While the Little Dragon was fighting off the ‘dumb’ walkers, the Goldenspur was still busy with the two proper NC’s. Fubuki and Red-Oni resumed their offensive, the Red-Oni preparing its napalm while firing off its’ last missiles, and the Fubuki closing in, while maneuvering three-dimensionally to try and confuse the Goldenspur’s pilot.

Jan was more amused than anything at Fubuki’s cheap attempt at evasion. Evidently, these two didn’t know what usually happened once people were ‘on the ropes’ like this. With a hum, Goldenspur’s lance began pre-heating. Jan had a plan to get rid of the missiles behind him and the NC in front of him in one go. He revved up to full throttle and leveled his lance to torso-height. Experience had taught him it was the spot to hit to disable an NC wholesale. The autoguns remained retracted. He needed every volt of power he could for the thrusters and the lance.

The Red-Oni seemed to realize what the Goldenspur was doing and, flamethrower at the ready, quickly began shooting a stream of liquefied hate. The arc of flaming liquid was sprayed everywhere, and on impact with the Goldenspur his boosters began severely overheating, and his outermost layers of back-armor started being melted off. The Red-Oni’s last missiles were right behind him, which wasn’t helping.

Warnings blinked on Jan’s interface, damage assessments looked only slightly worrisome. This wouldn’t be the first time he made a charge in less than ideal conditions. He redirected lateral engine power to the cooling systems. His maneuverability would suffer quite a bit… but it was better than his engines just burning out wholesale. He got closer and closer to his target, fubuki, still dancing around like an annoying mosquito. “Sorry to say this, but this is gonna be checkmate for you.” He took a deep breath, like a sniper preparing a shot.

Fubuki revved her engines to full throttle and jinked to her right, trying to get out of the way of the plasma ‘shot’. She was just a bit too late, the massive stream of searing gas ignited a fuel tank and the ammo stores of her weapons, blowing off both of her arms and one of her NC’s legs. The NC flew backwards, attempted to ‘land’ on the remaining leg, but broke it at the knee due to the force and fell face-first into the ground, making an impact crater. The Red-Oni’s missiles were attracted to the blast, and detonated prematurely due to the pre-existing heat before impact. The pilot of Fubuki was very, very likely just as dead as her NC’s corpse.

Not their problem, in any case. Prisoners were always traditionally the contract giver’s issue. The Red-Oni managed to catch up with the Goldenspur and grabbed it with its’ two front legs, trapping its legs with the other two. The two NC’s fell to the ground with the Red-Oni hitting the Goldenspur in the back of the head with the NC’s Napalm gun, and pulled out his plasma blade, ready to commit to an execution.

“Disgusting.. There was no honor in that.” Red-Oni muttered, with sincerity. “Even she deserved better!”

“Heh… angry because you didn't listen to my warning about friendly fire?” Jan quipped back. His bravado in the face of the plasma blade hid worry though. With armor weakened as it was, it was unlikely that plasma blade was simply gonna bounce off. His finger hovered above the release for the smoke capsules, but that wouldn’t be enough on its own… {“Little Dragon, I am pinned and in need of immediate assistance, over.”} He sent out over the closed channel.

{“Request confirmed. However, I thought they were free points?”} Stein quipped over the communications channel.

While the Captain was away, Joe had a look at the data sent by the NCs, what data did they sent, and how was it interpreted by the recieving computers. Maybe it would help sometime in the future.

Joe was interrupted by Sophia's voice, "Verona, what the hell are you doing?. It was obvious something was bugging her.

"Do you remember why I am here? To provide ideas on tactics and analysis on the situation of this mission. I can't analyze something, if I know nothing." The cold response was, while true, not the reason for his behaviour.

"Yeah, guess so..", Sophia nodded at her aide, before resuming. "Only makes sense, coming from your overtly curious ass."

"Did something happen? You seem a bit more refreshed than before you left, and I doubt is is makeup."

"Just realizing what I should be doing is all.", Sophia cracked a faint smile, "Don't worry about me, kid. You have your own problems, and I know I can handle mine."

"What's the sitch?"

"Could I speak to you under 4 eyes for a bit, if the current mission leaves enough time?"

"Under four eyes? What the fuck are you saying..?"

"Its a saying I am kind of used to. A person has 2 eyes, so speaking under 4 eyes means..." Joe waited for Sophia's thoughts to complete the sentence in her mind.

"In private."

Sophia waited a moment, apparently considering. "Fine. What do you want to discuss?"

"Something regarding the upcoming naval mission, and I intend it to be only known by very few, as it involves having people not knowing."

"We'll talk about it when the mission's done.

"Understood."

"...Did anything happen while I was gone?"

"Not too much. The 'low-level' enemy mechs were easily decimated by Little Dragon, but something about that railgun still seems odd. Its capacitors seem very unusual, and look like they've been toyed with, likely to enhance the amount of stored charge. I do not know how much energy those capacitors might be able to store before discharging internally."

"I think you're wrong on that front, but still close. To me, those look like they've red-necked-"

Sophia paused and turned on her ear-piece after putting it back on.

"Goldenspur, Little Dragon! Stay the hell away from the railgun! Its capacitors.. Looks like tesla coils of some sort? They could ignite your fuel reserves, or fry out something?"

"Tesla coils? I doubt their arcs could do that, unless the fuel tanks would be not conductive or not grounded. Same for electronics' housings."

"I've got no idea either, but that's the closest thing I could think of. Hell, they could be plasma field manipulators for all I know."

"What about using gravity to arc some projectiles onto those 'capacitors'?"

"No fucking shit, Joe."

"From what I noticed, few consider gravity when in the haste of a fight, and they are not a sniper."

"You're smart and attentive, Joe, but god, do you ever stop talking?"

Joe didn't reply. He could counter that, but that would be proving her point, so he just replied with a smirk.

---

---

---

---

As the Little Dragon approached Goldenspur’s location things seemed to begin to get complicated as the pilot of Red Oni wrestled with the Goldenspur as he barked out nonsensical chatter over communication lines— ranting and raving about the death of his comrade and the punishment Goldenspur was soon to receive. Though if anything, the death of his comrade had forced him to break character and show his true viciousness underneath the cartoonish valor that he had shown previously.

{“Despicable! Useless!”}

Red Oni lowered its blade to prepare for a proper strike at Goldenspur, the plasma energy flickering as it began to make its move.

Stein’s brows narrowed as she took a quiet breath as she began to think of the best option to proceed given that the Red Oni had not noticed her on his radar. Using her thrusters to breach Red Oni’s guard with her lightshield activated wouldn’t work since Red Oni was wrestling with Goldenspur and using her loadout from distance could put Red Oni out of the game but the explosion would do critical damage against her ally as well. The only option would be to separate them by raw force. Stein flicked the switch to her right as she rerouted all of her power to the Little Dragon’s mobility— aiming to supercharge the NC’s speed. As she did so she kicked up the thrusters and like a battering ram of ages past attempted to slam directly into the side of Red Oni to break his attention of Goldenspur and to give Goldenspur distance once again.

Of course, this would damage Little Dragon’s hull and the shock would jolt Stein’s own nervous system, but she had endured worse before and so had the Little Dragon. As she made impact, Stein winced at the slight pain.

Jan had been concentrating the whole while, preparing the thrusters to go full blast, hovering his fingers over the trigger for the smoke grenades… And then, the chance he had been waiting for presented itself. Little Dragon, unceremoniously bashing his assailant off of him. He could almost feel the pressure on his NC’s back being alleviated. Without a moment of doubt, he fired his thrusters and his smokescreen. As the force of his sudden momentum pressed him into his seat, he awaited the response of Oni… Hoping for dear life he wouldn’t be familiarized with the feeling of a plasma weapon penetrating his cockpit… Ironically the same fate that he had inflicted on so many others.

The Oni held on to the last moment, as the sudden collision ripped off one of its’ legs.

{“F-fucking… ARRRARGHGH! If I didn’t know any better I’d sacrifice myself just to kill you two, but forget it! I’m out of here, you dishonourable heathens can suck it!”}

The Red Oni’s pilot disengaged from the fight, using the power that would be given to the now-detached front left leg to further power the units’ boosters. Without a word, the Red Oni’s grenade cannon, forgotten until now, unfolded. For some reason though, the NC didn’t even stop to aim or reduce recoil or anything of the sort. Instead, it ripped the large gun right off of the mount, then took a minute to access something that looked non-standard on the gun.

{“Here, catch this!”}

—and just like that, the gun was thrown with great force at the Goldenspur.

Once Jan had recovered from his rather close call, he was already attempting to coördinate a counteroffensive with Little Dragon.

{“Alright, let’s move to finish this gu— the hell is he doing?”}

Jan saw Red Oni’s grenade launcher, forcibly ripped off and launched out of the smoke cloud he had created to cover his own escape; this seemed like a ridiculous strategy even for an apparent madman… unless there was more to it than just throwing a blunt object at him. Goldenspur boosted forward and leaned slightly to the side, it was Jan’s intention to pass by the discarded weapon as narrowly as possible. He didn’t intend on Red Oni escaping, not out of ruthlessness, but out of a simple pragmatic desire not to have too many rivals and enemies running around freely.

The Goldenspur dodged the weapon just enough at its apex, and it flew past behind him. It soon impacted however, exploding on impact with ridiculous force and creating a grand fireball. A few pieces of shrapnel pierced the Goldenspur, one managing to make a hole in a fuel tank in the leg, although, it wasn’t a large injury.

Seeing that its previous attack didn’t result favorably, the Red Oni then started covering itself with its sole remaining weapon, the Napalm Gun. Arcs of red-hot liquid ‘fuck you’ began pouring out, ‘gently’ sprayed around, but focused on the Goldenspur. Before long, the Red Oni detached its’ entire lower body starting at the hips while flying. The three legs attached to the central, squarish base quickly began losing altitude, before planting into the sand.

{“You’ve disgraced me enough! What else do you want?!”}.

What, was he trading salvage for his survival? Seemed like it, at least.

{“Sorry man, but you’re not getting away… I’d rather not have psychos like you running free and plotting against me!”} Goldenspur simply retorted.

The chase continued for a few more minutes, before the leak forced the Goldenspur to reduce its’ speed, giving Red Oni the edge it needed to finally get out of the area once and for all. The reduced weight of the Red Oni due to his missing legs meant that the Goldenspur simply couldn’t keep up anymore.

{“That’s certainly shit, but we’ll just have to deal with him later. A more pressing matter is that the giant fucking gun is about ready to fire, or blow! Handle it!”}

Back at Headquarters, Sophia shaked her head, ”Did they just forget about the massive gun, the main goal?”, complaining to Joe and the other people in the room, her earpiece off.

As soon as Red Oni had been handled the Little Dragon had made back for her objective, seeing that Goldenspur did not need its support any longer. Stein didn’t bother to make a comment about the superfluous short-sighted decision that he had decided in engaging.

{“Permission to use overwhelming force.”}

{“Huh? Yeah, whatever, do it and do it quickly!”}

Stein nodded within the cockpit of the Little Dragon as she responded with a resounding {“Affirmative. Goldenspur, I hope you’re done fooling around playing with your food.”}

{“Huh… Oh yeah, The railgun!”} Jan realized he had lost sight of the main objective in all the commotion, {“Weren’t you supposed to be taking care of that, Little Dragon…? No, I’m not complaining about the save.”}

{“Your laziness to comply is noted.”} Stein retorted as a long sigh left her mouth, although it was unheard over the communication line. As she looked at the weapon she looked to analyze it before making an action; any crucial detail could help her disable or destroy the weapon. As far as she could tell, the over-constructed gun had begun charging in full some time ago and arcs of electricity started shooting out from the exterior capacitors lining the base of the barrel and the two massive rails following right alongside. The weapons’ base began rotating, slowly, then stopped as it locked onto a target presumably very, very far to the north-west.

Jan was briefly stunned by the amazing scale of the railgun, but then he came upon more practical considerations. {“I… really doubt we want that thing firing, moving up at full throttle.”} Goldenspur charged directly at the massive barrel of the railgun, all he needed to do was make just the tiniest bend in the barrel and the rest would resolve itself. He leveled the plasma lance and began firing a stream on the middle of the barrel, close to where it was thinnest. {“Little Dragon, I need some blunt force on the far end of the barrel… Like that face-kick you gave to Red-Oni earlier.”}

{“Affirmative.”}

The Little Dragon would co-opt the attack on Jan’s suggestions. The NC would activate thrusters at the apex of a short jump, heading straight above where the Goldenspur was doing some ‘improvised field welding’. With the searing heat of plasma being dumped on it, and soon afterwards a multi-ton object kicking it as fast as possible, the barrel easily snapped in two.

The top-half of the barrel fell over, making one hell of a splash when it impacted the sands below, crushing jury-rigged wirings and small structural supports. The railgun couldn’t stop charging, and the few people inside were trying to cancel the firing order in the pre-war computer systems to no avail. The forces on the barrel made it wiggle somewhat in position, and the shoddy reconstruction efforts let the inert kinetic shell drop back into the internal magazine, impacting an explosive one on a timer.

The one poor soul overseeing the autoloading systems cursed the improvised refurnishings before impact, and the entire base of the gun went up in flames, bursting the few windows on the static foundation of the cannon and making all the vents and openings in the structure spew out fire, before the entire thing fell apart piece by piece. The absurd cheapness of the structure was oddly hilarious.

Stein pulled back the Little Dragon after the destructive display that they had initiated. {“Target destroyed. Unfortunately we were unable to secure it before a critical point. Recording additional footage for study upon return.”}

{“Eh, the suits will be happy enough that Red Star doesn’t have it anymore if you ask me.”} Jan retorted as he too retreated from the site. {“Now if you would please get us back to base, I’m starting to get hungry again.... And I’m pretty sure the Goldenspur could use some repairs.”}

{”Good show. Coming in to pick you up, hooks deployed.”}, Alex notified over the radio.

{”We’ll get that… uhh… ‘Fred Ronni’’ guy later I’m sure. Shit, what was his name..?}

{”Red-Oni? Are you serious, A?”}

{”Yes.”}

"Do we know what the gun was aimed at, before it was destroyed? If so, we could determine its minimal maximum range. That knowledge would be useful in determining how much of a powershift this railgun would have caused, had it not been destroyed.
I'll leave you to determine whether or not this knowledge is worth the efforts of acquiring it."
Joe turns to face the captain: "I assume we can safely say 'mission over'?""

With a sigh of soul-crushing dissapointment, "Joe... Why did you even say that first part? Who... why would we even give a fuck?". Sophia shook her head "Well, anyway. Yeah, mission over."

"Regardless of what we do, it will have consequences. Knowing the strength of each player allows us to predict them somewhat." Joe prepared to leave the command center for a more quiet and secluded location, for his little private talk with the captain.

Sophia followed her pupil, which amusingly in her head, could be said to be both the quietest one and yet the most talkative one at the same time. Sophia snickered at the thought.

After reaching a secluded janitor closet, Joe remarked: "This should be lonely enough."

"Sorry to even imply this, but you really want to talk about things in a janitors' closet? Y'know this has strange implications, right? What if somebody walks in on this?"

Sophia waved around her hands, "Wooo, oh boy Joe, I didn't know you were into older women! .. You do know that's what they're going to assume, right?"

"I am fully aware of that, however, the risk may be necessary. To-"

Sophia interjected, "Why don't we just go to my office?"

"That also works, but I didn't want to use it without your permission."
Both left the awkward closet, and continued the conversation in Sophia's office:
"As I was intending to tell you, I have come up with a plan for the upcoming naval mission. As my task will be to hunt down the submarine to prevent it from interfering, I need to be at least on the surface of the water, or submerged as quickly as possible after the battle begins. Sadly, I cannot be in that state from the start, as travel in water is rather slow compared to airborne travel, so my plan is to fake a crash to quickly get into the ocean without risking being shot down."

Joe continued after taking a second to fill his lungs with air again: "To minimize the chance of being targeted, I want to make that crash as realistic as possible. For that purpose, I have installed a smoke grenade in one of the jet engines in swarm's jetpack. I can remotely trigger it from the cockpit."

"Okay." is all that Sophia could come up with, eyes glazed over. "Thanks for that exposition, but was everything except the smoke grenade absolutely necessary? I could probably figure the rest of that by my own."

"As I intend to completely shut down the engine once the smoke grenade is triggered, the fall will be completely unbroken, and there is the risk of me being knocked out, or even worse, killed on impact. I just want you to have a backup plan in case that happens."
While Joe wasn't lying, the chance of the described possibility was low, after all, Swarm had already fallen from the sky onto solid ground due to an attack on its computer systems, and Joe had survived inside just fine. In addition, it is to be expected, that soldiers die in battles.

"I highly doubt that it'd even happen, but... thanks for your concern, I suppose?". Sophia looked at the door to the hallway and seemed to think deeply about something or another for a few moments before returning.

"That is all I wanted to tell you, thanks for listening."

"Y'know, Joe, you really are strange."

"How so?" Joe inquired. He knew he wasn't average, but it still interested him in what ways he wasn't. In case he needed to fit in at some point in the future.

"You can switch between so many 'personas' at once in an instant. You're never really consistent from one minute to the next, not to mention days. One moment you can be the most selfless, hive-minded individual in our little group, and then the next I wouldn't be surprised if you leave one of your own squadmates to die a slow death.". Sophia chuckled.

"And you never talk to your actual equals. You're such a loner to the people you should be friends with, yet with me, your 'oh so scary boss and authority figure', you can never stop talking, when most people would say whatever they want to say in ten words or less."

Sophia zero'd her eyes right into Joe's, locking their gazez for a few moments that seemed like a strange eternity. "Who the hell are you?".

Joe replied, without averting his eyes. He knew doing so would make him seem like a liar.
"I just imitate other people's past actions, when they would be most beneficial. I guess that is who I am, the sum of all I meet."

"Meeting people and learning from their experiences is more... multiplicative."

"Would you die if you couldn't parrot anyone in a situation? Zero times one thousand is still zero."

"There is always some action someone else has done in a previous occurrence of that situation. If I am present when a situation occurs for the first time, there has always been someone else in the past reacting to a very similar situation."

"That doesn't answer my question.". Sophia leaned in, breathing out a cold gust right on Verona's face. "Allow me to rephrase it, then."

"Do so."

"If you took away all those masks, all your memories of other peoples' actions, would you be anything? Is there even a Joe Verona, a soul, beneath all of those facades? Who are you, individually?"

"I..." Joe's brain was sifting through all his memories, conscious and subconscious. It needed to come up with a way to answer that question, otherwise, he would end up losing some of the captain's trust, regardless of his reaction.
After several seconds, there was no clear answer, only a hint. "The current me does not know the answer, however, I can assume you know about my past, and why I am here, in the military?"

"Yeah, I do. I'm just wanting to know if that man is still alive, or if there's just an empty shell trying to gain a soul left. Tell me, is that man alive? There's no shame in admitting if your heart is hollow."

"Currently, it is as you say, hollow. But every hole, every hollow space, can be filled by something, that is not present there at the moment. And there will always be such a thing to fill it. I am incapable of finding it right now, but I have the suspicion I once came upon it, and will find it again some time in the future. If you can talk to me during that time, you are most likely speaking to what most likely is the 'core' behind all facades."

Sophia sighed, "..Have some advice, okay? Find something, anything, to enjoy in your 'line of work'. The rush of winning, the joy of dodging pain, or hell, for you, even the love of slaughtering your marks. Just enjoy something, alright? It's a start. Everything else comes naturally."

"Thank you for the advice, but I fear there is nothing I know worthy and able of being enjoyed by me. I am staying alive, because there is no point in ceasing to exist."

"I suppose there's hope for you yet, then. Now get out, I need my solitude or else I'll be 'friendly' and 'sociable' and that makes me want to puke."

"As you say." Joe left the room after bowing down slightly.

Before long, the two NC's were being transported back to New Anchorage, their 'transportation team' still bickering about snakes, moose, and now how to properly make a pizza from scratch. The trip back would take a while for obvious reasons, so the two pilots had the time to discuss various things, if wanted.

Alex inquired, "So how the hell do you make dough anyway?"

"I dough-know.", Bill responded.

"I hope you... rye...?", Alex groaned back.

Back at base, while waiting for the four sent out to get back, the personnel of the base were getting transmitted battle damage reports and pre-preparing replacement parts for the two NC's.

“Hey, if you guys don’t cut out the bread puns I’m detaching this thing and unleashing a flour-y of bullets on you!” Jan half-jokingly retorted to the banter going on above him. Evidently, either one of them had forgotten to close the communication channel, or they enjoyed people hearing them go back and forth like that.

Playfully ‘distressed’ and rolling her eyes, ”I loaf you guys, get the fuck away from me.”

”Never. Anyway… Yeah, I can’t think of any other puns. How’s your NC looking, Jan? It obviously got fucked in the leg. Otherwise, good?”, Bill inquired.

“Well… considering the cockpit isn’t a flaming death chamber right now, I’d say it’s all pretty good.” He looked over the damage report again to be sure. “Nothing much really, just the usual bullet holes… scorch marks… That bloody psycho’s flamethrower probably bent the wing decals in the heat too… I like those things damnit!.” He cursed lightly to distract himself from the realization the only thing that had stood between him and fiery death had been the shell of metal around him. It was the same post-mission realization as always. Going over all the tiny mistakes he made… And all the times where fate decided he wasn’t quite ready to get splattered yet. “Yeah... just the usual scratches. You guys happen to know anyplace ot eat nearby? I’m starving”

Bill went back to snarking, ”Oh, yeah, let’s just land at a taco-place and get some burritos. Aren’t there MRE’s in NC cockpits? Y’know, emergency rations?”

Jan looked over to a small cabinet on his left. “Yeah, but those things taste like shit wrapped in vomit… Heh, guess that’s among the better tasting things you can get these days.” He clicked open the cabinet, and out came the cut-and-dry rations, sorted in exact units with nothing but boring labels on the packing to tell them apart. How did that one heater thing work again? Oh yeah! just add water.

“Water”. Jan couldn’t stop thinking about water. He continued preparingg his MRE’s, a little weirded out by his thoughts. “Water..”, what would it be like to drown? Could he survive that? How about drinking so much water his stomach bursts? What about being scalded alive, even his organs? Could a person live through that? Why couldn’t he stop thinking like this all of a sudden?

That’s when his cockpit broke. All he could see was gallon after gallon of water pouring in through the hatches’ seams. In a second, it was up to his waist and shorting out the wiring connecting his neural plug to his NC’s legs. “What the fuck! what’s going on?!” He shouted in a panic. All his NC’s eyes could see was the bottom of the ocean, beautiful and serene.

It then stopped, all at once. The water wasn’t there anymore and the Goldenspur was back in the ‘Freighter One’s clutches. Alex checked in on Jan, ”Hey, what’s wrong? You started mumbling something about the ocean.”. Bill continued for her, ”Yeah, ‘The sea is where I belong’ or something? What are you going on about?”

“I uh…” Jan stammered and checked goldenspur’s recent system logs… It should have recorded something right. “I… think something shorted out somewhere… There was water everywhere… but it wasn’t really there” He took a deep breath, checking whether the air he was breathing right now was real. “I think I need to go see the medic after we get back…” He felt all over his head, maybe he has hit it against something during the mission? Yet, he couldn’t find anything to indicate such a thing happened. No blood, no cuts, not even a bruise or a painful spot.

Yet, for some reason, whenever Jan looked down at the sea, he felt a sense of longing..

While Percy was enjoying his time with his daughter and friend, he soon realized he should probably get back to base - he was probably going to get griped at if he didn’t show up at ALL that day. Just because he should didn’t mean he wanted to, though. He did after Zach assured him everything was gonna be fine and he should go and “kick some ass.”

When the red-headed pilot arrived at the base, he gave a subtle wave to the guy that drove him there. Security cameras noticed him, and soon afterwards the facility’s intercoms, with Sophia’s voice, sent out a message; “Percy Moore, Elizabeth Jackspar, Joe Verona, report to the briefing room.”

Percy tried not to show how unenthused he was about that - he literally just walked in, after all. Then again, it was his choice to just now arrive. He wondered briefly if he’d missed anything important at all, but the thought left as quick as it came as he walked to the briefing room. Just before he walked into the briefing room, he quickly got himself something to eat while he listened to Sophia drone on about who really cares what..

When he actually got into the briefing room, he soon realized Sophia wasn’t there. He was actually the only one in the room. This shocked Percy, because usually he’s the late one. For kicks, he sat where Sophia would usually be if she wasn’t late - at the head of the table. It made him feel powerful, even if it was just for a couple seconds.

”Yeah, it is pretty comfy isn’t it?”,Sophia commented when she walked in. ”You’re really predictable, y’know that?”

Percy nearly screeched when he heard Sophia and he bolted up out of the chair, his face red in embarrassment. He cleared his throat, hoping his voice wouldn’t sound high-pitched as he asked, maybe a little too quickly, “W-whatd’you mean?”

”Of course you’d sit in my chair, just to feel a little bit of power that you don’t deserve. Now get the fuck out of my chair. You can sit in it when you earn it.”

The pilot looked at his captain for a minute - this is twice now that she’s belittled him now. The first time it was.. excusable, at least, cause.. yeah, he was being a bit of a turd. All he did was sit in her chair this time.”What did I do to piss you off, exactly?” he asked, genuine curiosity (and maybe concern) in his voice.

”It’s simple, really.”. Sophia reaches into her pocket and gets out a butterfly knife, of all things, before throwing it to Percy. Percy’s first reaction was to get out of the way, but when it landed on the table, he saw it was totally fine.

”Fucking stab me. Can you do it? Do you have that ‘killing intent’? You won’t survive without it.”

The redhead looked at her with a dumbstruck expression on his face. “What?” was all he could utter. He understood what she said, but he didn’t get it. “A-are.. Hahahaa!” Percy laughed “You’re kidding, right? You’re joking?”

”I don’t expect you to actually do it anyway. That’s what I’m angry about.” Sophia walked around the table and looked Percy in the eyes.. with disappointment. ”Good people like you never have that ability. You’re a decent man. I think you deserve better than this, but honestly? This stupid game was rigged from the start… It’s disgusting, really. Only the people who would do wrong with that ability have it...”

”How are you supposed to live like this without that?”

Percy interjected before she could say much else, ”Have you been drinking? Are you ok?” This is the first bit of compassion he’s actually shown to one of the group. ”Uh, sh-should I get someone so you don’t do something crazy?” The confusion in his voice almost nullified the concern in his words. Almost. He was only confused because she hadn’t shown this before. How was he supposed to react?

”I’ll be fine. Now give me my knife back.”

Percy looked down at the knife he was toying with in his hands - not with any intent to USE it, of course, he was simply focusing his nervous energy into fidgeting. ”You’re not gonna do anything crazy, right?” He looked at Sophia, not quite keen on handing it over yet. ”Not gonna hurt yourself.. or me.. Or anyone, really..?” his lips turned into a nervous smile - it was definitely a fake, too.

With venom, Sophia commanded, ”That’s an order.”

Just cause it was an order didn’t mean he trusted her to not do something drastic, frankly. She came in looking frazzled and maybe a little insane. Why would he trust that kind of person with a knife? As Sophia continued to stare him down, he relented and gave her the knife back, tensing up just in case he had to get out of the way quickly - can never be too careful. He could easily pick up a folding chair and use it as some kind of shield if need be.

Sophia sighed and smiled at the knife, eyeing it like an old friend. ”Do you even know how to use one of these?”. Sophia, then, suddenly and very quickly stabbed it down into the table, before sitting down. One blink, it was in Sophia’s hands, second blink and it was solidly in the table.

Percy’s chest felt like it was stabbed, even though it was the table that had the knife in it. He stayed standing for a moment longer, uncertain if he really wanted to sit with this very obviously insane person. He decided he’d just not sit too close instead. All the way at the end closest to the escape route, to be precise.

”..I can’t believe I still got it…”. Sophia smiled, looking at the knife intently. ”Meeting’s off.”. She then resumed her emotionless facade, before ripping the knife out and putting it back in a pocket.

”What?” Again, Percy was absolutely baffled. ”Wait. Wait a second-”

She wordlessly left the room.

Percy continued to sit there, trying to figure out what in the fuck just happened, and why he didn’t run out screaming as soon as she started showing signs of absolute lunacy. Before he knew it, he saw something grey arc above his head and land on the table. The closed knife.

That’s when he shrieked. He didn’t realize his screaming was for naught until he realized the blade wasn’t even out.

”Keep it!” could be faintly heard.

---

Sophia stalked through the hallways, and soon saw Elizabeth, walking to the briefing room. ”Hey,”, she said bluntly, ”Meeting is off. Walk with me.”

Eli recoiled at that, but the captain passed by nonetheless. She cast a glance back towards the briefing room, had something happened with the new mission? What about Stein and Jan? What about their upcoming duties? All this she put aside, at least for now, to turn about and follow Sophia.

”So, how’s it been?”, she strangely asked. ”All this was nice while it lasted, but you know how it is. Can you do something for me? My last few orders?”

“What” Eli stuttered in her steps, but was quick to catch back up. “You’re leaving? You can’t leave. You can’t just abandon everything. What about New Anchorage?”

”Yeah, have some advice. As an NC pilot, you’ll hear lots of shit like that. ‘Whuhh, you can’t do that’. Fuck anybody who says that. Hell, me included, if I’ve said similar drivel.” The Captain sighed, ”I’m not doing this because I want to. My… ‘soul’ belongs anywhere but here. You’ll understand.”

”Mathew’ll pick up my slack. If you want, give ‘status updates’ on what happened with me recently to the other pilots. They deserve it.”

Eli was dumbstruck. She knew the captain had been struggling, but for her to actually act on the idea of deserting was beyond unexpected. Was there even a process to this? Could Sophia hope to just waltz out, take a truck and leave? Was she the captain still, until then? Orders were orders, of course, but this was different, surely that was obvious.

With that in mind, she reached out and took Sophia by the arm. Eli had a firm grip, mirroring a corpse’s. ”This is wrong.” A weaker argument than she might have been hoping to build, but among her list of skills, ‘arguing’ really wasn’t among them. They had been ordered, all of them, to protect New Anchorage, and so that was what they would do. That was right.

”If you do this, you’re the bad guy.”

”Yeah, I agree. I was never good anyway.”. Sophia then stopped, turned Eli around, and… hugged her.
”That’s why I’m leaving. I’m just going to screw you guys up if I stay. Bad people like me and good people like you and Percy… we’re never supposed to mix.” Sophia pat Eli on the back, before continuing her exit.

Eli felt her grip loosen against her will, and stood like stone as the captain walked away. All the same she wasn’t finished, her face contorted in frustration, anger even. She straightened up, worked the air into her lungs, and shouted “stop” as loudly as she could.

Or at least, that’s what the plan had been. Her mouth opened, sure, air even leaked from her core, but there were no words, no sounds loud enough to merit. Sophia left, and there’d be no further obstacles from Eli.

Joe was watching the sunrise outside of the facility while the captain called them to the briefing room, and didn't even hear it.
A while later, while he was still watching, the captain also left the facility.
As the sun was rising behind the exit from Joe's perspective, he quickly noticed the captain, a peculiar sight outside of the facility while pilots are still not back from a mission. In similar fashion, the captain would likely also spot Joe, who was now approaching her, wondering what she was doing outside.

"Also here for the sunrise?"

"You could say that.", Sophia began to have a conversation while checking what she had with her, rummaging around her pockets.

"If you plan on leaving, you should at least debrief the returning pilots first." Joe had a way to quickly break down into what he was trying to say.

"You're goddamned laser-guided, y'know that? How the fuck did you deduce that, shitlocke?"

"Your recent conversation with me, in combination to you leaving the facility right now, when you have no known relatives in New Anchorage, pilots are still returning, and everything you would need to do as a captain can be done from within the facility. The only other explanation would be you enjoying sunrises, but your answer said otherwise. Or tell me there is a 3rd option?"

"Nah, you're right on what I'm doing. So, are we gonna have a little episode too so this has to hurt, or are you going to take it how it is?", Joe's Captain asked him.

"I myself plan on leaving too, you know, but my plan involved you staying captain until I am 'dead'. So, what interests me would be the reason."

"You really plan on getting the fuck out of here too? Interesting."

"If you know why I am here; as a punishment; you would know why I have no reason to be here. In addition, I trust the other pilots to be able to defend New Anchorage, even with me gone."

"Well, you have a point. I guess I can't see things in perspectives not my own. If I was in your situation I'd be giddy."

"So, tell me, why are you leaving? Especially since you are interested in at least speaking to the 'man behind the mask' for once, and you had no knowledge of me planning to leave."

"You know how I talked about 'the soul' and all that shit? I only feel alive when I know I could die at any moment... I'm going back to my old ways."

"Only feeling alive when one could die at any moment. Could one not die at any moment regardless of the situation?"

"Yeah.. but bullets whizzing by, explosions that could knock you off your feet and splatter you, thermal weapons that burn you slowly... It's exhilerating, you know? You probably don't, of course."

"I don't experience that myself, but I can see why people would enjoy it. The rush of adrenaline and other hormones and neurotransmitters, when in danger, can be like a drug."

"You sure like analyzing things until they're no fun anymore. Well, before I go hitch-hiking... You got any questions? It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, just leaving you dumb youths in the utter dark."

"Could we stay in contact, in secret of course."

"Probably not. I'm going to moving from place to place constantly, but if you really want me to, I guess I can send letters. If I do, you make sure to pass them around in secret to your equals."

"Thank you. For we may meet again some time."

"I plan on it."

Joe wasn't really happy about the result, as his escape plan had been foiled by the captain's escape plan, but he couldn't blame her. While she continued to walk away, he waved after her for a while, before heading back into the facility.

Sophia waved back, looking forwards.

---

Old Moscow, Volkov Nuclear Security territory. Database/Transmission Facility 12

Two off-duty guardsmen in the buildings' cafeteria are playing chess, alone in the room aside from a few messhall orderlies.

"I swear to god Sergei,", the shorter one in a gasmask would start, "Why do you always bring your Kalashnikov to the chess table?", asking his compatriot in boardgames.

Sergei responded sarcastically. "I don't know Vladimir, maybe because I'm a fucking guardsman in the ass-end of nowhere, where my balls'll freeze off at any moment due to the nuclear blizzard going outside, and that there are hundreds of ludicrously vicious, radioactive, oversized mutated predators roaming the countryside waiting to rip out our goddamn throats?" The man had a few good points.

"Well, yeah, but you don't see lugging around my Barret everywhere. It's just rude, alright?", Vladimir elaborates, while eyeing his weapon leaning in the corner behind him.

"'Rude' is sticking a twelve gauge up somebody's asshole and pulling the trigger."

"Oh, so doing all that except pulling the trigger is just fine?"

"Fuck you Vladimir, you're a cunt."

The two men, after making a few moves on the chessboard, notice that their buddy Ivan walks towards them and takes a seat, sitting in it reversed, laying forwards on the backrest. "Hey guys, how's it going? Is today Tuesday? I'm craving tacos."

Vladimir rolls his eyes, "Urgh... you see Ivan..."

Ivan, with hope in his eyes (as much could be told behind the goggles), listens intently.

Sergei finishes for Vladimir, with audible sadness in his voice.

"...Ivan, taco tuesday was cancelled."

"...Oh." was all Ivan could say. All of the hope and love of life exited his eyes instantly.

"...So-so how's the boardgames...? We... we still have checkers right?"

Vladimir tries to salvage the situation, "Yes, we still have checkers."

"...What about Bunkers and Badasses?"

"Yes, we still have B&B", Vlad happily confirms.

Ivan skips ecstatically, a loud "YES!" emanating from his person.

"Calm down Ivan.", Sergei bluntly commands.

"Oh, okay!". Ivan sits down to watch their game.

---

Two stories below them, in the command room of the facility.

"Commander!" one of the RADAR operators shouted for.

Inquisitively, "Yes? What is it?", the commander asked. "Is there an enemy?"

"Uhh... Yes sir. It's moving in quick. 6 kilometers above the ground, blinking in and out. IFF isn't operating. Appears to be a Neural Combatant, or perhaps a heavier fighter-bomber."

"Activate all perimeter defenses, hail it and shoot it down if necessary."

"Roger, sir."

---

Sergei snaps his fingers. "Ah-hah! Suck it Vladimir, your knight is mine."

Vladimir laughs. "Hohohoh...but Sergei, your queen...", Vladimir uses a pawn to take Sergei's queen, out of the blue, "Is mine."

"Shit...", Sergei huffs. "Ivan.. what should I do?", he whispers while Vladimir gets a drink.

Ivan, advising, "Well, Sergei.. your bishop should finish what you were planning, then move back in position with those three pawns and two knights."

"Genius..."

Ivan then crosses his arms. "Man, I feel like this is somehow important in multiple, subtle ways. Like, determine the fate of the universe level. What if somebody's watching us?"

"You need to lay off the weed, Ivan."

"Hey, don't rat me out."

---

Nine took a look at his scanners and grinned. "Everything is in place. This is going to be so much fun."

After blinking in and out of seemingly all existance a few more times, carefully maintaining his 6 km range he finally made his move. The blinking stopped and he was headed straight for the base.

Mere 100m away from the base he stopped and waited, as if waiting for them to act first . . . toying with them.

Interrogating russian soon turned into angry, ranting russian speech when Nine penetrated the perimeter far too quickly all of a sudden.

"Unknown NC! Stand down immediately or be destroyed, this is your last warning!", the radio's operator barked.

Turrets outside the surface portion of the facility began whirring to life, and larger implements in the mountains far away did the same, scanning Nine. Two heavy laser systems, numerous rockets, and plenty of simple flak turrets were trained on Nine's Neural Combatant, warming up quickly.

Nine opened a radio channel and the first thing he did was of course laugh maniacally. A long paused followed. "How entertaining. I was going to say the same thing to you."

A few icons popped up on Nine's HUD, a few of them suddenly blinking red. Six kilometers from the base, surrounding it, a large array of jury rigged anti-materiel sniper rifles salvaged from unknown NC's opened fire. Synchronously, nearly all exterior defenses were crippled.

"I do hope you have some NC guards in there, otherwise this won't be fun at all. Your move."

The command staff and guards of the facility began panicking, watching as a vast majority of their heavy defensive armaments suddenly exploded all around them. "Status report!" the commander demanded, "Now! Launch everything left!"

"Sir, 87% of all weapons annihilated! NC 'Proletariat' is already returning from patrol to assist.", one of the commanders' staff members notified.

"She'll have to do."

The remaining guns, a scant few flak turrets in addition to some stationary tank guns, began firing. The skies above the base turned into a fireworks show almost instantly, the flak guns attempting to box the enemy NC in while the 150 millimeter cannons attempted to directly damage the assailant.

The hostile black NC began boosting towards the main gate of the base effortlessly dodging most incoming fire.

The patrol NC 'Proletariat' entered the combat zone, the first bout of flak receding while the 150mm guns continued trying to hit their target, to little avail.

Several three bladed discs lodged themselves into the main gate and exploded, leaving a sizeable hole in it. Nine however moved away from the gate.
"Not yet." He said, instead now focusing his attention on the patrol who had entered the combat zone.

The bulky, rounded and blue NC opened up communications, warming up a plasma beam machine gun, and locking on with thermobaric warheads. "Get ready to die, raider!", the female pilot boasted over comms, "I don't go easy on you mongrels!". The NC was two thousand Km above the ground, falling down steadily while gaining ground on Nine, firing off a burst of particle beams.

The black NC side-stepped the first volley before simply blinking out of existance. "Why don't you come down here. We'll play a little game."
The NC reappeared in a different location and fired its railgun once, aiming to just graze the other NC. More toying around with his prey, it seemed.

The Proletariat flinched at the impact, but stayed afloat, changing course for the enemys new position. "I-I'll... I won't stand for.. Oh forget it!". The NC's boosters went to full afterburn, aiming to grapple her opponent, firing highly incendianary rockets in a spread beforehand.

Nine merely stood still and waited for the rockets to close in. And he waited some more, to the point where the likelyhood of dodging was zero.

However, merely seconds before impact his NC took out another one of those explosive discs and threw into the ground. It penetrated the dirt beneath him and exploded all while he used his thruster to move himself to the side just enough to avoid getting caught in his own explosion. As the disc detonated underneath the ground it launched a sizeable amount of dirt and rocks towards the sky, creating an umbrella of sorts, intending to cause the rockets to detonate prematurely.

The missiles' massive fireballs did extend outwards from the on-demand dust storm, yet at best the explosions singed off a few cans' worth of paint.

"H-how... HOW?!", is all the pilot of Proletariat could muster. "This.. THIS ISN'T FAIR!"
The pilot could be heard audibly hyperventilating as she tried to continue piloting, fear and awe overtaking her training.

"Who.. what are you...?" was heard after a few moments, the Proletariat pausing to land for a moment, thrusters still hot.

"Your worst nightmare." was the only response she got.

Out of the still settling dust, at high speeds, the black NC emerged, heading straight for the blue one.
With a quick vault over the top of the bulky NC, Nine deployed the blades hidden within the arms of his NC. A few slices later, the other pilot would likely notice her thrusters were unusable after the attack.

"Tag, you're it." Another laugh followed over the comms.

The pilot yelped in pain, surges of the sensation coming through the neural net technology."What do you want?! I don't want to die - Please!". The NC struggled back to action as the pilot ranted, trying to aim the plasma gun towards Nine, firing off a sloppily aimed snapshot of a volley.

"Meek words for someone firing a plasma rifle." Nine said as he vanished again, at the same time attempting to dodging the incoming plasma bolts.

The staffmembers in the command room watched as non-essential personel were confirmed as being evacuated. The bases' leader grabbed the radio equipment and set it to Proletariat. "I swear to god, make time! Give your life if you must, the data can't fall in enemy hands! Charge, damn you!". Orders sent, running to the server room, he started helping his men burn and wipe documents and hard drives.

Proletariat paused, regained composure, and resumed attacking. Six missiles were fired in addition to her plasma rifle launching another wave of green-yellow bolts, beginning to overheat at this stage.

"I don't like people who sit around on their asses."

Nine suddenly appeared out of thin air behind the blue NC, kicking it forwards mid air. At the same time another one of the icons on Nine's HUD blinked. Six kilometers away another one of the anti-materiel rifles fired. And the Proletariat was right in the path of the shell.

"Goodbye."

"I wasn't strong enough-" were the pilots' last words. What was she fighting for anyway? The more pressing matter at hand was the information deep inside the facility, being corrupted to uselessness as Nine played with his toys.

However, he was now done. The black NC moved through the gates that were blasted earlier and checked for other hostile NC on the premises of the base. None showed themselves, and the main interior hanger was empty aside from maintenance tools and whatnot. The entrance to further inside was not large enough for an NC.

Nine stepped out of his NC taking his trusted handgun with him, holstering it to the back of his camo-patterened pants. With hurried steps, yet not bothering to actually run, he entered the facility.

Nine could hear people further inside, their foot-steps being mostly orderly and heading for various smaller, secondary hangers for a few escape vehicles. It was obvious to Nine that he couldn't waste too much time fighting his way through.

Nine headed towards the direction from where the sound of people came from. A turn later through the maze of hallways, a few people heading towards one of the hangers. He took out his handgun. Blood spilled on the walls as two gunshots resonated throughout the halls. He then continued through the hallway from which the people were coming intending to shoot down anyone in his way.

He soon came across two guards who were marching away from the server room, facing him after turning a corner. They took cover, disengaging safeties. A few tense moments passed before one threw a grenade of some sort down the hallway.

Nine didn’t even flinch and before the grenade was even half of the way to him he shot it mid air followed by more shots at the cover, right in the spot where he knew their heads were after taking refuge. Two satisfying ‘thumps’ later, and Nine was free to go to the database, now just a few rooms away.

”Poorly prepared.” Nine huffed as he passed through the last hallways leading to where he assumed was the room holding the database of the facility. One final security door kept him away from his goal, and he could hear people typing away on the other side.

”They wouldn’t. . . ” He said with a grin as he pressed a few buttons on the panel next to the door intending to open the door.

Nine was then greeted by a heavily armored infantryman spooling up a minigun, two scientists, cowering behind him and now slowly typing at a console respectively.

”Hah, you did not, seriously, leave this door unlocked.” He yelled as he as he took a few steps to the side and waited with his back to the wall, expecting the minigunner to open fire, which he did. six millimeter bullets began whizzing out of his guns’ seven barrels, more like a laser that just happened to be made of physical matter instead of photons instead of a steady stream of individual bullets.

Of course, Nine dodged out of the way just as well as he usually does, omnipotent reflexes serving him ludicrously well. The heavy’s eyes widened at this, expecting to see an intruder turned into a thick slurry in milliseconds. Nonetheless, he continued firing and advancing on the intruder. The large fellow began screaming in native Russian. “IT’S YOU OR ME! LET’S ROCK!”

Nine grinned madly, his teeth showing, ”I love this.” he spoke, not being so excited in a while. He stretched out his arm resting it on the control panel of the security door and awaited the arrival of his foe. Allowing his gatling to rest for a bit, the soldier slowly walked to the door, before beginning to spool up yet again just as he reached it, jinking his view immediately towards Nine as soon as he saw him.

The moment his minigun poked through the door, Nine pressed a few buttons causing it to slide shut. The guns’ barrels stopped rotating, and crinked due to the force while being stuck in between. The bullets continued attempting to fire, getting stuck halfway through the barrel due to it being squished, then nearly immediately filling it up as the brute of a soldier was confused on what the hell happened. Figuring it out one millisecond too late, the 6mm bullets’ casings began exploding inside the gun itself, causing it to jam further and blow it in half. The heavy staggered backwards, before ripping out the gun and forcing the doors to open.

As the door creaked open, Nine stood in front of him, still grinning madly, with his handgun aimed at him. Not moments later he opened fire, however the low-caliber bullets harmlessly bounced off the heavy’s armor.
He then began a fist-fight, an armored right hook aimed directly for Nine’s face. Nine, however, ducked, easily dodging the clumsy blow. Immediately, it was followed by a left-handed uppercut, going straight for the jaw.

Nine bent backwards, dodging the uppercut while pulling out his knife. The Heavy’s armor clearly had openings in the joints, mainly between the glove part and the rest of his arm, and that’s exactly where Nine aimed at with his knife. The Heavy didn’t even flinch, conditioned to accept pain as long as it results in victory. He used this opportunity to bring Nine in, attempting to snap his neck like a chicken bone.

Nine, however, seamlessly slid down in a crouch, avoiding the attempted grab and stuck his knife in the soldier’s ankle following it with a low spin-kick as he attempted to detach his foot from his leg. The foot was nearly cut cleanly off, dangling for a few moments before the Heavy, ignorant of the pain and that limbs’ condition, tried to kick Nine in the face. Obviously, before impact, the Heavy noticed that its’ foot was now flying in an arc. It was… comically, surrealy slapstick for some strange reason.

The Heavy then fell down, beginning to lose blood, before stumbling back up and trying to continue fighting while missing a bloody foot. Obviously, he was… on his last leg. Being so bulky and obviously crippled, it took him a while to stand up, which gave Nine plenty of time to walk around him, now facing his back. ”Night-night.” he said, maintaining his psychotic grin all the while he stuck his knife into the back of his neck, severing his spine.

The Heavy slumped over like a piece of meat (Which he effectively was anyway), as the two scientists in the database room slowly put their hands up.

”Well then . . . “ Nine spoke and immediately pointed his gun at the foot of the first one, firing without hesitation, then doing the same to the second one.

The second one, an older bloke, coughed as he hit the floor in pain and frantically started attempting negotiations. “Do- don’t kill us! The.. The data is salvageable- I-I promise! The m-master password i-is 46*3-aJIK!”. The older gentleman breathed for a few seconds, “Just.. let us live! I gave you the cod-code, it’s only fair!”

Nine step forward and inputted the code into the mainframe while he pulled out his own data drive and prepared it.
The younger one looked at his wound, before asking a question. Calm, for the most part, “What.. exactly are you looking for..?”.

”Oh you’d like to know wouldn’t you.” he responded while still focused on trying to salvage the data he was looking for.

”Actually . . . can you tell me who and where the leadership of Volkov is?”

The older man looked in fear as his junior associate seemingly weighed his options. The young man gave his offer. “...I really don’t like that you just shot me in my foot… Of course, you’d kill me if I didn’t tell you, anyway… So, I give you everything I know.. but you get me outta here as far away as possible? Volkov’ll use me in one of their bio-engineering experiments anyway.” He certainly had balls, assuming he was in a position to negotiate.

Nine turned around and eyed the young man. While still staring him in the eye he pulled out his gun and shot the older scientist in the head.

”You will tell me what you know right now . . . and I will . . . consider taking your interests into account.”

The young man widened his ocular instruments at the hole in his fellow employee’s brainpan. “He was an asshole anyway… But yes, I took quite a few peeks that weren’t in my contract over the years. Turns out that our mysterious… main leader… never stays in one place for more than a month. But, you can find him using an algorithm. I wrote an unencrypted list, it’s in my room, under my mattress. You won’t miss it on your way out. I’d get it for you but you sorta blew a hole in my fucking foot. You’ll have to go to each location individually and it’s random, but he doesn’t relocate anywhere else. Set up traps if you want, I wouldn’t care.”

“So, can you please help me hobble out of here?”

Nine turned back towards the mainframe checking that all the data was copied on his data drive before taking it with him.

”If you’re lucky, you should be able to crawl out of here before you bleed out. I have no doubt you’ll find some vehicle in the hanger.”

“Well gee, thanks for holding up your end of the bargain...” the technician snarked as Nine began leaving the room.

”If you by chance run into Volkov again . . . tell them Subject Nine sends his regards.”

The young technician sighed. “..Dick..”

January eighth, New Anchorage. Cold and snowy as usual, and things were normalizing again after Sophia abruptly left. Some were glad she was gone, others were confused or reeling. Matthew, as the second-highest ranking in militaristic matters, picked up her slack for now.

6 A.M. Snow was falling outside as usual, of course, the people inside could barely tell. Matthew was preparing a briefing for the pilots, who had their own reactions to everything that just transpired. Jan, for example, was apparently right pissed and added to the chaos as things went south.

The pilots were called to the briefing room at 6:15, by a different voice through the speakers this time. One by one they arrived, seeing that the young man has taken Sophia’s place as top-dog for now, sitting in what used to be her chair.

“Sophia’s already given a preview of this operation I believe.”, Matthew started the projector. “Paragon wants us to take out a small naval fleet, operated by Denver-Vegas. It includes a submersible, and a handful of standard vessels. The main target is obviously the flagship, a prototype of a battlecruiser with techniques in construction patented by Paragon. It should be obvious why they want us to take it down, with that information.”

“The flagships’ main guns are the only heavy caliber weapons in the taskforce that could, and probably will attempt, to hit an NC at long ranges. Due to the massive weight and power behind each shell, you should all obviously attempt to dodge. It would be very easy for this to mission-kill you if it hits. Everything else in the fleet, sans the submersible, isn’t nearly as deadly.”

“The submersible is fitted with powerful cruise missiles, able to take on mobile targets- such as NCs- just as well as the regular bunkers and whatnot. Of course, due to the sub’s relative small size and need to submerge, it can only carry so many. Information on the class suggests it has twenty of those munitions available, in other words, four missiles for each of you to either shoot down or misdirect. Due to their size and low maneuverability, they should be quite easy.”

Matthew looked over his ‘audience’, “Do we have any questions for this operation?”

Joe had one question: “Is there any way to fail this mission besides retreating, surrendering or being killed?”

“As I’m sure the previous Captain has already stated,” Matthew went on, “You’ll have reduced pay if the main target is utterly unsalvageable. Feel free to brutalize all the others, though.”

Jan Chimed in. “Will they pay extra if we run into any unexpected surprises?” He was in a foul mood, likely due to not getting the assistance he had been requesting since the railgun job.

“About that, there already is one possible event. There’s a duo of older model heavy cruisers near the operational area. It’s a possibility they might wander in to provide support for their brethren. Although, due to the fact they’re sailing to be decommissioned, I doubt they’re in a state to fight in the first place.”

Matthew answered the actual question afterwards. “However, at least in that case, no, they won’t pay us extra.”
“Hah, cheap bastards they are…” Jan replied. “Anyways, this should be a cakewalk… I lit up ships before, it’s always fun to see the crew scramble around to evacuate…” He held the thought for a moment. “Yes… sinking into the water” His eyes wandered off, and his attention soon followed.

Matthew, seeing that Jan was apparently satisfied, went to Elizabeth. “Ms. Jackspar, do you have any inquiries?

Eli looked up at Matthew like he’d been silent the whole time. A moment passed, as though she was processing his question, then she shook her head. ”Mission sounds simple. We’ll be fine.”

“Very well. What about everyone else?”

---

January Eighth, off the coast of the pacific ocean, a lone super-heavy jet aircraft flew through the skies at breakneck speeds. At a dangerously low altitude sufficient to cause ripples and waves in the water, it was aimed straight towards the same fleet that the mercs at New Anchorage were headed for.

”The trap is set, Knight, Pawn.”, a mechanical voice boomed into two NC pilots’ ears. ”Wipe them off the board.”.

Replies.
”Yes, sir. I won’t let you down!”, the brash, aggressive young female with the reigns of Knight affirmed.
Pawn, far less serious,”Whatever. Long as I can kill shit, I don’t care. Bishop was weak anyway.”

The massive jet then turned ninety degrees upwards in scant few seconds, decoupling the two NC’s at the same time with great force. Pawn impacted with the bridge of the taskforce’s flagship, using its large numbers of guns to annihilate everything on the deck. Knight activated ECM to jam all radar, helping Pawn finish off the rest of the dregs.

---

Matthew coughed. “Hm, anyone else feeling a bit chilly? Something just came over me.”

“Eh, maybe sophia has a seat cooler you accidentally tripped… would have explained her usual disposition.” Jan quipped, determined to have the last word in this briefing.

Joe was amused by that suggestion.

Eli was less so, eyeing Jan before turning her attention back to Matthew. ”Is that all?”

“I believe that’s all that requires your attention. Would anyone else have inquiries?”

”Who’s going where, exactly?”

Matt answered Percy’s inquiry, “All of you will be necessary for this operation, I believe, Mr. Moore.”

”Well no shit,”Percy replied shortly, “I meant.. I swear I remember getting told that we’d be split into teams?”

“Not for this one, Mr. Moore. Is there anything else you’re curious about?”

”Why you keep calling me by my last name, I guess?” Percy had a small flash of a smile on his face - he thought that was funny. ”Just call me Percy. Really.”

“Alright then,” Matt went along, “Mr. Percy?”

”Just Percy.”

---

Eli made it to the elevator before her solitary journey ended. A quick pattering of feet brought Vera onto the lift just before it began to rise, and Eli hurriedly dragged her away from the edge.

”What are you do—”

The tiny girl snatched Eli by the wrists and pulled her down close to eye-level. Her face was pulled serious, brow low over her eyes, mouth a pouty frown that lacked any real anger.

”You can’t go.”

”What?”

Vera was adamant, small hands closing around Eli’s wrists. ”I don’t want you to go.”

Eli took the girl’s hands in her own, more to free herself than anything, and stood back up. She smiled despite herself, tracing Vera’s palms gently. ”What’s the matter? I thought you liked being my assistant--”

”You’re gonna kill people. You’re gonna kill people and then you’re gonna leave. It happened to Ms. Captain, it’s gonna happen to Stein, and it’s gonna happen to you.”

The lift came to a stop at Blur’s cockpit, and Eli let Vera go before stepping back. The smaller girl’s upper lip was far too stiff to tremble, but her eyes were wet, and she yanked the ushanka down low to cover them.

”Vera, I’m coming back, alright? I promise.”

But she received only silence in response. Vera descended with the lift, and Eli was left to climb into Blur with only the hope that the girl wouldn’t worry too much.

Jan walked through the hallways, thinking about the last few hours. He had tried to be discreet about things, not wanting to further upset people further after the unexpected desertion of the base commander, Who had he talked to again? The new commander first and foremost. He reminisced on how that exchange had gone.

---

“Oh, Mr. Gent, do come in. Is something biting at you?”, Matt commented and asked when he noticed Jan entering his ‘new office’ which used to be his predecessors’ quarters.

“Well sir, sorry to bother you what with all that’s been going on… but I had a little… incident on the return trip from the railgun job.”

“Is that so? Care to elaborate? Was it an error in your NC, or something of the sort?”

“I… don’t really know what happened. I had a spontaneous bout of… what I can only describe as vivid and disturbing hallucinations. I checked the logs afterwards, my neural activity spiked, but I couldn’t really trace back any real cause.” He still thought back to the event. He couldn’t remember having something like that happen to him before.

“Interesting. I’ll let the engineers look into it. Can you tell me anything else, to help with the problem?”. Matt had a look of intrigue in his eyes, obviously interested in this situation, yet perhaps not caring too much on a personal level. Of course, maybe Jan was still just seeing things.

“So what does this mean from an operational level? Am i grounded till we look further into this or?” Jan was asking more as a confirmation than anything else, of course they wouldn’t be sending him into combat if there was something that faulty going on with his NC. Would they?

“Hmm… Well…”, Matt spinned around his chair’s swivel once, apparently just because he could. “You do know how rude it is to answer a question with a question? In any case, I believe it’d be best for you to stay grounded until we figure things out.”

“Ah, yes… sorry, It’s been on my head all day. What I remember from my perspective was that I inexplicably entered a state of complete sensory hallucination. To the point where if it had happened while in combat, I would have been a sitting duck for the duration of the episode. I don’t know why this happened, It’s really a first in all the time I’ve piloted the Goldenspur.” Jan took a deep breath. “It’s a good call to ground me, I’m telling you that.”

“Mmm, well, I’m not a complete idiot is all. Nor am I utterly bloodthirsty! In any case, yes, I’ll have the engineers and our neural net expert investigate this matter until they find the cause.”. Matt was seemingly pleased with how Jan fed his ego, subconsciously.

---

And that’s how Jan found himself grounded for the flotilla job. To have something to do while the rest of the team was away, he had volunteered to help out at mission control. He wouldn’t be there in person, but at least he could offer his experienced opinion about situations as they developed. He reported to mission control after the briefing, though taking a small detour to fix himself a sandwich. He could hear the tech next to him mutter something about mayonnaise stains, but he was already busying himself with figuring out the console in front of him.

When the soldiers of New Anchorage launched that day, they weren't expecting a fierce battle. An enemy that they've seen before reared its ugly head yet again, yet they persevered against the enemy in front of them. Two of their number were wounded, and the New Anchorage soldiers dragged them back to be met with a nearly empty hangar. While they were gone, it seemed as if everyone on Volkov's payroll or orders was gone, and another round of hazey chaos ensued.

Order was re-established by a newcomer to the town entirely, an older man of the name 'Michael Graham', a roving leader of men, he said he was. He convinced the elders of the town to let him take care of it all. Even to Stein, he had an unreal will that made others want to follow him, if subconsciously. He certainly seemed to know what he was doing, which was enough for most of the people who were left.

When the reorganization of everyone else was finished, 'Commander' Graham as he made sure everyone knew, was then officially instated as such. He deemed Percy unfit for duty, and allowed Jan Van Gent to leave, if perhaps temporarily. Graham got into contact with people he apparently knew, and brought in some fresh meat to replace Volkov's grunts and monkeys.

Soon afterwards, The New Anchorage Mercenary Group was officially back in business (Yet again), and Graham put in measures to ensure further that it would stay that way from now on. Their underground hangar was renovated, furniture being replaced by more functional examples and rooms being swapped more logically from Michael's perspective. Graham solidified his power base, many of the people involved now being more loyal to him then the settlement he technically served.

He also commissioned a few of the traders who moved product to and fro other nearby territories to advertise that Neural Combatant pilots were needed. He made it clear that they'd provide the necessary surgeries, implants, and training if they were utterly new to the concept, yet did honestly prefer if they had some experience in some form. Of course, he did know that the possibility of getting experienced pilots was minuscule.

It was an ambiguous few days, but things went back to 'normal'.


Everyone was back on base, following the newly set routine and waiting for the clock to hit one P.M., which was when Graham said he'd review a number of contracts with the pilots. Currently, it was nine A.M. and the pilots were practicing battle scenarios, as mandated by their new, proper leader.

The pilots were waiting on the new specialist in charge of the simulators, James, to finish tweaking something with the help of one of Valdislav's assistants. The engineer replaced some wiring on two of the pods, then James activated each of them from the console in the back of the room. She dismissed the engineer, "Thanks! I wouldn't have figured that out, hehah.", then loaded some scenarios.

"Alright, everything's ready! You guys'll be going through a cramped-quarters, facility breach simulation while I note Neural Data for future reference. The 'Pain Sensors' will be active for this one, to make it as real as possible."

"Good luck in there, though I doubt you guys'll need it. It should be pretty simple. In fact, if it's too easy, please tell me. I need high and low activity scans, It being just the right difficulty'll really help."

Joe wasn’t particularly fond of having to do more simulations, they were always either way too easy or way too hard. Although that couldn’t be blamed on the scenarios, as the computer was simply deterministic, which in turn meant all its actions would always be the same in the same situation, thus making it either easy or nearly impossible to beat it, at least in Joe’s opinion.
But he didn’t complain, as all that would do is disrupt everyone for no gain, so he plugged into one of the simulation pods.

He was greeted with a virtual, globular menu around his ‘cockpit’, mission scenarios and descriptions. Only one was apparently selectable, and already had a ‘loading’ bar underneath it at 90%. While waiting for the scenario to fully load, Joe decided to check back with the specialist whether or not everything is working alright, since some of the pods had been worked on: “Any quirks left in the system, or is everything as the manual states?”

“Err, yeah, everything should be just fine and to-the-book? Are you seeing something wrong, Mr… Verona, right?”

“I am not seeing anything out of the ordinary here, I just want to make sure you didn’t overlook anything and thus render your readings unusable.”

“I am the expert on that here, but thanks for caring. As I said before, do tell if the following little mission is a bit too easy, just reminding.”

The loading bar reached 100%, and Joe promptly selected the only choice.

He was thrust into the virtual environment of the simulation proper, with the ‘fabric’ of that world going fritzy every so often, making it lag or corrupt visually. James noted this and was intrigued, mildly worried.

“Are you feeling alright? Your readings are fluctuating heavily, at best. It’s wanting to just read ‘∞%’ sometimes... You should be frying in that case!”

“I am fine, although the simulation is frequently showing heavy visual and audio artifacts, alongside lag. Were the computers downgraded?”

“No, they’re the best available. I optimized them myself when I got here. Do you have anything unusual involving your nervous system in your medical history? Brain damage, electrical accident, anything at all?”

“Not that I know, but neural resonance tests I sometimes did in private always ended up reading NaN, not a number. I thought the software was faulty and reported it to the engineers, to take a look at it. They said it was fine before the last test I did, which yielded the same result.”

“Then what the heck is wrong…? I’m looking at your plug’s firm and software and it seems as up-to-date as possible and bug-free. Whatever’s wrong, it has to be with you I guess! Do you experience anything odd when in the cockpit or what?”

“Not that I know. What happens if you undo your optimizations and read out every variable after each calculation? The values causing the errors should be apparent then.”

“Well gee with you plugged in that does have a chance to make your brain dribble out of your ears. Perhaps you should just do this later while we figure this out?”

“Fine with me, do you want a recording of the current output of the plug for testing with a dummy plug?”

“...Do I look like a corporate lackey who has access to that sorta stuff? Or am I reading you wrong?”

“No, but maybe you got one somewhere, who knows?”

“Well I don’t, although I do need one in hindsight. It’d be really useful huh? In any case, you can climb out. You’re dismissed, I guess. Unless you wanna watch the others flail around.”

“I’ll stay to watch, I have nothing better to do at the moment.” After saying those words, Joe unplugged and exited the pod.

Despite being in perfect health, Eli did not look well, nor had she since their last mission. Her posture, while straight, was low in the shoulders, and her head, the white hair stray and unkempt beneath her hood, was tilted down almost perpetually when she wasn't at attention. Her eyes showed most of the stress, though, glassy and sky-like only in the right light now, they seemed darker, more abyssal, and sunken.

As she stepped up to approach her designated pod, there was a tug at her sleeve and she saw Vera hold out a thermos to her. Against Eli's directions --though not her wishes-- the girl had come along, holding fast to her secretarial duties. Eli's worry didn't stem from her duties though, but her position as a whole. Vera had been allowed in under...their previous captain's command, and while perhaps the girl had thus far skirted beneath the radar, Eli wasn't keen on making her presence blatantly known to the higher ups unless it was necessary.

"Thanks, Vi," Eli said, softer tone slipping out despite the other company present, but only for a moment. She took a sip from the thermos, then handed it back and nodded towards the door. "Go on, I'll come get you after work."

Perhaps it was because of Eli's state, or perhaps Vera understood the potentially precarious position she was in. Perhaps it was just too early, and the little girl hadn't yet woken up enough to put up a debate. Whatever the case, Vera nodded obediently, then scurried out of the training room, back towards the dorms.

Eli tugged her scarf down and pulled back her hood, then stepped up and into her pod to enter their simulation. For whatever subtle differences there were between simulated piloting and actual piloting, the enabling of pain receptors made all of them irrelevant, at least to her. She'd always prefer the feel of her limbs as one with the weight of Blur's, but the certain freedom simulations allowed was welcome.

Before her eyes, Blur's various systems came online. Weapons, check. Mobility, check. Targeting, check. Reflex Sync was 95, her average, and the neural sync teetered between 99 and 100 for a few odd moments before clicking into check as well. Green across the board.

"Blur is clear." As the environment began to load in Blur pulled the hilt of the standard-issue beam sword. While the plasma blade housed in a sheath at her back was by far her favorite, she'd made a point not to draw it unless it was going to do work. She took note of Joe's absence, but was confident one less team member wouldn't jeopardize their simulation.

---

---

---

---

It had been only seven days since Sophia decided to deject herself from New Anchorage.

The events around New Anchorage had been… aggravating to Stein to say the least. Not only did their irate commanding officer decide to jump ship, the program had nearly collapsed into nothing after little than one mission with the group. It was a hard reality, but independent factions had to deal with this all the time— she knew that quite well considering during her time at Volkov she had read the reports and looked over the facts. Had Michael Graham not been hired in Sophia’s absence she most certainly would’ve spoken to the elders about taking lead; she certainly had the field experience compared to anybody else New Anchorage had even despite her lack of experience in other areas needed. But Graham had seemingly come out of nowhere when the opportunity opened and now he had restructured the operation as best he could in the time he had. But something smelled wrong… as it did when Sophia lied to her about the statistics of the previous mission she had inquired about— she just couldn’t place what was wrong with newly appointed Commander Graham.

But she knew something was up. Time would tell what it would be, perhaps.

A heavy breath left her lips as the doors to the simulation room opened, the female pilot and soldier walking forward— her hair cut short, dangling right below her neck unlike the long strands she had when she had entered the service of New Anchorage.

“You must be Stein Kalfox.”

Stein nodded as she looked to notice one of the pods, next to the one Elizabeth Jackspar had chosen. Seemed good enough. “I’ll take Pod A02.”

Mandated simulation was a familiar feeling that reminded her of home back in Magadan. Her last simulation in New Anchorage had been with Jan Van Gent and it was particularly brief. This was with what remained of the squadron. She went through the typical pre-setup of simulation as the machine soon began to whir back to life. Her brows narrowed as she prepared to focus on the simulation that had been prepared, eager to get back in the sense of things.

“Little Dragon is clear.”

As the two got situated in, the environment of their virtual world changed once more into the actual mission. They were immediately greeted by a hill, a large Neural Combatant sized door built into it. There were two red points on the door, near the middle, just about the size of Blur's demolition charges.

James 'got on the radio' once more, "Alright! Just do what comes natural when breaching the facility. Not every route is as obvious as this one, and alternatives are always possible, just like a real facility. You have one hour and thirty minutes to clear out the entire area." James reassured them, "You're both good at this, so as I said.. Just do what comes natural, and keep your guard up?"

Movement could be heard from the other side of the door, faintly.

James got 'off the radio' and began taking notes on a clipboard she left near one of the podules, paying attention to the readings she got on a nearby console. "So, mind lending me an outsiders' perspective, Joe? About how naturally skilled would you say Eli is?"

James continued, "The records I've found around seem to imply she's either the second or third most attuned to NC piloting we have, would you agree with that?". While waiting for an answer, she began writing a few things down.

On the other side of the planet, a lone mercenary was roaming the countryside in his Neural Combatant, on the run after a mission gone bad. Jan thought about how things had gone so wrong after his contract with New Anchorage had been voided.

Paragon contacted him about some contract or another he could take if he needed the money, which considering, he did. It was apparently something about Volkov raiding an important aerial shipping lane that Paragon used, but that was just a cover-up for a damn ambush. That was a few days ago, and he was still damaged and being slowly hunted.

It had been a while since the last contact with enemy units. Now seemed like a good time to slow down for a moment and consider his options. He couldn’t keep running forever, either he’d run out of fuel or some lucky punk would come mop him up. He mentally ran through a list of his contacts… Who did he know that he could at least somewhat count on to come pull his ass out of the fire. Obviously not the megacorps. He was just a small fry and probably not worth the effort. It seemed he would have to count on a more minor faction. He considered what would motivate them, people didn’t usually organize an evac operation out of charity. He opened his long-range comms console and input a channel code he knew all too well. It was the code he made a point of always sneaking into his past employers databases in case he ever needed to contact them covertly. The writeup he made was quick and concise but got the point across.

“Emergency evac needed out of paragon territory, offering 200K for the first person to call back with a reasonable outfit. Current location not included due to security risk.” He considered the contract offer, it didn’t bear any fancy seals or watermarks, so it was safe to assume quite a few would just throw it out as if it was junkmail. Still, out of all the people he had worked with over the years at least one or two might just be bored or desperate enough to respond. His long-range sensors suddenly sprang to life. It appeared two bogeys had entered his sensor range. The merc sent the message out without overthinking it any further and throttled Goldenspur’s mighty thrusters. He wasn’t privy to stick around to see who was sweeping the area.

While leaving the sector, a third, and then even a fourth contact quickly came into the edge of his sensor range. He could just pick up that a radio conversation began to occur and that it was effectively unencrypted. He could silently join in to see who was talking and about what.

A ‘tough guy’ was the first to talk on the line, obviously angered, yet apparently intrigued. “So, you want him too, huh? Well he’s mine, piss off. I’m not going to simply let you take him. What exactly makes you think you can just waltz here and catch him instead of me?”

A girl replied, “Ohh.. I don’t want any trouble.. I’m just, erm, y’know. Interested in Jan. Can you please go? I have corporate backing, sort of.”. She sounded like she barely had any idea what she was doing.

“Pfft..hahahahah! Who the hell is this? I can’t even believe you’re an NC pilot! What, did you just fall in the cockpit or something?”

She got a little angry. “Well.. Uhh… … I don’t have time for this. Goodbye?”. The fourth NC raised altitude while heading towards where she last detected the Goldenspur, before getting a bead apparently and heading right for him.

“Stupid… Eh, whatever. Alright boys, take them both out!”. The three other contacts continued the pursuit of their original quarry.

“I can’t really tell how much of her skill is natural, and what is the result training, however so far she has demonstrated what she can do. And yes, her synch rate is the highest natural rate in this team, at least as far as I know.” Joe replied, slightly insecure, as he can’t really judge how good someone is, all he could do is compare two people doing the exact same thing.

“I see… So, how did you all come to this, might I ask? I’m just curious.” James smiled, “I mean, I’m going to help patch you up from now on if something goes wrong! I might as well get to know you guys a little more than the preliminary things, right?”

“I can’t speak for the others, I may forget important details of their story. However, I am here as punishment for something stupid I did. It involved a punch breaking my hand, and my father’s memory.”

“...Oh…” For obvious reasons, she now seemed mildly suspicious. “Erm… are you…?”

“Am I what exactly? And no, no need to be too suspicious, it happened in a fit of extreme rage, I doubt you are capable of reawakening the beast.”

“So you admit you have an anger problem? Well, there’s that… What I meant was, y’know. You aren’t like…”, she turned a bit more sheepish, “A real criminal or something, right? Did you... murder somebody?”

“Depends on the definition of murder. If robbing someone of the ability to make any new memory is called murder, then yes; otherwise, no.” Joe laughed awkwardly, attempting to lighten up the mood.

James laughed along, apparently appreciating the attempt. “Well, in any case… are you sure you didn’t have anything wrong with you? That NaN and Infinity thing with your plug… I’ve never seen that personally before.” She elaborated a little, “I’ve heard about it, but never seen it with my own eyes until now. Although, with the fact that everything still seems to work fine, I’m really not sure what it could be.”

“If there is something wrong with me, I am not aware of it. And what exactly did you hear about it?”

“Well, apparently a few years ago one archeological team or another dug records up at an NC facility of some sort. They were records related to some sort of … y’know, experimental plugs? And nets themselves too, the NC side of the whole system. The systems described were really icky, even for me. Basically sealing the pilot inside a special cockpit with an amniotic fluid like liquid. Their bodies dissolved as their nervous system fused with the craft completely!”

She seemed to shiver, “God, nobody needs or deserves that... In any case, the failed, and successful examples in the records had similar happenings occasionally. Maybe your plug was connected too well?”

“I don’t know what would make someone knowingly sign up for that, but I do see why it might be needed by some. After all, a pure nervous system can be connected much better and in much more places, than the average plug. In addition, it does not require as much ‘maintenance’. Excuse the technical term, but a nervous system by itself doesn’t have all the needs of a human.”

James rolled her eyes, “Man, you really did your homework. Maybe you aren’t so bad as you seemed! And yeah, you really have some points there. About the ‘maintenance’ and more points to connect. Heh, where’d you learn that stuff anyway? I’m just well travelled myself, you don’t seem to be that type. Love your local library or something?”

“Nah, my father was an NC mechanic, before...the incident that got me here. The rest is just extrapolating my knowledge onto the new hypothetical situation.”

“Ahhhh, riiight.”