Cindy watched the Genesis put their squadmate's armour back together. She wasn't a mechanic, nor a technician, and while she had been trained to the point that she could enact some field repairs on her own armour, she couldn't recognise the vast majority of the parts that were slowly being reassembled into a whole suit. Her eyes did widen considerably once she spotted the small fusion reactor though. Between the soldiers themselves and their equipment she was beginning to understand why Eisel had required such a massive budget. Research and development alone would have devoured countless resources. That answers that question, I suppose, she thought. Looks like the good old doctor didn't divert any funds.

It also put her own value into perspective. She, or rather her ability, experience and capabilities, were worth a lot. Yet every Genesis was roughly equal in price to a fully equipped Hammer. An actual battleship. No wonder Verloff had told me their survival takes precedence. It amused her, in a way. Made her feel proud as well. No other nation had a military budget that came even close. Forget the raw numbers, even percentage wise they were so far ahead in the curve they had no competition. With the possible exception of the Shadows and the Geol'. The former were a complete mystery, but from the files she knew them to be far more powerful than their small nation size hinted at, and the Geol'... She smiled at the memory of them. They were good people. At first glance they were simple, straight-forward, honest, had the strangest codes of honour and a lot of their beliefs were incredibly primitive and outdated, yet that was only their outward appearance. Deeper down the surface lay a complex culture. At the end of the day they were all warriors, though, and every man and woman invested heavily in arming themselves, as opposed to the Empire where the nation did the investing..

She glanced over at Dreamer, who was kept excessively busy as he communicated with other squad leaders, which was proven by his simple absence amidst the sentries. That sneaky way of communicating was one the Empire's favourite tricks. Space wasn't silent if you looked at it from a radio-wave perspective; it was constantly screaming. The sun, background radiation, ... lots of things threw up a wave of ever present static. And the Empire had learned this neat little feat of bouncing signals through it. Static to everyone else. Heavily coded messages for people who knew where to look. It wasn't an easy way to get a missive through, let alone a long one, but at this point she was intimately familiar with how many words the supersoldiers really needed.

She focused on her own task again. They were at an abandoned military base that had been scheduled for destruction, which had then been delayed four times due to "insufficient budget". Which was a fancy name for corruption. It made her life a hell of a lot easier. The idiots hadn't even fully cut it off from the network. They had pulled out a lot of cables and removed all the computers, sure, but who needed a computer when she could just ask one of her squadmates to plug his suit in?

"Dreamer," she motioned, waving him closer. His head swivelled towards her, his facial expression inscrutable behind his helmet. "They've begun to move. More orders for patrols are being transmitted. They're going to be moving out in force within days. I'll draw up a list of nearby bases and response times and forward it to you."

He pinged back a red no. "Copy the data. Send it to me."

She wanted to protest, wanted to say that this was her job, as NavInt, before bowing to his greater skill and vastly superior processing power. She nodded towards Stalker, her living connection, and her eyes narrowed as she saw him reroute the data stream, watching gigabytes of information flash past in the blink of an eye. Just how damned powerful are their systems? was her first thought. Then, after a moment, I need to get me one of those for my department.

"We will have to move fast," the Genesis Lt stated. "Once they are fully mobilised, we will have to engage."

"Terror?" asked a new voice. A woman's voice. Cindy recognised it. It was the female supersoldier, who was still not fully encased yet. The one-word answer made her suddenly aware that Dreamer was the only one of the group who used articles when he spoke.

Dreamer shook his head, a barely perceptible move. "Not sufficiently effective. Paralysing effect only on small areas."

"Surgical strikes to chain of command?" the other Genesis pressed on. Cindy wasn't sure if she imagined it or not, but the woman seemed almost eager to inflict more horror on their enemies.

"Hard targets, not feasible."

"Not direct strikes. Indirect."

Dreamer tilted his head inquisitively. The woman had a plan.

"Experimental tactic." The Genesis' inhuman eyes turned towards the human Admiral. Not all of them, but four out of six lenses was enough to send a shiver down her spine. "Feasible to disrupt chain of command through use soft targets, with additional data."

"Elaborate," he demanded.

And so she did.

By the end of it, Dreamer turned to Cindy. "Feasible?" he asked.

"I..." she gulped, swallowing her unease. "I'll draw up a target list. It's feasible alright." Dreamer looked at her for a while longer and she knew he was making sure she was okay. She didn't need her sensors to tell her that her heartrate was in the red. Her mind was reeling as it replayed key segments of their plans over and over again. The supersoldier had drawn up a surprisingly coherent strategy based on nothing but extrapolation from the gathered data, then the woman had asked for either confirmation or feedback from her, the expert in the field of psychological warfare. The level of growth was... staggering. It also scared the pants off her.

And opened up a mountain of possibilities. NavInt's strategies, tactics and battle plans were limited by the capabilities of their operatives. Most of their more insidious assaults were slow to bring to fruition, requiring stealthy infiltrations with assets that were so deep behind enemy lines that any error would result in their swift termination, if they were lucky.

Genesis wasn't so vulnerable. And they were still experimenting, establishing the limits of their own abilities. Well, she thought. Perhaps I should do some experimenting of my own.

She hid her unease and met the supersoldier's gaze, now encased behind an armoured visor once again, head-on. The woman frightened her. Reminded her of a psychopath even though she knew it to be false. That the excitement was only present due to her desire to fulfil the mission. It didn't reassure her.

"I think I have a nickname for you, X-12845621. Tell me, do you like the sound of Nightmare?"

Nestasieka sighed as she watched her husband put on his uniform. She had never fully accepted his joining the military, no matter how high through the ranks he had risen. Even his many insurances that he'd always be a desk officer never had assuaged her worries. At the end of the day, though, she loved him, and he loved her, and they had made it work for years without issue. Of course, with Imperials running around slaughtering anyone of importance, it had put new levels of stress in both their lives.

"I recognise that sigh, love," Cielko said, offering her a smile. "You really don't need to worry about me. I'm stuck in an office in the middle of an entire military base, with solid walls, guard posts, everything. Besides, they're only targeting civilians who run the factory districts. I'm perfectly safe."

"You told me that a million times," she replied, looking at him through the mirror as she finished putting up her hair. "And I'd still rather you do the same as Zbabelc." She could hear him grind his teeth. He always did, whenever she brought up that name. He had been a fellow officer of his, who took leave and then immediately left the planet on one of the dozens of illegal flights that tagged along with the convoys.

"You know he'll be court-martialled the moment he surfaces again. And all that will await him is dozens of years of imprisonment, at best. If he doesn't get intercepted by Imperial raiders to begin with. Look, love, I know you're concerned about it all, but this won't last much longer. We're slowly driving them into a corner. The net around them is tightening." He slowly walked over to her and wrapped his arms tenderly around him. She was tense. As always. She had never seen eye to eye with his, as she called it, childishly idealistic dreams in regards to the military. He hadn't told her that, at this stage, he had lost them. The coup, the successive losses, the tens of thousands of casualties while the military couldn't do anything but give empty words of solace to a population that was growing more out of control by the day. Luckily enough for him he didn't need to. She understood, and didn't say a word about it.

"Soon martial law will be lifted and we'll be able to go about our life as usual again. And then we'll take leave. I'm saving up tremendous amounts of overtime, love, and when everything goes back to normal I'm sure I can convince your boss to let you take leave as well. We'll go to Novican Prime. Tour the Park of Wonders."

She touched his arms, tension slowly draining from her body. "I'll hold you to that." She gave him a weak smile. "Now shoo. Don't leave poor Blinzky waiting. And don't forget to pick up his lunch too. It's in the fridge, next to yours."

He chuckled and kissed her on the forehead. "Have a good day."

"You too. And stay safe."

"I will." He kissed her again and went downstairs, passed through the kitchen and paused briefly at the front door to check on the alarm system. It was still in working order, as always, but he never forgot to double check. Then he went out and waved at Blinzky, his driver, who, as field regulations demanded, gave a short nod rather than a solute, and got into the car.

He turned on his datapad and began scrolling to his emails. One of them instantly stood out. "Lenivan?" he muttered, reading aloud the name of the sender. "Funny. I'd have sworn the guy didn't know how to operate a computer." He clicked the file open and in the next instant his fingers gripped the datapad hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.

He scrolled down. Picture after picture of his wife, pictures taken inside his house, flashed by. Then, at the bottom, a few lines of text.

I know you are a smart man, Captain Cielko, sadly enough I am not. Therefore I have to request that you send me a copy of the scheduled patrol routes whenever they become available,. Please do so ASAP, as any delay could have unfortunate consequences.

Kind regards, Sergeant Lenivan.

He scrolled up again, looked at the pictures. Reread the words.

Then the pictures disappeared, leaving only the text message behind.

Beads of sweat ran down his face. His uniform was clinging against his back as perspiration soaked through his shirt. His fingers trembled as he read the message, over and over again. They'd gotten to his wife. They'd gotten inside his house. Lord in heaven, they... He tapped away and opened his contact list, his wife listed at the very top. His finger hovered at the call button.

You are a smart man.

The words flashed through his head again.

No. He couldn't call her. They'd know. God damn it all, she had been right. They should've taken their chances and made a run for it.

Then the online symbol for Lenivan's connection switched from the free green to the red of busy.

"The red of blood..." he muttered, his face turning pale as his worst fears were coming to pass.

He couldn't endanger his wife. She had been right. He shouldn't have joined up. What good did the patrols anyhow? They weren't even coming close to catching the damned bastards!

His fingers danced across the keyboard and when the short email was finished, he didn't even hesitate before pressing send. A moment later, Lenivan's icon turned green again, and he let out a sigh of deep relief. A new mail popped in and his heartrate immediately skyrocketed again. He willed a sense of calm into his digits, forcing them back under his control. His gaze wavered as he read the title. It wasn't a new email. Lenivan had replied. He hesitated, fearful of what it might bring, before finally opening it.

Thanks, Captain! I owe you one. Next one same time tomorrow?

He shut off his datapad with a deep sigh. Nestasieka was right, he realised. They needed to get the hell off this planet.