“It’s been a long time coming.”

  “Years.”

  When they had been lucky enough to serve alongside each other before, there was always the prevailing belief within the squad that Kirkland would take over leadership or at the least be promoted to head another detachment. However, time and again he was passed over until finally being pulled away from her and redeployed to Shah. She could only imagine how different their relationship might be if he hadn’t been sent to that cursed place.

  “Well, let me be the first to offer you a proper congratulations,” Talia said. “And when we get back, drinks are on me!”

  Kirkland’s face remained as emotionless as ever, conveying no sign that he was talking to someone he was once so close with that he had cried himself to sleep in their arms.

  “That won’t be necessary, Colt Hellion.”

  Talia felt her heart sink as he closed the door in her face.

  Security lights barked to life around Camp Daishan as the sun dipped down behind the highlands. From the veranda of their accommodation, Mendoza watched life around the base slowing while dusk fell, as though the residents stationed there were powered by the sun’s rays. He chuckled to himself at this concept, drawing a long drag of the cigarette tucked between his lips. Smoking wasn’t exactly the healthiest of habits, but it was one that was covered by his company health insurance, and he’d burned out his original lungs years ago, replacing them with stronger and more resilient cybernetic ones. Besides, it was his coping mechanism for dealing with the corporate elite day in and day out.

  Despite what the holo-vids said, life in a zaibatsu was an endless struggle between the haves and have nots. Some would see working on the inside as their chance to gain wealth and power, but the majority of them would be nothing more than cogs, mercilessly used until they were broken shells of people. Others would try to subvert the authority of the company either by waging their own personal war on the net or by fleeing to undeveloped territory like the Northern Reach. There they could scratch out their own living amongst the rocks while constantly looking over their shoulder for mutants or marauders.

  For Mendoza, he’d made another choice, one that saw him fed but also granted him power in this harsh system. He’d joined corporate security. Now, with the crest of the Gaiden Corporation upon his shoulders, he could enact punishment with nearly carte blanche authority. Sure, he still had daft superiors ordering him about, but at least his job came with a gun and if he finally grew tired of an executive’s prattle, he’d use it on them. Rumors spoke of an inhibitor planted in all officers’ brains to prevent such action, but who knew if it was true. It reeked too much of another lie told to the laypeople to keep them in line.

  As the temperature dropped with the retreating sun, Mendoza exhaled a cloud of smoke before turning around at the sound of someone stepping onto the veranda. He hoped it was Choi, despite having ordered the other officer to double-check the team’s equipment. With power came perks, one of which was passing off tasks onto subordinates.

  It turned out to be Sonja; the technician engrossed in whatever mundane information was cycling across her visor and the screen of the data-pad she was holding. Barely suppressing an eye roll, Mendoza returned to looking at the walls of Camp Daishan. He didn’t have any strong feelings toward Sonja, but her constant presence with Caprice almost certainly alluded to her being a snitch, one of those fools so desperate to rise in the ranks that she’d manipulate her peers. Silence was the best tool when around one of those types.

  “Got another?” Sonja asked, and it took Mendoza a second to realize she was, in fact, speaking to him.

  “Another?”

  Sonja gestured to his mouth. “Ciggy.”

  Curious but heedful, Mendoza patted at the pockets of his fatigues in search of a pack. It only took a moment for him to come up short.

  “Must’ve left the rest in my room,” he replied. “Sorry, lass.”

  “That’s fine. Can I at least have a puff?”

  “Ah…sure.”

  Mendoza took an obnoxiously long hit off the cigarette before passing it to Sonja. Being stuck up in this backwater place meant finding proper smokes was impossible, so every precious one he’d brought north with him would have to count.

  Snapping up her visor, the technician inhaled, the cherry on the end of the cigarette flaring up in the gloom as she closed her eyes, apparently in some form of ecstasy.

  “That’s the good shit,” Sonja whispered as she passed the smoke back to him.

  Performing a precursory glance over the cigarette, Mendoza tucked it back between his lips, puffing away in the twilight. After a moment of silence, he turned back to the technician.

  “Did you need another go?”

  “Is that an offer?” she answered with a coy smile.

  For probably the first time, Mendoza studied Sonja’s face, her features no longer obscured by the technical visor or buried in some mountain of data. This entire time he’d never noticed how lovely she was; an elfin quality to her appearance making her seem more youthful than she was likely to be. The realization made Mendoza somewhat self-conscious, especially given how attentively she was looking at him.

  Mendoza handed the cigarette back. “Here.”

  With something of a giggle, Sonja took it from him and once again took an extensive drag of the smoke. Content, she offered it back to Mendoza.

  “You, ah…keep it,” he stated, eager to discontinue this back and forth. Not that he didn’t enjoy sharing with someone else, and in a typical situation, he’d enjoy any excuse to spend more time with a woman he found attractive. This discomfort was from a tiny voice inside his head that screamed Sonja was nothing but trouble; a true cog who lived and died for the possibility of a promotion. He wouldn’t be surprised if Caprice had sent her out to ply him for information or perhaps it’d even been the technician’s suggestion. Another chance to suck up to her superior and win more pats on the head.

  Sonja toyed with the cigarette. “I really shouldn’t be smoking. Spent like ten years quitting. And yet sometimes, it is exactly what I need.”

  “I feel that.”

  Silence filled the veranda as the pair stood gazing out into the darkening world. It was a tranquil moment, Mendoza stealing a quick glance over at Sonja before settling back to watch the military base across the way. He told himself it was part of his job to observe the expressions of members of his team, but he knew that was a lie just to permit himself another look at her face. Perhaps if she turned out to be more than a toady, he’d catch a drink with her when they were safely back in Ralpur.

  Angry shouting came from the gate of Camp Daishan. Mendoza watched as a pair of Dragoons threw what looked like a beleaguered man outside the base. From the way the man’s arms feebly struggled to pull himself up out of the mud, it seemed likely he was elderly or perhaps tortured into frailty. Both options wouldn’t surprise Mendoza, however. If people saw corporate security as attack dogs of the zaibatsu, then Dragoons were the wolves who prowled the world of men. Wolves in the shape of humans, that is.

  “Do you think we can change things?” Sonja inquired.

  Mendoza looked back at her, glad to have a proper excuse to do so.

  “What do you mean?”

  The technician nodded toward the base and the pitiful human form still attempting to distance themself from it.

  “Like we’re here to do a job: one that’s meant to bring more power and prestige to our company and simultaneously ourselves. But even if we’re successful, will it change anything?”

  Mendoza turned away from her. “Who cares? I’m not paid enough to think about it.”

  3

  Dawn had not even kissed the sky when Talia rose from her bunk. The evening before had been a flurry of activity, her time spent prepping ammunition and weapons. There had not been a moment to think, much less try to squeeze in a conversation with Kirkland. Even if she had found herself fortunate enough to speak to him, Zhao was always around, though Talia knew that was not out of malice. The younger Dragoon simply wanted to be around her squad-mates.

  Within Dragoon society, your squad was something akin to your family, a unit of people who lived and worked so closely together that one might confuse them for siblings. On the battlefield, this bond had to be absolute, your success and very life depending on it. Your sergeant oversaw the squad as a parent might a proper family, and their decisions held the same divine authority as one. This all contributed to why you were encouraged to seek romantic partners outside of your own squad, many believing that emotional fouling could derail the success of a mission.

  To Talia, though, Kirkland wasn’t a romantic partner, per se. In fact, she saw him more as a brother than anything else. After all, they’d essentially grown up together and spent the last few years developing into their own individuals. True, she cared about him, but it wasn’t in a sappy, romantic way. At least that’s what she told herself she believed.

  In her defense, though, it was not like she was even in a squad in the traditional sense of the word. A by-product of her Clan’s suffering in Shah, many forward-thinking individuals had surmised it was time for long-standing tactics and strategies to change. One of the major developments to come out of this was the notion that Dragoons needed something more flexible and mobile than the traditional five-man squad if they were going to succeed at counterinsurgency. Thus, the Recon Division had been formed, enabling commanders to put merely one Dragoon into the field while still maintaining the traditional squad size on paper.

  After personal woe, Talia had volunteered for Recon, eager for work that would test her mettle and keep her mind off past grief. She hadn’t known it would see her assigned with Kirkland again. And now be under his command.

  “You are the chosen ones of all creation. You shall seek combat and train yourselves to endure any manner of test. To you, battle shall be the fulfillment,” Talia recited to herself.

  It was one of their commandments, instilled during the academy and now a calming technique when preparing for an operation or even in times of hardship. More than once, she’d rattle off the remaining nine if she felt the need to refocus her mind, but this morning the disquiet was much more subdued.

  Carefully, she slipped her body into the navy-blue plug-suit, noting the tightness around her shoulders and bust. She’d probably worn the peculiar apparel over a thousand times and it always failed to fit right somewhere on her body. Idly, she wondered if she had a defective model as she watched light glisten off the fiber optics embedded throughout the entire suit. When they got back, she’d double-check if Zhao ever had similar issues with hers.

  The plug-suit was the underlayer for the true icon of a Dragoon: their armor. Talia’s own rested dormant on its stand as an empty golem, waiting for some kind of ethereal energy to fill it and bring it into being. In this case, that supposed energy would be herself. Taking a moment to touch the dull, gunmetal surface of the plate, it reminded her of how many times as a child she’d fantasized about wearing a suit just like it. This was her birthright, the honor of her species embodied in physical form.

  It was not powered armor like some uppity human or corporate stooge might don to feel some semblance of authority, but reinforced plate more akin to what warriors of bygone eras would clad themselves in. Each piece snapped, clipped, or buckled around the plug-suit till Talia fitted the cuirass around her chest and the micro generator mounted in the armor’s backpack whirred to life, connecting each section through the fibers woven in the plug-suit. This signal connection would further attune her body to the armor, making her flesh and the carapace as one. In the academy, this new stimulus had overwhelmed her and, more than once, it had forced her to sit down to prevent herself from retching.

  With a satisfying click, Talia loaded a drum magazine into the body of her shotgun. It added extra weight, but she felt that was offset by the ability for her to provide more sustained fire. Additional magazines found their way into pouches and webbing throughout the armor, her sidearm gliding into the holster strapped around her thigh. They were about to depart for an untold number of days into the wilds of the Northern Reach, there was no telling what manner of beast they’d encounter. Be it mutated fiend, rogue machine, or perhaps in the guise of man.

  Knives and grenades came next, one blade sheathed on the side of a greave. Talia took stock of the various utilities that Kirkland had instructed her to bring before fitting them away as well. While each device was small, they were all instruments of death and could mean the difference between them returning home from this operation or becoming carrion in the highlands. Nodding to herself, she topped off her equipment by mounting a grenade launcher platform onto the side of her armor’s backpack.

  The helm would perfect the regalia, and Talia grabbed the headgear from off the stand. Dragoon armor passed down generation to generation, each part a relic of warriors long gone. Often, she would ponder who had worn the suit before her and what great deeds they might have accomplished while clad in its glory. Some Dragoons would seek this information or even have it told to them if the armor was tied to their bloodline, but in Talia’s case it was the suit they issued her when she’d left the academy. All save for the helmet.

  That had belonged to her mother and even today she could make out the faint scratch on the brow where a deranged cultist had gotten in a lucky hit some three decades ago, at least that’s what her relatives had explained to her. The blow had barely slowed her mother and afterward she had refused to have it buffed out, stating it was a reminder for her to always watch her guard. Before the helmet passed to Talia, an armorer had seen the dent fixed, but the residual outline of the indentation was a tiny memento to connect her to a woman she had never gotten to know. No matter how small, any fragmented token of her actual family was something to treasure.

  An electronic chime sounded in her billet, and helmet in hand, Talia made for her door, sure to sling her shotgun as she did. Zhao was waiting outside the entrance; her accoutrement mirroring Talia’s save for the high-precision rifle she carried.

  That familiar glimmer of youthful excitement flashed across Zhao’s face. “You ready?”

  “Always.”

  Behind the younger Dragoon, Talia could see Kirkland finalizing his own preparations, buckling on his right pauldron, which now proudly displayed his sergeant’s rank in white paint. Almost as an afterthought, he clipped what looked to be an incendiary grenade to the corner of his breastplate. Every member of her Clan knew the best way to prevail in battle was an offensive spirit, and with their makeshift squad of only three members, they had to take that mantra to heart.

  “Let’s get this shit done, Crow Squad,” Kirkland announced as he wrapped a kufiyah around his neck. Talia produced her own square scarf and offered him a nod.

  Despite all the praises Sonja had found on the net, the LAV was hardly something impressive. Old, worn, and in dire need of a paint job, it somehow reminded Caprice of the train she had ridden in on but in military vehicle form. Considering all the other headaches this expedition had caused, she felt it was more than likely the damn thing would not even start.

  “Ma’am, the armor seems intact and I’m not seeing anything wrong with the drive system either,” Mendoza stated as he came around the side of the vehicle.

  Unable to restrain a sigh, Caprice peered inside the open hatch. “And what of the turret or weapon systems?”

  “Turret is good to go, but they removed the smoke dischargers and replaced the main armament with a twelve-mill machine gun.”

  “Could be worse, I suppose. How much ammunition did they leave us?”

  Mendoza poked his head inside the vehicle. “Choi, how many rounds we got?”

  “Little over a hundred rounds,” came the muffled reply.

  Mentally running through all manner of dire situations, Caprice paced alongside the LAV. From the specifications Sonja had found, the plating could repel small arms, and the strategic cages mounted along its hull were to mitigate the effects of shaped charges, but it still left a lot to be desired if they ran into a foe that could fight. This was only exacerbated by the fact that their primary defense was light on bullets and a lower caliber than intended for the vehicle. If they were going to hope to reach their objective and plunder its wares, she would have to play it safe.

  As if sensing her disquiet, Sonja appeared by her side, data-pad already in hand.

  “We’ve done our homework, ma’am. No one outside commercial acquisitions should know about this mission. As long as that remains true, this vehicle should suffice.”

  “That is a big if,” Caprice replied. “And not including the possibility that Chairman Defarge might purposely leak the information to our competitors to undermine me.”

  Sonja tapped the LAV’s hull. “Intel states it is equipped with an auto-inflation system for the tires, to increase off-road capability along with an NBC filtration device and a radiation detection system. That ensures we can reach the objective physically and healthily. The lack of smoke launchers and ammunition is a concern but with the armament we do have, we should be able to drive back our most probable opposition or at the least enable a retreat to find a safer way around.”

  “I can always take it for a test spin if you’d like, ma’am,” Choi offered as he poked his head up from the turret.

  Caprice waved off his proposal. “My bigger concern is its ability to run at all and indeed get us all the way there.”

  “Only one way to find out!”

  Choi dropped back inside the vehicle and a moment later the engine roared to life, filling the small depot with the noxious smell of exhaust. Once again, Caprice walked the length of the vehicle, this time being accompanied by Sonja and Mendoza. So much of her reputation depended on the success of this venture and would either see her promoted, or likely transferred to something as trivial as sidewalk maintenance if she failed.

 

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