A row of pigeons takes flight, bleating their outrage as what they thought was a building shifts beneath their feathers.

  Broken glass rattles a mile off, and the Murkata soldiers nearest to the mech instinctively step back as the Assault Unit comes fully online, pushing up to its full height with a grinding groan. There’s a brief shimmer in the air around the mech as the Unit’s Deflector Shield auto-tests its functionality, and the smell of ozone hits every face within a thousand feet.

  Inside the Unit, Lanis is nearly overwhelmed by an upswelling feel of immense power. It’s unlike any sensation she’s felt before, even within the Demeter. There, she was one interfaced facet of the ship’s mind, but here, she is in control, and she feels like she could cleave open the planet. She turns her head to the right within the pilot-pod: outside, the Unit’s head, a nerve-center array of armored optics, turns with her. She stares, not at the pod’s HUD, but at the outside world, impossibly vivid, switching between layers of targeting optics and thermal imaging.

  Seized by a sudden violent notion, she hefts the Unit’s Grav-maul and flexes her right fist, curling the Unit’s Hex-sized hand tighter along the weapon’s towering shaft. She feels a rippling down her arm, through her haptic feedback, and a query from the Unit’s internal admin:

  Engage Weapon?

  Her right eye twitches as a mad run of thoughts seize her: where’s the corrupted Unit? I want to see what this can do to it. I want to pound it deeper into the ground, until it's paste. Or maybe that apartment building over there? Anything that can be fucking crushed.

  WHOA whoa whoa, Ether says, appearing beside her and gently guiding Lanis’ arm downward, as if she’s talking down a lover from a pistol-gripped crime of passion. Lanis’ hand stops tightening, and then is slowly peeled loose; the Unit’s weapon ignition system, a hair’s breadth from feeding its immense power into the Grav-maul, fractionally relaxes along with her.

  Lanis takes a rattling breath, her eyes wide.

  “Good God,” she whispers hoarsely, her body suddenly trembling, as if seized by a chill. “What just came over me?”

  Well, this Unit was powered down right after the pilot and AI were killed, Ether replies, her tone clinical. She keeps one hand on Lanis’ still-trembling arm as she dives deeper into the mech's combat log.

  I’m seeing some possible… issues. Residual trauma in the system and the like. Fascinating stuff, in a way. Normally Fleet would decommission a Unit for months after what happened to it.

  Lanis shudders, seized by the sudden, immensely unpleasant thought of being stuck inside this machine with the ghost of its previous pilot. A coffin, more like.

  No, nothing that dramatic, Ether says, reading her thoughts, but her reassurance lacks the weight of certainty. Lanis feels Ether shift her attention again, scanning each subsystem like an entomologist lifting rocks at night, shining her lamplight in the hunt for some scuttling trace of madness.

  Right, there are definitely some, shall we say, cobwebs, in the Unit’s internal admin systems, but I think what you just felt should be the worst of it, Ether says after several long seconds of silence.

  That sounds encouraging, Lanis warily responds. But, true to Ether’s words, her body seems to settle, sinking deeper and more naturally into the two-thousand-ton killing machine now wrapped around her. It’s as if her sensorium had momentarily exploded into a kaleidoscope of a million refracted pieces, each one filled with rage, and Ether has helped to piece them back together.

  One at a time now, systems checks and onboarding, Ether says. Lanis nods within the odd confines of the pilot pod.

  Keep it together, keep it together… she thinks, licking her dry HUD-cast lips and moving them in prayer.

  She feels a subtle release of pressure along her back—no, she has to remind herself, it’s the Assault Unit’s back—as the temporary scaffolding erected along the command pod’s insertion hole is lifted away.

  She realizes that, while she’s been clinging to her sanity, Ether has been speaking calmly to the assembled Murkata and Fleet assets, gamely reassuring them that nothing disastrous has occurred during the unnerving silence that has preceded their integration with the Unit.

  “I want to speak with Lanis. Lanis? What’s your status?” the voice of Admiral Ren chirps, tight with tension.

  Lanis swallows, quickly deciding that she’s never going to mention how close she just came to completely losing control.

  “It’s a little… overwhelming, but I’m ready for phase two,” Lanis replies, subvocalizing the words in her mind.

  There’s a minute pause, and Lanis imagines the Admiral and the other advisors trying to decide whether to press Lanis on what exactly “a little overwhelming” means.

  Just working out the kinks, Admiral, Ether says, relaying a somewhat cherry-picked stream of integration data to the Fleet mobile command center.

  There's another moment of delay, and then Admiral Ren simply answers, “Right,” clearly not believing them, but also seeing no other option.

  Better a half-deranged pilot than no pilot at all. Lanis thinks,

  Look, you put me back together, and I put you back together; that’s how it works now, Ether replies, scoffing. She makes a shushing gesture before Lanis can mount a response, and Admiral Ren continues:

  “Patching in the Fleet mag-lev pilots for phase two. Good luck, commander.”

  Lanis feels a slight buzzing in her head, and then the voice of a Fleet mag-lev pilot comes online, his voice brisk with competence.

  “Commander, this is heavy mag-lev pilot Harkin. We’re here to take you to the staging area. You just sit back and idle the power core. Inserting lift cables,” the man says, words that are echoed back and confirmed by three other sets of voices.

  Lanis feels a tugging sensation at her shoulders as adamant-infused cables coil through the Unit’s lift-points, each set running up to one of the four Fleet heavy mag-levs that hover above the Unit. These are vehicles whose entire existence is built around carrying massive weight to and from the orbital docks; a fully constructed Insertion Unit is an unusual, but not unprecedented, amount of cargo for the seven-hundred odd kilometers to Fleet Academy.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The tension in the cables slowly builds, groaning with incredible pressure.

  At least you didn’t get the impulse to swing that hammer while we were airborne, Ether muses.

  Please don’t give me any ideas, Lanis responds, closing her eyes and trying to relax as the Assault Unit departs from the ground.

  They’re forty kilometers out from Murkata’s advance staging when the first skycraft scream overhead, followed a moment later by dull booms that echo outward from their destination.

  Lanis and Ether have spent the past several hours running through every functional check they can, creeping along the power flows of the Unit like two anthropologists charting some ancient, inscrutable temple. Nothing will replace being on the ground and actually powering up the Grav-maul, but at least Lanis feels more comfortable in her own adamite skin, even if it is floating along several thousand meters in the air.

  For the last few minutes though, the internal systems have been mostly ignored. Instead, it’s what’s occurring outside that’s taking up their attention.

  Murkata’s plan was to continuously probe the Academy grounds in an attempt to wear down the enemy’s readiness, forcing them to respond to multiple small intrusions as Murkata’s larger forces were mustered for the breakthrough attack. However, if Kaisho’s readiness has been degraded, it’s come at a horrible cost: each probing attack has immediately withdrawn when met by one of the Kaisho Deterrent-class Suits or Insertion Units, but it’s never been quick enough to avoid casualties, and Lanis has to wonder if the tactic, like baiting a bear with one's fingers, is sound.

  It’s allowing us to muster at least, Ether thinks, trying to turn Lanis’ attention away from yet another string of Murkata battle-code that ends in wet grunts and static. And it's allowing the Murkata jamming suits to get closer. A visual pops up on Lanis feed: a six-legged Murkata Suit, one of a dozen, almost indistinguishable from the trees behind it due to its active camouflage, slowly creeping forward, its body bristling with jamming tech.

  I just hope there’s enough left of Murkata to follow through the breach, Lanis glumly thinks, wincing.

  As if in response to her thought, a series of pings flash through her command-pod, each pulling along a string of battle-code:

  Murkata Suit Aegis One, establishing battle-link, the code says, shifting through several layers of the Fleet Unit’s decryption before resolving itself as a man’s deep voice.

  Lanis feels a subtle shift as a new tactical awareness blooms within her mind, as if a chessboard with newly moving pieces has overlaid their carefully curated maps. Lanis peers at a strategic overview of the topography, and watches as a cluster of green dots drifts toward their convergence point some ten kilometers away from the outer perimeter of the Kaisho lines.

  All other Suits, confirm battle-comm link, the voice says, and Lanis hears and sees a patter of code-speak from Murkata’s fifteen hundred ton mechs, each with a distinct voice:

  Aegis Two, reading. Aegis, Three reading. Aegis Four, reading. Aegis Five, reading. Aegis six reading.

  Planetary Rapid Response Battalion Three, reading linkage, another voice chimes in.

  Ah, the follow-on group, Ether notes, bringing up a rotating image of the cream of Planetary Admin’s remaining security forces, white five and ten-ton security suits and armored transports sporting near-Fleet equivalent tech. They’re the ones who will hopefully do the extracting, along with what remains of Murkata’s corporate security reserves.

  Lanis takes a deep inhalation, turning her Unit’s head. Focusing her optics, she can just make out a string of Murkata heavy mag-levs bringing the other Suits in on a converging course along the horizon.

  “Fleet Unit One, confirming battle-link,” she replies, with more confidence than she feels.

  Did I imagine it, or did my voice almost break just there? Lanis wonders. Ether pats her back reassuringly, ignoring the question.

  Pleased to have you along, commander, Aegis One responds, and Lanis imagines a smile in the man’s voice.

  Rendezvous in three. We have our battle plans. We have our forces place. May fortune—

  The man’s brief speech is interrupted by a string of blaring alarms across Lanis’ HUD.

  Incoming, Ether says, and Lanis feels the Unit tilt slightly as the mag-levs overhead take on a ponderously evasive maneuver.

  A voice crackles in the pilot pod:

  “Pilot, we’re having incoming fire; still roughly ten kilometers from the rendezvous point. The Murkata ground support is providing point defense, but they’re running into a—”

  The transmission suddenly cuts off, and Lanis simultaneously feels the left side of the mech drop down awkwardly toward the earth. She watches as one of the mag-levs begins to spin out of control, fire spilling from one of its four massive thruster-turbines. An ejection pod screams into the air, and the adamite tether is released, falling in a spiraling curve to the ground.

  Aegis Two, we are receiving fire. Commencing emergency landing, a woman’s voice interjects, cutting through Lanis’ own emergency. She hears other voices urgently chime in, relaying status updates, but the battle-code appears to be glitching slightly, as if running into interference. Shit.

  There’s a whining roar as the other three mag-levs above Lanis attempt to re-calibrate their load, but Lanis feels the Unit begin to slowly spin, drifting downward.

  Mag-lev descent is not recoverable, Ether states, doing the math as fast as Lanis can absorb it. Our Insertion thrusters still have plenty for a landing though. Recommend release.

  Lanis shouts the command to the remaining three pilots: “Commence un-tethering; I’ll take it from here!”

  She switches to the Aegis battle-comm:

  “Fleet Unit, one our mag-levs has been hit. Will resume on foot,” she states. She waits a moment for confirmation, but there’s no reply. That’s not good.

  There’s a brief hesitation overhead, and then the remaining tether cables are released, the mag-levs whipping upward with an explosion of air. Lanis' stomach rises into her throat as the Unit begins to fall the thousand meters to the ground; Ether executes a series of commands, and Lanis feels her stomach reverse course as the Unit’s thrusters fire with a shuddering groan, slowing the mech’s descent to a crawl.

  Then, with a monumental thud, Lanis lands, both knees crouched, a plume of dirt spilling upward in a miniature mushroom cloud.

  What’s the status of the other Aegis Suits? Lanis asks. She feels Ether searching along the Murkata code-channels, calibrating and re-calibrating, to no avail. Ether grimaces and shakes her head.

  Static. Looks like Kaisho or the Fleet Units are jamming the code channels, Ether grimly replies.

  Lanis inwardly groans as the Assault Unit slowly rises. She wonders if a cluster of Murkata’s jamming suits have just been obliterated, or if there’s something more nefarious afoot.

  All of our systems look stable though, Ether says, scanning through the stream of landing data before turning to Lanis. So, I guess we’re walking the rest of the way?

  Lanis scoffs. If by walking, you mean running, then yes.

  She supposes it’s only fitting that her first steps in the Unit will be a sprint.

  They’re still eight kilometers off from the planned rendezvous point with the other Murkata assets, and are now running blind, but Lanis feels another small echo; a tug at the edge of her consciousness pulls her lips upward in a snarl as the Unit’s power core flares and its deflector shields come fully online.

  Drone systems online. Bulwark shield online. We’ll leave the Grav-maul for later and concentrate power on movement for now, shall we? Ether asks, tentatively restraining the weapons ignition system.

  Lanis nods, her body beginning to move within the viscous confines of the command-pod. She takes a step, as if swimming, and then another, and the Assault Unit does the same, the massive mech’s cadence slowly increasing along with the deep-throated whine of its power core. Then the Suit is running, its massive feet casually cleaving roadways in two as it reaches its cruising speed of nearly three hundred kilometers an hour of thruster-assisted strides.

  She runs, a metal leviathan with a ghost in its core, into war.

  UR STORY SUX!) that you don't want to post in the comments :D . Have a good week!