"You sure about this, kiddo?"

"Absolutely."

"You know Rose isn't going to like it, right?"

"I'm sure she'll find a way to forgive me."

"Alright, well I'll support you one-hundred percent, and I think it's safe to say that Gidjit will too-"

"CORRECT."

"… so let's shape up and get ready. Ironwood is almost here."

William 'Forklift' Ryder disconnected from the Odin's internal communications channel and started the mechanical process of opening up the MEC's chassis. His crew agreed that the hardened shell of the Odin might give off a rather unwelcoming first impression for a diplomatic delegation, and so opening it up to allow Ryder to greet the General face-to-face was deemed the appropriate course of action. There was no way to make Penny's disembodied voice feel less weird, though, so Ironwood would just have to deal with it.

All of XCOM's big players assembled at Mission Control once word got out that Ironwood was coming: Vahlen and Shen (and Little Shen), Ruby and Weiss, and all the available Strike leaders and officers flanked the Odin and patiently waited for the Atlesian delegation. Forklift glanced down at Ruby. Despite her best efforts to remain professional and represent XCOM as one of its Captains, she couldn't completely contain her nervous fidgeting. Ryder looked at Weiss, who stood to the Captain's right, and noted that even she looked nervous about greeting the General under the present circumstances. For his own part, the MEC pilot shared some of their nerves, but likely for an entirely different reason.

"Here they come." Forklift announced as his superior vantage point allowed him to catch sight of the delegation turning onto the main street and towards Mission Control. Bradford, Ironwood, Annette, Qrow, Glynda, and a gaggle of Atlas soldiers marched towards the awaiting welcome committee. As they got closer, the pilot had an easier time of making out the faces. He wanted to make a comment about how serious they all looked, but he reminded himself that Captain Rose was stressed enough already. And so the group waited in tense silence as Bradford finished walking down the street with his esteemed guest.

Once the Atlesian delegation arrived in front of Mission Control, Bradford gestured to the waiting personnel and said, "I believe you'll recognize a fair number of familiar faces here, General. Welcome to the heart and soul of our operation."

"Thank you, Captain." Ironwood answered. He looked around at the various operatives paying him no mind as they continued their work unpacking supplies and prepping them for distribution to the various resource centers scattered around the city square. The General then nodded at the Odin, "And that is the platform housing miss Polendina, I assume? Unless you have more than one of these in your recon arsenal…"

Bradford shook his head, "No sir. She's the crown jewel of the Valean Recon Division, and it's been a true honor to have miss Polendina at the helm." He gestured up at Ryder, "She's been working with and training a pilot of our own, however, so there's no risk of us rendering the hardware useless after her departure."

"Sergeant William Ryder, sir." Forklift greeted as he piloted the Odin into a standing salute, "Pleasure to meet you."

Ironwood ignored the greeting. "Penny? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, General Ironwood!"

"Your father wants you to come home, Penny."

"Of course! Are we leaving right now?"

"Yes. We'll need you to upload yourself into a portable format, then we'll collect your body and be on our way."

"General Ironwood," Ruby started, "I just want to-"

"I would love to return to father with my original platform, but I'm afraid that isn't possible, General."

Multiple heads snapped around to stare incredulously at the Odin. Several passersby sensed the sudden surge in tension and glanced curiously at the meeting as they walked through the Safe Zone. Ironwood glanced sharply at Bradford. "What is the meaning of this, Captain?"

"Oh, it's not Captain Bradford's fault," Penny continued while Forklift put on his best passive face (with a hint of sadness to accentuate his co-pilot's news), "None of us expected Amity to break apart and crash like it did. After we electrified my platform to stop my hostile behavior, I was concerned that further movement of or interaction with the hardware would cause damage, possibly irreversible, to my sentience. Sergeant Ryder and I agreed to keep watch over the body while we protected the Colosseum so that a representative of my father could come and safely collect the platform without inducing further trauma once the fighting was over. Of course, we all know what happened instead. The Sergeant and I barely had time to make it off the derelict station ourselves, and I can only assume that the body was lost when Amity broke apart before landfall."

"Bradford, is this true?" Ironwood asked, barely hiding the frustration in his voice.

Bradford stared at his counterpart for only a second before nodding, "It was Penny's suggestion. Given that she is more familiar with her own limitations than any of us, we deemed it necessary to leave the body where it fell to avoid damaging it. Doctor Polendina had already done Vale a great favor by lending us a split of Penny's programming, and we did not want to spit in the face of that generosity by recklessly handling the original hardware and possibly destroying it."

Ironwood pinched his nose and remained silent while he processed the new information. Forklift felt a small presence squeeze its way into his psyche.

That's not what happened at all! What's going on?

Be cool, Captain. Ryder thought, Penny and I have this handled.

"Alright," Ironwood began, "While I would personally argue that not securing the body would be the more negligent choice, I can't fault you for trying to protect Penny's hardware. Especially at her own suggestion."

"Keep in mind that we were also in an extremely stressful situation with thousands of civilians that needed to get evacuated as quickly as possible." Bradford pointed out, "We didn't exactly have the luxury of taking our time to fully assess the situation."

"I am incredibly saddened by the loss of my progenitor, General, but at least father hasn't lost everything. In that regard, I think it's safe to say that making the split was a good thing. Otherwise, he might have no daughter at all."

Penny's voice seemed to calm Ironwood somewhat, and he nodded, "True enough, Penny. Let's get you out of there so that I can take you home. I'm sure your father is anxious to see you."

"I have already begun downloading my intelligence into a portable format. It shouldn't be long before the process is complete!"

Ironwood looked around the busy square once more, and it apparently reminded him of the other reason he had come here. "In the meantime, Captain, please instruct your personnel to coordinate efforts to escort refugees to my base camp so that they may begin the process of making their way home." Ironwood paused, then added, "I can spare a Bullhead or two to help move the wounded."

Vahlen spoke for the first time, "That would be incredibly helpful, General. My staff is working as diligently as possible to help those in need, but there are many still incapable of moving on their own yet. Any support you can spare to help us as we help the wounded is greatly appreciated."

Ironwood nodded at one of the Atlas soldiers accompanying him, and the guard stepped away from the gathering while the General returned his attention to Vahlen. "Of course, doctor. I have also noticed that several of my own soldiers found their way here during the fighting and elected to help your recon division secure this district. I see no reason to pull them out at this time, as they seem to be doing an excellent job of representing Atlas during this crisis."

"I imagine they will also be useful in our efforts to coordinate with your base camp to ensure the safe transfer of civilians. It would be better to use Atlas's established communication protocols rather than try to adapt between yours and ours." Dr. Shen observed.

"Agreed." Ironwood answered. It seemed that the General's mood improved somewhat after having two of XCOM's personnel agree with his suggestions one after the other. His gaze settled upon Weiss, and Ryder noticed the young woman stiffen almost instantly, "I don't expect an answer from you now, Miss Schnee, but do keep in mind that Dr. Polendina isn't the only father expecting the safe return of his daughter to Atlas."

"I… yes, of course, General."

A small alert rang on Ryder's console.

"Download complete, sir. Penny is ready for you to take back home."

Dr. Vahlen opened a panel on the Odin, pulled out the hardware containing Penny, and handed it to the waiting Ironwood.

"Please let Dr. Polendina know that it was an absolute pleasure working with Penny." Vahlen said, "I hope I get the chance to see her again in the future."

"I don't doubt that you will." Ironwood answered. He offered a quick salute to Bradford before turning around and leaving with his armed escort. Qrow and Glynda also left to accompany the entourage to the edge of the Safe Zone.

It took Ruby all of her willpower to wait until Ironwood was well out of earshot before whispering, "Sooooooo does anybody want to-"

"Not yet." Bradford cut her off. He looked up at Ryder, "But I fully intend to have a meeting shortly to discuss the logistics of Ironwood's news about evacuating civilians and Penny's news about losing her body."

As Bradford continued to stare down the MEC pilot, another small alert dinged on the Odin's dashboard, and Ryder had to suppress a laugh as he read the notice.

I don't think we fooled him.

With Pyrrha in his arms, Jaune carefully made his way up the stairs and down the hallway towards the room where he and his partner had once helped MacAuley put the finishing touches on the engineer's technical masterpiece. Now, scorch marks, bullet holes, and ruined woodwork greeted the duo as they approached a broken door halfway down the hall.

Jaune walked carefully to avoid stepping on anything that might make a sound while his ears remained alert for anything that might signify danger. He doubted that whoever did this had any reason to still be around, but it didn't hurt to exercise caution. Jaune put his partner down about five paces away from the open door and crept forward with one hand on Crocea Mors. He stood against the wall at the door's edge and listened for any sounds inside.

"Alright, your burns are looking better, but it's going to be a bitch when the scabs start to crack if you flex them too much."

"Tell me about it. Fucking hell, I thought Aura was supposed to help me avoid this crap."

"Welcome to the world of us mortal peons who don't have a magical bullshit shield, kiddo."

"Funny, that's a weird way to say 'Thank you for saving me from dying in a fire, Yang.' "

Jaune knocked on the door frame and quickly announced, "Friendly! Friendly! It's me, Jaune!"

"Jaune?" Yang called from inside the room.

"And Pyrrha!" His partner added from the hallway.

One of the operatives poked his head out from around the corner and grinned, "Well aren't you two a sight for sore eyes. Come on in."

The man (Jaune recognized him as Samuelson, one of MacAuley's friends) dropped his smile a bit as he watched Jaune double back to pick up Pyrrha off the wall. Samuelson stepped out of the way and followed the duo back into the room where a resting Yang waited among a giant mess of hardware and wires. Scorch marks covered her clothes, and damp cloth wrapped around the majority of her face so that only her mouth, nose, and left eye and cheek were visible.

She let out an amused snort as she watched Jaune holding his partner bridal style.

"Y'know, Jaune, I get that Pyrrha's sorta like your princess now, but you don't have to carry her like one everywhere you go."

The two partners exchanged a look, and Yang's tone shifted, "Oh. Adding another one to the Medbay, I see." She gestured to an open space on her right, "Come on in and Dr. Samuelson will see you shortly."

"Where's Blake?" Jaune asked as he set down Pyrrha where Yang indicated, "Bradford said he dispatched the two of you to figure out what happened here."

"She's fine, if that's what you're worried about." Yang said, "And we did manage to figure out what happened here. The White Fang happened here."

Pyrrha responded first to the news, "The White Fang? Does that mean they're responsible for all this?"

Yang shrugged, "Dunno, but they're part of it at the very least. On the bright side, Adam's dead. So that's one less crazy asshole Remnant has to worry about." She gestured at her bandages, "Of course, he had to get in one last laugh before kicking the bucket."

"What about Blake? I know you said she's okay, but since she had to deal with Adam…?" Jaune asked. He'd begun to remove some of Pyrrha's armor to make her more comfortable while Samuelson checked on Yang again.

"Yeah. She's the one that beat him up for me. Didn't say much about it when she came back, though she was carrying one of her arms when she walked in, so I'm guessing she didn't totally wipe the floor with him." Yang was silent for a moment before she added, "I guess that means he got in two last laughs before kicking the bucket. Stupid fucker."

Samuelson cleared his throat, "Blake left a while ago with Mtambe to scout out the area a bit. Something about an Atlas cruiser."

"We… encountered that during our mission to the tower." Pyrrha said.

"No shit?" Yang winced as she turned to face Pyrrha and stretched some of the tender skin on her neck, "Blake said that something caused the tower to explode. Well… explode before it exploded again. You guys were in there when it happened?"

Jaune nodded, "In Ozpin's office, yeah. The second blast kinda threw us out of the tower… after we had a life-and-death fight with some crazy woman that left us with pretty much no aura to deal with the blast."

Yang looked at Pyrrha's immobile body and the pin finally dropped. "… Oh."

"Well at least you have somewhere that's relatively safe to rest and heal up." Samuelson said while he methodically redressed Yang's burns, "Haven't had any Grimm come up here even though we can hear them crawling around outside."

Pyrrha let out a quiet sigh and closed her eyes, "Yeah, it took us a while to get here without drawing their attention, especially since Jaune had to carry me. But I suppose you're right. We shouldn't take this good fortune for granted."

"Hey," Yang said, her voice uncharacteristically serious, "We made it through the hard part, didn't we? Sure, we're not in the best shape right now, but we've got a lot of smart people in Vale who can help patch us up once we're ready to get out of here. I bet Vahlen'll be able to fix things in the real Medbay, and Bradford will just order the Temple Ship to swing around and extract us so we don't have to make a mad dash through the Grimm or whatever. It might take some time, but we'll get through this."

Pyrrha's hip beeped, and Jaune flipped open the pouch holding her scroll and pulled the device out to see why it was trying to alert them. It only took him a brief second before a smile crossed his face. "Nora and Ren are back in range. Lemme give them a call and see if they can join us here."

"Maybe Ren can help me patch you guys up." Samuelson added, "I'm doing the best I can, but I'm an engineer, not a doctor."

Jaune tapped the scroll and waited for his teammates to answer. With the CCTS down, he knew they had to be close enough for the peer-to-peer communications to work. Ren's face filled the screen, and Jaune could see the relief in his expression as he spoke, "You have no idea how good it felt to see your call. Are you and Pyrrha alright?"

"We're… uh… fine." Jaune glanced at Pyrrha to see her not glancing back at him, "We found Yang and part of her squad at the comm station, and we're taking some time to catch our breath. Do you think you can make your way here and regroup with us?"

"That sounds like a good idea. Give us some time. Neither of us are in the mood to wade through Grimm at the moment. We have a lot to tell you about, though."

Jaune laughed. "So do we, Ren. See you when you get here."

Dionicio sat up with a groan as his eyes slowly worked to unglue themselves. The throbbing headache pounding away in his skull was going to be a problem, but at least it meant he remained among the living, at least for a while longer.

"Lieutenant! Good to see you finally awake." While Nicho still couldn't see clearly, he recognized the voice as one of Gamma's Engineers, Poncho.

"Barely," Nicho moaned, "Since we're not dead, I'm guessing we managed to stick the landing?"

"And somehow managed to drive off the dragon in the process." Poncho shrugged, "I guess getting its stomach punched by the ship's bow during the crash landing was enough to finally convince it to get lost. Hopefully to go die in a hole somewhere."

That was one less threat to worry about, at least for now. The Lieutenant rubbed his eyes and started to get up. He'd rested long enough, now it was time to get a handle on his squad and figured out how to make himself useful. As embarrassing as it was to get knocked out during landfall, Nicho was proud of his team for pulling through without him. More than likely, Poncho assumed temporary command and kept the cogs moving while his CO went down for a quick nap.

"So where did we end up?"

Poncho shrugged, "Some forest a few klicks behind Beacon, I think. You can still see what's left of the tower thanks to the path we cleared through the trees."

Could've been better. Nicho recalled from Captain Rose's briefing on Remnant that the forests around Beacon were a combat training ground for students due to the population of Grimm that lurked within. The lack of gunfire from outside told the Lieutenant that nothing had come to investigate the crash yet.

"What about the prisoner?" A shot from the Arc Thrower was enough to keep aliens knocked out for a couple of hours, but all bets were off with anything Remnant. Especially tiny psychotic commandos.

Poncho nodded. "Good question. We found the ship's brig a little while ago, and one of the cells was still pretty well intact. Threw her in a few minutes before she came to, actually, so the timing worked out nicely. She did her weird cloaky thing almost as soon as she realized we had her in the cell, so we posted Socks outside to keep an eye on her." The Sergeant chuckled, "She was rather shocked when she discovered that bioelectric skin has more uses than sensing the invisible."

"It's too early for puns, Sergeant." Nicho groaned. He stepped out of the makeshift infirmary/bunkroom with Poncho and got his first good look at the cruiser. Or rather, what was left of it. The ship had broken in half on impact, the navigation fins were wrecked, and twisted metal and sparking wires lay strewn about everywhere. Nicho noticed one of his operatives slowly walking around the cruiser's perimeter, likely in an effort to make a preliminary assessment of the exterior damage. She caught Nicho's eye and hustled over.

"I've only been out here for ten minutes, sir, and I can already tell you that this thing won't be airworthy for a while. I don't know if Ironwood wants his ship back, but he's going to need a team of technicians working around the clock to get this pieced back together, and the noise'll probably draw the Grimm before the job's done."

Nicho glanced at the damaged craft and nodded. He'd have time later to verify his subordinate's assessment, but his initial impression lined up with what she was saying. "Is there anything that's salvageable? Anything that we can present to Atlesian personnel to say 'sorry about your ship, but at least this survived the crash'?"

"Volt's group found what looks like a mech bay in the back half of the ship." Poncho answered, "It's pretty impressive, actually. I guess Atlas knew they needed a service center for all of their tin cans, and this ship filled that role. Even though the commandos dumped all of the 'bots during the battle, there's still a lot of nice hardware back there that I'm sure Ironwood will want back before he returns home to Atlas."

"Propulsion systems are trashed, though." The other operative added, "Looks like these ships run on the same gravity dust as the colosseum, and the main core is all cracked to hell and non-responsive to any preliminary diagnostic efforts."

So they had a Dead Ship situation on their hands. Damn. "And the command deck?"

"We uh… we did a pretty good job leveling that one, sir. There's a lot of scrap metal that's probably salvageable, but none of the system controls really survived."

Nicho figured as much. "Alright, I'm guessing you already made this clear to the team, Sergeant, but we have two priorities right now: first, we need to restore and fortify this ship as best we can. We have the little terror for Vahlen to interrogate, but no way to safely transport her, which means we're stuck here until we can arrange an extraction. And if we're stuck here, we better be damn well ready to repel any Grimm that decide to come poking around the smoking wreckage. I need two scouts securing a perimeter and developing defensive plans and countermeasures to prepare for any Grimm assaults. Bio troopers are to remain with the prisoner, and all others are to help clean up this mess so that it's easier for the Engineers to do their work.

"Which leads me to objective two: all technical personnel are to continue trying to salvage anything and everything possible. This includes anything that is even remotely related to communication tech so that we can work on reestablishing contact with Central. No real point in getting this ship looking pretty if nobody knows to look for us."

The two soldiers saluted and offered a synchronized, "Yes, sir."

"Good. Let's make it happen, team."

Coco sat at the top of Outpost Two with the rest of the Jaeger team. She volunteered herself for duty as part of the Safe Zone's preliminary response group, mostly to give herself something to do, but the lack of Grimm threats left her with a lot of thinking time on her hands, and the huntress found that her mind wandered to unpleasant thoughts all too easily.

She knew that she wasn't supposed to blame herself, that whoever was behind this would have found another way to kick off tonight's catastrophe if she hadn't played into their plans. But it didn't make the gutpunch feel any better. Thousands upon thousands of incidental casualties from all four kingdoms, Vale in ruins, the global communication system crippled from the loss of Beacon's tower…

And it all could be traced back to her lack of trigger discipline.

Yatsu was busy putting his superhuman strength to work by helping with the construction projects down below, and Velvet was putting on her best bedside manner for the wounded who desperately needed a friendly face and an assuring voice to help get them through their waking nightmare. Even Fox had offered his skills to help with the scouting parties looking for more survivors to bring back to the Safe Zone. That left Coco with a (admittedly badass) robot, an Atlas soldier, and a handful of of these XCOM operatives to keep her company.

So why was she here, really? Did she feel like she needed to atone for her fuck up? To fill a need to be doing something productive since the rest of her team was making themselves useful? Well, she wasn't feeling particularly useful right now, especially since there weren't any Grimm knocking on the outpost's front door. At least that would have given her an outlet to channel her frustration. Instead, even the Grimm decided to let Coco wallow in her misery and guilt while they roamed around doing whatever soulless monsters of the night do for fun.

"Hey."

Coco looked up to see one of the XCOM soldiers giving her a curious look. He continued, "I've seen a couple of thousand-yard stares in my time, and you've got the look of someone who needs to get a few things off her chest."

"You're not wrong." Coco admitted, "But I'm pretty sure the point of us being up here is to keep an eye out for danger."

"Nothing will get past me." The mech said, "Trust in my vigilance."

… Odd choice of words, but Coco wasn't about to quiz the railgun-toting robot in language arts. Besides, the soldier had asked her a question, and even the Atlas guard was looking curious now.

As if they didn't know.

"You're aware that my match at the arena kicked off this whole fiasco, right?" She patted her minigun, "I was trying to nail some speedy little ninja from Mistral when the arena shields… uh… went down."

"That was you?" The Atlas trooper asked, "Holy shit, I heard all the chaos over the radio, and-"

"Stow it, soldier." The operative said curtly. He turned back to Coco, "You holding up alright?"

These weren't a gaggle of adoring fans, so why lie?

"Not really."

The man nodded, expecting that answer, "Yeah. People say it gets easier with time, but that's not really true."

"What, you killed and injured hundreds in a colosseum fight, too?" Coco asked, her tone slightly sharper than intended.

"The scale was different, and the scenario was the exact opposite, actually, but the pain's about the same." He said, "I watched my sister die because of me."

Coco stared at him, waiting for an explanation. The operative obliged. "Mission was going straight to hell in a handbasket. I froze when I should have pulled the trigger. Watched my sister get gutted like a fish by a Berserker about six steps away from me a few seconds later. Our commanding officer managed to put the fucker down before it got to me, but there was nothing we could do for Adrienne other than take the body back home and salvage her gear."

The man's cavalier attitude left Coco slackjawed. How could he talk about watching his sister die in such a casual tone? Still, he continued. "The two of us were twins. Did everything together growing up. Went to school together. Joined the military together. Got accepted into the Marines together. Joined XCOM together…" He looked up at Coco and held her gaze, "We went on thirty ops together, had each other's backs through thick and thin while the world went to hell around us. Earned ourselves the nicknames Apollo and Artemis because we were a well-known duo. And I'm here while she's not because I panicked and couldn't pull a fuckin' trigger."

The group was silent for a bit. Coco glanced at the other XCOM operative, and his face told her that he'd heard this story before. Maybe he was there when it happened? Either way, she didn't see the operative giving his friend a pitying look or a comforting pat on the shoulder. He just kept an eye on Coco, probably to gauge her reaction. Well, might as well play along.

"So how did you deal with it?"

"Spent a lot of nights screaming in rage, punished myself with drills until I was satisfied." He said, "Took me a long time to come to terms with what I had done -or not done, as the case may be- but it did happen. Not a day goes by that I don't think about her, but it's for a better reason now."

Coco shrugged, "I appreciate you telling me this, but I'm not sure how I'm supposed to figure out how to cope with the guilt of starting one of the worst massacres in recent history."

"It's gonna suck." The operative admitted, "But there's nothing you can do to change that now, is there? In your line of work as well as ours, we learn to roll with the punches no matter how hard we get hit. You find a way to shake off the pain, or to focus the rage, and let yourself become the enemy's worst fucking nightmare. Do you know how many Grimm I killed tonight?"

Coco raised an eyebrow, "How many?"

"Fifty-four. Do you want to know why I know?"

"Why?"

"Because each pull of the trigger was for her." He said, "Each bullet between the eyes, each monster I put down was one more step on my road atonement. I will never fully forgive myself for what I've done, but I can take my guilt and mold it into a weapon that my commanding officer can point at the enemy. My shame gives me purpose, and I have learned that that is good enough for me."

The operative looked Coco square in the eye, "Your goal now is to find your own road."

"I… thanks, I guess."

She knew he was right, but she also knew that his story did nothing to directly help her come to terms with what had happened. She'd already known that she'd have to find a way to forgive herself, but it wasn't so much the 'what' that gave her problems as it was the 'how.' Then again, would it have really helped if he'd told her how he coped? Not only were their situations totally different, but why would something that worked for him work for her, too? Perhaps the suffering and the struggle to find a solution, a path, was part of the remedy, and skipping that with an easy out would make it impossible for Coco to recover.

But if this guy had a brutal story of loss and guilt, how many others from XCOM were like him? Like her? Maybe it would be helpful to spend some time with them. Heck, maybe they'd hook up her team with some of that sweet gear.

"So, uh… I'm not sure how long you guys are planning on sticking around… but you wouldn't happen to be interested in hiring a huntsmen team or two, would you?"

Bradford closed the door to the hotel suite and turned to face the assembled group. Vahlen, Shen, Annette, Ryder (in his civilian limbs), Ruby, Weiss, and a handful of XCOM officers all looked back at him patiently.

"Does anybody want to tell me exactly what the hell happened back there?" Bradford started, his gaze lingering on Ryder as he looked around the room, "Anyone?"

Ryder sighed. "I'll explain on Penny's behalf, given that she's not able to tell you herself. Short answer is that she doesn't trust her old platform now that we've seen it is vulnerable to intrusion. Sure, her father would have tried to upgrade it with protective countermeasures as soon as she got home, but Penny one-point-oh was developed in nearly total secret with top-of-the-line tech. If whoever was responsible could hack her once, why couldn't they do it again?

"She knows that whoever did this has no knowledge of Terran technology, and would be unable to account for any countermeasures developed by Vahlen and Shen. So until they've had a chance to beef up the hardware's protection, she doesn't want it to be anywhere near her father in case she got hijacked again."

"And that wouldn't have been good enough for Ironwood." Bradford sighed, "So the best course of action is to pretend that the platform is gone."

"Damn, robokid is smarter than I originally gave credit for." Qrow laughed.

Ryder raised an eyebrow, "You talking about me or Penny?"

"Both?"

"Maybe she'll try to convince her father to upload her into a less dangerous body in the meantime." Weiss mused, "Then the Black Queen wouldn't have to reason to hack her, or Penny wouldn't be able to do any damage if she did get hacked."

"Bingo." Ryder answered, "So now that we have that sorted out, it sounds like we have some other issues that we need to address?"

"The evac plan?" Bradford asked, "Yeah, that was next on my list."

"We could pull a couple of our scouting parties and have them work with Atlas to establish a safe route for survivors." Ruby suggested, "I know it's a long walk from our camp to theirs, but Snipers could provide overlapping fields of fire, and we have a couple of huntsmen teams that can use their mobility to pounce on any contacts before they get to the civilians."

"That would be more efficient than having our squads escort only a couple of groups at a time." Bradford agreed.

Annette nodded her approval of the plan, "The situation here is secure enough where we can afford to reduce the number of operatives on the perimeter and use them to help establish the travel route."

Bradford looked over at Shen, "Can you work with the Atlas soldiers to set up a line of communication with Ironwood to keep him advised of the numbers we're sending his way?"

"Of course. It would also help if we had a rough idea of the numbers." Shen looked at Weiss, "Miss Schnee, I believe you've been assisting with our Lost and Found operation?"

Weiss checked her scroll, "Latest count of non-Valean refugees just passed two thousand. And that's only the ones that have both made it to the Safe Zone and who have registered with our database. That number continues to grow as we process more people."

"Christ." Bradford groaned, "Have we heard anything from, or even about, Vale's government and its response to this mess? I get that Atlas was handling the security for the festival, but this crisis is going well beyond that now."

Glynda shook her head, "I haven't heard anything from Vale's council, though perhaps we can attribute that to the loss of the tower. Still, you think they would have found some way to get a message or orders through."

"There's been some radio chatter about several outposts established by Vale's militia and engineer corps in the other districts, supported by full-fledged huntsmen teams." Fonseca added, "We've been coordinating with them in our effort to fully canvas the city, but they're operating on pre-established crisis protocols. As far as we know, they haven't heard anything from Vale's leadership, either."

"Do you think sabotage is a possibility?" Another officer asked, "If long-term destabilization was an objective for whoever did this, then assassinating a couple of top officials is a hell of a way to keep that going."

"And further cripple an already suffering Vale." Qrow agreed, "It's something I would do in their position."

"We need to find out. Quickly." Bradford said. He could already see the geopolitical threads unraveling in the wake of this disaster. Cutting off the head of one of the only four main governing bodies on Remnant sounded like chaos waiting to happen.

"After we search Beacon for our own MIA." Ruby reminded him.

Bradford nodded. "That is priority number one once we've established the travel route for the refugees, especially in light of Major Durand's observation that the Grimm appear to be drawn to the school. Between our own forces and the students that have gathered to help us, I don't doubt we'll have enough people to form a sortie and recover your sister's team, JNPR, and anyone else we find. I'll leave it to you, Captain, to pick your squad for the op."

"Well I've already found squadmate numero uno." Ruby said with a nudge to Weiss, "We'll get the band back together again, do a little recon, and hopefully make some sense out of this mess."

Weiss shifted uncomfortably, "Ah, actually… I was, um, sort of thinking about what Ironwood said to me earlier…"

Ruby gave her partner a strange look, "Seriously? You want to go back to your dad?"

"Of course I don't!" Weiss almost snapped, "Every day that I've been out of his shadow has shown me how oppressive my life was before. And he called me almost daily during the tournament asking if I would reconsider my choice about training at Atlas, because obviously he wants me on a shorter leash and going to school somewhere where he could keep tabs on me. But I'm trying to look at the bigger picture here, Ruby."

"The bigger picture is that we need to figure out what's going on." Ruby answered, "Together."

Weiss sighed, "Not all the answers are going to be here in Vale. If there's something to be found in Atlas, then someone needs to find it. And if I can find it by sucking up to my dad and getting access to his network of resources back home, then so be it."

"And besides, could you imagine the stink that ol' Mustache would raise when Ironwood came home and told him that his little sweet daughter blew him off for some loonies in Vale?" Qrow laughed before offering a nod to Weiss, "But seriously, it takes guts to do what you're doing. As much as my niece hates to admit it, it's the right move."

And in that moment, Bradford made a decision. "The good news is that you won't be going alone."

"Don't tell me that you're coming, too." Weiss said, incredulous.

"Not me," Bradford said with a shake of his head, "But I'll be damned if I let one of my top soldiers head out into danger without some backup. You know that a number of our operatives have experience with covert operations from our efforts to deal with EXALT. I'll be identifying and dispatching a trio of our best to blend in with the refugees seeking passage to Atlas. They'll act like they don't know you, of course, but there are ways to make contact without arousing suspicion."

"Might be a good idea to insert some of our operatives into the other kingdoms as well." Annette suggested, "Try to establish a foothold and work to maintain stability among the populace."

"Agreed. We know huntsmen students from the various regions, and I don't think it would take much convincing for them to play host to some of our operatives and help them settle in and get to work."

Glynda made a few keystrokes on her scroll and scanned through a list of names, "Mistral will be easy, you will have both SSSN and ABRN from that region. Vacuo… aside from mister Wukong, I don't believe we've acquainted ourselves with any of their student representatives. JNPR did face off against BRNZ in the preliminaries, so that might be a possible avenue." She looked up from her scroll and nodded, "They are one of the teams working with our Safe Zone, and have been involved with the Search and Rescue scouting patrols."

"Then we'll brief some of our operatives and have them try to work the BRNZ angle. If that fails, we can tap SSSN for our Vacuo team and use ABRN for Mistral."

"I'm guessing our operatives are going to need documentation when they try to enter the other kingdoms." Ryder commented, glancing at Qrow, "That's up your alley, isn't it?"

Qrow shrugged, "Something like that."

"Sounds like we've got our work cut out for us." Bradford looked around the room, and was pleased to see a group of determined faces staring back at him, "We best get to it."