Bravo Zero, or called ‘Zero’ by the rest of Bravo team, was having a bad day. He made a fool of himself by falling over the edge of the Infiltrator ramp and possibly damaging some of the equipment, gear that cost more than his used Excalibur suit! As a Page, he had to use most of his saved credits to upgrade his suit if he wanted to match the minimum standard requirement for Pages assigned to the Craven Vultures. His suit belonged to another Page that just made it as a Squire and was looking to get rid of it on the quick. It still felt a little loose, but after a few high risk missions like this one he was hoping to have enough to tune it more to his body size. Or work on it himself to save a few hundred credits. After all, there were still weapons and other miscellaneous things to purchase that weren’t provided; Food, clothing, basic gear and maintenance was his responsibility. Thankfully, room & board were provided for him and he had a talent with computers and networks.

Hence the reason he was recruited by Squire Rale. They needed someone who was familiar with hard and soft defence emplacement installations, something he had a lot of experience with as an initiate operating out of one of the more dangerous cities and outposts on Korizan. Unfortunately, this was the first real mission he’d been on with his new team and he felt like an idiot already, or did in any case. His fragile emotions were easily wounded but all those earlier, petty events washed away from his thought process as he took in the camera footage from the barricaded hallway. Just minutes ago, Squire Rale informed him that Bravo team were on their way back to the Infiltrator with the only survivor of Echo, which he relayed back to the Vulture’s Nest. After that, the world turned to chaos as a seething tide of monstrous creatures dubbed the ‘Swarm’ by Squire Rale earlier on in the mission. At first, it wasn’t so bad as there only a few roving bands of the creatures, but a few turned into a hundred and a hundred turned too damn many. Then they came from the otherside, hoping to flank him. Now, he was locked in a metal box with crates of ammunition and only two defensive Shredder turrets. He quickly switched camera angles as the Shredder turrets, ah, shredded the creatures trying to swarm the hallway.

Gulping, he tried to ignore the seemingly endless thumping that reverberated through the walls of the infiltrator from the constant firing of the Shredders and focused on the stats the computers were transmitting to him. Batteries running on full speed, temperatures were steadily climbing but they were closer to running out of ammo then they were of overheating. Checking the ammunition levels, one was starting to go into the red and the other would be joining it soon, he needed to go out there and start preparing the auxiliary lines for when the main cases dried up. But for that, he’d need to go out there where the Swarm... things were. He already knew looking at them from the video would leave him with nightmares, going out there and being just a few feet from them in a hostile environment with only his suit to keep them from tearing into his juicy, tender flesh was another story entirely. Still, it would only be a minute or two before the turrets would start clicking and then the enemy would be beating at the gates.

With his new suit, he was able to lift heavier weights than he could before but the ammo cases still required a low-grade lift like the one next to him if he wanted to transport more than one in a timely manner. And time was running out quickly.

“Oh shit, shit shit shit shit fuck shit. Okay, okay baby. Here we go, let’s do this! Fuck!” Slamming the big red button, the metal doors unsealed and the once muffled sound of gunfire and alien screaming poured through like an avalanche of noise. Hesitating for just a moment, he gritted his teeth and carefully pushed the grav lift down the metal walkway, careful not to let himself look too far to the left or right less he lost what little spine he had. Once the lift reached the bottom of the walkway, it became a lot more difficult to move and he assumed it was due to the materials of the ship. With time ticking on the clock, he decided to hell with it and grabbed the side handles of one of the crates and penguin walked as fast as he could to the closest turret.

With the help of his suit, he didn’t go deaf as the empty casings were launched from the opposite side of the sealed crate of ammunition. Placing his heavy load on the ground as gently as he could, he reached for one of the tool kits nearby and found a fresh bullet feeder, making sure the auxiliary feed was deactivated first. Quickly, he plugged one end into the turret and attached the other end of the feed into the slot on the fresh crate, getting the green light for a successful connection. Reaching over the crate, he turned on the feed on the Shredder and got the green light a second later, the faint rumbling from the crate letting him know that the turret registered the additional source and would switch over whenever the other crate was depleted.

Sweating inside his suit, he hurried over to the lift and grabbed the remaining crate and hurried to the opposite turret. Counting the seconds in his head, he put all his energy into getting to the other Shredder without tripping over the empty casings or the fresh gore that lined the gap between the two fronts. Nervously, he looked at the ammo count on the crate and saw it was less than a hundred and rapidly declining. Swearing, he reached for the feed in another nearby tool kit and began attaching the opposite ends to the turret and the crate. Before he flipped the aux line on the Shredder after getting the green light on the crate, a chunk of flesh splattered against the side of his helmet, smearing blue-green blood across his visor.

“Fucking shit on me! Shit on me!” Panicking, he stood up and tried to clear the goo off of his helmet, tripping over the aux belt in his haste. Slamming into the floor, he quickly scrambled up and got splattered by more gore for his efforts but ignored it as he took in what he’d tripped over with a horrified expression. The ends were still attached to the Shredder and the crate, but the middle of the belt was torn and ripped open, useless now.

“Fuck me!” He ran back to the toolkit he’d opened earlier and searched for a fresh belt, but found nothing but screw drivers and duct tape. For a moment, he thought about wrapping the middle back up with duct tape but scraped the idea because how incredibly stupid that would be. Tossing the kit to the ground nearby, he examined the turret and tried to figure out what to do with only a handful of seconds left before it went dry. After a moment or two, he looked towards the monsters that were only ten to twenty feet away from his position. Gulping, he stared as the floodlights illuminated their nightmarish visages, razor sharp teeth lining alien mouths whose sole purpose was to kill and hardened carapace designed to shrug off light projectiles and deflect bladed weapons.

Of course, the Shredders didn’t fire anything belonging to the category of ‘light’ projectiles and was tearing into the raging horde with every bullet fired, taking multiple monsters down with each shot. If the guns stopped firing for more than a couple of seconds, they’d be upon him and he’d have little time to list his regrets before he died. Removing the broken end of the feed from the fresh ammo crate, he dragged the heavy ordinance as close to the original crate and had his hand on the belt, staring at the ammo counter like his life depended on it. He wished he had listened to Page Durd about buying from the black market for some extra, non-G.U.N. approved gear.

But Page Alitmer was all alone, stuck between an ocean of enemies on both sides with nothing to stop them but the turrets holding the line. With adrenaline flooding his nervous system and his Excalibur suit keeping his hands dextrous, he ripped the feed from the empty crate and slammed it into the new crate once it hit zero, blinking an angry red. It only took a second before the new source was registered and the turret began to fire back up again, but even that much time was too much and already some of the creatures had made it past the firing cone of the Shredder and was raging towards him with vicious screams. With nowhere to run, he quickly grabbed his heavy rifle and relied on his suit to make sure his aim was true when he fired at the closest enemy.

With the linked tracking and aiming system of the Excalibur suits, he hit with deadly accuracy as it did the hard part of staying on target while he wailed and pulled the trigger, whipping back and forth his weapon to keep back the few monsters that made it through. With his magazine almost empty, one last alien charged at him with it’s sword-like appendages coiled tightly to it’s side, ready to strike forward to kill him as soon as it got within melee range. The gunfire flashed against it’s bloody shell, his new Brutalizer tearing chunks out of it as it continued to charge. It was almost on him when his weapon began to click, signalling the magazine was empty. Closing his eyes, he prepared for the mountain of pain that he imagined would be accompanied by being impaled by it’s bladed arms and screamed hysterically as it impacted him, falling on top and pinning Page Altimer to the ground.

He kept screaming for a moment or two before he realized he wasn’t in any pain and slowly opened his eyes, widening as he took in a full face of the dead alien staring at him with multiple, glazed over eyes inches from him. His sore throat worsened as he screamed again, tossing the corpse off of himself with the strength of a cornered animal. Frantically, he stood up and stood beside the resupplied turret and reloaded his weapon before joining it in killing as many of the Swarm as he could. His throat burned with every breath, torn from the constant screaming in the past few minutes, but he had just survived his most recent brush with death and he felt invigorated. He aimed for anything that seemed too close, working his way one by one until he was just unloading into the mass as fast as his gun could fire, reloading when it was empty. One after another, he exchanged magazines until he was down to his last two. Instead of continuing until he was completely out, he glanced at the bullet counter on the Shredder and decided it was a better idea to go load the lift and search for a new aux belt somewhere in the Infiltrator.

As he turned around, the flood lights illuminated a corpse filled hallway, but no activity. Terrified, he quickly ran to the Shredder to see if it ran out of bullets. His heart was racing with the chaos surrounding him and he felt only slightly relieved as the ammo count was in the mid-yellow, worrying but not urgent. Still, he paid little attention to why the Swarm was absent from one side of the tunnel and quickly pushed the lift back up the ramp. Mentally slapping himself for leaving the Infiltrator doors open, he made sure to close them as he passed through the threshold, slapping the big red button before taking a quick breather and looking through the computer terminal. Everything was looking fine, but he was suspicious and he felt the ticking of a hidden clock in his head, wondering what would happen when it reached zero. Hurrying through the passenger area, he walked into the next set of open doors to the small armory, loading up on personal ammo and loading the Shredder crates onto the lift.

Taking a few more minutes to psych himself up again, he went down the ramp again and followed the familiar motion of grabbing the crate and penguin walking towards the quiet Shredder. As he ducked to place the crate down, a large, white projectile tore through the distant darkness, piercing through the joint attaching the Shredder to the heavy-duty tripod and screaming past where Altimer’s torso was just a moment ago. Startled, he dived to the side as he began to panic, his only line of defense gone and leaving him and the other turret exposed to whatever the hell it was that almost killed him. Peeking through a small gap in the makeshift barricade, he saw a giant, four-legged monster covered in thick, glossy black plated shells with at least four arms and a swarm of black tentacles wiggling in it’s shadow. It turned it’s upper body and aimed with a pair of arms, firing a similar narrow projectile to a nearby barricade and tearing through it like wet paper.

He felt paralyzed, unsure of how to kill it while it walked towards his position with a steady gait and destroying the barricades. He searched for an answer, anything that could save him when his eyes fell upon the destroyed Shredder next to him. Funny thing about Shredder’s, they had a manual trigger in case they couldn’t be tied down, but anyone trying to fire it would lose their arm or get turned into a pulp in the process.

“Suit: Activate Emplacement Protocol.” Crawling towards the dislodged Shredder, he prayed to all the gods as he stood straight, the trigger in one hand and the metal grip in the other. He felt the sweat pour down his spine as the alien turned its attention towards him while the suit began to buzz loudly from performing the command. He pulled the trigger and refused to let go as the reverberations tore through his suit and down into his bones. A projectile that was about to hit him missed by a few inches as the creature jerked from the Shredder bouncing off of its shell. Page Altimer couldn’t muster the energy to scream as he focused all his willpower into resisting the recoil from the turret and making sure he never let go of the trigger. His arms and legs were stiff from the Protocol, but the impact still ripped through him as the back of the weapon kicked against his abdomen with every shot. He stared at the monster with blood shot eyes as it continued to fire at him but unable to aim well enough to hit as it’s outer shell was getting ripped off piece by piece.

Panicking, it must’ve come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t hit him before it died, so it did what any wild animal would when faced with annihilation; it charged. An ear splitting scream erupted from it’s mouth as it charged at him with suicidal abandon, but Page Altimer was fearless in the face of his foe.

At least, that’s what he planned on telling the ladies back in the infirmary when they examined his injuries and counting countless fractures. He also didn’t tell them about the part where he felt the warmth of his own urine try to travel down his leg before it was captured and recycled through his suit’s reclamation system.

The reality was that even if he wished to move, the Emplacement Protocol locked his body down and he’d have to deactivate it if he wanted to retreat. That would also mean he would be unable to fire the Shredder and the weapon was the only thing he had that could make it through a carapace that thick. It loomed over him as the bullets finally made it through its shell in the center of it’s chest, spraying gore over the area like a macabre shower, tearing through its insides like a demonic blender until it carved through the back of it. He continued to hold the trigger, firing at it until it’s upper torso was mulched through, coating the entire area in its cyan colored blood like fresh paint before the gun stopped firing.

The Shredder continued to click as it finally ran out of ammunition before he could work on it’s lower half. He kept the trigger held, unable to recognize the gun was out of bullets. He was in shock, he realized, but his brain refused to issue the commands he knew he needed to order. He saw activity further down the hallway from the same direction as the monstrosity that almost killed him and he aimed his empty gun at with blurry eyes, still holding down the trigger. The bottom of his stomach dropped as the Shredder behind him still fired while his clicked on empty, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to reload in time before the Swarm was on him again. As the movement got closer, the blurred figures became clear, revealing the bruised and battered figures of Bravo Team.

Finally, he let go of the trigger and began to cry in his helmet, obscuring his vision further. Reinforcements had arrived and he was safe. They made their way around Page Altimers locked body, joining fire with the Shredder and pushing the Swarm back at a visible rate. Page Durd walked up to Altimer and stopped once he was close enough to hear the clicking of the empty gun.

‘Oh fuck.’ He finally released his death grip on the trigger and began deactivating the emplacement protocol while Page Durd silently grabbed the heavy turret from his hands, placing it on the ground. Page Durd took a step closer and patted him on the back.

On a private channel, Durd said “Be glad it was me who came to relieve you, Ulied’s been in a shitty mood since she got shot. Wouldn’t be good to remind her so soon, you know what I mean?” Gulping, Altimer could only nod slightly as his suit began to loosen up on him. But as he regained more control on his limbs, he felt weakness settle in and would’ve fallen over if Durd didn’t grab him.

“I gotcha, don’t worry Zero, we’ll take care of the riff raff and go scoop up the others. Just relax, catch your breath. Helluva last stand though, we’re gonna have to watch the footage later once we’re squared away at the Nest.” Durd’s soothing words were enough to make a grown man cry, but Altimer was in too much pain to answer and instead grit his teeth in silence.

“Not bad for a first mission though, though I gotta say you probably could’ve gone with a few more… tools to help out, if you catch my drift. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get kitted out next time we land on Korizan,” he said while he propped Altimer against a barricade.

As he began walking away, he turned back and turned his speakers on, “Oh! Welcome to Bravo Team!” he yelled. With a final thumbs up, Page Durd joined the others and left him to recover. Sighing, Altimer closed his eyes and the world immediately turned dark, dragging him into exhaustion induced sleep.

***

Page Altimer woke with a start, looking around frantically and then wincing as the motion caused a ripple of pain down his body.

“C’mon Zero, get up. We have to go grab Squire Rale and agent Rolo, we don’t have much time.” Blinking, Altimer looked up at Page Loraine gesturing with her head towards the Infiltrator where the others were quickly making their way up the ramp, grabbing the grav lift on their way but leaving everything else behind.

“Wh-what about the gear?” he asked.

“Leave it, Squire’s orders. Now hurry the fuck up, we have to move,” she said before walking towards the infiltrator.

Groaning, Altimer stood up and took a step towards the infiltrator before stopping and turning. He hesitated for just a second before turning around and picking up the loose Shredder, removing the feed connection before following the others.

“Page Altimer, leave that gear behind! If you’re the re-” Page Ulied began saying before she was interrupted by one of the others he assumed. They could order him whatever they wanted, but Altimer was bringing his goddamn Shredder and they could waste time trying to stop him or shut the hell up and move out of his way. He’d had enough bullshit for one day and Page Ulied remained quiet as he walked up the ramp and sat down in the deployment bay with the others. Locking himself in his seat, he dragged the Shredder until it was mag locked vertically hugging the large barrels to his person as he was the last one to settle in.

No one said anything as the AI began dislodging them from Outsider with the sound of screeching metal and the rumble of it’s powerful engines vibrating through the thick walls. Soon, they were on their way towards the other end of the alien ship where Squire Rale and agent Rolo were waiting, hopefully with the latter still alive. It didn’t take long to arrive, the dull thuds hitting the ship signalling that they made it to the outer fringe of the debris field.

“Be advised, approaching squire class beacon ‘Rale’ in approximately one minute. Warning, decreasing oxygen levels until deployment bay is sealed.” After a few moments, the lights turned red, followed by the female voice of the AI. They were all wearing their suits and none of them save for Page UIieds, which had been patched up from the earlier fight, were compromised. It didn’t take long before the doors of the infiltrator opened up and released what little air in the cabin had, revealing the vastness of space beyond their metal shell. A black metal suit filled the doorway not long after, dragging a misshapen, flesh like cocoon with it.

The hulking mass had drastically shrunken over the time it took for Bravo team to get to the Infiltrator and bring it towards Squire Rale’s location, leaving it roughly twice the size of a normal adult before they arrived. Just in time too, as Page Ulied hit the door button and sealing the room once more, the mass of flesh unfolded and revealed a retching agent Rolo. His unprotected veins around his face were dark and sickly, his eyes blood-shot and giving him a feral look while a cloud of small cyan colored crystals spread out from the emaciated and unrecognizable corpse next to him. His hands were painted in it’s blood with small parts of it’s shell stuck to the openings in his palms while the front of his body was red from his own battle with the Guardian. He laid on the floor, crumpled up and shivering while his wings quivered from exhaustion. His sword was

The lights turned from red to a normal pale yellow, signalling that the oxygen levels had returned to normal. While the agent was left alone to recover, Squire Rale walked past him and through the armory until he was inside the helm. It had a single seat, steering controls and a navigational equipment but were only ever used in an emergency in case the AI was malfunctioning. Squire Rale sat in the chair, squeezing himself in a little and pulled up the enlarged keyboard, made to be compatible with Excalibur suits. Quickly, he typed in a set of return commands and checked the status of the ship, satisfied with the information before he felt the engine warm-up again to take them back to the Vulture’s Nest.

Meanwhile, Page Durd had gotten up from his seat and placed the agent’s black cloak over him, though wet with alien blood from where he grabbed it on top of a crate before they left Outsider. Quietly he returned to his seat and the rest of them sat in silence while the ship began its return to the Nest. Altimer felt uncomfortable looking down at the vulnerable agent Rolo and turned to his side, facing the unfamiliar soldier from Echo team. Looking over in the ‘members’ tab in the communication menu to the side of his visor, he saw the stranger as ‘E3 - Borenth (P)’. Echo 3, named Borenth and he’s a Page, just like Altimer. Gulping, he glanced at his scratched up armor and started talking over the general comms.

“So, uh, sorry about your squad. I had to relay it to the Nest, um, yeah. Sorry,” he said. Embarrassed, Altimer stopped talking and placed his protected head against the barrels of the Shredder and intended to shut up for the rest of the ride.

“No harm done, Altimer. Thank you, but there’s no need to apologize for anything. My team got unlucky, that’s all there’s to it. I’m just glad to make it out alive and I’m sorry for your losses as well,” he said while gesturing to a missing seat, two but for the one Borenth was in.

“Oh, uh, okay then. I’m pretty new to the team myself, so I didn’t know the other two very well. But thank you, too.” They remained quiet for a stretch of time, just winding down and letting the nerves calm while agent Rolo grasped his cloak and began crawling over to his seat, dragging his inactive sword across the floor. “So, you have any idea what you’re going to do when we get back?” Altimer said.

“Well, usually my Squire would tell me and the others to go wherever and report the mission once we get back, but since I’m all that’s left of Echo…” he trailed off, shrugging before reaching over to a pouch and pulling out a bundle of dirty strands of metal. Dogtags. They still carried the dried blood of their previous owners a memento of their final stand. “Other than that, I’ll have to bring these to the memory hall for processing. There’ll be a service in the next few days, probably. We lost a lot of good soldiers on this mission,” Borenth said.

“Yeah.” There was nothing else to say, no words could ease the stress that plagued them still, the silence of the others louder than if they had spoken.

“I saw you had a bit of a tough situation yourself, but you came out on top. Not bad, uh, Altimer?” Altimer hugged the barrels a little closer to himself, though that wasn’t much.

“Yeah, I thought I was going to die when that big fucking monster showed up. It was shooting those… big spear things, I don’t know what the hell they were called. But they tore through those barricades like nothing, almost went right through me but just missed by this much,” he said while holding out his thumb and forefinger a small distance apart.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, I know. Gonnas see that shit in my nightmares, man.”

“One of those got Ronald and Clive too, at the end. Those monsters, I wish we could’ve stayed and killed ‘em all.” Loraine was sitting next to Durd, her partner in crime when she first heard the other Pages talking. Altimer and Borenth were talking about the same creatures of the Swarm that ambushed them and almost killed Ulied, but murdered Ronald and Clive in another encounter. Clenching her fists, she tried to forget their limp forms pinned to the walls while thousands of little shadows danced in the gunfire light.

“They were standing with us, alive and breathing before they were just gone,” she said with a crack in her voice. At this point, they had all turned their heads to look at her, even Squire Rale who’d just stepped back into the room. The only person not staring at her was the colvulsing form of agent Rolo, who found his way into a corner with only his cloak to cover him with. He didn’t ask for help and no one offered it, him being alive was good enough for them. Afterall, for all they knew it was his fault two of their members were gone.

“We couldn’t even take their bodies or we’d be joining them too.” Durd tried to pat her on the back but the metallic clang of his gauntlet hitting her armor was a tad too loud in the small space, so he left his land on her shoulder for support. She turned her microphone after that and refused to say another word to any of them except Durd, who had turned towards her and nodded his head to a silent conversation.

“I know how she feels. The first three or four of my squad died before I could figure out what we we’re fighting. By the time we had backed up into that room, our numbers had already been reduced to too low, slowly falling to those fucking things one at a goddamn time. I thought… I thought towards the end there, I was a goner. Yah, know? I saw glimpses of my childhood pass by with every missed slash, working my way up until there was nothing to free my mind but kill, survive and kill again.” Borenth tried to hold his head, but his protected hands couldn’t reach through the helmet, frustrating him. His head hurt and a heavy hand had gripped his heart, squeezing it too hard.

Altimer reached over and bonked his head with his knuckles, stopping the grieving Page from spiraling out of control. They stared at each other for a couple of seconds before Borenth spoke up.

“What was that for?” he said.

“Because you still have a job to do, we all do. I almost died too, but we gotta get this over before we lose our shit. Then we get shit faced and pass out at the bar.” Everyone turned their heads to look at him and he was thankful no one could see his blushing cheeks through the black glass of his visor. But a moment later, the silence was filled with a snort and then laughter, the gentle voice of Page Yester ringing through the channel. Her silence had left the deployment pay noticeably more silent as she was always the one to strike up new conversations and keep people talking, so hearing her laugh for the first time since they first made contact with the Swarm was a balm to their souls. It didn’t take long before some of the others began to laugh, but though Loraine and Borenth were still solemn, you could hear them trying to keep it together as they all began talking.

It wasn’t because they were trying to be disrespectful of the lives lost or their memories, but that the weight was beginning to settle on their shoulders without crushing them. They would have plenty of time at night to stare at the ceiling or else close their eyes and watch their deaths over on loop. They may have been trained to be soldiers unlike any that had ever existed, but at the end of the day they were still human.

Now in a more casual environment, the G.U.N. soldiers passed the minutes away in conversation until the ship jerked slightly before the sounds of metal clicking sounded out in rapid succession. A moment later, the red button beside the door of the deployment bay lit up and the ships A.I. spoke over the intercom.

“Successful linking with Vulture’s Nest. Exit doors are safe to open. Goodbye.” With tired motions, Squire Rale walked over to the exit door and punched the button lightly, opening up to the brightly lit hallway with people in workman’s clothes and other armed G.U.N. soldiers walking by.

“Alright everyone, one at a time, you know the drill. Standard deactivation, don’t make a fuss now. I’m looking at you, Page Ness.” One by one, the members of Bravo team stopped by Squire Rale for several seconds before exiting with their guns on their backs. When Altimer stopped in front of the Squire, he took away his weapon privileges for his Brutalizer and told him to leave the Shredder with him. He was reluctant to part with it, but Squire Rale told him he’d talk to one his buddies about sighing him up for some heavy weapons training and enough credits to fine tune his suit and to pay for the work some wrench monkey’s he knew that could outfit the Shredder to something a little less destabilizing. So with the grease applied to the squeaky wheel, Page Altimer placed his broken Shredder near one of the seats and left the ship.

All that was left was Squire Rale and agent Rolo himself. By this point, the agent had stopped shivering and had regained enough of his composure to speak, though it came out as a whisper.

“So, is this it? No more orders for me?” Squire Rale asked through his speakers.

“No. You’ve done enough, all of you. I’m sorry about your troops, Squire, but we needed that queen, believe me. You’re dismissed.” whispered agent Rolo in a raspy voice.

“Agent Rolo, good day to you.” Crossing his fist over his chest, he walked out of the Infiltrator and left agent Rolo behind in the corner of the room, still seated. Sighing to himself, he shook his head lightly to free himself of guilt but couldn’t get rid of that rotting ichor that wrapped around his heart. His arrogance was not the reason they died, he wasn’t omniscient and couldn’t know that would happen. Silently, he was just thankful more didn’t die to those things but he had a feeling the other teams fared much worse than Bravo. But such concerns were minor, personal ones at the end of the day and as Page Altimer said, they had a job to finish.

They all did.

With a quick glimpse of that inner place, he mustered his will and strung an intangible cord, relaxing until he felt a pressure welling up inside him. Once the pressure reached into the realm of pain, he gritted his teeth and took rapid, shallow breaths. The wave of crushing force was building up to its zenith, threatening to burst through the physical world when it poured out in a river of condensed power. In front of a panting agent Rolo, a figure appeared.

They wore violet robes that reached their right above the metal ankles of their feet, invisible strands of smoke curling off their body and reaching out into the world around it. It’s robotic hand rested on the handle of a sword sheathed at it’s waist while the other held a glowing orb that was dimming with every second. A white mask covered it’s face and glowing runes covered every inch of it. The same runes shone on the robes and robotic limbs as well, but to a much lesser degree. Whipping it’s head to the side, it made a hand gesture and one of those invisible tendrils pushed against the red button, sealing them in the Infiltrator. Turning back to face agent Rolo, the figure spoke in a lilting accent, almost musical.

“Blood Sword Rolo, what have you found?”

“Hallowed Iron, I found the Swarm, a small hive,” he said.

“Indeed?” the stranger said, it’s interest bleeding through.

“But I also found a queen, her brain assimilated.” He tapped his lower right side, the finger thudding against the thick plating of his carapace.

“Wonderful, the Seed of Mars will sing in rejoice! You’ve done well agent Rolo, I’m sure with the data you’ll bring that there will be some interesting mutations for you and the other Blood Swords. And where did you find this queen?”

“An alien ship, looks local to the Baltic systems but couldn’t confirm.”

“Hm, interesting. Well I’ll make sure to ask the Seed for guidance and relay the information towards the Blades. What a splendid day! Please, take my hand, Blood Sword.” Rolo hesitated to reach out and touch its open hand. Hallowed Irons were feared for their mystical ways of bending the rules of the universe to their whim, one misstep and Rolo would end up at the ass end of the universe. But he was eager to see his family, those who saw the galaxy as their domain, ripe for human conquest. He was a child amongst children, but it would be through their actions that it would bend the knee through them to the one that watched over them. Reaching out, he placed his hand in the Hallowed Irons and they vanished, blinking through this reality into the one’s who’s roots touched them all.

He was a Sword of Mars and he was ready to go home.