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[x] Have the Lemnosi lead: immune to fear and peace and you've seen what competent fighters a lot of them are

You look over the squads that aren't Luyu. The first is a mix of Nyxians and locals, about six of each, equipped in a fairly standard fashion, with catapults and funnels and carbines, and a pair of support robots running at their heels. The second is the Lemnosi. Their equipment is quite non-standard, Their heavy war masks cover their whole head, without any hair revealed at all, and they carry short PDWs, long micromissile systems and funnel backpacks heavier than the rest. Their squad only has one combat robot, a big spider with a heavy matter laser on it.

"Okay, Lithium-8-3." You address the Lemnosi. "You guys are going in first. My element will serve as a flanking force here, and we'll try to catch the enemy between us." As you speak you a map of the logistical node and sketch the plan out on it. The node itself is a large siloed space filled with shipping containers, containing combat robots, munitions and the like. You'll be making entry via a set of ventilation passages along one side, which should be away from the main part of the enemy force, who are engaged in battle around the main entrance with the city's response forces.

"We're not going to have any kind of informational presence in the room until we breach." You tell the Lemnosi squad leader, a particularly muscular woman who carries her PDW slung, and keeps one hand on the micromissile launcher "I need you to punch in and secure some kind of base of fire position. Then we'll move out of the vent here and catch them in the flank." You indicate another vent cover on the flanking wall.

"Very well." The Lemnosi says, her voice with that same script reading sound. "I believe we have adequate firepower for that."

<<You don't wanna send me in first?>> Luyu says. <<This is what I'm made for.>>

<<There's only twelve of you and there's a hundred thousand Lemnosi here.>>

<<That's cold.>>

<<We've got a mission here, Luyu. This is a sideshow. The first people to go through that breach are going to get cut up, and I'd rather it wasn't us. They have replacement bodies waiting, but we don't have a bunch of replacement Valkyries.>>

Luyu looks at you for a few seconds and then nods. She doesn't look happy but she's too professional to gainsay you here. You arrive at the hatch; a solid, black diamond security gate which opens at your code. The Lemnosi move through first, heading down one brach while Luyu and the rest stand at the other and the locals and Nyxians stay at the hatch in reserve.

<<Set.>> The Lemnosi team lead sends you.

<<Set.>> Banara sends.

<<Prepare to breach.>> You check that the Luyus are in position around the picked hatches. <<Do it.>>

There's a crump of shaped charges and the Lemnosi erupt into the room. A series of prismatic flashes from their bombs, a hot flicker of blackout smoke covering the entrance, then the rest of the room bursts into visibility as the drone screen swarms in with them. It's a thick, armoured walled bin, stretching up into shadows. You hadn't realised before how deep you were underground. It would be easier if it was less well built, you could eliminate the Elioud from outside. As it is, the Lemnosi squad goes up against them close.

Beams sear the feed immediately and you see the Elioud. There's something ridiculous about the way they move. The gigantic pyramidal top and too-thin legs below. The kick of the weapons along the pyramid rim almost knocking them over.

One slashes out beams and you see a Lemnosi tumble out of the blackout, tracked and hit somehow without visual or IR contact. Another spits out a cloud of glowing spears in high arc, riddling the Lemnosi position with bright detonations. The Lemnosi fire support bot is a blazing wreck before it can even be brought into operation.

But it doesn't stop the Lemnosi. Despite terrible casualties, they spread out and return fire, a coordinated volley of shots that sends the Elioud tottering back into cover. Micromunitions detonate short in a coordinated wave of intercept fire and you pinpoint four separate sources. There's at least four of them on this level, comically clumsy and absolutely deadly.

Luyu blows the hatches on your side and pours out, taking cover in the boxes. The rest of you move a bound behind. The Luyus and their drones open fire at once, and the space fills with the flash and roar of plasma and the hypersonic cracks of drone fired penetrators. "Stella! Get some missiles up for me!" Luyu calls. You take control of the replicator and send two missions arcing out and up.

Beams catch them and blow them short.

"High! High!" Mirareki calls out, and fires a long burst from her catapult at something in the ceiling. Another pair of Elioud are moving around in the boxes up there, ducking in and out to fire. One falls down, rolling through a series of explosions to land in the middle of you. Up close you can see the mother of pearl sheen inside the projector barrel, and then for a long instant the beam begins to gather energy right in your face. So much for this life. Maybe your queue will survive, but it's unlikely.

Aletta cannons into it from the side. The Priestess' leg sweeps it off its spindly feet and sends the beam carving through the roof structure above above. Layers of molten basement splatter to the floor around you and you hear a Luyu cry out. A pair of spider tanks tumble to the floor, crashing down then rolling onto their furled legs. The Elioud's beam breached the cache a level above, with armaments stocked for transit to the front. Their real objective. Its legs are scrambling nauseatingly in the air, by your face, fast and sharp enough to kill. You roll back, aim your funnels together and put the combined beam into nexus of its legs, keeping them lit until the matter lasers burn through its armour and it vomits cooler fire out of its beam vents.

"Cover me!" Reizay screams, and runs towards the fallen tanks, keeping low. Luyu curses, pops her plasma gun out and inundates the area around the Elioud on this level with fire. A beam slashes past Reizay, and you almost can't believe she wasn't hit, but somehow she's still going forward, desperately ducking to stay behind the silhouette of the fallen tanks until she can skid and scramble up against one. She plugs into it and its legs begin to move. Reizay shunts controls shunt onto the squad feed.

"I got it!"

What do you do with the tank?
[ ] Send it up after the two Elioud above.
[ ] Have it serve as a general base of fire while you more aggressively close with the Elioud formation.
[ ] Have it advance on the Elioud on this level and overrun them.

[X] Have the tank serve as a general base of fire while you more aggressively close with the Elioud formation.

The tank's legs flex and it rises up on its legs. Reizay cowers down, evidently worried about being shot under it. She looks like she's about to bolt. You can almost see the future now, see her flee and get hit. Her first death.

She might still die on this planet, but you don't want her to. Not after doing something so brave.

You slew the tank sideways to cover her as she runs. Eiloud beams crack across the defences, burning hot lines across the thermal superconductor and defence aura but not quite penetrating.

"Reizay! Open your mouth!"

"Wh-" her mouth gapes in the cry and you fire the tank's direct-fire weapon. The gun fires with an incredible hypervelocity crack. The overpressure gun snaps up every mote of dust in the chamber and your vision flicks to bright wire frame and blocky primary colours. The big gun's strike erases the one of the Eiloud and its cover. You rake fire from the anti-infantry guns at the others. The tank has a suite of heavier stuff but it's too close for any of it. You'd fry Reizay.

Reizay lands by a box and a Luyu scoops her into cover. "Easy there, hero." She says.

Reizay mumbles. "My ears hurt."

Luyu laughs and then they drop her and toss a grenade. A swarm of explosives arch out from behind the tank, one detonating after another like firecrackers. Luyus and Lemnosi charge into the smoke, beating out short tattoos with their direct-fire weapons as they swarm over the Eiloud position. The Eiloud are fast and strong and smart, armed with weapons beyond what you have, but in that moment, it means nothing at all.

You declare the vault secure five minutes later.


You sit on a set of steps leading down to the vault level, sipping at a bottle of beer someone got you. It's a strong, earthy craft beer with a good taste. Down in the arcade, Luyu is joking with Atet and several other doctors as they work on one of her. Mirareki hovers nearby, constantly glancing.

Reizay is sitting on a wooden bench on one side, holding a beer like she doesn't know what to do with it. Minetta is talking to her quietly.

You remember almost dying, the sheen inside the barrel. You'll need to thank Aletta later for saving you.

"Why didn't you act?" You ask Alex inside your head. "Can you not take the Elioud?"

"They're tricky," she admits. "The Nephilim are derived from us. I can't just wave my hand and make them do my bidding, bound as I am."

"You could have brought every combat machine in there to life and killed them easily."

"That would have well and truly blown our cover. You know they're not particularly friendly to the posthuman here. After what happened."

Her logic is flawless but it doesn't feel right. On the ship, Alex, Ever Dancing Flame, was a constant presence in your head. You felt her during the combat with the Quiet, and on your whole trip across Haraway. Now it's as if she were asleep again. Even now you're talking to her, you can feel that she's gone deep.

"What aren't you telling me?"

"You set me free, knowing what I am next to you. Have a little faith in the consequences."

"You're the only reason I exist." You take a swig of beer. "So, I'll trust you if you pull rank. But–" You look at the rest. "You better not get my team killed. If they're harmed because you held something back–"

"I understand," Alex says. She cut you off before you got to the end of the sentence and had to figure out a way you could threaten her. A kindness, really.

She's gone as Banara approaches. "Hey." The Nyxian says. "You look kind of sad for the hero of the hour."

"I guess I'm just a sufferer of melancholy." You look up at her. "What's up?"

"You want to come see the Writer now? Things are basically done here. The garrison's response troops are sweeping the tunnels, but we can leave."

"Alright. Let me get the others." You switch channels. <<We're leaving.>>

<<Hey. Do you mind if I stick around?>> Luyu says. <<I want to assist with the sweep here.>>

<<I'd like to stay here too.>> Minetta says. <<There's a lot of people wounded and in distress.>>

<<Same.>> Atet says.

<<Sure. Reizay, Mirareki, what about you?>>

<<I'd like to check out those Elioud corpses, but I think I'll get another chance at that. I want to meet a famous writer.>> Mirareki says. Reizay just nods.

<<Right.>> You turn back to Banara as Reizay and Mirareki close in behind. "Okay, lead the way."


"So what's the Writer actually like?" Reizay asks as you climb into the hills. You're riding in a small ducted fan air car, heading through the deep, forested valleys around the city.

"She's fine." Banara shrugs. "Old, you know? Smart, a bit goofy I guess. She's written a bunch of books that are famous around here."

"Have you read any of them?" You ask.

Banara looks at you as if she thinks its an insult. "Of course I have. Do you think I don't read? Some of them. It was a while ago." You don't believe her even slightly.

The vehicle passes a peak and you see a large house below. It's a strange, rambling structure with outbuildings sprouting like mushrooms from its grounds. The air car touches down on a pad to one side, and several women in grey tac-sleeves move up to check you over, obviously security. Banara has a brief conversation with them in local battle language and then they conduct you inside, down a long hall frescoed with scenes of forests and into a large crystal fronted living room that overlooks the sea.

Sitting like a shadow in grey light of the overcast sign is a perfectly black and white being. She's tall and curvy, with skin and hair as black and white as Mirarekis, but entirely more doll like. Her joints are deliberately artificial. She turns an easy smile on you as you enter and waves to some sofas.

"Huh. I'm surprised she hasn't already fled." Alex says. "I guess she always did have a complex about being useful."

"You know her?"

"She was in the Exile."

It takes some self control not to start at that. You sit and a crystalline robot brings coffee and cake, and small sandwiches. "I supposed you'd be hungry after fighting all morning so I had food prepared." She says, taking a delicate savoury herself and munching it with obvious pleasure. "I'll really take any excuse. When you get as old as I am you have to hold on to your vices, and food is most definitely one of them."

"It's quite alright with me." You make your introductions.

"You can call me Annette." She says, and devours another sandwich. "Banara tells me you have a Deep Ship, and some kind of business in the occupation zone that you don't want to talk about."

"Banara is quite astute."

"The Deep Ship interests me. Obviously I'd like to add its manufacturing systems to the war effort. I'm afraid though that it's your team I'm most interested in."

"Oh?"

"This is very much a war of guerrillas and commandos, but the attrition rate is high. Even if we can bring people back, restoration from death requires counselling and most of the governments involved are reluctant to risk their most elite units in such a high casualty rate environment." She walks to the window and looks out over the bay. "We have plenty of troops who can blow up a Nephilim nexus or kill their civilian machines, but far fewer who can conduct hostage rescue."

It's an archaic way of phrasing it. Maybe she is old. A more modern person would say "live extraction."

"You need someone rescued?"

"I need someone found. A team of mine was investigating some unusual Nephilim, and vanished."

You feel Alex's interest pique. Her processing level raises. The sort of thing you can sense now. "Unusual Nephilim?"

"There have been rumours for months that there is more going on in the occupied zone than simply Nephilim self replication and Eiloud manufacture. Indeed, the Eiloud themselves seem like evidence that the Nephilim are changing. The posthumans we consulted assured us that such a thing was impossible, yet it has happened. For a while I've been investigating sightings of–" she thinks, picking her words. "Variant Nephilim machines out in the wilderness. My team was tracking one. Then we lost contact. A few days ago I received a survival beacon. It's a piece of posthuman technology we obtained, and it shouldn't be something the Nephilim can activate or counterfeit. It's coming from a small Nephilim prison about two hundred kilometers deep in the OZ. I need a team to hit the prison and extract my people. If you can help me, I'll get your people anywhere they want to go."

You think Alex is torn. The feeling when she's about to take control keeps growing in your mind, but never quite culminates. Your mental defence training alerts you to the lurking presence of software hands on the controls but the jerk of the stick never comes.

And something bugs you. If the posthumans are surprised by this turn of events, why aren't they here and investigating themselves?

[ ] Try to force Alex to take control
[ ] Press Annette for more information on the strange Nephilim but claim interest in accepting the mission
[ ] This sounds dangerous and also like a distraction. Try to find a way to refuse politely.
[ ] Accept without demanding further information. You need this woman's cooperation