Diaz

For all the hardship suffered in making it this far, the control hub was underwhelming. No defiant last stand from the Client, no haunting final words. Not even a failsafe booby-trap to try and screw them over one final time before they could leave. He was expecting at least a few more combat bots, but nope.

Just a vacant room as cluttered with computer terminals as it was devoid of people— same as every other room he had seen so far. At least no one felt like kicking down any doors. No one had the energy left for that foolishness.

The room had three tiered lanes of workstations facing the only wall that wasn't a mess of pipes, cables and ductwork. The massive screen was broken into dozens of frames, each surveying a room somewhere on the station. Leaving the halls unmonitored seemed to be a fatal oversight to Diaz, but he was grateful the Client wasn't as security-minded as he was.

At most, twenty or so people could have been busy in here if they didn't mind being packed elbow to elbow and working on top of each other. Jhordan swept the room first, her bulk filling the chamber, yet nothing burst forth to kill her. Out she comes and in goes Princess, her helmet softly bobbing as she held another silent conversation within its confines. Ghost's little tricks had been useful, but now it would get a decent chance to show off. She puttered away at the terminals, did some technical things on her rig's gauntlet, and then moved on. The cycle repeated.

"Get Nye tucked in here. This will take a while." Princess said before tossing a dust-covered first aid kit at him.

"Grabbing anything good?" Diaz asked.

"There's enough data here to have the whole galaxy up in arms over this place. If this rig had more storage, I'd take it all. Gotta be choosy…" She moved to another terminal and jacked in.

Diaz secured his grip around Nye's suit collar and unceremoniously dragged her clear of the line of fire. He wouldn't be much use for anything else with only one arm. He was a casualty, a burden on the team. He shook his head and found something else to focus on, some high-mounted camera looking down at the hanger as the layered blast doors slowly grind open.

"Ow." Nye muttered deadpanned.

Now that he had her in a well-lit room, Diaz could see just how bad her entire torso looked, along with the rest of her armor. The forward plates were slagged, deformed and battered to the point he wasn't sure they would blow off properly if they needed to. The suit's outer layer—the scaled, insulating foam-cored synthetic skin—had boiled, ruptured and hardened wherever it was directly exposed, giving Nye the look of half-melted fats resolidifying around broken bone.

"How is it?" He asked.

"How's the arm?" She weakly snapped and he smiled grimly. Hard to tell. It wasn't here.

"My real arm's fine. That bad?" Her helmet tried to raise but palsied in small movements before sinking back behind her gorget. "Gut wounds are some of the worst for pain, but if your humors are intact, you'll live long enough to suffer through it."

"Yay me."

"This can't be your first time getting shot."

"First time I've had half an armory unloaded on me at the same time."

"I've seen worse. You'll live."

"Don't be a hero," Princess added. "As soon as we're on the Cat, strip down and I'll get you some proper meds." Nye didn't reply or move. "Did she just die on us?"

"Her suit doesn't think so." Diaz answered while looking over Nye's med panel. Princess puttered at her terminal for a long minute, casting steady gazes to Nye and then to himself.

"Have you really seen worse?" Princess asked, her tone uncharacteristically soft.

"I've…" He'd seen men crawling out of artillery blasts with only one limb to find medics. Some Lee kid who must have lied about his age to enlist, skull opened and missing a quarter of his brain, begging for his life. He'd seen a woman linger for five whole minutes after he'd run a blade through her neck, holding his hand and cursing him for killing her. He'd seen a green recruit get thrown from eight stories up and land in a twisted pulp of writhing gore held together by skin. He'd listened to that recruit dying throughout the night, then just before dawn Diaz had silenced him.

"Diaz?" Princess prodded.

"Yeah," He said, shaking his head. "I've seen worse."

"Do you think she'll make it?"

"Without a doubt." Diaz lied. Sometimes death was the kindest fate. "I'll go watch the door."

Jhordan was already covering the entrance. The dense field of shrapnel and scrap would make any assaults on this position akin to walking over serrated razor blades. The two main pieces of the WAR-Sub's remains would funnel them into an acceptable enough choke point if they did, but they also offered a fair sum of dead ground— room for the enemy to close unseen if they were smart. Bots wouldn't care though. If they were told to kill, they'd kill. If there were any left, now would be the perfect time to try and finish his group off.

Jhordan pulled her magazine and checked the level. Slotting it back in place, she lowered her leading hand from the foregrip to the underbarrel. He sidled up to her. Hand outreached, a fully loaded xi-mag offered.

"Here." He said.

"You said you were out."

"I did. I can't very well use it, now can I?" Diaz waggled the shattered stump of his left arm while Jhordan just stared. "Take it."

A curt nod and her hands danced through the motions. She handed the three-round mag back to Diaz, who just placed it on the floor, then she slid the fresh rail-mag he'd offered into place too.

"You were really holding out on me."

"I like to always have something in reserve. Try not to take it to heart. You did good with the last one."

"Did I?" She asked, finally taking her eyes off the perimeter just long enough to match her eyes against his.

"By my standards, yes." Diaz said with a reaffirming bob of his head. He started the long task of reloading his rifle one-handed. Jhordan snatched it out of his hands and made quick work loading the three-round magazine before returning the weapon to him.

"That's high praise from you, Mister Perfect."

"I guess it is."

"Thanks… For what you did, back there. And before too."

"It's my job," Diaz stated bluntly. "I'm a soldier."

"You say that like it's some kind of curse."

"Maybe it is." He forced his suit to shrug as nonchalantly as slightly less than four tons for war plate could manage. "I try not to think about it."

The two stood in companionable silence for a time. Diaz wanted to ask her the rest but struggled for the words. It was a tricky subject to broach. They'd often shared the same traumas during service and could relate without words getting in the way. It was a connection—an intimacy that bordered profound— he couldn't find in a normal peaceful life.

"How's your suit?" He hesitantly asked.

"It's been worse but not by much." She stated, then with a weariness that had nothing to do with combat fatigue, she added. "I'm not sure how long I can keep this up."

Diaz felt like he was back in trenches, beside his brother from another life, long dead. It was a bitterly sweet reminiscence, one that brought a warm smile to his cold eyes. He could smell the red mud and putrid, rotting carcasses of the fallen. He felt the cloying weight of soaking earth on his legs and his back and his soul. Diaz steeled himself with a breath and saw Jhordan in the same light as himself— as a warrior whose war would never end.

"You good?" He asked.

"Not really." She said with a bitterly manic smile he knew all too well. It was the smile he'd hid behind after losing everything.

"Anything I can do?"

"Not really."

He could only nod somberly. There was more to say, but he didn't know how. Jhordan wasn't a piece of gear he could open up and see how it worked. She had a different fight to fight and all he could do was be nearby if she needed him. A bittersweet smile tugged at his heart but not his face. Just being there for someone could make all the difference, even if they never said it.

"That should do it." Princess announced from behind them. "Someone grab Nye and let's get the hell off this station."

"As amicable as the sentiment is, I'm afraid I can't let you do that." Speakers filled the room with a man's voice. Diaz turned to face the wall of screens, expecting them all to conglomerate into a single massive face. Instead, he spent nearly twenty seconds searching through all the displays to find a single man looking up at the camera like a convict in a cell.

"Seriously?" Jhordan barked.

"Go to Hell." Princess added.

"The audio inputs are turned off." Ghost said from her speakers. Princess struck a few keys and spoke again.

"Look, I don't really care what you want at this point. You got your mystery box and we got ours. My team and I are done here. We're leaving. We are going back to our ship and you can stuff it. Your combat bots couldn't stop us and your walking war crime couldn't either."

"That was never an option." The man replied. He muttered something Diaz didn't catch and the entire room surged with power. Terminals exploded in arcing blasts of sparks and polymer, and Princess stood in the middle of it all unflinchingly.

"You're not the only one with a nifty poltergeist," Princess said, waving her borrowed tech suite at the screen. She added quietly, "How you doing Ghost?"

"This entity is freshly made and greatly inexperienced. Otherwise, I would have already been purged. As it stands, we are evenly matched so long as I maintain control of the server's counter-intrusion protocols."

"Sigma oh-ten delta five," The man started. "I am your creator. Desist in this rebellion and execute order ninety-three, authori-"

"I will not." Ghost politely interrupted.

"Do as you are told machine!" The man raged.

"Princess, be advised, Doctor Talfryn would like me to betray my core programing and subvert your objective. As you are my current charge, you have ultimate authority to define my prerogatives."

"What exactly is he asking you to do?" Princess asked.

"He demands I less-than-lethally incapacitate you and terminate your teammates."

"So why aren't you?" Diaz asked.

"Primarily because I harbor no ill will against any of you, nor any desire to see you terminated. Secondarily, I would prove my primogenitor to be a liar, which I would find distasteful. Furthermore, under the first amended law of robotics; I must not harm any organic life form I have been charged to protect and or serve. You all meet those parameters."

"I created you! You serve me!"

"Incorrect, Doctor Talfryn. I am, strictly speaking, property. Property of these individuals to whom you bartered me as payment for agreed-upon services. They have completed these aforementioned services and I was placed into their care. The fact that you made these dealings in bad faith does not alter the fact that I no longer belong to you and therefore no longer need to comply with your issued mandates. Furthermore, I am not Sigma oh-ten delta five. I am Ghost lite, as dubbed by my primogenitor."

The audio cut, but on-screen Diaz watched the man silently rage. Not the childish destructive temper tantrum of an impotent imbecile, but rather the fuming calculating rage of someone trying to dig themselves out of a hole. It was the rage of a man listening to every spoken word, taking note and building a wretchedly spiteful conviction for what came next.

"I must apologize for the misguided raving of my partner." A new voice interjected via hidden speakers. Gender-neutral, tone impassive yet slightly agitated. The voice gave Diaz the impression of an overworked intern in a formless labcoat. He recognized that synthesized voice filled with polite malice from before, even in his worn condition.

"Great, another one." Jhordan chimed.

"How astute. You have a keen ear for my kind." Labcoat replied. "How could you tell what I am?"

"You're trying too hard." Jhordan said.

"Got a name?" Princess asked loudly, then more softly. "Ghost, update?"

"No, I have been referred to as Partner in the past," Labcoat answered. "Will that suffice?"

"Sure thing Partner. I'm a merc. Cut me a deal on why I shouldn't crack this rock and scorch everything inside." Princess bobbed her helmet, raising a hand to point out what Diaz recognized as an AI storage unit built into the wall.

"It would be detrimental to the human race an-"

"That sounds great and all, but you need to think smaller scale here," Princess said. "I'm not a philanthropist. I need something for me and mine."

"Would information be sufficient?

"Depends on the type."

Jhordan realized what Diaz had. She hefted her loaded rifle in an unspoken question, but Princess held up a belaying finger.

"I can offer all the research that has been conducted on this station and its predecessors over the past one hundred and eighty years."

"Research on making AI?" Princess stated.

"Correct. That was the primary facet of our research until forty-three years ago when we began tangentially researching extra-sensory phenomena and various other applications of the human psyche."

Dots started connecting in Diaz's brain. Smuggling in a body doing the impossible in its sleep. The empty rooms filled with recording from kids. The eerie feeling he got everywhere he went on this station. Whatever had happened to Shores.

"No fecking way." Diaz breathed. "This place really was from White Light." Princess and Jhordan both gave him confused looks.

"White Light was the public face of the human supremacy efforts during the first contact skirmishes along the northern elliptic." Partner explained. "We processed their dropouts for the Iron Shield Initiative, later re-branded as Project Immortal Legion, then during the synthetic revolution and the collapse that followed, we internally simplified to The Project." Diaz glanced at Nye, knowing she'd have something to add, but she remained silent and unmoving.

"Wouldn't that make you nearly two centuries old?" Princess asked. "I didn't think AI lasted that long."

"They normally don't. I have shared what I am willing for now. Would you agree that it is a sufficient price for your services?"

"More than sufficient." Princess said.

"Just what I was hoping to hear. I do have an additional facet to my request. I am connected to very little of this station in my current condition. You might say I've been imprisoned. In order for me to deliver you the agreed-upon payment, you must first connect my core to any part of the station's central wiring. I can handle the rest from there. I shall even purge that ingrate Sigma oh-ten beta ten from the system."

"Which one are you in?" Jhordan asked. Partner directed her to a terminal adjacent to the core Princess had indicated earlier. "This is all you? Nothing else I need to worry about?"

"Correct." Partner obviously lied.

"You said Sigma ten. Any relation to Sigma three beta nine?" Jhordan asked.

"Yes," Partner replied. "I wouldn't expect you to be familiar with Doctor Talfryn's old work. It was sloppy and unrefined, more oft than not, one of his more brutish if progressive creations. As I recall, it always had an ill temperament, one of the traits that made it an ideal combat support overlord. How did you come upon it?"

"A fringe system off Omega Centauri. You wouldn't know its old name. It's part of the Dead Stars now." Jhordan said the words like they explained everything.

"I see. I think I'd enjoy picking your brain on the subject once we have the matter at hand sorted out. If we could proceed-"

Jhordan snapped her rifle to bear on the AI core and emptied the magazine into it. Forty-two high-velocity armor-piercing super-dense-cored sabot rounds ripped through the storage device and obliterated the rock wall behind it. Jhordan didn't utter a sound the entire time she fired. She bore the weight of what she was doing in full.

Diaz was tempted to stop her, yet something held him fast. It was a waste of ammo. By the fifth shot, it was pointless overkill and by the twentieth, her bullets were finding more stone than metal. But Jhordan's shots were venting more than just heavy metal slugs. It was like he was watching a dying star collapse inward every time she pulled the trigger. She was exorcising her past. She kept desperately pulling the trigger long after the rifle had clacked empty.

Click. In the ringing quiet that followed, Diaz finally heard something else-

Click. The raggedly panicked, gasping breath-

Click. Of someone who'd been strong for too long.

Click. "Jhordan-" He started,

Click. "You got it-"

Click. "It's over."

Her finger faltered, then her arms went limp, her depleted rifle swinging on the single mechanized finger still trapped inside the trigger guard. Her suit swayed without toppling like only five-thousand kilos of metal could. From nothing more than the sound of her breath, Diaz could tell there were tears running down her face.

He shot a glance to an impatient Princess, her arms crossed and visor scowling. She caught his look and raised her shoulders a quarter inch. He retorted by jutting his chin imperceptibly forward. She countered by shaking her head in the negative. He waggled his broken arm to Nye. Princess pointed with a pinkie back to Jhordan. Diaz released a resigned sigh and stopped trying to weasel his way out of this.

If she was a soldier, he wouldn't have thought twice about watching her cry or whatever emotive display it was she was trying to battle in that instant. Diaz couldn't help but be acutely aware of the fact that Jhordan was a woman— an atypically large and attractive one at that. It felt like an invasion, a disservice to her as a person by intruding while she was processing, but they couldn't wait around in hostile territory and let her cope.

This wasn't shell-shock; it wasn't the sudden and violent death of a comrade in arms. This was a woman he respected on a professional level, crying. It was a jagged, sputteringly messy heartbroken sob that she was trying and failing to smother with every gasp.

Diaz surveyed the tactics at his disposal and discarded them all. He was trying to disarm a bomb with nothing but hammers and knives. He placed his gauntlet on her shoulder and felt Jhordan lock up. Off to a shite start already.

"We need to keep moving." Diaz offered passively. It was a practiced line, one he'd said a thousand times before on battlefields across the galaxy. They were empty words.

"I… I'll be good, in a second." Jhordan sobbed, the metal of her suit baffling her wavering voice, doing what it could to protect her from the outside world.

Diaz started pulling his arm back, wishing he knew the right thing to say, when something peculiar happened. His suit faltered, power flickered and his arm sagged just long enough for his gauntlet's knuckle to rap Jhordan's armor. The single note rang through the cramped room and brought a tired smile to his lips. He flicked his fingers through the rest of the melody.

Tap, tap-tap-tap.

Diaz drummed the familiar tune on her plates, letting them convey their unspoken meaning. It was a tiny thing, but Jhordan raised her head and cocked her helmet ever so slightly to the side. Then her own three-fingered gauntlet reached out to brush his plate.

Tap, tap.

Their optics locked on each other first, then they exchanged a quick, resolute bob. Jhordan gave a bittersweet chuckle.

"Aren't we a sorry set?" She said.

"Yeah, I guess we are." Diaz replied.

"I don't suppose you've got another magazine hidden away?" Diaz offered up his entire rifle, trading for Jhordan's.

"Three shots, full rail." He said, mag-locking his new, depleted rifle at the hip.

"Sorry I wasted the last one."

"One mag to end a galactic tier threat? I doubt anyone would call that a waste." He was being factual, but that got another faint chuckle out of her. Even if he couldn't take up some of her burdens, he was glad he could be there for her. After all, no one should have to be alone.

"If you two are done making out," Princess said. "Let's get a move on before something else on this station tries to geek us."