“Vanguard, Sir,” a voice crackled over Ekert’s comms. “We’re about five minutes out from initiating the last gravity-jump to the Polaris sector.”

“Good work, Captain,” Vanguard Ekert replied, looking toward the front of the U.F. Herald of War, his units’ ‘personal’ ship. “You and your crew got us here in good time. I’ll make sure that goes on the report when we get back. See about getting you a couple extra leave days before we get shipped out again.”

“We go where you’re needed, when you’re needed, Sir,” the Captain replied, though Ekert could hear the small hope in the woman’s voice at the chance of even an extra shore day.

“It may’ve only taken us a week to get out here to Polaris,” Ekert said, “But we’ve been on deployment after deployment for more than three months now. We could all use a break.”

“True,” the Captain said. “The missions have been great experience, and the crew have gotten a few excellent skill engrams… but… yeah. Home would be nice. Tim started kindergarten this last week, and his damn father won’t even send me pictures. Asshole. No idea what I saw in the man.”

“Abs like chiseled stone, and a jawline that could cut reinforced protium?” Ekert said with a chuckle. “Pretty sure that’s how you described him to us.”

There was a second – then two – of silence before the comms crackled back to life. “Guilty as charged, Sir. And, I guess, he’s… around more for Tim.”

“Captain… Sandy,” Ekert said. “I know the last few months…”

“No need, Sir,” Sandy said before Ekert could continue. “This is what I signed up for. Knowingly. Even got my own ship out of it. And a better crew than I could’ve ever hoped for. The bucket-heads we have to ferry around aren’t so bad either.”

“Ouch, Captain,” Ekert said. “Bucket-heads? As much respect as I have for the GDF infantry, my unit is on a slightly different scale here. At least call us chromes-domes, metal-heads, or shelled-hobos.”

“Hah, understood, Sir,” the Captain said. “I’ll pass that on to Jitzer when she announces the jump.”

“Five minutes?”

“Less than that now, Sir.”

“Got it, we’ll be ready,” Ekert said. “Not sure what kind of drop we’re looking at when we get there, so standard orbit. Get the Phoenix and Drill both prepped. We’ll decide which we’re taking after our sensors have done a sweep.”

“Preparations already underway.”

“Should’ve known. You don’t need me telling you how to do your job.”

“No, I don’t,” the Captain said. “But you’ve been doing it for near on four years now. Kind of gotten used to it and your gravely voice.”

“Old dogs and old habits,” Ekert said.

“Sure thing, Vanguard Grampa,” the Captain said, voice going from casual to professional in a few words. “Grav-jump announcement will come ten seconds before we hit it. Make sure your people are ready.”

“Roger,” Ekert said, ending his conversation with the Captain and turning his attention to his surroundings. His unit – his Heralds of Peace – had gone quiet when he’d begun talking to the Captain, and all looked expectantly his way. Each an elite in their own right, they stood – or sat – at the ready in their customized and individual Personal Interface and Reinforcement System Armor. With their PIRSAs enhancing the attributes and acting as highly mobile weapons platforms, comparing any of them to infantry was like calling a dragon a puppy, and hoping it would roll over to let somebody scratch its belly.

Then again, the last dragon they’d dealt with back on Rodikon – Shit, was that already a year ago? Or is it two now? Maybe I’m the one who needs some leave… – might as well have been a puppy for all the fight it managed to put up against them. Ekert’s Heralds of Peace didn’t get called in for small problems, after all.

“Almost there?” Ekert’s second-in-command, Corporal Cool asked. Sitting on the reinforced bench in his PIRSA, with one hand absently rubbing a cloth down the barrel of his six-foot-long PUNCH sniper-rifle, the man was the embodiment of his name. Calm. Cool. Collected. All things that made him very good at his job as their scout and ranged damage dealer.

As for the rest of their unit – or their party, as some people called it – Ekert took a brief second to review everybody’s status, both visually and through the unit-interface in his HUD.

Cool was, of course, in top shape. His own health and his armor’s were topped off, as were his energy reserves and ammunition counts. Of course, a little energy could produce ammo as needed, but the man knew better than to go into a mission unprepared. As for the black armor itself, Cool had replaced the cape he used to wear – Style is important, he always said – with the small jump-pack ability he’d picked up on the last mission. It would help in positioning and movement, though it still wouldn’t make him the fastest on the team.

No, that title belonged to Jackal, the unit’s speedster and close-range damage-dealer. Where Cool’s armor was tight and compact, Jackal’s was downright sleek. Micro-jet nozzles and short – but extendable – vi-blades were the only ornamentation on her otherwise smooth armor. Both were ability engrams she’d gotten early on in their unit’s career, with the first upping her dexterity-focused build to the next level, while the second offered a reliable backup if anything happened to her weapon of choice. Said weapon of choice, a pair of ominous, stylized katanas – blades glowing with purple flames – currently rested in the sheaths across her back. Her Pride and Joy – their literal names – were an absolute terror if she got into melee range. Which she always did.

He’d been trying to convince her to pick up a ranged ability – even if it was just a handgun engram – to round out her skillset. There were plenty of monitored and itemized dungeons on registered worlds they could run to get her one, but she wasn’t interested. Admittedly, having a ranged option would come with penalties – thanks to her advanced PIRSA class – which was the only reason he hadn’t forced the issue with an order. That, and she just did so much single-target damage with those swords they’d found from the dungeon-bust, he couldn’t argue.

Minor complaints aside, her readings were all green – Jackal was ready.

Which took Ekert’s eyes to the next in line. Almost the complete opposite of Jackal, Salvo was their group’s backup tank and garbage man. He took care of the smaller trash, which left Jackal to focus on any bigger threats. Standing in his PIRSA that was at least twice as wide as the rest of them, the man’s armor sported tons of endurance and strength, but next to no dexterity. He wouldn’t move fast – for a PIRSA – but with the weapons he had at his disposal, he didn’t need to move much, though his target would sure want to. Not that they would realize that just from looking at him, the only visible weapon he carried strapped to the back of his waist. A machete-like Ripper – a chainsaw sword, for all intents and purposes – didn’t seem to fit the juggernaut’s motif.

Ekert actually hadn’t even seen the man draw the Ripper in months other than to make sure it still worked. It was only a last-resort option anyway. Thanks to getting a top-tier Folded-Space Storage – or FS Storage – ability, all of Salvo’s main, ability-weapon engrams were safely hidden from sight. And he had a lot. Arm and leg-mounted mini-missile launchers. Shoulder-braced, rotary mini-guns. Dual-grenade launchers. Plasma-flamers. Burst-needlers. The list went on. And on. And on.

Ekert scowled as he reviewed the ammo count for each of Salvo’s weapons. Seventy-five percent for almost all of them other than the missiles. A quick ping went to Cool let the Corporal know to take care of it before they dropped. This wasn’t the first – or likely the last – time they’d be bringing it up with Salvo.

One last glare in Salvo’s direction – the man flinched, likely knowing exactly what was up – and the Vanguard moved his attention to the group’s actual tank. Ward wasn’t what most people expected when they thought of the PIRSA assigned to tank roles, but nobody who’d seen him – and his armor – in action would be disappointed. Unlike Salvo, Ward’s PIRSA wasn’t big or bulky in comparison, fitting somewhere closer to Cool’s. Relatively compact, it boasted a surprising amount of dexterity for a tank-class armor. Even more surprisingly, Ward had leaned heavy into mental stats.

Why had he done this? Simple, Ward was a barrier specialist. Four small, sphere-shaped drones orbited him even now – and he had half-a-dozen more in his FS Storage when he needed them – that were the prime manifestation of his engrams. Each able to produce powerful barriers with multiple functions for his allies, Ward was very particular about keeping his group safe. Large-caliber pistols sat on each of his thighs – repeating hand cannons he called them, or RHCs – and a standard-issue assault-rifle engram were his main weapons of choice. He hadn’t invested a lot into damage output, and it was the only real ‘weakness’ he had.

As for Ward’s vitals, most were in good shape, but his armor was sitting at around ninety percent. That man had a habit of prioritizing his teammates over himself, even if his nanite swarm could take care of the repairs with a minor investment.

One more quick ping from Vanguard Ekert – this time to the final member of the team – to see to the armor, and he reviewed their medichanic’s status.

As the sixth, and possibly most important member of the unit, Dawk sat in her matching black PIRSA, with only a white cross on her shoulder signifying her role. On the opposite shoulder, she of course had their unit’s logo – the white silhouette of a four-armed man in a robe sitting cross-legged, a different firearm in each of his hands. Compartments for extra nanite swarms – both for PIRSAs and the people who wore them – along with extra energy cells people could siphon, bulked up her chest and upper arms. On her back, similar to Cool’s jump pack, Dawk carried her two support units, Ruff and Skwak.

This whole unit is terrible at codenames…

While Skwak provided the unit with powerful PIRSA-enhancing buffs as it flew nearby, Ruff focused on debilitating debuffs on their enemies. Highly mobile, with its canine shape, it wasn’t as fast as Jackal, but the smaller size and sensor-jamming technology made it hard to keep track of.

Dawk only had a standard-issue pistol and rifle for damage, with most of her attention and ability upgrades focused on her nanite swarms. Looking over her specs, she was of course ready to go.

That just left Vanguard Ekert himself, and he did a quick check of his PIRSA through his HUD. All systems were green, with ammo and energy levels capped off. He had his own RHC on his left thigh – a three-barreled monstrosity he’d picked up more than thirty years ago when he was still a cadet on his first dungeon run. A single pull of the trigger would set those barrels spinning and spitting hard-energy bolts like they were going out of style. A prolonged burst was hard on his energy reserves, but there was no arguing the results.

Resting on his hip above the pistol was another dungeon-find, this one a straight-edged blade that appeared to be little more than a hunk of metal welded to a grip. At least, until he fed it some energy, which brought the ravenous nanite swarm within the blade to life, coating the metal in what looked like a black flame that ate anything it came in contact with. A terrible weapon to be sure, but again, he couldn’t argue with the results.

Besides his preferred sword-and-pistol style, Ekert – codenamed Veil – had a top-quality FS storage himself, mainly because he’d been around so long he’d been able to upgrade it multiple times. In there, he had a veritable arsenal of weapons to rely on, though he rarely used them if he didn’t have to. Simple was better, and trying to juggle a dozen different fighting styles… well… he was too old for that. But, if worse came to worst, it was better to have them – along with the ability that gave him his codename – and he refused to go in unprepared.

Finally, his review done – notes added to his HUD for feedback to the group later – he addressed Cool’s question. “We’re sub-four-minutes out from the last gravity jump to the Polaris system.”

“Always takes the Captain so long to find the damn G-spot,” Salvo said. “Maybe she needs a hand to…”

“Don’t even bother,” Jackal said. “She’s shot you down faster than a newb in a dogfight the last four times you’ve asked her out.”

“I’ve got a new plan,” Salvo said. He twisted a little and then slapped his own ass with the metal clang of protium on protium. “She likes physical guys. I’m physical. And who can say no to this ass.”

“You have an ass like a cinderblock,” Jackal said dryly. “The only thing it’d turn on is a sledgehammer.”

“Maybe she’s into toys.”

“Guys,” Cool interrupted. “The Vanguard was speaking.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Ekert said, though he didn’t really mind the unit’s casual banter. They were serious when it counted. Where it counted. “Like I was saying, four minutes out. After we complete the last gravity-jump to the Polaris sector, we should be almost right on top of Polaris-3, our destination.”

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“Never a good sign when a planet doesn’t have its own name,” Ward said. “And a week of back-to-back-to-back-to-back G-jumps… just how far from civilization are we this time?”

“Two sectors away from the Gaps,” Ekert said evenly, though everybody else in the room – other than Cool – winced.

“Blight and burn, Vanguard, are we dealing with Scavs here?” Dawk asked, sitting forward to drop her elbows onto her knees. Across her head, the nanites that made up the protium of her PIRSA’s helmet retracted, revealing the woman’s face to the group, three decades of hard service lining her skin. Other than Ekert, she was the oldest – and most senior – member of the Heralds. “You know how Scavs leave survivors – at least the ones they don’t take. If it’s them, we’re going to need more than just me.”

“Fuggin’ Scavs,” Salvo hissed. “You remember what they did on Agritok?”

“How could we forget?” Jackal asked right back. “Even with the PIRSA’s filters, I smelled burnt-farmer for a week.”

“If it’s Scavs,” Ward said. “We’d know that, wouldn’t we?”

“Colonel, review,” Ekert said.

“Yes Sir,” Cool said, moving his hand to smoothly put the cloth on the bench beside him. In the next second, his sniper-rifle vanished into his FS-Storage space. “Polaris-3 is categorized as a demi-planet, rich in tetrazite ore. Not particularly valuable, but widely used in bulk. As such, there is limited demand for anything from the planet other than the mineral shipments that occur once every three months. Aside from these shipments, there is next-to-no traffic to or from the sector. Which means no Gravity Lanes.”

“Which is why we’ve been G-jumping non-stop for the last week,” Jackal said. “That partly explains why it’s us coming here – the Herald of War here being one of the few ships that can do that – but, we’re B-Rank. We only get called out when it really hits the fan.”

“Scavs,” Dawk said again. “Has to be them then, right?”

“While the mining operations on Polaris-3 are relatively extensive,” Cool continued like he hadn’t been interrupted. “The population is not. Less than thirty-thousand people occupy the planet year-round.”

“Huh,” Jackal said. “Thirty thousand isn’t enough to warrant Scavs crossing two sectors.”

“Especially not for tetrazite,” Salvo added. “Aren’t the asteroid belts out in the Gaps rich in the stuff?”

“They are,” Cool said. “And, you are also correct Jackal. The population of Polaris-3 doesn’t fit the Scavs’ M-O.”

“What about Polaris-1 and 2?” Ward asked. “Anything on there to draw Scavs’ attention?”

“No,” Cool said. “Both are generally uninhabitable. We don’t have any established colonies on either planet.”

“Okay, so why were we called out here then?” Ward asked.

“Still think it’s Scavs,” Dawk said. “Only thing that makes sense.”

“It might be Scavs,” Cool said. “We aren’t ruling that out. Back to what we do know. The majority of the Polaris-3 population lives in the city of Grenity, where the Grav-elevator up to the spaceport is located. All the tetrazite they mine is bounced up the shaft and loaded onto cargo ships from there. It’s also the only place – other than the spaceport itself – that has a long-range communication facility.”

“What have they been saying about what’s going on there?” Jackal asked.

“Nothing, and that’s one of the problems,” Cool said. “Communications with Polaris-3 went dark an estimated five weeks ago.”

“Estimated?” Dawk asked.

“Communication with the planet isn’t regular,” Cool said. “Usually just monthly reports on production, or right before a shipment. Five weeks ago, they were scheduled for an update. People on our end just assumed they were late, and waited. One week passed – people started to get a bit worried. Two weeks passed, and it got reported up to the U.F.”

“Then the vaunted United Federation took another two weeks to send us out?” Ward said with a shake of his head. “Then a week to get here…”

“We were a little busy dealing with that shitstorm on Bezziny,” Salvo pointed out.

“Yeah, well they could’ve sent somebody else,” Ward said. “Four weeks? Five now? Can you imagine what’s been happened to those people.” He paused as he looked at the Corporal. “Cool, what’s that face?”

“It’s possible it’s been more than five weeks,” Cool said. “It could be up to nine, as that’s the last time we had confirmed communication with the planet. They reported finding old ruins in one of the new mines. Ancient, by the sounds of things. Were working on decoding the script they’d found, but hadn’t had any luck.”

“Nine weeks?” Salvo asked. “Why are they even sending us now? We aren’t a rescue team.”

“We’re not,” Jackal said slowly. “Which means we aren’t being sent in for a rescue. We go in and clean shit up when it goes bad. So, how bad is it, Sarge?”

“We really don’t know,” Ekert said. “But, for a city of thirty-thousand – and a spaceport – to go dark, it can’t be good. Polaris-3 is classified as a D-Rank planet…”

“Dungeon bust…” Dawk said, sitting back. “You think it was a dungeon bust. Man, I almost wish it was Scavs now.”

“What kind of dungeon is on Polaris-3?” Ward asked.

“That’s just it,” Ekert said. “There isn’t one. That we know of. It’s one of the reasons there hasn’t been more investment in Polaris-3. No dungeons.”

“So, if it is a dungeon bust, it’s got to be an undiscovered one,” Salvo said. “Which means it could’ve been building for months. Years. Longer. Wait, those ancient ruins they found? You don’t think there was a bottled-up dungeon down there, do you? Even if P-3 is only D-Rank, a dungeon going that long without having its Boss killed could’ve ranked up. This could be a C-Rank bust. And nine weeks, we’re talking a full-on flood here.”

“Now it makes sense why they sent us,” Jackal said. “Sarge, could it have Ranked-up twice? Could we be dealing with a B-Rank bust and flood? Or… higher?”

Ekert shrugged. “Even after almost fourteen centuries of dealing with dungeons – and the abilities that came with their discovery – we understand so little about them. Busts, especially, as nobody wants to force one to happen just to study it. They’re too destructive. All we know is that if a Boss goes long enough without being killed, the dungeons seem to get stronger. The monsters inside, well, for lack of a better term, they level up. They can even Rank-up, given enough time.

“When either of those things happen, they usually break the shackles keeping them in the dungeon. Gain a kind of limited sentience that sees them forcing their way out of their prisons to destroy everything nearby. Once that happens, even killing the Boss doesn’t shut the dungeon back up completely – though it does seem to reset the growth of anything still inside.

“It could be what happened here,” Ekert said. “It could be what we’re getting into. Or, it could be a blown fuse in their communications tower, and they just couldn’t find the breaker.”

“We’ve never been that lucky,” Dawk said.

“No, no we haven’t,” Salvo said. “You remember the last time we got called out to a break in communications?”

“Dragon!” Cool, Jackal, Ward, and Dawk all said at the same time.

“Exactly,” Salvo said. “Dragon. Are we dealing with another dragon here, Sarge?”

“If we are, dibs on the horn,” Ekert said, and five sets of eyes widened around the room.

“Bastard,” Jackal swore.

“It was supposed to be my turn,” Ward said, throwing up his hands.

“Should’ve called it,” Ekert said, and before anybody else could argue, the PA system in the corner of the room crackled to life.

“This is cockpit to… ahem… chrome-dummies,” a snarky voice said. “Hold on to your britches, bitches, T-minus-ten to G-spot.

“Nine. Eight…”

“Chrome-dummies?” Ward said, shaking his head, as everybody took a seat and quickly buckled in. “I’m gonna put curry powder in her brown sugar. That’ll show her.”

“Five. Four…”

“You’re an evil mastermind,” Jackal said flatly.

“She puts it on cereal. Can you imagine?” Ward countered.

“Two. One…”

“Okay, that is evil.”

“Geeeeeeeeee-spoooooot!”

With the declaration, the whole ship bucked and rocked, parts of it seeming to stretch out, while others collapsed inward. Even the Heralds of Peace in their PIRSAs weren’t immune to the strange effects of gravity-jumping, though mercifully it was more visual than physical. None of their internal organs got squished or pulled apart, though for a few long seconds, it sure felt like that.

And then, just as quickly as it started, it was done.

“Awwww, now I need a smoke,” Salvo said.

“Status?” Ekert asked, already unbuckling.

“Green across the board,” Cool said, confirming what Ekert was seeing in his own HUD.

“Expect a drop in the next few minutes,” Ekert said, on his feet. “Once we confirm what the situation is with our own scanners, I want us boots on the ground ASAP. Last-minute prep starts now. That includes ammo and repairs. Cool, make sure it’s handled.”

“Yessir,” the man said, standing and turning to look straight at Ward and Salvo.

“Buuuuusted,” Jackal said quietly.

One eye on Cool getting the other two in order, Ekert did a final, quick run-through of his own systems. Yes, the readouts showed everything in top condition, but like he’d said to the Captain – old dog, old habits.

He’d had his PIRSA for near on thirty-five years, getting it promptly when he’d turned of age. He wasn’t some kind of prodigy or anything. Nope, perfectly average, if somewhat… unstoppable. Once he put his mind to something, it got done. And right now, his mind was on making sure his system was accurate.

Opening and closing one first and then the other in quick succession, he monitored the nano-musculature reinforcing his body. Response time was fluid and smooth. Check. Next came small, quick hops on his toes from one foot to the other. Leg systems were all in order. A few basic stretches tested the movement ranges of the armor – something he was always impressed with considering it looked like it was solid, though that wasn’t quite the case. Instead, the nano-swarm modified connections on the fly, stretching and reinforcing as needed.

For him, it could act like a thick liquid across his body, doing nothing to limit his movements. To an enemy, it’d be a B-Rank suit of protium composite, nearly indestructible to anything below his Rank.

With the physical check on his PIRSA complete, he moved next to its sensory suite. Different types of vision flicked in front of his eyes, while automated detection systems fed him information on the room around him. Most of it was useless – little details he didn’t need like air pressure, number of screws in the bench, ambient temperature – but it worked smoothly. Next was the prediction modeling system, phantom images of the others in the room moving ahead of them.

Another rare engram he’d gotten in one of his earlier years, the skill couldn’t exactly predict the future, but it sure did a good job attempting to. Combined with his own years of experience and a bit of time observing an opponent, he was confident in his ability to take down nearly any enemy with it.

Confirmed, systems green, he told himself. That just left the others to…

“Vanguard,” his private comms lit up, the Captain speaking in his ear. “You should come up to the bridge, Sir.”

“Something happen, Captain?”

“Afraid so, Sir. We can’t find the spaceport,” the Captain said.

“Can’t find?” Ekert confirmed, though he already knew what that meant. “Debris field?”

“Some, but not enough for the entire station,” the Captain replied.

Not enough? The spaceport was taken? That was nearly unheard of. The resources needed to steal an entire space station that wasn’t intended to move was rarely worth the gain.

“There’s one other thing,” the Captain said. “And this is the part you need to see for yourself.”

“On my way, Captain. Ekert out,” he said on the private comms, then opened a channel up to his unit. “Trouble already,” he told them. “Captain needs me to see something, so I’m heading to the bridge. Assume we’re going into a shitstorm.”

“Understood, Sir,” Cool said. “We’ll be ready.”

Ekert nodded at his troops, banged the door-release button to their ready room with the bottom of his fist, then walked through the heavy, metal door after it slid open. The Herald of War wasn’t a pleasure craft, the halls narrow enough Salvo had to retract his PIRSA when he wanted to move from the unit’s ready-up area to the rest of the ship. In his lighter PIRSA, Ekert didn’t have that problem. In fact, he’d evolved his PIRSA exactly in that direction as he’d progressed in his career. Any time he had to move around without it was a moment of weakness.

Could be why my wife left me. Or maybe it was the constant deployments. The anger issues. The alcohol? Or, all of the above.

The list of his flaws continued as he stalked down the hall, protium boots silent on the metal grating of the floor simply because he didn’t want them to make noise. By the time he reached seventeen separate – and equally likely – reasons his marriage had failed, he arrived at the bridge. Huh, the walk usually only got him to sixteen reasons. Slowing down in my old age?

“Permission to enter the bridge?” he asked into the comms instead of trying to answer his own question.

“Granted,” the Captain said immediately.

Another gentle smack of a button beside the door, and Ekert left the cramped hall to the roomier bridge. A small walkway extended directly ahead of him to the universal-plotting system, a fancy name for a space map, if anybody were to ask him. On either side, in lowered sections, flight and support crew manned two stations on each side, readouts flashing on their screens.

Thanks for the technical marvel of his PIRSA – practically magic, really – the information on their screens instantly filtered into his HUD even though he wasn’t trying to read over their shoulders.

He didn’t like what he ‘saw’, and it just made him pick up the pace.

Past the map – which currently displayed a 3-D model of Polaris-3, and the Herald’s approximate location to it – Ekert joined the Captain and her right hand at the viewing deck. Large enough for the three of them to stand by side, the deck was flanked by the two officers’ chairs, though neither sat in them. Instead, they stood waiting for the Vanguard, looking down at the world below them.

From the reports, Polaris-3 was a rocky planet, utterly barren in places. Water covered about a third of it, usually in the form of large, isolated lakes. There were no seas or oceans, and the weather was generally dry and windy. Vegetation and animals alike had learned to live with it, though it certainly wasn’t an easy life.

Except, looking through the thick, reinforced glass rated to take fifty-mil cannon-fire and laugh like it tickled, he couldn’t see any of those things.

Why? Because the entire, damn planet was covered in storm clouds. Lightning flashed nearly constantly within, and whole sections of it twisted like a whirlpool on a continental scale.

“Well, shit,” he said.