Leon woke up in his Holon with a start..There were people sitting all over his body. "One second!" Migas shouted at him and Leon held still. He saw the mechanic pull away from his throat and turn off a welder.
"There. Download out now. Didn't want you doing that before I had your throat taken care of." the mechanic explained as he held out a hand.
Leon pulled himself out of the Holon and reached up to his throat; taking a deep breath hurt but he was alive.
"I'm so glad you're not dead." Hailey reached over and pulled him into a tight hug; Leon smacked her as he found his ribs creaking. The shorter of the two twins had her hair buzzed on one side, and stood shorter than Kazu's eyeline. But she was here and alive and well, and he couldn't be anything but grateful.
"Right sorry." she let go and he rubbed at his neck. One hand resting on it as he looked up.
"What happened?"
"So the second drone? Tried to rip your head off. I think Cammie got force downloaded out of her Holon trying to kill it. The others were trying to get her Holon out and- we saw an explosion? Then just you and Sinclair dragging you out of there." Migas explained as he went back to doing basic maintenance on the Holon, especially careful of his neck.
"Also your sister is terrifying. She took on a Union tank with her bare hands." Jodie added quickly.
"I'm not that scary." she snorted in response.
"Hailey you shoot fireballs out of your hands when you're pissed." Leon deadpanned and Hailey reached over and gave him a noogie. He smacked at her arms again and she released him so he could fix his hair.
"So what now?" Leon asked hand dropping to rest on his throat, it was the oddest feeling, it felt numb but also like he had a cut there. He supposed it was from taking damage that normally would have killed him.
"We're falling back to meet up with the rest of Vanguard forces. After that we're not sure. The base didn't go up and we can't risk those pylons dropping birds from the sky." Miranda explained from the floor. He leaned over the edge of his Holon's chest and then slid down to meet her. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a shiny part of his armor. He had a new, barely healed, scar across his throat.
" That is a predicament. I will not allow the Union to take the Gen:Lock program, however we need to get the refugee's out. Lt how confident if we left you and Ranger Sinclair there to track down the GL team could you do it with minimal Vanguard aid?"
Leon looked at Sinclair, he might be able to figure out where their holons or the renegade was through the network. Sinclair nodded at him, "We feel confident we can find them, but rescue them might be more difficult." He replied.
" Do that, we'll leave you with a transport until we can return with reinforcements. I don't like it but we do not have the forces in the area to do more." Col Marin frowned,the nemesis drones had done a lot of damage to their small force. " Our priority has to be the refugees, we have no way of keeping them safe and going Gen:Lock at the same time." Marin looked frustrated.
Leon and Sinclair took to the Holons, originally Sinclair had been uploaded from a different location, since there wasn't enough up-time to cover splitting up and hitting the Union facility. Thankfully it meant he hadn't been taken with the others. The Polity aid was just a small enough transport to house a strider and a GL pod. Their Holons stayed outside.
It took hours of attempting to connect with the others, slowly they narrowed down a small area to where the Renegade might be.
The biggest breakthrough was Sinclair seeing from Chase's Holon's eyes. He had just a glance but after pouring over the image they'd managed to connect it to one from the Anvil's own reconnaissance and just in the furthest edge they saw a little hint of dark blue from Sinclair's own Holon. After that they had a couple miles that they couldn't see but that was because something was blocking them.
They got out of their holons for a rest and a chance to make a game plan.
"So I'm pretty sure this is a trap." Leon looked down at their makeshift map.
"Oh absolutely." Sinclair frowned, at their map. "We need to find the Renegade first, and on foot. You can see how happy I am about that." The sheer amount of miles would take them all day to get through on foot.
"Agreed." Leon nodded then glanced over at the Strider next to them. " Though How do you feel about Striders?"