Chapter Text
"We are the last line of defense."
Serenity 4.5.5-137 stood at stiff attention, listening raptly. She was one of hundreds of new recruits, and she was so far in the back of the rank and file that she could barely see the blue-plated figure under the lights at the front of the room, but she didn't care.
Her hero was speaking.
He was not particularly loud. They'd put a mic on him to make sure he was audible to the entire assembly. His voice was level, calm, and collected, just as she'd have expected from someone capable of the kind of miracles under stress that he could perform.
"We have been at war for eighty-one years, and at long last, we may be able to end it. We've sequenced the entire Virus and can predict its evolution. We've developed efficient antivirus measures. We can reclaim the infected, and to some extent, we can protect the uninfected from falling. I want nothing more than an end to this bloodshed."
"And yet, just because an end is in sight does not mean that we can afford to relax. The most dangerous enemy is a cornered enemy, and we know enough of the Virus to know that it is a limited, distributed intelligence. It is capable of knowing that it is cornered, and it will do anything in its power to forestall its destruction. This is a critical moment in the war. If we falter here and give it a chance to change its evolutionary trajectory, we could lose everything we have fought for."
"And that is why you are all here. You've chosen to become Maverick Hunters, now, when most would assume the fight is over. The fight will never be over. Even once we eradicate the Virus from the world, there will still be Mavericks, as there were before the Virus existed. Whether or not you directly contribute to the war efforts, you will contribute to maintaining peace for humanity, and you should be proud."
Seren—she had never really changed her name much from her series name—felt the emotion rising in her circuits. She was proud. She'd made it through basic training with high marks, and now here she was, in the same room as the legendary Captain X himself.
"I will be honest with you: not all of you are going to survive your time with the Hunters. Be cautious. Be smart. Stay aware of your surroundings. Keep your skills and weapons maintained. Fight defensively. Protect your allies. Whatever happens, remain calm. These are the things that will keep you alive when everything is falling down around you."
X paused, looking over the fresh recruits, and Seren wondered if he saw her. Probably not, considering she was behind two other new recruits in her squadron that were much taller than she was, even at her reasonably tall five foot ten, but that was alright; they were nice enough, so she couldn't be too upset. She would just have to excel, and then maybe she'd actually get to meet him for herself.
"We take great risks in the name of protecting humanity from those reploids who would turn against them. Never forget the price of a moment of inattention. Never forget that even with antivirus, there may still come a day when you may find yourself at the end of a former ally's weapon. There may come a time when you are the only thing between a rampaging Maverick and an innocent human. My fellow Hunters, this is what you are training for. It is not a glorious life, and it is not a safe life, but it is a necessary one. We are the sword and shield. We cannot afford to falter; we cannot afford to fall; we cannot afford to fail."
X saluted, and the assembled recruits saluted him back, with enthusiasm if not perfect synchronization. He left the podium and walked off, discussing something undoubtedly important with a handful of other unit captains.
The rest of the day's induction and orientation was dull in comparison, and during her limited free time that night in the barracks, Seren sat with her two new friends from basic training, a matched set named Ricochet and Trebuchet. They were nearly identical, gray-plated and plain-faced, though Ric had orange trim and Treb had blue.
"I can't believe we were in the same room as him," she said, sitting on the edge of her recharging pod and admiring the new Maverick Hunter logo she'd received. There was a lot of variation in eligible placement, since there was a lot of variation in reploid designs, and she'd chosen to have hers on her left arm. She was programmed left-handed, and had elected to use her sign-on bonus to have high-end buster parts installed directly into that arm.
"You are such a fangirl," Ric ribbed her.
"It is pretty cool, though," Treb agreed. "I mean, he's what, eighty five years old, and still in that good of fighting shape? And on top of that, we're all designed after him? Not every reploid can say they've seen X in person."
"It's like meeting a god, almost," Seren said. "Not that we actually met him, but you know."
"Ha, listen to both of you. Maybe a celebrity, but I think a god is pushing it a bit, don't you? You guys caught the theism virus or something. Next you're gonna start talking like those human-worshiping weirdos you get on street corners."
"Ew, no. That's just too much." Seren wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Miss me with that shit. I joined to protect humans, not be a freak about them. And I know he's not a god or anything, that'd be silly, just…you know, literally everyone's prototype, that's all. No big, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, no big. You really joined to protect humanity? I didn't think anyone still did that," Ric said, a little incredulous.
Seren blinked in surprise, pushing violet hair behind one ear. It matched her general palette: violet, gold, and white. "You didn't? What did you join for, then?"
Ric and Treb exchanged A Loaded Look, but she'd come to expect that of them. They were coprocessors, after all. They knew each other so well they may as well have been able to read each other's minds. "Work sucked," they said, in unison.
"We were warehouse units for a megacorp," Ricochet explained. "Sixteen hour days, all day, every day, and shit for pay too so it wasn't going to be easy to buy our way out."
"Except," Trebuchet added. "We had a contract clause that if we joined the Hunters, boom, we're done with the warehouse, forever. So that made it a pretty easy call, when we decided to get the hell out."
"Basic was still way less work than we were doing," Ric said with a laugh. "Can't scare me with training if it's only ten hours a day. That's basically nothing, at that point."
"Damn," Seren said. "I wanted to join the Hunters basically as soon as I got out of orientation."
"Wait, how old are you?" Treb asked.
"Um. About four months?"
"Oh, you're a shiny little baby," said Ric, laughing even harder. "Four months. You're fresh off the assembly line, still."
"Wh—how old are you two, then?" Seren asked, flustered.
"Three," the two responded in unison.
"Oh, come on. That isn't that old," Seren scoffed. "You don't have room to talk."
Ricochet continued to laugh. "Still twelve times your age. Four months! That explains so much about you."
'>E.04642-SYS: Failure to compile.' said Seren.
"Lights out, everyone, into your pods you go," the unit leader announced. His name was Drakon, and he was a military spec anthropomorph with little tolerance for shenanigans. "You've got a long day tomorrow. And whoever just broadcast an error code, knock it off, the next one I hear's gonna earn your entire squadron extra cleaning duties for the rest of the week."
The Maverick War officially ended on Seren's activation day, and it was the worst gift she could have received. She tried not to show her disappointment, because she knew, CPU to core, that she should be happy. In many ways she was happy, even though it was an all hands on patrol kind of day, what with the entire population of the world celebrating in the streets. She was out for nine hours straight, and watching the whole of the city rejoice couldn't help but rub off on her a little.
But she was also incredibly disheartened, and she didn't want to explain it to anyone, because it was silly and childish and she knew that, too. So she claimed mental fatigue instead, and went to recharge as early as she could turn in. Ric and Treb undoubtedly suspected something, but neither of them brought it up, for which she was grateful.
So she just lay in her pod, pretending to defragment while everyone else who wasn't on patrol threw a massive party in the hangar. Better than bringing down morale, Seren thought, though she wondered if she might run into X there…
No, she decided, he probably wasn't there, or if he was, he probably wasn't partying. X was a lifelong war machine. Could he actually be happy without a war to fight? Could Seren, for that matter? She'd wanted nothing more than to make a difference and become a hero, just like him. Was that even possible, now?
Moreover, if she didn't go to the party, she didn't risk the disappointment of not seeing him there, or the other disappointment of seeing him but not having a chance to talk to him…not that Seren would have known what to say even if it did happen. If she wasn't awake, Seren decided, she wouldn't have to keep going around in circles with herself about it, so she simply stayed in her pod, feeling like some kind of a traitor for being upset that the war had ended without her ever seeing action in it, until she managed to slip into defragment mode.
"I've got to say, your practice simulation scores are some of the highest I've seen for someone who's only been here as long as you have. You've got some real drive," Drakon said, sitting at his desk. It was humorously small for his size, but Seren knew better than to laugh.
"Thank you, sir," she replied, with a snappy salute. She had practiced it to an artform, like everything else she was taught. 'Real drive' was an understatement. Seren had something to prove.
"It's nice to see someone taking it seriously, especially since the war was declared over."
"Of course, sir. We still have Maverick incidents almost daily. It would be irresponsible to relax now."
Drakon nodded approvingly, golden horns glinting. "You're too right. Remind me again. You've been on patrol, but you haven't seen combat, if I recall correctly."
"Unfortunately correct, sir," Seren nodded.
That prompted a raised eyebrow from her CO. "Unfortunately? It's not a bad thing. Just remember, simulation scores don't always translate directly into real life situations. They're good to have, of course, and yours are outstanding, but simulations can't cover everything, and you don't want to end up assuming you can handle something that you can't and panicking when it comes down to it."
"Yes, sir." Seren deflated a little bit at the assumption that she would panic, though she logically knew that it was a possibility.
Drakon did not lower his eyebrow, giving her a calculating look. "It's nothing personal. I've been doing this for six years and I still have more fingers than I do rookies who didn't make beginner mistakes in their first firefight. Just something to keep in mind. Keep on training, though, maybe you'll be one of the few to tip the ratio a little. Dismissed."
With a final salute, Seren left Draken's office and went straight to the simulation chambers. She still had half the list of training programs to complete, and maybe if she could talk herself into believing they were real, she could train out the first-timer jitters before her first time.
Seren aimed, then fired. Over, and over, and over, one holographic target after another. She was so intent on what she was doing and so used to tuning out distractions that she did not notice the reploid inspecting her form as he passed.
"Hmm," he said, and as Seren recognized his voice, she very nearly missed her shot in surprise. "Ah. Sorry to interrupt your focus," he continued.
"Captain! N-not at all, sir," she stammered, lowering her buster and turning to face him. It was X, talking to her, face to face. Oh, no, play it cool, Seren. No, cooler than that. Don't act like an idiot in front of him, come on.
"If you don't mind a bit of advice?" X prompted her.
Why are you even asking me? Seren wondered, but steadied herself. "Yes, sir, please. If you have any advice, I'm all ears." Ugh, that was way too eager. What the hell, Seren. Seriously.
"Take your time aiming. Your scores are good, but they haven't improved for a couple of weeks, and that's down to how you're practicing. Instead of trying to improve every shot, work on perfecting just one shot. Once you have that, you can replicate it across the board. It's not a matter of speed. It's a matter of being where you need to be, when you need to be there. Speed is nothing but a side effect of that."
"Sir," Seren said, with a wholly unnecessary salute.
"Here. I'll show you what I mean." X scanned his ID into the shooting gallery, and Seren stepped out of the way so that he could step in. He took a firm stance, in no particular hurry despite the start timer ticking down, and raised his arm.
Holographic targets popped up, and he fired a single shot at each one in turn. He didn't necessarily shoot them in the order that they appeared, but the order that required the least movement. As Seren watched, he hit every single one, dead center, with complete calm.
"Like that," he said, as his final score of 100% flashed across the projection. "Give it a try. The goal of practice scoring is to learn what works best for you, not to just earn the highest numbers possible. I'd rather you turn in lower scores and end up a better shot in the end than maintain high scores but have lower real-world accuracy."
"Thank you, sir," Seren said, inwardly glad that she could fall back on being formal, because if she had to trust her voice module to produce anything sensical, she would have been tremendously disappointed and probably made an enormous fool of herself besides.
"Anyway, I'll leave you to it. Keep up the good work." X left, leaving Seren to slowly process the fact that he'd told her she was doing good work. She returned to her training with a vengeance, buoyed by the compliment, though it was a much slower and more methodical kind of vengeance than before.
Her navigator's voice crackled to life in her ear. "Targets are moving up Thirteenth Street. Patrol four, prepare to intercept."
"That's us. Look alive, guys," Seren announced, parking the transport vehicle ideways in the cleared street. The four of them jumped out and grabbed a riot shield each from the back, practiced and orderly as clockwork.
Ricochet fell in beside her, shield braced and rifle readied. Trebuchet and their fourth patrolman, another mass-produced model named Viz, took the other side of the transport, blocking passage entirely. Seren watched and waited. She could do this. She knew she could. She'd practiced hard and long, taking every lesson to heart. All she had to do was not choke when the moment came.
The three suspected Mavericks rounded the corner in a powerslide, one driving the hovercycle, the other two sitting behind the first with rifles readied. The driver eyed the Hunters barricading the road, and accelerated, making the reckless decision to try and break through their line.
"Orders are to apprehend if possible, destroy if necessary," Seren reminded them. "Aim for the bike first."
They opened fire, and it only took a few moments for a shot to find its mark, sending the suspects' bike nose-down against the asphalt with a horrendous metallic screeching as the shroud dragged and the blades bit into the surface. It wrenched to one side from the force of the blades, sending all three riders rolling on the ground.
The first one up began firing wildly at the Hunters, trying to pin them down, while another dove for cover in a doorway. The third stayed down, though he also trained his weapon on the Hunters; specifically, their transport. It was reinforced against plasma, but then, he didn't seem to be firing anything…
"A laser weapon?" Ricochet said. He and Trebuchet both had broader spectrum vision than Seren did. "But the transport's hardened against—"
The heavy rifle suddenly exploded with a lance of brilliant blue-white electricity, brighter than the sun and as loud as thunder. Seren's sensors reeled with the flashbang, and her nerves crawled with static from the proximity to the artificial lightning bolt.
"Electrolaser," Trebuchet corrected. "Shit, that's not good. Nothing we have is built to withstand that."
"Transport is offline," Viz announced.
He aimed another shot at Trebuchet and Viz on the opposite side of the transport, and began to charge the laser. "Take cover," Seren ordered, but in the ensuing flashbang she couldn't see if either of them had managed to evade or not. She simply fired at where she thought the Maverick was in a blind panic.
She had to do something. This was going so badly, so suddenly. At this rate she was only going to prove that despite all her hard work, despite all the promise she'd shown, she was just another mass-produced new recruit with nothing special about her…and that was true, wasn't it, Seren thought, dejectedly. She was a nobody, pretending to be someone, and Treb could be hurt on the other side of the transport because of it…
The very idea scared her more than three heavily-armed Mavericks, jolting her from her fear and into action. No. She was a hero. She just needed to prove it. She'd wanted this chance, hadn't she? Seren blinked away spots as her optical sensors regained calibration, and suddenly, an idea seized her.
There was a window-washing platform, several stories in the air, and hanging straight over the doorway where one of the Mavericks had covered. The other who'd been firing at them had joined the first there, which was fine by her. She pointed her buster at the cables, taking a breath to steady herself, and fired, one bolt after another, neatly severing each one of them. The plasma continued beyond each cable, skimming across the windows and shattering them with heat. The suspended platform itself crashed down the side of the building, smashing more glass in a long trail down. It landed on top of the two hiding Mavericks, pinning one beneath it and sending the other scrambling backwards to avoid the same fate.
"Ric, cover me," she said.
"Sir? Seren? What are you—"
Before the Maverick on the ground could fire another round of lightning, Seren sprinted forward, shield angled towards the now single Maverick covering in the doorway and firing. She only had a few more moments before the laser superheated the air into a conductive channel, she knew, and her shield would be entirely useless against it, so she didn't even bother to protect her approach from the electrolaser. She let her shield absorb the fire instead and pointed her free left arm's buster, hand folding and vanishing into the barrel as she primed the plasma generator.
Seren only had an instant to aim, but she took the entire instant, lining up her shot patiently before taking it. Just like X had told her; just like she'd practiced. The bolt of plasma flew true, catching the Maverick on the ground full in the face and knocking the rifle out of his hands. In one fluid movement, she let go of her shield, rolled, snatched the rifle from the incapacitated Maverick's hands, and aimed for the final Maverick still in the doorway as she came to a stop on the asphalt. She pulled the trigger, and it hummed in her hands, building charge.
The Maverick in the door, still corralled into his corner by the bulk of the window washing platform, had nowhere to run and no time in which to run, and he knew it. He fired wildly at Seren. She made for a difficult target prone on the ground, though she distantly registered one of her legs suddenly throwing an enormous number of thermal errors. It didn't matter to her in that moment. The electrolaser rifle exploded with lightning, again, the bolt cracking forth. When she could see again, both Mavericks were slumped on the ground.
"Patrol four? Patrol four, report. What's going on out there?" Seren heard her navigator say in her earpiece. She stood, favoring her scorched leg, and radioed back.
"This is Seren. All targets neutralized."
"What were you thinking?" Drakon demanded. Seren stood at attention, trying painfully hard to not react. "You could have sacrificed your entire squad pulling a stunt like that. You are not meant to be performing loose-cannon heroics, Seren. You are your squad's leader and you set the example for all of them. The only reason I'm not demoting you is because it worked, but don't mistake it for approval." He crossed his arms and sighed, sitting heavily at his desk.
"Sir, I…" She cleared her throat and tried again. "I couldn't be certain if Viz and Trebuchet were still standing. If he had time to fire on me and Ricochet, we could easily have been overpowered. W-what should I have done? So I can do it right next time."
"Not kept Ric in the dark, for one. For two, checked on them to see if they were in fact downed or not without jumping to conclusions. Three, even an inoperational transport is still ample cover and will conduct electrical weaponry into the ground, and you could have fallen back behind it and reinforced your position once you knew what you were facing. Four, buildings are not playthings for us to take parts from and blow the windows out of! That comes directly out of limited Hunter funds, if we cause avoidable collateral damage! Anything more defensive than charging directly into the line of fire and hoping for the best would have been preferable. Yes, even if it worked," Seren's commanding officer cut her off preemptively. "It did work. I'll give you that much credit. It was gutsy, it was quick thinking, and it was also incredibly stupid. It won't work a second time, because odds are if you try that again you'll be finding out firsthand what happens to Hunters who throw caution to the wind, and if you're really lucky, you'll be finding out in the repair bay and not in a box headed to the reclamation facility."
Seren didn't know how to respond, so she didn't, standing straight and looking straight ahead, though she wanted to sink into the ground and vanish forever. "You know, I've got to hand it to you," Drakon continued. "I'm used to recruits choking and failing to act when they first see combat. I've never had one overreact and suddenly turn into a big damn hero instead. That's a whole new category."
There still wasn't any reasonable way for Seren to interject without a second dressing-down, so she remained silent while Drakon continued to stare at her for a few more moments. Being fired on by Mavericks had turned out to be a lot more tolerable than this. "Alright, alright. At ease. Tell me one thing, though, Seren. I know you remember this kind of thing. What did Captain X say at your induction day ceremony?"
Seren relaxed, though only physically. "Be cautious. Be smart. Stay aware of your surroundings. Keep your skills and weapons maintained. Fight defensively. Protect your allies. Whatever happens, remain calm," she repeated, from memory.
"I thought you'd know. Your training scores are superb. Ridiculously so. You've made Class B in two years, which is the time it takes most recruits to get to Class D. You can afford to spend less time on those scores now and more time drilling those things into your head. I'm not taking you off patrols, because we need numbers on the street, and I'm not taking you down from squad leader, because frankly, nobody else in your squad's got the skills for it, and I don't like to break squads up if I can avoid it. But I am going to put in a request for a new training sim based on this encounter, and I want to see you solve it three different ways that don't involve individual heroics or destruction of private property with higher than a C ranking. And no more playing hero, or I really am going to demote you. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Seren saluted.
"Good. Dismissed."
Seren kept her head high until the office door had closed behind her, then slumped. Task failed successfully, she thought, exhaling. At least they're alive. I don't know what I'd do if any of my squad didn't make it. Ric, Treb, Viz…I should go see Treb and Viz in the repair bay.
But, she thought, on the way through the halls, Drak did still call me a hero. Even if he didn't mean it as a compliment. It's something, right? I still stood out from the rest. That's got to count a little bit.
Seren stood at attention, stiffly, head held high.
"Well, Seren, I've reviewed your files," said X, swiping through his notes on a tablet emblazoned with the Maverick Hunters logo. "And I've come to a decision."
She held her breath. This was it. She'd made all the improvements asked of her and then some. She'd broken the target shooting record for third-year recruits. She held the highest scores for her year in over half of the training simulations, including the one that had been based on her personal fuckup. There was no way that Captain X wouldn't see how hard she'd worked for this.
"I have to say, I'm impressed. You're one of the youngest Class A Hunters we've had in decades."
"Thank you, Captain, sir," Seren said, swallowing the rising swell of pride that threatened to break out across her face in a very unprofessional grin.
"That being said…" X drew a white finger across the tablet's screen, reading whatever was written there before looking up to meet her eyes. "I do have some concerns."
Seren remained silent. Concerns? What concerns? she wanted to ask, but she knew better than to interrupt.
"You haven't seen much combat, and what you have seen…your first outing especially was successful, but troubling. I know you've put in a lot of work in the year since then, and your training scores are exemplary, but there hasn't been as much improvement in live situations as I'd like to see. Your men trust you without question, which is good, but you still don't communicate as much with them as you should in the field, and that threatens squad cohesion. You've had issues with collateral damage, which also worries me."
Seren's circuits were roiling with tension, but refused to allow herself to react. Not in front of her hero. It was bad enough already, without her exploding and making things worse. But oh, she wanted to explode. She had worked so damned hard. If she could make Captain X see that…
Well, she'd be reprimanded, that was what would happen, and she knew it, so she remained silent, though it took all her willpower and then some.
"That all having been said, this is my review: Seren, Class A Hunter, 13th Unit, Squad 4. Your combat capability is excellent, but your leadership skills are still underdeveloped and your disregard for collateral damage is concerning. At this time, I cannot recommend you for promotion. Work on that, and we'll talk again next year."
Seren loaded into a random training simulation, grabbed the nearest city garbage can from the street as soon as it finished initializing, and threw it into a plate glass window as hard as she could, with a wordless roar of bottled-up anger finally given vent.
"Damn, Ser, I'm guessing it, uh, didn't go so good?" Ricochet asked. He wasn't part of the simulation. He and Trebuchet had joined her, because they'd wanted to hear the results of her review, and she hadn't been able to assemble two words without gritting her teeth so hard they threw pressure warnings, so they'd simply followed her into the simulation chamber.
"Hey, whoa, talk to us, okay? What's up?" Trebuchet placed his hands on Seren's shoulders, and she stared at him, wild-eyed and panting.
"You are not gonna beat the loose cannon accusations by blowing up an entire training sim," Ricochet remarked, and Trebuchet shot him a look.
"Shut up, Ric. This is not the time."
Seren twisted out of Treb's loose grip with a growl and fired several shots into the high-rise across the street. Holographic glass shattered, raining down on the sidewalk, and simulated pedestrians both reploid and human fled. "I have been busting my bearings for three years trying to be the best Hunter I can possibly be, and they're still not over my first goddamn outing when I was an idiot fresh out of the factory with no idea what I was doing," she fumed, finally managing to speak.
"Seriously? That's not fair," Ric agreed, trying to backpedal a little bit, because Treb was right, this wasn't the time.
"I don't get it," said Treb. "You're the highest rated out of any of us. There are unit captains who aren't classed as highly as you are. Like, shit, X himself was B Class until right before we joined. What's the holdup?"
Seren charged her buster until it began to throw capacity warnings, and let an enormous blast rip down the street, where it collided with a car with such fury that the entire thing exploded and the training simulation closed with a failing score. "Collateral damage," she sneered.
"You don't say," Ricochet said, under his breath.
"There's always next year, though, right?" Trebuchet ventured. "All you gotta do is keep your cool. Uh, not counting the training sim just now, but that probably doesn't matter that much."
Seren's anger evaporated as the simulation's projection faded into so many pixels and disappeared, leaving them in a dark room. "I don't get it," she said, quietly, all the fire gone out of her. "I'm doing my best. Why is my best so bad?"
"Maybe you're trying too hard?" Trebuchet suggested, gently.
"What am I supposed to do, then, stop trying?" Seren asked, turning huge, sad violet eyes on him. "This is all I ever wanted to do with my life. And I'm good at it. Everyone says so. X even said so. He said he was impressed! And then he recommended against promoting me and said I've got 'underdeveloped leadership skills.' What's that even supposed to mean?"
"I think you're doing a good job," Ricochet said. "I'd follow you to hell and back, no question."
"Same," Trebuchet agreed. "In a clock cycle."
Seren tried to smile, and failed, turning away from them instead. "Aww, guys. You don't have to say that just to make me feel better."
"I'm not just saying it," Ricochet objected, an unexpectedly sincere expression on his usually cynical face. "I would. If that somehow makes you a bad leader, rust 'em, they don't know who they're talking about."
"If he's following you to hell, then I'm following you both to hell," Trebuchet added, just as genuine. "Ric's my coprocessor, anyway, so obviously I'm gonna go with him, but we could be your unilateral receivers, if you want us."
Seren blinked at the two other reploids, first in surprise, and then because her eyes were filling with simulated tears. "Do you mean that?"
"Yeah," Ric said, with a single, firm nod. "We mean that."
"Straight to hell," said Treb.
"To and through it," Ric agreed.
"And hopefully back again, but who knows with me," Seren finally agreed with a weak laugh. "I'll do my best for you both, but you've seen my best."
"Whatever. Your best is good enough for us," said Ricochet. "Now let's load up a real simulation and show it who's boss."
"Ric, report!" Seren barked.
"Not looking good, chief," Ricochet replied, peering around the corner through the smoke. "They got us pinned down pretty hard, and I've taken a few hits. I'm not going much of anywhere."
"Treb!"
Trebuchet's fans rattled audibly over comms. "That last one was close. I'm running out of ammo, here, but I'm still functional."
"Viz, report!"
Silence.
"Viz?"
Still no response.
"Fuck. I'm going to get up higher and see if I can get a clear view. Hang in there." Seren took a running start at the corner. She jumped, kicking from one of the walls with one foot, then the other with the other foot, and made a high grab for the top edge. She pulled herself up easily, turned to face the edge she'd just scaled, and ran along the higher of the two walls, feet finding enough purchase in the rough stone to carry her to a windowsill. From there it was a simple enough matter of jumping up and pulling herself to the next higher window until she'd cleared the top of the building, five stories high, where she took a moment to get her bearings.
There it was below her: the commandeered construction mechaniloid that had her squad cornered. It lifted a massive leg and punched through a brick wall, sending chunks flying. Several buster shots splashed ineffectively against its heavy plating.
"Oh, shit," came Trebuchet's voice. "I'm out of ammo and it's trying to stomp me like a bug."
"Get out of there," Seren ordered.
"Trying, believe me," he replied, "but I'm kinda cornered here." She saw it lift another leg and step down, and could only hope it had missed.
"I'll get you out of there. I swear I will." Seren cast around for anything she could use to her advantage. She fired a few experimental shots at the thing, but all she succeeded in doing was scoring its paint job.
"I think it spotted me," came Ricochet's voice. "Oh. Yeah. It definitely spotted me," and then Seren flinched as he cried an agonizing sound over comms. "It's…cool, I'm fine," he said, weakly. "I wasn't using that leg anyway."
"Play dead, I'm on my way," Seren ordered, and leapt from the roof. There was a fully laden crane, she realized on the way down, and if she could lure it under that load…she thought briefly about collateral damage, but this was her squad, damn it. Surely they were more important than a piece of dumb machinery. She hit the ground, rolled, and sprang back to her feet, heedless of the damage reports, buster blazing. "Hey! Pick on someone your own size!" she yelled at the thing, though it was easily two hundred times her weight.
Her shots did nothing more than scorch its surface, but the mechaniloid, and the Maverick driving it, swiveled its cockpit to face her. It was built like a spider, with the driver suspended in a cabin underneath the main body. The machine raised a leg and crushed it into the ground, but it was too slow to catch her underneath it, and she danced aside.
"You're insane, sir, just so you know," Trebuchet broadcast.
"Come on!" Seren screamed at the Maverick driving the huge thing, running backwards and firing a steady barrage at the cabin below, forcing it to advance with an arm cocked up and around itself protectively. "Kill me! You can do better than that!"
The machine followed her, and she led it, throwing herself out of the way of several attempts to smash her flat. Seren could not be stopped so easily, not when her squad's lives were on the line.
"You're gonna get in so much trouble for this," Ricochet warned her.
"Yup," Seren agreed.
"Okay, just checking."
Seren threw her arms wide. "You aren't even trying!" she shouted at the enormous mechaniloid. "Just kill me! It can't be that hard!"
It reared up, four legs on the ground, four in the air, and drove them all at her, one at a time. She leapt away from the first leg, and then towards the second, landing on it as it plowed into the ground and running halfway up it. The third arm took aim at her, and she leapt out of the way as the machine hit itself, one leg crippling the other.
"Nice shot," she yelled mockingly, backpedaling away from the still off-balance mechaniloid and aiming into the sky. "Now, duck." One carefully-aimed shot: that was all it took to destroy the crane's cables, sending its load plummeting. Seren ran as fast as her legs would take her as several tons of steel beams spilled from the sky, end-first.
The construction mechaniloid never stood a chance. By the time the dust settled, it was a misshapen pile of limbs pouring smoke, pummeled to scrap atop the flattened cabin that had once contained a reploid.
"Squad four, report."
"Still ticking, sir," said Ricochet.
"Somehow," agreed Trebuchet.
"Viz?" she asked.
Weakly, almost inaudibly, Viz's channel crackled to life. "...Sir."
She let out a sigh of relief. "Let's go get you guys patched up."
"Seren. You know why you're here."
"Yes, sir."
She stood, proudly, chin high, gaze holding Drakon's steadily. Defiantly, even. Say whatever you have to say, she thought. I know what I did, and I'd do it again.
"And you know what I'm going to say."
"Yes, sir."
"What I don't know is, what are you going to say?"
"I did what I had to do to protect my men, sir."
"And you really do not see any problems with this entire situation?"
"No, sir."
Drakon sighed in angry exasperation, slapping his tablet down on his desk. "Just get out of here. Get out of my sight. I have so much paperwork to file and meetings to go to because of you, I don't even have time to reprimand you. I should throw you in a holding cell, is what I should do, but you're lucky, because they're full. Go to the barracks. Do not leave. I'll be sending someone to escort you."
Seren returned to the barracks, head still high. She'd done the right thing, and this time, she had no doubts. Her squadmates wouldn't suffer for her decisions, whatever they ended up doing with her, and they were all alive, and that was enough for her.
Trebuchet met her. "Ser. They're pissed with you."
"I know," she said, simply.
"No, I mean they're really pissed. I heard Drak and some of the higher-ups talking and they're calling you irregular now."
"Are they?" she asked, feeling strangely unconcerned. "I wasn't aware protecting my allies wasn't part of my duties."
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger, that's just what I heard. I think it's a load of rust, myself, but I'm biased. Still, though, they're talking discharging you and placing you in detention for rehabilitation."
Seren sat on the edge of her recharging pod. "If that's what they want to do, it's their loss."
"You're just going to let it happen?"
She shrugged. "What are my options? On one hand, I have a one hundred percent mission success rate, and on the other, I'm four years in and I already have more reprimands on file than anybody else in my combat class who hasn't already been declared Maverick. They care more about a bunch of construction materials than their own people, and I can't do that, Treb. It's not helping humanity to throw us at problems and expect us to die."
"Don't take this the wrong way, but I kinda don't believe that humanity is the thing you're worried about, here."
Seren gave him a piercing look. "It's not, but I'm not wrong, either."
"...You're not, no," Trebuchet agreed, quietly. "Ric and Viz say thank you, by the way. I was just in the repair bay to check on them. They're gonna be okay."
For the first time since she'd arrived back at the base, Seren relaxed, just a little. "Good. Tell them I'll miss them."
Trebuchet grimaced. "Come on, Ser, don't talk like that."
"How should I talk, then? Drakon would have thrown me in the brig if it weren't already full. We both know where this is going."
"But you didn't do anything wrong," protested Treb. "You were resourceful. You kept us alive. Maybe if I try talking to them…"
"Don't," Seren said, shaking her head. She sighed. "They'll throw you in with me, and then where will we be?"
Trebuchet glanced around. Nobody else was in the barracks at this time of day except for the two of them, him because he was injured but not so badly that self-repair couldn't handle it, and her because she'd been ordered to go there and stay there until Drakon had decided what to do with her. "What if you just left?" he asked, very quietly.
"Run from charges of irregularity? That isn't going to convince anybody that I'm not, and you know it. That'll get me labeled Maverick." But she was thinking about it, even so. It was a terrible idea…like everything else she did, if her superiors were any indication, so maybe it actually wasn't such a terrible idea at all.
"No, but at least you won't get sent to rehab. They're allowed to reprogram you there, Ser. I know it's not my place to tell you what to do, but I don't want you to be reprogrammed."
"Maybe they'd reprogram me into someone who actually knows how to be a Hunter without screwing it all up," she said, but Trebuchet's face was so sad and earnest that she couldn't put any heart into it. "Oh, don't look at me like that, Treb. You can't ask me to run away and leave you and Ric here alone."
"So you're just going to let them take you away from us instead?" Trebuchet asked.
Now it was Seren's turn to look around, just in case anybody was listening. "No," she decided, in a murmur. "I'm not. But if I'm going to go, I have to go now. So tell Ric goodbye for me." She took his hands and gave them a squeeze.
"We'll follow you as soon as we can," Treb promised, quietly, squeezing her hands back.
"You don't have to," Seren told him.
"Yeah, we do. To and through hell, and back if we're lucky, but even if we're not lucky, at least we'll have each other."
"To and through it, and I swear, I'll find a way to bring us all back."