The dawn over Titan was now over, and though still hanging relatively low in the morning sky, the sun was now up and providing its warming sunlight to the land. The final preparations were finished now, and three Titans were about to break into the place that everyone else dreamed about breaking out of.

Suddenly an explosion rocked the stillness of the morning air. It took a few moments before the wail of a siren began going off below, but guards were already moving. Rocky leaped into the fresh hole in the roof first, and when he landed, immediately began running towards the cell he had marked on an overlay on his headset.

His two companions steps behind, Rocky continued down the corridor, a line of cells on either side of him. At the end of the hall was an opening, and a large multi-tiered central hub on the other side where all the other corridors branched off from. Before reaching full speed, he slid to a stop as two robotic security units appeared in the archway.

Rocky fell to his knees and took aim with his Axiom machine pistol. Without needed a signal or a previously discussed plan, Rocco took aim with his new E-Rifle, both firing simultaneously. The bullets punched through the robots’ armor, causing them to do a strange sort of dance as they were pelted, and trying to aim their own weapons. Both fell to the ground sparking under a sustained barrage a moment later. Rocky was on his feet again and moving towards the archway. When he reached the mezzanine, he stopped for a moment to search for a way down one floor.

“He’s below us.” He informed his two companions.

Hot lead whizzed by his head and sparked where it struck the archway. He ducked back inside the opening for cover, while his brother leaned his weapon out to fire a burst back towards those who were firing on them.

“We got a problem Rocky.” Rocco said, still leaning out the archway, tracking opponents with the muzzle of his rifle.

“What now?”

“CMIs”

CMI stood for cybernetic mobile infantry and were a significantly more advanced model than the cheaply made, mass produced Delta series MV1 battle unit. The MV1 were used to fill space and do jobs that would have taken Titans hundreds or thousands of bodies to accomplish, like patrolling borders and guarding the debt internment camps. They were only good in large numbers in other words, where the CMIs were designed for actual strategic combat.

Rocky peeked out from the doorway and saw a dozen battle units walking mechanically up a flight of stairs towards them onto the mezzanine. The wide-open room was multi-tiered with cells lining the walls, and walkways connecting everything. Corridors leading down several long dark shafts sprouted off in intervals. Along the walkway across from them, he saw the heavily armored hulking infantry robots moving towards them. One of them fired a burst from an E-rifle towards them and Rocky ducked back once more.

While the brothers picked targets and continued firing out the doorway, behind them the female Foxen was having a crisis of conscious. She did not want to risk exposure for herself and announcing her powers to the world. There would be cameras in this facility no doubt, and if Zenith had evidence that she was still alive, she knew she would be hunted to the ends of Titan and beyond.

Project Genesis had been the CEO’s pet project, one that his science bots worked on for decades before testing began. From what she knew, the intention was to create an army of Supertitans for his own personal use. The surgeries had been a horrible nightmare for the ones that survived, but most didn’t. He would not tolerate one of his experiments to go free, and if word got back to the military officers where she was, they would spare no expense in hunting her down. She was considered after all, property of Zenith Corp.

All these thoughts weighed heavily in Amiga’s head as she saw the two brave Procyons firing at the security robots. What use was any of it if she remained in hiding for the rest of her life, never experiencing companionship? One of her fists tightened unconsciously as she weighed her actions. She had come along to help, so would she stand behind these males and let them do all the fighting?

“Hell no.” Amiga responded firmly, drawing a confused backwards glance from both Procyons. “Go get him. I’ll deal with these little toys.”

Amiga walked out from the archway, drawing concerned looks from her companions. They looked like they wanted to stop her from walking out unprotected into the line of fire. She exchanged a knowing look with Rocky before striding out into the open. Bullets began pinging off her impenetrable skin as she walked, and both brothers stared at the unbelievable scene, forgetting momentarily that they were being fired at as well.

Amiga walked casually towards the catwalk that led to the floors below and then suddenly rushed the advancing battle units. Her punches and kicks smashed the robots to bits as though they were exactly what she’d called them: toys.

Rocky snapped to his senses, he didn’t understand the specifics of what he had just witnessed or why she was seemingly bulletproof, but he needed to move while she was serving as a distraction. Rocco was right behind him and he ducked low against the railing, a few bullets ricocheting as he ran to catch up to her. Amiga had, in mere moments cleared the stairs and with an incredible bound, leaped across to meet the CMIs head-on. With the remaining Zenith Corp robots focused on her, Rocky made his way down the staircase and found a corridor that branched off that seemed to match his HUD.

As the Procyon pair reached the archway leading down this branch, they immediately ran into another problem. There was an automated turret gun on the ceiling that swiveled and fired their direction. Rocco ran past his brother as he flattened against the side of the wall to do the same thing on the other end of the opening. He spotted two more battle units inside as well.

Rocky was also seeing a large mobilization of troops headed their way from every other direction of the detention center as well. They didn’t have long before a literal swarm of enemies would be upon them. He glanced across the open area towards Amiga, who was now engaging several CMIs at once in hand to hand combat. For all he knew she could take down all of them. He shrugged and glanced over to his brother. Rocco gave him a nod, and without speaking, knew what he wanted to do.

“Smoke.” Rocco voice activated his E-rifle, leaning it in the doorway and pulling the trigger. A thump sounded as the rifle fired two slow moving projectiles into the room that began releasing a cloud of smoke upon impact.

Immediately both brothers left cover and stormed the room. Each one picked a robot to fire at first, knowing they would have infrared cameras installed that would see through the smoke. In between bursts from his machine pistol, Rocky managed to swing his gun upward and shoot at the turret in the middle of the corridor. His burst struck true, and with a shower of sparks it landed on the ground as a heap of useless metal.

Rocco’s bullets tore through both targets until they stopped moving, and he saw the lights deactivate on them. Rocky rushed ahead as soon as the firing stopped, finding a cell that lined up with his HUD and stopped before it. It was a computerized magnetic locking mechanism, something he knew he could hack. He brought up his holo-display and began turning dials and typing in commands, setting his Net-Comm to begin sequentially testing the code.

“This is going to take a few minutes. Watch my back.” He looked back to his brother, who simply nodded in reply and headed back to the doorway.

Rocky waited patiently for his program to begin deciphering the code that kept the door locked as his brother began gleefully shooting from behind cover. Across from them Amiga had destroyed two of the CMIs and was working on freeing prisoners by ripping the doors off their hinges. By the look of the strain that went into it, the task was not easy for even her considerable strength.

Continuing to watch the blips on his heads-up display coming closer, the first wave under them coming into the open room, Rocky began to grow impatient. He looked down at the tracker that was running and saw that his program had run over a hundred thousand coding combinations and cursed how slow it was. Just as he did that, the program blinked a green light at him, letting him know that it had decoded the programming script. He was in.

Rocky typed away and opened every cell block in the entire center. Befuddled Titans of every shape and size stepped out of their cells, some for the first time in a decade. A confused looking brown Mustelid came out from the cell in front of him and squinted his eyes at the dim lighting inside the corridor.

“Timmock?”

The Titan appeared confused at first, as though he didn’t realize that Rocky had been speaking to him. His eyes gained a sense of recognition and he smiled and nodded.

“I haven’t heard a Titan address me by my name in a long time.” The scraggly furred weaselid returned distrustfully. He looked the pair up and down, studying their appearance and seemed to come to a mental conclusion. “Did the Union send you? Oh splendid, I knew they would!”

“Something like that.” Rocky replied. “You’re gonna have to stick close to me. We’re getting you out of here.”

“What about everyone else?” Timmock gestured towards the growing number of Titans who were emerging from their cells.

“We’ll do what we can to help them, but you are our priority.”

Rocky jogged over to his brother, who was still picking targets mostly across the compound. “We gotta go.”

Rocco turned to see the gathering of Titans behind him, all looking to the brothers for some type of leadership or plan.

“Follow me!” Rocco led the charge back out through the walkway.

The entire procession followed in a long train as Rocco moved towards the stairs, leading with his rifle. When he reached the stairs, he didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on another pair of battle units that were beginning to make their way up at them. He continued to move towards them firing, and by the time he reached them, they had stopped moving. He planted his feet them on the ground floor.

“That way!” Rocky pointed towards another corridor branching off to the side.

Rocco led the way firing his E-rifle at more robots on the far end that were shooting at them. Rocky waved the following down the corridor as he stepped up to aide his brother. He looked across the way to see Amiga single handedly stopping the flood of robots from coming in from the opposite side.

“Amiga!” Rocky shouted up at her. “We got him!”

She glanced over her shoulder for a moment as bullets pinged off her and nodded. “Go! I’ll meet up with you!”

With that, he watched the slender Titan female smash an MV1 unit into the side of the wall until it shook apart into pieces. Glad only that she was on their side, he took a quick assessment and saw the way was clear. He bolted down the corridor after slapping his brother’s shoulder. Rocco backed towards the corridor firing at any targets that presented themselves and presenting covering fire for them all.

Rocky raced to the end of the corridor and began placing his second set of explosives. They were small devices that he planted strategically around the wall, in hopes it would knock a hole through it. He then ordered everyone to the front of the hall.

“Fire in the hole!” Rocky shouted, sidestepping into a small room off to the side and plugging his ears. He then sent the command through his Net-Comm to detonate. A moment later another blast rocked the corridor.

“Go!” Rocky waved the group on towards the daylight now shining through the smoke.

Rocky charged through the smoke and residual fire himself and picked out Timmock through the crowd standing outside in the sunlight. Rocco came through the opening shortly after, his face beaming a smile. There was nothing that Titan liked better than a fight, Rocky thought.

“Rocco, can you carry him?” Rocky pointed at Timmock. “We’re going to take you back to Wolton and the rest of the Union.”

Timmock, who was roughly the same size as Rocky, nodded his consent.

“What about her? We gonna leave her?” Rocco pointed a thumb back inside the facility.

“I think she can take care of herself.” Rocky replied drily. “She said she’d meet up with us later.”

Rocco scooped up the other Procyon and nodded.

“On!” Rocco said and the lights on his pack glowed to life. “Fly!”

The thrusters engaged and he lifted off into the sky like some crazy Titan bird. Rocky was right behind him.

* * * *

Amiga was a whirlwind of destruction, taking out every Zenith Corp enemy that presented themselves to her superior senses. She ripped off mechanical limbs and used them as weapons, pounded with her fists and kicks until everything around her was nothing more than a vast scrap yard. When there was nothing left to destroy, she looked around at the scene of wrecked carnage that laid out before her.

The Foxen had been genetically enhanced to be this: a super killing machine, a wrecking ball for the Corporate Empire. There was something satisfying about raging against the corporate machine that had destroyed her life and turned her into this, but also something hollow in fulfilling their destiny they had thrust upon her. Even the super CMIs, which were nearly indestructible to most Titan weapons and small arms did not stand a chance against her one-on-one.

Amiga sighed and turned to leave the scene. There would probably be alerts back at the capitol city of Kallerish, and reinforcements would be headed towards here probably even now. She wasn’t so much worried about the armies of MV1 battle units they could send at her, the Delta MV7 security units, or even the CMIs. It was the knowledge that Zenith Corp had more like her in their employ that frightened her to the core. And they would send these, just as soon as they found out about her.

There was a large gathering of Titans waiting for her as she turned. How had she not noticed them before, even with her enhanced senses? Most looked at her with sheer terror in their eyes. Some were hiding, none looked like they knew what to do next. She knew. These Titans would have to be led to safety before reinforcements arrives. The corporate soldiers would be angry at one of their detention centers being wrecked.

“Well?” She asked the freed prisoners. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

She ran towards the nearest wall and began punching it until it dented and shifted enough for her to get her fingers wedged in and then ripped and pulled until she had torn an opening through to the outside.

Amiga led them across the lawn of the compound, and her sensitive ears could hear transport vehicles coming from the sky and ground. She found a treeline at the edge of the lawn and began waving everyone that direction. As she watched them file up behind her she realized there were entirely too many of them to hide. There were at least fifty Titans running to keep up, many of them looked unhealthy and malnourished. The rumble of jet engines brought her attentions back towards the compound, and a troop transport that was slowing down to hover overhead.

“On!” Amiga growled to her pack, running that direction. “Fly!”

Amiga’s pack engaged and carried her off the ground. In a second, she was traveling towards the ship like a bullet, with her fists out ahead of her. Continuing to build up speed, she winced and closed her eyes a moment before impact. There was the sound of metal squealing and shredding, a loud bang and the next thing she knew she was flying out over open air again. She turned to look and saw the transport circling to the ground, black smoke coming from one of the wing engines. It crashed its multi-ton load mightily, in a blazing fireball of destruction.

Amiga flew back to the others and turned off the engines on her pack. Ahead of them in the forest she spotted an old sign overgrown with ivy and rust. She smiled; it would have to do for now.

The sign read: East Alton Debt Internment Camp: 2 miles.

They would be able to hide among those tortured people for now.

“This way!” She waved the Titans her direction and led the way through the trees.