The small base was a hive of activity, with loaders and troops moving back and forth, loading everything into the refurbished dropship. Pallets of ammunition, rations, and equipment were sequestered away in the hold, next to huge armoured terran vehicles that were swiftly being ratcheted down and secured for the transition.

“Keep it up people, we’re out of here by the end of the week!” Flitter called out, encouraging JSOG and the expeditionary force forward. At the sound of boots behind her, Flitter turned and nodded to Irving Kleese as he approached. “Mister Kleese, how are you?”

“Giddy, I’m looking forward to seeing this world of yours.” The older man smiled genially as he stopped and stood next to her, looking on at the work. “Walter’s on his way, and Jessica is about.”

“Good. Did you talk to everyone? Make sure they’re really okay with this? There may not be a return trip.”

Glancing over at Flitter, Kleese nodded once. “They know. Anyone not serious about this will head home tonight after the ship is packed up. From the sounds of things, most of us will be staying.”

Letting out a gentle sigh of relief, Flitter tried to smile for him. “I would thank you, but I know I’ll sound like a broken record. How’s the new equipment from VLI? I didn’t get much of a chance to look it over.”

“Well.” Kleese shifted slightly, crossing his arms over his chest. “The fighter is almost top of the line, and Roxy has been drooling over it since it came in. The War Armours were a nice touch, and the Hogs are in working order too. We don’t have enough trucks for everybody, but the trucks we do have are well armored and armed. The only issue we have is the tank. The maintenance crew is working hard to try and get the conversion kit in place and replace the gun, but they’ve hit a snag it seems.”

“Even if it doesn't have the main cannon operational, having it running will be better than nothing.” Flitter rubbed at her face as she tried to sort everything in her head. “Your guys all have their arms and armor?”

Grinning ever so slightly, Kleese nodded. “Yes, Ma’am. A few people have brought their personal kit, and Maggie managed to get a flag made up for the unit.” Rocking on his heels, Kleese looked over his shoulder, before patting Flitter’s arm. “There’s somebody you need to meet.”

“Oh?” Turning on her heels to look back the way Kleese had, Flitter spied a small car rolling up into the modest parking lot. “New recruits?”

“Something like that.” Motioning Flitter forward, Kleese started for the parking lot, lifting a hand in greeting to the driver of the new vehicle. Following along out of curiosity, Flitter watched as the car door opened, and a middle-aged woman in a sky blue naval uniform climbed out, propping her weight on a cane. Turning toward them, the woman smiled, and offered them a brief wave, before adjusting her thick long brown hair and the embroidered leather eyepatch that sat under it, over her left eye.

“Captain Milani!” Kleese called out as he trotted over, looking pleased. “I’m glad you could make it, I hope you didn’t have any trouble finding the place.”

“It’s good to see you again, Irving, you’re as dashing as always. And no, I didn’t have any problems, the parking lot full of cars certainly helped. The locals seem to be well aware of your gathering as well.” The woman was just a little shorter than Flitter but far buxomer. She fixed Flitter with her singular eye, looking her up and down slowly as if studying every inch.

Motioning to her with a hand, Kleese quickly initiated introductions. “Augustina, this is Knight-Captain Flitter Falenas of the Joint Special Operations Group, she’s running the show around here. Flitter, this is Captain Augustina Milani, a veteran officer of the UN’s navy.”

Smiling brightly, Flitter took the woman’s soft, smooth hand and shook it politely. “I was starting to sweat, thinking we wouldn’t have a ship captain. Welcome aboard.”

“The Navy is never early, nor late. The Navy arrives exactly when it is needed. I’m glad to be here, Knight Captain, Irving has told me much about the operation. You’ll find my resume is more than adequate for the role you need me to fill.” She cast a look around, observing the work with a detached coolness. “Is... He here?”

It took only a moment for Flitter to clue into which ‘He’ the woman was referring to. “Not currently, unfortunately. We’re expecting him any day now.” Flitter did her best to keep the knife edge of worry out of her voice.

Almost imperceptibly, Augustina’s features fell. “That's a shame, I wanted to see for myself if the rumors were true.” With a wistful sigh, she turned her attention to the ship itself, squaring her shoulders as if it were an opponent in a boxing ring. “Where did you find this relic? A museum?”

“An associate gave it to us in return for saving her life,” Flitter answered briskly, feeling defensive over the honor of the vessel, despite knowing full well it’s shortcomings. “Can you fly it?”

Smiling ever so slightly, Milani nodded. “Oh yes, as easy as breathing. Will it fall apart around my ears?” The woman asked with a faint teasing smile as she leaned on her cane.

“If not from age, then from enemy fire. We’re expecting a shitstorm when we get back home. We’ll be trying to keep her out of their range, which shouldn’t be too hard.” Flitter shifted uncomfortably as her mind slid back into her worries of the coming battle. There was no kidding herself, or anybody else. It’d be bloody.

“Good.” Milani smiled a bit more as she looked over the ship, a glint of excitement shining in her eye. “It’s been far too long since I’ve had a frontline mission. At least you had the forethought to have some guns installed.” Augustina motioned lightly to the small cannons that dotted the ship, recessed into the hull for now. In total, there were six refurbished heavy laser batteries, a trio of factory stock laser CWIS systems, and a pair of bushmaster autocannons that covered the belly, which had just recently been acquired after a particularly interesting mission with Olivia.

Glancing over the aged hull of the ship, which shone in some spots from the recent replacement panels that had been welded on to reinforce the keel, Flitter could only nod slowly in response. “Feel free to get comfortable, we’re skids up by the end of the week, if not sooner. We-” Flitter paused as her omnilink chirruped pleasantly, and Olivia’s contact info displayed itself. “I’m sorry, I need to take this.” At Milani’s understanding nod, Flitter walked away and answered her omnilink. “Mike’s Mortuary, you stab em and we slab em, how can I help you?”

“Flitter, it’s Olivia-”

“I know, the omnilink thingy tells me your name every time-”

“Flitter, please.” Olivia forced herself to breathe as Flitter paused. “I need some assistance on Frostfall colony, anyone you can send. Foxhound is all over the place, and they are making a very focused attempt to kill me before I can make this deal. This is a very time sensitive deal and my guys are hard pressed as it is...”

Letting out a disgruntled sigh, Flitter ran a hand through her shock of hair. “Frostfall… alright, alright. We’ll be there.” Hanging up, Flitter slowly exhaled as she stared at the crisp blue sky. “Captain Milani?”

“Yes?” The Captain smiled faintly, though excitement glinted in her eye again, telling of an eavesdropper.

“How do you feel about a dry run?”

It was difficult, keeping his emotions completely under wraps as he sat not ten meters away from Lemon’s severed head.. As Jack tightened the last of the fasteners on his armor, he flexed the arm and rolled his fingers. The small secondary arms recently mounted under it sprung out on command, ready to reload his weapons when needed. Setting them back into their recesses, Jack quickly began reassembling the armored overlays. He forced himself to keep his features neutral, or risk the chance of detonating prematurely on the Wolf Brigade. The sound of howling wind and rain shook the warehouse as well, as lightning flashed through the high up windows.

The men around him were beginning to scramble, throwing on armor and cocking weapons, but all he could think about was Lemon’s lidless eyes, rolling up to meet his. Squeezing his own eyes shut to dispel the image, Jack scowled as he lifted himself up, and began to go over his armor systems.

“Two Corvellan cruisers pinged in the system with ten landers and five support craft!” One of the overseers called out as they watched the screens spew out data and telemetry.

“Game time people, hustle it up!” Colonel Roh called out across the warehouse. Vehicles manuevered inside the large building, with operatives clambering on top and inside.

Carefully setting the detached arm into his armor socket, Jack ignored the frenzy of activity around him as he reattached the control leads. The heavy pat on his shoulder earned a gentle grunt of annoyance in response.

Mirio was slipping into his armor, while Emanuel passed by Jack. “Ready to go?” He glanced to the darkened windows as thunder shook the building. “What a shitty day for a firefight.”

“Yeah.” Jack rumbled as his armor shuttered open before him. Rolling his massive shoulders, he slipped inside and closed his eyes as the neuro-shunts shot into his exo-plugs. As he reopened them, he found his HUD glittering to life around him, filled with incoming data. “Sammy, clear out all this useless bullshit, it’s giving me a headache.”

“Affirmative.”As the incoming data was shunted out of his visual feed, Samhain spoke again. “What’s the plan?”

“Save people. Everything beyond that is secondary.”

With a hum that seemed almost pleased, Samhain began focusing his feeds on civilian signatures. “I’ve detected JSOG signatures to the north of the city, grouped with what I can assume to be VLI.”

“There’s tags on them?” Jack asked as he set off after Mirio and Emanuel.

“No, however, they are one of the few points where multiple untagged power armor supply sources have been detected by satellites. Nobody else was looking for them.”

“Keep it that way. Spoof the sats and keep our guys safe.”

“Affirmative, Father. I have also ascertained the positioning transponder code for the orbital weapons satellites, as you requested.”

A sly little grin festered on his lips as he stepped up on to the flatbed. “Good. Make it a sendable packet. Find the security codes for them and the launch keys as well.”

“We will need to enter Colonel Roh’s personal datalock.”

The sky above split open with roaring thunder and rushing rain as the convoy left the building, staining Jack’s visor for a moment before the microscrubbers vibrated it clean. “Leave that part to me.” Keying himself back into squad comms, Jack looked to the men riding with him. “This is the big one. Let’s get as many civilians out as possible then send the Corvellans and their lapdogs packing.”

“Ten landers is a hell of a thing,” Mirio noted with a hint of nerves in his voice as he adjusted the feed on his rifle.

“Keep mobile and know your limits.” Jack rumbled as he looked forward to the street ahead. Civilian cars were rushing back and forth as the emergency evacuation sirens blared. Over the din of the thunder and noise of the city, he could make out the public alerts calling for general evacuation at the starport, and to avoid the central park area. “Seems hostiles are setting down in central like the Colonel thought they would. Bringing up satellite imagery.” Jack frowned as it flicked up in the corner of his vision. “Hard to say through the weather, but it looks like they’ve got standard combat spread, landers are coming in staggered by a few dozen meters, real tight formation.”

As he spoke, a cruiser slipped into orbit, it’s bulk sending a dark shadow over the already mottled grey-black clouds above. Flashes of lightning revealed sleek ceramo-metallic armor plates and a dozen capital class plasma lance batteries.

“They’re launching fighters, and the PDF has engaged.” Colonel Roh announced over comms as the first flashes of retaliation sent little motes of fiery light crashing amongst the roiling clouds. The all too near rumble of anti-ship guns served as a beating drum against the raucous crashing of thunder across the city. Automated defense platforms whirred to life somewhere in the colony, spewing vibrant firefly tracers up into the sky like whips, hoping to lash across the hostiles as they flitted between buildings and began their assault.

Without a hint of warning, a brilliant plasma lance lashed out from the edge of the city, cleaving a landing ship’s aft into molten slag. The lander spun on its axis, the pilot struggling to keep it from flopping down violently as defense platforms ran their high caliber tracers across its belly. Any hope the scene may have raised was dashed when the cruisers unleashed their own lance batteries. They reached down into the city like the fingers of a vengeful god, smiting defenders and their weapons where they stood.

As the plasma fire subsided, the Gorsians descended upon the city, while their masters sat just above, circling like hungry birds of prey.

“Incoming,” Jack said as he thumped a fist against the cab of the flatbed truck. Torrential ice rain was pouring down and flooding the roads, causing the convoy of trucks to create waves across the street as they sped toward the central park. Eyes turned upward as Jack spoke, to the Corvellan fighter as it rolled on its axis and lined up its attack run. The fighter’s guns spoke, shattering the pavement and spraying up geysers of boiled water ahead of them before it tilted it’s nose up and shredded the cab, turning the crew inside to spattered steaming offal detonations. The tail end of the barrage struck through the cab and spalled across Jack’s armour, the rain hissing against the heated scuffs.

“Damage minimal, heat diffusion in progress.”

“Put some fire on it!” Somebody yelled over comms as their weapon raked across the nose of the craft, affecting the armored strike fighter as much as the sleeting rain.

“Haven’t changed their design since the war,” Jack noted grimly as his shoulder cannon spooled up. “The nose is armored. The ass isn’t.” As the fighter shot by, armor panels glinting in the rain under returning fire, Jack clenched his jaw just long enough to send a brief half-second burst into the tail of the fighter. The high tech HEAP rounds punched through the thin plating, exploding within the reactor of the craft. It jinked hard on its axis, before plunging into the ground as it lost all power. The small fireball was swiftly smothered by the howling wind and driving rain, the sound of it all lost to the storm.

Dropping off the flatbed as the driverless vehicle careened into a nearby building, Jack rolled his shoulders and waved the other two Nemesis operatives forward. “Convoy, move on without us. We’ll regroup at central, keep us posted.”

“Affirmative!” Colonel Roh yelled over comms, despite being safe in the heavily armored mobile command center. “Move swiftly and with purpose, gentlemen! We’ll see you on the battlefield!”

Waving forward the convoy around the sizzling wreck of the flatbed, Jack took point as the other two operatives took up his flanks. “We’ll exit the industrial zone into the commercial districts, and from there we’ll be close to central.”

“Still lots of civilians around, someone goofed badly on the timeline,” Mirio stated as the group unfurled their jump jets. The twin repulsor engines of Jack’s pack hissed in the rain as he worked the nozzles back and forth in a final spot check.

“Or maybe they’re pissed off and decided to rush in.” Emanuel countered as he steadily fed power into his jets until they were idling fully.

“One way to find out.” Jack set forward with a pulse of his legs, using the jets to control his forward lunge. The other two were quickly on his ass as he ripped down the streets, using his hands to take hard corners as tightly as an F1 racer, his thick tree trunk legs pumping back and forth like a power skater’s. The trio of Nemesis Operatives caused heavy window panes to rattle and shake as they skated past, leaving the industrial district for the bright lights of the commercial zone. Civilians still ran to and fro, trying to exit gridlocked traffic with what little personal belongings they could. Ahead in a nearly flooded intersection stood a beleaguered traffic officer, trying in vain to direct civilian vehicles amidst the sound of crashing thunder, shrill screaming, and echoing gunfire.

“We’re under orders to avoid civilian contacts.” Emanuel reminded the other two as they keyed their jets off and slowed from a skating jog to a trot.

Grunting in annoyance at the statement, Jack started forward toward the scene. “That went out the window when command screwed the pooch all over our timeline. Let em see us, give em some hope.” Passing between gridlocked cars, Jack had to turn sideways to avoid crushing anything but still managed to take out a few side mirrors.

“Stay in your vehicles!” The officer cried out between whistle blasts, the man’s face soaked from the rain. As he turned to yell at the approaching figures, lightning flashed through the sky, illuminating the three 8ft tall goliaths, and their prototype arsenal.

Passing by the officer in his stark white-grey armor, Jack simply nodded, tapping the side of his faceless helmet with two fingers to mimic a salute. “Get them out safe, officer.”

If the officer said anything to them, it was lost in the rain and against the chatter of comms in Jack’s ear. “Central has engaged, hostile forces landing in a split pattern, we’re stretched too thin and the PDF is busy putting out fires! We have shuttles disgorging, they’re pushing around the blockade!”

“Watchdog, Hitman!” Jack barked, gesturing to the two men as the gathering civilians watched in struck awe. “Double time to Central, I’ll run interdiction on the shuttle groups!”

With singular nods and clicks of their comms for copies, the pair engaged their jump jets, bounding over buildings with the assistance of their jump jets. Civilians cried out in shock at the sudden, raw show of power they’d just been witness to.

“Sammy, plot a course to the nearest hot-zone.” Unfurling his jump jets again, Jack sidestepped the gathering civilians and blared his external speakers. “STAND CLEAR!” The moment the course was secured, shimmering up as a high vis’ holographic line, Jack set off. At the launch, his feet shattered the concrete below him, and he took off like a gunshot down the street, setting off car alarms with every agile bootfall. The commercial district turned into a blur, with headlights and neon signs being blitzed by at breakneck speeds. Shortcuts took him through abandoned stores, shattering their exteriors and destroying the interior with a single-minded path. The fighting sounded closer now; the percussive thundering of guns echoed through the buildings around him as rain continued to pour down and lightning flashed above.

Again he found a street clogged with vehicles and civilians, though the cars were now abandoned and the civilians were fleeing toward the starport on foot despite the rain. Tracers arced over cars as Gorsian troopers clashed with the PDF, who were desperately clinging to their position at the intersection. Flexing his legs, Jack tilted his jump jets downward and throttled them hard as he launched, sailing clear over the cars and throngs of fleeing civilians. Target markers sprung up as he reached the top of his arc, and spooled his shoulder cannon.

Lightning struck as he loosed the first burst, the high explosive rounds sawing a pair in half as they tried to find cover from the PDF. Neither squad had the time to register the deaths before he landed, flattening another of the eight under his massive weight. As his shoulder cannon swiveled to its next target, Jack’s new revolver sprung into his hand, which snapped upwards in a single fluid action. The monstrously massive handcannon bellowed a challenge against the thunder, illuminating the street every third of a second as he tracked the muzzle over the remaining Gorsian squad. The huge tungsten tipped sabot penetrator rounds struck hard, slicing through Gorsian armor as cleanly as hot lead through butter, before their densely packed sub munitions detonated deep inside the alien’s soft tissue.

It had taken him two and a half seconds to wipe out the hostile squad, and he was taking too long. “Next zone, plot it,” Jack ordered as he disengaged the wheel of his revolver, and his small secondary arms sprung forward to knock the empty cannon shells free before sliding in a new load. Spinning the cylinder, his secondary hand slapped it closed, resulting in a chiming chirp from the weapon to denote its reload.

“Hostile squad leader still active. It’s a Corvellan.” His HUD illuminated one of the squad that had nearly been blown in half. The alien was attempting to drag itself into a seated position, but failing harshly without the use of its legs.

“They don’t deploy on the ground any more…” Jack muttered softly to nobody in particular. It took all of a second for his curiosity to get the better of him. “Sammy, translate.” Stepping over to the fallen alien, Jack spoke and winced internally as his voice came out in the deeply unpleasant Corvellan tongue. “Why are you here?” As the squad leader began to fade, Jack kneeled down and grabbed him by what passed for a chin for the delicate species. “Why are you trying to start another war?”

The glassy eyes of the Corvellan slowly rolled to look at him, as the xeno’s suit leaked the slug-like mucus that kept them hydrated in oxygen-rich environments. It stared up at Jack with its sharp avian eyes, not breaking the stare as it forced out an answer. “re-...venge… for… o-our… future...” Slumping in Jack’s grasp, the squad leader released the grenade he’d been priming, letting it roll on to the concrete.

As the PDF squad that had gathered around Jack recoiled and yelled for cover, He let out a grunt of annoyance, and crushed the device against the concrete, spilling its guts and turning the electronic fuse to dust. A cluster of tox-darts jingled to the ground as they failed to penetrate his armor; the off-pink darts slowly began to turn the puddles around them into a weak oily brackish color. Plucking a few up, Jack stowed them in his kit and stood tall. “Revenge for their future…” Jack spoke again to himself as rain and wind buffeted against his armor. “Plot the next course, Sammy. Find me another Corvellan.”

“Course plotted. Alert, JSOG and VLI operatives are currently in a standoff with Foxhound soldiers in the Codruxji quarter. Civilians are present and caught in the crossfire.”

Letting out a disgruntled noise, Jack engaged his jump jets and took off like a rocket for the next location. “Always gotta bust my balls… Let's see what the Corvellans have to say, then we’ll pull JSOG out of the fire again. I owe Foxhound a visit anyways.” He almost smiled in anticipation, but it was hard to find humor in the situation he found himself facing.

“Well, this is miserable…” Taven mutter to Flitter as the rain and wind buffeted them in their armor. Nearby Olivia stood under cover, gesturing to the covered flatbed truck and its cargo. Her words to the PDF officer were lost to the wind and thunder, but Flitter could make a good guess to which sales pitch the woman was using. The city hadn’t exactly been hospitable, as Foxhound goons had made two separate attempts on Olivia’s life since Flitter and her crew had arrived with Captain Milani and the ship. The ship had flown, much to Flitter’s pleasure.

“Enjoy it while you can,” Flitter said softly as she cradled her weapon and scanned her surroundings. They were on the edge of the city, but still within an outer civilian quarter. Thanks to the storm, there was naught but defense force soldiers milling around, eyeballing Olivia’s high powered wares. Slowly, Flitter panned her attention over to Olivia’s own security group. “They’re nervous.” Chambers was pacing, and for once, Viktoria was still, which concerned Flitter deeply.

Stretching, Taven let out a grunt of strain. “Makes me wonder if we have more inbound than just some potential mercs. That evacuation warning isn’t good news.”

“Don’t jinx us.” Minerva scolded swiftly as she returned to the group, her armor glazed over with frozen rain.

Sighing gently, Flitter rocked on her heels. Her attention was soon taken by the forms of several civilians observing the trade. “We have shadows. I’m going to check it out.” As she received a limited number of affirmative clicks, Flitter turned her attention to the trio of civilians as they peeked around a corner at the gathered soldiers, mercenaries, and heavy transport trucks. Walking closer, it was clear they saw her approach but didn’t run off. Growing closer, Flitter noted that these civilians had four armed parkas. Sucking in a breath, Flitter realized she was about to make her first contact with another alien species. The thought was exhilarating, and she tried not to let it show in her voice. “Hey, what are you three doing?”

Shifting nervously, the three alien civilians looked to each other, before turning their full attentions to Flitter. Their pure yellow eyes stuck to her like knives, causing a feeling of instinctual nervousness that she was quick to squash down. “We live here. What are you doing?”

The speaker was clearly young, and now looking at them a little closer, Flitter noted that they were all a little short. If they were roughly the same height as humans, then these ones must have been adolescents, teens. “We’re just talking with the PDF. You should go home, the weather’s awful, and there’s an evacuation on.”

“Awful?” There was a curious pause as the teens glanced between each other, sharing smiles and smirks. “It’s just another Thursday. Why aren’t you talking to them at the base?” The young girl questioned, tilting her head slightly as she wrung her four hands together. “Why do you have so many guns for a talk?” It was less a questioning and more an interrogation, though Flitter had no idea what the girl could glean from it.

“Well…” Flitter paused and thought for a moment, wishing that Jack were here to handle it for her. He’d always been better with kids… alien or otherwise. Smiling wistfully at the thought, Flitter turned her faceplate clear and showed her smile to the kids. “There are some pretty unpleasant people out there who want my friend dead. We’re here to keep her safe.”

Thunder shook the ground as lightning cracked the sky, unleashing a whole new level of storm upon the city. The trio looked to the sky as the freezing rain pelted them like needles. “We’ve got the same problem… Maybe we should go-”

Again, thunder cracked, but no lightning followed.

“Shooter shooter shooter! Take cover!”

Moving in front of the trio of kids, Flitter opened her mouth to begin barking orders, just as the colony air raid sirens began their ghostly wail. “Somebody get me a sitrep, what’s going on?” The PDF officer all but shoved a credstick into Olivia’s hands and began gesturing upwards to his men. The cannon on the back of the truck began to rise; the tarpaulin covering it sliding to the ground with a thick sheen of ice following it. The cannon was a powerful, menacing beast made for gunboats, she’d been told. Originally reverse engineered from Corvellan invasion era tech, the plasma lance was a favorite for fast attack craft. With its cold-fusion power source, it could generate plasma shots that were capable of cutting smaller ships in half, and instantly immolate any infantry or ground vehicle in its way.

Following the cannon upwards, Flitter felt her heart drop into her stomach as a massive cruiser slipped over the skyline, it’s bulk sending a dark shadow over the already mottled grey-black clouds above. Flashes of lightning revealed sleek ceramo-metallic armor plates and multiple plasma lance batteries, while fighters and landing craft disgorged from the vessel’s hangar bays.

A larger landing vessel slipped through the clouds, angling toward the ground as it slipped between skyscrapers. A cry of warning went out as the cannon on the back of the truck began to charge, ionizing the rain around it’s quad rail barrel. As the lander swung into the cannons crosshairs, the gunner fired. Vibrant white plasma illuminated the whole block as the shot leapt forward, cleaving the lander’s aft section off with a violent detonation. The lander immediately began rolling, suffering secondary explosions from lashing ground fire before it crashed hard into the city. A cheer went up among those present, but it died almost as quickly as it came up as the cruiser sent a return report.

“SCATTER!” Flitter bellowed as she pushed the civilians down, shielding them with her body as the much larger Corvellan capital class lance carved the street out of existence, instantly detonating the truck and its weapon. The intense heat buffeted Flitter from behind, earning a gasp of pain as it passed partially through her armor.

“Report!” She cried out as the heat subsided. Her eyes searched furtively, trying to see who they’d lost. The PDF soldiers had suffered more than a few casualties due to their closeness to the cannon, but thankfully it seemed that Olivia’s squad, and by extension, JSOG, had all made it out. “Regroup, now!” Flitter called out over comms as a wing of alien fighters whipped by overhead, chased by PDF interceptors. Her unit quickly regrouped, huddled down in cover as the rain poured down and the colony siren continued to wail through the buildings.

“All accounted for,” Taven reported as he scanned the area with his rifle. “Anybody hurt?”

A chorus of negatives returned as Olivia and her group joined them. Taking control of the situation, Flitter called the ship. “Captain Milani, prime the ship, we’re leaving the city.”

The return was fast, but the captain sounded calm and cool. “Good. I just picked up a couple transports from Elysian Fields setting down in the starport. Awful good timing on their part.” The sounds of the busy bridge came in behind Milani’s voice, her matronly face appearing in the vidcom feed.

Shaking her head, Flitter scanned her surroundings. “We’ll start making our way toward you, but it’ll take time we may not have. What’s the likelihood of a hot pickup?” Flitter cursed herself for not saving up to buy a small shuttle, despite the goal being unattainable.

“In this rustbucket? Slim to none. It's too big for most locations, and a prime target for that cruiser. The armor’s good, but not lance battery good.” Turning away momentarily, the captain barked orders to her crew, before settling again. “We’ll be ready and waiting.”

Nodding slowly, Flitter looked to Olivia for her end. The young arms dealer grimaced and shook her head, her features ashen. “My shuttle was just shot down…” The pall that was cast over the others told Flitter immediately there’d been casualties. She prayed silently that the friends she had among Olivia’s team that weren’t present had made it out.

“Affirmative. Listen up!” Flitter called out. “We’re heading to the east edge of the city on foot, three meter spread, diamond formation. I want forward scouts and a rear guard with our VIp in the center. Nobody leaves the ground without my say so, we don’t want any attention from the fliers. You are weapons free, if there’s a threat, kill it.” As a chorus of affirmatives returned, Flitter turned toward the alley the civilians had been in. They had all but vanished, thankfully. Breathing a faint sigh of relief, Flitter motioned her group forward and took a center position. “Somebody get me a drone in the air!”

Picking their way through the city as chaos descended upon it, JSOG swiftly found their progress harried by the invading aliens and Foxhound mercenaries. Fleeing civilians and abandoned vehicles made for slow going, as most roads were grossly clogged, or flooded from the torrential rain being combined with damaged infrastructure. Hostile rounds whipped by overhead as Flitter dove for cover, her HUD marking the shooter’s location. Her relief was only slight when she saw the silhouette of a human firing a machine gun from a concealed position. There must have been at least twenty of them, not much of a worry… Save for her marker reticule refusing to lock on to any of them.

Or it wouldn’t have been, if not for the screams of civilians caught between the crossfire.

“Get those civilians out of the way!” Flitter fired a swift double-tap burst in response to the suppressive fire; her vibrant cerulean bolts blasted away masonry and hab-block steel. More fire began to pour down upon the street, intermixing with the icy rain that pelted down remorselessly. A crack of lightning illuminated the street momentarily as Taven rushed forward, urging the four armed civilians down into cover behind the cars. The Foxhound mercenaries were quick to pin him down, striking several slow civilians.

“They’re targeting the civilians too!” Minerva called out as she deployed the bipod of her tri-barrel, and spooled it up. Her line of bolts tore away at the building, sending molten chunks of stone and steel flying in every direction, only finding purchase on occasion against the hostile soldiers. “I can’t target them, they’ve got some kind of tech!”

“A scrambler! Everyone keep your eyes open for any flanking-!” Flitter’s order was ended before it could finish leaving her lips, as a heavy shot struck her helmet, spinning her on her feet and sending her to the ground.

“Medic! Doctor Hallows!” Olivia called out in alarm, gesturing to Flitter. The doctor started out of cover, before being forced right back into it by suppressive fire.

Shaking her head and pushing herself up off the icy ground, Flitter cursed as her HUD shimmered and shuddered, the electronics of the helmet damaged by a lucky graze. “We’re being flanked!” As she called out, a mercenary peeked around the car before her, his weapon barrel drizzling water in the dark as it leveled with her again. She wouldn’t get another chance.

Using her low squatting position, Flitter sprung forward, using her jumpjets to generate more speed as she plowed into the merc’s chest, knocking him off his feet and pinning the gun between the two of them. Bringing her right arm across hard and fast, Flitter struck the merc across the faceplate, jarring it. In the span of a split second, the blacked out merc rolled with her impact, and kicked upwards, sending Flitter tumbling to the concrete. Rolling fast, Flitter set her flesh and blood hand on her sword hilt, which hummed vibrantly as it ejected from its scabbard, hissing hard against the icy rain. Slashing at the merc, Flitter was rewarded with a chunk of concrete exploding by his head, causing him to duck and dive into cover as her mechanical arm flowered open and her pistol sent powered blasts chasing him.

A swift retort followed from the merc, further scarring her armor as the gauss rounds bounced from the crude angles. Despite the lack of penetration, Flitter felt every hit as if it where a truck slamming into her, imparting all of its kinetic energy into her body and her armor. Going for cover, Flitter tracked the place the merc had dived for cover, hoping to spy any one of his limbs. Her hopes were met, and dashed, when the merc rolled over another section of cover, his camo cloak shimmering and cutting into his silhouette, making him a very hard target in the dark and rain. As the merc rolled, he landed near a huddled bundle of Codruxji, his gun barrel tracking Flitter as he pulled the trigger. As he squeezed, a set of arms grasped on to his, forcing his aim off and causing the shot to go wide of Flitter’s head. A young, familiar Codruxji clung to the mercs armor, eyes wide in fear as his featureless helmet whipped around to glare at her. Wrenching free, the merc sent the civilian flying into a nearby car with the assistance of his exoskeleton, before turning over again to attack Flitter. What he found when he turned, was the JSOG leader barreling down on him, sword point leading the way. The powered blade slid in between his armor plates, earning a sudden gasp of pain from the merc as he was slammed into an abandoned car, and pinned there with a powerblade cooking his innards.

Sticking the muzzle of her pistol under the hem of his helmet, Flitter hardly flinched as she vapourized his skull with the first shot, and didn’t flinch at all the faceplate of his helmet detonated from the second shot. Removing her blade from the dead man’s torso, Flitter rushed to the side of the fallen girl, checking her over for injuries. The rest of the group swiftly joined her, terror written on their features, illuminated by flashing lightning.

Squirming weakly, the Codruxji sat up, holding her side with two hands. Her breathes came in as shallow, labored gasps, telling of a broken rib or two.

“Hey.” Flitter set an armored hand on her shoulder to steady the girl as she prepared a universal painkiller in the other. “What’s your name?”

Trembling slightly, the alien girl managed a weak “M-miw.”

“Well Miw, I’m Knight Captain Falenas. I’m going to get you and the other civilians out of here safely, alright?” Gently pulling back the sleeve of her parka, Flitter gave Miw the shot and turned her faceplate clear. “What you did was very brave.”

“T-thanks... M-my parents… are they okay?”

Looking at the other two youths, Flitter turned her attention to the large group of civilians huddled down in cover. Two, in particular, seemed almost at their wit's end as they watched Flitter tend to Miw, unable to move under the suppressive fire. John Chambers stood by, firing a large bore shotgun down the line of cars at flanking mercs. “I think they’re okay, but we definitely need to move. Do you know how to get to the starport from here?”

“Y-ye-yeah… I do…” Miw squeezed her eyes shut as she sat up straighter, before opening her eyes again to look at Flitter. “You-” The girl paused, panic showing in her bright yellow eyes. “L-look out!” She cried, pointing behind Flitter to the sky.

Jerking around, Flitter found a curse slipping through her lips as an alien shuttle hurtled toward then, spewing flame and smoke as it plowed through the icy rain. “INCOMING!” The call went out only just in time, as the few operatives in it’s path scattered deeper into cover before the shuttle slammed into the pavement, shattering it with the force of the impact. The craft bounced and crashed again, sliding forward, showering the area with sparks and shrapnel as it shoved aside abandoned vehicles, before slowly coming to a stop amidst a pile of shattered pavement and mangled cars. Car alarms blared obnoxiously as the fighting found a lull, all eyes on the alien craft.

Without warning, the craft rocked violently, earning forty weapons being aimed at it simultaneously. Again the craft rocked before the side door was launched free, trailing viscera and a half destroyed Gorsian shocktrooper. The door slid on the ice, grating loudly against the sound of pouring rain and crashing thunder. Seconds later, a thin Corvellan fell from the craft, and began to run away as swiftly as possible, resulting in an awkward, wounded gait.

Muttering, Flitter sighted the ugly alien and slipped her finger into the trigger guard of her weapon. The figure that followed swiftly informed her that a shot was completely unneeded. For a moment, Flitter was taken aback; the new figure stood head and shoulders above the Corvellan, snatching the alien up off its feet as easily as one would pick up a stray shirt. The newcomer was clad in white-grey armor that almost seemed to shine in opposition to the dark storm, and their guns most certainly outweighed anything JSOG had brought to the field.

Murmuring in Russian, Vikki tucked down next to Flitter, her rifle panning between the new target and the Foxhound soldiers, who were currently holding their fire. “must be robot… like Hans…”

“That’s offensive, Vikki. We prefer meat-challenged.” Hans hunkered behind a concrete divider, his combat frame all but completely folded up as he aimed a massive autocannon at the scene.

Any reaction the joke might have earned was dashed as the goliath newcomer finished with the Corvellan, and squashed the alien against the crashed shuttle like a bug. Rolling its massive shoulders, the figure visibly turned its head, scanning everybody present with its unnervingly featureless helmet. It paused over the civilians, seeming to take in the sight, before finally settling its disturbing gaze on the building the Foxhound mercenaries were using for cover.

“That’s a Nemesis soldier!” Olivia hissed over comms, failing to hide her combined terror and excitement. “I’ve been hearing about these guys… nobody knows anything about them, besides that they’re completely unstoppable-!” Without warning, the operative opened fire on the building, lifting a large hand cannon as their shoulder mounted gatling immediately began spraying tight, accurate bursts into the building. A flurry of returning fire spattered, spalled, and sparked off of the Nemesis armor, not doing so much as causing a flinch from the operative. A hive rocket finished the sudden burst of violence, the submunitions slipping through the holes the rotary cannon had made. As the shockwave reached the street, all incoming fire had died in an instant, leaving the area eerily quiet as the dust settled against the rain.

As Flitter slowly rose out of cover, the Nemesis operator holstered the hand cannon on their hip, before jutting a hand out faster than Flitter could blink, catching a cloaked Foxhound assassin by the arm. “Commere, I need a hand.” The voice came out growling and harshly distorted by the external speakers, likely to disguise the voice of the user. The Foxhound soldier kicked and thrashed, trying in vain to escape from the titanium grip. Seemingly unwilling to endure the annoyance, the Nemesis soldier whipped the cloaked soldier’s arm as how one would a towel, tearing his armoured limb from his shoulder socket with contemptuous ease. As seemingly an afterthought, the Nemesis pushed the much smaller man’s head into the side of a car, crumpling the frame of the vehicle and squashing the armoured helmet like a ball of tinfoil.

“Whatever you do…” John started over comms as he ushered several shocked civilians behind himself. “Do not piss it off…”

Pushing fully out of cover, Flitter approached the operative as they picked at the Foxhound merc’s omnilink. “Excuse me?” She started tentatively.

“Just as I thought…” The operative rumbled, before turning their attention to Flitter. A tinge of fear ran through Flitter’s spine as the operative started toward her. “Well, if there’s ever been a silver lining, it’s you.” Mid Sentence the audio filter shut off, and the faceplate blossomed open, revealing Jack’s shaved features. “Howdy, Darlin. I missed you.”

Feeling her heart leap into her throat, Flitter dropped her rifle into its sling and closed the minimal distance between them, leaping into his arms. “JACK!”

Relief washed over his features immediately as he caught the smaller woman, embracing her gently. Her helmet opened up, revealing her own smile. “I’m going to kick your ass.” She said, still maintaining her smile as she pressed her face to his, nuzzling into him despite the pouring ice rain.

“I need it,” Jack replied softly as he rested his forehead against hers. His smile slowly faded as he adjusted his grip, holding her close. “It’s bad, Flitter… I’m stuck in some pretty bad shit right now. We need to talk with Olivia.”

Quickly regaining control of her emotions, Flitter nodded and cast a glance over her shoulder. “She’s still alive. How bad are-” She paused, seeing every single set of eyes in the area, watching Jack hold her up with one hand on her butt. “Mm. Put me down.” Upon being set down, she grabbed his hand. “We’ll finish this later. Come on.” With a quick nod, Jack followed her to Olivia. As they walked, Flitter closed her helmet to hide her blush, and furtive glances back to him. “I missed you.” She murmured softly, unsure if he’d even hear her through the rain.

“I’m sorry I made you wait. I’ll make it up to you, soon. I promise.” The gentle squeeze in her hand could be felt through her plates, but thankfully didn’t damage anything. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

“You got better armor.” She commented with a smile he couldn’t see but was sure he could feel it.

“Not the only thing I got. I’ll show you later. Do you have my knife?”

“Of course I do.” Handing it over without question, Flitter followed Jack as he started for Olivia.

“Taven.” Jack nodded to Taven as he passed, the smaller man shaking his head and relaxing as they walked by. Jack turned his attentions to Olivia, who was quickly walking toward them, barely containing her excitement.

“Hello Mister Kessle! I have-!”

“We don’t have time.” Jack interrupted, bringing up his armored omnilink. “I’m sending you a datapacket, I need you to do everything contained inside the first note.” Quirking a brow, the younger woman lifted up her own omnilink and accepted the package.

“Jack,” Hans spoke, walking closer in his combat form, the heavy robotic frame perforated with hostile rounds. “What is going on?”

“Long story short-” Jack paused and looked around, before looking back to the gathered group. “Blackburn has been waging a shadow war through pirates and shell companies like Foxhound against the Corvellan noble houses in an effort to bring on another war. I’m going to be snagging one last packet of data, but what I have so far is good enough for me. The reason why that is here-” He gestured sharply to the cruiser that was beginning to bank to central park. “Is because a human group sabotaged a Corvellan colony ship, killing the crew and all six million cryo pods. They’re here for revenge. Just so happens, Frostfall is one of the colonies making an argument for human-xeno cooperation. Could just be coincidence, but I’ve learned that there’s rarely such a thing in Blackburn’s company.” He shrugged momentarily as the gravity of the situation settled over the group.

If a robotic body could show anger, Hans would have been trembling if the tone of voice he used was any indication. “I warned you, Jack! I told you that bastard was no good! Now he’s dragged you into it!”

“He has.” Jack idly reloaded his handcannon, spinning the heavy cylinder before snapping it closed and chirped. “But now I’m in a position to stop it.” He looked up sharply, catching the group off guard before he turned his attention to Olivia. “Can you do it?”

“You have top-secret files from the CIA in here… how did you get these?” Olivia asked incredulously, not bothering to look up from her screen as she scrolled. “Full dossiers on me and my crew… a mole? How did you get these!?”

“My devilish charms. Can you do it?” The tone of his voice demanded an answer, now.

Furrowing her brow, Flitter stared up at Jack, before looking to Olivia for clarification. “Do what?”

Shaking her head slowly, Olivia continued to read. “It’s insanity… there’s no way-”

Scowling at the lack of answers, Flitter repeated herself. “What are we doing?”

“I can get you the security keys within a couple hours, one way or another. Can you do it?” Jack continued to stare down at the diminutive arms dealer with the intensity of an apex predator.

“...Yes.” Olivia looked up at Jack, smiling despite the situation. “Yes, we can. Consider it a thank you on our part for giving me these files. The rest should be easy.”

“Good.” Jack’s helmet slammed shut. “I need to go. Got an invasion to stop.” He paused for a moment as the massive twin engine turbines exited his armor and began to spool. “Eighty-sixth is clear of hostiles, it should get you close to the spaceport without any trouble. Use my comm channel if something comes up, I’ll do my best to get there.”

“Jack.” Flitter started, setting a hand over his gargant gauntlets.

Letting his jumpjets fall to low idle, Jack turned and hunched over so as to rest his helmet on top of hers. “Stay safe Darlin. Get the ship packed and ready to go.” He took in a soft breath. “Be ready. I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay.” Flitter set her hand over the side of his helmet, where she wagered his cheek was. “I’ll hold you to that, Cowboy.”

From the tone of his voice, she could tell he was smiling as icy rain poured down over them. “Oorah.” Stepping clear of the pack, he throttled his jumpjets and tensed his legs. “Keep them safe.” The crack of concrete shattering under Jack’s boots as he launched acted as the gunshot signaling his exit, his bulk swiftly vanishing into the dark. The keening roar of his jumpjets soon vanished amidst the falling rain and crashing thunder, leaving the large group behind in stunned silence.

“I would say something about Guardian Angels…” Taven started, hands resting on his hips. “But I think the angel part is pushing it.”

Icy rain ran in thick rivulets down Jack’s faceplate, despite his microscrubbers working overtime to keep his thousands of nanocameras clean. As he ripped through empty streets, the second cruiser entered atmo with a supersonic boom that shook the colony, sending debris raining down on to the lanes below. Plasma lances lashed out across the colony with the fury of six million slain souls, carving into buildings and defense platforms that still cut the sky with lines of tracers.

“The Slugs have fully committed!” Colonel Roh cried out over the radio. “This is it, everyone bunker down, we need to draw the second target into the satellite's line of fire!”

A plasma lance struck hard ahead of Jack, shattering concrete and turning steel molten red from the heat. Men cried out against the thundering rumble of guns, which fought hard against the crashing roar of the storm above, creating an orchestra of chaotic bloody noise. Entering PDF lines, Jack throttled back on his jets, slowing himself to a trot as he scanned for a way through the battle line.

“Second cruiser isn’t lining up! Satellite can’t get a bead! We need to force it over!” The call went out over the radio, next to a map location, showing the satellite's coverage, which missed the ship by several hundred meters. “Repositioning the satellite will take too long, we need to draw the cruiser in!”

As Jack’s eyes fell on the largest tower in the colony, he felt a grim excitement pass over him. “This is Courage-” He announced with unquestionable authority, purposefully using the master comms channel. “I’m going to draw the cruiser toward central park using the Tokyo maneuver.”

“Affirmative!” Roh responded swiftly, before pausing and speaking again. “Clarify, what is the Tokyo maneuver?”

“You’ll know it when it happens.”

Setting forward, Jack started for the ad-hoc command post of the PDF, opening his helmet as he went. Soldiers perked as he strode past, pausing to murmur to each other in excited whispers. Entering the command tent, Jack spoke with a volume he hadn’t anticipated having, especially without yelling. “Who’s in charge here?”

The officers in the tent froze at the sudden boom, all eyes sticking to the goliath as his shaved head grazed the roof, his features unflinching as tracers and plasma fire arced overhead. “Martyrs blood…” A second lieutenant muttered, crossing his chest in reverence.

“In the flesh. Are you the commanding officer?” Jack turned his full attention on to the young man, letting his vibrant emerald eyes drill into him and pin the boy in place.

“T-the General is… Yes sir! I’m the commanding officer here!” The young Lieutenant straightened his back, puffing out his chest to fill his uniform a little better.

“I need all the CX10 demolition charges you have. I’m going to punch a hole through the Gorsian battle lines and draw the attention of the second cruiser.” Eyes widened at the statement, but nobody challenged it in the slightest.

“Yes sir!” The Lieutenant saluted sharply and began barking orders. Word soon returned that left a grim pall over the command tent. “Sir! Martyr, sir! We only have thirty kilos, will that be enough?”

Jack chewed his cheek behind a scowl as he ran the numbers in his head, calling up old memories and intermixing them with new ones. New loads, materials, and explosive potential, versus gravity, weight, and good old physics. “I need eighty. It’ll have to do. What’s your name, Lieutenant?”

“Sam Kessler, sir!”

“Kessler. I like that name. Okay, listen up Kessler, this whole area is going to turn into a shit storm within a few minutes. When I punch a hole through the enemy lines, do not push through it. Anyone who does is committing suicide, so stay put and use the chance to fortify your position. Do you understand?” At Kessler's nod, Jack smiled faintly, patted his shoulder, and marched out of the tent to find his explosives.

Boots clomped loudly behind him, splashing through the icy puddles present behind every footfall Jack placed. “Martyr, sir! What’s your plan, maybe we can help?”

Sighing, Jack glanced at the following officer. Lifting one heavy arm, he pointed at the cruiser. “I am going to beat that ship-” He shifted his finger to the tallest building in the colony. “With that stick.”

“N-Nakatomi Plaza!?” Sam sputtered and deflated as he stared up the bulk of the huge building. After a moment he seemed to stiffen, nodding once. “Okay… there’s… there is a sway stabilizer in the center, if you can take it out, it’ll be too tall to stand for long.” The young officer ran a hand through his short cropped hair as he stared up at the skyscraping building, removing his helmet momentarily to do so.

Immediately rethinking his battle plan, Jack smiled. “Yeah… good call, Sam. Keep your soldiers safe, I’ll take it from here.” His helmet chattered closed, sealing against the driving elements. Collecting the explosives from the runner, Jack tossed the burlap bag over his shoulder as his jumpjets extended once again, hissing against the ice build up on their injection nozzles. Beginning his stride through the combat lines, Jack passed by fighting holes and hastily erected pillboxes, unconcerned with the tracers flying by him. As he reached the front line of sandbags, he rolled his shoulders and let Sammy scan the enemy forces before him. The Gorsian battleline was staggered across the wide street, using effective cover left behind by abandoned cars and damaged buildings. Their lynchpins were the trio of light mechs, and the heavy hover tank that dominated the center.

As if on cue, the Gorsians shifted their fire onto Jack, knowing him to be the far bigger threat.

“All guns, pour the fire on, give the Martyr an opening!” Sam cried out, moments before every available gun opened fire on the Gorsian lines.

Smiling at the unrequested aid, Jack tensed his legs and opened wide on his throttle as he launched, sending a shotgun blast of concrete shards into the vehicle behind him. The distance between the two lines felt so much smaller than it really was as he immediately accelerated to ninety kilometers per hour, guns blazing. His autocannon scythed back and forth, driving infantry to cover and cutting down any that didn’t, while his hand cannon boomed and snarled at snipers and anti-tank teams. The mechs were converging on him, but he had the time advantage. Cutting his jets and folding them into his armor as the tank approached rapidly, Jack threw himself backward, letting his momentum carry him forward across the pavement, leaving a shower of sparks behind him as he slid under the hover tank.

The sudden blast of pressure from the gravity drives would have been enough to immobilize and crush anybody stupid enough to get stuck under them, but hardly felt worse than a rough shove to Jack as he grabbed the first emitter, crushing it and ripping it free from its housing. His pilebunker followed, penetrating the thinner bottom armor of the heavy tank. The driver chattered sharply at Jack as he ripped into the tank, cursing his lineage, before being yanked out of the tank through the very small hole. The remaining gravity drives finished the driver off for Jack as he fired a single high explosive rocket into the tank through the hole, leaving it on a three second timer. Grabbing the skirt of the tank, Jack ripped himself free, trailing gorsian offal as he cleared the blast radius of the tank, leaving it to all but split itself in half as his rocket detonated next to the plasma generator. Through the expanding fireball, Jack launched himself, immediately accelerating to eighty kilometers an hour into the mech squad.

They were designed for anti-infantry work, and while they were newer models, they clearly followed old-school Corvellan design philosophy. They were heavily armored in the front and soft in the rear. Impacting the nose of the first mech, Jack arched his back, and slid over the top, between the two huge gun racks. His free hand grasped armor, crushing enough for a handhold to arrest his forward momentum as he swung in hard, slamming his pilebunker into the back of the mech. The mech spasmed as its driver had a pair of foot-long titanium rods punched through his body as if it were made of paper mache.

Grasping for the controls if the mech, Jack pushed it forward as he forced himself deeper into the cockpit, irreparably damaging the machine. “Sammy, find the gun controls!” Awkwardly lurching forward, the bipedal mech crashed into the one next to it, entangling the pair. The third began to circle them, seeking an angle to strike Jack with its anti-tank lances.

“Controls found.” The console lit up on his HUD through holographic pointers; while the aiming controls were completely incompatible with his hands, the fire toggle was perfectly compatible for a single finger. Jamming the trigger down, Jack unloaded the full gunrack of the mech into the other, alpha striking it at point blank range. The anti-tank plasma lances cut in deep, gouging out great chunks of the enemy mech, and breaching it’s reactor’s containment. The hostile mech immediately began to heat up, the glowing scars on its chassis glowing ever brighter as the mech burst into brilliant plasma fed flames. Ripping out of his stolen mech at the last moment, Jack rolled over backward, barely avoiding a cleaving plasma lance as it cut through the backside of his stolen ride.

“I didn’t forget about you!” Jack called out as he hit the ground and rolled, under the mech’s gun arcs. The pilot immediately began to reposition, attempting to crush him with one of his mech’s legs. As a heavy all-terrain claw foot came down on him, Jack grasped it tightly and braced. The concrete under him shattered as the momentum of the leg was slowed; icy rainwater quickly pouring into the deepening divet. He could feel his muscles struggling to manage the sudden load of several tonnes bearing down on him.

With an animalistic roar, Jack fired his jumpjets, throttling them to full as he pushed all of his power down through his core and legs. Slowly, the mech’s leg began to lift, even as small arms fire bounced off of Jack’s armour, searching for purchase between the plates. His shoulder cannon swiveled immediately, searching out the culprits to send his scathing armour piercing retort back at them. His fingers dug deep into the metal of the mech’s foot as he continued to force his power squat up, and push it past its critical tilt point.

The mech’s engine answered his roar with its own threatening keen, the multi-tonne mech bearing him back into the pavement. Feeling his muscles begin to reach their breaking point, Jack reached in deep to draw up a way out of the deathtrap he found himself in. Pulling his one hand free, Jack slammed his pile bunker high into the leg, aiming for the hydraulic lines. He was rewarded with a high-pressure torrent of alien hydraulic fluid that exploded out of the over-pressured piston, and the leg’s pushing power all but fleeing it. Cackling like mad, Jack pushed himself up, toppling the mech onto its side. Ignoring the aching agony that lanced through his back and legs, he pulled himself over the mech’s legs, plunging his pile bunker into the enemy cockpit. Ripping into the forward armour, Jack tore into the mech as it fired it’s weapons in vain, attempting to swat him off before it was too late.

The pilot got a single burst off before it was too late, and the Corvellan found himself sailing through the air across the street, ripped unceremoniously from his control harness.

Giving his head a shake, Jack settled his gaze on the tallest building in the colony, Nakatomi Plaza. With a little grin, he launched forward, regardless of the infantry in his way.

Moving up the streets, fanned out and with weapons panning before them, Flitter waved JSOG forward as they escorted the ever-growing horde of civilians who had gotten trapped by the fighting. True to his word, the street Jack had told them to take was much clearer than any of the others, but it was hardly safe. Gunfire echoed through the buildings, joined by howling wind and driving rain. If not for her NVG’s, Flitter would have been blind, save for the occasional crack of lightning that illuminated the street before her. The colony’s power grid had been the first target.

As much as she wanted to turn around and follow after Jack, Flitter forged forward, guiding the people behind her. Coming across a large intersection, she held a hand up and motioned for everyone to hunker down.

Slipping forward, Taven peeked around the corners both ways. “Looks clear.”

Holding up a pair of fingers, Flitter sent her two scouts across the street and waited as they slipped past, sweeping across with their backs hunched and their weapons ready. The murmur and sobs of the civilians served as a distraction Flitter forced herself to ignore as the storm raged, and her people put themselves in danger. Once the scouts reached the other side without harm, she lifted her hand again and waved forward the vanguard, who took up position on both sides of the street, using cover to conceal themselves as they set up overwatch.

“Civilians, let’s move!” Flitter hissed through her external speakers, waving the horde forward. Between her small twenty man force, and Olivia’s detail, Flitter had somehow wrangled over a thousand civilians, almost all of which were aliens.

As they crossed the street, she allowed herself a breath of relief at the sight of the Starport in the distance. “Come on, hustle it up.” She waved people forward, before jogging to retake her position at the lead.

“Fast movers, inbound!” Minerva hissed, her weapon spooling up.

“Everybody find cover, Yuma, you’re up.” The huge woman nodded, hefting her shoulder mounted rail cannon and letting the targeting reticule spring up before her. The low keening howl of hostile engines echoed through the buildings, often interrupted by rumbling thunder, but as Flitter paused, she waved Yuma to the north. Rolling across the street, a hostile fighter shrieked into view, with a PDF interceptor in its sights. The interceptor jinked hard through the street, trying desperately to avoid the blazing plasma bolts. Civilians cried out as the bolts began to splash against the concrete, nearing them with deadly intent as the hostile fighter pitched its nose to try and score as many kills as it could.

The electrical discharge of the SMRC had Flitter’s hair standing on end, but the result left her smiling. The solid slug slammed into the wing of the craft, damaging it badly enough to force the craft to bank hard to the left. Normally, the blow would have been an annoyance and a detriment, but in the tight confines of the street, it meant death, as the fighter slammed headlong into a shopping center and sheared itself in half on impact.

“Go, go! Get everyone across!” Flitter waved, urging the civilians to move as the PDF interceptor gave them a wing waggle, before leaping away with a hypersonic shriek. “Good guns, Yuma. Good fuckin guns.”

Pushing forward through the street, Flitter soon found herself looking up on the starport, and the utter chaos that surrounded it. Even here, so far away from the main force, the Corvellans and their Gorsian soldiers continued to harass the PDF and the civilians. They pushed on with a savage, thorough intensity, killing anybody and anything they could. Coming up behind the battle lines, Flitter was quick to spread everyone out, and mark targets.

“Fast and hard, don’t give them a chance to recover. And please-” She ducked back into cover as human projectiles sprayed cross the area. “Try to watch out for blue on blue. Let’s go!”

Hurtling over cover, Flitter’s rifle barrel tracked back and forth, seeking out hostiles within the driving rain. Their forms popped up as mottled orange red blobs, brilliantly opposed to the shades of green the NVG’s turned everything. Her powergun bucked in her shoulder with each trigger pull, each round finding purchase in an enemy combatant. The two centimeter power blasts bowled over shock troopers, opening up their carapace armour with great steaming wounds. Often the round would fail to kill on the first blow, requiring a second and usually a third to kill the downed aliens. In the end, all it felt like was a chore. Pace forward, sight target, squeeze. Track. Squeeze squeeze. Rinse. Repeat.

Flitter pushed ahead, working through her sector with the efficiency of a killing machine.

“Clear, bring the civilians up!” Flitter called through comms as the incoming human fire subsided for the most part. Opening up her external microphone, she turned to the starport defenders, some few hundred meters away. “Friendlies coming up! Hold fire!”

As the horde of civilians passed through the street and rubble, walking by the still steaming corpses of the alien invaders, they began to smile. They’d made it. The starport lay ahead, a shining beacon running on backup generators. The defending PDF was dug in deep with quick deploy pillboxes and reinforced positions, but the number of peeking heat signatures and tracking gun barrels was far less than anybody had anticipated. As they saw the civilians, the PDF waved them forward, opening up the gates to the interior of the port. The battle still raged behind them, and the colony was burning. Even amidst the raging storm, pillars of fire and smoke reached up into the sky; flames licking the clouds above with roaring fury, fueled by the chaos below.

“Excuse me?” A gentle, masculine voice spoke behind Flitter, drawing her attention back toward the starport. An older Codruxji stood there with his wife, and three children; one of which looking very familiar. “Thank you for getting us to safety, we thought we were done for when those Mercenaries wouldn’t let us leave. We tried calling the police, but nobody would answer.” The alien father smiled, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth. “Thank you. On behalf of us all, thank you. I’m glad there are people like you out there among the stars.” With all four hands, he grasped Flitter’s right, and bowed bodily to her, while his family followed suit.

“W-well…” Flitter sputtered, caught off guard by the gesture. “I… suppose you’re welcome. We couldn’t just leave you all there, it wouldn’t have been right. You should go, though. Those ships won’t sit there forever.”

“Yes, of course! Good luck out there-” The man paused, seeming to realize something. “What’s your name?”

Smiling, Flitter turned her faceplate clear. “I’m Knight Captain Flitter Falenas, the others with me are members of the Joint Special Operations Group.”

“Flitter Falenas. May the Martyrs watch over you.”

“One already does,” Flitter replied with a smile and a wink, turning her faceplate back to opaque. “Good luck out there. JSOG!” She twirled a finger over her head and called for the regroup. “On me, let’s go!” As the others quickly regrouped, and the civilians were ushered inside, Flitter cast one last glance to the city below. In the distance, she could see the central park, and all of the death being sent back and forth there. Fires raged well into the dark, promising to burn the image into her mind for the rest of her life. “So this is war…”

The trip to the skyscraper was a fast one for Jack, if only due to his complete disregard for hostiles and obstacles in his way. Having ensured the bag of explosives had survived his tangle with the mechs, Jack abandoned all pretense as he plowed through the front security gate of the building. Finding it abandoned, he swiftly set to work. As he pushed into the building proper, he soon discovered the sway stabilizer, set smack dab in the center of the building, reaching all the way up to the roof through the open center pit. “Fuck me that’s a big rod…” Jack spent a moment staring up at the artistically disguised sway rod, which was a huge overengineered mass of metal, pistons, cables, and other mechanical parts all meant to keep the building as stable as possible in high winds. Shaking his head, he set off. Crashing into the elevator shaft, Jack slammed his fingers into the soft concrete and began to forcefully claw his way upwards, level by level. “Sammy, elevation of the enemy cruiser.”

As she spouted off the number, he began to count floors as he climbed, letting chunks of reinforced concrete fall behind him. Reaching the sixteenth floor, Jack slung the bag forward, and set to work, placing highly conservative amounts of explosive charges on the most important support pillars. Those he deemed unimportant received a plowing haymaker, blasting them to pieces across the floor, dragging ruined rebar out with the shattered forms. He continued upwards, growing closer to the cruiser. At the hundred and thirtieth floor, he found he could see the barest hints of the cruiser’s belly, hundreds of meters away. At the hundred and thirty fifth, he ran out of explosives. “Okay Sammy,-” He took a moment to breath. “Set the charges to master trigger six. Simultaneous detonation for group one through five, and ten second delay on groups six through eight.”

“Affirmative, triggers set. What will you do now?”

“Make some fuckin noise.”

Continuing his climb up through the kilometer and a half tall tower, Jack began using his jets to power up the stairs, passing floor after floor as he demolished stairs and railings on his way to the top. At floor four hundred and two, he burst through the last door, exiting on to the maintenance level. The stairs to the roof were on the other side, but between Jack and them, was the anchor pitons for the sway stabilizer. The stabilizer spread over most of the floor, anchored hard into every structural surface it could be. Maintenance cubicles and workshops circled it, almost treating the engineering miracle as an altar. Without a hint of hesitation, Jack leveled his left arm at the anchor and fired both barrels of the BFG into it. The explosion of energy slagged the anchor, plowing through with brutal efficiency. As the steam and smoke settled, Jack found the anchor still holding on, if only barely. It wouldn’t for long, as he began ripping into it with his hands, tossing slagged steel aside until the whole stabilizer groaned under its own weight, and fell through the floor. The building rumbled as the stabilizer plummeted down four hundred floors, smashing into several balconies on the way down. The whole tower seemed to shudder from the sudden loss of support and began to sway against the storm outside. The gunshot sounds of windows shattering greeted him next to the sudden influx of howling wind. He had a limited window now.

As he started for the roof access, his comms lit up once again. “We’re being pushed back, Courage, what is your ETA!? We need you down here, not playing hero for xenos!” Colonel Roh bellowed into the comms as Jack burst through the door, taking it off its hinges. Four hundred and four floors up, the storm was all but a hurricane, blasting into his bulk like a freight train bent for hell. Ice coated the roof, creating a windswept skating rink of conduit, antennas, and ventilation ducts. Jack’s boots shattered ice as he walked, looking over the edge toward Central park. The first cruiser was smack dab in the center, firing its weapons at defensive emplacements while tiny tracers cut back and forth across the ground. The second cruiser was much closer, and just within Jack’s targeted zone.

Triggering the demolition charges, Jack paced to the other end of the roof as the whole building shook and shuddered violently. Rolling his neck, Jack felt the building start to lean hard to one side. “Yippee ki yay motherfucker.”

The second set of charges detonated as the tower leaned, sending it just past the critical point. The gunshot boom of exploding structural supports and shattering glass fought hard against the howling wind but soon lost as the wind howled harder past Jack’s helmet. The tower began to fall, hard and fast, toward the second cruiser with Jack clinging to the roof and riding it down. With a cry of exhilaration, Jack grinned brightly as the gargantuan building slammed into the cruiser, smashing against its shields and hull. The great vessel sagged from the sudden impact as thousands of tonnes of debris crashed into it, it’s AA batteries shattered before they could target the tiny figure that mounted the hull as the rest of the building fell away, creating a massive cloud of dust.

“Christ alive! Courage, report! What the hell just happened!?” Colonel Roh sounded to be in a panic as he continued. “What are you doing now!?”

“I’m drawing in the cruiser the only way I know how. By pissing them off.” Firing his weapons into the maintenance panels of the ship’s upper plasma lances, Jack made one hell of a show for the crew within, going as far as flipping off the shielded bridge with the sight of destroyed lances burning behind him. As the ship changed course and fighters were recalled to swat him off, Jack destroyed one last lance, before charging off the prow of the ship, into the park. On cue, the cruiser set course to follow him, firing lances down at him. He only survived due to his electronic warfare suit and fancy footwork, which saw him far off from where the gunners thought he would be but still far too close for human comfort.

Blasting through a copse of burning trees, his armor steaming its own paint off, Jack finally spotted friendly lines. The thanatos operatives waved him in as they fired on relentlessly, engaging shock troops in hand to hand combat. Unwilling to stop, Jack pushed on past them, pulling the cruiser into the target zone.

“The cruiser has entered the target zone, fire the device and launch the rods.”

Sudden realization passed through Jack’s brain like a bolt of lightning. “Belay the order, friendlies are still inside the blast zone!” Suddenly, a wave of magical energy erupted from near the command center, washing over the entire battlefield. The spell crackled over Jack’s armor, struggling to beat the titanium within; the edges of the magic warped around him, taking on the appearance of torn ethereal fabric. Rain froze mid-air, and everything seemed to slow to a crawl as the spell continued to wash over the area. “Lemons…”

“Rods have launched.” The voice in his ear announced with a sort of dispassionate tone that formed a little ball of dread in his guts. Jack’s eyes turned skyward, catching the glint of superheated tungsten, passing through the atmosphere at mach 25 and headed right for him.

“Jack, get the hell out of there!” Mirio called out over squad comms. “What the hell did they just hit us with!? I can barely move!”

“Fucking lunatics!” Emanuel spat into the channel, his weapon still firing in slow motion over his vid-feed. “Pull back to point Oscar! We’re too deep inside the kill zone!”

Giving his jets everything he could, Jack rocketed for the edge of the park, tearing wide swathes of shimmering fabric like a knife through the savage spell field. He had almost reached the safe zone before the first of six weaponized telephone poles slammed into the ground, ending the spell through sheer brute force. The shockwave blew Jack clear off the ground, the very earth below him roiling and heaving like raging water rapids from the brutal strike. The second blast struck Jack hard in the chest as he tumbled, driving the air from his lungs as the rod plunged through the heart of the first cruiser. The concussive detonation of the vessel proved to only add to the cacophony of earth-shattering strikes. Smashing hard into the ground, Jack tucked himself into a ball and covered his head as the world turned dark, soil stone and steel burying him alive.

It felt like eons, waiting for the shockwaves to subside, each one striking him like a sledgehammer across his whole body through the soil encasing him. His lungs ached for air they couldn’t hold, as each kinetic rod drove the precious O2 back out prematurely. Finally, his comms activated once more.

“Rods one through six expended, all hostiles in the AO have been terminated, but several landers remain outside killzone. Satellite three on standby.” There was a pause. “Experimental device spent.”

With a groan, Jack began to dig himself out, using his internal flight instruments to tell up from down. Within a few moments, big gauntlets grabbed his own, and his two squadmates pulled him free from the hole.

Panting heavily, Mirio sat down with a rough clank, letting his spent rifle fall across his lap. Emanuel just continued to shake his head, unable to take in what had just happened. Brushing himself off, Jack found that most of his paint had been cooked off, leaving behind a shining heat treated silver luster on his armor, and bright white ceramics. All that remained of the markings on his armor was the stenciled ‘COURAGE’ across his armored gorget.

“He tried to kill us… Six rods… only needed one...” Mirio muttered softly as he gazed out at the impact zone.

Casting his gaze toward the same place, Jack found himself taken aback by the damage dealt to the planet. Massive craters reached down dozens of meters, while jagged spires of heated rock jutted up from the edges of the lake-sized pits. The colony beyond was now a wasteland ruin of shattered concrete and fires growing wild, where the dying storm refused to touch. “There’s something I need to do.” Jack slowly pulled himself up, shaking off the dirt, willing his pain to follow suit. “There’s something going on and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

“What do you mean?” Emanuel turned, fixing Jack with eyes that wanted to glare, but couldn’t. Not anymore.

“I cracked some Corvellan datalinks, and a few omnilinks belonging to Foxhound mercs.” Jack started as he walked toward the command center, his mild regenerative abilities seeing to his wounds. “I just need one last piece.” He suddenly found himself stopped, not by force, but by a single hand, resting on his forearm.

Mirio looked up at him, his helmet disengaged. The youthful Togata’s scalp was split open, but his blood was already coagulating. His face was exhausted, but not just from combat. “We’re a team, Jack. You can trust us.”

Letting his shoulders settle, Jack set a hand over Mirio’s. “I know, and I do. I just… need one last piece of intel before I jump to conclusions. When I get it, you guys will be the first I tell.”

“What’s the last piece? We’ll help you get it.” Emanuel brought his weapon up, cradling it in his huge arms.

“Colonel Roh’s omnilink. I suspect he and the Wolfpack are starting this war on Blackburn’s behalf.”

The sudden silent pall that fell over the other two men struck like a hammer. “That’s one hell of an accusation, Jack…” Emanuel murmured, his weapon sagging in his arms, following suit with his body.

“That’s why I need to be sure. I am sure, but I need more for others to be sure.” His gaze went back to the wasteland he found himself within. “People need to know, if it’s true.”

Pushing himself up, Mirio hopped to his feet and brought his weapon up to rest the barrel against his shoulder. “Oorah, let’s do it.”

With a small grin, Jack re-engaged his helmet and started for the command center. As he walked, the other two started to speak. “So, that little stunt you pulled?”

“The Tokyo maneuver.”

“The fuckin Tokyo maneuver…” Mirio laughed, and it sounded as if he truly felt it. “That was fucking brilliant.”

Emanuel grinned weakly as he took up Jack’s other side. “What was it… Yippee ki yay, motherfucker? Where is that even from?”

Waving it off as they spied the mobile command center, Jack turned his head to Emanuel. “You’re too young to get it, ask me when you're older.”

“There’s the grumpy old man!”

Smirking to himself, Jack rolled his neck as he neared the mobile command center. Stepping before him, a heavily armed Thanatos operator lifted a hand. “You’re not authorized-” The man grunted in surprise as Jack grabbed him by his armored collar, and tossed him across the building.

“Authorize this.” Pulling the door open, Jack pushed inside, warping the door frame as he forced his way in. Turning in place, Colonel Roh scowled at the sight.

“What do you think you’re doing, Courage?”

“Sammy, brute force it, I’ll distract him.” Pushing forward, Jack grabbed Roh by the arm and pulled him closer. “I think I’m questioning you, Roh. On why you just tried to bury us.” Jack growled at the Colonel as data began to roll across his feed from Roh’s omnilink. The keycodes and triggers for the orbital satellite were among the first files to be sent off, straight for Olivia.

“It’s war! You are assaulting an officer-”

“I haven’t assaulted you yet, Colonel. Bear in mind you’re a hundred and seventy pounds, and I can throw a keg full of concrete half a kilometer. You’ll know when I assault you. Now answer the question. Why’d you try and kill us?”

Pushing his chin up to glare daggers at Jack’s faceplate, Roh’s features bristled with the fury of a pack alpha. “I was ordered to do whatever it takes to win, and we won.” Finally, the data Jack was looking for slid onto his HUD.

“Just like how you nuked CCS 12092 six months ago, killing six million Corvellans and kicking off a war.” Jack slid the compiled documentation across to his squad mates, who bristled and pushed inside out of anger, wrecking the entrance and causing some of the support staff to pull away in panic. Watching the confidence bleed from Roh’s features was almost satisfying. “You ordered Foxhound to keep the Codruxji penned in and kill any who tried to escape. You paid them to kill Terran citizens. You paid them with Taxpayer dollars funneled from CIA slush funds.”

“Those xenos scum aren’t human, they’re not citizens! Ernest was right when he warned me you might sympathize with those disgusting beasts, and I was right to try and bury you for your lack of commitment!” Roh’s spittle spattered against Jack’s faceplate, only to be cleaned away by the microscrubbers. “Humanity must remain strong in the face of the alien menace, and that means cutting out the cancer!” Roh grunted as Jack pulled him out of the command center, and wrapped a goliath hand around his chest, grasping muscle and clothes. “Put me down you xeno loving bastard, or I’ll have my men take you down!”

“It’s called having humanity, Roh. Not exactly something I expected you to have after what you’ve been doing to Lemons.” Jack exited the mobile command center, and found himself facing a wall of guns from the remaining Thanatos operators.

“Put down the Colonel!” Someone barked, aiming a rifle for Jack’s face.

The Colonel’s confidence seemed to return, but Jack’s words seemingly left him confused, and still utterly furious. “Who the hell is Lemons!?”

“A friend.” Reeling back, Jack hurled the Colonel out of the building, and across Central Park like a stone across a lake. The soldiers before him remained as they were out of shock, several heads following their leader as his cry of terror faded into the silence of the wasteland. “Alright, Wolf Brigade. Fetch.”

The dozen Thanatos Operators all returned their gaze to Jack, weapons raising in anticipation. Beside him, Emanuel and Mirio readied their own weapons, pointing just as many guns back at the Wolf Brigade. Then, without warning, Jack’s armor froze in place.

“Father, the kill-switch has been activated. Should I engage our backdoor?” Mirio and Emanuel’s weapons slowly lowered as they looked to Jack.

“No. Not yet. Send The Plan to Mirio and Emanuel.” Jack spoke softly as his vidcomm channel opened up, revealing Blackburn’s severe features.

“All of you, stand down. Anyone who doesn’t will be disposed of.” As the Wolf Brigade reluctantly lowered their own weapons, Jack got comfortable. Within moments, a sleek black frigate came to hover before the building, above the ragged wasteland. “I’m so disappointed in you, Jack.”

Slipping the atmosphere of Frostfall colony was a simple enough task for Olivia’s shuttle, though the same couldn’t be said for the no-frills drop-cruiser that roared behind it, using boosters to brute force it’s way up through the continent-spanning stormcell. As they pushed past the harsh pull of the planet, Flitter swung herself into the bridge and watched as the void greeted them with cold indifference. “I’ll never get used to this,” Flitter spoke with a small smile as she floated in zero gravity next to Captain Milani.

“I’m more preferable to re-entry, but I can see the appeal.” The one-eyed matronly woman smiled in return, almost teasing in tone. “Now, let’s see what these coordinates hold.”

As Milani brought the ship in, following the small shuttle, one of the bridge crew called out. “Evacuation ships have made the jump safely! No losses!” A small cheer went up among the crew, bringing a skile to Flitter’s lips

“Coming up on the target location now, eight minutes out-” The report was cut short as six flashes appeared on the viewscreen, and six telephone pole sized rods where shot at the planet. Silence fell over the bridge as Flitter floated in to get a better view.

“What just happened?”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Milani could only shake her head. “Someone just used kinetic bombardment on the planet. Weapons of mass destruction.”

Letting her eyes follow the little glowing dots as they slipped through the storm cell, Flitter felt a chill run down her spine as six massive holes were suddenly punched in the cloud layer, visible even from space. Shaking her head, she focused on the target location. “Okay. Let’s focus on our objective, we’ve overstayed our welcome.”

Minutes later, the drop cruiser came to a slow stop, facing a trio of large satellites. Olivia’s shuttle sat closer, and Flitter could just barely make out the sight of her crew disembarking in sealed suits. “That’s our cue.” Exiting the bridge, Flitter kicked off a bulkhead and let her wings curl, helping her navigate zero gravity. “Aurora, suit up, we’re heading out.”

“Affirmative Cap’n!”

Minutes later, Flitter was gently cruising through zero gravity, sealed inside her power armor and letting her repulsor jets guide her in. Olivia’s team had approached one of the satellites, and were currently doing something to it. What they were doing, she couldn’t tell.

“Privyet!” Vikki called out to the pair as they floated in. “How was flight?”

“Bumpy, but enjoyable.” Flitter engaged her boot magnets, clamping on to the hull of the satellite. “What are we doing?”

“We-” Olivia started as she floated nearby. “-Are cutting into the maintenance override panel so we can manually insert the override codes Kessle just sent up.” Nearby, Nate and John were busy using a vacuum torch to peel off the armored plates of the heavy military satellite.

“Okay…” Flitter let her eyes wander up and down the craft, taking in the sight. The satellite was twenty-five meters long, and eighteen meters in diameter with a pair of solar panel wings stretching out a dozen meters each. At the bottom, a trio of barrel coils penetrated the armor, exposed to the void. “So… what can you tell me about this thing? Why did Jack want it?”

“If you weren’t paying attention earlier, it can sling a telephone pole sized projectile at re-entry speeds with pinpoint accuracy. The impact is close to a thermonuclear bomb, but lacks the area denial. Has a ferrous core so they can utilize the coil launchers built into the satellite’s frame, but these set-ups aren’t meant to be reloaded. They’re stealthed set-and-forget jobs, meant to enter a rapidly decaying orbit after expending payload. Helps cover up the fact you just used WMD’s. Well, besides the crater.” Olivia cleared her throat over comms as the maintenance panel began to float off into the abyss. “I assume he wants one because he needs a lot of things to be very dead.”

Nodding once, Flitter motioned Aurora over to aid in the work. “Captain Milani, bring the ship in. We’ve got some last minute cargo.”

Jack was offloaded from the sleek black frigate, strapped to a heavy loader and still encased within his armor. Blackburn waited ahead with a deep frown stamped into his face. “Take Mister Kessle to conference room three, and do not remove his armor. Mister Togata and Mister Alvarez are to be stripped of their equipment and placed under guard in their barracks until I find the depth of their betrayal.”

Led away at gunpoint, the two other men soon left Jack’s company, leaving him and Blackburn side by side, as an intern pushed the hover-dolly down the hall. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, Jack?” When no response came, Blackburn shook his head. “Colonel Roh was one of my best men.”

“Sir!” A suited member ran up, omnilink active. “One of the weaponized satellites has been stolen from Frostfall orbit, they used Colonel Roh’s security codes!”

With a deep sigh, Blackburn shot a sidelong glare at Jack. “Very stupid. Call the ATF and the FBI. You know what? Tell Homeland Security as well. It’s the xeno mercenary group in Yellowstone.” As they walked, Blackburn paused, before smiling grimly. “Inform them that the leader has something I want. I want her alive.” As the aid nodded and scampered off, Ernest cast a long, glowering look at Jack. “It’s your fault that this is happening, you know?”

Entering the conference room, Jack held in his grunt of annoyance as the technician set the hover dolly down roughly, jarring him awkwardly. Inside his helmet, Jack muttered silently. “Come on guys… I know you can do it…”

“We were on the cusp of greatness, you know. You could have been something great, Jack.”

Closing his eyes, Jack exhaled, and said a silent prayer for luck. He’d need it.

“Hey, something's up with the TV…”

As everyone in the mess hall looked, the news channel flickered again, before being taken over by the slowly spinning Elysian Fields logo. For a moment, the logo began to fade, before glitching and freezing as a chibi Jack Kessle appeared. The chibi grinned, cackling like an imp before it vanished as a helmet cam view appeared.

The view was of Ernest Blackburn, the Hero of Earth, and owner of the Elysian Fields Media Conglomerate. If the banner above the broadcast was to be believed, the video was being sent across the entirety of human space, live and unfiltered.

Pausing in her work, Flitter leaned against her armour and watched the broadcast as it began.

Jack smiled grimly as his internal comms activated. The faces of his squadmembers appeared before him, thanks to the efforts of Samhain.

“Jack, it’s Mirio. We broke into Blackburn’s office, and plugged in that dongle. It’s all up to you now.” Mirio cast a glance toward the door of the office. “Had to take out some Tiny’s on the way out.”

Aside Mirio, Emanuel stood, grinning slightly. “We’ll head to the armory and wait for you.” The big latino hefted a large pipe over his shoulder. “Hope to hell this plan of yours works, or we’re all taking space walks.”

“Yeah, without the suits.” Mirio chimed in mildly.

“Thanks, boys. Get somewhere safe, and enjoy the show.” Jack cracked his neck inside his armor as Blackburn glared at him.

“Well, Jack? Do you have anything to say for yourself? You’ve set back my plans by months, if not years, and for what? Some aliens? Have you forgotten what they did to us? To you, and your family?” Blackburn paced before Jack, using a near pleading tone as he spoke.

“No.” Jack rumbled. “I saved those people because it was the right thing to do, Blackburn.”

“The right thing to do!? The right thing to do is to bury them all in an unmarked grave! The Codruxji are nothing but a parasite, feeding off of weaker humans.” The pleading tone slipped away as easily as a mask, revealing the true emotion of pure rage.

“Is that why you had the Wolf Brigade nuke that Corvellan Colony Ship? Why you paid Foxhound Mercenaries to pen in Codruxji when they came looking for revenge?” Jack didn’t bother keeping the anger out of his own voice, letting it fuel the direction of the argument.

“Is that was this is about? Jack! I’ve ordered the deaths of billions of those Slug bastards! Who gives a shit about some backwater colony ship?” Ernest shook his head as he paced, his fingers prying at a metal cigarette tin. “Jack fucking Kessle… This whole ‘Martyr’ thing has gone right to your head! You think any of those scum will care about you prostrating yourself before them? That they’ll pay you back?” Ernest yanked a cigarette from the tin, but chose to jab it at Jack instead of sticking between his lips.

“Dammit Ernest, why?!” Jack yelled. “They came looking for revenge, and we lost a damn colony because of it! We were doing this to save lives, not sacrifice them!” His voice boomed through the conference room, but earned no reaction, save for a scowl, from Blackburn.

“A colony of sympathizers! I’ll kill a trillion sympathizers before I let humanity die!” Blackburn screamed in Jack’s face, his eyes filled with fury. “You never understood the real cost of being a hero, you were nothing but a pawn!” He began lighting the thin cigarette, only to be interrupted by Jack.

“You’re starting another war!”

“Of course I am! I thought that much was clear!” Toggling the opacity on the glass-steel window, Ernest swept a hand toward Earth as it came into view. “Humanity has forgotten its past! We are not some second class species like the council thinks, we’re the most terrifying predators this galaxy has ever seen! Our empire could span thousands of stars, and yet the UN is pleased with nothing more than a few dozen backwaters and a handful of dry asteroid belts! Cheap change in return for the billions we lost when the Slugs came charging through us! Well, I’m going to change that, Jack! I’m starting a war, yeah, and I’m doing it to awaken the sleeping giant. Like the Japanese with Pearl Harbor, but unlike them, I know exactly what I’m doing!” Blackburn paced forward, and jabbed the lit cigarette into Jack’s concealed face. “I know exactly what I’m doing, and nothing can stop me.”

“How many worlds have you burned trying to wake us up?” Jack growled softly at Blackburn through his locked armor.

With a grim purse of his lips, Blackburn turned away, and walked slowly to the window port. “Enough. They called me a terrorist when I retaliated against the Corvellans. A terrorist. The UN had us demilitarized to appease the Council, so I bought up all the mercenary companies I could. Wolf Pack, Foxhound, Focus Fire, Blackwater, the names go on. They tried to neuter our intelligence agencies, so I placed moles in the CIA, UNIB, the ATF, Homeland, and the TSB, to feed me intel so I’d know exactly where to strike. I continued my research into humanity’s immortality, and I was snubbed for it. Given sanctions. We were stuck.” He slowly turned, glancing over his shoulder at Jack. “And then you came back from the dead.”

“You needed me back.” Jack interrupted, rolling his eyes at the theatrics. “Humanity needs a hero, I remember you saying. You never wanted a hero, you wanted propaganda pieces. Is that why you had Roh try to kill us on Frostfall? We started looking past the narrative. We started acting like humans, not pawns.”

“You’re too rebellious for your own good.” Ernest nearly spat venom as he spoke. “You’ve served your purpose, and as always, dealt damage to the cause. Humanity’s cause.” Turning fully, Ernest opened a slim black case and produced a long needle. “You were always more useful dead, than alive. It won’t hurt, I wager. We’ll make a broadcast proclaiming that Jack Kessle, the Martyr, Pillar of courage, has died on Frostfall, trying in vain to save civilians. As before, your death with serve humanity more than your life ever did.”

“Do you feel like a hero, Ernest?” Jack questioned as someone began pounding against the conference room door.

“Of course I do, Jack. I’m a patriot. I’ve given everything for humanity, and I will continue to do so until they recognize me as what I am.” Blackburn’s eyes flicked to the door momentarily, before returning to Jack. Slowly, Jack began to chuckle, before breaking into a laugh. Sighing, Blackburn rolled his eyes as he aligned the needle with an emergency port. “Try to contain your insanity and die a quiet death for once.”

The pounding at the door grew more frantic and forceful. “You think you’re a hero? After all you’ve done?” Jack laughed harder. “I almost want to stick around and see what people really think of you after this.”

As Blackburn scowled, the door was finally forced open, and a Thanatos operative pushed his head inside. “SIR! YOU’RE BROADCASTING EVERYTHING!”

Watching the color drain from Blackburn’s features, Jack ordered the killswitch to be disengaged. In one fluid motion, he unsheathed his knife, and beheaded the operative with a single swipe. As the malign noise of the snickersnack echoed through the room, Jack lunged forward, grabbing hold of Blackburn’s hands. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Ernest.” Jack rolled his shoulders as he stepped off the dolly, snapping the tie down straps like shoestrings. “It’s what real heroes look like. The people willing to risk everything to help defend those in need, with no gain for themselves. The people willing to stand next to a complete stranger in their time of need. We’re at our best when we’re helping each other. You’ve been sacrificing others for so long that you’ve forgotten that.” The sounds of pounding boots and combat calls echoed through the halls, swiftly approaching the conference room. Picking Ernest up off his feet, Jack turned so that the older man was between him and the door. His magical kbar warped and twisted, becoming a blade more fitting for a fight in such tight quarters.

“You’re a traitor to the whole damn human race, Jack Kessle!” Blackburn gripped Jack’s offending hand, but no matter how he pulled or pried, he couldn’t break the iron grip. “Those xenos you brought to our homeworld are capable of so much it’s mind boggling! You’ve been building an army for them! You think you have any right to criticize me, with all you’ve done?” Blackburn glared hard at Jack as Thanatos soldiers poured into the room, aiming weapons at Jack. “Do you think humanity will forgive you for what you’re planning on doing?”

“I’ll let them decide for themselves. In the end, we’re both still only human. The problem is, you seem to have forgotten that.”

Lifting his left arm to the viewport, Jack fired his BFG into the wall, blasting a molten hot hole through the structure. Immediately, the room depressurized, sucking the unsecured Thanatos soldiers out into space. Disengaging his boot magnets, Jack floated out on the rush of venting O2, before the room sealed itself off. Once free from the shadow of the station, Jack oriented himself toward earth, and gave Blackburn a gentle push toward it. The older man thrashed and roared silently as spacial vacuum pulled at his skin, freezing his eyes and boiling his blood. Looking away from the brutal spectacle, Jack turned his gaze toward Earth, and allowed himself to float there for a moment.

“Sammy?”

“Yes Father?”

“Are we still broadcasting?” Jack allowed himself to relax for a moment, floating freely in zero gravity.

“Yes.”

Nodding slowly, Jack cleared his throat.

Across human territory, everybody who could be was glued to their screens, watching the spectacle of the decade unfold live before their eyes.

“Lookit me now pa, I’m on tv…” The weak mutter drew people in closer, before Jack blew air into his helmet. “This is… Jack Kessle. Many of you know me as one of the eight Martyrs, Pillar of Courage. I know what just happened was a lot to take in, but I’ve ensured that all of the evidence has been released across every Elysian Field website and beyond, making it available to everybody. It includes all of the operations I’ve taken part in, and everything I’ve done. What you all make of it, will be up to you and you alone.”

Across the galaxy, people watched with bated breath, idle amusement, horror, irritation, and boredom. On earth, Flitter leaned against the weaponized satellite, watching the broadcast with JSOG.

After a moment, he continued. “Ernest Blackburn had plans for humanity. Plans that would have lead to more war, death, and suffering, but plans that a lot of people might believe to be the right ones nonetheless. Some of you might think that I’m the one who’s correct, but… the reality of it all isn’t so cut and dry. Blackburn had the right idea, in uniting all of humanity to meet the stars as one, but…” Jack sighed gently. “We can’t afford to close ourselves off, to block out our allies and lash at our enemies without hesitation or thought. At the same time, we can’t just open our arms wide and hope for the best. The galaxy is a cruel place, and we’ve got to be tough, if not for ourselves, then for each other. We need a balance… a certain level of… Harmony. We don’t need to resort to cruelties and inhumanity to survive, and humanity doesn’t need to be fully human. If I’ve learned anything in my time away, it’s that some of the most unexpected beings will be the most human. They’re heroes, courageous fighters, gentle souls, and… steadfast loved ones. Turning them away solely based on their appearance or beliefs would be a disservice to them, and ourselves. I know I don’t want to face the galaxy without them by my side.” Lifting his head, Jack smiled as the sun crested past the earth, bathing the void around him in solar radiation. “Now, more than ever, we need to come together. We need to stand as one against the dark, or we'll be doomed to fall one by one.” There was a long pause, the view lingering over the Earth. A stray coil gun shot glanced off of his armour, treating the galactic audience to a shower of sparks and fireflies as Jack began to move to avoid incoming fire. “Love each other and be kind, but never be afraid to stand up for yourself, and fight those who would do harm unto you and others. Semper Fidelis. Jack Kessle out.”

The transmission cut back to the usual programming as the Pillar of Courage jetted through zipping fields of projectiles, his silver-white armor glinting against the sun while he engaged the Thanatos operators and regrouped with his teammates. Across the Republic of Humanity, people were broken free from the spell the transmission had cast, and life continued on.

“Little ironic, don’t you think?” A heavily armed agent commented as the feed went back to normal, and the shuttle bay was bathed in red again. “He says, ‘let's be friends’ while we’re riding down on some mean mothers with WMD’s. What do you think, Agent Danners?”

With her eyes still stuck to her omnilink, Marley could feel a deep, dark pit having opened up in her stomach. Everything had been released, everything. Including the documents she’d leaked, and her involvement with Blackburn and Elysian Fields. She’d been involved in espionage, and treason. She was damned, doomed, and it was all just a matter of time until it all caught up with her.

“Hey, Earth to Special Agent Danners!”

Letting her eyes flick up to the group of CIA agents, Marley forced a shrug for their benefit. “Not sure if it’d be irony. How are we sitting?”

A light chuckle came from the operation leader as the shuttle banked. “We’re a few minutes out still- hey, what the hell?”

“Unknown shuttle, change course immediately! This zone is currently within active ATF operations!”

Scrunching her features, Marley craned her neck to see the feeds of the pilot as a laugh and a murmur went up around the crew of CIA beatsticks. As she watched, several other groups cropped up, claiming jurisdiction of the target zone. The operation was falling apart before it would have a chance to begin, all because Ernest had been too eager to take this group down. Shaking her head, Marley settled, and waited for the shuttle to roll in. She could only hope it wouldn’t turn into another Waco.

“CAPTAAAIN!”

Flitter was rudely ripped from her conversation with Olivia over her omnilink as Minerva came running across the tarmac toward the ship. “Minerva, what’s wrong?”

“LOOK!” Gesturing to the sky, Flitter followed the finger, and swiftly felt her stomach drop out. On the horizon was a fleet of shuttles, approaching fast.

“Shit. All hands, batten down the hatches and secure the payload! We’ve got company!” Glancing down at the Omnilink, Flitter grinned. “Looks like we’ve got to cut this short. It’s been… quite the adventure. I hope we can have more soon.”

“Take care of my guy!” Olivia called back, pouting. “And… good luck.” She smiled faintly, settling back against Chambers.

“We’ll need it. Take care of yourself.” Ending the call, Flitter engaged her helmet, and patted Hans’ metal thigh. “Showtime.”

“I guess this is goodbye.” Jack murmured softly as he and his teammates finished loading munitions and experimental equipment into a pair of drop pods. His own orbital insertion shield sat nearby.

Nodding, Emanuel sealed up the second pod and thumped his closed fist against it. “Should be everything you need to win a war.”

Chuckling softly, Jack walked to regroup with them. “Ain’t no fancy toy that’s gonna win a war.”

“Don’t ruin the moment trying to be profound.” Mirio chided, crossing his arms over his scarred and pitted chest plate. “I’m still torn on going with you, Cowboy. Sounds like a hell of a fight you’ve got before you.”

Shaking his head as the evacuation alarm continued to blarr overhead, Jack paused to cast a look toward the Earth. “No… They’ll need you guys more than I will. You got family here too, and there’s probably no coming back from this.”

“Hey.” Emanuel set a hand down on Jack’s shoulder. “You’re family too, amigo. We didn’t go through all that shit together to not be.”

“That’s right. You always will be family. If you ever find yourself back on good old Earth, give us a call.” Mirio affirmed with a light smile. “Shit’s gonna be a mess for a little while, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. You sure about what you’re doing?”

Nodding once, Jack’s eyes flicked to the station feed that Samhain had rerouted to his helmet. “I’ve never been so sure in my life. I know you guys can handle the situation here.” Chuckling softly, he shook his head and smiled at the pair. “Alright, I need to get going, the UN ships have arrived. Can’t be here when they dock, otherwise I’ll miss my date with fate.” Quickly embracing the pair, Jack didn’t bother squeezing their armor. “Stay out of fuckin trouble, y’hear?”

Moving to the edge of the room and setting his gauntleted hand over the bay door switch, Emanuel grinned into his vid feed. “Never in a million years, Courage.” The alarm claxon wailed loudly as the switch was thrown, and the bay door opened, venting the atmosphere within the bay. Disengaging his boot magnets, Jack used his jets to aid him in pushing the two large drop pods outside the station. Once in position, he activated the targeting systems, and fired the pods down at the earth. As the pair of canisters shot down toward the planet, Jack slid his boots into the shackles of the reentry shield, letting it orient him properly as it to began its descent.

“Target landing zone is contested,” Samhain spoke in his ear, bringing up the view of the airstrip. JSOG’s ship was surrounded by various agencies, each of which making their own demands.

“Shitfire… I was hoping I’d have more time… Sammy, are they broadcasting on open channels?”

“Yes father, but they are also using encrypted channels as well. It seems there is some confusion as to who is supposed to be leading their operation.”

“Use Blackburn’s command override and tell them to hold fire.” He shifted in his shield as a corona of fire erupted off it. Screaming toward the ground at re-entry speed, he forced his heart to settle. He’d done it a million times. Just, never with this much on the line.

“Are you sure that will be enough?”

“No, but it’ll buy us a few seconds, play into the chaos.” A pleased feeling swept through him as the ground came racing up toward him, his orbital insertion shield already breaking apart. “Showtime.”

Tucked into the bay of the ship, Flitter flicked from target to target with her rifle. They were on comms, demanding that JSOG and the First Expeditionary Force surrender their weapons, but it seemed that each separate group wanted the arrest for themselves, and it was buying JSOG a few seconds of time. Another round of demands went out, and an armored truck began to roll closer with armed men pacing behind it with weapons raised and shields present.

“Hold fire…” Flitter held her hand up to the others, but didn’t take her aim off the vehicle. “We don’t want a firefight, just yet…”

“Do you hear that? Sounds like-!”

The distant whistling sound swiftly became a supersonic screech, followed by a concussive boom as a pair of drop pods stuck the tarmac between them and the armored truck, causing the truck to swerve and skid to a stop as the ground below it lurched in protest. The sound of roaring jumpjets followed the concussive bang, and the third projectile landed directly on the hood of the truck. Under the sudden surge of weight, the vehicle’s front axle snapped, and the engine block was smashed into the tarmac below, while the ass end of the armored truck lifted entirely off the ground in a single motion

Stepping off the crumpled vehicle as airbags went off in the faces of the crew, Jack immediately started for the ship, grasping the large containers with one hand each.

“Someone get out there and give him a hand, those look-” Flitter quieted as he pulled both drop pods from their impact zones, and began to drag them quickly toward the ship. The drop pods trailed tarmac and sparks, but didn’t seem to slow him down at all. “heavy… Jack! Great timing!”

All but shoving the two pods into the cargo bay, Jack nodded once to her. “Start the engines, I’ll be back in thirty seconds.” Setting off immediately, Jack ran off, vanishing from sight into the forest.

“Aw hell…” Flitter activated the comms. “Captain Milani, get our engines primed! Aurora, is the net ready?”

“Yes ma’am!” The tech rattled up in her armour, trailing wires and several magical devices. “It’s ready and set, all I need is your go ahead!”

“I’m seeing launchers!” Minerva called out. “We can’t be here when they go off!”

“Hurry up, jack…”

Sprinting through the trees, Jack slid to a stop as he spied the crude marker he’d made all those months ago, sticking out from the ground. Plunging his hands into the hardpacked earth, he shoveled aside great clumps of soil, until a heavy metal box was revealed. Yanking the box out of the ground, he pulled the lid right off, and set his eyes upon Delta King, the five megaton thermonuclear bunker buster he’d been dragging all over hell’s half acre. “I sure as shit didn’t miss you, King.” Securing the nuke in his armour, Jack stood.

“Freeze!” The sound of weapons being aimed at him may have been surprising, if he hadn’t had the entire team pinged from the moment he’d landed. “CIA, put down the device.”

Standing at his full height, Jack disengaged his helmet, allowing it to chatter open. Weapons flagged slightly, and his piercing emerald eyes sought out a single target. “Hey Marley.”

Aiming her sidearm at the gargantuan martyr, Special Agent Marley Danners fought to keep her composure. “You’re under arrest.” While she should have been moving to try and secure him with restraints, her legs refused to listen.

“I’m really not.” Striding toward the woman, Jack gently set his hand over her pistol, and guided it toward the ground. “Why are you here, Marley?”

Staring up into his eyes, Marley slowly closed her own, and let her head loll downwards. “I don’t know anymore… Blackburn, he’d… told me what we were doing was the right thing, but…”

“Now you’re in too deep.” Jack sighed, and brought her chin up so as to have her look at him. “Call the Deputy Director. Come clean.”

“I can’t.” Marley protested as fear filled her eyes. “I-It’s… It’s treason.” Her previous objective was all but forgotten in the face of him, though her comrades certainly hadn’t forgotten. The only thing keeping them from closing in, was Jack, barely a foot away from their field agent.

“You can still make it right.” He turned away, starting to walk despite the multiple weapons being pointed at him. “You got one shot, Marley. You can take me in, or you can make that call.”

Watching Jack start to jog off, Marley exhaled slowly, and made the call on her omnilink. Filtering out the questions of the team around her, she focused on the ringing on the other end. Jack had set off, back into the forest. She had no hope of catching him now, but she doubted she’d ever really had the chance in the first place.

“What’s the situation down there?” The deputy director’s face appeared on her HUD, filling her with dread from the deep glare she received.

“Sir.” Marley started, struggling with her words. “About the leaks-”

The Deputy Director cut her off almost immediately. “I know. Once you’re off the ground you’ll be in custody. I expected better from you-” The deputy director himself was suddenly cut off as another number joined the call, brute forcing its way in. Marley nearly jumped out of her skin when Jack’s face appeared.

“Nice to meet you, Deputy Director. I wish we’d had a chance to meet in person, but I need to inform you of a few things.”

Deputy Director Summers stared slack-jawed at the screen for a brief moment, before gathering his wits and pushing his glasses up. “Mister Kessle. It seems we have you to thank for the biggest data leak in the history of mankind. You uncovered a lot of worms. A small aside to the biggest scandal ever known.”

“I’m a shit disturber, it’s in my blood. I’m calling about Special Agent Danners.” Jack pushed aside an ATF agent who attempted to take him into custody, like how someone would push aside an annoying child. “This all wouldn’t have been possible without the intel she shared with me, risking her own life in the process.” Marley felt her brain grind to a halt as he spoke. “While the records may not cover it, she’s not a double agent. She’s my triple, and has been from the beginning. That being said, go easy on her. The poor girl’s having a heart attack.” Winking at her over the call, Jack entered the ship. “I have to go now, try not to mess the place up while I’m gone.” Suddenly, a shot rang out, bouncing off his helmet. “Welp, that’s kicked off!”

The storm of gunfire started up, rattling back and forth as Jack struck the ramp button, closing off the firing port. “Get us off the ground!” Glancing to his call, Jack chuckled. “It’s not a successful adventure until the ATF shoots at you.” The call ended, leaving the pair of CIA agents stunned into silence.

“About time, that wasn’t even close to thirty seconds!” Flitter chided Jack as she dropped her rifle barrel. “AURORA! HIT IT!”

“We’ve got launches!” Minerva cried out as the engines within the ship whined, causing the large craft to shudder. “INCOMING!”

“THIS IS IT, HANG ON TO SOMETHING!”

The anti-ship rockets leapt free from the shuttle gunships as they hovered nearby, streaking across the treetops and over the tarmac. As they closed with the old dropship, the vessel’s engines flared, but it did not move from it’s landed place. Instead, a great golden sheen spread across its hull. The vessel seemed to shimmer and sway as the magical teleportation talismans were supercharged by the fusion reactor. Daisy chained together, the talismans activated in tandem, whisking the ship away at the last possible moment. The stray missiles went wild as their target vanished from reality, smashing into trees and pavement.

JSOG was long gone, but their actions would be felt for decades more.

“Did uh… Did it work?”

The question hung in the air for the two hundred people aboard the vessel as they stood in the dark, waiting for the lights to come back on. The sound of battle had all but been cut off mid verse, leaving an eerie quiet that hung stillborn in the air. Glancing to his HUD, Jack noted the complete lack of outside signals. All that remained was the ship’s command unit, and the linked signals of every living human on the ship.

“We’re here.” He announced as he began walking for the cockpit through the groaning gantries and between the gently swaying drop pods. Flitter quickly joined him, and the pair soon found themselves staring out the central viewscreen at a thick copse of nearly pastel coloured trees in the middle of the night. The bridge was abuzz with activity, with the new Captain at the head of it all.

“Eta on reactor reignition?” Milani sat in the captain’s chair, rising above the others with the pulpit style command station. Beside her rested her cane, which jostled and bounced with every thumping step Jack took closer.

A woman wearing rolled up coveralls and a white tank top called out as she worked away at a panel. “Now, Captain.” On cue, the lights came flickering back on, earning a soft pleased cheer from the crew aboard. The woman bowed theatrically, smiling as she crossed her arms.

Nodding once at the technician, Milani began cycling through her screens as they booted up. “Good… Now, would somebody mind telling me where we are?” The dark forest outside gave no obvious clues, except to the pair standing behind Milani.

“Planet named Equus.” Jack answered, startling the older woman, earning a surprised gasp from her as he stared out the view screen. “Trees… we’re on the ground, clearly... We’re going to pop open the back and take a look around, be ready to kick it for orbit if we get spotted. If we’re spotted, we could be overrun before we’re ready.”

Smiling a little, Flitter spoke next. “Prop up the comms mast. Don’t send out any signals though, just yet. We need to get an idea as to how bad things are.

“Y-yes, yes of course!” The woman all but beamed, craning her neck to get a look at Jack as he turned away and started for the cargo ramp. Shaking her head, Flitter followed after Jack, being forced to pick her pace up to a quick trot to keep up with his long strides.

“Walter!” Jack called out, earning more than just Walter’s attention. A great many of the soldiers who had followed him in stood straighter, whispering amongst each other as they stared in awe.

“Welcome back, old man.” Walter smiled brightly as Jack walked up. “Where have you been hiding?” Despite speaking casually, Walter’s back was rigid, his chest puffed out.

“Been working. Open the ramp, let’s get a look at what we’re dealing with. Jack cast a glance at Flitter, but she was already ordering her troops. The sight brought a soft grin to his lips, before he was jabbed in the ribs by Hans.

Ignoring Jack as he smacked Hans, Flitter gestured to her gathered squads. “I need two fliers for recon, and I need fast drones to assist! Taven, Cobalt, you’re up! Aurora, hop to it!” The trio of affirmatives quickly answered Flitter as the rest of the troops in the massive cargo bay got prepared. “The rest of you, fan out and form a perimeter, nothing is taking us off guard, Do I make myself clear?”

“Oorah!”

As the cargo bay door groaned and slowly opened, trailing dirt displaced from another universe, the two recon fliers took off with their drone escorts. The smell of pine trees and the summer forest wafted in thickly, but was corrupted by the stench of smoke and death. Taven and Cobalt flew off into the night, vanishing into the pitch black skies like ghosts. Flicking on his night vision, Jack strode out of the bay, scanning around. The forest was definitely familiar, he’d seen these sort of trees around Canterlot while training the original JSOG. The memory earned a tinge of pain in his mind, but soon a little voice returned to him as well.

Welcome back, Jack. I hope you’re ready for this.

“Good news.” Taven spoke over comms, cutting off Jack before he could mutter at himself. “We’re a little over a kilometer from Canterlot, and we’re not too late.”

“What’s the bad news?” Flitter asked as she walked out with Jack, headed for the edge of the forest.

“...Keep walking for two hundred meters, northwest.” The unusual tone in Taven’s voice caused the pair to pick up the pace a little.

Looking between at each other, Jack and Flitter jogged off for the marked location, and swiftly arrived. “Oh.” Jack started as he let his arms hang limp by his sides.

“Yeah… yeah, that’s pretty bad.” Flitter murmured as the rest of the group followed along behind them. A ripple of mixed murmurs, gasps, and curses went up among the group.

Roughly a kilometer before them was the valley leading to Canterlot, though instead of rolling green hills and pastel pleasantry, the valley had descended into hell. A massive golden magical shell sat upon Canterlot, casting an eerie glow down upon the trenches that zigzagged across the base of the mountain, but did little to combat the flickering lights of fires spread across the entire valley, illuminating hundreds of thousands of bodies. Millions. The valley was choked with camps and bodies, beyond anything any of them had ever seen. Dozens of airship lights floated across the sky at various altitudes, occasionally firing booming salvos at the city, testing the shield. Across the ground, stitching tracers arced through the night, their weapon reports echoing through the air like a deadly melody. Artillery fired into the night, adding percussion to the chaotic rhythm.

Canterlot was under siege, and had been for some time.

“Welcome to Equestria, ladies and gents.” Jack turned, having seen enough. “Kleese, you’re in charge of the ground deployment. I want fast form pillboxes, trenches, and razor wire set up in staggered positions under the tree line. Make sure we get a pair of Calliope's set up for CWIS ops. Defense in depth, I want three separate combat lines and overlapping kill zones.”

Nodding in agreement, Kleese turned and began barking orders. “Let's get those Hogs out, we trained for this people, let’s not disappoint now! Maggie, start the tank!”

Grinning, Jessica dove into the work, calling out. “Come on bitches, we got a world to save!”

Author's Notes:

I'm pretty certain I didn't forget anything. Goodbye Earth, I did almost everything I wanted to do on you.

Anyways, say goodbye to the Earth Arc, and hello to The War For Equestria.