Published: 14 Feb 2019

Robin double-checked with AIM while those with him jumped into frames and powered them up. He noted over half jumped in fully clothed, which got a cringe out of him, but it was too late to really worry about it. As soon as he had verification all fourteen had been accepted and added to his unit’s roster, he stripped down to his neural conductive shirt and shorts. Without a second thought, he shoved his outer clothing into one of the empty ammo bins on the back and did a quick walk down the rows of frames to make sure everyone was in and nothing looked out of place. He got a nod from Master Sergeant Ryder even as he climbed in his own frame and ran down a checklist he had installed into his frame’s computer.

The second Robin finished running diagnostics, he opened a frequency to the transport pilot, got an update, and voice ordered another frequency so he could talk to all the other frames. “OK, Ruffian Rebels, we are five minutes out. If you have not done so yet, do a full systems check. Make sure you know your weapon location, power availability, and ammo. Also, this is your first time in these frames so sync your computer to your own neural output. I don’t want any frames losing neural connection and freezing up simply because one of you didn’t want to deal with the light electrical shocks of the frame linking up to your body’s neural electrical outputs. If you climbed in fully clothed either because you don’t have on neural clothing or didn’t have it on, I’d strongly recommend making your frame uncomfortably tight so it has good connections, but it’s on you. If you want to strip to underclothing or even all the way, you should still have time. It will give you better contact with your frame and make you more combat effective.

“After this is over, if you don’t have a few sets of conductive underclothing, we will buy some for you. Once we do, you will have it on under you clothing at all times unless you are off base, and most of your leadership, including me, will have it on even then. Brave Humanities wanted me to let you all know each frame has a stun pistol and a collapsible carbine with four twenty-five round mags in an adjustable combat vest in the lower left ammo bay, marked as storage in your computer.

“Air cover is reporting heavy fire, so we are going to land on a gravel road. This will leave us on the opposite side of the hill the water plant is on. Our pilot says we are going to come in fast and hard. She doesn’t want to stay in the area long, so the second we are off she is taking back off. My bet is she will not even come to a complete stop. This means you’ll to need jump off the back ramp or you will face-plant. Move off the road at an angle to clear the thrusters so you don’t get any damage from flying rocks as she punches afterburners to get back off the ground. Once clear of the road, I want all eyes looking for danger, this is a Zip Tech flyer and is an easy target when it’s on the ground.

“My battle map HUD is synced to one of the fighters, but it is a Zip Tech Locust, so chances are it is a little off. Still, there is no question there is a low ridgeline about a kilometer to the north of where we are going to land and I am sure they will see us coming in. If I were them, I would try to move some forces up there. It will give them height advantage and cover if they get there first. We can’t afford to let it happen. So, first order of business once our lander is clear, we move north at a run, but keep speed to stay with the slowest frame in your respective squads. Getting separated will get some of us dead or wishing we were. Also, from all reports, we are going to be fighting frames painted in maroon and yellow, so spotting enemy frames should be easy. However, it may be a ploy so we are only looking for frames that stand out. Don’t just look for stupid pilots in frames painted to look good. Lerrik out.”

Robin then changed over to his squad frequency. “While we are in a hurry, this is not some kind of crazy death race. We need to hang back enough to let Luna’s squad open up a hole so we can get to the water station with as little damage as possible. That does not mean we leave her and her squad hanging out to dry. If they get hit hard, we hit back harder. But we need the lander to get back up and back to our base so it can pick up the rest of our team. This means first priority is to protect this ship until it is clear.

“Now cycle your weapons and put them in firing groups you are comfortable with. With my battle computer, I can see the way Brave Humanities set up you frames. If you fire everything at once you will lose power for limb movement. So the first thing I want you all to do is pull your stunner out of the full weapons volley and keep it on a separate sequence all by itself and leave it there. It won’t do you any good unless you have a soft target anyway. If someone jumps out of a damaged frame, feel free to stun them if it’ll make you feel better, but otherwise, stick to real weapons.”

The moment the lander’s gear touched the ground, the back combat ramp dropped. Luna was first to push up her frame’s securing bar. She moved out at a dead run while shouting for the rest of her squad to follow. Robin held back, waiting for both Luna’s and Glen’s squad to clear before he ordered his squad to move. Even then he didn’t exit, making sure everyone got out except Master Sergeant Ryder who motioned for him to go.

Robin did exactly what he told his everyone else to do. He hopped off the back ramp, but had to stop to help one of the Blade frames from Glen’s group who didn’t jump off the back ramp and did exactly what Robin warned would happen. With the lander still moving and the youngster stepping off the back ramp, he lost balance and fell face first into the road.

Once Robin had the kid up, he shoved him off the road, then sprinted to get clear himself before the thrusters hit full burn for a touch and go takeoff. He just made it before the pilot firewalled the thrusters. Behind him he could hear the high-pitched whine of the engines as they poured fuel into the burners. He could also make out the sounds of the back ramp dragging along the ground for a few seconds before it lifted up high enough to clear the road’s surface.

Up in front of Robin, Luna’s squad sprinted up the hill, while those in Robin’s squad panned the area to the north, looking for anyone or anything that would endanger the lander. Glen’s squad didn’t look nearly as good, with very little organization. Robin quickly marked two of the new pilots as poor performers, and it didn’t include the one he had to help up. “Glen, have your entire squad form on you and get a fresh start.”

Off to the side Glen ordered all frames in his squad to group on him even as he angled back to check on the boy who had fallen out of the back of the lander, “Philipp, you OK?”

The kid responded with a hint of pain, “My right elbow hurts and I have a bloody nose, but the frame is green across the board.”

“Can you deal with the nose?”

“Yeah. I don’t think it’s broke or nothing. I’ll just have to taste blood for a bit.”

“OK, but I want you to stick close to me and if you have any problems let me know.”

Robin radioed over, “Glen, how is he?”

“I’m thinking he is more embarrassed than hurt, but I’ll keep an eye on him. His frame is fine.”

“Good,” Robin snickered, “cause I’d sure hate to say our first combat damage came from one of us falling.”

“Yeah,” Glen responded with a great deal of humor in his voice. “Not something I’d want AIM to hear about. I’d at least like to get a D minus rating before we have our first total flub.”

The moment of merriment was brought to a halt as Luna’s voice came over the radio at the same time her frame’s massive chain gun and Dante’s light auto cannon opened up on rapid fire, “Robin, I got like several Tyroims, along with some Auxiliarims and pair of Munifexims up here! And yeah, all are painted with dark red torsos and have yellow arms and legs! We caught them in the open moving up the backside of the ridge, and are pounding them! Three of the Auxils and two of the Tyros are already down, but damn, there’s a lot more of ’em!”

“Earth Core!” Glen and Robin hissed at the exact same moment.

A split second later Ryder’s voice broke over the radio, “Luna, you sure on your ID?”

“Hell yeah, I’m sure. This ain’t my first party with these bastards! But there’s also some kind of frame I don’t know, but looks a lot like a Tyro and there are several of them as well. I’ll stick to calling them Tyros for now! I also have three I have never seen the likes of before, but they have the standard EC knee guards!” Luna snarled in disgust, before focusing on those with her. “Squad two, split on me! The two on my left help me take these Auxils and Tyros down! Dante and I caught them flatfooted with his auto cannon and my chain gun, and several have heavy damage. From here on, go heavy on energy weapons. We have cover and height on them and they are light on armor and several are smoking from internal hits, so don’t waste ammo. The two on my right I need to look for their medic! If you find it, team up and take it down. Dante, cover my six and take out the darker red Munif with red hands! It has a extended range radio antenna set. It’s got to be the leader.”

The oldest kid in Luna’s squad put a medium laser into one of the charging Auxiliarim frames. The light armor over the arm unit showed as the enemy’s elbow started smoking. “Lieutenant, I have no idea what I’m even shooting at, let alone what a medic would look like, but is this paint scheme marking them as some kind of frame sports team or something?”

Dante dropped to a knee, brought up his heavy gauss rifle and put a solid shot into the chest of one of the larger frames. It stood out as a probable commander because of it had dual fin shaped antennas on the head unit both with small balls on the top. He followed it up with a pair of laser hits to the frame’s right hip and left side. Then, as it toppled, he switched over to single fire on his auto cannon and put a round into its back. Even as he sighted in and waited for his weapons to recycle, he spoke. “Brady, forget about colors and focus. You are looking for a frame with a really sleek looking head, what looks to be a oval backpack, only it’s built-in, not external, and a weird gauntlet on one of the wrists. It’ll also be heavily armed. Whatever you do, don’t shoot the gauntlet and you need to kill the pilot before he shuts his frame down! Once it’s down you have to pull the gauntlet off, even if you have to rip the arm armor off and mangle the arm before the red smoke stops!”

“What?” the almost sixteen-year-old demanded to know. “Why?”

“Because we need the code in the gauntlet for salvage!” Glen responded. “If the pilot shuts the frame down, the code will self-scramble and the gauntlet becomes useless. The same will happen if the frame detects the pilot is dead which happens as soon as the red emergency smoke stops and there is no heartbeat from inside the frame. But you have to pound the bastard hard so he doesn’t have time to erase the code.”

“Kids,” Ryder spoke up, “we don’t kill if we can prevent it, but listen to your commanders on this. Without the key, the gauntlet, there is no way to safely open up fallen Earth Core frames. Any we take down and try to open without a properly coded key will blow, destroy the frames, and kill the pilots inside. The only other way to pull out the pilot is to cut the front open and pull the pilot out. Even Blood’s Honor’s best techs kill about half the pilots extracted this way and it drastically cuts down on salvage, since there is no easy way to repair a frame after cutting the front open.”

Brady’s voice told of his horror, “Why would they do such a thing?”

“Because they are EC animals!” Luna snarled while pumping a burst into the back of one of the Auxiliarims, dropping it and doing enough damage to the pilot for the frame to spit red smoke.

“While Earth Core isn’t going to win any awards for decency, there is a practical, even if it is a harsh reason,” Master Sergeant Ryder countered. “Consider it more of a safety. EC builds in measures to prevent capture of pilots and equipment. Normally Blood’s Honor tries to infiltrate EC strongholds or ships even as our main forces engage, so we can capture a couple of emergency release codes to open up the back panels and every major Blood’s Honor unit carries a few keys. Again, the key is what Luna and Dante are calling a gauntlet.

“And Dante’s right, even their smallest medic frames are powerful and dangerous compared to what Luna is reporting you are dealing with. If you spot one, radio. I will move to assist.”

Robin had to fight the desire not to run up the hill to engage. Hearing he was fighting Earth Core frames made staying back to protect the departing lander even harder, but he ordered his squad to keep an eye out and wait until the Black Comet was well clear of the combat zone.

Once it was a disappearing dot in the sky, he made an overhead motion with his left hand and took off at a run in the direction of the crumbling reddish-brown rocky ridgeline.

Next to Robin, Maximilian suddenly pointed toward a larger frame coming around the east side of the ridge line with several other painted frames and spoke, “Um, is that what the sergeant was telling us to look out for, sir?” Even as the words came out, the boy fired a full volley and managed to drop one of the smaller frames directly in front of an EC Medicorim frame.

Maximilian’s shooting focused the attention of the other frame pilots in Robin’s squad to the threat. Most turned and fired without really aiming since the enemy frames were so easy to spot. Still, the sheer firepower of five frames opening up on the mass of small frames dropped two more.

Moments later the remaining EC frames opened up on Robin’s group. One of the boys who had moved forward and placed himself in front of the rest of the squad fell, smoking from multiple hits, while red smoke poured out of the back signaling the kid was injured, if not dead.

Maximilian stepped forward, “Hans!”

With anger coursing through him, Robin physically yanked Maximilian back with one hand, even as he sighted in on the one of the three larger frames within the group of enemy frames which seemed as interested in protecting the Medicorim as they did fighting. Robin let loose with everything he had available. The Munifexim took multiple hits and fell hard.

At the same time, the others in Robin’s squad continued to pound on the enemy frames even as they took return fire. Lasers, high powered sonic waves, missiles, bullets and a host of other implements of death criss-crossed the slightly more three hundred meters between the opposing forces.

Robin snarled as a girl he had just met by the name of Anna fell when her frame’s hip took a missile and locked up. Still he had a mission to fulfill, so he focused in on its success. Seeing Glen angling back down the hill to help, he radioed, “Glen your squad is fully intact! Get to the water station and hold it until the rest of the Rebels get here. Luna, you’ll have to hold the hill with what you’ve got and open up a hole for Glen, I’m up to my armpits in EC crap!”

“Ripping open a gap now, Robin,” Luna stated as she once again sprayed the frames further down the hill with chain gun fire. “Glen, Dante just dropped what has to be their leader and they are forming up around a Medicorim. They really don’t want me to shoot it, but I think they are a little confused. We’ll keep them occupied and pinned to the east. Cut around to the west and get to the station. Be advised the Medic is not painted the same, so Robin was right. Some of them are harder to spot.”

“On it. What about getting a Medic, though?”

“The one down here by Robin is mine, son.” Ryder all but snarled. “Get your butt to the station and hold it. and for the record, the slightly taller Tyroim-looking frames are Adscripticims. They are slightly weaker than Tyroims, but have SAT so can hold larger pilots. If you can’t tell them apart yet, stick to calling them Tyroims.”

Seconds later, the Brave Humanities instructor’s frame appeared from behind some rocks and belched out twelve micro missiles, a stream of auto ultra rifle rounds, a heavy laser, and a heavy gyro round at the Earth Core Medicorim frame. Every kid left standing in Robin’s squad paused for a moment to watch in astonishment as everything hit. Before anyone could do more than blink, Ryder moved at a dead run at the toppling frame, keeping up a steady stream of ultra auto rifle fire, while firing other weapons as quickly as they recycled. As best as Robin could tell, nothing missed. As the charging onslaught of death rained down a steady barrage on the hapless frame, it caused those around it to scatter with no rhyme or reason.

Robin blinked a couple of times but quickly regained his senses, “Their structure is gone and morale is breaking! Shoot them in their soft back armor before they can regroup!” Even as he said this, he brought up his heavy laser and speared one of the fleeing light Auxiliarim frames in the center of the back. It went down hard and moments later put out a stream of red smoke.

“Nice shot!” Nataly stated even as she tracked machinegun fire into a fleeing Tyroim, causing it to stagger.

“Thanks, now finish that bastard!” Robin stated as he sighted in on a larger Munifexim as it tried to stand from hits taken in the initial exchange. Moments later it fell again as it was hit by two of his micro missiles, several machinegun rounds, and his electron rifle. This time it started spitting out red smoke and stayed down.

Robin ignored the one Nataly was dealing with. Instead, the moment he got a green recycle light on his large laser he took care to sight in on a limping Adscripticim, aimed low, and fired. A smirk of pure malice crossed his features as he watched the leg fold outward and the frame slam down hard onto the rocky soil. He didn’t have to give it a second look. The fact the frame’s leg totally gave out meant whoever was in the frame had at the very least a broken leg, and most likely a mangled and laser burned one.

On the opposite side of Robin, a fourteen-year-old by the name of Tucker spun to stand in front of a Blade being operated by a sixteen-year-old girl. The girl was down on one knee holding her frame’s right hand over her frame’s left shoulder.

Tucker spoke as he sighted in on another Tyroim and put two light lasers and a medium into it. The opposing frame’s head unit started sparking and seconds later it fell back and started rolling around on the ground wildly.

Tucker glanced down at the girl he had stepped in front of, “Johanna, you OK?”

The girl responded through a tightly clenched jaw, “I’m breached, my frame’s shoulder is out, and I have something sharp sticking into a spot just off my neck. I think I’m bleeding slightly, but can’t be sure.” She tilted her frame to glance around Tucker and frowned, “His head unit is smoking! Why in the hell doesn’t he pop the hatch and get out?”

“Not our problem.” Nataly stated as she finally brought down the Tyroim frame she was firing at by sending a salvo of micro missiles into its right side.

Robin said nothing but did nod in agreement. He then brought up his electron rifle and fired at the final Adscripticim below the ridgeline. As it stumbled, fell and started to get back up, he knocked it back over with a laser shot then looked back and down at Johanna, “The kill is yours if you want it. Nataly, you’re not even scratched; move to assist Master Sergeant Ryder. Cover him but stay out of his way. I’ve never seen anyone shoot like that! Everyone else stand down.”

With Tucker’s help, Johanna stood, brought up her medium gyro and tied it in with her frame’s remaining light laser. She took her time, sighted in and fired just as the opposing frame stood. It crashed back to the ground only to try to stand again. With a pained snarl, she waited for both weapons to recycle. The gyro came available first so she fired it, watched the frame fall yet again, then speared it while it was still down with her light laser the second she got a green light on it. She followed up with two more gyro shots and one laser, never letting the struggling pilot get the frame standing. Finally, the frame fell flat on its face and she saw red smoke puff out of it. With a hiss of pain, she managed a smile. “Thanks Captain.”

Robin nodded even as he knelt next to a kid he hadn’t even gotten the name of until Maximilian said it. The frame didn’t even move when he tapped on it, causing Robin to cringe “Hans, don’t move. We’ll get you out as soon as we safely can.”

“Do we have a medic with us?” Tucker asked with a very concerned voice as he helped Johanna kneel again since she was starting to wobble.

“No… well, I mean, we do, but we didn’t bring a medic kit…” Robin let out a long breath, “Master Sergeant Ryder, we are going to need the medical kit in the Medicorim…”

“One thing at a time, Robin,” Ryder responded. “We need the key first. Without it, the frame will blow if we try to open it. But with this many Auxiliarim, Tyroim, Adscripticim, and Munifexim frames out here, even if this is a rogue or ronin EC unit, there has to be more than two out here.” He paused, as he put another gyro round into the frame he was engaging, then resumed, “Luna, Dante, I’ll get the key off this one. I need you to take out the one you are facing without damaging the back where its medical kit is.”

“Oh, we’ll take it down without a scratch on the back panel.” Luna stated with a hate-filled voice.

Master Sergeant Ryder let out a sigh even as he switched over to talk privately with Robin, “Captain, you need to get control of your people. This level of hate will eat up morale, cause mistakes, kill people who could be saved, and if you don’t care about saving opponents, keep in mind, salvage is nowhere near as good when your people are ripping into frames so badly they are indiscriminately killing those inside the frames.”

Robin let out a snort while responding with a disgusted, “OK, sir…”

“Don’t you drop that tone on me, son!” Ryder spoke forcefully. “As it is you are already on my bad side for not having a medical kit!”

Robin instantly tried to argue, “It was supposed to…”

“What? Be a training with kids you knew nothing about other than they really weren’t wanted by a very unprofessional PDF? Even if you didn’t jump at the chance for a contract, which you did, you were going to take ultra-green pilots out to a range with no medical kit! You know better!”

“But I could always stick them in my frame with the auto med kit…”

“Knock it off, Captain!” Ryder seethed even as he got up to the Medicorim and slammed his frame’s fist into its already mangled right shoulder. “Jumping out of your frame during any live fire, even training would piss me off even more than you not having a medic kit! You are the only one out here with Advanced Med Certs! You and you alone as both the commander and the medic are responsible for not having something to treat your people with! I can see you have one down and one breached and wounded within your squad on my battle computer! Those are your people and you didn’t bring a thing to help them. Look back at them and realize you are going to have to explain to them and their friends why we are having to fight our butts off to get them equipment to patch them up with!”

Robin looked back and cringed. When he spoke, his voice showed he knew he was in the wrong. “Sorry, sir.”

“Again, look around. I’m not the one you need to be apologizing to. Those bleeding and looking at you to patch up their buddies are! Now refocus and get control of you forces, cause I’m seeing what BH calls a, CC also known as a chaos command!”

Ryder paused, “Also, even after Private Heed and I get this key, be damned careful of any who come out of these frames, Tyroims are small, and there are certainly youngsters in most if not all, but don’t look at them as kids.”

“I’m already thinking the same thing, sir… They may be Brood.”

“You know about EC Brood?”

“We met one on New Bravaria, sir. He was fighting for Blood’s Honor, but he told us all about it.”

Ryder almost said the name ‘Cory’, but stopped himself by making a coughing sound to cover it up before it came fully out. Instead he took a breath and stated the obvious, “Then you know there very well be hard core killers in these frames. Until we can get the wounded inside a safe perimeter, I’d recommend keeping a couple of combat effective frames guarding any who are down but still in a frame. I’ll do what I can to get the key off this one without killing the pilot and with any luck keep the medical kit intact, but my priority is not the kit, it is the key. While I get it, you get back some combat control and remind Luna you don’t want to get a rep as a murdering group of blood thirsty hellions on your very first contract. They need to get the Medicorim’s kit while putting the desire for revenge in check.

“Also, from now on, even when you are going on what seems to be a simply safe jaunt, you need to have a medic with a medical kit with you, got it?”

Robin cringed, “I do now, sir… I’m really the medic, but don’t have a kit… Sorry.”

“Again, you’re apologizing to the wrong person, son, and I think you know it.”

“I do… but…”

“But nothing,” Ryder snarled, showing he was still very angry. “Your people are paying the price for your oversight of the obvious and their blood is partially on your hands! This is especially true since you are one of your unit’s backup medics and took a contract with no medical supplies. One of your first purchases after this is over best be an armored backpack for your frame with a full medic kit in it.

“Hopefully you’ll get to see all your downed pilots all in a hospital and will be able to tell them it was a mistake and it will never happen again. Until then, let me worry about getting you a key while you reorganize your unit and take the other Medicorim. Have them take it down carefully enough to not damage the back, so you can get its medical kit and make all of this as right as the situation allows. Ryder out.”

Robin winced at not only the words, but the tone they had been delivered. It reminded him a great deal of the way Major O’Connell spoke when the man was very disappointed in something Robin had done. With a shake of his head, he patted the downed frame, “If you can hear me, we’ll get you some help as soon as we can. Hang in there.” He then looked up “Max, you and Tucker are only showing minor hits, stay here with our wounded and keep them protected.”

Getting nervous nod out of the two kids, Robin stood and radioed Luna, “Luna, how are things going?”

Maik’s voice responded, “Um, sir, her and the senior sergeant are… um, busy…”

“OK… Too busy to answer?”

“Um, yeah… their heavier auto weapons were tearing up those we were fighting so the rest charged us. The lieutenant and sergeant are like in the middle of like five frames beating the crap out of them… with fists and junk. They told us to back off, but we can’t even fire into the mess since we might hit one of them… I ain’t never seen nothing like it!”

“Stick with us and you’ll be doing it,” Dante snarled into his radio. He then added, “Hey, Maik, instead of admiring your new girlfriend, be useful! There are two angling over to cut off part of Glen’s squad. Break off with Brady and deal with it while I rearrange this beady-eyed chick’s faceplate!”

“Alrighty then…” Robin snorted with a degree of satisfaction as he changed frequencies, “Glen, what’s your status?”

Glen switched over to a private frequency, “Robin, these two older kids, Aaden and Doreen, shouldn’t be allowed to play in a simulator, let alone a real frame. Hell, I don’t even think they should be given one of them junior handheld framer games we used to play with! I should have been to the water station by now, but damn… to say they are one step the wrong direction from being a laser without a lasing chamber is giving them a complement!”

“We need to reinforce the station before it takes serious damage.”

“I know! I know!” Glen muttered with a great deal of anger. “I am sticking with the losers and sent Jessie in with Philipp and René. Neither one are great, but compared with these two idiots they are all-stars! Besides, you all pulled enough of these EC idiots out to greet you all, they had an open path. They should be there by now.”

“Good,” Robin switched back to all of squad three’s frequency, “Jessie, what’s up at the station?”

“Just got to the gate, Robin,” Jessie responded while breathing hard. “Philipp is out of machinegun ammo, and René’s gyro took a hit and her hand is in bad shape, but we took down three of these smaller frames and two others, including one of the really weird looking ones. The rest broke off to the north when they realized they were caught in a crossfire between us and the defenders at the station. There is still some fire at the back fence, but with the main gate clear the PDF is moving armor around to support.”

Robin scanned his battle computer before radioing up to one of the fighters, “Hey wing-nut, any chance you can fly over the back fence and get me some imaging?”

The pilot of one of the Atmospheric Superiority Crafts snickered, “Sure, mud-humper, but be advised we are getting some fire from the rocky hills to the northeast.”

“Then do me and you a favor and stay high and safe.” Robin chuckled as he added, “I really don’t want to have to pay to replace your fighter and I just need a quick update.”

“Fine with me. I really don’t want to get shot down in support of a kid half my age. Imaging coming up in thirty seconds.”

While Robin studied the grainy video over his battle computer, Dante lowered his shoulder and knocked down a Munifexim frame trying desperately to stay between Dante and the Medicorim frame. As the Munifexim fell, Dante pointed his heavy gauss down and fired point blank into already damaged back hip. The magnetically propelled round shattered the remaining armor over the left butt cheek of the enemy pilot and opened a hole up big enough for Dante to see skin and blood.

He couldn’t help himself. He stomped down on the damaged area even as red smoke erupted from the fallen frame. He then ducked under a wild punch thrown by the Medicorim, stuck the barrel of his cannon into the armpit, and fired. The single point blank shot with a half a kilo high explosive round took a large chunk of armor off it while sending the hapless frame staggering back. The pilot fought gravity while flailing the frame’s arms around to try to prevent falling.

Dante quickly stepped up and grabbed the arm with the gauntlet-like key and spun the still off-balanced frame around toward Luna, “AXE!”

Luna kicked a small Auxiliarim in the chest with her larger frame, sending it down hard onto its back, then spun. Seeing the arm being held out, she back handed her axe into the upper forearm, devastating armor.

Dante’s faceplate got sprayed with hydraulic fluid even as he pulled on the lower arm and hand unit. He saw the armor start to pull away, but before he could say anything, Luna’s axe fell a second time. This time it sliced clean through. Dante fell back holding the lower arm unit of the frame, with the pilot’s hand still in it, along with the gauntlet while his faceplate got sprayed with more fluid and a copious amount of blood.

Even as Medicorim fell and the pilot screamed, letting everyone near it know the pilot was female, Dante held on to the frame’s lower arm including the gauntlet while shaking his head, trying to clear some of the blood off his faceplate. It didn’t help at all. “Luna! I can’t see!”

Master Sergeant Ryder slammed his fist into the struggling pilot of the Medicorim he was fighting, but quickly responded to the boy’s panicked words, “Dante, I don’t show a problem with your frame. Are you hurt?”

“No,” Luna answered. “He um… has some fluids… yeah, fluids… on his faceplate, um, sir.”

“Dante, relax and switch to IR!” Ryder commanded in a voice telling everyone he knew he was not getting the full story.

“I have,” Dante shouted in confusion, “but I can’t see right even with IR assist and I am getting shot and don’t know from where.”

Luna spun and fired a burst of her chain gun down the hill, buying Dante some time by sending a couple of lighter frames scurrying for cover.

Even with this a light laser shot caused armor damage to chirp out on Dante’s left side, “Damn-it! I am seeing red in more ways than one! I am going to so cause whoever is shooting me to scream when I figure out how to see him!”

“Dante!” Master Sergeant Ryder barked forcefully, “Forget the assist. You need to go on full IR now!”

“Full IR? How?!?”

Ryder punched the head of the Medicorim he was dealing with, cracking the head armor, then hit it in the back, knocking it onto its stomach while he pulled up Dante’s combat and basic certs and scanned them with a cringe. The boy had nothing in his records about visual enhancement training. With a deep frown he grabbed the Medicorim’s arm, yanked it out, and sat on it while pointing over to Nataly to punch the armor around the key unit until she could pull it off. “Other Rebels close to Dante, help cover him while I talk him through this!”

Ryder took a deep breath and forced himself to take on a stern but fully instructional voice, “Dante, you have a polarizing mask, order it to full blackout.”

“Full blackout? But then I really won’t be able to see…”

“Dante, do it or so help me I’ll stick you on nothing but frame cleaning duties for a freaking month!”

There was an obvious gulping sound, “Going to fully blacked out now, sir!”

“Good, now pull up your IR.”

“It’s up but all I am seeing is reds, purples, greens, blacks and yellows…”

“Then you are seeing what you should. But now I need you to look past the colors, son. Look for the patterns, the outlines, and if you can handle it, pull up your targeting computer and look at distances to what your weapons are pointed at. This will give you range references.”

Dante blinked several times even as a few bullets and a pico missile bounced off his frame giving him extra armor damage. “Oh, man, this is like causing my stomach to flip!”

“Focus, kiddo. I hear you are the tech guy, you can do this. Look for shapes. But whatever you do, don’t shoot at anything, even when you see a frame. You need to know for certain what you are shooting at before you fire. So now, I want you to overlay one more HUD data set. Activate Identify Friend Foe and set it to all weapons. If you get a red ‘X’ when you aim at a frame it is one of yours. If you don’t it isn’t.

“Even then we don’t have the PDF IFFs in our systems, so unless you are certain it is a hostile, or it shoots at you, then don’t fire.”

Dante frowned deeply even as he snapped back, “If it’s shooting at me, it’s already hostile!”

Ryder dropped his head even as Nataly laughed loudly enough for him to hear without his radio. “OK, you little cuss, I’ll give you that one… Now come on, look for the patterns, stand your little butt up, and get back into this fight!”

Dante stood, albeit with the help of Maik, who had angled back up the hill with Brady after helping to force the last few frames back into the wood line.

Dante took another Pico missile to his chest and scanned the trees at the base of the rocky hill. With the help of the IR, he could clearly see the outline of the offending frame. He pulled up his gauss and fired, but instead of hitting, he destroyed a tree to the left of and well behind the frame. However, it was enough for the much lighter and badly damaged frame to duck behind the larger tree the pilot was using for cover.

“I was aiming right at and missed!” Dante hissed. “There must be something else wrong with the frame or the IR!”

“No, Dante,” Ryder stated with a calm and confident voice. “You missed way to one side and went long didn’t you?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Because every pilot I have ever taught does the same thing the first few times. You can’t do visual fire until you are much better at IR Ops. For now, you need to trust your targeting computer. It filters out the distortions of the heat and will put you on target.”

Dante tried to do what the master sergeant was telling him, but missed two more time. However, he was close enough for the weird looking frame’s pilot to start running for the deeper woods. Dante fired his lasers then sent out a short stream of cursing, “This is stupid. I’d hit this jerk if I could just see him!”

“Dante, stop acting like a spoiled junior cadet and get a hold of yourself!” Ryder snapped with a great deal of authority. “You are still trying to adjust by feel, but the outline of the heat signature goes beyond the frame you are shooting at. You have to trust your computer. Now one of three things are going to happen. One: you fail to score a hit and you end up doing nothing but eat, sleep, and train with me for the next couple of weeks. Two: you score a few hits and I pat you on the back and work with you some over the next few weeks to get you good at this. Or three: you take the jerk down and I get you a basic combat cert in IR Ops.”

Robin spoke up while noting the water purification plant was all but fully secure. The remaining EC frames were backing away, most heading in the direction of the mine deep into the valley while a few were angling toward the small settlement. “We’ve got them beat, but come on Dante! You’d be the first Grenadier Double D to get any combat visual enhancement certs!”

Dante took a deep breath and calmed considerably, even though the fleeing frame hit him with snap shot with its arm mounted light laser. “Oh, this bastard’s going down!”

“There’s the attitude I wanted to hear!” Ryder praised, “Now forget about anything other than the targeting computer and adjust for the speed and angle of the run with targeting assist. Trust the data, son.”

Dante brought up his auto cannon, focused on the targeting, and fired a single shot. This time the opposing frame twisted violently as the almost half a kilo explosive round slammed into its right shoulder. Since it staggered, Dante’s next shot was even easier. He put a gauss round into its upper back. Armor breached and it spit out some red smoke.

The pilot, even though wounded, grabbed onto a tree and pulled himself back up.

Dante shook his head and sighted in with his lasers. By this time his brain was starting to fully accept all the data up on his HUD, so he carefully sighted onto the already breached upper back and fired only the light laser, hoping he could take down the pilot without doing more damage to the frame. He grinned as the Tyroim’s left hand tried to reach over to the back right shoulder even as the frame slid down the tree.

“Wow!” Brady stated with a great deal of awe, “What a shot!”

Luna moved over and stepped on the back of the final Auxiliarim and tapped on the head unit with her axe, letting whoever was inside to surrender or pay the price. “It’s down and not moving, sir! Dante did it and he has the gauntlet too!”

“We got the one down here, too, but the back has some damage.” Nataly radioed, “How about the one you took the key off of?”

“Oh, the back is fine,” Dante stated then managed to snicker as he held up what Luna’s axe removed and shook it causing some remaining blood in the severed arm still inside to splatter over the fallen Medicorim frame. “Just consider it disarmed.”

Off to the side, Brady turned so he was facing away from any rogue fire from the woods, flipped up his face plate, took a quick knee, and puked.

Dante turned to look at Luna while pumping his fist, “There! Did it. You owe me twenty credits.”

“Twenty for what?” Robin demanded to know.

“Getting one of the newbies to puke…” Luna stated with a dry, yet humor-filled voice, “again…”

“Nice!” Glen stated with a great deal of praise in his voice.

“Agreed!” Robin snorted out. “But for now, let’s get our wounded to the station along with the Medic frames. Once we are caring for our people we’ll pull in the frames we downed and deal with those still inside.”

Robin looked over as Maximilian and Tucker dragged Han’s and Anna’s downed frames into the main gate. Further away, Maik and Brady were dragging two frames from Luna’s squad. Even further down the hill, Nataly was slowly and carefully helping Joanna to walk, but it was clear Nataly was having to really support the other girl. Those getting the injured to the station were being carefully watched over by Master Sergeant Ryder.

Behind Robin, a New Brunswick Planetary Defense medic was working on René’s hand. Even from where he was standing on guard duty with Dante, he could tell the hand had shrapnel in it and at least the middle and index fingers were broken.

Another PDF medic was working on an older teen from Glen’s squad. The sixteen-year-old’s arm was broken in multiple spots and she was bleeding badly from a wound on her upper left side.

Further out, Jessie and Glen were kneeling behind large rocks and occasionally fired energy weapons into the woods in response to any movement or enemy fire. It was sporadic, but close enough to the perimeter of the water stations to cause problems.

Finally Luna escorted three enemy frames into the perimeter. They walked awkwardly since Luna made them keep their arms pointed down. While all three seemed to have surrendered none had popped the customary white smoke. On the other hand, they were not being even slightly aggressive and were obeying commands.

Overhead, the three PDF fighters stayed high, but occasionally sent bursts of fire down into the woods, while the fighter with the best video uplink overflew the settlement and the mine, getting Robin live updates over his battle map HUD and battle computer. Robin clenched his fist as he got the latest data feed. He already knew what he was going to hear, but he radioed over to Master Sergeant Ryder anyway, “Sir, several buildings in Gypsum Creek are on fire and they have all but taken the mine complex. They are getting some fire from a handful of out buildings at the mine from a few frames, but they have them surrounded. I can see lots of dead in and around the main complex, too.”

“Nothing we can do about it and you have enough problems with wounded.”

“I know, sir, but I don’t have to like it.”

“I’d be pissed if you did like it, son.” Ryder responded. “But we got here and pushed them back from the water station. The only damage it has is to some support buildings and nothing is out of action. We hold until the rest of your Rebels get here then I can help you can reassess.”

Zane jerked awake, breathing hard and his hands embedded into the netting of the hammock. His head shot back and forth for several seconds before he verified he was in the sleeping with Neil, Jasha, and the three conscripted Quaker VII cadets. All five of the others showed little signs of stirring, other than Vadim, who had all but mummy wrapped himself in the hammock and was lightly thrashing around. As his heart calmed he forced a smile, having seen countless others fight to sleep in zero-G.

The problem was, he had no idea why he had woken up in such a panic. With a nearly silent snort, he reluctantly admitted to himself, he did know. It had been a nightmare. Judging on the sweat drenched shirt and undershorts, it had been a bad one. This was especially true since the sleeping cabins were kept cool at around eighteen degrees C. Zane easily flipped himself out of his hammock, pulled off his shirt and wiped his face with it. Floating upwards he did some stretches and rolled his neck while struggling to remember what could have been so awful.

Nothing would come, not even a glimpse. Aggravated with himself, and still quite shook up over the adrenaline induced harsh wake-up he moved to his wall locker, pulled out a water packet, and injected it with a Bucharest XVI Sweet Root flavoring packet. While he drank, he dug through the rest of his gear to make sure nothing was out of place. He wasn’t even sure why, but it was just something he had to do. Nothing was out of place, but his nervousness was still not sedated. Instead of trying to curl back up and go to sleep, he dressed in some workout clothing and punched the button, opening the door.

The moment the door hissed and light poured in from the hall, Neil grabbed a blade from in the middle of his pillow and spun out of his hammock. “Zane? What the hell?”

“Sorry, couldn’t sleep. Going to get an extra workout in before the next fold.”

Neil slid his blade back into his pillow’s built-in sheath and let out a long breath. “Next time wake me even if it is just a nudge and a warning… I mean, geesh… we both know we’ve seen Lomo before, and…” Neil’s voice tapered off as Vadim started fighting to get out of his hammock.

“Yeah, my bad.” Zane stated as he pushed off the door frame and angled over to the struggling thirteen-year-old. “Dude, stop and let me help. You are making it worse.”

Vadim stopped struggling the second he saw Zane start to untwist one of the connection points. “How do you sleep in one of these, Comrade! I much preferred the sleeping pouches on the Wagon!”

“Only passenger ships have sleeping pouches.” Neil responded softly, “They are way harder to get out of and less comfortable.”

“Harder to get out of?” The teen grumbled in exasperation, “I feel like a bug in a spider web, Comrade!”

Off to the side Jasha yawned then snickered, “You do kind of look like you are in a spider cocoon, Vadim.” He glanced over at Zane, “Is it time for the next fold?”

“No, still have over five hours before the coils are even charged. I just wanted to get in a real workout since I bet we’re going to have to watch over you all again once we do fold. None of you did too well.”

“Wasn’t as bad as the miss-fold,” Lucya stated as she had found herself pretty well wrapped up in her hammock, but not so badly she couldn’t figure out how to untwist it on her own. “I’m hungry, now, though.”

“Grab a ration pack.” Neil stated with a yawn. “Antone, do the same. It will let you get it down and in you before the next fold.”

Antone didn’t even try to get out of his hammock, “No… no way, Comrade Corporal… I still feel all sick and yucky. Do we really have to do another of those?”

“Yup!” Zane stated in a tone way too chipper for most of the others in the cabin with him, “I can’t wait!”

“If I had anything left in me, Comrade Specialist, I would send it your direction…”

“I’d dodge and push you into the floating chucks for even trying,” Zane fired back.

“Oh, gross!” Lucya shuddered. “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”

Neil scratched the back of his head before floating over to help Zane extract Vadim. “All of you should eat and get something to drink, even if it is just a little. The ship’s air is pretty dry, so you are losing lots of liquid, and the last thing we need is for any of you to dehydrate.”

Jasha grabbed a small bag of hydration packets and passed them out. As he drank one, he looked over, “Zyden, mind if I go with you to work out?”

Zane almost said no, but was stopped by Neil. “Good Idea. I really don’t want any of us to be alone with the Death Warriors roaming around. Something is off about them.”

Zane turned his back to the others to hide the look he knew was in his eyes. He really was hoping a lone workout would unlock part of the dream, since a hard workout with music earpieces in, often let his mind drift. With someone else there, someone who would need his help on some of the machines the Star Sliders had in their workout room, he would not be able to let his mind go enough to where some sliver of the dream might come back to him.

However, Neil was right and he knew it. He knew Lomo from somewhere bad, and really didn’t want to end up alone with the guy should the man decide a workout between folds was a good idea as well. “Yeah, get dressed. We’ll work up a good sweat and grab a sonic shower before the next fold.”

Vadim finally found an opening and pulled himself out, “The Death Warriors seem pretty nice to me, Comrades.”

“Lieutenant Boudicea is former EC,” Neil stated with total contempt. “Before this is over we are both going to be bloody, and even if she manages to beat the snot out of me, I will hurt her and be super happy about it.”

“Let me at her,” Zane snarled.

“No, I don’t want them knowing just how deadly you are. Besides, this is between me and wench and I already have permission. We can’t let on just how well we know each other, either.”

Lucya let out a long breath, “I was wondering… Do you think any of the others are Earth Core?”

Neil looked over, not noticing Zane turn his back to everyone again, “I thought about it, but if they are, they sure seem dead set on taking stuff from EC and they worked with us hard to get all our frames up.”

Zane said nothing as he felt his heart pounding in his chest. A bit, just a mere sliver of the recent nightmare flashed through his mind. He was back on New Bravaria… A man and a woman in EC uniforms moved across the field of, dead, dying, and shell-shocked… this brief image was enough for the full dream to explode in his mind’s eye.

Zane, along with scores of other older children had just left the school tent and the younger ones were entering when the scream of incoming artillery shattered the day. Adults closest to the kids who had just been released shouted for them to get to cover, but with most of those in the camp being long time merc kids, the words were all but unneeded.

At the first sounds Zane sprinted to the trees and dove in. He was by no means alone. Scores of others did the exact same thing. Zane glanced back looking for a good friend from a fellow unit when the school tent disintegrated followed by several other tents and temporary structures, including the med building. The second wave of artillery hit the open field, and the third landed just behind the first line of trees. Those who tried to run were subsequently caught out in the open as two flights of EC Asteroid IPSCs dove in at hyper sonic speeds, pulled up at the last second and sent scores of rippers flinging across the open fields and woods around the main camp. However the massive sonic wave knocked down many so the rippers then detonated at about a meter above the ground only took out the strongest. The combination attack, however, left many unable to function, including Zane.

Like many in the wood line around him, Zane lay stunned, his ears ringing, and a trickle of blood coming from where a branch fell on the back of his head. Even as he tried to collect his wits, his ears cleared up enough to hear screams. Many were horribly wounded calling out for medics, others were howling over the fact the vast majority of four to seven-year-olds had been wiped out, and yet others were shrieking over seeing loved ones ripped into pieces from the final air drop. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Robin crawling toward bloody bodies out in the field. Zane tried to get up to follow a couple of times, but the shock of the attack left his legs rubbery and his balance totally out of equilibrium.

He wasn’t sure how long he struggled, but at some point he heard the sounds of heavy thrusters. Shaking his head to clear his vision caused the back of his head to hurt, but allowed him to make out three EC Quadrigae Infantry Assault Ships and one Bigae Heavy Infantry Lander. The smaller ship set down close to the remnants of the camp, while the three larger ones landed in a triangle formation further out. Even as Zane struggled to move deeper into the woods on his hands and knees, the four ships lowered their back ramps and disgorged troops and hover platforms.

Seeing some heavy infantrymen and two nicer dressed EC combatants coming his direction Zane put his head down and pretended to be dead. The problem was, the two better dressed EC personnel were not alone, instead they were part of a small detachment of specialized infantry. All had combat vests with several full pockets, and instead of combat helmets and infantry assault weapons they sported sonic weapon with an under-barrel for a sonic stunner, and carried a shock stick, only the ones they sported were more staff-like than the standard club sized ones. All stayed in groups of four or more, and rapidly separated and moved in various directions. However, the four Zane focused on were close enough for him to make out details.

All four wore dark blue berets with several small pins, showing various awards. One of the men was short, very muscular, and had epaulets on his shirt showing him to be a Signifer, the Earth Core equivalent of a corporal. The woman next to him was much taller, but had a build equally impressive. Her uniform showed her to be a highly decorated Decanus, an Earth Core sergeant. The last two were slightly younger, mid to late teens and had just a few awards on their berets. one was male, the other looked more female, but Zane wasn’t positive. Both wore Imaginifer rank, EC senior privates, and were more or less following suit with what the older two were doing.

The four moved into the edge of the now badly blasted woods, ignoring hot spots where fires crackled and scanned the ground for bodies. When they found one, the nearest one would poke it with his or her electro-stick, sometimes snickering when it got a response. Those who were near death were stepped on, kicked or otherwise abused until they stopped moving. When they found an adult who wasn’t too badly hurt, they shocked the person into unconsciousness and dropped a yellow tag on them. These were collected by standard EC soldiers, put in restraints, and tossed in the back of a prisoner wagon, a larger hovercraft with a cage on the back. Occasionally one of the EC quartet found a living child. When they did their tactics changed.

Not far from where Zane was trying desperately to hide, Oisin, a nine-year-old from a fellow merc unit, the Wraith Riders, let out a scream as he was hit with the electro-stick. Zane glanced over at the sound of a voice of someone he befriended, only to see the older woman reach down and pick up Oisin by his hair. The boy howled even as he tried to kick and swing at her. The woman laughed, shook Oisin by his hair, while the older man with her touched his shocker on Oisin and smiled as the boy let out an agonized howl.

Even as one of the EC Imaginifers spotted Zane move and grabbed him by the back of his britches, a voice came from behind the two tormenting Oisin and manhandling Zane, “Cease your savagery, Decanus Kilopherm! Recruitment requires perception for discernment of combatant lineage. Further impairments of conscripted ensures your redistribution to unyielding conflict within an Adscripticim at paramount, or, should I ascertain the locality, an Auxiliarim!”

While the pair abusing Oisin instantly stopped tormenting him further, the young man holding onto Zane eased his grip, placed Zane on his feet, and when Zane tried to pull away, cuffed him lightly on the back of the head and wagged a warning finger in his face, and pointed to his electro-stick… The look in the young man’s eyes told Zane any further problems would be a bad idea. He was walked out of the woods, with a hand helping to support him since his legs still wobbled some. At this point Zane noticed Robin gripping a bloody body and another man in a beret kicking him, trying to get him to let go.

The voice spoke again, with an angry undertone, clearly scolding the man, However, his voice lost some of its formality, “Give him a moment, the rest of his life will be in the legatus propraetor’s pits. The least you can do is give him a moment with someone he loved.”

Just after Zane was led past Robin and pushed in the direction of a EC hover APC, the voice spoke again, “I pledge possession over the adolescent on behalf of my lineage. Segregate with the utmost prospective recruits and secure for conveyance to our legatus’ estate…”

The sliver of the dream faded, but the voice… the hard and angry voice of someone in command… it was Lomo… or was it? He had never seen the person speaking. He had never been given a chance. Instead he was shoved in the direction of the third hover transport, where he was roughly searched, everything taken other than his clothing, and looked over by a man in an EC centurion posterior uniform. The man pulled down on his lips to check his teeth, yanked up his arms, squeezed his ribs, pulled down up on his eyelids, forced him to sit, tested his reflexes, and gave him a fairly thorough once over; including gluing the cut on the back of his head. Once the two-minute check was complete, the man pulled out a small spray can and put a strange looking backwards green colored B on each cheek with a couple of highly practices squirts. Zane was then shoved into the back of a smaller Hover APC with several other boys and girls his age, including most of the double digit survivors of the Grenadiers. Everyone in the platform had an odd-looking A or backwards B on both cheeks except Robin, who was shoved in without anyone really looking over the boy who was a bloody mess. The only thing Robin got was a metal wrist band with some strange-looking letters on it.

With the vision finally over, Zane rubbed his hands down where his cheeks had been marked that horrid day as the cold shiver shot down his spine. It wasn’t possible… was it? Forcing himself to take a few breaths he spoke, ignoring what the others were talking about, but made sure to keep his back to everyone else until he was sure he had full control over himself, “I am going to hit the equipment hard, so if you are coming, get moving!”

“Wow,” Lucya stated with a shake of her head, “someone sure woke up on the wrong side of the hammock!”

Neil snickered, not realizing Zane was covering fear and confusion with aggression, “Jasha you may as well go. I’ll have to hit it later since I have a command staff meeting in under an hour, and you are going to be in there for longer… way longer.”

Jasha forced a grin, “I’m thinking it would be better to have boring meeting than this…”

“But it will do you all good,” Neil stated with certainty. “There’s a reason he is deadlier than I am.”

“And wanting to get deadlier, so move if you’re coming!” Zane stated defiantly as he floated out the door.

Captain Tanner kept tabs on the reports with a deep and concerned frown. While the battle at Gypsum Creek was minor in the grand scheme of things, it pointed to a major problem with the Planetary Defense Forces. The sheer number of hostile frames Robin had encountered meant a fairly large craft had penetrated the airspace of the planet and had landed what sounded like a team-sized unit. This meant there was either a hostile Fire Lance sized ship on the ground to the north, or worse, one had dropped a frame team and managed to take back off and escape the planet without detection.

At the same time, he estimated he had at least another team of frames in the bluffs not far from the complexes the Grenadiers had signed on to protect. He was actually guessing, he was facing a hostile force larger than a team, or more likely two separate groups, with well over a team of frames combined.

Reports from other locations around New Brunswick system were no better. Scattered reports of raiders in force could be found almost everywhere if one dug deeply enough. The problem was, he did have to do some serious digging because public reports tended to gloss over, downplay or worse yet, totally ignore attacks. This was particularly true when it concerned privately held installations such as mines and drilling sites such as petro-chem fields. It seemed as long as food production wasn’t harmed, little to nothing was said, and even when it was reported on, it was routinely dismissed.

Tanner could all but guarantee the situation in and around Gypsum Creek would make the planetary news since a settlement was involved. However, looking at past examples, he already knew the spin the media and or the planetary government would put on it. The real story would be glossed over, while the narrative would mostly cover the successful defense of the water treatment facility. Some reporter would then go on to visit the other communities and talk to grateful settlers who still had fresh, clean drinking water.

There would, stuck somewhere in the middle of all the spin, be scattered reports out of Gypsum Creek. It would say there had been ‘collateral damage, property damage, and casualties’. No one report would list all the dead and wounded. Instead, there would be a dozen or more articles, each listing a handful of names with a few crossovers. Eventually every name would be mentioned at least twice, thus giving family members or friends some solace and confidence in the media, but the wider picture would be hidden from the vast majority who would go back to their fields oblivious to the full truth.

A few beers would be shared and mugs toasted to the fallen after a hard day of plowing, harvesting, or whatever. At the same time companies would continue to ship vast quantities of food out of the starports blissfully ignorant of the dangers lurking away from major population centers.

Hearing Robin was facing a considerable number of Earth Core frames, even light and low-tech ones, only added to Tanner’s concerns. New Brunswick was far enough away from Earth Core to where there shouldn’t be any threat. The problem was, even if this was a ronin or rogue EC unit, which it all but had to be, the next question had to be asked. Where did they come from? Just as importantly, why did they come to New Brunswick?

Before he could condense more information, Major O’Connell entered the still being assembled command area. He frowned for a moment as he studied one of the door guards, a teen of no more than seventeen. He looked at the nametag, then stared at the young man until he saw some beads of nervous sweat pop. “Private Gerstenberger, what is your major malfunction?”

Total confusion tinged with fear cascaded down the guard’s face, “Sir?”

Without warning Major O’Connell’s hand shot out, grabbed the private’s sidearm out of hip holster, pushed the young man into the door frame and put the pistol up under his chin.

O’Connell’s eyes narrowed as put his weight against the stunned guard, making breathing exceedingly difficult, “Gerstenberger, a guard in the Grenadiers isn’t a showpiece. A guard is always ready for combat and assigned to protect something. We don’t carry weapons half hanging out of quick-release carriers so they look cool. A professional merc doesn’t need a fast pull holster, he or she needs to practice with a real holster, one where the weapon is properly secured, yet still available. Any Grenadier guard also has a backup weapon, so it can be pulled and used should something like this happen to them.

“Right now, you are less than worthless, since those setting up my command center are counting on someone who can’t do his job. This put them in extra danger and seriously pisses me off.” Major O’Connell hit the release to eject the clip, then pulled back on the slide to clear the weapon. When a round didn’t pop out, he glanced into the changer and shook his head. His mood turned even darker.

He tossed the pistol over to one of his techs, then grabbed Gerstenberger’s pinned arm and flipped him like a ragdoll. Even as the teen slammed into the floor, O’Connell glared, “And what good does an unloaded weapon do you, Private?”

Gerstenberger looked up with wide eyes even as he rubbed the back of his head, “But that’s what we were taught, sir!”

“By who?”

“The training instructors in the Planetary Defense Basic Arms and Armor School, sir!”

O’Connell put his foot on Gerstenberger’s chest as the private tried to stand, “I’m not done with you yet, stay!” He then looked over to Captain Tanner, “Before this private moves, I want to know if he is telling me the truth, stretching it, misunderstood his training officers, or is flatly lying. Get me one of his PDF trainers on the horn!”

Captain Tanner nodded and moved over to a computer even as he cringed, “Sorry, Major, I should have noticed.”

“You’re worried about our kids, and I get it, but if we’re dead because our guards don’t have a round in the pipe and are carrying side arms in sloppy holsters, none of us can do any of them any good.”

“Yeah, totally my fault, sir.” Tanner shook his head in disgust over having missed something he was responsible for. He quickly pulled up the private’s AIM training records and placed a radio call. A few seconds later he placed the radio transmission on speaker, “Sergeant Groth, I am putting you on speaker so my commander, Major O’Connell can ask you a question about one of the recruits you helped to train.”

A male voice came over the speaker, “Sure thing, I hear you all picked up a grip of our boys and girls. Which one you got questions on, sir?”

O’Connell spoke up keeping his voice devoid of any emotion, “I’m just trying to get some information on a Private Gerstenberger, Sergeant. You remember him?”

“Had a few come through with that name. It is pretty common here. Can you give me a first name?”

Tanner looked at the computer and spoke, “Edmund Waldemar Gerstenberger, went through your basic infantry and you had him in basic armor too, looks like he graduated only a few months ago.”

“Oh, I think I know who you are talking about. He’s a small kid for his age, brown eyes, lots of ear hair?”

O’Connell looked down then back up, “You got it, Sergeant. What can you tell me about him?”

“Smart kid, a little too smart in some ways. Probably should have been moved over for tech training instead of armor, but he really wanted to drive a platform. Didn’t have any major problems with him, and he pushed himself, but a royal pain in the backside to get moving in the morning. He’ll be one of the last to roll out of sack and be combat ready during any night alert. Really, that’s why I remember him. The guys in his barracks got extra PT a few times because of slow alert times. Eddie was normally the reason.”

“Good to know,” O’Connell stated. “So other than being a bit slow to get motivated, anything else you can tell me?”

“He’s a good kid, really. It’s not really a motivation issue, sir. I’m pretty sure he could sleep through a grenade going off outside his window. Once the guys in his barracks got used to rousting him the second we called a drill, there wasn’t any other problems and he can drive a track with among the best. Gunnery was below average, but he over thinks things and wanted to be perfect on regulations, so he tends to be a bit slower in things like reloading and pulling the trigger because he wanted to make sure every safety precaution was perfect. Not something I can fault him on, but in live combat, he will need to learn to look past the regs and shove a shell into a hot breach, or kick a casing out of the way instead of taking the time to put it into the expended bin.”

“So you see him as a bit of a rules junkie?”

“Good way to put it, sir,” the sergeant snickered. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, one,” Major O’Connell stated with as friendly a voice as he could manage. “We’re looking for a few guards for sensitive areas. How do you think he would do?”

“Not the greatest on hand-to-hand, but he’ll give you his best, I’m sure.”

“How about keeping and handling a loaded weapon?”

“Oh, now I understand! No, no issues there. He’ll need to be brought up to speed on your expectations, cause we are pretty safe when it comes to guard duty, even out in the field. Normally weapons are kept on safe and unloaded unless it is a combat situation. Then they are allowed to have the clip in place, not on their belt.”

At this, every Grenadier helping to set up the command center turned and looked at the radio with jaws hanging open.

“OK…” Captain Tanner jumped in, “So Sergeant, on normal guard duty they what? Have magazines or power packs on their belts and have to load if there is a threat?”

“Yeah, everyone but the guard leader. The leader has a loaded weapon and can authorize those under him to load, but they don’t chamber a round or send power into energy weapons until there is a direct threat. It prevents accidents in training. I’m betting you will have to tweak his instruction for your situation, but he’ll adapt quickly. Overall, I think you got a pretty good kid there. He’s far better than many Kipper picked up for you all.”

O’Connell shook his head even as he forced his voice to stay friendly, “Thanks Sergeant. You have any problems if we happen to run across others we have questions on?”

“No, feel free. I’d sure hate to see any of those kids you took on get hurt if I can prevent it by simply giving you all any insights. Oh, there is one other thing since I have you, sir. There is one Kipper grabbed for you I’d like to pass some information to you on.”

“All ears, Sergeant,” O’Connell stated while moving his foot off the private’s chest and offering the youngster a hand up.

“One of Gerstenberger’s bunk mates, Otto Grendel; he’s only fourteen, but the little guy can shoot, and I do mean shoot. It doesn’t matter if it is a mounted heavy gun, rifle, pistol, or shoulder-fired rocket launcher. I’m betting Gerstenberger can tell you about him too, but I’m telling you he could be a real catch for you. He’s tough as nails and is a bit of a survivalist and knows some tracking. His old man runs a hunting outfitter’s service and takes people to hunt on both worlds and the habitable moon in the system. From what I’ve heard, Otto has been across this whole system scores of times since he was old enough to go out with his old man. Both me and my lieutenant tried to get him over to infantry sniper training, but they simply won’t touch a kid under the age of fifteen, and only then with parent approval, which we had… Total waste to have him in armor, but his old man sent him to open militia enlistment after Otto got into some kind of scrape with the law. The kid already knew how to drive and was civilian certified in off-road wheeled and hover, so Recruitment and Placement stuck him in armor. If he had been closer to fifteen, I would have field promoted the kid and he would be leading one of my reserve platform crews.”

“Surprised you let him go.”

“Didn’t want to, but he’s fourteen so we couldn’t place him in any front-line units. This left him open to option out for AIM hiring. Like many you picked up, he signed his last paycheck back over to the PDF, so he could buy contract release to AIM. He was one of the first to jump at the chance to transfer over to you when Kipper posted it was hiring to reinforce you all after the miss-fold. All I am saying is, you may want to give him a good hard look. He may be the best recruit I had come through in the past two years, if not more.”

“Oh, we are giving everyone we picked up a legit shot, Sergeant,” O’Connell stated. “But thanks for the heads-up. I’m going to go track him down as soon as I am done here.”

“Glad to hear. Oh, and tell Gerstenberger good luck for me. He really was a decent recruit.”

“Will do. Take care.”

O’Connell glanced at Gerstenberger, then over to Tanner the moment the radio was clicked off, “So Captain…”

The tone of O’Connell’s voice alone was enough to cause Tanner to cringe, but the look in the major’s eyes was enough to send a shiver down his back, “Sir?”

“I’m thinking…”

“Yeah, I can tell, sir…”

A nasty smirk crossed O’Connell’s face, “So Private, you up for some intensive retraining and we’ll simply forget about this guard duty fiasco?”

“Yes, sir!”

Behind the young private Tanner winced even though he had no idea what O’Connell had in mind.

O’Connell nodded, “Good, very good, Private.” He then focused in on Tanner, “How about we toss our wayward and disgruntled master sergeant a bone, Captain?”

Tanner’s eyes went wide as he realized what O’Connell had in mind, “We’ll lose a lot of those Kipper got for us.”

“Not until their six-month contract runs out,” O’Connell snorted. “Of course a few may need a couple of those months to recoup.”

“More than a few.”

“Yeah, true, but it will give our top ace a reason to stay.”

“It certainly will. He’ll see it as us still having trust in him, which he believes he lost thanks to our kids… and at least it will not be at Dante’s expense.”

“Yeah, any idea who did it and how they got into his gear?”

“No clue. As best as I can tell all the kids were helping move people off the Stallion, and I can fully account for the normal suspects. Robin wasn’t even aboard, Luna had a busted wrist and Glenn was out of it. Neil was also hurt too badly to have pulled it off. Jared may have slipped away, but he was in the link tube helping passengers for almost the entire time. I can’t see Kerri or Val doing it and like Jared, they were helping us get people off. This leaves Zane, which is where my money goes, but the little cuss is pretty much accounted for and on camera most of the time and never near our ready room or combat gear storage. They are getting sneakier on us. On the plus side, this means all of them are suspects and none of them are. It has everyone guessing and our beloved master sergeant has totally washed his hands of Dante and never wants to deal with him again. Giving him responsibility will push some of the rumors about what happened into the back seat and he’ll have an outlet to take aggressions out, so this should work out.”

“Such is the hope. We really don’t want to lose him. Make the offer, and do it publicly so everyone sees how much we are entrusting into his hands. But be clear with him, we need bad habits broken before we have to put these kids into body bags.”

“More than habits will be broken, sir, and you know it.”

“I do… But these Brunswick PDF kids will fall like raindrops if we don’t get them combat ready. But you’re also right. We don’t want massive training related medical bills. Let’s try to mitigate before he gets started. Let him know for everyone he graduates and agrees to sign on for at least another six-month extension with us, I’ll give him a fifty-credit bonus. Also, no one Kipper got who signed with us gets to stay unless they get through two weeks with our not so beloved master sergeant.”

“Good way to give him an incentive to not go overboard… I gather Gerstenberger, here, is going to be in the first class?”

“Indeed he is. I also want his bunk mate, Otto, in with the first group. Get with the other officers and find me fourteen more who have as much potential as our private here. I don’t care about age or sex. I want those we see something in, but need to turn into combatants. Master Sergeant Saulsky gets them for two weeks, then we find him sixteen more, or even thirty-two, if he thinks he can whip that many into some semblance of being a merc. Those he picks as squad leaders get a one rank promotion, while the top of each group of sixteen gets a two-rank bump. Let him pick who he wants for an assistant trainer, but also let him know when we get hit, both him and his assistant will need to frame up and jump into the fight with those they are training.”

“No issue there… keeping him out of the fight would piss him off… Um, if he manages to keep the over four hundred and fifty faces Kipper got for us, we’d be looking at a 22,500 bonus…”

“I’ll figure out a way to pay it, but both of us know less than half will stick, especially if we let it be known, Master Sergeant Saulsky will be doing refresher courses for all who want contract extensions with us. For now though, I only want real Grenadiers as guards. No unloaded weapons, no uncharged or unchambered firearms, and certainly no guard who doesn’t have a knife to gut someone with, should someone like me snag their primary weapon and put it up to their necks.” He looked back at Gerstenberger, “And, Private, you may want to pass the word to your buddies, I despise quick release and quick draw holsters. They will end up getting the wearers dead.”

“Yes, sir, I just figured that out, sir.”

“Good. And the next time I see you with a weapon, it best have a round waiting to be fired unless you are cleaning it or storing it.”

O’Connell finally walked into the command room, “So what’s the status on Robin and his Rebels?”

Sergeant Akem responded from the only fully up and running electronic status board, “He and all the Grenadiers with him are fine, but they are still taking harassing fire, sir. At least six of his new recruits are down, and one other is up but wounded. We don’t know how bad yet. The rest of the kids, other than the one squad they left on guard, should be arriving in under ten minutes.”

“Who’s in command of the reinforcements, Sergeant?”

“Overall, the Brave Humanities Aerospace kid, Rockland.”

“No, I don’t give a damn about him. I want to know which kid who is going to reinforce Robin is in command. I need ground units!”

“Um, yeah, sorry sir. Um, Jared is, followed by one of the Q VII cadets, Stasik. For some reason, our kids have a huge amount of confidence in him.”

“Then I want to get to know him as soon as things calm down. If our kids show that kind of trust in him, he is worth getting to know. But since I don’t even know what he looks like, I’ll stick with who I know. Can you give me a private patch-in to Jared?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do it.”

O’Connell moved up to the status board and scanned it. Before Jared’s voice came over the radio, the major had a good outline in his brain of the overall situation and was pointing to a spot for Sergeant Akem to focus in on.

“This is Jared…”

“Jared, Major O’Connell. You are on a combat mission. Use your rank and last name,” O’Connell snapped.

“Yes sir, this is Ensign Warley, sir!”

“Better. First names are fine for outside combat, but can break down cohesion and command structure if used in combat. Remember to keep them separate.”

“Understood, sir. Will not happen again!”

“See it doesn’t or you and I will be having a private chat you want nothing to do with. Now with basics handled, I am looking at battle overlays thanks to some fancy signal bouncing from Brave Humanities. Do you have the overheads from the aero assets over Captain Lerrik’s position?”

“On my battle map HUD and the holographic display on this ship, yes, sir.”

“Good, but do me a favor and don’t get used to it. All this tech will spoil you and you’ll probably never have it again. However, since we do have it, I want you to look over at the mining camp. While you do, put me up on main speaker.”

“Sir, we were told the mine wasn’t part of the contract…”

“Son, if it is part of protecting the water station you are getting paid to keep safe, it is. Don’t get so narrow focused. Remember the defense of the greenhouses on Q VII. Protecting the outer fields was not part of the contract, but was key to victory.”

“OK, sir, I get what you are saying, but what does the mine have to do with protecting the water station?”

“Ensign, put me up on main speaker and zoom into sector 1743.345 by 8877.108. Once you do both, tell me what you think is there.”

There was a pause, “Wow, Major, good eyes, it looks like a ore ship! None of us noticed it till now. But, um…”

“Ensign don’t over think this. Look at the camp, the ship and the battle being fought in and around the mine.”

“But it doesn’t look like they are going after it…”

Stasik’s voice came over the radio a moment later, “Because they don’t want to damage it! Otherwise, they’d have taken the camp by now. Look at the way they are fighting. They are trying to push the remaining defenders back from the ship. Once they do, they’ll probably crush them!”

“Bingo!” Major O’Connell stated with high praise.”

Captain Tanner spoke softly, “Voice readings show that was Stasik, sir.”

O’Connell smirked and nodded while jotting a note down for someone to get Stasik to come see him at the first opportunity. “Kids, I am betting they don’t realize the mine is a non-entity in the mind of the PDF and fully expected the PDF to respond if it was hit. They also know water purification and settlements would normally take priority. This means, unless I am totally off base, the real target is the ship. The rest of this is probably a big distraction so they can get their hands on the space transport. If they get it, there is a good chance they will pull all their remaining forces back.”

“Which completes the mission…” Jared stated with a sudden understanding tinged with awe.

“Exactly. It also means they will be unlikely to try to take badly wounded or downed frames, which will leave you all way more salvage. As I have told all of you more times than I can count, when possible fight smart, not hard. It’s cheaper and still pays the bills. The problem is, those at the mine either figured out if they fight around the outer buildings and the ore ship, they are being spared the full onslaught of what is facing them, or some of those defending the camp are from the ship. Either way, while some of you move to relieve your commander, I want a heavy squad or more to move up the back of the low hill at 1743.845 by 8877.288 and cut into the EC’s flank. Since Stasik was so quick to see the situation, I want him with you Jared.

“Stasik, while I don’t know you, I already love the way you think. I expect you to help Jared on the tactical side of things. Anyone who can see the situation so quickly can also save fellow merc lives. Use those brain cells to keep everyone as safe as possible!””

“Absolutely sir!” Stasik all but shouted.

“I’m liking you more by the second son. Now, Jared, once they fold back toward the main camp it will leave a dead spot for the defenders to safely back out. It’ll be up to whoever goes to convince them to abandon the ship. Just remind them they can’t hold forever and an ore ship isn’t worth dying over. Just don’t let them damage it or you all will end up facing everyone they have out there.”

Aboard the ship Sergeant Nire eyed the holo-display with a light whistle, “OK, who here knows Drop Pod Ops?”

Seeing several hands go up, he nodded, “Ensign, split your forces. Part of you get to do a combat drop on the back of the ridge where your commander first put down. While you make your way to the station, grab as many of the downed EC frames as you can so you can get your commander some parts, weapons to swap out, and ammo. The rest of you will stick with this ship and we’ll land a few kilometers away from the mine and move up the hill your major pointed out.”

Jared looked over to Cody, “As much as I’d love to do a drop, I want you to take some with less combat experience to reinforce Robin… um, Captain Lerrik. I’ll take the rest around and chew into some EC morons and rescue who we can from the mine.”

Rockland spoke up from the comm up on the bridge of the ship, “We can’t pay for referb of drop pods on a mission like this, though…”

Sergeant Nire shot an evil sneer, “Brave Humanities will take half salvage on the ore ship after Kay and Vlad shoot it down.”

Seeing several wide eyes looking at him Nire shrugged, “If we take it down, we wipe out the whole group, which ends the problem in this area once and for all. Besides, we were hired to deal with the raiders. The moment they take possession of the ship, it falls under contract to protect the station from the bandits, since they could use it against us. Which in turn means if we take it down with them in possession, it is our salvage. Even half salvage of a mangled ore ship will pay for a dozen or so drop pods, the fuel, and the use of this ship.”

Kerri let out a light whistle, “Cold bloodedly awesome! But I thought you were Blood’s Honor…”

“Don’t get me wrong young lady, I don’t want indiscriminate killing and will save those I am fighting when it makes sense, and I expect you all to do the same, but I’m Brave Humanities now. Actually, since I signed on as an advisor and instructor to you all, I am a Ruffian Rebel and I’d like a bonus on my paycheck this month, so let’s get this done guys.”

Cody looked over to Sam and Peter Kipling, “Guys, you sure about this?”

Seeing the brothers nod, he took a deep breath. “OK, I want you to drop after me and no matter what, you stay with the pod until it stops moving. In the sims, you tip and fall plus normally end up with some armor damage if you don’t wait long enough, in real life you do serious damage. I saw it happen to several of my buddies when we dropped on your mining camp and four of them are still aboard the White Tiger in the med bay. I may not be Robin, but I will kick your butts if you get hurt simply because I agreed to let you two do a drop with me.”

Just over a minute later a hole opened up under the Brave Humanities ship and Cody got a green light. He took a quick reading of the drop zone and pushed the release. Even as his stomach felt like it had moved up into his upper chest, he grinned. “This’ll never get old!”

A few flashes of laser light shot up from woods to the far north, but all four turrets aboard the Brave Humanities ship spun and sprayed the forest with a combo of auto cannon and turbo laser fire. Moments later all six of the Rebel’s IPSCs strafed the deeper woods. Before Cody’s pod even touched the ground, the woods were on fire.

He waited for the pod to settle before he broke the shell and did a quick scan of the rest of those who dropped with him. All eight frames were in the green across the board, and both Peter and Sam Kipling were pumping their fists in exuberance. “Well done everyone, now I want each of you to grab one of the downed EC frames and drag it up to the water plant like we were told. Keep in mind, just because it is down, does not mean there is no pilot in it, nor does it mean if there is, he won’t shoot at you.”

Vlad’s voice took over the radio, “Comrades, they are breaking. My IR and UV shows half a dozen frames running deeper into the trees. We’ll do a couple more strafing runs to make sure they leave you alone, but other fighters are also reporting other frames are pulling away from the back of the water plant.”

“Keep them distracted so they don’t or can’t pay attention to the star shuttle,” Cody ordered. “If they figure out where it is headed…”

Nire’s voice cut in on a separate frequency, “Ensign, we are already angling back up. Even if one of them has radar, it will look like we are going back into space. Don’t worry about us. You get some of those downed frames to the station and reinforce so Captain Lerrik can get out of his frame, reload or change out weapons, and help the PDF medics take care of our wounded.”

Jared looked around the back of the cargo bay, then over to Nire as Rockland called out one minute to touchdown. “Sir, how does this work? Are you in command or…”

Nire shook his head and pointed to himself, “Me get to be lazy puke advisor. You are in command. Don’t look at me for anything. For that matter don’t even look for me. I may well be sitting my metal-butted frame down on a rock and watching, so I can get with each and every one of you on after-action reports.” He then smiled, “Besides, I don’t want to have Kay’s mom getting mad at me for doing too much for you all.”

Jared snickered, “Good call, sir!”

“Now should I jump in and tell someone to do something, do it. Otherwise the offending pilot will have a rather… distasteful, boarding on brutal, conference with me, Master Sergeant Ryder, and probably Kay’s mom back at the base followed by some of the most obnoxious chores we can find… or even make up.”

Jared looked around the bay, “There is a talking to and crap storm none of us want. Let’s do this right so Sergeant Nire doesn’t have to say anything.”

“Such would be my preference as well, kids. Just remember, your task is to push those in EC frames back on one flank enough to give those at the mine a path to safely retreat. You want to hit them by surprise, so stay on radio silence from the time we disconnect from the frame securing slots until first shots are fired. Target larger frames or ones with command antenna arrays. I’d like to see a couple fall before they even start shooting at you all.

“Once the defenders pull past you all, fall in behind them and keep them covered. We’ll pull back to the lake three kilometers southeast from here and wait for the transport. Should you get separated, go there.

“Now I know we’ve already covered this. Keep in mind the transport is going to hover a couple of meters up so you’ll all have to jump off the back ramp. This is going to be hard on the knees, so keep them bent and use the hydraulics to your advantage. All of you should have had to jump off a two-meter wall in training. This will be no different.”

Jared was the first to jump, he moved rapidly to give the others room. Once he was twenty meters up the hill he glanced back and shook his head as one of the Maslow brothers stepped off instead of jumping. With one foot hitting before the other, the frame toppled hard. Fortunately, Sergeant Nire quickly jumped down and helped the boy up. A couple of seconds later Nire made a slashing motion across his frame’s neck and pointed to the boy who was badly limping.

With slumping shoulders, Jared nodded while reaching over and tapping the other Maslow brother on the shoulder and jerking his head in the direction of the mine. Jared noted a flash of anger in the brown eyes staring back at him, but it lasted only a few seconds. The kid turned, gave his brother a raised fist, then turned to join the others.

Fifteen minutes later Jared scanned the mining complex, noting at least one more frame trying to defend the mine had fallen and the attackers were pushing hard to drive the remainder away from the ore transport. He motioned for everyone to take a knee to better steady their weapons and pointed to three of the larger frames, two Munifexims and a Tyroim. Once he had everyone set on the target he wanted them to take down, he activated his radio, “Now!”

Even with the extreme distance and a few weapons being outside of effective range, eleven frames shooting down on three totally exposed and surprised frames was enough to topple all of those targeted. Two put out red smoke while the other started to roll over to stand, only to get a plethora of weapon fire at staggered intervals as weapon recycled and came available to fire again.

While the third frame spit out red smoke, and a couple of frames with him started directing fire at lighter frames close to the three fallen ones, Jared jumped on his radio and put it on open broadcast hoping the Earth Core frames would hear him as well, “Brickwater mining forces and survivors, this is Ensign Warley of the Ruffian Rebel merc team. We are going to continue to clear the west side of the outer buildings to give you a safe path to pull back toward us.”

A young sounding female voice responded with a mixture of relief and anger, “Sir, if we pull back they’ll take the transport, and Dad says it’s the only thing preventing them from tearing the rest of us to shreds. The minute we pull back from it, they’ll focus everything they have on us without having to worry about damaging the transport.”

“We’ll give you hard cover fire. If any of them shoot at you all, we’ll focus all our fire on whoever is dumb enough to expose themselves to us. Let them have the stupid ship if they want it.”

“We’ve got all our wounded stuck in our last heavy ore hauler. If we pull it out…”

“The second they try to shoot at it, we’ll make them pay. Keep it as close to the ship as possible until you are on the west side, then make a break down the ravine. Once down there, we can cover it from up here. It’d be suicide to come after it once it’s tucked in all those rocks with nothing but open ground between it and those you are fighting.”

“OK, then what?”

“Then we let them take the ship and leave if they really are after it. They either clear out or screw around long enough for the rest of my team to get here and we go down there and gut these EC bastards!”

“I’m not sure some of those in the ore hauler, including my dad and our commander, have much time, sir.”

“Best I can offer with what I have with me at the moment. Either do it my way or we pull back. There is no way I am putting my people in the meat grinder of a crossfire.”

“I get it sir, but…”

“Look around and see the full picture!” Stasik barked. “Right now, we acquired high ground and have good cover which makes us king of this hill, and this side of your camp. But we lose all benefit the second we reposition. But we’re not about to go down there with what we’ve got and what little you have left!”

Jared spoke up again, “In an hour or so I will have all the needed frames to pound these EC ass-wipes into puddles, but by then it may be too late for you all. Let them take the stupid transport, then we can move down and assist you directly!”

A weak sounding adult voice came over the radio, “Alright, Ensign, we’re pulling back now. Just protect my kids.”

“Anyone or anything with you who pulls down into the ravine will get our full protection, sir. As soon as the rest of my team gets here, we’ll move to directly assist even if they decide to be stupid and stick around after you let them have the ship.”

With the fresh reinforcements from the Ruffian Rebels available to take over perimeter security, Master Sergeant Ryder pointed Robin and those with him toward the middle of the water plant. While the man never ordered the kids to take a break, his mannerisms made it clear he was making more than a recommendation. Reluctantly, Robin angled past a couple of outer buildings and found four Garrison frames and five Javelin armored platforms guarding the plant’s main warehouse and the three frames Luna had captured and forced to walk into the facility. One of the framers pointed over to a ramp and nodded at him, while radioing, “You may be kids, but you all pulled our butts out of the fire and have our thanks.”

“Glad we could work out a contract, sir.” Robin stated seriously, but even as he spoke he eyed the three frames with a great deal of concern, “But, sir, do those Earth Core frames still have pilots in them?”

“Yeah, all three insist they can’t open their hatches. We made them power down all the way to standby, so they can’t move. If any of them try to fully repower, we’ll turn them into scrap metal.”

“They can’t get out? Why?”

“Not sure yet, we’re waiting for our officer to get over here and talk to them. Don’t worry though, they are your salvage. We’ll get the frames to you the second we get the pilots out.”

“OK, but it sure don’t sound right…”

“Right there with you. But don’t worry none. We’re not about to let our guard down. While we figure this out, you’re welcome to park your frame, and grab a shower in the small workout center. Medical is overwhelmed but available if you need it. We’re making it a priority to get your downed people out of their frames and we set aside one medic to do what we can for them, but we took a pounding. We’ll certainly give the rest of your wounded as good of care as we can, but if you’ve got any who can lend a hand, we’ll definitely take it. There is a repair area in the far back. We’ve got some armor liquefiers and armor rods. You’re more than welcome to use them, but our techs are pretty tied up with getting a couple of our frames back into action. But if you know how to do repairs, feel free to dig into our basic supplies back there.”

“Some of my people ran their guns dry. Any ammo?”

“We’ve got several crates of light and standard belted ammo. If any of your frames can use them, feel free to fill up. But the bastards got our other ammo platform, so we can’t spare anything else. And don’t worry about it being subtracted from your contract, we’d prefer you have as many weapons up as possible and at this point all available ammo is an expendable. If supply starts asking questions we’ll tell them we lost some of what you take when the other platform went up.

“Also feel free to grab some cold rations out of the military ration crates we have back there. We’re setting up a serving line in the far back, so warm food should be available within an hour.”

“Thanks,” Robin stated seriously. “I’m starving.”

“Well, one thing about being in New Brunswick, food is cheap. So while we ain’t going to get any awards for top of the line equipment, what we can say is we get fed well.”

Robin gave the man a thumb up with the left hand of his frame before making his way into the back. A glance around the back of the warehouse confirmed what he guessed. The Planetary Defense Forces had been hit hard and would not have lasted too much longer had he not taken the flash contract. There were two badly shot up Javelin platforms and four frames all being feverishly worked on by a handful of men and women, some only a few years older than himself. Next to one of the APCs dozens of crates of machinegun ammo had been haphazardly placed in stacks. A few of them had combat damage holes in their sides. Those had been separated out, and placed down in a pit normally meant to work on the undercarriage of platforms. He bet this had been done as a safety in the off chance there was something hot still inside. However, it also served a dual purpose, since it kept possibly damaged ammo out of circulation until it could really be checked over.

He guided his frame next to a pillar close to three other frames from his fledgling unit and looked them over. All had armor damage and one had a hole in the right hand and he could make out bits and pieces of a gyro firing mechanism. He knew, even as he powered his frame down, the weapon and hand unit would have to be replaced. While part of his mind cringed knowing René’s hand had been hurt far worse than he first realized, he also winced over the fact he was looking at five to six thousand credits of needed replacement parts to get the frame fully back up.

With a deep breath, he popped the back panel, rolled his neck, and used his sleeve to wipe some sweat off his face as he stepped out of the back of his frame. Looking over to the side loading dock area he couldn’t help but shudder. The four remaining PDF medics had turned the back of the receiving area into a not so sanitary treatment area with a large number of New Brunswick PDF infantry, some armor, and five frame pilots. In addition to the at least four dozen wounded from the planetary defense, seven newly recruited Ruffian Rebels were out of action, four still in frames.

As he pulled out his outer clothing from the lower ammo storage bin of his frame and got dressed, he continued to scan the area. Along the east wall, eleven battle damaged frames were laid out, many unusable until major repairs could be made and two of the PDF Garrison frames were certainly headed for scraping. Robin could also tell one of the Blades he had sent out was doomed to be parted out. The lower abdomen section had been breached and the gyro unit dangled down under it, held on by only a few wires and one mangled bracket. Worst of all, the frayed metal was tinged brownish red with dried blood. The damage alone told him he had lost his first person as a merc commander.

Robin moved over to one of his Blade frames as a couple of lightly injured PDF infantrymen drilled into the yellow paint marked, slightly recessed, points on the back hatch. As soon as the second spot was drilled down through the armor, a pair of metal rods were pushed in. This detached the frame’s hinged back panel allowing it to be lifted off so the pilot could be pulled out.

A medic quickly moved in as the men set the back hatch off to the side. She stuck her head into the frame. A couple of second later the sounds of the inflation pads hissing indicated the woman was deflating the sizing pads. The woman then pulled out, grabbed a small cutting torch and stuck her head back in. While Robin looked on in concern and confusion, the woman emerged from the frame cradling the head of the girl. Robin instantly moved forward to help.

The medic shook her head even as she pushed an air powered injector up to the girl’s neck. As she came fully into view, Robin could see a section of the hip hydraulics sticking out of a teenager’s lower abdomen he had commanded but never gotten the name of.

“Nothing we can do with what we have and it isn’t bleeding…”

Robin took one more look and shook in both anger and frustration, “I know… I know… Leave it in and hope a doctor can remove it. I’ve got advanced certs…” Still he grabbed a blanket and put it down on the floor so the two infantrymen had somewhere to place the girl that wasn’t filthy. With a deep breath he added, “I don’t even know her name…”

Dante looked over from where he was helping a pair of the new recruits to repair their frames while using the repair equipment in his armored backpack to melt in armor into his badly marred, but still fully functional frame. “Laura Luft, she froze when she took the first hit… Before me or Luna noticed, it was too late. The EC frames saw a easy target and took it. We’re lucky it isn’t worse.”

Robin looked down at the older teen again, shook his head and took a couple of deep breaths before moving over to the next downed framed. This one looked bad, and he already guessed whoever was inside didn’t make it. He didn’t even want to see it, so he moved down the line. This time it was the girl in his squad, Anna, and she was crying. He knelt and spoke to her as he waited for the drill to bore through the armor. “Take deep breaths, we’ll have you out in a minute or two.”

Master Sergeant Ryder moved in and all but shoved an Earth Core medic kit into Robin’s arms, “Here’s your med supplies, Captain. Thanks to your lieutenant and sergeant over there, the pilot didn’t make it.”

Dante looked up and started to say something, but the look in the man’s eyes stopped him. Instead he pointed out a spot where the liquefied armor was starting to dry over the knee of the Recruit frame next to him. “Get that remelted and clean it up, Patrick. If you don’t it could screw with leg movement.”

Ryder raised an eyebrow, “Well played Dante, cause the last thing you want is to get on my bad side today. And Patrick, listen to him. He’s right on the mark. Besides, there is no reason to hurry your armor repair. Get it right now and be done with it.”

Ryder refocused on Robin, “You’re just in the way and you now have med supplies. There are people in the back room you could be helping.”

“But…” Robin glanced over at Anna’s frame.

“Captain, this isn’t just about your people or the PDF’s. This is a time to work together for the greater good. At this point, it’ll be a couple minutes before they get her out and there is a medic waiting already. Over those same couple of minutes, someone back there could be saved.”

Robin nodded as he stood and hefted up the heavy medical box, “Yeah, but if this is a standard EC kit, there is going to be limited supplies.”

“We’ve got a second one out of the one I took, down, but some of the med injectors are damaged. The rest of it is intact and there is enough to patch up a dozen moderately wounded between the two.”

Robin shot one more look over at Anna’s frame, then paused to kneel next to Maximilian who was desperately trying to get a response from inside the shot-up Blade frame in front of him. “Max, they’ll get him out as soon as they are done with Anna.”

Maximilian looked up through tear-filled eyes, “He’s my only friend! You have to help him!”

Robin put his hand on Maximilian’s back even as he shouted, “Dante!”

Dante looked up from where he was helping Patrick clean up the sloppy armor patching, “Captain?”

“You got anything in your tools to get Hans’ back open?”

Dante started to say something, but stopped as soon as he saw the look in Maximilian’s eyes. He quickly grabbed a laser drill, “Philipp, your frame is basically back up. Get in and roll the frame over so we can get to the back. Pat, I’m going to have to be careful with this, since if I drill in too deep with the laser I could fuse the hinges instead of breach the armor so we can pop them. You’ll have to give me a hand and spot for me!”

Dante looked up at Robin, “I’ll get him out, but it will take a few minutes.”

“Do it, then come get me if there is not a medic available. Also, from now on I want you to add a standard drill with a armor bit. We can’t go out into combat and not be able to easily get our own people out of frames. While I buy a couple of med backpacks, I’ll snag a couple more set-ups like you have. You get to figure out who should carry them and from here on, you will be in charge of our field techs.”

The look of astonishment over being given such an important task caused Dante’s eyes to go wide, “Thanks! And I’ll get this panel open!”

Robin gave Dante a nod and grim scowl even as he tightly squeezed the shoulders of Maximilian, “Max, Sergeant Saulsky will get Hans out.”

Only getting a sob, Robin looked over to Master Sergeant Ryder, then towards the back where the majority of the wounded were.

The man quickly moved up, “I’ve got him Captain. Go help the rest of the medics. They got hammered on before we got here and need all the help they can get.”

Robin stood and made his way to what was normally the water plant’s main loading and receiving dock area. Still, he looked back with a great deal of concern. He noted Ryder had all but wrapped Maximilian in his arms and was talking to him. This allowed him to refocus, but he really wasn’t ready for what he found himself facing.

Many of the wounded were laying on blankets on a filthy floor sticky with blood in several places including René who had her hand fully wrapped and a liquid drip injector in her arm. Robin could tell either the pain or whatever they had injected her with had knocked her out, so he turned his attention elsewhere. He quickly scanned the rest of the room instead of focusing on the fact the blanket she was on had one edge absorbing some old lubricant of some kind.

It took only seconds for Robin to realize many of the infantry had bad burns from being inside armored infantry carrier platforms when they had been hit and subsequently caught on fire while the troops were still inside. Others had shrapnel, laser, and bullet injuries. Several had been abandoned and pushed off to the side. Most of these unfortunate ones had a second blanket covering them, letting even the least observant know they were dead. There were also a handful, right next to the covered bodies, who had been deemed too bad to save, while yet another line was in front of the first two lines. This closest line of horribly wounded had been treated as best as possible and awaited real doctors with hospital equipment in the slim hope they could be saved. All of those who were covering the west side of the loading dock had been injected with powerful pain medications to ease suffering, but a few still moaned as if knowing their lives were rapidly drawing to a close even though they could feel little to nothing.

For Robin, seeing this brought back memories of New Bravaria. Even as he tried to push the palms of his hands against his eyes to block out the sights before him, his brain took over and flashed visions of row upon row of dead after the shelling of the non-combatant joint merc area by Earth Core. This was followed by the lava bomb assault, the ripper attack, and the finding of his bodies his brother and father. It was almost as if all four scenes were happening at the same time and he was watching himself from without.

Fortunately one of the new kids in his squad moved up, “Captain, you OK?”

Robin kept his hands in front of his eyes and blinked a couple of time to clear some of the tears threatening to spill out of the corner of his eyes as he responded, “I’ll be fine, I just need a minute.”

Feeling a hand on his shoulder he tightened up, used his sleeve to wipe off any moisture around his eyes and spun with a great deal of resentment.

The flash of anger caused the boy talking to him to back off and hold up both hands, giving Robin enough time to clench his fists and get a hold of his inner turmoil. However, he had been through this often enough to know he needed to vent and sooner or later those under him would need to be able to come to him when the death and destruction become too much. The only way this could even happen was for him to be honest with those under him, while also being one of the first to let it be known it was OK to do so. With a deep breath, he focused on the boy who was about a year older than himself. “Sorry, Tucker. This is just way too much like when I found my dad dead after getting hit by Earth Core. Between this and the EC frames we’re fighting, I just needed some space.”

Tucker took a couple more steps back, “Sorry, sir.”

“No, don’t be. You saw someone who needed a shoulder and offered one. Thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah…” Robin tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, “One of the first things any merc needs to learn is, the unit is kin. No matter the rank, no matter the age, no matter the like or dislike of the individual, we will only succeed if we follow rank in battle and to a lesser degree during training and unit functions. However, as Major O’Connell has told me more times than I can count: officer, NCO, or lower enlisted, we all have to live together, eat together, and will spend weeks on ships together. The only way to make a merc unit work under those conditions is to treat each other as family during downtimes. This means we all have to look around and be ready to do what you just did. The fact you were willing to try on someone you don’t know tells me you could be a very good merc.”

Zane moved into the zero-G workout center the Star Sliders kept available for those they transported. There was no question the large cabin had been set up for mercs, since there were a host of resistance training units, suits, and machines, along with a rack of hard plastic simulated weapons to practice with. Having familiarized himself with everything, and trained the others on much of it, he floated over to the full body resistance machine and tapped on the controls to lock himself in.

The machine had to struggle to downsize enough to accept Zane, so as he waited he spoke to the others who came into the workout facility, “All of you do the stretches me and our corporal showed you, then get into machines. Lucya, take the weighted stair walker. Antone, arms and chest. Vadim, abdomen. Jasha, you’re in full body with me. I want you to do your best to mimic what I do! The rest of you, I want fifteen reps of twenty from each of you, start at five kilos and increase by two for each rep, then switch. You each hit all three before we leave and grab a good meal. Let’s have some fun; set your machines for one point zero five for starting and increase point zero one after each set. This should make your last set on each machine at one point two Earth gravity.”

Vadim put his feet into a contraption to where he could do crunches and sit-ups as if he was not in zero-G. He made the ordered adjustments while looking over to Lucya, “You’re right. Our specialist woke up on the wrong side of the hammock!”

Zane’s eyes narrowed, “You’re welcome to take the full body machine next to mine and try to keep up with me and Jasha, if you’d prefer.”

Vadim shook his head, “No, Comrade, I am fine with this. I was just…” He stopped talking as Zane started walking while pumping his arms and rotating his head. The resistance setting showed, as it looked like Zane was moving everything in slow motion, even as every muscular outline could be seen on his slender body. There was no question Zane had set it for way more than one point zero five Earth gravity.

Even though the others worked hard, each of them took a few glances over at Zane who quickly adjusted to the obviously high setting and was starting to do a host of standard exercises then moved on to shadow boxing, and even basic martial artist fighting moves. Next to him Jasha struggled mightily to keep up even though his gravity setting was much lower.

Not long into the grueling workout, Master Sergeant Shoda, Ensign Miwa and Lieutenant Horri entered the room. The three men acknowledged the kids, but said little as they went through several stretches while watching the five kids. However, they did take a few moments to move up and look over the setting the kids had punched in on their machines and nodded in approval before they each selected a machine and went to work. Within just a couple of minutes Lieutenant Horri, who had also selected a full body resistance machine was duplicating much of what Zane was doing and started upstaging the boy.

Zane looked over, shot the man a glare and progressed into some of the more advanced fighting techniques his father and Luna’s mother had shown him.

Across from Zane, Horri let out a chuckle, “Ah! You are the competitor I thought. Very well!” Horri switched from basic martial arts to much more advanced moves including simulated head butts, spinning kicks, elbow jabs, knee thrusts, power punches, and even leg sweeps.

Zane’s eyes narrowed as he too moved into some of the most advanced skills he had been taught. Within a few minutes the two were struggling against the added simulated gravity and the extensive display of trying to upstage one another.

It didn’t take long for Zane to realize Neil had guessed right. Lieutenant Horri was beyond deadly. The man had the grace of a Black Jungle Puma and the muscular power of a Jakarta Kodiak. The man was right on par with his own father in unarmed and he bet, by the grace displayed, as good with a blade as Luna’s mom. He also had no question the man could take him out with little to no effort, but Zane was not going to show this. Instead he changed over to knife and blade fighting moves, just to verify his suspicions.

Again Horri smiled, “Very good, Specialist! This is proving invigorating and even challenging!”

Zane had to fight off the desire to grin as he watched the man do a rundown of basic, then advanced blade fighting skills. However, until he could get Lieutenant Horri with a practice blade in his hand, it was hard to tell just how good the man was. “Sir, after the next fold, would you be willing to spar with me in resistance suits?”

“I would be delighted!” Horri stated without the slightest hint of pandering. “You should bring the others to watch and even get some classes from my fellow Death Warriors.”

“No downside, there sir!”

Ensign Miwa let out a short chuckle, “Specialist, something tells me your underlings do not agree.”

Zane looked around, noting all three of the former Quaker VII cadets were staring at him with wide eyes and shaking their heads. Next to him Jasha didn’t look quite so reluctant, but he still cringed, even as he nodded in resignation, knowing it was a done deal and not worth arguing over.

Zane sighed, “Guys, would you prefer getting roughed up by me, Finn and these men, or getting the snot kicked out of you in combat? Cause I’ve dealt with EC and that is who we are about to take on! And let me tell you something… The last thing you want is to get taken captive by some cruel, mean, EC morons in blue berets who check you over like a piece of meat being sent to market, spray-paint your faces, and separate you by what they mark you with!”

Ensign Miwa forced an inquisitive look onto his face, to hide fact he knew his face would betray how much he knew otherwise. He then spoke, to further add to the deception, “Blue Berets?”

Zane went through a foot, hand, leg, elbow combo before he responded, “Yeah, some kind of EC special forces or something… They sweeped our encampment on New Bravaria, finishing off the bad wounded and grabbing prisoners. For some reason, a group of them concentrated on us kids… While most of the adults, other than those wearing neuro frame-control clothing, were tossed into hover platforms with massive cages… they packed them in, so tight… they even took some of the older kids… and many were hurt and even bleeding…” Zane paused and shook with fury at the memory.

Lieutenant Horri shot Miwa a scowl, but quickly ordered the release from his full workout machine and floated over to Zane and squeezed the boy’s shoulder, “Whoa, young one, you are not there… There is no need to talk of this.”

“Yeah,” Zane snarled. “Yeah there is! We’re about to go against EC and there is no way in any hell I’m getting grabbed by those bastards again! Those fighting with me need to know what’s going to happen if they don’t fight with everything they’ve got and none of them, not even Jasha is ready!”

“Very well, young warrior, then by all means enlighten all of us.”

“From what Ne…” Zane quickly coughed to cover up for a near horrible mistake.

Luckily, Jasha quickly spoke up, “Cousin, calling our squad leader Nemesis is not helping us fight Earth Core better either.”

At this Master Sergeant Shoda shot Zane a frown along with narrowing eyes, “I best hear no more of such things, Specialist. He is your superior and one of your unit’s NCOs.”

“I know…” Zane grumbled, “I know, but…”

“No,” Horri put a finger into Zane’s Adam’s apple enough to hurt, “unit cohesion and respect for ranks will be followed while I am around. If you feel you are better than your corporal prove it in combat, but right now, like it or not, Finn has you across every spectrum including missions, kills, certs, and scores.”

Zane sighed, then ordered the machine to loosen so he could get out. Even as he floated upwards, he rubbed his neck and spoke with as much annoyance as he could put in his voice, “You’re right, but he just pisses me off sometimes.”

“I don’t get why, Comrade,” Antone stated to further cover for the mistake, “he knows frames and has shown me all sorts of stuff the academy never did.”

“Oh, he’s good, real good, but he’s so lucky…”

“Lucky?” Miwa asked with a raised eyebrow, “Far for me to interject, but if he lost almost everything on New Bravaria like you seemed to have, I do not see much in the way of luck.”

“Only because you don’t get it…” Zane snarled then managed to add a, “sir.”

“Forget ranks and talk to us, Zyden.” Lieutenant Horri ordered. “If there is something we do not understand, then enlighten us.” He held up his hand to stop any comments. “How about this? Why don’t we take a few minutes to shower? I will even shoot the Star Sliders some funds to open us water vacuum showers. Then we can grab some food and talk. Bring your friends here, and while you are at it, you may as well grab the lower conscripts, since you seem to have some interesting insights into fighting Earth Core.”

“From what our corporal says, you do as well since you have the EC bitch…”

“Zyden,” Horri hardened in posture and voice, “she is an officer, my XO. While I believe you have a reason to despise Earth Core… Something you share closely with Finn; Lieutenant Boudicea has done nothing to you. Furthermore, I will no more tolerate you badmouthing her as I do your corporal. Besides, she is not just Ronin, she is fully banished and her entire family has been reduced to Freemen, free, but non-citizens and only get to remain at Freeman status as long as she stays out of Earth Core territory and makes no attempt to contact them. Should she get caught trying, her family will be reduced to outcasts and will no longer legally be able to work other than in field and crop production. Even as Freemen, they have very limited options and it will stick with her children’s offspring. Beyond all this, she is an officer and your superior.”

Zane hung his head, “Understood, sir, sorry… But you just don’t get it…”

“I agree. I do not believe any of us in this room fully understand your loathing for Earth Core or the full reasons behind such, however, we would like to. It is for this very reason I would like to have a meal where we can get your observations surrounding your familiarity with Earth Core methodologies. And while you are correct about Lieutenant Boudicea providing us with a great deal of information, her experience is on the other side of the frontlines. You, as an adversary of Earth Core, may have insights she simply does not have a frame of reference for.

“Now go get cleaned up and settle. I will get the showers turned on in here for five minutes for each of you and expect you all, along with the lower conscripts, in the smaller meeting room. I will get us some good food, since I saw what limited provisions your commander was able to afford.”

Zane entered the meeting room freshly showered and in a clean uniform. As he helped the others to glide in, he eyed the much nicer meal packets sitting in the warmers with a watering mouth. They were AIM elite rations, the best of the best and many credits a packet. Each meal contained multiple courses and were flavored with real ingredients, not processed synthetic protein additives to somewhat mimic flavors. The last time he had one was when he was with Blood’s Honor. In fact, the only time he had had them was with them.

To Master Sergeant Shoda’s credit, he noticed the look in the boy’s eyes, “Ah, there is the gleam I like to see within the eyes of a youngster! I gather you have had these before?”

“Yeah…” Zane stated in awe, “But not for close to two years… They are way too expensive…”

“Well, if you have a favorite, feel free,” Lieutenant Horri stated with a smile, “it matters little to me, since there is not one I have disliked.”

“Oh, from what little I’ve had, they are all great, but…” Zane thumbed through the dozen large packets and pulled out a meat and cheese omelet as the main course. He held it up, “This lists the Cinnamon Black Jungle Kiwi desert! It’s the best thing ever!”

All three adults openly laughed as they let the other kids thumb through and select ones they wanted. It was clear none of them had had them before, since all asked Zane questions about them. However, Zane managed to snag two with items he was familiar with, handing one to Jasha, and the other he passed over to Coryn, “Both of these have New London grapes. They are a vacuum sealed fresh version of the dehydrated sweet grapes in the fruit bricks!”

While Lieutenant Miwa said nothing, he took notice of the sparkle in Coryn’s eyes as she was picked above some of the others by Zane. There was no question if they could turn the girl into something akin of a double agent, they could gain significant control over the young specialist. It was something he would have to focus a considerable amount of effort into.

Three cabins down in the main conference room Neil was also extremely happy to see AIM elite meal packs. He looked over skeptically, but got a nod from Captain Lomo. Without further hesitation, he scanned the selection and grabbed a spicy breakfast burrito while licking his lips. Unlike many of the others in the Grenadiers, Neil had extensive knowledge of the elite rations since he had spent so much time with Blood’s Honor, instead of in medical where the food was good, but nothing like this. As he found out, almost all Blood’s Honor units got one standard, one superior, and one elite ration pack a day.

However, as a survivor of the Fluvius Camillus, and one who had something to do with helping to bring it down, it was not at all uncommon for someone to slip him an extra elite in place of a standard. This was usually accompanied by a pat on the back and the words ‘for our flagship killer’. The fact he tried to say he had little to do with it didn’t seem to matter. If anything, it only endeared him more to the men and women of Blood’s Honor.

It wasn’t until he was being transferred back to the Grey Stallion to be reunited with the Grenadier survivors, did he find out why. General Scott gave him a long hug and held up a recovered snippet retrieved from the body of one of the EC guards rushing to try to reinforce the engineering section. It clearly showed Neil burying a captured blade into the groin of an Earth Core centurion princeps, a major in AIM rank equivalent, with an engineering division insignia on his right collar. Off to the side Robin, Zane, Luna, Jared, and even Dante could be seen going after others. However, as General Scott whispered while he kissed Neil on the top of his head, “You took out the best chance they had of restarting the ship. You, every bit as much as your buddy Robin, were responsible for turning the battle of New Bravaria firmly against Earth Core.”

As best as Neil knew, no one else knew of this, not even Captain Tanner or Major O’Connell. However, there was no question, while the exact deed was unknown by the vast majority of Blood’s Honor forces, something had been leaked as to Neil being a huge reason the Fluvius Camillus didn’t survive. It was not something he ever talked about, since part of him realized he had helped send thousands to their doom. Bragging about it didn’t seem right, especially the way he saw Blood’s Honor try so hard not to kill.

Even as he broke open the meal and all but inhaled it, he noted Lieutenant Polzin and Ensign LaRose didn’t look even slightly happy. Neil also realized all the officers, warrant officers and NCOs of the Q Sabers were in the room, while only Captain Lomo and Lieutenant Boudicea of the Death Warriors were there. It didn’t take long for Neil to realize most of the others saw the same thing he did. All eyes seemed to bounce between Lomo and Polzin. It didn’t prevent anyone in the room from grabbing a meal pack, however.

Lomo finally pointed over at Lieutenant Boudicea, “The commencement of the clause in question resides definitely on your shoulders, Lieutenant. I judge an enlightenment of the convention and the rationale of the activation of the retainer stipulation, therefore, defers to your justification.”

Lieutenant Boudicea took a long breath, “Thank you, Captain.” The way she said it and the look in her eyes, conversely, told most in the conference room she was not at all happy to be put in charge of the meeting. Nonetheless, she adjusted her sling and rubbed her hip with a slight wince before she moved to the podium, which also controlled the holographic display in the center of the table. “Q Sabers, after extensive discussions with other Death Warriors, I questioned your abilities to carry out the raid on the Earth Core boneyard.

“Now before you all get angry at these words, understand, it is not meant as a slight. Instead, it was a legitimate question, for I cannot afford to be caught within Earth Core territory, and none of us have seen you fight. Your singular mission was interrupted by a vastly superior force, but you still managed to escape. All in all an impressive feat. However, this tells us little about your combat prowess, only your ability to quickly adapt to an unfavorable situation.

“Furthermore, after extensive discussions, I believe a precursor mission would greatly benefit your unit cohesion. The reasons for this are several fold, but I will highlight my primary concerns. One, you have an untested commander. Your former commander was killed during the raid, and you had to seek promotion of Lieutenant Polzin so you had a commanding officer. Two, several younger personnel have not fought with you before and we have very little to no combat related documentation on them. Three, your equipment needed extensive work, and while you do have some decent techs, our people assisted in getting you up to our combat standards.

“None of these items in and of themselves would overly concern me, but combined it shows a disturbing pattern I cannot ignore. Because of this, and the fact you all signed a contract with a retainer clause for the duration with us, I am instituting an activation of the retainer.”

While several around the table stopped eating and stared with wide eyes, Senior Warrant Officer Gregoran, formerly of Quaker VII AoME, spoke up, “So you can make us do whatever you want or something?”

Neil let out a long sigh, “Sir, a retainer clause normally comes with some give and take. If there is an activation required, there is set terms… Normally they are pretty nasty, so there is little chance of the holder of the contract to follow through… My unit only had it happen once even though it was in a few. The real question is, Lieutenant Polzin, what do the Q Sabers get in exchange for its activation?”

“Your corporal has extensive familiarity of AIM contracts, negotiations, and ramifications thereof. Yet again, I find myself impressed and enamored by his persona.” Captain Lomo stated then focused on Neil giving him a nod. “However, given time, Corporal, the vast preponderance of your observations and queries will be elucidated. Upon completion of this consultation, any inquiries will be responded to forthrightly.”

“I sure hopes that means you will answer any questions we may have, sir.” Neil stated with a roll of his eyes. “Since I have no clue what elucidated means… The rest I can pretty much figure out… kind of.”

Senior Warrant Officer Gregoran smiled, “Finn, it means to make something clear or to clarify, so yeah, it means they will answer questions.”

“Good, but he could have just said so…”

“I did, Corporal,” Lomo stated with a smirk. “My accommodations are accessible for extensive comprehension instruction for your enhancement should you have aspirations to indulge.”

Neil forced himself not to hold up both hands and shake his head. Instead he decided to counter with some humor to fight his fear of the man, “I might just take you up on your offer as long as you can teach me to spell half the words you use!”

At this Lomo openly laughed, “Then an inclusive tutorial of spelling and comprehension shall be given when an occasion permits! Now Lieutenant Boudicea, continue.”

Lieutenant Boudicea couldn’t help but smile in Neil’s direction even though she had no doubt it would not be reciprocated. She then typed something on the podium and a planet appeared. “As you all study this world, let me go into the contract provisions. By enacting the retainer, we are stipulating to two things. One, all combat salvage taken during the additional mission or missions is the property of the Q Sabers, even if the salvage is as a result of actions taken by a Death Warrior. Second, Q Sabers unit coffers will have 250,000 AIM credits transferred to it, plus repairs and ammo replacement of all surviving frames are the responsibility of the Death Warriors. As part of the direct compensation agreement, every surviving Q Saber will have 2500 AIM credits added to his or her AIM account. In addition, we will grant the top three combatants of the Q Sabers a bonus of not less than 15,000 credits each, divided by the ranking of the individual plus grant half, one third or one quarter salvage taken directly by the same top three.”

Neil blinked, then frowned, not really understanding. Across the table, Ensign LaRose spoke softly as she noted the confusion in the boy’s eyes, “Finn, she’s saying fifteen grand for first, seventy-five hundred for second and five grand for third plus a percentage of direct salvage.”

“Oh, wow…” Sergeant Zak stated as the full implication dawned on him.

“Yeah, wow…” Neil whispered back in agreement.

Lomo said nothing and remained stone-faced while Boudicea let the whispers die down. After nearly two minutes she spoke again, “This leads directly into the mission I have managed to secure. The SFC we are about to dock with has an AIM rep on board, and we signed a contract to hit a target on Damien’s Glades, shown in the middle of the table. As with your main contract, transport is our responsibility and we have already worked out payment arrangements with the Star Sliders.

“The nice thing about this target is it sits within double bounce range of both here and our original destination, Brady’s Folly. In addition, the SFC commander says he can fold in to where our drop time is only two days, with a return time of just under three since he will not have to recharge in deep space. This leaves us with five days on world to complete the mission and still arrive in Brady’s Folly in time for us to catch our last fold to Tarvos XIV.”

Lieutenant Boudicea paused to take a drink and rub her injured shoulder before continuing, “As you can see Damien’s Glades is an extremely wet world with seventy-eight percent of the world below sea level. However, the vast majority of the world has only a few meters of water depth and of the exposed land, only eighteen percent is over sixty meters above sea level. The oddity about this is since so much of the planet’s surface is just below sea level, and it has a large moon, the percentage of exposed land hovers right about forty-two percent.”

“Huh?” Borya blurted out. When he noticed all eyes on him, he continued, “How can over forty percent be exposed land if seventy-eight percent is below sea level.”

“Tidal changes, Sergeant,” Neil responded. “The large moon pulls water to one side or the other and what was shallow water on the high tide side gets deeper as it is pulled by gravity, and exposes the ground on low tide side.”

“Extraordinary!” Captain Lomo stated with high praise.

Neil shrugged, “I’ve seen it, sir… not on Damien’s Glades, but the same thing happens on smaller islands on Red Surge II. Spent a month there and almost drowned when I was caught out on the low lands with a couple of friends during a tidal surge. The difference on Red Surge is there are two moons that normally keep the water more stable, but once every few months, the larger moon, that has a pretty impressive satellite of its own, lines up with the moon’s moon, directly behind the moon and in line with the sun. This creates a heavy pull and a massive high tide. Also, when this happens, there is a partial eclipse, so the water looks wicked red. It’s where it gets its name of Red Surge.”

“Still, to understand the dynamics of such an oddity, is very impressive, Corporal.” Lieutenant Boudicea stated.

“Thanks, but I still want to go a round or two when you heal up, ma’am.”

She snorted, “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t and we still very much have said date. Now moving on…

“Humidity average during the day is ninety-seven percent and is almost always a hundred percent at night. This will mean extra maintenance and care must be taken with all equipment. Also rain is a constant in most locations, with showers taking up an average of a quarter of each day. Weather gets better close to the poles, but our target is in the mid-latitude.

“As part of taking the contract, we have procured forty frame dehumidifiers, so should one go bad or take a hit we have a few extras. They take a hard point and consume power equivalent to a light laser. We will not require you to equip your frames with them, but I highly advise you do so. I assure you, all five Death Warrior frames will replace a light laser with a dehumidifier. We have also secured eight units with fusion power supplies suitable for platforms. If you need our help, we will be happy to make mounts and install them on the roofs of your unit’s armored transports.

“As a side note, while there is water galore, it is not safe to drink without treatment since there is an abundance of microbes in the water and it is highly alkaline, so your dehumidifiers will keep your onboard water supplies full with safe consumable water. Any excess will simply drain down a shunt tube.

“As I am sure you can all guess by the fauna being shown, this is a very warm world, with small polar region ice caps. The most comfortable places will be inside frames or vehicles with dehumidifiers constantly running.”

“And people live there?” Lieutenant Polzin asked with skepticism in his voice.

“Indeed they do,” Lieutenant Boudicea responded. “Population is not fully known, but as a member-world of the Mining Federation it is listed at around 400,000 with over half located on the highest elevation islands just south of the northern ice caps or the somewhat seismically active region to the far south, where the only true high elevation on the world exists, being just over 340 meters above sea level. History shows it was originally colonized by a large group fleeing Samson Prime during the Second Earth Core Reunification War. Weapons fire hit the escaping fold ship, it miss-folded, and was stranded in the system.

“Since then, Damien’s Glades has proven to have extensive mineral resources and countless native life forms are edible. However, the waters have scores of parasites and predators capable of taking down an adult, some with tentacles, others with a flexible body capable of wrapping around, encircling, and crushing its prey. There are leech forms as well as gilled swimmers with a taste for blood. Basically, I am saying stay out of the water and do not let down your guard. Also of an important note, there are no firearms controls for anything under a fully automatic. My seven-year-old, should she be with us, could walk into a store and procure a rifle and a box of munitions for it with no questions asked as long as she had the coin to do so.

“This leads me to the next important point. At the time the colonists fled the Samson system, they did so with a large quantity of silver. Subsequently, large deposits of silver and gold were located, so they formed a planetary monetary system based on silver and gold coins and even bars for larger transactions since they had no idea when, or if, they would be found. So while Mining Federation is an accepted currency in and around the larger settlements, and there is an AIM station on world so AIM credits are also common, almost all transactions outside the larger population centers continues to be precious metals based.”

“Great, a really wet Red Star world.” Neil muttered, not really meaning to be heard.

“Excuse me, Corporal? You have something to contribute, as usual?”

“No, ma’am, just grumbling to myself, sorry.”

“Oh, come now, Corporal,” the woman stated with a lightly mocking voice. “Are you really saying you can keep your mouth shut during part of a briefing?”

Neil’s eyes narrowed, “Look ma’am, other than telling us about the dehumidifiers, you are saying a whole lot of nothing, since I can get almost everything you’ve said off of even the worst planetary arrival vid and will link with their starport for a more detailed tutorial when we get within range.”

Lomo spoke up to cut off further comments, “Corporal, you have extensive voyage familiarity and have observed abundant system preamble curriculum. Several here have an inadequate intergalactic expedition comprehension; thus, while you are educated to disseminate yourself with local environments, regulations and traditions, there are others devoid of the background you bring forth. Furthermore, you have liability for conscripts who have never tread beyond their system. Are you planning on pressing a mere planetary overture for newcomers into their palms with anticipation they distinguish what is paramount to their continued existence?”

Neil frowned deeply but quickly shook his head once his brain had fully wrapped around what Lomo had asked, “No sir, I will need to carefully go over the intro vid with everyone under me.”

“Which is exactly what Lieutenant Boudicea is doing for us now, Finn.” Lieutenant Polzin stated with annoyance. “Maybe you have done so many of these it is second nature, but I am hearing things I probably would not have picked up on in a welcome briefing.”

“You’re all right. It’s just… I am used to being handed a vid chip and expected to know what to look for. I never really thought about it…”

“Being in command goes beyond warfare. Leadership requires accepting accountability for those less acclimated to all aspects of life and tutoring them for their betterment, Corporal.” Lomo spoke forcefully, yet with a voice showing he was not disappointed, but was instead mentoring a junior leader.

“You’re right sir. I never really thought about it until now. My bad.”

“Admitting an unknown defect and holding one’s self accountable to its correction is a trait of a true leader. One I detect with you. Such liabilities only become toxic when no endeavor is forthcoming to reduce or even eliminate such imperfections. Now Lieutenant, let us delve into the sustenance of the operation.”

“Yes sir,” Lieutenant Boudicea stated with deference, “but I need to add one more side note. Oxygen is heavier than most of us have experienced. Normally this would not be a problem. However, in a combat situation with several novice warriors, there is a chance of panic. Battle terror can easily lead to hyperventilation, which could easily be exacerbated in an oxygen rich environment, so command staff need to keep an eye out for this and be ready with oxygen reduction masks. I am told they are readily available at the three starports, so I will pick up one for each person in this room. When I hand them to you I expect you to familiarize yourself with them.

“At this time Damien’s Glades is in a power struggle with three houses vying for control. Each competing house controls a starport. As I already noted most transactions in the back country are handled with silver and gold coins, and all three factions pay their people with precious metal. Over the past several months one of the houses has increased wages to a dangerous level, and is literally buying the loyalty of those from the other two royal houses. Those other two houses are hiring us pull a raid on a wage convoy and to try to find out where this new source of silver and gold is.”

“Wage convoy?” Sergeant Zak wondered aloud.

“Yes, as you can see from the hologram of the world, vegetation is extremely dense. Almost all transport between settlements is done by light hover or what they call air boats.” She changed view showing an early twenty-first century swamp boat.

Neil couldn’t help it, he smiled, “Oh, those look like fun!”

Lieutenant Boudicea couldn’t help but grin, “Complete the mission and I will make sure you get a chance for you and those under you to take one out for a few hours, Corporal.”

“Then they will go down!”

This got some snickers while several of the adults agreed it did look like it would be enjoyable to try one out.

Once again, Lieutenant Boudicea let the talk die down on its own before she changed the view back to the planet and zoomed in on a settlement. Actually it was two, since there were structures on two low hills separated by some lowlands.

“So, now to the real mission side of this gathering. Because of the conditions, and the inability to easily find a location for a landing field, let alone keep one clear of plants for any length of time, heavy transports for such as mainstay supplies, trade, and mineral shipments, go overland. Hovers and the air boats are not suitable for this since they have to be small and maneuverable, so large heavily armed tracked haulers traverse the world between settlements to ship goods.”

Again the display switched to show an impressive four tracked platform. The front two tracks were narrower than the back two, but were still extremely wide. The box enclosure sat up high, well over five meters above the ground, and a small pilot box stuck way forward but had a ‘V’ shaped plow under it, but it didn’t go all the way to the ground. Instead it was there to part vegetation at about six meters up and all the way down to about a meter above the ground so pilot could see where he was going and what he was about to drive over. The sides of the massive platform each had a cupola turret and the top had two. The back had large guns and the front had what looked to be an array of weapons.

Lieutenant Polzin whistled, “What a beast!”

“Yeah, but how do they not sink in?” Ensign Antonovich asked.

“Large footprints,” Senior Warrant Officer Gregoran stated. “Think of snow shoes for us or mug sloggers for underwater frame combat. Those tracks are so wide they distribute the weight over a huge section, making sinking in unlikely and those power couplings tell me the tracks each have a separate fusion power plant, so power to grind out of trouble spots is always available. Those things must cost a fortune though.”

“Probably,” Boudicea responded, “but they are also slow and have to seek higher ground during tidal shifts. They also follow the same paths the vast majority of the time, so the ground they are going over has been heavily compacted. But your observations are correct. Each track is independently powered and it has some serious firepower.”

She switched back to the settlement, “This brings me back to here. Operatives from the other two houses say this is one of the early stops on the payment convoy’s trek. There will be two or even three large track transports. One carries the silver and it is distributed to the workers by guards with frame and light hover support. The other tracks then drop off and pick up goods and move on. Intel suggests we will have to deal with a half score of hover and an equal number of airboats each with one frame, they cannot carry more than one frame each, and they have to be fairly light, my understanding is it can support no more than an Intruder or an Aggressor.

“This is Twin Polder, a township of approximate fifteen hundred. The convoy must stop here, since the next station of Tentacle Basin is four hundred and ninety-six kilometers to the northeast. The speed of the transports prevents them from getting from Twin Polder to Tentacle Basin unless it leaves as the tide is going out, it then follows the receding waters and gets to Tentacle Basin just as the waters starts reversing.

“We have a window, since there is a set of higher patches a few kilometers to the southwest of Twin Polder recently hit with highly toxic defoliants in hopes of striking the nearby copper deposit on high ground. It was unsuccessful and the site abandoned, but gives us a location to base out of to wait for the payment convoy. The toxicity of the chemicals used has also rendered the area largely devoid of creatures and keeps the settlers out of the area, but while this is a bonus, care must be taken to not contaminate yourselves or your equipment. We will then have a window to strike, starting at the time the convoy arrives to the point where the water recedes enough for it to head out. Our best estimation this will be approximately thirteen Earth hours, ten and a half planetary hours. Our mission is to take out the tracked platforms and procure intel on where the excess silver is coming from if possible. To do this, we will undoubtedly have to contend with the escorts and very possibly some from the community. All combat salvage, including any silver within the payment track is ours if we can take it. The silver is the only thing we will take half of. The rest is to be considered combat salvage and is thus is the property of the Q Sabers. Recruitment and conscriptions are contract authorized, and at the discretion of each unit and their sole responsibility. Should the Q Sabers wish to procure any, the Death Warriors will not pay wages unless it is to replace a lost unit member with someone of near equal skill levels. This will be at the sole judgment of Captain Lomo, not Lieutenant Polzin.

“Now before someone like our over inquisitive corporal speaks up and asks how we are supposed to get there with our equipment and get back out, the Star Sliders assure us they can land in the defoliated area and take off. They will use visual and physical countermeasures to hide our atmospheric entry, and will set a bay for decontamination as we return from the mission. Furthermore, we will be confined to the bay until a full decompression in space, then a reentry with a recompression can be accomplished to rid the ship of any undesirable life forms. This means from the time we reenter the ship to the time of recompression, we will need to be in and stay in no less than medium grade E-suits. The Star Sliders assure us they have plenty of suits in all sizes as this is a common practice for them.”

Ensign LaRose spoke up, “You must be getting paid a fortune for this…”

“An impressive sum, yes,” Lieutenant Boudicea confirmed, “but one we stand to make little on. Much of the payment is going to the Star Sliders and you all, plus a considerable amount held in reserve for repair and ammunition replacement. This is more about coming close to breaking even and getting you all combat experience before we assault the boneyard on Tarvos.”

Neil waited for a few seconds, looking around nervously, but when nothing else was said, he reluctantly raised a hand, “Ma’am?”

“Why am I not surprised by who has the first question?”

A smirk spread over Neil’s face, “Because I am making it my mission to get under your skin when at all possible, ma’am.”

Even as Lieutenant Boudicea threw her head back, rolled her eyes, and let out a long breath, Captain Lomo and several of the Q Sabers openly laughed.

With a shaking of her head she focused back on Neil, “OK, Corporal, you are thus far succeeding magnificently. So, by all means ask away.”

“Ma’am, with such a wide-open firearm policy throughout Damien’s Glades, we could end up facing a whole lot of civilians wanting to protect their pay, supplies, and community.”

“Corporal,” Lomo stated with a cautious sounding voice, “your extensive contact with Blood’s Honor has left a resolute impression. You are also unfortunately correct in your observation. And while it is not one I allocate with your exuberance, it is a mutual motivation. Therefore, I necessitate an operational stunner on frames and infantry. I stipulate all concerned endeavor to mitigate death and subsequent devastation to civilian structures where reasonable. Endangering self beyond customary warfare protocols remains beyond the extent of this or any legitimate AIM contract, however. Extraordinary risk is at the sole prudence of the individual warrior under obligation to his fellow combatants foremost.”

Neil hardened as the meaning sank in, “Sir, while I will try to save lives, I’d never put a fellow merc in extra danger. Unit is family…” he pointed at Lieutenant Boudicea, “and as much as it pains me, includes her.”

Sergeant Nire watched with a great deal of approval as Jared used the large rocky formations close to the top of the hill to give his frames excellent cover, while also telling them to brace and fire since they were shooting down at frames well beyond ideal weapon ranges. While well over half the shots missed, the damage continued to mount on the Earth Core frames.

It took two more frames falling before whoever was in command of the forces attacking the mine finally relented. The Earth Core frames pulled back from the far west side of the mine complex, but Jared wasn’t about to make it easy on them. He continued to direct fire at any exposed frame. It was during this retreat Nire noted one of the kids with Jared was astonishingly accurate. The youngster in question didn’t fire as fast as his weapons cycled, but when he did shoot, he tended to hit.

The next frame to fall was taken down by a remarkable barrage of four micro missiles and a standard laser from the kid in question. The Adscripticim took everything to the head and right shoulder, bounced off the side of a small concrete buildings and staggered a couple of steps before it fell. Seeing a couple of the kids with Jared fire at it, but miss Nire finally jumped on his radio, “Kids, it’s down and not moving. Leave it alone.”

“But there is no smoke…” Rashid stated as he fired his standard laser at it and missed.

“Boy,” Nire snarled, “it isn’t a request! Leave it!”

Jared quickly stepped in front of Rashid even as the kid stuck out his arm for another shot. “Stand down now, Senior Private or I knock you down to private and hand you a scrub brush and a tube of soap to clean the shower room out by yourself every day for the next two weeks.”

Rashid started to complain, but noticed as he glanced around most of the others in the unit were glaring at him and Jared had moved into punch range with his frame’s hand ready to throw one. He gulped as he realized odds were good the kid would punch him even if it meant damage to a friendly frame, “Sorry, just got caught up in fight…”

Stasik didn’t bother to look back. Instead he focused his attention on another Adscripticim moving to check on the unmoving frame. With a smirk he sighted in even as he spoke, “Two of my missiles hit the head, Comrade. The pilot is probably seeing sparkles.” A moment later he fired at the frame trying to check on its buddy. Once again, all four missiles hit as did the laser. The frame staggered from the multiple impacts, but managed to stay standing. However, it also started walking backwards while spraying the rocks with machinegun fire.

Stasik ignored the incoming fire while talking into his radio, “I got this one, too, Comrades.” He waited until he got a green light on his missiles and fired again. Three of the four hit the chest while the fourth hit dead center in the face mask.

The frame stumbled back, the pilot desperately trying to keep the machine standing.

Stasik shrugged and fired his laser and a burst of his auto-disk rifle even though the disk rifle was listed as out of range on his HUD. The laser lanced into the right shoulder while two of the three disks bounced off the chest, but still caused some scarring on the armor.

This proved to be too much. The pilot lost control and fell hard on the frame’s left side. Like its partner, there was no smoke, but it stayed down and didn’t move.

This seemed to be the final straw for the remainder of the EC frames. They abandoned the far west side of the camp and pulled back behind some damaged buildings.

Jared gave Stasik a fist bump even as he spoke into his radio, “Brickwater mine, you have an opening. Take it. We will provide full cover.” Jared then spoke in a voice saying he was talking to anyone and everyone listening to his open band message, “The first person stupid enough to fire at retreating Brickwater forces will not see the New Brunswick star set over this mine. The next one, and any after, will never see nothing ever again.”

Jared then changed back to his unit’s encrypted frequency, “Stasik, if anyone shoots at them, take them down and don’t stop until you see red smoke. The rest of us will pulverize any who decide to follow whoever Stasik eliminates.”

Either the open broadcast message was received or those assaulting the mine figured it out on their own, but whatever the reason, the survivors from the mine pulled back without a shot being fired at them, even though they were exposed to the hostile forces for over a minute as the damaged ore hauler and a pair of limping frames made it down into the ravine.

As soon as the ore hauler disappeared from sight, Nire assisted Nahum Maslow up to the rocks and pointed to the fallen frames littering the battlefield. “Kids, if they try to go after any of those frames shoot at whoever tries. Those frames, both Brickwater mining and Earth Core, are our salvage. Besides, if we show we aren’t going to let them take any with them, they will be less likely to suspect we are going to blow their butts out of the sky shortly after they take the ship.”

Jared looked over, “Sir, what about the last two Stasik shot up? Neither let out any smoke…”

“The weird-looking larger one just to the right of the drilling rig didn’t either,” Yemelyan added. “It disappeared after me and Nakitia knocked it back into the tin shed thing down there. It’s still in there, but no smoke.”

“Keep an eye on all three, then.” Nire demanded as he pulled up telescopic and peered down at the mostly smashed in shed-like out building. He couldn’t see a frame in it, but took the boy at his word. “If they try to get back up, shoot close and let them know we consider them ours. If they get out of the frames and run, let them go. For this to work the way I’d like to see it go down, they have to believe we are offering them a truce. They get the ship, we get the mine, the workers and all military equipment. But none of you say a word should they ask. Once we tell them we’ll let them take the ship, it’s over. We have to keep our word once we give it or this unit will never get a decent rating from AIM.”

Nire then glanced over at Stasik, “And son, Major O’Connell is not the only one impressed with you! I am getting you a frame with more hard points and power. We need you to have more firepower.”

“But I like this frame, Comrade, sir!”

“Oh, I’m betting we can find something you’ll like just as much with a bit more weapon versatility. Trust me son, you are way too good a shot to be in a Preceptor!”

Twice Earth Core frames tried to get to those who had fallen, but were quickly driven back by strong fire. One of the attempts caused enough damage to one of the frames for it to need assistance to get out of the line of fire. This caused the remaining Earth Core frames to stay behind hard cover, like buildings or rocky outcroppings, while frames from both the attack on the settlement and the water plant trickled in. As this happened, Jared set up fields of fire and had those with him stick to energy weapons, but still took the opportunity when a shot presented itself. Combined, the kids managed to take two more down and damaged seven others. While the last limping frame trudged up the loading ramp under heavy fire, the powerful engines of the ore ship roared to life, sending plumes of dust up from underneath. Seconds later the ship lifted off and the vertical thrusters slowly turned, giving the massive ship forward momentum. It slowly spun and angled hard to the east to get away from the fire coming down from the hilltop.

With the kids all scanning the mine complex below or watching the ship depart, Nire dropped to a knee and fired a single shot at the departing ship. While several of the kids turned to look at him while the rest looked for any sign of damage, only Stasik realized what the man had done. He smiled and nodded. “Nice beacon shot, sir!”

Nire grinned as soon as the ship cleared the eastern hill. Nire stood patted Stasik’s frame on the shoulder and spoke into his radio, “Ruffian Rebel Aero, this is Sergeant Nire. Set transponders to Delta Six Niner Seven Tango Delta. Don’t let the ore ship out of these hills or we may have to fight for salvage rights.”

Vlad spun his IPSC hard even as he responded, “On it Rebel Ground. Kay, you’re with me. Malik, you take over command of Combat Air Patrol over the water station.”

Caleb quickly banked to stay on Vlad’s wing doing a barrel roll just for fun, “We’re shooting down a ore ship?”

“You hear the same as I, Comrade. Sounds like we want salvage, so we need to go after control surfaces and try to damage, but not destroy all engines. You take port, I’ll take starboard. Hit controls with heavy weapons and spray engines with machinegun fire. Stay away from the fore engine, I’ll keep clear of the center, this way it will have enough control to no flip and should be able to land hard, not crash.”

Even as Caleb’s Timeberwolf’s computer homed in on the beacon Nire had launched into the ship’s hull, he knew Vlad had given him the much easier task. While Vlad would have to take out the starboard aft engine, bypass the middle, then take out the forward one, Caleb could simply focus in the back two on the port side.

It took less than two minutes to catch the much slower and larger ship. Caleb waited until Vlad started his dive before he peeled off from his wingman position and dove out of the clouds. Before those manning the massive ship even realized there was a problem, Caleb sighted in on the back aft port side control thruster pod, got missile lock and fired. A glance to his right told him Vlad had done the exact same thing.

Caleb quickly switched over to his wing mounted lasers and put four holes into the upper aft main space drive engine and followed it up with a pair of heavy gyro rounds. Still not satisfied, he triggered a long burst of fire from his twin heavy machineguns. He didn’t let up as he rapidly closed and started taking fire from a single upper back facing pulse laser. Just as his computer chirped out moderate armor damage to his right wing, the turret was ripped off the ship by a missile from Vlad’s IPSC. “Comrade, just like in the sims, turrets must be first target, but good work on the back drive.”

Caleb said nothing, since he was annoyed with himself. He hadn’t even looked for weapons and it would cost him several hours of armor repair. With a snarl, he did a quarter turn and strafed the vast majority of the port side, only letting up when he got close to the forward most engine. Without looking at the damage he had just unleashed, he punched his afterburners and spun back up into the clouds.

Tracer fire streaked by letting him know the ship had some forward mounted machineguns, so he pulled the nose of his Timberwolf up, cut back on the afterburner, and all but dropped out of the sky since the lack of power caused a purposefully executed stall. The result was whoever had been shooting at him lost arc of fire since the massive ship passed by under his suddenly much slower craft. Caleb grinned as he firewalled his engines again, got missile lock on the front weapon systems and put a pair of missiles into them.

Even as the bank of weapons were ripped off the top of the now burning ore ship, Caleb returned his focus on the engines. A second strafing run up the port side of the ship finally did the job. The port aft engine let out a large puff of black smoke while the middle engine exploded, sending shrapnel into the side of the ship, while forcing Caleb to snap his armored cover over his cockpit. Even though he banked hard to get clear, he had to fight the controls and a sharp pain down his spine as his craft was violently jarred as part of the engine bounced off his fuselage. With alarm claxons going off, Caleb grabbed the stick and focused on the HUD. Even with auto assist, the craft careened downward.

Even though his radio exploded as both Vlad and Captain Tanner yelled out for him to pull up, Caleb had to shake his head to clear some stars out of his vision. He was suddenly very glad Vlad had him go through the Quaker VII missile hit simulators so often, cause this was pretty much the same scenario. Hours inside a simulator, normally crashing after getting a missile strike, prepared him well. He punched the override on the autocorrect, taking it off-line, since it was totally overwhelmed and focused on the HUD. It let him know rate of decent, spin, and told him all control systems were on line. More importantly, it told him when he was facing up and down.

He blinked a few times and waited until the HUD showed the cockpit was facing the sky. The moment this happened, Caleb yanked hard on the stick and pushed power into the stabilizing thrusters on the side he was spinning toward. This took him out of the spin and pushed the nose up. As he gained altitude, he let out a long breath, but still had to fight since the hard push into the stabilizing thruster meant the craft wanted to start spinning the other direction. The Timberwolf violently shook back and forth as Caleb alternated thruster bursts. Finally it stabilized enough for Caleb to trust the auto-stabilizing systems. He pushed the button and crossed his toes since one hand was locked onto the control stick and the other hovered over the button in case the computer couldn’t fully bring the ship under control. However, within just a couple of seconds the Timberwolf leveled out. Caleb’s head slammed back in the seat as he let out a long sigh followed by, “Man, what a rush! That was kind of fun!”

Caleb’s mom’s voice came over the radio, “Fun? Fun?” She shouted. “I just watched you almost die on this damned holo-view uplink thing and you come back and say fun? What is wrong with you!?!”

Caleb let out a hyper nervous giggle while replying with a single word, “Genetics?”

The voices of several people laughing cut off Caleb’s mom’s response.

Luna walked toward the line of badly damaged Earth Core frames dragged to the water purification plant. With her frame patched, she elected to jump back in her frame. Next to her, Master Sergeant Ryder decided to let Dante touch up a few dings on his armor and a leaking shoulder hydraulic rod, so he had on a combat vest with micro missile pistol in a shoulder rig and a stun pistol on the opposite hip. Ryder kept on alert for any movement, but his focus was divided because he had a protective arm around a very distraught Maximilian.

Off to the side the three powered down, yet still operational, frames stood like statues looking over the eighteen lying face down so there was easy access to the back panels. Around the captured frames, five New Brunswick PDF Garrisons kept close watch over all twenty-one frames, scanning for any sign of powering up or hostility. Even though it had been almost an hour since some of the frames had been drug in, none had attempted anything and those with living pilots had followed orders to fully shut down. For Luna, this made little sense. Being stuck in a powered down frame meant the pilot had limited ability to move around, and while an arm could be wiggled out of the arm unit to scratch an itch, it wasn’t at all comfortable. Above and beyond being all but locked into one position, with the frame powered down, there was no temperature control, so the frames had to be getting hot, even though someone had decided to show a little extra mercy and drag them into shaded areas.

Of the ones lying face down, only three of the pilots had popped back hatches and fled. None of the three had been located, but were not a large priority at this point. Nine others had responsive pilots in them, and all said the same thing. They could not open their frames and get out, and many pleaded for someone to send an activation sequence so they could. It fell right in line with what Luna had been told by the pilots within the three operational frames she had led into the plant.

While Luna studied the frames, a senior lieutenant limped over in a Garrison frame with some obvious knee damage, but the rest of it showed fresh repairs since the New Brunswick Planetary Defense paint was gone in over a score of locations replaced with the dull metal of recent armor patching. “You Luna?”

Luna gave a single nod, “Yes sir.”

The man’s eyebrow wet up at the sound of the young voice from inside the frame, “Good to meet you… I figured it had to be you since I was told to look for the chain gun… Um, anyway, I am Senior Lieutenant Arno Von-Nadler, Garrison Commander for Gypsum Creek. You really saved our asses so please just call me Arno… Your young captain wanted me to get with you on these, since he is helping with the wounded.” The man paused and knelt his frame in front of Maximilian as the boy let out a whimper, “I hear you lost a very good friend today…”

The boy lowered his head and sobbed, “My only friend…”

The left hand on Luna’s frame clinched, “Max, every member of the Rebels is your friend now.”

“None of them are Hans…”

Arno let out a sigh, “Combat loss is never easy, but losing a friend when so young… I am very sorry. How about we get you a cot or something?”

Seeing Maximilian shake his head, Ryder clutched him a little tighter, “I think he would prefer to stick close, Lieutenant, but thanks.”

“Understood, but if you need anything, son, just ask.” Arno stood and turned his attention back to Luna, “So I hear you have a key or something to open these frames?”

Ryder held up a gauntlet, “I do, sir, but something is really off. I’ve fought EC on eleven separate worlds in over fifty engagements, and not once has a living pilot not been able to get out of his frame. Normally, they voice activate a command and jump out. A few seconds later the frame closes and locks. Then it is as if a dead or unconscious pilot is inside; charges inside blow if opened incorrectly. There was a few actions on Black Earth when a pilot refused to come out, but those all said they would blow themselves up if we tried to get them out… Many did, so we sent in small robots to drill into their armor, and once breached would fire in a heavy tranq dart. Didn’t always work, but as we started targeting spots already damaged so the computer couldn’t notice, we became more successful.

“We later found out they were on the verge of being exiled and their families dropped to Freemen cast or even Outcasts, which, from my limited understanding of what goes on within Earth Core, is not something a person wants to be responsible for… Anyway, this is a brand new situation for me. Even more interesting, there are three styles of frames I have never seen before.” He pointed to five frames scattered among the others. “There is no question two are built by Gamma Industries, while the bigger one has all the telltale signs of being manufactured by G-Tech. But… Nothing like them is in any threat identifier and my battle computer is trying to tell me they are piecemeal since there are so many replaced parts on them.”

“Lots of battle wear and tear, for sure,” Arno agreed, “but those are new parts, seamlessly fitted to older. They were built for these frames not jury-rigged in parts. There’s no way these are hodge-podge battle salvage scrap makeshift frames.”

“I concur. Especially since the second smaller one is almost brand new except for the foot unit.”

Luna spoke up, “The weird thing to me is the weapons configurations. They’ve got lots of light hitting weapons. Who puts this many micro lasers, light machineguns, and even pistols on frames used in an assault? The biggest weapons on theses frames, other than the Medics and the Munifexs are a handful of standard lasers and micro missiles… Well the bigger weird one has a sonic rifle, but it also has micro lasers… It doesn’t make sense… No wonder we took so many more down than they did us… not that I am arguing… It’s bad enough we lost two and have five wounded, two really bad…” Luna shook her head, “But if they would have had heavier weapons on them we would have been hard pressed to drive them back as quickly as we did.”

Arno let out a long breath, “The lack of heavier weapons is only reason we were able to hold out till you got here. The other thing we noticed is all the lasers put out a bright green marking beam the whole time they are active, and then pulse with a red when they actually fire. It made them easier to spot in the woods, until they started turning them off between firings… But the marking beams always came on before they fired.”

“It is odd, very odd.” Master Sergeant Ryder agreed as he looked over to the PDF senior lieutenant, “So sir, Luna, Lieutenant Sala here,” he pointed over, “said all three she captured have young pilots inside. How about the others?”

“Of those we spoke to, all but three are youth, but there is a wide range of ages. Those in the smaller ones sound real young, and the oldest ones are older teens to maybe early twenties on the one over there,” Senior Lieutenant Von-Nadler pointed to an Auxiliarim. “All three are wounded badly enough to where their red smoke generators popped. It’s why my senior sergeant made my men drag all the frames into the shade. As he said, ‘they are just kids’…” He then shot Luna a bemused grin, “No insult intended, young lady.”

Luna snorted, “Young, yeah, lady… not a single one of my friends would agree with you there, sir.”

Ryder couldn’t help but snicker, “Luna, why don’t you go grab a couple of others to help stand guard and keep stunners ready, just in case any of them feel the need to give us problems. We’ll focus on getting the wounded out first.”

Senior Sergeant Nire had a very similar discussion with Jared as the man moved down the rocky hill and got to the first couple of frames. Even as Jared saw Stasik take a knee next to one of the Adscripticims he had dropped, and warned him to be careful since neither red smoke or white surrender smoke had been discharged, he angled over to the other one Stasik had single-handedly brought down and shook his head.

With a frown Jared glanced over to Nire, “No wonder they backed off, sir. This one only has twin light machineguns, two light lasers and a pico missile launcher. Nothing on this frame would have done more than dinged our armor even if it had hit!”

“Pretty much the same here, Comrade,” Stasik spoke up, “but only one light laser, one light auto-rifle, two micro lasers, a pico missile shooter and a heavy pistol. I think they expected close fighting, not distance.”

Even as Nire ordered a few the others to cover the unmoving frames, and angled over to take a look at an odd looking one he had never seen the likes of before, Jared lightly kicked at the frame, “You awake in there?”

The voice of a teen girl responded. “Yeah… Yeah… we admit defeat… just get us out!”

“Get you out? Is your computer offline?”

“No.” the slightly older girl responded. “I powered down to standby, just enough to keep air flow, just let me out, please.”

“We aren’t going to shoot you as long as you don’t do anything stupid,” Jared stated with annoyance. “Just pop the back and step out slowly…”

“I can’t!”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“The HUD still shows locked. I cannot open without a code!”

“Code? What are you talking about?”

Another fallen frame pilot, this one in the strange looking frame Nire was examining shouted out, telling all who were close it was a boy whose voice was just in the process of changing, “We are in combat mode! Please just send the release. I submit as well!”

Jared cocked his head to the side and walked over to the frame Nire was standing over, “OK, so… you mean you don’t have access to your back panel?”

“You must come from a real nice Ludus, if you have such permissions! But, you must know what it is to be put in full combat mode!”

“No, no I can’t say I do.”

“Um, wow, ok… um, there is an override on lots of things like when we can eat from the food paste, how far we can get from the nearest Vigiles, when our weapons activate and deactivate…”

Nire’s eyes narrowed, “Son, if you are lying…”

“We’re not!” a girl in the frame Stasik was kneeling next to shouted. “Please let us out for a while! We’ll serve you and pledge to your Ludus!”

Nire frowned even deeper. With clear confusion, he glanced around and noted Yegor and Ruslan were pointing arm mounted weapons into a mostly collapsed shed while Pasha was at the edge pulling out a frame. “There is one of the biggest frames out here, Jared. Help and see if the pilot can give us clearer information.”

Jared quickly did as instructed. It was clear by the way Pasha was struggling and had his arms stuck out, the shed had a basement and the enemy frame had fallen in and was stuck. Having had the same thing happen to him once when he stepped on what he thought was a solid floor, only to have it give out from under him, he knew the frustration of having no way out of a pit. The larger concern, however, was for Pasha since he was totally exposed to a pilot who had a point blank shot at Pasha’s head. Jared quickly radioed over, “Careful, Corporal, you are totally exposed.”

Pasha quickly responded with a voice telling everyone listing the boy was having to really struggle to help the other frame out, “I know, Comrade Ensign. There is little choice and it is a boy our age who says he yield, but also say he has no white smoke, none of them do. The stairs were wood and did not hold and the sides packed dirt. It crumbles when he try to climb out.”

Jared moved over, nudged Pasha and nodded to the frame’s right arm. He then grabbed the left and the two pulled out another totally unknown frame design to Jared. However, there was no question Nire was correct. This was a pretty large frame compared to most of the others. Even as he gritted his teeth with exertion, he managed to speak, “Kid, any sign of weapon activity or aiming…”

The voice responded with a strong English accent, “I give myself fully over to your Lanista! I have put all weapons on standby!”

While Jared and Pasha pulled with everything their frames had, Nire sent several of the others down into the ravine to help the survivors, then focused on the frame, noting it wasn’t just heavier than many littering the battlefield, but also was equipped with somewhat better weapons including a rail gun and a standard machinegun. It was not in bad shape either, with only moderate armor damage to its right side and torso and a dent on its left hip where it fell through the shed floor and landed hard.

As soon as Pasha and Jared got it out and drug it away from the crumbling dirt next to the shed, he put his foot on the frame’s chest, “So, boy, are you like the others?”

“Lanista, or um, Commander… my sincerest apologies for not knowing your designation, punish me if you feel needed, I offer to accept full punishments for all the others…”

“There is no punishment for not knowing my rank, son. I am just asking if you are like the others, with no ability to get out of your frame?”

“I am, Commander. Most of us are of Legatus Legionis Troyom’s Black Geyser IV Ludus, part of the Imperium Ludi Circuit… were… we are now yours… I am sure Legatus Legionis Troyom would pay ransom for most of our return… this troupe is… was… his best.”

Nire frowned, pulled his foot back and offered his frame’s hand.

The pilot inside held up both arms palms up as he sat up rather than take the offered hand, “By taking your hand I give my allegiance and life to you, Commander. I offer both in return for accepting the submission of the others with this troupe.”

“You owe me neither, son. Certainly not your life. We have no desire to harm anyone further, but it both looks and sounds to me like you are one of the senior members of your group, so do all of us a favor and tell the rest under you to keep all weapons powered down and explain why you can’t get out of your frame.”

The kid looked up, with weird looking amber colored eyes showing total confusion, “Commander, you are not from a rival Ludus?”

“Son, I have no idea what a Ludus is. Your frames are all combat salvage and you are all captives of the Ruffian Rebels, a Merc team formed right here on New Brunswick. I am an advisor and instructor to and for them.”

“I am no longer within Earth Core?”

“No,” Jared hissed from behind the kid, “Great Outback Federation.”

The youngster leaned forward and let out what sounded like a giant sigh of relief, “OH, my God, thank you!”

Nire shook his head and blinked, “Thank you?”

“Yes!” the boy once again held up both hands, “Sir, I am your capture and will do whatever you want, but I think I can help. Please do not shoot at any of us further.”

“We have no desire to shoot any of you more,” Pasha stated. “I believe I speak for all when I say we will be more at ease once we get you all out, though.”

The youngster kept both hands palms up while rolling over, putting his left knee into the rocky soil, and sticking his right foot out. He then stood slowly, clearly nervous. Once he was standing, he slowly moved his right arm around and carefully lowered his hand so he could point. “Over there, the first two of our frames you dropped… the Munifexims.”

“What about them?” Nire demanded to know.

“They were both Magistri, their frames have release codes in them.”

“So you are locked in by some computer override?” Pasha asked with a cringe.

“Yeah… the computers in those frames have level two access protocols.” Seeing both Pasha and Nire give him quizzical stares, he gulped, “Sir, think of a computer network with user, administrator, and full rights. We only have user, the Magistri and Medici have admin, and our Lanista has full. I saw Magistri Bronzon roll out of his frame and crawl into the main mine building. I shot the back hatch so he could not close it. If the computer is still functional, his startup password is ‘novic abutens’…” The boy hung his head and grumbled, “Loosely translated as misuser or abuser of Newcomers.”

Pasha moved over to the abandoned frame, popped his frame’s back hatch and wiggled into the badly damaged Munifexim with a hatch that only closed part way. A few moments after saying, ‘novic abutens’ the computer activated, and quickly showed massive damage to the right side, left leg, left arm, and right foot. It also warned the back panel was off-line.

Pasha pulled his head out and shouted over, “I’m in! What now?”

The kid between Nire and Jared shouted back, “Voice order it to give you a list of all Black Geyser IV Ludus frames! As long as it is on line, it will show you a list of all our Ludus frames within fifty, one hundred, two hundred-fifty, and five hundred meters. It will then give you access to weapons, ammo feeds, food, water, power available, waste disposal, and back panels. Read off each one, telling it to grant user access to ingress and egress! I am in LLTBG twenty!”

Nile glanced over at the kid, “So he can now take your weapons offline, too?”

“Yes sir.”

“Pasha, while you’re at it remove their abilities to fire weapons!”

“Already am, sir. Weapons go away, ammo feeds shut off, power drop to minimum output for basic function, then I let them open up!”

“I’m getting you a new toy for you frame!”

“How about a bigger frame like you say you can get for Stasik?”

Nire openly laughed, “I’ll see what I can do!”

A few seconds later the kid between Nire and Jared let out a huge sigh of relief, “I have access. Please let me climb out!”

“Feel free, but don’t run,” Jared warned.

A second later the back of the frame let out a hiss and the panel slid back. A boy in badly matted yellow hair, every bit as odd-looking as his eyes, and only wearing a nasty sweat drenched conductive electrostatic tee-shirt and equally disgusting tight fitting electrostatic boxer briefs climbed out. The thirteen-year-old didn’t even seem to care what he looked like. Instead he pulled his head back, stuck out his arms and let the light and warmth of the New Brunswick star soak into him.

Even as other back panels slid open and kids eagerly scrambled out, and before anyone else could say a thing, however, Jared’s back hatch was sliding open and he was jumping out.

Nire turned with a start, but before he could say anything Jared was standing right in front of the boy with wide eyes, “Lucas? Lucas, is it you?”

The boy lowered his head and arms and turned to look with a confused cock of his head… “Yes… How…”

“Lucas, it’s me Jared… O’Connell Grenadiers…”

The boy’s amber eyes went wide, “Jared? No… you were… Jared… it really is you?”

“Yeah! I can’t believe you are alive! I thought for sure you went down with the Fluvius Camillus!”

“Never got to it. We were waiting on next transport to it when it went down… but your platform was in the craft just before the one I was shoved in… How did you survive the crash?”

“Real long story, real long… All that matters right now is you are alive and I can take you to some of the other Grenadiers!”

“Denny?”

Jared moved up and gave the kid a hug, ignoring the smell of not having bathed in a very long time, “Killed on Quaker VII… I’m sorry. I know you two…”

“No… no… It is I who am sorry… But how did you escape… I saw you taken and put in the other platform…”

“I was… It’s not important right now… Are there others from the Wraith Riders with you?”

“No, but… my brother, Oisin is in Legatus Legionis Unallyas’ Ludus, and I believe he was on same transport that brought us here… Neil… Is he alive?”

“Yeah, but off world at the moment…” He gave the kid another hard squeeze. “I can’t believe you are alive! Robin, Glen, and Luna are going to be so happy to see you!”

Lucas looked over, “Glen… Glen and Robin are here?”

“Yeah! We’ll get you to see them…”

Lucas shook his head, “Jared, there is one other from this Ludus you know… Glen’s shredder hunting friend and Zane’s fellow Hunter killer, Severiano Scaramella of the Drago Condottieri…”

“Sev is here? Where?”

“Don’t know… He is in a Gladiusim, same as me.” Lucas pointed to the frame he just stepped out of, “He has a sonic rifle on his frame, the only one in our troupe.”

Jared totally ignored Nire, who tried a few times to interrupt. Instead he looked over to Stasik as he moved back toward his frame, “This is my friend, Lucas! He gets our full protection! Dig through this whole camp, find him a place to clean up, scrounge up some food, and some clothing! Lucas takes priority over everything and everyone else!”

He then nodded at Lucas while pointing at Stasik’s frame, “Dude, this is Stasik and he will make sure you are protected from any of the miners who may be angry at you and make sure we get you taken care of!”

Jared ducked under an arm Nire stuck out trying to stop the boy, “Sir, beat my butt all you want later, but you’ll just have to wait!” Without further hesitation, he jumped back in his frame, and radioed, “Robin… Captain Lerrik, I need to talk to you now!”

Luna responded, “He’s out of his frame helping wounded. What’s wrong?”

“Luna… do you all have a unknown frame… about the size of an Intruder, but bulkier with a rounded neck guard poking up from under the center chest and little shield looking thing with a spike in the middle of it on both arms?”

“Yeah, we dropped two of the bastards, why?”

“Oh, shit… Does one of them have a sonic rifle?”

“How did you know?”

“So you have it there?”

“Yeah,” Luna moved over and looked down, “Jared what’s wrong?”

“Luna, please tell me the pilot is still alive!”

“Haven’t really checked. We can’t seem to get any of them out even with the gauntlet… They all say they are locked in, so we still have to disarm the destruct, locate the drill points, and bore down so we can pull the hatches. We just started on the first one.”

“Luna, you need an active Munifex or Medic frame computer. They have computer control of the other frames, including the back hatch… But the hell with that right now! Just tell me the pilot is alive!”

“Geesh, hold on… yer acting like one of us is in it…”

“Luna, I need an answer!”

“OK, OK!” Luna knelt and tapped on the frame, “You alive in there?”

A weak sounding voice responded, “Yes… please help me… I’m hurt bad… I pledge to serve your Ludus or even you… please… I am holding my hand over my upper leg but it is still bleeding… I am getting dizzy… and my frame is getting hot.”

“Hold on, we’ll figure out how to get you out shortly.” Luna then spoke into her radio, “He’s alive but sounds like he is hurt pretty bad. The right leg of the frame is breached and I can see his red smoke popped…”

“Luna, you have to help him. If you don’t have a Munifex of Medic frame with an active computer, gauntlet code that frame to deactivate the safeties and drill him out now! The hell with the others!”

“OK… Why?”

“Luna, get Glen over to you and get him out! It’s Sev!”

“Who?”

“Come on Luna you have to remember! It’s the second best Hunter killer in the galaxy! It’s Sev from the Dragos!”

Luna felt the blood run out of her face, “No! No way!” She then focused on the frame she was knelling next to, “Sev is that you?”

“Yes I am Severiano… Sev was my nick name… How do you know?”

“Sev, it’s Luna… Luna from New Bravaria…”

“The O’Connell Grenadiers’ Luna?”

“Yes! Holy crap it is really you!”

“Luna… Is… is Glen and Zane… are they alive?”

“Oh, hell yeah! Hold on Sev!” Luna stood lifter her face plate and shouted, “DANTE!”

Dante dropped the hydraulic assembly he was working on and bolted over to Luna, “What’s wrong?”

“Dante, is either computer in the Medics up?”

“I’m pretty sure the one Master Sergeant Ryder took down is, but I bet it’s damaged. He pounded the crud out of the head unit until the wench finally gave up. She’s got a nasty concussion and the back hatch is still open since we grabbed the medi-kit, so I doubt she scrambled it.”

“Can you get it up and running?”

“I’m sure I can, but there is a lot more things I can fix that are more important…”

He stopped as he saw the look in Luna’s eyes… “OK, so it’s THAT important, huh?”

“Jared says the Medicorim computers can give the pilots of these frames some kind of code to get out.”

“OK, sure, I guess I could give it priority.”

“Not just priority, Dante. I know we didn’t really treat you very well, especially before you became a Double D, but do you remember Sev, from the Dragos?”

“Glen’s and Zane’s friend on New Bravaria?” Seeing a nod he shrugged, “Sure, how could anyone of us not know him? He was the second-best Hunter killer in the camp. His brother, Acario and I went spear fishing for those disgusting eel things a few times with Kay and Acario’s dad before we found out the shredders… Better than starving though… Why?”

Luna pointed down, “It’s Sev.”

Dante’s eyes went wide and yelled over his shoulder as he sprinted in the direction of the two Medicorim frames, “One Medic computer coming on line!”

Luna patted the shoulder of Severiano’s frame, “Dante will find a way to get you out. Hold on.”

“Not going very far, Luna. Even if I could get out, I am not walking anywhere… I do not think I can even crawl. If you need to do other duties…”

Luna reached over and grabbed the frame’s left hand with hers, “I’m not going anywhere until we get you out. And one way or the other, we’ll figure out a way to get you back to being able to kill Hunters with the best of us, Sev.”

“Been a while… Haven’t had fun like that since they took me…”

Seeing Master Sergeant Ryder coming over with Max, she held up her hand to stop them, “Sir, can you go get Robin and Glen over here, please.”

Maximilian frowned “You are holding the hand of a framer who killed Hans? Why?”

“Max, not now…”

“Not now? But they killed Hans!” The boy quickly yanked Ryder’s micro missile pistol out of the man’s vest, flipped off the safety and pointed at the frame. “They should die!”

Ryder grabbed for the weapon, even as Luna put her frame between Maximilian and Severiano. A moment later the boy pulled the trigger. The round slammed into Luna’s shoulder, exploding and doing some armor damage, while the shrapnel tore into both Maximilian’s chest and arms and Ryder right arm.

Since Caleb had to play a life or death game of control over his IPSC, he never even noticed Vlad had accomplished his goal of taking out the aft and forward engines on the starboard side. By the time he had retracted his armored cockpit shield, took the auto stabilizers back off, and had the craft fully back under his control, the ore ship was plowing into the side of a rocky hill and Vlad was glued to his starboard side.

Vlad radioed over, “Comrade, you sure you are OK?”

“Yeah…” Caleb let out a long breath. “Barely… I have severe damage showing to my lower starboard side and a warning light on my landing gear and a few others I have never seen light up before. If it wasn’t trying to tell me there are so many problems, it’d actually be kind of pretty. What’s it look like?”

Vlad maneuvered under Caleb, “Your starboard port landing gear hatch is crushed inward. There is no way you will be able to drop gear.”

“Oh, that ain’t good…” Caleb gulped.

Commander Bennett’s voice came over the radio, “Like your mother, we got a live feed relayed from our star shuttle, boys. Caleb, you took a section of the engine cowling to your lower fuselage. Nothing anyone could have done about it, and your piloting was phenomenal. Many veteran pilots wouldn’t have been able to regain control. It is just the fog of combat biting you in the butt. Vlad, there is no way he can land safely, but with your help he can leave the atmosphere and get up to the White Tiger. Once up here we can take care of it.”

“How?” Vlad asked in confusion. “I’m looking right at the damage. His armor is buckled and pushed in. He will have no heat shielding right next to his missile ammo storage!”

“I’m looking at diagnostics. I can’t eject ammo. The ammo storage compartment must be damaged as well.”

Osop’s voice entered the conversation, “Vlad, you get to be his heat shield. Heat leaving atmosphere is nowhere near as bad as entering. You’ll have to do an atmospheric grapple, undercarriage to undercarriage then the two of you sync engines and do a hard burn for space. If you don’t know how or can’t, tell me now so I can get to him before you two are too low on fuel to get out of the gravitational well of the planet.”

“Sir, I am a good pilot, but…”

Back in the Grenadier command and control center Osop looked over to Captain Tanner, got a reluctant nod, and ran out to his own IPSC while shouting into his throat mike, “Then stick with him, Vlad, and both of you go high and angle back toward home. I’ll link up to you and do it.”

Caleb’s voice responded nervously, “OK, um…”

“Kay,” Captain Tanner’s voice came over the radio, “it’s either get help from Osop or eject. I am not going to let you try to land an IPSC with the damage I am seeing relayed to us. Especially with almost a full load of missiles that will be dragging along the ground with sparks shooting up into an already damaged ammo storage compartment.”

“Ejection is out, too, sir. The rocket to get me clear is offline. With all the lights I am seeing, I’m beginning to think everything directly under me must have been crunched inward! I don’t even have machineguns. The computer is telling me there is damage to the ammo feeds.”

“Then you’ll have to bite the bullet and trust Warrant Officer Osop, Kay. Vlad, I want you to stick right next to Kay the entire time, understood?”

“Sir, I am going nowhere until he is safe aboard the White Tiger.”

Cody’s voice came over the radio, “Lieutenant Rockland, you need to escort…”

“I can’t get our frames to the crash and secure it while escorting fighters into space, Ensign.”

“Oh, yeah… Um, fine… we are pretty secure at the station, get a couple of those on air cover over us to help escort. I don’t want anyone we don’t know getting close to Kay! Without him none of us may have gotten off the Wagon!”

Rockland responded, “Like Kay and Vlad, they will be real low on fuel and won’t be able to do much fighting…”

Commander Bennett’s voice once again came over the airwaves. “We’re dispatching a refueler. It will be waiting for you all just outside of the gravitational well. Good luck boys.”

Kyle is a bit different than most of our other Authors. He wants feedback on his stories, but what he really wants is a critique of the story and chapter. What did he do right but more importantly, what did he do wrong? You may email him at: LeeColo at Gmail dot Com

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