34 Frontline

Your veins are my trenches
My gun is my own
-Esben and the Witch, "Marching Song"

-XMF-

If someone in strange clothing walked up to you and said "I am an alien and I can secretly teleport you to anywhere on the planet", you might smile, nod and reach for the pepper spray.

Stephanie Rogers didn't carry pepper spray, and she didn't trust Loki Laufeyson. But she was not the sort of person to discard a potentially useful tool.

First, she asked Lady Kelda about the secret Bifrost. Kelda did not know of any secret Bifrost. But her eyes went distant, gazing into the middle distance, and Rogers watched the light of understanding dawn on the older woman's face before Kelda said "-but it would explain much."

Then, Rogers arranged a test. She sent through a few drones to Asgard, plucked from the bosom of various random locations on the planet and set down in random locations, just in case HYDRA or the X-Rays could track them down. Then she moved up to stolen SHIELD drones. Then small animals. Larger animals. A few of Stark and Vanko suits. Volunteers. Volunteers in the suits.

Then she sent the stealth drones.

The Winter Legion were behind the power curve. Couldn't go toe to toe with Sentinels, but they did have much more experience.

So when they teleported onto the upper surface of the Ethereal HQ, they were well within the sensor envelope, well below the coverage range of the defenses. They found airlocks, broke an antenna, waited for repair drones to emerge - they looked kind of like squid - and slipped in behind them.

Stage one complete.

Avenger team stumbled out of the Bifrost and onto Asgard, a tad unsteady on their feet. Some popped face plates for fresh air.

Tony said "That was...colorful."

Li managed to hold back his retching long enough to say "Why are you okay?"

"I put extra-strong inertial dampeners in here. If I pilot this suit the way I drive-"

"Got a cupholder in there too?"

"Next model."

The Bifrost Observatory they were in was large and golden, with circular panels on the walls. There was a dais in the center, which held a large man in horned, golden armor. He had a sword inserted into the dais.

Kelda smiled at him. "Heimdall."

Heimdall inclined his head slightly. "Lady Kelda."

There was a tense silence. Tony looked between the two "Wait, did you two-"

One of the nice things about having a suit controlled by thought; could instantly shut off your chief engineer's external speakers and plaster SHUT UP, TONY across his display.

"Heimdall," Rogers said, "nice to meet you." She walked over, held out her hand. Masters' heavy suit eyed them, but didn't intervene.

Heimdall shook. "Captain. there have been some... developments."

"Of course there have." Rogers sighed. "Does this need to be private, or can you share with the class?"

Heimdall thought for an instant, then held up his hand. The air glowed, wove light into an image of-

"Huh," Stark said. "That looks exactly like the temple ship we were trying to get to."

"It is," Heimdall said.

"And it's over Moscow."

"It is."

Rogers touched her ear. "Central, this is Patriot. We are at Asgard. Hear we have some gatecrashers."

"Confirmed, Patriot. They just teleported in. It's-"

"The temple ship, I know. Stand by."

The team looked worried.

"How did they find us?" someone said.

Behind her suits mask, Rogers closed her eyes. "The video."

"What?" Tony said.

"Remember the video we recorded after we lost Germany? The 'we have not yet begun to fight' video?"

"Yeah. you put it out?'

"Just before we left, after a few other distractions. they must've checked everything, and realized-"

"We were spoofing the feeds on that crashed ship in Moscow."

"Exactly. The elerium radiation they were detecting didn't match what was supposed to be in the ship-"

"And they came over for a little look." Tony exhaled sharply. "Call it, Cap."

"Winter legion, Patriot. Open the doors."

"Roger, Rogers. over."

"Out." To Avenger team, she said "there are times when I almost think they actually have senses of humor."

Someone said "we're not going back?"

"We press on. Camp Philips can take care of itself." She reached for the image, caught herself, pulled her hand back. In a firmer voice; "they'll be fine."

Hertz raised his hand. "Ah, Mr. Heimdall, sir? Can't we destroy the ship with the bridge, like Loki did with Jotunheim?"

"Certainly," Heimdall said. "If you want to see what happens when a high energy beam strikes a high energy elerium engine in close proximity to another high energy elerium engine."

"All of which," Kelda said, "are right on top of your people."

Rogers said "And in related news, we're still going with the stealth insertion. It's more important than ever now, actually. Form up. Drones first."

Tony said to Heimdall "I like this whole look. Very How To Train Your Dragon."

The corner of Heimdall's lip went up a little. Not quite a smile, which would not be consistent with the dignity of his office. He looked Tony up and down, pointedly. "I'll be sure to seek you out if I need armour that resembles a sports car."

"Tony," Rogers said, "stop antagonizing the nice god and get in position."

Tony got in position. "Aren't you Christian?"

"Lowercase G."

"Ah." Tony looked over his shoulder, past Heimdall, past the doorway, to Asgard. And more importantly, their amazing technology, starting with the Einstein-Rosen bridge he was about to travel through. Next time, baby.

"Central, Patriot. Proceeding to Nemesis."

Once upon a time, a man from New York said speak softly and carry a big stick.

Camp Philips had tried the first part, tried to fly under the radar. But in case the new neighbours came poking around, Roosevelt's fellow New Yorker had also firmly believed in the second part. And that's why Rogers had arranged for the biggest sticks they could find.

Sticks made of high-energy particles.

The gigantic proton cannons rose out of their cables, brushed aside the tarps that disguised them, and took a few potshots at the massive ship hovering over Moscow.

The ants below scurried, purposefully.

The particles impacted on the surface, and did little damage.

Nemesis retorted. Point defense cannon activated, and green fire fell like rain onto the snowy streets of Moscow.

The results of the duel were never really in question.

Strangely enough, not all of the cannon were operational. Almost like they had been sabotaged from the inside.

Still, there were enough dropping plasma onto the proton turrets to destroy or mission-kill all of them. And then the ship's turrets fell silent.

Until XCOM sent rockets screaming into the sky, and destroyed the survivors.

Of course, that still meant the Ethereals could open up the ship and just dropping troops directly. Or summoning the other alien ships. None of those were good possibilities.

David Bradford stood in mission control, and wished he had a dozen heads.

And maybe a shot of Jack.

"Stealth up?" he asked.

"They can't see mission control," said a curly-haired tech. Klein, that was the name. "Unless they walk into us. Probably."

Bradford nodded. "Red alert. All hands to shelters or battle stations."

Should he say it? He always wanted to say it.

He didn't even realize he was smiling.

"Stand by to repel boarders."

"Sir," Koenig said, "One of the security teams downed a HYDRA quinjet. Nitro cell in the intake."

The mood in the room lightened considerably.

"Good job," Bradford said. "Tell them to set up a perimeter, and we'll send in some backup."

The Winter Legion drones had scouted the Ethereal ship, and eventually got control over certain minor systems.

Such as, for instance, the skylight.

In an unregarded corner of the ship, great mechanisms moved unseen in the dark. Large plates retracted, opening a line of sight to the sky.

And then the air distorted.

Avenger team shimmered into view.

Rogers gave her people a little more time to recover while she looked around...the hangar? It looked like a hangar. Even if the craft in here were mothballed, most countries on Earth would give an arm and a leg for any one of these things.

She checked in and waited for everyone else to catch up. This was nothing compared to that HALO jump into Vladivostok-

Kelda's mouth hung open. "What manner of...?"

Oh, right. The Asgardian was even tougher than Rogers was.

Nobody answered. They were too busy gaping themselves.

It was, in a sense, a hangar bay. And a flight deck. If a flight deck could have massive UFOs hanging from machinery. If it could have walkways on the walls, on the ceiling.

It felt like walking through a cave full of stalactites that might fall at any second. Except the stalactites were the size of a small house.

"What," said Tony, "the sh-"

Someone coughed.

The hangar was so big, in fact, you kinda lost the not-quite grey robot in all that space. One of the Winter Legion drones, the one that had opened up the roof in the first place.

Stark had wanted to call them "Snowmen". Rogers vetoed it.

She squinted at the machine. Okay, which one was it?

Sure, she could've just asked Jocasta to give her an overlay, but this was more fun.

From the body language, it was-

Rogers stepped forward. "You're...Long, right? Yi Long."

The drone actually seemed surprised. "Yes, ma'am."

There were a number of very good reasons for someone to take any spare Winter Legions they had lying around, and hook them up to a machine, which was linked to drones through Asgardian quantum entanglement scrying crystals.

For one, they were easier controlled. Easier trusted. The AIs could keep an eye on them, stop them if they tried anything subversive.

Physically, they were lower profile than a human, or a regular suit, or even a regular drone. They weren't as strong as a regular suit, but they were still stronger than a human, more flexible.

Infiltration was easier. With Sin Schmidt's help, you could disguise them as boxes, and bring them on board during a standard HYDRA human resource delivery. All they'd need is a few seconds while no one was looking.

Even a Winter Soldier needed to eat, drink, and hit the head every once in a while, and there probably weren't any Starbucks on the ethereal capital ship.

Well, not yet. Give 'em a few weeks.

The Legionnaires could disconnect every once in a while, decompress. In Rogers' experienced opinion, the boys and girls - girl - were about one straw away from going full Section 8.

And she had to make sure nobody dropped that straw.

Not while they were still useful.

It was also a bad idea to risk valuable personnel, people XCOM would need if things went south, just like the stealth-tech data. The drones themselves were expensive enough. The Winter Legion? Literally irreplaceable.

The X-rays might be able to beam knowledge into a Sentinel's head, but you could never download field experience.

Of course, Avenger squad had regular subverted HYDRA drones of their own, loaded up with sim-trained Dummy instances. Still not field experience, but the next best thing.

And, yes, only humans could use the Pym Psi Packs, but that wasn't all.

In the end, Rogers just had a lot of faith in...the human element.

And everyone there had volunteered.

Rogers said "Lead on. Drones, screening."

The Dummies beeped, moved out.

Tony stared after them for a second before he followed. Something about his body language...

"Fatherly pride?" Rogers asked.

"I remember when Dummy was just a glorified claw machine." Tony pretended to wipe his watering optical sensors. "They grow up so fast."

Bradford glanced at Avenger's telemetry, at their helmet cams.
Definitely a fight.

"Enhanced individuals on the ground," Jocasta said.

Bradford muttered "When you care enough to send the very best."

Wait.

"Enhanced? All of them?

"Yes, they appear to be Sentinels."

Aw, crap. Highly-trained. Cybernetically enhanced. Extremis-infused. And very hard to kill.

"Sir?" someone said.

"Yes?"

"Should we send the muties?"

Bradford's head swiveled like a tank turret. "Pardon me?"

The technician - yet another one from SHIELD - blushed. "I-I mean, the mutants. Sir."

Bradford held his gaze for another five seconds, until the tech looked away. "No. Not yet."

Presently, Avenger came to a dark room.

Jocasta said "Let me get the switch for you, Director."

The lights in the room came on.

"Motion sensors are clear," Jocasta said.

"Thank you Jo. Let's move, people. Heads on a swivel."

The chamber was, of course, large. The Ethereals didn't do cozy, apparently. Not a single soft surface to be seen.

There were racks of tubes, kind of like an egg carton turned on its side. They looked familiar. All of them, as far as XCOM could tell, were empty.

The room was also full of rows of little cubicles. If someone - or something - was on the seat, there would be some kind of emitter just at about eye level. And another device pointed at the back of their head.

"Chief Stark," Rogers said, "any ideas?"

"You're the soldier," Tony said. "Don't you recognize barracks?"

Avenger Team collectively - and silently - went ohhh.

Cap smiled. "I got that. I meant-" Tony's HUD highlighted the booths. "-these"

Washington ran his finger across the wall of a cubicle, then rubbed his fingers together. "Thick dust."

A door opened and closed, somewhere in the gloom. Nobody reacted.

"Good question," Tony said. "Whatever this stuff is, it's last year's model. Maybe..." He bent down, to take a closer look. "Maybe they found better ways of doing it."

Washington looked at Tony. "What's 'it'?"

"Y'know, it. The thing. The stuff. Brainwashing, Indoctrination. like they're planning to do to everyone. You use this -" he tapped the device on one side of the booth "- to get them in line, and this -" he tapped the device on the opposing side "- to program 'em. Download the training to their brains like The Matrix. Except without the fashion sense."

He straightened up. "I bet if we could turn these things on, we'd find they have some kind of restraint system. But there's something that bothers me."

"What"

"Could you fit a muton in here?"

Jocasta helpfully projected an image of a standard muton, squeezed in like it was a phone booth.

Li snorted. "No."

"How about the bugs? Sectoids? Anything we've seen? Anything Irene described?"

Rogers said "...So what else were they indoctrinating?"

Tony said "Maybe they have some minions they left in the freezer. Maybe the Mutons used to be this size before they started juicing."

"Maybe they ran out of whatever they were using," someone said. "No, wait, they could just make clones. If they had cloning back then."

There was a brief silence And someone else said what they were all thinking. "Or maybe they just kept them on the back burner."

The door to the room shook, and Singh jumped.

"Relax," Agent Daisy Johnson said. "We've got another five minutes. Those are drones, not Sentinels or Gifted." She held out a pistol.

Singh took it, checked the action. He wasn't comfortable with guns, but Rogers had insisted on training. "How can you tell?"

"Because that door's still closed, and we're still alive."

Another bang.

"Sure you can take 'em?"

Daisy handed a gun to another technician. She had a pistol on her hip, though she didn't seem to be planning to use it. Instead, she tapped the backs of her gauntlets against each other. She didn't even notice she was doing it in time to the rock music playing from a nearby stereo.

"Wanda's my friend," she said. "I don't just abandon my friends." She took a deep breath, and very quietly, almost to herself, she said "Not again."

Hello, Commander, a woman said.

Avenger stopped dead. Someone said "What was that?"

"Not sure," Rogers said.

Sorry; Captain. Or is it Director? So many names. So many titles. Who are you, really? Are you watching this? Through the eyes of your instruments?

Jocasta said "My sensors can't detect any audio, but I am 'hearing' the voice through my neural links with the troops."

You could not possibly be foolish enough to come here in person. Out of what? Pride? Bravado?

"She's in our minds? Can she hear us?" someone said.

Cap shook her head. "No. If it could hear us, then it could dominate us. This is basically the psychic version of a public address system. You feeling particularly dominated, Minkowsky?"

"No, ma'am."

"That's what I thought. Keep moving."

She sounded confident.

Then again, she'd had a lot of practice.

I have prepared a surprise for you.

It was a very well-hidden mine. It looked just like any other part of the scenery, and even the drones' sensors failed to detect it. And it went off right under XCOM's feet, in the center of their formation.

They scattered for cover, just like any soldier would do.

Just as planned.

Before they had time to realize the bomb hadn't actually hurt anyone, the real attack started.

Washington saw one of the other troopers - some rookie he didn't know - bounce off thin air. The other guy tried to bring his weapon up, and the gun got distorted, like someone had put a shower door between it and Washington.

Or-

Washington aimed his own weapon at the approximate location of the Seeker, and sent packets of green fire in its general direction. Enough to disrupt its cloak, which was enough to give Washington and the other trooper enough to aim at, which would've been enough for everyone to coordinate fire if they hadn't been dealing with their own robot tentacle squids from hell.

Maybe it was Washington's imagination, but the Voice sounded just a little smug when it said Surprise.

XCOM's first base security squad emerged from the Moscow Metro tunnels and approached the landing site. They didn't find a sentinel, or drones, or aliens, or anything at all, really. Just an empty lot and some wreckage.

Someone said "think they left already?" He didn't actually look out the back door of the bakery again. That would be unprofessional. But he wanted to, Sergeant van der Linde could tell.

The Dutchman sighed. "I'll call it in."

They hadn't seen - or heard - the Sentinel coming, of course. Leighton wouldn't be very good at her job if they did. Even without the fancy new cloak, and the

(blessings)

enhancements.

And, tactically speaking, she could've opened up on them and wiped them out before they even knew what hit them.

If anyone asked, she'd tell them it was good to sap the enemy's morale.

But, really, it was just plain fun.

She opened the party by walking up to a trooper and snap-kicking his knee. Followed by his other knee. He fell to - well, his knees, and she wrenched his gun out of one hand and wrenched his neck around with the other.

Then she decloaked, and waved at the rest of the squad. "Howdy, boys. And girls."

They spun around. She took a step back with her right leg, then bought it up, hard, into her victim's back.

He flew across the room, into two of his pals. The Sentinel pulled her plasma shotgun into her right hand, leveled it at another trooper, and removed the trooper's face.

The other XCOM troopers froze, just for a second. Anyone would. Anyone remotely normal.

And then the Sentinel moved.

Into the center of their formation.

She had seen something in a movie once. Where the hero stands in the middle of a bunch of bad guys, at point blank range, and takes them all out. Rollins had thrown popcorn at the screen. Barton walked by, and said it was impossible, even for him. It was a fun movie, even if it reminded her a little too much of what people thought HYDRA was.

Turned out it wasn't impossible, with the right upgrades.

Upgrades that let you bat your opponents' weapons away with your own, see their guns pointing at you before they actually point at you. That let you cave in a sternum with a straight kick.

The plasma shotgun was good all-around, but the laser was a little better on flesh, but worse against armor. And both were, of course, better than a standard ballistic weapon.

She focused the laser shotgun on the exposed parts of their limbs. Parts the regular body armor didn't cover. Or where it was weaker. The plasma went for their heads, of course.

Die, die, die...

Also, it turned out both types of shotguns were well suited for use as blunt weapons. Who knew?

Van der Linde, somehow, went unharmed. Physically, that is. Emotionally, he was plenty scarred. Watching your friends lose limbs would do that do you.

And then finally, finally, he had a shot.

He leveled his carbine at her upper torso, saw the fear in her eyes, and pulled the trigger.

She ducked.

She ducked his shot, threw the laser shotgun at his face. It hit, he staggered back, and then he realized she was thrusting a sword at his chest. He tried to catch it on his own rifle, and the edge of the blade scored the side of his weapon, and ended up somewhere between his arm and his side.

Hah! She missed-

The edge of the blade flared green, and she yanked it through an upward arc.

The Dutchman's arm hit the floor.

How did she - was that a plasma sword?

"Y'know, that could've been your heart."

Van der Linde looked up.

The woman who had disassembled his squad unbuckled his helmet. "Or your head. Could've killed ya faster than the pool boy when Momma came home early."

She seemed normal. Until you saw the slight twitch in the corner of her mouth. Her flat, dull eyes.

"But I needed one o' y'all alive."

Her hands were occupied with lifting the helmet off. He went for his sidearm-

His hand hurt. The wrist was bent at a funny angle. And she had his handgun.

"Now what'd you have to go and do that for? We were just gettin' to know each other!"

Was that cowboy accent real, or affected?

She turned, and shot out the nearby camera. Thought for a second. Took out the helmet cams too. "There. Now we can have a little privacy."

His pistol slid across the floor. She looked at him, studied him, for a second more.

A vice closed around his throat.

Leighton knew she wasn't an especially large woman, not like Connie, but she lifted the trooper into the air with one hand. Her other hand found a weak spot in the armor, peeled it back, pulled an injector off her belt, and applied it.

His eyes went glassy, and he stopped fighting. His face went slack. Good.

"I got one question for ya, buddy; where's Starkos?"

Someone was hunting them.

It wasn't something Rogers could've put her finger on. No footprints on the trail, or snapped twigs, or an echo that shouldn't be there.

Just the way the Seekers moved, coordinated more than they had before. A certain amount of...flair? Maybe they had gotten upgrades. Maybe the ones in Moscow had been last year's model.

And maybe Stephanie Rogers wasn't the single most experienced soldier on the planet.

Well, the most experienced human soldier. Loki or Kelda might have her beat.

Even as we speak, my forces in Moscow are run your instruments to ground. Just rottur í veggjum.

A Seeker's tentacles closed on one of the Dummy drones, and it twisted between them with inhuman flexibility. A burst from its chest repulsor pushed itself a few feet, gave Dummy enough room to bring up its laser PDW, a cut-down version of the Chimera.

Only to run into the second Seeker. The one that wasn't there the last time one of the Dummies tried the same tactic.

There was a little box on the shoulder of Masters' Walker suit. It rose, swiveled, and peppered the second Seeker with crimson light. Not enough for a kill, but hopefully enough to-

The Dummy ducked, kicked off the ground, slid backward, and jammed its weapon into the rear of the Seeker, the weak point where its tentacles joined the body.

-give the Dummy time to recalculate.

Masters redirected his fire to the first drone, and Dummy pulled the trigger, and the shotgun cored the second Seekers head.

Good boy.

Rogers spun, and bounced her shield off a third Seeker. This gave Minkowsky just enough of an opening to hit it with one of her shotguns.

The first Seeker put its tentacles between its face and Masters' laser fire. The ends looked armored, which was a good tactic. It did not, however, stop the Dummy, which slipped under the other robots arms and fed the squid its shotgun.

Good. Sorted, as Peggy would say. Would have said.

But...that felt planned. Like there was a directing intelligence. And if Stephanie had been that intelligence, she would use the stealth units for-

A wide angle burst of green plasma came out of thin air and scoured the surface of one of the suits.

-a distraction.

Rogers switched to her rig's thermal visor, and found...nothing. Apparently the cloaking worked on thermal blooms as well.

But the heat showed up for the Seekers. So the field commander was better equipped. Less disposable.

Jocasta helpfully tagged the Seekers. Seemed they used their tentacles for heat dispersion. Kind of like the Hephaestus systems XCOM used.

As Rogers blasted a Seeker, she assigned locations and fire sectors to her troops.

And then she waited.

The cloaker was good, very good. Barely made any noise. But he or she or it didn't account for the sound of all the weapons in the room, the sound that would bounce off and reveal its location. The sensors for the Sonic Scanner worked pretty well in passive mode.

Behind Rogers, something activated, and she smiled.

And now the hunter was the hunted.

Rogers switched to rear sensors, let her suit fight on autopilot.

She had left an obvious hole in her formation, like one any harried commander might miss, a hole that left Masters' suit as the obvious target. The module on Masters' shoulder let him engage multiple threats at once, so even if the cloaker didn't manage a kill, it could at least soften them up.

In theory. In the universe where Rogers hadn't quietly dropped a whipmine.

She couldn't see much through the lightning and the thrashing, but the Cloaker-

Jocasta, designate 'Assassin'.

"Roger, Director."

-the Assassin was clearly humanoid. Maybe a modified thin Man?

Jocasta said "Director!"

Rogers switched back to the forward sensors. The Seekers had pulled away, and started to swirl around the room like a school of fish.

Their plasma emitters started to glow.

Rogers shouted "Take cover!" a second before the robots opened fire. Everyone who was still walking on their own two feet made it, but the Seekers changed position, which forced XCOM into new positions-

Rogers handed control over to Jocasta, and switched to the camera drone overhead.

Just in time to catch the Assassin doing...something. Something that caused twin lines lines of green fire to extend from its arms. They swept through the whipmine's electrified tendrils-

Uh-oh.

-which offered about as much resistance as a house of cards to a sledgehammer, and that got the Assassin enough mobility to raise the twin blades and stab them into the core of the whipmine.

Which promptly deactivated.

Rogers switched back to her suit, took a second to reorient, and then gave a command. Masters' was closer, so the Walker suit's shoulder-mounted laser fired at the Cloaker.

Followed by one of its own plasma whips.

Which missed by a mile.

As the Cloaker faded back into invisibility, Rogers flipped down her thermal visor, and she could sworn the alien gave XCOM a salute on the way out. Cheeky bugger, as Peggy would say.

Would have said.

On the plus side, the Seekers retreated too. There was some stronger blurring in certain parts of the room, like the cloaks overlapped as they scurried into their holes.

If invisible robotic squids could scurry.

There was one Seeker left, a lone straggler that had wrapped around one of the troopers. If this was the old days, Stephanie could have recognized them even in the suits, but with all this new blood-

A tag popped up. MASUMOTO.

Thank you, Jocasta.

One of the original XCOM members.

Masumoto sent out a burst of simulated psi power. Her shield wasn't supposed to have an offensive effect, but between the close range and her obvious terror-

Reality kind of broke around the Seeker, like looking through a prism. Just like normal, actually, but the "facets" were much smaller.

And then they vanished.

And the Seeker stayed distorted.

And both it and Masumoto fell to the ground. The former completely immobile - besides the parts that snapped off or bent - the latter on her hands and knees.

Rogers said "someone help Masumoto out."

Masumoto staggered to her feet like a drunk woman, stared at the wrecked Seeker, and screamed.

Everyone froze.

Masumoto rose her foot, and drove it into the wreck, over and over. She kept shouting something in Japanese. "I hate squids! I hate octopi! I hate their slimy tentacles, I hate their freaky eyes! I-hate-cephalopods[/bi]!"

Rogers smiled, behind the mask, and shut down Masumoto's comms, except for a single direct link. "Masumoto! Asami!"

The Japanese woman kept stomping.

Jocasta? Time-out.

The suit's foot came down, and didn't go back up.

"Nani?"

When was the last time Stephanie had used Japanese? The 80s?

"Masumoto Asami. You're highly stressed, accelerated heartbeat. Do you understand what that means?"

"Y-yes." Masumoto took a deep breath. Her suit telemetry said she tried to raise her hands to her throat, a reflex gesture. "A panic attack, Rogers-sama. It's just-I have this phobia-"

"Cephalopods. Squids, octopi. I heard."

"That was out loud?"

"Yes."

"Oh. When it started wrapping around me, I couldn't breathe-"

"Your suit says you were breathing fine. That was the panic attack."

"Oh."

"Think you'll be okay?"

Masumoto switched back to English. "Yes. Yes, I think I am."

"Good." And Rogers released her subordinate.

While she had had her little chat, Jocasta had organized the troops into more or defensive positions. Sure, it looked like the Assassin and their merry band of cyber-octopi were off to lick their wounds, but plenty of soldiers ended up in shiny wooden boxes with flags on top because of "looked like".

Ikoku looked at the ruined whipmine. "Did that...thing have plasma swords?"

"Yep," Li said.

The Nigerian touched the arc blade attached to his shoulder. "I thought only we had that!"

Li shrugged. "No one said the X-Rays were original."