hate those from Forest Garden, but please don’t hurt him more. He’s done everything you wanted…”

Chip almost said something but stopped himself. He was both furious and extremely relieved, yet knew if he said a word, his voice would betray how young he was. Instead, he held up the hand not holding onto the Blood’s Honor vest in an attempt to show he didn’t hold any malicious intent.

The teen clenched both fists as he looked down at the now bawling kid, “How about you take me and let him go? I’ll do whatever you want.”

Chip shook his head and pointed as forcefully as he could toward the motor pool but didn’t let go of the boy in his frame’s grasp.

The older kid let out a disgusted breath, “OK, OK… just don’t hurt him… Please.”

Chip once again held up his free hand and made a downward motion in an attempt to convey he was not going to hurt the boy. Nonetheless, he followed it up with another hard point toward the motor pool.

The teen let out another long breath, “I got it… I got it… Can I at least give him a hug… just one hug?”

Chip nodded.

The older kid knelt. “Alric, do what he wants. We’ll do what we can for you when we see you again.”

Even though he was still sobbing, the boy in Chip’s grasp managed a nod and returned the hug.

Chip cringed as this happened. He kept his voice low hoping to hide how young he was. “Kid, take Alric. When you see a Viper frame without a sonic blaster, take him to it. Alric… Alric Waltz… it’s… OK.”

Alric wiped snot on his sleeve and looked back into the frame. He managed to speak through calming sobs. “How… you know… you know… my last name?”

“And your barracks number, rank, and assignment. You are Alric Waltz, Command College, Senior Sergeant, Lima Force, Bravo Team, Charlie Unit, Second Squad Leader,” Chip spoke softly. “Get to the Viper without the sonic blaster. You’ll understand more soon.” Chip looked at the older teen. “I owe you. I really do. Right now, though, it looks like you’re looked up to by most. So we need your help. We need to clear this place fast. We’ll talk later.”

Even though Alric was not too much smaller, the teen picked him up. This was made easier since Alric had yet to let go of him. The teen shot Chip’s frame a confused look but did nod. He turned with Alric’s arms wrapped around his neck, yet managed to call out, “Keep moving and do as you’re told! The last thing we want is to piss off anyone in a frame!”

Chip almost grabbed one other girl as he spotted the New Israel IV cadet frame vest with the same patch as Paula used to wear, but stopped himself. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally scare the crap out of another kid. Instead, his attention turned to the woman who first stood along with six others. Three bigger teens were behind her. Each helped another badly faltering kid. All three injured wore Ulysses vests. But one in particular looked like he had been used repeatedly as a punching bag. Even as battered as he was, Chip recognized the kid. Actually, if he hadn’t been wearing the vest with rank pins, Chip was certain he wouldn’t have because of badly blackened eyes, swollen lips, and a repeatedly busted nose. Two opposing feelings flooded him, but compassion quickly took over. “Dear God…” He dashed over. At this point he didn’t care what he sounded like. “Let me carry him!”

“So you can beat the shit out of him some more, kid?” The boy helping the battered kid fired back. “How about you give him a break and beat on me instead!”

The woman holding the small boy turned, “Konstantin, don’t mouth off! He’s in a freakin’ frame!”

“So?” the teen growled. “If they don’t back off, they’ll kill him!”

Behind them, Jason’s frame carried another boy. This one wore a New Bravaria Academy framer vest. “He will not be hurt more! Let us carry him!”

The woman moved up, “Konstantin, we don’t have a choice. Come on.”

Chip knelt and held out his arms. “I may have some sharp edges. Pick him up and put him in my arms so he doesn’t get cut when I lift him.”

“This isn’t some kind of trick?” The teen Chip now knew as Konstantin demanded to know.

“No.” Jason growled. “But we run low on time winged PLC, IPSC, and Battle Armor pilot-certified Squadron Two Quartermaster Senior Warrant Officer Konstantin Vogal! We need every transport loaded with all the food and equipment we can scrounge before the main tank fails!”

The teen’s head jerked, “How do you know my name, certs, and position in my academy?”

Jason cleared his visor and flipped it up, “Keep mouth shut, but look!”

Konstantin let out a gasp. “Jason?”

“What part of ‘keep mouth shut’ did you not hear?” Jason responded with a smirk and roll of his eyes. “Now hush and listen. You know those kept here. We do not. We need you to help us before things go very bad!”

Konstantin blinked a few times but recovered from the initial shock remarkably fast. “Hurry! We must hurry!”

Off to the side, the two who had been tasked to help the boy held by Jason looked over. The dark-haired boy looked to Konstantin with tearful brown eyes, “He isn’t going to hurt Rusty more?”

“No,” Konstantin responded firmly. “Not a chance.” He put arms around the shoulders of the smaller boys and pulled them toward the motor pool.

Chip carefully adjusted the kid in his arms as he angled over to walk next to Jason. “How many do you know?”

“Two well. Rusty, here, and Konstantin. There are six to eight more I met… and you have… I do not know his name, but we all know who he is… or was.”

“Yeah,” Chip let out a long uneasy breath as he looked at the battered kid in his arms. “The real question is what is going on?”

The kid in Chip’s arms lifted his head and tried to look into the faceplate. “If you are going to kill me, just do it already.”

“Cadet Commodore Whittington, relax. I’m not about to kill a former teammate no matter what you, your fellow cadets, and planet did on Andar.”

“Teammate?” the kid squirmed and once again tried to look into the faceplate. “You know it doesn’t matter. If you are caught being nice to me… don’t. I will not have anyone else I know harmed because of any kindness to me.”

“Harmed because of kindness to you?” Chip asked, “You aren’t making a whole lot of sense.”

The kid seemed to wince as he took a deep breath. It was hard to tell since his face was such a mess.

“Commodore Whittington, take it easy. Once we’re out of here we’ll see what we can do for you. Right now, you need to stay still. You look like you got put through a blender. Besides, I took a few hits and could have sharp spots because of damage to the armor. As it is, I’m going to have to be careful, so I don’t pinch you between armored plates when I move. The last thing you need is to get cut up.”

This seemed to get through. The kid stopped shifting, but once again tried to see who was in the frame holding him. “You… your voice… it sounds familiar…”

Chip voice ordered his faceplate to clear, “It should, Chauncey. You picked me to be your teammate in the team sniper competition when we had to find someone from a rival academy to team with.”

He whimpered as he used his fingers to pull the swelling away from his eyes enough to see a bit better. “Chip?” the kid gasped out. “Chip Beck? No! You… you can’t be here! Leave me and flee this system. You must hide! You are wanted… like by order of Lord Talborne himself!”

“Thanks for the concern, but I know. The real question is what are you doing here?”

“No, you don’t understand. What I look and feel like will be nothing compared to what Lord Talborne will order be done to you and the others you were with!”

“Nothing we haven’t guessed at… We killed his oldest kid. But after seeing you, it gives me all the more reason to wipe out as many as I can and die before he captures me. Now why are you here and what happened?”

Chauncey pushed his head against the cool metal of Chip’s shoulder. “I’m sure you will not believe me…”

“Chauncey, I was honored to be asked by the cadet commander of another academy and thought we were friends back on Andar before your world stabbed us in the back. Between your piloting and my shooting, we would have taken first… And you were always nice. We had lunch the day Ulysses attacked. We talked about seeing each other’s worlds and… I know in my heart you couldn’t have known! But then so many of your academy turned against us… You were in command of all the Ulysses cadets except the senior cadets! How could you let it happen?”

“I didn’t.” Chauncey let out a sob. “I pulled a bait and switch. Once they find out I did it on purpose, I will be beaten until killed.”

Jason spoke up. “A bait and what?”

“Means some kind of deception,” Chip answered. “Chauncey, what do you mean? Why would they kill you? For that matter, why did they do this to you?”

“None of it matters, Chip. Leave me and flee. If you can take the others, do so.”

“Not going to happen. You’re coming with. Now what the heck are you talking about?”

“What I mean is the orders I gave were not an accident or screw-up on my part. I did it on purpose.”

“Did what?” Jason demanded.

“Took the wrong targets.”

Jason and Chip exchanged confused glances. Jason was first to speak. “We only fought a handful of cadets from Andar. But many were killed when the palace armory was blowed up.”

“Was blown or blew up, not blowed up.” Chip softly corrected Jason.

As Jason nodded thanks, Chauncey managed to look over at him. “You were there too?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know what the first few minutes were like,” Chauncey responded. “The first things hit were the palace barracks, and security posts. As the fighting grew, the bays and ammo supplies were hit by airstrikes. The palace was then assaulted with both ground and air units.”

“Oh, we know,” Chip spoke with a great deal of anger.

“I’m sorry. Very few, maybe no Ulysses cadets knew until just before it started. The cadre pulled all of us in saying they wanted to go over the next couple of days. All but those placed in barracks lockdown were there. I thought they wanted to talk over what we had seen and thought about the next round of competitions, but it wasn’t. Instead, they had us do a frame check, timed us on how fast we could change ammo from practice to live, and a whole series of alert drills. The platform, battle armor, and infantry sides all did the same.

“I oversaw all of it, cause I was the commander of the frame side and had the highest cadet rank. It didn’t make sense. There were no senior cadets there, but almost all of the cadre were. Me, along with most of my command team, thought they were angry with us, but then…”

He let out a hiss of pain as he shifted. “Then… the cadre selected a few we all knew to be very loyal to House Talborne and took them out with live ammo. They were told to link up with the senior cadets. We knew something was really wrong. About fifteen minutes later, we got word of the attack minutes before the first fighters strafed the palace grounds.

“My command team fractured as orders came down to cut off any escaping cadets. Some went with the orders, others refused. Those who refused first were shot. Most with stunners, but a few…” He shook his head. “I think they had some marked as problems and eliminated them to send the rest a message.”

Chip and Jason stopped walking. Both were totally speechless.

“Yeah, same reaction a lot of us had.” Chauncey choked back a sob. “The message was clear. If I tried to say anything some would have backed me and they could have been killed, so I moved to my frame and said nothing.

“Major Leu, the overall cadre commander of all Ulysses cadets on Andar, put me in command of all remaining cadets and assigned me two targets. Once I was in my frame, I contacted five others by tight beam who I knew wouldn’t want anything to do with what we were being ordered to do. We split off those we guessed would be of the same mindset. The others in the command team were given other minor targets.

“The first order was to secure the viewing areas at the main fields, his exact words, ‘the viewing areas of the main fields’. The second was to capture and hold the main ammo and repair storage. Again, those were his exact words.” Even though Chauncey was still in tears, he forced a grin showing at least two teeth to the left of his upper front two were missing. “Why do you think the biggest cadet rearm and refit station was left unguarded and why the Ulysses 6th Armor cut across the open parade ground without checking flanks?”

“We thought the 6th Armor were being stupid,” Jason admitted.

“They were, but they got word the stands and viewing areas had been cleared.”

“No one even tried to clear them,” Jason countered.

“No, but they thought they had been, cause I said they were… Not exactly true. I radioed we secured the field objectives… What we really did was secure the stands of all the main sports fields four kilometers to the north.”

“So they cut straight across thinking it was clear. It explains how we were able to wipe out their flanks, then pound them into a huge puddle of shattered and burned armored platforms,” Chip stated with sudden understanding and a degree of awe. “What about the repair bay?”

“He sent them to the palace ammo depot,” Jason answered softly. “The main ammo and repair storage. Not the main one for the cadet area. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have saw so many downed Cadet frames around the ammo bunkers by the palace. Nor could us have never taken the one in the cadet area. Not with as few of us as there were at the time.”

Chauncey gave a weak nod, “I knew the palace ammo and storage bunkers were going to be hit. There were too many defenders. If they got ammo and repair, we would have lost the palace… Never taken it in the first place. I thought it would get destroyed before those I sent there got to the bunkers and would get a different assignment…” he let out several more pained sobs, “I guess Command didn’t check or realize… When the main ammo depot went up, way more than half… so many… I sent them there… They were wiped out.”

Chauncey let out several pained breaths. “I deserve to look like this… I should have…”

“You tried to save them and others,” Chip stated with conflicted feelings. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was… I could have… I don’t know. Maybe found a different target or… I don’t know… It makes no difference now. I am doomed to Hell. I just got a precursor while still living over the last… I have no idea how long.”

“Several months,” Jason answered.

“It seems longer… But I am sure Hell will as well.”

“So they beat the crap out of you over and over for not following orders?”

“Not exactly,” Chauncey shuddered as Chip started walking again. It took over a minute for him to find his voice again. “I don’t have details. All I know is someone in command finally realized what I did. I was pulled as commander and frame team two’s commander was given command of my group. I was ordered to the north landing field with my command sergeant, ops and supply officers. We were arrested on the spot. I used Major Leu’s orders as defense. It only kind of worked. Lord Talborne ordered Major Leu shot. He was, on the spot. But Lord Talborne ordered all four of us to get tossed in with the captives to be sent to Brile. He selected several other leaders, but from what I’ve heard, he let the others off.

“Lord Talborne also refused to kick me or the others who went with me, out of the academy or demote us. He said we did follow orders, but were… I think he called us ingrate savages… we needed to be taught a lesson. So… Instead of having us killed or tossed out of the academy, he made it clear we were to be given no protection.

“I had no idea what this meant, but I found out soon enough. We got separated and as soon as most of the fighting died down, we were escorted to the northern spaceport. I got the shit kicked out of me within minutes of being put in the hold with over thirty senior cadets from other academies. I thought they were going to kill me, but… no. They backed off and beat the crap out of me the next day, and the next.

“I had to be close to death when Léon… He was Spider Bite’s lead senior academy battle armor cadet on Andar… I don’t really know when or why. Léon was stuck in the same holding area in the ship I was in at some point. He stopped the beatings almost as soon as they started back on me the next day. I don’t even remember what he said, or did, but it stopped… Until I got to Brile… The base commander here, Captain Sigijento… he was part of the parade ground slaughter. One of five officers from the 6th Armor who survived. He… he pulls me out twice a week and… I was not kicked out of the academy, so I have to get frame time to log needed time. He put me in a Garrison Frame, barely working and let the garrison use me for target practice. They fix it up over and over just so they can pound the crap out of me again and again. I keep hoping one shot will go deep enough internal to kill me, but they are careful not to. They switch to low velocity flat head rounds so even if something goes internal… I still get some shrapnel dug out of me once in a while. More than half the time I have slugs sticking out of me when they yank me out.

“At first I didn’t fight back, but now… I do until I can’t cause… when I don’t get pounded until I am really down, or if they don’t think I fight hard enough, Captain Sigijento hands me to the garrison once I get pulled out of the frame and patched up. Several are survivors of the Andar parade grounds, both from the 6th and Subato Talborne’s frame force. His orders… standing written orders are they can’t kill me. Everything else goes.

“I wished they had killed me countless times. I have been beaten, kicked, choked to unconsciousness, fed rotten food, forced to drink horrible tasting liquids… And worse… Far worse. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to take a breath without a broken rib or two. I always have stitches and spots with skin glue… and more scars than skin.

“The bastard even gives me full medical and days of full bedrest when I think I am about to die. Several times I’ve woken too busted up to sit up in a med bed. They care for me, feed me, get me almost healed up so I won’t die. Then it happens all over again. I actually think those are worse, because they hurt me worse when I get handed over after some recovery.

“I tried suicide once but woke up in medical. In beds on both sides of me were Faye and Dougie. Both tried to stop their squads from joining the assault against other academies after I was arrested. They were discharged from the academy and sent here.” Chauncey shook his head and a few more tears spilled out. “Captain Sigijento turned them over to the garrison in my place. He told me they would be taken daily if I killed myself. I never tried again… but the bastard still yanks them out at least once a week since.

“A few weeks, maybe a couple of months ago, I red smoked two of the bastards on the same day. I guess the others lost it. I got blasted bad. But I wasn’t killed… I keep hoping, but no… Regardless, I don’t even remember getting pulled out of the frame. I was out for at least a couple of days and in medical for over a week. When I got back to the holding bunker, I was told Captain Sigijento ordered the two non-Ulysses junior cadets to tend to the officers and put his cold-blooded kid, Baxter, in charge of them. We haven’t seen Shura or Octavio since.”

“We got them,” Chip stated. “They didn’t look beat up too bad, but they sure were scared.”

“Good, but I’m sure they are hurt. Get them to medics.”

“We’ll do what we can for them,” Chip assured him. “But you look the worst.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m almost used to this. Make sure Dougie and Faye are taken care of. And… Vaughan… two weeks or so ago or so, I was down in medical for five days, so they added Vaughan. The day the Earth Standard Clock said he turned nine the captain handed him over because I wasn’t there… They first beat the shit out of him and stuck him in this hellhole just because he tried to run and warn a junior cadet he had befriended from another academy back on Andar… and for the last however long he gets it, and worse, all over again… he’s nine, Chip… he’s only nine.”

Chip wanted to say something, anything, but no words came out. Instead, as he walked by the senior private who was still out cold, he adjusted how he held Chauncey, pointed his stunner down and fired. A few seconds later, another stunner shot erupted from Jason’s frame as he sidestepped so he could get as close as possible before he fired.

Chip moved up to one of the Zephyrs and handed Chauncey to Konstantin, “Take care of him.”

As soon as he got a nod, he turned and scanned the area, “Brood, where are you?”

Cory, in a Viper frame, stepped out from behind the Javelin they had come in. “Here.”

“Did Alric find you?”

Cory pointed to a Striker frame. “He’s as taken care of as I can get for now. He’s hurt but wanted a frame, so I gave him pick of what was left.”

Paula came out from the back of the Javelin. “All set, and the captives are in the back. But word’s spread fast. Everyone knows we’re not Ulysses.”

Chip shrugged. “Nothing we can do but get the heck out of here. Do we have pilots for everything?”

“Yes for platform and frame,” Stella answered from inside a Bandit Frame. “Many for battle armor. Some have Battle Armor certs and fit in what Brood captured. They helped those we put in frames to grab everything we can.”

Cory spoke up, “Several infantry cadets are looting the dead and grabbing weapons. The maintenance kid Liam grabbed was nice enough to let us know where a secondary guard armory is, and even had the access code. So we are emptying it as well. It is full of Earth Core low enlisted vests, firearms, and basic survival gear. Some are cadet-sized, but full infantry riot gear suits in loud colors. Never seen anything like it. Nor can I see any reason for them to be made. We’ll have to muddy them up or something before anyone can use them in combat. However, we’ll have lots of rifles and pistols along with basic gear.”

“Food?”

Stella pointed to a lightly armed and armored Mako Hover Transport. “All in there, but not what we hope. Second Mako got ammo, armor. Again, not what we hope. We get more out of below ground area Brood took, but not know how much down there.”

“It’ll have to do.” Chip pointed to the stripped-down Javelin. “Israel, if you left them anything, take it out. After what we’ve seen and heard, they get nothing. No water, no food, nothing!”

“What about medic gear?”

Chip took a few deep breaths, “Whatever you gave them they can keep. Nothing else. Send it north. There is nothing it should crash into for at least sixty kilometers unless it hits wildlife or gets stuck in mud.”

Paula reached in and pulled out a single case of rations and over a dozen brightly colored, two-toned survival vests out of the back. She got behind the controls, took it out the gate and turned north. A few seconds later she jumped out and rolled to prevent injury. She stayed down on a knee for a couple of minutes and watched. The Javelin continued on at fifteen kilometers per hour. She jogged back and jumped back into the Bandit Frame.

She moved over to the line of platforms and hopped on the side of one of the Makos before she glanced over at Chip. “They got about four hours to break the quick cuffs and get her stopped before they get to the bluffs. Once there, without a pilot, all bets are off.”

“After what I’ve seen and heard here, I could care less.”

“Understood. When do you want me to radio leader two?”

Chip looked over to Cory, “What do you think?”

“We don’t want our broadcast to be pinpointed, so we need to stay in visual and do a tight beam to the dish array Paula installed. Let me take Liam as a wingman. It would be nice if I could keep our battle armor with us and if you would hand over the PLC pilot kid to me since he is in battle armor and… How about I just say I have an idea…” Cory smirked.

“Aww, crud… Cory…” Chip stopped. “I’m not even going to ask. If he agrees to stick with you fine…”

Jason spoke up. “I will give him a talk. He owes me a favor. He will stay with you.”

Cory’s eyes glinted. “Awesome!”

Liam glanced over, saw the look, and let out a breath. “Oh, brother…”

“Oh, come on, Ratone!” Cory smiled, however, there was nothing comforting about it. “It’ll be fun!”

“I’m in,” Liam forced a snicker, “but if it is going to be fun for you, I am certain others will see it way different.”

“Such is the plan.” Cory nodded. “We’ll just have to see if my guess pans out. In the meantime, I’ll climb up to the top of the rocks and send the message before I lose line of sight.”

“Fine.” Chip stated while tossing up his arms. “Liam go with. Jason, talk with Konstantin and see if he is willing to stick with these two.”

“Just make sure you get all the others clear.” Cory demanded. “We’ll blow the main tank, cover tracks, and make sure nothing follows you all. We’ll meet you back at the base later tonight or tomorrow.”

Chip took a couple of uneasy breaths, “OK, fine. But if we get a response, see if you can get to her.”

“Such is the plan, but don’t count on it. She could be anywhere by now.”

“I know…” Chip sighed. “So while those we freed grab whatever they want, Jason talks to his friend, and we guard, finish what you were telling me about those weird jumpsuit looking things almost everyone here is wearing.”

“Not much to tell. They are standard Brood issue. It’s what we trained in from the last year in the Hive until we hit the soil of New Bravaria and got issued the lightly armored and blade-resistant pants, armored vests, and field packs you saw us in,” Cory answered. “The real question is where did they come from.”

Liam answered. “All I can tell you is what I saw and when.”

Cory gave him a wrist turn, so Liam continued. “It was at least three months ago. Saul and I went to a water drilling and purification station with a natural rock landing strip that had scores of fake rocks they moved when craft came in, then pushed them back out when the craft parked under a huge mined out overhang. It also had IR refractive cammo netting over openings and four VTOL pads on retractable skids. So even small to medium-sized non-winged PLCs could land and then be pulled out of sight. It was as close to a spaceport as we’ve seen on this rock. And it was busy.

“It may have been where we arrived. Many of the sounds were familiar. Upon arrival we weren’t given a chance to see much. We got taken from large cells in ships straight to the back of locked boxes on the back of Balrog Hovered Transports.

“Anyway, when Saul and me worked on one of the water driller and pumping rigs, we could see quite a bit. The workers at the landing facility scrambled out a dozen times a day to move the fake rocks off and back to the landing strip. Most wore senior infantry academy vests, but there were a few senior cadet platform jocks.

“We were with four others. We spent seven days there since someone blabbed about us being good with welding and hydraulic repairs. After that, they took Saul and me to lots of places that needed major welding and hydraulic work. It meant better food and got us away from the shit work at the smelter we were assigned to. So, there were some upsides. And plenty of down as well…

“But regardless, we were put to work on the main water pumping rig for three of those days. From where we were, we could see pretty much the whole base. On the backside, out of sight of most, there were like… I don’t know… Maybe a hundred kids, some older, some my age, some younger, who all were wearing those one-piecers. But they weren’t captives.

“They were doing infantry drills. Some shot at dummies, ran an obstacle course in the rocks, went head-to-head against each other in brutal hand-to-hand fighting, and one group looked like they were being punished. I say this because they were in groups of three, locked to each other by the arm loops. They had ropes or something around their waists. The ropes led to large metal grates. They had to run across a smaller landing strip over and over.

“Saul guessed it was to hide any signs of landing tracks on the rock field, but they kept going until one of them collapsed and wouldn’t or couldn’t get back up. The ones who fell got tossed into pits with metal bars over the top. We figured they were left for the Hexa-lizards, but the next day we saw a few pulled out. They didn’t look good at all.

“But it didn’t go much better for the other two who were on the drag crew. They were forced to fight each other in some weird wrestling match. Hard to tell, but we guessed the winner choked out the other because only one moved when it was over. The winner was sent to work loading or unloading a ship with weird marks on the tail. It looked like a skull with a dagger stuck in the top of a skull with a snake or something coming out the left eye.

“The loser was sent over and put against a smaller kid in regular hand-to-hand. Smaller kid or not, it wasn’t even slightly fair. The older ones were exhausted and beat up. It didn’t go well for them. Yet, from what we saw, none quit until they were knocked out or seriously hurt, like obvious broken bones. None of them had academy vests or nothing and they never let those of us captured on Andar touch a weapon. At least until the Brile Bats almost got us.”

“Sounds like Brood training when our mentors were angry,” Cory commented with interest. “What else can you tell me?”

“The adults over them wore light splotchy-colored combat fatigues with heavy infantry vests. All had red triangles on both shoulders.”

“Don’t know the uniform, but the patch is a symbol of disgrace in Earth Core. Those who get it have the worst details and the color is meant to stand out so opposing forces can see and target them easier. I have heard from Brood mentors a red patch is given for a duration, sometimes years. If the warrior lasts, they are given a two-rank demotion and put back into normal military service, but always in the most dangerous sectors with the worst equipment. Sounded to me like few completely lose the stigma attached with having been a red patch.”

“Don’t know about the adults, but I was a freakin’ slave and I actually started to feel sorry for those kids,” Liam admitted. “Those adults were nothing nice. Most carried a sidearm and long blade. A few had rifles, but it was too far away to make out types.

“This leads to what I was going to tell you about the one-piece outfits.” Liam pointed back to the boy and girl he found inside the command building. “The last day we were there, we were forced to help load hundreds of crates of goods into the back of a dozen Balrogs. We were exhausted by the time we got done… During one of the few breaks we were allowed, we heard a couple of workers tell the captain who brought us to the water station about the shipment. They said everything we were forced to load got diverted from the Obsidian system. I don’t know or care where the Obsidian system is, but what’s more important is what else they said, even though it didn’t make sense. They kept talking about one of the game circuits having been lost to an assault.

“Some dude in a dark grey uniform with weird ranks came over. He tossed one of the workers down like a ragdoll and barked at him to keep his mouth shut. The brute then went on to tell the captain the shipment we loaded should take care of the need to clothe and feed the captured freeman warriors. He also said something like having to start from scratch on the gaming circuit. I think he had a name for it, but I don’t remember. What matters more is, the dude talked about recruiters coming to see if any of the junior freeman warrior captives would be useful as a brand-new game circuit was built over the next several months.”

“Definitely Earth Core,” Cory snarled. “No one else would call someone a freeman prisoner!”

Liam shrugged, “Sorry, Cory, I have no idea. All I can say is he had a grey uniform with dark blue stripes on the sleeves, a blue beret, and silver bird heads with crossed blades under them on both shoulders.”

Cory’s eyes narrowed. “A centurion pilus posterior. A non-officer field promoted to officer for some reason. Pretty rare, but he has a chance to really be someone, since somebody way above him took notice. Probably a beast in combat, since non-officers tend to gain rank based on skill. To be approved for a field promotion to officer, he had to impress not only direct commanders, but others higher up.”

“Had a nasty scar across his face,” Liam stated, “and looked both strong and creepy. He seemed to want information on frame cadets. He appeared disappointed to find none of us had been in a frame for months. Said it would make it harder for the recruiters. The beret was real out of place though.”

Cory dismissed it with flip of his arm and wrist. “The beret was probably a unit designation or something along those lines.”

“It just looked odd and really stood out, but whatever. He said something like all the supplies including the one-piecers were re-appropriated supplies for all the work camps under the condition he and other recruiters could take those they saw potential in. He also said there were some already recruited he was trying to find. He was sure they would have come through the place. It sounded like no one in the makeshift starport knew what he was talking about.

“I know the captain over us said he hadn’t heard of any large group arriving after the last Andar and prisoner transports, but expected more as other worlds were taken. He then went on and said something like, ‘The war isn’t going good, so many on planet weren’t worth as much nor could be used as fast as Lord Talborne thought they would’. He told the guy as long as new workers were brought in so the facilities could stay online, the guy along with any like him could take as many as they wanted as long as they weren’t on the top priority list.

“Once this was said, the guy grabbed Saul, me, and the other four. He was rough as hell as he looked us over. It was like we were pieces of meat. He checked everything from our hair, teeth, muscles, to our hearing and seeing. And pinched us hard several times until we cried or begged him to stop… in some very unpleasant spots.

“The last check was the worst. He checked how long we could hold our breaths by holding a shock stick where we could see the setting and lowered it from a max setting of twenty-five by one for each ten seconds… He demonstrated on a infantry cadet from Never Night who was unlucky enough to walk by. He hit the kid in the back of the neck with it after the kid held his breath for just over seventy seconds. It knocked him out.

“I managed to get to over ninety seconds and still woke up on the floor drooling. Only one of us stayed conscious.

“The guy put a locking metal band on the wrists of Jensen, who got knocked to the ground but somehow managed to stay awake, and two of the others. He had them taken to the shuttle he came in. Guess he didn’t like what he saw in me, Saul, or Hendrik, which made all of us happy, cause after what he did plus… well, there was something about the way he talked and his eyes… Like a said, creepy. We didn’t want to go with him.”

Liam sighed. “Sorry, went off the rant there for a minute.”

“No problem. It sounds like a mild Brood test, like what we went through several times during the first year. When he pinched was it with a metal clip that kept squeezing and was there a punishment for making a sound?”

“He used his finger and thumb for the pinches, but yes to the penalty! He had a hot poker like thing he pushed down on the top of our bare feet. I bet I had fifteen welts over my body and a dozen small blisters on the tops of my feet by the time the bastard left with the other three. Wearing boots hurt like hell for a week!”

Cory’s left eyebrow shot up. “Never seen that before. We had a metal clip. It kept pinching harder until we cried out or fell to our knees. A second metal piece got put around the back of our heads. It stopped right over the pressure points below and behind both ears. While we couldn’t see it, the thing had a setting, cause we all got nailed on our pressure points, but the longer we held out the less the pain there was after. Most of us got real good about getting blood blisters before we made any sounds.”

“It’d suck, but I think I’d take that…”

“You will if you continue training, but not as bad as what I dealt with. Blood’s Honor wouldn’t let me come up with something that will leave a blood blister. It just stimulates nerves to think you are getting pinched. The pressure point thing isn’t as good either. They came up with one that is much milder. It just slowly pushes in until you hit a button to stop it. You don’t get to see the setting, but I can. If you pass, I’ll tell you how many points over the passing mark you made. And for the record. I can go to the max setting for a couple of minutes, but it leaves me with a nasty head and jaw ache for a few hours.”

“Great… Not!” Liam smirked. “But I’m game. Anyway, what I wanted to tell you is, several of the crates had lots of one-piecers, but many looked way different. They were in bright colors and thinner. Matter of fact, some of the colors we saw match those combat riot suits.” He pointed to stacks of gold and black, orange and dark green, purple and light blue, and maroon and white riot suits. “They included radio helmets with dark-tinted face shields, a full suit with armored plates, slots for three neon-yellow pistol clips, riot sticks, a sidearm, colored armored coverings for boots, and knuckled gloves. Every third also had a light gauged shotgun with a bandoleer with fifteen bright orange shotgun rounds.

“Saul and I were pretty sure the one-piecers in those colors were electrostatic, but the reinforcing strips where the rings are, along with the elbows and knees, were all made of the same tough material as what the others were made out of. The boots were different, too. They were slide on with a small pump to inflate them so they could fit tight. I remember, because we talked about how unpleasant the boots looked because they had to be hot and wouldn’t allow for much breathing since they held air, but would be good for several different sizes of feet. And we also figured it’d be real uncomfortable to have frame padding pressed up against those rings.”

“Never seen inflatable boots and certainly nothing in bright colors like those for Brood,” Cory stated. “The only colors other than shades of grey we got was the uniforms of visiting high ranking EC officers checking on our training, the hair and eye color of fellow Hive and Brood members, the color of the food EC provided, the purple of bruises, and the red of our blood.” He paused and shrugged, “Oh, and the occasional off-white of bones when they came through our skin.”

“But these,” he pointed to the suit the girl wore, “are too big for them. So they are from older hatchlings. The sleeve cuff with the writing tells me who used to own them. But I have never seen one without the Brood designation on them. More important, at least to me, these two training uniforms show they were assigned to Hatchlings from two different Pods of 17229s sent to Omicron Hive. My Hive. One I was sure was killed when he failed out of training, the other I thought died on New Bravaria.

“EC didn’t assign uniforms way too big for us, and the one I thought died on New Bravaria had the Brood designation, but it has since been removed, so both must have survived. Judging on size, they lived another year or more. Those look worn, so I bet they aged out. They may even still be alive. The way those infantry kids were being treated; you may have even seen them. It sure sounds like crude versions of Brood training after we failed at something important.

“Liam, I need you to really think. I want to know where the owners are!”

While this was obviously important to Cory, Chip interrupted as Konstantin came over. “Every time you tell me more about how you were forced to grow up, it sounds worse… but we need to finish up and get out of here. You and Liam take some time and talk to Saul when you get back. See if they can come up with a location. If they do, I promise we’ll check it out.”

Konstantin glanced back and forth, “Um, Jason said you guys could use my help?”

“Yeah,” Chip pointed to Cory. “You’re with him on rear guard. I’ll let him explain, cause when it comes to the look he gave, I don’t even want to know what Cory is thinking.”

Cory smirked again, “Get into some battle armor. Feel free to grab a pack, canteen, and rifle. We may be here a bit. Meet Ratone and me on top of the ridge behind those four-pointed rock formations.” Cory pointed for emphasis.

“Mind if I grab some extra food?”

“Whatever you want. You get priority if you are willing to help.”

“Do I get to kill some Ulysses jackasses?”

“Hopefully.”

“Then I’m in!”

As Konstantin moved back to where the captured supplies were being loaded, Chip looked skyward and let out a long breath. “One more thing to forget to put down in my reports, huh?”

Cory snickered, “You should be happy. The less you have to document the easier your duties as unit commander is going to be.”

Chip’s frame head dropped into his frame’s left hand, “Oh brother… I can already tell you have something… Cory-esk up your sleeve. Remind me not to ask, so I can’t know and be responsible!” He let out a humor-filled snort. “Right now, you need to try to get Candice back and more important, take care of each other. We need you. All three of you!”

Cory nodded, “We got each other’s backs… but Liam, Chip’s right. You and Saul need to remember where you saw those kids.”

Liam nodded, “I’ll talk to Saul, between the two of us… and maybe some of the captives, we’ll try to get you more to go on.”

Candice moved back up into the mountain with a renewed purpose and underlying relief. She was no longer in command. She had been given a squad to lead. A squad leader spot was fine with her. She didn’t have to make big decisions. Those were left to others. Instead, she got orders and had a select few under her whom she could direct to help accomplish the mission.

Those who were in command made it clear, should they find and free more captives, they expected her to take on a larger role. Only time would tell. However, as she worked up the side of the mountain where she was certain the Blood’s Honor supplies had crashed on, she was determined to never put on officer rank again.

Those who took over were quick to make a few changes. The first, and by far the most important, was the way the search for supplies was going to be conducted going forward. Instead of going out each day, Candice’s squad and one other were sent out with enough food and water for three days. This way they could get to the search area, cover ground, and continue the next day without having to trek all the way back down to the buildings, then return in the morning. It would save hours a day of not covering the same ground.

Candice glanced upward. The Brile star was headed down. It wouldn’t be long before they would have to find a spot and make camp. A peek over to Xylon annoyed her. He was just over two hundred meters over to her left but trailing behind by almost a hundred meters. A quick look to her other side told her both Sophia and Basil were even further behind. She slowed and clenched her fists. She opened her radio for a low power transmission to send a message to push them, but she stopped. They had limited repair equipment for frames. None of the former Ulysses cadets were great pilots. In Basil’s case, Candice was certain the boy would not have been given basic pilot certs by Blood’s Honor.

On the other hand, all three continued to push on even as the angle became steeper and footing more treacherous.

She slowed for the fourth time. She scanned the area looking for both problems and signs of a crashed lander. She spotted a couple of places where a frame could twist a hydraulic rod, so she knelt and sent a low-powered message to the others. “Stick to the higher ground on the ridges and watch for holes and loose, large rocks.”

It didn’t surprise her when Basil was the only one to respond, “All the freakin’ rocks are loose! For every five steps forward, I take at least one back because I have to brace as I slide back down! I don’t know how you make it look so easy!”

“We had to run up large sand dunes in small loader frames as part of our junior academy piloting classes,” Candice answered. “I was horrible, but it taught us to shove our toe unit in and push down. It basically makes a step. It’s more work, but in the long run you gain ground because you don’t slip backwards. If you want to try it, be careful. We can’t afford you damaging ankle hydraulics until we find spare parts!”

“I’ll just keep looking like a moron until you can work with me.”

“All of us,” Xylon responded. “I’ve never seen any cadet move in a frame like you do, Danni.”

“Yeah,” Sophia grumbled as loose rocks caused her to slide back down the slope almost five meters. “There aren’t many instructors who could do better. At least where we come from.”

“Good.” Candice snarled. “Means if we find one and I can get in rough terrain I have a good chance of kicking their butts.”

Xylon snickered. “If we see one, we’ll point him or her out to you. We’ll back you up with long-range fire, ‘cause you’ll close ten times faster than us!”

Candice couldn’t help but grin. “Sounds like a plan.” She paused and scanned the area, “Anyone see anything?”

The responses were rapid. “Nope.” an “‘I wish!” and “Lots of rock.”

The sky showed building clouds up into the higher mountains, which could mean snow. Candice shrugged. There was nothing anyone could do about the weather. However, it did make exploring the highest areas in the search area she had plotted out a high priority. Trudging up steep, already tricky, mountains would be even more difficult once the ground became snow covered.

To this end, she decided they had to get to the top of the search area and work back down. She scanned the area again and spoke. “OK, let’s spread out a little further since we are above heavy vegetation. We can keep line of sight with each other and cover more ground. My range finder shows the large, pointed rock is just over two kilometers up. Once we get above it, we’ll huddle, set a new search grid above it, grab some water, and take fifteen.”

She heard a couple of sighs, but no complaints. Back on Forest Garden the sighs alone would have gotten them demerits. A framer wasn’t allowed to show displeasure when given an unpleasant task. Instead, it was seen as a test of character. A test two of the three with her had just failed. She hoped Xylon was the one who didn’t sigh, but she wasn’t able to pick out the two offenders by the tones alone.

It took almost half an hour to make it to a good fairly level spot where they could form a basic perimeter while on a knee, open faceplates, drink, and take a break. While Candice scanned the area in telescopic mode and started to set up a new search toward the crest of the first mountain, Sophia spoke up. “Temp’s pretty chilly up here, but look at the view!”

Basil was equally entranced by the picturesque scene. “I think I can see a couple of facilities from here. I wonder if either have been put back into operation.”

Next to Sophia, Xylon rotated to look back down the mountain. “Wow, you’re both right! Danni, take a minute and enjoy this! We can see all the way down onto the plains from here.”

Candice stopped herself from telling the others to focus on the task at hand. They were on a break and secure. There was no harm in sight seeing. Finally, she turned and looked. The instant her eyes took in what the others were so thrilled by, she let out a gasp. It was truly stunning. The distant grasses of the plains moved like waves as the wind shifted them. Closer in, the rocks changed color from a dull red to a grey to off white. Jagged rock formations of all three colors jutted upwards. It showed how the planetary forces had pushed up large sections of rock, since the layers could easily be made out.

She pulled up her telescopic mode and focused on the distant dots Basil had noticed. One facility was clearly in ruins. Only bits and pieces of structures poked up from the plains. The other had a couple of buildings still standing. The wall had a trio of still standing towers. Two others were visible, but the tops were missing. It was possible Ulysses forces were there. However, from this distance, even with telescopic mode, there was no way to make out movement even if there was some.

She started to thank the others for telling her to enjoy the moment when her radio picked up a weak signal. “This is Brood to Brood Squad Leader. This is Brood to Brood Squad Leader. We lost you during the assault and it’s getting late. Brood Leader can you hear me?”

Even with static and the weakness of the signal Candice knew who was transmitting. The identifier as ‘Brood’ coupled with the way the voice warbled, told her it could be no one else. Cory was reaching out!

Sophia glanced over, “Anyone else hearing this transmission?”

“Yeah!” Basil responded, “It’s the strangest voice tone I’ve ever heard. But whoever it is, is using broadband, unencrypted. The machines and or Ulysses patrols will be on them like stink on crap!”

Candice shook her head, “No! I know who that is! He would never do this unless he had a way to mask location. The voice you are hearing has been recorded and put through the computer with a random distortion sequence so there can’t be voice ID. He is trying to contact me.”

“Distortion Sequence?” Xylon asked.

“I’ll show you later!” Candice spoke fast. “Quick! Spread out, at least five hundred meters from each other. Continue to move further apart but stay where I have visual of you! As you do so, open your frames’ radio to broadband retrans from a tight beam from me!”

“Danni, you’ll lead machines or Ulysses right to us!” Xylon argued.

“No, no I won’t.” Candice assured the others. “I will only speak a couple of words through each of you. There is no way they will be able to triangulate as long as you are separated from me! The person on the other end of this might be able to get us better info on the crashed lander! Move! Move!”

As the message repeated, Candice took a chance and responded. She ordered her voice to record, then told the computer to change the voice of the recording by a long sequence of letters and numbers she spoke at random. As soon as the computer verified the voice had been adjusted, she sent the recording through the radio. “Brood, this is former Brood Leader. Hold ten minutes!” She couldn’t help but cringe as her random distortion caused her voice to sound like a parrot had spoken the words.

“Understood Brood Leader. Holding. Be advised, you are weak, but I like the tone!”

While the others spread out over the face of the mountain, Candice recorded a few messages and had the computer do a distortion to each. Ten minutes later she sent a tight beam over to Xylon. His radio, set to automatically retransmit the message, sent out the transmission. “Found friends.”

She quickly pointed her tight beam over to Sophia while motioning all three to continue to move away from her, “Going lone wolf.”

She then spun and pointed her tight beam to Basil, “Need info.”

She turned back to Xylon, “Mountain stash needed.”

“Brood Leader,” Cory’s voice answered, “let us meet you. We can link back up!”

She continued to record and distort before she sent out each message. This time she pointed to Basil’s frame. “Negative. Too dangerous.”

She turned to Sophia’s frame. “Got friends.”

She moved back to Basil’s frame. “Have plans.”

“Brood Leader, after this assault, the powers that be will know they have rogue units. If you refuse to link up, keep low profile to keep them guessing what units they can and cannot trust.”

She bounced back to Xylon’s frame, “Understood. My command goes to Second!”

She then used her own frame to broadcast, “Please help with mountain stash!”

Cory’s voice, even badly distorted seemed to stay calm, “Stand by.”

Candice grew more and more nervous as time ticked by. After almost five minutes, Cory’s odd warbling voice could be heard stronger. “Record this message and decrypt with basic personal knowledge.”

Candice bounced her response off Basil’s frame. “Understood! Ready!”

“Good. Here it goes. Take all letters and change to number sequence. Remember this is based on information we got. There could be other factors. However, we believe it to be the most accurate of all possible target locations. Use third period instructor back home. Third letter last name, second letter first name. Fourth letter unabbreviated rank and fourth letter unabbreviated rank again.

“Second set as follows. Use current primary gunnery range commander. Seventh letter first name, ninth letter last name, first letter first name. Fourth letter last name.

“You know the standard release code when you locate. It is still active. I advise you acquire all. For you to do this, you will also need a secondary release code. The code is as follows: Overall commander’s name, rank, and his course completion attempts followed by range designation to move up. Do you understand and did you get a recording?”

Candice bounced back to Basil’s frame, “Yes to both.”

She bounced back to Sophia’s frame, “Going radio silent!”

“Understood Brood Leader. Will advise overall commander to remove your target from the list. Good luck. Command of your squad will be left intact as per your last orders. Contact should situation change. Brood out!”

Candice switched over to short-range communication. “Everyone, move north and angle up. Remain totally radio silent. It’s possible they got a general direction from us, but there’s no chance they locked on. We evac this area. I have a basic location but will have much better grid coordinates by the time we get one spur over!”

Joel reluctantly, yet silently, allowed Gabriel to reload the secure communication codes into this frame. As soon as this happened his radio sprang back to life. Saul and Lawson’s voices took up most of the chatter since it was clear they had located a small security post in the mine. The resistance sounded hard, but under control. However, with each exchange between the two, Joel knew the casualty count was growing.

He continued to listen with growing revulsion as the truck took him up to the upper complex. Terrin, Beth, and Brandon also talked about a pocket of opposition in the lower compound. Even as Brandon directed Beth to the east side of the building, Joel could hear the sounds of gunfire.

His mood grew even darker as the truck pulled up around the final switchback and he could see the upper complex. Bodies surrounded the main gate. Since the gate had been either ripped or shot open, dead just inside the complex already had Hexa-lizards tearing into them. A few wounded tried to crawl away even as they were targeted. Joel shot a couple of lizards with his laser but stopped as one of those he had attempted to help fired a rifle at the side of the truck.

The woman didn’t last long. A few of the former captives peppered her with a combination of laser and ballistic fire. A couple of others who moved were also targeted. Joel closed his eyes to shut out the scenes playing out around him. At the same time, he felt his heart sink as the Brile star did the same on the horizon. As darkness continued to descend, he was sure more of the carnivores would enter through the smashed gate. The wounded, especially the bloodied, would have to find a secure spot or be eaten alive.

Joel forced his eyes to open as the truck he was riding on smashed through what was left of the gate. Had he not emptied his stomach earlier, he would have certainly done so as he saw a crimson spray erupt from the left side tires. There was no question the driver had just run over at least one body. He hoped whoever it was had been dead. He took a breath and forced himself to concentrate on the mission at hand.

Even as he and Gabriel panned their weapons across the nearby buildings, occasionally pops could be heard from deeper inside. The truck he was on skidded to a stop next to a building with four bay doors.

Sergeant Bea jumped off the truck in front and panned her captured assault rifle over the area. Seemingly satisfied, she motioned for others to jump out. She turned to Gabriel, “This is the backside of the purifying and processing plant! The trucks aren’t here yet, so we can grab plenty of combat supplies, but means there won’t be much in the way of food or other basic expendables. There is also a back storehouse with stuff they pulled out of a crashed EC PLC. If you can get one of these doors open, and make sure it is secured, we can help empty it!”

Gabriel glanced over at Joel, but seemed to realize something was off with his best friend. He stayed in command. “Sure, but what are we grabbing?”

The teen both knew as Ryan helped a couple of the smaller kids down from the back of the truck, he spoke. “Armor rods, frame and platform parts, and pico and micro missiles, armor piercing belted ammo, lots of it. Plus, whatever came out of the EC ship.”

As Joel and Gabriel exchanged glances, an older teen female wearing an aerospace vest with a Samson Prime patch over the right breast helped a couple of others out of the back transport. “You two don’t know what you just hit?”

“No,” Gabriel answered. “We just knew from recon there were prisoners here and we had a good attack plan to free you all…”

“Well, you did good!” The girl praised.

“Sure did,” Sergeant Bea stated. “However, what you just pulled us out of is a combination tungsten and rutile mine below and a manufacturing center based on what is mined and smelted. The sorting and initial smelting is done in the lower complex. The refining and actual production of titanium as well as making ammo and the titanium-tungsten alloy armor rods. Normally tonight is when they come to pick up the week’s production and drop off food and the like. I don’t see the trucks, and we normally have to unload and load them, so I guess they aren’t here yet. If you have anyone on guard up at the upper ridge guns, tell them a small convoy should be here, so they can’t be far away.”

Gabriel quickly relayed the information. Derek responded. “They got picked off almost two hours ago just over twenty kilometers out by Ulysses frames. The frames took the biggest transport and left the others burning. It’s a big grass fire now.”

Joel finally found his voice as he jumped back on the truck and over to the loading dock leading to one of the big bay doors. “Transports were ambushed….” He paused as his brow wrinkled in worry. “Our scouts didn’t see… um… Our recon didn’t tell us much about the lower base… um, are there prisoners in the lower complex too?”

“Yeah,” Ryan stated. “They rotate us out. Most work in the mine and up here. But they keep twenty-four in the lower complex. Your scouts wouldn’t have seen them unless it was just before sundown. They are given an hour outside to cool off and get some air… Believe it or not, it’s fresher out here than in the smelter. After a couple of weeks those working in it start to get sick, so every week they rotate twelve out to mine and twelve go to work the smelter. Those working it count down the days until they can get out and mine again… It’s horrible in there.”

“Where are they?” Gabriel asked with urgency.

Sergeant Bea answered. “They are held in the basement of the single-story wing that pokes out from the backside of the two-story smelter. The upper level is for other workers. From what we have heard, most of the other workers are Andar criminal civilians. They were promised freedom when they get back to Andar. But we have heard they are really going to get dropped off on another world in the NFC. Most are mean as hell. They should all be in their quarters by now since you hit as we were coming up. This should mean the rest of us captives were probably just being moved to the showers before they get the hour outside. Most likely they are in the far back of the smelter or they may have been moved to the attached holding area. Hard to tell since you hit them when you did.”

“Which one is the smelter?” Joel asked with growing concern.

The girl answered. “The one with the four squared vents. They have the pointed caps on the top…”

Gabriel jumped on the radio, “B1, B2, there are more captives down there! They are probably in the basement of the single story attached to the building with the four squared vents with pointed tops but may be in the bigger building!”

Joel jumped in, “Be careful! From what we are just told the upper part of the building has workers that were criminals back on Andar. Sounds like they are not nice and should not be trusted!”

“On it!” Jennifer responded. “B1, give me cover. B2, stay with the motor park. Be careful. I am still getting harassing fire out of the upper east windows of what we think are the barracks. And stay in cover. I took a portable rocket hit and another just missed me, so they have some decent firepower.”

Brandon responded, “We’ll have to clear it before we can get the captives to the vehicles. J, stick with energy weapon fire. Once we secure the captives, they either surrender or all three of us are going to blast them till they do or there is nothing left of them.”

“One of you needs to destroy the smelter even if it means you kill some of those inside,” Gabriel ordered. “The last thing we want is them making armor rods and ammo to use against Forest Garden!”

Joel cringed but said nothing. The captives had to be protected. Besides, Gabe was right. They had to do as much damage as possible to production facilities. He focused on the pull-up door to the loading ramp. As he tried to pull it up, bullets stitched through. Nothing hit but did cause many of the former captives to dive for cover.

Before Joel could do more than spin out of the line of fire, Gabriel lowered his shoulder and slammed his frame into the door to the right of the one being fired through. It proved to be as thin as the one the bullets tore through. His frame ripped a huge hole. He moved into the area beyond with only a slight loss of momentum. His machinegun barked as his voice came over the radio, “Two frames and battle armor in here!”

This brought Joel out of the funk he was fighting. He duplicated what Gabe did on the bullet riddled door. He entered and found himself with clean shots on a pair of battle armor and a group of three who had spun a tripod-mounted machinegun to fire at Gabe. Instinct took over. He put a heavy laser into the nearest battle armor and followed it up with a spread of four micro missiles into the machinegun nest. The battle armor pirouetted with red smoke pouring out. The spread of missiles exploded in and around the tripod-mounted gun. One of the three manning it was hit directly and killed instantly. The other two were tossed back with critical blast and shrapnel wounds.

The second suit of battle armor fell to Gabriel’s machinegun. Gabriel didn’t even bother to pause fire to switch targets. Instead, he tracked his fire over to a Striker Frame while angling to a pillar to get some limited cover. As soon as the first few rounds sent sparks off the enemy frame, he unloaded with everything else on his frame.

The Striker pilot, while slow on the counter, returned the favor. Twin machineguns, an automatic shotgun and a pair of lasers slashed into Gabriel’s frame and the pillar he was using for cover while Gabriel tore chunks of armor off the Striker with three lasers, a machinegun, and a rocket gun. The noise, even inside Joel’s frame was near deafening.

Joel started to turn to help Gabe, but took fire from behind a Puma APC that was up on jacks with its left front wheel removed. A light gyro bounced off his shoulder and a quintet of light machinegun rounds stitched across his left abdomen. Joel spun and went low so he could shoot under the APC. His heavy and standard laser both scored hits. The standard laser burned into the armor over the right shin while a large laser ruptured the left knee hydraulics. The frame fell hard.

The fall left Joel with a motionless target. He took full advantage. He lined up his rifle, sighted in on the badly damaged knee, and fired a single shot. While he didn’t see any extra damage, the response from whoever was in the small Razor frame was instantaneous. Both frame hands grabbed at the knee unit while the rest of the frame rolled back and forth.

With the small frame out of the fight at least for the moment, Joel spun. Both lasers had recycled so he lined up and sent a pair of deadly beams into the upper back of the frame Gabe was fighting. Much like with the Razor, the damage wasn’t obvious, but the reaction of the pilot was. The back arched while both arms went out to the side. The frame stumbled forward.

This gave Gabriel a clear shot and he took it with a vengeance. Lasers, bullets, and a rocket gun round slammed into the upper chest and head unit.

Joel was about to put a spread of four micro missiles into the back of the frame, but stopped as the frame wobbled, and crumpled into the ground. A second later red smoke spewed out, signaling the frame detected the pilot was seriously injured.

Gabriel staggered back and leaned against the pillar. “The other… it’s down?”

Joel turned his attention back to the Razor. The pilot showed no interest in continuing the fight. Instead, the frame’s hands clutched at the knee unit and continued to roll back and forth. “Looks like it, but didn’t pop smoke.”

“Make sure it’s really down… I’m going to stay here for a few.”

“You OK?”

“Nothing internal, but half a dozen locations with moderate to heavy armor damage and… I hurt… Pretty much everywhere!”

Joel moved around the Puma and pointed his heavy laser down at the still thrashing Razor frame. “Get out!”

There was no response, so Joel kicked the frame hard enough to dent armor over the hip and give a bruise to the pilot inside.

The Razor frame’s right arm started to come up, so Joel stomped down on it and kept his foot firmly over the lower arm. “I said get out!”

Joel put more weight on the arm as the pilot tried to pull the arm free. “There has been enough death today and I’m not in the mood. Now get out or I swear I’ll grind my heel back and forth until it crushes your arm inside the frame!”

The voice of a young woman could be heard as he put more pressure on the arm and fired a laser into the floor next to the head. “OK! OK!” The back panel popped open. A woman with short brown hair and wearing electrostatic long-sleeved shirt and pants crawled out. Once clear of the frame she gripped at her bloody leg joint with both hands. “My knee, my knee! You shot my knee!”

A platinum-blond haired, grey-eyed kid slightly older than Joel moved up with an assault rifle in his hands. He slammed the butt of the weapon down into the young woman’s head. She went limp as her head bounced off the floor. He looked into Joel’s darkened faceplate with a scowl. “Now she can’t feel it. Come on. We need you and your frames’ help to load as much as we can into transports!”

Joel blinked, but instinct and academy training took over as his brain noted the cadet captain rank and Gold Raven XII Academy of Armed Sciences infantry patch on his vest. “Point the way Captain, but for the record, I’m a Cadet Major.”

“Then feel free to boss my ass around when we get clear of here.”

This caused Joel to grin for the first time since the assault started. “Deal. But if you have anyone who can do frame repairs and pilot, the only things wrong on the frame is knee hydraulics, some blood, and armor. It’s open and she didn’t power down so it should be unsecured for a new pilot.”

The kid glanced at the frame, turned his head, and shouted, “Bartek! You said you piloted a Razor, right?”

A boy with dirty blond hair and green eyes sprinted over. Joel guessed the kid was very close to his age, but what stood out was the fact the kid had on a weird-looking arctic camouflaged battle uniform including a nice pack with the same color scheme. Unlike most of the others, the clothing looked to be in good condition. Joel also noted the kid’s collar had a weird crest, and a fancy patch on the right shoulder showed him to be from something called the Lamba Tournament Circuit.

The kid glanced at the frame and turned to Joel. His accent was strong, but his voice understandable. “Let me have repair tool and thirty minute. I can get this up!”

“You have a replacement rod?”

The kid pointed to a large inside door, “Through there. Lots of Razor parts! But locked.”

“You have twenty.” Joel ordered as he stepped over to the door and delivered a single punch. The door flew open. He panned his laser around to make sure there was no one hiding inside. He blinked as he spotted scores of crates, some very large, most with ‘Omega Corp.’ burned into the wood while others were in metal crates with ‘Palisade Ltd.’ etched into them. Many showed various degrees of damage while others looked totally intact. “Wow… Um, if you can find it in all this stuff… Feel free to get help if you can!”

“Done in fifteen!” the kid responded. He moved to the door, “Tristan! Give me a hand!”

A kid dressed nearly identically, only the crest on the odd uniform was different, turned sharply while handing over a heavy-looking box to another kid. He ran over, dropped his pack, and knelt next to the frame. He stuck his head in. “Easy fix! New rod, armor plate and knee padding! Basic Razor repair kit will have everything we need!”

Joel looked down in stunned silence as the kid all but dove into the leg. He finally found a voice, but it squeaked when he spoke. “Tristan? Tristan Thompson?”

The kid poked his head out of the frame and looked up at Joel, “Do I know you?”

Before more could be said, the kid who entered the storage room yelled out, “Tristan, forget the fix and get in here! Claire, Troy, Tomasz, Szymon, supply room! We got Sicaims and Pugioims with override units! Jobe, Ariella! Maverick Battle Armor!”

As several kids all wearing the arctic camouflage battle uniforms rushed toward the door, Joel looked down, “Go! We’ll talk in a few!”

The kid started to say something but another shout to hurry from inside the storage room got him moving. It didn’t stop him from looking back with puzzlement written into his eyes.

Gabriel moved up and looked down at the fallen frame. “What kind of frame is this?”

Joel shook his head, “Sounds like it is called a Razor, but never seen one before… But… Gabe…” He pointed to the storage room, “Tristan is here!”

“Tristan?”

“Come on! You know Tristan! Terrin, Neil, and Zane’s Drago friend!”

“Neil and Zane…” Gabriel’s frame took a step back as if it had been punched. “OH crud! No way! You’re talking Tristan Thompson?”

“Yeah!”

Gabriel took a step toward the back storage area, “Terrin is going to freak out.”

“Him? It took everything I had not to hug and accidentally crush him with my frame!”

Before more could be said, Sergeant Bea moved up, “Good fighting boys, and I am sure you need a few but this ain’t the time to chat. You are in frames, and we need you lifting stuff if we are going to clear out of here fast!”

Both Gabriel and Joel nodded. Arguing with the adult sergeant simply never crossed their minds. They moved to where she pointed. Both grabbed a crate and hustled to the loading dock. Both big transports were backed up and touching the back of the building, so it was easy to walk into the back and stack them.

As Gabriel moved to grab another crate he radioed, “T1 and T2 what is the status?”

Terrin responded. “Still dealing with two pockets of resistance, but we have them pinned down. We have at least eleven in battle armor down and three others surrendered. We also have three frames. First is a weird one. T2 says it’s a Razor but I’ve never seen one before. We also took down a Recon and an Intruder. The Razor surrendered, so it only has armor damage. The Intruder can probably be fixed. Not so much with the Recon. Parts only at best. We also both have heavy armor damage to multiple locations.”

Tracy quickly added, “There was more in here than we expected. Lots a low rank EC infantry with red triangle patches. But thanks to Sarge and Black Jungle we keep them clear of the motor park.”

Gabriel continued to get updates as he and Joel grabbed more crates. “B1, where do you stand?”

“Fighting was hard down here too,” Brandon responded. “We have the captives and think we’re secure but we’re doing another sweep. Be advised, we took down a pair of Adscripticims and we have found three pilots wearing EC electrostatic under-uniforms down close to the motor pool. All have maroon berets. There is at least two dozen other EC scattered around down here, but most are in standard EC infantry uniforms but with red triangular patches. There are also two Auxiliarims, two Velitesims, two Munifexims, a Triarim, and a Medicorim inside the bay. We have codes thanks to the Medicorim being open with the pilot half in and frame powered up. B2 nailed her just in time!”

“More Earth Core!” Tracy hissed. “Kill them all!”

“Easy T2.” Gabriel commanded. “Any other Earth Core sightings?”

Saul entered the conversation, “Andar 2 and me took down at least six we think are EC infantry since they all had red triangular patches like we saw at a drill station Ratone and I were forced to work at. They all have Vegetius assault rifles and infantry vests with EC ranks on them. We also dropped four Galeac Battle Armor. Three other Galeacs surrendered, all with heavy damage. But there’s a pair of weird frames we can’t ID down here. They might be EC. They have the same kind of armored knee guards as we saw in Threat ID classes, but not Tyroims. They have a weird shield looking thing on the right arm. Whatever they are beat the snot out of us before we red-smoked them with some good long-distance shooting from Black Jungle and Sarge! Andar 2 has a shoulder out and his right side is chewed to hell. I have three areas with no armor left and five others in the orange. It’ll take hours, a shoulder hydraulic repair kit, and at least a dozen armor rods to patch our frames.”

Joel entered the conversation. “Sounds like we hit a facility making armor rods and frame parts, so we should have plenty. But we are paper thin, so we can’t get into another firefight. We collect what we can and…”

He paused as four odd-looking frames came out of the storage area. “Hold a minute…” He glanced at Gabe as his friend moved behind the still jacked up Puma. “I sure hope one of you is Tristan…”

The second frame back held up a hand, “Right here.” He spoke up. “All framers and battle armor pilots, even junior cadets, get over here! The Razors will need lubed and set up, so forget them for now. Get with Bartek. He’ll give you quick rundowns on what I’m in! We have several frames and many sizes of Maverick Battle Armor as well. Ariella and Jobe can give you rundowns on the B.A.!”

The strange frame moved up to Joel. It was so new, molding nipples could be seen on the shoulder and knee armor coverings, but had a few dents. Tristan shouted loudly, but the faceplate being down badly muffled the voice. “So who are you and how do you know who I am?”

“Tristan!” Sergeant Bea barked. “You’re in a frame. More loading and less talk! We can figure everything else out later!”

“On it, Sergeant Bea!” The boy shouted out. He gave Joel a head jerk, “Come on, help me carry the stuff in there. There’s enough extra game frames and repair crap in there to keep these frames going through dozens of hard fights!”

Joel followed but spoke with confusion. “Why not open your faceplate so you don’t have to yell?”

“Can’t,” Tristan responded. “Sicaims, Pugioims, and Gladiusims don’t have opening faceplates. They also have a base fifteen radio, so you will have to voice order your frame to communicate in the 26- and 27-megahertz range and tell it to set for resident line comms. We have access to standard channels four through eighteen. Your computer will recognize it even if you don’t.

“Bartek had us set ours to eleven for primary and four for secondary. Use scramble code Bartek with a K, Tomawinski, spelled exactly how it sounds. Go to four and keep it at real low output so range is limited. Tell it to keep output to less than two hundred meters so you can talk to me without having everyone else stepping on you. This will also eliminate rival tracking of Ulysses, EC, or machines. Again, your computer will know what to do with simple voice orders.”

Joel frowned deeply but spoke to his computer. “Cancel wide scanning. Need tertiary radio freqs on the board. Set to 26- and 27-Megahertz resident lines channel eleven and channel four. Make eleven and four primary and secondary on tertiary frequency set. Max output two hundred meters.”

The computer beeped a couple of times and a never-before-seen orange light lit up on his radio readout. A couple of seconds later it turned green, and he heard chatter.

“What do you mean I can’t open my faceplate?” a female voice asked.

“We’ll talk you through it later, Sally,” another female responded.

“These weapons suck!” a boy’s voice growled. “Who in the hell puts in two micro lasers, a light laser, light machinegun, two medium pistols, and a light auto shotgun on a frame?!”

Another boy jumped in, “Lore, you pulled the micro laser out of the head and put the override module into the computer, right?”

“Yeah,” the frustrated boy stated, “just like Bartek told me to… So I am down to one micro laser, but I don’t see what the module does for me.”

This time Tristan spoke up, “Lore, without the override module a commanding frame can shut down your systems. With it, it places an override on the entire lock-out subsystem built into the frame. We’ll have to scrounge better weapons to replace what comes standard, but you have to keep the module until we can get some Razors up or capture non-game frames.”

The first boy Joel heard spoke again, “All of you, look at your ammo. You have very limited rounds for now. Another key point is every round is real but should be tracered, so it will light up the sky. Same with lasers. They send out a tracking beam that pulses when you fire. With the override unit in place, you can go into your weapon subsystems and cancel out the always on tracking beam, but it will still light up just before you fire. It’s a built-in feature. But it’s better than nothing. We’ll have to take down non-game frames and replace weapons as we go, and we don’t have time to reconfigure ammo bins and load more. Even then, max bin loads are double what you see. Keep in mind, you all have a laser cutting torch and many have saws. Both make good melee weapons and are murder on infantry.”

Joel switched over to channel four to cut out all the chatter and spoke, “What am I hearing and what are game and non-game frames?”

“Earth Core barbarity is what we are talking about.” Tristan sighed. “I’m back in a damned game frame, but they are still real frames and I have a command module.”

“Game frame?” Joel asked totally perplexed. “What kind of game is played in a real frame?”

“Gladiator games. Real ones.”

“What!?!”

“Yeah,” Tristan sighed again. “These are Earth Core gladiator game frames. What I am in is equipped to make fights long and flashy so those who pay to come and watch or pay for live feeds can observe, bet, and cheer while we do our damnedest to kick the crap out of each other without actually killing. Most of the time we do, sometimes… well sometimes… Death is what we dish out and people still celebrate… loudly.”

There were several minutes of silence even as Joel helped load crate after crate into the back of the transports. Some so heavy he had to combine with Tristan to carry them. As he worked, other frames appeared and helped. Some were smaller and looked even stranger than the one Tristan was in. He could tell the smaller frames were also armed with very light weapons and had fixed faceplates.

Joel finally found his voice again, “Tristan, how’d you get here?”

“How about you first tell me how you know who I am?”

“I have to be careful, but… um… you were rescued by a Brood. He brought you, three other Dragos, and a Grenadier to us.”

“The Delta Brood kid?”

“Uh huh.”

Excitement filled Tristan’s voice. “Blood’s Honor is here?!”

“Ummm, not really…” Joel took a deep breath. “Well, I guess we are in a way, but it’ll be a while before more gets here, and only if we can figure out a way to get a message out without Ulysses and Earth Core realizing what we are trying to do. Otherwise, they’ll slaughter those watching and or those sent to get us.”

“You’re not making any sense.” But he paused as he lowered a crate, “But if you know me, you know Troy and Claire.”

“Troy Rizzo and Claire Scavello are here too?”

Tristan nodded, “They should be in Sicaim frames, same as me, and helping us load by now. We all know these damned things way too well. Terzo was on the ship with us, but he wasn’t in any of our squads. Hope he was put in a different pod.”

“Didn’t Fletcher leave New Bravaria with you?”

“Yup, sure did. He was here, but he escaped twice so they sent him to another facility. I heard one of the guards say it was close by but a way nastier place. They make chemicals and hold everyone in a solid bunker. They laughed about there being no way he’ll escapes again. But I bet he does.”

This got a short laugh out of Joel. “From what I’ve seen of Grenadiers, yeah… But didn’t BH place you all in another unit?”

“Yeah. After they rescued our folks, BH command helped get us spots in the Specter’s Vengeance Hussars and got the unit a gig out in Great Outback space. After our guard contract, we signed on as a quasi-permanent merc force attached to the planetary militia of Toruń Prime. As part of the contract all the kids got slots in their war academy.”

“So how did you end up here?”

“Will I get to ask some questions, or is this a one-way street?”

Joel tossed up his hands, “How about this, I’ll answer every question you have when others aren’t around. But I can tell you this much, several you know, including the Delta Brood, are here with us.”

Tristan coughed and almost dropped the crate in his arms. “You trust that little killer?”

“With my life.”

Tristan’s voice took on an exasperated edge, “Do you have any idea what he did out there in the woods?”

“Nope, and I don’t want to. All I know about the whole thing is what is important. He brought you five and seven Andromeda Archer kids out of those woods, and while you were all freaked out by him, you all agreed he stopped a squad of Earth Core infantry from capturing you. He also gave General Scott needed intel which allowed BH to pinpoint their last base on New Bravaria IV and crush it.”

Tristan said nothing for several trips. Finally, he spoke. “How about this. You clearly know me, and I am sure I will know who I am talking to once I see your face. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know as long as you keep Delta Seven Six Three away from me. Even after all I’ve done and been through, I want nothing to do with him.”

“Pretty sure the initial feeling will be mutual.”

“Good.”

Joel held out a hand to block Tristan from grabbing another crate. “Stop for a few and listen to me Tristan.”

Tristan turned his frame to face him, so Joel reached out and grabbed both shoulders. “There are several of us who know you. We liked you and I am certain I can speak for the others. We want to rebuild the trust and friendships we had with you, Claire, Troy, and hopefully Fletch and Terzo. But one thing I can guarantee you is this. Between any of you and Delta, the choice, if we have to make one, will be with Delta. Got me?”

“Doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice.”

“Yeah, you do. You can keep the frame you’re in and take one of the Zeniths, whatever you can stuff in it, and go. I’ll even help you load it. If Claire and Troy want to join you, fine. But I can also tell you this.

“Whatever happened out in those deep New Bravarian woods got you into the hands of BH. The intel he provided let us find and rescue your mother and scores of other mercs. And I can also tell you Delta Seven Six Three isn’t the same kid who you met out there. He is still very intense, but his loyalty cannot, will not be questioned by any of us. Simply put, he’s saved our lives too many times for any of us to do anything but love him as a brother… An obsessively driven, deadly, obnoxious, devious, and oft-times irritating brother, but a brother nonetheless.”

Joel smiled as the last comment got a snort out of Tristan. He let go but still blocked the boy’s path. “I have one last thing you may want to think about if you’re willing to listen.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Good. Cause the whole reason you aren’t heading to bed to work in a mine again tomorrow is because of Delta Seven Six Three. The plan to take this place, the timing, even our positioning was mostly him.

“So like it or not, believe it or not, you owe him. Again.”

Tristan grabbed another crate, loaded it into the back of the truck, and paused. “What if I said I wanted to leave, as in right now?”

“I’d be hurt and disappointed, ‘cause I still remember the rope swings you built and we played on for hours. The nights we slept in the same room, talked, roughhoused, and got into trouble with mine, Chip, Terrin, and Brandon’s folks for staying up too late. I also remember how you, Fletch, and Neil showed us how you took down EC Hunters. Then there was how close Terrin and you were… Hopefully still are. And he will be badly hurt if you take off.

“But I will not stop you from leaving, and yes, I’ll even help…”

Joel could see the boy’s brow furl through the armored faceplate. After a few seconds the kid let out a deep breath, “So… you’re a boy… but not Chip or Terrin, that leaves Brandon, Joel, or Gabriel. I know Neil took out Gabriel a few times to learn how to kill hunters, but I never went out with him, so you’re either Joel or Brandon.”

Tristan’s jaw moved back and forth a few times, “And Brandon’s old lady never told us to go to bed or stop jacking around. She just came in and warned us what time wake up would be, then made sure to get us up when we did stay up too late… once with buckets of cold water… So that leaves Joel.”

Joel’s head unit nodded slowly. He also briefly cleared his faceplate.

“Joel…” Tristan blinked, shook his head and whistled. “And Terrin is here?”

“Yeah, sure is.” Joel pointed toward the motor pool, “Right over there.”

Joel watched as Tristan took several deep breaths. “I… never thought I’d see him again… or any of you others… OK, I’m with you and I’ll convince the others but… If Delta Seven Six Three… How about we pretend New Bravaria didn’t happen, and we give him a second chance?”

“Deal. I think you’ll find he is way more likable than you expect.”

“We’ll see… But… likeable? Never mind. Just know it wasn’t a squad. It was more, way more. And even after everything we went through on New Bravaria before BH and being forced to be a gladiator over the last several months, and all the horrors of the training to make me one, the worst nightmares are what happened out in those woods. Delta Seven Six Three’s face is in all of them.”

“He’s sent some shivers up my spine a few times, but he becomes easier to trust the more you know him. He grows on you the longer you are around him. Most start to like him.”

Tristan’s’ whole frame shuddered. “I hope not too much.”

Joel forced a snicker, “Only for the better. So what the heck happened? I know you weren’t on Andar! If you had been, Terrin would have found you.”

“Nope, but sounds like most here were on Andar, both the workers and those guarding us and have been here for wayyyy longer than the rest of us. As for me…” Tristan took a deep breath and looked at the sky. “Still trying to figure out what happened and why. All I can tell you is Toruń Prime was hit hard. One of the places directly targeted was the academy. It was a large merc unit with EC support. We didn’t even get to frames. Hell, most didn’t do more than roll out of bed before infantry and battle armor secured most of the buildings. A few of us managed to get out, but we got nailed as we tried to slip over the north wall. I know I got hit by a stunner and fell. I woke up with my foot secured to a bench in the back of a hover transport with over five dozen other cadets.

“From what we overheard, those who hit us used Toruń Prime as a practice run before they hit another Great Outback world. Those who took us were Ulysses and nothin’ nice. By the time we were taken to an Earth Core Fire Lance ship, we were all glad to get away from them, even though we were handed to EC.

“As EC infantry took over for the asswipes who took our academy, men and women in EC uniforms with blue berets grabbed us, put bracelets on us and pointed to the Fire Lance. A few tried to run. No one stopped them, but all but two fell screaming and grabbing at the bracelets when they got about a hundred meters away from the ship. The other two made it a bit further, maybe two hundred meters… The bracelets exploded… It blew their hands off. While a couple of the EC assholes grabbed those holding their wrists, the rest of us went where they pointed for us to go. We walked up the back ramp. Once inside, they separated the framers from the others. They locked us into large cages with a couple of waste stations, a sonic shower, and food dispensers that we had to use our bracelets to access.

“One by one our bracelets vibrated. When it did, we had to go to the cage door. Those who didn’t got a harder vibration. The third was a hard shock. Since we all saw they could explode, most of us didn’t even try to hold back. Fletcher and Troy did. Infantry with riot shock sticks came in and grabbed them as they tried to pull off the bracelets.”

Tristan snorted, “Fletcher managed to nail one of the guards in the nuts with his fist, then pushed the bracelet into the guy’s mouth which shocked the crap out of both of them. But all it got Fletch was a shock stick across the back of his shoulders. Not sure if the blow or the shock took him down, but he was knocked cold. They dragged him out.”

Tristan continued to talk even as they filled up the two transports. “When my bracelet went off, I did what they wanted. I was taken to a strange combo med and fitness bay. They put me through a painful and way too thorough physical and lots of strength and endurance tests. A man and woman wearing blue berets were there the whole time and both mean as hell. Punishments including shocks, burns, and these long flexible sticks were used when I stopped any test and many times when I started to slow down. I didn’t know I could push myself so hard, but… at some point I passed out.

“I woke in a different cage. I don’t even know if it was the same ship. All I know is there were ten overfull cages. Six held framers, two held battle armor cadets, one infantry, and the last platform. There were six repeating cycles for I have no idea how long. The first breakfast, second was physical training. Hard physical training with serious punishments for any slacking. The third was frame simulators; hours and hours inside a mockup of the smaller frames you see helping us. They are called Pugioims and are only slightly bigger than Micro Frames. We were locked in and had to fight each other in all sorts of different landscapes. The fourth was cleaning, the simulator pods, deck, cages, shower area, and the EC quarters on our deck. Even when there was nothing left to clean, we scrubbed and polished or got punished. It had to be the cleanest ship deck with the best-looking EC uniforms and bunks in the galaxy. Next was a meal and hygiene. Sonic showers only. Then sleep. I know we did five space folds with three detach, burns and quick folds. There was one other quick fold. It was too smooth to be anything but a AFG fold.”

Tristan went silent for several minutes. Finally, he spoke again. “We landed on a cold world. I don’t even know the name of. We were first taken to a small prison-like place. Training continued the same for probably three weeks. The only difference is we had five-man cells with a window so we could see the sky. Once we adjusted to the gravity and the weirdness of a new world, we were taken to another much larger prison by shuttle. We could see way more than half the planet was covered with ice and where we landed was on the edge of the ice. It was stupid cold. Another two weeks of the same then…” he shuddered. “We were taken to real Pugioim frames. The bracelets were removed, and we got in. When the frames closed, we all realized we couldn’t get out.”

“Couldn’t get out?” Joel asked with both a sickening feeling in his gut and bewilderment. “They locked you in somehow?”

“Not just lock us in, they control everything. The back panel is just the start. They can shut down weapons, lower life support, cut power to limbs, limit, or even kill access to the food paste and water supplies. Even waste disposal, but they only did that to me a couple of times. Pretty sure they did it to Fletch a dozen times or more before he finally fell in line and joined in the fights.”

Tristan grabbed an armor rod and threw it so hard it made a hole in the wall. “The first time they kept us inside the frames for three days. They gave us a day out and told us to get back in. Those who refused were stunned and stuffed in a frame… including me. Those who did as they were told got another three days. Those who had to be forced, like me, got six. It was the first time they shut off waste disposal and killed limb augmentation. There is nothing you can do, nothing. They do it with the pads inflated so you can’t even wiggle an arm out to scratch an itch. You are stuck. I know it wasn’t more than an hour or two of no limb movement, but it felt like way longer.

“When not being punished or shown how much control they had, we practiced. Hard. Hours of target, punch, kick, and laser torch usage exercises on moving targets, many made of hunks of ice.

“I think this went on for about four weeks, maybe a little longer. At first most of us cried when they escorted us to the frame bays. I know five in my group of seventy-five committed suicide and several others tried. They were publicly punished and stuck in frames for fifteen days. Fifteen days… sometimes with hours and hours of no limb augmentation, limited heat, partial or no access to food paste, and even water restrictions. Those who came out had lost several pounds, their skin had nasty sores, and they reeked. They were so bad they went to medical for a few days. Then they had it done to them a second time for ten more days. They recovered physically but were never the same. It was like… I don’t know the right way to describe it. The best way to put it might be to say they had part of themselves ripped out. Even their eyes looked empty. After seeing what failure meant, it caused me not to try, but I still thought about suicide often.”

Tristan grabbed another crate and shook his head. “One day, when we thought we were going back out to the frames, twenty of us, the best twenty, were taken to four transports. Five frames in each transport, our frames, we knew by the dents, dings, and replacement parts on them. Only they were painted in yellow and red. We were told to climb in. By this time, we did as we were told, but knew things were about to change. We traveled for about three hours. The hover transports pulled to a stop, and the back ramps lowered. We could see the others we trained with as they moved down their ramps, but we found we were separated from them by a thick wall. Our back panels opened. We were taken to a recreation room and given new electrostatics, got a water shower, and fed a good meal. The first real shower and fresh cooked meal we had since being taken.

“A man wearing an Earth Core officer’s uniform moved up and spoke. I remember his exact words. ‘Today you make a lasting name for yourselves, good or bad. The name you make today will determine your futures.’ He left and one wall lit up. A woman wearing a bronze-colored beret appeared in a hologram in front while the lit wall displayed an oval stadium with random ice and stone structures scattered across the floor. The walls up to the stands were about three meters and panels of clear material went up another three meters. She listed off rules. I’ve heard them so often I know them by heart. ‘Fight well, fight hard. Do not shoot at the armored glass on purpose and never shoot a camera or drone. Those you enter with are in your colors and are teammates. Any others are hostile. When you get back to your frames you may customize by removing two hardpoints and substitute what is on hand. After ten minutes you will lose access to ranged weapons. For the glory of the Grand Emperor, your duty is to fight until your colors take the field or you are no longer able. Reprimands for breach of any of these rules will be severe.”

Tristin shrugged, “I think there was something more for the first one. I remember the woman telling us our futures were in our hands and the great houses of the empire were watching or something like that. But whatever. We were taken back to our frames. I pulled out a micro laser and pistol and replaced them with another light machinegun. I knew we only had fifty rounds of ammo for each weapon, and figured it would be better to be able to hold off until I figured out what was going on and unload on the hardest target before ranged weapons timed out.

“It never occurred to me we would be facing other frames. I really thought they would have us going against bots or something. But when the door opened, I realized this was the real thing. Five frames painted in green and white moved out on the far side. All around us people stood and cheered even as we all came out and looked around. The frames on the other side did the same thing. After nearly a minute the cheers changed to boos. Our radios kicked in telling us to get the fight going or spend the next two weeks locked into our frames.

“I don’t know who fired first. All I know is, it wasn’t me. But once the first shots were fired the whole thing went to shit fast. We didn’t even try to work as a team. Neither did those we faced. We scattered, found cover, and exchanged shots. One thing I did realize is I had to keep moving since standing still made too easy of a target. I took several hits before I took a hit to the back of the head. It hurt and pissed me off. I turned and opened up with both machineguns. Whoever was in the frame I targeted froze. I must have put twenty rounds and a few laser shots into it. It fell and put out red smoke. It was my first kill, but I used up half my machinegun ammo. So much for conserving until late into the fight.

“Even as part of my mind screamed I had shot and dropped a frame in combat, I took a laser shot to the hip. I spun behind a chunk of ice. I don’t even know who shot me. All I know is I turned and was face to face with a green and white frame. I could see into the faceplate. It was a girl. She was crying. I… couldn’t. But as I did nothing, someone else from my team took advantage of her being as frozen as I was. She stumbled into me as someone put several shots into her back. It knocked me back into the open. I heard and felt bullets hit my frame. I had no idea how much it hurt to get hit inside a frame, but one round breached and went into the padding. I knew I was bleeding. I kind of lost it. I know I turned and fired with my left arm mounted machinegun until it ran dry. I also fired down at the girl who had knocked me into the open with my lasers. To this day I don’t know if her frame was already spitting red smoke, or I caused it to do so. All I can tell you is I was so close the smoke from her frame blanketed my frame.

“The other frame I shot charged me. We both hit the ground hard. The pain made me see nothing but red. I know I was crying even as the training kicked in. I started punching with my right hand while I pushed the laser torch into the side and activated it. At some point in the melee the other frame put out red smoke. I didn’t even realize whoever was in command of my frame had cut the power to the torch. But, finally, limb augmentation was also cut so I couldn’t punch, knee, elbow, and kick. I laid there, on top of the other frame, my faceplate looking into the blackened side. With the last whiffs of red smoke spiraling out of the smoke generator. A voice, pretty sure it was one of the women from the training prison, spoke into my radio. She kept telling me to calm down, breathe and talk to her. I bet she had been trying to talk to me for a while but I didn’t notice.

“I found my voice and she talked me down for probably a minute or two. She told me I was going to get limb augmentation back, but if I threw a punch or did anything else to the frame next to me, I would be in serious trouble. She talked me through standing up. I did. My hip unit was grinding, I was bleeding, and I hurt. But I was able to stagger to the center of the oval. It wasn’t until I got there and heard the roar of the crowd did I realize I was the only frame standing. One of ten. Her voice told me to take a bow toward each section then exit. I guess I did, but don’t remember. The next thing I remember I was in the tunnel with the back panel opening.

“I was taken to medical, got some stitches, a shot for pain, and was taken to a holding area.

“Three others who went in with me were brought in. Two in stretchers, one with crutches. We never saw Gerri again.

“Across from us, three kids, two girls and a boy were carried in. All on stretchers.

“The Earth Core officer came in with a smile on his face. He told us we did great, and this was only the first of many for all of us. He went on to tell us we all needed to learn. The goal was to fight, yet live. Until we could learn to drop our opposition with less recklessness, we would stay and fight often. The best of us would, eventually, get taken into a great house and be part of the grand games. We got a replacement for Gerri the next day.

“We fought as a squad twenty-seven times. We got better and used teamwork. We got rewarded, even if we lost, if we didn’t kill anyone on the other side but still put on a good show. If we won without killing, rewards were even better. Better food, flavor packets for the food paste dispensers in the frames, time out of cells in a real recreation yard, more hardpoint changeovers, and finally even a bigger frame. By the tenth arena battle we started to figure out what pleased both the crowd and the trainers. This got us stuff like a footlocker with things… little things we could buy from a pool of what they called combat credits… first time we had a chance to buy candy, warmer and softer blankets, nicer footwear, and even water time and soap for real showers. The problem was they would lock our lockers and punish us if we didn’t do what they wanted. This included getting better both as a team and showing off in the arena. But as we found out, the same thing happened to those we fought. Battles became longer, harder, and more physical.

“Even with both sides beating the hell out of each other, and doing our best not to kill, only me and Bartek were left in Bartek’s squad. Same with Willie and Szymon’s squad. Fletcher, Tomasz, Troy, and Claire all survived as part of a squad. My bet is the reason they all but maintained an intact squad was mostly because of Fletch and his melee combat ability. But from what we heard, they lost seven others who were put in to keep them up at five until they got Jeffery. They went on to have eleven straight wins without losing anyone… Amazing, since accidents and sometimes just plain desperation means we kill… And new people don’t do well.

“Several weeks ago, right after a three-day round-robin slugfest with EC uniformed warriors in the stands instead of the normal crowds, seven men and five women came into the cell area. All were centurion princeps but had blade insignia pushed up through their ranks. Each also had shoulder boards with different crests on each uniform. They all wore maroon berets and had master gladiator trainer patches on the left shoulder. We were lined up for inspection while they drew lots out of a bag.”

Tristan let out a long breath. “It was almost like the first day all over again. The physicals, the stamina tests, punishments… But we were also pitted against each other in simulators and frames. At some point I was in my frame, got hit from behind, and… I guess it knocked me out. I woke up on a med bed with a bandage over my chest. Of the fifty of us put through the physicals, only Fletcher, Troy, and Jeffery were not in beds. I don’t know exactly what happened to them. They’ve never talked about it… The only things they’ve said is a whistle was blown, their frames shut down, the back panel opened, and the three of them were put through some extra real bad stuff. Once done, they were lined up again. The woman lead instructor grabbed Troy and pushed a metal plate into his chest, right over the heart. It lit up super-hot and branded him with the same crest she had on her shoulder board. Jeffery and Fletcher followed, each picked by the men who pulled the second and third pick.”

Joel gasped, “Branded?”

“Yeah.” Tristan tapped on the armor over his heart. “At least when I was selected and branded, I was unconscious. Maybe not completely, but mostly. I think I remember screaming and smelling burned flesh but maybe it was just a nightmare after I realized why my chest had a burn bandage over it.”

Even though he was in a frame, Tristan rubbed the area over his chest for a few seconds. They took a quick break as the first two transports were moved and two more pulled up with Terrin and Tracy riding on the back just behind the cabs. Terrin radioed over, “We’re secure but we locked almost four dozen who surrendered in the back of two of the Javelins and a trio of damaged cargo trailers with locking backs. It’s a tight fit, but it’s the only thing I could think to do with them.”

Beth joined in, “We have twenty-seven who surrendered here, too. We stuck them in the mess hall and locked them in. Problem is several are wounded. Four of them are bad.”

“About half of those we stuck in the Javelins and trailers have injuries here,” Terrin added. “We left them the first-aid kits off the inside wall and water. But… What are we going to do with them?”

Joel let out a long sigh. “Open to suggestions, but killing them better not be an option.”

“Pretty sure T2 would be the only one of us who might be for killing them,” Terrin answered, “but only those who are wearing EC stuff. One thing’s for sure; we can’t keep them.”

“Kill, no,” Tracy snarled. “Break their arms and leave them for the lizards, yeah. That I could do!”

“T2, stop!” Joel took a few calming breaths. “G, any ideas?”

Gabriel responded after several seconds of silence. “About the only thing we can do is what Brood did with those he took when he was on maneuvers. Strand them well away from everything and let them fend for themselves. Sounds like we need to give them a medic kit if we can find one.”

“More than one,” Terrin stated. “We have at least fifteen with bullet, laser, or shrapnel damage. Brood set us up to not only surprise, but also where we could pound them hard. It would have been better for all involved if they had capitulated sooner.”

Karen entered the conversation. “After seeing what I did up here, I’m glad they didn’t. But we can’t become who they are. We need to get them some decent medical supplies or something!”

“I’ll see if anyone we rescued knows where medical is,” Gabriel stated. “We’ll give them some, but we’ll need supplies too. Problem is, if we are going to help, we have to make sure they can’t ID us.”

Joel quickly agreed. “Let’s keep it to those we rescued escorting and giving them supplies. After what they’ve gone through, they won’t deal well with any kind of attitude being given to them. Ask Sergeant Bea if she’d help oversee it. This way we have an adult there to keep watch and hopefully prevent anyone from being too hard on those we captured.”

Gabriel let out a ‘Pffttt’. “Yeah, OK. I’ll ask. It’s not a bad idea and we sure don’t want to be seen. And while not the nicest thing, stranding them, it’s the best combination of safety and humanity we’ve got.”

Joel nodded to himself as he focused on something other than the death around him. His voice became stronger. “G, get some help rounding up all the medical supplies and food. From what I’ve heard, we’ve got a couple of empty boxed wheeled transport trailers in the motor pool. Even better they have hitchs so we can double them up with the mesh trailers. Bulldogs are big and powerful enough to haul them. Have Sergeant Bea stick the prisoners inside, find drivers for a couple of the Bulldog platforms and haul them northeast up into the hills. Get them to a stream, drop the trailers, open the backs, and let them out. Sarge and Black Jungle cover our exit, then the two of you escort the Bulldogs and get them safely back to our base.”

“No prob!” Derek answered, then added, “Good to hear you getting back with us Command.”

“Think I got pounded a little too hard. Glad G was ready and did such a good job of taking over for a while.” Joel admitted. “T1, find some help on collecting supplies. Take stuff off those we dropped if you have to. Get everyone who surrendered a canteen, pack with a change of clothing, filter mask, knife, field personal first-aid pack, hygiene pack, and a light ballistic pistol with a full load but nothing else.

“If they are EC or any of the prisoners say any of the others hurt them, give them a knife, personal first-aid pack, hygiene pack, and empty pack. Nothing else. From what I see most of those we dropped have survival knives. Leave the stuff in the handle but smash the compasses. They get the gear after we drop the trailers. We’ll dump the gear into piles and shoot the locks off the back as we pull out. EC and those who hurt the prisoners in the last one or two we shoot the locks off, so they can get out after everyone else has grabbed what they want. With any luck, it will leave the real jerks with less gear.” He took a second before adding, “Oh and we have several cases of AIM basic ration packs. While I hate to let any food go, give everyone we captured one meal here and stick one in their packs, even EC. I’m not going to go to bed thinking about them starving before they get a chance to figure something out.”

He returned his focus to Tristan. “So you… got branded…” Joel couldn’t help but cringe. “Um, then what?”

“We were given five days to recover and issued the uniforms you see us in. We were told as official circuit gladiators we would get to earn time out of the arena pits and go out to something called the arena village. These uniforms showed us as official gladiators and what planet we got our training on. We would also get patches showing victories and other awards. The infantry, battle armor, and platform cadets also went through the same thing. It sounds like each round of gladiatorial games opens with infantry wearing riot gear, including helmets. They use tracered rubber rounds and close hand-to-hand. Then comes battle armor, followed by lightly armored platforms with a small turret. When they run out of ammo or time out, they have to win by slamming into each other.

“Once they were done, those of us in frames finished off the shows. One thing we were never allowed to do was show ourselves. Some of us wondered if those watching didn’t know they were cheering for kids shooting and killing each other. But that’s just a weird guess, and probably stupid guess on our parts. I mean as small as the infantry are, those cheering had to know.

“Saw it a couple of times when I was injured too badly to fight and a few times when we were not scheduled to fight. And even knowing what it’s like to be down on the arena floor, I have to admit, it was kind of awesome to watch.”

Joel shook his head. “Sounds barbaric to me.”

“Oh, it was… is… but… well, I think we look at them differently or something. I watched and saw the tactics or lack of them. The… tenacity of those fighting… and… the sickening twist in the gut when one fell or red smoke blasted out. Yet it was thrilling. And while it first made me sick, hearing the crowd roar… It became important… Best I can describe it is a rush and somehow it felt good to hear people screaming even though I had hurt, and sometimes killed others… It’s something I can’t explain. But I can tell you I’m not alone. Most of us who were branded say the same kinds of things.”

“After what you’ve been through, I’m not going to judge. Cringe yeah, judge, no.” Joel let out a long uneasy breath, “So can I ask what happened after you were branded?”

Tristan shrugged. “Since each centurion princeps selected and branded five of us framers, we were put into squads with those branded like us. For two ruthless weeks, we trained under the master trainer who had the same crest as we got burned into us. In my case with Fletcher, Bartek, Tomasz, and Claire. Troy was teamed with Willie, Sanaa, Bridget, and Orlando. Jeffery got Alison, Szymon, Juanita, and Patryk. We traveled to Jimsons XII. We fought in a massive round-robin. Nine battles in nine days. Each team fought each of the others. Only a couple were killed. They were replaced with backups who had not been branded… They were after the tournament and became part of the squads they filled in with. We were put into a Trireme class supply ship along with… well a whole lot of what we’ve been carrying to the transport vehicles. Guess much of it survived and they salvaged and stored it here.

“We were told by our master trainers we were going to join one of the main game circuits in the Obsidian system. When we folded in, we were hit by hostile warships. I’m not sure what happened, exactly, but we managed to dock with a Quinquereme frigate, and it folded out of the system under heavy fire. It was badly damaged and so was the ship we were on. From what we heard, the docking collar we were on was damaged too badly for us to stay with the ship, so a high ranking EC officer by the name of Lomo ordered us to sit tight. He would get us transport. A small fold ship arrived a week later. We hooked up to it with life support on our ship starting to fail. It took us a single fold to a real nasty, frigid, humid world with only scrub vegetation and nasty smelling water all over. It was there we had a chance to do a real raid against what we were told were bandits. They installed the command units so we could be outside the range of the trainers. Until then, we didn’t know there was a way to prevent them from overriding us.

“Not that it mattered. The world was a wet, cold, version of Hell. They gave us the cold weather uniforms we had back on the world we first got trained on, assault rifles, pistols, vests, and even a survival pack to stick in the back of our frames. We were told we could run, but would be left there. A few hours on that hell hole was enough to tell us none of us wanted to live there the rest of our lives, so we hit the target as ordered.

“The fight was hard and lasted four days. Other hostiles kept showing up, many on small, wheeled vehicles with a small machinegun or even just men and women with rifles in the back of them.” Tristan let out a long breath, “Most of us gladiators were ordered to take a multi-building smaller kids’ school intact and hold it as the first objective. We did. It was the focus of much of the fighting during the four days.

“A large number of those we were fighting finally backed off into the scrub covered hills after our EC gladiator trainers released all the youngest kids… not true. They kept six because they had electrostatics under their clothing… Irregardless, they let most of the younger ones, like those without any adult teeth, go. They did so in exchange for lots of food and other supplies. There was another twelve-hour fight once those we were fighting realized the older kids weren’t going to be handed over.

“Another truce was given and we handed over those who only had front adult teeth, were weak, crippled, or injured. I heard there was threats we’d kill all the kids if the defenders didn’t take the second release and let us leave with the rest of the kids and even more supplies.

“During the whole time, we rotated out, patched our frames, replaced ammo, food paste, and water, and jumped right back in our frames. I don’t think any of us got more than a dozen hours of sleep over those four and a half days. It’s a good thing gladiator training taught us how to deal with it.”

“I think I would have passed out at some point,” Joel admitted.

“Some did, and I came close a couple of times. But during the whole time, fighting never totally stopped. There were lulls, but I bet we shot up well over two hundred small, wheeled vehicles. If they had massed and attacked as one, we would have lost, but the school would have been destroyed with us. Which is probably the only reason I’m alive.

“And while the school caused us to question the whole bandit camp thing, we didn’t have much time to think about it. Once we drove back the final attack and the second group of kids were handed over, we cleared the main camp. It’s when we all realized there was no way it was a bandit stronghold. Most of us think it was a decently defended Free Planet Association settlement with a drilling and mining camp. Most of the dead had FPA Credits on them and eleven of the frames we took down and grabbed had FPA markings. The town included three big stores, a small jail complex, a second small school with older kids, a huge greenhouse complex, and two ranches with weird looking non-flying winged four-footed feathered things that I heard called rock runners by a couple of those we took at the school…. Turned out to be good eating. Their eggs were edible, but gross… Still, it was better than going hungry and being a gladiator, we ate what we were given, or we starved… The place also had a couple of bars, a hotel, and several other shops.

“We think they had us capture the school to focus the defenders so there was less damage to the rest of the place. Of the fifty-eight of us gladiators to hit the place we lost twenty-one. The trainers over us lost sixteen of thirty. The platform, battle armor, and infantry gladiators got it far worse. Less than fifteen percent of them survived.”

Tristan helped Joel heft up another crate with a Pugioim frame inside. “There was rumor some of the platforms and battle armor did flee into the hills, so their losses may not have been as high as we were told. But the infantry gladiators were all but eliminated in the first eighteen or so hours.

“Once fighting was down to a few spots of harassing fire, our trainers took all the remaining kids from both schools. They all got stuck in the lower hold. However, as we learned on New Bravaria a couple of the senior EC trainers did what they do best.”

Joel felt a sinking feeling in his gut but asked the question anyway. “What did they do?”

“They sent the captured kids a clear message. Six of their adult instructors were executed in front of them. The others were stripped to undergarments and forced to run into the scrub-woods or get shot. At least two were. The surviving master trainers then grabbed five of the older kids who gave us the most problems, who weren’t found in electrostatics. They were beaten bloody, stripped, and left lying on the street. Two who did have on electrostatics weren’t beaten as bad and were brought with us but… think you get the idea.”

As Joel nodded, Tristan continued. “The raid got us enough food and supplies to make up for one of the holds of the ship we were on getting vacced. We loaded battle salvage including thirty fallen gladiator and trainer frames and fourteen badly damaged enemy frames, nine shot up platforms, over two-dozen of the wheeled vehicles, and quite a bit of infantry gear. While we did that, the crew found what they needed to patch the ship’s life support.

“Next stop was here, but the two folds it took were rough. My bet is they pushed the fold distance, but it may have been a bad fold crew. Whatever the reason, it caused extra damage to the ship. Our ship was so badly messed up, our trainers pushed us into and ejected emergency pods before the ship even entered the atmosphere. We watched as the ship lost heat shielding around the nose on reentry. Looked like someone tried to land it, but it was on fire and smashed into the hills.” He pointed northwest, “Even as those in command of our escape pods brought us down close to here, we saw other pods burn to areas well to the east and a few to the west. One ejected at the last second. Pretty sure it burned up. If it didn’t, it would have landed close to where the ship crashed. At least one pod must have been damaged cause it definitely burned up on reentry. We were given our electrostatics, basic packs, stuff out of our footlockers, and uniforms, then placed as part of the work crew here, but on a lighter duty than most. We’ve been here for seventeen planetary days.”

Tristan snorted slightly, “Compared to gladiator life, this has almost been a vacation. Although, none of us gladiators got a stint down in the lower smelter except Fletcher. The EC trainers didn’t want us getting sick, but they made an example of him for his first escape. From what we heard, he escaped from it on his second day. He was found and stunned after two days. That’s when they transferred him. I heard it’s real bad down there in the smelter though.”

The conversation was interrupted as Karen’s voice came over the radio, “Command, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Joel responded.

“The broadband!” Terrin shouted. “You sure you’re OK?”

“Guys I’m fine. But both G and I have the broadband scanners shut down because we’re talking to those in these weird gladiator frames on the tertiary freq set. What’d we miss?”

Beth responded as she realized Cory had found a way to lose Candice without Joel’s whole group finding out she had deserted. She did her best to go with what Cory was trying to do. “Sounds like my group’s original commander got split off from the other group! Seems like she is either pulling forces away from the others or going after some who escaped. She said it’s too dangerous to link back up, but she found friends! She’s going to head to the mountain supply site with them.”

“Tell her to stop and hook back up with the assault team!”

“Brood tried, but she said it’s too dangerous,” Terrin stated.

“Then tell them to head out to the best guess we have on the mountain stash and link back up with her there!” Gabriel demanded.

“Bad idea sir!” Derek fired back. “Look at the big picture. She knows the stakes of what we’re doing and sounds like she understands her situation and the risks involved. She is going after the mountain stash with whoever is with her. Guess she plans on forming a third group. But if we do anything other than clear out of both places with as much as we can, we are putting all of us at risk, and with it your home world and the whole of the NFC! Think mission priority, sir.”

Tracy spoke up, “He’s right, sir. You’re going to have to trust her.”

“Agreed!” Karen jumped in with a great deal of forcefulness. “Black Jungle is spot on. We can’t risk getting caught and we have to keep in mind who we just rescued. Very few held here are in any kind of shape for a big fight. Nor can we chance failure for only one of us… And I am sure she knows this. She may have blown the start of this exercise, but we know she is way more about action. She acted.”

“And we could screw over her and those with her if we head toward the stash she is going after,” Jennifer warned. “All it takes is one aircraft or ground unit to spot us and put on long-distance tails. The chances go way down if there are not multiple groups going to or from the same location. And those we just pulled out of here are tired and could get careless. Worse, large groups are easier to spot than smaller ones. Which is why I think Black Jungle was right about having group two base themselves out of the ship site while we use the bunker.”

“Even more so now,” Derek stated. “We sprung way more here than we expected. If the other group got half of what we have here, it’s going to be hard to stay hidden. We are also going to have to hunt for food. Keeping smaller groups fed is easier than a large one.”

Beth joined in, “Besides, we are supposed to be separate groups. We all want a shot at what is being offered which we may not get if we stay combined. And while Command didn’t know what is going on here, being separate will let one group continue even if Ulysses or EC jerks do find us and capture or take out one of us.”

Joel eyed Gabriel for a few seconds. Finally, his best friend gave a single nod.

Joel clenched and unclenched his fists a few times, “OK, fine. You all have good points and I’m being foolish. One of you up on the hill send a signal. We meet at the fully abandoned facility Brood first checked out, divide both people and equipment, and see if we can figure out what happened to the other group.

“We’ll reestablish two teams. But before we bug out of here, one of you on the hill send former commander two a message. Tell her… Tell her… Dang-it! Tell her good luck and get her codes to get into our side of the stash. She can have all of it!”

Karen snorted. “Brood already did, sir.”

Gabriel let out a snort. “Why am I not surprised to hear he knows the codes for our squad?”

Karen couldn’t help but snicker. “Because he is who he is.”

“Yeah, Brood strikes again… But when I see her again, I am going to…” Joel shook and blinked out a few tears… “I’m going to hug her till it hurts both of us.” He punched the side of the building hard enough to put his fist through it. “OK, let’s finish this and get clear. Black Jungle and Sarge, get down here, patch up armor, and reload. We got four volunteers to drive and man the two Bulldogs. You two get to cover our retreat with those mounted guns. Use them to shoot up our path as best you can, then blow them! You’ll have to stay back to cover us and make sure we aren’t followed. Then escort the Bulldogs to a good camp spot, drop the trailers, shoot off the back locks from a distance, and link up with us at the bunker. They can have the trailers for shelter or whatever.”

Derek responded with a satisfied sounding, “No prob!”

Cory let out a long breath as he heard Karen tell Candice good luck. He was surprised not to get an order from Joel to go after her. Even more unexpected was the order to head to the ruins of the first facility he had checked out. It was in a spot that would be hard to scout without being noticed and had several shallow mines up on the bluffs overlooking the badly shot up and weathered structures in the small valley. It was a good spot to hole up out of sight of everything including satellites and overflights.

Cory was certain this meant Joel was going to assemble everyone and break them into two groups. He wondered who had talked some sense into him even as he watched Paula lead those they had freed from the chemical plant. He let out a sigh of relief as they disappeared into the hills.

After several minutes of silence and no sign of any movement other than Hexa-lizards and other Brile wildlife, Cory lined up the quark rifle on his frame and shot the flashing light at the bottom of the damaged tank. He spent a couple more minutes destroying other flashing warning lights. Once he was certain there was nothing indicating a problem with the plant or tanks, he scanned the skyline.

After nearly fifteen more minutes, Konstantin cleared his throat. As he winced, and lightly rubbed his throat, he eyed Cory for several seconds. “Kid, I saw you out of a frame. I know you’re young. Like stupid young. But Jason told me you were in charge and tossed in you defected on our home world to help Blood’s Honor take our whole system back. But you couldn’t have been, what? Eight?”

“Nine,” Cory responded. “Nine and a few months.”

“There’s no way you helped take our world back!”

Cory snickered. “Blood’s Honor’s General Scott said basically the same thing when I told them I could do it.”

Konstantin let out a long breath, “OK, OK, Jason vouches for you, so… let’s say I buy this whole thing at face value. How is it a kid not even old enough to have an official A.I.M. number ended up as a combatant on New Bravaria?”

“I’m a Brood, hatched by Earth Core. Genetically mixed and trained to be a near-mindless killing machine. My full Brood and several others were sent to New Bravaria to find the Grand Emperor’s grandkid… a favorite grandkid… Actually we were there to be a distraction and die so the EC forces could get to the crash and find him or at the very least his body. EC never got close. Not us, nor those we were a distraction for. Neither did those who sent us and the red patches to attack from the heavily mined side of the plateau the Fluvius Camillus slammed into.”

Konstantin said nothing for a few more minutes before focusing back on Cory, “So you say you were born and trained to be a mindless killer and then sent to die. Yet you defected and turned on those who trained you. Why?”

“Does it really matter?” Cory countered.

Liam spoke up, “Yeah… yeah it does.” He turned to face Cory, “Look, you’re younger and have my respect. And you say you want to be my friend. Something I would like…” Liam took an uneasy breath. “But friendship is a two-way street. I have told you just about everything about me. All I know about you is bits and pieces. You have shown me you can handle more pain and are tougher than any kid your age or with your looks should… But you have yet to tell me, or from what I can see, anyone including those you came here with, who you are. I’d be a much better friend if I could understand you.”

“What is there to understand?” Cory snorted. “I’m Brood. A genetically-tweaked hatched killer.”

“No…” Liam shook his head. “OK, yeah, you are. But not mindless. And you care about others including me. I’d like to be able to do more, be a better friend, but you need to let others in.”

“I am. What do you think me taking you through the basics of Brood Training is?”

“Shows me what you are, and why you are so tough. But it doesn’t tell me the who… Who is Cory? Why go against everything you say you were being trained to become?”

Cory shrugged. “I have no idea what went wrong with me.”

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with you,” Liam countered, then snickered. “OK, maybe a bit off, but I like what you’ve let me see. But while you can hide feelings, I can see you have them. Come on, talk to us.”

Cory glanced over at Konstantin, “You want to be bored by this?”

Konstantin snorted, “Kid, from what I’ve gleaned you basically walked into this factory complex and set everything in motion to wipe it out! Yeah, I want to get to know you!”

Cory looked up and shook his head, “I bet you don’t but fine… But only because… Liam, I’m going to say something you may not want to hear.”

“What? You think I’m cute or something?”

Cory let out a higher-than-normal-pitched snicker. “Cute? In a way, I guess I do. But it’s more like I…”

“Your interest in him is for something deeper than friendship?” Konstantin asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I think so… Yeah…”

Liam cocked his head to the side and blinked. “Cory… you’re… serious? I’m almost fourteen, you’re younger… and while more deadly than any… anyone or anything I’ve ever dreamed about… smaller…”

“Yeah. But don’t go putting yourself down again. The others I came here with are great. Chip is as close as I have to a true friend, but he’s still scared of me… You aren’t.”

“You’re wrong…”

“No,” Cory shook his head adamantly. “You’re not. You may be weirded out by me, but… Look, Liam, since I first met you, I knew you were different. Then in the Ultra base… you proved it. And today, again. You walked in here with me. You trusted me, but also backed me. I didn’t do this alone. Paula and you… there is no fear.”

Cory snickered. “Confusion, bewilderment, maybe even uncertainty, but no fear. And yeah, you’re a couple of years older than me, but you’re also kind’a hot both in brains and looks… and if you end up hating me, it’d suck.”

“Short of you stabbing me in the back, I’m never going to hate you. You’re about the most interesting kid… person I have ever met. But you keep the real you pretty deep inside.”

“Not sure what you mean,” Cory admitted. “You know more about me than most of those I have gone to school and even lived with for the last couple of years.”

“I know nothing about you. I know what you have been through and what you can handle. Oh, and that you are a killer. But while you are harder than I thought anyone could be, you care. Maybe not like others, but you care. Those two little kids, the kid Fletcher, who you obviously don’t like, but you risked harm to get him out of the command building’s medical wing. Maybe not because of him, but because you knew others with you cared about him… And I think you want to get him to trust you.”

After several seconds of silence, Konstantin spoke up. “Kid… Cory… I don’t know a damned thing about you other than what little Jason told me, and what I just heard. But if you want friends, you need to open up some. Trust is a two-way street.

“Come on, Cory,” Konstantin continued. “It’s just the three of us. You just rescued me, so while you may not get my friendship, you sure as hell have my loyalty. What’s said here stays here. I’m not saying shit. And while I am older than both of you, it doesn’t mean I’m not a potential friend.”

Cory frowned. “There are very few I have ever wanted to be friends with, even inside the Brood. Maybe… if my hunch plays out, you can get added to the list.”

“I’ll do my best to prove whatever you need proven. But you at least owe Liam an explanation. Especially if you are interested in him as more than a friend. Just so you know, I am all about girls though!”

“The same can’t be said for me,” Cory responded with no sign of emotions. “Girls are OK, but I knew for the last year or so what I am. Probably because I was born and raised in a Hive made up of over 2500 boys and spent from age six to nine and a few months in a Brood with my Brood brothers and only male trainers. While females, notably the likes of Paula intrigue me, pretty sure EC set me on the path of being far more male leaning.”

“OK, I’ll give you that,” Liam snickered. “And no, I don’t hate you. If anything, I am fascinated you see me in ways I don’t think anyone else ever has. But it still comes back to I can’t fully trust you until you let me in, and from what I’ve seen, only Chip… maybe Karen and to a lesser extent Gabe and Joel and maybe Brandon. But you and Chip seem closer than the others.”

“We are. He was the one who really spoke up for me and led to the rescue of my fellow Brood.” Cory gave a rare grin. “Chip also isn’t nearly the rule junkie the others are, so we’ve had some… how about I just say, unapproved fun.”

Liam snickered, “Nice to know my commander isn’t Joel.”

“Don’t take Joel lightly. When him and Gabe get together…” Cory stopped and smirked. “But yeah, Chip is way more like us.”

Cory scanned the area for several seconds, “Surprised they haven’t responded yet… but since they haven’t, things are looking better for what I am hoping for. We’ll just have to wait and see.” He looked back and forth between the two older kids. “So you both want to know more about me, like really know?”

As both nodded, Cory shrugged. “If you’re sure… I’m hatched. The tech has been around for a long time, dating back to early into space folding. The facility I was hatched in was part of the human farming project after the first blood viruses decimated humanity. It was never put out of production, but after Earth Core got hammered after the Machine and Second Earth Core Wars, the Sixth Grand Emperor transitioned some of them to make warriors. It is part of the history we were taught. It was to show we, Brood Warriors, should be thankful to EC and the Grand Emperor for our existence. We learned pledges to the Grand Emperor almost as soon as we could speak. Battles of EC forces fighting and winning were on holo-vids daily during life in the Hive. Everything we were taught was our only loyalty was to EC and the Grand Emperor. Yet from as early as I can remember I was different than the other hatchlings. And not just out of my Brood. I was the oddest one in my entire Hive.

“Simply put, I was and probably still am the oddest hatchling I’ve heard of. While others learned to do as they were told, how to fight, and kill, get hurt and harshly disciplined yet still drive on as told, I didn’t. I mean, I did deal with and learned from all the training, trials, beating, and punishments. I was one of the best.

“But unlike those in my Hive and then Brood, I always wondered about the why behind all the hype about EC and the Grand Emperor. I saw more behind the trials and training. It wasn’t simply to make us stronger; it was to imprison our thinking. I began to realize the trainers tailored everything to make us… me an unthinking and unquestioning killer with the primal drive to fight and die for EC. Those with and around me weren’t supposed to matter. Only EC and the will of the Grand Emperor.

“I wanted to understand not what we were being trained for, but why they wanted, needed, us to be deadly non-thinking or caring organic machines. We weren’t ever allowed to make friends in the Hive or Brood. Work close with, fight with, and count on each other in combat, yes. But befriend no. When friendships happened, we were forced to fight each other until one, or both, were badly hurt. It happened over and over until the idea of being friends were crushed because of all the beatings, blood, anger, and shame of being too badly beaten to keep up with the others. Which, of course, led to more trials, tests, and punishments.

“Yet no matter what the trainers did, they couldn’t stop hidden friendships. The risks taken by so many proved to me what we were told wasn’t true. We were told we were made to… for…” Cory let out a sigh and shook his head. “The exact words of our trainers were ‘you are all the new War Machines of the Great Emperor.’ Somehow, I knew, just knew, what we were forced to do to each other wasn’t right and couldn’t work. I decided to be the one to not become mindless. A few others followed suit, but not like I was able to do. Why, I don’t know. Yet, from as early on as I can remember, I looked for ways to excel beyond the physical even when punished for doing so.

“I somehow found ways to learn and… as part of this not to get caught. I became deadlier in ways not taught. This was identified. Special trainers were brought in for me and those like me. Six of us out of the seven Broods in the Hive. Again, even as they taught us skills to be better slayers, it was done with the constant bend of the Grand Emperor being our master and creator. For in their own words, it was the Grand Emperor who sent them, the special trainers, to make us Brood leaders for the glory of the EC. We ate and drank EC slogans, got punished badly for any slip up, and became the lead in punishing those in our Broods who failed badly.

“Zeta Brood Two Two Two, who was one of the six of us, was slated for execution when he was found pumping a fist when a vid showed an EC fighter getting blasted by a bandit.

“They wanted the rest of us to kill him by beating him to death slowly. But as each of us moved forward to punch him the first time, I slipped him a sharpened stick. I expected him to kill himself. But he had other ideas. He shoved it into the trainer’s neck while they handed the rest of us metal bars to beat him to death with. He shouted ‘Death to the Emperor’ then came at me. I knew as he did so, what he wanted. I crushed his throat with a single punch, then smashed his skull with the metal bar to make sure he died fast. I was punished for my recklessness. It was worth it.

“The other four shunned me for the remainder of the four months, but I knew they did so because they were told to. This showed me the most free-thinkers were not anything like me. I was flatly different.

“It’s why I never really fit in within the Hive or my Brood even though I could handle all the challenges they dumped on us. I thought for myself. And like I said, only a few others in the entire Hive tried to follow my lead. All but eight of them were expelled before they got into Brood training. One was killed in training, another two got blown-up on your home world. The others are back on Forest Garden.” Cory sighed. “But I don’t think the others really understood we were hatched with one ending, to die on a battlefield. The holo-vids showed glory.” Cory clenched his fist, “Glory and being in history as a great warrior. But I saw through it. I am Brood. What glory? EC isn’t going to make a war hero out of a hatched freak with no family and no history. Glory? I didn’t even have a name. No history will remember a number.

“I still don’t know when or why all this fell into place for me, but it was early, like well before I was placed into the Brood chamber. The final pieces of my decision to defect started the day we were ordered out to the parade grounds.

“An alert was sounded. We scrambled to grab our packs. When we got to them, we found rifles and a packaged set of clothing shoved into our arms by EC red patch infantry. Even as we exited our Brood dome, we could see other domes emptying. Several transports had ramps down and I could see other Broods, including some older than us, running up the back ramps. Sirens were blaring across the whole area. I counted. Eighteen ships, each with four full Broods, instructors, scores of red patch infantry, and support staff. We were crammed in so tight it was impossible to do anything but stand. No one answered any questions. I remember Instructor Twenty-one shouting we were Brood. ‘Brood don’t ask! You obey!’ he shouted several times. Other instructors started screaming the same thing. The ship I was in did a hard takeoff. A few fellow Brood hit bulkheads hard enough to break bones. At least one split his head open. There was no aid provided.

“Many hours later we docked with a much larger ship. We were ordered out. It was only my fourth time in zero-G. I could tell Epsilon Brood had not had any zero-G since they were clueless on how to maneuver. Gamma wasn’t much better. Yet several were punished with shock and stun sticks set on very high settings. Some of us realized we had to help, since I saw at least nine get badly hurt. Some from being tossed into bulkheads by angry trainers and even red patches.

“We were ordered to leave those too injured and move to our assigned ships. I got hit by two shock sticks because I helped Gamma Five Three Six out of the ship. I didn’t let go. In fact, in the madness, I managed to grab a blade off a red patch and slammed it into the neck of Instructor Eleven when the man tried to yank Gamma Five Three Six out of my grasp.

“Nothing was ever said, so I have no idea what they did when they found him, or even if they did find out.” Cory smirked. “Nor did they check my pack for his side satchel or the gear pack and weapon belt I managed to snatch off the body of Instructor Twenty-one…” Cory took in a deep breath, “Those became real important later.”

Cory paused to scan the ever-darkening sky before he continued. “With Gamma Five Three Six in my right hand, we found ourselves in a huge bay. There were fifteen docking collars on the other side. Those who arrived before us were making their way toward some with lit signs above them. One of them, four down from the end lit up with Delta, Zeta, Gamma, and Epsilon. I made toward it, but the ship we docked with folded without warning.”

“With all of you in an open bay with nothing to hold onto?” Konstantin gasped.

“Yeah… It was worse than you can imagine. Those close to any bulkhead hit them. Brood slammed into each other. Instructors Twenty-one and Nineteen were still at the airlock of the ship we came out of. The sudden shift caused someone to hit the emergency closer. Both were cut in half along with Delta One One Nine. Gamma One Eight lost his foot. He was shot in the back of the head by some instructor I didn’t know.

“There was blood everywhere, all sorts of stuff was floating around. Blood, puke, gear, and a few body parts. I used the confusion to grab extra stuff including a whole pack off of what was left of Zeta Three Three One.

“Speakers blared. A deep male voice told us to get to the ships. I managed to get Gamma Five Three Six and Delta Two One Three in. We strapped down next to each other. Minutes later, with very few strapped in, the ship detached and did a hard burn. It folded. Had to be a fold gate. We lost another instructor and at least a dozen Brood. The ship started another hard burn. We were given a chance to organize, clean up the mess, eat, get some water and a sonic shower. It was during this burn I was able to look out of a portal. I could see several other ships off to the starboard side. All were Liburna Winged Fast Assault PLCs. I was also able to see a Nemi Battlecruiser. I could also see several other distant dots as they detached from another large fold ship on the far side of the Nemi. All looked like Liburna and were burning toward her.

“As we got closer, I realized the ship we were headed toward had a detachable fold coil around it even though it had its own fold cores. We docked. An hour or two later we folded. I could just barely see through a port side portal for a few seconds as the external fold coil was ejected. The portal snapped shut with armored coverings. We folded again minutes later.

“Then all hell broke loose.”

Both Liam and Konstantin blinked. Liam was first to find his voice, “You mean it got worse after all that!?”

“Oh, yeah.” Cory nodded and even shuddered. “Within minutes our ship started shaking bad. We all heard and felt explosions in the direction of our ship’s link collar to the warship. Claxons sounded as chunks of debris smashed into our ship. Four of the port-side armored portal covers were torn loose. One totally failed and caused a short decompression that yanked several red patches, two instructors, and sixteen Brood out before a large metal chunk of something slammed into the small breach and sealed it. Support crews raced in and welded the hunk of metal over the breach. During this whole time, we could hear and see the guns on our ship firing. A few times we could see SSCs with ABR markings on them as they strafed our ship.

“Our ship took scores of hits even as we watched the Nemi class battlecruiser break in half. We also saw at least five Liburna disintegrate under extreme fire. Several others close to us were on fire as we entered the atmosphere of what I later found out was New Bravaria. A few Brood, red patches, and one instructor from Zeta Brood were killed because the heat of reentry heated up the metal patch and cooked them to death. The smell and screams remains one of the two nastiest thing I have… dealt with. Others started to burn, but it got so bad, one of the nearby red patches finally pulled out his pistol and shot the rest close to the red-hot metal in the head.”

Konstantin looked ill and Liam took a long swig of war, swished it around in his mouth and spit it out.

Cory focused on Konstantin. “We managed to land, crash land, but land. The cockpit was crushed, and fire suppression jets fired off even as the back hatch dropped. We got out with what we had with us. A few, include me, Gamma Five Three Six and Delta Two One Three managed to grab packs off those the red patch had shot, but other than what I grabbed earlier, we basically had nothing.

“Within minutes of stepping on your world, I knew whatever we were brought in for was going to fail. As we stood and watched the Liburna we came on burned. Not far away, we could see two others, but with heavy battle damage. One was engulfed in flames. It crashed and exploded. The second hit hard and broke into two. The remains of four others fell out of the sky as we watched. Three others sent out escape pods. Yet another blew apart a few thousand meters above us. We had to dive under whatever we could find as its wreckage smashed into the ground around us and spread to the north.

“I later heard thirty Liburna left the Nemi with Brood and ten more with EC reserves. Only thirteen made it to the atmosphere. Of them two landed basically intact and the one I was on, and two others managed controlled crash landings. The one that broke apart close to us had less than two hundred survivors from Theta, Iota, and Eta Broods. All two years older than us. Most were injured too badly to fight. But at least it didn’t burn so we were able to scrouge supplies out of its twisted and mangled hull.

“Within hours it became clear to everyone, our forces were cut off from the rest of the EC. It was about daybreak when we got our first orders. It was also the first time I heard the Fluvius Camillus had crashed. It was almost like getting punched in the gut by an instructor. The greatest ship in Earth Core had been brought down. It was also the first time I saw flickers of uncertainty in our instructors.

“But orders were to get to the crash. But mercs, militia, and probably locals hit us first. Hard. Twice. The red patches took the brunt of both assaults, but we were pushed into both fights. We hadn’t done much training in forests, so we got stomped. The few instructors we had left pulled us back while what was left of the red patches formed a defensive perimeter around the remnants of the two ships.

“We were then used to go back out into the woods and find anything and everything of any use, including uniforms and sidearms off the dead. We lost at least thirty more to snipers before we retreated to the ships. We went out a second time. The woods were quiet and most of the bodies we found had been picked over. But we found a sizable chunk of Tau Brood. They ejected from life pods from one of the burning ships. They had remnants of Chi Brood with them. But only one instructor. It helped form a better perimeter though.

“The next day while those from Delta, Gamma, and Zeta Broods were sent out to push through minefields protecting part of the Fluvius Camillus, EC lines were breached. All of the west flank, which included Tau Brood was surrounded. Those in command shifted the lines, but must have been short on manpower, cause they took half the mentors from each of the other Broods and added in every Sigma Brood left. They were wiped out… But while I heard the truth because I had a radio taken off of Instructor Twenty-one, word was circulated Tau Brood, our missing mentors, and all of Sigma Brood was pulled from us for another mission.

“From what I could piece together from the transmissions, some of which were badly broken because we were under ECM, the annihilation of so many allowed EC to re-establish some kind of line, but they… we… had been pushed back several kilometers. This eliminated the chance for reinforcements from other EC forces. Worse, we had lost control of the ships we came in. There were still survivors and supplies in those crashed ships. Supplies we needed, but were instead going to be turned against us.

“Yet, because the Grand Emperor’s favorite grandson, or whatever he really was, was lost with the crash of the Fluvius Camillus, full retreat without the body was not an option even if EC forces could find a way off the planet and then could somehow get out of the system. Those trapped on the surface, including all remaining Brood, were marked as ronin until the Grand Emperor’s kin was located.

“We were nine, marked as ronin, and orders were to send us right back into those minefields again the next day as a distraction for a force set to attack from the south.

“At the same time, a report came in of a few life pods from the Fluvius Camillus having been located.” Cory hardened. “One report really caught my attention. It was from Central Command. Confirmed reports said a member of Forest Garden royalty had been located not far from one of the life pods by scouts. As reports continued to come in, it became real clear the EC attempt to capture the kid had been savagely crushed. However, I got the location of the battle and a fragmented report from an EC aero craft, even as it got shot down, of the location of the camp they thought the member of Forest Garden’s royal family was at. It wasn’t far. As I heard all this, I came across an unexploded ripper. It was the final piece to a puzzle.”

Even as Konstantin and Liam raised eyebrows, Cory continued. “And while EC ion batteries prevented large scale landings, ABR, particularly Blood’s Honor supply ships managed to slide in to resupply remaining mercs and even landed more forces. I could see them. At night it looked like meteorites, but there were too many. Small craft lit the sky as they entered the atmosphere. They would discharge scores of dummy targets. EC scrambled aero assets. ABR fighters would then come in hot. Both sides would lose fighters, but in the chaos, I saw several supply ships slide through the EC defensive screen.

“Every time this happened, EC would lose more fighters they couldn’t replace. The ABR could get more since they controlled most of the space throughout the system. While no one said it, I knew defeat of EC was just a matter of time. Even if me and my fellow Hive members survived… we were worse than expendable. We were ronin and a liability.”

Liam interrupted. “Why?”

“Why were we a liability?”

“Same thing I am wondering,” Konstantin admitted. “You were combatants and EC needed them.”

“We were mouths to feed when adults were running out. Command also didn’t want word to get out that there were kids our age sent in. It may have been they didn’t want word to get out about what we were… are… From what I’ve heard Brood Warriors normally see action inside EC space, putting down rebellions, going after bandits, and are major parts of martial law and security when EC takes a world. Brood are not used for combat outside of EC until at least age fourteen, and normally not until sixteen or seventeen. But for whatever reasons Brood pods on Mars were all but emptied all the way down to us, all because the Grand Emperor wanted his grandson back.”

“Do you know why the grandson was so important?” Konstantin asked.

“No.” Cory sighed. “I don’t think anyone did. I can tell you some of the Brood mentors talked about it a couple of times. They wondered, if the guy was so important, why he was ever sent into combat.

“Me, I think he was allowed to go because he was on the Fluvius Camillus. It was the largest and most powerful PLC in the Earth Core armada. There were movies made about its ability to land enough forces on a world to singlehandedly take it. It even had a special space folding attack frigate built to transport it. One thing I was never able to find out is what its full battle load was. But rumors said anywhere from sixteen to twenty-four frame forces, plus all the armor, aerospace, and infantry needed to support the frames. It was also stupidly heavily armed and armored.”

“Then how did it get taken down?” Liam asked.

“No one knows,” Konstantin stated. “But it did and mercs got to it first. Word spread like wildfire. I remember the cheers and the new determination in my small town when word of its crash and capture was confirmed. The supplies they pulled out combined with the death of thousands of EC combat troops totally changed the war for New Bravaria.”

Cory smirked, “Oh, some know.”

Konstantin turned and stared. “Looks and sound like you are one of them.”

Cory let out a snort. “More than most. I can tell you this much. It was a combination of lucky timing and carelessness by some Earth Core prisoner guards. It was taken down from the inside by those they had captured out of a large merc camp. The same group got to and somehow activated a life pod. A royal member of Forest Garden found them not far from the pod.”

Both older boys waited for Cory to say more. After several uneasy seconds Liam spoke up. “So you found out where this royalty of Forest Garden was. What did you do?”

Cory pointed upwards. “High-altitude scouts above. If you watch close, you can see their afterburner blasts through the light clouds as they stay high. But heavier clouds are rolling in. They won’t be able to see anything from way up there…” He watched as the twin jets of flame banked to the south. “They’re heading back. Shouldn’t be long before their friends get here.”

Cory watched the twin dots of flame vanish before he resumed. “So yeah. I had all the information I felt I needed, but I had one more thing I had to do. Early the next morning, as we were told to get up for another push through the minefield, I slipped into the instructors’ shelter. They were cooking. I tossed the ripper on their cooking fire and dove and rolled down the hill. It did what it didn’t when it was first dropped by EC aero. Its base exploded, sent it up about a meter and detonated. Razor sharp wires shot out in all directions. All but two of our remaining instructors were killed. The last two I shot and sliced their throats as they tried to come out after me. I dropped a grenade in the radio shelter, and took out a final pair of red patches who were tasked with getting us ready to head back into the minefields.

“I bolted into the woods while my Brood mates did… probably nothing.

“As I ran in the direction the report indicated the Forest Garden camp was at, I knew the tide, a huge one, was rolling firmly against EC. Yet we were being told the opposite. The writing was on the wall, yet no one around me either couldn’t admit it or didn’t see it. My Hive mates believed what they were being told just like we had been taught to do. But it was right in front of our faces.” Cory let out a frustrated breath. “Their… our… forces were losing ground on the surface and with each day, the desperation of those above our mentors grew. The day we were sent into the minefield I knew we were supposed to fail. Someone, maybe many in upper command, realized some of us would get caught if things continued to spiral out of control. If it happened, Blood’s Honor and the ABR would learn about Brood Warriors and their training. It couldn’t be allowed. Therefore, a determination to insure none of us survived was initiated.

But what it really came down to was we, all remaining brood, were going to be sent back into the minefields as many times as it took to get rid of all of us. Looking back, I bet EC planned on showing hundreds and hundreds of dead kids and use it against AIM and the ABR.

“The loss of commanders known to the surviving Brood caused a breakdown of command and organization, since part of our training was to only listen to Brood instructors. It gave me time to get to Blood’s Honor. They didn’t believe me, but a few BH kids and another from the O’Connell Grenadiers merc unit convinced them to give me a chance. So here I am, trained by EC to now kill EC and their bastard murdering friends.”

Konstantin started to say something, but nothing came out. A few more minutes passed before he spoke again. “OK, so you were in some kind of killer program or whatever. I’ll even buy the fact you were meant to be a killer. But… you are too little… too… young… to do half of what…”

“Look down there,” Liam interrupted. “He is the predator. We just went along with his plan.”

“And you all pulled off your parts to perfection. We wiped them out…” Cory kicked at the repeatedly stunned private who he had stuffed into a light E-suit. Then pointed out in the direction the Javelin had gone. “Other than those we let live. So, while it may have been mostly my plan, you and Israel were keys to its success.”

Liam snorted. “OK. Yeah, I helped. But of those dead down there, how many were because of you?”

Cory shrugged, “Probably fifty, maybe more. Depends on how many the diborane and the resulting explosions killed compared to my explosive charges, but I know I took out over thirty. Thanks to you and Paula, Chip’s shooting killed more than me. But it’s what I was hatched and trained to do. I’ve killed more in one day… way more.”

Konstantin seemed to scan the facility below for a few more minutes. “You’re… scaring me.”

“You’re on my side. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Good… but still… if you took out over thirty below us… how many have you killed.”

“Thirty is low.” Liam chimed in. “Very low.”

The only sound out of Konstantin was a hard exhale. His eyes, however, never left Cory.

Cory responded with no sign of emotion. “If what I did down there worries you, don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”

Konstantin seemed to shiver for a couple of seconds. “Fine. I’ll forget I asked. So, since you are some kind of super assassin… Is there a plan you are not telling me or are we just sitting here to make sure the others aren’t being followed from a distance?”

“Nothing is following, at least from the ground or low altitude. If they are doing satellite tracking, they’ll lose them in the dense foliage and rocks one valley over. Plus, we should expect heavy weather tonight according to the weather data in their command center. The clouds and rain will eliminate other forms of tracking. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to hit both places today.

“Now it’s dark and clouds are rolling in. They can change directions and head to the remnants of a painite and ruby mining facility. No one will expect them to go there. It’s got nothing left to live out of. I checked it out the day before I scouted out this and the active mine fifty-eight kilometers from here. There are some shallow depressions and partially collapsed mines they can keep out of sight in as they reorganize.

“As far as what we are doing here and why we are sticking around. I’m playing a hunch.”

“A hunch?” Konstantin asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. There’s a chance I’m way off, but I don’t think so. The high overflight all but confirms what I’m hoping for. We’ll have to play a waiting game. Everything depends on who and what shows up.” Cory pointed to the badly shot up and still smoking command building. “They locked themselves in and had some sealed rooms. We had to assault it. This means they had a chance to get out a message about the tank leak. Unless they were total idiots, they also sent out a call for help when the attack started. But they couldn’t get out too much ‘cause I blew the main and secondary antenna arrays. But I waited to detonate the charges I put on them. They had about thirty seconds from the time the first buildings blew out to get a few messages out.

“We know, from confirmed sighting, they have some huge old petro-chem powered ships. Those ships need diborane or another highly combustible fuel for space maneuvering. Since diborane can be ignited in space, and they spent so much effort in rebuilding this area, they must need this place. Unless, of course, they have another diborane, or some other kind of space fuel facility. I’d also bet those ships are EC. No one else can afford to operate them since they are banned on so many planets. In EC space, even if they are banned, if EC military owns them, they can land wherever they want. Because they are almost certainly EC ships, EC will send their people to see what the problem is. Since Liam saw some red patches, I’d bet those will be the first to be sent.

“I also did a historical scan of BH records on the Machine Wars here and known facilities. There were only four known manufacturing plants on this continent to make deep space fuel for spacecraft of the day. Two were confirmed destroyed during the Machine Wars. One by machines, the other by Blood’s Honor because the machines gained full control. The third was abandoned late in the fighting and leveled a few decades ago in a tectonic shift. This should mean they can’t afford to lose this place. However, because there was a reported leak, they will not send a reserve force right away. Then, before they do, they’ll send a ship to do an overfly to see how much is left intact. Those high-altitude fights, at night, with light clouds between them and us won’t cut it.

“The nearest forces would be the mine the other group assaulted. If they did as I asked, they should have blown the command building right from the start. As long as they did so, wherever the overall command is, can’t get ahold of them. But they will probably try a few times since Brile has known magnetic and ionosphere irregularities that screw with comms. This is why large antenna arrays are needed, and why I am stumped on how the remaining machines are communicating.”

Cory swept his arm over the facility below. “We left lots of dead. Many of the buildings are damaged. The command building is smoking. Because there is some fire, but the chemical tanks are still intact, the high overflight should report the production facility appears intact. The next step, at least it should be what they do, will be to send a ship. They will land it the only place they can.” Cory pointed to the grassland to the north of the ridge where a rocky camouflaged, partially completed, pipeline snaked over toward a large flat rocky area. “If they follow normal procedures for a potential dangerous site, they will send in infantry, on foot. This way if there’s pockets of diborane in low spots, there will not be vehicles to spark it. Once they do a quick check, they’ll put out any fires, secure the walls, and check for survivors. Once they do all of this, they should call in whatever else is on the ship or ships.”

Cory paused as he motioned for the other two to get lower. A couple of minutes later a pair of Atmospheric Superiority Craft did a trio of overflights. They then headed in the direction of the facility the others had assaulted. Cory smiled, “And there is phase two.”

Liam kept his frame crouched low but glanced over, “How did you see them so fast?”

Konstantin jerked his head and leaned to the west, “Contrails in the moonlight. I didn’t see them until I heard the engines, though.” He eyed Cory for a moment, “Good eyes, kid.”

Cory shrugged, “Been expecting them. They are heading to the mine to check it out. If they come back and stay on station, heavier transports are already on the way. If not, they’ll do a few more passes and leave. Let’s hope they stick around.”

“We can’t do anything with fighters above us, kid!” Konstantin warned. “They tore up defenders on the ground back on Andar!”

“You’re right,” Liam agreed, “but they can’t stay up forever. If they stay on station, they’ll be the air support for whatever is on the way. They’ll run out of fuel and will have to return to where they came from or get topped off from a tanker. Tankers are big and slow. We should be able to take it out if one shows up…” He snapped his fingers, “It’s why Cory made sure we both have quark blasters on our frames and made me carry a man portable semi-portable quark blaster for you. Quark blasters may be heavy and use lots of power, but they are soundless, and the ray is invisible.”

“Quark beams will not ignite the fuel.” Konstantin countered. “We’ll have to get seriously lucky to hit the tanker’s engines and get through the armor to do enough damage to bring it down.”

Cory let out a snort and grinned with pure malice. “But blasters have a long range and good penetration into armor. We have seen nothing high-tech from them. So my bet is the best they have is a Diomedea class refueler. But I doubt they’d send it for fighters if they do have one. I’m hoping for a Crumenifer or even better a Buccinator. Both have large underbelly tanks and not much armor. Should a Crumenifer or Buccinator show up, we shoot the tank as it is refueling one of the ASCs. Aim for the bulge behind the back landing gear. The burners from the craft it is refueling will ignite the leaking fuel and take out both the fighter and tanker. It will also leave the other ASC critically short of fuel and should look like an accident. As fun as it would be to take one out, though, I doubt we’ll get the chance. They seem to still be trying to keep a low profile, so the fighters will probably leave once the transports are safely down. They may wait until the first sweep of the compound is done to make sure there are no hostiles waiting to do what we are planning on, but by then they’ll need to refuel or head back.”

Konstantin kept his eye on Cory for several more minutes. “You actually think this way? At your age?”

“Like I said, I was born wrong, especially for a Brood. This is what I’ve been like for as long as I can remember.” Cory eyed the area. “OK, we need to get as low as we can, but make sure we all have a good field of fire with the quark blasters. They’ll be back. Hopefully with friends.”

As heavier clouds continued to roll in, the fighters returned. They circled the area over a dozen times, getting lower with each rotation.

Liam spoke as he heard a low rumble. “Larger ship engines from the southeast.”

Konstantin nodded even as the fighters banked sharply in the direction of the sounds. “More than one.”

“Good.” Cory stated with a combination of satisfaction and fury.

“Good?”

“Yeah. The more we kill the better.”

Liam was next to speak, “Got a large craft with two lumps behind the back thrusters coming from almost straight south. Without IR, I’d never see it.”

Cory turned his head slowly. “Buccinator! Real light on armor. If it follows what I’ve seen and heard, it will stay to the south and high until the larger landers are down and already unloading. It will then extend a long tube with a basket on the end. The basket is the target for the fighter to extend its fuel resupply probe into. The two craft then have to stay on a steady straight path for about two minutes. You need to hit the bulge while the fighter is linked to the basket. The further back the better.”

“No problem.” Liam responded while Konstantin nodded.

“Good. It’s all yours.”

Konstantin spoke next. “Got a dark blob coming in toward the area you expected… No lights. The other is staying high.”

“Keep watching. It should drop the back hatch shortly after it lands. The back should be red lit, so it doesn’t mess with night vision of the infantry in the back… unless they sent special ops teams. Then it may be black lit. Either way, your battle armor has low light, so you’ll be able to tell us what it is and if you can fly it.”

Konstantin all but choked on his words. “Fly it?”

“Yeah. It’s why I wanted you to stay back with us. I want a ship.”

Konstantin blinked in disbelief. “Kid, it’ll be guarded! How do you expect three of us to take it?”

“The same way we penetrated the facility,” Cory responded coldly. “We’re going to walk in and kill the crew.”

“What about the other ship?”

“You worry too much,” Cory grumbled with annoyance. “I’ll deal with it.”

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