“Remind me never to piss you off,” muttered Dakota as she pulled Anna’s corpse off Mai.

Mai said nothing, she was too busy activating her HEALING and TREAT SERIOUS WOUNDS. There was nothing to be said. She couldn’t think of a time when she’d have to fight her friend. Even the memory of Johnny’s betrayal couldn’t shake that belief.

“What the hells do we do now?” asked Chan as he directed a couple of the remaining command centre rebels to remove Anna’s corpse.

“We get ready,” Mai replied. “We build.”

“Build?” Chan held his hands out in confusion.

“Build,” echoed Mai. “Let’s make this base as tough as we can.”

“Okay,” Chan called up a holomap of the base. “Which nodes can you update?”

Mai RedFanged her expansion menu to the holomap.

“First off, I can add a number of turrets to the entrance corridor, and it looks like I can also add thicker doors. Way thicker than the internal ones. And a lot of traps too. Maybe even the odd holdout room.”

“That will slow them down, but what we really need is to cause heavy casualties,” Dakota interrupted. “We should place traps outside in the sewers. Start hitting them before they even reach us.”

“Good idea!” Chan agreed. “We can use our people to do that sort of thing. No need to use expansion points as we’ve got more than enough bio-mass to seed the sewers for hundreds of paces.”

“Have none of them got expansion menus for the missions they’ve done previously?” asked Mai.

“Some, but none have done anything to the level you did. Never really thought to. It was down to Anna,” Chan replied.

“But, with Mai sharing this, they can shoulder the burden,” Dakota pointed to a few of the smaller jobs. “And if they expand the base, they should earn points to be able to expand it further.”

Makes sense, surprising that none of them managed to pick up a mission that let them grow this base. It bugged her that the rebels had been content to carry out missions that allowed them to grow their base beyond the initial build, but had utterly failed to use the points they’d earned to expand it. They hadn’t even done anything to make their living quarters more comfortable. It made no sense that Anna would basically make things harder for them all.

“Why didn’t anyone just do it on their own accord?” She asked as she dropped a couple of minigun turrets into the entrance corridor. Each of them cost fifty expansion points, but that barely made a dent in the number of points available to them.

“We never even looked, Mai,” Chan said in an exasperated tone. Anna was the leader. She had complete control over everything. Maybe you had to be a certain level?” That still didn’t explain why none of them had made small changes using nanites. Even a few home comfort

“What, you didn’t level either?” scoffed Dakota.

“Not much,” Chan hung his head. “Our activities were low-level. Anna didn’t want us to put our necks on the line too much.”

“So when did you start taking in Cullers?” Mai dropped two thick doors onto the entrance corridor. They had a soak of over one thousand each. She didn’t want to see the sort of weapon they were designed to stop.

“Dakota’s group was the first. Anna was going to send them over to Biyu’s and a couple of other cells. Split them up."

“Which would have meant that she wouldn’t have had to expand the base,” sighed Mai. “Look, I’ll do what I can and use the expansion points. Get the rest to make additional touches, make this more comfortable. We’ve got more than enough bio-mass to do this, so let’s make this a place actually worth living in.”

Chan shrugged, there was nothing more to be said on the matter. Anna hadn’t wanted changes, so things hadn’t changed. Mai wanted changes, so things would be changed.

“Talking of Biyu, get her and her people over here. Their base is still wrecked, and we might as well consolidate here.” said Mai. Chan nodded and sub-vocalised an order.

“Message on its way. They’ll be here within a couple of hours of receiving it,” he reported.

“What did we get then?” Dakota leaned towards the holomap. “Three rooms on this corridor, expansion to the canteen and ooooh.”

That last was prompted by the list of traps which could be installed throughout the base.

“Pits, spike traps, laser beams, acid pools, acid sprayers, gas, and fire traps,” Chan laughed. Mai smiled at how the two of them were practically drooling.

“What’s the build time on these?” asked Dakota.

“The changes I made were instantaneous,” Mai explained, demonstrating by dropping a spike pit into the entrance corridor.

“How long do you think Melissa can hold out?” Dakota had opened another menu and was scrolling through it.

“Not long. Imperial Torturers can have you swearing blind that the sky is blue if they want to,” Mai said, tone grim. Everyone knew the myth of a blue sky, but none believed it. Afterall, all you had to do was look up to see the true colour of the sky.

“Best get to it. And I think you should build this room first. It takes up more expansion grids,” chuckled Dakota.

Mai followed Dakota’s finger and smiled as she saw what had excited her friend so much just moments ago.

“Mecha room?” Chan leaned forward to look at the details. “And mecha maintenance. Oh, I agree, you just have to build these.”

“Seriously? Mecha, in an underground base?” scoffed Mai.

“We can raise the ceilings and widen the halls to take them. There’s one, the Type 99, otherwise known as the Pinyin. It’s a one-person close assault mecha, known as the Mark Three,” Dakota ignored her friend. “Only three metres tall, and with a good range of armament. Twin those with the suit you unlocked, and we’ll kick arse. And once we’re in the sewers, we’re going to really upset the Imperials.”

“Fine,” Mai held up her hand to quieten Dakota. “We’ve got forty people in the base. We’ll break them into eight squads of five mecha each. There’s enough bio-mass booster to not need my old suit.”

“Good idea. One heavy-hitter, anti-armour, that sort of thing,” Chan selected a Pinyin Mark 2. It was armed with an anti-mecha railgun as its primary weapon, and a 30mm hyper-velocity cannon.

“Nice choice,” Dakota brought up the plans for the Mark 3. “This is a good anti-personnel suit. It’s got options for flamers, acid throwers, miniguns, and even automatic grenade launchers.”

“And they’ve even got a stealth mecha, called the Cike.”

“Assassin? You can get stealth mecha?” laughed Dakota, rubbing her hands together.

“Pinyin Mark 1,” Mai replied as she called it up. “Systems scramble retinal monitors, mess with automated aiming systems, even move silently.”

“Who gets what?” Dakota licked her lips as she looked at the Mark 3.

“Fine. We’ll go with three squads of Mark 2s, Chan can lead them. Dakota, you’ll have a squad of anti-mecha, and I’ll take the cike.”

Both of her sub-commanders nodded, looking pleased with her choices.

“Not going to mix them up?” asked Chan.

“No,” Mai shook her head. “I thought about it, but I think that we’ll be better off massing our hunter-killers rather than spreading them out.”

“Hunter-killer, I like that,” laughed Dakota.

“Well, guess we better get to it then,” Mai followed her words with action as she started to expand the base.

*

“This is fucking awesome!” Dakota spun in her heavy mecha, arms stretched out wide. “There’s a small amount of lag between deciding what you’re going to do and the suit doing it, but once you get that sorted, it’s as if you’re one with it.”

Mai laughed to see her friend so happy. Other members of the base were similarly experimenting with their suits. The mecha hangar was one of the largest rooms she could have added to the base and there was more than enough room for more than double the mechs they had.

“Just don’t go falling over,” she warned as she stepped up into her stealth suit. Settling into the seat, she pulled the safety harness down over her head. Seating itself with a click, she found it surprisingly comfortable despite being so tight to her.

Boots hung down from the bottom of the seat and she slotted her feet into them. Her arms went into special braces. A helmet slowly dropped into place on her head and the head up display stuttered into life.

Syncing with her retinal monitor, the HUD flashed, and a message popped up.

MECHA FAMILIARISATION

DO YOU ACCEPT YES/NO?

Oh fuck yes, she moved her arm to press the YES and laughed as the huge arm of the mecha followed, pressing the YES with its finger rather than hers.

With a gentle whine of servos, the front of the mecha slowly closed.

+++++ WELCOME TO YOUR MECHA +++++

a voice said into her ear. It was utterly devoid of gender and slightly off putting. She hoped that there was a menu where she could select a voice she preferred.

“Thank you,” Mai replied, unsure whether she actually needed to.

+++++ PLEASE TAKE TWO STEPS FORWARD AND THEN TWO BACK +++++

Mai complied. It felt as though there was something holding her feet back as she walked forward. Or as if she was walking into the wind.

Through water. More like through water. Or shit.

It was the same moving backward and she worried that she was going to lose balance. The lag that Dakota had mentioned was disconcerting. It was microseconds slower than her thoughts, almost immeasurable, but it was there.

+++++ PLEASE JUMP AND THEN CROUCH THREE TIMES +++++

Bending her legs, Mai sprung up, the brace moving with her as she did so. It felt as though she was inside a brick with delusions of grandeur, but still, the mecha left the ground. Landing sent a massive boom through the suit and, she thought, the hangar. Tucking down she crouched as low as possible and then repeated the process. This time the mecha leapt much further into the air.

“Woah!” She flailed for balance as it reached its apogee before falling back down to the floor. Having seen others do the same exercises she’d known what to expect but hadn’t expected it to feel so strange.

+++++ ACTIVATE STEALTH +++++

There was a simple red button, with STEALTH written on it. Mai blink-clicked it. Her vision rippled for a second and then a blinking message appeared at the bottom of her HUD.

STEALTH ACTIVATED – 30 SECONDS

Of course it’s limited, can’t have the murder bots invisible all of the time. Still, it was better than nothing, and thirty seconds in a battle was an age.

+++++ PLEASE SELECT WEAPONS +++++

Her suit was armed with a shoulder-mounted tight-beam laser, the first she’d used, and rather like that on the organ drone mothership.

Blink-clicking, she laid the sights onto Dakota’s suit as her friend continued to dance around the room. The tracking was smooth, and she was able to select a LOCK option.

The gun continued to track Dakota without Mai’s input and she grinned as she selected another weapon, this time a small anti-personnel heavy machine gun mounted on the other shoulder. It was a contradiction in terms as the HMG was the size of a large dog, but in comparison to the suit, it was tiny.

Laying the sight onto another rebel, she selected LOCK again. It too tracked the target. Being shoulder-mounted, the weapon had nearly three hundred and sixty degrees of rotation, the only dead spots being slightly to her front and rear within two paces.

+++++ PLEASE SELECT CLOSE COMBAT WEAPONS +++++

She did. From her right-hand blades as long as a man popped out of the fist, lightning writhing over them. The other hand turned into a massive fist with studded knuckles, lightning once more wreathing the fist.

Penetrating and blunt damage, I’m going to be unstoppable! A grin spread across Mai’s face as she tried a few punch and kick combinations at the training programme’s request.

+++++ SUIT TRAINING COMPLETED +++++

NEW SKILL! USE MECHA! RANK 1!

+5% CRITICAL HIT BONUS

Mai stood her suit still for a moment, pulling up her SASS to read the new skill description. It had been a while since she did so, and she was pleased to see how her skills had increased.

USE MECHA - Congratulations soldier, you've proven yourself to be a true and loyal servant of the Ever-living Emperor - may they reign for infinity. Only those deemed worthy enough of such an honour are even allowed to stand in the presence of a machine such as the mecha. You will be able to dominate the battlefield, slaying any and all enemies of our glorious Emperor.

There was an additional tab, with MECHA on it.

What, my suit gets a SASS?

Opening that, she took a while to read through it. It was naturally laid out differently to her, with a diagram showing hit locations, weak points and the amount of SOAK each location had.

The chest had higher SOAK than the back, which made sense, it wasn’t as if she’d been turning her back on the enemy unless things got really bad. There were also a number of hardpoints which would allow her to attach different weapons.

The front stats for her armour were as followed;

Shoulders – 100

Head – 200

Torso – 300

Legs – 250

The rear stats for her armour were as followed;

Shoulders – 75

Head – 150

Torso – 225

Legs – 200

A sub-menu held a number of pre-made options. Selecting one would see all of the alterations needed made in one fell swoop. Whilst she preferred to tweak in her own time, the pre-made variations would most certainly be beneficial if she found herself in a pinch where she didn’t have time to muck around with options. They were handily titled too, with names like ‘Assault’, and ‘Stealth’.

Happy with the default choice of weapons for now, Mai closed the SASS and watched her people practicing with their suits.

Red lights flashed into life and an alarm blared its warning.

DOMINATION – HOLD THE BASE

DO YOU ACCEPT YES/NO?

“They’re here, all personnel to battle stations!” Spinning, Mai sprinted to the command centre, blink-clicking the YES as she ran.