The grand day has arrived. Me and most of Pantera base's officers are sitting under two tents Tom had the foresight to suggest we set up next to the Gnodarian’s little village; Gentlebeing Aztuz is with them, the diplomat staying for the ceremony as an Unity representative. There aren’t the high-tech tents, anti-artillery ones, but just a regular tents someone might use in the beach back in Rio. There’s some security overhead to guarantee our safety, waves of drones and summons guarding our skies. I nervously try to pacify myself, wringing my hands while I ignore the people grumbling about the delay behind me.

Frankie bumps into my thigh and I mindlessly pat its metal dome, the drone a constant present on my side by now. Lieutenant Colonel Polansky warned us that the Cartel representative who had beamed down with the Gnodarians in stasis capsules was being a pain in the ass about driving them out to Pantera base. It’s only one hour away, but the Cartel only has twats. If it weren’t for the customer review affecting their corpora rating they would give even less of a fuck.

“Relax, boss,” Tom whispers at my back. ”They’re five minutes out.”

I look back to the big Mapinguari and scowl with frustration. “I know, Tom, but this is kind of a big deal. I can’t help it.”

All the Gnodarians possible reactions to freedom were racing through his mind. Would they be pleased? Suspicious? Maybe even aggressive? Guessing an alien’s mind was a sucker game. Just to be safe every officer had weapons holstered and a good number of heavily-armed guards oversaw it all, commanded by the stoic sergeant Geni. Major Delavega decided to leave his right-hand man, the stoic Kano, overseeing the junior officers in command of the base.

Diego is one of the man - well, werewolf actually - patrolling the grounds. Taking advantage of the fact that most of the big-wigs, the higher ranking officers were back on the second tent, he approaches us, straying a bit from his route

“Don’t fret, Rafa. They’ll have collars to begin with and I heard these things are like civility collars on steroids,” the were says, trying to help.

“And how would you react if armed people gave you liberty in a front-line world?” I answer, gesturing to his weapon. “Maybe they decide they need Helena to protect themselves - should we give it to them? Will they try to take it?”

“Hell no, not Helena! Our love is blooming, she just misfires at every 40 shots or so now,” Diego replies, caressing the temperamental weapon. Fiddler is this… couple’s therapist, instructing the mythic in the best way to earn the machine echoes’ help in using the finicky laser shotgun.

“Maybe it still doubts your commitment?” quips Tom and the mythics trade a challenging stare.

I shake my head at the pair butting heads, but I’m still grateful to have my mind drawn away from my duties for a second. Before the assault trooper can respond, the oblivious cause of their rivalry joins us, waving in greeting.

“Hey, boys. I’ve set all the cameras and drones to get all the angles I could think of, Barro. I think we’re good to go. Try to keep what I told you before in mind and you might just earn a lot of fans back Earth,” she tells me, encouragingly. Small camera drones orbit the maned wolf were and she’s dressed in practical clothing to the hot weather.

“And now I have a paparazzi,” I huff in mock indignation and everyone chuckles.

“Oh, they’ve spotted the convoy,” Diego tells us after taking a hand to his ear and rapidly moves away to assume his position. And so Geni doesn’t kick his ass later.

“You’re ready, Lieutenant? It’s quite a position you’ve put yourself in,” says Delavega as he approaches with Fiddler and Bumba by his sides.

AIs don’t usually take part of the fighting, but it’s a tradition, not a rule. They can pick kickass android bodies to fight in after all, but organics' casualties soar when they take part in low level fighting like the one that goes on in this sorry excuse of a planet. Still, Fiddler looks loaded for bear - and those are the weapons we can see.

“You’re not giving me fuzzy feelings of safety like that, Fiddler,” I comment as we all turn to watch the convoy parking some fifty paces before the tent.

“I hear these Gnodarians are fierce and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a good scuffle,” she replies, chuckling with her wee bit deranged manner.

“HQ is sending some advanced spellcasters to helps us, aren’t they? It should be alright,” comments old Bumba, lighting up a pipe as people started exiting the vehicles. There are three large covered trucks, probably carrying the slaves, and four more grav-cars from where soldiers and spellcasters disembark. I’d take more heed of his word if he wasn’t carrying that dangerous as fuck magical artifact from the other day.

“Go see if they need help unloading, Tom,” I command and my assistant is eagerly followed by the reporter as heads to do my bidding. Her cameras zooming ahead of her.

“Don’t fuck up - again,” are Delavega’s parting words as he retreats back to his chair. Like many things in life, the climax of this event doesn’t happen when you’d expect it. Even with the help of grav-carts, it takes nearly thirty minutes for the stasis chambers to be lowered in formation ahead of the tarp. Sergeant Kaio arrives with refreshments from base, with the usual great timing as the task is still being executed. He’s conspicuously wearing a big-ass machete slung over his shoulder.

People are taking the Gnodarians seriously and so I can only hope we won’t have too many problems today. I can’t see through the stasis chambers from where I’m standing and for some reason I’m still holding my breath for the first actual view of the people I unwittingly acquired as slaves. Even if I have looked them up before on Unity-net, I feel that looking at them in the flesh will be a different experience.

Once my forefathers and mothers suffered under the same chains as this people, but their whole race has withered under the swarm, Broken. The crimes of their forebearers might have been great, but these beings are not responsible for the actions of people dead thousands of years ago in my opinion.

“Shut the fuck up and do it if you want to get back to your ship, scum!” My reflection is cut short by the clearly audible berating the Cartel’s representative receives from a pissed off Geni, backed up by all her troops as if it was necessary. Some of the officers discreetly laugh and even I have to grin. Slave transporters are as bad as slave owners in my book.

After a few more minutes, Major Delavega receives a communication and orders us to get in formation ahead of the stasis chambers. The reporter looks at everything like a hawk, adjusting positions and angles as she sees fit. The guards ready themselves strategically on both sides of the officers, weapons at the ready in case there’s trouble.

“If you would do the honors,” the major points me forward as Geni drags the short, blue and ugly four-armed Cartel deliveryman by the scruff of the neck towards us.

I take a deep breath, nod to him and turn to the alien who hands me the controls for the slave collars. I raise a hand to stop him, saying “Release the Gnodarians now.” It complies, using the controls, and shows me the sequence to remove a collar even as it complains about our folly.

“Everyone knows Gnodarians are unruly, dangerous beings! Broken should remain Broken!” The reward for its complaint is a cuff on the back of the head by Geni, which nearly knocks it down.

The arcane mechanisms whir and hiss as the genial technology that could as well be magic for all we understand of it begins the process to release the aliens, frozen in time. A wondrous technology that is used for high purposes as saving lives and as base one as keeping slaves easier to handle and transport. This is not the cruelty of the negreiro ships, but it is another of itself. Slaves are wrenched from their lives and put in stasis only to awake to a new place or even time. Stasis capsules can work for hundreds of years.

Two rigid, calcified wedges push the first capsule door open, some of the gas inside wafting out and shielding the being from view, making me unconsciously take half a step forward in my agitation. A greenish-gray form is dragging itself out of its prison when the smoke disperses and I first see a Gnodarian in the flesh, a gasping escaping my lips.

He, for it is surely a male by his smaller size, similar to mine, sticks it’s pointed wedged arms to feel the soil and try to get his bearings. After but a moment he pushes himself up with the help of his shorter, secondary pair of arms which have a set of four clawed fingers, one of them opposable like humans. Other Gnodarians are starting to push their capsules open as he finally raises his head.

“Damn…” Tom lets slip as he retreats, leaving me by myself on the first tent as was agreed. All the guards are in a state of tension. The slaver guarantees they won’t pose any problems, but we do not believe prudent to listen to it.

I’m frozen looking at him even though I feel like I should be looking at all the others too. The bony plate that covers his face is cracked diagonally, the injury seeming to have cost the being at least two of his eyes, the right one on the upper pair, and the left one on the smaller, lower one. Looking closer at his first set of arms I can see a story of violence, wrought upon them, the digging and defensive set of arms full of cracks, but his thick-skinned chest has not been spared either.

There’s forty paces between us at least, but I hear him as if he was by my side - the translators working to make his low-pitched voice heard by me. “Greetings, new master - I presume? If the females forgive my impertinence, I’ll talk before they shake off the stasis effects. What are your orders, master?” He analyzes us, looking speculatively over me and all the people gathered behind me and around them.

“…” My dumpst- **BZZZZT** What the hell? Now too? Frankie bumps into me again, but I’m still having a hard time finding the words with everyone’s eyes locked into me. Besides males, I can see juveniles starting to exit their capsules by now.

“Yes, that’s your master!” the Cartel being says from besides me, scowling at Geni. “There, my job is done, you lot can help me load the stasis back on the trucks again,” he says loudly to Clara’s dismay. Another thing for her to edit out of this, the thought comes out of nowhere to me as they often do in these high stress situations.

“I’m not listening anything, Master. I’m sorry if we’re not attuned to the same frequencies of if I’ve given offence” the apologetic Gnodarian says after my awkward delay to answer. I can see he’s an old-hand at dealing with all kinds of masters by the way he approaches conversation with me - not all of them understanding by the looks of it.

“I’m the one who acquired your services - accidentally, I must say. But the Unity doesn’t allow slaves,” I finally manage to say, gesturing with my hands to say that’s absolute. Damn, not that an alien will understand human gestures. Foolish of me.

“So you need us to hide, master? Is there any information about this unity we should know to better do it?” he replies. I thought he would ask about being sold again, but the smart being realizes we wouldn’t have taken them out of stasis if that was the case.

“Hide? What? No. Tell me, do you have a name, Gnodarian? ”I say after shaking the bemusement out of my face.

“A name?” he asks, surprised at the question. “Maliskar is what my people call me, but feel free to change it, master. Many of my former masters preferred to - if they asked at all.”

“Maliskar it is then. And I meant the Unity, the Multi-Unity Alliance. We do not follow the Swarm’s impositions nor do we hold slaves, Maliskar.”

“You mean..?” he says, and I can see a desperate glint coming to his eyes. Making it last longer is just plain torture, so I gather my guts and say.

“You are now a free people, provisional citizens of the Unity pending your answer to this invite. I hope you do join us, though we’ll help you anyway.”

“I hope this is not a jest, master. Will you truly take these collars out of our necks?”

“We will,” I say, cautiously gesturing him forward. “I ask that you do not react violently, or we’ll react. Your people can form a line behind you, I instruct.

He comes forward and all his people’s unblinking gazes are locked onto the historical event. Other males follow him warily while the juveniles are held back by the first females starting to come to. Instead of taking over command from Maliskar, they wisely observe the situation to try and get a handle on what is going on. I can see most of them look more suspicious than hopeful. It’s a funny thing how we can read an alien’s eyes. You can identify many feelings - if there’s a correspondent one in your culture that is.

It’s a fucking amazing, heartfelt moment, and ninjas are all around cutting onions and dust entering our eyes. It’s a happy moment, but an emotionally draining one. After it’s all said and done, Maliskar confers with the large females before addressing us again.

“We thank you again… But we’d ask you to take us to our shelter for now, the females must select a leader and we need time to think. Either way, the offer to join you is greatly appreciated.”

And so, we respectfully leave them be, returning to our duties.

***​

Pantera FOB is still excited about the Gnodarian’s arrival hours later even as the ambassador’s convoy sets out, returning to the main base. Gentlebeing Aztuz is a pretty high-up Unity representative to be roaming an (slightly) active battle front, so command hasn’t skimped on his protection. Besides the ambassadors’ custom, heavily armored glider, ensconced safely on the middle of the formation, one anti-artillery g-tank and four armored fighting vehicles (’AFV’s), hybrid troop carriers and light tanks.

The units picked for the escort mission were surprisingly squads of the 3rd Penal American Regiment, the worst of the worst sent to do good the only way the Unity saw them capable of. While the aliens shared a few qualms with most of humanity like aversion to death penalties, treason and sentient extermination excepted, it clearly has different (and binding) opinions on other topics. Assignment to the Penal Regiments can be temporary or even permanent.

Fitzgerald is doubting his life once again as the scum arrayed behind keep up a chatter, playing their favorite game: tempting the civility collars. Making oblique references and metaphors to continue their horrendous conversations before the collar catches on and a ‘behavioral adjustment’ is applied. God, his stupidity and shortsightedness to do unspeakable acts and be condemned to serve among these men. He could only ask God and his victims for forgiveness, for straying from His teachings, for his blind faith on The Reverend…

“A penny for your thoughts!” The shout at his ear nearly makes him swerve off the road, provoking a hiccup on the formation where he’s just ahead of their objective, the ambassador’s glider.

“Fuck! What are you doing, Ariana? Get back to your gun,” he curses, having to report everything is all right on the radio as his captain berates him harshly. Moments later, comes the command for the convoy to pick up speed; with a flick of his hand he follows suit.

“I threatened some schmuck into taking it. And don’t blame me for how jumpy you are, hunter o’ mine,” the witch cackles, always finding great merriment to be sitting next to a self-proclaimed with-hunter. Conversation on the back pauses for a second, and with a quick glance backwards he confirms they’re all staring daggers at Ariana’s back. She turns slowly with a deranged look, facing each one until they look away. No one sane fucks with Ariana,

“What is it you want now, Ari?” he asks in a mock sweet tone to get back at her. She’s among the few he’s willing to consider allies among the 3rd Penal — meaning she will only throw him on a grenade if there’s no else handy close. Still, it’s good to be friendly with the loon, amoral as she may be. She’s one of the greatest spell-criminals of their planet, unearthed only because of the arrival of the aliens. God knows how many she’s sacrificed to improve her power.

“I’m telling you there’s something wrong with this assignment, hunter,” she says as she takes one wand out of a satchel to look over. She never drops his nickname and Fitz’s honestly past caring about it.

“So you said when we were beginning it, but here we are. There are drones and constructs guarding the skies, we’re behind our own lines,” he argues.

“I’m not feeling the vegetable — urgh — ambassador amongst us,” she says, gritting her teeth through the collar’s nerve shocking. They’re approaching a wooded-area, and he hears the captain admonishing the gunners to keep a look-out for flying attackers appearing out of the wood-work.

“What the fuck, Ari? Didn’t they expressly told you not to touch a fiber of his hair?” he asks, impressed. The collars enforce any orders harshly, oh so harshly. Defying it is a sucker’s game as everyone has already tried and learned.

“They did, so I didn’t. There was no words about touching a fiber of his robe, so I was free to put a tracking spell on it.”

“Smart,” he says, approving of her wit. “But do tell me what you want me to do with that information? Should I call the captain and let him know?” he asks, snorting at the notion. The robot bastard — urgh — didn’t give a shit. And he couldn’t even curse him at his thoughts without instant behavioral adjustment.

“No, silly. Try to survive, that’s all,” she says as she puts something on his chest pocket. He raises a finger as a transmission is incoming.

“Atten—…, at—…, …….—roken, ….ignals!”

“Something wrong with comms,” he comments quietly with Ariana, exchanging a tense look, her attempt at nonchalance ringing hollow. “We’re supposed to signal like simple cave—” A huge explosion cuts him off, and though surprised and bewildered Fitzgerald still swerves out of the road in a snap decision. The mine explodes next to their AFV instead of below it, its violence overturning Fitz’s vehicle as the passengers are battered to and fro. Not wearing the safety net, Ariana smacks her head on the top of the cabin and them hits her screaming ally, breaking ribs.

In one fell sweep, Captain Judges Harshly sees the first half of the convoy crushed as his vehicle hits the breaks. The first AFV in line is obliterated, a direct hit. The tank’s gravity manipulators are taken out by an ionic mine, grounding it and short-circuiting it. The third AFV nearly escapes destruction, but is shoved sideways by the violence of the explosion.

“Out, out!” it shouts to the stunned convicts as it follows its own orders, gripping a pair of plasma pistols and mol-hatchets.

Mol Hatchet

Self-sharpening, molecule-thin hatchet.

Warning: Do not try to shave, cut horns or similar grooming activities.

“Take cover and defend the glider! Shield it with your life if you must, that’s an order!” it bellows as the troops scramble out. “Report any contact!”

It looks with suspicion to the woods on both sides of them, thankful that the glider’s still projecting its own energy shield for now. The last alternative is to send the fast vehicle ahead if they can’t protect it. The long-distance comms aren’t working, but the captain jogs towards the tank, activating his personal shield while he tries to contact the tankers with the short-range comms.

Personal P.U.A. Shield Mk III

Rated for 13 head-on shots from same-tech level.

Warning: Do not try it, some fluctuation happens on any shield.

“Report!” it finally gets through.

“Bad hit on—……— 8 minut—,,, reboo—!” A couple of the tanks secondary weapons, independent from its power grid, are still moving and should be able to join the defense. As should the gunners of the two AFVs left.

Judge knows it’s just a matter of time before the attack comes, certainly before the tank restarts. First the continued comms blocking and now this, it can’t be just some random mines. His merciless drills have produced some results at least: the convict-troopers are setting up underground sensors, buffing each other, and their few spellcasters erecting Barriers.

“Fleeting contacts up high, captain!” a soldier reports from the right side.

“Same!” warns

“Pinpoint them! Open fire as soon as you have a target, maximum prejudice!” Judge orders,

Some dazed soldiers start piling out of the overturned vehicle, and that’s when whitering gun and spell-fire erupts from the tops of the trees on both side of the road, mowing down their arboreal cover and draining the magical Barriers their few Spellcasters have casted.

Convict A7-E400 (’Roberts’) down! 52 troops left!

Convict A7-E300 (’Silver’) killed! 51 troops left!

Convict—

With a simple thought, Judge turns off the slowing notifications and accompanying death cries as he returns fire with the rest of his men, their aggressive fire slackening the oncoming fire for a second, the machine-guns starting to topple the top of trees.

Convicts aren’t granted Rituals or BioMech mods, so they mostly rely on exo-gears and heavy armament. But there are exceptions.

“Adriel!” Judge hails his Wendigo drone controller, stuck on the other side.

“On it, boss! I’m going for disruption!” Says the mythic as he works the Extra-Comp Mod that disfigures his already less than aesthetically pleasing face. No fancy mods for convicts.

“How many, Adriel?” Judge presses.

“Fifteen or so on each side only, we’re cutting their numbers fast,” the man replies distractedly.

“Goddamn drones!” complains an injured skinhead next to the AI captain, but it pays the convict no mind. Much of their cover is already shot through or set on fire by this point. The troopers are starting to use dead-bodies as additional cover, a commendable initiative. Hm, if it’s only drones and—

Ululating battle-cries are howled by masses of Barker and Digger who seem to materialize out of thin air in the distance among the trees. Their green and brown bark-skins make it harder to count them amidst the green and gray trunks of the native trees. The Swarms’ infantry picks up speed, joining their fire with their remaining drones. It taxes the Unity’s Shields and Barriers even as the 3rd Penal’s redirected fire starts taking its toll. With a quick calculation, taking cover behind a flaming tree to spare its burdened shield, Judge guesses there are at least a hundred on each side. Too many even if the machine guns start chewing them up in an astounding rate, melting through their shields and barriers with their runed munition. If the tank was totally active, they’d turn this around no doubt.

Where the damn Barkers came from is a problem for later - if there is such a time.

“Ready for melee! Protect the Ambassador Aztuz to the death!” it cries as the Barkers get closer, their seed-rifles and Swarm guns blazing. “That’s an order!” If only they can buy enough time, but the 6 minutes left in battle are an eternity. One of the its android-body’s four tendrils is incinerated by a fire beam that lances through its faltering shield, dropping one of his blaster, but it keeps firing the remaining one even as his second pair of tendrils reach for melee weapons..

A lightning joint-spell from somewhere among the trees on the right and takes out one of the last two AFVs even as a penetrator round flies towards one of the tank’s machine-guns, making Judge grimace and look back at. It was not enough to pierce all the way through the many layers of armor and blow inside the tank, but more than enough to cripple the gun. Their heavy fire support is down to one AFV frantically riding up and down the road to not present a static target and one of the tank’s auxiliary machine-guns.

Casualties keep mounting and Judge is down to around 34 troops. Humans, a pair of large, grey-furred Wendigos, a single surviving Witch, two huge, brown-skinned Sasquatches and a lightning-attuned, sorcerous Chivo. But they’re spread too thin to face both enemies.

“To me, to me! Prepare to charge the right-side” it cries on the comm, gesturing wildly when a few of the troopers on the left-side turn back. “ATV, tank, if you can hear me, focus on the right side! Hang tight, Glider, we’re doing all we can!”

The convicts start hurrying to follow its orders, gathering on the right side. One satyr-like mythic tries to pass by it, but Judge extends one of his appendages and holds him back. “Miguel, you’d better fucking divert their next lightning spell or I’m cutting off your horns and shoving them through your eyeballs!” the AI orders colorfully, using swears and threats as he’d found helped to focus troopers.

“Yes, Judge, I’m on it,” the mexican man nods, his goat-horns nearly touching Judge.

“Miranda,” he beckons his last witch. “Haste on my order, start chanting, give it your all,” it instructs the frightened spellcaster, her face scarred by a close ricochet. Miguel, Ariel, Miranda, and another convict he orders to keep watch on the left-side and warn him when their defenses are down.

Judge waits another half a minute until everyone left is around him and the enemies are dangerously close to give the order. “Haste, now! Charge, charge, charge!” it cries as time-magic suffuses their ranks and the Terrans storm through the woods towards their enemy. The large mythic foursome is their battering ram, hitting the front-line of the surprised Barkers like a truck, nary a shot fired in their enemy’s shock. Mol-axe, grav-hammer, and Wendigos’ claws fell four, five, six Barkers in the first seconds, bark and dark sap flying all around.

The humans come behind, screaming, but the blessing ends and the blitz is halted by a handful of Diggers challenging their vanguard. The humans flow to the sides, entering melee combat with energy-spears and grav-maces. Judge parries a killing blow from the fifth-digger, diverting the energy-spear about to end one of his Wendigos with one of his knives while the other finds purchase in his opponent’s arm, chopping viciously into the hard bark-skin, coming out tainted with sap.

The 3rd American Penal Regiment might not have its troops magically or technologically enhanced, but they have something else: sheer desperation. The Unity does not accept them in prisoners exchanges, so the Swarm executes them as honor-less.

“Death or victory!” the rallying cry comes from all around, overcoming the barks, yips and death rattling all around. Blood starts spurting as the first humans fall, but they’re chopping the wood pile faster. The Barkers are not unskilled in melee, but the 3rd Penal excels on it, using all kinds of low-blows and questionable tactics to kill, maim and terrify.

Judge trades melee blows once, twice, thrice, and then uses his third appendage to fire his blaster point-blank on the face of the skilled Digger facing him. Although one of the threats is ended, the Wendigo besides him is decapitated in an acrobatic, masterful riposte that makes even the AI wince. Not all is bad news, however, as the Sasquatch closest to him crushes her opponent with a mighty overhead grav-hammer blow, though blood already mars her fur freely.

Judge leaves the two to face-off for the moment as he oversees the battle, going as well as he could expect, and then contacts the people he left behind. “Report.”

“The tank’s last turret is damaged, but still kicking,” reports Adriel. “The AFV has mowed down ran over anyone sticking their heads out of the woods, but it’s full of holes and smoking something fierce!”

“Captain, I think there’s movement below ground, the sensor is going nuts!” reports the fourth convict he left behind, Serena. “The Glider isn’t answering to hails.” Judge grunts, but there’s nothing it can do about it for now.

In the mean time, his troopers have gained the advantage over the Diggers, only two of the xenos pressed by his three remaining mythics. Sharing a glance, the Barker’s mythics force out of the encirclement in concert, crippling one of the Wendigo’s knee-caps as she can’t protect both, and skedaddling out of it. The retreats inflames his savage troopers and the Barkers waver and break, some dropping their weapons as they turn to run.

The troops make to pursue, but Judge screams in the comms, “To me! To me! That’s an order!” A big explosion comes from behind them, probably the AFV going down.

“Oh, this is bad,” says Serena, imprecise as always.

The more enthusiastic convicts need to be shocked back into sense by their collars, but in half a minute they’re all following him back to the road. All the twelve troopers it still has on their feet from the thirty that followed it into the woods. They return to the four keeping watch just in time to see the tank’s turret being melted by concentrated fire coming from the woods. Worse, the Ambassador’s glider’s shield is also being targeted. With a look at the tank’s timer to shrug off the ion mine, he can see there are still three minutes left for it to return to action.

Too much time. It will come to melee again and he sees no other way. Judge opens his mouth to activate Protocol Redemption when the xeno weapon that fired a rocket earlier fires again. Towards the Glider. The barrier-buster magical missile brings down the magical protection of the glider and a bright flash follows it, blinding the organics that can’t turn away. Judge’s visual sensors feel it coming and retract for protection, so it’s the quickest one to recover.

The quickest one to recover and learn that the glider is missing, as is the road under it and a large amount of terrain — and there are no debris flying. The rapid and complete disappearance of all material leads only to one answer: Teleportation.

Someone in the process of dragging himself and someone else out of the overturned AFV curses at his bad-luck, first knocked out, now nearly blind.

“That was what the Diggers were doing underground then,” concludes Serena as her vision recovers.

“Yes,” replies Judge. “And the sensors were of little help.”

“They could have teleported in any direction, though probably not very far.” Is Miguel’s assessment from the little he learned about space magic and the large amount of mana he felt being consumed. These spells were incredibly mana-hungry however.

“Yes,” says Judge as the tank starts to reboot. “Foolish of them.”

A huge explosion erupts north-west of them just after the AI captain says it, like he had planned for it.

“Let’s go, 3rd Penal, we have mopping up to do.”