ExSol Book1 Ch6

"So, how often have you been thinking about the night that the Colossus Tick attacked?" Crawford asked, keeping a calm eye on Nina over the edge of his hand terminal.

"Mos' days. Truth, I think 'bout the Widow nearly scavvin' m'hide more. Scares me more," she answered sullenly. She did not like therapy unless it was with Robin, and that was partially due to the fact that talking to Robin about her feelings included... side benefits. Crawford had insisted on at least a brief psych eval, though. She wasn't sure how she'd agreed to it, but she had. Robin's silver tongue. He'd pay for this, later.

"Why do you think that is?" Crawford asked.

"Heckin' tits if I know. Yer the brainworm." Nina huffed indignantly.

Crawford frowned. "Do you really have to call me that?"

"If yer wrigglin' round n'my brain, s'acurrate," she retorted.

"Well, maybe it has something to do with the powerlessness of one. You saved yourself from the Colossus Tick, right?" Crawford asked.

"Pfft. Nah, Sunrise did that. Long story."

"This is generally the best place to tell long stories, Nina," Crawford explained. Nina sighed, rubbed her forehead, and gave Crawford a brief explanation of what had happened with Dawn, starting from meeting them in Abrandia until the night the Tick attacked. "That sounds like they tricked you and left you to die, not that they saved you, Nina."

"Ye, well. Mebbe was a bit'a both," she replied. Part of her was still a little annoyed at the unusual bald enby. It seemed normal that she should be. But simply 'mad' wasn't enough emotion to capture all of her feelings about her interactions with Dawn. She'd figure that out another day.

Crawford raised an eyebrow at that. He silently tapped away at his hand terminal for a second before asking her another question. "Alright, well, why don't you tell me about you and Robin for a bit, then?"

"We're fuckin'. Not sure where he got that 'manager' bit from. Butterfly's a good improviser. Smart. Gorg. A real doll."

"Uh-huh. Is that all? I thought you two were partners?"

"Ye, we're. Ye tryin' t'get in 'is panties? That what this chat's really 'bout?"

"No, Nina, I'm asexual. I'm just trying to get you to open up a bit by asking you about your relationship," Crawford replied patiently.

"Yer Ace? Thought you'n the boss were a thing. Y'got that thing energy 'tween ya, y'know?"

"If you must know, we're married platonically, yes. You're deflecting, Nina, don't think I don't see that." Crawford sighed a little but didn't seem terribly off-put by Nina's razzing.

"Oooh, I see. Yer tryin' to maneuver in some handholdin' on the side. Yer herdin' the wrong cats, Craw. My Butterfly ain't into that filth." Nina crossed her arms, feigning indignance. Crawford snorted, struggled for a moment, and then let out a quiet chuckle, cracking a smile.

"Why don't you tell me about how the two of you met?" As he asked, Nina's hand terminal buzzed. When she glanced down at it, she saw that Petri, the other pilot, had messaged her.

"Ugh. Long story. Ye, ye, I know, best time. Well, y'know the Smithsons 'tel?"

"Smithson... Yes, actually, Jeffrin and I did some business with them a few years ago, back on Rajaona. Bit shady, but not the worst bunch to work with." Crawford nodded at her.

"Squares wit' my memory of 'em. Did some disassemblin' for 'em back in Abrandia, as a kid. Himiko came into power, cracked down, scooped 'em up, me too. One'a Butterfly's moms was my public defender. She got me off easy, n'I met 'im through her. I was usin' the restroom durin' my sentencin', n'he came in, things sorta took off. Butterfly ended up pressed up 'gainst the wall of one'a the stalls wit--"

"Nina, this camp is full of horny people who'd love to hear the specific details of your sex life but I'm not one of them. I'm literally the only one, actually," Crawford interjected. "I think I'll just clear you for now, we'll chat again next week, see how you're fitting in, sound good?"

"Ye. Good talk." Nina glanced at her terminal again as Crawford went towards the tent he shared with Jeffrin. She'd actually gotten two messages near simultaneously, one from Petri, and one from Allag.

6)Private [Allag] - TELL US HOW YOU DID IT!!!!!

6)Private [Petri] - YOU MADE CRAWFORD LAUGH WE SAW IT!

She frowned and looked around the camp for the two. She spotted them sitting at one of the many tables scattered around the camp that seemed to typically contain board games. They were sitting side by side, staring at her intently. When they saw her looking back at them, Allag jumped and looked away, playing innocent. Petri took the opportunity to grab at Allag's crotch and push him backwards, climbing on top of him and kissing him aggressively.

Nina approached the two of them, and as she got close, they disentangled from one another. "Oh, hey, Nina, didn't see you there," Petri said smoothly, pulling a bit of her hair out of her mouth.

"Ye, sure. Allag, Crawford tol' me to see ya about requisitionin' parts fer Twinshya." Nina ignored the shenanigans. She had way too much brattiness to deal with from Robin already and she wasn't trying to get caught up in theirs.

"Alright, sure, I can totally do that," Allag said, sitting up straight and fixing his glasses that had been knocked askew by Petri. "But we need to know how you made Crawford laugh. Crawford never laughs."

"Made a handholdin' joke," she answered in a deadpan. The two of them stared at her intently for a moment, then shared a glance with one another, and nodded.

"We'll get to work on that, thanks for your help," Allag responded somberly.

Nina scowled at the two of them. "We're gettin' Twinshya's parts, or a part of me is goin' in an orifice of yers. Not tellin which n' which."

"I'll risk it," Allag answered instantly, still feigning seriousness.

"No, bro, it's probably her foot up your ass." Petri elbowed him.

"Oh, right. Maybe I won't risk it then. Alright, let's go get you some parts out of the scrap heap." Allag leaned over and gave Petri a kiss on the cheek, and she grinned back at him as he hopped up to walk with Nina to where she'd parked Twinshya. Nina had asked the two of them if they were actually brother and sister, and they'd insisted that it was true. Everybody else had told Nina that the two of them only insisted that they were siblings to make everybody uncomfortable, which seemed very in-character for the two of them. They did look a little like siblings but not conspicuously so.

"Okay, so, what's step one?" Allag asked once they were standing in front of the Mech.

"Autocannon six misfired on me, gotta rip 'er out. Five also had a power failure, I gotta run a test-fire, n'then--"

"What kind of autocannons are these?" Allag interrupted her.

"Single Shot. Thirty five millimeter. Salvage from Firebugs." Firebugs were actually the model that Nina had been salvaging missiles from back on Ishtar.

"Really? Yowza. Okay... what do you think about just swapping out all six with these, could you fit it into the chassis?" Allag tapped on his hand terminal for a second then sent her a file with specifications for triple-shot forty one millimeter autocannons.

"Err... Allag, I can't just take six'a these from--"

Allag snorted loudly. "Really? Nina, please, no offense, but your Mech is crap. I'm not sending you out to fight the ANs in a crap Mech."

"Allag, y'don't know me. Y'can't just give me six gleaming autocannons, I could run off, I could..."

"Are you planning on running off?" Allag asked, looking legitimately confused.

"'Course not, but y'don't know that." Nina huffed, crossing her arms.

"Nina, I'm not going to saddle you with garbage equipment because you're new, that's not how we work here. You're going to put your life on the line for us. Can you make room in the chassis for these autocannons?" Allag looked at her over the top of his glasses. He looked serious.

Nina scowled at him, then looked over at Twinshya, mulling over the idea that Allag might actually mean what he was saying. "Ye. I'll hafta move some of the conduit but... how much conduit can ya give me?"

"How much do you need? What's the power grid like right now?" Allag asked without hesitation.

"It's right hecked. Been patchin it with scrap fer a year. Gotta replace half the deflectors too." She waited for Allag to double back on his position regarding giving her parts.

"I've literally got a whole crate of good Pulse deflector coils you can have, go wild on them. I'll give you all the spare conduit I can find, do some work and let me know if it'll be enough. I can always find more for you." Allag tapped a few buttons on his terminal and a system message showed up on Nina's terminal, giving her an itemized list of all the parts she'd been assigned. Her eyes bugged out at the sheer volume of things Allag had just given her.

"Allag, s'over four hundred coils in that crate." Nina frowned at the terminal. Even if she was to replace every single one of Twinshya's deflector coils, she'd only need two hundred. This was the kind of stockpile she'd expect if she went to a major depot on Abrandia. It was also worth more than she'd earned in her life.

"Yeah, right? We found over a thousand of them in this one cache and we've been trying to sell them all year. It's actually been a huge pain to haul them around with us because we can only ever sell like forty at a time. Next question, why do you have a high-intensity laser mounted outside the armor plates?" He had a sort of sly grin on his face as he asked

Nina grimaced, and looked up at the piece of equipment awkwardly mounted on top of the front part of Twinshya's body. "Don' ask me." she muttered, scowling. Twinshya had had that laser there since before she'd started working on it, and she hadn't exactly been in a position to tell Carrina what to do with her Mech. Nina was convinced that Carrina simply liked lasers. "Y'want it? S'yers. I'm of a mind to just tear 'er off completely when I redo the conduit."

"No, I don't want it, we just had a bet going. Petri thought you just really liked lasers." He tapped some more on his terminal and then looked up at her with a big smile. "Parts and equipment are all yours. Ask me if you want any help, yeah? I'd like to be at least somewhat familiar with Twinshya if we're gonna run it."

"Ye. I'll find some work fer ya." Nina nodded, looking at Twinshya so that she didn't have to look at Allag. This all felt too good to be true, it worried her.

Nina looked over at the tent that was set up a short distance away from Twinshya. They'd given her and Robin a little canopy tent that they'd set up and were sharing. The tent flap hung open where Robin had forgotten to close it. Nina stole a glance and saw it was empty. True to his nickname, Robin was a social butterfly. He was already flittering about making friends. She turned back to Twinshya and cracked her knuckles. Time to get to work.

Nina had parked Twinshya on its belly with its legs spread. A nice advantage of Twinshya's design was that she could do that to get easier access to it when she needed to work. She started unseating armor plates and exposing Twinshya's torso so that she could rip out the autocannons. If Allag was giving her those new ones, she'd have a lot of work ahead of her to get them installed.

Sure enough, autocannon 6 was a mangled mess. If Nina had shoved a low yield grenade into Twinshya and set it off, it'd have had a similar effect.

A few hours later she tossed the last of her three port side autocannons into a heap next to her. She'd gotten them uninstalled cleanly and she could set about mounting the new ones tomorrow. It was a good start. She felt an odd sense of pride at the work she'd done. She had never been ashamed of her work - she did good work. But there was always a sort of disconnect. She'd been working on Carrina's Mech before and now she was working on her own.

Is it really your Mech? It belongs to Carrina. You stole it.

She shook her head. Idiotic thoughts. ExSol's didn't think like that. They honored the dead by moving forward, by using what they left behind.

A hand on Nina's shoulder made her jump and yelp. She wheeled around and saw a very frightened Robin. At the sound of her distress, Jeffie got up from his watch post and squeaked ferociously at the intruder.

"Everything okay, Miss Nina?" he asked, his eyes big and his voice soft. It was a crime how cute he was.

"S'okay. Jus startled me, s'all." Nina put an arm around Robin's shoulders and crushed him into a hug until he squawked in distress. "'Cha been up'ta?" she asked as she released him.

Robin futzed with his hair a little bit. "Just getting to know these folks. They seem like a nice group of people, Miss Nina." Jeffie walked up to him and placed his paws on Robin's leg. "Aww, poor Jeffie. Do you need attention?" Robin crooned, picking him up and kissing him on the head

"Mm. Ye... Allag gave me a trove'a parts fer Twinshya. Crazy. M'not used'ta people bein..." Nina trailed off.

Robin pouted a little and placed his hand on Nina's forearm, cradling Jeffie in his other arm. "You've had a rough go of it, Miss Nina... I've always known that but... there are good people out there on the Network, you know. ExSol's haven't survived this long by being cruel to each other." The sentiment hit Nina hard. She'd always thought that. Agreed with that. She'd always struggled to believe that, though. Jeffie squeaked in agreement.

"Ehhh. Mebbe they jus'wan in yer panties. Craw was anglin' to get y'inta sum handholdin during our sesh."

"Miss Nina, I just had two different people ask me if we're open but they were clearly asking about you." Robin huffed indignantly and crossed his arms, cradling Jeffie in them. The kitten somewhat undercut his attempt to look slighted.

"Whole outfit's full'a bottoms, I swear. S'just the top shortage speakin. Also. 'Re we open?" Nina asked, stroking her chin. She'd never thought about that.

"... Uhh... If we're not, I have several confessions to make." Robin laughed nervously.

Nina snorted. "I meant fer me, y'dingus. I know yer a whore. Been so busy I ain't had time fer nobody but you."

Robin laughed, and cozied up to her, snuggling into her shoulder. "Awww, that's kinda sweet. Well, you're welcome to hook up with whomever you want, Miss Nina. All I want is to be kept in the loop, ok?"

"... Who's th'dom n'this relationship?" Nina asked, narrowing her eyes at her boyfriend with her hands on hips.

***

"Bereaver's Tits!" Dawn's companion screamed, clutching her arm as she ducked back under the tipped-over workbench.

"Are you quite alright?" Dawn asked, glancing at the charge display on their plasma caster. Three more seconds to fully charge the capacitors, and then they could fire again.

"Aside from the fact that I'm going to die in this hangar, yeah," she answered bitterly, taking her hand away for just a second to get a better look at the wound. She clearly didn't like what she saw because she grimaced and replaced her hand, applying some pressure while she set her machine gun down and grabbed at the first aid kit on her belt.

"Well, if it is any consolation, Dawn thinks that you hit your target. It seems as though there are only five of them left." Dawn peeked out from their cover for a moment, and then quickly bolted up, aiming their plasma caster and firing off two quick shots at the pile of metal crates that the Yvaim soldiers were taking cover behind. Dawn heard someone cry out in pain and curse, but it sounded more like someone getting hit by a spray of steam or molten metal rather than someone directly hit by the bubble of superheated plasma. Painful, but not deadly.

Dawn ducked back under cover as the roar of their machine guns firing in retaliation drowned out all other sound in the room for a second. Bullets pinged off walls and floors just centimeters from where Dawn and their companion crouched. Dawn sighed in frustration. Their plasma caster was certainly causing more damage than the soldiers' machine guns, but it was slow going, and Dawn was racing against the clock. The shootout was happening in the dock that housed Dusk. The Mech was actually situated against the far wall, waiting for its pilot.

The double agent who'd gotten Dawn out of their cell had managed to jam the door behind them as they'd entered. On top of that, an RC Mech was just outside the compound doing battle with Yvaim's external defenses, which were apparently much more formidable than recent intelligence had suggested. That meant the Yvaim soldiers in the room with them were stuck, Yvaim couldn't try to send soldiers out another airlock and into this one from outside, but it was only a matter of time until the rest of Yvaim's security got plasma cutters and tore a hole into the Mech bay from the inside. It meant that Dawn had to get to Dusk and they had very little time to do it.

"I'm running low on bullets," Dawn's companion said after she'd finished bandaging her arm. "If I run out and they realize, they'll charge us. And I'm seeing smoke coming out of the door behind us; they're starting to cut their way through."

"Both of those outcomes would be unfortunate," Dawn replied grimly, looking around the room for something, anything to use to their advantage. As their desperation grew, they looked up at the ceiling, seeing a strange web of pipes running along the length of the hangar bay. It was an odd thing to see, not because it didn't make sense, those were probably fuel pipes. What was odd was that the design wasn't the way that ExSol's typically designed buildings.

"Yvaim was designed by humans... those pipes, would they be aluminum?" Dawn asked, pointing at them. Most early human settlements had been earth designs, made out of earth materials, or made out of materials harvested with earth techniques, like open pit mining. ExSols mostly gathered materials out of scavenged Precursor installations, so they typically made things out of titanium, iron, ceramic, tungsten and various different alloys similar to steel. Materials with high melting points.

"Uhh, probably?" Dawn's companion replied, confused. "Yvaim's old, never fell to the Precursors, too out of the way to be of any interest."

"We must try something, then. Dawn will flush them out. When they move, where do you suspect they shall try to relocate to?" Dawn asked.

"They'll move closer to your Mech, they don't want you getting into it. So, probably... that storage unit, do you see it?" Dawn's companion pointed to an upright unit full of Mech hydraulics.

"Dawn sees it. If Dawn's companion situates herself at that corner, she'll have a clear view to pick them off as they move."

"... Heck, you're right, but that's a long way for me to run with four machine guns on me." Dawn's companion sighed with a sense of defeat that came with accepting a task that may get her killed.

"Dawn will provide you with cover, then," they said, checking the capacitors on their plasma caster. It displayed three green pips, all three shots were ready to fire.

"Yeah. On three?"

"Indeed. Three... Two... One." Dawn popped out of cover and fired at the crates. The superheated plasma struck the metal and sent out another spray of steam and molten metal. They paused for just a moment out in the open, waiting for motion from behind the crates. The instant Dawn spotted the tiniest bit of motion, they fired twice more, and ducked back under cover. The shots yielded a cry of pain, a hail of retaliatory gunfire, and a renewed smell of burning flesh.

Dawn glanced to the side and saw their companion huddled behind a wall several meters away. She looked over at Dawn and raised three of her fingers in an 'affirmative' motion. The gesture wasn't one Dawn recognized. It was... Virsallan?

Not wasting time to seriously ponder the origins of their companion's mannerisms, Dawn glanced down at their plasma caster. One pip. Two. Three. Dawn returned the gesture, and took aim at the ceiling. Two quick shots struck the pipes above the Yvaim guards' hiding place. The metal melted and popped loudly, and the entire pipe creaked and shifted. The aluminum pipes melted much more readily than steel or carbon, showering the guards with molten metal.

Dawn fired the third shot, and the pipes collapsed, melted and crumbling metal falling directly onto the Yvaim soldiers. They cried out in alarm and tried to run as Dawn fired the fourth shot as soon as the capacitors allowed. Dawn's companion fired several short bursts that drew out the sounds of pain and death.

"Mercy! Surrender!" a strained voice called out as the gunfire ceased.

"Kick your weapons over!" Dawn's companion ordered immediately, pre-empting any possibility that Dawn wouldn't spare them. Dawn wouldn't have demanded a cold-blooded execution, but they also knew several RC agents who would. Rifles and sidearms clattered across the floor, and then, two of the five original soldiers walked out with their hands raised. One of them had several burns that went through his uniform.

"Against the wall, go. Agent, get in your Mech, we need to be out of here before security gets through the door." Dawn let their companion shepherd and zip tie her former colleagues up against the wall and supervise them as they performed some first aid. They quickly ran over to Dusk and input the security codes to release the docking clamps. Dawn pressed their hand to the terminal next to Dusk's cockpit and flared on their Zenith to authenticate themselves. When Dawn got back up into Dusk's cockpit, they were relieved to see that Yvaim hadn't gone and forced their way into the Mech or its systems. Clearly, they'd thought that keeping Dusk intact would be better leverage than digging around inside it. They didn't know the Reunification Commission very well if they expected anything other than bloodthirsty retaliation for any of this.

Dawn powered up Dusk's reactor, routed the grid to the plasma caster, and aimed at the door that they'd entered from. It was already glowing red, on the verge of being breached. "Dawn suggests that the security team cutting through that door abandons their efforts." Their voice was amplified by Dusk's external speaker. The door came off its hinges a moment later, and Dawn almost fired the heavy plasma caster at the hallway. The weapon fired over two hundred times as much magnetically bottled plasma per shot as Dawn's sidearm, it would obliterate the hallway and everybody in it. Instead, they fired the two light autocannons located in Dusk's torso at the wall next to the door. The slugs slammed into the wall with a loud crack. Metal bent and the whole structure vibrated. A few seconds later, the breaching team hadn't come through the hole they cut. They knew they stood no chance against a Mech.

Dawn piloted Dusk to the airlock. The inner door just finished cycling open, and Dawn saw that their companion was already equipped with an oxygen mask and tank. She raised three of her fingers at Dusk, and Dawn piloted the Mech into the airlock with them.

"Dawn is afraid that Dusk is not able to carry passengers, you will be on your own." They spoke to their companion using Dusk's external speakers. Truthfully they could probably have transported her using the same mechanism as they'd carried the crass young woman, but that methodology had too many drawbacks.

Dawn saw her replying, but only the tiniest whisper of sound came through, and they realized that they'd set their internal volume down to one percent to drown out the sound of the dust storm.

"--stashed a few kilometers away. I've got my own debriefing location, I'll be fine," she said.

The outer airlock doors opened, and the two of them set out into the gloom. As soon as Dusk was clear of Yvaim, they got both a communications request, and a target lock. Dawn turned Dusk around, aimed their plasma caster at a random section of the facility, and accepted an audio-only connection.

"Dawn suggests that you cut your losses," they said coldly, cutting the connection before a reply could come. They activated Dusk's stealth field to break Yvaim's target lock and to drive home their point.

Dawn took Dusk out of weapon's range and only then did they drop the stealth field. As soon as they did, another connection request came, this one on an RC military frequency. Dawn frowned in confusion, checking Dusk's external cameras for the Mech that had assaulted Yvaim to earn them their freedom. It had to be here somewhere; it was that very attack that had created enough chaos to enable Dawn's escape in the first place. Dawn accepted the connection after a brief pause, and an excited squeal immediately assaulted their ears.

"Dawnie!!" Accompanying the voice, a familiar Mech descended out of the sky, right in front of Dusk. It stopped with a precise flare of maneuvering thrusters that sent clouds of dust swirling up into the air. The new arrival hovered in the air a few meters off the dusty surface of Macau. Dawn yelped in surprise and then immediately sighed as they realized who it was that RC command had sent to save them.

"Agent Tae, surprising a fellow Reunification Commission agent in the field with no purpose is against operational guidelines," Dawn said, trying not to scowl at her. Her Mech, Hurricane Tornado Zephyr, just called Zephyr by the rest of the pilots, was a lightly armed Zenith flight design. Dusk was capable of using some amount of gravity manipulation to perform maneuvers that resembled short flights, or, perhaps just very high, slow jumps. Tae's Mech was optimized for gravity manipulation, and could easily sustain total weightlessness indefinitely. On top of that, it had a wide range of maneuvering thrusters that allowed Tae to dart rapidly through the air with precise, nimble motions

"Wow, Dawnie, always so grumpy. Is that how you greet your only friend and your savior?" Tae asked, playfully sticking out her tongue at Dawn on the monitor. Tae was short with delicate, cherub-like features. Her blue hair was shaved on one side and it floated weightless in her cockpit just as her Mech floated weightless in the air. Tae had Zenith just like Dawn, but hers didn't burn as brightly as Dawn's. Her naturally dark hair was also resilient to the internal temperature spike that came with using the Ascension, and so didn't burn away like Dawn's did.

"Dawn is uncertain where Agent Tae continually gets the idea that we are more than colleagues," they muttered, trying not to get too annoyed. There was no point in getting frustrated, Tae did these things on purpose. Even now, Tae's Mech was spinning ever so slightly in the air like the second hand of a clock. She'd be upside down soon even though she could easily correct herself.

"Dawnie, you know I hate Macau, it's soooo boring here, but I came anyway. If that's not love, what is?" Tae giggled. Her Mech suddenly sprung into motion. She twirled in the air and pantomimed firing the autocannons mounted on Zephyr's arms like a child firing imaginary pistols with their fingers. For a moment, Dawn wondered if Tae was manually issuing commands to make her Mech move like that, or if she'd written a subroutine so that she could do it at the push of a button.

"Well, Dawn appreciates your efforts, Agent Tae. Did Yvaim's defenses give you any difficulty?" they asked with a sigh, putting Dusk into motion and walking past the spinning, floating Mech.

"Nahhh. Just takes a while to shoot up a whole facility when I only have fifty millimeter autocannons, y'know? But Yvaim's weapons can barely even fire upwards at all, most of their defenses are directed downwards. Macau's aeronautics are so bad, this place sucks. The atmosphere is thin and there's dust storms, why did the precursors even set up gates here? Anyway, too bad for Yvaim; I don't need atmosphere to fly." Tae wiggled excitedly in her seat as she followed alongside Dawn. It seemed to Dawn like she would be bouncing if she had the benefit of having weight.

"Oh!" Tae's eyes lit up, and with a burst of speed and maneuverability, she swooped in front of Dusk and stopped, halting Dusk in its tracks. "I forgot to mention, we're not going to the forward camp on Rajaona."

"Upon whose authority? A mission parameter change like that requi--"

"Oh my gooooossshhhh, Dawnie, were you under a rock? There's a new Field Marshal. She's set up our forward camp just outside the Virsalla-Macau gateway. She wants you to report to her immediately."

"Dawn was shot, hospitalized, and then imprisoned," they muttered, but Tae seemed not to hear them.

"You can get there alone, right? Because my orders are to be in Navann the day after tomorrow and if I get there today then I can fuck this total ba--"

"Yes, Agent Tae, Dawn can travel to Virsalla alone," they replied, perfectly happy to travel without Tae's prattling. No doubt she'd found a new trans woman to obsess over. Whomever she was, Dawn felt a bit of pity for her. That obsession had not ended well for a few different women.

And yet, the crass young woman is perennially on Dawn's mind, is she not?

Dawn shook their head. She was gone now. It wasn't even like that. Dawn had their mission, and that was all they needed.

"Nice! See you later, Dawnie, love you," Tae blew a kiss at the camera and bolted up into the sky before streaking off into the gloom. Dawn shook their head, the frustration of having to deal with Tae buzzing in their ears. Tae's mother was one of the Marshals, a lineage that she used, consciously or unconsciously, to get away with an insufferable amount of unprofessional behavior. She'd also glommed onto Dawn for some reason that they'd never understand. Shaking their head, they checked their navigation for a route towards the Virsalla gate, and put Dusk into a sprint. They were plenty sick of this planet, too.

***

Nina watched the video feed from Ambrosia's reconnaissance drones with a sort of morbid fascination. Deluge encryption felt like cheating. It was a violation of the rules to control stuff remotely. The AN's did that, not ExSol's.

"Convoy's entering the canyon. Report in." A soft voice came through Nina's speakers. She'd set up text-to-speech in Twinshya's systems because the screen that displayed text was on a panel a good ninety degrees from her main displays, and also because using text was ridiculous. She couldn't get Jeffrin's voice synth to actually sound like him, but now wasn't the time for her to fiddle with the settings.

"M'here," she said.

"Mirror?" Jeffrin asked. The robot voice did its best to sound confused on account of the question mark.

"I. Am. Here." She enunciated clearly for her speech-to-text engine, and then sighed. She was never going to get used to this. It reminded her of being in school, getting scolded for not speaking clearly.

Why am I feeling dysphoric about that? Ugh. Stupid brain. Make sense.

"I'm in position." Another voice spoke, this one using a more feminine robot voice. It sounded even less like Petri than Jeffrin's text-to-voice. It'd probably scream and cum her brains out a lot different than Petri did, too.

"Alright. I'm gonna get things started in ten seconds. Remember, no heroics. If things get bad, play it safe and back off." Jeffrin's voice was accompanied by a ten-second timer appearing on her screen.

"Y'don' hafta sell me on it," Nina said to herself. This whole 'no heroics' thing had been something Jeffrin had revisited again and again during the mission briefing. It was getting a tad annoying.

The timer hit zero, and a bright streak tore across the camera feed from the drones. It glitched out the drone's cameras for a second, and when it cleared up, the vehicle that was the AN's version of a giant shipping truck keeled to the side, a puddle of molten scrap where one its treads had been. Another timer appeared on Nina's screen, counting down from three and a half minutes, the time Ambrosia would need to prepare its main cannon.

Nina watched as the cargo vehicle's escort scrambled. Twenty Locusts raced towards Jeffrin and Ambrosia, followed by five Rhinos. In the back, a pair of long-range support robots, Fireflies, started to turn around, trying to target Ambrosia with their railguns.

Nina waited for the Locusts to get close enough to her, and activated Pulse, bringing Twinshya to life. Twinshya leapt out from behind cover, and Nina started resolving targeting locks and giving fire orders to autocannons one through three. The new autocannons thumped loudly, rattling Nina in her cockpit as the slugs tore into the locusts.

I'll have to adjust some of the shock absorbers for these freaking things.

The machines quickly reassessed Nina as their primary threat and came after her, peppering Twinshya with a barrage of weak plasma caster fire as they tried to circle around her. Twinshya's new deflectors held strong, completely diverting the feeble attacks, and she sent the Mech straight into the center of the swarm of locusts, bringing all six autocannons to bear. She tore the cannon fodder apart in moments, keeping Twinshya moving at a horizontal angle from the approaching Rhinos. She heard rocks popping and crunching around her as the last of the Locusts died, and sure enough, the Rhinos were firing their own heavy autocannons at her. Twinshya's deflectors nullified four of the heavy rounds and got one more off-course enough that it glanced off of Twinshya's armour instead of tearing into it.

She reoriented Twinshya towards the approaching Rhinos, targeted the one in the front, and fired the rail gun. The hyper-accelerated tungsten round struck the heavy machine front and center, and it bucked backwards. The front half imploded in on itself as the entire machine was lifted up off of the ground, twisting and flailing backwards like a kite released into a hurricane.

Nina almost cackled maniacially at the sight of it, but before she could, she Counter-Pulsed. The disorientation of her euphoria fading disrupted her, but only for a moment. She was getting better at that, rolling with the change as quickly as she could. She gave Twinshya's deflectors more reactor power now that it was in defensive mode.

She twisted Twinshya away from the remaining four Rhinos and tried to lead them on a chase around the outer edge of the canyon. The tank-like vehicles got close enough to try and spray her with their plasma casters as the autocannons reloaded, but Twinshya's empowered deflectors kept them at bay.

Nina spotted a blur of motion from the direction of the downed cargo vehicle, and saw one of the two Fireflies toppling over, one of its three legs shorn clean off. She caught a glimpse of Petri's Mech, Valkyrie, charging the other remaining Firefly, vibrospear at the ready. Nina kept her focus on the Rhinos. Two tried to chase her, and the other two split off to go after Jeffrin and Ambrosia, but the timer on Nina's screen read 0:00. Jeffrin hit one of the two Rhinos coming at him with his main cannon. The ultra-heavy plasma caster struck the Rhino with a bundle of plasma as big as a person, obliterating the machine in one fell swoop.

Nina led the two Rhinos on a chase, keeping them far enough out of weapon's range that they couldn't hope to penetrate Twinshya's deflectors. She kept taking potshots with her new autocannons. One of her rounds penetrated one of the Rhinos and ruptured the magnetic containment on its plasma caster, making the machine bleed superheated matter as it stuttered.

These things just straight up fragged a Rhino. Crazy.

Valkyrie appeared on Nina's IFF, and then a few seconds later, leapt over an outcropping. The swift Zenith Mech descended upon the remaining Rhino and expertly cleaved off the section of the machine that held the control module, disabling it without detonating any munitions held within. Nina recognized the skill and intentionality behind that strike. Disabling the enemy like that made the salvage more valuable.

She's a goofy slut, but Petri's a really freaking good pilot.

"Clear?" Jeffrin's voice asked on their channel as Ambrosia scuttled past the autocannon-riddled remains of the other Rhino that had been pursuing him.

"Looks," Nina replied, double-checking her sensors.

"All good here, Chief," Petri confirmed. "Great job out there, Nina."

What a suck-up she is.

"Yeah, nice work. Stay alert though, River might send reinforcements before we can scavenge this." Jeffrin reiterated the mission briefing for her in a way that somewhat undercut the praise. As he spoke, the view from his drones began to zoom out as they flew higher to watch for threats.

Nina took up the position she'd been assigned to defend the canyon and relaxed a little, letting Pulse run out and putting Twinshya on reserve power and functionality. Once the effects of Pulse and the adrenaline of battle faded away, Nina suddenly felt herself grinning, and then laughing, bouncing excitedly in her seat like a little girl. She'd piloted Twinshya, and fought the ANs in a way that wasn't a terrifying retreat with death snapping at her heels. She'd always wanted to pilot a Mech and do this, and now she'd done it, she was doing it.

A connection request came, and she frowned in confusion. Who would be making a normal call to her now instead of using the Fox Catchers' internal network? It was Crawford, making a direct-link audio and video connection to her.

"Ye?" she answered it after a delay.

"Hey Nina, how are you doing?" Crawford had his normal patient parental expression on, which made it difficult to read.

"Slicked. Got'er done wit' jus' a scratch," she replied, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

Is he checking up on me?

"Slicked means... good, right? Right, well, if you need to duck out of guard duty, you can use this line and I'll make it happen, okay?" Crawford made the offer as if it were somehow illicit.

"Not breakin' down. Buildin' up. M'fine, brainworm," she said.

"Great. Glad to hear it. Offer is still open." Crawford gave her an awkward smile and a little wave, and closed the connection. He didn't even object to being called a brainworm. Nina was a little off-put by the exchange for a few moments, but she realized that Crawford was probably just being overprotective of the new girl. She decided to grill Petri and Allag about it later. She wanted to see if he did this to everybody or if it was just her. She'd be annoyed if it was just her.

The salvage team showed up on Nina's sensors a moment later, a team consisting of the group's engineers and mechanics, armed with trucks, pneumatic claws, and cutting torches. Back on Ishtar, this had been Nina, Nugan, and Ryan coming in to gut and tear apart Precursor cargo and machines while Carrina had stood watch in Twinshya. Nina watched the group approach, and as she did, she spotted what looked like Robin's rover zipping in through the canyon.

"Oi, Butterfly, that you I'm spottin'?" she called Robin with a scowl on her face

"Huh?" Robin responded quickly, his voice accompanied by background noise that confirmed that he was in his rover.

"S'a battlefield, 'cha doin here?" she pressed him.

"I thought the bots were all scrap?" he slithered around the question deftly, though the tone in his voice implied to her that he was just oblivious.

"Scrap or not, s'dangerous. Why y'here?" She grumbled. Robin was so dense sometimes.

"I'm going to try and download some of the AN's cartographical data, maybe I can find some parts depots or storage facilities not on ExSol maps," he replied cheerfully. He sounded excited.

"What, y'read Precursor, now?" She snorted at that.

"Nobody just 'reads' Precursor, Miss Nina, their language isn't even linear the way that--"

"Butterfly," Nina interrupted him.

"Uh... yeah?"

"Yer cute when ya get like this, but I really don' care. Just... be careful. Dangerous out 'ere." Nina sighed. She didn't like Robin being out here, and while she was happy to tell Robin what he could and couldn't do, and in fact that was one of the foundations of their relationship, she wasn't keen on treating him like a child.

"It's fine, I've got you to protect me, right?" Robin giggled and blew a kiss at the camera. Nina rolled her eyes and cut the connection as the crew drove past her. The Catchers' descended upon the downed caravan like... well, a pack of scavengers. Nina watched them with some admiration for a little bit. They weren't a huge crew, but they worked together well. She'd half expected them to be all talk and no action, falling apart into bickering, misunderstanding, and confusion when it came time to act.

That wasn't to say she didn't spot things from her perch aboard Twinshya that made her raise an eyebrow. A crew not double checking a joint that might still have a charged capacitor. Someone parking a piece of equipment in front of an autocannon instead of off to the side. Little things. The kind of stuff she'd have given Ryan shit for if she caught him doing it. The kind of things that would get someone hurt one time in a thousand. Not the kind of stuff a crew should be doing when they planned on doing that task a thousand times.

She turned her cameras onto Robin and watched him. He was buzzing around the corpse of the Rhino she'd killed with her rail gun. He had one of the camp's techs with him, the two were chatting and pointing at the alien machine. They flirted while they talked, Nina could practically see the girl blushing from here. She took something from Robin and started attaching it to the felled Rhino. Nina watched them for a bit and eventually got bored.

Nina booted up the combat replay and started going over it. Searching for what she'd done right and what she'd done poorly. Too many autocannon shots into some targets, too few in others. The gauss cannon shot was good. She'd let a few of the Locusts get a bit too close and they'd done a little bit of damage. It was nothing major but she'd have to fix a few armor plates that she otherwise could have kept intact.

"Miss Nina!!! Oh my gosh I just found something so hecking cool!!" Robin's excited voice came over her radio.

"Ye? Tell me 'bout it, Butterfly," Nina responded, not paying attention.

***

Robin drove his rover around the site of the battle, searching for one of the precursor's robots that was intact enough for him to try to hack into. He circled around a few times and decided on one of the Rhinos that looked like it had almost been turned inside out by some kind of big gun or something. Control module looked good, though. He parked his rover right next to the big thing, and hopped out with his splicing kit packed under his arm.

Nearby, a woman wearing a welder's mask was busy using a plasma torch to tear something off of something else. She looked over at him as he approached the control module and set his kit down.

"Hey! What's going on? I'm working here," she asked, walking right up to him. She didn't sound overly hostile but she didn't sound terribly pleased to see him, either.

"Oh! Hi, you're Natasha, right? I'm just going to access the AN's network. I'll stay out of your way, promise," he flashed her a smile.

"Crawford didn't tell me about this," she said with her arms crossed.

"Sorry, I just asked him about it," Robin stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. The contact made her relax a little bit.

"... Fine. You need help getting at the control module? They're kinda deep in the Rhino's chassis."

"Oh. I've never actually done a splice before, to be honest," he said, laughing a bit. "Do you know where to attach this?"

"... Why are you out here by yourself if you've never done a splice before?" she asked.

"I wrote my thesis on the Precursor's network. I... think Crawford just assumed that meant I'd done a splice before. Listen, it's fine, I've read all about this."

Natasha sighed and walked towards the control module, beckoning Robin to follow. She wielded her plasma torch and started cutting off an armor plate.

"So, uhh, Robin?" Natasha asked him as the first plate came off.

"Is there a problem?" he asked, peering in closely.

"No, hey, c'mon, back up a little," Natasha put a hand on his chest and gave him a little nudge backwards. "No, I've been meaning to ask. Are... are you and Nina...?"

"Yeah, we're open, you can just ask her, she prefers it when people are direct." Robin sighed a little.

"No... I mean, cool. But..." Natasha sighed and started cutting through another piece of the Rhino with her plasma torch.

That's weird. Why wasn't she happy? Oh! Shit!!

"D-did you mean me?" He squeaked.

Natasha stopped what she was doing and looked at him. She blushed and looked away again.

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry! I just... normally women don't..." Robin babbled and his own face went crimson.

"Well... you're dating Nina, aren't you?" she asked.

Well, yeah. But Nina's a bit of a different case." Robin smiled a little, remembering that first time he'd run into her in that public bathroom.

"What, because she's trans?" Natasha asked.

"Oh! Oh my gosh no no. That's not what I meant." Robin fought off the feeling of mortification. Nina's transness had influenced his feelings for her, of course, but it wasn't just that. He wasn't a person who conformed to gender norms, himself, so it had been a point of commonality. What had drawn him to her initially was her attitude. Well, that and the rough anal sex.

How do I actually explain any of this, though? Heck.

"What do you mean, then?" she asked, giving him the opportunity.

Robin struggled with the words. "It's... she's... She was like, really toppy with me. You know," he said eventually. It wasn't very good, but saying 'I'm just a huge fucking sub' was too difficult and embarrassing.

"I can be toppy," Natasha said, more to herself than to Robin. She lowered her mask and started cutting through the last panel she needed.

"We can... talk about it later?" Robin offered. His stomach tied itself into a knot. He felt really bad.

Don't sleep with her because you feel bad for her.

The panel came free and she grabbed it then tossed it to the side. "Hand me the splicer," she said, reaching out behind her. She didn't answer his question.

Robin opened it up and handed her the part she needed. He wired the connector into his hand terminal and watched Natasha closely. He wanted to see this done in person. He tried not to get too close to her. He made an effort to put the previous conversation out of his mind. He'd talk to Natasha later. He would.

The Autonomous Networks employed extremely sophisticated technology and the ExSol's had only the most fundamental grasp of how it worked even centuries after the Bereaving. One of their major advantages was the fact that the AN's were entirely unchanging. A Rhino produced by the AN's today was the same as it had been the day that the Precursors had vanished. The kit they were using had been painstakingly crafted through trial and error for this specific task. It had no doubt been several people's life's work.

Natasha hooked it up, drilling into the spots it had to go into, and flicked it on. Robin's screen came to life, showing him an alien interface along with a timer. The timer was the exact time it would take for the AN's to notice the intrusion and cut him off. Three minutes and twelve seconds. He vibrated with excitement. He'd spent almost his entire undergrad studying other people's accounts of this interface, but he'd never accessed it himself.

He started immediately by accessing a local map, using a technique he'd studied extensively. A map popped up showing all of River's holdings. This was nothing new. ExSol's did this all the time and usually uploaded their findings publicly. Their version of this map was only a few weeks old, and by the looks of it, nothing had changed. Robin was looking for something different.

He navigated to another menu and started executing commands. He had a very rudimentary idea of how to properly issue commands in this interface, what these menus represented, and what they were telling him. Robin's understanding of the Precursor language wasn't very good but he knew more than most ExSol's ever would. He navigated across a few different menus and directories. He was convinced that River itself was part of some larger system and only managed certain elements of its holdings.

He arrived on a new directory, and was totally lost. The timer ticked down and left him with thirty seconds. He panicked and executed a command at random. His screen flickered and displayed a map. A different map. The incredible elation that rose in his chest lasted only an instant as River cut him off. Natasha just started unhooking the splicer without even saying anything. Splicers were one-time-use kits. River had corrupted the thing's firmware. It would need to be rebuilt, but ExSols were used to that.

Robin double checked his hand terminal. It had downloaded that new map. He tittered excitedly, and instantly called Nina.

"Miss Nina!!! Oh my gosh I just found something so hecking cool!!"

***

Jeffrin climbed down Ambrosia's ladder and hopped off into the dirt of Virsalla. He was smiling. The day had gone so well. Nina had been great, the haul was good, and he hadn't had a paranoia attack once he'd turned Deluge off. Incredible.

Nina had gone and volunteered to stand guard after he'd swept the perimeter. The Catchers had taken what they wanted off the convoy and left. River had already shown up to take the rest. Still, their normal operations called for a powered on Mech for the next nine hours. Nina seemed intent on chattering with her boyfriend over a video call the whole time, but he didn't mind.

Maybe I'll ask Robin what she likes and get her a little welcome gift.

He chatted with the Mechanics who approached him about how Ambrosia was doing. Only small things. He'd taken a few autocannon rounds from a Rhino that had gotten too close. They said they'd check it out for him.

Jeffrin hummed happily to himself as he headed into the camp. Virsalla's sun was shining and a nice gentle breeze ruffled his suit. A tiny scuff of artificially grown leather against dirt alerted him to the presence of someone else.

Before he could turn around to see who it was, a pair of arms wrapped around his waist and pulled him close to someone.

"Heyyyyy Chief," Petri whispered in his ear suggestively. Allag came out from his hiding spot and sauntered up to them. He approached Jeffrin from the front, draped his arms around Jeffrin's shoulders and leaned in just as close.

"You prooooommmised us, Chief." He mimicked Petri's exact tone.

"I... well..." Jeffrin struggled for a little. He did promise to let them fuck him. In a very specific way, too. He didn't have a problem doing so, either, but the ambush was a bit disorienting. Instead of giving a retort, he just stammered and blushed. Allag withdrew a collar from his bag and raised an expectant eyebrow. Jeffrin shivered a bit. He did promise.

Allag slipped the collar around his neck while Petri put the puppy ears on his head. Allag clipped a leash onto the collar and stepped back to admire their work

"Oh wooow, you're such a cute puppy, Chief!" Petri exclaimed.

"Who's a cute puppy?" Allag asked teasingly, ruffling Jeffrin's bangs.

"Answer us, boy." Petri's grin grew as she watched Jeffrin squirm.

"A-Arf!" Jeffrin was drowning in embarrassment.

"Good booooyyy!" Petri crooned happily. "Now, get down on your knees, let's go for a walkie."

"But... there's rocks..." Jeffrin murmured anxiously, glancing down at the rough terrain they were standing on.

"Hey! Puppies don't speak!" Allag scolded him. "... He's right though, sis. We can't make him crawl on this."

"... yeah okay shut up, I was just riffing." Petri scowled at Allag. "Oh! What if we got some protective gloves and legwear!"

"Oh shit, yes. Puppy's gonna have to come shopping with us in Legion," Allag bounced a little on the balls of his feet.

The two of them both looked at him in perfect sync. They grinned mischievously. Allag handed the leash to Petri and she tugged on it. "Come on, Puppy. You can walk on your hind legs today," she said sweetly.

"What do you say to Petri, Puppy?" Allag asked.

"........ Arf!"

"That's right!" Petri squealed happily.

They led him through the camp by the leash. They took a very roundabout route to the tent they shared. Everybody saw them. Everybody. Nobody laughed and jeered. The Fox Catchers weren't like that. It was still hideously embarrassing. Robin drove back into the camp as they approached Petri and Allag's tent. When he saw them, his eyes went wide and he clapped his hands together excitedly. He looked delighted.

Well, at least I don't need to worry that the new folks are weirded out by this.

When they set foot inside Petri and Allag's tent, Jeffrin was surprised to see that they'd swept and levelled the ground it had been pitched on, and then set up a proper impromptu flooring. He hadn't realized that the two of them were quite that fussy about their accommodations. Without being told, he went down onto all fours.

"Aww, our puppy is so smart, isn't he sis?" Allag asked, beaming at Jeffrin proudly.

Petri kicked off her shoes and sat down on the large double bed she shared with Allag. She tugged the leash to bring Jeffrin a bit closer. Allag sat on the bed next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. He kissed her on the cheek and she turned to meet him. They started making out right in front of Jeffrin and he knelt there like an obedient puppy. Allag started groping Petri's breasts. Petri grabbed Allag's cock and started to stroke him. Jeffrin's face started to get flushed. They were just... ignoring him?

He squirmed as he felt his desire and his libido start to bubble up.. Petri and Allag always hecking did this to him. Found some way to tease and rile him up and make him unbearably horny. Now they were doing it without even touching him. He squirmed and whined a little bit. They couldn't do this to him. It was mean and he was their boss.

"Awww, Puppy feeling a bit ignored?" Petri giggled at him. She started jerking Allag off even harder.

"Mmm... Pu--Oh my hecking gosh Petri that's... P-Puppy needs to ask if he wants some attention." Allag tried to stay on script but Petri was clearly delighting in making him struggle.

"A-Arf!" Jeffrin barked, trying to sound needy. It wasn't a difficult act to put on.

Petri and Allag looked at each other. Petri pursed her lips, looking unconvinced. Allag shrugged. "I mean, we gotta fuck him eventually, right sis?"

"I know, but I wanted to make him squirm more."

"We literally dragged him through the camp on a leash."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Arf! Arf!" Jeffrin barked, his face going red.

Petri grinned at him and pulled him by his leash between her thighs. She was already wet, a dark line was visible down the center of her panties. Jeffrin raised a hand to move them to the side, but Petri slapped his wrist.

"Bad Puppy! No paws!" she scolded him.

Jeffrin swallowed nervously, and delicately tried to grasp a bit of the fabric without pinching her. He failed a bit and nipped her. "No biting!!!" Petri scolded him again, giving him a slap on the shoulder. Jeffrin whined apologetically and tried again. He got a bit of her waistband in his teeth with no skin, and started pulling them down.

Allag's hands on his ass were less delicate. He easily manhandled Jeffrin and removed his pants and underwear. A lid snapped open and a cold trail of lube was drizzled between his cheeks. Jeffrin pulled on Petri's panties with his teeth, struggling in vain to get them off. She took pity on him and lifted her hips a bit. He got them off as Allag's hands started rubbing the lube into his ass and teasing his swollen clit. The attention on his t-dick made his hands tense and grab a little bit more of Petri's thighs than he intended. She just laughed at him and tugged the leash to pull him into her pussy.

Jeffrin had eaten Petri out plenty of times and he knew what she liked, even if she was being a lot more dominant with him than she usually was. He went really slowly and delicately, tracing a curving pattern across her clit.

At the same time, Allag twisted his pointer finger into Jeffrin's ass. Jeffrin whined a little and tried to keep his focus but it was difficult when the second finger joined the first.

"Wait, are you gonna fuck him in the ass?" Petri asked. Her breathing was really becoming erratic

"Well yeah, of course. He likes it better. Less dysphoric for him," Allag explained cheerfully. He was right. Jeffrin wasn't sure how exactly he'd figured that out, since he'd never told him.

"I never knew tha-- Oh, heck that's sooooo..." Petri lost her train of thought as Jeffrin continued to kiss and lick her.

"Yeahhhh, Chief's not a big sharer. That's why he's a good puppy, isn't that right?" Allag gave Jeffrin a few gentle slaps on the ass as he got into position and started teasing his ass with his cock.

"Awww, are words hard, Pup--aaaaahhh!" Petri's thighs clamped down on Jeffrin's face as she started to cum a little. Jeffrin kept gently teasing her. She'd cum a few more times before she was done.

"Try again, sis," Allag laughed as he pushed forward and started fucking Jeffrin in earnest.

"Ahhhh. Shit. Okay. Are words hard, Puppy?" Petri asked as she wound down a little bit. "You really can't say 'please Petri fuck me in the ass with your big fat strap?'" As she asked, Allag started fucking him in earnest, and Jeffrin moaned into her pussy. He still managed to blush at the question. He was definitely never going to say that to her. Even though he did think that could be nice.

"Our puppy's taking my dick so good, tooooo," Allag tried to do the higher pitched, chiding voice, but he wasn't able to keep it up as he fucked Jeffrin. Jeffrin couldn't blame him. He was losing his concentration too.

Petri came again regardless of Jeffrin's attentiveness. Her thighs clamped down even harder on Jeffrin's head and she started swearing. Allag picked up the pace, too. The electric sensations of being fucked and manhandled at both ends really started to get Jeffrin floating. He was dizzy and orgasmic as his two subordinates absolutely railed him. Allag's hands tightened on Jeffrin's hips and he moaned. Petri's thighs clamped down on his face and she screamed. Jeffrin collapsed, woozy and fucked silly.

"Yo, Chief, you okay?" Allag's voice was right in front of him.

"Bro, I told you not to fuck him to death!" Petri scolded him.

Allag sighed and grabbed Jeffrin by the shoulders. He lifted him up into a sitting position and hugged him so that his head was resting on Allag's shoulder. "Y'alright, Chief?" he asked again, completely serious this time.

"Yeah..." Jeffrin said with a quiet sigh. He could still feel Allag's cum running down his thigh. Petri sat down on Jeffrin's other side and snuggled in too. "T-Thanks you two... for... prying me outta... my shell..." Jeffrin said with a blush as the two smothered him a little bit.

"Yeah. We got you, Chief," Petri said earnestly, dropping the act, herself. Allag just kissed him on the top of his head.

***

The waves of Serpent's footfalls shook Vesper's little speedboat. Vesper angled the vessel a bit further away to stabilize herself. Ultimately she didn't like the idea of having too much distance from her escort. They were headed straight for an AN stronghold, after all.

Serpent was an odd, lumpy, quadrupedal Mech. It was a retrofit, an old precursor chassis that had been dug out and fitted with a cockpit for a human pilot. Serpent had a long body and the four limbs went off to the left and right of it, but they weren't attached directly across from one another. This gave it a sort of twisting gait and it was why it had been named Serpent.

The gravity manipulators on Serpent's four legs thrummed, making the Mech light enough to walk on water. It was an odd modification that had been made specifically for Navann's terrain. While the impact of Serpent's footfalls on the surface of the water didn't carry the full tonnage of its weight, it was still enough to rock Vesper's boat.

"Sum robots on radar. Hang back a bit, ye?" Tetron's voice came through Vesper's new hand terminal, and she cut her engine. Serpent continued onward, and disappeared into the fog. The first discharge of Plasma caster fire made her jump and crouch down in the boat. Light danced in the fog, metal popped and hissed as Serpent fought.

"T-Tetron...?" Vesper squeaked after the lights died down.

"Ye. Look's clear. Wasn't much left," he replied.

Vesper set the boat into motion. Serpent appeared out of the fog, standing placidly like nothing had happened. A wall of metal materialized out of the fog right behind him. The AN stronghold. Serpent gingerly lifted one limb out of the water, and extended it towards Vesper. Serpent didn't have hands that could grasp, its limbs ended in points that looked almost insectoid. Vesper swallowed, and stood up in the boat as she turned the engine off. She carefully climbed the limb Serpent was offering to her, clinging to it for dear life. Serpent lifted her up, extending its limb to deposit her at the base of a communication tower. The AN's may be strange and alien in many ways, but they did certain things the same way that ExSol's did. Communication towers. A tower was an optimal way to send and receive signals at a long distance.

"Can y'hack in from there?" Tetron asked.

Vesper looked around frantically. She'd never been anywhere near any AN machine in her entire life. She didn't know enough about Precursor design to really have a solid grasp of the layout of this structure. She'd furiously done what research she could to prepare for this moment, but right now it felt woefully insufficient.

"... No. I think I gotta climb. I see a panel above me I can get into." She squinted as she looked. Climbing this structure would not be easy. Vesper was a programmer and a computer nerd, she'd never done any free climbing. Navann was only 0.55G's of gravity, so, maybe it was possible. She started climbing, grabbing onto metallic struts and supports and hauling herself up. Her goal was about twenty meters up. She could make it.

"Roger. I'll stand watch," Tetron replied, and set Serpent into a broad lope around the perimeter.

Vesper climbed, hand on handhold, pull. Foot to foothold, push. The cold fog and wind buffed her, and she clung tightly to the alien structure.

You can do this, Vesper. Tetron's risking so much. You have to stop that hecking blue-haired bitch who tried to kill you. She is NOT getting away with stealing YOUR plans.

Vesper reached what looked like a halfway point. There was a platform there for her to rest. She laid down on the dew-strewn metal and breathed deeply, trying to soothe her nerves. This wasn't even the hard part. She had to hack into the hecking Autonomous Networks after this. It wouldn't be that hard, ultimately. This tower would have distress signals hard-coded into its firmware and all she'd have to do was trigger it. It wasn't like she'd have to access administrator functions.

"Vesper.... M'gettin a heat sig. I think s'at Mech." His voice was grim.

"I'm about halfway up... Can you hold it off?" Vesper picked up her hand terminal and replied.

"S'not gonna work, Vesper. Even if ya get the signal out. S'too soon. Hecker must have contacts within council t'move this fast." There was a resignation in his voice that filled Vesper with dread.

"Tetron, don't--"

"Jus hide, Vesper. I'm sendin' a distress call fer ya. Someone'll come pick ya up afterwards. Don let these dickheads catch ya."

The wind picked up, parting the fog as he spoke, and Vesper caught sight of Serpent standing less than a kilometer away. It moved, and as it did, something else parted the fog. A streak of light and a sonic boom of force roared as something flew right past Serpent. It struck the water and an enormous plume burst into the air, painting Vesper with droplets at an incredible distance.

A glowing red Mech emerged from the fog as it parted. It was a blocky humanoid model with a massive sword in one hand and a shield in another. It looked like a demon from an old Earth movie with a sinister glowing red eye.

Serpent fired, peppering the Mech with plasma caster fire which made it jump backwards. It retaliated with plasma of its own, a steady stream of bolts fired out of its 'head.' Serpent moved quickly, slithering around the perimeter of the AN stronghold to try and make itself a more difficult target and to give its deflectors more leeway to ward them off.

A knot tied in Vesper's stomach. There was no way Tetron could defeat that thing. The difference in firepower was absolute. Suddenly, the Mech's glow dissipated, turning from a bright, infernal red, to a cool, subdued blue. With the change, it charged at Serpent. Tetron took the opportunity to increase his offense, opening up with plasma casters and missiles. The other Mech raised its shield. Reality warped as the projectiles got close, and they hit everything else instead of the shield. Chunks of stone melted, water evaporated, and the metal structures of the AN stronghold bubbled.

That's a Pulse Mech, then.

The thought stirred something in Vesper. She couldn't hack the AN transmission tower in time. But maybe...

Vesper activated her Deluge and grabbed her hand terminal. The drone she'd often used for surveillance and mapping connected to her terminal. It was the same drone she'd used to distract that psycho bitch. It took off from where she'd left it on the boat, and she started moving.

The foreign Mech was slashing at Serpent with its enormous vibroblade. Serpent was running and whirling and trying to keep its distance but Tetron was struggling. Normally a Pulse Mech would be in a defensive mode during Counter-Pulse, but this thing was using that deflector shield to close the distance and be aggressive. Vesper got the drone close, but she couldn't actually accomplish anything while the enemy Mech was moving so fast and chasing Serpent across the bay. Several torturous minutes passed as Serpent lost the battle slowly but steadily.

The Mech suddenly started glowing red again as the pilot Pulsed. It leapt backwards. A railgun round screeched across the gap between them, tearing one of Serpents legs off at the halfway point. Serpent stumbled and struggled, but Tetron kept it moving and mobile, enough so that the second railgun round missed entirely.

Vesper moved quickly. She had to act with absolutely no hesitation for this to work. The drone moved so fast through the still-lingering fog that she could barely see where she was flying. Normally she'd never move at this speed in these conditions. She could have easily flown her drone straight into an outcropping. She took the risk.

Serpent had stopped shooting back. It was limping and running and trying desperately to stay alive. That was exactly what Vesper needed right then. Because Serpent wasn't fighting back, the other Mech had stopped moving and dodging so that it could get a better firing solution. It fired twice, but Vesper didn't even look to see where it was aiming. Vesper's drone emerged from the fog and she spotted the Mech's comm hub immediately on its back. She flew it as quickly as she dared, latching onto the comm hub, and connecting to one of the ports that would normally be used to upload and download terrain reports.

Vesper pressed the button to upload the virus. She mashed her finger painfully into the screen as if it would make it go faster. She flared her Deluge until she couldn't even feel the screen against her fingertips. The hand terminal started to send her permissions. If she'd been able to hack this Mech undetected for hours, she could probably have rewritten safety protocols and subroutines for all kinds of things. Reactor meltdown. Ammo detonating. Magnetic bottle failure on the plasma caster. She didn't have time for any of that, and if the Mech pilot realized what was happening, they had any number of methods to shut her out. All Mechs could jettison their comm hub if needed, it was standard in case the AN's got in.

This Mech was a Pulse Mech, though. That meant its pilot was on a respirator, and that's what Vesper went for. The Mech's hellish red glow faded as the pilot Counter-Pulsed. Vesper cut off the respirator. It charged Serpent, and ripped into it with its vibroblade.

Vesper screamed as Serpent went down. It tumbled into the shallows, spinning and screeching against the mineral shore. The strange Mech froze. Vesper held her own breath. The pilot had undoubtedly done that attack immediately, perhaps before they even realized that they weren't able to breathe anymore. The mech wobbled, taking a few steps to the side erratically.

The pilot's flailing against the controls...

The Mech planted its feet, and froze completely. A minute later, the blue glow faded, and the machine powered down. Vesper lost her connection to the Mech's systems.

"Was... that... ye... Vesp...?" Tetron's voice came through her terminal. His voice sounded wet and weak. He was badly hurt.

"Tetron? Are you okay?" she asked.

"Nah... bleedin... pretty bad..." he mumbled. Serpent twitched from where it was lying on the ground. It's one good limb shoved the remains of the chassis, rolling and twisting it. A streak of orange plasma shot out of the wrecked remains of Serpent, striking the other mech square in the cockpit. If Vesper hadn't suffocated that pilot to death, then they were definitely dead from that shot.

"Was nice... knowin' ya, Vesp. Tell m'wife... sorry..." Tetron's weak voice faded, and he let out a soft groan.

"Tetron, you sent out a distress call, so help's coming. Just... just hold on..." Vesper shouted into her hand terminal. Nothing. She clenched the little device so hard it felt like it was cutting into her hand. She collapsed and started to cry. Tetron had given her a chance, he'd believed in her, and now she'd gotten him killed.

Do it, Pussy.

Her own words rang in her ears, haunting her. They continued circling around her mind, even when the search lights of the rescue crew started to cut through the fog.

"Is anybody on this line? Any survivors?" a voice came across her terminal.

"Vesper Tesfaye here," she said weakly into the terminal. "I think Tetron's dead. The other Mech's here, but it didn't..." she looked up. The Mech's last two rail gun slugs hadn't been aimed at Serpent at all. They'd buried deep into the AN stronghold. A horrible chill ran down Vesper's spine. Those had almost certainly slagged the base's main reactor.

We're so hecked.