Dark desolation surrounded them like a sea of stillness.

The two rovers drove through the night, their headlights punching holes in the vast darkness, bouncing and shifting as they rolled over the dunes of cracked earth. Dalton was behind the wheel of his own rover now, Frost beside him, Dix and Forrester in the back. In the distance, he could now see the lights of the outpost and felt a bit of hope at that. Only now it was laced with anxiety. And not just the anxiety of 'what if I get there and they're all dead?', but the anxiety of running from the Confederacy.

Growing up under their rule meant being exposed to their propaganda from birth. Everything was about bending their citizens towards loyalty. Duty. Patriotism. Allegiance. Really, the only thing that kept him from being a mindless drone was the fact that the government and military had grown more incompetent and lazy over the past decade or so. Or maybe they'd always been that way and he'd only recently realized it.

But that wasn't true for everyone. Even way out here in the Wastelands on a backwater world like Mar Sara he knew there was a decent chance of finding others who would outright try to kill him and Ari for even speaking of joining the Sons of Korhal or any of the other groups that the Confederacy had deemed enemies of the state.

He put it out of his mind as they pulled up to Gamma Six. It looked like his fears were real, the place was a wreck. Holes ripped in the outer wall, the gates torn open, pillars of smoke trailing up into the night sky. But...something was different. It took him a moment to realize what it was, but he finally put it together.

The bodies. There were dozens of dead zerg around.

"Do we...keep moving?" Forrester asked uncertainly.

"Maybe," Dalton replied.

"What are you doing?" Ari asked as he opened the door.

"Checking something." He stepped out, Gauss at the ready, and listened. A sound split the night: an electric tool buzzing away. As it died off, he heard voices. Sound carried well out in the Wastelands, though they might not have heard his approach over the tools.

Someone was still alive in there.

He activated his shortwave. "This is Sergeant Dalton to anyone at Gamma Six, do you read?"

The response was almost immediate. "This is Sergeant Reed, I hear you! What's your position?"

"Right outside your outpost," Dalton replied.

"You'd best get in here, no idea if they might come back."

"Roger that, coming inside in two rovers now."

He climbed back inside and radioed for Baker to follow him in. They drove the rovers into the base and Dalton saw something that filled him with equal parts hope and anxiety. A dropship. It was being worked on by someone, sparks crackling and falling off one of the engines as they crouched over an exposed section. Hopefully they wouldn't want to just fly straight to Deadwood. If that was the case, then he'd either have to just send them on their way and take his chances in a rover, or maybe convince them to make a pitstop at Harbinger.

As he looked around the interior of the outpost, he saw that they'd been hit just as hard, and when he realized there seemed to be only three left standing besides the one who was working on the dropship, Dalton saw that it was really just luck that they'd survived. Two Marines and a Firebat were approaching him.

"Where are you from?" one of them, an older man with several scars on his face, asked. He was Reed, the voice on the radio.

"Gamma Seven," Dalton replied. "We were attacked by these things, barely made it out alive. Is this all of you?" he asked.

Reed growled. "All of us here, anyway. We had another dropship but a couple of these gutless bastards took it and bolted, leaving us to die." He looked down at the nearest dead zerg. "Do you have any idea what the hell these things are!?"

"They're called zerg. They're aliens. This is some kind of invasion. We got a call from regional command and a little info on them. We've been in blackout for days now. Every other outpost we've investigate has been dead, one hundred percent KIA."

"Holy shit," Reed whispered.

"Yeah. How close are you to fixing that dropship?" he asked.

Reed sighed and got on his radio. "Alder, where we at?" Dalton heard a tinny reply through the man's helmet. The Sergeant sighed. "Great," he muttered, then looked at Dalton. "Don't suppose any of you are techs? Alder could use some help. The one they left us with is crap. We were most of the way to repairing it before all this bullshit went down, but…"

"Mulberry, get over there and help however you can. I'll be over in a minute," Dalton said. "Frost, Baker, I need eyes up on the walls. Need to know if anyone or anything is coming."

The three of them snapped off tight responses and jogged off. He turned back to Reed. "How much opportunity have you had to salvage supplies from your outpost?"

"Not as much as I'd like," Reed replied, frowning as he looked around at the devastation. Dalton hesitated, studying Reed a little more closely. Something was off about the man, something beyond battle fatigue and shock. After a moment, he had it: neural burnout. He'd been shoved into the patriot machine one too many times. There was a certain look about people who had, a little bit of slowness, a slight glaze to the eyes. They were still surprisingly good in actual combat, but everywhere else they were a little off.

And he was the highest ranking man left at the outpost.

"You mind if I take over?" Dalton asked.

Reed looked at him for a long moment, then glanced at the other two survivors in his group, then sighed heavily. "You seem like you know what you're doing, sure," he said, sounding almost defeated.

"Appreciated." He looked at the other two. The Marine, a man with a short, dark beard whose nametag read CPL. Finch, looked anxious but present in the moment. The Firebat, a pale woman with a gloomy expression, was PFC Roscoe. Well, he could do worse, he supposed. "Why don't the three of you join my people in hunting around for supplies and loading up as much as you can onto the dropship. Prioritize weapons, ammo, medicine, and food. Quick as you can. Reed, Finch, Roscoe, patch into our freq: nine nine seven zero."

They all responded affirmatively and set about their tasks. Dalton jogged over to the dropship, where he found Alder, who turned out to be a stout woman with a heavy tan, sparking green eyes that popped with equal parts intelligent and guile, and a surprisingly easy grin. She wore a bloodied and torn SCV operator's jumpsuit beneath some body armor and looked down at him from one of the engines.

Mulberry was just inside the interior of the vehicle, checking out some wiring.

"Caught some of that," the woman said, "you're in charge now?"

"Yeah. Sergeant Erik Dalton. What's the situation here?"

Her grin broadened just a little. "Handsome and straight to the point," she replied. "Well, not nearly as bad as it could be. I'm doing a rush job trying to get her airborne since we only need to get as far as Deadwood."

"How long?" he asked.

"That depends, you any good with a wrench?"

"I am, actually."

"All right, perfect. If you pitch in and you're actually good at tech work, I think we can have this thing airborne in the next fifteen minutes."

"What do you need me to do?" Dalton asked.

Fifteen minutes turned into twenty, which stretched out to twenty five.

It became clear that the dropship had seen better days, years ago, and the more he frantically worked on it alongside Alder and Mulberry, the more concerned he grew about their odds. Every minute that passed brought more and more tension and he kept his ear open on the comms for anything. The only thing that really made him feel better was that he had two people he trusted watching their backs and that the others were coming and going from the supply depots and the armory with several crates worth of gear to shove into the cargo spaces of the vehicle.

At the half-hour mark, Dalton finally finished the task he was doing, slammed the panel shut, and hurried back up the cargo ramp into the interior. He found Alder in the pilot's seat and it abruptly occurred to him that he wasn't sure who was going to fly this thing.

"Alder, can you fly this dropship?" he asked as he came into the cockpit.

"Yep," she replied without looking up from the screen she was scrutinizing. "I'm a multi-talented daughter of a bitch. I'm licensed for SCV and dropship piloting. Hell, I can pilot a Goliath in a pinch, if I really need to."

"Same," Dalton replied.

Now she looked up and favored him with a smile. He felt an awkward hit of lust deep in his gut. She was really damned cute. "Guess that makes us two peas in a pod, huh?"

"Yeah," Dalton said, shaking it off. He was with Ari now and he'd never cheated in his life, nor did he intend to start. "We're at double the time and every minute we spend here is another minute we put our asses at risk."

She lost her smile. "I know. Just ran another diagnostic and it seems like for everything we fix, another thing breaks. The good news is that it's basically ready to fly. The bad news is, I'm pretty damn sure it ain't gonna make Deadwood."

"Well...could we make it about halfway to Deadwood?" he asked.

"Probably, why?"

"There's a secret installation thereabouts. The Harbinger Installation."

"That's not ominous or anything," she muttered. "You sure you can get us in?"

"No, but we got a Ghost with us and she can at least give proper clearance."

Alder seemed to think it over for a moment, then sighed heavily. "Guess it doesn't really matter, huh? Best shot we got under the circumstances."

"Okay then. Start powering it up, I'll get everyone inside."

"On it."

Dalton tapped into their local comms network. "We're ready to go. Everyone double-time it onboard."

He waited nervously as he got a string of responses and everyone began making for the dropship. He couldn't shake the tension that was building in his muscles, his body, his very soul. It felt like the Wastelands were just waiting for the perfect moment to strike, to unleash a fresh wave of zerg monsters on them. And damn if this wouldn't be the absolute perfect time to screw them over. He kept staring at the gate, at the holes in the walls, expecting to see dark shapes hopping through, coming to rip the flesh from their bones.

But it didn't happen. Dix was the last one up. Once his feet cleared the cargo ramp, Dalton immediately hit the button and started closing it.

"We're clear," he said over their internal comms network.

"Power's as good as it's gonna get. Strap yourselves in," Alder replied.

Dalton did just that, securing his weapon in the slot beside the nearest seat and then sitting down and affixing his suit to the chair.

The dropship thrummed with power as it rose into the air. Dalton took a look around the cabin as they began moving and he listened to Frost feed coordinates to Alder. Dix and Frost both seemed solid, ready for whatever Mar Sara was going to throw at them next. He trusted Baker and Forrester, they were good at their jobs and took the life seriously, even when it had landed them in the Wastelands. The three kids who'd managed to make it out alive from his outpost he knew he could at least trust to have his back in a fight, though in truth they felt more like a liability than anything else, and he was eager to dump them somewhere safe.

The others, though…

Well, Alder seemed stable, sane, and skilled.

He wasn't sure how he felt about the other three, especially Reed. Something about the guy set him on edge.

"So, uh, what is this place exactly?" Finch asked, his voice laced with anxiety.

"Harbinger Installation," Frost replied. "It's a secret research facility."

"Researching what, exactly?" Finch asked.

"I don't know. I'm only privy to its location, and I have high enough clearance to at least get them to talk to us."

"I mean, they gotta let us in, right? There're aliens out here, slaughtering us!"

"I guess we'll find out," Dalton replied. "Alder, time to target?"

"Thirteen minutes," she said.

"God, it was that close, and we had no idea all this time?" Reed muttered.

"That's the idea," Frost replied. "Alder, patch me through the moment you get anything on the radio."

"Gladly."

Dalton settled in and closed his eyes. Thirteen minutes might not seem like a lot to most people, but to a Marine in hell it was a massive opportunity for a break. He took stock of himself as he waited, feeling the dropship rumbling around him. Coming awake in the middle of the night to be thrown into this shit had been quite the shock to the system. He could feel the lethargy hanging like a noxious fog around his periphery, threatening to ensnare him, to make him screw something up, trip up at a crucial moment.

He pushed back against it, keeping it in place. He'd survived this long and he'd be damned if he went down due to being tired. Although that seemed to be what killed a lot of people: stupid happenstance and bad luck.

But all in all, he thought he could keep going for quite awhile. Not that he had a lot of choice in the matter.

"Alder, have you heard anything?" Frost asked suddenly.

"Nada."

"We should have heard something by now."

"I've got nothing."

Dalton opened his eyes. She sounded worried, though he could only just barely tell, and he doubted anyone else had picked up on it.

Curious. He had to admit, he was very curious about how this was going to unfold, what they might have to say, given the circumstances. Something about this whole mess still felt off, but for the most part he chalked it up to good old fashioned cowardice and incompetence or, at worst, cutting their losses. A miserable reality that Dalton had learned the hard way was that the simplest answer was usually the correct one.

"We're here," Alder said as the dropship slowed. "Still nothing."

"You see a big door anywhere around?" Frost asked.

"Yeah, in a rock wall."

"Set us down about ten meter shy of it."

"Understood."

"What are we going to do?" Reed asked.

"Frost?" Dalton asked when they looked his way.

"Give me a moment," she replied. After a bit, she began talking. "This is Specialist Frost to Harbinger Installation, authorization code delta nine six echo upsilon four, please respond." He could hear her only in the cabin now, not over the radio, so she must have tapped into a secure channel. A moment of silence passed. "No one's answering, the line isn't even open from what I can tell."

"Great," Dalton muttered.

"Let's go knock on the front door," she said, disengaging her straps as the dropship landed.

"Everyone up and out. Alder, stay here and keep the engines hot. Roscoe and Mulberry, stay here and guard the ship. Everyone else, with me and Frost."

"I might need to tag along," Alder said, a little hesitantly. "We're gonna need parts. She's flashing red in a few areas."

"Great...can you give me a list or something?" he asked.

"Actually, now that I think about it, yes. Repair kits come in types. Get me Dropship Repair Kits Four and Seven, and that should cover most of it," she said.

"Dropship Repair Kits Four and Seven, check," he replied.

Dalton opened up the cargo ramp again and was greeted by that same eerie, moonlit desolation. No zerg around. No signs of life at all. As he led the squad down the ramp and around the side of the dropship, he felt his curiosity increasing. He'd often heard of these secret installations, and he'd always wondered just what exactly went on in them. Mostly he figured it was research on weapons or new ways of neurologically screwing he and his fellow Marines over, but he'd heard all sorts of weird stuff over the years.

Now he'd get to see, provided they actually got in.

Frost tried the radio again as they approached the door. It was a massive steel slab, bisected with machine perfection down the middle, diagonal. It had no identifying alphanumerics, no insignia, nothing. When the radio failed to produce the results she wanted, Frost walked up to the door, then over to the right of it. She honed in on a section of rock and reached out. She pushed it in and it slipped up, revealing a panel.

"How'd you know that was there?" he muttered as she plugged something into the panel.

"Got a lot of filters in these goggles," she replied quietly. "I need a moment, I'm getting us inside."

He nodded and stepped back, motioning to the others to come closer. If they weren't replying, then he had a feeling that they'd just abandoned the installation after locking it down. Shit, he hoped they hadn't deleted all the intel, that was their ticket offworld. Well, probably they hadn't. Even at the highest level, Dalton had encountered surprising laziness.

"Got it," Frost said.

A second later, a loud clang sounded, making everyone jump. Dalton watched as the immense steel slab parted, revealing a red-lit interior. He felt fear begin to slither into his soul. Red meant emergency lighting. The zerg couldn't be inside, could they? It seemed impossible. The door was completely intact. Maybe there was another way in? These installations were supposed to be impenetrable from what he'd heard. He tried to make himself relax as he slowly approached the vast maw of the open door. There were several reasons there might be emergency lights.

Maybe they'd tripped it on accident on the way out, or maybe their power was low.

He activated the flashlights on his suit and weapon, playing it along the interior of the large room beyond. It looked vaguely like an airlock and no doubt served a similar function, though it was for security as opposed to decompression. It all looked clean and smooth, shiny.

"All right, everyone in. I think the place is abandoned," he said as he walked inside. "We'll grab our supplies and be on our way to Deadwood."

The others muttered uncomfortably as they joined him and Frost.

Surely there was nothing to worry about.

What could be safer than an empty military installation?