We knew there'd be Centurions outside the mine. And when I burst into the open, it was into a firing squad-slash-shield wall, two rows of soldiers with tall tortoiseshell shields and arbalists behind them. Crossbows clacked, fifty bolts whirring toward us. But that was why we had Inferno Ball.

The ball formed ahead of us like a dense shield. I held onto it instead of launching it as usual, keeping the sphere on its telekinetic tether. The ball ashed the bolts as they flew, sending ash and vaporized metal into the air as I charged the shield wall. The heat broke them up even before the ball made contact.

"Cover me and stay behind the turrets once they're up!" Angel barked at the rebels from behind me.

"Fire at will! Don’t hit the Reaper!" Solomon yelled.

The motley crew of prisoners opened up on the fractured shield wall with rifles and shotguns - just as I shot the ball right into the pack of enemy soldiers. A ripple of panic went through the Centurions as it bowled through them like pins. The shields were resistant to things like clubs and arrows, taking only a couple points of damage at a time. But none of the Centurions here had gear capable of soaking Inferno Ball. Then the first of Angel’s Vickers turrets came online. Machine-gun fire, slower than any modern gun but faster than the junk turret. Wood chips and blood and dirt flung up as screams of panic rang out. As the front lines of Centurions shattered, I launched a second flaming meteor of death over the fleeing footsoldiers at the more heavily-armed cavalry riding in to reinforce them. Raptors screeched and burned, collapsing to the dirt with their riders. The Centurions had been expecting a slaughter. They'd gotten one.

"RETREAT!!" An officer bawled out from somewhere. "RETREAT TO THE GATE!"

The rebels roared, victorious, and it was all Angel could do to rapidly pack up the Vickers before it machine-gunned our allies as effectively as it had killed the camp guards. Captured Hell Pigs ran forward in a mob, beating the panicking Centurions as they fled for the gate to the mining complex. Dozens of them fell to bows, fists and shovels.

I brought up my message center as the notifications filed in. There was nothing new from Cold_Fox, so I ignored the fan mail and brought up a new blank message.

'Clive: We did it. The Maroons hold the mines, for now. Get your ass here and Rachini's mandala and the city are yours. M.T.N.’

Within seconds, I got a message back. ‘And the siege equipment?’

‘Working on it,’ I wrote back.

Back with us at the mine entry, the more disciplined, unified ranks of the Maroons stayed with their commanders, cheering and hugging. All except for one.

"We win for now. But the Centurions will be back." A small, steely-eyed woman - Chinese, maybe in her early 50s - scowled up at Angel and Solomon as the twenty or so Maroons began to disperse and mingle. "They have a whole army in there. We must flee, now. Back into the jungle."

"If we can hold out for a day, the Hell Pigs will ride in from the south," I said to Angel. "I just sent a message to my source to confirm that they're still going ahead. If the Pigs can relieve us, we can hold this place."

Angel shot me a sidelong look. "A lot of ifs," she signed.

"It's still our best shot at getting to Rachini and taking out Kaban. Don't lose your nerve. Don't let them lose theirs."

"We need to get Mercy first," Angel said aloud. Solomon's head turned toward her. "We need to assess her condition and see if she's capable of retaking command or not. So let's fortify this place as best we can. I need a pair of Maroons to meet Doc at the rear access tunnel Noodles, Lulu and I used to enter the mines. There’s a couple of Centurions tied up there. Once Doc is inside, we can deal a huge blow to the Centurions by collapsing the mineshafts. Everyone not in charge of rigging can be put to work fortifying the gate to the complex, and the mine entrance. Noodles and I are about to free a whole lot of prisoners who will be happy to pitch in."

The muscles of Solomon's jaws bunched as he ground his teeth. "We can't hold if the Centurions roll an army of legions and siege engines down the road here, ma'am. We have maybe an hour before they escalate."

"Then round up ten people and bring me all the metal we can find. I have the schema for half a dozen traps and more machine gun units." Angel looked at me and signed. "Noodles, Lulu, can you go and get Merc? Doc is on the way."

"Sure. We'll bring her out... or what's left of her, unless she was moved already." I flicked my tentacles down into a neat line. Lulu cooed in agreement.

Angel gave a quick nod. She pulled a couple of red gladiator heal pots from her Inventory, and handed them to me so I could vanish them into mine. Then she turned back to Solomon, who watched me with a bemused expression on his face. "Come on, Solomon. Let's see what we can do."

We left the humans to talk and bounded down the alley separating the bunkhouses from the main yard, ignoring the people clamoring and yelling against the spiked bamboo and wood fences. The rebels were taking care of those already, chopping them down with looted hatchets and swords. Our target was the densely locked down compound at the back. The Centurions had evacuated the watchtowers and patrol corridors, leaving their dogs and dinosaurs to fend for themselves. A pack of loose guard dogs backed away from me and Lulu, barking hysterically as I vaulted the barbed wire gate to the inside of the compound. The biggest darted forward, teeth bared. I peeled my lips back from my fangs and roared, spattering poisonous drool on the ground. It sent the would-be alpha skittering back to the shivering pack, where he cowered with the rest of them.

"Yeah, that's right. And stay there." I hocked a purple lurgy at them, went to see what I could do about the door. It was iron-banded hardwood, but at Level 24, it was no match for us. Lulu covered the chain lock and turned a sick greenish yellow, boiling the iron away inside of her acidic mass. Once we'd snapped the brittle metal, we had the door itself to contend with. Lulu stuck herself to the center of it while I jammed my tentacle claws the whole way around. I flexed my feet into the hard dirt, and the two of us pulled. Metal groaned as I huffed and panted, lashing from side to side until the hinges creaked and snapped. I managed not to hit myself in the face as the door came free.

"Here, boys! Catch!" I hurled the door at the pack of dogs, now circling like a wary pack of jackals. They yelped and scattered as the door went end over end and hit the fence with a sharp BANG.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The corridor leading into the small T-shaped building was narrow and cold. Built out of Roman concrete, lined with narrow pipes and a coat of grime, it reminded me uncomfortably of... something. Some facility I had once been inside. My mind overlayed the hallway with another. Underground, like a bunker. Concrete. A yellow stripe following the centerline of the hallway. Glaring led spotlights. Solid metal cell doors.

"Ooh?" Lulu poked me. "Noodoo?"

I shook my head, suddenly restless. "Ugh. Sorry... just remembered something. You lead the way on this one. We might run into locked doors. You can fit under the gaps, check them out without us opening them and risking releasing something or someone we don't want to let out."

"Hoo! Dootooctuve Lulu!" Lulu dropped to the floor with a 'hup', then bounced down the corridor with a series of wet splats. I trailed her warily. It was tight for something my size, maybe five feet wide and seven feet high. Not a lot of room to fight if someone was holed up in here.

We found what looked like some kind of breakroom, a couple of small offices. All rapidly abandoned. We found a locked trapdoor and a set of stairs leading down into what had to have originally been old mineshaft tunnels, now just a real depressing prison. Four of the six cells were unoccupied, the door grills left open. Two were full. The short, squat tunnel smelled like carrion and old sweat.

"Ooo..." Lulu went under the door to my left and returned a few minutes later, shaking an extruded lump on top of her body like a head. "No Mercoo. Moole. Dood."

"Dead male? That explains the rotten smell." I eyed the door on the right, the quills on my back and tentacles rising nervously. "Lucky door number two."

Lulu shuddered, and squeezed her liquid mass through the half-inch crack at the base of the door. I heard her squeak in alarm. Then there was a click and a thump, and then the door swung open to reveal Lulu, waving frantically. And behind her...

"Damn, Merc. They did a number on you." I couldn't suppress a growl as I padded in. The woman was badly injured, semi-conscious, strapped into what looked like a crude dentist's chair. She moaned deliriously, flinching as my shadow stretched over her from the doorway. She tried to speak... but all that came out was a garbled moan. Her tongue hadn’t been cut yet, but it was compressed and pierced by a nasty clamp. The bastards had been drawing the procedure out… or we’d interrupted it with our little revolt.

"Easy, now. We're here to help." I seized the leather straps tying her to the chair in my teeth, sawing through them. Carefully. Her legs looked broken. Merc hung on to life by a couple HP, but as I bared the inside of her wrist, I saw she had the same red numeral 8 stamped on her skin as the mine slaves did. If she died now, she died for real. "Angel: shoot me a message if Doc made it into camp. Merc is in bad shape."

Merc's eyes cracked open as we freed her limbs. She tried to rise, but Lulu gently but firmly held her down with an authoritative coo. I passed her the potions. Merc had a moment of panic while Lulu formed a mask over her nose and mouth, relaxing only when she started to pipe air and potions inside like a living respirator. She seemed to realize we weren't here to kill her, at that point. The fight went out of her wiry body, and she slumped into the chair.

"Before you flip your shit, yeah, I can talk," I thought to her. "Just stay calm, okay? Lulu here was a nurse before she got murdered and sent to this hellhole. I'm just waiting for confirmation on Doc. Who is alive, last I saw him."

[You have a new message from Angel Nunez: "Yes he's here, we're on the way."]

"Roger that," I thought-signed out to Angel. "Damn... I should have killed those dogs. Watch out when you reach the high security yard. There's like six or seven of them running around."

Merc's black-and-blue eyes flickered open again, widening with surprise. At the talking legion was a shock. Her husband being alive was a bigger one. "Dmmph? Almmph?!"

I'd spoken enough Lulunese by this point to get the jist of what she was asking. "Yeah, he's alive. Angel and your man Solomon are on their way here with him now."

All the energy the potions had restored to Merc seemed to drain out of her. She slumped back into the chair. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes.

"Hey, uh... it'll be okay." I carefully patted her on the arm with a tentacle, glancing back toward the door. "Sorry we got there too late for everyone else. It was Hong that turned you all over to the Centurions. He was working for Prima Falks, who is working for Kaban..."

I gave her a quick run-down of what we knew: who was involved, what we'd found at Eden, the raid on Ironside. By the time I was done, Merc's eyes were hot with mingled rage and pain - and then suddenly relief, as Doc's narrow silhouette and Angel's shorter one appeared in the doorway.

"Oohoo! Doctoo!" Lulu chirped brightly to Merc as she slid off her to the floor, bobbing up and down happily. "Wuu stooboluuzed!"

"Mercy. Thank God." Doc strode to her side and caught her in his arms. "It's alright... shh..."

Merc turned her face against his chest, sobbing, while he kissed her fiercely: her hair, her brow, her lips. It was even more awkward than the crying. I took the chance to go to the other side of the room and lay down. Angel shot me an amused look, but she looked just as uncomfortable. She side-shuffled over to join me while Lulu helpfully adjusted the dentist chair so Mercy could sit more upright.

"Never enjoyed romance," Angel signed. "Ugh. Smells like someone died here."

"Dead guy in the next room, apparently," I replied, resting my muzzle on top of my front talons. "And me either. Still... I'm glad they've got each other."

"Yeah..." Angel glanced at the pair as they held one another. Despite her hard eye and stoic expression, her cheeks were bright red.

We waited by while Doc worked his magic - and as Lulu flawlessly and competently fell into the nursing role, handing him tools and potions as he requested them. She seemed a lot less childlike that way. Watching them work together to patch up Merc, I could see more of the person Lulu had once been. It made me wonder. Now I'd settled into my Reaper body, how much of 'Vance' was obvious to someone looking at me from the outside? Not a lot, I was willing to bet.

By the time they were done, Merc was able to wobble up to her now-unbroken feet. It was one small mercy that potions, food, and first aid schema were enough to restore someone even from the brink of death. Their body, at least. Merc's eyes were haunted in a way they hadn't been before.

"Always knew there was something funny about you, Reaper." Merc looked between the trio of us. She sounded like she was talking through a mouthful of marbles. "Sorry if I’m slurring.”

“It’s okay. Noodles is translating for me.” Angel smiled faintly, and shrugged. “I wanted to tell you about him and Lulu being sentients, but I’m glad I kept my cards close. Otherwise Hong would have known that, too.”

“Lulu as well, huh?” Merc regarded the Limne thoughtfully. “Well… thanks for the rescue. The bastards left me in that chair for days. I can’t believe I let a damn snitch into my band.”

“Happens to the best of us,” I said.

Merc spat to the side, and sagged against Doc’s side. “Hong is dead meat as soon as I'm fit to fight. We can't let them get away with this."

"He’d definitely benefit from a full-impact facelift. But we hold the mines, for now." I rumbled agreement. “Hate to say it, though, but we need you out there. Your people need a leader.”

"Solomon took charge for now. And I temporarily took command during the rebellion," Angel voiced. "I think that if we appear together with Doc, we'll inspire hope in everyone. There's a lot of us now the bunkhouses are cleared, but a lot of the freed people are in bad shape. Severely aged, and kept at low health for long periods of time."

"The latter, I can help. The former, I think they understand the stakes. We’re sufficiently backed into a corner now. They'll fight, and so will we." Doc had his arm around Merc's back, holding her protectively. He looked more confident, more determined with his wife by his side. Braver. "Mercy's right: we can't let the Centurions escape unpunished. Kaban, especially. If we can somehow cut his strings to the Society, the whole operation collapses."

Lulu bounced over to me, and then on me. "Eee! Revoolootoon!"

"You got it, kid." I sat down once she had formed her Luluvest. "Guess we all know what we have to do. Draw out Kaban and niner him. But first we have to hold the fort. Solomon thinks we've got maybe half an hour before the Centurions come riding back with reinforcements. And this time, they'll bring the big guns.”