“Got a second to talk about Warram?” Kenneck asks me while he and two squads from Warram’s old security team check their packs and comms.

“We’ll be on scene in about an hour, so sure.” Intel from the drones and analysis by Aria inform me that the power station had been reinforced for weeks before this war even started, and that a perimeter of trapdoor bunkers are installed and manned around the clock. Anti-air turrets will keep us from coming in high, so we have a deck-hugging maneuver incoming.

“There are three people trying to lead Warram Crime right now, but this kind of thing isn’t really the run by committee type of organization. Marcella has basically checked out, and you are far too young and inexperienced for the other, older members to buy into your leadership.”

“Probably doesn’t help that the Warram name and location have been sanctioned by the System.”

“No one has the money or influence to move everything.”

“I’m not the kind of girl that’s interested in running things behind the scenes, especially not the cesspool that Warram still is.” I know that’s not what he’s gearing up to ask, but he needs to get to it already.

“Not what I’m asking ki . . . Kimber.” Nice recovery, calling me kid during a sales pitch is not the move. “you employ quite a few of the security and hospitality staff from Warram, so some of field operators and our analysts got together and decided we’d like to come over to Camp Elsewhere.”

Hearing the experienced range officer practically beg for a job was not what I was expecting. Throw some work their way, sure, but wanting to move to my settlement? That is a definite surprise.

“I am onboard for you all moving in, there are barracks rooms and apartments available, but I’m not sure what kind of regular work I might have for operators going forward.”

“You’re expanding, and the clean-up teams you have tearing down the rubble are going to meet resistance sooner than later. That, and your work as Deputy, you’ll have jobs like this from time to time.”

“Mmm, you’re not wrong about the resistance. Clearance teams, maybe a few cop-type roles for my settlement, and a rapid response team for jobs like this. I can see that. If those same folk wouldn’t be opposed to setting up my new training facility, I have about a year’s worth of work to keep fifty or so people busy. Should be enough time to find or create supplemental employment?”

“So you really are trying to set this up as a community and not just a corporate settlement? We had some questions about that. Do you have low-rent housing for the periodic employment folk?”

“Yep!” I beam, having waited to talk about this with someone. “As an Empire affiliated settlement, we support free lodging options and free daily rations for residents of my settlement. Granted, it’s a barracks room and whatever the Empire has on que for rations for that day, but it’s free. I only have fifty barracks rooms available right now, but if you have that many coming, I can have a new building put up in a few weeks.”

Kenneck whistles. “Mind me asking where all of that money is coming from?”

“A little. I get a big discount by transferring the reclaimed materials I’m getting from old buildings to the construction company that makes my building pods. Other than that, I have two businesses that are doing better than I expected and I feel that putting the money into my settlement is a good investment.”

“You’re not afraid of someone coming in and trying to take it?”

I snort and start laughing. “Kenneck, I’m going to choose to believe that you’re simply playing devil’s advocate. And if anyone is reckless enough to try me without knowing who my businesses are in bed with, they deserve what’s coming to them.”

“That sounds a lot like Hubris, Kimber.” Dangerously close to sounding like he’s fixing to set a disrespectful tone.

“This must be why Marcella says don’t be too friendly.” I take a deep breath and exhale before staring at the ceiling. “It’s funny that you would start by asking for a favor, ask me something that sounds vaguely threatening and then try to give me a lesson about my response. Whatever your message was supposed to be, it got muffled by your head being up your ass.” I get up, turn my back on the man and head to the cockpit, locking the door behind me.

Aria, set permissions to the cockpit doors to only me. She chirps as I fume.

An hour later, my plan for the facility solidifies into a two-pronged approach in three stages. Right after the bunker team checks in, the two drones I have will emit a localized jamming field on a fifty-minute timer or until I manually turn them off. The fields will be over bunker in separate, but adjacent quadrants where two teams will assault the entrance, and Kimber plus two will make a lot of noise. Stage three is clearly search the facility.

Once the drones are in place, Aria drops me and the missiles off first before strafing to her quadrant to let the two teams off inside the bunker ring. I hit the airstream with full thrusters in an Iron-Man style flight across the desert and as soon as I pass the bunker ring a few minutes later the missiles scream past me from their holding pattern and tear into the side of the concrete facility.

I see the flare of white and red lights and feel the sound blaring against my suit just before I speed into the dust and debris plume that the missiles left in their destructive wake. Flipping to full stop before the building’s former walls, I touch down in the mess of rubble and rebar then energize the mining tool that deconstructs buildings to clear my path. I dash down the first area that seems to be a mess of piping, pumps and heat exchangers and find a massive pair of pump bodies to hide behind.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

/Knock, this is Ram. In place./

\Copy Ram. Knock knocking. Tweedles on the move.\

I click my understanding and wait for the resistance to arrive. My threat locator shows at least twenty users on this floor of the building. With a pistol and a stun baton in hand, I wait for the Tweedles to arrive in my area. I see some low red lights coming from the direction I breached from. I click my mic twice to let them know they’re coming up on me and when their toes point my way I flash my red light.

I come out from my hiding spot, and with some friends to watch my sides, I pull out in front and lead the team through the rest of the facility. As one might expect there is a lot of large machinery in a powerplant, and it seems that some of it is even running. Normally, clearing something like this would take forever, but clearing isn’t our mission today and I don’t mind killing gang members. That and my armor is easily better than the weapons these folks should have.

Every branch, we pause to pie the opening, same with open doors, and proceed to the most likely rooms to hide these people. If this were my settlement, I would just know where they were, but things aren’t so easy when it’s just my patrol area.

I notice some light pollution up ahead, and tell the boys. One comes up and slowly tries the handle but indicates that it’s locked he stays in position to open the door as my other team-mate pulls out a pulse rifle that they got from my shuttle. I put a hand on his shoulder to stop the action, indicating I have another idea.

It takes a bunch of aether to run, but I put new crystals in before we started the mission, so I summon a scorched-looking saber and energize the blade. It glows a blazing white moments before I jam the blade in the lock, metal oozing away from the intense heat source. I pull away, de-energize and stow the blade while door guy jerks open the door, trailing guy rushes in, and I follow after. Plasma pulses flash into the room as my pistols rise to turn left to his right. I alternate shots as I see as many as six people in front of me amongst the dials, buttons and lights. I should be careful not to put kinetic rounds into the sensitive machinery, but six is too many not to use both guns. Who knows how many are on the right side, but I have to trust that he’s capable, or we all get shot by the goons on my side. That trust is quickly lost when I take a round to my right shoulder that spins me around and then another round to the face shield that knocks me over. After bouncing my helmet off the deck, I grit my teeth, clench my stomach muscles and look up at the bastard that shot me.

A dirty man with a few scars on his face is frowning at me—probably because I’m still alive. I shoot as I raise my arms, clipping a leg, his next shot on me misses, but my next puts a fast .38 into his center of mass. It very much looks like his vest stopped it. The plasma pulse to his neck made it through, my two shots to one of his really paying off.

Our third teammate comes in to shoot a few that are still twitching, and then jams a capsule into his buddy’s neck.

\You injured, Ram?\

/Just a bit dazed T.dum. How’s T.dee?/

\Bullet didn’t go through, but it doesn’t seem to be stuck in anything vital. T-1 med is working, but he’ll need a surgeon or a T-2 capsule to fix.\

/Well, we either stuff him in a corner with some guns, or we try to get him ambulatory./

\I’m sporting five bullets, Ram. Leave me two more guns and some grenades, and I’ll figure it out.\

/Face toward enemy kind or throw and hide?/

\Why chose?\ I snort at that reply, because I totally agree. I glue some wedge-shaped shape charges to the door, hand him a few stickies, a few rollers, and a few tossers.

\Fuck me, at least one of us showed up to play.\

/Pull through, and I’ll let you take a satchel-full from my collection./

\Shit, T.dee, now you gotta live.\

I give the man my old Warram pistols and a kinetic carbine and we call the arming of Tweedle Dee as a done deal.

\Why didn’t you give him t-2 meds right then?\

/The kind of pain that some of the ‘repairs’ would cause could damage a psyche. They put people to sleep. I don’t personally have access to t-3 Exchange services, so I chose the option that lets him be somewhat alert while in a hostile environment, knowing that t-2’s should work on him for a few hours yet./

The confusion on his face tells me that the computation in his mind isn’t adding up correctly. I sigh, /there is no play where putting the mission on hold for wounds that were assessed as ‘livable’. Sorry T.dum./

He doesn’t look happy but he makes a ‘move out’ gesture to let me know he thinks I’m wasting time. Copy that grumpy pants. I ask Aria if she’s connected to the network in the building, but she responds that her capabilities do not include electronic warfare. I shake my head at the thought that movie hacking could fix this issue. I have to resort to looking at the CCTV-like security screens that are being displayed on a side console.

To my great fortune, as the feed switches to different views, location labels appear in the corner of the screen.

There are places on the design layout that correspond to the labels on the screen.

Excellent news Tova.

T.dum becomes much more efficient in his frustration and I’m thankful for it. Our pace improves, and before I know it, we’re ready to bail out the front door forces with a pinching maneuver. I choose explosives of course.

The carbine that had my grenade launcher is with T.dee, leaving me with some explosives that fit in slings, and some hand-held jobbers. I’ve been testing some two-stage grenades and I’ve had some interesting results. My gas plus thermobaric grenade is very successful, but bad for organics of all kinds.

/Support is here. Close your eyes./

I feel the boom in my chest as the light blares through my eyelids and my hand. I lob a frag as close to the same distance as I can by feel alone. I hit the deck just in case. I can tell that if I didn’t have a helmet on, my ears would be bleeding, maybe my eyes too. Explosives and Armor are so cool.

I rush forward, hoping that T.dum follows, but not relying on it as I get within range of spotting folk in this smoke. The people I see are mostly dead anyway, but I have no issue finishing the job, and neither does T.dum, as far as I can tell, he feels the same.

The end of the operation nears as the front assault teams enter the building clear it as operatives do. They have way more training in this than I do, I only have cool toys and super durable armor.

Kenneck wings a whole room of people that look important, then tazes the ones that don’t look in charge. His crew bag the leaders and drag them back to the shuttle for my further interrogation. My current captives opt to leave my hospitality, so we dump them all off the shuttle and untie one of their hands, knowing they’ll figure it out. I dropped off fifteen, only to pick up four. Not a bad op, but T.dee is in bad shape.