By: Chris Edwards

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Read Part 1 here!

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My Sakura was looking worryingly vulnerable, smooth red carapace splayed open to allow installation access. Above it, magmetic rails held all manner of high-tech death and destruction, including several Protocol-level armaments. Much as I’d love to just cram it all in, there’s a limit to what even a Sakura can handle. Leave it to those Pact idiots to overload the reactor hauling everything but the kitchen sink. Sakura’s a mark of quality; you use the right tools for the job.

External armaments first—pick those, then tailor the rest to cover any weak spots. I rotated the various huge weapons on their carousel before settling on the Ursa. Surface around the facility would be a lot of big empty; I’d need something with range, accuracy, and stopping power. The huge assault rifle grip snugged into the zeoform’s left hand, exchanging electronic protocols until both sides were happy. 

Next, the Firestorm rocket delivery system—not as accurate, but hard to beat if you need to blow up just a whole hell of a lot of stuff real quick. The weapon-pods descended and linked in, the carapace smoothing shut over them. I was feeling better already.

A Hounslow shield for the other arm would help cover some of that crap the Pact were so fond of spraying everywhere. Between RIP guns and hive drones, it was like fighting in a goddamn hailstorm sometimes.

Next, the smaller touches. We were going to have to close fast, so additional boosters were a no-brainer. Micro-launchers, to help keep the aforementioned Pact hailstorm off me. And combat-blades, because I was feeling a little naked in the close-combat department.

In the media, you always see pilots treating their zeo like a person. I never saw the point in that; we’re just two components of one being, greater than the sum of our parts. 

Referring to yourself as a component probably isn’t super healthy. But then again, isn’t that the ethos that built the GuardCorps? We’re all components machined to a common tolerance. You can take a soldier raised in any prefecture and drop them into another Guardcorps’ forces, and they’d slot right in. I’m not a philosopher, but that sounds right to me.

Only one component still to be loaded… The pilot’s chamber opened silently to reveal the organic-looking interior. In combat, the bands of artificial muscle would tighten like a second skin, but right now I just needed brains, not brawn.

My hands slipped over the familiar control spheres as my head entered the crown and initiated zeo bridge. Plenty of pilots wax poetic about this—trust me, they’re not doing it justice. Your tongue never feels as slow or stupid as it does when you dial back down to human. On my own, I was just Maze, but together we’re Vermillion: stronger, faster, and way smarter. Our z-processors gleefully tore into the data, extrapolating millions of scenarios and outcomes. Then came the hard part—winnowing them down into a plan that would increase our chances without being too rigid to pivot when things inevitably went sideways...

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***

“Balkis has slowed to local civilian traffic levels. We’ll slip you and your drones off on approach, swing around Jinda, and then pick you up on the way out. Obviously, this puts a hard limit on your mission time. Miss that and you’re walking home.”

Not one to sugar-coat things, Li-Xuan, our pilot. We already knew, but clearly she felt it was worth repeating for us bozos in the cheap seats. She spent most of her time zeo-linked with the Balkis, communing with the cold, hard math of space.

We were in the deployment hold, strapped to the dubious rocket drones we were using to transit between orbit and surface. Sutler was no-nonsense, strapped with blades and grenades and that creepy metallic facemask. Will and Ben had engaged their coprocessors, making their movements disturbingly fast and fly-like. Their banter stopped when the mission started, brains fully occupied trying to figure out the fastest way to kill everyone in sight.  

Sutler cleared her throat. “Listen, I know this mission is riskier than we like, but we have got one advantage. The Idrani haven’t observed any guard rotations at the Saltshaker, which means whoever is protecting it will have been stuck on garrison duty for months. Likely they’ll be bored out of their minds from having to go on high-alert every time a shuttle passes by. If we hit them fast, I’m betting we can roll over them before they even know what’s going on.

“That said, I want to stress to you—not singling out any trigger-happy morons in particular—that our primary goal is the nano-breeder beneath the facility. The launch rails are a secondary target, but only after the primary is done. Otherwise we risk burying it under rubble where we can’t get at it.” She might rely on me to crunch the numbers, but in the field, nobody questions that Sutler is in charge.

“Other than that, you know your jobs. Take care of your part, and the bonuses will take care of themselves.”

The icons above the bay winked from red to amber, and the rocket drones began pre-flight warmup. 

“Okay, by the numbers, Vermillion first—the big lass can soak up defense fire, the rest of us in her lee. Good luck. Don’t die stupid.”

The amber lights flickered green, the hatch irised open, and the drones cold-launched us into the void. This was followed by a hammer-blow of acceleration as the ion drives lit up and threw us towards the moon's surface in a twisting pattern designed to avoid fire. Jinda looked pleasantly green from up here, but the moon was also a pretty shade of turquoise. We just had to hope these drones were as stealthy as they were made out to be. They’re built for dropping military equipment to surface theatres; fragile human tolerances meant they were moving a lot slower than intended.

I hauled in my arms and legs, curled into a ball, and surfed moonwards behind my shield. Stomach-lurching zigzags kept us crazy-walking across the sky as we descended. Still, I was surprised at the lack of incoming fire. I guess Sutler had been on the money about their readiness level. Garrison duty sucks at the best of times, let alone stuck on an armpit like this.

About thirty seconds from impact, the drones rolled over and began venting pinprick jets of plasma to decelerate. Even slackers couldn’t miss that thermal bloom. Sure enough, my threat-sensors lit up as targeting systems began trying to acquire us. Sutler started pumping out all kinds of E/M crap and spoofed Pact IFF codes, trying to confuse them, but it wasn’t going to take long before—