"Whistler, you got any more drones?"

Sweat-soaked inside his nullsuit, Two-Gut Gruce couldn't keep the desperation from his voice. He'd split up his squads along the hilltop, scattered them to avoid losing too many in a concentrated attack but kept them close enough to keep formation. The muscles in his legs tremored from exertion—without the suit's assistance he would have collapsed already.

"Down to three," said Whistler.

"We'll need some cover," Gruce said. "Or more targets at least. Keep moving, you grubs know the drill."

A chorus of "yups" from the other men. Gruce opened the private channel to Starhawk.

"Ready, boss," he said.

"Got ten of my birds headed your way, Two-Gut," said Starhawk over the common channel. "Give 'em thirty seconds. They'll be more use than Red Shade was, I'm sure. I've seen kittens put up a better fight."

Gruce's eye twitched at the insult. He couldn't hear his men's laughter, but he could feel it in the silence that followed. All he could muster was, "Sorry, boss."

"If you don't think you can do this, don't waste my time. Their guns are forming up again and I'm an easy target up here. Die quickly or get the job done so we can leave."

Furious, Gruce shouted orders to his men. "Alright you mangy apes, snap to and keep steady! I've got center, Whistler's left flank, Pluck you've got the right! Ten seconds and we charge!"

#

"What do you mean he said no?" demanded Hargrove.

Sergeant Mallory glared. "What do you think 'no' means?"

"I've been held here for hours! You can't just—"

"We are trying to protect you," said the Sergeant. "Along with the rest of the entire population of this city. You're not nearly as important as you think you are. There are hundreds of others missing and we don't have the resources to put your needs above everyone else's."

"I'm not asking you to do anything but let me go."

Mallory shook his head. "Everyone else in the city is trying to get down here and you're trying to get back up. You understand it's about to be a war zone out there?"

"Yes, and I won't leave someone I'm responsible for to fend for herself in the middle of it!"

"You got on that bus, Mr. Levene. You chose to put yourself in our protection."

"I made a mistake."

"The decision's been made," Sergeant Mallory said as he turned to leave. "There's nothing I can do."

"Then you're useless!" Hargrove shouted.

His shoulders dropped when the door slid shut. He didn't know what else to do. If they wouldn't let him out he couldn't help Buttercup. There had to be some way for him to do something—anything. He was trapped with no obvious means of escape.

When his phone rang Hargrove knew it had to be another solicitation. He checked the display and almost threw it against the wall when he saw the same number that had just called him minutes before. Well, he'd give them a piece of his mind—at least yelling at someone would give him something to do.

"Who is this?" he demanded.

"Oh, I'm so thrilled to speak with you again, sir. I have an incredible opportunity for you today."

The man's voice gushed excitement. Hargrove cut him off as he was about to launch into what sounded like a well-rehearsed pitch.

"Your name."

"Of course, sir. My name's Robert626 and I'm a recruiter for the Volunteer Core Militia."

"Recruiting volunteers? That's idiotic."

"Well, we're an all-volunteer outfit, but no one can sign up if they don't know about us! We gotta get our name out there somehow."

"Do you have no shame, calling a man to profit from his misfortune?"

Robert hesitated.

"Misfortune? Sir, you just collected on the most lucrative bounty inside the Core for years. And considering the man it was I'd say you did a good deed today. VCM is always on the lookout for new talent, and we think you've got what it takes."

Hargrove cringed at the man's can-do attitude, and was about to tell Robert how ridiculous the whole proposition was when a thought struck him.

"What can you do for me?" Hargrove asked.

"Well, let me just start off with what we call our 'Core Values.' The Volunteers are a network of reserve privateers that extend from Surface all the way out—"

"No, no. What can you offer me? Not money—I have specific needs, and you might be able to help me."

"What kind of needs?"

"A girl I know went missing before the comet passed. I want to find her but I'm inside a bombardment bunker underneath Capitol City. The police won't let me leave and they're too busy to comb the city looking for her, but I might know where to find her. Can you get me out?"

"Sir," Robert626 said with firm resolve, "it would be my absolute pleasure to assist you today."

One hour later Sergeant Mallory stormed into the room with another man in tow. The oddly proportioned sergeant stood at the door and gestured for Hargrove to get up and leave.

"Alright, let's go," Mallory said. "You don't want our completely secure fortified facility to keep you alive, it's your right to be a moron and get yourself killed. We've got all this square on the record so when you get hurt don't think you can get some kind of settlement from this—we'll come down on you with all the stars in the 'verse."

The slim man who followed the sergeant in walked toward Hargrove, hand outstretched in greeting. He wore a tight-fitting white jumpsuit with black and red trim. Hargrove shook hands with him.

"Wonderful to meet you, sir. I'm Robert626 and now that I'm here you've got nothing to worry about."

"Just get me out of here," said Hargrove.

#

"Half a mile from the dome, boss," Gruce said over the private channel to Starhawk, heaving for air as he sprinted downhill toward the dome with his men.

"You sound fat, Gruce," Starhawk said with an amused chuckle.

Before Gruce could react to the barb, superheated beams of light sliced through the canopy above his squad. Dicer, his number two, crumpled instantly as a red laser bored through his skull, burning through the nullsteel armor like plastic. The suit drifted eerily through the air, weightless, Dicer's body still twitching inside.

Two-Gut threw himself away from his position and felt the heat from a laser scorch the armor on his right shoulder. Aerial attack—drones, maybe. Bad news. He scrambled behind a massive fallen tree trunk and swapped his filters to x-ray. His HUD picked out four human targets above him—a  squad of nullsuits. So they came out personally to greet his attack.

"Suits in the air, scatter!" Gruce barked over the common band. "Whistler, drones up!"

"We got you, big man," rumbled a deep voice in reply. "Squadron C assisting."

Diving away from the tree trunk, Gruce glanced at his HUD's map as three airships peeled off from the formation of ten above the city, just beyond reach of its defenses. The four suits above him flitted around, their laser beams raking the forest floor nearby as they struggled to hit him. Whistler's drones drew their fire for a moment, giving Gruce time to take cover and watch as their air support swooped in.

Machine guns from the three aircraft shredded two of the enemy suits and the other two dropped into the forest. One was too slow and a hail of bullets found its target just as he dipped below the treeline. Gruce grinned and doubled back toward the last remaining suit. That would be his ticket into the city.

Gruce spotted the fallen suit face down on the ground near Dicer's body. Looked like he yanked himself down too hard, crumpled his arms underneath his body. Rookie mistake. Lost his weapon, too. Gruce vaulted over the fallen trunk and surged the gravity nodes in his boots and palms to pull himself down onto his foe, driving a vicious heel into the suit's exposed neck as he landed.

#

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