“Looks like systems clear,” Daniel declared The Dauntless as ready for combat, the last of our group to do so. Other teams made their in-water checks, taking only half a minute before they began to move, ours being no exception. My team moved with purpose, falling in behind Adira’s. Given our composition, Adira and her team would bait Leviathan’s into pursuing, and then we would punish them. It was a simple tactic, but one I approved of for taking initiative away from the much larger biotics. In a static defense fight, I doubted we’d be able to keep an oncoming wave of biotics away, but with how much interference was being run below, we would be able to mostly control how many we would engage at a time.

The Wendigo let out another barrage of plasma, cutting through the water and obliterating harder targets and clearing some numbers from below. I could momentarily see the background more clearly, and took in as much as I could in that instant. Experienced units composed almost entirely from Brigade stock moved in small, fast strike teams, evading a churning sea of angry biotics. In many cases, these biotics turned and struck one another, but I rarely saw any of them resort to a death-match. A few had been killed by their own over time, though, evident as I saw some of the softer creatures bearing many more injuries than others.

In a way, these teams looked more like trains of flesh headed by a figurehead of iron, the lights of the mech team helping to illuminate the gloom. Occasionally, the teams would drop explosives, thinning out the weakened members of the hordes even further before returning to the killing fields near the ships. Units designated as “Fishers” would then draw away clumps of enemies and ascend, culling the groups more.

There were currently three such trains, another having been added half an hour ago. More would be needed soon, and their wide, looping patterns would need to expand yet again to accommodate that. This was where the tactic began to get much more dangerous, as each Train needed room to maneuver and to keep control of their own biotic tails. If any broke off to harry the other train leaders, or if anyone messed up in rotation, we’d have a very real possibility that the entire setup would fail.

The Brigade was aware of that fact, however, and our group moved farther afield, going wide of The Wendigo and to the left flank of the fleet, between two ships, Bravado and Archipelago, which were hosting the Legionnaires currently underwater. Neither vessel bore the plasma weaponry that the flagship bore, but they did possess a huge quantity of explosives, augmented to cut through the water fast enough to still provide point-by-point support to the teams beneath it.

My team and I moved into several clusters, each supporting a Brigade team before Adira gave the all clear for trains to break away from the first kill zone and move to ours.

Two of them came to us, leaving the first with only a single one, though that wouldn’t last long. They’d come back up to three trains soon enough, and a third killing zone was already being set up on the opposite side of the fleet just for that time. We could reliably deal with two, but I was wary of how many we’d eventually end up tackling.

“Alright everyone, if you’re Brigade, you know the drill. Legion, you’re our executioner teams for now, until we get you settled. Just kill any followers behind us and help keep an eye out for any strays. We’ve got plenty of space to fallback, so nobody tries to be a hero and hold the line, got it? Any questions?” Adira spoke into the comms, her voice stern, a tenor of the stress she and the others felt clear. When no one spoke, she shifted, “Reaper, do you have anything you’d like to add?”

My camera feed lit up as I addressed the group, nodding to them, “Yes, Kaiju-” the barest flicker of amusement lit up on Adira’s face as I addressed her by her title as she had for me, “-the Legion has experience in dealing with the horrors and oppressive strength of the biotics. Rely on us, as we rely on you, and we’ll all come out of this alive.” I paused for a second before interjecting some humor, “Though we’ll still have to pick biotic out of our mechs, I imagine.”

That got some chuckles, tensions ebbing fractionally. Adira nodded, “Well said. Alright, Fishers, lets go. We’ve got a train to catch!”

No sooner than she’d said that dozens of mechs and power armors dropped from our formations. I gestured to the rest of my team, proud of the way that they, and the rest of my Legion, fell into formation smoothly. Each of our HUD’s lit up with information, not the least of which was a holographic display showing the position of our teams, and known biotic sightings far below.

The first divers hit the train in a dozen places, shelling them with impunity and shredding soft-bodied targets as the train passed beneath us. The entire convoy line of biotics seemed to shudder, lashing out in confusion as concussive force rattled their bodies. Just as rapidly as it began, the assault ceased and the teams flipped around, shooting upwards back towards us.

A hefty chunk of the train faltered, looking upwards and roaring in fury, just before the train leader detonated several smaller explosives and-

“Is he broadcasting that music?” I snorted with amusement, seeing lights strobe alive as one of the mechs in the lead began to dazzle the monsters behind him, pulsing them with vibrant and insistent tones.

That, combined with the gun the man fired continuously into their midst, seemed to pull a large portion of the train forward again. I couldn’t help but shake my head, but turned my focus on Adira as she moved towards us. Behind her team five biotics streamed upwards. Two of them were Titano Shrimps, a Potter, and two Buckteeth, a procession that didn’t especially worry me, if only because we’d be able to hammer them from a distance while retreating.

“Down we go,” Alice called out, pushing back the cloying nervousness that seemed to press in from every direction. We followed, the comms still more silent than they’d been during any other operation we’d ever head.

‘Focus,’ I chastised myself as my power armor thundered through the water quickly. Churning water streamed in my wake,we all split up, forming a semi-circle that Adira’s team would fly past. Our team had too much firepower to risk a full encirclement, any stray shot could hit someone else. I wasn’t worried about a stray shot or two, but the last thing we needed was to chip away any armor down here, where the slightest hull integrity breach might mean drowning or outright implosion.

Adira passed us with her team, and in the span of a heartbeat we began to fire. We focused on the less durable targets, this time utilizing all of our weapons in careful balance.

My repeater fell into position in my arms, pulsing energy and the vibration of the weapons built-in ammo space filling the chambers of the weapon nigh-instantly. I focused on the Potter, and almost gasped when I pulled the trigger.

I’d fired the weapon previously, but I had done it on its most basic setting, to deploy canisters and specialized ammunition. This time, I wanted to utilize the fully automatic function, one that I’d initially felt was quite mundane, and hadn’t seemed to justify the cost.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Hundreds of rounds cascaded out of the gun, the connected ammo space preventing me from even needing to consider that I might need to reload. To my amazement - and horror - the gun suffered from dramatically less recoil in this firing mode, and the Potters front ruptured as a storm of metal shrapnel tore through flesh at mach 5, just shy of a true railgun. I felt the weapon with my electronic senses as what felt like rows of bullets stacked themselves into the weapons barrel. Each shell was fired, starting in the front and ending in the back, rotating between the three chambers with a deadly grace that sent excited chills down my spine.

A weapon like this existed back in the old world. The M134 Minigun could very literally fire over a million rounds a minute. A computer fired the bullets via electrical charges in the bullet themselves, front to back. This was the principle taken and applied in practicality, augmented by Reaper ammo spaces with a dismaying capacity for destruction.

The Potter fell to pieces after six seconds of sustained fire projected a mind numbing four thousand rounds - most of which had hit it straight on and fragmented - creating what resembled a chunk of silvery, gooey hamburger than it had a biotic.

“Holy shit,” I heard Domino breath through the comms, a frozen moment in the battle where everything took a moment to process what had just happened.

And then Daniel unveiled a new tool of his trade, his own class of Dreadnought giving him a few choice picks in his arsenal. A pair of small, narrow torpedoes tore through the water, reaching their destinations almost instantly. The explosion was by far the most bizarre I’d seen, though, where the percussive burst and bright light were oddly muted, and then obscured in a shower of shimmering metal fragments.

The next part happened too quickly for me to parse what occurred. In the aftermath, a gaping, melted hole existed where both Titano Shrimps heads used to be. Likewise, a sudden column of superheated water instantly gushed upwards and outwards, visible on the thermal spectrum. The team was, luckily, just outside of the range of the damaging effects of the water. But I could feel how my power armor suddenly circulated super-coolant along channels under the skin of my suit, that was how close it’d been.

Of the remaining two Buckteeth, only one was yet alive, the other flash broiled by the heat.

“What the shit was that!?” Terry shouted, “Daniel, warn a guy?”

Daniel didn’t respond immediately, though I could guess at the chagrined expression he probably wore at that moment. Most of the rest of his shots were irrelevant at that point, and Domino led the charge to rapidly dismember the final remaining biotic.

“We were out of the blast radius, and my onboard system said we’d be clear of damage.” Daniel spoke, “still, sorry, I didn’t think it would still be that intense.”

“Intense is right,” Jessica whistled, “I felt that from out here.”

“Bring it back in, everyone.” My voice cut through the imminent comments, “Regroup with our bait team.”

Our professionalism kicked back in, in spite of the double surprise, and rapidly we ascended in formation, keeping Daniel as our rearguard. Anything that tried to drag him down would probably have a much harder time of it than with any of the rest of us.

Below, the next train was moving into position, but wasn’t due for another minute or two. The water swirled around us, and even when we’d risen, everyone remained tense.

Domino surprised me by breaking the silence first when we were nearly with the other team. “What did you do to that Potter?”

“Fired a lot of bullets. Apparently.” I glanced at my weapon, perplexed in a way I hadn’t expected. On the one hand, using it had almost been a straight injection of awesome into my veins, but on the other hand… I certainly didn’t buy enough ammo to sustain that kind of firing mode for long.

“How many are we talking, here?” Venezuela asked, “That thing looked like it was shoved through a blender.”

I cleared my throat, “In the ballpark of four thousand rounds.”

“Four thou- get out.” Terry blanched, “Seriously? Just like that?”

“It fits the pricetag,” I grimaced before my eyes turned to Daniel, “What about those missiles?”

“Uhh,” he processed my reveal for another second, “Oh, uh, it sets off a small explosive and then some robotic mirrors direct the secondary heated charge at a target. Or something like that, I don’t really know how it works.”

At that point, Adira weighed in, “You said you have a lot of those?”

“Yeah,” said Daniel as she shook his head, “A lot more.”

“Well, hell, then we’ll bring a bigger group next time,” Adira laughed, “that’ll definitely help out.”

It wasn’t terribly surprising that Adira was able to take that in stride, though I was glad that we hadn’t set either of our weapons off anywhere near their team. We fell into formation again and waited as Adira and her team went for another dive.

A moment later, she called back, “On the way back up! Be ready!”

“We will be,” I stated calmly, our team moving down on an intercept path. True to her word, there were several more biotics in this group, numbering fifteen.

“Open formation more, give plenty of space. Daniel, hit behind them and we’ll let the superheated water flow up. Domino and Eric on me, everyone else stay with your pairings. Remember, fighting retreat, we don’t need to take any damage here.” I rattled off orders quickly as our formation flexed, their HUD’s updating in real time according to my wishes.

Orders acknowledged, we smoothly moved, and in the next moment a pair of Thermal Busters - as Daniel coined it - went off and immediately charbroiled half of the group. Only six remained, and I switched my firing mode to bolts instead. Three of the remainders were Titano Shrimp, screeching and thrashing in their shells, while the other four were exclusively Buckteeth.

With Domino and Eric flanking me, I moved close enough to get the attention of a few of the disoriented Buckteeth. My weapon was less suited to killing the Shrimp, their hardened carapace would give even my fully automatic firing mode some trouble; the Buckteeth, on the other hand, were far easier to deal with. Sheer size and the ability to bite through a mech with their massive jaws were the only advantages the creature had.

I fired into the crowd, the kick taxed the recoil-reducers both in the gun itself and my suit instantly. Shreds of scale and scintillating blood gushed, the Leviathan either dead or heavily wounded after a few seconds of fire.

Domino and Eric both fired upon the second, Domino’s own rapid fire weapon a far cry from the devastation that I had, but his accuracy helped make up for it. Most shots tore through the biotics eye, and the rest tumbled into the beasts head. Eric fired several barbed spears from shoulder mounted weapons, piercing the other side of the creature's head. Between the two of them, the biotic stopped moving a moment later.

Fran moved with Daniel, spears of steel shooting through the water and hitting joints on each of the remaining Titano Shrimp, focused around their four pincers. Each one struggled to close or open their pincers, preventing them from using their most dangerous weapon. When one managed to free itself of a metal spike, another would slam itself home a heartbeat later. Fran didn’t worry overtly about dealing as much damage as anyone else, and instead ensured that the biotics greatest strengths couldn’t be brought into play.

Richard and Alice dismantled one of the Titano Shrimp with utter impunity, utilizing highly reactive chemicals to soften the shell where Alice would then embed a shaped-charge explosive arrow, similar in respect to a claymore, deep in critical areas.

Venezuela and Jessica drew the attention of another pair of Buckteeth, Jessica easily outpacing them and darting back in with a long bladed weapon that eviscerated tough flesh. The instant either Leviathan turned towards her, she was already streaming around the next creature, always carefully keeping them from surrounding her, and remaining at large in their blindspots. Venezuela fired sure shots, of which she’d found plenty, and blinded the pair of biotics with heavy bore shots that resembled short spears. After the first moments of combat, one of the biotics began writhing, the cause likely being a spear-bolt to the brain. The Bucktooth turned, coordination already failing, only for another bolt to pierce through and protrude from the other side of its head, having completely punched through and leaving it utterly lifeless. Its confused companion thrashed miserably, only to be met with a blade that seamlessly bisected it a moment later. Jessica returned to formation near Venezuela as the Bucktooth’s head lolled in the water.

Harold and Terry took care of one of the Titano Shrimp on their own, though they were still working out if it was necessary for both of them to bother. Harold’s chain of explosives tended to rupture the shell of the Shrimp well enough that it would die from that alone, whereas Terry’s Raijin Gun could fire an ion directed charge of lightning into his target, cooking it after moments.

Rachel, and Emma formed another team, supporting others where necessary after they’d blown the arms off of two of the Titano Shrimp to lessen pressure on Fran. After that, cleanup occurred quickly. This batch took less than two minutes in total, and I felt that we could get that time down even more.

“Good work everyone!” I smiled proudly, “That was very smoothly done.”

“Very,” Fran agreed, “That was impressive, Jessica. I wouldn’t have thought to close the distance like you did.”

On the viewscreen to the side of my vision, I watched as Jessica smiled sheepishly, “All just practice.”

“A lot of it,” Venezuela laughed, “You can’t believe how many times I shot her in training.”

That got a round of laughter, and our nerves settled a bit more as we fell into routine. We repeated our maneuvers, refining our tactics each time. We stepped up the amount of biotics we faced each time, and after our fourth rotation, Adira met us with playful applause in her mech. “Wow, I’m impressed. That was twenty that time.”

“We both actually had something to do this time!” Terry laughed with Harold, “Though, I think we can only safely handle another ten or so.”

“Ten?” Adira blinked in surprise, “I was thinking five?”

“Probably fifteen,” I answered, “Daniel still barely has anything to do after his opening salvo.”

The man himself laughed as I mentioned that, “Plus I have a few other things that we can try out.”

Adira shook her head, “Well, we can swap roles for a bit now anyways. I can handle around twenty.”

Collectively, I imagined we made quite the sight. Each member of our team bore blank stares of incomprehension for several seconds following her declaration.

“Sorry, I misheard, how many?” said Richard, his expression still set into a careful nonchalance.

“Twenty,” she repeated with a grin, “Just bring them up in a straight-ish line, and I’ll handle the rest.”

“I… uhh… okay then.” Richard stated dumbly, a rare moment for him.

“Smooth,” Alice playfully teased and couldn’t help but burst into uncontrollable laughter.

I shook my head, “Alright, well, we won’t need all of us for this. Jessica, Fran, Alice, Richard, we’ll go down and draw up a group. Everyone else waits up here and keeps an eye out.”

The rest of the group stayed upwards. Too many people on the bait portion would just make things needlessly difficult to maneuver, especially given that not all of us were fast enough to outpace everything we might run into down here. Black Sharks, in specific, were much faster than the other Leviathan types. We’d only seen a few, and they were softer targets than Titano Shrimp, but even so it had quite the surprise when one of them barreled into Daniel’s mech, luckily only damaging part of his torso armor, not penetrating the layer.

Down we dove, the knowledge of the pressures at work in the water a constant companion to our dive. The five of us didn’t speak to one another, instead focused on our surroundings. Jessica and Fran lacked the super-sensitive suite employed by the rest of us, but that hardly made them subpar to what we might expect to see down here. Thermal sensors were our best bet, but my own motion sensors would have revealed the train of biotics that was about to pass under us.

An individual I didn’t know, kitted in a streamlined mech that blew past us at an impressive speed while flashing bright lights and pulsing, rhythmic music, and I could swear that he was bobbing his head to the beat even as he waved at us in passing. The convoy of angry and bloodthirsty biotics seemed even more distinctly out of place after their passing.

We shook it off quickly, approaching the mass, bioluminescence giving us a little bit more ambient light to work off of. Further afield, other teams were getting ready to dip into the train, and with our collective work we’d reduced this one to a third of its previous size.

With a gesture, my team fired into the mass, careful to hit only one section. Viciously, the biotics tore into one another in the first seconds, confusion leading them to striking those next to them. Much like a freight train, the mass that was behind them didn’t so much as stop, instead crashing into their fellows, slowing only briefly.

The conductor flashed lights and pulsed music even more loudly, firing several spears that trailed incandescent lights behind them into the still confused biotics. Immediately much of the train began its trail again, but a hefty portion broke off as I flashed my onboard lights and fired a few rounds into the mass.

In no time at all, we were rising with around eighteen biotics on our heels.

“Coming up, Kaiju,” I reported, “Eighteen on our tail.”

She looked over the information I was already sending her mech, humming thoughtfully. “Alright, that’ll do. Bring them straight in, rush right past me, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Understood,” I said, burning with curiosity at what she planned to do. Was it explosive? Her mech didn’t seem to carry much in the way of that, though. It was large, but also streamlined and was at home in the water, able to maneuver adroitly and swiftly even with its mass.

We pushed forward, firing harassing shots at the pursuing biotics to keep their attention. I felt my speed increase as I pushed through the water, careful not to pull ahead of any of my team. The ascent happened much faster than the descent, and within seconds we could see the large machine waiting for us, gauntlets as large as most power armors pointing towards us. I noticed now what appeared to be some kind of broad pads on their palms, but didn’t wait to inspect it.

The moment we were past her, I shouted, “Clear!”

“Firing.” Adira’s voice was level and calm, the kind that spoke of a routine. That routine was slaughtering biotics.

And in that moment, I knew why she was dubbed ‘Kaiju.’

Nothing visible seemed to happen at first, at least to the naked eye, but I felt my hackles rise as my sensory suite picked up what happened in the water. Heat, movement, a shifting tumult of sensory overload that seemed to encompass the entire ocean that Kaiju beheld. In moments, even the naked eye could see the broiling surge of death that the water had become. The water kept from transforming into steam only by virtue of the tons of pressure over top of it. Yet, even that lasted only for a few more moments, waves of energy turning the water into bursts of superheated steam, obscuring the hellish channel and all within it in violent churning throes. I felt my heart thunder in my chest at the raw feeling of water trying to explosively escape, and watched as she calmly moved her hands, guiding the bombardment of energy.

I didn’t need all of my extra senses to realize the sheer magnitude of what she was doing, and as I watched her I realized that she was at home in this element, creating and directing massive zones of heat. She guided energy and the naturally occurring convection which allowed her to displace the surrounding ocean in thermal currents as pressure built. None of the biotics ever made it anywhere near her, and vanished into the bubbling mass with no hope of pushing through the forces she worked with.

About fifteen seconds later, the boiling stopped, though she kept her hands up, watching for any movement.

Below were the biotics we’d brought up, only exceedingly dead. Each one bore wounds where it looked like they’d blistered and burst open. It was a grisly sight to behold. None were alive.

“Microwave bombardment,” Adira let out a breath and smiled before answering the inevitable question, “One of my standard weapons.”

For several more seconds, no one said anything, up until Terry opened his mouth.

“I do kind of want a t.v. dinner right now. Been forever since I’ve microwaved my food, come to think of it.”

We laughed, breaking the tension, before we began to move back into position for another dive.