Jeane Remington's Story

The target that Jeane Remington was ordered to acquire walked straight into her hands when Ari stepped through the door of The Penance Tavern. The subject was a known drunk despite recent activities all having been halted. There had been no way to track Ari on the information that had been provided by Grove.

That capsuleer was a strange one, Jeane thought to herself. The Azric was barely keeping herself together. Hadden was making some progress but it was not enough and not fast enough. The threat of the SRL was too great to let a first generation capsuleer like Grove lose her wits. Other measures needed to be taken to bring back the capsuleer from the brink.

Thus, Ari and the need to apprehend the woman. There was only one breed of person that was going to be able to find the recent recluse and that was a capsuleer. Jeane volunteered for the mission. She thought it was going to be easy as pie, but as soon as she set foot on Terra she realized her mistake.

So, it was only by grace and luck that Ari stepped into the same bar as Jeane that day. A grin spread over the Terran's face and she scooted closer to Ari.

“I know who you are,” Jeane said in her southern drawl. It was a curiosity where the capsuleer had picked up the accent. Maybe it was just part of her eccentricity.

“There’s someone lookin’ fer you and I’m supposed to take you to’er. Ah, now, don’t get all scared on me. You know this lady ev’n though you twos haven’t spoken in a long time, she says. Her name’s Grove. She told me to tell you that before you hurt me, she said.” Jeane gave Ari a wink.

“So, you comin’ or not?”

Ari leaned a little sideways as the woman approached, away from her, casting a brief sidelong glance over at Jeane. At first, she had hoped that perhaps the woman was going to walk on by, or perhaps take a seat and ignore her. That hope was a short-lived one as Jeane sat herself right beside her. Ari tensed up ever so slightly, again looking aside at the woman again with evident irritation. Before she could so much as grunt a guttural greeting, Jeane had made her intentions clear. Her eyebrows dipped down in displeasure as she studied her up and down, silent for a long moment as she evaluated the woman's body language, tone, and the content of her words.

"Proof," she growled softly, not taking her eyes from Jeane's. There was a distinct tension in the air, and not the metaphorical kind. As quiet an existence as Ari had been living, she had not been so lax as to allow her capability with the gift she had been given to atrophy. At that moment, she was getting a good but imperceptible grip on Jeane, preparing herself to let her mind suddenly push and pull in all directions at once.

Jeane’s eyebrow’s rose at the single-worded answer that she had gotten from Ari. What a bitch. The capsuleer rolled her eyes and pulled out a miniature tablet hidden inside her leather jacket. Most people would have thought that Jeane was going for a gun so the capsuleer didn’t take her eyes off of Ari.

“If you wanna talk t'her that’s fine wit me. Let me get that damn woman on th'phone,” Jeane said to Ari. Of course a capsuleer’s ‘phone’ was far different from the Terran’s idea of one. How could an entire race of intelligent beings be so damned stupid? It was mind boggling.

Jeane talked to herself as she dug through the tablet’s interface. It was something about ‘rather be droolin’ over Castor’s ass’. A swipe of the capsuleer’s hand and the interface transferred into her actual hand. It was hovering there as a holographic display.

There was a cheerful chime and then, “What the fuck do you want?” It was Grove’s voice and unmistakable.

“I found yer friend.”

“What friend?”

“Ari.”

“And who the fuck told you to go and track down my old drinking buddies, you dumb fuck?”

“Hadden.”

There was silence on the other end. Jeane looked at Ari and shrugged before the commlink disappeared.

“She’s been real angry lately. I think it stems from the sexual tension ‘tween her’n’Hadden. Seriously, you should see the two lookit each other. It makes me sick. He looks at her like she’s some new fangled starship cruiser’n’Grove jus’ looks at ‘im like he’s gonna bite her. Love if I ev’r saw it.”

Ari didn't bat an eyelash as Jeane reached into her coat. It was either going to be proof or a damn good reason--either way, she was curious. She looked on carefully, her expression smoothing out into one of passivity as Jeane made contact. Ari watched the holographic display--briefly remembering with amusement and wonder how it used to be that sundials and metal tools were at one time the pinnacles of human technology, and fire was a gift stolen from the gods...

Then there was Grove. A look of perturbed bafflement crossed her features, and she sat up straighter, resting an arm on the bar top. After a few seconds, she reached up with that hand to rub a thumb thoughtfully over her lips.

"Why would Hadden ask for you to find me? Especially since he's so sweetly bound in the twining of amorous rapture with that delicate blossom..." Ari couldn't help a wolfish grin. "...gliding through space on their love boat..." It was obvious that her mind was running amok with this ridiculousness, and she was restraining herself to the best of her ability. Something about hearing Grove's voice took the recluse right out of her.

“Oh, no, don’t get me wrong, ma’am,” Jeane said to Ari. “They ain’t fuckin’. At least not yet that I’ve seen. I knows she went inta his room th’other night ‘fore she passed out from an infection. She weren’t in there long enough t’have a go at ‘im.”

“Don’t know what she sees in ‘im or ‘im her. They’re both off their fuckin’ rockers. Oriyaks’n’Azrics don’t belong together. It jus’ ain’t meant to be. Who knows, maybe if they did fuck they’d both get their heads back on straight,” Jeane said with a shrug of her shoulder. She swatted back her red hair and then stood up from the stool.

As Jeane put the tablet back into her leather jacket she spoke to Ari with a solemn tone of voice.

“Grove’s been losin’ it in the only way a capsuleer really can. You really don’t understan’ it unless yer one o’us. She’s fuckin’ old. I don’t know how old but her readings when they showed her Anarchy were ridiculous. We’ve only seen one like it b’fore.”

“The woman needs yer help comin’ back to reality. That’s ‘bout how easy I can explain it without you seein’ it for yerself.”

Ari's expression went through several stages. It started with her initial amusement at the romantic predicament, then transformed into mild horror mixed with surprise at learning that there was no action between the odd couple. Her jaw went a little slack in disbelief for a second before she set it firmly, looking back behind the bar at the bottles of liquor wistfully. At length, she sighed, shaking her head and dropping it low, into her palms so she could grind at her eyes with the heels of her hands.

"What do you folks expect me to do? If Hadden can't get through to her, then where do I come in? As she said--we were drinking buddies. Our antics could've put 'The Hangover' movies to damn shame. And--" Ari lifted her head, looking over at Jeane, raising one finger on one hand emphatically. "--I would be the last authority to address on the nature of reality, much less giving directions on how to get there. If Hadden had an iota of sense--which, clearly, he fuckin' doesn't--he would already know that."

“Grove can’t talk t’Hadden. Don’t you see?” Jeane asked in an incredulous tone of voice. How was Ari not able to understand why she was specifically needed?

There was also another agenda in bringing in Ari but Jeane didn’t tell her. The SRL was on the loose in Wing City and Ari was a potential target. They didn’t need to get their hands on her like they had with Valerie Chambers.

“She needs her frien’. She needs you an’ if you are any kind of friend then you will go n’help her. It’s as simple as that. You can’t jus’ stand by an’ not do nothin’. You gotta go at least talk to ‘her ev’n if it don’t do no good, you hear?”

“Hadden don’t know much ‘bout you but he says that you used to be wit’ Grove all th’time so…” Jeane made a gesture for the door. She didn’t want to pick the woman up and throw her over her shoulder but it was still a viable option at this point.

“Look, here’s a deal. We got lot’s o’booze on the ship. You get free reign as long as you talk to ‘er.”

The Ri'ehn pulled a face, looking away from the liquor again to stare at Jeane. The wheels were turning slowly. There was more to this than just Grove losing her shit, she suspected; there was little that could top the fact that Grove had kamikaze'd into an Aschen ship, destroying the titan and earning herself a badassery badge. If there was any way that bitch could get crazier, Ari could not imagine it--let alone imagine herself handling it.

There was also something nagging about the fact that this stranger was the one sent to fetch her. She didn't like that one bit. If Hadden wanted her, then why didn't he send someone she knew? What could that mean? How long, exactly, had she evaded reality? That was dangerous. It was one thing to be blindingly drunk all the time and have some notion of what was going on with the world--another thing entirely to sober up just to close your eyes...

Something about this still had her hackles up, but at the very least this was a change from the usual skulking and living just to breathe.

"I haven't had a drink in a minute," Ari confessed in an idle, dismissive tone, complete with a little wave of her hand. She frowned. "Where are they, exactly?"

“Grove jus’ got outta th’tank on board th’ship. It’s on an orbital course around Terra. We’re gonna have t’take my shuttle into Terran inner space,” Jeane said to Ari. “You ain’t got no problem wit’ flyin’ do you? I swear I don’t take kindly to people who puke all over my consoles.”

“I can’t tell you where Hadden is ‘cause he’s on a mission. Don’t know where he is actually but he’ll turn up. Hell, fer all I know he could still be on the ship ‘cause he’s worried ‘bout Grove. I swear, he gets this puppy dog look in his eye when he looks at ‘er.”

“The man needs better taste in women and that’s all I got to say ‘bout that,” Jeane said as she opened the door to the tavern. She held it open too so that Ari would get off her pretty ass and get a move on out Penance.

“Get a move on, ma’am. We ain’t got much time. Need to be leavin’ soon. Grove ain’t got much time,” Jeane said to Ari on their way out.

“I’ll explain it on th’way. It’s fuckin’ hilarious.”

Jeane shut the door behind them as both left the Penance Tavern.

“‘Bout to jump into the fun shit, Hadden.”

“Just … don’t get shot again, alright?”

“You’ll probably have to keep me on a leash for that to happen.”

The ramp of the Aruka airjet slowly creaked open, and light poured into the dark compartment bay until the twenty shuffling figures were now filing towards the new exit in two lines. Despite a helmet and complete environment suit the wind raged as the compartment vented its pressure into the atmosphere of the planet, with the landscape of Terra reaching out like an enormous blanket.

Wind howled an angry rhythm into Hadden’s ears as he found himself almost helpless, the sensation of plummeting to a terminal velocity a flickering ember of gnawing fear. The light threw everything into a weird between world of darkness and space above, then brightness and life below.

“This is Package K we are outbound, kick the tires and light the fires -- send those Prosecutors out behind us.”


Just a dozen klicks away the Resistance cruiser loomed behind a massive, towering cloud system: two great cargo doors reaching apart revealing the keels of two lumbering Prosecutor class gunships. Just under two hundred meters in length the vessels were imposing structures bristling with cannon and weaponry, at their helm capsuleers locking themselves up in the pod as lights and klaxons danced around the hull of the starship.

Castor stood in an office on the bridge of the cruiser, watching the two Prosecutor craft as they disembarked the cruiser’s bay over the blue ocean and green land of Terra below. “They’re away, send off the Prosecutors.”

“Prosecutor One away, Two standing by.” A Lieutenant somewhere operating a control terminal responded as Castor addressed a holographic relief of a thin, mountainous line of land down the latitude of Terra.

“Maybe we’ll get past this yet.” Castor replied shortly, eyes narrowed and parsing over the subcontinent of Nebrajit. All down its spiny length the Tranebian felt pinpricks of nervous doubt at several barking icons, rendezvous points for Resistance supply drops and trafficking lanes.


Onboard the first Prosecutor to leave a capsuleer notched his foot into the footplate of the gun mechanism. Graham flicked away the toothpick as the diagnostic finished and he watched the digital display wink to life, somewhere in the bowels of the ship the Terran was behind every security lock the APs were turning over as they settled into their new jobs as crew.

“Graham I’m getting a notification, is that 125 online?”

“It’s up -- podpuke’s in the aft weapons control, we’ll be clear when these guns need to pur.”

Jumping down from the auxiliary station Graham was met with two other capsuleers, hefting repair and diagnostic equipment behind them. “Hurry the fuck up and let the system ghost handle this -- we’re securing the jumpjets for the ground drop.”

Grove was standing against a wall waiting for the capsuleer who was supposed to pilot one of the Prosecutor’s. There were several people that went passed the woman without a single word. Minutes ticked by but finally the pilot popped up. Grove took a look at the crevice between two conduits next to her.

“Hey,” said Grove. The pilot stopped and turned to look at the person that spoke. Grove’s fist came in direct contact with the man’s nose. He yelled and grabbed his face as Grove’s arm came around the other capsuleer’s neck in a choke hold. After a few minutes of struggle the man finally gave out. Grove dragged his body behind the two conduits.

That Prosecutor was hers.


“Oh my … this baby is better than a new vibrat’r,” Jeane said as she settled into the Prosecutor’s pod. She was like a fat kid in a candy store with a rich daddy. The capsuleer giggled and squealed like a girl in sheer delight.

“I know a man that’s gonna get a big, fat, sloppy reward t’night,” said Jeane. She ignored all the feedback from that comment. Everyone knew about Jeane and Castor.

“Alrigh’, time t’get this baby in th’sky.” The Prosecuter disembarked with smooth easiness. Jeane was an excellent pilot with a lot of daring that even a capsuleer didn’t have. There was a fair chance the Prosecutor she was driving wasn’t going to come back in one piece. But it was going to be a fun toy while it lasted, Jeane thought to herself.


Meanwhile in the other Prosecutor, Grove had settled herself into the pod with confused looks from the crew. Any and all questions or remarks made she just ignored them. There was no way that Hadden or anyone was going to keep her from piloting a Prosecutor.

Unstable her ass. She was fine. Grove felt fine. Sure she had let an infection get to her but capsuleers didn’t always pay attention to every tiny hurt in their body.

“All flight systems up and go,” said Grove.

“Oh shit! What you doin’ ?” Jeane said to Grove.

“Piloting.”

“You ain’t supposed to be in there. You’re supposed to be recoverin’!”

“And aren’t you supposed to be blowing Castor?”

“Hey, now, that’s low, girl. That’s low. I could say th’same to you ‘bout Hadden, but I ain’t ‘cause I’m a good girl.”

“He couldn't handle all this,” Grove had a half-grin on her face. Jeane was a riot. The capsuleer was putting Grove into a good mood just like piloting the Prosecutor.

“I’m gettin’ tired of all this. You two should just fuck already.”

“Just shut up and drive, woman.”

The rain threw everything into a murky, silent haze, only punctuated by the sound of feet in the mud and idle conversation over the monsoon circling above. From orbit, the scattering of men were only seen as heat signatures hidden beneath dense foliage or under muddy brown water.

“Gavin, two coming your way. We’ve got them.” Hadden’s voice was an almost silent whisper, Gavin knew he was just a few meters away but playing dead beside a stack of corpses in the road he might have been all alone at the poles of the planet. Two flashlight cones cordoned the trail, creatures fleeing from the light and disappearing into the trees.

Letting out his breath Gavin slowly sank back onto the corpses, murky and crimson water flooding over his faceplate as he spotted the two capsuleers and waited for Hadden to make his move.

Which didn’t take long, as a mass came crushing down upon the trooper from an overhead tree on the right and Gavin sprung for the man on the left. Rising up from the mucky hole the agent quickly produced his combat knife, jabbing forward to find the point directly between the trooper’s eyes to carve through the forehead and sever the relays. It was only a second before Hadden and the other agent quickly rolled the corpses in with their former victims.

“This is Odinvolk, we’re groundside.” Hadden spoke into a small headset as he took a weapon from the pile, wiping away the mud. “We’ve got a comms set to listen on their communications too -- when those Prosecutor’s show up it’ll come in handy.”

Gavin checked the locking lug on an AR-91, slapped the magazine once and shouldered the rifle as Hadden and him joined the other agents at an abandoned checkpoint along the muddy mountain road.

“We ready to move forward? Where’s Vanguard?” Sever and the other agents were arranged in a loose half circle.

“They’ll be behind us, coming in with the Terrans so we don’t get shot in the back.”

“Did you find that contact in New Darban?”

“The cop? Nyet, had to get word to them more quickly.”

Hadden reached a hand out and took a few drinks of rain water, and shook his head while resting his arms over the mechanism of his rifle. “Nope, had to do it the hard way … needless to say when they do arrive keep your heads down and out of sight, we’ll get cuffed and stuffed if anyone catches on there’s more than Vanguard here.”


Several kilometers overhead the Prosecutor burned through the stormfront, rain and wind sending great howls through the gundeck of the Prosecutor as Saber team readied themselves at the guns and launchers of the vessel.

“This is Graham, send the ammo in and let’s go!”

The breech of the 125mm railcannon sprung open, the three other men serving as guncrew operating quickly at the command prompts: turbulence sent great shudders through the vessel’s keel every once in a while, requiring the men to navigate their way through the ship using walking handles.

“Aft A3G is active, ready for firing!”

Graham jumped down through the mechanisms and machinery of the gun casemate, barely missing the weapon coming to life as the capsuleer in the pod took control of the weapon. Smacking a few protocol prompts Graham left the firing station with the three other capsuleers on their way to the rest of the fire control centers.

“Give us a readout on the ETA -- we should have these guns running by the time we’re on-station.”

“I’m serious. I heard a rumor that he’s got a huge—“

“ Fuckin’ Terrans,” muttered Grove. The capsuleer rolled her eyes and let the comment fly. There was no point in responding. Jeane would just continue on and on about it the entire ride. It was best to just let it all fall into silence.

The hum of the Prosecutor was like a gentle lullaby in Grove’s ear. It was comforting and relaxing. Grove eased the ship through the violent air currents. Her crew had a much gentler ride than Jeane’s. Those poor men and women probably had their teeth rattling in the skulls. It was all fun and games to the Terran capsuleer.

“Duke, ease her up. I can see you jarring around from back here,” Grove said to Jeane.

“Oh so now you talk t’me. Alright. Well, fine. I’ll stop bouncin’ around but I can only do so much. This monsoon is purdy bad. Who’s idea was this anyway?”

Grove swiped her hand and the holographic console that showed radar, topographical maps, air current movements, and scanner reports moved to her right peripheral vision. She pulled up the locator of the men on the ground.

“Odinvolk, we’re coming up on your tail,” said Grove into his headset.

“Alright boys, who’s ready to shoot somethin’! Target is in sight,” Jeane called to her crew and in Grove’s ear, unfortunately. "ETA five minutes to arrival."

“Targeting systems online,” said Grove as she brought up thermal imaging. “Let’s give the boys on the ground a little support, shall we?”

“Roger, Cap’t Treehugger,” said Jeane. “I’m gonna fuckin’ blast all them motherfuckers. It’s like a game of fuckin’ Galaga. Only I don’t get to pull the trigger which ain’t fun but who the fuck cares.”

The barrel of an anti-air gun aimed lazily into the gray sky, Hadden gingerly let the hand grenade roll down the barrel as Gavin and the rest of the team readied for the assault. Bayonets were fixed, a few prayers muttered and one man kept a rosary close to his chest before looping it around his neck.

Hadden leaned against Gavin, the two men with an arm over one another as the hand grenade detonated and the barrel of the gun warped and screamed, a violent orange explosion quickly suffocated by water. “You and the others take the tunnels, find the slave stations. I will handle the communications.” Indicating up to the central bunker with a large digital scanning array, Hadden dispatched the three others on to their objective as he eyed his own.


Crawling down from the gun installation the facility was suddenly alight with activity, and the first explosions from gunfire support and the Prosecutors could be heard only a few hundred meters away in the slight bowl valley the station occupied. Jumping down into one of the slit trenches Hadden found himself up to his ankles in water, though he kept moving at a regular pace as he neared an intersection in the trenchline. His thoughts went quiet all except for his mission: he curiously pied the corner with his weapon at the ready. His mind raced through the rain, fought over the noise, and for a second Grove …

Wait, what?

A shell exploded nearly a dozen meters away and Hadden was sent spilling onto the ground, suddenly a hornet’s nest of shellfire was above him and all in the trench. 57mm cannon rounds spat plumes of water and muck into the sky, rotary cannon shells made angry fists into the ground blasting apart the walls of the trenches and almost entombing Hadden within. Overhead, the pilot lights of the first Prosecutor loomed overhead as the ground was punished with an extended barrage.

“Shit. They’ve got anti-aircraft return fire,” cursed Grove. Her fingers ran over the projection as she manually targeted the origins of each 57mm round.

All it took was a single flash glance between each of the holographic maps for Grove to pinpoint where the cannons that had fired were positioned. She had triangulated every possible location of the cannons from sheer mental mathematics using angle trajectories and approximation based on sight.

“OOOKlahoma where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plains,” Jeane sang off key in everyone’s ear. Grove groaned and gritted her teeth. Where the Hell did Hadden find this woman?

A cannon round struck lucky on Jeane’s Prosecutor. The capsuleer cursed as the round bounced through the hull of the ship’s interior.

“I said to keep that thing in one piece. You just got struck in the belly, Duke.”

“Alrigh’. They don’t like my singin’. I get it. I ain’t a perfect singer,” said Jeane. Just then the coordinates of the cannons popped up on Jeane’s displays. She immediately uploaded them to the boys’ targeting consoles.

Grove passed a glance at the video feed of her boys working fervently to dish out offensive fire on the enemy depot. All it took was for that one second of distraction to make a good situation bad.

“Shit! They got—” A barrage of solid metal slugs powered by mass acceleration struck Grove’s Prosecutor. She took an emergency evasive maneuver but the machine moved slower than the woman’s mind. Two hit dead on the right wing of the Prosecutor. There was an explosion of flame and smoke before the ship tilted at an alarming angle.

Grove was going down.

“Sonuvabitch! Treehugger is going down! I repeat, Prosecutor Two is on its way down to the ground!” Jeane deployed the unmanned drones to help support cover fire as the other ship careened out of control.

More barks erupted in the air as the drones swept down low and targeted enemy bodies through thermal imaging. The mass accelerators SAM units were shut down and Jeane fired up both main railguns to target the bunker.

“Let’s light this shit up like motherfuckin’ Christmas! Jingle fuckin’ bells, motherfuckers!”

Stray rounds and ricochets made whining screams at Hadden as he picked his way over the coils of wire and ducting atop the bunker trench as he made his way to the array dish. Occasionally, he would throw himself to the ground to avoid heavy cannon fire, and watched bright streaks trace over him by centimeters before he got back up to move again.

The satellite dish pointed lazily into the sky, though it had already been punctured in several places by large-bore rounds. Amidst the stinging rain and gunfire Hadden reached the satellite array and slid onto his back near one of the pylons joining it with the bunker. Wrapping one arm around the beam he looked into the sky haplessly, the bleak look in his eyes only alleviated when he saw the soft, tiny blinking pilot lights of the lone Morsman attack drone overhead.

“This is Mortal, marking the dish array!” Taking a small infrared marker from his pocket Hadden slid the device into a space between the beam and the roof of the trench, holding it in place. Breathing one last sigh Hadden looked into the sky again, and watched as the infinitesimal pilot lights of the drone slowly oriented towards him.


At a height of 6 kilometers, the Morsman drone activated the passive guidance system inside the first 900kg ironbomb and let it gradually edge away from the aircraft. Barrel rolling out of the way, the warhead reached a terminal pitch and began to a screaming descent on a trajectory toward its target. Some thousand meters below, the bomb’s “television” eye spotted a lone figure quickly scrambling away from the bunker.


Onboard the airworthy Prosecutor, two capsuleers squinted through the hazardous rain and water as the 25mm autoncannons roared at a target on the ground. Overhead the crashsite, various movements around the wreckage could be seen, only beaten back with precise fire from the onboard weaponry.

“This is Graham, they’re crawling all over that crashsite -- Odinvolk better get their asses down there for a quick S&R or we’re gonna’ have to start shelling the whole site!”

“Check for survivors over there,” said a voice nearby Grove’s position. It sounded distant as if she was trying to hear someone at the other end of a long tunnel. The screeching of metal twisting and gyrating still rang in the capsuleer’s ears. Her bones still hurt from taking the impact of the Prosecutor crashing into a field of mud.

“This one’s dead. Check the others.”

The sound of boots squishing in the slick mud came closer and closer. Grove’s heart beat rate increased. She willed herself to remain calm and to remain unmoving in the organic sludge.

“This one’s dead too. It looks like no one survi—” The second corpse that lay beneath the first was not a corpse but Grove. As soon as the body had been rolled off of her, Grove sprung up with a bayonet knife and stabbed the Leaguesman in the temple.

He dropped down dead with a surprised look on his face as Grove wheeled around with his AP 50. She shot the other in the neck, chest, and shoulder six times. Rifle rounds spattered the ground around Grove as the man attempted to get a shot in as he collapsed into the mud to his death.

A third man raised his MR-32 at Grove’s back. She didn’t even realize that he was there until a drone swept by overhead and sprayed the man down.

“Yer welcome, Treehugger. Now get th’hell outta there ‘fore they swamp over you,” Jeane said into Grove’s earpiece.

Grove took the dead man’s MR-32 and his AP 50 leaving her with a bayonet after recovering it from the first man’s skull, a rifle, and two pistols. She shoved whatever ammo she found into mud filled flight suit pockets.

The capsuleer scouted out her surroundings and found a patch of high grass. Grove lay down onto her belly and kept low as she crawled toward her target destination. She ducked her head into the mud as another sweep was made by a drone. Silt water splashed onto her matted hair and dirt caked on the edge of her right eye.

There was no way she was even going to make it. There were more boots incoming. Grove went still in the bloodied mud.

Seconds later a man stooped down to Grove’s body and pronounced her dead. The troop marched forward to investigate the crash site.

The skirmish raging in the mountains of Nebrajit, of course, did not go unnoticed by the Terran National Government. As explosions rocketed the Terran wilderness and the body count soared, the scouters of Triremes orbiting the planet lit-up with warning signals. Whatever was going on down on the surface was in for a rude awakening.

A small formation of six Seraphim carriers, flanked by three Paladin starfighters, approached the hulking Prosecuter ships. They hailed them and quickly relayed their warning message.

"Attention, unidentified hostiles!" a sergeant aboard one of the Seraphim spoke into his comm system, "identify yourself, withdraw your troops and disarm immediately! You are fighting on Terran soil and are subject to arrest and questioning." The comm cut. One of the pilots looked up from his screen after finishing a scan of the surface.

"We've got fighting down there, sir," he nodded, "foot troops and heavy batteries. It looks like there's some sort of facility in the mountains."

"A facility?" the sergeant's brows furrowed, "why didn't we know about this?"

"I don't know sir," the pilot shook his head, "it's possible they've been stealthing themselves. Avoiding our scouter runs. Whatever this thing is about, it looks like the battle is between the trips of these ships and the soldiers belonging to that facility."

The sergeant growled. "I want a strike-team prepped and loaded into droppods. I don't like that we haven't known about this. If the troops don't withdraw or make contact, we're moving in." He grumbled, settling back into a chair. "This is our planet goddammit, not the combat playground for opposing grunt factions."

“Mortal, they’ve taken the bait -- you’ve got a TAF task force bearing down on the facility now.”

Castor slightly adjusted the headset before setting his sight on the one airworthy Prosecutor left. On a holographic relay, the topography of the mountainous island’s numerous rifts and valleys and reaching summits jumped into three dimensions. A few seconds later a bright red line sprouted from the Prosecutor and weaved into the deep, trench-like mountain valleys that created a spiderweb across the subcontinent.

“Alright Jeane, your shot’s up. We’ll take care of Hadden’s capsuleer, Ostvet is inbound. Get that Prosecutor out of the battlespace: we’re sending coordinates now.”


Hadden slid away from a rickety dock, submerging himself in the stagnant pool and locking onto the small pumphouse taking water from the cenote. Overhead, the noise of engines had become a dominating howl: almost enough to inundate the gunfire and battle raging through the jungles and sloping hills below as the Terran forces arrived.

“Mortal we’re inbound to the crash site -- the Terrans are right on top of you though, keep your head about you!” Gavin’s voice preached into his ear, though the staccato bark of assault rifles and handguns threatened to squander his words in static.

“Affirmative. Moving to the objective.”

Hadden slowly swam his way through the water, making sure to breath only when his head was above the water and match his movements with an amphibian creature. The slight loading ramp into the mud sent a chill down his spine as his thoughts raced for a second.

When his foot kicked through the water and pushed against a submerged corpse Hadden nearly sucked in enough water to drown himself, and then he went under too. Only for a second though, did Hadden struggle and immediately find himself face to face with the blank, decomposing eyes of a young woman.

Something in the back of his mind screamed and he reached up at the murky rays of gray light shining from just above the surface. His feet and hands continued in protest before he came popping from the depths with a massive gasp, the next thing he saw being the lazy barrel of the assault rifle trained at the water.

“Shit it’s Mortal!”

Even though his eyes were closed Hadden found the capsuleer’s ankle and quickly yanked him backward. Suddenly his hearing was deafened though, a high-pitched wail from inside his head as three battle rifle rounds screamed just inches from his head and blasted violent halos into the water behind him.

“Fuck get to the al -- “

The pumphouse exploded in a furious conflagration, building pieces and beams rocketing into the sky and making great plumes in the water besides him as Hadden drew the knife into the man’s thigh and then dragged him off the side of the dock into the black water. Just before he disappeared, the Oriyak narrowed his eyes from the wind pressure of the enormous Seraphim carrier perched over the winding trail that spiderwebbed the facility.