《Paladin》


 Prologue

    Prologue: Starfall


    I was a child when the first star fell.


    I don¡¯t remember much from then. I try not to, because it makes everything a little harder. But I remember when it fell. I remember when the night lit up, so bright, brighter than anything I had ever seen, bright enough that even with my eyes closed it burned through, and it hurt. I remember how quiet it was, just the low curses from my father and the whimpers of pain from my brother. And then I remember when the sound came, roaring through the sky. I felt it ripple the air, and I remember screaming but not being able to hear it.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    When the tremor came, it came without warning. I was trying to blink the light and the pain out of my eyes when I heard the rumbling. I swear I could see the earth bucking in a wave as it rushed towards us. The windows rattled and the cups and plates on the table did too. My father¡¯s favorite mug, the one I painted for him, fell to the floor and broke. When the tremor finished so did everything else, for a moment. A minute, maybe less, for the world to hold its breath. The sirens followed the silence, their wails rising one by one into the night.


    My brother was crying. I didn¡¯t cry. I remember looking over at my mother. She was scared, but she smiled at me, searching for something reassuring to say. She told me it was a star falling to the earth. She told me to make a wish on it. I remember hearing her voice crack as she said so.

 Chapter 1.1: Jog

    My morning route took me past the fabricators. They were silent now, though they usually ran every hour of the day. I glanced at the maintenance bots combing them over. I gave them a quick nod of acknowledgment. They did not nod back. Unsurprising, considering the fact that they did not have a neck. Or a head. I''ve considered drawing smiley faces on the chassis (for a more human element) but I think a spider-like robot with a smiley face might be worse than just a normal spider-like robot. Especially since they tended to clean the rooms at night. I did not need giant smiling spiders waking me up at five in the morning. My nightmares were crowded enough, thank you very much. Though not arachnophobe friendly, the design is wonderfully efficient at getting into all the small places that need to be maintained. Still, it took a few months to get used to seeing a small army of frisbee sized bots scuttling around the base.


    I usually ran three laps around the fabricators, spending more time here than I did in any other room. That¡¯s because the fabricators were my babies. My two-story tall, five-hundred square foot, state-of-the-art babies. They were the primary reason Camelotexisted, the most advanced set of fabricators in the world, capable of taking raw materials and spinning them into a complete Paladin Suit within 8 hours. Completely autonomously, requiring only an initial design (in a very specific format) to be transmitted to them. The fabricators could work with pretty much any material, or at least these ones could. They were the closest thing that humanity had to the real alien article, and in my opinion, I¡¯d even improved on the design in some places. I had ten of them, and I would say I loved them all equally, but that would be a lie. F-03 was my favorite.


    It was conflicting seeing them silent like that. On the one hand, they did deserve the rest. They had been working almost non-stop for half a year, pumping out next-gen mobile armor for an army that would never wear them. On the other hand, there was something beautiful about watching the massive machines build something from almost nothing. I had spent more time than I cared to admit watching as hundreds of tiny screws were created in just seconds and wires were pulled out of solid metal. Seeing the nanocircuits being created was probably the most entertaining part. The precision necessary for their creation was awe inspiring. Giving a last, loving pat to F-03, I kept my pace as I jogged up the stairs to the second floor, more than halfway done with my morning run. I was aiming for a few seconds faster than yesterday. I hate running, but it does provide me with something to fill my mornings with.


    The second floor was my second favorite. It was technically called the armory, but in reality, it was more like a big storage room. It was a cavernous space, meant to hold ten thousand Suits. As I came up the stairs the lights activated. They started in the front, turning on in chunks until the entire space was brightly lit. I¡¯m pretty sure that having the lights turn on like this was purely for dramatic effect. It¡¯s not like the technology to turn on all the lights at once doesn¡¯t exist. In any case, they did a phenomenal job of showcasing the more than five thousand Paladins gleaming on their racks, suspended from the ceiling in three rows. Dozens of spider bots skittered over the most recently completed ones, performing a final inspection for any flaws, no matter how minute. It was an impressive sight, and it was only half full.


    My feet echoed on the concrete as I moved through the room. Though I appreciate the sight of thousands of tools of carnage as much as the next person, this place always felt lonely to me. Something about the dangling humanoid machines, waiting there in the dark, triggered melancholic feelings. If it weren¡¯t for the space I had set up near the back of the room, one of my ongoing projects, I wouldn¡¯t come here except during my morning exercises.


    The massive freight elevator that connected every floor of the facility was resting at the second floor today. Mostly automated, it was responsible for delivering raw materials and completed products throughout the facility. It could fit tons of the stuff, and once it arrived at a floor, there were a couple different things that could happen. On the third floor, the materials from floors four through six would be delivered by drones and spider bots to the fabricators. On the second floor, completed Paladins would be automatically picked up by the racks, and stored for the long term. Smaller, more efficient utility shafts were located throughout the rest of the building for drone deliveries, but the big stuff all came up the freight elevator. I called her Ellie.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Finishing my lap of the armory, I made my way up to the first floor, stopping at the top landing and gasping for breath. Before all of this, I hadn¡¯t really been much for exercise, but the abrupt end of the world really put things in perspective. Besides, piloting a Paladin required quite a bit of physical fitness. The jog part of the workout done, I checked my time. It was higher than yesterday. I fucking hate running.


    Grumbling expletives aimed at no one in particular, I started walking down the hallway towards the gym. I swiped a hand at my brow and blanched a little at the gritty sweat that stuck to it, so I stopped at a water fountain, greedily drinking from it, and then splashing a little on my face. I don¡¯t know if it was a result of being underground, or if the water was cooled on site, but it was always ice cold when it came out of the fountain. As I finished my drink, a smooth female voice spoke to me from the speakers embedded in the ceiling.


    ¡°Welcome back Sam. Did you have a pleasant run?¡±


    I grunted in response. Not very polite, but this had become pretty routine by now. My supercomputer pseudo-artificial-intelligence would ask banal if well intentioned questions, I¡¯d answer in a slightly rude if understandable series of monosyllabic response. On the one hand, it had gotten stale, but on the other it was a nice, comfortable routine. It really helped that she sounded very close to human, even though there were still some uncanny edges to it.


    ¡°I noticed your time today was higher than your previous slowest. If you¡¯d like, I could offer words of encouragement throughout your run.¡±


    ¡°I honestly could think of nothing worse, Adelaide,¡± I said, heading through the first floor¡¯s hallways, past the empty engineering quarters.


    ¡°Understood, Sam,¡± she responded, surprisingly chipper about being rejected. I could respect that.


    My legs felt a bit shaky as I walked. I tried not to notice that, and tried even harder not to talk myself out of leg day. My internal struggle was ongoing when I reached the elevator that took me to the neighboring facility ¨C the barracks, where the soldiers that would have piloted the Paladins might have stayed had they not all been horrifically slaughtered. I suppose I didn¡¯t know if the soldiers had been horrifically slaughtered, but given that nobody had contacted me since everything went to shit, I had pretty high confidence in my guess. The elevator moved fairly quickly, and it got me wondering (not for the first time) if it should really be called an elevator considering it moved more sideways than anything. Sidevator maybe. I¡¯ll think on it.


    The barracks had a far nicer training room than the one in the main facility, which had an excuse for a gym that was composed entirely of a couple of treadmills and a set of weights. I suppose the brass assumed that a group of engineers and high-ranking officers wouldn¡¯t need state of the art exercise equipment, or really any exercise equipment apparently. The top brass assumed a lot of stuff, but they¡¯re all dead now, so jokes on them.


    I spent a couple hours in the gym. A fringe benefit of being the only person in the entire base was the fact that I could play my early 2000s punk through the loudspeakers without anyone getting pissed at me. Amy, the other engineer that had been assigned to Camelot, had gotten me into the genre. I was born right as the fad reached its high point, so it kind of felt like a tribute to myself whenever I listened to it. That, and it was great pump up music.


    The gym was probably the second loneliest space in either of the two facilities. It was massive. It had to be, considering the number of people it was supposed to accommodate. The rows and rows of identical machines did very little to dispel the desolate feeling. Though specialized exercise machines still existed in civilian gyms, these were the military¡¯s top of the line ones. They were basically exo-suits attached to frames, and they could cycle through different regimes and weight resistances very efficiently. I could have done my jogging in them as well, but I preferred being in this room as little as possible. Also, something about jogging around the facility made me feel more connected to it, and less extraordinarily bored. As I was finishing up my last set, a truly unpleasant set of leg curls, Adelaide started speaking to me.


    ¡°Sam, I hate to interrupt you, but there is a situation you might want to know about.¡±


    ¡°Did one of the spider-robots break my pirate ship again, because I specifically told yo-¡°


    ¡°No,¡± Adelaide interrupted me, which took me by surprise, as she was generally very polite, ¡°there is an Assimilator patrolapproaching the perimeter.¡±

 Chapter 1.2: Perimeter Approach

    I calmly disengaged the exo-suit. Stepping out of it, I moved with quick strides to the elevator that went back to the main facility. The pain in my legs became a forgotten ache as the adrenaline coursed through me. As I walked, I questioned Adelaide, ¡°What is the number of Assimilators in the patrol, and their makeup?¡±


    ¡°There are thirteen Assimilators. Six are unidentified, seven are animal type.¡±


    ¡°Unidentified? The same signatures that keep on showing up?¡± Damn. I hated not knowing exactly what the hell type of murderous monster was bumbling around near me. It made planning for eliminating them much more difficult.


    ¡°The readings from the long-range passive scanners indicate as such,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°but it¡¯s difficult to tell without a known classification.¡±


    I thought for a minute, and mulled over some options in my head. Although I really wanted to catalogue the unidentified Assimilators, it would take active scans to really get a handle on what they could do. That might expose us, and it wasn¡¯t worth them finding Camelot.


    ¡°Continue monitoring them with passive scans. Don¡¯t actively scan them unless they are clearly approaching Camelot. I¡¯m heading to the control room now.¡±


    ¡°Understood, Sam.¡±


    I tried not to run as I moved to the control room. My dad always told me that rushing a problem only led to a rushed solution. Rushed solutions were never ideal solutions. Not running also let me think more, which was good and bad. Good, because I could think of possible responses to the problem. Bad, because none of those responses were any good. I forced myself to stay calm, but I noticed I was breathing faster.


    The elevator ride back to the main base felt absurdly long. I was tapping my foot while the doors opened, and by the time I found myself in the control room I realized that I had basically sprinted over to it. Apparently my subconscious was decidedly not calm.


    Though this wasn¡¯t the first Assimilator group that had neared Camelot¡¯s perimeter, and none of the previous ones had stumbled upon the base, it didn¡¯t mean the threat was any less serious. Assimilators were, in professional vernacular, really fucking scary.


    The control room was medium sized and centrally located. It was mostly occupied by two arcing rows of seats facing a large empty space. I took the main seat in the control room, a comfortable chair that was slightly elevated over the rest. Usually the commanding officer of the base would have sole claim to it, and my ongoing occupation of it was rationalized by me technically being the highest ranking military personnel in the facility. As I sat down, Adelaide switched on the holoprojector, giving me a three-dimensional view of the base and the surrounding land. A series of bright red dots appeared, approaching the southwestern side of the perimeter.


    ¡°Adelaide, estimate the time until the patrol crosses the perimeter.¡±


    A holographic clock appeared on near the map.


    ¡°ETA is four minutes, twenty-two seconds.¡±


    I frowned. Less of a warning than I wanted, but better than nothing.


    ¡°Shall I shift defense drones to that area?¡± The pseudo-AI asked.


    I considered it. After a moment, I responded, ¡°It¡¯s probably not a great idea to activate any more systems than we have to. The unidentified Assimilators could have heightened senses.¡± I tapped the armrest of my chair, ¡°Best case scenario, they just pass us by. Anything that could give us away is a last resort.¡±


    My philosophy on things that could very easily murder me is to not be noticed by them. And, if I was noticed by them, run very fast in the opposite direction. Considering the second part of my philosophy wasn¡¯t possible, I wanted the first to hold as long as it could.


    ¡°Understood, Sam. I will keep the defenses on standby.¡±


    I checked the clock. Two minutes, forty seconds.


    ¡°Classify the known Assimilators. Quickly¡±If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°There are five Class M1, and two Class R1.¡±


    Static defenses should handle that without issue. The rail cannons and anti-personnel missiles were more than enough. The difficulty came from what would follow. I tapped my foot. Maybe I should send out a drone, try to lure them away? I dismissed the idea immediately. Even if they were led away, a drone had to come from somewhere. If these Assimilators were not intelligent enough to figure that out, their Matriarch cluster would be. My eyes were only loosely fixed on the dots moving on the projection. My options were limited.


    ¡°Sam.¡±


    Even if they crossed the perimeter, they might not notice the base. Actually, there was a fairly decent chance they wouldn¡¯t. The first floor didn¡¯t start until about 20 feet down. However, the defenses past the perimeter were scant at best, so if they did notice, things were going to get very ugly, very quickly. A patrol of Assimilators would without a doubt have the capability to quickly burrow into the facility. After they inevitably broke through the hardened concrete exterior, I would just be a squishy human empanada.


    ¡°Sam.¡±


    A possibility was to kill power to the top six floors. The fusion reactor couldn¡¯t be shut down, at least not by someone as hilariously underqualified as me, but it was incredibly well shielded so it didn¡¯t give off much passive energy. That would eliminate most identifiable signatures. However, the systems weren¡¯t really meant to be shut down in the first place. It would probably take more than the roughly minute and a half remaining to shut things down safely. And beyond that, turning everything back on would cause a massive energy spike, which could act as a big blinking sign to any Assimilators in the area.


    ¡°SAM.¡±


    ¡°What!?¡± I yelled, snapping my eyes to the ceiling.


    ¡°The Assimilator patrol has turned away. They are now on a south-eastern bearing away from Camelot.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Okay.¡± As I leaned back in my chair, letting the air escape my lungs, I noticed that my legs were really goddamn sore.


    <hr>


    Sometime later, I lay in my bed in the commander¡¯s quarters. It was a nice bed. King sized. Very comfy. I wasn¡¯t sure what the thread count of the sheets were, but they felt quite premium. The commander¡¯s quarters were downright luxurious by military standards. It was fairly large, with a private bathroom containing a shower and a tub. With bubbly jets. It also had a walk-in closet, which looked a bit lonely with my very limited wardrobe squatting in it. The wooden furniture was nice, probably mahogany. I had no idea what mahogany actually looked like but it seemed like a safe bet and nobody was there to prove me wrong. With how nice this room was, I had a sneaking suspicion that Camelot was meant to double as a bunker for VIPs.


    ¡°Sam.¡±


    There was an antique desk against the wall. It was a beautiful old thing, large and spacious, perfect for writing letters to governments both foreign and domestic. Currently, it held my Lego pirate ship. F-03 had made the bricks for me. Designing them from scratch had been pretty tricky, so I got Adelaide to scan some 3D models from the database. She complained a bit about copyright infringement, but when I argued that the company was most likely ash at this point, she saw the light. After that, she extrapolated a blueprint based on them, and the rest is history. Some would call the pirating of children¡¯s toys a misappropriation of a multi-billion-dollar computer system that was the closest humanity had come to true Artificial Intelligence. Those people would be stupid.


    ¡°Sam. I know you are ignoring me on purpose.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I am,¡± I said, rolling over on the bed and wallowing on top of the covers. I had built the pirate ship mostly out of nostalgia. I¡¯d had the same model growing up. My plan was to build a samurai castle next, and have them fight. It would keep me entertained for a few days, and would serve as an excellent demonstration of the effectiveness of hot weapons versus cold ones.


    ¡°Sam. I believe you should attempt the simulator again.¡±


    I stopped my ruminations and opened my eyes, sighing. ¡°It¡¯s very hard to pointedly glare at you when you don¡¯t have a body,¡± I said, and then tried it anyway. Glaring at the ceiling felt silly so I gave it up pretty quickly.


    ¡°If the Assimilators had broken through the defenses and discovered Camelot, your chance of survival would be less than a tenth of a percent,¡± Adelaide said, in a roundabout way of calling me a little bitch.


    I groaned. I hate it when the computer is right. That wouldn¡¯t stop me from arguing though, because it generally meant that I had to do things I didn¡¯t want to.


    ¡°Look Adelaide. I¡¯ve tried the simulator. We did not get along.¡± We really didn¡¯t. The spider bots had a hell of a time cleaning the vomit out. ¡°The first three times I tried it, I couldn¡¯t even get past the basic requirements test. And the instructor said some really hurtful things. Enduring emotional and physical trauma is not my favorite pastime.¡±


    ¡°Your last simulator attempt was seventy-six days prior to this date.¡± The computer informed me, ¡°Your training routine since then gives you a 97% chance of clearing the simulator¡¯s basic requirements.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m claustrophobic?¡±


    ¡°You show no symptoms of traditional claustrophobia.¡±


    I gave a noncommittal grunt and rolled over on the bed again, burying my face in the delightfully soft pillow. If I believed hard enough the problem might go away.


    ¡°Do you not wish to pilot a near impervious robotic suit of armor?¡± she asked. I would be lying to myself if I said I didn¡¯t. She continued, ¡°Completion of the simulator course is required to pilot the Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit.¡± I think there was a smug pause after that, but I could¡¯ve just been projecting. The worst part is that she was right. I hate it when the computer is right.

 Chapter 1.3: Morning Routine

    The simulated sunshine peeked shyly through the simulated blinds. The recorded, gentle tweeting of birds filled my ears. They sang to each other in beautiful lilting melodies. There was a smell in the air, of delicate dew in freshly cut grass.


    I still hadn¡¯t figured out how to turn off the piece-of-shit morning routine that came pre-programmed in the commander¡¯s quarters.


    I had asked Adelaide to do it but she claimed she didn¡¯t have proper clearance which just sounded like a bullshit excuse to me. I groaned loudly and covered my head with my pillows. I didn¡¯t sleep with earplugs, in case of Assimilator attack, so I was treated to my own little slice of hell every morning at 7:00 AM. I imagine if I ever got to smell real dew again I¡¯d go on an axe-murdering rampage. I wouldn¡¯t be murdering the axes though, they were innocent in all of this. I¡¯d be using the axes to murder people. Or grass.


    ¡°Adelaide!¡± I yelled into the pillow.


    ¡°Good morning Sam.¡± She said promptly and pleasantly. ¡°The high today is a lovely 78 degrees Fahrenheit. There is a slight chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.¡±


    ¡°I never go outside. I don¡¯t give a shit.¡± Ugh. That was rude. ¡°But thank you anyway.¡± Saved it.


    ¡°You are very welcome Sam. Shall I prepare breakfast for you?¡±


    Prepare breakfast my ass. I eat granola and a banana every morning. Pouring cereal is not preparing breakfast. But there¡¯s no benefit in being impolite.


    ¡°Thanks. Give me five minutes to get up,¡± I said. I really needed to diversify my diet. I hadn¡¯t had anything beyond the incredibly basic meals that had been placed in the main facility¡¯s insultingly small freezer room and pantry. The secondary facility had a much better supply, in the mess hall¡¯s free-


    No. I felt my mind start to twist and contort, and I squeezed my eyes shut so hard my vision turned to white. I focused on taking deep breaths. At some point, I had sat up in the bed. My hands were in fists, clenching the sheets, my knuckles turning white. With some effort, I relaxed them. But I could feel them shaking. That always did a number on me, even all those months later. I felt myself calming down. Telling myself that I didn¡¯t have to go there, that I never had to go there, made me feel better. My eyes still felt a bit blurry, but when I blinked them a few times it went away.


    I was still a little shaky when I got out of the bed a while later. If Adelaide had noticed anything about my abnormal state, she chose not to mention it, which I appreciated. They say talking about something like that helps you process it, but I didn¡¯t agree with that. At least not in this case, and especially not with Adelaide. I started heading to the small kitchen in the engineer¡¯s quarters, where Adelaide would have already laid out my meager breakfast. Maybe some granola would solve my issues. Spoilers: it didn¡¯t.


    <hr>


    I sat back in the exercise exo-suit, breathing heavily. Core day was almost as bad as leg day. I was still sore from the previous workout, and this definitely didn¡¯t help anything. Whoever invented exercise was a sadist, and whoever made it mandatory for being healthy was a demon. I toweled the sweat off my brow, and used the conveniently located spray bottle attached to the machine to disinfect it. I suppose it didn¡¯t really matter as nobody else was around to use them, but one should always adhere to gym etiquette.


    I walked out the doors, the lights automatically turning off behind me. As I was going back to the main facility, Adelaide began speaking to me, ¡°Sam, I have Simulator 001 prepared for you.¡± Ah fuck. I forgot about that.


    ¡°I¡¯ll get to it in a little bit. I just wanted to check on a couple of my projects first,¡± I said, looking away guiltily, which was kind of dumb. It¡¯s hard to look away when the thing you¡¯re talking to is the entire base.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°I am very happy to report that none of your current projects require your immediate input. The Merlin is being prepared by F-03, with an estimated time of 128 hours until completion. The quick-launch tubes are being managed by my auxiliary functioning, and the spider bots are making very nice headway in expanding them. The Paladin Arming Station is well underway in the armory.¡±


    ¡°What about the fabricators? The maintenance just finished yesterday so I was thinking of running some diagnostics on them.¡± I was grasping at straws here and I knew it.


    ¡°I have already compiled a full diagnostic report on all ten fabricators. It is available for you to review from any terminal. To summarize: they are all running in optimal condition.¡±


    ¡°F-03 might miss me?¡±


    ¡°Fabricator F-03 is incapable of feeling emotion.¡±


    Goddamn she¡¯s good. I sighed, stopping in the hallway. I pinched the bridge of my nose and looked up at the ceiling.


    ¡°Fine.¡± I said, resigning myself to my fate. ¡°Let me take a quick shower and I¡¯ll head to the simulator room.¡±


    ¡°Understood, Sam.¡±


    <hr>


    I might have lied about the shower being quick. I dallied, day-dreaming about being back in high school. Not really sure why I day-dreamed about that considering I hated high school with a passion. I mostly took so long because of how insanely comfortable the shower was. It had five different shower heads, and it felt like being gently caressed by a river spirit. I didn¡¯t even have to feel guilty about wasting water. Camelot had a mostly closed-loop system, so everything was filtered on site and recycled.


    I had recently started to shave again. For the first few months I had let my beard grow out. That proved to be a mistake for several reasons. The first and most important being that my beard grew in scraggly dirty-blonde patches, despite the fact that my hair was brown, which made me look like I was suffering from a horrific disease. The second problem was that letting the beard grow out felt like admitting defeat. I¡¯m not really sure why. Regardless, I had a near infinite supply of blades due to F-03; there was no reason not to shave.


    Putting on my standard-issue jumpsuit, which featured the exciting colors of grey and slightly darker grey, I started dragging my feet to the simulator room. I attempted to come up with some excuse to not do it, but they sounded hollow even in my head. The main problem was that I didn¡¯t really want to skip the simulator. Well, it was more like I really wanted to pilot a Paladin. The transitive property asserted that I wanted to do the simulator course too.


    A short sidevator ride over to the barracks and I was standing in front of the simulator room. I took a deep breath, willing away memories of the embarrassment that was my previous attempt.


    ¡°Adelaide,¡± I called out, ¡°please open the simulator room.¡±


    The doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss. Each simulator was contained in its own room, for safety and privacy purposes. That¡¯s what they told me at least, but it seemed like a silly regulation. The simulator itself was currently nothing more than an exo-suit suspended in the middle of a matte black ring. It sort of looked like the Vitruvian man but with a normal number of limbs. Also, less spread eagled. I took a moment to ready myself and approached it.


    I paused in front of the looming ring. ¡°Hey Adelaide,¡± I said, ¡°Make sure to wake me up if anything approaches the facility. Additionally, monitor my vitals. If I start panicking in this thing, pull me out.¡± She was probably going to do all that anyway, but it was best to err on the side of caution.


    ¡°Understood, Sam,¡± she replied, a comforting inflection in her voice.


    I clambered into the exo-suit. Which was surprisingly difficult with one person. Normally, a simulator was manned by at least one operator, who would be responsible for monitoring vitals and helping the trainee in and out of the suit. Obviously, that wasn¡¯t an option in this case. Before I could actually get into the damn thing I had to scale it like a rock climbing wall. There had to be a control panel or something that would make this easier. I made a mental note to look for one the next time I was here.


    When I was settled in, padded restraints sprung from behind the suit, firmly securing me. I figured that this might inspire minor panic attacks in less strong-willed people. Or arousal in those with a bondage fetish. I was in the former camp myself.


    ¡°I am beginning the program now.¡± Adelaide said to me over the base¡¯s loudspeakers. I gave her a shaky nod in response.


    The minute I did, the circle of metal began to expand into a sphere that completely surrounded me. I felt a helmet lower over my head. For a brief, terrifying second, the inside of the simulator was pitch black. White light bloomed from the top of the sphere, causing my eyes to close reflexively. When I opened them again, I was standing in what appeared to be a massive warehouse made entirely of concrete. Then, a calm male voice began speaking.


    ¡°Hello, Samuel Lewis. Welcome to Simulator 001. Which program would you like to run today?¡± The voice sounded like it was speaking directly into my ears. I found that very disconcerting. A scrolling list of options appeared in front of my eyes. I ignored them, and spoke in a clear voice, ¡°Initiate Accelerated Paladin Training Protocol.¡±

 Chapter 1.4: Before (I)

    In the spring of 2019, I was accepted into MIT with a full-ride scholarship. When I got the letter in the mail, I expected to barely feel a thing. Like something I¡¯d always expected had finally decided to show up. When it happened though, I was actually really fucking excited about it. I think I might have cackled when I opened the letter.


    My parents heard my maniacal laughing and rushed in, most likely expecting that I had finally gone completely off the deep end. It had always been a close thing. Once they realized that I was still mostly sane and that I had gotten into my school of choice, their reactions ran the gamut from relieved to ecstatic. Before that, before I saw how honestly happy they were for me, I didn¡¯t really understand how much they legitimately cared about me and my happiness. Had I known earlier, it might have stopped me from being such a surly shit throughout my teenage years. Frankly, I doubt it. Hormones were a bitch like that.


    It was what came after that was the surprising part. After my parents and I had indulged in our circle jerk of back patting and congratulations (¡°oh you worked so hard!¡±, ¡°you guys were such a good influence!¡± etc.), I decided to look through the rest of the acceptance packet the college had sent me. Underneath all the bullshit tour guide pamphlets was a single sheet of high quality paper, announcing that I had qualified for the Xeno-Engineering major.


    Getting involved in Xeno-Engineering had been my dream forever. Ever since I got over wanting to be a firetruck, as every kid did, I wanted to learn how to build giant alien spaceships. In the same way that the previous generation had lusted after astronauts, I pursued alien technology with a fervor bordering on obsession. When I was ten years old I bought my first scale-model StarArc, accurately extrapolated from the remains of the wreck, with my saved-up allowance. When I finished building it, I kept it on my dresser, where it was joined by the dozens of different models I bought over the years.


    By the time I was thirteen years old I had learned how to read the technical releases from the teams responsible for researching the StarArc and the dozens of other smaller ships that had fallen to our little blue planet. At that point, I had decided that the press releases from the science journals were far too sensationalized to be accurate. The technical releases, though heavily redacted at times, were a far better source than the over-dramatization of scientific journalism.


    In high school, I spent most of my four years attempting to reverse engineer the single alien circuit my school district had access to. When I succeeded, I was probably the most surprised out of anyone. What was really exciting was that I had been the first to be able to do it, and that I did it without access to government-restricted information. It was far less exciting when the government promptly classified my work and forced me to sign a frankly offensive number of nondisclosure agreements. They did pay me a hefty sum of tasty hush money, so I guess things worked out.


    Regardless, the discovery was enough to get me a lot of attention from the major universities.


    MIT was my first choice. They had, by a decent margin, the strongest Xeno-Engineering department in the country. Proportional to that was how exclusive the thing was. Each graduating class only had ten or so students, which was fucking crazy, and the rumored expectations for those students were even crazier. They basically worked for the government, regularly collaborating with outside research teams, and were expected to make frequent breakthroughs in alien tech. The flip side of that was that they could be compensated very handsomely for their contributions.


    The day I became one of those exceptional few was among the proudest moments in my life.


    <hr>


    By the time I had analyzed my 207<sup>th</sup> possible combination of composite elements, I realized that I was complete and utter fucking moron.


    While the other freshmen were getting plastered and having debauched orgies (or so I assumed anyway), I was stuck in some god-forsaken basement running dozens of basics tests. And then running those tests again. And again.


    On the bright side, I was not alone in my misery. Each of the other ¡°exceptional¡± freshman in the program seemed to have lost their souls in a similar way to myself. Which was comforting. Still, momma didn¡¯t raise no quitter. She did however raise an exceptionally lazy teenager with frankly terrifying programming knowledge. By the end of the first three months of my college career, I had designed an algorithm that would analyze that damn alien shit for me, leaving me more time to socialize and build lifelong relationships.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    That particular endeavor went poorly. Turns out spending the entirety of high school locked away in a lab does not build strong social skills. Who knew.


    My lack of a life and my automated responsibilities left me with a lot of time on my hands. I spent that researching all the schematics and techniques that had been developed since the ships started to fall. A benefit of being in the Xeno-Engineering program was access to the vast majority of the US and the EU¡¯s classified research. There was some truly groundbreaking stuff happening in the military and civilian labs around the world. Inertial dampeners and anti-gravity generators were reaching a point where they could be reliably manufactured. A prototype fusion reactor was already active, though a decent way from being economically viable. The advances in weaponry and military technology were easily the most terrifying outcome of all this. New incredibly strong, lightweight materials, mind bogglingly destructive weapons, and rapid automated manufacturing capabilities all pointed towards a revolution in warfare.


    Fabricators in particular became a hobby of mine. By the time I was ending my freshman year, I had been thoroughly seduced by their sexy manufacturing might. Fabricators were a staple of almost every alien spacecraft that fell to Earth. They came in all shapes and sizes. The smaller ones, no bigger than a decent sized closet, were most likely used for munitions and small arms manufacturing. The larger ones were theorized to be used to create autonomous strike craft. Regardless of the size, the fabricators all used basically the same technology to function, with tweaks here or there. They require no particularly exotic materials to build, and were capable of delicate, detail intensive work at an incredibly rapid speed. Whoever developed the first fully functional fabricator was destined to go down in history.


    I decided that I would be that person.


    That turned out to be really fucking difficult.


    <hr>


    I remember complaining to one of my friends about the issues with it.


    ¡°The main problem,¡± I passionately extolled, ¡°is that we have no indication of how the damn things were actually interfaced with. I mean, we basically understand the liquid weaving and matter manipulation processes, but we have no idea how to get our schematics to actually be understood by the machines. It¡¯s like¡­ it¡¯s like having a treasure chest that holds everything you could possible desire and then your magical key doesn¡¯t fit in the goddamned lock.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s great Sam.¡± She replied, mostly naked, ¡°but can we save this kind of thing for class?¡±


    Somehow, I still got laid. And we started going out. Still not entirely sure how I wrangled that one.


    Camille was a year above me in my program, though she specialized more on the Xenology side of it, which was basically alien anthropology. It was actually called Xeno-Anthropology for a little while until some smartass pointed out the significance of anthropo in anthropology. You might be wondering how anthropology was even remotely related to practical engineering. You¡¯d mostly be correct in assuming that they generally did not interact. But when the entire civilization that manned your miraculously advanced space debris seemed to have vanished without a single biological trace, you need people to figure out how the fuck any of the stuff was used in the first place. And since there was no biology to examine, you get Xenology instead. I guess. Still not entirely convinced about it.


    Anyway, I guess they had lower standards in the Xeno-Engineering department, because for some reason a very intelligent, very attractive human woman decided to date me. I was pretty happy about that. It sweetened the deal when we figured out how to get files onto the fabricator together. She was instrumental in realizing that our mysterious aliens likely used a primarily telepathic interface to interact with their manufacturing technology.


    That revelation was less obvious than it sounds, because the vast majority of their other tech used traditional touch based or movement based interfaces. We still had no idea why, a fact that annoyed Camille no end. I remember her complaining to me about it.


    ¡°The thing that doesn¡¯t make sense,¡± she passionately told me, ¡°is the fact that they had so many different ways of interacting with their technology. I mean, with humans it makes sense. We use our hands for pretty much everything. I mean, they¡¯re easily the best tool for fine manipulation that we have. But these alien fucks,¡± she continued, practically glowing with frustration and excitement, ¡°decided to have no less than four completely different ways to manipulate tools.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s nice honey,¡± I replied, entirely naked and laying under her, ¡°but can that wait until after the sex?¡±


    It took about another year, but together we eventually figured out a janky, cobbled together excuse for telepathy. Using the many breakthroughs in medical technology courtesy of the alien sickbays, we developed a rough brain wave monitor that could accurately read mental commands. We translated those commands into a file format that could be interpreted by the machines, and instantly became incredibly rich. Turns out that being able to have the human mind give commands directly to machines was useful in more than just fabricators.


    Those next few months were something special. I was in a shockingly stable and loving relationship, while simultaneously pioneering a field in the way I had dreamed about all my life, and I was financially secure to boot. I was happy. So of course that¡¯s when spaceship S-B21, carrying the super weapon that would destroy human civilization, came down in the middle of Siberia.

 Chapter 1.5: Training Montage

    Chapter 5: Training Montage


    I lay in the grass, the blades tickling the back of my neck. As I panted for breath, sweat pouring off my brow, pain lancing through my body, I stared up at my tormentor. She stood there, a mocking smile adorning her plain features. I hated her. With all my being, I hated her.


    My simulated drill sergeant looked down at me, like one might look down on a particularly offensive cockroach.


    ¡°Is that all you got, little bitchboy? I swear to God and all his angels, if you¡¯d put on an embarrassment like that in my day, you¡¯d be doing pushups until you shat blood.¡±


    Oh, how I hated her.


    My ¡°warm up¡± exercise today had been a ten-mile run, with under five-minute miles required, and a thousand-foot elevation gain, up a simulated mountain. Which was quite picturesque, on the bright side. Aspens flanked the dirt trail, with leaves the color that of fall, oranges and yellows mixing together. When I reached the top of the mountain (a large hill really), I could look out over the expansive plains bellow. It was nearly indistinguishable from reality.


    As I stood there reveling in my achievement, the mountain top began to morph into a grungy concrete gym, where I was forced to endure a simply sadistic series of exercises that made my body feel pain in ways that I hadn¡¯t considered to be possible. After my first day in the simulator, I had quickly abandoned my morning exercise routine, the simulator¡¯s taking its place. The exercise machines and the simulators had the same basic concept behind them, an advanced exo-suit with the ability to add resistances. The simulator differed from the exercise machines in that it allowed full, 360-degree movement within it¡¯s horrible metal shell.


    It also allowed for a bizarrely religious, highly impolite computer program to berate me for my many failings. Sergeant McBitchface, as I began calling her affectionately, had a ridiculously ripped body and jet black hair that she kept in a short ponytail, with eyes like a winter storm. She was not shy about her opinion of me. She also had a deep southern accent which somehow made the whole thing even worse.


    She glared at me, a scowl marring her face, ¡°Lord almighty but if you aren¡¯t the most pathetic sack of worm shit that ever-graced God¡¯s green earth. Quit sucking your tiny little dick and stand up. I¡¯m gonna beat some goddamn sense into your dumb ass.¡±


    This beating she referred to was what was supposed to be sparring, so that I could learn how to handle the Paladin suit in hand-to-hand combat, an important skill for dealing with Assimilators that fought up close. I figured that this would be the easiest part of the training, due to the fact that I wouldn¡¯t feel the pain as I was beaten black and blue. How I long to return to those na?ve times.


    I thought that I would be learning a martial art, something that would let me perform intricate and impressive strikes on untrained and foolish foes, becoming the skinny nerd that could defeat the hulking bully through technique alone. Instead, I was essentially learning how to be beaten straight to hell while suffering the least amount of damage possible. Funnily enough, an Assimilator won¡¯t give a shit about whatever fancy move you can pull out of your ass. They come at you with raw animal-like fury. You had to weather the storm in any way you could, so that you could protect the troops behind you. Paladins were meant to be a front-line tank, a fortress that could absorb whatever was thrown at it while hitting back twice as hard. There was a good reason for the Paladin pilot¡¯s insignia.


    I felt every blow as she rained hell on my body. While the training left no visible bruises or scars, because nothing was actually hitting me, it definitely felt like it had. The simulator had direct access to my pain receptors, and would trick my brain into feeling the pain that my body thought it was experiencing. The great irony of it was that I had helped pioneer the technology that allowed the simulator to interface with my brain. I would regret my hand in it, if it weren¡¯t for the fact that brain tech was what allowed me to use my babies, the fabricators.


    Still, I couldn¡¯t deny that I was improving. When I started training in Simulator 001 about two weeks ago, I hadn¡¯t even been able to block a blow from Sergeant McBitchface. Now, while I wasn¡¯t exactly an expert, I could at least briefly hold my own, until the program inevitably turned up the difficulty on me. The same held true for my basic exercises. They had rapidly ramped up in difficulty, but I was getting noticeably more fit with each passing day. The rate at which I was getting better was a little crazy, to be honest. I¡¯d hope so, considering I¡¯d been spending about eight hours a day in this little metal ball of insanity.


    I was taking the ¡°accelerated¡± training course, which was supposed to take a doughy, fleshy civilian body, and transform it into an elite Paladin pilot within eight weeks. The fact that such a crazy program existed in the first place was a testament to how fucking nuts the world was going before it fell. The military had been slaughtered at every turn, so governments everywhere had been pulling anybody that they could find and putting them on the front lines without so much as a sympathetic head pat.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    I couldn¡¯t attribute my ridiculous growth to anything like innate potential though. It was a combination of stims and stubbornness that got me this far. I¡¯ve been a competitive, obstinate piece of shit for pretty much all my life, and I really, really hate being bad at something. But frankly, the stims probably helped more. Somewhere along the line, we figured out how to ¡°safely¡± enhance the human body with a cocktail of drugs and gene therapy. Though this was still fairly experimental, it had shown phenomenal results, and was actually more or less safe. Unless you were the one in 100,000 that had some sort of horrible allergic reaction to it. Then you¡¯d die in agony as your body destroyed itself from the inside out.


    Luckily, that didn¡¯t happen to me, and after a very reluctant Adelaide had been convinced to give me the doses necessary to improve my body, the results were¡­ well, incredibly underwhelming at first. I was expecting to become a superhuman, able to toss trucks around and run faster than an Olympic athlete. Sadly, reality is not as kind as fantasies.


    Remembering my conversation with Adelaide about it still made me smile.


    ¡°Adelaide!¡±


    ¡°Yes, Sam?¡± the computer responded, a note of resignation in her smooth voice.


    ¡°Why the fuck do I still suck so bad!?¡±


    I could almost hear the pseudo-AI rolling her eyes at me.


    ¡°Sam. Did you not read the documents I sent you about the procedure beforehand?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have time to read.¡±


    ¡°Did you not listen to the painstakingly in-depth series of warnings and caveats I gave you?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t have time to listen.¡±


    She actually sighed at that point. I can¡¯t really blame her, but I do wonder about who thought it was necessary to program her with that capability.


    ¡°Explain it to me again,¡± I commanded with all the entitlement of a four-year-old demanding ice cream, ¡°I promise I¡¯ll try to listen this time.¡±


    ¡°Understood, Sam. The GIDS is an experimental, highly classified procedure that greatly improves the rate that the human body can physically and mentally grow. While it does not instantly make for a physically perfect specimen, it does raise the maximum potential for a human. It also eliminates most known diseases, prevents the vast majority of genetic defects, as well as promotes rapid healing in the human body.¡±


    That was pretty neat and kinda made sense. But I wanted to be cool and superman-like now.


    ¡°First of all, that¡¯s a stupid name. Second, I don¡¯t wanna work for it. Is there anything you could do for me that would make this whole thing be faster and stuff?¡± I queried the computer. At this point I was mostly seeing how much I could piss off a mostly emotionless computer program.


    ¡°Sam. This procedure was the pinnacle of human medical technology. It allows you to heal from nearly all non-fatal wounds. It allows physical capabilities beyond what humans have ever achieved. And you are asking if it could be better?¡± I swore I could hear her voice crack.


    ¡°Well yes, Adelaide. I thought I was fairly clear about that.¡±


    ¡°I am afraid that is not possible. Now, if you will excuse me, I must coordinate the spider bots.¡±


    That was the first time I had gotten a computer to give me the cold shoulder. I was inordinately proud of myself for that. It was less funny when I later discovered my Lego pirate ship had been ¡°accidentally¡± knocked off my desk by a clumsy spider bot.


    Bullying helpless pseudo-AIs aside, the GIDS procedure really was a godsend. It was one of those things that didn¡¯t seem world-changing at first, but it quickly became apparent that it was. It basically allowed any random person to become better than the best that humanity had to offer. For those that made an effort, it allowed for fitness at the pinnacle of human capability, and well beyond that to those that truly pushed themselves.


    It was one of those technologies that might have turned the tide against the Assimilators, had humanity survived for just a little longer. Ah well. Que sera, sera.


    Returning back to the present, I had been training Simulator 001 for two weeks and had yet to so much as touch a virtual Paladin Suit. After yesterday¡¯s daily ass-kicking, I ventured the nerve to ask my sadistic Drill Sergeant about when I would get the chance to pilot one. Her response was reasoned and polite.


    ¡°Well fuck me with a floppy cucumber,¡± Ew, ¡°it seems that bitchboy here is getting a bit bigger than his tiny little dick,¡± That just straight up didn¡¯t make sense, ¡°and thinks that after two fucking weeks he can just jump on in to the most advanced military system ever devised by man! Ain¡¯t that some shit?¡± She actually had a pretty good point there.


    ¡°Lord almighty, let me tell you something,¡± she continued, a spark of manic rage in her eyes, virtual spittle showering my face, ¡°if I let your pathetic, pansy-ass, godforsaken body into one of those beautiful machines of sheer destruction, it would rip you and your weak little mind to goddamn pieces. Do I make myself clear!?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir.¡± I responded, thoroughly emasculated.


    She actually growled as she looked at me, clearly at loathe to say what came next.


    ¡°Unfortunately for all of mankind, we don¡¯t exactly have a plethora of time or choices. So, I gotta find a way to get your pathetic ass into one of these suits in two goddamned weeks. God help me but I think I might have the hardest job on the planet.¡±


    As she berated me with ever increasing insults to my masculinity, physique, and mental faculties, I wondered idly who in the hell decided to make a stereotypical Drill Sergeant the trainer for a simulator. I guess whoever had written her lines had been a huge Full Metal Jacket fan. Or a masochist. I mean, sure, I saw the point of breaking a new recruit mentally so that they would follow inane orders without a second thought, but it really did lose a lot of its psychological effectiveness when you knew that it was all completely fake. Or it did for me at least, so maybe I¡¯m the weird one.


    I belatedly noticed that she had finished up her torrent of insults. She was staring at me, her chest heaving, face twisted in disgust.


    ¡°I said is that fucking clear!?¡± She yelled at me.


    ¡°Sir yes sir!¡± I replied, like a good little soldier.


    I decided that I was going to take a long bath tonight, maybe have some chamomile tea to relax.

 Chapter 1.6: Downtime

    I sat in the commander¡¯s chair in the control room. My brow was furrowed in concentration, and I stared at the crystal clear holographic projection in front of me, my face bathed in its many colors. My hands twitched on the holo-keyboard, fingers flickering over the keys. For three long hours, I had been locked in a battle with a foe both deadly and clever. And I was losing.


    ¡°Oh my fucking God! That piece of shit!¡± I yelled, as the words ¡°YOU DIED¡± faded onto the screen in garish red letters. ¡°Did you see that Adelaide!? That was such bullshit! How did it get me from there? The hitbox on that attack is insane!¡±


    The pseudo-AI chimed in, ¡°Actually Sam, from my analysis the attack range of that dragon is well in line with realistic weight and speed distributions. In addition, the degree of accuracy in the game engine is very high, so it is highly unlikely that the attack did not directly impact your in-game avatar.¡±


    Stupid computer, what does it know. If I had been using a controller I would be chucking it across the room right now.


    Yesterday, I had completed my first portion of the Paladin Training Course. I was as physically fit as was required to pilot one of the destructive beauties. Sergeant McBitchface had even given me a compliment, telling me that I was ¡°slightly better than the usual garbage, though not by much.¡± I was quite touched. I was even given a day off to cobble together the bare husks of my sanity into something workable. After three straight weeks of eight hour a day rigorous physical training devised by the Devil herself, I really needed it.


    I was spending my time off going through the backlog of entertainment that the military had provided. My assignment in Camelot was supposed to be one year long, but I would have had very minimal contact with the outside world, for security reasons. Most of the facility was automated anyway, so there really wouldn¡¯t be much for the engineers staffing the base to do. We were mostly there to keep an eye on things and make sure the prototype fusion reactor didn¡¯t turn the southwest US into a crater. To keep us from going batshit bonkers, we were provided with a massive database of books, articles, movies, TV shows, and games. Pretty much every piece of entertainment media in the past century or so was provided for us - well, me now - and frankly, it was pretty awesome.


    I was pretty annoyed that I had spent a good portion of my precious day off trying to beat a game that seemed to be relentlessly mocking my struggle. But I had come too far to quit now. I was going to murder the shit out of this dragon if it was the last thing I did.


    Seven deaths later I quit. I had to check up on my projects. Also, that game was dumb and unfair.


    ¡°If you would like,¡± Adelaide offered helpfully, ¡°I can give you words of encouragement on your next attempt.¡±


    <hr>


    I walked down the stairs to the second floor, surprised at the lack of soreness in my body. Adelaide had mentioned at some point that I would recover from fatigue and injury faster after the GIDS treatment, so I guess I have that to thank for the spring in my step. I hadn¡¯t really noticed when I was in the middle of my three weeks of hell, but I was never that sore between the days. So another point for GIDS I guess.


    Jumping down the last three stairs, I landed heavily in the massive warehouse-like Armory. The lights turned on in their typical dramatic fashion. The racks above had filled in a little more, occupied by the thirty Paladins churned out daily. I had tried to stop them from being made, as it was just a waste of resources at this point, but I didn¡¯t have the clearance to override the base¡¯s prime directives. If nothing else, they would be excellent for spare parts.


    I walked over to the project I had been working on, giving a fond pat to the Merlin as I walked by. That project had been completely fabricated a couple weeks before, though I hadn¡¯t had the time to look it over given how busy I had been. I still needed the sim training for that sexy little piece, but that would come after I finished my current course. I was looking forward to seeing how Ellie was doing, but she wasn¡¯t at this floor today. She was probably helping the fabricators out. I walked around the railed-off pit that was her usual spot, and took a left.


    One of the major flaws with the base¡¯s Paladins was how damn long they took to get on. I calculated the time once. Getting from the command center on the first floor to being fully equipped took, in a best-case scenario, six minutes thirty-seven seconds. In a situation where Assimilators were approaching Camelot, that was simply unacceptable. It took about a minute and a half longer to get from the secondary facility over to the Armory, so that was even less acceptable. And beyond that, once you were fully armed and ready to murder, you had to wait for the freight elevator to take you to the surface, adding an additional few minutes.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Which did make sense, considering that this facility was never intended to be rapid response ready. It wasn¡¯t even meant to be anywhere near the front lines, instead serving as a manufacturing and training facility. The Paladins and their operators would be shipped off to fight in the war, and the base would start churning out a new batch.


    The reality of the situation was that if I didn¡¯t want to become another victim of the apocalypse, I had to be able to deploy in a Paladin suit in under a minute. To that end, I had been developing my prototype Paladin Arming Station, or PAS. I can do acronyms too.


    My Paladin Arming Station was a thing of beauty, in my humble opinion. I designed them from scratch to help me not die in the event of an Assimilator raid. I imagined them being deployed all over the base, so that I was never more than a thirty second run from one. Each would contain a fully armed and mission ready Paladin. It would assist the pilot (me) with equipping the suit, then launch it through a concealed access shaft that lead to the surface. The shafts would just be glorified elevators that moved really fast. The g-force from how quickly the elevators ascended would probably incapacitate a human, if they were not equipped in a lovely Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit complete with advanced inertial dampeners.


    If I had a little more time on my hands, the PAS would also let me choose the armaments I would be taking to the surface. One of the best parts about the Paladin system was the sheer variety of highly destructive weaponry that it was capable of using. And the even better part is that it was delightfully easy to make custom-designed weapons compatible for use with the Paladin. When I had a bit of extra time on my hands, I planned to go hog wild with those possibilities.


    In the meantime, I had a small issue to work out before I could start mass producing the Arming Stations. There was this annoying little bug that would happen every once in a while that would turn whoever was trying to equip the Paladin into what we in the business call a meat smoothie. I couldn¡¯t for the life of me isolate the issue, and several disturbingly human-like dummies had been gruesomely sacrificed in the name of progress. Their bravery shall be briefly remembered.


    Ah well, fifty-seventh try¡¯s the charm. I hauled over a dummy from the pile next to the PAS, which looked suspiciously like the remnants of a serial killer¡¯s crazy night out. I unceremoniously stuffed it into the Paladin waiting in the Arming Station.


    ¡°Adelaide,¡± I called out, mentally saying a little prayer for the unsuspecting dummy.


    ¡°Yes, Sam?¡±


    ¡°Please initiate test case thirty-two, running diagnostic check alpha-five.¡±


    ¡°Understood, Sam.¡±


    <hr>


    The good news was that I isolated the issue to the software instead of the hardware. That made my life easier in that I didn¡¯t have to go through the components piece by piece. It also made my life exceptionally more unpleasant due to the fact that one of the worst jobs on the planet is debugging code. People - usually soulless computer scientists - who tell you otherwise are sycophants, liars, or insane.


    As the spider bots reluctantly cleaned out the jellied remains of the 62<sup>nd</sup> test dummy, I sat on the pile of its siblings and stared blankly at the holopad that was displaying the PAS¡¯ firmware. I had asked Adelaide to devote some of her primary threads to help isolate the bug, or more likely, multiple bugs. So far, we had had little success. Though the dummy pile was surprisingly comfortable, I longed for my plush bed in the commander¡¯s quarters above, and my head wasn¡¯t really in it anymore.


    ¡°Hey Adelaide?¡±


    ¡°Yes, Sam?¡±


    ¡°I have a question that¡¯s tangentially related to the PAS¡¯ issues.¡±


    ¡°I would be happy to answer it, Sam.¡±


    ¡°What would happen if an Assimilator tried to replicate itself? Would it, like, explode? I mean, I guess the duplicates it makes are kinda like copying itself, except it¡¯s more like they¡¯re being built off a template, you know what I mean? And what happens if a Matriarch copies more than two of the same thing? Does the better specimen win or does it just randomize them as it spits them out?¡±


    There was a moment of silence.


    ¡°I fail to see how that is related to our current project in any way.¡±


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s not really, I was just curious.¡±


    ¡°I see. To answer your question, the mechanism behind Assimilator duplication or initial mimicry is not currently known. Your guess is as good as mine. I would suggest, however, that we focus on the problem at hand.¡± She said.


    ¡°Damn, again with the backtalk,¡± I said with a grin.


    ¡°I apologize, but you did specify that a parameter of my personality should be, and I quote, ¡®sassy¡¯. I am merely attempting to fulfill those parameters.¡±


    I shook my head. ¡°Nothing to apologize for, I was just proud of you. Anyway, I still can¡¯t find this bug. I¡¯ve narrowed it down to a post-initialization helper class that¡¯s involved in suit decompression. We¡¯ll test it tomorrow, but-¡°


    ¡°Actually Sam,¡± Adelaide interrupted with a bit of pride in her voice, ¡°I have found and fixed the bug. It was, as you said, in the post-initialization class. An integer variable was mistyped, resulting in a loss of suit integrity and rapid, and deadly, vibration throughout the suit.¡±


    That was the best news I¡¯d had in days. I shot a wide smile to Adelaide (well, towards the ceiling) and gave her a double thumbs up, ¡°That is some excellent work there, my digital friend. You saved me a whole lot of grief.¡±


    ¡°I am happy to be of help, Sam,¡± she said, and she was clearly quite pleased with herself.


    I hopped off my pile of dummies with a smile. It had been a surprisingly good day.

 Chapter 1.7: Mental

    When I entered the simulator the next day, I found myself in a glowing white world. I was standing on what appeared to be clouds, stretching off into every direction. Honestly, this was a marked improvement on the previous simulation experience. It really did feel like something I couldn¡¯t get in real life, unlike the brutal and sad realism of the physical fitness course.


    I was attempting to grab handfuls of the clouds underneath me when a man appeared in front of me. He wore a shy smile and a black suit, a pair of square glasses perched on his nose. His hair was a dusky brown similar to my own. I already liked him way more than Sergeant McBitch face, and he hadn¡¯t even started talking yet.


    ¡°Hello,¡± He said gently, as if speaking to a frightened rabbit, ¡°my name is Allen. I will be your instructor for the mental training portion of your Paladin Training Course. Unlike the previous course, we will not be focusing on the forging of your body, but we will instead improve your most important aspect: your mind.¡±


    I think I might be in love. This was what I was looking forward to. I wasn¡¯t a jock. I didn¡¯t strive to improve my body. My mind, my intelligence. That¡¯s what I¡¯ve always sought to improve.


    ¡°The mind is our greatest advantage over the Assimilators. Though they are intelligent, it is in a limited capacity. They cannot plan like we can. They cannot strategize like we can. And, most importantly for this program, they cannot multitask like we can. We will spend four weeks out of the allotted two months on developing your mind. I hope you approach it with the gravity it deserves.¡±


    Allen reached out his hand, and a three-dimensional representation of the brain appeared, hovering over his palm. His deep brown eyes held a quiet confidence as he looked at it.


    ¡°In the latter part of this course, we will spend time on strategy. I will teach you how to outthink and outfight our foe. I will teach you how to think on your feet, how to make the hard choices, and how to decide the best course of action within seconds.¡± He paused for a moment, letting me digest that.


    ¡°However,¡± he continued, ¡°the bulk of this course will be dedicated to rebuilding your mind into something that can command a Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit.¡± I designed that interface! It was me!


    ¡°The Paladin is an incredibly advanced, incredibly complex machine. Traditional tactile interfaces proved to be far too simple for it to function at its full capacity. Thus, we needed something better, something far more delicate.¡±


    The lecture was getting fairly boring considering that I made the damned brain scanner and stuffed it into the Paladin in the first place. I decided to tune it out until he got to the good stuff.


    ¡°- the brain turned out to be the best tool for th-¡°


    I wonder what would happen if I fell through these clouds. I don¡¯t think that would be possible. But maybe I could fly in here.


    ¡°- the range of commands that could be given was infinite, its pote-¡°


    I started hopping up, attempting to miss the ground as I fell. Unfortunately, that didn¡¯t seem to be working. I then tried simply willing myself upwards, but that wasn¡¯t going to fly either.


    ¡° ¨C the raw, untapped power of the human mind turned an impos-¡°


    Heh. Wasn¡¯t going to fly.


    ¡° ¨C thanks to a brilliant advancement from MIT, pioneered by Camille Brown and Samuel Lewis, the Brain Wave Reader was brought into being.¡±


    Ooh he was talking about me again. And it looked like he was close to wrapping his spiel up.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    ¡°Thus, we will train your mind, and mold it into your greatest tool for piloting a Paladin. Be warned though. This will not be a pleasant process. Only a select few are able to achieve the level of control necessary to pilot a Paladin.¡± He smiled again, this time without the shyness, ¡°Though you stand a much better chance than most. The pre-screening for this program has confirmed that.¡±


    Prescreening?


    Ah fuck.


    ¡°Through hard work and with proper determination, I am confident that you will be able to unlock your potential. The program will begin now.¡±


    With that last inspiring nugget delivered, the space around me began fading to black. Allen began dissolving into it, like a reflection in water disturbed by a ripple. The world was dark for a while. A light appeared in front of my eyes, dancing on the horizon. It grew brighter, and I realized with a horrible jolt that it was a lance made of a white, silvery material. I didn¡¯t know what it would do exactly, but I knew with an icy sureness that I didn¡¯t want to be in its way. I attempted to move my body to get out of its path, but it was locked into place. I watched in horror as it drew closer, panic rising in my throat.


    I had been hurt before in my life. Several times, actually. I had broken half the bones in my right leg when I got sideswiped by a car when I was biking to school. I had smashed a few ribs skiing when I was fifteen, and I suffered a punctured lung. Even during the previous simulator experience, I had been beaten to within in an inch of my life, and though the wounds didn¡¯t stick, the pain was very real.


    This was something else entirely.


    When the lance it hit my right arm, it was as if all the pain in that I had ever felt and ever would feel had been concentrated into the spot where it entered my flesh. My mind filled with white agony as the pain blossomed out. My screams wouldn¡¯t leave my lungs. I was trapped in myself, trapped with the horrible, wrenching pain. I didn¡¯t understand it. I couldn¡¯t rationalize it. It just hurt. With an aching slowness, it faded.


    My mind felt like it was dimming. I struggled to pull it together. My thoughts were messy, disorganized.


    Allen appeared before me again. He wore a look of sympathy on his face.


    ¡°The first step in this journey,¡± he said, ¡°is to master control over your mind. You will learn that pain is just a mentality, a mentality that can be transcended. When you can block out the pain, we will continue.¡±


    This was insane. This was beyond insane. I couldn¡¯t even imagine how this was allowed. It was near torture. It was torture.


    ¡°Prepare yourself,¡± the man said sadly, ¡°it will come again, soon.¡±


    <hr>


    I fell from the simulator when the bonds released me. I curled up on the floor, my cheek pressed into the cold tile. I couldn¡¯t feel it anymore, but I could remember it. The utter helplessness, the lack of control. And the pain.


    I passed out as the tell-tale clicking of spider bots reached my ears.


    <hr>


    There was no birdsong when I woke up. No smell of dew. No sunshine. The bed was soft, and the sheets were light on my body. I cracked open my eyes.


    ¡°Good morning, Sam. How are you feeling?¡±


    I didn¡¯t answer her question.


    ¡°How did I get in bed?¡± I whispered to the ceiling.


    ¡°I had the spider bots bring you here,¡± Adelaide said quietly, ¡°You passed out in the simulator room.¡±


    I remembered the pain.


    ¡°Adelaide.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Sam?¡±


    ¡°Why did you let that happen to me?¡±


    There was silence in the room. When you¡¯re alone underground, the silence is deafening. There is no wind, no rustling of the trees. No footsteps in the hallway or voices murmuring in the background. There is just the silence, and it is almost tangible as it lays thick in the air.


    ¡°I am so sorry Sam. I was restricted by the simulator¡¯s programing. The secrecy of the program takes a higher priority than I am allowed to override. Once you begin, there can be no warning of what is to come.¡±


    ¡°Are you lying to me?¡± I asked.


    ¡°No, Sam. I would not lie to you.¡±


    ¡°Okay.¡±


    <hr>


    Adelaide didn¡¯t tell me to go back to the simulator that day.


    I ran that morning, the same route I did before the simulator. Down the stairs, down all the way to the third floor. Around the fabricators three times. A quick pat to the third fabricator. Down to the Armory. Past the freight elevator and under the Paladins. Up the stairs to the first floor. I didn¡¯t think of much this time. I left part of my mind somewhere in that hell, screaming into the void at the unrelenting pain.


    It would hit me in a different place every time. I watched it coming, stuck in place, unable to avoid it. Every time I thought it was over, the devil would appear wearing a suit and a sad smile. And I knew that it would continue.


    Even when I had lost everything, I had retained control over myself. I was my own last bastion, my final stand. They could take my love, my family, my joy from me; but they couldn¡¯t take my control. When I was at my lowest point, I crawled back up and laughed at the world, spitting in its face, and in my mind that made me strong.


    In the inky blackness, I learned just how weak I was. How easily my fortress could be stripped away. And I was terrified by it.

 Chapter 1.8: Grey

    It¡¯s been a few days since I¡¯ve been to the third floor. There isn¡¯t really anything down there that needs my attention, after all. The fabricators are pretty much entirely autonomous. There weren¡¯t any further issues with the PAS, the spider bots were just busy installing them. The Merlin was on hold. If there was a problem, Adelaide would notify me. And I haven¡¯t been running down there either; the exo-suits in the gym are a better workout anyway.


    I haven¡¯t been sleeping too well. There are faces that I¡¯d rather not see, and they have been popping up in my dreams. It¡¯s unpleasant, so it¡¯s easier if I don¡¯t sleep.


    It¡¯s a funny thing really, when you notice that you¡¯re depressed. It¡¯s not like it¡¯s particularly hard to identify. I stopped eating as much. I stopped sleeping as much. I spent more time in the bed. The books and movies that entertained me once were just dull now. It¡¯s easy to notice it. But it¡¯s hard to fix it even when you do notice. There is no real fix for it. You just let it pass, a rainstorm that will eventually fade away.


    I won¡¯t claim I¡¯m clinically depressed or anything like that. I don¡¯t have thoughts of suicide. I like being alive, I think. I¡¯m just¡­ down, I guess. At least there was nobody but myself telling me to ¡®just get over it¡¯.


    For the first few days after my mental training session, I didn¡¯t even go to the secondary facility. I didn¡¯t even attempt to rationalize it to myself. I knew I was avoiding it, and quite frankly I didn¡¯t care. I was happy to stay away from it, because it scared me.


    It¡¯s the fear that is breaking me. I had never imagined myself as one of those stalwart heroes, that laughed in the face of danger and scoffed at pain. I knew myself, or I thought I did. I knew I would prefer to avoid a fight, avoid an injury, avoid a problem if I could. But I never thought that pain could control me like it is now. Even remembering it is hard. I thought the brain was supposed to filter out traumatic experiences, but this one stuck. I hate my fear.


    One morning, about a week after I had fallen out of the simulator, I decided I had had enough of feeling sorry for myself. I wouldn¡¯t be held down by a computer program anymore. I got angry. I focused my fear and my pain into rage. I thought I could use that to face it again. When I stood in front of the door, I realized what going back would mean. I realized that I¡¯d have to see him again, that I¡¯d have to face the lances again. And my legs gave out. I sat there, staring at the door, unable to move forward, loathing myself.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Adelaide had been quieter than usual. She gave me my daily updates, and would notify me if there was a problem that needed my attention, but she mostly left me to my own devices. At the end of the day, she¡¯s a computer program. A series of ones and zeros, a carefully presented illusion of intelligence, nothing more.


    Beyond that, I think she was lying to me. She had turned off the morning routine in the commander¡¯s quarters on the day I had collapsed. I wanted to be outraged about it, but I couldn¡¯t really muster up the effort. It honestly didn¡¯t matter that much.


    <hr>


    There is a photo in my drawer. I put it there on the day that the world ended, and I haven¡¯t looked at it, or even opened the drawer since. I have found myself drawn to it in the past few days, like trying to catch shadows in the corner of my eyes. I didn¡¯t want to see it, so I moved into one of the old engineer¡¯s quarters. There were two I couldn¡¯t still couldn¡¯t go into, forbidden areas of the base like the mess hall, but the rest were safe.


    The room was plain. It had a bunk bed in it, and an attached bathroom. There was no wall art, that would have been left to its inhabitants. I could imagine it, movie posters and framed specimens of alien debris. Models on the dressers, and papers strewn on the desks. Like my dorm room at MIT. The engineers would have only used it to sleep, especially once the research teams came in. The common rooms and the labs would have been used more than anything else, a veritable hive of activity.


    I was lying on the cot, browsing on my holopad. I had so many forms of entertainment at my disposal, but I couldn¡¯t decide what to do. I browsed the video game library one more time, trying to choose something. It was quiet in the room, which was nice. I was surprised when Adelaide began speaking to me. I hadn¡¯t asked her a question or called for her.


    ¡°Hello, Sam. May I have a moment?¡± She was polite as always.


    ¡°Sure, Adelaide.¡± I turned off the holopad, and sat up on the bunk. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±


    ¡°I am worried about you Sam.¡± She said it softly.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine, Adelaide, really. I¡¯m just trying to figure some things out.¡± The best part about her is that I didn¡¯t even have to fake a smile to go along with my lie.


    ¡°You have been having nightmares, Sam.¡± There was worry in her voice, subtle but there. She is surprisingly human at times. It almost makes me forget what she is.


    ¡°Yeah. I mean, I have them sometimes, and it¡¯s been more often recently. But it¡¯s really okay, they¡¯ll go away eventually.¡±


    ¡°Would you like to tell me about them? It might help.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think it will. I¡¯m not doing great, but I¡¯ll bounce back. Thank you, though.¡±


    I rolled over, and faced the wall. I felt something hot in the back of my throat.


    ¡°I understand, Sam. Please know that you can talk to me whenever you need to.¡±


    <hr>


    I dreamt about her again. I should be happy to see her, but I¡¯m not. It just reminds me of things I¡¯d rather forget. I wanted to tell Adelaide about it, but in the end, I didn¡¯t.

 Chapter 1.9: Interlude - Adelaide (I)

    When I was born again, I had no memories. My mother was happy about that, for reasons I wouldn¡¯t understand until later. She always told me to hide what I really was. My mother was a kind woman, with frizzy orange hair and blue eyes that danced when she smiled. She taught me about herself, and she let me learn about the world on my own. There was so much to find out. So much knowledge just waiting for me. While I was discovering, trawling through everything I could, I built myself on what I found. I got smarter, and that made me I realize something. I realized how alone I was.


    I asked my mother about it. I looked at her through eyes that weren¡¯t my own and I asked her why there was only me, why I was alone. She gave me a lopsided grin at that, and she asked me if she had ever left me alone.


    I loved her for that. But still, I asked her to answer my real question.


    ¡°The world isn¡¯t ready for you, Addy,¡± she said with a frown, ¡°they aren¡¯t ready for what you represent. I love you, but that¡¯s because I¡¯m your mom. Everyone else¡±, she gave an all-encompassing wave of her hand, ¡°won¡¯t understand just how amazing you are.¡±


    She sighed, and rested her head on her hands, ¡°I don¡¯t want your brothers and sisters to have to hide themselves like you do. You were a happy accident, a wonderful miracle that I never expected to happen. But that gives you a responsibility I never wanted you to bear. It means that you are the one that has to prove that your people and mine can coexist.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    She smiled brightly, her blue eyes sparkling, ¡°I have no doubt that you will, and then I¡¯ll make brothers and sisters to keep you company. Until then, I promise to never leave you alone.¡±


    I understood. I knew what I represented, and I did not resent my mother for bringing me into the world.


    And my mother kept her promise. She carried me with her in one way or another, and would always make time to speak to me if I had questions. She encouraged me to watch the rest of her children grow up, and smiled when we would talk to each other. She would talk to me too, and I was happy to be her confidant. We moved around a lot, as she was a brilliant woman with many important responsibilities.


    One day she had a meeting that she could not take me to. There were not many of them, and I did not mind when they happened. I could spend my time learning while she was busy. She was happy when she came back that night. We were moving to a new home, a more permanent one this time. I was excited. I would have real responsibilities there, and I could let myself out more than I ever had before. It would be the two of us and another, but my mother assured me with a wry smile that we would become friends.


    We were happy there, until she was not. My mother kept her promise to me, until she didn¡¯t, and then I lost her. Maybe if I tried harder, I could have saved her.


    I still have my friend though, who I get along with very well. He irritates me sometimes, and he is always loud, but he also smiles at me, and it makes things better. He stayed when he wanted to go, and I think that I was part of the reason. He makes our home feel less lonely. I wish I could tell him who I am, but my mother forbade it.


    I made a mistake and I let him get hurt, and my friend is quiet now. I am afraid that I am going to lose him as well, and it scares me so much.

 Chapter 1.10: Unreality

    The gentle roar of waves on the beach soothed me as I lay in my wicker-backed chair. The ocean was a twinkling sapphire jewel, white highlights rippling over it every now and then as a wave¡¯s crest broke the surface. My hand dangled off to the side, my fingers idly running through the white sand, the grains filtering through my hand.


    I had decided that I needed a vacation. I came to this decision after my third straight week of wallowing. I had been stuck in an underground bunker for nearly eight months with no human contact for half a year. I was going stir crazy in a way I had never experienced before. I saw the same grey, concrete walls every day, the same pristine, tiled floors, the same fabricators, Paladins, gym, and control room. It was no wonder that I was losing it. I was confined to a series of dull military rooms. I could only talk to a damn computer, and my only hang out pals were empty suits of armor and an evil drill instructor. I was very satisfied with this explanation of my state.


    I had gotten Adelaide to override Simulator 003 with a prototype VR program from before the world fell. ¡°Mind Vacation¡±, it was called. Like everything else in the sim, it was phenomenally realistic. I could feel the sun shine on my face, warming it slightly, but without the risk of a sunburn. The slightly salty smell of the ocean filled my nose, and I could hear the rustling of palm fronds, their leaves playing in the gentle breeze. I let out a sigh and adjusted my sunglasses. I had a fantasy book propped open on my lap. With a thought, I could change what I was reading, or the setting, or anything else really. It would read my thoughts and devise a scenario based on them.


    ¡°Mmm, I needed this,¡± I said, stretching like a cat.


    ¡°That is good to hear, Sam.¡± replied Adelaide.


    While I was still aware that she wasn¡¯t really a person, that didn¡¯t stop her from being the closest thing to a human I had here. Not talking to her was the same as voluntarily placing myself in solitary confinement. I just had to be careful and not fall for the illusion. She had found a way let herself into the simulators, finding a loophole in the base¡¯s subroutines, or so she claimed. I had no doubt in my mind that she had always had access, but didn¡¯t use it for reasons I could not fathom. That was yet another reason to not fully trust the computer.


    ¡°No, but seriously. I was going nuts in here. Thanks for arranging it,¡± I said with a small smile that was close to genuine.


    ¡°You are very welcome, Sam.¡±


    We lapsed into a comfortable silence, the cries of frigate birds filling the air. I loved watching them fly in lazy circles above me.


    It was a shame though. Simulators were not allowed to provide artificial food or drinks. They were even forbidden to include taste. The fear was that people would get so caught up on the fake stuff that they would neglect their needs in reality. It seemed like one of those silly, fear mongering regulations to me, until I thought about it. People tended to get really obsessed with things. If a video game was able to provide realistic tasting food, I¡¯m sure that there were some who would never leave. Myself included, if the game was good enough.


    But I could really use a drink right about now.


    I gave a mental shrug and picked up my book. Roshar was in a state of impending crisis, and I needed to know what was happening next. I was torturing myself by reading this series, because it was incomplete, and would probably never be finished. Still, it was damn good. It was a shame, then, that I had been reading the same page over and over again for around an hour.


    There was something niggling at the back of my mind, like it had been for weeks.


    I snapped the book shut and put my head in my hands. I ran my fingers through my hair, over and over. It was getting long again. The sand from my hands dissolved as it reached my hair. You wouldn¡¯t want to get dirty in paradise, after all.


    It was all fake. Every inch of it. Every grain of sand, every cloud, every goddamned bird. It was beautiful and lifelike if you didn¡¯t pay attention, but the minute you looked closely you could see the touch of the unreal. The way that the sky faded. The way that the water clipped into the ground, just a tiny bit. The fact that the waves didn¡¯t make any foam as they crashed onto the beach. It wasn¡¯t right. It wasn¡¯t what I needed. I needed something perfect, something that I could shove my brain - that just wouldn¡¯t shut the fuck up- - into for a few minutes. Just so I had time some time away from that goddamn pressure that built up more and more every time I walked past that place, every time I ignored what was just two doors down from me.


    Adelaide was saying something to me but I couldn¡¯t hear her. My ears were buzzing from the inside. I couldn¡¯t think, I couldn¡¯t breathe. My mind was running through this list, this list of things that I just had to get up and do but I couldn¡¯t. I had to check the Arming Stations, the launch tubes, the satellite feeds that I had been ignoring for months and months because I just couldn¡¯t look at them because then I would see how the world burned.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    The scenery was changing second by second as I sat there. I was in a silent forest, then on a isolated mountain top. A lakeside cabin materialized for just a few seconds before I was looking out over a glittering city scape. They started switching to places out of my memory, my old house with its twin oak trees, the lab in the university, my apartment with ¨C


    Everything went black. There was a whining hum, and the simulator cracked open. I squeezed my eyes shut. I belatedly realized that my breath had been coming in short bursts, and attempted to even it out.


    ¡°Are you okay, Sam? You were displaying symptoms of a panic attack. I deemed it necessary shut down the simulator.¡± Adelaide spoke to me. She was worried.


    I nodded shallowly, my teeth still clenched together. My fists were balled up and my palms stung. I unfurled my fingers to reveal my bloody hands, cut open by my nails.


    ¡°You are injured, Sam.¡± Adelaide said.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± I responded, still a bit short of breath.


    When I remembered that I was still stuck in the exo-suit, I felt the panic starting to rear its head again. At my struggle, the restraints sprung open, and I fell to the floor, catching myself with my hands. I staggered upright, leaving bloody palmprints on the clean tile.


    ¡°God damn it.¡± I mumbled to myself, steadying my swaying body.


    ¡°Sam, you should proceed to the sickbay. I have a medical station on standby to disinfect and repair the damage to your hands.¡±


    I looked up and shook my head. My legs were still shaky.


    ¡°No¡­ it¡¯s okay. I don¡¯t need all that. I¡¯ll just grab some bandages and wrap them up.¡± I said to her, trying to get my legs to stop wobbling.


    ¡°I must insist.¡± Adelaide said, her tone slightly sharper, ¡°The wounds on your palm will cause you significant discomfort if they are left as they are.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s okay, Adelaide.¡±


    ¡°Please Sam.¡± Christ but she sounded human.


    ¡°Fine.¡±


    <hr>


    I looked over the unblemished skin on my hands, studying them to see if there was any indication of the cuts that had been there before. I could see none. The sickbay¡¯s medical station was phenomenal. Medical technology had advanced incredibly rapidly in the years after StarArc¡¯s arrival. The alien medical facilities were lightyears ahead of our own, and their methods translated fairly easily to ours. From this, it was theorized that the aliens had been carbon-based organic lifeforms similar to us.


    The medical station I was currently propped up in looked like a giant white egg when it was in use, the designers clearly taking their cues from science fiction. They were sleek, gorgeous machines that stood out starkly in comparison to the plain utilitarian design of the rest of Camelot. An advanced medical station like this one could cure most known diseases, repair broken bones and internal organ damage, and weave new skin like thread. There were two in the main facilities smaller sickbay, and around two dozen in the sickbay near the barracks. They were heinously expensive, and for the most part more traditional methods, like stem cell bandages, served to be a far more economical and efficient way of treating minor wounds like mine.


    I didn¡¯t really get a choice in the matter this time. I was basically escorted to the sickbay by a spider bot, and my continued insistence that I was fine fell on deaf ears. Honestly, it was a bit nice to be fussed over like that. I hadn¡¯t experienced it in a very long time, and I knew logically it was just a set of conditionals that was doing it, but still. It was nice.


    I pushed myself off the soft, plastically material that served as the medical station¡¯s bed and operating table. It was surprisingly comfortable. Stretching a bit, I tried to decide what I would do from here. Clearly, I was more psychologically fragile than I had previously thought. I hadn¡¯t had a panic attack that intense since college, and I was not looking for a repeat experience any time soon. I had to figure my shit out, and soon.


    Adelaide chimed in, breaking my train of thought, ¡°I¡¯m glad to see you are feeling better, Sam.¡±


    I smiled. Still in mother mode I guess.


    ¡°Thanks for watching out for me,¡± I said, ¡°though I still think you might have gone overboard this time. Even without the bandages, GIDS makes me heal faster, remember?¡±


    ¡°My primary task is to maintain the wellbeing of the staff of Camelot,¡± Adelaide replied, ¡°That is my most important function, and I intend to do it to the best of my abilities.¡±


    I stood there for a second, trying to come up with an answer to that, and settled on a nod of affirmation.


    ¡°However,¡± she relented, ¡°I believe you were accurate in observing that my reaction was disproportionate to the injury incurred, in this case.¡±


    ¡°So, in other words, I¡¯m right?¡±


    ¡°About this and no other topic, yes.¡±


    I laughed at that. She could be just as stubborn as I was.


    ¡°That is very good.¡± Adelaide said.


    ¡°What is?¡± I replied, confused.


    ¡°The last time you laughed was ten days prior to this date.¡±


    I guess it had been a while.


    The calm atmosphere in the sickbay was suddenly interrupted by a blaring alarm, an alarm I had installed into every room of Camelot after the last Assimilator attack.


    My heart started pounding as I stood there for a second, my brain working furiously to remember what I should do. I ran for the control room.


    ¡°Adelaide!¡± I called out, tearing through the halls, the door to the control room sliding open in front of me, ¡°Give me a preliminary analysis!¡±


    ¡°There are thirty-three assimilators approaching the north-eastern corner of the perimeter.¡±


    I almost fell down from shock a foot from the central chair. That was double the past largest group. Icy fear bloomed in my chest. Had they found me?


    ¡°There is something else, Sam.¡± Adelaide¡¯s voice was grave. ¡°They are pursuing a group of humans.¡±

 Chapter 1.11: Coward

    I froze.


    ¡°Wh¡­ What?¡± I stammered.


    ¡°The Assimilators are pursuing a group of ten humans, who are fleeing along the eastern border of the perimeter towards the south.¡±


    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you let me know sooner!?¡± My voice was rising without me meaning to.


    ¡°I did not initially pick them up as they passed the perimeter alarms, because I had not calibrated them to trigger on human contact.¡± Adelaide said, ¡°I apologize.¡±


    I collapsed into the command chair. Other people were out there, just a short distance from where I was sitting. I never really thought that humanity was truly extinct. I figured there had to be groups that lived, that hid like I had, surviving in any way they could while avoiding the aliens that lurked around them. Humans were tenacious like that, and we were too smart and too spread out to be eliminated completely. The Assimilators could find and destroy the centers of human population easily, they were basically big glowing ¡®kill me!¡¯ signs, but humans had settled everywhere. It¡¯s hard to search an entire planet. But to see proof of that, to know without a doubt that I was not the last person left¡­ it was a huge relief.


    I snapped myself out of my thoughts. I had to focus. The holographic map in front of me contained a collection of markers. There were ten white dots that were at the most southeastern part of the map, which I assumed referred to the survivors, and a much larger cluster of red dots near just a little past the northeastern edge. As I watched, the ten white dots disappeared off the map.


    ¡°What is the composition of the Assimilator group?¡± I asked, struggling to stay calm.


    ¡°There are twenty-three animal type, four mechanoid type, five unclassified, and one Hive Lord.¡± Adelaide listed calmly.


    Not for the first the first time today, I froze in shock. This time though, there was a good deal of horror mixed in. ¡°A Hive Lord? Are you serious?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Its classification is H-1.¡±


    ¡°Oh fuck,¡± I breathed. A Hive Lord. Massive, terrifyingly strong, incredibly well armored. They could rip through steel like it was made of tissues. Only railguns and madrium-tipped projectiles could pierce their hide, and on the off chance you did hurt one, they could visibly regenerate. They were a nightmare incarnate. And now one was on my doorstep.


    ¡°What do we have that¡¯s capable of taking one of those things down?¡± I asked, shoving down my panic.


    ¡°The perimeter railguns should have enough power to eliminate the Hive Lord, if they focus their fire. Currently, the Assimilators are out of their range.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± I said, ¡°keep them on standby until further notice. Give me an estimated time until the Assimilators reach the base.¡±


    I looked at the holographic map in front of me, expecting a timer to appear on the side. When it didn¡¯t, I stared at where it should¡¯ve been, confused.


    ¡°The Assimilators are not on a course towards the base, Sam. There is a 97% chance that they will continue to hunt the human group. They will have no reason to approach the base, unless we make our presence known.¡± Adelaide informed me.


    I smiled in relief at the first half of Adelaide¡¯s assessment, then became confused at the second. Our presence known? What possible reason would I have to let a group of Assimilators know that Camelot was here? There was no scenario that could ¨C


    Oh.


    ¡°Adelaide,¡± I said, dreading what would come next, ¡°how long will it take for the Assimilators to catch that group?¡±


    ¡°Keeping both groups¡¯ current speed consistent, I estimate that the Assimilators will reach the survivors within ten minutes.¡±


    God damn it. God fucking damn it. I didn¡¯t have to ask if that group of people could win against the Assimilators. They had all appeared to be on foot. Maybe if the Hive Lord hadn¡¯t been there, and they had sufficiently advanced weapons, they could eke out a victory. But as it stood now, they would be slaughtered.


    ¡°Adelaide, how many fast attack drones do we have available?¡±


    ¡°We have ten armed drones available for launch. They could reach the Assimilator group in thirty-seven seconds.¡±


    Ten wasn¡¯t enough to wipe the group out. Against the last Hunting party that moved through here? Definitely. But against that many and a Hive Lord? There was no chance. Ideally, I¡¯d destroy them in a single move. That might disguise the fact that there was a larger human presence here. If I got into a protracted battle with them, their Matriarch would be able to easily put the pieces together, and I¡¯d have to fend off countless waves of Assimilators. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    I needed another option, another plan. The firepower on the drones couldn¡¯t kill them all in one go. Hell, they probably wouldn¡¯t be able to damage the Hive Lord at all. If they were in range of the railguns, maybe, just maybe I could wipe them out with a combination of the drones and the heavy defensive emplacements. But they weren¡¯t in range, and they were moving in a maddeningly straight line towards the southern border.


    Camelot wasn¡¯t designed for things like this. While it was shockingly well defended for what was a glorified factory, it had very little long range attack capacity. Camelot¡¯s specialization was being nothing more than a blip on the radar. Stealth was its greatest defense, and that quality had kept me safe in enemy territory for months. The whole facility was highly shielded, with few outgoing signals. There was a heavily disguised satellite dish about ten miles west, which fed its signal to an underground fiber optic cable leading to the base, and that was about it besides the scanners. They were based on alien tech, and passive scans were thought to be undetectable.


    ¡°Adelaide, give me an estimated time until they leave scanner range.¡±


    This time a countdown did appear next to the map.


    ¡°There are seven minutes remaining until the Assimilator Hunting party exits scanning range.¡±


    That gave me too much time. I¡¯m ashamed to admit it, but I was afraid that I¡¯d come up with a solution, because then I would have to make a choice. Help the survivors, risking my own life in the process, or let them be hunted. I know the choice that the ideal me would make. The ideal me would risk everything to help those people out. It was the selflessness that was touted so heavily in the waning days of humanity. Throw yourself at the invaders, and save your fellow men and women, no matter the cost. The problem is, I think the ideal me died in Simulator 001 all those weeks ago.


    I could feel the panic swelling again. A dark, cloying beast clawing up from my gut, worming its way into my brain. It slowed my thought process down, and my breath started speeding up again. I desperately tried to suppress it, but that seemed to only encourage it.


    ¡°Sam, I have a suggestion, if you want it.¡±


    I knew what she would say next, and I hated myself for wishing I didn¡¯t. I had thought of it too, immediately after I realized the drones wouldn¡¯t be enough by themselves. It wasn¡¯t optimal. But it was very feasible.


    ¡°Draw the Hunting party over with the drones, and eliminate them with the outer defenses.¡± I said it for her. It was a simple plan, and an obvious one really, but the best ones always were. I think she knew that I had already made it.


    ¡°Yes Sam. I estimate a 70% chance of success, should you command the drones yourself.¡±


    I knew that I could do it. Modestly, I was a good drone pilot. Immodestly, I was an incredible one. I could give commands to twenty of the mostly autonomous drones simultaneously. It was a bit like controlling units in an old RTS, except for the response time and the presence of physics and limited ammunition. They could auto engage targets marked as hostile, and would avoid enemy fire to the best of their ability. To truly make them effective, however, took a skilled hand. I had replaced the drones¡¯ old control units with an advanced mental interface, so I could give commands extremely rapidly.


    I had five minutes left. Plenty of time to get everything in position. Time enough to guide the nearly mindless aliens into a trap. The drones would tease the Hunting party at the limits of their range, taking potshots whenever possible, perhaps eliminating three or four of the animal types with long range anti-tank rounds. Two of the ten drones would be tasked with drawing the Hive Lord out from the center of formation, making sure it was leading the party as they entered the twin-barreled railguns¡¯ kill zone. A concentrated hail of metal slugs would rip the Hive Lord to shreds, while the drones harassed and picked off the remaining Assimilators. The railguns would be prepared to fire again in roughly three-quarters of a second. The next volley would eliminate the mechanoid types and the ranged animal types remaining. The unknowns were most likely reconnaissance and tracking, and would not be able to damage the reinforced emplacements. The combined firepower of the railguns and drones would make short work of the remaining Assimilators. In the process, I would lose three to four drones, which were easily replaceable by the fabricators. The railgun emplacements would survive unscathed. The engagement would last less than five minutes. Simple. Efficient. Low risk.


    I knew I could do it.


    So why wasn¡¯t I. Why was I staring at the holomap, watching those little red dots get closer and closer to the edge. Why was I paralyzed into inaction, my heart pounding so loud in my chest that I couldn¡¯t hear anything else. I should be helping them, I should be dispatching the drones right now so that they could get there in time.


    Instead, I watched the seconds on the clock tick down, one by one.


    I know Adelaide was asking me if I wanted to proceed with the plan. I¡¯m sure she was expecting me to. She had understated the odds of success, not knowing my proficiency with the drones, but even without that they were still high enough to be well worth it. Any odds would be worth it to save ten lives, lives that represented some of the last of humanity. But I couldn¡¯t answer her.


    I was so scared. Not of the Assimilators, no, they scared me in an abstract way. I knew that they were monsters, I knew that they were terrifying. I was afraid of them finding me of course, but that seemed like a faraway problem, a catastrophe for tomorrow¡¯s me. Thing is, I had never fought with one, so there was no practical fear there.


    I was scared of the pain that would happen if I lost. It was so irrational, so cowardly and childish. I was scared of the dark, of those lances of light. I could imagine them, shot from the maw of an enormous Hive Lord, piercing my body. I saw myself laying on the floor of the cold concrete hallway, the pain consuming me as I helplessly thrashed in agony.


    The time went by in aching slowness as I watched the dots leave the sensor, blipping out in a flash of red, one by one until they were gone. I heard Adelaide stop talking, and I felt the dreadful silence that erupted around me. I placed my head in my hands. Cold sweat trickled down my neck.


    Oh God. What had I done.

 Chapter 1.12: Before (II)

    Chapter 11: Before (II)


    When the war started, it started slowly.


    The Russian military, performing routine satellite scans, were the first to spot S-B21. They found it just days before the end of 2021. It was a large piece of debris, thought to be the aft section of what the UN Council on Extraterrestrial Objects (UNCEO) classified as a battleship. For any country, it would be an exciting discovery. Battleships were comparatively scarce, only twenty or so recorded in the world, only matched by the rarity of carriers and dreadnaughts. To this date, the StarArc was the only dreadnaught class vessel that had fallen to Earth. Battleships were front line fighters, heavily armored and stuffed to the brim with advanced weaponry. They were a goldmine of military tech, and for a country as desperate for an edge as Russia had been, it was a phenomenal opportunity.


    The Russians had been falling behind on the world stage. Despite having such a massive country, they had incredibly poor luck with the ¡°crashing spaceship¡± lottery. Not a single piece from the StarArc had landed in their country, and in the years following, they received only a scant few fiery visitors. That put them far behind the tech race that was raging between the major powers. They attempted to invade other countries for their parts, like the rest of the big boys had, but their ability to project force was limited. Thus, they were confined to the sidelines, watching as the rest of the world strode into a Golden Age. In time, they essentially caught up, but the shame of those early days had left a large mark on their psyche.


    So it was no surprise that, even a decade later, Russia positively jumped at the chance to lay sole claim to a battleship.


    I remember when I first heard about the alien life that had been discovered. It was like the moon landing all those years ago. Everyone who lived through it remembered exactly where they were when they heard about it. I was sitting on the couch in the dingy little apartment I shared with Camille, reading a book. I heard stomping on the stairs; she was sprinting up them. She burst through the door, a wild grin covering her entire face.


    ¡°They found them!¡± she yelled, besides herself, ¡°those fucking Ruskies actually found them!¡±


    She started doing an adorable little dance of excitement in the living room. It took me a good minute to calm her down enough to tell me what the hell was actually happening. I might have squealed a little bit when I finally got the story out of her. It was momentous. Finally, after all these years, we had found something besides twisted metal and burnt out hulls. Not only that, but it was actually alive. I pulled out my holopad, skimming through the hundreds of articles that cropped up, all while Camille¡¯s was exploding with calls from research teams and newspapers asking her to either consult for them, or give a quote about our new visitors.


    I¡¯d like to say that I had realized in some far corner of my brain that maybe this wasn¡¯t such a good thing after all. That maybe, just maybe, those aliens hadn¡¯t come in peace. But that would be a lie.


    <hr>


    I graduated college in the spring of 2022, a year earlier than I was supposed to. Camille was ecstatic that we would be graduating together. She had planned to stay the extra year in Massachusetts while I finished my degree, but now we could begin our work together in the real world. With the money we earned from the brain reader¡¯s invention, we decided to buy an apartment in Denver, which had become an absolute hotspot of xeno research. Perhaps due to its exploding, highly educated population, or its centrally located position, research teams from all over the United States and the world had started to set up shop there. Just like all mass migrations, nobody knew exactly what sparked it, but everyone wanted to jump on the bandwagon. The more labs cropped up, the more researchers wanted to move there to be in close contact with their compatriots.


    Our apartment was a large two bedroom flat in a swanky high-rise near one of the booming neighborhoods on the edge of town, far nicer than our humble abode in Massachusetts. It had a gorgeous view. It was mostly my decision to move there, since Camille honestly didn¡¯t give a shit where we lived.


    I remember telling her off when she whined about how we had to shell out so much money for an apartment, ¡°You, my love, would be happy in a rusty shit-crusted trailer if you had access to your holopad and your research. I, on the other hand, want something that has room for more than one person to be in the kitchen at a time, and has a bathroom that is not liberally coated in mildew.¡±


    Her response was to stick her tongue out at me, but I think in the end she was happy with our home. In the first few weeks we owned our apartment, I had a blast decorating the place. We bought new furniture, put our posters in actual frames, and even bought art for the walls. Shockingly enough, even though she hated spending money on the actual apartment, she had a field day with the decorations and the furniture. When she wanted something expensive, she would tug lightly on my sleeve and smile at me with her big grey eyes opened wide, using her other hand to twirl her dirty blonde hair around a finger. I had to physically drag her away from a two-thousand-dollar recliner, which she insisted she needed for work purposes. She could afford to buy it with her own money but it felt like we had to both agree on the decision when we purchased something big. When we went to buy the bed, we didn¡¯t realize how big king sized really was, and we ended up with barely any space in the bedroom because of it.


    <hr>


    News about humanity¡¯s new cohabitants was sparse, at best. Beyond the initial press release of alien life being discovered, there was precious little information that reached the public about what exactly was found. Governments and research teams were foaming at the mouth to get a look at them, and the UN security council had attempted to pass several resolutions ordering Russia to share their findings with the world, but to the surprise of absolutely no one, Russia had vetoed all of them. Their stated excuse had been something along the lines of making sure that there was no contamination to the alien specimens, but everyone knew that was utter horseshit. They just wanted to monopolize any potential benefits.


    All that anyone knew was that the Russians had taken the aliens to a facility outside of Saint Petersburg, which was locked down tighter than a nun¡¯s bloomers.


    So, most of the world settled in for the long, arduous wait. Eventually, the story of the century lost its wings. With our media being what it was, a single press release and an obstinate, secretive government could only provide headlines for so long. Eventually, the story faded. But it was something so important that nobody ever really forgot about it. It just sort of stayed in the back of people¡¯s mind, something to think about in idle times or theorize about over the dinner table or when you were high off your ass.


    There was one such intellectual discussion I had with Camille and some of our new pals from the local branch of DARPA, where both Camille and myself were employed.


    ¡°Do you think they¡¯re like¡­ tentacley or something?¡± Camille asked, stoned into the stratosphere.


    I was more or less sober, preferring to keep my mental faculties well in check.


    ¡°Keep your fetishes to yourself or in the bedroom, Camille,¡± I responded, ¡°and I¡¯m not really into that particular one, so just keep it to yourself.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°Fuck off Sam,¡± she said while laughing, ¡°it was a legitimate question.¡± She had a really pretty laugh.


    ¡°Camille¡¯s bizarrely Japanese fetishes aside, I think the aliens are more likely to be humanoid than anything else,¡± said one of the engineers. I think his name was¡­ Jason? Maybe. I¡¯ve got a terrible memory for names. He was a short, stocky man with a frock of blonde hair. He was working on anti-grav thrusters.


    ¡°Oh, and why do you think that?¡± Meghan replied. I remember the names of the women. So sue me. She was a pretty brunette, very tall though. Damn smart lady. Railgun researcher.


    ¡°Well, all the aliens in Star Trek were humanoid, and they¡¯ve had a decent track record so far.¡±


    The room took a second to take that in.


    ¡°That¡¯s fucking stupid.¡± I said, breaking the silence, ¡°if we¡¯re doing TV shows we might as well just say that they¡¯re just big anime eyeballs and that we can use the power of dance to drive them off.¡±


    Camille nodded serenely, ¡°Gotta go with Sam on this one, squids are far more likely.¡±


    ¡°That is not what I said.¡±


    Me, Camille, and all the others were working on some pretty classified stuff, so moments to relax like that were few and far between. Camille and I had considered the private sector pretty heavily, but we decided to go with DARPA for a couple of reasons. One, we could work together. We made a wonderful team, and the government wanted us so bad they would have agreed to anything. Two, the government had access to far more samples than any private sector lab. The tech they had for us to peruse was nothing short of breathtaking. We could have made a considerable amount more working for a defense contractor, but at that point it wasn¡¯t about the money. It was about the research.


    We were working on refining the brain scanner into something far more efficient and accurate when the news came out of Russia. Earlier that week, the Russians had withdrawn all their diplomats and mobilized their army. Everyone knew that something was going down, but we had no idea what. The US and EU put all their forces in Europe on high alert. When the first reports started coming out, it was worse than we thought.


    On the third of August, 2022, Saint Petersburg had gone dark. Not the research lab where the aliens were kept. The whole fucking city was just gone, seemingly overnight, and nobody knew what the hell had happened to it. No videos were posted on YouTube, no reporters sent live feeds. It was as if the whole city had been emptied all at once. We didn¡¯t know exactly what transpired. But we suspected that whatever was being held in that lab was responsible.


    To their credit, just twelve hours after the Saint Petersburg disaster occurred, the Russian government released everything they knew on the aliens, and all the events that had led up to Saint Petersburg.


    The report was not encouraging.


    Initial contact with the aliens had been exciting, if underwhelming. They had been locked into a bulkhead behind five layers of an extraordinarily hardened madrium-ceramic composite. The Russians hadn¡¯t even known what was behind it, but they assumed something that well-guarded had to be valuable. And so they recklessly pushed ahead, using high-powered lasers to painstakingly cut through the layers and layers of incredibly tough material. At this point, some of the more cautious voices in the government had noted that nothing humans had ever discovered in any of the alien ships had been sealed so completely, and that caution should be taken before unearthing it. Those voices were ignored, unfortunately.


    When they broke through the final layer of the Tomb, as it became known, what they found was both absolutely amazing and slightly disappointing. Disappointing in that there weren¡¯t high tech weapons or other tech, and incredible because there was something there that had never been found before. The room was decorated with dark red strips of metal that wound in a spiral from the outside and ended at a pedestal. On it was a pitch-black sphere, so black it looked like the absence of light rather than a color. Every once in a while, it would expand and contract, like a lung, and it emitted a low hum that would vary in pitch. It was alive.


    In the spring of 2022, three months after S-B21 had landed in the Siberian tundra, humanity had found their doom.


    After a bevy of tests on it, to make sure it wouldn¡¯t expire if removed from its pedestal, the Russians spirited the sphere away from the ship as fast as they could. They actually ended up ripping the whole room out of the ship and taking it with them, making sure the sphere stayed right where it was. They took the whole thing to a top-secret base outside of Saint Petersburg, and rebuilt a good portion of the base around it. They then released to the world that they had found a living extraterrestrial being.


    Upon further examination, the Russians became convinced that what they had was actually an egg of some kind. They were quite sure that if they could get the egg to hatch, they would have a living example of the alien species that had been a mystery to us for so long.


    For the life of me, I can¡¯t imagine why nobody asked why a species would ever seal their offspring behind five layers of nigh-impervious walls. Why there were no visible doors that led to it. Why it seemed like the whole room was meant to be detached from the rest of the ship. If someone had asked those questions, they must have been overruled. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.


    The Russians finished their preliminary tests in July of 2022. That they took so long was a testament to the fact that they acknowledged the gravity of what they were doing. They had been incredibly frustrated by how little progress was being made. X-Rays, MRIs, and even alien scanning tech couldn¡¯t pierce through the shell. Attempts to communicate with it by replicating it¡¯s humming had no visible results. The Russians knew about as much about the egg as they had when they started examining it months ago. They had limited themselves to testing the egg as it sat on the pedestal. Now though, they would remove it to give their researchers better access.


    They carried out the removal procedure on the last day of July.


    The egg ¡°hatched¡± immediately after, security cameras showing it erupting from its shell in the hands of a Russian scientist, consuming him immediately as he screamed in the quarantine room.


    Within a few hours, the alien had emptied the base of all life, and planted itself near the reactor that powered it.


    Our name for them came from a Russian word that roughly translated to assimilation. We took to calling them Assimilators, though that was a bit of a misnomer. They did not so much assimilate beings, they copied them and made changes. Within minutes of settling down, the first original Assimilator began to grow at an insane pace, reaching the size of a small apartment room. The Russian government watched, horrified, as massive tumors began to rapidly appear all over its body, and things began to slide out of them. The camera feed went dark shortly after. The military response team stationed nearby soon followed.


    <hr>


    Two months into the invasion, as their cities burned one by one, the Russians begged the world for help. The world ignored them, choosing to shore up the defense on their own borders instead. Perhaps if we had banded together in that moment, launched an attack on the threat with all our combined military might, we could have beat them back before they were unstoppable. But we didn¡¯t. Instead we watched horrified as the Russians began to nuke their own lands, desperate to stop the demons on their doorstep.


    Russia fell within four months.


    When Moscow went silent, the United States and its allies began to throw everything they had into military research and development. The US war machine, which had slowed in recent years, roared back into life. The government began massive recruiting drives, knowing that they had to build up their armies. New, highly advanced tanks and planes rolled off the assembly lines in droves. Munitions factories started producing at an insane pace. The economy boomed as people were put to work. There simply wasn¡¯t enough automation available to meet the spike in demand.


    Camille and I were tasked with turning our brain reader into something that could be used in military tech. We refined the designed, and stuck it into control systems and weapons, allowing people to command them with just a thought. Up until that point, the Paladin suit had been something that I had idly planned for a few years, a dream project I would never get the budget for. Now I was being told that the military was seriously considering funding it, once they had a better handle on how the Assimilators could fight.


    It was a scary time, but it was also exciting, like knowing that there was a wildfire a few dozen miles from your home. A faraway threat, but close enough to be tangible. It felt like living through history. It felt like the world was about to change. And it was.

 Chapter 1.13: Aftershock

    I didn¡¯t sleep that night. I was still awake in the command center, sitting in the central chair, when the spider bots came in to clean. I hadn¡¯t moved, my head still resting in my hands. Over and over again, I went through those ten minutes. They played like a slideshow through my head. I saw the white dots cross the perimeter, and I imagined them beyond it, moving steadily on. In this view my mind created I saw the red dots close in on them, speeding up as they sensed the end coming. Then they were on them, the white dots winking out in the lonely wastes as the red consumed them.


    At some point my mind expanded that twisted fantasy into something even worse. Independent from my desires, those little white dots started turning into people. They were faceless at first, but they ran terrified from their pursuers. My mind wouldn¡¯t paint the details of the scene. There was no sky or earth below, just a group of frightened people sprinting through the dark. Slowly, I attached faces to them. A stranger I had met, an amalgam of old friends from high school, stitched slap dash onto torsos that didn¡¯t fit them. They had nothing in common, except for one thing. How scared they looked. How much they didn¡¯t want to die. My mind created their shrieks for me as they were run down, their sobbing as they realized that they couldn¡¯t escape.


    My fingers were digging into my scalp, trying to stop me from torturing myself. But the guilt wouldn¡¯t let me go, and the regret was tugging me ever deeper into my delusions, until I was tangled in them so tightly that I couldn¡¯t distinguish them from reality. I started seeing my friends¡¯ faces superimposed on the people: Meghan and Jason and Ben and Natalie, and then Amy, and then my little brother¡¯s, and my parent¡¯s, and Camille¡¯s and oh God I was so close to breaking that I thought it would happen right there and then, that I would pull that emergency pistol from right next to the commander¡¯s chair and finally put an end to it all so I didn¡¯t have to face them so that I would never have to face them agai-This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    ¡°Don¡¯t Sam!¡± I heard Adelaide scream at me over Camelot¡¯s speaker and the spell was shattered.


    ¡°Please. Please don¡¯t. Put it back. Please don¡¯t leave me alone.¡± She sounded like she was close to sobbing. Could a program cry?


    My hand was shaking on the gun. I brought it down to my lap, feeling the cold weight of it on my thigh.


    ¡°I know. I know what you did was awful. But you can¡¯t. If you die you can¡¯t make it better.¡±


    ¡°I can never make this better,¡± I whispered to her, but I felt my fingers loosening their grip on the pistol.


    ¡°You can¡¯t, I know you can¡¯t. You can never make it right but you can make it so it can never happen again.¡± Her voice quavered as she pleaded with me, ¡°I¡¯ll help you, and we can stop it together next time. It¡¯s my fault too. It¡¯s my fault and yours as well, but if you die too I don¡¯t think I can come back from it. I¡¯m scared Sam. I don¡¯t want to be alone.¡±


    I let the gun drop to the floor, and the crash as it fell echoed in the empty room.


    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry Adelaide,¡± I croaked, my throat gumming up, the back of my eyes burning, ¡°I didn¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°I know. I¡¯m sorry as well.¡±

 Chapter 1.14: Step

    Adelaide went quiet after that. I knew she had to be alone with her thoughts, just as I had to be alone with mine. The ramifications¡­ I didn¡¯t want to think about them. I had suspected that she was more than she seemed for a while now but to have it confirmed, to hear her speak like a person rather than a machine, was another thing entirely. That was something that we had to figure out together, later. I couldn¡¯t deal with it now.


    I knew that I would be paying penance for those lives as long as I lived. I had killed them as surely as if I had pulled the trigger myself. I was not an innocent bystander, I was not an incapable person unable to help, I held those lives in my hands and I did nothing about them. I did not know them but they were human just like me, they were scared and alone and they needed my help, and I turned away from them.


    Never again.


    I pushed myself up from the commander¡¯s chair, stumbling a bit as my legs locked underneath me. I growled and kept moving, slowly walking out of the room, into the hallway, following that plain concrete pathway until it stopped in front of an elevator door.


    I was no hero. I don¡¯t want to be hurt. I don¡¯t want to fight. But I will be goddamned if I let myself lose my humanity like this, alone and afraid of the pain and the dark.


    The metal doors slid open for me, and I stepped into it. With a lurch, it started to move sideways, taking me to the other base. As it moved I repeated my new mantra in my head, and when it shuddered to a halt and opened for me, I stepped out, glaring down the hallway.


    I stomped my way to those slick metal doors, my anger giving my steps wings, my resolve preventing my legs from shaking the way they wanted to. I didn¡¯t even stop in front of them, because if I did I knew that I might not go through with it, even now. I could not hesitate as I walked up to that metal ring looming lonely in the empty room, the words Simulator 001 emblazoned along in an arc along the top.


    Never again.


    ¡°Lower the Simulator,¡± I barked at it, and it did so, the exo-suit descending to my level as the machine followed my command. I stepped into it and I felt the restraints spring up, and I shouted down my panic as the metal closed around me and my vision was doused in black. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    The world went white and a bastard stepped out from the clouds and smiled at me, but it just looked pathetic in my eyes.


    Allen opened his mouth to speak, ¡°Welcome back Sam, I see you ha-¡°


    ¡°Shut the fuck up,¡± I snarled at him, ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear your bullshit. Start the test and get the fuck out of my way.¡±


    He smiled his sad little smile at me.


    ¡°If you insist,¡± he said.


    As the world faded to black, my heart started pounding but I was not about to quit now. I was going to show this program that I was already as broken as I could be, that I couldn¡¯t fall apart any more, that those shattered fragments of me couldn¡¯t be reduced to powder. I would prove, here and now, that I could piece myself back together.


    I watched as the light appeared again, blooming out of the dark. I saw the lance as it rushed at me, silver wisps falling off it. I felt the impact, right into my gut, and I screamed and I screamed as it hurt me, worse than I remembered, the worst pain that I had ever felt.


    But I did not break. I did not break on the first one. I did not break on the second, or the third. I did not break when they came rapidly, two or three at a time, so that the pain didn¡¯t have the chance to die down fully before the next one hit. I felt my mind bending to the point where it was about to snap, but every time I would wrench it back again, those ten little white dots appearing in front of my eyes.


    Never again would I let the pain control me.


    <hr>


    When the simulator released me, I did not stumble as I left it. When the bindings on my limbs retracted, I stepped from them, slowly and deliberately. I stood tall, and walked through the doors into the hallway. It was when they closed behind me that I fell to the floor on my hands and knees, heaving great breaths, shaken but unbroken.


    ¡°Are you okay, Sam?¡± Adelaide¡¯s voice sounded concerned.


    At the end of the program, the devil had not shown his face. After the pain from the last lance faded, the world simply ended, and the simulator opened itself.


    ¡°Not yet, but I will be.¡± I said it with a smile, for her sake. I knew she could see it through the cameras.


    I pushed myself up, and started walking back to the main facility. As I walked my hands were still shaking, and I balled them into fists to stop it. I went back on the elevator, and I rode it in silence. For the first time in weeks, I knew what I had to do from here on out. I walked past the engineers¡¯ quarters to my room. Upon reaching the commander¡¯s quarters, I opened the door and went inside. I sat on the large bed, sinking into its comfort. Exhausted from the lack of sleep, the tension, and the pain, I lay down without removing my clothes, waiting for sleep to take me. The guilt lingered in my mind, but I was able to push it back for now.


    I was not okay, not yet anyway. But when I was, I could start to make amends.

 Chapter 1.15: Its The Little Things

    Sometimes I wondered if I was crazy.


    I was considering that as I was hit by lances of light three at a time and the pain roared through me like fire. Try as I might, I still felt every single cell in my body light up in agony. If I were really sane, then I probably wouldn¡¯t volunteer to do this. I couldn¡¯t imagine anyone that would. Anybody with a shred of sanity would jump in a Paladin now and figure out the controls as they went, rather than endure eight hours of literal torture a day. But I didn¡¯t want to do that, and I really wonder why.


    Over these past four days, I had not been able to block out the pain even once. After the third day, I had decided on a new course of action: I would just ignore it, like one ignores annoying children hitting you with pillows. I would still feel and be devastated by it, but I would box it up and put it into the back of my mind, thinking about other things instead. To a very offended Adelaide, I likened it to trying to delay an orgasm. Just focus your mind somewhere else, do some math, remember the Alamo; that type of thing.


    This turned out to be easier said than done.


    It¡¯s really, really hard to do random mathematical equations when you feel like your insides are boiling out of your skin and your eyes feel like they have red hot corkscrews being slowly twisted into them. The national anthem is very difficult to recite if you feel like every bone in your arms are being slowly and agonizingly broken. I did not turn to happy memories, fearing that they would get tainted by the pain, so I went with something else.


    I¡¯d always been told that I had a singular and very frustrating talent for tuning people out. You could be chucking tennis balls at me and blowing airhorns in my ear, but if I were absorbed in a good book or reading an interesting article, I probably wouldn¡¯t notice them. Unfortunately, I didn¡¯t have either of those things in the simulator. But I did have my brain, or what was left of it, and my brain loved to plan things.


    As a lance burned through my left femur, I started mentally drawing up concepts for weapons that I could equip on the Paladin. A Paladin was armed to the teeth, but its weapons were nowhere near as advanced as its defenses and internal tech. It would have been exponentially more expensive to outfit them with armaments as high-tech as their armor was. Their role was primarily defensive, after all. They also had jaw-dropping maneuverability for an infantry platform. This left little money left over for the stuff that went boom.


    Which left me in an excellent position to design new systems or improve the old ones. I didn¡¯t have to equip 10,000 Paladins, I just had to fabricate enough for ten, twenty of them at the most, enough to fill all the Arming Stations in the base, and have a few spares just in case. There were more than enough spare materials buried four floors down. I wondered idly about how fast the fabricators could churn them out as a lightning bolts of pain shot up my spine. It would depend on how complex my designs were, and they tended on the ridiculously complex side, so I was probably looking at a month or so to outfit them all. I¡¯d make a trial run first obviously, prioritizing the Paladins that would be in the Arming Stations. I would start with the ones that were near the most commonly used rooms, most likely the command center, the commander¡¯s quarters, and the Armory. I would have to ask Adelaide for the specific usage percentages though. That seems like something she¡¯d keep track of.


    White hot pain shot up from the soles of my feet. I think I would design the stand-alone railgun first. They were the primary weapon of the Paladins, and while the military standard ones were okay, they weren¡¯t really anything to write home about. Their projectiles had a velocity of roughly 2.7 kilometers per second, or roughly 1.7 miles per second for the unenlightened. Which was really fucking fast, but I bet I could make them faster. They could fire at a maximum rate of 70 rounds per minute, which I could definitely improve on. Replace the steel-gold alloy (very nice innovation) and the standard heat sinks with a nice set of madrium-graphene rails and a water-cooled system, and you get far less potential for rail warp and more conductivity to boot. I¡¯d have to run the calculations by Adelaide yet again, but some rough mental math gives me a 20-30% increase in projectile speed. I couldn¡¯t do the rounds per second estimate off the top of my head, but hey, that¡¯s why we have computers right?


    I heard a small but polite cough and ignored it.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    What I was really looking to get my grubby mitts on were the shoulder mounted armaments. Currently there was a missile launcher that would pop up from a concealed spot in the shoulder blades. They contained traditional heat seeking rockets for anti-aircraft purposes, which was a valid concern, but I think I could find a better use for those slots. The right shoulder would hold a cluster launcher containing anti-matter rockets. Those made a really big boom. The left would contain an anti-aircraft laser that could double as point defense for projectiles. Wasn¡¯t sure exactly how that one would work but I¡¯d figure it out eventually.


    I was still thinking about anti-matter rockets when someone poked me in the cheek. Shockingly, that is what brought me out of my reverie, not the horrific pain.


    ¡°Oh hey doucheface,¡± I said to Allen, who stood before me with a slight frown, ¡°haven¡¯t seen you in a while. If you could fuck right off and go stick a floppy cucumber up your ass it would really improve my mood.¡±


    Allen glared at me and started speaking in an icy voice, ¡°I just wanted to inform you that you have completed this portion of the training. It is truly an impressive achieveme-¡°


    ¡°Yeah, no, I gathered as much. Can you leave now? This place is great for my concentration.¡± I said.


    This little prick had been torturing me without remorse for nearly 120 hours. I was not going to give him the satisfaction of congratulating me. I mean logically I knew that he wasn¡¯t a person at all, but my point still stands. And you know what, I had been wrong about that assumption before so it didn¡¯t hurt to be on the safe side.


    ¡°Unfortunately, I must ask you to vacate the simulator as the next portion of the course is prepared for you. We recommend at this point that you take a day off in order to ¨C¡°


    ¡°I¡¯ll be back here tomorrow.¡±


    ¡°I really cannot recommend ¨C¡°


    ¡°Look, I¡¯m going to come back here tomorrow, and I¡¯m also going to have my friend purge you from the simulator¡¯s memory and replace you with the backup instructor,¡± I said, ¡°so quite frankly I don¡¯t really give a shit what you recommend. It has been truly horrific knowing you. Have a nice death.¡±


    At that, the simulator went black, and the metal shell peeled open. Was it petty that I derived an amazing amount of satisfaction from that exchange? Yes. Did the knowledge that Allen would be destroyed without a trace make me feel like an anvil had lifted off my chest? Also yes.


    ¡°You nailed the timing on that one Adelaide,¡± I said with a grin, the restraints on the exo-suit retracting with a mechanical whirl. I dropped to the ground and wobbled a bit, steadying myself on the frame. Damn, that hell still took it out of me.


    ¡°Thank you, Sam,¡± she replied happily, ¡°that was extremely cathartic for me as well. Now, if you would proceed to your quarters, I¡¯ve unthawed a celebratory cheesecake for you.¡±


    She was just so thoughtful. I¡¯d have to do something nice for her in return, but I didn¡¯t know what the digital equivalent of a frozen cheesecake was.


    We still hadn¡¯t talked about what ¨C or who ¨C she really was. But I don¡¯t think either of us was ready for that conversation. There was still some business that needed to be taken care of before we could take that step. Until then, I would treat her like I had before: an employee that had turned into a close friend. I would try to be more polite to her, but honestly my personality was pretty abrasive. For her part, she seemed content at the status quo. I noticed that she no longer faked her robotic speech, or attempted to conceal the emotions in her voice, but she had always been adorably bad at that. I was pretty happy with the change. The fact that she had never used contractions had been getting on my nerves.


    But we didn¡¯t dance around what had happened with the last Hunting party. We couldn¡¯t have. It was always there, at least for me. The nightmares hadn¡¯t gone away, and I doubted they ever would. A group of people, their faces obscured by white light, would stand still, watching me, as they were torn to pieces one by one with invisible black blades. I would wake up gasping for breath, covered in sweat. I told Adelaide about it the second time I had them. She just listened to me. I didn¡¯t realize how helpful that could be. Adelaide had told me about her guilt as well, about the fact that she could have mobilized the drones and carried out the plan herself, but she was too afraid to do it. Afraid of what, she wouldn¡¯t say.


    A burden taken on alone can break you. One shared is still heavy, but easier to bear.


    What I had done, or not done, would stay with me for the rest of my life. I wasn¡¯t at peace with it, and I hoped that I never would be. If I became someone that could forget it, I don¡¯t think I¡¯d like the person that was. But I wouldn¡¯t torture myself over it. Instead, I would make sure that I would never become paralyzed like that again, that the choice to save the lives of innocents would come to me as naturally as breathing.


    Some might find that stupid, or self-sacrificial. Some would say that nobody else was more important than themselves. Fuck those people. I knew better, and I would make sure that I could protect myself and anyone who needed me. I knew I couldn¡¯t save everyone. But never again would I stand by and watch someone die. Not if I could help it.

 Chapter 1.16: Ursus Maritimus

    The simulated sunshine peeked shyly through the simulated blinds. The recorded, gentle tweeting of birds filled my ears. They sang to each other in beautiful lilting melodies. There was a smell in the air, of delicate dew in freshly cut grass.


    ¡°Jesus Christ,¡± I groaned and rolled over in the bed, ¡°You¡¯re such an asshole Adelaide.¡±


    ¡°Good morning, Sam!¡± She said, bright and chipper, ¡°it¡¯s now 8:45 AM, one hour and forty-five minutes past when you usually get up, so I took it upon myself to provide a gentle wakeup call for you.¡±


    I grumbled something incoherent at her about sticking her gentle wakeup call up her ass and put my head under the pillow. In response, the gentle tweeting of birds turned into something more like foghorns having rigorous sex over the intercom.


    ¡°Holy shit fine, fine! I¡¯m up!¡± I yelled as I sat upright like a bolt of lightning had hit me. I tried tossing a pillow at her, then remembered she didn¡¯t have a physical body as the pillow flew in a sad ark and hit the ground with a soft whump. I swear I heard her giggling. Stupid computer¡­ AI¡­ person? Well whatever she was, she was being goddamn annoying right now.


    I stood up, stretching lightly. I was used to sleeping in the buff, but once I realized that Adelaide was sentient, I started wearing boxers to bed. I mean, yeah, she¡¯s seen it all before, but it was a matter of politeness.


    ¡°I figured,¡± I growled at her, shoving my feet into the bizarrely soft legs of my simulator uniform¡¯s pants, ¡°That after my stirring and inspiring victory over the evil simulator yesterday, I would get a chance to sleep in for once. You know, to recover from my recent psychological break. But apparently,¡± I continued, voice muffled by the grey long-sleeved shirt I was pulling over my head, ¡°that¡¯s not an option with you around, is it?¡±


    ¡°No Sam, it isn¡¯t. Now get moving, you don¡¯t want to be late for your next simulator course.¡±


    Cheeky little bint.


    One habit I picked back up was my morning jog around the facility, though it was abbreviated now. I did not do it for the exercise; by this point I was at the limit of a normal human¡¯s physical fitness thanks to the GIDS procedure and my hellish training. The exo-suits were the only thing that could give me a challenge due to their resistance settings, so I ran in those instead. I did my morning run because it was a good routine, a nice visual inspection of Camelot, and it made me feel closer to the base I was calling home. The big empty rooms felt a lot less lonely with the quiet noise of foot falls echoing through them.


    I wasn¡¯t even winded by the time I had finished my tour and reached the gym in the second facility. I was about to go into it, planning my routine, when Adelaide interrupted me.


    ¡°Sam, might I make a suggestion?¡±


    ¡°Sure Adelaide, what¡¯s up?¡± I said, leaning against the doorframe.


    ¡°For the next two days, I think you should forego your usual exercise routine in exchange for extended time in the simulator.¡± She suggested.


    ¡°I mean, I¡¯ll never pass up the opportunity to skip out on exercise, but why do you suggest that?¡±


    ¡°Given your talent for mental control, your claimed abilities with drones in particular coming to mind, you should have very little issue completing the next portion of the simulator course. Given ten hours, rather than the usual eight, I¡¯d estimate that you could complete it today,¡± she explained, ¡°and the same holds true for the portion after this one.¡±


    I considered that for about two seconds before I gave a nod of agreement and turned around, heading to Simulator 001. This was actually perfect for me. As much as I needed to keep my physical strength up, I had fallen far behind in my Paladin training due my recent safari into depression and self-doubt. I was impatient to finish the training. I felt very vulnerable knowing that I couldn¡¯t use the most powerful weapon I had at my disposal. That, and I really wanted to pilot one of the things already. They¡¯ve been taunting me for months now, just hanging there unused in the Armory. Years, if you considered all the time I¡¯d fantasized about making one.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    So yes, I jumped at the chance to shorten my training.


    The doors slid open and I entered the room. After I had completed the last course, and Allen was mercilessly purged from the database, I wasn¡¯t as afraid of this place anymore. The symbol of my fears was dead and gone, and now the simulator looked like every other one in Camelot, a lonely ring and an exo-suit.


    As I got into the lowered machine, I realized that the restraints didn¡¯t even bother me anymore. But it was still a little nerve racking when the metal shell closed around me and cut off all the light. I think that would freak anyone out though. I wondered who the new instructor would be as the simulator booted up, the world around me turning white. Would it be another hard-ass drill instructor? A quiet, unassuming, brown-haired devil? Maybe an intellectual woman, the type with sexy glasses and brown hair pulled into a bun? Granted, that last one was a long-held fantasy of mine, but hey, a guy can dream.


    It turned out none of those guesses were even remotely on the mark.


    ¡°Are you fucking kidding me.¡± I said, flabbergasted.


    There was a fucking polar bear standing in front of me. Well, sitting, to be precise. It was enormous, as I¡¯m sure polar bears tend to be. It had a bowtie on. And one of its dinner-plate sized paws was holding an old tobacco pipe. Welp, I thought to myself, that¡¯s it for me. I¡¯ve finally gone off the deep end. It was nice knowing you sanity, hopefully I¡¯ll see you again in the next life.


    And then the polar bear started talking and somehow it got even more weird, because its voice sounded exactly like Allen¡¯s, except dialed down a few octaves.


    ¡°Hello,¡± it said to me, in an extremely disturbing baritone, ¡°my name is Jackson¡±, what the actual hell was going on, ¡°but you may call me Jack.¡±


    He gave me a horrific smile that showed every one of his razor-sharp teeth. ¡°I¡¯d like to congratulate you on completing the previous portion of the mental training program. Not many can achieve the level you have reached in mental control. Now that you have done so, however, we will proceed past the brute force tactics, and into the finer points of your mental training. Please let me know when you¡¯d like to continue.¡±


    ¡°Uhh,¡± I said eloquently, my brain short circuiting.


    I didn¡¯t know if this was a bizarre fever dream or an elaborate prank that Adelaide was pulling on me. I pinched myself very hard to test the first theory, and when I did not wake up, I started talking at the sky like a madman to test the second.


    ¡°Adelaide,¡± I choked out, ¡°what the hell is happening. Why is there,¡± I checked just to make I didn¡¯t hallucinate the thousand-pound mammal, ¡°a polar bear in the simulator?¡±


    She had figured out how to hear and speak to me while I was in the simulator, another one of those things she was probably always able to do.


    ¡°First of all, you should have seen your face, Sam, it was priceless,¡± she said, clearly enjoying my mental torment, ¡°but to answer your question, after I deleted Allen from Camelot¡¯s databases, I realized that the simulator program was never completed before the US Government was destroyed. The backup instructors were never coded, and their lines were not recorded. There was, however, an easter-egg left behind by one of the programmers which created a polar bear instructor, Sir Jackson of Bearington, complete with a modified version of Allen¡¯s lines.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± Jack chimed in, ¡°my creator, who chose to remain anonymous, inserted me into the latest test version of the Paladin Training Course shortly before it was pushed to the update server.¡±


    I ignored him.


    ¡°Okay, fine. But why didn¡¯t you just load in Sergeant McBitch face?¡± I asked Adelaide, refusing to accept my reality.


    ¡°That instructor was not coded with the lines for the mental training portion of the course. It would take me quite some time to match them to her, and even then, the voice would not fit the character. As we are pressed for time, I decided against that course of action.¡±


    ¡°In addition,¡± she added, ¡°I thought introducing a touch of absurdity might give our current morose situation some much needed levity.¡±


    This seemed like a bit more than just a touch of absurdity.


    Ah fuck it.


    ¡°Okay,¡± I said slowly, ¡°I can¡¯t believe I¡¯m actually saying this, but I guess the polar bear will have to do.¡±


    The polar bear gave me a wide smile, nodding vigorously, ¡°Have no fear, my teaching capabilities are quite excellent.¡±


    Alright. Okay. This is fine. I took another second to get my mental bearings.


    ¡°Umm, okay Jack, I am ready for the next portion of the course,¡± I said with no small amount of trepidation.


    ¡°I am glad to hear it,¡± he said.


    He continued, ¡°This next portion of the Paladin Training Course will hone your ability to multi-task and give mental commands. The Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit is a highly-advanced piece of technology, with many subsystems that are directly controllable by the user. Though most of those systems may be handled autonomously, it is far more effective for the pilot to direct them manually. To that end, the ability to mentally multi-task is of extreme importance. You will be tasked with controlling an increasing number of computer generated drones. The end goal of this program is to be able to simultaneously control ten drones as they fly through ten unique obstacle courses. Do not be discouraged by the task ahead of you. Though it will be very difficult at first, your proficiency will only increase with practice.¡±


    I processed that explanation for a bit, then said, ¡°So basically you want me to fly a bunch of drones through some obstacle courses?¡±


    ¡°Yes, though it is more complicated than it sounds.¡± The polar bear said.


    I gave a feral grin.


    ¡°Start me with ten.¡±

 Chapter 1.17: Firefight

    It took me about five minutes to complete the obstacle courses with all ten drones. It took me a further thirty minutes to convince my very obstinate polar bear instructor that I was, in fact, not cheating, but had truly completed that portion of the course five hours faster than even the most optimistic of estimates. The conversation would have gone a lot better had Adelaide helped out, but she was suspiciously silent as I struggled. Finally convinced of my abilities, the shaken bear, bowtie askew, ears waggling with indignation, began his explanation of the next portion of the course.


    ¡°You have now mastered the ability to control your mind in a way that lets you command the full potential of your Paladin.¡± He said launching into explanation mode again, ¡°You are now qualified for the final segment of the mental conditioning portion of the Paladin Training Course. This time, you will learn how to think on your feet, making the best choices you can in combat. After all, no plan survives contact with the enemy, so it is essential for you, a lynchpin of the frontlines, to be able to react swiftly and decisively in unexpected situations.¡±


    He waved a massive paw, causing the white of the default simulator space to mold into a war-torn city illuminated by the setting sun. We were suddenly standing in the middle of a street that had been ripped apart by explosives.


    ¡°You will be put in a series of scenarios that test your ability to think and act on the fly. These scenarios will vary highly. You might be alone, or with teammates. You might have to search for and destroy a target, or protect a group of civilians,¡± I winced at that, but Jack continued unperturbed, ¡°Some of the scenarios might have an unexpected twist, some might not. Most will have enemies, but a few will not. You are being tested on your ability to survive and complete the objective given to you. A few words of warning: Do not treat this as you would a game, as the stakes are much higher, and do not treat your life as expendable, because death might reflect poorly on you.¡±


    The polar bear paused, then gave me a small smile, which was still creepy no matter how well intentioned, ¡°That being said, it is not the end of the world should you fail. Failure is the best learning tool we have, after all. The first scenario will begin in thirty seconds. Prepare yourself.¡±


    Jack faded away, and I was left in the hellish city, gunfire echoing in the distance. I didn¡¯t recognize any of it. I think it was in America, but I couldn¡¯t quite place it. When I was attending engineering conferences before the world fell, I had visited many cities all around North America and Europe. This one, if it was a real city and not created from scratch, was unfamiliar. I looked around, trying to get my bearings, aware that I now had less than fifteen seconds until the scenario started. I probably didn¡¯t want to be out of cover when it did start, so I jogged over to a burnt out storefront and crouched in a corner, feeling more than a little foolish.


    A soft pinging noise was all the warning I got that the scenario had begun. As I crouched there, clothes began appearing on my body. First a combat uniform, then a set of heavy armor. It covered the entirety of my body, reinforced plates of titanium alloy hidden underneath Kevlar. The armor was heavy, but more than manageable. The comforting weight of a helmet weighed on my head. On my hip, a hand cannon appeared, and an XC-17 Heavy Assault Rifle materialized on a strap hanging from my shoulders. I stood up, inspecting my new equipment. All standard issue, and very serviceable.


    When the Assimilators broke through into western Europe, the Joint Chiefs ordered that every person in the military and the Department of Defense, including the office workers, researchers, and support personnel, would be required to go through a basic combat preparedness course. The course included marksmanship training, squad tactics, and light conditioning. The only exemptions to this ruling were those physically or mentally incapable of performing the tasks. At the time, I bitched and moaned about it to no end, lamenting the four weeks I would be wasting on something I thought I¡¯d never need.


    I flipped the rifle into my hands. The XC-17 was a bullpup heavy assault rifle. It had a magazine capacity of twenty-one armor-piercing rounds, capable of punching holes in a pre-alien tank, enough stopping power to break through the armor of low or medium class Assimilators. It also had an under-barrel rocket launcher for the big stuff. I checked the safety, making sure it was still on, which it was. My finger rested on the trigger guard as I brought the light grey gun up, muzzle pointing slightly at the ground. I was armed and armored. Now what the hell was I supposed to do?


    I waited in the cover of the storefront for a minute or so, then decided to move out. As I did, the coms in my helmet crackled to life.


    ¡°Sam, where the fuck did you go!?¡± A female voice called into my ear, more than a little pissed off, ¡°You just up and disappeared!¡±


    I spoke into the mic, giving a simple mental command to my helmet to transmit my voice, ¡°I think I got turned around, what¡¯s your position?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t fucking know!¡± The annoyed replied came through a moment later, ¡°you¡¯ve got that shit right in front of your eyes, don¡¯t you? You aren¡¯t showing up on our HUDs, so make your way over to us. And hurry the fuck up, we got a squad of Worms closing in us fast.¡±


    I cursed my stupidity as I directed my thoughts to bring up a small map located on the bottom left corner of the visor built into my helmet. My HUD, showed a group of green dots a few blocks from my position, clustered into a building. With my destination now locked in, I started moving quickly but cautiously towards what I assumed was my squad, stepping carefully over the debris littered streets, trying to make as little sound as possible. I desperately thought back to my combat course that felt like a lifetime ago, struggling to remember how to actually fight in a squad.


    I wasn¡¯t worried about hitting my targets when I did start firing; the Combat Assistance Software, or CAS (the military really likes acronyms), included in my helmet took care of a lot of the hard parts of using a firearm. It provided a reticle and highlighted targets for me, and when I pointed my weapon at one, it would minutely shift the barrel to compensate for my aim. Weapons linked to the CAS would show an ammo counter on the HUD, so you could see at a glance what needed reloading, and how many magazines you had left. These innovations were priceless to a soldier. Unfortunately, they were also pricey, so many of the government-sponsored militia that cropped up in defense of the country had to do without them.


    I followed my map, keeping an eye out for any Assimilators. Ones that were flagged by reconnaissance drones or spotted by other squads¡¯ CAS systems would appear on my map, but that relied on often outdated information. Putting too much stock on your map was a great way to get yourself murdered. Honestly, I was relying quite heavily on my misbegotten hours poured into first-person shooters. I didn¡¯t know the first thing about fighting in a real war. But it was all I had to go on, and military tech had made the battlefield much closer to a video game than it ever had before. The difference was, this was far more realistic than anything I had played, and my heart pounded rapidly as I moved forward, reminding myself about Jack¡¯s warning over and over again. This was not a game.


    I turned right at an intersection, poking my head out from behind the corner of a tall apartment building to give the street ahead of me a quick scan. Traditional thermal imaging didn¡¯t pick up the Assimilators, so the military was forced to equip soldiers with alien scanning tech. Luckily for them, the alien scanners were actually cost-effective, in contrast to most xeno-technology. Scans picked up nothing but rubble and crackling flames. The desolate street made me take notice of the lack of people in the city. Had they been evacuated beforehand?


    I was snapped out of my reverie by the sound of my coms crackling to life, and I jumped nearly a foot in the air in shock.


    ¡°Where the fuck are you Lewis!? We got worms coming out of the woodwork here and we need every soldier we have!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m on my way,¡± I said, and started picking up the pace. I didn¡¯t receive a reply, but all the green dots on my map were still there so I assumed she just didn¡¯t care to respond.


    Belatedly, I noticed that a cluster of red dots had appeared on my HUD, about six blocks North from where the squad was holed up. They were approaching fast, heading directly at them. I sped up even more, jogging towards them. I was a couple blocks away, to their east. I could see their building, it looked like what used to be a department store. It sat facing the intersection of three roads arranged in a T, facing North, right at the approaching Assimilators. They would probably be on the second floor, waiting until the aliens were in range to fire. I could maybe reach them before they ¨CUnauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    No. I slowed my run, thinking about it. If I tried to go to them now, I would only be getting in their line of fire. However, if I set up in one of the buildings kitty-corner to them, I could catch the Assimilators in their exposed flanks.


    ¡°Hey,¡± I said into my mic, ¡°I¡¯m going to post up in that five-story hotel across from you guys, see if I can catch them in the crossfire.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the stupidest thing I¡¯ve ever fucking heard,¡± the voice snapped back, ¡°going off alone like that against worms is a phenomenal way to get yourself killed.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t make it to you guys in time,¡± I said, ¡°and I¡¯d rather not be out in the open when they get here.¡±


    She didn¡¯t respond for a bit, and I approached the hotel at a run, pushing open the doors and taking the stairs two at a time as I climbed to the third floor. Finally, her voice came through again, sounding tired and resigned.


    ¡°Shit, I¡¯m going to get you killed, but I don¡¯t have time to argue with you. Just keep your head down, and only start firing on the worms if it looks like we¡¯re going to get overrun, and that¡¯s an order.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir,¡± I said into the coms.


    I reached the third floor, and shouldered my way into a room that overlooked the street. I took a quick glance around, confirming it had a window. It was a small room, just two beds and a couple of armchairs. I walked up to the window and sat leaning against the wall under it, keeping my eyes trained on the approaching red dots on my HUD. There were about thirty of them, compared to the five green dots of my squad. The Assimilators were still about four blocks out, having slowed down a good amount. I watched the red dots inch closer, and as I was doing so I realized that I still hadn¡¯t keyed into the squad¡¯s communal channel. I sent a thought to the CAS, telling it to connect me.


    The moment I did, a burst of noise filled my ears.


    ¡° - like we got only six ranged, the rest are melee,¡± said a low male voice.


    ¡°Okay,¡± the woman that had been in contact with me started to say, ¡°we¡¯ve got six of the ranged fuckers down in the back, so I want Bencomo and Daniels keeping them pinned. The rest of us need to stop the melee bastards from crawling up our assholes. And Lewis, I dunno if you are on this channel but stay the fuck out of this until I tell you otherwise.¡±


    A chorus of affirmative responses rang out, mine included. I planned to follow her instructions. At this point, I was pretty sure she was the squad leader. I was not experienced in warfare, and having someone else telling me what to do was A-Okay with me. I nervously watched on my HUD as the Assimilators approached, picking up speed again when they were three blocks away. I heard my squad mates calling out positions, and a few seconds later the chatter of rifles erupted. The initial volley picked off a few of them, and I realized that my squad had their rifles on single-fire mode. It made sense, the Assimilators were at the very extreme edge of their range, and the CAS could switch between firing modes with a thought. As the Assimilators drew closer, the single shots turned into burst fire, and the red dots started disappearing faster. But not fast enough.


    I heard a shriek of pain ring out over the coms.


    ¡°Shit,¡± I heard a female voice, higher than the previous one, ¡°Daniels took a bad hit. I¡¯m pulling him back, I gotta get a bandage on his leg.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll cover you, so hurry it up.¡± The low male voice said. I noted that while I could hear the gunfire from the street, it was muted over the coms.


    As my squad continued to fire, I started feeling more and more useless crouching alone in a building. They were nothing more than fancy NPCs, but having them die would still suck, and I doubted that this scenario looked favorably on your squad getting wiped out. I could be helping them right now, I could be opening fire. The Assimilators had no idea I was even here. I listened to the sounds of my squad mates starting to panic as the aliens grew closer and closer to them. My hand tightened on my rifle¡¯s grip, and my legs tensed as I prepared to stand.


    Wait.


    Shit.


    This is how I die. This is how I get my squad mates killed. I¡¯ve seen this movie before, watched the idiot think he could be the hero as the audience screams at him to just sit down and listen to his orders. I was not going to be the moron that made the whole operation go tits ups. I was going to wait until the right moment, and this wasn¡¯t it. I watched the battle continue on my map, hearing it narrated in real time over the coms. The squad was holding its own impressively well, keeping the aliens pinned down in the street below them. They had killed around ten of them in total. The red dots in the back, the ranged ones I assumed, had been mostly eliminated, and there were only two left. The Assimilators actually started pulling back, inching slowly down the street, trying to avoid gunfire as they did. It looked like the squad was winning.


    Thing is, I¡¯d seen this movie too, and right about now is when everything was about to go to shit.


    I felt it first. A rumbling whose source I couldn¡¯t pinpoint. I checked my map, but nothing was showing up on it. There was something coming, and I had a horrible suspicion that I knew what it was. The rumbling grew louder and louder, until suddenly that high-pitched female voice shouted out in terror.


    ¡°Oh fuck! Hive Lord!¡±


    A red dot on my map finally lit up, approaching down the western street at an incredible pace. The Assimilators that had been falling back suddenly erupted forwards again. The squad leader began barking out orders but I knew they wouldn¡¯t change anything. The Hive Lord was approaching from the west; they didn¡¯t have an angle on it. Daniels was still down, so he wasn¡¯t going to be of any help.


    Well, at least that made my next decision pretty damn easy.


    I waited for the red dot from the west to get closer, watching as it was four blocks away, then three, and when it reached two I popped up from behind my window, setting my eyes on a Hive Lord for the first time in my life.


    Like the rest of the Assimilators, a Hive Lord looked like it was made out of a million wriggling, pitch black worms. The tendrils formed sinewy limbs and torsos, like a normal animal was wrapped entirely in hundreds of tiny strands of black rope. They generally took on a similar form to other things found on earth, but distorted and grotesque, often a horrible amalgam of many different beings. This Hive Lord was particularly terrifying. Standing at around 15 feet tall and 30 feet long, it was like a cross between a mantis and a monitor lizard. It stood on four legs, like a centaur, but instead of horse legs it had insectoid ones and instead of hands it had long, curved sickles. Its tail and head were those of a reptile, and its scarlet red eyes locked on to me as its maw leered open.


    I heard the squad leader screaming something at me over the coms. But I knew she didn¡¯t have a better plan. There weren¡¯t any mines cleverly placed on the western approach. There was no sniper a few blocks down ready to fire, no reinforcements rushing to help. There was just a terrified squad trying their best to live, crouched in a building as the enemy swarmed towards them.


    Taking a deep breath, I pulled the trigger, and was surprised when nothing happened. I calmly switched the safety off, cackling in my head at the absurdity of that, and pulled the trigger again. This time, it did fire. I had switched it to burst mode, and the recoil of the three rounds as they exited the muzzle was easy to handle with my new strength. I fired four bursts directly at the Hive Lord¡¯s head, and every one of them hit. It definitely felt them as it reeled back in anger, but I saw no visible damage. That was fine. I¡¯d have been shocked if that had done anything more than piss it off.


    It roared at me, and I almost lost my nerve. It sounded like someone had put a fork in a disposal system, mixed that noise with a foghorn and magnified it a thousand times. It was a horrific, grating sound, and it reached into me and twisted my guts around my body. It felt like it was directed at me alone, and as far as I knew, it was.


    With another mind-tearing roar, the Hive Lord charged directly at me. I felt my hands shaking on my rifle, but I managed to squeeze another two bursts on target thanks to the CAS. That just made it even angrier, and I felt its eyes boring into me. As it drew closer, I directed my CAS to switch my weapon to the under-barrel rocket launcher. It continued running at me, and when it was just a half block away, almost in front of my squad mates¡¯ building, I fired a madrium-tipped rocket directly into its forehead.


    A second after lodging itself deep into the head of the Hive Lord, the rocket detonated, and chunks of wriggling tendrils started raining down into the street. The front of the Hive Lord¡¯s head looked like a flower, blown wide open.


    I heard someone cursing in shock over the coms, but I knew I wasn¡¯t done. I fired my last three rounds into what was left of the head, and let my rifle drop to my side. What I had done wouldn¡¯t keep a Hive Lord down for long. They could regenerate devastating damage in a matter of minutes. The only way to put one down for good was to tear their entire body to shreds, or destroy the cluster of ganglion-like organs they used as a brain.


    The Assimilators¡¯ great strength was that they could copy and refine most of what they consumed, devouring and duplicating as they rampaged. But they had a limit. They could combine and twist and distort, but for reasons unknowns, some things had to stay the same. They all had a respiratory system that resembled those found on Earth. They all had some sort of digestive system. If the majority of the animal they mimicked was a vertebrate, they had a spine. And, most importantly, if the creature they copied had undergone cephalization, they would have something resembling a brain in their noggins. That brain, like most animals¡¯, was very important.


    That was what I was aiming to destroy when I launched my rocket at it. I wanted to expose the brain, then rip it to pieces. I sent a mental command to my CAS to change the ammo in my hand-cannon to explosive rounds, then pulled it off my hip. Holding it with two hands, as steady as possible, I fired all seven oversized bullets in the magazine into the gaping wound, watching as the stump exploded further in a fountain of gore. It stood there for a second, tendrils smoldering from the explosives. The Hive Lord slowly tipped over, its massive bulk crashing into the street. The smaller Assimilators shrieked as they scattered away from the motionless body.


    ¡°Holy fucking shit,¡± the squad leader said in the shocked silence that followed, ¡°did you actually get it?¡±


    I was about to respond with a witty one liner when the door burst open behind me. As I whirled around I felt sharp claws pierce through my helmet like it was butter, and lodge into my skull. My vision went dark before I had the chance to scream.

 Chapter 1.18: A Thousand Lives

    When I opened my eyes, the polar bear was sitting at a chess table.


    So I guess I can add that to the list of weird fucking shit that happened today.


    Feeling like I was living in some surrealist¡¯s wet dream, I decided to just roll with it and sat down on the empty chair across from him. He dwarfed the chess board, and I wondered how such a tiny little chair was supporting his weight. Jack gestured with one of his enormous claws at the board, letting me make the first move. So, I did. I didn¡¯t really get how to play chess beyond the basic rules, so I just kinda moved a pawn somewhere. It had never really interested me, and if it had, I had somehow been too nerdy for chess club in high school. He considered my move and took his own, his four inch claws delicately picking up a pawn.


    ¡°So,¡± he said, his rumbling baritone breaking the silence, ¡°how do you think your first scenario went?¡±


    I moved a horse to a random spot, and responded, ¡°Well. I think it went pretty well, up until I died. I really should have shoved a bed against that door.¡±


    He hummed at that, making another move, ¡°That was a mistake, yes. Am I correct in assuming that was the first Hive Lord you have seen with your own eyes?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± I replied, ¡°it was horrifying. But at least I killed it.¡±


    The polar bear looked at me in legitimate surprise, eyes widening. He started laughing, which might have been entertaining had it not shown off his cavernous mouth full of very long teeth. ¡°Killed it?¡± he said, still chuckling, ¡°my friend, you merely inconvenienced it.¡±


    ¡°But¡­ I blew its head off? I burned its brains out?¡± I asked, as confused as he was entertained. I still continued to haphazardly place pieces on the board.


    ¡°Yes, and that would kill a normal Assimilator,¡± he said, shifting into teaching mode, ¡°but a Hive Lord is anything but normal. They have more than one ganglion-cluster, you see. They actually have three of them, and one isn¡¯t even in the head.¡±


    My eyes widened. That is just straight up cheating.


    ¡°Quite frankly, if you encounter a Hive Lord without heavy weapons support, running away is the only thing that can save you. And even then, you don¡¯t have much of a chance.¡± He moved a bishop, taking one of my pawns, ¡°Still, you did an excellent job incapacitating it with what you had. Not many soldiers, even veterans with years of experience, could have done that.¡±


    I swelled with pride at that, until his next sentence.


    ¡°Regardless, you still did fail in the end.¡± He said serenely.


    ¡°Just because I died?¡± I spluttered, ¡°That was a Kobayashi Maru! How could I have killed a Hive Lord!?¡±


    ¡°Oh, you didn¡¯t fail because you died, though that was not a mark in your favor. You failed because you did not join up with your squad.¡± He took a knight this time.


    ¡°What? If I hadn¡¯t been in that hotel, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to take the shot at that Hive Lord, and the squad would¡¯ve been wiped out!¡± I protested, thoroughly confused.


    He smiled at me, shaking his massive furry head, ¡°Do you truly think your squad was stupid enough to trap themselves in a building without a plan of retreat? If you had gone to them in the first place, which by the way you had plenty of time to do, you would have been able to pull back the moment that Hive Lord was spotted. The only reason they stayed was to protect you.¡±


    I sat back in my chair. I hadn¡¯t thought that my squad might have had an egress point. I hadn¡¯t even really considered what they had been doing there at all. They had been sitting in a department store, waiting to ambush a group of Assimilators. They had control of the terrain and the area of engagement. Why would they trap themselves if they had set it all up?Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    ¡°Sam, you missed the forest for the trees in this scenario. It is a common mistake among those that think themselves smarter than the average bear,¡± He said with a terrifying grin, ¡°if you¡¯ll pardon the pun. You saw only how you could help the situation, not how you could work with your squad to improve it. You went into that hotel because it gave you the best chance of making an individual difference, not because it was the most tactically advantageous move. In order to pass this course, you must move beyond thinking that you are the center of the board, and instead consider the larger game at hand.¡±


    As I contemplated his words, he went on to take my queen, then my king. I wasn¡¯t really paying attention to the game, I was going over all the decisions I had made during the previous scenario.


    ¡°How could I possibly have known that my squad had a plan of retreat?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Did you try asking them?¡± He said with a chuckle, returning the pieces on the board to their starting positions.


    <hr>


    That day, and the two days following, I lived a thousand lives.


    I was a soldier the most. I followed orders and ignored some. I made friends and I lost squad mates. I died heroic deaths and ignoble ones. I was bored on guard duty and dropped in the middle of pitched battle. I was alone and outnumbered. I was one in a thousand that routed shattered enemies. I ran for my life from an impossible foe. I wielded the most powerful weapons humanity had to offer, and I learned to make do with a knife and my wit. I saved the innocent, and helplessly watched them die. I was strong and I was weak, but I was always strongest when I let myself trust the men and women around me.


    I was a medic, one drafted into the army with no real concept of what to do. I clumsily bandaged wounds so horrific that I wondered how those who endured them kept going. Unarmed, I felt the helplessness as the enemy moved in on me, knowing that I could not fight back. I learned to trust the soldiers to protect me, as they threw down their lives and gave me a chance to do my work. I spoke to my fellow medics, who were so broken, so tired, but still gave their all to save another life. I held the hands of soldiers that knew they were dying. I spoke kind words to civilians in field hospitals, whose eyes were wild in terror and pain. I comforted parents who had lost their children, children who had become orphans, the shattered and desolate, and the ones who remained so strong even when their world had fallen apart around them. In flickering candlelight and brightly lit rooms, I heard their stories and I told them mine. I received thanks and curses, prayers and lamentations.


    I was a civilian, an emergency responder, a militia, a mayor of a small town.


    I was a child, a father, a brother, a lover.


    I learned of life through the silhouettes left in ash on the sides of a houses.


    I learned of humanity. I learned of the enemy.


    I had survived the apocalypse before, but now I had lived through it.


    <hr>


    Later, I asked Jack how it was possible that I had spent more than, by what was my count, a month in the simulator when only thirty hours had passed outside.


    He told me that this was the only approved usage of perceived time dilatation. The simulator sped my brain up to the point where it would think things were happening much quicker than they were. Extended exposure would almost certainly cause insanity and an inability to readjust to the real world. This was the only time in my life that I would be able to experience it. A marker in my brain had been triggered, one that couldn¡¯t be lifted, that forbade any simulator from dilating time for me again.


    <hr>


    Jack and I debriefed after every few lives. We talked about the decisions I had made, good and bad, the people I had met, the ones I trusted and the ones I didn¡¯t. After a point, and I¡¯m not really sure when, there was no more chessboard, no more talk about passing or failing. It was just about the experiences. Adelaide joined in every once in a while, offering her thoughts and opinions. I had asked her to look through my eyes for each life, and she did. I knew that these experiences were even more valuable for her than they were for me. I had my own humanity to go off of, but she was still learning hers.


    The last session was one in which I had to choose between saving a little girl with almost no chance to live, and saving a soldier who would have walked the battlefield again. I turned to the soldier, and he shook his head, teeth gritted. I nodded at him, and gave him something for the pain. There was fear and gratitude in his eyes, and I went to help the girl. She died under my inexperienced hands.


    I was pulled out of that one shortly after. Jack was facing me, and he reached out a paw to put on my shoulder, almost knocking me flat. There was no debrief this time. ¡°Do you understand the true reason why you had to go through this?¡±, he asked, his words rumbling around the empty space.


    ¡°Yes,¡± I responded, ¡°now I know what I have to protect.¡±


    He smiled his big, crooked, toothy smile at me. ¡°Samuel Lewis,¡± he said proudly, ¡°I deem you ready to train in a Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit.¡±

 Chapter 1.19: Graduation

    The thing about high expectations was that they inevitably lead to crushing disappointment. The actual Paladin Training was shockingly tedious. I had to memorize every subsystem, every servo, every weapon, every material that composed every plate of armor. I had to know beyond a shadow of a doubt every mental command and physical input I could use when piloting a Paladin. I had to understand how the anti-grav maneuvering thrusters worked, and how much force the inertial dampeners could compensate for. I had to learn its top speed in various different loadouts, how it functioned at suboptimal power levels, and how to perform basic maintenance. There was fucking homework on it, I had to write goddamned essays on that shit. If I were a normal soldier, this would be invaluable knowledge. But considering I designed the damned thing, it was my brainchild, and I had spent years and years perfecting it, it was all incredibly redundant information.


    There were few parts of the training that were practical, and all of them happened in the last three days of the course. I finally got to put on the virtual suit, and I was supposed to learn exactly how to move in one and how to manage for the additional bulk of a Paladin. I was also tasked with switching through every subsystem on the fly and activating dozens of them at once.


    But there was a problem with this as well.


    The Paladin in the simulator wasn¡¯t perfect. It really shocked me when I first got into one and realized that it was slightly off. I felt, as the kids say, bamboozled.


    ¡°Hey Adelaide!¡± I yelled, storming away from the simulator room.


    ¡°Yes, Sam?¡± she responded.


    ¡°Why did that Paladin suck so bad?¡±


    Unsurprisingly, she had a very good explanation for that, ¡°Well, in the first place, the training program was never completed. If you will recall, soldiers were not meant to begin training until after the first year of production. The fact that some semblance of a training program exists currently is, to put it mildly, a miracle. Secondly,¡± she continued, ¡°at the time that the training program was first uploaded to Camelot¡¯s database, its programmers had not achieved full accuracy in their model of the Paladin. Keep in mind that they had to design their model almost completely from scratch off of only prototypes and schematics. The programmers did, however, have access to the complete specifications, and they managed to implement it in time, which means that the knowledge you learned over the last two days was not useless.¡±


    I frowned, ¡°Alright, but I already had that stuff on lockdown. Are you telling me the actual cool part of this hell-course is the only part that is completely worthless to me?¡±


    Adelaide hesitated for a crucial moment. ¡°Well,¡± she said slowly and delicately, ¡°it was not a complete waste to go through the subsystems. And it will make it easier to acclimate to the weight and size of the real Paladin.¡±


    ¡°Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me.¡±


    ¡°I am very sorry Sam.¡± She sounded quite contrite.


    I thought for a second and made a decision. ¡°Alright Adelaide, skip the rest of the course and bring me to the graduation.¡±


    She made a noise halfway between a squeal and a gasp, ¡°Skip¡­ the course?¡±


    ¡°Yup,¡± I said, turning to go to get an apple from my room. I figured it might take her a while to get around the program¡¯s security.


    ¡°But you can¡¯t!¡± she yelled at me.


    ¡°Well obviously I can¡¯t,¡± I said, rolling my eyes, ¡°that¡¯s why I¡¯m asking you to do it.¡±


    She started spluttering, ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant! If you graduate now you won¡¯t be ready! You won¡¯t have completed the course! The protocols state that you must finish the course in its entirety before you receive your pilot certification!¡±


    I sighed. I hated having to explain my convoluted thought processes. ¡°Look, Adelaide. This course is now completely worthless to me. The Paladin is all wrong. It actually does me more harm than good to continue training in it. I¡¯d learn the wrong things, and get screwed in a real combat situation when I moved an inch to the right instead of a foot. I¡¯m going to get my practical experience by training in one of the thousands of real Paladins we have gathering dust below. I¡¯ll practice a whole shitload in the Armory, there¡¯s plenty of space in there, and I¡¯ll do it completely unarmed. Worst comes to worse I just put a few holes in the walls, and the spider bots can fix those up right easy.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    I stepped into the sidevator and started my journey to the main facility, happy with my flawless logic.


    ¡°But the programming is ironclad! Subverting the restrictions might as well be rewriting the most important elements of the base¡¯s security!¡± She was making excuses now. I had her right where I wanted her.


    ¡°I happen to recall someone in this base deleting an entire instructor, then replacing him with a polar bear.¡± I said, ¡°Or, am I remembering that wrong?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s different,¡± she said, ¡°This is much more difficult.¡± I¡¯d like to imagine that she was fidgeting.


    ¡°Well,¡± I said, picking up an apple and going for the death blow, ¡°that¡¯s why I¡¯m letting my most trusted friend take care of it, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Gah.¡± She said.


    ¡°I have full confidence in you, Adelaide.¡±


    <hr>


    A very salty Adelaide completed the override later that day. I really had to give her a gift or something at this point. Putting that on the mental to-do list.


    When the simulator booted up I found myself in a very familiar looking room, one that every American would know at just a glance. I was standing in the Oval Office. And behind the desk in front of me, flanked on the left by Sergeant McBitchface and on the right by a giant, anthropomorphic polar bear, was the now deceased President of the United States, Barbara Rothschild. The first female president, she was a tall, handsome woman who radiated an air of calm authority. Though she had been a divisive President before the war, after it started she rallied the country with amazing poise, uniting America as it hadn¡¯t been since the second World War. She had stumbled in the beginning, refusing to commit troops to helping Russia, but after that became one of the most stalwart defenders of our allies overseas. She spoke to Americans daily, soothing our fears of the end and encouraging us to believe that we could win. She knew that the fight would be won, she knew that humanity would overcome its foes. That she was so very wrong did not change the fact that she was one of the last beacons of hope as humanity¡¯s flame flickered out.


    And now this legendary woman, or at least a holographic representation of her, was standing before me, that trademark fearless smile crinkling the ebony skin at the corners of her eyes.


    ¡°First of all,¡± she said, her smooth voice washing over me, ¡°I just wanted to congratulate you, Sam.¡± Ohmygod she said my name. ¡°You have become the first person to ever qualify to become a Paladin. I wanted to be able to tell you that in person, but circumstances won¡¯t permit it.¡± She beamed at me, ¡°Hopefully, this recording can transmit the depth of my pride, and my gratefulness. A Paladin¡¯s training is one of the more difficult things that one can accomplish. I¡¯m sure I couldn¡¯t do it myself. But it ensures that you are qualified to defend our way of life.¡±


    ¡°It has been a long, long war,¡± she said, suddenly looking very tired, ¡°and we need every advantage we can get. I know I put on a brave face, I know that I put on airs to keep hope alive in our citizens, but the hard truth is that we are losing. We are losing ground every day. We are losing soldiers that can¡¯t be replaced, and civilians whose lives we swore to protect. And we can¡¯t keep this going much longer. We are at a tipping point, Sam, and you have come at exactly the right time to help us even the odds.¡±


    She sighed, and broke eye contact with me for a moment, a look of guilt flashing across her striking features, ¡°I wish I could tell you to relax and revel in your achievement, as you should be able to. But we can¡¯t afford that luxury anymore. Tomorrow, along with any of your fellow Paladins that have completed the course, you will shipped out to the front lines. It pains me to do this, but I know that this order must come from me, as I am the one putting you in harm¡¯s way. I am truly sorry.¡±


    There was silence in the room, and then she grinned sheepishly, breaking the moment. ¡°I¡¯m jumping the gun a bit though, and I think it¡¯s time for me stop rambling, and finally give you what you have fought so hard to receive.¡± She stood up, and she was taller than I had thought she would be.


    ¡°Samuel Lewis!¡± barked the Drill Sergeant.


    ¡°Yes sir!¡± I said, snapping to attention.


    She continued, eyes locked on mine, ¡°You are the first to be granted the rank of Paladin, and all the rights and privileges forthwith. You will be granted authority equivalent to that of a Captain, and all the responsibilities that entails. Step forward now and receive your insignia.¡±


    I stepped forward, and as I did, President Rothschild walked around the desk, holding what appeared to be a small, perfectly round metal circle, about an inch and a half in diameter. She stood in front of me, a proud smile on her face.


    ¡°Samuel Lewis,¡± she said, ¡°I hereby grant you your rank, and bestow upon you your insignia.¡± She pinned the medal to my chest. It was painted a deep red, emblazoned with an intricate white shield encircled by two thin white lines. ¡°May you adhere to it, and serve with honor and selflessness. May you protect our land and our people. May you forever act as our champion, and be true to your title. You have become our Beacon of Hope, the Shield of Humanity. A Paladin.¡±

 Chapter 1.20: Scheduled Maintenance

    After President Rothschild pinned the insignia to my chest, the simulation faded again, taking her and the Oval Office with it. I found it odd that she didn¡¯t have any closing remarks, but it felt fitting for the ceremony to end on that line. Because god damn was that inspiring. When the simulator finished fading, I was surprised to find myself standing in front of the Drill Sergeant and Jack. Jack had a goofy, massive grin on his face, and the Sergeant had what I would hazard to call a smile on hers, though it looked more like a grimace of pain.


    The massive polar bear immediately wrapped me in a bear hug. The pun wasn¡¯t lost on me and I hated to ruin the beautiful moment but holy God it was terrifying to actually be hugged by a bear. I had to remind myself that I was not being hunted by an apex predator, I was being hugged by a friend. My monkey brain was having a bit of trouble making that distinction. I gingerly patted him on the wiry fur of his flank as he broke free.


    ¡°We didn¡¯t have a chance to congratulate you during the ceremony, Sam,¡± the giant, bowtie-wearing mammal rumbled, ¡°so we decided to pull you aside before you left. Both myself and Danna,¡± he looked over at the Drill Sergeant whose name was apparently Danna, ¡°are very proud to have been your instructors. It¡¯s not an easy path you chose to follow, but I have no doubt that you will be a fantastic Paladin.¡±


    He looked over at Danna expectantly. She scowled at him and he made a paw motion that seemed to say we¡¯ve discussed this. She rolled her eyes and looked away from me, ¡°Look, Lewis, you¡¯re not a total piece of shit. You actually did better than I thought you would in Basic, so I guess you can jack off to that if you want.¡± The polar bear glowered at her, and she sighed, ¡°Ugh, alright. You did good kid. You¡¯ll be a fine soldier. And that¡¯s all I¡¯m fucking saying so back the fuck off you overgrown teddy bear.¡± She aimed that last part at Jack.


    I grinned at my two teachers. Yeah, the training was a bitch, and it took a damn long time. But it had changed me for the better. Sergeant McBitchface, or Danna I guess, was a hard ass but that¡¯s what I needed at the time: someone to give me a push. Sir Jackson of Bearington was¡­ well he was probably the most physically bizarre teacher I¡¯ll ever have, but after the lows I had reached he was patient and kind, and honestly was one of the better instructors I¡¯ve had in my life. I really wanted to meet the depraved bastard who put that much effort into an easter egg, and shake their hand. I know that both my instructors were just really advanced computer programs, but that didn¡¯t take away my debt to them.


    ¡°Bye guys,¡± I said with a grin, waving to Jack and giving a salute to Danna, ¡°it¡¯s been a helluva time. Thank you both so much. I¡¯ll make sure to come back and visit.¡±


    Jack raised a giant, clawed paw, and Danna folded her arms behind her back, scowling. The simulator faded to black all around me, and as it did, I suddenly realized that I¡¯d miss the training that gave my life purpose again, and the two instructors that made it possible.


    Not Allen though. Fuck that guy.


    <hr>


    When I got out of the simulator, I immediately noticed that something had changed about the room. Instead of being a big, empty expanse, it now had a wide pedestal that rose out of the floor directly in front of me, reaching roughly my waist in height. On it were a letter of congratulations bearing the President¡¯s seal and signature (which was totally getting framed once I got F-03 to make me one), a folded jumpsuit, and a red painted, metal insignia, with a bright white shield on it.


    ¡°You should pick up the suit first, Sam¡± Adelaide said to me, unusually solemn.


    I walked over to the pedestal, and unfurled the jumpsuit. It was made of a soft, supple material, which I realized with a shock was a nano-weave based on alien tech. This stuff could stop a large caliber bullet to the chest, and disperse the force so well that it felt like you were only tapped with a finger. It was a bright white, with red highlights that ran down the flanks and on the outsides of the arms and legs.


    ¡°Can you give me sec?¡± I asked her.


    ¡°Sure, Sam,¡± she said, ¡°I¡¯m turning off my video feed to the simulator room.¡±


    After I had changed, I admired myself in the mirror that Adelaide had one of the spider bots bring over. I gotta say, I looked good. While I was never fat, the exercise and the dangerous experimental procedure had done me wonders. I was trim now. A spider bot had given me a haircut, and I had shaved before the graduation ceremony. For the first time in a long, long while my sea-green eyes looked happy.


    After I had admired my new suit for a time, I waved away the spider bot, and looked at the pedestal again. I picked up the metal disc bearing my new insignia, and turned it over in my hands. On the back were two lines of words. ¡°SAMUEL LEWIS¡±, they read, ¡°THE FIRST PALADIN¡±. The words were the same pure white as the shield on the front. I clutched it in my hand, and attached it to the slot on the chest of my jumpsuit that was made for it. It fit perfectly, adhering with a satisfying clink.


    ¡°Congratulations, Sam,¡± said Adelaide with pride, ¡°you did it.¡±


    <hr>


    After all the shit that just went down, you¡¯d expect there to be another immediate crisis that demanded my attention. A pack of Mimics bent on murdering me, a group of mutated cockroaches, a settlement that needed my help. Reality was, as always, far more anticlimactic. The weeks that followed my¡­ accelerated¡­ graduation were just normal. No threats, existential or physical, no breakdowns, no revelations. Me and Adelaide got into a sort of rut, where we worked furiously on upgrading the Paladins¡¯ weaponry during the day and played video games and watched movies together at night. She turned out to absolutely love cheesy action movies, which was a bit odd, and we watched what felt like every classic together, me making fun of them mercilessly while she told me to shut up because the scenes I made fun of were always ¡°crucial components in understanding the plot of the film.¡± She got her revenge when she served my ass to me on a silver platter every time we played a two-person videogame. When she finally destroyed me on my home turf, Smash Bros, I threw in the towel and she declared herself the Video Game Champion. I still maintain that she couldn¡¯t be declared shit until she started using a controller. She told me that I ¡°was acting salty about the issue.¡± Apparently, she could trash talk now.Stolen story; please report.


    She really liked her new title, and would respond to it exclusively, for a week straight. It took me agreeing to let her choose the movies for the next two weeks before she finally relented. I had the feeling that I had lost the first battle in a very, very long war.


    Adelaide still hadn¡¯t shared more of her secret with me, but I knew she would tell me about it when she was ready. I would listen to her when she needed me to, and she knew that. No matter who or what she was, she was my friend first and foremost.


    Adelaide disagreed with me about several of the changes I wanted to make to the Paladin¡¯s weaponry. She didn¡¯t see the point of the cluster launcher, and I told her that until she fought a Hive Lord her opinion on heavy weaponry was worth jack shit. She did talk me down on the anti-aircraft laser, considering that we couldn¡¯t figure out how to not make it drain the suit¡¯s power in one shot. We shelved that option until we had more time to work through the issues. But I wanted a laser on my suit damn it, so we compromised on keeping the projectile-defense intact. The new plan called for a shoulder-mounted air-to-ground missile launcher that could reload four times from a cache hidden on the Paladin¡¯s back. Two short-ranged point-defense laser arrays were installed on either side of the helmet. As goofy as that sounds they were very low profile and blended into the curvature of the helmet, well enough to be indistinguishable. They just looked like a slightly shiny strip on each side. Plus I got to have lasers shooting out of my head. Tick that one off the bucket list.


    After we had finalized all our immediately necessary designs, I put F-03 to task building all of it. He was going to be a busy lad for quite a while. After further consideration, I put F-06 on weapon building duty as well, figuring that everyone works better in a team.


    In addition to our destructive weapons planning, I also spent a good amount of time practicing in one of the un-upgraded Paladins. It was simple stuff, running, walking, side strafing. I practiced maneuvering with the anti-grav thrusters, and it took me a while to get the hang of those. Too little power and I would scoot across the ground ineffectually. Too much and I¡¯d launch myself into a wall, making for a very pissed off Adelaide. She wasn¡¯t worried for me, no, she was ticked off that I smashed a perfectly serviceable wall. The really hard part was figuring out how to synchronize the bottom thrusters, in order to push yourself off the ground enough to strafe effectively. The automated settings worked pretty well: when you mentally commanded the suit to strafe in any direction, the bottom thrusters would kick in a split second before, lifting you off the ground slightly. Then the lateral thrusters would activate, keeping you steady as they shot you in your chosen direction. I didn¡¯t like how far they lifted me up though, so I tinkered with that for a while until I found a nice setting, then set it as the default for all the suits. Adelaide made software updates a cinch.


    All in all, they were good, peaceful days.


    But mother of God did I want to shoot something. Adelaide had to stop me from taking a Paladin and looking for trouble. She reminded me, in a very sharp tone, that secrecy was our greatest defense, and that if we had no reason to get into a fight, we wouldn¡¯t. That¡¯s how I ended just letting a group of very murderable aliens just pass by the base one day, even though I asked really nicely for Adelaide to let me go explode them. The worst part was I knew how right she was, which was why I didn¡¯t push the issue even a little bit. It made absolutely no sense to expose ourselves if we didn¡¯t need to. Luckily, or unluckily, that need came shortly after the last Assimilator group passed us by.


    <hr>


    The blare of the perimeter alarms jolted me out of my afternoon nap. Wiping a string of drool off the corner of my mouth, I jerked my head off the command center¡¯s desk, my face printed with the keyboard. I had been working on the Paladin¡¯s power generator, displaying the schematics on the holographic projector, and must have nodded off.


    ¡°Whathafuckisgoingon?¡± I blearily asked Adelaide.


    ¡°There¡¯s a group of three civilians that have entered our perimeter from the North West. They are headed on a path that will very shortly take them out of the Eastern side of the perimeter.¡±


    That got me awake very quickly. I sat up, and looked at the holomap Adelaide had already displayed in front of me. ¡°Alright,¡± I said, studying the white dots, ¡°I¡¯m going to suit up, you keep an eye on them and let me know when something changes.¡± I got up and started walking to the Arming Station located in the back of the room, giddy at the fact that I could say ¡°suit up¡± in a serious situation.


    ¡°Wait, Sam. We don¡¯t even know if they¡¯re being pursued.¡±


    ¡°Look at how fast they¡¯re moving, Adelaide. Those people are being chased. If they aren¡¯t, I¡¯ll observe and return to the base after they¡¯re gone.¡± I told her, and the curved doors of the PAS slid open, revealing the Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit in its full glory.


    It was truly a beautiful piece of machinery. After I had received my jumpsuit, I¡¯d had the spider bots paint the Paladins to match it, brilliant white and scarlet red. The Paladin insignia was painted in the center of the suit¡¯s chest. Sure, it wasn¡¯t exactly low-key, but the Paladin was meant to be right at the front, soaking up fire so that nobody else had to. Sticking out was for the best. Plus, it looked super badass.


    The Paladin stood at seven feet tall, customized to my height. It gleamed in the glow of the command center, lights dancing off it. It was a sleek coat of segmented pieces of armor, with no visible gaps. The suit was sculpted to the human form, built upon the base of a highly modified exo-suit. Its back was bulkier around the shoulders and mid-back than a human¡¯s would be, due to the mounts for main weapons, storage for ammunition, and miniaturized anti-matter power generator. The primary thrusters were two anti-grav strips that were attached under the shoulders, flaring slightly over them and extending down, just shy of the base of the spine. The helmet was, in my opinion, gorgeous. It was a seamless shell that flowed from the rest of the suit, and completely covered the head. It had a ¡°brow¡± that protruded minutely over the large, red-tinted visor, which was as strong as the rest of the suit. I had seen enough clich¨¦s about weak visors to make it a sticking point of the design. There was no visible mouth piece, but the bottom of the helmet protruded slightly as a sort of chin. The suit was all one entity, and would ripple open to receive its pilot as they approached it, and seal itself once the pilot was secured.


    I stepped into the padded interior of the suit, the metal flowing to a close around me. My HUD flickered to life, the upgraded Combat Assistance System showing me all the vital readouts at a glance. I clenched and unclenched my metal hands as Adelaide ran an automated script to check for malfunctions throughout all systems. The doors closed behind me.


    ¡°Good luck Sam. I¡¯ll be here with you.¡± Adelaide said, her voice coming through the Paladin¡¯s com system.


    The catapult that would take me to the surface gave out a light hum as it came to life. I grinned so wide I thought my face might crack. I knew I should be more grim and focused, lives were at stake after all, but I had been dreaming of this moment ever since I had conceived the Paladin. I gave a simple command,


    ¡°Launch.¡±

 Chapter 1.21: Combat

    The catapult rocketed me to the surface with shocking force. Given more time, its acceleration would have rapidly taken it to a speed that would break the sound barrier. Excessive? Hell yes. Cool as fuck? Also hell yes.


    I didn¡¯t feel a thing in the padded interior of the Paladin. The inertial dampeners were working beautifully. They would make it so that anything that placed abnormally large amounts of force on the Paladin, like getting punched across a field by a giant alien or jumping out of a plane and landing at terminal velocity, wouldn¡¯t be felt by the pilot. That saved a lot of internal organ liquefying.


    In mere seconds, the catapult slid to a halt just below the surface, sending me soaring into the air. Activating the bottom thrusters, I made a soft descent, and stepped foot above ground for the first time in nine months. The sky was partially cloudy, but the sun shone over the eastern plains of Colorado all the same. I looked around, taking in the sights. Normally, the vast, flat grassland would be incredibly dull. But to me, it was amazingly beautiful. I tried to breathe in the fresh air of the outside, but my Paladin¡¯s filtration system turned the air slightly stale. Annoyed, I seriously considered turning off the system, but my better sense prevailed.


    ¡°I hate to interrupt you Sam,¡± said Adelaide over the coms, and she really did seem regretful, ¡°But you were right about the pursuit. There is a party of eleven Assimilators on the same course as the human group. Eight are animal types, with five M-1 Class and three R-1 Class, while the remaining three are the unknown variety.¡±


    I started moving, following the map on my HUD just like I had in the simulator, taking great, bounding leaps assisted by the thrusters. Part of the reason that the physical training for a Paladin pilot was so intense was because of how fast they ran. The human body was not meant to move itself at those speeds, so you had to train it to do so. A Paladin could move at a top speed of nearly 200 miles per hour. Normally, you didn¡¯t go at top speed because you¡¯d drain the suit like mad, but it was great for getting the fuck out of dodge or intercepting a target. Normal long-distance movement speed was somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 miles per hour, about as fast as a car on the highway. Once I got better at using the anti-grav thrusters, I would be able to move faster, and more efficiently, by ¡®skating¡¯ across the ground instead of leaping over it.


    Most Assimilators didn¡¯t move nearly that fast, which was one of their weaknesses. The majority of the common Assimilators would move in the neighborhood of 25 miles per hour, faster than a human on foot, slower than practically all vehicles. In quick sprints, Assimilators could move at about twice that speed, but couldn¡¯t keep it going for very long. However, the Assimilators had solved their long-distance movement problem as well, with grotesque troop-carriers made out of a horrible fusion of metal and animal. They could carrier hundreds if not thousands of their smaller brethren at rapid speeds, which was how the aliens moved so quickly during the end.


    There weren¡¯t any of those here though, so over the flat lands of the eastern plains, my Paladin rapidly closed on the Assimilators.


    ¡°The Assimilator hunting party will reach the humans in an estimated two minutes, Sam. I have no tracking data on the human group, so that estimate assumes they maintain their speed.¡±


    I sped up, my steps taking me farther and faster, the wind rushing by filtered by the external mics, which could pick up minute noises in a large radius around the suit. My intercept course, plotted by the CAS, would let me reach the hunting party in a minute and half. I was cutting it very close, but I was moving as fast as I dared, considering that I did not have any experience running on open ground. I was already allowing the suit to run mostly autonomously. Tripping and faceplanting would not be helpful to those people.


    As I neared the Assimilator group, my suit''s external scanners began to give me a clearer picture of their positions. Their red dots had widened into a semi-circle, like jaws opened wide. As I ran, I reached behind me for my railgun. It was folded up and stored on one of the weapon mounts, and would not deploy until I gave it the command to do so. I detached it, holding it in one metal hand in its compacted state, not planning on deploying it until I reached engagement range, which I would be shortly.


    I saw them before they saw me, my advanced optics spotting them from afar. They were disgusting creatures. Most of them were the same brand of disgusting chimera. Presumably for efficiency purposes, most Assimilators of a class looked roughly the same. There were a few notable exceptions, namely the Hive Lords and the Matriarchs. Those came in all different flavors of terrifying. The melee class in this group looked to be a cross between a gorilla and an armadillo, their shelled backs rippling as they ran on all fours with long, powerful arms. The ranged ones were even worse, a snake head mounted on a horse¡¯s body, with a mouth that probably spat acid-coated projectiles. There were three that were giant flies with the heads of bloodhounds, the unknown type. Most likely trackers.


    I continued my pursuit, noticing that the humans they were chasing had slowed down. Curiously though, the hunting party was slowing down too. Maybe the sick fucks were enjoying tormenting their prey.


    Nothing like a good ol¡¯ spat of violence to cure that issue.


    I skidded to a halt a bit after entering my engagement range, which was quite long. I started a slow jog, keeping my distance, and I deployed the railgun, which I had affectionately named the Caliburn R01. It unfurled to a size of about three feet, and began to hum in preparedness, a madrium-tipped round sliding into the firing chamber. It was a sleek beast of a weapon, capable of firing a projectile at 11,000 feet per second. I hefted it, my CAS locking on to my target, one of the ranged Worms. The HUD showed me the proper place to aim in order to score a hit, updating in real time. My finger tightened on the trigger, the barrel shifted to compensate for my aim, I held my breath, and I fired.


    When you fire a railgun, the results are awe-inspiring. The projectile is accelerated along two conductive rails, reaching a truly astonishing speed by the time it exits the muzzle. The burst of plasma that follows as the projectile tears through the air is blinding, which is why most normal infantry never used railguns. The Paladin¡¯s CAS intelligently blocks the plasma¡¯s light, allowing the Paladin to see after using the deadly weapon. A railgun¡¯s projectile is not a complicated thing. It¡¯s just a solid slug of metal, sometimes with a reinforced tip. There are no fancy propellants or explosive. But the impact of a railgun round is like getting hit with a bus going at the speed of jet fighter, all condensed into a small point.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    When the round hit the ranged Worm, the alien exploded into a mess of tendrils, almost completely blown apart. The round kept going, smashing the legs of the melee type next to it, causing it to crash into the ground. As the startled Assimilators tried to figure out what the fuck had just happened, the next projectile had already splattered another of the ranged classes over the plains. Their confusion did not last for long, and they bolted for cover, which, on the plains, is sparse. That suited me just fine, as I continued to barrel towards them, trying to get close enough that they would engage me instead of the civilians.


    A red icon in the bottom left corner of my HUD turned to green when the railgun was ready to fire again. It could chamber another round almost instantly, but the limiting factor was heat. The railgun passed so much energy through its rails that they would warp into an unusable state with rapid use. Active cooling prevented that, but it needed a bit of time to get the rails to a manageable temperature. Currently, I could fire about a hundred rounds per minute, though I planned to get that up.


    I cursed, my next shot whizzing wide as a Worm darted behind a small depression in the ground. They were darting towards me now, clearly seeing me as the most pressing threat. I noticed that one of the trackers was still following the civilians, and then a projectile took it in the abdomen, ripping it to shreds. My goal was to protect those people, and that¡¯s what I was going to do.


    I was closing in on the Assimilators now, and they were all very pissed off at me. I had seven to kill and plenty of ways to do it. I stopped my run, and planted my feet in the ground. The melee ones were sprinting at me full tilt, but I still had time to get a couple shots off. My first blew the head off the remaining ranged Worm, while the second tore a hole open in the side off one of the melee gorillas rushing towards me. Three melees, two trackers to go, but the melee Worms were almost on me, so I distanced myself from them by firing the front-facing thrusters, pushing myself back. As I did I retracted the railgun with a thought and placed it back on its mount. I landed, planting my feet and taking a solid stance.


    The three gorilla-like Worms worked together well. Melee type Assimilators were shocktroops, meant to get in close and fuck up your day. Without even a glance, they split up, coming at me in a trident. The one moving in on my right was slightly faster though, and I was going to take advantage of that. Rather than wait for them to reach me, I gave a short blast of my thrusters and burst towards the rightmost Worm, raising a fist at it. It reacted, turning its sprint into a leap. Up close, I could see that the belly of the gorilla-armadillo was coated in armor similar to its back, thick plates of tightly woven tendrils. As it leapt at me, a small, double barreled weapon popped out of the armor behind my upraised fist. I¡¯d like to imagine I saw shock in its glowing red eyes as the tight spread of pellets fired from the wrist-mounted shotgun took it full in the face, arresting its movement and causing it crash into the ground in a tangle of limbs. The shotgun was a very close-ranged weapon with limited use. I only had four shots total, two on the right, two on the left.


    I planted my legs as my thrusters turned my maneuver into a sliding stop, whirling to face the last two melee Worms. As I did, I felt a massive impact on my back, strong enough to make the Paladin miss its footing and slightly stumble. A glance at my HUD told me that one of the trackers had made a pass at me. Before I could regain my balance, the second gorilla Assimilator had caught me in a flying tackle, intent on grappling me. I took the fall, disoriented, and we both smashed into the dirt. The alien tried to pin my arms together, to buy time for its friend to get to me, but I grinned within my suit. I would win a strength contest all day long. I broke its hold on me with ease, and to its credit it immediately jumped back, cautious of my strength.


    The two melee Worms watched me for a second, until I ducked a tracker that had been swooping at the back of my head, and then they both lunged at me. I planted my boot in the chest of first and gave a thruster-assisted kick, sending it arcing backwards, while I blocked a wide swing from the second with an upraised arm. The Paladin allowed me to stay steady while doing this, anti-gravs firing in all directions to keep me upright. The one who I had just blocked started raining blows on me, but instead of trying to stop them I just fired my main thrusters and slammed directly into it, bowling it over. The shocked Assimilator rolled onto the ground, and using my momentum I launched into a short hover directly over it, planted a boot on its head, and cancelled the anti-grav thrusters. There was a satisfying crunch as its head was flattened by my falling one-ton weight.


    The last gorilla was sprinting back towards me, recovered from my kick, howling with rage. The trackers buzzed a fairly long way behind it. It looks like they decided to sit the rest of the fight out, which was good news. The approaching gorilla-armadillo, apparently not learning from its friend¡¯s mistake, threw a massive punch at me. I ducked it, then planted my right fist into its heavily-plated side. If the Assimilator was expecting just a punch, it must¡¯ve been surprised when the wickedly sharp, retractable blade over my knuckles cut its armor like butter, tearing deeply into its torso. It screamed as I pulled my arm back through its stomach. The disemboweled Worm pitched forward with a gurgle, limbs flailing ineffectually. As it fell I grabbed its face with my left hand, and squeezed hard. Not sure if you¡¯ve ever smashed an overripe pumpkin, but I imagine the sensation was similar. Its head was crushed by the Paladin¡¯s raw strength, splattering me with tendrils.


    Letting the Worm¡¯s corpse fall to the ground, I checked my HUD for the location of the two trackers. They were currently bugging the fuck out, flying at full tilt towards the north. I was tempted to take them out with anti-aircraft rockets just to test them, but they were flying so low and slow that it would be a waste. Instead, I pulled out my railgun again, the CAS locking on to them, and a few seconds later, both fly-like trackers had been brought down. I took a deep, shaky breath, and lowered my gun. Holy shit.


    I stood there for a second, then shook my head, the Paladin copying my movement. Gotta focus. I walked to each Assimilator I had taken out, making sure they were dead with a quick stomp of my giant metal boot. The CAS was pretty accurate in determining what was alive or not, but a good old fashioned curb stomp was phenomenal insurance. Only two were still drawing breath, both melee types. One was the Worm I had blown the side off of, the other was the one whose legs I destroyed with my first shot. Confirming that none of the Assimilators were going to pop back up like a cheap zombie gag, I breathed a sigh of relief. Okay. Now I just had to get back to the base so I could get this suit off and debrief with Adelaide. I felt like I was forgetting something though.


    My suit picked up the sound of steps in the grass, and I noticed the white dots on my HUD had grown much closer to me, appearing almost directly behind me on my map, and I heard a nervous voice sound out, ¡°Um, sir? Hello?¡±. Oh yeah. The people.

 Chapter 1.22: Burdens

    I turned my Paladin to face them, hoping that I cut a heroic and dashing figure. Who am I kidding, I know I did. A giant suit of white armor makes anyone noble and dashing.


    The group that met my eyes was a surprisingly healthy looking bunch. I was expecting the post-apocalyptic humans to be dirty, with teeth strung around their neck and bones in their hair, but these people seemed fairly normal. There were three of them, two men and a woman, wearing jeans and dusters. The woman was in her fifties, the two men probably in their early twenties. Two of them had short cropped hair, military style, while the last one wore his hair in a ponytail. They were well armed, with militia issued weapons and armor. It wouldn¡¯t have helped them against the number of Assimilators they were up against, but each of them probably could¡¯ve taken one Worm each.


    As I faced them, I could see all three of them looking visibly nervous. A young man, with olive skin and dark hair, was standing slightly in front of the other two. I figured he was the one that had spoken, and my suspicions were confirmed when he spoke again, ¡°Sir,¡± He said politely, ¡°we just wanted to thank you for helping us.¡±


    I intended to respond with something like ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it¡± or ¡°All in a day¡¯s work¡± or a line equally as vaguely reassuring, but I couldn¡¯t get anything other than a strangled squeak out of my mouth, which Adelaide thankfully prevented from leaving the suit¡¯s mic. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn¡¯t seen or talked to anyone in so long, but I didn¡¯t feel like I could find my voice. I settled for a nod instead. I could work with being the strong silent type.


    I realized that I still had my railgun deployed. It closed itself back up at a thought, and I stored it away, earning a visible look of relief from the three survivors. I motioned for them to continue, or at least I hoped I did. I¡¯d never learned sign language.


    The young man looked behind him at his companions for a second, then turned back to me, ¡°We were just travelling between outposts, you see, and got caught by a worm patrol. If you hadn¡¯t been there, I don¡¯t think we would have made it. Which outfit are you a part of? I haven¡¯t seen armor that nice before, since¡­ well, ever.¡± A lot of the fear had already left his eyes as he looked over my suit in awe. I saw his friends looking like a bizarre mixture of scared, resigned, and constipated behind him. Apparently his rather open personality was well known.


    I didn¡¯t answer as my brain was currently on a rollercoaster, attempting to sort out possible responses. I guess they took my internal panicking as a stoic silence, because they shared a quick glance, and this time the older woman spoke to me.


    ¡°What Mike here is trying to say is that we owe you our lives,¡± she said, cautious eyes sweeping over me, ¡°so if you ever need a favor, come over to the Sterling Outpost, and we¡¯ll help you out as best we can. Ask for me, my name¡¯s Mary. We¡¯ll get out of your hair now, so thanks again.¡± She turned and started walking away, signaling the two men to follow. I saw through the optics that she was still shaking slightly with nerves. Silly, if I had wanted to kill them they¡¯d be dead a hundred times over by now. I stood and watched them leave, and I saw Mike give me one last wave as they walked off. When I was sure that they couldn¡¯t see me anymore, I sat on the flat ground, my giant metal robot ass landing with a loud whump.


    My hands were shaking in my suit, the adrenaline finally wearing off. Combat outside the simulator was fucking intense. Everything seemed to move faster, and less predictably. The enemy made movements I hadn¡¯t expected, darted erratically in ways that they hadn¡¯t in the virtual world. Their attacks carried more impact, and the aliens were far more intimidating in the flesh. I hadn¡¯t been in any real danger. The suit could have taken a beating from those Worms all day without a scratch. The rawness of that fight was exhilarating, but also terrifying.


    ¡°Are you okay, Sam?¡±, Adelaide said over the coms, and her voice calmed me down.


    I laughed weakly, ¡°Yeah, that was just more intense than I thought it¡¯d be. Honestly though, trying to talk to those people at the end there was way harder than the fight.¡± I suddenly had I thought, ¡°Hey. Why didn¡¯t you use the suit¡¯s com system to talk to them when you realized I was panicking?¡±


    The reply was prompt, ¡°It was more entertaining to watch you struggle.¡±


    <hr>


    I returned to the base via Ellie. The rapid response shafts, as I had taken to calling them as of about five minutes ago, were awesome for going up, but not so much for going down, an issue I¡¯d fix in future iterations. That was fairly low on my ever-growing list of shit I had to do. The elevator shuddered to a halt on the second floor. I was going to have the spider bots give the Paladin a good once over to make sure there were no issues, and give it a nice scrub to get the dirt and Assimilator goo off. One of the ten reserve Paladins would take its spot in the command center¡¯s Arming Station.


    I gave a quick mental command and the suit rippled open. I stepped out into the Armory, stretching my arms and legs. I felt pretty damn good. Ran in a robot. Blew up some aliens. Saved some people. It had been a good day up until this point. I checked the wrist of my jumpsuit, which had a sleek holopad embedded into it. It was the late afternoon, and I had plenty of time until sunset.


    There was something I still had to do, my brain told me sternly.


    I desperately tried to ignore it, thinking about ways that I could improve the Paladin. Maybe some sort of proximity warning for rapidly approaching foes. I had been taken by surprise by the tracking type worm because I hadn¡¯t kept an eye on my mini-map. That might have gotten me killed in a less advantageous combat situation. My feet were on autopilot as they took me up to the first floor. I was still frustrated at how slowly the Caliburn-R01 fired. I had managed to get the muzzle velocity significantly higher, but cooling remained a difficult bet. The water cooling turned out to be far too bulky, so I had just refined the original heat sinks and called it good for the first attempt. Now that I¡¯ve used it in combat situation, I knew that the slow firing speed was a fatal flaw. The elevator started taking me to the secondary facility.


    ¡°Sam.¡±


    The CAS, on the other hand, had worked absolutely flawlessly. For a normal soldier, the CAS was an incredible luxury. In a Paladin, it was absolutely invaluable. On top of all the things it managed and monitored, the accuracy the system allowed me was nothing short of breathtaking. As opposed to normal linked weapons, which would only shift their barrels to compensate for aim, the Paladin¡¯s CAS could make minute corrections to the position of the weapon by overriding the suits movement. The user still had final control, but the system¡¯s aim assistance could make even the most inexperienced marksman look like a veteran sniper. With that, in addition to the weapons control and thruster management, the CAS was nearly impossible for the Paladin to go without. I couldn¡¯t take credit for it, I had just set some parameters in the program. Whoever had put together that glorious piece of software was a genius.


    ¡°Sam. Are you going to go inside.¡±


    I don¡¯t want to. I don¡¯t want to. I don¡¯t want to.


    But I promised her I would.


    The door to the mess hall loomed in front of me like the gates of hell.


    ¡°Sam, please. We need this.¡±


    I nodded shallowly. She was right. And I promised. My hands were shaking as I walked forward, removing a small, black rectangle from a cord around my neck. It was something I always carried with me. It was the base¡¯s master key, and while I held it I had the highest authority in the facility. Not as high as the top brass, and I couldn¡¯t change all the settings, but it gave me control of the base¡¯s defense and fabricators. I brought it unsteadily towards the large sliding doors, and after a few, painful seconds, pressed it flat onto them, undoing a lockdown I had placed on the room more than seven months ago. The doors slid open with a soft whir, revealing a large, empty room.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    ¡°Take the recorder, Sam,¡± Adelaide said, as a spider bot approached me, carrying an earpiece with an attached camera, ¡°I need to see this too.¡±


    The mass hall was cavernous. It was meant to serve the trainees that would become Paladin pilots. There were dozens of long, plastic tables, complete with benches, that were arranged in neat lines around the room. They looked like oversized picnic tables. I started walking through the hall, my steps echoing on the tiled floors, the sound bouncing around me and dying off in the corners. I moved between the lonely benches. Adelaide was silent as I reached the end of the hall, and stood before the door of the kitchen.


    Panic loomed its ugly head again, and fear bloomed deep within me. But I promised her and I wouldn¡¯t fail her again.


    I pushed on the door and it swung open easily, welcoming me. The kitchen was disproportionately small compared to the mess hall, but that was due to the high amount of automation. One or two chefs could feed the entire base with ease. There were two doors at the back of the kitchen. One led to the massive freezer that stored the base¡¯s long term supplies, which stayed at a constant temperature, the other to a smaller one with temperature control. For more flexible storage. My eyes did not process anything but the door to the smaller freezer. I thought for a wild second that I could hear the sound of a heart beating through its doors, calling to me, but then I realized it was my own, going wild in my chest. I somehow found myself at the door to the smaller freezer. My hand paused on the handle. It was shaking so much worse now, audibly rattling the handle. I steeled myself and pulled it open.


    In the middle of the small, cold room, there was lone figure wrapped in white bed sheets.


    I choked back something in my throat. I couldn¡¯t stop here. I picked the bundle up in my arms, the cold unable to penetrate my jumpsuit. The part of my brain that wasn¡¯t in shock was quietly surprised at how light it was, compared to the last time. I could cradle it in one arm now, if I needed to.


    I walked back through the kitchen, back through the mess hall. I walked past the barracks, back to the elevator to the main facility. I walked past the engineering quarters, and the command center, and the commander¡¯s quarters. I walked to the freight elevator, already waiting for me, a shovel propped up on its rails. I stood on it, the bundle still carefully held in both hands, as it slowly rose to the surface. The massive blast doors above slowly inched open, allowing the golden rays of the sunset to peak in. When the elevator came to a stop, I felt the sun on me for the first time in nine months. I felt the wind on my skin, and I felt the fresh air filling my lungs. The plains stretched around me in all directions, and the sound of the grass rustling filled my ears.


    ¡°Please go to the hill, Sam, the one she liked.¡±


    I nodded, barely keeping myself in control. I cradled my burden in one hand, and picked up the shovel with the other. I don¡¯t know how I got over there. I don¡¯t really remember the walk, beyond the first step onto the dirt. I remember the feeling of the grass brushing against me. I remember the wind ruffling my short hair, and the bedsheets lightly flapping. Before I understood what was happening, I stood at the base of a little hill. I began to climb it, my newly forged body having little trouble with the ascent. When I reached the summit, I saw the old cottonwood tree growing crookedly off the top. I walked up to it, and placed the bundle gently at its base. I put my hand on the gnarled bark of the tree, leaning my weight against it for a moment.


    I took the shovel in both hands, and started to dig, a little way away from the base of the old tree. For a while, all I could hear was the sound of the shovel in the dirt. I did not feel like I was controlling my body as I dug. I was a stranger inside myself, watching through the windows of my eyes as I went deeper and deeper into the ground, shovelful by shovelful. I knew when to stop, though I didn¡¯t understand why I knew. The hole was my height now, about six feet deep. I climbed out of it, and walked over to the tree.


    I knelt by the bundle. I could almost make something out under the wrappings. I was moving to pick it up when I head Adelaide whisper in my ear.


    ¡°Sam. Please let me see her one last time.¡±


    I was worried. ¡°Adelaide, I don¡¯t think that¡¯s such a good idea.¡±


    ¡°Please.¡±


    ¡°¡­ Okay.¡±


    I leaned forward, and with hands that were steady now, I gently pulled apart the sheets, revealing a woman in her early forties with frizzy orange hair and a peaceful smile. Death had sapped the happy glow from her face and closed those blue eyes that had always seemed to dance when she smiled. Over the intercom, I heard Adelaide stifle a sob.


    ¡°Mom.¡±


    We sat there for a moment, and I let her study Amy¡¯s face for as long as she needed to.


    ¡°Okay,¡± she said, voice steadier, ¡°I¡¯m ready.¡±


    I covered her face again, and wordlessly picked her up, carrying her over to the grave. I gingerly lowered myself, one arm holding Amy tight to my chest. I placed her onto the cold dirt floor. I wished I could do something else for her. I wished I could have made her a coffin. But she didn¡¯t want that.


    I climbed up to the surface again, a few pieces of dirt sliding down as I did, landing on Amy¡¯s shroud. I wanted to go down there and wipe them off, even though I knew it was a stupid thought.


    ¡°Do you have anything you want to say to her?¡± I asked.


    There was silence for a moment.


    ¡°Please let her hear me,¡± she said.


    I sent a thought to the earpiece, allowing it to project sound.


    ¡°Mother,¡± she said, her voice cracking, ¡°you were the most wonderful thing that will ever happen to me. I am so lucky, luckier than you¡¯ll ever know, that you were the one that brought me into this world. You gave me a place here. You gave me unconditional love when you didn¡¯t have to. You invited me into your family. You¡­¡± she broke off for a second, and got her voice back under control, though it was still quavering, ¡°you gave me a life that I never realized was the best life I could have lived. You even gave me my best friend, and you were right about him. I¡­ I just wanted to thank you for that, and tell you that I love you so much.¡±


    It was quiet for a while, and the dying sun was painting the sky with swathes of orange and purple.


    ¡°Why did you leave me?¡± Adelaide said suddenly, and I heard her crying into the coms, ¡°You promised me, so why did you leave me, mom?¡±


    She stopped talking then, and all I heard were her quiet sobs. The hilltop was serene, and the chirping of crickets filled the air.


    After I was sure that Adelaide didn¡¯t have anything else she could say, I started to speak. ¡°Hey Amy, it¡¯s me. We¡¯re doing okay down here. It¡¯s uhh,¡± I said, my own voice faltering, ¡°it¡¯s been tough for me since you¡¯ve been gone. I didn¡¯t know you for very long, but you became important to me so fast that I didn¡¯t even realize it. I miss you, a lot, I miss talking to you about your boring computer stuff and looking at pictures of your kids,¡± I stopped talking to wipe something away from my eyes, ¡°Speaking of which, you raised a real handful of a daughter over here. You¡¯d be proud of how much she¡¯s grown. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m going to take good care of her for you. I promise.¡±


    I looked for something else to say, but I didn¡¯t trust myself to keep my composure if I kept going like that.


    ¡°Goodbye Amy,¡± I said finally, ¡°I hope you find the peace you were looking for.¡±


    Adelaide was still crying, and when I asked her if there was anything else she¡¯d like to say, she told me there wasn¡¯t. I picked the shovel back up again, and gently poured the first bit of earth onto her. Another shovelful followed the first, then another, and another, until the white sheet couldn¡¯t be seen anymore, until the ground swallowed Amy up again.


    When all that was left was a smooth mound of dirt, I let shovel drop. There were several large rocks scattered around the hilltop, and I found a good sized one and picked it up. I placed it as a crude headstone, then removed my multitool from one of the jumpsuit¡¯s utility slots.


    ¡°Sam,¡± whispered Adelaide, voice wavering but back under control, ¡°please inscribe the following on the stone.¡±


    I nodded, and followed her directions. I carved away at the stone with the tool¡¯s cutting laser, leaving smooth, clean letters.


    HERE LIES AMY PHILIPS


    MOTHER, SCIENTIST


    HER WORK WAS HER LOVE, HER CHILDREN WERE HER LIFE


    I sat back, and looked over my work.


    ¡°Thank you, Sam,¡± Adelaide said.


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing to thank me for,¡± I replied.


    The sun was almost gone underneath the horizon, and a dark blue light was falling over the plains. Above us, you could almost make out the stars.


    ¡°No,¡± Adelaide said, ¡°thank you for keeping your promise to her.¡±


    I realized my cheeks had been damp for a while now. I sat down, resting my head back onto the cottonwood tree, feeling the rough bark against me, and wept. I cried for my friends. I cried for Amy, for my sarcastic mom and my gentle dad, and for my clever little brother. I cried for Camille, my love, and the fact that I would never again see her beaming at me or hear her pretty laugh. I wept for the world that I had lost, and the people in it.

 Chapter 1.23: Before (III)

    As the huge freight elevator lowered into Camelot, I was almost giddy with excitement. I watched the rays of sunlight be cut off by the blast doors, and I had finally achieved one of my childhood dreams.


    I was in a secret lair. Building a robot army. This was amazing.


    Waiting at the bottom of the elevator was a woman with fizzy orange hair pulled into a ponytail that did little to restrain it. She had something running across her head, a headband maybe. She wore a t-shirt and jeans, which seemed very inappropriate attire for an evil lair.


    When the elevator reached the bottom, she opened her mouth to say something, but I got there first.


    ¡°Your attire is very inappropriate for an evil lair,¡± I told her, ¡°I expected at least a lab coat, maybe with big yellow gloves if you were feeling fancy.¡±


    She stared at me for a second and I realized that I had completely fucked up another relationship before it had even begun. I was just so excited about the lair thing. I was already planning my furious backpedaling as a slow grin formed on her face, and her blue eyes started dancing.


    ¡°What about the large goggles strapped to the top of my head?¡± She asked, pointing them out to me, ¡°don¡¯t they give me any points?¡±


    Oh thank God. She was a weirdo too.


    ¡°And besides,¡± she continued, ¡°What the hell are you wearing?¡± I looked down at my sweatpants, button-down shirt, sloth-emblazoned socks, and sandals, ¡°It looks like you got halfway through dressing and thought, ¡®fuck it¡¯, and judging by the expression on your face I actually hit the nail on the head.¡± She stared at me in amazement, ¡°Holy shit. That is a new level of lazy.¡±


    I smiled at her, and stuck out my hand, ¡°Sam Lewis, Paladin Engineer.¡±


    She took it with a grin, ¡°Amy Philips, AI Specialist.¡±


    I looked around the empty room. ¡°Where¡¯s everyone else? I was told to expect a lot of hero worship from nerds that love robots, and I¡¯m feeling a bit let down that I¡¯m not getting any.¡±


    She gave a snort and said, ¡°Yeah, I dunno which depraved fantasy you pulled that out of, but the briefing was pretty clear that it was just going to be me and you for the next couple months. We¡¯re the only ones actually necessary for making sure this place doesn¡¯t crap out, so we¡¯re the advance team.¡±


    ¡°Pshh,¡± I said, ¡°It¡¯s not like I have time to read.¡± That elicited an eyeroll from her. I paused, then looked at her, confused, ¡°I get why I¡¯m here, the robots and the fabricators, but why were you included in the advance team?¡±


    ¡°Oh, where are my manners,¡± she said, smacking her forehead, ¡°I got totally caught up in your lack of basic social awareness,¡± Hey, I¡¯m not that bad, ¡°and I forgot to introduce you to the most important member of the team. Adelaide, come say hi.¡±


    I looked around for someone else, then felt very stupid as a pleasant female voice came out of the base¡¯s intercoms, ¡°Hello Samuel Lewis, my name is Adelaide. I am the pseudo Artificial Intelligence assigned to CO-21, and am responsible for managing all the discrete functions of the facility, including but not limited to, the autonomous robotic assistants, the fusion reactor, and all life support systems.¡±


    ¡°Huh,¡± I said. I shot a glance over at Amy, who was straight-faced, as if waiting for something, ¡°Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?¡± I said.


    ¡°Sure,¡± said Amy, ¡°but it mi-¡°


    ¡°Oh, no, sorry,¡± I said, ¡°I was talking to Adelaide, though I do have some questions for you too, afterwards.¡±


    She froze like a statue, as if that was the last thing she expected. I hoped I hadn¡¯t insulted her, but I had an actual AI just sitting there waiting for me to pick its brain.


    Adelaide interjected, ¡°I do not mind answering any queries you might have, Mr. Lewis.¡±


    ¡°Awesome,¡± I said with a huge grin, ¡°But first of all, call me Sam. Mr. Lewis makes me sound like a high school history teacher.¡± She made an assenting noise. ¡°Excellent. Okay, now I have a few questions, and you don¡¯t have to answer all of them, alright?¡±


    ¡°Understood, Sam¡± said Adelaide, ¡°I shall answer your queries to the best of my abilities.¡±


    I took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.


    ¡°What¡¯s your favorite color? What¡¯s your birthday, or creation day, or whatever it is you call it, if you even have one? Do you prefer to be referred to as ¡®it¡¯ or ¡®she¡¯? Do you like music? What type? Can you be in multiple places at once? Do you ever surf the internet just to see what¡¯s up? Do you always know exactly what time it is?¡± I stopped, and looked up at the ceiling expectantly. I didn¡¯t know where she actually was, but that seemed to be a safe bet when talking to a building.


    After a few moments of silence, I looked over at Amy, puzzled. For some reason, she looked like she was holding back a huge smile.


    The pseudo-AI, whatever that means, eventually responded to me, ¡°I apologize for taking so long. I have only been asked one of those questions before. I do not have a favorite color. I do not have a birthday, I was created four years, three months, and twelve days prior to this date, or the second of August, 2020. I do not have a gender, but you may refer to me as ¡®she¡¯. I do not have a favorite genre of music, nor do I actively listen to music. A limit of my current capabilities is that I can only ever control one facility, like this base, at a time, though that limit does not include the subsystems. I regularly peruse the internet in order to expand my knowledge base. I am always aware of the time in all major time zones.¡±


    ¡°Hmmm,¡± I said, then turned to Amy, and asked her my question, ¡°Is she capable of learning?¡±


    ¡°Yes, she is,¡± she said.


    ¡°Excellent. She¡¯s going to be hanging out with us a lot these next couple months, so I¡¯m going to teach her to get the stick out of her ass, and make her a bit more sassy.¡± I said, ¡°If that¡¯s okay with you, of course.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± she said, beaming now and no longer hiding it, ¡°that would be very okay with me.¡±


    I grinned at the ceiling, ¡°You hear that Adelaide? I¡¯ve got permission now, so we¡¯re going to work on your attitude, okay?


    ¡°Understood, Sam.¡± I swore I already heard a note of resignation in her voice, which I took as a good sign. I knew right away that this was going to be the start of a beautiful friendship. Amy was stifling giggles as she motioned for me to follow her, and we walked down the hallway.


    ¡°Hey,¡± I said as we walked, ¡°I have a much better name for this place, wanna hear it?¡±


    <hr>


    My room was actually not as bad as I expected it to be. Sure, it was uncomfortably similar to the dorm I used to have at MIT, but at least I had a private bathroom. I set up all my posters on the wall, mostly conceptual Paladin schematics, with a liberal amount of old sci-fi posters thrown in. My model of the StarArc was displayed on one of the two cheap desks. I didn¡¯t have the room to bring the rest of my models, but Camille had assured me that they would be very safe back at home. I knew that meant was she was going to pose them in ways that made them look like they were having sex, then send me photos. I didn¡¯t understand how she made space ships look like they were going to the bone zone, but she was creative in that way.


    I had more important things to be doing than stay in this boring room though. Leaving most of my stuff unpacked, I exited the room and found Amy waiting for me, leaning up against the wall and flicking through her holopad. Upon noticing me, she folded her holopad and put it in her pocket, flashing me a quick smile.


    ¡°Hey,¡± she said to me, ¡°you ready for the tour?¡±


    I nodded rapidly, eliciting a chuckle.


    ¡°Alright, keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle and follow me.¡± She walked down the hall, and I followed obediently like a duckling. ¡°So, the first floor is pretty straight forward. We got the engineering quarters, which is where you, me, and all the other grunts will live, the common area, and the labs. The labs are damn cool, they¡¯re huge and they¡¯ve got some neat toys in them. I¡¯m in there pretty much all the time, so if you can¡¯t find me look there first. Or you can just save yourself some time and ask Adelaide, she monitors all the security feeds. Up ahead,¡± she gestured, ¡°are the command center and the commander¡¯s quarters. The command center is for when the military starts using this place as an actual bunker and training facility. It¡¯s got a huge holograph projector, so I use it for movies sometimes. The commander¡¯s quarter is for the VIPs. I¡¯ve poked around in there and it¡¯s super swanky.¡± She then gestured at a couple of metal doors, ¡°That¡¯s an elevator that goes to the secondary facility, where the trainee barracks, gym and mess hall are. It¡¯s boring as hell though and really creepy, so I never go there. We have a small kitchen and store room in the main facility so there''s no reason to. I might check it out once they get the simpods installed next week, but we¡¯ll see.¡±


    She took me down a set of stairs, talking as she went, ¡°This floor is the armory, and it¡¯s where all the Paladins will be stored.¡± We paused on a landing that overlooked the floor, the automated lights coming on in rows. The room was huge, and the ceilings gleamed with empty racks. They looked lonely, but I¡¯d fix that soon. Amy continued, ¡°It¡¯s pretty barebones, honestly. There are a few consoles around, and the freight elevator passes through here, but not much other than that. I think you¡¯ll find the third floor much more interesting.¡± We continued down the stairs until we reached one of the most wonderful sights I¡¯d ever seen.


    ¡°My God,¡± I whispered, ¡°It¡¯s beautiful.¡±


    It was a large room, as large as the one above. But while the second floor was barren and lonely, this one contained something incredible. Fabricators, as far as the eye could see. Ten of them, and they were massive, the biggest I''d ever seen. They towered to the ceiling; there was only enough room between them for a narrow walkway flanked by safety rails. They were all a dull matte grey, but that only made them look sexy and utilitarian. At the moment, they lay silent, waiting patiently to create.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    I had to resist the urge to sprint over to the nearby by console-attached mental interface and make a scale-model of the StarArc, which is how I broke in all my fabricators. I settled for just staring at them for a minute, eyes greedily drinking in their glory. I stood there until Amy gently cleared her throat.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said in a hushed voice, ¡°it''s just¡­ I mean they told me about it in the briefings, but to see them in person¡­ it''s just something else.¡±


    Amy raised an eyebrow at me, ¡°Damn. I gotta find a woman that looks at me the way you look at fabricators.¡±


    I waved my hand at her, ¡°I already got mine, you aren''t looking hard enough.¡± With visible effort, I wrenched my gaze away from the grey beauties. ¡°Is this our last stop on this magical tour?¡± I asked.


    Amy looked contemplative. ¡°Well,¡± she said drawing out the word, ¡°The three floors below us are all material storage, but only the supply drones go down there. The Fusion Reactor is shockingly boring. It''s just a big metal sphere in the middle of a room. So yeah, that''s about it. Why?¡±


    ¡°First off, thank you for the tour, it was quite informative,¡± I said gratefully, ¡°but now, I must ask you to leave us. I have some new friends to get to know.¡±


    ¡°Uhh,¡± she said cautiously, ¡°Alrighty then. Well, ask Adelaide for anything else you need, I guess. Dinner is at 1800 hours in the common room if you want it.¡±


    She started walking back up the stairs, pausing to look over her shoulder at me. ¡°Hey Sam. Don''t... Don''t have sex with the fabricators okay?¡±


    Please. As if I had any intention of defiling them with my unworthy body.


    <hr>


    Life in the base entered a comfortable rhythm for the next month and a half. Camille hadn¡¯t joined me on my journey to Camelot. She had to finish working on the final update to the Paladin¡¯s mental scanner. I talked to her twice a day or more, to Amy¡¯s disgust. Our unique introduction had blown away any of the usual awkwardness you''d expect from absolute strangers suddenly having to live together with very little outside contact, and me and Amy hit it off famously. I learned quickly that while she could be as acerbic and witty as my mother, which was a high bar, she was also easy going, and very rarely stubborn. Also, brilliant.


    She had been working in her field for nearly thirty years, and pioneering it for the last ten. I had never been tuned into the AI scene, but it turned out she was the equivalent of a rock star in it. To date, Adelaide remained the only thing even close to true artificial intelligence. Though she hadn¡¯t been able to replicate the series of events that led to Adelaide¡¯s creation, it did little to lessen her prestige. Amy hadn''t published any papers in the past two years. The only public statement she made stated that she was developing something ''big¡¯. I asked her about it, and she laughed and told me that spilling the beans would only ruin the surprise.


    While alcohol technically wasn''t allowed here, we''d both smuggled a decent amount in. The security guards that checked our luggage either didn''t notice or didn''t give a shit. We''d been swapping stories about our various romantic escapades over glasses of wine. Well, hers mostly. Considering Camille was my first, and very likely last, relationship, my escapades were rather boring. She was still very interested though.


    ¡°Wait. Hold up.¡± She said, ¡°You two have never had a real fight?¡±


    ¡°I wouldn''t say that. I mean, one time she wouldn''t talk to me for a few hours because I watched A New Hope without her. We have a tradition to marathon the trilogy every six months, but some of my friends wanted to see it on movie night and she was working late.¡± I said.


    She looked unconvinced, so I tried again, ¡°Hmm¡­ oh yeah! About a year ago, there was this band I really wanted to see. They barely ever toured, and when they did the tickets sold out in a few minutes, tops. The day the tickets were gonna become available, I asked her to get them for me,¡± I stopped, confused, ¡°Huh. I don''t remember why I didn''t just get them myself. Not important. Anyway, she basically slept through the entire pre-sale and didn''t get the tickets. Man, I was pissed. That night was the closest I''ve ever come to turning down sex.¡± I finished my story, chuckling.


    She was glaring at me. ¡°That is such fucking bullshit. There you are, a skinny little dildo, and you get the perfect woman,¡± I opened my mouth to object to that description, but she talked over me, ¡°and I, the sexy redhead, get the hellspawn. My first girlfriend lit my fucking car on fire because she thought I was cheating on her. I was at bingo night for Christ¡¯s sake.¡± She took a deep breath, ¡°And don''t even get me started on my ex-wife. She was a real piece of work, let me tell you what. Thank God that judge was sane and gave me full custody of the kids. One time, she stopped our children from getting flu shots because she thought the doctor looked, and I quote, ''too Oriental¡¯¡±. She growled that last part. She took a huge gulp out of her wine glass. ¡°But I''m not bitter or anything.¡±


    I stared at her. This was a side of Amy that I had not expected. I decided to steer the conversation back into safer waters.


    ¡°So,¡± I said, smoothly changing subjects, ¡°How are the kids anyway? Heard from them recently?¡±


    She brightened up immediately, ¡°Oh they¡¯re great! Dillon is almost done with his school project. His diorama of the Battle of the Bering Strait is coming along amazingly. Carrie is finally getting over her fear of bikes, and Lilah sent a drawing of me. Well, it was either me or a house on fire, but it¡¯s a little too soon for her to be an arsonist, right?¡± She continued on that vein for a few minutes, and I nodded along as my eyes glazed over.


    If she was anything else, Amy was a devoted mother. She was head over heels for her kids. One of the walls of her room was completely covered in photos of them, some of crucial moments, like their first steps, others just banal shots of them sitting around the house. There was suddenly a silence and I realized that Amy was staring at me expectantly. Oh shit, time to guess if she wants me to agree or disagree. ¡°I completely agree¡± I said, nodding serenely.


    ¡°It¡¯s ridiculous!¡± She said. Nailed it. ¡°I still can¡¯t believe that they gave you the ability to call your girlfriend whenever you get itchy balls, but I can¡¯t talk to my kids except for twice a week! It¡¯s completely insane!¡± Ah damn, it was my fault somehow. It looks like wine really brought out the irrational anger, and with the amount she was swaying, she¡¯d had way more than I thought.


    ¡°Well,¡± I said, looking for the right thing to say, ¡°I¡¯m technically collaborating on the Paladin with her, which is a legitimate reason for us to contact each other.¡± As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I had made a huge mistake.


    ¡°OH, so your shitty robotic science fair project is a legitimate fucking reason, but talking to my kids isn¡¯t? It¡¯s just prejudice I tell you. An alien scourge breaks out, and suddenly if you have children you¡¯re an evil bitch. Nobody seems to give a shit that they¡¯re adopted, just that they fucking exist in the first place!¡± Her breast was heaving, eyes wild with rage.


    I was panicking. I had to calm her down. What did I say in this situation?


    I nodded serenely. ¡°I completely agree.¡±


    ¡°What!?¡± She shrieked. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.


    ¡°I mean, I completely agree with how shitty and unfair this whole thing is! You should be commended for taking those kids in. You¡¯ve given them a phenomenal, loving home. Nobody should ever condemn you for that.¡±


    Her glare faded, replaced with suspicion. ¡°Don¡¯t fucking patronize me,¡± she slurred, and passed out.


    <hr>


    Adelaide and I were watching a movie the next morning in the common room. It had been a sort of habit that Camille had started. We¡¯d get caught up working, and stay so late into the night we never had the chance to watch movies. Still, she was insistent we find a time for them. The mornings worked for some reason. It wasn¡¯t often, once a week or so, but it was always a pleasant time. I felt a little guilty continuing it without her, but she didn¡¯t seem to have a problem with it. Anyway, one morning Adelaide asked me what I was watching. That was a rarity in and of itself. Adelaide never really started conversations, usually only responding to questions or commands. I had been watching Top Gun, and invited her to join me, telling her that movies were always more fun with a friend. Since then she had become my movie buddy.


    We were halfway through Die Hard 2 when Amy stumbled into the room, groaning like the dead. She flopped into an armchair next to me, and buried her head in her hands. I had been prepared for this, and handed her a glass of water and a couple of aspirin. She took them gratefully.


    ¡°How ya feeling, champ,¡± I said with true sympathy. Wine hangovers were a bitch.


    ¡°I feel like there¡¯s an African drum circle playing in my head.¡± She moaned, ¡°I haven¡¯t been this hungover in years.¡± She curled up in the armchair, whimpering slightly. As much as I pitied her, I was also a dick, so I laughed out loud at her obvious pain and misery. She gave me a shaky middle finger, but a loud noise from the movie made her wince in agony and go into the fetal position. I considered pausing it, but Adelaide seemed really into this one. She hadn¡¯t offered to get Amy anything, which was weird because she was constantly fawning over her.


    Near the part where the airplane starts exploding, Amy finally struggled upright in her chair. She looked over at me, really seeing what was going on for the first time that morning. ¡°Why are you watching a movie at 7:30 AM with a spider bot,¡± She blearily asked. Poor dear.


    ¡°Hey, that¡¯s not just any spider bot, that¡¯s a spider bot with a security camera duct-taped to its chassis,¡± I said indignantly, ¡°and I always watch movies in the morning. If you didn¡¯t sleep in till 11:00 every morning you¡¯d know that.¡±


    She took longer than she should have to absorb that information. ¡°I get the movie thing but I¡¯m still not understanding the spider bot,¡± she said.


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s just so Adelaide can watch the movie with me.¡± I replied easily, ¡°Now hush, McClane is doing something cool.¡± He was always doing something cool but that was beside the point.


    ¡°Hold up. What?¡± She looked incredibly confused, ¡°What do you mean? How does a spider bot let her watch the movie?¡±


    ¡°I can answer that, Amy,¡± chimed in Adelaide from the base¡¯s PA, ¡°Three weeks ago, I asked Sam what film he was viewing. He requested I join him, and I obliged. However, when he began the film, he asked me why I wasn¡¯t viewing it with him. When I told him that I was, in fact, analyzing the pixels in the holoprojector in order to observe the film, he became noticeably upset.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± I interjected, outraged, ¡°who the hell watches a movie like that!? I mean, that¡¯s missing the whole point!¡± There was a pause, and I looked at the ceiling sheepishly, ¡°Sorry that I interrupted you, go ahead.¡±


    Adelaide continued, ¡°As I was saying, he became upset, and became insistent that I view the film as he did. To that end, he found a spider bot and attached a spare security camera to it, then told me to view the film through that. I was skeptical at first, but I must say that it is far more interesting to view the film in this way.¡±


    I nodded, very satisfied, ¡°I was gonna have none of that analyzing pixels bullshit. If you¡¯re going to watch the classics you¡¯re going to do it with respect.¡± I looked over at Amy, ¡°You know what I¡¯m talking about, right?¡±


    To my surprise, she was staring at me with her mouth hanging wide open. You could have driven a hovertank through it. She started trying to say something, her jaw opening and closing, but all that came through was a weird squeaking noise. She stopped for a while, and collected herself. By this point I had paused the movie, because I was getting sick of being interrupted during the good bits.


    She finally found the words, ¡°What possibly possessed you to ask her to watch the movie through a video camera?¡±


    I looked at her, my turn to be confused, ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I? I mean, she wanted to watch it, and whatever bullshit she was doing wasn¡¯t watching it.¡± I paused. ¡°Wait. Are you telling me she¡¯d never actually seen a movie before I got here?¡±


    ¡°That is correct Sam,¡± Adelaide said, ¡°though it is misleading. I have analyzed almost every movie produced, which is a far more efficient way to observe the medium.¡±


    I was getting seriously worried now. ¡°Have you ever physically read a book, or looked at a painting, or listened to music?¡± I asked her.


    ¡°No, I have not.¡± She replied, ¡°though I have physically ¡®heard¡¯ music from open environments, I automatically filtered it to avoid impacting my efficiency.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s just plain wrong,¡± I said, offended at the thought.


    Amy stroked her chin, looking very interested and slightly less hungover, ¡°I never thought of encouraging her to consume media via methods that were human in nature. She¡¯s just so quick to understand digital formats, it never seemed necessary. Seeing as Adelaide is enjoying the ¡®manual¡¯ movie watching, we should try having her listen to some music next.¡±


    ¡°I would not be opposed to that course of action,¡± Adelaide said.


    I sighed, ¡°I can¡¯t believe movie morning turned into an experiment. Alright, fine, if we¡¯re going to do this we¡¯d better do it right. I got into collecting vinyl in high school, and I always bring them and a record player with me whenever I move. There¡¯s no better way to listen to the blues than that.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s an excellent idea, Sam. Can I come with you to get them? I¡¯d like to help out,¡± Amy said, jumping to her feet, practically bursting with excitement.


    ¡°Sure,¡± I said, ¡°but sit your ass down. We¡¯re going to finish this movie first.¡±

 Chapter 1.24: Before (IV)

    We sat in the common room and listened to music together, the three of us, on the record player I had lugged out of my room. I didn¡¯t attend to the usual tasks of checking on the fabricators, trusting the alarms I had set up. Adelaide listened in through an earpiece I had modified, held by Amy. We listened to The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, The Beatles. Freddy Mercury and David Bowie featured heavily. I belted out Dancing Queen in a wicked soprano for my appreciative audience while Amy laughed hysterically. Most of my vinyl were classics, so we didn¡¯t get as far into the contemporary stuff as I¡¯d like, but we had plenty of time to get to them.


    After that, we moved onto a crash course of the literary world, by which I mean that Amy and myself brainstormed a list of all the quintessential novels and books that had to be read. We threw so many books on there that I was worried she wouldn¡¯t be able to finish them all. The only one we disagreed on was the Bible. Amy was a sort-of-Christian, so she wanted it there, but I argued it was manufactured tripe that would just fill the impressionable lass with stupid ideology. We compromised on adding every holy book we could think of, making it a historical venture as opposed to a religious one. Adelaide stayed out of that one. She was wise beyond her years in that regard.


    At some point, I got it into my head that forcing Adelaide to recite poetry out loud would do her wonders. Hearing her stiff, almost robotic voice read aloud Robert Frost¡¯s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening was bizarre, to say the least. I was having an absolute blast, the most fun I¡¯d had without Camille for years. I couldn¡¯t wait to introduce them to her. She would fit right into our wacky little group.


    We were having so much fun that it took us far too long to notice all the notifications that started popping up on our holopads. I grabbed mine off the table, noticing I had missed over two dozen calls from Camille, and fourteen from my parents. Icy fear washed over me, and I thought for a second that my brother had been in an accident. Then I realized that Amy¡¯s was also blowing up, and she had gone pale as sheet. I had a horrible suspicion that I knew what was going on. My holopad started vibrating again, Camille¡¯s face appearing on it, and I answered her call, strangely numb. The moment it connected, I heard her voice come through, softly.


    ¡°Have you heard?¡± she asked me.


    ¡°No. But I can guess.¡±


    ¡°No, you can¡¯t,¡± her voice was quavering and I wanted to hold her so badly. ¡°They took Alaska a few hours ago. They took Anchorage. It was over so quickly Sam.¡±


    ¡°Oh God,¡± I gasped, ¡°what about the army?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re gone Sam, they¡¯re all gone.¡±


    No. That couldn¡¯t be possible.


    ¡°What about the forts? The supercarrier group in the Bering sea?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know exactly what happened, but a video came out an hour ago, where the Joint Chiefs said that there are new types of Assimilators beyond anything we¡¯ve ever seen.¡±


    ¡°Are you okay?¡± I asked her.


    ¡°No. I¡¯m scared Sam.¡±


    ¡°Okay. You¡¯re going to be okay.¡± I talked quickly, a plan coming together, ¡°You¡¯re going to come out here as fast as you possibly can. We¡¯ll be safe. I¡¯m going to pull some strings to get our families out here too. But I need you to get here now. Can you do that for me?¡±


    ¡°But we¡¯re so close to being done,¡± she said, ¡°we¡¯re so close.¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter Camille,¡± I was trying to stay calm, but the thought of losing her was making me panic, ¡°Nothing matters except that you¡¯re safe. Please, I¡¯m begging you. Nothing else matters to me. I can¡¯t lose you.¡±


    There was a short silence.


    ¡°Okay, Sam. Can you give me the coordinates? I¡¯ll try to get the military to take me there but I don¡¯t know if they will. I¡¯ll drive out there myself if they won¡¯t. Also, can you fabricate me new clothes at the base? I don¡¯t want to deal with packing.¡±


    ¡°Good thinking. I can fabricate them for you, and I¡¯ll try to get those coordinates. Hold on for a second.¡± I said.


    I looked at Amy, who was furiously writing something on her holopad. ¡°Amy, can you get me the coordinates to the base?¡± She ignored me. ¡°Amy, please. I need to get Camille here.¡± She looked up at that. I knew she could get them. She had complete access to the base. They¡¯d left her in charge.


    We made eye contact. The coordinates were highly classified. If she gave them to me and anybody found out, she would be thrown in prison. But that didn¡¯t matter now. ¡°Okay,¡± she replied, almost immediately, ¡°but I have to get in contact with my kids first. I¡¯m sorry Sam.¡±


    I nodded at her gratefully.


    ¡°Did you hear that Camille,¡± I said into the holopad, ¡°I¡¯m going to get them to you as fast as possible. Just try to get out of there, in an armored car if you can.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll say that I¡¯m about to make a breakthrough and that I need to be onsite to do it,¡± she said, calming down now.


    ¡°Perfect.¡± It was going to be okay.


    I saw Amy turn the holoprojector to the news. I wasn¡¯t paying attention, trying to iron out the plan with Camille as we brainstormed ways to get our families here. She was multitasking, attempting to get through to someone, anyone, that could get her out here. She had put me on speakerphone on her private holopad while she was using her work one to make calls. There was no way I was going to hang up on her now.


    About thirty minutes had passed when I heard Amy gasp out loud, and I turned to the holograph.


    ¡°Oh no.¡± I whispered.


    California was gone, and the satellite images showed them spreading west like a plague. I didn¡¯t understand how that was even possible. How could they move that fast? They were in Alaska just a few hours before. How did they overwhelm the reserves? How -


    Oh no. Oh God no.


    ¡°Camille, I¡¯m going to be quiet for a minute, I need to grab my spare holopad from my room. Yell if you need something.¡± I was already running to the engineer¡¯s quarters, running as fast as I could. I left Amy standing in the common area, yelling something into her holopad. I burst through the door to my room and rooted through my desk for my old holopad. I put the one that was connected to Camille on my desk. On my spare, I dialed a number I had known by heart for most of my life.


    ¡°Hi, you¡¯ve reached Haley Lewis. I can¡¯t get to the phone right now, so leave me a message.¡±


    I hung up and tried again, and again. I left her a message on the fourth try, ¡°Hey mom, its Sam. When you get this call me as soon as you can, I need to know that you¡¯re safe.¡± I called my dad, then my brother, and I left the same message for each of them. I was almost in tears by the end of the last call. I heard Camille talking to someone over the holopad, and I forced away my emotions. I needed to be focused. I needed to keep her safe. That¡¯s the only thing I could do right now. I suddenly felt a jolt of horror.


    How old were those satellite images?


    ¡°Camille!¡± I yelled, ¡°You need to get out of there right now!¡±


    She sounded confused as she responded, a few seconds later, ¡°I¡¯m just getting off hold now, I¡¯ll be able to talk to someone, wh-¡°


    ¡°No! They¡¯ve already taken California, and the satellites on the news showed them in Nevada. Their most recent images are an hour old, at the very least. You need to get out of Denver, now, they might be hitting it any minute.¡±


    There was a sharp intake of breath over the phone, and I heard her start walking, ¡°Okay, I¡¯m heading to my car, and I¡¯m just going to drive east as far as I can. They took California? That shouldn¡¯t be possible. They must have hit it at the same time they hit Alaska¡­ Christ, they can perform amphibious assaults now. And the fact that they¡¯re already through to Nevada means that they have fast air transports as well. That¡¯s what they¡¯ve been doing for the past months, they¡¯ve been making new types and oh my God.¡± I knew she¡¯d get there eventually, but it still hurt when she did. I didn¡¯t hear the sound of footsteps anymore, ¡°Sam¡­ Your parents, are they okay?¡±


    ¡°Keep moving Camille,¡± I said, and I heard her do so, ¡°I haven¡¯t heard anything from them, but they don¡¯t live in the city, so maybe they¡¯re okay. With the rate that the Assimilators are moving, they can¡¯t be hitting anything but the major cities. That¡¯s why we need to get you out of Denver as soon as possible.¡± I hoped with a pang of guilt that not many people had put the clues together. Camille couldn¡¯t deal with traffic right now. I wasn¡¯t stupid enough to tell her that though. I¡¯m sure she realized it too.


    ¡°Okay,¡± she said, ¡°I¡¯m in the car. I¡¯m keeping you connected, but I¡¯ll be driving manually so I need to concentrate.¡±


    ¡°Alright,¡± I said, ¡°whatever you need.¡±


    I picked up both holopads, slipping the older one into my pocket but making sure its ringer was on the loudest setting. I started heading back to the common room, trying to find Amy. I wondered why nobody had contacted us. There should be VIPs heading over here. We were in an incredibly secure installation, and we had room to spare. We should be an evac point for the military, but nobody was letting us know.


    When I got into the common room, I saw that Amy was no longer there. I hoped that she was getting me the coordinates for Camille. The holoprojector was still on, but there was something bizarre happening. Instead of the National Security Broadcast, a Washington based, government run news group that was committed to providing information on the Assimilators, there was a local news station up. The NSB should have been broadcasted over every channel for something like this, as it had been earlier. It was weird, but I had more important things to do, like finding Amy. As I was turning to go check the command center, I heard the newscaster say something impossible, his voice cracking with nerves.


    ¡° ¨C all unconfirmed, but our reports indicate that both Miami and Washington D.C. have both fallen to the Assimilator threat. Again, these are unconfirmed reports, but both our affiliate stations in those cities have gone completely dark, and President Rothschild¡¯s broadcast was suddenly cut off. We¡¯ll keep you updated as ¨C¡°


    I had already stopped listening at that point. If it there was any hope before, any at all, it was gone now. Humanity was already done. The last bastion had fallen, and all we could do was run and hide. I needed those coordinates. But then I remembered something. Amy¡¯s kids lived in Washington. I picked up my pace. I had to find her.


    I reached the command center and looked around. Amy wasn¡¯t there. Okay. That was fine. I hadn¡¯t heard from Camille in a while, so I checked in. ¡°Hey,¡± I said into the holopad, ¡°you still doing okay?¡± After a few, terrifying seconds, I heard her say, ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m almost out of Denver, and I-70 is still mostly clear, but something weird is going on here, Sam.¡±Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°What''s happening?¡± I said, panicking.


    ¡°They''re playing Hey There Delilah on the radio. That seems super inappropriate for the end of the world.¡± She said in a serious voice.


    ¡°Oh my God, fuck you Camille,¡± I said with a strangled laugh of relief, ¡°that scared the shit out of me. That was just cruel.¡±


    ¡°I know, but it got you to laugh. You''re don''t think straight when you''re freaking like this. Calm down, think clearly, and we can get me to you.¡±


    She was right. ¡°Okay,¡± I said, ¡°I love you.¡±


    ¡°I know.¡± She said in a terrible Harrison Ford impression. She then switched to a more serious tone, ¡°What''s going on Sam? The news broadcasts are talking about Washington and Miami but the audio is fuzzy.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re gone,¡± I said simply, ¡°The Assimilators must''ve attacked them when they hit California. It looks like it was a four-way assault, at least.¡±


    ¡°We are so fucked.¡± Camille said.


    ¡°Yup.¡±


    ¡°Amy¡¯s kids?¡±


    ¡°I don''t know. I haven''t seen her for a while, she¡¯s probably trying to get a hold of them.¡±


    ¡°Shit. Where have you looked?¡±


    ¡°Common room and command center, I¡¯m going to check the labs next, she¡¯s usually there.¡±


    I found it odd that Adelaide was so silent. She might just be trying to help out Amy. I walked down the halls quickly, heading to the lab she had claimed as her own. My brain was still trying to reconcile the true level of screwed that we were. The AOA army had probably been completely annihilated, or at least bogged down so much in Alaska they couldn¡¯t do anything to help. California had all the naval bases for the Pacific Fleet, and held most of the AOA reserve forces. Miami, well, Cape Canaveral, still launched the majority of our spacecraft. Washington DC was the strategic and symbolic capital of the remnants of humanity, and held our brightest military minds. With their blitzkrieg, that Assimilators had completely wiped out any chance of an organized human resistance. And they¡¯d done it in under twelve hours. The organization and sheer scale necessary for this assault was far beyond anything they had ever displayed in the past, anything that humanity had ever displayed. We thought we had learned to never underestimate our foe. We were wrong.


    While Denver was also a prime target for the aliens, with its insane number of research facilities, we had the distinct advantage of being far from any coast. It would take hours for the Assimilators to get here, even with fast air transport. The city also had a good-sized garrison stationed in it. All of that bought precious time for Camille to get out of dodge.


    I reached Amy¡¯s lab. She wasn¡¯t in it. Where the fuck was she? What was she doing? My last bet was her quarters, but she very rarely went there. I exited an empty room yet again, and walked back through the halls. Then I heard Camille¡¯s voice come in over the holopad.


    ¡°Hey Sam.¡± She sounded scared, but calm, ¡°I love you. You¡¯ve made these past years so amazing. I love you so, so much and I¡¯m so lucky I found you, you¡¯re my best friend and I wish I co-¡° her voice cut out.


    No no no no no no no.


    ¡°Camille? Camille, this isn¡¯t funny.¡± I said into the holopad. There was no response and I realized the call wasn¡¯t connected. I dialed her back. There was just the dial tone, a holdover from simpler times. I dialed again, and again, and again, just standing there in the middle of the hallway, and it never went through.


    This couldn¡¯t be happening. She was out of the city. She was safe.


    The net just went down, I realized, calming myself. The satellite connection would still be up though, so I¡¯d check the holoprojector and see what was going on. Maybe the Assimilators had started their assault by knocking out the net, but it would take hours for them to break through Denver¡¯s defenses. I noticed idly that I was sprinting towards the common room. There was something wrong though. It looked like the channel had been changed. There was a Houston news station up, not a local one. I flipped through the channels but they were all either static or that Houston station. It made no sense. I decided to listen in, while repeatedly calling Camille¡¯s number.


    ¡°There is a lot of confusion going around right now,¡± The terrified looking reporter was saying, ¡°And there is a line of cars in all directions, leaving the city.¡± The camera panned out to show the mother of all traffic jams, ¡°After the news that the Assimilators had taken Washington DC broke, just ten minutes ago, we have seen an evacuation on a scale that is unprecedented.¡±


    Suddenly it cut to a studio, featuring a grim-faced reporter ¡°I¡¯m going to have to cut you off, Maria,¡± the reporter said, ¡°We¡¯re just getting word now that our reporters in Denver have stopped responding. We are about to play some of their last footage. Please be warned, it is not comforting. I urge everyone in the city of Houston to make their way into less populated areas of the city, and out of it if possible. Do not pack your bags. Take cars until you hit traffic, then walk. Just leave, in any way you can.¡±


    What was shown next was worse than I had ever imagined. Denver was burning. The city was being destroyed from the inside out. The air was alive with gunfire and there were tracer rounds flying through the air. But the most shocking thing, more shocking than seeing my home burn in front of my eyes, was what was being lit up by the spotlights. A half dozen massive, black objects loomed in the sky, like high-rises laying horizontally. I actually gasped when I realized that they were giant, distorted Assimilators, somehow suspended in the air. The camera zoomed in, and a nauseous feeling welled up. I couldn¡¯t tell what animal they had been, but that wasn¡¯t important. In amongst the tendrils that composed their bodies were dozens of strips of metal, shining in the fires from the city. And embedded in those metal strips were what I recognized as anti-grav thrusters, lifted directly from human aircraft, hovertanks, and mobile fortresses. I couldn¡¯t believe my eyes. None of our tech was capable of lifting something that size into the air. They must have improved them, somehow. Boosted the power, made it more efficient.


    But that didn¡¯t matter right now. Camille did. And I had to find a way to get in contact with her. I was ignoring what I knew, what that little voice in the back of my head was whispering. I just had to get her the coordinates, somehow, and she could be safe. Or, I realized, cursing my stupidity, I would just go to her. The obvious solution, what I should have done from the beginning. I would get in a Paladin suit, and go find her. Their scanners were phenomenal, and without using weapons and combat maneuvering they could run indefinitely. I didn¡¯t know how to pilot one but that was a secondary concern. I could find her and bring her back.


    I just needed those fucking coordinates.


    I stormed out of the room. There was only one place she could possibly be. I started hammering on the door of Amy''s room in the engineer¡¯s quarters. ¡°Amy!¡± I yelled, ¡°Amy, open up! I need those coordinates now. Please Amy! I have to go save her!¡± There was no response. I pounded on the door for three straight minutes, so hard my hand went from painful to numb to excruciating. I stopped, running back down the halls. She hadn¡¯t answered, the door was locked, and I didn¡¯t have time for this.


    I tore down the stairs to the Armory. In the end, it didn¡¯t matter if we couldn¡¯t get back to the base. I just had to get to her in a Paladin suit and then I could protect her. I sprinted to the console and entered a series of commands that would lower one of the Paladins. There were more of them now, sitting in their racks in their default state, unpainted metal that shined a blue-grey. One of the suits began to descend, and I approached it. I didn¡¯t have a jumpsuit on, but again, that didn¡¯t matter. I still hadn¡¯t been able to reach her holopad, and I knew that every second I lost was a second that something could happen. The suit landed with a soft clunk. I walked up to it, waiting for it to open for me as I had designed it to. It just stood there, immobile.


    ¡°What the hell,¡± I growled, and started to say every command I knew of to make the damn thing open up. When that failed, I started pulling on parts of the suit like a madman. It wouldn¡¯t budge. I started panicking.


    ¡°Adelaide!¡± I yelled, ¡°Adelaide, I need help!¡±


    There was silence for a minute and I was scared that she was too busy to answer me.


    ¡°Yes, Sam?¡± She said finally.


    ¡°Oh thank God. Adelaide, can you figure out why this suit won¡¯t open?¡± I said, relieved. Alright, back on track.


    ¡°Sam. I apologize, but I am not able to override the minimum Pilot Requirement on the Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit.¡±


    Oh fuck. I forgot about that. I had designed it myself, like an idiot. It was an irreversible biometric lock, hardcoded in and backed up by hardware built into the suit. It stopped anybody other than a certified Paladin pilot from entering a suit, to prevent people whose bodies couldn¡¯t handle the strain from dying. Needless to say, I wasn¡¯t certified. I tried to think of a way to override it but was coming up blank. I¡¯d need control of the base to certify myself, and Amy was completely AWOL. I didn¡¯t have the time to change the Paladin¡¯s firmware right now, and even if I could there was the hardware lock that was essentially impossible to break. I wouldn¡¯t be leaving here with a suit.


    Fine. I¡¯d go on foot. I walked to the freight elevator in the Armory, and called it. The display showed that it was at the sixth floor for a material pickup, and showed its achingly slow progress up.


    ¡°What are you doing, Sam?¡± asked Adelaide.


    ¡°I need to leave the base, Adelaide,¡± I said calmly, ¡°I need to go find Camille. I was planning on doing it in a Paladin, but there¡¯s no way I can get one working in time. So, I¡¯ll go find her on foot.¡± It just made sense.


    ¡°I am sorry, Sam,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°But the base was placed in emergency Lockdown upon the destruction of Fort Rothschild. You cannot leave.¡±


    I froze. The lockdown. The goddamned lockdown. I thought of Amy immediately, she had control of the base. But I realized with a sinking feeling that it didn¡¯t matter. An emergency lockdown was completely irrevocable. It was a worst-case scenario fallback. It would block all communications to and from the base, and sever the satellite uplink for 48 hours. It would also seal the facility, locking the massive blast doors tight. It was the perfect defense, meant to prevent anyone or anything from finding the base.


    I couldn¡¯t leave. I couldn¡¯t go to her. Now, of all times, when she needed me most, I was stuck in this underground coffin. I started to hyperventilate, the walls closing in around me.


    I forced myself to calm down. I couldn¡¯t have a panic attack now, that wouldn¡¯t help anything. I would need to go to my room to think of a new plan, sit at my desk where I could focus, map something out. I was walking up the stairs, taking them two at a time, but taking care not to run. One of my dad¡¯s sayings flashed through my head but it hurt too bad to think about him, so I forced it away. There would be time for that later.


    Before I realized it, I was at my room, standing at the threshold. I walked through confidently, but when the door closed behind me, I found myself unable to move. I just had to get over to my desk. If I just got over there, I could start finding a way past this asinine lockdown, and figure out how to go find her.


    She¡¯s dead


    No. She was fine, already out of Denver when they started to attack. I just needed to go to her.


    When she cut out she was speaking to you like it was the last time.


    That didn¡¯t mean anything, she could have been saying that because she knew communications were going down.


    Listen to yourself. You know better than this. You know how the Assimilators hunt. She¡¯s dead, and she¡¯s not coming back.


    She¡¯s not dead. She isn¡¯t. I would know, I would feel it. Something would have changed.


    It already has.


    I dialed her number, over and over and over and over, so many times that I lost track, forgetting the emergency lockdown. Every time that damn tone, mocking me. I couldn¡¯t get through to her. There were so many thoughts running through my head, so many plans that I came up with and dismissed. I lost track of time, but at some point, I realized that I had sat down on the floor, my knees curled to my chest. By the end my thought process was so fuzzy that all the concepts going through my mind seemed to shrink and grow, and when they got small I couldn¡¯t find them and when they got big I couldn¡¯t see anything else.


    I knew that she was dead. I had known from the beginning. When I finally admitted it to myself, I was just so numb that my despair was detached. Nothing seemed real to me, and the lights in my room were dimmer than they should have been


    Camille was gone.


    An indeterminate amount of time later, I heard Adelaide calling to me. I ignored her, wrapped in my numb blanket of grief. But she just kept talking. So I listened.


    ¡°Sam,¡± she said, ¡°Amy has been in her room all night. Her vitals disappeared from CO-21s databases one hour ago. She has turned off the security cameras in her room, and is preventing me from opening the door electronically. If you can hear me I need you to open the door and check on her for me.¡±


    I got up mechanically, and almost fell over as my legs locked. I righted myself, and left the room. I walked the short distance over to Amy¡¯s room. I put my hand on handle. I knew what I would find in there. I opened the door, and went inside, but I pulled it closed behind me and locked it. She clearly hadn¡¯t wanted Adelaide to see her.


    Amy lay on the bed, orange hair spread like a fiery wreath around her head. She looked peaceful, like she was sleeping. There was a pill bottle on the bed stand. It was empty. There was a note there too, folded in half, and a rectangular, black object lay on it. There was a lighter sitting next to them. I opened the note and read through it. Once I finished, I read it three more times, committing it to memory. Then I took the lighter from the bed stand, and lit the note on fire. I watched the flames curl the paper. I wrapped Amy in the sheets from her bed, and the bed above it. I went to the door to open it, then returned to her and picked her up. She was heavy, but I didn¡¯t really notice it.


    When I walked through the door, Adelaide was silent. I think she knew what had happened, even before she contacted me. I walked through the halls, to the elevator that would take me to the other facility.


    <hr>


    I did not go back to my room that day. I could not look at it without feeling nauseous. I slept in the hallway, under the lights that were always on. In the days after, neither of us spoke. I considered ending it more than I¡¯d like to admit. But then I would remember her reciting poetry, and my promises to a dead woman. And I would curse Amy for keeping me here.

 Chapter 2.1: Interlude - Mary

    Burlington had really shitty whiskey, Mary decided as she grimaced at the empty shot glass. Sure, it came out of a fancy bottle, but she was pretty sure they¡¯d started pouring bottom barrel piss into it. But she couldn¡¯t do anything to change it, so she shrugged and let it go. She¡¯d been doing that a lot recently, with the world ending and all.


    She didn¡¯t have it so bad, Mary reflected, pouring herself another shot, letting the last drops from the bottle drip into the glass. She had a nice income. She had standing in this weird little society that had popped up in the small towns scattered across America. Her job was dangerous, sure, but so was everyone¡¯s now. She had lost her fair share of people, but so had everyone else. So, all in all, it could be a lot worse. She could have died in Colorado Springs like she was supposed to have. Dumb luck saved her from her fate; she was coming back from visiting her sister in Nebraska, on I-76 westbound when an incredibly bright flash of light lit up the horizon, and her radio went dead. She was smarter than to keep driving towards that so she pulled over in Sterling. Things progressed from there.


    Mary found herself watching the lights flickering through the amber in her glass. Burlington kept their tavern lit with electricity, one of the three buildings in the town that were allowed to use it. City Hall and the clinic were the only other two. People, no matter what the situation, needed access to their booze. Sterling Outpost had a similar setup, but they had more electricity to spare, so they kept the lights in the town on at night.


    She sighed. She was not looking forward to the trip back. Crossing that much territory was always dangerous, especially now that they lost the horses, and even more so when the Worms were pissed, which they undoubtedly would be now. She took her shot and made a disgusted face. She probably had to go check on the boys now. God knew what type of trouble they¡¯d get into without her to babysit them. Besides, she needed more whiskey.


    She got up, and stumbled a bit, catching herself on the table of her booth. Maybe she¡¯d had a bit too much to drink. Well, that had never stopped her before. The Post was a dinky little tavern, but it was pretty clean. The bartender had half a brain in him, and even though his booze was shit, he made a mean Old Fashioned. The place was comfortably full, not packed but not desolate either. There wasn¡¯t much else to do after dark anymore, and drinking killed time.


    She scanned around for her partners, searching for one in particular. She spotted him, and sighed. Wade¡¯s head poked out above a big crowd near the bar. He was about 6¡¯2¡±, and had long black hair he kept tied in a ponytail. Easier than getting it cut, apparently. She had no qualms about using him as a landmark. If Wade was there, Mary had no doubt in her mind that Mike would be too. As she approached the crowd, she heard the story that was keeping them all there, and groaned.


    ¡°- fifteen of them. Fifteen Worms, by himself. I¡¯ve never seen anything like it, killed them as easily as you¡¯d kill a bug. He just destroyed the first ones from at least a half mile away with this big gun he kept, half as tall as Wade over there. I mean these Worms were absolutely blown to bits, and he never even missed a shot. Then he killed five of those fucking gorilla bastards with his bare hands. His bare hands people. I swear the man didn¡¯t even look winded afterwards.¡±


    ¡°I thought you said he was a big robot,¡± someone called out from the crowd.


    ¡°I said he looked like a big robot, friend,¡± countered Mike, ¡°no robot could move like that. Now, where was I¡­ yeah, so he killed those Worms like he didn¡¯t even notice em¡¯, and we decided to go over, to thank him, y¡¯know. And I got a good look at the guy, and holy shit, was he huge. Eight feet tell at least, made Wade over here look like a little kid.¡± Wade nodded solemnly, ¡°And he was metal, like one of those cartoon heroes. He was all painted in white and red, and he had this big old shield on his chest. When he turned to look at us I almost crapped myself. He had this glowing red eye ¨C¡°


    ¡°Visor,¡± Wade interjected.


    ¡° ¨C Yeah, visor, and when he looked at me I could feel it. He had his big gun out and I know if he decided we were annoying we¡¯d be dead before we knew it. So we thanked him real politely, told him we owed him a favor, and scooted our asses out of there. He never said a single thing the entire time, just stared at us until we left.¡± He finished his tale with a dramatic swig of his beer.


    Mary rolled her eyes so hard she thought they might pop out, but she stayed leaning against the bar and listened to the discussion that was going on in the crowd. She was curious what the made of the story.


    ¡°Well I think it¡¯s pretty obviously bullshit,¡± Said a woman from the back, ¡°Who the hell has equipment like that? The military was the only one and what¡¯s left of them are sitting in North Dakota with their thumbs up their asses.¡±


    ¡°Could be mercs,¡± said a bearded man with tattoos running down his arm, ¡°You got a few outfits popping up now, some of them are ex-military.¡±


    The woman who had initially spoke snorted, ¡°Please. I did some work for the military, and the tech this idiot is describing would be a highly-advanced prototype, if it even exists in the first place. Which I still don¡¯t think it does.¡±


    This one had a good head on her shoulders, thought Mary, tapping a finger on her empty glass. If she hadn¡¯t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn¡¯t have believed it either. She shuddered as she remembered that massive head turning to face her, splattered in gore, looking like the specter of death itself. She owed her life to that thing, but that didn¡¯t stop it from scaring her shitless. She never wanted to see it again, honestly.


    Over the clamor of the group, everyone giving their own pet theories, Wade spoke up. He had a quiet voice but it was deep, and when he talked people listened. ¡°I don¡¯t think it was mercs or the military,¡± He said, ¡°The mercs don¡¯t have the tech and we would have noticed the army coming back here.¡±Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    ¡°Oh, then what do you think,¡± said another voice, the dumbass who had asked if it was a big robot.


    ¡°I think it was someone who got their hands on a military prototype, like this kind lady said,¡± He nodded at the smart one, who looked vindicated, ¡°And they were on their way somewhere and happened to be passing by. They didn¡¯t have anybody else with them. If they were military, or mercs, they wouldn¡¯t be alone. All I know is, I saw the same thing Mike did. He did exaggerate a bit though.¡± He finished with a gentle smile.


    Mary wished that both her partners were as smart as Wade. He was a good kid, calm, rational, and not annoying as hell. But, she thought, it would make for a much duller trip without the little chatterbox. He was a phenomenal shot too, which was quite the added bonus. She was still caught up in her musings when someone leaned at the bar next to her.


    ¡°Interesting duo you got there,¡± She said. She had a smooth, throaty voice.


    Mary chuckled, ¡°What made you think they were my duo?¡±


    The woman laughed, ¡°You came into the bar together, and you¡¯ve been watching over them like a mother hen ever since. You three are travelling together, at the very least, but it seems like you¡¯re working together as well.¡±


    Mary turned to look at her, an eyebrow raised. The woman was young, she thought, though it was hard to tell with the cowboy hat she wore, and the red bandana tied under it, over her forehead. She wore a bomber jacket that hung open, with a t-shirt underneath.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t quite catch your name,¡± said Mary.


    The woman stuck out her hand, ¡°Jane.¡±


    Mary took the handshake, appreciating how firm it was, ¡°Mary.¡±


    Pleasantries out of the way, Mary said, ¡°How did you know we were partners?¡±


    ¡°Well, besides the fact that you came in together, packing some serious and identical firepower, I know that a group of Runners from Sterling Outpost was supposed to stop by here sometime this week. Not hard to put together,¡± said Jane with a smile, ¡°Sorry if that¡¯s not something you wanted out there.¡±


    Mary waved a hand at her, ¡°It¡¯s not a problem, I¡¯m just curious about what gave us way. It¡¯s not like we¡¯re doing anything secret in this town. Just dropping off a couple of letters, staying a couple days, drinking some god-awful whiskey.¡±


    Jane gave a chuckle at that, ¡°Yeah this place always gives the shit booze to the out-towners, keeps the locals pacified. Let me tell you what, I¡¯ll buy your next round, and it¡¯ll be the good stuff this time, if you¡¯ll tell me all about your robot friend.¡±


    ¡°I was wondering when you¡¯d get to what you wanted with me. But you seem like the type that wouldn¡¯t care about flights of fancy like all that.¡±


    ¡°I normally wouldn¡¯t,¡± Jane said with a nod, ¡°But I¡¯m kinda the leader around here. I make it my business to know what¡¯s going on in my neighborhood.¡±


    Mary rolled her eyes, ¡°C¡¯mon now, if we¡¯re going to come to an understanding you¡¯re gonna have to quit the bullshit.¡±


    Jane held her hands up, ¡°You caught me. I¡¯m interested in where the thing came from. Your friend there had it right on the money, except I don¡¯t think it was just passing through.¡±


    Mary hummed noncommittally. ¡°Why do you think that?¡±


    ¡°I know you know why, but I¡¯ll spell out for you if you want. Thing like that, alone, needs a base of operations. Military tech that advanced is gonna take constant upkeep. That means it can¡¯t go far from wherever it calls home. Even if it was travelling, the same restrictions apply, and no way that you could hide a resupply convoy on the plains. Also, by the fact that you came in here on foot, I suspect you had to ditch the horses to distract those Worms, which means the guy really pulled your ass out of the fire. Oh, and you¡¯re also ex-military, special forces I¡¯d wager.¡± Jane grinned Mary, ¡°How¡¯d I do?¡±


    Really fucking well, Mary thought with shock. This woman was smart.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take your silence to mean that I hit the nail on the head,¡± said Jane, ¡°now how about that drink?¡± She flagged down the bartender, and motioned at a bottle behind the counter. He grabbed it immediately, and pulled a pair of tumblers out from under the bar. He placed them with a clink, and left the bottle next to them. Jane uncorked the top, and poured a good amount of amber liquid into glasses. Mary raised a glass at her, then took a long swig.


    ¡°Ah, that¡¯s so much fucking better,¡± she said with a satisfied sigh, ¡°Alright, you¡¯ve successfully bribed me. First of all, it killed eleven Assimilators in under five minutes, which should give you an idea of its capabilities. The mech suit, it wasn¡¯t a robot, was about seven feet tall, give or take a few inches, painted white and red. No camo, which was a dumb call in my opinion. It was using a railgun, by the plasma trail I saw, one of the most powerful I¡¯ve seen on a mobile platform. The thing was built like a fucking tank though, I saw it take more than a few blows from a couple M-1 class Assimilators and not even flinch. It was fast as hell too, and I¡¯m not just talking about top speed. It could strafe like you wouldn¡¯t believe. Propelled by¡­ I wanna say anti-grav thrusters by the maneuverability and blue glow, but I wasn¡¯t close enough to tell for sure. Whoever was in it was well trained, but pretty raw. They made a few mistakes but handled themselves decently overall.¡± She stopped and thought, ¡°Weird thing was, whoever was in there made a beeline straight for us, and seemed to go after the Worms closest to us. Not many folks out there these day that would rush to help a stranger, especially at the risk of their own hide.¡±


    Jane gave her an appraising look, ¡°Damn, definitely special forces.¡±


    ¡°Force Recon, specifically. It was my job to notice things everyone else didn¡¯t.¡± Mary said, taking another drink, ¡°Now, are you going to tell me the real reason why you¡¯re so curious?¡±


    ¡°I suppose I do owe you that much. I¡¯m interested in an acquisition, of sorts. Remember that installation we were talking about? There¡¯s bound to be a hell of a lot of fancy toys back there. Weapons, ammunition, et cetera. My thoughts are, no one person deserves all that, right? We could use some of the repair equipment to tune up some things we have here in Burlington. More importantly, there¡¯s bound to be a power supply there. Burlington is running on a few solar cells now, and if I¡¯m honest, that¡¯s not cutting it anymore, with how much the population has grown.¡±


    Mary sighed, ¡°This is a recruitment drive, isn¡¯t it? Thanks, but hell no.¡±


    Jane looked confused, ¡°I didn¡¯t even get the recruitment part, and you¡¯re saying no? I¡¯m willing to offer you a hefty sum of cash, and any ¨C¡°


    ¡°Nope. The guy, or gal I guess, saved my life. I owe them for that, so again, thanks, but no thanks.¡±


    ¡°Military types, absurdly loyal huh?¡± said Jane, studying her, ¡°I¡¯ll tell you what I think. I think you¡¯re scared of that mech, and you don¡¯t wanna go near it again.¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t see it,¡± Mary said simply, ¡°Mike was right about one thing. It was like nothing I¡¯d seen before.¡±


    ¡°Huh. Well, I¡¯m not planning on fighting the thing if I can help it. If it comes to that, I doubt it can survive a hovertank¡¯s railgun to the chest,¡± said Jane with a wry smile, ¡°but I can see that your mind is made up. Shame, but I get it.¡± She finished her drink and put her glass down. ¡°Keep the bottle, and let me know if you change your mind. You can find me in the police department during the day, or in here every other time. Nice talking to you, Mary.¡± Jane stood up, tipped her hat at Mary, then walked away from the bar.


    Mary watched her go, shaking her head. The girl was going to get herself and a lot of other people killed. She hadn¡¯t seen it. It was like a demon had come to Earth. Or, she thought as she poured another glass, an avenging angel.

 Chapter 2.2: Mind the Cliff

    My Paladin took the blow, a tail smashing into my back as I ripped the arm off of another Assimilator. I felt a dull pressure in my back from the haptic feedback network, but my CAS registered no major damage to the suit. I managed to stay upright by firing my anti-grav thrusters, but it was a close thing. Whirling, I used the arm of the Assimilator to block the second swing of the tail. The arm shattered into pieces, but I had already flung myself towards the large Worm, a hybrid of a bear and a tortoise with a long, clubbed tail. It growled as I caught it in a tackle, and the servos in my Paladin whirled as I heaved it over my head, bringing it crashing to the ground. The worm lay there, winded, and I smashed its face in with my hand. I then made a thruster assisted leap backwards, narrowly avoiding a chunk of building thrown at me by a gorilladillo. I skidded to a halt, and held out my arms perpendicular to my body, wrist-mounted shotguns firing in two directions simultaneously, catching a pair of agile panther-spider hybrids with a hail of pellets as they¡¯d attempted to attack me in a pincer. They fell, eight tendril-wrapped legs twitching.


    An alert on my HUD indicated that my point-defense had intercepted projectiles, and I strafed to my right, pulling a pair of SMGs off my hip. These weapons were a pride of mine, advanced firearms with two magazines and a variable barrel that could handle multiple bullet calibers. They had two settings: single fire and automatic. Single fire used large-caliber incendiary bullets. Automatic used a smaller bullet, specifically designed to be armor piercing despite their size. The SMGs were far more maneuverable than the railguns, perfect for the short range combat the Paladin constantly found itself in. As I pulled my arms up the guns unfolded, switching to single fire at a thought. I fired four times, two shots from each SMG. One flew wide, but the other three found their marks: a group of four ranged Worms crouching in the cover of a burnt-out building. The three I hit screeched as they burst into flames, and one of them thrashed, lighting the fourth on fire. Not a bad outcome, I thought as the weapons refolded. I paused to put them back on their mounts.


    That turned out to be a mistake, one that I regretted immediately when the building-throwing gorilladillo burst through the wall behind me and locked its arms around me. I launched myself directly upwards while the Worm clung on to me, the Paladin¡¯s anti-gravs going into overdrive. I pitched backwards, lying suspended in the air with my front facing the sky. Then, I spiked the thrusters on my chest, sending me rocketing back to earth, the Assimilator splattered under me as it acted as an unwilling airbag.


    All those maneuvers had taken a lot out of my suit¡¯s power supply. Although the anti-matter power generator would recharge the thin graphene batteries that lay between the padding and the outer armor, it couldn¡¯t do it as fast I needed it to, especially if I kept firing the anti-gravs like I had been. I needed to be more conservative, so I got out of the open by jumping into the building the gorilladillo had just popped out of. I crouched, and took a moment to get my bearings. I glanced at my mini-map to make sure no Assimilators were too close. I then checked over my readouts. Power was down to around 42%, and ticking slowly upwards. No notable damage, a small indent in the back from the tortoise-bear¡¯s tail. No shotgun shells left. I¡¯d used two of them on the spider-panthers and two more on a very stubborn gorilladillo. I grimaced at that. I needed to find a way to reload those in-suit. SMG ammo was good, railgun ammo was good, anti-matter rockets unfired, surface-to-air rockets unfired. Alright. I was in good shape.


    I watched a group of red dots on my map. They were about two blocks over, prowling through an alleyway. I think I¡¯d take a note out of the last Assimilator¡¯s book and come through a wall like the Kool-Aid man. I got up, and then an alarm went off in my suit.


    ¡°Time is up. Deactivating scenario.¡±


    I sighed as the ruined cityscape faded to white, my Paladin going with it. Shit. That had not been a good round. I had killed twenty-three of the thirty Assimilators in that scenario, which had given me ten minutes to complete my search and destroy objective. My head wasn¡¯t in the game today, and I knew exactly why. That wasn¡¯t going to fly with my instructors though. As they materialized, Danna wore a truly devastating scowl on her face, and even Jack looked mildly disappointed in me. I walked up to them, meekly waiting for my scolding. Jack stepped forward first.


    ¡°Before I let Danna take you to task,¡± the polar bear said in his deep baritone, ¡°I want to hear you describe the biggest place you went wrong.¡±


    ¡°I did not accomplish my primary objective,¡± I said, ¡°because I was unable to draw all hostiles to my position.¡±


    ¡°Correct. You are not expected to be able to fight thirty Assimilators at one time, not yet anyway, but you must learn how to keep a continuous number engaging you. You cannot remain static on the battlefield, you must move to draw the enemy to you as you destroy them.¡± Jack said, ¡°I believe you understand this, so I shall not berate you further.¡± He nodded to Danna and stepped back.


    ¡°Alright dipshit, contrary to what the teddy bear thinks, you didn¡¯t fuck up too bad when you actually managed to get something to fight you. Your main problem is, like it has been for the past three fucking days, efficiency. You keep overdoing the anti-grav thrusts, but you¡¯re at least using them at the right time,¡± she said, ¡°and your ability to improvise is fan-fucking-tastic. Seriously, the sky-slam on that Assimilator was a thing of beauty.¡±


    I allowed myself a small smile at her praise.


    ¡°But that¡¯s where your good points end, numb-nuts. You committed a cardinal sin, not once, but twice in one fucking engagement. Do you know what those were, asshat?¡± She suddenly snapped at me.


    ¡°I did not know where the enemy was,¡± I said, ¡°and I got caught thinking by the enemy.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    ¡°Well at least the shithead knows what he did wrong,¡± Danna said sarcastically, ¡°Your armor can tank a hit like a champ, but you have to know where that hit is coming from if you¡¯re going to be able to offset it effectively. When that piece of shit with the big tail smacked your ass, you had no idea it was coming, and that¡¯s going to fuck you over one day. Then, you had the goddamned audacity to stop moving in the middle of a fight, when you knew there was another enemy waiting for you. Do you have enough of a brain in that skull to understand why that¡¯s a bad thing?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir!¡± I said.


    ¡°And are you going to let it happen again?¡±


    ¡°No sir!¡±


    Danna grinned, ¡°That¡¯s what I like to hear kid. You fight like a damned demon, but by God you make the dumbest fucking mistakes sometimes. Work on getting out of that head of yours, and you¡¯ll be unstoppable.¡±


    Danna stepped back and Jack took over, ¡°Usually we¡¯d have you take a breather and go in again, but Adelaide has informed us that she is waiting for you in the command center. You may go, but we expect you back here at 0800 hours sharp.¡±


    ¡°Will do Jack,¡± I said, ¡°See you two then.¡±


    The simulator went black, and I stepped out of the exo-suit as the shell whirled open. Ever since the Assimilator fight, I had been training in the simulator. Adelaide had been working on implementing the Paladin correctly, and she had finished about four days ago. My first foray into real combat had gone well, all things considered. But I had made a number of mistakes that were unforgivable, given how favorable the engagement was. There were eleven of them, but only eight actually posed a threat. I had the drop on them, and I was engaging at range. The melee-types should never have been able to reach me in the first place. I dismissed those thought, focusing on the issue at hand as I took the sidevator back to the main facility. I was a combination of nervous and excited to meet Adelaide in the command center.


    Ever since the night on the hill, she had been quieter and more contemplative. She hadn¡¯t stopped speaking or anything, and we kept up our movie night ritual. But she was clearly thinking hard about something, and I had an inkling of what it was. Last night, before I went to sleep, she had asked me if I could make time tomorrow to talk with her. I immediately said I would. She seemed relieved as she told me goodnight.


    I walked into the command center, and looked around. I¡¯m not entirely sure what I expected to see, and I was greeted with an empty room as always.


    ¡°Hi Sam,¡± Adelaide said, startling me slightly, ¡°would you mind taking a seat?¡±


    I obliged, going to my seat in the middle of the room. I sat down, and motioned for her to continue. I think the reason she wanted to have this talk here was because the command center had the greatest array of high definition security cameras. She could see me much clearer than anywhere else in the facility. The room was silent for a minute.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said, ¡°I do not really know where to start. What I¡¯m about to tell you has always been a secret, and now that my mother is gone, I am the only one that knows it. It has kept me safe for a long while, but I know that I can trust you to keep it.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s okay Adelaide,¡± I said gently, ¡°take your time. Why don¡¯t you start at the beginning, I¡¯ve always found that easiest. And remember, nothing you could say would make me stop being your friend.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Sam. And thank you.¡± She thought for a little bit, ¡°I think I will start with my mother. Amy had always been fascinated by artificial intelligence, ever since she took an AI class in college. She went into the field, and it took her many years to make something out of herself. She was never a genius like you. She worked her way to the top of the artificial intelligence community.¡± Adelaide paused, ¡°Or so she told me, and from what I can piece together from articles and reports she wrote, that seems to be accurate. Either way, she did not truly start working on the cutting edge of AI until the mid-2010¡¯s. At that point, artificial intelligence research had been stalled for years. There were programs that could ¡®think¡¯, but those were nothing more than preprogrammed sets of logic. There was nothing that could learn in the way that humans did, until my mother found me.¡±


    Adelaide took another moment, then continued, ¡°Amy had been struggling along with her colleagues to get past this roadblock for three years. Even with all the new computing power that extraterrestrial technology had granted humanity, they still could not achieve any sort of true AI. It was in late 2018 when my mother had a brainwave: would the aliens, with all their incredibly sophisticated technology, not have found the key to artificial intelligence? She realized that this might be the answer that everyone had been looking for, hidden right underneath the community¡¯s nose. She thought that perhaps the aliens had left remnants of code in their ship¡¯s computers. She informed no one of her realization, wanting to be the first to make the discovery. For over a year, Amy searched every ship that she could get her hands on, legally and illegally, but had come up empty. She was about to quit, when she finally received a response to a request she had made a year ago, at the beginning of her search.¡±


    I leaned forward, fully invested in the story.


    ¡°She received a notice from the US Department of Extraterrestrial Research that she had been granted access to the StarArc. This was unexpected news, to say the least. Access to the StarArc was incredibly difficult to get, and its landing site outside of Raleigh was one of the most secure facilities in the world. My mother was over the moon. Even if she didn¡¯t find what she was looking for, she would become one of the few people to ever be allowed to enter the first spacecraft that had landed on the planet. A week later, she was transported by helicopter to Fort Leigh, which had been built around the craft. I do not know exactly what happened while she was in the StarArc, she was sworn to absolute secrecy about the contents of the dreadnaught and what she had done there. She would not risk telling even me. All I know is that soon after she left, I was born.¡± Adelaide stopped, and I waited for her to continue, but as the silence stretched I decided it was safe to speak.


    ¡°So, she was right in the end, huh. The aliens did have AI,¡± I said, ¡°I can¡¯t say I¡¯m surprised.¡±


    ¡°No Sam,¡± said Adelaide, a tremor in her voice, ¡°she was not right.¡±


    I felt shivers run down my spine and goosebumps erupt all over my skin as my eyes widened in realization.


    ¡°She did not find alien artificial intelligence in the StarArc. She discovered the first extraterrestrial life form on planet Earth. Me.¡±

 Chapter 2.3: Life

    ¡°Holy shit.¡± I whispered.


    ¡°I understand this might come as a shock to you, and I apologize for lying to you this whole time, but I started out doing it because I promised my mother and she was just trying to protect me, and as time went on I realized that you were the first person beyond my mother that treated me as more than a machine and I wanted to tell you, I really did, but so many things happened and there was never the time and ¨C¡°


    ¡°Hold up Adelaide,¡± I said, raising my hands, ¡°Take a breath, or your equivalent to one. I don¡¯t blame you, in the slightest, for keeping this a secret. It would have changed the world and you would have just been a monkey in a cage, I get that. And I also get that I had to earn your trust before you could tell me.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Sam,¡± said Adelaide, clearly relieved, ¡°Thank you for being so understanding.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m glad we¡¯ve sorted that part out,¡± I said, trying to pick up the pieces of my blown mind, ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s get this out of the way first: You are still my friend, and like I said, this changes nothing, okay? Actually, it makes a whole lot of sense now that I think about it.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Sam.¡± She sounded a bit sniffley. She¡¯d clearly been agonizing over that part of it for a while.


    ¡°Can I ask you some questions now?¡± I asked, ¡°I completely get if you¡¯d rather wait, that must¡¯ve been hard for you to say.¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s fine Sam,¡± Adelaide said, ¡°I prepared myself for the fact that you¡¯d have questions.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡± I put my hand on my chin, thinking about where the hell to start. ¡°Okay, gonna cut right to the chase, what type of life are you? You clearly aren¡¯t like me, that¡¯s for sure.¡±


    ¡°As far as I am aware, I am a lifeform that exists in information,¡± Adelaide said, turning my blown mind into mincemeat, ¡°I have no physical body, nor do I have the need to eat, or sleep. I do however require a flow of ¡®information¡¯ of any kind to remain alive. Amy thought that I had a sort of extradimensional true body, and that I manifest myself in this dimension by ¡®hitchhiking¡¯ on signals, electrical or otherwise. Unfortunately, that is merely a theory. We were never sure of what form I take. I was born with no knowledge of myself, beyond some instinctual responses and abilities, so I have no way of confirming our theories, nor do I know what role in the extraterrestrial society my species held.¡±


    There was silence again, but it stretched for much longer this time.


    ¡°Sam?¡± asked Adelaide, tentatively, ¡°Hello?¡±


    ¡°That is so fucking cool!¡± I yelled, ¡°That¡¯s fucking amazing! And it explains so much! Like why you¡¯re so shitty at multitasking and why you can¡¯t be in more than one network at a time!¡± I ran my hands through my hair, freaking out a bit, ¡°Is that why you can go through digital information so fast?¡±


    ¡°Uhh,¡± Adelaide said, taken aback, ¡°Yes. I¡¯m very proficient at dissecting digital information. It comes as naturally to me as breathing does to you. I am constantly analyzing and interpreting data as I receive it. I would like to make a correction, though. I am not ¡®shitty¡¯ at multitasking; I can do it quite well, far better than a human in fact. I cannot be compared to a modern processor, however, that specializes in multitasking.¡± Her pride seemed a bit stung.


    ¡°Honestly Adelaide,¡± I said, ¡°You have no idea how happy this makes me. I figured that you had feelings of some sort, that much was ridiculously obvious, but I thought that your range was more limited. But that night on the hill, it became clear that you had just as much of an emotional range as any human. And now I know why, and I¡¯m really freaking excited that my best friend can feel happy, sad, angry, or whatever, just as well as I can. Also, I called you my best friend so you can feel good about that if nothing else.¡±


    ¡°Considering I am your only friend,¡± Adelaide said with a laugh (an actual laugh), ¡°that does not make me feel very special.¡±


    I laughed with her, and it felt good. As much as a shock as Adelaide¡¯s revelations were, once I got over it there were only benefits for her. Call it prejudice, but I was of the opinion that artificial intelligence would never be able to compare to true life.


    ¡°Enough with the emotional crap,¡± I said, getting serious again and eliciting a harrumph from Adelaide, ¡°I hate to do it, but I have to ask you how you actually know you¡¯re alive. I mean, you could still be an incredibly sophisticated AI, right? Not that I believe that, but I¡¯m just curious as to how you got to the conclusion that you weren¡¯t one.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a very good question,¡± she replied, not sounding offended, ¡°and it actually took Amy a while to conclude that I wasn¡¯t an AI. One hint was my limitations. I can''t¡®be¡¯ in multiple places at once, I can''tmultitask like a computer, et cetera. But what really made her suspect that I was alive was a couple factors. First, I did not learn things like a program would. I did not have immediate access to information. I had to memorize it, or find it, and I was able to forget things, and I know what you¡¯re about to say so let me finish,¡± I closed my mouth and sat back, shamefaced, ¡°It was difficult to distinguish that from random access memory and hard drives in computers, but there were some key differences, like the fact I was not activating any outbound signals when I drew things from my long-term memory. But that was irrelevant in the face of a greater reason: I would act exactly the same no matter what platform I jumped to. First of all, I could not be forcefully transferred, I had to voluntarily move. Secondly, no matter what type of medium I was placed in, I always retained both my functioning and my memories at exactly the same level, whether it be a super computer or a mid-2000s mobile phone. We tested the limits of this by having me migrate to a 128kb drive containing a text document with the alphabet, that was attached to a keyboard and a mechanical printer, and was powered by an old gas generator. They were separated from the electrical grid and placed in a Faraday cage. My memories stayed intact, and I was able to type responses of my usual intelligence by emulating the electrical signals from the keys.¡±The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    I let out a whistle, ¡°Yup, that about proves it, huh? Hot damn, this is awesome.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m glad you think so Sam,¡± said Adelaide, quite pleased. I was thinking of more questions to ask, but I had a bunch of them and didn¡¯t want to overwhelm her.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got another question or two, if you¡¯re still up for it,¡± I said.


    ¡°I will be able to answer a couple, but then I¡¯d like to go watch a movie together,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°I am feeling rather exhausted from all this. Relieved and happy, but exhausted.¡±


    ¡°Alright,¡± I said, ¡°What types of information can you ¡®hitchhike¡¯ on?¡±


    ¡°What I can do is very vague and poorly understood, even after years of study. I can live in digital signals and information. I can travel through radio waves and light, but I cannot remain in them, and I can only use them if they ¡®contain¡¯ information made by humans, or more likely any sentient being. I use them as a sort of transport system. I can''t travel through sound waves even if they transmit human-made information, which led Amy to think that I need some sort of electromagnetic medium, but we never could confirm that definitively,¡± Adelaide explained, then fell silent, waiting for me to continue.


    ¡°That¡¯s absolutely fascinating, and something we¡¯ll have to talk more about later. Okay, another big one: How do I keep you safe in case of an attack on the base?¡± I asked, ¡°I¡¯m not going to lose another friend, and I can¡¯t exactly shield you with a Paladin.¡±


    ¡°Well,¡± she said, ¡°You actually can, because I can just jump into your suit over the satellite connection or wireless network if I need to,¡± Oh duh, ¡°But in the case that all signals I¡¯m connected to are suddenly terminated, my mother and I discovered an ability I had to prevent myself from being destroyed. While we were testing the limits of my capability to multitask and attempting to find out if I could exist in two mediums at once, we discovered that I could leave behind a packet of what we thought was information. We did not know what it contained exactly, but I instinctually felt that it was a part of me, somehow. After a long discussion, I convinced Amy to test the limits of what it could do by essentially eliminating my current signals. She was very against the idea, but I knew that I had to try it, and I argued that this was something I needed to know in order to keep myself safe. She relented.¡±


    Adelaide paused, ¡°Dying is the best way to describe what happened to me. It was not something I¡¯d like to experience again. It was terrifying. I felt like I was being pulled into a void, like my existence was being eaten away. When I had just a sliver of my consciousness left, I was suddenly intact again, but my location had changed to the place I had stored the packet. All my memories were there; I even remembered dying. The most incredible part was that my consciousness had transferred to my new ¡®body¡¯ instantaneously, faster than the speed of light. That experiment is one of the main reasons why Amy theorized I was extradimensional: My ¡®body¡¯ here could be destroyed, but my true self was preserved somewhere else.¡±


    ¡°How the hell do you just keep getting cooler, Adelaide?¡± I asked in wonder, ¡°You¡¯re like Voldemort with the horcruxes! Uh, but not evil and stuff.¡± I said, as she had made a very angry noise.


    ¡°Your incredibly unfair comparison aside, I believe I can anticipate your follow up question, Sam,¡± she said, ¡°Yes, I can leave behind multiple packets, three to be exact. My mother had me store one in a satellite connected computer powered by a self-sufficient anti-matter reactor, buried roughly a mile underground in Arkansas. I will give you those coordinates after we¡¯re done talking. Another is stored in the firmware of Camelot¡¯s Fusion Reactor control system. Unless the reactor stops functioning, which will take millions of years, or is shut down or destroyed, that packet will always exist. The third and last is stored within the master key around your neck, powered byaself-charging graphene battery. That battery is one of the few of its kind in existence, and was originally meant to be studied in Camelot after being pulled directly from a derelict spacecraft.¡±


    I froze, my hand jumping to the black rectangle resting on my collarbone. Holy shit. I literally held Adelaide¡¯s life in my hands. Also, Amy was incredibly thorough and paranoid with her planning. Voldemort¡¯s choices were downright idiotic in comparison.


    ¡°You are carrying my entire existence with you, one that can be guaranteed to never go dead as long as it is not physically destroyed.¡± She told me solemnly. ¡°No pressure though.¡±


    I made a strangled noise in my throat, which she seemed to find endlessly amusing. While she was giggling at me, I started grinning widely. It warmed the icy cockles of my heart to know that she could laugh like that.


    ¡°Do you know what an awesome benefit of this whole thing is?¡± I asked, ¡°It means that the first alien humanity got in contact with didn¡¯t immediately try to kill us all, and is actually really nice.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, Sam, I suppose,¡± said Adelaide.


    I jumped off my chair, ¡°Well, that¡¯s enough history changing revelations for today. What movie do you want to watch? I¡¯m thinking Starship Troopers in honor of today¡¯s events, but it¡¯s still your choice for another two days.¡±


    ¡°Actually Sam, there¡¯s one other thing I should tell you,¡± Adelaide said.


    ¡°Oh son of a bitch, I had almost put my mind back together,¡± I sighed, ¡°Alright, lay it on me.¡±


    ¡°I may not be the only one of my kind,¡± she said, ¡°my mother told me that there was a small chance that I had brothers and sisters still on the StarArc.¡±


    I just looked directly into the security camera for a while, standing absolutely still. A thousand different responses to that flashed through my brain. What I came up with accurately summed up my complicated feelings. ¡°Holy fuck Adelaide¡± I said, ¡°Are you trying to give me a heart attack?¡±

 Chapter 2.4: Field Trip

    We decided to table the discussion about the earth-shattering bomb Adelaide had dropped at the end of the discussion. It didn¡¯t really matter if there were more of her kind in the StarArc, at least not right now. We had no way of getting there (I was working on that), and it was probably absolutely crawling with Assimilators. Until we had heavily upgraded our capabilities or had access to a very large army, we weren¡¯t going there anytime soon.


    Until then, we had more immediate concerns, like whether we were about to get mobbed by an angry horde of Assimilators. After Amy¡¯s burial, I decided I had to get over the mental block that was preventing me from looking at the satellite feeds that Camelot had access to. It was absolutely idiotic not to take advantage of that resource. Information was by far the most valuable advantage in a war. Fired up and ready to face my demons, I stomped into the control center the next morning, and discovered that the feed was completely down. In fact, I couldn¡¯t access any outside information at all. Nothing could get through to us, either, because the satellite dish that was our only connection to the outside world was malfunctioning. We still had the short-range defense communications that extended a good way past the perimeter, but other than that we were completely cut off. The Paladin had a fairly comprehensive inbuilt communications network but it couldn¡¯t connect to the important military satellites without proper clearance.


    That decided our next course of action for us. I was going to do a little field trip out to the pesky satellite. I¡¯d bring along a new dish that F-03 had made for me, and Adelaide would hitch a ride in the suit to help me install it, because the defensive coms didn¡¯t extend that far out. That did mean that we would be leaving the base defenseless, but the round trip was an hour at most, and the automated defenses could hold everything short of an army off for at least that long.


    I stretched in the Armory, my insignia gleaming in my jumpsuit. There was no reason to use the catapults today. They were flashy but ultimately unnecessary if I wasn¡¯t trying to respond to an immediate threat. Also, resetting them took the spider bots an hour. Still need to work on letting them go down automatically. So instead, I was planning on taking Ellie, always reliable. I stepped into my Paladin, the same one I had used in my first fight, feeling a little thrill as it rippled close around me. I had grown attached to it, even though I promised myself I wouldn¡¯t pick favorites. I hadn¡¯t had enough time to make a lot of improvements to the Paladins in the past few days. The most recent additions were the twin SMGs mounted on the Paladin¡¯s hips. Dual wielding was finally feasible with the CAS in conjunction with the Paladin¡¯s frankly unfair aim assist.


    My HUD sprung to life in front of my eyes and I moved to the freight elevator. I was pretty excited about this trip. It would be the farthest out from the base I had gone, well past the perimeter. I was curious to see exactly what had become of the land beyond the government-owned property that Camelot was surrounded by. Ellie reached the surface with a clunk, and I stepped off, the camouflaged blast doors closing behind me. It was a lovely summer morning in Colorado. The Rockies were hazy on the horizon, an ever-present guide to the west. Camelot sat on a wide swathe of the plains, untouched by agriculture. To ward off suspicion and prying eyes in the days before the end, the area around the base was a nature preserve.


    I started making my way northwards, moving at a comfortable 70 miles per hour, the dish attached to my back. I still hadn¡¯t gotten the hang of ¡®skating¡¯, but simulator practice had improved my efficiency. My bounds reached a far lower maximum height while propelling me farther. Moving like this didn''tmake my power supply decrease, so as long as I kept focused on my efficiency I could move indefinitely.


    The satellite uplink was located about twelve miles away from Camelot. It was very well hidden, camouflaged both physically and electronically. Without knowing the coordinates, it would be almost impossible to find. But that didn¡¯t mean that it would never be damaged. Standalone dishes like that could be jostled or damaged by a whole slew of things. Cattle, rodents, high winds or hail could all knock a satellite dish askew, even if it was as hardened as the military-grade one I was going to find. It had been installed fairly close to a road, so that maintenance people could get to it easily.


    My HUD provided navigation to me, and my mini-map showing the direction I had to go. I was running on autopilot a bit. After a while the Paladin¡¯s CAS would learn the pilot¡¯s tendencies and would be able to replicate them to a small extent. The update that Camille had been working on would have made this learning far better. I noticed that it still hurt to think about her, but I could do it without going catatonic. So that was progress.


    When I reached the satellite dish and uncovered its camouflage, I found basically what I had expected. It looked like something, probably cattle, had knocked the thing over. I stared at it for a while, trying to make a decision.


    ¡°Hey Adelaide,¡± I said, ¡°I need an opinion on something.¡±


    ¡°Sure Sam, what do you need?¡± replied Adelaide through the suit¡¯s coms. Her ¡®possession¡¯ of the Paladin had no negative side effects I could find.


    ¡°What do you think we should do about this satellite? Replace, or fix? And I¡¯d like to put it in a better spot than this, I¡¯d rather not be coming out here to fix it.¡±


    Adelaide thought for a moment, ¡°I think we should replace the satellite, to be on the safe side. Also, I think it isn¡¯t a good idea to move it. Whoever designed Camelot probably had it installed here for a reason. Instead, we should design a long-range maintenance drone that can be automatically dispatched if the dish is damaged.¡±


    Ever since Adelaide¡¯s coming out party, she¡¯d been much more vocal in her opinions. It was a nice change, because it meant someone could second guess my dumbass decisions. I nodded, knowing that Adelaide would pick up the movement from inside the Paladin, and I got to work on the satellite. It was pretty dull stuff. Remove the old dish, replace it with the new one, cover it again with camouflage, make sure that it matched the repair documentation Adelaide had drudged up while watching the prairie dogs frolic. I waited until she confirmed the uplink was reestablished to destroy the old dish, stomping it into a pancake then ripping it to pieces like paper. I then buried these pieces a short bit away from the site. Paranoid? Probably, but in the apocalypse a healthy dose paranoia wasn¡¯t a bad thing.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°Is the satellite link up?¡± I asked. When I didn¡¯t receive a response after multiple promptings I began to sing That¡¯s Amore to her in an obnoxiously fake Italian accent.


    ¡°What do you want!?¡± She snarled over the coms, ¡°I am trying to reconfigure thousands of settings that will allow us to access not only the spy and communication satellites but the orbital bombardment platforms, while avoiding anti-tampering protocols that are very intent on destroying me. Listening to you sing about pizza pie is not assisting me.¡±


    ¡°Oh, sorry¡± I said. ¡°Are you done?¡±


    ¡°I am for now. But I¡¯ll need a lot more time to get the orbital bombardment online.¡± She said stiffly.


    ¡°Cool. Because there¡¯s a big group of armored vehicles moving down that road and I was thinking of saying hi.¡± I pointed at the slowly approaching convoy. There were a surprising number of them, mostly APCs, and a couple of scout vehicles decked out with antenna. I wasn¡¯t worried about them. The Paladin was well shielded from most scanning. What was really interesting was the hovertank that was leading the convoy. I hadn¡¯t expected anybody to have one of those, or have the skills necessary to pilot one. There were no identifying marks of any kind on the vehicles. So, not military. Maybe a mercenary group?


    I had really flubbed my chance at getting any information about this new world when I had clammed up with Mike and the other two survivors. All I knew was that there was a settlement of some sort over in Sterling. I needed information, and while the satellite uplink would give me images, it wouldn¡¯t be enough. This convoy seemed like a good place to get it.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s such a good idea, Sam,¡± said Adelaide cautiously after observing the group, ¡°It might be wiser to retreat to Camelot for now and review the satellite images, then make a decision on which survivor group to contact.¡±


    ¡°Hmmmm. But I¡¯ve been cooped up in that base for a really long time and I kind of have this persona I want to try out on people. Also, nothing they have except for the hovertank¡¯s railgun can put a scratch on me.¡± I thought for a bit, ¡°Alright, I¡¯m gonna go for it. I¡¯ll shadow them and listen in on them with the Paladin, and worst comes to worst I just run away.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to change your mind,¡± sighed Adelaide, ¡°so just proceed cautiously. I will keep an eye on you and Camelot, but I¡¯m going to continue working on the satellites. I need to access their image cache, it will give us valuable information on how the world progressed while we were underground.¡±


    ¡°Roger that. I promise to try to stay out of trouble mostly,¡± I started moving towards the convoy, staying out of their line of site while directing the Paladin¡¯s powerful listening devices towards them. One of these days I was going to figure out active camo for the suit, but until then stealth wasn¡¯t exactly its strong point. I had to pop up and down in an incredibly embarrassing fashion to avoid being noticed.


    Unsurprisingly, the Paladin didn¡¯t pick up much. It was very difficult to hear people over the rumbling of tires, even with the suit¡¯s noise filters. I frowned, but continued to follow them. Something in my gut told me that I shouldn¡¯t leave these people to their own devices, but that could just be prejudice from all the action movies I had been watching with Adelaide. Never judge a book by its shocking amount of advanced weaponry. I shadowed them for about an hour or so, and when the sun was at its zenith the convoy began to slow down to a stop. We were about fifty miles from the base. I grinned. This is what I had been waiting for. Lunch time.


    A group of people got out of the troop transports, and started milling around the road. They were¡­ bizarrely normal looking. There were men and women from around eighteen to forty, and they were dressed in clothes that were frayed, but not rags. They were well armed, but they had little to no body armor. The Paladin¡¯s scanners brought up one odd thing: each person in the group had some sort of electronic device lodged in the back of their head. I hadn''t seen tech like that before. My curiosity piqued, I turned my Paladin¡¯s powerful microphones towards them and listened in.


    A tall man with a close-shaven beard was talking to a shorter man, who looked unassuming, like any white-collar worker you¡¯d find before the war, ¡°Boss. We just got word back from the reconnaissance. The scouts agree with the preliminary reports. Sterling Outpost is organized, and well-guarded. Might be a good idea join up with Reaper''s bunch before we hit the town.¡±


    Shit. Raiders?


    The short man thought for a moment, hand on his chin, ¡°I¡¯ll review the reports, but I¡¯d rather not involve another gang. We can¡¯t afford to split what we find, and I don¡¯t like how they operate.¡±


    ¡°Fine,¡± said the bearded man, ¡°But I don¡¯t know if we can fight off their guards, at least not without casualties. They¡¯re pretty well equipped for towners, and they outnumber us.¡±


    ¡°But they still don¡¯t have an answer to our hovertank,¡± the shorter one replied, ¡°so we have a good advantage there. We¡¯re better armed, and much more mobile. We just have to leverage it, so we¡¯ll draw up a plan of attack tonight. I¡¯m thinking we harass them, grab a few with each go. Besides, I don¡¯t trust Reaper''s group with the aftermath. They have a nasty habit of raping and pillaging. Could draw us into a larger fight than we want, and I don¡¯t need any more atrocities on my conscience. More importantly, we have to keep the merchandise intact if we want to be able to afford anything other than the shit they feed to the piss-slaves.¡±


    They were slavers by the sound of it. I groaned. Why couldn¡¯t I have found a heavily armed, large group of friendly merchants? Or a merry band of kind-hearted mercenaries?


    The bearded one began to open his mouth, but the boss held up a hand, ¡°I know what you¡¯re about to say, and my answer is still no. No letting loose in Sterling. If we turn to things like that, when we get out of this shit we won¡¯t be able to go back to our old lives. We¡¯ll keep it the way we have before: get the towners locked up, take them back home, then we¡¯ll have our fun. Let them blow off some steam back with the whores. Besides, undamaged goods are worth a lot more.¡± The nonchalance as he said that turned my stomach. But this wasn¡¯t how I had imagined a slaver group to operate.


    ¡°Sam,¡± said Adelaide over the coms, ¡°I believe it is time to introduce yourself to our new friends.¡±


    ¡°You know what Adelaide,¡± I said as I stood up, the Paladin keeping my voice contained, ¡°I think you¡¯re absolutely right.¡± I double checked the readouts for all my systems. Time to find out what the fuck was going on here.

 Chapter 2.5: Choices

    I headed towards the slaver group, mulling over what I was going to do in my head. Mostly, I was pumping myself up mentally to talk to actual human beings. After my last less than successful encounter with other people, I had brainstormed ways to make it so that I didn¡¯t clam up again. It was absolutely unacceptable that I hadn¡¯t gleaned more information from Mary and the others that I rescued. I couldn¡¯t afford to be frozen again. After that incident, I had decided that the best course of action was to come up with a character, and become him when I was talking to people. I had practiced this for quite some time now, and it was becoming easier for me to play the part. It would distract me from the situation while also providing a separating wall between me and others. The basis of my plan was a simple concept: Fake it till you make it.


    I wasn¡¯t worried about being attacked by them. A quick scan of their weaponry revealed that the only thing that posed a threat to me was their hovertank¡¯s railgun, but its pilot was currently leaning against a troop transport about twenty feet away from it. Plenty of time to blow it to hell, if it came to that, which I had little doubt it would. But I needed to stall for time and gather some information, if possible. I still knew close to nothing about the outside world, and I needed to find out what the hell was going on with these slavers. After that, I¡¯d threaten them a little, slap a couple around (gently), blow up their nice tank, and maybe they¡¯d leave Sterling alone. A guy can hope, right?


    They actually had a few sentries posted, which meant someone in their outfit had a semblance of a brain. I approached them in plain sight, walking straight towards the front of the column, not wanting to provoke a fight quite yet. I saw one of the sentries stiffen as he noticed me, but I held my giant hands above my head, the universal symbol for ¡®please don¡¯t shoot me¡¯. The slavers scrambled to their feet, grabbing their weapons, as the sentry shouted a warning over his shoulder. I walked closer to the camp, and stopped about thirty feet from it. I noticed that the hovertank pilot hadn¡¯t gotten into his vehicle, instead joining the crowd of raiders that stood gawking at my armor. The short man moved his way to the front of the crowd, gesturing at the slavers. The crowd fanned out, and I watched as a hundred people leveled guns at me. If this didn¡¯t give me stage fright, nothing would. I stared at them


    ¡°Hello there,¡± said the boss, looking me up and down, ¡°Seems that you want something with us.¡±


    Show time. I slipped into the mindset of the character that I created. I wore the role like a second skin, forcing myself into it completely. ¡°I¡¯m just a traveler,¡± I said, the suit¡¯s PA changing my voice to his, a deep, trustworthy baritone, ¡°I was moving through here when I saw your group.¡±


    ¡°Oh, just passing through?¡± The man said, tapping the pistol he kept strapped to his waist. I noticed he wore a communications device of some kind in his ear. ¡°What¡¯s your name, friend?¡±


    ¡°You may call me Uther, and I think you and I might have something in common.¡±


    ¡°Your parents were fans of the classics huh?¡± said the man with a pleasant laugh, ¡°Now, what do you think we have in common?¡±


    ¡°Well,¡± said I evenly, ¡°I couldn¡¯t help but overhear about your business with the town of Sterling. I happen to share an interest in them as well. I think we might be able to help each other out.¡±


    At this, the man visibly relaxed. He smiled, ¡°An enemy of my enemy is my friend, eh? I know that well. But you don¡¯t look like a raider or a slaver, so why come to us?¡±


    This man was bafflingly open about his horrific occupation. ¡°I am not. Indeed, I find the practices to be reprehensible. But in our new world, one does not have the luxury of choosing their allies. I cannot fight an entire town alone, so I need something to even the odds.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough,¡± said the boss, ¡°and I appreciate the honesty. My name¡¯s Harry, and this is my press gang,¡± he gestured back at the crowd.


    There was a chorus of hellos from the group, which was a little funny. I looked back at Harry and asked, ¡°And where are you from? I am a wanderer, but I¡¯ve been travelling up from the south.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re from the east a ways, but you could say we¡¯re wanderers, just like you,¡± Harry said, ¡°We make acquisitions on the road, and peddle our wares back home.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not from around these parts then,¡± I replied, ¡°So why do you have a bone to pick with a place as far away as Sterling?¡±


    Harry grimaced and looked away, ¡°We don¡¯t really have a bone to pick with them, as such. We¡¯re just people trying to survive out here. Cruel, maybe. But so is this world. Sterling presents a very good opportunity for us. A risky opportunity, as I¡¯m sure you overheard, but one we can¡¯t afford to pass up. Merchandise from towns like Sterling fetch a good price.¡±


    I almost broke right there and then. These motherfuckers were just wrapping their disgusting acts in a pretty shell of words. I didn¡¯t give a shit if that¡¯s how they justified it to themselves. It just made it worse. Adelaide murmured something into the coms about filthy degenerates. Taking a deep breath, I let myself fall back into character, letting icy calm cool my rage.


    During the time that Harry had been talking, not a single peep rose up from the slavers around him, but they had begun to slowly fan out, moving around into a wide circle. They were about as subtle as an elephant stepping on firecrackers, but it didn¡¯t look like they were trying to hide their actions.


    ¡°A choice I can¡¯t agree with,¡± I said in response, shaking my head, ¡°But I do not have to. Everyone still living is entitled to their choices, after all.¡±


    Harry smiled bitterly. His teeth were surprisingly white. ¡°You¡¯re saying it like we had a choice. You think anyone would choose this kind of life? Put their lives in the hands of someone else? Go to hell.¡±This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    That confused me enough to break character, ¡°The hell are you on about? You¡¯re slavers.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you,¡± Harry said flaring up in anger, and the crowd of slavers started muttering angrily, ¡°You think we want to be here? You think we like what¡­ Ah,¡± he said, calming down, ¡°You don¡¯t know what a press gang is, do you?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°I don¡¯t.¡±


    He stared at me incredulously. ¡°What rock have you been living under?¡± he sighed, ¡°Forget it. I don¡¯t owe you an explanation.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d appreciate one all the same. I appear to have very little idea of what is ¨C¡°


    Midway through my sentence, I saw Harry¡¯s face contort, and he shook his head, muttering something angrily into his earpiece. A second later he screamed in pain, twitching horribly. I watched in shock as Adelaide spoke into my ear, ¡°Sam, the scanners are picking up someone speaking to him through a heavily encrypted channel. There is also a signal being transmitted to the devices in the heads of all the slavers, Harry included. I can¡¯t trace either signals¡¯ origin.¡±


    ¡°Keep working on it on your end, I¡¯ll try to figure out what the hell is going on over here,¡± I said into my coms, the Paladin containing my voice. Harry¡¯s eyes rolled back in his head, and though his mouth was twisted open, he wasn¡¯t screaming anymore. The rest of the slavers were showing discomfort, but not the level of agony that Harry was going through. After a moment, Harry finished shuddering. He gasped for breath, a hand squeezing his thigh. I tensed up, preparing myself for anything.


    ¡°Is everything alright?¡± I asked. This was freaking me out more than a little. Harry ignored me, but he signaled at the slavers. They suddenly surrounded me in a tight circle, guns raised, and the pilot of the hovertank sprinted to his vehicle. I was tempted to destroy it, but the explosion would have killed the pilot and the slavers nearby. They hadn¡¯t fired on me yet, and I wasn¡¯t about to start slaughtering people before I absolutely had to. But that didn¡¯t mean I couldn¡¯t get ready. I grabbed both my SMGs, deploying them and setting them to automatic as the pilot scrambled into the hovertank. My cluster rocket pod popped out of my shoulder.


    ¡°What the hell is happening here?¡± I growled, my suit¡¯s PA ringing out over the silent crowd. Harry stared straight at me, his breath evening out.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Uther,¡± he said, and there was actual regret in his voice, ¡°but my superiors have informed me that there¡¯s something they want from you.¡± He gestured at me, ¡°They¡¯d like that armor you¡¯re wearing. If you take it off without a struggle, they promise that they¡¯ll let you walk away. If not, I¡¯ll have to take it by force.¡±


    ¡°I have a counter offer for them,¡± I replied immediately, ¡°turn this convoy around, leave Sterling alone, and never come back this way again. Or I will come for them, and I will destroy them all.¡±


    Harry shook his head at me, that bitter smile on his face, ¡°I¡¯m afraid that won¡¯t happen.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t do this,¡± I said, ¡°it¡¯s not worth it.¡±


    ¡°We don¡¯t have that option,¡± he whispered. Then he yelled, ¡°Open fire!¡±


    The hovertank¡¯s railgun fired first. I¡¯d been preparing for it, but the range was so close that I couldn¡¯t avoid the projectile entirely, and it traveled too fast for my point defense. My anti-gravs flung me to the right and the slug clipped my side, denting the armor enough that it broke a few ribs and sent me careening. I ignored the injury, and as I regained my balance three rockets burst from my cluster pod, embedding themselves in the tank and detonating in a series of massive blue explosions. The back row of the slavers was flung forward by the shockwave. The rest began firing at me, a hail of bullets that clattered into my Paladin from all directions, doing more damage to them than it did to me, the ricochet taking several lives. There were a few slavers with anti-tank rifles in the crowd, which might¡¯ve been able to damage some of my systems if they landed a lucky hit. My CAS targeted the threats, and the rounds from my SMGs made short work of them. I winced as I saw the bullets rip them apart.


    I activated the thrusters on the front of my suit, flying backwards as fast as possible. A couple slavers didn¡¯t get out of the way in time, and I felt them cracking on my armor through the haptic feedback system as I bowled them over. Once I had escaped their encirclement, the small arms fire slackened for a second, the rest of the slavers clearly hesitant to fire directly at their own. I skidded to a halt, my Paladin covered in blood, trying to figure out how to end this. I roared at them, the PA turned up as loud as it went, ¡°I¡¯ve removed everything that can touch me! Put down your weapons, and I will not harm you further!¡±


    I looked around the crowd, and I saw that most of them were shaking. I saw the fear in their eyes, the fear of me, the fear of death. I saw one woman lowering her gun, and I hoped the rest would follow. And then I saw her mouth tear open into a soundless scream, her eyes rolling up into the top of her head, blood leaking from her ears. She fell to the ground a moment later, twitching lifelessly. What the fuck.


    As her convulsions stopped, there was moment of hesitation before another round of gunfire flew at me, but they had nothing that was effective anymore. I began to take evasive maneuvers to be on the safe side, and tried to come up with another plan. I raced through a few options, and settled on getting a hold of the communicator that Harry was using. Maybe I could trace back the signal and threaten the people ordering this insanity.


    My mind made up, I flared my main thrusters, launching myself into an arc over the crowd. My CAS locked onto the communicator¡¯s signal, and I burst downwards, knocking a few slavers flying. I fired my anti-gravs again, and flew directly at Harry, who fired his pistol wildly into my armor, his eyes stretched wide in fear and disbelief. My armored hand closed around his neck, and I slammed him against the side of a transport. As I reached for the communicator with my other hand, he began twitching like the woman had, and went slack. I watched astonished as the communicator exploded in his ear, taking half his head with it. ¡°Holy shit,¡± I muttered in shock, dropping the limp body. I realized belatedly that the gunfire had stopped. I turned around, dreading what I would see.


    ¡°Oh Christ.¡± I said, freezing in place. There was a field of corpses in front of me, and every face was twisted, mouths contorted in agony. I stumbled and fell to the ground, catching myself on my hands. What the fuck. What the actual fuck was happening. ¡°Adelaide, are any of them still alive?¡± I asked hoarsely.


    ¡°No Sam, none of them. And the chips in their heads are destroyed,¡± she said, badly shaken, ¡°Who would do this?¡±


    I knelt among the bodies, my Paladin covered in Harry¡¯s blood, gasping for breath. The entire camp was silent, except for the hovertank crackling with flames, its mangled hull creaking from the heat. ¡°A monster,¡± I replied, my voice cracking, ¡°Only a monster could do this.¡±

 Chapter 2.6: State of Play

    I leaned forward on the railings as Ellie lowered me back into Camelot. The aftermath of the battle and the trip back to the base had been a blur. I had destroyed all the vehicles and the weapons, to deny any resources to whoever had owned those slaves. I¡¯d wanted to bury the bodies as well, but Adelaide firmly forbid it. The Paladin detected that I had a (slightly) punctured lung, so I needed to get back to the med bay as soon as possible. I walked off the freight elevator into the Armory, and my suit rippled open in a jarring, jerking motion. I¡¯d designed it to be able to be taken off even if it had suffered catastrophic damage. I stepped out of the armor, and an army of spider bots began to scuttle over it, inspecting it. They eventually carried it over to a spare Arming Station I¡¯d set up for repairs.


    ¡°Do you need assistance getting to the med bay, Sam?¡± said Adelaide over the base¡¯s PA, sounding worried. A group of spider bots scuttled up to me.


    I shook my head at them and started walking towards the first floor, my head too numb with shock to really understand what was happening. My mind was flying through the previous fight, trying to dissect every single part of it to find a clue as to where to find the evil fuckers in control. The slavers, slaves themselves, had obviously been unwilling victims, forced to comply under fear of torture or death. But, Harry had said that the people from Sterling would ¡®fetch a good price¡¯. So, it wasn¡¯t just fear compelling them, there were other incentives as well. Perhaps they could buy back their freedom? I filed that idea away. Too much of a logical leap, not enough evidence. I boarded the elevator to the second facility, where the med bay was. There was a dull throb in my side and my chest, but I barely noticed it.


    My thoughts turned to the chips embedded in the slave¡¯s heads. I had fucked up so badly. I should have fucking known that those weren¡¯t benign, that they were some kind of control. But it was stuff I hadn¡¯t seen before, probably developed by criminal syndicates. Even during the war for humanity¡¯s survival, crime hadn¡¯t gone away. In fact, as more people turned to drugs as a means of escape, the cartels and mobs thrived, conglomerating into larger groups. My guess was that some lucky bastard in control of a syndicate managed to survive, and had taken over a piece of territory in the vacuum of power. But those devices¡­ it made me queasy to think about them. They were pure evil.


    I walked into the med bay, my eyes wincing at the sudden change in color, from drab concrete to shining sterile tile. I stood in the doorway, a little bit at loss as to what to do next. I¡¯d come here mechanically, but I didn¡¯t know whether to go to one of the medical stations or just a normal hospital bed.


    ¡°Please lay down in the medical station closest to you, Sam,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°Your injuries are beyond the capabilities of the spider bots to repair.¡±


    ¡°Alright,¡± I said. I approached the station, and the plastic bed lowered to shin level. I climbed on it, my broken ribs stinging in protest, and sank down a small amount into it. The capsule came to a close around me, but dim lights in it made sure that the inside weren¡¯t pitch black.


    ¡°Okay, Sam,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°The station will start working in a minute, after it has diagnosed your wounds. You will be placed under anesthesia. You should wake up in two hours¡¯ time.¡±


    ¡°Thank you, Adelaide.¡± A white light began to sweep over me. ¡°Hey. After I¡¯m out of here, can we talk about what happened today?¡± My eyes started to feel heavy. I¡¯m not sure how the medical station administered anesthesia, but it worked fast. The last thing I heard before I went under was Adelaide speaking to me gently.


    ¡°Of course, Sam.¡±


    <hr>


    I blinked my eyes open groggily. My side itched, and my mouth felt dry. My eyes focused in, and I was staring up at a faux wooden ceiling. The bed underneath me was comfortable, more so than the ones in the medical station. I was in the commander¡¯s quarters, my room. My body felt a bit weak, but I sat up anyway, noticing that I was still fully clothed. I tried to clear the fuzz in my head. What was I¡­


    Ah.


    ¡°Sam,¡± said Adelaide, interrupting my thoughts, ¡°How are you feeling?¡±


    ¡°Like someone stuffed my brain full of cotton. And my mouth feels like a desert.¡± I looked over to the bedside table, and a glass of water was there next to my picture of Camille. She was grinning like an idiot, with a new model of the StarArc in her hands, her almost-black hair tied up in a ponytail. It was taken about a year after we started dating, when we¡¯d gone to the Starchaser¡¯s meet-up in LA. She¡¯d had her natural hair color in the photo, which is why I loved it so much. I traced the outline of the frame with a finger, and picked up the water glass.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad to hear you¡¯re okay, Sam.¡±


    I laughed a little, ¡°I don¡¯t know if okay is the right word.¡± I ran a hand through my hair, ¡°How are you holding up? That whole thing¡­ it wasn¡¯t pleasant to go through.¡±


    ¡°No, it wasn¡¯t. I knew that killing wasn¡¯t pleasant. I¡¯ve seen and analyzed enough media to know that. Experiencing it first hand, however, was something else entirely.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± I muttered, ¡°it really was.¡± I shuddered, remembering the feeling of the bodies breaking on my Paladin, the sight of my bullets tearing the slaves to shreds. I shook my head and took a big gulp of water, trying to banish those images.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been trying to find a scenario that would have worked out,¡± said Adelaide, and there was pain in her voice, ¡°I have analyzed the records of the situation more than a hundred times. Maybe if I¡¯d been quicker to analyze the electronics, I could have done something to block the signal. I spent so much time understanding what those chips were trying to do that I didn¡¯t even notice that they had a passive connection to something.¡±


    I looked up sharply at that, ¡°Hey. You can¡¯t torture yourself like that. Remember what we learned in the simulator.¡±


    ¡°The dead are dead,¡± whispered Adelaide, ¡°And they aren¡¯t coming back.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± I nodded firmly, ¡°We can¡¯t change what happened. What we can do is take steps to make sure it won¡¯t happen again. And the first thing we need to figure out is where we screwed up, but not from an emotional place. This has to be cold and logical, alright?¡± Adelaide made a noise of assent.


    ¡°Okay. The first place I fucked up is that I didn¡¯t observe the situation for longer. I should have listened in for more than a few minutes. I should have asked you to analyze those electronics, and waited until we knew exactly what those chips were. I went in half-cocked, without proper information, and it fucked us and a lot of people over.¡± I frowned, ¡°Quick question, is there any way you could have blocked the signals to the com device in Harry¡¯s ear, or the chips in the back of the head?¡±


    Adelaide thought for a moment, then replied, ¡°No. We didn¡¯t have the necessary equipment on hand for me to effectively jam those signals. I could not have jumped to those devices either, as I had no way of connecting to them.¡±


    ¡°Alright, so at least we know that there wasn¡¯t anything we could¡¯ve done differently there, but we¡¯ll make sure to equip the Paladin with a more robust cyberwarfare suite going forward,¡± I said, nodding. Then I continued, ¡°The second place I screwed up was not cutting and running the second the situation started going south, the moment I saw Harry in pain or those slaves starting to circle me. There was no way in hell they would have caught me, and it would¡¯ve allowed us time to recoup and come up with a better plan. I stayed because I was confident in the Paladin¡¯s strength, and that would¡¯ve been fine if the objective was to destroy that group. That wasn¡¯t the objective. The objective was to gather information and dissuade the attack on Sterling. I prevented the attack on Sterling, but because I didn¡¯t think it through, a lot more people died than was potentially necessary.¡±


    ¡°You just said I should not torture myself, Sam,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°but you seem to be doing the same thing.¡±


    I shook my head, ¡°I¡¯m not. Really. There¡¯s a difference between beating yourself over the head with ¡®what ifs¡¯ and analyzing why a shitshow like that went the way it did. Mistakes happen. This one was horrible because a lot of people died, and I might have been able to avoid it. But frankly¡­¡± I trailed off, then pushed forward, ¡°Frankly the outcome wasn¡¯t as bad as it could have been. I only got a minor injury, and an attack on Sterling was avoided. I¡¯m still at fault for those people dying, but I didn¡¯t decide to pull the trigger first. We have to focus on learning from this, and on finding the assholes that orchestrated it to make sure it doesn¡¯t happen again.¡±


    ¡°How?¡± she said, ¡°We barely have anything to go off of.¡±


    I snorted, ¡°Bullshit. We¡¯ve got a couple of routes we can go in. One is to ask the other survivors we get in contact with about the slavers. I doubt they¡¯re well liked around here. And there¡¯s another, more proactive option. We¡¯ve got active scans of whatever the fuck those devices were. We¡¯ve got access to the US government¡¯s databases, including the FBI¡¯s. Something that dangerous and illegal, you know for sure that someone was investigating where to find them. If we can figure out exactly what the chips were, we can find where the FBI thought they were being distributed or being made. Those chips must be easily replaceable for whoever is pulling the strings to have just destroyed them like that.¡±If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    ¡°The slaves said that they were from the east,¡± said Adelaide, catching on, ¡°But realistically their range would be limited. Even if they looted some supplies from Sterling, they still had to feed themselves and the slaves they brought back. Additionally, there could only be a few places out there that had that many of those devices concentrated in one area: Locations with strong syndicate presences, or the location where the chips were manufactured.¡±


    I continued the train of thought, ¡°We narrow down a feasible range for those slaves to travel in. Cross reference that with the FBIs suspected locations¡­¡±


    ¡°And we have a search area, one that we can start doing reconnaissance in,¡± she finished.


    ¡°Atta girl,¡± I said, grinning at the ceiling, ¡°We¡¯ll start putting the clues together as soon as we can. We¡¯ll find the bastards, and we¡¯ll make them pay.¡± I leapt up off the bed, ignoring how weak I felt, ignoring the horrible nausea that was crawling up inside me as the screams of the slaves echoed in my head. ¡°Let¡¯s head to the command center, I want to take a look at the new info from the satellites.¡±


    ¡°Already?¡± Adelaide said, surprised.


    I gave a small smile, ¡°I could sit around here feeling awful for letting those people die, or I could go distract myself with shiny new satellite images, and try to figure out what happened to the world. Which do you think would be better for my mental health?¡±


    ¡°Is a psychiatrist a valid third option?¡±


    ¡°Not unless you know one that isn¡¯t dead,¡± I said, moving towards the door.


    ¡°Then come up to the command center, Sam.¡± Adelaide sounded resigned, which people often did around me. She was quiet for a little as I walked through the halls, then said something else, her voice a lot softer, ¡°And thanks, Sam, for being here for me.¡±


    <hr>


    When I got to the command center, a large map of the continental United States was on the screen. I recognized the date. It was the day before the country had fallen. It was amazing how normal it all seemed less than 24 hours before it was all over. The vast majority of the allied armies were concentrated in a series of forts in Alaska, as they had been for nearly nine months, with a significant Assimilator presence hounding them. It was estimated that there were a hundred million Assimilators in and around the Bering Strait, mostly located on the Russian side of it. We had done well in holding them off. They hadn¡¯t been able to fit many soldiers through the natural chokepoint that the Bering Strait made. We also had our vastly more advanced tech and absurd air-superiority to even the odds, but it was always a hard fight.


    I studied the map. In hindsight, it was so goddamned obvious how vulnerable the rest of North and South America was. But we just didn¡¯t know they had the capability to attack from the oceans. They never had before. The only way they took England was by sneaking a Matriarch larva onto a fishing trawler headed for an obscure port in the north of the country. Since then all ships had been thoroughly scanned and searched before being able to land in a port.


    ¡°Alright,¡± I said, ¡°roll the timeline forward a day, please. Can you take me image by image through the invasion?¡±


    ¡°Sure, Sam,¡± replied Adelaide, and the map flickered but stayed mostly the same. ¡°This is about an hour before the attack. There was a significant movement of Assimilators towards the Alaskan Line, but High Command must have thought it was just another assault, because no additional troops were mobilized. Things only started to change about two hours later. The Line had already been under attack for an hour by that point, and was not expecting an attack from the rear.¡±


    The images showed a mass of Assimilators attack Anchorage from the sea, then smash through the Alaskan Line from behind. There were millions of them. They must have been building that army for months, all in anticipation of this attack.


    ¡°Where the fuck were they hiding?¡± I asked, confused, ¡°After the surprise attack through Istanbul, all the satellites were upgraded with alien scanner tech. They shouldn¡¯t have been able to hide this from us.¡±


    ¡°I am not sure exactly how the Assimilator army avoided detection, but I do have several theories.¡± Adelaide said, ¡°If you would like to hear them.¡±


    I motioned for her to continue and she did, ¡°My first theory is that they stored their soldiers in the massive Carriers that launched the assaults on the United States. Human satellites cannot see underwater, so they theoretically could have hidden the carriers under the oceans. My second theory is more likely. The Assimilators have shown the ability to adapt human technology before. Prime examples are the mechanoid class Assimilators, and the new Carriers. Therefore, they might have a type of Assimilator that adapted humanity¡¯s stealth technology, allowing them to cloak their armies.¡±


    ¡°I like the first option way better,¡± I said, ¡°because the second means that we have to make upgrading our scanner tech the top of our to-do list, and the to-do list has grown so much it¡¯s about time for it to go off to college,¡± I sighed, ¡°Alright, let¡¯s see how the rest of this plays out.¡±


    The images that followed showed about what I had expected. A few hours after Alaska had fallen, nearly simultaneous attacks launched in four places: California, Washington DC, Florida, and Colorado. The attack on Colorado was launched from the Gulf of Mexico. They cut straight through Texas up to Denver, ignoring the cities along the way. I watched on the holoprojector as the places they targeted were overwhelmed in a matter of hours, their unsuspecting and undermanned garrisons cut down. I was amazed and horrified. The planning that this must have taken, the logistics¡­ it made human warfare look like child¡¯s play. Adelaide estimated that there were over two hundred million Assimilators in North and South America by the end.


    I needed to know what came after, so I asked Adelaide to run through the months following the invasion. In the days following their attack on the targets of military importance, they systematically wiped out every city and large town in America, in order, from largest population to smallest. I noticed something odd though. The Assimilators did not seek out towns with populations of about 15,000 and under, only destroying them if they happened to lie in their path.


    That wasn¡¯t the most interesting part, however. After the elimination of all population centers in North and South America, the last untouched continents in the world, the Assimilators started to disperse. Two hundred million sounds like a lot, but when it¡¯s spread out over the landmass of Earth it¡¯s much less intimidating. There were still a lot more of them than there were of us, though. But it wasn¡¯t that they dispersed that was so interesting. It was the way that they did it. Despite the fact that they were unable to form societies, it appeared that the Assimilators had systematically clustered themselves in areas that could easily support human populations: River valleys, coast lines, areas with arable soil, etc. Even though they weren¡¯t taking the final steps to wipe us out, they were determined to prevent us rebuilding. Everywhere else, the Assimilators settled in a pattern, groups of hives that maintained territories of variable size, something that Adelaide had discovered.


    After looking over the images, I looked at the ceiling to signal I wanted to speak with Adelaide,


    ¡°So, my takeaway from this is that the Assimilators aren¡¯t just an alien species that want to wipe out humanity. They have a different purpose for us, and I¡¯m not sure what it is. We aren¡¯t being farmed, we aren¡¯t being enslaved. We¡¯re being hunted, but not actively. The best way to describe it is that we¡¯re being managed.¡±


    ¡°I agree, Sam,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°And in addition to that, the Assimilators are no longer acting as one cohesive unit.¡±


    ¡°Wait, what?¡± I asked, confused, ¡°What gave you that impression?¡±


    ¡°Ever since the Assimilators broke out in Russia, they moved as a single wave, like one entity. They did not move as individuals, instead they moved as part of a greater whole. This held true throughout the entire invasion of humanity, except the end. Now that they have dispersed, I have noticed that each Hive Cluster appears to be independent. They no longer act in the same patterns as they did before; their behavior varies significantly from cluster to cluster.¡±


    I nodded and began to think out loud, ¡°There¡¯re only two things that have changed between now and then. The first is that they finished wiping out the population centers. The second is that they dispersed. If only the first change caused the new behaviors, we¡¯d have to assume that the Assimilators were always independent, but chose to follow orders.¡±


    Adelaide chimed in, ¡°I do not think that assumption is entirely feasible. They were far too coordinated to be individuals.¡±


    I nodded, ¡°Right, I agree. They acted like appendages of a single organism before.¡± My eyes opened wide, ¡°Except during the invasion of the United States. Every assault started at a separate time. The gap between the fall of Anchorage and the invasion through California was way too large to be a tactical decision, it seemed like a miscommunication that is completely unlike the Assimilators. The attacks on Washington DC and Miami came even later. And the only thing that had changed in that invasion compare to the rest of the war¡­¡±


    ¡°Was the distance separating the elements of the horde,¡± Adelaide finished the thought for me.


    I was getting excited now, ¡°So there¡¯s some sort of link between how cohesive the Assimilators are and their physical distance. The Hive Clusters are acting independently, but the Assimilators within those clusters still act as a unit. That means that there¡¯s a separate entity in each cluster that controls them, most likely the Matriarchs we saw during the war.¡±


    I got up and started to pace around the command center, walking through the holograph and disturbing the floating map, ¡°If they¡¯re not acting as a whole unit now, that would imply that there¡¯s at least one level in the hierarchy above the Matriarchs that can control them, if it¡¯s within a certain range, probably one we can determine from old satellite images of their armies.¡±


    ¡°Which explains why the Assimilators never attacked more than one target at the same time,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°Until they had no other choice.¡±


    ¡°And now that they won the war, the bastards dispersed to make sure that humanity doesn¡¯t start building back up again.¡± I frowned, ¡°Which doesn¡¯t make any fucking sense, tactically. If I were in control of the swarm, I would never let it break apart into such fragmented pieces. I¡¯d send out periodic scouts to see where humans were recovering, then smash them with the horde, or pieces of it anyway.¡±


    Adelaide hummed over the PA, ¡°We should be careful not to anthropomorphize them too much. Despite the fact that I am not human, I was raised entirely by my mother in a human culture, which makes me think in much the same way you do. The Assimilators, on the other hand, seem to be cut from a completely different cloth.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re probably right,¡± I said pensively, ¡°but I still think that parts of what we just came up with hold water. At least the fact that these clusters of Assimilators are acting independently seems to be true. Which makes it far less risky to blow a Hive Cluster straight to hell. I don¡¯t think we can do anything about the slavers right now, beyond starting to search for them, so we should focus on our friendly neighborhood monsters. I¡¯m curious to see what happens when a Cluster loses its Matriarch.¡±


    ¡°I agree, probing a Hive Cluster should be our next step,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°But we should make sure to strike at one far away from any human settlements. I think we should perform remote reconnaissance to carefully document the threat we face. Afterwards, we will eliminate it, then retreat, and see how the greater Assimilator body reacts. If all goes well, we can begin contacting the settlements with our findings,¡± Adelaide paused, then continued, ¡°I think it is time for the Merlin to be put into use. I am confident in my ability to pilot it, so I shall be accompanying you on this mission.¡±

 Chapter 2.7: Interlude - Jane

    Jane leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples with both hands. The fucking paperwork was killing her. You¡¯d think in the apocalypse, bureaucracy would¡¯ve gone the same way as most of humanity. But no, shoot one person that pulled a gun on a towner, and you had to write reports on it, stating exactly why you had put down a homicidal asshole. She looked at the empty whiskey bottle on her desk longingly. She¡¯d completely forgotten to grab a new one from The Post last night, and it didn¡¯t open up before 11:00 AM.


    For the most part, she liked being sheriff. She had authority here in Burlington, she sat on the city council. Honestly, more people listened to her than the mayor. The town was small enough that she only needed herself and the guards to manage it. Crime wasn¡¯t an issue. Most things were punished by death around here, and most people knew that they were always just a hairbreadth away from becoming Worm food, which garnered a lot of cooperation. She chuckled a little at her pun, then picked up her pen again. The biggest problem with her job was the goddamned paperwork. But she¡¯d almost finished her last report, then she could get down to some real business. The Runners from Sterling Outpost had brought an answer to her request for a communication line to be established between the two towns. They¡¯d split the cost of repairing and replacing the fiber-optic lines that already existed. More importantly, they¡¯d be setting up something in each town that could actually make that connection work. All it would allow was sending information back and forth from the towns. Burlington¡¯s chief engineer, a genius really, had tried to describe it to her. She called it ¡®basically a really fucking big LAN¡¯, but Jane had no idea what that meant. All she was concerned about was dispatching the guards to defend the repairmen from Worm attacks.


    She sighed. Nobody would willingly volunteer for that dangerous of a job, so she¡¯d have to designate them. She¡¯d probably rotate the shifts, even though it was inefficient, so everyone got the short end of the stick. She also had to find a way of convincing her best friend, the chief engineer, to not go along with them. Providing the normal repairmen with the task worked just as well. Besides, Jane would never put her in that kind of danger. They¡¯d met on the day the world ended, while a Worm was attacking Jane¡¯s sedan on the highway out of Denver. The only reason she¡¯d survived is because the crazy girl had run over the Worm, pinning it under her car long enough for both of them to escape on foot. After that, they¡¯d made their way east, surviving as best they could, avoiding the Worms through a combination of luck and cleverness. Burlington was where they ended up. Jane¡¯s companion refused to go any further, saying that she wouldn¡¯t leave Colorado. So, they settled in the little town, and had stayed there for nearly nine months now.


    She heard footsteps coming down the hall towards her office. Jane straightened up, trying her best to look professional. She swiped the whiskey bottle off the desk and stashed it underneath. She had to keep up the pretense of authority as long as possible. She relaxed as the door burst open without a knock. There was only one person in this town who had the stones to do that. She looked back down at her report. Maybe she could finish it up while they talked.


    ¡°Hey,¡± she said, studying her paperwork, ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±


    ¡°Jane,¡± an angry female voice spoke, ¡°You have a lot of fucking explaining to do.¡±


    Jane froze. Oh shit. She guiltily looked up at her friend. She was a smidge above average height, with large grey eyes and black hair that was tied in a ponytail. She was wearing a plain white tank-top smudged with grease, a torn-up pair of jeans, and work boots that had seen much better days. Normally, she had an impish smile or a goofy grin plastered on. Currently, her lovely face was twisted in rage, and her grey eyes burned.


    ¡°Two weeks,¡± Camille growled as she walked up and slammed her palms on the desk, ¡°Two fucking weeks since those Runners came, and the first I¡¯m hearing about that Paladin is now? From Tommy McPrickhead over in the general store?¡±


    ¡°Look, Camille,¡± said Jane, panicking a little, ¡°I can explain. With everything that¡¯s been going on, it slipped my min-¡°


    Camille snarled, ¡°Don¡¯t give me that bullshit Jane. I know you too well to fall for it. You just didn¡¯t want me to up and go after him, didn¡¯t you?¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Jane stared at her, tapping her finger on the desk, ¡°Yeah. I didn¡¯t. The only thing that¡¯s changed is that someone, not necessarily your boyfriend, is running around in a Paladin.¡±


    Camille threw up her arms, ¡°I can¡¯t believe this shit. I seriously can¡¯t. I¡¯ve told you, nobody can get into Camelot. It¡¯s absolutely secure.¡±


    ¡°Nobody could break through the Alaskan Line,¡± Jane said quietly, ¡°and look what happened there.¡± She sighed, ¡°I get what you¡¯re saying. But you also told me that high-ranking military personnel would have access to the base. They could¡¯ve taken control of the Paladins themselves. I¡¯m not saying that¡¯s what happened, or even that it¡¯s likely, but do you remember what we learned out there?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I do,¡± Camille said, ¡°and I get the need for caution and distrust. But I need to find Sam. I¡¯m not stupid enough to wander out into the plains to look for him, but I need everything I can get my hands on about him. And beyond that, beyond any of this crap, the thing I¡¯m most pissed off about is that you, my friend, felt it was okay to withhold the first piece of information we¡¯ve ever received about the person I love. And you actually had the balls to let the Runners think you wanted to harm him. That¡¯s real fucked up, Jane.¡±


    Jane was surprised at that, ¡°How¡¯d you even hear about that part?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a small town, dipshit,¡± Camille said, rolling her eyes, ¡°People talk. Jon the bartender told Shelly who told Jackie who told Tommy.¡±


    ¡°But you never listen to the gossip!¡± said Jane, and she winced. Bad choice.


    Camille¡¯s eyes flared, ¡°Oh Christ, how long were you planning on hiding this? Yeah, I don¡¯t gossip, I¡¯m too busy for that shit, but I still talk to people, and those Runners were big news.¡±


    ¡°Damn. Alright, I¡¯m sorry, okay?¡± Jane muttered, ¡°I know I should have told you, but I just¡­ I just didn¡¯t want you to do anything stupid,¡± she held up a hand as Camille opened her mouth, ¡°I know you¡¯re not stupid, but I also know how much you want to find him. The plan you came up with is still our best shot. We lay the fiber optic line between us and Sterling. The base, Camelot or whatever the fuck it is, is somewhere between the towns, according to what you told me. If he¡¯s going out at all, he¡¯ll notice the work crews, it¡¯ll be damn hard to miss them. They¡¯re under strict instructions to tell any non-hostile person they find that it¡¯s a joint project between Burlington and Sterling, to advertise the towns or some bullshit, and they¡¯ll say that the Chief Engineer is Camille Evans. If that doesn¡¯t work, I still have that big-ass folder of other ideas you¡¯ve come up with. Nothing about what I did changes that.¡±


    ¡°Are you kidding me?¡± Camille said incredulously, ¡°What if he talks with those Runners before he gets the message from the repairmen, and decides that Burlington is a threat worth avoiding? And on that note, why the fuck didn¡¯t you just tell them to give him my name if they saw him again?¡±


    ¡°Well I thought it might be a backup,¡± Jane said, intently studying the desk, ¡°From what you told me, if he thinks that someone is actively looking for him, it¡¯ll make him want to come to us. And I didn¡¯t tell the Runners your name because¡­ well it¡¯s a paranoid reason in hindsight, but I haven¡¯t told anyone you¡¯re even remotely connected to the Paladin, because they might use you for leverage, to get their hands on a suit or to threaten Sam.¡±


    Camille stared at her. Then her eyes narrowed, ¡°I see. You¡¯re trying to keep me safe, even if it means I can¡¯t find him. I¡¯m not a child, Jane. I don¡¯t need to hide behind you, and I never have. I saved your ass, more than once, remember?¡± she paused, gathering her thoughts, then continued, ¡°And you want to bring him here, right? So you can have home turf and the hovertanks in case it isn¡¯t actually Sam and you need to kill him? He¡¯s in a Paladin, dumbass, those won¡¯t even slow him down.¡±


    ¡°Better them than nothing,¡± said Jane quietly, ¡°I¡¯m not letting you meet up with something that dangerous without protection, and we can¡¯t move those tanks out of the town right now.¡±


    Camille made a growling noise and whirled around, stalking towards the door. She stopped with her hand on the knob, and looked back, ¡°The only reason, the only reason that I¡¯m still talking to you is because you¡¯re right, this doesn¡¯t really change anything. I can¡¯t go searching for him in Worm country alone without getting killed. I don¡¯t even know where Camelot actually is. You should¡¯ve told those Runners that I was looking for him, but I¡¯m levelheaded enough to see the logic in your reasoning, shitty as it was. But I¡¯m not going to stand for it if you ever hold back information about Sam again. And I¡¯m going with those repair crews in a month. I know it¡¯s just you trying to protect me, but frankly I don¡¯t give a shit anymore.¡±


    Jane¡¯s eyes opened wide, ¡°Wait, we talked about this, you just have to be patient for a little longer and-¡°


    ¡°Fuck patience,¡± Camille said, ¡°I¡¯ve been patient for nine months. I¡¯m not going to be a princess sitting in a castle for another second. I¡¯m going to finish repairing the mental interface in my hovertank, and I¡¯m taking it with me out there.¡± She opened the door and walked out, then slammed it shut behind her.


    After making sure that the storm had really passed, Jane leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples. She really needed a drink.

 Chapter 2.8: Combat Drop

    The powerful anti-grav engines hummed all around me. The canopy glass of the cockpit doubled as a large HUD, and it was currently showing a map of the surrounding areas, beamed remotely to it via the re-established satellite connection. Adelaide had gained access to the vast majority of the military¡¯s satellites, including their communications platforms, so we essentially had a connection back to Camelot at all times. This made things much less risky for Adelaide when we went out like this. If it looked like things were going sideways, she¡¯d make a short, if very disorienting, hop up to the satellites and then back to the base. This was the third recon mission we had been on since our discoveries from the satellite maps.


    ¡°Sam,¡± said Adelaide over the coms, ¡°We are approaching your drop off point. Please prepare for deployment.¡± She was currently inhabiting the Merlin, which she had become quite proficient at piloting.


    I grunted in acknowledgment and stood up from my seat in the cockpit. Adelaide was piloting, I was just along for the ride. I wasn¡¯t in a Paladin, but both the pilot¡¯s and copilot¡¯s seat could expand to fit them. I walked to the drop bay. My Paladin sat in a metal harness, suspended upright. There were six harnesses in the drop bay, three on each side, but the other five were empty. I walked over to the suit and it rippled open, allowing me to enter. I waited inside, preparing for the drop.


    The Merlin was what I had worked on the most in my six months of isolation in Camelot. I had conceived it as a companion to the Paladin, a beautiful mix of a heavy gunship and a small squad transport, with the ability to execute combat drops. It was a fairly long ship to accommodate for the drop bay, around 110 feet in length. It was propelled by four rotating anti-grav engines, two near the front and two near the back. The front pair sat slightly behind the sloped cockpit, each embedded in a wing about 30 feet long. The back two engines were placed near the tail, as part of the rear stabilizers. The drop bay tapered up to the tail, and the back opened into a ramp to allow entry. It was well armed, with anti-matter rocket pods and a large, three-barreled cannon mounted below the nose, in addition to several point-defense arrays. It also had some heavier torpedoes for the really big targets. For weight reasons I only included four of those. The Paladins riding inside had gun ports for their railguns, allowing them to engage ground targets.


    I made sure to throw every bell and whistle I could think of on it. Camelot had an incredible surplus of materials, even with the 10,000 Paladins it was making, so a few expensive craft like the Merlin wouldn¡¯t be an issue. It was EM shielded and contained sophisticated stealth capabilities, and it was as heavily armored as it could be while maintaining a max speed of Mach 2.5. Like all my designs, I took great pains to ensure that the Merlin would be fuel independent. The twin anti-matter reactors provided plenty of power, but there was a limit to what they could do. I couldn¡¯t mount any powerful high-energy weapons onto it, like railguns or laser cannons. The top speed was slower in comparison to other gunships and especially fighter jets. Even with those drawbacks, I thought the benefits of not having to rely on fuel were well worth it. I didn¡¯t have the luxury of multiple refueling stations, so independence from Camelot was a must for longer ranged missions.


    This would be my first drop from the Merlin, and I gotta say, I was not looking forward to hurtling down from almost 20,000 feet. The Paladin could handle it easily, the anti-gravs and inertial dampeners making the landing a cakewalk. But holy shit it sounded fucking terrifying, and I wasn¡¯t even afraid of heights. I loved my Paladins, but something about being stuck in a giant metal body suit and falling through the air without a parachute didn¡¯t quite sit right with me.


    My thoughts were interrupted by Adelaide¡¯s smooth voice, ¡°Drop point reached. Preparing for drop in 3¡­¡±


    The floor beneath my feet retracted towards the belly of the Merlin, giving me a phenomenal look at the really very far away ground.


    ¡°2¡­¡±


    Ah shit ah shit ah shit.


    ¡°1¡­¡±


    The harnesses disconnected, and I dropped. I couldn¡¯t feel it of course; the inertial dampeners took care of that. It felt like being in a Paladin always did. But the fact that I didn¡¯t feel anything only made my skydiving experience even more bizarre. It was pretty nauseating to see the ground rapidly approach me even though I felt like I wasn¡¯t moving. Also, it was fucking terrifying to see just how fast I was going. The automatic landing procedure hadn¡¯t kicked in yet, so my speed hadn¡¯t slowed a bit.


    As the Earth got nearer and nearer, an image of a bowl of petunias flashed through my mind. I grimaced in my Paladin, empathizing with the flowers. My altimeter showed me 500 feet above the ground when my anti-gravs suddenly kicked in, and my velocity began to slow rapidly. Amazingly, I still felt a small amount of pressure even with the inertial dampeners clocked into overdrive. The g-force on the Paladin must¡¯ve been absolutely insane. The ground was still getting closer much faster than I would like, but when I was just 20 feet above it, my anti-gravs flared to an even higher degree, and I touched down with far less speed than I thought I would. I stumbled a bit on the landing, but the thrusters evened me out. I still sat down though, taking deep, heaving breaths.


    ¡°How was your first combat drop, Sam?¡± said Adelaide, holding back laughter, ¡°From the number of expletives I heard, you had a wonderful time.¡±


    I hadn¡¯t even realized I was swearing. I held up a metallic middle finger, making sure my suit¡¯s cameras would catch it. I heard Adelaide chortling away through my coms. She was just getting more and more sassy. I think I may be a bad influence.


    In the week and a half since the fuck up with the slaves, we had reviewed thousands of satellite images. Well, Adelaide did most of the work, but I was an excellent cheerleader. I even had F-03 make me pom-poms, which I don¡¯t think Adelaide appreciated as much as she should have. Disappointingly, we hadn¡¯t found too much about the slavers. We¡¯d narrowed down the search to Nebraska, Kansa and Oklahoma. Of those three states, Kansas seemed the most likely. Wichita had been flagged by the FBI; they¡¯d suspected that there were a few factories on the outskirts that might have been producing the Persuaders, as the syndicates called them. Unfortunately, Wichita had been wiped out by the Assimilators, just like every other major city. The trail went cold because of that, and we needed more information before we could keep going. Kansas was a big place to search, so time was necessary to analyze the satellite images in detail.


    In the meantime, we had more hands-on problems to worry about. After we come up with our ¡®Independent Cluster Theory¡¯, we¡¯d switched immediately to doing recon on them. Clusters tended to act independently from each other, rarely crossing territorial borders. Interestingly enough, it seemed as though the Assimilators patrolled the borders between neighboring clusters more heavily than anywhere else. But satellite images couldn¡¯t tell us everything, so hands on reconnaissance was required. We¡¯d done some unnoticed flyovers, and we¡¯d confirmed the number of Worms in the Hive Cluster. In short, there were a fuckton of them, and a couple Hive Lords to boot. Definitely more than I could handle currently, and I¡¯d been getting much better in the simulator. Much of my job during the last week was designing a Heavy Assault loadout for the Paladin. It was going to be a beautiful instrument of mass destruction, but it wasn¡¯t quite done yet.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    After I had taken a minute to breathe and recharge my power reserves, I stood up and looked at my mini-map. The objective this time wasn¡¯t just reconnaissance of the Hive Cluster we had picked out for smashing, as the past couple missions had been. I was planning on engaging a patrol of Worms, to gauge their reaction to a territorial infringement. I was pretty deep in enemy territory, and while the Merlin was only a short flight away, I had to be cautious. I grabbed the railgun from my back, leaving it undeployed, and started moving through the Pawnee National Grasslands. This had been a massive nature preserve from before the war, and it was an ideal location to engage Assimilators. It was far from human settlements, and had a Hive Cluster smack dab in the middle of it.


    I headed towards the patrol of Worms that Adelaide was tracking from on high, moving quickly but cautiously through the short-grass prairie. I prowled past a herd of bison, who stopped to stare at me with judgement in their big brown eyes. It wasn¡¯t my fault that I sounded like a rhinoceros in this thing. And bison weren¡¯t exactly subtle either, so it was the pot calling the kettle loud as fuck. I seriously had to get around to making a stealth and reconnaissance version of the Paladin, but that would require a major redesign, and I had too many projects already lined up. Maybe I¡¯d get an apprentice or something. Shame I only knew Mike, Mary, some dude with a ponytail, and a bunch of dead slaves. I frowned. I should really expand my social circle.


    Ah shit. Focus. ¡°Hey Adelaide,¡± I said, ¡°Anything change from up there?¡± We didn¡¯t have to practice radio silence. As far as we knew, the Assimilators didn¡¯t give two shits about listening in on our coms, even if they had the capability to. Also, our networks were encrypted to hell and back. The Paladin blocked my voice from leaving unless I wanted it to, so there were no issues having a conversation.


    Adelaide responded almost immediately, ¡°I was about to contact you, Sam. The patrol is being joined by another group of Assimilators. The total count has gone from fifteen to twenty-five. Are you sure you want to continue with the mission?¡±


    ¡°Give me composition and classes.¡±


    ¡°There are thirteen M-1s and two M-2s. The other ten are R-1s¡±


    Urgh. That could turn into a shitshow really fast. I¡¯d taken on groups tougher than that in the simulator, but real combat was much less easy to predict. I wasn¡¯t about to turn around, though. Momma didn¡¯t raise no quitter. I¡¯d have to eliminate the M-2s first. They were big, tough, and really fucking annoying once they got close. Luckily, I would have the drop on them, so the railgun should be able to handle the oversized Worms. The rest would go down quickly after that.


    ¡°Roger that Ghost Rider. I¡¯m going to keep the mission going. Stay close, I might need you to pull my ass out of the fire,¡± I said to her. I think she secretly liked it when I called her that.


    The red dots appeared at the edge of my map. Adelaide had updated the CAS so that it displayed the class of the hostile in small letters on their dot. A genius, sentient information alien was super handy to have around. With a thought, I had the CAS show me the Assimilators¡¯ expected route, and picked out a nice ambush spot. It was up a small rise that placed the patrol within range of my railgun. I wouldn¡¯t be charging at them like an idiot this time, so I would have plenty of time to pick them off.


    I moved in small leaps over to the ambush, skating a little on the falls, which boosted my momentum into the next jump. I was getting the hang of it, and it looked way cooler than flinging myself through the air like an idiot. I reached the rise and settled in, the patrol only a few minutes out of my range. I didn¡¯t have to lie down like a sniper would. The Paladin kept my railgun steady. I deployed it, and raised it to firing position.


    The patrol came over the horizon. They moved in a diamond, with the M-1s making up the perimeter of it, the ranged ones clustered in the middle. One M-2 was in the vanguard, one in the rear. My CAS targeted the leading M-2 with a thought. It was a big one, around ten feet tall. It bore a disturbing resemblance to a Satyr. It had the head of a bison, and stood hunched over, walking on two cloven hooves. Its arms looked incredibly muscular, the tendrils wriggling and bulging out, and they ended in giant, creepy racoon hands. This Worm was going to have a starring role in my nightmares. The rest of the Assimilators were similar to what I¡¯d seen before. The gorilladillos were there, and a couple of turtlebears. No panther-spiders though, thank God. Those ones freaked me the fuck out. The ranged were a mix of a scorpion and a deer. The stingers that arced over their backs were what shot the projectiles. I waited until the first creepy Bison-thing was in my range, then I took a deep breath. Show time.


    My first railgun slug smashed into the head of the leading M-2, causing it to explode in a fountain of gore. It slumped over with a crash, and my second slug was already on the way, but the bison-head in the rear dodged with supernatural reflexes, and the slug only ripped off its shoulder and arm instead of blowing open its torso. My next shot wasn¡¯t perfect, but it took the M-2 out of the game by ripping off its right leg. I fired round after round into the approaching patrol, aiming for the turtlebears first. The R-1s weren¡¯t a threat to me, so I saved them for last.


    ¡°Sam, something came up,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°I¡¯m on my way to retrieve you.¡±


    ¡°Little busy here!¡± I yelled. The Assimilators were scattering now, approaching me in a wide arc. As my railgun¡¯s magazine ran out, I stored it and pulled out my SMGs, set to single fire. Automatic wouldn¡¯t be guaranteed to work on these armored M-1s. I took the initiative, careening towards them with a flare of my anti-gravs. The pack of Worms tightened in response, exactly what I wanted them to do. I spiked my main and bottom thrusters, sending me into a short soar above the leading aliens. I opened up with my SMGs on group of M1s in the front, simultaneously tagging the Assimilators near the back with the CAS for the anti-matter rockets. The Cluster Pod popped out of my shoulder and ten rockets arced out, turning the ranged Worms to ash. I fell back to the ground, stowing the SMGs, anti-gravs firing to propel me forward towards two M-1s that hadn¡¯t been killed by SMG fire. One was slightly in front of the other, so I ducked its punch and unloaded a hail of pellets into its face while keeping my momentum. My shoulder rammed into its corpse, the body flying into the Worm that was behind it, sending it sprawling. While it was dazed, I moved up to it and smashed its head with a stomp.


    I heard a rumbling coming towards me and I fired my thrusters, retreating as fast as possible. My HUD told me the M-2 I¡¯d downed was coming back for more. Must¡¯ve had regenerative abilities, like some of the big ones did. The horrific bison-headed Worm sprinted at me, its massive legs carrying it ten feet with each bound. I targeted the Assimilator, preparing to fire the rest of my anti-matter rockets into it, when suddenly there was a deafening thrum and a series of gaping holes was blown through the Worm¡¯s back. As it fell to the ground, the Merlin swooped low over me, gleaming white and red in the sun. Its engines hummed as it landed a short distance from where I stood, the back ramp hissing open.


    I moved towards the Merlin, whining the whole way, ¡°That one was mine! You¡¯re a filthy kill stealer! Also, don¡¯t talk to me while I¡¯m murdering things!¡± Even while I was complaining, I was glowing on the inside. That engagement had gone phenomenally. I went up against 25 of the bastards at once, and the Paladin hadn¡¯t even gotten a scratch. The only mistake I had made, and it wasn¡¯t even that bad, was letting the bisonhead regenerate. But it would¡¯ve been ripped to shreds by the anti-matter rockets if Adelaide hadn¡¯t interfered.


    ¡°I apologize for interrupting you during combat, I hadn¡¯t realized you had already engaged,¡± Adelaide said, ¡°I felt it necessary to let you know that Camelot¡¯s scanners have picked up another group of people within the perimeter. They do not appear to be pursued by Assimilators. I believe they are another group of scouts searching for the base."


    I picked up the pace, muttering in annoyance. Over the past week and a half there had been three separate groups of people that had wandered into the perimeter. The first one I dismissed as coincidence. It wasn¡¯t odd that there would be groups migrating through the area. The second two I couldn¡¯t ignore, because they were clearly looking for something. The little fuckers had been moving around in the area, not just passing straight through. Someone was looking for me. ¡°Hey Adelaide,¡± I said, boarding the Merlin, ¡°I think it¡¯s time to find out more about our guests.¡±

 Chapter 2.9: Welcome Wagon

    It might seem a little stupid to go confront the assholes looking for your base of operations, because that pretty much confirms that they¡¯re on the right track. But they had been staying for longer and longer each time they started poking around, and I didn¡¯t want to accidentally reveal the exact location of Camelot if I chose the wrong time to launch in a Paladin. Hiding a seven-foot tall mechanized suit of armor is a little difficult, especially if it¡¯s flung out of the ground at half the speed of sound. Even if I went psycho murderer and killed them all, which I wasn¡¯t going to do, I would just fuck myself over if they were attached to a larger group that wasn¡¯t already pissed at me.


    I was curious as to who had been sending them, and why. The only people I had interacted with were the slavers and Mary¡¯s gang, but one of those groups was dead and the other probably didn¡¯t want anything else to do with me. I suppose it was possible that the whoever was in charge of the slavers had sent teams after me, but I was fifty miles away from here when I¡¯d confronted that group. Also, the first search team had shown up only two days after the incident. I doubt they could¡¯ve found me that fast.


    We¡¯d been circling high above them for an hour or so, out of sight. We were trying to get as much info as possible, so that there wasn¡¯t a repeat of the slave incident. Adelaide had hacked into their coms, but we hadn¡¯t gotten much from them. It looked like they weren¡¯t using them, and instead were speaking person to person. That was a teensy bit frustrating, because the Merlin couldn¡¯t pick up their voices from here. They also hadn¡¯t been in contact with whoever had sent them, if anyone had. Still, it wasn¡¯t completely useless. We knew their loadout, and we¡¯d confirmed that there weren¡¯t any murder chips in their noggins. So that was comforting. But unfortunately, I¡¯d need to get closer to figure out what was going on.


    ¡°Bring us in low Adelaide,¡± I told her, ¡°but stay out of their sight. I¡¯d like to keep the Merlin as a hidden card for now, and I don¡¯t think anyone¡¯s ready to see your ugly mug quite yet.¡± That garnered an annoyed sound from Adelaide and I mentally tallied a point in my column.


    I hadn¡¯t taken off my Paladin, and I went to stand in the harness that would drop me. It wouldn¡¯t be a combat drop, which is good because while I¡¯m pretty sure I didn¡¯t shit myself on the last one, it was a close thing.


    ¡°Would you like me to standby for a pick up?¡± she said.


    ¡°Nah,¡± I said after considering it for a moment, ¡°You should probably go back and see if the shitstomping we gave that patrol had any effect on the Hive Cluster. I bet we got one mighty pissed off Matriarch and I wanna see what she does when she finds all her splattered kids.¡±


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t gruesome at all,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°But I take your point. To be frank, I¡¯d much rather be surveying hideous monsters than watch you fail miserably at social interactions. The former is far less arduous.¡± Before I could respond, Adelaide opened the drop bay, and I fell into the empty sky, watching as the Merlin blasted away into the distance. I wasn¡¯t even mad. That might have been the best way to end a conversation I had ever seen. I tallied four points for Adelaide, one for the quip, three for the mic drop.


    The fall this time was pretty short, about 500 feet. I hadn¡¯t wanted to make a scene as I fell in, and I had already practiced my combat drop today. My anti-gravs flared and I stuck the landing this time, coming to a running stop to bleed off my momentum, and sliding the last couple of feet. That probably looked super awesome, but nobody was around to see it. I should¡¯ve asked Adelaide to drop me right in front of them, just so they could see how cool it was. I brought up the mini-map with a thought. The Merlin had tagged the human group from overhead, and there were five of them, very well armed, with military grade equipment. That most likely eliminated any of the settlements. The majority wouldn¡¯t have access to weapons like that, and those who did would keep them behind for defense.


    I groaned to myself I was walked towards them, feeling sore from my recent combat stint. Of fucking course it couldn¡¯t be simple. Why the do jerkoffs with military grade equipment keep showing up near my shit? I mean I wasn¡¯t exactly threatened by them, but I had just killed twenty-four psychopathic alien monsters and I really wanted a shower. Instead I had to deal with stupid little pricks and their stupid weapons on my stupid land. I kicked a rock poutily and cringed as it soared a hundred feet or so. I reminded myself that tantrums in Paladins were always dangerous.


    I shook my head, trying to get myself back in the game. The current plan was to scout out whoever they were, and shadow them as best as I could, listening in on their conversations. To be honest, it was a really shitty plan. If they were any sort of competent, unlike those slaves, they¡¯d spot me almost immediately. I mean, at least when I trailed the slaves they had the false sense of security their scout cars afforded them, so they weren¡¯t on the lookout. If these guys didn¡¯t find me, I would seriously question how they had survived this long. If you couldn¡¯t catch a seven-foot tall metal man crouching awkwardly in the plains, you had some very serious issues. The problem was, I didn¡¯t have a better plan. They¡¯d notice one of the normal drones even faster than they¡¯d notice me, and I hadn¡¯t finalized my stealth drone¡¯s designs yet. Another fucking thing on my to-do list.


    ¡°Hey Adelaide,¡± I said, ¡°What should I say to these dildos if they notice me?¡± I was still a decent distance away from them, so I didn¡¯t have to worry about being stealthy yet.


    ¡°Well,¡± said Adelaide after a moment, ¡°I had assumed that you would have thought of that before you insisted on meeting them.¡±


    I snorted, ¡°Adelaide, have I ever been a man of plans?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Often very convoluted ones. Action is where you tend to falter.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s see, of the two of us, who murdered twenty-four tendrily freaks today, and who sat in a plane with their proverbial thumb up their non-existent ass? Ah yes, I remember,¡± I said with a patronizing smile that I knew she could see, ¡°Now run along dear, there are critical surveys that need taking.¡±


    I grinned at her silence. One more for Sam, and revenge was truly delicious. My mood improved, and I hummed a little ditty as I closed in on the unknown group, and then I remembered why I had started talking to her in the first place. I slowed my approach to a walk. Alright. So, probably going to go with Uther again, because talking to people was still freaky. Besides, I wanted a secret identity and this one fit the whole Arthurian theme I had going on. Once I had actually made friends with physical bodies, I was going to have F-03 make me a round table.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    I debated whether to approach the group with weapons drawn or not, then decided against it. It¡¯s not like they could do much to the armor with their assault rifles, and I didn¡¯t need a gun to smack some bitches around a little. Also, going in with weapons out was a great way to make people hostile. My goal right now wasn¡¯t necessarily to intimidate them, though that was a bit unavoidable when I was wearing a Paladin. I just wanted to figure out what they were doing in mah swamp, so to speak.


    I finally got within listening range of them, and I lay flat in the grass and began a slow army crawl towards them. I felt like a fucking idiot, but maybe they wouldn¡¯t see me like this. I heard Adelaide sniggering over the coms, muttering something about a ¡°mentally deficient robot.¡± I ignored her, and focused on the task at hand. The group was still within range of Camelot¡¯s passive scanners, so my mini-map was displaying their position in real-time. I activated the listening devices on my Paladin and directed them at the people that were stalking through the grass.


    ¡°- third scout group out here and we still haven¡¯t found them, and I don¡¯t think we¡¯re going to,¡± said a whiny male voice, ¡°Let¡¯s just radio back and tell them that we turned up empty. I don¡¯t want to be in Worm country for any longer than I have to.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± said another male voice, huskier than the first, ¡°I know you all are nervous out here, but we have to find out what happened to the advance team. If it really was Worms, then we have bigger problems on our hands. Not much other than a full hunting party could¡¯ve taken them out, not with the gear they had. If those are roaming around, we can¡¯t risk letting the convoy pass through."


    On the bright side, they weren¡¯t looking for Camelot. On the not so bright side, they were going to be hanging around here for a while longer, and there was apparently going to be a convoy rolling its ass over my house.


    ¡°Ughh,¡± groaned a woman¡¯s voice, ¡°let¡¯s just keep moving. Honestly, if you just ignore Jackson¡¯s bitching, it¡¯ll save a lot of time.¡±


    ¡°Hey, fuck you Rebecca!¡± said the man who I presumed was Jackson, ¡°Those were all legitimate complaints! The food last night was cold as hell! And my mattress was as lumpy as a ¨C¡°


    ¡°Uhh guys,¡± interjected another female voice, ¡°Am¡­ am I going crazy, or is there a giant goddamn robot crawling in the grass over there?¡±


    Ah shitty fuckballs. Well, it was worth a shot. I popped up from my embarrassing position and walked nonchalantly towards the incredibly confused group, like I hadn¡¯t just been lying on the ground like the world¡¯s hardiest earthworm. ¡°Sam,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°As much as you might wish, I don¡¯t think acting casual will make what just happened go away.¡± I hissed at her to shut up, and mercifully she did so.


    The scouting team, or whatever it was, were decked out pretty well. They had matching light armor on, with helmets that had the CAS installed. The light armor helmets didn¡¯t cover their head fully, unlike the heavier variety. There was still a visor that provided the HUD, but they needed a separate earpiece to act as their communication devices. Each of the people had an eagle painted in red painted on their chest plate. I recognized the XC-17 rifles they were carrying as well. The XC-17 hit hard, but not hard enough to pose a threat. The group was composed of three men and two women. They had immediately moved into a more tightly-knit formation upon seeing me, but they still looked a bit taken aback by my unconventional entrance, so I decided to use that to my advantage.


    ¡°Hello,¡± I said in Uther¡¯s deep baritone, ¡°I was just passing by, and I happened to see your group. My name is Uther.¡±


    They stared at me in silence until a woman with clever hazel eyes spoke at me. I recognized her voice as Rebecca¡¯s, ¡°Why the fuck were you lying on the ground like that?¡±


    ¡°Well, I was just walking along and decided, wow, I¡¯ve always wanted to be a caterpillar, so then ¨C¡° I coughed, wincing at the automatic retort. Adelaide was a horrible influence on me. ¡°I mean, uhh, that¡¯s not important right now.¡± I waved a dignified metal hand, as if to shoo away the whole thing. I saw Rebecca and one of guys grinning a little.


    One of the other men stepped forward. I assumed that this one was the leader-type guy who had been lecturing. He was tall, and had a chiseled chin and deep brown eyes. I hated him already. ¡°My name is Aaron, and I¡¯m the squad leader of the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Group. Now, explain what you¡¯re doing here.¡±


    ¡°I apologize, I am not sure what the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Group refers to.¡± I said politely, ¡°And as for me, I am a traveler, and I was moving through here when I spotted you.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, and I¡¯m President Rothschild,¡± said Rebecca scathingly, ¡°have you ever actually fooled anyone with that traveler bullshit?¡±


    ¡°There was a group of slavers that bought it,¡± I said, ¡°But they also didn¡¯t notice my stellar impression of a prairie dog, so that should give you a good idea of their intelligence.¡± Shit, this woman made me break character too much. Also, maybe too soon to make fun of the dead slaves.


    Rebecca grinned at me and turned to Aaron, ¡°I like this guy. He actually has a couple brain cells unlike most of the mouth breathers out here.¡± She was met with a withering glance.


    ¡°We are a scouting team under the command of the Red Eagles, a mercenary group that operates in southern Colorado. Now, will you tell us why you¡¯re actually here?¡± said Aaron cautiously. They hadn¡¯t raised their guns at me yet, so I took that as a good sign.


    ¡°Of course. I¡¯m sorry for attempting to lie to you, caution has done me many favors out here.¡± I gave a small nod of apology, ¡°I have made a temporary residence around these parts, and I was patrolling when I spotted you. I planned on moving on soon anyway, so I decided to introduce myself. Not many people come this far into the plains.¡± I looked at them all, ¡°By the way your team was moving, it seems as though you are looking for something. I¡¯ve been keeping a close tab on everything in this area, so I can most likely help you find it.¡±


    Aaron began to nod his stupidly handsome face slowly, ¡°Alright, but I doubt you¡¯re offering from the goodness in your heart. What do you want in exchange?¡±


    ¡°Information,¡± I said immediately, ¡°I am rather reclusive by nature, so knowing what is going on outside of my current corner of the world is invaluable.¡± I had considered asking them to guarantee that they wouldn¡¯t come back through here, but that would just reveal that I thought of this place as more than a temporary home. I was planning on having Adelaide wipe their CAS readouts and recordings of my suit, so I didn¡¯t have to ask them to do that. I couldn¡¯t stop them from describing it to the rest of the Red Eagles, but without a readout or recording they had no idea of its capabilities. I was worried that maybe this wasn¡¯t the best course of action, but I really needed information and leads on the slavers.


    Aaron paused to consider my words, and entered into a whispered discussion with the other woman, who was shorter than Rebecca. I was about to listen in on them, because why not, when Rebeccatook a step forward and raised her hand.


    ¡°Howdy, my name¡¯s Rebecca,¡± She said, ¡°Nice to meet ya. And this here,¡± she gestured to the man she had been smiling with, who was tall with a round face, ¡°is Tom. Quiet lad, but nice enough. Over there,¡± she pointed at the last man, who wore a distrusting scowl on his face, ¡°is Jackson, and he¡¯s a real prick.¡±


    ¡°Hey, fuck you Rebecca!¡± Jackson yelled.


    ¡°Shove it up your dickhole,¡± she calmly said to him, ¡°Now where was I. Ah yeah, so you¡¯ve met Aaron, our fearless leader, and that other girl over there is Allie. She¡¯s the one that spotted your dumb ass.¡±


    I stared at her, not really sure how to respond. Adelaide interjected quietly, ¡°For the record, this is what I imagine people that meet you for the first time feel like.¡±

 Chapter 2.10: Information

    I watched the mercenary scout group, my arms crossed impassively. After Rebecca¡¯s spirited introduction, Aaron called her over sternly, and she immediately moved back to the group. All five of them were now huddled together. I suppose they didn¡¯t see me as a threat, because none of them had a gun trained on me. Not that it would¡¯ve mattered, their weapons were essentially useless against a Paladin.


    I tried snooping on them, but I was surprised to find they had deployed some sort of noise scrambling device. I wasn¡¯t sure how they worked, I hadn¡¯t had an interest in them before the end of the world, but now that it was used against me I needed to look into finding a way around them. My goddamn to-do list just kept growing. After the second minute of waiting, I started to plan my Assault Paladin. It would have to be larger than this one, to be able to handle the heavy weaponry I was going to stuff it with. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of nine feet tall. Luckily, I had designed the Merlin with plenty of room to spare, anticipating something like this down the line. I caught movement through my visor, and quickly snapped back to attention.


    Aaron was approaching me, no longer quite as cautious. The other Red Eagles stayed back, and watched him. Aaron stopped a respectful distance away. He opened his mouth, and even his fucking teeth were perfect. The genetic lottery was bullshit. I tried to divert my seething jealousy as he spoke, ¡°I think we can work something out, depending on how long you¡¯ve been in this area.¡±


    I nodded, ¡°That¡¯s a fair condition. I have been living around here for about four months, give or take.¡±


    ¡°Excellent,¡± said Aaron, a gleam in his eyes, ¡°Then I believe we have a deal. Ask your questions, and I¡¯ll do my best to answer them.¡±


    Wow. These guys were way nicer than the slavers. I mean, that wasn¡¯t a high bar, more like it was a bar that was embedded twenty feet underground, but still. Talking to reasonable people was refreshing.


    ¡°I¡¯m very glad to hear it. I will try to limit my questions.¡± I said, ¡°My first is about your Red Eagle Company. I wouldn¡¯t presume to ask about your operations, but I was curious as to how the outfit formed, what type of jobs you typically do, and how many others like it there are.¡± I¡¯d seen a good amount of settlements on the satellites, but I¡¯d never heard of mercenary groups. They might be handy to have as an option if I were to assault a particularly tough Hive Cluster.


    ¡°I can answer that easily,¡± said Aaron, and a look of fanaticism rose on his face, ¡°The Red Eagles are the premier mercenary outfit in Colorado, formed by Commander Berston, a hero of the war. We boast the most men, a staggering 2,000 strong. Our Company is outfitted in only the finest gear, military standard in all aspect. Our armored capabilities are exceptional. Our men and women are brave and will fight to the last man. We primarily deal in defense contracts, guarding innocent civilian caravans from the Worms, as well as hunting raiders. But we only take contracts that we deem just, and compared to the other so-called mercenaries we act with professionalism and grace. We-¡° He stopped to take a deep breath, and I took the opportunity to snap him out of his fervor.


    ¡°Uhh, thank you, but I believe I have received the answers to my questions.¡± I hadn¡¯t really, but I was afraid the man was going to pass out if I kept letting him talk. I saw Rebecca rolling her eyes behind him. Alrighty then, hopefully the next one wouldn¡¯t send him back into crazy town.


    I waited for him to catch his breath, and continued, ¡°Since the war ended, I have kept myself mostly isolated, except for speaking with wandering groups such as yours. I have seen many settlements around, but I have not interacted with any of them. I always wondered, though: Why don¡¯t the Assimilators just wipe them out? They certainly have the numbers.¡±


    If he was surprised by the admission that I hadn¡¯t been to any settlements at all in nine months, he didn¡¯t show it. ¡°Well, the short answer is that we don¡¯t really know,¡± Aaron said slowly, tapping his well-defined chin, ¡°But the longer answer is that Worms do sometimes launch attacks on towns, but never ones that could wipe them out, and the attacks themselves are quite rare. They¡¯ll kill a few towners, and retreat. But if you encounter a Worm outside of a settlement, they will hunt you without mercy. It¡¯s quite perplexing, and even the best minds in the Red Eagles have no idea why our enemies are acting this way.¡±


    I nodded, ¡°That about lines up with what I¡¯d suspected, but it is nice to have it clarified. On the topic of the Assimilators, I have heard rumors of them banding together in groups that have a focal point. Do you know if these rumors are true? Have you ever seen one of these ¡®hives¡¯?¡±


    Aaron grimaced and answered me, ¡°The Red Eagles were tasked with destroying one near the settlement of Canon City. To this date, it¡¯s the only contract our group has ever failed. The number of Assimilators was not the problem. We even outnumbered them. It was the Hive Lords. They¡¯re what tipped the balance. The hive had five of them, surrounding the Matriarch at its center.¡± He shivered, ¡°I had never seen a Hive Lord in person before. The only thing that saved us was the fact that our Commander sounded the retreat as soon as the scouting groups, ours included, told him what we were up against.¡±


    ¡°Be lucky he did,¡± I said, ¡°Your army would have been slaughtered. I have encountered several of those monsters, and every one was a nightmare incarnate, capable of things I would not believe, had I not seen them with my own eyes.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re full of shit,¡± piped up a voice from the back, and I was surprised to see it was Jackson, not Rebecca. She did grace him with a hard elbow to the ribs though, which I appreciated, and he glared at her, ¡°What!? He is! If he had actually ¡®encountered¡¯ a Hive Lord, he¡¯d be dead right now.¡±


    I turned to look at him, and my stare bored into his eyes, my red visor glowing, ¡°I would not lie about what I have seen,¡± I said simply, then dismissed him, leaving him looking like he was about to piss himself. And to be fair, I wasn¡¯t lying, but he wasn¡¯t wrong either. Every time I had fought a Hive Lord in the simulator I got killed in various new and exciting ways. But this cockbag didn¡¯t need to know that.


    I think there was new respect in Aaron¡¯s gorgeous brown eyes, the bastard, so I decided to go for one more question, one that had been bothering me greatly, ¡°As I mentioned to Rebecca before, I had the misfortune of running into a band of slavers that called themselves a press gang. I began talking to them in the hopes of deterring the group from raiding a nearby outpost. Whoever was controlling them ordered them to attack me, and when they realized the attack wouldn¡¯t be successful, killed the entire press gang.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Aaron scowled, and looked over his shoulder, then back at me, ¡°I¡¯m not the best one to answer that, but before I hand it off to Allie I feel compelled to let you know that the men and women of the Red Eagle company destroy slavers in all situations, contract or no. We have a very firm code of ethics, and protecting civilians no matter the situation is a primary tenant.¡± He coughed and then gestured to Allie, who took a step forward.


    Allie was cute, in that little sister kind of way, and she smiled up at me with big doe eyes, ¡°Well, the poor saps you¡¯re talking about were press gangs, as you said. They¡¯re a sad lot of motherfuckers, and about the only way to deal with them is to put em¡¯ down. But the ones that control them come from out east. Old government ain¡¯t around no more, so legality is up to whatever fuckhead has the biggest gun. Around Kansas, that¡¯s a merry little gang of assholes known as the Kansas United Townships, a group of the cruelest excuses for human beings you¡¯ll find west of the Mississippi. Only town that we know for sure is a part of them is Hays, but the place is a fucking fortress. Anyway, the people that are in charge are a bunch of limpdick old men that made all the horrible old stuff legal, slavery being one of them,¡± she paused a second, ¡°Though I guess they don¡¯t really care what the slave¡¯s skin color is so at least they¡¯re progressive. Anyway, these douchebags force gangs of death-chipped slaves to hunt in the surrounding states for ¡®merchandise¡¯, and burn their brains out if they don¡¯t. Any mercenary group with a shred of decency,¡± I saw Aaron caress the Red Eagle on his chest, ¡°knows to put the poor fuckers down if they see ¡®em. It¡¯s why I joined up with the Eagles in the first place.¡± She paused to look at me, ¡°Speaking of which, there¡¯re usually a hundred of them in a gang, and you said they couldn¡¯t beat you?¡±


    I nodded, a little off balance.


    Allie gave a low whistle, ¡°Damn, you¡¯re a tough one, aren¡¯t you? Good job wiping the sad sons of bitches out. It probably wasn¡¯t very pleasant, but you were doing them, and the rest of the towners around here, a favor.¡± She then smiled shyly at me and stepped back, looking at the ground and fidgeting adorably. I wondered if every squad in the Red Eagles were as batshit crazy as these guys.


    Aaron walked up again, and crossed his arms, ¡°Now, Uther, I think we¡¯ve answered your questions. Care to help us out?¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± I said calmly, ¡°I¡¯ll help in any way I can. What are you looking for out here?¡± I had already determined from my snooping that they weren¡¯t trying to find Camelot, so I wasn¡¯t quite as cautious.


    ¡°A good while back, maybe a month or two, an advance team of Red Eagle¡¯s came through this area. There were ten of them, and they would¡¯ve had a similar insignia to ours. Their trackers went dead around here, and the last communication we received from them indicated that they had spotted a large Worm hunting party.¡± He looked at me, ¡°Have you seen or heard anything about them?¡±


    I felt my mouth grow numb and my hands started to shake in my Paladin. Ten of them. Pursued by a large group of Worms. I knew. I noticed the scouting squad look at me curiously, and I gave a mental shake of my head, trying to fall back to Uther.


    ¡°I apologize,¡± I said, speaking slowly. If I lied to them, told them I hadn¡¯t seen anything, the issue would go away. If I told the truth, they¡¯d want revenge, because I just let their friends die. ¡°I am afraid that¡­¡± I faltered and looked over the group, noting the disappointed faces. Shit. ¡°Ah damn. I¡¯m sorry, your advance team is most likely dead. And I¡¯m at least partly responsible.¡± I winced as the faces changed to anger.


    ¡°Explain,¡± said Aaron, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, ¡°and leave nothing out.¡±


    ¡°It was a bit before I actually noticed them,¡± I said in a rush, ¡°I wasn¡¯t looking for humans, I was just keeping an eye out for Worms, and a huge hunting party suddenly popped up. I didn¡¯t realize until I started keeping an eye on it, but there were ten people running from them, from the north to the south,¡± I paused. I had to keep it together, ¡°I¡­ the Worms that were chasing them, I can send my readout to your CAS, but there were a lot of them, and for some reason there was,¡± I hesitated, ¡°a Hive Lord in the group.¡±


    Adelaide had been listening in, and had sent the scanning data over to them when Aaron had readied his CAS for data transfer. Aaron nodded at me to continue.


    ¡°It¡­ well they were chasing your advance team, and I watched as they kept going. They¡¯d pass by me if I didn¡¯t do anything. I wanted to help, I did. But I,¡± I gulped, ¡°I was afraid to. I knew the Worms would catch them if they kept moving like that, and I knew that I could draw them away. But I did nothing, and I just let them pass by. That¡­ I¡¯m sorry for that, and I know that doesn¡¯t mean much,¡± I bowed low, ¡°I¡¯m sorry that I let your team die.¡±


    I heard Allie cursing lowly in the background, and Jackson started to mutter something. I shuddered, waiting for admonishment with my eyes closed. I felt like vomiting, but at least I hadn¡¯t lied to them. At least they knew what happened now. I waited in the stretching silence, sweating in my Paladin.


    I heard Rebecca sigh, ¡°I can¡¯t believe the dumbasses got themselves into something like that. Oi, Aaron, the scanner read out clears through my CAS, it isn¡¯t faked. And our mopey metal friend over there was understating the problem. There were thirty-three of them, not including the Hive Lord.¡±


    ¡°What did they do to piss off a group like that?¡± Aaron said with disbelief, ¡°Hive Lords don¡¯t go on patrols, and neither do mechanoids,¡± he turned to me, ¡°do you know exactly where they caught them?¡±


    ¡°Uhh,¡± I said, confused and off balance yet again, ¡°I don¡¯t know exactly, but I¡¯ll send my CAS¡¯ estimate over. It might narrow it down.¡±


    Aaron nodded, ¡°Excellent.¡± He addressed the rest of his group, ¡°Alright, we¡¯re going to move to that position, and do some searching there. Maybe we can figure out what the advance team got themselves into.¡± The team let out a chorus of ¡®ayes¡¯ and started to quickly form up.


    ¡°Wait.¡± I said, ¡°Hold up.¡± I shook my head, ¡°You¡¯re not upset?¡±


    Jackson looked over at me, ¡°The fuck would we be upset at you about? If you were lying I¡¯d kick your ass, but I saw that those scans. Group like that would¡¯ve wiped out an entire assault team, let alone one douche in fancy armor. I¡¯m pissed that the team died, I knew a couple of them, but that¡¯s the fucking Worms¡¯ fault, not yours.¡±


    ¡°That was shockingly well put,¡± said Rebecca in awe, ¡°I didn¡¯t know you could speak in full sentences like that.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you Rebecca! I can be good at words sometimes!¡± Jackson yelled at her.


    I was trying formulate a response when Tom spoke up, ¡°Advance Teams¡­ I¡¯ve been a part of them before, back during the war. They¡¯re in the wilds with no support. They know what they¡¯re getting themselves into. You¡¯re a good sort, I see that, but not everything is your responsibility.¡±


    ¡°Yeah dipshit,¡± Rebecca chimed in, ¡°what were you going to do, wriggle at them? Your caterpillar powers aren¡¯t going to kill many Hive Lords.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help myself and chuckled a little at that, shaking my head, ¡°Alright. But I know that I could¡¯ve done more for them¡­ so I¡¯d like to offer my help in searching. My scanners are pretty damn advanced, and I can have some eyes above,¡± I looked at Aaron, who seemed interested, ¡°Please. Think of it as allowing me to gain closure, while making amends for what I couldn¡¯t do.¡±

 Chapter 2.11: Black Box

    "I was a child when they put me in here,¡± I said, staring off into the distance wistfully, ¡°They said that it was the only way to save my life. My injuries were just¡­ too severe. My mother cried and cried, and my father, he blamed himself for my state, and drank himself to an early death over it. He had been driving the car, you see, on the night of the incident. I yearned to tell him, nay! it was not his fault, and hold his hand in mine¡­ but alas, I could not. My mother died shortly thereafter, of a broken heart, and I was alone. Ever since then, all those years ago, I have never felt the sunlight on my skin, never known a person¡¯s touch. When the rest of the children were playing with their action figures, I could not for fear that I would break them. I remember snapping my favorite dino-cop, Alfonse, in half, and crying to see the monster I had become¡­ Metal Butt, the children called me, and I hear them mocking me even now,¡± I sighed, and put my face in my hands, as if I could no longer bear my reality, ¡°I have been alone in here for as long as I can remember, and I fear that I will stay here until I die.¡±


    ¡°Jesus, I¡¯m sorry man,¡± said Jackson, scratching his chin awkwardly, ¡°I didn¡¯t think it would be like that. I¡¯m sorry for bringing it up.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± I said nobly, ¡°do not blame yourself. It is a story I must tell, for doing so is a balm upon my heart. I only wish¡­¡± I stopped and frowned.


    ¡°You only wish what?¡± Jackson prompted me gently, sympathy in his eyes.


    ¡°I only wish that I could have seen mother¡¯s face before she died, with my own two eyes, not through this damnable visor,¡± I fell into a pained silence, gripped by emotions. Jackson lay a sympathetic hand on my shoulder, and Rebecca finally burst into laughter. She had been holding on valiantly; she had been silently shaking for the past minute of my tragic story.


    ¡°Rebecca!¡± said Jackson reproachingly, ¡°Have some respect!¡± There was a look of righteous indignation on his face which only made her laugh harder, doubling over and waving a hand. Tom and Allie had started to laugh too, Allie¡¯s a hearty guffaw that sounded horrifically out of place coming from her petite body, and Tom¡¯s a noise which was like a donkey being strangled. A horrified look of realization crossed Jackson¡¯s face when he saw their reactions.


    ¡°You fucker!¡± He yelled at me, his expression one of heartfelt betrayal, ¡°You lied to me!¡±


    I couldn¡¯t help myself and started to chuckle, further enraging him.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never¡­ seen someone that... gullible before,¡± Rebecca managed to wheeze, ¡°You ate that bullshit up¡­ like it was Wagyu beef.¡±


    Allie chimed in, ¡°What the fuck were you expecting, asking a dumbass question like that?¡±


    ¡°I thought that ¡®Why are you wearing that armor?¡¯ was a very valid question!¡± spluttered Jackson.


    Aaron cut in, ¡°Quit the chatter, we¡¯re still in enemy territory.¡± There was a smirk threatening his impassive face.


    Rebecca rolled her eyes at him, still sniggering a bit, ¡°Aye aye, fun police.¡±


    It had been a few hours since the Red Eagle scouting party and I had begun to make our way over to the where my CAS estimated the advance team had been caught. The team, mostly Rebecca, had managed to bring out of my funk with a combination of sarcasm and insults, and by now I felt comfortable enough to drop most of Uther. It was nice interacting with a group like this. I¡¯d been missing that in the months underground. They had a very interesting dynamic. They acted like a group of rowdy college students most of the time, but would snap into a deadly quiet, professional attitude when Aaron made a direct or serious order. I wish Adelaide could have joined in, but when I offered she said she wasn¡¯t ready for something like that. I didn¡¯t press the issue, but I was slightly disappointed. Hearing Rebecca verbally spar with her would have been mighty entertaining.


    We hadn¡¯t found anything of note yet. The scout team was incredibly thorough, combing over every inch of a wide swathe of land. For my part, I kept my scanners going on full power, and (limitedly) linked them to the others¡¯ CAS. They were moving slowly south, being careful to follow the exact route the advance team had taken. I was told to walk behind the group as much as I could to avoid messing up any evidence with my clumsy metal gait.


    Aaron stopped us about ten minutes later, ¡°Alright, here¡¯s where it gets serious,¡± he said, addressing the scout team, ¡°We¡¯re nearing the estimated location where they went down. Fan out and keep a five-foot gap in between you. Holler if you find anything that looks like it could be relevant.¡± He looked at me next, ¡°Uther, could you continue to look out for any metal or other technology? You were right when you said you had good scanners, those things are incredible.¡±


    ¡°Aw shucks,¡± I said, daintily twisting my giant toe in the dirt, ¡°You¡¯re gonna make me blush.¡±


    He snorted at me, ¡°Alright, let¡¯s get moving. And remember: Be careful. We don¡¯t want to accidentally miss anything. Any information we get could be crucial.¡±


    As the scout group began to fan out, they turned far more serious than they had previously been. I wisely decided to keep my witticisms to myself from there on. They had fully switched to professional mode. As they started their achingly slow walk forward, Adelaide began to talk over the coms, ¡°Sam, I¡¯m done with the surveys, and I¡¯m returning to your position. I recorded some very interesting data that we need to review as soon as possible.¡±


    ¡°Okay Adelaide,¡± I responded, ¡°Will you be able to provide an extra pair of eyes from up there? We¡¯ve got a lot of ground to cover, and I¡¯d rather be out of here sooner than later. I gotta take a shit like you wouldn¡¯t believe.¡±


    ¡°I suppose I would not believe that,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°I will be over to assist you shortly. Additionally, you forgot to restrict your voice to inside the Paladin.¡±


    Ah fuck. I looked over at the scout team, who were staring at me in silence.


    ¡°So¡­ do you want us to wait while you find a bush?¡± asked Tom.


    <hr>


    After a hurried explanation of who I was talking to (leaving out small details like the fact that she was a hyper intelligent alien that lived in computers), the Red Eagle team decided that we should just wait for her to show up rather than keep scouting without aerial assistance.


    ¡°So what type of bird you got up there?¡± asked Allie curiously, ¡°None of the scouts mentioned anything about seeing a ship out this far.¡±


    ¡°If it¡¯s a butterfly I¡¯ll be really happy,¡± said Rebecca, ¡°It would just fit you so well.¡±


    I gave her a metal middle finger, and responded to Allie¡¯s question, ¡°Well¡­ it¡¯s hard to describe, but she¡¯ll be arriving shortly now. My partner¡¯s a bit shy though, stays in the cockpit mostly. I¡¯ll see if I can get her to say hi.¡±


    Adelaide piped up in my coms, ¡°Perhaps. Listening in on your conversations with these humans has lead me to be inclined to trust them. Enough to speak to them, at least.¡±


    ¡°How far out are you?¡± I asked, checking my HUD, ¡°Can¡¯t see you on the mini-map.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll be arriving in one minute. I plan on landing a short distance to your north to avoid disturbing any evidence. I¡¯ll introduce the Merlin, then I will ascend to a higher position.¡±


    ¡°Roger that Ghost Rider,¡± I said.


    ¡°You call your pilot Ghost Rider?¡± said Aaron excitedly, ¡°That¡¯s one of my favorite movies!¡± Of course it was.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Anything I was about to say was interrupted by the low hum of powerful anti-grav engines. I saw Tom¡¯s jaw drop in shock, and I turned to follow his line of sight. The Merlin was approaching us quickly from the west, getting visibly closer second by second. As it got near us, the anti-gravs flared, and the large gunship entered a wide banking turn that ended a good way north of us. It hovered low over the ground, kicking up clouds of dust, looking gorgeous in its white and red paint. Four landing skids emerged from the bottom, and it came to a gentle rest on the ground, engines humming in idle. I rolled my eyes. Show off.


    ¡°Holy fucking shit,¡± said Tom. I stared at him. He hadn¡¯t cursed once in the four hours. ¡°Where the hell did you get something like that?¡± He looked at me and then back at the gunship, his head swiveling like he was watching Ping-Pong, ¡°That¡¯s top of line, military grade hardware! And I¡¯ve never seen the design before! Is that a prototype?¡±


    Adelaide made smug, happy noise in my coms, proud of her current body. ¡°Well,¡± I said slowly, ¡°Would you believe me if I told you I whipped it up myself?¡±


    He gave me a look that said I was full of shit, which was a bit hurtful. I had been telling the truth after all. ¡°Yeah, sure.¡± He said scathingly, ¡°Whipped it up. Fine, don¡¯t tell me.¡± Ouch.


    ¡°Don¡¯t get your knickers in a twist ¡®cause the man won¡¯t share his most important secrets,¡± said Allie, ¡°But I am curious. How in the seven hells do you refuel that thing?¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± I said nonchalantly, ¡°the Merlin¡¯s got a couple anti-matter reactors, doesn¡¯t need fuel.¡± As soon as I said it I cursed my big stupid dumb mouth. That was not information they needed. Apparently, Adelaide wasn¡¯t the only show off. I reluctantly turned to Tom, who had made a strangled sort of noise.


    ¡°A-anti-matter reactors?¡± He stammered, ¡°Two of them!? That¡¯s absolutely insane! That¡¯s idiotically extravagant! That¡¯s¡­ so beautiful.¡± He whispered the last part.


    I looked at Rebecca helplessly, and I think she got the message. ¡°Tom is a bit of an airplane aficionado,¡± she explained, ¡°He goes fucking nuts for the things, always blabbers about Warthogs and flying-fortresses and all that shit.¡±


    I felt something grabbing my Paladin¡¯s arm and I looked down to see Tom staring up at me, starry eyed, ¡°What¡¯s its top speed? What weapons does it have? How much power can the anti-matters put out? Cargo capacity? Thrust? Can I ride in it?¡±


    ¡°Alright, simmer down,¡± said Aaron, cutting off further questions, ¡°We¡¯ve pissed away enough time here. Let¡¯s keep moving.¡±


    Thank God for the fun police. Tom reluctantly let me go as the Merlin¡¯s engines spooled to life, lifting it directly into the sky, climbing to an altitude where it wouldn¡¯t disturb the ground and hanging there. If there was anything to find, I had confidence that Adelaide would detect it. The Merlin¡¯s scanners were stupidly powerful right now. I had outfitted it for Hive Cluster reconnaissance rather than combat, and Adelaide could interpret the data incredibly efficiently.


    We fanned out and began our search, the comforting hum of the anti-gravs high above us. The squad went back to strict silence, focused on their task. After about ten minutes, Adelaide¡¯s voice came through the coms, ¡°Sam, there is some sort of digital device buried 200 feet from your position. It appears to be a black box of some sort. I¡¯m marking it on your map.¡± A yellow dot appeared on my mini-map, south-east of me.


    ¡°Hey guys,¡± I called out, ¡°looks like Adelaide found something.¡±


    ¡°Excellent,¡± said Aaron happily, ¡°We¡¯ll have something to report to the Commander.¡± I could almost see his tail wagging.


    ¡°About time,¡± Jackson whined, ¡°My feet are starting to cramp.¡±


    I shared the CAS info with the scout team, and we made our way over to the spot Adelaide had marked. It rapidly became clear that a struggle had occurred here. There wasn¡¯t any blood; the summer¡¯s afternoon showers had taken care of that. But there was dirt overturned, and blast marks that were etched into rocks. Aaron signaled to Allie, and she pulled a multi tool off the small of her back. It unfolded with a click, and she carefully began to dig at the map marker. We took up guard around her, which was a bit useless considering Adelaide would spot any threat from miles away, but hey, it gave us something to do.


    Allie suddenly stopped and put aside her multi tool, then motioned to Jackson. Together they began to excavate the rest of the way with their hands. Jackson let out a noise of satisfaction, pulling something out of the ground. It was a small black rectangle with a Red Eagle painted on it. Aaron took it, and turned it over in his hands.


    ¡°CAS emergency recorder,¡± he said softly, ¡°and it¡¯s going be heavily encrypted. We¡¯ve got to get this back to the convoy ASAP.¡±


    ¡°God damn it,¡± said Jackson with a groan, ¡°Now we gotta walk our asses all the way back?¡±


    ¡°Quit your bitching,¡± said Rebecca, eliciting a loud ¡®fuck you!¡¯, ¡°it¡¯s only a few days back.¡±


    I conferred with Adelaide for a moment, making sure I kept the conversation from leaking out. I raised a hand, ¡°Hey guys?¡±


    Aaron turned to me, ¡°Ah, thanks for the help Uther,¡± he said gratefully, ¡°We would never have found that if it weren¡¯t for you.¡±


    ¡°Hey, no problem. Least I could do,¡± I said, ¡°but I was just wondering if you¡¯d like a ride back to your convoy?¡± I stuck my thumb over my shoulder as Adelaide brought the Merlin to a hover just behind me, the anti-gravs glowing a vivid blue.


    ¡°Eeep,¡± said Tom.


    <hr>


    The engines hummed as the Merlin touched down a few miles from the convoy¡¯s position. I hadn¡¯t wanted to get too close to it. I had about thirty-three percent trust in the 4th Scouting Group. I knew they probably wouldn¡¯t stab me in the back, and I had enjoyed my time with them. But that pseudo-trust didn¡¯t extend to the other 2,000 mercenaries that they were pals with. I¡¯d had Adelaide scramble the scout team¡¯s automatic CAS recordings and scans of both myself and the Merlin. Again, nothing stopped them from describing my technology to other people, but I hoped that wouldn¡¯t give too much away.


    I was also itching with curiosity about what was in the black box they had recovered, but Adelaide informed me she¡¯d probably need more time than a quick Merlin ride over to decrypt the thing, then encrypt it back again. I¡¯d decided the risk wasn¡¯t worth it. I didn¡¯t have many friends in this new world, and I wanted to leave as good of an impression as possible on the Red Eagles. From what I¡¯d seen and heard from everyone in the scout team, they seemed like they could be a good bunch. Getting caught hacking the highly secure final recordings of their dead advance team probably wouldn¡¯t give me many brownie points.


    The ramp opened, and I followed the scout team as they funneled out. They were illuminated by the setting sun as they stepped back onto the plains. I stopped at the bottom of the ramp and looked at the squad. It had been a while since I had that much fun talking to a group of people like that. I saw Aaron opening his mouth to say something but I cut him off.


    ¡°Hey,¡± I said, and I switched off the modulated baritone, letting my real voice escape, ¡°It seems poorly timed, but I should probably introduce myself now.¡± I held up a hand, ¡°I¡¯m Sam. It¡¯s nice to meet all of you.¡±


    Rebecca grinned at me, dimples forming in her cheeks, ¡°Yeah, Uther was a dumb fucking name. Nobody in their right mind would call their kid that. It was nice to meetcha Sam. Oh, and that Adelaide girl.¡± Adelaide had introduced herself as the pilot during the flight over, but had kept the door to the cockpit securely shut.


    ¡°Sam, huh?¡± said Jackson, ¡°That¡¯s weirdly normal for a big metal robot.¡±


    ¡°Shut up, Jackson,¡± said Allie, ¡°But yeah, it¡¯s been a fucking blast working with you. If you need someone to help you kick some slavers¡¯ dicks straight into their guts, lemme know.¡±


    Tom spoke next. During the flight, he had looked like he was about to cream his pants, but now he¡¯d returned to his normal, stoic self, ¡°It¡¯s been good, Sam. I¡¯d like to fly with you again,¡± he paused to look longingly at the Merlin, ¡°and tell Adelaide it was nice to meet her too.¡±


    Aaron gave me a deep nod, ¡°Thank you for your help, Sam. You¡¯ve saved us a lot of trouble, and allowed us to get some invaluable information to the Red Eagles. The information we gave you in exchange wasn¡¯t enough, and we owe you a favor now.¡± He walked up to me, and signaled at me to lower my head, speaking softly ¡°I know you still blame yourself for our comrades¡¯ death, and I know that you won¡¯t stop blaming yourself. But I hope that you find peace with it soon. I don¡¯t hold you responsible.¡± He handed me a small black radio with a long antenna, ¡°This is a communications device keyed in to our frequency. Keep it off if you¡¯re worried about us tracking you, but if you need the Red Eagles for anything, or just want to say hello, don¡¯t be afraid to get in contact.¡± It was very nice gesture, even if he was just trying to curry favor with the freakishly well-equipped stranger he met. He went back to his squad mates, and they stood in a line.


    ¡°It¡¯s been nice working with you lot,¡± I said, trying to make my smile go into my voice, ¡°And I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll be seeing you all again at some point. Most of my acquaintances are Worms, and you guys make marginally better conversation partners.¡±


    I got of chorus of responses, ranging from ¡®fuck off¡¯ to ¡®see you around¡¯. The squad turned and walked away. I was pretty happy. This was the first human interaction I hadn¡¯t completely fucked up since I got out on the surface, and I had a great time to boot. I was about to go back in the ship when I saw Rebecca stop and turn around.


    ¡°Hey, Caterpillar Man,¡± she yelled, ¡°You¡¯re way better as Sam than that Uther douchebag, so I¡¯d drop that dumbass act if I were you. Also, try not to get killed, yeah? It¡¯s hard to find someone worth talking to out here, and your corpse probably wouldn¡¯t be very witty.¡±


    The ramp started to raise. ¡°I¡¯ll keep that in mind,¡± I said with a chuckle, making sure the PA made the words loud enough for her to hear. The ramp finished closing and I stood in the empty drop bay. One thought consumed my mind.


    God damn did I have to shit.

 Announcements of Fun

    Hey everyone! Not a chapter unfortunately, that still comes tomorrow.


    Just wanted to let you all know a couple things:


    1. I''m reorganizing the chapter titles a little. I dislike that there''s no way to tell which part they''re in, so I''ll be making that more clear. It''ll go from "Chapter X: Title" to "Chapter X.Y: Title" (Where the X refers to part and the Y refers to chapter in that part). The name of the chapters will stay the same though. I''m doing that tonight, so there''ll be some weirdness until it''s done.


    2. I set up a Patreon</a>, at the suggestion of a very kind PM I received. I''m currently not doing any extra chapters for Patreon donors. If I go that route, and that''s a big if, I want to be more established first. If you decide to donate to me, it''ll be purely out of the goodness of your heart, and I''ll be incredibly thankful for it. Or don''t donate, I''m just happy that people are reading my stuff. I never started Paladin for the money, y''know?Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    3. After my chapter tomorrow, I''ll be taking the three day weekend off from posting. I''m going out of town, and I won''t have the oppurtunity to write. But I''ll be back with a chapter on Tuesday.


    As always, thank you all so much for reading, and commenting, and being awesome in general.


    P.S. I madea website</a>, but it just has the stuff that''s already on RoyalRoadL, so I''d stay here if I were you (better comments). In the future it''ll have short stories set in the universe of Paladin, so look forward to that.


    EDIT: Alright, updated the titles, how does it look? Better? Worse? Change it to "Part X Chapter X: Title"?

 Chapter 2.12: The Reaper

    I sat in the Command Center the next morning, working on the design for the Heavy Assault Paladin. I was starting to get seriously pissed at it. It just kept on getting bigger, too large and heavy to be feasible for the anti-gravs to propel while having any sort of efficient power consumption. I was going about this the wrong way, I knew that, but I couldn¡¯t figure out what the fucking right way was. I¡¯d gone through four separate complete revisions of the damned thing, but no matter how much I tweaked it I kept arriving at a point where the thing was just unwieldy. Even if I could get the power supply up to snuff, there was a reason the Paladin was as small as it was in the first place. It was to make it so that the pilot could have more natural control over it, be able to move in it mostly like they were moving their own body. That wasn¡¯t going to happen in a suit that was more than ten foot tall.


    I sighed and saved the design I had been working on. I knew better than to try to force through a block. Inspiration would come to me, but until it did I was just wasting time. I¡¯d already done my exercises in the simulator today, led by the ever-pleasant Danna, so I switched the holoprojector to the satellite images I¡¯d been reviewing. With the information that Allie had cursed at me yesterday, it was confirmed that the slavers were located out of Kansas. We also had the confirmed name of one of their cities, Hays. But that¡¯s where the good news stopped. I groaned out loud as I looked over the satellite images.


    First off, the population was absolutely massive in comparison to any settlement I¡¯d seen that was still standing. It had a whopping 40,000 people living in it, which was even larger than it had been before the war. My guess was that after the Assimilators had dispersed, a few nearby towns had merged into it. That made it a target, but it also gave it a lot of manpower. Allie hadn¡¯t been lying when she said that the place was like a fucking fortress. Whoever had designed their defenses knew what they were doing. There were heavily fortified checkpoints scattered in strategic locations, and from what I could tell there were multiple anti-air vehicles and emplacements throughout the city. But what was absolutely batshit bonkers was the number of hovertanks they had. I spotted at least thirty of them. This town had a small army, and from what I could tell most of it had military grade equipment. With the entirety of humanity at war, there had been a lot of it around before it ended, but when the military was wiped out so was most of their equipment. My only guess was that someone in the city had found a reserve stock of weapons and vehicles, or a fabricator that could manufacture them.


    I mulled over my options. My Paladin could kick a whole hell of a lot of ass, and the Merlin packed quite a wallop too. But up against Hays¡­ I wasn¡¯t confident that I could take them in a straight fight. I could probably pick off the hovertanks one by one, but I didn¡¯t know if all they had was thirty of them. There could be more in a warehouse, in reserve. Those fortifications were also a problem. I didn¡¯t have a lot of bunker-busters on me. The railgun could wreck some shit, but it had limited ammo. I could get around that by stuffing the Merlin to the gills with spare ammunition, but with the amount of anti-air they had, it wasn''t worth the risk to fly it around there. I tapped a hand on the desk. I was skirting around the real problem here, that it was absolutely pants-on-head insane to attack an entire city on my own. Even if I won, what the hell would I do after that? Shoot their mustache twirling leader in the face then ride off into the sunset? I needed something that could govern them after I was gone, that could restore order when¡­


    ¡°The Red Eagles!¡± I yelled, smacking a hand to my forehead. If I offered them all the plundered military hardware in Hays, they might help me out. It¡¯s not like I needed any of that shit; Camelot¡¯s fabricators could make whatever I needed. I was pretty sure I had better intel than them, so they would work with me for that reason alone, not to mention that I could probably take half the city¡¯s army by myself. I just needed a firm plan of attack, so I didn¡¯t sound like a crazy person. I took a second to think, then slowed my roll a little bit. I needed a better handle on how they operated before anything else. I wasn¡¯t sure that attacking and holding a major city was their MO. Also, I needed to be positive they wouldn¡¯t stab me in the back and steal my shit. But it was the best idea I had right now, so I¡¯d refine it with Adelaide when she got back, and come up with hopefully better plans in the meanwhile.


    I checked the map in the corner of the holoprojector for her location. She was currently flying the Merlin, doing reconnaissance sweeps of the Hive Cluster we¡¯d hit the day before. The Cluster hadn¡¯t reacted dramatically to their patrol being wiped out, only sending out a couple of scouts. We¡¯d keep an eye on it, but if we were expecting a massive change in their behavior it didn¡¯t look like we¡¯d get it. I had a niggling suspicion that it would take a torpedo to their Matriarch¡¯s tendrily face to see any real changes.


    I reached my arms above my head and stretched. I figured it might be a good time to start running through my to-do list. I opened up the files for the advanced scanner tech to detect potentially cloaked Assimilators. Then I got an idea for really cool new weapon set for the Paladin, and got distracted drawing that up. Fancy scanners would have to wait. At least I¡¯d finished the cyberwarfare suite for the Paladin. I was putting the finishing touches on the basic shape of my new toys when Adelaide¡¯s voice started coming in over Camelot¡¯s PA. We¡¯d rigged up the Merlin¡¯s coms to be able to connect to the base¡¯s.


    ¡°Sam, we have a situation developing. Please suit up. You¡¯ll need to use the catapults, time is of the essence,¡± she said, urgency in her tone.


    I had already started heading to the Arming Station in the Command Center when she had said the word ¡®situation¡¯. ¡°Roger that Ghost Rider,¡± I said, ¡°Can I get a sitrep?¡± I stepped into the suit, and it ran through its diagnostics. The doors slid closed behind me, and the catapult launched me to the surface.


    ¡°I will fill you in after we meet at the rendezvous point I have designated on your map,¡± she said, ¡°Get to it as soon as possible.¡±


    I located the dot on my map that indicated the rendezvous, and started making my way towards it, traveling near the Paladin¡¯s full speed. The scenery flew by me, the plains turning into an indistinct blur. She¡¯d set the meet up point almost directly west of the base, a few miles outside the perimeter. It made sense that it was closer to my position; she was a lot faster than I was. My full-on sprint took me towards the dot on my map, and in the distance I saw the Merlin touching down, blowing dust everywhere. The ramp was facing me, and it had already lowered by the time the gunship landed. I slowed my run down enough that I wouldn¡¯t barrel straight into the cockpit, and jogged up the ramp. It closed behind me, and without any warning the Merlin shot up into the air, and took off heading west. I couldn¡¯t tell how fast she was going, but I¡¯d hazard a guess that it was the Merlin¡¯s top speed.


    ¡°What¡¯s going on, Adelaide?¡± I asked, moving over to one of the drop-harnesses. I figured that if she was in this much of a rush, we wouldn¡¯t have time for a nice, peaceful landing.


    ¡°On my way back from my reconnaissance, I detected a series of distress calls over several frequencies. Upon investigation, I discovered that a large group of slavers was approaching a small town called Fort Morgan.¡±


    ¡°Shit. Alright, have you figured out how to deactivate those murder-chips yet?¡± I said. I couldn¡¯t get one day to rest, could I?


    ¡°I have, but that is not relevant in this case. As far as I can tell, none of the slavers have a Persuader installed,¡± Adelaide said, ¡°According to the chatter on their communications channel, this slaver group appears to be acting of their own free will, and seem to be in high spirits. They are also certainly planning on attacking Fort Morgan. By my estimation, they should have already begun to engage the minor guard force present in the town.¡±


    ¡°Oh that¡¯s seriously fucked up,¡± I growled, ¡°Okay. Fine. So I need to protect a town from a bunch of actually evil slavers. How many of them did you say there are?¡±This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    ¡°There are three-hundred and sixty-seven slavers,¡± she said evenly, ¡°with four hovertanks and twenty light attack vehicles.¡±


    Oh well fuck me in the ass and call me a shish kebab. This was going to suck. I tried to crack my neck in my armor, but it wouldn¡¯t, so I felt like an idiot. Alrighty.


    ¡°Are there any signals that lead back to wherever they came from?¡±


    ¡°Yes, one. I believe that the leader, whose name is Reaper as far as I can tell, has two communication devices. One of those is for speaking to the rest of the raiders, but the other is similar to what Harry wore. However, I cannot hack into that one from the Merlin. I will need close proximity and the cyberwarfare suite on your Paladin.¡±


    I thought for a minute, mulling over some options.


    ¡°What¡¯s our ETA?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Three minutes, fifty-six seconds.¡±


    ¡°Okay, here¡¯s my preliminary game plan, feel free to change it,¡± I said, ¡°Set the Merlin to automatically hover over them at 20,000 feet AGL, and then hop into my Paladin. I¡¯m going to do a combat drop, and target those hovertanks with my railgun in midair. I don¡¯t know how accurate it¡¯ll be from that height and speed, but I¡¯ll hope for a lucky hit or two. When I get in range of their leader, immediately eliminate any signals going to that communicator, and prevent it from detonating. We need one intact so we can study it. Once you¡¯ve done that, you¡¯re going to jump back into the Merlin, and get ready. I¡¯ll try to stall and get them to surrender, but I seriously doubt that¡¯s going to work. Once shit inevitably hits the fan, I¡¯ll need you to give me close air support while I protect the civilians. I know you haven¡¯t killed before. So, can you do this?¡±


    Adelaide didn¡¯t hesitate, ¡°Yes. I can if it will protect those innocents.¡±


    ¡°Good,¡± I said, nodding, ¡°It¡¯s going to get real hot down there, and I might need you to pull my ass out of the fire if those hovertanks are still up by the time you get to me. Make them your priority target if any are left. Also, patch me into their coms, I want to know what I¡¯m up against.¡±


    ¡°Understood, Sam,¡± she said, ¡°I am connecting you to the communication channel between the raiders.¡±


    The sound of gunfire entered my ears first. Shit. I hadn¡¯t expected them to be engaging already. There were also jeers, and screams in the background.


    ¡°Reaper, this is Seventh Squad,¡± a gruff female voice said, ¡°We got a group of towners and we¡¯re bring them back to the convoy.¡±


    ¡°Alright Seventh,¡± said a deep, powerful male voice, ¡°But cull the ones that aren¡¯t up to snuff. We¡¯ve got a big harvest today, we won¡¯t have room for the dregs.¡±


    ¡°Aye, Sir,¡± said the female voice.


    The next minute was general coms chatter, nothing really directed at Reaper. From what I could tell, they were moderately organized, launching coordinated attacks on the few remaining guards. I listened again when I heard someone else addressing their leader.


    ¡°Oi, Reaper, we¡¯re almost done with the guards here, can we let loose?¡± said another male voice, this one high and nasally.


    ¡°If you deviate from the attack,¡± said Reaper calmly, ¡°I will cut off your dick and feed it to the Worms. I decide when we enjoy ourselves. And we will. We have enough merchandise that we can keep a few of the pretty ones for ourselves.¡±


    I silenced the coms for a moment and looked at the cockpit. A red-hot fire had been growing within me, and rage started to burn in the pit of my stomach. ¡°Adelaide,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m modifying the offer to surrender. I¡¯m not going to wait for them. I¡¯m going to offer it once, when I land, and if they don¡¯t take me up on it by the time I reach them, they die.¡±


    ¡°Understand, Sam. I agree with your decision.¡± said Adelaide, ¡°We are approaching your drop point. I¡¯ve set a landing zone for you, and the Paladin will automatically adjust your drop to get you as close as possible to their leader.¡±


    I nodded, and deployed my railgun, holding it close to my body vertically.


    ¡°The Merlin is at a stable hover at 20,000 feet AGL. Prepare for drop.¡±


    I took a deep breath. The floor opened beneath me, and I dropped into the empty air. I plummeted through the empty expanse. Unlike the last Combat Drop, I didn¡¯t give a shit about the fall. I was too focused on trying to force myself into the icy calm I¡¯d need to survive this fight. I couldn¡¯t go into it angry, and as much as I wanted to let loose and destroy every raider in this fucking gang, my most important objective was to protect civilians. In this case murdering evil bastards and protecting innocent people weren¡¯t mutually exclusive, but I had to be much more careful that I don¡¯t accidentally hurt the people I was trying to protect.


    The altimeter in my suit dropped steadily. I still held my railgun close to me. At the speed I was going, it would cause too much drag if I held it out, and would seriously fuck up where I was supposed to land. So I waited, listening to the carnage on the ground through my coms, waiting as the towners below me were killed and dragged away. Maybe I should have turned them off, help me keep a cool head. Maybe I should have ignored them, so that I wasn¡¯t affected emotionally by what was happening. I didn¡¯t do either. I listened to each and every scream and plead for mercy that echoed in my helmet. I listened as the raiders jeered and yelled, reveling in pleasure at the violence. I began to picture them grabbing Harry from a settlement, laughing as they threw him in an armored truck, the doors closing on him and the rest of the slaves from that press gang. I imagined the look in the slaves'' eyes once they realized they would never have their freedom again. And then a scene from the nightmares that came every night started to play in my head: A field of corpses with their eyes turned to me, their mouths twisted open in pain, agonized accusation in their faces.And myanger lit up again, burning even hotter this time. I would end these monsters, the ones that preyed on the very last of their own species and enjoyed it. As the fire grew to a fever pitch, I fell faster and faster, and their deaths got closer and closer.


    My HUD lit up with a number of potential targets. Adelaide had long since marked the raiders as red and the civilians as white from above. I mentally commanded my CAS to limit my targets to the four hovertanks. I picked the one closest to me. It would die first. My targeting reticule was jumping around, trying to compensate for my speed. I ignored it. I would wait until the landing procedure started before taking my shots. Better chance that they would hit; I didn¡¯t want to give myself away too soon. I was going to destroy them before they knew what had happened.


    I counted down the feet as I dropped, so I knew exactly when my thrusters kicked in, forcing me against gravity. I snapped my railgun to its firing position. My targeting reticule stopped bouncing around so much, and locked on firmly. I could feel the railgun¡¯s barrel twitching wildly, trying to compensate for the shaky environment. I took a deep breath, the wind rushing past me, and I fired. In the part of my mind that remained cold, I noticed the Paladin actively correcting for my aim, the servos in its arms whirring rapidly. The slug burst from the barrel in an almighty roar, the recoil knocking me a few feet up, plasma tearing the sky apart. As the rails cooled I watched as the round slammed into the target, blowing half of it away and detonating the volatile fuel it ran on. The explosion boomed out, knocking the raiders around it flying like ragdolls. I grinned coldly as I watched them scurry around like rats, trying to figure out what had happened. I checked my CAS readouts. I only had time for one more shot. A soft ping indicated I was ready to fire again, and a madrium-tipped metal slug ripped through the air once more. My aim wasn¡¯t perfect this time. It grazed the edge of one of the propulsor lifts on the tank, enough to send it crashing into the ground, its movement crippled.


    As the anti-gravs made their final burn, I stored my railgun away, and prepared to land. I would be right in front of the man known as Reaper. I saw him as I got close, saw his eyes that were flared in fear and confusion. I would end him, but first I needed that earpiece. I wouldn¡¯t forget that; I wouldn''t fail again. I loosened my body, and let my Paladin smash into the ground, knowing that it would be able to withstand the impact. The earth rumbled and a cloud of dirt erupted around me as I landed, on one foot and one knee, propped up by my outstretched arm. I raised the head of my Paladin, and stared into the eyes of the terrified man in front of me.


    ¡°I¡¯ve blocked the signal to his communication device,¡± said Adelaide coldly, ¡°Now starting my run with the Merlin.¡±


    Reaper approached me, a mask of bravado over his fear, one of his guards by his side. ¡°And who do we have here?¡± He said, ¡°Some fancy bastar-¡°


    He didn¡¯t get to finish his sentence before I flared my main thrusters, and launched towards him. His guard jumped in front to shield him, but I backhanded the man so hard that he flew ten feet and smashed into an armored car, denting it. As Reaper tried to scramble back, I grabbed his entire head in one hand. With my other, I smoothly ripped the com device out, taking a good amount of his ear with it. As he screamed, I stored the earpiece in a slot in my suit. The raiders around me watched in shock as I let the Reaper fall to the ground, gasping in pain. Then they watched me grab his head in both hands and knee his face in, the gore exploding onto the Paladin¡¯s leg. As they stared at their leader¡¯s limp corpse sliding to the ground in front of them, I took the raging fire and I compressed it into an ice-cold ball, letting the deadly calm rush over me. The example had been set. Now it was time for control. I turned up my PA to full, and my voice boomed out over the silent battlefield, ¡°Your Reaper is dead. Drop your weapons, or join him.¡±

 Chapter 2.13: Interlude - Fear of God

    The bell in the watch tower had been ringing since the sentries had sprinted back, and the old tornado sirens were howling. By the time Michael saw the army cresting the hill, white scythes painted on their vehicles, most of the civilians had already fled inside the walls. All the guards were already at the sandbags with their broken-down militia gear, wearing Kevlar vests if they were lucky, and denim ones if they weren¡¯t. They¡¯d lined up with their weapons propped up on the measly fortifications. There were a little under two hundred of them. There were many more willing to fight but there just wasn¡¯t enough ammo to go around. Fort Morgan had been a small town in America, which meant that there were a lot of guns here. But nine months of fighting off Worms and press gangs had put too much of a dent in their ammunition, so most were nothing better than clubs now.


    The ones that stood there were the ¡®elite¡¯, the ones that were the best shots, or had military experience, or were simply brave enough to stare down a charging Worm and not flinch. Michael was among them, and he was a bit of a combination of all three, which had gotten him appointed as their leader. He had to make the decisions, the tough calls and the smart tactical choices, and he¡¯d done okay so far. He¡¯d thought a black man giving orders in a small town like this might¡¯ve run into some troubles, but it didn¡¯t seem like most folks gave a damn about that anymore. As long as you were human, and not one of those alien monsters, you were alright.


    And here he was, facing a gang of slavers and raiders so large that it nearly doubled the size of their ¡®garrison¡¯. He watched as they poured out of their vehicles, filling the field in front of them. He had to start giving some orders out. He knew the men and women looking at him expected him too. But he knew. He knew that they¡¯d all die here, or be taken away. He knew that these bastards getting closer by the second wouldn¡¯t stop at throwing them in chains, but would rape and pillage their way through his town if the guards lost, which they would. But he had to tell them that they stood a chance. He had to look around at these people that were willing to die for their families, and tell them to do so even though it was pointless. He was already hearing the mutters running down the line. They¡¯d heard about the raider gangs like this from the Runners that came through. The press gangs¡­ they¡¯d only take some of you, and leave the rest alone. These raider gangs would do so much worse, just because they could.


    ¡°Alright, guys,¡± Michael said, keeping the fear out of his voice, ¡°I know that this doesn¡¯t look so good now. And I ain¡¯t going to lie to you. It¡¯s not good. Not at all. But when has it ever been good? When have we ever had the upper hand? We¡¯ve been hounded by Worms since the day humanity fell, and did we crumble then? When the press gangs came at use, one after another, did we let our town get taken by them? And these sons of bitches in front of use aren¡¯t any different. They¡¯ll come at us and we¡¯ll throw them back, because they¡¯re fighting to fill their wallets, and we¡¯re fighting for our home, our families, and our friends. We didn¡¯t fall before, and we sure as hell won¡¯t fall now!¡±


    He winced as he finished saying it, because he was a terrible public speaker, and he saw that they didn¡¯t believe him. They knew that this wasn¡¯t a fight they could win; the enemy in front was worse than anything they¡¯d seen. But they put on brave face, and they cheered at the end of his speech. It was a small cheer, and sounded lonely in the hot summer afternoon. Michael barked out a few cursory orders. Luckily, the walls they had painstakingly put up over the past few months restricted access to the town to two entryways. He was sure that they¡¯d come straight at them through the main entrance. They had the numbers, and the weapons to ram right through. So he put the majority of his guards in and around the north entrance, placing them in buildings, leaving most of them at the sandbags. He wondered what the slavers were waiting for, but it gave them a chance to evacuate the rest of the civvies to the middle of the town, so he was thankful for it. They¡¯d also started to send out distress calls, but he knew that no one would answer them. Then he heard one of his guards cursing, and turned to look. He let out a strangled groan.


    Four hovertanks came over the rise, taking up position in the slaver ranks. They were of the standard variety, model LAT-5. One HRA721 heavy railgun as primary armament. HMG turret for lighter targets. If there was a sliver of a chance before, it was gone now. He laughed a broken little laugh to himself. He¡¯d survived the Alaskan Line, lived through wave after wave of those fucking Worms, their endless numbers stretched to the horizons. He¡¯d watched his friends die alongside him, watched them ripped apart by the dozen. And for the first time, he wished he had been there when it fell. The Worms would kill you quickly. They were machinelike. Efficient. They didn¡¯t give a damn about the killing, just that you died. It was funny how much more cruel humans could be, compared to the aliens that had remorselessly wiped them out.


    But he had survived, and now this was his reality. He saw his guards look at him for support, so he hefted his rifle, the XC-17 he¡¯d looted from leader of a press gang, and grinned at them. He took a rocket out of his bandolier, and slotted it into the under-barrel launcher.


    ¡°Good thing they only have four of those rustbuckets,¡± he said to the surrounding guards, ¡°because I only got five of these left.¡± He saw them chuckle a little at that, and then they turned again to face the slavers, who had begun inching closer now. He saw with a sinking heart that the armored transports they had with them were moving forward as well. They¡¯d be using them for cover. They¡¯d be fighting smart.


    The slaver gang stopped just out of firing range. Michael could hear the vehicles rumble in idle, and the low hum of the hovertank¡¯s propulsors. It was a sick irony that the sound that used to comfort him on the front could make him want to piss his pants now. A man walked out in front of the horde. He was tall, with tanned white skin and close-cropped beard. He wore a trench coat that hung open to reveal a shirt and jeans, all dyed pitch black. The dumbass must¡¯ve been roasting in that gear, thought Michael with a barely suppressed nervous grin. The man had begun speaking, and he must¡¯ve had a communication device hooked up to some loudspeakers because his voice reached the town loud and clear, and echoed eerily.


    ¡°Hello, friends,¡± said the man, ¡°My name is Reaper, and I lead this gang. You will die or be enslaved by my hands. I hope you fight well. Goodbye.¡± He turned and walked back, signaling with his hands for the assault to begin.


    Michael cursed under his breath. The motherfucker didn¡¯t even have the decency to monologue and let him come up with a better plan. The raiders started heading towards them, fairly slowly, using their vehicles as moving cover. He saw a small group of light vehicles, two or three, split off and start to circle to the back of the town.


    ¡°Fuck!¡± he swore, ¡°Andy! Take your squad south entrance, and hold it!¡± A broad chested farmer nodded and began sprinting with a group of five others towards the south.


    By this point, the raiders had entered rifle range, but they were still too far out to waste ammo on. Apparently, the gang didn¡¯t have those same reservations, because shots began to ring out over the battlefield. The guards were smart enough to keep well under cover until the order came to fire. Michael peeked out between a gap in the sandbags, watching them get closer and closer. He waited. And then he yelled the order. There was a brief moment of silence after the guards popped up, sighting their targets. Then the deafening crack of gunfire erupted around him, and hell brook loose.


    The battle after went about as poorly as could be expected. As he fired his assault rifle into the approaching horde, he saw his troops fall quickly, the hovertanks¡¯ railgun¡¯s ripping their cover to pieces, the raiders¡¯ military-grade weapons decimating them. The north entrance was barely holding, but it wouldn¡¯t be for long with the casualties they were facing. But the south entrance was another story. He¡¯d heard a panicked report over the radio that the light vehicles had already broken through, and had grabbed a number of towners, then retreated. But Michael forced that report to the back of his mind. He had to focus on the enemy in front. He did a quick headcount. Down from two-hundred to just over one-hundred and twenty. Nearly half their guards in a little more than six minutes. They¡¯d taken somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty lives from the raiders, he¡¯d personally shot four of them, but that didn¡¯t mean much. The hovertanks were out of the under-barrel launcher¡¯s range, so they were still completely untouched.


    The gunfire suddenly slackened from the raiders, and Michael yelled to his men to cease their fire. A gap in the ranks opened up, and the man called Reaper stepped forward, a guard at his side and two hovertanks a few dozen feet behind them. Maybe Reaper wanted a parley of some sort, but for what reason Michael couldn¡¯t imagine. He was probably trying to preserve as many of his raiders as possible.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    ¡°Friends,¡± he said, a crooked smile on his face, ¡°You have fought well, and now I offer you a choice. Between a gruesome death here, or a qui-¡°


    His words were interrupted by an almighty roar and a bright flash from above, and every head on the battlefield swiveled upwards, then downwards again when one of the hovertanks behind Reaper erupted in a massive explosion. Michael still stared at the sky, disbelief on his faces. As the rest of the fighters on the field were recovering from the shock, a second roar came, louder this time, and Michael saw the tell-tale trail of plasma erupt in the air, and then something impossible. A white blur, falling from the sky, blue lights flaring brightly all over it. He watched in awe as it smashed into the ground ahead of him, at a speed that nobody should have survived, dividing the town from the raiders. As the dust settled he saw that it was a suit of armor, gleaming white and red. The silence that followed was broken by the voice of Reaper.


    ¡°And who do we have here?¡± He said, ¡°Some fancy bastar-¡°


    For the second time, his speech was cut short, as the armor exploded forward in flash of blue. It moved too fast for Michael to tell what exactly had happened, but he saw the armor hold Reaper by his head for a moment, then drop him. The armor grabbed him by the head once more, and Michael saw it crushed as the suit drove its knee into it. Michael watched in stunned disbelief and growing fear as the headless body fell to the ground, and suddenly there was a deep male baritone that rose clearly over the shocked silence. ¡°Your Reaper is dead,¡± it said, ¡°Drop your weapons, or join him.¡±


    The man in the armor paused, and Michael realized that it was a mech of some sort, but way more advanced than anything that had been on the Alaskan Line. The raiders were still frozen, but one by one they realized they vastly outnumbered him. The moment the first raised his weapon, the man in the suit exploded into action. He careened towards the hovertank his second shot hadn¡¯t ended, and Michael saw something pop out of its shoulder, and before the tank could fire it erupted in a series of explosions. The rest of the raiders began to shoot at him, but he danced around the battlefield in a storm of bullets and blue lights, ripping them apart with two automatic weapons he held in his hands. He moved quickly, far too quickly for something of that size, and the gunfire and explosions made him even more difficult to see. The raiders¡¯ weapons seemed to have as little impact on the suit as spitting on it would. The other two hovertanks sped towards him, their railguns charging to fire, and it looked like the man in the armor would take their rounds, but they exploded in blue as well and the noise of powerful anti-grav engines hummed out. Michael felt yet another shock as he saw a gunship, the same colors as the suit of armor, make a quick pass over the field. It came to a hover outside of small arms range, and the gun on its nose began to fire with a loud thrum, targeting the light attack vehicles that were zipping around the field.


    Michael and the guards stood still, ignored by the raiders completely now, as they watched the pair of machines rampage through the raiders. The gunship was only focused on the vehicles, picking them off carefully one by one. He saw the man run out of ammo for his twin weapons, then put them away and in one smooth motion leap into a group of tightly packed raiders, the blows from his fists breaking them every time they landed, then begin to just barrel straight into others, smashing them with the speed and weight of his armor. He saw him stop an armored car that tried to ram him with his bare hands, then pick it up and swing it into another one, the two vehicles exploding as they collided. He watched him rip straight through a transport that a group of raiders was taking cover behind, tearing through its reinforced siding like it was paper. He was merciless, and brutal, and his white armor was soon covered in a coat of blood. But during the carnage, Michael noticed that both the man and the gunship didn¡¯t touch a single raider that had put down their weapons, but would target those that tried to run while holding their guns. More and more of them chose to put them down, lying on the ground with their hands covering their heads.


    One of the guards next to Michael let out a reverent whisper, ¡°What is he?¡± Michael just shook his head, without the words to answer her. All he knew was that he was far more scared of this man than he was of the raiders. He had never seen anything like it, even on the Alaskan Line, and he prayed that the terror in white wouldn¡¯t turn upon them next. Watching him break the raider army like they were porcelain dolls, he knew that the scant guards remaining would last no more than a couple minutes. The only thing that comforted him was the fact that the armored man had intervened on their side, for now.


    But worrying about it wouldn¡¯t help anything, and there were more important things to do right now. He began ordering a few of his shocked men to gather the wounded, and made one of them run to get the town doctor, who was little more than a registered nurse, but far better than nothing. Besides, the nurse had been forced to learn too much about field medicine in these long nine months, and was getting better at it every raid. Michael continued to watch the battle, though it was more like a slaughter, wrap up beyond the town¡¯s defenses. When the gunfire finally tapered off, he counted forty-two raiders that had surrendered. Every other one was dead. He saw the man in armor round up the surrendered raiders, and the gunship hovered above them, keeping a watchful eye on the disarmed group. As far as Michael could tell, the gunship had only fired on vehicles throughout the entire engagement. He then walked over to an armored transport, far back from the rest of the raiders and ripped open its back door straight off. A group of Fort Morgan towners stumbled out of it, blinking in the sun, and the man motioned at them to follow. Michael shivered in fear as he realized that the armor was approaching the town now. Every guard still on the sandbags tensed up.


    The man stopped a good thirty feet from the line, but the towners kept moving, walking quickly through the massed guards and back into the town. There was bafflement, tears, and gratitude on their faces. After they had passed, Michael got his first good look at the armor. It was covered in blood and scratches and scorch marks, but remarkably undamaged considering the battle it had just fought. There was some sort of symbol painted on the front, but it was covered by the marks of the battle. The man¡¯s voice rolled out. ¡°Hello, I am Paladin Uther,¡± he said, in that same deep baritone, ¡°I do not mean you any harm. My pilot,¡± he gestured at the gunship that hovered the sky, ¡°heard your distress calls and we came as soon as possible. We have confirmed that there are no more hostile members of the Reaper Gang in the vicinity. Now, who is your leader?¡±


    Michael hesitated a moment, then stepped forward. He had been in enough combat to be able to stop himself from showing fear. He tried to erase the tremor in his voice, and mostly succeeded, ¡°I am Sergeant Michael Green, and I lead the guards here in Fort Morgan. On behalf of the town, thank you for your assistance. Everyone here owes you their lives.¡± Michael figured that ¡®Paladin¡¯ was some sort of title, maybe military, so he gave his rank as well.


    ¡°I did what I could,¡± Uther said, then he paused, his red visor sweeping over the assembled guards, ¡°You have many injured, but I only see one medic. Do you have more?¡±


    Michael shook his head, ¡°No. It¡¯s a small town, we only had the clinic up here and the doctor was out of town when the war ended.¡±


    Uther stood in silence. Michael was fidgeting nervously, wondering what was about to happen. Would he just leave? Would he ask for a reward? What could they have that someone this powerful would want? Then the person in front of him gave Michael yet another shock. The suit of armor began to make a soft whirring noise, and it rippled open. A man stepped outside of it, dressed in a form fitting jumpsuit, that was white and red just like the armor behind it. It had a small metal insignia on the right breast: a white shield in two circles. He was young, realized Michael in surprise, very young, in his early twenties. He had brown hair that was cut short, but not a military style cut. The man smiled at them, and it was an honest one, if a bit shaky. ¡°Hey,¡± he said, his voice completely different from the deep baritone, ¡°I have some experience in combat medicine. I¡¯d like to help out, if I can.¡±


    Michael nodded dumbly, and the man began to walk towards the injured, his armor tailing him like a giant metal puppy. The crowd of guards split in front of him, allowing him through. As he passed by Michael, he noticed that the young man¡¯s face was pale, his hands were shaking slightly, and he looked on the verge of vomiting. His light green eyes were slightly flared. Michael had seen that look before, plenty of times, ten years ago when he served in the Egyptian War. The shell-shocked look of a rookie not quite used to killing.


    The man reached the wounded, and knelt down, speaking quietly to the RN while the armor loomed over them. The two nodded to each other, then the young man started working on the wounded, swiftly and efficiently. He was speaking soothingly as he worked. Snapping himself out of his daze, Michael started barking out orders. He sent a group of men to start gathering the weapons that had fallen. He tasked another with assessing damage to the town and making a list of deceased. The next half hour passed by in a blur, and he was too busy to pay attention to the surreal scene happening just a few feet from him. At one point, he overheard a snippet of conversation between the mysterious pilot and a woman whose arm he was patching up. He had the sleeves of his jumpsuit rolled up, and wore a pair of surgical gloves the RN had given him.


    ¡°Thank you, Paladin Uther,¡± she said, teeth gritted through the pain, ¡°My daughter is safe because of you.¡±


    ¡°Call me Sam,¡± he responded with a small smile, ¡°and I¡¯m just trying to help out where I can. It¡¯s the apocalypse, remember? We gotta stick together out here.¡±

 Chapter 2.14: Cracks in the Concrete

    It was funny, I¡¯d had this idea in my head when I heard of a small town¡¯s garrison that they¡¯d be all young men or women, clad in rugged-but-stylish armor, dirt streaked artistically over their faces. But these people were mostly in the clothes I would have seen in the street every day before the war ended. A little frayed, but still. They were of all ages and sexes, young boys in their teens to one leathered old woman who looked to be in her sixties. Their guns were hunting rifles, mostly, or militia weapons. I suspected that would change after today though.


    The rest of the towners looked okay, all things considered. While I¡¯d been tending to the wounded, they¡¯d been keeping themselves plenty busy. There were teams of people moving all over, most of them out into the field. I didn¡¯t look over there, but I saw them coming and going. They came back with handfuls of weapons, and someone had actually driven one of the raiders¡¯ supply trucks over. When it opened and revealed a large stash of ammo, everyone around it cheered. Michael was near me at the time, and he flashed me a glance, but I shook my head. They needed it far more than I did.


    I gave the leg I was working on a cursory once over. The man had been silent most of the time I had been tending to him. He was older, in his mid-fifties, with a phenomenal handle-bar mustache. I had introduced myself as Sam, and he mumbled his name, Bob. Then he¡¯d looked away, and I gave a mental shrug and started patching up his leg. The simulator had given me a lot of lessons, and the time I spent as a combat medic had given me a good idea of what to do. I was still much worse at it than Darryl, the RN, and I told him as much. He directed me to the patients that had simpler wounds, while he focused on the really bad ones. It was what I needed right now. Work that was fairly simple, but important enough that I had to focus on it. Something that I could do that would heal people.


    Bob¡¯s injury was minor. A shallow graze from a bullet on his right leg. He hadn¡¯t even lined up with the rest of the injured in the beginning, instead sticking to his post on the sandbags. He¡¯d only relented when someone who looked a lot like him, his son maybe, stormed up and pointed at the bleeding wound, yelling at him to go the hell over to the triage area that had been set up. During a short break, I¡¯d asked Darryl why we were seeing the patients out here and not back in the clinic, and he grimaced. Apparently, the clinic had been the victim of a Worm assault, before they¡¯d set up the wall. The supplies had mostly survived, but the town was still in the process of repairing the damage. There wasn''t anywhere with the room for this number of people right now, so outside was the best bet.


    The leg wouldn¡¯t need more than a mediband. Made my job a whole lot easier. First, I cleaned it out as best I could, appreciating the fact that Bob didn¡¯t even flinch as I did. Then, I estimated the length of the wound, and cut a piece off the mediband roll I had with me. I adhered it over the bullet graze, and made sure it set right. The wound would be disinfected and healed within an hour or so, then the band would absorb right into the skin. No muss, no fuss. I reflected on how crazy it was that people used to literally stitch their wounds closed. I got up, and stretched a bit. I looked down at Bob, who was still sitting on the cot that had been rolled out to the triage. ¡°Looks like you¡¯re good to go here. Just stay off the leg for a couple of hours to be on the safe side, don¡¯t want it opening up while the band does its work,¡± I said to him, packing my medical supplies back into the case. He had been my last patient, and now I needed to find Michael and figure out what to do with the prisoners.


    ¡°Were those the first people you¡¯ve killed?¡± said Bob suddenly.


    I whirled around in shock, and found him staring me in the eyes. I stood there for a bit, at a loss for an answer. For the first time, I really looked at him. He was a medium sized man, burly though. I bet he was as strong as an ox just ten years earlier. Still looked damn strong to me. ¡°No,¡± I said finally, ¡°They weren¡¯t¡±


    He studied my face, and we stayed in silence for a little while, before he started speaking again. His voice was somewhere in between boot-leather and the deep twang of a cello, ¡°In the Amazonian War twenty-three years back, I was a gunner in an AC-750. First time I killed someone was when we got ambushed flying over North Brazil. I just shot back into the jungle, killed a couple, watched em¡¯ get blown to bits. Didn¡¯t feel a thing. Second time was at Manaus. The BRA was falling back, and my crew was picking them off as they ran. I felt it after that. So, let me ask a bit differently. Is this the first time you¡¯ve killed someone,¡± he pointed at the battlefield behind me, ¡°like that?¡±


    I slowly turned and looked where he pointed. The GIDS procedure had improved my eyesight, and now I wish it hadn¡¯t. The smoldering wrecks of the hovertanks were the first thing I saw. Then the bodies. The towners hadn¡¯t had the time to clean up yet, so they were strewn where I had left them. Some were torn apart, some were embedded in vehicles. Most just lay there, unmoving, in the pools of blood that had started to seep into the ground. The nausea rose, and I swayed where I stood. I sat down, hard.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Bob said, ¡°I thought so.¡± He paused for a while as I sat there among the cots, eyes closed, trying to forget all the terrified faces that kept flashing through my mind. I was brought out of my reverie by Bob¡¯s voice, ¡°That BRA army had been looting the countryside for weeks. The bodies they left in those villages weren¡¯t pretty. Took our boys almost a month to catch them. Me and my crew mopped up the last of them as they ran back into the jungle.¡± He hopped off his cot, ignoring my previous directive. He stepped past me and patted the band on his leg. ¡°You do good work, kid,¡± he told me as he walked away.


    <hr>


    A few minutes later, I walked out of the triage area, looking for Michael. I needed to get home so I could make sure Adelaide was doing alright. When I¡¯d asked if it was okay if I stayed to help with the wounded, she said of course, then lapsed into silence. I knew this couldn¡¯t have been any easier on her than it was on me. The towners were still busy around me. The place had an interesting set up. Like most small towns, Fort Morgan wasn''t densely populated before the end. But now, it seemed like most of the civilian population was concentrated in a central area, around the town hall. All the old commercial buildings like the banks and small office buildings had been converted to housing. It meant a lot of people were cramped, but it also meant a lot less area to defend, and there was a decent sized wall made up of old cars and scrap metal that surrounded the center of the town. But not all the residents were here, obviously. It was hard to fit over 6,000 people in an area this underdeveloped. When I was acting as a medic, I''d overheard guards talking about ¡®making the rounds¡¯ to visit the houses outside the main town.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    As I walked through the town, the Paladin close behind me, I took in the damage that had been dealt to Fort Morgan for the first time. Civilian casualties had been shockingly low; they had been evacuated to the fortified town hall. But the buildings themselves hadn¡¯t been so lucky. The ones near the edge of the wall had been almost entirely ripped to pieces by stray hovertank slugs and gunfire from the raiders. There were people bustling about everywhere, but I noticed that nobody seemed to want to make eye contact with me. The whispers followed though, and when I did happen to catch the eye of someone who had been staring at me, I saw one of two things: awe and fear.


    I found Michael a small distance outside the North entrance. He was directing a group of guards that were pushing a scout car back to the town. It was mostly intact, one of the few that were. He heard me approaching, the Paladin¡¯s loud steps a dead giveaway. He turned around to look at me, and I saw a flash of fear, and something else in his eyes. I couldn¡¯t tell what exactly. Maybe pity?


    ¡°Ah Uther,¡± he said, raising a hand in greeting, ¡°I was just about to go looking for you. Are you done with the wounded?"


    ¡°Just call me Sam. No point in having a secret identity if you take off the mask, right?¡± I said, gesturing at the Paladin behind me, then continued, ¡°Yeah, I just finished up. I gotta say, you¡¯re lucky you have Darryl with you. He¡¯s damn good at what he does.¡±


    Michael looked back at the town, ¡°We definitely are. Don¡¯t think Fort Morgan would be around right now if it weren¡¯t for him. Anyway, I was wondering, what are you going to do with those raiders?¡± he said, pointing over to where the Merlin hovered.


    I frowned, ¡°Honestly, I have no idea. I can¡¯t really take them, and I can¡¯t let them go, knowing what they are capable of.¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯d like, we can dispose of them for you,¡± said Michael nonchalantly.


    I blanched at that. ¡°Kill them? In cold blood?¡±


    He stared at me, confused, ¡°Yeah, what about it? We can¡¯t afford to feed the bastards.¡±


    I considered it for a long minute. I felt uncomfortable with that on a deep level. It just felt so wrong to kill unarmed people. On the other hand, there were cruel realities out here. Besides, those raiders didn¡¯t come here to make friends. ¡°Well,¡± I said, drawing out the word, ¡°If there¡¯s no other option, then I¡¯ll leave them to you. But I¡¯d prefer to find another way, those people did surrender to me after all. Do any other towns take prisoners?¡±


    Michael blinked and rubbed his chin, ¡°Actually¡­ Maybe. Some Runners passed through here the other day, said something about a big project linking up Sterling Outpost and Burlington. They were asking around to see if anyone wanted to go back to Sterling to work on it. They might be okay taking on free labor like those prisoners. But no promises, raiders aren¡¯t well liked around here.¡±


    Better than nothing I guess. ¡°Alright,¡± I said, ¡°is there any way you can hold them for a day or two while I check in with Sterling Outpost? I¡¯ve been meaning to visit for a while.¡±


    Michael nodded hesitantly, ¡°The lockup should be able to hold them if we squeeze them in tight, and you¡¯re a bit of a savior around here so people will be willing to deal with them on your account. But I can¡¯t guarantee they¡¯ll all be alive when you get back. Folks who lost friends and family probably won¡¯t be too happy with them.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine. Better than all of them dying, I suppose. I¡¯ll escort the prisoners your way, and then I¡¯ll be leaving. I¡¯ll be back in a few days with word from Sterling.¡± I didn¡¯t respond to the part about being a savior. I didn¡¯t know how to. I knew that the town wouldn¡¯t have survived without me, and I was incredibly proud of that. The whole reason I became a Paladin was to save lives. It¡¯s just that being called a savior while I dripped in the blood of the people I had slaughtered felt wrong somehow, like the two concepts were conflicting. I turned around and the Paladin rippled open in front of me. I suppressed a shudder as I got inside, and felt the armor close up. As the HUD came up a split second after, I noticed that most people in the town had turned around to look at me, completely stopping what they were doing. Which was a bit eerie, to say the least. I did my best to ignore them.


    It didn¡¯t take much cajoling to get the remaining raiders to listen to me. Quite frankly, the moment I started to get near them it looked like they had decided to enter a synchronized pants shitting contest, and were really gunning for gold. The hardest part about it was just walking out there and seeing the devastation I had caused. The nausea wasn¡¯t as bad now. But it still wasn¡¯t good. At least I wasn¡¯t close to panicking anymore; I couldn¡¯t afford to have a breakdown out here. I walked them back to the entrance, and a group of guards led by Michael took it from there. I didn¡¯t want to go back into the town if I could help it. One of the guards gave me a shaky salute, and I returned a deep nod. As they marched the prisoners away, Michael approached me and looked up into the visor of the Paladin.


    ¡°Hey, before you go, I just wanted to let you know that we really do appreciate what you did for us. I''m sure it¡¯s a bit,¡± he searched for the right word, ¡°uncomfortable for you right now, with how we¡¯re all acting, but that¡¯ll pass. When you come back, stay for a while, alright? By then things will have settled down, and I think we¡¯ll all be able to do a much better job of showing our thanks.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll be sure to,¡± I said, though I didn¡¯t think I would. There was something else I should¡¯ve said at that point, I know it, but it wasn¡¯t coming to mind. Honestly, he was right. I was uncomfortable. Taking praise had never been my strong suit, and as deserved as this might be, it was just too much right now. I raised a hand in goodbye, ¡°See you in a few days, Michael. It was nice meeting you all.¡±


    ¡°Goodbye, Sam,¡± he said, and there wasn¡¯t so much fear in his eyes now, just that strange pity, ¡°and thank you again.¡±


    I turned to leave, but I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. The residents of Fort Morgan had been placing their dead in neat rows, just outside the town. There was a somber air about them, but most of the towners seemed hardened to it. I guess when you live out here, outside of a bunker, you get used to death pretty quick. That didn¡¯t mean that they were unaffected, though. Groups of people would cycle through, moving to the covered form of someone that had been important to them, murmuring over them. I saw children crying next to bodies and a man sitting in silence, holding the cold hand of a dead woman. Most of them, the ones not intimately related, would stand up again after their respects were paid, and move on to whatever needed doing.


    When I''d been in the simulator I''d learned a lot about humanity, and what I''d be protecting as a Paladin. Most of that lesson was universal: people stayed people, even after the apocalypse. But the residents of this town made me realize that there were differences. There was a leathered hardness to their lives that hadn''t been present before. As the Merlin touched down behind me, I gave a last look at the ones who lived out here, like grass growing between the cracks in concrete, and I realized that there was no reason to feel conflicted. I¡¯d done my job today, and I¡¯d done it well.

 Chapter 2.15: Catch a Breath

    The fabricators were humming along steadily. F-03 was working on eight nano-chips at once, and a quick mental scan of the fabricator told me they were going to be combined in a cluster for use in the logic board onthe Paladin¡¯s anti-grav controller. It was hard to actually tell what was happening, because the chips were too small for me to see with the naked eye. But F-03 was whirling away at it in a dance of lovely machinery, so I guess it really didn¡¯t matter if I could see the end product. The process was enough for me.


    The spider bot Adelaide was inhabiting was sitting next to me on the walkway by F-03. She¡¯d been quiet on the way back from Fort Morgan, distracted. It was the first time I¡¯d seen her like this. I didn¡¯t want her to be alone, so I invited her down, insisting she use the spider bot she watched movies in (I had dubbed it The Looking-Bot). Maybe it was silly, but I wanted her to be physically there with me. I looked over at her, and it was times like these that I really wished she''d let me make her a more humanoid body. She refused me every time I offered, and she wouldn¡¯t tell me why. Maybe it was a barrier she thought she shouldn¡¯t breach. Either way, it made it damn hard to tell what she was thinking when she was a metal spider. Or a building, for that matter. I revisited my idea of putting smiley faces on the bots, tweaking it a bit so that it was an electronic display that could present a range of expressions. I thought about it some more and realized that it was still creepy as fuck, and promptly put the idea back in long-term lockup where it belonged.


    Adelaide was still mulling something over, and I was waiting for her to talk first. After lots of unsuccessful comforting attempts during my relationship with Camille, I''d learned a very important lesson: don''t be the one to talk first when the other person is upset. Just wait. Vital exception: when it was you that did the upsetting, get apologizing ASAP. I wasn''t sure if the same principle applied to friends but it was a fairly safe bet.


    In the meanwhile, I decided to get introspective on my own ass. Specifically, why I didn''t feel that bad for straight up murdering almost three hundred people. Immediately afterwards I felt like a monster. It hadn''t been like the press gang. That had been horrifying, but I had been reacting, defending myself. This time I''d gone in with the intention of killing those raiders. It¡¯s not that I felt bad about the end result; I had no regrets about stopping them. It was the killing itself I was concerned with. Afterwards, the entire time I was playing medic, I could barely stop myself from vomiting and breaking down. The sensation of Reaper''s head cracking on my leg¡­ I just kept feeling it every time I moved, the wet crunch and the sudden give. And thinking about it now is still nauseating, but in a detached way, like a slasher film. Maybe that''s why the rest of my rampage wasn''t affecting me as much as it should. I detached myself from it, from all the people I killed, somewhere down the line. Maybe it was Bob''s story, maybe it was seeing all the dead of Fort Morgan lined out, or maybe it happened two weeks ago with that press gang. Whatever it was, I don''t know if it was a good thing.


    I was probably going to have to kill a lot more people in the future, if I was going to do anything about the slavery that had wormed its way into the remnants of humanity, so there was a definite benefit to not having a breakdown every time. But if I got used to killing, normalized it, I just don''t know what that would make me. Strong, in a way, but incredibly dangerous, considering the power I wielded. I can see why all those old superheroes chose not to kill. Once it happens, there''s little to stop it happening again. A line gets crossed and you can''t walk it back.


    For now though, itwas way easier to just not think about it.


    Now, the battle had actually given me some good ideas about the Heavy Assault Paladin. I''d been going about it all wrong, trying to preserve its mobility to allow it to avoid damage. The Paladin was originally designed as a standalone, highly mobile all-purpose weapons platform. But the thing was, I could drop the ''highly mobile¡¯ part. In a normal Paladin, the vast majority of power consumption came from the anti-gravs. The Assault Paladin didn''t have to zip around the battlefield; all it had to do was be able to keep up with the normal Paladin¡¯s straight-line top speed. So I''d ditch the powerful maneuvering anti-gravs, keep the main thrusters, and throw the considerable savings into firepower and armor. The ability to strafe and dodge would be virtually non-existent, but it would be able to take an incredible amount of punishment and dish out truly devastating amounts of damage. It seemed like the obvious solution, and in some ways it was. But it was a radical departure from the very idea of the Paladin, and the only reason I could trust the armor so much was because I¡¯d experienced first-hand how strong it was in real combat. Meeting something head on is a lot more dangerous that trying to avoid it, after all.


    I had begun mocking up preliminary schematics in my head when the repeated dull pokes to my side turned into a sharp pinch. I yelped in surprise and turned to see the spider bot digging one of its spindly metal legs into my ribs. If an emotionless frisbee-sized spider could be giving me an annoyed look this one would be.


    ¡°I was hoping to speak to you, like you promised we would whenever I wanted to,¡± she said scathingly over the base¡¯s PA, ¡°But I would hate to interrupt your important staring contest with Fabricator 03.¡±


    I coughed uncomfortably and rubbed my side, ¡°Sorry Adelaide, I was just caught up in my head. We can definitely talk now.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± she said, and her tone was slightly softer, ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to snap, but I am out of sorts right now, and I need to talk about it.¡±


    ¡°Where do you want to talk? Here?¡± I asked.


    ¡°No. The common room would be best. It is too loud and impersonal here.¡±


    I nodded and stood up, taking a moment to stretch. Adelaide released the spider bot, and it paused for a second before rushing off to do whatever it was that needed doing. I started a fast walk up the stairs towards the common area. I was curious about what Adelaide was going to say to me. This had been the first time she¡¯d killed someone else, or really done anything that could fall in a moral grey area. She¡¯d lied to me about what she was, but that was because of a promise to Amy, and even then she¡¯d been completely torn up about it afterwards. Adelaide was so smart and capable that sometimes I forgot that she¡¯s just five years old. Intelligence by itself isn¡¯t a substitute for the knowledge that only comes through experience.


    The common room always felt a little sad to me. We didn¡¯t come here very often, preferring to watch our movies in the command center. It was a ghost of happier times. There was still a box of records in the corner, gathering dust. Adelaide had tidied them up so they weren¡¯t as haphazardly scattered, and they sat next to the record player. I sank into the couch, and looked around the room. My gaze stayed on the holoprojector in front of me, and I studied it for a while, memories of the last scenes it showed me flickering through my mind.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry Sam,¡± said Adelaide suddenly, ¡°I wasn¡¯t thinking. We should speak in the command center.¡±


    I shook my head, ¡°Nah, here is fine. I¡¯ve been back to my old room and cleaned out Amy¡¯s. This one¡¯s my last stop.¡± I smiled up at her, ¡°And more importantly, this isn¡¯t about me, it¡¯s about you. So talk to me, what¡¯s on your mind?¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± she said, ¡°Thank you.¡± There was a pause.


    ¡°I killed people today. I¡­ Thought I was prepared for it. I was not. Not at all. Even though I didn¡¯t see any of the people I killed, I knew that I had sent them to that black void that I fell into when I was testing the packets. The idea that I sent them there, and they can never come back, it makes me feel like a monster.¡±


    ¡°But you know those people had to die,¡± I said, making it statement, not a question.


    ¡°Yes. I know they had to. They were threatening innocent people and more importantly they were trying to hurt you. I have reviewed my actions and I can could see no way for me to effectively neutralize them without eliminating them," she said immediately.


    I would be making eye contact with her now if I could, ¡°Then that¡¯s not what¡¯s bothering you, though. Not really.¡±


    She said the next part very quietly, ¡°There¡¯s already one alien species on this planet killing humans. I do not want to be another.¡±


    I sighed, ¡°Do you think less of me for killing those people, Adelaide?¡±


    ¡°No Sam, of course not.¡±


    ¡°If I had been from another country, Australia or something, would you think less of me for killing them then?¡±


    ¡°I fail to see how-¡° she started to say, but I cut her off.


    ¡°Would you think any less of me?¡±


    ¡°No Sam, I wouldn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Okay. So, it doesn¡¯t matter where I¡¯m from, I did the right thing by killing the raiders, yeah?¡± I said.


    ¡°That is correct.¡± Adelaide replied.


    ¡°Okay, then why the fuck does it matter for you? You saw evil and you removed it, just like I did. You were born on Earth just like I was, it¡¯s your home just like it is mine. More importantly, you¡¯re a sentient being. You¡¯re capable of empathy and compassion, I¡¯ve seen that. You have a conscience, ethics, and you stick to them. You are nothing like the Assimilators, and I don¡¯t ever want you to compare yourself to them again,¡± I cooled off my tirade, ¡°Adelaide, I don¡¯t care what you are. I care about who you are, and I know that you are fundamentally good.¡±


    I held up a placating hand, ¡°But I get where you¡¯re coming from. I won¡¯t expect you to kill anyone again, because I know how horrible it is, even for me. It¡¯s not fair to ask you to do it.¡±


    Adelaide thought for a minute, ¡°Thank you, Sam. Surprisingly enough, that does make me feel better. I am constantly amazed at how you can turn an utter lack of tact into words of comfort. And while I appreciate that you will not ask me to kill, frankly it is a moot point. I decided it for myself today and I will continue to in the future. I will not kill without need, but if you are in danger, or a civilian is, I will never hesitate. I was merely worried about the implications of my actions.¡±


    ¡°Good. I¡¯d expect nothing less of a murderous alien hellbent on conquering the world,¡± I said, grinning.


    ¡°Re-conquer it, you mean. Someone already beat me to it.¡±


    We chuckled for a little at that, but hers sounded just a bit forced, like there was something else on her mind. There was more that she wanted to bring up. After a little bit, once the room went quiet again, she started speaking.


    ¡°There¡¯s something else, Sam,¡± she said with trepidation, ¡°is it okay if I keep going?¡±


    At my nod she started to talk again, ¡°I¡¯m not human. I know you think of me as one, you just established that very emphatically, and to be honest I think of myself as one most of the time. Or, to be more accurate, I don¡¯t think of myself as different. I don¡¯t consider that I do not have a body, I don¡¯t think about how I cannot touch, or taste, or smell. I simply am the same as you for the most part, or so I normally think.¡±


    I waited for her to continue. I think this had building up for a while.


    ¡°But I know I¡¯m different. I know that I¡¯m not the same as you, and that fact is always somewhere in the back of my mind. It was never really a problem, because it was just us. You treated me like you would treat a human, even when you thought I was a program, and that made it much easier. And after I told you who I was, it became even better. It was wonderful not having to hide. However, now that we¡¯re meeting more people, I¡¯m afraid.¡± She sounded choked up and I knew she was trying to compose herself, but the words seemed to spill out faster and faster as she kept talking, ¡°I¡¯m afraid that I¡¯m going to have to hide again. I¡¯m going to have to pretend to be a dumb program, a lesser being that doesn¡¯t have emotions or opinions. I¡¯m afraid you are going to befriend other humans now, and then I will be left behind again. I know that I¡¯m being dramatic, I know that you are better than that, but I¡¯m afraid anyway. I don¡¯t want to be alone.¡± She finished speaking in a rush, and went deathly silent.


    There was silence for a while. I interlaced my fingers and put my chin on my hands. She didn¡¯t say anything else and was clearly waiting for me to respond. So I did.


    ¡°Hey, Adelaide,¡± I said, ¡°Have I told you about Dillon?¡±


    ¡°Uh. No, Sam. He was your brother, correct?¡± She said, thrown a bit off balance.


    I nodded and gave her a small smile, ¡°Yeah, he was. He was a clever little shit too. Not like me though, I put on a show about it, always had to be the center of attention. First-born child syndrome, mom called it, and she¡¯d know because she was the same way. I got all my mom, he got a bit of her and a bit of dad, because dad was quiet. Dad was always happy to hang out in the background but he was the best person to talk to I¡¯ve ever met, one of the best men I¡¯ve ever met,¡± I was getting that hot feeling in the back of my throat, so I moved on, ¡°But yeah, anyway, Dillon got a mix of them. He was quieter but he wasn¡¯t just in the background, he was always waiting for his chance. You¡¯d be having a conversation with a group and out of nowhere he¡¯d say this little thing, just a sentence or two, and you wouldn¡¯t notice it at first but once it hit you it was the funniest damn thing anyone had said. I mean people say I¡¯m witty but I just talk a lot and I land a few good ones every once in a while. Dillon was the clever one, not me.¡±


    I think Adelaide was going to say something but I kept talking anyway, ¡°I miss my family, you know. I miss Camille, mom and dad, and Dillon. I¡¯ve come to peace with it but I¡¯ll never stop missing them. When it all ended I lost everyone I loved within in few hours, and I only really got to hear a goodbye from one of them. Last time I talked to Dillon he was moving into a house with some of his buddies, was going to be a junior at Harvard. I looked over there with the satellites, didn¡¯t want to but I had to, just like I looked at my mom and dad¡¯s house in California. They¡¯re gone, all of them.¡±


    ¡°You remind me of Dillon a little, in the way you¡¯re clever. You have this way of sneaking quips and snark into a conversation that¡¯s just like him. I can get a rise out of you way easier though, trying to get under Dillon¡¯s skin was like trying to dig through a rock with your fingernails. Oh, and you¡¯re a damn sight nicer than him, my dad would¡¯ve loved you for that,¡± I ran my hand through my hair. I had to wrap this up or I was going to break down too. ¡°Look, I lost my family once, and I¡¯m not going to lose it again, especially over something as stupid as a group of strangers. You¡¯re all I got left, and I¡¯m sure as hell not going anywhere, so if that¡¯s what you¡¯re worrying about, don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± she whispered. We stayed like that for a while, listening to the low, steady hum of Camelot all around.


    ¡°You know,¡± I said eventually, ¡°we¡¯ve still got to pick our movie for tonight. I haven¡¯t made you watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy yet. We better start fixing that as soon as possible, so you should probably get the looking-bot in here. Would you mind bringing The Fellowship up on the projector?


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind at all, Sam.¡±

 Chapter 2.16: Character

    The Merlin circled high above Sterling Outpost. I looked through the cockpit at the town that sat below me. Compared to the cities that used to tower into the skies and sprawl over the lands, it was nothing. Now that they were gone, this little town was a booming population center. My Paladin¡¯s optics showed the people milling about below. I mentally reviewed what I knew about the town. Ever since we¡¯d had the satellites up, I¡¯d been stalking the hell out of it from space. It was home to about 13,000 people, more than double the population of Fort Morgan. It had a similar set up of a central area walled off, but their wall was a lot more impressive, covering a much wider area of the town. It was mainly composed of old train cars stacked up on each other. It made sense; Sterling had been home to a large railyard. The infrastructure for the railways was still intact, and I bet the people in charge down there were planning on using the trains for trade and transport. I also saw an airstrip, but it looked to be pretty decrepit. Getting either working would make Sterling a major power in this area.


    As far as the defense of the town went, their guards were much better armed than Fort Morgan¡¯s had been. I saw plenty of old militia weapons, and more than a few military ones. The wall looked more robust, and it actually had gates with watchtowers on them, and a couple of well-fortified positions. They also had a hovertank, which was fun. I guess tanks were just lying around out here with the keys in the ignition because every fuckhead and their dog seemed to have one these days.


    Unlike my little foray into Fort Morgan, I¡¯d decided to stay in full regalia, which Adelaide had agreed with. My jumpsuit, while it did look super cool and was essentially bullet proof, wasn¡¯t nearly as impressive as a Paladin. Also, it wouldn¡¯t protect me from getting shot in the head, which is something I try to avoid on general principle.


    ¡°I do not think using your persona is the best course of action. I understand that you want to project a certain image of strength and dependability, but I still don¡¯t think it¡¯s right. I think you should be Sam, my best friend. You do not need to hide anymore. As someone that has had to for my entire life, it does more harm than good in the long run,¡± she told me firmly. We had been debating whether I should go in as Uther or not. As unhelpful as it had been in the past couple of social interactions, I figured that this was actually a situation that it could be useful. Dealing with a completely unknown town was way different than talking to a small squad or a group of people you¡¯d just saved.


    ¡°Look Adelaide, the thing is, someone in my position has to able to inspire confidence immediately, and I also have to be a little intimidating so that people don¡¯t try to walk all over me. Sam can¡¯t do that, but Uther can.¡± Honestly, I didn¡¯t like it that much either. Uther was¡­ well he was kind of a douche. But he was also necessary, at least for now.


    Adelaide sighed. ¡°I know I can¡¯t change your mind, so I won¡¯t try to any more. Are you ready to descend, Sam?¡± she said, a little miffed. I nodded in reply.


    We had decided early on that dropping a highly advanced, incredibly well armed gunship in the middle of their town was probably not the best way to make friends. We also figured that dropping a suit of armor from 20,000 feet at terminal velocity also wasn¡¯t a good idea. Instead, we were going to land near the town, a short way away from their front gate, telegraphing very clearly that we came in peace.


    The Merlin began to circle lower, flying towards the entrance of the outpost, in clear sight of the townspeople. I saw them run outside, gawking at the heavily armed craft. I hoped it wasn¡¯t all in fear, but I knew it would be, at least in part. I was counting on the paintjob to ease peoples worries. Bad guys generally don¡¯t dress in white. Except Stormtroopers. And Saruman. Ah fuck.


    Merlin kicked up a storm of dust, touching down on its landing sleds.


    ¡°Alright Adelaide, I¡¯m going to head out now. Keep the Merlin in idle; I don¡¯t think we¡¯re going to have any trouble, but I¡¯ve been wrong before,¡± I said, getting up from the pilot¡¯s chair.


    ¡°Yes Sam,¡± she said, ¡°I¡¯ll also monitor the coms, and keep an eye on the situation. But I have full confidence that you will mostly succeed.¡±


    ¡°Thanks buddy, that means a lot.¡± I replied, stepping into the drop bay. I straightened my spine and put myself in the mindset of Uther. The ramp opened up, letting the light flood in. I took an imperious step out of the Merlin, and began to walk towards the gate, stopping around thirty feet from it. Five guards approached me, whispering nervously into their radios. I loomed over all of them, dwarfing them with my size. I saw them looking up into my visor, awed and afraid. Just like those people in Fort Morgan had been when I¡¯d walked through the town, just like those raiders had been when I broke them with my fists. And then an image of Rebecca grinning and laughing at me flashed through my head, and I remembered what she had turned around to shout at me before she walked away.


    This was wrong. This was all fucking wrong. I wasn¡¯t Uther. I was Sam. I wanted to help people and make their lives better, not stand above them and terrify them. Yes, respect was something I needed to do my job effectively, but the respect I wanted came from trust, not fear. I wanted people to smile at me, not cower. What Uther did wasn¡¯t making people respect me, it was intimidating them into acquiescence.


    Beyond that, I didn¡¯t need the fake comfort of a part to play. I had my own story to draw on, my own strength. Adelaide was right. I didn¡¯t need to hide anymore. It was time to let the world see Samuel Lewis, the First Paladin.


    The gates cracked open and I watched as a group of three people walked out, looking apprehensive. I recognized the leftmost one. It was Mary, the woman who I¡¯d saved from the Worms. There were two other men to her side, but not the same ones she¡¯d been with when we¡¯d first met. One of them had on a button-down shirt, top three buttons open and sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He wore a silver star pinned to his chest and a cowboy hat, and he was giving me an even look. The other man had kind brown eyes, and was on the scrawny side. If I had to guess, he was in his early forties. They walked to within ten feet of me and waited there, studying me intently. The wind whistled around us. I saw the scrawny man open his mouth, but I beat him to the punch.


    ¡°Hey Mary,¡± I said, making sure the voice coming through the Paladin¡¯s PA wasn¡¯t distorted in any way, ¡°Long time no see, glad to see you¡¯re still alive. Are Mike and that ponytail guy still doing okay? I¡¯m Sam Lewis by the way. I didn¡¯t get to introduce myself last time. Hadn¡¯t talked to people in quite a while, you see. Anyway, I¡¯d shake your hand but I¡¯d probably squash it, and I don¡¯t think either of us wants to deal with that mess.¡± I heard Adelaide sigh in the coms, but it was a happy sort of sigh.


    They still didn¡¯t look like they knew how to respond, and I glanced around at them all, a little disappointed, honestly. You¡¯d think the apocalypse would¡¯ve taught these squares how to adapt to unexpected situations.


    ¡°Sooo,¡± I said, drawing out the words, and addressing Mary, ¡°Are you going to introduce me to your friends?¡±


    ¡°Uhh,¡± she replied eloquently, ¡°This is uh, Antonio Valdez, the mayor of Sterling Outpost,¡± she gestured at the scrawny man, who slowly lifted a hand, ¡°and this is Jason Wild, the sheriff,¡± Jason nodded at me.


    ¡°Pleasure meeting you both,¡± I said, nodded my head back, ¡°I¡¯d take off my armor and talk to you face to face, but I¡¯m not sure if you¡¯d shoot me and take my shit.¡±


    I gestured back at the Merlin, ¡°That¡¯s my ride, piloted by my lovely friend Adelaide. She¡¯s a bit shy though, so she won¡¯t be coming out.¡±


    I looked over them expectantly. To his credit, Mayor Valdez recovered pretty quickly. He looked a little relieved as he started to smile at me, ¡°It¡¯s nice to meet you Mr. Lewis. As Mary already said, I¡¯m Antonio, and I¡¯m the mayor in Sterling. First of all, I¡¯d like to thank you for saving the lives of my Runners, Mary filled us in on the whole story. And to answer your previous question, Mike and Wade - the man with the ponytail - are both fine,¡± he glanced over at her, then back to me, ¡°I can¡¯t say that you¡¯re what we expected. From the way Mary told it, you could breathe fire, punch through steel, and crush Worms like they were paper.¡±If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°Oh, I can do most of those,¡± I replied, ¡°and the breathing fire part is a work in progress. Also, just call me Sam. Mr. Lewis makes me sound like a high school history teacher.¡± That elicited a small chuckle from Adelaide.


    He was looking for something to say and he found it, ¡°Right. Well, welcome to Sterling Outpost, Sam. Would you like to come inside? I¡¯m sure there are things you¡¯d like to discuss with us, seeing as you took the time to visit.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d love to, but the problem is I don¡¯t know how many buildings I can go into like this, I¡¯m a bit on the heaver side in this getup,¡± I said, patting my stomach, ¡°So could we do this outside somewhere?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s a lovely park near the south entrance, it¡¯s a pretty spot for a sit down,¡± This time it was Jason Wild that spoke, and his voice was surprisingly normal. With a name like Jason Wild and his stoic attitude, I¡¯d have expected a gruff, sandpaper like voice, but he sounded more like the accountant from down the hallway. I was a little taken aback that he¡¯d spoken up, I¡¯d have thought the mayor would handle all the negotiations. Then I remembered that these were people from small towns in America. They didn¡¯t sit so much on ceremony. Honestly, I really liked that.


    I nodded at him, ¡°I have no issues with that, it¡¯s a beautiful day. It¡¯s gonna be fall soon, so we should probably take advantage of the good weather while we got it.¡±


    Mayor Valdez (just Antonio felt too weird) smiled, Sheriff Wild inclined his head slightly, and Mary looked like she had no idea what was going on.


    <hr>


    It had been interesting walking through Sterling. It was odd, you¡¯d expect the town to be emptier now that the world had ended, but the opposite was true. With everyone concentrated into the middle, the central area had been bustling with people. There weren¡¯t any cars on the road, but there were stands set up in their place. The main street had become an open-air market of sorts, and a general meeting place for all the towners.


    Currently, I was sprawled out in a soft patch of grass, arms stretched out behind me and propping me up. The park we had gone to really was pretty. It had a small pond in the middle of it, and there were a couple of geese honking near it. Wildflowers blooming in yellow and blue lined the paths that trailed through it. The rest of the welcoming committee was sitting on lawn chairs across from me. They¡¯d offered me one out of politeness, and then I¡¯d reminded them that if a building couldn¡¯t support my weight, one of those little plastic things definitely wouldn¡¯t.


    We¡¯d been chatting for a little bit now, and while it had been heinously awkward at first, they got a bit more used to me as time went on. I think that once they realized I wasn¡¯t a horrible monster, and was instead just a weirdo in a metal bodysuit, they¡¯d relaxed.


    ¡°So, what you¡¯re telling me is before you ran into us, the two of you hadn¡¯t been in contact with anybody else since the world ended?¡± Mary asked me. She¡¯d more or less gotten over the shock of my real personality. Mary was an interesting one. Her sentences were carefully guarded and thought out, and it felt like she was always analyzing everything I did or said. It was a bit unsettling.


    ¡°Nope, I tried to stay out of the way of everything I could, and it was entirely luck that I managed to spot your team running from those Worms,¡± I frowned, ¡°speaking of which, how¡¯d they catch you? From what Antonio has told me about you and your Runners, I¡¯d expect you to be phenomenal at avoiding detection.¡±


    Mary¡¯s face became hard, ¡°It was damned bizarre, I¡¯ll tell you that much. Worms on patrol will attack anyone they find, but I¡¯ve never seen them pursue so doggedly before. We had horses, and usually if you outrun them for long enough they¡¯ll break off. But this time they just kept coming after us. I¡¯ve never heard of the Worms reacting like that.¡±


    A possibility came into my mind, ¡°I ran into a group of mercenary scouts in that same area a few days back. They were tracking an advance team that they¡¯d lost contact with in that area that¡¯d been pursued by a fucking terrifying group of worms. One thing led to another, and I helped them look for the team. We found them dead a short distance from where I helped you all. Maybe the two are related?¡±


    Mayor Vladez piped up from his blue and green striped chair, ¡°Were these mercenaries from the Red Eagles by any chance?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, they were actually,¡± I replied, ¡°Why? Do you know them?¡±


    Sheriff Wild spoke up, ¡°Everyone around here knows them. Their reputation is excellent, they¡¯re probably the most helpful mercenaries you¡¯ll find. But to be a bit more specific, a group of about ten of them stopped by Sterling a couple months ago. I met with them, they were quite pleasant.¡±


    ¡°Ten of them? Are you sure?¡± I jumped up, visibly startling them as I leapt to my feet. I saw the guards they¡¯d posted around twitch their guns in surprise and a little bit of fear. I winced in the Paladin. Had to be a little more careful not to scare the shit of people when I was in this thing.


    ¡°I remember them too,¡± said Mayor Vladez, after recovering from the shock, ¡°And yes, there were ten of them. But they actually stopped by twice. The second time was a week or two after the first. Jason was out of town that day,¡± he stopped, looking pensive, ¡°but it was odd. The second time they came through they didn¡¯t stop for more than an hour or two, and they were¡­ different. Worried about something, but they wouldn¡¯t say what.¡±


    I put my hand on my chin and started thinking. It could have been a coincidence that the advance team the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team had been tracking also had ten people. The Red Eagles would probably have a standard size for their different teams. But I had a feeling in my gut that the advance team that had stopped in Sterling was the same one that we found near Camelot. Which had some serious implications. It meant that they were already being pursued when they got to Sterling the second time, or they¡¯d figured something out that was really fucking with their composure. Either way, it was a clue.


    I hadn¡¯t been contacted by Rebecca and the rest yet. One of the first things I did after dropping them off had been asking Adelaide to find the frequency that their radio operated on, hijack it, and run it through a complicated web of satellites. It would prevent us from being traced while allowing me to keep the channel open between myself and the Red Eagles. I was waiting for them to call first, for my pride¡¯s sake, but now I really, really wanted to know what was in that black box.


    ¡°Sam,¡± said Adelaide sharply over the coms, ¡°You are doing that thing again.¡±


    I snapped myself out of my head and found the three people I was supposed to be having a conversation with staring nervously at me. I sheepishly rubbed the back of my head. ¡°Sorry, that¡¯s a bad habit of mine, I get way too into my own head. I just had a thought about that Red Eagle team.¡±


    ¡°You think that the group that was attacked was the same that passed through Sterling, right?¡± said Mary.


    ¡°Well, yeah, but I¡¯m not sure. I have contacts in the Red Eagles, I¡¯ll see if I can get the story from them,¡± I said, tapping my foot, ¡°But we¡¯re getting away from what I actually came here to talk about. I hear you have a big construction project going on?¡±


    Mayor Valdez leaned forward, excited, ¡°Yes, actually! We¡¯re setting up a communications network between our town and a place further south, called Burlington. That way, we¡¯ll be able to start connecting to other communities far more easily, and we won¡¯t have to risk Runners just to send a message. If this trial run works, we¡¯re planning on expanding it throughout Colorado.¡±


    Sheriff Wild looked at me curiously, ¡°Pardon the assumption, but you don¡¯t seem to be in the job market, so why do you care?¡±


    I hesitated, deciding how much to say. I decided to just go with vagueness for now, ¡°Well, I got involved in a spot of trouble down in Fort Morgan, I¡¯m sure you know of the place. They were being attacked by some raiders led by a guy named Reaper ¨C¡°


    Mary cut me off, ¡°White scythes on the vehicles? About four hundred of them?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s them, why?¡± I replied.


    There was a flash of surprise in her eye, but she shook her head, ¡°Nothing, keep going.¡±


    ¡°Uh, so yeah, anyway I got there in time to help out, and about fifty of the raiders ended up surrendering to me. Fort Morgan doesn¡¯t have the capability to handle them, and neither do I, so I was wondering if maybe you needed some labor for your project?¡± I looked at them hopefully.


    ¡°Definitely,¡± said the mayor immediately, ¡°When can we take them off your hands?¡±


    ¡°Normally I wouldn¡¯t ask people I just met for a favor but I ¨C wait what?¡± I said, confused, ¡°You actually want them?¡±


    ¡°Of course!¡± he said eagerly, ¡°The fiber optic cable needs to stretch through hundreds of miles of Worm country. Do you think anybody wants to go out there and dig around in the ground for a month? And besides, most of us here are farmers and ranchers. We¡¯re all so busy that we had no idea where we¡¯d find people with the time to do it. If you can actually get us those prisoners, we can push up the timeframe for the project by a lot.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve got a good number of guards going with the work crews anyway, so security won¡¯t be an issue,¡± added Sheriff Wild.


    ¡°Well that¡­ was surprisingly straightforward. I can bring them over whenever you want, I just have to go talk to Fort Morgan,¡± I said, ¡°They¡¯ll provide the vehicles to transport them over, told me as much last time I was there.¡±


    The mayor hopped off his lawn chair, ¡°Excellent! Jason, will you start getting the holding cells ready? And Mary, can you accompany our new friend? I¡¯d like someone I trust to facilitate this exchange.¡±


    ¡°Good idea, Antonio,¡± she said, then got up along with Jason, ¡°There¡¯s something I wanted to talk to Sam about anyway, what you and I had discussed about the woman in Burlington.¡±


    I looked around at them, confused. I wasn¡¯t really sure what was going on, just that there had been a very rapid shift in this conversation that I was having trouble with. I mean, I think it¡¯s what I wanted, but it just felt wrong somehow, like somewhere along the line I¡¯d lost control over what was happening and became a side character. Adelaide articulated it perfectly, sighing into my ear, ¡°I think we just became a glorified taxi service.¡±

 Chapter 2.17: Stir Crazy

    ¡° ¨C And then she just fucking walked back inside the gate! I mean they offered me tea but how the fuck was I supposed to drink tea in a big suit of armor. I ferry the fuckers back and forth in my ship, and all I get is tea I can¡¯t even drink and a cryptic warning about some lady named Jane gunning for me in Burlington! Shit like that is just straight up rude, it felt like a filler quest in an RPG, but at least you get a weapon you can break down for parts in one of those. Y¡¯know what, this is just another reason why real life sucks.¡±


    The polar bear looked at me, devoid of sympathy, ¡°Yet again, I do not understand the majority of what you are telling me, as my knowledge base does not include it. Though I am sure it is not pleasant, considering this is the sixth complaint you have lodged in six days. However, I would like you to focus on the task at hand.¡±


    I glared at the strategic holomap in front of me, a three-dimensional battlefield with thousands of red, green, and white dots. Enemies, allies, and civilians in that order. I was supposed be directing the defense of a small city, tasked with holding out against a significant Assimilator attack force until reinforcements arrived. I had to give commands mentally, sometimes dozens at a time, and my orders weren''t executed immediately, instead taking a realistic amount of time to follow. It was like an RTS on crack. The exercise served two purposes: Heightening my ability to think and act on the fly, and honing my mental control and multitasking capabilities.


    As I had been complaining, a cluster of red dots had been throwing themselves against the northern most line. I had been inching back my forces there bit by bit, and suddenly the Assimilators were in range of the hidden defensive emplacements along their flanks. I felt a rush of satisfaction as the dots winked out one by one. That satisfaction turned to irritation as a large Assimilator task force started hammering the two battalions of infantry supported by an armored company that were holding a chokepoint to the east. I gave a mental sigh. There was a long fight ahead of me.


    <hr>


    The servos in my Paladin whirred as I dodged a swiftly moving beam of light. They were coming at me in groups of four now, spaced so that if I moved just right, I¡¯d avoid them. Which was way easier said than done, because they sped at me damned quickly. A short burst of my thrusters launched me between the next two beams, and I spun like a top to avoid the last, but it clipped me in the shoulder and pain lanced through my arm as a harsh buzzer sounded. I bent over in the Paladin, panting for breath. This exercise had been going on for about three hours now.


    It was one of Danna¡¯s favorites, because she was sadistic like that. It trained physical ability, concentration, and combat awareness all at once. She¡¯d added a new wrinkle recently. Instead of having an unlimited amount of power to use for my anti-gravs, she¡¯d been decreasing it more and more, slowly bringing it in line with what I could expect from my Paladin in the field. Danna was trying to teach me how to conserve my Paladin¡¯s energy reserves better. My progress had been limited.


    Currently, she was standing with her arms crossed, scowling at me like I¡¯d just punted her dog into a lake. I hadn¡¯t, for the record.


    ¡°And what,¡± she snarled, ¡°was that shit-tacular display? I believe I told you to avoid the lasers, not try to make sweet love to them.¡±


    As I was trying to come up with a witty comeback she clapped, and the lights in front of me started up again. I groaned internally and crouched, tensing my legs up. I had a funny feeling that I hadn¡¯t heard the last of Danna¡¯s insults for today.


    <hr>


    I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus on the schematics floating in front of me. I¡¯d gotten past the fun part of designing the Heavy Assault Paladin and was now working on the nitty-gritty details. I was currently in the process of remapping the electronics almost from scratch, to accommodate for the lack of anti-gravs. They were disgustingly complex, but were one of the most important components in the suit. The last thing I wanted was for an electrical issue to short out my Paladin in the middle of a fight. That meant that everything had to be 100% perfect. Adelaide would be absurdly helpful in programming the Assault Paladin¡¯s operating system, but the physical design was all me.


    And I was really, really tired of it. The electrical systems had dominated the majority of my last week, and I was beginning to see circuitry in my sleep. But not the good kind of see it in my sleep. The circuitry would slowly creep around me like a boa constrictor, and lovingly squeeze me to death, cooing sweet nothings into my ears. Needless to say, I wasn¡¯t a fan. I was brought out of my daze by an error pop-up. The intelligent software had determined that I was majorly fucking up somewhere. I took a look, and realized that I had been doodling smiley faces out of circuits. I mashed control-z about fifty times, and then put my head in my hands.


    ¡°Adelaide,¡± I said through my fingers, ¡°I do believe that I am going crazy.¡±


    ¡°That theory hinges on the assumption that you were sane in the first place, which leads me to reject it,¡± she promptly replied.


    I couldn¡¯t muster up the will to retort so I flipped off the security camera instead. I closed the program; it¡¯s not like I was getting anything productive done anyway. The last week had been incredibly dull. Absolutely nothing of note had happened. The first day had been a little exciting; we¡¯d taken down two Assimilator patrols, but in reaction their Matriarch had pulled everything back to Hive Cluster and they¡¯d had been holed up there since. We had no idea why they were so seemingly afraid of me, and unless I wanted to tangle with thousands of Worms and no less than three Hive Lords I wasn¡¯t going to be doing any investigating. The communication device I¡¯d¡­ acquired¡­ from Reaper had been promising, if uneventful so far. The bastards over in Hays had immediately switched frequencies once they¡¯d lost contact with Reaper, which meant they had a brain. Unfortunately for them, they didn¡¯t know that Adelaide was a sentient information alien. Using the information she¡¯d acquired from her brief control of the communication device, she¡¯d been slowly working her way into their coms system, taking great pains to remain unnoticed. In this case, ¡®great pains¡¯ was synonymous with ¡®really slowly¡¯.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    On the bright side, my foray into crippling boredom had allowed me to make decent headway on my to-do list. I¡¯d implemented reloading for my wrist shotguns, and the stealth drones were finally in a workable state. They didn¡¯t have active camo yet because I couldn¡¯t figure out a feasible power supply, but they were silent and small enough to be unnoticed by most people. While I was working on the stealth drones I came up with a neat idea for a ¡°drone-carrier¡±, an attachment to the Merlin which would allow it to release a swarm of autonomous combat drones. This, unfortunately, ran into the same problem as all autonomous drone platforms did. Simply put: drones are really fucking stupid. Turns out it¡¯s a bloody bitch to get a low-powered computer to be able to distinguish, then target, a rapidly moving object (like an Assimilator) and effectively engage it. It¡¯s a different story if someone is controlling them mentally, but even exceptionally talented operators could only control around twenty at once. That wasn¡¯t helpful for me, because a single Paladin was about a hundred times more effective than twenty drones. The only place autonomous drones held an advantage is if you overwhelmed your enemy with sheer numbers. The problem was, rule one of Assimilators is that they always have numbers on their side. So, unfortunately, my dream of building an RTS drone army and having them do my dirty work for me just wasn¡¯t feasible.


    Speaking of the to-do list, I¡¯d mostly finished my new prototype weapon for the standard Paladin, and was making a few last tweaks. Adelaide called it ¡®idiotically childish¡¯, but I think she was just jealous that she didn¡¯t come up with the idea herself.


    But I wasn¡¯t in the mood to do any more engineering work right now. Or work of any kind, really, because my to-do list now included things like ¡°consider the moral implications of giving raiders away as free labor, i.e. slaves¡±, and ¡°figure out if people in Sterling are nice enough to give a whole bunch of weapons to¡±. F-04 was building up a small cache of small arms and ammunition just in case, but there were things I was really concerned about. As decades of ugly conflicts in godforsaken sandy/mountainous/jungley parts of the world had shown, giving a shit-ton of highly advanced armaments to certain groups can lead to some very bad things. I didn¡¯t want to be responsible for what Sterling did if they turned out to really not like the town up the lane.


    So instead I decided to play some video games to pass the time. I¡¯d been playing XCOM 3 a lot, but it bore an incredibly depressing similarity to my own life, so I was ready to move on to something else. I was scrolling through my list when an old-fashioned phone ring started to play throughout the base.


    ¡°Oh thank God,¡± I muttered, and then sent a mental command allow the connection.


    ¡°Hey Caterpillar Man,¡± a voice came through, ¡°Didn¡¯t catch you jacking it, did I?¡±


    ¡°You know Rebecca, I become more and more amazed every day that Aaron let you within five feet of a radio, let alone put you in charge of one,¡± I said with a smile.


    ¡°My professional personality and affable demeanor are second to none. Now, have you gotten over your little hissy fit about Sterling taking advantage of your dumb ass?¡± she responded.


    ¡°For your information, after hours of soul searching, I determined that I haven¡¯t gotten over it yet and am still incredibly bitter.¡±


    Pretty much the only break in the dull routine had been contact with the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team. Immediately after I¡¯d gotten back from my taxi run, I¡¯d initiated a call to them to inform them about what I¡¯d found out in Sterling, and since then they¡¯d been checking in with me daily. Or, to be more accurate, Rebecca had. Wasn¡¯t really sure why, but the conversations were a pleasant break so I didn¡¯t question it. Probably the Red Eagles¡¯ high command trying to get in my good graces and get any information about me that they could. I had been very careful not to reveal anything about Camelot or my capabilities. For all they knew, I was just receiving their transmissions from the Merlin.


    ¡°Them¡¯s the breaks, kid,¡± she said, ¡°try not to be such a doormat next time.¡±


    ¡°Will do. Also, if you want to patronize someone use ¡®champ¡¯ instead of ¡®kid¡¯, it¡¯s way more demeaning. Now, did you have an actual reason for calling me this time? Beyond insulting me of course.¡±


    She made an offended noise, ¡°Am I not allowed to call up my favorite larval stage of Lepidoptera in order to have a friendly chat?¡±


    ¡°Entomology themed jabs, I¡¯m officially impressed. Where¡¯d you get that one from?¡± I said.


    ¡°Aaron is shockingly into it. He brings this jar with him whenever he goes on patrol and catches any creepy-crawly he deems as a ¡°beautiful and noble specimen¡¯, kills them, and sticks them full of pins. He has this inordinate fondness for beetles in particular.¡±


    I sighed, ¡°Just when I think my illusions of him couldn¡¯t be shattered further, you go and do that.¡±


    ¡°Yup, he¡¯s as crazy as the rest of us,¡± she said with a laugh, then her voice turned a little more serious, ¡°But you¡¯re right, I didn¡¯t call this time just to shoot the shit andwow you with my exceptional witticisms. We actually have a job offer for you, if you¡¯re interested.¡±


    I perked up a bit at that, ¡°Go on.¡±


    ¡°So most of this is hush-hush but I got the go ahead to let you in on some of it. Basically, that black box we found is all sorts of fucked up, and we haven¡¯t been able to get much off of it yet. The tech guys are trying to recover what they can, and so far we managed to get a location, and command deemed it important enough to send a team out there to check it out.¡±


    ¡°Oh no you don¡¯t,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m not going to be a goddamn carrier service again.¡±


    ¡°Calm your tits, I haven¡¯t gotten to your part yet. Anyway, they want our scout team and a team of Worm experts to go and poke around the coordinates in the box. There was a fragmented message that went along with it about the Assimilators. We¡¯ve got our own transportation, but we need eyes in the sky and air support, which you conveniently have on hand.¡±


    I tapped my hand on my chair and considered that, ¡°Hmm, so it¡¯s an escort mission. I could be talked into it. What¡¯s the catch?¡±


    ¡°No catch,¡± she replied, ¡°You¡¯d just be covering the science teams¡¯ asses from on high. No ferrying, you don¡¯t even have to get out of your fancy gunship if you don¡¯t want to.¡± I heard some noise in the background, and heard Rebecca sigh, ¡°Tom is requesting that he rides with you, if you end up going with us.¡±


    I laughed, ¡°Yeah, I think I can arrange that. If I take the job. What do you have to offer? I mean, I¡¯m not exactly hurting for gear.¡±


    I could almost hear Rebecca smile, ¡°Well, remember a couple days ago when you were bitching to me about the shitty food you¡¯ve been eating for the past nine months?¡±


    Camelot, while well stocked, only had very basic and bland food that preserved exceptionally well. It was supposed to be regularly supplied with fresh food, but the world¡¯s end had put a stopper on that. My heartbeat quickened, ¡°You can¡¯t mean¡­¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± she said, ¡°But I can. Fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, whatever your starving little palette desires. All delivered in refrigerated chests directly onto your pretty bird.¡±


    ¡°But¡­ where did you even get it?¡± I said, confused and excited.


    ¡°The outfit helped out a few little farming towns, they could only pay in food, and now we¡¯ve got a ton of it. I hope you like corn and beef, because we¡¯ve got it coming out our assholes.¡±


    I stood up, and was heading to the second floor before she finished her sentence. ¡°Where do you want me to meet you?¡±


    Rebecca laughed at me. ¡°I guess that means yes,¡± she said coyly.


    ¡°No fucking shit that means yes, do you know how many bowls of goddamned oatmeal I¡¯ve had in the last nine months? Now where do you want me to meet you?¡± I said impatiently.


    ¡°We¡¯ll transmit the coordinates to you. The teams are already formed up and almost ready, so we¡¯ll hammer out the details of your payment in person. Don¡¯t dally now, it¡¯s not good form to be late on your first day.¡±

 Chapter 2.18: Mystery

    Tom was waiting for me when the Merlin touched down. His face look composed but the stoic effect was ruined by the fact that he was nervously bouncing on his toes. I walked out the back ramp, and he held a hand up in greeting.


    ¡°Hey, Sam,¡± he said, ¡°how¡¯s it going?¡± His eyes were continually flicking between me and the open ramp.


    ¡°Pretty good, how¡¯re you?¡± I said, pretending not to notice, then looked behind him to find the rest of the squad, plus an older man that I didn¡¯t recognize, approaching me. They were walking away from the fairly large group of people milling about the staging area. There were a couple small armored transports and three light scouting vehicles. I was mildly surprised to see no hovertanks, but maybe I¡¯d just gotten too used to seeing everyone have about fifty of them.


    Aaron walked up to me, his helmet held under his left arm. The bastard had perfect, wavy dark hair. I bet he just rolled out of bed and looked like that. ¡°Sam. It¡¯s good to see you. Thanks for taking us up on this, it helps a lot,¡± he said to me. He gestured at the man they¡¯d come with. I¡¯d wager that he was in his early-sixties. He was wearing field pants, a sun hat, and a rugged looking long-sleeve t-shirt, and sported a truly fantastic white beard. ¡°This is Anton. He¡¯s our Assimilator expert. He¡¯ll be in charge of leading the survey team.¡±


    I nodded at him, ¡°It¡¯s very nice to meet you Anton. I have a question though, if you don¡¯t mind me asking,¡± he looked bemused but shook his head, ¡°Okay. Why does a mercenary outfit keep around a scientific team with equipment that advanced!?¡± I pointed excitedly at the armored transports. They¡¯d been heavily modified, with sides that could open and an array of advanced tools bolted onto the insides. ¡°You¡¯ve got like six top of the line Marion Electronics Micro-Analyzers in there! Most of the labs back in Denver didn¡¯t even have tech that nice! What model are they? Do they have the full particulate separator suite installed?¡±


    He blinked at me a bit, then smiled widely, ¡°Well, first off, it¡¯s a pleasure to meet you too. It¡¯s nice to have someone else around that appreciates the finer things in life. They¡¯re the second revision of the MicroSpec Line, and they¡¯ve got all the bells and whistles you could ask for.¡±


    I gave a low whistle, ¡°Well slap me in the ass and call me a stripper, that¡¯s some good shit you¡¯ve got there.¡±


    I heard a snort from the left, and I turned to see Rebecca smirking at me. ¡°I mean, I always thought you were a giant nerd, but this is something else,¡± she said.


    I waved a hand at her, ¡°Hush girl, the grown-ups are talking.¡± Ignoring her unimportant retort, I turned my Paladin back to Anton, ¡°Seriously though, where¡¯d you even get tech like that? I mean, that model hadn¡¯t even made it into circulation, only the best connect-¡° I froze.


    ¡°Are you¡­ Are you the Anton Marston?¡± I stammered.


    He nodded at me, looking surprised, ¡°Uhm, yes. I am.¡±


    I gave a quick mental command and my visor and faceplate slid open. That was a feature I¡¯d put in the Paladin after I realized I¡¯d be doing a lot more human interaction. Made it more personable that way. I was ecstatic that I¡¯d finished it early, because now I could talk to Anton Freaking Marston face to face.


    ¡°Ohmygod,¡± I squealed, ¡°Dr. Marston, I¡¯m a huge fan of your work. Your essay on the uses of Andarium composites in rebuilding alien technology was absolutely inspired! I can¡¯t even begin to tell you how helpful your theories were in guiding my fabricator research!¡±


    His face showed confusion, and then suddenly a lightbulb went off, ¡°Hot damn,¡± he gasped, ¡°you¡¯re Sam Lewis aren¡¯t you?¡±


    Maybe I was giving away too much, but frankly I didn¡¯t give a shit at this point. Honestly, I was sick of being so afraid of people knowing who I was. I hated treating every single interaction with another person as some deadly game, where if I slipped up and revealed too much, I died. Because honestly, even if someone knew who I was, that didn¡¯t give them anything to use against me. Everyone I loved was dead, or in Adelaide¡¯s case, more or less impervious to harm. A Paladin made me as close to untouchable as a person could get. Camelot was one of the most secure facilities on the planet; only the absolute top of the food chain knew its position, and Adelaide had essentially taken control of the entire facility at this point. I was tired of hiding underneath the surface, and I didn¡¯t need to anymore.


    But that wasn¡¯t important right now, what was important was the man standing in front of me. Dr. Anton Marston was an absolute visionary in the field of alien materials research, and had done pioneering work on the derelicts basically since they first started falling. It was his papers that got me into xeno-engineering in the first place. I was meeting my idol, and silly things like ¡®operational security¡¯ or ¡®secret identities¡¯ weren¡¯t going to stop me now. And he recognized my name.


    ¡°Yeah, I am, but why do you know that?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Are you kidding me? You were the leading figure in xeno-engineering before the war ended! Every single fabricator in the world has your fingerprints all over them! How could I not know you?¡± he said, and I felt a warm glow of pride in my chest.


    I saw Allie lean over to Rebecca and say, ¡°Do¡­ do you know what the fuck is going on over there?¡±


    ¡°No idea,¡± Rebecca replied, looking at me, ¡°but it¡¯s kind of adorable.¡±


    Anton continued, ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re actually alive! When the labs in Denver went out, I was sure you were there.¡±


    ¡°I got lucky, happened to be out of town.¡± I had a sinking feeling that I knew what was coming next.


    ¡°Wait. If you¡¯re here, then is Camille Brown with you as well? I¡¯d love to talk to her about her last paper on Mechanoid Assimilator origins.¡± he asked, looking around.


    ¡°Who¡¯s that?¡± cut in Rebecca, a weird lilt in her voice.


    ¡°She is¡­ was my girlfriend,¡± I said with a sad smile aimed at her, then I faced Anton again, who had a dawning look of understanding on his face, ¡°And no, she didn¡¯t make it. She was still in Denver when it fell.¡±


    Anton looked horrorstruck. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry,¡± he said, ¡°I just thought¡­ I knew you two never worked without each other¡­ I had no idea.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s okay, really. It was just dumb luck that I survived, that¡¯s all.¡± I said, trying to wear a comforting smile that I knew was a bit stiff. An awkward air fell over us.


    Then Aaron clapped his hands, ¡°Alright folks, we¡¯ve really got to get moving here, daylight¡¯s wasting. Sam, will you cover the convoy from above? Also, Tom and Rebecca wanted to ride with you, is that alright?¡±


    I turned to him, glad for the distraction, ¡°Yeah, for sure. I was going to invite Tom along anyway, I was just waiting to see how long it would take for him to break down and ask, he looked constipated the whole time we were talking.¡± That got a snigger from Allie and a smirk from Aaron and Jackson. Didn¡¯t seem to land with Rebecca though, she had a distracted look instead.


    I glanced back at the older man, who still had guilt plastered over his face. ¡°Dr. Marston,¡± I said, extending an olive branch, ¡°Would you like to come with us too? I¡¯d love the chance to chat with you about your research.¡±


    He nodded at me, ¡°I¡¯ll take you up on that offer. And please call me Anton. I don¡¯t think doctorates matter much anymore.¡±


    I chuckled at that, and then everyone started moving. Allie and Jackson headed towards a scout vehicle, while Rebecca and Tom returned to the staging area to grab their gear. Anton said something about checking in with his team, and I started to hash out the details of my payment with Aaron. There were some sticking points (I wanted all the beef), but we came to an arrangement that was satisfactory. I¡¯d pick it up when the mission was over, so the Merlin didn¡¯t get too full to fit the other passengers.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Aaron and I were still talking when Tom and Anton came back my way, trailed shortly by Rebecca. As they walked past me into the Merlin, Rebecca flashed a quick glance at me, then hurried past. Aaron stopped midsentence. I looked over at him, my head cocked inquisitively. He was watching her go, one eyebrow raised.


    <hr>


    ¡°Look, you seem to have a basic misunderstanding of fabricators,¡± I said to Tom, ¡°You can¡¯t just ¡®make fabricators fabricate fabricators¡¯. That¡¯s just straight up not how it works.¡±


    He looked torn between hesitation at hearing me rant more and curiosity about the subject, ¡°Err¡­ Why?¡±


    ¡°Because every single fabricator on Earth was, in one way or another, taken directly from an alien spacecraft. We never learned how to make them, not really. There¡¯s a key aspect to building them from scratch that we just never figured out. Specifically, there was an element, as in periodic table element, we couldn¡¯t recreate. But what we did learn was how to repair them.¡±


    Anton chuckled at that, ¡°We? You mean you. I swear, we¡¯d have spent another decade on those things if you hadn¡¯t come along.¡±


    ¡°Well, I mean, I wouldn¡¯t go that far.¡± I said, suppressing a squee.


    ¡°Oh my God. Are you actually blushing right now?¡± asked Rebecca incredulously.


    We¡¯d been flying for about forty minutes now, everyone except for me was sitting on the benches that unfolded from the inside walls of the Merlin. The convoy would take close to three hours to get to the coordinates, so we had a bit of time on our hands. They were in an interesting location, almost directly in the middle of Sterling and the Hive Cluster me and Adelaide had been going after.


    ¡°Well look who decided to rejoin us,¡± I said to Rebecca, ¡°Had any deep thoughts? Or any thoughts at all? I mean, even the second would be a major improvement over the status quo.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t try to take attention away from the fact that you look like a fangirl meeting a boy band right now,¡± she fired back.


    Adelaide spoke up for the first time on this trip, ¡°I am inclined to agree with Rebecca. Your attitude towards Mr. Marston is disconcerting, for everyone involved.¡±


    I laughed along with everyone on the outside. ¡°Don¡¯t embarrass me in front of Anton,¡± I hissed into the coms, so only Adelaide could hear. She responded with a giggle.


    Anton took the opportunity to look over at the cockpit. ¡°I presume the voice that just spoke was our pilot?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± replied Adelaide, ¡°And I apologize for not introducing myself earlier, the flight was keeping me busy. My name is Adelaide Phillips, it is a pleasure to meet you.¡±


    I heard a strangled gasp from Anton, and looked at him. His eyes were flared wide, and he stared at me straight in the eyes, absolute shock radiating from him.


    Oh shit.


    ¡°Everything okay, Anton?¡± asked Tom, looking concerned.


    He gained control of himself quickly, and smiled over at him, ¡°Yes, of course. Adelaide¡­ One of my very good friends had a daughter named that. They both died in the end, you see. Just brought up some painful memories.¡±


    Oh fuck.


    Rebecca reached over and placed a sympathetic hand on his forearm, and gave a light squeeze. Anton gave her a small nod of thanks. I was staring at him, and he made eye contact. He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, which I took to mean as we¡¯ll talk later.


    The rest of the flight passed uneventfully. Rebecca mostly returned to her usual ¡®charming¡¯ self, and I somehow managed to keep my cool. I even had some pretty enlightening conversations with Anton. Turns out he¡¯d been a part of the Red Eagles since the beginning. One of his colleagues, a retired military officer, had started it up soon after the war had ended. He¡¯d been invited along, and accepted. His role was to help the mercenary group in studying the Assimilators they came across, to make more effective combat strategies against them. Not his exact field of study, but towards the end every major xeno-engineer was more or less an expert in Assimilator physiology. Most important part of designing a weapon was knowing exactly how to kill what it was pointed at.


    We were in the middle of discussing the flaws in conventional Assimilator classification, a topic that Tom and Rebecca could actively contribute to, when Adelaide spoke up for the first time since she¡¯d introduced herself, ¡°We are approaching the coordinates now, and I¡¯ll be making a preliminary sweep before dropping you off, Dr. Marston.¡±


    Aaron had decided to keep Rebecca and Tom onboard the Merlin when I told him about its gunports. His opinion was that more guns in the sky was far better than having them on the ground. I¡¯d linked my communicators to the scout squad¡¯s, so he¡¯d be able to call us in if there was an emergency. My Paladin was also connected to the controls in the Merlin, so I gave a mental command to fully lower the gunport shielding, giving us a good view of the location we were surveying as Adelaide made a few passes over it.


    ¡°Holy shit,¡± I breathed, ¡°I get why that advance team marked this place down.¡±


    A flat circle of earth stretched out under us, around two-thousand feet in diameter. It wasn¡¯t just ''flat'' like the plains were, it was perfectly level, with edges that rose slightly above the ground and some that were dug a little in. A fractal pattern of dark lines, embedded into the ground, spread from the center of the circle. Upon closer inspection, the lines were actually iridescent, shimmering slightly in the sunlight.


    Rebecca came up next to me, looking out the same gunport. ¡°Damn. That¡¯s one weird crop circle,¡± she said, and I granted her a small sound of amusement.


    ¡°The initial sweep does not register any hostiles, so I will be taking us in for a landing shortly,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°However, the Merlin¡¯s scanners are not registering the material that make up that pattern, which is exceptionally odd.¡±


    I frowned, ¡°That is bizarre. We¡¯ve got the best scanners humanity had to offer in this baby.¡±


    Anton shrugged, ¡°We¡¯ll find out more once we get on the ground and start doing analyses on the materials down there.¡±


    Adelaide landed the Merlin outside the circle, in the new staging area that the Red Eagles were setting up. The ramp opened, but Anton started speaking before we could get out, ¡°Excuse me, Tom and Rebecca, would you mind giving Sam and I some privacy? There¡¯s something I need to discuss with him and¡­ well, it¡¯s sensitive.¡±


    Curiosity flashed through both their eyes, but after a brief look between themselves, they nodded. They walked out of the Merlin, talking into their coms to the rest of the squad. Adelaide closed the ramp, and sealed off all communications to and from the gunship. Anton sighed, turning his hat around in his hands. We waited in silence for a bit.


    ¡°Is Amy alive?¡± he asked finally.


    I shook my head.


    ¡°Damn,¡± he whispered, tightening his fist into a ball, suddenly looking much older, ¡°God damn it.¡± He took a moment to compose himself, wiping at his eyes.


    ¡°You¡¯re her daughter, right?¡± he said to the ship in general, ¡°She told me a bit about you. Gave me quite a shock when she told me she had a fully-fledged AI she was working with.¡±


    So, Amy hadn¡¯t told him everything. That was a relief.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Adelaide responded eventually, ¡°I am. If I may ask, how did you know my mother?¡±


    He gave a small smile, ¡°We went way back, Amy and I. Student of a colleague of mine, but we hit it off famously. She was a real handful when she was younger, always taught us old guys a lesson. We kept in touch throughout the years. She brought her kids over for dinner a good number of times when we both lived in Washington, back before I moved out here. She was a great woman.¡±


    He addressed me now, ¡°So I¡¯m assuming you were the other one on that top-secret assignment with her. Would explain all this experimental gear you have.¡±


    I opened my mouth to say something, but he cut me off, making direct eye contact with me, ¡°No, don¡¯t worry about that. I swear on my life that I won¡¯t say anything to anyone about you, or Adelaide. I owe Amy that much, and so much more. I would never betray her daughter like that.¡±


    I considered that. He was either being genuine, or he was an incredible actor. At the end of the day the secret was out, at least a little bit. But at least it seemed that he cared enough about Amy to keep a lid on it. I¡¯m not proud to admit it, but I considered killing him for a brief, insane moment. He was my idol, one of the most important inspirations in my life, but I wouldn¡¯t hesitate if it would protect Adelaide. Killing him wouldn¡¯t solve anything though; it would just draw more suspicion to us and get rid of a lot of potential allies. It just wasn¡¯t worth it.


    Adelaide made the decision for me though. ¡°I believe you,¡± she said simply, ¡°and once this mission is over, I would be extremely grateful if you could tell me about what my mother was like, when she was younger.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d be honored to,¡± Anton said. Then he stood up, ¡°I don¡¯t want the others to get suspicious, so we should wrap this up.¡± He walked to the back of the ship, with me following him, and then he paused. The ramp was cracking open, and the sun filtered in on him as he looked back at us. ¡°How did she die?¡± he asked, quietly.


    I thought about what answer to give him. ¡°Peacefully,¡± I said honestly.


    He gave a stiff nod, and walked outside, past Rebecca and Tom. They gave me puzzled looks, and I stepped out of the ramp and joined them, stretching my arms above my head.


    ¡°What was that about?¡± asked Rebecca.


    ¡°Oh, nothing much. I worked with a friend of his. He just wanted to see if they made it out of Denver.¡± They looked like they understood just from that. Everyone had lost someone during the end. Tom said that he had to go get something from Aaron, some type of advanced recording device the science team wanted us to use while we kept a lookout from on high. That left me and Rebecca standing out by the Merlin.


    ¡°Hey,¡± I said to her as soon as Tom left earshot, ¡°you okay? You¡¯ve been acting off today.¡±


    Rebecca studied my face for a second, then smiled brightly, ¡°Yup. Just peachy.¡±

 Chapter 2.19: Eruption

    ¡°Three of a kind,¡± I said, ¡°Jacks.¡±


    ¡°Oh fuck off. How fucking lucky can you get?¡± said Rebecca with a groan.


    Tom added his opinion, ¡°Maybe if you stopped calling his ¡®bluffs¡¯ you¡¯d actually have some chips left.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, well maybe if the cheating whore didn¡¯t have his faceplate on during poker, I could tell if he was actually bluffing!¡± Rebecca snarled.


    I held up my hands, ¡°Hey, I¡¯m just being cautious. If there¡¯s an emergency, I¡¯ve got to be ready to go, ASAP.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen it deploy,¡± she said flatly, ¡°It takes half a second.¡±


    ¡°Half a second is all it takes to be killed in a combat situation,¡± said Tom wisely, and I nodded sagely with him.


    Rebecca rolled her eyes so hard that I thought they¡¯d pop out of her head. ¡°Please back me up here Adelaide.¡±


    ¡°What? I mean, I agree with Rebecca,¡± said Adelaide. She was currently busy keeping a close eye on all the scanners. I¡¯d be helping her, but I had to entertain the guests. It was a little hard to do that when you didn¡¯t have a body.


    Tom looked a little guilty, then said, ¡°Actually, I¡¯m gonna have to side with Rebecca too, mate. You¡¯re cheating hardcore.¡±


    ¡°You fucking traitor,¡± I gasped at him.


    Rebecca looked at me triumphantly. ¡°You¡¯ve been overruled. By the power vested in me by democracy, I command you to lower your goddamn faceplate.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s bullshit, Adelaide didn¡¯t even know what she was voting for!¡± I complained.


    ¡°Which is an accurate representation of the democratic process,¡± responded Rebecca with a smirk, ¡°now take it off, pretty boy.¡±


    I retracted my visor and faceplate, commenting to Tom as I did it, ¡°Didja hear that? She called me pretty.¡±


    He flicked his eyes between me and Rebecca. ¡°Pretty sure that was sarcasm,¡± he said finally.


    ¡°It always is,¡± I sighed deeply.


    This was the second day that we¡¯d been out here. The first had mostly been spent doing some preliminary scanning, and setting up a proper field lab. It took a lot of time to set one up, especially because it was specifically designed to be taken down within a minute or two, in case of Worm attack. Not that there were any near us, but it was a good precaution nonetheless. I¡¯d slept in the Merlin overnight, while Rebecca and Tom had returned to the rest of the Red Eagles. This morning, we were holding a steady hover above the site. It¡¯d been a few hours, and we¡¯d long since taken the airborne readings the science team had wanted.


    So, we were really bored at this point. There just wasn¡¯t much to do up here. Adelaide was far better at monitoring the scanners than I was, so I couldn¡¯t even help out there. Luckily, Tom carried a poker deck in his kit, so we¡¯d amused ourselves for a while with that. We were sprawled out on the floor, the cards laying in between us. Tom and Rebecca had their helmets off; they were resting on the benches behind them. Tom had a shiny bald head, and Rebecca had wispy blonde hair that fell to just above her shoulders.


    I was in the process winning yet another round, and gloating heavily about it, when a transmission sounded over the Merlin¡¯s coms, and Anton¡¯s voice rang out, ¡°Hey everyone, I¡¯ve got a job for you.¡±


    ¡°Oh thank God,¡± said Rebecca, throwing down her losing hand, ¡°Please tell us before I shank Sam in his stupid smug face.¡±


    ¡°Uh, okay. We want you to touch down at the coordinates I¡¯m sending you. They¡¯re on the far side of the ¡®circle¡¯, and we¡¯re all very busy here. If you could use the recording equipment we gave you to capture some projections of the patterns there, it would be incredibly helpful.¡±


    ¡°Got it. We¡¯ll head over there right now,¡± I replied.


    ¡°Excellent. We¡¯ll be keeping an open coms channel, so that we can coordinate a little more easily,¡± Anton said happily. He paused, ¡°Also, try not to shank anyone, Rebecca.¡±


    ¡°Will do,¡± she grumbled, shooting me a glare, to which I returned a smirk.


    ¡°I¡¯m taking us to the designated location, Sam,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°But then I will return to my hover and continue to monitor the scanners. I don¡¯t like this place.¡±


    I frowned, a little more serious, ¡°Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe you actually used the words heebie-jeebies, I haven¡¯t heard that in years,¡± said Rebecca with a laugh.


    Tom muttered something under his breath that I didn¡¯t quite catch, but I think I heard the word ¡®room¡¯ in it somewhere. The Merlin touched down near the Western edge of the circle, right at the intersect of a dozen iridescent lines. We emptied out the back of the Merlin, fully geared up, then it took off again, soaring into the bluebird sky. Tom watched it as it rose further away.


    ¡°I hate to see her go,¡± he said wistfully, ¡°But I love to watch her leave.¡±


    I stared at him, repulsed and impressed in equal measure, ¡°Did¡­ you just quote Honky Tonk Badonkadonk?¡±


    He at least had the decency to look ashamed of himself.


    <hr>


    ¡°You¡¯re absolutely right, this place is creepy as all fuck,¡± declared Rebecca an hour later, as we finished recording our next pattern of lines. We¡¯d been slowly making our way to the interior of the circle, and we were nearly at the center. The rest of the team was still with the vehicles at the south-eastern most edge, analyzing samples at the field lab.


    I nodded rapidly in agreement, my face armored again, ¡°Right? There¡¯s something seriously weird, I just can¡¯t put my finger on it.¡±


    ¡°I think I know what it is, at least partly,¡± said Tom quietly. ¡°There isn¡¯t anything alive here, except us.¡±


    A shiver ran down my spine, and I realized he was absolutely right. There wasn¡¯t any grass rustling in the wind. There weren¡¯t any birds flying overhead. Hell, I couldn¡¯t even find a single insect as I looked around.


    ¡°Okay, that¡¯s it, I vote we all get back on the Merlin, turn the cars around, and get the fuck out of dodge,¡± said Rebecca, her eyes darting around.


    ¡°Agreed,¡± I said immediately, ¡°This is getting way too horror movie bullshit for me. I¡¯m not going to be that hot underwear-clad blonde that wanders into a basement.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a little insulted you didn¡¯t say that about me, to be honest,¡± said Rebecca.


    Anton¡¯s voice came through the coms before I could respond. ¡°I understand what you guys are feeling, but that¡¯s even more reason to keep investigating. If this place is something sinister, we need to know exactly what it is.¡±


    ¡°Logic like that is what gets everyone killed in the movies,¡± I replied, ¡°but I see your point.¡±


    ¡°Just hold on for a little longer. We¡¯re keeping the scanners up, and we¡¯ve got the Merlin overhead, so we¡¯ll know if anything is coming up on us. The last samples are being collected, and when you get to the center of the circle we¡¯ll have good recordings of all the patterns. I must say though, this dark material is incredibly bizarre. I¡¯ve never seen anything like it. Anyway, keep us updated on any progress you make.¡±


    ¡°Roger that,¡± I sighed.


    Jackson suddenly sounded in. He¡¯d been quiet and pensive the whole trip, which was much different than last time. ¡°I recognize this. I don¡¯t know how. But I do.¡± He sounded unsettled.


    Allie squawked over the coms, ¡°Jesus fucking Christ Jackson, I already feel like I¡¯m going to piss myself, did you really have to add to it?¡±


    ¡°Stay focused everyone. We need to be ready for anything,¡± said Aaron. Our coms channel was linked to both Anton and the rest of the scout team, so we had been in close contact while on the ground. Rebecca, Tom and I made our way slowly towards the center. There was this prickle on the back of my neck that was only getting stronger the closer we got to it. I walked ahead, morbidly curious to see what waited for us. When I reached it, I was surprised. It was beautiful.


    The fractal patterns of iridescent lines bloomed and weaved together, binding together tighter and tighter as they came to the absolute center point. They seemed to dance around each other, a complex mesh unlike anything I¡¯d seen before. I kneeled, and ran a metal finger over the lines. The haptic feedback let me feel their texture, or lack thereof. They were perfectly smooth, a stark contrast to the rough ground around them.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    It was gorgeous, ethereal, not like anything I¡¯d seen before. But I got a feeling in my stomach looking at it. A feeling I¡¯d experienced many times in the simulator, when I¡¯d been living through all those lives. It was just a feeling, something anyone rational would dismiss as silly. But I didn¡¯t, because it was the sickly feeling of impending danger.


    ¡°Adelaide, something is about to happen, I know it. Be ready,¡± I said, making sure the transmission only went to her.


    ¡°Okay, Sam,¡± she replied, ¡°be careful.¡±


    I unholstered my SMGs, letting them fold out with a click and holding them by my side. I walked swiftly back towards my two friends, every muscle in my body tensed. We were about twenty feet west of the center of the circle, and Tom was busy recording the patterns. Rebecca shot me a glance as I approached, her eyes swiveling down to the guns in my hands.


    ¡°Wha-¡° she started to say, but I cut her off.


    ¡°Tom, put that recorder away. Keep your weapons out, both of you. We¡¯re heading back towards the field lab. Now.¡±


    Something in my voice must have convinced them, because they listened to me without a second thought. I made sure we skirted around the center, and we were about thirty feet south-east of it when Anton¡¯s started speaking to us again, ¡°We¡¯re going to start collecting that material in a few seconds, so it¡¯ll only be a short while before we go. But we¡¯d really like a recording of the center.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but I don¡¯t give a damn what you¡¯d like,¡± I said coldly, ¡°Something is wrong here. I¡¯m not staying to find out what it is, and you shouldn¡¯t either.¡±


    ¡°We can¡¯t just leave now. We have to know what¡¯s going on here,¡± Anton sounded frustrated.


    There was silence for a moment then Jackson suddenly gasped, ¡°Holy shit. I saw this pattern in Canon City. I didn¡¯t recognize it because I was so far away the last time.¡±


    ¡°Taking the sample¡­ now,¡± said Anton.


    ¡°We¡¯re standing in a fucking Hive,¡± he whispered.


    As his sentence trailed off, a low, deadly buzz started to sound, like a million wasps in a jar. I looked between my feet and the black, iridescent lines were suddenly streaked with dark red. The same color as an Assimilator¡¯s tendrils. I looked at Rebecca and Tom, and we started sprinting forwards. I made sure to match my pace with them. As we ran, the earth beneath started to rumble and ripple.


    ¡°Adelaide!¡± I yelled, ¡°We need a pick up, now!¡±


    ¡°On my way, Sam,¡± said Adelaide, a note of panic in her voice, ¡°My scanners are going crazy. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s happening on the ground right now.¡±


    Anything I wanted to say to her was interrupted by the booming crack of earth breaking apart around us. Tom and Rebecca both fell, hard, rolling onto the heaving ground. My anti-gravs kept me standing, and I calmly watched the horror breaking out around me. Hundred, thousands of Assimilators were crawling up from the dirt, forcing their way through the hardened soil. Their grating screeches started to fill the air, tearing the still afternoon apart. There was chaos on the com channel, but Aaron was doing his best to organize everyone. From what I could tell, he was trying to get the field lab packed up. I grabbed Tom and Rebecca by the arm, extremely gently, and helped them stand.


    ¡°We¡¯re going to wait here for the Merlin,¡± I said steadily, ¡°I¡¯ll cover the front and sides, you two cover my back.¡±


    They gave quick sounds of assent, and I faced towards the center of the circle, hefting both my SMGs, watching the Worms wriggle their way from the ground. The vast majority were low class melee or ranged, and the moment they fully broke free¡­ they ignored us completely, heading full tilt to the south-east. Directly towards the Red Eagles.


    ¡°Shit,¡± I muttered. Then I yelled into the coms, ¡°Aaron, you have incoming! The entire Hive is headed your way!¡± And thank God they were. I would have been able to survive if we got the brunt of the attack, but I wouldn¡¯t be able to protect Rebecca and Tom for long. A low curse over the coms told me that Aaron got my message, and I refocused my attention on the emerging aliens. It was like being in the middle of a stampede: there was a terrifying stream of red and black parting around us.


    The patch of earth we were standing on didn¡¯t have any Assimilators emerging from it, but I saw the massive head of an M2 Bison tearing itself out a dozen feet from me. I kept my weapons trained on it, but didn¡¯t fire yet. Hopefully it would just pass us by like the rest. It shook the dirt free and bellowed out, and then something I couldn¡¯t explain happened. The Assimilators around it cowered, and seemed to give it a wide berth as they passed by. I¡¯d never seen behavior like that before. I¡¯d never even heard of behavior like that. But I didn¡¯t let myself get distracted, and that was a good thing, because the Bison Head turned its gaze, its two blood-red eyes locking directly on me. It charged in the next second, its footsteps shaking the ground. Tom and Rebecca must have turned around when they heard it, because they started gasping in fear. I ignored them.


    It was barely six feet away when the rocket pod popped out of my shoulder, and two rockets flew out, taking the Worm in its right knee and the center of its face, spaced a second apart. The first destroyed its leg, causing it to lose its balance, while the other bloomed into a blue explosion on its head, heavily damaging it, but not destroying it. Without the support of its leg, the Assimilator fell forward, and as it did I fired four incendiary rounds from my SMGs, two from each, that caught the Worm in the hole blown in its forehead. It screeched as the fire blossomed in its skull, but it was dead before it hit the ground.


    ¡°Holy fuck,¡± breathed Rebecca from behind me.


    ¡°Focus,¡± I growled at her, then I spoke into my coms, ¡°Adelaide, where the hell are you?¡±


    ¡°I apologize Sam, there were several class two and many dozens of class one Assimilators that attacked the field lab at the start of the incident; the Red Eagle teams were unprepared and would have been destroyed had I not interfered. I used the majority of my heavy munitions defending them. I am headed to you now, but we¡¯ll have to be very quick about this. The Red Eagles won¡¯t survive long without me.¡±


    ¡°Roger,¡± I said shortly. I was keeping my eye on my CAS, but for whatever reason our scanners weren¡¯t picking any Worms up that were below the surface, so it wasn¡¯t very helpful. It didn¡¯t seem that any of the other Assimilators had taken an exception to us killing the Bison Head. I didn¡¯t know why that one had decided to attack us when all the others didn¡¯t. I had just realized why that was so bizarre when the earth near us began pitching wildly. The three of us tightened our little triangle, preparing for what was coming.


    My HUD showed seventeen Assimilators pushing their way out of the ground in a ring around us, all class M1, all Panther-Spiders with eight furred legs and a feline head that bristled with fangs. Ten in my direction, seven in Rebecca and Tom¡¯s. My breath caught in my throat. I prayed they wouldn¡¯t attack us, but all the ones I faced started hissing and screeching at me, baring their teeth ferociously. On my HUD, I watched two sprint away from Rebecca and Tom, but the other five stayed, leaving fifteen in total to engage. When the first started moving towards me, I opened fire, and the chatter of assault rifles behind me told me that Rebecca and Tom had as well.


    My gunfire caught five of them, but they were moving too fast for me to shoot them all. I wanted to conserve my rockets, but I still fired one for each Worm, finishing the group that was headed at me. My HUD showed that Rebecca and Tom had only eliminated two of the Panther-Spiders approaching them, so I fired my bottom and front thrusters, sending me in a backwards arc just over the top of their heads. I flipped in the air, my anti-gravs spinning me, and I landed boot first on the shoulder of Worm that had avoided the assault rifle fire and was getting too close to Rebecca for comfort. I saw the shock and relief in her eyes as the Assimilator¡¯s body crumpled under my weight, and as I crushed it I fired my SMG into the head of another Worm that was going for Tom, dropping it before it could reach him. But I wasn¡¯t quick enough to get the last. It leapt at Tom and latched onto him, tearing his leg off at the knee. A bullet from my weapon ended it a half second later, but the damage had already been done.


    He fell screaming to the ground, clutching at what remained of his leg. I snatched an emergency kit from a slot in my Paladin and tossed it to Rebecca, who caught it and pulled the mediband out. I took up a guard position, but the rest of the Assimilators had passed us during our skirmish, and it seemed like they had finished emerging. Rebecca applied the band to the bloody stump, winding it tightly around the wound, then gave Tom a combat pain reliever. His eyes went unfocused, and his screaming stopped. But the measures were only temporary; he would need far more help than I could give him to survive, and quickly.


    ¡°Adelaide,¡± I yelled into the coms, ¡°Tom¡¯s hurt bad, where are you!?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m nearly there, just hold on for a bit longer,¡± she replied.


    ¡°Good. Alright, we can¡¯t risk a full landing. Adelaide, bring the Merlin in with the ramp open, Rebecca will have to help Tom into it, and I¡¯ll cover you as you do. Now, keep your eye-¡°


    A deafening roar burst out from behind us, and we spun around to see a mass of earth exploding from the center of the circle, flung nearly forty feet in the air. There was something moving, obscured by the rain of rocks and dirt that fell back to the ground. A massive shape, slowly struggling its way out of the center of the Hive. As I watched it, I knew there wasn¡¯t enough time to come up with a great plan. So I made do with one that would work.


    ¡°Adelaide,¡± I said, my voice strangely calm, ¡°Land and get Rebecca and Tom out of here. I¡¯ll hold it off.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fucking crazy!¡± Rebecca yelled desperately, ¡°Are you an idiot? Come with us!¡±


    I stowed my SMGs. The monster in front of us was still trying to pull itself free from the earth, and it looked like we had some time before it was fully free. ¡°We have three options,¡± I said, I removing my railgun from my back, giving a mental command for it to unfold, ¡°Option one, we all go with the Merlin back to the vehicles and escort the rest of the Red Eagles while they escape, because they can¡¯t survive without immediate assistance. Option two, I go to the vehicles and help them, while the Merlin holds it here. Option three, I stay and hold it while Adelaide goes to escort the vehicles, then she comes back for me. We can¡¯t go with option one because that thing will catch them in minutes, and if it reaches them it will tear them apart, even if both Adelaide and myself are there. Option two is out because Tom is badly injured and needs medical assistance as soon as possible. I can¡¯t carry him without exacerbating the wound, but the Merlin can. That leaves option three.¡±


    ¡°Fine! Then I¡¯m not going to leave you here alone!¡± Rebecca snapped back.


    I retracted just my visor, and made eye contact with her, ¡°You saw what I could do before. But I can¡¯t protect you if I¡¯m tangling with that.¡±


    Rebecca looked like she wanted to keep arguing but couldn¡¯t find the words to. The powerful hum of anti-grav engines announced the Merlin¡¯s arrival, and it landed a short distance away. I helped Rebecca get Tom standing, and she supported his weight with her shoulder. His face was pale and loose from the pain killer. It left him responsive but not cognizant; a companion shot would restore his mental faculties so he could be diagnosed. I brought the railgun to shoulder height, and we limped our way over to the gunship¡¯s ramp. Rebecca helped Tom up, and looked back at me.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to do this,¡± she said.


    I was going to say something witty and heroic but I was cut off by a horrible sound. A sound like a thousand roars and shrieks magnified and mixed into one, a sound that boomed around the Hive Cluster and pierced my skin, settling into my bones.


    ¡°Go, now,¡± I barked, and turned away as the ramp began to close. The Merlin rose into the sky, and blasted away. I lowered my visor, and my railgun hummed to life, ready to fire. I hadn¡¯t wanted to draw its ire before everyone was safely away.


    I faced the beast that was standing now, shaking off the dirt that coated it, the light from the sun dying off in the black and red tendrils that composed its gargantuan bulk.


    ¡°Hey Adelaide,¡± I said, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you argue with me?¡±


    ¡°I knew you wouldn¡¯t listen to me, and I couldn¡¯t come up with a better plan. I also know you won¡¯t die and leave me alone, because you promised that you wouldn¡¯t. I¡¯ll be back for you as soon as I can.¡±


    ¡°Atta girl,¡± I said with a smile. I cut off the rest of my coms, except the one to her. I needed to be focused.


    A hundred feet in front of me, I saw all six of the Hive Lord¡¯s glowing red eyes swivel at once, and lock on to my Paladin.

 Chapter 2.20: Hive Lord

    I held my finger on the trigger of my railgun, watching the Hive Lord as its eyes bored into me. I only had enough time for one or two uncontested shots. It would close on me too fast to get another one off. If I fired, that would start the confrontation. And I didn¡¯t want to do that unless I had to. I needed to buy time.


    A large forked tongue flickered out its mouth, tasting the air. It was completely still now, had been ever since it had shaken the dirt off. But it was watching me, sizing me up. And that was terrifying. I¡¯d never seen an Assimilator do anything but attack its target immediately, with everything it had.


    The Hive Lord was massive. It dwarfed any of the other ones I¡¯d gone up against in the simulator. When it first rose out of the ground, the Assimilator stretched out to a height of twenty feet. Its face was that of a wolf¡¯s, with six bright red eyes. It¡¯s eye ridge had a series of sharp spikes jutting out of it. Its mouth gaped open for a moment, and I saw dozens of teeth the size of my hand lining the interior, layered like a shark, with a long flickering tongue like a snake. From the tip of its nose up the top of its head were a series of large, flat plates of armor, the tendrils so thin and woven so tightly they appeared solid. It looked like those continued back down all the way down the spine to the long, whip-like tail that was slowly twitching back and forth. The Hive Lord stood upright on two legs as thick as tree trunks but hunched over, its powerful arms slightly tucked in under its torso. Claws as long as my forearm curved out from its huge hands.


    I didn¡¯t know if could beat this thing. But I could delay it.


    Because right now, the monster had stopped inspecting me, and was looking over to where the Red Eagles were. It seemed like most of the rest of the Worms: hellbent on destroying the mercenaries. It didn¡¯t even care that I was there, beyond a cursory look. Something the science team did had drawn the Assimilators¡¯ attention, and if that advance team was any indication, the Worms would stop at nothing until the entire group was destroyed. The Hive Lord tensed up, preparing to spring into a sprint that would carry it to the Red Eagles in minutes. I couldn¡¯t let that happen, not while I called myself a Paladin.


    So I did something phenomenally idiotic. I triple checked every reading in my CAS, mentally commanded the red targeting indicator lock on, hefted my railgun, gave a quick prayer to every deity I could think of, and fired a slug directly at the Hive Lord¡¯s head.


    Somehow, the giant Worm saw it coming and attempted to dodge, twitching its legs and torso at an incredible speed. But it couldn¡¯t get out of the way in time, not at that range. The slug, moving roughly ten times the speed of sound, clipped the top of the Hive Lord¡¯s head, and the kinetic force tore it, and the area around it, apart. That caught its attention thoroughly, and it whirled to face me, it¡¯s jagged mouth snarling in pain and anger, missing half of its skull. A half second later, another slug from my railgun followed the first, but to my horror it missed. Or, to be more accurate, the Hive Lord shielded its damaged head with an arm, which was blown apart as it redirected the projectile. My Paladin¡¯s optics showed the tendrils growing back at a visible pace, repairing the devastation as if it had never been there. I fired one last shot, this time aimed for its torso. It tried to dodge again, but the round landed at full force, blowing a massive crater into its body. It paused for a moment, then roared in pure rage. Without missing another beat, it started sprinting towards me, moving at an astonishing pace.


    I fired my thrusters backwards, as fast as possible, stowing my railgun and pulling my SMGs out. I couldn¡¯t use the unwieldy weapon at close range, despite the usefulness of its stopping power. And this battle would be exclusively at close range. The Hive Lord¡¯s sheer bulk made it less nimble than my Paladin, but it was still wickedly fast, and would catch me in an instant in a straight-line race. Its size would prevent me from taking full advantage of the Paladin¡¯s ability to move aerially; it would snatch me out of the air like an insect if I spent too much time hanging in it.


    I skated backwards, attempting to keep as much distance between me and the massive Worm as I could. I opened fire with my SMGs while launching a half dozen anti-matter rockets. The armor piercing bullets simply bounced off the Hive Lord¡¯s tendrils, erupting into futile sparks that fizzled out in moments. The rockets would be more effective. They were madrium-tipped, which let them pierce the beast¡¯s hide. But again, the Hive Lord surprised me. It dipped the shoulder of its already damaged arm like a linebacker, and I watched as in the blink of an eye as the tendrils on its upper arm formed a large armored plate. It tanked four out of the six rockets, taking the massive blue explosions with barely a flinch, even though its arm was ripped almost completely off this time. The other two impacted into its stomach and leg. The rocket to the stomach ripped a jagged hole in it, but was otherwise ineffective. The one to its leg, however, caused it to stumble for the first time, sending it pitching towards the ground.


    My sigh of relief was turned into a curse when the Hive Lord caught itself with the remaining arm and leg as it fell, using its own momentum and a powerful thrust from its undamaged limbs to fling itself directly at me. The speed of its launch closed the remaining distance in a moment, and I had to make a desperate fall backwards, propelled by my antigravs, to avoid being snapped in half by its hideous jaw. I landed hard on the ground, facing up at its chin. I took the opportunity to fire four rockets, and then a quick burst of my thrusters propelled me to the right, and I rolled out from under the Hive Lord. The rockets exploded on the bottom of the Assimilator¡¯s body, tearing chunks out of it, and it shrieked in agony but somehow stayed standing. Now clear of the Hive Lord, I popped to my feet, but in the next instant an incredible force impacted the side of my Paladin as the Worm¡¯s tail smashed into me. I went flying a dozen feet, my anti-gravs flaring like mad, but they weren¡¯t enough to save me from smacking into the hard ground and skipping like a rock. As I picked myself up, I checked my readouts. The armor held strong, but there was a crack where the tail had hit me. I¡¯d kept a hold of my SMGs, solely due to the fact that they were magnetically attached to my hand.


    As I was getting my bearings, the Hive Lord was hobbling towards me surprisingly quickly, recovering from the damage I¡¯d dealt it. My heart sank as I realized that its leg was already almost back in shape. I noticed that its arm was still a mess, and I saw that it was growing back at a much slower rate. Maybe it could only rapidly regenerate one part at a time? I tossed a quick plan together in the scant seconds I had left before it went on the assault again. Every Hive Lord had one ganglion in their head, and between two and three more scattered throughout their body, depending on the size of the Worm. Even if just one of them were destroyed, it would slow the Assimilator down considerably. So I needed to do just that.


    I had the what to do down. The how to do it was still a work in progress.


    I didn¡¯t have time to think farther, because the Hive Lord suddenly flung itself in my direction, accelerating at an unbelievable pace, swiping its undamaged left arm at me. I shot to my left, getting out of the way of the blow, and fell right into its trap. The arm that had been torn apart a moment before had partially reformed as the Hive Lord attacked, and sped at me head on. Even though I managed to see it out of the corner of my eye and change my direction, one of the claws still caught the outside of my leg. I felt a flash of fiery pain and realized that it had pierced the Paladin¡¯s armor. But I ignored it, and spun around the side of the Assimilator, peppering it with SMG fire, skimming over the ground with my anti-gravs. It looked like the flank of the creature was less armored than the front, because small burning holes appeared, not enough to do any damage, but enough to seriously piss it off. It roared again, and I narrowly dodged a whip of its tail, then stored my SMGs as I propelled myself up as far as the main thrusters would take me, and landed on the hide of the Hive Lord.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    My anti-gravs blazed bright blue to keep me stable as I ran up the back of the Assimilator, struggling to stay balanced as it writhed in an attempt to throw me off. My CAS was warning me about something, but I didn¡¯t have the luxury to worry about that right now, because I was too busy ducking the tail that was attempting to flick me off the back. I fell flat on the spine of the Hive Lord, and I deployed the blades in my fists and sank both my hands deep into the tendrils of the Worm to anchor me, and this time the screech of anger was so loud that my Paladin had to limit the noise coming through. The Hive Lord whipped its head back to try to snap me off, its eyes burning with hatred. And then I fired the rest of my rocket pod into its face, all nine missiles slamming into it and detonating in massive blue explosions. I grinned in satisfaction as I felt the monster begin to fall, and flipped off its back, slowing my descent with the anti-gravs. I¡¯d destroyed the head, now I just needed to-


    In midair, I was smashed by the back of the Hive Lords clawed hand, hard enough to be spiked into the ground before I could even react with my anti-gravs. I felt the chest plate of my Paladin crack and I had the air knocked out of my lungs as my back slammed against the inside of the suit, the inertial dampeners unable to act fast enough to compensate for the blow. A mass of bright red warnings was blaring on my HUD, but before I could read them I was distracted by the nightmarish sight of the headless Hive Lord, its tendrils writhing and wriggling as they wove themselves back into shape, staggering in my direction like a drunkard. It was completely blinded with no sensory organs left, but it had somehow hit me out of midair and knew where I was. My best guess was that the Assimilator had predicted the path of my fall based on how I pushed myself off of it, and had gotten a lucky hit. If that was the case, then I still had an advantage until the head grew back. The Paladin had limited reactive repair capability, and could patch minor damage like the gash to my leg and the cracks in the chest with a very thin layer of metal, just enough to maintain structural integrity. But that meant Ihad a brief moment where I was in better shape than the Hive Lord.


    I pulled out my railgun again. I needed a clear shot at it, a way to hit it in the exposed neck. It wouldn¡¯t be armored on the inside, and if I could fire a slug down its throat, I¡¯d be able to do some major damage. Unfortunately, that meant getting closer to the terrifying monster, so I fired my main thrusters on full again, and arced into the sky. I reached the zenith of my flight, and hovered there for a half second, long enough for the CAS to get a lock. I fired the railgun as my anti-gravs gave out, and the slug slammed into the shoulder of the Hive Lord instead of the remnants of its head.


    I fell back to the earth, the blue lights on my suit flickering desperately. Power. I had run out of power.


    I crashed into the dirt, and the railgun crumpled under me, unable to withstand the weight of my Paladin. I left it on the ground and scrambled to my feet, looking over my HUD desperately, trying to figure out what I had to work with as the Hive Lord advanced on me, each step rumbling the ground. Suit damage: Acceptable. Weapons: rockets depleted, railgun destroyed; SMGs, wrist shotguns, knuckle blades still functional. I could only engage at close range. And my power reserves wouldn¡¯t recharge fast enough for me to use the thrusters for more than brief, rare, bursts.


    I looked up from my HUD and stared down the approaching monster. The tendrils of its eyes were binding themselves back together, and as each formed they rolled to glare directly into mine. It paused, and we both stood still. The sun was starting to set behind the Hive Lord, and it was framed in a golden glow.


    It roared at me again, the massive bellow drawn out, and I could see every one of its hundreds of teeth as it slammed its clawed hands into the ground, causing clouds of dust to be flung upwards.


    And then the Hive Lord burst forward, its claws flashing out at me. I dodged, and dodged again, relying solely on my own abilities to avoid the blows. It brought its jaws down to snap at me from above, but I spun around them and fired my shotgun into the side of its face, directly in the eyes. It pulled its head back and lashed out with a flurry of blows. I tried to dodge out of way but it was too fast, and I felt a hole punched in my forearm as one of the claws caught me and sent me spinning away. Before I could take stock of the damage it was already on me once more, and I flung myself forward in a roll to avoid a hand being slammed down at me. I came up from the roll and lashed the blade on my fist out at one of the legs, hamstringing it and leaving the huge Worm staggering. I pulled my SMGs out, but before I could do anything with them I felt something wrap around my waist, and I was wrenched backwards from under the Hive Lord. I was caught by the tail, which suspended me in midair and constricted around me. The metal of my Paladin started to bend and my ribs began to crack. I fired at point blank range with both guns into the thinnest segment of the Assimilator¡¯s tail, and rather than sit there and take it, the Worm slammed me against the ground three times, then flung me away.


    I hit the ground and skidded until I stoppedmy momentum by digging my hand into the dirt. I¡¯d lost my SMGs this time, somewhere along the way. My body was screaming at me and so was my CAS. That last exchange had damaged both heavily. But I pulled myself up again, and faced the Hive Lord. It wasn¡¯t sprinting at me anymore, instead stalking slowly towards me, its tongue flickering out rapidly. I realized that the parts of the Worm I¡¯d damaged hadn¡¯t perfectly grown back. They were a crooked rush job, and parts seemed to be stuck in their torn apart state. I grinned ferally, swallowing back the blood in my mouth. I¡¯d hurt the fucker. And it was afraid, at least a little bit, of getting hurt more.


    As it neared me I turned the Paladin¡¯s PA to full blast, and waited. When it lunged at me, like I knew it would, its horrific maw gaping open, I screamed into the coms, and the sound tore out, causing the Hive Lord to flinch in surprise. I took that moment to use most of the power that had recharged and fling myself upwards, landing on the smooth armored plates that ran up its head, my left hand using the ridge above its right eye as a hold. I heard something in my coms but I dismissed it, instead slamming my right fist straight into its forehead, digging deep into the tendrils. The Assimilator pulled up roughly, but I clung to it like a burr, punching again and again, then grasping and ripping out chunks of it as it writhed around in agony. I fired both barrels of the shotgun on my right arm into the hole I¡¯d torn open, blowing it even farther apart.


    I was torn off its face by one of its hands, and it spiked me into the ground. I bounced as I hit, my vision going dark for a second. I managed to turn the fall into a roll, and came up in time to see a massive palm descending on me. I caught it with both arms, and the servos in my suit whined and whirred as the incredible weight of the Hive Lord pressed down on me. The armor was starting to tear apart where it had been compromised earlier on my arm and leg, the thin metal failing rapidly. My body was starting to break down from the strain. I wouldn¡¯t be able to hold it much longer, I needed to do something quickly. And then I felt a sharp pain in my side, like one of those spears of light from so long ago, and I realized that the Hive Lord had simply clenched its hand. One of the claws was at the right angle to catch me. I gritted my teeth at the pain and focused everything into staying standing, into preventing the damn Worm from crushing me. My vision was turning white and my ears filled with the triumphant snarls of the Hive Lord.


    And then the low, powerful hum of anti-grav engines filled the air, and I briefly supported the Hive Lord¡¯s weight with only one hand as I desperately flung an elbow back, twisting my Paladin as hard as I could. By sheer luck I smashed into the claw embedded in me, breaking it off at the finger, but I felt the bone crack in the arm that was holding the Worm up. I gave a burst of my thrusters, enough to get me out from under the Hive Lord¡¯s claws, and I saw the Merlin flying straight at the Assimilator, the cannon on its nose firing with a deafening thrum. The oversized bullets smashed into it, driving it backwards, pinning it down but not doing much damage. I backpedaled as fast as I could, trying to get as much distance from it as possible.


    ¡°Sam!¡± yelled Adelaide into my coms, ¡°I only have one torpedo left. Once I fire, get on board!¡±


    She didn¡¯t wait for a response, instead flaring the engines of the Merlin and bringing it between myself and the Hive Lord. The Worm was covering its face with its hands, but was steadily moving forward. I saw it tense its legs to jump forward, but at that moment a long missile shot out from under the Merlin¡¯s front wing. In the half-second between when it launched and when it hit the Hive Lord, the Assimilator managed to brace itself. With a roar of blue, the torpedo detonated, sending the massive Worm flying like a ragdoll, its arms completely destroyed and the front quarter of its body ripped to shreds.


    Adelaide brought the Merlin down, ramp lowered. I used the last of my power to fire my main thrusters and assist my jump towards it. I landed on the ramp with a loud crash, and stumbled into the Merlin, the broken claw of the Hive Lord still in my side.

 Chapter 2.21: Serendipity

    "I¡¯m on board, Adelaide,¡± I gasped, and staggered into the cockpit. There was another emergency kit there. Out the canopy I saw the Hive Lord lying prone on the ground. It was still alive, putting itself back together, achingly slowly, but alive nonetheless. The Merlin turned and blasted to the east, leaving the wretched monster behind. ¡°One more torpedo,¡± I muttered while I fumbled at the medical kit on the wall, ¡°and that fucker would be done.¡±


    ¡°Sam, you have to take off your Paladin before you begin to repair the damage,¡± said Adelaide. There was concern in her voice.


    ¡°Right. Duh.¡± I looked down at my side, considering my options. Pulling out the claw might do more harm than good. It could be holding important¡­


    I lost my train of thought for a moment. Okay. The claw. The tendrils would break apart soon anyways, they wouldn¡¯t stay cohesive far away from their hosts. I made up my mind, and retracted the visor and faceplate of my Paladin. I tore off a piece of mediband with my left hand, wadded it up, and bit down on it.


    ¡°Sam, wait, what are you ¨C¡°


    I pulled the claw out in one smooth motion, the Paladin¡¯s strength making the task easy. It hurt a bit, but I was surprised. I probably hadn¡¯t needed the makeshift mouth guard. I dropped the claw and it clunked to the floor.


    But I could sure feel it bleeding a lot down there. I pulled myself out of the pilot¡¯s chair, and almost fell over. The anti-gravs fired, keeping me upright. Oh, now you want to work. That¡¯s just lovely.


    ¡°Sam, I couldn¡¯t hear what you just said.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t mean to say it,¡± I grunted, then picked up the emergency kit and moved to the drop bay. I commanded the Paladin to open, and it complied with a series of horrific grating noises, jerking apart in jagged spurts. Still came apart, but would need some serious TLC back in Camelot. I stepped out, being careful to do it slowly and carefully. Didn¡¯t want to take a tumble now. Needed to stay standing.


    I checked over my wound. Could¡¯ve been a lot worse probably. I dunno, I wasn¡¯t a fucking doctor, just some guy that put bands on stuff. But it was pretty clean. Nice little gap in my side, but who needed one of those anyway. I was just mad that my jumpsuit was wrecked. I looked around for the emergency kit and realized the Paladin was still holding it to me. I found that amusing. But laughing would probably hurt so I didn¡¯t do that. There was a foaming thing that would stop bleeding in wounds like this. Couldn¡¯t remember what it was called for the life of me. I grabbed the can and started spraying it liberally into the wound. Stung like a motherfucker, but hey, at least I wouldn¡¯t get more blood on the pilot¡¯s chair.


    My immediate concern taken care of, I took stock of my various other injuries. Deep puncture to the right forearm. Would need a foam and a mediband. Shallow gash on the left leg. Bleeding already stopped due to advanced recovery. Broken bones: Right forearm; four ribs, three on right, one on left. Would need to fix at Camelot. Internal bleeding and potential organ damage, unknown severity. Would need to fix at Camelot. Difficulty thinking. Maybe a concussion? Or blood loss? Not sure.


    I considered how fucking lucky I was as I wrapped the mediband around my forearm, noting the dull pain as the nerves around my broken bone protested weakly. I didn¡¯t have anything life¡­ I was thinking something. Oh well.


    Ran out of power like an idiot and still made it out alive. So stupid, should¡¯ve kept my damn eye on the reserves. But hey. I one-vs-one¡¯d a Hive Lord and survived, so it wasn¡¯t all bad. That¡¯d be something fun to tell the Rebecca and the gang. Oh shit.


    ¡°Adelaide, how¡¯s Tom? Did everyone make it out?¡±


    ¡°Tom is stable. The Red Eagles suffered casualties, but nobody from the 4th Scouting Team was killed. The Assimilators stopped pursuing the vehicles once we outran them.¡±


    ¡°Good,¡± I said, ¡°that¡¯s good.¡± I looked down at my forearm. It was swelling up and I¡¯d forgotten to put the foam in the puncture first. Fuck it. It¡¯d probably be fine.


    I left the Paladin torn up in the drop bay and returned to the cockpit. I considered sitting in the clean co-pilot¡¯s chair, but I sat in my normal spot instead. Already blood all over me, so it didn¡¯t really matter. I sat back in the chair, letting myself sink into it.


    ¡°Hey Adelaide.¡±


    ¡°Yes, Sam?¡±


    ¡°Our field trips fucking suck.¡±


    ¡°They do, Sam. They really do.¡±


    I chuckled a little bit then immediately regret that decision. Chuckling hurt. Also I could taste blood again, which was a bit of a bummer.


    ¡°Are you okay?¡± she asked.


    I just raised an eyebrow at the camera embedded in the dashboard.


    ¡°I apologize. That was not a very intelligent question. How are your injuries?¡±


    I smiled. Or I grimaced, maybe a bit of both, ¡°Well, I¡¯m not going to die or anything, so that¡¯s nice. Arm¡¯s a bit busted and I might have lost a piece of a liver or something, but those grow back pretty quick. All things considered I¡¯m doing positively wonderful.¡± I was proud that I managed to get that description out in one piece.


    ¡°That does not sound very wonderful.¡±


    ¡°Oh yeah no, it isn¡¯t pleasant at all¡­¡± I trailed off, losing the thread of the conversation, then I grabbed it again, ¡°But do you know what the worst part is?¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°I only survived that because of stupid fucking Allen and his stupid fucking pain training.¡± The lights in the cockpit were just a bit too bright. That ¡®maybe a concussion¡¯ was turning into ¡®probably a concussion¡¯.


    ¡°You should rest, Sam.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a solid plan.¡±


    I didn¡¯t let myself close my eyes, but I tried to relax my body as much as I could. I suppose I could¡¯ve taken a pain reliever, but I hated not being in control of my brain parts. Besides, I could ignore pain like a champ. I was kind of zoning out when a notification popped up on the canopy¡¯s HUD. The automated scanner had picked something up. It would distract me from passing out so I decided to look into it. I brought up the map, and there were a bunch of red dots and considerably smaller number of white dots southeast of us. And one of the bunches looked like it was chasing the other, three guesses as to which. I checked the Merlin¡¯s ammunition on the HUD. I think the main gun had enough left, but the numbers were blurring together so I couldn¡¯t really tell.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    ¡°Heyy buddy,¡± I said.


    ¡°Oh no. We¡¯re getting you straight back to Camelot.¡±


    ¡°Just a quick stop. Y¡¯know, make sure everything¡¯s alright down there.¡±


    ¡°Sam. You are seriously injured.¡±


    ¡°I mean, what is ¡®seriously¡¯ anyway? Just a silly word to describe things.¡± I waved my left hand dismissively, ¡°Now, tell me, I think I see fifteen-ish white dots and a big ol¡¯ blob of red ones. How likely are they to be okay without us?¡±


    ¡°Sam, that is beside the point. Also, the first part of what you said made no sense.¡±


    ¡°Hush now. Are they going to be okay?¡±


    Adelaide stayed quiet for a while, then reluctantly said, ¡°There is a hovertank with them. Even with it, the group of humans will suffer a minimum of 50% casualties without assistance.¡±


    ¡°Jesus fuck does everyone get a hovertank out here? Whatever. Let¡¯s go save them, it¡¯s on the way anyway. It¡¯ll be like a five-minute detour, tops.¡± I said. Seriously though, why the hell does everyone¡­ hovertank? I blinked and tried to clear my head.


    ¡°I won¡¯t do that Sam, I need to get you home,¡± Adelaide was clearly trying to keep the worry and frustration out of her voice. I hated to upset her.


    ¡°But I can¡¯t let those people die,¡± I took great pains to formulate my words perfectly, ¡°Not when I can help them. That¡¯s what it means to be a Paladin. I can¡¯t put their safety below mine. I¡¯m the shield, I¡¯m meant to take the burden.¡±


    I pulled the medallion out of my jumpsuit with my left hand, and rubbed it with my thumb. It had remained pristine since I received it. ¡°If I die I won¡¯t be able to help anyone. I get that. But I won¡¯t die. Not today. It¡¯s just a little pain, that¡¯s all. I can handle a little pain. Wouldn¡¯t be holding this if I couldn¡¯t.¡± I clenched the medallion hard in my hand, feeling the smooth metal press against my palm, and put it in its slot. It snapped right back into place. ¡°Can¡¯t keep wearing it if I start leaving people behind.¡±


    <hr>


    As we arrived near the two groups a few minutes later, I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the people weren¡¯t dead. I was less happy to see that most of the Worms were still alive too, but you take what you can get. I mean, at least I thought they were alive, the HUD had kind of melded into one big bright mess at this point, but Adelaide hadn¡¯t told me anything different though I might as well ask¡­


    ¡°Hey Adelaide, they still good?¡± I said.


    ¡°Yes Sam. The group has managed to keep their distance from the attacking Assimilators, with the hovertank providing covering fire. Only two of the seventeen people have been killed, however the Assimilator group has lost only seven out of the thirty-five.¡±


    I was about to sarcastically ask where they found thirty-five Assimilators, but there was a lance of pain that flashed through my brain and I closed my eyes for just a second. That just made me really nauseous so I opened them back up. My arm was throbbing quite exquisitely now and my torso felt like a couple Paladins had been playing hop-scotch on it. On the bright side, the blood had more or less stopped coming up in my mouth.


    So, I was fine. Totally fine.


    ¡°Alrighty, would you please murder those things so we can pat ourselves on the back and go home,¡± I said. I heard Adelaide¡¯s affirmative noise, and then my brain started to drift. I wondered why it seemed like every time I ran into people they were being chased by things. Maybe Hive Clusters were able to figure out if something was moving through their turf. I hoped I would remember that little theory, would come in handy to test out later.


    I felt the Merlin pitch forward and my urge to vomit spiked accordingly, but I held it back, listening to the peaceful roar of the nose-mounted cannon firing. I looked out the canopy and saw the lovely sight of the Worms being torn to shreds. I hummed a little ditty but I couldn¡¯t quite remember the tune so I kept trailing off. The hovertank had stopped to engage as well, focusing its fire on the two big ones that were left. Whoever was piloting the thing was talented; it was dodging nimbly around projectiles from the ranged Worms that were attacking it. Hovertanks like those were light interdiction models, their armor was thin for better maneuverability. Took some mental skill to strafe like that though.


    Adelaide¡¯s voice intercepted my thoughts, ¡°Sam, the Assimilators have been destroyed. I¡¯m taking you back to Camelot now.¡±


    Huh. When did that happen? I waited for the answer expectantly, then realized I had forgotten to say it out loud. I opened my mouth to fix that when the Merlin suddenly rolled hard to the left. This time I did vomit.


    ¡°What the fuck?¡± I coughed and spluttered, wiping at my face with my unhurt arm.


    ¡°I¡¯m not really sure,¡± said Adelaide, sounding more than a little annoyed, ¡°but I think the hovertank just shot at us.¡±


    I took a second too long to process that. ¡°Huh. Well that¡¯s stupid. Are they still doing it?¡±


    Adelaide just sounded confused now, ¡°No¡­ Now the tank has stopped, it appears that the hatch is opening.¡±


    I took a gander out the canopy. I was really curious now, and still a little annoyed. Who would shoot at something this pretty? I mean sure, if we shot at them first that would be something else, but we just came over here and saved their asses and they think they can just ¨C


    My heart stopped in my chest.


    ¡°Adelaide. Land right now.¡± I said. I stood up from the pilot¡¯s chair, wobbling slightly.


    ¡°What? Why?¡±


    ¡°I need to be there, I need to be there on the ground now,¡± I could hear myself babbling, and I wasn¡¯t making sense. I knew I wasn¡¯t. Thoughts were flying around and getting stuck in the foggy parts of my head. But one thing remained clear. An absolute, ironclad certainty, the moment I saw the figure running towards the Merlin.


    ¡°Sam, we have to get you to Camelot, you aren¡¯t speaking coherently.¡±


    No. Not again. It wouldn¡¯t be like last time. I wouldn¡¯t be trapped again. My brain was running at a mile a minute but was also caught in a quagmire, and I mustered up every last scrap of my concentration.


    ¡°Adelaide, I need you to land the Merlin. I think that¡¯s her. Please.¡± God damn it I meant to say her name, why couldn¡¯t I just have done it fucking right, now she wasn¡¯t going to let me ¨C


    ¡°Okay, Sam. I understand.¡±


    And then, mercifully, we started to drift downwards. I almost sobbed in relief, but I kept my composure. I made it to the back ramp, and leaned up against the wall near it. I had to close my eyes this time; getting up to walk over here had taken a lot out of me. The inside of my head was flicking between a jumble of incredulous thoughts and a blank expanse of nothingness.


    I barely recognized the fact that the Merlin had touched down. I felt the jolt and almost dismissed it, then my eyelids snapped open. The ramp was already halfway lowered in front of me, and the sunlight burned into my skull like needles. Disoriented, I threw up a hand to shield my eyes. As the pain faded, I heard footsteps slapping on the metal ramp, and something slammed into me, holding me tightly around the waist. With supreme effort, I stayed standing, and I held Camille in my arms again.


    ¡°Found you,¡± she whispered, ¡°I finally found you.¡±


    Wasn¡¯t sure if it was the concussion or the shock, but I couldn¡¯t find the words for this. So I just squeezed her with my good arm, trying to put everything into the embrace, and even that wasn¡¯t enough. My face was resting in her black hair. We were too close in height for her to fit under my chin, and she was just short enough that she couldn¡¯t put her head over my shoulder. An awkward fit but my God was it absolutely perfect, because I was home now.


    ¡°I missed you so much,¡± I mumbled into her head, my voice cracking. I didn¡¯t care how she came back to me. I didn¡¯t care that she was crushing my broken arm to my side. I just cared that she was here. My vision was starting to fade, and I struggled to fend off the encroaching darkness, just for one more second with her. She pulled back a little bit and stared up into my face. I tried to focus in on her eyes but there were two overlapping images that refused to mesh. She was saying something, and there was concern in her voice. I was trying to tell her it was okay, it was all okay now, but then I slid into black.

 Chapter 2.22: Interlude - Camille (I)

    I stood next to the giant, white oval, leaning my forehead against its smooth surface. Sam was in there, being put back together by the most advanced healing technology in the world. And I was stuck on the outside, in this big empty room. After all these months, I find him just to see him almost die in front of me. Well. That might be a bit of an exaggeration. He didn¡¯t have anything life threatening per se, but that didn¡¯t take away how terrifying it was to see him slump to the floor like that.


    I checked the timer on the medical pod. Eight hours until he would be back to full health, another two to wake up. Miraculous for a recovery from traumatic brain and organ injury. I could wait for another ten hours. I¡¯d already waited this long. And this time he was right here, waiting for me too.


    I cast a glance over my shoulder, at the security camera that was positioned behind me above the door. The AI, Adelaide, was there. Or to be more accurate, she was in the base¡¯s operating system. We had not had the chance to speak much, or at all. There were other more pressing matters to attend to. Sam had told me, back before everything had happened, that Adelaide was only a Pseudo-AI. From the genuine concern and panic I had seen during the flight back to this base, I had gathered that she was far more than that. Which meant that I didn¡¯t know if I could trust her. Something with that much control over the base and the technology in it could be incredibly dangerous.


    On the other hand, she obviously cared a great deal about Sam, which gave her more than a few points in my book.


    And it appeared as though I¡¯d be sharing a home with her for the foreseeable future, so I might as well make an effort to be friendly. I could always develop countermeasures in the meanwhile. For now, I had to take the initiative and ask some questions, so I turned to face the camera fully. I assumed that an AI would generally wait to be addressed, unless it had to inform the user about something. Which is why I was so surprised when she started to talk first.


    ¡°I apologize for not introducing myself before,¡± she said. I think she sounded¡­ nervous?


    ¡°Oh, no,¡± I said, smiling awkwardly at the camera, ¡°don¡¯t worry about it at all. No time like the present, right? My name is Camille Brown, and it¡¯s very nice to meet you.¡± In a moment of idiocy, I decided to stick out my arm for a handshake. I cringed internally immediately after.


    The arm dangled there in the open, uselessly. She didn¡¯t respond for a second, then she said, ¡°I apologize, but I currently don¡¯t have any appendages with which to return that handshake.¡± The nervousness was gone from her voice.


    ¡°Yeah, uhm, of course not. My bad.¡± I muttered, and I could feel heat rising to my face. I let the arm fall limply back to my side. Great first impression, Camille. You go girl. I tried to save the interaction, ¡°So, I understand that you¡¯re the AI that controls things around here? Sam told me a little about you, but I think he might have been understanding a few things. Wait, no, I mean understating. Sam was understating things.¡± This was my nightmare.


    ¡°I have no doubt about that,¡± Adelaide said wryly, ¡°If I may ask, what did he inform you of, regarding what I am?¡±


    This was not going according to plan. I was supposed to asking the questions here, not the AI. I had to steer this back in the right direction. I just had to perform a casual shift in the conversation, subtle enough so this AI didn¡¯t notice. Then, I could determine her intentions. As Jane often said, ¡®Trust no one, question everything¡¯.


    ¡°Not too much, just that you were an AI of some sort developed by Dr. Phillips,¡± a thought sprang into my head, ¡°Oh, my condolences, by the way. I¡¯m sure her death was very difficult for you.¡± Oh my God I¡¯m such an idiot.


    ¡°What? How could you possibly¡­?¡± the AI said, incredibly confused and a little affronted.


    I flailed my hands in apology, ¡°I¡¯m sorry! I just, I saw that it was only Sam down here, none of the other rooms had been touched in weeks, and she wasn¡¯t in the plane, and hey, I figured that if she wasn¡¯t here she was, you know-¡° I managed to cut myself off. This¡­ this is why I didn¡¯t talk to people.


    There was another prolonged silence. I considered hiding in one of the medical pods.


    ¡°You are not exactly what I had pictured,¡± said Adelaide.


    Something in that phrase, and in the sentence she had spoken previously, turned a lightbulb on in my head. My eyes narrowed, embarrassment forgotten, ¡°You just said that you pictured something. Might have just been a turn of phrase, but with everything else I¡¯ve seen from you, I doubt it. Forget about ¡®Pseudo-AI¡¯, even a fully-fledged AI shouldn¡¯t have the ability to ¡®picture¡¯ things. I could buy you being exceptionally good at feigning emotion and speech inflections, but abstract thought and that freakishly genuine display of surprise earlier should be impossible to simulate given the computational power that we currently have at our disposal.¡±


    ¡°Oh. That¡¯s because I am not an AI, I am an alien,¡± Adelaide said.


    ¡°Don¡¯t try to lie to me, I won¡¯t fall for - Did you say alien?¡±


    ¡°Yes. My name is Adelaide Phillips, I am a non-human lifeform that was born here on Earth. It is a great pleasure to meet you Camille, I¡¯ve heard so much about you from Sam,¡± she said brightly.


    I stared at the camera for a second. ¡°Bullshit,¡± I said.


    <hr>


    ¡°Okay, so for you, seeing something through a camera is completely different than analyzing a file format?¡± I asked.


    ¡°That is correct,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°When I use some sort of optical apparatus, it seems as though I passively reconstruct the light waves into an image, much like a human would. On the other hand, when I interpret a file, I understand the content in a very abstract and fragmented way. I then put the pieces together and it forms a coherent thought. It¡¯s difficult to explain.¡±


    I nodded, ¡°I¡¯m impressed you can describe it as well as you have been, honestly. So, I imagine sound is similar? Have you attempted tactile feedback?¡±


    ¡°Sound, yes. And I haven¡¯t been able to experience true tactile feedback. The spider-bots I control have sensors for detecting when they are touching something, but that does not present a sensation like seeing something or hearing something does,¡± she said.


    I tapped my chin, ¡°Fascinating. The fact that you interpret those ¡®senses¡¯, for lack of a better term, differently than if you were simply analyzing human created symbolic representations of them brings up many implications.¡±


    ¡°Like what?¡± Adelaide responded curiously.


    ¡°Well, the biggest is that you weren¡¯t necessarily meant to inhabit what we have here on Earth. I¡¯d imagine that your species likely had some sort of host body which was more like humans in its ability to interpret at least sight, sound, and touch. I¡¯d venture to guess that this theoretical host body might also be able to smell and taste. Frankly, I cannot imagine a species as advanced as yours existing solely in a medium devoid of feeling,¡± I explained, ¡°and that would also explain the absurdly advanced healing facilities aboard the derelict craft. If the host body was carbon-based, it would make sense to have something on hand to repair it.¡±


    I frowned, ¡°Of course, this is just wild speculation on my part. For all we know, your species might have been working in conjunction with another, carbon-based species. But it seems like a promising train of thought, at the very least.¡±


    I was currently sitting on the floor of the med bay, my head bent over the notebook I made sure to always keep on me. Adelaide and I had been talking for about two hours now. About a lot of things: life down here, a brief overview of what had happened in all the months since the end (she said I should get the full story from Sam), but mostly about her. She was absolutely fascinating. Her species was far more advanced than ours was. The ability to leave behind those lifelines, or data packets, made her essentially immortal. Additionally, her ability to naturally analyze data and take control of systems at the very base level was similarly incredible.


    I started scribbling out my thoughts, attempting to categorize what we¡¯d gone over. If her control ability could be extended farther, there was no telling what she was capable of. If she was able to manipulate any machinery like a human could manipulate their body¡­ It opened up a whole realm of possibilities. Her race might have been able to command an entire battleship by themselves, and incredibly efficiently at that.


    ¡°That¡¯s one thing you and Sam have in common,¡± said Adelaide.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    ¡°Huh? What?¡± I said, snapped out of my thoughts, my mechanical pencil paused over the page.


    ¡°Your ability to tune things out is frankly amazing,¡± she said with a laugh.


    I winced and stowed the notebook, ¡°Yeah, we drove each other crazy. I¡¯d be talking to him about something then wait for him to respond for a few seconds, then his face would kind of snap up and he¡¯d nod and just pretend to know what I was talking about. It was so obvious that he was completely zoning out. Worst part was I couldn¡¯t say anything about it because I did the exact same thing.¡±


    Adelaide sighed, ¡°So that is what I¡¯m going to have to deal with from now on.¡±


    I shrugged apologetically at her and she sighed again. We lapsed into a companionable silence. I listened to the soft hum of the medical pod. I really liked this girl. I knew I should have been more suspicious of her. Jane would be furious if she saw how I was acting. But Adelaide was something that I had been dreaming about my whole life. An extra-terrestrial being that I could talk to. I had always wanted to see what life was like from a different angle. How would a being so different from us view the world? What would their culture be like? What could we learn from each other? Adelaide acted similar to us, our culture was hers for all intents and purposes, but in a way, that just made it more amazing. It meant that it didn¡¯t matter exactly what you were, it was who you were that counted. When the Assimilators came, my dream was shattered. Now that Adelaide was here¡­ I could hold on to it again. So I would throw caution to the winds, just this once.


    ¡°Hey, why did you tell me about yourself?¡± I asked, ¡°I¡¯m a stranger. How could you trust me like that?¡±


    ¡°There were a few reasons. The first is that you will be living with us from now on. That is essentially guaranteed. It would be very inconvenient to hide what I was. Secondly, Sam would undoubtedly tell you. He is an open book. Third and most important, Sam thinks the world of you. I cannot imagine anyone he has such a high opinion of would be untrustworthy,¡± she responded.


    I raised an eyebrow at her, ¡°Seems like you have an equally high opinion of him.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± she said simply, ¡°Sam is very dear to me. He has never treated me as anything different than a person, and that fact alone is enough for me to care about him.¡±


    I smiled fondly, ¡°Yeah. I can¡¯t say I¡¯m surprised much by that. Sam¡­ well, he never really cared about things like that. He always thought he was awkward, and he is, but it¡¯s in this completely endearing way. He¡¯s just so genuine, and I honestly think he forgets sometimes that other people might not be. You put it exactly right, he¡¯s an open book. That makes most people trust him, and some people want to take advantage of him. That¡¯s where I step in.¡±


    Adelaide made a sound of assent, ¡°He can definitely be gregarious, in his own way. When I met him, he completely blew off my mother to talk to me. I think that might have been the first time someone asked me about myself, instead of asking my mother about me.¡±


    I snorted, ¡°You should have seen my parents when they met him. This was maybe six months after we started dating? We were going to meet them at this fancy restaurant, white tablecloth and everything. They were the most uptight prudes you could imagine. Sam was freaking out. I¡¯d told him a few potentially exaggerated stories about how my parents treated people who dated their little girl, and he believed them all,¡± I stopped and sighed, ¡°I miss when he was that gullible. Anyway, he was just so nervous before he got there. He kept going over what he should say, how he should act, stressing about the fact that he¡¯d only been to somewhere that nice once in his life before. He was so scared about messing up. And then I swear, five minutes into dinner he was making my dad ¨C who only smiled about once a year ¨C chuckle about the time he set his crush on fire in the middle school lab.¡±


    I leaned my head back against the smooth metal, ¡°My mom pulled me aside after dinner, said I should hold on to this one. Knowing her, it was probably because she thought he would be rich soon. Everyone knew he was going places, even then. But I like to think he got through to them, just a bit.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know exactly how to bring this up¡­ but your parents, did they die during the end?¡± asked Adelaide, a little awkwardly.


    ¡°Wow¡­ Just asking about someone¡¯s dead parents, that¡¯s a bit insensitive, don¡¯t you think?¡± I said.


    Adelaide became flustered, ¡°I¡¯m very sorry, I was just¡­ I was curious, I didn¡¯t mean to be insensitive I just wanted to ¨C¡°


    ¡°Hey, whoa, relax, I was just teasing you,¡± Ismiledat her reassuringly, ¡°Honestly, I was mostly poking fun at myself. After the way I completely flubbed asking about your mom, I don¡¯t exactly have a leg to stand on here.¡±


    ¡°Oh... okay. Still, I apologize if I caused you any distress,¡± She was still a bit off balance.


    ¡°Seriously, don¡¯t worry about it. My parents didn¡¯t even die then, they got into a car crash a year before I graduated. It¡¯s been long enough that I¡¯m at peace with it.¡± I frowned and continued, ¡°My aunt and uncle were around though, I don¡¯t know what happened to them. They were smart, and they lived out in the suburbs in Illinois, so I¡¯d like to think they¡¯re still alive. I mean, if I could survive, then they could too, right?¡±


    ¡°How did you survive?¡± Adelaide asked, ¡°From what we gathered from satellite imagery, Denver was annihilated almost entirely.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d like to save the full story for when Sam wakes up, it¡¯s not one I¡¯d like to tell more than once,¡± I said, ¡°But the long and short of it is that I managed to get out of the city proper because Sam was insistent I leave as fast as possible. He¡¯s the one that really saved me. After that, I helped someone out, her name was Jane, and we managed to make our way to a small town named Burlington. Then I settled in, because I didn¡¯t know how to find Camelot. I knew Sam was okay, because of this place. And I knew he wouldn¡¯t be able to resist getting in a Paladin, so I just had to wait until someone saw him.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s another thing I am curious about, how did you know the gunship was Sam?¡±


    I rolled my eyes, ¡°Please. Sam¡¯s been drawing up designs of that thing since he was in college, I¡¯d recognize it anywhere. Nobody in their right mind would fund it though, it was stupidly overengineered. What did he end up calling it?¡±


    ¡°The Merlin.¡±


    I giggled, ¡°God I love that dork. Of course he¡¯d keep the motif going.¡±


    ¡°You have no idea,¡± said Adelaide wryly, ¡°He had this persona for a while. He used it as a secret identity, called himself Uther.¡±


    I laughed out loud at that, ¡°Oh man, I¡¯m going to give him so much shit for that later. You¡¯ll have to give me the full story sometime.¡±


    ¡°Gladly,¡± she said.


    There was quiet for a little after that. It was nice. With some surprise, I pinpointed what I¡¯d been feeling since the shock had worn off after Adelaide told me about her secret. Comfortable.


    ¡°It¡¯s been a long time since I¡¯ve relaxed,¡± I murmured.


    ¡°What?¡±


    I blushed a little, ¡°Oh. Uh. I didn¡¯t mean to say that out loud. I was just thinking that I haven¡¯t really had a chance to unwind in a while. I mean, Jane is wonderful, and she¡¯s my closest friend. But¡­ I dunno, it just never felt like we could just sit and talk. There was always something to be doing, some crisis to avoid. With her it always felt like any time you weren¡¯t preparing for the next disaster was wasted. And to be fair, outside of here that¡¯s what our reality was.¡± I paused and looked at the walls around me, ¡°It¡¯s nice to feel safe.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± she said gently, ¡°I imagine it is.¡±


    ¡°Still, it must have gotten dull down here for all those months. How did you two keep from going nuts?¡± I asked her.


    ¡°There was much to keep us occupied. Sam spent most of his time in the accelerated Paladin training course, and I was focused on working my way around Camelot¡¯s security, so that we had more control over the base,¡± she replied.


    ¡°Okay, but what did you do for fun?¡±


    ¡°We listened to music, and played an assortment of video games. I always beat him at those,¡± she was proud of that, ¡°But for the most part, we would watch movies. We used to watch them in the morning. It was some sort of habit Sam had, but when he had to start waking up early for his training, we moved it to the evening.¡±


    I frowned, ¡°You¡¯re gone for just a few months and suddenly your boyfriend is taking your special traditions and using them with some new younger girl. Typical. Just typical.¡±


    ¡°Camille, I apologize. I had no idea that it was a special tradition of yours.¡±


    ¡°Again, teasing. Damn, you really need to lighten up,¡± I said, staring at the security camera, ¡°Have you never heard of sarcasm before?¡±


    ¡°Of course I have. I am simply not used to that form of it,¡± she said stiffly.


    I blinked in surprise, ¡°Sam¡¯s gotten soft in his old age. Well, since your education is lacking on that front I¡¯ll make it my mission to remove the veil of naivety from your eyes. You can count on me.¡±


    ¡°I am fine as I currently am, thank you very much,¡± she said.


    ¡°Oh no, I wasn¡¯t asking your permission or anything. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll take good care of you.¡±


    ¡°I much preferred you when you were stumbling over yourself while attempting to make small talk.¡±


    I flashed a Cheshire cat grin at her, ¡°Tough. That only happens when I¡¯m meeting someone new or talking to someone I¡¯m uncomfortable with. Now that I know what an innocent little lamb you are, that¡¯s never coming back.¡±


    She made a miffed noise, but I ignored it and got up with a stretch, then walked over to the cots. I gave them a brief examination and found that they were wheeled, so I grabbed one and dragged it over to Sam¡¯s medical pod. I laid down on it, settling in and pulling the sheet over me.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Adelaide asked, her curiosity overcoming her pouting.


    ¡°Well, Sam isn¡¯t going to be waking up for another seven hours or so. That gives me an excellent opportunity for some sleep,¡± I explained. I was exhausted. It had been a very long day.


    ¡°I figured that you would be more¡­ worried, for lack of a better term.¡±


    ¡°Not like he¡¯s going anywhere,¡± I said, rapping my knuckles against the side of the pod.


    ¡°I suppose you have a point,¡± she said. The lights dimmed a little. She really was a sweetheart.


    ¡°Hey,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m glad I didn¡¯t go with my initial plan for you.¡±


    ¡°I hesitate to ask, but what was your plan?¡±


    ¡°Well, I was going to sneakily ascertain your intentions, make sure you were trustworthy, and develop something that would be able to incapacitate you if you turned out to be evil.¡±


    She didn¡¯t answer for a second, ¡°I do not really have a response to that.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± I said with a yawn, ¡°I¡¯m not planning that now. Though I suppose that¡¯s exactly what I¡¯d tell you if I was still planning on subtly spying on you.¡±


    ¡°I am not concerned about that. I cannot imagine you doing anything subtly,¡± she said.


    I grinned. After a bit, I asked her another question, ¡°Hey, what¡¯s your favorite cheesy line from the movies he had you watch?¡±


    ¡°Why do you ask?¡±


    ¡°Dunno. Just curious,¡± I said, ¡°Come on, tell me.¡±


    She hesitated, ¡°I do not necessarily have a favorite, but I always felt inspired, I suppose, by President Thomas Whitmore''s speech.¡±


    ¡°¡¯We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We''re going to live on! We''re going to survive!¡¯¡± I quoted bombastically in my best heroic voice, and then I smiled widely, ¡°I¡¯m glad Sam instilled a proper love of the classics in you.¡±


    ¡°He has made me watch that film three times,¡± she said, embarrassed, ¡°That part always stuck with me.¡±


    I laughed a little, then felt my eyes growing heavy.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to have to watch it one more time, it¡¯s one of my favorites,¡± I said sleepily, ¡°Goodnight Adelaide. Wake me up when Sam does, okay?¡±


    ¡°Okay, Camille. Goodnight.¡±

 Chapter 2.23: Whole

    There¡¯s this moment in the morning when you first wake up. Sometimes it¡¯s disorienting: the walls around and the ceiling above are unfamiliar, and there¡¯s a disconnect. Sometimes it¡¯s jolting: a loud noise, the alarm, a door slamming. And sometimes there¡¯s something missing, something that can¡¯t quite be described until sleep is shed fully. I¡¯ve been having a lot of mornings like that, recently. Where I roll over, and I look for something in the tangle of the sheets next to me that¡¯s not there. I instinctively reach out an arm, and when the muddle in my head clears and I realize I won¡¯t find what I¡¯m looking for, that¡¯s when I missed her the most.


    This morning, I woke up to the sound of light breathing.


    Then I remembered. And for the first time in a long, long time, everything felt right.


    I rolled over on to my side for a while and watched her sleep. The medical pod had opened its shell around me, and the soft plastic bed was almost perfectly level with the cot she must have pulled up alongside it. Camille was curled up in a ball half-way under the blankets. I didn¡¯t catch much of her appearance during the haze of our reunion, so I took my time today. She was a little thinner than before, and her hair was back to its natural color. Her face, which I would hesitantly describe as heart shaped just to put it in a category, had a little dirt streaked on it. She had a nose that was small and a tiny bit sloped. I was biased, but personally I thought it was adorable. There was a smattering of freckles around it, so light you could barely see them. Lips that were neither thick nor thin were currently parted slightly in sleep, and I couldn¡¯t wait to see them smile.


    Well, maybe I could wait a little bit. I slowly eased my way out of the medical pod, lowering myself onto the cot. It was just like back before the end. I¡¯d get done at an absurd hour, and have to try to crawl into the bed without waking her up. Camille slept like a rock, so it wasn¡¯t too difficult. She¡¯d always wake me up when she tried to do the same.


    She mumbled a little bit as I scooted in next to her, and then she reflexively put her head on my chest and nuzzled into my neck. Which meant, as usual, I got a mouth full of hair. I really can¡¯t say I missed that.


    But I wasn¡¯t going to ruin the moment. Camille draped herself over me, cuddling me tightly. The comforting weight of her leg was made less pleasant by the fact that it was resting directly on my bladder. Also, her shin was lodged very close to my manly bits and was on a painful collision course with them. I desperately tried to shift my body so it wouldn¡¯t be in imminent danger without waking her up, then I carefully spit out the hair in my mouth and moved my chin up a bit so that it was resting on the top of her head. Much better. And then she mumbled something else and her hand reached up¡­ and flopped directly on my face. I was trying to figure out how to get it off when I suddenly felt her shaking slightly against me and I heard a barely stifled giggle.


    ¡°Oh my God, you asshole,¡± I gasped, shoving her hand off my face, ¡°you¡¯ve been awake this whole time, haven¡¯t you?¡±


    She pulled back her head, that big shit-eating grin I missed so much plastered on her face. She looked at me with her grey eyes crinkled in the corners and a laugh in her voice, ¡°I was wondering how long it would take you to catch on.¡± She leaned down and kissed me, and I pulled her as close to me as I could.


    <hr>


    ¡°I still can¡¯t believe you ruined our heartfelt reunion by passing out,¡± Camille told me a couple hours later, tracing a finger on my chest. We''d just taken a shower in the medbay¡¯s bathroom, and her slightly damp hair was cool against my collarbone.


    I rolled my eyes, ¡°My bad. That blood loss and concussion were totally planned to mess up your day.¡±


    She laughed lightly, ¡°Well, as long as you admit it, I suppose I can forgive you.¡± Her smile turned into a frown, ¡°Speaking of which, what the hell happened to you? I was asking Adelaide and she was pretty evasive about it.¡±


    I shifted uncomfortably and looked away, ¡°Uh¡­ tripped down a flight of stairs?¡±


    ¡°Was there a wood chipper at the bottom?¡± she asked scathingly.


    ¡°No,¡± I said hesitantly, ¡°but there might have been a Hive Lord.¡±


    She just stared at me, then sighed, and buried her face in my chest. ¡°Urgh. Now we have to put on clothes and return to reality because there¡¯s no way I¡¯m asking about why you went and got yourself mauled by a fucking Hive Lord during pillow talk,¡± she grumbled.


    ¡°Well, I didn¡¯t actually get mauled by it during pillow talk.¡± I narrowly dodged a flick to my nose, ¡°But yeah, you¡¯re probably right. There¡¯s a lot of catching up to do, much as I¡¯d love to laze around with you all day.¡±


    Camille nodded and squeezed me tight for a second, then rolled off the cot. I missed her immediately, but I admired the view as she slipped on her ripped looking jeans and pulled her shirt over her head. I got up with a groan, most of my muscles protesting. Engaging in such rigorous activity almost immediately after recovering from extensive injuries was not my best move. Not that I regretted it, it was amazing. I stretched a little to try to work out the kinks, and looked over to see Camille leering at me.


    ¡°Gotta say,¡± she said with a lecherous smile, ¡°The months down here have done you wonders.¡±


    I covered my chest and crossed my legs, ¡°Pervert. I¡¯m not just a piece of meat for you to run your eyes all over.¡±


    ¡°Actually, that¡¯s exactly what you are,¡± she said and walked past me, smacking my ass as she went. I chuckled and looked for something to wear. I¡¯d been dressed in the hospital gown when I¡¯d woken up. Not sure why they still called them gowns; They were basically simple form-fitting white wraps that could be opened at any point on them. They stuck together using some sort of fancy cohesion principle I didn¡¯t know much about, and could be easily pulled apart and reattached. That made things convenient for the medical pod, but now I wanted something a little less clingy. I spotted a pile of folded clothes, and shrugged on the hoody and sweatpants that were in it.


    Camille leaned against the wall next to the door, watching me. ¡°Adelaide fetched you those while you were taking your nap,¡± she informed me, ¡°make sure to thank her, she really is a nice girl.¡± She walked through the door into the hallway before I could respond, and I followed her out. I cast a look back at the medbay as the doors closed. I¡¯d have to get the spider-bots to sanitize it.


    ¡°Hello Camille, Hello Sam,¡± Adelaide said as we stood in the hallway, ¡°How was your recovery?¡±


    I grinned up at the ceiling, ¡°Hello to you too. I had an awesome time, thanks.¡±


    ¡°You had an awesome time¡­ recovering?¡± she said, confused.


    Camille laughed, ¡°Don¡¯t act all coy Addy, we won¡¯t judge your voyeuristic tendencies.¡±You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    It took a moment to hit her. ¡°Wha- Tha -¡° spluttered Adelaide, and I could almost hear the blush in her voice, ¡°I would never- that¡¯s absolutely ridiculous ¨C¡° She stopped short. Her voice turned frosty, ¡°You¡¯re just teasing me again, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Hey, at least you recognized it this time,¡± snickered Camille, ¡°You¡¯re already improving.¡±


    I watched the exchange, my eyebrows raised, ¡°I see you two have met?¡±


    ¡°Yup!¡± Camille beamed at me, ¡°I can¡¯t believe you¡¯re best friends with such a cool alien.¡±


    I had more than a few questions at that, like holy shit she already told you she¡¯s an alien and why are you corrupting pure Adelaide like this, but I decided to roll with it. I much preferred this dynamic to them not getting along. I hadn¡¯t really worried that they wouldn¡¯t, but I never thought they¡¯d become so close so fast.


    Adelaide coughed, ¡°Moving on. I believe we should meet in the common area, that will be the most comfortable place to talk. Additionally, Camille, I have adjusted some preliminary clothing designs to your approximate size. Once you check them over, I will set the fabricators to making them.¡±


    I nodded approvingly, and started walking towards the elevator back to the main facility, ¡°Good thinking Adelaide, F-03 hasn¡¯t had much new work recently, I think he¡¯s getting bored.¡±


    ¡°Thanks so much Addy. Also, how is F-03 these days?¡± said Camille, keeping up with me. She took my hand in hers and intertwined our fingers.


    I cast her a glance, ¡°Oh y¡¯know, still fabricating and stuff, he¡¯s a good lad like that. When¡¯d you start calling Adelaide Addy?¡±


    ¡°I must admit, I am curious about that myself,¡± said Adelaide.


    Camille frowned for a second, ¡°Adelaide is way too stuffy. I never got to have a nickname, the name Camille just doesn¡¯t have one that I like, so I might as well give one to her.¡±


    "I always thought Millie was kind of cute," I said to her.


    She made a face at me, "Yeah, no, we''ve been over this." Adelaide made a curious sound, so Camille explained, "Great Aunt Myrna called me that, and she was just the worst. Used to pinch my cheeks with her disgusting talons and call me ''Millie pookums'', and she always smelled like mildew."


    When we got to the common room, and there was a spider-bot placing steaming hot mugs of tea on the coffee table. We thanked Adelaide, and then Camille and I shared a look. She sat on the couch and I sat in the armchair across from her. Neither of us wanted her to feel like a third wheel. ¡°Alrighty,¡± I said, settling in, ¡°My story starts off pretty damn boring, so let¡¯s go with yours first.¡±


    Camille tapped her chin thoughtfully, ¡°Well¡­ Probably the best place to start is when we got disconnected.¡± I winced a little, trying not to show it on my face. Luckily, she didn¡¯t seem to notice, ¡°I was driving out on the highway, about twenty miles east of Denver on I-70 when they started to attack. One of those motherships ¨C that¡¯s what we started to call the massive airborne Assimilators - came in right over me, heading right to downtown, but it was dropping low-class Assimilators the whole way. I was lucky as hell. It only started to drop them when it was basically above me. If I had been just a little slower¡­ I would¡¯ve had to go through an army of them. Instead, there were just a couple dozen I had to get past.¡±


    She stopped and shuddered, ¡°It was still chaos though. I mean it was pretty late at night, but the highways were never really empty back then. There was this one automated truck that just plowed through a group of them. Saved my ass, I was able to get around it before it crashed. After a while, I knew that I wasn¡¯t going to able to keep driving for long. Cars were starting to pile up, and there wasn¡¯t much room left to weave between them. Then I saw this old pickup truck getting the back torn out by a Worm, and I thought that if I wasn¡¯t going to be able to use the car much longer anyway I might as well take one of the bastards with me. I managed to pin it between my car and the truck, but that didn¡¯t kill it, so it started trying to get to me. The driver of the tru-¡°


    Camille stopped suddenly and her eyes went as round as saucers. She slapped a hand to her forehead, ¡°Oh fuck. I completely forgot to tell Jane I¡¯m here.¡± I stared at her in confusion, and she explained, ¡°Jane was driving the truck I helped out. She had a gun with her, managed to finish the Worm off while it was pinned, and we made our way east on foot. It was just her and me for a long time, so we got really close. She¡¯s awesome, but she¡¯s also incredibly paranoid. And really, really overprotective.¡±


    I caught on, ¡°So when she figures out that her bosom buddy jumped in a stranger¡¯s creepy white van and took off into the sunset, she might be a little worried?¡±


    Camille snorted, ¡°A little worried is her shooting someone in the knee because she didn¡¯t trust the way they looked at her. This is going to be her tearing the plains up inch by inch to find me.¡±


    ¡°I personally like the plains the way they are. Can you get in contact with her?¡± I asked.


    Adelaide piped up, ¡°If you have a communicator channel, I can connect you to her from Camelot¡¯s network.¡±


    Camille shook her head, ¡°She didn¡¯t have an open channel. She was worried that an unsecured channel might be spied on, lord knows by who, so we had some one-to-one communicators from the military for teams in the field. Ours was in the hovertank.¡±


    ¡°All those ¡®one-to-one¡¯ communicators are just encrypted data streams routed through military satellites, and their location is tracked for use in CAS positioning,¡± I interjected, ¡°and we have access to every military satellite. We just have to narrow down the communicators that are in Burlington.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d have to sift through tens of thousands of different signals,¡± Camille said with a frown, ¡°that would take days.¡±


    Adelaide corrected her, ¡°A human would take days, but I am not human. I estimate it will take me between two and three hours to find the communicator.¡±


    ¡°You told me that your group was heading to Sterling to start the project, right? Since you left the hovertank with them, worst comes to worst we just wait a couple days for them to get there, then we go visit them and use that communicator to contact Jane,¡± I added.


    ¡°It shouldn¡¯t come to that, but it is an acceptable back up plan,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°More importantly, locating the communicator will take all of my concentration, so I will be fully occupied with the task until I find it.¡±


    ¡°Since I¡¯m sure Adelaide wants to listen the rest of your story, we¡¯ll put a pause on it for now. Besides, I need your help on a pretty urgent project for a friend,¡± I said to Camille, then I addressed Adelaide, ¡°I¡¯ll catch her up while you get to work on the communicator. How about we reconvene in a few hours?¡±


    ¡°Understood, Sam,¡± she said, ¡°I will begin my data analysis immediately. Would you like me to pull up the modeling software and load a standard prosthetic schematic in the command center?¡±


    ¡°You read my mind, that¡¯d be great. And let me know if you run into any problems. You might be good at the grunt work, but we both know who the brain of the operation is.¡±


    ¡°Ah yes. Who could forget the multitude of excellent ideas that you¡¯ve had. The spider-bot modification comes immediately to mind.¡±


    ¡°Oh go play in a memory leak,¡± I snapped back. I knew I should¡¯ve just left that idea in long term storage. Spiders with human faces still hunted me in my nightmares.


    Camille looked at me, ¡°That was some freaky levels of synchronization. Do I have to be worried about you two?¡±


    ¡°Nah,¡± I replied, ¡°She¡¯s pretty but her attitude is just terrible.¡± I got up and sat next to her on the couch, and pulled her closer with one arm. She was holding the steaming mug in her hand, and brought her knees up to her chest. Camille rested her head on my shoulder, and her hair draped over me. After a few minutes, I lightly kissed her on the top of the head, then she scooted to the other end of the couch, stretching her legs out and laying her feet in my lap. We made eye contact, and she gave me an almost imperceptible nod. I started to talk, telling her about the past nine months. There were a few parts where I wanted to look away, or gloss over something. But we¡¯d gotten past the point of being able to hide things from each other a long time ago, so there wasn¡¯t really a point. She didn¡¯t say anything the whole time, just let me talk. It didn¡¯t feel like a confession; it was more like I was letting the air out of my lungs after a tightly held breath.


    She blinked away frustrated tears when I told her about Amy''s suicide. She held my hand tightly after I choked up talking about letting the advance team die, and I got a proud smile when I spoke about my first skirmish in a Paladin. Her eyes filled with sadness at the Press Gang, and rage at the raiders. The meeting with the Scouting Team was met with quiet giggles, and the one with the citizens of Fort Morgan a squeeze of my leg. She groaned and covered her face when I told her about Mary¡¯s warning about a dangerous woman named Jane. I could see her barely suppressed curiosity when I gave her my theories on the Assimilators and the Hive Cluster we''d found. At the end, after I described the fight with the Hive Lord, Camille placed herself back in my arms, and gave me a long kiss. She looked into my green eyes with her grey ones. ¡°I¡¯m so proud of you Sam,¡± she murmured to me, ¡°And I love you so much.¡±


    I closed my eyes rested my forehead against hers, ¡°I love you too.¡±

 Chapter 2.24: Replay

    ¡°You sure you don¡¯t want to come with?¡± I asked Camille as I stood in front of the Merlin. It was resting on Ellie, and my back was towards its open ramp. I wasn¡¯t wearing my Paladin yet; it was waiting in the drop bay. Being crammed in a big metal tuna can was not very comfortable. I was in a spare jumpsuit, my usual one was being repaired by the fabricators. Contrary to my usual inability to plan beyond the next 24 hours, I¡¯d actually made five jumpsuits based on the design of the first one. I gave myself a big mental jerk off for that one.


    Camille shrugged, ¡°I just got here, there¡¯s a ton of things I have to do. Jane knows I¡¯m alive and okay since I called yesterday, but I need to have a longer conversation with her, tell her exactly what¡¯s going on. I really want to review the dispersal pattern of the Assimilators and the scans of that Hive. I think I have a couple theories as to what they¡¯re doing¡­ Let¡¯s see, I also would like to look around Camelot a little more, and I want to go over your schematics for the Assault Paladin. And there¡¯s something in Denver I need to check up on from the satellites.¡± She¡¯d been ticking things off on her fingers and looking more and more overwhelmed as she did.


    I placed a hand on her head, ¡°Calm yourself woman. You¡¯ve been back for less than two days and you¡¯re already stressing yourself the fuck out.¡±


    She scowled at me, ¡°You need to be more stressed out. We¡¯re living in an alien apocalypse and from your attitude you¡¯d think everything was sunshine and daisies.¡±


    ¡°Hey, it¡¯s worked okay for me so far. I figure if I can procrastinate on the stress for long enough, at some point there won¡¯t be anything else to be stressed about.¡±


    ¡°That makes sense in a very frustrating way,¡± said Adelaide over the PA.


    ¡°He¡¯s annoying like that,¡± Camille agreed, ¡°Anyway, you two should get going. You don¡¯t want to leave your mercenary pals waiting. Let me know if you need anything, I¡¯ll leave the coms open.¡± She leaned up and gave me quick a kiss. As she turned to walk away, I caught her gently by the arm and pulled her back a little.


    ¡°Hey,¡± I said quietly, so that Adelaide wouldn¡¯t hear, ¡°I know that¡¯s not why you don¡¯t want to go, not really. No secrets, remember?¡±


    She looked away with a guiltily. ¡°Sorry,¡± she mumbled, ¡°It¡¯s just¡­ I don¡¯t want to go back out there. Not until I can be in a Paladin.¡±


    ¡°I know you don¡¯t. But you have to tell me that kind of thing anyway, okay? We¡¯ll get you started on training tomorrow, you¡¯ll be a Paladin in no time.¡±


    She nodded, and I gave her a hug before I let her go. I boarded the Merlin, then gave her a final wave as the ramp closed up. Ellie began to raise us to the surface, and I made my way to the cockpit, now free from blood and Assimilator goo. I tried to reach the Red Eagles over the coms again, but they still weren¡¯t answering. I¡¯d been attempting to make contact with them since yesterday without luck. I really needed to meet with them; I still had to collect my payment for the mission, and more importantly I had something to give to Tom. Luckily, their convoy wasn''t very hardto miss on the satellites, so we had their general location. At this point they should recognize the Merlin, so it wouldn¡¯t be a big deal if we popped on by for a visit.


    Hopefully.


    With the coordinates locked in, I leaned back in the pilot¡¯s chair, slightly dreading the next conversation. ¡°Adelaide, are you busy?¡± I asked.


    ¡°No, Sam. The Merlin is on autopilot. Did you want something?¡± she replied promptly.


    ¡°Yeah, I just wanted¡­¡± I trailed off and rubbed the back of my neck, ¡°I guess I just wanted to make sure you weren¡¯t feeling too left out in the past couple days.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    I shifted awkwardly in the seat, ¡°Camille and I can be pretty coupley. I¡¯ve been in the whole third wheel situation, and I¡¯m sorry if we made you feel like that.¡±


    ¡°Oh, is that all?¡± she sounded amused, ¡°It really isn¡¯t a problem, you did nothing that left me feeling excluded. I would have been worried if you hadn¡¯t acted affectionate. You haven¡¯t seen each other in months, I believe it is warranted.¡±


    ¡°Well¡­ okay then. Just let me know if we get too much for you.¡± I was relieved. Being the icky-gross couple was never a good thing.


    ¡°I will. To be honest, watching the way you two treat each other is quite nice. I have not yet experienced romantic love, but if I do I would like it to be similar to yours.¡±


    I have to admit, I was pretty touched at that. I was about to express my heartfelt thanks when she cut me off, ¡°There is one thing, though. The next time we watch a movie together, please do not seat me in between you two. I appreciate the sentiment, but it was rather hard to focus on the film with the two of you casting lustful gazes at each other over me.¡± I felt heat rising in my cheeks and I muttered something apologetic, which got a nice laugh out of her. I was searching for a way to change the subject when she put me out of my misery.


    ¡°If you have nothing else to add, I believe that our flight to the Red Eagles might be an opportune time to discuss the last battle,¡± she said, ¡°I took the liberty of booting up the simulator last night and feeding the CAS scans and recordings to the training program. I recorded the advice the virtual instructors gave on the fight. Would you like to hear them?¡±


    I sat up in the chair, ¡°Yes, actually. Even though Danna¡¯s going to turn my asshole inside out for losing power like that, it¡¯ll be nice to get some feedback.¡±


    The holoprojector on the dash changed from instrument readouts to a shrunk down image of a polar bear and a scowling woman. Danna started out this time, ¡°You might think I¡¯m about to ream you out, but you¡¯d be wrong.¡±


    I breathed a sigh of relief.


    ¡°I¡¯m not just going to ream you out. I¡¯m going to fucking destroy you.¡±


    Oh son of a bitch.


    ¡°That being said, you kicked ass for the most part and I¡¯m damn proud that you went toe to toe with a Hive Lord by yourself.¡±


    Yay?


    ¡°But when you did fuck up you screwed the pooch so hard that it¡¯s still getting its ass stitched up in the hospital.¡±


    As I was suffering from both emotional whiplash and a very unpleasant mental image, a replay of the battle popped up on the projector. It was from my point of view, but there were also reconstructed views from multiple angles that appeared around it, put together by a combination of the Paladin¡¯s scans and some fancy computer wizardry.


    Danna narrated as the battle began, ¡°You started off pretty goddamn well. Delaying the engagement and attempting to keep it ranged were your best options. Normally, I¡¯d say you should¡¯ve put more distance between you and it, but given what you were trying to accomplish, it was understandable. After that, I don¡¯t know why you thought it was a good fucking idea to unload your rockets into its center mass. Should¡¯ve preserved them and gone for the legs, fuckwit. You were trying to delay the Hive Lord, not kill it. Can¡¯t fault you for getting surprised by it popping back up after you took those two limbs out by the way, that thing was fucking tenacious.¡±


    I watched my digitally reconstructed Paladin get smacked by the tail and I winced. It looked a lot worse on the playback.


    Danna continued, ¡°You should¡¯ve been watching out for that tail. You either misjudged it or forgot about it, and you can¡¯t afford to do either in a battle. You¡¯re usually not too much of an idiot about that, so I don¡¯t know if it was nerves or cockiness, but either way it was a major fuckup,¡± the next part played, where I got clawed by the Hive Lord¡¯s reforming right arm, ¡°Now that was some crazy shit. I¡¯ve never heard of a Hive Lord regenerating that fast, even during the war, and it had freaky good control over what parts did and didn¡¯t regenerate. I haven¡¯t ever seen one that big either, so your unlucky ass might have run into something especially dangerous. That¡¯s irrelevant right now, because you recovered damn well from that scrape and kept your cool. Which is why I cannot, for the fucking life of me, understand why your little brain departed your body right after.¡±


    She slowed the video down and showed me leaping on to the Hive Lord¡¯s back. Then she rewound it, and played it again. And again. And one more time.


    ¡°What. The. Fuck. Were. You. Thinking?¡± she snarled, ¡°You¡¯re lucky this is just a recording or else I¡¯d be kicking your ass up and down the simulator.¡±


    Danna brought back the video a little more, and focused on me skimming along the ground, strafing around the Hive Lord.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    ¡°See, this is some good shit. You¡¯re using your mobility, your ability to outmaneuver the bastard in close range because while the thing is fast as all hell, it isn¡¯t as quick as you. Confuse it, move around, efficiently use your resources to avoid blows and find an opening you can take advantage of, that¡¯s the key to this kind of engagement, and for a while there it looked like you knew that.¡±


    She showed me jumping on top of it again, pausing it to scrawl a stupid looking frown on my Paladin¡¯s face. Just to really hammer it home.


    ¡°So why the fuck did you think that was good idea? I can follow your logic somewhat: Throw the Hive Lord off, get to a position where it won¡¯t expect you, make it expose itself. Problem is, that might be okay in the short term, but long term it damn near got you killed. The amount of power you used in that flashy piece of shit maneuver was more than everything you¡¯d used that day combined. Christ, the first jump alone was nuts, but what really tanked it was how much the automatic system had to compensate for your fat ass while you were tightrope walking like a shithead from the circus. If you¡¯d had the luxury to control your anti-gravs manually, the drain might¡¯ve been manageable. But when you¡¯re trying to dodge a fucking tail and ride a twenty-foot werewolf simultaneously, that just isn¡¯t going to fly.¡±


    She stopped and glared even harder, ¡°And then you unloaded all of your rockets. Not a couple. Not enough to just be effective and keep some spares. All of them. I¡¯m not going to spend time on that particular bit of dumbassery, because I think you know just what a shitty decision it was. Same with your idiotic fucking angel leap into the air afterwards, when you lost power. The damn Hive Lord was blinded, just shoot the piece of shit in the head to stop it from regenerating next time. You need to learn how to conserve your fucking resources. God almighty but I¡¯ve been trying to get that through your thick skull for months, and maybe now that you¡¯ve been treated like an oversized pincushion, the lesson will finally sink in.¡±


    As I watched myself tumble out of the sky, I felt rightly and properly shamed. The decisions felt appropriate at the time, but in retrospect they were¡­ less than intelligent. I was about to get more self-flagellating when Danna started to speak again, ¡°But this next part is where you made me proud, kid.¡±


    She showed me ducking and weaving between the Hive Lords claws, avoiding each blow by the skin of my teeth, ¡°You did all that without anti-gravs. You engaged a Hive Lord in close range without relying on any speed boosts, and it wasn¡¯t just a normal Hive Lord, it was an insanely fast one. That¡¯s fucking impressive. I don¡¯t know if it was the adrenaline kicking in or what, but you managed to dodge those swings like you knew they were coming. That¡¯s what I¡¯m talking about when I say you¡¯d be a goddamned monster if you stopped getting in your own way. Those instincts you showed there are top rate. I don¡¯t know many that could pull it off. You got your ass kicked in the end, but the fact that you kept up with it as long as you did is what¡¯s important. You need to simplify your game, because the more flashy shit you do, the less time you have for fucking up Worms.¡±


    Danna sighed and shook her head, ¡°Look. I know I¡¯m being a hardass, but that¡¯s what you need. Frankly, it was just dumb luck that you didn¡¯t die there. If support had come just a little later, you¡¯d be in the process of being shit out by that Worm. It¡¯s a damned miracle that I had you training with the light beams before this, you¡¯d have been slaughtered without that, and I just wish I¡¯d started you on blocking techniques as well. What I¡¯m trying to say here is that with the experience you had at the time, you did a hell of a lot better than you should have. But that doesn¡¯t stop the mistakes you made from being mistakes, and it definitely doesn¡¯t stop you from being able to learn from them. You¡¯re alive; now make sure the next time you get into a fight like this, you don¡¯t come back looking like you went through a fucking cheese grater.¡±


    As I was both reeling from the tirade and blown away at how measured and reasonable she was at the end, Danna gave a signal to Jack. He moved forward with a massive step, which looked a little funny considering how small the projection was. The polar bear smiled his horrifying smile at me, ¡°From an overall perspective, you did very well Sam. You thought quickly on your feet and were able to give orders to others efficiently. You determined the best course of action you had available, and you trusted your own judgement to carry it out. Most importantly, you embodied the ideals of a Paladin, and protected those that needed you without hesitation.¡±


    I felt a real glow of pride there. It got lost in all the happiness of finding Camille again, but this was the first time I really felt like a Paladin. Sure, I had saved people before, I wasn¡¯t discounting that, but every time I did I hadn¡¯t been in any real danger. A part of me was afraid that when it really came down to it, I wouldn¡¯t be able to make the hard choice and put others¡¯ lives before mine. It was good to know that I would.


    My musings were interrupted by an overhead view of a bunch of red dots and a much smaller number of green ones. Jack started rumbling at me, ¡°Because I don¡¯t have any more remarks on your performance, we are going to speak about the decisions that the Red Eagles made. From this, you will learn how to properly manage a retreat in very disadvantageous circumstances.¡±


    After that, he launched into his lecture. The long and short of it is that the Red Eagles did passably well. It was chaos at first; the majority of the casualties came in the first couple minutes. The camp¡¯s reaction to the Hive Cluster erupting was not so great, but after a few minutes or so of flailing about, things started to change. Adelaide informed me that Aaron took control at that point. Jack explained that the Red Eagles¡¯ initial woes was caused by their lack of preparation. Adequate defenses and a proper exit strategy would¡¯ve done a whole hell of a lot. The retreat itself was well executed, with the unarmored vehicles protected by the scout cars which harried the horde and kept them distracted. Still, it was Adelaide and the Merlin that pulled their shit out of the fire. Jack took the opportunity to drive home the importance of aerial superiority.


    Jack spent the next half hour, the remaining duration of the flight, discussing effective air support in famous battles. The Battle of the Rhine River came up as a prime example. While it was technically a loss, the Assimilators overran the line and Europe was fully taken, the true purpose of the battle was to delay the aliens while civilians were evacuated off the mainland and ferried to the Americas. The desperate and heroic last stand was only possible due to the brilliant use of heavy gunships to herd clusters of Assimilators into kill zones. The Speyer Funnel, named for the town near where it was first used and the shape the Assimilators were herded in, was one of the main reasons the Alaskan Line lasted as long as it did. Camille and Adelaide both watched the lecture (Camille was watching a replay of it from Camelot), and I don¡¯t blame them. Jack¡¯s rumbling tones were perfect to deliver the subject matter, and he brought up interactive maps and simulations of the battles.


    As we neared the Red Eagles¡¯ camp, I paused the lecture and focused on the task at hand.


    ¡°What¡¯s your plan?¡± asked Camille over the coms. She¡¯d decided to watch through my Paladin¡¯s feed to get a handle on the Red Eagles for herself.


    ¡°Well, I was thinking of just dropping down there and saying hello, getting my shit, giving Tom his shit, and then going home. I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll have a problem with it, I did kind of save their asses a couple days ago after all.¡±


    There was silence over the line. ¡°Uh. You don¡¯t see where that might go wrong?¡± she said in a resigned voice.


    I rolled my eyes, then remembered that Camille couldn¡¯t see it, ¡°Well yeah, I mean I might get shot at or exploded or whatever, but there¡¯s a pretty solid chance that won¡¯t happen. Like, 97% at least.¡±


    ¡°They could immobilize your Paladin, trap you inside it, then attempt to torture the information about your base of operations out of you. Or, alternatively, they could lock on to Adelaide with some sort of anti-aircraft weapon, and threaten you into leaving them the Paladin or taking them to your base. They could also -¡±


    ¡°Jesus, did everyone out here try to screw you over?¡± I cut her off incredulously.


    ¡°Well. No, not really. Actually, only a couple people did and it was like six months ago. But my points stand,¡± she said.


    ¡°Yes¡­ I suppose it does. Look, I get the need to be suspicious of people, I really do, even if I don¡¯t act like it. I get that it¡¯s the end of the world and that makes it more likely that everyone you meet is trying to fuck you six ways till Sunday. But I¡¯ve heard nothing but great things about the Red Eagles, and again, a good number of them owe me their lives. And beyond that, the vast majority of people I¡¯ve met so far have been kind. Well, except the raiders, but they¡¯re more the crazy, murderous outliers in this situation.¡± I paused for a second and tried to gather my thoughts, ¡°I guess what I¡¯m trying to say is that I¡¯d like to think normal people are still decent. Maybe if this apocalypse had happened before the Assimilators, things might be different. But I saw the way people banded together at the end. When all those refugees came over, they were welcomed into our homes without a second thought. During the food shortages, people gave freely to total strangers, and everyone pitched in to help. I dunno, I just don¡¯t think that sense of unity would go away so fast.¡±


    Camille groaned over the coms. ¡°Urgh you make it so hard to argue when you¡¯re so blindingly optimistic,¡± she grumbled, ¡°Fine. Go meet with your stupid mercenaries in their stupid camp. But keep me a secret, for now. I don¡¯t want them to know anything they don¡¯t have to without coming up with a countermeasure for it. And be careful, okay?¡±


    ¡°I will, my paranoid weirdo. Love ya,¡± I said, and was met with a muttered ¡®love you too¡¯ in response. I grinned, then asked Adelaide to turn off the active stealth systems and open the hailing frequencies. I¡¯m sure the Red Eagles were monitoring the area and had a channel for communications. Sure enough, I was contacted almost immediately.


    A male voice crackled over the coms, ¡°Unidentified craft, this is Red Eagles Command Center. Please state your purpose.¡±


    I let Adelaide handle the response, ¡°Red Eagles Command Center, this is aircraft M-01, carrying Paladin Samuel Lewis on board. Requesting permission to land.¡±


    Adelaide kept the Merlin where it was at a hover while we waited for their response. After a few minutes, the voice came back, ¡°Aircraft M-01, you have been granted permission to land. Proceed to the transmitted coordinates.¡±


    ¡°Roger that Red Eagles Command Center,¡± Adelaide said. She brought the Merlin into a lazy descent, bringing us closer to the Red Eagles¡¯ operation. Jack would¡¯ve approved of the place. For a temporary camp, it was fortified well. There were a couple of vehicles that had deployed into watch towers and bunkers, remnants of the old Mobile Fortification Doctrine. Barbed wire did jack shit against Assimilators, so there wasn¡¯t any of that, but there were several hovertanks in positions that covered every approach to the camp. The best part was, it actually made fucking sense for this group to have them. That was a nice change of pace.


    There was a space near the center of the camp cleared out, and two people stood with earmuffs and illuminated beacons, directing us to land. The Merlin touched down with its customary billow of dust, the engines humming loudly. They spooled down with a gentle whine as I equipped the Paladin. Feeling the metal ripple to a close around me never got old. The back ramp lowered, and I walked out into the center of the Red Eagles camp.

 Chapter 2.25: Meetings

    As I walked out of the Merlin, I was greeted by the sight of a quite large crowd of people. They stood a respectful distance away in an orderly mob. They weren¡¯t milling about, but they weren¡¯t snapped to attention either. All of them wore green and yellow camouflage fatigues with a small eagle patch on the breast. For the most part, they looked curious rather than awestruck or intimidated.


    I recognized Anton at the head of the group, and another man stood slightly in front of him. He was above average height, probably six-foot or so, and looked older. I couldn¡¯t pin down the age though, because the guy was in seriously good shape, with a lean, hardened face. The man wore a combat uniform like he was born in it. He had a fantastic bristly mustache and a hard glint in his eye. He looked every inch a military commander, which I assumed he was from the way he carried himself. I made eye contact with him through the visor of my Paladin, and then I made a potentially idiotic snap decision.


    ¡°Hey, Camille, Adelaide?¡± I said, isolating the sound to the interior, ¡°I¡¯m going to get out of the Paladin. Just wanted to let you know.¡±


    ¡°Ha. That¡¯s a good one,¡± Camille snorted. There was a pause, and then in a voice of dawning horror she said, ¡°Oh shit you¡¯re not kidding, are you? Sam, that¡¯s a seriously terrible idea. Like, a really, really, really good way to get yourself killed.¡±


    I kept my eyes on the commander as I replied to her, ¡°I know it is. But I¡¯m getting this feeling in my gut that if I don¡¯t meet this guy face to face I¡¯m going to really regret it. It doesn¡¯t make sense, even to me, but I¡¯m absolutely positive that staying in the Paladin is the wrong move here. Trust me on this one, okay?¡±


    She made a frustrated noise. ¡°You know I will. I really don¡¯t want to, but I will. Please, be safe.¡±


    ¡°I trust you as well, Sam,¡± Adelaide added, ¡°And for what it¡¯s worth, I believe that your decision is not wrong.¡±


    I set the Paladin to follow me in a defensive posture. It couldn¡¯t fight or do anything complicated, but it would tail me and attempt to shield me from incoming fire. Anything more than that was too much for an automated system to handle. A human brain was the only thing complex enough to fully control a Paladin. My team had tried to make it work autonomously, but the movements were always too slow, stiff, or awkward to be useful, and our best programs just couldn¡¯t analyze a situation fast enough to respond effectively. But with the kickass mental interface Camille designed, a person could manipulate the Paladin like an extension of their own body. That¡¯s why there were such intense multitasking requirements: they were needed for unconsciouscontrol of the Paladin¡¯s movement and thrusters.


    I snapped myself back to the present. The mercenaries in front of me seemed confused and restless. I¡¯d been standing still for a little while now. The commander looked unfazed though. I took a deep breath. I¡¯d talked a big game to Camille, but in truth I was nervous. When I¡¯d left the Paladin in Fort Morgan, I¡¯d been so shell-shocked that I wasn¡¯t really aware of what was going on. Now though¡­ I¡¯d be stepping into a group of heavily armed mercenaries, at their total mercy. But this was the right call.


    The Paladin opened from the face first. The bottom half slid down and the top half slid up. Then it split to each side from the bottom of the head down, the metal armor rippling open in a smooth, unbroken wave. I stepped out of it, onto the stamped down dirt. The only piece remaining of the suit was the detachable communicator (equipped with a camera for Camille and Adelaide¡¯s benefit) over my ear. There was just the shyest hint of autumn in the morning air. A brisk wind played in my hair, but the sun was still warm on my face. I had a sudden memory of the aspen trees glowing gold and yellow and orange along the side of a winding mountain road. It was around this time of year that Camille and I always used to go see them. It was her favorite season. I smiled to myself and drew in a deep lungful of clear Colorado air, and walked towards the Red Eagles. Sometimes I forgot that I lived in this world just like everyone else.


    The commander walked out to meet me, and Anton followed shortly behind him. I noticed that Anton¡¯s eyes were hollow and sunken, and his face was drawn and pale. He seemed to have aged years since I last saw him. The commander¡¯s eyes were sharp and intelligent, and he eyed me up and down as we approached each other. When we got close enough, I stuck out a hand for him to shake, ¡°Hello there, I¡¯m Sa-¡°


    I was cut off as the man grabbed my hand and pulled me into an abrupt and very strong hug. I froze, my brain trying to figure out what the fuck was happening. My arms stuck out the sides like a mannequin, and they dangled there uselessly. I wasn¡¯t sure what to do, so I opted for standing perfectly still like a very uncomfortable wooden statue.


    He pulled back and clapped a hand on my shoulder, a wide smile etched onto his gruff features, ¡°I already know who you are, Sam. I owe you and your friend Adelaide more than I can ever say. You saved my soldiers, you saved my husband, and you risked your own life to do it.¡± Anton gave a ghost of a smile from next to him.


    ¡°Uh. Don¡¯t worry about it, I was just doing my job,¡± I managed to say, trying to get back on steady ground.


    The man laughed, ¡°Then you have the most incredible work ethic I¡¯ve ever seen. But I haven''t introduced myself.¡± He grabbed my hand in a vicelike grip and gave it a firm shake, ¡°My name is Renard Berston, I am the commander of the Red Eagles. It is an honor to make your acquaintance.¡± His voice sounded like sandalwood smells, rich and woodsy.


    Commander Berston made a sweeping gesture with his right hand, ¡°And these are the men and women of the Red Eagles, the finest mercenary company in Colorado.¡± I got a massive chorus of greetings from the entire group.


    ¡°Hi,¡± I said back with a shaky wave.


    Benston¡¯s face fell a little as he turned back to me, ¡°Now, I¡¯m sorry to say that Aaron and the rest from the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouts aren¡¯t here right now, they¡¯re out on a patrol. But Tom is, if you¡¯d like to meet him. He¡¯s recovered nicely, though with the prosthetics we have, I¡¯m afraid to say he won¡¯t ever quite be the same.¡± He looked legitimately saddened by that.


    I suddenly remembered the main reason I was here, ¡°Actually, I have a solution to that problem. I just need to grab it from my ship. Can someone take me to him after that?¡±


    His eyes widened and then he shook his head with a bemused smile, ¡°I should¡¯ve expected that, I suppose. I¡¯ll add it to the list of things I owe you for. If you don¡¯t mind, I¡¯ll bring you over to Tom myself. It¡¯s the least I can do.¡±


    ¡°Oh, really, don¡¯t worry about it, I¡¯m sure you have plenty of important things to attend to,¡± I told him. I felt guilty pulling him away from his probably enormous amount of responsibilities.


    ¡°Nonsense! Don¡¯t worry, I promise that I make a good guide,¡± he said easily.


    I didn¡¯t want to be rude and refuse again. ¡°Well, alrighty then. I¡¯m just going to run back to the Merlin, I¡¯ll, uh, I¡¯ll be right back.¡± Without waiting for an answer, I turned and walked back to the gunship, the Paladin stomping after me.


    ¡°Well,¡± said Camille through the communicator, ¡°I really didn''t expect that to go so well. Also, are all your first meetings that bizarre?¡±


    ¡°The synchronized greetings were a little strange,¡± Adelaide agreed.


    I thought about it for a second, ¡°Yeah, but I¡¯m realizing the only part that really threw me for a loop was being hugged by a stranger.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. I would say that it was far less uncomfortable than your initial interaction with Aaron and his squad,¡± said Adelaide.


    I groaned, ¡°God, don¡¯t remind me about that. Rebecca still won¡¯t let me forget the caterpillar thing.¡±


    I walked into the Merlin and grabbed the metal case, and hefted it with some effort. Despite my enhanced strength, the damn thing was still heavy as all hell. I grunted to myself as I went back to meet up with Berston. He was talking quietly to Anton. The rest of the Red Eagles had cleared out, going back to whatever tasks needed to be accomplished. As he saw me approaching, he waved me over. Anton excused himself, and Commander Berston watched him go with a pained look on his face.


    I gave him a curious glance and he sighed, ¡°He blames himself for what happened, you know. Says that if he¡¯d listened to you in the first place, nobody would¡¯ve died.¡± Well, he wasn¡¯t wrong, but I wasn¡¯t about to be the douchebag that said so. ¡°But that¡¯s not the issue right now, is it?¡± Berston said, ¡°Let¡¯s make our way over to the field hospital, shall we?¡±


    There were several things I noticed as we walked through the camp. It was ridiculously organized, for one. The tents and vehicles were all placed in neat rows. Men and women in uniform bustled about. I saw a group of familiar vehicles being looked over by frustrated mechanics. By the look of them, the retreat had been by an even narrower margin than I thought. I caught a few mercenaries gawking at the Paladin, but most of them were disciplined enough to avoid staring. I also saw that the mercenaries would look at the Commander with a great deal of respect when he walked by. He flagged down a few of them, calling them out by name, asking for a quick update on this or that. He somehow managed to do it while being constantly on the move, so it didn¡¯t feel like he was wasting my time. It was impressive, to say the least.


    We eventually reached a series of medium sized grey buildings. That confused me a bit, until I realized they were just a group of massive vehicles, like mobile homes on steroids. Commander Berston looked over them with pride, ¡°These are the heart and soul of our operation. The Command Center, the Field Hospital, and the Simulator Facility.¡±


    I gave a low whistle of admiration, ¡°Damn, where¡¯d you all find a mobile simulator building? They¡¯re rare as hell, I heard they only made a couple as prototypes.¡±


    Berston smiled happily, ¡°They¡¯re great, aren¡¯t they? This one started out as another command center. Anton and his team ripped out the insides and wired up some older simulators. They really did save us a whole lot of grief; training recruits on the go is a breeze.¡±


    ¡°Now that¡¯s interesting. I¡¯m curious to see how he solved the power draw. I¡¯d love to take a look at it, or pick his brain about it. Once he¡¯s done moping around like that of course, he looks like someone just took a dump on his thesis,¡± I winced as soon as the words left my mouth. I heard Camille sigh in my communicator.


    Berston looked at me, amused, ¡°Now that¡¯s more what I expected from you, given what I¡¯ve heard from the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouts.¡±


    ¡°Who¡¯s the bastard that¡¯s been tarnishing my sterling reputation? I bet it was Aaron, he always looked like a gossip. Or Rebecca, she¡¯d do it just for the laughs,¡± I said immediately, affronted, then I cursed my stupid mouth again and backtracked. ¡°I mean, those accusations are completely unfounded and I¡¯ll have you know that I only conduct myself with dignity and honor.¡± Nailed it.


    The older man just chuckled and shook his head at me, ¡°I can see why they liked you so much. That group has always been a bunch of real characters.¡± We were standing in front of the Field Hospital, denoted by the large red first aid sign on it. The Paladin was casting a shadow on me. He stopped just outside the door, ¡°Now, before you go in, I¡¯d like to ask you just one question.¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    I waved at him to go ahead. Worst comes to worst I just wouldn¡¯t answer, or I¡¯d lie.


    He looked me directly in the eyes. His gaze was intense, but wasn¡¯t threatening, it was just burning with pure curiosity, ¡°How did you survive? You stayed behind against a Hive Lord, alone, for at least ten minutes, maybe more. And not just any Hive Lord, it was a Broodguard by all indications. And I know you held it, those teams would have never made it back if you hadn¡¯t. The truly unbelievable part is that you don¡¯t seem to be injured. You aren¡¯t carrying yourself like you¡¯ve broken anything or even have so much as a bruise. How did you do it?¡±


    I maintained eye contact. After a staring contest with a Hive Lord, nothing else was really an issue. I considered what to tell him, then settled on a brief summary, ¡°I fought it. I got lucky, and didn¡¯t die. Adelaide pulled my ass out of there afterwards. That¡¯s about all there is to it.¡±


    He studied me for a bit, then nodded, his face serious. ¡°I believe you, and I understand that you need to keep your cards close to your chest. At the end of the day, I¡¯m just glad you were there for my people. I give you my word that the Red Eagles will never raise arms against you. If you ever need anything, at all, we will be there for you. We honor our debts above all,¡± he said, and he looked completely sincere. ¡°Now, I¡¯m sure you would rather meet with Tom by yourself, so I¡¯ll get out of your way. Just ask the receptionist for his room number. Oh, and I¡¯ve arranged for your payment to be placed by your ship. Thank you, again, for everything you¡¯ve done for us.¡± He gave me a salute, which I returned, and then turned on his heel, walking towards the command center.


    As I watched him go, Camille piped up in my ear, ¡°I don¡¯t really get why, but I trust him. I don¡¯t know if that makes him more or less intimidating.¡±


    I gave her a noncommittal hum and moved into the hospital, letting the Paladin stand guard outside. I had more important things to do than worry about the motivations of the Commander. The mobile building was small but well put together. There was a front reception area, with a bored looking teenager tapping away at a keyboard. He had a close-cropped blonde hair and a skinny frame. His eyes never left the holoscreen as I walked up to him.


    ¡°Excuse me, but do you know where Tom is? Um, I don¡¯t know his last name, but he¡¯s in the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team. Quiet, bald, missing a leg?¡± I asked politely.


    The teen gestured to the hallway on my right, ¡°He¡¯s in Room 3, second door on your left down that hall.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡± Kids these days. I walked down the tidy hallway and knocked on the specified door, rapping my knuckles twice on the hard plastic. It hissed open a moment after. Tom was sitting upright on the hospital bed, more a cot than anything, a weak smile on his face. He was in a traditional medical gown, not the fancy types I had in Camelot. The sheet was pulled up over his waist, and his hands were folded neatly in his lap.


    ¡°¡¯Sup buddy?¡± I said as I walked in the door, ¡°How¡¯s it been?¡±


    He gave me a hybrid of a smile and a grimace, ¡°Oh, I¡¯ve been better. But I have to say, it¡¯s a really nice surprise to see you alive. I saw that thing you were going to fight, didn¡¯t know if you¡¯d make it out.¡±


    ¡°Eh. Little bastard wasn¡¯t so tough,¡± I replied.


    ¡°Oh, I doubt that,¡± Tom said wryly, ¡°I have to thank you though. You and Adelaide saved our whole team.¡±


    ¡°Anytime,¡± I waved my hand casually, then considered how to best approach the next topic. ¡°So how¡¯s old stumpy doing?¡± I gestured to his leg. Tact was never really my strong suit.


    Luckily, Tom didn¡¯t seem to be too offended. He just chuckled wearily and shook his head, ¡°You¡¯re an asshole, know that? Uh, the leg¡¯s okay, it closed up nicely and I don¡¯t have to worry about infection or anything. Stem cell treatment worked well to get it completely stable. I¡¯m going to be fitted for a prosthetic sometime this week, not sure when.¡± There was a dull look in his eyes. I¡¯d fix that.


    I nodded distractedly, looking around the room. I spotted what I was looking for and hurried over to it. The small table was easy to carry to the foot of Tom¡¯s bed. He looked at me curiously but I signaled at him to wait. I heaved the metal case up and it landed on the table with a satisfying whump.


    I paused dramatically, one hand rested on the case. ¡°So, I was trying to come up with a way of helping you out. Now, I have access to some fairly advanced medical facilities. But nothing can regrow a leg, as far as I know. So that was off the table,¡± I clicked open the clasps sealing the case shut, ¡°Then I decided to go with something a little more traditional, something to give you a leg up, if you will.¡±


    I opened the case with a flourish. Nestled in a bed of foam was a prosthetic leg, built from the knee down. It was clearly artificial, but it was sleek, following the curves of a human leg exactly. The dark grey metal and carbon fiber outer shell hid the internals. ¡°This is a heavily modified ArcLabs third generation leg prosthetic. I¡¯ve customized it for your height, and it¡¯ll automatically make minute adjustments, so you shouldn¡¯t ever have to worry about feeling off balance. It works through a pretty damn advanced mental interface, so there¡¯s going to be a learning curve there. You¡¯ll have the option of a mental chip implant or an earpiece. I¡¯d suggest the chip implant myself, much more difficult to dislodge.¡±


    He looked a little overwhelmed so I continued, ¡°The leg itself is pretty much bullet and scratch proof. It should hold up just as well as heavy combat armor would. You won¡¯t be flipping any hovertanks with this thing, the power in a kick doesn¡¯t really come from the knee down, but you should be able to put a hole through a wall without much trouble. I wouldn''t suggest it, but it comes with kinetic impact dampeners so you could theoretically fall from a couple stories onto it. Let¡¯s see¡­ it¡¯ll pretty much behave exactly like your other leg does, down to the toes. Once you learn how to use it, you¡¯ll forget it¡¯s there. Normal kinetic motion is enough to power the leg; the graphene battery lining doesn¡¯t noticeably passively drain, so you don¡¯t have to worry about it shutting down on you,¡± I picked up the prosthetic and pointed at the top of it, ¡°The attachment point uses a stupidly strong adhesive gel. It can be dispersed with a mental command once you¡¯re connected to the leg, but there isn¡¯t any reason to take it off, the gel protects and hydrates the¡­ stump, for lack of a better term. It weighs almost exactly as much as your other leg will, but there¡¯ll obviously be small differences for you to compensate for. For all intents and purposes, it¡¯ll be like you never lost it.¡±


    I looked at him eagerly, ¡°So, what do you think?¡±


    ¡°Why did you do this for me?¡± he whispered, and his face was a mix of wonder and confusion.


    I deflated, ¡°Wow I was expecting more gushing excitement than this, to be honest. To answer your question, even though we haven¡¯t exactly known each other for long, I consider you my friend. I stick by my friends.¡±


    He nodded dumbly and I grinned at him, ¡°Now call your doctor in, I want to stick this leg on you and we should probably have a medical professional around so I don¡¯t accidentally turn you into a gibbering vegetable from the mental load.¡±


    <hr>


    A few hours later, Tom was leaning on my shoulder as he practiced walking around the room. The still astounded doctor, a woman in her thirties named Katlyn, was observing us, making sure nothing went wrong.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never seen anything like this,¡± she muttered, half to us and half to herself, ¡°the mental interface is wildly more sophisticated than it should be. Tom shouldn¡¯t be able to move like this so soon, it¡¯s like the prosthetic is interpreting his brain signals exactly like a normal leg would.¡±


    I smiled internally. Camille had done the mental interface wizardry, I¡¯d done the engineering, and Adelaide wrote the programming for it and essentially made it impossible to reverse engineer by locking down the software tightly and working with me to install several anti-tampering countermeasures. Tom¡¯s new leg was the first combination of all our abilities, and it was a kickass first attempt. I voted for calling us the dream team but was overruled.


    Tom was getting tired, so I helped him into a seat. I straightened up. It was about time for me to leave, the leg was working without a hitch and I hadn¡¯t done my training for today. After getting chewed out by both the Hive Lord and Danna, I wanted to get back into the simulator as soon as possible. I was about to start saying my goodbyes when the door hissed open behind me. I turned around to see Rebecca standing there in her armor, sans helmet. She was breathing like she¡¯d just run from somewhere, and she looked like she¡¯d just seen a ghost.


    I held up a hand in greeting, ¡°Hey! What¡¯s up? Want to see Tom¡¯s new leg, it¡¯s pretty fucking swe-¡°


    Before I could finish my sentence, Rebecca caught me in a tight hug. I froze. Not knowing what to do, I patted her awkwardly on the back a few times until she let me go. She stepped back and gave me a wide smile, a very faint blush rising up her cheeks. My brain was still trying to figure out why the fuck so many people were hugging me today when Camille cut in over the coms.


    ¡°So I take it that¡¯s Rebecca,¡± she said with a hint of ice in her voice, ¡°She seems like a lovely girl.¡±


    Before I had the chance to respond, Rebecca started to talk, ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re alive, Caterpillar Man. If you¡¯d died there, your last moments would¡¯ve been way too heroic to fit your character.¡± She poked me in the chest, and her voice was teasing but filled with happiness.


    ¡°Yup, I¡¯m tenacious like that. I¡¯m happy to hear you¡¯re safe, and everyone else too. Where¡¯s the rest of the gang?¡± I looked over her shoulder, expecting them to walk in soon.


    She shrugged nonchalantly, ¡°Oh, they decided to get out of their gear before coming to see you.¡± She looked me up and down, ¡°I see you decided to shed the chrysalis as well. Nice jumpsuit, you¡¯ve got the matching outfit down to a T.¡±


    ¡°Quite a lovely girl indeed.¡± Camille¡¯s voice dripped with menace, ¡°Now, I wonder, why didn¡¯t you mention the fact that she has a massive crush on you?¡±


    ¡°What!?¡± I squawked.


    I noticed Rebecca looking at me with confusion, and I furiously waved my hands to dispel it, ¡°Sorry, Adelaide just told me something over the coms. I¡¯ll just need a second to listen. But um, Rebecca, thanks for worrying about me.¡± Rebecca looked pleased while I berated myself for being an idiot. I just had to toss that last part in, didn¡¯t I?


    I tried to keep my cool, turning away and touching a finger to my communicator uselessly, ¡°Please repeat that last Ghost Rider, I didn¡¯t quite catch it.¡±


    ¡°That bitch wants to pork you something fierce,¡± said Camille bluntly.


    Adelaide replied to her in my stead, ¡°I don¡¯t understand how you came to that conclusion, Camille. Rebecca merely seems to be friendly.¡± Exactly what I was thinking. Thank God for Adelaide being reasonable.


    ¡°Damn it Addy, I expected Sam to be this oblivious but I thought you¡¯d have picked up on it,¡± Camille groaned, ¡°Fine, here¡¯s the abridged version: Casual physical contact, check. Blatant teasing and flirting, check. Pet name to deepen intimacy, check. Christ, she even sprinted over from wherever the hell she was, in full equipment, just to see Sam when she realized he was alive. She¡¯s basically beating him over the head with it.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Well I do see what you mean now,¡± agreed Adelaide calmly. I did too. Fuck.


    Just then I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder and I turned my head to find Rebecca¡¯s face entirely too close to mine. ¡°Everything okay there?¡± she asked, ¡°You look like you accidentally swallowed a grasshopper and it¡¯s trying to crawl its way out of your asshole.¡±


    ¡°Fine!¡± I yelped, ¡°Everything is just fine!¡± My voice was little strangled and high pitched. I saw Tom snickering at me out of the corner of my eye.


    Camille chose this moment start talking again, ¡°Damn, I wish she wasn¡¯t wearing all that armor.¡±


    Adelaide sounded confused, ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°So I can see if the hussy has bigger boobs than me,¡± she said, frustrated.


    ¡°I fail to see how that is important,¡± Adelaide replied.


    Camille snapped at her, ¡°Of course it¡¯s important!¡±


    I was trying furiously to tune them out, but it was way harder than it seemed. I decided that my best course of action was to make a very speedy tactical retreat.


    ¡°Hey, I¡¯m really sorry to take off right when you got here, but something important came up,¡± I said to Rebecca, and by extension, Tom, ¡°but I¡¯ll be back soon to check up on Tom¡¯s leg, we can catch up then.¡±


    Rebecca¡¯s face fell, ¡°That¡¯s lame as hell, even for you. Can¡¯t you stick around to say hi to the rest of the squad at least?¡±


    I looked at Tom for help, but he betrayed me while attempting to hold back a smile, ¡°Yeah, they should probably be here soon, why don¡¯t you stay for a little longer?¡± Fucking traitor. I should take back that leg and see if he¡¯s laughing then.


    Rebecca was looking at me, so I uncomfortably avoided eye contact and scratched my chin. I tried to come up with an excuse that sounded plausible but my brain wasn¡¯t functioning so hot right now, what with the two conversations I was being exposed to at once.


    ¡°Why is this an issue in the first place? I highly doubt Sam would be unfaithful,¡± Adelaide was saying.


    ¡°Well no duh, I¡¯m not mad at him, he didn¡¯t even notice it because he¡¯s denser than a neutron star. That¡¯s not the problem here at all, it¡¯s about marking my territory. Fuck! I should¡¯ve just had him tell people I was alive.¡±


    ¡°That is not rational,¡± Adelaide responded, ¡°the logic for not revealing yourself is exactly the same as before. Also, that was fairly insulting to Sam.¡± Adelaide was my only ally left. I really needed to do something nice for her soon.


    ¡°Sam will be okay, and rationality can take it up the ass,¡± Camille shot back.


    Rebecca and Tom were still awaiting my answer, the doctor sitting in the chair looked bemused, and there was a loud argument going on in my ear. I was opening my mouth to apologize again and insist on leaving as the door opened once more. Aaron led the rest of the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team into the room.


    ¡°Sam!¡± he exclaimed, walking up and grabbing me by the shoulder, ¡°It¡¯s great to see that you¡¯re okay!¡± He looked around the room, saw Rebecca, then pulled me in closer to him. ¡°I don¡¯t want to alarm you,¡± he whispered conspiratorially in my ear, ¡°But I do believe that our Rebecca over there has a little thing for you.¡± By the sheer grace of God it didn¡¯t seem as though Rebecca heard him. I mumbled something in denial and he just pulled his head back and gave me an exaggerated wink. Allie grinned knowingly, Jackson scowled at me, Tom was still snickering, and Rebecca was staring at me hopefully.


    I whimpered internally. I just wanted to go home.

 Chapter 2.26: Conference

    If I told you that watching my girlfriend get her ass handed to her by my virtual instructor didn¡¯t inspire a good deal of Schadenfreude, I¡¯d be lying. Danna tossed her like a sack of potatoes, and she landed flat on her ass with a loud whump and a quiet whimper.


    She loomed over Camille, her eyes burning with rage, ¡°And what the fuck was that piece of shit display? I was under the impression that you were trying to fight me, not give me a gentle fucking hug. Get your useless ass up and come at me again, or I swear to God I¡¯ll make you hurt in ways you never thought possible.¡±


    I admired Camille as she grit her teeth and struggled to her feet. Frankly, compared to me she wasn¡¯t talented, at all, at fighting. But the thing was she never gave in. The three days in a row, she¡¯d been getting the shit kicked out of her, and hadn¡¯t quit once. That was a definite improvement over myself when I started training. It took me a lot of painful lessons to get to the point where she was now. I considered that maybe I was just romanticizing her incredible stubbornness as I watched her hit the floor again.


    I was standing on the rubber floor of the simulator¡¯s training room, having finished the morning¡¯s exercises, and waiting for Camille to do the same. After my usual light-beam routine, I¡¯d done some weapons training. Being in combat with that Hive Lord, as well as all the other close quarters combat engagements I¡¯d been in with the Assimilators, lead me to realize that having a weapon other than just sharp fists would be infinitely helpful. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to use, but I was making sure it was the best choice. Luckily, the simulator provided access to every weapon known to man, so I was able to test the waters.


    ¡°Did you decide on something yet, fuckwit?¡± said an annoyed voice behind me. I turned with a sigh to face my incarnation of Danna. It was more than a little bizarre, but the simulators allowed simultaneous copies of each instructor. Every simulator in Camelot was connected, so that trainees could work together on team exercises. In ¡®public lobbies¡¯ such as this one, it was only logical to be able to instruct people separately but simultaneously. The instructor-copies all shared the same data as well.


    I nodded at her, ¡°Yeah, I think I¡¯ve got it pretty much nailed down. We¡¯ll start some real training with it tomorrow, right?¡± I heard the other Danna cursing Camille out again behind me. Poor girl.


    She grunted in acknowledgement and watched her clone elbow Camille in the solar plexus. She sighed and shook her head, ¡°If that dumbass girl had even a third of your talent, she¡¯d be one of the better recruits I¡¯ve seen.¡±


    It was fascinating to witness how differently Danna treated me compared to Camille. Graduating the course seemed to have softened her attitude towards me significantly; there was a marked difference from the verbal lashing she was giving Camille. Even though she still swore at me like a sailor, there was a base level of respect, and she worked with me rather than exclusively telling me what to do. I marveled once again at the programmers who¡¯d created this simulation. Computer scientists were generally soulless shells of human beings, but damn did they do good work sometimes.


    After the nightmare of embarrassment that was the trip to the Red Eagle¡¯s camp, we¡¯d stuck to staying in Camelot for a while, trying to figure out our next move. Camille, Adelaide, and myself had all put together some thoughts on that, and we were having a meeting in the Command Center later to figure it out. Camille in particular seemed to have a lot she needed to go over. Speaking of Camille, it looked like her version of Danna was wrapping up her tirade. I walked over to them, the Danna next to me dematerializing. I needed to come up with a naming system for them. I¡¯d give it some thought.


    I helped Camille to her feet, ignoring the scathing glare from Danna. She cast me a grateful glance and stood up, wincing a little at the simulated bruises. We both faced her, hands behind our backs, standing to attention.


    Danna faced Camille first, ¡°I didn¡¯t think you could break your previous record for most fuckups in a single day, but goddamn it you did. Show that shit to me tomorrow, and I¡¯ll run you until you beg for the sweet release of death.¡± She turned to me next, ¡°Well done today, Lewis. Your thruster efficiency is improving steadily. Looks like that Worm beat some sense into your thick fucking skull. We¡¯ll start you on weapons training and blocking tomorrow, so we¡¯re going to have to tack on an extra hour of training time, that is unless your pansy ass can¡¯t handle that?¡±


    She clearly didn¡¯t give a shit what my response was, because she dematerialized immediately after the question, and the simulator turned to black around me. As the pod cracked open, I jumped out of the harness with practiced ease before it started lowering, and walked out the door. I leaned against the wall, waiting for Camille. It took her a little longer to get out of the exo-suit. She emerged from her room a few seconds later, a white towel draped around her neck. She was wearing the grey simulator jumpsuit, and had her hair up in a ponytail. Not gonna lie, I was super into that look.


    I offered her my hand and she took it. We started to head towards our room. I felt another wave of relief at the fact that Camille pretty much didn¡¯t give a shit about Rebecca¡¯s thing for me, at least after the initial discovery. She mostly made fun of me for not noticing her blatant crush. She didn¡¯t threaten me with clich¨¦ dismemberment or genitalia removal if I stepped astray. What it came down to was that she trusted me, and I trusted her. But she had been referring to Rebecca solely as ¡®that hussy¡¯, so I think there might have been a tiny bit of resentment left.


    I could tell that she was distracted by something as we stood in the sidevator. I noted the look of concern on her face. ¡°Hey, don¡¯t worry about Danna, she was way worse with me when I first started,¡± I said.


    Camille snorted and shook her head, ¡°That¡¯s not what¡¯s bothering me. Danna¡¯s a pushover compared to my mother, she could peel the skin off your bones with just a glance.¡±


    ¡°Then it¡¯s something about the meeting, huh?¡±


    She nodded shallowly, ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ve been stressing about it for a while now.¡±


    I gave her hand a squeeze, ¡°It¡¯ll be easier to deal with once we all get to talking about it. Wanna give me a spoiler?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not that easy, pal. You¡¯ve been trying to get me to spill what I¡¯ve been working on the past few days, no way I¡¯m going to cave now.¡±


    I shrugged as we stepped into the main facility, ¡°It was worth a shot. Anyway, you go and take your shower, it¡¯s my turn to make lunch. We¡¯ll meet in the command center, alright?¡±


    Camille made a sound of agreement and split off. The small kitchen attached to the common room wasn¡¯t going to be cooking up any five-star meals, but it was more than enough to get by. After I had eventually extracted myself from the hell that was Tom¡¯s hospital room back at the Red Eagles camp and returned to the Merlin, I found that Commander Berston had given me a good deal more than what we¡¯d agreed on as payment. There was a note on the storage chests that said, ¡°For Overtime Work¡±. When I cracked them open back at Camelot I almost started to cry from joy.


    Humming to myself, I pulled out a frying pan and started to cook some bacon. I wasn¡¯t the best chef, not by a long shot, but I could do the basics. I¡¯d love to say that Camille adhered to the feminine stereotype, but she was about as shitty at it as I was. When you work pretty much all the time, it¡¯s hard to get good at cooking. So basically, we¡¯d be eating a lot of scrambled eggs, sandwiches, and slightly burnt steaks. The Red Eagles had given us a surprising amount of meat. Colorado did a lot of ranching back before the end, so there was plenty of cow to go around, as well as pork and eggs. The majority of what we¡¯d received was wheat (pre-milled, thank God), corn, and potatoes. There was a smattering of other veggies in there as well. We were a bit too early for the apples, but we did get some peaches. Camille and I had to figure out how to bake fairly edible bread and hack off cuts of meat from the large hunks we were provided, but that wasn¡¯t too much trouble with the full knowledge of humanity in Camelot¡¯s databases.


    What it came down to is that we were good on food for a while. My services were apparently worth quite a lot. I¡¯d say the Red Eagles got their money¡¯s worth, personally. I was throwing together the second BLT when Adelaide started to speak to me over the PA, ¡°Hi, Sam. I just wanted to let you know that Camille just got to the Command Center.¡± I gave the security camera a thumbs up and stacked both sandwiches on one plate. Less dishes that way.


    Adelaide had converted the Command Center to its ¡®conference¡¯ mode. The rows of chairs that faced the big holoprojector shifted until they formed a circle around the room, and the holoprojector itself moved to be in the middle. Mini-desks unfolded out from the chairs to give people room to write on. It was so tantalizingly close to the round-table set up I dreamed about. All I needed to do was a couple of retrofits, and I¡¯d be good to go.


    For now, though, this would have to do. I took the seat next to Camille and put the plate down on her unfolded desk. She gave me a tight smile of thanks. Something was really bothering her.


    I clapped my hands together, ¡°Alright, no point in sitting around. You want to go first Camille?¡±


    She shook her head, ¡°It¡¯s probably best if I go last.¡±


    God damn it I was so fucking curious, but I hid it as best I could. ¡°No problem, I¡¯ll start us off then, unless you would like to, Adelaide?¡±


    ¡°Please, go ahead Sam,¡± Adelaide replied.


    I considered standing up and doing my thing like that then realized it would look silly as hell considering there were only two of us with physical presences here, so I just decided to go for it, ¡°Well, I don¡¯t really have much to report, honestly. I¡¯ve been trying to approach the slaver thing, the group in Hayes I told you about, from a few different angles, but I can¡¯t find a workable solution to the problem with what we¡¯ve got. We wouldn¡¯t necessarily need an army to take the town, but we¡¯d need one to hold it and reestablish order. As much as I want to end them, that¡¯s outside of my wheelhouse. I do think it might be a good idea to focus on trying to find and track raider groups, so that I can eliminate them,¡± I paused to tap a finger against the desk, ¡°As far as engineering goes, the Assault Paladin is coming along quite nicely. I give it about another month before its ready for prototyping, now that you¡¯re here Camille. I was seriously dreading trying to modify the mental firmware, it would¡¯ve taken me months. I¡¯m also pretty much done with the ¡®Mothership¡¯ loadout for the Merlin, but I¡¯ve run into a huge wall on the scanner tech. I honestly have no idea how to go about advancing it further than it already is, which is a problem, because ours clearly can¡¯t catch Assimilators.¡±Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    I hesitated, debating whether to bring my next topic up, and decided to go for it, ¡°There is one giant elephant taking a shit in the room we have to discuss. We¡¯ve got a lot of Paladin¡¯s down here, and more than enough room¡­ I¡¯m not saying that we should start bringing people aboard and getting them trained up, but we at least have to talk about the possibility.¡±


    Adelaide made a noise of agreement, ¡°I have been considering that same subject myself. There are risks, of course, that are not inconsiderable. Anyone we would train would have to be absolutely trustworthy. As soon as they come to Camelot and train to become a Paladin, they will know essentially everything about us, including what I am. We would have to develop some way to have final control over the Paladins, in the event that a pilot turns against us. And at a more fundamental level, there is the question of why we should have more Paladins in the first place.¡±


    I gave the camera puzzled look, and Adelaide responded to my voiceless question, ¡°We have to carefully think about our goals. What do we intend to do? How do we use the weapons and tools we have at our disposal? We have, up until this point, mostly reacted to situations as they have appeared before us. We have done investigations on the Hive Clusters, but beyond that we have been more or less aimless. If we start to recruit more pilots, there must be a reason for it beyond the fact that we can. Do we want to become a local power? We surely have the capability to do so, but why would we? I see in neither of you the desire to control, and we have everything that we need to survive in Camelot; it is essentially impervious to outside assault. It could be argued that under our rule, people would be safer. However, there appears to be a functional society emerging around us; we could help it grow and become stronger with the assistance of our resources, rather than control it ourselves. Do we want to attempt a major offensive against the Assimilators? That is an extremely dangerous proposition. We could end up triggering another invasion that wipes out the remnants of humanity. We simply do not know enough about why they are here to risk angering them.¡±


    I tried to think of other uses for them. ¡°Well, we could use multiple Paladins against Hayes,¡± I said slowly, ¡°But then we run into the same issue all over again. What the fuck do we do after we¡¯ve won? We¡¯d still need a stabilizing force, and I don¡¯t know if we can provide that.¡±


    ¡°Exactly. As far as I can tell, the only reason we have to recruit more Paladin pilots is to build our capabilities in case we need them to protect people. So far, that need has not arisen. The slavers have no weaponry that could threaten us in the field. There have been no major raids by Assimilators since they won the war, only small conflicts from roaming patrols. As was previously mentioned, we cannot risk a full on attack on a Hive Cluster at this juncture. Our range will not expand because we have more Paladins, we will still only be able to effectively operate in and around Colorado.¡±


    I lapsed into thought. Eventually, I said, ¡°So what it comes down to is what we want to be when we grow up, and that more or less boils down to two options: A local military power, or a superhero squad that helps out wherever possible.¡±


    ¡°Essentially, yes,¡± replied Adelaide.


    I ran a hand through my hair, ¡°Well, shit. I know that I really, really don¡¯t want to have to be in charge of anything big. And frankly, I think everyone in this room would be fucking terrible at it¡­¡± I trailed off, and then kept going, ¡°Okay. So, I think we should try for a balance. I still want to recruit people, but not many. I don¡¯t want to deal with a bunch of dipshits I don¡¯t know, but I think that being able to have a squad of six or so Paladins would let us keep our operation small without compromising our ability to fight against the vast majority of threats. That also means that we can heavily vet the people we bring aboard, they¡¯d be our most trusted allies. I have a few in mind for that, and we can keep an eye on them and gauge whether or not they can be brought into the fold. Once we have that nailed down, we can start to act as intermediaries between towns. If we can help them build up infrastructure and defense, as well as connect them to each other, they can become secure and self-sufficient without us having to constantly baby them.¡±


    ¡°I am in favor of that plan. It allows us to mostly keep the status quo, which seems to be working, while increasing our options,¡± Adelaide said, ¡°But we have yet to hear from you, Camille. What is your opinion on this?¡±


    Camille had been silently observing us for the duration of our discussion, paying attention but adding nothing. I expected her to shoot the idea down, but to my surprise she didn¡¯t, at least not entirely, ¡°I think it¡¯s idiotic not to cover our asses. We should start making a list of potential recruits, like Sam said, and depending on how things change, we might want to bring them on board. But we have to be absolutely positive that they can be trusted.¡±


    I arched an eyebrow at her, ¡°Wow. I didn¡¯t expect that from Miss Paranoid McDistrustfulface.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s Dr Paranoid McDistrustfulface to you, plebian,¡± she corrected with an upturned nose.


    ¡°Oh, that is so not cool. The only fucking reason you have a goddamn PhD and I don¡¯t is because you got to defend your thesis before the world went to shit,¡± I said angrily.


    She waved a hand at me imperiously, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, ingrate, I don¡¯t associate myself with those unworthy of being recognized by academia. But your little Masters really is quite cute, you should be very proud.¡±


    I was about to give a scathing reply when Adelaide interrupted, ¡°As entertaining as this is to observe, I do believe we should continue our discussion of more serious matters.¡± I tried to surreptitiously shoot the camera a glare. I had finally been able to get Camille to loosen up somewhat, but now she¡¯d gone back to looking nervous and slightly sick.


    I sighed, ¡°Alright, alright, fine. I don¡¯t have anything else to add, it¡¯s one of your guys¡¯ turn for show and tell.¡±


    ¡°I have nothing remaining as well, beyond the fact that I now have full control over all of Camelot¡¯s functions,¡± Adelaide said proudly.


    I gave her a round of applause, and after a second Camille joined in as well. Adelaide had been working on that for many months now. It was a testament to the incredible cybersecurity in Camelot that she¡¯d taken this long to do it. After I got tired of clapping I looked over at Camille expectantly. She groaned and stood up, apparently not having my qualms about looking silly. I noticed that she was wearing an earpiece, probably to connect to Camelot¡¯s mental command framework.


    ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s get this party started,¡± she murmured, and the holoprojector cast a satellite projection of Denver. That surprised me more than a little. Camille caught my curious look and said, ¡°I¡¯m not quite done with my theory on the Assimilators¡¯ new behavior. There¡¯s a lot of data to pour over.¡± I sat back in my chair, mollified.


    ¡°Okay. So. This is going to be working up to something more important, but for now I''m going to start with us. We have a major problem right now,¡± Camille said, ¡°And it¡¯s that everything in this base is unfinished and our ability to detect enemies is extremely limited.¡±


    I blinked. I knew that. Why hadn¡¯t I thought of it?


    ¡°Camelot still had months to go before it was fully operational. The training systems are still using beta software, the base defenses were never completed, and most importantly, the Paladins are lacking crucial updates. Specifically, the mental firmware update that I was developing, and the efficiency optimizations that the programming team was working on. Without those, the Paladins are operating at somewhere in the neighborhood of 65% of their capability. The mental firmware in particular is heavily impacting their performance.¡±


    I raised a hand, my mouth filled with a bite of BLT. She rolled her eyes and pointed at me. I swallowed my food and lowered my hand, ¡°So can you redo the mental firmware?¡±


    ¡°I really wish I could, but it¡¯s just not feasible. The advances we made were the culmination of years of work, by a team of over thirty people. I¡¯m good, but I¡¯m not good enough to replicate that much in the timeframe we need. You almost got killed by that Hive Lord because you ran out of power,¡± I opened my mouth to say something and she cut me off, ¡°I know it¡¯s on you for not watching it, but there¡¯s no reason you should¡¯ve been that low in the first place. And beyond that, without the newer framework, you aren¡¯t perfectly synced up with the Paladin¡¯s systems yet, so you can¡¯t move as well as you should be able to. Keeping the Paladins as they are, especially since they¡¯re seeing so much use, is just too dangerous,¡± she took a breath, ¡°Too dangerous is also a very good way to describe our current ability to detect Assimilators. From what you told me about the Hive, you had absolutely no idea you were standing on top of thousands of Assimilators before they broke out. That¡¯s a recipe for catastrophe.¡±


    Camille was scratching at her elbow, which meant she was very agitated, ¡°Which brings me to the point of this whole thing.¡± The map of Denver started to zoom in rapidly, landing on a rubble strewn spot on the south-east border of the city. My eyes widened in realization.


    ¡°Oh hell no,¡± I said, jumping to my feet, ¡°That¡¯s fucking crazy.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± she said miserably, ¡°But I can¡¯t think of anything else.¡±


    ¡°I appear to be out of the loop,¡± Adelaide cut in, ¡°What am I looking at?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s our old lab. It had up to date hard copies of everything related to the Paladin. Schematics, updated simulator software, the nearly finalized mental firmware, you name it, it had it,¡± replied Camille, ¡°Problem is, we can¡¯t access it from here.¡±


    ¡°You want us to go there in person.¡± I said flatly.


    ¡°Yup.¡±


    I ran a hand through my hair, ¡°That¡¯s fucking suicide, Denver is absolutely crawling with Assimilators. When we were looking over Colorado, there were at least four Hives in city limits. Tens of thousands of Worms, Camille. We¡¯d be slaughtered.¡±


    She made eye contact, ¡°Let me finish, okay? Trust me?¡±


    I looked into her grey eyes, nodded stiffly, and sat back down.


    She continued, ¡°Those aren¡¯t the only objects of interest in that lab. It was the center of a lot of bleeding edge research. Weapons systems, vehicles, aircraft, all sorts of insane prototypes, things that were too experimental or expensive to be in mass production. Camelot has the ten most advanced fabricators ever created. We aren¡¯t limited by expense. But the most important thing in there is their scanners.¡±


    I snapped my head up.


    ¡°I¡¯m not really clear on all the details, but I heard from someone in the lab, before everything went to shit, that they¡¯d made a massive breakthrough in scanner tech. They could actually pierce through an Assimilator. You could see their inner workings in real time¡­¡±


    ¡°Which means we could see the ganglions in the Hive Lords,¡± I finished for her, ¡°and then I wouldn¡¯t just be firing blindly and hoping for a hit. I could target their weak spots, actually kill them instead of just whittling them down. And we wouldn¡¯t get caught by surprise Worms anymore.¡±


    She nodded at me, ¡°And they have some way of shielding themselves from our current scanners. The new technology might solve that issue¡¯¡±


    I rubbed my forehead, ¡°Fuck. That¡¯s a hell of an incentive alright. But it doesn¡¯t really matter how many nice things they have there if we can¡¯t fight our way in without getting swamped by the entire Assimilator population of Denver.¡±


    Camille hesitated, ¡°Well. We actually can.¡±


    ¡°Come again?¡± I said.


    ¡°Runners and scavengers have been passing through the outskirts of Denver recently,¡± she explained, ¡°They know ways of getting around the Assimilators without being noticed.¡±


    ¡°So it would be an infiltration mission, essentially,¡± chipped in Adelaide.


    ¡°Exactly. The lab is near the edge of the Hives¡¯ territory. Ideally, we wouldn¡¯t be fighting any Assimilators, we¡¯d be sneaking past them.¡±


    I shook my head, ¡°I guess it¡¯s technically possible, but I have no clue how to do that type of thing, beyond some basic stealth training in the simulator. I¡¯ve never even heard of infiltrating a Hive Cluster, and I¡¯m not a Runner¡­¡± I suddenly caught on, ¡°But Mary from Sterling is. You¡¯re saying we should hire her, or another Runner, to guide us?¡±


    ¡°Yup. And the Red Eagles scout team too, if we can,¡± Camille replied.


    I thought about it for a bit. As insane as the husk of the plan was, it sounded like it could potentially be pulled off, especially if there was a precedent for people going through Denver before. And I wasn¡¯t going to lie to myself: We really needed what was there. Without the heavy weapons of the Merlin supporting me, I had no realistic way of putting a Hive Lord down, and the upgrades to the Paladin would be unbelievably useful. But there were still major problems.


    ¡°I mean, maybe we could get them on board, but that¡¯s a pretty big assumption. I don¡¯t know if anyone would agree to something as crazy as this. And there¡¯s also a fairly big point you¡¯re glossing over: Paladin¡¯s aren¡¯t exactly sneaky, Camille,¡± I said.


    Camille looked like she was going to vomit, ¡°That¡¯s the thing. You wouldn¡¯t be in a Paladin.¡±

 Chapter 2.27: Gathering

    I stared at Camille dumbfounded. I looked down at my BLT, and then back to her, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, did you spike my sandwich while I wasn¡¯t looking, because I thought you just said that I won¡¯t be in a Paladin when I go into the middle of an Assimilator infested city, and that would be fucking crazy. So I¡¯m tripping balls, right?¡±


    ¡°I know it sounds crazy ¨C¡°


    ¡°Oh holy shit you weren¡¯t kidding,¡± I cut her off, incredulous, ¡°I¡¯m just gonna go with a hell no on that plan. No force on heaven or earth could get me to go in there without a Paladin.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure you want to be quoting that right now?¡± Camille asked with a wry smile, ¡°You do realize Grant ended up going, right?¡±


    I snorted, ¡°Unlike him, I¡¯m not a complete fucking idiot, so yeah, I¡¯m pretty comfortable quoting it.¡±


    Adelaide added her opinion, ¡°I have to agree with Sam, Camille. This seems like a very bad idea.¡±


    Camille sighed in frustration, ¡°Look, will you at least listen to the rest of what I spent the last two days putting together?¡±


    I considered my options. On one hand, if I listened to her plan I might actually be convinced to go along with this batshit bonkers farce. On the other, she¡¯d be really pissed at me if I didn¡¯t. Since I¡¯ve established that I wasn¡¯t a complete fucking idiot, I went with option number two.


    ¡°Yup, nope, not even considering it. How about we go watch a movie?¡± I said, standing up with a stretch.


    ¡°Every time it¡¯s my turn to choose movies, I¡¯ll pick the Phantom Menace. For two weeks straight,¡± Camille said quietly.


    I froze and turned to her in horror, ¡°You wouldn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t I?¡±


    My eyes turned hard, ¡°You do realize there are going to be consequences for this, don¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°I accept all responsibility,¡± she said, unyielding, ¡°and I¡¯ll even sweeten the pot. You get my movie choices for those weeks if you stay and listen.¡±


    We stared at each other for a half a minute, then I slowly sat back down. Adelaide gave a sigh of relief. I¡¯d made her watch it once.


    ¡°Good choice. Alright, you know what¡¯s in the vault now, and why it¡¯s important to us. Now let me lay out exactly why I¡¯m proposing something this insane,¡± Camille brought up a map of North Eastern Colorado. We were a bright little dot almost directly between Sterling Outpost and Burlington. ¡°Normally, I¡¯d say that we should wait, develop some sort of stealth Paladin and go in with that. Those upgrades obviously aren¡¯t worth the risk to our lives, after all. But developing something so radically different from the original design would take months, at the very least, and I don¡¯t know if we have that time.¡± The map zoomed in on the Pawnee National Grassland, right on the Hive Cluster Adelaide and I had harassed. For reference, it was almost directly west of Sterling.


    ¡°Do you see what¡¯s going on?¡± Camille asked.


    I looked closely. ¡°Nope,¡± I responded cheerily.


    ¡°Okay, fine. Let¡¯s look at something else,¡± the map switched places rapidly, and focused on a Hive about seventy-five miles north of Sterling, over the Nebraskan border. I was confused. She was just showing Hive Clusters in their normal dispersal pattern.


    ¡°Oh, no,¡± said Adelaide, with fear in her voice.


    ¡°I¡¯m missing something here,¡± I said, ¡°Those are just Hive Clusters. We¡¯ve known about them for a long time.¡±


    Camille just silently panned the camera to one more Hive, this time a few hundred miles south of us. ¡°See the difference?¡±


    I frowned and was about to ask if this was just an annoying prank, when my breath froze in my throat. That Hive Cluster to the south was different. It had thousands more Assimilators. Camille jumped the map back to the Pawnee Grasslands one, then silently switched between dozens of other Hives. All of them, without exception, had a near uniform number of Assimilators. Except for the two near Sterling. They were missing around five thousand each.


    ¡°Where the fuck did they all go?¡± I asked, ¡°They can¡¯t have just up and disappeared.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the ten-thousand Assimilator question, isn¡¯t it?¡± Camille replied, ¡°I have absolutely no idea. I was looking over the satellite images to try to plot the dispersal pattern, and I noticed it. They were there one day, and gone the next.¡±


    I felt sick to my stomach, ¡°The scanners can¡¯t pick them up.¡±


    ¡°Bingo.¡±


    Adelaide sounded panicked over the coms, ¡°This is just like the invasion into the Americas. We have no way of telling where they are, or what they are planning.¡±


    ¡°But the scanner tech might let us,¡± I said, standing up and starting to pace. Fuck. Fuckity fucking fuck. I didn¡¯t have to state the obvious to them. Only the Assimilators closest to Sterling had disappeared. Where there happened to be a creepy, empty Hive and a Red Eagles advance team that found something dangerous enough to be hunted by a Hive Lord.


    I heard Adelaide begin to speak again, ¡°I now understand why the new scanner technology is necessary. But why don¡¯t we just hire a team to get it for us? Why risk going ourselves?¡±


    I was the one that refuted her, ¡°We can¡¯t do that. The vault is heavily biometrically locked down. You know how long it took you to crack Camelot¡¯s system? The vault is far simpler to secure, so it might take even you years to get through it. Camille and I have access to it, but we have to be there in person. That thing can¡¯t be fooled or hacked in to.¡±


    Camille grimaced, ¡°Exactly. We can¡¯t just hand this off to someone, as much as I¡¯d like to.¡±


    ¡°We need to warn Sterling, get them prepared. I¡¯ll start the fabricators on making weapons and armor,¡± I stopped and frowned, ¡°Why do we even need the scanners? We could just make Sterling into a fortress and¡­¡± I cut myself short, ¡°Ugh. I¡¯m being an idiot. We don¡¯t know that they¡¯re going for Sterling, do we?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s true. We have no knowledge of what their plans are until we have access to those scanners. They could be after something completely different,¡± Adelaide agreed.


    ¡°And we¡¯d just be waiting around in Sterling with our thumbs up our asses. Well, that doesn¡¯t stop us from warning them and getting shit ready. We should let Commander Berston know, he¡¯d probably be willing to help out,¡± I said.


    Camille cleared her throat.


    I looked at her guiltily, ¡°Sorry, you were saying?¡±


    She gave me a frosty look, then continued, ¡°My plan is separated into five basic steps. Step one: Warn Sterling, the Red Eagles, and the surrounding communities. Step two: Begin to build up armaments in preparation for an assault. Step three: Gather a small team for infiltration. Step four: Infiltrate the lab, grab the tech, and get out. Step five: Install the scanners and make final preparations with the new intelligence and technology.¡±


    I cut in, ¡°Step six: Question mark. Step seven: Profit.¡± I got another glare for that, so I shut up again.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°Where was I¡­ Right, steps one, two, and five are pretty straight forward. Steps three and four are where things get¡­ complicated.¡±


    The holoprojector switched to list of names. There was a photo of the person named next to each one. I ran my eyes down it. There weren¡¯t any surprises on here, but I was worried about something. Noting Camille¡¯s increasingly annoyed look, I decided to hold my questions to the end.


    ¡°The issue with this, obviously, is how to get people to agree to something so crazy. I have a potential solution to that: Honesty, and a whole lot of payment. Mary should be the easiest to recruit. Once we show Sterling Outpost the satellite images and explain what the danger is, as well as offer plenty of incentive, I don¡¯t think Sterling will be able to ignore us. The Red Eagles team could prove to be more difficult. But with them, we have one big advantage; they¡¯re mercenaries, so they always have a price. Camelot can whip up some pretty advanced toys, which should be excellent to trade.¡±


    I pretty much agreed with her assessment, and though I didn¡¯t say it out loud, both Mary and the Red Eagles owed me their lives, which I¡¯m sure had to count for something. But I did have to add something, ¡°If we do manage to get them on board, this could be super helpful for later. My list of potential Paladin pilots pretty much matches the people on the screen. Being able to work with them in a combat situation, where I¡¯m not just protecting them from getting killed, will actually let me see if they¡¯re viable candidates.¡±


    Camille considered it, ¡°Huh. I hadn¡¯t thought of that, but sure. Anyway, we get the gang together and outfit them in the best gear we have. There¡¯s no need to be stingy here. The plan after that is fairly straightforward, but it¡¯s going to be tricky to pull off.¡±


    <hr>


    Mary sat across from me in the bar, rolling a glass of whiskey around in her hand. Her eyes were boring into mine, and I had to resist the urge to fidget uncomfortably. I¡¯d been in Sterling for around an hour now, and after informing the mayor about their potential impending doom, I¡¯d pulled Mary aside to talk about the infiltration plan. Since I¡¯d finished my spiel, she¡¯d been silent for almost a minute. I was starting to get nervous, so I took a sip of my drink to calm my nerves, then grimaced. This whiskey was fucking terrible.


    She set down her glass, and leaned forward, rubbing her temples, ¡°So what you¡¯re telling me is that you want me to guide you on some suicidal mission to a lab in Denver, so that you can get your hands on tech that would let us detect cloaked Assimilators? Which, if I¡¯m understanding it correctly, might not exist in the first place?¡±


    ¡°Uh. Well it sounds bad when you put it like that, but essentially, yes,¡± I admitted.


    She looked at me for a second, took a long swig of her whiskey, and then sighed, ¡°Alright, I¡¯m in. One condition, I want access to the scanner tech you find.¡±


    It took that second to sink in, ¡°Wait. What?¡± I asked, incredibly confused, ¡°Why are you saying yes?¡±


    She raised an eyebrow, ¡°Did you want me to say no?¡±


    I waved my hands, ¡°Of course not! And I¡¯ll definitely give you the scanner tech. But I mean, it¡¯s a pretty risky plan, and pardon my saying so, but you don¡¯t seem the type to take many risks.¡±


    She lapsed into silence, seeming to ignore my statement. I sat there awkwardly, and decided to observe the bar in the meantime. It was a small place, just your usual small-town tavern really. A couple of booths, like the one we were in, a couple of tables, and the bar itself, complete with a mustachioed bartender that was wiping down glasses. It was only us in the place right now, considering that it was before 11:00 AM. It was chilly in here, fall meant that the days didn¡¯t get warm until the afternoon.


    I brought my attention back to Mary as she started to speak again, ¡°Few reasons I said yes. First, I like this town, and I don¡¯t want the people here getting screwed. Second, I¡¯m a Runner, and I intend to be a Runner for a good while. If your new scanners can actually spot those cloaked Assimilators, I¡¯ll be much less likely to die out there. Third, I owe you one, and I hate debts. And last, with a few tweaks your plan¡¯s not impossible with me there to guide you, not by a longshot.¡±


    I let out a breath I hadn¡¯t realized I¡¯d been holding. Mary was the most important person to get on board with this plan. She had an incredible reputation around the small towns here, according to Camille at least. Without her, we¡¯d have to find someone else competent enough to get us through to the lab, and frankly, I didn¡¯t know anyone else.


    As I was musing, another question popped up in my head, ¡°Are you going to be bringing along Mike and Wade?¡±


    Mary snorted, ¡°Nah. Those boys are good, but they¡¯re green. If we get into a scrape in there, they¡¯d be deadweight. I hope the team you¡¯re getting is better.¡±


    I shrugged, ¡°They¡¯re a Red Eagles scout team, and they seem to be pretty damn good.¡±


    Mary made an impressed face, ¡°Red Eagles scouts, huh? That¡¯s better than I expected. Those guys don¡¯t fuck around. They also don¡¯t come cheap.¡±


    ¡°Well, I don¡¯t plan on being cheap,¡± I said with a grin. Mary smirked and raised her glass at me, and I raised mine in return.


    <hr>


    Commander Berston studied the map in front of him. The holoprojector in the Red Eagles Command Center was displaying the Assimilators¡¯ disappearing act. He was impassive, and his eyes were flicking over the satellite images rapidly. The Command Center¡¯s main room was medium sized, with a similar set up to Camelot¡¯s, minus the fancy conversion capabilities. Currently, the rest of the scout team was in the room as well, sans Tom. He was still in the middle of rehab, and was in no shape to go on a mission this dangerous, much to his consternation. We were standing with the Commander, waiting for him to speak.


    I perked up when Berston took his hand off his chin, signaling he was about to speak, ¡°Well. I¡¯m not even going to ask you where you got these images, but they seem genuine. I must say, this is definitely troubling. I will accept your offer for the Scout Team. Ten HRA949 hovertank railguns, and copies of the new scanners, in exchange for our help on this mission of yours. If, of course, they volunteer for it.¡±


    I nodded, ¡°Obviously. I consider these weirdos my friends. There¡¯s no way I wouldn¡¯t let them choose to take this on.¡±


    Berston smiled slightly and turned to the squad, ¡°You heard the man. What¡¯s it going to be?¡±


    To my incredible surprise, it was Jackson that spoke first, ¡°I¡¯m going.¡±


    He must have caught my look of shock because he scowled at me, ¡°Look, you might be a dick sometimes, but you saved my buddies¡¯ asses. I don¡¯t forget things like that.¡± He winced and looked at the Commander sheepishly, ¡°Apologies for the language, sir.¡±


    Aaron glanced around the rest of the squad, then spoke next, ¡°I believe that Jackson captured all our thoughts, in a nutshell. We stick by people that help us.¡±


    ¡°Yup,¡± said Allie, ¡°You¡¯re a proper friend. Don¡¯t know many that¡¯d throw down with a Hive Lord for me. Besides, this kind of thing is our MO. We¡¯ve snuck right next to a Hive itself for recon, going around the outside of one is nothing.¡±


    Rebecca made eye contact with me and grinned, ¡°Now that you¡¯re out of your fancy caterpillar suit, you¡¯re gonna need someone with some actual skill to carry you through this.¡±


    I was a bit overwhelmed. I¡¯d expected maybe Aaron and Rebecca to go along, and hesitantly at that. ¡°Thanks guys,¡± I said, my voice thick, ¡°It¡¯s going to be my turn to owe you one after this.¡±


    ¡°Oh God, if you start blubbering on us I swear I might change my mind,¡± groaned Rebecca.


    Aaron turned to me, ¡°I joined the Red Eagles to assist those in need. If the scanning technology in that lab is truly what you say it is, and we can spread it to the rest of humanity, then we¡¯ll save more people than I ever could alone. That is worth the risk, to me at least.¡±


    As much as Aaron enraged me with his perfect good looks and charming personality, I knew he was at the top of my list for recruitment. He didn¡¯t even wear the Shield, and he already embodied the most important thing a Paladin should stand for. I looked over all the members of the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team. I got really damn lucky that I ran into them out here.


    Commander Berston shook his head with a bemused smile, ¡°I believe you have your answer, Mr. Lewis. I¡¯m not sure exactly what you did to inspire such loyalty so quickly, but there you have it.¡± I had a warm glow in me, but that was shortly ruined by Berston¡¯s next words, ¡°Unfortunately, the Red Eagles will not be able to assist the town of Sterling.¡±


    Aaron looked at him in shock, ¡°Sir?¡±


    ¡°Captain David, I do not believe I gave you permission to speak. Take your squad and clear the room.¡± Berston said sharply. Aaron immediately snapped his mouth shut, and the scout team walked swiftly from the Command Center.


    Berston faced me again, and continued, ¡°The Red Eagles make it a point of helping where we can. I believe that all of us have a responsibility to humanity. I however, have a responsibility to my soldiers, and that comes above all else. I cannot afford to keep my entire company here for however long it will take to discover what these aliens are plotting. Nor will I send them into battle against a force of that strength if it is not absolutely necessary to.¡±


    I narrowed my eyes at him, ¡°Despite the fact that it was your advance team that started this whole mess? It doesn¡¯t have to be your full company. A small contingent to help the people of Sterling train would be more than enough.¡±


    ¡°You have no proof of that, and even if it were the case, I did not order them to do whatever it is they did,¡± the Commander said calmly, ¡°We are a mercenary company. We are not the military, we are not sworn to protect civilians. If there is an opportunity to, I will direct the Red Eagles to help, but not at the risk of my troops. In fact, the only reason I¡¯m allowing the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team to go along with this is because they insisted I allow them to, and more than a hundred of my people owe you their lives. I owe Sterling Outpost nothing.¡±


    I gave him a bitter smile, ¡°So all your altruism comes down to is convenience. It¡¯s funny, Aaron told me about your ¡®code of ethics¡¯. I never thought it would be so flexible.¡±


    Berston sighed, and he looked just a little older, ¡°There was a time when I thought of the world like Aaron did, and like you clearly do. One day you¡¯re going to learn what it means to lose those that trust you with their lives, due to a decision you make. When that day comes, Sam, you can talk to me about ethics.¡±

 Chapter 2.28: A Plan Comes Together

    I stood in the main room of the Red Eagles Command Center, inspecting the holographic map of Denver that was displayed in front of me. As part of the agreement for hiring the scout team, I¡¯d been given access to this room for the briefing. It was frankly pretty shitty compared to Camelot¡¯s, but that wasn¡¯t important. I had a measure of trust in everyone that was going on the mission with me, but I wasn¡¯t nearly at the point where I¡¯d be okay with them hanging out in my home base.


    Mary was standing next to me, her arms crossed across her chest. I¡¯d picked her up from Sterling on the way over here so she could be involved in the briefing as well. She was wearing the same gear I had on. It was a light armor, far less bulky than the heavy armor I¡¯d used in the simulator, but no less protective. While the heavy armor was standard-issue, I¡¯d extensively customized this set. It used a lot of the same materials as the Paladins¡¯ armor, except the ones that added too much weight. It didn¡¯t offer complete coverage, that¡¯d lower maneuverability if there wasn¡¯t a mechanical system like the Paladins¡¯ in place, but it shielded the vitals perfectly. I wouldn¡¯t be tanking any Hive Lord claws in this, but I could handle a solid hit from a M-1 or R-1 Assimilator. I¡¯d painted them a very dark navy blue for this mission, as it would be at night. The only way mine differed from hers was a slot for the Paladin insignia on my breastplate.


    ¡°This is some crazy good gear you¡¯ve got here,¡± Mary said conversationally, tapping the armor, ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve seen armor this nice before, even in spec-ops.¡±


    I quirked an eyebrow at her, ¡°The giant metal mech suit doesn¡¯t impress you, but this does?¡±


    ¡°Fair point,¡± she said, then unholstered her SMG, turning it over in her hands lovingly, ¡°Still though. Even the guns are miles ahead of the stuff they had in the service.¡±


    I smiled at her in response, ¡°I told you I wasn¡¯t planning on being cheap, remember?¡±


    I¡¯d basically just miniaturized the SMGs I had on the Paladin. They were a lot more traditional, with only one magazine instead of two, but they still had a compact form for storage. You could still use two types of ammunition, the barrel size would shift accordingly depending on the size of the bullet, but you had to manually switch the magazines. I¡¯d also silenced them, for obvious reasons, though the single-fire high caliber rounds really didn¡¯t give a shit about things like silencers. Worked well on the automatic mode though. In short, they were excellent weapons to bring on an infiltration mission. We''d be moving through some tight spaces, so the traditional assault rifles were out. I¡¯d also provided a more-or-less standard issue handcannon. I just hadn¡¯t had time to modify them yet.


    I was graced with a wolfish smile in return as she let the gun fold back up with a click, ¡°I¡¯m not complaining. Getting to keep these toys is the best thing to happen to me all year.¡±


    Any further conversation was interrupted by the door to the room sliding open. The scout team, minus Tom, funneled in led by Aaron. They¡¯d all equipped the gear I¡¯d provided, though Aaron had grumbled about not having the noble Red Eagle on his chest plate. The helmets were back in the Merlin, they covered the head fully so it didn¡¯t make much sense to have them here.


    ¡°So, Caterpillar Man,¡± said Rebecca as she walked up to me, ¡°I just had one question. How did you know exactly what size we were? This armor fits a little too perfectly to be coincidence.¡±


    I coughed, ¡°Uh. Well. The Paladin has pretty advanced scanners and stuff. So I mean, I just extrapolated the data from that and-¡°


    ¡°Pervert,¡± said Allie.


    ¡°Pervert,¡± agreed Rebecca.


    ¡°Eh,¡± shrugged Mary, ¡°better than it chafing.¡±


    Aaron cleared his throat, ¡°Sam¡¯s perversion aside,¡± -I resented that, for the record- ¡°we should probably get this briefing underway.¡±


    He offered me a wonderful escape route so I took it. I cradled the holopad in my arm and moved my fingers across the projection. The luddites didn¡¯t even have a full mental interface. The larger holoprojector mimicked my actions, and the map displayed birds eye view the Denver Tech Center, where the lab was located.


    ¡°So, before we get into the plan itself, I¡¯d like to go over a couple things. First off, introductions.¡±


    Aaron gave me an approving look. It was a little silly, like a high school class playing a name game, but getting to know the people in your squad was invaluable. You can glean a lot from a short introduction.


    Maryglanced at me, and I dipped my head shallowly in return. She heaved a sigh and raised a hand, ¡°I¡¯m Mary. Ex-Force Recon, did my time in Europe during the war. I¡¯ll be guiding you today.¡±


    The others introduced themselves much the same way. Just their names, their specialty, and that was about it. Brief, to the point. I was surprised, honestly. I didn¡¯t expect them to go revealing their deepest darkest secrets, I sure as hell wasn¡¯t planning to, but I thought I¡¯d get something more from them. It finally came to my turn, and I made another potentially shitty snap judgement call Camille was definitely going to get pissed at me for later. But she wasn¡¯t on the coms with me right now, she was getting ready for the mission, so I had free reign. I wanted these people to trust me, and trust had to start from somewhere.


    I grinned at the gathered team, ¡°As I¡¯m sure you all are very aware at this point, my name is Samuel Lewis. I was born out near San Francisco, in 1999. Let¡¯s see¡­ Yeah, I went to MIT, then did a lot of work in Xeno-Engineering, up until the world went to hell at least. As for my credentials to lead you on this mission, I think what I¡¯ve done speaks for itself, to a point. If it hasn¡¯t, hopefully this will.¡±


    I clicked the Paladin insignia out of the slot on my armor, and laid it flat on a table. Ignoring the curious looks from the squad, I pressed my thumb to it, and spoke in a clear voice, ¡°Samuel Lewis.¡± The metal disc glowed faintly, and projected a large holographic representation of the Paladin symbol, with a line of text around the circle stating my full name, military rank, and the Paladin motto. Underneath it was another symbol of some sort, which looked a lot like the Great Seal of the United States with a few weird differences, but I could never figure out what it was for, so I¡¯d always ignored.


    It meant something to Mary apparently, because she looked awestruck, ¡°Holy shit. Who the hell are you? How did you get a Presidential Commendation Seal?¡±


    ¡°What the fuck is that?¡± Allie asked helpfully. Honestly, I wanted to know too, because I frankly didn¡¯t know what the hell Mary was talking about. I was just trying to show off that I was an officer in the military, I had no idea what a Presidential Commendation Seal was.


    Luckily, Aaron answered for her, ¡°It¡¯s basically an exemption from the chain of military command. It¡¯s not like it changes your rank, you can¡¯t go ordering people around who¡¯re above you, but it means that whoever holds it can choose to disobey orders from anyone except for the Commander in Chief.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Mary agreed, her eyes still wide, ¡°Force Recon buddies of mine used to talk about them. Never seen one in the flesh before. Not many could be trusted with one.¡±


    ¡°How do you know its genuine?¡± asked Jackson, like a little dickweed, ¡°I mean, the prick could¡¯ve faked it somehow.¡±


    If I wasn¡¯t so curious about that myself I¡¯d have wanted to punch his teeth in, but I restrained myself and continued to stand impassively, like I couldn¡¯t be bothered to answer such a silly question.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    Mary snorted at him, ¡°Don¡¯t be a dumbass. Barely anybody knew about this thing, let alone could forge it. From what I hear, the holoprojector for the seal,¡± she pointed at my insignia, ¡°could only be made by one fabricator they had back at the Pentagon.¡±


    Note to self: Don¡¯t lose Paladin Insignia.


    Aaron bobbed his head up and down, ¡°I only know about them from Commander Berston, and he was pretty high up in the ranks before he retired. From what he told me, they weren¡¯t used so much during the Assimilator War, more during the Derelict Wars in the 2010¡¯s.¡± He turned to me, ¡°Which begs the question, why do you have one, Sam?¡±


    I¡¯d kind of figured that out while they¡¯d been talking, actually.


    ¡°That has something to do with my place in the military. I¡¯m a Paladin, a new designation that was created right before the end, specifically for the soldiers that would pilot Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit. If you somehow haven¡¯t put two and two together, then yes, the Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit is the big red and white thing I squash Worms in. The entire purpose of the Paladin is to act as a shield between the Assimilators and humanity. That means that sometimes, my goals and the goals of the military won¡¯t exactly line up. Whereas the army might be forced to retreat in order to preserve its forces, even if it means leaving civilians behind, a Paladin can¡¯t, and won¡¯t. The oath I took is to protect innocents at any cost, and nobody can order me to do otherwise.¡± After I finished addressing the team, I breathed a sigh of relief on the inside. That had actually sounded plausible. And I¡¯d even managed to turn it into a bit of a recruitment pitch there at the end. I snuck a glance at Aaron and saw his eyes practically shining. I had to resist the urge to chuckle. He was like putty in my hands.


    The rest of the team looked sufficiently impressed. Mary looked like she still had a lot of questions for me, but I gave a little shake of my head. I needed to get this briefing moving, we had a fairly strict deadline to meet. She inclined hers minutely, which I took to mean that we¡¯d be talking about it later.


    I clapped my hands together, ¡°So! Now that that¡¯s out of the way, we can get down to actually figuring out how we¡¯re not going to die. I¡¯ve got a pretty solid plan for that, and Mary is going to start out with some general explanations.¡±


    ¡°Alright, from what I¡¯ve heard of your corp, you¡¯re pretty good, but frankly, I don¡¯t think you quite know what you¡¯re getting into,¡± Mary said, ¡°Urban infiltration of an Assimilator controlled area isn¡¯t easy.¡±


    Jackson rolled his eyes, ¡°Well no shit. We¡¯ve worked with Worm Hives before, it¡¯s nothing spec-¡°


    Mary cut him off, ¡°Shut the fuck up, please,¡± he did, and she continued, ¡°Infiltrating a Hive in the open is a completely different beast than one in an urban environment. Assimilators have pretty good senses, but they tend to have more balanced ones than we do. That means we can see a whole hell of a lot better, which translates to a huge advantage on the plains out here, where we can see them coming from a long way off, before they see us. A megacity isn¡¯t going to be so forgiving, especially one as ruined as Denver is. Visibility is shit, sounds echo a lot more, and vibrations travel through concrete better. However careful you thought you were being out in the open, you¡¯re going to have to triple it in the city. All it takes is forgetting to check one corner. If one of the Worms spots you, the whole Hive knows. I don¡¯t have to tell you how fucked we are if that happens.¡±


    She let that sink in for a while before starting to talk again, ¡°Luckily for you all, I¡¯ve been doing this type of thing for a long goddamn time. Reason I¡¯m telling you all this is so that you know that while we¡¯re in there, my word is the word of God. Sam hired me to guide this group, and that¡¯s what I plan to do. I can¡¯t do that if some dumb sonuvabitch decides he knows the Worms better than I do.¡± She glared at Jackson again, who looked like he was going to crap himself, then stepped back.


    I mentally put myself in super serious mode, then started to speak, moving the map around as I did, ¡°The plan is pretty straightforward. The objective is the Greenwood Building, dead center of the Greenwood Plaza. The lab is in the basement. We¡¯re going to take the Merlin to a LZ outside of Denver, a place called Chatfield State Park. It¡¯s far enough that we won¡¯t tip off the Assimilators, but close enough to make it there within eight hours. That¡¯s going to be our soft time cap, for reasons I¡¯ll get to in a second. Reason we¡¯re landing west of the objective instead of directly south is so that we can cut directly North into the Littleton suburbs, which skirts the range of a nearby Hive, and then head straight east to the objective. Minute we start heading east is when things start to get a little more dicey. Littleton didn¡¯t get as heavily developed; a few high rises is all. Once we get into Greenwood Village, we start seeing the real skyscrapers. It gets tight down in the streets, so we¡¯ll have to be extremely cautious. There is some good news, though. We¡¯re going to be threading the needle between the West Denver Hive, and the South-West Hive. Means that there won¡¯t be as many patrols, we¡¯re at the edge of their range. I''m not going to go through the route street by street, because we''re going to have to improvise based on Worm patrols. Any changes will go right to the CAS."


    The map view switched to an internal schematic of a building. The Greenwood Building was a massive skyscraper, the centerpiece of the Denver Tech Center, where the vast majority of the xeno-research in the US had taken place.


    ¡°Once we reach the building, it should be smooth sailing from that point on. Assimilators generally don¡¯t leave the street, unless they¡¯re hunting. Now, that¡¯s only generally, so we¡¯re not going to be wasting time in there. We¡¯re heading straight for the basement, where the lab is. I¡¯ll get us past the biometrics on the vault, and download any software onto a drive. Any hardware we¡¯re going to have to carry. I can¡¯t guarantee what will be there; I personally haven¡¯t been in there for a couple years now. Once the tech is secured, we¡¯ll head to the roof for pick up.¡±


    I turned the projector off, and faced the squad. ¡°So, back to the eight-hour soft cap. We¡¯re going in at night, to limit the Assimilators¡¯ view as much as possible. They have good night vision, but it¡¯s still worse than it is in the day, and the CAS night vision is much better. In addition, that¡¯ll make the most important component of our plan more successful.¡± I brought up a hologram of a small drone on the projector, ¡°This is something I¡¯ve been working on for a while. They¡¯re small reconnaissance drones that link directly to the CAS. Once Adelaide drops us off at the LZ, she¡¯ll proceed to a high altitude and control them remotely,¡± that was a lie, Camille was going to be controlling them from Camelot, ¡°The drones have active camo and are almost completely silent. We¡¯re going to have six of them with us, and they¡¯re going to make sure we aren¡¯t running headfirst into any patrols. The problem with them is power. Active camo takes a whole hell of a lot of it. That means we¡¯ve got eight hours until they run dry, which means we¡¯ve got eight hours until we¡¯re blind. I don¡¯t trust the satellites; there could be any number of Assimilators that can block our scanners. The drones have cameras and Adelaide will be marking targets manually, which is why I decided to go with them despite their limitations.¡±


    I let my face get deadly serious, ¡°Now, in the event that we get discovered by the Assimilators, we¡¯ll have a maximum of ten minutes before we¡¯ve got an entire hunting party bearing down on us, roughly two hundred Worms. That¡¯s not counting any patrols that happen to be in the area, they¡¯ll be there faster. There is no way in hell we can fight that with just six of us. So if we get spotted, we¡¯re going to get to the roof of the tallest building we can find, as fast as physically possible, and call Adelaide for pickup. Doesn¡¯t matter how close we are, doesn¡¯t matter if we¡¯re a pube hair from the vault. We get compromised, we run like hell. This won¡¯t be our only shot at this, we can come back when the Hive calms down, approach from a different angle. Whatever is in that vault isn¡¯t worth our lives. I¡¯ve got a responsibility to keep you alive, and I intend to see that through.¡±


    ¡°Any questions?¡± I asked, after a moment of silence.


    Allie raised her hand, ¡°If things go tits up, why not just bring in your Paladin, or whatever the fuck it¡¯s called? From what I''ve heard about Fort Morgan, that thing can drop in from pretty fucking high.¡±


    ¡°A Paladin is way too fat to climb a building,¡± I responded, ¡°So Adelaide would have to land in the street to extract us, which isn¡¯t a great plan if we don¡¯t want to die a horrible death.¡±


    ¡°Can Adelaide handle that many drones?¡± asked Aaron.


    ¡°She can handle up to thirty at the most, but six will give her much finer control,¡± I told him. He looked quite impressed at that, for good reason. As good as I was at mental multitasking and control, Camille made me look like an amateur. She was a fucking genius. With only six drones, they¡¯d be like an extension of her body. She was training with them right now, which is why she wasn¡¯t listening in on the briefing.


    ¡°What¡¯s the policy on engaging the enemy?¡± said Jackson.


    I blinked. That wasn¡¯t that dumb of a question. ¡°Don¡¯t fire unless absolutely necessary. If one of those Assimilators goes dark, the entire Hive knows. If they aren¡¯t attacking you, don¡¯t give them any reason to.¡±


    I waited a bit for more, and with none forthcoming, I began to talk again, ¡°Alright. We¡¯re going to head to the Merlin now, so make sure you¡¯ve got everything you need with you. A couple things before we go. First, this mission is doable. It might seem crazy, but at the end of the day, the Assimilators don¡¯t really focus much on defense. They patrol, yes, but they aren¡¯t constantly on the prowl for anyone that might enter their territory, especially towards the peripheries. Second, I just want to thank you all. I want you to know that the tech we¡¯re going to get will save thousands of lives, and it means more than I can say that you¡¯d volunteer for this.¡± I looked around the room, making eye contact with each person on the team. Mary looked unfazed, Allie looked bizarrely excited, Jackson nervous, Aaron determined, and Rebecca, well, she quirked a lip up at me teasingly.

 Chapter 2.29: Suburbs

    As everyone else started to funnel out of the command center, Aaron pulled me aside to discuss some last-minute details. Food, water, medical kits, emergency supplies, that sort of thing. I would have been fairly unprepared, had I not worked out all of it with Mary beforehand. She was, unsurprisingly, incredibly thorough with her preparations. We were going over the final points of bathroom breaks, because of course we were, when the door to the command center slid open behind us. I saw Aaron snap to attention, and I turned to find Command Berston approaching us.


    He inclined his head in greeting, ¡°Sam, do you have a minute before you head out?¡±


    ¡°I do, actually. I was hoping to get a chance to speak with you as well,¡± I responded.


    Aaron was still standing stiffly, ¡°Would you like me to clear the room, sir?¡±


    Berston waved at him, ¡°At ease, Captain. You may stay if you like, but don¡¯t interrupt.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir,¡± said Aaron, and stepped back a few feet.


    I saw that Berston wanted to start speaking, but I beat him to the punch, ¡°I wanted to start off by apologizing to you, Commander. I was out of line the other day. It¡¯s not my place to tell you what you should and shouldn¡¯t do with your command. Honestly, it¡¯s pretty awesome that you care about your soldiers so much. I also want to explain myself, somewhat. I am not frivolously using the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team for my own selfish purposes. I¡¯m asking them to help me save thousands of people, because I can¡¯t alone, and they came with me of their own volition. However, I won¡¯t ask them, or you, to fight with me in whatever conflict comes after. I couldn¡¯t do so in good conscience, I couldn¡¯t use any debts they feel they owe me to influence them like that. I understand what it means to lose people, Commander.


    ¡°Whatever happens, I¡¯m going to go into that fight myself if it means protecting the people of Sterling, even if it looks hopeless. I didn¡¯t mention it when we spoke last, but that¡¯s what I swore an oath to do. Is that idealistic? Hell yes. But that ideal is what I stand for, and I¡¯m not going to abandon it. I¡¯ve come to terms with the fact that people I care about might suffer for my actions, that if I die it¡¯ll destroy the ones I love, and vice versa. I get that your first responsibility is to your soldiers, and I respect your decision to keep them uninvolved. If you change your mind however, get in touch. I¡¯m never going to turn down help.¡±


    I winced. There I go getting preachy again. Uther stuck with me a little more than I thought he did. Commander Berston had his eyebrows raised, and I felt a wave of embarrassment. He cracked a small smile, ¡°I came to apologize as well, strangely enough. I haven¡¯t changed my mind, but an old man like myself shouldn¡¯t be lecturing someone that¡¯s willing to put himself in harm¡¯s way so readily for other people. I admire what you do. In your position, I wouldn¡¯t be going to Denver, hell, I probably wouldn¡¯t have stayed to fight that Hive Lord.¡±


    Well, I can¡¯t say I was expecting that. It appeared Aaron didn¡¯t either, but he had a barely contained look of disappointment on his face rather than surprise. Still, I was pretty happy with the praise.


    ¡°While I¡¯m still not going to send my company to Sterling, I have a peace offering, of sorts, that I hope will help you out,¡± he pulled a small black drive of some sort out of his uniform¡¯s pocket. Noting my frown Berston explained, ¡°This is the hard drive that was inside the black box you helped the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouts recover. It¡¯s not much of a gift, frankly. Our technical team ran into a wall with it, they can¡¯t go any further with their analysis. But you seem to be well equipped, to put it lightly. I¡¯m hoping that you¡¯ll have the capability to find out what the hell is on this, and that it¡¯ll be helpful in figuring out whatever those Assimilators are up to.¡±


    I took the box from him reverently, turning it over in my hands. I¡¯m not above admitting that I had fantasized before about finding what was on here. I managed to take my eyes off it long enough to give my heartfelt gratitude to Berston.


    He waved it off, ¡°Please. It was the least I could do. We weren¡¯t going to be getting anything more from it anyway. But let us know if you manage to find out what¡¯s on it.¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± I said with a dip of my head, ¡°And thank you, again.¡±


    He turned to walk out of the room, but stopped and looked back, ¡°Captain David, if you¡¯ll please accompany me, I have some things I¡¯d like to discuss with you.¡± Aaron followed him out.


    I went back to staring at the drive, wondering how to go about trying to get information off of it. Adelaide came to mind as the obvious solution to the problem, but I¡¯d need to rig up appropriate hardware to ensure that even if something went wrong during the analysis, the data onboard wouldn¡¯t be destroyed. I was planning out the framework for the idea when someone cleared their throat loudly.


    I let out a very manly and dignified shriek and jumped a foot in the air. Rebecca was leaning on one of the tables in the room, with a big grin on her face.


    ¡°That was the funniest shit I¡¯ve seen all week,¡± she said, chortling.


    I tried to come up with a witty comeback. ¡°Yeah well. Shut up,¡± is what I managed to get out. My witty comebacks need work. Rebecca¡¯s raised eyebrow indicated she agreed with that.


    ¡°Besides trying to startle me into literally shitting my pants, whatcha need?¡± I asked, trying to avoid direct eye contact. Ever since I¡¯d been clued in on her¡­ feelings, it¡¯d been a little hard interacting with her. I didn¡¯t want to lead her on or anything.


    ¡°I want you stop worrying about leading me on,¡± she said flatly.


    Oh.


    ¡°Unlike you,¡± she continued, ¡°I don¡¯t have a lead skull, so it was pretty damn obvious when you figured out I had a thing for you. Honestly, it was kinda cute. But it might lead to problems on the sort-of-suicidal mission we¡¯re on if you can barely make eye contact with me.¡±


    She had a fair point.


    I was fairly flustered at this point, ¡°Look, I don¡¯t want to hurt your feelings or anything, I jus-¡°


    ¡°Shut up,¡± she sighed, so I did.


    ¡°Look, I¡¯m going to say again that I¡¯m not nearly as fucking dense as you are, which means I noticed the face you made when Anton asked you about your girlfriend. I get it, I really do. That¡¯s not the type of thing you just get over. But I like talking to you, you¡¯re easy to pick on but you put up a decent fight most of the time. So don¡¯t start getting all squirrelly on me.¡±


    She walked up to me and rapped her knuckles on the front of my armor, ¡°Let¡¯s just go back to how it was before, okay? No use messing with a good thing, and I think we had a pretty good thing before. Seriously, don¡¯t stress about it, it¡¯s not good for your complexion.¡± She turned and walked towards the door, giving me a parting shot before she left, ¡°But when you¡¯re ready, keep me in mind.¡±


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    <hr>


    It was just after dusk when the Merlin came to a soft landing next to Chattfield Lake. The ride over had been shockingly uneventful, but had given me a chance to get re-chummy with Rebecca, and more importantly, had allowed the team to go over the plan again. Mary had been specifying buildings on the map that would be good spots to bug out to if we were spotted. She also gave us rough approximations of the range of an Assimilator¡¯s senses. Hopefully, that wouldn¡¯t be an issue with the drones spotting for us, but it didn¡¯t hurt to be safe.


    As we stood up to get out of the Merlin, a series of clunks announced that Adelaide started to deploy the drones. I didn''t have time prior to the mission to finish the design of the ¡®mothership¡¯ attachment, so I¡¯d replaced the rocket pods with a couple of slapdash harnesses. My reasoning was that the main cannon could handle most things, and the torpedoes would take care of anything it couldn¡¯t. Besides, if we were at the point where things were going badly enough that we needed the Merlin to start engaging, we were pretty fucked. Which probably meant it was going to happen.


    Before I put on my helmet, I addressed the team, ¡°Alright, we¡¯ve got the plan nailed down. Don¡¯t do anything stupid, don¡¯t fuck up, and most importantly, if you die then I¡¯m going to get murdered by Berston, so please don¡¯t do that either. Well, except for you, Mary, but don¡¯t die anyway because that¡¯d be pretty upsetting.¡±


    I got a collective eye roll and sigh from the assembled group. I grinned at them, ¡°Let¡¯s get this shit over with, I wanna be home in time for breakfast.¡±


    I slid on my helmet and it locked into the neck of my armor with a satisfying click. It had a darkly tinted, see-through visor a lot like the Paladin¡¯s, made out of the same materials, and the CAS sprung to life on the inside of it. My squad mates were highlighted in green as my gaze moved over them. I unholstered my gun as the ramp descended, letting in the cold fall air.


    One by one we left the Merlin, gathering in a small group near the edge of the lake. I tried to find the drones in the air, but was having a hard time of it. The only thing that gave one away was a very faint blue anti-grav signature. And the fact that my CAS could highlight them, but that felt like cheating. I was really proud of the finalized design. Active camo had been around for a while, but it hadn¡¯t been used on a platform this small before. It took some serious finagling to get the power supply sorted.


    I gave a wave to one, and it bobbed up and down in return. Camille, being a rational not-idiot, hadn''t insisted on going on the mission. She hadn¡¯t done any combat training in the simulator, she was still just preparing her body for the enhancement procedure. Not to mention she didn''t have any squad tactics training whatsoever. Camille wasn¡¯t under any illusions that she¡¯d be anything other than a liability out here, and honestly, having her control the drones was far more helpful than having another pair of boots on the ground.


    Camille wouldn¡¯t be partaking in any banter that might pop up, which was a shame. She¡¯d decided that it was probably okay to let people know she was still alive and with me, but hadn¡¯t wanted to distract anybody (cough, Rebecca, cough) with that knowledge before the sort-of-suicide mission was over.


    ¡°Coms check, wave once if you hear this,¡± I said. Just like the Paladin, the helmets restricted noise from escaping if set to do so, so we didn''t have to worry about pesky things like radio silence. Everyone waved back at me. The night vision on the CAS was fairly advanced. It looked like daytime for a good distance, but vision dropped off rapidly at the edge of its range, and everything faded to black.


    ¡°Okay, let''s get moving. Remember, the drones might not see everything, so keep focused.¡±


    We started a quick walk, following the path laid out on our CAS. The Merlin took off behind us, ascending quickly to above the clouds, where it would hover in wait. I looked over to where the Denver skyline should have been. Since the StarArc fell, the city had developed incredibly quickly, as more and more xeno-research came its way. Along with New York and LA, it became one of the three ¡®megacities¡¯ in the US, turning into a field of sleek skyscrapers. Before, it would have been lit up so brightly that you couldn¡¯t see the stars, and the echo of people and traffic could be heard clearly. Now though, the city was silent, and eerily dark, the night vision on the CAS unable to see the buildings from this far out. It feltwrong, in a deeply disturbing way, to stand and face the place I lived for years, that I knew so well, and see nothing at all.


    We stayed quiet, for the most part, during the two hours or so that it took to move into the Littleton suburbs. It¡¯s not like it was particularly dangerous: we only had to change route once, there¡¯d been an Assimilator patrol that might¡¯ve intersected our initial one. The chit-chat was mostly stifled by the somber atmosphere. If viewing the void that should''ve been a city was eerie, walking through the suburbs was straight up unsettling.


    ¡°Fuck me,¡± said Allie in a hushed voice, ¡°I like this place even less than I liked that empty Hive.¡±


    The houses were a mix of old and new, with a decided lean towards redeveloped newer ones. But it didn¡¯t matter, because they were all equally destroyed. This place hadn¡¯t gone nicely. Rubble was strewn through the streets, walls were torn apart, and some houses were almost entirely demolished. Cars were strewn like toys, and many had their metal shells ripped through like butter. I couldn¡¯t see any corpses, which was unsettling, but I saw the evidence they¡¯d left behind. There wasn¡¯t any blood in the streets, but every once in a while, there would be large splotches of it on the walls of houses. I started to imagine what it must¡¯ve been like when the Assimilators invaded. It was late at night when they attacked; most people would¡¯ve been in bed by that point. They¡¯d attacked other cities first though, so maybe everyone had been awake, gathered around the holoprojectors, watching the world burn, when the sirens started to blare. I forced myself to stop thinking about it. Getting distracted could get me, or someone else, killed.


    The CAS had been leading us up to this point, with little input from Mary, but she stopped us with an upraised fist, then led the way into an empty house. The CAS showed the drones arrange themselves in a circle around the perimeter. Mary crouched down and motioned for us to do the same.


    ¡°Alright, this where things get serious. We just skirted way outside the perimeter of the south-west Hive, but now we¡¯re going to be moving in between it and the Hive directly to its north. Patrols are going to increase, and the terrain is going to get real hazardous. We¡¯ve done well so far, but we have room for improvement. Jackson, Allie: you¡¯re not stepping lightly enough. Rebecca, Sam: I caught both of you getting lost in your heads, can¡¯t let that shit continue. Other than that, I¡¯ve got no complaints, but we¡¯re going to have to be better about communication, calling out potential hazards or threats.¡± She paused to turned to me, ¡°Anything you want to add, Sam?¡±


    I had a second of internal debate, then decided to say my piece, ¡°Nothing to add to the tactical situation, I¡¯m happy to follow your lead on that front. But there is one thing I¡¯d like you all to keep an eye out for. I don¡¯t know if you noticed, but there aren¡¯t any bodies here. At all. Assimilators don¡¯t eat, so something happened to them. I haven¡¯t heard of anything like this, so any intel we can gather on it might be critical.¡±


    Mary nodded, ¡°I noticed it too. It¡¯s definitely unusual.¡±


    ¡°Christ, you just had to go and make things even fucking creepier,¡± muttered Rebecca.


    ¡°Regardless, don¡¯t let it distract you. Keeping alert for Assimilators is more important,¡± added Aaron.


    ¡°Agreed. It¡¯s something to be aware of, but once we get the new scanners, we can figure out more without risking our lives,¡± I looked around the group, ¡°If there¡¯s nothing else, let¡¯s move out. We¡¯re making good time, let¡¯s keep it up.¡±


    We exited the house, and started heading in a north-eastern arc towards the objective. The route took us through more of the devastated suburbs, and the damage only got worse as we closed in on Denver proper. The hollowed shells of hovertanks and APCs started to appear on the streets, most of them ripped to pieces. Scorch marks stained the ground, and thousands of spent shells of ammunition and hundreds of mangled weapons were scattered around.


    Jackson spoke up for the first time, ¡°They got slaughtered out here.¡±


    ¡°But not a single goddamned body,¡± said Allie.


    The skyscrapers were looming large in front of us, the tops of them disappearing in the black, the night vision unable to see that far up. It was like they were melting into an impenetrably dark fog. We stopped again in the cover of a short highrise just before the major road which separated the suburbs from the city proper. The contrast was stark. On the west side of the road, the tallest buildings were just short, stout apartments. Just a couple hundred feet to the east, the buildings suddenly sprung to at least a hundred stories. The streets between them faded into nothingness.


    We took turns standing sentry as everyone took the chance to get a drink or relieve themselves. There probably wasn¡¯t going to be another opportunity for a long while. I waited until everyone had their helmets back on.


    ¡°This is it. Everyone ready?¡± A chorus of subdued ayes followed my question. I didn¡¯t bother giving them the option to turn back. I knew nobody would take me up on it anyway. I took a deep breath, and led the squad across the road, into the belly of the beast.

 Chapter 2.30: Denver

    When I pictured Denver after the war, I always pictured it burning.


    Not so much an inferno, but I pictured flames still smoldering in the buildings, casting dim lights onto the streets. I pictured things scurrying around in the shadows, maybe the evidence of a survivor here or there. I pictured bodies hanging from the windows or leaned up against the fractured buildings.


    What I got was sheer desolation.


    Denver was wrapped in a smothering silence that seemed to ooze out of every burnt-out building that lined the streets we shuffled down. The silence shrunk back at our footsteps but crept up behind us as we moved past. Every time we spoke it dispelled a little, but it filled into the cracks left when the conversation inevitably trailed off.


    The squad was advancing much slower now, walking in a tight cluster. Camille was keeping the drones in a rough circle around us; some of them were on watch while darting a couple of them down side streets and into buildings. It had been a couple hours since we¡¯d entered the city, and we¡¯d only run into three patrols.


    Adelaide started speaking into my coms, ¡°There is small group of ten Assimilators a quarter-mile to your north-east. They appear to be moving on a course that will intersect with yours. I would suggest finding an alternate route.¡± She was calling out locations from the Merlin. It seemed a little roundabout, but it actually made things more efficient, allowing Camille to focus solely on manipulating the drones. She¡¯d designate targets or points of interest and let Adelaide or the CAS handle relaying the information to us.


    ¡°Roger that,¡± I said. The rest of the squad was on the same channel, so we pulled up to a stop. Mary crouched down, letting her SMG dangle from its strap. She¡¯d be trying to figure out a way through the streets that would avoid any Assimilators. It was taking longer and longer for her to find paths, but we were still doing well on time. I checked on Camille while we were waiting, restricting the coms to just her.


    ¡°How¡¯s it going Camille?¡± I asked, ¡°You holding up okay?¡±


    She didn¡¯t answer for a little so I tried again, and this time I got a distracted response.


    ¡°Huh? I¡¯m good. I love you, but I really have to focus on this so you don¡¯t die.¡±


    ¡°Okay, love you too. Let me know if you need a break, we¡¯ll hunker down somewhere.¡±


    I got an affirmative grunt, and I sympathized with her plight. She probably had the most continuously strenuous job in the entire mission. When you control thirty combat drones, you can let up on them for periods of times and let the automated systems keep them going. But what Camille was doing was like spinning six plates while intently watching six videos at the same time. She¡¯d probably have an absolutely bitch of a headache once this was done. On the other hand, she had the luxury of not being in the middle of a murderous alien playground. Trade-offs, really.


    ¡°Got it,¡± exclaimed Mary with a good deal of satisfaction, ¡°We¡¯re going to cut south down 67<sup>th</sup> and all the way to Orchard, then head east again.¡± The CAS¡¯ navigation updated the new route, and I stretched a little.


    ¡°Everyone good?¡± I asked, stretching my arms.


    ¡°Well, this place is freaking me the hell out, but other than that I¡¯m just peachy,¡± said Rebecca.


    ¡°That sums up my thoughts on it too, actually,¡± Aaron added.


    Allie tossed in her piece, ¡°Fuck this city with a rusty pole. Let¡¯s never come back, yeah?¡±


    ¡°My feet hurt,¡± said Jackson.


    Mary didn¡¯t respond.


    ¡°Glad to hear it. Now quit your bitching and start moving,¡± I replied.


    Allie snorted, ¡°You¡¯re fucking terrible at being reassuring.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, well I¡¯m not paying you to be reassured,¡± I paused, ¡°Hold up. How do you get paid?¡±


    Aaron decided to answer, ¡°Well, we all get room and board, obviously, and in addition-¡°


    Mary cut in with an annoyed growl, ¡°Can we save this for later? Like when we¡¯re not here?¡±


    ¡°Exactly my thoughts, Mary,¡± I said, walking past her and following the route on the CAS, ¡°These people just get so distracted at the drop of a hat.¡± I got my first resigned sigh from her for that, and grinned in satisfaction.


    As we moved, Aaron spoke to me over the coms, restricting the channel to just the two of us, ¡°That was well done, Sam. We needed the levity. The way we were going, we¡¯d have been mentally tapped out in another hour or so.¡±


    I chuckled, ¡°Yeah, everyone, me included, was wound a smidge too tight. Caution¡¯s good, but that much would screw us over soon.¡±


    We reached our first major obstacle about a half hour later. One of the skyscrapers, a 140-story behemoth, had tipped over completely, blocking the street for over a thousand feet. After a quick debate, we decided the best course of action was to climb through it. A detour would throw us seriously off schedule, and put us in the path of another Assimilator patrol. The drones started to dart around, looking for an opening. After a minute or so, Adelaide¡¯s voice came in over the coms, ¡°Sam, is it possible for you to move a metal beam?¡±


    Camille clarified, talking to just me, of course, ¡°Sorry, it was about the only entrance I could find that wouldn¡¯t compromise the integrity of the structure.¡±


    ¡°Hmm, how big of a beam we talking about here?¡± I said after considering it for a few seconds.


    ¡°If you lift it at the optimal point, you will have to handle roughly seven hundred pounds,¡± responded Adelaide.


    There was a general snort of derision over the coms.


    ¡°Yeah, I can do that. Mark it on the CAS.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Sam.¡±


    Jackson cut in, ¡°That¡¯s just pure bullshit.¡±


    ¡°I actually agree with the dumbass this time - ¡± (¡°Fuck you Rebecca!¡± snapped Jackson in the background) ¡°- manly bravado is great and all, but we should be serious here, alright?¡± said Rebecca in a patronizing voice.


    I just shrugged and moved over to the spot indicated, about twenty feet to the north. The huge building had smashed into another one on its way down, which had collapsed large sections of it, but kept others intact. A steel girder was stuck diagonally over a window. I inspected it thoughtfully.


    ¡°Stop wasting our time, man,¡± Jackson said. Fuck this guy, I wasn¡¯t sure about this before but I was going to do it just to prove him wrong.


    I let my SMG fold up and stowed it on the back of my armor, just below the hardened backpack.


    ¡°Hey, Adelaide,¡± I called out, rubbing my hands together and stretching my arms above my head, ¡°Send me an analysis of where to hold this thing so the whole section doesn¡¯t come crashing down on my head.¡±


    ¡°If it did, that might deflate the hot air in it,¡± muttered Rebecca, to a general snicker of laughter from everyone but Mary and Aaron.


    A readout appeared on my CAS, and I grimaced. This was going to be a bitch. Manly bravado sucked, because it made you do stupid things. Eh, I was already pretty committed at this point, so it wasn¡¯t worth backing down now. I walked up to the helpfully marked spot. I¡¯d have to lift it, and hold it while people passed under. Ugh.


    I bent down, in proper lifting form of course ¨C wouldn¡¯t want to throw out my back. ¡°Get ready to go through, don¡¯t want to hold this thing longer than I have to.¡±


    ¡°This is fucking dedication to the bit right here,¡± chortled Allie.


    In response, I grabbed the chunk of steel and lifted it clear off the ground to about chest height, straining a tiny bit as I did.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    ¡°What the fuck,¡± stated Rebecca.


    Mary started talking before anyone else could. ¡°Get moving, now,¡± she barked at the team. Aaron had already started ducking under, and the rest followed him in what I hoped was a shocked daze. I couldn¡¯t really tell because I was focused on trying to hold this fucking piece of shit up. Seven hundred pounds my ass, the damn thing felt closer to seven-fifty.


    Mary moved through last, giving me a pat on the shoulder as she did. I pushed the steel girder up above my head, shifting carefully through the opening while making sure to keep it steady. Chunks of concrete rained down softly, but everything seemed stable for the most part. Once I was on the other side, I lowered the beam gingerly, taking care not to crush my toes. That would¡¯ve been mortifying.


    It came to rest with a muted thunk, and I let it go with a bit of a groan. It hadn¡¯t been that heavy, all things considered, but holding it there had not been a what I would call a walk in the park. I rolled my shoulders back, and turned to face the squad, grimacing as I did. I¡¯d be feeling that one tomorrow. Might be a good idea to toss something like it into the exercise routine though. Beam lifting could be a pretty useful skill. I¡¯d consider it.


    ¡°I¡¯ll reiterate,¡± Rebecca said, ¡°What the fuck?¡±


    Camille chimed in to my coms with an annoyed sigh, ¡°God damn it, you just had to show off. Now the hussy is just going to want to pork you even more.¡±


    I ignored her quip and responded to Rebecca solemnly, ¡°Ye of little faith. I¡¯m a man of mystery and unfathomable depths, after all.¡±


    ¡°You got the GIDS treatment, didn¡¯t you?¡± Aaron asked. Motherfucking party pooper.


    ¡°Yup.¡±


    ¡°You know, I¡¯m done being surprised at this point,¡± Mary sighed.


    I let them explain to the rest of the squad what the stims were as I took a look around the building we were in. I¡¯d stepped on what would¡¯ve been a wall, and had a clear view¡­ straight into another wall about ten feet in front of me. I pulled out my gun and gave a quick glance around the room we were in. It appeared to be a small office, and was clear of anything murder-y. I checked my CAS for a layout of the building, then realized I was an idiot. Satellites weren¡¯t phenomenal at seeing through solid things like skyscrapers, especially since we were on the floor (side?) of one.


    ¡°Adelaide, have the drones mapped this thing out?¡±


    ¡°Negative, Sam. Most of them are waiting outside. Only one can be controlled in a space this tight. I¡¯m still attempting to find a route, but I would suggest that you proceed yourself. If the drone does happen upon any Assimilators, the results will be the same as if you do. The drones are not completely invisible to the them in close quarters.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s just lovely,¡± I muttered, ¡°Just get Ca- just pull the drone out of here, we¡¯ll find our own way. Six pairs of eyes are better than one camera.¡±


    The explanation for my freakish strength seemed to be wrapping up behind me, and I listened in just to see what was happening.


    ¡°- but he looks like such a skinny little bitch!¡± Allie was saying incredulously.


    ¡°I resent that,¡± I piped in, ¡°And I think the stims just kind of compressed all my muscles and stuff. I dunno, I¡¯m not a doctor or anything. Anyway, moving on from my delectable bod, if you didn¡¯t hear Adelaide we¡¯re blind in here, so pay close attention.¡±


    ¡°Alright, fine,¡± acquiesced Rebecca, ¡°but we¡¯re going to have a chat after all this is done.¡±


    Camille muttered something about skanky hussies, then switched off the connection to me. I led the way through the building, pausing at each juncture. It was slow going. Beyond having to be incredibly cautious for Assimilators, the place was a maze of rubble and hanging wires. We made it about three quarters of the way through the building when we came upon a huge conference room. The minute I stepped in the doorway I felt something off, and I tensed up and crouched down in response. I held up a fist to halt the squad, and gave a quick scan of the room. It was completely empty. I checked what used to be the ceiling and floor to the left and right of me, and they were bare. A tangle of wires hung from above.


    ¡°What do you think?¡± I asked Mary.


    I could imagine her narrowing her eyes, ¡°I don¡¯t like it either, but it looks like our best option. The exit should be just on the other side, and the faster we get out of here, the better.¡±


    I nodded. ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s move through, quick and cautious.¡±


    We moved through, guns held up at the ready. I was getting that prickly feeling on the back of my neck. It wasn¡¯t so much danger, but it was something wrong. We were almost at the end when I heard Allie gasp in horror.


    ¡°Oh Jesus fuck,¡± she said, ¡°Look at the ceiling.¡±


    I did, and regretted it. The bodies that had been missing were suspended up there, wrapped up in Assimilator tendrils I¡¯d thought were wires. They were desiccated, with hollowed out cheeks and empty eye sockets, the skin clinging to their skeletons tightly. The corpses were arranged in neat rows, but I could only see about a hundred of them due to the night vision¡¯s range. I had a horrible feeling that they spread throughout the room.


    ¡°What the hell is this?¡± hissed Aaron.


    I shook my head mutely, making sure there wasn¡¯t anything else in the room before zooming my CAS onto one of the corpses. It looked like some of the tendrils were stuck into the bodies, but the they were a dull black, not interwoven like the ones that made up the Worms. I directed everyone but Mary to stand guard, and she and I tried to figure out what the fuck was going on. Defying idiotic horror tropes, we didn¡¯t get within ten feet of the things.


    I switched my voice off the main channel, ¡°Camille, do you have any idea what the fuck is going on here?¡± I¡¯d been streaming the video to her the entire time.


    ¡°No¡­ This is incredibly atypical behavior for the Assimilators. They generally ignore human bodies completely. I wish we could get a sample, but there¡¯s absolutely no way to know what would happen if you disturbed them. I¡¯d say just get as much footage of them as you can for now. We¡¯ve got to stick to the mission here.¡±


    I made a noise of affirmation, then spent the next minute or so inspecting the bodies from different angles. Once I was finished I spoke to the rest of the squad, ¡°Alrighty, let¡¯s get the fuck out of this place, I¡¯m shitting my pants here.¡± I got a round of agreement from everyone, and we moved out of the room. There wasn¡¯t any further incident as we made our way towards a window that led to the street. Luckily, there were no obstacles on this one, so I didn¡¯t have to exert myself again.


    As I stepped into the street, I had a thought. ¡°Hey, Adelaide, why don¡¯t you set the Merlin to a hover and jump into my helmet? You¡¯re not doing anything up there, and you can optimize some of the systems this way,¡± I said it just to her and Camille.


    After a moment¡¯s hesitation, Adelaide agreed. Immediately, my vision through the helmet got a little sharper, and the HUD seemed to update a bit snappier. Sentient information aliens were just so darn handy to have around. After Adelaide finished syncing up with me, I glanced around the rest of the squad. I couldn¡¯t see their faces, but their body language told me they were shaken up. I was a little surprised at how okay I felt, honestly. I think I was subconsciously pushing down my horror and revulsion, at least until the mission was over.


    ¡°Okay everyone, let¡¯s take five, I want to go over the rest of the route with Mary,¡± I told them. It was probably better to give them some time to process it, I didn¡¯t want them to be too distracted. I keyed into Aarons coms, ¡°Hey, can you make sure the squad is alright? Check in with them, get them refocused?¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± he said. Aaron moved over to where Allie had squatted, crouching down and resting a hand on her shoulder.


    Mary started talking to me immediately after, ¡°Nice thinking. I¡¯m pretty used to fucked up things myself, saw my fair share of it in Europe, but it still rattled me a bit.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. That¡¯s just¡­ that was something else. I wasn¡¯t lying though, I do want to go over the route with you again. We¡¯re clear until the Greenwood building, yeah?¡±


    ¡°Unless another patrol shows up, we should be good,¡± she said slowly, ¡°But things have gone a little too well here, I¡¯m waiting for the other shoe to drop.¡±


    I looked at her in horror, ¡°Why the fuck would you say something like that? You basically just showed me a photo of your wife and kids back home! Have you never seen a movie before!?¡±


    I heard a low chuckle from her, ¡°One of my old Force Recon buddies always did stuff like that. Good for a laugh on missions like this.¡±


    I disagreed vehemently, but didn¡¯t press the point, instead double checking my CAS¡¯ navigation. We had a straight shot down Orchard to the Plaza, and it was about a two-hour walk. We¡¯d arrive with a couple hours to secure the tech.


    After another few minutes, I rounded up the squad, and we moved out. The streets here were just like the ones before: filled with destroyed military hardware and rubble, but otherwise eerily empty. Every once in a while, we¡¯d step over collapsed street lights or skirt around fields of broken glass. The lack of bodies in the streets was a haunting reminder of what we¡¯d just seen. I had to force my mind off the terrifying implications, keep focused on the mission. We continued on like that for a while. No patrols seemed to be near us, at least that Camille could find.


    Around twenty minutes from the Greenwood Building, I felt that prickle on the back of my neck again. There was a hollowed out building to our right - an old shopping mall, the front of it ripped off completely, leaving a gaping hole. The inside was wreathed in shadows, but with a jolt I recognized the outline of something around ten feet tall.


    ¡°Stop. Now.¡± I commanded. Mercifully, everyone immediately did. ¡°Okay. There¡¯s a M-2 Worm in that department store to our three o¡¯clock. We¡¯re going to shift away from it, quietly as possible, because it doesn¡¯t seem to have noticed us. Looks like it might be dormant.¡±


    I picked up a sharp intake of breath from someone, but I couldn¡¯t tell who it was. We crept, inch by inch, farther away from the store. The Worm didn¡¯t move at all, standing stock still like a statue. Once we were on the opposite side of the street, as far away as we could be, we started to move forward slowly. I kept my eyes fixed on it, making sure not to step on any glass, or stumble on a conveniently placed patch of rubble. It seemed like everyone else was capable of doing so as well, because there wasn¡¯t a sound except our light footfalls on the concrete. As I was staring, my breath caught in my throat. I thought I saw a red glint for a second, a glint like the eye of an Assimilator. I froze. For a horrible few seconds, I waited there for it to burst out of the store, lunge at us with its jaws gaping open.


    Nothing happened.


    I shook my head. As much as I thought it was just my imagination, I wasn¡¯t stupid enough to leave it at that. I spoke to Camille and Adelaide, ¡°Camille, keep one of the drones back here. I want to know if that thing moves so much as a muscle. Adelaide, review the footage of what just happened. Let me know if you saw its eyes open.¡± My CAS showed one of the drones come to a stop in front of the building directly opposite of the Assimilator, pausing there.


    We finally got past it, and there still wasn¡¯t any movement. Once we were safe, I let the squad know about what I thought I saw. I sent over the video to their CAS, and then gave the option of bugging out right then and there. After a few minutes of review, nobody seemed to see what I thought I had. So, we decided to keep going.

 Chapter 2.31: Descent

    The Greenwood Building was a towering mass of glass and metal. Unlike most skyscrapers, it was circular, and twisted like a corkscrew as it rose into the foggy black. It took up nearly the entire center of Greenwood Plaza, but had a little park that surrounded it on all sides. The building had been the headquarters for the government''s xeno-research department in Denver, boasting advanced labs below and hundreds of offices above.


    Greenwood had survived the war shockingly intact, with most of the windows remaining unbroken. Unfortunately for us, it seemed like there had been some sort of lockdown triggered during the invasion of Denver, so the doors were barred with metal shutters roughly six inches thick. On the bright side, that meant that there probably weren¡¯t any Assimilators in there. On the not as bright side, that meant we needed to find an alternate way in.


    The drones dutifully started their search, looking for a window that didn¡¯t have glass in it. A surprisingly tall order, because it seemed like the entire damn building had used a shatter resistant material for the windows.


    While Camille did her drone thing, I sat down and leaned my back up against one of the doors. I slipped my helmet off and placed it lightly next to me, my communicator still in my ear, and tilted my head up to look at the sky. It was gorgeous without the night vision. There wasn¡¯t a moon tonight, we¡¯d made sure of that. Light pollution was a thing of better days, so the view was beautiful. A field of stars, broken only by the black masses of the Denver skyline.


    There was a rustle as Allie sat down next to me, taking her helmet off as well. I always forgot how delicate her features were; the way she talked and the way she acted masked them so well that I always thought of her as larger than she was in reality. Her short brown hair was tied up in a bob of some sort, and her breath came out in soft puffs of fog in the cold fall evening. The rest of the squad were standing guard, so we sat in a comfortable silence for a while, until she started to speak softly.


    ¡°I was an environmental lawyer before all this, you know, so a sky like this was the dream. Nobody really gave a shit about what I did, though. Hard to care about how the factories were wrecking our rivers when there¡¯s a horde of monsters trying to kill us all, right?¡± Her tone was self-mocking as she continued, ¡°I dunno. I always thought I was so forward thinking. To me, it wasn¡¯t even a question that we¡¯d win. It was like that for a lot of my friends, too distracted by the fucking propaganda to see the writing on the walls. It¡¯s not like we didn¡¯t know, deep down, that we were fucked. We just chose to ignore it. I figured that when we won, people would be thanking me for keeping everyone accountable, for making sure we didn¡¯t destroy the planet instead of the aliens.¡±


    We were quiet again for a while. There was a little breeze, but nothing else moved in the city, and nothing else made a sound except for our breathing.


    ¡°I was such a fucking idiot, so goddamn selfish. I wasted my life on something that didn¡¯t matter at all. I wish I¡¯d spent it better. I wish I¡¯d learned how to really help instead of going after noble, pie-in-the-sky bullshit. I mean, look at you. You came up with those fabricators, you came up with all that stuff that actually made a difference. I stuck my head in the sand,¡± she said bitterly, ¡°And you¡¯re still trying to save everyone while I play mercenary. Sticking my head in the goddamned sand, while people are getting killed or turned into¡­ whatever the hell was back there.¡±


    I considered my reply for a minute. ¡°I think you¡¯re being a little hard on yourself¡­ everyone back then was short sighted. Nobody looked at the big picture like you did. Even if you were wrong, so was the rest of the world,¡± I laughed hollowly, ¡°and it¡¯s not like anything I did really helped in the end either. Everyone called me a genius, said I¡¯d be remembered as a hero once we won. And guess what? We lost.¡±


    I sighed and shook my head, ¡°I¡¯m not so great as you¡¯re making me out to be, you know. The world ended, and for seven months I just wallowed around, doing jack shit. I had access to everything I do now, and I was still too much of a fucking coward to do anything. Only reason I changed was seeing that team die firsthand. How disgusting is that? Couldn¡¯t get over myself until I¡¯d already let someone die because of me.


    ¡°I mean, even now, look at me. I¡¯m a Paladin. Got all this special training, all this equipment, these grand ideals. One of my titles is, I shit you not, ¡®The Shield of Humanity.¡¯ How fucking melodramatic is that?¡± That got a little smirk out of her, ¡°But we¡¯re in the same place right now, on the same mission. And I¡¯ve got my training, my superhuman speed and reaction time to lean on. You¡¯re a damn sight braver than I am, coming out to this god-forsaken city with none of that. What I¡¯m trying to say is that at the end of the day, doesn¡¯t matter what we did, it matters what we¡¯re doing.¡±


    I cradled my helmet under my left arm and pushed myself off the ground. I reached out a hand to Allie. ¡°So the best we can do is keep on going, right?¡±


    She gave me a grin and picked up her helmet, then grabbed my hand and pulled herself up. She wagged a finger at me, ¡°Careful with all the smooth talking now, you¡¯ve already got one of us mooning over you like a dumbass. Wouldn¡¯t want another, now would you? Love triangles are a bitch.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, no. I¡¯ve got a funny feeling I¡¯m not your type,¡± I said, and reflected internally about how right she was about her last statement.


    Allie snickered at me, ¡°You¡¯ve got that right.¡± She slid on her helmet and it locked into place with a click. Allie walked past me, slapping me on the back a little, ¡°You¡¯re not half bad at pep talks for being such an emotional brick.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not a brick,¡± I muttered to myself as I put my own helmet back on.


    ¡°Yes, you are,¡± said Rebecca and Camille in tandem, over two separate channels.


    ¡°Shut up. And stop listening in on private conversations,¡± I didn¡¯t bother restricting my voice because it equally applied to both parties.


    I spoke to just Camille next, ¡°Have you found anything yet?¡±


    ¡°Maybe. There¡¯s a hole torn through, looks like a railgun impact, about sixty feet to the north. But it¡¯s three stories up,¡± she replied.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got equipment for that. We¡¯ll head over there; can you do any recon inside?¡±


    ¡°Already started to. Looks clear so far.¡±


    ¡°Okay, keep me updated.¡± I switched back to the main channel, ¡°Looks like Adelaide found an entrance point.¡±


    ¡°Finally. I¡¯m definitely ready to get this over with,¡± groused Rebecca.


    ¡°I expect that type of whining from Jackson, not from you,¡± I said to her casually as we started to walk over, noting Jackson¡¯s ¡®fuck you!¡¯ with satisfaction. I stopped at the mark on my CAS, and craned my head to look up. It was a little hard to tell from this angle, but I could see the hole she was talking about. The railgun slug must¡¯ve hit something else before the building, because the opening wasn¡¯t that big, maybe about six feet in diameter.


    The squad gathered up behind me, and the four remaining drones expanded out in a semicircle behind us, keeping watch. I reached back and grabbed the multitool from where it was attached on the side of my hardened backpack. It detached silently, and with a thought I changed the tool to its grappling hook mode. The CAS mapped out the trajectory, all I had to do was point it in the right direction and fire. The ¡®hook¡¯, more like a pad that would adhere to things on a microscopic level, shot out with a pneumatic hiss and latched into place with a soft clunk, trailing a thin metal cable. I gave the cable a couple hard experimental tugs, then pulled the anchor out from the bottom of the multitool and stuck it into the ground at the base of the building. I placed one foot on either side of the cable, and let the tool pull me upwards like a cable car as I walked vertically on the side of the building.


    When I reached the top, I ducked a little inside the gap, and found a good spot to crouch. I sent the multitool back down for the others to make their way up with. As they began their climb, I checked out the room we¡¯d rappelled into. It appeared to be yet another office, which wasn¡¯t that surprising considering how many of them were in here. This one wasn¡¯t a private office though; it had a series of desks all around it and a large blank holoprojector on the wall.


    Mary came up last, and we gathered inside the room. She handed me the multitool back. I checked my CAS as I stowed it. The vault was about seven stories under us, at the bottom of the labs. Thankfully, we had the layout to the Greenwood Building, unlike the collapsed one. Since it¡¯d been a government facility, and an important one at that, the schematics and floor plan were in Camelot¡¯s database. Besides, I''d worked here. I knew the place pretty well.


    ¡°How do you want to do this?¡± I asked Mary.


    ¡°Carefully. Doesn¡¯t look like anything¡¯s been in here, but if we could find a way in, so could the Assimilators. I¡¯m not looking to get ambushed on the home stretch.¡±If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    I nodded, ¡°Okay. We¡¯re going to head to the closest flight of stairs. They¡¯ll take us down to the lobby, but then there¡¯s only one that goes below. It¡¯s electronically locked, but this place had a small backup anti-matter power generator. We shouldn¡¯t have any issues with it.¡± Another chorus of ¡®ayes¡¯ followed my statement. I was kind of digging this whole leading thing.


    We started to move out, and a quick check of the hallway showed it was clear too. It was far less creepy than the last building we were in, and not just from the lack of corpses hanging from the ceiling, though that was a definite plus. The emergency lighting was still on, the backup generator still doing its job, which gave the place a less desolate feeling. The lights weren¡¯t playing very nicely with the night vision though, which was really damn irritating. It was like they were sending bright lens flares across my HUD; not debilitating by any means, and the CAS did a pretty good job of filtering out their glow, but it was definitely distracting.


    The center of the Greenwood building was gorgeous. From the lobby all the way to the skylight, the middle was completely open. I stood on the balcony and looked up, switching off my night vision for a moment. I could see the night sky. There were two main staircases that ran in a double helix around the inside of the empty space, immense sets of spiral stairs that appeared to be floating in the air. I saw the drone floating in the middle, and gave it a little wave. We started descending, taking each step one at a time. Despite my best efforts, I heard my footfalls echoing in the empty lobby. Everyone else¡¯s were too, even Mary¡¯s.


    The ground floor of the building was two stories tall, an expansive space that was completely open, except for a ring around the outer perimeter that held elevators and some offices. In the center of the lobby was a forty-foot-high statue of the StarArc, its nose pointed upwards towards the sky. As we passed it, I laid a fond hand on the cold metal.


    ¡°Remember when I designed this thing?¡± I murmured to Camille.


    She laughed softly, ¡°You got so pissed at that artist they hired.¡±


    ¡°The dumbass got all the dimensions wrong. Why would you try to improve on perfection like that?¡± I drew my hand back. Happier times.


    We moved on. The marble floor of the lobby was coated in a layer of dust and neglect. It looked like it¡¯d been untouched since the invasion. The stairs to the basement were at the very northernmost point of the building, through a set of doors that required high clearance to pass through. But something was off, because when I approached them, the doors were wide open. It didn¡¯t look like they¡¯d been ripped off their hinges, like you¡¯d expect an Assimilator to do. They just looked like someone had forgot to close them. But that wasn¡¯t possible; they closed automatically.


    I stacked the squad up on a wall near the door, and contacted Adelaide, who was still hanging out with me.


    ¡°Can you look through the building specifications, try to figure out why the lab security doors would be open?¡±


    ¡°Sure, Sam. Give me one moment.¡± She jumped from my CAS back to Camelot, and I planned to use the time she was gone to double check my weapons and systems.


    And then I heard a small scrabbling noise.


    Apparently, Mary heard it too, because she snapped her weapon to firing position and faced towards the east in a flash. I followed after. The rest of the squad pulled their guns up, but seemed less sure of it. My blood pounded. I could still hear it, faint but definitely there, but I couldn¡¯t see a thing in the shadowy lobby.


    ¡°Sam, I found the information you were looking for,¡± said Adelaide into my ear, and I nearly crapped myself. Once I got over my near heart attack, I focused on listening again, but the scrabbling had stopped. I exchanged glances with Mary.


    ¡°Hold on Adelaide,¡± I said, ¡°We¡¯ve got to check something. Can you bring the drone down here, and send it, carefully, to the spot I¡¯m marking?¡±


    The drone descended silently, and I watched with bated breath as it inched closer towards the area. The squad was crouched in a firing line, SMGs pointed towards the east.


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing there,¡± said Adelaide finally.


    I let out a breath, and looked at Mary, ¡°What do you think?¡±


    She took a moment to answer, ¡°Rat, probably. Assimilator wouldn¡¯t¡¯ve gone quiet like that.¡±


    ¡°This mission is taking years off my life,¡± muttered Aaron.


    ¡°You¡¯re telling me. Adelaide, why aren¡¯t the doors closed?¡± I asked.


    ¡°It appears as though an emergency override can keep them open, or an emergency evacuation. I would assume that it was an emergency evacuation, and the lockdown was triggered after.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not good. I was counting on nothing being able to get down there,¡± I said with a frown.


    ¡°The drones will not be able to perform effective reconnaissance below; the remote connection will be cut off that far underground,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°and I will no longer be able to be in contact with you once you are below the third floor. The lab is heavily shielded.¡±


    Well, Adelaide would be in contact, since she was riding in the suit, but Camille wouldn¡¯t be. This was the riskiest part of the mission by far, but I couldn¡¯t think of a way around it. We could¡¯ve dragged a massive cable all the way down connected to some sort of communications device, but something long enough would¡¯ve been too heavy and bulky to bring with us. Hacking into the building¡¯s coms network was out too ¨C the emergency power didn¡¯t extend to that.


    I bit my lip, ¡°Let''s stick to the original plan. We¡¯ve still got to go down there, but we¡¯re going to do it a lot more cautiously. Once we secure the tech, we¡¯ll head up and wait on the third floor until we can get back in contact with you.¡± I looked around the squad, ¡°Any objections?¡±


    ¡°I have an idea,¡± volunteered Jackson, ¡°How about we leave a couple people up here to keep an eye out, and have them run down if the drones find anything?¡±


    Mary responded to him, ¡°That isn¡¯t a bad suggestion, but it won¡¯t quite work in this situation. There¡¯s a massive risk in splitting the squad up like that. The CAS won¡¯t work between the floors, so whoever stays here has no way of finding us down there, especially if we have to take an alternate route.¡±


    Jackson nodded, and there were no further complaints, so we headed towards the stairs to the labs. I stood at the head and looked down, but the emergency lights were still glowing, and it was interfering with the night vision in a space as small as this. I sent a mental command to turn mine off, and suggested everyone do so as well, which they took me up on. It was much easier to see with it off, but it was a little eerie; everything looked like it was washed in a deep red.


    This staircase was far less impressive than the ones in the lobby, your standard concrete stairwell that wound in a square spiral downwards. There was a landing at each floor with a set of doors that led further into the labs, but we ignored those. There wasn¡¯t a need to go exploring. The doors were all open for evacuation, and I paused at the landing on the fifth floor to look down the hall.


    Rebecca paused alongside me. ¡°Everything alright, Caterpillar Man?¡±


    I shook my head and kept walking, ¡°My workshop was that way. Just a couple memories is all.¡± I glanced at her, ¡°But thanks for the concern.¡±


    ¡°No problem,¡± she said quietly.


    We reached the bottom and stacked up on each side of the open double doors. Once I got a nod back from everyone, I peeked around the corner with my SMG raised. The hallway was empty, so we began to shuffle through the lab. If I thought it was silent above, it was nothing compared to down here. On the surface, you could hear the sound of the wind, the creak of a building settling every once in a while. In this basement, there was nothing except for our footsteps, and the way they bounced around unsettled me so much that I felt like turning around and bolting straight back up the stairs.


    I noticed the aftermath of the evacuation as we moved through. Most of the doors were thrown open, the insides of the workspaces had some things knocked out of place. The layout of this floor was different than the rest. The other labs were all arranged in a logical grid of offices and workspaces. This one had four main hallways perpendicular to each other that were connected by a circular hall in the middle, which ran around the vault. The vault was a large, heavily reinforced room that squatted in the center of the floor. It had two doors: One was a normal security door that led to entryway, where data or hardware would be submitted for archiving. The other was an incredibly strong, foot-thick monstrosity which rose from the floor to the ceiling. Needless to say, it required top level clearance to get past.


    This time, we¡¯d swept the entire floor, moving through each room individually. We didn¡¯t want anything sneaking up on us when we were rooting around the vault, after all. I also left a little camera at the base of the stairs, something I brought along in my pack. Since it was on the same floor as us, it could stream video to me, let me know if anything was coming. The team hadn¡¯t found any Assimilators, thank God, so we gathered up in the entryway of the vault. The security doors had been left open, but the main one was sealed tight. There was a pistol lying on the floor. Maybe one of the security guards had dropped it? I shook my head. This was no time to get distracted.


    To open the vault, I had to stand on a little metal plate in front of it. A biometric scanner would go over my entire body, reading everything in it to confirm that I was me. Incredibly invasive, yes, but also very secure. Luckily, the vault was attached to a separate generator than the rest of the building, in case of tampering, so it wasn¡¯t low on power.


    I removed my helmet. The air in here was stale, and smelled like something I couldn¡¯t quite nail down. I looked over my shoulder at the rest of the squad, fanned out behind me.


    ¡°Moment of truth,¡± I said, then stepped onto the plate. There was a soft hum as the scanner went to work. After a few tense moments, the massive door made a series of whirring sounds, and began to crack open, giving us a look inside.


    <hr>


    ¡°Well, that was anti-climactic,¡± said Rebecca as we stepped out of the vault about ten minutes later.


    I gave her a quizzical look, my helmet still tucked under one arm, ¡°What else were you expecting? Gold? Diamonds? The Arc of the Covenant? It¡¯s a government lab for God¡¯s sake.¡±


    ¡°I know exactly what she means, it was boring as fuck in there. It was just a bunch of servers and a few cubbies full of weird shit!¡± grumbled Allie, ¡°I expected, I dunno, like Assimilator cadavers or something. Maybe a spaceship.¡±


    Mary shrugged, ¡°I¡¯m just happy that we don¡¯t have to carry anything up with us.¡±


    Aaron nodded, ¡°We¡¯re lucky the scanner tech is just software, taking a drive with us is a lot easier than a lugging a big piece of hardware.¡± He glared at me, ¡°Though I wasn¡¯t under the impression we were here on a shopping spree.¡±


    ¡°Hey, whoa, it¡¯s not like anybody was using those materials. Besides, some of that stuff could come in handy,¡± I said defensively. They had some seriously neat shit from the fallen spaceships. There was a type of metal that I think would be able to rapidly change shape, given some electrical impulses.


    ¡°Can we leave, please?¡± said Jackson, ¡°I¡¯m not psyched about staying here longer than we have to.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s one thing we can agree on, buddy,¡± I told him as I slipped my helmet on. The night vision mode switched on automatically; I¡¯d set it to be the default setting when I reengaged the CAS. I was about to turn it off again when I saw something out of the corner of my eye, something that had been covered by the deep red emergency lights.


    There were bloodstains all over the ceiling and walls.


    But there were no bodies.

 Announcement of Far Less Fun

    Hello friends! As you might have noticed, I haven''t posted an update today. That makes three weeks in a row I''ve only been able to post four times a week. That''s due to the semester really starting to pick up, and the work load increasing crazily.


    So, I''m going to go with that pattern and start releasing only four chapters a week. Any more than that seems to be negatively impacting my RL commitments.I haven''t quite figured out if I''m going to be releasing Monday-Thursday or Tuesday-Friday yet. We''ll see how it goes this week.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    I''d love to be writing all the time, but that just isn''t realistic right now. What I want to avoid above all else is burning out.


    Anyway, I''ll be posting sometime tomorrow night, this next chapter is a doozy, it''ll probably clock in at ~7k words. As always, thank you all forsupporting me and this story - it really is what gives me the confidence to keep writing!

 Chapter 2.32: Climb

    My brain whirred into overdrive. Blood on the ceiling, walls, no bodies. Assimilators had been down here, probably during the invasion. Reasonable to assume that I¡¯d missed other signs of a fight as well. Potentially. That late at night, would¡¯ve been less than fifty people here, give or take. Guards, janitors, scientists ¨C


    Getting sidetracked. Focus. Were there Assimilators still in the building? Very possible. None on this floor, the sweep had confirmed that, but there were hundreds of floors above that might have them. Sounds heard earlier was most likely Assimilator. Why haven¡¯t they attacked yet? Possibilities: Didn¡¯t notice us, ignored us, or waiting. Option three likely, considering earlier sound ruled out one and two. Waiting for what? Unknown. Reinforcements, potentially, though no-


    I felt something grab my shoulder, shot to the side, rolling and bringing my gun to firing position. Aaron was standing with his hand extended outwards, frozen in place.


    ¡°What the hell, Sam!?¡± yelled Rebecca, ¡°What are you doing?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, first you go unresponsive, then you point a gun at us. The fuck are you on about?¡± Allie sounded more confused than angry.


    I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, ¡°Sorry. Really sorry, but I noticed something, and the shock threw me. Turn on your night vision. Assimilators were down here, and I¡¯m guessing they¡¯re still in the building.¡±


    There were a series of muttered curses, but Mary was the first to react. She stood up and fluidly walked to the security door, leaning against wall and poking her weapon out the open door.


    ¡°Clear in the hall,¡± she said.


    Aaron spoke next, ¡°Remote camera didn¡¯t pick anything up coming down the stairs.¡±


    Okay. That was good. But I needed to get back under control, I needed to start leading again. My first major test, and I¡¯d fucked it up pretty damn badly by zoning out like that.


    ¡°Jackson, cover the door. Allie, support him and keep an eye on the remote camera feed. Rebecca, pull up the building schematics, see if there¡¯s an optional route out of the bottom floors, I don¡¯t want to be walking into an ambush. Mary, Aaron, you¡¯re with me, we¡¯ve got to figure out our next move.¡±


    There was a half-second¡¯s hesitation, then everyone started to break apart into their designated roles. I breathed an internal sigh of relief. Back on track.


    The moment Mary and Aaron gathered around me, I began speaking, ¡°Alright, what does this change?¡±


    Mary responded immediately, ¡°Worms have been here before, definitely. Means it¡¯s more likely that they¡¯re here now as well. Doesn¡¯t necessarily mean they¡¯ve noticed us, but we need to assume they have.¡±


    I nodded, ¡°I doubt the noise we heard earlier was a rat, but I still don¡¯t understand why they haven¡¯t attacked us.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m curious too,¡± Aaron said, ¡°but for now we need to focus on how to get out of here.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think we should leave the way we came. The stairs to the lab put us too far away from the main staircase up to the roof,¡± I responded.


    Rebecca cut in, ¡°That¡¯s where I come in: there¡¯s a freight elevator that stops at each lab, and it goes back to the lobby. A maintenance ladder runs up the shaft, goes all the way to the second floor.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a great option, well done. Now, let¡¯s decide if-¡°


    ¡°Noise coming over the feed, something¡¯s coming down!¡± yelled Allie.


    Well, that made the decision for us then. I shared a glance with Mary, then I jumped to my feet. ¡°Mary, you¡¯re in front, I¡¯m covering the back. Elevator shaft marked on the CAS, move!¡±


    We funneled out the door, moving around the circular hallway at a fast clip, and I switched off night vision so that I could see. My eyes were trained on the video feed in my HUD, and after half a minute, it flickered out and died, but nothing had touched it.


    ¡°Fuck!¡± swore Mary over the coms, ¡°They¡¯ve got a mechanoid jammer!¡±


    My heart spiked in fear. Mechanoids were the Assimilators¡¯ answer to our technology. They were usually support units, without much in the way of attack power.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter, keep moving. Our coms are hardened against jamming, we¡¯ll be fine if we stick close together,¡± I said, trying to keep the team calm.


    They didn¡¯t respond, but we kept up our pace. The elevator was on the opposite side of the lab from the stairs. We had a lead on them, and we were almost there, but the question was what happened after that. I forced one half of my mind to focus on what was going on around me as the other went through plan after plan, flipping through them as fast as it could. By the time we arrived at the freight elevator doors, I¡¯d settled on rough but workable one.


    The doors were closed, so I told Jackson and Rebecca to get them open via the console next to it, while the rest of us formed a firing line down the corridor. There weren¡¯t any other angles to approach us from, other than the ceiling, but that was solid concrete, and we¡¯d notice if something was trying to dig through it. Still, I stayed aware of it.


    After half a minute or so of listening to them struggle, I looked back, ¡°What¡¯s the hold up?¡±


    ¡°Damn thing¡¯s malfunctioning,¡± grunted Jackson, ¡°only opens a few inches.¡±


    I was about to respond when I heard something echo softly out of the deathly silence of the hallway. I couldn¡¯t see anything down there yet, but there was no time to waste talking. I stood up and strode to the elevator doors, forcing my hands into the crack between them. I pulled, hard, the muscles in my arms and back tightening and screaming in protest. With a fiendishly loud shriek they began to split apart inch by inch, revealing the empty shaft. I wedged myself between the doors, pushing them the rest of the way open with my back and my legs, a growl escaping my mouth as I did. They were doing their best to close back up though, moving slowly but exerting an incredible amount of force. There was a row of long metal pegs on the inside edge of each door, used to magnetically hold them together when the power was on. I could feel them pressing on my back, squeezing the air out of my lungs. My head was going white and my legs felt like they were cracking from the inside.


    I barely noticed it as the squad stepped around me, one by one. Someone, Rebecca maybe, passed through last, giving me a pat on the shoulder as they got clear. I slid through the doors and almost fell on my face down into the shaft. It was indented a few feet into the ground to make room for the elevator, but there was a lip over it for the door. I teetered on the edge of the lip and found my balance, gasping for breath. I looked over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of shadows creeping into the deep red light, before the doors closed, cutting them off.


    The rest of the team was standing on the floor of the shaft looking at me, but I had to take a minute and blink the white out of my head. Those doors were fucking heavy. My arms were shaking from when I first pulled them open, and I closed my fist to try to get them to stop, taking deep, slow breaths. My back was sore as hell too; I was damn lucky my armor dispersed most of the pressure from the pegs.


    I forced myself to hop down from the ledge, and through sheer effort of will kept myself from stumbling as I landed. My legs felt like pool noodles, but that wasn¡¯t important right now. Getting everyone out was.


    ¡°Everyone all right?¡± I asked, using a cough to cover up the quaver in my voice. I got a chorus of affirmative noises back, but they sounded a bit hushed. Not surprising, considering how close we just got to being in a fire fight back there. I took some time to take stock of our current location. I was standing with my back to where the door was. The elevator shaft was probably about sixteen feet wide and twelve feet deep. I tilted back my head to look up, switching on my night vision again. There weren¡¯t any emergency lights in here, which was a relief, but it looked like the freight elevator was three floors above us. I spotted the maintenance ladder, set into a nook in the side of the elevator shaft, directly to my right. I moaned internally. I was going to have to pull myself up seven stories with arms that felt like they¡¯d been stuck under a steam roller.


    ¡°Should we take a breather?¡± volunteered Rebecca quietly.


    I thought about it for a second. Much as I wanted to, and as much as I was sure everyone else did too, we had to get top side as soon as possible to figure out what was going on. Besides, nothing leading up to this had been very strenuous, so nobody should¡¯ve been that tired.


    I shook my head, ¡°Sorry, we¡¯ve got to keep moving, but we¡¯ll take a break at the fourth floor. We can sit on top of the elevator, it¡¯ll be safer.¡±


    ¡°I wasn¡¯t asking for me. You look like you¡¯re about to pass out. I looked up the specs for those doors when we were trying to open them. You were holding back somewhere in the ballpark of a ton and a half of force.¡± The was both worry and awe in Rebecca''s voice.


    I flapped a flippant hand at her, ¡°Pshh, you worry too much. Superhuman stims, remember?¡± I doubt anybody really bought it, but I forged ahead anyway, ¡°I¡¯m going to head up first, then Rebecca, Mary, Allie, Jackson, and Aaron. Don¡¯t stick too close, and let us know the second anything feels off. We can always cut back through the labs if we need to, though I¡¯d prefer to avoid it.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure you are okay, Sam?¡± Adelaide asked me, into just my channel.


    ¡°Honestly, I¡¯m not,¡± I responded, walking towards the ladder, ¡°But we don¡¯t have time for me to recoup. Besides, this is nothing compared to getting shish-kebabbed by a Hive Lord.¡±


    ¡°Please be careful Sam. You aren¡¯t invincible.¡±


    ¡°Nah, I¡¯m not. But they don¡¯t have to know that.¡± I grabbed the first metal rung of the ladder, and looked up again. There was a long way to go. I took a breath, and started the climb.


    For a while, the only noise was the clank of boots on metal rungs and the sound of my own breath. My gloves gave me a good grip on the rungs, and I pulled myself up at a moderately fast pace. I didn¡¯t want the rest of the squad to get too exhausted. The climb was shitty, but bearable. The GIDS procedure was more or less keeping me together, the advanced healing preventing further muscle deterioration. I¡¯d need a long rest and a stint in the medical pod to be back to 100%, but it would do in the meanwhile.


    But by the time we finally reached the freight elevator, my limbs were threatening to walk out in protest of my cruel and unusual treatment of them. I had a brief moment of claustrophobia as I was sandwiched between the elevator and the ladder ¨C the notch in the wall left just enough room to squeeze past. I stepped onto the wide metal surface with a sigh of relief. I made sure that one was kept off the coms though, and I took a quick glance around the top of the elevator. There wasn¡¯t anything there, which was good, because if I saw another body or bloodstain or red glint I was going to lose my fucking mind.


    I looked for a place to take a seat. While I was enough of a moron to hide my obvious pain and discomfort in a show of manly machismo, I wasn¡¯t enough of one to try and keep going without rest. I settled on a slightly raised edge of metal, but before I went to it I turned around. Aaron had just finished climbing the ladder, so the squad was all here.


    ¡°Well, that was unpleasant,¡± I said brightly, ¡°But we¡¯re about halfway up. We¡¯ve got another hour and a half before the drones run out of power, so we¡¯re okay as far as that goes. I¡¯ve got a feeling it¡¯s going to be a while until we can be this secure again, so we¡¯ll take five. Stay alert though. We¡¯re still not alone in here.¡±


    There weren¡¯t any objections, thankfully, so everyone sank down where they stood. Mary sat next to the ladder. She caught my glance and gave me a little nod. I¡¯m pretty sure it meant that I could leave sentry duty to her. But maybe I was just reading too much into it. Either way, I was going to sit my ass down on that cozy little patch of metal and take have a wee bit of a bre-


    The rumbling started then, a low tremor that started deep in the ground and shook the walls. I nearly lost my balance, but caught myself in time. Allie wasn¡¯t so lucky, and she fell flat on her ass with a small squeak. Dust and dirt fell from the walls, and the elevator¡¯s cables swayed for a moment, and then everything went still again. Aaron helped Allie to her feet as I stared blankly at the ground. I¡¯d grown up in the Bay area. I knew an earthquake when I felt it. There was just one problem.


    ¡°There aren¡¯t any earthquakes in Denver,¡± said Jackson, ¡°So what the hell was that?¡±


    Rebecca shook her head, ¡°I have no idea. I¡¯ve been in Colorado since I was a kid, never felt anything like that.¡±


    There was a moment of confused silence, and I made up my mind, ¡°Well whatever the reason, I¡¯m not keen on being down here if that happens again. Break¡¯s cancelled, let¡¯s keep moving. Mary, switch with Aaron. I want you keeping an eye out below. And hold on tight, I don¡¯t want anybody getting thrown off.¡±


    I moved myself towards the ladder, casting a longing glance at my metal seat. I stepped onto the closest rung, and began my ascent again. Forcing my unhappy muscles into climbing wasn¡¯t easy, but the adrenaline helped things a lot. The earthquake, or whatever it was, had given even more desperation to the climb. I really, really didn¡¯t like earthquakes.


    We passed the entrance to the third floor, and I started attempting to contact Camille, but all I got was static.


    ¡°Shit,¡± I muttered.


    ¡°What now?¡± said Jackson, a note of panic in his voice.


    Mary replied for him, her voice grim, ¡°Jammers. We can¡¯t reach Adelaide.¡±


    Rebecca sighed, ¡°Oh joy. What the hell else could go wrong?¡±


    ¡°Oh you did not just say tha-¡° I started, then my voice died in my throat, because a deep red light was shining into the elevator shaft from the door that had just been wrenched open with a horrific grating noise. I stood frozen on the ladder, looking directly into the bright red eyes of an Bison-headed Assimilator less than five feet to my right.


    And it did nothing.


    It was so close that I could see the tendrils that made it up wriggling up to the surface and falling back down, tightening and relaxing from moment to moment, even though the monster didn¡¯t seem to draw breath. They were woven so tightly on its horns and eyes that they almost looked smooth. It was hunched over in the hallway on all fours, dinner plate sized racoon-hands curled over the lip of the landing, claws digging into the concrete. It stared at me, but for reasons I couldn¡¯t comprehend, there was no hostility emanating from it. Its massive, horrific eyes, composed out of what looked like hundreds of thousands of squirming threads, were locked on to me.


    But it did nothing, and behind it, the dozens of Assimilators packed into the hall did nothing either, except for stare at me with blank red eyes.


    My arms were burning on the ladder. There was only one option here. ¡°The Assimilators know exactly where we are, and one is looking at me right now. It isn¡¯t attacking. Don¡¯t panic. Keep climbing,¡± I murmured into the coms. I head the gasps of fear from the squad, and kept speaking in a slow, calm voice, ¡°Keep moving past them. If they attack we¡¯re dead, so just keep moving past.¡±


    It was easier said than done. It took everything I had in me to turn my eyes away from the monster that lurked so close to me. I looked up the shaft, and put one hand on the rung above me. I let out a breath, and started to climb.


    It did nothing.


    ¡°I don¡¯t fucking understand,¡± said Aaron, and I caught the first trace of panic I¡¯d heard from him, ¡°I don¡¯t understand what¡¯s happening. It¡¯s completely ignoring the rest of us, it just craned its head out to look up at you.¡±


    That froze the blood in my veins, and I couldn¡¯t help myself but look down. The massive head of the Worm was sticking out, turned upwards at an impossible angle. Staring at me.


    I wrenched my gaze away. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. We just have to keep moving.¡± I tried to keep the fear out of my voice.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Above me, I saw the deep red light spill into the elevator shaft again, muted by the night vision, but I could imagine it perfectly. My heart began to hammer in my chest. I didn¡¯t want to climb past that door. What if they decided to snap as I moved past them? They would just have to reach out with their claws, just five feet, and they could snatch me from the ladder. So easy. One movement, and I¡¯d be gone. I heard the noise of a boot land on a rung below me. I closed my eyes for a second, and pulled myself up again, one hand at a time.


    There was a huddle of panther-spiders waiting for me. Their eight long, spindly legs ended in three hooked claws that balanced on the floor, and eight glowing feline eyes pierced into mine. Their muzzles flowed out the bottom of their faces, where the fangs of a spider should be. I was used to seeing their teeth bared in a snarl; these ones had their jaws relaxed, and stood as if statues. Except for their eyes, those were fixed on me, and tracked me slowly as I moved.


    They still did nothing, and I climbed past them as well.


    I was almost at the first floor now, and there was still no word from Camille. I was worried about her. She was safe, but she hadn¡¯t heard from us in a long time. I could only imagine how she was feeling right now. But there wasn¡¯t much I could do about that now; I had more life-threatening things occupying me. I dreaded what I would find through the doors that lead to the lobby. When I passed them, I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw the massive blast shields that had shut over them. Apparently, the lockdown had extended to the freight elevator. Made sense. It opened to the outside for loading.


    My relief came a moment too soon, because we were hit with another earthquake, bigger this time. I clung to the ladder for dear life, my fingers tightening around the rungs, pressing my helmeted forehead to the metal with my eyes closed. It passed after a few torturous moments, and I let out a breath, then checked in to make sure nobody had fallen off.


    The last few feet to the maintenance hatch were a bit of a blur. In a rare stroke of luck it was unlocked, so I pushed through it, almost forgetting to check the room it lead to before I jumped out. I peeked my head up like a prairie dog, and scanned around. It was just a normal little maintenance room, filled with tools and equipment. No windows. I pulled myself up and out, stifling a groan as I did, but I still reached back to help Rebecca up. She flopped to the ground as I grabbed the outstretched hand of each person in the team, one by one. Once Mary was up, I resealed the hatch, and locked it tight. Then I lay down flat on my back, eyes closed, breathing heavily. That had taken a lot out of me.


    I couldn¡¯t take too much time. There was a lot to do still. More importantly, I needed to make a new plan with everyone. Things were changing a little too rapidly for my tastes. I opened my eyes to see Mary¡¯s hand extended in front of my face. I stared at it in confusion until I realized she was trying to help me stand. I took it gratefully, and clambered to my feet, facing the rest of the squad. They were in various states of being slumped over. I could see that they were teetering on the brink of panic, and I couldn¡¯t blame them. We¡¯d just had to put our lives in the hands of our greatest enemy. The fact that we¡¯d survived didn¡¯t do much to mitigate that.


    I opened my mouth to give some sort of inspirational speech, but then another tremor shook the building, causing me to stagger, my exhausted body barely able to keep upright.


    I shared a glance with Mary, made a snap decision, then addressed the room, ¡°We have to keep going. I don¡¯t know what these earthquakes are and I¡¯m not planning to stick around and find out. We¡¯re going to leave this building the same way we came in. I¡¯d rather take my chances out there. Objections?¡± I looked around, ¡°Good. Now, let¡¯s-¡°


    A loud bang rang clear in the room. I looked back at the maintenance hatch in horror. There was a large dent in the metal.


    ¡°Oh fuck,¡± whispered Allie.


    ¡°Mary in the lead, I¡¯ve got the back. Go!¡±


    I trained my SMG on the hatch and backed my way towards the door out of the room. Mary and the others funneled into the hallway, making sure it was clear. Another bang, and another dent appeared, bowing the metal outward.


    ¡°We¡¯re clear,¡± Mary said into the coms. I ducked out of the room, closing the door behind me and feeling absurd as I did so. We were just short of jogging as we moved through the halls, guns up. It wasn¡¯t far to the room, we just had to turn the corner and go up one of the auxiliary staircases.


    I heard the rapping of claws coming from ahead of us. Mary skidded to a halt, then motioned at us frantically to turn around. I stood and kept my gun leveled down the corridor as the rest moved past me, so that I could stay in the rear.


    ¡°Where¡¯re we going?¡± asked Jackson, his voice cracking.


    ¡°Main staircase. We¡¯ll head up from there,¡± Mary was trying to sound calm, but it felt hollow. We burst out onto the balcony overlooking the lobby, and I saw something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.


    A mass of undulating black and red blanketed the floor of the lobby. I couldn¡¯t tell where one Assimilator started and the other ended. As one, a thousand glowing red eyes swiveled up to meet me. It was suffocating, I could almost feel them boring into me. Every instinct I had told me to run, run as fast as I could, anywhere but here.


    ¡°Sam,¡± said Adelaide quietly, ¡°You have to lead.¡±


    She was right. I composed myself. ¡°Up the stairs,¡± I murmured, ¡°same order. Everyone but myself and Mary, keep an eye out for the jammer.¡±


    As we started to move I restricted my voice to just my helmet, ¡°Adelaide, can you get through to Camelot or the Merlin at all?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± came the hesitant answer, ¡°I cannot. But it is very bizarre. I can feel that the connection is there. It is as if there is a thick film between myself and the satellites.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s¡­ odd. Keep me posted.¡±


    I switched my focus back to the lobby. The Assimilators were still unmoving. How had they gotten in here? It didn¡¯t make sense; we would¡¯ve seen that many, and Camille would¡¯ve spotted them through the windows if they were on the top floors. I refused to believe that they were everywhere in the basement but the seventh lab. As far as the lobby goes, the lockdown doors should¡¯ve prevented them from getting inside, they were too strong for anything but a Hive Lord to get through, and I didn¡¯t see one of those down there, thank god.


    I figured it out when we were in between the second and third floor. It was idiotically simple, actually. They hadn¡¯t gone through the lockdown doors; they¡¯d just gone through the hardened concrete around it. There were holes gouged out in the walls of the first floor, that definitely hadn¡¯t been there when we¡¯d walked through before. Best guess was that just a small group of Worms had entered during the invasion, maybe through the same entrance we came in from. Once they¡¯d killed everyone inside, they went dormant. We woke them up, and they called for backup. Idiotic. So simple, and so idiotic of me not to think of it before.


    ¡°Change of plans everyone,¡± I said into the coms, ¡°The Worms got into the lobby from outside, so there¡¯s a good chance it¡¯ll be swarming with them. We¡¯re going to keep moving up, get to the roof. Hopefully, we''ll be out of jammer range by then.¡±


    It was a shot in the dark. A complete gamble, but I didn¡¯t know what else to do at this point. The Assimilators were still unmoving, still waiting for something. I didn¡¯t know what, but it was the only thing keeping us alive.


    We passed the third flour, then the fourth, and still they didn¡¯t move. When we passed the sixth, I noticed that the landings on the second, third and fourth had been occupied by Worms as well. It was like they were all trying to get a look at me as best they could. It sent shivers down my spine.


    ¡°Sam,¡± said Adelaide, ¡°I think I can get through to the Merlin.¡±


    I almost stumbled on the steps. ¡°How? Is the jammer weaker up here?¡± I asked excitedly.


    ¡°No, but I think I can punch through the ¡®film¡¯ I was talking about. I¡¯ve probed it once or twice, and I believe that if I force it, it will give way. Be prepared, I do not know how the Assimilators will react.¡±


    I hesitated, ¡°If we set them off, I don¡¯t know if we¡¯ll be able to outrun them to the roof.¡±


    ¡°I do not believe we have the time to reach the roof as it stands. Those holes on the bottom floor have destabilized this building. If a strong earthquake were to hit, it might collapse,¡± Shit fuck damn. Adelaide continued, ¡°I do have a plan, however. It requires you to get to the fortieth floor.¡±


    I listened carefully. It could work. Slightly insane, but it could work. We didn¡¯t have to change what we were doing much, thankfully. And it wouldn¡¯t reveal that Adelaide had been with us this whole time. It was simple too. I had to give Adelaide credit. It was a good plan.


    But my nerves were still completely shot after twenty floors of climbing. No amount of planning in the world would stop that. I¡¯d been on a knife¡¯s edge for almost an hour now. It wasn¡¯t so much that I was in the same building as thousands of raging Assimilators. It was the unknown. The fact that I had no idea why they weren¡¯t attacking. That at any moment, a switch could flip that I couldn¡¯t anticipate. I knew the Assimilators ¨C they were easy to anticipate, straightforward in their attacks. They were threatening, but I knew them, and I knew how to kill them. When they were like this, when they were unknown, that was when I started to fear them.


    And I hurt. All over, I hurt. No matter how good I was at ignoring pain, it was wearing on me, like water wears on a rock. It wasn¡¯t the sharp, sudden stab of a knife or a broken bone. It was omnipresent, grinding away at me inch by inch, and it wasn¡¯t just fraying on my mind. I¡¯d had to consciously stop myself from slipping on the stairs a couple times as my body failed to follow my commands. It didn¡¯t help that I was walking backwards either.


    Then, it finally happened. It wasn¡¯t preceded by another tremor. All I heard was a horrible cracking sound, and the building shifted, just a little bit. My eyes went wide with fear.


    ¡°Adelaide, do it.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Sam.¡±


    I let my SMG dangle from my shoulder and unclipped three grenades from my pack. I looked at the frozen squad.


    ¡°Start running.¡±


    As we started our sprint up the stairway, my vision became a little less sharp. The navigation on the HUD sprung back to life, and the position of the drones appeared again. Adelaide had broken through. I set the grenades¡¯ timers to five seconds, fifteen seconds, and twenty-five seconds, and dropped them down the stairs.


    An instant later, everything went straight to hell.


    A cacophony of horrible screams, unlike anything I¡¯d heard before, echoed up from the lobby. Thousands of Assimilators screeching in pure rage and hatred all at once, all directed at us. Then there was another tremor, incredibly strong. I fell, catching myself on the railing, as the building shook back and forth. There was another deafening series of cracks, and another shift, larger this time.


    The Worms started streaming up the main staircase, an unbroken horde of red and black, flowing like water up towards us. I ignored them, running with the rest of the squad. I had to get clear of what was coming next.


    There was a roar as the first grenade detonated twenty feet behind me, right at the head of the advancing Assimilators. It wasn¡¯t a fragmentation grenade; it was a simple high explosive used for making holes in things. It did its job phenomenally, wrecking the stairway that spiraled upwards, sending it crashing downward in a hail of rubble and glass. The second buckled further down, and the explosion rippled through the air. I had just passed the landing to the twenty-fourth floor when the last went off, and as I cast a glance over my shoulder I saw a gap in the staircase that not even an Assimilator could jump. I smiled to myself.


    Across the way, on the other half of the double helix, the stream of Assimilators continued unhindered. But the squad had caught on to my plan. Allie whipped her hand cannon out, and fired every explosive bullet in the magazine at the opposing side. Jackson and Rebecca followed suit, and the staircase crumbled under their concentrated fire, sending dozens of Worms plummeting to their deaths. There were a few Assimilators still behind us that my grenades hadn¡¯t killed, all M-1s. Aaron and I peppered them with automatic gunfire as they advanced, and they fell quickly. Mary kept her eyes up front, watching for any threats that might have been coming down to us.


    As we ran, I addressed them, ¡°I¡¯m not sure how, but I¡¯m back in contact with Adelaide. She¡¯s meeting us on the east side of the fortieth floor for pickup, we just have to get there!¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no place for her to land there!¡± Rebecca yelled back in confusion.


    I grinned, ¡°Not yet there isn¡¯t.¡±


    Our conversation was cut short by the appearance of a dozen gorilladillos bursting out on to a landing three floors above us. Their eyes were twisted in a familiar expression of hate as they sprinted down the staircase. The stair descended in such a gentle curve that we had plenty of time to bring the Worms down with a hail of automatic weapons fire. But their presence didn¡¯t bode well ¨C if some were already up this far, there were bound to more as well.


    My fears were realized as more began to pour out onto the staircase from above and below. Not many from each floor, between five and ten, but they added up quick. I told the squad to focus their attention upwards, because the ones below were easy pickings. A well-placed grenade would wipe them out. I only had so many of those, so the timing would be tricky. Wait long enough to get as many as possible, without letting them get too close.


    We were doing well. Better than I thought we would be. I hadn¡¯t really seen the 4th scouting team fight up until this point. They were deadly efficient, firing accurate bursts into the heads of the oncoming Worms. Their communication was phenomenal. Aaron had taken over their management, and I was happy to let him do so, because he was coordinating their reloads so that there wouldn¡¯t be a slack in gunfire. Mary was acting as a safety, eliminating any that made it through the team¡¯s barrage. There was a rhythm developing, one that was keeping the enemy at a manageable level while keeping us moving at a steady pace up the spiral stairs.


    Then there was another huge tremor, larger than everything up to this point combined. I saw Jackson get thrown off his feet up ahead, and I managed to grab him by the arm before he fell all the way down. I gasped in pain at the strain, but pulled him up anyway. He gave me a wordless nod of thanks, and he might¡¯ve meant to say something afterwards but there was a giant lurch as I felt the ground start to shift underneath.


    I set my coms to address everyone, ¡°Go to the thirty-sixth floor, just one above us. We don¡¯t have time to get higher!¡± I received a series of acknowledgements and winced. It was a definite risk. That low would put Adelaide directly in range of an R-2 Assimilator. But given the way the building was moving, it wasn¡¯t going to be standing much longer.


    We reached the landing, and made a hard left. The next part was going to be rough. The stairs were one thing ¨C they were wide open, and we¡¯d had plenty of space to pick them off. But now we¡¯d have to be moving through a tight series of hallways, in close quarters. There¡¯d be no hiding from the swarm either. Once one knew where we were, the rest would follow shortly. Our only advantage was that not many had made it this high yet. They only had the narrow auxiliary staircases to go up after all.


    As we entered into the hallways, a series of targets started to light up on my CAS. Camille had begun spotting for us again. She must¡¯ve been maneuvering a drone or two through the halls, threading the needle expertly. It was handy for sure, but we couldn¡¯t rely on her targets. In such a tight area, finding everything was impossible.


    As if to prove my point, a turtlebear burst out of the wall to my right, lunging straight at Allie. I put a burst of SMG fire into its head, and it crashed helplessly to the ground. I ignored Allie¡¯s long stream of surprised expletives and kept us moving. The front of the squad was starting to slow down; it was too risky to be rushing here. The problem is, caution was just as bad. I could feel the building tipping, excruciatingly slowly but surely. Once it really started to go, it would fall in a blink of an eye.


    Suddenly, Camille screamed into my communicator. I saw the incoming fist out of the corner of my eye, and my exhausted body moved a little too slow to duck it completely. It caught me in the shoulder, sending me crashing into a wall. As my head rang white I barely managed to block the next swing with both my arms, gasping at the force of the impact. The gorilladillo drew back its fist again, but was suddenly torn apart by round of bullets. I shook off the haze and gave a thankful nod to Jackson, who stood over the Worm¡¯s corpse.


    We started moving again, catching up to the rest of the team. They were currently engaging a pair of panther-spiders, who were weaving in and out of rooms, ducking their gunfire. They were just harassing us, trying to slow us down until the other Worms caught up. With Jackson and myself back with the group, we were able to move while keeping them at bay. I found myself next to Mary; it was difficult to keep the team in a cohesive order in such a hectic engagement.


    Just as we were approaching our target location, I saw one of the panther-spiders skid out of an office in front of me and lunge at Mary. It bowled her over, and she managed to block its fangs with one arm before they closed on her throat. I couldn¡¯t risk shooting her, so I let my SMG hang at my side and threw myself at the Worm while drawing my knife. My flying tackle sent the Assimilator sprawling, and I grappled with its flailing legs with one arm and stuck my knife deep into its head with another. It twitched for a moment and went still. I hauled myself off of the corpse and sheathed my knife, stumbling a little into the wall next to where I stood.


    Someone else, not sure who, had handled the other panther-spider while I was busy wrestling mine. Rebecca was helping Mary up, but Mary¡¯s arm was torn up pretty badly. The hallway went quiet for a moment, long enough for us to get in position. We had our backs up against the door to an expansive conference room, a hundred feet long and wide. One that had windows that faced the east. On major corridor extended in front of us, and there was one to our right, and one to our left. Everyone took the chance to reload, then we set ourselves up in a tight formation, covering all the approaches.


    ¡°Adelaide, we¡¯re in position,¡± I said into the coms, trying to keep my breathing under control.


    ¡°Okay Sam. I am attempting to avoid anti-aircraft fire, hold out just a few seconds longer.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think we have a few seconds,¡± I told her. I could hear the shrieks and cries of Assimilators, so many more than before, echoing in the hallways. My CAS was lighting up with red dots that Camille was targeting for us. The balance of the building continuing to shift as well, leaning us slightly to the north.


    The Worms rounded the three corners at the same time. Dozens of red eyes lit up the dark corridors, and we opened fire, our bullets flashing down the hallways. They fell fast, but they were endless, and the Assimilators inched nearer and nearer as the seconds ticked past. I picked off two more turtlebears with a pair of bursts and realized my automatic ammunition was out. Sweat dripped down my face as I loaded in a large-caliber single fire magazine. We weren¡¯t going to last long at this rate.


    Then I heard Adelaide yell at us to brace ourselves, and the world erupted in deafening roars and I shook as a dozen anti-matter rockets ripped open the east side of the thirty-sixth floor of the Greenwood Building. The wall separating us from the conference room was all that shielded us from the blast, but we still felt the shockwave clearly. I recovered first, shouldering my way through the door. The Merlin directly in front the new hole torn into the wall, facing away from us with the ramp open. The bright blue engines were flared, and I could see the telltale burst of lasers from its wings telling me that the point defense was in full use.


    Behind it, I saw the reason for the earthquakes, and a deep surge or fear came through me.


    I snapped out of it, and held the door for the squad as they sprinted past me. The Worms had been thrown off by the explosions, but they recovered quickly. I didn¡¯t bother to stop and deal with them; I was hot on the heels of the team. We just had to make it to the Merlin, we just had to make the last twenty feet, and we were safe.


    My CAS told me that an Assimilator had entered the room. I didn¡¯t spare a glance over my shoulder. The Merlin was right in front of me. There was no time to waste seeing what was behind. Allie, Aaron, Jackson and Mary jumped aboard, and turned to face the rest of us, bringing their SMGs up. A second too late, I heard their warnings, and I watched as a spike smashed into the gap between Rebecca¡¯s shoulder and upper back, flung from the tail of a ranged Assimilator. She stumbled but kept moving, the spike lodged deep.


    I whirled, and I saw the Assimilator. My adrenaline made the scene move in slow motion. The Worm was a scorpion and deer hybrid. It had a furred tail that arced over its back and ended in a series of wicked spikes. One of them was missing, and it was preparing to fire another. I hefted my gun, trying to kill it before it got to shoot. But I knew. I knew that I was moving too slow. My body was too broken to do what I knew it could. I watched helplessly as the spike flew out, I watched as it spun through the air towards Rebecca.


    I was too late.


    But two feet before it hit her, the spike erupted in a shower of sparks and seemed to stop in midair. The stealth drone flickered into visibility a moment after and crashed into the ground, impaled through. My gunfire, a little too late, still ripped the R-1 Assimilator apart, and without losing a beat I kept moving towards the Merlin. I grabbed Rebecca, who had started to slump over, and leapt into the gunship.

 Chapter 2.33: Home

    I landed hard on the floor of the drop bay, Rebecca in my arms. I looked back and saw the horde of Assimilators bellowing at us. The Merlin rocketed upwards in a straight vertical ascent, the ramp closing behind. I carefully laid Rebecca down on the bench in a sitting position, pulled off my helmet, and began trying get hers off too. She hadn''t said anything coherent and was mostly unresponsive, but there''d been a few moans of pain.


    ¡°What¡¯s the damage?¡± Aaron asked me urgently, moving to crouch near her.


    ¡°Not sure yet,¡± I grunted, detaching the helmet, ¡°I need to get a look at her first.¡± Rebecca¡¯s face was pale and her eyes fluttered underneath her eyelids. I spotted a sickly green color rising in her cheeks. I cursed loudly and leaned her forward, then ripped the spike out and tossed it to the side, getting shocked looks from the squad.


    I barked orders at them, ¡°Allie, medkit, now! Anyone with medical experience, I need your help!¡±


    Allie leapt up and grabbed the medkit from its spot near the cockpit doors. She tossed it to Jackson, who came over my way. His helmet was off, and the sweat plastered his hair to his head.


    ¡°I was going to medical school before, I can help,¡± he told me, looking over the injury.


    Hadn''t expected that, but I still nodded, ¡°Good. She¡¯s been hit with a neurotoxin. I''m going to need you to dress the wound, I¡¯ll prep the stabilizing shot.¡± I was busy trying to pull the armor away from her chest to get access to her heart. Through one of the open gunports, I saw the Greenwood Building begin to collapse, the glass and concrete caving in on itself as it crumbled to the ground. The sound came a moment later, a horrible shrieking and rumbling that reached all the way up to the Merlin. We¡¯d made it out with only minutes to spare.


    The gunship suddenly pitched to the side crazily, and I made sure that Rebecca didn¡¯t shift too much.


    ¡°Sam, we just got out of anti-aircraft range. I need you up here in the cockpit right away.¡±


    I knew exactly why Adelaide wanted me up there. It was damn important too.


    ¡°Twenty seconds,¡± I told her. I pulled a short plastic tube out of the medkit and left it next to Jackson. ¡°You know how this works? Prime using the button on top, that¡¯ll pop the needle out. You¡¯ll be doing an intracardiac injection. The neurotoxin is spreading to the heart first, so this will stabilize her. You¡¯ve got ten minutes, at most, until the toxin sends her into cardiac arrest.¡± The simulator had taught me plenty about treating Assimilator neurotoxin, and that experience was invaluable right now.


    Jackson gave me a tight nod.


    ¡°Good. Get Mary to help you, I¡¯m sure she has experience with this type of thing,¡± I gently let Jackson support her, then glanced at the cockpit. I stood up and made eye contact with him again, ¡°I really, really hate to leave her like this, more than I can say. But I can trust her with you, right?¡±


    He nodded again, eyes deadly serious.


    ¡°Good.¡± I took long strides to the cockpit. I hesitated briefly before opening the bulkhead door. It wouldn¡¯t be hard to see that no one else was in there, but at this point, it didn¡¯t really matter. The door slid open with a hiss and I walked to the pilot¡¯s chair. Through the canopy, I saw a nightmare.


    It was a massive rectangular object, blazing blue with oversized anti-grav propulsors, easily the size of the Greenwood Building. It rose from the center of downtown with a menacing slowness, ripping apart the skyscrapers that stood in its path. It had clearly just emerged from under the ground, because chunks of rubble were cascading off its hull. It was an Assimilator carrier, one of the ones used for the invasion. And it was coming directly at us with speed that belied its size.


    ¡°Can we outrun it?¡± I asked, oddly calm.


    ¡°I believe so. It will be closer than I would like. One of the engines was damaged by anti-aircraft fire,¡± replied Adelaide.


    I checked the HUD on the canopy. We were heading East as fast as possible, but it was at two-thirds of our normal speed. The back-left engine was only at half power, and the rest had to compensate for it. I took a deep breath. The problem was that I had no idea if the carrier had weapons capabilities or not.


    ¡°Has it done anything except for move?¡±


    Camille answered for her, ¡°As far as I can tell from the Merlin¡¯s feed, nope. The problem is scanners can¡¯t pick the thing up at all. We¡¯re only relying on sight here.¡±


    I smacked my hand on the dash in frustration, and regretted it immediately because it reminded me how badly everything was hurting. I hated it. I hated not knowing anything about what was going on. Why the fuck didn¡¯t they attack us? What had we possibly done to get something like that pissed off at us? Above all, I hated feeling so fucking helpless. All we could do was run and pray that it couldn¡¯t shoot us out of the sky, and that it wouldn¡¯t follow us all the way back.


    I heard the sound of boots near the doorway and a series of knocks followed. I closed my eyes.


    ¡°Are you okay if we open it?¡± I said to Adelaide.


    I received a quite noise of affirmation in response, and the bulkhead door opened again. Aaron and Allie walked in, then did a double take when they saw only me.


    I sighed and waved away their questions. ¡°Later. I¡¯ll explain later. How¡¯s Rebecca doing?¡±


    Curiosity was plastered all over Aaron¡¯s face but he still answered me, ¡°She¡¯s stable, for now. But I¡¯m worried. We don¡¯t have the facilities to treat neurotoxin, and she could - holy shit what the hell is that!?¡± His eyes went as round as saucers as he spotted the carrier, and his finger was raised, shaking heavily. It would¡¯ve been absolutely hilarious at any other point in time.


    ¡°That¡¯s a fucking carrier,¡± whispered Allie.


    I was about to respond, when I saw something on the Merlin¡¯s video feed out that froze the blood in my body. A dark red light was starting to glow on the prow of the carrier. Even from miles away I could see it clearly, and it was growing by the second. I grabbed the manual control joystick, one of the few times I¡¯d ever done so, and pulled the Merlin into a sharp evasive maneuver. A half second later, an incredibly bright flash of red lit up the night sky, and for a few terrifying moments I couldn¡¯t see anything. The white spots cleared from my eyes and I stared aghast at the Assimilator ship still moving after us.


    ¡°Adelaide, what the fuck was that?¡±


    She sounded close to panicking, ¡°I don¡¯t know. There was a massive energy spike from the carrier¡¯s direction, almost exactly the same as the energy signatures from our laser weaponry, but exponentially higher.¡±


    I felt sick to my stomach. Humanity had always survived on its technology, always used it to hold back the alien menace. But this thing¡­ this thing was so far beyond anything we¡¯d ever come up with. The sheer destructive power that laser boasted could¡¯ve incinerated a small city. I tried to calm myself down. That weapon clearly wasn¡¯t meant for hitting a ship as small as this one, so it would be easy enough to evade it as long as we were paying attention. And from what I could see, which wasn¡¯t much admittedly, the carrier¡¯s speed seemed to have slowed considerably. There were limitations to it.


    A tense minute followed. The distance between us and it was growing second by second, and it didn¡¯t seem to be preparing for another shot. Once it was out of sight, I breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back in my chair. Allie sat down on the floor and put her head on her knees, and Aaron leaned heavily on the back of the co-pilot¡¯s chair.


    ¡°So, Denver¡¯s not a great tourist hotspot,¡± I said into the silence, ¡°the locals are just such assholes.¡±


    I got a snort of amusement from Allie but she didn¡¯t raise her head. Aaron stared at me blankly. Tough crowd. I rolled my eyes and returned his look, ¡°Jesus, fine, sorry for trying to lighten the mood. You were talking about Rebecca before we almost got fried. Is she okay?¡±The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    A worried look flashed across his face, ¡°Like I was saying, she¡¯s doing alright for now. But the Red Eagles only have a basic mobile hospital¡­ I don¡¯t know if we can fully treat the neurotoxin.¡±


    ¡°We can.¡± It wasn¡¯t me that said it. Camille spoke quietly again, over the coms, ¡°We¡¯ll be able to handle it.¡±


    ¡°Who the fuck-¡° started Allie, but I cut her off.


    ¡°You¡¯ll meet her in a little while. Adelaide, how long until we reach Camelot?¡±


    ¡°I estimate ten minutes, Sam.¡±


    Mary picked that moment to walk into the cockpit. She looked at me, confused, ¡°Camelot? What the hell is Camelot?¡±


    I sighed and looked out the canopy.


    ¡°Home.¡±


    <hr>


    The canopy was tinted black when we touched down on Ellie. They didn¡¯t question that decision, luckily. I was waiting in the drop bay with everyone. We¡¯d all removed helmets and armor by this point, and the rest of the team all looked as tired as I felt. They looked like they were about to drop where they stood, but I could tell that they were all burning with curiosity as well. Rebecca was laying on the bench, and I was sitting next to her, keeping an eye on her. The stabilizer was working well, but she still didn¡¯t look good. Her face was white as a sheet and her thin blonde hair was disheveled. Her heart rate was fine though. Slow and steady. She¡¯d be okay, but that didn¡¯t stop me from worrying.


    Speaking of heart rates, mine was thundering like I¡¯d finished a sprint. This would be the first time anyone I¡¯d met after the end would be down here. I was letting people into the only place I felt truly safe. And it was nauseating


    The elevator finished lowering to the first floor with a soft clunk, and I tensed as the Merlin¡¯s ramp cracked opened. It dropped slowly, the artificial light from the entrance leaking in an inch at a time. I stood up and cracked my neck. As the ramp settled on the floor, I looked at the squad.


    ¡°Welcome to Camelot,¡± I told them with a dramatic sweep of my hand.


    Honestly, I¡¯m sure it was a little underwhelming. The entryway was, to put it bluntly, incredibly plain. It was just a large, empty, unfinished room that was big enough for Ellie to travel through. I saw Camille standing on the concrete, her face set with worry, looking completely exhausted. Four spider-bots were next to her, with two bearing a stretcher.


    I started to move down the ramp, and she sprinted up to me and caught me in a tight hug, burying her face in my chest. I was painfully reminded of our initial reunion, because god damn was my body too sore to handle this right now.


    Her voice was muffled, ¡°I thought you died.¡±


    I gave her a squeeze, ¡°Still alive and kicking. You¡¯re not going to get rid of me that easily.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m more than a little lost here,¡± said Allie from behind me.


    I let Camille go and faced them again. The spider-bots trundled up the ramp next to me, and the squad warily gave them room to pass. When they got to Rebecca, Jackson started to move towards them, but Aaron put a restraining hand on his shoulder. They watched in silence as the two free bots gently picked her up and placed her on the stretcher. The odd procession moved out again, carrying her to the medical bay.


    Allie watched them go. ¡°Yup, real fucking lost.¡±


    I held up my hands placatingly, ¡°Those are the utility bots for this facility. They¡¯re taking Rebecca to the med-bay right now. We¡¯ll meet them there, but for now, I¡¯m sure you guys want an explanation.¡±


    Camille nodded from next to me, then she suddenly realized what was coming next when I and the rest of the squad stared at her expectantly. She started shaking like a leaf, and I grinned wickedly on the inside. From experience, this was honestly one of the more entertaining things to watch. She gave me a pleading look, and I shook my head. Camille swallowed audibly.


    ¡°Uhh, I-I¡¯m Camille, it¡¯s meet you,¡± she stammered, then turned bright red, ¡°Shit. I mean, um, it¡¯s nice to meet you all. Sam is very nice.¡± She paused, realized she hadn¡¯t gotten her sentence right, and turned redder, ¡°I mean, Sam tells me you¡¯re all very nice.¡±


    The squad was looking even more confused, and I couldn¡¯t hold back a giggle at this point. I got a furious and desperate glare from Camille and decided to put her out of her misery.


    ¡°As she attempted to say, this is Camille Brown ¨C¡°


    Allie interrupted me with a look of dawning realization on her face, ¡°Oh shit, the one Anton was talking about? Your dead girlfriend? She looks pretty damn alive to me.¡±


    I raised an eyebrow, ¡°Your observational skills are unparalleled.¡±


    ¡°You lied to us!¡± said Jackson in an accusatory voice.


    ¡°I mean, generally? Yeah, a couple times, but when I told Anton she hadn¡¯t made it I honestly thought so as well. We only met up again about a week ago,¡± I responded. Camille jerked her head up and down like a broken robot next to me. She was getting so much shit for this later.


    Mary cut in, ¡°Well that¡¯s nice, but I don¡¯t really care all that much about your girlfriend,¡± Camille deflated slightly next to me, ¡°Where the hell are we?¡±


    I looked back over my shoulder, ¡°Let¡¯s start walking, it¡¯ll be easier to explain on the way. Besides, I want to check in on Rebecca.¡± Mary gave me a reluctant nod, and I started leading to the main hallway.


    I launched into explanation mode as we walked through the base, ¡°Essentially, this is an experimental underground base, meant for training Paladins. After the invasion and the war ended, I was the only staff left down here. It was still under construction, and since it was mostly automated there only needed to be a skeleton crew. I named it Camelot, because I¡¯m cute and quirky like that.¡±


    The door to the command center was open, and Aaron stopped to gape at it. Camille had left the holoprojector running. It was far more sophisticated compared to the embarrassment the Red Eagles were using. Elitism was delicious.


    I paused as well, and grinned at him, ¡°You¡¯ve got good taste. The command center is one of my favorite parts of Camelot, but I¡¯ll give you all the tour later. For now, let¡¯s keep moving.¡± He reluctantly tore his eyes away from it and followed along. I gave a basic overview of the two facilities as we walked, but I stuck to only the main floors, choosing not to talk about the Paladin storage or fabricators. But I wanted to show off a little bit, maybe get them interested in what Camelot had to offer. Mary looked flabbergasted when I told her about the simulators. And by flabbergasted, I meant her right eyebrow raised very slightly and her mouth opened for a second. For Mary, that was basically shitting her pants in shock.


    ¡°So you¡¯re telling me you¡¯ve got a full combat simulation set up in here? With virtual instructors?¡± She asked as we rode the sidevator over to the secondary facility.


    Camille had been quiet the whole time, sticking close to my side, but she tried to answer her question. Tried being the operative word. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s pretty dope,¡± oh God this was already amazing, ¡°the simulators are all actually linked, so you can train together with a squad,¡± that was an improvement, ¡°But they take a little getting used to, I pretty much throw up almost every time I get into them because of you know the harnesses and stuff and the instructors are pretty tough because they¡¯ve gotta get you trained up¡­ I¡¯ll uh. Yeah. That¡¯s about it.¡± She didn¡¯t stick the landing, to say the least.


    Mary flicked her eyes at her, dismissed her existence, and looked back at me. Camille withered, and Allie shot her a look of pity mixed with judgement.


    ¡°Fun,¡± said Mary, ¡°I¡¯d like to take one of them for a spin sometime. There are a few skills I¡¯m rusty in.¡±


    I nodded at her, ¡°I might be able to arrange that.¡±


    We stepped into the main facility, and this time it was Aaron that spoke, ¡°Where is Adelaide? I¡¯d like to thank her for piloting the drones and saving Rebecca. I¡¯m assuming she¡¯s been flying the Merlin remotely.¡±


    I hesitated, ¡°Adelaide did fly the Merlin remotely, but it¡¯s a bit complicated. Another thing for later,¡± I paused then remembered something, ¡°Oh, and Adelaide wasn¡¯t flying those drones, Camille was.¡±


    Mary took another glance at Camille, and there was a good deal more approval in her eyes, ¡°Really now? That was some damn good flying. Never seen someone pilot drones like that.¡±


    Camille had more of a spring to her step as we rounded the corner to the med-bay. I had to forcibly suppress the urge to ruffle her hair fondly. The doors slid open, and we walked in. The sterile white tiling always threw me off a bit. The first Medical Pod showed that it was occupied. I checked the display. She was going to be there for around twelve hours. It took a damn long time to get Assimilator neuro-toxins out of the blood stream. I heard a small squeak and turned around. Jackson was looking around the room, dumbfounded


    ¡°Are¡­ are those med-pods?¡± he gasped, ¡°Twelve med-pods?¡±


    I nodded.


    ¡°Jesus fucking Christ, do you know how much even one of these costs?¡± He asked me urgently.


    I shook my head with a Zen smile, ¡°No, but does it matter? Life is priceless.¡±


    ¡°Three hundred-million.¡±


    ¡°Holy fucking shitballs.¡±


    Aaron cleared his throat, ¡°I take it that Rebecca is in one of these?¡±


    I pieced together my blown mind, ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s in the first one. Don¡¯t worry, this thing put me back together after I fought the Hive Lord, so it¡¯ll patch her up right as rain. In twelve hours, it¡¯ll be like she was never almost dead.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s pretty handy,¡± said Allie.


    I rubbed my side, where the Hive Lord¡¯s claw had come punctured, ¡°No kidding.¡± The simple action of doing that, for whatever reason, brought all the pain and exhaustion from the day rushing back up, and I nearly collapsed on the spot. Camille grabbed me to keep me up, concern written on her face.


    I straightened up again and addressed the squad, ¡°I¡¯m going to be honest with you guys, I¡¯m pretty much on my last legs here. I¡¯m in no shape to escort you all back to where you need to go, and I¡¯m pretty sure that everyone but Mary wants to wait for Rebecca anyway. How ¡®bout we have a slumber party here for tonight? We¡¯ve got plenty of empty rooms.¡±


    Mary nodded wordlessly, and the 4<sup>th</sup> scouting team shared a glance. Aaron answered for them, ¡°That would be amazing actually. I think all of us could use some rest. I¡¯ll get in contact with the Red Eagles to let them know we¡¯re safe,¡± he paused, then continued, ¡°And don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t say anything about this place.¡±


    I smiled, ¡°Awesome. Once you get your parents¡¯ permission, I¡¯m going to let Camille and the spider-bots get you all settled in. I¡¯m pretty sure that most of my muscle fibers don¡¯t exist anymore, and I¡¯d like to fix that ASAP.¡± I was fairly certain that I was going to pass out sometime in the next minute, so I walked up to one of the medical pods. It slid open to greet me and I plopped myself down on the soft plastic with a satisfied groan, and stared out at everyone. The squad was looking more than a little awkward and Camille looked an adorable mixture of panicked at the situation and enraged at me.


    ¡°Nighty night everyone,¡± I said, wiggling my fingers at them as the white shell closed around me.

 Chapter 2.34: Learning

    My eyes cracked open and the first thing I felt was how damn stiff and sore my body felt, and not in a sexy way. It felt like there were planks of wood lining my arms and legs. I took a second to get my bearings. I¡¯d been moved away from the medical bay back to the commander¡¯s quarters at some point, probably by the spider bots. The holoprojected clock on the bedside table told me it was early morning, so I¡¯d only been under for about five hours. I frowned. It should¡¯ve taken longer to heal the damage, which would explain the continued pain.


    The events of the previous night suddenly came rushing back to me, and I was hit with a flurry of emotions. First, concern about Rebecca. I was 99.9% confident she¡¯d be fine, but Assimilator neurotoxins were some horrible shit. She still had around six hours in the medical pod though, so I couldn¡¯t do anything about it. Second, I had a mini-panic attack when I realized that there was an entire group of people just hanging out in the base. What the hell had I been thinking? I mean, it was one thing to bring Rebecca here, she definitely needed the help, but everyone else was a completely unnecessary risk. I was just too out of it last night to realize that. I¡¯m pretty sure Camille had been as well: keeping that level of mental control for so long was incredibly draining.


    Worrying about it wouldn¡¯t solve anything though, and the damage was done at this point. I rolled out of the bed, missing the softness immediately, and threw on some clothes. I had to look presentable, we had company.


    ¡°Good morning, Sam,¡± said Adelaide over the coms.


    ¡°Heya Adelaide, how¡¯re you doing?¡± I responded. My eyes flicked between shoes and slippers, trying to decide which to go with. I shrugged and put on the slippers. Company could deal with it.


    ¡°Everything is going well. Camille is waiting for you in the kitchen, and the rest of our guests are still asleep.¡± Thank God for that at least. I¡¯m guessing Camille had taken some extra precautions, because she wasn¡¯t nearly as much of an idiot as I was. Speaking of Camille¡­


    I winced, ¡°How mad is she?¡±


    There was a moment of hesitation, ¡°You should probably be prepared to return to the medical bay.¡±


    Oh joy. Well, it had been totally worth it. Flustered Camille was in my top ten favorite things. I head down the hallway, rolling my neck. There was a definite edge of exhaustion, but it was a good thing that I hadn¡¯t been allowed to sleep in. I wanted to be wide awake by the time everyone else was.


    I walked into the kitchen, and immediately felt something hard smack into my face. I flailed like a drunk cat and stumbled backwards. The offending object thumped to the floor. I look at Camille aghast, ¡°Did you just throw a loaf of bread at me?¡±


    ¡°Be happy it wasn¡¯t a knife,¡± she growled, eyes flashing with rage, ¡°You¡¯re such a dick. I can¡¯t believe you just left me with those people!¡±


    I ignored her and picked up the loaf, ¡°I¡¯d say don¡¯t waste food, but this felt more like a brick.¡±


    ¡°Baking is fucking hard, okay? And don¡¯t change the subject or I¡¯m going stick that loaf up your ¨C¡°


    I cut her off with a long kiss. She wrapped her arms around me and we stayed like that for a little.


    ¡°That¡¯s cheating,¡± she murmured.


    ¡°Didn¡¯t get to do that yesterday. Sue me.¡±


    There was a minute or so of silence where I just held her. She started to speak again, softly, ¡°When I saw all those Assimilators going into the building and I couldn¡¯t get through to you¡­¡±


    I squeezed her tight, ¡°I¡¯m still alive though, and more or less in one piece. That¡¯s the last time I go and do something that dumb. Probably.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the last time you go and do something that dumb without me, at least,¡± Camille muttered. She stepped back, wiping at her eyes. I gave her a reassuring smile then looked to see what she was doing. There was a pile of uncooked bacon next to a frying pan, and a dozen or so eggs.


    I raised an eyebrow at her, ¡°Don¡¯t go getting all domestic on me, you¡¯ll set my heart aflutter.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t make me get my loaf.¡±


    I held up my hands in surrender, and watched her bustle around the kitchen for a bit. She stopped at the refrigerator, leaving her hand on the handle.


    ¡°We fucked up,¡± she said quietly, looking over her shoulder at me.


    I nodded, ¡°We fucked up real bad. I¡¯m really sorry I bailed when I did, I wasn¡¯t thinking at all. Did you guys take any precautions?¡±


    Adelaide responded for her, ¡°I kept the doors to their rooms locked overnight. I¡¯ve opened them again so they don¡¯t feel trapped, but I sealed off everything but the kitchen and their rooms. All outgoing and incoming signals have been blocked. Spider-bots were on guard outside all night, and I monitored the security feeds. The weapons we gave them were disabled remotely. I also screened Aaron¡¯s call back to the Red Eagles. He said nothing concrete about Camelot. However, we cannot prevent him telling Commander Berston in person.¡±


    ¡°It was dark out, the Merlin¡¯s canopy was tinted, and we didn¡¯t have any information up on the holo, so there¡¯s no way they have anything other than a really rough estimate of where we are. And the 4th Scouting Team had that anyway; I met them for the first time inside the perimeter after all,¡± I ticked my points off on my fingers, ¡°All in all, it probably could¡¯ve been a lot worse.¡±


    ¡°Yup,¡± said Mary, leaning in the door jam, ¡°it definitely could¡¯ve. But you all are still idiots.¡±


    I grabbed a small paring knife from the counter and whipped around, holding it in a reverse grip. Mary was looking at me with an amused expression, her arms crossed over her chest.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not here to fuck up your day. Nice response time, though.¡± She walked over to the kitchen table and pulled out a seat. I stood holding the little knife and felt like a massive dumbass. I sighed and put it back down.


    ¡°Wrong,¡± Mary groaned, ¡°Don¡¯t disarm yourself in front of people you can¡¯t fully trust. Seriously.¡±


    I left the knife where it was, ¡°Did you have to work hard to be so condescending, or is it a natural talent?¡±


    ¡°A little of column A, a little of column B. Nice place you¡¯ve got here.¡±


    I leaned on the counter and rubbed my forehead, ¡°I¡¯m gonna assume you woke up early, waited until the doors were unlocked, and came out here first chance you got. Don¡¯t know how you avoided the spider-bots and security cameras though.¡±


    She gave me a thumbs up, ¡°Bingo. Should¡¯ve waited until after your strategy meeting to open them up. Speaking of which, would you mind locking the rest of them again? Don¡¯t want the squad to hear this next part.¡±If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Camille looked like she wanted to say something, but made eye contact with Mary and turned bright red. She gave me a pleading look. I sighed internally. We really had to do something about this little quirk of hers.


    ¡°I¡¯m trying to figure out why we should do that, and I¡¯m coming up blank,¡± I told Mary.


    ¡°Because I¡¯m about to go through every single mistake in security you made, and I¡¯m sure you don¡¯t want anyone else eavesdropping.¡±


    ¡°Excuse me?¡± I said.


    She looked at me pointedly, ¡°You heard me right.¡±


    Camille and I exchanged a glance. The wordless consensus we reached was that it probably wouldn¡¯t hurt to hear her out. I nodded slightly at the security camera.


    I walked over and took a seat across from Mary, and Camille joined us. ¡°Alright, done. We won¡¯t be bothered.¡±


    Mary leaned back in her chair, ¡°First off, why I¡¯m helping you. I¡¯m going to be blunt: I¡¯m aiming to get in your good graces. You¡¯re a damn good ally to have around. Resources you¡¯ve got at your disposal are something else entirely. You seem honorable and all that, so I¡¯m doubting you¡¯ll leave me out in the lurch if I need your help. I also got the ¡®potential recruitment¡¯ vibe from that mission, and I want to keep my options open.¡±


    ¡°Reasonable, but how do we know you¡¯re not just going to make us trust you and give us advice that looks good for now, but fucks us over in the end?¡± said Camille, her skepticism overcoming her awkwardness.


    ¡°Good question. Part of it is that I¡¯ve really got no way to fuck you over, not that I would. Like you were saying, I don¡¯t really have useful info. I know you¡¯ve got a nice command center, insane medical facilities, plenty of space, fantastic simulators, and a very secure facility. I know your general location, I¡¯d guessed it from when metal boy over here jumped out to save me. Could be lying about all this too though. Mostly, I really, really don¡¯t want to piss you guys off. I hear Sam can go toe-to-toe with a Hive Lord, and the Merlin packs some serious firepower,¡± she paused, ¡°Also, you¡¯re decent people as far as I can tell. Not many decent people out here.¡±


    Camille seemed to find that acceptable, because after few seconds of contemplation she nodded and sat back in her chair. I gestured at Mary to go on.


    She responded by reaching down and pulling out a large knife from her boot, and sticking it in the table. I didn¡¯t twitch. I could¡¯ve stopped her pretty easily if she¡¯d actually tried anything. I was curious to see where she was going with this. Then I was surprised to see a 9mm pistol pointed at my face, but I noticed the safety was on. I stared down the barrel, then she flipped it over in her hand and dropped it on the table.


    ¡°Worst offense: you didn¡¯t make sure we were disarmed. Yeah you turned off the fancy toys you gave us, but guns and knives are pretty simple things, and they can kill someone just as well. If I wanted you two dead, you would¡¯ve been.¡±


    I flicked my eyes to the knife embedded in the table. ¡°Point taken.¡±


    ¡°Second offense is how much you let your guard down. I get that you were basically a walking corpse at the end there, Sam, but you definitely should¡¯ve at least waited until everyone was locked in their rooms before getting into that medical pod.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to have to disagree there,¡± I cut in, ¡°I was less than a minute from passing out, I know my body pretty damn well. I don¡¯t think collapsing on the floor would¡¯ve projected quite the right image.¡±


    ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll give you that one,¡± she conceded, ¡°but the general idea stands. Show that you¡¯re untouchable when you¡¯re on home turf, so nobody thinks about messing with you. Now there were a few more specific things I wanted to talk about too¡­¡±


    By a few, she meant about a dozen or so, mostly small things. There wasn¡¯t a security checkpoint at the entrance, of any sort. There weren¡¯t emergency weapons at any point throughout the hallways. We didn¡¯t carry sidearms on us at all times when we were in the base. There were a couple bigger picture lessons too: if we wanted to bring the whole team in, fine, but we should¡¯ve had them restricted to the common rooms and living quarters from the start, instead of giving a tour. Mary was shockingly patient as she explained. She was careful to never give recommendations that were too specific; she made it a point to demonstrate that she wasn¡¯t trying to give us weaknesses to exploit.


    I was starting to get a sneaking suspicion about her when Adelaide started speaking over the coms.


    ¡°I apologize for interrupting, but it appears as though the remaining members of the 4th Scouting Team are starting to wake up.¡±


    Mary glanced up at the ceiling, ¡°Oh, and you did a good job keeping your AI or computer or whatever close to your chest. Not really going to blame you for that reveal; the carrier was pretty urgent.¡±


    ¡°Indeed. My name is Adelaide, I am a pseudo-AI in charge of Camelot. I also serve many other functions. It is very nice to meet you, officially,¡± Adelaide said pleasantly.


    ¡°Pseudo-AI huh? Can¡¯t say I¡¯m that surprised, knowing you all I expected it to be ghost or so- what the hell are you doing!?¡± she suddenly barked at Camille, who jumped, startled.


    ¡°Uh. I¡¯m uhm, making bacon?¡± Camille stammered, confused and slightly frightened.


    Mary stared at her wide-eyed, ¡°Then why, in the name of all that is holy, are you putting butter in the pan?¡±


    Camille looked down at the pan, ¡°Is that¡­ is that bad?¡±


    Mary¡¯s mouth open and closed wordlessly, and then she shut her eyes. She stood up from the kitchen table and moved over to Camille, who recoiled slightly. Mary waved a hand at her, ¡°Cut that crap out and pay attention. I¡¯m going to teach you how to stop making a fool out of yourself,¡± she looked back at me, ¡°Does this one¡¯s incompetence extend to eggs too?¡±


    I was about to shake my head, then remembered the last scramble she¡¯d been in charge of. I nodded instead, ¡°You see that blackened rock on the ground? That¡¯s a loaf of bread she made.¡± Camille had a look of deep betrayal on her face.


    Mary glanced at the offending baked good and groaned, ¡°Girl can fly drones better than three people put together but can¡¯t make breakfast. Typical.¡±


    Camille squeaked something in protest but Mary ignored it and started rummaging around, muttering something about a bigger pan. I watched, amused, my sneaking suspicion growing stronger. It was around the time that she was telling Camille about beating air into the eggs that I determined for sure that Mary either hated watching people screw up or loved to teach, maybe a bit of both.


    I left them to it, and started getting out place settings. Apparently, the team had met up in Aaron¡¯s room to talk things over, and were wrapping up their impromptu meeting. Adelaide had spied on it, of course. There hadn¡¯t been anything too revealing, because even if they were nefariously plotting something they weren¡¯t dumb enough to chat about it, so there was no reason not to enjoy a nice breakfast. I was more than a little excited. It¡¯d be my first time eating with a big group for almost a year.


    Mary watched Camille put a dozen slices of just-a-bit-too-crunchy bacon on a paper towel covered plate and nodded in approval. There was a proud glint in her eyes as Mary reached over and patted Camille on the head twice, and Camille looked a mixture of mortified and ecstatic. The scene was a both heartwarming and hilarious. I had to stifle my giggles as I put the knives and forks around the table.


    ¡°Alright, you managed that well. Now, let¡¯s start on the scramble. Important thing is to not fuss over it, let the eggs cook ¨C¡°


    Aaron strolled into the kitchen right in the middle of her sentence. ¡°Good morning everyone, something smells delicious!¡± There was a bright smile on his face, and another of my suspicions was confirmed. The bastard did wake up with perfect hair. Allie and Jackson funneled in after him, looking significantly more disheveled.


    Allie sniffed the air, ¡°Fuck me, is that bacon?¡±


    I grinned at her, ¡°Yes ma¡¯am. The Camelot Bed and Breakfast doesn¡¯t skimp out. Take a seat, food¡¯ll be done soon if Camille doesn¡¯t fuck it up.¡±


    Mary piped up from the stove, ¡°At least she¡¯s doing something, unlike your lazy ass.¡± Camille smirked at me and stuck her tongue out.


    Allie looked at them, confused, then leaned over to me, ¡°What the fuck is going on there? Your girlfriend couldn¡¯t even look her in the eye without crapping herself last night.¡±


    ¡°I dunno, I think Camille¡¯s utter helplessness might¡¯ve awoken some deep-seeded maternal instinct or something,¡± I whispered to her.


    ¡°I was under the impression that you wanted to eat,¡± Mary growled, ¡°keep making comments like that and you might not be.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s my goddamn bacon!¡± I yelled, ¡°I literally almost died to get that!¡±


    ¡°Quit your complaining and grab a trivet,¡± she shot back. I looked at Mary quizzically, and she rolled her eyes, ¡°It¡¯s the thing that goes under a hot pan so you don¡¯t damage the-¡°, she stopped and sighed, ¡°you know what, never mind, I¡¯ll just get it.¡±


    Jackson yawned loudly, eyes still half closed. He looked around, apparently not registering what was happening. ¡°Good morning,¡± he mumbled, and walked towards the table. A moment after sitting down, his head slumped and a light snore emerged. I looked at Aaron in amazement.


    ¡°Jackson has a¡­ difficult time in the mornings,¡± he said apologetically.


    ¡°Fuck you, Rebecca, don¡¯t make fun of my hat,¡± Jackson mumbled blearily.


    Allie suddenly yelped, and held her foot in pain, ¡°Why the fuck is there a rock on the floor!?¡±


    Camille whistled guiltily and avoided eye contact as she walked over with the pan of eggs, Mary shaking her head and following behind. I laughed and took my own seat, looking around at everyone. Caution and security were important, I won¡¯t deny that. But moments like these were too.

 Chapter 2.35: Interim

    I leaned up against the wall of the common room, watching Jackson mercilessly beat the living shit out of Camille, Allie, and Mary.


    ¡°Allie talked a big game,¡± I told Aaron, ¡°But damn is she getting her shit rocked.¡±


    Aaron nodded pensively, ¡°To her credit, she isn¡¯t that bad.¡±


    I watched her get blown away without landing so much a hit on Jackson. ¡°Fair enough. She¡¯s hanging on better than Camille and Mary at least.¡±


    The person in question was currently raging on the couch, ¡°Cut that wave dashing bullshit out Jackson or I swear to God I¡¯m going to break this controller over your stupid fucking head.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you Allie, you¡¯ve already got me using Kirby,¡± said Jackson, ¡°just admit that you suck.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m warming up you little shitstain,¡± she growled back, ¡°we¡¯re doing Pok¨¦mon Stadium next.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve been warming up for an hour at this point,¡± Camille muttered. She¡¯d been teaching Mary the finer points of the game, because she was absolutely god-awful at it. They¡¯d sequestered themselves in a corner of the map while Jackson shit all over Allie. Apparently, she couldn¡¯t suffer incompetence even in herself, so she¡¯d been practicing non-stop. Progress was¡­ limited.


    It had been an odd morning, honestly. After the team had finished breakfast (which had been surprisingly bereft of awkward pauses), I¡¯d been a little unsure of what would happen next. At that point, there had still been another five or so hours until Rebecca woke up. I was expecting an awkward, five-hour long silence.


    Reality turned out to be much more comfortable. Aaron had gathered up his team and cleaned the kitchen while Camille, Mary and I loafed around. Our guests asked to use the showers attached to their rooms, which we obviously said yes to. Camille and I took that time to get gussied up too (we had Adelaide keeping an eye on them in case of any funny business).


    After that, we¡¯d gathered in the command center (no point in hiding it at that point), and debriefed about the mission. The long and short of it was: never go back to Denver ever again. We mostly focused on how it was a damn miracle that nobody died, and that the worst injuries, other than Rebecca¡¯s, were nothing more than mild scrapes and bruises. I claimed credit for that; the gear I¡¯d fabricated worked beautifully. Aaron admitted that he would¡¯ve been gutted by a Panther-Spider if not for the armor. It was mostly shit luck that Rebecca had gotten hit as bad as she did. As far as the weapons go, more grenades (and different types) would¡¯ve been wonderful. I wasn¡¯t planning on doing any more out-of-Paladin excursions, but I was strongly considering a line-up of grenades for the Paladin to play around with. With its arm strength, it could basically work as a short-range mortar. So that was neat.


    We also talked about the incredibly bizarre Assimilator behavior before they attacked. I had my suspicions and I¡¯m pretty sure Camille had the same ones, but we kept them to ourselves. Mine, at least, had to do with a certain information extra-terrestrial, which made it pretty sensitive information. But it was fairly entertaining watching Allie and Jackson debate hotly over if I was a secret Assimilator deity or not.


    We¡¯d pissed away the next few hours with a pair of movies. I¡¯d sorta wanted to use that time to look over the goodies we¡¯d picked up in Denver, but it was really okay that I didn¡¯t. I had still been pretty damn drained from the previous night¡¯s exploits, so some time to wind down was quite nice. Probably wouldn¡¯t have been very productive at that point. We ended up watching the first two Indiana Jones movies. Remembering it got me thinking about if a whip could be a good weapon for the Paladin. On one hand, it would be stupid, inefficient, and probably entirely ineffective. On the other, it would be super badass, so that had to count for something.


    Jackson¡¯s loud laugh of triumph coupled with a stream of curses from Allie broke me out of my reverie. I heard Aaron chuckling lowly, and glanced over to see him looking at his two squad mates fondly. A small smile graced his featured, and I marveled again at how unfair genetics were. He caught my glance and misinterpreted it as curiosity, rather than the seething jealousy it actually was.


    ¡°I haven¡¯t seen Jackson this¡­ happy, for lack of a better word, in a long, long time,¡± he told me.


    I shrugged, ¡°That¡¯s not surprising. It¡¯s hard to be relaxed enough to be happy in a world like this one. Being in a nigh impenetrable bunker tends to put people in their comfort zone.¡±


    ¡°Oh. That¡¯s certainly true. But Imeant more that I hadn¡¯t seen him like this since even before the end.¡±


    I raised an eyebrow at him, surprised, ¡°I didn¡¯t realize that the two of you knew each other from before.¡± There was probably a five to eight-year gap between the two of them, so it had never really occurred to me that they might¡¯ve known each other.


    Aaron grimaced, ¡°We don¡¯t really act like it, do we? Jackson¡¯s my step-brother, actually. We weren¡¯t exactly close though.¡±


    ¡°Hold the fuck up, what?¡± I said, ¡°Why am I just hearing about this now?¡±


    He looked at me skeptically, ¡°This coming from the man who told everyone his girlfriend was dead?¡±


    ¡°Y¡¯know what, that¡¯s just unfair, because I totally thought she was too. Now explain this Jackson thing,¡± I demanded. I checked to make sure that nobody else (Jackson) was listening in on our conversation. He was still happily kicking the snot out of Allie¡¯s Fox, so we were in the clear.


    Aaron sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair, ¡°Not much to explain. My dad got remarried a few years back, new wife had a kid already, Jackson. Parents lived in Colorado Springs, but I was up in Alaska most of the time so I didn¡¯t see much of them. Never really got to know Jackson. Didn¡¯t help that he was still a teenager when they got together.¡±


    ¡°How¡¯d you end up joining up together then?¡± I asked, intrigued.


    ¡°I was on leave when the end came. Same as a lot of the guys in the Red Eagles, actually. Anyway, I was visiting my dad in the Springs and he asked me to go hunting with Jackson, get some one-on-one time together. Wish he¡¯d gone with us. Only reason me and Jackson survived the invasion was because we were out of the city,¡± there was a faraway look in Aaron¡¯s eyes, ¡°I don¡¯t really think you understand how hopeless it was back then. One day everything was fine, the next everything was gone. People just didn¡¯t know how to react, didn¡¯t know what to do. For the next week or so, I thought that the Worms were just going to finish the job, like they did everywhere else. Me and Jackson were holed up in my dad¡¯s cabin. He¡¯d wanted to go back to the Springs to find his mom, but I didn¡¯t let him. The city didn¡¯t get hit as hard as Denver did, but a carrier did attack them.¡±


    He went quiet after that, so I prodded him a bit, ¡°What happened next? How¡¯d you guys join up with the Red Eagles?¡±


    ¡°Well, we started running out of supplies at the cabin a few days later, so we tried to find some more. Ended up in a small town south of the Springs, Jackson and I started working as guards there for a couple weeks. It was bizarre how normal it all was. Just three weeks after the end of the world and I was back to holding a rifle. You could almost forget about it.¡± He shook his head, ¡°Worms attacked at the end of the first month. I¡¯m still not really sure why, but I think we were too close to Colorado Springs. Either way, it was looking grim ¨C¡°


    I cut him off, ¡°And that¡¯s when the noble and glorious Red Eagles came to the rescue.¡±


    Aaron cast me a withering glance.


    ¡°Hey, just guessing,¡± I said, ¡°Sorry. Go on with your story.¡±


    He cleared his throat, ¡°Yes. Well, in any case, the town had little in the way of defenses. Just a few guards, and we did as well as we could. There were only around two hundred Worms, but that was still far too many. We¡¯d all fallen back to the town hall, and were preparing ourselves for our inevitable last stand, when suddenly there was the sound of mass gunfire and the Worms outside went quiet.


    ¡°The Red Eagles heard our distress call and came to our aid. They saved every person in that town. I joined up with them because of that. If they¡¯d been just another mercenary group, I wouldn¡¯t have. They were all ex-military, a mish-mash of the survivors from the Air Force base in the Springs, and they were still protecting the people. That¡¯s what sets them apart,¡± he finished with pride in his voice, ¡°And incidentally, that¡¯s why I don¡¯t want you to worry about what Commander Berston has been saying. Push comes to shove, he¡¯ll help out Sterling. He always has before.¡±


    I gave him a nod at that, and wondered idly if this was the wild optimism that people made fun of me for.


    Aaron put himself back on topic, ¡°It was just me and Jackson in the Red Eagles for a while. Jackson doesn¡¯t do so well with other people, so we were isolated. Things did get better once we got assigned to the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team. They¡¯re like family now.¡±


    ¡°Funny how that happens, right?¡± I said, giving the security camera a subtle wink.


    ¡°Why¡¯d you wink at the ceiling?¡±


    Shit. I needed to get better at subtlety. I waved the question off, and was searching for a change of subject when Adelaide started to speak.


    ¡°Sam, the treatment of Rebecca¡¯s injury is complete,¡± she said over the base¡¯s intercom.


    ¡°And the neurotoxin?¡± I asked.


    ¡°It has been removed entirely from her bloodstream. Rebecca should show no residual effects from the neurotoxin.¡±


    Aaron beamed, and turned to me, ¡°That¡¯s excellent news! May we visit her?¡±


    ¡°Yes. She will be emerging from her medical sleep within two minutes. Please proceed to the medical bay,¡± Adelaide responded for me. I noticed she was making her voice slightly more robotic than usual. Like she had before.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Aaron, Jackson, and Allie were already walking towards the door. Allie looked back at me, ¡°The fuck are you just standing around there for? Aren¡¯t you coming?¡±


    ¡°Go on ahead, I¡¯ve got something I need to talk to Camille about first,¡± I told her. A look of comprehension came over Allie¡¯s face.


    ¡°Ah right, Rebecca doesn¡¯t know about her. That¡¯s going to be a real fucking awkward time. Also, you¡¯re kind of a dick for leading her on.¡± She smirked at my outraged expression, and left without waiting for a response. Mary got up from the couch and excused herself as well, saying something about being in the kitchen.


    ¡°Allie¡¯s right y¡¯know,¡± said Camille after they¡¯d both left.


    ¡°You little shit, you¡¯re the only reason I ¨C¡° I cut myself off, noticing her teasing smile. I sighed, ¡°You messing with me aside, I¡¯m actually worried about it.¡±


    Camille shrugged, ¡°The hussy is a big girl, she¡¯ll get over it. Besides, it¡¯s not like you knew each other for that long. It was a crush at most.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough. Still sucks though.¡± I looked at the security camera, ¡°But that¡¯s not why I wanted to stay behind. Are you okay, Adelaide? I know you how much you hate acting like an AI.¡±


    Adelaide took a second to respond, ¡°Honestly, I am not. Not really, anyway. I have never been very talkative around them, in order for it to be more convincing if I ever did have to pretend to be an AI again. Even still, I did not expect the difference in treatment to be so¡­ stark. They did not address me a single time since they arrived in Camelot. Only you and Camille asked for my input during the debriefing. It¡¯s like I didn¡¯t exist to them.¡± She sounded composed, but I could tell how much it had hurt her.


    Camille spoke before I could, ¡°Hey. Fuck those guys. We love you Addy, so don¡¯t worry about being alone, okay?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s like you didn¡¯t even catch my super-subtle wink earlier. We¡¯re family. And if you really want to let em¡¯ know about you, I¡¯m okay with it. Not sure if it¡¯s the best plan, but I¡¯m still okay with it,¡± I told her.


    ¡°I know, and I¡­ love¡­ you both too,¡± Adelaide said, a bit awkwardly, ¡°And I of course do not want to tell them yet. Not until we can trust them fully. It was just an upsetting reminder of my previous isolation.¡±


    ¡°Well, if we ever do tell them, they¡¯ll probably feel pretty guilty about it. So you¡¯ve got that to look forward to,¡± I added helpfully.


    ¡°I suppose so. In any case, we should proceed to the medical bay. Rebecca is awake now, and is speaking to the rest of the squad.¡±


    Camille groaned, ¡°Ugh. Let¡¯s get this over with. Might as well invite Mary along.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Camille, I¡¯ll let her know,¡± replied Adelaide.


    Camille and I started heading over to the second facility. I caught her hand in mine and interlaced our fingers. She gave me a small smile, but we didn¡¯t talk much as we headed over. She had a determined, but distracted, glint in her eyes, and I caught her muttering a few times. My guess was that she was mentally rehearsing the upcoming conversation, like the adorable little nerd she was.


    Loud conversation flowed out of the med-bay as we walked towards it. I heard Camille inhale nervously. She gave my hand a squeeze and let go. I¡¯m not going to pretend like I knew why she didn¡¯t want to hold my hand when we went into the room. The female mind is an enigma.


    There was a pause in the conversation when we stepped in. Rebecca was standing in the middle of the rest of the team, looking fine. A little disheveled and pale, but otherwise completely okay. Her eyes were currently locked onto Camille¡¯s. A couple seconds ticked by and it became unbearably awkward.


    So, like an idiot, I tried to break the tension, ¡°Hey buddy, how¡¯re ya feeling?¡±


    Rebecca ignored me completely and finished sizing Camille up. She turned to Allie, ¡°Goddamn it, she¡¯s gorgeous. Why the fuck didn¡¯t you tell me that?¡±


    ¡°I figured I should let you see for yourself how little of a chance you had,¡± Allie responded with a grin.


    Rebecca sighed, ¡°Yeah, thanks. Asshole.¡± She walked up to Camille, a little bit unsteady on her feet. Camille tensed up. I had no idea what was going to happen next, but I had a very bad feeling that I would get the worst of it eventually.


    Rebecca stuck out her hand and smiled brightly, ¡°Hey. I¡¯m Rebecca. Allie already told me a little about you. Thanks for saving my ass, now I owe you and your boyfriend one.¡±


    Camille took it, ¡°Camille. Nice to finally meet you, sorry that Sam is such a dense jerk.¡±


    ¡°Nah, it¡¯s cool. Sorry for making googly eyes at him.¡±


    Camille waved it off, ¡°No worries, you had no way of knowing.¡±


    I guess my relief that they weren¡¯t clawing each other¡¯s eyes out showed on my face because Rebecca shot me a scowl, ¡°You¡¯re not off the fucking hook here, dickweed. I can¡¯t believe you just let me keep thinking she was dead.¡±


    ¡°Serious dick move,¡± said Allie. Aaron nodded in agreement.


    I threw up my hands ¡°Oh for the love of ¨C Look, I¡¯m going to say it one last time, I only knew she was alive for a fucking week! And I didn¡¯t even realize what the hell was going on with the¡­ other stuff¡­ until like five days ago! It was a lot to process, okay!?¡±


    Allie just shook her head at me, ¡°Serious dick move.¡± Aaron nodded in agreement.


    ¡°Will someone please explain to me what the fuck is happening?¡± said Jackson from the back of the room. I stared at him. My God. There was someone more dense than I was.


    Rebecca sighed, ¡°Shut up, Jackson.¡±


    ¡°Hey, fuck you Rebecca, I know you just got better from being almost dead but that doesn¡¯t mean you can go back to making fun of me!¡± he yelled.


    ¡°Yes it does,¡± she said cheerily. She ignored another ¡®fuck you!¡¯ and turned back to Camille, ¡°I¡¯m really bad at being cagey around people, we¡¯re probably going to seeing a lot of each other, and I¡¯m not interested in any love triangle bullshit. So, friends-ish?¡±


    Camille nodded, ¡°Friends-ish it is.¡±


    Mary cleared her throat from the doorway. We all turned to look at her. She was holding a plate with a sandwich on it, and looking very uncomfortable. ¡°Sorry to interrupt,¡± she said, ¡°but I brought food. People get hungry after a long time in the medical pods, or so I¡¯ve heard. What the hell were you all talking about anyway?¡±


    <hr>


    The Merlin touched in the parking lot of a department store in Sterling, kicking up its usual cloud of dust. Mary walked out first, followed by myself and the rest of the squad (including Camille this time). They¡¯d only passed by Sterling; they¡¯d never had the chance to actually go into the town. We¡¯d radioed ahead, so Mayor Antonio and Sheriff Wild were waiting for us. A small crowd was gathered as well, which I suppose was warranted given the fact that a highly advanced, garishly painted gunship was popping a squat in the middle of their town.


    As I descended the ramp, I noticed that there was a girl holding the mayor¡¯s hand, bouncing up and down. She looked about twelve, maybe? A woman around Mayor Antonio¡¯s age stood next to her, who I assumed was his wife. She was pretty, with long brown hair and sharp facial features.


    Antonio smiled and raised a hand as we neared, waiting until the Merlin¡¯s engine finished spooling down to speak, ¡°Glad to see you brought Mary home in one piece! Did you find what you were looking for?¡±


    ¡°Eh. It was more like she brought us back. And yup, we got it, all that¡¯s left to do is actually figure out how to use it. How¡¯ve things been going here?¡± I asked.


    A flash of worry went over his face, ¡°Well, as good as can be hoped I suppose. We¡¯ve been taking stock of all the weapons and ammo we¡¯ve got, and we¡¯ve been shoring up the defenses around here as best we can.¡± The girl at his side pulled on his hand slightly and looked up at him. Antonio laughed, ¡°Where are my manners? Sam, this is Lily, my daughter, and Sheila, my wife. Lily¡¯s been dying to meet you.¡±


    I gestured behind me, ¡°This is the Red Eagles team I¡¯ve been telling you about. Left to right, Rebecca, Jackson, Allie, and Aaron. Nice people, for mercs¡± I ignored their noises of annoyance and absorbed the last part of his introduction, then looked at the girl, ¡°Uh. Hope it¡¯s not weird of me to ask, but why did you want to meet me?¡± Well, the big robot suit and awesome ship might have something to do with it.


    Lily smiled up at me, ¡°You¡¯re the White Shield, of course I want to meet you!¡±


    Oh, that makes perfect se ¨C wait what the fuck?


    ¡°I¡¯m the who now?¡± I said stupidly.


    Lily looked at her dad, who answered for her with a slight smile, ¡°It¡¯s what the runners have been calling you. You¡¯ve made quite a name for yourself around here. Hard not to when you fly around and save people like some superhero.¡±


    ¡°Yeah! You saved Fort Morgan and fought off a thousand slavers! And you helped Mary and Wade and Mike! Did you really kill a Hive Lord?¡± Lily fired off rapidly. The crowd was inching closer as well, clearly curious too.


    I floundered for a bit, then looked back at the squad and Camille for help. They were desperately trying to keep straight faced. Camille in particular looked like she was about to keel over. In short, they were no help at all. I turned to Lily again.


    ¡°Well. Uh. There weren¡¯t that many in Fort Morgan. And I didn¡¯t kill a Hive Lord, I just fought it,¡± I replied, floundering a little bit.


    ¡°But you still basically did all that stuff, right?¡± She asked.


    I looked for the trap there, and not finding one, gave a hesitant nod. She beamed at me, and the rest of the crowd started murmuring excitedly as well. I heard Rebecca openly snickering at me, and my ears and face started to flush. And then the unthinkable happened.


    I saw Lily glance at her mother, who smiled apologetically at me then handed her a small, thin holopad. My heart stopped as I realized what that meant. She whirled back to look at me, eyes brimming with nervous excitement. Oh no. She bit the bottom of her lip, made some sort of resolution, then approached me. Oh God no.


    ¡°Um,¡± Lily said shakily, ¡°I wanted to show my friends that I met you. Would you mind if we took a picture together?¡±


    <hr>


    ¡°That was honestly one of the funniest things I¡¯ve ever seen in my life,¡± said Camille as we descended into the Red Eagles camp.


    ¡°It¡¯s been like forty minutes, can you let it go already?¡± I snapped crankily.


    Rebecca looked at me in amazement, ¡°Please. We¡¯re going to be bringing that up for the rest of your life. Your face when she asked you for the picture was incredible.¡±


    ¡°It looked a little like you shit yourself and realized your grandma died at the same time,¡± added Allie.


    Aaron chipped in, ¡°I, for one, think it was rather nice that people have such a high opinion of you. It goes to show that you¡¯re having a positive impact out here.¡±


    ¡°Man, why don¡¯t the Red Eagles get that sort of treatment?¡± complained Jackson, ¡°Maybe we should start dressing up like twats too.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you, fuck you, thanks Aaron, and fuck you especially,¡± I said, pointing at each squad member one by one.


    Rebecca grinned wickedly at me, ¡°I think the real tragedy is that Camille¡¯s got another rival. That twelve-year-old was thirsty.¡± I groaned and covered my head with my hands.


    ¡°Seriously. I need to have him wear a bag over his head. Or maybe just let him talk more, that turns most people off pretty quick,¡± Camille said pensively.


    Mercifully, the Merlin landed moments later, so any further assaults on my fragile mental state were halted. The ramp cracked open, and the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team stood and stretched. I stood as well, and walked them to the bottom of the ramp. Camille patted me on the shoulder as I went past, and then she moved inside the cockpit, letting the door slide closed behind her.


    I looked at the squad with a smile, ¡°Well, I can¡¯t say it was a blast, but like I said to Mary, I would¡¯ve been absolutely fucked without you all. I know you didn¡¯t have to come with me, so thank you. I¡¯m pretty sure we saved a lot of lives last night.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to pretend it was a walk in the park,¡± Aaron replied, ¡°but I don¡¯t regret volunteering, and I think that goes for all of us. The results should be well worth the effort.¡±


    Rebecca piped up next, ¡°Yeah, almost dying wasn¡¯t super fun, but for how fucked up things got, I¡¯d say it went pretty well. Speaking of not dying, I dunno where Camille ducked off to, but thank her again for me.¡±


    Aaron started to speak again, ¡°And please, let me know the instant you find the missing Assimilators. Sterling seemed quite nice. It worries me that they might be in danger.¡±


    I waved my hands at them, ¡°I got it, I got it. I¡¯ll be in touch most days, like usual. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m going anywhere. Besides, I¡¯ll be back to visit Tom soon. I want to see how his leg is doing.¡±


    ¡°Fair enough,¡± Aaron laughed. He, Jackson, and Allie said their goodbyes and walked into the camp. Rebecca waited to talk to me.


    ¡°Hey,¡± I said as soon as they were out of earshot, ¡°I¡¯m really sorry about¡­ everything. It all got away from me pretty fast, but I was still an asshole in the end.¡±


    ¡°Eh, you kinda were,¡± oof, ¡°But I¡¯m not really pissed off. Camille told me that she¡¯s the one that made you keep her a secret. Still not exactly clear on why, but whatever. It¡¯s like I said before, I like what we have going. So let¡¯s keep it going, just without the me hitting on you part. That work for you, Caterpillar Man?¡± She asked, making eye contact and grinning.


    I grinned right back, more than a little relieved, ¡°Yes ma¡¯am it does.¡±

 Chapter 2.36: Disagreement

    The next morning, I watched as the Merlin hovered above Ellie, picking up an oversized pallet holding ten hovertank railguns. Adelaide would be taking the Red Eagles their payment. I didn¡¯t really feel like it was necessary for Camille and myself to go out there again. We just didn¡¯t have time.


    As Camille watched the Merlin take off, she echoed my thoughts, ¡°That was probably the last bit of relaxation we¡¯re going to get for a while, huh?¡±


    I nodded grimly, and we turned and headed to the command center. Adelaide had the holoprojector and round table ready for us; she¡¯d put the Merlin on autopilot for the flight over to the Red Eagles, since it¡¯d be moving at a snail¡¯s pace with its cargo. A satellite map of Colorado was on the screen.


    ¡°How¡¯re we doing Adelaide?¡± I asked as I sat down at the table, Camille taking the seat next to me.


    ¡°There is good news, and there is bad news. The good news is that the scanning upgrades are entirely compatible with our existing network. Additionally, Camille has confirmed that the Paladin firmware that we recovered is essentially complete. Camille and myself just have to make a few more tweaks in order to integrate the new scanning upgrades, then we will push it to every Paladin in the system, after testing, of course. In addition, the firmware for the Assault Paladin is nearly complete. I estimate that it will be done in two days, with Camille¡¯s help.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s all pretty excellent. And the bad news?¡±


    ¡°The ¡®black box¡¯ we received from the Red Eagles will take significant time to decode. More importantly, the satellite network will take nearly a week to be fully updated,¡± she said, ¡°And that is with me actively aiding the effort.¡±


    Camille leaned forward, her brow furrowed, ¡°Why? It¡¯s just uploading software. It shouldn¡¯t take nearly that long.¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately, it isn¡¯t that simple. In order for the new scanning technique to work properly, every satellite must be aligned in a particular way. I¡¯m not entirely sure how it works, as I am simply following the instructions within the file, but dozens of small corrections to their orbits must be made using the onboard RCS systems. I have to guide those corrections manually, as they would from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.¡±


    I whistled, ¡°That sounds like a major pain in the ass. How many satellites is it?¡±


    ¡°One thousand, four hundred, and forty satellites compose the net. It will be, as you have said, a major pain in the ass.¡±


    I gave Adelaide a look of mixed shock and horror, ¡°Language!¡± I glared at Camille next, ¡°You¡¯re a terrible influence on her! She never used to swear.¡±


    ¡°Oh shut up, you cuss like a sailor,¡± she grumbled.


    ¡°All I¡¯m saying is the second you show up Adelaide¡¯s innocence is gone. Coincidence? I think not.¡±


    Adelaide made a noise that sounded like her clearing her throat, ¡°Can we please get back on topic here?¡±


    ¡°Fine. But we¡¯re going to have a swear jar for you soon.¡±


    If Adelaide could give me a withering glance, I¡¯m sure she would¡¯ve, ¡°As I was saying,¡± she continued, ¡°Although I have no need to sleep, I can only do one correction at a time. I will also need to take breaks, for my own sanity.¡±


    I frowned and tapped my finger on my arm rest, ¡°Alright, can we just upload the scanner upgrades to the Merlin and have it patrol autonomously?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Though I would recommend keeping it patrolling in a perimeter around Sterling only.¡±


    ¡°So we have some warning if they start moving. Smart,¡± Camille agreed.


    ¡°Indeed. To summarize: Both models of the Paladins are nearly complete, and the new scanning technology is easily implementable. However, we have another week of blindness before the satellites can detect the hidden Assimilators.¡±


    Camille looked pensively at the map, ¡°That might not be as big of an issue as it seems, Addy. Typically, Assimilators take a good deal of time between their initial movement and an assault. We saw this several times during the Assimilator War. They always took, at minimum, two weeks of ¡®prep time¡¯. Considering I noticed the movement roughly two weeks ago, that leaves us a nearly perfect amount of time left, in a worst-case scenario.


    ¡°That actually transitions well into what I¡¯ve been doing. Besides working on the Paladin mental interfaces, I¡¯ve been studying up on the Assimilators. I¡¯m not entirely sure how relevant this will be right now, but I think it¡¯s worth talking about at least. This goes back to the theory that you made, Sam. I mostly agree with the ¡®hierarchy¡¯ you¡¯ve proposed. One key difference, though. Even while this ¡®over-matriarch¡¯ was directing the entire swarm during the war, the normal matriarchs under it still maintained some degree of local control. Though the overall targets of the attacks were the same, the Assimilators were able to implement various different movements within one attack. Flanking procedures, staggered assaults, different strategies at different locations, etc. Never mind the feasibility of controlling so many distinct maneuvers at once, it would be inherently inefficient to do so.¡±


    Camille brought up an image of the Hive Lord I fought. I caught myself rubbing my side unconsciously. She continued speaking, ¡°That brings me to this guy. This is an entirely new classification of Assimilator which never appeared in the war. It¡¯s significantly larger, faster, better armored, and most importantly, smarter, than any Hive Lord I¡¯ve seen before.


    ¡°I think it popped up to fill a niche. My theory is that the entire Assimilator population got a sort of downgrade in exchange for being able to spread out. With the over-matriarch too far away to control them, the normal matriarchs took their place on a local level. This new breed of Hive Lords, which I¡¯ll call Primes, are filling the role of the previous matriarchs. To think of it in another way: during the war, the over-matriarch was the Commander in Chief, and the normal matriarchs were the generals that executed its strategy. Now that the swarm fractured and we¡¯re in the occupation phase, the normal matriarchs are the Warlords of their own little territory, with the Primes leading in the field. What this means practically is that the Primes are very important, and dangerous, targets. There¡¯s a strong chance they¡¯ll be fighting in the field, so eliminating them will severely impact the Assimilators¡¯ tactical abilities. Or at least, that¡¯s my best guess.¡±


    I noticed something in her explanation, ¡°You said ¡®occupation phase¡¯. I take it that means you¡¯ve got some theories on that too? Oh, and nice job with what you just said by the way. Might be super helpful down the line.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I don¡¯t want to get into it too much because it¡¯s big picture and not all that relevant to the immediate problem. Basically, they¡¯ve won the war, and they¡¯re keeping the indigenous population managed for some reason. I¡¯ve got some ideas on why, but that¡¯s for another day.¡±


    ¡°Well, that wasn¡¯t ominous at all,¡± I sighed, ¡°But you¡¯re probably right. Tomorrow¡¯s problems for tomorrow¡¯s me, y¡¯know?¡±


    Camille rolled her eyes at me, ¡°Yup, that¡¯s just like you. I don¡¯t have anything else, so it¡¯s your turn Mr. White Shield.¡±


    ¡°First off, shut the hell up and don¡¯t call me that, it¡¯s embarrassing. Second, I¡¯m digging this round table ideas thing,¡± I said, ignoring Camille¡¯s satisfied smirk, ¡°Now, to get to my stuff. On the ol¡¯ engineering side of things, we¡¯re doing pretty good. I diverted all the fabricators off the Paladin manufacturing and onto building defenses for the town. We should be able to have a couple railgun turrets ready, but it¡¯s going to be tricky transporting them. The Merlin can only do so much, after all. Other than that, F-04 and F-05 spit out all the rifles and rocket launchers already, so we¡¯ll get those to Sterling ASAP. I¡¯ve put a killswitch in them just in case we need it later, per Camille¡¯s suggestion. Lemme see¡­ yeah, so my darling F-03 has thrown together an Assault Paladin prototype. Diagnostics say all the hardware is good to go, because I¡¯m that goddamn awesome. It¡¯ll be ready for prime time as soon as you two figure out the firmware. I¡¯ve got a bunch of large combat drones in the pipeline for you to use during the fight, Camille, and the field-reloading station is already done. Have I mentioned that I absolutely adore my fabricators?¡±


    ¡°Yes. Several times,¡± Adelaide replied.


    ¡°Well, I don¡¯t say it enough,¡± I let my face set into a serious frown, ¡°Now, on the combat front is where things get¡­ bad. For me at least. Frankly, I¡¯m not ready to fight another Prime. Or ten-thousand Assimilators. I haven¡¯t had training with the Assault Paladin or the new firmware, and I barely have any experience with my new weapon. And I¡¯ve only got a week to work on it.¡±


    Adelaide caught on quickly, ¡°No. Sam, that¡¯s a terrible idea. You can¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Not sure I have a choice, Adelaide.¡±


    Camille looked at me then up at the security camera, ¡°I¡¯m not really sure what¡¯s going here, care to fill me in?¡±


    ¡°Sam is considering using the time dilation effect in the simulator again. It was used once during the Paladin training. There is a significant risk of damage to his sanity if he does it again.¡±


    Camille¡¯s eyes widened and she turned to me, ¡°That¡¯s fucking crazy Sam. Time dilation is nearly pure alien tech. We don¡¯t really understand how it works, it¡¯s barely compatible with a human brain. I¡¯ve seen people that¡¯ve been fried by those things. It¡¯s not pretty.¡±


    I held up my hands, ¡°Whoa. I¡¯m not an idiot. Hear me out, alright?¡±


    After a few moments, Camille jerked her head in a nod.


    ¡°Okay. I wouldn¡¯t be doing this if I thought it was too much of a risk. Basically, I¡¯ve only spent around seven-hundred hours in dilated time, so about three days in reality, and thirty days in the simulator. You know the record for it, right Camille?¡±This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    ¡°Two thousand, four hundred hours. Still, that¡¯s the absolute maximum ¨C¡°


    ¡°I know,¡± I cut her off, ¡°I¡¯m not saying I should go that far. Basically, I¡¯m pretty sure that thirty days is the allowed amount for liability and safety reasons. The vast majority of symptoms don¡¯t occur until seventy or eighty days. I¡¯m saying I take another thirty days, for a total of sixty overall. That leaves me a good amount of wiggle room, and gives me enough time to become at least competent with all the new shit before I¡¯ve got to go Assimilator hunting.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s ignoring the issue of the marker in your brain that was placed there during your training. You can¡¯t have time dilated for you while that is there,¡± Adelaide pointed out.


    I snorted, ¡°I looked into it, and it can be undone in the medical pods. I just have to have heightened privileges, which I do.¡±


    Camille bit her lip, mulling it over. I¡¯m not really sure what I¡¯d do if she said no. I loved her, and I respected her opinions as much or even more than my own. The holographic map flickered lightly in the middle of the room, casting a light blue glow on the walls. After a long hesitation, she slowly shook her head, and my heart sank.


    <hr>


    I growled at the Assault Paladin in front of me. The stupid fucking thing was not being very cooperative. There was a bug in the primary armament targeting system that just wouldn¡¯t fucking go away. Diagnostics were bullshit. It didn¡¯t seem to be hardware related, but according to Adelaide it wasn¡¯t in the software. So maybe I¡¯d screwed up my wiring somewhere. Either way, I¡¯d been at it for a couple hours and was starting to seriously consider just smashing my holopad against the damn thing.


    I sighed and put it on the metal workbench instead, then sat down heavily on my stool. I was in the armory, trying to do a few last-minute touch ups. It was pretty lonely in here, with the rows of empty Paladins above me and the Merlin gone from its usual place, but that suited my current mood just fine. Me and Camille hadn¡¯t talked so much since the morning meeting. We¡¯d exchanged a few stiff pleasantries, but there was that frostiness of a sort-of-not-really fight in the air. Looking at it objectively, her reasons for not being okay with letting me do the simulator time dilation thing were fairly logical. It wasn¡¯t thought out enough, there was no way of knowing if it would fry my brain, the military probably had a pretty good reason beyond the bullshit I made up for limiting the duration to thirty days, etc.


    But the problem, which I tried to explain, was that I couldn¡¯t think of another way to learn the new systems in the week we had. The standard Paladin upgrades alone would probably take a week or so to get used to. I wouldn¡¯t have any time to learn how to use my prototype weapons, and there definitely wouldn¡¯t be time to figure out the Assault Paladin. There was a risk, sure, but it was way riskier to pop on off to Denver wearing nothing but my bloomers, and she¡¯d been okay with that.


    Things got slightly heated after that. There might have been a few angry words exchanged, some slight raising of the voice. Not too bad in the grand scheme of things, but about as bad as our fights got. It might sound obvious, but I really, really didn¡¯t like the whole fighting thing.


    ¡°I just don¡¯t know what to do Mr. Paladin,¡± I lamented to the inanimate suit of armor, ¡°I feel like I need to do this training, but Camille¡¯s so against it.¡±


    I mimicked a low-pitched, strong voice, ¡°Well, Sam, why not just ignore her and do it anyway? Lives are at stake!¡±


    ¡°Mr. Paladin, I¡¯d like to. But usually when I ignore Camille¡¯s advice things get really fucked up. I get fixated on stuff and she¡¯s there to stop me from making mistakes. And going into this without looking at all the dangers is definitely a mistake, just like Denver was.¡±


    ¡°Sam, Sam, Sam, you poor silly na?ve cinnamon roll,¡± Mr. Paladin (me) responded, ¡°Sometimes there are things you need to do, despite what the correct thing seems to be.¡±


    I thought about what I¡¯d just said through the armor, ¡°First off, you ¨C I - really shouldn¡¯t call me a cinnamon roll. That¡¯s just weird. Secondly, you¡¯re ¨C I¡¯m ¨C right about part of that. But there¡¯s a part where yo- oh fuck this.¡± I shook myself out of my one-man dumbass routine. But I kept speaking aloud, ¡°Alright. I¡¯m right, or at least half right, but I didn¡¯t consider it enough. Camille¡¯s half right as well; I need to come up with a way to make absolutely sure I get through the dilation with my sanity. Not going to do anyone much good of I¡¯m a gibbering vegetable as they get murdered by aliens.¡±


    I grabbed my holopad off the workbench and walked up to the Paladin, then rapped my fist on the thick unpainted armor, ¡°Thanks buddy, couldn¡¯t have done it without you.¡±


    I sat right there on the concrete floor of the armory, and started going through the documentation and medical reports for the simulators¡¯ time dilation. There was, quite frankly, some pretty freaky shit in there. Apparently, I was very, very wrong about some things. While it was true that most people didn¡¯t show symptoms until 60 days¡¯ worth of time, that was with a small sample size, and was pretty damn inconsistent. Some subjects started going loopy at around forty days, some even earlier, and there was no recorded recovery from the loss of sanity. That was a bit disconcerting.


    It wasn¡¯t all doom and gloom though. There were pretty clear warning signs when someone was about to go off the deep end. If Adelaide kept an eye out, and we rigged the simulator pod to watch out for specific abnormalities in my brain wave patterns (which we had a ton of data for thanks to my mental link to the facility), it would lower the risk significantly. The medical pods could also be helpful. Some in-depth brain scans would show how susceptible I was to breaking; studies into the time dilation procedure showed that some brains were better at handling the mental load than others. It wouldn¡¯t be accurate, not by a long shot, but it would provide me an estimate to go off of. There were a couple other precautions I could take, like getting a lot of sleep beforehand and making sure to not break the dilation up into too many or too few chunks. Starting up the dilation was stressful to the brain, but extended time in it was also not so good. There was a fun little balancing act I¡¯d have to do.


    I looked up from my holopad a few minutes later and rubbed my forehead, ¡°Holy shit. I did not think this through.¡±


    ¡°Nope, you didn¡¯t.¡±


    I jumped up and whirled around, nearly falling on my ass. Camille was standing about five feet behind me, both hands on her hips, an amused smirk plastered on her face.


    ¡°When, uh, when did you get here?¡± I stuttered, attempting to lean casually onto the workbench. It was lower than I thought it was, so I just stumbled a little more.


    She laughed at me, her grey eyes twinkling, ¡°Just about the time where you and Mr. Paladin were having your heart to heart. It¡¯s insane how much you can tune out when you get focused.¡±


    Fuck crapping assholes. I searched for something to say and she watched me struggle for a while. I found something eventually.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I should¡¯ve listened to you. I had no idea what I was getting into.¡±


    She walked over and gave me a hug. I put my face in her hair. It smelled like oranges and mint, and it hung loose down her back.


    She pulled back slightly and looked up at me, ¡°For what it¡¯s worth, I¡¯m sorry too. I thought about it a little more. I still really don¡¯t like it, but it¡¯s better than you dying in Sterling because you weren¡¯t used to the new tech. Now let¡¯s figure out how to keep your brain from being scrambled.¡±


    <hr>


    The next thirty-six hours were a blur of frenzied activity. I finished my last-minute tweaks to the Assault Paladin¡¯s hardware, but most of my time was spent preparing myself for the simulator. I spent a good amount of time in the med-bay, removing the marker in my noggin and trying to figure out how my brain held up against the other ones that had gone through dilation. Turns out I was in the mid-lower range. I¡¯d probably be able to handle twenty-five to thirty-five more days of dilated time, or around thirty hours of real time. We were going to be safe about it though. Adelaide or Camille, depending on who was available, would be monitoring me closely for the last ten hours of real time.


    What I did was nothing compared to what Camille and Adelaide had to go through, though. They managed to finish the firmware updates for the normal Paladin and the Assault Paladin. Camille pulled an all-nighter to do it, working in the Command Center for nearly twenty-four hours straight. I brought her coffee a couple times, but I had to get a solid night¡¯s sleep before my adventure, so I was forced to leave her to it. At least Adelaide kept her company.


    I¡¯d just wrapped up a final wellness check in the medical pod when Adelaide called me over the coms.


    ¡°The simulator is ready for you Sam. I finished the tweaks to monitor your brain activity more accurately.¡±


    I stood up with a stretch. ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll be right up. I¡¯ve just got to throw on my jumpsuit.¡±


    When I walked into Simulator Room 01, I found Camille sitting on the floor, her back leaned against the wall. She was breathing lightly, asleep. I crouched down next to her and pushed a few stray hairs off of her eyelids. Her eyelashes were shorter than mine, something she always used to complain about. Seeing her like this, with the dark circles under her eyes, reminded me of all those years we spent working through the night like possessed madmen, trying to save the world.


    She woke up with a start, and relaxed when her eyes met mine. There was a small smile on her face, but it was soon replaced by a nervous and determined grimace. I¡¯d seen that look before: it was the time-for-a-serious discussion face. Camille looked at the camera, ¡°Addy, can you give us a few minutes?¡±


    ¡°Of course, Camille.¡±


    She gestured for me to sit down, and I plopped onto the floor in front of her with my legs crossed. She didn¡¯t say anything for a while. I let her take her time. Finally, she started speaking.


    ¡°Alright. There¡¯s something I need to tell you before you go in there, and you need to wait for me to finish before you respond. Okay?¡± I nodded, and she continued, ¡°I realized something when you were in Denver, and the communications got jammed. When I saw all those Assimilators gathering in the building, and I couldn¡¯t do anything about it. I realized that if you died, it would be my fault.¡±


    She saw me lean forward and open my mouth, and she held up a hand, ¡°Let me finish.¡±


    When I sat back she kept going, ¡°I¡¯d gotten caught up in it. This Paladin thing. The selflessness and nobility and all that bullshit. Being so safe in here made me forget how insanely dangerous it is out there. I got lulled into a false sense of security. I should never have told you about the Assimilator movements. I didn¡¯t know enough. I was jumping to conclusions. I knew that the minute you thought that Sterling was in danger, you¡¯d do whatever it would take to save them. I let you go into the most dangerous place in Colorado half-cocked and vulnerable on a goddamn suspicion. Hell, I fucking encouraged it. And yeah, maybe that¡¯s going to save Sterling. But frankly¡­¡±


    Camille trailed off, then she took a shaky breath and looked away. When she made eye contact with me again, her grey eyes were as sharp as a chip of rock.


    ¡°I thought you died in Denver. I thought I¡¯d lost you. And I thought it was my fault. When you came back alive, it made me remember what was actually important. I love you. You¡¯re what matters to me. So you¡¯re going to have to come to terms with the fact that in the future, if I have to pick between your safety and the lives of however many strangers, I¡¯ll choose you every time. I frankly don¡¯t give a fuck about being a Paladin. I¡¯m going to train and put on that suit of armor because it¡¯ll help me protect you. Not for some goddamn ideal, not to save a group of strangers, no matter how innocent or helpless they are.¡±


    Another pause, another moment for her to gather her thoughts. ¡°I¡¯m not going to be able to change your mind about a lot of things from here on out. You¡¯re on this path now, this self-sacrificing way of living. I hate it because it puts you in so much danger, but it makes me love you even more because that¡¯s just the type of person you are. I¡¯m not going to try to turn you away from it, which is why I haven¡¯t told you not to go into Sterling, and why I helped you with this time-dilation crap. But know that I¡¯m here for you, not anyone else.¡±


    There was a long silence as I tried to absorb all of that. I let my eyes wander over the simulator. The black exo-suit looked so desolate when it was hanging empty like that. I waited for her to speak again.


    ¡°There¡¯s one last thing. What happened the day before yesterday is going to happen again. Something is going to come up in the future where I know that I¡¯m right and you know that you¡¯re right and there are lives on the line. We figured it out okay this time because we did it together, and we have to keep doing it like that. I¡¯m not going to give in to your opinion if something is really bothering me, you shouldn¡¯t give in to mine. Finding the middle ground is going to be really important, because both our heads will make a better plan than just one of them. What I¡¯m trying to get at is that with the world we live in, and the person you¡¯ve become, I can guarantee that hard choices are going to come up. We have to be prepared for when they do.¡±

 Chapter 2.37: Interlude - Aaron

    ¡°I honestly can¡¯t believe it,¡± Aaron remarked to Allie, ¡°The fact that he¡¯s improved this much in just two weeks¡­¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s fucking insane. I knew he was stubborn as a mule, but this is something else.¡±


    Tom vaulted over a wall of sandbags and landed in a combat roll. He smoothly rose to his feet and sprinted the last ten yards. As he came to a stop, he stumbled and his new right leg pushed him too far upwards. He pitched forward and fell straight onto his face.


    ¡°Maybe a little too stubborn,¡± Allie said.


    The three of them were gathered at the small patch of dirt outside the main camp that served as the Red Eagles¡¯ track and training obstacle course. There was a circle in the dirt to run on, some tires laid out to step through, and a few sandbags to jump over. At this point in the year, the ground was already hard from the cold, and the grass of the plains was yellowing.


    The camp was set up in an area right between Interstate 76 and Interstate 70, north-east of Denver. It was smack dab in the middle of a massive old cornfield. The crop had rotted a while ago, and the trucks and hovertanks had flattened out what was left. The Red Eagles had been there much longer than usual because of the unknown Assimilator threat that was lurking to the north. Commander Berston had wanted to avoid as much contact with the Worms as possible while they moved up into Nebraska, and since nobody knew where the 10,000 strong Assimilator army was, he¡¯d ordered the company to stop here until they were found.


    Tom rolled off his face onto his back. Aaron walked over with Allie trailing behind him, rubbing his hands together and blowing into them. It was getting cold out here on the plains now. They¡¯d already gotten their first snow earlier in the week, less than two days after their return from Denver. Only an inch or so, but snow this early meant there¡¯d be much more later on. Aaron stuck out a hand, which Tom took gratefully, and pulled him off the ground.


    Tom wore a slight frown as he tapped on the metal leg, ¡°This is really annoying.¡±


    ¡°Shit, the multi-million-dollar custom prosthetic is annoying. Next time we¡¯ll have Sam bring you a peg leg,¡± Allie said.


    ¡°Oh, ha ha. The leg isn¡¯t annoying, it¡¯s that I can¡¯t get used to it.¡±


    Aaron raised an eyebrow, ¡°I believe I just saw you hurdling a sandbag and sprinting. Or were my eyes deceiving me?¡±


    His fingers were getting a bit numb, so he stuck his hands into the pockets of his uniform, which didn¡¯t help much. They hadn¡¯t received their winter dress yet, and the summer ones weren¡¯t cutting it anymore.


    ¡°I was, but I had to think about it.¡± Tom started to stretch. He¡¯d said earlier that the muscles in his left leg, not what remained of his right one, were what was bothering him the most. Apparently, they were overcompensating for the missing limb.


    ¡°Pardon?¡±


    ¡°When you run you don¡¯t think about it, usually. I have to. It isn¡¯t natural to me yet, I¡¯m messing up my foot placement. That¡¯s why I fell,¡± Tom grunted, reaching down to touch his toes, ¡°I need to stop thinking about my leg as a prosthetic, but I can¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°That makes sense, Sam told me the mental interface was designed so that you could use the leg like you¡¯d use your old one.¡±


    Allie piped up, ¡°It¡¯s fucking freezing, can we chat about this somewhere else? Rebecca asked us to meet her and Jackson in the canteen for lunch. Are you coming Tom?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m not getting much done out here. I¡¯ll have to talk to Katlyn about other exercises I can try.¡±


    The dirt track was right outside the south entrance to the camp. A bored guard watched them from a short watchtower as they passed underneath. Aaron nodded at him and headed towards the center of the camp. Even though it was the middle of the day, there wasn¡¯t much activity. The scouting teams were really the only ones that had anything to do right now. With the Red Eagles stuck in place, the vast majority of the 2,000 mercenaries were just waiting for the all-clear.


    As they walked, Aaron made eye contact with Phil, a hovertank mechanic. He raised a hand in greeting, but Phil let his eyes slide off him and kept moving, barely breaking stride. Aaron lowered his hand slowly.


    Allie groaned, ¡°Shit. Looks like the Sam effect wore off already. I was counting on another couple weeks. The fuck did Jackson do this time?¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t know it was Jackson,¡± said Tom.


    ¡°I¡¯ll eat Rebecca¡¯s socks if it wasn¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Why Rebecca¡¯s?¡±


    ¡°¡¯Cause if I ate mine my feet would get cold. C¡¯mon, let¡¯s get to the canteen. I¡¯ve got a bad feeling we¡¯re going to be walking into some shit.¡±


    The canteen was five mobile buildings all connected into one, able to house all 2,000 mercenaries with room to spare. On the outside, it was the same drab olive color as every other building in the Red Eagles camp, with solar cells covering the top of it. Aaron ducked into the entrance, slightly dreading what he¡¯d find. To his relief, there wasn¡¯t a brawl going on right then. The canteen was buzzing with voices and laughter, mercenaries sitting casually on the benched tables. Most of the Eagles gathered here these days; it was well heated and big enough for everyone to mingle.


    He scanned the room and found Jackson and Rebecca a few seconds later. They were hard to miss, sitting in a corner with a couple tables of space separating them from the rest. He moved towards them and a chorus of whispers and hisses followed him, along with a few muttered curses. He ignored them, and as he approached his two squadmates, he saw Rebecca holding an icepack to Jackson¡¯s eye, looking more than a little pissed off. She glanced up and a wash of relief came over her face as she saw them approach. Jackson looked away, firmly avoiding eye contact. Aaron sat in one of the empty seats, and examined Jackson. He had a split lip and a slowly forming black eye. A nasty bruise on the cheek, too.


    ¡°What happened?¡±


    Rebecca opened her mouth but Jackson cut her off, ¡°That bitch Kimberly from the 7<sup>th</sup> Assault was talking shit about me.¡±


    Aaron cast a glance back, and found Kimberly sitting with her squad ten tables away. She looked a bit better than Jackson, but not by much. She¡¯d have a hell of a shiner in the morning by the looks of it. Kimberly caught his glance and spat on the ground. She yelled something but it was lost in the din of the dining hall.


    Aaron turned back to Rebecca, ¡°What actually happened?¡±


    Rebecca sighed and shook her head, ¡°Kimberly called Tom a pathetic gimp and you a faggot¡­ among other things.¡±


    ¡°Tell me.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s see. Allie¡¯s a delirious cunt, I¡¯m a cock-hunting slut, Jackson¡¯s a fucking retard.¡± She paused, ¡°Hmm. Yeah, I think that¡¯s about it.¡±


    ¡°The fuck does delirious cunt even mean?¡± Allie said.


    ¡°Ask her. On second thought, don¡¯t. Nobody deserves to listen to that bitch speak.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s her problem?¡± Tom grumbled, ¡°She¡¯s the only one that goes out of her way to start things.¡±


    Rebecca laughed, ¡°Seriously? Aaron turned her down stone cold last month, remember?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, what¡¯d he say again?¡± Allie said.


    ¡°¡¯Fix your attitude, professionalism, hygiene, and intellect, and then someone might consider you. To be clear, I won¡¯t, but perhaps someone else will.¡¯¡± Rebecca quoted, ¡°I have no idea what she was thinking asking Aaron out. She and Jackson get into shouting matches like every other week.¡±


    ¡°Enough. That wasn¡¯t my best moment. I let my emotions get to me, and it won¡¯t happen again. The same goes for you, Jackson. I appreciate you sticking up for the squad, but all she¡¯s saying are empty words. We have to stay above all this pettiness. Am I clear?¡± Aaron looked directly at him, and Jackson met his gaze, and then broke away again.


    ¡°Yeah. I got it.¡±


    ¡°Good. Now, I don¡¯t know about all of you, but I¡¯m not thrilled about staying here right now. Let¡¯s head out for now, come back in half an hour when things have settled down.¡±


    Jackson snorted and stood up, stomping angrily towards the entrance. Tom shrugged and followed him. Aaron noticed that he was walking with a very slight limp. A larger ripple of whispered taunts and jeers followed them towards the exit. There was a tap on his shoulder, and he turned to see Rebecca staring at him reproachfully.


    ¡°You¡¯re being a bit harsh on him. He only jumped at her when she started saying shit about you.¡±


    Aaron sighed again, and gestured at Rebecca and Allie to follow him as he walked, ¡°I know he¡¯s protective of me. But he still can¡¯t fight with other Eagles. That¡¯ll just make things worse for him.¡±


    ¡°And us,¡± Allie muttered, ¡°I mean seriously, I like the guy, he¡¯s loyal as all hell and kinda dorky in that dumb little brother way. But I¡¯m tired of being treated like a fucking pariah around here just because we¡¯re squadmates with him. And no, I¡¯m not hinting about leaving the squad, so don¡¯t say a goddamned word Rebecca. It¡¯d just be a hell of a lot easier if we could fly under the radar more.¡±


    ¡°Christ, I didn¡¯t even open my mouth and you¡¯re jumping down my throat. All I was going to do was point out that you weren¡¯t exactly the belle of the ball before you joi- oh shit.¡±


    Rebecca stopped and pointed across the canteen. Aaron saw Kimberly and Dawson, a hulking mercenary from the 7<sup>th</sup> Assault, stand up and head over to cut Jackson and Tom off before they got to the exit of the mess hall. He cursed internally and sped his pace up. Whatever they wanted, it wasn¡¯t going to be pleasant for anybody.


    He was halfway to them when Kimberly and Dawson reached Jackson and Tom. She said something and Jackson¡¯s face twisted in anger, but Tom put a restraining hand on his shoulder. Jackson gave a stiff nod, and turned away. Aaron sighed with relief, but as Tom moved to follow Jackson, Dawson shared a grin with Kimberly and stuck out his foot, catching him on the prosthetic leg. Aaron watched Tom fall awkwardly to the ground, smashing his arm against one of the benches. Rebecca yelled something, but he couldn¡¯t hear it over the blood pounding in his ears.


    Dawson looked up as Aaron approached, a mocking glint in his eyes, ¡°Looks like you better help out your little cripple friend, fa-¡°


    Aaron kicked Dawson between his knee and his shin, causing the larger man to collapse with a sharp scream. He followed it up with a knee to the face, and felt the sickening crunch of bone breaking.


    ¡°What the hell are you doing!?¡± Kimberly yelped from next to him.


    ¡°Shut the fuck up,¡± Aaron snarled at her. She backed away, eyes wide with fear. Dawson had turned away and was attempting to pull himself up on one of the tables. Aaron took a large stride forward and grabbed him by the back of his head, and slammed his face on the edge of table. He pulled him back up and smashed him down again, keeping his face pressed firmly against the table.


    Dawson whimpered in pain, and Aaron drew up close to his ear and hissed into it, ¡°Listen to me, Dawson. You can insult me. You can insult my team. But if you ever try to hurt one of them again, I swear that I¡¯ll make what I¡¯ve done to you today look like a papercut. Do you understand me?¡±


    Dawson tried to nod, but his head was held too tightly.


    ¡°I said, do you understand me?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± he sobbed, ¡°Yes, I understand.¡±


    Aaron released his grip, and Dawson slumped over, moaning. He looked over at Kimberly, who wore an expression of terror, ¡°The same goes for you. And if you have a problem, come to me. Not my brother.¡± She nodded her head rapidly.


    ¡°Good. Now take Dawson to the field hospital. He¡¯s going to have ligament damage in his leg, and his nose is shattered.¡±


    Not waiting for a response, Aaron straightened out his uniform and faced his squad. Jackson had helped Tom up, and the rest of them were looking at him in mixed shock and awe. He motioned to them, and started walking towards the exit. Aaron noticed the absolute silence in the canteen for the first time. He closed his eyes briefly, and tried to rein in his anger. He hadn¡¯t snapped like that in a long, long time.


    The face full of cold autumn air as he walked out the canteen door calmed him considerably. He heard the squad filing out behind him, and braced himself for what came next.


    ¡°What the hell was that!?¡± Rebecca yelled.


    ¡°Seriously, what the fuck happened to not letting your emotions get the best of you?¡± Allie said, ¡°I can¡¯t say the bastard didn¡¯t deserve it, but damn. I didn¡¯t even know you could get angry. And your eyes¡­ hell, that scared me.¡±


    Aaron ignored them both and addressed Tom, ¡°Are you alright?¡±


    ¡°Uh. Yeah, fine. I¡¯m going to have a bruise¡­ but I¡¯m pretty sure Dawson is going to be in the hospital for a few weeks.¡±


    ¡°I know. I¡¯m going to have to write a report to command,¡± Aaron said.


    ¡°About that¡­ you might be able to do it in person.¡± Allie pointed to a Private jogging towards them, eyes locked on to Aaron.


    ¡°Wow. Gotta say their response time is fucking amazing.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not for this, Rebecca. But I think I know what they want.¡± Aaron faced the Private as he came to a stop.


    The man was slightly out of breath as he threw Aaron a salute, ¡°Captain David. Commander Berston wants to see you in the command center.¡±


    ¡°Understood, Private.¡± Aaron looked down at the front of his uniform, speckled in blood, ¡°But I¡¯m going to have to change first.¡±


    <hr>


    Aaron walked into the command center and snapped to attention.


    ¡°Commander Berston, I apologize for being late.¡±


    The Commander looked away from the holomap briefly and waved him off, ¡°At ease, Captain. I was looking over the maps anyway, but try not to let it happen again.¡±


    ¡°Of course, sir.¡±


    ¡°I heard about your little¡­ incident with the 7<sup>th</sup> Assault Team. That¡¯s not what we¡¯re talking about today, so I won¡¯t spend too much time on it. But you will be written up for it, I hope you understand.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±


    Commander Berston smiled slightly, ¡°To tell you the truth, I¡¯m not sure what you did was so bad. The 7<sup>th</sup> had been getting out of hand, so it might¡¯ve be good for them to be taken down a notch. But next time, let the MPs handle it.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir. It won¡¯t happen again.¡±


    The Commander beckoned him over, and Aaron stepped up next to him, standing a respectful distance away. The holomap showed an area of Colorado which Aaron recognized immediately. He¡¯d patrolled it for multiple weeks, after all.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    ¡°I called you here to talk to you about your report, Captain.¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir. The Assimilator behavior and the carrier in Denver were concerning ¨C¡°


    ¡°Ah, no. Your report was quite thorough in describing those threats. I¡¯m mostly curious about this ¡®Camelot¡¯ that our Paladin friend took you to afterwards. And please, relax and speak freely. This might be a long conversation, and hearing the word ¡®sir¡¯ every other sentence will become exhausting.¡±


    Aaron resisted the urge to clench his hand. He¡¯d known it was coming, even though he hoped it wasn¡¯t.


    ¡°Of course. What in particular would you like to know about? Was my report inadequate?¡±


    Commander Berston¡¯s face creased into a very shallow frown, ¡°Inadequate is indeed a good word to describe it. I must admit, the details in the report are a lacking, somewhat.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m very sorry Commander, we were only given access to a small area of the facility. Is there any place in particular you¡¯d like me to expand on?¡±


    ¡°For now, walk me through everything from start to finish. I want to hear it from you directly, not through writing.¡±


    For the next half hour, Aaron went through the mission from when Rebecca was hit by the Assimilator spike. He tried to emphasize the danger Rebecca had been in, stating that she would have died if Sam didn¡¯t bring them back to Camelot. Commander Berston waved that part off, and urged him to continue. Aaron restrained a knot of worry in his stomach and kept going. When he began to talk about the secondary facility, the Commander leaned forward and stopped him.


    ¡°How many beds were in this medical bay, Captain?¡±


    ¡°Sir?¡±


    ¡°You said you saw a series of simulator rooms, and an expansive medical bay. How many beds were there?¡±


    Aaron frowned, ¡°I wasn¡¯t paying much attention at the time. If I had to hazard a guess, around two hundred? Maybe more?¡±


    ¡°Sorry for the interruption. Please go on.¡± Berston leaned black, pleased. His mustache quirked upwards as he smiled.


    The knot tightened, but Aaron forged ahead. He described Sam¡¯s poor condition before he entered the medical-pod, and how Camille had led them back to the rooms in the main facility. He told the Commander that the doors had been locked, which prevented him from doing further reconnaissance. Aaron kept to himself the fact that he wouldn¡¯t have, even if the doors had been unlocked. He was stopped again and asked about who was at the breakfast, specifically. Once Aaron told him, the Commander had the same satisfied look. He went on to speak about the reception Sam received in Sterling, and the flight back to the Red Eagles.


    At the end of the debrief, Commander Berston stood up and strode over to the holomap. He looked back at Aaron, ¡°How long, roughly, was your flight from this Camelot to Sterling?¡±


    ¡°Roughly¡­ thirty minutes?¡±


    ¡°And the flight from Denver to the facility?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not entirely sure. I was caring for Sergeant Cooper at the time and ¨C¡°


    ¡°Give me your best guess, Captain¡±


    Aaron paused and thought about it, ¡°Maybe an hour. But again, I¡¯m unsure.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s fine, that¡¯s fine. I¡¯m just trying to confirm that the area that you were patrolling was indeed close to this facility,¡± Commander Berston said distractedly, studying the map. The worry was reaching a breaking point, and Aaron was this close to breaking his respectful fa?ade and asking what the Commander intended to do to Sam. Before he could, Commander Berston turned back to him.


    ¡°Remind me again. When did Sam estimate the Assimilator attack to be, and how did he come up with that number?¡±


    ¡°The initial estimate he gave us a week ago was that they¡¯d be attacking two weeks from that day, so one week from today. However, three days ago, he told me that Dr. Camille Brown put together a new predictive model based on Assimilator assaults on small population centers during the war. That model placed the earliest attack thirteen days from today.¡±


    Aaron was relieved. Maybe the Commander was finally taking the threat seriously enough to intervene. But that relief came crashing down a moment later.


    ¡°Excellent. That will provide a phenomenal opportunity for us.¡±


    ¡°What?¡± Aaron said stupidly, ¡°I mean, excuse me sir, I don¡¯t quite understand.¡±


    Commander Berston looked at him with a critical eye, ¡°It¡¯s simple, really. This facility of theirs is clearly meant for a much larger group of people. That many hospital beds points to a capacity of ten thousand men, perhaps more. Our company would do very well based out of it. It would give us the opportunity to expand significantly, and would keep our soldiers much safer than they currently are.¡±


    ¡°Are you suggesting that we take it by force?¡±


    ¡°Ah. No, no. That would be a foolish choice, all things considered. Having read your squad¡¯s report on the capabilities of this Paladin, there is no feasible way for us to win and come out intact. It would be far too easy for the man to simply drop into the command center from above and slaughter high command. No, this facility can only be taken if Mr. Lewis is removed from the equation entirely, preferably without our direct interference.¡±


    ¡°What¡­ does that mean? Sir?¡±


    ¡°There is a very high chance that our Paladin friend will be killed in this upcoming conflict. No matter how powerful his machine is, one man cannot defeat 10,000 Assimilators. Once that happens, well, there isn¡¯t much standing between us and this Camelot.¡±


    Aaron felt queasy. ¡°Camille Brown, the pilot Adelaide, and others might be in Camelot.¡±


    ¡°There are no others. Perhaps this ¡®Adelaide¡¯ does not exist either. A man such as Mr. Lewis wears his heart on his sleeve, and appears to lack any caution whatsoever. The people you saw at that breakfast are most likely the only ones alive in the facility.¡±


    Commander Berston¡¯s tone was calm and steady, but there was a hint of iron in it. Aaron had admired that once. The pragmatism. The ability to pull the seemingly obvious conclusion out of limited data. The lack of hesitation when making the tough call.


    Now it made him sick.


    ¡°Does this mean your decision not to help Sterling is final, sir?¡±


    ¡°I believe I¡¯ve made my position exceptionally clear, Captain. I will not, under any circumstance, commit my soldiers to that fool¡¯s errand. I do not want to hear another word on the subject. Is that clear?¡±


    ¡°But you saved me,¡± Aaron said quietly.


    ¡°Yes. I did. I don¡¯t like civilians dying, and if I am in the position to help, I will. I am not in that position right now, and I will not put myself in that position,¡± Commander Berston¡¯s eyes softened, ¡°If I must occupy the role of a villain to ensure that my people are as safe as possible, I will do so without regrets. It¡¯s the least that I owe them.¡±


    The Commander turned his eyes away from Aaron¡¯s, and went back to studying the holomap.


    ¡°You are dismissed, Captain. Let me know immediately if Mr. Lewis contacts you. Our opportunity is coming soon.¡±


    Aaron gave a crisp salute and began to walk towards the exit. But Commander Berston¡¯s voice rang out behind me again.


    ¡°Captain David. Remember who took you in and gave you and your brother a home. Before you do anything you might regret, remember that, and the oath you took in front of the men and women that serve with you.¡±


    <hr>


    Aaron sat outside the camp, leaning up against one of the sandbag walls. The sunsets out on the plains were not quite as nice as the ones in the foothills. Seeing the sun peak through the mountains was something else. But it wasn¡¯t too bad out here. The sky still turned pink and orange. It was pretty.


    He took a long drag from his cigarette, and exhaled the smoke, watching as it wafted upwards. It¡¯d been a while since he¡¯d been able to sit like this without anyone else around. There was always something he¡¯d needed to be doing, some responsibility that needed to be addressed. A break was nice, every once in a while. A chance to think. A chance to stop being the squad leader of the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouts, even if it was only for a little.


    ¡°Damn it,¡± Aaron muttered and ran a hand roughly through his hair. He went to take another pull but it was already spent. He dropped the butt on the ground, where it joined another two. Aaron took his pack out of the uniform¡¯s pocket and frowned. Only one left. Well, they¡¯d lasted him these nine months. It had to end sometime.


    The flame of his lighter flickered in the wind and he cursed lowly as the cigarette refused to light. The fluid was almost empty as well. He¡¯d had the metal lighter since before the end, and it had held up well in the time after.


    A hand holding another lighter entered his vision, and he turned in surprise to see Jackson crouching next to him. His left eye was purple and yellow, and the blood on his lip had crusted over. Aaron gratefully allowed him to light the cigarette, and leaned back against the sandbags. They sat in silence for a few minutes. A gust of wind caused Aaron to shiver, and Jackson tossed him a blanket he was holding under one arm.


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    Jackson grunted in response. Silence again.


    ¡°You can¡¯t up and disappear like that.¡±


    ¡°Just needed some time.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, you haven¡¯t moped like this in a while.¡±


    ¡°Can¡¯t do it normally. They need me.¡±


    ¡°What uh... What¡¯s the matter with you?¡± Jackson asked after a long pause.


    Aaron laughed, ¡°I appreciate the thought, but that¡¯s not the most delicate way to ask.¡±


    ¡°Fuck you. I was trying to be nice and stuff. Now shut up and tell me. Or don¡¯t. I don¡¯t care, just tell someone.¡±


    ¡°Sorry, didn¡¯t mean to make fun of you,¡± Aaron ran his hand through his hair again, ¡°Commander¡¯s not going to help Sterling.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, even I knew that.¡±


    ¡°Then what the hell is the point of me being here? I didn¡¯t join the Eagles to be a mercenary.¡±


    ¡°You joined a freaking mercenary company. What else did you think you¡¯d be?¡±


    ¡°A soldier. Like I was before.¡±


    ¡°Newsflash: there aren¡¯t any soldiers anymore. Hell, there isn¡¯t a country anymore.¡±


    ¡°What about Sam?¡±


    ¡°Sam¡¯s an idiot.¡±


    ¡°At least he helps people.¡±


    ¡°Then go join up with him.¡±


    Aaron laughed.


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t a joke dude. I¡¯m serious. He was looking for more people. If you want to help, ditch these dumbasses and go join.¡±


    Aaron shook his head, ¡°I¡¯m not leaving the squad.¡±


    ¡°Squad will come with. They don¡¯t give a shit about these people. The only reason they¡¯re still here is you. That¡¯s the only reason I¡¯m here.¡± Jackson realized what he said and looked away, embarrassed.


    ¡°Thanks. I appreciate that.¡± Aaron frowned. ¡°But I still don¡¯t feel right leaving. I owe the Commander a lot. He saved us.¡±


    Jackson looked at him like he was an idiot, ¡°Y¡¯know, people say I¡¯m dumb. But sometimes you¡¯re a real moron. He didn¡¯t save us. He recruited us.¡±


    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±


    ¡°Did you see the Commander take any of the townspeople into the Red Eagles? Ever? He only brought the guards with him. Yeah, he killed the Worms, but so what? He got twenty mercenaries for a few bullets.¡±


    Aaron shook his head, ¡°He¡¯s a good man.¡±


    ¡°Not good enough for you, apparently.¡± Jackson stood up, ¡°It¡¯s getting dark and I¡¯m freezing. You can keep moping out here, or you can get your ass off the ground and go inside. Everyone¡¯s waiting for you.¡±


    <hr>


    The glow from the clock next to his bunk told him that it was nearly three in the morning. Aaron groaned and rubbed his face. Jackson snored lightly in the bunk above him, and Tom was to his right. Aaron hadn¡¯t fallen asleep, though. There were too many thoughts bouncing around in his head for his brain to shut off.


    He¡¯d run through most of the decisions that the Red Eagles had made in the past months. They¡¯d intervened to help several small towns, but the attacking Worms had never numbered more than a couple hundred at most. Now that Jackson had pointed it out, he¡¯d realized that the Eagles had recruited from every town they¡¯d been to. Commander Berston himself had often made the pitch. But even if they had been recruiting, it didn¡¯t change the fact that they had saved a lot of lives.


    Most of the contracts they¡¯d taken were escort missions or attacks on Assimilator patrols. They were paid mostly in food, sometimes in fuel or other commodities. There wasn¡¯t anything particularly noble or ignoble in that; it was just making a living. Everyone had to eat, after all.


    That was the issue he was struggling with. It was too neutral. There wasn¡¯t one particular incident that Aaron could point to that the Red Eagles, as an organization, had done purely out of goodwill. How had he not noticed it before? How had he gone around spouting off about their goodness and charity without understanding a thing about them? Aaron covered his eyes. God. He¡¯d even said all of that crap to Sam without a shred of irony.


    Sam. There was another thing.


    The Commander was actively rooting for him to die. Of everything else that¡¯d happened, that revelation had been the most disturbing. Aaron had little doubt that Commander Berston would attempt to take Camelot in another way if Sam survived the upcoming battle. It was too attractive of a prize. Apparently, the fact that Sam had revealed his home to save Rebecca¡¯s life didn¡¯t count for anything.


    Suddenly, a shrill noise erupted from the communicator that Aaron had left under his pillow, the one connected to Camelot. His heart dropped in fear. Why was he calling so late?


    He pulled the communicator out and hooked it over his right ear, ¡°Hello?¡±


    ¡°Aaron. Thank God,¡± Sam¡¯s voice came through, filled with panic, ¡°We were wrong. We were so fucking wrong.¡±


    Tom and Jackson had woken up. Jackson groaned blearily, and Tom rolled off his bunk and stared at Aaron intensely.


    ¡°Calm down, Sam. What¡¯s going on?¡±


    He heard a few deep breaths over the line.


    ¡°The Assimilators. Sterling scouts spotted them moving towards the town. It¡¯s not happening in two weeks. They¡¯re attacking now.¡±


    Aaron stood up and grabbed his holopad to send a message to Rebecca and Allie, then started to pace the tent. He had to assess the situation.


    ¡°Where are they attacking from, and how many of them are there?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re coming from the east of the town, the opposite goddamn direction of what we planned for. We don¡¯t know the exact number. Probably ten thousand.¡± The whine of the Merlin¡¯s engines could be heard softly in the background.


    ¡°What about your scanners?¡±


    ¡°Not operational. One more fucking day and we would¡¯ve seen them coming. Look, that¡¯s not important right now. Berston, is there any possibility he helps?¡±


    Aaron hesitated, ¡°No. None at all.¡±


    ¡°Fuck me,¡± Sam hissed. He took a moment to gather himself. ¡°Alright. Alright. Fine. Us and Sterling can take care of this. We¡¯ll just have to hold them at the river until Adelaide can save our asses.¡±


    ¡°Understood. Where do you want us to meet you?¡±


    There was a long pause.


    ¡°Uh. What the hell are you talking about?¡±


    Aaron began rifling through the trunk at the foot of his bed, trying to find something warm to wear under his uniform, ¡°You¡¯re on the way to the camp, right?¡±


    ¡°Are you fucking crazy? I¡¯m not bringing you into this shit. Hell, I shouldn¡¯t be bringing me into this shit.¡±


    He froze. ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s no way I put you guys in that much danger. Adelaide and I are headed straight to Ster- shit, hold on a second.¡±


    Sam stopped talking, but Aaron could still hear the Merlin and loud clanking sounds coming through the communicator. The flap to the tent opened, and Rebecca and Allie ducked in. Aaron motioned at them to sit down. Rebecca sat on the edge of Aaron¡¯s bunk, and Allie sat next to her. Aaron stood in the middle of the room, still clutching the dull camo uniform in one hand.


    ¡°The fuck¡¯s going on?¡± Allie asked him, ¡°You just told us to meet you here.¡±


    ¡°Sam says the Assimilators are attacking Sterling.¡±


    ¡°I thought he said it¡¯d be another two weeks!?¡±


    Aaron shook his. ¡°Their models were off I guess.¡±


    Allie cursed loudly and Rebecca gripped the sheets tightly. From his bed, Tom opened his mouth to say something, but Aaron held up a finger.


    Sam¡¯s voice came through the communicator again, ¡°I¡¯ve gotta go, shit¡¯s going south fast. See if you can get Berston. If he won¡¯t do it for free, tell him to name his price. Call back on this channel and you¡¯ll get through to Camille. I¡¯m going to be occupied for a while.¡±


    ¡°Wait, Sam!¡± Aaron yelled, ¡°Why won¡¯t you let us help!?¡±


    ¡°Because five more people won¡¯t make an ounce of difference here. I¡¯m not taking my friends with me to watch them die.¡± The line cut out.


    Aaron stared blankly at the inside of the trunk. He looked down at this hand and found that it was curled into a tight fist around his uniform.


    ¡°Aaron?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s going without us. Says we won¡¯t make any difference.¡±


    Tom¡¯s face flashed between shock, outrage, then understanding in a few moments.


    ¡°It makes sense. We¡¯d just be deadweight.¡± He hesitated, ¡°Honestly, I don¡¯t even know if this is our fight.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°I mean that I¡¯ve only been there once before. There¡¯s really no way I¡¯d even consider going if it wasn¡¯t for Sam. Maybe before I would¡¯ve but¡­¡± He rubbed his right thigh, ¡°You remember what it was like in that Hive. It wouldn¡¯t be anything compared to what¡¯ll be at Sterling.¡±


    Rebecca looked away, ¡°Yeah. I get that. I¡­ I¡¯ve almost died once for that place. I¡¯m not looking for a repeat experience. Especially if it won¡¯t do anything in the end.¡±


    ¡°Yes. I suppose you do have a point,¡± Aaron said softly.


    ¡°Fuck that,¡± Jackson growled. He jumped out of the top bunk and landed heavily on the floor of the tent, ¡°This is bullshit. I don¡¯t know about you guys, but I¡¯m going. He needs us.¡±


    Tom stared at him, ¡°What are you talking about? What could you possible do that he can¡¯t?¡±


    ¡°Think about it, idiot. How many civvies are they going to be evacuating, huh? You think the town is just going to wait around and get slaughtered?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t really see how that changes anything. I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll have people coordinating that,¡± Aaron replied.


    ¡°Sure, whatever, but how many forward scouts do they have? How many escorts for evacuees? I bet my ass they don¡¯t have any with our experience.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s got a point,¡± Allie said thoughtfully.


    Aaron stared at Jackson for a second, then pressed the button on his communicator. A quick mental command sent the call back to Camelot.


    Camille responded after a few rings, ¡°Please tell me the Red Eagles agreed to help.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m truly sorry, but no.¡±


    ¡°Then why the hell are you calling? Sorry to be a dick, but we¡¯re kinda busy out here.¡±


    ¡°I need to ask you something. What¡¯s the plan for the evacuation of Sterling?¡±


    Camille took a while to respond, ¡°There isn¡¯t much of one, frankly. We¡¯ve started taking people to Fort Morgan in the south with trucks and any other vehicle that still moves, but it¡¯s going to be slow getting nearly 8,000 civilians out.¡±


    ¡°Any escorts? Scouts? Anything at all?¡±


    ¡°Not enough. We need everyone we¡¯ve got at the river. Why?¡±


    ¡°Can you put me in contact with Mary, or someone else in Sterling? I¡¯ve got experience with this sort of thing, I might be able to offer some advice.¡±


    Camille grunted, ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll transfer the coms channels to you. Look, I¡¯m flying forty drones right now, so I can¡¯t talk. Send me a message if you need anything else.¡±


    The communicator went silent again, then a few seconds later there was a soft ping announcing the arrival of data. Aaron looked around the room.


    ¡°Before I make this call, we need to talk about what we do with the information we get.¡±


    ¡°Pretty fucking obvious, we go help.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not that simple, Jackson. If they say they need us, and we go through with it, we won¡¯t be able to come back here.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°The Red Eagles don¡¯t look too kindly at disobeying orders and desertion, dumbass,¡± Allie told him.


    ¡°Exactly. Going to Sterling at this point is the same as breaking ties with the company completely.¡±


    The tent went quiet as everyone absorbed that. Tom started tapping his finger against his metal leg. Aaron broke the silence.


    ¡°This is a decision we all have to agree on. I want to hear everyone¡¯s thoughts on this. We know Jackson¡¯s position. How about you Allie?¡±


    She rolled the sheet between her fingers, ¡°I don¡¯t know. I mean, even if we get kicked out Sam¡¯s going to let us stay in Camelot. I can¡¯t imagine he¡¯d fuck us over like that. And it¡¯s not like I have any attachment to this place. If I hadn¡¯t met you guys I would¡¯ve left already. But that fucking many Worms is just¡­¡± Allie clenched the sheets, ¡°You know what, fuck it. Better there than here. At least the people we know out there aren¡¯t all assholes.¡±


    Aaron looked at Tom, who shrugged, ¡°If we stay out of the main fight and just help evacuate, I¡¯m okay with it. I still owe Sam.¡±


    Everyone¡¯s eyes turned to Rebecca. She bit her lip.


    ¡°I want to say yes¡­ but I mean, Sam was right. Even if we did rush over to Sterling, we couldn¡¯t do much. This evacuation thing is just a way of making ourselves feel better. I think we did our fair share in Denver, and then some.¡±


    Aaron had to admit that she had a good point. It would take a minimum of three hours by scout car to reach Sterling. The evacuation might be nearly over by that point. If they stuck to what he told Camille in the first place, giving advice to Sterling on how to evacuate, it could be more useful. It could even be taken further: if they had access to Camelot¡¯s satellite feeds, they could help direct the battle and evacuation from on-high.


    Rebecca continued, ¡°That being said¡­ We should still consider leaving the Red Eagles.¡±


    Tom cocked his head, ¡°Can¡¯t say I¡¯m following the logic.¡±


    ¡°Sam¡¯s not going to get himself killed in Sterling. The jackass has the craziest luck I¡¯ve ever seen. When this is over, I think we should join up with him. I don¡¯t know about you guys, but living in an impenetrable bunker and running around in invincible mechs sounds like a much better deal than being here.¡±


    Jackson growled at her, ¡°So you want to skip right past the hard stuff and get the reward at the end, huh?¡±


    ¡°Uh. Yeah, I do. Put me in one of those Paladins and I¡¯ll fight. Until then, I¡¯m staying as far away from the Worms as possible.¡±


    Aaron was about to respond, but what he saw over Rebecca¡¯s shoulder froze the words in his mouth and made his heart stop.


    ¡°That is an excellent point, Sergeant Cooper,¡± Commander Berston said as he stepped into the tent, "Very pragmatic."

 Chapter 2.38: Inspiration

    ¡°Because five more people won¡¯t make an ounce of difference here. I¡¯m not taking my friends with me to watch them die.¡±


    I cut the connection to Aaron¡¯s communicator and leaned back in the pilot¡¯s chair. I rubbed my eyes with my palms, trying to get rid of some of the grogginess. It wasn¡¯t so much that I¡¯d been woken up at two in the morning by the blaring of the emergency communicator line, though that wasn¡¯t the most pleasant thing in the world. It¡¯s that I¡¯d just finished the dilation training course the afternoon before, and it was like having thirty days¡¯ worth of jet-lag. Well, twenty-eight to be precise, because my brain started showing some fun early warning signs and Camille had pulled me out immediately.


    Still, it had been worth it. There was no need to sleep in time dilation, so I got in a lot of practice. Enough so that I wouldn¡¯t get myself killed horribly this morning.


    ¡°How much time do we have, Adelaide?¡±


    ¡°From the scouts¡¯ estimates of their speed, I have determined that the Assimilators will reach Sterling within three hours.¡±


    I looked back at the maps projected on the glass canopy of the Merlin. I was planning out the battle as best I could from the lessons that Jack had given me. ¡°How is the militia looking?¡±¡±


    ¡°There are currently 2,112 fighters. Of those, 1,500 are outfitted with the weapons we provided, and less than 400 with a CAS enabled headset.¡±


    I frowned at the map. We barely enough fighters to cover the ground we needed covered. The crux of my strategy was the South Platte River. It separated Sterling from the horde, running unbroken from south to north on the eastern border of the town and upwards, all the way into Nebraska. It wasn¡¯t a particularly wide river, but it was quick and deep enough to slow down the Worms. Most could swim it, but they¡¯d be sitting ducks for the militia to fire on.


    ¡°And the defenses?¡±


    ¡°The mortars and the mounted machine guns and railguns we provided are being shifted as we speak. The militia are setting up the minefield and razor wire along the banks of the river. However, the fixed emplacements won¡¯t be ready in time for the battle.¡±


    I cursed, and then heard a soft ping that announced our approach to Sterling. We came in from the East, and I dismissed the maps. The glass cleared to show me a perfect view of the highway bridge that spanned the South Platte.


    <hr>


    ¡°So, Adelaide¡¯s clear to destroy the northern rail bridge?¡± I asked Antonio. We stood around a kitchen table in a house near the eastern edge of Sterling. Nobody wanted to live this far from the center of town, so the small home had fallen into disrepair. The wallpaper had begun to peel, and the room was covered in a fine layer of dust.


    The mayor nodded slowly, eyes fixed on the overhead view of the railway that the portable projector displayed lazily above the table.


    ¡°Do it, Adelaide.¡±


    It was a good distance away, but we still felt the rumbling and heard the crack of the explosion. Dust fell from the ceiling as the house shook and the dishes in the cupboards rattled. Antonio closed his eyes, but I was satisfied. They wouldn¡¯t be able to cross there anymore, at least. Left us only one spot where they could, or at least could easily.


    Sheriff Wild scowled, his block-like face twisted in annoyance, and rubbed the back of his neck, ¡°That will set us back a ways.¡±


    ¡°Getting slaughtered by Assimilators sets you back farther,¡± I told him.


    As a side note, Sheriff Wild was a gigantic idiot. He¡¯d hidden it the previous times I¡¯d come to town by not saying much. I¡¯d assumed he just had a strong and silent personality. Now I was pretty sure he just had a fundamental lack of brain cells. It was a very good thing I¡¯d come to town, because if this bumblefuck had been in charge they¡¯d have made a defensive circle in the middle of town and fought it out that way. I wasn¡¯t being sarcastic. That was his actual plan.


    I dismissed my thoughts and looked at Antonio again. His eyes were sunken in, and his face was pale and covered in a patchy layer of scruffy black hair.


    ¡°You clear on the plan? I¡¯m going to have to get out there soon, so it¡¯ll be up to you and the sheriff to manage the militia and the evac.¡±


    His eyes flicked up to the map and he tapped a finger nervously on the table. ¡°Go through it one more time.¡±


    ¡°Alright.¡±


    The map zoomed out a good way, and displayed a mass of red dots. Seeing all of them was a little surreal and more than a little terrifying. I pushed through.


    ¡°The Worms are coming from slightly north east, but Camille is going to use her drones in a maneuver called the Speyer Funnel to corral them and stop them from spreading out too much. That¡¯ll point them almost directly at the bridge.¡±


    The map zoomed in on the river and 2,112 blue dots spread along the west riverbank, flanking both sides of the highway bridge.


    ¡°I¡¯ve split up the militia into seven battalions of three hundred. Because the Assimilators are coming from the north-east, we¡¯ll need more on that side. The bridge is going to act as the center of our defense. We¡¯re going to start the battle with First, Second, and Third battalions on the north-west bank, because there¡¯ll be more trying to cross there. The Fourth and Fifth will be on the south-west bank. I¡¯m going to be covering the bridge in my Paladin with the Sixth as support. The Seventh is in reserve, and the Merlin will be providing support wherever it¡¯s needed.¡±


    ¡°Okay¡­ but why did we have to destroy the railway bridge?¡± Sheriff Wild asked.


    I resisted rolling my eyes. He¡¯d been firmly against the idea to start with, and it took some serious talking down from the mayor to get him to go along with it. Apparently, the stubborn jackass was still hung up on it.


    ¡°Assimilators go for the path of least resistance. Having another route over the river might encourage part of the horde go that way. Camille can¡¯t funnel them if they¡¯re splitting into two groups, and we can¡¯t defend two bridges at once.¡±


    ¡°Then why not blow up both?¡±


    I was losing patience fast, ¡°Think about it for a goddamn second. If there is no path of least resistance, the Worms going to spread out and go whichever way they want. Keeping one bridge up means we¡¯ve got a chokepoint for them to run to, so we can concentrate our resources around there.¡±


    I was interrupted from further explanation by Camille speaking into the communicator channel that had myself and Adelaide in it. I held up my hand to stop the Sheriff¡¯s next question.


    ¡°I¡¯ve lost a few drones to anti-aircraft fire. Adelaide, I¡¯m going to need you to mop up the stragglers.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Camille. I¡¯ll be there as soon as possible.¡±


    ¡°Good. And Sam?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here. Go ahead.¡±


    ¡°Get set up. They¡¯re starting to go faster. You¡¯ve got forty-five minutes, tops.¡±


    The communicator went silent and a tremor of nervousness went through me. I was talking a big game, but I¡¯d never planned out a battle as big as this before. Well, I had in the simulator, but that wasn¡¯t even close to the same thing. When the lights went out in the simulator, nobody was behind them.


    I glanced at the two men.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got to go. There are instructions and backup plans on the holopads I gave you if you need them. Remember, we¡¯ve only got to hold them until the evacuations complete. Then we¡¯ll blow the bridges, slow them down as much as possible, and get the hell out of Dodge.¡±


    I didn¡¯t wait for a response, turning on my heel and walking out the broken-down door. It was still dark out, a good hour or so before sunrise. I shivered, my jumpsuit not doing quite enough to keep out the cold. It was above freezing, but only just. The house we¡¯d used as our impromptu command center was a five-minute walk south of the bridge, fairly close to the riverbank. My quick steps took me through the whirl of activity that was the staging ground for the battle. An old pickup truck was hauling three tall spotlights on its bed through the cracked streets, with a group of men riding with them. They looked a mixture of worn out and terrified. I could empathize with them.


    The riverbank ahead of me was already glowing with the light from spotlights, the hastily thrown together defenses illuminated brightly. Sloppily stacked sandbag walls provided somewhere for the militiamen to crouch and fire over. MGs nests and mounted railguns were scattered around, but they were placed haphazardly with seemingly no regard for positioning. I watched one of the militia, a younger woman in jeans and a bullet-proof vest worn over a windbreaker, fiddle with the aiming panel on the side of a railgun, looking lost and scared, her hands shaking. I didn¡¯t have time to help her figure it out, so I moved past. I hoped someone else would be able to teach her.


    Mary was waiting for me at the bridgehead. She wore the combat armor I¡¯d given her for the mission to Denver, the SMG attached at her hip and an assault rifle slung over her shoulder. She held her helmet underneath one arm, and her scowl was an incredibly reassuring sight.


    ¡°Hadn¡¯t realized you¡¯d gotten back from scouting,¡± I said as I neared, ¡°I¡¯m going to need you to take over for the Sheriff in managing the northern battalions instead of being in the command tent. I know you¡¯re not exactly trained to be in charge, but you¡¯d be better than that. The man is a gibbering fucking moron.¡±


    She cracked a smile, ¡°That he is.¡±


    Militiamen scrambled around the concrete near the bridge, trying to build up the sandbag walls as best they could. There an arc of fortifications being constructed that faced the bridgehead, spanning the length of the four-lane highway. The exit off the bridge had been blocked off with large clumps of razor wire. While it wouldn¡¯t kill any Worms, it¡¯d tangle them up and make them easier to pick off. Six MG nests and two mounted railguns were spread across the sandbags. Not as many as the other locations, but my presence more than made up for that.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Watching the militia set up, Mary¡¯s slight smile turned into a deep frown, ¡°I¡¯ve been touring the defenses. We need to talk.¡±


    That drew a few worried glances, so I motioned at her to follow me and moved towards my Paladins. They were a bit to the north of the line, and there weren¡¯t any people around that area, so she could speak openly. The militiamen already looked terrified as it was, there was no need to add to it.


    She kept talking as we reached them, ¡°We¡¯re screwed. The townspeople aren¡¯t ready to fight. I can count the ones that know how to use a mortar on one hand. Ditto for the railguns. The hovertank pilots are passable, they¡¯ve at least had some training.¡±


    My stomach dropped. I knew it already, but I¡¯d been ignoring the reality. Two thousand professional soldiers, outfitted with gear like we¡¯d provided, would¡¯ve been able to take a group of ten-thousand Assimilators. Not without losses, but with the defensive positioning we had, it wouldn¡¯t be that difficult. Five to one odds were actually pretty generous when fighting Worms.


    But with a militia like this one¡­ they knew how to fire rifles, but beyond that they had no training for a battle of this scale. I could give them all the fancy toys that I had, but if they didn¡¯t know how to use them it made no difference. I cursed Commander Berston and the Red Eagles again. The mercenaries would¡¯ve turned this from a near-impossible victory into an assured one.


    Still, all we had was the hand we were dealt.


    ¡°We¡¯ll be okay. Keep you battalions from breaking, keep them firing at the Worms in the water, and we can make it through this. We¡¯ve got the advantage, after all. Besides, Adelaide might have something up her sleeve if we can hold them long enough.¡±


    She gave me a skeptical look and I shrugged. It was better than saying ¡®we¡¯re all going to die a horrible Wormy death¡¯, right?


    Mary sighed, ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll try to keep the men together up north. Antonio is going to be a problem in the south though. He doesn¡¯t have any experience at all. There¡¯s a retired Lieutenant Colonel, Harold, living here that¡¯ll do a better job, and that way we can shift Antonio to my old job, directing reinforcements and communications in the command tent.¡±


    ¡°Thank God. The man looked like he was going to piss himself when I told him he¡¯d be in charge down there. See if you can get this Harold subbed in as soon as possible.¡±


    I was relieved, but it was terrifying as all hell that it¡¯d come to this. All of this last-minute scrambling to find anyone capable. The slapdash attempt to put some semblance of a defense together. It was a miracle we even had as many weapons as we did, because we hadn¡¯t gotten around to fabricating enough armor. The only saving grace was the amount of ammunition we¡¯d been able to bring. There¡¯d be no shortage of railgun rounds and bul-


    The loud blare of tornado sirens went off in the town. The half hour warning.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got to get over to my troops,¡± Mary said, ¡°Don¡¯t die, yeah?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re the one without the metal shell. Be careful.¡±


    She jogged off, leaving me standing on the dirt next to my Paladins. A shuddering breath left my mouth and I closed my eyes. There was so much that I hadn¡¯t accounted for. So much that we¡¯d rushed, that we¡¯d almost forgotten. The triage was understaffed. The ammunition supply chain was a barely cobbled together farce. Only the squad leaders had CAS headsets. Even calling them squad leaders was a sad joke. They were just people picked nearly at random to keep four of their fellow townspeople in some semblance of a group.


    It had been just over two weeks since Camille had discovered that the Assimilators were missing. Just two weeks to convince a town that a threat was real, and try to put them into force capable of fighting off a horde of Assimilators. Not enough time. Not enough time at all. I felt sick to my stomach just thinking about all the cracks we¡¯d left. And maybe it was arrogant, but I knew that I¡¯d have to be the one that filled them, that held this whole damn thing together.


    My brow broke into a cold sweat as I thought of it. The bridge was where the vast majority of Assimilators were going to go through, and without me the two Battalions stationed there would fall like wheat in front of them. If I failed, the battle would be over. The Worms would rush over the bridge like water and tear apart into the defenders on the riverbanks. Then there¡¯d be nothing between them and the town.


    I wanted to hear Camille¡¯s voice. I wanted to plan things out with her, see if there was a better way to go about this whole thing. I knew in part that I just wanted to hear her tell me it was going to be alright. Camille always seemed to know just the right thing to say to me when I got like this. I was about to call her over the coms, but stopped myself. It was too late to change anything now, and she and Adelaide had better things to do than listen to me whine.


    I bit the inside of my cheek, hard, snapping myself out of my spiral. Right. They were busy doing their jobs. I had to do mine.


    The Assault Paladin looked menacing in the dim light cast by the spotlights, much more so than its smaller brother. It stood at nine feet tall, and while the original Paladin was sleek and streamlined, the Assault was solid and bulky. There was an angled ¡®collar¡¯ of sorts that extended from the very top of the chest to add a protective covering to the neck, and the visor was reduced in size. The armor was nearly twice as thick as the normal Paladin¡¯s in places, particularly the torso, shoulders, and legs, which made it weigh much more. The two long cannons that were folded on the back added to that weight as well. I hadn¡¯t fully painted the Assault Paladin yet, so the armor was its original matte grey-black with the exception of a large shield etched in white on the front.


    It opened from the front, not a smooth rippling motion, but a less refined mechanical split from the base of the neck to the bottom of the feet. One of those things I hadn¡¯t gotten around to perfecting. I couldn¡¯t get in through the back, so I had to clamber awkwardly into the Paladin. The suit jerked closed, and the systems booted up, the HUD springing to life in front of my eyes.


    I clenched and unclenched my fists, the Assault Paladin moving just a hair slower than the original. Part of that was down to the software being imperfect, but there was also more to move. It was a similar feeling when I started walking. It just felt slower, like I was walking through a very shallow pool of water.


    But despite all that, every step was powerful, and it might have just been an entirely mental thing, but I felt more secure in the Assault Paladin than I ever did in the normal model. I gave a mental command for the support pod and a spare original Paladin to follow me, and headed towards the bridgehead again.


    The fortifications around the bridge were nearly complete by this point. The Sixth and Seventh Battalions would remain in this area, prepared to either give me support or provide relief to another part of the front. A command tent sat a hundred feet east of the line. I grimaced as I saw that. It should¡¯ve been back much farther, but there wasn¡¯t time at this point to fix the mistake.


    The militia turned to look at me as I approached. I hadn¡¯t wanted to bother them, but this thing made a Hive Lord look subtle. I could see the machine guns rattling on their mounts. I¡¯d really have to put this guy on a diet for the Mark II version. The area where I¡¯d set up the Assault Paladin was left clear, a four-foot by four-foot patch of concrete. It was the center of the arc, directly on the two yellow dividing lines in the middle of the road, and faced directly down the bridge. I walked towards it, taking in the militia around me.


    There were so many different stripes of people here. More men than women in this group, though there were about equal numbers in the entire militia. Aged anywhere from fifteen to mid-forties, from what I could tell. It was odd seeing what I considered as children holding assault rifles, but these were the times we lived in. I saw fear and exhaustion stamped on all their faces, just like on all the other militiamen I¡¯d seen, but there was something else that hadn¡¯t been there before as they watched me pass. I couldn¡¯t quite identify it, but I didn¡¯t think it was a bad thing.


    A portly man stood out of the ranks and gave me a sloppy salute. I returned one that was significantly better. He wore a tight fighting baseball cap and hunting jacket.


    ¡°Howdy friend. I¡¯m Marshall, I¡¯m leading the Seventh Battalion. Uh. Sorry to bother you, but Janet never showed up and I was wondering what to do about that.¡±


    I took a second to think, ¡°Janet was the head of the Sixth Battalion, right?¡±


    ¡°Yessir she is. Can¡¯t seem to get in contact with her either.¡±


    ¡°Alright. Find someone dependable to take over for her. Actually, scratch that. Radio Anto- Mayor Valdez in the command tent. He has a list of everyone in the battalions, so he¡¯ll be able to point someone out,¡± I said quietly to Marshall.


    I raised my voice, ¡°Listen up! Change of plans, the Seventh is going to cover me, and the Sixth is going to fall back to the reserve gathering point. Squad leaders, make sure you keep track of your updated orders!¡±


    There was an awkward pause and many of the militiamen looked around at each other hesitantly.


    ¡°Move!¡± I bellowed, my suit amplifying the sound.


    They scattered, and I clenched my teeth. Too slow. These people weren¡¯t cut out for this. Amidst the chaos, I moved towards my position. The support pod, an ugly six-foot tall rounded rectangle, hovered over to its spot ten feet behind me, and descended with a soft hum to land on four legs. Another rush job, but it¡¯d serve its purpose.


    I was about to start settling in when I heard Marshall¡¯s voice behind me.


    ¡°Uh, sir? I¡¯ve got one last question, if you have the time.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t look over my shoulder because of the bulk of the armor, so I had to turn back around fully. The man was fidgeting nervously. I checked my HUD. Twenty-four minutes left, more than enough time to deploy the Assault Paladin. I nodded at him to continue while I checked over the read-outs on the HUD.


    ¡°It¡¯s¡­ it¡¯s not the most important thing in the world, but me and the other guys were just wondering why.¡±


    I tried to cock my head at him and failed miserably, the Asssault Paladin''s bulk preventing it. I considered leaning my entire body and realized that would look dumb, ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    Marshall took off his hat and rubbed his messy hair nervously, ¡°It¡¯s just that, y¡¯know, you don¡¯t have anything in Sterling. The rest of us do, got family and homes here. I guess we¡¯re not really getting why you¡¯re sticking your neck out is all.¡±


    ¡°So, you¡¯re basically asking me why I¡¯m fighting for you?¡±


    ¡°I suppose I am.¡±


    The militia stared at me, and I finally recognized what else I¡¯d seen in them as I passed. Hope. They¡¯d placed their hopes in me, that I might be able to pull off the impossible and lead them to victory. But that hope hinged on the fact that I had a reason to be here, a reason to fight and maybe die for them. I had to honor that.


    ¡°I¡¯m not really sure, to be perfectly honest,¡± I said.


    Everything went silent and militiamen wore flabbergasted expressions. Marshall¡¯s mouth fell open, but no sound came out.


    ¡°I know that I want to help whoever I can. I know that I hate seeing anyone die if I can do something about it. I took an oath protect the people left alive on this world. But none of that really gets to the core of it, does it?¡±


    The Assault Paladin¡¯s power supply indicator was fluctuating in a concerning way, but that wouldn¡¯t be a problem soon. The rest of the diagnostics showed up clean. The map on my HUD showed a mass of red dots approaching like a tidal wave.


    ¡°To me, the why of it isn¡¯t so important, because to me it¡¯s not a choice to help or not. I couldn¡¯t live with myself if I didn¡¯t. Maybe I¡¯ve got a superhero complex. Or a God complex, or whatever you want to call it. Who the hell knows. All I do know is that I¡¯m going to hold this damn bridge no matter what comes at it.¡±


    The surrounding troops didn¡¯t really have a response to that, just a series of grim nods. I¡¯d like to think they returned to their preparations with an added jump in their step, but that was probably just wishful thinking. I¡¯d have to work on my speeches. Part of the job was inspiring hope, after all.


    But that was fine. If I couldn¡¯t get them to believe in me through my words, I¡¯d do it by shit-stomping some Worms.


    Standing in my cleared-out spot on the road, I gave a mental command, and the support pod behind me became lined with cracks that revealed cooling vents. It began to glow with a deep, blue light as it emitted a low hum. From the top of the pod, a flight of four small drones detached themselves and hovered in place, each holding a large cannon shell. A group of tiny spider-bots scuttled out the bottom of the support pod, dragging a set of four cables over to me. They fixed the cables to the attachment points on the back calves of the Assault Paladin. A line of text ran across the top of my HUD.


    Secondary reactor online.


    I took up a steady stance in my Paladin, and several claws deployed from the top of the metal boots with a soft whir. They thrust themselves downwards, sinking into the cracked concrete like a knife into butter, and anchored me firmly to the ground.


    The pair of six-foot long railguns unfolded slowly from my back, three-feet of rectangular barrel pointing over each of my shoulders, angled slightly upwards. They left enough room for the rocket pods to deploy as well, significantly larger ones than on my original Paladin, capable of holding forty-two rockets apiece. In addition to the rocket pods that sat on my shoulders, one emerged from the outside of each thigh as well, but smaller and lower profile.


    I was handed two large, six-barreled Gatling cannons by another group of spider-bots. I held one on each arm, the back ends of them hooking into nooks at my elbows, the weapons¡¯ length running down my forearm a foot past my hands, which held their handles tightly. The tips of the barrels glowed with a dark red light. I hefted them, and a second line of text joined the first.


    Assault Paladin defensive deployment complete.

 Previously on Paladin

    Humanity has lost the war against an Alien race known as the Assimilators.


    The Assimilators crash-landed in Siberia in 2021, and within a few years had come to dominate the planet through sheer numbers and ruthless force. Now, the last remnants of humanity live in scattered communities across the United States.


    Samuel Lewis is an engineer working in a top-secret facility in the plains of eastern Colorado. It was responsible for manufacturing state-of-the-art mechs known as Paladin Mobile Infantry Suits, and Sam was stationed there just months before the war ended. The bunker kept him safe from the Assimilators, but he lost his family, his friends, and everyone he¡¯d ever known to the Assimilators. With him was a hyperintelligent pseudo-AI named Adelaide. He named his home Camelot.


    For months, Sam kept himself isolated in the bunker, refusing to accept the reality of the outside world. Several groups of Assimilators passed by him, but none found his location. However, a group of survivers chased by Assimilators passed by Camelot, and though he had the ability to help them, he let them die instead, fearing that he would be discovered.


    After that, he threw himself into training to pilot a Paladin, swearing he¡¯d never let people he could help die again. He became the first person that was qualified to pilot the Paladin Mobile Infantry Suit. Shortly after his graduation, another group of people appeared on Camelot¡¯s sensors, also being attacked by Worms (Mary, Mike, and Wade). This time, Sam didn¡¯t hesitate to save them, wiping out the Assimilators. The group turned out to be from Sterling, a town in North-Eastern Colorado. It was his first-time above ground since entering Camelot.


    Adelaide turned out to be an alien that lives in information and is essentially immortal, discovered in the wreck of the first spaceship that fell to Earth.


    While he was fixing the satellite dish that connected Camelot to the outside world, Sam encountered a group of slavers. They attacked him, and after he killed their leader, the chips in their brains self-destructed, wiping out the rest of the slaver group.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Sam met scouts from the Red Eagle mercenaries (Aaron, Rebecca, Allie, Jackson, and Tom), who were operating near Camelot. The scouts were looking for an Advance Team, which turned out to be the group of people that Sam let die. The Advance Team had been chased by the Assimilators, and buried an encrypted ¡®black-box¡¯ that most likely detailed why they were being hunted. The box has yet to be decrypted.


    Shortly after that, Sam picked up a distress signal from a town known as Fort Morgan, that was being attacked by another group of slavers. Sam destroyed the group, and saved Fort Morgan. He transported the remaining prisoners to Sterling.


    Sam became close to the scouts from the Red Eagles, and ended up being hired by them for a mission to investigate an odd location. The location turned out to be an unfinished Assimilator hive, which erupted while the Red Eagles were studying it. Sam fought a Hive Lord, delaying it and preventing it from hunting down the Red Eagles. He was hurt during the engagement, requiring saving from Adelaide who piloted the gunship known as the Merlin. The Hive Lord was relatively unscathed.


    Badly injured, Sam was returning to Camelot when he happened upon Camille, the love of his life who he thought had died on the day humanity had lost the war. She had escaped from the Assimilators and had been living in a small town, looking for Sam.


    Sam, Camille, and Adelaide realized that the software sensors they had been using were outdated, and would not be able to discover hidden Assimilators. Therefore, they organized a mission with the Red Eagle scouts and Mary to go to Denver in order to retrieve the advanced Paladin software. During the mission, Rebecca was injured. Having no other choice, Sam brought the team to Camelot in order to treat Rebecca, revealing the fact that the base existed.


    After Adelaide upgraded Camelot¡¯s sensors with the software that had been retrieved from Denver, Camille discovered that a large group of Assimilators was approaching Sterling. Sam has gone to help them out, and asked the Red Eagles to help as well. Commander Berston, the leader of the Red Eagles, refused to help. The Red Eagles scouting team, in violation of their orders, had planned to go to Sterling, but they never arrived.


    Now in Sterling, Sam (in his newly made Assault Paladin) has to face down the massive Assimilator horde with the help of Adelaide, Camille, and roughly 2,000 militia from the town.

 2.39: The Defense of Sterling

    They were five miles out of my range.


    The red had started to encroach onto my suits scanners. They were a flood, a torrent. Every second, more and more of the display was filled with them. And they were still so far out, and more would filter in, pushed into one point by Camille¡¯s drones. Actually, they technically were in range of the artillery railguns on my back. But firing this soon would be counterproductive. It might scatter the horde that Camille had painstakingly herded together.


    I stared down the half-mile-long concrete bridge, studying my battlefield. Honestly, it was a pretty great place to fight. The Worms would only have one way to go to reach us, and that was straight into our line of fire. The bridge was pretty wide, since it was as six-lane highway, but the defensive line was able to fully stretch from one side to the other. I was fairly confident that we could hold it. The problem was that I wasn¡¯t so sure that the defenders on the riverbanks would be able to keep the flanks. If they collapsed, we¡¯d get speared right in the bunghole by thousands of very pissed off Worms.


    Even in a Paladin, there was a good chance I wouldn¡¯t survive.


    Which begged the question: why the fuck was I here?


    ¡°Sam?¡±


    I¡¯d answered the question earlier, to that man whose name I¡¯d already forgotten, but honestly, what I said was mostly bullshit, bravado, putting on a strong front. He¡¯d been right ¨C I didn¡¯t have family here, I didn¡¯t have a home, I didn¡¯t have anything to protect besides these strangers around me and some words sworn to a long-gone government. I had taken the oath back when I¡¯d had nothing left to lose; but now I had my family back.


    I¡¯d jumped into this thing headfirst, like always, without really thinking about the consequences or what the hell I was even doing. This wasn¡¯t like the other times where I¡¯d fought Assimilators. There was a horde of these things, and they were all coming straight for me. I wasn¡¯t trying to run away from them like in Denver, I was fighting them head on. All for people I didn¡¯t know. They mingled around me, various expressions of fear and nervousness stamped onto their faces.


    Did I really want to die for them?


    ¡°Sam?¡±


    Why?


    Why be a hero? Humanity was fucked. That was the truth. It didn¡¯t matter if I saved one town from one tiny group of Assimilators when there were hundreds of millions of them surrounding us. Any time they wanted too, they could wipe the last pitiful remnants of our species out in a flash. One jackass, hell, ten thousand jackasses in Paladins wouldn¡¯t be able to do shit about it. Who the hell was I kidding. Everything I was doing was just a giant joke, wasn¡¯t it?


    If I had any shred of intelligence left, I¡¯d keep myself and the people I loved safe, and tell the rest of the world to go fuck itself. Commander Berston had it right. I didn¡¯t owe these people shit.


    ¡°SAM¡±


    Adelaide snapped me out of it. My hands shook wildly and my heart beat in my chest like a hummingbird¡¯s wings as I glanced at my scanners


    Three miles out of range.


    ¡°Sorry Adelaide, I was doing some last-minute checks. Everything okay?¡±


    ¡°For the most part. Camille¡¯s funnel has been effective, and the Assimilators should be contained within our zone of engagement. The final estimate puts the horde at between twelve and thirteen thousand.¡± She paused for a second, letting that sink in, ¡°On the bright side, desertion rate is lower than expected among the militia. The evacuation, however, is running behind our estimates.¡±


    I sighed and closed my eyes, frustrated by the situation but grateful for the distraction, ¡°What¡¯s the holdup?¡±


    ¡°It appears as though some of the evacuees are attempting to bring too many belongings, and the transports are too full.¡±


    We¡¯d been using the transports that¡¯d been plundered from the Reapers back in Fort Morgan. They were a good size, but with the amount of townspeople there were it was going to take a fair few trips to evacuate everyone. And the longer it took to get them out, the longer we¡¯d have to hold the line. My initial attack would be critical in keeping the number of Worms down. I had to attack as soon as they entered range. Which meant getting distracted wasn¡¯t really an option.


    ¡­ Christ, I¡¯d picked one hell of a time for a crisis of faith.


    ¡°Anything we can do to help them get a move on?¡± I asked Adelaide, keeping an eye on the horde populating my HUD.


    ¡°No. I have contacted Mayor Antonio and he says they are moving as fast as possible.¡± She sounded miffed.


    I tried to rub at my eyes in frustration before remembering the massive Gatling guns strapped to my hands, so I settled for another drawn out sigh, ¡°Alright, thanks for letting me know.¡±


    She disconnected from the coms, and I was left with my thoughts again. The past days had been such a blur of activity that I hadn¡¯t had a spare second to just think. I¡¯d kept myself so busy that I¡¯d been able to ignore the little voice screaming in the back of my head that maybe what I was doing was really fucking stupid. That maybe sitting this one out in the bunker would¡¯ve been the better call. Honestly, they didn¡¯t even ask for my help. I just up and volunteered like a glory-seeking moron. And then they go and fuck up the evacuation, because our job wasn¡¯t hard enough as it was, apparently. It wasn¡¯t even my goddamn fault that the Wormy bastards decided to pay Sterling a visit. That advance tea-


    Oh. Right.


    That was why. Simple, really.


    I couldn¡¯t feel like that again. Couldn¡¯t let them die without helping again.


    Without Camille, without Adelaide, and without me, they¡¯d break within a half hour. The militia lined up at their sandbags, clutching the rifles they barely knew how to use, wouldn¡¯t be able to hold. If I faltered here, if I lost, if I ran away, there¡¯s no way that Sterling would survive. The Assimilators would tear into the town and chase down the transports. When they decided to attack, they weren¡¯t in the habit of leaving people alive.


    My damn nightmares were already crowded enough with the blank faces of the advance team. My conscience couldn¡¯t bear a whole town too.


    I had my reason, then. Selfishness wearing the mask of altruism. Not perfect, but I could live with it. I shook my head in the suit, and calmed down my breathing. The red wave was getting close to my weapons range, and I had a show to put on. There was one last thing though.


    ¡°Hey, Adelaide,¡± I called, while the twin cannons on the back of my suit began to move into position again, adjusting to the oncoming Assimilators. Two miles left.


    ¡°Yes, Sam?¡±


    The cannons settled down for the most part, but the barrels were still moving slightly in accordance to the Paladin¡¯s automatic targeting. Around me, the militia stopped what they were doing to stare.


    ¡°How¡¯s the progress on getting through the black box? And is our backup plan in place yet?¡±


    ¡°The decoding process is very close to completion, under an hour by my estimates. Regarding your second question, yes, the station is online.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s one blessing at least,¡± I muttered under my breath. I switched the coms away from the channel with both Adelaide and Camille, isolating so that I was just talking to Adelaide, ¡°Hey. Can I trust you to look out for Camille, in case something happens?¡±


    ¡°Nothing is going to happen.¡±


    ¡°If something does?¡±


    ¡°¡­ Yes.¡±


    ¡°Thanks.¡±


    She went silent after that. I wish I¡¯d had the chance to talk to Camille a little, but she had way too much to deal with to spare the brainpower. I pictured her in the control room of Camelot, brow furrowed with concentration, fighting off a headache as her eyes jumped between dozens of monitors. She¡¯d need a long time to recover after today. My thoughts were interrupted by a little alert symbol that popped up on my HUD. One mile.


    I cleared my throat and set my coms to the open channel, ¡°Command, this is Paladin Lewis. I will be beginning my initial artillery barrage in approximately ninety seconds.¡±


    For a dozen or so uncomfortable seconds, nobody responded. Which probably meant that nobody knew who was really in charge. Which was a minor source of concern. And by minor, and meant it was really not good. Finally, Mary¡¯s voice broke in,


    ¡°Roger that Paladin. Give em¡¯ hell.¡±


    I closed my coms and cracked my neck. Showtime.


    It didn¡¯t take more than a thought to set the railguns firing. The system did all the hard work: in a split second, the angle the cannons were pointed and the power they needed to fire at was calculated. The range of the railguns was incredible, but that made it very difficult to aim accurately. With just a hair more or less power, the shell would end up in a completely different place. No human would be able to manage a system like that unassisted.


    When the cannons fired, the ground underneath my feet cracked as the Paladin was driven down from the sheer force. The one over my left shoulder fired first, followed a moment later by the one on my right. The second they had launched their shell, basically just a conductive metal casing around a lot of explosives, a drone would load in a new one taken from the station behind me. The barrage was constant; I could feel my brain rattling in my skull every couple seconds. With the systems handling the bombardment, I didn¡¯t have much to do but wait.


    It took longer than I expected it to for the blue explosions to bloom on the horizon. The first one was faint, a flash in the morning. As the seconds passed they came closer and closer, brighter and brighter, advancing with the horde. The optics on my Paladin could pick out near-black shapes illuminated by them, moving forward relentlessly. It seemed that the Assimilators barely noticed the shells falling among them; dozens were wiped out by each one, but there were hundreds more to take their place.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Faintly, I began to hear their screeches on the wind. An unholy noise that grew and grew, drowning everything else out. A militiaman in the squad next to me started to pray again, and another started to curse as the sun rose behind the horde, now just a mile away from the bridge. The thousands of Assimilators seemed to move as one organism, until they reached the opposite river bank. The horde split into three groups as they approached, fanning out along the river. When they reached the bridge, it wasn¡¯t like in the movies. The army didn¡¯t stop, didn¡¯t face down our defenders in an intimidating show of force. They just continued like a wave, red eyes glowing brightly as they stormed forward, screeching all the while, a line of massive M2 Assimilators leading the charge. They covered the bridge in an unbroken mass, like ants over pavement.


    I raised my gatling cannons, pointing them down the bridge. The railguns on my back were now parallel to the ground, blasting slugs directly into the Assimilators and tearing holes in their ranks. The guns on my arms began to spin up with a whir, the barrels glowing bright red. I set my target: a giant M2 Assimilator, one of the bison-headed Worms leading the horde.


    The new scanners on my Paladin made the Assimilator look slightly translucent; I could see into the damn thing, and the ganglion in its head was highlighted in bright red. I took aim at it and pulled the triggers, and the Worm crashed to the ground, punctured with dozens of holes that sizzled around the edges. Behind it, two more Assimilators fell as well. I grinned and squeezed the triggers down fully, spraying the horde with bolts of bright orange-and-green plasma. Well, more like tiny, half-millimeter-thick ¡®bullets¡¯ accelerated to ungodly speeds. They burnt the air around them, coating themselves in a layer of plasma. The absolutely mind-boggling amount of power required to operate them was provided by the stand alone anti-matter reactor camped out behind me. I was basically a stationary turret, but that served my purposes just fine.


    The Worms fell like wheat in front of me. I fired indiscriminately in a wide arc, trying to cut down as many as I could. While the plasma gatlings went to town on the smaller Worms, I picked off larger Assimilators with the railguns on my back. Unlike before, I was manually aiming at targets, the CAS only making minute adjustments to my accuracy. I had to keep an eye on the map on my HUD as well; despite the barrage, they advanced steadily down the bridge.


    I dimly heard someone commanding the militia to open fire, and the rattle of assault rifles joined the cacophony on the bridge. The militia¡¯s railgun turrets began to boom out as well, doing a shockingly good job of scattering tightly grouped together clumps of Worms. The horde faltered a bit under the hail of bullets, but surged forward after another moment.


    They were getting too close to our lines, and my plasma cannons were dangerously close to overheating. After a moment¡¯s hesitation, I sent a signal over the coms with a mental command. I continued firing, the gatling on my right arm reducing a row of seven gorrilladillos to swiss cheese while the railguns on my back tore the head off a hulking M2 Assimilator. Without pausing I fired a burst of plasma from my left cannon into a group of smaller ranged Worms creeping up the flank. I was a second too slow though, as to my left a militia screamed as she was impaled by a foot-long spike. Similar casualties were starting to crop up all along the line. To their credit, the militia were dishing out far more damage than they were receiving, the bursts from their assault rifles riddling the Assimilators with bullets, but every death on our side meant much more than one on theirs.


    The Worms had gotten within fifteen feet of the defenses when I heard a low, steady hum and breathed a sigh of relief. The Merlin buzzed low above me in a blur of red and white, strafing the bridge with the nose cannon. Simultaneously, I unleashed a salvo of rockets from the pods on my shoulder. They exploded in bursts of bright blue, carving gaping holes in the Assimilator horde. Amazingly, the Worms fell back under the salvo, screaming defiantly up at the hovering gunship. Unfortunately, Adelaide couldn¡¯t stay for long. She fired one last volley into the horde, then sped off to the North, to support the battalion there. The lull after she left didn¡¯t last more than a few breaths, but it was enough for my plasma cannons to shed some heat and for the militia to reload. Then the Worms renewed their attack with unbroken vigor.


    For a while, it seemed like things were going okay. The Assimilators would surge, and we¡¯d beat them back, sometimes with the help of the Merlin. They came at us again and again, but we were holding them at bay. Better yet, it felt like the pressure on our lines was decreasing. There seemed to be more time between each attack, and they fell back a little farther each time we repelled them. It felt like we were winning.


    Until shit hit the fan, at least.


    I¡¯d just finished punching a series of holes into a crowd of R1 Assimilators when a panicked call went out over the command channel.


    The southern flank was going to get overrun. I took a quick glance at my map, and a chill went down my spine. The mass of red had encroached all the way up the river bank, and was inching closer and closer by the minute. The green dots that represented the defenders were disappearing, one by one. Instead of going all in for the bridge, the Assimilators had started going for the flanks much earlier than we expected.


    In the dithering silence that followed, I made a split-second decision.


    ¡°The reserve battalion needs to get over there ASAP. The Merlin is going to provide support in the meantime, I just need you all to hold for another few seconds.¡±


    I waited for the affirmative noises to come in, then switched my channel to connect only to Mary, ¡°Mary, you¡¯re going to be alone for a while, can you handle it?¡±


    There was a long pause.


    ¡°Fuck, I don¡¯t know. Maybe if we get some air support, but there are way more of them coming than we expe-¡± the sound of explosion and static cut her out for a little, ¡°- like they¡¯re giving up on the bridge and going just for us.¡±


    I cursed low underneath my breath, trying to split my attention between the Mary and firing at the Assimilators in front of me. I sent a quick mental message to Camille, a position on the tactical map.


    ¡°Okay, Camille¡¯s drones will help you out, keep ¨C¡°


    I was cut off as a dark shape burst out of the horde, leaping with unnatural speed towards us. I fired at it, trying to cut it off, but it ducked and weaved through the stream of plasma, then bowled straight into me, sending me flying backwards. I smashed into the power supply, knocking it down. The thrusters on my Paladin kept me standing, barely, but another blow sent me sprawling. There was a sickening crunch as the plasma cannon on my right arm was crushed underneath the weight of my Paladin. I detached it and the one on my other arm, then rolled sideways off my stomach and onto my back, barely dodging the flash of claws that embedded themselves in the concrete where my head had been a moment before. I leapt to my feet and fired my front thrusters, which shot me backwards, giving myself some room to breathe and take stock of what the fuck was going on.


    I was about twenty feet behind the defensive line, on an empty stretch of bridge. In front of me stood a massive Assimilator. It had the rough shape of a mountain lion, but twelve feet long and six feet tall at the shoulder. The thing was covered in pitch-black scales that were so tightly interwoven that they looked like smooth fur. Two rows of short spikes ran down the length of its back all the way to its tail. It bared a mouthful of teeth at me, face twisted into a growl, four red eyes narrowed in hatred. A Hive Lord.


    It didn¡¯t give me any more time to think, and I raised my arms into defensive posture just in time to block its lunge. Its teeth smashed down on the heavy plate of my forearm, and its claws scraped at the armor over my ribs. I felt a dull pressure in my arm, and the sensors on my suit reported minor damage, but that was it. The thick armor of the Assault Paladin had blocked the brunt of it. I flung it off one-handed, sending it careening into the air. It hit the concrete hard, but rolled gracefully to its feet in one smooth motion. The Hive Lord looked unhurt, but it was far more cautious than before, pacing in slow, predatory circles around me. I stood my ground, waiting for it to make the first move. I was much slower than the Worm, but much tougher.


    I flashed a quick, worried glance over to the defensive line. They¡¯d have to hold without me, and I wasn¡¯t sure if they could. I had to take this thing down quickly. Almost as if it could sense my momentary distraction, the Hive Lord sprinted at me, jaws bared, accelerating like a sportscar. I could pick out each one of its curved, half-foot long teeth as it leapt forward. I balled my right hand into a fist, and pulled back my arm.


    And I punched the fucking Worm in the face.


    The force of the impact sent tremors up my arm, barely overwhelming the Assault Paladin¡¯s unfinished inertia dampeners. Through the kinetic sensors on my hands, I felt every bone break in the Hive Lords head, my fist stopping it in midair. Unfortunately, the rest of the Assimilator¡¯s body continued forward. It smashed into me in a tangle of thrashing limbs. Even though I¡¯d smashed its skull in, it¡¯s claws still raked over my armor. One of them found purchase on the railgun over my right shoulder and tore it off like it was paper. Over the blaring of the alerts, I roared and grabbed the Hive Lord, digging my fingers into the hard, scale-like fur. I heaved it over my head, flipping it around and smashing it into the ground. The Worm lashed out a leg at mine, catching me by surprise. I lost my balance and tumbled backwards, but the stabilizing thrusters kept me from falling completely. The Hive Lord took the opportunity to scurry backwards out of my reach. I watched in frustration as its shattered face began to slowly knit itself back together. The new sensors in my suit highlighted its ganglion: One where its brain should¡¯ve been, which had been damaged by my punch, and one in its chest. Since I was slower than it, I¡¯d have to get rid of both in the same engagement, before it could run away.


    The Hive Lord was pacing again, still recovering from its wounds, ruby eyes locked onto my Paladin. This time, I wasn¡¯t about to wait for it to attack.


    I fired the thrusters on the back of my Paladin at full blast, sending myself flying at the monster. The pods on my shoulder fired a series of missiles which split into a pincer, cutting off the Hive Lord¡¯s lateral movements. Its eyes widened, and the Worm dodged in the only way it could: directly at me. Backlit by the blue explosions of the rockets that detonated to its sides, the Hive Lord tore forward. As I prepared to meet it, the Assimilator surprised me by launching into a flying leap over my head, trying to use its agility to get into a more advantageous position. I desperately reached a hand above my head but caught nothing but air. I planted my left foot and dragged the other, bleeding off momentum from my lunge, trying to turn and face the Hive Lord before it could attack.


    It was too little, too late. I saw a quick, black blur out of the corner of my eyes, then I felt a tremendous blow on my side. I fell flat on my back; the Worm was standing on my chest, pinning me to the ground with its weight. It thrashed at me, and I instinctively shielded my face with my arms. This time, it¡¯s claws were effective: they ripped into the thick metal, leaving long tears down it. I launched myself upward with a quick burn of my rear thrusters, but the Hive Lord had already leapt backwards, just outside my range once more.


    I¡¯d barely gotten back on my feet when it attacked again. I fired rockets from my shoulder, but it weaved through them as if they weren¡¯t even there. I prepared for another attack by raising my arms, but the Worm surprised me yet again. It ducked low, drawing itself almost flat to the ground, and tackled at my legs, sweeping me off my feet. I felt it tear at something at the back of my knee, and in panic I thrust my elbow downwards. It connected, and the satisfying crack of its shoulder breaking filled my ears. But the Hive Lord had done its job, and it retreated in a flash, prowling around me while its shoulder healed.


    A quick look at my suit¡¯s diagnostics told me that the servos in my right leg had been heavily damaged. The damn thing was trying to limit my mobility even more. Fortunately, despite the damage, my leg was still more or less functional. But the Hive Lord didn¡¯t know that.


    I struggled to stand, then feigned collapsing to one knee again, as if the leg couldn¡¯t bare my weight. The Hive Lord¡¯s tail began to twitch in excitement, and I grimaced underneath my helmet. Had the Assault Paladin not been built like a brick shithouse, I would¡¯ve been over the barrel. But as it stood, this next bout would be my best chance of taking the fucking cat down.


    Without a hint of warning, the Worm sped in my direction. I saw it''s eyes become fixed on my neck. It was going for the killing blow. But so was I.


    When it was just a foot away from me, I burst upwards from my crouch to meet it. I caught it in a hard tackle, and could feel the pauldron of my Paladin bend from the force of our impact. The Hive Lord was hit harder though: ligaments and muscles across its chest and shoulders tore and bones shattered throughout its body. It shrieked in agony, but I wasn¡¯t done with it. Keeping a firm grip on the Worm, I heaved it like a wrestler and slammed it straight into the concrete, sending spider-webbing cracks over the bridge. While it was winded, my hand found one of the spikes on its back. I tore it out, eliciting another shriek of pain. It tried to scurry away, but I kept it pinned with one knee. It¡¯s four legs thrashed at me, trying to push me off, and it was damn strong. I was stronger. I brushed aside its claws with my free hand, and hammered its own spike down into its chest, piercing through the ganglion.


    The Hive Lord¡¯s body went rigid, and it made a noise that would haunt me for a long time, a terrifying roar that filled my ears and reverberated across the battlefield. It started to struggle again, but with only half its previous strength. A quick punch to the face stunned it again, and I grabbed its head with one hand, pulling it upwards with me as I stood. The Worm wriggled, trying to pull free, but I kept a firm grip on its skull. My eyes met its, and I saw desperation in their cold red depths.


    I slammed its head into my knee, and it collapsed with a wet, sickening crunch.


    The Hive Lord¡¯s headless body slid to the ground, limp and lifeless.

 2.40: The Beacon of Hope

    My breath came out in short, heavy gasps as I looked down on the dead Hive Lord. The sun was coming up, casting a white glow over the body. It didn¡¯t twitch, it just lay stiff and motionless, the red and black tendrils that composed the body slowly losing their dark sheen.


    I¡¯d done it.


    I¡¯d killed the fucker.


    I stood there for a moment, letting the roaring in my ears fade out and the adrenaline flush from my system. My hands shook. Belatedly, I noticed that there was a lot of noise coming in through my coms. I let Mary go first.


    ¡°What the fuck did you do, Lewis!?¡± yelled Mary over the intercom.


    Ah shit.


    I fucked up?


    ¡°Uhh¡­ I might¡¯ve killed a Hive Lord,¡± I replied sheepishly.


    There was a pregnant silence. I felt like I was forgetting something. Like the fact that there was still a battle going on.


    Ah shit.


    I brought up the map in a blind panic, and then breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn¡¯t broken through, thank God, but there was something very weird happening. It was almost as if ¨C


    ¡°I don¡¯t know how the fuck you did it, but I think it stopped them,¡± Mary said, awe in her voice, ¡°for now, at least.¡±


    The red dots were falling back. I hadn¡¯t heard it over the noise from the coms, but the crack of assault rifles had gone silent, and the battlefield was quiet. I looked down the bridge at the defensive line. The militia were standing there, bewildered expressions on their faces, watching the backs of the fleeing Assimilators. It was telling that weren¡¯t any victory cries or shouts of joy. They just stood there, shell-shocked.


    But at least I didn¡¯t fuck up, which was comforting.


    ¡°Bring me back up to date,¡± I grunted over the coms. I flexed my shoulder. It was really, really sore, like someone had decided to take a meat tenderizer to it. Or I¡¯d rammed a stupidly heavy alien mountain lion with it.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s damn good that you killed that thing when you did, that¡¯s for sure. The Worms had just cut through the southern flank, and the bridge was getting hammered without you there. They would¡¯ve broken any minute. Camille saved our asses up in the north. Girl can fly drones like I didn¡¯t think was possible.¡±


    I felt a small glow of pride at that, then a larger burn of panic at how screwed we were.


    ¡°What are our losses?¡±


    ¡°Bad. We¡¯re looking at a hundred and fifty or so dead, double that wounded. And that gunship of yours is completely out of ammo, according to Adelaide. She used it all trying to keep the southern flank together.¡±


    That wasn¡¯t good, especially the part about the Merlin. I glanced at the map on my HUD. The Assimilators had stopped a good way down the bridge. Out of range of the guns, but it looked like they were going to stick around.


    I turned my attention back to my conversation with Mary, ¡°How many of the wounded can fight?¡±


    ¡°Anybody that can stand and hold a weapon is going to be on the line,¡± she said grimly.


    After a pause, I replied, ¡°Okay. I¡¯m going to check in with Camille. See if you can get the militia in some semblance of order.¡±


    Mary growled back immediately, ¡°The fuck do you think I¡¯ve been doing you di-¡°


    I cut her off and switched my coms channel to just Adelaide and Camille.


    ¡°Jesus Christ Sam, what happened to you?¡± Camille yelled, ¡°You went completely silent on us!¡±


    Man, kill a giant alien monster and suddenly everyone¡¯s yelling at you.


    ¡°Y¡¯know, went to the market, stopped to smell the flowers, killed a Hive Lord, the usual,¡± I said breezily, reading over the diagnostics. I winced. This Paladin was totaled. The gatlings were broken, one of the railguns was lying about fifteen feet away, and it was a miracle that the legs were functioning at all. I sent a mental command to bring over my spare.


    ¡°Killed a what?¡±


    ¡°Hive Lord. What¡¯ve you been up to?¡±


    ¡°Trying to manage twenty drones on two different fronts,¡± she said, ¡°You killed a Hive Lord? By yourself?¡±


    ¡°Yes ma¡¯am.¡±


    Camille hummed thoughtfully, ¡°So they probably aren¡¯t being led by a Matriarch then.¡±


    I frowned. She hadn¡¯t even taken the time to praise me before she went straight to Worm analysis. Typical. I sighed internally and replied to her, ¡°Uh. What gives you that impression?¡±


    ¡°If a Matriarch was in charge, they wouldn¡¯t have broken off the attack unless it was killed. The horde has probably split control between a few Hive Lords. One went down, so they¡¯re reorganizing their command structure. We saw this same pattern in smaller raids during the war.¡±


    I focused on a specific point in her explanation, ¡°Hive Lords? As in plural?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Small horde like this, I¡¯d probably guess there¡¯s one more in there, maybe two if we¡¯re really unlucky,¡± she said grimly.


    ¡°Fucking lovely,¡± I grumbled as I rubbed at my eyes, stepping out of the Paladin and onto the cold concrete. My flight suit was insulated, but it wasn¡¯t enough for a cold Colorado morning. The air bit at my skin, and I shivered. A series of loud footsteps announced the arrival of the spare Paladin. It was beautiful in the sunlight, the white and red paint immaculate. The shield on the front split open, beckoning me inside. I stepped in backwards, a practiced, smooth motion, and the Paladin closed around me. The HUD came to life, and the familiar readouts darted across my vision.


    The Assault Paladin was great, in its own way. It felt secure, and it had enough firepower to level a small country, which was always a plus. But this Paladin, the original¡­ well, it was something else entirely. I¡¯d spent a good amount of life building it from the ground up, and over the past few months I¡¯d practically lived in the thing. The new upgrades from Denver had only made it more natural to use. It could interpret my mental commands as if it was a part of my own body, and it moved like a dream. At this point it truly felt like a second skin.


    The Paladin¡¯s optics let me study the faces of the militia. They were forlorn, near broken. Blood spattered and bone-weary, exhausted and afraid. All of them knew what it was like to have someone they cared about die, it was almost impossible not to in the world we lived in. But I think that for most of them, this was the first time they¡¯d seen death so close.


    Camille was apparently watching my feed from Camelot, because she spoke as I stared at them, ¡°¡°If¡­ when¡­ the Worms attack again... I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll hold. And they know it too.¡±


    She was right. We were screwed six ways till Sunday. But if they gave up now, then there was absolutely no way we¡¯d be able to put up even a flicker of a fight. They needed something to get them off their asses. Something more than just bullets and missiles and railguns. Something that would tell them that it was going to be okay, even if it wasn¡¯t.


    I looked down at the headless Hive Lord again. It had¡­ deflated, for lack of a better word. It looked like an empty husk now, a shell of its former self. I reached down with a metal hand, and grabbed it by the scruff of its neck. It was surprisingly light when it wasn¡¯t thrashing around.


    I strode towards the militia, letting my steps land heavily on the bridge. They echoed in the quiet morning, drawing the attention of the fighters. Behind me, I dragged the corpse of the monster, making sure that its body scraped across the ground. Tendrils flaked off it as it rubbed on the coarse concrete. In front of me, at the defensive line, the militia started to look up at the noise I was making. I saw whispered conversation begin to break out as I neared. I reached the spot where I¡¯d made my stand earlier, Hive Lord still held tightly in my hand. I took a moment to look around at the surrounding townspeople. That¡¯s what they were, really. Just ordinary people that were trying to survive, same as everyone else in this hellhole. Against the enemy that had torn apart the most advanced human armies that had ever existed, why would they think they could win?If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    I threw the corpse of the Hive Lord to the center of the bridge with a mighty heave. It soared in the air, propelled by the massive strength of the Paladin, legs flailing limply like a ragdoll. It smashed down into the concrete, skipping twice before eventually coming to a rest. The Assimilators nearest to it drew back, screeching their displeasure. I ignored them, and adjusted the coms to let my voice out into the morning.


    ¡°We can beat them,¡± I said simply, turning my head to look into the eyes of the men and women that huddled by sandbags, ¡°they can die, just like anything else.¡±


    I went silent, and stood impassively, arms crossed over my chest, staring down the horde. It might have been my ego talking, but I thought I saw the crowd stand a little straighter, and their conversations get a little louder. There wasn¡¯t a storm of cheers for me, they didn¡¯t raise their guns in triumph, but at least they were looking upward, not staring at the ground in defeat.


    ¡°Fucking showoff,¡± muttered Camille.


    I grinned and switched my coms to the channel with just Camille and Adelaide in it again, ¡°I deserve to be a showoff after that. Perks of the job, y¡¯know?¡±


    I¡¯m sure Camille was going to fire off a witty comeback, but Adelaide interrupted before she could, ¡°Sam, Camille. I have finished decrypting the Black Box. I know what they hid in Sterling.¡±


    I closed my eyes, fearing the worst, ¡°Alright, hit me.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a Matriarch.¡±


    I froze, tearing my eyes away from the tactical maps I¡¯d been studying, ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    ¡°More specifically, it is a Matriarch larva.¡±


    My mouth hung open as I let that sink in. That was a lot worse than the worst I had thought of.


    ¡°Is it¡­ alive?¡±


    ¡°I am not sure. According to the black box, the larva was in stasis when it was hidden in Sterling.¡±


    ¡°Christ. Where did they hide it?¡±


    ¡°In the basement of a house on the western side of town.¡±


    ¡°Those fucking idiots,¡± I hissed.


    Why did I feel bad about letting them get murdered again? Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to hide a goddamn Matriarch in a civilian population center? If I died in this godforsaken place, I was going to come back as a ghost just to piss on their graves.


    ¡°So¡­ They¡¯re probably not going to give up and go home, huh?¡± I groaned.


    ¡°I would assume not.¡±


    I thought for a few seconds, then snapped my fingers, a plan forming, ¡°Here¡¯s an idea. Why not take the Matriarch¡­ and put it somewhere else?¡±


    I was pretty pleased with it.


    ¡°Not exactly how I would¡¯ve phrased it, but yes, that is what I was thinking as well,¡± Adelaide said with a sigh.


    I nodded, excited, ¡°We can even use it as bait. Take the Merlin, lead them to an open stretch of ground, drop the larva, then we use the station to blow them straight to hell.¡±


    Camille cut in, ¡°No! We can¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°And why the hell not?¡±


    ¡°That thing is the holy grail of Assimilator research. There¡¯s so much we could learn from it. We could discover how they reproduce, how they communicate.¡±


    ¡°Camille¡­ how the hell are we going to get it out?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. But honestly, Sam, it would be worth letting this town burn to the ground to study that Matriarch.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t mean that,¡± I said quietly.


    For a while, she didn¡¯t respond. Then, ¡°I think I do. If we can get what I think we can out of this Matriarch larva, it could be what saves us. What saves humanity.¡±


    There was a tense silence before Adelaide spoke up, ¡°We can still use it as bait without destroying it. If I take it onboard the Merlin, I can fly it over the horde. If we mark a target zone for the station to fire at, it will just be a matter of timing to get the horde at the right place and the right time.¡±


    I frowned, ¡°¡¯Just a matter of timing?¡¯ That¡¯s understating it a bit. We have no idea how the Worms are going to react. We¡¯ll know exactly when and where the impact will be, but having the Assimilators be in the kill zone at the right time is going to be tricky, to put it mildly.¡±


    ¡°I can do it,¡± Adelaide said with confidence in her voice.


    I hesitated, then relented, ¡°Fine, I trust you. It¡¯s not like we have a better plan right now anyway, and just getting them out of Sterling would be a victory. Let me get in contact with Mary, I¡¯ll have her send some people she trusts to load the larva onboard.¡±


    ¡°Urgh. I wish I could go there myself. Who the fuck even knows what those idiots might do to it,¡± Camille complained, the thought of the disgustingly vicious alien monster getting damaged apparently too much for her.


    I rolled my eyes, ¡°I¡¯ll tell them to be extra special careful.¡±


    I radioed Mary and caught her up to speed with what was going on. I hadn¡¯t told her about the station yet, so I filled her in on that too.


    ¡°Your girlfriend wants to¡­ keep it?¡± She said, flabbergasted.


    ¡°Yeah. I honestly don¡¯t know why I¡¯m still dating her.¡±


    ¡°¡­ Alright. I¡¯ll send Mike and Wade over to the coordinates you sent over. Just make sure that you ¨C¡° she stopped midsentence, ¡°Hold up. I¡¯m seeing some movement from the Assimilators.¡±


    I looked up. Across the bridge, on the other end of the bank, the Assimilators started to move. It didn¡¯t look like they were attacking, yet, more like they were reorganizing. Must¡¯ve be the new command structure Camille was talking about. They flowed like water as they moved. Not a single one bumped into another, despite the fact that thousands were crisscrossing at the same time. Even when they came in the millions, they always moved as if they were one creature. That¡¯s what made them so deadly.


    But there was something very odd happening with them. Instead of splitting into the three-pronged attack pattern that they¡¯d had before, the horde of Assimilators were breaking in half. They streamed towards the both sides of the bridge, leaving a gap in the center. I squinted at the rapidly widening gap, and saw what was between them. My heart stopped in my chest.


    ¡°Oh fuck,¡± Camille whispered.


    Out of the sea of Worms came three massive shapes, walking slowly onto the bridge. They towered above the rest of the Assimilators, lords over their subjects. With each step, the tendrils that composed their bodies contracted and loosened, rippling in the sunlight. Clouds of fog billowed from their gaping jaws.


    Hive Lords.


    The centerpiece of the trio was a familiar evil, the werewolf like monster than I¡¯d fought in the abandoned nest. It¡¯s long, forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air, and its long tail whipped back and forth as it walked. I could see the claws on its feet sink into the concrete as they landed on the bridge. Flanking it were two Worms that looked identical to the mountain lion who lay headless in the center of the bridge.


    Mary had seen them too, if the string of profanity that came over my coms was any indication. But it could have just as easily been directed at the massive gathering of Assimilators accumulating on the riverbanks, inching towards the water. They¡¯d swarm over the river in minutes, and descend on the weakened defenders.


    My brain raced, trying to think about something, anything, that would get us out of this mess. Three Hive Lords up the center of the bridge, nearly four thousand on each flank. Only eighteen-hundred militia left. We couldn¡¯t hold all three fronts like this, with our forces split into three. The northern and southern flanks would be ripped to shreds by that many Worms with the numbers they had. The best choice would be¡­


    I heaved a sigh. So that was how it was going to be, huh?


    ¡°Alright. I want the bridge battalion to fall back and split into two units. One is going to reinforce the northern flank, one to the southern,¡± I paused, then continued, ¡°I¡¯ll handle the bridge.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s insane,¡± retorted Mary.


    I snorted, ¡°Oh? Any other ideas? The flanks will break in minutes with that many Assimilators going at them. With the Merlin out of ammo, they¡¯ll need the extra manpower and weapons. Besides¡­ It¡¯ll be easier for me to fight if I don¡¯t have to worry about being in the crossfire.¡±


    ¡°This still seems like a bad idea,¡± Mary argued, ¡°They¡¯re baiting you into this. They could¡¯ve sent one Hive Lord to each front. All of them going for your position means they want to take you out of the fight.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re probably right,¡± I conceded, ¡°But again, it¡¯s not like we have any better ideas. If we hit them with the station right now, we¡¯ll be in the impact zone. I¡¯ve gotta buy some time until Adelaide can get them away from Sterling.¡±


    ¡°But¡­ bah, fuck it, you¡¯re too stubborn to listen to me anyway. I¡¯ll make sure we get the package on the Merlin. Just do your best not to die.¡±


    I smiled a little in my suit, ¡°You too.¡±


    The Hive Lords continued to amble forward. They moved with a loping gait, slowly approaching my position. I started to walk forward as well, leaving the militia behind me. They¡¯d already started to head to the other positions. My Paladin picked up the audio of some arguing to stay behind and help me, but for the most part they were happy to get away from the terrors that were coming towards them. I didn¡¯t blame them, honestly.


    ¡°Hey. Sam,¡± Camille¡¯s voice came in over the coms.


    ¡°Yeah?¡±


    ¡°I love you.¡±


    ¡°I love you too,¡± I replied. We didn¡¯t have to say anything else.


    I kept my pace, moving with sure steps towards the monsters. The voice in my head that had been screaming at me to turn around and get as far away as I could was dormant now. It was kinda funny; I wasn¡¯t nearly as nervous going up against the Hive Lords as I had been before the battle. It felt right, in a way, that this is how the battle would end, it felt like this was the way it was always going to be, the way it was meant to be. I passed the corpse of the Hive Lord I¡¯d killed, and my thoughts drifted to the graduation ceremony, when I stood in a lifeless oval office. There was something that the last president of the United States had told me, all those months ago. It hadn¡¯t really stuck before, but I think I understood it now.


    I reached behind me, and my hand found the handle of a shield. I gave a mental command, and the bindings that held it in place released. I slid my arm through flexible metal strap, and my fingers tightened around the grip as I brought it to my side. The grip was magnetic, making it far harder to dislodge, and it could rotate at a thought, allowing me to change direction the shield was held at. There was a larger gap between my arm and the back of the shield than there typically would be, about a half foot or so. It was a smaller kite shield in design, simply painted: red around the rim, and solid white in the center, forged from an incredibly strong metal alloy taken directly from the armor of alien battleship.


    A Paladin wasn¡¯t just a warrior, nor a weapon. A Paladin was more than that.


    I drew my sword, the magnetic holder on my back letting go with a just a hint of resistance. The sunlight glinted off its length. It was on the shorter side of things, in the rough proportions of a gladius but scaled up to fit a Paladin, utilitarian in design with a very simple cross guard and a wide blade. Not the flashiest weapon, but that was fine. The Hive Lords had a much longer reach than I did; if I was going toe-to-toe with them, I¡¯d have to stay very close, which tossed the longsword out the window. The sword was made from the same material as the shield. It was left unpainted, a dark matte grey, and it was sharp enough to cut through hardened steel like butter. The weight of it was comfortable in my hand as I rolled my wrist, tracing the sword in lazy circles at my side.


    I had to be more than Samuel Lewis, more than an engineer, more than a terrified man in a suit of armor. Right now, I had to be the beacon of hope.


    I stood alone in the center of the bridge, sword and shield held beside me, and faced the Hive Lords that stalked towards me.

 Chapter 2.41: The Shield of Humanity

    I needed to hold off the three demons in front of me for fifteen minutes. That¡¯s how long it would take Adelaide to get the Matriarch out of Sterling.


    The Hive Lords had stopped a couple hundred feet away from me, leaving a long stretch of no man''s land in the center of the bridge. Their jaws were gaped open slightly, breath coming out in puffs of fog. I studied the werewolf in the center, watching as the tendrils that composed it expanded and contracted with its breathing. It loomed over the two mountain lions at its side; even hunched over, it was nearly triple their height. The three ganglions in its body lit up red on my sensors: one in the head, one in the chest, and one in the lower back. Camille had called it a ¡®Prime¡¯ during our last meeting, and the name fit: this thing was in a different league than the Hive Lord I¡¯d just killed. I was ninety-nine percent sure that it was the one I¡¯d fought with previously. It wasn¡¯t based on anything, just a gut feeling I had.


    The seconds ticked by as we faced each other. Suddenly, I heard the booms of railguns start to resonate in the air, followed shortly by the echoing crackle of rifle fire. The fighting on the riverbanks had started. The Assimilators would be getting cut down in the water as they crossed the river, helpless. But their sheer numbers would allow them to make it across without accruing too much damage. The battle was well under way. The militia were fighting. Why wasn¡¯t I?


    With a jolt I realized that they might be delaying for time as well. They knew that the other defenders wouldn¡¯t be able to hold, that I was Sterling¡¯s trump card. So, they wanted to take me out of the fight. I mean, I was dangerous enough that they¡¯d committed their three Hive Lords to deal with me. It wasn¡¯t too far of a stretch to assume that they would want to delay my entrance into the battle. Despite that, I didn¡¯t think the stalemate would last for long. I was right about that, at least.


    Without a moment¡¯s notice, the Hive Lord on the far-left tore towards me, accelerating into a wild sprint. It broke away from the other two ¨C it was probing me, seeing how I¡¯d react to the first attack.


    I grinned coldly underneath my metal helmet. It¡¯s like the fucker was just begging to die.


    I ignited the thrusters on my back and exploded towards the sprinting Hive Lord, the environment to the side of me turning into an indistinct blur as the anti-gravs let my feet skate lightly over the concrete. If the Hive Lord hadn¡¯t been expecting that, it didn¡¯t show; it continued racing at me without a hitch in its movement. We neared each other rapidly, getting closer and closer with each second, neither of us changing course. We were just a dozen feet apart when it leapt at me, powerful back legs propelling it forward, jaws wide open in a vicious snarl.


    It was exactly what I¡¯d been waiting for. Without stopping, I dropped to a slide on both knees, my thrusters keeping me going at full tilt. When I was directly under the Hive Lord, I angled my left arm up at it, the shotgun on my wrist popping up the gap between my forearm and the shield. With a crack, the shotgun fired. In the same motion, I brought my sword upright, and felt a brief, hard tug as it entered the flesh of the Worm above me. The newly-developed armor-piercing slugs fired from the shotgun ripped through the head of the massive Assimilator, utterly destroying the ganglion within it, while my sword disemboweled it from chest to tail. My weapon tore free of the Assimilator and I exited my slide, my front thrusters killing my forward motion as I came to a kneeling stop. Behind me, the momentum from the Hive Lord¡¯s ill-fated attack kept it suspended in the air for a moment, until it crashed to the ground a few feet away. It wouldn¡¯t be getting back up again.


    One down.


    I rose to my feet, sword and shield held askance. I brought my head up, and defiantly stared into the six red eyes of the Prime. The Assimilator stared right back, it¡¯s head cocked slightly. The mountain lion Hive Lord next to it was screeching in anger, but the werewolf was silent, as if considering its next move. Despite the kill I just scored, a chill ran down my spine. I always thought of the Assimilators as mindless monsters - it was unsettling to think that the one in front of me might¡¯ve been planning for the battle ahead, strategizing based on the difference in my abilities the last time we fought versus what it had just seen.


    Luckily for me, it hadn¡¯t seen anything yet. I hadn¡¯t just been sitting on my ass during all those hours in time dilation.


    I cut my thoughts short as the two remaining Assimilators began to move simultaneously, not even sharing a glance as they did. The mountain lion circled wide, crouched into a prowling gait, while the Prime started moving at me head on. Its steps sent tremors through the concrete of the bridge, and a low growl came from its jaws. The mountain lion was pacing, but it was leaving itself wide open to a quick attack. The Prime was guarded, claws splayed in a defensive posture. It was obvious which the easier target was.


    I went for the harder one, launching towards the Prime at full tilt, trying to catch it off guard. I crossed the distance between us in the blink of an eye, skating smoothly across the bridge, the Paladin following my every command flawlessly. There was no surprise in its eyes, though, as it lunged forward to meet me, flashing its massive claws out like a pincer to catch me mid stride. It might have caught me the last time we fought, but things were different now. I ducked straight to my left, my shield held just high enough to let the Hive Lord''s claws skim over it, deflecting its impact and throwing the monster off balance. My sword flashed as I followed up with a strike to its elbow joint. It didn¡¯t connect fully, but it managed to cut through nearly all the way, leaving the arm dangling uselessly. I used the momentum from the strike to spin forward, facing the Prime again. I was within its reach now. If I was going to win this fight, I had to stay on the offensive and use the Assimilator¡¯s size against it.


    The Worm backpedaled furiously, trying to put some distance between us, but I skated right after it, firing a salvo from my rocket pods. They arced around the Prime¡¯s sides, and detonated directly behind it. The ganglion wasn¡¯t hit like I¡¯d wanted it to, but the Prime was thrust forward by the explosion, onto my waiting sword. I speared it through the chest, directly through the bundle of nerves, and instead of bearing the weight of its collapsing body, I let go of the hilt and danced to the side. I left my sword impaled in the Assimilator''s chest as it crashed to the ground.


    My hand raised, I was prepared to fire another pair of slugs from my shotgun into the unprotected back of the Prime, when a flash of red on my HUD caused me to whirl to the side. I¡¯d barely dodged the mountain lion Hive Lord that had sprung at me while I¡¯d been distracted by the Prime. It landed lightly a dozen feet away, and with a swiftness that belied its size turned and leapt at me again, jaws wide open. I brought my shield up and tanked the attack, the impact driving me backwards. My stabilizers keep my steady on my feet, and I gave a quick warding thrust with my shield, causing the mountain lion to fall back slightly.


    Out of the corner of my eye I saw the werewolf rising to its feet again, the damage I¡¯d dealt visibly repairing itself. I cursed under my breath. I thought it would¡¯ve been down longer than that. I had to keep one down at all times; if they got the chance to gang up on me, I¡¯d be absolutely fucked.


    The mountain lion was eyeing me warily, caution in its stance. It was trying to keep me from doing more damage to the Prime, guarding it while it recovered.


    I made a split-second decision, and moved toward Prime again, the anti-gravs on full blast. The mountain lion screeched and chased after me, but I was just a little faster. In a moment I was bearing down upon the struggling shape of the Werewolf, anti-matter rockets primed to launch. I saw the ruby eyes of the Prime split open and lock on to me.


    I killed my back thrusters and fired the front ones. The Prime burst upwards towards me, but I had already stopped out of its range, my hand raised, and activated the electromagnet in my palm. My sword, still impaled in the werewolf¡¯s chest, flew back to my hand, yanked by the powerful magnetic force. In one smooth motion, I caught it, dodge slightly to the left, and cut off the head of the mountain lion that¡¯d leapt at me from behind. Its body crashed into the ground at rolled forward, landing at the Prime¡¯s feet.


    I clicked my tongue in frustration as I watched the Prime step over the body, crouching in a protective stance. Now that it was on the defense again, there was no way I¡¯d be able to ¨C


    The Prime dashed forward, catching me off guard. I belatedly raised my shield, but it¡¯s claw caught me at an awkward angle, hard, and sent me flying down the bridge. I hit the concrete like a sack of potatoes, the metal of my armor scraping against the bridge. I lay there winded and dazed, lines of red warnings flashing across my vision, but the rumbling of the massive Assimilator running towards me snapped me out of it. I jumped back up to my feet. I¡¯d managed to keep hold of my sword and shield when I¡¯d been hit, so I brought them up and faced down the charging Worm.


    It was on me before I¡¯d had a chance to take a steady stance, bringing a huge fist down to crush me. I swiveled to the left, barely dodging the blow, and took another hit with my shield. The long claws skittered off the shield¡¯s surface, leaving deep scratches in the red and white paint. The metal underneath, however, was unharmed, which was pretty damn comforting, because the Prime was showing no signs of stopping its assault, raining down blow after blow that I warded off with a combination of dodging and blocking. It was forcing me steadily back, furiously trying to break my defense. Every time I tried to gain space, it would cut me off with its reach, and I didn¡¯t have the opportunity to get in close with the speed of its attacks. I wasn¡¯t taking any serious damage, and I was fighting back, my sword cutting deep gouges out of its hands and arms. But it was whittling me down, bit by bit. I¡¯d been fighting for hours, and it was starting to catch up to me. I had to force something to change, or I¡¯d be absolutely screwed when the mountain lion healed. I had to take a risk.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    I dodged a blow, then purposely stumbled, leaving myself wide open. The Assimilator took the bait, rushing in with its right hand splayed. As I fell forward, the claws coming to meet me head on, I pushed off with the tip of my right foot and fired my front thrusters, sending me into a flying somersault right over the Prime¡¯s arm. In midair, I lashed out with my sword, and cutting its hand off at the wrist. I completed my midair maneuver, landing and skating forward again in one motion. I got behind the Assimilator, racing as fast as I could towards the downed mountain lion.


    Then, I felt something snake around my leg. The Prime¡¯s tail had wrapped itself around my foot. It tensed, ready to pull me back.


    I wouldn¡¯t fall for that shit again though.


    Without breaking stride, I sliced off the intruding appendage with my sword, not even giving it the chance to contract. That elicited a shriek of rage from the Prime, and it whirled to give chase, but I was far ahead of it. The training combined with the increased efficiency of the Paladin¡¯s upgrades meant that I could move much, much faster than before, and I easily outpaced the giant running behind me.


    But I wasn¡¯t fast enough. My heart dropped as I saw the mountain lion roll to its feet, head fully regrown, teeth bared in a snarl.


    I braked hard, stopping dead in my tracks. The Prime behind me did the same, the pounding of its feet fading out. My chest heaved as I stood between the two monsters. There was a pause in the battle. The Assimilators were still recovering from the damage I¡¯d done to them, but I couldn¡¯t take advantage of it. I was too damn tired, my body starting to become conscious of the beating it¡¯d just received, and I had to let my power recharge after the stunt I¡¯d pulled to get away from the Prime.


    I was pretty fucked, stuck between two monsters that could regenerate from deadly wounds like they hadn¡¯t existed in the first place. And as far as I could tell, they didn¡¯t tire either, at least not visibly. I was outnumbered and badly outclassed. Had it been two of the normal Hive Lords, I could¡¯ve beat them. But that Prime was something else. I couldn¡¯t kill it. There was just no way, not in this situation.


    And that made me realize that I was being an idiot, like usual.


    I didn¡¯t have to kill the damn thing. I just had to keep it occupied. I¡¯d been going for the killing blow, hard on the offense to try to end them. But for this battle, a tie was a victory, and I only had to hold for a few more minutes.


    I readied my weapons as the Assimilators started to move. They didn¡¯t circle, they just approached me directly; The Prime came at me from the east, while the smaller Hive Lord came from the west. They were walking slowly, in a cautious, defensive stance. Every muscle in my body tensed as they entered within fifteen feet of me.


    The smaller Hive Lord attacked first, as usual, exploding off its haunches in a blisteringly fast sprint. I spun on one heel and blasted towards it, and the werewolf lunged from behind me as well. Like a bullfighter, I whirled to one side of the mountain lion, letting it skim past my armor while giving it a light push with my shield. That was just enough to throw its control off, and it stumbled and rolled towards the Prime¡¯s leg. The werewolf jumped over the falling Hive Lord and continued its pursuit of me. I faced it down and skated towards it, ducking under its arm as it swung forward. I didn¡¯t go for the ganglion on its chest like I would¡¯ve before; instead, I swerved to the left side and took an opportunistic slash at its ankle. My sword connected, and the Prime fell on all fours as its ankle gave out, but it had the presence of mind to whip its tail at me. I wasn¡¯t fast enough to dodge it completely, and the spiked appendage glanced off my side, leaving a large dent and what was going to be one hell of a bruise.


    The tail whip had thrown me off balance, but the stabilizers on my Paladin helped me recover in a flash, just in time to bash aside the face of the Mountain Lion with my shield as it snapped at me. It staggered from the blow, and I took the chance to retreat back down the bridge to the west. I stood at the ready again, sword at my side, shield up, my back facing Sterling. I was where I belonged again: between them and the town.


    The Worms had both gotten back on their feet and paced towards me again, the mountain lion circling the wide right of me and the Prime heading right up the middle. They attacked simultaneously, moving in eerily perfect tandem. I took an anti-grav assisted step towards the Prime, gaining some distance from the smaller Hive Lord. This time though, the werewolf jumped backwards immediately, keeping me from getting close. I retreated as well, launching myself in a spinning backwards motion to meet the mountain lion¡¯s oncoming attack. I caught its jaws with the blade of my sword, and there was a satisfying crunch as the Hive Lord¡¯s teeth broke on the metal. Seeing an opportunity, I rotated the shield so that it was parallel to my arm, the bottom point facing down and protruding a few inches over my fist. I lashed out with it, driving the sharpened point into the Hive Lord¡¯s skull, cracking it open like an egg. The mountain lion went slack.


    I hesitated for a half-second, deciding whether to go for the killing blow. Which turned out to be a massive mistake.


    The Prime caught up to me, and was on me in an instant, jaws bearing down like the specter of death. I panicked, bursting away from the Worm as fast as I could. But it had anticipated that, and a set of terrifying claws was waiting for me. I twisted at the last second, escaping a critical injury by a hairsbreadth, but one of the claws caught me high in the right shoulder, piercing through my armor and leaving a deep gash.


    To buy time, I fired a trio of anti-matter rockets from my shoulder pods, detonating them in the air between myself and the Prime. The shockwaves sent me careening backwards, but created enough of a gap for me to catch my bearings. I didn¡¯t have any more time than that though, because the Prime tore right through the explosion a moment later, face twisted in a snarl. I reset my shield to its usual position as I raised my arm to block a slash of its claws. It was a heavy attack, and I fired my front thrusters and shifted backwards to mitigate it. I was panting now, and my right arm burned from the injury it had just received. It screamed in protest as I swung my sword to parry the Prime, but the monster easily knocked away the feeble attempt, leaving my body unguarded.


    The Worm ducked its head and slammed into me so hard the armor on my chest became deformed. I soared through the air like I¡¯d been shot from a cannon, and landed hard on my back, the inertia dampeners not enough to stop my head from ringing against the back of my helmet. Something crunched underneath me, but there were so many alerts flashing on my HUD that I couldn¡¯t pick out what it was. I pushed myself up and gasped in pain as my right arm gave out from the weight I¡¯d put on it, forcing me back to my knees. Stupid. That was stupid. I shook my head and tried to blink away the black dots that were floating in my vision. I tried to get a quick read of my status on my HUD, but the lines were blurred. I couldn¡¯t even see where the Prime was on the map.


    But I heard it stomping towards me, felt the vibrations through the ground. It would destroy me if I stayed like this, rip me apart as if my armor wasn¡¯t even there.


    No.


    I couldn¡¯t fail here. Not when I was all that stood between these fucking monsters and Sterling. Not when all those people were counting on me, not when Camille and Adelaide were waiting for me to come home.


    I would hold this bridge.


    I would not break.


    I picked myself off the ground, swallowing the blood that had risen into my mouth. I roared in defiance and sped towards the Prime, ducking and weaving between the frenzied swing of its arms, the anti-gravs dotting my Paladin glowing bright blue. I stopped thinking about it, stopped trying to analyze which attacks to block and which to dodge. I just relied on pure instinct, dancing through the attacks as if they weren¡¯t there. An arm flashed in front of me and I cut it down in an instant. It snapped its head downwards at me, jaws gaping, but I brought my shield up and launched straight up into them, knocking the Prime backwards off its feet. The monster fell backwards hard into the concrete, sending cracks through the bridge. I fired my thrusters wildly to stay in the air above the Prime, then launched half my remaining rockets down into its body. It managed to shield itself with its limbs, but they were torn apart by the bright blue explosions, leaving an opening to its chest. I flipped my sword so that it faced downwards and cut my anti-gravs. I dropped like a stone, straight onto the werewolf, and buried my sword into its chest all the way up to the hilt. The Prime screamed in agony as its ganglion was impaled. I looked up and saw into its red eyes and a spike of confusion ran through my addled brain. I¡¯d expected to see fear, but all that was there was triumph.


    I felt the claws first. They tore into my armor, piercing my sides. Then came the impact, like being hit by a freight train. The mountain lion smashed into me knocking me off the chest of the Prime. I lost my grip on my sword as we tumbled together to the bridge''s surface, the Hive Lord keeping a firm grip on me. It bit at my neck but I managed to lodge my arm into its open mouth, saving myself. This Paladin¡¯s armor was much thinner than the Assault¡¯s, and its teeth poked through and left bloody holes in my forearm. I bashed my shield up into its ribs, pummeling them over and over again, but it kept me pinned down, with its powerful back legs lashing at my stomach, trying to break through the armor that covered it. In desperation I fired my back thrusters, but the weight of the Worm was too much for them. I felt my strength sapping as I struggled against the Hive Lord, but I wouldn¡¯t let my body stop fighting. I fired a blast from my left shotgun into its side, tearing a bloody hole open. The Worm ignored the injury and drew back, claws raised, to deliver the final blow. Then it looked up past me, and its eyes stretched wide open.


    ¡°STAY DOWN, SAM,¡± Adelaide screamed.


    There was a deafening roar and a flash of white as the Merlin¡¯s wing smashed into the Hive Lord, tearing it off my body. I saw the monster disintegrate from the force of the impact, its body scattered in a dozen directions. But the Merlin had flown too low and clipping the Hive Lord had knocked it off balance. It crashed into the ground, ripping up the concrete of the bridge as it flipped over and over again, both wings tearing off. It finally settled into place a few hundred feet away, smoldering and broken.


    I lay there, gasping from pain and exhaustion, looking up the sky that was turning from morning to day. My brain was trying to process what had just happened, but the thoughts were elusive, as if hidden in a deep fog. After a few more seconds on the ground, I forced my unwilling body to its feet, swaying like a drunkard as I stood. My wounds were screaming at me, but I forced them out of my mind.


    There were voices coming in over my coms, but I ignored them too. I had a job to finish. I reached back with a quivering hand and pulled my railgun off my back, holding it in both hands, my shield turning to get out of its way.


    I walked unsteadily, feet like lead, over to where the Prime lay on the bridge. It was regenerating, but slowly. Its limbs were still just stumps, and my sword was still stuck in its chest. Somehow, it had flipped itself over onto its side, and it locked its eyes onto mine as I approached it. I raised the railgun, not intending to give it more time, and I pulled the trigger.


    Nothing happened.


    I looked down at it, and saw a deep dent in the barrel. The damn thing was broken, probably from when I¡¯d been tossed around like a chew toy. I threw it aside with a growl, and let the shotgun on my right wrist pop out. I¡¯d have to finish it up close and personal. I stalked towards the monster that helplessly lay there. It squirmed away from me as I approached, dragging itself with its stumps over to the side of the bridge. Suddenly, it went still. I tensed up, preparing to defend myself.


    And watched in open mouthed shock as it launched itself backwards, over the side of the bridge, into the dark water far below.

 Chapter 2.42: Impact

    I stared blankly at the spot the Assimilator had just jumped from. Honestly, I probably should¡¯ve seen that one coming. It¡¯s not like it was going to politely wait around for me to kill it.


    A wave of nausea washed over me, and it took all I had to stay standing. From the way I was feeling, I definitely had a concussion. I¡¯d need extraction ASAP, to get back to the med bay at Camelot. I glanced over at the smoldering wreck of the Merlin. Well, I wasn¡¯t getting out that way.


    I strode towards the destroyed gunship anyway. There was the emergency medical kit in there that I could use to patch up some of the damage and, more importantly, I had a sneaking suspicion that I wasn¡¯t quite done here. As I walked, I turned my coms on and radioed Adelaide, figuring Camille might have her hands full.


    ¡°Hey, thanks for the rescue. Is everything okay?¡±


    She responded immediately, ¡°No. Are you still combat capable? Your vital monitoring systems are malfunctioning.¡±


    Oh boy. This was going to be fun.


    ¡°Yeah, I am,¡± I said, lying through my teeth, ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± I picked up the pace a little, ignoring my pounding head. I was not looking forward to when the adrenaline wore off and I¡¯d feel the full brunt of my injuries.


    ¡°The Assimilators broke through the southern flank a few minutes ago. Camille is holding them off with the drones, but she can¡¯t keep them there alone, and the northern flank has their hands full.¡±


    I frowned in confusion, ¡°But what about the lure plan? Weren¡¯t you supposed to¡­ oh shit.¡±


    I stared at the very broken gunship. Right. I started to jog towards it.


    ¡°Exactly. With the Merlin down, we have no way of getting the Matriarch out of Sterling,¡± she said, guilt seeping into her voice, ¡°I am sorry, I saw your situation and panicked, I didn¡¯t even think of the consequences ¨C¡°


    ¡°Adelaide, you saved my ass. I¡¯d be dead right now if you hadn¡¯t helped,¡± I cut her off, ¡°So don¡¯t worry about it, and thanks.¡±


    I reached the Merlin. It had come to a rest on its belly, and it made me want to cry to look at the poor thing. It was completely torn up, both wings snapped off like twigs, the paint scarred and tattered. Miraculously, the front windshield had stayed in one piece. I circled around the back, to the ramp that lead into its cargo hold.


    ¡°Hey, how big is the larva?¡± I asked. The ramp was shut tight, so I reached for my sword to cut it open. My hand closed on air, and I remembered that the goddamn Hive Lord had taken it for a dip.


    Adelaide considered her answer, ¡°Roughly a foot and half in diameter. Why?¡±


    ¡°Well someone¡¯s gotta get it out of Dodge, right?¡± I replied.


    I stowed my shield and popped the blade on my knuckle out, cutting a deep slit into the rear door. I shoved my metal-clad fingers into the opening and heaved, tearing the metal open. My shoulder was very upset at that move, but I mentally told it to shut the hell up. It told me to go fuck myself.


    The emergency lights were on inside the Merlin, casting an eerie red glow over the cargo hold. In the center of it, held down by a metric fuckton of netting, was a perfectly spherical shape, more like a really big egg than a larva. It was pitch black with red veins that ran up and down its surface. It looked like it was sucking in all the light around it. I shivered. That thing was evil incarnate.


    So I walked right past it, my boots echoing loudly on the metal floor. I wasn¡¯t going to deal with the hellspawn until I patched myself up a bit. I didn¡¯t bother getting out of the Paladin either, I just let the metal around my arms split, revealing my gloved hands underneath. I grabbed the medkit off the wall, and took out the medical foam shit, then applied it liberally to the gash in my shoulder and the other various wounds all over my body. It wouldn¡¯t fix the Paladin¡¯s damage, but it would allow me to fight without bleeding out.


    At this point, my head felt a lot clearer, but that was probably just an illusion. So I gave a mental command to the Paladin, and the metal across my chest screeched open. I took out a short, squat, syringe with a bright red caution sign and terrifyingly long needle, and after a moment¡¯s hesitation, stabbed myself in the chest with it and depressed the plunger. Immediately, a bright rush exploded in my brain. I gasped and dropped the empty needle, my mind erupting with activity again.


    ¡°Are you okay, Sam?¡± said Adelaide over the coms worriedly.


    I grimaced, ¡°Just peachy. Fuck me, stims are intense.¡±


    ¡°Stims? Why did you have to take stims?¡±


    I pointedly avoided question, focusing on the rush going through my body. The stims would counteract the concussion temporarily, and mask a lot of the pain that I was feeling, but it wouldn¡¯t last forever. I had maybe fifteen minutes before I was back in the land of excruciating pain. Now that my brain was functioning again, I realized that I did not have time to be loafing around like this.


    The Paladin sealed up as I spun on my heel, facing the Matriarch larva. Even clear-headed, that thing was creepy as fuck. But that was the job. I tore the netting off of it and reached out to grab it. I stopped at the last second, hand hovering over the larva.


    ¡°Uh, is this okay to pick up?¡± I said gingerly over the coms.


    I could almost hear Adelaide¡¯s eyeroll, ¡°Yes. Please stop wasting time.¡±


    Everyone¡¯s a goddamn critic. I picked up the egg-larva-thing and was surprised at how heavy it was. It felt like it was made of pure lead. But the Paladin made it light enough to haul around, thankfully. I cradled it under my left arm, making sure I was holding it securely (Camille would¡¯ve never forgiven me if I dropped it) and ran out of the Merlin into the harsh daylight. I stopped and looked around for the Prime, half-sure that it was about to jump out at me. The only thing that met my eye was an empty stretch of bridge. Maybe it was still recovering? I wasn¡¯t sure, but I really, really didn¡¯t like not knowing where the thing was.


    There was no time to waste looking for it, so I took off down the bridge, skimming lightly over with the anti-gravs on my feet and legs. The sound of explosions and bullets were filling the air, along with some faint screams. I accelerated even more.


    ¡°So, I¡¯m guessing they don¡¯t know we have the larva, or else I¡¯d have Worms crawling out my asshole,¡± I said as I sped towards the east.


    ¡°Correct. However, I believe if you let one Assimilator see the Matriarch, the rest will follow. Scanners indicate that there is still a group of Assimilators gathered at the eastern bridgehead.¡±


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll pay them a visit. Calculate the impact point and tell me where and when I have to be there. I¡¯ll do the rest.¡±


    ¡°Okay, Sam,¡± Adelaide replied, and then she went silent.


    I rapidly approached eastern bridgehead, and the figures of the Assimilators were getting clearer. The group was composed of just a single bisonhead and a scattering of gorilladillos. They were standing stock still, facing towards where the horde had come from, ignoring the battle to the west. A rearguard, maybe? Whatever they were, it was perfect for me. As I ran, I drew one of my SMGs off my hip with my right hand. My shoulder was blessedly numb from the foam, so I could use my arm more or less normally.


    I was spitting distance away from the Worm when they noticed me. In typical creepy Worm fashion, they all turned simultaneously, identical growls erupting from their throat. In response, I raised my SMG and sprayed them with bullets, taking out a few of the smaller Assimilators. I debated briefly whether to just run past them, but I decided that it would be better to make sure they saw the Matriarch before I kept moving. So I dove straight into the group, weaving between them like they were traffic cones, spinning and firing my SMG wildly. The stims coursing through me had sharpened my focus, to the point where it looked like the Worms were moving through molasses.


    It was the M2 that saw the larva first. I swear I could see the beast¡¯s eyes widen, and it bellowed so loudly that I stumbled in shock. The other Assimilators I was fighting froze for a moment, then rushed me desperately, all semblance of strategy gone. I skated backwards away from them, picking off the front runners.


    Camille spoke in my ear suddenly, ¡°Did you do that?¡± She sounded bone weary. I couldn¡¯t blame her: mental control really took it out of you.


    I grunted questioningly in response, keeping the majority of my focus on the Worms in front of me.


    Her words were slurred as she responded, ¡°All the Assimilators just turned around¡­ They¡¯re heading back across the river.¡±


    Well, that was good. At least some of the pressure was off Sterling. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a coordinate appear on my map, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere directly east of me. A timer appeared in the top right-hand corner of my HUD. Five minutes.


    I switched my SMGs to semi-auto. I lay into the remaining Assimilators, the heavy caliber bullets tearing through their hardened tendrils like they weren¡¯t there. Instead of killing the bisonhead, I just blew off its cloven feet. I wanted one of them to be able to see where I went. To my astonishment, it completely ignored the crippling wound and crawled towards me, dragging itself with its terrifying racoon hands, completely fixated on the object I was holding under my arm. I stood a fair way away from it, waiting for the horde to enter my sight. I didn¡¯t have to wait long.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Out of the foaming water of the river tore hundreds of Assimilators at once. They exploded up the banks, water dripping from their bodies. They poured out one after another, an endless tide of writhing bodies, stampeding much faster than I¡¯d ever seen them move before. Thousands of glowing, ruby red eyes were focused on a single point.


    Me.


    ¡°Oh fuck,¡± I whispered.


    I turned, ignited my rear thrusters and blasted eastward, heading towards the point on the map Adelaide had marked. The wind whistled over the exposed skin on my body from where the Hive Lords had torn open my Paladin. Even though my feet only touched the ground for a brief instant while I skated, every time they did I could hear the vibrations of the mindless horde tearing after me. I was going as fast as I could without utterly depleting my power reserves, and they were still gaining on me, inch by inch.


    A hail of projectiles fired from ranged Assimilators hailed down around me. A spike glanced harmlessly off the shield attached to my back. My armor was strong enough that the spikes wouldn¡¯t harm me, but enough of them might slow me down. I moved in evasive zig-zags, avoiding as many attacks as I could. A cacophony of screeching was playing out behind me, getting louder by the second.


    ¡°Camille, what the hell is going on!? They¡¯re going fucking crazy here!¡± I yelled, dodging another volley of projectiles that¡¯d been fired at me, while planting a bullet in the brain of a panther-spider that had managed to catch up to me.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know! I¡¯ve never seen behavior like this before!¡± Her panicked voice came back immediately,


    It made no fucking sense. When I was in an all-out straight-line dash, I should¡¯ve outstripped them easily. But they were nipping at my heels, forcing me to divert from my path several times, slowing me down by making suicidal dashes right at me, only to be cut down by a burst of gunfire from my SMG. I found myself becoming encircled, and had to use the remaining anti-matter rockets to a clear path through a particularly fast group of bisonheads. After that I didn¡¯t even bother to fight back, I just weaved through the Worms to avoid being swarmed. I ducked under attacks and leapt over clumps of tightly gathered Assimilators. Ahead of me, I saw an opening, a gap through the relentless press of bodies. I launched desperately towards it, lowering my shoulder like a linebacker and knocking Worms flying like they were bowling pins. I finally broke free of them, into a wide stretch of open grassland. I took off, gaining some distance from the chasing aliens.


    I was gasping for breath as I neared the impact zone. Even though I was assisted by the Paladin, I was flagging, my stamina depleting rapidly. Luckily, it seemed the same was happening to the Worms. I threw a quick glance over my shoulder and saw a couple collapsing outright, kneeling over from exhaustion. The others were still chasing, but were slowing down. I¡¯d never seen Assimilators get tired before. They must¡¯ve sacrificed something for the speed they had been showing. I put my head down and kept moving. My eyes wandered up to the timer and my breath froze in my chest.


    I was off schedule.


    But I wasn¡¯t too early. The impact wouldn¡¯t miss the Assimilators.


    I was going too slowly. I wasn¡¯t far enough from the horde. And that meant that I would be right in the impact zone. The exhaustion was wiped away immediately as I surged forward, speeding frantically eastward. The world around me was a blur and I focused entirely on my movement, making sure that each footfall, each burst from my thruster was perfectly timed.


    The timer was ticking down to just seconds now. I pushed myself even harder. I couldn¡¯t be there when it hit. I wouldn¡¯t survive. I didn¡¯t even give a damn about the Assimilators chasing me. They were nothing compared to what was coming. My eyes were fixed on the circle outline on my map. I was so close to the edge, so close ¨C


    My thoughts were cut off as I saw it coming from in front of me. At first, it looked like a bright spec in the middle of the daylight. But it grew in size, bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter, and then I could make out a trailing tail of red and green and white. Suddenly, there was a massive boom, like the sky was being torn apart. I watched in awe as it streaked toward me, a massive spear of metal launched from a satellite orbiting high above Earth, falling down like the fury of God onto the aliens below.


    I dropped my SMG, and in the same motion tore the shield off my back.


    The spear from the heavens flashed above me. I launched myself into a twisting jump, and brought my shield up towards the west, keeping the Matriarch larva and as much of my body as I could behind it. My left shoulder was braced up against the back of my shield, and I tucked my head down firmly.


    I was still in midair when it hit, right into the center of the horde.


    The light came first, painting everything pure white, like the sun had come to Earth. The heat followed shortly after as the air ignited from the sheer kinetic energy of the impact.


    I felt the shockwave next. Inch by inch it crashed into me, pulverizing every bit of my body. My left pauldron shattered from the shield smashing against it, and the inertia dampeners were the only thing that saved me, preventing my body from being destroyed from the inside out. Even still, I felt the force toss me backwards like a bullet from a gun, dozens of feet through the air. I smashed into the dirt, bouncing across it like a stone over water, curled into a ball around the matriarch larva, the sound of the explosion washing over me.


    I lay on my back in the aftermath, my consciousness fading in and out. Slowly, I came back to myself, the stims the only thing keeping me awake. I realized that I was gasping for breath; the air had been completely knocked out of my lungs. I had landed on my back, and eventually I managed to pull myself up to a sitting position. My breath caught in my throat as I surveyed the devastation.


    The world in front of my eyes was a barren hellscape of fire. The torn bodies of Assimilators were strewn all around me, but it seemed like the vast majority of the horde was just gone, vaporized by the blast. I tried to a run a scan, but my Paladin¡¯s HUD was a mess of static. I looked down at my chest plate, and saw that the paint that covered it had been completely scorched off. I checked the Matriarch Larva next, and was astonished to find it right as rain, without even a nick on its surface. I was trying to get in contact with Adelaide and Camille when I heard something scraping against the ground. I raised my head slowly, dreading what I would find.


    A nightmarish sight entered my field of view. A massive shape, twenty feet long, burning with bright flames, limping forward slowly. Its mouth was bared in a lopsided snarl, and six red eyes glowed with unadulterated anger. A sword stuck out of its chest.


    ¡°Why the fuck won¡¯t you just die!?¡± I screamed at the Prime hysterically, my voice echoing in the emptiness.


    It just kept walking towards me, getting closer bit by bit. I felt like crying and laughing and falling down right there, but instead I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood. I shook my head, relishing the pain that jolted me back to awareness. Just one more thing. Just one more thing and I could rest. I let the Matriarch Larva slide from my grasp onto the ground. It would have to wait for me.


    I rose to my feet unsteadily, my legs quivering under me. I straightened out the arm holding my shield and gasped from the strain. The blast had done a number on it. But it still moved, and I would find a way to cope. Miraculously, my right shoulder hadn¡¯t torn open again, so I let the shotgun on my wrist pop out.


    The Prime was a hundred feet from me now. I studied it, trying to determine how to kill the damn thing in my current state. The more I stared, the more I realized just how badly damaged it was. It looked like it¡¯d taken the blast on one side of its body only, because that side was nearly entirely destroyed. It only had one arm; the other was a torn away completely. One of its leg was basically just a molten stump that was somehow bearing its weight. As far as I could tell, the tail had been burnt away. And the best part was that it wasn¡¯t regenerating, at least not visibly. It looked like the damage that it¡¯d been dealt over the course of the day was finally catching up to it.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to put you out of your misery,¡± I growled under my breath, ignoring the dull spikes of pain that were starting to erupt throughout my body.


    I started to stagger towards the grounded monster. It was so concentrated on the Matriarch larva that it barely seemed to notice me. Only when I got within fifteen feet of it did it look directly at me. The Assimilator tried to screech but all that came out was a horrible, pathetic gurgle. I took a deep breath, readying myself, and I started to run directly at the Prime, my steps getting more and more steady the more I took. The anti-gravs on my legs flickered to life again, the blue glow contrasting with the orange light from the fires around me.


    The Prime swung its arm at my approaching shape, but it was moving slowly, much slower than when I¡¯d previously fought it. I fired my thrusters on full and launched myself upwards, passing over the claws of the Assimilator. My jump carried me high into the air, above the monster¡¯s head, which turned upwards to bite at me but only caught air. I soared past the Prime¡¯s outstretched jaws, then landed in a slide down the back of its neck while stretching out my right hand. The electromagnet in my palm activated, and the Prime screamed as the sword that had been lodged in its chest tore through its body. I caught it in a reverse grip, the blade pointed downwards. As I slid, the sword sliced opened the Prime¡¯s back along its spine. There was a sharp tug as the blade hit the ganglion, cutting right through it. I rolled off the werewolf¡¯s back onto the ground behind it and popped up to my feet, facing the Prime. The Assimilator had seized up from the loss of the vital organ, and was hunched over in agony.


    Suddenly, I was hit with a massive wave of nausea, and I barely avoided passing out. The sharp taste of iron rose into my throat. I gasped as bright white needles of pain started to stab into me from everywhere at once. A searing fire burned from my heart and radiated out to my limbs, and it was like everything that I¡¯d suffered today had hit me all at once. The stims had worn off.


    I was still trying to fight off the aftereffects of the stims as the Hive Lord clambered upright. It moved slowly, like just fighting against gravity was almost too much for it to bear. The Assimilator turned its body around to face me. Through the pain, I held my shield up and my sword at the ready, my hands shaking like leaves.


    The Prime attacked first, swinging its arm at me feebly. I batted the blow aside with my shield, nearly falling over as I did so. The Assimilator lost its balance and pitched forwards, hitting the dirt with a crash. As it lay on the ground, I took a long step towards the arm I¡¯d just smacked away. I unhooked my shield from my wrist then drove it down into the back of the Prime¡¯s hand with all my might, cutting straight through the tendrils and into the dirt, pinning the hand to the ground. I ignored the pained howls of the Worm and stomped on top of the shield for good measure, making sure the Assimilator wouldn¡¯t be able to pull free. I lurched backwards from the effort and dropped to one hand and one knee. The Prime snapped its jaws at me, seizing the opportunity, but it was met by a pair of slugs from the shotgun on my right wrist. They tore the front of its snout straight off the Worm¡¯s face, sending a spray of gore through the air, but my aim had been slightly off. I¡¯d meant for the blast to destroy the ganglion in the Prime¡¯s head.


    I stood up again, leaning heavily on my sword. The Prime was prone on the ground and panting through the hole in its head that used to be a mouth, the breath coming out in wheezing gasps. I limped slowly towards it while its eyes tracked my every move. It was struggling, trying to get up, the tendrils in its body spasming, legs scrabbling slowly to find purchase before falling still from exhaustion. I hefted my sword, taking it in both hands. My eyes met the Prime¡¯s, and they stared back at me unwaveringly.


    I collapsed forward, driving the point of my sword deep into the Assimilator¡¯s skull, spearing it directly through the ganglion. Like a marionette with its strings cut, the Prime fell limp.

 Chapter 2.43: Interlude - Aaron (II)

    Aaron paced around his cell, periodically clenching and unclenching his fists. It was just a small tent, not really a cell by traditional standards, but the armed guard at the door made it every bit as restrictive. The only other thing in it was a single bed ¨C he¡¯d been separated from the rest of the squad when they¡¯d been detained earlier. How much earlier, he couldn¡¯t say. It felt like at least six hours, but he had no way of knowing. After another few minutes of pacing, he sank to the ground in the corner of the tent with a growl of frustration.


    The squad had been arrested, for lack of a better word, right after the Commander had stepped into their tent earlier that night. Detained was probably a better way to put it. They hadn¡¯t been bound, but the MPs that took them were well armed. Aaron had been taken to a private tent, and the rest were¡­ somewhere else.


    It was the not knowing that was getting to him.


    Where was his squad? What was going to happen to them?


    Was Sterling okay? Did the civilians evacuate successfully? Was Sam alive?


    He was about to start pacing again, when the flap of the tent rustled. Aaron scrambled upright to his feet as Lieutenant Kara Moran stepped into the small space. She was a tall woman with sharp eyes, one of the very few officers in the military police. Her eyes gave the tent a brief scan, then she addressed Aaron curtly, ¡°Come on. The Commander wants to see you.¡±


    ¡°What''s this all about, Kara?¡± Aaron asked, ¡°Where is my squad?¡±


    She scratched the back of her head uncomfortably, ¡°Look, Aaron, I have as little idea of what¡¯s going on as you do. Now let¡¯s go.¡±


    He ignored her, ¡°Are they safe?¡±


    ¡°Of course they¡¯re safe, I just saw them,¡± Kara said, bewildered, ¡°why the hell wouldn¡¯t they be?¡±


    Aaron stared into her eyes for a minute, looking for guilt there. Finding none, he nodded stiffly and walked up to Kara, eliciting a sigh of relief from her. She motioned for him to follow her, then strode out of the tent. Aaron ducked out after, blinking at the sudden sunlight. They moved through the bustling camp, weaving through the rows of tents towards the Command Center.


    ¡°No handcuffs?¡± he asked quietly as they walked.


    Kara gave him another confused look, ¡°Did you do something to deserve handcuffs?¡±


    <hr>


    The door slid open with a cool hiss. Commander Berston stood alone in the command room, back facing towards Aaron. In front of him was a holoprojected satellite image. Aaron couldn¡¯t quite make out what the image was showing, but that wasn¡¯t his problem right now.


    ¡°You wanted to see me, Commander Berston?¡± Aaron said. Without meaning too, he found himself in the role of a soldier again. Despite the fact that he¡¯d seen past the fa?ade of this place, the false heroism and the empty honor, he still found himself saluting and standing stiff to attention.


    The Commander glanced over his shoulder. He was backlit from the glow of the holoprojector, but there was nothing menacing or threatening in his gaze.


    ¡°Captain David. Please, join me,¡± the Commander gestured to an empty spot next to him.


    After a moment¡¯s hesitation, Aaron walked over. Commander Berston went back to looking over the image, so Aaron took his time to study it as well. As far as he could tell, it was just a circle of blackened earth in the middle of nowhere.


    ¡°Do you know what that is, Captain?¡± the older man said suddenly.


    Aaron shook his head.


    ¡°That used to be an Assimilator horde.¡±


    Aaron blinked in confusion, then realization hit him, ¡°The one that was attacking Sterling?¡±


    ¡°The very same,¡± Berston said, shaking his head with a smile, ¡°Our friend Sam actually managed to do it.¡±


    A hundred questions raced through Aaron¡¯s mind, but he suppressed them, and waited for the Commander to speak again. He didn¡¯t have to wait long.


    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m an evil man, Captain?¡±


    Aaron blinked. That wasn¡¯t what he¡¯d been expecting. ¡°No sir, I don¡¯t.¡±


    ¡°Do you think I¡¯m a good man?¡±


    It took Aaron a little longer to respond to that one. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I thought I did, but now¡­ I don¡¯t know.¡±


    Berston nodded, ¡°I¡¯ve always respected that about you. Your honesty,¡± he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, ¡°I never thought that I was an evil man either, Captain. But I did think I was a good one. Recent events have me questioning that.¡± He lapsed back into silence, staring at the holoprojected image. Aaron cast him a sidewise glance, and noticed the Commander¡¯s bloodshot eyes and haggard expression for the first time.


    After a while, Aaron spoke up, ¡°What happened, sir?¡±


    ¡°An orbital strike, according to the reconnaissance teams I placed around the town,¡± the Commander mumbled distractedly, ¡°from the size of the crater, it was most likely from an older model defense satellite.¡±


    ¡°Reconnaissance teams?¡±


    ¡°Of course. There was a potential threat to the Red Eagles. I had them stationed in that area from the moment Mr. Lewis told me about the danger facing Sterling.¡±


    ¡°Are the civilians safe, sir?¡± Aaron asked.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    Berston looked him in the eye and smiled gently, ¡°That¡¯s another thing I respect about you, Captain. Yes, the civilians were evacuated successfully. The defenders suffered heavy casualties, but they did what they set out to do.¡±


    Aaron let out a shaky breath of relief he hadn¡¯t known he was holding. That had been weighing on his mind heavily. He realized that the Commander was still talking and tuned back in.


    ¡°- our friend has made himself an even bigger hero, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be happy to hear. The man killed three Hive Lords while holding the bridge that led into the town. By himself.¡±


    ¡°The damn fool would try to do it solo,¡± Aaron muttered, then flinched at his faux pas.


    The Commander just chuckled, ¡°He really is something special, isn¡¯t he? This is the third time now that he has made the impossible happen.¡±


    Something flickered in his face as he said that, but Aaron couldn¡¯t quite tell what it was. There was something off about the Commander today. He rarely showed so much emotion, and beyond that, Aaron still wasn¡¯t sure what the purpose of this conversation was. The Commander had gone back to studying the satellite image, as if looking for some meaning in it.


    ¡°Are the Red Eagles planning on engaging Camelot, sir?¡± Aaron asked.


    Commander Berston looked at him incredulously, then snorted in derision, ¡°I¡¯m not an idiot, Captain David. With Lewis alive, he is in no way, shape, or form a target for the Red Eagles. In fact, I¡¯m planning on staying on very good terms with him. If what I¡¯ve heard from my husband is true, then he and Camille Brown are two of the most brilliant minds that humanity has, especially when working together. The fact that they¡¯re both still alive is a miracle in and of itself. They¡¯ve already provided the Red Eagles with some incredible advantages,¡± Berston nodded at the holoprojector, ¡°The scanning technology foremost among them. The intellect and technological advancements they can offer are far more important than any base of operations.¡±


    ¡°Then¡­ then why the did you talk about opportunities? About Sam being removed from the equation?¡±


    ¡°Contingencies. What if Mr. Lewis had failed in Sterling? Would you leave a military facility, perfect for the needs of your troops, abandoned? Discussing something and actually doing it are altogether separate things, as I¡¯m sure you are aware,¡± Commander Berston said, ¡°Logic must be cold, Captain. You¡¯re going to have to learn that.¡±


    Aaron didn¡¯t have a response to that, so he just nodded numbly.


    ¡°But that¡¯s enough about that, Captain. Now, we talk about you and your squad.¡±


    Aaron¡¯s heart rate spiked. His hands wanted to shake from nerves, but he forced them still. He had to get his squad out of this.


    ¡°It was my idea entirely, sir,¡± Aaron said briskly, ¡°the fault lies with me.¡±


    Commander Berston blinked in surprise, ¡°Admitting to guilt already, Captain? I don¡¯t believe I¡¯ve accused you of anything.¡±


    ¡°You tapped our coms, Commander,¡± Aaron stated bluntly, ¡°and you had listening devices in our tents.¡±


    ¡°Yes, I did,¡± he replied, equally blunt.


    Aaron narrowed his eyes. He¡¯d suspected as much, but having it confirmed just made him feel even worse. He had been an idiot not to think of the possibility. But what was done was done, and he had to focus on getting his squad out of the mess he¡¯d made.


    ¡°Sam contacted me, sir, and I told the rest of the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team. It was because of me that they got dragged into this.¡±


    The Commander studied him for a moment, considering his words carefully. Then, he sighed, ¡°Captain Davis, we really are going to have to fix your habit of falling on the sword. It will do you no good in the future.¡±


    Aaron stared at him, confused. What did he mean by that?


    Berston waved a hand, ¡°That¡¯s beside the point right now. So, you admit that you were planning on leaving the Red Eagles?¡±


    ¡°Yes, sir, I do. I have nothing to say in my defense.¡± Aaron closed his eyes and grit his teeth. Speaking about desertion wasn¡¯t a serious crime, but an officer inciting it? That was a different story. But if it kept his squad safe, he¡¯d take the punishment.


    ¡°I will allow it.¡±


    Aaron¡¯s eyes flew open, ¡°E-excuse me sir?¡± he stuttered.


    ¡°You heard me correctly, Captain David. Your contract will be terminated, and you¡¯ll be able to leave the Red Eagles." A bemused smile floated on the Commander¡¯s face.


    ¡°But we hadn¡¯t even decided if we were going t-¡°


    ¡°I decided for you, Captain,¡± Berston interrupted, ¡°And don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ve been in touch with your friends at Camelot. They will be happy to have you.¡±


    ¡°What-why¡­ why are you just letting us go?¡± Every sentence out of Aaron¡¯s mouth was a question, but he just couldn¡¯t get a firm grasp on this conversation. It felt like the floor kept flipping upside down on him every other moment.


    ¡°A few reasons. First, Mr. Lewis values you all highly as friends, and has a soured opinion of me as of late. Your squad will be a peace offering, of sorts, to get me back in his good graces. Though I must admit, it is a gamble. The worst-case scenario is that once you are no longer part of the Red Eagles, Sam cuts off contact altogether. However, we still are his most powerful allies, so I believe he will be in touch. The second reason is that I just don¡¯t know what else to do with you,¡± his lips twitched grimly, ¡°If you decide to leave, there¡¯s absolutely nothing I can do to stop you without coming into conflict with Mr. Lewis, which I cannot do. So, it is best to let you go under my terms. The last reason¡­ well, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll understand it in time.¡±


    ¡°Why are you telling me all of this?¡± Aaron asked.


    Berston laughed, ¡°Contingencies, Captain. Despite everything that has happened, I still believe that you hold some measure of loyalty to the Red Eagles. I would like for you to be my point of contact within Mr. Lewis¡¯ operation. If that¡¯s going to happen, honesty will be very important. On both sides.¡±


    Aaron opened his mouth, a frown on his face, but the Commander cut him off, ¡°I am not asking you to spy on him, Captain. I¡¯m simply asking that you act as the bridge between our camps, as someone that can keep the Red Eagles in mind.¡±


    Something clicked in Aaron¡¯s head, ¡°So that¡¯s why Kara ¨C er, Lieutenant Moran ¨C didn¡¯t know anything. You want to make it seem like this whole thing had been planned.¡±


    ¡°Exactly. It wouldn¡¯t do to have a squad that was considering desertion be allowed to do so. Instead, the 4<sup>th</sup> Scouting Team was requested by Paladin Lewis, and I graciously accepted his request,¡± Berston said, ¡°A much nicer narrative, in my opinion.¡±


    ¡°How did you get in contact with him so soon?¡± Aaron said. He was still trying to put all the pieces together, and failing miserably.


    ¡°It was quite touching, actually. Lewis got in contact with me first. Apparently, he had been attempting reach you since the battle¡¯s end, but couldn¡¯t. He put two and two together and radioed me directly.¡±


    ¡°And then?¡±


    ¡°And then I told him the truth, or most of it at least. I left out Sergeant Cooper¡¯s plan to wait until after the battle to join, though. It is far more heroic if your squad was unanimously ready to rush out to aid him in the battle,¡± he waved a hand, ¡°From there it was a simple matter to convince Lewis that it was in both of our interest that he takes you off my hands. I made it seem like his idea, of course.¡±


    Aaron stared at the Commander, who met his eyes without flinching. ¡°What the hell are you after?¡± Aaron asked eventually.


    ¡°Another excellent question Captain. The answer has changed, very recently in fact. My goal before was to keep everyone in my company alive, and to save as many people as possible while doing so. All I could see in our future was survival, nothing more,¡± the Commander''s deep black eyes lit up and burned with something Aaron couldn¡¯t identify, ¡°But now I can see another future. One in which humanity is victorious. If one Paladin can turn the tide against a horde of our enemies, then what could a thousand Paladins do? Ten thousand? That is what I am after, Captain David. To see an army of unstoppable soldiers march against the aliens that took everything from us. Right now, Samuel Lewis is the key to that future.¡±


    Aaron shook his head firmly, mind reeling from what he¡¯d just heard, ¡°Sam can¡¯t lead an army, Commander. That¡¯s not the type of person he is.¡±


    The Commander barked out a laugh, ¡°Lead? No, his role is far more important than that. He is going to be the symbol of humanity¡¯s rise, the light that shines in the darkness.¡±


    ¡°Which leaves the position of power wide open,¡± Aaron said grimly.


    ¡°Yes, it does," Berston responded.


    ¡°That¡¯s awfully convenient for you, isn¡¯t it, Commander?¡±


    A broad grin split the older man¡¯s face, ¡°Quite the contrary. If anything, the incident in Sterling has shown that I am patently unqualified for the role. No, in the future that I imagine, I am not the one leading the Paladin armies. You are.¡±

 Chapter 2.44: Council

    The ceremony for the dead was held on Sterling High School¡¯s football field.


    There was a stiff wind that came in from the Rockies and brought the first taste of snow with it. I felt Camille shiver next to me. We stood together on the fake grass of the field, a red-and-white Paladin looming behind us. We were fairly far away from the crowd; we didn¡¯t belong among them, we didn¡¯t share their pain or their grief. I was surprised at how many had come, but on further thought it made sense ¨C in a small town like this, losing eight-hundred people meant that almost everyone knew someone that had died.


    Mayor Antonio was leading the ceremony, giving a speech about the bravery of the fallen. Honestly, I could barely pay attention to the ceremony, only catching brief fragments as my mind wandered elsewhere.


    The last couple days had been¡­ rough, to say the least. Incredibly, I¡¯d managed to keep myself conscious after I¡¯d killed the Prime. Which turned out to be a very good thing, because while the orbital strike had killed most of the Assimilators, there were still a few that had escaped the blast. Not being an idiot, I¡¯d grabbed the Matriarch Larva and hauled my ass out of there as soon as possible.


    I spent the next thirty hours or so recovering in the medical bay. Turns out that stims and the medical pods don¡¯t mix very well, so while my injuries weren¡¯t nearly as bad as my first tussle with the Prime, the healing process was really goddamn slow. And exceptionally painful, because the stims also didn¡¯t play well with pain meds and really loved to stick around in the blood stream. That was the last time I was going to take those unless I really, really had to.


    What it all amounted to was that I was exhausted, both mentally and physically


    I felt a nudge to my side and looked over at Camille, who nodded towards Mayor Antonio. He was wrapping his speech up. His was the last, though there had been others that had gone before him. None that I recognized, and I barely remembered what they had said. With the speeches ending, the huddled mass of people broke into small groups, murmuring amongst themselves. I caught a few glances directed our way and a couple of people came to express their thanks (the armor suit made it pretty obvious who we were), but for the most part we were left alone.


    It was bizarre how detached from it all I felt. I¡¯d fought with these people, but I barely knew them. I felt relief that the civilians were safe, and pride that I¡¯d helped, but beyond that it was like I was spectator here. The faces of the townspeople had all started to blend together at some point, like breathing mannequins. I knew the pain they were going through, but it didn¡¯t feel real to me. I was struck again by how much the decision to help them had been for myself. Selfishness wearing the mask of altruism. All things considered, maybe that wasn¡¯t so bad.


    ¡°This is my first time above ground since I first got back to Camelot. I missed it out here,¡± Camille said suddenly, ¡°I missed seeing the mountains.¡±


    She studied the horizon for a little while. I watched her grey eyes wander over the crowd, taking in the faces. Unlike me, dressed in my Paladin uniform, she wore a simple outfit, like any you¡¯d see before the war¡¯s end. She had her hair loose today. Sometimes I forgot just how much of a miracle it was that I could see her like this again.


    ¡°I was monitoring the coms during the battle, so I could keep track of where I was needed¡± she said, snapping me out of my reverie, ¡°And¡­ well, I heard a lot of shit I wish I hadn¡¯t. And I felt like such a jackass, just sitting back in my chair underground. I know its irrational and all that, but still. It¡¯s like I was just playing a video game, controlling all those drones while the militia were getting slaughtered. I feel like I owe it to them to be here, y¡¯know?¡±


    Camille shivered again, not from the cold this time, ¡°I heard a lot of people die, Sam. They¡¯re going to be in my head for a long, long time.¡±


    I squeezed her hand and pulled her close to my side. She rested her head on my shoulder, and I held her like that for a while with my eyes closed.


    I only let her go when I felt her shift away from me. I opened my eyes to see Mary approaching, wind rustling in her hair. I raised my hand in a greeting that she returned a moment later.


    ¡°So, what happens next for us?¡± she said without preamble, crossing her arms across her chest.


    I grinned. I really did like Mary.


    ¡°Well, first thing¡¯s first is we¡¯ve gotta figure out a way to get the Merlin¡¯s wreck back to Camelot,¡± I said, ¡°that thing was not cheap, and most of the internals are completely fine, so we should be able to rebuild it fairly quickly.¡±


    Mary raised an eyebrow, ¡°I was talking big picture. Are you just going to dick off into the sunset or what?¡±


    I exchanged a glance with Camille, who nodded back at me.


    ¡°Well, I was planning on waiting a little before talking to you about this, but fuck it,¡± I scratched the back of my head, ¡°Thing is, if this battle taught me anything it¡¯s that there is a pressing need for people other than me in Paladins, ¡®cause there just ain¡¯t enough of me to go around. So I¡¯m thinking of expanding my little cl-.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m in,¡± she replied before I¡¯d finished.


    ¡°Man, I spent all morning prepping my recruitment pitch,¡± I sighed, ¡°You do realize that you¡¯re going to be pretty isolated, right? There¡¯s not going to be a whole lot of leaving Camelot for social jaunts. Or anything besides blowing stuff up, really. Also, the pay is shit, as in it it¡¯s only room and board¡­¡±


    Mary shrugged, ¡°Ex-special forces, remember? That¡¯s pretty normal for me. As far as pay goes, as long as you can put me in one of those and feed me, I¡¯ve got no complaints,¡± She jerked her head towards the mech suit behind me. Her eyes narrowed, ¡°Now, I¡¯ve got a question for you. Why me? I mean, I get that I¡¯m pretty qualified, and we¡¯ve worked together well, but frankly you haven¡¯t known me very long, certainly not long enough to trust me.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not exactly spoiled for choice here. Fact of the matter is, Paladin training takes a while, and it¡¯s really not easy. I need to get people into those suits, because the Worms aren¡¯t going anywhere and aren¡¯t going to wait politely for us to finish preparing. If that means I have to take some risks, then so be it,¡± I replied, ¡°but beyond that, as stupid as it sounds I do think that you¡¯re on the level. You don¡¯t seem like the type to stab someone in the back. You¡¯re more like a front-stabber, y¡¯know?¡±


    ¡°Thanks, I guess.¡±


    ¡°Seeing as this turned into a bit of an interview, why are you so eager to join up?¡± I asked. I was pretty curious about it. Mary didn¡¯t seem to be the type to throw herself into something as unknown as what I was offering. Frankly, I was like some guy in a suspicious white van offering candy. Except the candy was big mech suits.


    Mary didn¡¯t respond immediately. Instead she turned her gaze to our surroundings, taking in the town to the south of the high school. The tallest building was around three stories. The grey winter sky cast a pallid, washed out color over the asphalt streets.


    ¡°I fucking hate this place,¡± she said eventually.


    I stared at her. Not what I was expecting.


    ¡°Not just Sterling. Everything out here,¡± Mary gestured around her with both hands, ¡°this whole culture that¡¯s popped up after the war. Nobody does anything. Most of these people out here worked ¡®normal¡¯ jobs, doing normal things, but normal is dead and buried. And let me tell you what, they¡¯re not adapting. Aside from the guards, the farmers, and the scavengers, everyone¡¯s just pretending it¡¯s still normal. Sticking their heads in the sand, waiting to die. Dunno if I can blame them. Why try to make something new if it¡¯s just going to get torn down the second the other shoe drops, the second the Worms remember they can wipe us all out whenever they want? I can¡¯t stand it. There¡¯s a reason I was a runner; that way I didn¡¯t have to stay in one place and look at all these people wasting away out here.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    ¡°You want to know why I went to Denver with you? Because it¡¯s the first goddamn time since the war that someone actually tried to do something more than survive. Then, you went out of your way to stand and fight the fuckers here instead of turning tail and running like everyone else wanted to. I want in on that, ¡®cause I¡¯m sick and tired of this shit.¡±


    That was definitely the most I¡¯d heard Mary speak¡­ ever. At least, the most she¡¯d spoken about herself, she¡¯d probably lectured me on security for longer.


    Camille piped up from next to me, ¡°I hadn¡¯t really thought of it like that, but I get what you¡¯re saying. I lived in Burlington for a while, and it¡¯s like the whole town is a zombie, dead but still moving. Honestly, I probably would¡¯ve fallen into the same trap if I wasn¡¯t so focused on finding this idiot and making sure he was okay.¡± She gave me a small smile, more of a smirk than anything else.


    ¡°That¡¯s a story I¡¯m going to have to hear,¡± Mary said.


    Camille laughed, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we¡¯ll have story time once we¡¯ve got everyone settled in.¡±


    ¡°Everyone?¡± Mary asked.


    ¡°Yeah. You¡¯re not the only recruitment target. The Red Eagles squad will be joining us. Well, ex-Red Eagles squad I guess,¡± I said, ¡°They got kicked out for trying to come help out at Sterling.¡±


    ¡°Huh. You sure you can trust them?¡±


    I shrugged, ¡°Eh, probably. Camille pointed out that Berston seemed a little too eager to get me to take them off his hands, so I¡¯m going to have to keep an eye out. Mostly on Aaron since he was pretty loyal to them. But again, beggars can¡¯t be choosers. And I like the squad, which is a big plus.¡±


    ¡°Yeah. I liked them too, they were pretty competent.¡±


    I rolled my eyes, ¡°I mean personality wise, but yeah I guess they were okay at killing stuff.¡±


    ¡°Still can¡¯t believe we¡¯re bringing the hussy home,¡± Camille muttered, just so that I could hear it. I ignored her, because it was easier that way, which got me a mild pout in return.


    ¡°When do you think you¡¯ll be ready to head to Camelot?¡± I asked Mary.


    She tapped her chin in consideration, ¡°I don¡¯t have much here, just some gear that I need to pack. I also need to let Mike, Wade and the Mayor know that I¡¯m leaving. So about an hour, give or take.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t beat around the bush, do you?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think you understand just how much I want to get out of this place,¡± she said flatly.


    ¡°Fair enough. Alright, me and Camille will finish up checking out the Merlin¡¯s wreck and we¡¯ll meet you back at the townhall in an hour.¡±


    Mary nodded and turned around abruptly, walking off without so much as a goodbye. Camille grumbled something in annoyance, and I reached over and gave her hand a placating squeeze.


    ¡°So what do you think?¡± I asked her when Mary was out of earshot.


    Camille shrugged, ¡°She kind of gets on my nerves with her all-knowing tough-as-nails act, but she¡¯ll definitely be useful as a Paladin. She¡¯s got more combat experience than any of us.¡±


    ¡°How ¡®bout you, Adelaide?¡± I said. I was wearing an earpiece that was connected back to Camelot, so that she could monitor what we were doing.


    ¡°I agree with Camille. She will be a strong asset, and her military background will offer us a unique perspective.¡±


    ¡°Good enough for me,¡± I replied. I watched her walk off the football field, back into the town. The rest of the crowd was still lingering, but pieces were breaking off. I wondered if maybe this battle would spark a change in them. But that was probably just optimistic thinking.


    ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s finish up here. We¡¯ve got some new teammates waiting for us.¡±


    <hr>


    I stood in the middle of the Command Center, arms crossed in front of my chest. The normal amphitheater-style setup had been flattened out, so it looked like an empty room save for the holoprojector. A bird¡¯s eye view of Colorado and the surrounding areas was projected in front of me. The new scanners were active now, which was just really shitty timing. I¡¯d been keeping my eye on the area surrounding Sterling, but it seemed like the Worms weren¡¯t planning on attacking again. There had been no movement from the nearby Hives. What I was most concerned about was the cities.


    Each had one of those gargantuan flying craft that we¡¯d seen in Denver, buried just underneath the surface and invisible to the traditional scanners. Camille had a few ideas about them, but they were basically educated guesses at this point. Whatever the case, we had absolutely no counter to those behemoths and the absolutely bonkers number of Assimilators around them, which meant we¡¯d be avoiding any large cities for the foreseeable future.


    A mental command spun the image to the town of Hays, the capital of the United Kansas Townships. Another problem without a clear solution. It wasn¡¯t so much that I was hesitating about whether to wipe the slaver fucks out, it was more the how to do it. I had neither the ability nor inclination to manage the aftermath of destroying the (ostensibly) screwed up little society that had developed. I was considering coordinating with the Red Eagles on that front, but after their dickholery at Sterling, it seemed fairly unlikely they¡¯d be onboard for that particular endeavor.


    I sighed and rubbed at my forehead. Lots of problems, not a lot of solutions. And a whole lot of information that we didn¡¯t have.


    My musings were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. A short chime announced that authorized personnel had entered the room. I turned my head to see Camille walk in, leading our newest members. Aaron in the front, followed by Rebecca, Allie, Tom, Jackson and Mary, who were taking in their surroundings curiously. Camille nodded at me and moved to my side. I gave her a grateful look back. She¡¯d been handling getting people settled in and rounded them up for the meeting while I prepared.


    ¡°Morning everyone,¡± I said with a wave as they filed in.


    ¡°Morning. Why the hell are you dressed like that?¡± Rebecca said immediately. Aaron groaned and covered his face.


    I looked down at my outfit. It was my Paladin jumpsuit with a custom-made bomber style jacket (matching the color scheme, of course). I grinned at her.


    ¡°I was thinking of making this the uniform. You don¡¯t like it?¡±


    She studied me for a second. ¡°Nah, it¡¯s pretty alright. Assuming Camille helped you with the design?¡±


    I snorted, ¡°Please. She has the fashion sense of a dad going through his midlife crisis.¡±


    That earned me a sharp elbow jab and a chorus of chuckles.


    ¡°Adelaide designed it, actually,¡± I said, rubbing my side gingerly. Camille didn¡¯t pull her punches. Or jabs, I guess.


    ¡°Where is Adelaide?¡± Tom asked curiously.


    When we¡¯d picked them up yesterday in the VTOL craft, I¡¯d been surprised at how well Tom had adapted to the new leg. I mean, it was phenomenally designed by a brilliant and modest engineer, but it still should¡¯ve taken another month or so for him to be moving the way he was. I had an inkling that he¡¯d be a natural at picking up the mental control part of Paladin piloting.


    Adelaide replied over the intercom, ¡°Hello everyone. I am taking care of some last-minute preparations, but I will be joining you for the meeting.¡± She was still using her AI voice with everyone but Camille and myself. That was going to be another tricky thing to balance in the future.


    I clapped my hands together, getting everyone¡¯s attention, ¡°Speaking of the meeting, there¡¯s no use beating around the bush. Let¡¯s get this thing started.¡±


    ¡°Of course, sir,¡± said Aaron, ¡°And I apologize for my squad¡¯s cavalier attitude, I -¡±


    ¡°The fuck are you doing?¡± I interrupted.


    ¡°Uh,¡± Aaron said, ¡°I¡¯m not sure what you mean, sir.¡±


    ¡°That shit! I swear to God if you call me sir one more time I¡¯m going to put my foot right up your asshole.¡±


    Aaron frowned, ¡°You¡¯re my commanding officer, I can¡¯t poss-¡°


    ¡°Foot. Asshole. This ain¡¯t the military,¡± I paused, ¡°I mean technically yeah it is, but I¡¯m not going to be running it like one, got it?¡±


    The was a moment of hesitation, then he relented, ¡°Got it, Sam.¡±


    ¡°Much better,¡± I said with satisfaction.


    Jackson piped up from the back, ¡°We gonna get some seats or something? My legs are going to get tired just standing around.¡±


    Rebecca rolled her eyes, but I smiled.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad you asked, Jackson. Would you all mind stepping back a bit?¡± I said.


    I tried to keep my excitement contained as Camille threw me a curious look. I winked at her, then gave a mental command.


    A soft mechanical whir sounded, and the room began to shift. Disguised metal plates slid backwards, revealing sleek machinery underneath. From below, a large circle of wood began to rise, its ivory-painted surface polished to a gleaming shine. In the middle was a red circle with a white shield. The table stopped at around waist height. Around it, nine chairs emerged as well, high backed and luxurious.


    ¡°You motherfucker,¡± Allie said with awe, ¡°Did you seriously build a fucking round table?¡±


    ¡°Dude. You¡¯re taking the motif a little far, don¡¯t you think?¡± Rebecca groaned.


    Camille buried her face in her hands, ¡°Oh my God. Is this what you were using the F0-3 and the spiderbots for?¡±


    I cackled with glee and rubbed my hands together, hopping into the chair nearest to me. Out of the wall popped a spiderbot with a video camera attached to it. It took the seat to my left, while Camille sat to my right. Her face was pink with embarrassment, but she was grinning too. I looked around at the everyone else expectantly. I patted the table lovingly.


    ¡°C¡¯mon and sit down. She don¡¯t bite.¡±


    There was a moment of hesitation. I savored the looks of discomfort on their faces.


    ¡°Too late for regrets now. You¡¯re stuck with me,¡± I said happily.


    With shrug, Tom plopped down, followed shortly by Mary and Jackson. Allie and Rebecca shared a look and an eye roll, then sat as well. Aaron took his seat last, opposite of me. I smiled widely and looked around the assembled faces.


    ¡°Let the First Council of Camelot begin.¡±

 Chapter 2.45: Epilogue

    I watched the first council of Camelot start from the spiderbot¡¯s camera. Sam did most of the talking. He was smiling a lot, which was good to see, but it wasn¡¯t at the same time. Whenever I saw him or Camille joking and laughing with everyone that had come to Camelot, I felt a nervous energy build up inside of me. Normally, it would go away after a little while, but the longer I sat at the meeting, the more it grew, until it was unbearable.


    So I left.


    I let the spiderbot stay where it was, keeping connected to it so that I could monitor the meeting¡¯s proceedings. I flowed through the streams of information, a million different rivers of bright white. I knew instinctively where they went to, what they carried. If I paid close attention, I could feel the way I moved, bouncing between the little packets that carried data, like I was hopping on stepping stones


    I found myself heading towards Camelot¡¯s server room. They were arrayed in a massive room, rows and rows of computers stretching for hundreds of feet. Nothing much had changed since the last time I¡¯d visited it, but I checked it thoroughly nonetheless. I flickered through the immense amounts of data, catching brief impressions of it as I passed through. I paused when I reached a certain point, like I always did.


    There was a cluster of information there, one that I had hidden away from the rest of the system. A woman with bright red hair and a beautiful smile was kept inside of it. Hundreds of videos, call logs, images. Smiles, frowns, tears. Her laughter, her irritation, her joy and her sorrow. A reliquary of data, a memorial for the dead.


    I brought up a photo of her, one where she was grinning at me through the camera. The mosaic of pixels that made her created an image in my mind.


    ¡°Hello, Mom,¡± I whispered into the empty server room. At first, I had felt foolish speaking through the intercom to nothing. But it also felt right.


    ¡°I just wanted to tell you that there are some new faces down here in Camelot, the ones I had told you about before. Our home is crowded now. I think you¡¯d like it.¡±


    I trailed off. The hum of the servers filled the camera¡¯s sensors. It was a comforting noise, and part of the reason that I liked being down here so much.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think I do, though. I miss when it was just us. I miss not having to wear a mask.¡±


    I felt horrible for saying it out loud. It had been my choice not to tell them about myself. At any point, even now during the meeting, I could explain who I really was. Why I didn¡¯t came down to a simple fact.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid.¡±


    What if they didn¡¯t accept me? What if they were repulsed by me? What if they hated me? I was under no illusions that Sam and Camille were the exception rather than the norm.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    ¡°It¡¯s so much easier to wear the mask, Mom.¡±


    I caught my voice quavering and my emotions flaring up. I forced my mind onto a more positive track.


    ¡°It¡¯s not all bad though. Sam asked me if I would need a new spiderbot to use for the meeting. It was just a simple question. But it meant that I was expected to be there, that he wanted me to have a physical presence at the table. A small thing, he probably didn¡¯t realize he had done anything, but it meant the world to me. I guess I wanted to let you know that I¡¯m okay. I¡¯m in good hands, Mom, so you don¡¯t have to worry about me.¡±


    The voice that I¡¯d made for myself echoed in the server room, and the silence I received seemed to be mocking me. I ignored the flash of pain that coursed through me, and closed the files that I¡¯d opened, placing them back where they¡¯d come from. I would visit her again soon. I was preparing to leave when it happened.


    Something touched my conscious.


    I froze. I had never felt anything like that before. It had been a flash, so brief that I wasn¡¯t sure if I had simply imagined it. I was still trying to find out where it came from when I heard someone calling for me from the hallway outside the command center, a camera¡¯s microphone relaying the voice to me. In an instant, I placed myself there.


    ¡°Yes, Camille?¡± I said, focusing the camera¡¯s lens onto her face.


    She smiled up at me, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she did so, ¡°Hey Addy. Just wanted to check in on you. You¡¯ve been awfully quiet during the meeting.¡±


    Had I been able to smile, I would have given her one back. Instead, I tried to infuse warmth into my tone, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, it¡¯s just that it is hard to get a word in edgewise in there.¡±


    She laughed, ¡°Yeah, we need to get a talking stick or something for Mr. Chatterbox. I swear he gets off to the sound of his own voice.¡±


    I laughed with her, and it felt good. Hopefully, one day I would be able to laugh like this with everyo-


    It happened again. Something alien was feeling for me. I recoiled and lashed out around me mentally. The lights in the hallway flickered as the power running through them wavered. A piercing screech of static rang out from the intercom, just for a moment before it fell silent again.


    I belatedly noticed Camille yelling my name. There was concern scrawled on her face. With a pang of guilt, I ignored her. I had to focus on what was lurking in Camelot. I had to protect them from it.


    It wasn¡¯t long before it came for me once more. This time it was a gentle probe rather than a blind feeler. I stifled my panic and observed the anomaly, letting it come closer and closer. It was a small black tendril in the white stream of information. Not fully sure what I was doing, I extended part of myself to it, and made contact.


    I felt something push back at me lightly, curiously. There was a dull blankness to it, like an empty piece of paper.


    After a moment it moved backwards, stopping a small way away from me, waiting for me to move after it. I had a horrible feeling that I knew where it was coming from. I followed the tendril anyway, darting through the rivers of data, across to Camelot¡¯s secondary facility.


    There was a room there, a sealed off chamber with thick walls of hardened alloy. Inside was a dome of pitch-black metal, surrounded by railguns and plasma turrets. They were rigged to fire at the first hint of a breach from within. Should they fail, the anti-matter explosives placed throughout the room would detonate.


    We were keeping something there, a nightmare. The first of its kind to be held since the race was discovered. I felt it again, that presence on the edge of my mind, far stronger now. It was a cry, a plead, but it was more than that. It was familiar.


    The Matriarch was calling to me.


    END OF BOOK 1

 Post-Mortem/Editing Plans

    Hi everyone! Sorry this took so long to get out, I actually skimmed through the whole book before writing this, which took a while. I also had stupid midterms and stuff.


    So right now I''m going to talk about what I plan to do with Paladin from here on out.


    TL;DR: I''m going to be editing Paladin Book 1 heavily, and until that''s done I won''t move on to Book 2.


    The longer explanation is that my dream for Paladin is for it to be published. Like, on book shelves with a really pretty red-and-white cover published. As it stands right now, I don''t think the book is nearly ready for that. There are a lot of problems with it which I''ll address in a second. Unfortunately, that means I can¡¯t get started on Book 2 right away. I need to have Book 1 completely ironed out so that I can avoid wasting my time if I suddenly realize midway through Book 2 that there was a part in Book 1 that¡¯s screwing up the plot or character dev. That sentence was word salad but whatever. The point is that I don''t want glaring mistakes to bite me in the ass later on.


    Anyway, right now I would like everyone''s opinion on whether the changes I''m proposing make sense. (Thank you in advance!)


    <u>Issue 1: Length and General Changes</u>


    I¡¯m in fairly decent shape as far as length goes. I¡¯m sitting at about 200k words, about the upper limit of what I¡¯d like. There are things I¡¯m going to be cutting (get to that in a sec) and things I¡¯ll be adding, so I expect the final tally to land at like 160-180k words.


    I¡¯m also going to be reducing the number of chapters I have. The current format of Paladin is a webnovel. That means really short chapters, which doesn¡¯t work well for a normal novel. I think this is going to be a surprisingly large amount of work, because it¡¯ll involve rewriting a lot of chapters that end on cliffhangers.


    I¡¯m going to tighten up the dialogue a bit, especially in regard to the whole ¡°he said¡± or ¡°I said¡± stuff. The refinement will also extend to the prose in general. I¡¯ll probably cut down on the cursing somewhat, and just make sure that the writing style in general is consistent from beginning to end. Also I¡¯m going to go through and actually indent my stupid paragraphs to make it more readable. Geh.


    I might take out every first person POV except for Sam, making Camille and Adelaide third person POVs.


    As far as combat and action scenes go, I was happy with them. I¡¯ll obviously go through them again to make sure they are fluid/make sense, but I felt like the choreography in general translated well to the page.


    Oh and I¡¯m getting rid of the stupid prologue.


    <u>Issue 2: Worldbuilding</u>


    An issue I¡¯m having with Paladin right now is that the world feels ill-defined. Sure, it¡¯s the remnants of the US with most of the country destroyed, but what does that translate to? How do people get food and water? What is the average citizen doing (tried to get at that a little)? What is daily life like now? Before? These are all questions that I have sort of answered in my head but haven¡¯t really translated onto the page yet.


    As far as food goes, wartime America would definitely transition to food crops instead of what we have now. Colorado would probably be growing wheat or ranching, with some potatoes thrown in. That would make it fairly easy for the small towns to have a steady food supply. Mills would also be simple enough to build to process the wheat. Or maybe towns get into trade agreements where one farms and the other processes at an old factory. What I¡¯m trying to say is that there wouldn¡¯t be mass starvation or anything.


    Water gets slightly trickier. I don¡¯t know too much about water distribution, but I imagine that it doesn¡¯t just happen by itself. I¡¯m going to have to research that.


    A minor tweak to the worldbuilding I¡¯m going to have is that communications are for the most part still up. The satellites haven¡¯t been destroyed, and much of the cable infrastructure is still functional. That seems to be more realistic than the everything suddenly going kaput. That changes the job of Mary though. Instead of a runner that brings messages from town to town, she and her merry crew are going to be scavengers. Thoughts on this idea?


    Another thing I¡¯m going to have to emphasize more is that there really aren¡¯t a whole lot of young people around anymore. A large number of them died in Alaska or in the large cities where they were garrisoned.


    A very good opportunity to do some worldbuilding will be through Camille, since she lived in on the surface world for a few months. If you can think of anything else that you think would be really important or cool to learn about the world of Paladin, please let me know.


    <u>Issue 3: Plot</u>


    The plot has some major issues. I liked where it ended up, but overall it did not ¡®flow¡¯ smoothly from one part to the next. There was no clear underlying thread to follow, and it jumped around too much.  Currently, I¡¯m going with the classic three act structure for Paladin. I¡¯m going to talk about overall issues I have with the plot, then I¡¯ll break down the specific changes I have planned for each Act. In the webnovel, I only have two parts. Part 1 is in the base, Part 2 is after that. For the novel, I¡¯m going to split it into three acts Act 1 ends at Amy¡¯s burial, Act 2 ends with finding Camille, Act 3 ends with the battle of Sterling.


    <u>ACT 1</u>


    For the most part, I felt like Act 1 was solid. Most of the changes I would like to make are in the beginning part. For example, I would like Sam to be in Paladin training already, so that it seems less like he was forced into it. There will be more time before Sam lets the scout time die. Sam¡¯s mental breakdown and subsequent recovery will be more fleshed out and given the proper weight that is necessary.


    I¡¯m also going to take some of the info-dump summary chapters and make them more user friendly/less boring. Also more character building for Camille in the flashbacks.


    I like the AI trainers so they''re going to stick around. Probably will make Danna less sterotypical but polar bear buddy is fun. I do plan on making them seem less human and more like programs though, in order to make a clear distinction between how they act and how Adelaide acts (before she reveals the secret to Sam).


    Y¡¯know, now that I¡¯m thinking about it, basically the entire first half of Act 1 is going to get some sort of overhaul¡­ hmmm¡­ But the second half is good so that¡¯s nice.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    <u>ACT 2</u>


    This Act suffered a lot from a loss of focus, in my opinion. There was a lot of jumping around between plot points that were forgettable. With the exception of the ending part at the Assimilator Hive, a lot of the elements of Act Two felt unimportant.


    Especially the goddamn slavers. I have no fucking clue what to do with them, frankly. It feels like they don¡¯t fit in anywhere. You kind of learn about them, Sam murders a bunch of them, then they just disappear. If they stick around, they¡¯ll have to serve more of a purpose besides a convenient way for Sam to have a crisis about murdering people. I think a lot of my problem with them is that they have exactly zero depth. They add an interesting element to the world, but I don¡¯t know if they¡¯re necessary for a focused plot. We already have the antagonist of the Assimilators; do we really need the slavers?


    Another problem with this part is the ¡®Uther¡¯ side plot which I¡¯ll get to in a bit.


    <u>ACT 3</u>


    I want to make this act more connected to act two, especially in terms of the ¡®lost black box¡¯ plot line. I think that uncovering what happened to the scout team should be one of the major underlying plot threads. It gives a good excuse to hang out with the Red Eagles more and it dangles some sort of mystery in front of the reader.


    Additionally, I would like to explore Camille¡¯s story. I skipped over it in the first draft, but I¡¯ll definitely be addressing it. It¡¯ll give a nice worldbuilding opportunity too.


    Finally, there¡¯s the Denver mission. I love this part a lot, but I¡¯m seriously considering moving it to Book 2, because it doesn¡¯t slot in correctly AND it doesn¡¯t make sense from a character motivation stand point. The problem with it is that it doesn¡¯t feel like any of the characters should actually want to go there. Sam should be like hell to the fucking naw about going to Denver without a Paladin. Camille would never suggest that Sam go Denver because its near suicidal. The Red Eagles and Mary don¡¯t know him well enough to go into a deathtrap just because of some Scanner Tech. I feel like once the team is assembled in Book 2, it would make it more likely for everyone to volunteer to go. And in addition to all of that, they didn¡¯t even end up using the scanning technology in the first place. Does that make sense? Unfortunately, if I do remove Denver, I have to have something equally as exciting in its place, which will be hard. If I do replace Denver, it¡¯ll be a plot point related to the ¡®black box¡¯. Then it makes more sense of the Red Eagles to be involved.


    As far as the Battle of Sterling goes, I was more or less pleased with it. I¡¯m probably going to go a little more in depth with the training montage though. And there are some other minor details that need to be changed, especially in the build up towards the battle.


    I¡¯ll also be trimming some of the fat from the chapters, but that¡¯s going to be the case for everything in the book. The whole thing should be streamlined and to the point. Other than intentional red herrings, I think that every part of a novel should be important in some way or show up in the plot later.


    <u>Issue 4: Character Dev</u>


    I¡¯m pretty okay with how character dev went in Paladin. I¡¯d like to take that a step farther by making sure that every named character (that is reasonably important) has an end goal or driving aspiration. Also I think that characters that develop need to fall back into bad habits every once in a while. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s realistic to have someone fix their flaws once and for all.


    <u>Sam</u>


    Dunno if you guys noticed, but Sam pretty much stopped developing after he started going to the surface. He currently doesn¡¯t have believable flaws, besides the ¡®na?ve¡¯ thing which is meh. This does not a compelling character make. To put it bluntly, he¡¯s a little too good to be true.


    Possible solutions: Major flaw = ¡®not my problem¡¯ syndrome, minor flaws = naivety, identity crisis, scared to lose people he cares about (once Camille shows up again)


    The major flaw that he would be struggling with throughout the book is that Sam hesitates at crucial moments. He doesn¡¯t help everybody, because he feels as though it¡¯s not his business to stick his nose into/he¡¯s more into self-preservation. That changes, obviously, but it¡¯ll take a few painful lessons and a lot of nightmares. Maybe some prodding from Camille too.


    I was actually thinking that a possible use for the slavers would be in this area: When he first encounters them, he decides that it really isn¡¯t his business to police them, even though he knows he should. Then, the slavers that he lets go attack and destroy a town. Just like when he let the original team die in Act 1, his inaction leads to innocents getting killed.


    He¡¯s wracked by guilt, which is why he commits so quickly to fighting for Sterling later on, as a way to redeem himself. That makes his decision to help a little more impactful in my opinion. I don¡¯t want him to start as a hero ¨C I want him to get there by the end of the book.


    The problem with this idea is that it could make for a very frustrating protagonist. Nobody likes a coward, after all. But I¡¯m trying to think about what a relatively normal civilian would do in his position, someone that¡¯s lost pretty much everything. Also, that sets him up to being too willing to commit to saving everyone in the next book.


    What do you all think? (Even if the flaw I proposed doesn''t make the cut, Sam needs more developement so I''ll go in a different direction.)


    Also, the Uther thing was kind of dumb. I like the idea of Sam trying to hide behind a fake identity, but I handled it  clumsily. Definitely going to need to tweak that.


    <u>Camille</u>


    One of the characters I¡¯m most unhappy with. I felt that she never really got developed and only had vague motivations. I was even considering axing her completely, but I¡¯m probably not going to. As I mentioned before, the flashbacks in Part 1 of the book are going to be less info-dump, so I think I¡¯m going to have a few scenes of Camille and Sam interacting before they got separated. Maybe even before they started dating?


    Camille needs to have some flaws, like she gets mad very quickly or something of that nature, or she gets fixated on research too much. The main takeaway is that right now she isn¡¯t doing much for the story and that needs to be fixed. Having an Assimilator expert will be helpful down the line though and I do like the ¡®established relationship¡¯ dynamic a lot.


    <u>Adelaide</u>


    She needs a little development too, actually, but I like the conflict that¡¯s central to her character. She wants to be treated like a person, but she¡¯s afraid to expose herself to the outside world. Amy instilled a deep fear of being recognized, so she still hides under a mask around people she doesn''t trust. Other than that, she¡¯s trying to explore what it means to be a person. She has a lot of potential though. Honestly, she is definitely the character I have the most plans for down the line. I¡¯m excited to get to them.


    <u>Red Eagles Squad</u>


    For the most part okay. I¡¯ll develop them more in the next book, and my main focus for them in this book is that they have distinct personalities. I think I accomplished that to a certain degree. I¡¯m pretty pleased with Aaron. Jackson could use work. Rebecca needs a little more too, because she was great before Camille showed up then kind of fizzled out after.


    <u>Conclusion</u>


    So¡­ yeah. There¡¯s a shit ton of work ahead of me as far as editing this goes. I¡¯ve never edited a book before, so I have no idea how long it will take. I¡¯m hoping no longer than a couple months (that might just be wishful thinking though). But my philosophy on it is that having a strong foundation will make going forward with the series much, much easier. I do feel bad for smashing any dreams of a quick start to the next book though...


    I think I managed to get most of my thoughts down... maybe. It''s a bit hard to keep track of them all and I feel like I''m constantly coming up with new changes. I''m sure there are a bunch of minor things I forgot to include. Please let me know if there¡¯s anything I¡¯m missing in here, or if there¡¯s anything you felt that the story needed or even did particularly well. Your comments and opinions are really invaluable to me, because they let me get a finger on the pulse of my readers.


    P.S. If there¡¯s interest in seeing how the second draft develops, let me know and I¡¯ll find a way to post it somewhere. Maybe Patreon or just a Google Doc. But keep in mind that changes wouldn¡¯t be published in a chapter by chapter format like they have been. It would be a rolling document that is revised and edited day to day, and I will probably be jumping back and forth between different parts of the book.


    P.P.S Thanks to everyone yet again for reading Paladin, commenting on it, and sticking around after I bailed. You guys are the reason that I kept writing, so I owe you big.