Negred was not so dark a world as its name promised. The sky, blue to purple, was bright, though there was an ever present dimming effect over the horizon. Aster felt like there was a spotlight over them, and she worried at all times they were being watched.

“Hey girl,” said Ru.

Aster turned, careful not to grind the rocky ground beneath her knee. “Sup.”

“Cat painted a target. Some sort of comm bouy.”

Aster picked her skullfort off the ground and put it on. Her HUD, staticky as before, showed a new message she could barely read. “If only it was their jamming rig.”

“Right?”

“When are moving on it?”

“The boys are taking it by themselves. Cat wants you and me to keep eyes on that clearing over east.”

The sky turned purple in Negred’s night, and the glint of violet in Ru’s brown hair flashed crimson. It was a pretty sight, and Aster told her so.

“Thanks,” said Ru. “You know, I bet Cat doesn’t wanna take out that jamming tower. If we do, you’ll cover that pretty face up with your skullfort.”

Aster smiled. There was a time when she felt ashamed to be in the company of women as pretty as Ru, Ish and Euk. But she learned to count it as a blessing, and stopped begrudging their compliments to her.

“Speaking of pretty faces, check that critter out.”

An animal, reptillian perhaps, was watching them from a hundred paces. Its face seemed more an elbow with a mouth.

“Gorgeous,” Ru said with a quiet laugh. “Well, we best watch this clearing.”

Aster nodded, set her skullfort back down and peered through the scope on Ayanami, her favorite scout rifle. She was a simple thing, Ayanami; a compact, lightweight bullpup with with a high capacity smart gel chamber.

“Remind me to pick up a Gainax Arsenal receiver when we’re back in Albion,” Ru said as she began to purge her smart gel. Aster heard the Ru’s usual three clicks, then the ballast bladder popped out and rolled into view. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my Binary Aphelion gear, but I get real tired of purging these things.”

“It could be worse. You could have an Obrus rifle like Reev. You practically have to break those things down to purge their gel.”

“Ugh. I don’t know why he sticks with that brand. He absolutely refuses to use any other rifle.”

Aster heard the faint wine of Ru’s rifle recirculating its now clean gel, then saw its muzzle break in the corner of her eye.

They were posted up at the joining of two hills, tucked neatly behind a lump of dirt and some grey leafed foliage in the hollow where they met. The clearing, a jagged scar in a sprawling grove of bone-like growths that marginally resembled trees, led directly to Harbinger 5’s rear. Mangonel and Ergheiz were covering the clearing from their side of the penisnula, and Aster was impressed by how much effort it took her to find them.

“Ehrgeiz scares me,” said Ru.

“Why’s that.”

“Because he’s quiet, and can hold almost perfectly still. I suspected he was a Sentinel until I finaly saw him with his skullfort off.”

“And then you asked him to put it back on?”

Ru chuckled. “He is not a handsome man. Damn good operator, though.”

“Damn good team.”

Ru nodded. “I’d like to work with them more. One thing I don’t like about being in Alpha Group is that we work solo so often. It would be nice to get to know the other teams better.”

“I think Ish wants to get to know their captain better.”

“And why not? Red’s a stud.”

Aster remembered a time when she saw Red Ten stripped down to his skivvies in the barracks. She’d never seen that many muscles on one torso before. “I’m telling Reev you said that.”

“And I’m telling Cat you blushed when I did.”

Aster saw movement in the clearing. With her skullfort on her rifle’s optic suite would have auto focused and adjusted magnification. She enjoyed having to use her own keen senses to determine it was just an animal and not another ifreet patrol. “You think Ish has a shot?”

“Nice deflect. And definitely. No girl’s prettier than her.”

“Men aren’t all about looks, though. Especially a man like Red.”

Ru was quiet for a moment, and Aster quickly saw why. There was slight movement beyond the clearing. Aster adjusted her scope in time to see the figure, lithe and long-bodied like a snake. It carried a satchel with it, walking hunched and determined in its ragged robe. It set the satchel down near the mouth of the clearing and began assembling some sort of device. Aster’s scope auto-scanned it and she tilted her trigger arm to speak into her vam.

“Forge, got a salamander setting up some tech. Sending you my scan.” She pressed a small dial on her scope.

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“Dispatch,” Forge said an instant later.

Ru was ready. She sent a round, but Eegheiz beat her to it. It dropped, sending a puff of fine soil into the air.

“Bastard.”

Aster chuckled quietly. “Your weapon’s loud.”

“Yeah. Its subsystems are limited without a skullfort interface. So what do you mean about Red?”

“I don’t think Ishtar’s his type. He seems like he'd want an older woman. Or at least someone more serious than Ish."

"Cat says she had a thing for Sensus."

Ru scoffed. "She hides it well, then. Why does Cat think that?"

"He said Sensus had a talk with her once. Had to set her straight."

Another 'salamander' wandered into the clearing. Ru beat Ehrgeiz to the shot.

"I hate doing this without my 'fort," she said.

"You're a good shot, Ru. You don't need your visor optics for something this close."

"Yeah, but I hate not being sure of the other team's exact locations. And vam comms are archaic next to helmet comms."

Aster tapped a dial near her fire selector switch, increasing the magnification of her scope. "I wanna know what those creatures are trying to set up."

"Hold on." Ru tapped H5's channel on her vam. "Ehrgeiz, Mangonel, Aster's gonna check on the tech those bogies keep trying to plant. Okay girl, knock yourself out."

Aster rose, keeping low, and followed cover into the trees, her eye always on her scope. She paused halfway to the clearing, checked the surrounding trees, then moved forward a half dozen paces and paused again, quickly turning to cover all points before moving forward again and going prone at the tree line. She saw a faint flash of light and increased the magnification on her scope. There was a shape, neither rock nor tree, rising subtly from the ground that only just caught her eye.

She dialed H5 on her vam. "Not sure which one of you that is, but I see you."

"No you don't," said Ehrgeiz in his calm, gritty voice.

Aster watched the shape closely. "I saw a glint. And this thing's not natural. But I can't get too clear a view of it. Must be using some sort of stealth tech. Optical mask, maybe."

"Hold on."

Aster waited, noting an occasional shuffle, though somehow it seemed she'd scoped in on a shadow. She almost thought she had when she saw the glint again. It wasn't reflective, but emanatory. She sat still as a stone and watched, seeing no more than the slightest of movement. Then Ergheiz emerged from behind a tree near the shadow. In one fluid motion, he lowered his rifle and drew his knife from its sheath, mounted horizontally on his breastplate, and dove forward, plunging his blade into the shadow. The light flickered and revealed a hulking figure in red armor.

"Big bastard," she said.

Just then another glint showed above the ground behind Ehrgeiz. She fired. The glint flickered like the one Ehrgeiz killed, but it only staggered. She fired twice more and it fell. Another two showed up then. Ehrgeiz ran towards one, sidestepping it and leaping on the enemy's back. In a motion almost too quick for Aster's eyes to catch, he found a crack in its armor with his knife, and it fell on the ground, its cloaking field flickering away. Aster shot down the other.

"Behind you," said Ehrgeiz.

She rolled onto her back and trained her rifle. Two salamanders were closing fast. She shot one in the head but missed the other. It moved so fast, dodging quicker than she could follow with her rifle. It leapt over her, so she rolled onto her belly again and pushed herself up with her arms. The salamander was already halfway into the clearing and near the device. She sent a shockwave of kinetic force at it, a simple technique she'd done a hundred times, but it left her out of breath and only barely reached her target. Still she managed to send it flying, and Ru and Ehrgeiz both put rounds into it before it landed in a twitching heap. But it landed on the device, and its hand used the last shred of life in it to attach a small piece onto the device's core components.

"Hey Aster," Ru said, "Forge says to get him a scan up close. He thought it was a turret at first, but he's not so sure now."

Aster missed her skullfort too. The convenience of communications, not to mention the situational awareness they afforded, had become something of a crutch for her, and likely all her kind. I need to train without my gear more, she thought. We all should.

"You got me?" she asked.

"Yeah, I got you," said Ru.

Ehrgeiz had already disappeared, but she felt confident with him lurking in the woods. She raised her weapon and moved cautiously into the clearing, took her pocket scanner out of its belt pouch and held it over the device, which to her looked like a ribcage opened up by a surgeon to reveal the organs within. Once she had Forge's scan she returned to her post by Ru, moving erratically through the trees to avoid compromising Ru's position.

Ru shot down another salamander while Aster was settling back into her roost.

"Whatever that thing is," Ru said, "they really wanna finish making it."

Aster tapped a series of keys on her vam, sending the scan to Forge, then watched the clearing.

"H1," said Ehrgeiz, "you got your scans?"

"Affirmative," said Ru.

"Can we blow this thing?"

"Captain, permission to destroy the device?"

"Granted," said Cat.

Across the clearing, beyond the bony trees, a rocky hill blocked the horizon. An incendiary mortar flew from a hollow in that hill and consumed the device with white flame on landing.

"Talk to me Forge," said Ru.

It was Cat who answered. "All operators, regroup at H1."

"Cat," Aster said, "what's going on?"

"Change of priorities. We're finding all of those devices and disabling them."

"Are they what's jamming our skullforts?" asked Ru.

"Yes. But they do something worse. If they set them all up, we won't be able to channel our radiance."

Aster felt her stomach leap. She looked at Ru, wide-eyed.

"That's not good," she said.

"No," Aster agreed. She looked across the clearing to where Mangonel had sent his mortar. Aster's heart chilled when a frightening thought came to her regarding the shape of the device. "Ru?"

"Yeah?"

"I got a good look at that thing."

"And?"

"You're gonna think I'm weird."

"Already do. What's up?"

"I think they're making effigies of us."