Silhouette arched her back and screamed.

Ishtar held her battle sister's head against her lap with her left hand, shielding her with a radiant field from the ifreet slugs. With her right hand she held Apotheosis Rag over the rock they hid behind and sent a spray of bullets charged with her own fierce power to punish their enemy. The PER box mounted under her rifle's muzzle brake fed images of her suppressed opponents to her skullfort, and with her enhanced awareness she kept them down, but more were springing out of the tunnels Forge had not been able to plant charges in.

She brought her rifle close to her chest. "Mag!"

Silhouette stowed her pain for an instant while she took a magazine from its pouch on Ishtar's chest plate and loaded it into her rifle. Then she screamed with the whine and thump of the hyperguass rounds flying from Apotheosis Rag's smoking maw.

"Mag!"

And when Ergheiz, Revol and Haruspex arrived to thin their enemy's numbers, Ishtar looked down at Sil. Her flesh was now mostly reknit, at least enough for Ishtar to put her skullfort back on.

Sil, spread over Ishtar's lap, reloaded her rifle again.

"You're still pretty," Ishtar said, then blasted the heads off three ifreet troopers sprinting towards them.

The others unleashed a coordinated strike with their radiance, sending a cascade of shockwaves that tore deep trenches where the enemy soldiers were approaching from, then hurled grenades when the ifreet were knocked off their feet. Revol did something new then. He spread his hands, gathering sparks of white light in the air around his fingers, then launched them in a concentrated spread into the trenches. The sparks ignited the grenades before the ifreet had a chance to regain their footing and when the dust settled the field was quiet.

Reev and Ru came running while Ergheiz kept watch. Ishtar patted Sil on the shoulder and the wounded girl stood. Ishtar leaned her head against the rock they'd been propped against for a moment, then she stood too.

"What's our status LT?" she asked Reev.

"Tell me yours first."

"Sil took a bad hit. Knocked her skullfort clean off. But we're okay. She's a tough kid. Okay LT, your turn."

Revol shrugged. "Oh, Cat's communing again."

Ishtar shook her head. Every time she saw Cat, he was further from the man she knew. Her heart ached for Aster. "That can't be good for him."

"Name one thing we do that's good for us, Ish," said Ru.

Ishtar couldn't argue. The life of a Harbinger was a prolonged demise.

"So has he learned anything? Where's he communing from this time?"

"He's getting intel, but he's not sharing much. He's got an op for us." He tapped a command on his vam. "All relevant assets are to regroup at these coordinates."

A miniature display of the mapped areas appeared on her HUD. Seven of them, including Netz, were to place a fleet beacon on a mountain peak just within Orak’s primary surface fortification.

“I’m confused, LT.”

“Like I said, Cat ain’t sayin’ much, but I’m thinking his stunt paid off and Vala’s bringin’ the cavalry.”

“Why have them land in such a hot zone?” asked Ergheiz. Ishtar hadn’t seen him approach.

“Yeah,” said Reev, “no clue. But that’s our job. We move in ten. I set a rally point here…” he punched a command on his van and Ishtar saw a new set of coordinates just outside Orak’s patrol range. “Ergheiz, you and the rest of your team are running another op. Red’s got your orders back at base camp.”

Ergheiz nodded and headed off for the ships. Sil rose and followed, limping slightly.

Ishtar stood up then, and waited until the others were outside the range of their team channel's comm masking suite before activating it. She missed the warmth and surety of Sensus's aura. "What's going on guys?"

"We better let Cat tell you," Reev answered.

"We can give her something," said Ru.

Reev shrugged and shook his head. "You're welcome to explain."

Ishtar felt her guts tighten. "Talk to me, Ru."

"Well," she looked towards the ground and shuffled on her feet. "He made sense at first. He was talking tactics and strategy, the kind of stuff Red Ten went for. But then he said something weird. Red didn't like it, so Cat backpedaled and switched up the plan."

"What did he say?"

"He was staring at a large sinkhole on the holo map. There wasn't any equipment around it. I don't think it was even inside Orak's perimeter. But he kept looking into it, calling it the answer. That's when Red reacted. He was respectful, asking Cat if the sinkhole could be used as an approach. But we could tell what he was thinking."

Ishtar shook her head. "I don't blame him. He wasn't there."

"None of them were," said Reev.

"You're right, LT. I haven't thought about it, but in the back of my head, I feel different than the others now. And Cat... I can't even imagine what it's like inside his head right now."

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"Worst part, he's not alone in there anymore."

"He's strong," said Ru. "He's fighting Orak, and using this sick link they have against him."

"So what's his plan?"

"We have to lure him out."

"How?"

Ru chuckled nervously. "We gotta prove we're worthy."

Ishtar shook her head. "And how do we do that?"

"He's explaining that part."

Even in his armor, Reev managed to strike a bashful pose. "Yeah, I kinda figured out that part. I was thinking about how Orak thought he could squash us like insects, and then... I'm guessing Haleon, told him not to take any unnecessary risks. But Orak didn't listen. He kept attacking us. Why?"

"He didn't think we could hurt him," said Ishtar.

"And then we, us who made it to Ulro and back, turned out to be hurtsome to him after all."

"And then he ran off."

"Yeah," said Ru. "He ran off alright."

Ishtar felt like she'd been shot in the gut. "All those humans..."

"Yeah," said Reev. "We got a score to settle with him."

"How do we lure him out from hiding though? Isn't he afraid of us now?"

Reev shook his head. "I think it's daddy he's scared of. We want him to come out and play, he will. But we gotta give him a good enough reason."

"So we kill enough of his soldiers and he'll come after us? Is that why Cat wants Vala to land inside his fortifications?" She thought for a moment. "If we do enough damage, then Haleon will have to let him fight us."

"You're on the right track."

"Hold on," said Ru. "When Red reacted to the sinkhole, Cat got embarrassed."

"Yeah," Reev agreed. So did I."

"I'm being serious. It really shook him. He's hurting, Reev. He wasn't just embarrassed, he was ashamed. He wants to be himself again, how he was before Ulro, before he crawled inside Orak's skull."

"I'm sure he does. How does that..."

"We're not supposed to draw Orak out. Think about it. Why was Cat staring at that sinkhole? Of all places we've mapped, why there?"

"I mean, it does look a little suss, but like Red said..."

"I get it," Ishtar blurted, as it all came together in her head. "He showed Cat the sinkhole. He wants us to go to him."

"Oh," said Reev. "Okay. Cool. Yeah, let's do that. Don't give me that look, Ru. If you girls are right, then Cat's not just gone weird, he's gone crazy. I don't like it. Nuh uh. Nnnno."

“Well I guess we’ll just go home then.”

“Guys,” Ishtar said.

Ru folded her arms. “Sorry.”

But Reev didn’t calm down. He looked at Haruspex, ignoring Ishtar completely.

“Ya know you do this thing, Ru, where you don’t bother finding out what I’m upset about and skip straight to thinkin’ I’m wrong. See I have this tendency of thinkin’ ahead, and because I can’t see ahead, I’ve gotten pretty good at just figuring things out.”

“Well I’m glad you’re here, Reev, ‘cos we’d be lost without you.”

“Guys!” Ishtar said. “Let the lieutenant speak, Ru.”

His head stayed fixed in place, looking at his love. “We go into Orak’s lair, it’s gonna break Cat, unless someone helps him. And if he shuts Orak out, that leaves only one person to scout the strings and watch out for traps. Now using that skill when we were looking for Sol, or raiding that Kzinti ship, that wasn’t a problem. But there’s a seriously powerful mind under this here ground and I don’t want you’re beautiful brain getting turned to jelly.”

Ru’s shoulders slumped. “What other choice do we have? We gotta move fast, or we’re done. And Cat knows what he knows, Reev. Even if he’s too scared to say it now, he’s gonna say it soon, and we’re gonna have to do what we have to do, no matter what the risks are.”

Ishtar felt her throat tighten. She often felt left out when she saw these two brave the dangerous seas of open romance. But now she was feeling secure in her solitude, having no one so close to her that she couldn’t stand to lose.

And then another feeling manifested, one of suspicion.

“That’s quite the sinkhole,” she said.

“She gets that a lot,” Reev said.

Ru let out a grudging chuckle.

“Really though,” Ishtar continued. “That’s a pretty prominent feature. Either of you seen it on any of Flea or Zep’s arial sweeps?”

They both shrugged.

Ishtar sighed. “Do we have coordinates for the sinkhole?”

“We’re kinda wingin’ this op, Ish. For now I saw we focus up and follow orders. We’ll let Cat find his way into Orak’s sinkhole. Wow. That sounded all kinds of wrong.”

“You should have said hellmouth,” said Ru.

Reev cocked his head. “Not much better.”

“Yeah, not so much.”

“That’s a long way to march in the open,” Ishar said, analyzing their orders on her HUD.

Reev readied his rifle. “Zep has a remedy.” He called up the team channel. “Zep, we’re ready.”

They activated the strobe locators in their skullforts, then began their march to set up the beacon. Meanwhile, Zep sent one of the Artifexus’s latest innovations their way. Long and sleek with nose mounted machine guns, their Courser class hover bikes waited for them where the rocky terrain ended.

The Coursers devoured the long, open stretch that had worried Ishtar. They were out of range before any perimeter guns could start to track them, their bike’s engines gloating with a near silent neigh. Once across the open stretch, they hugged canyon walls and climbed their way up a zigzag trail to their target. The rest of the group was waiting. Netz had her little guns bristling.

“Someone’s ready,” said Reev.

Netz dipped a few inches, her way of nodding.

“How you feelin’, Cap?” Ishtar asked, seeing the weary slump to Catalyst’s shoulders.

“Well enough. We need to hurry, team. The Coursers bought us time, but the enemy’s mobilizing to stop us. But first… When we were en route to Bindhu Prime, Sensus said we would need to trust each other more than we already did. He was right. I don’t fully understand what I’m prying out of Orak’s brain, but something’s speaking to me, guiding me if you will, and I need each of you to trust… I don’t know who, or what, but we need to trust, and move, and do. If any of you have wondered what we are, or why we are, then ready yourselves for an answer. I’ve always believed we Harbingers came into being for a specific purpose, and I’m certain that purpose is upon us.”

Euk cocked her shotgun. “Tell us where to shoot, captain.”