Valiant: Tales From The Archive

[CURSEd #15: Resurgent]

Log Date: 2/23/12764

Data Sources: Darrow Bennion

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

C.V. Justice: Hangar

11:26am SGT

“I still don’t like this.” Whisper mutters as we arrive to our spot near the hangar door.

“You don’t need to like it. All you need to do is follow your orders.” Nazka replies tartly from his place at the front of the group. “And those involve no snide comments, no acting out, no unsolicited opinions. These people are in possession of something we need very badly, something we absolutely cannot afford to leave here without it. Their cooperation and assistance is mission-critical, so you will treat them with respect, and you will not endanger this mission by running your mouth. Is that clear?”

“Yeesh, I get it. I’ll keep my mouth shut.” Whisper says.

“Don’t worry. You’re not the only one that’s got doubts.” Gossamer says from where she’s standing at Nazka’s shoulder, kitted out in her low-profile armor. “I wasn’t exactly a fan of this plan either.”

“Relaaaaaax, they’re mercs.” Onslaught drawls. “So long as we hold up our end of the deal, they’ll hold up theirs. They ain’t complicated.”

“Something about which you would know plenty, I’m sure.” Nazka says tersely. “I also expect you to refrain from running your mouth. Is that clear?”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya.” Onslaught says, reaching into her pocket and busting out a candy bar. “Here, I’ll keep my mouth busy by puttin’ something in it. How’s that sound?”

“It sounds incredibly lewd.” Whisper deadpans.

“You are not helping, Whisper.” Nazka says. I can hear the gritted teeth in his tone.

“Are we sure this isn’t a trap?” Kwyn asks from where she’s standing beside me, keeping her voice low so the others don’t hear. She’s kitted out in her light power armor, helm tucked under her arm. “Something like this seems like a huge one-eighty for them.”

“The intelligence department was confident about it.” I reply just as quietly, shifting a little within the Axiom suit to mask our conversation. “It seems counterintuitive, but you’ve got to remember that mercs aren’t normal soldiers. They’re not loyal to a cause; they’re loyal to the highest bidder. And CURSE has more resources than the Valiant Project does.”

“If it’s that simple, why didn’t we just buy them off earlier?” Kwyn murmurs. “Seems like it would’ve put an end to this much quicker.”

“I guess the administration didn’t think it needed to be solved with money earlier.” I reply, looking over my shoulder. Our regular operatives are milling about in the hangar, prepping APCs and scout drones for deployment; this is going to be a full operation. The only thing we’re not going to be fielding are heavy armor elements, though you could argue that Blockchain fits into that category pretty well. “If the administration is throwing money at the problem to make it easier to solve now, that might mean we’ve exhausted our low-level options.”

“Do we have other options beyond throwing money at the problem?” Kwyn asks, looking over her shoulder as well.

“I’m sure we do. What those are, I’m not sure.” I answer, looking forward again. “I know we’ve got some break-the-glass plans, but those only come out in emergencies. I think, because it’s just a few rogue Challengers and a mercforce, the administration didn’t think it was a big problem. The mercforce is ninety percent of the problem; if you get them out of the way, then all that’s left is a handful of rogue Challengers and their friends. That’s why most of our operations to this point have focused on drawing them out and engaging them in situations where they can’t bring the mercs along with them.”

“Cut the chatter. Doors are opening.” Nazka orders as the warning klaxons sound in the hangar. Ahead of us, the hangar doors start to split open, folding outward to form the disembarking ramp. Air rushes in, cold to the skin, as our surroundings come into view: an even larger hangar, this one massive enough to house anything short of a capital-class carrier.

I suppose it’d be more accurate to call it an internal dock, because that’s what it looks like. As we start down the ramp, we can see an older battlecruiser parked at the pier adjacent to ours, looking like it’s weathered some recent battle damage. The quay is bustling with mercenaries that look like they’re loading equipment back into their ship, many of them glancing at us as we exit the Justice. At the bottom of the ramp, a salt-and-pepper Venusian is waiting for us at the bottom, wearing a full suit of power armor repainted in the colors of the Dussel Mercforce. Beside him is a small woman with short black hair and ice-blue eyes, her posture stiff in her uniform.

“Commander Dussel.” Nazka says as he reaches the bottom of the ramp, coming to a stop in front of the Commander. “I am Nazka, Deputy Administrator of CURSE. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is.” Dussel grunts, looking unimpressed. “Not to be rude, but let’s cut the shit. My people are packing up so we can prepare to hand this place over to you. Did you bring enough talent to deal with the Challengers? Because we’re not going to be staying to help you fight them.”

“What we’ve brought should be more than sufficient.” Nazka answers as the rest of us cluster to a stop near him. “You had agreed to hand them over to us, though.”

“I told you I’d get them to you all in one place, so you could round them up.” Dussel says. “We’ve got Jackrabbit locked up on our ship over there, and I can pull the plug on the angelnet when you give the signal, since her core’s on the ship. The rest are going to be having a powwow at the core pretty soon, so if your people are ready, we can get down there and catch them off guard while they’re celebrating.”

The sound of massive, metallic thuds cuts off Nazka’s forthcoming answer. We all look around to see Blockchain lumbering down the ramp of the Justice, with everybody wincing as he starts dragging his cubic flail behind him, rusty metal shrieking on the pristine ramp surface.

“Oi! Brainless rustbucket!” Onslaught screeches at him, turning and walking back towards the ramp. “What have I told you! Pick up the brick! Don’t drag it around unless we’re fighting! You’re gonna turn everyone deaf at this rate!”

Blockchain stops and stares at Onslaught, while his cube and the anchor chain connected it continue slowly screeching down the slope of the ramp.

“Up!” Onslaught screams at him, pointing at the cube, then pantomiming picking it up and holding it. “PICK UP THE GODDAMN BRICK, YOU GODDAMN BRICK!”

Blockchain stares for a second more, then grabs the anchor chain. The cube stops sliding down the ramp, then starts screeching in reverse as he starts reeling it back up the ramp towards himself so he can pick it up.

“No no no! That’s not what I meant, you glorified toaster!” Onslaught shouts, stamping a foot before starting to march over to him. “Why are you so stupid—”

“I see you brought the A-team today.” Dussel remarks drily, watching the entire debacle with something approaching tired, resigned fascination. “And here I thought that the crippling dysfunction was limited to the has-been Challengers I’ve been babysitting for the last six months.”

“That’s not representative of the whole.” Nazka says tersely as Blockchain finally picks up his flail and continues lumbering down the ramp. Pulling his gaze from our most massive Peacekeeper, he looks back to Dussel. “The delivery of the rogue Challengers was not the only thing you promised us.”

“You get the Challenger archive when I get my mobile fortress back.” Dussel replies coolly. “Repaired and refitted to industry standards. I made that very clear when we discussed it.”

“You have it, then?” Gossamer pries.

“It is secured. We will not be disclosing its location to you.” says the ice-eyed woman standing beside Dussel. “Just because we have come to an accord does not mean we are letting our guard down. Payment will proceed as agreed. We deliver the Challengers to you upfront. You deliver a refurbished Bulwark to us. We deliver the backup archive to you. You speak to the Colloquium and have the Dussel Mercforce removed from galactic blacklisting.”

“I don’t think you appreciate the time and resources required to fully refurbish a damaged mobile fortress.” Nazka says.

“We’re fully aware of that.” Dussel says. “We’re also fully aware of the value of the Challenger archive, and quite aware that we could ask for three times as much as what we have asked, and you still would not be giving us full value for what we’re agreeing to hand over to you.”

“There are some matters regarding the archive that are time-sensitive.” Nazka insists.

“Then I recommend you put a rush on repairing and returning the Bulwark to us.” Dussel says, unmoved. “You are not in a position to negotiate, Nazka. Accept the deal, or we will find other parties that will be willing to pay the value of what we possess. CURSE may be powerful and well-financed, but you are an organization. There are nations and governments which have means well beyond yours, and would compensate us far better than CURSE would.”

“Why didn’t you make the offer to them, then?” Kwyn demands. “You knew you had better options available.”

“Keep pushing me, and I just might.” Dussel rumbles at her, then looks back to Nazka. “What’s it going to be, Deputy Administrator? Are we going to show you to the Challengers now, or are you going to crawl back into your ship and run away?”

“We’ll take your offer.” Nazka says coldly. “Let us get this over; it’d be a shame if we lost the window you arranged for us.”

“Agreed.” Dussel says, looking up to hangar of the Justice. “Are your people ready to deploy? If not, how long will they take?”

“We were preparing well before we arrived. The first wave should be ready to go in fifteen.” Nazka answers, turning to gaze back up into the hangar bay. “With your permission, we will have the ready units start disembarking immediately.”

“Have at it. I don’t own the docks.” Dussel says. “I’m already withdrawing my people across the city, all the ones I can without tipping off the Challengers and their friends. I’ll show you to where they are, but after that, I leave it to you.”

“Understood.” Nazka says, raising a hand to the hangar of the Justice and motioning for them to start disembarking. “Reconvene in twenty minutes to commence?”

“If you’ll be ready by then.” Dussel shrugs, turning and pointing across the docks to the distant walls, where it looks like there are well-spaced tunnels that lead into the superstructure itself. “Meet us at that middle tunnel. It’ll take us up into one of the sector highways that leads straight to the Cradle’s core. Make sure you’ve got everything you need, because you’ll only get one shot at this.”

With that, he starts lumbering back towards the pier for his battlecruiser, leaving us to commence our own preparations. Nazka doesn’t wait to start giving us our orders, and as our forces start disembarking from the Justice, Whisper and I exchange looks. Everything seems like it’s lined up to go in our favor.

And both of us know that’s when things usually go wrong.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

The Cradle: Central Reactor Tower

2:40pm SGT

“I’m not gonna lie, this place is creepy.” Whisper says as she steps out the APC, and onto the street at the base of the Cradle’s central reactor tower. “Cities aren’t supposed to be like this. There’s supposed to be people. Cars. Life. Not block after block of empty, lifeless buildings.”

I follow after her, trying to step as quietly as I can in the Axiom suit. She’s not wrong; the quiet is unnerving, and makes everything we do seem louder than it is. I keep feeling like the Challengers are going to know we’re coming, if only because it seems like we’re the only people making noise in this empty city. “Hopefully we won’t have to stay here for too long after we capture the Challengers.” I remark.

“Capture?” Onslaught scoffs. “Trying to take them alive is just askin’ for trouble. I thought we were here to put them down for good.”

“We are not savages. We do not execute people sight unseen.” Gossamer says coldly, landing almost silently on the ground as she jumps off the roof of the APC. “But if they do not comply, or they resist, then yes, we are authorized to use lethal force.”

“Well, I hope they resist. Be a damn shame if I came all this way and didn’t get to shoot someone.” Onslaught says, checking her grenade launcher. “What are we gonna do with this place once we take them into custody? Place is huge, I can’t imagine what they might have stored in here.”

“We will disclose the location to the Vaunted, so they can act on it accordingly.” Nazka says as he steps out of the APC, making his way to the platform at the foot of the reactor tower. “Something of this size and scale would be a considerable military asset, and we do not want to give the Masklings one of those if we can avoid it. They already make enough trouble as it is.”

“I would personally advocate scuttling it and pushing it into a decaying orbit.” Dussel grunts, stepping off the ATV that brought him here. “I wouldn’t risk keeping it intact. The Masklings would make a lot of lives miserable trying to get it back.”

“As tempting as that is, and as repugnant as you might find the Masklings, this structure still holds potential research value.” Nazka says as we start to join him on the platform. “At the very least, it can be used as leverage against the Maskling Republic. So it must be kept intact, even if we’d prefer it otherwise.”

“You say that, but you don’t know what they’ve got stored here.” Dussel says, stepping on the platform. I get settled near the railing as the platoon of operatives starts to get onto the platform with us, leaving a second platoon at the base of the tower with the vehicles.

“Yeah? And what’s that?” Onslaught demands.

“Maskbearers.” Dussel says, pulling out what looks like a vape and taking a drag from it. “Hundreds, thousands of them. Every species and every gender. All of them kept in stasis in the lower levels beneath each sector.”

“It’s a good thing we left Prophet back at the ship, then.” I say. “He would’ve had an aneurysm, hearing that.”

“You’ve seen these Maskbearers yourself?” Nazka asks Dussel sharply.

“Yup. The Masklings themselves told me. I went down there to take a peek myself, just to make sure they weren’t pulling my leg.” Dussel says, shuffling to the side to make room for the last of the operatives. “It’s a damn creepshow. Hundred, maybe more, to each facility, with multiple facilities across the entire city. Not even sure most of them are alive at this point; it’s been a crazy long time since they went into stasis — thousands of years or something like that. But if even half of them are alive, that’s still a miniature army right there.”

“Noted.” Nazka says, folding his hands behind his back and squaring his shoulders as the platoon finishes getting settled on the platform. “We will take that into account when considering our options later.”

“Just sayin’, research value only goes so far.” Dussel says, puffing out some smoke as he moves to the console and activates the jerry-rigged interface. The platform turns on, starting to climb the side of the reactor tower. “Some things are better off getting crushed into superconducting fluid in the mantle of a gas giant, if you ask me.”

“We didn’t ask you, but we’ll keep it in mind.” Gossamer says. “Nazka, did you want me and Whisper to go dark and commence flanking once we reach the top?”

“As a precaution, yes.” Nazka replies. “I do not want to leave any of our advantages on the table, given the mercurial temperament of our enemies. I will take squad A; Axiom, you will be in charge of squad B; Gossamer, you will be in charge of squad C, and Whisper will take squad D. C and D will secure the exterior of the reactor tower to ensure there are no escapees. A and B will breach the interior with the remainder of the Peacekeepers.”

“Putting a lot of effort into walking through an unlocked set of doors.” Dussel remarks, puffing on his vape again before putting it away. “Well, once y’all are ready, let me know. I’ll go in ahead of you to get their guard down.”

“Out of curiosity, how many do you expect to be in there?” I ask, thinking back on what we’ve brought with us. “We brought a prisoner truck, but it’s only got so many cells, and I think we’ll want to keep some of them separate from each other.”

“Mmm. You’ll need to give me a moment on that.” Dussel says thoughtfully. “Songbird, Valkyrie, three Masklings, the two kids, so that’s seven right off the bat—”

“Wait, kids?” Kwyn interrupts. “We weren’t told there would be children here.”

“Well, not really kids.” Dussel equivocates. “Teenagers, I guess. But they won’t be much of a problem. Songbird hasn’t let them have anything more than stunner pistols.”

Kwyn looks to me, and I can read the concern in her face. I look to Nazka and Gossamer, who look… not necessarily concerned, but disgruntled. “If there’s… minors in the area of operations, we may need to take a different approach.” I say. “I’m down with using lethal force against the adults, but if there’s kids in there…”

“We can’t let them get caught in the crossfire.” Whisper says flatly, reaching the point I was getting to. “Bugger. This makes things complicated.”

“C’mon, it’s just two kids.” Onslaught says, rolling her eyes. “If we have to kill two kids to stamp out this little Challenger rebellion, I think that’s a small price to pay for finally getting rid of this headache.”

“Thank you for your opinion, Onslaught; however, there is a reason we do not rely on your moral compass for guidance.” Nazka states drily as we start to near the shelf ringing the reactor structure. “Whisper is correct: the presence of children complicates our approach. I do not fancy a standoff, but we still have several advantages. Commander Dussel, if we make a show of force, could you make an attempt at talking them into surrendering?”

Dussel puffs out the last of his vape smoke. “I’ll give it a college try, but this lot prides themselves on fighting battles with slanted odds. Hurts me to say it, but Songbird’s the most reasonable out of the group. Most of them like to pick a fight; Songbird’s one of like… three of them that will go out of their way to avoid one.”

“Ya don’t say?” Onslaught scoffs. “The galaxy’s most notorious Challenger has an avoidant personality. Color me surprised. Figure he’d be the first one to throw down.”

“Keep your coloring pencils out, because this group’s full of surprises. Not like you all care, though.” Dussel says as the platform draws level with the shelf, and locks into place. Turning, he steps onto the shelf, heading for the doors of the reactor structure. “I’ll do my best to talk them into surrendering, but I’m not exactly a diplomat. I’m more accustomed to getting my point across with coilgun spikes and HEAT rounds.”

“At this point, we will take what we can get.” Nazka says as the rest of us start loading off the platform. “Squads C and D, encircle the reactor and secure all entrances and exits. Squads A and B, post up at the sides of the main entrance and wait for the Commander’s signal. Those with non-lethal options, have them prepped in case we have to use them on the children.”

Kwyn looks to me, and I nod to her. “Stay with me.” I confirm as Gossamer and Whisper start taking their squads around the sides of the reactor. Marching off the platform, I speak back to my squad. “Those with stunners, have them out and charged. Those with flashbangs, have them on hand in case we need to deploy them. The rest of you, set your plasma rifles to the lowest discharge, high diffusion. If we do have to start shooting, I want to reduce the lethality as much as possible while there are kids present. Once we’re inside, filter along the wall and aim to encircle if possible. We want to make them feel like surrendering is the best course of action.”

The only answer I get is the rustling and clicking of weapons being pulled out and adjusted as they follow along behind me. I deploy the helm of my suit by the time I’ve reached the reactor’s exterior wall; my squad starts lining up against the wall behind me, while Nazka’s squad is doing the same on the other side of the doors. I expect Dussel to stop at the doors to give us a moment to prep, but he doesn’t give us that courtesy — he just marches to the doors, and straight in.

Cursing under my breath, I turn on my helm’s scanning arrays so I can track him through the doors as they swing shut behind him. I can see there are several people inside — more, at least, than Dussel told us there would be. As he walks up on them, I can hear the strains of a conversation start up, little quips thrown back and forth — then he lifts a hand back towards the doors and motions us in.

“Alright, that’s it, go go go.” I order to my squad, still cursing in my head as I wave them into the building. He’s killing us with how fast he’s taking this, but we don’t exactly have a choice but to follow along. On both sides of the doors, our operatives run past us, bursting through the doors and flowing into the building with their rifles up, shouting at the group inside to stay still, drop their weapons, and put their hands in the air. It’s only once both squads have filtered in that Nazka nods to me, and we enter the building last, behind our squads.

Stepping into the building, we find ourselves between two of the three massive arms that make up the bottom half of the reactor’s containment field. At the center of the room is a massive pit where the reactor’s arms join at the base; a railing rings it, and not far from it is an array of control consoles where the Challengers are grouped together. I can tell, from the way they’re standing and the shock on their faces, that they’ve been caught off guard — they didn’t see this coming, and they’re not prepared for it.

“That’s more than seven.” I can hear Kwyn murmur as we cross the floor of the reactor to stand beside Dussel.

“We’ll be able to handle it.” I murmur back to her. “We’ve got the manpower.”

“Oh c’mon!” The loud complaint comes from what appears to be the tall, platinum blonde with an eyepatch and a Challenger dress jacket hanging on her shoulders. “Seriously, Dussel? Like, I’m kinda not surprised, but I’m disappointed.”

Dussel lifts his armored shoulders in a shrug. “There’s an exit for you if you want to take it. You don’t have to go down with the Project, Lieutenant.”

“You sold us out?” The demand comes from the green-haired Maskling with the messy ponytail; she starts to push past the others, murder in her wildfire eyes. “Oh, I’m gonna—”

“Kiwi! No!” Songbird moves to catch an arm around her, holding her back as our operatives shout at her to stand still. She tries to yank free of him, but he doesn’t let go of her, speaking low and fast to her as she snarls at Dussel.

“Look, if it helps, this isn’t personal.” Dussel says. “And it wasn’t an easy choice to make either. But at the end of the day, I have an obligation to the people that I’m responsible for. I have a duty to provide a future for them.” He looks at Songbird as he’s saying it, as if expecting it to find some empathy there. “And I’ll do whatever has to be done to make sure that they have that.”

Songbird narrows his eyes. “You have a duty to protect you and yours. That doesn’t make it okay to sacrifice others to protect your own.”

“Don’t give me that.” Dussel says. “You’re not going to tell me you wouldn’t have done the same for the Challengers if it would’ve meant saving the program.”

Songbird doesn’t answer right away, though I can see the shadow cross his face. His grip on Kiwi loosens, but only so he can push her behind him as he comes to the front of the group. “I would’ve found another way. And you could’ve found another way, too. You could’ve told us it wasn’t worth it anymore, that you didn’t want the job. We wouldn’t have been happy about it, but you could have walked away. And I would’ve been disappointed, but I wouldn’t have blamed you. Not everyone has what it takes to fight the fight.”

Dussel shakes his head. “I know what you’re trying to do, kid. You’re trying to guilt me. But you can’t pull the moral high ground here. I’ve watched you all skip across the galaxy for the last six months, trying to pull something out of the ashes of the Challenger program. You can’t blame me for wanting to do the same for my mercforce before it burns down for your delusions of a galactic order that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“I can’t blame you for wanting to protect your people. But I can blame you for how you choose to do it.” Songbird says, coming forward more and ignoring the operatives telling him to stop moving. He only stops when he’s halfway between our group and theirs. “There’s right ways and wrong ways to protect what you love. You’ve picked the wrong way, but you can still take it back.”

“Oh, Ink have mercy, is he…” says one of the others in the group — a blonde with a pixie cut and and baggy hoodie.

“Yes, he is.” says the eyepatch woman, rolling her single eye. “This isn’t a movie, Songbird! He’s a merc commander, he’s not going to have a sudden crisis of conscience!”

“You only say that because you don’t have one yourself, Sierra.” Songbird growls over his shoulder.

“The man speaks truth.” Dussel agrees, pointing to Songbird, but then nods to Sierra. “But so does she. You’re right, I could take back this choice. But I’m not going to. I’ve committed to it, and I’m going to see it through to the end. You may not respect the way I’m doing things, but I hope you’ll be able to respect my willingness to do what I need to protect my people and their livelihood.”

For a moment, the two stare each other down, then Songbird seems to deflate, his shoulders slumping as he nods and looks away. “If you’re willing to die for it, then yeah, I’ll respect that.”

Everyone tenses up for a hot moment; I start to lift my arm, ready to grab my battleaxe off my back. There’s energy in the silence, pent-up and waiting to explode the moment someone makes a move. Fingers on triggers, hands on flashbangs.

But Songbird doesn’t move, and after ten seconds, Dussel raises an eyebrow. “That’s it? Make a backhanded threat disguised as a compliment, and then you’re not gonna follow up on it?”

“Not right now.” Songbird says, his ruby eyes roaming across the rest of us. “That’s the difference between us. I’m not gonna test your resolve if it means endangering the people I’m responsible for protecting.” His eyes return to Dussel, and for a moment, just a brief moment, I see the faintest shimmer of lightning-blue in his pupils. “But it’ll come.”

“Nazka.” I speak up at this point. My breath’s coming a little faster now that I’ve seen a flicker of the Spark that Songbird possesses. “We need to lock them down. Now.”

At hearing his name, Nazka looked like he was going to give me another one of his icy responses, but something in my tone must’ve caught his attention. “We have indulged this conversation long enough.” he says to the Challenger group. “The Commander has given you all a choice. Surrender peacefully, and we will allow certain members of your group to depart with the Dussel mercenaries; you need not be involved in this—”

“You are without honor!” The voice startles everyone; I about damn near jump on the spot, because I hear it in my head, as well as through my helm’s audio. My heart rate ticks up because I recognize the sensation — and sure enough, there’s a short, cloaked Viralix with grey fur pushing to the front of the group to point an accusing claw at Dussel. “You would betray those unto whom you were bound by contract!”

Nazka’s eyes widen as he looks to Dussel. “You did not tell us there were Viralix here!” he hisses at him.

Dussel holds up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, hold up, calm down.” he says, apparently to both Nazka and the psi fox, and turns to address the latter. “Look, you and your partner were here as observers. Neither of you are going to be taken into custody; we’ll drop you off at the Viralix outpost on our way out of the Abyss, as was originally promised. Nothing has changed.”

“We were assigned to your fleet to bear witness, and we have borne witness to your traitorous designs.” A second psi fox comes to the front of the group, her green eyes glowing in the shadow of his hood. This one is thankfully just speaking with a normal voice. “The Empire gave you the benefit of the doubt when we found you in our territory without permissions, and were it not for our intervention, your ships would currently be overrun with pirates.”

Dussel puts up a finger. “Alright, first off, we didn’t ask for your help, you pretty much imposed it on us—”

“Now you have brought the Colloquium’s puppets into our territory as well, to conduct arrests where they have no authority.” the blue-eyed one growls. “You will depart this structure at once, CURSE and the Dussel Mercforce both, and your trespass reported to the Vorcrueshen Travel Authority.”

“We are not here to impinge upon the authority of the Viralix Empire.” Nazka says quickly. “But as this is a matter regarding Challengers, we have jurisdiction—”

“Silence!” the blue-eyed one snaps at Nazka, the psi echo carrying force with it that can almost be physically felt. Nazka looks taken aback — I don’t anybody’s ever had the gall to tell him to shut up, much less coming from a fuzzy little fox a little over five feet tall. “You are in Viralix territory! You have no authority here!”

“Oh shit!” Onslaught giggles at Nazka’s shocked expression. “You just got told! Seriously though, why are we letting this fuzzy midget boss us around? Does he seriously think he can take all of us?”

“Would someone shut her up?” Dussel rumbles at Nazka through gritted teeth, before looking back to the blue-eyed Viralix. “Look, this isn’t anything to do with the Empire. We’re just gonna hand over the Challengers, take them back to open space, and we’ll get out of your hair. We won’t even leave anyone here at the Cradle; the Viralix can have it, for all I care—”

“Like hell they can have it!” Kiwi shouts, starting to fight her way to the front of the group again. “It’ll be over my dead body and the dead bodies of all your men—”

“Kiwi!” Songbird hisses back at her. “Calm down, this isn’t helping—”

“You cannot buy us off, mercenary.” the blue-eyed Viralix spits at Dussel, the disdain dripping from from the words. “The Viralix are not so easily sold; our loyalty and trust must be earned by act and deed, not casual surrender of something that was never yours to begin with. The Empire will know of your dishonesty. Both you and CURSE will suffer for your trespasses.”

“Clearly this has escalated beyond the point of negotiation.” Nazka says, his tone brittle as he glares at Dussel. “We have no choice but to take all of them into custody, the Viralix included. Once we have safely left the Abyss, we can deliver them back to their people, but we cannot have them calling down a Viralix fleet on us. That is a battle we cannot afford to have.”

“I have to agree, unfortunately.” Dussel grunts.

“Then you have made a mistake you will never repeat.” the blue-eyed Viralix growls, looking over his shoulder and nodding to the green-eyed Viralix. She nods back to him, dropping to all fours — and chaos breaks loose as she splits into a dozen copies, all of them running in different directions.

“Whoa! Shit!” Onslaught yelps, scrambling backwards and fumbling for her rifle as at least six of them fan out towards us. I yank my axe off my back, rushing to twist the handle and turn on the plasma blades as our operatives start firing at the copies. But of those that score a clean hit, the plasma bolts just pass right through, leaving nothing more than scorch marks on the floor.

“They’re psi illusions!” Nazka shouts. “Ignore them and detain the Challengers! Onslaught, find the real one and hunt her down, we cannot let her escape!”

“Screw you! Screw all of you!” Kiwi shouts, pushing Songbird out of the way. Around her wrist, there’s an orbiting ring of what looks like green feathers; she’s grabbing and slinging them at Dussel like knives. He staggers back as they curve through the air, each one hitting him without fail; but being as he’s wearing a full suit of power armor, he isn’t much bothered by it. Each featherblade ends up stuck in the outer plating, not having enough momentum to pierce further than that, and Kiwi’s knocked down a moment later when a plasma burst nails her in the shoulder.

I lurch forward at that point, realizing we need to end this quickly before it spirals out of control. The directional thrusters on my suit kick on as I make a beeline for Kiwi, with Kwyn scrambling to keep up with me. But before I get there, Songbird’s twisted and knelt down in front of Kiwi, grabbing the edge of his longcoat and fanning it over her as plasma bolts pepper that area, scorching the floor and Songbird’s back. He doesn’t move, even as the bursts of superheated gas eat away at the protective layer woven into his coat.

“Hold your fire!” I shout to operatives that have their rifles trained on the pair. My thrusters turn off as I skid to a halt next to them, the orange edge of my axe held no more than a few inches from the back of his neck. “Hands up, Songbird. Don’t make this messier than it has to be.”

His head turns at the order; his ruby eyes lock onto me, but all he does is pull Kiwi closer to his chest. There’s something about the movement that is protective, almost reflexive; I can see that Kiwi’s teeth are gritted, one hand clutched to the scorch mark on her shoulder. The injury isn’t severe, since I’d told my operatives to dial down the power on their rifles before engaging, but it’s still gotta hurt. After a moment, he takes his eyes off me, and looks to the rest of the Challenger group.

I follow his gaze, and see that there’s none of the resistance we’d been expecting. Most of them have their hands up; Sierra is complaining loudly, while Valkyrie has both of the teenagers pulled tightly to her as she glares as the operatives starting to cuff the others. The remaining Viralix is snarling at any operative that gets near him, while the one that split and ran is nowhere to be seen.

Kwyn catches up with me, her rifle still leveled. “Axiom?” she asks, clearly seeking direction.

“Cuffs.” I say, looking back to Songbird. “Cuff Songbird first. Don’t hurt the Maskling.” Lowering my axe, I turn and shout back to my squad. “Medic! Get over here. Minor plasma burn. I don’t expect you to fix it; just spray it over to keep it from getting worse until we get them back onto the ship.”

“On your feet.” Kwyn orders to Songbird as she steps around me, slinging her rifle across her back and pulling a pair of cuffs off her belt. “Hands out.”

“Don’t do it!” Kiwi hisses at him.

“I’m not going to risk having the kids killed or injured, Kiwi.” he replies, slowly lowering her to the ground as he stands up, his hands held out. I keep my axe lowered towards Kiwi as Kwyn snaps the cuffs onto Songbird’s wrists, then pulls him away from her as the medic arrives.

“Drain cuffs first. She can use magic.” I order to the medic as he kneels down next to her. “After that, you can treat her.”

“She’s gone.” Onslaught shouts, walking back towards us from where she was stalking back and forth near the pit. “She jumped the railing and slid down the pit. Dunno where she’s gotten off to, but Gossamer and Whisper say they haven’t seen anyone exit the reactor.”

“Damnation.” Nazka fumes, then turns to where Dussel’s busy picking glassy featherblades out of his armor. “We need to jam comms. We cannot afford to have her sending a transmission to the Viralix.”

“It’ll be fine.” Dussel says, snapping the last featherblade in half. “She can’t operate the systems in the city, and she’d need to get back to the Accatria to send a transmission with enough power to reach a Viralix relay. I’ll keep an eye out for her, and tell them to detain her if they see her.”

“Sir, what do we about this one?” an operative calls. He’s standing beside what looks like a moody woman with dark blue hair, wearing jeans and a jacket; as I watch, he waves a hand through her, the image flickering around his hand. “She’s a hologram; we can’t cuff her!”

“Oh, I’ll take care of that one.” Dussel says, before speaking into his suit’s comms. “Midway team, shut down the relay. Adjutant, pull the plug on the angelnet.”

The woman’s eyes go wide. “Wait, you don’t—” she begins, before she disappears into thin air. The hoverdrone that was projecting her image drops to the ground, clunking and rolling over on its side.

“That should be almost everyone accounted for.” Nazka says, watching as the operatives start lining up the Challengers they’ve cuffed. “We just need to figure out where the other Viralix went to—”

“Almost everyone.” Dussel corrects him, scanning the group with narrowed eyes. “I know I’m missing something…” His gaze falls on Sierra, who’s been cuffed, and he marches over to her. “Where’s your boy toy, Lieutenant?”

She smirks. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

For a moment, it looks like Dussel’s going to chew her out, but then he seems to think better of it. Shaking his head, he turns away, speaking into his suit’s comms. “Adjutant, lock down the Accatria. Put a kill team on patrol and have them sweep the ship for Luci. He might try to sabotage us or free Jackrabbit.”

“I’m only going to ask you once, Dussel.” Valkyrie calls from where she’s been lined up with the others. “What did you do with my wife?”

“Put away your blood pressure medication, doctor.” Dussel says, turning away from Sierra. “Jackrabbit is fine. Stunned and locked in one of the brig cells, but otherwise perfectly healthy. You’ll be reunited with her when we transfer her over to CURSE custody.” Marching over me and Kwyn, he kneels down, the gauntleted fingers of his power armor grabbing a fistful of Kiwi’s jacket as he lifts her up, ignoring the protestations of the medic. “Where’s the command key? I saw you holding it up when I first stepped in here.”

“Not like you could use it.” she grunts at him. “You’re not a Maskling. None of the systems will respond to you.”

“I couldn’t care less about your cultist crypt. But I imagine the Maskling Republic is going to be pretty pissed about this whole debacle, and having a little insurance to keep them off my back would go a long way. I heard about what they did to the CURSE HQ.” Dussel says, reaching down to his side and unholstering a buster pistol. Turning the safety off, he points it at the row of Challengers. “Cough it up, parasite.”

“Whoa, hey.” I say, reaching up and hooking my axe on the wrist joint of Dussel’s arm, pulling it down. “That’s not how we do things here. Put her down, and put away the gun. Kwyn, search the Maskling once the Commander’s put her down.”

Dussel gives me a look that could melt steel. “Got a lot of nerve telling me what to do, son.”

Something about the way he says that rubs me the wrong way, and my helm folds back into the collar of my power armor so he can see my face. “If I have to ask again, Commander, I will not be as polite the third time. Put the Maskling down.” I articulate my point by twisting the handle of my battleaxe, the orange plasma blades flaring back to life.

Dussel’s eyes flick down to where the edge of my axe is still hooked on the wrist joint of his armor. After a moment, the fingers of his other hand open, dropping Kiwi back to the ground. I take my axe off his gun hand as Kwyn moves around me, pulling Kiwi up and searching her jacket and pockets until she comes up that looks like a slim prism of green crystal. “I assume this is it?” she says, holding it out to Dussel.

“Much obliged.” Dussel says, holstering his buster pistol before reaching out to take the key. After a moment of examining it, he taps the forearm of his suit, a section popping open so he can drop it into the compartment within. Closing it, he turns and starts trundling back towards the doors. “You may want to make sure you take all their weapons.”

“Already on it.” Onslaught says, sizing up a pair of stunner pistols on her way to the lockbox where all of the Challengers’ loose possessions are being piled in. “They gave the kids some hella nice pistols. If they weren’t stunners, I might’ve kept them for myself.”

“Where do you think you’re going, Commander?” Nazka calls as Dussel reaches the doors. “I don’t recall giving you permission to leave.”

“I don’t recall needing your permission, Deputy Administrator.” Dussel replies without missing a beat. “You have the Challengers in custody now. I’ve held up my end of the deal. I’m going back to my ship, going to finish packing up our materials, and leaving. Shoot me a message once my mobile fortress is repaired and ready for pickup, and I’ll swing by to give you the Challenger archive.” With that, he pushes through the doors, disappearing from view as they swing shut behind him.

Nazka narrows his eyes, but doesn’t protest. Turning back to the rest of us, he waves a hand. “Pack it up, people. We have things to do and I have no intention of lingering here longer than necessary. Axiom, I leave you to supervise the rest of this. I’m going to go confer with Whisper and Gossamer on plans for tracking down the escaped Viralix.”

With that, he starts marching back towards the doors without another word. As they swing shut behind him, I look back to the Challengers as they’re being lined up across the room, each one escorted by at least two operatives. Songbird’s the last one into the line behind Kiwi, glancing at me just before a set of blinders are pulled over his eyes and strapped in place. I don’t like what I see in that gaze, even though it only lasts a second.

Not malice, or hate, or contempt, but pity.

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

The Cradle: Central Ring Bridge 2

3:17pm SGT

“Well.” Kwyn remarks, scratching her head as she stares out the windshield of the prisoner truck we’re riding in the front of. “That’s problematic.”

“What the hell!” Onslaught exclaims from one of the ATVs escorting us. She stands up from the mounted gun position in the back, throwing her hands out. “Where’d the goddamn bridge go?!”

“That is… unexpected.” I agree, staring at the yawning gulf before us. We’d taken note of the city’s layout when we first entered — six sectors, with two rings in the center and dot in the middle of the inner ring, where the reactor and the central governance buildings were established. There were gaps between each of the sectors and rings, each of them linked by wide, multi-lane bridges, and we hadn’t given much thought to it.

Until now, when the bridge we’d crossed over earlier had apparently gotten up and walked off in the hour or so since we’d been here.

“Where could it have gone?” Kwyn says, perplexed. “That bridge was massive. It had to be hundreds of thousands of tons of metal and asphalt. It couldn’t have just disappeared; it had to go somewhere.”

“Well, we need to figure it out, otherwise we’ll be stuck here.” I say, opening the door and squeezing out of the cabin of the truck, landing heavy on the street. The entire convoy’s come to a stop ahead and behind us, other operatives leaning out of the vehicles and peering down the street at the chasm cutting us off from our exit. As Kwyn scoots out behind me, I start walking towards the front of the convoy; when I get there, Onslaught and Nazka are already present, along with Dussel, who’s got his arms folded as he stares over the edge. Leaning over carefully, I peer over the edge, searching the dusky dimness below — and see the outline of the bridge in the gloom down there, probably some hundred feet down.

I lean back, dumbfounded as I try to formulate my question in a way that doesn’t sound incredibly stupid. “Um. Why is the bridge down there, and not up here?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Nazka says, his brows furrowed. “Well, this is rather inconvenient. Commander, I don’t suppose any of the other five bridges are available?”

“They are not.” Dussel says tersely. “That’s the first thing I tried when this kept me from heading back to my ship. Unfortunately, the next nearest bridges have also been lowered, and a drone flyover has confirmed that’s the case for all the major sector-linking bridges across the city. They’ve all been lowered, making it impossible for us to recovered deployed resources.”

“But why?” Onslaught demands down into the chasm, as if she expected it to answer. “Like what the shit! The bridges were up when we came in! Why are they lowered now?”

“I think I may know why.” Dussel says, turning away from the edge. “The angelnet was directly wired into some of the consoles in the reactor tower, as a way to bypass interface issues. It may have given her direct control of the city’s infrastructure, once she managed to hack the systems. She may have lowered the bridges before I shut her down.”

“Could we turn her back on and get her to raise them?” Kwyn asks as Dussel walks back to his ATV.

“Absolutely not. If I turn her back on, she’s gonna wreak havoc.” Dussel says as he reaches his ATV and starts pawing around for its transmitter. “First on my ship, then on your ship. The only reason we managed to get the drop on her was because I planned ahead and took extreme measures to conceal this from her. If she’d seen this coming, she would’ve locked the door to the room her core was stored in, taken control of my battlecruiser, and proceeded to screw over everyone. I am not turning her back on.”

“How are we supposed to get back across here, then?” Onslaught demands. “You expect us to walk on air?”

“Could we get one of the troop transports to come pick us up?” I suggest. “We don’t need bridges if we can just fly over.”

“The tunnels between the rim hangars and the city proper aren’t large enough to accommodate a troop transport.” Nazka says, shooting the idea down immediately. “I’m sure there’s a way to get larger vehicles between the hangar and the city proper, but even if we could find it, none of us are Masklings. We wouldn’t be able to operate it, since consoles don’t respond to us.”

“We’re gonna die and starve here because of a stupid bridge!” Onslaught groans, stamping a foot.

“I’m pretty sure starving comes before the dying.” Whisper’s dry remark is accompanied by the air beside me rippling in hexagons, revealing her outline before she fully comes into view, staring across the gulf between the city rings. “I’ve got good news, though. These chasms aren’t bottomless. There’s a floor down there, a maintenance and engineering layer you can walk along. If we get down there, we can walk through the maintenance tunnels until we get past the rings, then come back up to the second sector and have the Justice send a second convoy to pick us up.”

“I assume your presence here means you were not able to catch the escaped Viralix.” Nazka says tersely.

“I lost her. But I managed to figure out she was headed down.” Whisper says, pointing over the edge. “That’s how I figured there was a bottom to these chasms. You should be glad I came back, otherwise you might still be wondering what to do.”

“But that means we’ll have to leave behind our vehicles and go on foot, right?” Kwyn says. “That means having to unload the Challengers and escort them on foot through the chasms.”

Whisper folds her arms, puffing some of her hair out of her eyes. “Probably, yeah. There’s freight elevators, but you can’t work them unless you’re a Maskling. When I was chasing the Viralix, I had to chase her down the maintenance stairs. Like twenty flights or something. It was an asston of stairs. And then I had to come all the way back up all those stairs to regroup with you all after I lost her.”

“Dang girl, that’s some crazy cardio.” Onslaught says.

“If we have to walk, then we’ll walk.” Dussel says, opening the trunk of his ATV and pulling out a buster rifle. “I’ve already contacted my people and told them to have an ATV waiting to pick me up at the edge of the second sector. I recommend you all do the same.”

“Resquill, call it in.” Nazka orders. “Make sure Markos knows to send enough vehicles to pick up everyone on the first go, and tell him to keep Prophet on high alert in the hangar. Axiom and Onslaught, you supervise the offloading of the Challengers. Make sure there’s two operatives assigned to escort every Challenger, one operative for the children. Line them up and get them ready to march. Whisper, show me to where these maintenance stairs are. I want to see what we’ll be dealing with.”

“Right this way, then.” Whisper says, starting to walk back through the convoy. “You’re gonna contact Gossamer and let her know about the change of plans, right?”

“If she’s been shadowing the convoy like I asked her, she likely already knows.” Nazka says, turning to follow Whisper as she goes. “Axiom, have the prisoners ready to go by the time I return. We can’t rest easy until the Challengers are safely incarcerated on the Justice.”

“Understood.” I say, starting to march back to the prisoner truck as I raise my voice to the rest of the convoy. “You heard him, people! Start disembarking, get ready for a hike! Once you’ve geared up, report over to the prisoner truck for escort duty!”

“Shit man, we’re just gonna leave all this kit behind?” Onslaught says, skipping to catch up with me. “That’s like four ATVs, two APCs, and a prison bus! That’s a fortune in military equipment.”

“If that’s what it takes to put away these Challengers for good, then it’s a small price to pay.” I say, walking down the length of the prisoner truck and reaching the back. I wait long enough to let the lock on the back scan my face, then reach up and open the doors after the bolt slides back. Within, the Challengers are seated along either side of the truck’s interior, separated by partitions and static screens, cuffed into their chairs. Most heads turns towards me as the pale blue light of the core spills into the truck’s interior.

“Rise and shine, Challengers.” I say as operatives start stepping up into the truck. “Hope you’re ready for a long walk.”

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

The Cradle: Maintenance Staircase

3:44pm SGT

“I’ve got my doubts about whether this staircase can handle this much weight.”

The remark comes from the Maskling with the wolf ears, further ahead in the procession that’s filtering through the long, zigzagging maintenance stairwell that runs down the side of the chasm. The prisoners are arranged so that there’s an operative between each of them, with Peacekeepers scattered throughout the line. The clatter of feet over the metal grate stairs echoes relentlessly in the chasm, bouncing back and forth in a cacophony that can probably be heard from miles away.

“Nobody asked for your opinion, mutt.” Onslaught says, jabbing her rifle into the Maskling’s back. “Keep it moving.”

“I will admit that the construction here does not exactly fill me with confidence.” I mutter from the back of the column, placing my steps gingerly. The grated steps shudder whenever my metal-booted feet hit them; I’m getting the distinct feeling that this maintenance stairwell was not meant to handle heavy loads, like a suit of power armor. Perhaps three or four mechanics at the same time, but not a full procession of over fifty people tromping down it, most of them in some variation of power armor.

“Why did you cover the vampires’ eyes, but not the rest of us?” the male teenager asks from the middle of the column, looking back up the stairwell. “Don’t wanna look ‘em in the eye or something?”

“They don’t want to get smoldered.” the female teenager answers.

“Yeah, but don’t you need eye contact for that?” the male teenager asks. “It’s not like they can smolder you by staring at the back of your head.”

“It’s also not like they can keep them from looking around.” the female teenager retorts. “They could look back and try to smolder someone.”

“I’m just saying, if they didn’t blindfold them, they wouldn’t have to lead them around by the hand.” the male teenager snips back at her.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Gossamer snaps. “Nobody gave either of you permission to talk.”

“Yeah, well nobody gave you permission to be here, but you still showed up anyway.” the male teenager claps back at her. “So I’ll talk when I damn well want, thank you very much.”

I can see Gossamer’s shoulders rise as she inhales a deep breath. “Patience. Patience. Belanus, give me patience.”

“Who’s Belanus?”

“He’s the only thing that’s keeping me from turning around and slapping a smarmy little bitch right now, and even that’s not guaranteed, so I’d advise you stuff a sock in it, kid.”

“Sounds like someone’s wound up because they haven’t gotten any in a while.”

Whisper’s snort of laughter is audible up and down the stairwell, as is Gossamer’s seething. “Oooh, I am going to— goddammit, Nazka, get someone else up here to take my spot, I swear to the gods I’m going to turn around and throttle this kid before we reach the bottom!”

“Hit a nerve, did it, Gossamer?” Whisper chuckles.

“Shut up, Whisper, or your body’s gonna be next on the pile!”

“That’s enough.” Nazka orders from the front of the column. “Gossamer, you should know better than falling for mind games, especially those played by a child, no less. Just because a prisoner runs their mouth does not require you to engage with them. Ignore him and focus on your duties.”

“Y’know, Gossamer, if you’re pent-up, I can help you with that.” Sierra calls from her spot near the front of the procession.

“I have standards, thank you very much.” Gossamer replies. “Never been a fan of slutty vampires.”

“Says the slutty elf.”

“Keep digging that grave, Nympho.”

“I’ll dig it if you lay down in it with me.”

“I swear to the gods, you just can’t keep your mouth shut, can you? Clearly we shouldn’t have stopped at the blinders; we should’ve muzzled you as well.”

“Oh baby. Now you’re talking my language.”

“Nazka, I’d like to report that I’m being sexually harassed.”

“I’ll stop if you let us go.”

“No.”

“Pity. Hey, are you still preying on impressionable young recruits, by the by?”

“I will grab you and throw you over this railing, Nympho.”

“I’m a vampire, I’ll survive.”

“Yes. But it’s still a fifty-foot drop at this point, so you will suffer.”

“A masochistic streak gets a lot of mileage in this line of work, you know that.”

“This is one of the Challengers we’ve been trying to catch this whole time?” Kwyn mutters back to me as Gossamer and Sierra continue their back and forth. “A flirty vampire that can’t keep her mouth shut?”

“I’ll admit, I was expecting something… different.” I reply. The headlights on my suit flick on as we descend deeper into the gloom, away from the light that the core casts across the city above us. The same happens for the rest of the operatives, bobbing lights flicking on as the front of the column starts to reach the floor below. Songbird, who’s walking in front of me and is being led by Kwyn since he’s got blinders on, hasn’t said anything the whole time, which has me a little unsettled. At least with the Challengers that are talking, I can tell what’s going through their heads. But Songbird’s a silent mystery right now.

“You want to ask me something.”

I almost miss his voice over the bickering of Sierra and Gossamer, and the clanking and rattling of the maintenance stairs. I glance to Kwyn, just to confirm that I heard it and wasn’t imagining it, and she looks from Songbird to me. It’s clear she heard it as well.

“Go on.” he says, his voice deliberately kept soft, almost disappearing under the rattling and clanking echoing in the chasm. “Ask.”

“We don’t have anything to ask you.” I say, putting my hand on his back, making sure he keeps up the pace down the stairs. “Keep walking.”

He doesn’t say anything, but I’m thoroughly unsettled at this point. We continue down the stairs until we’ve reached the floor of the chasm; it’s dusky and dim down here, the sides of the ring and the city center rising up on either side of us. It feels like being in a massive, artificial canyon; now that we’re down here, I realize that these gaps between sectors may’ve been designed to hold water. I could see no other reason to partition the city like this, and it would be a convenient way to hold the city’s water supply in a way that made the city more aesthetically pleasing.

“Scout drone shows that we’re gonna follow the ring around to the left for a bit, then there’s a tunnel that cuts under the ring into the canyon between the inner ring and the outer ring.” Onslaught calls, staring at a data slate that’s relaying information from one of the scout drones that we sent out ahead of us. “From there, we’ll have to cut back to the right, pass under one of the bridges, go through another tunnel under the outer ring. Then cut back left for a bit, and we should be able to get to a maintenance stairwell leading up to the second sector.”

“So we’re basically zigzagging back and forth.” Gossamer says.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Onslaught says, looking up from her slate. “It’s going to be a bit of a walk, so we should probably get going.”

“Let’s not waste time, then.” Nazka says, starting to move in the indicated direction. “Lead the way, Onslaught, and keep the scout drone on patrol ahead of us. I don’t want any surprises.”

With that, we begin the long march through the city’s artificial canyons. Now that we’re off the stairwell, it gives us room to space out the line some more, which proceeds along the wall of the inner ring. Bootsteps echo relentlessly as we go, forming regular background noise to our march that’s occasionally broken by the Challengers talking to each other or bickering with their escorts. But Songbird, traveling at the back of the line, away from the others, remains silent and says nothing. All along the the inner ring, all the way through the tunnel under it, and halfway along the outer ring, he remains silent. He does eventually break the silence, but not rudely or aggressively.

“You can let go of my cuffs, if you would like.” he offers out of the blue. “I can follow the sound of your footsteps.”

Kwyn, who’s still leading him with one hand on his cuffs, looks back at him, then at me. I shake my head to her, then answer Songbird. “Nice try. We’re not going to fall for that one.”

“Even if you did, I’m not sure where I’d try to run to. I wouldn’t even be able to see where I’m going.” he points out. “Would probably run right into a wall, given my luck.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re not letting you walk without physical supervision.” I insist.

“Alright. Just figured I’d offer.” he says, and leaves it at that. For a while longer, we walk in silence, before he speaks up again. “I suppose you didn’t allow Prophet to come along for this one, did you.”

I glance sharply at him, that unsettled feeling returning. Something about him knowing stuff he shouldn’t, even when blindfolded, is creepy. Creepier than it would be if he was able to see. “How did you know about Prophet?” I demand.

He smiles. “We work with Masklings. They have eyes and ears everywhere.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that, aside from being speechless as my mind races through the implications. Masklings were master infiltrators, of course; I wouldn’t be surprised if they had people among CURSE’s ranks. But if the Challengers knew about Prophet, that had to mean that the Masklings had someone — or multiple people — in the CURSE HQ. That level of penetration went straight to the heart of our organization.

“I joke, of course. I know you’re working with Prophet because CURSE deployed him to the Sanctuary on Vinnei, alongside Blockchain.” Songbird says, breaking the silence. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised CURSE brought him onboard to deal with me. But I am surprised you’d be so desperate that you’d turn to an extremist for backup.”

I open my mouth, about to make a snappy retort, then remember how easily Gossamer had been needled earlier. I realize that this is an easy prelude to being baited; that being deprived of their weapons and defenses, all the Challengers had left were mind games.

Two could play at that, though. And I had the ammunition I needed to play that game, since I’d had a long talk with Prophet about Songbird.

“Strong words for someone that used to be your friend.” I point out. “Must’ve been a pretty bad falling-out.”

Songbird turns his head slightly at that. “Oh, you know about that, do you.” he says, sounding tired. “Well, it’s never easy to admit the ugly truth about someone you called a friend. Especially someone you grew up with, shared a religion with. But at this point I’d be deluding myself if I didn’t see him for what he’s become.”

“An extremist?” I guess. “He seems nice enough in person.”

“Of course he is. He’s Anayan.” Songbird snorts. “They’re some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Polite, law-abiding people that will get voted into office and write subtly discriminating laws that they can politely abide by.”

“Sounds like someone’s got an axe to grind.” I remark, smiling at Kwyn as she looks back at me. This is going better than I thought it would.

“No one knows a ship’s flaws better than those that crew it.” Songbird replies. “But that’s enough about me. I don’t suppose I could talk you into leaving CURSE and joining the Valiant Project, could I?”

I raise my eyebrows at that. “You couldn’t, no, but I’m surprised you’re bold enough to try in the first place. What in the world makes you think you can convince a Peacekeeper to join a group of outlaws?”

“Well, you seem like a decent person, with a functioning moral compass, which is why it’s such a surprise to see you working for CURSE.” Songbird replies. “You crew that ship. I figured you’d know its flaws like the back on your hand.”

“CURSE has flaws, but they’re of the minor sort.” I reply as we start to pass under one of the lowered bridges in the canyon. From what I can tell, it doesn’t look like the bridges were lowered all the way to the bottom of the canyon — just halfway down. They hang somewhere between up there and down here, going nowhere at all. “We provide the stability that the galaxy was missing during the last years of the Challenger program. On the whole, we provide far more benefit than the Challengers ever did.”

He lets out a quiet little laugh at that that, but doesn’t say anything further.

“Something funny?” I ask him as the shadow of the bridge falls over us.

“You sound just like I did.” he says, turning his blindfolded gaze in my direction. “Right before Challenger program got shuttered.”

My skin crawls at that. “CURSE isn’t going away anytime soon.”

His lips curl in a smile. “What do you think I told myself sixteen years ago?”

I have to fight the urge to reach out and yank the blinders off him. His sightless smile is giving me the willies, and I almost wish we hadn’t put the blinders on him in the first place. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get in my head and plant doubts. It’s not gonna work. I’ve been doing this for a decade; I know the organization I work for. If they were corrupt, I would know.”

He nods, looking back forward again. “I get that. You’re a loyal soldier. If there’s a problem there, you may not want to see it, may not want to believe it exists. I was the same way. I knew that the Challenger program had flaws, but I told myself they were the minor sort. That the good we did outweighed the bad.”

“Axiom.” Kwyn says. She’s been listening this whole time, but now she’s looking at me, a warning look that’s easy to read. She’s telling me I’m taking the bait, and letting Songbird get inside my head.

“I’m telling you because I don’t want you to make the mistake that I made.” Songbird says as we start to come up on the other side of the bridge. “It’s the same one that a lot of the Challengers made. We refused to see that there were problems. And then when we saw there were problems, we downplayed them. Said they were anomalies, outliers, minor flaws. And by the time we realized the minor flaws were actually institutional problems, it had gotten to the point where it was out of control, and things were starting to fall apart while we tried to hold them together and put out the fires.”

“Yeah, it’s really convenient that your concern for me lines up with talking me into joining your little rebellion.” I says as we leave the shadow of the bridge. “So I’ll take it with a grain of salt, and my answer’s still a hard no.”

“If that’s your choice, I won’t argue.” Songbird says. “Some things just have to be learned the hard way, I suppose.”

“Tell you what. I’ll make you a bet.” I say. “If CURSE starts to go the way of the Challenger program, I’ll hit you up and see about joining this Valiant Project of yours. And if it doesn’t, I get to visit you in prison and tell you ‘told you so’.”

I give him a power-armored pat on the back with that, probably a little harder than I should, and it knocks him forward a couple paces. He keeps walking, but slows down a moment later, his head twitching to one side. Then he staggers to a halt.

“Hey. Keep walking.” Kwyn says, tugging on his cuffs.

His only response is a grunt, his cuffed hands tugging upwards towards his chest, though Kwyn yanks them back down again. His mouth is twitching, drawing in a pained grimace as he draws a sharp breath, and Kwyn looks from him to me. “What did you do to him?” she demands.

“All I did was give him a pat on the back!” I protest, circling around him. “He’s gotta be faking it or something—”

“Kkhhh!” he gasps, going to one knee. Black smoke is starting to filter out of his longcoat on his left side, causing Kwyn to let go of his cuffs and reach for her rifle. “Kiwi, wait, don’t— don’t—”

“I didn’t come all this way just for you bastards to destroy everything we’ve worked for!”

The shout comes from the front of the column, and is accompanied by a viridian explosion that reverberates in the canyon. A second later I feel the pressure wave hit me, and though it doesn’t shift me, Kwyn staggers and has to steady herself. All the way up the column, I can see other operatives struggling to stay upright as the green fire gives way to smoke. Seconds later, Kiwi comes pelting through it, rune circles spinning around her wrists and her teeth bared in a snarl. “Run or die!”

“Tell your people to retreat!” Songbird wheezes. I look down to see he’s pressing his cuffed hands to his shoulder, as there was something underneath his coat that was hurting him.

“We are not going to—” I begin, then flinch when I hear a scream. Twisting around, I see an operative hit the ground with what looks like a green javelin through their midsection. I’ve lost track of Kiwi, but she comes back into sight a moment later, launching into the air above the column and throwing a spray of featherblades down towards it. Most of them curve midair, zooming down towards operatives and targeting them with pinpoint precision. As she comes back down, every featherblade detonates, filling the column with lethal starbursts of glassy green shrapnel.

“Weapons free! Bring her down, bring her down!” I shout to the column, my helm deploying as I reach back and grab my battleaxe off my back. Our procession has turned into complete chaos; the Challengers are fighting back now, even with their hands cuffed and some of them bleeding from Kiwi’s indiscriminate attack. Plasma bolts are starting to fly, most of them towards Kiwi, who’s put up a dome shield around herself. “Kwyn, you keep an eye on Songbird, I’ll—”

“That is enough.”

The words slice through the canyon like silk and razors, sibilant and sharp all at once. Everything seems to go dim and darken, the shadows rising up along the sides of the canyon as Nazka glides through the smoke at the front of the column. He’s traveling on what looks like a slick of pitch black that goes before him like water — it extends from the hem of his mantle to the ground, as if he was a part of it. In seconds, he’s closed in on Kiwi, who’s just finished throwing an operative thirty feet up the canyon wall with what I can only assume is magically enhanced strength. She doesn’t seem to notice he’s there until the shadow falls across her, and by the time she turns around to see him looming over her, the darkness on the ground has encircled her, rising up and folding around her shield.

“I had considered returning the Masklings to their people at the conclusion of this escapade.” Nazka intones, his anger in his voice chilly and foreboding. “Though the Masklings have vexed us, it was the Challengers we were after, and I had considered letting the Masklings have the Cradle in an effort to reopen a peaceful dialogue with them. But your intemperate rampage has singlehandedly changed my mind.”

He raises his hands, a violet sphere flickering to life between them, and Kiwi starts to rise off the ground, kicking and flailing as her domed shield turns into a sphere around her, and the liquid shadows start wrapping around it. Debris on the ground starts quivering and moving towards Kiwi, and I feel a tug, as if gravity was shifting to refocus on her and her shield. Everyone with half a brain starts scrambling to get away from Nazka and Kiwi as the gravity around them increases by magnitudes, and a fissure runs through the green sphere protecting her.

“We would never negotiate… with people like you.” Kiwi spits at him. “People that raid our Sanctuaries… and imprison our people… and stand by while mobs torch our sacred places. You have the nerve to say… you’d let us have our own Cradle… as if it was yours to give away!” Her rune circles brighten as she pushes her hands outwards, reinforcing her sphere against the cracks start to spiderweb across it.

A grunt of pain has me looking around to see Songbird is braced on his forearms now, teeth gritted as something moves across his shoulder and neck. Kwyn moves to him, grabbing the neck of his shirt and yanking it back to reveal hot blue fissures burning their way over his skin, starting to spiral down his chest towards his heart.

“Axiom, something’s happening to him!” Kwyn calls, staring over the fissures. “Whatever it is, I think it’s killing him!”

“Yeah, that’s not exactly our biggest problem at the moment!” I say, flipping my axe and using end to trip the female teenager, who looked like she was running towards Songbird. The rest of the column is still chaos; some of the Challengers have been subdued, but others are still fighting, or using operatives as body shields.

“I will give you one more chance to surrender.” Nazka hisses as Kiwi’s shield starts to collapse and fracture under the incredible pressure being placed on it. He seems to have grown taller and larger as the shadows have lengthened, looming ever more ominous over the fragile green shell that’s keeping Kiwi from being crushed into a pulp. “Swallow your pride, and end this senseless violence, or be consumed by it.”

“CURSE has never protected my people from injustice. You never protect anyone until it’s too late, and people are already dead.” Kiwi snarls back at him. “If you wanted to end the senseless violence, you should’ve acted sooner. You let it go too long, just like you always do, and now it’s come for you. You’ll be consumed by it too, and the only question is which one of us will be left when it’s over.”

“I have a feeling you will not like the answer.” Nazka seethes, and without warning, the shadows rising up the walls of the canyon peel off, falling back down with all the force of cascading waterfalls. They slam to the floor of the canyon, splashing back up and wrapping around Kiwi and her shield, obscuring her from view and tightening like a fist. For a moment the dense ball of blackness swirls furiously — before suddenly compacting, the diameter shrinking by several feet, as if something inside had popped.

“NO!!”

The shout is raw, almost a scream; shoving away the male teenager, I turn to see Songbird on his back, straining against his cuffs, every muscle in his body locked tight as the fissures glow through his shirt at the point that they’ve met on his chest. He starts seizing, and Kwyn sets down her rifle, grabbing his shoulders and trying to hold him down. But the moment she does, the aquamarine fissures spread to her as well, racing up her fingers and over her arms, glowing beneath her suit.

“Dare… Dare!” she shouts, and I can hear the panic in her voice as it starts climbing towards her shoulders. “Oh shit, I don’t know what kind of magic this is, Dare help, I can’t move!”

I drop my axe, turning and lurching towards her. The moment I reach her, I put an arm around her waist and the other on her shoulder, aiming to yank her away from him, but the fissures immediately spread from her shoulders to mine. They go straight through my power armor, straight through my plugsuit, crawling over my skin, and I realize what she was talking about: everywhere they go, they paralyze me. Realizing I have only seconds of movement, I try to use my legs to push away, hoping to pull her with me, but her fingers are still clenched tightly around Songbird’s shoulders. I’m not positioned in a way that I can lift both of them, and soon my legs are paralyzed as well.

Then I feel the fissures make their way up my neck, to my head, and everything whites out.

I’m laying on dirt and leaves.

I blink, turning my head, then rolling over, wincing when bright light flashes over my eyes. Lifting a hand to block it out, I realize I’m staring up at the canopy of a forest, green leaves gently rustling in the wind. Spitting out the stem of a leaf that got caught on the corner of my mouth, I push myself upright, quickly realizing that I’m no longer wearing my power armor. It’s just me, in my casual clothes, in the middle of a forest.

“The hell…” I mutter, looking around.

“Dare?”

I turn to see that Kwyn's not far from me, sitting up and picking leaves out of her hair. Like me, she’s no longer in her operative armor, instead dressed in a jeans, t-shirt, and jacket.

“I thought you could keep up with me.”

Both of us turn upon hearing the new voice. Behind us, unnoticed until now, is a clearing with a large tree in it. Unlike the rest of the forest, which sports green leaves, the tree in the clearing has scarlet leaves. Kneeling in its shade is Songbird, with Kiwi standing in front of him.

“I tried.” Songbird rasps, one hand clutched to his chest as he stares up at Kiwi. “I gave you everything I had.”

“Don’t lie to me. If you did, we wouldn’t be here right now.” Kiwi replies. Not angry, but certainly not taking a friendly tone either.

“I don’t think they know we’re here.” Kwyn says quietly, scooting over to me. “Do you know where we are?”

“No idea.” I say without taking my eyes off the pair. “This is, uh. New to me.”

“Feels like we’re in a death sequence.” Kwyn says, looking around. “Like in the movies, when someone’s life flashes before their eyes, and they get to talk with the people that have died before them?”

“But we’re not the ones dying.” I point out. “Or at least we weren’t dying a minute ago.”

“Yeah, but what does that make us?” she asks. “Does that mean that we’re intruding on someone else’s death sequence?”

“I… guess?” I say, scratching my head. “Weird.”

“Awkward.” she agrees.

“I don’t know what more you want from me.” Songbird says, still staring up at Kiwi. “I’ve let you use me to fuel yourself, despite what it’s doing to me. You’re literally eating me alive; I don’t know what else I can give you.”

“I want you to stop sitting back. I want you to fight as hard as I do.” Kiwi replies, her hands curling into fists. “I know you can do it; I know you have it in you. But you never stand up for yourself or for the people you care about. You have the power to do it, but you refuse to.”

“I already told you what I’ve seen power do to people. To my friends, to the person that I cared about.” he retorts. “I’m not going to repeat her mistakes—”

“What’s the point of avoiding Nova’s mistakes if it just gets the people you care about killed?” Kiwi shouts at him, throwing out a hand. “You’re not Nova! And yeah, power has risks, but if you don’t use it to protect the people that you’re responsible for, that makes you no better than CURSE!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Songbird seethes at her, baring his teeth. “You think you know power? Maddening, intoxicating, exhilarating? Powerful enough to bend reality into whatever shape you want? You don’t know what that does to a person—”

“I don’t know what that does to a person because I don’t have that luxury!” Kiwi shouts at him. “I don’t get to sit in a place of privilege, like you do, and have that kind of power handed to me on a silver platter! Everything I have, I had to work for! I had to fight, and struggle, and take it for myself—”

“And that’s all you do!” Songbird cuts her off. “All you do is you take, and you take and you take and you take until there’s nothing left, and then you move on! That’s why none of your handlers can survive you, because all you do is take from them until they’re dead. You never learned to give!”

“Why would I give?” she demands. “I am dying right now because you can’t keep up with me, and you refuse to use the power you have to keep me alive! Why would I give you anything?”

“Because you’re not the only one dying!” he snaps back at her. “You’re killing me every time we do this. We are both dying because we’re not bearing this burden equally!”

That last shout fades in the glen, the two of them glaring at each other. Kwyn and I haven’t moved, transfixed by this unexpected window into the dynamics between the pair.

“I’m feeling conflicted.” Kwyn murmurs to me. “I want them to figure this out, but if they don’t, they’ll probably get killed and we won’t have to fight them.”

“Yup.” I agree succinctly. “But if they resolve it and figure out how to work with each other, they’re prolly gonna beat our asses in.” I look around the glen again. “I feel like we should be trying to find a way out of here, but…”

“Oh look, I think one of them’s about to fold.” Kwyn says in a hushed tone, grabbing my arm. I look around in time to see Kiwi drop her gaze, shaking her head.

“You know what, forget it.” Kiwi says, turning away from Songbird. “I don’t need you. I can do this on my own.”

“No, you can’t.” Songbird immediately contradicts her.

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do!” she snaps back at him. “You don’t know what I’m capable of!”

“No, I don’t. Nobody does.” he agrees. “Because nobody survives you long enough to find out. You don’t let them survive long enough to find out. You take everything you can from them, but you never give anything back, so of course they die.” Grimacing, he works on getting to his feet, though it looks painful to him. Once he’s standing, he holds a hand out for her to take. “Try to give, instead of taking. If you never give anything, nobody knows who you are. You can take all you want, and get to know countless people, but if you never give anything back, those people will never know you. They will never understand you the way you understand them. And you will always be alone.”

Kiwi flinches at that, as if it’d pierced through her anger and struck her somewhere deep, somewhere she was vulnerable. She looks down at his hand, then back up at Songbird; her indignation is only thinly veiling something hesitant and anxious. “Your ideals aren’t going to save us.” she says angrily, but less so now.

“Maybe not.” he admits. “Maybe we’ll die anyway. But if we do, you won’t have to die alone.”

She clenches her jaw, glaring at him. “…you won’t like what you see.”

“Maybe not.” he says again. “But I’ll be able to respect that you were honest with me.”

She takes a deep breath, reaching up to Songbird’s hand, but doesn’t take it, her fingers curling hesitantly as she pulls back a little. “Only a little bit. I’m… I’m not ready to show you everything right now.”

“A little bit is better than nothing.” he says, lifting his hand a little closer.

After a moment of steeling herself, Kiwi nods and takes his hand.

Kwyn’s fingers tighten around my arm, but nothing outstanding or flashy happens afterwards. Songbird closes his eyes, tilting his head forward as he pulls Kiwi in closer; after a moment of staring at him, she closes her eyes as well, tilting forward to rest her head against his. They remain like that, and as we watch, the hot-blue fissure marks along Songbird’s neck and chest slowly start to close up, regressing back towards his shoulder and along his arm. Around us, the light spilling through the glen starts to get brighter and brighter.

“I think this is it.” Kwyn murmurs, looking around. “I think we’re about to go back.”

“Yeah.” I agree, unable to tear my gaze away from the pair beneath the red tree. Even though I know we need to get back to reality, I’m reluctant to leave this moment. I don’t want to go back and fight them after what I’ve seen here, and yet I know I’ll have to. All around us, the light grows brighter and brighter until it starts whiting out everything else. I can feel the wind picking up, the trees rustling louder and louder, until it all turns into white noise and white light…

I’m back in the canyon.

I can feel the muscles in my body unlocking, immediately staggering backwards as I’d intended to do before this whole detour. Kwyn comes with me, since I’ve still got my arm wrapped around her waist; since I was rushing to pull her away, I trip and fall on my back, the clank of my power armor lost over the sound of fighting. It doesn’t seem like any time has passed, at least not that I can tell. Now that we’ve backed off Songbird, the two teenagers are rushing to him, and the fissure marks are retreating from back down his arm as the kids work on getting the blinders off his face.

The moment the blinders comes off, his eyes snap open. A ray of viridian light pierces the gloom; looking to the side, I can see that it’s lanced out of the black sphere that Nazka was using to crush Kiwi. It’s followed by another, and another, the surface of the sphere starting to bubble and roil as if something was burning it away from within. In that instant, I can already tell what’s about to happen.

“Get down!” I shout to the rest of the platoon before rolling on my side to face away from the sphere, curling up and using my body to shield Kwyn.

The blast comes a few seconds later, a pressurized whump followed by a shockwave of green light that shunts me across the floor of the canyon, sparks flying as my armor grinds across the ground. Anyone else caught standing is practically picked up and thrown away; those close to the ground are thrown across it and sent rolling. As the shockwave dissipates, so do the sounds of fighting; no one’s left standing to fight, everyone having been thrown flat by the blast.

Uncurling, I let go of Kwyn and roll back over, staring across the canyon. Bodies are strewn across the ground; a lot of people appear to have been stunned by the blast. Kiwi is the only one up and moving, apparently having survived Nazka’s crushing power; she’s staggering through the strewn bodies, grabbing the Masklings and Challengers, and shaking them back awake.

Gritting my teeth within my helm, I scan the ground until I find my battleaxe several yards away. I push myself back to my feet — though I don’t like it, I can’t just stand by while they try to escape. Behind me, Kwyn is getting to her feet as well, drawing her plasma pistol and turning it on. “Hands up! Stop moving!” she shouts.

Kiwi looks up, seeing us standing, and raises a hand; her runemarks flicker to life and start orbiting around her wrist as a pane of green light manifests in front of her. Kwyn squeezes off a couple shots, but it’s too late; the green barrier blocks them, allowing Kiwi to continue with rousing her comrades.

“Dare, should I…?” Kwyn asks. I look back and see the question in her eyes; I know she’s asking if she should cut loose and summon her big old wolf thing.

I shake my helm. “Not yet. See if you can get some of the others up. Let me see what I can do here.” With that, I sprint forward, snatching up my axe on my way to Kiwi.

One of the roused Challengers sees me coming and darts around Kiwi’s shield, moving to intercept me. It’s Sierra, and her hands are still cuffed, but the toothy grin she’s wearing concerns me. I twist the handle on my axe, the anti-grav hammer on the end turning on, and start to gear it back for a swing at her. But right before I reach her, she dives forward, landing on her hands, then shunts herself into the air feet-first. I put on the brakes, her boots narrowly missing my helm; as she soars over me, she twists midair, jerking her arms down on either side so her cuffed hands hook around my helm. I’m suddenly subject to the entirety of Sierra’s mass yanking me backwards by the head, and I stagger back a few steps. I can hear my suit’s servos going into overdrive to keep me balanced as the vampire hangs on my back, with her cuffed arms around my helm.

“Dammit!” I snap, taking one hand off my axe as I fumble to grab her, trying to yank her off. “You are cuffed and you have no weapons! You just don’t know when to stop, do you?”

“Oh, honeybuns, I am the weapon.” Sierra says, planting her boots on the small of my back so she can pull back on her cuffs, straining them against my visor as I whip around, trying to dislodge her. “I’m a Challenger. I don’t need a suit to be super special like you do.”

“Don’t call me that!” I snap, getting a grip on her arm and yanking her back over my head, throwing her to the ground. “Could you go ten seconds without flirting with someone?”

She hits the ground, rolling over before going into a crouch. Whipping her head up, she grins at me, her lone eye an intense, vivant crimson. “No. Why don’t you come show me what you’re made of, big guy?” she says, her voice oddly resonant.

I start towards her, then stop, my head fuzzy. All the color’s bled out of the world around me, except for the red of Sierra’s eye; it feels like it’s drawing me in. I feel impelled to go fight her, like she’s suggested, but something’s not right, and the HUD within my helm is warning me of a rush of blood to my head.

She’s trying to smolder me.

“System, visor blackout!” I order. My visor shuts down, leaving me in the dark, and the fuzziness in my head evaporates now that I can no longer see Sierra. “Bring it back online, apply thermal filter onl—”

Something hitting my chest interrupts me, and I stagger backwards a few paces. My visor comes back on a moment later with only the thermal filter on; I can see a signature running past me, and swing at it with my axe, knowing it’s probably Sierra. I’m too late, though; it’s pelting away from me, along with other scattered signatures that are moving in the same direction. “System, clear the thermal filter, give me normal vision!”

My visor clicks back over to normal color, and I can see now that most of the Masklings and Challengers have gotten back up and are running back the way we came, under the bridge, with Songbird leading the way. Kwyn is trying to get up as many operatives as she can, and it looks like Onslaught, Gossamer, and Whisper are all starting to get back to their feet, but there’s no way we can stop the Challengers, much less pursue them in this state.

“Guys, they’re getting away!” I shout through the comms, starting to lumber after the fleeing Challengers. It shouldn’t be too hard to deal with the ones that are still cuffed, which is most of them.

“We planned for this.” Nazka rasps. A glance over my shoulder confirms he’s still alive, if somewhat battered, and he’s pushing himself up on an arm and glaring after the fleeing Challengers. “Deploy contingency B.”

I have no idea what contingency B is, but it turns out he wasn’t speaking to me. I hear the roar of braking thrusters a second before Blockchain comes hurtling down into the canyon, ten tons of rusty demolition bot slamming into the ground on the other side of the lowered bridge. Even with the boosters strapped to his back to slow his descent, he still lets out shockwave when he lands, knocking the foremost Challengers on their backs as they scramble to get away from the behemoth now blocking their escape route.

“Oh c’mon, seriously?!” Sierra complains. “No fair! You’re not allowed to call in reinforcements!”

“Keep going! It can’t stop us all!” Kiwi shouts as she grabs the last Challenger and gets them moving under the bridge. Seeing me bearing down on the group, she raises a hand at me, discharging a ripple that stops me dead and sends me sliding back a few feet.

“Cut them off. Trap them beneath the bridge.” Nazka growls, starting to get to his feet as the rest of the platoon starts to recover. “Blockchain, pulverize anyone that tries to get past you.”

Blockchain curls his massive metal hand around the anchor chain of his flail, starting to lift it as if he was winding up to swing it across the entire Challenger group. But before he can, Songbird scrambles to his feet, holding his cuffed hands up. “Blockchain! Wait!”

The demolition bot stops, the crimson eyes in the visor slit turning down towards Songbird. Seeing he has Blockchain’s attention, Songbird goes on. “You don’t have to do this. I know you don’t want to be a bad person.”

“OH MY GOD.” Kiwi barks over her shoulder at him, shoving me back with another ripple of force. “You’re trying this for a third time?!”

“You just need to give him a chance!” Songbird shouts back at her.

“You tried this twice already and he bodied you like a ragdoll both times!” Kiwi snaps back at him, before slinging another ripple of force at me and keeping me outside of axe-swinging range. “We don’t have time for this! I can’t hold them here forever, and more are starting to get up! GO!”

“Dude, have you seen how big that cube is? It’ll turn us into a blood splatter if we get hit by it!” the male teenager shouts back at Kiwi.

“He’s not going to do that to a kid.” Songbird say, turning back to Blockchain. “I know you want to be a good person. You don’t have to do this. Most of our people are defenseless. They took our weapons; we have nothing to fight back with.” He holds up his cuffed hands to emphasize his point. “We’re not hurting anyone. We’re just trying to help people that need it.”

“Gossamer.” Nazka says, his voice cold. I look around to see he’s standing now, glaring at Songbird’s back.

“I got him.” Gossamer says, already kneeling, her railgun out and resting on her knee as she lines up a shot.

Kiwi sees what’s happening, and her focus shifts off me as she twists to the side, throwing out another pane of green light to try and block the shot. “No!”

But Gossamer’s railgun is a serious weapon, and a hasty barrier is nothing to a spike traveling at thousands of miles an hour. There’s a crack like thunder in the canyon, and Kiwi’s barrier shatters like glass, the spike tearing through it and punching a hole clean through Songbird’s chest.

He staggers forwards a few feet, then collapses to his knees. Kiwi turns and bolts back towards him, completely ignoring me even though I’m closing in on the group again. She skids to her knees as she reaches him, yanking his longcoat open and trying to stem the blood coming out of him, her movements frenzied, almost panicked. Songbird himself seems to be in shock, processing what happened and struggling to breathe.

And yet still he manages to lift his head, looking up at Blockchain.

“You can be a good person.” he rasps, the words struggling to rise as loud as he wants them to be. “You don’t have to be a bad person.”

“They’re coming!” one of the Masklings shouts as I close within twenty feet of the group. The female teenager turns around, seeing me coming, and ducks around the others, running past them despite the shouts of the adults. She beelines right for me; I start to lift my axe into a defensive posture, but she just stops in front of me, staring me down. I move to step around her, but she matches my movement, staring at me with defiant green eyes. Reaching out, I grab her and shunt her to the side, going to take a step forward — only to find that the wolf-eared Maskling is standing in my way. Before I can move around him, the Viralix steps up beside him, blocking the way, as does the blonde Maskling, forming a wall of cuffed bodies that move whenever I do.

My hands tighten around the handle of my axe; the anti-grav hammer is active, and I could easily knock all of them away with a single swing. But with all of them cuffed and defenseless…

I just can’t bring myself to do it.

“Detain the children first.” Nazka orders, starting to stride towards the shadow of the bridge as more members of the platoon start to get up, the ones that haven’t been injured too heavily by Kiwi’s earlier attack. “Once they are out of the way, we can handle the adults accordingly.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” I can hear Songbird rasp to Blockchain.

And after a long moment of silence, Blockchain lowers the hand that holds the anchor chain of his flail.

Past the bodies of the others, I can see Songbird look aside to the others. “Go.”

The male teenager is first, edging forward, then bursting into a sprint all at once, running as fast as he can with his hands cuffed. He pelts in a wide circle around Blockchain — who doesn’t lift a finger to stop him.

“Renchiko!” Valkyrie shouts from where she’s knelt beside Songbird. “Go, go now! We will be behind you!”

The female teenager looks around, sees that the male teenager has made it past Blockchain, and starts running. The others start to retreat as well, backing up more slowly and blocking any direct path to the kids, and it isn’t much longer before Renchiko’s managed to sprint past Blockchain as well.

“Blockchain! What are you doing?” Nazka barks as he nears the bridge’s shadow, a squad of operatives starting to form behind him. “You are disobeying a direct order!”

“Screw this! If you won’t finish them off, I’ll do it for you, you useless rustbucket!” The crazed shout has me looking over my shoulder to see Onslaught hauling her custom rocket launcher over her shoulder, but she’s not aiming it at the Challengers.

She’s aiming it at the half-lowered bridge overhead.

“Wait, don’t—” I start to shout, but it’s too late. Onslaught’s knocked on her back as the rocket hurtles out of the launch tube, cutting a straight line for the bridge. Halfway there, the nose of the warhead splits open, launching a spread of two dozen micromissiles that fan out, detonating across the underside of the bridge. I can hear the support girders groan, the metal starting to shriek as the brake mechanisms fail, and hundreds of thousands of tons of metal and cracking asphalt start to plummet towards us.

All I can do is stare up at it, completely dumbfounded that I’m essentially going to end up killed by one of my coworkers.

But a flare of light suddenly fills my visor, a sheen of blue energy racing across the underside of the falling bridge and slowing it to a near halt. Looking down, I can see Songbird’s stood up, his cuffed hands raised to the sky, a pillar of light flowing out of them. His pupils are burning a solid, lightning blue as he grits his teeth, staring up at the massive, four-lane bridge that’s slowly falling above us.

“Go!” he shouts to the others even as his blood drips to the floor, pooling around his boots. “Go, I can only hold it for so long!”

“Dare, get out of there!” I can hear Whisper shouting at me. Turning, I sprint back the way I came, my directional thrusters firing full force as I rush to get out from beneath the falling bridge. Nazka, who’d been deadset on getting beneath the bridge, has quickly backed away from it, along with the operatives following him.

“Fire on them!” he shouts to the operatives with him. “ Focus on Songbird! Bring him down!”

There’s some hesitation, but the capable operatives we have do exactly that, bringing up their rifles, starting to squeeze off shots at him as the rest of the Challengers run for the other side of the bridge. Many of the shots hit Songbird, smoke rising from his longcoat as the threads of the combat weave sizzle and fuse together. One shot hits his leg, forcing him down to one knee; he lets out a shout as the geyser of light holding up the bridge falters, and it drops another twenty feet before he manages to slow it again.

“Forget Songbird; shoot the other Challengers before they get away, dammit!” Onslaught snaps, charging her rifle as she moves forward, squeezing off shots through the narrowing gap between the ground and the falling bridge. “He’s going to die anyway! Focus on the ones that are making it out!”

“Songbird!” Kiwi shouts from the other side of the falling bridge. “Everyone’s out, get your stupid hero ass out of there!”

I can see him look up on hearing his name — and on hearing that everyone managed to get out, I can recognize the way his shoulders slump. Not with defeat, or resignation, but with relief. With that, the last of the light holding up the bridge dissipates, the broken structure collapsing to the ground before Songbird even has the time to stand up.

Dust rushes away from the crumpled bridge now blocking the canyon in front of us. I think I’m in shock — of all the ways I’d been expecting this to turn out, this wasn’t it. We're cut off from the Challengers now, but Songbird is buried beneath hundreds of thousands of tons of rubble, and very likely dead. The biggest threat to CURSE — gone in an instant.

I know I should be celebrating, but after what I’d seen between him and Kiwi, all I feel is dismay.

“Well shit.” I hear Gossamer growl. “What do we do now?”

Nazka’s hands curl into fists; I can see the deep-seated anger in his dark grey eyes. But he doesn’t express what he’s feeling. “We are not in a position to pursue. We have too many wounded and injured. We will proceed to our original destination, send the wounded back, get in fresh squads and equipment, and proceed from there. They have nowhere to go, and no way off this structure. They are trapped here, which gives us the advantage and the benefit of time. We just need to use it wisely.” Turning to the rest of the platoon, he starts shouting orders. “Triage the wounded. Determine which ones can walk, and which ones need to be carried. Onslaught, form a point squad that can lead the column; Gossamer, form a rearguard that can defend our backs. Whisper, form a squad that can watch the flanks. Axiom and Resquill, you are in charge of triage efforts and making sure the wounded are carried. Get to it.”

With that, he starts walking back towards the column and the operatives still lying on the ground. After a moment, I turn off my axe and sling it across my back again, letting my helm fold back as the others start moving to their assignments. There’s mixed feelings here; the Challengers got away, and a lot of our people are injured, but Songbird is out of the picture now. Searching the scattered operatives, I find Kwyn, and when her gaze catches on mine, I can see she’s feeling the same way I am.

This isn’t the kind of victory that either of us had been looking for.