Hold on—we’re going to do What?

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

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

She now lies in an admin couch in a softly lit room deep in the bowels of the Murkata complex, Ether’s black cortex shell nestled behind her in a bed of cables like the cosseted relic of a religion. Clusters of Murkata and Versk techs hover around her on terminals, secretly trading glares between observing the reintegration. The two teams nearly came to blows when Ash found out that the Murkata AI techs were going to reintegrate Lanis without the remaining Versk techs present, but with Morris’ intervention they managed to come to a semi-cordial agreement of working together. Admiral Ren and a few Fleet techs are also present, but they stand slightly apart from the two groups, as if they still can’t quite bring themselves to accept their newfound reliance on corporate AI tech, staring dully at their own portable Fleet terminal.

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

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

Lanis feels a fresh surge of sadness as Ether absorbs the news of Heinrich’s death, along with the other Versk team members who never made it out of the Cauldron. Sadness, and fear: Ether examines Murkata’s briefings on the anomaly, and it’s almost as if Lanis is hearing those implications for the first time as well, reliving them through a shadow of Ether’s steely-faced version of horror.

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

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

But, it allows us to do this…

The Murkata techs have an ocean of information waiting for Lanis and Ether to parse through, and Lanis now smashes open the dam. Lanis overhears the soft chimes of terminal alarms as the data flow crests and then flies beyond what any half-normal mind should be able to handle, the details of the operation and Suit loadouts blooming into newfound clarity under her and Ether’s shared scrutiny. Morris and Tallin outlined the operation, but only now does the true scale of their task become apparent.

First, the assignment, Lanis thinks, and a mental projection of Fleet Academy, Lanis’ home for six years, appears in their shared mind.

The campus looks like one of the old pre-Unification War universities, grass fields and ivy-covered buildings nestled alongside gleaming glass towers. The picture shifts, and a tactical grid-like layout of the academy overlays the bucolic picture.

The navigation school is here, Lanis thinks, a cluster of white buildings becoming highlighted in red. Though who knows where the cadets are now. As for the defenses, this is Murkata’s best guess:

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

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

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

Why couldn’t Murkata be the corrupted corp? Those Murkata Suits will be lucky to land a hit, Ether thinks grimly, poring over the mismatch, which appears most egregious in the category of speed.

Right, don’t think that too loudly, Lanis thinks, grimacing back. She pulls up what little information Fleet has on the relative performance of their ships in action against the enemy, at least those that were able to engage on anything approaching parity. Remember, if their onboard AIs are corrupted, then the Murkata mechs should have an advantage in response speed and tactical awareness.

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

Lanis is dimly aware of the pacing presence of Admiral Ren moving among the Murkata techs, stroking her pale chin as she watches Lanis and Ether work together. There’s a confidential access request through the Murkata terminals, relayed through the portable Fleet terminal. Admiral Ren glances at it and nods, sending across the access protocols to the Murkata techs.

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

Now here are the real monsters, Lanis thinks, as the data from Fleet is pumped into their shared mind. She’s always known that Insertion Units were impressive from the brief training she had on them at Fleet, or when she would overhear the hushed whispers of the Insertion cadets at the Academy. However, the details of the behemoths they’ll be going up against make her involuntarily wince.

The loadouts of the two Units standing guard outside Fleet Academy flicker across Lanis’ mind. They’re both medium-standoff units, with a towering rail gun and lance-beam each, along with drone systems and missile arrays that would make a Murkata heavy-ordnance executive sweat with jealousy.

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

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

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

Speaking of Fleet Units…

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

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

Of course it would be an assault unit.

She hadn’t caught a glimpse of the Unit at the Cauldron, though she had heard it, and it makes sense now why the corrupted mech didn’t stand much of a chance, damaged AI systems or no. This is a Heavy Unit designed for close combat of the most viscous sort. The Fleet mech’s right arm is devoted to a Grav-maul, a weapon that resembles a colossal warhammer whose bunker-shattering head is nearly as big as Hex. The other arm is devoted to a shield, though the word doesn’t begin to describe the colossal slab of Adamite composites and reactive energy that is as much offensive ramming tool as a defensive bulwark. There are other weapons too: a short range lance beam is embedded in the right forearm, an intercept missile system on one shoulder, and a plethora of drone systems meant to help the Suit close the distance to its enemy.

The Fleet mech looks remarkably undamaged, half slumped among the ruins of the Cauldron. The corrupted Unit lies face-up and dead a few hundred feet away. Its left shoulder appears to have been ripped entirely from its body: a quarter-mile furrow of concrete and destroyed buildings leads to the detached arm, a glowing attestation to the destructive force of the Grav-maul.

As for the Fleet Unit, it looks like it took a few heavy steps away before slowly lowering itself to the ground, like a giant suddenly grown weary.

What happened to the pilot? Ether asks, confused at how such a decisive victory could have turned to defeat.

Massive intracranial hemorrhage, along with the Suit’s AI death, Lanis thinks, looking over the Fleet and Murkata reports sadly.

Well, that doesn’t sound good. How? And what’s to say that isn’t going to happen to us? Ether says.

Lanis grimaces again on the couch. The truth is, it looks like they aren’t sure what happened to the Fleet pilot or the AI, but Fleet suspects it had to do with engaging the corrupted unit at close quarters. Which, unfortunately, is the whole point of the Fleet mech’s loadout.

Remember the EMP pulse when the corrupted unit lifted us up? Lanis thinks, pulling up the painful memory. The working theory is that it used the same move on the Fleet unit, right as it was getting destroyed, but that this version tried to push the anomaly’s corruption into the pilot’s mind. Admiral Ren seems to think that my navigation training might shield me from such an attack, and that it’s different to what the ship navigators experienced in the orbital fleet. Anyway, they were unprepared. I won’t be. Not that I’d like to put that hypothesis to the test, but I guess we’ll find out.

Ether runs this hypothesis through her own logic systems, finds it only semi-logically sound, but nods reluctantly nonetheless.

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

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

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

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

She can almost feel Ether rubbing her hands together.

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

The first query is immediately answered by a Murkata tech.

Wow, three hours is... not long, Ether thinks. They think they can get the Fleet Insertion Unit back to functionality in that amount of time?

It’s barely damaged, Lanis responds, looking again at the Fleet report, making sure she isn't missing anything. it’s mainly a matter of getting the dead pilot out, making sure its power core is still peak performance, and getting the Murkata heavy mag-levs in place for transport. Then about four hours to get us in place for the assault, along with whatever other assets Murkata and Planetary Admin can scrape together, Lanis thinks, reviewing the timeline. Morris said that Admin already tried an assault. It… did not go well.

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

Ok then, Ether thinks. Lanis is greeted by a sudden mental projection of Ether. She’s shed her Versk pilot suit, and is now in the uniform of a junior Fleet Insertion Unit Pilot, two silver bars on either lapel of her blue form-fitting uniform.

Let’s get to work.