Valiant

[Valiant #45: Turncoat’s Elegy]

Log Date: 2/26/12765

Data Sources: Kiwi, Feroce Acceso

Event Log: Kiwi

V.V. Prominence: Intelligence Center

1:24pm SGT

“You all realize that this is going to be the tightest operation we’ve ever undertaken up until this point, right?” Valkyrie says, leaning her fists on the holoboard in the center of the room. “This will be on par some of the high-intensity missions we ran back in the Challenger program. The turnaround isn’t going to leave any room for error.”

“We understand.” Songbird says beside me, his arms folded. All of us that will be deploying to the surface of Kasvei are here in the intelligence center for our final briefing, and the air is tight with tension, and some anticipation on my part. After our draw with CURSE five or six days ago, I’m itching for another mission, one that we can actually call a win. The last mission left me dissatisfied, cheated of what would’ve likely been a victory if Makalu and his lantern freaks hadn’t swooped in and beaten us all senseless.

“Kasvei’s planetguard and local government aren’t going to be happy that we’re conducting a raid on a CURSE storage site.” Legaci says, her hologram pulling up a map of the city and zooming in on a multistory research building near the city center. “It’s unlikely that they would give us the greenlight for that, so we haven’t telegraphed our intentions, and we’re instead telling them that we’re here for a mid-deployment resupply. Since we just arrived, they’ll expect us to head to the orbital station for that within the next twenty-four hours, so we have to get down to the surface, hit the storage site, grab our objectives, and get back up to the Prominence before then.”

“And the Justice is expected to arrive hot on our heels in a matter of hours.” Forecast adds. “We don’t know when they left Svyash, but we can assume they gathered their teams after we left, and they got after us as quickly as they could. Since we know their arrival vector, we know what side of Kasvei they’re going to arrive to when they get here, and we can plan on being on the other side of the planet.”

“We’re not worried about pissing off the Halfie Protectorate with a raid on one of their worlds?” Renchiko asks. “I know it’s CURSE and all, and the stuff in the storage site is Challenger property, which technically belongs to us, but it’s still going to be an armed operation on Protectorate territory.”

“If they don’t want us conducting raids on their territory, they shouldn’t be housing CURSE storage sites there.” Quincy points out. “It should send a message to other nations as well about the lengths we’ll go to get back what CURSE stole from the Challengers.”

“We’re not going to be making this a regular matter.” Valkyrie says firmly. “Valiant Command has made it clear that this operation is an exception to our current doctrine, and it’s not the kind of thing we expect to be doing while we’re still trying to build our reputation and relations with the major powers in the galaxy. We get in, grab what we need, minimize the amount of damage we do while we’re doing it, and get back out. The less disruptive this is, the lower the impact it will have on our relationship with the Halfie Protectorate.”

“What are we grabbing on this world that’s so important, anyhow?” Ridge asks, folding his arms. “Is it gonna be another artifact the Challengers had lying around in storage when the program went down?”

“It’s going to be a number of things, but the primary objective is a high-value technological asset that Echo completed before the program shut down.” Legaci explains, saving the rest of us the trouble of explaining we’re here to pick up an actual, proper body for her. From what Songbird told me, this was the price of having Legaci signed on with the Valiant: we were obligated to provide her with a fully functioning Synthetic frame so that she could actually have a body with sensations and a physical presence, instead of existing solely through holoarrays or projector drones. And apparently, Echo had custom-designed one for her before the Challenger program was shuttered. “We will prioritize the primary objective, but we will secure additional objectives as time and opportunity permits. If there is a chance to maximize our gains on this mission, we might as well do so, since we’ll already be paying a diplomatic price for it.”

“To that end, we’re going to be deploying in a stealth skipper, and we’re going to be conducting the raid during Kasvei’s night cycle.” Valkyrie goes on. “If everything goes the way we want it to, and we pull this off perfectly, Kasvei’s planetguard won’t even know we were here, and we won’t have to worry about any political fallout. But that is going to require that everyone do their part, and follow their orders exactly.” She says this with a pointed look at Ridge, then at me.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep it in my pants.” I say, rolling my eyes.

“Good. We can’t afford any rogue Agents on this deployment.” Valkyrie goes on as she turns her attention to the map before us. “We’re going to be landing on the roof of the Epperson Institute, shown here. Access will be through the emergency exits on the roof; Legaci is already in the building’s systems and will be blocking the alarm signals that will go to emergency services and the building’s internal security suite. From there, we will be making our way all the way down to the building’s subterranean levels, where the storage site is located. Once there, we will split into teams to pursue the primary objective and secondary objectives.”

“I’ve prepared packets for each of the teams on the routes you’ll be taking, and what your objectives will look like.” Legaci says at this point. “Once you’ve grabbed what you need to, you’ll be returning back along your routes to the stealth skipper. No sightseeing, no detours. We grab what we need and get out.”

“Well I, for one, am ready for this!” Jetfire declares from where he’s been listening attentively on the room’s edge. “And if we get caught, just leave it to me! I’ve still got a lot of pull on Kasvei; I’m sure I could talk us out of it.”

“Let’s not plan on that.” Valkyrie says with a sideways look. “Now, to the packets. The team for the primary objective will be Legaci, Songbird, and Kiwi. Your route and objective should be on your data slates now…”

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Owlskipper-1: Passenger Cabin

11/27/12765 1:05am SGT

“Feeling nervous?”

I glance over to the seat next to me in the skipper. Kiwi’s watching me scroll through my playlists on my phone, probably assuming that I’m feeling the jitters. “Not really. But it is a bit of a habit to calm the nerves, I suppose.” I say as I notice that she’s bouncing her knee a little. “What about you?”

“Little disappointed we won’t get to fight anyone.” she sighs. “I really thought we had ‘em during that last mission. We were finally the ones doing the ambushing, instead of getting ambushed. Then Makalu dropped in and ruined it all.”

“Yeah.” I say, tilting my head back and looking at the ceiling of the skipper’s passenger cabin. “I just wish we knew what he was doing. When we encountered him stealing the Fountain of Souls last year, I didn’t really give it a ton of thought; just thought he was some Maskling extremist. Never thought I’d see him again after that. But he showed up to grab the artifact; he knew it was there, and he was willing to fight both CURSE and the Valiant to get it, and he made it pretty clear he had plans for it.”

“We’re going to the Losinadae Nebula after this, right?” Renchiko asks from the opposite row of seats. “If we can figure out what he’s using it for, then maybe we can figure out how to use the one that Laughing Alice gave to us.”

“And he literally invited us to come and see.” Ridge adds.

“That’s not a good thing.” Jackrabbit says, leaning forward on her knees. “That’s a power statement, a bad guy move. It says ‘I know how to use this thing already, and I want to rub your faces in it. And maybe scare you a little, because I know how to use it, and you don’t’.”

“And whatever he’s doing with it, he wouldn’t be inviting us if he thought we could stop him.” I add. “It’s also likely that it’s a trap, with how openly he invited us and what he was offering.”

“So does that mean we’re not going to Losinadae?” Quincy asks.

“We are going to Losinadae. But it’s going to have to wait until after this mission.” Legaci clarifies from the hardframe she’s remotely piloting. It’s a sleek, minimal affair with a lean, narrow profile and exposed wires and hydraulics; the head is just a triangular block with an optics array and a receiver antennae jutting up out of the back of it. No effort has been made to make it pretty or give it any emotive capability; it’s a purely utilitarian frame, one intended for labor or combat, not socializing. “We’ve had this mission planned for a long time; we’re not going to push it back just because a Maskling extremist is trying to bait us into what’s probably a trap. Plus, this will give our intelligence department more time to do research on what’s going on in Losinadae before we head over there.”

“Is that really a good idea?” Renchiko asks. “What if he does whatever he was planning to do before we get there?”

“We might actually be delaying him.” Legaci says. “Like Songbird said, Makalu wouldn’t have invited us there if he thought we could stop him. Whatever he’s got planned is probably already locked, loaded, and ready to go. If he’s really got enough ego that he wants to show off, then he won’t go through with whatever he’s planning to do until he’s got an audience that he can show off to.”

“I don’t mind if we take our time getting around to him.” Ridge says, rubbing his neck, probably remembering the way Makalu snagged him by the throat and used him as a human shield. “That dude is crazy strong. We need to figure out a way to deal with him before we fight him again.”

The lights in the passenger cabin click over to red, ending the conversation before it can go any further. “Two minutes out from arrival.” Legaci says. “If you’ve got any final prep to do, do it now. Songbird, Kiwi, and myself will be on point; the rest of you follow our lead until our routes diverge. And remember to keep it quiet; this is a stealth mission.”

Everybody starts their final checks at that; I make sure I’ve got my earbuds and ninjato hilts close at hand, while Kiwi checks her runemarks, and the others likewise check their equipment. Ridge, Renchiko, and Quincy have all been issued plasma pistols now, to pair with their stunner pistols; Legaci’s got her weapons built into her utility frame, Jackrabbit’s got her mechanized boots and speed harness on, and Jetfire’s kitted out in his silver power armor. It isn’t long before we feel the skipper slowing down and beginning to tilt into its landing, seconds later, we can feel the gentle rocking as it touches down on the roof of the Institute.

The moment it does, we’re unbuckling our harnesses and getting up, moving down into the skipper’s cargo bay and towards the ramp, which has unsealed and is starting to lower. As we go, Legaci’s frame grabs a bag with the equipment needed to move the pod that her new frame has evidently been stored in. It’s cold when we step out onto the roof; between now and the last time we visited Kasvei, the seasons have changed, and it seems that Selbaredo is well into fall by this point.

“Earbuds in. You know your channels.” Legaci reminds us as we near one of the rooftop emergency exits. “You all know your partners. Stay together and do not let them out of your sightline. It’s easy to get lost in unfamiliar buildings. If there are any complications, make sure that you immediately report them.”

With that, she grabs the handle of the emergency exit and pushes it open. A little red light starts flashing in the stairwell within, but there’s no siren; it looks like Legaci is blocking the alarm signal, as promised. We start making our way down the stairwell, heading down two floors before coming out into the building proper. From here, you can see the central atrium that runs through the building, and allows you to stare all the way down to the main lobby on the bottom floor.

“We don’t have to worry about CURSE having a separate security system for their storage site on the subterranean levels, do we?” Kiwi asks as we make our way to the elevator.

“They do. But we have the codes for it.” Legaci answers. “The counterintelligence operations we’ve been running against CURSE have put us in a position where we’ve been able to compromise a number of their staff and personnel. We haven’t been able to crack the higher levels of their organization yet, but we’ve definitely gotten our fingers into the lower levels.”

“What exactly is this place?” Ridge asks as we pile into the elevator. “Looks pretty fancy…”

“It’s a research institute. One that’s benefitted from having a CURSE storage site in its basement.” Legaci says as the doors close and start to take us down. “They’ve been sitting on a treasure trove of confiscated Challenger tech for the last decade and a half. The arrangement was that they’d be allowed to study the stuff in the storage site if they shared all their findings with CURSE. CURSE doesn’t have enough people to study all of the Challenger tech that they raked in after the program fell, so they occasionally set up arrangements like this where they outsource the research to a local entity, who then shares the findings with them, and both sides reap the benefits of the research.”

“Thieves.” Renchiko mutters as the elevator descends through the floors of the Institute. “I’m guessing there’s no way to force CURSE to give back all of the Challenger tech that they stole after the program collapsed.”

“There is no legal recourse, no.” Legaci says tersely. “When the Colloquium courts ordered the program shuttered, they effectively dissolved it and gave control of all of the Challenger assets and property over to CURSE. The only reason they don’t have the Bastions is because the senior Challengers that remained loyal saw it coming and followed the program’s denial protocol. That’s why the Bastions were dark-spaced, and most planetside Challenger facilities transmitted as much of their data and research to the Bastions as they could before zero-wiping their hard drives to keep CURSE from benefitting from any of it. CURSE still managed to acquire a sizable amount of Challenger tech and property, but without the research or data needed to operate or understand it, it’s kept them from being able to use a lot of it.”

“So legally speaking, CURSE technically owns the Bastions?” Quincy asks.

“In the eyes of the Colloquium courts, yes.” Legaci answers. “But as far as I’m concerned, we have the command codes, and they don’t. The house belongs to the person that holds the keys, and that’s us, regardless of what the courts say, and whether CURSE likes it or not.”

The elevator starts to slow as we descend beneath the first floor, the lobby disappearing before our eyes. Two, three, four floors go by before we finally slow to a halt, and the doors don’t open until Legaci enters a code on the elevator’s control pad. Stepping out, we find ourselves in the center of a large intersection that joins four hallways together.

“Alright. Here we are.” Legaci says, taking in each hallway. “Songbird, Kiwi, you and I will be taking the hall directly ahead. Jackrabbit, Renchiko, you have the hall to the left. Ridge, Quincy, you have the hall directly behind us. Jetfire, you’ll be standing guard by the elevator in case anything goes wrong. Follow your routes; stick to your instructions; stay quiet, and work fast. Plan to reconvene here in fifteen minutes. If you are falling behind schedule, let us know.”

There’s murmured assents from everyone as we sort into our groups and head down our assigned halls. It isn’t long before the footsteps of others fade away, and we’re left with only the clicking of Legaci’s metal feet against the floor. The stillness around us is a little unsettling, and not helped by the magelight that Kiwi is using to illuminate our surroundings in a strong shade of green. It’s almost easier to deal with places like these when they’re occupied; late at night, when they’re empty and silent, it feels unnatural to be in a place that was designed to have people in it.

It isn’t long before we’ve reached the end of the hall, having passed several lab doors on the way here. It seems like the actual storage area is behind the hatch at the end of the hall, the door secured by thick internal bolts. Legaci’s quick to enter the code to the hatch, and I wince at the loud clunking as the bolts retract. It’s the loudest thing we’ve heard so far, loud enough to echo down the hall. Whoever designed this clearly did so with the intention of making sure that everyone within fifty feet would know when the door was being opened.

Once the hatch is unbolted, Legaci grabs the handle and pulls it wide open, Kiwi and myself following her in. After a short hall, the area opens up into what appears to be a warehouse, with rows upon rows of shelves housing crates and boxes of all shapes and sizes. Objects that aren’t small enough to fit in a crate or a box have simply been placed on the shelves as they are, with tags hanging off of them that presumably identify or classify them in whatever cataloguing system that the storage sites use. Legaci is quick to head over to the side of the room where all the larger items are, checking the signs bolted to each row of shelving units.

“Goddamn. How much stuff did the Challengers have?” Kiwi mutters as the shadows cast by her magelight slide across the floor.

“A lot. The organization was active for a century. CURSE has a few dozen of these sites across the galaxy, all dedicated to hoarding Challenger tech and property.” Legaci replies, pivoting and starting down one of the rows of shelving. “We’ve already hit some of them, and CURSE has ramped up their security in response. We’ll likely never be able to claw back all of the stuff they stole, just because of the sheer volume of what was taken, but we might be able to get back the most important stuff with limited raids like this.”

“I suppose asking them to just give it back is a little too optimistic…” I murmur.

“We’re living in the real world, Songbird. CURSE would ignore a request like that unless it was being delivered at gunpoint.” Legaci says, slowing down a bit as she examines the lower shelves, then picking up the pace towards something that resembles a stasis pod near the end of the row. “That’s why we don’t bother asking. We don’t need permission to take what is rightfully ours.”

“Is that it?” Kiwi asks, picking up the pace to keep up with Legaci.

“I think so.” Legaci say, handing off the bag to Kiwi. “Open that and get the hoverclamps warmed up while I check. Songbird, get over here and help me wipe the dust off this pod. This frame isn’t great for that.”

Kiwi takes the bag, zipping it open and pulling out the clamps while I head over to the pod and use the sleeve of my combat jacket to brush away the dust collected on the pod’s surface. A headlight on the chest of Legaci’s frame clicks on, shining down onto the glass, and dimly visible within is what appears to be a pale, seemingly organic body — one that resembles Legaci’s default holographic appearance. The contours of the face match, though the dark blue hair is longer than Legaci usually wears hers.

“Seems like it’s in good condition… vacuum seal looks intact… temperature looks like it’s within acceptable cryo ranges…” Legaci murmurs, the four-fingered hands of her frame roving over the surface of the pod while one of her optical arrays flashes a strobing light over the glass for a few seconds. “Gonna be hard to tell the actual condition without a dedicated lab and diagnostic equipment, but on the surface, it looks good. Dad designed this pod, so it should hold up better than the mass-market stuff.”

I step back from the pod, looking it over and sizing up the dimensions. “It’s a pretty chufty piece. You think it’ll be able to fit through the doorways for the rooftop access?”

“It’ll fit. If the doorways aren’t big enough, we’ll make them big enough.” Legaci says, holding a hand out to Kiwi. “Let’s see those clamps. There should also be a miniaturized fuel cell in there; pull it out as well. We’ll need to plug it in the moment we disconnect the pod from the wall socket.”

Kiwi starts handing over the clamps, and Legaci starts attaching them to the sides of the pod, each one thumping into place with a magnetic seal. I examine the power cable running to the pod in the meantime; it’s a thick, heavy-duty affair. If the cable’s diameter was any indication, keeping this pod online was eating up a lot of power.

“Alright, that should be all of them.” Legaci says as she affixes the last of the clamps to the pod. “Hand me the fuel cell. Once it’s plugged, we can turn on the clamps and we’ll be good to go.”

Kiwi passes the fuel cell over, and in a single smooth movement, Legaci disconnects the power cable at the foot of the pod, plugging the fuel cell into the socket immediately after. Red lights within the pod click on, but they turn green a few seconds later, slowly fading back into darkness again. Once it’s clear that the pod is stable, Legaci switches on the hoverclamps; a strip of white light glows along the side of each clamp as the pod gently hovers into the air, evening out around waist height.

“Alright, the hard part’s over.” Legaci says maneuvering the pod away from the shelf and back down the row. “Now we just need to get it back to the ro—”

She cuts off without warning, taking another couple of steps before stopping in the middle of the row. The pod keeps drifting forwards, but I have to stagger to a halt to keep myself from walking into her frame, and Kiwi runs into my back. “Is she okay? What’s going on?” she asks as I ease around Legaci’s frame.

“I’m not sure.” I say, catching up to the pod and easing it to a halt as I look back at Legaci. Her triangular head unit is tilted down, almost like she’s offline. “Legaci? Can you hear us?”

After a moment, the head unit comes back up, the optical array recalibrating. “This proxy has lost connection to the originator unit. Due to CPU constraints in this proxy, nonessential features will be disabled in order to continue running the echo instance of the L.E.G.A.C.I. program preloaded into this unit. Please reestablish connection with the originator unit to restore full functionality.” With that message delivered, the head pivots towards me. “Songbird. How long was I offline?”

It’s Legaci’s voice, but there’s something off about it - there’s no tone or inflection, the words delivered as flatly as a punctured tire. “Less than a minute — are you okay? What happened?” I ask, keeping a hand on the pod.

“My connection to the Prominence has been interrupted. Something is jamming the signal, along with all other comms arrays that I have installed. Please check your own comms arrays and confirm.” Legaci requests.

I reach up, tapping one of my earbuds. “Channel one, check check. Anyone on the line?” I wait for a long moment, hearing nothing but white noise, and repeat myself. “Channel one, check check. If anyone else can hear this, please respond.”

“It’s not coming through on my end.” Kiwi says. “Obviously I can hear you because you’re right there, but there’s nothing coming through on my earbud. I doublechecked the channel to be sure.”

Though I don’t have a heartbeat, I can feel the blood in my veins start to stir. “That’s not good. Something’s happened.” I say, looking back to Legaci. “Can you still push this pod, Legaci?”

“Social and emotional processing have been disabled to allocate all CPU resources to movement and stabilization calculation, visual identification, reasoning and abstraction, and complex logic processing.” Legaci replies, still in that flat voice. “I remember the mission objectives and parameters, can perform menial labor tasks, and participate in combat to a limited degree.”

“Awesome, great. Then you know that we need to get this pod back to the elevator and get it back to the roof.” I say, starting to move around the pod. Whatever’s piloting that frame now isn’t really Legaci; it’s just a shadow of her, operating on emergency measures since her connection to Legaci’s core up on the Prominence has been severed. “Kiwi, you and I will be at the front. Legaci, you push the pod and follow us. We’ll get you back to the elevator and send you up to the roof from there.”

“Understood.” Legaci says, moving to take hold of the pod once more, and begin pushing it forward. Kiwi moves around her and to the front with me, snapping her runemarks out around her wrists as I hook one of my ninjato hilts off my belt and ignite it.

“Could it be a comms failure?” Kiwi asks me as we head back the way we came.

“It’s possible, but I don’t think it’s likely.” I say as we leave the row and head back towards the hatch that led us in here. “If we’re getting jammed, it means someone knows we’re here. We need to gather the others and get out of here as quickly as possible.”

“How would they have figured that out, though?” Kiwi asks, forming one set of runes into featherblades orbiting around her wrist. “Legaci blocked the alarm signals from the building, and we arrived here on a cloaked skipper. Even if the Justice has arrived in orbit over Kasvei, they wouldn’t have had time to get people down here that quickly, and they wouldn’t know where our surface team is deployed.”

“I wish I knew, but we don’t have time to play detective right now.” I say, stepping back through the hatch when I reach it. “We get everybody and we get out before we get caught. We can investigate what went wrong later.”

Kiwi lets the topic rest; I can tell it’s still bothering her, but she’s aware that there are higher priorities right now. Making our way back down the hall, we soon arrive at the intersection, where Jetfire raises a hand to greet us. “Well well, that was fast! No wonder you two are top picks for every mission!”

“Have the others not come back yet?” I ask as Legaci starts moving the pod into the elevator.

“Not yet. Haven’t heard anything on the channels; everything’s quiet.” Jetfire says, rapping the side of his helm.

“That’s because the comms are down. We’re being jammed; someone knows we’re here.” Kiwi says, then looks at me. “Should we wait for the other two teams to get back here?”

I press my lips together, looking around. Legaci probably had a contingency for a situation like this, but with her connection to her core severed, she probably doesn’t have the capacity for complex problem-solving at the moment. “No. Waiting’s not an option. We need to retrieve them and get out of here. Jetfire, you go with Legaci and make sure that the pod gets loaded into the skipper. She’s lost her connection to her core on the Prominence because of the jamming, so she’s got reduced capabilities right now. Kiwi, you go after Jackrabbit and Renchiko. I’ll go after Ridge and Quincy. With the comms down, we won’t know if they’re in trouble, so we’ll need to check on them in person and escort them back.”

“Oh! Understood. You can count on me, Songbird.” Jetfire says, hopping into the elevator with Legaci and the pod. “Once we’ve got the pod in the skipper, I’ll come back down to make sure you all make it back up, if you haven’t gotten to the roof by that point.”

“Whatever you do, just make sure you’re careful doing it.” I say as the doors of the elevator close. As it starts rising, I turn to Kiwi. “Will you be okay if we split up?”

“I’m your girlfriend, not some helpless damsel you’ve gotta babysit, Feroce.” she says, cupping a hand around the back of my neck. “I can take care of myself. And the comms might be down, but we’re tangled.” She pulls my arm up, pushing back the sleeve to show that the runes around my wrist are active and glowing blue. “I’ll reach out to you if I need help, and you can do the same with me. Okay?”

“Okay.” I say, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”

With that, I move towards the hall that Ridge and Quincy were assigned to, while Kiwi splits down the hall that Jackrabbit and Renchiko had. My pace is brisk, not quite running, but definitely verging that boundary. Reaching the end of the hall, I find the hatch door open and step inside, using the pale, swirling colors of my starglass blade to light the way. About twenty feet in, it occurs to me to call out for them. “Ridge! Quincy! Where are you?”

“Over here!” Quincy’s shout comes from deeper into the warehouse, down one of the rows of shelves. I immediately move in that direction, keeping my ninjato raised to provide illumination, passing row after row until I spot a lump on the floor down one of the rows. Rushing into that row, I run over to it, kneeling down when I see that it’s Ridge crumpled on the floor. He’s limp when I grab him and roll him over, and doesn’t respond; hissing, I set my fingers to his neck, checking for a pulse, and I’m relieved when I feel it. Moving his arms and legs around, I check for any sign of injury, but I’m not seeing any blood, or any signs of struggle.