 
## Unit 37: Rescue at Kilter Field

By William Laws

This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016

All rights reserved.

Cover illustration from. 123rf.com

Smashwords Edition

## Chapter 1

The young lady in front of Bri's capsule smiled. "Take a deep breath," she looked down at the data tablet in her hand and made some adjustments to the holographic mechanism.

Bri closed her eyes and sucked in a chest full of the tinny-tasting air. She tried to focus. Tried to relax. She felt her shoulders relax anyway, but it seemed impossible. It's not easy to relax when you're about to be sealed into a glass cylinder, put to sleep, and then launched past light speed to...somewhere she had never heard of.

"Is this your first time?"

Bri wanted to speak but the mask that covered her nose and mouth didn't allow it. She nodded.

"Alright, well, it's going to feel odd for a moment, then the next thing you know you'll be waking up." She touched the tablet and a clear panel swiveled into place, sealing the cylinder closed with a quiet hiss.

Bri's heart jumped when she heard the pneumatic seal. A little streak of panic ran through her. But it wasn't like her to be afraid. This was scary but there was still a sense of adventure. After all, she was about to be launched across a star system while she took a nap. But something deep inside of her, something evolutionary, was afraid. She wanted to scream. She wanted to yank the emergency handle and run, but she got a grip.

She had already watched one conscript try. It took less than a minute for two much bigger soldiers to grab him. Then the doctor sedated him and they sealed him in his hypersleep chamber anyway. She took another deep breath and tried to think of anything except where she was and what was happening. The taste of the air was like she had been working in the yards, digging through the piles of metal scrap before it went to the smelter.

She closed her eyes and thought of her mom's face, the look in her eyes. Her little sister's hug, the way her arms squeezed around her, like if she could hold on tight enough, maybe none of this would happen. Then she thought of her last kiss. The dress she had worn to dinner, red, long and slender. She thought of the way his eyes...she opened her eyes and the doctor was staring at her through the glass. There was a gentle hiss, this one closer, somewhere around her feet maybe. And everything went dark.

When she opened her eyes, the hypersleep chamber door had already swiveled open. She looked around. Her head felt like it was full of water, sloshing around. Not everything was clear. But there were other chambers, maybe twenty or thirty all neatly lined up along the walls in curving rows. Two were open and empty.

There was no one in them. Her thoughts slowly came together. The people were gone. She realized she could get out, her cylinder was open. She looked around just as the room's door opened and a NewT soldier walked in.

He was taller than Bri by almost three inches and stronger, a lot stronger. She thought of the gentle curve her body had now. Would they chisel her the same way, turn her into something strong and lithe? But then she saw the adjunct, the exoskeletal augmentation. She had seen the tech on the video feeds, the new bio-mechanical extension the New Terran scientists had come up with, but it was the first time she had ever seen one up close.

Her eyes moved along the black metal that ran along his forearm. It was thin, maybe half the width of your little finger, connected to a circular joint of some sort, and then on up to his shoulder. She met the marine's eyes and realized that he had caught her staring at him.

"Lladron," he looked over at the chamber she had just stepped out of.

"Yes?" Bri stared at his fingers, the way the black metal ran along each appendage, like a fustidiam vine. But why was it on just one arm?

"You're to report to shuttle A42." He glanced at his wristcall - a data tablet that wrapped around his forearm. "This way." He turned on his heel and Bri followed him down one corridor and then another, passing sailors in light armor, a few engineers, and a small group of marines, none outfitted with exo's. It was like the ship they were on was not a military vessel, but something else, a regular transport maybe, but being manned by soldiers and civilians?

"Chenfel?" Bri looked at her wristcall and saw that the date and sector had changed. Instead of Ley-Fen, it read: Sector 9A7, Chenfel orbit.

All at once it hit her; the tiny planet she had grown up on was light years away. Everything she had known, her family, the house she had grown up in, her friends – everything was so far away. She wondered when she would see it again, if she would see it again.

"One of Sedris' experiments, huh?" the soldier gave her a wry smile and arched his eyebrows.

But Bri had never heard the name. She would have asked what the smile was about except the corridor they were in passed a data screen filled with images of a space battle. The soldier stopped to watch so Bri did too. On the projection two NewT ships were firing on a line of Earther vessels. From the view of the feed, it was easy to count - two Newt ships against seven Earther vessels. She looked away as the first NewT ship became a ball of blue and orange light.

She wondered how many people had been aboard. "How long have you been a soldier?"

"Since before all this," the marine stared at the feed; the friendliness in his voice was gone. "You know, I would give the other kidney to stand where you are." He looked Bri over like he wanted to switch places with her. And Bri realized why he had the exo. Under the uniform was some injury, probably something heinous, and that's why he was here instead of out there.

Bri looked at the floor. A flood of feelings clouded her thoughts. She wanted to ask him why, what had made him want to become a soldier in the first place? And why was he jealous of her? What was so important about Chenfel? Why had he said experiments? A deep, nagging fear slipped through her veins.

It was the same fear she had been living with since the notice came, a heavy fear, like a fog that seems like it's never going to lift. Every time she thought of the war, the images and video she had seen of the battles on the ground and in space. It was death, angry, fiery, and painful death.

She thought about the man beside her, the people she had passed, the engineers and sailors. The crew of the transport tasked with delivering draftees to various training camps throughout the sector. The war was reaching everywhere. The Earther forces were adopting NewT tech faster than anyone thought possible.

The soldier delivered her to the shuttle door and looked her over. "Good luck, Lladron. Do us proud." He put on a plastic smile and walked away before Bri could think of anything to say.

She stepped inside the shuttle and found two other draftees on board, a young woman with dark, curly hair, and chocolate-colored skin; and a tall, square-headed man with blue eyes and a goofy, almost slanted smile.

"Bri Lladron," she offered her hand to the woman first.

"Katy but everyone calls me Kat," the woman's eyes rolled over Bri in a slow, appreciating way and she held onto Bri's hand a half a breath longer than was comfortable.

Bri smiled and then offered her hand to the man; she had been the focus of a few women over the last twenty-five years. "Bri," she met his eyes and instantly knew the kind of man he was - friendly, honest, and maybe a little clumsy.

"Cooper. Jacob Cooper," his hand swallowed Bri's and his grip was firm, just short of painful, but careful. "Pleased to meet you,"

It never ceased to amaze Bri how many people lived in Len-Fey that she didn't know. She always thought of the city itself as small, too small. But it really hadn't been. It might not have been a tiered city like Revelation or even Corokep, with its massive island-like structures that floated in the sky, but it had a ten or fifteen thousand people, just enough where you didn't actually know everyone.

The shuttle slipped from the transport and plowed through Chenfel's atmosphere. It took a few minutes, but the viewports changed from a dramatic orange and red fury to the gentle curve of browns and greens. It looked like a varied planet. The greens were dark and rich which meant there were forests although there were large swaths of desert off to the west.

Bri glanced at Kat and Cooper. They were doing the same thing she was, wondering what the next few months would hold, trying to figure out their new home. Both Cooper and Kat had an almost anxious gleam in their eyes, the hint of grin. You could see that as strange and different as everything was, it was an adventure too. Everyone seemed fearless and excited at the same time.

Bri caught sight of a swath of clouds. Lightning flash below them, a storm was raging somewhere. She thought of the battle, the two ships against seven Earthers. Whatever they were about to face was supposed to prepare them for war, the war the NewTs were losing, the war that was killing millions on both sides.

There was a strange mix of anger and fear. She had never once thought about being a soldier. Stuck in the faraway backwaters of Ley-Fen, soldiering was the last thing anyone thought about. But the war had changed that. The news feeds brought images of soldiers defending against Earther invasions. Planets she had never heard of joined the Assemblage. But now she was a part of it, a piece of it, and she wasn't sure exactly how she felt.

She focused on the world below them, staring across the vast horizon. There were clouds and in the distance and blue sky out beyond the storm. The planet rose and fell into deep canyons to the west and to the north she could make out the outline of mountains. She glanced at her wrist call and opened a data file on Chenfel - one star, temperate climate, small military training outpost under the current leadership of a Commander Dominque Sedris. Support personnel, military and non-military were scattered across a few nearby settlements and towns.

"I don't see much," Kat said, "this place ain't got no cities?"

"No big cities," Bri watched as the shuttle changed attitude and dropped toward the storm, "a few settlements, but there's not much out here really."

"The base is the biggest compound," Cooper sounded sad, like he was just beginning to realize how much he missed his home. "Look at that storm." The top of the clouds looked like they were boiling. Dark clouds seemed to grow from the center and flash with lightning.

She thought of home, of watching the storms move across the desert.

When the shuttle punched through the storm, the base came into view. It was smaller than a city, smaller than most towns really. Bri counted ten buildings built in a rough square of land bordered by thick forest. She couldn't believe how small it was, how simple – ten buildings and one of them was obviously a hangar.

She didn't know why but she had expected something much more dramatic. The Assemblage bases that were shown in the news were huge swaths of land covered in artillery, air support, and usually thousands of soldiers. But here there were no battle tanks, no fighter or bomber craft, no artillery. Where were they? The place looked more like an administrative compound, a bunch of offices. She wondered if that was the answer. Had she somehow been assigned, not as a fighting marine, but as something else, some unit that didn't fight? She remembered the marine's words back on board the transport, experiment.

The light blue force field of the hangar came into view and the shuttle maneuvered to land. She could see a few people through some of the windows but the base looked almost deserted, blanketed by the storm. But when the shuttle door finally opened, the three of them stood facing a group of nine men and women, loosely stacked in a line and obviously fresh from a similar situation – just arrived. In front of the soldiers stood two officers, a man and a woman, each in Assemblage gray with a blue stripe, each with their officer designation pins on their chest - a gold star with a blue halo for the woman and a silver Vesper with a red flame for him.

Bri glanced at Kat and Cooper. Whatever was about to happen to them was beginning.

"Cooper, Lladron, and Chaul," the man looked at each of them respectively, "welcome to the team, please stand with your peers," he turned halfway and made a gesture with his hands toward the other nine. A few nodded, a few others continued to stare at their shoes. A couple of them gave the newcomers little more than a cursory glance.

Bri turned and faced the officers as soon as she reached the group. Cooper and Kat did as well. The motion quieted everyone and the woman stepped forward.

"I am commander Sedris and this is my base." She gave the room a quick glance. "This will be your home until Anderson is done with you. Follow his instructions and these next months will be easy." For some reason as she looked across the twelve of them, she paused when she got to Cooper, it was quick, just a tick really, but Bri caught it.

"I honestly wish you the best of luck," the commander's voice softened a bit, like she was remembering something, maybe her days as a recruit, maybe something else darker and sadder. "Anderson, let's see what you can do with them." She turned and left the hangar without another word.

Anderson waited until the door closed behind the commander before he turned back to the twelve of them. He looked like he was probably in his mid to late seventies, still strong and fast but midlife. His eyes looked like they had seen a million days.

He looked them over for a minute and everyone seemed to straighten naturally, like just the idea that they knew he was rating them was enough to make them give him their undivided attention. He moved his hands behind his back and kicked his feet apart a bit. "My name is Major William Anderson. For the next few months, your lives are going to be difficult," his voice echoed around them, loud and raspy, like he had been shouting at soldiers most of his life. "Chenfel is your home. You are now soldiers. You are my soldiers." He looked across the twelve of them and Bri noticed a thin scar that ran along his chin. It was old but still there; he had chosen not to get it mended. "As of this moment, you are Unit 37 and there's a war on." He stopped and looked at Kat. "You may have heard, it's a war we're losing, but you're here to fix that."

Bri tried to place Anderson's accent. It was formal and clipped, like he was one of the people on the feeds or a politician from one of the capital planets. He didn't pull at the words and drag them or talk so fast that they sounded like they were layered on top of each other. No, Anderson was slow and deliberate. It was striking and seemed to drill his message home.

Bri glanced around at the others in 37, curious to see what they were thinking.

"Do you have a question, Lladron?" Anderson's eyes found hers and held them.

Ice ran through her veins for a second and her brain seemed to freeze. "No?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" There was no amusement in his voice.

"Telling."

"Telling, sir." Anderson raised an eyebrow and looked across the rest of the unit like he wanted to make sure everyone understood that the teaching had begun.

"Telling, sir." Bri straightened her back desperately trying to hide the self-conscious fear that filled her.

Anderson looked over the unit again. "Your color is orange." He touched his wristcall, a much newer, thinner interface than anything Bri had seen before, and an orange line appeared on the floor, a highlighted path that led out of the hangar. "Follow the path, team."

The twelve looked at each other, gathered whatever belongings they had brought, and shuffled out of the hangar. It was strange seeing them altogether, everyone seemed to be from somewhere far away. A guy bigger than Cooper wore clothes were made of a fabric Bri had never seen before and a blonde-haired woman a few inches taller than Bri wore a long tunic-style garment of black with a red band, nothing like the black pants and red shirt Bri had on. But even though they were obviously from all over the place, everyone seemed to share one trait, they were tired.

As they made their way along the corridors, following the orange band that glowed along the floor, only a few people felt the need to talk.

It was weird being there. Although she hated the war and had never wanted to be a soldier, there was something equally exciting about being at Chenfel. Suddenly there was something bigger than her. Maybe it was the way Anderson had addressed them, maybe it was the NewT tech she kept spotting, she couldn't really say. For whatever reason, she was as excited as she was angry.

Two marines in black, form-fitting uniforms passed them in the hallway. It was a man and woman, about the same age as Bri (and everyone else in the unit). They gave 37 a cursory glance, but little else.

Kat nodded her head and laughed. "I like those uniforms," she said as they passed, "tight."

A few laughed quietly, but Bri wasn't interested in the uniforms, or the way the marines had fit into them. What Bri saw were soldiers, the result of whatever Chenfel existed to do. Each had a pistol and a rifle, and she had spotted connection ports on each them. The man's was along the back of his wrist, and she saw the woman's when she looked back over her shoulder, a finger-sized black hole in the center of her neck. Exos. A little thrill went through her.

There was just something about the idea of being augmented, enhanced. She wondered what if felt like, how it worked.

"Oh, records!" A tall guy with wild, yellow hair laughed and looked around mischievously. "What do you guys want to know? Seriously, ask me anything and I can tell you." He touched his wristcall and grinned again. "Katy Chaul, prefers Kat..."

"What did you say?" Kat stopped and the rest of the unit kind of pooled around her until she was standing right next to the guy with the wild hair. Except Kat didn't look happy. She didn't look angry; maybe skeptical would be a better word. Whatever it was, it had the desired effect.

"I...uh..." the man hadn't expected the look on Kat's face, "you know, I can hack, the systems...it's what I'm good at, like really good at. Like, I mean, I can't help it." he put his hands up in front of his chest and took a step back, honestly afraid of Kat. "I was just goofing, I'm sorry. Hey, my name's Pauly," he looked around at a few of the others desperately trying to find support.

Kat gave Pauly another look and then chuckled. "What's it say about Cooper?" She looked over at the giant of a man and waggled her eyebrows playfully.

The orange line wandered from the hangar through a storage facility and then down a long corridor to the base's housing complex. All of the buildings were interconnected by long hallways and sets of doors. Each doorway was guarded by two marines in light gray, armed men and women who stood silently and watched. The line stopped at the top of a stairway on the fourth floor and the group kind of bunched up on the stairs.

Mason, a tall, thin kid with dark black hair and a red tattoo on the back of his hand looked like he was afraid to open the door. "Is this it?" He looked back at everyone behind him for some kind of assurance.

"Open the door." The blonde-haired woman (who stood head and shoulders over everyone) gave the order and Mason touched the control panel.

The doorway opened onto a long, rectangular room, wide open with twelve single bunks down each wall. Every bed had a small lamp mounted on the wall beside a slender glass interface. The rest was bare. A door at the back of the room led to a large bathroom and shower facility. And that was it. No frills. Sterile.

Bri glanced down and noticed that her wristcall had turned off. She tried to turn it on, but it wouldn't. Then Pauly noticed his doing the same thing and there was a look of panic crossed his face. "Hey, anyone else notice..."

"Unit 37," a female voice, obviously synthetic (it was too smooth and calming not to be), filled the room. "Please pick one of the bunks in this room and touch the interface beside the bed."

Everyone waited for a second. Some weren't sure if the voice had finished what it was saying or not while others were a little creeped-out by the idea of a voice at all. One of guys was actually looking around the room like someone he hadn't noticed had walked in and he just hadn't seen them yet. Bri almost laughed. But eventually, someone started toward a bed and everyone else did the same.

Bri touched the long, slender screen beside her bed and her name immediately displayed across the top, along with the time, a long alpha-numeric code, and a short inventory of items she didn't recognize – D89A Non-integrated Uniform, four pairs of Y23B uniform undergarments, etc.. She glanced around and watched a guy named Biloxi stare down at the tiny interface like it was the most fascinating and terrifying piece of equipment he had ever seen. But it was obvious; they hadn't picked Biloxi because he was tech savvy, they picked him because he was big, really big. While Bri was watching Biloxi's bed slowly lengthened and widened to accommodate the man's size.

"I...um..." he scratched his head and squinted at the interface.

Bri wondered if he knew how to read. She had heard there were places in the system, dark places where NewTs lived and worked underground, buried deep inside asteroids or in the farthest reaches of some gas cloud or spit-sized planetoids stuck in some asteroid belt where the sun never shined.

"Please retrieve the small device from the compartment beside your bed." The smooth voice filled the room again. "Lie down, place the device in your ear, and take a deep breath."

"What?" Biloxi held his device between his thumb and his forefinger. "In my ear?"

"Yes, Mister Sherman, in your ear." The voice was still calm and even.

Bri laughed and lay back on her bunk. She stared at the tiny device, the size of a pea, or a pebble, the tip of her small finger. It was round and smooth, featureless, and she couldn't help but wonder what it did and how it did it. And why did they want her to put it in her ear.

It was a little scary. Len-Fey wasn't exactly a capital planet. It took time for tech to get that far and even though she felt like she kept up with the feeds and knew what was going on in bio and nano tech – she had never seen or heard of anything like what she was looking at.

But then, not much else was making any sense either. She took a breath and carefully tucked it into the opening of her ear.

As soon as she felt it enter her ear, it dissolved and disappeared, like she had been holding onto a pinch of sand and it had slipped away. It didn't make a sound, but suddenly her hearing changed. There was a whoosh and then a sharp stabbing instant, but it was over before she could even really focus on it. Then she felt something moving through her head, like it was swimming in her blood, a tingle, or the edge of a feather somewhere inside of her brain. And then it disappeared.

She took a breath and held it. The inside of her ear itched and she desperately wanted to scratch it, but before she could move, it felt like someone was jamming an ice pick into her left eye. A wave of pain rolled across every nerve in her body. Her fingers dug into the sheets, but again it was only a split-second, half a breath, and then it was gone. She opened her eyes and felt a tear roll down her cheek. But then she realized everything was sharper, crisper, like her vision had doubled. Colors were deeper; she could see a shadow in three-dimensional space. It took a second to really understand how much different it was.

She turned her head and saw Kat was sitting on the edge of her bed rubbing her eye, like she had something in it.

"Please do not rub your eyes, Miss Chaul." The female voice said.

"She's right," the tall woman walked over and laid a hand on Kat's shoulder, "try to look around, just take it slow, open and closed." She knelt in front of Kat and tried to look into her left eye.

"The sensation should diminish in a minute or so. All systems are optimal." The female computer said.

Kat opened and closed her eye. "Thanks," she said.

"Arles," the tall woman offered her hand, "Lin Arles."

Bri blinked once and suddenly there was a display over her vision, like it was laid over the floor she was staring at, an interface between what she was seeing and her eyeball. Her name was in the upper left hand and then a detailed drawing of her eye along with a nano-structure. It was the computer that controlled the visual interface, created it really.

She glanced at a small red square and the interface closed. She heard a guy behind her talking to his view. "System check. Close. Vanish."

Kat apparently thought it was a good idea as well. "Turn off. Power down."

Bri grinned. "Look at the red square," she looked over at Biloxi.

"Please sit on your bed and follow the onscreen instructions." It was the female voice again but this time it was in their heads instead of the room around them. Everyone moved to their bunk and sat down.

The integrated visual and auditory enhancements ran 37 through a series of exercises to familiarize themselves with the tech. Bri couldn't believe the way it worked. How, in a blink, they had been changed, enhanced, and suddenly capable of more than they had been. But how was this supposed to help against the Earther marines, the heavy armor suits that tripled their size? The massive projectile weapons they carried? And the way they thundered across a battlefield like thousands of giants. What kind of tech did they use? How did they power the over-sized armor that surrounded them?

After everyone had finished the exercises, a sound was transmitted and their new overlays flashed a new set of instructions along with an easy to follow map.

"I don't know if I like this thing in my head," Biloxi looked frustrated, like just the idea of nano-tech didn't sit right with him.

"No, you don't," Pauly stood on his tiptoes and laid his arm over Biloxi's shoulder in a friendly way. "Seriously, big guy, you've got to calm down. Your stats are off the chart, take a breath."

Biloxi gave him an exasperated look. "What?"

"I was flipping through the files," Pauly waved his thin arm out into the air in front of him, like Biloxi could see what he was seeing. "I can see your vitals - bp, heart rate, brain activity, all that stuff."

"Man, you have got to stop doing that." Everyone was thinking it but Kat spoke up first.

"He's a hacker." Arles, gave Pauly a look of disapproval. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should." She shook her head.

Pauly stepped away from Biloxi. "Hey, it's, you know," he threw his hands up in surrender. "I can't help it, it's like an addiction. I see a locked system, I gotta get in there, gotta mess with it."

Before the sun rose the next morning, the room's lighting came up to full and the female voice, which the unit dubbed Mary woke the unit. "Unit 37, your field uniforms are located in your footlockers. Please shower, dress, and report to the parade grounds in thirty minutes, zero four thirty."

The room filled with moans and groans as the unit slowly woke but after four or five minutes only Cooper and Biloxi were still lying in bed, doing their best to ignore the hustle and bustle of the other recruits moving around them.

Every foot locker in the room held a black, one piece uniform made out of a surprisingly thick, yet elastic, material. Bri touched her locker's control and pulled out the strange one-piece suit. She pulled the opening along the front of the suit wide and put her legs in first. Immediately, the suit began to modify its measurements like it was somehow programmed to fit the wearer. She pushed an arm through the sleeve and, when her hand emerged along the cuff, the fabric shrank in length and then tightened until it was snug against her. She couldn't see exactly what was moving, but the material was definitely conforming to her. She had never experienced anything like it. She pulled it off her skin and let it go and it shifted back into place.

When Biloxi picked up his outfit, he held up in front of him and it was a third of his size, it looked like it was made for a child, but as soon as he opened it up and put his legs in, the fabric molded itself to his physique as well. "Will you look at that?" He stared at his reflection in the interface beside his bed.

"Nice!" Pauly sat on the edge of his bed obviously reading his overlay. "It's a smart material. Fabricated on Revelation. The Jilsen Corporation created the material. It's brand new. It doesn't even have a name yet."

The sky was still dark but the rain had stopped at some point in the night. The eastern horizon was a pale purple, the first shift from night to day. The entire unit whispered as they walked down the stairwell and out of the dormitory, like they were afraid they might wake the other units, but when they stepped outside, the base was a hive of activity.

Everywhere they looked, there were soldiers in various stages of training. A large unit with a bright yellow patch on every sleeve ran past the dormitory in neat rows, six abreast. A few tossed their heads in greeting while others made quiet comments. Newb and babies was heard more than once, and Kat almost lit into one runner when he looked her over and called her pint-sized, but Arles held her back.

As 37 moved off toward the parade ground, they passed another unit in the same black uniform as theirs. "Defensive perimeter!" The unit's leader shouted and the unit that had been standing in neat rows fell into a new shape, a circle within a circle bristling with rifles. They didn't say a word as 37 passed. Instead, they stared straight ahead, their weapons at the ready until their leader shouted for them to form up again.

"We've got a lot to learn," Cooper nudged Bri as they walked.

But Bri was barely paying attention. There was a unit of soldiers lined up at the hangar. They wore a different type of uniform, and armor. They had packs that fit on their back beside their rifles and headgear that Bri had never seen before, but you could still see the traces of their exo's peeking out from the cuffs and collar.

They looked like all the soldiers on the feeds, and she wondered if they were heading off to join some battle somewhere.

She thought of home and the war and where she was and it kind of jumbled inside of her. She looked away. It didn't make sense, war, two sides flinging bodies at each other until a powerful person somewhere decided that they'd had enough.

Anderson stood on the far side of the parade ground, his hands behind his back, watching as 37 walked across. When they got closer, without a word from him, 37 did their best to line up which turned out to look more like a sack full of cats than a respectable roll call. But he waited patiently looking over the group as they shifted and switched places quietly whispering to each other and embarrassed. It took a minute.

"Good morning," Anderson looked over the unit with a smile.

A few muttered hello or good morning but not with any real enthusiasm and Anderson let it slide.

"Stand at attention," Anderson barked the word and snapped into the classic stance. 37 responded, straightening their backs and raising their chins. It was close, but Anderson still walked down the row and made adjustments to almost everyone's stance. Only Arles had seemed to get it right.

Once the unit was acceptable he stepped in front of them again. "First we're going to make you strong." He looked up and down the line, catching a few eyes. "It's hard and you're not going to like it, but we don't have much time." He took off his coat, folded it in half, and set it on the ground beside him.

Bri stared at Anderson. He was stronger than she had expected and he was wearing the same black suit they had found in their footlockers, but he didn't have an exo or the connection ports that came with the tech which seemed odd.

"Pushups," Anderson fell forward, caught himself in a stiff plank position and glanced up as the unit slowly and stiffly followed his example. He waited and they looked up and down the row. "Pauly, straighten your back. Bri put your arms closer to your chest; stop squeezing into Kat's space."

And then he started.

For the next two weeks, Anderson put 37 through hell. It was like they never stopped. If they weren't on the parade ground in rigid formation working through sets of exercises, they were running in formation around the complex or through the obstacle.

Anderson was relentless. When they were comfortable pushing through a hundred pushups, he started them on handstands, then backflips, then standing jumps and long jumps.

To say that it was brutal would be an understatement. None of them had ever been through anything like it. And Anderson didn't just give orders, pushing the unit through the work. No, what 37 did, he did right along with them, like he was one of them. They ran, he ran.

He had kept his word; they were going to be strong. Everyone struggled and over the space of the two weeks, almost everyone reached their breaking point. Cooper fell from the top of the climbing wall and broke his arm, which thanks to NewT tech was repaired in less than an hour, but Anderson gave him the day to recoup and then lectured 37 on pacing and control.

In the middle of roll call one morning, Kat had snapped. Anderson had made a comment on the state of her boots, something about a scuff along the heel that she had missed. He had said it in passing; he didn't call her out, or belittle her. He had simply pointed at her boots and said: "I believe you missed a spot." But Kat (like everyone else) was sore, and tired, and unsure if her decision to answer the draft had been the right one, and she lost it. He pointed at her boots and she took a swing at him.

Everyone froze the minute they saw Kat lean back. She had been hot since the day before, grousing about how much Anderson required of them, about the rigors of military requirement and the like. She was close when she had shown up roll call, fiery and willing to fight and argue. But when she leaned back and brought her arm up, everyone held their breath.

But Anderson was ready. Kat's big swing came at him hard and heavy, but he simply moved out of reach, grabbed her wrist as it passed, and twisted. In a blink, Kat was on her belly, her arm wrenched painfully behind her, and Anderson stood over her.

Kat took a breath and grimaced from the pain. "Alright, alright, I get it!" She shouted.

"Good," Anderson let go of Kat's wrist and she got back to her feet. The two made eye contact for a few moments, working whatever it was between them out in silence.

Over the weeks, some wept, others fainted, and more than a few found themselves with extra duty for lipping off, but Bri didn't break that same way. Instead of doing something stupid and getting herself injured or losing her patience and flipping out, Bri made a request to visit Commander Sedris.

She didn't want to go over Anderson's head so she talked to him about it and he cleared her for the meeting and entered the appointment with the commander's office himself.

But it didn't go the way Bri expected it to.

When she arrived at the commander's office, she was greeted by a young man in a gray and blue uniform devoid of any unit identification or rank. "Can I help you?" He asked.

"My name is Bri Lladron," she stood at ease, "I'm here to see Commander Sedris."

The man behind the little desk worked a data tablet for a moment and then stared through Bri obviously working his overlay. "Yes sir," he said without making eye contact, "Lladron is here to see you, sir." There was a pause and Bri could tell the assistant was listening. "Yes, sir." The assistant looked at her. "You can go on in."

Bri walked through the doorway behind the man's desk and found the commander seated behind a large, wooden desk. "Sit down, Lladron," she pointed toward a chair.

The office was larger than she had expected and, instead of the usual metal and poly everything else seemed made out of, everything in Sedris' office was constructed of wood, dark, rich wood. The desk was small but cut with a long curve and polished smooth. There were cases behind the desk with shelves made of wood with brilliant yellow grain. The room felt almost luxurious, like she was in the office of some rich politician or businesswoman.

"Let me get right to the point," Sedris folded her hands in front of her on the desk and looked Bri in the eye. She was a tall woman, probably five years older than Anderson, a neat woman with hair that she kept in a bun. "You're not going home."

Bri absorbed the four words and tried to get a grip on the anxiety boiling in the center of her chest.

Sedris gave her a moment before continuing. "Anderson told me you're tired and scared and I don't care. The Assemblage needs soldiers." She looked at Bri and waited for a response.

"But..."

"Nope," Sedris rolled her eyes, "all I wanted was yes followed by maam." Sedris pointed to the door. "That fulfills my obligation under Assemblage Article 1276a."

"Excuse me?" Bri took a breath and felt the anger fill her chest. She had never been dismissed before, it was a new experience and she didn't like it.

Their eyes locked for a moment, a breath.

"Don't tell me, Lladron, let me guess." The commander shifted in her seat and Bri could see the woman was fighting back an evil grin. "You want to talk to me about morality and ethics, and reminded me that New Terrans have an inherent belief structure that violence only begets violence. Or are you the kind of girl that wants to argue against expansion?" Sedris' eyes narrowed a little, like she was still trying to suss out the kind of woman in front of her. "Or maybe your daddy was one of those frontiersmen, the dying breed that doesn't trust government and would rather get as far away from civilization as possible. Again, I don't care. Why do you think the draft had to go all the way to your little planet?"

Bri swallowed hard.

She couldn't hold it back any longer, a grin cracked across Sedris' lips and Bri suddenly felt cold.

"But here's the thing, Lladron. You don't know a god-damned thing about war." Her tone was acidic. "You have a few ideas; but here's what you need to know." They locked eyes and the commander took a slow breath.

Bri's gut was lodged somewhere in her throat.

"It's just fear." Sedris sat back in her chair. "You'll get over it. Andrews says he has never seen a soldier as sharp as you, that you have a gift."

It was like getting punched in the face – first the insult, then a compliment. Bri wanted to cry. The news feeds were horror stories of battles won and lost light years away.

"Commander," Bri's mouth was dry, "What if we can't win?"

The Commander leaned back in her chair and touched a holographic display.

The projection changed and they were watching a New Terran convoy of three ships moving against the darkness of space. The ships were heavy cargo, haulers from the mining stations somewhere. They were huge but still sleek in the way that NewT engineering excelled.

Bri stared at the ships marking the number and size even trying to guess which system they were moving in before she realized what she was watching, what was about to happen. "Commander?" She uttered the word and, it was like the Earther ship had heard her, a violent purple storm of lightning broke against the black canvas of space and birthed a massive ship.

Her eyes widened as the thing moved to intercept the mining ships. It was massive, a giant rectangle of gray metal that looked like it had been put together by hand, massive plates of tridium steel hammered into place with a trillion rivets. It had none of the beauty of a newt vessel, but what it lacked in smooth, molded-contour and silhouette it more than made up for size and strength.

Lights flashed along the side of the Dreadnaught and Bri and the Commander watched the hanger doors open. "Here they come," the commander whispered.

Earther fighters, fast movers called Stryker's, sprang from the Dreadnaught decks and swarmed the three New Terran ships.

The mining ships broke formation, each taking a different tack. One started its catapult drive. The massive launch rings released and flew ahead of the ship. And for a moment Bri wondered if it would work, if the drive would be able to spin up before the fighters reached the ship. But the answer came quickly.

An explosion ripped through the first gate before it could power up and the second and third rings weren't even in position before the ship itself started to take heavy fire from the fighters.

The Commander touched a control and the feed vanished.

Bri looked at Sedris. "How many..."

"Over two thousand souls aboard."

"Where were..."

"It doesn't matter where they were. They were cargo ships, they had no military value. It was opportunistic." She sighed and stared at the little badge on Bri's chest, the Assemblage badge. "We fight for those people, Lladron."

Bri wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. "Understood, Commander." She stood and saluted. "I formally withdraw my request."

"Good," Sedris offered her hand across the desk, "Andrews will be happy to hear it. He expects great things from you, Lladron."

Have a good day, Lladron."

Bri's mouth was still open as she stood. She wanted desperately to say something. She was sure there was something else to say, some argument she had been thinking about for weeks. But the look on Sedris' face told her it was time to go.

The meeting had been so short that even the commander's assistant was shocked to see Bri walk out so quickly. He gave her a you should have known better smile which only served to irritate Bri but she bit her tongue and went back to the training field to catch up with her unit.

## Chapter 2

It didn't take long for 37 to realize there was something different about their unit. The first thing they noticed was that every other unit they ran into was at least thirty to fifty soldiers. 37 was a third that size. A few thought it might grow, that maybe there were more soldiers on the way, but no one ever arrived.

The second thing they noticed, thanks to Biloxi's inability to understand rank insignias was the fact that 37 was being trained by a major, not a sergeant or a lieutenant like everyone else. And that was the buzz on base. No one seemed to know why Anderson was leading a unit. No one even seemed to know where Anderson was from either. Of course there were rumors and guesses. Some thought 37 was a bet between Sedris and the Major, that the two of them had a disagreement about Assemblage training practices and that 37 was the experiment to prove one of them right. Others thought 37 was being trained to be special in some way, but so far Anderson had done nothing exceptional or different with their training. He worked them hard, harder than the other units.

But all of that changed with pistol training.

After three and a half weeks of mastering the obstacle course, hand to hand combat, and battlefield tactics, Anderson entered a flight log, which (naturally) Pauly discovered after chow one evening when 37 was about to bunk down. "There's a flight plan marked for tomorrow," Pauly was sitting on the edge of his bed rummaging through Chenfel's server core. "We're slated for a trip," he glanced up at the ceiling doing some math in his head, "west. Maybe the foothills, not far."

Everyone turned to look at Pauly. Anderson hadn't said anything about a trip, but after weeks of physical training, the idea was tantalizing. "We're going somewhere?" Arles spoke up first.

"Yeah, short trip. Anderson scheduled a shuttle for us." Pauly smiled. Anything was better than another twenty mile march.

"Wonder what he's got planned," Kat pulled her uniform open and closed her eyes. "God I stink."

"As usual," Cooper laughed.

After lunch the next day, 37 was on board a shuttle heading west. The landscape flew by, Bri could see mountains on the horizon, so dark blue they almost matched the sky. Like everyone else, it was nice to get away from Chenfel, from the constant orders, from the strain and exhaustion. Anderson had let them sleep late that morning and Mary didn't wake them until six.

Bri looked around at the crew. Everyone was happy, except Biloxi. He was afraid of heights. Some talked about the view from the windows while others discussed home or the trials and tribulations Anderson had in mind for them.

Chenfel was restricted contact for the first six weeks. So no one had any idea what was happening with the war. And no one wanted to guess. Bri thought of home. For some reason she remembered the flowers her mother grew inside, the way they smelled when they bloomed.

The shuttle slowed and the hatch opened onto a wide field of gray and brown. The earth was strewn with boulders that rose another hundred yards. Anderson was standing beside two crates and a small aerial. He had arrived ahead of them and he smiled as 37 unloaded and fell into two perfect rows of six, double-time and standing at perfect attention.

Anderson was out standing in a different uniform, one that had a small helmet, a chest harness with a number of apparatuses, and full weapons compliment. He touched his wristcall and the two black crates separated into six individual cases. "This is your excursion gear," Anderson pointed.

The unit quickly unpacked the individual cases and began to suit up.

"Today you are going to begin combat training. In a couple weeks, you get your ports." He paused and watched the unit's reaction.

The news zipped through them like lightning. Bri wasn't the only one who was crazy excited about the exo's. Biloxi, who was pretty much scared of everything else, was excited about the biomechanical enhancement. Of course everyone else had their doubts – Biloxi was huge, there was no reason to make him bigger or stronger. The guy was a wrecking ball.

Bri almost laughed out loud. Her stomach flip-flopped about three times and she clenched her fingers into fists just to anchor her arms. She wanted to jump up and down.

"Today however," Anderson grinned, "Unit 22 is on the other side of this rise. They just got their exo's yesterday." He took a breath and Bri was sure she sensed the same anxious excitement she felt in Anderson's tone.

"They don't have power sources," he picked up three energy cells and tossed them into the front row – one to Arles, one to Cooper, then Bri. "They are guarding a crate of pistols over there," Anderson touched his wristcall and everyone's overlay came to life with a simple map, a compass, and some other vitals. "They want these, you want those. The pistols are set to stun. You will get an extra hour of sleep for every one of them you hit."

37 murmured a bit. It was a perfect game. 22 had exo's but they had no power cells.

Bri shivered. All of the drills, all of the marches, the ten million trips through the obstacle course, all of it was coming to bear.

Biloxi and Rin teamed up with Bri. Cooper got Kat and Pauly and Arles seemed to fit well. The unit fell into three pieces naturally. Anderson watched with an appraising eye. He made no secret of what he expected of them. He had pushed them hard, all of them, and he hadn't apologized for it. He expected them to hold themselves to a higher standard; you could just see it in his eyes.

"Over that hill 37. Do your job." Anderson stepped over to his aerial and quietly rose into the air, looking over 37's battlefield. "Good luck," he saluted.

Everyone seemed to take a collective breath and get on the same page. "What kind of cover are we looking at?" Bri looked at the field of boulders they had to scramble across. Were there more on the other side or would they wander into a meadow? A forest? How much cover would there be? She tucked the energy cell into a holster along her belt and glanced over at Arles.

Blonde hair was visible past the edge of Arles' helmet. She was a tall woman with a broad face and striking eyes. When she was angry, you could feel it, but when she laughed you couldn't help but join her either.

Everyone's overlay displayed a countdown clock and beside the slowly ticking numbers, was the word alive in green letters. "Um," Bri glanced at Kat and then at Cooper. "When does that change?"

"We're gonna find out," Arles waved her arm and her team of four began to scramble off to the left. Bri decided on a straight run which left Cooper and his team off to the right. But instead of maintaining a climbing angle like the other two Cooper slide along the field in a straight line. Bri wondered if their overlays displayed the same information, or if they were preloaded with a specific plan, tailored to the groups' individual strengths.

The top of the ridgeline left everyone winded. It had been more vertical than it looked. Bri could see Arles and her team off to the west, but Cooper's was gone. She looked at the edge of the overlay and brought up a map that displayed the area and 37. There were still twelve green dots, and it looked like Cooper was still climbing.

The top of the mountain they had just capped was a razer's edge that fell off just as steeply on the opposite side. It was the last thing anyone wanted to see. But what was worse was that it was an open field. Unit 22 was below them in the trees, and they were going to watch 37 descend.

Bri looked at Biloxi but his face was blank. She wondered if it was just his fear of heights or if he was thinking the same thing she was – they were going to be sitting ducks. "Arles?" She whispered.

"What's it look like?"

"Steep and wide open." Bri looked over the trees below half-expecting to see the yellow and black stripes of unit 22 badges. Or would they be camouflaged?

"Cooper?"

Everyone waited silently for Cooper but he didn't respond. Bri searched across her overlay. The green dots of his unit were spread across a small area, moving in a line. They must have been running silent.

"Balls," Arles groaned and led her team over the top and off at an angle.

Bri wished desperately for a rifle. She had seen the new Jilsen long rifles a few of the older units were outfitted with, an elegant weapon. And it just fit the situation so well, boulders, and a steep height advantage. She stared down at the trees. Were they waiting for them?

She heaved herself up and over the top and heard her team following. "Straight at em," she said quietly cutting at steep almost dangerous angle along the boulders, glancing at her footing at the tree line. They were in there, watching and waiting. Would they shoot? Or was this grav sticks?

Her overlay lit with red dots along Arles side of the fight. Bri glanced at the match, the dots moving and mixing, but then there was someone ahead of her.

He ducked behind a tree, but she had caught the edge of him. She grabbed her grav stick and cut toward the far side of the tree. It was a long shot, but she was hoping he was sure of himself. If he thought she hadn't seen him, then she would pass on his left, but if she could get around the tree.

Woomp. A soldier with a yellow patch on his shoulder flew in front of Bri and landed on his back with a grunt.

Biloxi laughed. "Woo!"

Bri pivoted on her heel and saw the back of her soldier. She had been right. But he was in the process of realizing his mistake, his body starting to twist, his arm coming around in a swing. But she was an inch from his back.

It was fluid, the way she moved around the tree, reached for the guy, and finished the job. The grav stick touched his shoulder and his whole body flew forward, repelled by the force. He looked like he had been thrown, the way a child would toss a rag doll. He flew ten feet in an instant, hit another tree and crumbled. It looked painful, the soldier was unconscious though.

Another member of 22 called for a medic. As soon as he did, Rin touched his leg and sent him flying off. Bri glanced at her overlay. Cooper's group was down two and Arles was down to one.

A stick crunched behind her, but the moment she heard it, even before she realized exactly what it was, Bri dropped to one knee and spun. Their eyes met for a moment, half a blink before Bri's stick touched the woman's leg and she bounced into the underbrush with a muffled cry.

She wondered if Anderson was smiling. Everything he had taught them was working. She felt alive, faster than anyone around her, and she was still standing. "Group up," Bri looked around. Biloxi was squared off with a soldier half his size, but they were face to face. Rin was nowhere to be seen. She took a breath and tried to assess the situation but everything was happening so fast. They had to find the pistols, they were losing numbers quickly. She picked up the grav stick at her feet and started toward Biloxi. "Where are the pistols?"

"That was just the first wave," Arles came across the comm. She sounded winded but her dot was moving across the map. "They have three times the numbers we have."

"Why put the pistols up front?" Cooper answered.

Bri stepped towards Biloxi's opponent with both sticks raised. "Where are they?"

The soldier's eyes went wide. "Back there," he pointed desperately. "I surrender!" He dropped his grav stick and dropped to his knees, hands raised.

Biloxi sighed, sweat dripping off his forehead. "We need to move," he grinned.

Bri couldn't blame they guy, the initial hit looked painful. The med bots would be busy. The overlay showed seven of twelve still up. 37 had taken a hit but it was still kicking. And they still had the power cores, all of them.

The second wave came at them rover-style. A group of 22 moving lazily through the forest. It was a strategy Anderson had taught them on paper. It covered more ground but you could lose greater numbers if the response time was too long or the group was too spread out. It was designed to stop what Cooper's team had attempted.

Bri and Biloxi encountered one soldier who ran as soon as he saw the two them, each with two grav sticks, dirty, and somewhat frustrated. Biloxi wanted to give chase, but Bri called him off. Everything felt like a trap. The woods got thicker the further they went. There was more underbrush. More places to hide. Big trees instantly became a concern. Besides, the guy they had let escape was going to sound an alarm.

Biloxi stared into the lush green. That's why guns are so nice. His voice had the sound of experience and Bri wondered exactly what his story was. But she was glad for the draw. The two worked well together, either forcing members of 22 to retreat or catching them by surprise.

What Bri couldn't believe was how powerful it felt. Where she had been afraid and angry that she was being forced into service, now everything was different. This exercise changed everything. There was something to it, something she didn't fully understand, it was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

She liked to fight, like to put her strength and agility against an opponent. She had wondered why Anderson had focused on drills and strength when the other units were already sparring two or three times a week. But now she understood. The moves were natural. She could see the strengths and weaknesses of her opponent by the way he moved and, there was no question, 37 was faster.

22's combat readiness wasn't exactly lax though. While the two of them moved parallel to Arles' team and on an intercept with Cooper's, Bri faced one woman who matched every attack. Bri would swing and the woman would either feint or parry before quickly recovering and issuing her own attack. It seemed like it went on for five minutes (but was probably only two). They were a mirror image, back and forth, attack and defend.

But in the end it was Bri and Cooper and Kat. Arles had gotten through most of the second wave but they had whittled her team to one and then surrounded her. She didn't surrender, she took the hit and her green dot went dark.

Cooper said their team had cut down at least a dozen before he had gotten separated and lost them one by one.

The three of them cut through the remainder of the second wave pretty quickly. And once they had gotten through, 22 panicked and went offensive. Kat had thought they might and convinced the group to spread out and stay hidden. It was risky, none of them could reach the others if they got into trouble, but they had no idea how many 22 had left.

And so they split up and waited. It was guerrilla warfare, counting on ambush scenarios, but Anderson had taught them well. When 22 moved through the woods what was left of 37 hit them and moved. Two soldiers passed the tree Kat was hiding behind. She stepped out, touched both with her grav stick and dashed into a tangle of bushes.

They did their best to stay close, watching the overlay and slowly shaving 22's numbers. It was a strategy that worked and in the space of an hour, they discovered the cache of pistols, a lonely crate tucked into the crook of a tree guarded by three soldiers.

"In position," Cooper whispered over the comm. He had crept into a flanking position on the tree but he was almost a hundred yards out. Bri and Kat were closer, but they were facing an open area. Crossing without cover would give the guards time to call for help.

Bri surveyed the area. Her heart banged against her chest. They were so close. And then Cooper did it. There was sound behind the guards, something moving through the brush. It distracted both guards long enough for Bri and Kat to make their move. Without a word, both leapt to their feet and ran at the guards, grav sticks ready.

When the game ended, Anderson landed his aerial and a swarm of med bots descended on the forest. It took a few moments but the eliminated from both units came limping to the cache. Anderson smiled as he handed every member of 37 a pistol. "You earned it," he said giving Bri hers. "That was nice work."

They were back in the dorm, exhausted and unwinding. A few were playing on their wristcalls, reading classroom material or studying ahead, Biloxi and Tilson had already hit their bunks and passed out. But Bri and Arles were both working on their chest pieces, the only part of their uniform they were permitted to personalize.

Bri was using a long grease pencil to doodle her name across the left corner, a big scrawled Bri in wild letters.

"Trade me," Arles handed Bri a red pencil.

"Perfect," Bri smiled and set a little red heart over the i in her name before she held it up to the light to get a better look.

"Very nice," Kat turned her armor around for Bri to see. It was cute, Kat with a K and a little whiskers on either side.

Bri chuckled. It was silly, like being a kid on the playground after school, but it felt good, a little break, something easy.

Of course, word got around Chenfel quickly and before Mary turned the lights off, Anderson came over their comms. "Get some sleep tonight." He was chuckling, obviously very happy (wherever he was). "You've got a bracket full of fights over the next few weeks."

Every unit on the base wanted a crack at 37. Unit 22 had come back with their tails between their legs, but that didn't serve to convince anyone that 37 was tough. Just about every lieutenant on base got a hold of Anderson and scheduled scrimmages. The last team was actually a mix of twelve soldiers from some of the more advanced units, the best and brightest of the classes about to graduate.

But 37 always came out on top. The last day there were seven of them standing, all with pistols and power cells. Bri was not one of them, but it was her first time not making it to the end.

It had been a lucky shot. She had been running, moving from the cover of some trees to a small rise covered in rocks. She hadn't known he was out there, lying in his own cover, waiting for her to make a move. But she found out.

The shot hit her in the side. The force was incredible, like getting hit by a cruiser. Even on stun, an Assemblage pistol was designed to stop an Earther marine. It packed an enormous punch.

When the med bots were finished repairing her ribs and tissue, she rolled onto her back and found the soldier that had put her down, a sweeper from unit 54 named Hinks. He was all smiles when he realized she was awake.

"I think we're even now," he offered Bri a hand to stand up.

Bri took his hand and got to her feet. "Even?"

"According to the replays, you're the one that took me out yesterday." Hinks looked her over for a moment. "Shit, you guys don't even have your exo ports yet."

"Not yet," Bri brushed the dust off her gear and stretched a bit. Her side was still a little tight.

That night, she woke up to screams. First one, a female's, and then another, a man's. Maybe Cooper? Her brain scrambled for answers. Were they under attack? She opened her eyes and sat up just as Mary turned on the lights. "Please don't be..."

Bri lifted her arm to pull the covers back and saw the dark round circle on the back of her wrist. She froze. It was circular, half the size of her pinky finger, and dark. There was a thin layer of something over the hole. She touched it and could feel how deep it went. Then she looked around at her arm and realized there were more, one halfway up her forearm, one at her elbow, and another along the back of her arm.

"Please, don't be alarmed," Mary's message started again. "These are the data ports for your exoskeletal enhancement and augmentation gear."

The fear evaporated. This was the first step toward the exo's. Bri took a deep breath and looked around as the rest of the unit stared in wonder. "How the...?" Kat kept opening and closing her hand, fascinated.

"You actually swallowed the data ports with last nights, chow." Anderson walked into the room and the unit stood at attention. "At ease, at ease," he waved them back to comfortable. "It'll take a while for them to heal completely." He smiled at Bri knowing that she was probably the most excited of 37.

"When do we get the exo's?" Arles asked.

"A few weeks," he looked around at the state of the room. "I just wanted to come by and tell you that you have the day to yourselves." He chuckled. "You guys won every bet."

## Chapter 3

The hot topic at breakfast the next day was the new batch of draftees that were just unloading off the shuttles. They were the first shuttles to arrive since 37 and there was some excitement to not be the newest on base.

"Yeah, 'bout time we is done being newbies," Biloxi, grinned when he saw the recruits standing in line for roll call.

"Fresh meat." Pauly laughed. "Oh, looks like they got a few from out my way." He was standing in line behind Kat obviously hacking the shuttle manifests.

Bri thought about the stories Pauly told, about what it was like to live out past the M-Belts.

Pauly was from a planet in Revelation's sector but grew up on M7E3 (Messy 3) - a planet the New Terran council had elected not to colonize because of the abundance of previously uncatalogued animal life. To hear Pauly tell the tale, the entire planet was a daily battle of fantastic creatures, from ultra-predators with teeth three feet long, to flowers that ate entire birds.

How did he get to such a weird place? His mother died in childbirth which left poor Pauly with his father, a zoologist who decided that wandering half the galaxy was as good a place as any to raise a kid. Of course, being alone out past the belt with a handful of scientist meant that Pauly wasn't exactly well-socialized.

He wasn't good with jokes or long conversations, he wasn't good with people, but he was really good with tech and could jack into just about any system - secured or unsecured. He also had amazing stories and feeds of weird and incredible creatures. Everybody loved him.

"Yeah, look at those kids." Kat laughed as they waited in line. "They have no idea what they're in for," She shook her head and looked down at her boots.

But while everyone else was joking and laughing about the new arrivals, Bri couldn't help but remember their first days on base. It hadn't been easy stepping off the shuttle and that whatever you had planned for the rest of your life was on hold until after the war – no mentorships, no field study, and no holidays. The war had changed New Terran life, everything.

She glanced over 37 and remembered each of them six weeks before and how different they had been. How Biloxi had been so terrified of everything. How he had never seen anything like the display consoles or wristcalls. How he was afraid of heights and was such a nervous wreck that he turned pale green every time Andrews said his name.

She thought of the way Pauly had hacked into the personnel files the first day. How over the weeks he had slipped into the control systems and altered some of Mary's commands.

And then there was Kat. She really hadn't changed much. Bri grinned when she remembered the swing Kat had taken at Anderson. Had she hit him, she would have broken his jaw and probably ended up in stasis, but the Major was faster than any of them had thought possible.

The truth was everyone had changed since they had arrived. It was impossible to go through what they had been through and not change. Some smiled more, others less. Some missed home while guys like Cooper couldn't believe the opportunity military service provided.

"How many do you think will make it?" Bri looked back over the line of people standing outside of the shuttles half-awake and wearing civilian clothes.

"Currently," Pauly spoke up, "the average matriculation rate is eighty-seven percent which leaves thirteen percent excused from duty shortly after arrival." They had made it to the breakfast buffet. Pauly looked at the soldier on the other side of the table.

"Boy loves that lens," Kat chuckled and grabbed her own apple.

"What?" Pauly looked confused. "I didn't hack into anything. It was a search, a simple search! I mean, hey, they put a digital relay in our optics with a processor, I get to play with the code a bit, right?"

Bri activated her own lens. She selected the local feeds and while they moved through the lunch line like a line of cattle, she ran her eyes across the few headlines that were allowed.

Details were scant but Earther forces were pushing further and further into New Terran space. Assemblage councils were pulling together everything they had, the draft now included all Assemblage planets, asteroids, and any other rock people chose to live and work on.

Reports were that Earther ships had begun pushing toward the capital planets. A small planet only 27 light years from Revelation had repelled an Earther attack, but the planet was evacuating because of the damage.

Bri exited the interface and the overlay disappeared. She thought of Ley-Fen, her little brother and sister, her mother, and their little house. Everything in their world was still peaceful, exactly how she had left it. But how long before the war touches them?

***

After breakfast the unit was assigned weapons training, their first day without a scrimmage in over two weeks. They were each experts with a pistol, real-world combat simulations make you good with whatever they give you, but the pistols and grav sticks were their only weapons. Now it was time to test their duty in the unit.

Every talked about how weapons training had organized them. Every unit member was given a day on a number of different weapons. A full day on range to work with the weapon, get the feel of it, and then submit to a test. Some were obvious, guys the size of Cooper and Biloxi usually ended-up with the heavies – either a Broadrail or a Sweeper. It took people their size to handle that kind of stuff with any speed.

No, the stories that were always interesting and sometimes surprising, were the rest of the unit's weapons. The medium range rifles – projectile or force. The long range cover weapons, slender, deadly accurate weapons that could put a hole in something miles away. Or there was the BB, the door buster, close combat, designed to knock an Earther marine off his feet with one shot.

On the field, Bri started with a medium range force weapon, shorter than her arm, probably three pounds with the energy cell loaded halfway down the weapon. The balance was good and Bri liked the idea of medium range. In the scrimmages she liked the perfect blend of time and tactics available at medium range. You had time to think, but not too much before you had to move.

She dropped to one knee on the hundred yard and burned through half an energy cell. The weapon had a little kick but was silent. The only sound was the trigger mechanism. A click, the weapon jolted a bit, and the target, a square box of metal, looked like it had been hit by a dozen hammers, a long row of fist-sized impacts that left the metal crumpled.

Bri thought of what the weapon would do to a marine. What it must feel like to get hit with it, the force blasting into you, crushing you against the suit as your thrown back. Horrifying.

Kat was in the lane next to her, working with a BB, the short, rounded barrel launched a handful of heavy gauge projectiles via a rail system. She walked down the firing lane unloading on target bots that stepped out from behind cover. The weapon shredded them. Every shot Kat fired sent a piece of the target bot flying into the air.

"Like it?" Bri called over while Kat was reloading.

Kat looked back through the force field that separated their firing lanes, a light blue haze of energy barely visible really. "It hits hard, but you have to be close and paying attention."

"This one's nice for accuracy." Bri brought the weapon to her shoulder and her overlay came to life, giving her a magnified view from the end of the weapon. She placed the crosshair on the farthest target and pulled the trigger.

"Nice shot," Kat said as the target down range crumpled and fell over, torn from the baseplate that held it.

The following day Bri stepped up to the table that held the long range choices. They didn't look like she expected. Instead of the typical load and delivery design, these looked more like small, gray cases. The one on the left read, Api Projectile, and the right label was Jen VForce. The cases were so similar she almost didn't know which to pick, but she remembered the feel of the force weapon, the way reacted and so she chose the Jen.

She picked it up and moved the case around looking for a latch or a handle. It was frustrating, the thing simply had no distinguishing gun-like features, it could have held books or supplies, it was a case. But she found a small handle along one side and when it fit into her palm, the case came to life.

Without a sound the metal seemed to slide and grow, shifting from the rigid shape of the case to the long, slender weapon that fit her grip like it had been made for it.

Bri's heart jumped. She brought the thing to her shoulder and starred down the thin, gray barrel. It was so light, almost too light. Her overlay disappeared as she stared through the optics. Suddenly she could see the 1600 yard marker.

"I had a feeling you were going to like that one," Arles walked up beside her. "It was too light and slow for me, but something told me you'd like it."

Bri smiled. "I think you may be right," Bri chuckled, "there's something about it."

On the range, she couldn't believe how accurate she was. She brought the weapon up, set the crosshair in the center of the target, adjusted as the optics indicated, held her breath, and fired. The weapon jumped a bit, and each energy cell only held twenty or thirty rounds, but the destruction each delivered was like hitting the target with an invisible spike, a spike capable of piercing six inches of tridium steel armor.

She fired the last round in her cell and people started clapping. Turning, she found a small group of soldiers had gathered behind her range and all were smiling and clapping. She had the only perfect score on the line.

After not missing a single shot on the static range, she moved over to the field exercises. Most usually went from the range to target bots, but Bri wanted to see what the position felt like. She wished they were in a scrimmage and she could use the rifle, but the field was close enough.

A light at the gate flashed green and Bri dashed to large boulder. The training field was a few hundred yards wide by a thousand yards and littered with cover and enemy droids programmed to converge on your position. The object was to stay alive with whatever weapon you brought. Of course, this put Bri at a disadvantage being alone and stuck with a sniper's weapon, but that was why she had chosen it.

She stepped to the edge of the boulder and brought her sight up. One droid, a clumsy, large unit carrying a heavy auto was running between a shed and a small cluster of trees and rocks. Bri set the sight on his chest, led him a bit, and fired.

The droids head disappeared in a violent spray of angry orange sparks.

Every other droid in the exercise began looking around. Her overlay shifted so she could see any energy beams they fired. Orange streaks peppered the boulders around her, but they were wild cover fire, a rain of inaccurate terror.

She dropped to one knee and sighted along a tree until the droid pivoted into view. Click and his head rolled off into the weeds. A smile crept across her face but then a projectile ricocheted off the boulder beside her.

Fear cut through her. There were too many. She lowered the weapon and looked over the field. There were eight along the back, and four moving toward her through the grass. She fired on two, dropping both, but gave her position away.

Suddenly, she was under fire. Projectiles dug into the earth as the droids unloaded with their Api's.

Bri got on the ground and belly crawled backwards using the boulder as a wall. She wished she had a pistol, or a BB, something she could use when they got close.

"Run!" She heard Pauly's voice behind her. "Stick and move!" He was right. She grabbed her rifle in the middle and got to her feet. Two orange bolts cut through the air in front of her, visible on her overlay.

She ran for the stack of supply crates. Her heart was in her throat.

When she got there, she looked over and saw Pauly and Little at the gate cheering her on. Pauly pointed and she lifted her rifle and sent a droid flying off.

It took her a few minutes, but she began to understand the rifles strength. At long range she was unstoppable but at medium and close, she could still hold her own if she switched off the Jen's optics and used her overlay instead.

But she didn't finish the field exercise. There were two droids left and Bri had slipped into a small building that had only one way in or out. Of course she didn't know that until it was too late and, as she stepped up to the doorway to get a shot on one droid, the other had been waiting.

The first shot felt like a bee sting, like someone had pulled a stick out of a campfire and poked her in the belly with it. Then the second one hit. Another burning sensation, another poke under her fourth rib, but this one felt like it was cutting through something, something tough and thick.

Before she could look down to investigate, the pain hit her. All at once, her brain cramped. The wave of pain was too much to even feel, everything just hurt everywhere and all at once. She dropped the rifle and fell to her knees. Her overlay immediately flashed a schematic of her body and showed the two projectiles inside of her.

Bri closed her eyes and laid back. She screamed out in pain and then the med bots were hovering around her, their tiny lights and scanners working across her midsection as a little cloud of nanos washed across her uniform. The pain slowly disappeared.

"You did really well." Bri looked up and saw Pauly and Little's face. Both were smiling.

"No one's ever scored that high on their first day." Little's big blue eyes glittered above Bri.

Pauly helped her to her feet once the med bots had zipped back to wherever it was they came from. She felt weak, like every muscle in her midsection was cramping all at once, but she moved through the initial pain and walked back to the line.

"I think we have our sniper," Andrews was waiting with a few other smiling 37's.

Bri put the rifle down on the table and sat down. Andrews was right, of all the weapons she had tried, the Jenny was her favorite. There was something about the way it felt, the swing of the world magnified through the optics. The gentle kick when she sent the bolt. It hit hard and with accuracy no other weapon could achieve. And if she was going to kill soldiers on a battlefield, she wanted it to be painless. As painless as possible.

## Chapter 4

In a few days, the pain was completely gone. Everyone in the unit had chosen (or been assigned) a weapon. Bri had already spent over twenty hours with both the Jen and the Api. She rated excellent with the pistol and the both versions of the medium range rifles. But it was like she couldn't miss with the Jenny and Anderson had mentioned that all of the weapons would be enhanced once they had their exo's.

With breakfast finished, everyone was suiting up for another day on the ranges, but Andrews' voice came across the comm instead. "Unit 37 to shuttle Romeo 2 Delta 2. Full excursion gear." His voice sounded in each of their ears. A shiver of fear ran through the room. Every time something changed in their routine, things got hard, harder than they had been. Naturally, everyone looked over at Pauly to see if he had found anything.

Pauly looked at Cooper and then at Arles and over the rest of the unit. "I'm working on it." He chuckled.

Bri looked around at the rest of the team. "Remember the first time he put us on a shuttle?"

"Go get 'em!" Kat gave the unit her best Anderson impression while she dug gear out of her footlocker, "Seems like a million years ago."

"Got it," Pauly's eyes moved back and forth across the overlay. "That shuttle filed an excursion plan an hour ago." You could see he was reading the information as fast it displayed across his overlay. "Two other shuttles filed the same flight log. We're leaving after them."

"Looks like a field trip, kids!" Biloxi locked his pack in place and holstered his pistol. Over the past weeks, he had surprised everyone. He may have been from some backwater planet in the god only knows system, but he had been the last man standing more than once over the past weeks. He had scored well on the Broadrail class of weapons, capable of carrying the massive thing and the tripod required to fire it. Everyone had thought it was going to be Cooper (he was an inch taller than Biloxi and Arles) but they gave him a sweeper and more two drones, which Pauly loved to play with.

But Bri didn't care. While the unit gathered all of the things that kept them alive for days in the wild, she ignored the banter. All Bri wanted was her exo. It seemed like it had been a months since the connection ports had been installed. And it was torture watching and working with soldiers that already had theirs.

But you were bound to secrecy, forbidden to discuss the installation of the exo. It wasn't some military or state secret, it was tradition. So all of the questions Bri had peppered across the base for the past weeks had gone unanswered. No one would discuss it. Of course, this did nothing but fan the flame of her fixation.

She had talked about it, dreamed about it, even asked if she could touch one, but there was no doing. Everyone just grinned, a wry, meaningful grin. Some raised their eyebrows.

A captain, not Andrews but one Bri had seen around the base before, showed up in the doorway. "Unit 37?"

"You found us," Biloxi slipped a red headband on before grabbing his helmet and tucking it under his arm.

"Your exo's are on board the shuttle," he glanced to his left. "I'm here to link you to them." A young, female soldier appeared along with a small, hovering med bot.

Everyone looked around. It was finally happening and a shiver of excitement ran through the room. Bri glanced at Kat who gave her a wink and a big, toothy grin. (Everyone knew Kat was almost as excited as Bri.). Pauly glanced around the room. "Finally! I thought I saw a shipping manifest arrive on the mainframe last night." He waggled his eyebrows and laughed like an old-time comic from the black and white feeds, the really old stuff.

"Boy, you better stop!" Biloxi laughed out loud. "One of these days, these people are gonna find you snooping around," Biloxi rolled his eyes like he was already as frustrated as a cat recently arrived to a bathtub under less than perfect pretenses. "I'm telling you, they gonna have questions for you."

The captain gave Pauly a cursory glance as the unit made their way toward the door, but nothing more. And Bri wondered if their mystique was beginning to make its way around the base. There was nothing 37 couldn't do, they were like gears. The tech, the overlays and synced comms, the addition of the wristcall and constant visual and auditory feedback, it made them better. And they didn't even have their exo's yet.

"Me first," Bri was already in her gear and at the front of the room.

The captain looked at the name on Bri's chest, a chalk-looking scrawl that read Bri with a little red heart over the i. It was strange when she thought about it, it was the only part of their uniforms, their gear that anyone personalized, and it said a little bit about them.

Bri stared at the heart, the playful little twist of color against the strange almost fabric like chest armor. And then she looked at Kat's with yellow whiskers and little yellow eyes peeking out from around her. "I need your wristcall, Lladron."

Bri stuck out her left arm and the captain pointed the device at the screen. "Lladron, exo 24f72h."

As soon as the unit walked into the main hanger, they were greeted by a med pod and a tall man in a doctor's coat with the assemblage badge on his lapel. He was middle-aged, with short hair, a thick mustache and a biomech eye that glowed light green. He glanced up from his wristcall every few seconds as the unit came in but didn't say anything.

Bri took a seat near the front along with Kat and Alers and tried imagine what was behind the doors to the med pod. Nervous excitement had her shaking her leg and looking around the hanger while she tried to imagine what the augmentation would feel like.

The doctor waited until the last of the unit entered before he spoke up. "Unit 37, as you have probably heard, you are to be outfitted with your exoskeletal augmentation today."

A younger orderly stepped out of the pod and handed the doctor a data tablet.

The doctor glanced over it, touched the screen a number of times and then handed the device back to his assistant who disappeared back inside without a word.

Kat leaned forward slightly and winked at Bri which, she guessed, probably meant that Kat thought the orderly was cute.

"You will step inside the pod when your name is called, the operation will take approximately six to ten minutes, and then you will board the shuttle behind me."

Everyone glanced around. They were isolating the people with exo's from those without, but there was little they could do but guess the reason why.

"What do you think it feels like?" Thelia, the only woman in the unit to have passed the heavy weapons training on her first try like Biloxi had, looked like a kid waiting for her first needle. She was pale and her voice kind of cracked when she asked the question. It was so obvious that Kat laughed out loud.

"Come on, girl. They gonna fill all those little holes all over your body. What'choo think it's gonna feel like?"

Bri rolled her eyes. Leave it to Kat to make an uncomfortable situation even more so.

"Most describe the feeling as pleasurable." Pauly was reading the information off his lens, oddly staring at the front of the room because of his focus. "A few have reported side effects such as muscle pain and fatigue, but over eighty percent report no lasting side effects."

"Ms. Alers?" The young orderly appeared in the doorway to the little med bay.

Thelia took a huge breath like she was about to jump into the training pool. "Wish me luck," she sighed. "I'm so tired of going first."

"Go get it, Alers." Biloxi waved his arm like he was rooting her onto victory in some game.

Bri glanced over at Kat who was blatantly ogling the young orderly with a wistful smile.

The orderly held the door open for Alers but before she went in herself, she glanced over her shoulder at Kat. "Don't worry, your turns coming."

Everyone laughed at Kat and, though her skin was as dark as the dirt on Terra 6, she blushed and stared down at her boots.

When Bri's turn came, three others had already been fitted. None of them had been allowed to return to the front of the hanger, but each had looked back at the rest of the unit as they were escorted from the med pod to the shuttle.

Arles had been the best. Even with the orderly on one side and a security officer on the other, she had managed to look over her shoulder, back at toward the unit, and yell: "Hurts like hell!"

Bri stepped through the door without a word to the rest of the unit. She couldn't figure out why she was so nervous. When they had implanted the lens and the processor chip in her head, a simple procedure that took twenty minutes but involved a medical android and a robot arm that looked like something out of a tech nightmare, she didn't even blink, but this was different. She was a mix of fear and excitement.

On the other side of the door, the medical pod was barely the size of bunkhouse. Against one wall, there was a tall metal case marked with the seal of the assemblage and a slew of visual identification tags and on the opposite wall, there was a platform and a strange metal frame that looked like a table on its end without a table top.

The rest was what you would expect in a medical pod, a console, some wall cabinetry that held the tools of the medical trade, and a single medical android that stood in the corner, it's blue, visual sensor glowing on and off.

"You'll need to take your uniform off," the doctor's assistant touched a tablet and turned toward away from Bri toward the exo crates, obviously trying to make the soldier feel more comfortable. "24f72h," she muttered the words while she stared down at the tablet.

The doctor entered through an interior door, and walked toward a wall console while Bri worked the straps around her wrist and neckline. She removed the top half of her excursion uniform, a poly-dense nano fabric capable of short term camouflage, some force resistance, and hydra-cycling.

Bri wasn't uncomfortable with her body. She had always been comfortable with the curves and tone of her body. She thought of it as an instrument, a thing to be used.

As a child, both her and her brother ran track in addition to the daily, prescribed routines. There wasn't a time in her life when she wasn't fit; she simply liked to move too much.

While the doctor was busy looking over something she couldn't read, Bri did her best to see inside the heavy crate the droid was sorting through. To her, they all looked the same so; she turned toward the strange frame that stood on the other side of the room.

It was constructed of thin, black metal but built like it was made to withstand some pressure, and the curves were beautiful. It was like you had laid a person on the ground and then traced around not only their shape, but their magnetic field as well. The table didn't look built; it looked like it had grown into the shape she ran her eyes across. What is it? How does it work? She tried to imagine what was about to happen. At least, I didn't hear screams when everyone else was in here.

The doctor turned around and gave her a once over. "Could you please turn around?" His voice emphasized how disinterested he was in the naked, female form in front of him. "We need to make sure everything is in order."

The orderly stepped up and held the tablet out in front of her. "Please mark here for the receipt of your government issued property."

Bri shot her a quick glance to acknowledge the satire of the orderly's tone and then touched her finger to the tablet.

"Thank you," the young woman walked over to the console and Bri thought of Kat outside. She has two reasons to be excited.

"Everything looks good. We have the correct number of contacts and connections and they have all healed rather well." The doctor's voice was appraising and she felt the warmth of a finger in the middle of her back. "This one looks..." his finger prodded and poked the integration, "I think it'll be fine."

Bri took a deep breath. It's happening. My very own exo.

It was the one advantage the Assemblage had been counting on. The Earther soldiers, especially the marines, had arrived in New Terran space wearing armor like nothing the newts had ever seen. Each soldier loaded into a full body suit that was three, maybe four times as big as their physical body. They were huge, rounded soldiers with helmets like a dome, a wide, long dome that looked like it stretched from shoulder to shoulder.

They were strong. The exoskeleton-style armor, which was really little more than a heavy-duty robot piloted by a jar-headed marine, made them strong, but it also made them slow.

That's where the newts had the advantage. Their exo's had only enough armor to protect them for moments, but moments were all they needed. With the internal interphase and augmentation of a newt exo, they were fast, agile, and deadly.

The orderly showed Bri onto the platform and they came to that awkward moment where neither one of them was saying anything but they were both trying desperately to communicate. The orderly doing her best to indicate where and how the naked soldier who now stood a good foot and a half higher than her because of the platform. And the soldier because she just couldn't stop staring at the table for half a second.

But once Bri had sort of wandered into the frame and tried to figure out how to stand, the orderly touched her arm. "No, miss, um...turn around, please."

Embarrassment tinted Bri's cheeks. "Yeah, I mean, um. Of course. Sorry." Nice one. Could that have gone worse? Two brace like belts slipped out from behind the frame and tightened snug across her.

Bri glanced at the orderly who was staring at her tablet with eyes as big as saucers, but before Bri could utter a word to ask her what was wrong, the entire frame spun around and there was the whoosh of pneumatics somewhere in the room. Then Bri was facing the floor, her body suspended against the two braces with the intricate frame behind her.

The motion caught her off guard and she almost screamed, but then she still wanted to know what the orderly had seen, what had made her face go all wide-eyed and pale.

"Sorry," the orderly leaned down, "I am really sorry; I accidentally touched the control on my tablet."

Bri let out a sigh. "I thought the world was about to end." She tried to chuckle but then remembered that she was still upside, facing the floor, and about to be outfitted with the latest in Assemblage technology sold to the lowest bidder. "Really, it's no problem."

"Are we ready Madeli?" The doctor sounded slightly perturbed by the chit chat.

"Yes," the orderly disappeared from Bri's view.

"Statics?" The doctor asked.

"Patient is suspended."

"Are you ready Ms. Lladron?" The doctor's voice was no more interested than it had been when she walked in, but Bri decided to answer.

"Ready."

The third-gen android with the glowing eye removed the exo from the case and the sound was like a wind chime, a cheap wind chime made out of bits of metal – all tink and clink and clank. But Bri didn't care. Everything nerve in her whole body tingled and she realized she was holding her breath.

How many times had she imagined what it must feel like? What had she said when the first soldier she had ever seen with an exo stopped and asked her if she was alright? She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what was only moments away.

"Alright, Madeli if you could take this side," there was he sound of footsteps, shifting bodies, breathing. "And we can move it like..."

Ice. Freezing ice. All over her body, at every connection. It felt like someone was pouring ice water into the holes. Every muscle went stiff and there was a sharp pain that moved from her neck across her head and down to the tip of her nose, but only for a moment. She winced while her body tried to resist the invasion, the millions of microscopic threads that moved into her muscles and then around her bones.

"Take a breath, Miss Lladron." She felt the warmth of the doctor's hand on her back.

She wished she could see what was happening but then the feeling of ice faded and every muscle contracted at once. Her body was suddenly cramped, twisted beyond and outside of her control.

She wanted to panic but she couldn't breathe. Everything ached. Everywhere at once. But that too only lasted for a moment. She thought of taking a breath. Maybe if I try to relax for one second, just let go.

Something moved across her skin, it felt like a feather or a spider skittering across the blonde hairs on her arm. A scream rose in her throat but before she let it go, it was over. Everything stopped and she felt normal.

She opened her eyes and concentrated on breathing. It was over. She didn't feel anything except a bit of pressure at the connection points. The pain and strange sensations were gone. All she could feel was the exo itself snug against her, the harnesses threads of cable taut against her body.

The frame spun again and she was back to standing. The doctor and orderly stood in front of her. "How does it feel?" The doctor glanced at his wristcall as uninterested as before.

Bri took half a step and liked the way exo felt, the new sensation, the ease of motion it already lent. She opened and closed her hands and looked down at the exo, the way it wrapped around to her forearm and met the port on the back of her wrist.

"That's the port that helps with the fingers," the orderly smiled and handed her a small rubber ball.

As soon as Bri's fingers touched the blue material, a holograph appeared in the space between the orderly and Bri. To Bri, it was backwards, but there was the diagram of a hand and she imagined it was hers.

"Please squeeze the ball as hard as you can." The orderly was staring at the data on the projection from her tablet but Bri still couldn't look away.

The ball felt different. The sphere itself, she could feel it differently, like the nerves in her fingertips were sharper and even without looking she could see the kind of material it was, imagine how it was woven.

"You can put your clothes on now, Ms. Lladron." The doctor turned back toward the door he had come through.

"Please enjoy the rest of your day. I understand Andrews has a surprise for your unit today."

For some reason, Bri thought about the number of shuttles she had noticed departing the base. Was it three?

"Please do not tell anyone who had not had the procedure; your instructions are to report to the shuttle." He walked through the door and Bri looked at the orderly a little confused.

"It only scares them," she handed Bri her uniform.

The orderly escorted Bri to the shuttle along with a security officer who had been assigned the station for the day. Andrews and the other three from her unit were already aboard.

Andrews was talking with one of the crew. She glanced at Biloxi for some idea of what he knew, but he only shrugged. Something told her he was about to repeat the pistol training, about to take them out into the middle of nowhere and put their new hardware through its paces.

"You're right," Biloxi looked at her and grinned, like he knew what she was thinking. "Its boonie time."

"You guys hear anything?" Bri took a seat next to Arles.

"No, Andrews just got here, but he didn't say anything to us," Biloxi looked over the unit. "We gonna be here a minute, though."

"Remember what I said about pistols?" Bri glanced around again looking for a clue but there was nothing. There was no extra gear or any other indication that they might be headed somewhere specific. She opened a menu set on her lens and looked for something about the day's activities, but she couldn't find anything. Where's Pauly when you need him.

"Look out!" Andrews did not shout the words as he leaned to his left like a tree bending in the wind and Pauly flew into the far side of the shuttle, crashing into two seats and meeting the wall with a sickening thud.

"Did you just put a dent in the shuttle?" Biloxi blurted out.

Andrews through the soldier a look, and then walked toward Pauly who was still trying to untangle his body from the two seats and get vertical. His face was a mask of horrified embarrassment.

Andrews held out a hand and helped haul the tall man to standing. "Tools not toys." He grinned.

And the mood instantly shifted. Where everyone had been on the edge of nervous breakdown, so excited and terrified at the same time that they felt like they might suddenly burst into a brilliant array of starlight at any moment, the room seemed to take a collective sigh.

"Sorry, um, I couldn't..."

"Stop, yes, I saw that. It's a handy thing sometimes though, don't forget it." Andrews turned back to the shuttle's captain.

"Look up how not to embarrass the entire unit," Biloxi slapped Pauly's shoulder when he sat down.

Once everyone was onboard, Andrews swung a small case around to the front of the room. "Alright, listen up!" Each of you will be given 3 energy cells." He held up a small black cylinder with a blue dot in the center. "That's one to power you on and two more to get you home."

"Home?" Biloxi blurted out the question and Kat slapped him across the back of the head.

"Yes," Andrews grinned at Kat, "Thank you. You're going on a field trip, this time it's the desert."

Everyone glanced around for a moment, like they were hoping their someone else might speak up and explain what they were all thinking. But we don't even know how to use these things yet.

"But, sir..." a kid named Boomer finally gave in and started to speak, but stopped when Andrews took the energy cell in his hand and slid it into the little chamber on his side. As soon as it touched the receiver, a handful of filaments stretched from the belt and locked the energy cell in place.

"Easy right?" Andrews threw a cell to Boomer.

As soon as Bri's exo powered on, her lens came to life. The overlay became a view of the exo itself and was color-coded as the check moved across the hardware's systems. When it finished, the overlay disappeared.

She opened and closed her hand. It didn't look different, but it did feel different, like she was stronger and faster. In fact, her whole body felt that way.

"Unbelievable," Pauly whispered behind her.

"What is it?" Bri asked.

"These things are amazing. The specifications listed in..."

"We're here," Andrews opened the shuttle's hatch and the desert air rushed in.

Bri couldn't believe she hadn't noticed the flight and, from the look on everyone else's face, no one else had noticed they were in transit either.

"You have until eighteen hundred hours to get back to base." Andrews stood beside the hatch and waved his arms at the sunbaked landscape. "Your new gear is capable of a great many things. Learn it. Use it. Your objective is the mess hall by eighteen hundred hours. Now bounce!"

Within a minute or two, the entire team was standing alone in the middle of the desert watching the shuttle disappear over the horizon. Bri pulled her pistol from its holster on her thigh. The moment her hand touched the pistol's grip, the overlay of her left lens activated.

A string of data blinked across the view and disappeared, replaced by a menu set she had never seen before. "Um...guys?"

"Oh shit!" Biloxi was holding his pistol as well. "Look at that!"

"The exo's are tuned to our weapons." Pauly, as always, shared everything he discovered as he searched through the exo's specification files.

"Alright, we should get moving. I'm gonna go ahead and guess we aren't anywhere near the base." Arles who was usually tasked with unit leadership by Andrews stared down at his wristcall.

"Run!" Biloxi holstered his pistol and started running south. It took a moment, a few steps, but his exo kicked-in and his speed instantly increased.

Bri and everyone else stared at the man in awe. Biloxi's legs were a blur. A thin dust cloud began to billow out behind him.

So excited by what she was witnessing, Bri started after him. Her left foot hit the ground like normal, but she lifted the right to take the next step, the suit responded. She felt lighter as the enhancement amplified her movement. Her steps became longer and faster. She could feel the tension in her muscles, it wasn't painful but it was definitely going to take some getting used too. Once she was moving faster than she could normally run, the suit started adjusted balance and control. It was like piloting or being piloted, she couldn't really tell which.

As she ran parallel to Biloxi, his dust trail spinning off to her left, she heard Pauly's voice come across her com. "Um...guys. The base is this way."

Bri started to slow her pace and cut a wide arc to turn back toward where they had started. She glanced down at her feet and watched her boots hit the ground, dust exploding off the soles of her feet as she ran. It was effortless, almost like she was being carried along by the exo. Once she turned she almost couldn't believe how far they had gone. Pauly and a few others were so far ahead they looked like part of the horizon, trees or boulders blending into the landscape. She had already gone over a mile in the space of a couple minutes.

Biloxi, on the other hand, decided to stop and change direction when he heard Pauly's news instead of doing what Bri did which was make a long turn to face the opposite direction. Of course, no one had taught them anything about the suits and when he tried to suddenly stop, he instead threw off his own balance.

Bri turned and watched Biloxi battle his suit. Every step looked wobbly and unnatural as he tried to do one thing and the suit tried to do another, smarter and safer thing.

"Shit. No, no, no. Up." Biloxi lost control and tumbled before his suit straightened him out again. "This way. No, no, no. Come on." His struggle came over the com and then came loud grunts and curses as his body flipped, slammed into the ground, tumbled again, rolled, and finally slid to a stop. He hopped up and immediately started dusting himself off, unhurt, but embarrassed.

"Forty miles per hour," Bri laughed as she glanced at the overlay.

Anderson scheduled three days with the exo-technicians; the people tasked with teaching soldiers how to use the latest in Assemblage tech. Some of 37 had it easy. Bri, Kat, Cooper and a few others took to the enhancements the way a duck takes to water, but there were more than a few that couldn't seem to get their heads around it.

The exo's abilities were more than anyone had imagined. Even 52, the last unit to be suited wasn't given the same iteration. The suits integrated with the visual and auditory enhancements as well as the weapons they were issued. Meaning, 37's stellar target range scores and standings, were almost untouchable. Of the 1200 scored rounds put down range by 37, only 7 were outside of the target's scoring field.

After the initial break in period, new scrimmages were setup. Units that had already been outfitted with exo's but had not been deployed were bracketed into 6 hour matches. The prize was a full day's leave. It took a week of daily matches, but 37 took the competition easily.

## Chapter 5

It was the day after three units had been assigned and deployed. Mary woke them, they showered, dressed, and made their way to the parade ground, the morning ritual which they had grown so used to they could do it half asleep.

Bri stared up at the sky and watched the clouds slip across the pre-dawn sky. The base felt empty, desolate without the other hundred or so soldiers they were used to seeing out there. But there was something else too, something she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Suddenly, orders flashed across each of their overlays. They were to forgo the parade grounds and report to the administrative building, commander's offices.

The unit fell into a line and started to march off under Arles' lead. "What do you think it is?" Biloxi asked.

"No idea," Kat whispered.

When they got to the administrative building, they knew something was wrong. The assistant that usually occupied the desk in front of Sedris' office was gone and they could hear voices from inside.

"We can't just stand by while they take Kilter Field!" It was Andrews. He was upset, shouting. "We can reach it and we're the only ones out here."

"You want to throw a bunch of kids up against an Earther frigate?" Commander Sedris shouted. "They're not ready. You know they're not ready."

"If we don't save those people, they're gone." Andrews' voice softened and they couldn't hear what he said next.

There was a long pause. Everyone looked at Pauly but he didn't notice. He was already hacking into the base's database. "An Earther Frigate is cruising toward a small planet," he touched his wristcall. "NT4, Kilter Field is a harvester town, population twenty five thousand."

Bri stared at her boots and thought of the attack Sedris had shown her their first week on base. It had been wholesale slaughter and she had no doubt the Earthers were queuing up to do it again.

"We have to do something!" Anderson shouted and the door opened.

As both officers watched, Unit 37 snapped to attention. "Pick 3 or 4 units," Sedris gave in. "Your best. Take the Helios."

Andrews stepped out and faced them. His cheeks looked flushed. He had been arguing in there for a little while. "You're one." He touched his communicator. "Units 23, 18, and 62," he looked over at Pauly for a second, like he knew that Pauly already knew what was going on. "This is Major Andrews. Report to Captain Davies on board the Helios in fifteen minutes. Excursion gear. Full compliment."

Without a word, 37 moved past Andrews and off to get their gear. Bri glanced around at the other members of the unit but everyone seemed lost in their own thoughts.

It was strange, everyone knew that at some point they would be deployed to fight the enemy, that's why they were at Chenfel in the first place, but now it was happening. This is what the dogged, relentless training was for. Now, they were suiting up to go to war. You could see the weight of it, the reality hitting everyone all at once.

Cooper was just sitting on the edge of his bunk staring down at his boots, frozen, lost in a hurricane of thought. Kat was checking through her gear. You could see that she was kind of looking at it, but really not there at all. Big, fat tears rolled down her cheeks. Everyone could hear Pauly on the far side of the room. It was his usual mumbling a habit he had when he was hacking. First his lips would start to move, and then he would actually start to mumble. If you let him go on too long, he would sit there and read it all out loud.

But no one stopped him this time.

Two hours away, a little planet with a New Terran harvester facility and town was imminent danger. Bri wondered what was happening, what it looked like to see a ship that size swing into low orbit. She wondered how many marines a frigate carried, and almost asked, but decided not to. It didn't matter anyway; Earther marines were slow and heavy.

She thought back to the way the suit made her move, the way it accentuated everything. Unit 37 wasn't a horde of clumsy soldiers with massive guns, they were surgical instruments designed to carve through infantry like a hot knife through butter.

"Holy shit," Pauly looked at Biloxi and then over at Arles. "I jacked into the feed the Commander was talking about." His eyes were as wide as dinner plates. The rest of the room stopped and listened. "There's so many."

"Put it up," Arles said.

Pauly touched his wristcall and projected the holograph. "An Earther frigate can carry sixteen hundred marines."

The light frigate moved across the black backdrop of space and Bri immediately thought of the feed she had watched with the Commander, the Dreadnaught coming out of light speed and launching its fighters. A frigate was smaller but essentially the same, it didn't carry Stryker's, it launched crates, heavily-reinforced pods that held twelve armored Earther marines each.

A frigate was classified a littoral ship, able to fight in deep space via the massive plasma cannons perched along it's sides, and the compliment of marines it could rain down on a planet in hours. It dropped them like bombs. They had been studying Earther tactics during class time; they had watched feeds of the crates being launched. She imagined Kilter Field, the sky raining crates. The vapor trails, the explosions of whatever they pounded into when they landed - the orderly chaos of delivering fighting force to the surface of the planet.

"It's why we're here," Bri whispered. "This is what we do." She looked around at the rest of the unit suddenly realizing that there was a good chance not all of them would survive. The thought left her cold.

Everyone stared back at her, each face at a different stage of acceptance and understanding.

"This is what Andrews trained us for." Kat stood up and threw a few punches into the air, shadowboxing, bouncing around on her toes despite the heavy excursion gear. "We're the best." She raised both arms like there was a coliseum of applause around her. "The Earthers want a fight?" She gave Biloxi a quick jab to the shoulder. "We're going to give them one."

"Hells yeah!" Biloxi grinned.

The Helios was the only combat ship assigned to Chenfel. She was a light cruiser with a crew of a hundred and room for five. Built of by one of the belter companies far out past Marcus Prime, she was black, long and thin. Her conn sat nestled between a prow that was the ship's shield diffuser and a long, sharp sensor array for a bow.

She looked like a jagged spike of black stone as the sun glinted off her starboard side. As soon as the shuttle cleared atmo and the Helios came into view, everyone on board crowded around the viewport. Most just wanted to see what they were in for, but Bri stared at the silhouette, the curves of the ship.

Bri had fallen in love with varied designs of Assemblage ships. Ever since Anderson had made them learn the type and class of each ship, she had been dying to get on one. She ran her eyes across the hull and recalled everything she knew.

Engines were internal. She was outfitted with torpedoes and two, stream plasma cannons. Her main strength was speed. She could put up a fight if she needed to, but there wasn't much to her. Against something like Dreadnaught or a Destroyer, a cruiser was no match, but she was what they had.

"I can't wait to get inside of her," Pauly looked like he had just been given the biggest surprise gift ever. "The twins!" he shrieked with glee, "the entire system is based on their design."

No one had the faintest idea who the twins were or what the hell he was talking about, but it happened so often (Pauly knew the name of the programmer who had created the targeting tech for the first plasma autocannons. Simmons.) Everyone just sort of smiled and nodded.

Once they were on board and underway, Andrews walked to the front of the mess hall and everyone instantly went quiet. "There are no feeds coming from the surface. We have no idea what we are going to run into when we get there." He looked over the group of a hundred or so; each in the full excursion gear and the gravity of the situation began to sink in.

"That frigate is going to see us in less than ten minutes and when she does, she's going to tear the Helios apart." He glanced down at his shoes, took a deep breath, and continued. "You're taking lifeboats to the surface."

Bri heard the distinct you're taking... and felt her stomach roll. Andrews wasn't coming with them. She wanted to say something, argue with him, but she could see it in his eyes. He had decided. He was going to buy them time to escape, make sure that the Helios was a big enough distraction to get a hundred cadets onto the surface.

"The closest ship is still six hours away." He cleared his throat. "18," he looked to his left at a woman named Jhia, fierce with jet black hair and an angry scar across her forehead. "You'll secure an extraction point."

Jhia nodded.

Andrews pointed to a large, dark-skinned man with the word beast scrawled across his chest armor in a sickly green. He was team lead on 23. As of the day before, his unit had been the most senior unit on Chenfel.

Set for deployment in a week or so, 23 had put 37 through its paces since exo scrums. 23 was a heavy squad, almost every member carried a BB or a sweeper in addition to their role weapons. They weren't as surgical was 37, Beast and his crew had a talent for ambushes. They would wait until they had two or three targets before springing their trap, leaping out of what seemed like thin air, and pulverizing the enemy before dashing off to another hidey hole somewhere. They had brought 37 to one or two before the end of a contest more than once.

"We're putting you down on the north side of the town." A holographic display appeared beside the Major and he pointed to a shaded area. "You'll start here and work back toward the facility. Clear the Earthers and get the people out."

Beast nodded and looked around at the rest of 23. They all looked angry, strong, and ready to unleash hell.

The atmosphere on the ship was tense. Reality was upon them. 23 broke off along with 18 and started for the lifeboats. Bri watched the units grab their gear and move off. She wondered how many of them she would see again.

She took a breath. The air felt heavy. It was difficult to breathe. She met Kat's eyes and noticed the same look, was it fear? She stared at the holograph and tried to imagine what Kilter Field would look like. She tried to imagine was 25,000 people looked like. Did they really have a chance down there? 4 units didn't feel like enough.

Andrews waited until it was just 37 and 62. There were less than 50 soldiers, two very different units and neither graduated. He looked at Arles and then at 62's lead a round-faced, young man by the name of Scoops. "The bulk of the marine's assault forces are landing in the dry lake bed outside of the facility. The main gates are located at the north end of the lakebed. That is your ingress." He looked over the small group in front of him. "You'll take the heaviest losses." His voice softened. "Look out for each other. Save as many of those people as you can." The weight of reality settled onto the room like a shadow.

"Load up." Andrews' voice cracked as he barked the order and walked away.

"Sir!" Both units responded simultaneously.

"You ready?" Kat's dangerous side showed through the fear and she gave Bri a wicked, little grin.

"As I'll ever be," Bri grabbed her helmet and dropped her gloves inside.

Their lifeboats were on the port side of the Helios. Each vessel was made for four people, but with all of their gear, each boat only held three soldiers.

"Pauly, you got anything for us before we get gone?" Arles shouted over the heads of everyone around her.

"Marine crates are in transit," Pauly looked horrified, "there's so fucking many of them," he whispered.

## Chapter 6

A band along the wall told the two units which way to go and Bri remembered their first day on base, the band that guided them to their dormitories. But there wasn't time for memories. The Helios was closing with the frigate.

Crewmen ran past them going the opposite direction, their faces stern, the eyes filled with a calm fear, like they knew that the next few minutes were all they were going to get. Alarms sounded and the ship vibrated, like something was being turned on or opened. Bri wondered what it would be like to serve on a ship, an immense fighting ship.

They turned a corner and faced a long, narrow hall. Small oval doors were cut into both sides, flush with the walls. 37 took one side and 62 the other. Bri's overlay showed which pod was hers by illuminating the door with a green mark. She touched the controls and the shifted inward a few inches and then slid away revealing four small, high-back seats inside a pod-like space.

Her stomach flipped and she tasted bile. The air inside the boat was hot and sticky. She stepped inside, touched the harness across her chest armor and unlatched her rifled and packs. All the gear went in one seat as Kat climbed in behind her and did the same thing.

Cooper wrinkled his nose as he ducked and twisted to get through the narrow entry. "Ugh," he waved a hand in front of his nose, "Gross."

Kat chuckled and pulled the lifeboat's harness over her shoulders. Bri watched and wondered how the harness was supposed to help if something went wrong? Was it there just to make the passenger, already trying to escape instant death inside of some galactic transit, a little more comfortable? A little more secure?

No one had any idea when the lifeboats would fire, all of the navigation and metrics were controlled by the officers at the conn which meant Andrews and there was some comfort in that, a sad comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. It meant he would die trying to keep them alive; he had been like a father to them.

"Thirty-six against sixteen hundred?" Kat looked out the little view-port even though she could only see the reflection of the inside of the boat. Cooper waved when he saw her staring at his reflection.

"Earther frigates are primarily first strike vehicles, but with the new slip technologies, they're showing up all over NewT space." Pauly's voice came over U37's connection.

"How many is that a piece?" Biloxi's asked.

"44.44," Pauly said.

"Enough chatter," Arles barked the order. "I've just been informed that we lost the coin toss. We're alpha. Our objective is to get into the facility and rescue as many as we can. We've got half the assemblage fleet on the way. We've just got to clear a path."

Bri smiled when she heard Arles' voice. She was glad she was lead, nothing ever shook her. There had never been a meeting, nothing formal anyway. The group had just sort of elected her as lead and Anderson had sort of gone with it. And it worked surprisingly well. Arles had a nice way of both relying on the team and working with the team. She must have gotten it from Andrews.

Striking unit. The words rattled Bri a bit. The team had spent hours and hours watching feeds of training missions and battle recon. In scrimmages, Anderson had put them against various scenarios that tested and utilized each person's strength. They had drilled and run maneuvers through a hundred different scenarios, but no one really knew what it was like to face a marine. You would have thought they were afraid. Instead, there were confident, not comfortable, still afraid, but they felt prepared.

They had learned from Andrews. The way he worked them day after day, running games against no less than two exo'd units a day toward the end. It might not have been a horde of Earther marines, but it was the next best thing.

"Standby," Arles sounded serious, and Bri figured she was being briefed by Andrews on a private com. "We're two minutes from..."

The Helios shook. The alarms that had been a steady beat like a strange war drum, turned into panic. "Battle stations, battle stations." Andrews's voice came over the ship's comm. The gravity generators failed. Everyone in the lifeboat, despite being strapped into the harnesses, shifted, suddenly weightless.

Bri took a deep breath. They had only done a few hours of training weightless and Bri didn't like it. The generators came back on line and they felt their asses in the seats again.

Bri looked over at Kat and found the same awkward fear in her eyes.

"Fire, fire, fire!" Arles shouted across the open channel of the comm. A series of loud reports moved down the starboard side of the Helios - crack, crack, crack. Every launch shook the pod and grew louder and closer to the boat Bri and Kat and Cooper were crammed in.

"Hang on," Kat's knuckles lightened as she gripped the shoulder straps of her harness.

The explosion fired behind their boat and, in the space between two seconds, they were out in the void. The view screens showed the Helios falling away behind them. A large gash ran along the hull, a fiery scar of orange and red along the black skin.

Bri couldn't blink. Lifeboats like her own moved away from the Helios in a wave, a handful of rocks thrown into the emptiness of space. The Helios, growing smaller and smaller as they moved toward Kilter Field, fired its main battery and two brilliant streaks of red flew across her view.

The plasma cannons were even more beautiful than they looked in the feeds. The twisting, brilliant light etched across the black like a striking snake.

Every watched but you couldn't see the Earther frigate. There was no way to know if Andrews had hit her.

"They're turning," Kat's voice was anxious, filled with worry.

The Helios' drive engines lit the bow and she seemed to turn hard and fast. There was a chance she could get away, out of range of whatever the frigate was capable of. And it couldn't give chase, it was attacking the facility. "You can do it, get away, run!" Bri heard her own voice in the silence.

"Turn! Go!" Kat shouted. "Go!"

A deep red bolt of light slammed into the starboard side. An angry orange ball of flame blossomed along the bow. The cobalt blue light of the ship's engines slowly faded. The explosion faded and a flurry of debris hovered around the Helios. The lights faded and the ship went dark.

Everyone in the pod was quiet. No one could look away from the viewport.

Another shot struck the Helios along the prow. Without power, the force flipped her onto her back. "No," Kat whispered, "No, no, no."

The Helios was cut wide open. An angry red line smoldered down the side of the frigate as she spun uncontrollably. Bri tried not to think about all of the people. She closed her eyes and tried not to cry as the faces flashed through her thoughts.

"Maybe they got away," Cooper said.

"Maybe," Kat reached down and wrapped her hands around her rifle, "either way, they gave us a chance."

The walls of the ship shook and they could hear the pod adjusting their flight path with little thruster blasts. The view screen became an angry blur of yellow, red, and orange as they burned through the atmosphere like a meteorite.

Bri took a deep breath and bit back the tears. Maybe Cooper was right, maybe they somehow got to lifeboats.

Gravity slowly took hold and Bri suddenly understood the need for the harness. She hooked her fingers around the straps near her shoulders and took a couple deep breaths as the pod bounced and pitched and twisted through the inferno. They were almost there.

"Buck up girl," Kat reached over and punched her shoulder. "This is what he trained us to do." She grinned.

The atmospheric color distortions faded and they were free falling. The skies over Kilter Field were clear and blue. Turbo chutes triggered and the force yanked them back against the harnesses. Bri felt every muscle in her body tighten and her stomach flipped more than once. Cooper vomited onto the floor's grating and the smell of the air changed to something sour.

Looking at the viewport they could see two other lifeboats falling toward the planet, chutes rippling in the wind.

The earth below them was a field of smoke and dust as if someone had simply set the entire planet on fire. They could see the top of the processing facility, the higher floors that rose above the clouds of smoke and dust. Bri touched the holograph and the view changed to x-ray.

"What?!" Cooper's voice cracked and his eyes went wide.

"Crates," Kat sighed.

She was right; the earth below them was a field of crates, there had to be fifty or sixty of them buried in the earth, their doors already open, the marines rushing toward the facility, massive gray suits emblazoned with blue.

"Waypoints have been identified and patched into your processors. Power your shields through the first power cell. Use your second cell to get to waypoint bravo." Arles voice was calm and even.

Shields. Bri saw the setting on her lens and suddenly wished they had had more time with the equipment.

"The suits shields won't last long, a few seconds at most. Get to cover as fast you can once the boats open." Pauly's voice came over the comm. "Spearhead. Spring. Like a cat."

"Systems check," Arles came back across the comm, "we're ten seconds out. Weapons ready."

Bri watched the diagnostic flash across her lens. All systems turned green.

Kat reached into a crate in the center of the lifeboat and started handing out power cells. "Lock and load, kids."

Bri pulled her pistols. The cool metal pressed into the palm of her hand. She liked the feel of them, the way they fit, it was reassuring. The overlay ran a quick weapons check and flashed green. She counted each breath. The door will open. When it does, I'm the first one out.

The viewport went blank. The thrusters fired. The ear pieces automatically adjusted for the sound of the pod breaking, but the vibration shook them to their bone.

Shield. Then move.

The craft clunked to the ground. The harnesses vanished in a blink and Bri hit the door release.

The smell of wet earth and scorched metal rushed into the lifeboat. Bri could barely see ten feet past the lifeboat's doorway. Tracer rounds slashed through the air around them. Bri's overlay flashed red and a round whistled by her ear.

The shield activated. She held her breath and jumped out of the pod. The ground she landed on was hard-packed. She could taste the dust and smoke. A sensor tested the air quality and a visor closed over her face.

In a blink her entire view was an overlay.

"37, move!" Alers came over the comm. The last of the lifeboats thundered the ground around them, thrusters crackling.

Bri's visor switched to infrared and she could make out lines of soldiers ahead of her. Her heart jumped.

For weeks they had been studying Earther marines, watching feeds, learning their weaknesses and how to exploit them. But nothing really prepared you for the first time you got to see one up close and personal. They were huge. The heat signatures displayed as white blobs, the short heavy rifles, red.

There was a clear line to an empty crate a few yards away. She raised her pistols. "Let's move!" She took a step and looked back at the lifeboat. Cooper was just coming through the door. Their eyes met for a split second and then his face splattered against the wall of the vessel. A little spray of mist and he was gone. His body took two more headless steps and tumbled forward like oak tree.

Red tracer fire dashed against the side of the ship and exploded in red sparks. Bri leapt toward the crate and the exo threw her across the distance. She landed and turned as Kat cleared the doorway, stepped around Cooper's body, and made two long jumps to get to Bri.

"He's gone." She grabbed Bri's shoulder.

Bri nodded. She already knew it. "Right behind you."

Burster fire clanked against the crates and Bri's map showed close range Earther forces laying down blink cover fire. Deadly, but sporadic. Kat nodded and dashed into the dust and smoke. It was like they were back in pistol training. She fearlessly moved toward the enemy, using the exo's strength to dodge small pockets of marines lost in the haze.

Bri dashed out behind her. It was easy to follow Kat, they had been side by side on countless scrimmages, both preferred striking from a distance. They kept moving, running and jumping as fast and far as they could without behind seen. Bri's head was spinning.

Everywhere she looked she saw heat signatures, Earther marines either looking for them or running in the same direction, toward the facility where they planned a wholesale slaughter in the name of the Alliance.

Her heart was racing. Her visor displayed power cell information, distance to rendezvous, an overview of the terrain provided by unit 62's drones, the one remaining drone with Cooper down. Her chest ached and she saw it again.

She blinked as Kat adjusted for a Marine who had turned and was emptying his weapon in their general direction. According to Anderson, Earther marine tech couldn't see 37's heat signature, something about a frequency shift. But they didn't need to see them a field of railgun projectiles would cut them in half weather the soldier could see the target or not.

She leapt and ran and ducked and dodged. It seemed like every time she blinked, there was another group of marines, or blazing red tracers were whizzing by them.

They covered the ground as fast as they could and within two minutes, they were grouped at bravo.

## Chapter 7

Everyone switched their energy cells, dropping the spent battery on the ground and slapping new ones onto their belts.

"Are we going to take them?" Bri stood beside Alers. 37 had passed the most recent wave of crates, reinforcements for the Earther forces already at the water facility. It wasn't the best case scenario; they were effectively sitting between the marines at the pumping facility and the marines that were still landing. They had jumped the line and she wasn't sure what Alers intended.

"As much as I'd love to," Alers voice was a growl, and her narrowed at the smoke-covered field behind them. "We have our orders."

Bri understood the anger in Alers' eyes. She had counted the soldiers when she and Kat had arrived at bravo and they had lost two besides Cooper. Their overlays only showed 37's position. No one had any idea how far the other three units had made it or if they had made it, but it didn't matter. They couldn't stay at Bravo long.

"18 will be pushing to the west side of the facility," Alers looked around at the rest of the team. "We hit the front, straight on. Hard and fast. What are we looking at Pauly?"

Pauly had one knee in the dry silt that had once been the bottom of a lake. He was working his wristcall. "The facility's main power system is still operational." He wiped his wrist across the back of his forehead. "It's ugly. I've got soldiers everywhere, two turrets at the main gate." His voice got higher and higher with every word.

"Pauly, I need to know how many marines are between those guns and us. What are we looking at?" Arles tone wasn't desperate, but it was urgent. They heard the heavy pounding of footsteps, at least three marines moving off to their left. Bri's chest ached and she aimed her pistols into the dust. Her overlay found and locked onto the helmets.

A breath and he would be gone. But they were moving away. The wind blew and the smoke thinned.

"I see thirty-seven buoys." Pauly's voice fell a bit when he read the number.

"Alright kids, remember pistol training?" Arles looked at Kat and nodded.

A crate slammed to the surface, bounced somewhere behind them, and flew over their heads. It took a half a breath. One minute there was nothing, the next there was this thunderous shadow and the sound of thunder. It was deafening, an angry roar as the pod flipped and tumbled through the air.

It was the size of a Daedric fighter, a massive rectangle filled with marines. Everyone ducked as the force of the crash hurled the megaton object off somewhere in the smoke and dust.

The frigate was still firing crates. They were going to be sandwiched.

"Let's go save some people," Arles charged forward and 37 fell in behind her, every stride faster and further as their suits took over.

Bri was second, running close enough to see Arles but still far enough to maneuver and scan the area. This close to the facility, there were scattered groups of marines, ten to twenty thick, moving all around them, following their equipment toward the gates.

She thought back to the classroom lessons, the video feeds Anderson had shown when he was trying to make them understand exactly what they would be up against. Augmented movement in heavy armor. Heavy projectile weapons. Simple comms. They are big and strong but slow.

Anderson's answer to every conundrum he presented had been the exo's. You will be faster. He made them run for miles and miles. Some tiny incentive waiting for the winner. (That and bragging rights.)

And they were fast, and quick. Just watching the earth move underneath their feet, the steady rush of movement, made her feel stronger. She looked to the left and saw a soldier running headlong toward Arles. He was only ten or twenty yards away, a huge lumbering thing. He must have seen her somehow. Every time the wind blew the dust seem to thin.

Bri looked at the distance between them and shifted her course. Intercept took two steps and easy jump. Her body left the ground and she counted. 1...2... She tucked her chin and flipped her body as soon as she saw the silhouette of the marine below her. He was huge. The mirrored surface of his helmet reflected the smoke and sand and her shadow.

Gravity. She looked down at her feet. A blink and she was on top of him, both pistols pointed at the reflective helmet. She could hear footsteps, heavy ones. Another marine was nearby. Was he moving toward her? There was nothing on the overlay.

The soldier under her weight flipped his visor up.

Suddenly, she could see his eyes. They were blue. Light blue, closer to gray. He was young, a few years into his twenties maybe, a few years younger than her.

His eyes moved to the head of the pistols planted firmly against his helmet. Then back at Bri. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

For a moment, a split second, she wondered what to do. One movement and the man below her would be gone. But why? There was no hate in his eyes, only fear. He was just a soldier on the other side.

The footsteps running toward her grew louder but she didn't react, all she could do was stare into the young man's eyes.

There was a flash of red across her overlay, the proximity sensor on the exo. "That's a good girl," something hard pressed into her back and she realized it was a rifle. "Turn around and look at me, I want to see your NewT face when I kill you."

The soldier she was sitting atop looked back and forth between Bri and the marine over her shoulder. He looked like he wanted to say something.

Bri glanced up at her overlay and thought of firing off a low density charge, it would drain the energy cell, but it might buy her a couple of seconds to figure something else out. She thought of what lay ahead, the charge would leave her shooting on her own.

"I said, turn around," the heavy barrel of the Earther rifle pressed into the back of her skull and she knew she was running out of time.

She closed the overlay, took a deep breath, and lowered her pistols.

"That's it, come on," the marine backed the gun off her skull as she slowly turned. She honestly had no idea what she was going to do. She still had tricks, but her brain couldn't stop staring at the armor suit the Earther was standing in. But she didn't have to think long.

She saw the silhouette before she heard the soft, quick, little footfalls. Then she saw the whiskers, the little yellow whiskers drawn across her chest piece. And his face exploded against the visor of his helmet.

The marine below tried to sit up, but Bri grabbed her pistols, and jumped backwards off the young man. She was three feet above him. His eyes widened as he realized what was about to happen.

Her finger tightened around the trigger, squeezing until she felt the click.

The wind blew and a cloud of dust obscured the sight of his body bouncing like a ball that someone had kicked.

"You alright?" Kat was next to her.

Bri looked around. It had been quieter ten seconds ago. Another crate slammed to the ground somewhere off to their east. It seemed impossible how much the earth shook when they slammed to a stop. Bri wondered how many more were coming.

***

They were moving toward Charlie, when another green dot disappeared, Jules, and then another, Rin. Bri and Kat weaved through the field of thinning dust. Bri squeezed the pistols in her hand. This was not what she imagined. It wasn't anything like she had thought it would be.

This was kill or be killed. There weren't time for questions, only action.

The overlay showed her heartbeat touching against the red, but she didn't care. She would run until she exploded. Tracer fire glowed against the dust as it flew toward them.

"Up," Kat leapt into the air, arm and legs still running like she was on the ground.

Bri followed and glanced down to watch the stream of red tracers whiz off into nowhere.

Charlie was a small mark on the map, a little cutaway and it was wide open, an oasis in a sea of Earther marines and chaos. The second wave of crates had finished and hundreds of marines rushed toward the facility all around them.

Kat turned to cut a long arc around Charlie. Bri knew immediately what she was doing and circled around the east side of the waypoint.

They had learned the tactic during one of the early scrimmages. They were working through a unit of volunteers, the best and bravest from a bunch of different units. The goal was wide open on their overlays and Bri had rushed it like it was wide open, a haven, a table filled with dinner after a long march.

But three soldiers had used a transmitter sensor array to hide their position, even in proximity. Bri was standing in front of the weapons cache browsing for a gun, when two soldiers grabbed her ankle and pulled her to the ground.

From that point, she had learned to wary. What was too good to be true often was. As soon as Kat and Bri arrived, Arles and Pauly came running in.

"Good to see you," Arles dropped to one knee breathing as hard as the rest of them.

"You too," Bri huffed.

"What does it look like?" Arles looked at Pauly who was working his wristcall and reading information across his sensor at a seemingly impossible pace.

"We have three hundred seventy six soldiers on the ground. There are over a hundred behind us. One click north of waypoint Charlie are two defensive positions, heavy guns - southeast and southwest killing field.

Thelia and Little arrived at Charlie from different directions. Little's face was covered in a deep red mud. He and Thelia were huffing and puffing but alive. As soon as Kat saw Little's face, she reached into her belt and grabbed a repair disc.

Little's brows furrowed. "It's not mine," there was anger in his voice and Bri wondered who he had watched go down. She tried to distract herself from the memory of Cooper and mapped out Pauly's description on her overlay.

She wanted good ground, a little rise or obscure angle she could fit into and clear the guns from. The lakebed had a few shallow hills and grades, but there was nothing dramatic until you got to the shore – deeper into the Earther killing field Pauly had talked about. Not ideal.

She had to give it to them. The marines were clever. Two heavy weapons stationed along the facility's southern wall, triangle killing field that covered any approach. She wondered what kind of guns they were using. Had to be assembly, right? Unless it fit in its own crate.

The chapters on auto fire weapons had been terrifying. Just the idea that a machine was going to try and find you and then kill you was enough to make your blood run cold, but Earther marines didn't use anything small.

She looked around the open ground they were doing their best to hide in the middle of. Flat, brown dirt and dust as far as the eye could see. And there were still hordes of marines out there.

Arles looked around at the unit. There were seven left but no one said anything. There wasn't time to think. Tracer fire from one of the bigger guns split the air not too far away. Everyone flinched. "Alright, that's our objective, we get past those guns and we hit them on the inside, boys and girls."

Bri picked her spot along the lakebed's crescent rise. There was a shallow drainage that had caught a number of branches. It was as good a place as any to cover 37's approach and clear the guns.

Ten seconds later, she was on her stomach, crawling toward the space between a branch and a stone the size of her head. She reached over her shoulder and pulled her rifle free. The moment her fingers wrapped around the grip, the barrel smoothly extended into place and a thread-thin data cable slid into the port along her wrist.

She took a breath and steadied herself.

## Chapter 8

Arles came over the comm. "Bri?"

Bri's overlay was in the middle of a systems check across her weapon. "I'm here." The indicator flashed ready then switched the overlay to a map view of the pumping station. She zoomed in on the front gate. It was wider than she wanted.

She took a deep breath and steadied the scene in her optics.

"We need to do this today, folks!" Arles clapped her hands together and Unit 37 dashed forward in opposite directions.

Biloxi and Arles were Alpha Team. They would take the west gun emplacement while Bravo (Little, Thelia, Pauly, and Kat) worked east.

Bri swung her rifle from right to left.

A pair of Earther marines worked their way down the wall toward the gate. Their weapons were shouldered and one was lazily running his hand along the wall as he walked. Her optics put them out of Bravo's immediate concern and Bri kept moving.

She couldn't see the eastern gun emplacement from her hole, but she could see just past it all the way to the western gun. She swept down toward Arles and Biloxi, moving through a little clutch of trees.

Three marines were moving toward them. There was no way they wouldn't spot Arles and Biloxi. Bri sighted on the first marine's helmet. Her overlay flashed green and she felt her exo adjust and stabilize the gun. It was intrusive, it felt strange to have your own body work outside of your will, but it was also comforting, knowing that you had an edge.

"Don't" Arles came over the comm and Bri saw that her and Biloxi had found a place to hide.

Bri's visor flashed and she glanced up. Two Earther drones, little round sensor arrays that used micro jets to hover, were zipping toward them. She got to one knee and brought her rifle to bear. The overlay squared the target and flashed yellow.

The drone stopped for a moment and then turned in midair, like it was looking for her.

She couldn't lock on. She laid her sights on the first drone, and fired.

The drone ducked the shot. And now they had her.

The drone opened a panel and a bright green laser began to scan the ground, coming toward her like a wave.

She looked at Biloxi and Arles, they were still hiding from the marines that were walking by and there was no guarantee they knew about the drones at all.

The green field moved forward and Bri knew that if it got to her, the little round ball of Earther love was going to tag her. She laid the crosshair of her optics on the drone. The green light was getting closer. Her visor flashed yellow. Her exo was useless for some reason. She watched as the little hover jets fired and the drone bobbed up and down slightly. She took a breath and squeezed the trigger.

The light disappeared and the drone flew back into the trees out of sight.

As soon as the second drone turned, her visor flashed green, the rifle sighted, and she sent it into the trees as well. The marines were far enough by then that they didn't notice.

"Nice," Biloxi waved back.

"Move," Arles barked.

The two of them broke from the trees and began to push up toward the gate. Their feet padded across the dry broken dirt of the lakebed fast enough to leave their own little scribbles of dust in the breeze.

She swept the rifle toward Alpha but couldn't see anyone. Their green circles were still on the visor, they were just out of sight and obviously running silent. She wished they had a drone, something that could give her a better view.

But that was it. She could see the western side of the gate and the heavy gun the Earther marines had placed there. She shifted her shoulders and stared through the optics.

The gun was huge, a heavily armored weapon with an operator and a strange looking sensor array. Bri went over it slowly, looking for the weapon's strengths and weaknesses. An Earther marine, the gun's operator, stood talking with another marine. Everything looked so relaxed and quiet, like they had no idea the Helios had even arrived. Hadn't the other units hit the base from their points? Why were the marines just strolling into the facility?

She found a sensor array covered in a hundred mirrors mounted above the gun, an odd contraption that reflected the dim sunlight at odd angles.

Those looked like the weapons only real weaknesses – the operator or the sensors or both. Everything else about the gun was metal and mechanics. The barrel was sleeved in a box-like structure that looked like it was made of metal fins, all perfectly square, all perfectly spaced and angled at forty-five degrees like some kind of heat venting system. It was laser weapon, computer directed. It looked sturdy but there was nothing artful in its design, it was a brute force weapon.

In class the teachers had talked about current Earther technology. Their main artillery consisted of heavy pulse weapons run by sensor arrays and computers. Everything was digital which is what made EMP tech obsolete, but they too were fond of projectile weapons. They didn't have anything as advanced as NewT weapons, but that hadn't stopped them from whittling 37 in half.

Biloxi and Arles found a small amount of shelter down the hill and further west than the gun. They were lying on their sides flat against the earth a hundred and fifty yards from western gun. Bri watched as Arles pulled a falcon off her uniform. "On my mark," she looked back in Bri's direction.

Bri aimed at the sensor array. "Ready." She put her finger on the trigger. "Three, two..." The reticle flashed green and she squeezed the trigger.

Arles was just about to throw the rocket into the air when she exploded into a vapor of red smoke.

Biloxi screamed.

Bri barely had time to blink before another shot tore through the little mound of earth the two had been hiding behind.

Bri dropped the rifle's optics and just used her visor. Everything seemed still, frozen in time. Even though massive chunks and dirt and stone sprayed toward her in slow motion, there was no sound.

She laid her head flat on the earth. Womp, womp, womp, the marines around the gun began firing wildly down the hills. Dirt and rock exploded into the air as the weapons tore through the earth.

"Arles is down," Bri said. "Arles is down." She looked back up the hill hoping that Biloxi was still there. He was lying on his side, his eyes wide and crying, but he was alive.

Bri ran the rifle back up to the gun. The sensor array was in pieces, little wisps of smoke wafted from the hole she put through the middle of it. The guns operator was at the controls and the gun was pivoting its barrel down toward Biloxi.

She could hear her own breathing, each chunk of dirt and rock as it landed around her. She couldn't believe Arles was gone.

"37 this is 62!" The voice shouted across the comms. "We're coming!" Bri looked at the overlay on her visor and saw more green dots appear. 62 had nine left. They were in the middle of the lakebed, fighting and alone, but they were alive and only a few minutes behind. Of course, that did little to change the fact that Biloxi and her were pinned down and Bravo team was alive but unable to lend a hand.

Tracer rounds cut through the air around her as the marines continued to lay down cover fire, unloading their rifles into the haze.

Womp, womp, womp. The big gun fired into the earth ten or twenty yards shy of Biloxi.

Bri pulled the rifle's stock into her shoulder and aimed at the gun's operator. The angled fins of the gun glowed red from the heat. The marine's visor reflected the color.

She magnified the view until she could read the numbers marked across his right lapel. She laid the sight in the center of his chest and squeezed the rifle's trigger.

The armored crinkled like it had been punched by an immense, invisible fist and the marine flew back against the wall. He hit hard enough that he hung there for a moment, crushed against the wall before he fell to ground, face first and unmoving. Bri moved the rifle to the right, found another one and punched him through the gate.

Bri laid her head down when a group of four marines appeared and unloaded their Bursters in her general direction. "Biloxi?"

Biloxi looked back at her, tears running down his face. "I'm coming to you?"

"That's right," Bri lifted her head, found a marine, and put the reticle in the middle of his chest. Click. Three inches to the right. Click. Another marine disappeared through the gate. "Come on," Bri ended the career of another Earther marine, this time thinking about Cooper and Anderson and Arles.

Bri heard the eastern gun start. Womp. Womp, Womp.

She pulled up the overlay on her visor and saw Kat's buoy. She was all that was left on the east and her vitals were all over the place. "Shit," she moved the rifle back to the left as a marine was stepping up to the autocannon's controls. Click. The shot hit a stasis field and rippled in a wave across the shield.

Biloxi was on his feet. Running as fast as he could, but the gun was training on him. Bri clicked the trigger once, twice, three times, and watched as every shot splashed against the shield.

Womp.

The earth behind Biloxi's feet flew into the air.

She fired again. This time the shot hit the helmet of the operator. The dome shattered and there was a red mist.

Biloxi passed Bri. "Come on," he called running toward 62 like they were long lost lovers.

Bri touched a control on the rifle and it folded back into its compact form. She slipped it over her shoulder and followed Biloxi down the hill.

"Kat? Can you hear me?" She felt a tingle in her legs, a vibration, like a heard of wild animals running toward them. She turned to her right and saw four marines running straight toward them; their visor's reflecting the sun. "Biloxi!" Bri screamed as she reached down and pulled her pistols.

The first marine's Burster fired three times before she could get her pistol pointed in the right direction. Every shot went wide.

Bri pulled the trigger once. A black hole appeared in the reflective material of the marine's visor and his body dove, face first into the earth.

The soldier to the left was trying to find Biloxi but Bri put two shots into his chest. The rounds burned through the armor in half a second. There was a scream from inside the suit, but then the marine toppled over.

Bri saw a shadow fall over two that were lifting their rifles to fire on her. Their bodies shook violently as Biloxi emptied his BB into them. They looked like they were being hammered into the ground. Their heavy metal plating tore open exposing the machinery and the marine to spalling projectiles. In a blink they were a pile of twisted metal and blood.

Biloxi landed behind the crumpled bodies with a loud thud.

***

"Lladron." Unit 62's lead was a young man with the word Scoops written across his chest in big round letters. He was tall, with dark hair and green eyes and she recognized him from a number of the scrimmages over the past weeks. He looked shaken, there was a thin spray of red across his left arm, but he seemed to be maintaining.

"I've got Kat," Pauly's voice came over the comm. "We disabled the eastern gun, but she's in bad shape." He was talking a mile a minute.

Bri realized that he must have hacked the signals somehow, because he was talking but there was no green circle on her visor, no buoy mark for Pauly.

"We see you," Scoops handed Biloxi a med disc and Biloxi pressed it to his forehead. The disc dissolved into a little patch of nanobots that repaired the bleeding gash.

"We've got problems," Scoops touched his wristcall and then looked at Bri. "We've lost 18 and 23," Scoops was doing his best to stay calm, but you could see it on his face, he was falling apart.

Bri laid a hand on his shoulder. "Either we get in there and get his done, or we're dead along with everyone else here." She didn't know where the sudden bit of strength was coming from, but she held onto it. She looked around at what was left of 62. Everyone was beat to hell. Some were covered in lake dirt, a few were nursing injuries, but most were just not there, KIA. Scoops was shaken. He had seen more than he could handle.

"Pauly?" Bri called over the comm. "How bad is Kat?"

Sporadic gunfire from the gate echoed out over the lakebed. They listened for NewT weapons but only heard Burster fire. And Bri wasn't the only person hunkered down along the shoreline wondering if the marines had finished off two more from 37.

"Unconscious, but she's not bleeding anymore. I mean, I think I got all the little cuts and scrapes. Her vitals are good." Pauly's voice was weak, shaken, you could tell he was at his wits end and, as small as he was, there was no way he was going to be able to get Kat out of there on his own.

Bri looked around. There wasn't much left, 62 was beat up, 18 and 23 were gone, and 37 was running with 4 alive, but only 2 in service. The numbers were dwindling and it looked like most of 62 was ready to call it quits.

She looked over the unit. They had a couple sweepers, one Broadrail, Biloxi's BB, and one other long rifle. It wasn't much, but it looked like they had managed to conserve a fair amount of energy cells along with a bunch of p-loads, cartridges for weapons like the BB and the sweepers that used projectiles instead of plasma or directed energy.

"We need to get out of here," Hinks had gone pale, he was going into shock. His eyes were wide and wild. Sweat poured off his face.

Bri looked around. Everything about where they were was bad – outside the facility, little cover, and sandwiched between Earther forces already inside and reinforcements on the way. Not to mention that the numbers they were up against had been staggering before they lost two entire units and had the other two severely diminished.

"I think we need to think about surrender," Scoops looked Bri in the eye. "We can't fight this many. It's a death sentence."

Bri thought back to the feed she had watched with Sedris. She remembered the Earther Dreadnaught destroying the unarmed, New Terran mining ships without so much as thought. Everyone knew the Earther military didn't take prisoners.

She stared up at the tower that rose above the wall. If they could get there. She looked back at Scoops. "Our mission is to save those people."

The earth around them shook as four Earther marines ran through the haze toward the facility. Everyone trained their weapons on the sound, but the marines were twenty yards away and didn't see them.

"I say we rush them," Bri looked around at what was left of 62. "It's the last thing they'll expect." A few in the group looked less than pleased with the option. "We can't sit out here in the open for much longer."

Scoops touched his wristcall. Bri could see he was trying to work it out, measuring the number of marines they were against, the almost certainty that they would die in the attack. But if surrender wasn't a possibility, what other option did they have?

Biloxi reloaded his BB. "We can pick up Kat and Pauly on the way," he wiped his face with the palm of his hand. They had been on the ground for less than an hour but it felt like days.

"Where to?" Scoops looked at Bri.

"The tower," she pointed, "we get there we might have a chance."

"I've got almost a hundred marines between us and them," Pauly sent a data feed to Bri's visor. It was a drone view. He had hacked into one of the Earther drones somehow.

The drone must have been hovering just above the gates because the view shoed the disabled autocannon as well as the western gun. The scene that was unfolding inside the facility looked like something out of a nightmare. There were bodies in the streets and it looked like the marines were conducting door to door searches.

Bri watched as two marines smashed their way through a door and opened fire on whoever was inside. The windows shattered onto the street and she had to look away. "They're not expecting us," Scoops had been watching the same feed on his visor.

"Let's go," Bri scrambled to her feet and Biloxi fell in beside her.

"Pauly, we comin at you." Biloxi took two quick steps and then leapt into the air, long-jumping toward the place where cover Pauly and Kat had found.

Scoops and the rest of 62 fell in behind them.

Bri glanced skyward looking for the drone, but she couldn't see it. It didn't matter. The marines might get warning, but it would be too late. Biloxi doubled his speed, flying across the lakebed with the his BB ready.

They came on Pauly just as Kat was waking up. Her vitals flashed across the screen. She was hurt, but not bad. She gave Bri and Biloxi a little chuckle when she recognized them. "Pauly just told me we're not out of this thing yet."

"Not yet," a 62 with a medic band on his upper arm knelt beside Kat. "Diagnostics are good. You have a broken rib and some serious bruising, but nothing that we can't fix once we get back to civilization. The medic dusted Kat's helmet off and handed it to her.

"Company," Hinks, who was still a little wild-eyed and pale, swung his Burster around and opened it up. The weapon punched holes through the dingy, beige mist and they heard a scream and the sound of metal on metal.

Bri helped Kat to her feet and everyone moved off for the gate.

## Chapter 9

She was upside in midair, her legs following each other in a graceful arc. She saw the reflection of her body on their helmets, her legs splayed into a Y, both hands holding pistols. She pulled the trigger on each.

They didn't have time to react. They had been standing beside the autocannon, watching the drone feed, and talking about the ride down from their frigate. And then they saw something, a blur, just in the corner of their eyes.

Bri was moving at top speed before she jumped. She had already locked onto both marines while she was running, little squares flashed on her visor. The first two in the way.

Biloxi was right behind her. Upside down, her body swinging through the air, she put two each of the marines. But she looked away as soon as she saw the holes appear in their helmets and chests. She wasn't interested in what happened next. There would be blood, maybe a scream, and their bodies would fall or tumble. Projectile weapons were mean.

Biloxi's BB barked out three times in quick succession.

Bri turned and saw two more marines torn to shreds just inside the gate to the facility. She hit the ground as two more turned a corner onto the street and saw them. She swung her pistols around and dropped them. Her visor went crazy as Earther marines poured out of every building like ants when you step on their hill.

Burster fire echoed around them. They were just inside the walls and the gunfire sounded like it was coming from everywhere, a hundred rifles cracking off. There was a scream behind them. One of 62's was hit three or four times and blown backward through the gate. Another green circle on her visor disappeared before Bri could even read the last name. She clenched her jaw and fired at two marines taking cover behind a transport cruiser.

But the marines had raised the alarm. Everyone knew they were there. Bri remembered the numbers Pauly had given them. It seemed overwhelming. Marines poured out of nowhere until they were everywhere.

There was no chatter over the comm. No one said a word. The possibility of failure and death was upon them. There had always been too many marines; they knew that when they left the Helios, but now they were faced with the reality, the sheer number of armored soldiers that stomped the earth toward them.

Bri fired and hit another marine. Her energy cell went critical. For a thousandth of a second, the earth at her feet looked like it was rippling. Then it shifted and exploded upward. The shockwave threw her backward but only a few feet. There wasn't time to reload.

Using their exo's to outpace the marines; the NewTs stayed in a tight knit ball of motion, jumping and running as fast as they could. Biloxi stopped every few yards and laid down cover fire.

There are moments in battle, moments that supersede thought, moments where training and conditioning take over. There are moments where, if you had time to think (or if you dared), you'd find yourself cut to ribbons. Crossing the main street in Kilter Field was like that.

The Earther had them surrounded, they closed in from the east and west, both sides of the tower the NewTs wanted. It was a cacophony of death. That run, the last hundred yards to tower passed in a blink that felt like a year.

Bri turned her shoulder toward the door and smashed through. Burster fire echoed down the corridor. Two rounds grazed her arm. She twisted in midair and threw herself onto one wall and then down a hall.

Biloxi, the second through the doorway, yanked a micro charge free and tossed it down the hall. The charge sizzled through the air, spinning faster than what seemed possible. Biloxi took two steps and stood like a wall between the soldiers and the rest of the NewTs. His BB thundered over and over. It echoed like thunder.

Scoops slid through door with his rifle blazing. A stream of orange tracer rounds flew by. And the Burster fire stopped. And then all they could hear was the sound of their own footsteps.

They cut toward the tower's main stairwell and started climbing. Tower one was the facility's first structure, a colony ship, secured and used as the heart of the facility's ecosystem.

The space was tight. There wasn't much more than a narrow path of steps that wrapped around what had once been a maintenance tunnel. Bri saw a metal panel with the words The JMC Kilter. She wondered how many years had passed since their arrival. The Kilter looked like one of the early colony ships, the kind that drug a few thousand people and their families to some desolate corner of a system to build a factory or a mine or a harvester or simply explore.

She thought of the stories of her home. Then she thought of her family. Would she see them again or would everything suddenly end? But there wasn't time to figure it out. She looked down and saw marines running up the lower levels, coming up behind them. "Higher!" Bri called down the line. "Get to the top."

They ran as fast as the slowest man, one of 62's that had taken a nasty hit to the leg, not by an Earther round but by debris.

Burster fire echoed up the tunnel. Every few steps, massive chunks of the wall and stairs exploded in smoke and dust as the marines fired up at them.

A door opened and three people, a man, a woman, and a child stepped onto the stairway ahead of them. There were still people in the tower. "Pauly," Bri broke radio silence.

"I see them. Looks like there are more on the top floors."

The young girl looked back, her eyes wild with excitement, fear, and wonder.

Bri thought of her little sister; they had the same color hair, brown but with shades of copper and red. A tracer hit the wall and exploded in hot, yellow sparks. The father stumbled, but got back to his feet and kept running.

Another door opened a few floors above them. They watched as five or six more people rushed onto the staircase terrified.

"I count six!" Scoops voice shouted over the comms and echoed around the corridor. More tracer fire hit the walls and exploded into sparks.

Bri stopped and hurried Pauly and Biloxi ahead of her. "Get those people to the top." She waded through the rest of them until it was just her and Scoops. Scoops leaned back against the wall and shook his head. "I got this."

Bri looked at the man. He looked as tired as she felt. She wondered what his favorite drink was, beer or whisky. Then she realized she what she was thinking. But none of it mattered. They were about to die.

The mission was over. They were just running from the end.

Scoops loaded a fresh clip into his sweeper and handed Bri his last power cell. "I can hold them here for a minute or two. He looked over her shoulder.

A man and woman peered around the edge of a door a few floors above them. They saw the rest of the NewTs running up the stairs and took off after them. A wall six feet away caught a round and fragments cut into Bri's shoulder.

"Go," Scoops looked down the steps and aimed his rifle at the turn. Scoops could bottleneck them there, but only until he had to reload or the Earthers tossed a grenade.

She pulled a charge off her belt, touched the proximity control, and tossed it down the stairs.

The marines were close. The sound of their boots stomping up the stairs was almost louder than the gunfire.

Bri clapped Scoops on the shoulder and turned back up the stairs.

The entire building shook when the explosive detonated, but Bri didn't look back. Instead, as she heard Scoop's weapon begin to hold the line, she wrapped one arm around the waste of the man and the other around the woman she had caught up to, lifted them as best she could, and ran.

She made it three floors before the tracers began again. There was no telling how many Scoops had taken with him. The shine of blood caught her eye and she noticed that the man she carried was dead. His body had shielded her from a wave of shrapnel but most of his left side was gone.

The woman's eyes were closed. Tears rained down her cheeks. Bri couldn't tell if she knew or not, but there wasn't time to explain. Her exo was about to quit, the energy cell was toast and the woman was getting heavier by the second.

Without a word, she simply let go of the man and he fell away behind them. They accelerated, turned a corner, and saw Biloxi and the business end of his BB.

Relief overcame the anger, fear, and guilt. She dashed through the door and heard it close behind her.

"Yes!" Kat gave a heavy sigh.

The top floor of the Kilter wasn't cut into separate residential units or offices. No, the top of the archaic colony ship was wide open on three sides. There were probably thirty or forty people who had made it to the top floor and they were huddled in the center of the room.

What had Anderson said about reinforcements? How many hours would it take them?

She ran through the information on her visor. They had been on the ground for a little over an hour. That left them five. A little shiver ran through her.

Boom! Biloxi's BB fired and he ducked inside.

Kat dropped to one knee, her weapon aimed at the door.

Bri looked around the room. There was only one way in or out. The windows around the room afforded a view of Kilter field that only drones could get. She looked down and saw the hordes of marines on the ground, pulling people into the streets, and taking over the place.

A marine's head came into view. Just the top curve of his helmet. Daylight from the windows reflected off the dome of his helmet before Kat's rifle knocked him back down the stairs.

They could hold the room.

"Biloxi," Bri waved him to the southern windows.

The big man wandered across the room, his weapon still smoking. "You look like you're thinking something."

Bri looked out the windows. The marines below them looked a tenth of the size. "Set the Broadrail up here."

While Kat held the door, Bri and Biloxi set the weapon in place, Pauly hacked into Earther communications, and Hinks did his best to play medic.

More than a few people had taken shrapnel from the walls and stairs and they were already low on nano kits.

The only thing they talked about was defense. They had enough weapons that they might be able to defend the tower which meant there was a chance they could holdout long enough to rescue everyone who had made it to the top.

But for how long?

"They know we're here," Pauly looked at Bri. He listened to the chatter over his comm.

Bri didn't rush him. She had a feeling the news wasn't good.

If Andrews' theory was right, the frigate that had shown up at Kilter Field was alone. They had dropped crates, but they obviously hadn't expected resistance because there was no armor on the ground, only marines. Lots of heavily armed marines.

"Autocannon," Pauly pointed to the west.

Bri ran to the window. Three Earther marines were just beginning to setup the automated turret. "Biloxi?" Bri pulled her rifle over her shoulder. There wasn't time for anything else. She could taste the fear. A few more seconds and the gun would be tearing the top floor of the tower apart. It wasn't a weapon that could take a building down, but it would claw the front wall off.

The diagnostics flashed across her weapon and she locked onto the first marine. He was carrying one side of the weapon's generator, slowly walking backward. She took a quick breath and watched him fly ten yards before crashing to the ground. She swung the rifle to the right and heard the Broadrail fire.

In the time it takes to blink, both marines and the autocannon became a bright blue explosion of twisting lightning, dust, and smoke.

"That did it," Pauly said.

Bri moved back from the windows. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. The windows absorbed a handful of rounds before they cracked and fell away. People screamed and Burster fire pelted the ceiling.

"They're ordering artillery."

Bri looked over at Pauly. When their eyes met, they both understood the question, but Pauly only shook his head. There was nothing on the feed about reinforcements. There was no one coming to save them.

"Another one!" 62's sweeper, a young man with an angry looking scrape across his cheek pointed out the window. His left arm was in tatters, the exo that had been connected to the back of his arm, elbow, and wrist, hung down like Spanish moss.

Bri ran across the room and looked. Her visor synced and she saw three soldiers struggling with the massive autocannon. She dropped to her stomach and took a breath. She wanted to think. Her arm reached back for her weapon, her suit integrated as she glanced through the optics.

They didn't have much time. The room was filled with civilians, moms and sisters and daughters.

Bri squeezed the trigger and the marine's chest plate crumpled and he flew back into a wall.

There were seven of them left, mostly 62's, and the world below looked like a sea of marines. How long could Kat really hold the door? How long before their ship dropped armor? They were going to die in fire.

It was barely a motion, the movement it took to shift the rifle to the next marine. As soon as the optics flashed, she pulled the trigger and moved to the next.

The autocannon fell to its side.

More Burster fire tore into the top of the tower. The gentle curves of metal that had held the windows in place were riddled with holes and shredded. The sound was deafening, even with visors and auditory implants.

She looked over her shoulder and saw a little girl cover her ears, squeeze her eyes shut like she could disappear if she really tried, and scream in terror.

## Chapter 10

So it went. Pauly kept the unit patched into Earther comms so they knew every move on the ground. Kat and a small sentry cannon, one of 62's specialists was able to get going, manned the door until it ran empty. And the rest worked whichever side the marines tried to move on.

It was exhausting. There wasn't time to discuss tactics or orders, it was raw survival. The truest nature of what they were, soldiers, fell away at the top of Tower One. There, isolated, alone, and facing the onslaught of Earther forces, the NewTs became more than the sum of their training.

It seemed impossible. Everything they had learned, every exercise Anderson had drilled them through, every lesson they had learned in the cramped little rooms – now it was who they were.

Bri looked around. A thick haze of dirt and smoke hung over the huddled crowd. Everyone one looked like they had been painted with dust and blood. No one was untouched. She stared at the faces. She had never seen such stark, naked fear. Every face wore the same question: Is this where we die?

They moved like a machine. As soon as Pauly heard orders on the ground, the unit moved to defend. If the marines tried get an autocannon in range, Biloxi and Bri would shift to eliminate the weapon. If the marines tried to coordinate an attack on the tower, mobilizing a unit to rush the tower under cover fire, the NewTs would help Kat cover the stairway or lay down blanket fire from their perches around the room.

They littered the streets with crumpled marines.

An hour passed. Then two.

Biloxi wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. A long black streak of dirt and grim appeared over his eyes. "Another down," he tossed a steaming energy cell into a pile and loaded a fresh one.

The team had stockpiled everything they had toward the front of the room. To the worried, huddled workers in the center of the room, it looked like they had enough to last forever, but the soldiers knew better. The pile was disappointing if not disheartening, cartridges, clips, and energy cells barely knee high. But it was all that stood between them and marines on the ground.

A drone popped into view, Bri pulled her pistol as her visor locked onto the spinning sensor array that was, undoubtedly counting them, their weapons, ammo, and how many had heartbeats. As soon as she swinger her arm around, the exo fine-tuned her aim, and the bot flew into a thousand individual pieces.

"Anything?" Bri looked over at Pauly.

"Nothing." He shook his head.

It wasn't good news. The pile of ammunition on the floor might hold out for a couple more hours, but once the Earthers started dropping artillery, it wouldn't matter anyway. They might be able to take down a few, but not many and not for long.

There was a sharp cry that broke off suddenly when Hess was hit in the head with a Burster round. Her headless body leaned forward slowly before it tumbled and out the window with all of her weapons.

"I lost them, I lost the comms," Pauly shouted, his voice almost hysterical. He looked around the room like a madman. You could see his brain was trying to work it out, understand what losing the comms meant, but instead of panic, he set to work. He picked up the receiver he had hacked and got to work.

Every eye moved from Pauly back to Bri.

"Hinks!" Bri pointed to the place Hess had fallen from. "Man that corner."

Hinks jumped up from where he was tending to a woman who had to be eighty. He handed her the bloody cloth in his hand. "Try to keep pressure on it." He looked at the man sitting beside his patient. "Help her if you can."

Thunder rolled across the sky and everything shook. Bri closed her eyes. She remembered the gentle smile on her mother's face when she said goodbye. It was like she had known that it was forever, that they would never see each other again.

The crate whistled through the sky before it slammed into the earth. It was bigger than the crates the marines used, more the size of a domicile, you could raise a small family in a crate the Earther tanks dropped in. She looked out over Kilter Field just as the dust plume was mushrooming at the top.

A frigate could carry a thousand if it could carry one.

Biloxi swung the railgun toward the tanks eventual approach; the drop had been well over five miles away.

"They're under orders not to destroy the facility," Bri said the words out loud.

"How do you know?" Kat didn't turn from her weapon's optics. She was a NewT version of an autocannon, her weapon ready to end any marine that tried.

"Because we're still alive," Pauly pulled his pistol and hit a drone no one else had noticed.

Dust from the first assault had thinned to thin fog, but the tank cut a new cloud along the horizon. Bri opened a menu set on her visor and adjusted her rifle's energy coefficients. At max she could stop a tank if the shields were down, the Broadrail could too, but both weapons would start burning through energy cells much faster than they had been. Tanks shields were heavy.

Her visor zoomed in on the beast of metal that plowed across the dry lake bed. It was a smaller tank, heavy explosive projectile type, not one of the latest models they had learned about. But it was deadly, easily capable of tearing the top off of Tower One at range.

Biloxi opened up on it and cooked through one energy cell. Every hit splashed blue across the tanks energy shielding, softening it up.

The expired cell sizzled when Biloxi tossed it out the window and reloaded. "You want another one?" His big face was full of worry.

Bri dropped to her belly and steadied her rifle. To disable the tank she needed to sever it from its power source. Her visor highlighted the tanks weaknesses. She locked onto one and fired.

The gun jolted in her hands but she held tight and watched the shot splash against the tank's shield, not blue but yellow. She locked back onto the same spot and fired again.

This time there was no splash of light. The tank shook for a moment and stopped.

They all watched in silence. Waiting. But that was it. There was no explosion, no smoke; no soldiers stumbled away from the machine on fire.

Biloxi smiled.

It took a few moments for news to reach the marines on the ground, but when it did, they fired up at Tower One. Everyone moved back into the room as rounds tore into the already mangled ceiling.

The sky thundered again and there were two impacts, close together and near the tank. The Earthers had no intention of giving up. But Bri and the rest didn't care. They would hold out until they had nothing but rocks to throw.

"Their orders are to fire when in range." Pauly had found a way back into the marine's comms.

"Tell us something we don't know," Kat grinned madly.

Burster fire cut into the eastern wall like a noisy reminder that there were still a hundred marines on the ground ready to kill them.

"I wish I could get into the frigate," Pauly muttered to himself.

Bri stared up at the sky. Night would be on them soon.

The Broadrail burned through another energy cell before Bri put two rounds through the first tank. It stopped and she moved to the second one, just in time to see the main gun fire.

A plume of orange and red fire exploded out of the barrel.

"Down!" Bri screamed and jumped at Biloxi, knocking him to the ground.

The projectile hit just above the windows on the western side. The air in the room was sucked out to feed the explosion. It felt like they were being shaken by the shoulders, whipped back and forth. Bri wondered if the tower would collapse. If this was their end.

Everyone civilian in the room had broken ear drums. The children were screaming. Smoke and dust filled the air. Bri glanced at her visor's readout. Everyone was still alive. She got to one knee, aimed and emptied a cell into the tank's shield.

It took a moment, but Biloxi shook off the pain and started with the Broadrail. They couldn't take another hit. Bri clenched her jaw. She wanted them dead, every Earther, all of them. She pulled the energy cell out of her exo and loaded it into her rifle.

She fired on the tank until it stopped moving.

Three more tanks fell. Bri looked at Biloxi who looked back at the last few energy cells. They had enough for two, maybe, but they couldn't stop three. She looked back at the stairs. The Earthers wouldn't destroy the entire tower. Maybe they could get downstairs, find another place to defend.

Biloxi sited the Broadrail and began to pepper the first the tank's shield.

Thunder shook the planet and a blue explosion erased the evening sky. Every eye watched as debris burned through the atmosphere. A hundred bright streaks of burning, smoking wreckage.

No one fired a shot.

"Members of units 37 and 62, this is the ALC Surprise. Just wanted to let you know we're on our way."

Biloxi and Pauly both let out a cheer. Bri stared out over the lakebed. The tank was still approaching, but out of nowhere, two Daedric fighters appeared, and opened up on the beast with their pulse weapons. The tank disappeared in a cloud of fire and smoke.

The fighters then flew over Kilter Field, past Tower One. "Hang on kids," an unknown voice chuckled over the comms, "we're on our way."

Bri looked around the room. They were alive and today that was all that mattered.

***

