Lanis feels a prickling sensation as she runs. It’s as if, in the claustrophobic confines of the pilot pod, she’s being watched.

  She feels the hand that will control the Grav-maul give an involuntary twitch.

  Oh no, she thinks, grinding her teeth in the HUD-cast glow. Not again.

  So… right… there’s definitely something odd going on in the Unit admin systems, Ether replies, unable now to keep the worry from her voice. Lanis senses her trying to peer into the deepest instinct-layers of the Unit, searching for something she’s missed. It’s not quite root code, but it’s close enough that Lanis can feel Ether treading with great care, wary of shining a light where it might cause some kind of damage at this, the most inopportune of times.

  Lanis' heart rate continues to climb, and she tries to focus on her breathing. Despite her efforts, the adrenaline is building, like an ocean tide spilling over the seawalls of her mind. Meanwhile, the Assault Unit continues to eat up the kilometers like a thunderstorm given legs; trees explode beneath its legs as the towering Unit cuts up through a gently sloping forested hill, each thruster-assisted step leaving behind a smoldering crater of burning wood. More Murkata air-craft scream overhead as Lanis runs, the thunder of their unleashed ordnance nearly equal to the crashing footsteps of the Assault Unit.

  We don’t have time for you to poke around in there, Lanis shrilly thinks, pulling Ether’s divided attention back from the Unit’s logic-code as they approach the crest of a hill. Just over it is the rendezvous point, and beyond that are the Kaisho lines, and Fleet Academy.

  Lanis can feel Ether watching her, increasingly nervous.

  “What? I’m fine,” Lanis snaps out-loud, her voice oddly harsh with anger.

  Ether doesn’t stop what she’s doing, despite Lanis’ command: she combs the Unit’s systems, increasingly frantic, trying to trace the source of the berserker-like rage swelling in Lanis’ chest, a feeling so tight now she feels like she might scream.

  Oh shit, Lanis thinks, turning her head as a small spasm races up her spine, forcing the air out of her lungs with a grunt. It’s like before, but worse. Much worse. It’s like she’s fallen into a river, one that’s surprisingly swift and violent beneath the surface. She kicks out the metaphorical legs of her mind, trying to reach the banks where she’ll be more in control of herself and the mech.

  But the raging current is leaving no choice as to her destination:

  Violence.

  She crests the hill.

  The rendezvous point spreads out before them, and Lanis screams inside the pilot pod, six months of terror, pain, frustration, and rage expelled in one blasting heave inside the pod.

  The Unit doesn’t have vocal cords or an external sound system, but it does have a power core, and a deflector shield. The Unit throws open its arms, and together they scream for her, a roar of harmonic oscillation that rips pine needles from their branches like a supersonic storm surge.

  Cobwebs in the system? Is that how you put it? Lanis wildly thinks, losing her battle against the current that’s continuing to crescendo within the Unit.

  She should have known better. Fleet should have known better. Then a thought strikes her: maybe they did, and just chose not to tell them. Lanis snarls out a laugh, impressed once again at Fleet’s power of deception, when it suits their purpose. Surely they would have been aware that the pilot and his AI’s death during battle would leave an imprint in the system. Or maybe not? Maybe it’s to do with the corruption? Duplicity or ineptitude, it doesn’t matter now; all that matters is what’s in front of her.

  Lanis can feel Ether begin to despair; she can’t find the thread, can’t locate the presence responsible for twisting her pilot’s behavior. Not only is she unsure of how to help, but she’s unsure of what her place is in this paradigm shift between pilot, AI, and whatever else still exists within the Unit’s admin code.

  Resist? Ether asks, wide-eyed, ready to take a hammer to the Suit’s admin system if her pilot tells her to, current fight be damned.

  No. Whatever it is, don’t fight it, Lanis replies, a deep certainty hitting her as her pupils madly dilate. This is its fight as much as it is ours. Just… keep alongside me, like you have been. She breathes a navigation trigger word, and lapses into a meditative trance, stratagems dissipating in her mind like wind-gusted smoke as she gives in to a deeper instinct.

  The back and forth happens in less than a second; Ether nods reluctantly, and they turn their attention to what lies before them.

  The plan dreamed up by the Murkata strategists was for Lanis and the Murkata Aegis Suits to form up and make a blitzkrieg thrust through the dispersed Kaisho lines. That plan was already hanging by a thread when their mag-levs were struck and comms went down, and the scene that greets them makes a mockery of it.

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  A battle is taking place, and it’s gone to shit.

  Three of the Murkata Aegis Suits have already arrived at the rendezvous point—or tried to. With visual contact made, Ether pushes through the odd haze of jamming that has so degraded their communication systems, and manages to establish a tight-beam comm channel with their allies.

  Aegis Two, attempting to disengage—beam weapons down—

  Aegis Four, hull damage critical—Ejecting!

  One of the heavy Murkata mechs is currently a smoldering ruin, while the other two are engaged in combat with all four of the Kaisho Deterrent-class Suits, falling back as the Kaisho Suits press their advantage. A plume of fire erupts from Aegis Four’s wrecked pilot-pod, and an ejection capsule shoots up into the sky. Lanis watches, helpless, as a beam of light erupts from one of the Kaisho mech’s lancers, disintegrating the ejection pod in a puff of smoke as it races upward.

  It’s not just the four Kaisho mechs, though—Lanis’ optics array contracts, and there, barely four kilometers in the distance, lumbers the first of the two corrupted Heavy Insertion Units, its terrible armaments glittering in the afternoon light.

  There’s no more room for tactics analysis; only action. Unconsciously, Lanis has still been a reluctant passenger with the flowing rage that has sprung up from the deepest depth of the Unit’s core admin systems. Now, however, she gives into the feeling, eyes madly wide, her Fleet-augmented tendons straining against the tight pilot suit that clings to her arms.

  Dorsal flaps ripple along the Unit’s back, and a fleet of drones is released, black and silver shapes that emit supersonic booms as they accelerate into the sky, above treetops, and along the ground. This is perhaps the part of the Unit’s armament that Ether was looking forward to controlling the most, a study in complexity, and Lanis can feel her AI mind racing with commands. The Assault Unit’s drone system is, ironically, not as offensive-minded as some of its Insertion Unit counterparts. Instead, they’re meant to deceive and decoy, stratagems that make Ether’s eyes flash with wicked delight as she pushes a portion of herself into each, a kaleidoscope of micro-Ethers.

  Lanis can feel that whatever has infected her is also rubbing off on Ether; not that she’s worried. In fact, all of her concerns seem to have melted away, replaced once again by a feeling of total invincibility and fist-clenching power.

  The glow within the pilot pod turns red as power levels spike and alarms bleat their soft, though not yet insistent, protestations.

  The Grav-maul ignites.

  Lanis watches as two of the Kaisho mechs’ heads turn toward her while the other two continue to pummel the retreating Murkata Suits. She feels a pulse of warning as their weapons lock onto her.

  They’re not the real threat—that’s the approaching corrupted Insertion Unit—but they could still prove dangerous if allowed to destroy the Murkata mechs and concentrate their firepower. The two mechs raise their mass-drivers, pivot their missile-pods, and ready themselves to unleash their combined weaponry upon Lanis.

  Drones are delaying the first Insertion Unit, which should buy us some time—hopefully the second one is occupied elsewhere. Ren was right, its AI systems are massively degraded, and its counter drones are pathetic. Now unleashing suppression on the Kaisho mechs, Ether thinks.

  Lanis is already moving, sprinting toward the red mechs in a blur of two-thousand ton composite metal. Simultaneously, a kind of shadow falls in the valley that separates the two forces, like the squall of a thunderstorm.

  The first of the drones systems have been deployed, unleashing their micro-filament chaff; it’s akin to a smoke launcher, but on a massive scale.

  She still feels a shuddering as thirty-kilogram shells rip against the Unit’s raised bulwark shield, and the echo of explosions as decoy drones detonate against incoming missiles overhead. She feels heat, as if her own arm was licked by fire, as one of the Kaisho missiles evades the drone system, exploding against the inner reaches of the Assault Unit’s deflector shield.

  None of it is enough to slow her.

  She bursts through the blurry darkness of chaff, the bulwark shield shrugging off near point-blank shells. Then she’s among them.

  The first swing of the Grav-maul splits the nearest Kaisho mech in two. The phrase “hot knife through butter” flashes in Lanis’ mind, but it’s more like a molten sledge-hammer through ballistics gel. The Kaisho mech simply ceases to functionally exist, its mass-driver firing blindly upward into the sky as it collapses in a half-puddle of superheated metal. Lanis feels a scratching sensation across her back, the impact of kinetic rounds against Adamite, and turns, screaming, toward the next Kaisho Unit. It begins to pull back, desperately unloading each of its weapons systems upon the approaching Assault Unit as its aerial thrusters start to fire, pushing the mech up and away from Lanis.

  Not likely, Ether growls, and two metallic objects shoot up into the Kaisho mech’s thruster fans, suicide drone ripping them apart with twin explosions. The mech, hobbled, raises its right arm, power shooting into its own small shield. Is there something pleading in the way it turns its head upward, or is that Lanis’ imagination? No matter; Lanis swings the Grav-maul, ripping through the shield like paper and collapsing the bulk of the mech’s torso in on itself with a crunch that would burst any eardrum within a half mile. She pulls the maul free with a snarl and turns to her next victim.

  Lanis closes with the next Kaisho mech, and Ether pushes a hurried status report of the drone system that’s continuing to engage the opposing Insertion Units. Not a lot of time here, Ether thinks, and a streak of light whips past Lanis as if to reinforce the point.

  We really don’t want to find out what happens if one of those lands without our shield in the way, Ether adds.

  While Lanis has been dealing with their comrades, the two remaining Kaisho mechs have disabled the last of the three Murkata Suits that made it to the staging area. Lanis watches, overflowing with helpless rage, as one of the Kaisho mechs steadies itself on the dark green torso of Aegis One and fires a stream of rounds point-blank into the Murkata Suit’s head. She feels the fleeting comm link cut out, a bubbling scream turned to silence. Then she pushes energy into the Assault Unit’s leg thrusters, and charges.

  INCOMING, Ether screams; an instinct, the same that’s been pushing her berserk-like rage, causes Lanis to pivot before Ether’s thought fully registers, or before the alarms in the pilot pod can blare.

  The Assault Unit braces itself behind its bulwark shield, its power core groaning as energy is shunted into the forward deflectors. The Unit staggers back as it’s hit by the enemy’s mass driver; each round, even slowed by her deflectors, still packs enough kinetic energy to reduce any corp suit to a wreck.

  The shield strains, adamant ridges denting, but holds.

  The source, Lanis realizes, is coming from a new direction.

  The second Insertion Unit has joined the fight.