The western unch catapult that jutted out from the spaceport lowered. Inside the facility the, remaining Mobius staff that had not been actively participating in the defense had gathered into a unch pod. They were lucky the shock from the eitr cannon's destruction hadn't rendered the catapult inoperable. Their pod rose into position on the catapult, and taxied up into the ready position.

  Outside, the Myrddin stood, rainbow scorch marks from the cannon’s expelled eitr glimmering over its front pting. The einherjar stood and observed as the catapult fired the fleeing Mobius survivors out towards low orbit. The machine watched, camera banks adjusting to follow the capsule as it rose.

  Laine raised her rail rifle, tracking the Mobius survivors; its barrel was still capable of another shot or two. “Chanel, Vivien, asking for advisory on the escape capsule.”

  “Don’t bothe–”

  “Take the shot,” said Vivien.

  There was a brief moment of hesitancy, and then Laine fired. The psma trail fshed into existence and a moment ter the round flew right through where the container had been a fraction of a second before.

  “Fuck!”

  Her rifle loaded the next round in. Steam rose from its rails as the capacitor banks indicated it was ready to fire again. Vivien adjusted the weapon’s aim. It was too far for a sure thing, but she fired anyway. The round pinged off the side of the capsule, leaving a deep, but not truly catastrophic gouge in its hull. There wasn’t going to be another attempt; the rifle was forfeit, and with that Vivien relinquished control of Laine’s Vajra.

  “The second time…” mumbled Laine.

  Vivien returned to the Myrddin and tore her way through space. She emerged in low orbit a short distance from the capsule as it began to slow. The Myrddin’s subordinate set of arms drew their weapons, a pair of machine pistols, as bdes of crimson eitr extended from the palms of its primary arms.

  ______

  Inside the escape capsule a Mobius engineer fumbled with her helmet, pulling it on then having to take a moment to stuff her hair inside the EVA suit so it could seal. “Worst should be past, there’s only a minor leak and we’ve already got a sp patch on it.”

  Around her the other survivors grunted in assent, getting their own suits on. One struggled with fitting inside; corporate hadn’t supplied custom ones so the one size fits all bel was being tested (and failing). A series of impacts rocked the capsule, slowing its momentum and making the survivors collide with the forward wall.

  “M-my helmet’s cracked!” shouted a woman as she frantically looked around for a patch to pce over it.

  A man groaned and pushed off the wall. “What the fuck was that?”

  “I don’t know!” replied one of the engineers.

  The air inside the pod heated up as one exterior walls began to glow. Several of the survivors grabbed onto anything they could while the others were sucked up by the vacuum of space into the crimson shaft of eitr. Their bodies vanished as they were burned away.

  “How did they get up here?” asked one as she scrambled from the bde’s path as it bisected the capsule.

  The man who couldn’t get his suit sealed struggled, drifting and suffocating as the Myrddin pulled the two halves of the capsule apart. Its camera lenses caught the light of the nearby star as they focused on the survivors. One of the lower limbs pointed its weapon at the suffocating man and fired, blowing him apart and spraying gore across the inside of the capsule.

  “Please stop! We are unarmed!” shouted the long haired engineer.

  The man floating through the space between capsules, pleaded, arms open. “By Council w you have to take us prisoner, you can’t just–”

  The Myrddin grabbed him and pulled him close to the center of its torso using its right primary arm. He seemed to mumble something, his lips quivering, eyes wet. The others couldn’t hear, his connection to their comms network having been severed when the einherjar grabbed him. The machine’s shoulder rose in what appeared to be a shrug and it crushed his body before casually discarding it.

  The woman with the cracked helmet tried to escape. To where? It didn’t matter, she just needed to get away. She made it just past the glowing edge of the capsule before a bullet ended her life. Another raised a sidearm toward the einherjar and fired again and again until the mechanism clicked against an empty chamber uselessly. The machine pulled him over to itself, cocking its head at the struggling man. Then it looked at her, at the long haired engineer, and reached for her with its left primary arm.

  As it grabbed her she felt pressure in her mind, the pilot of the machine was forcing a connection to her ARC. “Let go. I don’t want to break your hands.”

  She let go and was pulled over next to her other survivor coworker. “What do you want with us?” She asked, voice quivering.

  “You have cost me dearly. You could have surrendered the spaceport, and yet you fought hard enough that I had to come solve the problem.”

  “You just wanted us to let you Council bastards capture and torture us?” accused the male Mobius worker, hitting the side of the Myrddin’s finger with his empty sidearm.

  “That doesn’t matter to me. As it stands, you two are all that remain. I’ve searched the ARCs of your dead coworkers, but what I want isn’t there. So it’s now your chance to talk. Or, if you have no information of use, I’ll just get rid of you.”

  “Don’t I at least deserve to see the face of my killer?” asked the woman.

  The Myrddin’s cockpit opened and something fell forward, pulled by the rush of atmosphere. “Well, that’s just the thing,” she scoffed. The light of the nearby star illuminated the figure hanging out of the cockpit, a corpse. “My st host body was lost in destroying your eitr cannon.” Its boiled skin loosely hung off its flesh, sinew and fat rendered out, draining in rivets, swirling and lifting around the body in a cosmic dance. and pooling at the body’s p. On its exposed skull were growths of dark metal that threaded through bone, spreading out like a web, reaching outwards towards its crown. Its popped eyes surrounded rings of crimson light at the end of metal stalks at their center. “And I was making such real progress on this one too.”

  “W-what?” stammered the man, horrified. “How in the world ca–”

  “You don’t have anything of value, male.” The Myrddin crushed his torso and threw him out into the void of space.

  “Petyr!” screamed the st survivor, her body trembling in the Myrddin’s grasp before going still.

  Vivien released the corpse from the cockpit, letting it drift past the remaining Mobius engineer in her grip. “Let’s have a look inside you.”

  As her ARC was invaded and the body had passed her she realized that the panic and terror had run its course, or maybe it had overflowed into something else. Dissociation. It let her think about what was happening without the burden of emotion. An empty machine of dark metal moving and killing at the will of some mind that can forcibly connect to wireless systems. It was the reason that most Mobius facilities have been hardwired as much as possible in recent years. The lurking horror that came from the Nastrond Anomaly.

  She stared up at the einherjar, tears floating inside her helmet. “I know what you are.”

  “And what am I?” asked Vivien, raising the woman up to camera level.

  “Draugr.”

  The word hung in the air as Vivien’s mind raced, unbounded by the limitations of wetware and instead beholden only to the limits of the Myrddin’s systems. She was no Draugr. One of those things had been what had caused the rift between her and Aria, had taken her from the existence she desired. Her grip tensed on the woman.

  “You take that back! I am not one of those monsters!”

  The woman only scoffed then angled her jaw strangely, the point of a mor pressing up against a false tooth.

  “No! Stop!”

  Vivien fully invaded the woman’s ARC, mind trying to seize control of her body’s muscles. She was too slow. The contents of the false tooth spilled out into her mouth.

  “You don't get to die until you take that back!”

  She pressed in harder, the ARC heating up under the strain. By her will the body spat as much of it out as she could make it. She forced her way in deeper, like she had with Emrys once before, into the grey matter connected to the ARC.

  The woman’s jaw moved, her own muscles fighting it. An odd hum came up from her throat as Vivien began to force her to speak, but then her connection severed and she was forced back to the Myrddin. The body went limp. Smoke poured out of the right side of its head, filling the helmet. It obscured the dead woman’s face as rendered brain matter flowed out around the right eye and down her cheek. Vivien cast it aside. The corpse crumpled against the inside of the capsule then rebounded, drifting slowly away into space.

  ______

  “Rico, Ed, Laine, Emrys.” Chanel sighed. “Just… Just head for the entrance to the spaceport. Let’s get this pce secured.”

  “What was that thing?” asked Rico, the Asura’s eitr bde cutting out before the handle slid back into the forearm.

  “What thing?” replied Laine, climbing over a ridge. “Do you want to blow our down time over this? Just shut up about it. Whatever it is, it’s not worth the hassle. I just want to go on vacation.”

  Ed stopped to pick up the arm his Vajra had lost. “Honestly, same. Whatever the fuck that was looked like serious hardware. The kind you need things like clearances to even see.” He inhaled through his teeth. “And none of us here have anything like that.”

  Chanel tapped on her station back in orbit, the sound carrying into her speech. “Yeah, we’ll just… Not say anything. Whatever it was, it was clearly on our side. Job’s done, that’s what’s important. No reason to put in more effort than Necker Group is willing to give us.”

  “Yeah, we really lucked out with the resort still having its own supplies.” Laine used her Vajra’s boosters to give herself enough thrust to not have to climb the side of a ridge. “Imagine if we had to drink that instant swill.”

  “Mhmm. Imagine,” grumbled Chanel, looking over to her cup half full of the stuff.

  Laine ejected the damaged rails from her rifle, the stress from so many shots had left them warped and partially melted in a couple spots. “I'm gonna miss this thing. Best feedback I've ever gotten from a weapon.”

  “I'll put in a requisition for you once we're at Kovam,” said Chanel. “They've got a test site near the city anyway.”

  Emrys looked away from the destroyed eitr cannon atop the spaceport and up at the sky. “Test site? I don't remember there being one there when I visited.”

  “It was a simple depot only a couple years ago.” Ed aimed his remaining machine gun at a fallen einherjar then lowered it as soon as he saw the caved in cockpit. “My uncle helped set up the power conduit from the reactor there, said it was almost as rge as the city's primary one.”

  “It’s where they did some of the finishing work for the Asura,” said Rico.

  As Rico flew toward the spaceport proper Ed rolled onward and over some debris, the treads of his Vajra crushing anything beneath them. Emrys turned back to retrieve her weaponry from around her fallen foes. She grabbed her rifle and put it on the hooks at the back of her Vajra’s pelvic skirting. Her shield rested near one of the downed Mobius einherjar, its cockpit punched through. She picked her shield up and turned it over in her machine’s hands, her cameras zooming in on the damage before affixing it back onto her left forearm.

  “The cannon was protected by some kind of shield. What was it?” asked Laine.

  Rico nded in front of the spaceport’s main gate. “I’ve seen something simir being tested before the war started. It’s a field of eitr that hardens when an object with enough force comes in contact with it.”

  Emrys approached one of the remaining einherjar wrecks, solid bde in its torso. “I saw some footage on the bifrost of something like that, but to absorb so many shots…” She grabbed the knife and pulled. The knife slid out, the viscera that clung to it glistening in the morning light.

  “Woof, that’s not a pretty sight,” said Laine as she walked over toward Emrys.

  “Yeah.” Emrys pushed it back in. “Are you alright? All of that can’t have been easy on you or your Vajra.”

  “I’m fine.” Laine took another step forward and her vision artifacted. “Looks like my einherjar is not.”

  Laine’s sync was failing from the side of the machine itself, the strain having pushed its old Mk.2 architecture well past its limits. She took another step and felt the knee’s actuators seize then fail. As she fell she turned so she nded on her side. When she hit the ground the sync fully released along with her restraints. She was back in her own flesh.

  “Laine are you–”

  “I told you, I’m fine.”

  It took a moment, but her artificial eyes turned back on, the glow from around their irises illuminating the dark interior of her cockpit. Laine leaned forward and then began to pull the wires that connected her to the fallen einherjar from her back. “Is my cockpit clear to open?”

  Emrys lifted the Vajra’s arm up and over the side of its torso. “It is now, you’re clear.”

  Laine focused on a panel near where her feet would normally have rested and depressed a button at the top of it. The panel popped loose and fell to the side, revealing a handle. She lifted it and after some exertion pulled it all the way up. Across the edges of the front armor pte several charges went off, forcing the cockpit open.

  Emrys knelt down, her einherjar’s hand out with its palm up. “Hop on.” Her own Vajra’s cockpit opened. “It’s too cold out, you’ll have to get inside.”

  Laine climbed up onto the Vajra’s hand and held onto its thumb. “Good to move,” she said, turning her face away from the wind.

  “Alright, once you’re in I’m closing the cockpit up,” said Emrys.

  Laine pushed off from the Vajra’s thumb and into the cockpit. “Gonna have to y on your p.”

  “It’s fine, can’t really feel it right now anyway,” said Emrys, einherjar standing and closing its cockpit.

  Laine turned, trying not to put too much weight onto Emrys. “Hey, I wanna ask you some things off comms.”

  “Yeah? What things?” asked Emrys, hopping over a stack of shipping containers.

  Laine’s foot slipped, her hips nding on Emrys. “Your thighs are pretty soft.”

  “Thank you? That wasn’t much of a question.”

  Laine sighed. “That isn’t what I actually wanted to say.”

  “Then what was it?”

  “Well, first. Can this stay between us?”

  “Sure, I trust you enough for that.”

  “Alright. What happened back there?” Laine stared into the glossy polymer of Emrys’ helmet, at her own reflection. “What really happened?”

  “What do you mean? That other einherjar saved us.”

  “Then just left. Look, you… You’re strange Emrys. And not because of the gender stuff! Seen that a lot with pilots for some reason. I mean with you and Vivien.”

  “What–”

  “Let me finish.” Laine rapped her knuckles on the side of Emrys’ helmet. “Now, I don’t doubt your abilities as a pilot, but you’re just inserted into the squad the day before we’re deployed? Both of you, out of nowhere, quiet as a whistle and keeping to yourselves until now. And then there’s her avatar during the briefing. You can’t keep those damn things stable in a test room, let alone across the goddamn bifrost pinged off an old corvette. Our glorious company can’t even afford to send us coffee beans, but you both keep pulling out shinier toys to py with. You’re not getting them from Blivet, or even Penrose, are you? Just who the hell are you two?”

  Emrys’ breath caught. “I’ve told you who I am. I’m a friend.”

  “Fine, yeah. But who is Vivien?”

  “She’s a friend too.”

  Laine groaned. “I should have been more clear. What is Vivien?”

  “Laine!” Emrys’ breath catches, before she exhales slowly, head turning away from her. “Trust me. She’s a friend.”

  ______

  Vivien made the Myrddin kneel in the eitr font back on Veles and cleaned out the gore from its cockpit. She lingered for a moment as the ash was vented from the cockpit. Another setback, another failure. She needed a body to really touch her pilot, to be with her lover. Her mind jumped to one of the observation cameras and focused its gaze upon the Myrddin. Even having changed from its original form and adapted to Emrys and her own needs, it was still of Draugr make. It felt comfortable inside in a way that human technology didn’t. Was she truly so close to a Draugr?

  There wasn’t time for her to stay and think about it, not now. The squad would be wondering what to do about having observed the Myrddin, they could be reporting it, or worse interrogating her Emrys. She forced herself to calm her mind. There was some small mercy that the Mobius facility was cut off from the bifrost, with the evacuees dead, there was no chance of a leak on that front– and she already possessed administrator control of all of Necker’s eyes on Thrasir. This potential problem could just go away. Her mind left Veles and returned to Thrasir, only briefly pausing within Sindurr to sweep for any potential leaks.

  “Chanel, squad. This is Vivien. I’ve been working on isoting the sighting of that thing from the logs recorded here, so I haven’t been able to listen to the conversation. I need to know, do you want me to make that footage disappear?” Vivien switched to solely messaging Emrys. “More importantly, do you want this gone?”

  “It’s probably best to,” scoffed Chanel. “The squad could use a break. What are we supposed to do about it?”

  “Yeah, we’re just some jack offs,” said Ed.

  Rico leaned the Asura against the side of the gate into the spaceport proper. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious, but everyone else wants to not bother.”

  “Emrys, please?”

  “Ed said it earlier, above our paygrade,” said Laine.

  “Emrys, your choice is the one I care about.”

  “Alright. Get it gone.”