Valiant

[Valiant #15: Iron Hope]

Log Date: 11/28/12763

Data Sources: Feroce Acceso

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

The Bulwark: Observation Lounge 11

6:34pm SGT

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it.”

The words come from my left, where Forecast is standing beside me in the observation lounge. He’s dressed as primly as ever, a classy counterpoint to my casual jeans and hoodie. The window in front of us provides a wide view of Kittebar, the world on which the Challenger Valiant outpost is located.

I’m really not sure why he’s here and talking to me, because up until forty seconds ago, I’d been alone in here, enjoying the view.

“I suppose so.” I reply reluctantly. It feels a little awkward to be talking to him after the incident with Cahriu almost two weeks ago. I expected the Masklings would be more hostile towards me after that, and pretty much all of Kiwi’s handlers have been, but Forecast is breaking that streak. “It’s a nice planet. I’m not sure I’d call it beautiful.”

“We take for granted that there are planets like this in the galaxy.” Forecast says, his brown eyes remaining fixed on the planet below. “Worlds that are of a certain density and size, that exist within an optimal range from a star to sustain livable temperatures, worlds which have functioning dynamos that power the magnetic fields that protect them from the cosmic radiation that saturates the universe. There are hundreds, millions, billions of planets in this galaxy, and only a fraction of them are naturally habitable. Only a fraction of them ever could be habitable. To us, the galaxy seems so crowded, so teeming with life, because we only ever see the worlds that are inhabited, think of the worlds that are inhabited. But for every planet that’s colonized and inhabited, there are hundreds more that are too large, too small, are too far or too close to their star, or have no dynamo core that protects them from the solar winds. When you stumble across a planet like this, where life naturally evolved and flourished, it can’t ever be anything but beautiful. Because it’s rare, and it’s a gift.”

I consider that as I study the planet we’re in orbit above. The green of its jungles covers much of its land surface, and its twisting, winding oceans are the intense blue that only comes from large bodies of water. There are spots where the crimson glow of active volcanism has marked out a black patch on the surface, but otherwise, it’s a textbook case of a habitable planet. Precisely the sort of thing that colonists would be eager to see, and that nations would be eager to plant their flag on.

“I think I understand what you mean.” I say. “It’s beautiful from a big-picture sort of perspective.”

“It just makes you wonder, sometimes, about all these petty fleeting struggles we have.” Forecast goes on. “These wars and battles we think are so important, these games that we play in the media and politics, as if they were all that mattered. But then you step back and look at it all, and you wonder why mortals think so much of themselves. Fleeting sparks that think their picosecond of existence will make a difference in a universe that is vast beyond comprehension.”

“The universe isn’t alive. We are.” I reply. “That’s what makes mortals important. We are aware of our existence, and we get to enjoy it. We assign ourselves importance and purpose; we do not need it given to us.”

“That’s remarkably perceptive of you.” Forecast remarks, pulling his eyes from the planet below to turn them on me. “I suppose I should not be surprised that a Challenger has a certain deterministic perspective of existence.”

“I got tired of other people telling me what I was or what I should be.” I answer, keeping my eyes on the planet below. “Why are you here, Forecast?”

“It seemed prudent to get to know you a little better.” he answers, folding his arms behind his back. “You are an unusual individual, even among Challengers. And I thought I ought to make the effort, since you are helping us on multiple fronts.”

“You’re not here because I put one of your people in the infirmary two weeks ago in an ill-advised reaction to being deliberately baited?” I ask drily.

“If I was upset about that, I would’ve registered my discontent two weeks ago, rather than waiting until now to express it.” He sounds at ease as he says it, as if discussing the weather. “I am not so rash as to assume that you acted without provocation. And I know my people well enough to know that certain of them have a bad habit of playing games when they ought not. Mr. Cahriu’s visit to the infirmary was doubtless well-deserved.”

I’m almost starting to feel sorry for Cahriu with all the people that have told me he deserved the beatdown I gave him. “I think I may have taken it a little too far.”

“True. The dislocated shoulder was understandable, but the broken ribs were a touch more than I would’ve expected from a simple mess hall brawl.” Forecast agrees. “But if the point was to send a message to Cahriu, I believe he has received it loud and clear.”

“Good. Let’s hope that he’s learned a lesson about running his mouth.” While I know I shouldn’t be so flippant, I just can’t hold it in. I can still feel myself smoldering at the thought of him sleeping with Kiwi, and it’s not a pleasant feeling. “I need to go prep for deployment to the surface. Did you need anything before I go?”

“Not at all. Don’t let me hold you up.” Forecast says, more or less dismissing me despite having no authority to do so. “If you should require anything, or if you simply wish to talk, do let me know. We have a vested interest in your welfare, Mr. Acceso.”

“Yes, I’ll keep that in mind.” I say, feeling just a smidge unsettled by that as I turn to leave. He probably means well by it, but the way he says it, with the royal ‘we’, makes it sound like the entire Maskling race has expectations for me.

And I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

The Bulwark: Docks

11/29/12763 8:11am SGT

“It’s a mess. A mess! This entire station is just a festering pit of cybersecurity lapses and disasters waiting to happen. When was the last time they upgraded their firewall, do you know?”

“No, Legaci, I don’t know.” I say as I make my way down the docks, with Legaci ‘walking’ beside me. In reality, her hologram is pretending to walk, while the holoprojector drone inside of it is floating along at the same rate that I’m walking.

“Two years. Two years! You know when I jacked into the Bulwark’s mainframe, the first thing that I had to do was fend off six virus programs that immediately tried to latch onto me?”

“That number keeps on going up every time you tell this story, Legaci.” I reply, glancing along the quays, looking for the pier that we were supposed to meet at.

“Because I keep recognizing more problems in retrospect! I’m surprised nobody’s hacked the Bulwark’s systems and overloaded her fusion cores! It would be easy as—”

“Typing P@$$word into a tween’s socmed login, I know.” We’ve had this same conversation at least three times over the past two weeks. By this point I’ve got the rhythms of the conversation mostly memorized. “Did you get that VPN set up, like you said you were going to?”

“I did, but there’s still so much cleanup to do. You know how riddled this station is with malware? Absolutely riddled! The whole thing’s infected with trojans, worms, corporate spyware, government malware, the works! I feel dirty just being on this mainframe! It’s so infested with malware that if it were a person, I could make a strong case for a mercy kill. And oh my god, the amount of porn that’s been downloaded to some of these terminals! Do you know how much has been downloaded?”

“I’d rather not know, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.”

“Terabytes, Songbird! Terabytes. Thousands upon thousands of terabytes of every conceivable fetish and kink the galaxy has to offer. Videos, art, animations, the whole damn gamut. There are kinks that I never knew existed that I now can’t get out of my head. I am scarred, Songbird. Traumatized.”

“Well, why did you look?” I ask as we reach the pier where the troop transport is docked, and start along it.

“Because some brainlet thought it would be clever to rename a bunch of these files as ‘security logs’ instead of what it actually is, probably because they wanted to hide it from upper management if they ever did a file audit, and so I keep stumbling across ‘security logs’ on private folders on the network, wondering why they’re there and not in public folders, and open them up to discover that they are not in fact security logs!” Legaci rages. “And the content isn’t the worst of it. The cherry on top is that ninety percent of these files are downloaded off greasy galaxynet sites teeming with malware, so most of these files are just festering with viruses and spyware and every other disease known to the galaxynet. Some of these folders and terminals are choking under the weight of the malware that’s been downloaded onto them. I’ve had to quarantine entire portions of the Bulwark network because it’s so damn bad!”

“It’s a midrank mercforce housed in a mobile fortress that’s frequently on months-long expeditions into dark space.” I point out as we draw closer to the troop transport. “Are you really surprised? Not everyone’s going to pass the time with a good book. A crowd like this is going to gravitate to all the sin they’re being deprived of on a long deployment.”

“Books! Don’t even get me started on books! Do you know how many triple-X comics and bodice-ripping slashfics I found hanging around in the shared directory?”

“Again, I’d rather not know, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell me anyway.” I answer as we arrive to the group waiting outside the troop transport’s ramp. Ridge is coming along today, as are all the Challengers we have on the Bulwark. Kiwi and Forecast are joining us, as is Commander Dussel. “Alright, we’re here. Sorry for the delay; Legaci had to clean up a few last things. Are we ready to roll out?”

“We’ve been ready for the past fifteen minutes.” Dussel says, folding his arms in his battered Venusian power armor. It looks like it’s seen better days, and has been patched up multiple times, the colors of the Venusian Monarchy painted over with the colors of the Dussel Mercforce. “Do you not have anything better to wear than that?”

I pat my hooded longcoat. “It’s rated for combat. There’s a crysteel weave under the surface layer, along with heat-resistant threading for taking the edge off plasma bolts. I’ll be fine.” I look around at the others. Jackrabbit’s got her acceleration harness on, Valkyrie’s wearing her old medic power armor from the Challenger days, Sierra is kitted up in a set of partial plate belonging to the mercforce, and Ridge is dressed in the same. Forecast and Kiwi, up on the ramp of the transport, appear to be dressed in normal clothes - Forecast in business attire, Kiwi in jeans and her white, high-collared jacket. “What about them? They don’t look like they’re loaded for bear.”

“We’ve got our ways of defending ourselves.” Kiwi calls back. “Masklings don’t typically throw on combat armor unless we’re deploying to a heavy battlefield engagement. Are we going or what?”

“Your funeral.” Dussel says, turning and starting to clomp up the ramp. “Let’s move. Daylight’s burning.”

I glance at Legaci as we start up the ramp. “I don’t suppose your projector drone is reinforced, is it?”

She gives me a look. “Are you kidding me? They pulled this thing out of a storage closet. If it eats a coilgun spike or a plasma bolt, it’s toast. Until you lot get me a proper frame, I’m gonna be hiding behind columns when the spikes and plasma bolts start flying.”

“Guess we better plan on getting you a working frame, then.” I say, looking over my shoulder. “How’s that armor treating you, Ridge?”

“It’s, uhm. Good, I guess.” he says, tugging at one of the battered and scorched upper-arm plates. “I’ve never worn combat armor before.”

“You’ll grow into it. I’ll see if we can get you a set that fits you a little better when we get back.” I say as we step into the troop transports and find our seats among the teams of mercs that are going to be deploying to the surface with us. Buckling in, I lean my head back against the headrest, and close my eyes as feel the transport shudder, unmooring from its docking bay.

It’s taken a decade, but I’m finally going to see the inside of a Challenger facility again.

Event Log: Rewind: 13 years ago

C.V. Horizon Breaker: Bridge

1:06am SGT

Sitting behind one of the consoles on the bridge of a mech carrier, a certain young Challenger watches as the holoarrays mounted on the walls and ceiling hum to life. They cast light onto the bridge, swirling shapes eventually resolving into the image of a feline Halfie dressed sharply in a captain’s uniform. “Songbird, is that you?” she demands almost immediately. “Report. What is your status? How is the Citadel doing?”

“The Citadel’s fallen, Avanya.” Songbird says. “We extracted everyone we could before it was overrun. We’re all currently on the Horizon Breaker, headed for dark space.”

For a moment, Avanya is speechless. “What? That’s not right; you should’ve been able to hold out for at least another week. The Citadel, the defenses—”

“Shieldwall sold us out.” Songbird interrupts softly. “He gave his clearance to one of CURSE’s Cybers, who used it to get into the Citadel’s mainframe. Dropped the shields, deactivated the turrets, activated the main bridge so CURSE could drop their soldiers right on our front door. Shieldwall led them right over the bridge and straight into the main courtyard.”

Avanya just stares for a long moment, then turns and starts pacing, running a furred hand over the right side of her face. “…damnation. Where’s Ratchet? I need to talk to her.”

“She’s not available right now.”

“What the HELL do you mean she’s not available?! She was in charge of defending the Citadel!”

“Matoro’s dead, Avanya.”

The pacing slows, and the anger fades away just as quickly as it came. “…I assume it happened while the Citadel was being stormed?” she asks carefully.

“Yes. He was one of the many Citadel staff that covered the retreat so that others could get to the hangar and escape into orbit.”

“Do you know if Ratchet’s going to be okay?” Avanya asks.

“She’s not okay right now. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to pull herself together. I’ve left her alone, and I’m helping manage the ship as best I can.” Songbird says, lacing his fingers together and looking aside before returning his attention to Avanya. “Where can we rendezvous with you? We set a course for dark space just because we needed to get away from the planet, but we weren’t aiming for a specific system; we were just trying to get away before fleet reinforcements showed.”

“You can’t.” Avanya answers almost immediately. “I’m in the middle of dark-spacing the Solar Echo and Lunar Echo Bastions so that CURSE can’t get their hands on them. I cannot disclose my location at the moment, and besides, it would be dangerous for us to rendezvous. CURSE wants us all in one place so they can dispose of us in a single assault. We have to scatter, go dark. It will force them to spread out their resources searching for us, and make it easier to run more effective counterops against them.”

“Where are we supposed to go, then?” Songbird asks helplessly. “The Horizon Breaker was intended for orbital deployment of mechs; she’s armed, but only with point defense arrays and short-range turrets. She was meant to travel with a fleet or an escort, not alone. She won’t survive an encounter with any decently-sized combat group, even if she is a Challenger ship.”

“I can’t give you those answers right now, and even if I could, it’s better that I don’t know where you’re going.” Avanya answers, clasping her hands behind her back. “Head for a fringe world, away from the metropolitan systems. Consult with Ratchet once she gets back on her feet. You’ll want to stay off the radar, and lie low for a while. Once things have calmed down a bit, we can assess our options at that point, and decide where to go from there.”

“Alright.” Songbird sighs. “I’ll talk with Ratchet as soon as I get a chance. Until then, we’ll just… we’ll figure something out.”

“Good. I need to go now; prepping the Bastions for lockdown and hibernation isn’t a small task. You may not hear from me for at least another month, and if you do call, I may not answer. Be careful out there, and play it smart. If you slip up, CURSE isn’t going to show you mercy.” The hologram reaches for what’s probably a console offscreen, then pauses. “One last thing before I go, Songbird.”

Songbird looks up. “Yes?”

“Shieldwall. Did he get what was coming to him?”

Songbird is quiet for a bit, then nods. “Yeah. We don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“Pity. I was looking forward to wringing his neck myself.” With that, Avanya gives him a weary salute before reaching for the console once more. “Take care of yourself, Songbird. Take care of Ratchet too. Stay safe out there.”

With that, the hologram flickers out, and the holoarray on the bridge returns to its idle state once more. In the consequent silence, Songbird lets his head drop into hands, while outside the bridge’s forward window, the Horizon Breaker continues barreling through the stygian abyss of tunnelspace.

They were on their own now.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Kittebar: Valiant Outpost: Front Lobby

9:14am SGT

It feels like home.

The elegant white walls, their smooth curves; the soft blue lights that glow in the grooves that run through them. The organic design that informs everything from the counters to the desks to the doors to the layout of the facility. The vast rooms and their soaring ceilings, many of them with expansive skylights, so you can look up and never be separated from the sky.

And even though much of it is ruined, it still feels like home.

My boots echo over the white floor as I step over a fallen chunk of ceiling. It’d become apparent, when we arrived, that the outpost had been attacked long ago. There were damaged security drones scattered across the front part of the campus, many of them grown over by the grass, and the static screen that had formed the outpost’s perimeter was busted. In the years since the attack, nature had encroached on the outpost’s main building bit by bit, until there were trees springing up mere feet from the walls.

“I’m not picking up any active systems in here either.” Legaci says as she hovers through the front doors along with the others. “There’s nothing for me to interact with, at least not wirelessly. Considering the static fence is down and the drones were unresponsive, the outpost’s power supply has either run out, been idled, or was damaged or destroyed.”

“Willing to bet on the latter, considering what we’re seeing here.” Dussel says, the footsteps of his power armor thudding through the lobby as he comes to a stop beside an old and broken drop pod, then looks up at the hole it punched through the ceiling. “Looks like they put up a fight before it went down. Whoever attacked this place, they wouldn’t have bothered using drop pods unless they were having trouble getting past the ground perimeter.”

“You say that like you don’t know who attacked this place.” Valkyrie says drily. “We’re all well aware this is CURSE’s handiwork.”

“Well, whoever it was, let’s hope they left us with something to work with.” Sierra says, her heeled boots clicking against the floor as she strides through the lobby towards the front desk. “Let’s clear all the facility’s rooms to make sure we don’t have anything dangerous wandering around. Nobody goes alone; we’ll all pair off. Jackrabbit, you’re with Valkyrie; Forecast, you’re with Kiwi; Ridge, you’re with Feroce and Legaci; and Commander, you’re with me. Legaci, do you have a floor plan we can work with here?”

“The backup archive contained a simple outpost blueprint; I don’t know if it’s up to date.” Legaci replies as she and Ridge moves to join me. “The main outpost building is largely symmetrical and folds around an enclosed terrarium in the middle, with four main quadrants. Residential housing was kept separate from the main building; those are the large buildings you saw on either side of the outpost. Towards the back of the campus, there were two additional research buildings. If we split into the four groups you recommended, each one can check a quadrant in the main building, while the merc teams that deployed with us can check the residential and research buildings.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Sierra says. “Commander, you mind telling the cannon fodder to get to it?”

“I thought I was the one that gave the orders around here, not you, Lieutenant.” Dussel remarks even as he’s queueing up a channel on his suit’s comms. “Deans, Avery, come in. I’ve got new orders for your squads…”

“We’ll take one of the quadrants on this side.” Kiwi says, starting towards the wide hallway that leads off from the left side of the lobby. Forecast follows in short order, without a word.

“We’ll take the quadrant they don’t get on that side!” Jackrabbit says cheerily, bouncing on her toes and running ahead of Kiwi and Forecast. “C’mon, Val! It’s been ages since I got to wander around a Challenger facility. Feels like coming home, it does.”

“That leaves us with the quadrants on this side.” Sierra says. “Feroce, why don’t you take those two and investigate the furthest one. Dussel and I will clear the rooms in the near quadrant on this side.”

“On it.” I say, starting towards the hall on the right. “C’mon, Ridge, Legaci. I’ll take point, you two can follow up and watch the rear.”

“So this used to be a Challenger base?” Ridge says, hurrying to keep up with me.

“An outpost, yes.” I say, keeping a brisk pace as I set my sights on the distant bend in the hall that leads around to the next quadrant. “As far as I’m aware, low-clearance projects and experiments were undertaken here. Mostly studying exotic forms of life, and applying what was learned to create new technologies, and improve existing ones.”

“Being as this outpost’s location was listed in the second layer of the archive, it is unlikely that any sensitive or high-clearance projects were in progress here.” Legaci answers as well. “And considering that the outpost appears to have been quite thoroughly breached, I doubt we will find any experimental or Challenger tech here. I anticipate that anything of obvious material value will have been stolen by CURSE and hoarded away in one of their clandestine warehouses.”

“Then why are we here?” Ridge asks, looking to the left. The hall borders the massive terrarium that makes up the center of the outpost, and the entire left wall is nothing but glass, allowing an unobstructed view of the terrarium itself. At one time, it may have had some semblance of organization, but left untended for over a decade, much of the foliage within has grown out of control.

“We’re hoping that CURSE missed the outpost’s blackbox during their raid.” Legaci explains. “The blackbox will contain a complete backup of the outpost’s servers during the last completed data sync. If it’s intact, we can access it to find out what happened here, and also see if it contains information on where the Masklings’ arkship is. There may also be data on the last server backup that may be beneficial to us.” She gives him a look. “You were in the intelligence center when we went over all of this. Did you forget everything that was discussed?”

“That, or he was too busy staring at his phone.” I say, reaching out to run my hand along the glass wall that separates this hall from the terrarium. “Legaci, do you think we would be able to check the outpost’s power supply? Possibly repair it?”

“Why, you think this place is a fixer-upper?” she replies drily. “I know where the core room is, but whether or not we’ll be able to restore it is another question entirely. Unlike a traditional dark space outpost, this one was designed to run off a mix of solar power and an undisclosed alternative power source. That power source may have been one of the experiments the outpost was running, and if it’s been idled, we may not be able to get it running again unless we can find an engineer that actually knows how it worked.”

“Suppose that does complicate things a little.” I say as we round the bend to the quadrant of the outpost that we’re supposed to check. “I was just thinking that if we could fix up this place a little, it could make a good safehouse or a base or something along those lines. A place to house our people once we get this… project going.”

“You mean the whole thing where the Lieutenant wants to basically rebuild the Challenger program, but call it something else just to pretend it’s not the Challenger program?” Legaci says, rolling her holographic eyes. “Yeah, let me know how that works out for you.”

“It’s not going to be the Challenger program resurrected. It’s going to be something different.” I insist as I start walking along the right side of the hall, tapping every access pad I come across to see if the doors beside them will open. None of them do, which is just further confirmation that the facility doesn’t have any power.

“ ‘It’s going to be different’, he says, as he roots around in old Challenger outposts, accesses a Challenger archive, recruits former Challengers, and plans to find and take control of the Challenger Bastions.” Legaci’s voice is just dripping with sarcasm. “Face it, Songbird. You’re basically just restarting the Challenger program.”

“We’re not.” I retort. “The Challenger program is dead. We’re building something out of the ashes that might have some of the same ideas and the principles, but is leaving behind the bad parts it developed in its last years. We’re not going to repeat the mistakes that the last Administrator of the Challenger program made.”

“And what exactly are you gonna do?” Legaci says. “Try to make a difference in the galaxy? That’s what the Challengers claimed when they were creating more problems than they were fixing. That’s what CURSE said they were going to do when they brought down the Challenger program. Now we’re fifteen years down the line, and look where it’s gotten us. You got xenophobes and racists running the Colloquium and rubbing elbows with authoritarians. The Collective keeps spreading like they’ve done for centuries. The rich are getting richer off the backs of people that deserve better than what they’re being paid. People keep starting wars and regional conflicts over the stupidest shit. And you think starting up a new group of renegades and vigilantes is going to fix things?”

“Maybe it won’t.” I say, turning a corner into a hall that splits off from main one, bisecting the quadrant we’re in. “Maybe it’ll just make things worse. It’s hard to know until we give it a try. But one thing I’m not going to do is stand by and watch it all burn. People still look up to the Challengers for a reason; it’s because they made a difference. They did good things that mattered. I think we can get there again. It’s not gonna be easy, but nothing worth having ever is.”

“Why are you so sour?” Ridge asks suddenly, and I can tell he’s directing the question at Legaci even though I can’t see him. “All you do is point out how bad things are.”

“Somebody’s gotta be the realist.” Legaci answers without hesitation. “You can’t just ignore these things or pretend they’re not problems. Honestly, you could say that’s actually one of the problems that that Challenger program had. They were so fixated on seeing the good in things that they didn’t acknowledge that some things and some people aren’t worth saving, and it meant that they ignored certain problems.”

“I’ll be the first to admit that was a problem.” I say, my fingers grazing along the wall as I pass door after door, none of them responding to my touch. “I might not have been able to do anything about it, because I wasn’t a senior Challenger, and I didn’t really fully grasp how much it was an issue except in retrospect. But that’s just another mistake that I’ve learned from. You can acknowledge the bad things in the galaxy — just don’t let it overshadow the fact that there are still good things worth fighting for. That’s a problem that you have that you should work on, Legaci.”

“That’s pretty rich, coming from the guy that killed Nova.” Legaci mutters.

I stop dead in the hall. My mind goes in a lot of directions, and none of them can quite agree on how to respond to that. There is anger and spite, rising up and pressing against my better instincts, pushing me to ask where she was when her father died. To give as good as I got in the battle of cruel things said.

But I fight it down, because that’s not the person I want to be.

Reaching into my longcoat, I unholster my stunner and turn it on. “Ridge, escort Legaci to the room where the blackbox is stored and help her find and extract it, if it’s still there.” I say, turning and holding out the stunner to him. “I can finish clearing this quadrant on my own.”

There’s a finality to it that makes it clear it is not up for discussion. The moment Ridge takes the stunner, I turn and tuck my hands in the pockets of my longcoat, continuing down the hall. Eventually, Ridge’s footsteps and the hum of Legaci’s holoprojector drone start moving in the opposite direction. It’s only when I can no longer hear them that I reach back into my longcoat, pulling out my pocket flask and unscrewing the lid.

Sometimes a little fizzwater goes a long way in calming a troubled soul.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Kittebar: Valiant Outpost: Backbend Break Area

11:56am SGT

“Hey, liddle chirper, why the long face?”

I look up in time to see Jackrabbit throwing herself sideways onto the marble ledge I’m sitting on, sliding along on her bum until she bumps up against me. I can’t help but smile at her irrepressible effervescence, straightening up as she scoots back to the side a few inches to give me some room. “Ah, nothin’. Just… nostalgia, I guess. There’s a lot of old bones here, a lot of old knots that tie us to the past. All the familiar places, y’know.”

I rest my forearms on my knees, lacing my fingers together as we both look around where we’re sitting. It’s an open break area that occupies the back bend of the single hall that encircles the terrarium; to either side are counters and cabinets, while in front of us are tables and chairs gathering dust. We’re currently sitting on the ledge of a dry pool that used to be fed by a decorative waterfall tucked between both counters, and across the way from the break area, you can see into the terrarium through the glass wall. I can remember spending time here when I was assigned to this outpost; sitting at one of those tables and watching some of the wildlife in the terrarium while scientists came and went, walking through the hall or stopping in for their breaks.

“Yeah, lots of memories in places like these.” Jackrabbit agrees, reaching up to tuck her red scarf back over her shoulder. “I don’t remember ever being assigned to this outpost, but it’s all familiar. You can see it in the walls, in the doors, the light grooves, everything. It’s a Challenger outpost, through and through.”

I nod to that, but don’t say anything. For a moment I just soak in the silence, the distant echos of the others working their way through the outpost, forcing open doors or checking out damage to the outpost. We’d finished clearing the quadrants and the outlying buildings an hour ago; Ridge and Legaci had found the blackbox smashed to pieces, but some of the units in the server room were intact, and now Legaci was working on powering them on to see if she could get into them and recover some of the outpost’s data. Dussel, Sierra, and Valkyrie were currently checking out the core room and trying to figure out what kind of reactor was being used to power the outpost. Kiwi and Forecast, in the meantime, were now searching the facility room by room with the help of the merc teams that we’d brought down with us, looking for the Maskling relics that were supposedly held at this facility.

“Hey Jack?” I say after a bit. “I know it’s been a while, but… were the Challengers as bad as CURSE said they were fifteen years ago? I know we had some problems, but I thought we could’ve fixed them.”

Jackrabbit glances at me, then shrugs. “The truth’s somewhere between what CURSE says and what the Challengers say. I’ll be honest with you, in those last years, there were a lot of mistakes made. A lot of it was because of the Admin. Nobody ever talks about it, but one of the reasons some Challengers left the program wasn’t because they agreed with CURSE. It’s because they believed the Admin lost sight of what our purpose and culture was.” She runs a hand through her short brown hair, which has started to grow out a little. “The reason I bring the Administrator up is because we did have problems. But the Admin and the senior Challengers disagreed on what those problems were, and he ignored the advice we gave him. We had solutions; we had plans for fixing things, but he ignored us. His idea of fixing things was for us to become more like other organizations, to change our culture to yield to what everyone else said we should be, to what CURSE said we weren’t. And that’s what drove a lot of Challengers away.”

“I never knew that was the problem.” I say, absorbing that. Even fifteen years after the fact, I’m still finding out more about why the program was shuttered.

“It was… one of the problems. There were many problems.” Jackrabbit says, placing her hands on the ledge and leaning back against them. “When an organization as big and powerful as the Challengers falls, it’s usually not a single problem that does them in. It’s a group of problems, some of them big but most of them small, that finally tips the scales. Like adding drops of water to a glass until it finally spills over.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” I agree. “But you think we could’ve fixed things?”

“Yeah.” she says distantly, nodding as she stares off into the terrarium. “I think we could’ve, if they’d given us the chance.”

I nod along with that. “Alright. I just wanted to check. I always believed we were doing the right thing, but after fifteen years of being told how flawed the Challengers were… it kinda weighs on you, makes you start doubting things.”

She shrugs again. “Like I said, we made our mistakes. We had our flaws. We weren’t perfect. But we did a lot of good. CURSE has tried to erase that with their propaganda, and they managed to fool a lot of people. But there’s still a lot of people that remember the truth, remember what we stood for. It’s why people still idolize the Challengers, even fifteen years later.” She looks at me, smiling her unstoppable smile again. “And that’s why we’re here right now, doing this. The things we believed in were worth fighting for, and now we’ve got a chance to fix the mistakes we made in the Challenger program. By doing this — starting a new group that can do what the Challengers did, but do it even better.”

I can’t help but return her smile, and remember why I looked up to Jackrabbit, and why I liked hanging out with her. She’s got a pure, sincere goodness about her, an iron hope in a new day and a better future. She’s one of those people that makes everyone else around her stronger, and that’s the sort of person I always wanted to be.

“Well, once Legaci cracks the encryption on the third layer of the archive, maybe we’ll get our hands on the access codes for the Bastions.” I say, bouncing the heels of my boots against the ledge we’re sitting on. “Things will get easier once we have access to Challenger resources and tech again. After that, we’ll just need people. Good people, not the powerhungry crap we were raking in before the program shuttered.”

“We’ll need a new name too!” Jackrabbit says, rocking a bit where she’s sitting. “I liked Challenger, but Sierra’s right, the word’s got a bit too much baggage with it now. If we call ourselves Challengers again, everyone’s going to associate us with the failures of the program and all the bitterness that came with the war with CURSE. We need a new name.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that for the last few months, but I haven’t come up with anything good.” I say, looking around. “There’s just so much that you get out of being called a Challenger; it has so much meaning. It’s hard to go from that to a new word.”

“Well, yeah. Of course it’s going to be a downgrade.” Jackrabbit says. “The Challenger name has a century’s worth of reputation tied to it. It’s got all these emotional connections and ties that have been earned. When you switch to a new name, you’ve got to earn that reputation, those emotional associations, all over again. It’s like starting from scratch. But that’s not a bad thing, ya know? It’s a fresh slate, a new start. Wipe away all the mistakes of the past and start building something new.”

I straighten up a little. “I hadn’t really thought about it that way, but that’s a good point. It’s a fresh start.” Looking around, I notice the name of the outpost embossed along the back wall behind us. “What if we call ourselves the Valiant?”

Jackrabbit follows my gaze. “I dunno. Like, what’s the multiple of valiant? Just more valiant? It’s easy to tell whether there’s a single Challenger or multiple, but it’s kinda hard to tell if there’s multiple Valiant.”

I throw a shrug at that. “It was mostly just a joke. I’m out of ideas after three months of thinking about it, so at this point I’m just stealing words off the wall and throwing them at the desk to see what sticks.”

“I mean maybe?” Jackrabbit says, rocking from side to side as if she was rolling the word back and forth in her head. “Sometimes a name can grow on you. Valiant. Mmm. It’s a good word; it means brave, right? Someone that persists and faces up to the odds and shows courage, or something like that. It’s kind of an old-fashioned word, feels like.”

“Yeah, I think that’s the definition.” I say. “Brave. Courageous. But like… something more? Valiant describes more than that, I feel like. It means something that’s similar to those things, but unique.”

“Y’know, I think I could get behind it.” Jackrabbit says. “Valiant. The Valiant are coming! The Valiant are here! It feels like a strong word. And you can build on top of it, give it more meaning by the reputation you create by your actions. It can come to carry meaning of its own, if you work at it.” She nods, then looks to me. “I like it. It’s got my vote. I think we need to be the Valiant.”

“You want to be the one to tell Sierra?” I ask.

“We should both tell her!” Jackrabbit says, popping to her feet and holding out a hand to help me up. “We should call ourselves the Valiant Project when we’re referring to what we’re doing and working on. But as soon as we get ourselves a Bastion, and we get a proper organization going, we can call ourselves the Valiant! The galaxy’s newest heroes!”

“Think CURSE might take issue with that.” I say as I take her hand and get to my feet.

“CURSE can take a hike and go pound sand if they don’t like it.” Jackrabbit scoffs. “They’re just jealous they’ll never be as good as the Challengers were. Ya know it took three of their Peacekeepers just to beat me back on Chibundi? Heck, if the girl with the giant wolf summon hadn’t caught me by surprise, I probably would’ve won that one.” She pauses to check her watch. “Looks like Valkyrie wants me to come kick the tires on that weird power source they’ve got down in the core room. I better get going.”

“Don’t have too much fun down there!” I call as she starts off with a spring in her step. After a few seconds spent watching her go, I turn my attention back the chairs and tables of the break area, and the dusty counters that haven’t been touched in decades.

This place might make a pretty nice safehouse, if we can get it fixed up, cleaned up, and running again.

Event Log: Feroce Acceso

Kittebar: Valiant Outpost: Front Lobby

3:52pm SGT

“That should be the last of the Maskling relics.” Legaci says as Ridge follows the rest of the mercs out the front doors with a small storage crate in hand. “I don’t think any of that stuff had any real utility. Just a bunch of old statues, jewelry, and Maskling art from ages ago.”

“No skin off our backs, then.” I remark. “If we couldn’t use it, and it puts the Masklings in a good mood by giving it back, then I’d say everybody wins in this situation.” I look back to her at this point. “I heard the blackbox didn’t survive the outpost’s fall. Were you able to extract anything from the remaining servers?”

“Not sure yet. We’re gonna need to get some equipment planetside before I can really start digging into it.” Legaci says, her lips drawing into a line. “I may have to emulate and rewrite certain parts of the mainframe so we actually have an interface through which to access the surviving information. I suspect that what we’ll have is fragmented; large chunks of the outpost’s data are likely missing due to the damage to the server room. I just hope that there’s something useful in whatever’s left over.”

“Well, keep an eye out for any mentions of the Masklings’ arkship. They’re real interested in that.” I say, glancing out the window. The sun’s starting to close on the horizon, and everyone’s been packing up to get back on the troop transport. “Any word yet on whether we’ll be able to get power running here again?”

“The solar array can be repaired, it just needs the patch work done.” Legaci says, kicking a holographic foot through a broken security drone on the floor. “That should be enough to get the lights and air conditioning running, and provide power to any surviving computer systems. The outpost’s shields and automated defenses have higher power requirements, though. Until they get that alternative power source running again, all the security will have to be provided by people.”

“I’m guessing nobody could make heads or tails of it?”

“You seriously think Jackrabbit, Sierra, or Valkyrie have the brains to figure out an experimental power source and get it running again?” Legaci says, giving me a flat look. “They couldn’t figure it out, and the Commander didn’t want them accidentally blowing up the outpost while we were all still in it. He told them to leave it alone for now, and asked me to see if I could find anything about it in the servers when I go to recover the data.”

I puff out a breath. “Wish we had your dad here. He probably could’ve figured it out in a snap.”

“You kiddin’ me? He probably built the damn thing, knowing him.” Legaci says, shaking her head. “If I can’t find anything about it in the servers, I’ll see about taking a look at it later and see if I can figure it out.”

“Sounds good. I expect it’ll take some time to sort through everything here and get this place up and running, anyhow.” I say, glancing at the drop pod just sitting in the front lobby at an angle. “A lush world like this, though… it’s the sort of thing that any nation would like to get their hands on. Perfect climate, near-standard gravity, could very easily support life without requiring any substantiative terraforming, yet the outpost is the only development I noticed on the planet’s surface. Are we the only people that know this world exists?”

“It’s a dark space planet.” Legaci says, shrugging as she walks over to the drop pod to peer into it. “To most of the galaxy, it simply hasn’t been discovered yet. From what I understand, the Challengers made a habit of venturing into dark space and setting up outposts on undiscovered planets so they could keep their operations clandestine.” Stepping back, she sizes up the crater that the drop pod is sitting in. “So yeah, we’re the only people that know about this world. Us and whoever attacked this place. And judging by the fact that none of the major nations have started building here, I assume that whoever attacked this place didn’t bother telling other people it was here after they got done.”

“I’m guessing we can’t plant a flag here and call it ours.” I say, tucking my hands in the pockets of my longcoat.

“Nah, the Colloquium’s got laws against that. Nations usually have dibs on habitable worlds; there’s an entire negotiation and bid process where each interested nation makes a case for why a new world ought to belong to them, with the discovering nation usually having dibs unless they want to sell it away to another interested nation.” Legaci explains as she steps away from the drop pod. “Though granted, those laws have been loosening so that gigacorporations can make more land grabs and acquire planets after the fact. If some other nation stumbles across this planet, they’d have a right to claim it, and we would have to start paying taxes for being here. Unless, like… we applied to establish ourselves as an official, if tiny, nation.”

“There is precedent for doing that, though.” I point out. “That’s sovereign body status, right? It’s what the Challenger program had, and I think that’s currently how CURSE and the Vaunted are classified.”

“Yes, for exceptional organizations — they can apply for that status and gain most of the same rights and leverage that your standard nation or governing body would have.” Legaci says, turning and heading for the door. “But we’re a long way from that. You have to be able to exert a massive amount of cultural clout, and convince the Colloquium that your organization is somehow vital to the galaxy at large. For now, it’s in our best interests to keep this under wraps, and hope that nobody stumbles across this world and tries to claim it.” She waves a hand. “Anyhow, I ought to get back to the troop transport. Once we get back to the Bulwark, I’m going to need to make sure that we have the equipment we’ll need when we come back down here tomorrow.”

I nod. “I’ll be along shortly, I just…” I look around the lobby once more. Even though it was ruined, it felt like a beautiful ruin. An elegant cessation to the forces of change, dignified even in disrepair. “…I just need a little more time.”

Legaci nods in response and starts to leave, then pauses. “Songbird?”

“Yeah?” I say, looking back at her.

“I took it a little too far earlier, bringing up Nova.” she says without looking directly at me. “Sorry about that. I know it’s a touchy subject for you.”

That surprises me. Legaci didn’t strike me as the penitent sort, but maybe she realized there were lines that she shouldn’t cross. “It’s fine.” I say after a moment. “We all make mistakes.”

“Thanks.” she says, starting towards the doors once more. “Don’t take too long. I think most of the others have already returned to the troop transport.”

With that, she’s out the door, leaving me alone in the lobby once more. After some time spent soaking in the feeling of the room, I idle my way over to the front desk. On the way there, I step over the orange panels of light on the floor, a result of late-afternoon sun leaking through the windows. Dusty motes swirl through those clementine shafts of light, disturbed by my passage, and left twisting in the air long after I’ve stopped moving.

On reaching the front desk, I run my fingers through the dust on the counter, studying the dark screens on the other side. They face towards the receptionist’s chair, left empty; I can see a water bottle still on the desk, unmoved after more than a decade. There’s a little fidget cube off to the side of one of the screens, and a crossword book strategically stacked atop a phone, likely to hide it from superiors making their rounds.

For a moment, I consider walking around the counter and sitting down in the receptionist’s chair. Just to see what things would’ve been like from that perspective, to see people to come in those doors, to see things from the angle that they must’ve seen it from everyday. What it must’ve been like to be sitting there when that drop pod came through the roof, spitting out soldiers. But after a moment, I decide against it, pushing away from the counter. Backpedaling to the middle of the lobby, I turn in a slow circle, taking it all in with a long, deep breath, and slowly letting it out.

I’d had a hard time nailing down the feeling that I was having, but I think I understood it now. It wasn’t quite loneliness, but it was something close to it. A feeling you get when you realized the group you used to be part of had dwindled, withered, crumbled over time, and it wasn’t what it once was. It was the feeling you get when you realize a lot of people that you used to know are dead or gone, and it’s just you and a few others that are left. It wasn’t quite loneliness, because you weren’t alone just yet, but you had a keen awareness that you were endangered. The last remnants of something that was once fantastic and powerful, and you were one of the last few people holding up that legacy, tasked with carrying the memories of the great men and women that came before you.

This must be what it’s feels like to be a survivor.

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Blueberry.”

My nostalgia is interrupted by a familiar voice, and I turn to see Kiwi stepping out of the right hall. She’s got her hands tucked in the pockets of her white longcoat, so I turn and mirror the posture. This is the first time she’s really bothered to speak to me ever since I put Cahriu in the infirmary, and if I had a pulse, it might be quickening. Instead, I just feel my chest tightening with faint anxiety.

“Lemme guess, it’s about Cahriu?” I say, hoping to cut straight to the point.

“There a reason you wrecked one of my handlers six ways to Sunday?” she demands, stopping short of me. Those wildfire eyes are drilling into me, demanding an answer.

I shrug. “He was running his mouth, and I had a lapse of judgement. It won’t happen again.” Even with all that Sierra and Forecast had said to me, it still felt like I took it a little further than I should’ve. I’d had a lapse and let the monster inside get the better of me, and I didn’t like that I’d let it happen.

“That’s it?” she says. “You had a lapse? That’s your excuse?”

“It’s not an excuse.” I reply evenly. “It’s an explanation. I made a mistake, had a failure of integrity, and I don’t plan on repeating it.”

I can see see frustration in her scarlet eyes, as if she’s not getting what she wants out of me. It’s like she expected me to put up more resistance than this, instead of admitting that I was at fault. The thing is, I don’t know what it is she wants out of me, and from what I’ve seen so far, she doesn’t feel like saying it outright.

“Was there anything else you needed?” I ask after a moment of tense silence.

She leans forward, eyes still fixed on me. “Tell me why you really did it, Songbird.”

I fight the urge to take a step back. “Did what?”

“Don’t play dumb.” she says. “You know what I’m asking.”

I glare at her. “Don’t play with me, Kiwi.”

“Then stop dodging the question and answer it.” she says, taking another step forward and destroying the gap between us. “Or are you ashamed of admitting it?”

She’s close enough now that I can smell her breath, see the faint freckles speckled underneath her eyes, the fiery gradient of her irises. I can feel the corner of my mouth twitch, fighting the temptation to bare my fangs like a wild animal to get her to back off.

Or a warning that if she got close enough, I would bite.

“What is it you want to hear?” I demand softly, managing to keep my fangs sheathed behind my lips. “That I fought Cahriu over you? You wanna feed your ego a little more? Fine then. Yeah, I took him to task for sleeping with you. It was stupid and I shouldn’t have done it. There’s your apology. Happy now?”

“Now we’re getting a little closer.” she murmurs, her eyes flicking down. She noticed the way my mouth was twitching, on the verge of baring my teeth at her. “Tell me why you did it, Songbird.”

It’s only at that point that I realize what she’s looking for. She’s searching for that admission that I want her, and that my want is strong enough for me to come off my moral high ground and take apart the competition when it makes a bid to steal what I want. And it’s only a guess, because I’ve never played these games before, but her little fling with Cahriu was intended to reel me back in.

I don’t know how to handle that epiphany, but two things are clear: she’s far more experienced at this at me. And she’s also trying to manipulate me.

I may not be good at manipulation, but I know how to hit people where it hurts.

“Does he know?” I ask quietly. “That you’re going to be the death of him. Or are you going to let him find out the hard way, just like you did with me?”

She freezes, then pulls back a little. “It wouldn’t have killed you.”

“Cahriu thought otherwise.” I reply coolly.

“Cahriu’s an idiot that thinks he knows everything about something he’s never experienced before.” Kiwi says, her expression darkening. “He’s going to find out how rough I am on my partners the first time he has to fight a pitched battle by my side. And he’s going to fold, just like all the others have.”

“Just like you would’ve done to me.” I say, taking a step away.

“I thought you weren’t scared of dying.” she says coldly. “Evidently you lied.”

“I didn’t lie.” I growl at her. “But I don’t like being used, and if I’m going to die, it’s going to be for a good reason. I’ll die to protect other people. I won’t die to be somebody else’s battery.”

“There’s the good boy again.” she says, the disgust dripping from her tone. “Thinking you’re better than the rest of us, all high and mighty up on your pedestal. You say you’d die to protect other people, but you’re just going to stand by and watch me burn through my handlers one by one, aren’t you?” She snorts, hitching a hand on her hip. “Typical Challenger hypocrisy.”

I narrow my eyes at her. There’s a lot of easy responses to that, but they’re all surface-level retorts, and there’s something going on beneath the surface here. I don’t quite know what it is, but I’ve got an instinct that tells me this isn’t really about me, or her handlers.

“You’re trying to manipulate me into thinking that I need to save the people you end up burning through.” I say, turning towards the doors. “But what I’m starting to think is that you want someone to save you from what you do to other people.”

The way her shoulders tense up gives me confirmation that I’ve scored a hit, and I’m not going to give her time to recover and swing back at me. So I turn and leave, striding through the front doors and down the stairs, leaving her to reflect on that. I tuck my hands in my pockets as I go, squeezing my eyes shut and shaking my head. But try as I might, I can’t shake off the fact that she’s right.

Even if she might kill me, I do want her.