The convoy lumbered steadily onwards, the trail's degraded surface causing each vehicle to bounce and shudder in turn. The trucks bore no emblems, but their antique lines recalled the modular transport vehicles once popular in the 2030's. Their gray panels were battered and scratched in a way that suggested they had seen extended service in harsh conditions.

The trucks were preceded by a light tactical vehicle, its chassis, comprised of a framework of metal tubes, bounding along gracefully as the exposed suspension system mopped up vibrations. Four men in civilian attire manned the buggy, the driver and his wingman strapped into their seats with three-point harnesses, the other pair squatting on the rear-mounted engine and firmly gripping the metal tubes.

They appeared to be having the time of their lives.

The men came upon the clearing carelessly, the tactical vehicle galloping over the treeless expanse as the engine noisily cleared its throat. As it reached the clearing's opposite end, the buggy slowed down and then executed a tight about-face, abruptly ejecting the lesser prepared of the rear passengers. He rolled over the sandy soil to the laughter of his comrades, only to laugh himself once he recovered, taking a moment to slap the sand out of his generous head of hair.

He clambered back on board and the buggy set off slowly and deliberately, the second rear passenger spraying a fluorescent orange line onto the ground as it rolled in the opposite direction. The trucks turned towards the line as they arrived and toed it in turn. Before long, eighteen heavy transport vehicles were resting side-by-side in a neat line.

The clearing was soon teeming with people. All wore civvies, the younger workers wearing colorful clothing of all sorts, the older men preferring conservative earth-colored wares, making them look as if they were wearing different versions of the same crappy old uniform. Those men seemed the more diligent workers of the lot as well, and they set about removing equipment from the trucks, recruiting the nearest and most cooperative youths to assist them. The remainder took to the clearing like children to a playpen, and soon their laughing voices could be heard as they crossed the grounds at a run.

One of the running boys suddenly stopped as if something unusual had caught his attention. He peered down at the depression at his feet, and no doubt there must have been a curious expression on his face as he considered the pattern stamped there. He hollered towards a group of passing boys, and soon they were doing some staring of their own. Then one of them took off towards the remaining workers and spoke briefly with them. All work was abandoned as the workers began to spread out over the field, and their shouts of excitement soon became clearly audible.

"That's right, natives, worship the spoor of the gods," Deadhand whispered, the briefest of smiles alighting on his face.

The convoy had been picked up by drones well before their arrival, and the clearing was presently being covered by three mobile Suits. Mentally opening the appropriate comm channel, Deadhand updated his commander for the day.

"Lippard, this is Deadhand, over."

"Lippard here, inform."

"I don't know if you see it from your vantage point, but these natives are civilians. I repeat, they are civilians."

"My vantage is good enough to see that, kinder. That is not the issue. Their chances of survival depend on whether they suspect our presence here. First appearances are not encouraging."

Deadhand didn't like the way she stated that last part.

He preferred Kaiser in such operations. If the Bavarian had been born with a personal totem, it would most definitely have been a fox. He was sly, calculating and wise beyond words. Lippard's totem, however, would have been just like her nickname. She was a leopard to the core. Her tail twitched nervously all the time, and she was always ready to pounce at a moment's notice. To a leopard's eyes, the most innocent of gazelles was fair game. As long as she was hungry and conditions were fair, she was fated to ambush her prey, and she would never feel an ounce of shame in the aftermath of the carnage. Lippard was his number one choice of commander in a stand-up fight, but as soon as he had seen the boys playing in the field, he found himself missing the old fox.

"Looks like it's going to be one of those missions, boss," he remarked as the stick-figures beside the trucks began to raise a communications antenna.

"Moose, Deadhand, standby. I will establish a link with Ebony Tower," she declared.

Whatever his misgivings, Deadhand nevertheless opened his tactical eye and focused it on the clearing. Each vehicle had appeared to carry a driver and two workers and, factoring in the buggy, that put about fifty eight civvies on site. The vehicles were parked as neatly as beer bottles upon a wooden fence.

"Any chance of taking prisoners, boss?" Deadhand inquired.

It took a while for her to answer, and when she did her voice had steel in it.

"Moose, suppression operation initiates at the end of this minute. You will launch an EDI streaker at the vehicles and initiate frequency jamming. You will set pulsed laser platform for anti-personnel and neutralize all indigenous persons. Deadhand, you will set your platform to anti-material and kill the vehicles' engine blocks. Avoid the fuel tanks, we don't want to send out any smoke signals. You will then join us in anti-personnel activities. All fleeing civilians are valid targets. Those who refrain from flight and are cooperative are to be taken prisoner. Inform if you copy, over."

There was a long pause as they digested the communication, and fifteen seconds before the end of that minute both grudgingly copied it.

Deadhand cursed as he set his weapon to intermediate strength and shouldered it. He cursed again as his scope roved over the excited civilians, before resting his reticule on a vehicle's principal heat source. It was the stationary buggy; any fool would want to neutralize it first.

The moment the mission clock added another minute to its elapsed time, a missile streaked up over the treetops and then swerved aggressively towards the parked trucks. It detonated at a respectable height above its targets, the report insignificant compared to the electromagnetic pulse it produced. As soon as Deadhand's sensors detected the pulse, he fired upon the buggy and the engine incandesced and disintegrated, the vehicle doing a jumpy half-turn before abruptly bursting into flames. Fat smoke billowed from the wreckage, obscuring the trucks behind it and rising into the sky.

Oh, hell no, he thought.

He immediately directed his platform to the left and began to fire upon the vehicles' engines one at a time, striving to destroy as many as possible before any more could become cloaked in smoke. Fifteen trucks were soon neutralized, but the rest became obscured and civilians began to run towards them.

"Deadhand, you dummkopf, shift your position and kill those vehicles!" Lippard snapped over the comm.

The Suit pilot leaned forwards and took off at speed, footpads colliding against the earth as the shouts in the clearing began to turn into screams. The cracks of low-powered pulse weapons suddenly increased in frequency, and Deadhand became aware that Lippard had changed her platform's settings to automatic fire. He maneuvered out of the trees and pounded into the clearing, and the civilians wailed at his appearance as if the day of reckoning had arrived. Ignoring the scurrying figures, he moved to his left, trying to gain line-of-sight with the intact vehicles. The smoke enveloped them, however, and so he straddled the trail from the east and began to close the distance. The remaining mobile Suits came into view, Lippard's unit striding and firing at the fleeing natives while Moose kept his distance, picking targets off from the plantation's other side.

A shuddering truck leapt through the smoke and sped towards him, and without further thought Deadhand opened fire. The vehicle promptly gained entertainment value, swerving brusquely before it collided against the opposite side of the trail's drainage ditch, and it then caught fire as pulse after pulse of lasered light disintegrated its front compartment and the people inside it. He fired one shot too many and the beam struck a panel above the fuel deposit, sending a shower of sparks through it. Flames enveloped the vehicle and set the nearest trees alight.

Deadhand began to groan.

"Deadhand! Avoid the fuel tanks is what I said, not aim at them. I –"

A loud chirp cut through her communication, making it clear someone had activated their comm channel's alarm.

"Two vehicles escaping east, they're beneath my line of fire," Moose interrupted calmly.

Lippard's Suit took quick aim and the mouth of her weapon platform strobed briefly, the light show quickly followed by the rapid snapping sounds of autofire. Deadhand vaulted forwards through the blaze and accelerated to a mad run, penetrating the smoky haze beyond to find a ravaged truck slowing to a stop as the other beyond it disappeared through the treeline. Not daring to slow down, he tore through the foliage, finding the trees too low for him to follow the vehicle at its pace.

"Lippie, I need overhead eyeball on the vehicle, over."

There was a moment of silence over the comm.

"The next time you call me Lippie, I'll detonate your Suit. Is that clear, schwarze?" she barked.

He swallowed the insult with some difficulty and reformulated his request.

"Apologies, boss. I need drone recon over the area, I can't keep up with them in these trees."

"Return to the clearing and help us clean up this mess, the drones will finish the fugitive vehicle," she ordered instead.

Deadhand about-faced angrily, smothering his rage as he returned to the clearing. Once there, he stopped to take in the scenery.

Most of the vehicles had been flawlessly killed. So had the civilians, for that matter. Not a moan or cry for help could be heard, only the crackling fires as they consumed the remains of the badly killed vehicles, only the heavy footfalls of Lippard's and Moose's Suits as they padded over the terrain, nudging body after body for signs of life. A detonation to the east caused him to turn.

The luminous ball over the plantation beyond slowly morphed into a puffy mushroom, a cloud as dark as sin that ascended the sky as bodies burned beneath it.

*****

Kaiser woke suddenly in the darkness and slammed his head into an unseen panel.

"The Kaiser has woken," he heard his neighbor say from the other side of the bulkhead. "It seems even royalty has nightmares, no?" the voice declared before letting escape a cackle.

Kaiser paused for a second, situating himself, and then he laughed, apologized, and greeted his neighbor. The voice belonged to Wei Guozhi, the Tower's chief logistics organizer, and thus someone with whom it was important to be friendly with. He heard movement all around him, barely perceptible above the ship's own noises, and realized that they were not the only ones who were awake.

"Greetings, comrades," he called out cheerfully.

There were answering greetings, some enthusiastic, others not so much. He estimated that he could speak with five of his neighbors in that way, the remaining cubicles connecting with his accommodations only at its corners. Five neighbors who could hear him breaking wind were five too many, but the personal space more than made up for that. The sergeants were four per cubicle, while the lower-ranking personnel were eleven for a space roughly twice his own. They accomplished such a feat by sleeping in shifts. At least their beds were never cold.

Already Kaiser had grown accustomed to the potent gravity, and he rose gracefully from his bed, trying to not put an elbow into his immediate surroundings to keep the noise down. He turned on the emergency light only; it was all he needed. Stronger illumination would only cost him points from his card. He stopped in front of the compartment's other perk; an aluminum lavatory before which a battered metal mirror hung. The face he saw there had more lines than he remembered from before their long journey. He suspected he had somehow aged in cryostasis, although the physician had scoffed at the statement, declaring instead that the higher gravity was pulling at the skin of his face in a way that only gave that impression. His hair appeared almost black in the red light. It was light brown, in fact, just shy of dirty-blonde. His grey eyes appeared darker in the light as well, with a burgundy tinge that made him look like a vampire.

He washed and brushed, and then uniformed himself in his more formal number two attire. He thought about his nightmare, trying to remember it but failing in the attempt. It was a now-familiar failure. Since his arrival on the planet, Kaiser's dreams had not been tranquil, and one in particular had been recurring with increasing frequency. He remembered the dream only because of the emotions it elicited upon waking. Misery, guilt, helplessness, a tight ball of emotions that seemed to accumulate with every episode. He discarded the thought and pocketed his wallet, bidding his neighbors farewell before leaving his room.

Compared to the dim light of his quarters, the corridor was positively glowing, and he paused momentarily for his eyes to adjust. As an exclusively military structure, the Tower was small for the multitude of resources it accommodated. The consequence was a web of service passages so narrow, the only way for two people to cross in opposite directions was at nodes where they could pass abreast.

Evacuation is no concern here, he mused.

"Passing through ..." he declared as he neared a sharp corner.

"Waiting ..." he heard, and as he made the corner he found a sergeant waiting for him at the node that followed.

"Good morning, commander. Or is it afternoon?" the sergeant asked.

Kaiser smiled and shook his hand.

"For all I know it is the middle of the night, Mateus. How are you?"

"I'm well, sir. In fact, I'm better than well ..."

They chatted idly for a while and Kaiser found himself wondering what the sergeant might want of him. The reason he knew Mateus wanted something of him was because he was aware of that fundamental trait among all human beings. People who knew each other quite well tended to ask for a favor and be done with it. People who didn't usually pitter-pattered around the subject before committing themselves to the request.

"– which is why I have a favor to ask of you, if I may?" the sergeant finally declared to the commander's relief.

Kaiser appeared momentarily pensive.

"I have not killed anyone for money in a long time, Sergeant. My back has been bothering me, you see ..."

The sergeant laughed.

"I need no one dead, commander. Do you remember Corporal Van Vuuren from tactical command?"

"Hmmm ... young, supple, with ginger hair so tightly bound you could bounce a coin off her cheeks, with –"

"Yes, her," the sergeant interrupted a little stiffly. "My efforts seem to be paying off, and I've managed to convince her into dining with me at the refectory. The problem is ..."

"Let me guess, the copulation room has been reserved for the foreseeable future."

"Well, yes commander ..." he admitted, glowing scarlet with embarrassment, "the newly-weds are living in it for the rest of the week. I was wondering whether I could use your room, sir ..."

"Hmm. My room has too many ears surrounding it. Lippard's room, however, is near to the reactor. Which do you prefer, a silent audience or a noisy reactor?"

"Most definitely a noisy reactor, sir. Won't Lieutenant Lippard object to this?"

"Why, of course not, my dear sergeant," Kaiser scolded, as if the soldier was a fool for considering it. "I and my better half do not mind an audience. Not even a noisy one, for that matter. Besides, she is out at the moment, which is why I am up so early. Enjoy," he finished, slipping him his partner's access card as if he were trafficking forbidden substances.

The sergeant thanked him, promptly declaring that if there were anything he wished for in return, he needed only say so. Kaiser smiled and patted his back.

As Mateus was about to leave, however, Kaiser took him by the shoulder and drew him close.

"Pictures. I want pictures, my dear sergeant," he whispered, his expression dead serious.

The sergeant laughed, not quite entertained, not entirely comfortable. He nodded curtly and promised there would be if she was willing, and went on his way.

Thinking of the fun he and Lippie could soon be having with the photos, Kaiser returned to his journey to Ebony Tower's primary situation room.

Despite his rank and credentials, the commander found himself once more the subject of an interrogation protocol. The Tower's security personnel were an independent structure answerable only to the Executives, and they knew it well. Four ISB soldiers manned the operational headquarters' main access point. He was searched with the respect due to a man of his rank, and so he did not get a hand to the crotch, nor was he obliged to remove his shoes. As soon as the reason for his visit had been established, the commander was allowed to enter the room.

The Situation Room was the single largest division within the Tower, and its organization was evident from where he stood. The room was circular in conception, with the outermost ring acting as a corridor, from which walkways descended towards the floor. The innermost area, known as the tactical floor or more aptly as the arena, was the domain of Tactical Command. The arena was cluttered with luminous panels displaying ongoing events in exquisite detail, and complemented by a host of tacticians manning consoles. Presiding over them were the commander and his vice, both far too busy to receive him at the moment. The intermediate ring was cut into four sections by the descending walkways. The two rightmost sections comprised ground and air support. The opposing side comprised logistics and resupply, and an odd section where the personnel appeared to be slumbering. It was that section which Kaiser approached.

By all outward appearances the least busy of the bunch, Strategic Command nevertheless possessed the authority to overrule all other departments. Except for the Executive Council, of course, whose august members were still safely in orbit.

He approached the nearest of the seven strategists. The man in the reclining chair was old, his grey locks curling around an ancient pair of earmuffs, his eyes hidden beneath a frilly sleep mask clearly not originally his. Gently raising one of the earmuffs, the commander spoke into the elder's battered ear.

"Ah, mein hengst, how I long to feel your rippling muscles between my sweaty thighs. You stud, you dominant stallion, how great is my urge to ride you, to pull at your crest, to pull at your –"

"Alright, alright, you trash talker, I'm up," the old man muttered irritably, pulling the sleep mask up to peer at the grinning German. He shook his head at his visitor.