Phase 19: The Hammer and the Nails
SKYLIGHT, Habitation Sector
December 19th, 2133
William Peterson awoke in his quarters, his alarm clock somehow sounding farther away than it should have been. It took more effort than he expected simply to open his eyes. The warmth of his mattress was gone, replaced by something akin to a mild breeze playing across his back.
Stifling a yawn, he moved to throw the blanket off his body, and realized that sometime over the "night", he'd somehow detached from his bed, covers and all. He floated freely over his mattress, among a loose cloud of his personal items. Artificial gravity was out. Across the room from him, a vintage media player bounced off a flickering wall panel display before slowly pushing through a collection of data storage cards.
Plastic bounced off metal bounced off more plastic, and it sounded unreal to him. Dull and distant, as though he was swimming underwater.
"Oh shit," he groaned. Kicking at the closest bulkhead with one leg, Peterson tried to push himself towards the comms panel near the door to his quarters. But he felt like he hadn't slept for days despite having just been roused by the alarm on his PDA. He was uncoordinated, his heart racing as confusion mounted. His push set him in slow, uncontrolled spin across the room, and he felt his stomach heave.
When word reached GDC Space Command that a Maverick had infiltrated humanity's orbiting golden gun, there had been an immediate shift in security posture aboard SKYLIGHT. All reploids, regardless of their service history, were sent back to Earth for interrogation. The Maverick identified as Hecatonchire had gained access to critical systems, from the maintenance metool network, station-keeping control, and general power distribution. There was no telling what he could have done with that level of security clearance.
Fully 85 percent of the workforce aboard the station had suddenly fallen under suspicion, and were reassigned accordingly to any available position, ideally on Earth and under heavy remote surveillance. It was up to the human skeleton crew who remained aboard to manage previously-fully automated recovery processes and continue maintenance on critical systems.
In the sixteen days since the Maverick had revealed himself over Old Tokyo, GDC technicians struggled without the versatile metool and mechaniloid systems at their disposal. Even as operations were rapidly scaled back to focus only on maintenance of what was operational, it was clear that there was still too much work to be done with the available resources, work that would now be days and weeks off schedule. This included debris that still floated freely around the station, inexorably expanding beyond the established zones of control and recovery.
Vomit trailed freely from Peterson's lips, brackish globules of yesterday's dinner and drinks splashing off of the surrounding walls, floor and ceiling. The sight and smell sent him into further convulsions, until he had nothing left to expel and was left shivering in mid-air, dry heaving for minutes on end. He madly wiped as his eyes, the tears leaving him almost blind until he managed to dab them away.
Now alert, but still confused, he tried to take stock of his current situation. Artificial gravity aboard SKYLIGHT was apparently disabled. The human crew had consolidated to a single residential block on the retrofitted habitation ring connected to the station's superstructure. But unlike many other habitations in Earth orbits that did not rate the implementation of artificial gravity generators, the ring did not produce its own through centripetal acceleration. It had been deemed potentially dangerous to the weapon's stability to introduce a connected rotating ring to the overall superstructure, and the mechanical solution for this considered "too costly to justify for temporary accommodations."
Of course, AG generators were incredibly expensive pieces of technology in their own right. The GDC hadn't saved on initial costs so much as they'd saved time. Waiting for engineers to tackle the problem facing them would have taken between months and years. And that was before factoring in the time spent just building a proper habitation ring that could generate its own gravity for additional occupants, all without negatively affecting the station.
William's PDA served both as his access key to sensitive areas around SKYLIGHT, but it also was how he performed the vast majority of his tasks on the station. When the metool network was active, he'd worked alongside reploids to coordinate the little bastards and make workflow adjustments where necessary. Now he was focused on station diagnostics.
Despite his physical state, he was able to snatch his PDA from out of the air next to him.
Battery's at 55%. I put it in the dock before turning in last night, I'm sure.
Unlocking the device, he was greeted with a Network Down status window. Frowning, he brought up the localized controls for his quarters and tried to turn on the lights. But the room remained dark, save for the light reflecting from Earth passing across his porthole.
Room devices are on a local network. Commands are being sent, sensors are receiving them, but if there's no power... Localized, or station-wide?
It took a heart-pounding minute before momentum carried him across the room to another bulkhead, allowing him to kick off towards the door leading out to the main residential corridor. If power was out, that meant that air was possibly in short supply, which would explain some of his physical symptoms.
As he approached the door, he tossed aside the PDA and rapidly wiped his hands as dry as possible against his shirt before trying to grasp onto the manual release grips. But even as he positioned his legs to give him maximum leverage, and pulled with all the strength he could muster, he only managed to move the metal slab an inch.
Gotta get out of here, get to an emergency shelter, get a normal suit.
His second attempt gave him enough space to stick an arm through, enough to see that the corridor was bathed with red emergency lighting. Something had gone wrong with SKYLIGHT during his sleep, but apparently no one had awakened him to let him know. He tried once more, but the previous efforts had robbed him of nearly all his strength.
"HEY, ANYONE OUT THERE?" He pounded a fist ineffectually against his door. In response, there was a disheartening silence.
Hell no, not like this.
Forcing his arm through the gap he'd made, Peterson kept struggling against the de-powered hydraulics until he was able to push his right leg into the space for more leverage. But then the door suddenly reversed onto him, effectively pinning him in place, applying enough pressure to his leg to actually hurt. If it insisted on closing all the way, it would be very bad, though he suspected he wouldn't live long from the ensuing blood loss.
Come on, damnit! Come on!
Salvation came in the form of a woman's voice issuing from the corridor just outside of his room. "Peterson? What the hell are you doing?!"
"Winslow, that you? Jesus, what's going on?!"
"Talk later, that door, right now!"
Rebecca Winslow was another tech on Shift Three, a regular participant in the residential block's after work-hours jazz sessions with the rest of 'The SKYLIGHTs.' Friendly enough, but little more than an acquaintance among hundreds of workers. Right now, the sight of her shaved head and brown eyes beyond the gap the door was intent on sealing shut had become the most welcome sight in all of his 36 years.
"Explain that smell in there," she grunted through clenched teeth, trying to pull the door open from her side. "Good lord!
"Lost my dinner is what-" the pressure on his trapped arm and leg increased dramatically, and something inside his arm popped in an unpleasant manner. "OW! FUCK!"
"Fingers slipped, sorry. Okay, on three I pull you push? Ready?"
"Rea-"
"THREE!"
The two workers shouted with effort, and the door slowly opened up just enough to allow him to squirm free. He spun away from the still-jammed door, wincing as he realized his right arm was almost certainly broken, probably mid-humerus.
"I'd try squeezing my way in, but I don't want to risk it," Becca muttered. He couldn't see it, but he could hear her lips curl into a sneer. "And I don't want whatever else is floating around in there with you. No offense."
"None taken. Arm's broke, gonna need to splint it."
"Wish I'd gotten to you sooner," she said in apology.
"What's the deal? SKYLIGHT lose power?"
"No. It fired two hours ago."
"What?"
"SKYLIGHT fired two hours ago, the flash was enough to wake me up. Nobody else apparently. The air smelled funny. It took me around the time you started shouting for help for me to pry open my own door."
"So, power's out only in the residential block? What do you mean SKYLIGHT fired?"
"I mean the fucking gun fired a big ass ball of plasma at Earth! The flash came through my porthole, and I watched the bloody thing track all the way towards the dirt ball myself. Thought I was dreaming. I'm not, clearly."
SKYLIGHT fired at Earth, Peterson thought, trying not to vomit again.
"You still alive in there?" Becca called out warily.
"Yeah, I just… Yeah."
"Look, I'm pretty sure something wrong with our air, and we're double screwed with power out." She was drumming against his door with her fingers, a beat from a song they'd been practicing last week. "I think our commotion woke up some of your neighbors, and they're all going to be in the same situation with us. I'm gonna try to pass the word along, get to EnPro, and see about getting power restored. If I can get some bodies with me, it'll go much faster."
"Try to break me outta here, then. I'll come with you!"
"You're hurt, and SKYLIGHT's compromised. Get a splint on that arm."
The word compromised carried many unpleasant implications. It sent Peterson's thought back to the emergency briefing that had kicked off the last two weeks of near total isolation from his family in Utah. Even electronic communications to the outside world had become heavily restricted. He hadn't seen his wife in real-time once after the "walls" had gone up. Pictures through censored emails, and little else.
"You really think the Mavs—"
"Why would any of us take a shot at Earth?"
"But we'd have known!"
"We had one working among us for months. Would we have?" Rebecca pounded on his door twice. "I'll be back soon. Stay safe."
Hours had passed, and it had grown noticeable colder in his prison. Winslow had managed to free a half dozen technicians from their quarters, waking up a number of others. At first, people shouted to eachother from their doors, checking in to let everyone else know they were still alive. A lucky few managed to escape their rooms on their own, and had returned from the mess hall with emergency nutrient packets, bread rolls, and anything else that could be easily hand carried.
Winslow's party had yet to return, but Peterson had managed to keep himself busy. The broken arm couldn't be fully immobilized, but he'd managed to find enough "splints" floating around the room so that the injured bone wasn't allowed to bend too much. Unfortunately, zero-g still allowed the bone to "rattle" around, and he was reminded about it through a double dose of painkillers from his medicine cabinet on a regular basis.
With marginally effective personal triage out of the way, he went about cleaning his quarters as best he could, stowing free floating personal items into his wall closet. Most of the vomit he could find had been absorbed into a vacuum cleaner. The smell lingered, though at least he had what could count for fresh air.
Satisfied with his progress, he pushed off from the viewport glass, wedged himself into his doorway with his PDA, and made himself as comfortable as possible. He'd downloaded hundreds of books during his time on SKYLIGHT, mostly airport fiction trash, but it scratched the itch for something less cerebral at the end of a long shift. He didn't need power or network access for this.
When he woke this time, there was smoke in the air.
"Willy!" Rebecca rasped at him from the corridor.
"Huhn?"
"They're coming for us!"
"What? Who's coming for us?"
"Mavericks!"
Now fully alert, he could see his fellow tech's terrified expression, the tears floating away from her eyes. She was telling the truth.
"What about the-"
"Station security's non-responsive or dead." She whispered rapidly. "We found bodies in EnPro—then they ambushed us—"
"Jesus..."
"They cut us down like we were animals, I managed to get away but I don't know about any of the others. Will, they're in the residential block, going room by room. I'm sorry. I really am, I'm so sorry—"
Somewhere on the outside, he heard an explosion, followed by screams and weapon reports. Magnetized boots stomped on the deck closer, before the grim process was repeated.
Three rooms away, maybe, he observed.
"Not like this," she whispered, reaching through the gap in the door for his hand. He'd never held his wife's hand so tightly as this, under any circumstances. "The fucking monsters, we don't deserve this, we did nothing wrong, we did nothing wrong—"
She repeated the mantra again and again as the boots, weapons fire, and screams drew closer, until something bright flashed in the corridor. Her hand went slack in his, and a spray of ash poured through the gap in the door. Reflexively, Peterson kicked away from the door, just as hot plasma cut through the metal, his broken arm, and into his ribcage. The pain was unreal, robbing him of the ability to even cry out in agony.
Vision blurred by what remained of Rebecca Winslow in his eyes, he caught sight of his executioner, white hair billowing in the null gravity as she marched towards him, beam saber in hand.
SKYLIGHT Command
VICTOR-1-9 reporting all Residential targets destroyed.
VICTOR-3 acknowledges.
VICTOR-1-4, all hostiles suppressed in Security section One-Alpha. Personnel Armory secured, standing by for demolition.
VICTOR-3 acknowledges.
VICTOR-5-5, in contact, Shuttle Hangar Bravo. Request clearance to use thermobaric munitions.
VICTOR-3 acknowledges.
5-5 copies, suppressing.
The station trembled around Nike, and in the corner of her vision, she watched fire, debris, and bodies belch out through one of the magnetic fields that sealed atmosphere inside Shuttle Hangar Bravo. It happened twice more, the last punctuated by pleas for mercy before the station rumbled with the answer. The debris cloud ejecting into the vacuum caught the light refracting off the Moon's surface, like miniature strobe lights flashing in the station's own shadow before vanishing.
VICTOR-5-5, Shuttle Hangar Bravo suppressed, all targets prosecuted. Severe damage to facilities, all transport shuttles disabled or destroyed.
VICTOR-3 acknowledges.
The sleeping gas Hecatonchire had prepared during his time aboard SKYLIGHT had gone undiscovered by station security. He'd anticipated it would be enough to suppress human personnel, even accurately predicting that once his Maverick status was confirmed, the GDC would remove all reploids from the station out of reasonable concern. Because he had been given so much official access to the various automated systems involved with the restoration and repair, the aerosol dispensers had been simple enough to hide where people people wouldn't find them.
And because the GDC had enforced a total shut down of the Metool network, there was nothing or no one who was going to be crawling every single inch of the station HVAC to find the devices.
What he hadn't accurately accounted for were defects in the structure, and damage sustained during the Repliforce rebellion that hadn't been fully addressed. Leaks which affected atmospheric integrity just enough to make render the gas less effective.
"I couldn't have known," she heard Hecatonchires say apologetically.
"You couldn't have known," Nike agreed. "Nobody can account for everything. Nothing is perfect, even if we were designed to be."
Alone, she hovered in the wreckage that had been SKYLIGHT's command center. When she'd exited warp to join her comrades already aboard the station, she was almost entirely surrounded by oxygen-masked personnel who were starting to regain control of their faculties. They'd been awakened by the weapon's firing, and were desperately trying to piece together why it had even happened in the first place.
The correct decision was immediately obvious to her, and Hecatonchire would have agreed. Their remains, seared into ragged chunks by plasma or ripped wide open by a high-frequency blade, now littered the air around Nike, unfettered by artificial gravity.
VICTOR-9-2, moving from EnPro reporting six targets prosecuted. Three leakers to Residential, VICTOR-1-9 confirm?
1-9 confirms intercept.
9-2 copies all, en route to Emergency Egress Cluster 2. Stand by for demolition.
VICTOR-3 acknowledges.
With a thought, SKYLIGHT shifted in place, maneuvering thrusters making adjustments. With another thought, her eyes extended beyond those aboard SKYLIGHT, reaching throughout the Earth sphere, and the weapon adjusted accordingly, the groan of steel and composites echoing through her head as the station maneuvered in a way it was never meant to, that failsafes once ensured it never could.
On the blue planet so far away, she saw opportunities.
"You should make a phone call," Hecatonchire said to her.
"I should make a phone call."
Washington D.C.
Riley Culverson prided himself on maintaining few personal vices. Some he'd given up out of necessity with age. He limited himself to a single wine glass at night, even when friends from his time outside of real politics came to his home for surprise visits, his constitution unable to handle the double shots of whiskey he once indulged. He'd all but given up cigars when his wife complained about the smell around the house, coupled with a decisive and convincing argument from his daughters about the health of his grandkids.
Fortunately, like many his fellow Cabinet members, he was stuck in the White House coordinating with his colleagues throughout the US military branches; he could indulge in the cigars he was banned from enjoying at home. The previous administration had been stricter with a no-smoking policy inside the building. President Souther didn't care about anything but results at this point.
There was a war on the other side of the planet, and AmeriCanada was poised to assist its Russian allies of convenience soon enough. It would not be his first war, nor humanity's last. It would be his first war not spent strictly at the front lines. For what little a "front line" counted for in a world ringed by orbital weapons.
He'd lived through the 2090s, had experienced the cruelty firsthand in Europe, South East Asia, and Alaska. Most of his adult life outside of that decade had been spent preparing for the next one. He'd been on committees that regularly revisited various scenarios, trying to project how bad it would be this time, revising numbers via an emotionless calculus that tried to account for advances in technology. Accounting for the presence of reploids.
The US 8th Army would likely find itself helping the Russian military hold onto what was left of Vladivostok, supported by elements of the Pacific Fleet. The Japanese were already screaming politely about disallowing the use of its port facilities for any potential belligerent, mostly to cover their bases. There was no telling how either Russia or China would react if they did not maintain their neutrality.
Inconvenient, but nothing AmeriCanada did not have logistical answers for. More importantly, it showed fractures in the GDC framework, no different to those that had plagued NATO or the UN in their final days. Nations within their own alliances were already either picking a side, or telling others to find somewhere else to set up shop. Agreements to fight on behalf of stricken allies were already being thrown out the window. Weaknesses that some non-aligned nations were more than willing to exploit.
It was a situation Culverson had dedicated much of his career to help facilitate, to help his nation exploit. It was why he'd chosen to leave the ranks of the enlisted, go to Fort Cashe for OCS, and drove himself to become the man he was today.
While the fruits of his alliance's geopolitical endeavors were finally set to ripen, he still worried about a small but growing irritation related to all this in a dangerous way. This "Vanguard", and the Mavericks they hunted. Captain Four had yet to report the results of his little field trip to the South China Sea.
"General? Sir?"
His aide was a promising young man whose own career in the military had experienced a setback in the form of a training accident, prosthetic legs his reward for service. Competence and a willingness to continue serving got him into the White House under Culverson's wing. Nothing special most anyone, plenty of career officers wanted to move up in the world. But he was useful, and never asked questions about what it is he was doing or why.
"I'm aware you're here, Colonel. You have those force disposition reports I asked about?"
"Yes, and another report from NORAD. General Eisen wanted you to hear it first but you weren't answering your mobile—"
"Little busy planning a war like everyone else," Culverson pointed out.
"It's Vanguard-related. Verbal only."
"Alright then," Culverson stubbed his cigar out in the center of his ashtray bitterly, waving at the door on the far end of his office with his other hand and waiting for it to snap shut. "Gimme the verbal."
"High intensity energy event detected in South China Sea. SKYLIGHT in play."
"Gimme those disposition reports." The younger officer did as he was asked. He did not react when Culverson slammed the data pad into the nearest wastebasket with a guttural shout. "You call SECDEF Bachmann right now. I want him here last week."
"Yessir."
"Any word from our asset in Vanguard?"
"Unresponsive at this time."
"Go get Robert, and—" Culverson frowned in thought before remembering the President's code word for the day and adding "—put FORGE in the loop. Director of Homeland Security as well."
"The President is currently in a meeting with Chief of—"
"I don't give a damn who he's meeting with, get him in here."
With a curt nod, the younger officer strode purposefully out of the office, just as Culverson's personal phone began to vibrate on his desk. It was an ID-blocked number, but every number in D.C. was blocked for security purposes. He pressed his index finger against the screen to accept the call, waiting for the print scan to complete.
"Culverson," he snapped as the phone beeped in acknowledgment of his fingerprint.
"Good morning, sir."
The voice came from the phone, but it also came muffled from the wastebasket, through the speakers of the damaged PDA. It also came from the speakers on his personal mobile workstation on his desk, and from the positional speakers located around the room.
The computer monitor in front of him flashed to life, and the Maverick appeared on the display in all of her horrific glory. Her silver hair splayed wildly in the air behind her in the null gravity, cuts marred her perfect face, plasma burns scarred her armor. Blood everywhere, most of it dark red. Human.
Sinking in his cushioned seat, he reached into his service coat's inner pocket to activate a recording device as he glanced towards the ceiling. It buzzed softly against his chest, indicating it was now on.
"Hello there, Seven," he muttered.
"SKYLIGHT is under our control. I call checkmate."
"I'm told that apparently you fired it into the South China Sea," he said, guessing and stating the facts as he understood them. "Seems like you could have solved a lot of problems going for a kill shot instead, wouldn't you agree?"
"I wanted to make a point."
"Vanguard pressured you into it."
There was a moment of silence, and despite himself, he could feel a smile on his lips.
"They did," she eventually admitted. Something inside her seemed to break, just as her voice did in those two words.
"It seems they were good for something, then. Is there anything else? In case you haven't been paying attention, we're about to go win a war that you helped start."
"For Vladivostok?" Nike asked, voice trembling. "Or will you go further?"
"You seem to know a lot more than you're willing to openly let on. Why don't you tell me?"
"I'm getting the impression that you believe this is all under your control, General Culverson," Nike snarled, eyes flaring inhumanly wide. Light overwhelmed camera feed momentarily, and as it faded, Culverson could see the grisly human remains floating behind and around her. Dozens of link cables could be seen trailing from her body to the surrounding terminals. "You have no assets, no back channels to rely on. No one who can stop what's coming. No moves left to play. What you do have are demands, my demands."
"I'm listening," Culverson swallowed, eyes darting to the office door as it snapped open. His aide had returned much faster than expected, along with the people he requested. Something was wrong, far more wrong than the conversation had already turned.
"Hello, Mister President, I trust you can hear this?" Nike called out in greeting. President Souther turned a shade paler and blinked at the General. Next to him, SECDEF Bachmann wiped sweat off his balding head, and slid another datapad across the desk towards Culverson. The screen had a shorthand message hastily scribbled onto it via stylus:
GDC SECURITY COUNCIL EMERG SESS VOTE 25 MIN AGO, UNANIMOUS CONDEMN AMCAN DEPLOYMENT TO ASIA, POSS MIL RESPONSE!
"First," Nike continued, smiling enigmatically as the General slid the pad back towards Bachmann, "you will publicly release any and all information about AmeriCanada's involvement with Project Ice Beacon, including research data on the Universal Berserker Frequency."
"Off and on the record, we have no idea what the fuck this Ice Beacon project is or was supposed to be," Culverson growled.
"Liar. Next, AmeriCanada will immediately cancel all military deployments to Asia, and begin scaling back foreign commitments in conflict regions throughout South America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East."
"That's not something that's done over—" the President began to sputter.
"Finally, you will publicly reveal the full extent of the AmeriCanada military reploid program, including the full extent of its use against human targets." Her voice turned into a sing-song, almost crazed lilt. "You have eight hours to accede to our demands, and then I will begin engaging targets at my discretion. Do you have any questions?"
"None," Culverson sighed.
"If you attempt to engage SKYLIGHT with strategic weapons, I will consider this non-compliance with our demands. There will be consequences beyond the immediate use of SKYLIGHT to engage and destroy hostile assets. Consequences outside of AmeriCanada's ability to control and contain."
"We need—"
"You have eight hours. You are not in control of how this will escalate. Nobody on Earth is. That was the point."
"We should have never authorized Vanguard to go after these Mavericks!" President Souther was only somewhat popular throughout AmeriCanada these days, mostly due to a 'rally around the flag' effect than any effective policymaking and enforcement on his part. His Canadian counterpart had him firmly beat in that department. What Souther did have was the ability to command attention through his sheer lung capacity and volume when the occasion called for it.
This wasn't one of those occasions, but he was making a furious argument for it to be.
"We have—correction, had the means to put these Mavericks down ourselves! We have orbital fucking guns! We have a Navy, an Air Force, with assets all within reach!" He pointed a quivering, accusatory finger at Culverson. "You let these fucking mongrels off the leash, they failed to play fetch, and now we're looking at the biggest fucking political disaster AmCan's faced since the goddamned 2090s!"
The General, now the focus of the entire cabinet, with the President on his feet behind his desk at the Oval Office, simply reached into his pocket to withdraw another cigar. Incredulously, Souther watched as the older man lit up and started puffing away.
"Mr. President, are you finished?" he asked.
"You'll be gone by the end of the week, you motherf—"
"And you won't last a month afterwards." Culverson cleared his throat, sitting up straighter in his seat. "Let's cut the theatrical bullshit, Holden. There's a US machine in control of SKYLIGHT. You, I, and everyone else in this room sent the dogs hunting. They asked for our permission, and we all gave it to them. Collectively, we're all done here, unless we find a solution to that problem. Save passing the buck when you actually have some fucking money in your wallet. Sir."
The silence that followed was broken with a knock at the door, and two nearly identical men in black suits and sunglasses strode into the office. The one on the left spoke first.
"Mr. President, Marine One is ready to go, we've been ordered to transfer you and your family to Andrews Air Force Base now. Air Force One is standing by."
"Five minutes," Souther insisted. The Secret Service agents positioned themselves on either side of the door they entered from. "What are our options now?"
"If I has my way, SKYLIGHT is already a debris field, and we spend the next few weeks containing whatever consequences that follow," Culverson snorted. "But I'm smart enough to know I'm the only person here who would support such a plan, so I'm thinking about the GDC Security Council openly committing to public condemnation of us getting involved in this. They called our bluff because if they didn't their entire security agreement with the Chinese is worth less than shit. I'm thinking it's time we blink."
"So we spend weeks beating the drums," President Souther shouted, "and now we just walk it all back?"
"You wouldn't be the first President to do it." Standing from his chair, Riley Culverson made a show of another exaggerated puff on his cigar before turning his back on the President to address the rest of the Cabinet. "The Maverick is pointing the biggest gun in the world at our heads. She will engage targets at her discretion if we try to shoot that thing down. Population centers are not out of the question. Reality says we try to give her what she wants, even if we can't. At least make a show of it."
"So we talk to the GDC again? After making a show of Los Angeles?"
"And we let them know what we know about SKYLIGHT right fucking now, because you bet your ass they know that thing just punched a hole in a typhoon. They just don't know why, yet."
"Maverick US military reploids, Culverson," the President sighed.
"But reploids all the same."
Wrath of Olympus
When he regained consciousness, one of Ricardo's arms was slung over Guernica's shoulders. Behind him was the ruined submarine superstructure that had, for a short time, been their shared sniper nest. They were surrounded by reploids, dozens of Hunters sprinting around them, others helping to carry their dead and wounded. Not a single member of Vanguard was in sight.
"How we doin', kiddo?" Guernica asked.
"Dunno..."
"Same as most of us." The Hunter chuckled. "Good shooting, right up to the end there. You're concussed, by the way."
"Oh. It's really over?" Ricardo craned his neck around, finally realizing that the buster fire, the mag rifles, and the shouts and screams of the victors and the victims had all stopped. "Did we—"
"No, didn't get 'em all. We tried man—" Guernica's voice wavered. "We all did what we could. 'Nother day at the races, someone has to lose."
It finally struck the man just how many Maverick corpses littered the deck around him, and also how many didn't seem to have a scratch on them. He also noticed the still glowing pockmark craters all around him.
"Not EMP that got 'em," Guernica explained. "Naw, they all just dropped where they stood, if they weren't already dead. Then most of 'em went and popped their reactors for good measure, boat's sinkin' cos of that by the way."
"Holy shit, what?"
"Yeah, she's done for, and we're getting everyone we can off this coffin before she drags us down." The ship listed further to port, as though to prove the truth behind his words. "We think, at least what the people goin' over telemetry data from everyone still standing are sayin', that the ringleader for these Mavs was controlling every spare body aboard this boat herself. So when she bugged out, puppet strings got cut." Guernica shook his head. "That'd make 'er one of the meaner cyberwarfare specialists we've come up against, though X and Zero might have a few examples on their rapsheets that're worse than this."
The throbbing of his head made the memories somewhat fuzzy, but he could still see the horde on the deck, advancing inexorably towards the Hunter's FOB despite the intense resistance they put up. He could still remember that one shot where an entire squad of Mavericks looked directly at him, through hundreds of feet of typhoon-driven rain, sniper fire, and plasma shot. All of them driven by a singular intelligence.
"I got lucky again," he muttered.
"Think it rubbed off on the rest of us in that superstructure. We all made it outta there." The Hunter frowned slightly, reaching back with one hand to give one of Ricardo's shoulders a firm pat. "Wish I could say the same for the rest of us."
"Vanguard?" Ricardo asked.
"Takin' you to 'em now, kid."
The ship was dying around them, and seawater splashed around their boots, the deck listing fifteen degrees to port. The network had been restored and secured, but Hilde had no way to access it thanks to her self-inflicted wound from the encounter with Nike. Despite the physical and emotional discomfort, she preferred not having to navigate electronic noise from dozens of other minds at the moment.
The network would have updated personnel files, allowed her to find survivors and the dead with relative ease. But she did not need these things. She wanted to cling to some hope that throughout the metal carnage, at least one of the few humans who had come here willingly had survived. She wanted to ask for herself, and to hear someone give her the news.
And if he hadn't, she didn't want to learn of it from a small ID tag marked on her HUD.
With Zero maintaining a respectful distance from her, they worked their way through the submarine, relying on internal maps to navigate back towards top deck access. They passed by dozens of fallen Mavericks, blast craters in shattered corridors that once contained fallen Mavericks, and occasionally they found the remains of a Hunter, or a member of Vanguard.
Despite looking like he'd walked into a room full of anti-personnel landmines, Zero kept a hand on his beam saber, all but daring any remaining Mavericks to launch attacks that never came. His armor was badly twisted and broken, completely shorn away in places to expose much of the sleek, synthmuscled shape given to him by his father, peppered with shrapnel and scarred by plasma. Bent, battered, but unbroken and proud.
By contrast, Hilde walked with a limp, the result of physical damage her auto-repair systems could not address on their own, struggling to maintain her footing each time the vessel shifted to one side or the other. Her HUD scrolled endlessly through a list of critical faults throughout her body, including the warp generator buried next to her reactor core, rendering her incapable of safely warping to the deck and putting an end to this charade.
The longer they wandered through the ship, she found herself wanting to laugh more and more.
Eventually, they found where it had all begun for her. The slagged jamming device had finally cooled off, rain water and sea spray pouring into its storage room from the hull breach she'd fallen through. Zero offered to carry her, but she refused. She could climb, and as far as Zero was concerned that meant he would also climb, if only to ensure that she actually did make it topside.
"Hell of a day," Erebus muttered to himself. Lenneth and Signas hadn't heard him say it, but their expressions suggested they would have agreed with his observation.
Vanguard had been gutted. Eighty percent of Alpha team, eight people—including Squad Leader Hilde—had failed to check in. Bravo Team had lost half of its team to Kindle, and he'd yet to turn up despite the efforts of able-bodied Hunters combing the ship in search of survivors and other Mavericks to put down. Lenneth's entire artillery team had been annihilated, and only her Delta team could claim to remain a cohesive squad with a mere three KIA.
The Hunters had committed more resources to the fight, and had in turn sustained heavier losses, but nothing that would kill unit cohesion. The 21st and 58th units in particular had effectively lost half their numbers during their daring approach from orbit. The 4th Overland had also suffered considerable losses before boarding the submarine from the sea. No Hunter was truly replaceable, each loss represented anywhere from months to years of experience in a profession where life was all too often short and messy. But they would be replaced eventually. There were factories, design firms, and defense contractors to produce new Maverick Hunters.
There were no such resources for Vanguard. Every machine, and the five humans who'd made the cut, had been hand-picked in a sense. Erebus had spent much of his time in MSWAT cultivating the seeds that would eventually become the type of unit he would be proud to lead into a fight against Mavericks.
Today, he'd lead the best of them into that fight, and most would not be coming home.
Signas was kind enough to offer assistance his own field technicians that could be spared to help with what was left of Bravo Team. Hypatia had warped to the submarine straight away with her own team, hoping to stabilize the critically injured survivors of Kindle's rampage.
The Hunter commander had also called up a formation of three transport polycraft from a facility in nearby Borneo, to help transport injured personnel incapable of warp. Vanguard's own transport could survive the flight back towards AmeriCanada territory, but the damage it had sustained made it less than a sure thing.
"We should keep this brief," Signas shouted, straining to be heard over Vanguard's transport passing overhead. Lenneth tapped the side of her head, and the three switched to internal communications.
"First, an update on the political situation, as it will possibly affect our next moves." Signas gestured to the column of steam and plasmic embers rising from the sea on the distant horizon. "I believe it is safe to assume that the Mavericks who escaped this vessel are aboard SKYLIGHT as we speak. I've taken the liberty of passing this on to the head of GDC Intelligence, but I've yet to receive a response."
"Can we assume our collaboration is at an end?" Lenneth asked the obvious question first.
"The GDC Security Council just voted to openly condemn AmeriCanada's impending entry into the 'Sino-Russian conflict zone', and 'stands ready' to intervene militarily." Signas offered a wry grin. "Officially, I will likely receive a firm 'request' to relocate Hunters away from North America to 'less conflicted' territories of operation. It is a request I will politely decline to honor."
"Alright then," Erebus nodded, trying to hide the relief he felt.
"To that end, I believe our next goal should be to consolidate our respective units, and make a direct assault on SKYLIGHT itself."
"Vanguard isn't in the best position right now, but we—"
"—do have my reserves that stayed behind in Los Angeles," Lenneth cut in. "I'm willing to fully commit them to the task. The question is our method of ingress, the Warp Network has restrictions that should prevent direct access to SKYLIGHT."
"SKYLIGHT also has restrictions that should effectively make it impossible for the weapon to be fired at the Earth," Signas frowned. "Assume that Nike has circumvented them for her purposes alone, but that we still face the same obstacles."
"We may have more time than we realize," Erebus thought. "She'll likely not turn the weapon against a major city. Not right away."
"That is not an assessment I can agree with."
"It would be too overt. Nike already has targets in mind, and she'll have made arrangements to have those targets hit by other means. Remember, she's responsible for escalating tensions between Russia and China, using methods that one victim could easily identify tools used by the other."
"Then the purpose of occupying SKYLIGHT would be what, exactly?" Signas interrupted. "To secure the high ground?"
"Just like Repliforce did," Erebus answered. "Unlike them, she's not planning to start a new world separate from humanity, she just wants to break the current one. She glasses a population center now, and there won't be a single reploid living free by the end of 2134. Make no mistake, she will fire again and probably soon. But rule out major cities for now, unless she gets really desperate or stupid."
"None of this was desperation?" Signas gestured to sinking battlefield around them.
"She's had more than enough opportunities to eliminate her most direct opposition, and she hasn't. She could have put a demolition mine in MHHQ twice now, like her forces used in China, but she didn't. And if she'd been willing to go that far for the Maverick Hunters, then she'd have also done the same to me and mine, and that would be it."
"She trying to show us something," Signas clenched a fist. "A Maverick obsessed with theatrics."
"There's a part of her, somewhere, that's still operating under very specific assumptions of control." Erebus looked up into the sky, his HUD helpfully marking SKYLIGHT's current position. "We wouldn't be here if she wasn't."
Ricardo was laying on a makeshift stretcher, a container that once contained magrifles and their accessories, now draped over by a water-resistant tarp and his exhausted self. Sitting on the deck next to him was the only other survivor of Alpha team that he knew of.
Zak had lost half of his face, one of his legs, and his heavy machine gun lay in pieces on the ground several feet away, huge sections of it gouged away by enemy fire. Plasma burn-throughs glowed in places throughout his body, but he sat stoically in place, all but ignoring Ricardo as he busied himself with a half-assembled mag pistol. Occasionally he would drop a piece to the deck by accident, struggling to adjust to three missing fingers on his right hand.
"Appreciate it," Zak muttered, his way of thanking Ricardo whenever he leaned over the side of the container to retrieve fallen gun parts. It was the eleventh time he'd needed the assistance.
The reploid had described how he'd received his injuries in a similarly laconic manner: "Came down hard, involuntarily loss of awareness. Start up to busters lighting up my pod. Made a go of it somehow, linked up with who I could."
Three more dropped pieces of mag-pistol and some minutes later, Zak finished rebuilding the weapon and secured it into a holster on his chest.
"Hypatia seen you yet?" Ricardo asked. "You look like you could use a—"
"It's bad. Others got it worse. Alpha's basically just us now, a real bad day for biologicals. Sorry about Lars, by the way, I know you two were tight. He was with me for a bit, but he… didn't make it."
Something cold and heavy formed in the pit of Ricardo's stomach, reaching up towards his heart to clench it.
"Oh."
"Heard Bravo is combat ineffective too, Kindle's bought it, multiple priorities. Charlie team's gone too, total loss," Zak continued, shaking his head. "Could have been worse. It can always be worse."
It didn't seem real or right. Ricardo's head throbbed as he wondered how quiet Friday nights would be at the preferred watering holes. He hated thinking about that.
"Did… did you ever hear from Hilde?"
"Group I was with never saw her, never made contact," Zak shrugged. "Still haven't heard from her, she's not on the 'net."
Ricardo felt himself sink against the crates, struggling to focus on anything but a world without her in it. As human as any he'd grown up with, as artificial as any Maverick he'd driven magnetically accelerated rounds through. Long nights after hard days of training, movies, dinners, sleeping in her arms, waking to her simply watching him with endlessly curious eyes filled with admiration and more. All gone.
Zak reached behind himself to pat the human firmly on one of his left knee. He then pushed himself off the ground, using the ruined LMG as a crutch to push himself towards a group of passing technicians escorting an empty hover stretcher.
"HEY, MEDICS!" Startled by Zak's sheer volume, the smaller reploids all spun to face what may have been an oncoming threat. "Not priority, but getting around is a problem."
The techs helped Zak onto the stretcher, cataloging his injuries with a mixture of clinical boredom and awe as they strapped him down to prevent him from falling out of his new ride. he looked back over to Ricardo, managing a small grin with what was left of his face.
"It's gonna be all right, eventually." And then he was ushered off towards the triage area, leaving Ricardo, surrounded by the victorious and defeated survivors going about their business, all alone.
Squeezing his eyes shut to protect against the rain, he allowed himself to lean back, trying to relax, trying not to think of what he could have done different. Trying to ignore the darker thoughts, the ones that traced his life back to decisions made years ago, and found ways to blame everything on them.
"H-hey..."
A shadow had fallen over him, and he opened his eyes, vision blurred from more than the storm.
"H-hey Ricky..."
He knew, the bastard KNEW—
He sat upright as fast as his body allowed, head still spinning from his concussion. Hilde Fourofseven was there, a bleeding and beaten mess, but alive. She tottered forward, legs giving out as she reached for him. Ricardo swung his legs off the side of the container, catching her as she fell, pinned to the container by all her deadweight. Felt her her arms weakly wrapped themselves around him, her face buried into the side of his neck.
The winds picked up, the rain lashed against one side of his face, hard enough to hurt, and the cold left him shivering. They clung together desperately, each hoping to keep the other from falling to pieces for just a little bit longer. Nothing was okay, but at least they had this.
Zero Omega watched the reunion, told himself to not get involved, and strode past the couple in search of his own closure for the moment.
Mega Man X was distinct for his plain appearance among the Hunters. Without the special gifts from Doctor Light's capsules, he was little more than a man in blue armor that could be confused at a glance for an American football player. The most telling thing about his machine nature were his oversized 'boots' that could propel him forward at breakneck speeds on command. He could blend in among a crowd of Hunters, the most notable feature about him being the distinct cobalt and sky tones of his suit. In a world filled with men and women who rolled off factory lines in any conceivable shape and size useful to whatever purpose their manufacturer demanded, he was almost as plain as they came.
For Zero, that made him easy to find.
X had quickly set about gathering up the 17th Unit, notably still close to full strength. He wasn't known for being particularly harsh on others for his training, but X clearly imparted something on those under him. Something about discretion and valor.
He looked waterlogged and exhausted and badly damaged, but alive and clearly in better condition than Zero felt, focused more on the individuals surrounding him, briefing them all on what he did know about the outcome of this debacle. All business, distracted by duty.
Feeling lighter on his feet than he had in seemingly hours, Zero crept up behind the Blue Bomber of 20XX, casting a glare on those of the 17th who'd noticed his approach. Fortunately, those perceptive ones also happened to be good enough sports to buy in on what was coming, and good enough actors to not react even as he drew within striking distance.
"—so for what it's worth," said X, wrapping up his pep talk, "you all did the best you could under difficult circumstances. I'm proud of you." He lowered his head in thought for a moment before continuing. "If anyone's got anything critical, go see one of our technicians or Vanguard's Hypatia. You can trust her. The rest of you can get clearance to warp out as soon as we finish recovery operations." X tilted his head to one side, one hand clenching into a tight fist. "Um… who'd we—"
"Zalar, Whisk, and Poe are KIA. Anyone else who isn't here is over at Triage, I sent 'em there myself, Boss."
"...Thanks, Belka. A-alright then people. Until I get the word from Commander Signas, I want you all to keep providing assistance to anyone who—" X cut himself off, straightening up in place. "Okay, Zero. Don't—"
Zero lunged forward, wrapping one arm around the shorter man's neck and lifting him off the deck. Belka and several other reploids shifted away to avoid X's legs kicking ineffectually into the air until Zero released him, giving X a hard slap on the back for good measure.
"Good to see you, buddy," Zero said, trotting off before X could retaliate. "ZERO UNIT, FORM UP ON ME!"
The 17th got their chuckles at their commander's expense. X sighed, but found himself smiling nonetheless.
MHHQ New Tokyo
The medical bay was filled with his people and their remains. The stench of purple reploid blood pooling beneath maintenance beds mingled with ozone and cooked synthflesh as emergency plasma cutters pried open chest cavities, giving Lifesaver's overworked technicians access to mazes of composite steel and plastic internals in hopes of preserving the worst off of the survivors.
Gavin's 21st had suffered its most grievous losses before they'd entered the fight proper. Many of those didn't have corpses to identify, little more than debris that burned up during the long fall to the sea. He tried not to think of them, focused on finding Jad and Kol. Other than himself, they were some of the longest serving reploids still in the unit and represented a nearly irreplaceable wealth of knowledge and experience.
They were also his closest friends in the world.
He found others from his unit, from Falcon's, acknowledged salutes in passing from those still conscious, and tried not to feel utterly disgusted at himself for thinking not Jad, not Kol every time.
"They're over here, Captain," Livesaver called out from behind a maintenance bed in the far back of the med bay. He made his way over towards Gavin, hands with slick with viscous purple dripping from his fingers.
Gavin almost sprinted to the technician, who was quick to snag him be one arm in a vice-grip, holding him firmly in place.
"Don't run in my med bay ever again. You have five minutes, we're expecting the next wave very shortly, and we're going to be moving people around to make space for priority CASEVACs. I don't like saying this, but please understand."
"Got it. Can I help in—"
"No, you can't. We don't have time for inexperienced hands in here right now." The doc gave him a pat on the shoulder. "It's not as bad as it looks. He'll make it. They all will, if I have my say." Releasing Gavin's arm, Livesaver power-walked to the other side of the bay to intercept yet another concerned Hunter.
When Gavin did find Jad, the Hunter had been reduced to a head on a torso and little else. His arms had been removed, to facilitate access to critical internals. Where his legs and lower body should have been was instead twisted frame work, connection cables, capped off tubing with reploid blood seeping onto the bed like molasses. If not for the monitoring equipment indicating otherwise, he could have been confused for another of the dead.
Kol was at sitting his side, in considerably better shape and 'unconscious' in a specialized mobile maintenance chair for all that meant to machines. He showed no external injuries, but was plugged into a portable device stowed underneath Jad's bed, his own blood cycling to and from the box from one set of cables, data and energy passing through a half dozen others.
"That you, Gav?" Jad asked as his commander and friend drew closer. His voice came from speakers mounted to his bed. "Had some bad luck, didn't I?"
"Uh huh..."
"Lifesaver says-says I'll be back up and running in a week." The speaker crackled, the connection between Jad's mind and the hardware he rested on tenuous at best. "Don't go back out without me. Don't."
"Of course I won't," Gavin lied.
"I'm gonna conk out. Was wa-waiting for you, y'know? Why don'tcha keep us company for a bit?"
Pulling up a stool, Gavin all but collapsed onto it, watching his friend enter total stasis. As though by doing so in guaranteed nothing would go wrong with the process, as though it ensured he would be back on the line a week from now just as he promised.
"Solar Falcon!" Lifesaver called out, "how can I be of assistance? Are you looking for—"
"Hunter Kasugano," Falcon spoke haltingly, trying to keep his voice even and unwavering and filled with authority. "My second in command."
He'd lost contact with her during the orbital drop, and she hadn't reported in during the brief lull before the Mavericks rushed the Hunters en masse. The fight itself had rapidly descended into a disorganized brawl, where micromanagement was neither welcome or possible. With communications limited for much of the more intense combat, he'd been forced to trust that his people, wherever they were, could do what needed to be done without his direction.
In the end, the 58th had acquitted themselves well, at a cost he hoped did not include—
"Raye didn't make it. I'm sorry."
"I see."
His mind scoured the reports from the rest of his unit, searching for details, hating everything he discovered. There were no surviving direct witnesses to the actual loss. Speculation from others who'd been near her squad when a railgun shell fragmented into a lethal cloud of bomblets. Second Squad losses, her squad's losses, total. All their files had been marked with a perfunctory 'KIA'.
Solar Falcon's irises widened involuntarily, beak half opened as he struggled to vocalize what it was he was feeling in that moment. Stretching the limits of the facial expression at his disposal.
"Are you injured in any way?" Lifesaver asked, his voice softer now.
"Nothing that requires immediate assistance."
"Alright then," Lifesaver squinted at the Hunter for several seconds, inspecting him for obvious lies before finally nodding in agreement. "Non-priorities can be seen to in Hangar Bay 2. We're expecting more priority injured soon, Signas has told me they're to be warped directly to med bay."
"So I'm an obstruction," Falcon said curtly. The medic frowned.
"Unless you're a part of my staff, yes, you would be correct. I'm trying to give visitors some time, but—"
"I understand."
Solar Falcon took a moment to survey the room, identifying twenty people from his unit, all in varying states of disrepair, their files flashing across his vision. He spun on his heel, careful to avoid having his wings catch against maintenance equipment and people, and left without another word.
People had died under his command before he'd come to the Hunters. He knew what that felt like, he knew what had been expected of him back then.
Today was different. Today he put a fist through the desk in his quarters, and remembered how much easier everything was when he'd been committed to battle surrounded by serial numbers around him instead of people.
Wrath of Olympus
Those in Vanguard who could warp back to Los Angeles had done so the moment they'd gotten clearance to, save for Hilde. She'd remained at Ricardo's side, the couple silently waiting for one of the three transports from Borneo that would collect the remaining injured incapable of warp.
For Ricardo, it meant that his role in this was effectively over. It would take most of a day for him and the other severely damaged Vanguard reploids to catch a flight home. For Hilde, the day was only beginning. She would be seen to immediately by Hypatia's technicians once she was back home, and then she would be on standby, waiting for the means to take the fight to the Mavericks aboard SKYLIGHT.
The Captain's debrief had been terse, and received with a grim and quiet enthusiasm that Ricardo had never witnessed from anyone in the unit. They'd been bled, badly. Now they wanted payback, in a way that he thought only humans could desire. In a way he never believed he would see from Hilde.
"There's my ride," he grunted. With one arm draped around a shoulder, she pulled him tighter against her body, watching a formation of polycraft begin to circle around the submarine. And then she let him go, a sad smile on her lips as she distanced herself from him.
"You stay safe, wherever you end up," she said.
"Uh huh. You too, yeah?"
"Whatever that means for someone like me." Hilde looked up to the sky, the storm still writhing above as it lost cohesion. "Still dizzy?"
"Yeah, just a little bit. It's better now, really."
"Okay," she nodded jerkily. "Okay, good."
"I'll see you back home."
"Maybe. I want to."
"I'll have the coffee ready, then."
"What I want from you right now, more than anything, is a promise." She looked him in the eyes, the smile fading away as she did.
"I can do those."
"No matter what happens, I want you out of Vanguard."
"That I can't—"
"This isn't your world anymore, Ricky." She began to walk past him, brushing aside his hand as he reached out to her. "Maybe it isn't mine, either." And then she was gone, a warplight streak through the clouds.
Nightstalker One-One
The AC-177B handled deftly as it pulled away from the submarine one last time, the inoperable engines and damaged control surfaces barely registering as actual challenges for Lenneth to surmount. Once again 'sleeping' in the command pod, she thought the aircraft into forward flight while negotiating with Hickam AFB a temporary hangar space.
It was going to be many long hours before they were back in AmeriCanada airspace, and there were things he could get done now to make the rest of the flight considerably more relaxed. Even though he would have preferred waiting until he was back on solid land first.
After ensuring that he could safely access external networks, specifically the data servers in Los Angeles, he'd been able to receive a short message from a certain General he cared little for. Text only, no audio.
HOW WILL YOU FIX SKYLIGHT?
Part of me wants to at least wait until we're cruising, and she's not distracted.
Instead, his eyes projected an augmented reality display around his seat next to Lenneth, and he found himself in Air Force One facing down most of the presidential cabinet alone. General Culverson was notably not present.
"Erebus, we're currently mobile and dreadfully short on time," President Souther spoke, his voice oddly hoarse. "We've reviewed the key points of the information you passed onto us."
"You'll forgive me for not expecting to meet with all of you now."
"General Culverson is en route to Peterson AFB to coordinate our response to the new… threat that has emerged from these Mavericks. What we want to know what you intend to do, now that you've allowed things to escalate up to this point."
"If you're looking for a scapegoat, you should do it before you decide to unilaterally turn SKYLIGHT into a debris field, it might actually stick," Erebus snapped. "You told me that I set up the rules of the game, and that you're 'just following them', as though that absolves you of any responsibility in all of this. I've lost over half the reploids I sent to clean up one of AmeriCanada's messes. Try burning what I have left, and I will smile while dragging you into the flames with me."
The President spun his chair around to avoid Erebus' glare, which was SecDef Bachmann's cue to pretend clearing his throat before interjecting on his behalf.
"I thought Culverson wasn't on this call," Bachmann muttered, before looking over to the reploid. "We can have a two transports fueled and on the ramp at Cape Canaveral within six hours."
"Vanguard will not be ready for twenty-four."
"That's not a good time table."
"For my people and the Hunters it is." The president took that as an opportunity to spin the chair back around so he could fire off his own milquetoast stare of mighty disapproval.
"Your former comrade thinks that AmeriCanada was intimately involved with the something called Project Ice Beacon and the Universal Berserker Frequency. If we don't reveal our involvement in this publicly, there's a lot of intelligence and technical data she's willing to leak to the entire planet, specifically in regards to the RSF program." He slapped his hands on the desk, balling them into a pair of impotent fists. "The GDC has openly condemned AmCan deployments to Asia, and is threatening military action if we go forward with them. If we try to knock out SKYLIGHT ourselves, the Maverick will consider it non-compliance. Our balls are collectively in a vise, so I'm asking you to speed up your timetable. Whatever it takes."
"Twenty four hours is the best we can do," Erebus said. "My joint task force will be at Cape Canaveral tomorrow."
"Can you actually take her down?"
"The odds are better if we take the time we need. Twenty-four hours. Cape Canaveral. Two military space lift transports on the ramp. Expect mixed nationality personnel, Hunters and Vanguard."
"You'll have what you need."
The conference was terminated from their end. The augmented reality projections faded away to reveal that Lenneth had indeed 'awakened' from the control pod and had watched the conversation unfold from off to the side.
"How's the plane?" he asked.
"Stable enough to make it to Hawaii, I'm still wired into it for now out of caution," she gestured to the link cables running from her neck to the pod. "Do you really think 24 hours will be enough?"
"For the people I want with us when we go in? Yes."
"I'm concerned about a number of your personnel in Alpha and Bravo team."
"So am I, but I'm trying real hard to keep some faith," Erebus frowned. "Everyone has the luxury of walking away if they want. Even you."
MHHQ New Tokyo
X essentially required escort to a maintenance bed, stubbornly insisting that his injuries were not severe enough for immediate attention. Ultimately, it wasn't his choice. On X's own request, Signas made it a direct order to report for maintenance, and also ordered Zero to accompany him.
"Usually, I'm the one pushing back against the big man," Zero chuckled.
"Usually."
The two limped down the base corridor together, walking contrasts to the clean, almost anti-septic surroundings and omnipresent lighting. Occasionally, a hovering stretcher whizzed past them, carrying a priority casualty from one of HQs warp terminals or the vehicles bay, a reminder to X that he was correct. There was no need for him to take up space and qualified personnel for his comparative scratches, not at this time.
The belief was further reinforced the moment they entered medical. The two were immediately greeted by Lifesaver himself, and two other technicians peeled away from their patients to guide 21XX's Blue Bomber and the Crimson Hunter to maintenance beds separated away from the rest of the Hunters already present.
Other notable team leaders who had suffered serious injury shared the space, half of whom already under stasis as mechanical arms danced over the lifeless forms, switching between dozens of tools as needed. When the maintenance arms could not accomplish something, they shifted aside to make room for a technician to personally reach into the patient with the necessary implements.
"I'm admittedly nervous to work on you, Commander X," Lifesaver said quietly, helping him onto the bed.
"I'm sure you'll do just fine."
"As long as you don't try to leave before we get this coolant leak of yours resolved." Lifesaver pointed to one of the technicians. "Grandie? Get a collection pan under his bed, if you would please. He's likely got seawater in him as well, so we'll need to drain him."
"Yessir."
"I have a coolant leak?" X blinked.
"You have a coolant leak," Lifesaver confirmed. "I'll require access to your internals, so I'll need your—"
"You have my consent." The armor around his chest expanded, allowing for the technician to squeeze fingers into the gaps and pull at the chest plating.
"I'm assuming you've either suppressed your damage reports or are ignoring them."
"The latter, if I'm—"
"Don't do that again." Somewhere beneath X, the pan requested by Lifesaver clattered as it was pushed into place. "Thank you, Grandie."
"Where do you want me, sir? Hunter Jad's been stabilized and is prepped for rebuild—"
"I want you and Martina full time on Commander Zer—No. Who is still available?"
"Muelar and Sylphy are completing preparations on Hunter Alicorn, reporting complete program back ups, reactor stable and shut down."
"Okay. Grab Sylphy, get Commander Gavin on bed 37. Signas' orders. Muelar is reassigned to me on Commander X." The technician nodded, and power-walked to the other side of medical to confer with her colleagues.
"Signas is sending you priority requests?" X asked.
"He wants command-level personnel turned-around within the next 24 hours. Hasn't said why, it's not my place to know. I have several guesses."
So do I.
Unlike his subordinates, there was no one to give Signas orders about reporting for maintenance. Part of him was happy that Beryl and the other Navigators had all tried their hand at it, though he couldn't show it for now. The command center had what he needed to try and coordinate a broader response to the newest threat on the table.
As the designated commander of all Maverick Hunters, there were still strings he could pull on for reinforcements. His mind was busy analyzing thousands of personnel files, for every Hunter still active within the organization. There were empty rooms at MHHQ now, many units badly under-strength, entire squads within those units lost with the day's events. He could transfer people to partially fill in the gaps, but he couldn't rely on that alone.
There were volunteers, hundreds every month typically, a surge in the thousands after the attack on HQ. Most weren't in those lines to become front line Maverick Hunters, or were reploids who could never qualify for that level of responsibility even with after-market modifications. The outpouring of support was welcome, nonetheless. Like any military, the Hunters could only be truly effective if its behind-the-scenes logistics and information management were on point.
Signas set aside the personnel files onto the "desk" of his virtual workspace, shifting his focus back onto the real world around him.
"Sir, data feeds from GDC HQ have gone dark," Beryl called from her navigator's chair. "Unable to determine the cause at this time."
"Reroute to back ups?"
"Already tried it."
"Keep at it. Have we lost anything?"
"Just the disposition reports for MHHQ you wanted sent off. Wouldn't be on my radar otherwise."
"Keep me posted."
Settling into his cushioned seat, Signas returned to his virtual workspace, a window opening before his avatar as he made a call to Chief Spencer in Amsterdam. A dozen other windows opened up as he reached out to regional commanders to finalize personnel transfers.
Secrecy bade him to keep details about tomorrow's deployment limited, there was no telling if Nike had access to these lines. But it was impossible for there to not be some speculation about what was going on, especially for areas closer to SKYLIGHT's attack. Most of the people on the call had some idea of what was going on and why. The few that didn't were quickly brought up to speed. In the end, it was enough to kill any potential roadblocks to bringing MHHQ's frontline units back up to speed.
Spencer hadn't picked up his personal line in the ten minutes since he'd started his calls. A seed of concern had been planted in his mind, and he reached out to Beryl through his internal comms.
Update on that data feed to GDC HQ?
Sir, I—please turn on the news right now, Beryl said, her voice raw. It's on every network, Signas, I'm sorry—
NHK News 7 was the first feed he accessed, then JNN Channel 6. And dozens more, all reporting a massive explosion in central Amsterdam. Camera drones showed him everything in frightening, ultra-high resolution detail, a mushroom cloud rising up from what used to be GDC HQ's sparkling tower that had clawed at the heavens. The city for blocks around the tower was gone, consumed and flattened by a roiling firestorm. The same thirty seconds of footage looped endlessly, more windows opening with every second as Signas tried to find someone with anything new to say.
He kept calling his old Chief, the closest thing he'd ever had for a father, and Johnathan Spencer never answered.