#winter-

Winter-4 yawned, limping languidly down the corridor in the vague direction of her quarters. It was somewhere past three AM, and she’d spent the last several hours performing a much-overdue set of maintenance and diagnostics on the wall’s frames. They were indeed built to be apocalypse proof, but save for the sole-remaining siva-bearing frame they were not built to self-repair, and the occasional skirmish with Bray cult (and once, the native wildlife) had left their scars on the machines. She hadn’t bothered to hide her trip from the Lance soldiers, and even when she passed Breaker on her way down, it wasn’t like the soldier could complain at her spending her time in a more fortified area of the complex.

The ground shook slightly and she staggered, shoulder colliding reasonably heavily with the wall. She frowned, unsure if there’d been any quakes or ground tremors in her time on this part of Riis. Still, it wasn’t like it was anything to worry about. The sensor net over the wall was more tightly woven than a moth’s cocoon, and if her network interface wasn’t lighting up like a Festival tree, it could only be because this was nothing to worry about.

Still, she found herself giving a full-body shiver as she pushed herself upright again and moved to continue her journey. It hadn’t felt this cold when she’d left the workshop. Maybe the heat coming off the idle frames had kept her from initially noticing the unseasonable chill.

If there were something that could lower the temperature of the entire wall this quickly, it would have to be pretty impossible to miss.

~

She was maybe a few corridors away from the entry to her Hab when she caught sight of the soldier at the junction ahead, fully decked out and weapon at the ready despite the lateness of the hour. She rolled her eyes at the blatant posturing; presumably heading past Breaker earlier with a dressing gown over the top of her Field Specialist equipment must have prompted them to break out the big guns. She raised a hand in greeting as the figure began to turn, and that was when time slowed to a crawl.

Her, mouth slightly open, hand half raised, one socked foot a little off the ground.

The soldier, in unfamiliar fatigues, sunless skin and strange tattoos, eyes glowing with the cold blue of a stasis zealot.

This was not one of the Lance soldiers from her protection detail. This was an actual Bray Cultist. She’d thought Ra-1 had been mocking her with the mere concept of the cult seeking her out for her part in the conflict, but that had admittedly been before she’d coordinated multiple combat missions against them and even assisted in person with the last month’s assault of the Bray Exoscience ship. Now here she was, alone and unarmed, and about five seconds from being either filled full of holes or disabled for the cult’s idea of Extraction.

And with time going as slow as it was, all of that managed to fly through her head before the cultist could finish announcing her arrival to his entire force.

Not that that was what ended up happening, as it turned out.

Instead the corridor exploded with noise as someone behind Winter opened fire, and the cultist went flying in a spray of blood as three heavy slugs tore his head and shoulders into a gory mess.

Winter collapsed and was struggling to get her bad leg to fold under her when a hand grabbed her shoulder and promptly dragged her upright, and for all the terrible things she’d wished upon him at various points, her heart flooded with relief as she looked up into captain Talos-8’s features.

“Half the wall probably heard that,” he said plainly, expression as solid and unemotional as if he shot strangers in the head every morning before breakfast. “We need to get as far from here as possible before they kill and gut us both.”

Leaving no room for argument he turned and started pushing right back down the corridor, not releasing his grip on her clothing until she had her feet under her and was trying to match his pace. It wasn’t easy for her, having to put in a lot more effort for her bum leg to match his military pace, and she could already feel the pain starting to build.

“Why aren’t all the alarms going off?” Winter huffed, checking her network interface to be met with the perplexing message of ‘No Signal’. “There are sensors on every inch of this wall, right?”

“They dropped a chunk of stasis ice the size of a church on top of the communications array from orbit, and hid the assault ship in its shadow to make atmosphere covertly.” Talos stopped briefly, letting Winter drag in a few deep breaths as he checked the upcoming junction for hostiles. Roughly speaking, they were heading towards the barracks and down. She’d send her frames to meet them there and start fortifying, but with the comms not responding, the concrete and alloys that made the wall so solid defensively killed any signals long before the frames could receive them.

She wasn’t sure if she had blipped or she was just getting lost in her own head, but at some point the sound of shuffling footsteps around an upcoming corner dragged her into the present. Talos was already reacting, shielding her body with his as he pulled them both into the nearest doorway and set his weird gun against the frame in as much of a defensive position as they could muster. They’d heard distant gunfire more than once, and come across several cultists who had been shot down before they could react, although she had trouble recalling exactly when.

“Approaching forces will identify!” Talos barked out and the footsteps went silent. For a moment Winter’s heart seized in her chest-and then a reply came in a familiar voice.

“Breaker One accompanied by Corporal Ashford, sir! We were delayed by enemy combatants abseiling down the wall to try and evade our defences; west flank should now be clear as far as the barracks, sir!”

Winter was pretty sure she felt her own sigh of relief echoed by the other Exo, and as soon as the other group moved into sight she saw their own shoulders ease slightly with relief. She must have been a pretty sorry sight, she thought, as Breaker immediately switched out his rifle so he could move forward and support Winter’s side, and the pain dipping as the weight on her leg reduced was like a drug all on its own. The poetry of a wound Ra caused her endangering his own troops two of her own lives down the line was not lost on her, even if it felt like it would be extremely tasteless to curse him out given the circumstances.

They pooled what info they had before resuming the advance. Alaska-23 had taken the rocket launcher from the squad’s armoury and headed to the top of the wall with an intention to destroy the ship the cultists had arrived on, and Mercy’s location hadn’t been identified since the start of the assault. With four of them, the going wasn’t any faster, but the situation still felt a little less bleak.

Right up until the cultists sprung the trap.

The rattle of a grenade, blind-flung from around a corner, then Winter was flung like a ragdoll as everyone threw themselves into whatever cover they could find. Looking back later, Winter would be astounded they didn’t all die in the first few seconds, but while the Dragon Ascendant did many questionable things, he sure as hell did not hire amateurs.

The first cultist around the corner didn’t expect to find Talos already up close and under his line of fire, the Exo sliding in fast enough to blur and unleashing a spray of slugs even as he straightened, harnessing the momentum to drive his shoulder into the corpse as cover even as he began firing into the men behind the first cultist. Back in the corridor, Ashford’s cover had done little to defend him from the blast, but the shrapnel didn’t even appear to slow him down. Thinning his silhouette and duking right out of the second group’s crosshairs bought him enough time to begin shooting, little three-round bursts that broke the leader’s charge before switching into a roar of full auto that split the air. It still wasn’t enough to let one man outshoot four, but when the cultists pulled their triggers, all they got were clicks, and once he’d confirmed his hack had taken, Breaker didn’t hesitate to raise that dinky pistol and add its fire to the din.

Part of Winter was screaming at her, asking her why she hadn’t grabbed a gun, wasn’t helping, but in the maybe six seconds it took for the gunfire to stop, she was presented with unequivocal proof that her own shooting skill was just not at the levels that mattered in a fight like this.

Winter was winded, but unharmed. Ashford was torn up, but still mobile. Breaker’s hearing was gone one side, the blast of the grenade catching one place the armour couldn’t cover. Talos...

He wasn’t dead, hadn’t even been shot. Instead, one leg was coated in a sheath of blue-purple stasis, with frost slowly creeping its way further up his body. Without the Light to shield him from its effects, any attempt to break the ice would likely shatter the leg underneath it, and the explosive shattering of the crystals wouldn’t leave his other leg in any better shape. His face was stony, but with the footsteps of more cultists already sounding down the corridors, he didn’t waste any time on a breakdown.

“Ashford, the squad is in your hands until you pass it to another,” he intoned as he set his sights on the way they’d come, and the other soldier stiffened in response. “I plan to pile death’s door with enough corpses they can’t fit me through, and if I meet any of you there before day’s end, I’ll kick your asses myself.”

The statements sounded wild to Winter, but there was some undercurrent of ritual to them that the others were clearly familiar with. Ashford placed a hand on his captain’s shoulder, unable to look him in the eye, and stated hoarsely:

“I relieve you of command.”

Talos just smiled.

“I am relieved.”

The gunshots had started maybe a minute after they’d left him behind. They didn’t last long. Winter pushed it real deep down and focused on keeping walking.

~

They didn’t run into any more cultists for a while after that, their numbers this deep in the wall presumably all having pooled for the ambush, and finally, they reached the warehouse accompanying the Workshop where the frames rested. Even from here, she couldn’t secure a solid enough signal to wake the machines, but as she reached out for the handle on the sliding door, she knew this was finally over.

The Zealot had clearly had the same idea.

He appeared behind Breaker in the space of a blink, whether through invisibility, transmat or something stranger still, and backhanded Ashford away hard enough that the soldier bounced once off the flooring before rolling to a halt. Breaker turned, tried to raise his gun, but the open-handed slap that hit him was clearly more than the tech specialist was built to handle.

Opposition disabled, the zealot gave an idle glance in confirmation, running a hand through his unhelmeted hair. Then he reached out a hand, placed it around Winter’s neck, and lifted her two feet off the ground.

“The Sacrifice has been acquired,” the Zealot said into the open air, voice almost musically whimsical. “Take me home, brothers.”

Winter dangled, feet kicking uselessly as her fingers scrabbled at the iron grip. Her stomach flipped as the familiar shimmer of a transmat settled around her limbs. She’d never felt more powerless: At that time, the zealot had everything Winter had and so much more.

Except for a clear view of the swiftly approaching shape behind his back.

They never found out for certain what had happened to Mercy-6 during the events of the attack, or why she hadn’t been at the barracks when the squad had first mobilized. As she flew across the warehouse on silent motors she was unarmed, unarmoured, and streaked with frankly terrifying quantities of blood and oil.

Which was why, as the transmat started and the Zealot’s outline began to shimmer, Mercy launched herself into the air, wrapped her limbs around his torso like a monkey, and sank her teeth into the zealot’s neck:

He screamed, ice exploding from his body in some defensive instinct, but in that single, reflexive moment, his grip loosened and Winter was flung back against the metal doors with a resounding clang. Body unresponsive, but vision clear, Winter had a clear view as Mercy spat a patch of skin the size of her palm to the side and met Winter’s eyes, whispering three words past red-stained lips:

“Death and glory.”

She opened her bloody jaws for another bite, fingers clawing for the zealot’s eye, and then with a blink of light the two were gone.

~

Talos-8, Squad leader, male. KIA. Eight confirmed kills. What remained of his form was taken by his comrades for a ‘viking funeral’.

Alaska-23, Heavy weapons specialist, male. Drained. Destroyed the enemy combatants’ ship and at least twelve confirmed kills. No significant injuries.

Breaker-1, Tech specialist, male. Concussion and significant cranial trauma. Three confirmed kills. Rebooted and expected to make full recovery.

Charles Ashford, Assault infantry, male. Extensive moderate damage including broken femur, extensive lacerations to left side of torso and back, and moderate blood loss. Six confirmed kills. Expected to make full recovery.

Mercy-6, Assault infantry, female. MIA. Kill count not confirmed, but after-action report suggests at least three. Recovery not anticipated.

Winter-4, VIP. Asset recovered and returned to safe secondary location.