A loud, insistent beeping jarred me awake hours later. In my fatigued state, it took me several moments to realize it was coming from the long-dormant comlink. I frantically hammered down on the activation icon, thrilled to finally make contact with another knight. A distorted, static filled image of another knight filled the screen.

The other knight was Redon, on of the recon knights tasked with rescuing survivors of the crash. After I filled him in on my situation, he informed me that the surviving command staff had managed to establish a base of operations a few days ago, and had ordered everyone to rendezvous there. That was the good news. The bad news was that our lifepods had scatter across an entire hemisphere, which made the rescue effort an unholy nightmare. Guiding them all to Haven, our new base, was straining HQ's resources to the limit, and many recruits were going to be on their own for most of the journey. I was one of those unlucky recruits.

Fortunately for me, a large group of knights had landed a few days away from me, and had established a small camp. According to Redon, I had a week to hike over to them before they moved on. Before hanging up, he had one last order.

"You say that you've salvaged a fair amount of gear from crashed pods? Bring as much of it as you can to the rescue camp. Ignore what the regs say about carry limits, and bring us that gear. Understood?"

"Uh…yes sir, understood. May I ask why?" I said, mystified by the amount of value Redon attached to the pile of near-worthless junk I'd accumulated.

Redon squirmed. "Someone will explain why later. Right now, just follow orders. Good luck, Santis. Redon out." He said.

The only thing worse than knowing something strange is going on, is knowing that something strange is going on but having no idea what it is. However, orders were orders, and if HQ wanted the gear I'd found, then I wasn't going to argue. After a few hours of packing, I was ready to leave. Munching on a chunk of roast wolver, I shouldered my pack and set out.

By the end of the 2nd day, I was scaling a hill that stood at the entrance to the valley. My fight with the wolver pack a few days ago seemed to have inflicted enough losses to deter them from attacking me again, letting me escape the valley uncontested. I noted bitterly noted that my footprints were the only ones leading out of that awful place. A dozen other knights had landed in that valley, and I was the only one leave. I hoped that the rest of the order had been luckier with their landings, because if they hadn't, the order would find itself ripped apart piecemeal before we even got the chance to reach Haven.

The next day, I heard the sounds of combat echoing through the woods around me. I surged ahead, fearing a fellow knight had found trouble. Crashing through a line of bushes, I found myself in the middle of fight between a trio of large, rat-like creatures and some kind of robot. After a moment, I recognized the three creatures as gremlins, an illusive group of beings that seemed to be native to Cradle. Spiral HQ was eager to make contact with them and see if they could help us survive this rather hostile place. I didn't recognize their mechanical opponent, a battered robot that bore a striking similarity to one of my fellow knights. A mecha knight, if you will. It even had a sword.

I stepped away, uncertain of what my next action should be. One of the gremlins made that decision for me. He barked an order to his comrades, and one of them turned away from the robot and charged toward me. I dived out of the way, barely evading a blow from the massive wrench the gremlin wielded. Another blow reverberated against my shield as I blocked the gremlins follow up strike.

"Hold on, I'm friendly! I don't want a fight!" I shouted, trying to defuse the situation and getting another attack for my trouble. "I'm not your enemy!" I said, backing away from the gremlin. His only response was to charge me again. My shield couldn't take many more hits before it failed, so I decided to abandon diplomacy. I rolled out of the way of a powerful overhead blow from the gremlins wrench, and charged toward him as a he recovered. I drove him back with a furious series of slashes, getting in several solid hits as he retreated. He swung at me again, the strike made slow and clumsy by his wounds. I easily parried the weak strike, and finished the gremlin off with a quick strike to the throat.

Leaving the gremlin lying in a pool of his own blood, I turned back to the main fight. Both gremlins were still on their feet, hammering away at the mecha knight with their back to me. Any port in a storm, I thought as I charged to the robot's aid. I jammed my sword through the spine of one of them, dropping him instantly. His compatriot noticed, and dived out of the way of my follow-up strike. He shouted, and a half dozen gremlins surged out of woods. As they moved to surround me, I felt something bump into me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the mecha knight had taken position behind me. Back to back, we face the crowd.

A few bloody, brutal minutes later, I put a bullet through the head of the last gremlin still on his feet. As I caught my breath, I heard something behind me hit the ground with a loud, metallic clang. Turning, I saw the mecha knight lying on the ground in a battered heap. A quick inspection of the fallen machine revealed the problem: its power source had been caved in sometime during the fight. Unwilling to abandon the first thing I'd meet out here that wasn't trying to kill me, I dragged the disabled robot into a cave I'd found a mile or so away. Depositing it along with the hammer-like wrenches (or perhaps wrench-like hammers) of the gremlins we'd bested. Staring at the busted machine, I pulled out my comlink and made some calls.

Two hours, four scrapped handguns, two stripped comlinks, and three mystified technicians later, I clicked a replacement power cell into place. Light returned to the cross-shaped slit in its head and shined off the purple armor that covered it. It staggered to its feet and turned to face me. I handed it the sword it had wielded, along with one of the shields I'd scavenged. It hefted the weapons and stared at me. "Friend?" I asked. The comlinks I'd wired into it's CPU should have let it understand what I was saying, but I was dealing with a completely alien technology. I kept a hand on the hilt of my own sword in case the answer was no.

After what felt like an eternity, the mecha knight nodded, and slipped the sword into it's sheath. I released a breath that I hadn't realized I'd been holding, and pointed toward the cave's mouth. "Shall we?"

Accompanied by my new metal buddy, I continued the journey to the rescue camp. The mecha knight didn't have a name, so after some thought I named him Danju. It meant veteran, which seemed appropriate given he'd been running around Cradle for longer than I had. We didn't run into any more gremlins, which was a definite upside to the day. The last thing I wanted was to get into a fight with something smart enough to target Danju's jury-rigged power cell.

We reached the rescue camp at around noon the next day, having encountered nothing more dangerous than a pack of slimes during our trip. I found it disturbing that I'd seen enough combat that almost getting enveloped by a gelatinous pink cube only registered as a minor incident. At this rate, I'd become a jaded, burned out veteran by the time I got to Haven. At the rescue camp, I was surprised to discover Sergeant Greta in command. The Skylark's premier drill instructor was looking a lot worse for wear, but I doubted that I looked all that great either. It had been a long two weeks for both of us. After discussing Danju, and more pointedly if we could trust him, Greta decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and asked him to patrol the camp's perimeter. Oddly, he didn't move until I repeated the request, thinking that he hadn't heard Greta. It wasn't until later that I realized he would only follow my orders or requests, and not anyone else's.

Redon was also at the rescue camp, as part of our escort. Which was odd, as escort operations were usually something Guardian Knights would be tasked with. When I asked about it, Redon explained that all of the Order's remaining Guardians were deployed, leaving him as the next best option. I also told him about my encounter with the gremlins, and their sudden hostility.

"I'm afraid that's not much of a surprise." He said. "The gremlins have become much more aggressive over the past few days, and several of our patrols have been attacked without provocation. In light of that change, HQ is considering issuing permission to engage on sight."

"Any idea why they changed their attitude?" I asked.

"We have absolutely no clue." He said. "But it's been causing us a lot of grief, especially since the gremlins seem to have some measure of control over the Clockworks."

"The what?" I asked.

Redon shot me a surprised look. "No one told you?"

"Told me what?"

He sighed and walked over to the computer terminal in the center of the camp, gesturing for me to follow. After pressing a few buttons, a strange looking picture popped onto the screen. It looked like a circle, with a set of spokes radiating out from the center, and each spoke passed through the center of several massive gears. "Sir, what am I looking at?" I asked.

"This is Cradle." He pointed to circle. "This is Cradle's surface," he pointed to the spokes, "And these are the Clockworks. Hundreds of these support struts are underneath Cradle's surface, interlocking with each other at these gears. Each gear contains several bio-domes, which consist of an isolated and self-contained environment. Elevator shafts like that one," He pointed to a large, industrial looking elevator in one corner of the camp, "allow movement between different tiers and their bio-domes." He tapped a few more keys, and displayed an image of a pair of Clockwork struts in a V shape. "By traveling down through the clockworks, hopping over to another strut, and then returning to the surface, you can vastly reduce the amount of time you spend traveling." As he spoke, lines appeared at the top of the struts and at a point halfway down, showing the distance between the two struts at those points.

"Tomorrow, we'll be going into the Clockworks. It's the only way for us to reach Haven in any reasonable amount of time." He tapped a few more keys and restored the image of Cradle. Another key sequence brought up the route we'll be taking. "We won't be going very deep, only tier one. But we'll still be able to cut the transit time significantly."

"What's tier one?" I asked. "And why aren't we going any deeper?"

"Lt. Feron will explain that once we reach Haven. For the moment, just know that travel gets more dangerous the deeper you go." He turned off the console. "Get some sleep, recruit. Tomorrow's gonna be a rough day." He ordered.