Planet Hephaestus. Stratos City.

The trip to Stratos City was almost luxurious; the replicants settled comfortably in the back of a truck loaded with empty CO2 scrubber boxes. They got into the truck bed by jumping off a convenient cliff overhanging a sharp turn in the road. All drivers - both living and robotic - would slow down here to avoid flying into oncoming traffic.

When the truck started braking on a straight stretch of the road, Chimbick peered out carefully. "Oh hell," he whispered. "Checkpoint."

Blaze leapt up and readied his carbine. The sergeant raised his hand in a calming gesture.

"Don't. Only if they see us."

There turned out to be no reason to worry though - the soldiers didn't even leave the sentry box. One of them waved at the driver to pass and continued talking to his squad mate. To add insult to injury, those sad excuses for warriors just leaned their weapons against a wall causally.

"Idiots," Blaze summarized the situation.

The sergeant snorted.

"No, brother, these aren't idiots. These are our passes into town. Follow me." He vaulted over the side before the truck had a chance to speed up.

Blaze jumped after him, stumbling forward a bit under the weight of his duffel bag.

"Are we taking them?" he asked.

"Yes."

The replicants moved off the road and began discussing the plan of attack. First they decided to hide the backpacks salvaged from the pod. Chimbick took only the agents' dog tags and the money bag, realizing that now these coins could make the mission easier. The hardest part would be figuring out the nuances of civilian life.

Backpacks hidden and stash booby trapped, the replicants activated the phototropic camo that turned them into a barely noticeable shimmer.

* * *

Sentries Quigley and Novak were enjoying life as much as it was possible while enlisted in Hephaesian Defense Force. The two friends ended up at a remote two-man station, a true gravy train as far as service went. All they had to do was sometimes walk into the road and check semis coming from the mines. Even if any inspectors decided to stick their noses in their business, usually some buddy on duty at the HQ would have time enough to warn them of the enemy approach, so both soldiers were relaxing like there's no tomorrow. The table was graced with a bottle of imported rum, a rarity in wartime, and a plate with some simple snacks. As an added pleasant bonus, Novak's collar was concealing a packet with "angel dust".

After a couple of shots, the buddies relaxed and moved on to stimulating conversation.

"I ain't slow, right?" Quigley was relaying a tale of his latest conquest. "So she starts complaining about her husband, like, he's an asshole, doesn't love me, doesn't pay attention, looks at me like I'm furniture... I'm like, thinking here, oh, you're gonna put out, honey. So I says, come to daddy, right, get my hands under her shirt... She's like..."

What she was like forever remained a mystery, since Quigley's speech was cut short by an abrupt opening of the door, as if it were kicked with a boot. Sentries leapt up, expecting to see a surprise inspection, but all they could detect was a wall of rain. Then a faint shimmering entered the door. The feckless warriors' brains, clouded with booze, were struggling to solve this phenomenon, and that moment of hesitation cost both their lives. With a crack of broken vertebrae, both militiamen fell to the floor.

"Just like "dummies", one of the shimmers snorted disdainfully and turned into an armor-clad replicant.

"Shut up, Blaze," the other shimmer was grouchy.

The sergeant turned off the stealth mode and rolled one of the corpses over.

"Move it," he hurried Blaze along and began unfastening a bullet proof vest on what used to be Quigley just a moment ago.

Blaze looked around, found a light switch and the room was plunged into darkness. That didn't, however, affect the replicants in their night vision helmets.

Uniforms were the reason why they decided to attack the hostiles unarmed, since otherwise an eleven millimeter rocket round would create a laundry problem for Blaze and Chimbick.

"Too big," Blaze noted with some consternation.

Local brick-red camo and light bullet proof vest looked baggy on a wiry replicant. At least the helmet and goggles fit.

Boots were the only part of replicants' own gear that they kept on. Their very noticeable Consortium armor and helmets were packed into an empty MRE crate.

"It will do." Chimbick waved Blaze off and continued fiddling with the looted harness.

Blaze remained sulkily silent. The sergeant understood and shared his mood - compared to the cutting edge Consortium gear, Hephaestian equipment looked rather lame.

Replicant battle armor included a body suit made from ballistic fiber, with muscle augmentation cables running along the limbs. The body suit would protect from aggressive environments, vacuum, shrapnel and some types of gun ammo.

Composite armor fit over the body suit.

A helmet, made from the same composite, was outfitted with a multitude of sensors and a tactical computer for automated battle command and control. It provided a 360 view, watched the tactical situation on the battlefield, monitored the solder himself and controlled a built-in doctor module.

The cherry on top was the phototropic camo feature that literally turned the wearer invisible.

This crowning jewel of technology was perfect at what it did and thus turned the replicants into deadliest and most dangerous soldiers in this part of the universe. But now they had to trade this thing of beauty for the pathetic Hephaestian militia gear.

The replicants booby-trapped the corpses, grabbed the MRE box and ran for the light patrol vehicle assigned to the post in case some miscreants needed to be chased. Chimbick jumped into the gunner's seat and Blaze took the driver's spot.

The LPV rolled on towards the city.