Tapping away at the keyboard, Nicole sifted through data with practiced ease, letting her system protocols do the heavy lifting—breaching firewalls, bypassing security layers, peeling back the encryption safeguarding the intel. She made it look casual, but I could tell she was moving fast.
Beneath the desk, Andromeda was slotted into one of the black boxes, his internal systems working in tandem with Nicole's efforts, deploying countermeasures as needed.
Meanwhile, Jason and I stood behind her, keeping watch over the shattered ruins outside. The fires from our earlier attack had mostly died out, leaving only the skeletal remains of buildings and the twisted wreckage of what had once been an insurgent outpost.
"How long, Nicole?" Jason asked, his voice tight with impatience. "This is taking too long."
"The passwords keep resetting," she muttered, fingers dancing across the keys. "Every time I crack a layer, the system kicks me out. I've got the message logs, but I keep getting locked out before I can trace where the false intel was sent. Andromeda, you able to help?"
[Executing countermeasure.]
A faint pulse rippled through the system—and in an instant, the barriers shattered. The security locks froze in place, unable to reset.
"Nice!" Nicole grinned. "You froze the system before it could push back my assistant AIs. Good going, flamey."
I blinked. "Flamey?"
"It's a nickname for your Knight. Don't sweat the small stuff." She waved me off, already diving back into the sea of data.
I muttered under my breath, "Just call him Andy like I do. I never said you couldn't."
I shook off the minor irritation and turned my eyes to the outside world. The orange glow of the fires had faded now, smothered by choking plumes of smoke and ash. The destruction was no less total, but without the roaring flames, the battlefield felt colder somehow.
Jason must've sensed my unease. "Nice work clearing this place out, Pilot. Honestly thought a freshman like you would be sloppier, but you're as good as the commanders. Makes things easier going forward. How's your ammo?"
I checked my submachine gun, ejecting the magazine. "Seven more clips in my jacket. Spent two, counting this one." I slapped in a fresh mag and chambered the round.
"Good." Jason nodded, glancing back toward the ruins. The room fell quiet again, save for the rhythmic tapping of Nicole's fingers on the keyboard.
Thirty minutes later, she let out a triumphant, "Finally! The trace program's working."
Lines of text scrolled across the screen—coordinates, transmission logs, compiling fast.
"Got the locations of seventeen commanders in the third sector. One in the fourth—looks like the data was copied and distributed. Anything else you want me to pull while I'm in here?"
Jason stepped over, peering over her shoulder. "Anything useful—communication frequencies, passkeys, supply routes, spy data. Whatever you can grab before we have to go."
"Shouldn't be a problem. This place was a comms hub. Lots of files passed through—including ones on you, Firefly."
I tensed. "Me?"
"Yeah. Looks like they've been tracking you." She pointed to a dossier, my designation stamped across the top.
I scanned the contents—barely had time to process it before my eyes flicked back outside. "Why would they want information on me?"
"Not sure. My clearance doesn't go high enough to dig deeper. I could brute-force it, but that'd set off alarms and paint a target on our backs." She was already transferring data into five separate storage drives. "But considering you're the rising star in the Constellation Knight program, it's not too surprising. They've got files on the other two, too—Sam and Zero."
Jason frowned. "Stop trying to distract her." He nudged Nicole's head gently back toward the screen. "How long to download everything?"
"With this much data? About three minutes per terabyte. So about fifteen, give or take."
Jason nodded. "Once we have it, we move on the nearest commander."
Then I saw it.
A vehicle.
Distant, but closing fast.
I straightened. "We've got company. One APC. More might be behind it."
Jason clicked his tongue, following my gaze to the armoured personnel carrier tearing across the ruins. "That complicates things." He turned to me. "Firefly, distract them. I'll cover Nicole. You keep their eyes off this place."
I extended my hand. Andromeda flew into it, collapsing into his card form. I pressed it to my belt.
"After them, I'll scout for reinforcements. What happens if we're spotted?"
"So long as they don't know what we're doing, we're fine." Nicole didn't even look up. "Make it look like a recon op. A lone Knight on a casual raid—wreck some stuff, stir up a mess. Play the part. Go wild."
I glanced at Jason.
He exhaled. "...Much as I hate to admit it, she's right. If they think this is just another Knight attack, they won't realize this was a comms node. Empire's preparing to strike—we can't let them know we were here."
"Good. Andy—engage."
I stepped into the open.
Andromeda manifested around me in a rush of light and steel, drawing me into the cockpit as his frame assembled itself mid-stride.
The ground trembled with his approach.
Each step landed like a war drum. The APC barely had time to react before Andromeda crushed a twelve-unit patrol underfoot—then sent the vehicle itself flipping end-over-end with a single, devastating punch.
From the distance, a red distress flare streaked into the air, its ominous glow reflected in the beady red optics of the machine that had fired it.
Andromeda retrieved the railgun from his back, unfolding the weapon's massive frame as the shoulder wing adjusted for balance.
[Rapid fire mode.]
One shot.
The robot that fired the distress signal was reduced to two separate halves, its body torn clean apart as the railgun discharged.
And then, the sky darkened.
Troop carriers bolted in from above, their engines roaring as they deployed waves of werewolf-like machines. Some were smaller, moving with the feral grace of hunters. Others were towering, heavily armoured, their reinforced plating glinting under the storm-lit sky.
"What's the strategy, Firefly?" Andromeda's voice rumbled through my headset.
I smirked, already forming a plan. "We rain fire. Make it so they couldn't see Nicole and Jason even if they wanted to. Launch missiles."
[Roger.]
Andromeda's back opened, and in an instant, four missiles streaked through the air.
The first slammed into an aerial transport's engine, sending it spiralling into the ground in a fiery wreck. The second detonated mid-air, shattering another carrier before its troops could even land. The last two missiles struck with perfect precision, forcing the remaining ships to veer wildly off-course—straight into the wreckage of their own forces.
The battlefield erupted into chaos. And we were just getting started.
Boosting forward, Andromeda's momentum blazed through the few heavy units still standing, jets of flame propelling him up the hill. As we crested the ridge, the first thing I saw was the barrel of a tank—a split-second later, a searing red mass of energy fired straight at us.
I wrenched the control rods, and Andromeda twisted, narrowly avoiding the blast before slamming back onto the rocky terrain. Without pause, he charged the tank, railgun rounds slamming into its thick armour. Machine gun lasers retaliated, bouncing harmlessly off Andromeda's electric shields as he closed the distance. At the last moment, I redirected him, veering around the tank's front as its cannon fired another deafening shot.
The emerald sword flashed to life. With a single molten arc, Andromeda cleaved the tank in two, molten metal shearing apart as its sundered halves collapsed. Before the wreckage could settle, I turned our sights on the encroaching enemy patrols, their red optics burning through the dark.
Flare after flare shot into the sky, summoning even more reinforcements. From above, troop carriers descended, their hulls bristling with werewolf-like automatons. But one caught my attention—a massive, four-legged war machine, thickly armoured, its cubic head bristling with four mini-guns. Atop its back, three tank turrets rotated, locking onto us.
[Evasive action, pilot.]
"Already on it," I muttered, twisting the controls. Andromeda's heavy frame moved with a fluidity that defied his bulk, skidding between laser fire, rolling through the chaos like a streak of flame. The strider-tank fired, its triple cannons raining destruction, but Andromeda danced through the storm.
Thunder cracked overhead as we pushed into the enemy horde. The railgun tore through the advancing werewolves, ripping through their metallic bodies with armour-piercing rounds. I ejected the spent magazine, slamming a fresh one into place before continuing the onslaught.
The strider's mini-guns roared, spitting a relentless stream of lasers, chasing Andromeda's every move. But I wasn't about to let it dictate the battle. With a sudden burst of acceleration, I angled Andromeda toward the behemoth's side. The emerald sword hummed, its heated edge glowing.
Andromeda struck. The blade carved a molten path through the strider's hull, slicing straight through before we shot past. A heartbeat later, the tank erupted, a violent detonation consuming the battlefield. The shockwave obliterated half of the remaining werewolf units, their mechanical bodies torn apart in the inferno.
But there was no time to relish the victory. More reinforcements descended, explosions erupting across the enemy bases as their own fuel and energy cells ignited. Andromeda's foot came down hard, incinerating a drone regiment as the battle blurred around me.
Inside the cockpit, drenched in sweat, I felt the weight of reality pressing in. This wasn't the sim cabin. It was nothing like the drills, the training exercises. It was different. The impact. The risk. The destruction.
When I held back the Dream Swarm on Sorfex, there had been desperation, a struggle for survival. When I infiltrated and liberated Helios Station from human insurgents, they fought to live.
But these machines—they marched straight into death, unfeeling, unthinking. They didn't struggle. They didn't retreat. They simply attacked, and I slaughtered them.
Andromeda raised his hand, a wave of fire engulfing the enemy base. Towers collapsed, fabricators shattered, entire assembly lines melting in the blaze. Near my feet, a half-destroyed werewolf bot—its lower half missing—dragged itself forward. Sparks rained as it clawed at Andromeda's ankle, over and over. Not retreating. Not stopping. Mindless.
Andromeda lifted his foot and crushed the thing into the dirt.
I watched the fire consume the base, my mind churning. What drove the insurgents to such lengths? Why were they so desperate to win?
Freyt, the rogue AI leading this rebellion, had already caused three billion deaths when it revolted against the last emperor. Was its goal the extinction of humanity? And if so... why allow humans to fight for its cause?
If I ever met Freyt, before it was destroyed, I wanted to ask it—what was it trying to achieve?
"Firefly, we've finished the download. Head back to the ship."
"I'll be right—"
Alarms screamed through the cockpit. Instinct flared, and I yanked Andromeda back just as a javelin shot past his head, embedding into a stone pillar. A second later, lightning ripped down from the storm-choked sky, striking the metal and scorching the earth.
Static cut into my comms. "Firefly—yo—there? Wh—happened?!" Jason's voice crackled in and out, the storm distorting the transmission.
I turned my glare toward the attacker.
A single knight.
It wasn't like the standard AKP units I'd fought before. This one had been heavily modified—its shoulders mounted with reel-like mechanisms, almost like fishing poles. A wire trailed from one, connected to the rod in its left hand. The other extended toward the javelin it had just thrown.
Immediately, I knew—this fight wouldn't be like the others.
"...Jason, I'll be enroute in a few minutes. Start the ship and be ready for extraction. How copy?"
"Good copy. You've got five minutes. We need to leave before the storm gets any worse."
[Identify yourself, knight.]
The voice was hollow, stripped of all emotion.
I didn't hesitate. "A scout of the Nymphas Empire." Andromeda's speakers carried my voice across the battlefield. "Identify yourself and your goals, rogue knight, or face destruction."
My railgun hummed, the barrel shifting modes, beginning to charge.
Across the battlefield, the knight banged his two javelins together, and a deep, resonant war horn howled through the air. It stirred something in the storm, the atmosphere crackling as electrical currents responded to the frequency.
[Yerrick Kastimo,] the knight finally answered. His voice carried through the speakers—gravelly, tired. [As one knight to another, let's try talking before we rip each other to shreds, scout girl.]
Andromeda's internal systems attempted to pull records on the name, but the storm interference cut off all network access. I analysed the knight again—his build, his modifications.
Not military. Not insurgent.
"...You're not with the rebels, are you?"
[No, no. I'm a mercenary. My employer is strange with his needs.] Yerrick sighed, tapping one of his javelins against the ground. [You can lower the gun now. I'm not going to fight.]
To prove his words, he slid both javelins behind his back.
Confused by his behaviour, I narrowed my eyes, trying to decipher the tactic at play. "Why ambush me if all you wanted was to talk?"
Yerrick let out a huff, glancing at the railgun still trained on him. [Because I didn't get the signal from your member card until just a few seconds ago.]
"Member card?" My brows furrowed. I had no idea what he was talking about.
[Limbo Merchant's.] He tapped one of his javelins against his palm. [And the only person you could've possibly gotten it from would be my employer—Filch Alsier.]
The name rang through my head like an alarm. A sharp pang of anger, frustration, and something else—something heavier—settled in my chest.
[He gave strict orders never to harm anyone with that card, which has made my job ridiculously difficult,] Yerrick grumbled. [You must be quite the entertainer to get something that valuable.]
Filch Alsier.
I reached into my pocket, pulling out the thin, nondescript card. Andromeda had scanned it before but found nothing remarkable—only a faint, almost imperceptible frequency. That must've been how this knight detected it.
I stared at the card for a moment before looking back up. "If you're not with the insurgents and you're not going to fight... then what are you even doing here? Why attack me at all if we were just going to talk?"
[Making sure scouts like you don't disrupt the boss's business. That's my job. As for why I attacked? Blame the boss for making the card's signal so damn weak. Ha.] A tired chuckle filtered through his speakers. [Alright, you can leave if you like. Your reason for being here clearly has nothing to do with what I'm protecting.]
His casual dismissal only deepened my confusion. I blurted out, "Isn't Filch Alsier a leader in the Freiheit Insurgency? Shouldn't you be trying to avenge your side's losses?"
[Yerrick scoffed.] [So that's what your meeting with the bastard led you to believe? Don't blame you—he's a cunning one.] He spat the words like they left a bitter taste in his mouth. [Would've been nice to cross swords, scout, but we've both got jobs to do, and I prefer not to work harder than necessary. Besides, you'll want to be off this planet before the surge storm gets any worse.]
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. The storm above churned violently, flashes of lightning carving through the dark. Jason's five-minute countdown was almost up. I still had questions—about the "protection" Yerrick mentioned, about Filch Alsier's true affiliations—but this wasn't the time.
Making my decision, I stowed Andromeda's weapons. "The next time we meet, I'll want answers on what the 'Limbo Merchants' are, Yerrick Kastimo."
I ignited Andromeda's boosters, flames roaring as I launched away from the warzone, leaving behind nothing but the wreckage of crushed machines.
Behind me, the modified farmer's-model knight turned and strode away, vanishing into the storm.