Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Something’s not right.

“Colonel! It’s me! Corporal Wainfleet!”

It doesn’t work. The colonel lunges forward at him with a snarl. Everyone tightens their grip, holds him in place, fights his every attempt to jerk and flail. They’re lucky he’s still wobbly on his feet. Wainfleet tries again.

“Look at me. You know me. You know us.”

No dice. Quaritch doesn’t stop trying to claw and swing and bite.

“They’re gonna call it,” Z-Dog warns, keeping her eye on the humans waiting outside for their chance to come back in. They’re ready with a syringe and quick-cuffs.

Lyle knows she’s right. He doesn’t let go of Quaritch, shakes him a little in frustration.

“God damn it,” Lyle swears. “I know you’re in there.”

Quaritch hisses, long and feral, his yellow eyes wild.

“Boss…” No. “Miles. We need you.”

I need you.

Fike and Zhang exchange glances. Z-Dog shakes her head, cursing silently, still glaring at the humans.

One more lunge at Lyle’s neck is all the scientists need to see before they’re given the order. It’s just as uncomfortable as the blue team thought it would be; holding their leader through his animal screams and tail-whipping while an RDA labcoat carefully doses him with Supitocam is something they never imagined would happen. Something they never imagined they'd have to be part of.

When he’s been transported to an emergency holding area (might as well call it an animal pen), Lyle insists on giving it another try. Even sedated, bound, and muzzled, Recombinant Quaritch keeps up a low, rumbling growl and the meanest stink-eye anyone’s ever seen. It’s that look that makes Lyle think he has to be in there. Somewhere.

“C’mon, man,” Lyle speaks softly to the restrained beast. As softly as he can with his rough voice. “Give ‘em something. Anything. Show ‘em you’re good to go.”

Quaritch answers by lashing his tail through the air with a snarl so livid, so rabid, that Lyle’s ears flatten on instinct.

Fuck.

“I’ll fix this,” he promises his colonel. “Alright? I’ll take care of it.”

The humans talk to Wainfleet alone, anxiously watching his tail whap angrily against the wall as they try to explain.

“Soul Drives are an incredibly delicate technology. They have a high success rate, but there’s always a risk that a transfer will fail to imprint.”

“So what happened?” Lyle’s voice is rough as asphalt.

“We won’t know exactly until we run some tests.”

“Tests?”

“The asset’s brain will be analyzed for abnormalities that would explain the transfer failure.”

“So you’re gonna scan his brain and try again. Reupload that soul-stick or whatever. Right?”

The humans look at each other nervously before a response is given.

“A-An asset’s brain must be… removed to be studied under the microscope.”

Lyle’s tail shoots into the air instantly.

“Like a fucking dog?! Didn’t it cost billions just to bring him back?”

He growls his frustration, his disbelief.

“He’s in there. I’m telling you. I can see him. Don’t you have a grace period for this kind of shit? For Recoms that take longer to… to fuckin’... come online?” It’s the only way he can describe it. Like they’re machines. But he knows they’re more like highly trained sentient weapons to the RDA.

One of the humans is tapping on her datapad, quickly pulling up a long wall of text for him. Fucking documents. Fucking RDA and their agreements. What the fuck had they signed up for? Wainfleet snatches the tablet away, squinting at it with pinned ears as his eyes dart over the text. 

𝙰𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝚎𝚡𝚑𝚒𝚋𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚒𝚐𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚏𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚍𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚙𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚎𝚟𝚊𝚕𝚞𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙰𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚝’𝚜 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚍𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.

Lyle’s chest feels tight.

𝙰𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚍 r𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎𝚐𝚒𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚑𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢. 

𝙰𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝚍𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚍 un𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚞𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.

So there might still be time to fix this. Time for the colonel to wake up more, to speak, to show some sign he can be of use. That he can lead.

But does Lyle want to give the RDA the chance to make that call? To keep him locked up until some fucking paper pusher decides he's losing them money?

With the rest of the team awake and awaiting command, Lyle stares out past the grated metal, illuminated by the passing light.

He’d known going into this that if anything were to happen to the colonel, leadership would automatically transfer to him. He'd step up to the plate, follow what he was taught, look after his team. But he hadn’t ever actually wanted that power. He doesn’t want this. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Quaritch should be standing here, about to address the 1st Recom Unit. Everyone is processing it. They’d all signed up for this freak show in the hope that they’d have their colonel, the man who always took care of them like family.

Z-Dog is the first to ask what their mission is. Wainfleet looks up from the floor as he turns around, eyes dark.

There are human soldiers in the room with them. Every ISV has a small flight crew. There are twelve Recombinants aboard.

Maybe it's time to take a page from the new-and-improved colonel’s book.

“Yeah. We got a mission alright.”

His tail waves behind him. Z’s tail waves right back and her ears perk up. She looks to Walker, who looks to Fike. Somehow, without words, they all understand what they need to do.

The humans barely have time to react before every set of fangs is bared.

Chapter Text

Bridgehead City is asleep.

Mostly.

Ardmore prefers that her first cup of coffee be made herself, before sunrise, rather than by a sleepy new recruit who drew the shortest straw that morning. It takes just the right touch to make the RDA’s synth-coffee taste better than flavored mud.

It’s been a busy week preparing for even newer new recruits. But they’re not really new , are they? She’ll be able to ship them right out, no training necessary. Hell, if they do a good job, she might request duplicates. If only it were her money.

Ardmore smiles into her mug at her internal joke, and at that very moment, her datapad and comms both beep for attention. She unlocks the tablet, putting her earpiece in, and blinks.

A distress signal. Which outpost is in trouble with the natives this time? Maybe with the special ops team, this’ll become an issue of the past. So many problems can be solved. The RDA won’t know what to do with themselves when they have that freedom.

The window loads and she stares incredulously. This has to be an error.

The signal’s coming from… above?

What in the hell?

General Ardmore has the holodeck lit up faster than her crew can get out of their bunks. They have limited visual but there’s no debris, no sign of collision or an explosion. No cats in space.

Ping after ping goes out, but it takes several minutes for anyone aboard the ISV to pick up.

“Captain, this is General Ardmore responding to your distress signal. What the hell’s going on up there?”

Static. Ardmore looks to the tech on communications and she hurriedly attempts to clear the distortion. The sound of alarms becomes clear.

“Captain,” Ardmore calls again.

“Captain’s dead,” comes a voice, barely audible. As if in hiding. “This is Private Lambert. They—They fucking tore him apart, General.”

Murmuring rises among her crew. She silences them with one icy look.

“Who did?”

Agitated panting, like he’s struggling to breathe.

“Blue Team. They went crazy. I don’t know what the fuck happened…” Terrified, bitten-back sobs. Everyone in the room is still as they listen.

“Pull yourself together, Private. How many of you are left?”

“A-A handful. I think. Med team’s… I don’t know. It all happened so fast, I—Shit, I hear something—” The transmission dissolves into hushed crackling, then back to numb static, before the signal blips out completely.

As the crew runs about to fill more stations, Ardmore turns from the monitor, drawing a slow, calculated breath.

The halls of the Venture Star are painted with the distress of emergency lights, flashing red like a countdown to annihilation that never ends. Alarms shriek, similarly unending, covering sounds coming from the real danger.

A danger they thought they were prepared for. A danger that seemed statistically unlikely in the first place.

What had gone so wrong?

Hurry!

She crashes into a wall, nearly breaking nails as she uses it to throw herself down the corridor and into a room via a broken automatic door, stuck twitching half-way open. She’s small enough to slide in sideways, and when she hears crashing behind her, she goes scrambling over a toppled desk to curl up behind it. Not much of a shield but it’s all she has.

Someone is screaming in the hall. A coworker who somehow fell behind in their hasty escape.

”No! Please! I’ll wire you credits, as many as you want!"

She can’t make out what else is said over the siren, but they don’t seem interested. Agony joins the barrage of noise until like a bubble popping, it stops. The alarms and his screaming both just halt. His body is tossed aside with a dull thunk and she wonders if she’s dreaming.

Maybe that’s why she feels like she’s a couple of inches outside of her own skin. Her ears are ringing a little, but she can hear their voices more clearly now. 

“Ow,” one of them says.

“You didn’t have to punch it, you know. It’s just a switch.” Something made of metal clatters to the floor. “ Was a switch.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

If his goal was to stop the entire alarm system, no, it didn’t work. It may be quieter now but the lights are still flashing red, red, red.

Heavy footsteps get closer and closer until they stop just outside. They’re… sniffing? Awkward, loud sniffing. Like a cat smelling something totally new and perplexing. She knows they smell her. She just doesn’t know how much time she has.

When they loudly batter the door into its slot, her heart hammers so hard she shakes. She can’t muffle her now panicked breathing with this mask on. They pause. Every time the emergency lights flare, their long shadows are cast on the floor, stretched out but still with the obvious blocking of kitted up soldiers. It makes their waists look that much comically smaller.

Why is she thinking about that? She has to be dreaming. Or maybe her exopack stopped working and she’s hypoxic. She holds her breath anyway.

The shadows of their tails flicker like animation frames as they wave back and forth. Back and forth... Maybe it’ll make her very, very sleepy. And then when they rip her arms off, she won’t feel anythi—

The desk is lifted like it weighs nothing. The last thing she sees is a sneering blue face and fangs closing in.

Or at least that’s what she expects of her final vision. She lets go of her breath, absolutely dizzy with terror, and can only stare up at the recoms like an ant watching a hovering can of pesticide with a finger on the nozzle.

“Wait.”

The other one. Bald, with a distinctly gravelly voice. Corporal Wainfleet. She’d monitored this recombinant while they synced his drive. He’d twitched a lot, like a baby having a vivid dream. There were no issues to note upon his awakening. He was confused and irritable, but didn’t attack or otherwise show signs of sync failure. Not like the colonel’s unsuccessful upload.

Wainfleet’s large gloved hand reaches for her chest and she flinches back, preparing for pain. But he just gently tilts her name tag up against her breast so he can read it. There’s blood under his fingernails. A little on his brow.

ᴇ. ʀɪᴠᴇʀᴀ, ᴀʀɴᴘ

“You a doctor?”

She stares from behind her mask, taken aback by having not been immediately executed like her coworker. She can see his unmoving leg past the doorway.

Now Wainfleet grips her shirt with urgency so she looks back to him, hands up, and stammers her answer, “ Y-Yes! I’m a nurse.”

“Good enough.” He nods to his teammate. “Bring ‘er.”

He lets go and she’s hoisted up by the other mercenary, thrown over her muscular shoulder like a parcel out for delivery. The corporal grabs her wrists and snaps cuffs on her quicker than she can pull away.

“That’s not necessary, please, I won’t—”

“Heard that one before,” Wainfleet cuts her off. “Not in the mood for cute shit. So don’t try it.”

Helpless to do much else, Rivera gulps.

The nurse sags in defeat on Z-Dog’s shoulder, her curly ponytail bouncing with each step. She might be cuffed, but unfortunately for them, she isn’t gagged.

“You’re not throwing me out the airlock, are you?”

The recoms exchange an amused glance but neither of them answer her question. Lyle shakes his head a little as he puts a sobering hand on his throat comm.

“Prager, status.”

“Wasn’t easy but we got to the shuttle.”

“Good. Send who you can to get kits. Rations, meds, ammo. Clear this place out. En route to payload.”

“Payload?” Rivera asks.

Z motions with her head, still ignoring the human. “Medlab’s on the way. Might wanna go there first.”

“Let’s hit it.”

At the corner, just outside their destination, Wainfleet gestures for quiet. A lone crew member carefully steps his way through the hall, clearly scared shitless. Zdinarsk passes Rivera off and begins stalking her prey. Wainfleet sets his hostage down. All the way down, flattening her into the floor with a big heavy boot. One warning press silences any protest she might have been about to make.

Sudden screaming erupts as Z manages to sneak up on the crewman and lift him by his shirt.

“Anything good?” Wainfleet asks.

“Custodian.”

“Just take his keycard.”

Card stolen, this one’s thrown to the side. He hits the wall so hard it knocks him out. Or breaks his neck. They don’t have time to check and they don’t need a fucking janitor. One chatty nurse is enough.

At least she’s useful. Or she better be.

In the lab, she’s placed on the edge of a counter like a little doll. Wainfleet shows her a box of medication while Z directs a few of the others loading bags and arms with as much as they can carry. They don’t bother with locks, using their new strength to break into anything and everything.

“Which one’s this?”

Rivera winces at the sound of shattering glass. “Can’t you read? It’s Supitocam.”

“Which is?”

She glares over her cuffed wrists, looking like she wants to tell him off. Instead, she heaves a sigh and relents.

“Sedative.”

Perfect. Lyle grins, opening the box and slipping the capped syringes into a vest pocket. “That’s a good girl. Maybe I won’t let Z-Dog eat ya after all.”

She makes a scandalized sort of squeak, flushing visibly even behind her exopack. Z barely suppresses a cackle, smacking Lyle’s arm playfully. They laugh together despite the situation they’re in, until they’re interrupted.

“Why are you doing this?” the nurse asks suddenly.

They stop and turn. Lyle looks into her scared, wet eyes for a long moment, then gives her a smile with lifted ears, before he gets serious again.

“Get all this shit to the shuttle,” he orders Zdinarsk. “Warren, with me.”

“On it,” Z says, lifting a bulky duffle bag. She takes a step to leave, but holds back. “Hey. Don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

Lyle flashes his sharp new teeth at his old friend, plopping the squeaky human back over his shoulder with a carefree little salute.

“No promises.”

Even if he hadn’t memorized the route already, Wainfleet’s new nose can smell exactly where he needs to go. Under the tank fluids and rubbing alcohol, the boss has his own unique scent. Seems like they all do.

Even his unwilling human helper does. Something about her scent is familiar, though he can’t put his finger on it… Did they have their own scents as humans? Had he just not been able to tell until now, or is this something totally new?

Outside the holding cell, Wainfleet sets her down and glances inside to be sure that Quaritch is still there. Yep. Practically hog-tied, stink-eye and all. Just in case, Lyle tries the janitor’s keycard. Buzz: no custodial access without authorization. Good thing he’s got a new little friend.

“You got access?” he asks, turning to tear a spare emergency medkit off the wall. He passes it off to Warren, who clips it to his belt and resumes watching their six. 

Rivera stares at him quizzically, then looks to the glass door of the cell.

“Why? What are you going to do?”

Wainfleet lets out a hot breath, his tail swinging behind him in frustration. What’s with this chick and all the questions? What is she, an annoying kid sister?

“You either help me out or I jettison you with the rest of the trash on this piece of shit ship.”

Rivera reacts at first in fear. Then her face changes. She matches his glare for a few tense, silent heartbeats. He almost thinks she’s got the gall to refuse. Almost goes to man-handle her again. But then, using her cuffed hands, she reaches into her lab coat for her own keycard. It takes some wiggling to get the lanyard over her messed-up hair. After a second of consideration, staring at the card like she blames it for her current situation, she throws it to the floor.

An unspoken do it yourself and maybe a fuck you too.

Lyle doesn’t comment on her attitude but gives her a smug look as he kneels to pick it up. He checks out the card and her demure little monochromatic portrait etched in on its surface. Easier to admire the cat-eye glasses without the glare of an exopack. Underneath the picture is her RDA employee ID number and full name.

“Elizabeth, huh?”

She ignores him, still glaring at the wall. Until the keycard only makes the door buzz at him again and he looks at her expectantly. With a huff and an eyeroll, she steps forward to sharply punch in her passcode. Extra security.

After a second, the glass door slides open and they both hear Quaritch’s growling increase in volume. The smacking of an angry tail on the floor. Danger.

“With me,” he orders.

“Are you crazy? I am not going in there.”

Lyle doesn’t even give her a chance to reconsider. He picks her up under her arms and carries her right in, holding her out of the way when she loses her cool. 

“Stop it!” she shouts, kicking him fruitlessly with flailing little legs and tiny nurse shoes. “Fucking stop! ” Whoa, girl.

He sets her down with a warning look. No funny business, his eyes say.

Inside the cell, Miles Quaritch is still restrained on the floor. The scrubs had not only cuffed his wrists and ankles and tethered his collar to the center of the room, but he’s muzzled up like a rabid hound about to be put down.

Guess that’s what he is. They had said they were going to take his whole fucking brain out to dissect it.

Necropsy, the text had read. Not autopsy.

Fuck that.

“Hey, big guy.”

Lyle approaches the bound colonel, who’s still in the medical gown he woke up in, ass out in the cold synthesized air and everything. Because why bother putting pants on a monster you’re gonna put to sleep anyway?

The collar’s a bit much though, Lyle thinks. Or maybe not for the RDA. He checks its label, and sure enough there’s a special tag on it. Marked for euthanasia.

Quaritch snaps his jaws at Lyle’s hand, big yellow eyes full of rage. “I know, man, I know…” Yeah, the muzzle’s staying on. For now.

But Lyle doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t wince.

He told the boss he’d fix this and that’s what he’s gonna do.

Chapter Text

“How much of this will do it?” Lyle twirls a syringe between his fingers like it’s a toy.

Nurse Rivera maintains wary distance from the furious beast on the floor. She doesn’t look up when she answers, watching his every huff and puff. “That’s a full dose for a recombinant asset.”

Wainfleet squints at her wording. “Better not be lyin’.” He tosses her the syringe and she barely manages to catch it with her cuffed hands. “And better be able to trust you with that or I really will feed you to my squad. Trust me, they’d go ham. They love redheads.”

She groans. Whether or not she believes his threats anymore, it’s fun to fuck with her. Takes the edge off a little. He unsheaths his knife and squats over the colonel, grabbing hold of the line attached to the collar.

“Wait—!” Rivera steps forward. “Let me do this first.”

“Nah, not yet. Just be ready,” Wainfleet declines with confidence, getting right to work cutting the line. “How we lookin’, Warren?”

“You can’t be serious,” Rivera says, disbelief blanching her face behind the smudged exopack.

“Still clear,” Warren answers, somehow his voice sounding like an old man’s even though he’s brand-new-out-of-the-box. Kinda weird how they all sound like themselves. But maybe that’s part of the Soul Drive’s coding.

Fed up with being ignored, Rivera crosses over so she’s in front of Wainfleet, directly in his line of sight. She looks him in the eye, dead serious as she can be with her hair all over the place.

“Corporal. He will kill you. He doesn’t know who you are. He’s not the colonel, he’s nothing but a—a—”

As if on cue, Quaritch lets out an enraged snarl that scares her back several steps, tripping backwards over her own feet. She lands hard on her ass, cursing in pain.

Lyle smirks, giving her a moment to recover, before he presses, red lights flashing against his bald head.

“Nothin’ but a what? Huh?”

Rivera cuts her eyes away, not daring to finish her sentence. But she does eventually get back up and speak.

“Look, I…” She bites her lip, closes her eyes briefly against the persistently flashing lights. “I can’t help you if I don’t understand.”

Lyle pauses cutting, looking at her with a tilted head.

Understand?

He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, the wild clone starts thrashing underneath him.

“Alright, alright!” Wainfleet shouts, digging his knee into the recom’s back. He finishes cutting the line but doesn’t get off of him despite the growls of protest. He gets the restraints on his ankles taken care of next, then settles back into place, keeping him pinned when his legs start trying to kick.

“Watch it, kid,” Warren warns from outside. “Don’t get cocky. Want me to call for backup?”

“I got this, man.” He immediately gets smacked in the bicep by Quaritch’s tail but ignores it.

“Boss,” he addresses his commander directly as he holds the knife and wrist restraints. “I know you’re pissed off...”

Quaritch’s tail is whipping like mad. Ears nearly flat. Pissed off is an understatement.

“But I need you to trust me. Even if we have to settle shit like old times.”

Rivera backs into a corner, step by step.

Wainfleet lets out a slow breath. And on the count of three, he severs the last cuffs.

“Let’s go! Pack that shit in!” Prager shouts.

No gravity simulation on this side, so they have a system. Bags, packs, boxes, bottles, all of it gets passed down the boarding bridge while the others catch and secure items based on category. Loosely, at least. They don’t have time to alphabetize anything. Z-Dog arrives at the back of the group with a big bag floating along behind her. Prager steadies her and takes her cargo, passing it down.

“You good?” he asks, handing her an Atmos.

“Yeah, you guys?” She slips the mask on, then holds onto the railing while she adjusts it.

“Took some hits but we’re alive. Wainfleet on his way?”

“He’s working on it.”

They both look up the bridge. Flash, flash, flash.

“I hope.”

The next thing Lyle knows, he’s flying in the air. Bucked off like a rookie cowboy. Except it’s not Wainfleet’s first rodeo when it comes to fighting Quaritch. But they’ve got brand new bodies, so maybe it is. And this isn’t some friendly end-of-day spar to let off some steam.

This is a man’s fight.

This is how he’s going to get their colonel back.

Quaritch whips around, giving a good mad bark before lunging at his second-in-command. Or who should be his second-in-command. They hit the floor hard in a ridiculous tangle of long blue limbs. Good thing the muzzle’s still on or he’d probably be missing a chunk out of his shoulder. Boss is snapping and chomping like a radioactive shark.

That’s how Lyle knows he’s there. It’s him, damn it.

“C’mon,” Wainfleet grunts. He waits for the right moment and hooks his leg into one of Quaritch’s, using the leverage to roll them over so that he’s on top, pinning his colonel’s wrists to the floor on either side of his head.

“Yeah, you remember that move, don’t ya? Should, ‘cause you taught it to me.”

But Quaritch only growls at him. Shit. This is going to take more work than he thought. They’ll have plenty of time later.

For now, maybe he shouldn’t be any more of an idiot.

“Alright, Rivera. Now’s your time to shine.”

And of course, the second he looks at her, she shrieks and books it out of the cell.

“God dammit! Bitch!” Lyle yells after the nurse. The momentary distraction allows Quaritch to flip them, once again on top. Fuck!

Good thing Warren’s quick to grab her by the coat as she runs out.

“No, you don’t—”

“Let me go!” She flails as she’s lifted.

Pop!

In one split-second, everything goes wrong.

The arc of blood that sprays from Warren’s head is illuminated by strobing lights, a blown-glass animation suspended in the air for only less than a full blink. He and Rivera both seize, shouting in pain.

Sec-Ops recruits. Armed. Screaming orders.

Quaritch is on top of Wainfleet, but now his attention’s on the loud humans.

Lyle has only a few heartbeats to make a decision. His hands fly to Miles’ head. His knee presses into the recom’s chest. One quick mental finger-crossing for good luck…

And he unlatches the muzzle and launches his colonel out of the cell door. Quaritch crashes into the soldiers like a fucking loaded bowling ball.

And all hell breaks loose.

“Wainfleet, status,” Z calls over her comms. Nothing. She tries again. “Warren?”

She looks to Prager and he urgently presses his own throat comm.

“Zhang, how close are we to getting the fuck out of here?”

“Minutes away, if necessary. ” Their trusty pilot’s been in the cockpit since the moment they got in.

“Lock it down and fire her up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Every nerve is on fire. She can still feel the ghost of white-hot electricity even though the initial shock has passed. Her senses go from dull and blurred to increasingly sharp and intense. Like adjusting the ancient cameras her brother collected.

She’s… on the floor for some reason, with a big blue body twitching next to her. Rivera looks up and sees absolutely everything going wrong.

The first soldier caught in Quaritch’s claws has it the easiest. Snapped neck, instant lights out. It happens so fast the others can’t react in time to avoid getting torn apart. In her work, she’s seen cadavers, smelled death and disease, but this is the first time she’s heard the sound of someone’s arm being ripped out of its socket while they’re still alive.

Another mercenary tries to shoot his taser. The probes and wires whiz past the monster’s head and—CHOMP . His fangs slice through throat, filling the artificial air with the tang of blood. A few of them are still alive, but hardly capable of fighting, strewn across the corridor like discarded toys belonging to a wolf cub mistaken for a puppy.

Quaritch heaves, jaw dripping, hospital gown stained. Inch by inch, he turns to face her, nose twitching, locked in on her scent. Rivera’s backed into the corner, numb, cold but hot, counting down to the end of her life.

“Hey!” Fwak.

Something small and black smacks against the back of the beast’s head and he whips back around with an incensed glower.

“That’s right,” Corporal Wainfleet taunts. “We’re not done yet, are we, Papa Dragon?”

They fly at each other like bulls in a pen.

The fight gets nasty fast. From swinging and punching to clawing and biting. Wainfleet takes several hard hits to the head but he never backs down, never relents. Just spits blood and gets right back to it. But they don’t have all day. The recom corporal takes an opening and manages to get Quaritch in a headlock. Fangs clamp down on his arm in reward, but he holds strong even as blood runs down his blue skin.

“Hurry, do it!”

Huh?!

He’s looking right at her. OH. Shit! Where’s the syringe?

Body, body, blood, body… It’s on the floor, where the other bald recom had fallen. Wainfleet locks his legs around the beast, trying to hold him, but he’s clearly losing strength by the second.

“I need that shit now, Rivera!”

But she’s frozen.

She looks down the corridor, then back to Wainfleet and the defective colonel.

“Elizabeth!” Lyle yells.

Late to the gate, you’ll miss your flight. Cameras used to go how? Click.

She’s never moved so fast in her life. She stumbles to the floor, picks up the syringe, pops off the protective top, spins around, and jabs it with proficiency into the exposed abdomen of the recom.

He roars his rage but Wainfleet holds strong. Within seconds, the feral clone’s voice squeals out until he goes totally limp, save for an angrily twitching tail-tip (no doubt communicating how much he wants to kill them both). Lyle lets him go and sprawls out on the floor in exhaustion. Rivera similarly falls to her knees, dropping the empty syringe to clatter noisily on the floor.

“Lizzy,” she says, trying to push her messed up curls back. How is her hair tie still even on?

“Huh?” Corporal Wainfleet pants hard.

“My name,” she clarifies. “It’s Lizzy,”

“Oh. Good—” he coughs, gets a look at his bitten arm and lets his head thud back on the floor. “Good shit, Lizzy. Nice job.”

Another cough sounds and they both startle. The other recom! On instinct, Lizzy scrambles to him, tiny cuffed human hands checking his pulse. Wainfleet isn’t far behind, but he curses the second he sees the state of his teammate, turning away with folded ears.

It’s then that a rush of heavy footsteps meet them. Zdinarsk helps Wainfleet up, looking at the carnage all around. Specifically the uncuffed, unmuzzled colonel sedated on the floor with no pants on.

“I told you not to do anything stupid,” she scolds.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

Z looks pointedly at the blood running down his arm. The blood on Quaritch. The blood on the floor and walls.

(The realization that the corporal is a catch-phrase guy makes Lizzy roll her eyes. What the hell is going on with today? This has to be a cryo-sleep dream.  She’ll wake up and tell her colleagues all about it.)

“I’m fine,” Wainfleet assures her with his clean hand on her shoulder. “Get Warren in first. Let’s bail, pronto.”

Lizzy jumps back from them both, anticipating that she’ll be carried off again.

“What, you really wanna stay up here?” Z asks, hand on hip.

The nurse looks around at the bodies. She’d seen the recoms pilfering everything they could. Zdinarsk is right. She’d only be stuck up here waiting to be rescued, with nothing and no one but the dead and dying.

But she also knows better. “You’re not actually giving me a choice, are you?”

“Nope,” Wainfleet answers. “Sorry, Liz.”

“Liz-ZY .” She deflates. “Fine, just—don’t carry me anymore, okay?”

“As long as you don’t slow us down,” Zdinarsk compromises, ushering her ahead of them.

The rolling purr of the massive ship grounds Ardmore somehow. Like she’s magnetized when she’s in the air, in command, unable to be knocked down.

It’s going to take time before she can send anyone up there, but for now, they can monitor the sky from the Dragonfly in case—

“Ma’am! Shuttle Alpha just came online.”

There it is.

The Valkyries aren’t scheduled to depart until a few days after her new team is awoken. They were supposed to need some time to “integrate” and get through check-ups. Unless crew are escaping to save their lives, there’s only one other explanation for this.

Stringer is going to shit.

It takes several of them to carry both Warren and Quaritch to the bridge, but once they’re in the gravity-free zone, things go a lot faster. They fix an Atmos on each of them, re-cuff the colonel, and secure them in seats.

Lyle watches as Ja administers pain medication to Warren. Guy looks fucked up, but it’s the best they can do right now. It’s time to fly. Zhang is flipping switches, running all final checks. His queue floats behind him, a nuisance, but he’s focused on his task. Wainfleet swoops down into the co-pilot seat, bandaged, adjusting his mask.

“Sure you can fly this thing, man?”

“Been over a decade of new models since we died, but…” Zhang gives an optimistic but cautious shrug. “I can do it.”

Zhang pushes a lever forward and the Valkyrie rumbles.

“Detaching in ten, nine, eight…”

“Everyone buckled up?”

Shouts of confirmation.

“Seven, six, five…”

Lyle turns around one last time to look at his team. Each one alive and safe in their seats.

“Four, three, two…”

He locks eyes with Lizzy before she squeezes them shut in fear.

“One!”

The shuttle is released from the ISV. For one long, silent moment, they float. And then, in a burst of energy, they’re off. Someone starts clapping obnoxiously behind them (it’s Lopez).

“Don’t celebrate just yet,” Zhang says, accelerating with caution. They’ve got a ways to go before they enter the atmosphere.

A window pops up on the display.

​🇮​​🇳​​🇨​​🇴​​🇲​​🇮​​🇳​​🇬​ ​🇨​​🇦​​🇱​​🇱​...
[IRON SKY]

​🇦​​🇨​​🇨​​🇪​​🇵​​🇹​?
🇾​/​🇳

Zhang looks to his commanding officer. Lyle decides, nah, they can go fuck themselves. He leans forward and denies the call. The pilot lets out a long breath behind his mask.

“So… what’s the plan?”

Wainfleet tucks his queue down so it’ll stop floating. It doesn’t work.

“Let ya know when I think of one.”

The boss would know exactly what to do…

They’re entering the atmosphere. The shuttle burns so bright they can hardly see for what feels like minutes. But they come out of it to a vast view of blue and green. Somehow more breath-taking than the first time. The sight tugs at Lyle’s gut, the way he felt saying goodbye when he left Earth.

(Their families have to know they all died in battle. But do they know they’re alive again, sort of?)

“Where to?” Zhang asks, like he’s an old-school taxi driver.

“Anywhere green. Get as much green around us as you can.”

Beep-beep-beep-beep —collision warning?!

“Shit!” Zhang pulls the shuttle sharply to the left as multiple Scorpion gunships appear around them in a buzzing swarm.

Damn it. Fuckers were waiting for them. The HUD lights up again with another incoming call. They must be desperate. Fine. Wainfleet accepts it this time. An unfamiliar voice booms over the speakers.

“Blue Team, this is your commander speaking.” All ears on the ship swivel forward, except of course for Lizzy’s. “You’re off course. Turn around and my escorts will get you to Bridgehead City.”

Lyle doesn’t immediately respond. He can hear Warren agonizing back there. He knows he needs medical attention. A few of them do. But they’d left behind a dead crew. They have a hostage. If the boss is getting put down for failure to integrate, then what’s gonna happen to the rest of them? His arm burns where Quaritch had torn into flesh.

“We're good.” He presses on his hastily wrapped bandage. “Gonna do our own thing.” Lyle cuts the call before the voice on the other end can get another word out.

Zhang braces himself with a grimace and his intuition is correct because the Scorpions quickly re-align into a formation meant to block them. And it’s working; Valkyries aren’t exactly agile, which is why they always needed to be chaperoned out on missions.

The staccato of gunfire pings the metal hull of the shuttle.

“Taking hits, boss!” comes Prager’s voice.

Boss? No. Lyle’s not the boss. He pushes that thought away for later.

“This thing have fuckin’ guns?”

Zhang sucks in air, adjusting levers, flipping switches. “No, sir. She’s designated for civilian transport.”

The shadow that darkens the cockpit gets their attention. A heavy C-21 ascends, level with them, as if mocking their size and lack of arms. Huge and slow, but armed with rockets and missiles.

Must be where the calls came from. Wainfleet doesn’t wanna find out how far the bitch would go to get her hands on them.

“Zhang, get us outta here!”

“Working on it.”

The shuttle lurches forward, nearly clipping the C-21. Up, up, up, they go, forcing the swarm of smaller ships to follow.

And then Wainfleet sees something.

“There!” He points to a cluster of dots in the distance. Floating mountains. “See that? Get us right in there.” Get lost and fuck ‘em up. Chacón always complained about the rocks messing her readings up.

The underside of the shuttle is being battered with gunfire. More flipped switches and levers reversed, and this time, they bank left— hard , sending an unlucky Scorpion spinning out straight into another one that wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way.

“Ooh-rah, bitch!” Lyle hoots and hollers. “Bro, that was fire!”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” the pilot admits, desperately trying to adjust their harsh tilt.

“Hey, I smell smoke!” Walker alerts.

Aw, shit.

BOOM.

They can all feel the heat from the explosion. Every single stomach drops. And just like that, they’re back to hearing an alarm.

No!

They’re so close. The mountains are so close. The remaining gunships close in. Everyone holds their breath.

And like some kind of messed-up joke, their view is suddenly blocked by… Holy shit. Banshees?! A whole fucking flock of them, or whatever you call a group of alien antennae dragons.

They scrabble at the glass and metal, angry, screeching. But their attention is quickly drawn to the gunships. Easier targets. They push off and tear them to shreds, throwing gunmen out left and right, flinging pieces into the air like metal confetti.

Green rushes up toward them faster than anyone can process.

“We’re going down!” Zhang shouts, sweating down his temples. “Everyone brace! Brace! ”

Each recom gets into position. Ja and Fike hold Warren and Mansk and Walker hold Quaritch. Z-Dog quickly secures their human hostage, who cries in terror.

The sound of ancient trees snapping under the ship is like the roar of a thousand storms. Zhang never lets go of the levers. They hit the ground sideways and skid so fast and far it’s a wonder the ship ever stops at all.

But it does, eventually, with a heave and a groan.

The inside of the Valkyrie is pitch black for the many terrifying seconds it takes for Lyle’s ears to stop ringing. 

Chapter Text

His ears have stopped ringing but everything still sounds weird. Muffled. Coughing. Someone’s coughing.

The air is abrasive with the smell of hot metal. Lights flicker to life with a low drone. Only a few of them, but enough to see for now.

Corporal Wainfleet scrabbles at his seatbelt. But he doesn’t get up right away. His hand goes out to the side, holding the back of Zhang’s head, checking that his mask is still strapped on.

“Hey,” Lyle rasps, his hand now moving down Zhang’s shoulder, his arm, to his white-knuckled grip. Still holding tightly onto the controls of the shuttle.

“You’re good. We’re good.” He slowly helps the recom pry his fingers away. One by one.

“Fuck,” Zhang gasps. Lyle can feel how hard he’s shaking.

“You did it, man. You did it.”

Their pilot. Their brilliant fucking pilot. He got them down safely. Rough landing, but they’re okay. He thinks. Lyle pats him on the back as he rises. The dark Valkyrie looks like a cave full of fireflies. The team is twinkling. No, flashing. Freckles alight in distress.

“Hey, sound off!” Lyle calls out. “Everyone alive?”

Soldier by soldier, they call out their names, but he still goes to each of them to see for himself. Lyle moves through the cramped aisle, ducking under hanging straps, and pauses at each person, counting them up in his head.

He reaches out and touches Prager. Hand on shoulder; alive. Z-Dog reaches out back, grasping Lyle’s arm, mindful of his bandage; alive. Nurse Rivera’s the one coughing. Or maybe she’s crying.

“You hurt?”

“I don’t know—I—”

“Ja, you’re up,” Lyle directs, and the medic is already unbuckling himself to kneel before the human. Checking her head and neck, her arms, her oxygen mask; alive. Wainfleet pats his shoulder softly and moves on.

Fike is holding Warren’s mask in place, blood on his hand. When did the strap break? Lyle grasps them both, but lingers on Warren. Looking rough, still in pain, but; alive.

Mansk and Walker; shaken but alive. Everyone’s okay. Even the colonel, strapped into his seat like a misbehaving toddler, still a little loopy from sedative.

Before Wainfleet can say anything else to his team, a rumble vibrates through the ship. They all look up, listening, waiting. But almost as soon as it arrives, the sound gets farther and farther away, until all they can hear is the hum of the shuttle again.

General Ardmore has fallen back. Wainfleet won’t question it for now. He needs to further assess their situation. Where the hell exactly are they? As if guided by telepathy, Zhang smacks the dashboard enough times to get the holoscreen back and immediately loads up a map. Lyle has to hunch over the seat and lean in to get a good look. He zooms out, out, out, looking for something. There. He spots it before the words even load, the image burned into memory. 

Hell’s Gate… 200 klicks away. They’re deep in the forest. But maybe that’s a good thing, for now. Won’t know until he makes sure they didn’t land in some kind of dragon’s nest.

“Open her up.” Lyle secures an AR and heads to the back. The bay ceiling used to seem so high when he was human. Now it’s just right. “Everyone not hurt or busy, up, with me.”

The ship whines. Uh-oh. When Zhang tries again, the ship whirrs and then rapidly THUNK-THUNK-THUNKS…

“Hold on to something,” Zhang warns. They must’ve dragged a lot of shit when they crashed.

With a sort of heaving groan , the shuttle’s ramp manages to push the whole damn thing up, sending debris outside audibly crashing down around them. Little by little, daylight is revealed through the rampway, dirt and pebbles trailing from the top in mini falls.

Lyle takes his own Atmos mask off in silence and the others follow. The air hits them in a wave of pointed ears. Lyle knows the smell of the rainforest through the mask he wore as a human, but this is on a whole new level. Pandora unfiltered.

Corporal Wainfleet leads, stepping out into the light slowly, gun raised. Z-Dog flanks his left.

“Damn,” she says, looking around at the mess of trees they’d left in their wake. A parted sea of severed wood, with them at the end. If anyone’s around, they definitely heard the crash. But now it’s dead quiet except for the bugs buzzing around. Must’ve scared the shit out of the animals. The suns’ light beams through the rift they’d left, bright enough to curl some of the more sensitive plants on the rainforest floor. 

But the light is fading as eclipse approaches.

Lyle starts to walk forward when something snaps sharply to his right. He and Z whip, guns ready. He can hear the others’ clicking too. Several fluid shadows dart between the brush before leaping to the top of a fallen tree. Viperwolves. But they don’t hiss. Don’t snarl. No fangs bared. The biggest one sniffs the air, dark eyes gleaming briefly, staring right at them. Then it noses its companion—and with a short yip the small pack vanishes in a whisper of leaves.

The recoms lower their guns. Guess they know the whole blue body thing works. Lyle takes the opportunity to survey around the site with the others while they still have a little bit of light. No other blue bodies, dead or alive. Their stripes definitely won’t fool any people , that’s for sure.

“Boss!” someone shouts from inside the shuttle. Wainfleet points at a few soldiers, and they know the wordless command to stay outside on guard.

“It’s Warren,” Fike calls, with rising urgency. Before Lyle even gets back inside, he can hear the pained groans. They’ve got Warren laid out on the floor of the ship, and the man is writhing.

“Let’s have a look at you,” Lyle says, kneeling down and smacking a small flashlight on.

Everyone winces in unison the moment he shines it on Warren’s face. The skin around his eye socket is scorched. No longer blue, but mottled with purple, red, and an angry black burn that arcs across his cheekbone. Blisters, crusted with dried blood and plasma, dotted over his temple.

And sticking out of his eyeball, something small and metal.

“The hell is that?” Walker asks.

Wainfleet vividly remembers the loud electric pop.

“They tased him."

The probe had shot straight into his right eye. It looks… fucking ruined. Not round like it should be, but sunken, clouded, warped like a melted marble. The puncture itself is jagged, off-center, with a web of burnt blood vessels spread out across the whites of his eyes almost like tiny red lightning bolts. His eyelid is getting more and more swollen by the minute, trembling from pain, weeping pale pink from both corners. Even his eyelashes had been mostly burned away.

And the smell… He’d smelled it before, during his fight with the colonel, but he’s only just now realizing what it is. Burnt copper, singed flesh. How the fuck had his whole head not gotten fried? How is he alive? Definitely wouldn’t have survived as a human. 

“Get those med kits open,” he says grimly.

Even Nurse Lizzy is on her feet, helping gather what they might need with her cuffed hands.

“Warren,” Lyle calls out. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Shutthefuckupkid,” his wounded teammate responds in a pained grumble. 

Good sign? Maybe.

“Here! Saline!” Lizzy exclaims, having opened up a packet of little plastic ampoules. She holds out her little hands to Ja and he quickly takes them from her, breaking a few off.

“Can’t you take it out?” Fike asks, glancing once more at his injured teammate before looking away again.

“Don’t have the tools for that,” Ja responds. “Especially not if it’s pierced the cornea.”

“Take some deep breaths,” Lizzy advises, uncapping another dose of pain medication and slowly administering it. But she looks like she’s the one who needs to breathe. Lyle can see the way her tiny body shakes.

He puts his free hand on her back to gently get her attention.

“Appreciate the help, but… maybe you should sit this one out,” he says.

“No.” She holds her breath, possibly repressing tears, trying to rub her smudged mask with her arm. She puts the empty syringe to the side. “He wouldn’t have been hit if I hadn’t…”

That’s when the tears break loose, as much as she holds herself together.

“Whoa,” Lyle says quietly. “Hey. Listen, I—”

But she isn’t having it. “Corporal. Just let me do my job.”

Alright. He backs off.

Ja looks to his leader, then the others. They all know that if that wound—if anyone’s wounds get infected out here, they’re fucked. This is going to suck for Warren.

But they have to do it.

As eclipse steals their daylight, Wainfleet puts the flashlight in his mouth and works on removing his belt. The nurse stares at him, scandalized, before she seems to realize what he’s doing.

“Hey,” he says to Warren. One glassy unharmed eye glares at him. “Gotta clean you up. Don’t be mad, alright? This is for you.”

He slips the belt in between those brand-new hybrid teeth and takes his teammate’s hand in one, flashlight held steady in the other. Nurse Lizzy has more sedative prepared.

“Ready?” Lyle asks.

A grunt from their patient. Ja squeezes one ampoule.

Warren jerks like he’s being shocked all over again, tail flailing out of control under him. It takes a few more hands to help hold him down. But he bites that belt and squeezes Wainfleet’s hand as hard as he can. Blood and gunk come rushing down Warren’s cheek, and Lizzy is quick with gauze to help catch the mess. 

Now for ampoule number two. Warren bites right through the belt this time. When it seems like it’s too much, Rivera gives him the sedative, and soon enough the shuttle is quiet again. Well it would be, if the commotion hadn’t annoyed Quaritch into growling behind them.

“Man, cut it out,” Lyle says, like his former commander is an unruly bulldog. He gets a little too close and almost gets bitten again. Damn! Maybe he should’ve grabbed the muzzle when they fled.

Or maybe not. Doesn’t feel right to do that to him. 

Their team of two medics keep their focus on their patient. They work together to gently dab disinfectant around Warren’s eye socket and get his eye and head wrapped as best as they can. Even when he’s got a fresh dose of sedatives, the guy’s still miserable throughout the whole thing.

When it’s finally done, Ja picks up the scattered wrappers and plastic they’d left around them in the rush. When he leaves them, the nurse whispers as not to disturb the injured recom.

“Corporal,” Lizzy says to Wainfleet. “We’re going to need more supplies. If we can’t manage it, he’s going to lose more than just an eye.”

He knows. Too far from Hell’s Gate to make that trek. Not yet anyway. There’s gotta be something around here. Dr. Augustine always talked about the plants. Medicines, bandages, they’re good for a lot. Not that they know how to use them. What about the battle? The not-dead-yet Lyle in the recording didn’t have any useful intel, since he hadn’t left for the big fight yet, but he’d read in the briefing that the war had happened right under the floating mountains. Where Zhang had tried to land them. So they’re not far.

Maybe that’s their lucky break.

“As soon as the light’s back, we’ll get out there,” Lyle begins. “See what we can find.”

She heaves a sigh, clearly stressed and spent.

“You get some rest,” he tells her, as if she has anything else to do as his captive.

He helps get Warren to a corner of the shuttle they’ve designated as their medbay, and Ja gets to work cleaning up the lesser wounds on the others.

"Need a few hands," Lyle calls to the others. "Just try not to lose a finger."

It takes careful coordination to move Quaritch’s cranky almost-naked ass to another corner, as far out of the way as they can get him in. He flails and barks every second of it, smacking recoms with his tail and nearly landing a kick or two. At least he's still drugged enough that no one else gets bitten. Only so many vials of sedative left, so all they can do is tie his cuffs to a railing with as little slack as they can without hurting him.

When it's done, Lyle wants to say something. Anything that might get through to let him know what’s going on and why. But those eyes are crazy, and even though he’s sure he sees Quaritch in there, he’s not so sure anything he says will matter.

Wainfleet sits on the edge of the ramp, keeping an eye and ear out while they wait out the eclipse.

The bite on his arm throbs anew, freshly cleaned and rebandaged (properly this time). The skin pulls tight with every movement, heat radiating from tender flesh with every heartbeat. Damn, Miles can bite. But somehow, it strikes Lyle that it could’ve been a much deeper wound. Or maybe he's just fucking coping.

He picks out his squad: Brown, Fike, and Lopez. They all secure their comms and run a quick radio check.

But Z corners him. “I’m going with you.”

“Nah, need you here, keep ‘em in line.”

She doesn’t budge, eyebrow ticking. She doesn’t even have to say anything; he knows she’s right. Prager can man the fort just fine without Warren’s guidance, and maybe… Lyle does need someone to keep him from doing anything too stupid this time.

“Check-ins every ten minutes,” he orders, acquiescing without saying it. “Anything crazy happens, close this shit up. We’ll be back before sundown. Don’t eat our hostage.”

Lizzy huffs from her spot on the floor, unamused. Lyle gives one last glance at Quaritch’s time-out corner. Two yellow eyes glaring at him from the dark.

“Let’s move,” he says, and they step out. 

The air outside the shuttle hits warmer, thick with a wet and sweet green stink. The further they get from the shuttle, the more his tail sways. He’s never been this deep in the rainforest. Back when he used to escort Augustine and her underlings, they usually hung just close enough to the edges (and Trudy’s ride) to step in just in case any natives or wildlife got bristly.

He still remembers Sully’s first day. How the scientists came back looking like someone’d just shot a puppy in front of them.

“Where’s Jake?” Trudy had asked, immediately sensing the distress.

“We lost him,” Spellman blurted and Augustine withered him with a searing look.

“You LOST him?”

Lyle had just shaken his head and started packing back into the gunship. 

He really didn’t think Sully’s Avatar would survive the night. None of them did. They were expecting to have to log it as a loss. Creatures would pick his lab-grown carcass clean, maybe the Omatikaya would stack his bones as a warning. And once Sully woke back up in his real body, he’d probably get the chewing out of a lifetime from both Augustine and the colonel. Hell, maybe even get sent right back to Earth.

But it didn’t go down that way. 

Somehow, Jake managed to land himself in the perfect mess. Exactly where he needed to be for what the colonel and Selfridge needed.

None of it mattered in the end anyway. Fucking traitor.

A shuffle overhead startles the soldiers, guns aimed high, tails higher. Just a gang of prolemuris swinging under the canopy, only pausing out of curiosity before one hoots for them to move on. Everyone relaxes. Mostly.

Zdinarsik takes the opportunity to double-check her holo-tablet. Got a little banged up in the crash, but still functional. She smacks it to get the image clear and makes sure it’s still showing the pin she dropped at the crash site. Too risky to use the shuttle’s actual GPS marker just yet. They might be protected for now, but better to avoid any accidental invitations.

Lopez swats at a bug that keeps zipping around his ear. “Gonna get our asses lost if that tablet dies.”

“Mark the trees,” Z commands, so that Wainfleet doesn’t have to. Lopez does as told, using his knife to etch an arrow into a tree pointing back to their ship.

Lyle takes a big, slow whiff into his nose. So many damn smells. Can’t tell shit from crap.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Fike asks.

“Anything,” Lyle grunts, heaving himself over a big root and reaching his hand out for Z.

Z translates, “Look for anything we might’ve left behind.”

“We?” It’s Brown’s turn to ask as he then takes her hand up the root.

“Dead we,” Fike clarifies, joining them and pulling Lopez up. “She means us from before.”

They all hop down one after the other. “That’s fucked up. Too bad we don’t remember this part.”

“No way, man, I don’t wanna remember dying.”

“Hey. Stay focused,” Z scolds them.

The boys quiet down and the squad walks for some time. The roots get thicker. Trees criss-cross tighter overhead. Even in these bodies, sometimes each step is a fight against the forest. As a vine looks like it’s trying to wrap itself around his boot, Wainfleet thinks maybe the RDA should invest in machetes. He kicks it away and steps up on a thick root. 

Time to check in anyway.

“Prager. How’s everyone holding up?”

“We’re okay. Still quiet over here. How’s it going?”

“Quiet here too.” Kinda weirding him out. “Tell Ja he better brush up on his DIY medic shit.”

“Copy, boss.”

He’s never going to get used to being called that. 

Prager lowers his hand from his throat and rises from his spot on the ramp where he’d been keeping watch.

“Walker, your turn,” he tells her, and they switch out with a friendly fist-bump. She gives a stretch, slinging her rifle over her chest, and takes the post. “Try not to piss anything off into attacking us.”

“Well they better not come close, ‘cause I’m not playin’.”

He knows she’ll only shoot if necessary, but he also knows she’s still worked up over the chaos they’d just survived. They all are.

Inside the shuttle, it’s quiet. Like everyone’s still too on edge to even chit-chat. Prager squats in the med-corner where Ja and the human organize and count their stock.

“How’s it looking?” Prager asks their blue medic. 

His eyes flick briefly to the small woman crouched beside Ja. She keeps her head down, ginger ponytail a mess, setting additional ampoules aside. Prager still isn’t entirely sure why Wainfleet brought her. She was useful when they were still up there, but out here she might slow them down. 

Or become a different kind of problem, knowing Lyle.

Who knows. Maybe she’ll be a good bargaining chip later.

Ja lifts his cap up to scratch his head with a cringe before he answers. “Assuming no one else gets seriously injured,” he starts, hardly sounding confident. “we might be okay for a little bit. But…”

When he trails off, the three of them glance at Warren. They all know that caring for him is going to drain their stock faster. Prager sees the worry in both their faces.

“Remember your training. Gonna have to get creative with whatever they can find  out there—”

He’s interrupted by the sound of snarling, a yelp, and something metal clattering to the floor. Looks like Mansk got too close to Quaritch. The sharp noise is enough to make Warren groan in pain. Prager leaves the medics and kneels to help Mansk pick up the container and its contents. Packets upon packets of RDA rations, stolen from the ISV.

“Careful, he bites,” he teases his friend, picking up a few and stacking them in the little tin.

“I wasn’t even that close.” Mansk is flustered, sunglasses on top of his head, puppy dog eyes round under furrowed brows. He’s silent for a long moment, but finally says what he’s thinking.

“Do you think he’s really…” He can’t find the right words.

Prager looks to where their former colonel’s tail drags across the floor in angry swishes. At the blood-stained hospital gown he never got to change out of. Prager finds he doesn’t really want to think about it either. He wonders, guiltily, if they’ve all risked their lives over someone they can’t even be sure is really ever going to be himself.

But then again, are any of them really themselves?

He pats Mansk’s shoulder and gets up. Time to check on their pilot.

Way in the front of the Valkyrie, Zhang sits in perfect silence. The HUD is off, so the only lights illuminating the cockpit come from the controls and his light-up spots. He sits cross-legged, palms down on his knees. Uh-oh. Prager knows that pose. Anyone on this team would. Zhang is taking deep, slow breaths, like he’s trying to slow the whole shuttle’s pulse down with his own. 

Maybe Prager shouldn’t bother him. He starts to back up when the other suddenly speaks.

“What’s up?” Zhang asks, opening his eyes softly.

“Sorry, wasn’t trying to interrupt.”

A soft smile. “It’s fine.” He gestures to the empty seat next to him, where Wainfleet had sat during their escape. “Are you alright?”

Prager takes the invitation to sit, and a moment to respond. “Yeah, I guess. Not hurt, at least.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“I’m good. Promise. Just trying to figure out…” All of this? What to do now that they’re, what, on the run? Free? Can hiding out in a shuttle even be called freedom?

Zhang takes a long breath. Keeping up his practice even in conversation.

“Same.”

They’re both silent for several seconds, the cockpit like a little metal cocoon. Until they hear Walker’s voice cut in from outside.

“Get outta here, stupid dogs! You wanna eat a bullet? Yeah, didn’t think so!”

Prager gives Zhang a knowing smirk and pushes from his seat.

“Is there anything I can help with?” Zhang asks, before he leaves.

Prager adjusts his bandana. “You got us the fuck out of there. Take a nap or something. Seriously.”

Zhang gives a casual little salute and closes his eyes once more.

Lyle’s squad trudges on in silence, until they start seeing things in bits. A splintered old trunk. Wounds in the ground where plants still haven’t grown back. The further they go, the more they find.

“Whoa,” Lopez says, slowing to a stop.

A shattered Samson rotor sticks out of the ground like a crooked gravestone. They step around it, tail-tips flicking curiously. Several meters more and they find an old missile lodged in the dirt, vines threaded through it like stitches. All together, they look up to see metal blades tangled in a tree, bent and broken, half-swallowed by moss.

“We really got our asses kicked,” Brown observes, and everyone goes silent once more.

The rainforest floor beneath them gradually thickens. So many leaves, so many things springing from under their boots like a protective cover after injury to the soil. The air starts to feel different. Tastes different, too, like a damp metallic tang rides the breeze. They duck under a raised root, guns out, slow, cautious… And they all see it. And smell it. The rust mixed with floral gas is overpowering.

“Oh, shit,” Fike says under his breath. “That a shack?”

Sure is. A good old fashioned RDA shack wrapped up in green like the moon’s trying to hide it (or eat it), but it’s there.

“Watch our six.” Wainfleet motions to Lopez with his head.

Z-Dog is first to approach the shack, peeking inside. “Clear.” But she delegates the task of searching the dusty old thing to Brown. He squeezes inside the human-sized living quarters and begins rummaging around noisily, so big he shakes it.

Zdinarsik returns to Wainfleet’s side as he steps toward something that has his attention.

An old AMP suit, just as gnarled with vines as everything else. He pushes the gun to his back and carefully steps over the giant metal arm. He doesn’t know why he does it, but something urges him to crouch. It’s like time slows down, a tingle rising in the base of his queue that he doesn’t like. He lifts his hand to the vines, hesitates, and then brushes them away.

The stenciled name his fingers touch on the suit hits him like a gut punch. Fingers ice cold, breath held, he pulls them away. The sound of buzzing in his ears seems to get louder and louder.

This isn’t just where it happened. It’s…

He stands up, mouth a thin line, ears folded back tightly. Z-Dog hovers close, picking up on his body language like she always could (though it’s even easier now).

“Lyle,” she softly warns. “Careful.” 

Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to. But he leans over the suit anyway.

His eyes lock on to the two arrows first, long and feathered. Tiny vines have curled lovingly, almost possessively around the skeleton still wearing an exopack. Even his fatigues have been rotted away by time and the elements, showing how perfectly each arrow had landed between ribs. Wainfleet is stuck in place, gripping the AMP suit, staring into those two black, empty eye sockets behind the dirty glass of a mask.

“Goddamn…” he finally croaks, and the word feels like it weighs two tons coming out of him.

It’s Miles.

Was Miles.

And that wild thing they have handcuffed in their escape ship?

Was supposed to be Miles too. Sort of. Another chance. Or something. Until they cooked him wrong and were ready to put his brain in a jar to study later. Would they have tried again? Do they have another batch growing on Earth right now?

Things. They’re all just things.

Lyle’s hand raises slowly, almost like he feels like he’ll phase through everything solid if he moves too fast. He touches one of the arrows first, gloveless fingers feeling the reed of the shaft, all the way up to the fletching. As if under a spell, he turns it clockwise, like it’s the key of a music box that’ll give him a fix to all of this. 

And then comes the red hot feeling. 

“Get into the dashcam,” he orders Z.

She falters momentarily, ears up high, but responds. “You sure?”

Lyle lets go of the arrow with a scowl and stands up straight. 

“Do it.”

Fike is thankfully busy turning over every stone and jagged piece of metal while Lopez watches their backs. She stays close to Lyle, tapping and swiping on the tablet, waiting for the old-ass tech in the suit to respond. Data’s uploading. Slowly. She and Wainfleet stand in silence, the hum of insects and faint rustle of leaves surrounding them like a breath held too long. 

She inhales to say something, but—a clanking crash makes everyone jump out of their skin. For a split second, it looks and sounds like the shack explodes with a thousand shrieking purple papers. Stingbats! They run over with guns out just in time for the swarm to fuck off into the canopies above.

“Brown! You good?” Z calls.

The shack’s metal hull groans and out comes Brown, crouching and stumbling from the door with both arms full of loot. Eyes wide, startled, but steady. He looks at everyone, almost like he’s about to speak, and promptly sneezes so hard he drops several items.

“What the fuck, man!” Fike yells. “Scared the shit out of us.”

“You get stung?” Lyle reaches forward, grabbing the recom’s shoulder, looking him over for anything that looks hurt.

“Nah, I’m good, I’m good! Relax. Didn’t see the nest until it was too late. Someone said it was clear in here.”

Z-Dog rolls her eyes and ignores the jab, checking the datapad. Still loading. “Get that shit over here then.”

They help take everything he grabbed from the shack and spread it out on a patch of dirt. Lopez listens with his ears turned, ever calmly watching the forest.

“Any of this stuff still good?” Fike wonders aloud, picking up an unopened packet of gauze. Among the pile are a few ointments in foil tubes, medical tape, injector pens, electrolyte tabs, nutrient paste, and more.

“We’ll let Ja decide what’s trash,” Lyle says. “Get back in there, look for anything we can cut up that isn’t covered in bat shit.” Repurposing is the name of the game in times like this.

“Copy-copy.”

“Yo, but what if Pandoran guano is the good stuff?” Lopez calls from his post.

“Dare you to go in there and find out. Smells like ass.”

“Yeah, shit comes from the ass, stupid.”

The boys stuff their pockets and vests with as much as they can, using a net bag for everything else. After a brief argument, Fike agrees to be the one to go in the shack, plugging his nose as he enters. He sneezes anyway.

Wainfleet returns to the AMP suit, tail swishing, with Z cautiously following behind.

“Is it ready?” he asks, voice low.

“Yeah.” No reason to bullshit him. “Are you?”

A long breath, both looking at each other. At each other’s stripes and spots. Into yellow eyes. Finally, a joint nod. It takes a few more taps for Z to get audio up but she hands it to him straight away.

“Hahh!” An airy hiss crackles in static, coming from a painted face. Lyle recognizes her. Used to be one of Grace’s old students before all that stupid shit happened. Same one in the footage of Sully attacking the bulldozer.

“Give it up, Quaritch!” Their ears and tails go high. “It’s all over."

There’s the son of a bitch. Mohawked and painted up too. Pussy really can make a guy lose his shit.

“Nothin’s over while I’m breathin’!”

“I kinda hoped you’d say that.”

They watch the fight unfold, still as stone. Each blow bursts with white noise and they wonder which will be the last. Waiting for the arrows to come. When Quaritch smashes the shack in the video, they look over at it, mere meters away, still dented with battle scars.

Alarms blare as Sully starts to stumble. Fucker is dying. He’s losing! Quaritch uses the AMP suit’s hand to hoist him up by the braid. The dashcam’s so close they can see how Sully’s face contorts in pain. Good. Lyle hopes it hurt bad.

Knife to throat.

This should’ve been it.

This should’ve been their victory.

So what the fuck—

The audio cracks with a sharp thunk, like a hammer hitting damp wood. A pained yell. Sully drops from his grip. The AMP suit steps back, heavy, wavering. They can hear his breath, gasping in short, shocked gulps. For just a few frames, they can see Quaritch’s own hand grasping the arrow in his chest fruitlessly, while the other hand reaches for nothing in the air, the AMP’s hand mirroring it.

𝙷𝙾𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙻𝙴 𝙸𝙽𝙳𝙸𝙶𝙸𝙽𝙾𝚄𝚂, the HUD blinks in red, corner brackets forming a neat square around the woman drawing her bow. She lets it rip and they hear the arrow shatter through the AMP’s navigation screen before they see it. Head forward, both hands now gripping an arrow each. The half-naked bitch squats over Sully’s passed-out form with her fangs bared. 

And the AMP suit whirs once, twice, then topples backwards with a loud, crashing thud. The colonel’s right arm goes slack and the video ends, two arrows and the edge of his head still in frame.

They’re both frozen for seconds they don’t count, but Z-Dog is the one to snap out of it and take the datapad from Wainfleet.

“That’s it,” she says with finality, turning it off and folding it away. “You wanna…” She’s careful. “bury all this, or what?”

Lyle doesn’t answer. He reaches down slowly, silent except for the controlled tight breaths coming from his nose. The dead colonel’s dog tag jingles softly when he grabs it. It takes a little maneuvering to get the chain off, at least until he realizes that skull isn’t attached to anything anymore. He puts it right back and swings the tag into his palm, immediately zipping it away somewhere safe.

Lyle wonders, for a second that stretches far too long, where his own body is. As his pulse thumps in his ears, he decides he doesn’t want to know.

“Sky’s changing,” Z informs him, trying to shake it off, but her tail’s all over the place. “We should loop back before it’s too late.”

Lyle looks up. She’s not wrong. Even under the canopy, he can see the clouds.

“Round ‘em up.”

The first few taps nearly go unnoticed. Could almost be more dirt or pebbles falling away on top of them. But soon it becomes the unmistakable patter of rainfall. The change in the air is instant, heavy and humid with the scent of wet dirt.

Walker looks back inside from the ramp, wiping moisture from her hairline.

“About to be muddy as fuck out there,” she comments. 

Lizzy stops scowling at the stains on her scrubs to look up at the ceiling. Prager listens to the rain gradually become static against the hull of the ship and brings his hand to his throat comm.

“What’s your status? Rain just hit us. Might be rolling your way. ”

Zhang is up now, helping Mansk inspect their rations packs.

“We’re—way back—” Shit. Weather’s already garbling the signal. “See ya soon.”

Z’s with him, so hopefully he’s not full of shit.

“Keep moving,” Wainfleet calls to his team. 

As if the rainforest means to tease him, a rumble sounds from the sky above. Last thing they need is to get caught in that bullshit. He spots one of Lopez’s marked trees and leads them that way. Another rumble vibrates the air. 

But also the ground. Shit. That’s not thunder. His hand goes up in a fist, and each recom behind him halts in turn.

Thump…

Thump…

Beyond the trees, they can see something big moving. Multiple somethings. 

Hammerheads. Great.

As Lyle turns to face his team, fat raindrops begin dotting everyone’s head and shoulders. He brings a single finger to his mouth, then signals around with the same hand. Everyone signals back their understanding. Single file, step by step, they make their way around the clearing. Waiting behind trees. Holding breath. Boots light, careful not to snap any twigs too loudly. Eventually the rain picks up enough to cover the sound more, giving them the chance to speed up with caution. Lyle leads them up a little higher on the side of a small hill, stopping on the slope to get everyone safely past him. He takes Brown’s hand when it’s his turn to get pulled up.

For a moment, it really feels like they might actually skirt around the herd without incident.

But Pandora isn’t just dangerous.

She can be a real fucking cunt sometimes.

A root snaps under Wainfleet’s boot. Brown’s hand is too slippery from the rain. He loses hold.

Fuck.

The corporal goes sliding all the way down the little hill of wet dirt and leaves—and lands in a cluster of orange spiral plants. They instantly retract, sounding like an orchestra of kids with horns, audible even over the growing downpour.

Lyle curses from his surprise slip and slide, wrist-deep in mud. He’s about to push himself off the ground but his ears fall as soon as he looks up.

Every hammerhead is looking right at him.