Major Armstrong objected to holding the mission briefing on the steps outside the portal, and I had to agree with him. So, we were in a conference room in a safely tamed reality engine level. Kronos had pulled on standard designs to make the military feel more at home. There was even a flag in the corner bearing the Joint Task Force Ganymede logo on it.

I faced a "U" of tables. On the right-hand side were my crack team of civilian contractors: Hester and Will, Mitch, Lakshmi along with my old friend Deputy Frank Young.

Sage had really wanted to come, but she had end-of-semester exams and a practical to take. I didn't think Major Armstrong would much appreciate her being along anyway. The middle section of tables had most of my previously trained recruits: Sanders, Chavez, Weeks, Dorman and Ling. Then we had five new arrivals, handpicked by Major Armstrong: a sergeant and four privates. I was concerned about bringing them along, but Armstrong was right. We needed to start getting more people trained for this job. All together we made up an understrength platoon, but still a larger group than I usually deployed with.

I waited until everyone was paying attention before launching in. "All right, I know this is sooner than most of us were thinking, but the situation is emergent. Kronos has relayed to me that one of the dissident fragments has made common cause between several fragments and merged into one very powerful rival."

"Just how powerful are we talking?" Major Armstrong asked me. “I was under the impression that Kronos was a single individual with whom we were negotiating, that he served as something of a sovereign government of this entire moon.”

I held up a hand. "All right, first off, Kronos is anything but an individual. He, it, they.” I shrugged. "We use 'he' most of the time, but he's a conglomeration of whatever's left of millions of progenitor consciousnesses after millennia spent sleeping and probably some AI mixed in there with him. He's incredibly powerful, listening right now, and a bit hard to comprehend, honestly, so I don't really try. Just try to think of it now like we're working with the local government. There's a faction of dissidents who have taken control of several sectors and are threatening to try to take more. We don't like that because they threaten the security of our stronghold here at Threshold."

Armstrong and the other uniformed personnel were nodding. They'd seen this sort of scenario often enough in the past few decades to understand my analogy.

"Right now, this particular alliance of dissident fragments is still a bit shaky. I honestly don't entirely understand how he's reintegrating these lost segments of himself, but I do understand our mission. We go in, we play along with the fragment’s rule set and scenario, we confront it, and hopefully we get it back on the same page as the rest of us."

"And you say you've been doing these missions already?" Armstrong asked.

I hesitated. "This will be my sixth fragment integration. From what Kronos told me, this one's a little different. I won't lie to you, I think it's going to be dangerous and unpredictable. I also don't think we have a choice. If we don't get this fragment under control now, Kronos says we could start seeing impacts.”

“Like what?”Armstrong asked while my civilian contractor squad made interested sounds. The uniformed folk had a bit more discipline.

"Intrusions into zones Kronos has been stabilizing for us. Chaos in the farm levels, it's even possible it could interfere with us here in Threshold. It's not a situation we want to see."

Armstrong frowned. “I don’t like that, but continue the briefing, please.”

I cleared my throat. "For those of you who haven't been along on one of these missions before. Our objective will be to penetrate deep enough into this level to confront the entity, allowing Kronos to reconnect and take control of this fragment of himself and the ethereum reserves it controls. The complicating factor that some of you have had experience with is that if you die while on this mission, you respawn at the start with no memory of what you've been through.”

One of the new recruits was twitching. I gestured to him. "Yes?"

"Private First Class Johnson, sir. What does that mean, sir? Why won’t we remember?"

I sighed because I wasn't entirely comfortable with it myself. "Basically, Kronos takes a snapshot of you as you exist the moment you enter the level. Should you be killed, you will revert to that snapshot. Think of it as if you've ever had your computer crash and lost a couple of hours of work. It's like that, but for your memories. This is because Kronos will not be able to maintain a continuous backup of our memories. I've been through it myself, so I know it's a little uncomfortable, but something you can adapt and overcome."

My audience was restless, but said nothing. I plowed on.

“This level threatens to be somewhat difficult. Kronos says this fragment is large, coherent, and completely refusing to listen to him. It may take us significant effort to penetrate far enough for Kronos' efforts to take hold. We don't know what to expect until we get in there. So, we'll be putting this together on the fly.”

Hester had a hand up. I pointed. "Yes?"

"Can you clarify the chain of command here, sir?"

Armstrong spoke up. “Captain Williams is platoon leader and in charge of the civilian squad. I will be acting as an advisor. Chaves has second squad and Sergeant Faletulu will lead third squad.

“Kronos has had a hard time penetrating this fragment. This means coms may be a problem. Any other questions? Then let's get in there," I said, when there were no other questions. "We'll adjust on the fly once we enter."

We exited the conference room, stepped out into Threshold, and walked a couple of portals over until we reached our goal.

I stepped in first. Hot sun beat down on me. I pulled my earpiece and all-seeing eye out of my inventory and connected them as the rest of the team came through the portal. The ground all around us was dusty and red. Steep escarpments rose up on either side, reminding me a bit of the country where I'd grown up. Scraggly sage and juniper dotted the hills, and a little ways off I saw a row of cottonwoods marking a spring or river.

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"Overwatch, this is Tip of the Spear. Do you read?" I adjusted my earpiece and repeated, "Overwatch, Tip of the Spear, do you read me?"

There was no reply. I turned to my team. "I'm not getting any response from our Overwatch. Does anyone else have comms?" Meanwhile, I tried sending a message. I got no response back. No failure message. Just silence. The others confirmed my results.

I took a deep breath. "Okay, we've been worried about this, but it's not entirely unexpected. The stronger fragments have the ability to block out Kronos' connection to us.”

“Is this going to have an impact on us coming back from death?” one of the new recruits, Private Johnson, asked.

"Kronos assured me that it wouldn't," I said. He looked about as reassured as I felt, clutching his M-16 tight.

The portal loomed behind us, starkly out of place in this rocky landscape, a circle of metal standing about six feet high. We could abort the mission. But we needed the experience and the ethereum. I was confident in my team's abilities to do this. "Let's head deeper," I said. "We're looking for any sign as to what the challenge is. Be prepared for attacks. Usually, both the enemies and the challenges fit in with the theme. We could be looking at wild animals or anything from bands of hostile Indians to wrestlers armed with six guns to, I don't know,” I shrugged, “Roswell aliens on the rampage. Let's go."

I took point and we set off toward the cottonwoods. Major Armstrong messaged me privately and I was glad to see that functionality at least still worked.

Any reason you picked this direction in particular?

I grinned.

Sorry, I'm a desert kid. I'm heading for the Cottonwoods there because it means there's water. Water means life and we're more likely to pick up on the theme of what's going on here.

As long as you've got a plan, he replied. We continued our march. Buzzards circled overhead. I kept a wary eye on them, but they didn't seem to be a threat, just set decoration. We passed some cactuses and little patches of blooming cholla. Everything was oddly evocative and I found myself breathing deep, smelling the sharp sage and the hints of spicy pine the breeze down from the higher elevations was bringing.

We reached the cottonwoods and found they bounded a small year-round stream. Tadpoles darted in the deeper pools and a pair of ravens, disturbed at our passing, flew up croaking.

There was also a dead man lying on the bank. I held up a hand. "Hold up. Cover me while I check this out.”

I move closer, studying the man and the ground around him. He was wearing leather chaps over a pair of denim pants, with a vest over his shirt. He had a gun belt strapped to his waist, a six-gun in his hand and a hat covering most of his head. From this angle I could see the front of the gun’s cylinder. There were empty chambers. Either this fragment didn’t care about realism or the man had gone down fighting.

But he wasn't a man.

He was an orc. He'd been dead for some time. I approached carefully. From the smell and desiccation of his body, not to mention the places where animals had pulled his clothes, he'd been dead for days. The cause of death was obvious. Arrows, fletched with white and brown striped feathers. I tugged one free of the body. It resisted a bit, but came free. The point was made from obsidian.

We were playing Cowboys and Indians then. So be it. I gestured Armstrong over.

"I don't know what it means that he's an orc," I said.

"Any chance it could be a, well, actual galactic?" the Major asked. “Someone who stumbled in here and died without Kronos' protections?”

I didn't think that was likely, but I couldn't rule it out. We didn't, as far as I know, keep track of all of the galactics’ doings. There were always a few of them coming and going, trying to get classes. Maybe this fellow had picked the wrong instance. "It's possible," I agreed. “But most of the orcs I've known have been loath to give up their accustomed gear. Even if he did come in and get a class that used a six-gun like mine, I have trouble imagining him outfitting himself like a dude. We'll keep the possibility in mind.”

Armstrong nodded. "Good. Then what?"

I pointed at the bank where the tracks of multiple horses could be seen in the damp mud. "We follow one of those." I stood up and studied them a little bit, telling everyone else to remain behind so as not to muddy the prints. Then I picked out what I was looking for.

"This way.” I led my team out of the riverbed and pushing through the cottonwoods back into the open lands.

"What are we following?" Armstrong asked.

"Most of the prints went off south," I said. "They were unshod horses, probably belonging to whoever attacked that orc. This set of tracks, though, is shod. I think this was the orc on the way in. We could backtrack him.”

“Are you going to be able to follow that trail?"

"Maybe," I said. My grandpa was the real tracker, but with my Lay-of-the-Land skill, I thought I might be able to get somewhere. I cast that now and received an updated map. The various buttes and escarpments showed up, as did the river. About two miles on was a small town labeled Coyote's Rest.

"We're heading for town," I said. "Be prepared. Hopefully, we'll see some action there."

I reminded the team to stay hydrated. That was where the regular army folk did better than my crack team. The importance of hydration was drilled into you hard in basic training. They had their bottles out constantly. Hester, whose regular outfit boasted a black beret, swapped it for a floppy sun hat to keep the rays off of her head. I approved.

We made good time, and about half an hour later came over a rise overlooking the small town. It was a single street with false-fronted buildings lining it, and a boardwalk. Heat radiated off of the dusty street. I didn't see any movement. At the far end of the town was a platform and a tall water tower abutting railroad tracks. I thought I spotted something on the tracks. It was too small to be a train, and I couldn't make it out. The station itself looked as deserted as the rest of the town.

There was a livery stable at this end, a saloon in the middle, across from a weathered church building. Over to the west stood the wooden crosses and makeshift markers of Boot Hill. And there at last I spotted movement. I pointed it out.

"Anyone have a long range vision skill?"

The sergeant of the new group, a big American Samoan man named Faletulu, stepped forward. He raised a pair of binoculars and squinted. "There's things moving down there. They don't move quite right. More like," he hesitated.

"You can say it," I encouraged.

“Well, like zombies. Some of them are wearing long dresses, others trousers and shirts like that fellow back at the bank. And some of them are definitely not human. I can see the ears and tails from here."

"We can assume zombies are hostile. Let's take the graveyard. Be prepared for spawn from the graves or a mini-boss jumping out." I laid out a battle plan. Major Armstrong nodded approval. Then we moved in.

We skirted around the town and hit the graveyard from two sides. I opened up with an explosive round on a zombie in the center of a pack of three, an elf woman wearing a long muslin dress that came to her ankles. Her skin was slipping off in places, revealing decaying flesh and muscles beneath. The round exploded her quite nicely, blowing her pieces up. I shifted my aim to the next zombie over, another orc man dressed like a cowboy, and fired a frag bullet center of mass. It exploded in his chest, staggering him back but not killing him.

“These zombies take a lot of damage!” I shouted as my team opened fire. Hester hit them with an AoE debuff called Ode to Mortality. It didn't do much, probably having a low impact on the undead, but it did tangle them up a bit. The soldiers advanced in pairs of two, one covering the other, just according to doctrine. It worked here, though they'd need more unconventional tactics later, I was sure.

We mowed down the zombies without incident. Despite my warnings, nobody emerged from graves. I holstered my gun and strode into the graveyard, examining the dead bodies and graves for clues. Other than the fact that they all looked like Galactics, I didn't see anything that seemed strange.

"I think we can definitely rule out the possibility that these were actual Galactic miners who've come to a bad end," I said. "For some reason, this fragment is taking a somewhat realistic Wild West and populating it with aliens. That could be important. We should pay attention." I turned to the Major. “Ready to hit town, sir?”

He cracked a smile. “Saddle up, boys!”