"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" gasped Jenni.

"I think so," smiled Sophia. "The Dawntreader?"

"But…" Jenni continued, mind trying to grasp exactly what was being implied.

"For those of you who don't know," grinned Sophia, wicked grin flashing eerily over her face as she spoke to the shuttle, "The Dawntreader was a legacy-class logistics carrier. The Austraeus is used to ship things to and from the frontier, the Dawntreader was used to assist other ships warping to the frontier. If the other starships stayed within the Dawntreader's spatial compression, they used to be able to benefit from the Dawntreader's legacy drive. In addition, the Dawntreader could also refuel these ships mid-warp - it was basically a fuel tank, fusion rockets and a legacy drive.

The Dawntreader went MIA 700 kilohours ago. It was last seen headed towards a gas giant to extract tritium and refill its fuel tanks. Based on Overwatch's SONAR scans, Jenni and I reckon it's here, underneath the clouds of Carlyle. I bet Carlyle - the station, that is - isn't doing any fuel refining at all - just siphoning fuel out of the Dawntreader's fuel tanks through that pipeline.

So! The IMC forces at Outpost 207 need that fuel! All we have to do is shut down Carlyle's orbital defences and steal the Dawntreader!"

There was a brief silence.

"Easier said than done," remarked Bonerhead.

"And I can do it," grinned Sophia. "Jenni, I've studied the design of the Dawntreader. If you let me jump out the shuttle when we reach that gas pipeline, I can get inside the Dawntreader and reboot its AI. I can take that starship."

"You sure?"

"Positively."



The Dawntreader was a Hammond-built starship, she thought. If I get in front of any camera mounted on that ship all I have to do is speak my name and let it see my bone structure and the Dawntreader's mine.

"You guys, on the other hand," Sophia continued. "Should stay in the shuttle and jump upwards towards Carlyle. Disable carlyle's orbital defence railguns, release the gas pipeline and jump back towards the Dawntreader and we've got ourselves enough fuel to power a small fleet."

"And you're sure that hunk of metal down there is the Dawntreader?"

"Absolutely. The SONAR measurements match perfectly."

"Okay…"

"Now, once we have the Dawntreader, I think we should ditch our original plan. Our soldiers back in the Venice system are probably about to steal the starships from Kodai; in a short while they'll be jumping towards us to fuel the Austraeus's fuel tanks from Carlyle's fuel reserves. I think we should use the Dawntreader to meet them halfway. They'll spot our warp signature and disable their warp drives to avoid a collision with us; at which point we can refuel the Austraeus and jump straight into the Sticez system. Adjust our trajectories slightly and we'll be at Outpost 207. Easy."

"You, ah, seem to have put some thought into it," muttered Jenni. "Okay, I like this plan." She pointed at two soldiers. "You and you. What are your names?"

"John, Ma'am."

"Lisa, Ma'am."

"John and Lisa, you're escorting Sophia. Overwatch, how long till we reach the pipeline?"

"ETA to gas pipeline: Five minutes," displayed the monitor.

"Okay you three. Got your magnetic boots on?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Yeah."

"Then get your helmets," ordered Jenni. Threw them three oxygen cylinders. "These'll give you six hours of oxygen. Will that be enough?"

"Once we turn the Dawntreader's AI on it should start the life support systems automatically," answered Sophia, pushing her helmet onto her head and connecting the oxygen cylinder. "We'll be fine."

She grabbed her Smart Pistol, checked that the safety was on and that it was loaded before stepping into the airlock with her two escorts. Tapped her radio.

"Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," replied Jenni. "Overwatch, ETA?"

"ETA to pipeline: two minutes."

"Good luck," said Jenni. "Alright, the rest of you soldiers! Get your helmets on, too! We'll be under carlyle soon!

The guard coughed, splattered blood upon the stone floor of the prisons. Crimson dripped from gaping bullet holes in his legs and thighs.

I'm not gonna live much longer, huh…

Zeta sauntered over, kicked the carbine from his weak hands. Pointed the Wingman at his head.

"I'm looking for five men who were arrested today."

The guard laughed softly, raised his eyes to look at her.

"And you honestly think I'll tell you?"

"I'd hoped so, yeah."

"Too bad," he smiled, the smile of a dead man laughing in the face of his killer. Resigned to his fate, yet determined to take something back.

"I've got a better idea," said Zeta. Pulled a spare can of Stim off her hip.

"You tell me where my friends are, and I'll give you this can of stim. You've actually got a chance of survival if you do."

Another laugh.

"Survival?"

He began to giggle.

"You. Ha. Ha, ha. Do you really think, heh, that I still want to live?"

"Most people do?"

"Not when they have nothing to live for. And you just killed off my reason to live. My happiness."

Zeta put the can back onto her hip.

"Answer me and I'll give you anything you wish for. Survival, Stim - hell, I'll leave you to die alone if you want."

There was a long, pregnant pause as the man thought, high on pain, adrenaline and a lack of oxygen to his brain.

"I will tell you the location of your comrades. After you give me the Stim and that carbine."

"Huh?"

"I'm going to avenge my comrades, killer. I'll give you the location of the five men in exchange for another chance to kill you."

"Very well."

She handed the man the can.

"Do you know how to use it?"

"Inject it straight into an artery," he said, jamming a needle attached to the side of the can into his armpit, wincing from the pain. Attached the can to the end and pushed down on the button on the top. Watched the yellow liquid shoot into his arm with morbid fascination.

"So this is what it's like being a Pilot, huh-"

His eyes widened as the drug hit his brain.

"Guuugh- AUGGHHHAAAAAA!"

He collapsed onto the floor gnashed his teeth clenched his fists breathed screamed gasped fists clenching forearms rippling legs twitching pain subsiding oxygen returning he stood with blood spurting from his wounds but stopping suddenly as the stim formed clots and he took a step forward his carbine on the floor

"Your friends," he growled, "are in blocks C and D."

He bent downwards fingers touched the handle of his carbine and he pulled it up to his chest flicked off the safety

"Cells C9," he continued raggedly, "and D1 through 4."

"Thank you," replied Zeta sincerely.

"Die, bitch." He muttered raising the carbine upwards taking aim and Zeta's head filled the scope and his fingBANG THwummmm

Ba-dum, Ba-dum, Ba-du

Zeta stood over the man's corpse - now with one more Wingman wound than before - and continued through the underground prison.

Bish opened his eyes. Found himself sitting at a desk - huh, so there's gravity here - in front of a computer.

Am I in a centrifuge?

"Hello, Bish," said a voice from behind him. He turned his head, saw a man standing with his arms folded.

"Oh, it's you, Mr. Ireton."

"Indeed. We're ready to begin testing you now. In a few moments, that computer will be connected to a power source. When that happens, you'll be connected to a replica of Kodai Industries' network; the network we already broke into. We want you to break into the replica's network. Without setting off any tripwires or alarms. Understand?"

"No. What do you want me to find? You can't just ask me to 'break into their network', any idiot can do that."

"Find us the root password to their network, the launch codes to their starships, hell, I dunno, Kodai's director's infonet mail account. Get into their network deep enough and we'll consider it a pass. But remember - no tripwires, no alarms. If you're the real Bish, you can do this silently."

"Aw, I dunno abo-"

"Our informants tell us you hacked into OSET in an hour. Quit stalling."

"Oh, okay. Fine. I'm ready. Turn the computer on already."

"Not yet," said Ireton. "We'll connect it in our own time."

Bish rolled his eyes. "You Contractors are odd, y'know that?"

Bruce glared at her for a second, then,

"Hello, Zeta."

A voice of betrayal and disbelief left his mouth.

I did this, thought Zeta. I failed to keep an eye on Plus and it fed Menelaus too much information.

"Bruce," she began, "I imagine you don't trust me too much at the moment."

He raised an eyebrow, motioned to the iron bars of his cell.

"But I'm here to bust you out."

His eyebrows fell into a frown. "Wha-"

"We don't have much time, so I'll explain along the way." She drew back her katana, lined it up with the cell's lock. A sharp clang! later and the long fell away from the deadbolt.

"I'm going to lift this deadbolt up," Zeta said. "And when I do, this door will be able to swing freely. I know that you are an IMC Pilot. You can probably kill me with your bare hands. When I open this deadbolt, I trust that you won't."

He said nothing.

She took a deep breath.

Those guards did not deserve to die.

This man does not deserve to be here.

Menelaus is the problem.

She lifted the bolt, stepped away as the cell door swung open.

Bruce took a step forward. Through the open door.

"Can I have a gun?" he asked. "I heard gunshots earlier and I don't want to be unarmed."

"Sure," she smiled softly, handed him her Wingman. He ran his fingers over the surface.

"This'll do," he murmured.

Zeta frowned and suddenly she was staring down the barrel of the Wingman.

You saw that coming. Idiot.

"We both know this is loaded," he growled. "And we both know I'll shoot if you do anything funny. I want to know three things, Zeta. Where are my comrades, where is my communicator, and who the hell are you?"

"My name is Zeta," she began. "I'm not a comms pod trader. I am a private investigator, and I was hired to investigate you by a man named Styx Menelaus."

"I know the one," growled Bruce. "Why did you bust me out of here? Why should I trust you?"

She opened her mouth to say something. Nothing came out for a few seconds.

Before this man, she was guilt incarnate. She had wronged him and she had no excuse for it whatsoever.

"I see," he said. "Any reason why I shouldn't pull this trigger?"

"Because I know who you are. And I can help you."

"Really? How, Zeta? How can you help? Because there's a starship up there that Menelaus knows is IMC. It's only a matter of time until he blows it out of orbit with Venice's orbital defence cannons, or tells the Militia to do it for him. What's it's name again – ah, yes. The MCOR Retaliator. What's stopping Menelaus from telling the captain of the Retaliator to kill every man and woman aboard the IMS Austraeus? I mean, the Shikinami?"

"Nothing's stopping that. But there are a number of actions the Shikinami could take to survive."

"Oh?"

"You get me a comms line to your captain and I can tell him or her how to survive an attack from the Retaliator. And an attack from the orbital defences."

"And that is?"

"Its the only thing that's stopping you from killing me right now."

He laughed.

"You're good, Zeta. Cunning. How did you learn to be a Private Investigator?"

"I didn't."

"Huh?"

"I grew up on New Tokyo." She smiled, remembering her childhood. "Those were good days, peaceful days. The first galactic war – or, the Titan wars, if you like – were quieting down.

And then disaster struck. New Tokyo's third Titan division was obliterated by a surprise pirate attack. I was a gymnast at the time… just 140 kilohours old. The Army came to our school looking for potential candidates for Pilots. A field commander saw me prancing along a balancing beam, my parents were forced to sign some kind of confidentiality agreement and the army drafted me into Pilot training.

I was 200 kilohours old when I graduated. And I was 200,010 hours old when I was dishonourably discharged."

She let that sink in for a moment.

"Wait, then -" he began, and suddenly she'd slipped below the Wingman, then to the side, then behind him. Her katana came up to his throat.

"Yeah. I was a Pilot. For ten hours. And we really don't have time for this. Lets get your comrades and get out."

She lowered the katana and he turned, looked at her with new eyes.

"You were a Pilot?" he asked, disbelief and shock on his face.

"We really, really do not have time for this. Follow me, I know where the other four are."

"Incoming message from Kodai industries," displayed Overwatch's monitor.

"Put them through. Everyone, shut up," ordered Jaggerjack.

"This is Kodai industries' security office speaking. Shuttle, we have detected your warp signature. Are you receiving this message? Over."

"Affirmative, Kodai," replied Jaggerjack. "Over."

"Please identify yourself, shuttle. Over."

"Fleet manager for the Shibainu corporation," replied Jaggerjack smoothly. "Sorry for the-"

"Shibainu, you are approaching a restricted area of Venice 7. Halt your warp immediately. Repeat, halt your warp. Over."

"Wilco. Sorry, we didn't know. Over."

Jaggerjack muted his microphone. "Overwatch, take those warp drives offline."

"That's okay, Shibainu. You were headed for an airfield where we keep our starships before they're sold. It's a no-fly zone. Please adjust your trajectory by the following coordinates and you'll arrive at our guest landing platform. Over."

"Wilco. We'll see you soon, Kodai. Eta 30 minutes. Shibainu-1, out."

Jaggerjack turned to face the shuttle.

"Okay, here's the plan everyone! Kodai thinks we've got just one shuttle, while in reality we have two. We're all going to move out of this shuttle and drift into position in front of or behind the other shuttle. Titans included. With me so far?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"We'll drift towards Kodai's airfield with the other shuttle's rockets off but its warp drives online. Should make it a little harder for them to detect us. Once we hit the atmosphere we're hot dropping through the atmosphere and into that airfield and that's where the fun starts.

The Shikinami has acquired a talented hacker. He can hack into Kodai's network from Venice 3. In order for him to do that, we have to establish a radio connection between him and Kodai by holding some hardpoints. The more we've got, the more connections he can have open to Kodai simultaneously and the faster he can break into their network.

When he does, those starships start becoming ours. We each board the biggest, meanest looking cruiser we can and jump out of there as soon as possible. We jump to Venice 3, pick up the Austraeus, and then warp to Carlyle. With the Austraeus's legacy drive assisting us it should take 40 hours at the most. We get to Carlyle, we refuel, we warp to the Sticez system, surprise the militia and win this damn war. Does everyone understand?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Then stick your helmets on and grab an oxygen cylinder."

Aisling grabbed her helmet.

This is it, huh?

Back on Brink she'd never even dreamed of doing anything like this. Now she was about to jump out of a starship, drift towards a tiny planet, drop from the heavens and steal a fleet of starships.

Alright, lets do this.

She slid her helmet over her head.

Black, then,

"Hammond Advanced Combat Helmet online," said the words on the high definition screens in front of her eyes. "Loading camera feed… complete. Scanning for additional hardware."

The words disappeared to reveal the view from cameras mounted on the exterior of the helmet. She looked down at her armored legs, saw the helmet highlight her body as blue.

Friendly, huh?

"Smart pistol detected," displayed the helmet. "Raise the pistol to your helmet to pair."

The did so, and the helmet automatically connected with the smart pistol. Now, the pistol's would target anything she flashed her eyes over.

"Safety: On," displayed her helmet.

She took an oxygen cylinder from Jaggerjack, clipped it to her back. Fed a hose from the cylinder's nozzle into a port on the side of her helmet.

"Oxygen supply detected. IMC radio channel detected. Connect?"

"Connect," she said.

"-onna be sending our shuttle towards their landing pad as a decoy," said Jaggerjack's voice. "It means we'll have to leave the shuttle, though."

"I think it could work," replied Rimjob. "Okay, we're ready for you."

"Gotcha. Okay, if you can hear this, put your hand up."

Everyone in the shuttle put their right hand up.

"Good, everyone's connected okay. Okay, we're going to depressurise the shuttle now. Does anyone not have an oxygen cylinder attached? No? Good. Overwatch, save as much oxygen as you can before pressurizing the shuttle."

Three words appeared at the bottom of Aisling's view: "Overwatch: Depressurizing shuttle."

There was a dull hiss from all around Aisling.

Then silence, save for the sound of her own movement. The rustle of her clothing, the tiny rattle of her smart pistol inside its holster, the sloshing sound of her blood moving through her ear tubes…

"Silence detected. Engage comfort mode?" asked the helmet.

"Yes please," muttered Aisling, sighed with relief as a quiet white noise entered her ears. Then,

"Overwatch, open the shuttle doors," commanded Jaggerjack.

"Overwatch: Opening doors," said Aisling's visor.

The shuttle's doors soundlessly slid open, deep black nothingness outside. Save for, of course, the other shuttle.

"Alright everyone. Engage your magnetic boots. We're going to pull these titans out of the back of the shuttle."

Jaggerjack pulled himself into the titan bay, unclipped the tie-downs that held the three behemoths in place. With a light push the titans began to drift out of their storage bay - and the shuttle began to drift slowly in the opposite direction.

Danniek flew towards the titans, a jetpack helping him slow the titans to a relative halt. They sat there, weightless machines of war drifting like dandelions on the wind. Except speeding towards Venice 7 at an incredible pace.

"Overwatch," ordered Jaggerjack. "Slowly make burns to move away from us, on my mark. Rimjob, we're ready for you. Move the shuttle over to us, okay?"

"Auxiliary engines burning, Jack. We're drifting to you now."

The second shuttle began to move towards the three titans, auxiliary engines flaring softly as it made minute adjustments to its course. It stopped a mere five metres away from the first shuttle, ahead of the three titans.

"Rimjob," said Jaggerjack, "We're jumping over to your shuttle now. You might hear a few thumps. Okay, everyone, when you're ready disengage your magnetic boots and jump across to their shuttle. Don't forget to re-engage your boots."

Aisling took a deep breath of her oxygen supply and jumped, body spinning as it drifted through the void, and then her toes kicked back onto the switches in her magnetic boots and she was on the other shuttle's hull.

"Alright, everyone's here," said Danniek, finishing a head count.

"Great," replied Jaggerjack. "Okay, Overwatch. Move away."

"Overwatch: Accelerating away," said the words in front of Aisling's eyes.

"When its safe for us, jump towards Kodai's landing pad."

"Overwatch: Jumping in 30 seconds."

"Rimjob, tell your overwatch to engage its jump drives when the other shuttle jumps. Everyone, get behind the shuttle so you're inside its spatial distortion. We wouldn't want to leave you behind.

Everyone good? Anyone not good? Fantastic.

We've got six titans - three behind this shuttle and three in the shuttle - and all of our personnel. Now we've just got to steal a fleet."

"Should be easy enough," replied Rimjob. "Jumping in 10 seconds."

"Graves," said Menelaus into his communicator. "It's me."

"What the hell is going on at the senate?!" asked Graves. "I'm hearing rumours of a missile!"

"There was an explosion," replied Menelaus grimly. "And I think I know why."

"Go on."

"I believe I have captured five IMC agents, Graves. They were being interrogated below the Senate building. I think someone could have tried to break them out."

"Wait, five IMC agents?!"

"Not sympathisers. Four of them were soldiers; one, a Pilot. I think."

"Where did they come from?! We're supposed to have the IMC blockaded in the Sticez system!"

Menelaus grinned, even though Graves wouldn't be able to see him.

"I was hoping you'd ask that, Graves. They came from a starship currently in orbit above Venice 3 going by the name of the TKY Shikinami."

"Hmm," muttered Graves. "The enormous one, yes?"

"Correct."

"Do you know if they're the only IMC personnel aboard? I mean, is it an IMC ship, or are they the only ones?"

"No idea. And that's the only thing stopping me from firing our defence cannons at that starship. The council won't do anything until we've had a meeting about it, and I'm going to need more than a few intercepted comms pod messages to convince them to give me access to the defence cannons."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, there is. If you could convince the Shikinami's captain to let you aboard to speak to her, you could have a poke around and maybe get to the bottom of this."

"Sounds like a good plan. What's the captain's name?"

"Captain Nina Soryuu."

Graves froze.

"What did you just say?"