Psycho's british, you muppet. First thing I learn when entering the armory. And Psycho seems to have met with an old friend, the Korean Colonel. None of my fuckin' business.

The armory was built in the former shuttle maintenance bay; it's large, filled wall to wall with weapon prototypes and very poorly lit. I like it.

Not because of the guns, I don't like guns, I don't hate them either, but I never really built the link most U.S. Army soldiers build with their guns. I'll ditch mine for a better one any day of the week, despite the eighty-five bucks I must usually pay for loosing army gear. C.E.L.L. let you buy your own weapons straight from the factory at face value and you could do whatever the fuck you wanted with it.

One of many perks I had under Hargreaves; I'd go through weapons like they were condoms, use when necessary, ditch when done and get a different flavored one that matches your current tastes…

That metaphor just went somewhere horrible.

It's buzzing with activity, PHSs grabbing microwave guns, K-Volts, Gauss rifles, and a few swords from crates that were forced open like that wrapping around your gift at Christmas when you were a kid.

There isn't five hundred thousand of us in this armory, howver, not even six hundred, like I'd expected; my men end up finding other armories around the station and decided to arm there, just in case.

Every team leader is sending me the location of the new armories, same as the Korean and Chinese commanders.

I'm counting two hundred stockpiles as large as the one I'm in now. Too many. Enough to arm every single PHS on the station, but far too many for its purpose. This is no armory, this is storage. I bet you won't find any technology here not related to the Ceph, like they crammed this station full of every piece of reverse-engineered tech they could find and tossed it in deep space.

Vendetta seems to agree with me, as she rips open the cover of a coffin sized container and pull a lot of foam from it before finding the shiny stuff inside.

Shiny isn't a way of saying cool or interesting; it's a big reflective bluish… Thing, the size of a machine gun and with actual machine gun handles.

Psycho interrupts his conversation to warn her not to mess with that. "MOAC," he explains, "will freeze the balls right off a polar bear."

I spot a high quality CryNet storage locker almost right next to the door; the size of a shoe box, hardened edges, expensive lock, weapon R&D stamp over it, has to be worth a look.. Complex biometric locks prevent me from opening it right away, but I have hacking protocols and I'm curious. Speaking of being curious…

I turn to Psycho and Ven, apparently arguing on who's got the most experience with alien tech; the merc who helped field test the prototypes, or the Delta force who found the originals. I say if you're wearing Nanosuit, you're badass enough to handle anything, but I still have to know; "Are we being attacked by polar bears?"

Big fucking hairy space polar bears. Wouldn't surprise me at this point.

Everyone within hearing distance turns to stare at me. Even the god damned Koreans are giving me weird looks and I doubt they understood a word I just said.

About a hundred visors just reflecting my own. Most of them red, mine's translucent blue.

The Korean colonel sheathes his katana or whatever and picks up a K-volt SMG before barking a few orders to his me and brushing past me, not without answering my question on the way, however.

"No."

There we have it. "Then what?" You know, I make jokes, keep quiet most of the time and am totally fucking awkward when it comes to holding an actual conversation, but I'm a Ranger, an officer and can bench press a tank, so when I ask a question, most people see the point of answering.

That guy is no pushover, but he takes a second and answers nonetheless; "Robots, like terminators, heavily armed, impossible to disable unless you put your nanosuit in direct contact with them." He looks at his hand, the green camouflage plate looks a lot like the lightweight alloy plates I'm wearing, only far less advanced. "They just melt when you touch them," he continues, clenching his hand in a fist, "I do not know why, but my men took four out on the way here. I lost twice as many troops."

His helmet scans the room, we're all looking at him now, so he sighs and elaborate: "To put it simply; do not engage them in firefights, too much firepower, you must get up close and keep nano weave in contact with them for five good seconds to do any lasting damage."

Then, he walks out the door and something hits me.

Why is there gravity here? I mean, there's always been gravity on the station, but I never questioned how that was possible. I'll ask later.

For now… Is that a bow?

The hacking protocols did the trick and the box popped open, revealing gleaming silver on black foam.

The thing is all folded on itself, packed tighter than a contortionist trying to smuggle past the border.

I never tried a bow. SECOND is showing me the basics of how to shoot one and comparing it with ordinary projectile weapons. That thing has CryFibril nano-weave for rope and backing its arms; it must throw arrows real far, real fast, real hard. I'll hold on to it for now…

Unlike the vanilla N2, my suit, an N2.1A, has pockets, sheathes, holsters and weird hooks on the back of the belt where I hang my new toy.

Will need arrow for it. How hard can it be to find arrows for a high-powered nano-tech bow? They sure won't fit in a 4mm flechette ammo crate.

Vendetta tosses me Gauss rifle and some clips for it, which I also stow on my back and pockets. Wonder who's fighting these alien, because my men have not reported any contact and the Koreans are the only one I know of who had some run ins with them. Without actual report, I can't decide whether to stock up in priority or just rush in to reinforce our lines.

Psycho can hook me up with the other task forces, he seems pretty reliable. And he's British, you muppet.

Currently, however, he seems content with trying to slap a red dot scope on a micro wave canon, which is kinda stupid if you ask me. "Hey, what's everyone else up to?" Is the only way I guess I can phrase this beyond 'Why the fuck is everyone standing around looking retarded when we're getting hit by terminators?'

He seems to know exactly what's in my mind, however, because he actually laughs and shake his head. "Americans insist they should be the only ones handling this, what with that station being made in USA and all that bullocks, but most everyone else just does whatever the bloody hell they want and with you and your boys just busting out…" He rolls a length of duct tape around the gun to hold the scope steady, then looks back up to me, "Well, no leadership, no intel and no esprit de corps." He laughs again and nods to the fifty C.E.L.L. PHS waiting for my instructions and checking each other's gear.

"What?" I don't get what he means by that, we're keeping a strict military discipline and my men are all excellent warriors.

"You wankers are the only ones I've seen so far who seem to take this shite seriously, but everyone still reports whatever they find to me so I can pass it along," he's wearing a mask, but I can hear him scowl, "but no one gives a rat's ass about anyone else's intel, so the 'bots are walking around trying to kill anyone they find. Usually ends with our guys sneaking away and reporting to me."

He spread his arms in a disheartened way, "And all I can do is nod and pass it along." He points to me and then to Vendetta, "You guys want to fight? I'll get you to the fights, first, go check out deck thirty one, section five," Second pops a nav marker at that position, knowing I'm gonna say yes before I do, "I got an Australian sniper whining about being stuck or something."

Sure, let's save an Aussie. "Can you patch me with him?"

"What am I? Speed dating animator? Figure it out."

Oh well.