#hildemar schultz

The first sign of trouble was the lack of nutrient sludge coating my skin as I instinctively went to clean off post-sleeve. In 89 years of life, I've so rarely had the pleasure of a clean sleeve, given how often I’ve found myself on the edge  of combat zones. A clean sleeve meant we'd had time to prepare, and that never boded well for me. 

“What's the damage?” I remember asking Hansel. I didn't have time for sleeve-techs to fill me in, and they always missed the crucial intel.

[… It’s not good.]

“How not good, Hansel?”

[Nearly nine months and change. We’re back on Mars, Hildemar.] I remember those words echoing, the facts swirling around my head like nanobots in a hive. I swung my legs around and jumped off the slab, knees a little weaker than I'm used to. Probably a stiff sleeve, been awhile in the tank, but I felt… at home. 

“Uh, h-hello, Ms. Schultz! My name is Le-” 

“Show me a mirror.”

“But, Ms. Schultz, if I ma-”

“You may not. Mirror, now, and a sleeve read.” The chattering ceased and the sleeve-tech ran off to the next room, wheeling back a large mirror as he returned.

The body in the mirror was intensely familiar. It felt like home, even if it didn't smell of it yet. The scars all there, stab wound to the abdomen, long sword slash dividing my torso quite neatly in two, even those last gunshot wounds from Neue-Berlin remained. The tattoos looked faded, but nothing that couldn't be gone over. This is my body, I remember thinking. This is me. 

“Here’s your sleeve read, Ms. Schultz, and a message from-” I waved him off, knowing all too well who would be messaging me. My augs were still accounted for, if no longer the top of the line. My body was still my own, too - just as they'd promised, nobody had sleeved into it but me.

But nine months… my last billet was with the Eye, but my contract specifies a three-month sleeve window, not six. I was missing three months more than I should be. Worry crept up on me like nothing else could. I felt myself shake as I moved toward the door. Those concerns would have to wait - I had other problems for now.

“Right Hansel, lets see what Madam Zhou has to say for herself.”

Hildemar Schultz - Ultimate Exemplar TITAN Quarantine Zone, Mars, AF 4.

Hildemar blinked back memories of the Fall as the world went to hell around her. Firing wildly into the sky, she fell backwards and scurried ’til her back was against something solid, the screeching of old circular saws ahead just barely drowning out the drone of friendly rotocopters and the pop-pop-pop of small arms. 

“Didn’t think we’d encounter shit like this so close to the edge!” came Ny-Loq’s cry over the TacNet. “How many?”

The TacNet continued highlighting threats left and right, tallying tangos in the corner of Hildemar’s display. The irregular red hazes continued to dart around the skies above the canyon, the sound of the buzzsaws coming closer. This was the first time since the fall that Hildemar had seen the Headhunters, and this was a full squadron… The tango tally in her HUD finally settled on a number; [12] threats detected.

“These are Mark II, right Val?” Hildemar shot back, slipping a fresh mag into her railgun AR. Valerie helpfully nodded over the TacNet as a missile flew over her head, detonating somewhere behind her. The shockwave rippled through her, but thankfully couldn’t throw her any further against her cover.

This was Hildemar’s first time into the Zone, something she had resisted for awhile after the Fall. Mars’ efforts to become Earth II seemed to be just cheap tricks and gimmicks, and the TITAN Quarantine Zone just one big reminder of the devil which had taken away her home. Now, after two days into her first perimeter patrol, it seemed the TITANs wanted to take her away, too.

Picking herself up, her muse Hansel telling her just how successfully she was ignoring a couple of broken ribs, Hildemar vaulted over one cover and sprinted toward the next. A group of TITAN Headhunters flew about in formation ahead of her, their seam-covered hulls a patchwork of unintuitive design blurring as they rushed towards a crouching figure, highlighted green.

She could almost see Valerie’s smirk as she whipped her rifle around and fired overhead, a full-auto burst directly into the bellies of the beasts. Their buzzsaws whirred and clattered as they bounced off each other, and then fell from the sky amidst the supersonic KRACKS of Valerie’s railgun rounds; [9] threats detected.

“That wasn’t bad, eh, Frau Tilde?”

[Flirting back won’t kill them any faster], Hansel quipped as Hildemar reached for her belt with both hands, still sprinting toward cover.

“No, but these might.”

The faintest clatter of metal spoons on martian rock was drowned out by another group of Headhunters, and Hildemar leaped and twisted through the air, throwing her arms to the red-tinted sky as she let two grenades slip out of her hands.

The shockwave from the high-explosives helped guide her into cover, followed closely by the fizzling sound of an electromagnetic pulse. Reaching for her rifle, she heard Ny-Loq and Valerie both let loose another railgun barrage, and the sound of fallen metal against the rocks; [5] threats detected.  

[That was... effective]. Hansel’s distaste for violence was deliberate, but Hildemar knew that they would still play on her ego when it helped. Valerie shot her a thumbs up over TacNet. She failed to hold back a smile as she pulled up her rifle, searching for the nearest targets. 

Scanning the horizons she saw just the one large group of red marks; they’d flown past them all and were swinging around for another approach, enhanced hearing easily picking up their thruster hums and buzzsaw whirs.

Two green figures stood out from behind their cover before her, Valerie & Ny each pushing fresh magazines into their rifles. Two more figures lay motionless on the floor behind them, a pulsing blue aura indicating signs of life, though those were fading fast. Their CO, Kenshi-1, had already resigned himself to death, asking only that the team brought back his stack so he could brief himself on his death. Their Zone guide, on the other hand, wouldn’t make it back no matter how badly they may have wanted to.

“Get ready for them!” cautioned Ny-Loq as the Headhunters came in, slower this time than before. The familiar twinge of her neurachem set Hildemar running before she fully grasped why, her TacNet registering almost too late the incoming missiles. Hildemar was thrown several metres, select-hearing filters failing to counteract the ringing in her ears, enhancements barely registering the volley of supersonic KRACKS coming from her rear.

[You won’t sustain another hit like that] Hansel cautioned, throwing her medichine readouts up on her AR feed. 

She turned around and saw Ny-Loq still firing at the Headhunter formation, dropping three of them almost on his own. Valerie’s rifle had been blown from her hands, but she was still firing away with a heavy pistol, a Fall relic she wouldn’t let go of. She sat with her back against the martian rock, bleeding badly from a leg wound. Her green mark became tinged with a hint of blue; [2] threats remaining.

“WE HAVE TO GO!” Ny-Loq screamed across the TacNet, dropping his rifle as he failed to find a final fresh mag strapped to his chest. “RIGHT NOW!”

[Valerie will not make it in her current state], Hansel warned, pre-empting Hildemar’s mad dash towards her. 



“It’s not that bad Tilde, I can walk, I can- agh!” Valerie’s protests were cut off by her own cry of pain, as she tripped and landed on her blown-out knee. Hildemar grabbed her by the arm, wrapping it across her shoulders as she helped Valerie forward.

“She won’t make it, Tilde!” Ny-Loq had his shard pistol drawn, truly a weapon of last resort, as he fumbled Kenshi-1’s stack into a vest pocket. “They’re coming back around!” 



The last two Headhunters were moving fast, saw blades glinting in the martian sun, the whirring competing with the ringing in Hildemar’s ears as she half-dragged Valerie behind her. 



“We can’t take her with us-“ [She’s not going to make it, Hilde-]
 “Come on, LEAVE HER!” 
[She’ll be better off forgetting all of thi-] 
“DROP HER, TILDE!”  [If you don’t let her go, you’ll all die]



The mess of voices in her head blended together with the whirring of the TITAN blades coming up behind her, but then she heard an altogether different whining as Ny-Loq hosed flechettes into Valerie’s other leg.

She cried out, her body twisting through the air as she fell, her helmet coming loose and falling beside her. 

Hildemar felt something grab her hand as she looked back at Valerie, her face contorted into panic and pain. For just a moment, she could have sworn it was Hans that she was looking at, all these decades later, the martian sun reflecting in eyes that still caught the memories of dear Luna’s light. 

Even as she was dragged along, her legs unthinkingly carrying her forward, Hildemar could not look away as the Headhunters converged upon Valerie, her green mark glowing blue before fading quickly to black.

It wasn’t until hours later that Ny-Loq broke the uneasy silence between he and Hildemar, the Headhunters and their friends a more comfortable distance behind them.

“She’s backed up, Tilde, we all are. You remember that, right?”

“But she is dead now, Ny. She will never live again,” she spat the words out as though she would choke on them otherwise.

“Yeah, but Valerie will still live. Sometimes, you’ve got to think less about these things, Tilde. You’ve seen too much death to forget about the life that will go on.”