GET EVERYONE UNDER COVER, YOUR ENTIRE REGION IS ABOUT TO SUFFER AN ORBITAL STRIKE. JOIN ME IN THE DREAMSCAPE WHEN READY - D the words burned themselves onto Kat’s smartpanel as she was relaxing against a concrete wall, watching the 3445 survivors unload box after box of military equipment. She didn’t hesitate.

“Chiffon, I need an outside link to the getaway car and the Chateau in the canyon, right now!” Kat shouted, jumping up and grabbing the napping Whip by the shoulders and shaking her.

“Whaa-” Whippoorwill began, shaking her head uncertainly as she tried to process the situation.

“Now Chiffon,” Kat continued urgently, “something big is happening.”

Whip shook her head. A second later, the text disappeared, replaced by a video feed of Jasper and Iris playing go fish on a tiny card table in the back of their van, and the Chateau’s housekeeper in a french maid outfit, smoking a cigarette as she stared out at the Grand Canyon.

“Get to cover NOW!” Kat yelled into her headset. Her voice caused a couple of the 3445 refugees around them, busy unloading the warehouse shelves, to jump. “We are about to get bombed. Marie, grab Hanz and get into the safe room.”

“Jasper?” She asked. He nodded into the camera, his Adam’s Apple bobbing nervously. “Do not walk, RUN to the factory entrance. Chiffon will call the elevator for you, but you need to be underground in the next minute or we might not find all of your pieces.”

Kat blinked her eyes, cutting the feed, she looked around the warehouse floor, eyes wild. Dozens of survivors operated forklifts, shifting heavy equipment off of the shelving units while the rest cracked open boxes and began sorting the bounty of loot. Already three stacks of body armor, futuristic looking rifles, and ammunition were beginning to grow on the concrete, just in front of the security checkpoint and administration center where Kat and Whippoorwill had been waiting.

“Erinyes?” Whip asked, her voice soft, hesitant. “What’s going on, is someone actually bombing us? If they are, they must have some sort futuristic stealth equipment because I’m using the facility’s cameras and I can’t-”

She stopped, breath torn out of the shorter girl in a gasp.

“Oh God no, I see it,” Whippoorwill’s voice was barely a whisper. Suddenly, all of the forklifts in the room shut off at the same time, engines settling to halt with a blink of Whip’s eyes.”

“Get away from the racks!” She turned from Kat, screaming at the survivors. “There’s a meteor or an asteroid or something coming down and it looks like a big one. Half of the sky is on fire and alerts are coming in from all over the southwest. We’re deep enough underground that we’ll be able to make it, but things are going to be rough for a minute.”

“How long do we have?” Davis boomed from a nearby APEX suit. “Will Jasper be able to make it in time?”

“Two minutes,” Whip responded with a helpless shrug. “Maybe three or four? I’m not exactly a physicist, but it looks like it’s big and moving fairly fast.”

“Is Jasper going to make it?” Davis asked, taking an anxious step toward the elevator, the cameras on his helmet scanning the entrance.

Whippoorwill stopped for a second, cocking her head to the side as she checked the network. Seconds ticked by as Davis whirred impatiently from one mechanical leg to another.

“He’s inside,” She said, finally. “I’ve uploaded a schematic as well as directions to the elevator to his smartpanel, but they should make it. At the very minimum, they aren’t out in the open. I have no idea where that monster is going to touch down, but I doubt we’re going to be anywhere near the impact crater itself. I do expect that most of the surface is going to be wiped clean by the shockwave, but again, I have no idea how bad it’s actually going to be.”

“Hanz will be safe though, right?” Emma asked worriedly, jogging over to where the two of them were clustered around Davis. “The vacation home is in a valley, so it should be under any blastwave, but-”

The elevator opened, revealing a panicked Jasper and Iris. The two of them ran over, t-shirts hastily thrown over the pajama pants they had been wearing in the getaway van.

Iris opened her mouth to say something, but her words were swallowed by rumble that shook the walls around them. Overhead, the lights flickered for a second before the factory switched to internal power from its reactor, but that didn’t change the heaving and jumping concrete of the floor.

Something crashed behind Kat, likely a priceless crate of military equipment falling from its perch some two to three stories up. A handful of gas canisters fell from their perches in the warehouse ceiling, bouncing off of the floor, but thankfully unable to spill their deadly cargo without an order from the factory’s central computer.

Kat went down to one knee as the earth trembled again, unwilling to suffer the minor indignity of a fall over something so minor. One of the huge racks spilled sideways, dropping hundreds of millions if not billions of credits worth of equipment to the floor as the huge metal frame crashed down on top of it.

Still, despite the world heaving and bucking, the walls of the warehouse held. Concrete and steel shook, bending and deforming as titanic forces passed over them, but ultimately, they had enough integrity to survive the shockwave. Barely.

Then the world went still. Rather than the boulder on boulder avalanche of sound, the only noise Kat heard was her own throat, gasping for breath as she glanced worriedly around the warehouse.

A second later, a wailing scream filled the room. Kat glanced in the direction of the warehouse floor. Although most of the refugees had made it away in time thanks to Whipporwill’s warning, at least a couple had been trapped between the aisles when boxes began to tumble down.

Not every shelf had fallen over. In fact most of them were still upright, albeit missing a crate or two of guns or powered armor, but that didn’t change the fact that the warehouse floor was in chaos. Even a simple rifle dropped from three stories up could easily be fatal, and Kat had no doubt that when the final accounting came in, there would be casualties.

“Fuck,” Whip intoned from her side. “Diagnostics are haywire, but it looks like the elevator is stuck. It’ll take at least a day or so for the automatic systems to clear it.”

Behind her, Davis had popped open the chest of the APEX armor and jumped out. Despite Jasper’s protestations, the old man was inspecting and worrying over him like a concerned mother hen.

“That sounds like my cue then,” Kat said, blowing out a shaky breath. “I got my warning from a lokkel, and they told me that I needed to get into the tower immediately. If we’re going to be trapped here for a bit, I should probably meet up with them.”

Whip looked at her for a second, her face inscrutable behind the mask of her infiltration suit. Finally, when she spoke, her voice was quieter, almost embarrassed.

“Sweet dreams then Erinyes.”

Kat looked up, but Whippoorwill had already spun around and begun hurrying away with a hurried, almost stiff gait.

She smiled to herself, expression hidden behind her infiltration mask before finding an isolated corner of the command bunker. Hastily scrawling ‘do not disturb’ on a yellow sticky note, Kat stuck it to the face of her mask before laying down on one of the padded benches in the back of the room and closed her eyes.

It was late, and Kat had been up for almost eighteen hours straight, so sleep came quickly. She’d barely even closed her eyes when the salty air of Humbrass Atoll attacked her nose.

Before Kat could take a single step, a large clawed hand clapped down on her shoulder, spinning her around to face an anxious Dorrik. They looked her up and down for a second before sweeping her up into a big four armed hug.

“Miss Kat!” They gushed happily, lifting her up into the air in their bone-crushing embrace. “You are safe! I was so worried when I saw the stallesp battlecruiser going down near your location. If it were to land safely, the shockwave would likely level a large area, but if it crashed-”

They shrugged helplessly, their crest fluttering in distress as Kat gasped for breath.

“An antimatter leak would destroy a large part of your continent,” Dorrik finished grimly. “Even if you survived the blast, your people don’t have the technology to clean up the sort of messy radiation an antimatter reactor leaves behind. Death in the initial explosion probably would be cleaner than having your body fall apart over the course of a day or so from exposure.”

She squirmed out of his grip, trying to flash the big lizard a reassuring smile despite her bruised ribs.

“Well it’s a good thing there wasn’t an antimatter leak then,” Kat said with a quick grin. “Now if you could let me know what happened, I’d appreciate it. My team was in an underground bunker when we got your warning, and Whippoorwill said that it looked like half the sky was falling before the entire place started shaking like crazy.”

Dorrik took a step back, glancing around the adventurer’s hall as if noticing where they were for the first time. Their crest flattened slightly in embarrassment before they motioned with one of their lower claws.

“Walk with me Miss Kat. Kaleek has found a dive bar and is drowning himself in fermented seaweed. We can talk while we sober him up.”

The two of them exited the stone building. It was emptier than usual. Where normally she would have to stand directly behind Dorrik, letting the big lizard bull their way through the crowds milling about the shops and kiosks, today it was only slightly busy. At least half of the stalls and kiosks lining the walls were empty, their counters wiped clean with no hint of the merchant classes that usually worked them.

Even the crowds themselves had a different feel to them. In Kat’s previous visits to the adventurer’s halls, the patrons were generally congenial. Joking and laughing with strangers as they went about their business, selling monster parts and buying what they would need for their next delve into the floor’s dungeons.

Today? Everyone was glaring at each other, their eyes, sight talks and sensor glands betraying a hint of fear and suspicion. Kat hurried her step slightly, catching up to Dorrik as the lokkel made their way out of the building.

As soon as they left the hall, Dorrik began speaking, their voice grimmer than usual- “The time for preparations has come to an end Miss Kat. The stallesp have finally gathered enough courage to begin attacking lokkel interests openly.”

“So that was an attack today?” Kat asked. “Did they launch a missile at us because we took over their factory and exposed them or something?”

“Something like that,” Dorrik replied, their crest fluttering with amusement. “The stallesp attacked our task force in orbit, but we were ready for them. Given the timing of their activities, I would be surprised if it were unrelated to your raid on their terrestrial facility, but at the end of the day it hardly matters. What you saw crashing into your planet was the stallesp ship. They were partially able to get it under control before it hit, and I’m sure that there are a couple of survivors, but the vast majority of the stallesp on the ship will have died in the impact, leaving a mostly intact naval vessel behind.”

Kat blanched, the blood draining from her face as the realization hit her.

“Oh God,” the words were practically ripped from her throat. “The Southwest is a little closer to NeoSyne territory, but it’s basically no man’s land in between GroCorp, NeoSyne, and Tri Holdings. Everyone is going to want to get their hands on the wreckage to reverse engineer it. There’s almost no chance this doesn’t break out into a full on corporate war.”

“That is what I suspected as well,” Dorrik responded with a sigh. “The good news, insomuch as a mass extinction event can be good news, is that the crash wiped out a good portion of the surface infrastructure around your location. Unless a combat unit was underground, it is almost guaranteed that the blast front left it in disarray or destroyed entirely. You should have a chance to escape before your people reposition their armies and turn your location into a war zone.”

Kat began nodding, but caught herself. Dorrik’s advice made sense, but at the same time, it wasn’t based upon a complete picture. She was far from alone. The 3445 were a band of malnourished survivors and refugees, but before that they had been nomads and mercenaries. Better still, they had some idea how to operate the NeoSyne equipment.

So long as Whip could get the elevator working, her companions represented the closest and best armed military unit near the crash site. There weren’t any guarantees, but Kat doubted that Tri Holdings or NeoSyne had a proper answer for a hover tank and powered armor formation appearing out of nowhere and seizing the crashed alien ship.

It was a risky option, but the technology pulled out of the wreck had the potential to change the world. At a very minimum, NeoSyne and their stallesp masters couldn’t be allowed to collect the salvage. They had already expressed a willingness to stretch the rules, and capturing the downed ship would likely be the final step they needed before actively beginning a campaign of world conquest.

“But for now I have better news,” Dorrik continued, pushing open the well-worn door to a bar. In a corner, a number of individuals watched Kaleek upend a huge mug of something liquid and vile smelling into his gullet, throat bobbing a number of times before he slammed the glass onto a table next to almost a dozen of its empty companions.

The lokkel stopped for a moment, wrinkling its snout in distaste as their desoph companion practically flowed through the crowd toward them before draping a boneless arm over both of their shoulders.

“Issa Kat?” Kaleek gurgled, his breath smelling vaguely like a fish that had been left out in the sun far too long. “See D’rrk I told you she was gon’ be fine. Sheesa big girl.”

“Actually,” Kat replied, carefully removing Kaleek’s booze soaked paw from her shoulder. “I’m buried under about a hundred tons of stone at the moment. I was lucky enough to be in an armored cave when the ship crashed down, but it’s going to be a headache getting out.”

“Tha’ sounds like a rocky start to tha’ night,” the big otter giggled back before devolving into a round of uncontrollable hiccups. Kat glanced at Dorrik, but the big lizard simply shrugged.

“It appears that I left Kaleek alone for too long,” Dorrik replied ruefully. “I did not expect him to be this inebriated. Still, there will be plenty of time for him to sober up on the galleon.”

“Gallywhat?” Kaleek asked, stumbling slightly as Dorrik led him out of the bar. “We goin’ somewhere big fella?”

“Yes,” Dorrik answered with a grunt as they shifted themselves to accommodate the desoph’s weight. “That’s why I contacted Miss Kat and had her go to sleep despite her mission. It took long enough, but our scouts finally found the stallesp base on this floor. Right now our forces are loading up their ships. It is imperative that we set sail in the next hour in order to preserve the element of surprise.”

“Game time then?” Kaleek asked shakily. When Dorrik nodded, the otter took a deep breath. “Jussa’ sec.”

Kaleek flopped out of the lokkel’s grip, staggering unsteadily toward a narrow alleyway just behind the bar he’d been drinking in. A second later, Kat wrinkled her nose at the sound and smell of the desoph retching.

Rather than think about what was happening just out of sight, Kat instead shifted her attention to Dorrik.

“So does that mean we’re going to settle things tonight?”

“Yes,” the lokkel replied. “Kaleek and you will be forming a team with me. There will be three galleons, each with one high level combat team and three mid-level teams. It will be our job to protect the avatars of the warriors that are of a more floor-appropriate level while eliminating the more advanced stallesp mixed in amongst the rest of their forces.”

“Do we have any idea about their numbers?” Kat asked, studiously keeping her gaze away from the noisy alley. “I’m all for helping out, but I don’t want to volunteer for a suicide mission.”

“Our scout spotted a narrow cove,” Dorrik replied. “There was only room for two ships, both of them noticeably smaller than the vessels we will be using. We should have the overall number advantage and at least as many higher level warriors. The only question is whether the stallesp managed to install any fixed defenses. Our forward team didn’t get close enough to check.”

Kat pondered Dorrik’s words for a second before nodding decisively and responding, “that’s good enough for me. After everything they’ve done to my planet with relative impunity, it’s about time someone took them down a peg or two.”

“Agreed,” Dorrik said, a vicious glint to their eye as Kaleek sauntered over to the two of them, his fur covered in dancing red lights.

“Good news,” the desoph said, one paw over an eye, the other a narrow slit. “My poison recovery skill works on alcohol. The bad news is that it works by transmuting the booze into a splitting headache.”

“Are…” Kat began hesitantly. “Are you all right? You do realize we’re about to head into a huge battle right?”

“Oh I’ll be fine,” Kaleek replied, waving his spare paw dismissively. “Just make sure to get us assigned to a ship with plenty of fresh water onboard, and I’ll be ready for business by the time we arrive.”