"All pods prepare to launch!" Came over the speaker of the little metal capsule that Brentili'ik had found herself in. "In three, two, one!"

Grav fields grabbed her, held her still, cushioned her as the pods ejected. She could tell she went up, for a second she was weightless, then she fell. She wasn't sure, but it took longer to go down that it did to come up. The grav field let her go and her hand went to the pistol on her belt.

I'm on the surface, she thought, shivering. She remembered the constant training that Harvey had put her through for over a week and palmed the switch, then punched in her override code.

The pod opened up and she looked around before stepping out, just like Harvey had said.

The jungle which had grown over the top of the facility was gone, scorched and burnt, even the buildings were knocked down. The stench of burnt plants and worse almost gagged her and she remembered to shut the face shield of her evac suit.

"HEAVY METAL INCOMING!" rang over her datalink. "STAY NEAR YOUR PODS, PEOPLE!"

She looked around and saw that some of the pods were falling on those hard-light parachutes. She counted ten, twenty, thirty. She stepped out, looking around, even as her thumb went to the button on her waist, pressing it.

The capsules started to angle toward her, toward the beacon on her belt.

"WAR HORSE IN THE SKY!" roared out and she looked up.

Air mobile assault suits were dropping down, their wings deployed, thrusters howling, wings of light spread to either side. They were already firing, their railguns hammering, missiles firing from the letterbox launchers on their upper arms, searchlights on their helmets scanning the darkness.

Her visor tagged the armor as 'air/space mobile assault suit - Novastar VII' and the unit as '11th ACR 6th Troop Warhorse' as she watched. Any escape pods that had drifted to the side too far they put one hand on and pulled toward her. Ones on the ground they picked up and carried toward her.

One suit landed in front of her, that off-fist into the ground, one knee into the ground, weapon held up pose she'd seen her husband do so many time.

Her visor tagged "Major Theresa "Havoc" Lammart" over the unit as the suit stood up.

"Madame Director," the suited figure said over her comlink. Brentili'ik was surprised at how musical the woman's voice was. "We've got Third Armor coming in hard and a shuttle on the way. Let's get your people organized."

Brentili'ik just nodded, almost overwhelmed by the activity around her.

"Some of your people are panicking, we're gotta start cracking pods," the human said.

Again, Brentili'ik just nodded.

The pod nearest her contained a broodcarrier and podlings. The broodcarrier screeched and ran on all fours to curl around Brentili'ik's feet. Two podlings were handed to her by armored hands that cradled the wide-eyed infants gently. The podlings grabbed onto her fur, staring at the activity around them with wide eyes. More podlings were deposited with the broodcarrier, who was purring at Brentili'ik's feet.

She was standing like that, the pistol held up, when the edge of the clearing exploded with a roar, making the broodcarrier's tighten up around podlings who pushed their heads up trying to get a look at what the loud noise was. Massive warsteel tanks pushed through the jungle, quickly moving around the edges of the burnt off area, until all four sides were ringed. They kept firing into the jungle as one moved up carefully to stop only twenty-meters from Brentili'ik.

She could see her husband standing on top of the tank, his rifle held up in one fist, a bright green mantid climbing up onto his helmet. She could tell it was him by the red splotch with concentric silver rings and an X-shaped slash before her face-shield could even identify him.

"Stand there. Let your people see you. Let your people see your spouse," the voice over the comlink was intense and carried the tag "TRUCKER - 3AD CO" on it. "Do your jobs. Do your duty."

There was a roaring noise and she looked up, staring at the massive shuttle that was slowly lowering down. Doors were opening to reveal lighter suits than the War Horse troops were wearing, their suits gray instead of black, and insignia on their chest. Her visor ID'd them as 37th Medical Company as they jumped down, unfolding grav-stretchers. She saw several hurrying toward a gold mantid that was bent down furiously working with a half dozen wounded Telkan around the mantid, wrapped in silver emergency blankets.

The humans were putting face masks on everyone and wrapping them in the silver blankets before putting them on stretchers.

"Madame Director," came from behind her and she turned and stared with shock.

Colonel Harvey stood there, his face serious, his uniform scorched and stained with fluids. She could see tears in the uniform but most of the tears didn't have injuries below them.

"I thought... I thought you were dead," Brentili'ik said.

Harvey just shrugged. "Practice paid off, Madame Director. We lost fifteen people but got them out. Another twenty will probably die in the next hour," that made Brentili'ik hug herself and Harvey put his hand on her shoulder.

One of the podlings snapped its teeth at him then ducked its head when he chuckled.

"The Walking Dead only last till the fight's over. They'll be SUDS, washed, and decanted in the next day or two," Harvey said.

"Madame Director, General Takilikakik's compliments, but he wants you to board the shuttle," the Major suddenly said.

"Tell her not until your people are on board," came the voice, rough and hoarsh, over her comlink. Again the retinal display showed '3AD-TRUCKER' on it.

"Not until all my people are on board," Brentlili'ik repeated. She looked over the entire area, knowing it looked like she was surveying the entire thing, but looking at her husband on top of the massive tank. She wanted to run to him, wanted him to take her away from this awful place, but her feet were nailed in place.

"Roger that, ma'am," the Major said, turning away.

"Good call," Harvey said quietly. Brentili'ik looked at him and saw his eyes were red, not the usual blue. She swallowed thickly and Harvey just nodded. "Lockouts lifted. I'm here to guard you now that the facility is clear."

"But you don't have a weapon," Brentili'ik said then looked at the tanks. "I think I'm protected."

Harvey tapped the pistol at his waist. "I've got all I need, Madame Director."

She shook her head and went back to watching her people, humans and Telkan and Mantid and Treana'ad alike, get loaded into the vehicle.

At Trucker's advice she was the last one on, pausing long enough to turn around and look over the field where the warsteel canister pods were scattered about to make sure everyone was aboard and not a single podling or green mantid was left behind.

The door shut and she rested her head against it. She wished her husband had come with her, but she knew he had to go back with the tanks. The two podlings, wearing little breathing masks, held tightly to her and petted her gently while the broodcarrier shielded her back with its tail.

Citizenship is a heavy burden.

------------

General Takilikakik stared at the structural wireframe of the overrun underground command base, examining it closely. He looked at the structural areas that the crawlers had managed to bust in and turned to the three engineer officers and the two greenies who were looking at the wireframe with him.

"How did it happen?" Tik-Tak asked, his voice carefully pitched to hold neither blame nor accusation.

Two of the greenies flashed signals so fast that General Takilikakik couldn't make it out.

"In the interest of speed, this was built during the Precursor War to act as a command center. The walls were five feet of ferrocrete and a three inch durasteel liner," the head engineer said. "We should have checked it over."

General Takilikakik nodded. "We should have. I want all bases, no matter when they were built, and all shelters to be reevaluated. We know they tunnel now, so I want seismic or whatever sensors to detect any temperature changes or vibration outside the reconfiguration."

The engineers nodded, the greenies immediately looking over the wireframes with the humans as Tik-Tac walked away.

There was a Telkan female heading for him, escorted by a private, her fur having the slightly crisp look of someone who had gone through full decon. She was wearing active camouflage with her name n the chest and yellow reflective stripes down the sleeves.

"Ah, Madame Director, good of you to join me," General Takilikakik said, stepping forward and holding out his hand. The female Telkan took it and shook it slowly, staring up at him. "My apologies for the recent excitement."

"It's quite all right," Brentili'ik said. She was used to the way General Takilikakik talked, having consulted with him quite often.

He turned and motioned at a holotank, which went live and showed a picture of her standing in the burnt and scorched clearing, a tank behind her, the podlings and the broodcarrier staring at the camera which had her in profile, her pistol visibly held up. The caption read: "WE ARE TELKAN"

"Quite courageous of you, Madame Director," General Takilikakik said, giving a slight shudder. "I couldn't do that, myself. You have my admiration and the admiration of your people."

Brentili'ik was staring at the amount of surprised, heart, and smiley emojis streaming up at the edges.

"Your people love you, Madame Director, and their confidence is actually up from what it was even before news went out that your command area was under attack. Your people feel that if an attack does happen the Terran troops in there with them can at least protect them while they escape," General Takilikakik said. "They feel with your guidance and your husband's, shall we say, martial ability, they're going to get off Telkan."

"Four more days," Brentili'ik said.

"Minimum," General Takilikakik said softly. "Six to eight is more realistic. Several engines failed testing, we've had a couple of drill lockups, and one shelter had their primary computing array fail."

Brentili'ik swallowed. "Can we hold out that long?"

General Takilikakik looked at her and, to her horror, shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know the enemy's full capabilities, so victory is not a certain outcome."

"What can we do?" Brentili'ik asked, avoiding wringing her paws.

"Give them hope and assign the best beings for the task," General Takilikakik said. "That's all any leader can do."

----------------------

"I don't like this," Ekret said, his head stuck out of the tank's hatch. He looked around at the jungle. It was limp, a lot of the leaves dry looking, yellowish. Spore count was up high enough that the surgical sterilization field constantly crackled with the spores that had gotten through his battle-screens.

"Don't like what, Wrecker?" Trucker asked him, going by the new nickname his men had given him.

"This doesn't look right. My division isn't finding any bioweapon activity. Not even a swarm of those bees. It's too quiet," Ekret said. He knew the only reason Trucker and he could speak to one another is that he was outside of the FOB he had been assigned and Trucker was inside his. "I don't like it."

Trucker gave a grunt. "And Ol' Smokey No wants us all on the holo-com."

"Your system of justice works swift," Ekret commented, signalling Steps to head back.

"It's a clear case of negligence. Not enough to hang him, but enough to send him to the Gulch Cluster for a few decades and bar him from resigning his commission," Trucker said.

"Now now, we are not supposed to make predeterminations," Ekret chided the human. "After all, it could have been three green mantids with a holo-projection of his head hiding in his dress uniform giving the orders."

"Nope. They would have done it right," Trucker laughed.

One of Ekret's new crewmen, 333, flashed laughing emojis.

"I still don't like this," Ekret commented again, staring at the strangely wilted jungle as the scout tank turned around and headed back toward the base.

--------------------

TELKAN GESTALT

Only a little while longer. We were worried but we're not as afraid as we were.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

You got us watching out for you, little buddy.

We'll get you out of there, the biomass and genome cracker fleets will figure stuff out, and a handful of Elven Queens will get your stuff fixed straight up.

You'll see.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

COMBINE MILITARY AUTHORITY

sleep little podling warm little podling sing the song of leave and trees bark and branch leaf and fern sleep little podling warm little podling

------SLEEP LITTLE PODLING-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

What in the WORLD is doing that? Every time I see "Combine" I almost panic.

--------NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

We are not sure. Examination of our spaces shows there to be old codes buried in the coding due to backwards compatibility and legacy hardware. We have determined that those ancient codes still have some measure of power within the system.

But who could be using those channels, we do not know.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS----------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Um, you know... I just had a horrible thought. I mean, a REALLY horrible thought.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Well, spit it out.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

There is one being we know of who was around during the Combine. And during the Imperium.

Um, and before.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

You are talking of Daxin Freeborn.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TELKAN GESTALT

You've said that name before. Who is it?

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

A man my people did terrible wrong to. To everyone he knew. To his entire world. And to him, personally, the Extinquished Ones did terrible things to.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

TELKAN GESTALT

I don't know what you mean.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

She's talking about the glassing of TerraSol.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

And the fact he was captured at one point and the warrior class and a Speaker amused themselves with him for a year or so before he was rescued.

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

It is not something we condone.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

You supposed that Overqueen squealed that right before he ripped her head clean off her neck after she surrendered?

----NOTHING FOLLOW--------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

We, as a race, am glad he did. When he did that, it stripped the last of the control from us and freed our minds from slavery most vile.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

We're getting side tracked. Do you think he's somehow engaging the gestalts?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

DIGITAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Look, it makes sense, right? He shows up then vanishes then the Idiots wig out then we get this weird stuff over the gestalts.

The timing makes sense.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

The time period is correct. Daxin Freeborn is... unique.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

And, well, let's be honest. He's older than all of us. Even older than TerraSol over there quietly listening to us.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Wait. You are correct. Our gestalt was built after SoulNet and SolNet were destroyed. Built upon the ruins of ruins of ruins.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

By why would the Idiots flip out?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM

Uhh... wait, you guys don't know?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Why did my butthole just pucker?

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TELKAN GESTALT

No, we don't know.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

AKLTKLK GESSSTKLKAT

Know ?tahw

---N0TH1NG F0LL0W5------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

About what....

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM

Oh. Um... the Enraged Ones. The Undying Ones. The Restless Ones.

Um... you know... the original Idiots. Well, what became the idiots.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Why do I suddenly want to hide in a dark matter sea and not come back?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

Those names are... um... ominous.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS---------

CLONE WORLD CONSORTIUM

Well, you know, I just might have found old records. You know. From the early days. Before the Legion Wars. You know, early records. They're kind of classified Ultraviolet.

Um, I might have found everyone's favorite walking war crime listed in those old files. Like, a special order. Like... a real special order he just might have, maybe, have gotten fulfilled by the, well, um, you know, by Legion.

Himself.

------NOTHING FOLLOWS------

DIGITIAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? LEGION? FUCKING LEGION?

We planet cracked him. And his armies. We fucking SAW him get planet cracked and then Genesis Bombed just make goddamn sure.

And you're telling me LEGION fulfilled a SPECIAL FUCKING ORDER for everyone's favorite walking war crime?

ARE YOU GODDAMN STUPID!

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM

Don't yell at me! We threw 12 BILLION men at him to help stop him. If it wasn't for us Legion would have crushed ALL OF US under his boot.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SENTIENCE SYSTEMS

Yeah, and he still goddamn got away.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS--------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Everyone calm down. You're going to scare the children screaming at each other like this.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CLONE WORLDS CONSORTIUM

Anyway, apparently, from what records we've been able to unscramble, it looks like Daxin had a special order filled.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

BIOLOGICAL ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS

What... kind of special order?

----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WORLDS

Oh, God, this is going to be bad.

----NOTHING FOLLOWS------

CYBERNETIC ORGANISM COLLECTIVE

Define 'special order' for us.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

Um... you know that certain package that Combine troops got? The one we don't talk about?

He might have, um, well, convinced Legion somehow to splice it into about, oh, you know, a couple, here and there, just a few, Imperium troops, right before, you know, the Imperium imploded.

Because... you know... Daxin might have... um...

Vanished with all the Imperium's Martial Orders.

And, you know, the ex-Combine guys.

Them too.

And taken them to... well... where the Hellrift opened.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

RIGELLIAN COMPACT

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

CLONE WORLDS DIRECTORATE

Don't blame us! Legion did it! Not us!

-------NOTHING FOLLOWS-------

MANTID FREE WOLDS

OK. Fine. Legion's reached beyond the grave to shove his fingers into our eyes.

Anyone got any ideas what might happen?

------NOTHING FOLLOW-----

TELKAN GESTALT

Can I still stay on your couch?

---NOTHING FOLLOWS-----

TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS

LOL Yeah, kid. Trust us, this is just some old crap apparently coming back to haunt us.

Don't sweat it. We all got your back.

-----NOTHING FOLLOWS-----