Report: Quinn
Just off the coast of Nova Scotia.
Canada.
Alliance home base.
Designation: "The Firmament"
We'd returned to the Firmament in near-complete silence, unable to talk about what had happened.
The final tally, as I'd last heard, was fifteen pilots shot down in cold blood. Fifteen men and women who had just wanted the war to end. That meant around seventy-five mechs didn't have pilots.
We'd also abandoned seventeen mechs during our retreat, meaning Axion would soon be able to reproduce our Barricades and Predators.
To add insult to injury, I still wasn't sure what Project Terminus was. Killswitch had been a powerful weapon and I was sure we hadn't seen the last of it, but something told me that Terminus was something entirely different.
The debrief had been short, with Commander Telbus doing most of the talking. Martin had commended the surviving pilots, myself included, for undaunting courage in the face of death. There was talk of medals. Nobody wanted them. Nobody felt like a hero.
Afterwards, I gave Mallet what information I had about the blueprints and what Fisk had told me.
I'd skipped eating supper and retired to my bunk for the night. There I lay, staring at the bottom of the empty bunk above me. It would likely remain empty for some time now.
Guilt roiled in my gut and I fought against it. I knew better than to blame myself for Taewi's death, but the feeling gnawed at the hollow in my stomach, making me wish I had somehow done more.
The gold coin sat on the edge of my bunk, untouched. I didn't want to look at it.
I hadn't liked Taewi much. He had been a rash and messy ally who often talked a bigger game than he could actually play. Yet he had been a part of my life, of my family, flaws and all.
Suddenly, the door slid open, interrupting my thoughts.
Dan and Lucas wandered in, followed by Martin, Alyx and Kedrick. Nobody spoke as they filed into the small, windowless bunkroom, taking their seats on the bunks belonging to myself, Lucas and Dan.
Nobody touched Taewi's bed.
For the longest time, we sat in solemn silence together.
After a moment, Lucas gave a quiet cough, running his hand through his blonde hair. He sat closest to me, at the edge of my bunk.
"It's funny," he breathed, "I still half expect to see Taewi's head dangling off the top bunk."
There was a round of quiet chuckles, then more silence.
A moment later, Martin cleared his throat. His right arm still hung limp at his side, synthetic skin shredded.
"I would never have told him, but I thought his military jargon was a good idea," he smiled. "Oscar kilo, and all that."
Another round of chuckles.
"To be honest, he knew more about most mechs than I did," Dan contributed.
"He wasn't afraid to show off," Alyx supplied, "nor would he stop showing off if you asked him."
More laughter. Despite myself, I grinned.
"He was a damn good pilot," Kedrick stated.
"And a damn fine friend," I finished.
We sat in silence once more, and the gnawing feeling in my gut lessened.
About a minute later, Lucas leaned towards me.
"Jackson," he began, "I heard you talking to Draco over the comms."
He pointed at the coin, which still sat near the head of my cot. My coin, still stained red with the blood of my enemy.
"Why is that so important to you?"
I sighed. It has been a while since I'd thought about it. I reached over and picked up the coin, holding it above me. I rubbed the metal circle across my shirt, attempting to clean it off, to no avail.
"After my mother died," I began, "my father turned to gambling. She was always the breadwinner of the house, so even with life insurance we were bound to go into debt eventually."
I could see the others' concerned faces staring back at me. I only saw sincerity, so I continued.
"My father thought that just one lucky spin or roll would turn our fortunes around," I continued. "He thought that every time he went out, but he never won. Not a cent."
The coin in my hand felt heavier than it ever had, the weight of my story adding pounds. I tossed the dollar into the air and caught it again, feeling the weight leave my palm for a moment.
"This dollar is the one he wouldn't spend," I sighed. "He held it up to the machine and finally decided he wasn't going to let his addiction destroy him any more than it had. He took it home and saved it instead."
I chuckled a little, remembering the happier times that had followed that decision.
"He got a job with Axion, moved up in the world, all for me. He wanted to pay my tuition to university himself, saying the least he could do was keep someone else out of debt."
I looked down at the dollar, the markings on its surface worn clean from years of contact.
"He never spent that first dollar he saved," I smiled. "He told me it was a reminder of the moment his luck truly changed for the better."
I swallowed. Talking about this was hard, harder than it should've been.
"Then he left for the start of the Iron War, wanting to contribute to something greater than himself. He worked for Axion without question because he thought they were righteous. He didn't know they were as addicted to money as he had once been."
I frowned, my happy memories clouded with anger at Axion. They had taken my father and my friend. There would be one hell of a reckoning someday soon.
"He left me the dollar," I continued. "He told me he didn't need luck anymore, but I would need all the luck I could get. Now it's all of him I have left."
"Sometimes the smallest gifts have the greatest meaning," Kedrick replied.
I looked up at my friends. They were here for me, all of them. Each was just as sad as I was, but we had each other for comfort. My father's coin felt light in my hand once again, the weight lifted with their help. I pocketed it once again.
That was when the long, slow howl of an alarm filled the tiny room.
I sat up quickly, rocking the bunk and startling Lucas.
"The hell?" Martin snapped.
We filed out of the room quickly, stepping out into the Firmament's central platform.
The living space was a vast platform filled with blocks of cube-shaped living quarters. The platforms housing living quarters occupied the top four levels of the Firmament. Like the mezzanine a few levels below, each platform was built with a central hole to allow light from the Firmament's glass dome down into the other levels.
I was lucky to have been bunked on the top floor—the entire ceiling above me was made of reinforced glass, allowing a perfect view of the night sky above.
Around us, other pilots filed out of the quarters that lined the circular platform, looking dazed and confused. The alarm continued to blare, a klaxon that echoed painfully through the entire length of the Firmament.
"Are they calling another meeting?" Alyx groaned. "At this hour?"
"Not that I know of," Martin replied. "Mallet usually tells me these things."
Martin lifted his right shoulder for a moment before remembering the status of his prosthetic arm, then scratched his chin with his left instead.
Pilots milled around the common area of the platform, chatting in subdued voices. It was only a few moments later that Lucas let out a quiet gasp.
"What the hell..."
I turned to see what had caught his attention and was greeted with the sight of a news report playing on a mounted flatscreen. Usually reserved for broadcasting schedules, several of the televisions placed around the common area now displayed a popular Canadian news channel.
On-screen, a grim-faced host was speaking quickly into the camera.
"...large celestial object has broken off from the moon. Reports are unconfirmed, but sources say the object is exhibiting a strong nuclear signal and is believed to have caused the seismic activity reported in the days prior. The object is now on course for our planet at an angle that will place it in close orbit."
"It's entering a stable orbit?" Lucas inquired. "The odds of that are astronomical."
"You've got to be kidding me," Dan breathed. I hadn't even noticed the crowd that had gathered around the flatscreen. "There's no way that's..."
"Axion," Alyx finished.
It sounded insane, it really did. But the recording of my father stuck with me.
"They might as well be building it on another planet..." I breathed.
"We need to speak to Mallet," Martin commanded, "now."
Pushing through the crowd of disoriented pilots, Martin ran towards the lift at the far end of the room, the rest of us in tow. He swiped his card on the reader to summon the lift and we waited a few agonizing seconds that felt like years.
The ride down to the command center was just as mercilessly long and stressful. I had no doubt that it was longer than any other.
When the doors slid open we were greeted with a nearly empty bridge. Moonlight glimmered over the control panels and the few tired technicians barely gave us a glance. Only one turned to greet us, a tired-looking Grayson.
"Commander Telbus?" he inquired, "what's going on?"
"We don't have time to explain why we don't have time to explain!" Lucas replied.
Poor Grayson simply looked even more confused than before.
Despite having the clearance to open higher-level doors, Martin made a point of knocking on the frame of Mallet's office.
A seed of doubt planted itself in my mind. Would Mallet even be in her office at this hour, or was she asleep in her private quarters? Had we come all this way for nothing?
Thankfully, the door slid open a second later, and the six of us rushed inside.
The room was mostly dark, save for the moon framed perfectly in the porthole window. It was not Mallet sitting at her desk, but rather Laura Lehman.
Laura didn't look surprised to see us.
"I expected you all eventually," she remarked, "but not all at once."
"Laura, what the hell is going on?" Martin inquired. "Did you trigger the alarm?"
"She did," Mallet replied. Our General stepped out of a darkened corner of the room, looking grim. "I asked her to." When nobody commented, she continued. "I know you probably have a million questions, but let me explain."
Surprisingly, Martin looked the most distressed out of us all. He stood just in front of me, taking deliberately slow breaths. I briefly wondered if he felt betrayed by Mallet, who almost always confided in him when strategizing.
"Ten minutes ago, I received a communication from Centrepoint," Mallet informed us.
"Centrepoint?" Kedrick interjected. "I thought they were used to communicate between you and Laura?"
Laura shook her head.
"Not always. Along with transmitting secure communications, Centrepoint has anonymously provided us with Axion intelligence for years. As far as I know, they've been doing this since the Alliance first formed—and their reports are always correct."
"What does this have to do with the moon?" Alyx probed. "Is that strange object Axion's doing?"
Mallet nodded to Laura, who turned the monitor on the desk around so that we could see its screen. Displayed on the interface was a concise white font.
The message took my breath away.
Axion has mobilized its final assault. Too early to say if you are their first target. Evacuate ASAP, you've never seen anything like this.
Killswitch is the weapon, Terminus is designed to wield it. With Terminus, Axion intends to finish the fight for good.
Look to the sky. They will come for you.
Hide.
—Centrepoint
Just below the message was a photo that I recognized instantly. Although lacking the wear and tear of its real-life counterpart, the photo displayed on-screen was unmistakably the same blueprint I had recovered from Stalnoy.
To call the vessel depicted on the paper a dropship was to call a machete a pocket knife. The ship was the size of a small city, a sleek, rounded vessel with an angular nose and bulbous engines. It was clearly designed to hold several hundred mechs—seven massive doors lined the underbelly of the ship, allowing access to what I only presumed were massive hangers.
However, unlike a dropship, my eyes were drawn to the large cannons attached to the sides of the vessel.
To my utter horror, I counted ten Killswitch cannons, each far larger than the prototype that had massacred our forces during the siege of Yamantau.