The ground trembled slightly, and from the shadows of the ruined gates, the cheetah mech emerged. It stepped forward, its sleek, agile form cutting through the mist that swirled at the entrance.

  "That's it," Lucas Timothy said, voice heavy with resignation. "The cheetah mech."

  It came to a stop in front of them, standing at attention as its red eyes locked onto Squad X’s mechs. The air seemed to shift, as if charged with a strange, unspoken energy.

  "Hello," the cheetah mech’s voice echoed through their heads, its tone as chilling as it was calm. "I’ve found you. But not him. I need to find him."

  Mark Stroble’s voice was steady, despite the weight of everything they had just learned. "What do you mean? Who are you looking for?"

  "I am looking for my pilot," the cheetah mech responded, its eyes flickering with urgency. "I was made for him. I exist because of him. Without him… I am incomplete."

  The words hung in the air, heavy with implication. The cheetah mech wasn’t just a tool—it was searching for something essential, something it had lost, something that defined its very existence.

  Josh Volton shook his head, his mech’s hands flexing. "You’re telling us you don’t have a pilot? You’re searching for him, but he’s… gone?"

  The cheetah mech's body tensed as if preparing for something. "Yes. He is gone. I need to find him. I was made for him. He is the only one who can truly control me, the one I am bound to."

  Emily Kurve raised an eyebrow. "You’re a machine, why should we help you?"

  The cheetah mech’s gaze lingered on her, its eyes narrowing slightly. "You are replicants, too. I know it. I can feel it. Your purpose is the same as mine—created to fight, created to serve."

  Mark felt a chill run through him at the realization. This mech, like them, was a tool—created with one singular purpose. "You’re saying we’re connected somehow? We’re… similar?"

  The cheetah mech’s voice softened. "Yes. I do not know why, but I know we are linked. I have no control over this drive to find him, to return to what I was made for. You, too, were created with purpose. I can feel it."

  The silence that followed was oppressive, as each of Squad X’s members tried to come to terms with this revelation. They had just learned they were all replicants—each one of them designed for a singular purpose—and now they stood before a mech that seemed to share their fate.

  "I’ll tell you what," Mark said after a pause, his voice firm despite the inner turmoil. "We’ve been sent here to find answers. And you’ve just given us one. If we can help you find your pilot, maybe we can understand more about why we were made."

  The cheetah mech’s form relaxed, though the urgency in its voice didn’t fade. "You will help me then? I need him. And I believe you need the answers as much as I do."

  Squad X stood together, the weight of their shared revelation settling over them. The cheetah mech was a reflection of their own existence—a living, breathing machine searching for its purpose. Now, with its fate intertwined with theirs, Squad X had no choice but to continue this journey. If they helped the cheetah mech, perhaps they could uncover even more about their own origins.

  "Let’s move," said Mark, his voice steady as his Iron Scarab mech began to move forward. "We have a lot of ground to cover. The ruins are full of secrets. But now, it seems like we’ve got a new mission."

  And with that, the Squad X mechs followed the cheetah mech deeper into the Sayan ruins, their minds swirling with questions. The path ahead was uncertain, but one thing was clear—the truth they sought was closer than they ever imagined.

  The ground beneath Squad X’s feet rumbled slightly as they stepped deeper into the Sayan ruins, the faint hum of their mechs’ systems reverberating through the air. The cheetah mech, now leading the way, seemed to move with an otherworldly grace, each step purposeful but filled with a strange melancholy. It had been created for a singular purpose—a purpose now lost.

  Mark Stroble, piloting the Iron Scarab, glanced at the mech beside him. “So, this pilot you’re looking for... Who is he? Do you know anything about him?”

  The cheetah mech paused at the edge of a broken stone archway, its eyes flickering as it processed the question. “I do not know his name. I only know his presence, his connection to me. He was the one who controlled me, the one who made me more than just a machine. I cannot feel him anymore. Something has taken him from me.”

  Jessica Inbolkis, Mark’s partner in the Iron Scarab, leaned forward in her cockpit. “You’re telling us that you’re connected to him on a… spiritual level? But you don’t know where he is or even who he is?”

  The cheetah mech turned its head slightly, its glowing eyes narrowing as if it could sense the squad's curiosity. “I do not know where he is. But I know he is alive. I feel it in my core. Something is keeping him away from me.”

  Lucas Timothy, operating Gravemaw, frowned, his mech’s large worm-like body coiling around the ruins like a snake in the grass. “Could he be one of the original pilots? One of the squad members who was part of the creation of the Iron Legion back in 2018?”

  The cheetah mech’s form rippled slightly, as though it were processing Lucas’s question. “Perhaps. But I know the others. I know their mechs. They are not him. This pilot… he is different. He is mine. I will find him.”

  Josh Volton, in the Abyss Ripper, let out a slow exhale, his shark-like mech scanning the area for any signs of the missing pilot. “You say he's different, but how? What makes him stand out from all the others?”

  The cheetah mech paused, then turned its gaze toward Josh, as if staring into the depths of his soul. “He… understood me. Not as a tool, but as something more. He is the one who unlocked my potential, who shaped me into what I am. Without him, I am incomplete.”

  Sofia Ramirez’s Serpent’s Coil slithered past the others, the cobra-like mech moving fluidly through the ancient ruins. “So he was the pilot,” she said, voice steady despite the unsettling nature of the conversation. “But if you’ve been searching for him, how have you survived without him? And how did you end up at the fortress?”

  The cheetah mech’s head lowered slightly, almost in shame. “I was left behind. Abandoned. But I survived, like you. Like all of you. We were all created for a purpose, to fight and serve. But unlike you, I was never meant to be in battle alone.”

  Riley Mitchell, the falcon-like Skybrand mech hovering just behind, spoke up. “And we’re supposed to help you find him? How do we even know where to look? The world’s a big place. We’ve got no leads.”

  The cheetah mech’s eyes flickered again, a glint of hope in its voice. “You are the closest to what I am. You are all made for a purpose. Perhaps you can help me find him. Perhaps you know where to look, or perhaps… you can help me remember.”

  The silence that followed was heavy. The squad exchanged glances, their minds racing. They had just learned they were all replicants, all created with one singular purpose—and now they were standing before a mech that shared that same fate. A mech searching for its lost pilot, just as they were searching for answers to their own existence.

  Alex Anderson, in Skybrand, broke the silence with a thoughtful hum. “If we were made for a purpose, then maybe this pilot was connected to that purpose too. What if he’s not just some random pilot? What if he was created to lead you—to be your purpose?”

  The cheetah mech’s eyes softened, its voice quiet but filled with emotion. “It is possible. I have considered this. But I do not know where to look. I do not know who he is or where he might be hiding.”

  Jessica tilted her head slightly, a soft but determined look in her eyes. “Then we’ll help you. We’re all in this together. You may not know where to start, but maybe we can look at where we came from. Where the Iron Legion was founded. Maybe the answer’s there.”

  The cheetah mech’s body hummed softly, a pulse of energy emanating from its core. “You would do this for me? Even though you are not truly the same as me?”

  Mark glanced at Jessica, then back at the cheetah mech. “We’re not the same, but we’re in this together. We’re all searching for something—answers, purpose, truth. If you can’t do it alone, then we’ll do it as a team.”

  The cheetah mech’s form relaxed slightly, its powerful frame seeming less tense for the first time since it had arrived. “Then let us find him. Let us uncover the truth.”

  As the squad stood in the ruins, their mechs surrounding the cheetah mech, they realized this mission was about more than just hunting down a lost pilot. It was about discovering their own origins. Uncovering the truth about why they had been created—and who had created them.

  “Alright,” Mark said, his voice resolute. “Let’s find out who we really are. Let’s find your pilot.”

  And with that, Squad X and the cheetah mech began their journey, united in their search for the elusive pilot—and the truth that awaited them.

  The ruins of Sayan echoed with the hiss of steam and the low hum of mech cores as Squad X turned from the ancient walls and shifting shadows, heading back toward the clearing where they had landed earlier. The cheetah mech padded silently at their flank, its movements sleek and feline, yet restrained—like a predator holding itself back.

  Mark, in Iron Scarab, broke the quiet. “We’re going to need access to old Iron Legion records. 2018 is our only real lead.”

  Chika, from Gravemaw, replied, “But records that far back… those’ll be sealed. Not just classified—buried. You really think Command’s gonna let us start digging?”

  Josh’s voice crackled over the channel, laced with irony. “We’re replicants now, remember? What are they gonna do—kill us? Replace us? Oh wait, they already do that.”

  Riley in Skybrand gave a soft whistle. “He’s got a point. We’ve already seen a dead version of us in a lab tube. Doesn’t get much more messed up than that.”

  The cheetah mech spoke then, its voice coming through open comms—still slightly synthetic, but laced with something curiously human. “I do not need Command’s permission. I only need access.”

  Jessica tilted her head. “And how exactly do you plan to get that?”

  “I was built before the locks,” it answered. “Before the safeguards you now obey. If I reach the Archive Vaults… I can open them.”

  The squad fell silent. The Archive Vaults were deep in the administrative core of the Iron Fortress—only accessible by top brass and long-forgotten admin replicants. And now the cheetah mech was offering them a direct path inside.

  Mark sat forward in Iron Scarab’s cockpit, visor dim. “We can’t bring it back to the Fortress.”

  “Yeah,” Josh muttered from Abyss Ripper. “They’ll just lock it down again, dismantle it for parts, memory wiped clean. We’d lose everything.”

  The cheetah mech stood at the edge of the treeline, eyes dim but watching. “If I am taken back, they will destroy what I was built to protect. I must reach the Archive Vaults. That is where his name is.”

  Lucas rubbed his temples inside Gravemaw. “Okay, so we can’t go home, and we need to access records that are probably locked behind Council-level encryption.”

  Emily’s voice came over comms. “What about Offsite Facilities? Doesn’t the Iron Legion have data substations on the mainland?”

  Sofia, piloting Serpent’s Coil, nodded. “There are three I know of. One in South Dakota, one in the Alps, and one in Northern Australia. The uplinks mirror parts of the Archive Vaults for redundancy.”

  “They’re monitored,” Riley warned from Skybrand, “but not as heavily as the Fortress. If the cheetah can interface with the systems…”

  “I can,” the mech replied flatly. “If the uplink still exists, I will find him.”

  There was a silence, then Chika muttered, “We really aren’t supposed to be doing this, are we?”

  “Nope,” Alex replied. “Not even close.”

  “Then let’s do it quietly,” said Jessica. “We drop off the radar. Tell Command we hit electromagnetic interference and are regrouping. Start heading east. Australia’s closest.”

  “Won’t Vel and Helena hear us?” Josh asked.

  “They already did,” Mark said grimly. “And they haven’t stopped us yet.”

  Inside the Iron Fortress, in the Command Tower, Commander Vel Orsin leaned forward, hands clasped under his chin. Helena Rourke stood to the side, arms folded, expression unreadable.

  “They're not coming back,” Vel said, eyes fixed on the audio stream. “They know we can hear them.”

  Helena turned slowly to him. “And now we know too.”

  “Yeah,” Vel replied. “Replicants. All of them. All of us. Since the beginning.”

  They sat in silence a moment longer, the weight of revelation pressing against the cool steel walls of the tower.

  Helena finally broke the silence. “Should we report to the Council?”

  Vel exhaled sharply through his nose. “No. If they wanted us to know, we would’ve been told already. Let Squad X run with this. If there’s any truth in it—any danger—we’ll see it unfold.”

  “And if they dig too deep?”

  Vel looked her in the eyes. “I don’t know…”

  In the jungle shadows, the Squad X mechs began powering up again, silently. Their navigation routes were reset. Destinations cleared.

  Mark’s voice broke through the private squad channel. “We’re not just going rogue.”

  “We’re going real,” Emily said softly.

  Beside them, the cheetah mech turned its head toward the rising stars.

  “I will find him,” it said again.

  And this time, the squad believed it.

  They turned away from the ruins, leaving the broken stone and buried lies behind—carving a new path across the Pacific sky. Toward Australia. Toward the truth.

  The night air split silently as three silhouettes soared just beneath the edge of the stratosphere—Iron Scarab leading the formation, flanked by Abyss Ripper and Skybrand. Their dark hulls shimmered against starlight, ion-static cloaks diffusing radar signatures as they hurtled across the upper atmosphere toward the northern coast of Australia.

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  Inside Iron Scarab’s massive hull, Jessica and Mark piloted the beetle-shaped mech with sharp focus, the interior adjusted to accommodate the added weight. Secured in the reinforced hold behind them were Gravemaw and Serpent’s Coil, dormant in compact crouch-form, their armor interlocked with magnetic tethers. Standing between them, still and alert, was Kalrex—the cheetah mech—unbound but unmoving, like a statue awaiting resurrection.

  “Seventy klicks from the vault,” Jessica reported, fingers flying across the interface.

  Mark leaned slightly to glance at a separate feed. “Kalrex hasn’t moved. Just keeps staring at Coil’s shell.”

  Behind them, Kalrex’s voice emerged over the private comms, smooth and clear.

  “She looks familiar,” it said, almost to itself.

  “Serpent’s Coil?” Jessica asked, glancing back.

  “No… the pilot,” Kalrex replied. “There was one with eyes like hers. Long ago. I do not know if it was this generation. I only remember the expression.”

  “Expression?” Mark prompted.

  “Hurt. And… defiant.”

  Jessica turned forward again, her brow tight. “Yeah, that sounds like Sofia.”

  Below, the jagged edge of the Australian coast neared, the dusty ridges of the abandoned base on the horizon. Skybrand and Abyss Ripper broke formation, arcing outward.

  “Scans show no signs of life, but localized EM fields are spiking,” Emily reported from Ripper. “Something’s still drawing power down there.”

  “Vault door might still respond,” Alex added from Skybrand. “Assuming it still recognizes our tags.”

  Iron Scarab began descent, dust and ash churning beneath its turbines as it landed just outside the cracked and vine-choked entry to the Iron Legion data vault.

  Heavy metal groaned as the belly hatch opened.

  Kalrex stepped down first, landing silently on four paws.

  Jessica and Mark stood at the vault door, Kalrex beside them.

  The cheetah mech’s sensors swept the surface.

  “This is the place. His trail ends here.”

  Jessica glanced at Kalrex. “You said this is where he was last. That means we’re close. Or… close to something.”

  Kalrex tilted its head, golden optics narrowing.

  “I must enter. There are records… rooms I was never allowed in before. Places only my pilot had access to.”

  One by one, the pilots lined up. Jessica reached out first, and to her surprise.

  A pulse of light. A single beep.

  ACCESS GRANTED – ID 043J-JIK VERIFIED

  Kalrex’s head turned toward her slowly.

  “You… are of his line.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Jessica murmured.

  The vault door hissed. A deep groan rolled through the rock as metal shifted, ancient pistons firing up after nearly two decades.

  The doors parted slowly, revealing a dark corridor lit by flickering emergency lights and dust hanging in the stale air.

  “Kalrex, stay close,” Mark said quietly.

  “I never left,” the mech replied.

  One by one, Squad X entered the vault.

  The others fell into line behind her as they moved inside. The lighting flickered to life with dim, amber strips tracing the hallway's edges, casting long shadows behind the team. This place wasn’t like the rest of the ruins—it was clean. Preserved. A time capsule beneath centuries of dust.

  “This whole section’s still on backup power,” Marcus noted, scanning the hallway with his helmet HUD. “Emergency systems only. No defense grid, no auto-lockdowns. Like someone left it open… on purpose.”

  “No signs of tampering,” Emily added, checking the walls. “We’re the first ones in here in a long time.”

  Kalrex's voice came through comms, even though it walked beside them. “This facility predates your field deployments. It was sealed during the first phase of the Iron Legion program.”

  “You mean… before squads A to Z?” asked Riley.

  Kalrex nodded, its voice static-lined but clear. “This was where the prototypes were archived. Testbed units. First trials. Biological interface experiments. It's where you were all derived from.”

  They entered a circular chamber. Cold metal walls rose around them, lined with sealed glass capsules. Most were empty, but a few held preserved forms—replicant bodies suspended in cryo-gel. Familiar faces. Faces none of them had ever met, but all instinctively recognized.

  Josh stumbled back from one capsule, his breath hitching.

  “That’s me,” he said.

  “No,” Kalrex corrected. “That was a previous you. Replicant design iteration 4C, designation ‘Joshua Volton.’ You are 4F.”

  Jessica turned away from the rows of dormant bodies and moved toward the back of the room where a small terminal blinked slowly. She tapped the console, and with a soft chime, a holographic log activated.

  A man appeared. Early thirties, strong jawline, sun-worn skin, military haircut. He stood in front of a prototype chassis—sleek and feline, unmistakably Kalrex.

  “Log date: July 8th, 2018,” the man said. “Test pilot entry—Commander Caden Holt. This is the final upload before deep freeze. The Kalrex unit is unstable without a bonded pilot, and I can’t risk it falling into the wrong hands. Cryo-pod will keep me alive. If anyone finds this… you’ll need me to reinitiate Kalrex’s neural access. Full sync mode is locked behind my command line. I’m sorry. There was no other way.”

  The feed cut off.

  Silence fell over the room.

  Kalrex’s head lowered slowly.

  “Caden Holt,” it said quietly. “He was my pilot. My first… and only.”

  Mark folded his arms. “So where’s he now?”

  Kalrex stepped past them, moving toward a darkened side corridor. “His cryo-pod was moved. Records show it was extracted during a blackout event in 2029.”

  “So ten years ago,” Sofia muttered. “Where was he taken?”

  “There’s no location on record,” Kalrex replied. “Only a transfer code… Origin Vault-07, destination: D-Class Outpost ‘Morrowdusk.’ That’s all.”

  “Never heard of it,” Lucas said.

  “It’s not on our maps,” Josh added. “Probably buried. Like this place was.”

  Jessica looked back at the others. “Then we dig it up. We find Morrowdusk. If Caden Holt is out there… he might have answers. Maybe about the replicants. About all of us.”

  Kalrex turned toward her, the amber glow of its optics dimming slightly.

  “If he’s still alive,” it said.

  Jessica nodded grimly.

  “Then let’s hope we’re not too late.”

  “Alright,” Jessica finally said, turning away from the terminal. “Let’s move. We have a name, a place, and a direction.”

  “Back to the surface,” Lucas agreed, stepping ahead. “Then we find this ‘Morrowdusk’ outpost.”

  Kalrex padded silently behind them, processing data faster than any of them could fathom. “Coordinates are fragmented. I will need time to reconstruct a path using legacy mapping overlays. But it’s possible. If Holt is alive… I will find him.”

  They climbed the winding stairwell back toward the sunlight breaking through the collapsed ceiling of the Australia outpost. Gravemaw and Serpent’s Coil, still folded within Iron Scarab’s large rear chassis, powered up in hibernation mode. Skybrand and Abyss Ripper stood idle nearby, their frames humming faintly under the soft wind of the high plains. The squad readied to board.

  Then the call came through.

  “Squad X, come in,” came the stern voice of Commander Vel Orsin, filtered slightly by comm compression. “I’m getting full biometric vitals and mech feeds. Are you in motion again?”

  Jessica paused at the foot of Iron Scarab’s ramp, her hand hovering near the access panel.

  “Yes, sir,” she responded, keeping her tone steady. “We’re extracting now. Mission area is secure.”

  “Then explain something,” Vice Commander Helena Rourke cut in, voice sharper. “Why did the cheetah-class prototype breach its hangar, run halfway across the Pacific, and then stop right on top of your position?”

  Josh glanced at the others. No one answered.

  “Telemetry from your mechs shows power fluctuations inside the ruins,” Orsin continued. “We saw multiple vault systems reactivate. But we couldn’t see what you were looking at. You’re in blackout-grade infrastructure—no interior visuals.”

  Jessica kept her voice neutral. “There was some kind of power relay still active in the ruins. Possibly from the old Legion architecture.”

  “Then explain Kalrex,” Helena said. “That mech is too fast to follow and too intelligent to track. Why did it stop running when it got to you?”

  Mark tapped his helmet comms. “It recognized us. Might be some shared architecture.”

  “Kalrex is a sealed system. Its behavior is beyond even Council expectations. You’re telling me it just… came to you?” Orsin asked.

  Emily cut in, “We didn’t tell it to. It chose.”

  There was silence on the comms. A long pause.

  Then Orsin responded, slower now. “Return to the Fortress immediately. Kalrex will be quarantined. Tech Division wants a full debrief and system scrub.”

  Kalrex stiffened. Jessica stepped forward, instinctively placing herself between it and the approaching mechs.

  “Sir,” she said firmly, “respectfully—Kalrex is seeking its pilot. Caden Holt. There may be answers out here we can’t find back at the Fortress. Permission to continue the search.”

  “You don’t get to grant yourselves permission,” Helena snapped. “That’s not your role.”

  A beat.

  Then Orsin replied, cooler this time. “Squad X… return. That’s a direct order.”

  Jessica clenched her jaw, hand still on the ramp panel. Kalrex shifted beside her.

  “Commander,” Kalrex said over the comms, its voice reaching Fortress control directly now, “you are requesting my detainment. I am not Legion property. I was never yours to begin with. I will not be locked away again.”

  “Then we’ll take you apart and figure out what you are the old-fashioned way,” Helena shot back.

  “No,” Jessica said firmly. “You’ll destroy the one lead we’ve got.”

  “Watch your tone, Inbolkis,” Orsin replied, voice hardening.

  Kalrex stepped toward the edge of the landing pad.

  “I’m leaving,” it said. “With or without your approval. I seek Caden Holt.”

  Alex, from the ramp of Skybrand, clicked in. “Then we go with it. You want full biometric reads and mission data? You’ll get it. We’ll stream every second.”

  Helena’s voice was like ice. “This is treason.”

  “No,” Josh said. “This is us doing what we were made for. Pursuing the truth.”

  The comms line went silent.

  Jessica nodded at her team. “Let’s move.”

  Iron Scarab’s massive wings began to unfold as its engines warmed, the ramp sealing behind them. Abyss Ripper and Skybrand took to the sky alongside, engines howling across the plateau.

  Kalrex raced ahead on the ground—an amber streak carving across the ancient earth.

  Commander Vel Orsin stood motionless before the central operations display, arms folded, watching the silhouettes of Squad X’s mechs race across the holographic map. The three airborne units—Iron Scarab, Abyss Ripper, and Skybrand—moved in tight formation above Kalrex, its ground path carving through old satellite imagery in real-time. Gravemaw and Serpent’s Coil remained stowed in Scarab’s rear, offline for now.

  Vice Commander Helena Rourke paced behind him, her steps short, precise, and edged with frustration.

  “They defied a direct order,” she hissed. “That’s grounds for suspension. Lockout. Termination of command code access.”

  Vel didn’t turn. “If we shut them down, we lose eyes on the most advanced mech in Legion history. And the only lead on a pilot who shouldn’t even exist.”

  “You’re saying we just let them go rogue?”

  “I’m saying we watch.”

  She scowled. “They’re chasing ghost data. We should be combing the Council archives, not letting a prototype lead a squad off-script.”

  Vel finally turned. His gaze was sharp now. “Do you think the Council will tell us anything, Helena? After what Squad X saw in the ruins? After what that mech said?”

  She hesitated.

  Vel continued, “This isn’t just about disobedience. It’s about containment. And I’d rather have them out there than locked in a chamber down here.”

  Helena’s eyes narrowed. “We’re already in breach protocol. If the High Council finds out—”

  “They already know,” Vel cut her off. “They just haven’t said anything yet.”

  A long silence settled between them.

  Then he tapped the comm line. “Maintain a ghost link to all Squad X mech feeds. Keep logging everything they see and say. No interruptions. No lockdowns. Not yet.”

  Helena didn’t like it. But she nodded.

  “We’ll see how far this rabbit hole goes,” she muttered.

  The sky was blood-orange, the sun a molten eye on the horizon. The scorched terrain stretched endlessly in all directions—broken ridges, dry riverbeds, and remnants of long-abandoned mining operations.

  Kalrex moved with a kind of predatory grace, scanning every structure and shard of debris they passed. Its head swiveled with rapid, calculated movements. The mechs of Squad X fanned out behind it, each tuned for scouting patterns, their footfalls thudding in soft rhythmic beats against the parched earth.

  “Anything?” Jessica asked over comms.

  “Negative,” replied Emily from the cockpit of Abyss Ripper. “No life signs. No heat signatures beyond ourselves and Kalrex.”

  Lucas added from Iron Scarab, “Been seeing old Legion sensor wires buried in the ground. Some still have power traces, but no signals.”

  “Whatever this outpost was,” Sofia said, “it’s been dead for years.”

  Kalrex paused near the collapsed husk of an old atmospheric intake tower. Its claws brushed against the surface—scanning.

  “I am detecting localized memory fragments… deep imprints in the alloy.” A beat. “Someone spent time here. Repaired something. Maybe even hid.”

  “Caden?” Josh asked.

  Kalrex didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know. But it was someone with my access codes.”

  Jessica stood at the edge of a shattered loading bay, staring down into the darkness. Her voice came over the line, quiet but certain.

  “He was here.”

  “Then we keep looking,” said Riley. “Until we find what he left behind.”

  Above them, the wind howled across the dust-cracked land.

  Squad X pressed deeper into the outback.

  Somewhere out here, Caden Holt had left a trail.

  And Kalrex was determined to find it.

  The orange hue of dusk had melted into a pitch-black canvas, with only the faint stars above guiding their way. Kalrex, still the leader in the search, scouted ahead, its illuminated form casting a long shadow across the barren land. Squad X followed closely behind, their mechs cutting through the windblown dust, the faint rumble of their engines the only sound amidst the otherwise haunting silence.

  Kalrex ran along the terrain just ahead of them. The mech’s bright optic sensors scanned the dark horizon.

  “We’re close,” Kalrex said. “Eleven kilometers to Quilpie. Caden passed through that town. It may hold a trace.”

  “Quilpie?” Mark’s voice came through Iron Scarab’s comms. “Real outback country.”

  “Population’s like… what, a few hundred?” Emily added.

  “Six hundred twenty-three as of the last census,” Lucas noted, glancing at his internal feed. “Give or take.”

  The town came into view, its modest glow pushing back against the vast darkness. Streetlights traced dusty roads. A few cars were parked outside weathered buildings. A small pub sign flickered in the distance.

  “No abandoned ruins this time,” Jessica said from the lead cockpit. “This place is alive.”

  Iron Scarab slowed and lowered itself into a crouch outside the town’s boundary. Its rear hangar opened with a hiss of hydraulics. Gravemaw and Coil were carefully offloaded onto the hard-packed dirt and entered low-power stasis.

  Kalrex stopped just before the edge of the bitumen road. “I will remain here,” it said. “A sentient combat mech in the middle of a rural town would provoke concern.”

  The pilots dropped down one by one from their mechs. Jessica and Mark led the group, followed by the others, all clad in lightweight pilot gear—functional yet sleek, their boots crunching against the gravel.

  A sign by the road read: WELCOME TO QUILPIE – HOME OF THE OPAL ALTAR.

  Lights flickered in homes. A dog barked from somewhere behind a fence. The night was quiet, not hostile, just… cautious.

  As the group walked down the main street, Riley muttered, “Feels like we’ve walked into a time capsule.”

  A local teen pedaled slowly past on an old mountain bike, eyeing them with wide eyes. “You guys with the army?”

  Jessica gave a half-smile. “Sort of. Just looking for someone. Training detail.”

  The teen didn’t push it—just nodded and rode off.

  Inside the town pub, “The Imperial Hotel,” a low hum of conversation greeted Jessica, Mark, Emily, and Chika as they entered. The bar was dim but warm, with red brick walls and old photographs nailed along the rafters.

  The bartender, a woman in her fifties with weathered skin and a calm gaze, raised a brow. “You lot are long way from Woomera.”

  “We’re Iron Legion,” Jessica said. “Low-profile ops. Looking for someone who passed through. Name’s Caden Holt.”

  The bartender leaned back. “Holt… yeah. Bloke came through a few weeks back. Quiet. Looked tired. Asked a lot of questions about the ranges west of here.”

  “Do you know where he was headed?” Mark asked.

  A man at the bar turned slightly. “Said he was headed toward the old communications relay. Out past Eromanga. Said it might have something he needed.”

  Emily leaned forward. “Did he leave anything here?”

  The bartender paused. “Think he left a notebook behind the bar. Couldn’t reach him to return it.”

  She rummaged behind the counter and pulled out a dusty leather-bound journal.

  Jessica took it carefully. She glanced at Kalrex’s name scrawled on the first page… and beneath it, in blocky handwriting:

  CADEN HOLT – IF FOUND, DO NOT RETURN TO THE FORTRESS.

  She looked up at the others, heart thudding.

  “He didn’t want to be found by them,” she said quietly.

  Lucas’s voice crackled in from outside. “Then we find him first.”

  Jessica nodded. “Next stop: the relay site.”

  She turns to the bartender for a moment, “Thank you.” and the squad heads out.

  The squad stepped back into the arid darkness, leaving the warm glow of the town behind. Kalrex stood still, silent but alert. Its sleek form glinted faintly in the moonlight, ears twitching as if listening for threats only it could hear.

  Jessica held the journal tightly, flipping through the pages under a dim wristlight. Scrawled maps. Coordinates. Sketches of Kalrex. Technical diagrams she couldn’t fully interpret. And then… a log entry.

  “—have to assume they’ll never stop looking. If Kalrex gets free, it’ll find me. If not… then it’s better this way. They can’t have the data.”

  She snapped the journal shut. “We’ve got a heading. There’s a decommissioned relay station about 70 klicks west of here, outside Eromanga.”

  Josh raised a brow. “Eromanga. Middle of nowhere.”

  “Which is probably why he went there,” Lucas added.

  Kalrex’s voice came low. “That relay was part of a satellite uplink grid during the early phase of Project Echoframe. It may contain records… or pieces of my creation. He may be trying to access them.”

  Sofia glanced west. “Desert’s gonna be rough. We fly?”

  Jessica nodded. “Gravemaw and Coil stay inside Scarab. Skybrand and Ripper keep formation. We fly low, no beacon. Don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention.”

  The team boarded quickly. Hatches sealed. Systems hummed.

  The flight was silent but swift. The red dirt blurred beneath them as the mechs soared through the night sky. Kalrex ran below once again—never tiring, never slowing.

  The relay station appeared on the horizon just before dawn—half-buried in sand, its antenna collapsed, broken solar panels gleaming dimly in the blue-grey light of morning. It was surrounded by nothing but dust, wind, and emptiness.

  The mechs landed with precise thuds, scattering red soil. Kalrex halted at the edge of the crumbling complex.

  “This is where he came,” the mech said, its tone distant.

  Jessica, Mark, and Chika dropped down first, approaching the derelict compound. The station’s rusted doors hung loose. Inside, old servers lined the walls, long-dead terminals blinking faint green as emergency batteries struggled to stay alive.

  Josh’s voice cut in over comms. “Picking up signs of someone having accessed this place. Logs show terminal activity… just four days ago.”

  “Caden,” Jessica murmured.

  Sofia approached a central terminal, wiping dust from the monitor. “One of the drives is missing. He took it.”

  Lucas joined Jessica, peering over her shoulder as faded boot-up sequences blinked across the interface.

  “There,” Lucas pointed. “Comm packet logs. Outbound uplink. Narrow beam. Sent west.”

  Josh leaned in. “He was trying to contact something? Or… someone?”

  Jessica frowned. “Looks like a data burst. Compressed, encrypted. Sent toward a now-defunct facility registered as… OSP-9. Doesn’t exist in current maps.”

  Kalrex tilted its head, eyes pulsing faint blue. “OSP-9. Outback Systems Point Nine. A long-abandoned defense network node. Located beyond the Pilbara region. Western Australia.”

  “Nearly two thousand kilometers,” Emily muttered. “If he went there on foot, we’d have weeks on him.”

  “Kalrex,” Sofia asked, “do you know why he’d go there?”

  The mech was quiet a moment, then: “OSP-9 housed secondary development labs. Before I was activated, I was tested there. He would know that. If he seeks more answers—or to destroy something—he’d go back to the beginning.”

  Jessica stood, unplugging the interface. “Then that’s our next lead.”

  Chika nodded. “We’ll refuel at Longreach, maybe Alice Springs. Keep moving west. No contact with command unless absolutely necessary.”

  Mark looked at the relay station one last time. “You think he knows we’re coming?”

  “I think he’s counting on it,” Kalrex replied.