As Zoe lay on her sleeping mat in the small park in Asquith, she smiled happily at the warm night air as it gently played with her hair. Staring up at the unfamiliar night sky sent a pang of homesickness through her, which was quickly washed away as Yasmin crouched next to her with a warm cup of tea. Sitting up quickly, she gratefully accepted the cup with a thanks. Yasmin sat and leant against the trailer.

"You're likely to have brought trouble to our doorstep."

Sighing, Zoe nodded a reply knowing full well the storm she had likely helped stir up. "I know, and if trouble does come this way because of my agreeing to the twins, then I am sorry and will do everything in my power to protect Asquith. You have all been generous hosts and I'm sure you will be great allies in the future."

It was Yasmin's turn to nod. "We have weathered attacks from the Bloodless and raiders in the past, we shall survive anything they may try. We have escape tunnels and many traps outside which are easily armed. So, while your concern is appreciated, it's not needed." Yasmin smiled at her. "Plus, you've already given us access to tech we couldn't use before and a promise of a strong alliance and a safe haven. Regardless of my relationship with Tyson, the twins’ vouching for you speaks louder than words."

"I'm glad," Zoe replied, genuinely happy that her first choice in this mission had been probably her best choice so far.

The rest of the evening passed in idle chatter, Yasmin talking about Asquith's residents and Zoe chatter about the Community and it's allies.

~

"Zoe, emergency," Avi said loudly through the technomancer's visor. "Movement on long distance radar."

Jolting right awake, she stood rapidly, took off her visor and rubbed her eyes to clear the sleep. It was early morning, false dawn had broken and there was just enough light to see by. Pulling her visor back on, she brought up the info Avi relayed from its sensors and drones. As she quickly studied it, a cry of alarm and a bell rang out from a watch tower near her. The town seemed to spring to life immediately, people of all ages leaving their houses, armed with a variety of weapons.

"Avi, bring the drones in, defensive patterns, charge all weapons and hold off on explosives, we shouldn't need them."

A beep of confirmation reached Zoe's ears as she collected her own weapons, a pair of stunners and a stun baton. She nearly jumped out of her skin as Maddison put a hand on her shoulder from behind.

"You should not be near the front lines," she said firmly. "Keep Avi near you and stick with Yasmin. If any of them get through, it'll be up to you and a few others to drop them."

Frowning at Maddison's directness, Zoe found she couldn't disagree with the more battle experienced woman. She knew her Talent wasn't even likely to be all that helpful, but she still wanted to help.

"Wait," she said to Maddison as she made to leave. Quickly pulling out a small box from the trailer, she pulled an ear piece out and tucked it over Maddison's ear. "Pass these out to combat leaders, they're communicators. Just talk and it will transmit to the others and myself."

Maddison nodded and took the ear pieces before trotting off towards her twin.

Sitting in the passenger’s seat, Zoe wordlessly instructed Avi to drive towards the centre of town. Making small motions with her hands as if typing on a keyboard or conducting an orchestra, she concentrated deeply on the displays on her visor and in her head as she linked into her tech. As people activated their ear pieces, she got them to check in, labelling each one in the system for easier identification. While doing that, she linked into the orbiting satellites and took control, giving her varying maps and images of the area. Information flowed through her, sometimes nothing more than a confirmation ping of a message sent or received, sometimes complicated equations and sometimes just raw data. She was now in her element, pushing what she could do, making her presence felt in the world.

Watching through the satellite imagery, she saw various traps triggering as the Bloodless scouts stumbled into them. Various pitfalls and spike traps triggered in the open fields she could see. Her ears registered an explosion before the footage showed a fireball exploding in the forested area a little to the north. The forest lit up for a brief moment before smouldering leaves rained down, triggering small grass and brush fires. Zoe grimaced at the trap, but knew that a fire was a decent defence. Most people did not like encountering a wild fire.

Feeling a hand touch her shoulder, she turned to Yasmin, who waved at her to follow her. Nodding that she understood, she relayed to Avi to follow Yasmin. They were moved to a blockade Yasmin had made along a main street, not far from the entry Zoe had used the day before. "If they make it through the wall, this will likely be the spot," Yasmin said, waving at the wall and their assailants beyond. "If the wall falls here, we do as much as we can to stop them getting past us."

A loud thump of a distant explosion reached their ears, followed shortly by an explosion behind them as a dilapidated house exploded.

"Bloody hell, what was that?" Yasmin said, staring at the flaming rubble.

"Avi, trace the trajectory," Zoe ordered at the same time. "Probably a mortar," she replied to Yasmin absentmindedly as calculations flickered and pinpointed the most likely source of the mortar. Overlaying a satellite map, she spotted a likely team and marked them. "Drones, target weapons and ammo," she ordered out loud. A trio of different, darker drones rose from Avi's frame and zoomed off in the direction of the mortar team. Another thump reached Zoe's ears and Avi fired off another drone. Barely a breath later, the drone exploded over the wall, taking out the mortar before it could cause more damage to the town.

A hand full of explosions broke over the escalating sounds of battle as Zoe's drones super-heated the ammo causing a chain reaction. Wincing at the images relayed to her, she knew in her head that it was them or her, but her heart ached at the loss of life anyway. Yes, she had been trained to defend herself and end lives, but every time she was forced to, she hated it and always found it hard to sleep afterwards, unless she was exhausted to the bone.

~

Maddison and Tyson ducked and slashed, their minds and bodies acting together, their Talents blending together. As soon as Maddison saw something, her brother reacted. As soon as Tyson heard an intention, Maddison was there. They tuned out the chatter coming through Maddison's ear piece, knowing full well that if they needed to react to something, they would.

~

Yasmin fidgeted, pacing a few steps next to Zoe and the other secondary defenders. Her Talent was too slow for the heat of battle, her body, while fit, was also not trained for heavy combat. Most of the traps and fortifications were hers; but that still didn’t make her less anxious that her friends and family were out there, risking their lives.

Looking behind her towards the town, she saw elders rushing children further from the battle, towards their bunkers and secret tunnels. It had taken Yasmin many years to make the tunnels and bunkers and, even though she was proud of her work, she was saddened by the fact that the defenceless of her home town now had to use them.

"What's going on out there?" Yasmin asked Zoe.

Wordlessly, Zoe used her projectors and satellite imagery to make a smaller battlefield near them. "There's a few second delay between what I can see and what is happening out there."

The pair immediately noticed the larger forces of the Bloodless Pact coming into view. A trio of trucks, bristling with weapons rolled down the main road, straight towards Asquith.

"Oh fuck," Yasmin said breathlessly, looking at the images as a fourth truck rolled into view.

Zoe however, was already reacting, her strategy training coming to the fort. "Joe, there are four trucks armed to the teeth coming down the main road, get people away from them. Ranged attackers, target drivers and tyres, disable those trucks." She studied the map for a moment. "Yasmin, where are your car traps?"

She pointed to several spots along the road. One of the trucks along the edge of the road moved further off the edge, moving around a dead car and onto the footpath. Yasmin held her finger over the map as the front tyres hit the dead fall trap, sending the vehicle into a deep pit. Zoe nodded, pleased about that trap placement and the reduction of enemy forces.

"Maddison, try and draw the rear truck towards you, there's a car trap along your side road, in the middle, between the two blue cars."

"Got it," the reply came.

~

Joe huddled behind a car on the outside of the wall along with a couple of Talents. One of them would occasionally charge up a rock with energy, poke their head over the car and fire it off like a bullet. The latest shot shattered a windshield, but missed the driver. Joe took a moment to do similar, lobbing a small boulder at the truck, watching as it landed in front of the truck, forcing the driver to swerve and trigger a tyres spike trap, taking out a front tyre. Another charged rock flew past him, taking out a gunner as their enemies got off the disabled truck and scattered.

"Truck down," he whispered into the ear piece.

~

"They're not taking the bait," Maddison growled into her ear piece. "Tyson is having trouble tricking them, he's close to overload."

"Fall back then," Joe replied.

"Start with hit and run tactics," came Zoe's input. "You've got several intact houses to use and a few small squads you can deal with. Nearest is other end of the street."

Tyson mentally nodded and Maddison sent back a confirmation as they peeled away from the heavier combat to start their guerrilla tactics.

~

The wall shuddered with the impact of a rocket explosion, massive cracks appearing. A second rocket exploded into the wall, sending rubble flying. Rocks rained down on the defenders as Yasmin bolted forward.

"Avi, protect her!" Zoe called in a panic. Defence drones swarmed after Yasmin, catching up to her a moment later. "Take out those launchers too."

Avi relaunched the trio of weaponized drones, flying them through the gap in the wall that Yasmin was actively trying to fix. Locating the source of the rockets, a pair of shoulder mounted launchers, was the easy part. Avi engaged evasive manoeuvres in the drones as automatic rifles rang out. A lucky bullet caught the first drone, sending it into a spiral and making it crash into a letter box. Avi struggled to get the remaining two drones close enough to cook the ammo and pulled them back, notifying Zoe of the lack of success.

"YASMIN! GET BACK!" Zoe yelled as she saw the launchers reload and aim at the wall. She watched in horror as both rockets slammed into the breach, spraying earth and stone everywhere, covering the area Yasmin was trying to work in.

"YASMIN!"

~

Tyson stumbled, tripped and collapsed, curling up in a ball in the hallway of an abandoned house they had been running through. Even Maddison stumbled, catching herself by stabbing the wall with her sword and leaning on it.

"Yasmin," she whispered in horror, eyes wide.

~

Scooping up a tyre, Joe bolted from his cover, threw the tyre towards those standing on the nearest truck and dived behing the cover of a ruined house.

A pair of explosions happened a moment later, followed by Zoe screaming out Yasmin's name. Grabbing a pair of bricks, he threw, aiming for anyone standing on the truck. Ducking back down, he heard a fleshy impact sound followed by cries of pain. The weird thing to Joe was the headache he found that was starting to build rapidly.

~

"Tyson, no, don't do it," Maddison whispered, terrified. She could feel pressure on her brain emanating from him as he rose from the floor, his eyes streaming tears, but showing Maddison the rage building behind them. Not that she needed to see his eyes, the pressure she was feeling was pure, unfocused rage from the psychic. "Don't do this, you'll regret it."

Drawing her sword from the wall, she pointed it at his chest. "If you do this, you will ruin more lives, you may even end Asquith."

~

Burying herself in the code, Zoe searched for a way to end the conflict as one of the Talents managed to do something to the crew on the back of the nearest truck.

Not enough aggressive drones and her defence drones had lost eighty percent in the last rocket explosion. The stun turret and her stunners were out of range and she only had a pair of projectile pistols, which were about as useful right now as a fan against a hurricane. As she searched and calculated, her brain lit up in pain, the pressure feeling like her skull was shrinking.

In a panic, she pulled away from the pain.

~

Tyson 'removed' himself from everyone's perceptions. As he did, he heard Maddison swearing loudly at him, but he didn't care.

The woman he had loved had died.

~

Maddison swung her sword where Tyson had stood, but missed. She couldn't even see anything he was doing with her Talent.

"To anyone who can hear me, run," she said into her ear piece. "Tyson has lost control."

~

A wave of pressure rolled over the battlefield from the southern side. A small squad had been trying to sneak up to where they had heard Maddison was, only to be hit with blinding pain. They all fell over, blood leaking from their ears, eyes and nose as their brains overloaded.

Tyson had heard Maddison and a small part of his brain was attempting to block out allies as he lashed out. He felt his twin following him, but paid her no attention otherwise.

~

Waving at his squad to come to him, Joe kicked open one of the tunnels that lead under the wall, waving them to enter. As the last of them did, he placed a bookshelf over the entrance before turning out to the battlefield. He had no idea if his plan would work, but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try anyway.

~

Bloodless Pact soldiers fell and the last truck tried to flee, only to crash into a tree as its driver fell to the mental assault.

Tyson stepped out onto the main street as Joe exited the house with the tunnel. The psychic knew the big man and knew he wasn't responsible, but also knew that the man set his teeth on edge.

"Tyson!" Joe yelled as he felt the pressure build. "You know Yasmin loved you, you know she loved this town, you know she died trying to save others."

Tyson stumbled as the big voice pummelled him, cracking the ice cold focus of his rage. His rational mind took a hold of that crack and pushed.

Joe cupped his hands around his mouth. "You're having a fucking tantrum. You need to control your emotions. Do you want to hurt Maddison?"

The rage in his head shattered and he fell unconscious, appearing to Joe and Maddison, who ran to him as he slumped to the ground.