Ryland watched carefully as Sena and Almonte set up the communications terminal. He'd seen ones like this before; they'd been developed for use with CALS to give remote access to Gal Da Val without having to use BEE transmission protocols. He had to admit that they were impressive pieces of technology and that they looked the part besides, all sleek curves and blue holo-panels.

This one, though, wasn't dedicated to CALS's use, but Arin's, and the aesthetic was spoiled somewhat by the cable that snaked out of the hovering terminal's underside.

"The test machine isn't set up for wireless access," Almonte explained, almost apologetically. "We wanted to make sure that it couldn't just be tapped by anyone wandering through. Even hardline access has data security measures, of course, but…"

"But at least Chief Milarose can't just drop one of those down here with a remote probe and have CALS do the rest without fighting through the firebreathing monkeys."

Almonte flashed him a grin.

"You get it."

"So now what?"

"Now," Sena said, "we boot up the terminal and try to arrange the connection to Arin. He'll use this as part of his network, and be able to access the Photon collector. After that, it's up to him."

"Those terminals, they don't actually bypass Pioneer 2's communications network, do they? I mean, they do to the extent that they don't use BEE, and don't need any extra equipment on this end, but…"

"If you mean, do they still need the Lab's connection equipment on the other end, yes, they do. It doesn't just hook to Arin directly."

"Isn't that connection equipment overseen by CALS, though?" Ryland asked.

"In general, yes, but remember that we have an AI of our own supervising communications on our end, so that helps to cloak matters. CALS may have amazing capacities, but he isn't some kind of electronic deity."

Ryland nodded. Sena did have a point. He knew well that AIs could be overcome—witness Vol Opt being subsumed by Dark Falz's D-Factor infection. There was also the MOTHER project, whispers of which had filtered up through the backchannel rumor mill, something that Dr. Hyde and Dr. Montague had been working on during the early years of the Pioneer Project and continuing even after Pioneer 1's launch. Details were fuzzy, but it was believed that MOTHER was supposed to operate as a kind of superpriority system, capable of assuming control of any computer, even AIs, via direct Photon induction. There had been an incident in 3084 where a ship-wide computer lock-up had been rumored to be caused by MOTHER activating…

So no, CALS wasn't the be-all and end-all of computer control.

"Still, it's a matter of maintaining stealth, isn't it?" he mused. "It's not just if Arin can open a channel and keep it that way, but to keep CALS from noticing that it's happening at all to prevent our activity from being traced."

"That's true," Almonte agreed. "But we've run the simulations, and Arin believes that it's possible. And with the fate of the project on the line we owe him his chance to show what he can do as much as any of the rest of us."

Ryland glanced at Naomi, who caught the direction of his look and grinned.

"Don't even ask," she laughed. "This electronic stuff is so far over my head that it's not even on my radar. Basically, you can do it or you can't. If you can't, we're screwed, so what's the point in yapping about it?"

Ryland blinked. He did, after all, have a distinct tendency to "yap." Maybe that was why he'd partnered with an android, who had a literally inhuman degree of patience. On the other hand, Naomi's dislike of rambling conversation probably explained why she had a successful partnership with an android who had a damaged speech capacity, he couldn't resist thinking.

"I guess I can't argue with that," he said.

"We'll find out in a second, because we're initializing operations now," Sena said.

~X X X~

"Elly, I apologize for the interruption," CALS said, "but you did express a desire for me to tell you about any significant attempts at data incursions."

"What?" the Newman operator yelped, sitting bolt upright in her seat and nearly dropping the dataplate she'd been working on. "Someone's trying to hack you again?"

"Yes and no. There is a highly sophisticated attempt in progress to make use of ship-to-surface communications channels, bypassing BEE. The intruder was able to segregate a portion of the subnet before I noticed, establishing a secure barrier. I have only detected this now due to fluctuations caused by the data transfer volume."

"Someone was able to get past your security into Lab systems? Who? How?"

"I am not sure, as yet. The intrusion was very sophisticated, using an extremely high-grade system."

"Can you do anything about it?"

"Certainly. Now that I am aware of the intrusion, I will be able to penetrate the enemy security barriers, remove their control of the system, and most likely trace the hacking attempt back to its source."

Elly let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh, good! You had me really worried for a second, there, Cal." Dropping the dataplate on the console, she cracked her knuckles. "All right, then, it's time to show those guys who's boss. They've gone too far this time, messing with you to this extent! When we're through with them, they'll hide under their beds squealing before they so much as look at a computer!"

"How very evocative."

"Gah!" For the second time in two minutes, Elly yelped in surprise, swiveling her head up and to the right. "C-Chief Milarose!"

The redhead had actually walked over from her own desk to stand next to the CALS console. She looked down at Elly, a teasing smile on her lips, the expression of someone who knew more than those around her and took pleasure in those others knowing it.

"CALS, is the data intrusion threatening any Lab systems outside of ship-to-surface communications control?" Milarose asked.

"It has not."

"Hmm…And would you say that you yourself are at no present risk?"

"That is so," CALS agreed. "Having identified the data channels that have been compromised, I can secure and isolate them. No actual penetration of my own system was made, merely to those which are under my administrative control."

"In that case," she said, showing that little smile again, "why don't we let things continue as they are for a while?"

Elly blinked in surprise.

"You want to let these people piggyback onto the Lab's communications systems, ma'am? But what if it's the military or another one of our rivals?"

"Oh, I don't think that's likely."

Elly had no idea what to say to a response like that.

"So for now, just continue to monitor the situation. CALS, of course, be certain to isolate the intrusion from extending any further, and once they disconnect you and Elly should work on a complete report of how this was accomplished and what revisions can be made to the security protocols to insure that it doesn't happen again. But for now, they've worked so hard, and it would be bad manners to make them walk away with nothing to show for it."

~X X X~

"The connection is in place, Dr. Severin," Arin reported. "The communications channel is stable, and I have access to the Photon collector's systems."

"I'm glad things are starting off well, at least. Have there been any problems?"

"At this stage, there have not. I was afraid that when I synchronized the terminal into my networked self there would be a leakage due to the excessive stress placed upon the data channel, but it appears that this was not the case."

"That's a relief."

"Indeed. I would not relish a confrontation with CALS. His hardware is superior."

"Considering the basic principle of your design is to allow you to operate on an inferior hardware base, I can't argue the point."

"It was an observation, not an accusation, Dr. Severin."

Severin's mouth quirked into a smile.

"You're developing a pawky sense of humor, Arin."

"Well…you programmed me, so I suppose that any responsibility in that area lies ultimately with you."

"I really need to work on that for the next model."

"Probably," Arin replied, deadpan.

"Can you calculate how long the process will take, now that you've been linked to the Photon collector?"

"Not with precision, but I would estimate approximately fifty beats."

"That could be worse. Unfortunately, we have to anticipate that our adversaries will make a move before then." He sighed and sat back in his chair. "I suppose all we can do is to pray that the hunters are as good as we hope they are."

~X X X~

The approach came from the north, showing up on Lyon's nav radar well before the military showed themselves.

"We've got bogeys!" she barked out. "I'm counting nine, plus…oh, I don't like this. There's a couple of signals there that aren't coming up humanoid."

"What, like robots?" Naomi called.

"I don't know, but they're definitely showing up as 'what' instead of 'whom.' I think we've got trouble."

"All right. Hey, gear up and get ready," the Newman barked towards the lab techs. "Not you," she amended, and cracked the butt of her axe into the base of Almonte's skull, dropping him before he could power up his frame.

"You're working for them!" Sena yelped.

"Actually, he was," Ryland corrected. "And while he wasn't going to backstab us while we were facing monsters and rogue security robots that would kill him, too, now would be a perfect time. And unlike while you two were working on setting up Arin's terminal, I'm going to be a little busy to watch him."

"I don't believe you."

A couple of uniformed soldiers came half around the rock wall, one standing and one crouching so they could both take advantage of the cover. Each had a standard-issue blaster, with which they fired towards the hunters' position. Their shots were not aimed at Gowan and Lyon, though, but picked off the traps they'd set, destroying them before any of the soldiers came in range to trigger them. Apparently they'd anticipated the androids' tactic and came prepared with Trap Searches. The hunters' return fire blasted dust and shards from the rock face, and the soldiers danced back.

"Hey, we don't have time for Master Detective Theater, Ryland," Lyon called over the communications link. He just sighed, then called up Shifta and Deband for the team before continuing.

"Look, you already know that you were being spied on. It's the only way we could have been sent to stop Kane at exactly the right time. Our client knew what Kane was going to do. The same thing's happening right now. It wasn't Dr. Severin, since it's his project. It wasn't Arin, because he's an AI built by Severin. It wasn't you, because you're…" He paused, no doubt censoring some of the more obvious word choices. "You're plainly sincere in your beliefs. By a process of elimination, Almonte is the spy."

"Then why not stop him before he could call down this attack on us?" Sena accepted the logic—the good thing about paranoid tendencies being that it was easy to believe the possibility of betrayal—and switched gears.

"We had to draw out whomever he was reporting to somehow. The military was only the most obvious suspect. Without exposure, they'd just keep coming after us and sooner or later they'd pull off a successful assassination attempt. We didn't like that idea, so instead we're inviting them to show themselves in one big push when we know that they're coming."

"That's the grand plan? Provoke a pitched battle with the army?"

"We didn't know it was the army when we started this. We also didn't know that they'd be able to deploy an entire squad, plus vehicle support, to an area of Ragol the Lab is supposed to be controlling access to. We expected a hunter team."

"And now what?"

"Well, now, everyone's been talking about how the Guild represents a superior military force than the army while we've been working this job. I guess we get the chance to try and prove it."

She stared at him, incredulous. Ryland supposed he'd be pretty incredulous, too, in her place.

"Just stay here," he told her. "We need you alive and well to wrap up this operation." He slapped his hand against the rock wall. "They'll have to get past our line of defense to get a line of sight on you, so don't come out unless someone tells you."

"And if he wakes up," Naomi added, pointing to Almonte, "shoot him." She'd already taken his Varista, a more powerful weapon than her own railgun. "I don't want to get a technique in the back."

~X X X~

"The hunters have cover and more powerful weapons," Lieutenant Lawson reported to Zanov. "We'd have to cross open ground to rush their position."

"Well, that's why we brought those things," Zanov said, gesturing to the machines behind them. "Let's put them to use."

~X X X~

"They're bringing up the vehicles," Lyon reported, even though the other hunters were also likely able to see it on their own radar units. And then the first of the two yellow dots on the screen rounded the corner, she could actually see what it was, and she realized they'd been wrong. What was moving at them wasn't vehicles, but the giant blue bulk of two Baranz antipersonnel armored missile platforms.

The initial realization caught the hunters off-guard; these were not what they'd expected to see. Indeed, they hadn't even known that the Pioneer 2 military had any of the things to deploy against them. But they were professionals; their shock and surprise lasted only moments. The emotion didn't delay the androids at all; they were cycling into threat assessment routines almost instantly, opening fire as if synchronized, each targeting the one closer to them. Lyon's Varista shots pummeled the Baranz nearest to her, while Gowan targeted the one on his side with his laser's freezing unit, hoping to incapacitate it before it fired.

The organics were just behind them, Naomi adding her gunfire to Lyon's. Ryland, meanwhile, noticed that the human troopers were advancing behind the Baranzes, using the robots as mobile cover. He responded with his Rafoie technique, which detonated a fireblast centered on its target enemy. It did virtually nothing to the heat-shielded missile platforms, but human soldiers went over like ninepins. In the next moment, Gowan's third freezing shot took effect, bringing his target to a halt.

Then the first missiles hit.

Each initial salvo had been of four missiles. They slammed into Gowan and Lyon's positions, blasting the androids down. As they struggled to regain their feet, three soldiers charged forward, rushing up through the gap formed by one Baranz continuing to advance while the frozen one had stopped moving. They were obviously shock troops, wearing Photon armor and carrying gold-bladed rippers, high-performance Photon daggers meant for close combat against single enemies. Naomi growled, and rushed to meet the threat, swapping the handgun out for a massive Last Survivor, a giant sword that a designer with a weird sense of humor had built to look like a combat knife. The men's bodies shimmered with the auras of Shifta and Deband, indicating that they had technique-users among the squad, but Naomi flicked her hand at them, sending Jellen in their direction, and succeeded in overwriting their damage enhancement.

"They've got crap for support techs," she announced, whipping her sword in an arc that forced the attacking trio to jump back. "Probably just a Ranger."

"Got it!" Ryland said. He broke forward, risking getting nearer to the enemy's fire so he could get them in range of his own, powerful Jellen and Zalure.

The man Naomi was fighting broke formation to get out of the arc of her sword swings, one facing her directly while the others went left and right. Troopers began to pepper beam and blaster fire in the hunters' direction. Ryland grunted, taking two hits, but kept his focus enough to quickfire a Gizonde. The chained lightning hit the dagger-warrior charging him, then arced to the forward Baranz, lacing through its circuitry, then continuing to blast into several of the shooters as well.

Lyon put another shot into the damaged Baranz, and chunks of its ablative armor plates flew off, broken by the accumulated impacts. This, however, just revealed more missile ports, which launched their deadly ammunition all at once.

The second shock trooper came charging up behind Naomi, blades flashing as he tried to drive the rippers' points into her back. She mule-kicked before he could connect, hitting him in the gut just above the waistline. The Photon fields of his armor blocked most of the damage despite Naomi's Shifta-enhanced power, but it still knocked him back. When her foot hit the ground, she braced, then lunged forward, knocking the man before her into the path of the oncoming missiles. Four of them hit squarely, taking the trooper down, but the others piled into Naomi and Ryland.

"Gowan, Star!" Lyon yelped, continuing to pump shots into the Baranz. The second one would break free of its icy prison any second now, and if they didn't take this one down…

"Tactic: viable," the RAcast said, even as he was breaking out the healing item. The Star Atomizer released Photon-charged mist into the air, settling over the four hunters in a shimmering cloud that instantly restored their bodies to a full, undamaged state whether organic or mechanical. Not for the first time, Lyon thought that Ryland might well have a point when he claimed that Photon energy was the same force that ancient civilizations had called "magic." How else to explain that the atomizer could somehow read its user's intentions and only heal Gowan and his allies while having no effect on the soldiers in its radius of effect?

Freed from the need to keep up with the Restas, at least for the moment, Ryland immediately hurled another Gizonde at the Baranz without even getting back to his feet. The lightning was too much for the missile platform; it was blown to bits. The bolt arced through to the second Baranz, which Ryland hit with another technique, and a third, bringing it down as well as Naomi cut the shock troopers off from him. The chain lightning had gone on to blast into the troops behind the Baranzes as well, through it hadn't done as much damage as the earlier Rafoie, as Ryland's proficiency with the technique was offset by the soldiers' better resistance to lightning. They might have planned ahead, Ryland thought, for exactly that, using an equipment loadout that prioritized them not getting caught in the splash damage. After all, the Baranzes were the obvious targets for the hunters to fight first.

There didn't appear to be a Force present, but one of the women in the back used Resta, supporting her squad. Next to her was a man Ryland suspected was the leader; while his blue-and-green armor was the same as the other soldiers, his gold beret made him stand out.

This is it, he thought. This is the one we have to bring down.

~X X X~

"This isn't good, Colonel," Lieutenant Vallis said even as she directed fire from her beam at the RAcast. "Both Baranzes are out, and Corbett's down as well."

"Wescote! Jeffers! Mayne!" Zanov sapped. "Close and support!"

The three soldiers he'd named charged ahead. While the Baranzes hadn't taken out any of the hunters, they had allowed the three shock troopers to get past the androids and the others soldiers to get near. Now the three troops Zanov had called on switched their rifles for Photon sabers, gold-hued gladiuses, and fell on the hunters in close combat.

It was a plain numbers game, eight to four, and it would virtually be eight to three if they got to the Force, who not only likely had his profession's usual lack of hand-to-hand training but didn't even wield a rod or cane for basic hand-to-hand defense.

They could still win this.

They had to win this.

~X X X~

Lyon put away her Varista and readied her gungnir as she saw the three soldiers charging. She had to step out from cover to block their way, which immediately drew the attention of one of the remaining gunners. She put two shots into Lyon, but the damage was minor at worst.

Even so, I can't hold them off forever, not getting shot like this and fighting three soldiers besides.

She swept the partisan in a quick arc, its Photon blade sending up sparks when it struck against the fields of their armor, then executed a sharp reversal and lashed out again. The soldiers were already in motion, though, trying to flank her, so that only the woman in the middle was hit. The man to Lyon's left took a fireball to the face from Ryland as he tried to get around her that blasted him off his feet, while Lyon half-spun to finish her combination strike against the one to her right.

She never finished that move, though. Her timing was perfect; she would have cut off his charge, forced him to at the least dodge or parry her attack—except that the woman who'd been shooting her put another round on target, jolting Lyon just as she moved so that the android took a slash right across the torso from the flanking soldier's gladius. He struck again, hitting the side of her head, and in desperation she launched a confusion trap and flung herself to her left.

"Gowan!" she called for his support again, and he stood up and shot the trap's detonator, setting it off before its timer counted down. The soldiers staggered, their balance and coordination suddenly warped, their vision spinning out of control.

~X X X~

Damn it! Zanov thought, even as he was firing at the RAcast who'd broken cover to help his ally. His shots smashed home, inflicting significant damage, but the problem was that with the Force still up and fighting anything they did was liable to be temporary, anyway. Even as he watched, the chances of getting to Donovan Ryland went down further, as the HUnewearl cut down Corporal Lightner, leaving her one-on-one with Lawson. The outcome of that fight wasn't particularly in doubt. And Wescote wasn't getting up, either; the Foie had taken him down, hard.

It was time for their last resort.

"Marks!" he barked. "Bring down the house."

"Yes, sir!"

The sergeant put away her rifle and unslung the massive Panzerfaust she'd had strapped across her back. The rocket launcher was a crude weapon at the best of times, but crude was what was called for just then, in Zanov's opinion.

Especially since the target he was pointing at wasn't the enemy hunters, but the rock overhang that covered the area where the test machine was located. If he couldn't get past the hunters, well, he would just have to take out the entire nook and let a few tons of rock settle the matter for them.