AW [OPFOR BLUE] ENTER THE HYENAS'

[Char]

Mech Bay

Seven, Eight, Nine rounds loaded arduously slow as each crank of the lever manually cycled the belt by one round.

There were no mechs in the war for the heavens; At least none that weren't fielded by BAMF. While a larger target and more exploitable than base armor, and niche in their roles compared to tried and true armor or cavalry BAMF stood by their frames and in more than just the cities and open ground; In terrain unsuited for wheels or tracked vehicles the Knight Cavalry was as much traumatic to the ten nations just knowing one or more was present as was the damage they brought.

While only fielding possibly a hundred at its peak, the Knights of BAMF and their mechs were worth at least ten of their enemy equivilent in the ten nations. With advanced mass divers and railguns, accurate optics, and specialized weapons that to be spotted in the open when a Knight was operating in the area was certain death for half your column before you could even get in range.

And death for the other half by the time it repositioned on your flank.

The Manticore was an older model; One of the very first. It didnt have a very good cockpit, and relied on cameras and optics for the pilot to see, but with its 37mm Autocannons, dual ATGMs, 76mm rockets, and 30mm chaingun it was fast-paced raider and multi-role capable of combating just about anything. The problem was bare rocket and ATGM tubes, and missing cyclic on the 30mm showing the frame as being, at best, a project-horse for the pit crew and not a fully tested or armed mech.

The Liosultan, by comparison, was much heavier and while it carried less weaponry could easily punch through any of the Manticores armor with its 105mm Railgun; While its armor was more than rated against the 37mm of the Manticore.

Regardless they worked on.

Ten, eleven, twelve rounds...

Was as far as they got until the old mans boot stomped on the scaffolding; Pit crew of traitors to their kind still following starstuck and hanging on every word. Eager to prove and kiss ass, the pit-boss had practically fellated him about the Manticore after the frame had recieved signifigant damage when its pod from the colony ship practically exploded when it hit the ground. It was a pet-project to rebuild it from near-scratch in the almost four years they had been settled there.

The revelation and confirmation of who they were, and how long they had been there had not gone unnoticed.

"Its running in theory; We've been able to cold-fire it and idle but the frame stalls as soon as-"

"As you shift it into gear." The woodsman finished, Nodding with a frown as he topped the scaffolding and scaled the top of the fuselage and began to shimmy into the top hatch. With just him inside and the pit-boss kneeling on the top of the fuselage looking in the squires both loyal and not scurried back to a safe distance.

Twelve rounds... Twelve rounds in a weapon that could expel that many rounds in a single second. There was a hiss, and then more as the mech first lowered further on its haunches as pneumatic pressure in its joints was flushed before there was a pop and a bang followed by more like the sound of an old jalopy firing up as not fuel was igniting but powerful electrodes fired and sparked and fired as life was sucked from the batteries. With a jaunty bob up and down the mech groaned to life on barely-used but lubricated joints as it rose to twice its prone height; The Pit-boss riding on top with one hand on a handle like a pro.

And then, the machine shifted forwards in posture. And whined dead as it began to lower back down as most inhaled a breath of disapointment before it fired again and lurched a step forwards as the old master knight played the clutch and shited it into gear. The almost 6-meter warmachine thrummed with barely-restrained power as it visibly vibrated against the gyroscopes as its pilot held it steady. The pit boss threw both hands up in triumph as the head and torso of the woodsman poked out and clasped wrists with him in triumph.

And then promptly shoved the pit boss off the fuselage where he fell over twenty feet to the hard concrete floor and landed right on his head before ducking back into the mech.

The militia and local squires where still half cheering when he was pushed, and looked amongst each other in concern and confusion as if none of them were sure what they just saw before the first BAMF squire brought the three-foot, twenty-pound wrench to the back knee of on of the locals. Another had a finger threaded through a nut larger than a ring and used the improvised knuckle-duster directly into the kidney of one of the militia before jumping on him.

Motts would have wasted no time in his own attack had one of the militia not been faster on the uptake and cold-cocked him in the cheek. Another, still unsure of what was going on but not yet understanding the lethality to come drove a fist directly at Alphaeus gut...

He pulled back in pain when it connected with the rifle under his poncho and dislocated one of the digits. There was confusion on the mans face before a massive wrench connected with his temple.

"Go!" One of the squires shouted as they armed themselves with what they could from the downed militiamen after the brief scuffle was over and began their sabotage work. At the urging from Motts the cumbersome poncho where the team, now once again in their oiled BAMF leathers recovered their goggles and masks from pouches and pockets as they jogged into the open and rain.

In the distance they could barely make out gunfire as the other entry teams finished their objectives; Those inside the barracks and buildings would never hear a thing.

"Piper-actual requesting cooridor." Motts voice chimed in over their radio with the slight machine tinge before another, more muffled voice responded.

"Piper-actual, SKYKING, Top lane is yours; 70m east by north-east." The companies controller responded as visible green pathways became visible on their HUD.

"Fly." Was all Motts ordered before the maneuver gear under his coat blew his coattail out dramatically and catapulted him into the air along the visible trajectory.

Airborne.

The OST maneuver gear was an interesting piece of equipment. It did not allow or even encourage actual flight, but instead using a man-portable antigrav lightened the area around the marine and then using gas-powered propulsion systems throw the marine into a form of both weightlessness and also reversed-gravity allowing them to leap and then fall either skywards or laterally like a near never-ending longjump. The team, as they flew, made almost 300ft in less than ten seconds and over fifty feet off the ground before slowing and landing on the low-graded roof of an unmarked building.

It was terrifying and exhilarating both as boots slid and fought for purchase before they each caught purchase, not that falling off would have actually hurt any of them.

From their vantage point most of the two square miles of the base were laid out before them. Their objective; The Liosultan was over three hundred meters away as it slowly and carefully paced along a thoroughway devoid of others on its stroll. The Woodsman and his Manticore were still just barely away from the hangar and blocked by a half-douzen warehouses and had no possible line of sight to his target.

"Piper, Groundless." The pathfinder team jumped on their radio net, the barely visible blue triangles on their HUDs in the distance an indicator of the sniper-teams location. The indication that they were now active was all the indicator any of them needed.

Time was up.

They all watched as from the west their HUD exploded into color as the night sky suddenly gained new stars as blue triangles indicating friendlies descended from over a hundred meters in the air as the full company pushed their maneuver gears to the limit to launch themselves from the maximum height into the core of the base. Heavy machinegun rounds and rockets fell first onto soft targets like the barracks as a full company of OST shock marines fell from the sky like descending furies.

As they descended and became visible from tracers and rockets they fired the Liosultan stopped still as its pilot likely looked skywars.

And its cockpit began to shift upwards towards them.


Hunter-Killer

The enemy Golem was not easily found. The local Golem Net was locked to Ares and Morgan as they essentially ran about at random trying to pinpoint the one active signal on the net they could identify if not interact with. They kept pacing over the same area over and over again frustratingly as to where they knew the target should be.

A Macro Golem was not something someone easily hid. By their name and nature, they were the largest category of Gol and were just barely easier to hide than, say, a mech.

Which so happened to stroll right by her as the massive medium mech passed with its long gait without noticing an ant like her.

Once again Morgan was standing right in the middle of a mud-slicked broken path with her sensors and Ares telling her that despite the fact there was literally nothing within that range that there was a walking warmachine twice if not more the size of a man just ten meters from her. There were buildings; Mostly dark, and a couple vehicles parked outside them, but little more other than...

Other than a very familiar bulkhead. It was reminiscent of the one at Khandar; Large but not large enough to fit a vehicle through, armored in a bunker-style concrete pillock, and covered in a variety of warnings that more or less all gave the warning that nobody unauthorized was to so much as tread near it.

It was easy enough to breach with Ares playing SWAR and took only moments to unlock the keypad just as Marines started falling from the sky and Morgan began her own descent. It was at best two flights of stairs down before they ended at another bulkhead which entered some kind of corridor that went on for about twenty feet before splitting off.

Helpful signs and Strata on the wall with equally helpful colored paint paths and a basic board pointing to various areas in the bunker gave her an idea of what was where. A recently drenched man in unassuming fatigues was also staring at the map when she approached causing him to have a near heart attack at the sight of Morgan before he turned away and stiffly but also quickly tried to make it look like he wasnt being the least bit inconsiderate by pretending he wasnt intimidated by her.

Ignoring the emotions and actions of meatlings she was able to get a good view of their floor, of which it was the only one in the bunker.

• Janitorial
• Mantanence
• Power
• Wardroom
• Communications-backup
• Command Center/TOC
• Lab
• Nurse
• RESTRICTED
• Golem Cold Storage.
• Storage

Simple enough for a small bunker. Just a few turns and a couple doors to go through and if they were lucky their target would already be shut down for an extended period and Morgan could just spend a few minutes and most of the edge on her chains separating its head from the rest of its body!

But then something topside had to explode and people somwhere had to start shouting and running about as doors began flying open and people began running around like swarming ants and generally getting in her way!

But then-THEN those musical words to her ears were remembered before they left when Alexandar gave her those three-worded order every Golem hears before they get let off the leash to do their ladys work.

Search and Destroy.

In her unfeeling body, endorphins and serotonin were released from a small pump in her head and directly into her brain as even the most long-faded Gol relished the true feeling they could all enjoy to keep them sane and drive them during the kill as the chemical cocktail was like both ice and fire in the phantom-limb that was her entire body like fireants made of cotton candy crawled through her non-existant veins and delivered ecstasy and passion both only a shell of a touch-starved human could know!

Before Morgan even knew she was moving the screaming in the hall began.

 

[LavaLung]

Warehouses -> Golem Lab

<"Sergeant Mott, Woodsman, be advised, active medium mech at my location."> The onyx-skinned doll weapon was beginning to feel like the entire globe was just black dirt and warehouses, forming long alleyways and flat open spaces. Plus it wasn't their job to get in a fight with that thing in the first place. <"Unknown model. I'm moving on.">

In the end, Morgan was surprised to stumble on such familiar infrastructure at all- Ares was looking for a enemy Golem signal, but these guys would probably pick up her passive signals too, right?

Their body language remained that of absolute stoicism as they walked inside, the kickstand on their chainsaw leg making a particularly grating scrape every time it hit the floor. Fleshy things knew to avoid eye contact, but somehow, the doll sensed those primitive, repressed notions of fear leaking out of every pore...

The enemy was going to find them first, right? Morgan really did want that jacket and those glasses for situations like this, it would make sense to-

A click-popping sound, hands seizing forwards and her back arcing straight. The command system meeting the correct criteria to activate was especially strong and sudden this time, no doubt adjusted by some far-off controller for the fight ahead.

Brilliant, arresting, painful- A strong urge to complete the exact letter of their mission took over, rudely reminding them of just how redundant their own tactical scheming had been.

None of that mattered now. The red haze took over, seizing them by the frontal lobe. The abject identification and destruction of the enemy machine was the only thing they were capable of now, due to the specific wording of the task...

Which, ironically for these terrified workers, actually made them safe from her berserk, omnidirectional malice.

She'd go to maintenance first, the most likely place for a Golem in the middle of being made ready. The lab would come next, then the restricted area, and then Gol-specific storage.

<"Ares, please access the Golem Net... request a change in... mission parameters."> Despite it being a digital transmission, N-14 was gasping- Keeping her thoughts coherent was difficult in this state. <"Destroying th-their command staff or... equipment... more logical... this... s-s-situation...">

 

[Char]

The Golem-net was a simple thing. A broadband frequency bumping around from standalone networks to a system in a satellite in orbit no larger than a small car the net was one part private communications system between Gol at faster-than-thought codec and part cogitator offloading a Gols normal brain processes into an algorithm that can make sense and formulate information for them in real time. In essence, the net was a private second-brain that took the human thought patterns of the Gols mind and enhanced it.

Connecting to it at such a high-stress moment was like trying to listen to a second conversation while orating to the firrst. It was not impossible but took critical attention away from a Golems surroundings. With Ares offloading the task from Morgan it was no extra strain on her.

It was also no extra strain for Ares when he reported no tenable connection to it. With the base having its own dedicated Golem net on a near-identical frequency different only by its encoding the two of them were essentially locked out of their own house with the wrong set of keys. The backup solution was to reach out to the Lieutenant being their current issued handler but all they got in return was muffled gunfire, grunts, heavy breathing, and the occasional primal growl.

With that the two were on their own. Scrambling down the maint tunnels it was little more than a turn and a bend before they reached the next area. As it seemed the complex was built rather sparse and minimalist it was no great spider web of design and was more akin to a spiraling tube going around in a circle with rooms and features studded off of the main thoroughfare. There was a sealed bulkhead that branched off in a direction the strata that implied the critical command bunker was that way, but by the frame of the bulkhed alone Morgan was likely to snap every tooth off her chain before she did so much as mar it. With the chaos and confusion being her only advantage against a coordinated response the logical step was to keep moving.

There were empty barracks yet to be filled, long halls of storage containers, pointless rooms for maintenance with pipes or electrical junctions that even destroying them did seemingly nothing to the installation; They went on and on getting deeper into the facility until the bends became sharper and the center became ever-present as the Gol could pretty much shirk off the occasional resistance unqualified to even dent her or slow her down more than a passing moment.

The only delay was sealed bulkheads that Ares could bypass but opened arduously slowly. As they passed one such bulkhead Ares flared audibly in Morgans communications to stop with enough force that sparks briefly lit up the dim halls from her momentum.

It was a plain if large, metal bulkhead that she had missed with its purpose stenciled in large military letters. As the door labeled GOLEM PROCESSING AND STORAGE 1/1 slid open Morgan hesitantly slid inside expecting her quarry but finding something else all together.

Where Khandar had maybe seven Gol including them in storage the room Morgan found herself in now went on longer than the neighboring rooms might have hinted at as no less than Twenty Six bays were aligned in a long row across two walls each with a head on a pedestal beside it with what few of them active showed lifeless gazes simply staring at the wall and showing no sign of recognition to her entry while the rest were yet to be woken up.

Only one bay was empty and was the largest bay; Sized for their target at a Macro type Golem.

"How are there so many?" Ares queried to more himself than Morgan as they passed one unit after another, finding that with the exeption of the Macro type they knew every unit was an Assault type golem; Being rather basic in utility as just an armored body lacking any remarkable weapons or features of the other types.

"The Babel armed military forces at its peak counted few more than four hundred Gol. Barely more than four were sent on most colony vessels and excluding those stored prematurely in our own we two were the last to be recovered." Ares wondered aloud as the disembodied head bumped against her side while looking up at the rows of headless bodies.

Outside

As the rain fell and marines with it, the Liosultan arced its long lance towards the sky. The team watched the mech likely just as the pilot in the Liosultan likely looked up at the sky from where tracers and rocket trails soared. The spotlight on the mech showed like a concentrated cone of sunlight as men in armor soared within its beam.

The pilot clearly made some decision to break any confusion or hesitation as each of the team felt a palpable slap in the air strong enough to push them like a strong breeze as the powerful railgun fired once with the audible thundercrack coming a split second later. While the round was likely only as long as a mans forearm and unlikely to hit such fast-moving targets it became abundantly clear such concerns were redundant as the vacuum the round passing by in an instant ripped four marines apart in the air by proximity alone. As the fuselage shifted slightly to spot the next flies to swat the 30mm autocannon began to bark out trails of tracers while the second it took the cylinder on the railguns autoloader to cycle shifted and another slap hit them like a breeze as it fired again.

Looking around from their height the smaller Manticore was still slowly jogging around the buildings and not in any position to intercept yet. As the first explosions blew somewhere near the VTOL pads little men in orange ponchos began swarming out of the buildings like a kicked hornets nest by the hundreds as the first of the marines passed their peak and even with their antigravs began the arc towards the ground and into their midst.

With little they could do about that Motts visibly placed on the roof looking between one mech and the other as if it would make the master knight arrive that much faster. Pausing, the man looked longingly at the enemy mech and bent his knees ever so slightly as his coattails began to whip about while he looked for some exploitable opportunity.

"We're dying out there! We have to do something!"

 

[Commissar Farzi]

They'd misjumped, while not an everyday routine, it also wasn't unheard of; the Gazer model 3 nav-computers despite their common availability, were also notoriously un-reliable occasionally sending vessels lightyears off course and the more reliable and newer Wayfinder series were still at least another year out from being fielded en-mass.


The small flotilla; a few Skimmer-Class cutters, a pair of Swordbreaker-Class Corvettes and a single Garrison class frigate with a smattering of troop transports. They'd been bound to the southernmost border of the NDC to assist in solving a border dispute between a pair of noble houses. It was supposed to be a routine operation-go in, fly the colors-look intimidating; use the heavier ship to potentially dish out a few fifty gigaton reminders of 'Just because you have a fleet, doesn't mean you should use it', and go home.

Well, maybe not that last part.

Still, strategic deterrence was strategic deterrence, no doubt about that. Unfortunately, those plans had changed-they'd sent a message back to Hephaestus II informing them of what happened-and hopefully someone else would be sent out. For now, they were currently stuck over some unknown world until the jump drives recharged. ("Alright,") the knight captain in charge from aboard the garrison class-a stocky man of 30 winters began, ("Where in the Ancestor's collective bollocks did we end up this time?") One of the yeoman turned to a display. ("Looks like some kind of desert world, gravity's standard norm-atmo...we'd need to send a-.") One of his fellows turned and indicating something on his own monitor. ("Sir, we are picking up heavy comms traffic.") That got his attention. ("Any idea from whom?") The Captain asked as he watched his own display. ("Working.") A few tense moments, dragged out by the fact they were now in a system potentially inhabited by, potentially hostile, unknowns. ("Uh...doesn't match NDC or whatever pirate bands are around.")

Great, so first contact.

("Anything else?") The knight captain sighed-first contact-never a good situation. ("Got a few seismic scans-based on rate and consistency, looks to be some kind of conflict going down.") Not good. ("Orders?") Most the ground pounders were itching for a fight, and the flotilla while fairly small was still capable of hitting well above its weight class. But charging in to fight with no idea who you were shooting at was a wonderful way to start a war. ("We wait, if they hail us before the drives are recharged we'll see about assisting them, otherwise we're pulling out and heading to our contractor's destination.") A few grumbles from some of the troops, but none protested. Watch and wait was the plan, it was standard procedure for first contact after all, and if they turned out to be hostile?

Well...they'd cross that bridge when they got to it.

 

[LavaLung]

Underground

"Oh, I'll process some Golems, alright!" Morgan cackled out loud, at this point embracing the backseat driving that their command sub-processor was overriding their conscious mind with...

Upon entering the room, however, they found themselves to be the only scarecrow with a ghost inside.

That was fine. In truth, battlefield intelligence failing to meet reality was something that happened quite frequently- Standing there in the darkened chamber, the metal skeleton only had to cool down their enforced bloodlust and reinstate some sense of logic. That's why they still had a human mind at all, right?

"Target is not in obvious locations." They literally talked to themselves, justifying the break from their stringent command protocols. "Additional targets also verified. Situation suggests this unit should... Recon in force until main target presents itself. This unit will gather information through... Dissection."

It was a complex decision in her head, but the computational power made it look instantaneous.

She levelled her rifle-arm and began shooting the detached craniums in the face, point blank.

<"Ares... This base seems far more well equipped than it should be..."> Morgan's digital voice seemed unreasonably soft, given all of the sudden violence taking place in reality. <"Do you think you can identify the make and model of these body parts? Perhaps a date of manufacture?">

The idea of securing these parts to upgrade their jury-rigged body came to mind, of course. But the mission specification probably wasn't going to allow for that. Never mind the fact they had the sneaking suspicion they were obsolete in comparison.

 

[Gunhand4171]

"Well this is FUBAR..." Typhon said running to the edge of the building and setting up his rifle. Fanning several magazines out in front of him, he glanced back at the others and said "Better relocate! Things are gonna suck up here soon."

To punctuate the statement, he began firing his sniper rifle at the mech's cockpit. "Over here you big fucker! Pick on someone who can shoot back!!!" He roared as he mag dumped his rifle, before deftly changing magazines and continuing the fusilade.

 

[Char]

Morgan

<Confirm.> Ares head was placed on a pedestal after its owner was none too gently disconnected, the disembodied head being plugged in to the diagnostic of the body behind it.

<Off-inventory unit, colonial guard; Nomenclature unknown, age; Seven months,-> He began reading off, identifying the Golems statistics as being an undeclared unit not registered to BAMFs golem net and inventory but instead belonging to an orginization known as the Colonial Guard.

What was strange, however, was its age. At seven months since the procedure and first activation, the Gol should be animate and still remarkably human in its actions and emotions with units showing mental decay and stagnation only after decades in the case of even the most weak-willed. Ares continued on reading off seemingly redundant information, codes, and processes from the most mundane to the intricate with each one matching close enough to their own lead towards the logic that these units were at least in some part made by BTS technicians.

After almost a minute; A small eternity in hyper-cogitation, Ares hung up suddenly and went silent. Still mimicking the facsimile of blinking he was still active but hyper-focused on something that Morgan could not see not connected to their Golem Net.

There was rare emotion in the old killing machine when he snapped out of his trance and instead of simply looking forwards as always with a monotone Ares eyes move to snap onto Morgan.

"Install me in this unit, N-14." There was clear excitement in his tone even if he would not elaborate as he was hoisted up and with one dexterous arm Morgan was able to start connecting synapses and connectors from his head onto the body. Gol each had a subtype they were assigned and performed as from the moment they were activated.

Scout types like Ares were light and dexterous; Able to quickly cover great distances and over usually untraversable terrains.

Assault types were the most common like the one he was being installed on. Unremarkable in utility they were simply made to fill the job of heavy infantry but stronger and more durable.

Hunter-Killer types like Morgan were walking arsenals made to kill other Gol or hard-targets.

And Macro types were heavy-weapons platforms made to carry large weapons or act as steamrollers a force could not ignore without consequence.

While it wasn't impossible to switch bodies it was rather complicated for the unit to optimize itself again after years of operating at peak efficiency it was a detriment to attempt with the loss of coordination and function like a star athlete trying to perform again immediately after a horrible injury; The experience was all there but the body and muscle memory is lacking.

Ares didn't even calibrate fully before pulling out of the cables and harnesses that held the body to its cradle as the rigid Assault Type body clunked and staggered out of the room and back into the hall. Before he started onwards down the hall he explained everything with a single reference unmistakeable in its context from the metadata he had stumbled across in his memory deep dive into their Golem net prompting even Morgan to move.

The battle, the objective, all else was secondary as subroutines cleared morgans HUD to hold only one objective.

//Secure 'Daughter': (0/1)//

Now privy to the local golem net through second-hand access through Ares Morgan was able to see the location of the objective just down the hall and the one obstacle to acquiring it. Ignoring all else the two Gol rushed through the corridor in an instant and to the final door of the bunker. It was a simple double door the same as all the others if carrying different security access to which Ares now in their Golem net was now allowed access.

The only obstacle in their path was coincidentally the one thing they came to the bunker originally to hunt as a large Golem sat against the doorframe. Even sitting down with crossed legs it was as tall as Morgan and broad enough to take up at least half the hall with a barrel chest too large in proportions and arms too long and large that even splayed out as they were with massive ribbed hands twice again too large in proportion they could deduce that they went to at least past its knees. Painted in a camoflaged shades of black-gray-orange-yellow the head; Comically small despite being a normal human size for its massive body openned up its eyes to appraise the two new arrivals.

His, and it was a he had long braided pale orange hair and a goatee-beard almost two foot long after being braided and interwoven with colorful beads with a kind and almost welcoming fatherly smile he nodded to the two of them as he leaned forward off the wall but still sat.

"Was told not to expect you possibly ever." He rumbled with some mirth to his tone as one set of knuckles pushed his massive body to stand easily twice again taller than morgan to the point that his head was tilted sideways against the ceiling for being so tall. "Not like this, either." He nodded cyptically.

"But it is what it is. My name is Magni of Prospero, Gol of the Colonial Guard." He named off a well-known city from the old worlds Babel territories before it had been burned in nuclear fire by one of the Woodsman's associates in the twelve knights Sunbae.

Not being actually prompted with the right commands to designate himself Ares simply kept stomping toward him with determination.

The massive Gol, Magni, did not seem concerned and simply stood his ground. Considering his size not even Ares in his Scout-type body would have been able to circumvent him. When he was just close enough Morgans older counterpart exploded into action at the larger unit. With considerable speed to match Magni swept a massive sweeping backhand out but missed the smaller Ares who ducked it and moved in to Magni's guard.

Ares did not see the other hand, low as it was, Clamp around his ankle and first rip him up against the ground, all the way up the wall, and then to be smashed into the ceiling before being spiked back to the ground all in just under two seconds. Reaching down Magni unceremoniously place one of his massive hands large enough to encompass Ares entire head and lift him to smash him back-first into the wall and began to squeeze with hydraulically assisted strength as the pinned Ares began trying in vain to lash out machinegun blows with his fists at Magnis' arm while he lacked the reach to strike out at the body.

The whole scene had taken place in under five seconds, Magni had never even taken his eyes off of Morgan even as one arm extended to his side there was the sound of rending metal as the side of Ares head began to cave.

"It is what it is," Magni repeated with a faux sigh of regret as he awaited Morgans move.

Outside.

By the time Motts reached the ground and rocketed back skywards Typhon has delivered half a magazine into the massive walker at range. From where they were not even spider web cracks showed in the cockpit as its pilot likely registered the impacts and identified its general direction with his or her instruments but with no actual damage avoided the loss of targets by retargeting Typhon to instead cycle another round into the sky as four more marines were whiplashed into the afterlife with another in a higher corridor simple disappearing into an unseen cloud as the round actually tore him apart with enough force to near atomize the body.

From outside the base at almost seven hundred meters someone else took a well-aimed shot at the mech with slightly better results. The pathfinder team was armed with a heavier Longinus anti-material rifle with a much heavier, if slower, round. It cracked above Typhon and the others and his fuselage right under the cockpit with a visible cry of sparks even if it too was unaffected. When the follow-up hit the armored neo-titanium glass and left a small baseball-sized spider's web of veins and cracks the mech jerked its attitude down and traversed with frightening speed towards the roof Typhon and the others found themselves on.

The rotary cylinder on its railgun cycled with an audible clunk as the autoloader cycled the next round.

It was looking right at them now.

 

[Whisper]

Caelus Kaur, once a businessman and now some kind of odd end-times conscript, had managed to stay on the sidelines or in the background through some truly insane shit.

He sat in the back of one of the mechs, jostling side to side as he did his best to make sense out of the instruments before him. He knew them all - hell, the company he'd worked at or one of its many subsidiaries had been likely involved in their development or construction in one way or another - but his practical knowledge barely extended beyond board room demonstrations. And what he'd been able to cram into his head from the manual that had been shoved at him, right before he had been shoved in.

The battle unfolding around him threatened to distract him, pull his attention away from the work that needed doing and into some form of panic, but he'd always had cool nerves. If they were going to fray, they would have done so by now - the powers above had certainly tested that.

His fingers danced across the keyboard as he dug for schematics and technical reports, scouring the machine's databases and his own recollections to pull together something useful. It wasn't quite a spreadsheet, but it wasn't that different, and he was a quick study.

"This is, ahh- Kaur, I've made some files available that can fine tune our mech's response times against the enemies on the field."

Caelus ran a hand over his face as a round streaked by the cockpit of the mech he was in. As soon as he could unfuck himself, he'd find the closest desk job and hold onto it for dear life.

 

[Soresu]

A thickly accented woman’s voice crackled in response to Caelus’s offer. “Och, den send de fuckeng t’engs to'em ye muck fuckeng saleryman! hr I swear by de Lady I will stick a Tethys up yooehr ass and fire you avf into de sky!” the threat ringing like a bell as she named one of the dread missiles used by the largest of the mechs on the old homeworld.

Sherry had shied away from the battle as much as humanly possible. Only taking shots with her Caliburn as needed. She had thing had cut down to a Carbine. Doubting it’d so much as plink against the mech they faced. Checking her person for anything of use. And only finding some medicines and ammo for her weapon.

“The joints!” she almost shrieked, if they could crack them. Even damage them a little, it might slow it down. Perhaps even topple it if it pushed hard. “Watch for the railgun. If its shot hits close to us, we will probably die!” if by concussive force, shrapnel or collapsing the roof.

 

[LavaLung]

Underground

It shouldn't be a surprise that the midnight blue-clad ragdoll offered no name. One could have expected such a hunter killer to act in a way that was fast and ruthlessly methodical.

But while this heavyweight enemy was strangely refined and sombre, the war that ate the earth whole was still bloody and raw in Morgan's mind.

Seeing Ares under threat immediately drove them into a screaming rage, eyes wide and glowing blue, metallic fangs bared. They couldn't lose him too. This was beyond a simple attack order or command dependency- Even in his ghost-like state, he was one of the only people who understood her, who had been there for her until the end.

The scarecrow's reaction speed was pushed up way beyond safe tolerances. Their synthetic shell flexed and juddered uncomfortably as they slammed into a crouch, like they were made out of some thin plastic. Such was the momentum at which they moved, in a domain where metal could be pushed to behave like jelly- The electric engine of their chainsaw leg sparked ferally from it's position flat against the ground, throwing their entire body forwards with a spectacular double backflip.

They hit the ceiling with their right foot- a hand scratched into the wall, deflecting their vector downwards, intentionally slamming into the floor with enough force to slide themselves under the macro-golem's abominable raised arm- Then they fired wildly upwards into the armpit, the rifle gauntlet going full auto-

It was never going to be a graceful shot, but they were both animals of brute force here. And if he was going to do something like that to Ares, her Ares, Morgan N-14 was damn well going to demand the bastard gave him her full attention.

 

[Char]

Caelus

The Mk-II Cabbit was a small thing. Barely up to the waist of the disparted manticore it was essentially a lightly armored box with four light HE rockets and both a twin-linked 20mm autocannon and four smaller 12.7mm machineguns. With its spotlight turning a cone infront of it into a semblance of visibility it illuminated every raindrop back at him as it and three lighter MK-1 Rasselbok scout mechs that were able to be deployed.

With all their rockets there was a chance of doing actual damage to the mech compared to the woodsmans few shots. Despite their better speed, however, it was still slow going with the slow corner turning and needing to play the part as more and more orange-ponch wearing militia swarmed about still thinking them allies as the hornets nest was thoroughly kicked.

It was reinforced when, lacking the right radio channels in the scout mech three OST marines leap-frogged past it, heavy Caelbolg rounds marring its side as they passed from a strafing run which caused a string of curses from the other squired.

By the time they caught up to the manticore it was on its final stretch and was taking the corner to its target.


Sherry, Typhone, Alphaeus.

The manticore turned the corner and slowed its gait to a stop two hundred meters from its target. Standing quite literally inbetween the two giants Motts finally learned his place and scampered back up the building with his manuever gear and threw himself down panting at the exertion.

Soon as the Manticore entered the scene the larger Liosultan stalled its aggression and turned its body to face it.

Later, Caelus and the squires loitering just behind the mech would share the brief exchange over the radio between the two knights.

"Pilot identify your-"

"I̶̻͚̘̽͐̄͆͂ ̵̙̫̪̈́̓ả̴̡͛̏̕m̶͕̫̙̃̎̑̏ ̶̘̓t̸̡̘̋̈́h̴̩̰̻̞͛̊͘͜e̶͔̽̄̿͗̀ ̸̺̙́̾̍̉̈ơ̷̩̦̔͒̕͝ṋ̵̂̐̍͠e̷̦͎̥͓͂̏̐́ ̴̲̂͋͊̒̚ẁ̵̧̨̤̦͖͋̀͂̀h̶̖̬͋̒̉o̷̧̼̘̫̊̇͐ ̵̥̟̒̚̕w̴̰̮͍̩̓͒ī̴̭̼͈͑͘e̵̹͓̽̚̚͠l̵̝̙̰̠͍̏̀̈́d̷̡̠́̽ṣ̴̐͒̀̓ ̶̩̞͊́ͅť̶̠̘̈́̍̄ḧ̶̫͈́̇e̵̙͛ ̶̱̄h̷̙̅̒̀́̚a̸̛͖̔́͆̅t̶̟̞̲̔̀̐̌͝c̶̡̓̃͆h̵̙̉̇̔ȅ̷̘̫̜͆́̋̕t̶̨͇̃"

The radio crackled and broke the words with heavy distortion and static from the close proximity of the woodsmans microphone to his mouth and how he practically screamed the words like a deranged madman.

There is a clear difference between knights in BAMF depending on their skill level in piloting and fighting with their frame. Newer pilots or the less-than-trained often operated the mech like a clunky automaton with just about every form of training wheels the frame provides to keep it upright with its pilots inneptitude toppling it on even the most slightly uneven ground. As the militia pilot seemingly registered the threat was not an ally and juked his mech in a standard evasive manuever designed for close combat against tanks to avoid their initial salvo the legs clunkily compensated and threw the mech into a nearby warehouse as the two 40mm cannons fired desperately and the railgun threw a cannister too wide to do more than shift the smaller Manticore from the vaccuum while stray 40mm rounds marred its surface innafectively.

At the exact same time the Woodsman showed the difference between the bottom of the barrel and the last remaining master knight in all of babel as he manually controlled every subsytem of the light mech; Its legs striding almost fluidly and without the pausing gait of its opponent as with each lunge the cockpit remained perfectly still and level as the gyros were micromanaged like a bird of prey able to lock its head in the same spot and never sway even when being jostled. Even so the mech never fired any of its rounds even as it closed the distance and its target began to slowly backpedel.

The Manticore only shifted and juked at the last minute when the railgun cycled and another roung tore away the smaller mechs empty missile pod only causing the body to briefly pull to the side.

Having closed to within practically knife-fighting range the railgun was too slow to cycle before it could fire again when the battle ended.

In a skillful and almost impossible maneuver the Manticore turned its entire body mid-stride and rode the momentum of twenty thousand pounds and literally drifted its body in the mud; Sliding the last of the distance around the larger mech before pushing its back foot to gain purchase and pushing its fueselage into the underside of the railgun and the other mech and pushing it up and away as the smaller mech essentially twister, using its weight to pull the feuselage and body of the Liosultan downwards and its nose and weapons facing downwards.

Recreating a boxing hook of a swing with its large 30mm chaingun the rotary barrel spun only briefly before being close enough to touch the cockpit glass there was the briefest sparkler of a flash followed by a pause as the few rounds the squires had been able to able to crank into it dispensed themselves less than 17-inches from the cockpit in less than .4 of a second and turned the upper half of the pilot into a red steaming paste against the interior of the cockpit.

In less than forty seconds from the moment the two giant machines set their sights on one another the first battle between mechanized frames in all of Babels history started and concluded.

The two machines remained intertwined, unmoving as the larger mech was now supported only by the embrace of the smaller still half-grappling half-cradling it against its body.

Flooding in after the squires in the scout mechs the almost hundred-worth of militia stood agape from their own position still comprehending and processing what they just whitnessed.

It was the pathfinder team, still on their net and at a distance who broke the stupor over their comms.

"Why... Isn't he moving?" the voice of the spotted questioned with clear concern when even the Manticore stood as still as its dead brother.

Morgan

The massive gauntlet lunged forwards and Morgan deftly slid under it and her rounds did little more than mar the ball-joint of his underarm socket right in time for something to collide with her from the side as Ares was swung at her like a brick and the two where sandwiched against the wall. Lacking the leverage Morgan was able to pull herself out and no longer leveraged against the opposite wall Ares was also able to bring up both hand and wrench apart the tongs crushing his head and skipping back some distance out of reach.

Other than one of his eyes having cracked and his jaw being dislocated from its socket he was gracefully undamaged.

Not needing to catch their breaths and with losing the momentum and initiative being what killed Gol during Golem-Golem fights the two sprang back into action coordinating in real time. Ares' assault body was more durable than Morgans lighter frame so he took the lead, dodging a slow lunge by the massive cumbersome warmachine and delivering machinegun jabs at speed against the socket that Morgan had already startedand kept up the assault only until the Macro's other arm swept him up in a bearhug and began trying to crush him only to make the mistake when Ares instead started targetting his head causing the larger machine to save the trauma to his vulnerable brain while lacking a warhealm and use both hands to shove Ares off and away exactly as planned.

With both arms extended and in play there was a window where Magni was fully commited and unable to counter right as morgan made her move to end the fight with a kill shot.

The thing about combat between Golem be it against flesh and blood soldiers or even their own was that their fights were always extremely violent, face paced,

And brief.

 

[Gunhand4171]

Typhon cursed as the mech turned his way and continued to fire, trying to give the others a chance. However before his luck could run out, they got a mech of their own. As the two titans fought, the sniper offered a prayer to the lady and shifted his fire.

Loading a fresh magazine, he shifted his sights to the stupid combatants who were standing out in the open. This is what his instructors would have called a 'target rich environment.' Selecting a soldier who appeared to be holding a heavy weapon, Typhon sent a round into his unprotected face. As soon as the round had left his barrel he was already shifting to the next man and firing. Methodically, he sent round after round into the massed group of soldiers standing in the open.

 

[Soresu]

Artemis' thick accent crowed over the communication's net hoping the Knight would hear her. And through sheer annoyance at her chipper Rathcroghan demeanor in the face of danger would snap the man out of whatever stupor he was in. Or self-reflection. "Och, boss! Bleedin' fuckeng 'ell, you danced de flohrshow around dat big bastard! Way to win a girl's wee 'eart it is. Minus all de bullets and explosions. Are you alive in dere? We gotta pry you loose?

Can I have yooehr whiskey stash? Yell at me if dat's a no! Don't yell at me if it's a yes! Eider way I know w'ere you keep it! Blame Paulos! 'e told me! " in the oldest of tales you didn't fuck with someone in a berserker's state until they were spent.

----

Sherry had been taking in lungfuls of air after the interlude of warfare between the two giants. Her shrieking of how to bring the larger Mech down went largely unheard as salvos went off. And the good doctor had the commonsense to scrunch herself up, open her mouth and cup her ears. All while having babbled prayers up to the Creator in her head. She wasn't built for a clash of titans. Of mechs. And afterward, she breathed deep. And hacked a little from the ground up dust settling.

 

[Whisper]

Caelus watched as the two giants of steel and fury clashed, pounded each other, and ultimately fell still. It was then that he realized he'd been holding his face with one hand, pulling down at the skin in some sort of stress response. His face was happy for the release that came next, his knuckles oddly white even though he hadn't been squeezing his fist. The voice from before had freaked him out more than he'd given it credit for, and that was saying a lot.

He definitely wasn't cut out for this shit.

But he was still stuck here, so he'd do what he had to. It was that or leave fate up to others entirely, which, he decided, he was even less cut out for.

"Uh- let's see," he muttered to himself, reviewing the controls in front of him. He found the weapons system of the small mech and decided that it was still trustworthy. He did take a moment to disconnect the comms system from the rest of the mech; whatever that voice was he didn't want to take any chances.

Satisfied, he turned the weapons towards the remaining enemies, ready to use them as best as his hastily-acquired skills would let him.

 

[LavaLung]

Underground

Morgan's joints trembled and wheezed as they jolted back into attack position, throwing their blade-leg against the wall behind them so that the teeth would give them the instant traction they needed. The sideways lunge was not the impeccable work of violent ballet that the first attack had been, coordination now broken and poise stunted- But it was still blindingly fast, the one advantage the Hunter-Killer could still push against an enemy like this.

When Ares was thrown aside by the more robust metal golem, they jabbed their rifle arm forward, firing on full auto before bothering to achieve anything like a perfect aim. This lance of firepower was jutted right over his arm and into the golem's bare face, erupting with blistering shocks of light in the dim corridor, the clattering of shellcase confetti- The magazine emptied after just a breath, and yet the android's suicidal inertia carried their barrel through, colliding with a metal skull with enough force to bend both.

For just a moment, somewhere within that blood-red rage, N-14 thought about how Golems like this were going to run out, sooner or later. Perhaps it was appropriate they were fighting unseen, in the dark, underground, on some forgotten little planet, in the depths of nowhere...

 

[Char]

Underground.

The giant form of Magni slumped back as his braincase was essentially pulped at close range; The body leaning against the nearby bulkhead motionless.

As it was, had the Macro type had his warmask paired with the tight confined it would have been unlikely the two smaller Gol could have budged him let alone killed him. The standard way to kill a Macro Golem short of a recoiless rifle or anti-tank weapons was to take out their joints to immobilize them and slowly disable the rest of the body until it was mobility-killed and out of action. Actually killing them was rare.

With the massive corpse in the way weighing somwhere between twelve hundred to two thousand pounds it took both Morgan and Ares to pull him away enough to access the bulkhead. There was little need to infilitrate the systems with Ares operating in their Golem net and the door slid as effortlessly open as all the others with just a simple remote command from him.

The interior of the chamber was smaller than the Golem bay but even more spartan. Other than an entire wall of monitor banks on one side sitting Idle the only object of note in the apparent lab was a large cylindrical tank about eight feet tall and four across. The interior was oddly black as thread or cable-like mass filled its interior like semi-fluid ink-like strands in its entire interior.

Ares, on a mission and with purpose strode up to the tank and lost all haste as he just stared at it.

"I do not see a hatch of any kind to open this container."

Outside

As the two metal giants remained intertwined and unmoving this finnaly errupted as the BAMF marines took the initiative. The first few rounds of Typhons rifle were obscured in the rain but there was no missing when the scout mechs opened deaths door on the clumped mass of poncho-clad militia. What few were not combined into the red mist that formed went down flailing into the mud as limbs were shorn from sockets or new orafaci were introduced to the anatomy.

It did not turn out to be the advantageous blow it seemed when the now active military base began to turn the tide at the same time. Other groups in the line of sight and at a distance turned their attention to the loudest current guns going off and one of the scout mechs exploded into a firey mass from nothing more than a lance of fire from down the way as rounds from emplaced enemies introduced the squires to the sound of the rain as consistent projectiles impacted the body and fueselage of the machines and created spiderweb cracked on the armored cockpits forcing them to strafe or slowly backpedal while openiong fire in the the confusion.

For those marines not in armored boxes on legs it didnt take long for the militia to start watching the sky as Sherry, Typhon, and Alphaeus were summarily supressed or outright driven to cover. There was at least a unified force fighting their way towards their buildings and even a few brave militia finding their way onto nearby rooftops but gratefully having not yet seen their darker armor on the same level as themselves.

They were the lucky ones. As tracers started responding towards the sky blue icons on their Hud began winking out at an alarming rate.

 

[A_Bibor_Farkas]

Alphaeus, knelt near Sherry pulling her behind cover, getting close to her face. His eyes locking with hers." Snap out of it! If you seize up now you die. Don't you want to get back to your sisters?" As he yelled, the young former mercenary stood up. Firing into the joints of the mech with his DMR. Deftly reloading he continued to work on one of the leg joints before grabbing Sherry by the collar and dragging her to another position to ensure the mecha wrath would not be entirely directed at the group. Grabbing his radio, he called to the rest of the team." Hotel Kilo actual. This is Kilo 01, requesting assistance. Direct fire west-repeat fire I say again repeat fire on target. How copy?" Alphaeus' desperate call to the Hunter-Killer team to adjust fire toward the enemy mech hoping to pull its attention from the desperate team.

 

[LavaLung]

Underground

Ares' death march into combat, followed by the immediate violence with the macro-golem, had given Morgan little time to stop and consider the flow of the situation.

But now that the world had gone quiet again, they were struck by a sudden emotion, like the cold light of day- For some reason, defeating this enemy felt like an actual, genuine murder?... It was weird that this Gol had such a, well... soul, to him, right?... Why did he insist on giving them a name? Why did he take such care in his personal appearance? Why was he allowed to?

"...How's your body, Control Unit Ares?" They decided to deflect the pit in their stomach with some black humour. "I found a new, one up for rent, sir..."

Beyond that, their objectives had changed, somewhere in the mess of things, too.

She had still been waiting for clarification of this 'daughter' command, but none ever came... Did Ares know something N-14 did not?

"...You... Seem like you already know what is in there, sir..." The scarecrow Gol responded to his direct observation of the tube, haggardly. Truth be told, original mission completed, they would have preferred to be upstairs, helping their human comrades fight. But something... Unknown and ethereal in their code was acting up, pinning their mismatched legs in this direction... "...Would... You like me to break the glass with my rifle? It's still operational..."

 

[Char]

Bellow.

Even for all their computations a Golem was still just a human mind with more time to think. So when Ares looke at Morgans gun arm even though it did not show on his face there might as well have been a embarrassing pause before Ares pulled back one arm until his wrist was level at the chest and let out a jab of servo-enhanced strength.

The massive pod chipped, belaying its thickness but the unit did not give up as he began rapidly delivering sewingmachine blows into the same spot until two of his fingers warped and stopped functioning. Then he swapped to the other arm as a spider web of cracks began to form. He only stopped when a nearby terminal began to flash an audible warning as screens began to pop up and close at considerable speed and the machines hooked up to the pod began to whirr and visibly vibrate.

The surface of whatever liquid began to recede as the occupant tank full of long strands of hair began to lower more and more towards the floor as there was less to float within. After a long moment all that was left as the tank began to lift its glass off the floor and expose the inhabitant was a generally small but humanoid form covered in a blanket of overgrowth. The two golems simply stared as the form began to shudder and spasm and seize until with a great effort it heaved a deep breath of air and continued to shake on the floor as she began vomiting up excess fluid.

The ground above them shook slightly from some explosion as the lights flickered. The figure on the ground wheezed and groaned while slowly reaching up and attempting to untangle the mess of black hair out of her face and untangling herself. Eventually, the form, seemingly barely a child in size found the strength to eventually sit up and pull her knees to her chest until finally noticing the two static warmachines looking over her.

It took a moment for her to find her voice. But the tone and the piercing gaze belied that the small form before them was no child.

"Ares." She spoke as a statement and not a question clearly recognizing the Golems face if not his body. She did pause however to stare up at he and Morgan as she was clearly working something in her mind. As the wheels turned in Morgans own head as she realized who this was it was clear that she lived up to her reputation and with just their presence alone and the sounds above their head truly understood events and confimed it a moment later.

"Help me up, Ares. Lets settle this nonsense theres too much to do."

Ares, without needing a moments hesitation scooped up Dread Persephone; The adopted stepdaughter of Lady Ishtar herself, seated member of the board of directors, firey bitch, and founder of the babel armed military forces.

When he scooped her up, naked olive skin and frail frame against his titanium armor she looked almost like a doll the way her muscles atrophied and clung to her bones to make her look every year of her presumed eighty years even if babels rejuvenation treatments made her look when last she was seen in her early thirties. With a gesture Ares started off the way they had come as over fifteen feet of hair caught in the drain like a rope and snapped her neck back with a curse.

Strolling down the way they had come as they carried a council member bridal-style with a shoddy haircut and shivering despite the humidity a glance was spared for Magni and little else. When they reached the command center Persephone was able to stand on her own two feet if using the two Golems like a crutch and it was a sight to see when the doors were flund open and a naked woman and two war machines strode into the chaos.

At first nobody noticed them except a couple militia guard who stood off against the two Golems worriedly until a bark of command drew the attention of the officers huddled around a holographic display of the base.

"Report."

She barked it like a veteran drill instructor and upon seeing the naked form of their weakened leader three of the four officers snapped to attention with the fourth a second behind after not recognizing the sight. The men started rattling off reports and dispositions while one of them centered around the holographic display of two intertwined mechs while little red dots representing enemies were slowly being pushed back just as another of the scout mechs was removed from the equation. One of them, older than the rest and built like a career warrior shrugged off his blouse and offered it to Dread Persephone who snatched it without ever taking her attention off the screens and dawned the oversized coat that went practically down her thighs and at least protected her already lost modesty.

When all was said and done the woman nodded once and started delivering her own orders in a tone not to be disobeyed. While some hesitated at the commands they were followed to the letter when their commanders backed up this half-naked skelleton backed by two unknown golems. Old code books were broken out and procedures and code frequencies were re-introduced as the invaders command net was not so much hacked as casually joined and their own data added to the screens as new forms manifested on the table zipping about the air and winking out just as fast as they were slowly losing the advantage.

"Lemlock 1 actual pull back to rally four-"

"Rom 4 halt the advance and move to secure point bravo-"

"Holliday 3 actual go cold, cease fire!"

Orders were given to the militia as a small ear-looped mic was given to the council seat holder who had opted to not take a seat and instead hold up her weakened state against a desk.

With a que to one of the assistants in the command center to open a line, Dread Persephone spoke."



Above.

Things were getting bad. Slowly the initiative was lost and the passionate assault turned into a bloodbath as a failure to take key heavy weapons at the start quickly began chewing up the marines. Only their mobile nature allowed them to not get encircled and outright butchered even if one out of every ten never got back into the skies every landing.

They gave better than they got, however. And a mix of heavy weapons and intense maneuvers saw each marine taking a deadly toll for every one of their own swatted from the skies. Motts team was no exception but had luckily not sustained anything more than superficial damage.

The mechs were now out of sight as they were pushed back. And even Alphaeus had to be dragged out of the cabbit when it simply turned over like a turtle and stopped moving. The squires in the other scout mechs were less luckily as half their number relived the tragedy of the knight Sunbae when they burned alive in their cockpits.

They were under the shadow of a warehouse, evading a force of over forty militia when slowly things began to noticeably change. The near constant firefight ebbed and died down, and even searching teams of militia out for their head simply stopped appearing or no longer advanced. Taking advantage of the calm before the expected storm many marines stayed ground side in cover and frantically re-packed magazines, treated wounds, or tried to fix equipment.

It was at this point Motts, still with them, froze and stiffened, leaning his head on what was clearly the side of his mic to hear better.

"Motts, you hearing this?" A voice came over their net from the sniper team, who, unlike their team leader patched the feed in from what had to be the command frequency for the rest of them to hear.

"With all due respect, ma'am-" Lieutenant Alexanders hoarse voice was strained from clearly too much shouting and screaming during the fight argued with an unfamiliar female voice. "This settlement has been declared an enemy of Babel under my authority as the closest representative of-"

"And that authority is now moot, child. You speak to one of the board now, and, until either Tia, That lusaid prick, or the walking pile of lard convene a vote I am holding this action in the contest and as such you will-"

"Ma'am-" Alexandar tried again but was cut off, the fire slowly escaping him like a brow-beaten child.

"Remove yourselves from my house-"

"And the bodies?!"

"Are the responsibility of the Office of Internal Affairs to investigate and not a boy to decide on behalf of five active board members."

"Five?"

It went on for over a minute before they switched to a more private channel.

"Leo," Motts began, addressing the sniper team. "I've never met her but-"

"That's her, Motts. The Firey Bitch herself" The sniper teams leader casually name-dropped Dread Persephone nickname many in babel referred to their founder as. "Recognize that voice anywhere. The major is going to throw a fit..."

It wasnt long after when the command line came back on, no longer open to the rest of the squad and Motts stiffened once again and even visibly bristled before dropping his head in clear defeat.

"We're... Leaving..." He sounded like he was grounding his teeth as Motts rose from cover and ordered them to take to the skies.

Nine Hours Later.

The makeshift triage and basecamp was formed around the base of what had been a hill upon which mass graves were settled. Six hours prior the rest of the expedition had caught up to them and several thousand marines dug in around the hill and began fortifying in the direction of the distant settlement. A perimiter had been formed around the hill to keep anyone from approaching by Captain Diego when he took command from Alexandar and the mystery guest of the expedition, One Ropunuri Tiamat of the board of directors and founder of the OIA was currently leading an investigation.

Of the force that had attacked the base only a third had made it back alive and few had any hopes of seeing any injured missed in the militias midst being treated warmly at all.

The woodsman, half his remaining squires, and an estimated thirty marines were declared MIA until further notice. Though rumors from members of the captains command staff claimed most were accounted for and were claimed to be alive.

While part of Alexandars command staff, Motts and his team as well as Alexandar himself were not included in the negotiations when the lady Tiamat met with Dread Persephone escorted by two of the 2nds own Golems in tow.

The lady Tiamat, the lady Persephone, Captain Diego, and oddly enough Astarte Dubrant were the only ones present to examine the mass grave and discuss further. When day finally broke and the detachment from the base returned home with Astarte accompanying Persephone into the lions den to confirm the state and treatment of the 2nds wounded and captured Morgan and Ares were left behind and put into standby.

The 2nd Shocks expedition was a disaster and morale was at an all-time low when the captain ordered a pull back to Hassans Pass and the burgeoning fortress there.

The only thing that stopped an all out riot within the unti was news, and not even confirmation or proof that the head of the settlement had, upon orders from Dread Persephone herself had disavowed his actions on a settlement purge and culling of still slumbering persons. While it may have seemed bittersweet to some Persephone was not known for her soft handed methods and while the details had been kept close to the chest even Alexandar; Temporarily removed from command pending investigation, had not spoken out further when he had been privately briefed on the mans sentence.

More information was now publicly available now, however. The base was only the tip of an iceburg with two colony ships prior having made planetfall before their own and other than the newly awakened Dread Persephone there was a fifth and even suspected sixth board member suspected to be in stasis within the other settlements they had established. A political line had been drawn with the newly reunited board of directors even if the details were hazy.

Babel was made whole again even if only partially. But was no longer united in its direction.