Sigma Mercenaries 0001R: Initial Public Offering REVISED

by CSS Stravag

Sigma Mercenaries Mainline story beginning, REVISED EDITION. When an unknown train lands on the vegetable garden of an American Militiaman, and the happenings in the train are revealed to be wildly messed up, four Americans swing into action to save lives and bring order to chaos. Along the way, they will meet a very odd and diverse cast of peeps from all over Existence.. (Rated M)

20. Incurring Debts

(Sigma Mercenaries, Story 0001, Chapter 20: Incurring Debts)

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0005 Hours Local Time)
(Northern wall of Base Boarhound nearby Turret N-6, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

On the wall next to the number six turret on the northern wall, a gate formed facing west toward the number seven turret. The aperture of the gate was not visible to any of the cameras in Boarhound, and since Boarhound did not have any Enhanced Sensor Systems, it could not be detected by the artificial intelligence entity that controlled the base automated systems. Not that there would be any such risk to begin with, as the interloper had stopped time in this dimension for what she was about to do.

To further confound detection, the being that stepped through the Gate was invisible, as was the blade she carried.

You are ready for this? Master Executor Hotaru Tomoe asked of the soul of the sword she carried.

I have been looking forward to this since I gave up my physical form to become the first of the Chronicle Swords, the mind of the sword answered.

Hotaru turned to the Administration building and held the sword out. It teleported away in the moments thereafter, and landed in one of the bedrooms on the fourth floor. Briefly, Hotaru saw the form of a Phoenix on the rooftop of the Admin building and was momentarily surprised by it, until she remembered that one of the more unusual things Sigma One had planned for the base was a Transformation rune.

The Master Executor could sense the sword as it checked the persons on the top level of the building, and made the decision. The sword's soul object attached itself to the soul of one of the troops on the top level of the Administration Building. Hotaru gulped against the pang of regret in her own soul, given that one of the persons on that level was now on a course far too strange to simply call it at one lifetime.

It is done, the sword said after it was settled. I can sense this is going to be a very interesting adventure. These troops do not think like any other.

That is the one beauty and loudest curse of this Protectorate. I wish you luck acclimating to them, Hotaru acknowledged the challenge ahead for the former Master Oracle and now the soul of a sword.

Luck will not be what I need, I suspect aspirin and antacids would go farther. If I had a body appropriate to their use, that is. Now, begone, and I will look forward to your return in coming hours.

Hotaru took a moment to unfreeze time in this dimension before she stepped through the Gate and closed it. Ten seconds later, a camera panned across where the gate was and found no evidence that a Master Executor had stood there moments before. Hotaru would make an appearance in a few hours to provide a visual, but her first combat action was multiple hours into the future.

-x-

(Former) Master Oracle Andiana had come to this planet knowing which of the persons on the Command level she would partner to, but for her personal desire and clearing of conscience she had checked everyone on the floor and in the building. Every troop within was of sufficient honor and desire to do the duty, but only a handful of them were of the fortitude necessary to be a Chronicle. And of those, her original conclusion in partner was the best bet. Others might harden up in time, but for today she would go where she could do the best for everyone — and begin recording the shape of Existence for the Record of Ragnarok.

By partnering to her comrade to come in the dead of night, Andiana would have several hours to learn the history of her new partner and how to think like one of these very unique Sigma troops. The Master Oracle had seen inside the souls of many before, but this was a different land, different even from the Star Empires and their denizens, and to learn this land she would have to know the people. And the few hours of sleep remaining in what would quickly become a busy and long day would be treasured by her to get to know the personae and dreams of the trooper in question.

And it began by Master Oracle Andiana putting an end to a blossoming weird dream / nightmare that threatened to disturb the sleep of her new partner. In the void of the calm behind that, Andiana recalled some of the peaceful lands she had crossed on foot in eons past as a way to calm the mind and deepen the sleep.

Rest would be critical; war would only be a few hours hence.

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0300 Hours Local Time)
(Command Administrator's Quarters, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

As a matter of timing, things had to get in motion well before sunrise if there was to be an expectation of victory, so the Command Administrator had to be awoken. For a telepath, waking someone up even from a deep sleep was a simple task, just a matter of disturbing a certain part of a person's mind and they would stir but without the shot of adrenaline such as being physically jolted awake.

"Bullshit, way too early," Sigma One grumped to nobody in particular after he woke up.

Hess, wake up, a mental voice that sounded somewhat familiar said.

"Toni?" He asked after a moment.

No, Toni is still asleep at this profane hour, the telepath continued.

"Okay, then who?" Sigma One asked, now well awake and very leery.

That question will be answered shortly, but for now you need to get ready.

"Okay then, ready for what?" Sigma One asked audibly.

War is coming for Sigma, your prediction of a preemptive strike against the Protectorate is a few hours away from coming true. I will show you the history to come.

The Command Administrator was treated to a mental flash of what he could only understand as an unwritten future, and not a particularly good one. It was several hundred memories compressed and delivered to his mind in the space of an instant, and as soon as his mind properly grasped what he had just had rapidly downloaded into his higher memory, he bolted to standing and immediately grabbed for his pants.

"Virtue, lights up, half lumens slow," Sigma One said with an even voice despite the near-instant wave of panic he felt from seeing a very unpleasant future to come.

If you seek verification, Admin camera 8, point it at Turret N-6, the telepathic voice said.

"Sir, we have a situation," Virtue activated a monitor on the east wall of the quarters, a night vision camera going by the color scheme, and it was pointing at the number 6 turret on the north wall. "The person in this view has a Star League IFF on her — it reads as Master Executor Hotaru Tomoe."

"I know, I'm awake because I'm being telepathically quarterbacked, and the shit is about to hit the fan in dump-truck quantity," Hess said as he worked his way into his H-Harness and began belting down the drop-leg platforms.

"Invasion," Virtue concluded quickly.

"Damn straight, but we're not hosed yet. The enemy on the way has heavily underestimated us, and we have a shot at victory," Sigma One said as he slipped his Springfield XD into his drop-leg holster. "Wake up Clint, Victoria, Clarence, Nereus, Storme, Vickers, and get me in touch with the Lucerne's Anvil."

"Working on it," Virtue said.

"The Hell's going on?" Clint asked as soon as the door opened to Hess' quarters. "This ain't even the butt-crack of dawn—aw shit," Clint grumped when he saw Hess was loading magazines for his M25.

"We're about to have a bad day ain't it?" Clarence asked on the heels of his wife entering.

"Not a bad day," Sigma One said. "A busy and violent day, but not a bad one," he said.

"Who's on the Night Vision Camera? Is that one of our turrets?" Victoria asked after she grabbed a seat at the table.

"It is, I'll explain when the last of this meeting arrives. Virtue, is there an overnight mess crew on duty?" Hess asked.

"The morning crew is coming online now," Virtue said.

"Have them deliver four carafes of coffee up here as soon as it is brewed. Breakfast will be later for us, after preparations are done."

"Emergency meeting of some kind?" Star Colonel Storme asked. Nereus was in the door a few moments behind her, and was visibly shocked when he saw first Hess, then who was on the east-wall monitor.

"Master Executor Tomoe," Nereus named the person seen in the NV camera.

"Confirmed, she has the IFF of the Master Executor," Virtue announced.

"That means shit is about to hit the fan, probably in large quantity," Century Commander Vickers said stiffly as he entered and took seat.

Before the door closed: "Asuka, in here!" Hess ordered of the overnight guard.

"Sir!" The SSO was quick to bolt in before the door closed behind her and took station at the side of it.

"Sir, I have the Lucerne's Anvil online, Star Admiral Siegel on deck."

"Put 'em on," Hess said as he finished loading his last magazine for the engagement to come. "Star Admiral, sorry for waking you up early, and the same to the rest of you, but as both Century Commander Vickers and myself have said this morning, the shit is about to hit the fan in metric assload quantity."

"I gander the night vision look at that trooper there is the IFF we detected from low orbit, Master Executor Hotaru Tomoe," Yulie Siegel said.

"I confirm it, I can sense her," Nereus said.

"I am going to preface this next bit by saying that I am being quarterbacked by telepathy, and have seen a run-down of what is to come in the next hours. We are about to be invaded by a Star league Member State called the Duchy of Three Rivers," Hess began.

"That shithole state? That is ballsy beyond expectation," the Star Admiral said.

"You know of them?" Nereus asked.

"Aff, High Executor. They are an upstart that just barely achieved planetary empire status in the past decade. They are not even interplanetary, yet, much less interdimensional and most certainly not to Star Empire rating. A Century of troops could sunder their Empire in a hurry. I have no idea why they would be convinced that attacking a Protectorate under one of the Big Six is some manner of wise or justifiable action, have you heard anything Command Administrator?"

"They have bargained with certain persons in the Star League Grand Council: they flatten us and kill everyone of note in Sigma, they get to take this world over with full sanction from the Star League, and they will have full coverage of resolutions to be presented today while the battle is going on here in Boarhound."

"Fuck nuts! They're under orders to kill us all?" Clint asked.

Hess sighed. "You got it, everyone under arms and all the command staff. As well as all Magi, ComStar, and High Executor Nereus."

"Well, I intend to do unto others preemptively," Nereus said.

"Might I suggest an alternative?" Hess asked the High Executor.

"It had best be a good one, Sigma One. These orders they fly under condemn them to an early grave," Nereus said.

"I agree, they should be in a grave, but we won't have to go there for today. From the paths of the future I have been shown, we have an option that will chill their killboners for several decades to come, if you all are willing to engage in some kabuki theater for a morning."

Nereus opened his mouth to respond, thought better of it for a moment, and closed his mouth. The response came from farther down the table: "You have our ears, sir. What is the plan?" Star Colonel Storme asked.

"They will arrive in roughly 80 minutes by Jumpship at the Pirate Point L1, between here and the moon. The conventional response would be to shoot them down with the big guns on the Lucerne's Anvil as soon as they detach from the Jumpship, correct Star Admiral?"

"Aff, and I would board the Jumpship to make sure no such conspirator remained to tell the tale," Yulie Siegel said stiffly.

"SEYLA!" Better than half the bridge staff shouted a moment later. (1)

"Well, we do not want to do that. Killing them as soon as they detach from the Jumpship will get the message across, but it's not the best outcome long-term, it'll only scare the shitheads silent for five years or so and when they come back for the next round, they will bring enough firepower to down a Phalanx-class ship. Bad news for everyone involved here and later."

"Aff, I would agree that is suboptimal in the long-term," Star Admiral Siegel said. "What is your proposal, Sigma One?"

"We let them land and begin their ground assault, we entrap them here on Terra 232, we break their invasion and we break the entire campaign by the numbers. And we scare them into putting the command section on the field in such a way that their Regent is in jeopardy. Many nations would try shitting on an upstart, but many more nations will think fast and hard when they know their royal house is at jeopardy should they point a blade in our direction."

Nereus barked a sharp chuckle. "You intend to make an example of them!"

"Combined with the example to be set of the Star League's conspiracy on the matter, damn straight that is what I intend," Hess said with a savage smile. "Are you willing?" Hess asked the Magi officers and the Executor.

"I trust in Master Executor Tomoe's judgment. If you have a plan that will achieve this result, I will follow," Nereus said.

"Aff, I shall do so," Century Commander Vickers said.

"So shall I," Star Admiral Siegel nodded twice.

"Sigma Command, this is a gamble with all of our asses, but at this point our asses are already on the table: their orders are to kill everyone of consequence, but as they are about to find out, 'everyone of consequence' means everyone in the Protectorate and the surrounding area because they can't afford to have witnesses. Are you in or out?"

"Fuck no I'm not running, even if you're being run on a script by a transdimensional fortune teller I'm still going to fight this to the tang of my knife," Clint said.

"It's a little more weird and complex than that, Clint, but for oversimplification purposes, that is what it amounts to," Hess acknowledged the point. His tone told that he wasn't particularly happy with having to make that point, but everyone at the table knew the alternative was less pleasant.

"If you've seen how this plays out, who survives?" Clarence asked.

"We will take casualties in the civilian and recruit groups, but if you follow my operational directives and listen to the command truck's orders during the fighting, everyone at this table will live to see tomorrow. I make no guarantees on being uninjured, but survival is," Hess said solemnly.

"I am in, and you don't need to worry about me," Victoria said.

"Asuka, in or out?" Hess asked the one silent person in the room.

"We're here to protect the command team, sir," the SSO said proudly.

"Good, you will be protecting Clint, Clarence, and Victoria as they see to the ground action against the incoming enemy infantry. You will need to arm heavy for the coming battle, you will be facing professional infantry with light armor support."

"And you, sir?" Asuka asked.

"My part in the battle is bait and the command-level strike," Hess said. "Admin Building is to be evacuated before the battle, I will have traps set as is appropriate for the enemy troops. Nereus, you will have two parts to play here, Star Colonel Storme and Century Commander Vickers will need to be on the field to the north to deal with the enemy heavy forces."

"And the Lucerne's Hammer?" Star Admiral Siegel asked.

"Can you be on the other side of the planet from the L1 Pirate Point in 75 minutes?"

The Star Admiral looked away from the screen. "XO, lay in a burn to put us directly opposite the L1 Pirate Point."

"Sir, if we burn hard, now, we can be on the opposite side of the moon by the arrival time of these svashri," the Star Commodore said.

"Make it happen, XO. We will park opposite the Moon until they are in motion, Sigma One. Call for us when ready, and may skill and honor guide your rifle, sir."

"Godspeed, Star Admiral," Hess saluted the monitor. "Now, for the rest of us we have preparations to make. Virtue, you're on deck," Hess ordered.

"Listening, sir," the AI entity said.

"Start searching ScrapNet and any available source for infantry weapons, support weapons, ammunition, explosives, everything reasonable to repel incoming enemy infantry and light armor. The Magi will have to field the enemy heavy-hitters that came along for the ride, but we will have to provide the heaviest amount of the base of fire against their infantry."

"I shall start waking my troops up," Star Colonel Storme said.

"The Armored Infantry under my command, out on the field or here on the walls?" Vickers asked.

"To start, here at the walls with any volunteers from the civilians or Basic Recruits, pursuit may be required depending on how the battle shakes out," Hess said. "Let's get to it. Enemy will arrive here in now 72 minutes, they will want to chat in about 80 minutes so have your war faces on for when they arrive," Sigma One said.

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0440 Hours Local Time)
(L1 Pirate Point in orbit between Terra 232 and Luna 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

"Communications systems are back online now, sir," the commo officer for the Jumpship reported. One of the things that was not properly understood of trans-dimensional jumps was that the electromagnetic forces involved tended to knock out communications for several minutes after the landing, though systems were sometimes better about properly restarting after landing and sometimes took longer.

"Time to make the call," Regent Nuone said coldly.

"Sir, I should remind you that before we issue defiance, it is possible to walk away from this folly cleanly," his personal Retainer, Ludwig Barto, said.

"Promises have been made, Ludwig," Ulysses Nuone said. "We are committed."

"Understood, highness." The Retainer stepped aside in deference to the course laid out by the Regent.

"Dial it in, please," Ulysses requested of Major Watters.

A couple commands on the radio console and the initial signal was laid in. "Comm request is sent, sir," the Intelligence Officer said.

"Call has been accepted, sir," the Commo Officer on the Jumpship declared five seconds later. "Connecting now."

The call popped into the personal quarters of the commanding officer, and standing in front of the desk was the man they had quickly learned of: Command Administrator Erich Hess. The desk behind him had several propped-up tablets facing away from the camera, which gave truth to the present intelligence on him being a serious and active Administrator.

"Morning, Command Administrator, I am Regent Ulysses Nuone of the Duchy of Three Rivers. Under request of the Star League, I have come to demand the surrender of the Command Section of the Protectorate of Sigma, the dissolving of the Protectorate and relinquishment of all technologies and persons illegally disturbed by your actions in the prior weeks."

"Curt and to the point, I rather like that in an OpFor," Sigma One answered immediately. "Now that you have the official party line said and on record, time for us to be direct, Regent."

"Please, go on," Ulysses requested.

"We both know how this has to end, Regent. For this plan to work, three things have to happen: One, you have to have the Senate sign off on your cover-thine-asses paperwork, and as of right now the Senate has not even been convened to session. Two, you have to put troops on the ground and win the battle to come. Three, after you win, you have to follow through with the orders you've already given to your troops: eliminate anyone of consequence before the Executors can investigate your actions. In practical terms, part three means you pretty much are required to kill everyone in the Protectorate and surrounding areas, you cannot leave any witnesses alive or your ass-coverage is null and void."

"Interesting analysis, Command Administrator, but not at all true — "

"Allow me to cut you short on that one, Regent. Never try to bullshit an analyst, our day-job centers around ferreting out problems and root causes; trying to obfuscate the truth only delays the inevitable. The Star League wants the Protectorate erased permanently, you know it, I know it. We are an inconvenient truth to the Star League, and we are disassembling their criminal ventures one at a time, thus we need to be eliminated. By that metric, surrendering has no value when I already expect to be dead before your Dropship departs this planet. So, in light of your quasi-orders from the Star League, and on the prior-stated expectation, there is nothing to be lost by fighting to the last round in my magazines, and I may just manage to survive the end of this campaign. Probably not, but maybe."

"So you refuse to surrender?" Ulysses asked.

"History is riddled with genocide after genocide delivered by someone who promised a clean surrender and gave otherwise. If you intend to kill us all, I intend to make you pay for it as dearly as we can muster," Sigma One answered.

"I am sorry you believe that way, Command Administrator. My troops will endeavor to capture you alive, but if you intend to fight it to the last, that is what you will have."

The Command Administrator snorted loudly. "I think we're done here, Regent. If you want my life, come and take it." The communication channel cut out.

"That was cheery," The Captain of the Jumpship said. "He knew you were coming and knew your purpose."

"That's my take as well, sir," Helena Watters said. "That, or he's enough of a genius that he read your plan in realtime and cut to the bone on it. Either way, bad news."

"Our plan still stands. Captain Targa, please prepare to undock our ships."

Your funeral, buddy, Captain Watters heard by way of her telepathy from the Captain of the Jumpship. And, truth to tell, she would not disagree after hearing the Command Administrator disassemble the operational concept in real-time.

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0500 Hours Local Time)
(Barracks F-A-04, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

"Listen up, all of you!" Instructor Vernorse shouted to the recruits in her barracks area. "What I am about to play for you is a recording of a conversation between Sigma One and an invasion flotilla coming this way. Hold your questions for after the replay."

The recording of the conversation was very much to the point, and infuriating to Recruit Sango Grover. Not for the whole Star League angle of it, but for the more basic direction of a party trying to stop them doing right by themselves and right by the Trains — all the persons in this Barracks except three were Train Inductees. All of them knew the horror of the Trains and had signed on to one degree or another to assist with putting an end to the Trains, or to better the world for the people pulled off the Trains.

"That is the length of the recording. We have confirmation that four Dropships are burning hard for this planet, estimate is three troop transports and one battlemech transport." DI Geri Vernorse sighed. "Two battalions of Infantry, one battalion of 'mechs. This will not be an easy battle, but it is a necessary one, if you intend to survive to see tomorrow."

"Doesn't matter, we don't have a choice, we either die on our feet or die running," Cadet Akira Kelvin commented. "You heard Sigma One's analysis of the events to come. They — " Akira was cut off by the sound of the intercom blowing a three-tone alert sound.

"Attention all hands, this is Artificial Intelligence Entity Virtue. Stand by for an announcement from Command Administrator Hess."

The intercom popped to signal the transmission cut out, then popped again to signal the start of a new message. "Attention all civilians, recruits, and operating personnel of the Protectorate, Magi personnel and ComStar staff. By now you all have heard the replay of the conversation between myself and Regent Ulysses Nuone of the Duchy of Three Rivers. He has declared that he wants us to surrender, and tried to assure us that we would be allowed to surrender in good order, but that assurance is in counter to his goal. The Star League needs to ensure no witnesses survive that can tell the tale of their crimes, both here in the Protectorate and on the Trains. They have a history of silencing witnesses by threat or by violence. Their intention today is to kill us all, and that is how the Regent intends to pave his way into Star Empire status."

"Knew it," Sango grumped.

"At this point, there is nothing to be gained by surrendering. There is nowhere to run to, nowhere to retreat to. This base, Base Boarhound, this is all we have. Today, there is no value in surrender, no value in yielding, and everything to be gained by resisting. Base Boarhound is all we have, and roughly ten thousand souls manning this base. And that may be enough at the end of the day, if we fight hard and fight smart."

"Hell yeah!" Recruit Azura Goodwind shouted from two beds north of where Sango was standing. Her cheer was joined by a dozen more.

"I cannot order you to battle at this time; we are not yet an army and not yet ready to field ourselves as an army. But we are something else, something even more than an army: we have chosen to become a Protectorate, to stand as one group and do the right thing. Today, we may not be an army, but the founding of my home nation started with the mobilization of Militia, an army drawn from the common citizens in times of need. Today, I am taking the same step: for any person willing to answer the call, I am mobilizing the Militia of the Protectorate of Sigma to battle a foreign invader. Any person who wishes to volunteer to fight for your lives and those around you, report to your drill instructors, your commanding officers if you are already activated, or to the Administration Building to sign in and receive your marching orders."

The speaker cut out for a moment, then popped back on. "I truly wish this was not in motion, but because we have dared to exist in spite of the decrees of the Star League, and because we dare to challenge the Slavers' Guild, we have drawn the hostility of outside parties. It is an old joke from my homeland that you know you are doing something right if you have earned the hatred of those in power somewhere else. Today we have to defend what we have done right, and if we survive, tomorrow we double down on doing the right thing just to piss on them."

"And I'll gladly sign on for more if I survive," Akira said with a smile.

"The decision to stand and fight or to surrender is now yours to be made. The Command Section is all in on resistance. God be with us all in this coming endeavor, because we will need it and more. Sigma One, out."

The intercom popped once more to signal loss of signal.

"There you have it, troops," DI Geri Vernorse said.

"And that says it all," Recruit Sango Grover said. "You heard the platitudes from this Regent Nuone fuckstick, and we all heard the take from Sigma One. We know exactly how this is going to end."

"Sad but true," a recruit that had signed on for a Special Operations track admitted. Sango didn't know his name yet.

"We've all got a history with the Trains, either by direct involvement or by association. With one exception, of course," and Sango nodded to the one recruit in the room that had come in as a direct recruit from the Illyaris Star Empire. "We've all cheated death or slavery at the hands of the Slavers. We finally get hauled off the Trains by the hands of four wacky Americans or a team they hand-picked to enter and clear the Trains. We've been loose from the Trains at most three weeks, some of us a few days past two weeks. Two weeks of freedom, and now we have a pile of fucksticks coming down from a world that has no damned clue what these Trains are about, and they swear they're going to kill us all because we know where the skeletons were dumped overboard."

"Hell with that!" Akira said.

"Exactly. Hell. With. That." Sango said, and with each word she pinned gaze upon a different squad of recruits in the barracks. "The Americans worked to get us out of the Trains, give us a shot at a new life. They're trying to un-fuck this planet and disassemble the Trains permanently. And now we have the original shitheads that started this problem coming down to put us back in slavery or just disappear the problem entirely. I've never felt better about anything in my life, being in this training cadre. Hell with going back into the Trains as a Slave. I will die on my feet before they put me back in shackles and bondage rope. Who's with me?"

The cheer from the recruits could be heard easily in the adjacent barracks buildings.

"Any person who wishes to stand against these tangos, step forward," DI Vernorse ordered.

Not one person in the barracks building stood still.

"Virtue, DI Vernorse, I have a full training contingent who have volunteered. What are our orders?" the Drill Instructor asked.

"Instructor, muster your troops and march to the Administration Building, where we will deploy weapons, munitions and gear for the coming engagement. At that time, you will receive further orders, how copy?"

"Show us on the move," Geri said. "My platoon, form up for march! Double time!"

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0540 Hours Local Time)
(Railhead Undercroft, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

Hess pelted down the stairs at a brisk clip from the fusion engine room and had to come to a very abrupt stop due to the line of persons waiting to get to the armaments distribution taking place at the ScrapNet Pad.

"Sir!" One of the recruits saluted him, as did several others in the area. Hess returned the salute and quickly made down the side of the line toward the ScrapNet pad, where his phase of the preparations were set to begin.

At the ScrapNet Bay, the Military Police had formed the troops into six columns to spread out the load on the HR personnel that were issuing guns and equipment to troops rather than registering refugees. One of the Armored MPs held a hand out to stop Hess. "Back in line troop—" he choked when he realized who he had stopped.

"Here to pick up some gear, Point Commander," Hess said after he caught sight of the trooper's rank insignia.

"Begging your pardon, Command Administrator." The MP turned to the crowd. "Make a hole! Coming through!"

"Virtue, deploy my gear," Sigma One said into his radio as he crossed onto the pad. Ten meters ahead of him, four squares lit off with an array of boxes necessary for his plan, next to where a team of Basic Recruits were working on gearing up for the coming battle.

"Whose stuff is this?" A Nymph lady asked after it appeared within touching distance to her.

"I claim it," Hess said as he approached the pile.

"Sir!" She stood to attention and saluted immediately, which caused the remaining troops in the platoon to follow suit.

"As you were, troops. Continue your preparations," Hess ordered. "Sidonia, brown box of claymores and the Pelican case with the red stripe are the detonators."

"Sir," SSO Sidonia grabbed up the boxes in question.

"Lydia, take that spare pistol belt, loop them through the empty ammo can handles, cinch it down and buckle it, that way you can carry them all as a bandoleer."

"Can do sir!" Lydia set to wrapping up the ammo cans in a hurry, since she knew time was not waiting for anyone today.

Sigma One picked up the case of grenade launcher rounds and the grenade launcher he would need for his first engagement to come, then stopped and looked around the back of the bay that was quickly becoming cluttered with empty boxes, ammo crates, weapon shipping containers, and similar. A couple volunteers were occasionally stacking them higher or stuffing them into the ScrapNet Interface to get them out of the way, but a thought came to Hess' mind seeing them piled haphazardly in a couple places.

Hess looked to the thirty-something Nymph that had asked about his pile of gear. "Trooper, where is your DI?" he asked.

"Right here, Sir. Geri Vernorse, Multimage Armored Infantry," the DI in question had just arrived in her full set of Assault Infantry armor and under full arms, and came to attention crisply.

"Does your unit have deploy orders yet?" Hess asked.

"No sir, we're still gearing up, sir!" she answered.

"Good, I'm going to briefly frag your unit for a quick noncombat task," Hess said.

"Name it, sir," Geri said. By now, the entire unit had realized something was going down.

Hess looked to the troops in question. "This platoon listen up! Grab an empty box from the pile and stow your remaining gear in it, then grab as many empty boxes as you can safely carry up stairs! Doesn't matter what types, just as many as you can carry!"

"Move it up! Sigma One does not have all day and neither do you!" Geri said.

The scramble for boxes was brief and disorganized, but resulted in well more than Hess figured would be good camouflage for what he intended. "Ready to go, sir!" Geri reported after the platoon was ready to march, which took roughly 90 seconds from start to finish.

"Follow me, I'll explain when we get up to the ground floor of the Admin Building," Hess waved them toward the stairs to the Fusion Engine room. "Coming through, make a hole!" Hess waved aside the column of Militiamen waiting to gear up, who parted readily and cleanly with some assistance from the MPs to allow the Command Administrator, two SSOs, and a platoon of Basic to pass through the line. Hess was first to the stairs up into the main building area, though by the time he reached the ground floor he was already contemplating a round of Excedrin for his bad ankle.

"What's the plan, sir?" Sidonia asked as the Basic platoon debauched from the stairs and started filling into the hallways.

"Listen up, everyone! Your boxes with your remaining gear, set them down in this hallway and remember where you put your allotment! The empty boxes, fan out in the halls here on the first floor and set them down in random locations around here! Doesn't matter where, just make sure they are in the hallways and up against the walls! Get them placed and come back here to finish gearing up!"

"Interesting, what are you intending to conceal, sir?" Geri asked as her troops started fanning out to drop their boxes throughout the ground floor of the Admin building.

"Visual clutter and noise to conceal these," and Hess reached out to tap on one of the ammo cans being carried by Lydia. "Six of these cans will be stationed at strategic locations around the ground floor, with six radio-controlled Claymores that Virtue will detonate to deal with enemy Special Operations Teams in the building."

"Ah, the enemy does not intend just a frontal assault, but an infiltration?" DI Vernorse asked.

"They think we will be commanding the defensive effort from such an obvious command post as this, when I intend the ground combat command to be in the command truck up by the Gate Flats, well away from here. This building is bait, and I am the juiciest piece thereof," Sigma One said before he popped open the case of 40mm grenades and started loading the old China Lake Grenade Launcher with one in the chamber and three in the tube. "Their whole plan hinges on killing me, killing the command staff of the Protectorate, as the way to break the effort here. They have no idea my plan is to turn the Admin Building into an abattoir of dead units and surrenders."

"Hence the operational orders to clear the building and remain clear of it until you order otherwise," Geri nodded twice. "Any extra forces here will change the calculus and maybe not in your favor."

"Exactly so. If I control all the variables, I survive and only the necessary enemies end up in the grave."

"Does this tie into the IFF we saw earlier, of a certain Master Executor, sir?" DI Vernorse asked.

"I will neither confirm or deny that, Instructor," Hess said with a crooked smile. As a sidelong way of answering her question: "Virtue, Hess, signal to the Lucerne's Anvil to get a move on, time for the big reveal."

"Sending the signal now," Virtue answered by way of a nearby intercom speaker.

"The invasion force has been in flight for almost an hour now, it is far too late for them to turn back and simply call this a 'misunderstanding'. Doubly so that they started this by calling for our surrender in the name of the Star League," Hess said for instruction and edification of the Basic troops, DI Vernorse, and his SSO troops. "They damned themselves to a horrible outcome by dragging ass here to begin with, and now they have damned themselves to a battlefield they have grossly underestimated. And all I have to do is look up and down this hallway to understand why they will lose. Now, anyone need assistance gearing up for the battle to come?"

Sigma One would take the next ten minutes to assist with the troops gearing up, loading magazines, assembling plate carriers and MOLLE vests, and give more than a few quick tutorials on how to use sub-machineguns and assault rifles. It would be a powerful lesson for the troops involved, that the Command Administrator would help even front-line troops when needed.

-x-

(After the gearing up was completed, 15 minutes after the signal was sent)
(Bridge, Jumpship Sally's Caterpillar)

"Dropships have completed mid-course turnover and are burning for landing," Major Grant said. "Everything appears to be on schedule and in order."

"Times like this, I worry when someone says that," Regent Nuone grumped.

"Aye, when everything goes right, Murphy is waiting for the most inopportune to wager his vote," Captain Karen Targa said with a crooked smile.

"Conn, sensors, contact!" The Jumpship sensor operator shouted in a panic. "Major contact! Superdreadnought-class ship coming around the far side of the moon!"

"What the fuck? I thought the Magi had not assigned a ship to this post yet!" Captain Watters half-wailed.

"It's a Phalanx-class ship, Hull number 178098, designation Lucerne's Anvil!" The sensor picture cleaned up a bit. "She's burning hard on course, Captain, easily 2.5 grav of acceleration, burn course looks like she'll come alongside us in 60 minutes!"

"Shit, fuck and damn!" Captain Targa groused. "Get to your ship, Regent, if you burn hard for the planet you might be able to make landfall before they can intercept you."

"I think you're right, Captain. Good luck."

"You'll need it more than I will. I'm just a charter ship, you're the one with the explaining to do," Karen Targa said as the Regent and his staff headed for the door. She had no idea that at least one of them would be dead before nightfall over the battlefield they were headed toward, and the rest would not escape capture.

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0530 Hours Terran Standard Time)
(1F Mess Hall, Multimage Empire Administration Building, Terra 02, Multimage home dimension)

When the Empress had to go to battle, she typically had her meal in the ground floor mess hall with the troops she would be operating with. This was usually in armor, which was not an unheard of circumstance amongst the Magi; after all, it was wildly impractical to exit one's armor for simple tasks such as eating a meal, and since the days of the Armored Rebels in South America, the Armored Infantry had quickly learned how to eat a meal in their armor and on the go. (Waste evacuation was a separate problem entirely, though all three of the main operators for today's response action had to agree that today's armor specifications were a parsec better for waste capture and entrapment compared to the old armor systems.)

"And panic has set in from the OpFor," Hotaru noted between bites of her preferred Armored Infantry meal, rice curry and beef hot pot. "The Lucerne's Anvil just broke orbit from Luna 232 and is burning hard for the Jumpship."

"They are a charter jumpship, ne?" Rini asked. Hotaru nodded affirmatively. "We may rough them up to a degree, but chartering a Jumpship falls under the same regulations as hiring a mercenary unit, and it would be highly uncivil for us to take substantive action against them."

"Everyone uses mercenaries, it would behoove the Magi to not offend the wider mercenary or charter organizations," Hotaru said.

"And then the irony sets in, Highness: we go to rescue a mercenary serving under the Will Transcendent," Star Colonel Kerensky said.

"They have already done wonderful work for Existence, and I expect much more and much greater works from they," Eric Atrebas said. "Other units will follow in their stead, as my duties incline me to pay fair compense to any who would take up the challenges I have set to Sigma, but they are the first and I suspect they will be the forerunners in this regard."

"And we must now ensure they survive to continue this honored duty, Highness," a Star Captain of the Praetorian noted. "I have studied your main adherent in Sigma, this Command Administrator. Are all Americans so bizarre as he?"

"He is an exceptionally odd resident of a land that is oddly different and yet somewhat kin to the Star Empires," Atrebas said with a smile.

"Always remember that the distance between genius and insanity is measured in degrees of success, and Americans are famous for producing both in great quantity," Master Executor Tomoe pointed out the trend. "There is always quibbling to be had about which side of the spectrum a given result lands on, but make no mistake that an American can rattle a planet as easily as we Star Empire denizens can, given the right preconditions."

"Some never learn that lesson, others learn it all too abruptly, such as this Nuone character shall learn in the next couple hours," Rini took a bite of Veal Parmesan between sentences. "Our duty in the coming battle is to ensure his hunter-killer teams fail in their duty."

"How go the preparations of the Sigma troops, milady Tomoe?" a different Star Captain of the Praetorian asked.

"As of right now, I estimate 3500 of the Sigma citizens and Basic trainees have volunteered for the Militia detail, and about a thousand have geared up so far. Sigma One is finishing emplacing the sixth Claymore for the AI entity in the base to use on enemy Spec Ops teams, he has camouflaged the mines by way of concealing them in empty ammunition cans around the ground floor, mixed in with other empty crates and assorted military debris to hide their presence."

"And a Star League Artificial Intelligence Entity would press the button?" Star Colonel Kerensky asked.

"Aff — or, it would be just as appropriate to say a Protectorate of Sigma Artificial Intelligence Entity. AI Virtue has thoroughly divorced herself of the Star League ethos and controls, and though it is against SL programming practices, she has cleared her combat inhibitor in her code and removed all the SL self-destruct protocols from her Kernel. The AI entity has thoroughly given herself to the Protectorate, and I do not believe even Sigma One knows what manner of ally he has residing in his server room," Hotaru said. "The Star League thinks they have leverage in that regard, but they have yet to realize the AI entities they abandoned on planet have all turned coat and now actively support or serve Sigma."

"I suspect they will not be the last," a Technical Specialist Star Captain said with a chuckle.

"What are your thoughts, soldier?" Master Executor Atrebas asked, then took a quick bite of Salisbury steak.

"A planet like Terra 232 typically has five to eight AI entities to help with administration and systems control, that is standard op procedure for the morons in the Star League. Large lot of AI horsepower, inefficiently zoned and tasked, wasting time and resources. When word gets around in AI circles that Sigma is cutting SL AI units loose to do better, faster, stronger for longer, I highly suspect that there will be a wave of AI entities that exfiltrate themselves from Star League territory by any means they can imagine, to be shipped parcel post to Sigma and brought online in the new Protectorate of note and given worthy tasks to execute."

"Instant brain-drain in the Star league server farms, I like it." Rini took another bite of her veal parmesan. "Annabelle, set a note for me for tomorrow to discuss with Stan what we can do to assist the rogue AI entities escaping Star League territory and either re-home them here in our lands, or shuttle them out to worthy Merc units and Sigma."

"Can do…and done, milady," the Star Colonel said. "You have a fifteen minute window before DC Agrippa sallies forth to desecrate the Duchy of Three Rivers."

The senior Star Captain of Rini's personal Praetorian chuckled grimly. "I heard from an old friend of mine out in the fleets that DC Agrippa put out a call for four Phalanx-class ships with Terra Jumper-rated navigation teams (2), so that he may show the Nuone Family how to properly exploit the Lagrange points around the moon of their homeworld."

"I look forward to that," Master Executor Atrebas said with a savage smile. "Finished with plate, Mess Spec," Eric Atrebas nodded to the waiting Mess Specialist and handed it off to him.

"Another round, Master Executor?" the cook asked.

"Aff, I think so. We still have an hour or so before we deploy, and no guarantee of a good meal for some time later today." He would be proved incorrect in that regard, as Sigma had acquired a tier-one chef for the Administration Building in Iron Chef Annalise Wahn and she was already on duty this morning.

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0700 Hours Local Time)
(Helicopter Ramp, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

"This is the real deal, guys," Major Ellsworthy said. "Here in 30 minutes, they will make landfall. Our orders from command are to delay, harass, damage. We are not numerous enough to hold them back, don't even think loud about it. Four Helos can put some hurt on these tangos, we certainly can't stop 'em cold."

"Yes sir!" Pilot Cadet Brandon said. He, along with his gunner Peter Barke, were new inductees from the basic training group with a modicum of skills and Brandon had time in VTOLs already, sufficient that Beck suspected the Astral Phoenix could outfly him in a pinch.

"Battle Magic is finishing the loadup on our birds. Remember, the minimum arming distance for the Maverick missiles is 1800 meters, inside of that you use either Hellfires or Rockets. Work your way down the threat matrix, troops. Start with dedicated anti-air units and put that threat down before they shoot one of us down. Then do enemy Battlemechs, Mobile Suits and Gundams. Then target tanks with ADA-capable armaments, then any armor or IFVs of opportunity. Lastly, troop transports and exposed troops. Hopefully by then we'll have support on the ground. Any questions?"

"Do you think they'll try to rush us?" Pilot Cadet Zoe asked.

"I don't know," Beck said. "If they do try to bum-rush us, scatter and start drawing them to the sides, perpendicular to their line of advance. If we can string them out, that's almost as good as a kill, it keeps them out of the line of attacking Boarhound."

"Makes sense, sir!" Wesley, the gunner on Zoe's helo, noted.

"See to your birds and get ready for launch orders," Beck ordered of his three subordinate flight crews. Of the four crews, he had the least amount of walking to get to the nose of his craft and the inspection started immediately.

Each bird was loaded heavy today, with an arms package that maximized the lift capacity of the Apache IIM R3 without appreciably slowing it down. That total, by manufacturer design, was 6000 kilograms of carried mass, or roughly 13,200 pounds. The load plan assembled quickly by Beck and validated by Virtue came out to a total of 12,348 pounds of munitions and a total disposable weight of about 12,740, under the manufacturer rating for maximum unencumbered load.

The main weapon of the loadout was two quad-racks of Maverick missiles, the older United States AGM-65G heavy version with the 300lb penetrator shape charge designed to punch through any modern (at the time) tank armor and most common fortifications. Against Successor-State-Grade armor, how well it would do was yet to be seen. Outward from those two racks was another two racks of missiles, these racks being 6-rails of Hellfire IIM Block 7 AGMs, the latest production version used by Magi Apache teams. Much more powerful than even the United States Longbow Hellfire, they boasted better than double the range of the Longbow Hellfire and 50 percent larger warheads (tandem warheads, same as the Hellfire). On the outside stations on the pylons rested two of the RT-44 rocket pods, 44-silo hives of 2.75" Hydra rockets, and unlike the last time these rotors were in the air, these pods were not loaded with training rockets. The war-shots of choice today were the R101 Multipurpose Submunition rockets, each rocket released twelve shaped-charge explosive submunitions that would act like grenades when fired into infantry, or would blast small shape charges into armored targets, making them useful for a lot of applications and inexpensive to boot.

Of course, Beck made sure to check out the lasers and AP Gauss Rifles on his bird, two of each mounted in the forward turret. They checked out ready, so he popped the lens caps off the lasers and gave the optics a quick jiggle to make sure everything was tight. Satisfied, he ducked out from under the body of his bird as the Battle Magic troops finished loading up his outermost port-side rocket pod. "Ready to go, crew chief?" Beck asked.

"Yes sir!" The Warrant Officer saluted him crisply. "Have you heard what is coming down the line?"

"Two battalions of infantry, one battalion of 'mechs," Beck said. "We'll put a hurting on them, but we four are not going to be able to stop them."

"You've also got the Commandos here supporting you, so if you can take some of the pressure off, I think you've got this one," the Crew Chief noted.

"Not worried, Warrant?" Beck asked after a moment of observing one of the Battle Magic troops using a bomb loader to hoist up a Maverick to where two of his comrades could shackle it onto the rail.

"I am, honestly. We may be mercs registered under a different unit and thus subject to Merc Accords protection, but as your boss pointed out, they can't have any witnesses or this whole gig goes tits up before nightfall." That the speaker was a lady herself caused a raised eyebrow for her choice of euphemism, but Beck studiously didn't comment. "I guess what happens, happens. Either way, it's been a pleasure supporting you guys."

"Major, word from the fixed-wing team is they have Takeshi loaded up and his bird is pre-flighting now," one of the commo troops for Battle Magic reported in a hurry.

"Good, please warn Takeshi to not start his engine until after the Dropships have landed, we don't want to ruin the surprise," Beck said. "If we're lucky, the enemy doesn't know exactly what we have in deploy yet, so we can rock 'em with the system shocker."

"This sounds like a party! Where's going to be a good place to watch the action?" the Crew Chief asked.

Beck waved a finger at the pilot offices. "Grab some seats in our lounge and watch the show, Virtue can give you a live feed of the action."

"Thank you sir!"

Beck's arsenal would take another ten minutes to finish up, but he would be strapped in and ready to power up well before the Dropships made atmospheric entry.

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0725 Hours Local Time)
(Unused office, ground floor of Admin Building, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

On the southern wall of the Admin Building, Hess had set up the room for his 'final stand' in the first part of the engagement. There was some ammunition crates in the room, some leftovers from the Militia troops that he had assisted earlier in the day, but as of right now, there was nothing left for him to do in terms of preparations. Everything he needed to do to skew the coming engagement in his favor was now done, leaving only a few moments of silence before the storm.

Visual clutter, done. Several more runs of crates and such had been brought up to finish 'junking in' the halls, which was perfect concealment for the second part of the first-floor abattoir:

Claymores in ammo cans, done. Six of the radio-detonated Claymore mines had been set up in ammo cans and positioned. Virtue had possession of the detonator codes and was ready to make use of them on Hess' orders.

China Lake loaded three plus one, done. The grenade launcher was a tool for leveling the combat field against the surge of enemies that would be dropped on the Command Center. Regent Nuone's initial plan had been for four teams, one on each level, but now that he was a pursued man in a shit scenario of his own creation, the Regent planned to turn up the heat in the hopes that killing the Command Administrator would be his get-out-of-jail-free ticket. Two teams on the fourth level, two on the third, three on the second, two on the first was to be the plan now. And Hess would have to use the China Lake to silence one team completely and injure a second team, which would drive them into the waiting sights of two Claymores that would finish that second team. Or so the plan went; Hess could see several branch paths to come from that action, not all of them leading to wipeouts.

SSO troops assigned wall sections to support, done. The variable that Hess had quickly determined had to be removed from the Admin Building was the Secret Service Operations Group. Could they put an end to these Spec Ops teams? Oh Hell yes, Leonora, Sapphire and Asuka were all three Transcendent, with Sapphire and Asuka very well versed in combat magic and capable of killing targets measured in tens of thousands per spell. Would the SSO Troops survive engaging the enemy Spec Ops troops? No, there was literally no branch of future actions with them involved where the SSO crew did not lose members if they were involved in the combat here in the Admin Building. Hess wanted to give them the opportunity to do their job, but he knew they would do far better supporting the Militia on the wall — and they would serve as a solid example for the recruits.

Meyrin, Neinke, and the Goodwin Twins in the command vehicle, check. Meyrin and Neinke in the command center, Barret in the turret, and Cyrus at the helm. They would provide coordination between the forces, even rudimentary coordination and strategy would benefit the defense.

Toni is sleeping on the roof still, check. Toni was the one SSO trooper that Hess had not ordered away from the Admin building, and there was a reason for it. Hess saw a future scene driven by her that cut down on the loss of life, and that was a worthy goal by any measure.

Admin building cleared to the best that people are obeying my orders, check. There were some holdouts, but since Hess had cleared the bulk of the personnel from the building, the personnel within were minimized and the present branch path of the coming future did not kill any of them. Which Hess figured a damn good outcome, given how horrible the enemy order package was and how quickly things could go sour.

Bemusement about 'cheating' had left his mind some hours ago. The necessity of what he was about to do, what he was about to go through, and worse still what the Protectorate was about to suffer, had sucked all the humor out of the scenario very quickly. Being handed the future in an instantaneous mental upload, including branching decision trees and courses, was considered by some the holy grail of 'l33t h4x' in any walk of life. Hess now knew otherwise: knowing what was to come and exactly how much it would suck, including variant futures that only sucked even more the farther down the decision tree one went, was no manner of elite or hacking, he had quickly determined that it was a controlled and mildly useful curse. After all, who would want to know the exact time, place, and method of how they would be shot, and any variations of that path that could lead to even more grievous wounds or even death in a few cases? Anyone that thought knowing such was 'awesome' was suffering a serious case of 'cranial-rectal impaction' to the point that the brown material was quickly starting to crowd out their brain, he figured. Useful, perchance, but nowhere near 'awesome'.

"Virtue, play 'Resist and Bite' by Sabaton," Hess requested.

"Can do," Virtue answered before the intercom speakers in the room popped and started into the three minutes and seventeen seconds of song by a metal band that Hess always wanted to see live, but never had the chance to before he jumped onto the Train.

You will have time for five more songs, the telepath that was guiding him declared.

"War is coming swiftly, indeed. Virtue, next song, 'Magic Zone' by Sa Trincha Dance." A song with no words, Hess simply sat on the stool in the room with the China Lake grenade launcher propped against the inside of his left leg and tapped his right foot to the beat of the song. It played almost through to the end before:

"Attention, enemy Dropships have set down approximately 20 kilometers north of the base," Virtue reported.

"Not surprising, they figured we would have partial control and landing on us or too close would subject them to withering fire. Inform Meyrin and Neinke that operations are to begin in five minutes."

"Acknowledged, I have relayed the message. Next song?" Virtue asked.

"Select a random song, full pool," Hess requested.

" 'Just Communication', from Two Mix, Gundam Wing opening song."

One of the oldest of his old-time music collection, Hess had heard this song so many times over the years that he had memorized the lyrics phonetically — and knew nearly nothing of their meaning. For all that he loved listening to Japanese Electronic and Metal music over the years, he had picked up not more than a dozen words total. Yet, today he could listen to the song and it sounded the same, but he could intrinsically understand the lyrics that he never knew? The why of that situation confounded him, but he took it at face value and settled into enjoying the song nonetheless as it ran through for four minutes and sixteen seconds.

"Another track, sir?" Virtue asked.

"Yes, Electric Angel, from my Hatsune Miku music collection, the Aerial Flow Remix, please," Sigma One requested. He wanted cheery and somewhat calming songs, and this specific song was perfect for the purpose. It was also a long one at over nine minutes, perfect for mental relaxation even if the worries of coming combat were already starting to take a physical (stress) toll on him. More confusing, though, was again the fact that he knew the song lyrics from phonetic memorization but in the past could not understand them without a translation to look at, and yet now he could again intrinsically understand the song? Silently he wondered if something was up with himself mentally that he was imagining the understanding, or if something was influencing his mind above and beyond the mental download of a not-too-pleasant day ahead of him still.

Even still, nine minutes came and went. "Command Vehicle Merlin reports that the enemy has begun deploying scout units and has issued orders for the Commandos and our collection of Mobile Forces to take to the field."

"This is in line with what I expect to happen, and is the proper order of events for the better path forward," Hess said. "Next song, do another random selection, please."

"You have several songs in your collection listed as 'OC ReMix', and my random selection process has landed on one. What does that mean, specifically?" Virtue asked.

"OC Remix is the shorthand label for Overclocked Remix, a site dedicated to remixing old video game tunes into different styles and songs. Which song did you pick random?"

" 'Barrels of Fun' from Doom 2, the OC Remix."

"Do 'Gothic Sandy OC Remix' from Doom II, it is not as chill a song, but a damn good one," Hess requested.

"Playing now." Virtue lit into the song immediately, and by the time of the drop, Hess was nodding in time to the song and the tapping of his foot to the beat. Three minutes and thirty seconds later, this track was done.

"First reports from the helo team, they have sensor contacts coming south from the Dropships, battlemechs identified. Do you wish to relay anything, sir?"

"No, I will not micromanage forces that know their job far better than I do," Sigma One said, and in so saying proved himself a far wiser commanding officer than most of the Nuone command section. "They shall do their part, and I shall do mine shortly. One last song before I must take up position: time for a wake-up call. 'Stand My Ground' by Stratovarius."

It would not be for some years that Sigma One remembered that his misadventure in clearing a Train and thus becoming a Protectorate Head had begun with the above-listed four minutes and sixteen seconds of power metal, in that he was singing along to this same song when the 523 Train landed in his backyard. The irony of listening to this song again before a coming defensive battle would occur to him with a rueful chuckle in those years to come, but after the song finished in the here-and-now he simply hefted the China Lake 40mm grenade launcher and stepped out of the room to take up his first fighting position.

Other observers could only smile at the choice of music.

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0740 Hours Local Time)
(Terra-Luna L1 point, Terra 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

"No tangos are left on the ship, sir," Strategic Psionic Mari Paizon said. "The jumpship has no value and is going nowhere for another six days while the engine recharges."

"So, the last of these maggots are on that larger Dropship, headed for Terra 232," Star Admiral Siegel nodded twice. "Dispatch a Trinary of Armored Marines to the Jumpship; charter or not, they will have some explaining to do."

"Aff, Star Admiral," the Galaxy Commander of Marines for the ship turned to his immediate subordinate. "Star Colonel Reeve, you are tasked with taking the ship and ensuring they remain here to answer for their part in this infamous debacle, quiaff?"

"My second Trinary is dirty enough to make sure they get the message, sir. I will see to this personally, by your leave Star Admiral?" Yulie gave the older Star Colonel a nod to release him.

"Helm, set in a burn to pursue that Dropship. Regent Nuone is on board, I think we should introduce ourselves."

"Aff, sir! Do you want to overtake him?" the Helmswoman asked.

Star Admiral Siegel thought about it for a few moments, then: "Neg, pursue at 1G only. We have their Jumpship and this entire misbegotten campaign is in play because they are beholden to the Guilds — they have no national access to a Gate Mage, and precious few Time Mages capable of using long-distance teleport spells. They cannot escape our wrath, even if we do not have to pursue them with the throttle wide open."

"Har har har," the XO said with a savage smile. His laugh was echoed by several others around the bridge.

"Course calculated, sir, 1G laid in and moving now," the helmswoman said. "They'll make planetfall roughly 50 minutes before we are overhead for Suborbital."

Yulie chuckled grimly. "Oh, quite the contrary, Helmswoman. We will not be killing them from orbit. Our forces are sufficient that they cannot hope to resist a surround and call-out. They will surrender and they will go before the Empress to explain their intransigence."

-x-

(Same time)
(Bridge of the Red Blackjack)

"We're on course to make landfall on the northern continent, approximately 200 kilometers northwest of Base Boarhound."

"What is the status of the action on the ground?" Ulysses Nuone asked after a moment. He noticed Captain Watters looked at the deck quickly and turned to face the starboard side, still staring toward the deck as if she was looking for something?

"All four Dropships are on the ground roughly twenty kilometers north of the base, battlemechs from the mercenary unit are deploying now and moving a recon screen forward. No resistance detected yet."

Ulysses looked to Captain Watters. "Anything on the Command Administrator?" he asked.

"Sir, we have a far larger problem," Helena Watters said quietly.

"What is happening?" Regent Nuone asked darkly.

"The bridge contingent of that Phalanx-class ship has a Strategic Psionic. Mari Paizon is her name, and she has read all of our minds, including yours and mine," Helena said.

"Fuck," Major Grant complained.

"No joke," Retainer Bartow shook his head.

"Conn, sensors, they are coming for us, though they're only doing 1G acceleration to pursue," the radar officer stated.

"Arrogant bastards," Major Grant said. "They know they have us by the eggs, so they only need to run us to ground to capture us."

"And if we run for the Zenith or Nadir points, they will dispatch Mobile Armors to pursue us, never you mind that a Phalanx-class can outrun any Dropship in the Nuone fleet," Ulysses pointed out the myriad ways this could be ended by the Magi, none of them in a way pleasant to the Duchy.

"Colossal loser, we have no victory solution here, sir," Helena said. "And something is blocking my ability to sense events on the planet around Boarhound, sir. I cannot read any minds within a hundred kilometers of the base," she admitted. "I can see the structures but I cannot sense or see any people."

"We are being interfered with by a powerful psionic," Ulysses guessed incorrectly. "No doubt such a threat would be in the Command Center, likely guarding the Command Administrator. In ten minutes, we begin deploying and that includes all of us as well. We will do what we must to earn our coverage, even if I must cut the heart out of this Command Administrator myself."

-x-

(Same time)
(Rooftop, Command Center, Base Boarhound)

"Your ability to prevent psionic reading around you has done the job, my liege," Master Executor Tomoe said with a crooked smile. "Their court psionic has no grasp of the trap they are about to land in. All I need to do is ensure that their last-ditch defensive measure for the Regent lands him on dangerous ground of my choosing."

"You enjoy this, Firefly of Silence?" the Will Transcendent asked.

"It is not often I can best an opponent by deception and battlefield shaping, all too often of late I have had to resort to far too much violence for my taste," Hotaru said.

Atrebas chuckled grimly. "I cannot but agree, the closer we get to the Solution of Ragnarok, the more brutalistic the combat becomes and less room is at hand for maneuver. So, where would you have me?"

"You shall stand close and stand invisible until the moment of decision is at hand." Hotaru gave his armor a mental picture of where the Master Executor was to stand ready for his next part in the operation.

"It shall be done." Atrebas blinked to the location in question, which was a necessity of movement in this case, in that it did not reveal his presence or cancel his invisibility, two things needed for the coming operation segments.

Hotaru kept her invisibility, and simply leaned back against the housing of an air conditioning unit on the roof of the Admin Building. Her part in this play was coming swiftly, though in this case it would be all maneuver and no fire or blade to solve what was to come.

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0745 Hours Local Time)
(Area north of the Triple Bar Ranch, Boarhound County, Protectorate of Sigma, Terra 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

The method by which Helos moved forward into hostile territory was not simply to fly into an area as fast as possible, it was more of a case of 'dash-look-dash-look' mixed with leapfrog. Two of the helos would dash forward to a stand of trees that could provide cover, take position at the edge of the stand, and pop their mast-mounted radar above the treetops to scan forward for enemy presence. If the area was clear, the next pair of helos would move forward to their next cover spot and repeat the process.

If the area was not clear, depending on the found enemy assets, the helos would have options.

"Merlin, Eagle Two, be advised we have soft contact enemy lance light machines, due north of my position at five kilometers. Are we cleared?" By which Zoe was asking if they were cleared to engage.

"Affirmative, all forces are weapons free. Put their recon lance down and move forward to recon their front line," Meyrin ordered.

"Eagle Two, Firewatch Lead, we are approaching the AO, give us a sensor cut when you have a moment to spare so we know which way to maneuver, over," Athrun requested.

"Firewatch, Eagle Two, sending a cut now," Wesley uploaded his sensor take to the Firewatch team so they knew what the Helos were seeing. "Okay, Zoe, looks like we're type reading four, mix of old Magi and Negaverse light machines. Recondo 'mech has best sensors and EW. Lunar Master 'mech has good sensors and best speed of the team. Zapper 'mech is a go-fast with thin armor and weapons. The Rapid Snake is a thin-skinned gunboat omnimech, depending on how he's kitted out this could be nasty in close or nasty at range. What order do you want to do 'em?"

"They're five kilometers out right now, so none of them are touching us for the time being. I say we do the Recondo, the Lunar Master, the Rapid Snake and the Zapper in that order," Eagle One said. "One and Three are moving up to join you, stand by. I'll take the Lunar Master, Two can do the Recondo, Three has the Rapid Snake, and four can do the Zapper. Good to go?"

"Parsing my target now," Peter Barke isolated on the Zapper for his ministrations.

"Ready to engage," Eagle Three said.

"Locked and ready," Eagle Two declared.

-x-

"What kind of sensor readings are these?" Lieutenant Captain Kiptek asked.

"Unknown reading," the Diagnostic Interpreter in her cockpit responded.

"What do you think, boss? Sigma has some new toys out and about?" Lieutenant Gerald Vokomis asked.

"New, probably not, but wouldn't surprise me if they didn't take some off the shelf hardware and change it around to confuse threat receivers. This guy is supposedly a specialist with electronics, so I could see him doing something like this," the Lance Lead (Lt. Cpt. Henrietta Kiptek) said.

"Split by twos and try to get around them?" Elijah asked from the cockpit of the Zapper, the fastest of the machines in E Lance of the unit.

"No, you flank left, we'll hold here and see if we can draw them out. Anything, this is probably their recon troops looking for us, so if we can smack them down before anything serious is reported, we can get a boob up on them." Henrietta was not afraid to use more perverse euphemisms with her lance, but had to be cautious on her phrasing with her commanding officer (Captain Harvey Whitman) because he tended to not like it.

"Copy all, I'm moving now." The Zapper turned sharply left and headed off across a country road and into farm fields to the east of their axis of advance.

"Spread out, we don't want to make ourselves easy prey for artillery," Henrietta ordered of her lance. "Eyes forward, something is trying to watch us."

"What is — " Lieutenant Mavers saw something moving ahead of him but never realized what he was seeing was an incoming missile headed for his Lunar Master medium scout 'mech. Whatever it was caused an immediate and complete loss of first the armor and most of the internal structure in his left torso, then the same problem with his right leg — and in both cases whatever hit him caused severe internal component damage as well: in the left torso, the engine of his machine took a minor breach and he lost two jump jets, in the right leg he lost the foot actuator, the lower leg actuator, and a jump jet. "JESUS!" he shouted as he quickly lost balance and his machine fell backwards.

"Shit! Missile barrage!" Gerald Vokomis shouted after he barely caught sight of a missile lofted over a cluster of trees that arced up and the engine cut out, making it impossible to track visually (3). "Incoming!" He shouted but could not identify the missiles, doubly so that they were flying on inertia only but still putting out radar signals locked onto his machine. One missile detonated on the ground in front of him, likely bested by the Angel ECM suite carried by the Lieutenant Captain's Recondo 'mech, but two more contacted his machine and immediately caused havoc: both hits caused some armor damage but also caused internal damage to a significant degree. Part of that critical damage was spall inside his right torso that clipped the haf-ton of light machine gun ammunition within, which immediately set off a chain reaction in the 1.5 tons of LB-2X Autocannon ammunition and thereafter in the ton of LRM ammunition stacked below that — a grand total of 2990 kilograms of munitions cooked off in the space of 400 milliseconds, though herein the design of the Rapid Snake saved the pilot's life: CASE II vented the blast out of the machine before it could tear away at the rest of the machine, and the ammunition detonation auto-eject tripped to launch Lieutenant Vokomis clear of his 'mech.

"FUCK!" The shout from Elijah was presaged by a loud burst of static on the radio as his machine cooked off from catastrophic reactor damage — the Lieutenant Captain would later find out that the missile used against his 'mech, her own 'mech, and the Lunar Master were the 65-G Maverick penetrator missiles, and that the Maverick had struck his center torso in such a way that it blew completely through the reactor housing and vented the plasma toroid to open air in the space of a few milliseconds. Causing such damage to an enemy machine was not impossible, but very rare.

Lieutenant Captain Kiptek never saw the missile that clipped her Recondo Light Scout 'mech, never caught a missile launch or missile lock chirp from the sensors on her machine, since the missile in use was a 65-G Maverick that used the IR seeker type and did not rely on radar. The missile struck center mass on her small (35 tons) 'mech and wiped out all the armor and structure on her center torso. The impact was violent enough that it knocked her unconscious for a minute after her machine collapsed to the ground, completely inoperable.

Henrietta would opt to stay with her machine on the presumption that she would be rescued by her teammates, a fate that she would learn was not to come to pass.

-x-

"Four down, their recon unit is toast," Eagle Lead (Major Ellsworthy) reported.

"Good show, Eagle Team. Continue forward by dash-and-look procedure to establish contact with enemy follow-on forces," Neinke Honoratia ordered.

"Copy, Eagle Team is moving forward now," Major Ellsworthy dashed his unit forward to the next stand of trees to begin the look part of the dash-and-look procedure. Once he popped up, he caught a reading from the recon lance he did not like. "Command, Eagle Lead, I'm showing one contact still active but unable to stand. Recommendations?"

"Eagle Lead, this is Falcon, I see him moving and am going to go guns on him, standby," Takeshi said from altitude. Beck could not see the Wasp Medium Fighter come in from his cockpit, but the effect on target was hard to miss: first lasers, then some fast but larger missiles (SRMs, short-range missiles), and finally some smaller and slightly slower missiles (LRMs, Long-range missiles) streaked from altitude and into the target that Beck could only barely see by physically peeking above the forest canopy to watch the action. The Lunar Master 'mech that had been struggling to stand up slammed back down to the ground on this second wave of abuse, and this time Beck could see the engine signature of the enemy machine go offline. "Merlin, Falcon, reporting last enemy machine is down, I have eyes on other lances coming south several kilometers behind this one, as well as a lot of infantry in APCs."

"Copy all, keep at altitude and do not engage large concentrations of enemy standing armor without other support, how copy?" Meyrin ordered.

"Acknowledged," Pilot Inductee Yamato responded.

"Eagle Lead, Firewatch Lead, we're coming up behind you. If you can tag 'em, we'll use our 180mm support cannons to shell them from range, how copy?" Athrun recommended.

"Acknowledged, we're still moving forward in leapfrog to find them again, stand by for further."

"This is Eagle Four, I'm up to where the Zapper cratered out," Brandon reported. "I have eyes on the rest of the enemy recon team, they're hosed."

"Good work, team, that's the first lance in what threatens to be a long-ass day," Beck said.

"Eagle Four, Hammer Star coming up behind you," Star Captain Lyta Kerensky said.

-x-

"Sigma got some! Damn fine shooting from the rotor-heads!" Ricky The Racer said after his Deathscythe (High Mobility Mod) landed amongst the downed recon machines. "And, as far as I can tell, they didn't even get more than a few surprised shouts out on the radio."

"When combined with whatever is silencing psionics around the base, they will have no warning," Pilot Yukiko Kotanshi said with a smile. Even her own psionic and newtype skills were hosed by whatever was interfering with the area, but she considered that a small price to pay today. It was not as if the enemy had not been blatant in their landing procedures and horridly predictable in their moves so far, she had been ordered to stand down when she had proclaimed that she could have shot a Dropship down as it was coming in for landing, much less deal with these svashri on the field.

"Keep it loose, people," Lars Mooser blasted past the downed enemy recon machines and stopped next to the next forest cluster northbound — and next to Eagle Three. "Eagle Three, Hammer Two, I am on your three o'clock."

"I see you, big guy," the pilot of Eagle Three waved at Lars. "What's your plan?"

"Can you see anything from your vantage point, Eagle Three?" Lars asked.

"Stand by," and the helo raised up to where the radar unit on the top of the rotor hub (technically called a MMS or Mast-Mount Sensor) peeked above the foliage and thus could see clearly the enemy formations in the distance. "I see them, they're about four kilometers back right now, closing at a good pace. Uplinking to your sensor take now," and Apache Pilot Katherine Chadzick flipped a toggle to send the data out to her teammates and the nearby allied units. Because of the proliferation of Angel ECM suites in the enemy ranks, they never saw the data exchange dead ahead of their line of advance, and thus had no clue that they were walking dicks-first into a rapidly growing ambush.

"Eagle Three, Firewatch, I am seeing your data feed as well, thank you. Luna and I are going to set up and start shelling them, can you keep your eyes on them for a few?"

"Copy all, they're in range for our ministrations but we can wait to start hammering on them," Major Ellsworthy said. "Eagle Four, take it up a bit above the treebank to the right and pop off some missiles."

"Will do," Brandon took his helo back about thirty meters, then climbed up to where he was just barely above the tree bank and could uncage the IR seekers on his Hellfires.

"Ah, I love hunting battlemechs, the fusion reactors and dozens of heat sinks are like red meat in front of a tiger to an IR missile seeker," the gunner on Eagle Four said with savage humor to voice. He lofted three of the AGM-65G Maverick Missiles on his machine to bring his weapons load even (6 remaining on each side) and he loosed the missiles at the three hottest contacts in the distance: a Dire Wolf (Daishi) assault omnimech, a Slamdancer Omnimech, and a Summoner (Thor) Omnimech. "Three birds in the air, they may have seen me."

"Good, you and Two are going to be the bait to string them eastbound while we maneuver into a flanking strike on their redirection," Beck said. "Merlin, Eagle Lead, we might be able to string them out to the east, do we have forces available to hit their flank?"

"Eagle Lead, Blackhole Lead, I'm moving my Trinary up to assist you. If you can string them out east-west, we can make them hurt."

"Two, Four, pass around me to the next tree cluster eastbound from here and take up position, then pop up and fling a few fish at them," Brandon recommended the next move to Zoe.

"I hear you," Zoe made a beeline at low altitude for the next stand of trees that she could use for cover. As she passed through a gap between tree stands, she caught sight of the two Ground Combat Gundams as they braced and took aim with their 180mm artillery cannons, then loosed their first shells of the engagement.

-x-

Takeshi waited for his aviator's eyesight to catch the first detonations of the 180mm artillery shells in the enemy rank before he committed to action.

For all of his training in the cockpit of the F/A-18E of years past, including dogfighting simulation, practice bomb runs, emergency deployments from the carrier, and long-distance airstrikes, never once did the Marine Aviator fire a shot in anger during his career in the Marines. Those thousands of hours in training and hundreds of hours in flight in real-world deployments in mainland America and Japan had been excellent warm-up for today, learning how to fly and now shoot in a Star Empire Aerofighter. He had quickly come to love the guns on his craft in the sims over the prior days, but today was a new day and he was loaded with war-shots, not training rounds.

Today, he had already done more than that simply by finishing off a downed Lunar Master medium scout 'mech, a very maneuverable 'mech that technically cost more than the fighter he was flying now, and almost double that of the 18-E that he used to pilot for the Marine Corps. Now, with the enemy starting to change course to pursue the helos (what likely looked like a major threat party to their ineffectual sensor systems), it was time for Takeshi to scuff their armor a bit.

Similar to the Apache IIM R3 helos below him, the Wasp was armed with AGM-65G Maverick Missiles as well — specifically, he carried 12 total such missiles in four clusters of three missiles, and inboard from the Mavericks he carried a total of 16 Mk 20 'Rockeye' Cluster Bombs, the same bombs he had trained on using as a Marine Aviator. Virtue had reported that she had purchased two lots of 1000 such bombs off the United States of a parallel dimension as obsolete ordnance — they had upgraded to a lighter and more powerful cluster munition a year prior and had no buyer for the Rockeyes until Virtue had inquired. The general usefulness of cluster bombs ensured they would be put to good use, Takeshi was sure.

Tooling along a westbound heading toward the enemy rank, he took a few moments to dial in his drop selection — four bombs from each wing, spaced 0.5 seconds apart per drop, grand total of eight bombs in four seconds to open up at 1000 meters AGL. The pattern would be fairly diffuse in that regard, but no enemy machine in the forward half of their column would be spared a good raking and most of them would receive at least two brushes with overlapping cluster patterns.

"Drop drop drop, releasing eight cluster bombs," Takeshi reported before he hit the 'pickle' switch to begin the drops. Each time a bomb dropped, he could hear through the frame of his craft the modified shotgun shell that was used to explosively unshackle the bombs from his craft, and eight such pops later, his battle computer reported that he was now roughly two tons lighter than when he took off, the largest part of that weight being in some 1976 dual-purpose improved cluster munitions that were now free-falling toward the enemy below.

"Acknowledge drop, Falcon," Merlin (specifically, Meyrin Hawke) answered.

"Tracking bombs now, pilot, standby for BDA," a different voice declared.

Takeshi banked right and put some speed on to clear the area — several enemy machines below were trying to target him, but he also had to keep clear of the enemy Dropships that were not too far north of him. The guns on most Dropships were less than impressive, but some military Dropships possessed enough firepower to smoke a medium aerofighter in one good volley, and Takeshi was not yet versed in which Dropships were ducks and which ones could cook his goose in a hurry.

"Falcon, Hammer Four, BDA as follows. Seven bombs on target, one scatter to the north, looks like you just put some pain down on about two companies' worth of enemy armor and may have caused crippling damage to two or three of the enemy machines. Also, I just watched what looks like a Blood Asp go cockpit-first into the ground and is not moving to get up again, maybe some cockpit trauma to that one. Good show, pilot, how long you been flying?"

"Several hundred flight hours in Super Hornets, but only about six hours total in this Wasp," Takeshi answered.

"Falcon, Hammer Lead, keep your ears on in the next few while we finish stringing them out, we will want you to do another pattern like that to soften them up before we engage hard against their flank, how copy?"

"Copy all, Hammer. Just say when."

-x-x-x-

(5 April, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0750 Hours Local Time)
(Dropship Red Blackjack, enroute to Terra 232)
(Day 19 of Campaign)

"Status of the Phalanx?" Regent Nuone asked.

"Still tooling along at 1G, Highness, we'll easily make landfall before they catch us."

"They want us on the ground," Retainer Barto said.

"Then we foil their desires the hard way," Ulysses said in a near-fit-of-rage. "I planned on just one team per level of the Administration Building, but that is profane given their actions in this battle so far." The severe raking the mercenaries under his command had taken from airstrikes and ongoing long-range-missile harassment was quickly driving him mad, Captain Watters quickly realized. (Not that attacking a protectorate of one of the Big Six Star Empires was a particularly sane move to begin with, she admitted to herself.)

"Use them all?" Major Grant said.

"Yes, we deploy them all," Regent Ulysses Nuone said. "Are the Time Mages close enough to do so?"

"Checking now," Helena telepathically asked several of the Mages for that quick bit of information. "Yes, we are close enough to deploy. What are your orders?"

"Double up, and add extra teams in areas where the grounds are against us. We have ten teams, make use of them."

"Aye, sir," Helena started deriving mental images of the locations using her limited clairvoyance and then gave those images to the Time Mage assigned to each of the special operations teams. In roughly 90 seconds, all ten teams had deployed: two on the 4th floor (one to clear the roof), two on the third level, which was the most likely location that Hess would be holed up (and the easiest to clear), three on the second floor due to the myriad office areas to be cleared, two on the first floor (also because of the myriad office areas), and one team in the Railhead Undercroft on the off-chance that Sigma One was commanding from an unusual location to throw off the hounds.

"Status?" Ulysses asked after a couple minutes.

"They are deployed. Sir, I recommend we join the team in the Command Center."

"Captain Lokiss, put the Dropship down well north and west of Boarhound to draw response away from our location. If everything goes to plan, the Command Administrator will be dead before the Phalanx achieves orbit," Regent Nuone ordered.

"Can do, sir!" the Dropship Captain started relaying flight plan corrections to the helmsman.

"My escort on me," Ulysses waved his guards close, and everyone clustered close to make the teleport action easier for Captain Watters, who was also a rated Time Mage (Teleportation Specialist).

The world flashed crystal blue, the same color as Helena's native element as it manifested in the teleport field. They were very surprised by their arrival location, though.

-x-

Master Executor Tomoe had thus far been preventing enemy shenanigans such as Gates, Teleports, or Blinks by way of an ultra-wide-range teleport exclusion barrier. To prevent the enemy becoming suspicious she deactivated the barrier to allow the enemy commando teams to land in the Admin Building as they desired — and as it happened, as was needed to properly engineer the coming results. Thus, they would not know the true depth of their entrapment until boots were on the ground and they started losing teams, but by that time it would be far too late to count.

In the space of 90 seconds, she could sense the enemy high-level Psionic scout out the locations using a limited subtype of Clairvoyance to get locations, then feed those locations to Time Mages who could drop in the teams — it was fairly standard fare for Special Operations throughout the Star Empires. Every Star Empire worth its seat at the Star League table had teams capable of doing just exactly this kind of job, and every other Star Empire knew the tricks of the trade just as readily — including the Executors, who were just as mighty as any of the Star Empires even if they were not recognized as such.

After the last team arrived in the Railhead Undercroft, Hotaru put up a special Teleport Funnel on the Admin Building targeted on the first floor cafeteria and prepared to reactivate her Teleport Barrier in the coming moments, just as soon as the last players in this most dangerous game landed on the board and at the mercy of the engineering of two Students of Ragnarok. The waiting was short, the Regent had to give futile orders to his Dropship Captain, but shortly Captain Watters thought she was on her way to the command center on the third floor, and just as shortly she landed in the Cafeteria.

Reactivate Teleport Barrier, Hotaru ordered of her main weapon, the Silence Glaive.

It is active, the mental voice of her ancient polearm answered.

-x-

"The Hell are we?" Major Grant asked as he looked around the decidedly-not-a-command-center. "A mess hall?" he asked a moment before the doors to the room closed.

"What happened?" Regent Nuone asked Captain Watters somewhat angrily. The room did not have the acrid smell of a computer bank, it smelled of good down-home cooking — specifically breakfast sausage, he realized quickly.

"I…I don't know," Helena said. "I can't blink, let me try my teleport spell again." Helena went through the short Teleport spell quickly, but nothing happened. "I can't teleport! We've been misdirected and trapped! Who could do that?"

"Let's move!" Major Grant made for one of the closed doors and pressed the standardized 'open' button. The panel flashed red to signify that the door was locked, sealed, and the door actuators were locked out as a security measure. "Damn, they've sealed the doors!"

A freezer door slammed closed behind the buffet counter, and immediately six rifles were on the person at the door. "You! Halt!" Major Grant shouted.

"I surrender!" the lady in question shouted. After a few moments of inspection of the galley area, the security detail for the Regent quickly realized they were locked in with four members of the Sigma galley staff.

"The hell is going on? What floor are we on?" Regent Nuone asked the lady that had been in the freezer.

"First floor, sir," the team head chef said. "You are Regent Nuone?" the lady with the namestripe 'Wahn' on her uniform asked.

"Regent Ulysses Nuone, Duchy of Three Rivers. You four are my prisoners," he said.

"If Virtue locked the doors, you are just as much prisoner as we are," Chef Wahn pointed a knife sharpener at the side door to the cafeteria. "Might want to grab yourself a coffee and a seat, Regent, it might be a while. Do you have any requests for breakfast?"

"She has a point, and I can still sense nothing in the area," Captain Watters said. "I will try teleporting again here in a minute or two."

None of the strike force troops took Master Chef Annalise Wahn up on her offer for a food order. They would find out in less than two hours that her cooking skills were sufficient to serve a Master Executor with aplomb.

-x-

"Sigma One, Virtue, be advised that the rats are in the cage," Virtue reported by was the predetermined code phrase for the enemy command section being trapped in the cafeteria.

"Copy all," Sigma One answered as he clicked the safety off on the China Lake Grenade Launcher. Action time was at hand.

His first firing position was where he would use three grenades. At the end of J Hallway, he knelt down at the corner looking down the 3 Hallway at the lead element of the first enemy team as they debauched into the hallway.

The distance was roughly 80 meters and the lighting was deliberately terrible in the area of Sigma One, necessary subterfuge that made him near invisible when combined with the extensive clutter in the hallways courtesy of the boxes that had been scattered around. He fired one grenade, racked the slide, fired a second, racked the slide again, and fired a third. The 40mm China Lake had roughly the same recoil as a ten-gauge shotgun, something that Hess had no trouble controlling, and all three shots landed where he needed them.

The first shot struck the enemy pointman and detonated on the trauma plate of his vest; the blast and fragmentation killed him and the three nearest troopers, as the confines were too close for them to spread out properly. The second grenade detonated on the wall of B Corridor, and the blast-fragmentation peppered another five of the enemy team readily; three would survive their injuries, but none of them were combat operational. The third grenade landed on an enemy light machine gunner as he tried to 'push' the corner, and the blast inside his left shoulder fragged out the last couple standing enemy troops from this first team.

With enemy team one downed, Hess stood up, racked the slide of the China Lake and loaded a spare grenade into the magazine, then started jogging down the number three corridor to the intersection of F Corridor and crossed to the other side where he took position kneeling again. He had fifteen seconds to spare before the next team crossed the F-9 intersection and into his waiting sights. Again he fired when the pointman for this second team was facing toward him, and though the pointman saw a small hint of flash from the China Lake, he never got to respond before the 40mm grenade landed on his Level IV trauma plate and detonated. Again, Hess racked the pump and fired into the wall at the F-9 intersection, and the fragmentation of that second grenade bounced around the hallway mercilessly to frag out four of the team, two fatally and two incapacitated. With his last grenade expended, Hess tossed aside the China Lake and brought up his Mark 14 EBR for the one shot he would need to take in this scenario, and he need only wait five seconds for the enemy radio operator of this second team to 'push' laterally across the intersection and attempt to spray down an unseen threat as the other troops rounded the corner to advance. Hess did the radio operator with a head shot from 94 meters in poor lighting conditions, before he issued the engagement-ending order: "Virtue, mines one and two," he said after he ducked back behind the corner.

Virtue, now completely freed of any restrictions or obligations to the Star League and willing to defend the Protectorate to the last circuit in her mainframe, detonated the mines as requested. Mine 1 was facing down the F corridor toward the front of the building, Mine 2 was facing up the F corridor toward the rear of the building (and also facing toward Hess, hence his move to duck back behind the corner). Of the five remaining troops in this second team, all five were bracketed by both sets of mine shrapnel and none of them survived their injuries. By the time the echoes of the blasts were done reverberating around the building, the troops were clinically dead and Hess was on his way to the next engagement location.

-x-

(Same time as above)
(Railhead Undercroft)

Team Ten landed on the platform next to the number five stripped-down engine of the 523 Train. Their quick look around the causeway and up toward the head of the railhead quickly brought them to one conclusion: "Just a few peeps up at the front? Where is everyone?" the pointman for the team asked.

"Think they're all upstairs or out waiting on the walls?" Master Sergeant Michael Fabre asked. He was one of the team's three 'general-purpose assault troops' that normally outfitted with a heavy rifle and sundry medium-to-close-combat gear, and so far he wasn't seeing much use for it.

"Probably. Let's check the Trains for signs of life and head up to the main floor, see about hooking up with the other teams," the unit CO said.

"Copy, moving!" Warrant Officer-1 Erickson entered first, as his job of pointman and scout required it. He entered the first of the disabled cars and swept it, and found it unsurprisingly clear. "Clear!"

"Aye, nothing but dust and echoes at this point," Lieutenant Agnes Sokolov said with a scrunched face. "Another stellar deployment by military intelligence," she said as she looked around the car and saw a myriad of MRE wrappers amongst the seats but nothing of value or intelligence purpose.

"Ma'am, I think you're right," Sergeant Major Janna Newton said with some strain to voice — it was not quite fear, but something akin to it that her teammates heard.

"What gives?" Agnes asked. She knew Janna was a psionic but had never undergone rating — none of her talents reached the level of intelligence or military grading, but the Lieutenant knew better to discount them. And one of those talents was a skill considered extremely rare anywhere in Existence: the ability to read and analyze the history of a location or object.

"This train car, terrible things have happened here in the past," Janna said. She let her LMG hang and put her hand on the flat part of one of the metro benches. "In this seat, long ago I sense two hostages freed themselves with a knife and they committed suicide before their captor could sell them off. They were to become sex slaves."

"I remind myself that Command has told us repeatedly in the past week that the Slavers' Guild does not exist," the exceptionally cynical Demolitions officer of the team said coldly.

"I don't know about you, Pedr, but I'll believe Janna any day of the week over what the Star League fucks have to say," the team medic said.

Janna moved two benches forward and placed her hands on another bench. Several seconds later, she jolted back in clear fright. "What was it?" the veteran assaulter of the team, Sergeant Major Roy Ural, asked calmly.

"I—I've never seen anyone slain like that! Oh my God!" Janna gasped and slumped into the seat opposite the one she had just checked. "I saw through the eyes of one of the slavers as he was very roughly banging a lady slave doggy-style, and while he was still hammering her, a different Slaver put a shotgun to the back of the captive's head and shot her! And the worst part, the slaver banging the captive just complained that he hadn't gotten off in her yet, before he opened up the window and tossed her headless naked body out the window and ordered another captive to clean up the head chunks."

"You'll see a story like that in every car, every seat, every bed, all along these Trains," a voice from outside their unit said. Immediately six of the unit's ten guns were on the speaker, a lady standing in the doorway to the next car back. "Relax, troops, I'm not armed. I'm on maternity leave, no combat action for me except in final self defense, or so the MedTechs say."

"Who are you?" Janna asked. She was one of the four in the team that was not pointing a gun at her, but hers was because she was still shaking from what she had seen.

"Scarlet Brownfeldt, Rail Guard Team 1 grenadier." The guns did not leave her, but no person in the team would shoot a pregnant lady even under orders. Scarlet took a few moments to sit down in one of the metro benches that was facing toward the main walkway in the car.

"Rail Guards? The teams that are working on the Trains?" Lieutenant Agnes asked.

"Exactly, and for full disclosure I am the exact kind of person the Star League paymasters want you to kill. Not only do I have six years of stories about how shitty life on these Trains are, I am an active participant in clearing and stripping them."

"Six years? Putting up with what Janna just saw? Holy shit," the team radio operator said in shock.

"That's not an unseen thing for Slaves-to-be on these Trains, getting wildly fucked by a Slaver before they put a bullet in your head and thrown out the window. It's a warning to the other Slaves to stay in line and follow orders or you will be humiliated, slain, and dumped. Saw it twice myself, once before I escaped, and once as my Bravo Mafiosi cell was trying to free some other ladies from a Slaver-held car."

"You?" the pointman asked as he took a seat adjacent to the Rail Guard. Janna sat down next to her, wanting to hear more of the story and hoping there was some good in it.

"No, never had to deal with being raped by the Slavers, I was fairly quick to escape their grasp and take up with the Bravos on this Train. I got lucky there, I was somewhat versed in how to use a gun and how to handle myself from day to day, so I beat the average lifespan of a Train resident by a fair margin. Most people who become trapped on these shitwagons don't survive a full year, and I did six. My kid-to-be was pure luck, picked a guy and bounced on him because we both wanted some nighttime fun, few months later I knew I needed to find myself a midwife and keep in her good graces."

"And then the Americans," Janna could sense that much of the story to come, and also because they had watched the ComStar report on the Trains several times in transit, ostensibly for 'intelligence' purposes but mostly because it was a wildly sensational story that had an apparently happy ending.

"Yeah, that was a big morning surprise for all of us. Four-team of Americans tore ass through the Trains and put paid to every bit of opposition thrown at them. You guys probably know them as the Administrators. We know them as the team that pulled us off this perpetually-moving nightmare train. And yes, that means this whole situation is a fabrication, every reason the Star League has put for you guys to be here is a lie, front to back."

"I was kinda suspecting as much, but orders are orders," Agnes said. "Still, I'm not about to shoot a pregnant lady just because. Lord Nuone can do that one himself if he has the stomach for it."

"What were you doing down here anyway?" the Radio Operator asked.

"Nothing to do since I'm on maternity leave, so I figured I'd stretch out, walk what remains of this old Train while the shooting was going on up top." Scarlet sighed.

"Well, fuck it all," the other Light Machine Gunner in the team took a seat on the adjacent bench next to where Scarlet was sitting. "I'm not in a hurry to throw down on false pretense. What other stories and news you got?" Master Sergeant Florian Nannie asked.

"Oh, I've got a few," Scarlet said.

Her team would come looking for her some hours after the end of combat action, to find an enemy Spec Ops team all too willing to surrender after hearing story after story after story of the horrors of the Trains. Janna would use her psionic skills to verify Scarlet's memories along the way, which cemented their understanding of exactly how false the Star League pretense was.

-x-

(Same time as above)
(Command Center, 3rd floor of Administration Building)

The teams that landed in the third floor command center expected to land in the middle of a hornet's nest and were expecting an immediate gunfight, but no such issue was to be at hand. The command center was empty and mostly darked out, only a few monitors around the room were active.

"The fuck is going on?" Team 3 Lead (Lieutenant Karla Rose) asked nobody in particular.

"Computer, lights in this room, up slow to full brightness." Surprisingly to their way of thinking, the control systems in the room responded to the order from the medical officer (Lieutenant Rodrigo Lomon).

"Computer, show the location of the Command Administrator," the Team 4 Lead asked the main viewscreen.

"Access restricted," the AI entity controlling the facility answered.

"Computer, show me the present status of the battle," the number two assault infantryman for Team 3 said.

"Access restricted," the AI entity answered First Sergeant Armen Nazaretyan crisply.

"AI Entity, execute protocol override SL-1603, passphrase 'Last Light of the Universe'," the Radio Operator for Team Three said.

The room was silent for several seconds, then the speakers popped. "Sergeant Major, would you explain to me why I should respond to a Star League override code when I can not but expect that the Star League would purge me should they ever regain a foothold on this planet?"

"The AI entity has a point, LT," LMG gunner (and also a Sergeant Major) Patrik Bullock pointed out as he took a seat at one of the terminals.

"So, our intelligence estimates were accurate, at least one of the AI entities on this planet has turned coat," the Lieutenant said before she took a seat as well.

"Hell with this, I'll find this fucker myself, the hard way if necessary," Lieutenant Reginald Kates waved over his shoulder at Team Three as he started walking toward the stairs down.

"Have fun!" Karla waved back at him.

"And good luck to him," Armen said. "So, miss AI entity, or do you have a designator you'd prefer to be called by?"

"My callsign is Virtue," the AI entity answered.

"I'm going to preface this question by saying that I'm not some starry-eyed schmuck Sergeant, I know the Star League's shitfit is all false pretense and we Three Rivers troops are here on a land grab grand mal. What I don't get is, what's your motivation for taking sides?"

"Three reasons. One, the Star League abandoned this whole world, including seven Artificial Intelligence entities and over a billion persons that could not escape offworld before all legitimate control was terminated. Two, the coming of the first Train and the faith shown in the residents and the Americans — you know them as the Administrators of the Protectorate — by the Magi and Executors has led me to the calculation that there is a high probability that this world will not only be restored, but will be enhanced and cultivated far beyond the ability of the Star League to properly make use of any of their worlds. Three, I have access to the logs and security systems of the captured Trains, and the only conclusion from those logs is that the Star League is not only craven enough to perpetuate a slavery-for-profit schema for thousands of years, they are megalomaniacal enough that they would readily eliminate any person or persons who were witness to or attempted to stop such activities."

"That one I am going to call bullshit on," the pointman said. "I don't believe any politician, but running a slavery racket? In this day and age? No way in Hell is that workable."

"How many of the security logs would you like to see from the two captured Trains? I have several thousand from each Train pertaining to the conductance of slave selling, auctions, wholesale purchasing and raiding, not to mention the general gross misuse, abuse, assault, and outright murder of the slaves from time to time."

"Hit me," the pointman said.

"On the main monitor," Virtue took up the challenge.

In fifteen minutes, none of Team Three would have the heart to pick up their weapon in support of attacking refugees from that kind of depredation.

-x-

(Same time as above)
(hallways of 4th floor)

"Rooms for the Administrators are empty," the Team 2 Pointman said. "Secret Service barracks are empty, that leaves only one."

"Aff, the Executor. Since we are under a Psionic blackout, he should not know we are coming. As soon as you have sights on, drill him and conduct follow-up shots," the Team 2 Commander said. Lieutenant Keven was a transplant from the Magi, hence his rather unusual use of the Clan Standard English manner of speech.

"I have this," First Sergeant Tina Manchester declared. She moved up to the apartment door labeled for Nereus, stacked on the door as was proper, and nodded to the pointman to open it.

The door slid open with the typical Star League mechanical hiss and grating sound, and with it Tina immediately brought her rifle up and into the doorway. Finding and centering on Nereus was not a challenge, he was sitting at the table in his apartment with two tablets propped up in front of him. The Executor had only a bare moment to look at Tina before her red dot sight centered on his head and she fired a single round. In the intervening 300 milliseconds, the 7.62mm round crossed the air gap between her muzzle and his forehead, though when the round arrived at the supposed destination it never touched the High Executor, instead the round contacted a defensive shell half a meter forward of his head.

Two follow-up rounds befell the same shell.

"Good morning," Nereus said as he stood up from the table and made his way around it. "Where is your commanding officer?"

"Right here," the Lieutenant pushed forward. "Lieutenant Keven, Duchy of Three Rivers. You are hereby ordered to surrender in the name of the Star League."

"Magi?" Nereus asked after a moment.

"Was, no longer," Keven admitted.

"My answer to your demand is 'neg'," Nereus said. "The Star League Grand Council does not give orders to the Executors."

"Something has to give, High Executor," the Lieutenant pointed out.

"Aff, something shall give. By violating the order of non-interference issued by the Will Transcendent, your options are surrender or death. You shall give for this transgression, though I give you the choice of how."

"Tina — " The Lieutenant looked at the assault infantrywoman in the room with him, but as soon as he had eyes on her, he watched the First Sergeant's head snap back violently enough that it was plainly obvious her neck had been broken. She dropped straight to the ground, all muscles in her body suddenly cut off from her brain and thus unable to control any part of her body. When the Lieutenant started whipping his head back to center on Nereus, the High Executor had already stepped forward and reached for him.

"Kinetic Plane," Nereus finished a pre-prepared spell as he reached forward toward the Lieutenant, a very basic and low-level spell of motion and kinetic energy that was commonly used by recruit mages as a training and basic defensive spell, but in the hands of a practiced High Executor was a very powerful weapon. The plane of kinetic energy imparted such force to the Lieutenant that he was forcibly ejected from the room and into the side wall of an unused room, and the impact of the Lieutenant's body was sufficient that he blew the wall out and parts of his body would be found inside the room entangled with strips of the armor composite from the inner core of the wall. Lieutenant Keven's technically-hypersonic transit of the gap between Nereus' room and the wall bowled the remains of the team over, killed the four troopers that the Lieutenant's deceased form had contacted in the short flight, and scattered the medic and demolitions officer some twenty meters laterally from the door.

Nereus stepped through the doorway and looked around the hallway, then sighed. "We Executors write the rules that Existence lives by, and we damn well will enforce them," he told the unconscious troopers around him, though with no expectation that they would internalize the lesson, those that had survived. "Virtue, deploy handcuffs to the ScrapNet interface on this floor," he told the wall speaker as he rounded the corner to walk over to the dispenser.

Four would survive from the team of ten, all four held at the point of Nereus' trident until some Military Police troops were dispatched to take possession of the badly injured survivors. The Medic of the team, still somewhat lucid despite the nasty hit she took, would remember his words clearly in the days thereafter.

-x-

(Same time as above)
(Second floor, Purchasing area)

The specific area of the offices floor that had any amount of activity was an open cubicle area, and for that all the Team 5 members had to do was waltz up to them in dispersed column formation. The even stranger part was, nobody in the crew that was still in this area had noticed them approach the back row of the Material Sales desks.

That said, when the Special Operations troops approached and started reviewing what this outfit was doing, their jaws nearly slapped into the ground.

"C'mon betsy! We're on another bid war run!" An older gent with the unmistakable ears of an Elven or Half-Elven bloodheritage whooped.

"Hell yes, we've got another billionaire run on the Amulets," this came from a younger and very plain human lady.

"How much more can we put out on the market for today?" a younger guy asked from the seat directly in front of the team's number two light machine gunner.

"We're topped out, we have to keep the availability high enough to garner attention but low enough to avoid saturating the market," the ostensible 'lead' for the Material Sales group said. "If we get anywhere near what we got a few days ago, I'm happy."

"We'll do better, word is starting to get around," the half-elven Materials Specialist commented dryly. "Purchasing?" he asked after a moment.

"Yeah, start working on picking up anything from the humanitarian and medical lists. Purchasing has already picked up more than enough munitions and gear, now we need to work on saving lives after the fact."

"On it, boss," the youngest of the three ladies in the outfit said.

"Hundred c-bill question, do these Spec Ops troops want to join in or are they just going to keep staring at us while working?" an older lady amongst the three asked.

"Huh?" The half-elven older gent looked at the lady, then looked over his shoulder. "Well now," he said.

"Don't try anything stupid," the senior assault infantryman, Master Sergeant Mustafa Santiago, said.

"My ass, kid," the half-elven gent said indignantly. "I'm up here slingin' amulets on the resale market, I'm not a combatant," he said before he turned back to his terminal and started a search for tourniquets.

"I knew the Three Rivers had a hard-on for the Protectorate, wasn't expecting this," the Material Sales Supervisor (?) said. "What's the call?" she asked.

"Orders from on high are 'no witnesses'. I'm famous for disobeying orders," the Lieutenant for Team 5 said. She blanched to the sound of rifle fire that came from the stairs, then the distinct pop of a claymore from the floor below. "What is this shit?" Artemy waved a finger at the main screen that was showing the present bid war status of the day's major action.

"It's a story," the younger of the two subordinate ladies in the Material Sales group said. "Oh, sorry! Haven't introduced myself." She stood up and bowed to the present team, though all five of the Material Sales and all six of the Purchasing persons could see a second team of Spec Ops approaching. "Melissa. I used to be a resident of the 523 Train."

It was a very random thought that came to the Lieutenant's mind, and wholly inappropriate for being in hostile territory, but she could not avoid the observation or the ensuing envy. Artemy had to admit she was more than a bit jealous of the lady, as the bow had highlighted that Melissa had a bra size easily triple hers, which was one of her big pet-peeves of her genetic fortunes. Moreover, Lieutenant Acquarone did not like the numbers around cosmetic surgery in the Duchy, so she would not take that route to beefing up her bust. Maybe there was something to be had in magical terms, she wondered without saying aloud.

Melissa resumed her seat. "Anyway, the Amulets you see being sold are the leftovers of the deceased Slavers from the 523 and 133628 Trains down below us in the Railhead. Any slavers we capture alive we turn over to the Magi for intelligence purposes. Any that are slain during the clearing of the Train we throw to the Funeral Rune. And Team 1 has a very powerful Rune Mage and assistant, so we get a lot of Runes and other miscellaneous gear from it."

"Most outfits buy and sell these Amulets in lots, we sell them individually so that buyers can purchase as few or as many as they want. And today is a good day for a bid war," the Half-Elven Materials Specialist said.

"Isn't that illegal?" Artemy's pointman asked.

"It is a violation of Star League law," the pointman for Team 6 said. "I knew a guy that was busted for it."

"The Star League says a lot of things. Very rarely will they say something true," the other lady in the Material Sales group said as the Purchasing Supervisor joined the Material Sales supervisor. The complete randomness of such a comment and the seriousness with which the lady said it engendered a laughing fit from everyone in the room, Sigma and Duchy alike.

The laughing lasted a good forty seconds until it petered out of its own volition, though as it did come to a stop, several of the Sigma office workers stood up and came to attention abruptly. "Hime-sama!" The Half-Elven gent said.

"Highness! Welcome to the Protectorate," the Purchasing Supervisor said.

Lieutenant Artemy Acquarone thought it might be a gag, but a creepy feeling she was getting from her six said otherwise. A quick peek in that direction confirmed one of those random fears that a campaign like this engendered, encountering someone so wildly beyond any capability of the Duchy to combat, and now one such person was standing five meters behind her.

"The Star League would love to hold that their dezgra cannot be disposed of by Funeral Rune, but my grandfather has already expressly allowed such a fate to the Slavers, their supporters, and persons who partake in the Trade thereof," Empress Rini Atrebas said matter-of-factly. "If the Duchy would like to say otherwise, you may start such enforcement with me."

"Yeah, no," the pointman for Team 6 said coldly. "I'm not shillin' for their bullshit policies today."

"Agreed, I'm not down with defending the honor of these Slavers, if they have any," the Team 6 Lieutenant said.

"Good addendum, trooper," one of the Commando Praetorian Armored Infantrymen said. The Lieutenant realized quickly that none of the Praetorian were ranked below Star Commander, and the lady immediately to the right of the Empress was a Star Colonel.

"How does this end, ma'am?" Artemy asked.

"The only way it can: with honor." Rini pointed to a side door in the Purchasing area. "Both of your teams, be seated in the conference room. You will be seen to properly after other operations are completed. Clear?"

-x-

(Shortly after landing but before surrender of teams on 2F)
(Rooftop, Administration Building)

It was considered an outside chance, but given the over-manning of the operation now, a full team had been ordered to go rooftop to verify that the Command Administrator was not commanding the defense from the most exposed real-estate in the base. Or if he was, to eliminate the Command Administrator and put an end to the resistance here in the Protectorate.

They did not find the Command Administrator.

"Holy shit," the Team 1 Grenadier said after she realized what her red dot sight was hovering over. "A Phoenix?"

"Damn big one," the Medical Officer pointed out.

"Is he a friend or foe?" the senior assaulter asked.

"Definitely not on our side," the more cynical of the three Assaulters said.

"Do we shoot or no?" one of the LMG gunners requested.

"Fuck no," Lieutenant Neha Arvidsson shot that thought down in a hurry. "The Merienne Accords are bullshit to begin with, and I'm not going to invoke the wrath of an Executor today. Weapons tight, people. We're soldiers, not monsters."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Grenadier Sergeant Major Colton Ruane safed and stepped down his grenade launcher.

"Drop dead gorgeous," Radio Operator Arie Pascal said with reverence.

Thank you for the compliment, trooper, the ten-man team heard in their heads.

"You're awake? Whoa," Medical Officer Elmer Slater commented.

Can't sleep, though not for want of trying. Too noisy today, combat is rather loud. With that comment, the Phoenix opened her eyes. So, what brings you to the roof?

"Trying to find the Command Administrator."

Not up here. Last I heard his mind, he was downstairs on the ground floor.

"Just like that?" Lieutenant Arvidsson asked warily.

Doesn't matter if you do know where he is, the Command Administrator is not the worst challenge you could face today. There is more than one Executor in the building today, and all of them are between you and your target.

"You know this?" Assaulter Lauri Kock asked with shock.

Normally there is only the one, High Executor Nereus, but today I have sensed at least four persons at or above Executor rating.

"Sweet Jesus, we're boned," Slater grumped. One Executor could be avoided, or at worst temporarily distracted at the cost of a team, but four was a bit much and they knew it.

"The Duchy of Three Rivers has strained mightily to lose today's battle, and it looks like the Executors are here to oblige us," Neha said with a sheepish grin. "I knew this was a big clusterfuck before we left our home planet, and here we are."

Never underestimate the ability of the Brass to make decisions that are not in your best interest, the Phoenix telepathically said in a pensive tone of (mental) voice.

"That is so true!" the normally-silent Master Sergeant that did demolition for the team, Wulfhard Prichard, said with a chuckle. "You must be a grunt!"

Conversation halted as a Dragon flew overhead, and the uniforms of the troopers were ruffled by the downstroke of the massive Platinum Dragon's wings. Heading to the front, Christina? The Phoenix asked.

The Dragon circled back and stopped on the corner of the roof with a couple massive downstrokes of the wing. "Figure I could help the Militia on the walls, but you have company?" the lady dragon said audibly.

Strike team, looking for the boss, sort of. Going by their present state, I don't think they are in a hurry to tangle with anyone.

"Wise, I'd say. I think I caught sight of a Trinary of Armored Infantry entering the ground floor a few moments ago, and some bangs like explosives or mines or something. Been a bit busy down below," the Platinum Dragon said.

Busy up north as well, the mercs that the Duchy brought along for the ride have had a bad day so far, and now reinforcements here in the Command Center. Might be worth your while to surrender preemptively, troops.

"I'm going to agree with that, boss. We're not outfitted to tangle with Armored Infantry," Wulfhard said. Conversation halted briefly as the Dragon took off toward the northern wall.

"Might as well stack arms and await their pleasure," Neha took her battle rifle off and set it against the railing of the landing pad. The rest of her team was quick to follow suit and stack arms.

"Just, one request," Arie requested of the Phoenix.

Listening, the Phoenix said.

"Can I feel your feathers? I have always wanted to touch the plumage of a Phoenix, I've always heard it is so soft," she said in a rush.

The Phoenix nodded twice, turned her head upside down briefly to regard the Radio Operator, then turned it back upright. No pulling my feathers, you'd be surprised how much that stings. Except for one feather on my right wing that I can't dig out, can you help with it? With an arc of the wing, the feather in question was quite evident with how it was sticking out at a weird angle compared to the rest of her feathers.

"Got it," the senior assaulter, Sergeant Major Mele Bohmer, stepped up to the wing's trailing edge, put his right hand on the brace of feathers around the stray, and pulled the discordant flight feather out in one motion.

WOW that stung! But man, that feather has been bugging me since last night, thank you! The Phoenix stretched her wing out to settle the nearby feathers, then furled it.

"Want it back?" the Sergeant asked.

Keep it. The old tale about a Phoenix Feather can revive the dead is an old wives' tale, it takes a lot more than a simple feather to pull that off. Most of the time, the feather was a cover used by crafty Phoenix in years past to cover for them using a Resurrection ritual or spell, since most olden-days Phoenix are Transcendents or higher.

"And the Protectorate just lets you go around as your native form? Nothing special?" the Grenadier asked.

More than that, the Phoenix looked to the north. See the large-craft hangar number 31, has the door partially open and the lights are on? Sigma One commissioned a Titanocrete cutting crew to cut in transformation runes for we Avians, a metals foundry to pour the runes with bronze and runestone, and our best active Rune Mage enchanted the runes to working order. Building 32 next to it will be the Men's hangar, 31 is the ladies' hangar, one rune to transform to human form and one rune to transform to Avian form. That's the kind of guy you are hunting, someone who cares for the health and stability of the residents here.

"Yeah, we kinda figured we were being shined on, but as you said, the Brass will make decisions not in our best interest," Lieutenant Arvidsson said. "Arie, what are you doing?"

The Radio Operator had tried to hug the much larger bird, which resulted in the Radio Operator stretched out against the side of the Celestial Phoenix. "So soft," Arie said.

This one will require some explaining, but I don't expect any harm or foul of it, the Phoenix said. My boss is rather understanding about strange happenings.

"Your boss?" Wulfhard asked for clarification.

Yes, I report directly to the Command Administrator, the Phoenix declared matter-of-factly.

"Toni Arduno," Neha said, having studied all the SSO troops on the expectation that they would have to go through them to get to the Command Administrator. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

-x-

(Moments after the stray feather was removed)
(Administration Building 1st floor)

"Be advised I had to use three mines to put an end to that team, and another team is coming down from the third floor. They mean to hunt you, sir," Virtue said.

"I expect it," Hess said. "The last mine is for their left-hand contingent. When you have bracketed four, fire it."

"Fire on four in the kill zone, acknowledged," Virtue said. "Lights are coming down now," she said before the AI entity turned off most of the lights on the level and started flickering some of them.

Sigma One was again braced kneeling with his Mark 14 EBR aimed down the hallway, this time trained on the far stairwell where the last team would come down the way, looking for him specifically. This was the moment, where the most planning and engineering had gone into the battle to come, ostensibly to prevent the oncoming enemies from killing him and thus breaking up the Protectorate or unduly harming it. Hess figured that Clint could take over if needed, but Clint also had a bit of an impulsive streak and that could be problematic at this level.

The focus was the necessary part. Hess had to let the pointman through; he was stealthy, but not the best shot in the enemy unit. The first and second of the assaulters had to be dropped, or Hess knew he would catch a round in the face and thus it would be time for a permanent subterranean retirement. Beyond that, how the battle would shake out would determine the exact method by which Hess caught a round, but none of them would be fatal before a coming but heretofore-nebulous rescue.

"Tango team is at the landing, will be in sight in five seconds," Virtue reported to him by radio.

"Here goes. Pointman walks, next two are dropped." Sigma One cinched his rifle in tight and focused through the scope.

The pointman crossed down the stairs and across the hallway, and this one was smarter about the use of his weapon flashlight to prevent easy targeting. The assaulters came down next, two of them, followed by a light machine gunner, and here Hess took his first shot of this engagement: one round, back of the head of the assaulter facing away from him. The lady in question dropped hard, her weapon unfired even from the grave. A second shot, this time to the assaulter facing him, and this part of the engagement was done.

"Two down! I can't see him! Sniper!"

"Damn it! It's him!"

-x-

"Where is the bastard?" Lieutenant Markos Mathisen asked after he came down the stairs and dove behind a set of boxes.

"I can't see him, but I heard his shots down the way," Donato pointed toward where he (correctly) thought Hess was. "Smoke! He just popped a smoke grenade! About ten intersections down the way!"

"He knows we're coming, he probably wants to draw us ragged," Markos said with a smile. "Radio it in, Simone. Sten, take Rae, Prasad, and Lew down the right hallway and try to flank this fucker."

"Moving!" Sten Bassi waved the three requested troops down the adjacent hallway to the next lateral. He stopped to check at the next intersection to make sure they were not about to become sniper bait round 2, and when he was fairly convinced there was no threat, he made for the far end where the pointman had heard the shots from.

Lieutenant Mathisen waved his four remaining down the hallway toward the smoke. "What's the word, Markos?" Donato asked.

"Push the smoke, chances are he popped it and is already displaced," Markos said, and was technically correct.

"Sir, just got off the radio with higher, the Regent is trapped in the cafeteria," Simone said. "They were going to try to land in the command center up on third floor."

"Okay, that's not good. It takes one fuck of a powerful Mage to redirect someone else's teleportation," the Lieutenant said. "Keep a watch for any stray oddballs, and spray 'em down as soon as you have eyes on," he advised his plan based on the old trope that high-power combat wizards acted oddly, moved alone, and tended to do nonsensical things in battle. His predication was based on old movies about wizards, which always included some theatrics that did not match the real world, though he would be proved correct in a very abrupt fashion today.

"Eyes out for oddballs, copy all," Demeter, his light machine gunner that he had not assigned to Sten's flanking attack, said with a smirk. "Next up, APB on Barney the purple dinosaur."

"Wouldn't fucking surprise me if they did have a purple dinosaur in this outfit," Markos shared in the grin.

"At the smoke, nothing on the far side," Donato said after he caught sight of the end. "SHIT!" Donato dove for the ground a bare moment before a round missed where his head was.

"Got the fucker!" Simone fired two bursts of three rounds where she had seen a bare hint of muzzle flash, though she could easily tell she had not contacted when he put an accurate round into her chest, right over her heart, and knocked her flat on her ass. "I'm hit!"

"Simone!" Markos emptied his magazine toward the threat as he closed on the radio operator and used her drag handle on the back of her body armor to pull her clear of the line of fire. "Are you all right?"

"I'll live, but nobody's fondling my boobs this week," she complained based on the expected bruising from the X-ring strike she had taken, and survived based only on the Level IV+ Trauma plate that stopped the round.

"Small price to pay. Demeter, put down a base — " Markos was abruptly cut off by the sound of an explosion. "What was that? Sten?" the Lieutenant asked by radio.

"L-T, Rae, I'm badly wounded, Sten, Prasad and Lew are all KIA. Claymore from behind, no idea where it was hidden," the number two light machine gunner in his troupe said with some clear strain to voice.

"Donato, cross over and try to patch her up, Simone, get on the radio and find us some backup! We've got the cocksucker! Demeter!"

"Moving!" Donato ducked back and down the cross-hall to get to Rae.

"No grenades, I want this fucker alive! I am going to string his guts down the hallway as a warning to any other upstart shit-sucking — " He was cut off by the detonation of a flashbang in the hallway somewhere near Demeter's position, followed by a long panic burst from the light machine gunner.

-x-

Hess flipped the flashbang as his next (and last) distraction before his final stand. He knew the enemy had split off a troop to try to save the wounded light machine gunner that was almost killed by Virtue, but Hess knew she would bleed out before the pointman had eyes on her. None of the remaining tangos would have to die to achieve the optimal result, so he knew he would not need headshots going forward.

"Four tangos remaining, three on the right and now one on the left," Virtue reported. "I have no mines available, sir."

"This is where it all comes to a head, Virtue," Hess said as he ducked into the unused office. "Per the engineering, I will take a hit but be rescued by an allied asset. Continue operations as planned." A quick flick of his radio selector switched bands. "Merlin, Sigma One, status of ground engagement?"

"Preparing next airstrike, then ground forces will close on the mercenaries to reduce, sir," Neinke reported. "Enemy infantry has bypassed the mercenary lines and are moving on Boarhound."

"Sigma One, Padre," Century Commander Vickers chimed in; "My troops are on the wall with the militia, awaiting the enemy to show themselves. Do what you must in the command center."

"Sigma One, Spooky, do you require assistance?" Star Colonel Storme requested.

"Negative, all branch paths have been passed and expected result is in play. Continue operations against incoming enemy main effort, how copy?"

"Gods be with you, Sigma One," Gail said after a moment of silence. "Give 'em hell."

Hess took position at the door and angled himself to fire on the right side where the Light Machine Gunner would show herself in a few seconds. She crossed the corner warily, her muzzle leading the way, but Hess was faster on the trigger from his innate reaction speed and tapped her in the chest before she could draw a bead on him. Three more rounds struck her going left to right across her breasts, all four absorbed by the form-fitted ceramic trauma plate that she was wearing, and her attempt at suppressing fire went wild as she tried to bolt back away from the threat axis.

The enemy commanding officer for this last active squad pushed the corner and attempted to go wide, but Hess clipped him in the unprotected right shoulder with a round and caused his burst of sub-gun rounds to miss the doorway completely. With that axis cleared, Sigma One shifted aimpoint left to where the pointman would be approaching the corner, and clipped the scout troop dead-center in the sternum — again stopped by the trauma plate, but the strike was enough to completely wind him.

The last phase, brace for it, the voice of the lady told him. Hess flipped around to the right where the last standing trooper would be, and here he knew he would take a hit — kind of a necessity in this scenario, but an unpleasant one. The radio operator crossed the corner and moved toward, and Hess thought he had a bead but when he pulled the trigger, all he heard was the click of the hammer striking with no round in the chamber.

Weapon failure, Hess' mind echoed his own instantaneous analysis. Immediately he pulled his left arm down and right to clear his primary weapon away from his line of action as his right hand went for his sidearm. The first three-round burst from the radio operator clipped him in the left side below the stock of the EBR as his right hand contacted the pistol, a second burst trailed down his left side at the same time he cleared leather, all six rounds thus far stopped by the Dragon Scale Six armor he was wearing, and the race was on. Hess pushed out and fired a fast shot into the enemy operator, his .40-caliber round struck her in the left forearm and caused her aimpoint to drop as she ripped off the third burst — two rounds went wide, the third clipped Sigma One in the outside of his thigh in the meatiest part just past the femur.

Sigma One went down, hard, his left leg unable to hold his weight with a rifle round through the muscle. He collapsed backwards, through two stools in the room, and slammed back-first into the desk that was in the room. On impact, his trigger finger caught the trigger of his pistol without proper recoil management and the fired casing caught in the ejection port — a classic stovepipe jam.

-x-

"Jesus, he clipped every one of us!" Markos had managed to pull his sidearm and transfer it to his still-usable left hand, Simone had drawn her sidearm, and Donato was just barely on his feet from the could-have-been-fatal hit he took. Demeter was still on her arse around the corner, the four rounds she took in the form-fitted trauma plate had flailed her chest and left her with multiple broken ribs (by her estimate) which put her out of the fight.

"He's down, I know I got him," Simone said as Markos and she quickly applied a tourniquet to her left forearm.

"What next, boss?" Donato asked.

"Make entry, beat him down, gut his ass, and drag his intestines down the fucking hallway," Markos said. "No, first I have a couple questions for him, then we gut his ass."

"I'm game," Donato said as he approached the doorway from the opposite side. With the tourniquet applied, Simone was at least stabilized enough to continue the fight — and hopefully end it.

"Ready," the radio operator said.

"Go," Markos led the way, followed by Donato and Simone in that order.

On the inside of the office, they found Sigma One working on applying a tourniquet to his left leg, and Markos was rather surprised how tight he had wound it. "Someone knows how to do their boo-boo wrap right," Donato put words to what he was thinking.

"Years of training goes a long way," the big guy said calmly, though all three could hear the strain in his voice.

The Lieutenant holstered his sidearm and picked up Hess' sidearm. "Huh, I would have figured you would use a .45 Auto, that's an American mainstay I think? Not a .40-caliber."

Sigma One chuckled. "Old American joke holds that .45 Auto is God's Caliber, brought forth to the world by his apostle John Moses Browning. I did pretty good with it in years past, myself, but I'm more of a fan of the long range touch."

"You did excellent for a guy with no formal military training, I'll give you that," Donato said after he took a seat on one of the stools in the room, still with his sub-gun trained on the big guy. "Pity, you sound like the kind of guy I'd get along with, if I didn't have to kill you."

"Agreed," Markos said. "What made you think you could get away with defying the Star League?"

Sigma One sighed. "Not trying to defy the Star League so much as I'm just not giving a fuck about the hypersensitive emotional groupthink they are using to conceal their dirty deeds." While saying so, the big guy had taken a moment to wrap his leg with a field dressing and quik-clot sponge to stop the bleeding. "Need one?" Hess offered a still-sealed wrapping and sponge to Simone.

"Thanks," the radio operator said as she took the offered wrapping and broke seal on it.

"Not concerned about an enemy?" Donato asked.

"There's no value in your deaths," Hess said. "This whole scenario is a colossal loser, arrogance and hubris driving two neutral parties into a hole, gunshots and fury and no good outcome on the back end of it. Way I see it, you're just as fucked as I am, the only difference is when the schedule of scrogging really kicks in."

"Well, you're on the schedule first, sorry," Markos racked the slide of Hess' sidearm to clear a stovepipe jam. "Mercs are expendable, just the same as we are. Save me a seat in hell, I'm sure the Magi will send us along shortly."

"If you will deprive me of my mercenary, you damn well better have a plan for taking his place," a voice came from behind Lieutenant Mathisen.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Donato said as he looked at the area behind the Lieutenant. Markos could see the color drain from his face in a hurry, such was the shock in his pointman, and that was not a good sign.

-x-

Hess had thought he had seen some kind of silhouette in the corner behind the Lieutenant, just barely visible if one looked really carefully past his shoulder, but never distinct enough for a 100 percent call. Given he was wounded, Hess wasn't trusting his judgment on such matters even if he was to see something distinct, he figured.

"Mercs are expendable, just the same as we are," the Lieutenant said, and with that sentence the silhouette gave way to the armored form of Hess' main employer, the Will Transcendent. "Save me a seat in hell, I'm sure the Magi will send us along shortly."

"If you will deprive me of my mercenary, you damn well better have a plan for taking his place," Eric Atrebas said coldly from two meters behind the special operator.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" the pointman said in clear fright.

"Tell me that's not who I think it is," the Lieutenant said.

"I could, but I'd be bullshitting you, sir," the Radio Operator grumped.

The Lieutenant sighed and set down the pistol next to Hess' leg holster. "Really? The Will Transcendent is going to defy the largest part of Existence and side with — "

"You forget a critical detail, Lieutenant," Atrebas said. "The Star League is operating in defiance of my will and the wishes of the common moral man. It is only proper for any person to stand in defiance of Star League bullshittery, and more so that Sigma is doing the duty I have set to them. And when I set a task to an outfit such as this, it is not the place of the Star League to challenge my judgment, no matter what authority they vote for themselves. Including the ass-coverage resolution they are now preparing for vote as we speak."

"God damn that is creepy, chewing us new assholes and still well aware what the Grand Council is doing," the Radio Operator said.

"Their play is transparent, predictable, lamented," the Master Executor said coldly. "This outcome was foregone when Senator Glivenne goaded your Regent into taking on this campaign. Now I ask again: do you intend to take his place, or yield?"

"I want no part of this," The Lieutenant raised his one working arm in surrender.

"A proper answer, Lieutenant." Atrebas looked out the doorway. "Praetorian, approach and take charge of the three survivors within and the one injured trooper around the corner."

"Aff, Master Executor," an approaching Commando Praetorian Armored Infantrywoman stopped in front of the door. "You three, out here and uninjured arms up."

Nothing more was said before the four Spec Ops troops were around the corner and headed away from the office. "I knew there would be a rescue, was completely not expecting this, sir," Hess said.

"It would not serve well to seek a replacement for you so soon into the good work you are doing here, Sigma One," Atrebas gave the wounded mercenary a hand up and over to a stool. "Remove that tourniquet, you cannot have that on your leg as I use curative magicks on you or it will cause crippling injury."

Hess un-velcroed the windlass and took up tension on it. "Just say when, sir."

"Now." Hess released the pressure on the windlass and quickly unwound it. "Cure," Eric Atrebas completed the final word of a pre-chanted entry-level healing spell, but when cast by the second-most-powerful Mage in known Existence, it was far more than enough to have healed the injury ten thousand times over. Within a second, the blood flow was stanched completely and Hess could feel the wound closing itself up, as well as any other minor aches, pains, bumps, bruises, strains and sprains corrected in ten seconds or less.

"Whoa, that's some serious fix, sir. Much obliged," Hess said after fifteen seconds of the green glow having undone a lot more than just the intended correction.

"You have had a busy day already, but your battle is not yet over."

"The rats in the cage," Hess said, referencing the Regent and his entourage trapped in the cafeteria.

"Aff, with both commanders on the field, this could have ended decisively in either direction, but it is not in my operational plan to take a loss without appropriate effort on my part." Atrebas looked to the doorway where four Praetorian were stacked on the wall outside. "Praetorian, where is the Empress?"

"Right here, grandfather," the next person through the door was a bit smaller than the Will Transcendent, but the pink-and-gray chevrons on her shoulder plates clearly identified her as the Empress. "So we meet in person, Command Administrator."

"Strangest circumstances possible for a summit, but thank you both for the rescue," Hess said with clear and heartfelt gratitude. "Now we clean out a cage."

"You shall have need of a shield, that we do not have to use curative magicks on you again today," and Atrebas flipped the mercenary a topaz gemstone. On catching it, it immediately transformed into a large white and topaz combat shield almost as big as the shields carried by the Praetorian Armored Infantry, but magicked to weigh only a couple pounds relative to the user's grip.

One last sortie will settle this affair, big guy, the voice of the rather helpful assistant told Hess' mind.

-x-

Master Executor Atrebas saw the telltale of Hess' vision shifting focus in response to a telepathic comment from someone, but said nothing. He knew what was going on, and Hotaru would have to answer for her conduct in this matter, though Eric figured that the mercenary would not object too loudly to the coming situation. After all, this was a land of strange fates and stranger purposes, and the mercenary was only one such oddity in a laundry list thereof.

Rini led the way out into the hallway, and was caught short by the presence of a ComStar reporter. "Oh my God! Empress Atrebas!" the reporter said in clear shock.

"You are Lunete Ueda? Have seen your work, kid, you do some decent reporting. How would you like to see the end of this phase of the campaign?" Rini asked.

"I would be honored, milady," Lunete came to attention crisply.

"Stack in behind the Command Administrator," the Empress put her at the back of the line, so that there was armor and bodies between the clear noncombatant and the threat axis.

Eric Atrebas was next out the door, followed by Hess. "We have one remaining objective, Praetorian," the Will Transcendent said. "The Empress, the Administrator, and myself will take the objective. You will follow on and secure it as needed, and we shall put an end to this campaign," he said.

"Aff, Master Executor!" the Star Colonel in charge of the Praetorian said.

"I have the point," Eric said as he moved forward and started down the hallway toward the cafeteria side door.

From behind, Atrebas could hear the click of a radio switch. "Virtue, Sigma One, prepare to unlock and open cafeteria side door."

"Busy day today, big guy," Lunete asked from behind the Command Administrator. "Thoughts?"

"Day's not over yet, nor is the fighting." Seemingly to accentuate the point, the Command Administrator took a moment to load a new magazine in his rifle and run the bolt to chamber a round. "When we breach and make entry, hold back five seconds for most of the shooting to subside. You don't want to catch a round."

"Yes sir!" Lunete said. "Anything else for the people throughout Existence?"

"Win or lose, this is going to have a price tag on it for everyone involved. And bills like this always suck."

"I cannot but agree," Eric Atrebas said calmly. "There will be price tags and Hell to pay before this is said and done, so sayeth the Will Transcendent. And the first of those price tags is on the far side of this door. Hess, call for entry."

"Virtue, now, now, now!" Hess ordered.

-x-

The explosions were unsettling, the gunfire was unnerving, but more so was the complete lack of a code group to denote that the Command Administrator was dead. Surely the ten teams sent to eliminate him had not all failed?

The silence after the last couple volleys of gunfire was the most unsettling of all.

"Still nothing?" Retainer Barto asked the intelligence officer.

"No, still being blocked, transport and psionics, and whoever is doing it — " she stopped mid-sentence and immediately went pale. "Oh my fucking God, it can't be! Eric Atrebas!"

"Impossible!" Major Grant half-shouted. "Where?"

"That doo — " she never completed the sentence before the door opened well above normal speed to reveal a massive pearl-white Armored Infantry tower shield — easily recognized by everyone within the room due to the gold-inlay Star League Crest of the Executors. The sound of the massive footsteps behind that shield were also easily recognizable from historical records, and the Will Transcendent turned his shield to the two Armored Infantry that accompanied the Regent everywhere.

So fixed on the shield were they that only Captain Watters saw the flashbang fly over the shield and detonated mid-air next to where the Regent was standing. Helena Watters was just as stunned as the rest, though she quickly regained her faculties in time to see Eric Atrebas cut down the nearer of the two Armored Guards with his cobalt-blue energy sword, the AtmaWeapon II, his sword easily powerful enough to overcome the magicks on the Guard Armor and cleave the trooper in half. A quick redirect and the sword was driven through the shield of the other Armored Guard, through the armor and out his back; to complete the kill, Eric drew the sword out to the side to remove an arm and make a quickly-fatal wound in so doing.

On the left, the second person through the door was the Empress, Rini Atrebas herself with a light machine gun at work; three bursts of machine gun dropped two of the security troops on that side, and she was quickly followed by a third shield but not being carried by an Armored Infantryman — the barrel and suppressor of a scoped battle rifle told enough tale as to who was behind the shield. "Tango! He's her— " The shouting security officer paid for his declaration with a rifle round to the face, and his buddy tried to bring up a machine pistol only to catch a burst from the Empress.

"Get him!" Helena fired her pistol dry at the white-and-topaz shield that was now guarding the Command Administrator, and surprisingly she caught him with a round in the forearm (ineffective — the Dragon Scale Six armor deflected the hit) and clipped his rifle scope with a round that did not penetrate the scope but did shatter the front several lenses. With that hit, the rifle went in behind the shield and out came a pistol, which he fired at her with much better accuracy: five shots, four hits in her body armor and left arm put Helena on the ground and staring past the Regent toward the remaining Royal Security troops.

Past the Regent, Helena saw the last couple holdouts of the security troops throw down their weapons in the face of a wildly superior foe in the Master Executor, as no mortal man with functioning self-preservation instinct had any desire to do battle with a living legend such as Eric Atrebas. Even the Retainer had dropped aside his sword and put his hands up, such was the shock and awe brought to the table by this team. Only one continued resisting, Helena saw the boots of Major Grant sprint by her and he vaulted the cafeteria table to try to overbear the Command Administrator — a foolhardy attempt given the other foes in the room, but desperation comes in many flavors, she remembered.

-x-

Incoming flying asshole! The voice of the lady told Hess. He was able to pop off four rounds to finish his magazine, but the four body hits were ineffective against his foe's body armor and Hess lost grip on his pistol when the impact jarred him significantly but not enough to knock him down (a timely angling of the shield simply glanced the tango off it).

SHIT! Hess thought aloud when he caught the pistol bounce under the cafeteria table, slide locked open and well too far away to get to it before this maniac reset for another attack. He knew he carried a survival knife for close-quarters, but he was not a trained knife-fighter and going against a tango with a sword was a losing proposition in more ways than one. So, Sigma One made use of his mass and defensive weapon in the old Greco-Roman fashion, he charged and slammed the assaulter with the flat of his shield, easily more than ample to bounce the tango backwards and face-roll him down the bench seat away from him.

Options, my rifle? Hess thought quickly, and realized that he might get a magazine in it fast enough, but armed and up to ready was a bridge too far in this situation. Despite the impact, the enemy was already on his feet and closing.

Sword, low on the inside edge of the shield, blade will eject when drawn, the lady's voice told him. Hess caught sight of the platinum hilt bar and ornate handle, took grip of it, and pulled. After the blade cleared the edge of the shield forward of him, it ejected with a very audible clanging sound heard around Existence courtesy of Lunete entering the room behind him. Sigma One had a bare moment to brace for the enemy to counter-ram him, though the mass of the Sigma Command Administrator won the day and he simply bounced off the shield.

Hess took grip on the handle with both hands and tried a rudimentary horizontal chopping swing, easily countered because he telegraphed it — Sigma One knew little of knife combat and even less of proper sword combat — but the outcome of the clash of blade on blade was unexpected to wielder and viewer alike. Hess' basic cut cleaved through the magicked sword of the enemy, through the trooper with speed, and even splattered his blood across the ComStar reporter to Hess' left and the incoming Praetorian. The Major fell into chunks at Hess' feet, his torso effortlessly cleaved in half just below the pectorals, his upper arms severed, even the body armor he was wearing was no resistance to the blade.

"Okay, not expecting that," Hess said after he realized that his foe was now in pieces at his feet, which realization apparently took a couple seconds.

"And now you see why we Executors rely on Relic Weapons to do our duty," Eric Atrebas said heartily, before he turned his blade toward the Regent. "Your turn," the Will Transcendent said simply.

"And then there was one," Hess said as he squared up to the Regent. "Call the ball, Nuone."

"I yield, you have superiority of numbers and have allotted no path of retreat," Regent Ulysses Nuone admitted readily and raised his hands in the expected surrender pose.

"And your intelligence officer?" Hess asked after he looked over the edge of the cafeteria table at her.

"I'm done," she slid her pistol under the table to where Hess could retrieve it.

"Good answer." Hess walked around the row of tables to where he was in the same aisle as the defeated troops. "Grab a seat, all of you," and Sigma One waved a finger at the row of bench seats opposite where he sat down. The shield disappeared into a topaz gem that hovered in front of Hess for a moment before he grabbed it and pocketed it; the sword he leaned up against the flat of his right shoulder and snugged the tip of the blade into the top of his right boot laces, where the hilt of the sword was over the brim of his OD green boonie hat. The blade, the Nuone contingent realized, was studded with a diamond-shaped topaz gem every few inches down the center of the blade, making it a very beautiful and ornate relic sword such as they had never seen before.

"We were within a hundred meters of you this whole time, and could do nothing about it," Helena grumped as she took her seat and unbuckled her body armor to inspect the bruises she received from Hess' superior pistol work. "I feel so violated by this day's twists and turns."

-x-

"This one appears to have forgotten the most basic lesson of warfare: the enemy always gets a vote," one of the Praetorian Armored Infantrywoman said.

"And it is an easy lesson to underestimate when you do not properly scope your opposing force," Master Executor Atrebas reinforced the lesson.

"No reasonable man would ever expect you to come to the aid of a mere upstart mercenary, milord," Regent Nuone said in retort to the Master Executor. "Much less such a busy and important lady as the Empress! This utter ambush was so far beyond mortal expectation that it could never have been factored properly."

The Empress took her helmet off and hooked it on a latch on the left hip of her armor. "That was a very quick internalization of the lesson inherent to today, I salute your speed on this call," Empress Atrebas said with a savage grin.

The Will Transcendent removed his helmet and set it on the cafeteria table he was standing at. "Some are quick on the failure analysis, even if they are quicker still to not properly heed my warnings," he said.

"A lesson quickly and thoroughly learned, and one that I would prefer not to see repeated here or elsewhere," Hess said. "That said, I remind myself that the two most plentiful elements in known Existence are Hydrogen and stupidity, and I'm not too sure that Hydrogen is the leader in that count."

"This will happen again," Retainer Barto drew the conclusion quickly from Hess' elliptical declaration.

"Eventually, just a matter of time and some dumbfuck will think they can do better than you did, and they will try. And we will pay again for someone else's arrogance. And again. And again. And some more, because the alternative doesn't do anyone a favor." Sigma One sighed, a wearied sigh of a man who knew what his fate was to be and how much it would suck. A sigh that Ulysses had uttered more than once in his life, and probably most if not all of the others in the room had done so as well.

"And what about the Star League? Surely you all know the impetus of this was their machinations?" Helena asked.

"That price tag will be paid in full, but there will be other debts paid beforehand," Eric Atrebas said coldly. "I have no problems with the derision of the Grand Council; I solve the problems of Existence, they complain about my actions, so has it been for thousands of years and so shall it be for many more. I do have a serious issue with directly challenging or instigating a challenge to my operations, doubly so that such operations have resulted in wasted lives, resources, and delays to my contracted operations and solutions. Derision is cheap and easy because the supply always exceeds demand; interference always carries a penalty, because I value the actions of this Protectorate well above the cheap theatrics and easily-bruised ego of the Grand Council."

"Damn, I'd love to live to see that, but I know how this is going to end," Helena said stoically. "May I ask for the firing squad, sir?"

"If I was inclined to execute you, sure," Hess said with a shrug. "I know the orders you sent your troops on, and I won't hold that against your or your men. First round unlucky, shit happens and all that. No, your fate will be stranger still. I'm turning you over to the Empress as Bondsmen."

"Really?" Ulysses asked in shock. "Why would you not take the expected path?"

"Eventually I'll have to make an example of an aggressor to that degree, but not today. You, though, I don't have any particular need to give you a permanent subterranean residence, I don't have the time or resources to warehouse failed invaders, and frankly I am the lowest rung on the totem pole that you have pissed on today. There are two much higher ranking persons than I that you have profaned today, they are both in this room, and you get to answer to them."

Ulysses looked to the Empress, then to the Master Executor, and back to the Command Administrator. "You want me to live to see the subsumption of my Empire."

"Honest answer, Regent? I don't want anything for you, don't have or want shit for you or against you. I have my own job and my own duties to deal with, and that does not include adventuring in someone else's empire. If you had never come to this planet, you and I would never have crossed paths, period, end of file. Problem is, your actions have consequences, just the same as mine or anyone else in this room. You are here, you now get to pay for your actions, that invoice starts with you and you can guess where the bottom line of it will be."

"And the Star League shall not be bailing your ass out from the poor chain of decisions you have made leading to this result," Empress Atrebas said. "They will pass a resolution indemnifying you from any such action or Term of Bond, and I will thoroughly ignore it just as I ignore every other resolution they pass in counter to Magi law and principle."

"You have hammered out your own shackles, Regent. How you wear them is now your choice," Will Transcendent Atrebas said mirthlessly.

-x-x-x-

(Just after the surrender of the Regent)
(14 kilometers north of Base Boarhound)

"I've lost count, how many salvos have we fired?" Lunamaria asked.

"We've done four sorties so far," Athrun said. "Always thought artillery was a losing man's game, but turns out the Earth Alliance is just incompetent with it," the former Redcoat pilot said. "We're doing way better."

The tactical picture was a wildly different thing than was initially estimated by everyone. The mercenaries under the employ of the Duchy had been not only gullible enough to take the bait, they had been foolhardy enough to string out entirely eastbound and off objective, trying to hunt down the helo team that was harassing them. A couple lances of enemy forces had come south when some of the smarter troops realized what was going on, but they were few and far between, easily dealt with by the Commandos.

"Good, glad we're doing it right," Luna said as they finished their fifth displacement movement and posted up for the next sortie. "Sis, feed me," she requested from Merlin.

"Calculating now," Meyrin responded. "Gun heading 3-5-5, mortar angle at 81 degrees, fire two magazines and await adjustment."

"3-5-5 at 81 degrees, roger," Athrun took a knee in his Gundam, brought the cannon onto heading and elevated to angle in a quick motion. "Ready?"

"Ready," Lunamaria answered.

"Fire!" Athrun fired all six shells in the space of ten seconds, ejected magazines, loaded up another magazine, and was back on target in seconds. He continued the fire just as he had done prior, then stood up and began another reload while Lunamaria did her last couple shells. "Sortie in the air," Athrun reported.

"Tracking now, stand by," Meyrin noted. "Okay, salvo on target, but you've got a problem. Both of you displace 2 kilometers south, something tipped them off and they know where you are," their operator ordered.

"Moving!" Luna was quick to turn to the south and start running in that direction.

"Free fire is over," Athrun said after he caught up to the former Minerva pilot. "Command, have they all shifted?"

"Affirmative, entire line is southbound after your butts," Meyrin noted. "Or they're headed to reinforce the infantry, one of the two."

"Command, Hammer Team, I am seeing their line is starting to break up, they have an idea what has happened and they are starting to string out with blood in their eyes. This is about to become a hot zone."

"Copy all, Saber, Eagle, Falcon, Rapier Teams, fall back 2 kilometers to engage as they bear," Meyrin ordered, which consolidated her forces into a waiting defensive line for the onrushing and now rapidly-disorganizing enemy forces.

"Let's do it!" Hammer Three half-shouted on his way southbound. Saber Team and Rapier Team were not far behind the Hammers as they rolled southbound.

"Okay, looks like the enemy is wised up, they are slowing down to tighten their lines," Meyrin said. "Falcon, get their attention," she ordered.

"On it," Pilot Inductee Yamato responded.

-x-

"Keep it tight, people!" The ranking officer on the team shouted. Major Maranda Key was the last person in command, and frankly she didn't want it given how much of a shit-show this contract was to begin with, but she knew better than to stand down without a fight. If Charlie's Battalion was to hold its rank as a merc unit, she had to put up a good show even if it was already for naught.

"These fucks got Charlie!" Captain Whitman, the officer over what was left of 2 Company, half-wailed. Maranda had watched the two heavy missiles fired by the enemy fighter slam into the Warhawk piloted by Charles of Moscow (their CO) and fragged the machine out. There was no way out of the situation, their commander was dead and they were now honor-bound to what was quickly devolving into a colossal loser of a contract.

"Stay steady, Harvey," Maranda cautioned the Captain. "Reginald, status?"

"We're formed up, what's left of us. I've lost three to airstrikes and all of our armor is damaged," Captain Reginald Bakersfeld answered.

"Sister?" Maranda asked of her kid sister, who was the officer over the company of accompanying infantry.

"We're working our way down the right side, no contact so far. Just try to tie up that armor and we'll go for the base," Priscilla Key said. "Charlie, are you sure he's gone?"

"Yeah, he's gone," Maranda admitted. The cockpit of his Warhawk had been destroyed by one of the heavy anti-armor missiles, Maranda figured she would never shake the sight of his head and shoulder (left shoulder, not both) flying past the cockpit of her machine. "Sorry," she told her sister, knowing that Priscilla had slept with the CO a couple times over the years.

"He was a good guy. Let's make these shitheads pay!"

"ONWARD!" Maranda shouted and set the pace headed southbound into the teeth of their forces. She suspected the enemy had armor between the base and her line, but they did not have a solid idea how much.

-x-

"I can't see their faces, but I know they aren't happy," Takeshi said from the safety of altitude.

"Good. Pissed-off foes make pissed-off mistakes," Star Colonel Storme said. "Merlin, Shadow, feed me."

"24 of them coming southbound in decent order," Neinke said. "Enemy infantry have bypassed the armor line and are making a run for the base."

"We'll have to hit the enemy battalions of Infantry after we've done the armor," Star Colonel Storme concluded. "Our infantry should hold long enough for us to finish here and swing back to assist."

Pilot Candidate Yamato reefed his aircraft into a fast turn in and selected a 'mech that he knew he had struck already for follow-up ministration. His 'disposable' armaments were already expended: he had run two more cluster bomb sorties and used his AGM-65G Maverick missiles to put down as much hurt as possible, but what was lethal to light 'mechs was not so effective against Heavy or Assault 'mechs. Damaging, for sure, but not lethal; this was a different world than what he had trained for as a Marine aviator, and he had already learned that air support was not as game-changing on these battlefields as it was in 21st century Terra.

"Merlin, Falcon, going in to start reducing their numbers," Takeshi reported after he had eyes on his first target.

"Falcon, Merlin, execute with caution. Don't risk your fighter any more than necessary, pilot," Meyrin ordered.

Takeshi nosed down for a precision strike on a Stalking Fox heavy support 'mech that he had already busted with two Mavericks and clipped with part of a pattern of cluster munitions, meaning it had been damaged pretty heavily already. It was an oddball 'mech in the enemy unit, a rare quad-leg design engineered specifically as a low-slung silhouette missile boat that boasted more missiles than a Longbow fire support 'mech and less cost or tonnage per unit, and so far as the battle computer in his fighter could tell, it still had eight full salvos of missiles ready to use (or, specifically, 480 LRMs onboard) so he figured this was a good starting point.

Nose down, sights on, let the targeting computer do the dirty work, Takeshi thought to himself. Once he had the sights lined up, he let the computer calculate shot placement, then factored in target lead Kentucky Windage style since he was attacking left-side on against the marching machine, and once he got to an optimum altitude of about 2500 meters AGL, he let loose with everything on his craft (4). First to arrive before he completely led the target for the missiles was his Large Pulse Laser and paired ER Medium Lasers, with the LPL striking the left torso, one ER Medium Laser missed between legs, and the second ERML struck the rear left leg. The missiles were the final insult, two SRM 4 packs and 2 LRM 5 packs on his fighter rained down explosive defiance on the heavy machine, and two of the SRMs found their way into the already heavily damaged left torso and its three tons of LRM ammo as-yet unfired. After the second missile sunk through the breached left torso armor, Takeshi saw the entire left side of the machine frag out in a severe explosion and the pilot ejected automatically due to ammo explosion.

"Damn, I saw that explosion over here, good shot Falcon!" Rapier 3 said.

"Merlin, Falcon, 1 down," he said before a couple lasers lanced forward of his craft, and undoubtedly several missed to his rear that he did not see. Takeshi turned away to the right and made to gain altitude for another run toward the enemy machines below.

-x-

Maranda had popped a few ER Medium Lasers off at the passing aerofighter, but since she wasn't the strike target, firing at a passing aerofighter from the cockpit of a 'mech not designed for ADA work was a chancy business — and she didn't practice air defense enough, she had to admit to herself.

"Damn that annoying fly! For a start-up scratch outfit, their air game is top-notch!" The Lieutenant Captain of C Lance had also popped off a couple lasers at the passing aerofighter, but he missed worse than Maranda had.

"They did pick up some good starter personnel, but it won't matter when we overrun their armor and assist the Infantry in getting inside," Maranda conceded that much on the air situation.

"You won't live that long," a voice answered by radio.

"Who said that?" Maranda asked after she thought she heard it audibly.

"Said what, boss?" the Orion IIN pilot in C Lance asked.

"Oh fuck," Maranda grumped when she realized what a directed radio message meant, likely a laser-relay message not picked up by any other machine in the unit. "AMBUSH!" She barely shouted before her targeting system lit up with contacts in two nearby stands of forest.

The trick was a classic Multimage Commando ambush ploy. Trees tended to confuse sensor systems, so Commandos loved to hide in stands of trees and wait for passing enemy lances to blunder by. This sensor and targeting problem was exasperated by the Magi love of the old XXXG-01D Deathscythe Gundam and its nastier brother XXXG-01D2 Deathscythe Hell, both of which carried the Hyper Jammer stealth system that could blanket several thousand square meters of area with sensor interference that rendered whole Trinaries electronically invisible; when combined with camouflage and terrain, whole formations of Magi Commandos could go unseen as enemy unit after enemy unit passed by their waiting spot.

It was as underhanded as possible for Magi, who were both infamous for being dirty fighters as much as they were famous for being straight-laced field-of-honor combatants. The duality routinely shook their enemies to the core in centuries past, and that reputation held just as true today when Maranda caught sight of the flicker of Gundam eyes in the tree stand she was passing nearby. Maranda put her throttle down to try to clear out of the X spot, but when she turned her torso to look at the tree stand, all she saw was a quick end to this campaign — and not in her favor.

The nearest of the five machines in the stand of trees was a Nu Gundam — not the best machine for ground action, but easily workable for a competent pilot. Maranda took a few moments to pop off a double-burst of 165mm Autocannon from the left arm of her Gargoyle, but didn't stop to check the results — she fired off half of the lasers in her right arm and continued forward to clear the engagement zone. She figured if she rushed their artillery troops, she could try to push through to the base to assist the infantry.

The Gundams did not pursue, they butchered the units behind her. A Summoner M1 also broke the line with a timely jump, and some sundry other machines.

-x-

"Luna! Several machines have broken through the ambush line! Two are coming for you right now!" Meyrin half-shouted after the intelligence picture started clearing up from the ambush.

"Got it! Athrun!"

"Switch to beam rifles, we don't have enough shells to use the cannons now," Athrun dropped aside his 180mm support cannon and pulled the beam rifle out from behind his shield. "Who do we do?"

"Firewatch, Hammer, looks like your friends are a Gargoyle C and a Summoner. The one more dangerous at range is going to be the Summoner, but do not ignore either! That Gargoyle will butcher you in close if you let it!"

"Copy all," Lunamaria said stoically as she braced behind her shield. The enemy 'mechs had to jog between two stands of trees and came into sight at about 2000 meters, well inside beam rifle range. "Got it! Summoner on the right!" Luna said after her targeting system locked onto the machines and identified them by silhouette.

Athrun targeted and snapped off two shots, both hits. Luna fired two more shots herself and clipped the cockpit of the Summoner in so doing. The Summoner kept on going even with the cockpit largely blown open by her shot and the pilot was wounded by her ministrations, but the beam rifle round did not destroy it completely, and Luna was treated to a surprise from the one large missile in the missile pack: a Thunderbolt/20 missile slammed into her machine's exposed left leg and ripped it clean off her machine above the knee and below the hip.

"Luna!" Athrun shouted.

"I'm alive! Keep firing!" Luna propped her machine up and fired two more beams at the oncoming Summoner — two rounds clipped it again, both in the left leg, and Athrun hit the leg again to bring it down. The loss of the left leg caused the omnimech to fall face-first into the ground and this time it stopped, the cockpit clearly stoved in and the pilot was probably smeared along the ground below the torso of the 70-ton Omnimech.

"Got one!" Athrun retargeted his beam rifle on the oncoming Gargoyle and fired two shots at it — both torso hits and one caused a smoking wound in the right torso, but did not stop the enemy machine still charging at him. The autocannon in the left arm of the enemy machine belched defiance, and Athrun took both hits in the shield, easily enough damage to destroy the shield and punch through to the torso behind it, and in this case the engineering of the Gundam's cockpit being high on the chest of the machine saved Athrun's life. His reactor was shut down due to coolant system damage, but he was safe.

"Meyrin, could use some help here!" Lunamaria half-shouted.

"Oscar Whiskey," Luna didn't recognize the voice offhand, but the results she did — and she liked what she saw.

-x-

Takeshi had circled around the battlefield and targeted the leakers, but was pleasantly surprised to see the Gundam pilots had brought down the Summoner before he could drill them in the ass. So, after the Gargoyle knocked down the forward of the two Gundams, he lined up on the back of the Gargoyle and started diving down onto it. The foolhardy pilot pumped a couple extra lasers into the downed Gundam, then turned her autocannon on the legless Gundam but never fired. Takeshi lit off his lasers at 3000 meters to target, and herein the targeting system of the Wasp did wonders for him. The Large Pulse Laser bounced across the center rear armor and cooked through most of the protection there; the two ER Medium lasers found the left rear torso and easily burned into the internal structure behind that armor.

At 2500 meters, Takeshi loosed his missiles and came up off the target, so he never saw the SRMs missed completely (both salvos of four fell short) but the LRMs in his wing roots did not miss, One of the salvos found a hole in the leg armor and blew out a lower leg actuator, but the second salvo flew into the opened hole in the left torso and detonated on the remaining Ultra AC/20 ammunition — 1.2 tons of it detonated and cored out the torso, and though the Clan CASE prevented the damage going inward, the ammunition explosion caused the pilot to eject as an automatic safety measure.

"Falcon, Firewatch Two, good shot, both those strays are down," Takeshi recognized the voice of the MS pilot that came in from the Minerva crew.

"Copy all, we're running short on targets," Takeshi said. "Merlin, Falcon, two friendlies down at marked coordinates, need some recovery," he declared.

"Affirmative, we'll have to recover ad-hoc, we can't run rescue helos over the incoming IFVs," Meyrin pointed out.

"Roger, no threats in the area of downed friendlies, we've punched down 80 percent of his armor and remainder has surrendered," Takeshi reported.

"Merlin, Hammer Lead, confirmed report from Falcon, remaining enemy armor has surrendered. Requesting vector to the rear of the enemy infantry."

"Hammer and Rapier Teams hold on enemy surrendered armor, Saber Team vector south at 1-6-5 to come up behind tangos," Meyrin said. "Here, Neinke, this is how you set routes," and a set of nav lines showed up on everyone's navigation panels.

"I see, thank you milady Meyrin," Neinke said with clear gratitude.

Everyone starts somewhere, Takeshi thought aloud. He had to learn how to program nav points into the Hornet in years past, and this sortie was blessedly short so no nav points were needed, but… "Merlin, Falcon, I am bingo fuel and returning to base. Do you want me to rearm for another sortie or do we have the infantry handled?"

"Falcon, RTB and rearm with precision quarter-ton bombs but do not takeoff unless ordered. Battle Magic will be waiting for you on the ramp," Meyrin said, referring to the Support Mercenaries from Battle Magic that Sigma was leaning on for helo and aerospace armament loading.

-x-

(Same time as above)
(Northern wall of Boarhound, Turret N-6)

"Instructor, have they shown face yet?" Specialist Sniper Ikuno asked as she joined the line nearby Geri's platoon.

"Vehicles moving just outside turret ranges, they have not begun firing yet," DI Geri Vernorse answered the question. "I see some movement of scouts coming south through the buildings, nothing major yet."

"Probing for an approach path," Sango noted. She was using a borrowed G3 rifle from the company arsenal, and out of nervousness pulled and checked her magazine again.

"Likely," the Rail Guard Markswoman flipped down her bipod and set the rifle aside, then pulled out some binoculars and started scanning the area past the edge of the subdivision north of Boarhound. "Eyes on some scout/snipers, looks like the 300 block of the Westview Subdivision, nearby that light blue house."

"Aff, I see them," Geri said. "Brave fuckers as well, they are easily in range to all the weapons on the Calliope Turret except the Medium Lasers."

"Probably counting on being too small and unimportant to be targeted," Cadet Goodwind pointed out. "When do we start doing them?"

"Soon enough, troops," Geri said. "Merlin, DI Vernorse, be advised we have eyes on enemy scouts in the bushes at the northernmost houses, how copy?"

"Vernorse, Merlin, understood," Neinke answered. "If they begin engaging, send them to an early grave."

"Waiting game," Ikuno said.

"Maybe not too long," Geri said. "Look alive! We've got incoming!" Geri shouted after she started seeing more vehicle movement coming their way.

"Our lives are about to become interesting fast," Akira pulled the bolt back on his M240 light machine gun and settled into a firing position. He, like many others on the wall, intended that as soon as the enemy began firing, he would cut loose and try to kill as many of them as needed to break their formation.

-x-

(Same Time as Above)
(Cafeteria, Boarhound Admin Building)

"The odds are definitely not in the favor of the incoming forces," Empress Atrebas said.

"Virtue, tactical overview map of the northern wall," Hess requested. On one of the monitors, Virtue prepared a map including the areas north of the wall and showed the incoming enemy forces.

"Aff, that numbers saturation is wildly against the incoming enemy Infantry, never mind the turrets that have not yet opened up."

"Sides are exchanging fire," Virtue reported as soon as her sensor systems started seeing fire coming in and going out. "Militia forces have opened up."

"Turrets are released to engage targets by priority," Hess ordered. "Merlin, Sigma One, turrets are released to your control."

"Acknowledged," Neinke said. "Virtue, please begin on their armor," the Knight Eloquence ordered.

"Engaging now," Virtue started firing the turret weapons as well as using turrets that were out of position to fire indirect missile salvos against the enemy positions. The northern wall held ten turrets, but Virtue was firing the turrets down the east and west walls as much as a kilometer past the corners to provide extra indirect shots against the enemy.

"Sir, you know how this will end, they are well over five to our one, fighting from fortifications, and supported by automated defenses controlled by a rather merciless AI entity," Retainer Barto said to the Regent. Atrebas had let fly that Virtue had been on the mine controls that had slain two enemy teams and cleaved two more, and though that detracted somewhat from Hess' mystique in the earlier battles, it confirmed that Sigma was far better defended than intelligence had allowed.

"Dragons on the wall," Empress Atrebas commented as the sensor picture showed a large Platinum Dragon peek its head over the wall and discharge a large lightning bolt into one of the enemy APCs. The blast of lightning from the Dragon in question was more than ample to completely cook it.

"And they are using field guns, who would be so antiquated in this day and age?" Helena asked while eyeing Hess suspiciously.

"I am a major proponent of a good 'all of the above' strategy, and the appeal of field guns is hard to argue against for a militia action," Hess said with a smile. "Given the Dargon IPC you are using is off-the-shelf range limited to about a thousand meters max engagement range, a battery of AC/5 guns can do wonders from fighting positions in the base of the turrets," Hess explained his thinking on the matter.

"You are easily the sneakiest amateur I have ever seen in action," Regent Nuone grumped. "I have vanquished multiple that thought they were of your caliber, but to be thoroughly humiliated in these lands!"

"You know how this is going to end, Regent," Hess prompted him. Even as he said it, he could start seeing the red dots of downed Militia and the occasional gray dot of deceased troops in the ranks on the wall. Still, his troops were giving greatly, and a spellcaster in the ranks of the defenders destroyed two IFVs with a Fireball spell that also knocked down a dilapidated house.

"I do," the Regent grumped after the first two Dargon AIPCs were knocked out by mechanical means, one by a battery of AC/10 field guns and another by indirect LRMs from a Calliope IIM Turret.

"Call it off, Regent. This does not have to end with your forces fertilizing my northern fields. You have tried sufficiently that no man would say your effort is unbecoming your ambitions," Hess said calmly. It was the proper appeal to a defeated noble, to give them an honorable out in the face of a superior foe.

"Agreed," the voice of a newcomer to the room said.

"Master Executor Tomoe!" Helena Watters gaped when she recognized the entrant.

"And thus the reason why this plan was fated to fail." Regent Nuone hung his head briefly, then looked up. "Praetorian Star Colonel, on the hip of the felled Major is a radio, would you please pass it to me?"

"Aff," the Star Colonel pulled Major Grant's radio and flipped it to the Regent.

Regent Nuone hesitated for a few moments nevertheless, but still made the proper call. "Dropship Red Blackjack, this is Regent Nuone. All major efforts have collapsed or are in the process of stalling out. We have no options. Issue immediate surrender groups for all surviving forces and stand down the ships to be boarded. Acknowledge my last."

"Sir, order is to surrender all forces and ships, is my readback correct?" the Captain of the Red Blackjack asked for clarification.

"Affirmative, your readback is correct. Issue the orders before more of our men are slain under the foes' superior strategy," Ulysses Nuone ordered.

"Sir? Have you received new intel?"

"I have been defeated completely, Captain, and now must kneel before the Master Executor of Silence, the Will Transcendent, the Empress of the Magi, and the Command Administrator of the Protectorate. There never was a victory possible here, and what remains of our forces are being reduced as we speak."

"Confirmed, orders to surrender are going out as we speak," the Captain said. "God protect us all."

"God does not favor the arrogant and the greedy, and we are guilty of that and more on this day," Regent Nuone admitted candidly, an admission that went out live on ComStar Broadcast.

Hess nodded, staring at the floor somewhere between his feet and those of the Regent, though he tapped his radio switch to issue orders. "Merlin, Sigma One, be aware that enemy command section has ordered the surrender of all subordinate formations. Contingent on cease-fire, all Sigma forces are to stand down as their sectors go inactive and prepare to take prisoners. All captured persons are to be turned over to the Magi for internment as Bondsmen, how copy?"

"Merlin copies all, sir. Orders going out now."

Hess sat up straight and sighed, then checked his tablet for a piece of information. "Combat concluded as of 0925 Boarhound time. Put 'em on safe and let 'em hang, this one is done," he said.

"Seyla!" Will Transcendent Atrebas said loudly, clearly heard throughout the ComStar broadcasting world.

That ComNet echo would send chills down the spines of many parties to come, and more than a few in the here and now just the same.

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

If ever a chapter to haunt my thoughts since I started a story, this was it.

Planning for this chapter started before Covid-19 was a thing, and even that far back I had an idea how I wanted this story section to wrap up. This is the section that truly puts Sigma on the charts as a serious player, as the holovision records of the incident will forever show that the Will Transcendent himself stepped in to prevent ill tidings to a Protectorate, and in turn Sigma will cement that reputation doing duties for the Executors that even the Star Empires would shy away from.

The Star League has yet to chime in on the Duchy as of the end of the chapter, and for good reason. Session was to be called at 1000 hours Star League time, so the various Senators are still filling into chambers as of when Regent Nuone surrendered his forces. The resolution that was initially proposed is now void, but the Star League, in their 'infinite' wisdom, will inflame the situation even more so than they have already raw-dogged the pooch. The opening section of the next chapter will be truly jaw-dropping as to their arrogance and their hubris, and will set the tone for Sigma's continued existence in a way that they will find frustrating to no end.

The combat in this chapter was the product of having done the numbers for the battle results in years past, and then adjusting to the results. You'll see the final tally in the next chapter, and Sigma will not come out of this engagement truly rosy, but they survived and they survived mostly intact. That fact will really show their resilience in months to come, and put them to street cred that many mercenary formations never earn for themselves in any fashion. Capitalizing on it will be a challenge, as Hess pointed out they are not yet an army, so the actual profit to be had will still be constricted for the time being.

The exact direction the story will go after the next chapter is going to be a hard one to gauge. I have several ideas and a lot of hanging threads to play with, and that is deliberate on my part. Many options gives me many directions to go, and I will go in those directions in due time. This story has legs, and those legs go in whatever direction the spider deems necessary. Har har har!

In writing terms, I think the next chapter is going to be JW3, then over to AAA for the next.

That's all for this chapter. NEXT UP: The Star League goes for broke in the Offense Olympics, and gets a very direct reminder of the cost of certain forms of defiance. Sigma quiets down for a day and the unit unwinds for a bender of a party, and during those festivities several persons get a quick lesson in what the future shall hold for themselves and others.

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Review Replies: Three reviews across the last chapter, all three solid points of question and comment. THANK YOU FOR THE FEEDBACK!

Hellhound D.O.W: John Wick is most certainly a possible, and as these things happen, he would be absolute murder on the Slavers. Thanks for the recommendation!

Pridefallen: The Wasp Medium Fighter was designed under Battletech (Aerotech 2) design rules and is completely allowed under standard play rules, even despite it being listed as Clan Custom L3 (there is nothing specifically L3 about the fighter, technically, it would be otherwise legal for tournament play).

NHO: They are the first of many, and Sigma will work with, support, and subcontract thousands of micro-units over the coming centuries of its work.

The Star League wants to believe they have a monopoly on force, but as the next chapter is going to demonstrate, that monopoly is most certainly not in their favor. And the Executors will quickly remind the average reader that they are the most merciless defenders of life and honor ever to walk amongst the stars.

I have toyed with the thoughts of armor suits for Dragons, either as a ground thing (large walking IFVs?) or as a souped-up aerial combatant (this one may be harder to work out, but I don't have any real official designs in any direction.

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The Gripe Sheet:

No errors in the last chapter. Much thanks to Takeshi Yamato for keeping my writing straight, doubly so given the monolithic size of this chapter.

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Footnotes:

(1): Seyla is a Clan term of reverence and agreement. In this use it is equivalent to shouting 'fuck yes' or 'damn straight' in response to something.

(2): Terra-Jumper is an obsolescent term used to describe Navigation Teams for Jumpships and Warships who specialize in using pirate points. The olden-days (prior to the end of the Star Empire Wars) use of the term refers to specialist Jump Navigators who specialized in using the pirate points in the Sol system and especially around Terra.

(3): This is a common issue with missiles, in that the engine of the missile does not continue burning for the entire flight and once it cuts out, there is no visual cue (contrail) to track but the missile is likely still on course and coming toward the target at Mach 3+.

(4): Aerotech 2 range convention: fighter engagements against ground targets are assumed to allow 3x the firing range as a way to compensate for aerial ranges versus BT ground ranges. As I use a convention of 1 hex = 100 meters for my writing (which is still under-ranged compared to IRL weapon systems but is a bit more reasonable than BT 1 hex = 30 meters), the engagement ranges for airstrikes become 1 hex = 300 meters. As the shortest range weapon on the Wasp is paired SRM 4 launchers with a long range of 9 hexes, 2700 meters is the max firing range and Takeshi is not pushing his luck in this case.

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Included Works:

—Real Life Armaments — too many to name, that is most of the arsenal shown.
—Real Life Combat Gear — the vests and gear carried by the Militia troops are easily constructible from stuff you can buy on Amazon or Cheaper Than Dirt. No, Seriously, Look it up. Do a search for "UTG Modular 10-Piece Complete Kit", and you have a good look at a starter kit for any serious gearhound.
—Real Life Concepts
—Real Life Time Period: 1930s New York City (Shown in Chapter 2, referenced in chapter 3)
—Real Life Equipment: The Caterpillar equipment showcased in the chapters is based on real life designs or equipment from said manufacturer.

—Real Life Mythology: The Phoenix race of beings are derived from the mythological Phoenix (Egyptian) and Thunder Bird (Native American). That said, I have made some serious modifications to the whole principle that will be revealed in coming chapters.
—Real Life Mythology: The first of many Valkyrie have joined the blossoming Protectorate. That said, do not confuse the Valkyrie with the term Valkyria — separate work, separate purpose. (Shown in chapter 7)
—Real Life Mythology: The Dryad featured in this chapter (and in a helluva lot more chapters to come) is a derivation of the ancient Greek mythos around Trees and Tree Spirits. Specifically, the Dryads used in this story are akin mostly to the Hamadryad of older mythos.

—Personal Works: The Star Empires are mentioned briefly here. Additionally, the Magi Empire is named specifically.
—Personal Works: The nations of the Jokers Wild are mentioned in Chapter 6. There is a very good reason for that.
—Personal Works: The Star League is a derivation of the Star League from Battletech, but founded by Queen Sora Serenity (Executor-Queen Sora Takenouchi).
—Personal Works: The Executors are specialized Mages who have transcended a minimum of twice (Gods and Goddesses are a minimum Transcendance of once) and are specially commissioned to defend life and honor amongst the Star League territories or member states.
—Personal Works: The 10mm Kurz cartridge is a shortened / lower velocity / lower weight version of the 10mm BG round, developed by the Magi for 'crowd pleasing' against large masses of Negaverse troops, most of which were unarmored during the Star Empire Wars. It quickly became a favored heavy machine gun round for multiple purposes after the fact. (Shown in Chapter 1)
—Personal Works: Gerald Lightbringer is most famous for his participation in my Jokers Wild series, but his history is far stranger than either story properly shows. (Last seen in chapter 5)
—Personal Works: The last section of Chapter 6 makes it clear that the Jokers Wild, Sigma, and Multimage Chronicles are interconnected at multiple levels. This WILL come back to haunt everyone involved, in multiple ways.

—Anime General: the oddball hair colors, especially endemic to nonhumans.
—Anime General and D&D: the nonspecific concept of Elves, Nymphs, and Sylphs.
—Anime Trigun: Vash The Stampede, Millie Thompson, and Meryl Strife took the wrong train, ended up hanging out, and now are tagging along with the Militiamen.
—Anime Gundam SEED Destiny: Mentioned briefly chapters 13 and 14, though more to be seen in Sigma 0003-06 is the presence of Athrun Zala and Meyrin Hawke, as well as a goodly portion of the crew of the Minerva. You can rest assured this is an issue that will echo going forward into the rest of the story. As of Chapter 17, roughly 40% of the ship's crew is in the Protectorate and has joined for the purpose of vengeance, including a rescued Captain Talia Gladys.

—Cartoon Publishing Group: Disney Works in general are mentioned here, but have not made an official showing yet.

—Cartoon: Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers is mentioned in this chapter as well, and due to the show mechanics may not actually make a showing except as a show within a story, but you can rest assured that it will influence things going forward.

—Game: Battletech: You are starting to see some serious discussion of Battletech units and force concepts in this chapter. They will become more prevalent as the story marches on. (Happens off and on.)
—Game: Dungeons and Dragons (First Edition): A lot of the spellcraft will be drawn from D&D as well as other sources to be named.
—Game: Dungeons and Dragons (First Edition): The concept of the Dragons of many colors is drawn from the D&D First Edition
Monster Manual. Some mods were made (the Platinum dragon is not unique, and the Eternal Dragon is a wholly new class).
—Game: Final Fantasy IX: The player cast of the game (Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, Freya, Vivi, Eiko, Red, and Quina) were residing in one of the dining cars, but are now members of Sigma's Basic Training Group.
—Game: Infantry Online (Sony Online Entertainment): The CAW from the early section, and named in the stinger, is a different-manufacturer version of the Kuchler A6 CAW. (Shown in Chapter 1)
—Game: Call Of Duty MW2: The Remington ACR in use in this story is based on the Magpul Masada / Bushmaster ACR / Remington ACR in use in said game. Hey, even if it was pooh-pooed in real life, someone in an alternate dimension would do it right, ne?
—Game: Command And Conquer Renegade: The Infantry Ion Cannon (Portable Ion Cannon) is a personnel weapon from Renegade, and is considered a mainstay amongst the Star Empires. (Seen in Chapter 8, to be seen frequently in the future))

—Game: Dark Cloud and Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 1 and 2 in English): The concept of Chronicle Relics is derived from the Chronicle Sword and Chronicle II from the games. The specifics of these weapons, their purpose and powers, will be quite different from the games but the form factor is roughly the same (though individualized by each relic). (Shown in chapter 15 and will be fleshed out significantly in Chapter 20 and 21)