The Next Morning

«Longbow 1, in position.»

«Longbow 2, in position.»

“Roger that. Skyhammer, what’s your status?”

«Skyhammer 1 and 2 are ready on your mark.»

“Roger. Crossbow, Dagger, Vanguard, Shield. Status report.”

«Crossbow 1 through 3, ready.»

«Dagger 1 through 8, prepared to go.»

«Vanguard 1 through 7, waiting for your signal.»

«Shield squad equipped and ready.»

“And Flare?”

«Flare 1 and 2, all suites ready to assist. Full battlefield overview has been established.»

“Alright…” Colonel Saito paused for a moment to take a deep breath before declaring, “mission start in t-minus 60 seconds!”

Immediately after uttering the words, the Colonel tightened his Halberd’s grip on the assault rifle in its hands. Due to the neural dive technology that drove all of SERRCom’s mechs, Saito’s vision and body experience was currently that of a 9-meter tall heavily armored humanoid machine, and from that 9-meter vantage point, he could see all of the forces stationed just outside of Sunova’s Gatefort. The loud whirring of helicopter blades drew Saito’s attention to the two gunships of Skyhammer squad, hovering in the air over the three Halberd mechs of Crossbow squad, the eight armored vehicles of Dagger squad, and the thirty infantry of Shield squad. Not currently present yet rounding out the assault force were the two Arbalest mechs of Longbow squad, CSF-1 and the Eximius Vir as Vanguard squad, and the two Frigates in orbit of Flare squad — all of them prepared to move on Saito’s notice.

As the clock slowly ran down, the Colonel rapidly reviewed the mission plan in his mind. He had sent the two Arbalest support mechs ahead to take up sniping positions over the Black Suns outpost; both were accompanied by small PCS units that Danielle had crafted the previous day, not unlike how she had fabricated new autoturrets during CSF-1’s reclamation of the Gatefort two days ago. PCSes were ultimately designed for spacecraft-sized vehicles, however — the units that were attached to the Arbalests would inevitably overheat and stop offering any kind of optical cloak within hours, but hours was all that Saito needed to overcome the Black Suns’ advantages.

As far as the Colonel knew, the Black Suns’ advantages over SERRCom numbered four: their weapons had superior range and firepower, their energy shields were far stronger, and their forces counted among them an unknown number of highly skilled Chaotics. On top of that was the issue of the sniper mech that Captain Travis had mentioned — no one had yet to spot such a mech, but Saito was unwilling to rule out its existence. Sending the Arbalests ahead with sniper rifles under optical cloaks was an attempt to mitigate the risk of a Black Suns sniper mech; the cloaks would help the Arbalests close the distance and negate the Suns’ range advantage, while their numbers should make up for the other deficits.

However, the positioning of the Arbalests was only considering the enemy sniper mech on its own. The outpost was another matter — and to deal with that, Saito had other plans. Whether or not those plans would work depended entirely on how the next minute passed.

A bright red “10” appeared on Saito’s Heads-Up Display. It soon switched to 9, and then 8, as it counted the seconds down to 0. He could see the growing tension in the forces around him, but that was only to be expected — in less than ten seconds, they would all be embroiled in a firefight.

«…Five, four, three, two, one… launching volley!» came the voice from Flare team — the code name for the two Frigates positioned in low orbit. «…Volley effective! Planetside, prepare for transport in three, two, one…!»

“Here we go…” Saito muttered to himself, preemptively taking aim with his Halberd’s assault rifle as a bright white light blotted out his vision. A second later, his sight returned to normal, revealing that he was no longer standing in front of Sunova’s Gatefort. Instead, he was standing in the middle of a forest, with the other three Halberds — consisting of the entirety of Crossbow team — standing beside him, their own guns trained forward. A mere 500 meters in front of them stood two other mechs, both bearing a sleeker frame than SERRCom’s Halberds, and sporting a paint scheme dominated by black, navy blue, and silver: the signature color scheme of the Black Suns.

The hostile mechs in question, however, weren’t facing Saito or Crossbow team. Instead, they were in the middle of turning toward the interior of the base — only for several loud explosions to sound as a half dozen hypersonic projectiles found their mark against the flank of one of the Black Suns mechs. It stumbled over, its shields flaring brilliantly under the fire of the SERRCom tanks, which themselves were a couple hundred meters to Saito’s left. The second Black Suns mech quickly crouched to reduce its profile and opened fire on the SERRCom forces, prompting Saito and Crossbow team to join the firefight while the first Suns mech retreated into the outpost.

Perfect! Saito couldn’t help but allow a small grin to cross his face. Given the lack of immediate counterfire from the Black Suns outpost, the Colonel could only assume that his plan had worked. While the outpost was blanketed in anti-beaming jammers that prevented SERRCom from beaming directly into the outpost, or beaming anything out of it — the jamming fields themselves still had a limited radius, both vertically and horizontally. This meant that the Frigates in orbit could still beam something into the air over the outpost. The mission parameters stated that the outpost needed to remain as intact as possible, so an orbital strike was out of the question, as was beaming bombs over the outpost. But there remained one potentially devastating option against the Black Suns:

A massive array of CENT field generators.

Chaos Energy formed the backbone of the Black Suns military force, after all. Without Chaos Energy, their Chaotics can’t attack. Without Chaos Energy, their energy shielding was weak. So with one fell swoop, dropping an array of CENT field generators on top of the outpost negated two of the Black Suns’ biggest advantages. And beaming into a 500-meter knife-fight range negated the third of the Suns’ advantages — their range. Furthermore, as long as the SERRCom forces remained outside of the the CENT fields, they could benefit from their own Chaos Energy-enhanced shielding. At this moment in time, Saito’s assault force held all the cards.

But a moment was all that they had. CENT field generators were easy to destroy, even with normal small arms fire, and Saito had no doubt that the Black Suns had experience in dealing with CENT fields. It was only a matter of time — on the order of minutes, or even seconds, in fact — before the Suns were able to destroy all of the tiny generators and then bring the full force of their weapons against SERRCom. But, by the same notion, anti-beam jammers were far from difficult to destroy as well. If the SERRCom forces could destroy the jammers, then they could use their beaming systems to easily capture the Black Suns — but if they failed to do so before the Suns recovered, then the Suns could use their superior technology to push back the Earthians. Whether or not the SERRCom force would win the day depended entirely on how they used the precious little time Saito’s plan had bought… and with that in mind, the Colonel steeled himself for a fierce firefight.

“All teams, focus fire! Target the Enforcer at the gates!” Saito roared over the comms as he fired on the one Black Suns mech standing at the front of the outpost, all while strafing his Halberd through the forest trees to make himself more difficult to hit. “This alpha strike will make or break us — so let’s make it work!!”

---

*

A Few Minutes Earlier

“…Shit, how long is this going to take? I fucking hate waiting.”

“For the sake of the op, we need to,” Major Hackett replied quietly, yet sternly as she passed Kate an annoyed glance. “Timing is everything.”

“…It’s just the Black Suns,” Kate retorted, her voice low as she peered out into the distance. The Black Suns outpost could be seen at the foot of the mountain, while CSF-1 and the Eximius Vir were all hiding — still under Danielle’s fabricated PCS — nearly a kilometer up the slopes. “I bet Mote and I alone could take ‘em…”

“Don’t underestimate the Black Suns,” Mote immediately admonished. “We can’t assume anything. Overwhelming force, speed, and tactics are the only things we can count on.”

“Please. Your Overdrive alone could single-handedly wipe out that whole outpost.”

“Don’t oversell it. All Pulse does is emit an electromagnetic pulse that kills unshielded electronics — key word, unshielded. The only things that’ll be unshielded down there are likely the very computer systems we want to keep intact, as well as the CENT field generators that will be keeping the Suns in check.”

“Did you forget how your own fucking Overdrive works? You disable shielded electronics, too!”

“Only temporarily. And it would disable my own armor, as well,” Mote countered, and then briefly glanced down at the set of extravagant crimson and gold armor that adorned his body. “As strong as we might be, I am not willing to walk into the middle of a hostile Black Suns outpost without any kind of armor.”

“Besides, if this attack was really that simple, then I’m sure Saito would’ve planned it that way!” Danielle remarked.

“Or the Colonel is just caving to Shepherd’s stupid commands and making a show out of everything,” Kate countered.

“Don’t speak ill of our superiors,” Mote immediately reprimanded. “Certainly not in such a coarse manner.”

“That’s—!” Kate began to respond, but was cut short by voices over the comms.

«Longbow 1, in position.»

«Longbow 2, in position.»

«Roger that. Skyhammer, what’s your status?…»

“Alright, cut the chatter, everyone,” Major Hackett ordered as she grasped her rifle. “Final check-in’s starting.”

«…Vanguard, Shield. Status report.»

Hackett briefly passed everyone a glance, looking over the four Eximius Vir — hiding against trees near the front of the group — and then Researcher MacTavish, who was cowering just behind the Major. Captain Travis was no where to be seen, as he had retreated higher up the slopes to take a hidden sniping position that overlooked the outpost.

After verifying everyone’s presence, Hackett declared through the comms, “Vanguard 1 through 7, waiting for your signal.”

«Shield squad equipped and ready.»

«And Flare?»

«Flare 1 and 2, all suites ready to assist. Full battlefield overview has been established.»

«Alright… Mission start in t-minus 60 seconds!»

“Fucking finally…” Kate muttered under her breath as she peeked around the tree to eye the outpost in the distance.

“Vanguard 5 to Vanguard 6…” Hackett quietly spoke into her comms. “Any sign of that fifth mech?”

«…None,» came Captain Travis’s eventual reply. «But an Ace could be anywhere, with that 20 kilometer range. I bet we won’t know where it is until it fires on us. And maybe not even then.»

“Are you certain it exists?”

«I’d say 90% certain. Maybe 80. That outpost has a lot of mech-related supplies for a group of just four, I’ll say that much.»

“We’ll just have to watch out for it, then,” Mote commented, only to steel his expression and tense his muscles as another voice appeared on the comms.

«…Five, four, three, two, one… launching volley!»

A split second later, dozens of bright, pinpoint lights appeared in the air over the outpost. From a kilometer away, it was difficult to tell exactly what was going on — all the team could see were dozens of small specks suddenly appearing and falling down on the outpost. However, they all knew the mission: they all knew that the Black Suns outpost had just been littered with active CENT field generators.

«…Volley effective! Planetside, prepare for transport in three, two, one…!»

“That’s our cue!” Hackett immediately waved her hand forward. “Mark, do it!”

“Understood!” Mark quickly lunged toward Mote, who allowed himself to be scooped up in the Forcetechnic’s arms. Then, in one fluid motion, Mark hurled Mote through the air, his superstrength allowing him to launch the latter over the entire kilometer distance between them and the outpost.

“Here we go…!” Mote muttered to himself, summoning his massive battlehammer into his hands as he sailed through the air. In the distance to the north and west, firefights had already broken out between the newly arrived SERRCom forces and the Black Suns soldiers on the edge of the outpost — but from Mote’s vantage point in the air, he could see that the outpost interior was a mad scramble. The Black Suns were already beginning to destroy the CENT field generators that had been dropped over the base… so Mote knew he had to act.

Before he even landed on the ground, Mote channeled an incredible level of energy through his body and fired off a lightning bolt at the center of the outpost, striking the bare dirt. The blast didn’t touch anything, but it was enough to draw the Suns’ attention to him right as he landed in their midst. His armor’s shielding quickly flared under weapons fire, but he ignored the incoming attacks as he lashed out at the handful of soldiers around him, striking them all nigh-instantaneously with powerful blasts of electricity that overloaded their shields and knocked them flat. Two of the soldiers that had been lain low attempted to struggle back to their feet, only for their chests to explode under the force of a bullet from Captain Travis’s distant sniping.

But Mote hadn’t the time to spare any thoughts for the dead. He immediately dived to the side just as ice began to form under his feet, a sign that one of the Black Suns was a Cryotechnic. The Suns have destroyed some of the CENT generators already…? Mote thought to himself as he whipped around and smashed an incoming ice spike out of the air with his battlehammer. They’re fast! To be expected from an elite group of Chaotics, I suppose…!

A half-second later, the ground beneath Mote’s feet exploded, knocking him over on his back and surrounding him with a cloud of debris. He quickly jumped back to his feet, only to begin sweating as his metal armor rapidly heated up, all while he could feel the air around him rushing away in a clear attempt to suffocate him. With an irate scowl, Mote quickly focused on sensing nearby electric fields — and then, the moment he determined the location of the nearest Black Suns soldiers, he honed in on the capacitors in their powered armor and used his Electrotechnism to set all of the capacitors to zero charge. Immediately, the soldiers’ energy shielding failed; Mote used that opening to lunge out of the debris cloud and blast the nearest two with lightning, electrocuting them where they stood. He then glanced to the side, toward some of the other soldiers who were now without shields, just in time to watch them both get knocked to the ground as bullets pierced their chests.

The Captain’s sniping is as good as ever… Mote thought to himself as he refocused on the nearest alive Black Suns soldiers, who were actively retreating from him. Their manner of retreat was clearly calm and coordinated as they alternated offering each other covering fire — fire that constantly flared up the shields of Mote’s armor, particularly around his face, which caused his shields to partially obscure his vision. Just before Mote thought to strike them all with lightning, however, a half dozen small objects rained down on the soldiers from above — followed immediately by deafening explosions that kicked up large clouds of dirt.

“Woooo hooo!!” Kate whooped as she landed on the ground next to Mote, an ecstatic grin plastered across her face. “Eat shit, you fuckwads!!”

“Now isn’t the time for—!” Mote began to admonish, only to stop himself. The chaos and cacophony of the outpost battle now made it difficult to hear much of anything, but as the clouds of dirt created by Kate’s explosives began to disperse, one thing became obvious: the soldiers she had attacked were still standing, fully alive and conscious as they resumed firing on Mote. What? How? I shut down their armor! …Ah, they must have an Electrotechnic among them! Shit! If that’s the case, then the Suns can endlessly charge their shields. We’d never be able to overpower them. If we’re to win, I need to take that Electrotechnic out, but… which of them is it?

Mote quickly moved to take cover behind a nearby piece of debris as Kate charged forward, continuing to fabricate explosive device after explosive device to rain hell upon the battlefield. Despite her seemingly reckless behavior, Mote could tell that she was being careful not to damage any of the outpost buildings or tents, so he saw no need to intervene. Instead, he quickly activated his comms and declared on the SERRCom team’s open channel, “Be on the lookout! The Suns have an Electrotechnic!” He then dropped the comms without further explanation; Colonel Saito and the rest of CSF-1, at a minimum, would understand the implications of facing off against an enemy Electrotechnic. Explaining in the middle of a firefight was a waste of precious time.

Instead, Mote again focused on sensing the electrical fields all around him. While the Black Suns had clearly already managed to destroy many of the CENT field generators that were dropped over their outpost, Mote doubted that they had found them all — and sure enough, Mote was able to detect an intact and active generator within a few dozen meters. Taking advantage of the fact that he himself could still use his powers in a void of Chaos Energy, he began to magnetically manipulate the distant generator and pull it toward him.

Just before the generator reached him, a short, stocky soldier bounded onto the scene and slammed his fist into Mote’s face with such incredible force that Mote was flung clear across the outpost and into the side of one of the temporary buildings. His armor’s shields flared all over his body as he reflexively grimaced; the blow was far from damaging, but it was disorienting all the same. Nevertheless, Mote forced himself to regain an awareness of his surroundings just in time to duck under the fist of the same soldier, who Mote now knew to be either a Forcetechnic or a Velocitechnic. With another blast of electricity, Mote managed to make some distance between himself and his attacker and then refocus on the CENT field generator from earlier, managing to magnetically pull it into his hands before the enemy Chaotic could recover. Upon seeing the generator, the Chaotic seemed to falter, and then attempt to retreat, only for Mark to appear behind him and punch him in the back. The force of the blow launched the Chaotic into the wall near Mote — which put him squarely within the range of the active CENT field. Without Chaos Energy to reinforce his shields or his body, the Chaotic’s shields instantly overloaded when he hit the wall, leaving his body to absorb the rest of the force and then collapse to the ground in a lifeless pile.

Mark immediately grimaced at the sight, but Mote simply rushed past him, CENT generator in hand. “Mark, you and Danielle need to secure the buildings and equipment,” Mote ordered. “I’ll take care of the Electrotechnic.”

“…Right. Yeah.” Mark offered a firm nod in response. “I’m on it.”

Mote then charged forward, putting Mark out of mind as he summoned his battlehammer back to himself. A faint draining sensation overcame him, similar to what he had felt over a month ago in Dead Space — but he forced the discomfort out of his mind as he focused on the fight ahead. Along the outpost outskirts, he could see two of the Black Suns mechs firing on the SERRCom forces in the surrounding forest, while another knelt in the distance, as though it was hiding from something. Within the outpost, however, there were still a number of Black Suns soldiers — despite having already lost half their number, the remainders were fighting fiercely against Kate’s explosive onslaught, pelting her with all manner of weapons fire, flames, rocks, and ice.

“Kate!” Mote barked, just to make her aware of his presence on the battlefield again. She offered him a brief glance; her eyes quickly darted over to the generator in his hand, at which point she adopted a dangerous grin and jumped away from him while fabricating a missile launcher in hand. Two of the Black Suns soldiers nearly pursued her, only to quickly stop themselves as they noticed Mote running toward them. Those two must be Chaotics. There’s no other reason for them to want to close the distance, Mote quickly surmised, turning his focus toward them. As his feet pounded the ground, rapidly reducing the distance between himself and the enemy soldiers, Mote saw a handful of warnings appear on his armor’s HUD; he was carrying a CENT generator, after all, which meant that his own armor couldn’t operate at full capacity. At the current rate of fire, Mote estimated that his shields would fail in just a couple minutes — but that was more than enough.

“Ready for a boost?!”

Mote immediately braced himself after Kate’s words reached his ears. A split second later, the ground just beneath him exploded as she fired on it; the force from the explosion launched Mote forward, where he took advantage of his newfound momentum to slam his hammer down on top of one of the Black Suns soldiers. He then forced a massive electric current through the head of his hammer and into the soldier’s shields, forcefully overloading them and then electrocuting the soldier under his hammerhead. Without wasting even a second, Mote immediately lunged toward the next soldier, repeating the maneuver to dispatch them within a mere couple seconds. He then turned toward the next nearest soldier and lunged again, cleanly and deftly working his way through the small frontline with his hammer and electricity. Thanks to the CENT generator in his hands, after all, all of the soldiers’ shields were weak — and the Black Suns Electrotechnic, wherever they were, couldn’t reinforce them from afar.

Just as Mote moved on the last soldier, however, he noticed the ground around him darkening, as though something was blotting out the sun. Immediately, he thrust himself to the side, just as a massive chunk of ice dropped onto his previous position. What?! That Cryotechnic’s still around…?! Mote scowled as he rapidly searched his surroundings for the two Chaotics he had spotted less than a minute prior.

“Behind you!”

“What—?!” Mote exclaimed in disbelief, heeding Kate’s warning to turn around — just in time to see a small icicle zip straight toward him and into the CENT generator in his hands, immediately destroying it. The faint draining sensation ceased, indicating that Chaos Energy was no longer being negated around Mote — but before he could react further, a massive spire of ice formed around him, freezing him where he stood. He quickly blasted away the ice with a powerful lightning strike, but still stumbled as the ice spire’s momentary existence had scarred the ground beneath him. In irritation, he activated his armor’s flight system, spawning dozens of golden geometric triangles in the shape of wings on his back before leaping into the air. As soon as he did, he spotted another chunk of ice hurling toward him, so he quickly brought his hammer around to smash the incoming ice into smithereens. Mote then snapped his attention in the direction that the chunk originated from, only to see nothing but empty ground.

Damn it, that Cryotechnic could be anywhere… Mote thought irately as he began focusing on nearby electric fields in an attempt to locate his opponents. “…Vanguard 1 to Vanguard 6,” he eventually spoke up, still focusing on sensing electricity as he spoke over the comms. “Do you see the Cryotechnic?”

«Positive, Vanguard 1. Eighty meters to your five o’clock, behind the bulding,» came Captain Travis’s reply.

“Eighty…?” Mote echoed incredulously as he whipped around to glare at the building in question. They’re attacking me from that far away, from a different direction, without having to even look at me… they’re good. He then began gathering electricity within his body in preparation to launch a powerful lightning strike from the skies. But ‘good’ isn’t good enough!

With that thought, Mote unleashed his strike, lashing out at the lone presence taking cover behind the distant building. Deftly, he manipulated the electricity to curve around the building and seek out his target behind cover — but in the split second between the lightning curving around the building and striking the Cryotechnic, it instead leaped far off to the side, in a wildly different direction than Mote expected. He immediately snapped his attention to where his lightning had diverted to, where he spotted a lone individual standing at the entrance to the caves, their body bathed in the golden light of wild electrical sparks.

Shit! How could I forget—? Mote began to mentally admonish himself as he dove toward the ground in an effort to evade the inevitable incoming attack, but he was just a second too late. The Black Suns Electrotechnic unleashed all of their gathered electricity into one powerful strike, blasting Mote with the equivalent of his own lightning and sending him reeling back from the blow. While it stunned him for only a fraction of a second, it was still enough to prevent him from dodging several massive boulders of ice that formed overhead. Two of the smaller ones were obliterated by sniper fire from afar, while the largest was annihilated by one of Kate’s rockets, but the remaining ice chunk smashed into Mote from above and slammed him into the ground underfoot.

“Tch…!” An irate scowl crossed Mote’s face as he glared up at the freezing ice that now trapped him on the ground. One of Kate’s explosives soon obliterated it, allowing Mote to jump back to his feet, but his cross expression remained as he snapped his attention toward the cave entrance — just in time to see the two Black Suns Chaotics retreat into its dark depths.

“Way to let them pull one over you, Mote,” Kate taunted as she ran up to his side.

“Now isn’t the time for this,” Mote snapped. “They slipped past you, too!”

“Don’t fucking blame me for this, I was busy fucking up the remaining soldiers in the other direction!”

“Mote! Kate!”

The two glanced to the side, where Major Hackett and Researcher MacTavish ran up. The four took cover behind a nearby half-destroyed wall as the Major questioned, “what’s the situation?”

“This outpost is as good as ours, at this rate!” Kate declared.

“But it isn’t ours yet,” Mote countered. “The mechs still need to be dealt with. And two enemy Chaotics retreated into the caves.”

“Damn…” Hackett briefly glanced toward the cave entrance. “What kind of Chaotics?’

“A Cryotechnic and an Electrotechnic.”

“Fuck. An Electrotechnic could instantly shut any of us down. And a Cryotechnic in a small, enclosed space isn’t anything to scoff at, either…” The Major turned back toward Mote and Kate. “I need the two of you to go after them, now! Take Mark and Danielle with you!”

“Gladly!” Kate exclaimed gleefully.

“What about the battle out here?” Mote questioned, “are you sure—?”

“The Colonel’s forces can handle it out here,” Hackett declared. “But we don’t know what the Suns have in the caves. We don’t know what those Chaotics are up to. It’s best if we take them out as soon as we can, and you — the Eximius Vir — are our best bet.” She then glanced back at MacTavish. “MacTavish and I will be your support. We’ll follow at a distance.”

“Wh-what—?! U-um, o-okay…!” the Researcher nervously replied.

“…Alright. Understood,” Mote responded.

“We’ve already basically cleared out the entire fucking outpost,” Kate remarked dismissively. “How hard could taking out these last two Chaotics be?”

“Never assume things will be easy,” Hackett countered, and then gestured toward the cave entrance at the back of the outpost. “Now, let’s get a move on! Go, go, go!”