Alice peaked over the edge of the shipping container to see what the new arrivals were doing. They had stopped in front of the Space Core equipment; the police officer was directly below, staring back at her. His gun was out, but he hesitated taking aim.

"Marcos?" Alice blurted out.

"Alice? What are you–" Marcos's question was drowned out by an explosion on the opposite wall. He and his companions rushed to cover among the ground-level containers.

Alice dashed across to see what had happened. Two figures in sleek combat armor rushed through a jagged hole in the warehouse wall, a swarm of flying bots in tow.

"Drones!" Alice shouted, ducking back from a spray of bullets.

Dimitri unzipped a bag and pulled out a handful of black hemispheres. He hurriedly scattered them between him and the container edge. "Behind me," he urged.

Alice and Robert scrambled over as the first drone cleared the top of the container. It looked like a gun that had sprouted propellers.

"Why doesn't it shoot?" Robert asked.

"Get on your belly, now!" Dimitri commanded. They flattened out against the container as the drone fired wildly overhead.

"My scramblers are blinding its sensors," Dimitri whispered. "It can't see us, but it can still spray and pray. If they have radar support it's only a matter of time until–"

Sparks flew from the drone and it tumbled out of sight. Alice looked back and saw Robert holding the pistol he'd picked up in the dunes.

"I thought that was fingerprint locked," Alice said.

"I had some free time in the transport pod, I unlocked it," Robert answered. Another drone popped over the edge and fell to Robert's gun.

"Good shot!" Dimitri cheered while redistributing his scramblers.

"All those hours blowing off steam at the firing range paid off," Robert answered smugly.

Three muffled bangs echoed underneath him. Alice looked to Robert in horror. Something had just exploded inside the Space Core container. If the controls were damaged, they were sunk.

* * *

This was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission at a minimum security customs warehouse. Instead Okada had lost two drones, and defenders had taken the high ground. Four more enemy fighters had disappeared into the rack of containers.

"Move the snipers up, see if you can get a shot through that roof opening," she broadcast back to Chiba. "Where are we with retrieval?"

"The control unit is detached, proceeding with loading now," came Chiba's emotionless ghost-voice response.

"Takeda, swing around the other side. I'll flush them out with tear gas."

The remaining SMG drone provided forward recon as Okada moved up the rack. A customs officer poked his head out from between containers; the drone shot him dead.

"Got one," Hirano announced.

"Canister away," Okada relayed as she lobbed the gas grenade into the stack.

"Roger that. Something's coming out of the *CRRRRRRRK*." Takeda's response was lost in a blast of disorienting static.

Okada stumbled as shrill feedback rattled her skull at maximum volume. Something wrong with her system.

"Disconnect ghost comm," she commanded with a grimace. No response. She grit her teeth and painstakingly navigated the visual menu on her glasses. Finally she switched it off, severing her link to the others. The sonic assault quieted and she could think again.

What had Takeda seen? A boom echoed from the other side of the container. His vitals went flat, he was dead.

Okada pulled up her respirator and dove into the cloud of gas. Time to end this fight.

A bullet impacted hard in her chest, but the kevlar held. The shooter ducked back around the corner before she could return fire. Her drone zoomed in to follow. 'Atta girl Chiba.

Shapes wriggled across the floor, hard to make out through the cloud of gas. Some kind of mechanical spiders? She fired into the swarm with her rifle. Two dropped, but a third jumped and landed on her leg. She was trying to swat it off her torso when it detonated, cleaving her body in two.

* * *

"Got her," Ba Kuang announced. He crouched over one of the white cases, assembling a jammer to counter the hostile drones. Weizza had crawled under a container shelf to conduct 'ghost comm sabotage,' whatever that meant. All of them needed to get moving before they were blinded by tear gas.

An SMG drone whizzed around the corner and lost control, slamming into the wall. Ba Kuang's jammer worked, apparently. The copter shuddered, then reoriented to face them. Marcos fired two shots into the body and it stayed down.

The tear gas grew thicker. Marcos choked and coughed, looking for a path through the containers that wouldn't leave him exposed. Ba Kuang rushed to help Weizza, who was struggling to leave her hiding place with tears blurring her vision.

"No more in the building," Weizza choked out. Marcos took that as close enough to an all clear and shepherded them out to the fresh air of a nearby aisle. Marcos passed a canteen and they took a moment to rinse their eyes. Still burned like hell, but better.

"Who is Alice?" Weizza whispered.

"My ex," responded Marcos. "No idea what she's doing here."

"Hostile?" asked Weizza.

"I don't think so," said Marcos. "I trained her, but she's not a professional soldier. Last I heard she worked for Space Core."

"Will you kill her?" Weizza stared at Marcos intently.

"I–"

"Marcos, what the hell is going on?" Alice shouted from above. "Your sniper just took out one of my friends, we've been assaulted by drones, and a crowd of mechanical spiders have us surrounded."

Marcos looked to Weizza. She cocked her head to one side, as if listening to something far away.

"Greetings Alice," Weizza called back. "The sniper is not ours, I believe it is a SumatoTek drone." She paused a moment considering. "It is currently headed to your location. You will die if you remain where you are."

"Why should I believe you?" Alice replied back.

"Why would I lie? My bots could kill you in an instant.

"I have a proposal Alice. Come work for me and I will get you out alive."

"And my companions?" Alice asked back.

"Same offer. But decide now. The snipers are almost above you."

"Okay, we'll do it."

"Smart choice." Weizza recalled the spiders. "Get down here now."

Alice, Robert, and Dimitri climbed hurriedly down the rack. They'd almost reached the floor when there was another bang from the Space Core container. Something whizzed out from it, flying fast.

"Ko Ba Kuang, stop that drone!" Weizza shouted. He pointed his antenna at the retrieval bot and it froze, then seemed to change program and re-oriented toward the hole in the wall. Marcos raised his pistol but Weizza pushed his arm aside.

Three shots rang out from above and the drone crashed to the ground.

Robert whooped from the rack. "Did you see that shot!"

"That drone was stealing the module for authenticating with Petbe," Weizza said flatly. "If you damaged the unit, you're all out of a job."