The airlock door opened silently. As soon as I stepped out gravity left me. The magnetic boots connected to the walkway. Going to its end I looked at the other side.

An endless wall of metal went in all four directions as far as the eyes could see. A 400-meter jump into emptiness separated us.

Our team was assigned to the middle walkway on the other side.

Before crossing the void, we waited for those who were staying on this side to get into position.

Five gangsters started walking up the wall, and a group of the same size walked down.

When they were ready to cover us, we took the leap.

My boot pushed me off the walkway.

And I was surrounded by nothingness.

Instinctual movements in search of a foothold took over me at first. With my arms flailing a little as if to regain balance. Before I accidentally started spinning out of control, I forced myself to stay still. With the help of the suit’s thrusters, I corrected my course.

Revy was ahead of everybody. Flying like a natural. She was doing flips and pirouettes as she went. Halfway through she turned around, waved at us, and started moonwalking.

I’m going to guess this isn’t her first flight in 0g.

To cross the chasm, we needed to be able to use all the suit’s thrusters that were on the back. Therefore, Batou was princess carrying Vera.

And the young gangster with us was princess carrying Jun. While I could not see Jun’s face, what he said in the team’s comms made it clear how he felt about the situation. “Not. A. Word.” His annoyed voice demanded.

I was recording this of course.

And so was the rest of the team.

We reached the opposite wall and our boots clicked as they connected with its surface.

The young gangster who had been silent ever since he joined our team spoke for the first time. “Why don’t we just walk on the wall?”

“Line of sight,” I answered him.

Alex piped up, “What Jack is trying to say, is that if we go on the walkways others will have a harder time spotting us from below.”

We started descending, by walking forward. It was weird when you thought about it.

Revy had landed directly on the walkway. While waiting for us she was messing around. Specifically, she was balancing on the tip of her foot while leaning over the edge of the walkway.

Alex got there next, she walked behind Revy and placed her right hand on the redhead’s shoulder.

And spoke these words.

“Long live the king.”

She pushed her.

“Aaaaaaaaa.” Revy fake shouted as she drifted away.

“Can you please,” Jun began while sounding exasperated, “take the situation seriously, we are literally in a warzone.”

Alex’s helmet turned to him. “Jun, we’re literally flying around in 0g. How crazy is that! Lighten up already.”

Considering Jun was the only one not flying, I did not blame him when he raised a middle finger toward her.

Looking at Revy, who was once again having fun floating, I spoke to her. “We don’t have unlimited gas for these thrusters, you should stop playing around.”

“Yes, Dad.” she drawled while she landed once more.

Once everyone was in position Ryuji Ishikawa gave the order to advance.

While we walked, I noticed how I couldn’t hear anything outside of comms and my own movements. The heavy footsteps of Batou, who was right next to me, were inaudible in this void. That had me a bit concerned, I was used to hearing danger.

Ten minutes later Kenzo’s voice sounded in the shared comms. “Fierce firefight ahead, it’s too close to the entrance of the hangar to avoid.”

Silence followed. Jun’s father and the other gangsters were most likely deliberating what to do.

I switched to Kenzo’s view in the meantime.

The first thing that I saw was the blood.

Many small red spheres floated around aimlessly. Drifting bodies kept releasing red bubbles from the holes in their armor.

While we were in a 0g, the temperature in this area was much warmer than the void of space. Which meant that blood would stay liquid.

And since we were in 0g the blood will keep flowing.

Remembering that wounds don’t heal properly without gravity had me involuntarily looking toward Alex. Trying to avoid the fight and going for another hangar would not be good for her arm.

Oh, and Jun’s leg too.

Deciding to take advantage of that last fact, I took it upon myself to remind someone of his son’s condition.

Jun’s father answered my private call. “What is it?”

“Jun hasn’t been treated for hours, and staying here longer does not bode well for him. Painkillers might not make him aware of it, but I doubt his condition is good.”

His voice sounded amused as he asked, “Is it my son you are so worried about?”

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“Does it matter?” I countered.

“Heh.” He closed the call.

Less than one minute later he spoke in the general comms. “First, we are going to gather again. Then, we will take advantage of the fight to sneak into the hangar.

Anyone from the US forces that gets in our path I’ll deal with, anyone from Paragon you can shoot on sight. We will have teams advance from one cover to another while the others provide covering fire.”

What cover? We were literally in between two smooth metal walls.

I switched my left eye’s view back to Kenzo’s to really see what we were walking in.

Past the floating blood and bodies I first spotted, a strange fight was taking place.

There was no physical cover here. But thick smoke was everywhere. On both walls, armored figures were running in erratic patterns in and out of smoke clouds. The more confident flyers used their thrusters and replicated the same feat in the empty space between the walls. Flying in and out of spherical clouds of smoke. Shots were being fired erratically everywhere.

The fighting was chaotic. Forces of both sides were everywhere. No clear frontline was in place. It felt less like a battle and more like a massive brawl. A group of five Paragon elites jumped to my eyes. They were using their thrusters to move at lightning speeds while mowing down opponents with a submachine gun in one hand and their combat knives in the other. Only being visible long enough to take down their targets, before vanishing back into a smoke cloud.

The battle was silent, the void uncaring of the vibrations.

“The smoke is convenient,” Batou commented on the team’s comms.

Jun gave voice to one of my concerns. “Let’s just make sure we stay away from those squads of Paragon elites.”

Once the gangsters from the inner wall had flown to the outer one, we all started advancing. This time we walked on the wall, not caring about remaining hidden from below anymore. It was more important to use the smoke clouds for cover and those were mostly along the wall.

While we advanced, I shared something else that was on my mind. “Stay close, it’ll be easy to get lost if we are not careful.”

We picked up the pace as we entered the first smoke cloud.

The silent battle raged on around us.

My concern quickly proved to be justified. It had been two minutes since we entered the first smoke screen and we had already been divided.

Coordinates on Earth and coordinates in space were not the same thing. While there was a system of coordinates for space it was nowhere near as accurate. And trying to describe where we were on the comms was futile, everywhere looked the same.

Other teams had also been split up from the chaos.

Jun’s father addressed us all, “Just keep heading for the hangar, we’ll meet back there.”

Frowning I thought. ‘Great. Every man for himself.’

I was with Alex and Batou, he was still carrying Vera on his back. We were hiding in one of the smoke clouds.

I tapped Batou’s arm to get his attention. “We have to wake her up.”

He didn’t sound convinced, “Doubt she’ll be of any help.”

Alex shook her head. “She doesn’t need to help, all she has to do is hold on to you, that way you’ll be able to use your weapon.”

Seeing our point, Batou agreed and kneeled, so that Alex could reach Vera’s suit and activate the injection of liquid adrenaline.

Vera woke up with a jolt and a deep inhalation of air.

She jerked her head left and right, most likely muttering incoherently.

Once she noticed the ping that invited her to our team's comm she connected and spoke with a weak and frightened voice, “I- what is happening? I can’t see.”

Alex placed a hand on Vera’s arm. “We’re in a smoke screen. You don’t have to worry, we’ve got you. All you need to do is hold tight onto Batou. Once we are out of here, we’ll explain everything, ok?”

“O-ok.”

She wrapped her legs around Batou’s waist and locked her arms around his shoulders.

Now that he had his hands free, he picked the Thor he carried that had not seen much use. I had my cyclone and Alex had-

“Where did you get that submachine gun?” I asked after noticing the unfamiliar gun.

“Took it from the armory in the safe house.”

“And they just let you?”

“Jun’s dad said that we could take whatever we needed.”

“He did?”

“That’s what I understood.”

A part of me regretted not taking a better look in the armory back then.

Batou interjected, “As much as I love hearing you two chit-chat, I think we should get going. Remember to stick close together.”

We rushed out of the smoke screen.

And started running towards the next one.

In the 200 meters to reach it, soldiers of both sides popped out of surrounding smokescreens. Whenever the gray color of Paragon appeared I would take a shot with my cyclone and Alex would fire a short burst with her SMG. Batou saved his shots in case we found any surprises in the smoke. We didn’t shoot to kill but rather force them to back off.

Entering the cover of the fumes we were greeted by the muzzle of two assault rifles. Luckily the two US soldiers maintained trigger discipline and did not shoot us. They let us in and went back to guard the border of the smoke. Several other dark blue soldiers were also taking refuge here.

Taking advantage of the brief moment of safety, I shifted the view of my left eye to that of the others.

Jun was firing bursts with a rifle while on the back of the young gangster. Kenzo was charging ahead, clearing the way of any hostiles with deadly accuracy. He would stop for one second, fire once, and keep going. Every single time he fired, a Paragon soldier died. The older gangster had me completely beaten when it came to being a sniper.

Revy was flying in the middle zone. She had just plunged into a smoke cloud that was occupied by two paragon troopers and one elite. Taking advantage of the element of surprise she fired her Thor at the elite.

The kinetic force in 0g sent the dead elite flying backward outside of the cloud.

Revy was also blown backward by the force of the shot. Causing her to exit the smoke she had just entered.

After stabilizing with her thrusters, she slung back the Thor and unsheathed the same knife that the Paragon elites used.

When did she get that?

Revy stormed back inside. She flew circles around the two troopers, who desperately tried to shoot her down. One stab in the neck and one behind the knee ended them. The first one for obvious reasons and the second one had all his air sucked away by the void.

Batou's voice brought me back, “Let’s keep going.”

Once more we sprinted out into the battlefield.

Halfway across, a very unpleasant sight greeted us.

A group of five Paragon elites emerged from the smoke we were headed to. Boosting their thrusters straight at us.

All three of us fired toward them.

It was quick and sloppy, only the Thor’s wide firing arc managed to hit one of the elites, sending him spinning away. Batou’s superior mass, combined with Vera’s and his magnetic boots made it so that the recoil did not bother him overmuch.

The remaining elites fanned out and aimed their SMGs at us.

“Boost forward!” Alex shouted.

Understanding that she wanted to get in between the elites and force them to hold their shot to avoid friendly fire, we set our thrusters at maximum boost to cover the short distance.

The issue with that was that now we had to fight in close quarters with a bunch of veterans that specialized in melee.

Batou kept two of the remaining four at bay. They were weary of charging straight into a Thor, so they started flanking him with their superior speed.

The remaining two charged Alex and me. Alex sprayed the rest of her SMG on the one charging at her, uncaring of preserving ammo.

I did the same with the cyclone. Hip-firing expensive tungsten bullets against light infantry without regrets. For one found its mark. It had only been a nick on the leg, but that was all it took here.

Letting go of my spent cyclone and leaving it floating there, I grabbed my handgun and turned to help Alex. She was on the ground, the elite on top of her. Alex’s only working arm was holding back a knife inches from her visor. I did not have a good shot, unloading all but one bullet on the side of the elite’s armor did very little damage.

I boosted towards them.

The knife lightly touched her visor.

I wouldn't make it in time.

A black armored boot sent the elite flying to the side.

Before the elite could recover, the black figure followed with a smooth and fast motion.

Through a fluid movement, it grabbed the arm holding the knife. Its other arm snaked towards the shoulder of the elite.

Then it pulled.

The arm of the elite was ripped off.

Armor, flesh, and cyberware were torn apart. Globules of blood flooded the air.

It threw the arm away and pushed the body.

Looking around for the first time, I noticed that four other black figures had dealt with the other two elites. Batou and Vera were uninjured from the fight.

The four strangers were looking towards the one who saved Alex.

I turned to it.

It was staring back at us.

A ping notified us of a call from an unknown number.

After answering, a beautiful artificial voice sang.

“Hello there.”