My heavy footfalls echoed back to me in the empty hallway leading to the landing pad. Thoughts of the grueling gauntlet that Phalanx Gamma had completed lingered, their work having certainly impressed me.

It took several hours, but they’d shown impressive reserves of fortitude and the will to succeed. At some point, they’d forgotten about their observer, forgotten that it wasn’t real. I’d pushed the system nearly to its breaking point, and left Phalanx Gamma and Borham’s team with some of the worst scenarios we’d faced. There were modifications, of course, and not all of them were strictly related to combat. I wanted to know what they could do in as many fields as possible.

For now, I issued their battle reports to them and told them to be on standby for my full assessment. They still didn’t know who their observer was, though I’m sure by now they suspected that it had to be someone important. After they compared notes with other teams, I’m sure that estimation would rise exponentially, considering that their Gauntlet was by far the most brutal of the lot.

Of which, Borham sent me a message that, perhaps, my creation should be used as an Uber-Challenge run.

I had nothing against that. Some people enjoyed that kind of suffering, after all.

“Reaper,” a man in a fine, sleek powered suit nodded to me. Derrick Faun, Doug’s second-in-command, was as prepared as he could be to receive our guests.

“Faun,” I greeted him with a handshake, “is everything in order?”

“Perfectly,” he gestured to the large cargo elevator, “shall we walk and talk?”

I nodded to him as we approached the chute. The doors opened automatically and smoothly, the elevator itself more than capable of bearing tons of weight, in the event that a mech needed to move through the structure at speed. The entire building was built with larger beings in mind, though some of the side rooms were still only intended for personal use without a main-line mech stomping through the wall.

As Derrick spoke, he punched in the roof access code and turned his attention to me, “We have a greeting team ready, and the air-platform has been rigorously tested. We should be able to hold a fairly large vessel without complications.”

“Good. Any word from Yamak or his crew?” I asked, still having received nothing from the man.

“None. We don’t have the long-range sensor capacity to detect them…” he paused, “also, we thought it would be wise to tap into some satellites that are facing away from the planet. However, we ran into some issues.”

“Issues?” I frowned at that, “Are they damaged?”

“I doubt it,” he sighed, “anytime we attempt to access one, the connection cuts. We believe that it’s some kind of advanced defensive software. We were wondering if perhaps you would be able to give it a try while we wait?”

I blinked before nodding. I knew that the ‘we’ that he spoke of had likely quickly encompassed Doug, Yaga, and Dr. Ross. If they couldn’t figure out how to connect to it, the next best option would be for me to brute force it.

A pulse of information raced outwards from my connection to the Obelisk and to other electronics. Several racing arms of data with my senses attached moved quickly, the Determinator A.I.’s finally getting to stretch themselves outside of a body. I used them to augment my reach, giving me several localized vantage points as I moved. Nowadays, I could do this as easily as I could flex my fingers.

Quickly, I set about guiding them to relays, fractions of a second in reality as I crossed hundreds of meters, and then kilometers, in the time it would take to blink an eye. I routed upwards to our outpost on the mountains to the west, the communications array built there far more robust than it was previously.

As I sought errant signals, I found several satellites. Hundreds of them, in fact. There were many that were wholly unsuited to the task at hand, but there were observer devices overhead. The realization that we could have potentially been using these to help scout the area around us settled in the back of my mind grouchily - that would have made a lot of things easier.

Or, at least it should have.

I felt one of my connections halt as the port of entry suddenly flicked offline before I could access it. A deep frown rested on my face as I tried again, from another port.

Only the barest touch of my probe, and that port closed as well.

“Curious…” I murmured, drawing all of my probes forth and sending it crashing into the satellite. As I did so, I split my awareness further, assailing it from nearly every possible opening.

Finally, a port didn’t close fast enough, and I swiftly threw trash code into the stream, fouling the system up from being able to access the port.

At the same moment that I did so, though, I noted that there was some kind of rigorous defense protocol, one far more sophisticated than what we should have had on earth, rushing to clear the system and close the port.

“No more of that.” I clucked my tongue, piercing the program and rooting out its base software. I could tell it wasn’t sentient, but certainly its automated protocols were incredible.

To my chagrin, another protocol began to activate, and I realized belatedly that this was a multi-part security system, perhaps designed to deal with individuals like myself.

The secondary system searched for the code that belonged to the hunting program, not finding a match. It then swiftly began terminating itself, and all of the code around it.

Ravenously, I scooped up as much data as I could and pulled my senses out of it. Massive torrents of data that no computer could hope to engorge themselves on filled my mind, only to be relayed and deposited into our own mainframe, cut off from other units as I built frames around it.

Most of the data was mine.

And as I pulled my probes out, I felt the satellite's programming go dead, all software suddenly wiped, the only functional part being the port I had opened.

Curiously, I pushed back into the device, only to find that it was utterly barren. Invading the empty space, I found that there were some onboard sensors that I could tap into.

When I did, I also found that, apparently, the system had triggered some onboard defensive systems. The camera I looked through only got a glimpse of the electrical storm tearing through the components, and I just as rapidly pulled my senses completely out of the device.

The port vanished after that, no doubt because any possible hardware within was nothing more than slag.

For several long seconds I stood in the elevator, hand to my unhelmeted chin in thought. That had been an experience, to be sure, and one that I was hardly surprised to find had proven fruitless to access.

But the question was why? Why would someone bother rigging such complex security into old world tech. And who?

What were they hiding?

I’d managed to rip a huge amount of data from the satellite, but it was hardly in a digestible format. Encryption had been run on it, and I’d need to utilize some hefty external processing to move through it.

That could take a while.

Idly, I began that process, leaving it to a background handle and tapping into Reaper R&D supercomputers that were set for tasks similar to this. As an afterthought, I sent a message to Yaga and Dr. Ross, ensuring they were aware that those computers were currently tasked, and then notified them of the database I was working on. To pique their interest, I quickly summarized my experience with the highly advanced defensive technology within the satellite.

That should give them something to do for a while.

“Sir?” Derrick stared at me quizzically, “is everything alright?”

I realized I’d been standing and staring at open space for at least fifteen seconds now.

“Yes, fine. I tapped into a satellite, but some very odd things happened. I sent data to Dr. Ross and Yaga.” I then turned an apologetic look to him, “I get rather involved with that.”

He nodded, “think nothing of it. But odd things, you say?”

I sent him the data packet detailing what had happened, setting him to a studiously strained face immediately.

“Odd. Yes, odd indeed.” He stroked his goatee, “perhaps it was a military satellite?”

That would be a possibility, but also one that had uncomfortable connotations. If there were other large bodies of governance still around, it might be tricky to have them recognize our sovereignty, let alone their own intentions.

It struck me with no small amount of amusement that I didn’t even consider the idea of rendering ourselves subservient to another organization after what we’d been through.

“We’ll parse that data when it's decrypted. For now-” the elevator doors opened to a sub-floor of the air-field above us, “-we have guests to receive.”

He nodded, leading me through the security checkpoint. Through that, and to the left was the airfield bowels, several pneumatic and magnetized plates and machinery existed therein, all of which supported and gave our airfield above some very interesting capabilities. There were several cargo loading fields and unloading fields beneath, each of which were set into flexible panes on the floor to move them. No personnel were in this area, all of it was run strictly by computer and machine, powered locally.

Going straight ahead, as we were, there was a stairwell and elevator leading fully to the roof, and then the control room immediately beside the stairs. Dozens of consoles and personnel rested within, most days running training runs and simulations, but little else. This airfield was steadily seeing more use in diplomatic travel, but thus far we only had a grand total of four cities in our territory.

That number would grow certainly, but it was hardly enough to have a constant stream of activity.

We entered the command room, and several individuals paused what they were doing to stand and salute.

“At ease,” I said easily, knowing by now that the ‘you don’t have to do that for me,’ conversation never went anywhere. They already knew that, but somehow that only made them more willing to do so. Most went back to what they were doing, save for a middle-aged man who approached us with a warm smile.

“Gentlemen, good to have you.” He spoke crisply, shaking both of our hands firmly.

“Likewise,” I responded, “how are things proceeding?”

“We’ve run every test four times. Your guests are said to be due in another hour or so, but as requested we made sure that everything was ready in advance.” His business-like diction cut to the point. “Additionally, we’ve requested the presence of a Reaver Pack.”

I quirked an eyebrow at that, “Why would we need that?”

“Nothing, hopefully,” the man said unapologetically, “but, I’d rather we have them nearby in the event something happens.”

I considered that for a few moments. I honestly had little concern over our guests, but I could understand the hesitation of others. These were our first alien guests, or, rather, second if you counted biotics. Given that, it was understandable that people may be nervous.

“Have them on the rounds,” I agreed, “remember, though, that the people coming in are working for me, so let's try not pissing off the help.”

The man grinned at that, “Yes, Sir, can do.”

One of the attendants spoke up, “I have a contact coming in fast.”

I frowned, looking at the screen as the Flight Commander moved to his station after a look at me.

The holo-screen at the front of the room lit up, registering a fast moving object in the atmosphere.

“Reaper HQ, this is Python. Reaper HQ, this is Python of the Artorian Company, do you read?” I heard the voice of Yamak Rettle on the other end, strained and harried, a few voices in the background accompanying him.

“Python, this is Flight Command at Reaper HQ, we read you. What’s your status?” The man spoke crisply, already issuing orders to those around him, including the Reavers on patrol to be on alert.

“Python has taken some damage on entry, we’re coming in hot. How's your catcher’s glove?” Yamak managed to joke, before something made a loud noise on the other end, “We’re coming in too fast, our engines shot to shit. Do we have a landing zone?”

I heard the Commander swear under his breath as he looked over the information, “Negative, you’ll crash right through at those speeds.” The man panned his eyes over his various panels, and then met my own.

For a moment, I saw a feverish instance of inspiration, and had to refrain from groaning at what most certainly would be insane.

“Python, we’re going to have vessels on rapid approach, we’re gonna slow you down and guide you into the glove.” The commander grinned, “Reavers, drop your weapons loads into containment, you’re gonna need to slow them down.”

I heard them assent, and recognized the voices that belonged to Reaver Flight Team Terrania.

Emilia Barman, the Reaver that had helped us retake this very city, answered, “Roger that, Terrania One en route.”

“Reaper, you’d better buy us a round after this,” I heard the chuckle from Augustus Francesco and Lani from A.I. Emilia’s comment.

I shook my head, reaching out for a connection to the Reavers and attempting one to the Python. The python was, admittedly, an utter wreck, damaged in many places. The small frigate was double the size of any of the Reaver’s, and I couldn’t help but wonder what could have caused all of that.

‘Later. First, they need to survive landing.’ I narrowed my eyes at the display as the Reaver’s took off at incredible speed while Python did everything it could just to keep from spinning in mid-air.