ExSol Book 01, Ch. 02

A warm ocean breeze ruffled the umbrella Vesper was stretched out under, carrying the scent of salt and rust. She let herself enjoy the sun and the atmosphere for just a moment. She took a sip of her fruity alcoholic drink, reveling in the tiny buzz she was building. She'd been strong-armed into attending this party in a pseudo-political capacity, but for just this moment, she let herself forget about her plans and goals.

"Vesper. Babe. She just showed up. Come with me, I'll introduce you," Julie reached over and excitedly shook Vesper by the shoulder, making her slop her drink all over her wrist. Vesper stared at the spilled alcohol and mourned just a little. Now it would never be in her bloodstream.

"Okay, okay..." Vesper acquiesced, rising to her feet. Vesper looked gorgeous. A tasteful, purple-accented two piece swimsuit that she'd tucked into like a pro. Cute floppy sunhat. Long, freshly flat-ironed black hair. New nails, purple again, done with shimmering acrylic.

Julie was a short, blocky butch woman who still kind of dressed like the welder she'd once been before she'd been elected to the Scavver Union's council of representatives. Vesper didn't hold that against her. She liked Julie well enough. She'd agreed to attend this party as her date even though they weren't dating. Not for Julie's lack of trying, of course. Still, she couldn't help but feel like Julie should be treating her like a princess right now and instead she felt like Julie's employee.

... she technically was Julie's employee.

She followed the shorter woman through the party. She got several lingering looks from the attendees that were definitely for her and not Julie.

See. They appreciate me. I bet I could fuck anybody in the room if I really wanted to. Hrmph.

The problem was, she'd find some reason to keep them at arm's length somehow. She always did. She was doing it with Julie right now, after all.

"Lumi! You made it!" Julie cheerfully greeted the handsome woman she'd dragged Vesper here to meet. Lumi was another member of the board, but she was one who played politics a lot better than Julie did. She had connections and pull that Julie didn't. She turned to face Julie with a politician's smile and a short blonde bob that betrayed nothing. Vesper was immediately a tad wary of her.

"Nice to see you," Lumi shook her hand, showing nothing but respect. Her eyes flickered towards Vesper. "Julie... please don't tell me you brought a 'professional' date to this party.

Rage flared in Vesper's chest. It was quickly replaced by a bit of flattery. Finally, she settled on being offended. She scowled at Lumi.

"Huh? Oh!! No, Vesper's my date and she's a contractor of mine, but I'm not, like, fucking her. You know." Julie blurted out, clearly misinterpreting what Lumi had meant by 'professional.'

Yeah, well, I'm definitely not fucking you after that.

Vesper covered her face in embarrassment. Lumi cocked an eyebrow at the two of them.

"Julie, if you could keep the colourful language to yourself, please," Lumi murmured darkly.

"Right. Sorry. Got a bit of an eel tongue, you know, heh." Julie didn't even sound that embarrassed. "Anyway, I wanted to introduce you to Vesper. She's got a contract proposal for us that I'm presenting next week."

"I thought you said she was already a contractor?" Lumi asked.

Vesper stepped forward, unable to let Julie continue speaking for her. "I am contracted as a Deluge communications tech, yes. But I'm a programmer and I design predictive algorithmsç for the Autonomous Networks. I have some models I think the Scavvers Union would benefit from if I could develop them." Vesper extended her hand, and Lumi shook it politely.

"Well, save the pitch for the committee. The Scavvers Union doesn't do backroom deals at parties, we do it at council meetings," Lumi replied.

That was an absolute lie. She'd just been turned down. Lumi skillfully disengaged from the two of them and drifted away, leaving her standing there with Julie.

"Weird." Julie said. "Not sure what's going on with her."

Vesper sighed. She looked over at the shorter woman.

Maybe I should sleep with her. It'd be an excuse to leave.

Vesper contemplated that for a while. It was a bad idea. She was depressed. She had work in the morning. She wasn't even all that attracted to Julie. Julie was basically her boss and she was actually trying to help her get this new job. She went towards the bar to get another drink. It was an open bar, at least.

"I hate these parties..." A man sat next to Vesper with a groan as he started flagging down the bartender.

Vesper clenched her fist around her glass. A straight man hitting on her was the absolute last thing she wanted today. He might be important, though. She couldn't tell him to heck off. She resisted the urge with every fiber of her being.

"I'm just here as Councillor Julie's date," she said, hoping to deflect the flirting before it began.

"Ye. Saw ya," he replied nonchalantly.

Vesper looked over at the guy and realized that she actually knew him. Tetron was a Mech pilot and the team leader of the Scavver Union's mech squadron. He was the closest thing that the Scavver Union had to a military leader.

"Why come then?" she asked him. "You don't have to beg for favors to get your contracts seen by the council."

"Heh. Glad fer that." Tetron chuckled. "Nah. I gotta 'vince the brass that Ashen Surf is a problem. They ain't listenin."

"Ashen Surf? The pirates? I thought they didn't even have a single Mech." Vesper asked.

"Ye. Not s'posed ta. Got some strange reports though. A team saw some weird Mech out there with 'em. Better to take it seriously, y'know." Tetron shook his head and downed a shot.

"... Sounds like you need a Deluge drone pilot to do some reconnaissance," Vesper offered.

This is such an absurd long shot. No way.

Tetron downed another shot silently, then looked over at her critically. "And ye've got Deluge, I take it?"

"I do," Vesper replied confidently.

"And yer lookin to get outta the comm office, huh?" he asked.

Vesper bristled at how easily he'd guessed it. "I hate it there. I feel like a piece of the machinery. It's humiliating. It's degrading." She spoke with fire. More fire than she'd really meant to. Tetron just nodded like she'd told him the time.

"Mm. What's yer name?" he asked.

"Vesper. Vesper Tesfaye," she replied quickly.

"You gonna sleep wit m'wife, Vesper?"

"... No?" She blinked in confusion. If that was some kind of pick-up line, she didn't get it.

I haven't already slept with his wife, have I? No, I don't think so.

"'Kay. Well. Our normal Deluge operator's on vacation, and our backup is sleeping with my wife. So, I'll get ya in." Tetron pounded back another shot, wrote Vesper's name in his hand terminal, and wobbled off.

Vesper watched him go, still a little dumbstruck. She'd been trying to get out of the comm office for years. And now all it had taken was talking to some drunk guy at a party.

Maybe this is why straight women do it.

"Oh maaannnn. Tetron looks awful. I hope his wife isn't cheating on him again." Julie said, walking up to Vesper and watching Tetron leave.

Vesper leaned down and gave the stout, clueless woman a hug. "Thanks for inviting me, Julie."

***

The knock at the door was soft and unimposing, it was a knock meant to check to see if Nina was awake, rather than one to awaken her. Nina was sleeping, technically, but she was expecting this knock, and sleeping lightly enough in that moment that her eyes opened and she sat up.

"Who's?" she asked drearily, rubbing her eyes.

"Carrina," she called softly through the door. She entered after Nina grunted her approval. The ghost of a scowl temporarily replaced her look of concern when she saw Nina was topless but it faded almost too quickly for Nina to notice. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Nina grumbled, still a bit sleepy. She let her breasts remain uncovered for a few moments, almost as a challenge. As far as she was concerned, until her breasts were fully grown she didn't need to cover them unless she wanted to. After a sufficiently long awkward silence, she relented and picked up the blanket to cover herself.

"Why'd you ignore our messages? You know your contract." Nina being covered, Carrina clearly felt empowered enough to come forward and sit on the edge of the bed.

"Went to go see Robin. Terminal went kaput. Battery. Wasn't thinkin' that Sam'd shred his mirror over nothin'. Why'd you even tell him?" Nina muttered sullenly.

"Nina, I fired the railgun to save you. You know Sam always wants a report when I do that, those slugs aren't cheap." Carrina sighed a little bit but she did manage to not roll her eyes condescendingly at Nina this time.

"Keep tellin' Sam that stupid cannon is bleedin' metal 'cuz we use pure tungsten. Yer Pulse ain't a trickle we don' need the pure stuff." Nina sighed and shook her head.

"Nina that's not- Listen, if you'd just given a report with me, this wouldn't have been an issue and you could be spending all day with your boyfriend after we book you some trauma counseling. Now Sam's all lathered up about pattern breaking."

"Pattern already wobblin' I checked my logs. The scavvers n'Widows came five minutes 'fore they shoulda. Real breaker is that Mech I told you 'bout." Nina stood up a little straighter. This was what she had been preparing for. Getting the truth out before they pinned the blame on her for the pattern break.

"The... Mech? What Mech?" Carrina asked, suddenly confused.

"The stealth-tech one that I spotted in the woods last week. Robin found a new Mech on the books in Abrandia, somethin' from Neo-Venus. Robin says it's Zenith. Most stealth Mechs're Zenith."

"Some... Mech from Neo-Venus illegally poaching our salvage. An invisible Mech, that you couldn't get clear footage of."

"It's. Stealth." Nina scowled, overwhelmed by the stupidity of Carrina's complaint. More proof, and Carrina still played the needlessly stubborn skeptic. "An' I don' drive t'wards plasma casters firin' off in the canopy to get a better rez on a video for detective Sam. I almost get slagged enough as-is, thanks."

Carrina heaved a heavy sigh, leaning back a little and giving Nina a sad look, like she was about to tell her that her kitten had died. Nina almost wanted to glance at the foot of the bed to make sure that her kitten, Jeffie, was still there. "I want to believe you, Nina, but I'm having a hard time. You know Sam won't buy this."

"Well, s'why it helps t'have someone with four lobes backin' me an' not three." Nina cast her blanket away and got out of bed. Carrina let out an exasperated and embarrassed noise at Nina's lack of modesty. She looked away as Nina went over to her dresser to fetch some clothes.

"Fine. Show me your new proof and I'll see what I can do. If we actually have a poacher from Neo-Venus with a gleaming Mech then I guess we'll have a serious problem. A stealth Mech, no less." Carrina remained seated on the bed but kept looking at the far wall. Jeffie was actually awake now, and the little kitten hopped up onto her lap. Carrina yelped in surprise like Jeffie was some kind of ferocious beast.

As Nina wiggled her way into a bra that she still wasn't used to, she snickered at Carrina awkwardly trying to dislodge the affectionate kitten from her lap. She grabbed her hand terminal once she had her underwear on and sent the relevant files to Carrina.

"... Dawn and Dusk? Nina, you can't be serious." Carrina shooed Jeffie off her lap and the kitten padded over to Nina. He squeaked and put his paws up on Nina's leg, begging for attention.

"Abrandia registry doesn't joke. They're real sticklers. You know that." Nina grabbed her crumpled pants off the floor where she'd left them and pulled them on, at which point Carrina finally stopped staring at the far wall and looked over at her.

"No, I guess you're right on that one. What makes you think this Mech is gleaming enough to have functional stealth tech?" Nina was a little surprised that Carrina was pretending to believe her, but she probably felt guilty over ratting her out to Sam.

"Lookit the autocannon ammo. 25-series rounds. No garbage pile like Twinshya is loading those."

Carrina frowned and flipped through the files. "Are you even supposed to have this ammunition manifest?"

"Prob not. Butterfly doesn't explain, I don't ask."

"That boy..." Carrina muttered to herself, probably holding herself back from embarking on one of her rants about how he was a bad influence on Nina. "Well, I'll look through all this. Do me a favor and double check Twinshya's deflectors? I got a little more rattle from that Widow than I should have."

"I gotta replace half the conduit in that bucket and I've negative bits of conduit t'do it with." Nina grumbled, picking up Jeffie and giving him some attention so that he'd stop clawing at her ankle.

"Do what you can with what you have," Carrina sighed. She left Nina without even so much as a look, instead staring at the files Nina had given her. Maybe she was taking it seriously. She wasn't that good of an actor, after all.

A little while later, Sam found her in the workshop, disassembling one of the missiles she'd salvaged that Nugan hadn't quite gotten to yet. He stood there for a second, a scowl on his face and an angry comment waiting on his lips to be unleashed.

"Your terminal ran out of power? Do you really expect me to believe that?" he asked.

"Don't expect. Don't care," she muttered, carefully removing the fuel housing of the missile she was working on and setting it to the side.

Sam frowned at her for a moment, before he sighed and straightened up his posture. "Nina, I'm putting your contract on probation. We'll re-evaluate your position with us in three weeks. Until then I'm empowered to terminate your contract for breaches similar to the one you pulled last night."

Nina looked down at the screwdriver on her workbench. She considered violence for the most fleeting of moments. She didn't have even the ghost of that kind of rage in her anymore. She was glad to be rid of it, too.

"Fine," she said. She let her anger impotently bleed out of her.

Sam stayed there for a few moments, expecting her to say something, but she didn't. Eventually he just walked away and left her alone as she tore apart the missiles she'd nearly died to acquire.

**

Miya yawned sleepily as consciousness slowly came back to her. She stretched, wiggling her toes and cracking her fingers. Her leg brushed up against something warm in her bed, something lying right next to her. Nothing was supposed to be lying right next to her. She jumped in fright, yelping softly and recoiling. A man was sleeping in her bed, breathing softly. His short dark hair was flopped over his forehead. She recognized him, and memories of last night slowly came back to her.

"Ugh," she muttered softly, scowling at the intruding man and giving him a gentle kick. "Hey. Wake up." The man stirred and Miya struggled to remember his name. Her companion, Naz, just giggled at her dilemma and offered no help. He was her dalliance and not Naz', after all.

"Whuh?" he groaned sleepily, turning over a little but not sitting up properly.

"Wake up. You said you'd be gone before morning." She kicked him again a little more firmly and he groaned in response.

Slowly he sat up, rubbing his eyes and looking at her in a somewhat dopey way. His gaze flickered to her chest for a moment but she held the blanket up and scowled at him to keep his attention on her face. "I said what?"

"You promised you wouldn't stay the night. Did you crawl into bed with me after I went to sleep?" Her withering glare made him recoil a bit and blush in embarrassment.

"I... don't..."

"Whatever. Just-- Just get dressed and get out." Miya gathered up some blankets and used them to cover herself as she went into her bathroom. Whomever this shrew was, she wouldn't be inviting him back to their house again. She hated people being there when she woke up and her regulars were men who knew that.

"Perhaps a narrower range of courtesans would fit your requirements better, sister?" Naz's voice spoke teasingly in the mind that the two of them shared.

"Don't want people getting clingy," Miya responded, rolling her eyes as she washed her hair. "Better if I don't see them too often. I have to keep a wide rotation."

A few minutes later, Miya stepped out of the shower and saw that her guest was gone, and had left behind only some contact information on a piece of paper. She stalked over to the paper, snatched it up off the bed, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the recycler without reading it. When she went over to fish out her hand terminal from the drawer she'd locked it in, she saw it had a notification on it. It was a reminder that they had a meeting this morning, and she cursed when she realized that she only had a few minutes to get going.

The light of Ishtar's star was dim and cast shadows across the city of Abrandia as it began to dip towards the horizon. The planet's forty three hour revolutionary period meant that most people measured two twenty one and a half hour sleep cycles per Ishtar "day." That meant that second morning came just as the star was starting to hang low in the sky. Miya walked to the tram station and waited at the back of the small group of people on the platform, avoiding contact. One of Abrandia's four aging and banged up maglev trains came along and stopped at the platform with a soft hiss.

The trip was as uneventful as she could have hoped for. She stood at the doors to the train and stared at the city rushing past her. The train was loud and she got extra annoyed when she couldn't get a seat. She kept a lid on it as several stops passed them by. Someone bumped into her but she managed not to snap at him. Waking up next to her guest had set her into a bad mood for the day and it felt like she had something crawling under her skin.

With Miya stewing and fidgeting, Naz took control and looked around the train cart. She saw someone who reminded Naz of her girlfriend Marielle, she had similar dark and curly hair that hung down around her shoulders, though this woman was a fair bit older. She smiled warmly at the woman and waved. The woman returned the gesture though didn't smile quite as much in return. Abrandia was a nice place, people were warmer and friendlier here than many other places, but strange people smiling at you on the train was perhaps still a bit off-putting for most.

The train stopped almost directly in front of the low-key militia building. It looked just like any other residence in the neighborhood but it was actually one of their main offices. Naz headed into the foyer, flimsy door to the street slapping shut behind her with the guarded door into the compound lying just ahead.

"Morning, Naz," The door guard whose name they couldn't remember waved at her and then punched a code into the door to open it. The fact that he'd addressed the two of them as Naz wasn't surprising, most of the people at her job knew Naz much better, which was mostly by Miya's own design.

"Unseen blessing, friend," Naz waved at him as she walked past. As she spoke the words she concentrated slightly upon the melody playing in her mind. Their Ascension, Tempest, was a constant presence. It wasn't a distinct thinking, feeling individual like Naz and Miya were, but rather it was a vague melancholic sensation and a soft discordant song that rose and fell, seemingly at random. Many ExSol's possessed of the strange, rare Ascension knew it wasn't just random. There was a deeper force at work, an echoing whisper left behind by the Precursors for the ExSol's to find and decipher.

"There will be time for your superstitious obsessions later, c'mon," Miya snapped Naz out of her daze and took the two of them through the militia's administrative building towards the conference room. The door had been left cracked open, and their uncle Wasseim, Knight-Captain of the Abrandia Militia, was already droning on about something or another inside.

"Forgive our sloth, Uncle," Naz apologized with a calm smile as she walked into the room. Wasseim and the other pilots just gave her a very cursory glance before she slipped into her seat. One of the pilots in particular, Analu, gave her a dirty look as though she'd offended him. Naz returned the look with a warm smile, and Analu just shook his head as though she'd offended him further. He looked back at Wasseim and tried to ignore her.

"I'm gonna punch him right in the face one day," Miya thought, and Naz just giggled.

The briefing didn't go terribly long before Naz closed her eyes, drowning out her uncle's boring recitation and letting the melody of Tempest envelop her. Tempest was pretty today, the humming vibration in her chest had a slow, soothing tempo that she enjoyed. Some days Tempest felt angry and agitated, and that was distressing. Those days, she blocked the melody out as best she could, which wasn't always very well.

"Oi! Naz! Quit dreamin!" Her uncle Wasseim's voice cut through the reverie. She opened her eyes slowly and blinked at him, confused.

"... Uncle?" she asked.

"C'mon, kit, can't'cha at least 'tend to pay attention? Makes me look like a goof, y'know?"

"He doesn't care if he looks like a goof. Just thinks he's protecting us." Miya's thoughts interjected themselves into their mind, along with a feeling of incredulity and exasperation. Miya didn't care much for their uncle, but Miya didn't care for anybody.

"Will try, Uncle," Naz smiled at him sincerely even as Miya grumbled silently. Wasseim's shoulders slumped in defeat and he sighed.

"Heckin' ridiculous," Analu muttered just loud enough that a few people heard but not loudly enough to announce it to the room.

"Care to repeat that, Ana?" Miya asked with a scowl, her intensity overriding Naz' calm presence in that moment.

"Yeah, it's ridiculous that you can't take this job seriously. We have Hallu terrorists in the city, Talon is on a security upswing, and mos--" Analu squealed as Wasseim walked up behind him, grabbed him by the wrist and twisted it behind his back in an incredible display of martial training. They knew that their uncle hadn't seen any active hand-to-hand combat in probably decades, but he made it look as easy as picking up a pebble

"Oi, Ana?" he said, his voice calm and dark. "Y'think ye can pilot Titan better'n Miya?"

"C-Course I can't, I don't have Tempest," he yelped, reaching back and grabbing Wasseim by the arm to try to alleviate the pressure on his shoulder.

"Y'got a problem with yer CO's disciplinary actions?" he asked.

Analu was quiet for a moment before he shook his head, his squirming taking on a greater intensity as Wasseim continued to pressure his shoulder.

"Then mebbe shut yer mouth 'n leave Nazmiya t'me, ye?" Wasseim didn't wait for a response and let Analu go, casting a challenging glance around the room which wasn't met by a single pair of eyes except Miya's. "An' Miya. These new security 'cols're more fer you than the rest've us. Hallucia finds out yer the only pilot for Titan, s'a big target on yer back. Show some respect."

"Of course, Uncle. I will contemplate Tempest's blessing later." Naz smiled at him. Wasseim's shoulders slumped again and he shook his head.

"Could barely handle one niece," he muttered, going back to his briefing.

***

Vesper hopped into her rover and wrapped her scarf around her neck as she punched in the access code the rental agency had given her. She started it up and drove it out of the empty lot, heading for the city limits. It was early in the day, and Navann's red star was only just beginning to crest the horizon. The streets were mostly empty. Valant was a city of commerce and services; it wouldn't be active until late morning at least. The city of Gray Coast was where the drone piloting gig was and it was a few hours drive away. The sound of waves crashing soon replaced the quiet hum of the city's electrical grid as she reached the bridge. Every piece of land on the planet of Navann had been placed there by the precursors eons ago. Millennia of erosion had stripped away soil and rock, leaving a series of oddly-shaped island chains outlined by some nigh-indestructable mineral the Precursors had engineered.

A flash of light off in the distance drew her attention, and she glanced to the side to see what it was. Red streaks lit up the fog and gloom hanging over the ocean. The Autonomous Network's machines trying to kill each other. A typical sight. If Vesper's predictive models were correct, that'd be a skirmish between Eye and Cat which Cat would win. Eye was the dominant AN on the planet, Talon and Cat frequently harried their supply caravans and holdings. Eye was always too busy chasing down raiding parties and dealing with hit and run tactics to actually fully mobilize against either of them. That had been the status quo on Navann for as long as the ExSols had lived there. It was a delicate balance that kept them somewhat safe.

She drove past without paying the skirmish any real attention. To her, a skirmish like this was a data point, not a pay day like it was for a scavenger. Navann's sun rose above the horizon as she drove, bathing the road with light. Vesper turned her headlights off and donned her sunglasses. Gray Coast was only a few hours drive away but she wanted to get breakfast before the job started.

The sounds of heavy machinery and welding reached Vesper at almost the same moment that she rounded the hill and came into view of the city. Gray Coast was almost more of an industrial district than it was an actual city; the working class counterpart of Valant. Vesper lived and worked in Valant but any ExSol that lived on Navann spent time in both cities. She stopped by her favorite place and grabbed a pair of breakfast sandwiches, then headed off to the launch site.

The site of the job was a large tower that jutted out of the top of the tallest hill within Gray Coast's city limits. Vesper drove her rover right up to it and put it in park. Before she could even step out of the vehicle, someone approached her.

"Military installation, Miss. I gotta see ID," he said with an impatient voice. Vesper guessed that he thought she didn't belong here. She pulled out the employee badge that had been mailed to her and flashed it at him with as much attitude as she could muster.

"Drone pilot...? Where the tits is Brian?" he muttered, confused.

"Ask Tetron," Vesper said dismissively, snatching the ID out of his hand and walking past him before he could start anything resembling a conversation.

Damn, I should have told him to ask Tetron's wife. No, that'd be too mean.

She headed inside and took the elevator to the top. Tetron was already there, staring at the mapping data readouts. He glanced up at Vesper disinterestedly as she handed him the second breakfast sandwich she'd gotten.

"Mm. Suckin' up ain't necessary. Yer kinda just here outta spite," Tetron murmured morosely. He was even gloomier sober, somehow. Still, he took the sandwich.

"Fine by me. Gives me a chance to prove myself," Vesper said confidently.

"... Don't wanna get yer hopes up kid. S'not really that kinda job." He looked away from her, scratching his neck.

Vesper sat down at the terminal and slipped the sensors onto her wrists, then activated her Deluge.

Deluge was an odd sensation. Her sense of touch and the feeling of her own body faded away. She felt the slight hint of paranoia and unease creeping across her mind that accompanied the use of the Ascension, but she brushed past it. Some ExSol's who had Deluge experienced that paranoia much worse than she ever had. Her old friend Amber had suffered horrible anxiety attacks after using hers. For Vesper, the biggest issue was trying to type when she could barely feel her fingers.

The nearby drone hummed to life, and she sent it up into the air, climbing up and out of firing range for most of the AN's robots before setting out.

When the Autonomous Networks had stirred to life, it wasn't the robots that had utterly crushed the Extrasolar Colonies as they had been. Certainly, they would have been a problem had the AN's actually wielded them against the ExSols instead of each other, but that was the case to this day. What had undermined all of the Extrasolar Colonies had been the AN's ability to engage in electronic warfare. Every network, every device that could be operated remotely had been hacked and hijacked within days. They'd essentially been left with sticks and stones. The AN's ability to hijack systems and networks had been so terrifying to Earth Coalition, that the President had shut off Earth Gate, rather than risk them infiltrating Earth's electronic infrastructure. She'd done so with no warning. Nobody living on the Extrasolar Colonies had a chance to evacuate. She'd forever earned the title 'Bereaver' for her act of cowardice.

The ExSols had been forced to rebuild their technological base by isolating transceivers, building non-networked systems, and employing a variety of other tricks to keep the AN's out.

The current mechanisms they used to send and receive video, audio, and text had taken generations to design, and it wasn't even completely reliable. Sometimes they'd get taken over and need to be fully dismantled and purged then rebuilt. It had happened in Navann a few years ago and it had been a gigantic pain.

There was only one form of encryption that always worked, with no known cases of failure. Deluge Encryption. The caveat was that it required someone with the Deluge Ascension in order to function. The sensor on Vesper's hands was the only reason the drone hovering above the launch tower hadn't already been taken over by the ANs.

"So, I wanna run sweeps of this area. Make sure t'ave yer therms on. We're looking for ExSol mechs, not AN activity," Tetron stood behind her and pointed to the areas on the map he wanted to check.

Vesper set the drone in motion, plunging it into the fog. She spotted the AN skirmish from earlier and immediately started painting data points.

"Careful, don-" Tetron reached an arm out but Vesper was already darting the drone around the outskirts of the battle. She kept it inside the denser patches of fog to conceal the drone's heat signature. "... Yea. Like that," Tetron murmured.

She painted every target she could with passive scanners and moved on. They weren't there to track the AN's but it was still useful data.

She spotted several small clusters of AN activity but she ignored them for the most part. Bobbers, reclamation ships that dredged materials from the depths of the oceans. They basically never bothered the ExSol's unless they got shot at, and they gathered materials the ExSol's couldn't reach anyway.

Vesper swept the drone along a wide, winding path through the islands of Navann. Tetron ate the sandwich and didn't comment much. At one point he went to the bathroom.

Damn right. He knows I don't need a babysitter.

Vesper ignored the fact that she kind of needed to use the bathroom too. If she took these sensors off, the AN's would hack the drone within seconds.

She spotted a cluster of irregular low-temperature heat signatures and slowed down. They were boats. ExSol boats. Vesper hovered the drone very carefully around the perimeter, taking in as many readings as she could on passive instruments. Unlike the AN's, ExSol pirates would probably shoot at the very first sign of the drone.

"Shit. Y'found em, huh?" Tetron murmured as he returned from his bathroom break.

"Yup. Doing a preliminary scan. I'll switch to active instruments in a bit then rabbit out," Vesper replied absently.

"Kinda hecked they're jus bobbin 'round this close t'us... Damn I don't see a Mech."

"Don't be so sure," Vesper pointed to the largest vessel. "That one's sitting really low in the water. It's carrying a lot of weight."

"Cou' be lotta things," Tetron mused.

"Yeah. But if theres a Mech on these boats, it's on that one. I'm going to focus active instruments on it." Vesper replied as she started quickly programming a set of instructions for the drone. The second she used the sonar and burst EM scanners, they'd know exactly where the drone was. She wanted as many readings as fast as she could get them.

Vesper ran the program, and the data flooded in. Vesper didn't look at any of it, she hovered her hand over the controls, preparing to get the drone out of there as fast as possible. It only took about fifteen seconds before someone on the boats noticed, and the drone picked up movement. Vesper put the drone into full throttle, bolting back towards the control tower. She probably could have cut it a bit closer but she had no intention of losing this thing the first time operating it.

"Th'heck is that?" Tetron asked.

Vesper blinked, and looked at the reading Tetron was pointing at. A thermal signature high in the sky. A bright flower of heat that bloomed across her instrument's readings.

"I... I don't know. Aircraft?" Vesper stammered. ExSol's didn't really have aircraft. The AN's paid more attention to things that flew. But there shouldn't have been anything with that heat signature just floating there invisibly until it decided to move.

... Unless it was a Mech...

Vesper pushed the drone faster, violating safety thresholds. The bloom of heat got larger. Vesper saw tiny tendrils of heat and light flickering around the edges. Maneuvering thrusters? Her instruments spiked for an instant, and suddenly the connection just... dropped.

Vesper checked the Deluge connection in a panic. Everything looked okay on her end. She checked for instrument damage, she tried to reconnect to the drone. Nothing.

An icy terror gripped her that had nothing to do with Deluge. Her mouth went completely dry. She'd just lost the drone. The drone that was more expensive than her yearly salary.

I'm so hecked.

***

"Report, Agent Tae," Lukas' gravelly voice scratched across her communications. Lukas was always so gloomy and serious. It was totally boring.

"The little birdy's wings were clipped," Tae chirped back cheerfully, circling her Mech through the foggy skies of Navann, looking for others. Her beautiful Mech, Hurricane Tornado Zephyr was a full flight model, utilizing powerful gravity manipulators to freely fly around on her suite of maneuvering thrusters. The power restraints meant they hadn't been able to put as many guns on it as she'd wanted, of course. Her Zenith didn't burn as bright as her friend Dawnie's, so to tailor the Mech to her, they'd had to make concessions. But even a medium autocannon was enough to easily slag unarmored spy drones with a single shot.

"Did it see us?" Lukas pressed.

"How should I know! I just shoot stuff, Lukky, you're supposed to be doing operations!" Tae howled back at him in annoyance. Lukky was such a downer. Always trying to blame someone for something when it was his own face's fault for being so stupid. She'd just shot something. That was always a good thing.

"You are reconnaissance on this mission, Agent Tae. It is your job to stop things like this from happening," Lukas continued.

"Oh my gosh I don't CARE what the Marshal says, nobody can pay attention to a gray sky for six hours without getting bored." Tae groaned. She hated that Lukas outranked her. She wondered if she could get him killed somehow.

"... This is a serious breach, Agent Tae. You're going to have to do some field work on foot to see if the alarm has been raised. If they know we're here then we need to withdraw."

"Awww, Lukky, you're the best. Heck yeah, I get to seduce people for information!" Tae grinned as she put Hurricane Tornado Zephyr into a twirling spin and flew back towards the boats.

***

Dawn watched the van through the corner of their eye, making sure not to make it too obvious that they were aware of the amateurs' presence. Dawn wasn't fully aware of all the aspects of this operation. They didn't need to know, so they hadn't been told. Even if they had been fully briefed, it wasn't Dawn's place to question the necessity of their role, and so they didn't. Still, that didn't mean that Dawn was particularly fond of this phase of the operation. This was the part where they sat out here in plain sight while some mercenaries hired by a deranged zealot watched with guns readied.

Dawn lowered their spoon to their bowl of soup and brought some up to their lips, maintaining a picture of patience and boredom for the people who were probably watching them through binoculars. Unlike Neo-Venus, Abrandia did use a market-based exchange system for many things, but food and housing weren't included in that system. Dawn's room and meals in this hostel would be provided for them without question for as long as they wished, which meant that they didn't have much to do but sit around and wait for their contact to give them the go-ahead to start the next phase of the mission.

That, and recover properly from the beating Emilia had given them last week. That felt like the harder part. She'd fractured one of Dawn's pelvic bones and it was still painful to walk.

Dawn's terminal buzzed softly against the table, the vibrations making the piece of hardware rotate a few degrees. Dawn very casually put their spoon down and checked who was calling them. They suppressed how eager they were to get out in Dusk and continue their actual work instead of sitting here like a worm wriggling on a hook.

2-12:30 Abrandia Docking Admin: Hello, Mx. Dawn? Do you have a moment to clarify something for me?

2-12:31 Dawn: Yes.

Dawn frowned a little at the message. Why would the docking administration be bothering them again? Getting past the wall of the bureaucracy here had been odious but Dawn had done everything thoroughly so as to make follow up clarifications unnecessary. There were no doubt discrepancies in the records, but Dawn had greased palms and waved distracting leads at people such that nothing would turn up foul until next quarter when they did a full audit.

2-12:31 Abrandia Docking Admin: The housing office didn't link your profile with where you have the Mech stored. Just wanted to confirm you're living in housing unit # 25340-T and your machine is docked at # 130-M?

2-12:33 Dawn: No. Housing unit #25339-T and dock #112-M

2-12:34 Abrandia Docking Admin: Oh really? Looks like we had a mix-up after all. Thanks for clarifying! Have a nice stay in Abrandia, Mx.

Dawn stared at the messages for a while, frowning and unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong. The message appeared to be legitimate. Dawn double-checked the source that the connection had come from, it was the same people who had given Dawn the permissions to house Dusk in the facility it was still occupying. Paranoia crept across Dawn's uneasy mind but there was nothing to be done about it. Dawn's instructions were to be completely co-operative with the local government and to sit still and await further instructions. And so, that's just what they did.

***

2-12:50 Butterfly: Hey, Miss Nina, guess who I found?

2-13:12 NinaS: Just say it not in mood

2-13:15 Butterfly: Dawn's in town. I found where they're staying.

2-13:15 NinaS: On my way msg me details

2-13:17 Butterfly: Housing unit #25339-T and the Mech is in dock #112-M

2-13:20 NinaS: 112m? Heck ya ty Butterfly talk later

***

Dawn's accommodations were a little hostel tucked away near the industrial district of Abrandia, no doubt chosen for proximity to wherever it was that the pilot's Mech was docked than anything else. As luck would have it, Nina found them in the little common area porch, easily identifying them at a glance.

The Ascension that ExSol's called Zenith steadily increased the internal body temperature of the person who was activating it. Unlike Pulse, it could be freely activated and deactivated, but provided no thrilling rush, no heady moments of hyper-awareness. The cockpit of a Zenith Mech, by necessity, had refrigeration and heat sinking capabilities to stop the pilot from getting heatstroke. Some small percentage of people who both had and actively used Zenith had their hair burned off, typically people with fine, blonde hair that was susceptible to the increased temperature. Dawn was one of those people, bald and pale without even a single eyelash or eyebrow.

Nina approached Dawn's table with the plate of food she'd acquired from a nearby restaurant. She dropped her plate onto the table and it landed with a rattle of recyclable cutlery. She watched the androgynous pilot for a few moments, hoping to get some bluster out of them but instead they simply looked up at her curiously and with a sense of impenetrable calm.

"This One would be pleased to be of assistance with or without the theatrics, miss." Their voice was soft and had a smooth flow to it that seemed practiced to the point of being unnatural. Like the pilot themselves, it had a genderlessness to it that had to be intentional.

"This One? You talking 'bout you? Mebbe ya got some robot who's watching and yer... narratin' on your... uhh..." She trailed off as the logic of her own snarky comment got away from her. The pilot remained as unperturbed at her failed attempt at a joke as they had at her intrusion.

"Dawn is This One's name, and is the only one you are speaking to, though the reason for your accostation remains a point of interest." Dawn offered a clarification, acting like the way they were speaking and Nina's comment were both perfectly normal. Nina scowled at their demeanour, wondering if they were outright batty or just trying to mock her. Well, if she was getting a ribbing, then she'd figured that she deserved it for ruining her joke.

"I saw you. That machine of yers, out by that big 'ol Talon fortress. You were pokin' around some place you shouldn'ta been, actin' like you knew you shouldn'ta been there." She cut to the point. Her attempt at levity had failed and it wasn't her strong suit anyway.

"Dawn is not currently accepting contracts, Miss, nor will they for the duration of Dawn's stay upon this planet." They looked down at their hand terminal and flicked a finger across it, the electronic sounds of a video game responding to the motion.

"Nah. You don' get it. Yer breakin that fortress out of a behavior pattern. My boss thinks I did it; he's firin' me over it. Yer also breakin' local law but I don' care quite so much 'bout that one."

Dawn was quiet for a few moments, and finally they looked up at her slowly. They watched her intently with an unreadable look in their eyes. It was unmistakably different from the disinterested look they'd been wearing earlier. "Dawn does regret causing you harm, Miss, but there is little This One can do to atone for that harm."

"That's where yer wrong," Nina huffed a little at the non-apology, and pulled out the data drive that she'd made on her way to visit the Neo-Venutian. She placed it on the table, then took out a Zenith encoder and hooked the two devices up. "This is yer Mech's nav data. I need you to decrypt it for me so I can prove to my boss that yer not some stupid-named ghost. Ye also need me to remove the docking clamp I put on that stupid-lookin' Mech of yers."

Dawn's eyes went wide, and they stared at the little drive, going pale. Nina wouldn't have thought the little enby could have actually gone pale considering how pale they already were. "You... went into Dusk's hangar?"

"Hecking right I did," Nina smirked at the flabbergasted androgyne, reveling in her victory a little. She had her tricks. Tricks that had gotten her arrested in the past, but still.

Dawn dived for the drive, trying to snatch it off the table, but Nina was too fast. She grabbed it before they could and moved it out of reach. Nina expected Dawn to beg a little, or try to grab it again, but instead they actually looked past Nina. Without a word of explanation, they pulled a hand-held Plasma caster out of... somewhere and extended their arm. Nina swore and reacted, both ducking down and kicking her chair backwards. The motion sent the flimsy plastic chair tumbling to the ground and she winced in pain as the air was forced out of her lungs. The weapon discharged with a hissing noise as a magnetically contained bubble of plasma streaked through the air towards its target, which apparently wasn't Nina.

A van had been driving up the street towards them and Dawn had fired straight through the windshield. A sliding door on the side of the vehicle was thrown open and someone who was definitely a mercenary tumbled out holding an assault rifle. The Van itself crashed into a nearby building and crumpled a little, but not enough to do more than rattle the other passengers who hadn't dived out. Nina bolted to her feet, taking a step back and looking over at Dawn who had aimed the weapon at her now.

There was a moment of silence as Dawn hesitated, and then winced and lowered the weapon. "They think you are Dawn's contact. They will kill you."

Nina looked over her shoulder. The mercenary who'd fallen out first was rising to his feet and two more were wobbling out of the ruined van. She didn't take long to make up her mind, especially when one of them pointed at her and raised her weapon.

"Bereaver's tits, go!" She pocketed the encrypted navigation data and ran, following on Dawn's heels. The two of them bolted off the balcony and around the corner as the goons' rifles roared behind them. There was a soft whine as several bullets bit into the wood and ceramic around them as they turned the corner. Nina suspected that the only reason they hadn't been cut down in that initial volley was that the mercenaries were probably disoriented from the crash.

"Dawn does not know the layout of this city," they hissed softly at Nina as the two ran into the alley. Dawn turned around for an instant to fire off a shot from their plasma caster. As advanced as it was, the weapon appeared to be a single-shot design optimized for taking out small robots and vehicles. It was certainly ill-equipped to deal with five goons armed with automatic rifles. Still, superheated plasma flying at a person was definitely enough to make them think twice.

"There's some smugglin' tunnels a few blocks away. We can lose the goons in there." Nina double checked their surroundings to make sure they were where she thought they were. "Can that thing of yers slag a welded plate open, actually?"

"Dawn will be very disappointed if it cannot," they muttered, following behind Nina as the two of them dashed through the alleyways of Abrandia into the industrial district, even as city-wide alarms began to blare in response to the unauthorized small arms fire. Nina's athleticism allowed her to outpace Dawn to the next cover point almost immediately. When Dawn took longer than she expected, she turned around, confused. Dawn was several meters behind her, limping slightly.

The mercenaries came into line of sight, and their rifles roared. Bullets popped and whined as they struck the steel walls around the two of them. Nina cursed and ducked instinctively, and she heard Dawn fire the plasma caster even as she scrambled around the edge of the warehouse they were next to in order to break the shooters' line of sight. Dawn stumbled around the corner a moment later, and Nina muttered to herself as she looked for the right building.

"There. That building." She looked over at Dawn to make sure they were paying attention and froze for a moment. Dawn's tidy, minimalistic white shirt and pants were soaking through with blood. Two bullets had struck Dawn in the leg, and another in their side. They were panting and groaning softly, the plasma caster hanging limply in their grip at their side. Nina stared at them for a few moments, feeling a dread chill settle over her.

She should leave them behind, let the Abrandia militia or the hit squad pick them up. She'd get away easily, and the worst she'd have to deal with would be Sam firing her, but Dawn's death would possibly serve as proof of their interference anyway. She would never have resorted to killing the strange pilot to resolve her issue with Sam, not on her own. But this... all she had to do was run away and save herself.

"Heck..." she muttered.

With one swift motion, Nina surged forward, using her superior strength and height to sweep the bleeding, weakened stranger off their feet and into her arms. Dawn put up no resistance, they just moaned softly in pain as she did. Warm blood soaked through Dawn's clothes into Nina's and she clutched them close as she bolted for the warehouse with the tunnel entrance.

"Ay, stay with me, enby." Nina jostled Dawn gently when they went a little bit limp in her grasp. The plasma caster Dawn was still clutching in a death grip was probably Ascension-coded and Nina wouldn't be able to fire it herself.

More alarms blared, announcing the arrival of the Abrandia militia. The sound filled Nina with both dread and relief. The militia showing up meant that their assailants would probably call off the chase, especially since they'd actually hit Dawn three times. It also meant that Nina had another group to avoid, since the militia catching her with a half-dead offworlder would definitely be a violation of her parole, even if this specific scenario wasn't written into the agreement.

"Hey, hey, wakey wakey. Need ya to melt off this panel." Nina shook Dawn again, directing their head towards the loading dock hatch that had been bolted shut since last year. Dawn looked at it sluggishly for several moments before they weakly raised their arm, pointing the plasma caster at the panel holding the dock shut. Nina quickly took a few steps back to create some distance, and Dawn fired, the superheated matter burning a hole through the panel. It wasn't totally free, but it was close enough for Nina to give it a strong kick to break off the melted bits of steel still holding it shut. She raised the sliding door with one arm just enough to duck under it, and let it slam closed behind her.

"... No... Hospital..." Dawn croaked weakly, tugging on Nina's jacket and getting their bloody fingerprints all over it.

"No jokin'," Nina agreed grimly, finding an empty workbench in the dim light and setting Dawn down upon it. "They'd have questions neither one'a us wants t'sit for." Dawn nodded and groaned softly as Nina pulled out a multitool and used it to poke a hole in Dawn's shirt. A few quick rips tore Dawn's shirt off, revealing a compression undershirt beneath that was similarly stained red. It was actually keeping enough pressure on the wound in Dawn's side that it wasn't bleeding as profusely as it could have, and was quite possibly the reason they were still conscious. Nina ripped a few strips of cloth out of the shirt and used it to wrap and bind the bullet holes in Dawn's leg just to slow the bleeding down. She gingerly tied another around the through-and-through in Dawn's side even as they gasped in pain and squirmed on the surface of the bench.

"T-This One knows the young miss did not have to save Dawn..." They breathed weakly as Nina finished applying the bandages and tossed the spare bits of blood-soaked cloth into a corner.

"Hrmph. S'fine. I need ya, after all." Nina grumbled, and started looking around for the hatch that led into the tunnels beneath the industrial district. Her mind raced with ideas and possibilities of what she needed to do next. Keeping Dawn alive at all would be difficult and time-sensitive. She could try to find some unlicensed surgeon in the Abrandian underground but she had no more contacts there, she couldn't pay them, and she probably couldn't trust them, either. They had medical equipment back at Nina's camp and Sam had enough medical background to treat bullet wounds, but getting there was the problem. She couldn't exactly drive her bike through the checkpoint with a dying, bleeding person on the back, especially with the administrative lockdown that was sure to come.

"Yo, Sunrise, do ya think y'could pilot that Mech of yers if I get ya to it?" she asked after she pried the rusty hatch open.

Dawn looked over at her from the work bench and blinked a few times, processing her question before answering. "Yes... Dusk has an auto-medic installed in the cockpit that could staunch the flow of Dawn's blood. This One would not be combat ready but that should not be necessary."

"An' it's stealth, right? It can slip past the checkpoint?" She went over to them and lifted them up, cradling them a little more gently in her arms this time and heading over to the hatch. It was dark inside the warehouse but it was darker still down the steep stairs into the tunnel.

"The authorities may notice Dusk's passing, but should have difficulty giving pursuit." Dawn exhaled softly, relaxing a little in Nina's arms without going limp like they had before.

Nina grunted in response and turned on the light on her hand terminal to navigate her way through the dark, damp tunnels. She re-traced her steps fairly easily, having taken a similar route through a different entrance earlier that day. She arrived at another hatch that she'd apparently forgotten to close properly, and she easily shoved it open without having to put Dawn down. The hangar was empty of people, but the compact Mech, Dusk, took up the entire far wall. Dusk was about eight meters tall, standing a bit higher than Twinshya even though Twinshya was probably twice the size. It was humanoid like most ExSol-crafted Ascension Mechs, but somehow managed to be alien and foreign at the same time.

Nina helped Dawn climb into the cockpit situated in the center of the Mech's torso and stepped back as the hatch closed and auto-medic started to work. A short while later, the Mech's external speakers came on as the machine powered up. "Thank you, Miss. There is a cargo compartment located upon Dusk's back that you can ride in. This One regrets to say that the ride will be somewhat frigid; Dawn's Zenith burns hotter than most and Dusk must cool itself to compensate."

"Figures," Nina muttered as she went over to the hangar's control console and logged in with the dummy administrative account she'd hacked together earlier that day. She released the docking clamps on Dusk's legs and the Mech stood up to its full height. It walked away from the dock's far wall and then kneeled down, the aforementioned cargo hatch popping open for her. She groaned again when she saw that she would basically be riding in a trunk, and then, resigned to her fate, climbed in.

***

Dawn enabled Dusk's stealth field immediately, even before the hangar door opened. Doing so was a tad risky, the Mech's reactor couldn't function at full capacity unless Dawn flared their Zenith harder, so they'd have to burn into the battery reserves to use functions like the stealth field. Firing their Ascension that hard would probably freeze the crass young woman to death when Dusk's cooling system compensated, though. Much as Dawn was prepared to let her die to finish the mission, it would be easier to get medical care from her colleagues if she was alive. Plus... it would be a burden on Dawn's conscience that they didn't much want.

Dusk slipped silently through the streets of Abrandia's industrial district towards the city limits. With the stealth field on, they were almost completely invisible to radar scanners and only a human staring very intently looking for a strange shimmer in the air would be able to notice its presence. Several Abrandian militia patrols were moving around, questioning people and searching for the source of the disturbance. Dawn had no indication that they'd caught the assassins who had come for them, but they'd still detain and question Dawn if they found out they were the target. That kind of set back would keep Dawn impounded for weeks or months, and that was time they didn't have. They moved swiftly but carefully towards the wall, avoiding groups of people and keeping enough distance so that people wouldn't hear Dusk's footsteps through the sound dampener or notice the telltale shimmer as it moved. Eventually, someone would notice the Mech's movements. One could not move an eight-meter tall machine through a city without someone noticing.

Several people did seem to notice. A few faces turned towards Dusk, looking and squinting. Perhaps the level of cultural awareness around the stealth technology was a factor that Dawn didn't account for. On Neo-Venus, a security officer seeing a strange stealth shimmer would immediately sound the alarm, but these people just shook their heads and went back to what they were doing. It was when Dawn approached the city perimeter that Dusk's stealth display lit up, confirming that an X-ray scanner had penetrated the stealth field. Fortunately, at this point, it was too late.

Dawn dropped the stealth field and activated the gravity manipulation to launch the mech up into the air and over the wall. Target locks started to resolve, and connection requests streamed in so rapidly that Dawn would have been overwhelmed with how to try to respond coherently even if they were so inclined. Dawn was ready to engage Dusk's anti-missile capabilities, but there must have been a good amount of bureaucratic confusion within the Militia's ranks, because no missiles came.

Dusk hit the ground running, subtly pulling itself forward with the gravity manipulators to improve its ground speed. The big lumbering Tempest Mech, Titan, was too far away to lock on with its Disintegration Beam, and Dawn had only to re-activate their stealth field once they were far enough away to render most other weapons ineffectual. Autocannon and plasma caster fire came from stationary emplacements around the city, peppering the ground around Dusk and testing the limits of its deflectors. Dusk's power reserves dipped down to 30% and Dawn flared on their Zenith a little bit to alleviate the power drain. From within Dusk, Dawn heard the crass young woman curse and yell a little bit as the Mech's heat sinks kicked themselves up a notch to compensate for Dawn's increased body temperature.

Abrandia's military was purely defensive, and was ill-equipped to deal with a fleeing stealth Mech, so the pursuit dropped off almost immediately. Dawn took their machine up into the hills towards the Talon fortress and dropped the stealth field, lowering the Mech's power drain to essential systems only.

"Sounds like we're clear." The crass young woman's muffled voice came from within the storage compartment.

"Dawn..." Dawn wanted to say something in return, but a jolt of pain ripped through them as they spoke. They flipped over to the auto-medic readout and saw that their blood pressure was still dropping well below what it should be. Instead, they simply typed 'Yes' into a text-to-speech engine and let the robotic voice ring throughout the Mech's interior as an answer.

By the time Dusk walked up to the edge of the wrecked observatory that was the crass young woman's camp, Dawn could feel themselves fading. Power reserves were at 8% simply because Dawn had not fired back on their Zenith for the crass young woman's safety, and a horrifically outdated and patchwork Pulse Mech was approaching them along with a connection request. Rather than try to speak, Dawn simply lowered Dusk to its knees, powered it down, unlocked the storage compartment housing the crass young woman, and allowed themselves to slip from consciousness.

***

Himiko Yamane drummed her fingers on her desk as the two people she'd called into her office got settled and did one quick check through the files in their respective hand terminals. Wasseim was a tall, lanky man with thinning yet greasy hair. He was, in some capacity, in charge of the Abrandia militia. Shayala was Abrandia's foreign minister and had been occupying that position for decades, far before Himiko had even been working for the government, let alone running it.

"Knight-Major," Himiko looked at Wasseim and addressed him by his title to indicate that he could speak.

"Ye. We rounded up two of the gunners. Caught 'em trying to flee the district on foot. Didn't get far with their vehicle in the state it was," Wasseim rambled on about the incident with a goofy grin on his face like he was talking about a party he'd just come from. "I saw the interro m'self, both of 'em flipped pretty fast. Either they're ace black ops feedin' us a story, or just some local badgers willin' to hoist a slug thrower for a clip."

"Do we have any leads on who hired them?" Himiko asked, keeping the Knight-Major fixated with a cool gaze to keep his leash taut.

"Ye. Looks like it was one of the 'davers in the vehicle. She and it, they look like they got fragged with a heckin caster of all things. Not tot' sure how that happened. We're runnin' tests on the scoring." Wasseim snickered at that a little and Himiko's frown did little to dissuade his attitude.

She nodded to him even as she took a few quiet moments to puzzle the meaning out of his stupid slang. It was a source of eternal frustration that part of her job seemed to be teaching government officials to not talk like teenagers, but now was not the time to derail the meeting. "And what were they supposedly hired to do?"

"Crack some Zenith-head 'n swipe their terminal. They were pretty foggy on the details. Gonna squeeze 'em harder for those. I'll have more details as soon as I can, GovGen." Wasseim winked at her and Himiko scowled at the abhorrent truncation of her title.

"Do you have any information on this transient, Minister?" Himiko turned away from the socially oblivious Wasseim and addressed Shayala.

"Do I ever," Shayala sighed, sifting through some files on her terminal. She flicked an image onto one of the displays in Himiko's office and it lit up with an image of what appeared to be an official-looking piece of identification. "Transient's name is Dawn, they rode in on a Mech that they registered as Dusk. I know, I know, I checked to see if it was an alias. I interviewed the customs agent that registered this pilot and they said that this had no means of verifying whether or not the identification was legitimate but the Mech's navigation log did confirm that it was from Neo-Venus. I've gotten confirmation that the navigation logs don't look forged but we're going to keep running checks."

"How can we possibly not have any idea whether or not this is legitimate?" Himiko asked, studying the picture that Shayala had thrown onto the screen.

"Neo-Venus is anywhere between four to ten trips gate-to-gate. We've literally never had official contact with what passes for government over there, just rumours and stories. I dug through records and couldn't find a single thing to compare this identification to."

"So..." Himiko said, scowling at the two of them. "Do either of you have an idea how this person fled the city in this Mech of theirs?"

"Stealth field. Good one, too," Wasseim explained, leaning back in his chair. "Techs are combing over the sensor data. Sounds like this Mech out-gleams everything but Titan. Even then, might be close."

"And why exactly did we let a military-grade stealth Mech into the city completely unsupervised?" Himiko asked.

"Someone either slothed out, hecked up, or took a coin," Wasseim answered cheerfully, much to the displeasure of both women.

"Customs agents not doing their jobs should be a great concern to us all and not a joke, Knight-Captain." Shayala looked over at him, accusing him no doubt in the hopes that none of this failure would blow back onto her.

"Ay, not sayin' it's not a concern, Shay. Full hardware audits of every machine that comes through 'ere aint 'xactly easy as pettin' a fox. Can't expect underpaid customs shrews to do counter-intel work for us." As Wasseim spoke, his hand terminal chimed softly and he looked down at it. "Oho. Facial recognition came back with the woman helpin' the Zenith-head. Nina Sahara, juv del, former Smithson Cartel, Pulse Ascension, on parole, works outside the city somewhere."

"Can you bring her in?" Himiko asked.

"Parole docs usually don't cover espionage, but ye, if I can find her I'll get her. See what she knows. Sounds like maybe she works for one of the scavvers out there. I'll ask around." Wasseim spoke with a little more focus as he looked through the accomplice's file. He sent the file to Himiko and Shayala a moment later, and then stood up.

Himiko waved to him to indicate that he could go and Wasseim gave a quick salute before he took off, already talking to someone through his terminal before he was even outside of the office.

"I want to know what this pilot is doing here and who sent them, Minister," Himiko addressed Shayala icily.

"I've got a few meetings planned. Someone in my network of contacts knows someone from Neo-Venus. As far as who tried to have them killed, well, I've got a short list and it only has one name on it."

"Hallucia, I assume?"

"Of course. The fact that there's no hardware audit of this machine is probably why they were so interested, too." Shayala sighed and shook her head, looking annoyed. "This Mech comes in, no hardware audit, almost no document trail, looks like a ghost to them. They probably thought we were the ones trying to keep it quiet. No surprise they'd look into it and consider taking out the pilot so we can't use it."

"And the connection to this Sahara girl?" Himiko asked, sharing in Shayala's displeasure.

"Wrong place, wrong time? Hired help? Neo-Venutian asset? Could just as easily be any of those. We'll have to scoop her up to get a better guess. As far as grabbing this operative, all three of the Gate outposts on the continent have been alerted to watch for them and I'm talking to the Hallucian government to ask for their passage logs around their Gate but I doubt they'll co-operate. I'm sorry Governor General, but the truth is that If this operative wants to get off-world then they may already be far beyond our reach."

"I figured. Something about this incident doesn't sit right with me. I want people in custody and I want them talking." Himiko gave Shayala a look every bit as frigid as the one she'd given Wasseim. She wanted the Minister to know that she wanted results, not another political maneuver to pin blame on the militia. "You're dismissed. I want an update as soon as you have it, Shayala."

"Of course, Governor General."

***

Eleven days ago...

Lukas drummed his fingernails against the surface of the table as the clock crept towards 6:00 PM one second at a time. The others were not late, Lukas was early as he always was.

The door of the conference room opened and he looked over with the smallest amount of movement possible.

Agent Dawn entered the room, their uniform as crisp and precise as Lukas' own. Their eyes met for a moment. Dawn lowered their gaze. "Agent Lukas," they intoned deferentially.

Lukas looked away without saying anything. No ExSol with an Ascension could truly be considered Human, that was a cruel truth Lukas would never escape. It was a truth he struggled to accept every day, every time he felt his loathsome Pulse slumbering in his chest. Agent Dawn's appearance was so marred by their own Ascension that it was painful to look at them. They were a reminder of Lukas' own misfortune.

To be so thoroughly tainted by your Ascension that you cannot even bear your own gender...

A door on the other side of the conference room opened, and Agent Tae sauntered in. She was humming that same stupid song she so often sang. Some idiotic nonsense from an entertainment broadcast. Lukas scowled at her. Dawn flinched and looked away, their hand drifting to the now-healed bullet wound on their stomach.

"How's it goin, Lukky?" Tae asked cheerfully. Tae was exempt from most of the behavioral protocols that the other Agents were subject to. It wasn't fair but no aspect of life on this side of the Accursed Gates was fair. Besides, even had he been permitted, Lukas had no desire to act as Agent Tae did.

"Lukas merely awaits our assignment, Agent Tae," he replied coldly.

"Lame. Oh my gosh, Dawnie I didn't see you there!" Tae pranced over to Agent Dawn and wrapped an arm around their shoulder. She dug her knuckle into Agent Dawn's bald skull and giggled playfully as they squirmed in discomfort. Lukas considered intervening but Agent Tae quickly released Agent Dawn and plopped down into the chair next to him.

"You know why the Marshal wants to see us?" Agent Tae asked.

"Lukas has no knowledge of the nature of our briefing with Marshal Brooks," he answered calmly.

"Ugh. Typical," Agent Tae groaned in frustration and opened a video on her hand terminal. Lukas spared a glance at her screen and saw that she was shamelessly watching a livestream of a transgender woman masturbating. Disgusting. He tore his gaze away.

"Agents," Marshal Brooks addressed them as he entered the room at 6:00 PM on the dot. Agent Tae quickly shut her video off and Agent Dawn stood rigidly at attention. "Have a seat, Agent Dawn," he gestured towards Lukas and Agent Tae.

"Of course, Marshal," Agent Dawn murmured an apology and took a seat next to Lukas.

"As you know, the main battlegroup is preparing to engage the Virsallan League. We have two concerns. Should the Navann Scavvers Union or the Abrandia Militia get word of our offensive, we believe they will interfere." Marshal Brooks flicked a mission dossier onto the main display.

"Agent Dawn, you will be working with the Hallucian Federation to undermine Abrandia. Unfortunately, the Hallucians are religious fanatics. They believe their leader to be the son of Archangel Agrianna. We've had issues arranging this deal; theyre extremely paranoid. There are specific instructions on how to contact them within Abrandia. Follow them to the letter."

"Is this task an addendum to Dawn's existing task, Marshal?" they asked quietly.

"Yes. This misson is more time sensitive, but your other mission is your primary concern. Follow your itinerary." Marshal Brooks flicked another file onto the display.

"Agent Lukas. Your task is to defang the Scavvers Union on Navann," the Marshal continued. Lukas sat up at attention. "We have an asset within their council of representatives, and the indentured servitude of a pirate group, Ashen Surf. Your task is more straightforward. Pick off the Union Mechs one at a time. Gladius is more than capable. Follow your guidelines, but use your judgement."

Lukas nodded. "Lukas will not disappoint, Marshal." He was honored to be granted such trust. This was a sign that perhaps he'd soon be as trusted as Agent Zula was.

"And why am I here?" Agent Tae asked, throwing her hands into the air as her short attention span expired.

"Agent Tae..." Marshal Brooks spoke softly. He was no more fond of Agent Tae's behavior than Lukas was. 'I.' It was insulting for an ExSol branded by an Ascension to use a personal pronoun as if they were a person and not a Precursor-cursed thing.

"Yeah, Brooks?" Tae asked sweetly. She ran a hand through her dyed hair and flipped it over to the other side of her face.

Marshal Brooks narrowed his eyes at her but didn't challenge her. "You will be assisting and acting as a go-between for Agent Dawn and Agent Lukas. Your tasks are largely reconnaisance, as suits Zephyr. Follow their requests and their lead."

Agent Tae cast a challenging look at Lukas. He met her eyes calmly and serenely. He had every intention of making sure she followed instructions. When he didn't back down, she looked at Agent Dawn. They averted their gaze and looked at the floor.

"The three of you will work together to accomplish these tasks. Remember your ultimate goal needs not be to destroy these places, merely to prevent them from coming to The League's aid. Review your briefings together. We will have one final meeting tomorrow morning to address your concerns."

Marshal Brooks clapped his fist to his chest. The three Agents followed suit, even Agent Tae.

"For the Glorious Paradise of Earth," they intoned in unision, even though Tae's recitation was half-hearted.

***

Dawn sat cross-legged in their little domed garden, watching the green glittering of the light of Neo-Venus' star scattering across the atmosphere. They closed their eyes, settling themselves, centering themselves, letting go of all their worldly concerns. Their mission and the various aspects of it slipped into their mind, and they let it go. The details slipped away, Dawn's mind too still and calm for such complicated things to find purchase. Slowly, the barely audible howl of Neo-Venus' winds were drowned out. The warmth and humidity of the indoor garden were barely noticeable. Dawn was alone with only themselves in the void.

Nothing came for a while. Dawn remained detached, at peace with the world. Dawn's anxieties about the mission didn't rise up. They'd trained for this mission, prepared for every contingency. They'd literally been born for this mission. Nothing should have bothered Dawn. This meditation should have been as easy as the hundreds they'd done growing up, perhaps should have been on-par with some of the more difficult ones over the past year. But no, she always wormed her way into Dawn's darkest thoughts, Dawn's nightmares and paranoid moments.

And that was all it took. Dawn's mind returned to Emilia and her 'sessions' with Dawn. They tried to brush them off, to be still and empty and let the thoughts slip away, but they returned again and again. With a sigh, Dawn gave up, opening their eyes and looking up at the sunset. Neo-Venus' short ten hour day was almost over. The Reunification Commission used a standard Earth time, which naturally desynched with Neo Venus' rotational period. Four hours of light, six of dark. Several sunsets and sunrises every 'day.'

Dawn wondered if Emilia would come to them tonight. It would be the last night she could, before Dawn left on the mission to Ishtar. Perhaps to die and never to come back. Perhaps to be reassigned and never be on the same planet as her again. It was both a hopeful thought and a terribly melancholy one. Dawn would have stopped Emilia the first time she'd come in to torment them. They probably would have stopped her even now, if they could. But there was some dark part of Dawn that had grown accustomed to her visits. Emilia paid a perverse sort of attention to Dawn completely independent of their ability to pilot a Mech. There was also no denying that Dawn got off on what she did. Whether that was an unintended side-effect of Dawn's conditioning, or just a quirk of their psyche, they couldn't tell.

An hour passed. Two. Darkness settled completely upon the room and Dawn glanced at their hand terminal to see the time. They were scheduled to be in bed in seventy minutes. Emilia could certainly show up after that, she could appear whenever she wanted, but Dawn would still go to bed on time if she didn't show up. The clock had ticked down to fifty five minutes before bed, when dawn heard the door to their quarters open unbidden.

Dawn didn't know it was Emilia. Several people had the keycode to access Dawn's quarters. Unlike Emilia, most of them were supposed to have it. But nobody ever came. Dawn was summoned when they were needed. Dawn was assigned training drills and appointments, nobody came here but Emilia; Dawn didn't get social visits.

"Hey, Sewer, you're heckin' leaving tomorrow, I just saw." Emilia's voice came from directly behind Dawn, and they felt a shiver of dread pass through them. Dawn's fists clenched in their lap, and they lowered their head a little bit. Why were they nervous? Emilia did this all the time. Now was no different... except that it was maybe the last time.

"Hey!" Emilia walked in a circle, standing in front of dawn with a wide posture, her hands balled into fists. "Look at me!"

Swallowing, Dawn raised their head. Emilia had short, blonde, messy hair that fell in pieces around her cute, delicate features. Features that were contrasted by a demanding, angry expression. It was an expression she wore often, except for when she was around her father. He was the president of the Reunification Commission and de-facto ruler of the planet, and she was flawless in his eyes. Dawn met her eyes, swallowed again, and nodded.

"And you didn't tell me, huh? You thought you could slip away without me knowing?" she asked. Dawn didn't answer. Their thoughts on the matter were confused and muddled, not deliberate in the way Emilia was implying. With an annoyed huff, Emilia grabbed Dawn by the collar of their uniform and dragged them onto their feet and out of the garden. Dawn followed, feeling impotently annoyed with themselves for not resisting her. But they knew that resisting her was purely symbolic. Emilia dragged Dawn into their bedroom, away from the window to the outside where someone might see the two of them.

"Miss Emilia, ple--"

Emilia raised the little device in her other hand and flicked a switch, creating a subtle low-frequency sound. "Knight, Seven, Tertiary, Gray, Philosopher." she recited. The words underlaid by the thrumming sound of the audio playback cut into Dawn's mind like a knife, and they reeled at the impact of it. No matter how many times Emilia did this, it was always a shock, always a surreal experience. Emilia let go of Dawn's uniform and crossed her arms. "Get on your hecking knees."

Dawn's body responded automatically, collapsing down onto their knees so fast it stung. They still had no idea how Emilia had gained access to their hypnotic trigger, only the President and Dawn's handler were supposed to be able to read that file. It could have been as innocuous as a computer screen left unattended, it could have been a serious security breach.

"You're hecking disgusting, you know that?" Emilia sneered down at Dawn, tossing the playback device off to the side.

Dawn looked up at Emilia, struggling. Words formed half on their own, but Dawn also forced them out as the only tiny defiance they could muster. "... Yes."

Smack

Emilia slapped Dawn across the face, hard. The impact might have sent Dawn to the floor, but the weight of Emilia's command was still foremost in Dawn's thoughts and they remained on their knees using a lifetime of pilot's training and core strength.

"You piece of garbage. You're not supposed to talk to me, you're only supposed to do one thing when I ask you a question. What is it?" Emilia snarled angrily. Dawn did know. It had been all they could do not to follow her earlier instructions, but Dawn's trigger didn't quite work that way. Emilia couldn't completely imprint commands onto Dawn that persisted from session to session, but it had still been difficult to disobey in even that tiny way.

Dawn looked up at Emilia, and opened their mouth, sticking their tongue out as far as they could. "That's heckin' right," Emilia huffed, and then made a rumbling noise in the back of her throat. She spat a wad of saliva and slime right onto Dawn's outstretched tongue, and then sneered down at them expectantly. Part of Dawn wanted to let it slide off their tongue and onto the ground, but the weight of Emilia's words echoing against the subtle thrum of her playback device were irresistible. Dawn retracted their tongue, swallowed the gob of spit, and then opened their mouth again, obediently sticking out their tongue.

"So hecking' nauseating," Emilia said with unconcealed derision. Dawn wondered what was different today. Emilia was always hostile, always called Dawn these things and always did these things to them, but she wasn't normally angry. She was normally cold, arrogant, sometimes gleefully sadistic, but almost never angry. Was Emilia actually upset that Dawn was leaving? That made no sense; she must have known that Dawn would leave eventually. Dawn was a pilot, and Dusk was a long-range espionage Mech. If Emilia had access to Dawn's hypnotic trigger, she surely had access to Dawn's mission dossier.

Dawn didn't respond to Emilia's comment, they kept their mouth wide open with their tongue hanging out as Emilia had ordered. Even if they could have denied Emilia's accusation, it would be a superficial denial. The trickle of arousal between Dawn's thighs was obvious. Dawn knew it was there and that their cunt would only get wetter as Emilia continued to abuse them. Worse was the fact that Emilia knew it too.

Emilia watched her for a moment, eyes narrowed. "Get on your back, Sewer," she ordered as she undid the buckle of her pants. Their mouth locked in the lewd, gaping position that Emilia had specified, Dawn lowered themselves to the floor, lying flat down on their back. A moment later, Emilia appeared in Dawn's vision, kneeling with their head between her knees, her pants and panties gone. That was assuming she'd been wearing any of the latter in the first place. With no warning and no restraint, Emilia dropped her weight pussy-first onto Dawn's face. The acrid taste of residual urine assaulted Dawn's tongue and they winced a little as Emilia gyrated her hips on Dawn's face. A moment later, Dawn realized that Emilia had almost certainly come straight here after having sex with someone else - probably her boyfriend but not necessarily just him. Dawn swirled their tongue across Emilia's sex, drawing a small pleasured grunt out of her. Emilia would often sit on Dawn's face like this for an hour or more until Dawn was drenched in sweat and cum and their tongue ached terribly. Today, Emilia raised herself up after only a few minutes without even taking the time to cum on Dawn's face. She twisted, reorienting herself to face towards Dawn's feet instead of away. Her ass came down on Dawn's face where her pussy had been a moment ago and she squirmed and twisted to wedge Dawn's face as deep between into her crack as it could go. Dawn was trapped in the darkness of Emilia's prominent ass cheeks, and Emilia pressed her weight down hard to put her asshole in direct contact with Dawn's tongue.

"You soaked yet, Sewer?" Emilia asked with a soft grunt of relaxation. She pressed her weight down on Dawn's face as she raised one of her feet up and dropped her heel onto Dawn's cunt, kicking them firmly in the crotch. Dawn moaned and twitched involuntarily as Emilia roughly ground her heel into their cunt. The force and pain of Dawn's arousal flooded their entire body in much the same way that the shame did. "Yep. Foot's damp through your fucking uniform." Emilia laughed cruelly, lifting her foot for just a moment to inspect it before she started to roughly and erratically bounce her heel onto Dawn's cunt, the lack of a proper rhythm preventing Dawn from building up for an orgasm of their own.

Emilia grunted again, her asshole flexing outward a little and Dawn felt a surge of dread hit them when they realized she was pushing. Dawn wanted to shove Emilia off of them or at least to close their mouth, but the weight of Emilia's commands still paralyzed them, kept their mouth open and tongue out. Emilia's asshole pushed outwards again and farted out a gob of thick liquid onto Dawn's tongue which filled them with an immediate sense of relief since it was just cum. It was probably her boyfriend's cum from earlier in the day but could just as easily have been from one of a half dozen of her casual partners, or even some random person she's met for specifically this reason. More oozed out and Dawn sucked and licked on the tight ring of muscle. Emilia laughed at Dawn's meek hypnotically-induced subservience and continued to casually kick them in the cunt, endlessly amused at Dawn's groans and twitches.

"You're so gross. I can't believe you get wet doing this. Does the hypnotic trigger even still work? I bet you just pretend, you love this so much." Emilia snickered, giving Dawn a particularly firm kick that drew a muffled howl out of them. Dawn's hands seized up and twitched, their body wanting to curl up into a fetal position to push away the pain and the dreadful pleasure of Emilia's abuse. Dawn wanted to defy her suggestion that the hypnotism wasn't working, so faced with the reality of being unable to control their own body, but even if they could, their face was so deep up Emilia's ass it wouldn't have been possible to do anything other than let out a muffled mumble.

The pleasure thrumming through Dawn's body wasn't rising up to any kind of satisfying peak, but their cunt was starting to get sore and to ache. Normally Emilia didn't abuse their genitalia so hard so quickly, but today she acted with a sort of vindictive purpose, her actions moving towards some goal that Dawn couldn't fathom. Dawn had never been much for understanding people's motivations, and certainly didn't know what Emilia's were aside from a sheer sense of sadism.

Emilia grunted again, her ass pushing out and releasing another spurt of cum onto Dawn's tongue. With the amount that had been stored in her rectum, it became clear that more than one load had been shot up there, which explained why she'd been so eager to get her ass over Dawn's mouth. This recent spurt tasted different, though, there was an underlying bitterness to it and Dawn retched violently as their imagination ran wild at what the difference might be, much as it might be nothing but their imagination.

"Dont you dare hecking puke on me," Emilia hissed angrily. Immediately, Dawn's gag reflex responded to the order and went away. It seemed wrong to Dawn that their trigger should be able to suppress something that seemed like it should be autonomic but they felt their stomach settle anyway as Emilia continued to feed Dawn the tainted cum in her ass. "Disgusting bitch," Emilia murmured to herself, her body vibrating gently. Dawn realized that she must be rubbing her pussy, getting off on the sensation of Dawn licking her ass. That, and the fact that Dawn knew very well that Emilia got off on abusing them just in general. She stopped kicking Dawn in the cunt as she masturbated and Dawn was both flooded with relief and frustration. Emilia's weight on Dawn's face intensified as she leaned back, humming softly to herself. Dawn exercised a little of the free will Emilia had left them and sucked on her recently-fucked hole a little harder, hoping to assist their tormentor along.

Emilia's legs trembled, her weight shifted into an uncomfortable crushing pressure, and the string of muttered comments about how repulsive Dawn was trailed off. She stayed like that for several moments, body still gyrating subtly to the rhythm of her hand rubbing against her pussy. Eventually, as Dawn's air ran out and they started to choke on Emilia's ass, she rolled backwards and fell off, breathing heavily. Dawn gasped and coughed, the taste of some stranger's cum and whatever else had been in Emilia's rectum still staining their tongue and no doubt splayed across their face as well. Shortly afterwards, Dawn's face moved almost of its own accord, their mouth opening wide and tongue sticking out as Emilia had ordered. There was some extra level of perversity to that, Dawn thought. Emilia probably wouldn't even notice they'd done it, now that she'd cum. But still, Dawn's body obeyed, driven to follow her commands compulsively.

"Alright," Emila said with a soft gasp. "Now, let's make sure that nasty cunt of yours is good and bruised so that you won't forget who owns you while you're away." Dawn trembled in fear and despair as Emilia slowly rose up to her feet and walked around Dawn's supine figure. "Open your legs," the words came and Dawn's body obeyed but they barely seemed to hear them. Emilia had her shoes back on. Dawn winced before the first blow was struck.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Dawn cried out, wailing as best they could with their face frozen into the pose Emilia had demanded. "Keep quiet," she hissed as she kicked Dawn's cunt again, the synthetic leather stinging and leaving Dawn's sensitive sex burning. In spite of the order, some tiny squeals and grunts still came out of Dawn's mouth, forced out completely beyond the trigger's ability to hold them back. Emilia sneered at Dawn and took a step forward, tilting her foot down and aiming a series of quick, steady kicks that made Dawn's body explode in tortured pleasure. The orgasm that swept through them wasn't a pleasant experience, but it still carried with it a sort of horrid masochistic thrill that felt like an unwanted invader in Dawn's mind. It lasted too long, carried out and extended by Emilia's continued assault. She was relentless, venting some misplaced anger upon Dawn's cunt, kicking them until the world slowly faded away.

Dawn wasn't sure when they passed out. The next thing they were aware of was a terrible ache all throughout their lower body and the liquid being splashed in their face. They looked up, seeing Emilia fully dressed and standing over them with an empty water glass in her hand.

"You alive? Speak." she asked, looking more concerned for herself than she was for Dawn.

Dawn groaned softly, feeling their body move a little under their own volition. They still heard the low thrum of the playback device on their own bed but they recognized immediately that the loss of consciousness seemed to have freed them from the hypnotic suggestion, or at least, from the commands Emilia had issued up until now. "Dawn is alive, Miss Emilia," they whispered softly.

"Good. You remember who owns your worthless hide out there, Sewer." Emilia scowled down at Dawn but somehow, her words seemed to lack a bit of their normal bite. Perhaps that was the pain and dizziness talking, though. Emilia walked over to the bed and grabbed her playback device. She disabled the playback, pocketed it, and then left without another word.

Dawn slowly got back up, peeling their soiled uniform off and throwing it into the laundry. Getting changed into a new one was a bit of a chore, their legs were still wobbly and weak, and the soreness in their crotch made putting on the snug flight suit almost unbearable. Dawn limped into their garden to find their discarded hand terminal. They were supposed to have been in bed an hour ago, so now they'd be sleep deprived as well as heavily bruised. With a small grunt, Dawn put in a request to push the mission itinerary back twenty minutes. It would probably be denied, but they figured it was worth a try. Dawn crawled onto their bed overtop of the covers, and tossed the hand terminal onto the nightstand. Dawn's attempt to get some sleep was slow and punctuated by several painful adjustments. But it did come, eventually, blissfully.

***

Nina unstrapped herself from the frigid storage locker and hopped down to the ground with a less-than-graceful plummet that almost ended with her laying flat on her face. She stumbled to her knees instead, shivering with stiff muscles. She heard a familiar soft whirring noise not far ahead of her, and she looked up to see Twinshya glowing red and aiming its railgun at Dusk warily. Nina scrambled to her feet and waved her arms, trying to get Carrina's attention before she shot the defenseless Mech out of paranoia.

"Nina? Mercy, what's going on?" Carrina's voice came through her hand terminal unbidden. She was using her administrative override.

"S'alright, no hostile. Pilot's hurt, gonna take 'em to the auto-doc." She looked back at Dusk and saw the cockpit door had opened. Dawn was inside, unconsciously slumped in their seat as the Mech's auto-medic fussed with their body, doing what it was capable of.

"I'm gonna need a better explanation than that," Nina could hear the disapproving scowl on Carrina's face but she paid it no heed as she climbed up to the cockpit and unstrapped Dawn's unconscious form.

"When nobody's dyin' I'll spew what li'l I know." Nina replied as she awkwardly climbed back down and started walking briskly past Twinshya even as the Mech loomed ominously overhead.

"Fine. Meet you there." Carrina relented right before she Counter-Pulsed and Twinshya shifted into defense mode, red glow fading down to the cool reflective black of the Mech's usual colouring.

Nina carried Dawn through their compound to the medical center and laid them down on the padded surface of the auto-doc. The machine hummed to life and Nina barked some voice commands at it. "Slug wounds. Blood loss." Still, the machine cut away some of Dawn's clothes and connected a few sensors to run tests and quickly verify Nina's assertion. When that was done it inserted a few needles and started pumping Dawn full of synthetic replacement blood and started to bind and mend the tissue damage. A few minutes later, it beeped at her and informed her that the patient's chances were good. Nina sighed in relief. Immediately after that, it started registering other injuries. Dawn had extensive partially-healed bruising around their groin and a fractured pelvic bone. That explained why they'd been limping. Nina suddenly felt bad that she'd treated the pilot the way she had, they'd clearly undergone something traumatic to leave injuries like that.

Sam entered the room not long after, a confused expression on his face that was looking for an excuse to morph into rage and indignation. "Who the heck is this and why is there a weird Mech parked just outside my facility and... Why?"

"Long tale. Gon' wait till 'rina gets here to tell it." Nina answered and tried not to smirk. Truthfully she really didn't care about re-telling the story; she just wanted a plausible excuse to make Sam squirm.

Carrina didn't keep the two of them waiting long, she walked through the doors a few minutes later. She must have run here after docking Twinshya on the other side of the facility. "So, this is... Dawn?" Carrina asked.

"You are not trying to tell me that this story about a Neo-Venutian Zenith pilot is actually real. I am not-" Sam tried to bluster a little bit, but he looked at Dawn again, and trailed off.

"I found it a little hard to believe too, Sam, but that Mech out there is the real deal and this person is clearly a Zenith pilot." Carrina walked over to the auto-doc display and checked it for herself to see the machine's estimation of whether or not Dawn would survive.

"Ye. Butterfly found 'em sittin' at a place in Abrandia and I went to gift a visit. Some goons showed up, tried to crack the both of us. Check the news feeds if you want proof." Nina stood up, utilizing her height and physical form to push a bit of intimidation. She had her vindication, she intended to use it.

"So they've been harassing the Talon fortress, then?" Carrina asked, a kind of half-grimace on her face as she acknowledged Nina's accounting of Dawn's actions as truth.

"Ye. Can't say why. Gon' ask though." Nina watched Sam closely as she spoke. She was watching him so closely that there was no way he didn't notice. She wanted him to squirm a little, wanted him to feel bad for how he'd been treating her lately.

"We'll review your probation, if this pans out," Sam muttered, looking away. He walked up to the auto-doc and cycled through a few diagnostics and menus. A short while later, Dawn groaned and opened their eyes.

"Is it really necessary to wake them up so soon?" Carrina asked, sounding a little mortified that Sam had gone and stimmed them awake.

"It's safe," Sam replied, answering the unspoken question and leaving the spoken one implied.

"Patient requests painkiller," Dawn's voice sounded groggy yet somehow still aware and disciplined. Nina prepared herself, about to admonish Sam for denying Dawn's request. Before he could, the machine beeped in acknowledgement and a needle shot into their arm. Nina blinked in surprise. She wasn't familiar with the administrative functions on the auto-doc but apparently Dawn knew what requests from the patient the machine would respond to. Then again, maybe that was just a feverish guess on their part.

"You wanna tell us what on the Network is going on?" Sam demanded of Dawn angrily even as Dawn sighed softly, the painkiller no doubt having some effect already.

"This One has been under observation by the ones who sent those shooters. They were to contact Dawn. Dawn believes their true goal was This One's contact within Abrandia. When the young miss was seen leaving Dawn's hangar and then meeting with them, they believed her to be their target." Dawn spoke in a measured voice that recaptured some of their earlier calmness and inscrutability.

"Who do you work for? Who was coming after you?" Carrina pressed.

"Much as This One is imminently grateful for your assistance, they are not authorized to explain their mission." Dawn exhaled tiredly and closed their eyes again, but didn't quite fall back asleep. No doubt that would actually be impossible so long as the auto-doc was gently stimming them.

"Care to tell 'rina and Sam what you've been up to in that fancy Mech o' yers?" Nina asked.

"Dawn has been engaging in military action against Talon," they replied. Nina was a little surprised that they admitted it so readily. "This One has been tasked with retrieving a specific piece of technology from the large facility here on Ishtar."

"And of course you can't tell us what you're trying to retrieve," Sam grumbled, crossing his arms and scowling.

"Dawn is afraid not," they said.

"We'll have to cut out that thing's onboard systems and find out for ourselves, I guess," he said.

"Nuts t'that, Sam! We thieves now?" Nina got up in his face and Carrina stepped in to separate them.

"Stop it, the both of you! Nina's right, Sam, I won't rob this person," Carrina said, giving Sam a dirty look. Sam scowled at that but he broke eye contact and looked away. He seemed a bit ashamed.

"Dawn is unable to provide details of their mission, but Dawn is willing to offer some compensation or perhaps collaboration for This One's rescue." Their weary voice broke the silence.

"Generous of ya to only offer not to squeeze us after I drag yer body through a tunnel," Nina said grimly.

"This One would argue that Dawn's situation would be far less dire had the young miss not interfered in the first place. Regardless, fate and circumstances flow as water. Dawn does not provide or request justifications, Dawn accepts being adrift. A chance to rest would be appreciated, however..." Dawn's voice grew weak and exhausted even as they waxed poetic.

"Sounds settled. Let the poor enby rest." Carrina shot Nina and Sam a concerned frown and went to the auto-doc and changed a setting to stop it from stimming Dawn. With a soft groan, they closed their eyes and their breathing fell back into a steady rhythm.

"This is a total disaster. We should just thank Agrianna that nobody died and call the Governor General to let her sort this out." Carrina looked over at the two of them once she'd made sure that Dawn was unconscious.

"What? Screw that," Sam spoke out brashly. "Himiko will just arrest this weirdo, Talon's pattern will break and we'll get screwed over. If they can't pay us directly, then Twinshya and that other Mech can bust up some camp, they can have whatever bauble they want and we can cash in on the rest. We call Himiko and we get nothing. Hell, she might even just throw obstruction charges at us if she's in a bad mood." Nina winced as Sam ranted. Mostly because she actually agreed with him and she hated it when that happened.

"That Mech s'the gleam of the gates, 'rina," Nina assured her. "It can help us hit targets that Twinshya never could. Mebbe we can round up some scrap and I can actually replace autocannons five 'n six. Could get the conduit to fix the deflectors 'fore some stray round wiggles through 'em and turns Carrina into Car and Rina."

Carrina scowled at the two of them, clearly not fond of their input. "We'll talk about it." She finally conceded with a look at Sam which meant that the two would argue about it once Nina was out of the room. Nina was happy to indulge her bosses in their desire to be rid of her and she slipped out of the room before they could think of any other topics to raise with her.

***

Talon didn't think, it evaluated. It analyzed positions, obstacles, resources, and assets. It itemized various courses of action and sent them off to the Administrator so that the Administrator could guide its actions. No response came from the Administrator. No response had come in a very long time.

This didn't affect Talon's functions at all. Talon was designed to assist the Administrator. There was no contingency to be followed in the case of the Administrator's extended absence. Instead, Talon chose a course of actions from its list, one not too risky or aggressive, and then it continued to evaluate.

And as it analyzed, it detected a pattern.

An assailant from had struck several outposts in succession upon world 3-205023. The possibility that the assailant was seeking Talon's Gate codes had just exceeded 13.2%. A parameter changed. Priorities changed. Talon began to mobilize its forces upon 3-205023. Gate code theft was against the treatise. Protection of Gate codes was a high priority directive in the absence of Administrator commands.

Talon began to hunt for assailant with increased priorities.