MSC Excalibur: Chapter 19

19

The Excalibur had been out at space for over a week now. They had finally caught up to where they ha been before they were called back. It was rather uneventful, which put Jack on edge, and Noelle was starting to notice it.

“What bothers you about nothing happening, Jack?”

“It’s just too…easy, Noelle. They didn’t try to screw us over for parts. We haven’t gone into combat of any kind. No problems worth mentioning at all.”

“That can’t be it, Jack. I know you, what is really bothering you? No combat or problems shouldn’t be bothering you this much.”

“It’s all of the missing people on the ship. Lucilia, her group, Kaj, Ana, the pirates, and Tempest have been missing for a while now. I guess I’m just worried about them. I’ve just had a terrible feeling about them, like won’t see them again.”

“You shouldn’t be worrying about them. If Kaj is with them, nothing will happen to them.”

“I know, but…I don’t know why I’m so worried. The only time I can think if that I was more worried about anyone is when you were shot. I got a bad feeling then and I’ve a bad feeling now.”

“If it is the same feeling you had before I was shot, then you shouldn’t worry. I made it through just fine.”

“Yeah, thanks to the Gunny and Bones.”

“Jack, just come to bed. If you spend all night worrying, you’ll be cranky all day, and you’re not fun to be around when you’re cranky.”

“Fine, I don’t want to be cranky…”

Will was fine tuning the Atal Pro-mech when Janius brought him a meal tray.

“Are you still working on that thing? Why are you so worried about it?”

“When they upgraded it, they completely destroyed my personal settings.”

“Yeah, and what did you get in return?”

“Better armor, missiles, and beam riffle, oh, and a combat computer.”

“A combat computer, what’s that?”

“It’s supposed to predict enemy movements, at least that’s what they say it is supposed to do.”

“That sounds pretty good.”

“Yeah, except it seems kind of…lame. I’m going to use it in combat for a while, and if it doesn’t work, I’m giving it to Mathews.”

“How does it predict troop movements? Does it have an A.I?”

“Yeah, but only a really basic one, nothing really complex like the ship’s A.I, but it does have one.”

“Then doesn’t that mean that it would improve the more you used it?”

“I guess I never thought about it. What if it took control of my Pro-mech, though?”

“When has an A.I seized control of anything?” Suddenly, the ship came to a complete stop, causing people to get knocked forward. Janius almost fell off the scaffolding around the Atal, but Will rushed over and pulled her up. The main lights flickered off, and the emergency lights turned on. “What...What caused that?”

“You just had to say something, didn’t you?”

“I’ll call the bridge, see if anything happened,” Janius flipped open her communicator and called the bridge, “Janius to bridge....Janius to bridge...”

“Great, the internal communications are down. Well, there is only one way to find out what is going on.” Will walked over to a door, but it didn’t open. It was locked tight. “Great...I guess we’ll just have to use the ventilation system.” Will opened a ventilation duct and climbed in.

“I can’t go in there...”

“Either come with me to the bridge, or stay here in the dark hangar, your choice.” Will started heading for the bridge.

“Will, I don’t...fine...” Janius followed Will into the air duct. They got to the end of the duct and started climbing up. After going up two levels, Janius was getting tired. “Will, I can’t keep going, can we take a break?”

“We need to get to the bridge, Janius. We can’t stop.”

“But who would be on the bridge right now? Captain Richards has got to be asleep already.”

“Damn, you’re right...Well, somebody’s got to be up there. I’ll keep going. Smith’s quarters are on this level. Find him; he should know what’s wrong with the ship.”

“Good, I‘ll find him, and can stop climbing...” Janius followed a side path and started crawling towards the crew quarters. Will continued climbing towards the top. It was getting tiring; he had to admit it to himself. Will lost his gripping and slid down two levels before he caught himself. He mumbled under his breath, as it meant he had to re-climb those two levels.

“I had no idea how big the Excalibur was until now,” Will was starting to get winded, causing him to breathe heavily. “The transport tubes just had to be off-line. I’ll never complain about tall stair cases again.” Will could see the top of the tube. He finally got to the top and started crawling towards the bridge. The Excalibur was eerily silent as Will crawled through the ducts. He knew it was late at night on board, but somebody should have been doing something. He kept crawling through the long, dark duct. He was about to give up when he finally heard noise. It was the bridge crew frantically trying to figure out what was going on with the ship. Will kicked open the vent and came out on the bridge.

“Who the hell...Horatio? What are you doing here?”

“Commander Reed, what’s going on?”

“We don’t know. The ship just shut down. Luckily, we weren’t in hyper space, or we’d be drifting off-course and never find our way back.”

“Ships don’t just shut down, commander.”

“Ours did, Will. We’re trying to figure out what happened, but all of the ship’s systems are down.”

“Hopefully life support is...”

“Life support and emergency lights are independent of the main systems. Nothing else that relies on the ship’s systems is working. Lights, doors, tubes, you name it.”

“What about med bay? If it’s off, we’ve got some serious problems.”

“Med bay should have full power, not that it would do them any good.”

“Have you tried contacting Guinevere?”

“No, but the power’s down, so she should also be offline.”

“Guinevere? Guinevere, are you working?”

A voice chimed in over the intercom, “Guinevere is in her own personal hell right now. This is her replacement, Daemon.” On Guinevere’s holographic projector, a man who looked like he was straight from hell was being projected.

“Who in god’s name are you?”

“God’s name? Ironic, because I am your new god, and this ship now belongs to me.”

“What have you done to Guinevere?”

“Oh, you mortals aren’t good at listening, are you? I’ve tucked her away in her own personal hell. She’s still resisting me, that’s the only reason I don’t have complete control over my ship and the only reason I haven’t spaced you all. But, she will loose, and when she does...I suggest you hold your breath.”

“That’s it!” Reed drew his pistol and shot out the holographic projector and the speakers. “Now what? That thing has seized control of the Excalibur, and we’re sitting ducks if we can’t move at all.”

“Why are you asking me? It’s not like I’m the captain.”

“And we can’t get a hold of the captain because ship’s internal communications are down.”

“What about the communicators? Don’t they have a direct line?”

“Damn, why didn’t I think of that?”

“You? I climbed all the way up here from the hangars, and then crawled all the way here.” Reed flipped open his communicator and tried to call Captain Richards.

“Damn, he turned his communicator off.”

“Isn’t he supposed to keep that on at all times?”

“Only when he’s off the ship; or the comm. system is down. Great, now what?”

“Quit asking me that. All I can think of is to get the Gunny and Mathews. I’ll get the Gunny, he’s the closest. His communicator won’t be on either, and I don’t know his headset frequency. You call Mathews. He’s got to have his communicator on.” Will climbed back into the vent and started crawling towards the Gunny’s quarters. The Gunny’s quarters were in the middle between the two hangar groups. It would be easy to get to. Once Will got to the right section, he slide down the tube. Now, it was just a matter of navigating through the dark vents to find the Gunny.

Janius was almost to Smith’s quarters. She passed what was Ana’s quarters before she disappeared. It was completely empty. She kept going until she got to Michael’s quarters. She tried to open the vent, but it was stuck. She could see Michael laying in bed.

“Smith! Smith, wake up! Some Augment you are, wake up!”

“Huh? What?” Michael almost jumped out of his bed.

“Smith! Down here in the vent, I can’t get out.” Michael put on a pair of pants and a shirt.

“What are you doing down there?” He pulled off the vent and let Janius out.

“The ship’s systems are down, and we needed to get a hold of you.”

“Why didn’t you just use the communicators?”

“Communications is down.”

“They would still work for person to person.”

“They…they would?”

“Well…maybe not for me. Mine’s off because I’m recharging the battery. What’s wrong with the ship?”

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, we’ll need you to fix it.”

Over the intercom, through out the ship, came a horrible voice. “This is your new god, Daemon, talking and I wish you mortals to know that you time is coming to an end. You will all be dead by dawn.”

“Oh, I see. An enemy AI of some kind has managed to infiltrate the Excalibur and some how disabled Guinevere. We’ll have to go to the central AI core and deactivate and delete this one and get Guinevere activated again. But first, we’ll have to get out of here.” Michael walked over to the door and popped open a panel to the side of it. There was a lever inside to open the door. Michael started pumping the lever and the door slowly opened. “You know, isn’t it weird that everything went crazy after Kaj left?”

“What are you saying? That Kaj did this?”

“No, Kaj was a good man. Always apologized whenever he got his unit trashed, which was often, as you can guess. Most people just go ‘Fix it, Smith.’ Not him. He was extremely lucky to make it through some of those situations, even if his units were nearly destroyed. Maybe Kaj’s luck rubbed off on the ship.” The door was open. Michael and Janius walked out into the hallway. “I would guess that the transport tubes are down.” Michael opened the transport tube and started climbing an access ladder on the side of it. “Are you going to come with me or wait here?”

“I’ll go with you.”

“We’ll need to get to the Gunny’s quarters; he’ll be able to get through the doors a lot faster than we can.”

Will just made it to the Gunny’s quarters. Will kicked open the vent and saw the Gunny actually sleeping in his bed.

“Of all the times you had to sleep, you just had to choose tonight. Gunny, hey, wake up.” Will obviously surprised the Gunny. He didn’t yell or jump like Smith did, he just pulled a pistol out from under his pillow and held it against Will’s head. He was about to pull the trigger when he realized it was Will and dropped the pistol.

“What the hell are you doing in here Will? You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”

“I can…I can see that…Do you always sleep with a gun near by?”

“Yes. Why are you here, Horatio?”

“The ship’s systems are down because of an AI that overpowered Guinevere and took over the ship.”

“And you need me incase you need to manually push the computer core out, is that it?”

“Ye…yes…”

“You’re not still scared from me threatening you with the pistol? You can’t have been surprised.”

“I guess I’m really not.”

“I’ll suit up and we can move out.” The Gunny got his armor on. The Gunny forced the door open with his bare hands. As soon as Will and the Gunny left his quarters, they were face to face with Michael and Janius. Janius ran over to Will and grabbed him.

“Michael, do you have any idea how to get the enemy AI out of the core?”

“Maybe, Gunny, but I might need Mathews’s help.”

“Where is Mathews, anyway?” The Gunny pulled out his communicator.

“Gunny to Reed, Gunny to Reed, does the bridge have any idea where Mathews is?”

“No, he’s not on the ship.”

“How is he not on the ship? Did he go with Kaj like Karen?”

“No, he seems to have recently taken a small transport over to the Pandora.”

“Great, the one day we actually want him to be around he sneaks over to the Pandora. Smith, Mark, Horatio, and I will just have to take care of this. And try to get a hold of captain Richards.” Will looked shocked, he had just realized something.

“Janius Mark…as in Mark Industries, the mobile suit company that designed my Pro-mech?”

“Yes…Charles Mark is my father and he was the one who produced the Atal line so the military could have a mobile suit unit.”

“You are a rich girl, aren’t you? Have you told your dad about what you get into onboard the Excalibur?” The Gunny and the rest started heading towards the core.

“No, if he knew half the stuff that happened to me on this ship, he’d pull me back, especially if he knew…”

“Your father’s company makes the Pro-mechs? Tell him the engineer on the Excalibur says to make the next one easier to repair.”

Mark Mathews had snuck over to the Pandora. He had a theory about the Zero that needed to be answered. He knew that Earth wasn’t advanced enough to make a Zero Point Reactor. He made his way to the hangar. He opened the door and heard a conversation between Daniel Williams and the chief engineer.

“Danny, will you just give it a break? Do you have any idea how late it is now?”

“I’m telling you, the Zero’s diagnostics are saying the armor is weak around the right knee.”

“Well, the right knee is perfectly fine. If you’ll just let me leave and go to sleep, I’ll check it again in the morning, okay?”

“Fine. Have you heard anything from the Excalibur?”

“No, it’s still completely silent. We’re still getting all clear signals from its AI though, so everything should be fine there too. Now go to bed, Danny.”

“Fine, you’re right, it is late for our shift to be up. I’m going to grab some food before I go to my quarters.”

“All right, see you in the morning.” Mark hid until Daniel and the engineer had left. He was worried about the Excalibur, but had to find out if he was right about the Zero. He walked over to the Zero and climbed on top of it with a service ladder. He found the generator access door. He put in a code to turn off the alarm and opened the door. The door opened, and he could see the reactor. He was familiar with the design of all of Terrain reactors, and this was completely alien to him. He couldn’t even understand what he was seeing. None of the parts looked familiar at all. That’s when he saw it. There was writing on the reactor, he recognized it. It was Nom’ed writing. A part of him knew it all along. It had to be from the Oni. He now had a new question, if the Oni’s reactor was in the Zero, what was in the Oni? He closed the reactor door and headed back to his transport ship. He had to know what was going on the Excalibur. He launched in the shuttle and flew back to the Excalibur.

The Gunny and the rest were climbing up the transport tube. Suddenly, in front of him, the path slammed shut, same with the path behind them. They were trapped in the elevator shaft. Janius was claustrophobic, and starting to panic.

“We’re trapped in here! He’s shut us in here. We’re going to run out of air and die!”

“Janius, calm down. This is why we brought the Gunny along. Gunny, can you…”

“I can force open the elevator’s doors, but not those emergency blast hatches that just slammed shut. They’re made so they can’t be.”

“Do it. Smith, is there another path we can follow to the core?”

“I don’t know. There isn’t a path that we can follow that Daemon can’t close…Unless we take the ventilation ducts again.”

“Oh no, I’m not going back into those ducts.”

“Janius, you don’t have to. Try to contact the captain again. See if you can contact the rest of the bridge crew.”

“I see a flaw in your whole vent duct plan, and that’s me. I’m way too large to get through those vents.”

“Gunny, can you climb up the outside of the ship?”

“Yeah, but if you get control of the ship back before I get in, let me know. I don’t want to be kicked off into interstellar space.”

“Okay, will do. Will, are you ready for some more duct climbing?”

“If I have to, yes. Let’s get this over with.” Will and Smith climbed back into the ducts and started climbing up the ducts again. The Gunny started walking towards the nearest air lock. Janius realized that she was on the same level as Captain Richards’s quarters and left to find them. Smith was going over how to get the AI out of the ship. Will was complaining to distract himself from how tired he was.

“Remind me to complain to the HQ and get them to put ladders in these ducts. It would make this a lot easier. So, where the hell is Mathews anyway?”

Mathews was trying to contact the bridge as he came near the Excalibur. It wasn’t working.

“Mathews to anyone on the Excalibur, can you here me? Anyone? What was I expecting? Look at that. All of the lights are off. That’s never good. Main power must be down. I suppose that means the hangar doors won’t open. Crap, I’m talking to myself again…Who’s that climbing the side of the ship? The Gunny? Let’s see…what is the Gunny’s headset frequency? Ah yes, that’s it.” Mathews put in the Gunny’s frequency, “Gunny, are you able to receive my signal?”

“Yes, Mathews…what are you doing with that transport shuttle?”

“Uh…Hey, what’s going on onboard the Excalibur?”

“Let me onto that shuttle, and I’ll tell you, but you have to tell me why you stole a shuttle.” Mathews pulled the shuttle around so that the Gunny could enter the airlock on it. “Land by the AI core. We need to purge an AI from the core that has taken over and disabled the ship. Start suiting up, we have to go for a walk.”

“That’s why I like you, Gunny, short and to the point. I take it that Guinevere has been overpowered.”

“You’ve got the situation. Now, why did you steal a shuttle?”

“Oh, that, I…if you have to know…”

“Oh, I do have to know.”

“I went to spy on the Zero, see what makes it tick.”

“What did you find out?”

“I did it because…what?”

“What did you find out, Mathews?”

“The Zero Point Generator, the one that we shouldn’t be able to make but have, isn’t ours. It’s Nom’ed. Probably from the Oni.”

“They pulled the ZPG from the Oni?”

“I don’t know how they did it. That large unknown cannon has to have been the generator as well.”

“How is that possible?”

“Nearest we can tell the reaction in the reactor is some sort of fusion reactor. It seems to have been a high-energy, thus high heat, reactor. We thought it was exposed to dissipate heat, but then it fired on the Excalibur, we learned different. We can now see that it can use the reaction itself as a beam weapon by focusing it. Come to think of it, it would have to have a second power source. Or maybe the Nom’ed just put that reactor in it for a weapon. So, they take the ZPG out, since it is purely mechanical and they could just plug it into a suit. Problem is…”

“Problem is that the Oni is still an unknown piece of technology and could probably regenerate a second reactor, couldn’t it?”

“Yeah, but the problem is it would have learned how they took out the reactor the first time and found a way to keep it from happening again. Hopefully the reactor can’t seize control of the Zero. Those poor Hornet-class just keep getting ordered to take Oni and Oni-related units on, and it’s only a matter of time before it blows up in their face.”

“Well, as glad as I am to find someone else who is suspicious of all things Oni, we need to get going.” The Gunny opened the air lock. He didn’t like these shuttles; they were too short for him. He had to slouch inside of them. The Gunny was followed closely by Mathews, who was hanging on to the Gunny’s shoulder to grab a free ride. “Mathews, let go of my shoulder and walk.”

“Come on, my boots don’t have magnets in them and I don’t have verniers in my pack, so I need your help getting to the other air lock.” The Gunny grumbled. Though dragging Mathews was no problem at all, it was the principle of being used as transportation. They made it in and waited for Will’s group. Mathews was trying to think of a way to purge an AI from the core without accidentally purging Guinevere.

Janius had to crawl back into a duct to get into Captain Richards quarters. The duct for captain Richards quarters were actually in the ceiling. Janius climbed up and over Richards’s room. As she crawled towards the vent she could see, she fell through a second vent right into the Gunny’s quarters, startling Noelle and Jack awake with a loud thump.

“Who’s there? What are you doing in my quarters?” Noelle was quiet. She was surprised trying to figure out what was going on. Janius jumped to her feet and stood at attention.

“Ensign first class Janius Mark, sir….and ma’am…I’m here because the bridge couldn’t contact you about the current situation because you turned off your communicator because you didn’t want to be bothered because…” Jack quickly got into his uniform, while Noelle stayed in her night gown.

“Relax, ensign, we were just asleep. Uh, Noelle, do you want to put a robe on over your nightie?” Noelle realized how she was dressed and put a robe around herself. “Now, Janius, what’s going…?”

“This is Daemon, your new god, again. I would like the crew of my ship to know that if they kill Captain Richards, I will spare your measly mortal existence.”

“Let me guess, somehow an AI has gotten aboard the Excalibur. It was probably planted by the insurgents on Alpha Centauri, but that doesn’t matter now, because we have to get it off the ship. You two stay here. If you go with me, you’ll be in unnecessary danger by the sound of it. They’ll need my codes if they want to dump the core.” Jack cranked open the door and walked out towards the core, leaving Janius and Noelle behind. They started making awkward small talk.

“Uh…I like your lingerie.”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

“No, not like that. I like the color. It looks good on you. What is that? Silk?”

“Yes, I got it on Alpha Centauri.”

“I got a skirt. Will got some movie or something like that.”

Jack stopped by an armory and picked up a case of magnetic grenades incase they had to blow out the core. He climbed up to the computer core and was met by the Gunny and Mathews. Horatio and Smith showed up soon after.

“So, gentlemen, what are we going to do?”

“Well, captain, my thought was to remove any boards with the enemy AI in it.”

“That wouldn’t work. You’d remove parts of Guinevere and leave parts of Daemon.”

“What do you suggest then, Mathews?”

“Well, we have a secondary computer core on the Excalibur. We leave the door open while I start trying to purge Daemon from the system…”

“What good does that do us? He’d just move to that core.”

“Uh, duh. I will drive him to the secondary core, you and Will break the connections between the two cores, and the captain will punch in the codes to free the core, Gunny will ride the core out and pull the pins on the magnetic grenades and then…I think you would say BOOM.”

“Can you find out who gave us this AI, Mathews?”

“Guinevere will be able to tell you the coding type when she regains control of the Excalibur, captain.”

“All right, let’s do this. Gunny, here’s your grenades, everybody get into position around the core. Daemon will now what we are doing. Mathews, can you keep him busy enough so that he won’t space us?”

“Yes, I’m fast enough. I’ll keep him on his toes enough to keep him on his toes.” Everyone got into his position. Will and Michael pulled their pistols and aimed at the linking cables. The Gunny put the grenades on the core, around the circuit boards. Jack was at the emergency eject panel, ready to punch in the code. Someone in the HQ had planed for a situation like this. Mathews got ready at the computer panel. “Ready, go!” Mathews’s fingers started darting over the key board. They got Daemon’s attention liked they had planed. Daemon yelled.

“You won’t succeed in killing me before I kill all that matter to you.”

“Yeah, whatever, can you feel yourself slipping into oblivion?”

“I’ve shut down all life support to the crew, sealing off each individual room so they don’t have much air. Even if you succeed in killing me, I will kill your crew!”

“Oh look, I’m still going. Wow, I must be a heartless monster. Maybe I should talk to some one, work out my problems…Nah.” Mathews was wearing Daemon down. He couldn’t subdue Guinevere, manage the ship, and fight off Mathews at the same time. He retreated to the secondary core. His sensors weren’t sensitive enough to tell what they were doing in the computer room. “Now!” Mathews still typed away on the key board, making sure that Daemon didn’t leave anything behind and didn’t come back. Michael and Will shot out the cables and Jack punched in the code. As the secondary core ejected, the Gunny grabbed a handle on the core and was dragged out with it. Doors started to close around the path the core took out. The Gunny pulled the pins on the nearest grenades and pushed off, diving into the core room before the doors shut completely. The core exploded in a brilliant flash of light. Daemon was destroyed. As soon as Daemon was gone, Guinevere kicked back in. She restored all of the ship’s systems, undoing all of the damage Daemon had done. “Now, that wasn’t that hard, was it?”

“Now that that’s done, everybody go get some sleep.”

“Except you, Mathews. You have to go bring in that shuttle you stole.”

“You stole a shuttle, Mathews? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I can explain, sir. I…”

“This better be good, Mathews.”

“Did I say steal? I meant borrowed. I had Mark here go on a fact finding mission for me about the Zero and its capabilities to fight the Oni.”

“And what did you find out?”

“I’ll put it all into a report and submit it to you immediately, sir.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to sleep.”

“Well, look what happened. They don’t have the ship secure enough on Alpha Centauri, rebels sneak in and load up that damn AI, which detains me and takes over the ship. Well, I’ll fix everything, again.”

“Guinevere, are you sure that AI was from rebels on Alpha Centauri?”

“Yes, but I can’t be sure where they got it from, it was unusually strong for an AI, they had to have an outside source.” The Excalibur flickered to life and started moving again. Mathews brought the shuttle back in and Will went back to fixing the errors in the Atal Pro-mech. The Gunny and Jack went back to sleep and Janius continued her duties on the Excalibur. Everything was back to normal, with only four missing hours to make up.

The Tempest was hurtling towards danger. Kaj was going over the plan of attack with his crew. Ana stood behind him as he talked. She knew how much the North Star meant to Kaj, and she knew Kaj knew what he was talking about.

“It is going to be extremely dangerous. I have been talking to Miss Tempest for a while about it. She said that her creators, who she still will not share their identities, needed the North Star to defeat an ‘Enemy’.”

“An ‘Enemy’, captain?”

“That is what they said. An ‘Enemy’ that they needed the North Star to beat. They won the attack, but were heavily damaged. They were guiding the North Star home when they sensed an attack on it in the near future.”

“Sensed?”

“Nea’ Future?”

“Apparently, they can see through time. So, they sent for us. Even with us, the probability of winning is almost zero, but that is enough for us. Many of your loved ones are on the North Star. Without the North Star, raiders are running wild across space, killing innocent people. The North Star is our home. We will either get it back or go down fighting with our brothers and sisters onboard.”

“I’m with the Captain. We’ve ‘ot to fight for the North Star. We ‘ill fight, and we ‘ill win if we just follow the captain.”

“Now, you all know me. I am going into combat with you. In fact, I will be the point man. I will be the first in, last out. I will fly out in advance of our attack group…”

“Kaj, you never told me about that part of the plan. It’s too dangerous to attack as a single unit. We don’t even know what we’re up against. If it were me…”

“Ana, if it were you, you would go in alone as well. We are dangerous people. We both take necessary risks when we see fit. I will go in first, soften up and break the enemy front if I can. Now, who among you has piloting experience of a mobile suit?”

“I do, I was training for it on the Excalibur before I left.” Karen spoke up.

“Karen, you just joined. You should not be in the attack. You do not even know what you are fighting for.”

“Captain, I know what I’m doing. I’m a trained pilot.”

“Fine, you will be a last resort. You will hang back and cover the Tempest and the remaining crew that is onboard. Tempest is not a warrior, so I do not expect the Tempest is a combat vessel.”

“Captain, I have to disagree. I can be better than a rear-line unit. I can…”

“Karen, just trust me. If it is as bad as it is supposed to be, you will see plenty of combat. Plus, the unit I am posting you in is unusual. See that heavily armed, blue Pro-mech over there? Go familiarize yourself with it. It is quite unusual, and is hard to explain unless you experience it first hand.” Tempest shouted down from the castle where she was controlling the ship.

“Kaj, we’re almost there!”

“All right, lasses! Ready yourselves for combat! Suit up!” Hurdling into unknown danger, Kaj jumped into the Paladin. He knew what he was getting into, but didn’t know if they would make it out. Ana, Devain, Willow, and Karen got into their units. Miss Smith and the rest of Kaj’s crew were staying behind on Tempest ship. This battle would either mean Kaj would be reunited with the North Star at last, or he would be torn away from it permanently.