Wait—we’re going to do What?

  Lanis can’t help but smile as Ether’s consciousness, wide-eyed with shock, spills back into her mind. It’s only been an hour after Lanis’ meeting with Morris, barely enough time for her to digest the same question and its outrageous answer.

  You heard me, Lanis answers, pulling the familiar presence of her AI partner deeper into her own thoughts.

  She lies in an Admin couch in a softly lit room deep in the bowels of the Murkata complex, Ether’s black cortex shell nestled behind her in a bed of cables like the cosseted religious relic. Clusters of Murkata and Versk techs hover around her on terminals, secretly trading glares between observing the reintegration. The two teams nearly came to blows when Ash found out that the Murkata AI techs were going to reintegrate Lanis without the remaining Versk techs present, but with Morris’ intervention they managed to come to a semi-cordial agreement of working together.

  Admiral Ren and a few Fleet techs are also present, but they stand slightly apart from the two groups, staring gloomily at their portable Fleet terminals. Lanis can tell that they’re finding it hard to accept their newfound reliance on corporate AI tech. That, and the soundness of this plan, which is supposed to turn an ex-Navigator cadet and her Arena AI into an Insertion Unit team.

  Lanis feels the integration firm up, and her external reality fades into a background hum. She does, however, manage to overhear a few of the Murkata techs mutter with surprise as they absorb the data from their terminals, along with the Versk techs’ satisfied murmurs.

  Then it’s not a matter of speaking, but showing, or rather co-existing, as Lanis exposes Ether to her memories of the last twenty-four hours. Everything from when the corrupted Insertion Unit overrode Hex’s systems to when Lanis shakily withdrew from Morris’ private office an hour ago flashes through her mind.

  Lanis feels a fresh wave of sickening sadness as Ether absorbs the news of each catastrophe, the personal overlaid on the global: Heinrich’s death, along with the other Versk team members who never made it out of the Cauldron, Mirem’s parents, and the colossal loss of life among Fleet, the orbital docks, and Planetary Admin. Sadness, and fear: Ether examines Murkata’s briefings on the anomaly, and it’s almost as if Lanis is hearing those implications for the first time as well, reliving them through a shadow of Ether’s steely-faced version of horror.

  Sorry, Ether says, responding to Lanis’ quickening inhalations and the rise in her heart rate.

  No, it’s fine. I understand, Lanis thinks. She’s aware, at the barest periphery of her awareness, of words being exchanged among the Murkata techs, who shake their heads at the emotional resonance between the two of them. Lanis appreciates how the feedback loop must look: her integration with Ether long ago surpassed what most non-Fleet minds could tolerate without ego-death, stroke, or seizure. She supposes that this level of mind-pairing, with all of its limbic system side-effects, could be seen as gravely flawed to those who aren’t used to it.

  But, it allows us to do this…

  The Murkata techs have an ocean of information waiting for Lanis and Ether to parse through, everything from opposing force analysis to Murkata battle codes, and Lanis now smashes open the dam. Lanis overhears the soft chimes of terminal alarms as the data flow crests and then flies beyond what any half-normal mind should be able to handle, the details of the operation and Suit loadouts blooming into newfound clarity under her and Ether’s shared scrutiny.

  Morris and Tallin outlined the operation, but only now does the true scale of their task become apparent.

  First, the assignment, Lanis thinks, grabbing at a particular current of data: a mental projection of Fleet Academy, Lanis’ home for nearly eight years, appears in their shared mind.

  The campus looks like one of the old pre-Unification War universities, grass fields and ivy-covered buildings nestled alongside gleaming glass towers. It’s uncanny, seeing the Academy again, like looking at an old family picture, and Lanis suppresses an odd sensation, a mix of nostalgic sadness, anger, and fear; then the image shifts, a tactical grid-like layout of the academy laying the bucolic picture.

  The Navigation school is here, Lanis thinks, a cluster of white buildings becoming highlighted in red. Which is where Murkata thinks the captured Fleet cadets are being held. Though that’s only an educated guess. As for defenses:

  The map zooms out, and a row of red dots appears across the foothills that surround the Academy and the small adjacent city, each labeled with statistical probabilities as to their true location. The brightest dots, flared with detailed loadout analyses, are reserved not only for the two corrupted Insertion Units, but also for four Kaisho-Renalis Deterrent-class Suits. There are other forces too, five and ten-ton corp security Suits and emplaced Kaisho tactical squads, but their threat levels are minimal in comparison to the larger mechs.

  As if having to contend with the Insertion Units isn’t bad enough, Lanis thinks. A schematic of a Kaisho Deterrent-class Suit is pumped into their shared consciousness, the details of which are the result of years of deep Murkata corporate espionage. Lanis briefly thinks of Mirem’s uncle Peter, and what he would think if he knew that Murkata had such thorough intelligence of Kaisho’s most advanced Suits. At this point, maybe he’d raise a glass to them.

  At around fifteen hundred tons, the Kaisho mechs are in the same weight class as the dark-green giants that Lanis glimpsed in the Murkata complex’s hangar bay. Lanis absorbs a comparison of their respective loadouts, and she feels Ether give the equivalent of an exasperated sigh: the Kaisho Suits, sleek and angular with decades of aeronautical engineering behind every rivet, appear to be slightly more efficient killing machines than the Murkata suits in nearly every way.

  Damn why couldn’t Murkata be the corrupted corp? Those Murkata Suits will be lucky to land a hit, Ether grimly pouts, poring over the mismatch.

  Lanis grimaces back. Just, don’t think that too loudly while we’re here. She pulls up the information that Fleet has cobbled together on the relative performance of their ships in action against the enemy during the recent orbital engagement, at least among those that were able to engage on anything approaching parity. Remember what Admiral Ren said about the corrupted ships’ AI degradation: if the Kaisho onboard AIs are corrupted like the ships’, then the Murkata pilots and their AIs might have an advantage in response-speed and tactical decision making.

  Besides, she continues, it isn’t them that we should be worrying about; it’s the Insertion Units. Which are apparently going to be almost entirely our problem. Even though Kaisho and Murkata’s giant Suits are magnificent feats of engineering, they’re still as much passion-projects of corporate prestige as they are actual fighting machines. After all, they were never expected to fall into hostile atmospheres, or stand toe to toe against Ursox Basilisks or Bellitran Cloudwalkers.

  Lanis subconsciously notes the pacing presence of Admiral Ren moving among the Murkata techs, stroking her pale chin as she watches Lanis and Ether work together. There’s an access request relayed to the portable Fleet terminal as Lanis tries to access a new stream of data, this one residing behind a Fleet-locked vault.

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  Admiral Ren glances at the request, minutely hesitates, and then nods. The access protocols are relayed to the Murkata techs.

  So that’s the other reason you’re all here, Lanis thinks.

  Permission is granted for Lanis and Ether to view Fleet schematics.

  Here are the real monsters, Lanis whispers, as the restricted data from Fleet begins to unfold into her awareness. When she told Mirem, weeks ago, that she had briefly trained on Insertion Units, she hadn’t been lying. She had perhaps, however, slightly overstated the truth. She had never actually seen one of the things before the Cauldron, and the training had been one of several six-week proficiency rotations at the Academy, consisting of aptitude simulations with non-existent weapons. It was the equivalent of children play-sparring with foam swords; there was no sense of scale, nor the frame of technological reference that she now possesses.

  Now Lanis has the true details of the behemoths, secrets that are normally reserved for Insertion Pilots and directly supervising Fleet officers. She feels herself involuntarily shudder as the Units’ killing power, rendered in numbers and diagrams, is revealed. This is what we’re going to be fighting?

  The two particular Units that are standing guard outside the Academy are both medium-standoff Units, nearly a hundred meters tall, with a towering rail gun and lance-beam each, along with drone systems and missile arrays that would make a Murkata heavy-ordnance executive break out in a cold sweat. They’re as if two thirty-story concrete towers decided to sprout guns.

  Well, maybe at least they won’t complement each other? Ether haltingly thinks, trying to spin something optimistic out of the data. Lanis isn’t so sure it matters; a single round from either of their rail guns would have rendered Hex a puddle of molten metal, while a blast from one of their lance-beams could slice through a block of apartment buildings with ease.

  Admiral Ren said the opposing Fleet Heavy Insertion Unit managed to dispatch a third one, at least. Three versus one, and it managed a kill. That’s hard data regarding their degraded AI abilities, Lanis responds. Left unsaid, but not unrecognized, is that this result was accomplished by a Fleet pilot, one trained alongside their AI since their second year of the Academy to pilot their specific mech.

  She hopes that the Fleet Unit managed to do some damage to the other two mechs before it was destroyed, though that does seem to be hoping for a bit much. Thanks for the help regardless, Lanis thinks, making a note to speak at the pilot’s eulogy if she manages to survive.

  Speaking of Fleet Units… what are we going to be piloting?

  The view flickers to the Fleet Insertion Unit in the Cauldron.

  Lanis’ lips curl into a half-smile, though she idly wonders if the surge of feral anticipation originates from Ether.

  Of course it would be an Assault Unit.

  She hadn’t caught a glimpse of the Unit at the Cauldron, though she had heard it, and it makes sense now why the corrupted mech didn’t stand much of a chance, damaged AI systems or no. This Insertion Unit was designed for close combat against what pre-spacefaring humans would have worshiped as gods.

  The Fleet mech’s right arm is devoted to a Grav-maul, a weapon that resembles a colossal warhammer whose bunker-shattering head is nearly as big as Hex. The other arm is devoted to a shield, though the word doesn’t begin to describe the colossal slab of Adamite composites and reactive energy that is as much offensive ramming tool as a defensive bulwark. There are other weapons too: a short range lance beam is embedded in the right forearm, an intercept missile system on one shoulder, and a plethora of drone systems meant to help the Suit close the distance to its enemy.

  The Fleet mech, half slumped among the ruins of the Cauldron, appears remarkably undamaged. The corrupted Unit has not fared so well, and it lies face-up and dead a few hundred meters away. Its left shoulder appears to have been ripped entirely from its body: a five-hundred meter furrow of concrete wreckage leads to the detached arm, a glowing review to the destructive force of the Grav-maul.

  As for the Fleet Unit, it looks like it managed to take a few lumbering steps before it slowly slumped down, like a giant suddenly grown weary.

  What happened to the pilot? Ether asks, confused at how such an apparently decisive victory could have ended in defeat.

  Massive intracranial hemorrhage, along with the Suit’s AI death, Lanis observes, looking over the Fleet and Murkata reports with a heavy heart.

  That… doesn’t sound good. How? And what’s to say that isn’t going to happen to us?

  Lanis shifts with discomfort on the Murkata Admin couch. The truth is, it appears that Fleet and Murkata aren’t sure what happened to the Fleet pilot or the AI, but Fleet suspects it had to do with engaging the corrupted unit at close quarters. Which, unfortunately, is the whole point of the Assault Unit’s loadout.

  Remember the way the Unit powered us down? Lanis thinks, pulling up the painful memory. One theory is that it used the same move on the Fleet unit, right as it was getting destroyed, but that this version of the attack tried to push the Anomaly’s corruption into the pilot’s mind. Ren seems to think that my Navigation training might shield me from such an attack… that somehow it’s different to what the ship Navigators experienced in the orbital fleet. Also, the Fleet Navigators were unprepared. I won’t be. Not that I’d like to put that hypothesis to the test; but I guess we’re probably going to find out, aren’t we?

  Ether runs this hypothesis through her own logic systems, and finds it riddled with ‘what-ifs’ and ‘whys.’ Nonetheless, she reluctantly nods.

  I still can’t believe that they’re going to send you, a Navigator, which that thing wants, into battle against it, Ether muses.

  I wholeheartedly second that thought, Lanis replies, feeling her palms grow sweaty at the inevitability of facing the Anomaly’s corrupted servants head on. But there’s no one else available with the Fleet integration modules who can pilot that Unit, let alone who’s paired with an AI with battle experience, though I admit I’m using ‘battle’ a little bit loosely. They’re all dead, or off-planet.

  Ether brings up the Fleet Assault Unit’s schematics again, pivoting it and examining its loadout and capabilities. Despite Ether’s concern at the whole expedition, Lanis again detects a certain glee bubbling just below the surface of her thought patterns. Apparently the idea of being plugged into two thousand tons of planetary assault technology is almost worth the risk of near-certain death. Lanis sighs.

  Look, first we have to learn how to even pilot that thing. There’s a group of Fleet techs here who want to load up as many Insertion Unit training modules as we can handle in the time that we have.

  Ether’s glee is no longer below the surface; she can practically feel Ether rubbing her hands together.

  How long do we have? Or, more importantly, how long do the cadets have? Ether asks.

  The first query is immediately answered by a Murkata tech.

  The faster the better, is it? Three hours of training is... not long, Ether muses. They think they can get the Fleet Insertion Unit back to functionality in that amount of time?

  It looks like it’s barely damaged, Lanis responds, looking again at the Fleet report, making sure she isn't missing anything. The shield took a hit, but it’s mainly a matter of getting the dead pilot out, making sure its power core is still at peak performance, and getting the Fleet heavy mag-levs in place for transport. Then about four hours to get us in place for the assault, along with whatever other assets Murkata and Planetary Admin can scrape together, Lanis thinks, reviewing the timeline and assault plan.

  It’s up for debate whether the Navigation cadets will last that long, or what will happen if they don’t. Or what kind of state they’ll find them in if they do manage to break through. Lanis doesn’t especially want to think that far ahead. If Admin could, Lanis thinks they might try to destroy the whole of Fleet Academy from afar, but Amin doesn’t have nukes anymore, and the anti-missile capabilities of Kaisho and the two Insertion Units would make a non-ship-based bombardment a near impossible task.

  Well. Ok then, Ether thinks. Lanis is greeted by an unexpected mental projection of Ether: she’s shed her Versk pilot suit, and is now in the uniform of a junior Fleet Insertion Unit Pilot, two silver bars on either lapel of her blue form-fitting uniform, dark hair swept back, grey eyes cold, like something out of an old Fleet recruitment poster.

  Let’s get to work.