“Here he comes down the left lane, dodging the opposition left and right! The Olympians defense is running out of gaps to fill… a brilliant fake! Brown is unstoppable! Can he make it? It’s... it’s… IN! The Eusian Bolts move to the finals! What a spectacular finish!”

Camilla shoved another handful of crisps past her lips, staring lazily at the tail end of a Dasherball game. Her cockpit was littered with refuse - wrappers, empty cans, an old issue of Cronus Weekly and loose newspapers were strewn about her feet and the crevices of the compartment. She was crammed into the cushion of her seat, knees to her chest, as though she were reclining on a sofa rather than operating a million-credit, military-grade frame.

The fact of the matter was both activities weren’t so different, if you were on a dead-end contract like the one the Ghosts had taken for the past several months. Osgood was offering them a steady but unremarkable income to stand guard over a remote plant, technically in the contested zone, although there was little incentive to fight over this rock. Osgood built cheap, reliable automobiles, motor vehicles and economy-class shuttles. The place saw as much excitement as watching flowers grow. Why they needed the Ghosts to safeguard it, Camilla hadn’t bothered to guess.

“Bolts won,” she muttered over the radio. “Evangeline, you owe me.” Camilla brushed a few crumbs off her jacket and sat up, jabbing at the ‘Channel Up’ switch. Before she found something bearable, or before her apathy could settle on any given station, her headset crackled to life and interrupted her channel-surfing.

“Captain Stavros?” an urgent voice asked. “This is Plant 22B. We’re seeing something on our long-range sensors. Please respond.”
Why does a backwater manufacturing plant need a sensor array?
The employee at the other end of the radio hailed Camila two more times, before she finally tossed her empty crisp bag aside, responding, “Stavros, here. I see nothing on radar, what have you got?”
“By our estimations, there are three objects moving at high speeds from the west, bearing 288 from the plant. They’re frame-sized. We’ll send you our feed.”

A window popped up on Camilla’s HUD, revealing a cloud of dust and several grainy specks that were difficult to make out. They were thousands of meters away, yet closing rapidly.

“We’re asking you to check it out,” the employee continued. “ASAP.”

Camilla brought her legs out from under her and strapped herself in properly. It was probably nothing to worry about, maybe a couple of kids zipping around in their grav-shuttles. But the urgency in the Osgood rep’s tone suggested otherwise.

“Will do, 22B. Stavros out.” Camilla grabbed hold of her control yokes and eased her feet on the pedals beneath her. Her Gladiator groaned as it lurched from idle and began rolling.

“Alright, Ghosts, let’s go see what the big deal is.”

Katushya had also been monitoring the same radio broadcast, one part because it slightly helped with figuring out what was going-on without waiting for Miss Starvos to repeat every tiny detail to the rest of the team, and also so she wouldn't have to tune into her team's frequency and listen to Eve, Viv, Cami and Troy bicker. Still, she started up her engines and tuned back to them just as the words "big deal" were being broadcast.

The three unidentified bogies were coming in from the west-northwestly direction, Camile was over to her south a ways, so Miss Katukov kept well enough to the north flank. The going was sluggish, largely because the hydraulics in Yassir's legs were still running cold, like she had molasses for muscles, the engine strained to push the thick viscus fluid through the pistons, but they were moving; more importantly, she was gaining momentum.

"Troy, you keep the bunker warm or something, this could be just a diversion. Besides, you've already got the range to assist, and it's probably nothing. But just in case, get your systems warmed-up, just like a preflight-check." She was issuing orders without permission again, but she really didn't want to risk them losing this contract just because they all scurried to the sight of some teens on mopeds.... Besides, she was almost certain Sparr had already left the trench to engage Camile in fisticuffs over losing the dashball-bet.

They were a dysfunctanal bunch of dillenquents, but they were part of her team, and this dysfunctalan team was on top because they played to win.

“That's alright, Cam, I figured you could use the pocket change.”

The cocky, irreverent quip did nothing to betray how fucking bored Sparr was. Quieter missions had their place, even she didn't want to be getting shot at all the time, but this was ridiculous. Spending so much time in her cockpit was so dull. She didn't have anything to do! There was barely ever anything good to watch, or listen to, and she ran out of stories ages ago. Which was why her ears perked up instantly when she heard something about unknown contacts.

“Alright,” She muttered quietly, getting comfy in her seat and gripping her controls. “Come on, baby.”

The Matryoshka obliged, rumbling to life and into movement with a touch of the controls. She wasn't as fast as the rest, but she didn't have to be. At a couple kilometers out she could still get to the signals in a couple minutes. Speed wasn't her virtue, that was for other people. Sparr’s job was to be the big bitch, the tank to keep her team safe and give as good as she got. And she fucking loved it.

“Reeeespectfully suggesting you let me take point, Cam.” The heiress commented into her headset, cracking her neck with a grin on her face. “Lil easier for me to take a hit and keep on ticking, if they've come to play. S’my job.”

“What's new, Viv? Anything I should know?”

For Kawal, the long months spent at the Osgoode facility had hardly been a bother, if anything the daily monotony was a callback to an earlier time for him, conjuring memories of his childhood spent upon Titan, the days blending imperceptibly together. Actually, it was probably more relaxing, on Titan there had always been something to do, while on Osgoode, all he had to do was sit around in his frame and look important.

Needless to say, he was despising every moment.



Wordlessly bobbing his head to the beat, staring blankly ahead as he zoned out to the lyrics, Kawal held the headphones against his ears with one hand, while the other flicked the cigarette delicately held between his index and middle finger against the makeshift ashtray he had welded against the side of his cockpit. A thick cloud of smoke hung languidly within the cramped space, making it near impossible for the unaccustomed to see within the suffocating miasma. He hardly even heard the Comms headset as it began to crackle around his neck, forcing him to rip his headphones off to catch the back end off the broadcast, clutching one earpiece to his head as he took a long drag off the cancer stick. Some action, finally...

Sighing to himself, he butted the cigarette out, slamming the tray shut. He'd only had to forget once, the taste of old cigarettes and ash was still a fresh memory within his mind. Adjusting the headset, he examined the HUD as he the engine roared to life, the hulking frame snapping forward with a deceptive ease. Making routine checks of his system, he maneuvered his Frame to directly cross the path of the approaching blips upon his radar. Kawal squinted at the fuzzy specks, trying to make out any details he could, "I'm enroute, moving to intercept." He muttered into the mic. Clearing his throat, he uttered a quick apology before repeating himself, more clearly the second time.

In no time at all, Kawal sped past Evangeline and her Matryoshka, his frame twisting in a slow 180 to wave at the Matryoshka, before snapping back around and speeding towards the potential bogeys, "With all due respect, we can't just wait for them to be on top of your fat ass. Our job is to protect the Plant. That might be a bit hard if they are already inside..." His voice was dripping with sarcasm and he hesitated for a moment as he operated the controls, unsure if perhaps he might have been a bit offensive, "If things do get hairy, I'm gonna need you to pull my boney-ass out of the fire, so don't take too long, alright? Captain Stavros, if all that is acceptable I should be able to intercept within 30 seconds."

Falling silent, the loud hum of the engine through the cockpit's walls was drowned out by the pounding rush of blood through his ears as Kawal forced himself to once more check his systems, engaging the Kranos APS and switching the Hijack to employ only HEAP rounds. He was feeling antsy and he knew it; if he jumped the gun, he'd rather not open fire with his heavy munitions.

Speaking of speedsters.

A rumbling growl reverberated in Sparr’s chest as the jumped up little arrogant newest member of the team blew past her almost as quickly as he'd get his ass blown up if there really were hostiles out there by running dick first towards them. And had the fucking nerve to take potshots at how fast her baby moved. Stupid kid was going to get himself fucking killed if he wasn't careful. And it probably wouldn't be one of her rounds that killed him, even though he was trying to take point over people with upwards of four times his experience…

Breathe, and don't picture sending an HEDP up his ass. Viv would frown.

She had a sudden, unwanted tinge of empathy with Katya.

Very unpleasant.

The growl trailed off slowly as she put the pedal to the metal, coaxing Matryoshka towards her top speed. When the kid landed his ass in the fire, as he seemed to realize a second after landing himself on her shit list, she'd have to bail him out.

This was the downside to being the big bitch.

“Cam, twenty bucks says I have to save his ass. Ten says I have to do it while Katya blames me for it.”

Camilla swore as the Αστραπή Strike zipped past Sparr, and then left her Gladiator behind. So much for textbooks. She edged her foot on the throttle, bringing her speed up to par.

"Dammit, kid. If you were out in the woods with knife and a grizzly charged at you, would you run at it?"

“Cam, twenty bucks says I have to save his ass. Ten says I have to do it while Katya blames me for it,” came Sparr's voice in her ear.

"No deal. Your money's mine, and I'm in no objection to that scenario."

A blip sounded and the dots appeared on Camilla's own radar screen as the objects came into the computer's range. Her C3i suite displayed the rest of the Ghosts and their respective visuals. Some of her squad were certainly taking their time waking up.
The bogeys were still dots in the distance, but seconds passed as their silhouettes became less hazy. Camilla thought she spotted the bobbing of a radio antenna, the glint of a frame optic, and that's when her early warning system screamed.

A flash of light sparkled from the three frames, growing closer faster than Camilla could process.
“Contact front!” she barked, wheeling off to put a low ridge between her frame and the aggressors.
"Not bogeys anymore, Troy!" The warhead zipped after her, then altered course in a wild arc as chaff full of metal particles confused its electronics. It collided into the ground nearby, spraying dust over the Gladiator.

Camilla righted herself, popping her autocannon over the hill crest and letting loose 27 mm rounds in a staccato of gunfire. The shots weren’t so much aimed to kill, but suppress: any pilot worth their salt would leap to cover in the face of oncoming fire. Unless they were extraordinarily brave or stupid, maybe.

“22B, your friends are hostiles! We’re engaging!”
“Copy, we’ve got eyes on at this time. Positive ID on hostiles: three Racers.”

Racer was the Jovian code for XBM-21s. Cronians. Stavros cursed silently. The trio had broken off their head-on approach and veered into a series of low dunes on the outskirts of the area. They were still moving at decent speed, wasting no time closing distance. The crests of the dunes made it difficult to get an accurate sight picture, but Camilla kept up her suppressive fire in bursts. An occasional reply of autocannon rounds answered back, raking the hill in front of her.

“They’re getting real fucking close,” she muttered. “Let’s get a perimeter up, people! Stop them dead!”

Listening to comms, the difference between Kawal and Troy were like night and day, with Sparr being the unhappy middle-person in the unwelcome man-sandwich. She probably would invent a way to blame Sparr for something after this. But right now Camille had called contact and was putting the lead out as Kawal kept charging over the dunes like a madman to apparently kill or be killed faster and bullets just weren't fast enough for his liking.

"Battle-comms affirmed, and somebody watch that six o'clock flank. If these were line-units making a push, there should be alot more of 'em." Katya was speaking from experiance, normal militaries such as the Cronies strongly stressed combined-arms warfare, supporting-fires and whatnot on a frontal assault. She also knew all too well how easy it was for less disciplined or inexperianced troopers to watch the fireworks of a fienting manuver only to put their back to the main-thrust. Thankfully, the folks over at station 22-Bravo were watching the situation unfold from the relative safety of their security-posts.

Of course, in all the excitement, nobody bothered to mention the enemy had changed their bearing to skirt around the Gladiator... and right into Katya's line of advance. They seemed a bit too preoccupied trading shells to notice that just the next dune over was a featherwieght-Frame as they bumped into each other.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" she remarked to nobody at all as her APS immediately sounded-off that it would not function properly at these ranges, she punched the APS anyways to pop smoke and frag from the AGS-6 and do what it could to keep her alive as Ontos raised a fistful of 23mm autocannon shells roughly at the nearest and most surprised racer, since she'd just blinded herself as much as she'd blinded her opponents. They were just meant to saturate everyone else's more advanced APS and ERA countermeasures, sometimes an HE shell would make a flash in what should've been air in the smoke, revealing her target; her true punch was coming in the form of an 105mm APHE shell fired at muzzle-touching-target distances, the combined backblast, muzzle-flash, and resaulting detonation of the warhead and mech lit up the sky like a gigantic thunderclap. First blood.

With that done, she buzzed out of there lucky to be alive, hoping she didn't just frag Kawal on accident. "One probable down. Moving. Letting Kawal confirm."

Well now here we go.

Three confirmed hostiles, Cronian in origin, closing quick. Ducked into the dunes, which made a good look damned hard. But unlike Cam, who ducked behind a dune, Sparr didn’t need to move so hastily; she let a few rounds hit her shield while she took up a position behind a smaller dune, stabbing her shield down and supporting it with her frame’s left arm. Short of getting right in front of her or circling around her, the Racers weren’t getting a good firing angle.

The Matryoshka made its own fortified position wherever it went, after all.

“Fine by me, Cam.” She commented with a grin before it turned a little more predatory. “Position established. I’m gonna soften ‘em up.”

Pressman, have some fun.

“Any allied units, be mindful. Fire incoming. Danger close.”

Warning given, she counted to ten; enough time for her to make her best guess at where they were, aided surprisingly enough by a rather large boom, as well as let any allies that got too close make some distance and let loose ten Pressmans with the press of a button. They arced up and then down, blanketing the area of her estimate with explosive fury, A VIV4 HEDP rocketed into the ensuing cloud based on the last position from which the Racers had fired at her. Frames weren’t small targets, and an assault like that might have stunned them. She liked her odds on scoring a hit.

The cannon’s recoil was immense, but the Matryoshka was designed to counter it; properly braced its feet merely sank into the ground.

“They won’t be getting past me. Anyone in need of cover is welcome behind me.”

Having a best friend had its own conveniences...sometimes.

Vivianne Laurent, sprawled elegantly within the cockpit of her Thermidor with a leather jacket blanketing tanned legs, quietly counted down to ten along with Evan (she was pleased to note that the girl hadn't messed up once; true progress!) after her final warning of 'danger close.' Any who stood in her heiress savant by now deserved to be mulched, and she wouldn't spare an ounce of pity to any whose last moments were spent bellowing at the nesting doll. Not when she could be devoting her attention to pursuits more likely to prolong her lifespan.

Like ensuring Robespierre's comfort inside the cramped cockpit. He was licking idly at the glass neck of her beer bottle, but she was sure it'd be fine. Better to get him adjusted to the taste of the stale piss Jovians affectionately called beer while he was still a grouchy little bundle of superiority complex and cuteness, yes you are, yes you are, you galaxy conquering kitty you...!

The dust cloud kicked up by Evan's Pressman rockets was starting to clear, and Viv - with a reluctant sigh - allowed her little floofball co-pilot to take full command of her beer while her Frame hefted its Scapino into position. The custom monocular sight dropped down from the top of her cockpit, and Viv decided to take a peek and assess the damage.

Katya had already pummeled one Frame (whether that suit belonged to a Cronian or to the annoying little boy with the mouth was not Vivianne's concern) and it seemed that Evangeline's bombardment had stunned, if not quite obliterated, both remaining Racers. Like Marianne before her, the haughty French goddess of valor surveyed the two hostiles, sizing up the conditions of their battered Frames as she weighed whose life would be memorialized in her notebook.

Ah, right, the notebook.

"Evan, my darling girl," Vivianne spoke up over the radio for the first time, now that she finally had words that wouldn't be wasted on mindless banter with the other Ghosts, "I'm going to want my dope."

She could practically hear the indecision crackling over Sparr's comms.

"But...Viv, we're on a mission. I don't have any drugs."

The French girl sighed, disgusted.

"Record my shot, idiot."

"Oh."

Vivianne was growing impatient.

"Okay Viv!"

She spared a long-suffering look at her cat before turning her focus back to her cockpit's monocular module.

"One day, Mommy is going to teach you to be a spotter," she told the kitten. "And you're going to be a good boy and record every shot we take when we rule the Outer Sphere."

She grinned and fired, directly at the shell-shocked cockpit of the farther Frame. The one she had spared could be easily picked off by Camille, or perhaps that drunkard Cowboy Troy. It was of no concern to her who got the kill. As long as there were dead Cronians.

Robespierre's tongue dabbed at his owner's beer.

Camilla winced at her C3i suite display, watching Katya peel away from the hulk of a Racer. Not the cleanest of kills, but a kill nonetheless. The blackened frame collapsed to its haunches, torso ruined beyond recognition.

"Brutal," Camilla exclaimed. "One point to Team Ganymede."

The rest of the Ghosts' combined firepower managed to stall the remaining Racers, dug in at close range. There was no doubt in Camilla's mind that they had sustained damage from Sparr's helping of rockets. How badly was another story. A subsequent flare of muzzles was a sufficient answer - not enough.

"Looks like these two are still rearing to go. Kat, let's give them a taste of AGL-6; that'll get them out of-"

Camilla's field of view was obstructed with a flash of black smoke - a canister fired by the Racers filled her monitor with hazy wisps. She groaned, flipping a switch and the screen turned into a rainbow of thermals. Her annoyance became surprise as a pair of orange-red shapes were darting out of the dunes straight for the Ghosts' line like men possessed. Something's not right here!

A blast from behind took the head of one of the Racers right off, and it stumbled backwards, smoke billowing from its shoulders.

"Nice one, Viv!"

Camilla swung her autocannon to bear at the last oncoming frame and let loose. Rounds slammed through armor, twisting internals into grotesque shapes, and the hulk collapsed into the dust.

"That's three Racers down, 22B. That's all of them?"
"Confirmed, Captain. We've got nothing else but you."
"Not much of a fight. How come we get no action for months and all of a sudden this love triangle targets the facility?"
"... Your guess is as good as ours. Can you pop the hatches? The execs want to know who they're dealing with."

Camilla noticed the brief hesitation in the operators voice, then replied, "Sure thing. Ghosts, let's get those cockpits open," then, in a private frequency, "If there's anything left of them to pop."

She swung her Gladiator towards the Racer she'd just downed, and extended an arm to the frame. She emerged with a carbine at her shoulder, stepped down the length of the arm before reaching the Racer. She wrenched the battered canopy free, and Camilla recoiled in shock.

"Uh, 22B?"
"Go ahead, Captain."
"This one... it's empty."
"Say again - there's no body?"
"Negative."
"That's impossible."
"I'm just telling you what I see," Camilla snapped. What the fuck is going on?

"Check those other wrecks," Camilla ordered. "Anything you find - bodies, ID, mementos, orders, I want to know about it."

Unmanned?

Well, that was strange indeed. And actually piqued her interest. Remotely operated Frames was an innovative concept to see in practice, and very marketable if she could understand it. Though that's not quite what Sparr was thinking, she was more interested in taking it apart and seeing how it ticked. It would be fascinating to tinker with, if she could haul it back to base...

But more immediately, she needed to look inside.

Taking into account the possibility of countermeasures (she wouldn't let anyone take a look inside her baby, she doubted anyone else would) she elected to approach one of the downed Racers (the one Viv finished off, to be precise) in the Matryoshka and use the damage done to pry the cockpit canopy free with its hand rather than climb out and risk getting blown to smithereens. It wasn't like she was going to do any more damage to the cockpit. Lo and behold, there was no pilot; but also no way of checking for countermeasures without getting out, so she was going to leave that for when she could disconnect any power supplies.

"Nothing here, either. We're going to want to bring one of these back with us."

At least I will.

"We'll pull back when we've finished the last objective, Troy. Keep your eyes peeled, we'll be back soon enough."

The day probably wouldn't have been complete without at least one jump-scare, as Ontos clawed a 'hand' upon Matryoshka's 'shoulder' in order to get Sparr's attention. The arillery-barrage had knocked out her long-range comms, and Glashya wasn't particularily happy about nearly getting fragged just because Sparr's competitiveness made her get an extra-itchy trigger-finger.

Short range comms worked fine, though.

"Not that I don't appreciate you trying to bail us out of the frying-pan, but it would've been nicer had you waited for clearance from the folks downrange before deciding to loose some rounds danger-close to friendlies."

As the two frames were next to each other, the dimunitive size of Ontos barely standing chest-high to Matryoshka, and with half the mass if one excluded any fresh shrapnel embedded within the frame. Behind it laid the almost completely obliterated racer that took a 105mm shell and bracketed by some untold number of pressman-rockets. The only proof one would find of there being no pilot was the complete lack of blood spurting out from the spot where the pilot should've been sitting.

"I'll get you your ten, double or nothing if we have to dig Kewal out of one of these dunes."

"Those friendlies probably shouldn't run dick first into the line of fire." The Matryoshka's pilot commented cheerfully, choosing to ignore the scratches to her baby's paint in favor of something approaching diplomacy. Coming out of an engagement with some scratches only was nothing to complain about, not even if they were unnecessarily inflicted. "Something you and Kawal share this time, though at least you did it accidentally."

"I'm not touching those odds, though. Kid's way too much of a wild card. Has anyone seen him?"

A beat.

"Viv? Babe? Any sign of the new guy?"

"There is a serious gambling addiction within this unit that needs curtailing," Vivianne observed caustically, kicking one foot up on the dash and getting comfortable as she used her long-range module to scan the area that Katya and Evangeline had apparently been shelling - with at least one uppity Ghost still downwind.

It was just like Evan to go in metaphorical-cock-first and start advancing like the impenetrable juggernaut she thought she was, but to start opening fire with Matryoshka while there were still other mercenaries danger-close was mindbogglingly stupid. "And you need to stop dictating the terms of all the bets. Bookies need to be capable of math."

If there were any such thing as textbooks on Frame combat, Viv would be sitting Evan down with them nightly until she knew how to play a defensive role with something besides puppy eyes and those gaudy, enormous tits of hers.

Maybe she'd have to write one in her spare time, get Camilla to consult. It may help to have a more military mindset on the team. Viv was aware her style was a bit long-range...and grungy. Not everyone liked fighting dirty. Someone would have to cater to the little bitches; Camilla was just the option that would be the least soft about it.

But that little side gig could be tabled for another time.

The sniper's keen eyes danced along the perimeter Evan and Kat had set up near the Racer she'd downed, searching for Kawal within one of the dunes. She found him relatively quickly and cocked her head. His Frame seemed to be relatively undamaged, at least from what she saw, but...she didn't see much.

"I suppose it would depend on your definition of buried. Kawal, you mousy little bastard, stand of your own volition if you can. You're all wasting time that could be spent investigating these things - so Evan, don't be gentle with him. Katya, you're on the Racer. You can investigate a Frame without tripping any unwanted self-destructs. I hope."

"No need to worry 'bout that."

Most of her best friend's comments deflected off her skin like they weren't even there; to say she had thick skin where Viv was concerned was an understatement. It was like saying Matryoshka was hard to shoot down. She and her baby could take whatever was thrown at them without even flinching, and keep doing it as long as they had to. It was a pretty common curiosity, when first meeting the two, why Evangeline put up with Viv; anyone that said anything half as harsh to her tended to get beaten down, and beaten down hard. It was a mistake you only ever made once if you wanted to avoid any more broken bones. But Viv never even got a complaint.

No one ever got an answer, at least not from Sparr. Or at least not one that actually answered their question. But the truth was that she didn't mind it from Viv. It was just the only way she knew how to be affectionate, even if she'd deny it with all her might if the heiress ever said as much. She'd been happy to be there when Viv needed help, and Viv'd been around every time since that Sparr needed her.

Besides, what she did to people was nothing compared to what Viv did if they insulted her.

"Kawal." She began, Matryoshka walking at a steady pace over towards the dune the newbie's frane was buried in. She considered the possibility that his radio was out, like Katya's, but this close his short receiver should have been able to pick her up anyway. Which meant he just wasn't responding, either because he wouldn't or because he couldn't. A low sigh went through the comm as she got closer, the sand shifting underneath Matryoshka's heavy feet every step of the way. She had left her shield embedded in the dune she had used for cover, so as soon as she got close enough she grabbed Kawal's frame by the arm and dragged it out of the sand and up to camera-level. Hanging suspended by its upper arm it was clear that there was no one using the controls; with no active control the frame was just limp, hanging however gravity willed it. She might have been more concerned if there was any real damage to the frame but there wasn't. Some scratched, a few scuff marks, and a couple dents but that was it. Certainly nothing that would've killed its pilot.

Which really meant one thing.

"Dumbass is unconscious," Sparr reported, shaking her head. "His frame's fine, he was just knocked clear. Got stuck in the sand. Probably forgot to wear his fucking harness. Probably gonna wake up with a headache but he should be good. S'why we've got protective gear in these things."

"What's the word on the Racers?"