The Hand of Ra

Brother Tal struggled with the HE-Vs controls as he neared the crest of the steep ridge. The machine's wide feet, caked with mud, settled at last onto the ancient stone, stable. He locked the Klondike’s joints, a pneumatic hiss reaching him in the cockpit. Tal glanced at the cockpit displays, amber tones shifted yellow by the high afternoon sun. Ra, ever above, ever kind. There was no grand view through the canopy; all he could see from where he sat was scrubby grasses, gravel, and a few sparse saplings. 

The eastern edge of the Buried Basin, Ra's earthly domain set aside for his blessed people, was just past the ridge. Tal would see it with his own eyes in a moment. Despite the approaching threat, now was the time for patience. He knew the sentries were picking their way over the same rough ridge to meet him. Tal leaned back and savored a moment’s respite. His machine, an old, repurposed ore-mover, like himself bore signs of devotion: coarse copper and brass filigree wound along the arms, a brass sun welded to the wide chest, and everywhere else a wash of dark burgundy paint covered the rusting hull. That paint symbolized Ra's continual protection of his people, and his wrath toward those who would harm them. One and the same. 

The dashboard chirped, a blindspot alarm. Beyond the scuffed canopy’s edge, two men approached. Three remote, weak clangs reverberated up through the HE-V; the signal. Tal checked the joint locks one more time, then unbuckled, rose from the seat, and turned to the back of the cockpit. He touched the devotional sun there, inscribed with its wide, unblinking eye, and then climbed the short ladder to the Klondike’s top hatch. He threw the locking lever, and pushed the heavy hatch up and open with the aid of its struts. Pine, hot metal, soil, wet stone and a twinge of sweat reached his nose.

Brother Ostlund had already scaled the tall machine via its handholds and was waiting for him. He helped heave back the heavy hatch and lent a hand to Tal, grunting with the effort of pulling his stocky friend up and out. 

“Brother Ostlund, be seen. Punctual as ever. Thank you.”

“Ra sees you also, Brother Tal. You’re welcome. I wish I could greet you on a happier day.” The taller man unslung a pair of electro-optical binoculars and handed them to Tal. He pointed east. From their vantage on top of the Klondike they could see over the ridge and clear to the distant horizon.

Tal raised the binoculars, fiddled with the magnification, and waited for them to focus. Some 15 miles off, dust plumes on the horizon, a dun snake winding through the hazy countryside. Tal punched up the magnification to max and his view wobbled precipitously, too much for the bino’s stabilizers to overcome. He knelt, settling one elbow on a knee, and looked again. He caught glimpses of blue paint through the dust. 

"Ah," Tal said quietly. "It's them." He lowered the heavy binos and made a tsk sound, between regret and disappointment.

“Who?” 

“The ones from the south. Two months ago, near abouts.”

“The blasphemers! Closed eyes, stony hearts. They have chosen war, then.”

“Looks like, dear brother.”

Tal stood and turned back, looking inward and toward home. From where he stood he could just make out the hallowed ground of the Three Rebukes. He did not need the binoculars to visualize every detail of that holy place, the one Watcher Lynch always recounted so beautifully in his services. Three overlapping craters, each a perfect circle of tortured, shattered earth some two hundred meters across. The edge of each fused to glass by the pure fury of Ra's judgment. Tal had walked them as a boy, walked them still, and could feel the crunch and unnatural smoothness underfoot even now. The Founder of the Hand of Ra, the First Seen, had beseeched Ra in his time of uttermost need. Ra had answered, and saved his people. Three brilliant lances of sunlight made solid streaked down from the sky. Three roars of anger shook the Earth. Three craters where the wicked had dared the Sun God. 

Three Rebukes.

—

Brother Tal had watched their faces during the negotiations. They were desperate, tired people. Their leader, a man named Verlan, had been respectful enough regarding the acquisition of nickel and copper. His people needed both for repair of water reclamation systems. Left broken, it was sure to doom their struggling settlement. Clean water was of paramount importance for trade with neighbors and travellers. Verlan had offered much for the metals; weapons, labor, expertise. Then his wicked tongue uncoiled.

Verlan had argued too strongly during a time of scarcity. Elder William tried to placate him with assurances that Ra would provide enough for both peoples, enough for Verlan and his folk, in time. Verlan had scoffed, then blasphemed, laughing.

Negotiations ended at once and they were sent away under threat, and twice more since then their envoys were turned back. With such people there could be no trade, no fraternity.

—

"They were warned," Tal said as he turned east again. His voice was neutral. "They chose their words."

Ostlund did not reply, turning to spit as if his mouth were suddenly filled with rust.

"Remain here, on watch. I will send others to relieve you. Ra sees our plight, brother.” Tal said

Ostlund climbed down off the towering Klondike with the agility of a spider. Tal reentered the cockpit and strapped in. He called home, alerting the Elders, and carefully turned his hulking machine around. He steered the massive HE-V down the ridge, its gait jarring and ponderous. By the time he reached the bottom, Watcher Lynch was ringing the great chimes to gather the faithful. On level ground, Tal set a fast pace. The nearest rim of the Three Rebukes caught the afternoon sun, glinting like the eye of Ra himself.

—

The Temple of the Seeing Sun was part of a vast smelting works and refinery before the Rift. While the many vats were still functional and indeed used by the Hand for their original purpose, the sanctuary, originally an immense furnace of some kind, had forever been cold. Now the cavernous, echoing space served the Hand of Ra as a place of worship. On the high ceiling was a brilliant sun of gold, the Eye of Ra, and surrounding it were small points of copper, stars symbolizing his lesser light. The air here always smelled of herbs, charcoal, smoke and beeswax, a wonderfully comforting aroma to Tal and his kin.

Watcher Lynch stood before the granite altar, the cold stone draped in an embroidered crimson cloth. His copper circlet glinted in the firelight as he raised his hands and the seated congregation hushed. Lynch’s face was deeply tanned and creased, weathered by sixty-odd years of ascetic devotion and survival. Around him, dozens of Ra’s faithful had assembled: Tal’s fellow Brothers and Sisters, the warriors who protected Ra’s domain on Earth, along with miners, artisans, whole families. Tal took his place at the front, shivering in his sweat-dampened haptic suit.

"Ra sees all, be seen you who would." Lynch intoned solemnly, voice strong and sonorous despite his years. 

“See us, see us.” A chorus of voices, hands raised and fingers touching, circles, overhead in unison. 

Watcher Lynch continued. "From his high place, Ra watches over his faithful. He watched over our ancestors when he first set his ire against the world. He watches us now. My own father was only eight years old when the First Seen saved him," Lynch said softly. "Him and sixteen other children, hiding as the heathens railed against Ra’s correction. The First Seen, our Founder, was once only a simple soldier. So moved was he by pure pity for the defenseless that Ra saw him, and revealed his benevolence to him.”

"The Founder, blessed be his memory, was led to an old school bus, as yellow as Ra’s light. A sign of favor and protection. He gathered the children and brought them here, to this basin, to safety. There, in time, Ra further revealed his goodness and his ways. Ra had called upon his First Seen to save us all, to build something good on the Earth he cursed. Every night, the Founder told my father and the others stories about the Sun God, happy, kind, watching them from above. They learned of Ra’s great Eye that never blinked. About the certain wrath that would fall on any who dared threaten his faithful."

Tal had heard this very sermon countless hundreds of times, and still he listened intently. 

“Then, one day, Ra tested his chosen. Evil men came," he leaned on the altar, eyes downcast, hands tense. "The Founder begged them to leave. They laughed at him, they said they would take what they wanted and burn the rest."

Lynch looked up, his voice trembling with indignation. "The Founder walked out alone in another machine Ra provided for him. Ever peaceful, he begged again that the evil men should leave so that Ra might spare them. They would not go. Then, he prayed to Ra, and Ra heard his prayers! Ra then sent down his Three Rebukes..." Only the crackle of burning firewood was audible in the Temple. 

"That was when the children truly understood," Lynch went on, voice softer, full of reverence. "The Founder’s word was true. Ra watched over them. Ra protects, as he always has! He watches over and protects us still! Be seen!"

Watcher Lynch stood tall behind the altar and raised his arms, voluminous sleeves shimmering like oil in the torchlight. "Two months past, evil men came again, seeking trade. We faithful welcomed these strangers. We offered fair terms for our minerals, minerals bequeathed to us by Ra for our provision. But they were greedy. They mocked Ra’s wisdom. Their leader called us fools clinging to insanity!"

Murmurs rippled through the crowd, hissing with anger, disturbed.

"They blasphemed," Lynch said coldly. " And now they return with weapons, showing themselves as the thieves they are. They would steal what Ra has blessed his chosen with. And so they too will face judgment, as all who threaten Ra and his chosen must." He half turned and gestured to Tal.

“The Brothers and Sisters go forth bravely to confront these pillagers, and Ra’s ever-open eye burns hot against our foes! Be seen, you faithful!”

“SEE US!” The crowd erupted in jubilation as Tal and his fellow warriors stood.

—

Brother Tal monitored the approach of the raiders all night in the command center, a room little more than a converted office space fitted with a map board and radios. The approaching band had camped some distance off, resuming their journey the following morning as Ra’s eye rose behind them. A good omen. 

Tal departed with his fellows in their own HE-Vs to meet them. Four in all, along with mining trucks carrying heavy weapons and brethren who would fight on foot. They would meet two other Hand pilots already afield and watching. The weight of what was to come settled over Tal like mist, and his heart was troubled.

He had long ago memorized the prayers of salvation, every variation of the holy numbers, and repeated them, under duress, during drill and practice until he could not speak them wrong. But he had never done so with his heart ablaze, in battle, had never sent up his prayer with the real fervor that would bring Ra's burning judgment upon living souls. 

The Hand’s meager force stopped south of the Three Rebukes and awaited their foes. In time, their foes arrived, rolling and walking over the ridge in the distance, stopping at the bottom across a broad plain, roughly a kilometer away. Brother Tal stoically observed it all from his Klondike, a lengthy flanged club gripped in his rig’s right hand. He was positioned with the five other Hand HE-Vs, all variously ornamented, in a simple defensive gunline blocking the most direct route to the village. 

The calculus of the battle to come was brutal: six against fourteen, and among the raider ranks were actual warmachines and many more vehicles, besides. Without Ra's intervention, this would be a slaughter.

Tal opened a general channel. "You there. You were warned. Again you stand in Ra's domain, in opposition to his Hand. Withdraw now, I beg, or you will face judgment."

A response came right after, a man’s familiar voice. Verlan, their leader. 

"Sir, we came in peace. We came in friendship. We offered fair trade. You refused over- over jest, a joke.” His voice was even wearier, not truly angry. "Our children may die because of your-.” He cut himself off. “We need the metals we talked about, and that’s all. We're not here to destroy you. That is the last thing we want. Can we not… Can we figure this out peacefully?"

"Your blasphemies are counted," Tal replied harshly. "You called Ra a false god. You called his faithful lunatics."

Across the plain, Tal could not hear the many whirring motors and servos that aimed guns, nor the silent cogitation of fire control systems fuzing shells and charging capacitors. None of the Hand’s HE-Vs, simple as they were, sounded alarms at the questing attention of hostile targeting lasers and radars.

"I only questioned- I sought to understand. I meant no offense, no harm. Please! Please…” 

"Leave," Tal repeated. "I will not say it again." He struggled against a rising hatred for these people. He sought to channel the Founder’s mercy and compassion.

Silence stretched for too long. Then Verlan’s voice returned, harder. "We can't. I'm sorry, but we can't.” 

Their formation advanced as one across the plain. No shots were fired.

Tal watched them come. His hand moved again to the transmission key. "Sister Casie, we must beseech Ra for deliverance." He rattled off a lengthy, sacred numeric prayer, and another after that, owing to the great peril he and his kin faced. The numbers’ purpose was knowable only to Ra.

They chose this, they blasphemed. Tal reminded himself. They were warned. They blasphemed and now they come as thieves. Against Ra.

—

Deep in the innermost sanctum of the Temple of the Seeing Sun, beyond even the sacred reliquary shrine of the Founder's bus, Sister Casie, robed, sat in the Founder's own HE-V. It was merely half an HE-V, at this point. One leg was gone, the other was stripped to the skeleton. Neglect, rust and wear had locked every joint. The paint was so old and brittle it flaked like cicada husks, crackling at the slightest touch. 

In the dim cockpit, cramped and cluttered, she waited, anointed for a most holy and important duty: serving as the bridge between the protectors’ lips and Ra’s ears. She heard her brother’s prayers, committing the numbers of both to memory in an instant. Her hands trembled slightly as she punched the numbers in, and watched them populate a display. Two prayers, two sequences each: a string of numbers that would call Ra's judgment. She pressed a single, larger key and waited 

"Sister Casie?" Brother Tal's voice crackled, insistent, over the radio. "Have you heard? Does Ra see us? Has he heard us?"

She’d been distracted by her own troubled thoughts and blinked back to the present, focusing on the screen, still dark save for three green, winking dots. Soon, a cheery tone sounded as an image of a dish, on Earth, pointed at a satellite in the void, above, appeared. A checkmark glowed between them, then all vanished. 

"Yes, Brother Tal. Ra has heard us, has seen us. Even now his light gathers." Her voice sounded steadier, surer, than she felt and she was glad of it. 

—

Far above the Sudbury Basin, a forgotten satellite waited among the ever-multiplying constellation of junk in orbit over Earth. Decaying and decrepit though it was, it had been built to last. Unusual for commercial satellites, this one carried a tremendously heavy load of cargo meant for delivery to the surface: sleek, pointed kinetic mass rods, made of cheap and abundant tungsten, each a little shorter than a power pole and about as wide. 

In its day a product of graft and blackmail, the satellite was once used to break up deep formations of ore throughout the Basin, doing so easily, quickly and cheaply. When the Rift struck, it was forgotten about soon enough. It waited, geosynchronous, patient and potent, until a kindly, desperate man happened upon a still-functioning, credentialed controller in a tucked-away HE-V.

Once again, coordinates were received. Twice the hopper revolved silently. Though it operated with feline smoothness once upon a time, it now hitched and scraped through the deployment procedure. Twice, two gray spikes puffed away from the launch bay, one after the other. They seemed to fall slowly, at first.

—

Brother Tal tried to count the seconds, seemingly stretched into minutes, stretched into hours. His mouth was dry. Onward their foes marched. Was something wrong? Tal strangled the doubt at once. Ra was watching. Ra protected.

The oncoming raiders were halfway across the plain, still holding fire. Hesitant, perhaps, or hoping against hope that the faithful would break or surrender. Tal knew that Ra’s gaze, ever heavy on the hearts of the wicked, stayed their lust for bloodshed. Proof!

It was then that he looked up again, and this time saw. Two tiny, thin, bright streaks in the sky. The signs! Drops of the sun’s unquenchable fire, Ra’s might made manifest! Stretching, angling down from on high, their speed impossible and gathering. Tal had heard the stories, had touched the very soil of the Strikes, but knowing was not the same as seeing. They grew and grew, lengthening, ever brighter. Ra, reaching out to smite the evildoers! Time compressed now. Years squeezed to a fraction of a second.

The faithful would be preserved!

The first tungsten rod struck. Its impact was apocalyptic. One blue-and-white checkered HE-V was beneath it at the impact point. It ceased to exist, smashed to its constituent atoms by incalculable force. Unseen, the rod burrowed into the earth instantly, a shockfront of displaced, superheated stone and soil screaming outward. A perfect circle, a scouring hurricane. The ground leapt, heaved and rolled, as waves on the sea. Another HE-V near ground zero was thrown skyward, arms outstretched, upward, in a facsimile of supplication, before disappearing in the rising cloud.

The second rod fell. More HE-Vs tumbled like bowling pins. Trucks flipped or sank in the now-treacherous earth. In another moment, all was concealed by dust. The shockwave reached Tal and his brethren. Even some five hundred meters distant the mighty Klondike was rocked by the pressure wave, and he had to work to keep the top-heavy machine from tilting over backwards. Over the radio, awestruck prayers of thanks, of glory, of praise from his brothers and sisters filled the channels. Singing, too.

Tal ordered them to stand, to hold position. They all waited some time. Still no shots came. As the dust and smoke slowly cleared, the faithful saw: where a moment ago stood their enemies, now was only ruin. One HE-V, battered and prone, struggled to flip onto its back. It managed, and was still for a moment. Then one giant steel hand reached up and tore away its canopy, dropping it to the smoldering soil before going slack. A man slowly crawled out from the cockpit, as if from a tomb. Two men and a woman, all injured, tried vainly to force open another shredded machine before flames engulfed it.

Tal and the others stood and watched. They watched the few survivors go, as ghosts, back the way they came. Those spared among the defeated who had dared challenge Ra. Later, one survivor, a young man pinned in the wreckage of a transport truck, leg crushed beyond saving, was found weeping. Weeping not from the agony that was certainly terrible, but from revelation. 

—

The victory convocation lasted hours, the Hand of Ra gathered in their entirety inside the Temple. Watcher Lynch led the ceremonies. Hymns were sung and thanks offered. Sister Casie slipped away, walking through the twisting innards of the complex to the old bus in its shrine. Its wheels sat on carved stone blocks, tires long ago rotted to nothing. Surrounding it, the faithful had placed their simple votive offerings: bowls of soil from the Three Rebukes and the new Strikes, written prayers on paper, sketches of loved and lost, simple candles.

Casie knelt and studied some of them. A child's drawing of the sun, a hand-beaten copper prayer wheel. A long letter, written in unsteady script, thanking Ra for another year of life.

These people, her people, believed. Truly, deeply believed. Faith, the kind that gives purpose, structure, and hope. That made sense of a deeply confusing world. She had been anointed to fortify that faith, to serve as the sacred link between earthly followers and Ra above. She rose and considered the driver's seat inside the bus, barely visible through the cloudy, grimy windows, where the Founder had sat. 

She glanced at the small shrine box installed beside the seat containing a picture of the Founder from life, faded and tattered. A man in camouflage, with hard bark but kind eyes. His smile was thin, tired. Had he truly prophesied this faith, their faith? Or was it half-remembered myth meant only to comfort frightened children? Did he believe his own tales? Did it matter?

Casie closed her eyes to pray. The whispered words fizzled out and she was silent; doubt had fully risen to cover her heart, and no words escaped those murky, black waters. The Founder was a kind man. But merely a man who’d had enough of war and decided to protect orphans instead. A man who then told those orphans stories to comfort them. Had he known of the mining satellite beforehand? Had he discovered it by accident, sheltering in this abandoned mine? 

Casie walked closer to the bus and pressed a hand to the cool, rough bodywork. There was too much at stake, too many lives. She would keep the faith, for their sake. But she understood it could not, would not, last. The satellite, unreachable, was slowly failing. And its payload depleted with each called strike. 

How many rods remained? A dozen? Five? Two? None? Casie wondered if Ra’s judgment would even fall at all next time.

She pulled her hand back and touched the sun medallion at her throat, the copper surface warm from her skin. She felt suddenly trapped, panting, walls closing in, shadows whispering of the destructive enlightenment sure to befall one and all in the Buried Basin. She gathered herself after a time and walked back into the Temple to join the festivities. Her tears would be mistaken for those of joy.

Illustration by Florian Mellies

WegMaCo Shareholder Address

Title: “WegMaCo”

Transcript of Shareholder Address

Speaker: Arthur Martinet-Farris (Vice President)

April 9th, 2385 ESY

Gavin Martinet Memorial Corporate Summit Center
Ophir Planum, Mars

(Podium Microphone: On)

(Portable Microphone: On)

Good morning, everyone. Shareholders, board members. Dear friends, thank you for being here. Some of you made a long journey. So if you’ll allow it, I will skip the preamble. I am ecstatic to share that your investment in WegMaCo, your continued trust in our vision and expertise, has been rewarded: Every single revenue stream, from consumer goods to interstellar transit, has seen significant gains over the last fiscal year. 

Overall profit has increased 26%. (Long Applause). Our direct-to-consumer products are ubiquitous, now found in 95% of all human habitations and businesses, and 90% of those contain six or more of our product lines. We, of course, continue to do far more than just deliver our own products to the far corners of space. Our transport fleet services every human inhabited planet, moon, station and asteroid in the solar system - and more than a few automated installations!

That fleet numbers an astounding <REDACTED> space-going vessels, including bulk freighters and tiny, fast courier ships. Each ship, every crew member, has a singular goal: on-time and intact delivery of critical shipments, be that drinking water, a complete orbital platform module or a single data drive. Last year, our efforts moved more than 471 billion tons of cargo, and accounted for 78% of all freight. (Light Applause) 

Amazing, isn’t it? Our customers know that whatever they are ordering or shipping, wherever it is going, we will make it happen. Not some other corporation, cooperative or government entity. It's hardly a boast. I say that with all humility. Our partners and clients don’t merely hire us; we don’t just do a job for them. When you contract with WegMaCo, you join the WegMaCo family. This company was founded, built and run on family ethics, and that is how it is still managed today. If you call someone family, you’d better mean it. That’s because you have a responsibility to them. We have a responsibility. A responsibility to humanity. No, not just to you, our shareholders! (Laughter).

Despite these uncertain times, business must go on, and business owners from Earth to the Belt know that seamless supply chains are prerequisites for profit. Logistics are, in fact, destiny. You can’t leave destiny up to chance. Our friends understand that if they want their own endeavors to flourish, they must partner with WegMaCo. Only we work so closely with our partners that we can anticipate their needs before they do. It’s no wonder they stick with us for the long haul: they can count on us to be there for them, right behind them, every step of the way. 

Take the Echelon Group, for instance, one of our longest and most prosperous partnerships. At first, they turned to us because they were forced to. In desperation. They were out of options for delivering their sensitive, valuable products to the most demanding clients and the wolves were at their door. Early on in discussions, they frankly told us it couldn’t be done. In time, WegMaCo showed them that, when everyone works together, it could. We, in turn, learned so, so much from them.

We learned that we don’t just make and sell goods. We don’t just ship cargo. We don’t just provide logistics. (silence for 3.1 seconds) We deliver outcomes. WegMaCo sells something, one thing, that money has never been able to buy, not since time immemorial: WegMaCo sells certainty. And in today’s competitive marketplace, certainty is the only commodity that matters.

(Wild applause)

My friends, on behalf of the executive staff and every WegMaCo employee, from our assembly line workers to our brave spaceship crews, thank you for your trust and investment. I can promise this year, and every year hence, the rewards will be even better than the last. Together, we’ll keep civilization moving through the stars. (Applause) Thank you, thank you. Please, enjoy yourselves and your stay. I will speak with some of you shortly. Thank you!

<Podium Microphone: Off>

(Footsteps, indistinct speech) Uh huh. If they like those numbers, the fourth quarter is sure going to blow their hair back. Just watch. You, fetch me a water, won’t you? Mineral water this time, please! Are we ready for our ten-thirty? Good. To real business, the Prosperity situation. The fix is in. Ah, what was the name of that dirtgrubber collective moving the ore, Daimyo something? (indistinct speech) Dairo, that’s it, thank you, Thomas. 
VisalCorp and Echelon both look like fools thanks to the efforts of the valiant miners, a real PR disaster and as intended. The last screw we had to turn. Their shares are already floundering and we’ll soon have majority ownership. Patience. (indistinct speech) What about the ore? Eye on the ball, Thomas, a hundred-million is a rounding error. In any case, we can shift a few bulkers from the Triangle to move all they can dig up. They’ve got no one else, make sure the rate is outrageous.
My what? Damn it…

<Portable Microphone: Off>

Illustration by Eldon Cowgar

Reunion Day

The third floor briefing room smelled of old upholstery, plastic and stale coffee. First Lieutenant Jared Lewis lingered for a time after his peers had filed out and the ancient holographic projector had flickered off, hum fading. It was made to keep on serving. Just like everything else in the 67th North Horizon Corps. Just like him.

Outside the hazy reinforced windows, Lewis watched a returning patrol of Fennec and Corso HE-Vs trundle through the monolithic gate and across the marshalling yard. Across the complex, the nearby hangars stood open to receive them, maintenance drones and robotic gantries prepped to service the giant fighting machines. The boxy HE-Vs had been refurbished dozens of times over the decades. All of them had outlived their original pilots. Each was treated with reverence.

The 67th had been completely isolated since the Rift, that great catastrophe that had utterly broken mankind’s mastery of Earth and the solar system at large. Cut off, alone, and plunged into a new world of lack and paranoia, they'd maintained discipline through thick and thin. Upheld their traditions and their faith.

This was all Lewis had ever known. Born 2359 in the hospital complex on the same base, the son of a logistics officer and a combat medic. He was a professional soldier, but the 67th wasn't merely his unit: it was his culture, his people, his world. To Lewis, the 67th was civilization in micro, all of it situated on one mostly self-sufficient military installation in southern Michigan.

Throughout the region where they projected force, the 67th stabilized an otherwise wild and lawless northern hemisphere. Their martial prowess, technology and professionalism had proved one hell of a ‘thou shalt not’ for many a raider and two-bit warlord. Lately, though, the natives were growing bolder. Word had reached the 67th that the long-enforced Solar Republic blockade of Earth’s skies was crumbling. And no one really knew why; seemingly the last remnants of their forces just gave up their posts.

Lewis briefly wondered over this before the iron discipline instilled in him since childhood reasserted itself, shaking him out of his reverie. His thoughts returned to duty and he left the briefing room. Descending three flights of stairs, Lewis was just beyond the stairwell door when raised voices drifted down the corridor leading to the command center. Was that a tinge of anxiety he heard? Probably another insurgent attack on a nearby hamlet, most likely. He changed course and headed toward the command center.

Then two officers sprinted out of an adjacent corridor and piled into the C3; the command, control, and communications center. Lewis knew then something was definitely amiss. Disregarding protocol, he jogged to the still-open door and let himself in. It was packed. Lieutenant General Perez stood at the main bank of consoles, an earpiece pressed to his head with one hand. Other personnel frantically worked keyboards amid a dozen hushed, huddled conversations in the room.

"Quiet! Lock it up!" Perez barked, and the C3 fell quiet. Another officer flipped a switch on one of the control boards and a speaker came to life, static pouring out. 

Through the static, a voice: "—say again, this is the Peregrine to Dusk Base. Authentication follows. Dancer July Silver, seven-seven-niner-one-five-five-one. Repeat, Dancer July Silver, seven-seven-niner-one-five-five-one. Requesting immediate approach clearance for planetfall and landing at your coordinates. How copy?"

Save for the hissing static, the room really was silent then. Lewis recognized the sequence, and his pulse quickened. The string of words and numbers were an authenticator, a code from before the Rift. A code, one of many, that identified friendly forces. Not many members of the 67th held out hope those codes would ever be needed after so long.

Perez's hands trembled slightly as he briskly thumbed through a book. A book, ancient and precious, that usually resided in a locked safe. Finally his finger traced a line, then again, slower. Around him, his senior officers barely breathed.

Perez looked up, expression stoic as ever, and cleared his throat softly. "The code is legitimate," he announced. "It's the 42nd. Our sister corps."

Stillness for one heartbeat, then the room erupted. Shoulders were slapped, some laughed, others gawked in disbelief. Lewis was numbed, overcome by the same sensation of unreality felt in the aftermath of a bomb explosion. A century of isolation, of wondering if they were the last, left totally alone. Wondering if their commitment counted for anything.

“Attention!” Perez's mild reprimand snapped all assembled back to order. Military bearing or no, Lewis saw no dimming of the excitement in his fellows’ eyes. 

Perez addressed his staff. "To work. Major Koenig, respond to that transmission. Clear them for approach and direct as needed. I want verification protocols running continuously. Everyone else, on alert. I want the quick-reaction force ready to roll with 30 seconds notice, as of right now."

"Sir?" Major Koenig looked concerned. "Could this be a deception ploy?"

"I don’t think so," Perez said carefully, "But we will be ready for that eventuality.” He turned to address the rest of the C3. “Let’s go, people!"

His soldiers leapt to obey. Alert notifications sounded across the entire complex. His brothers and sisters filed out and more came in. Lewis was swept along with those heading out. He led a Viper power suit squad, and his squad plus another were part of the quick-reaction force. The mission clock was already ticking. Following a winding series of corridors to the power suit bays, he sensed the posture of the base transform as troops double-timed to their posts, the shrill whine of fusion reactors cycled hot, and LAS wing engines spun up, baking tarmac.

He made it to the bay in three minutes, finding his squad — Heller, Roberts and Svensson — already assembled and quickly suiting up, each attended by two technicians. Heller, keen to any change in the status quo, looked at him with a questioning, cocked eyebrow.

"It’s go-time," Lewis told them. "We might have friendlies inbound. Or we might have hostiles jerking our chain. Either way, we're heading out."

“Friendlies!? Like who?” Roberts, his tone incredulous, was in half-dress. He had stepped into the leg assemblies of his Viper suit, and techs were hastily joining and securing the first pieces of the upper half around his undersuit-clad torso. 

Lewis had already hopped up on the metal stepladder and dropped into the waiting legs of his own suit with the ease of an acrobat. The techs set to work with tools buzzing, and the familiar second skin of the power suit clamped shut around him: chestplate, backplate, bracers, and gauntlets. Two full tons of radiation-hardened composite armor, sensors and target designators. He'd been training in these suits since he was sixteen. 

“The 42nd.” Lewis replied, and Roberts’ eyes went bright and wide against his olive skin. Then a grim-visored helmet and cowl was lowered over Lewis’ head and he was in darkness. Connections were made and after a moment the visor depolarized, the HUD flickered on, and speakers came to life.

“Ain’t no way, el tee!” Roberts continued, his voice now tinny over the suit radio.

“Looks like.” Lewis said, tasting the dry, coppery air now circulating over his face. 

Svensson was listening in and let out a low whistle and the squad chattered speculatively as Lewis ran through his standup checklist, completed pre-op diagnostics, and then confirmed pending data links using a combination of the suit’s jaw switch and facial gestures. His own suit and the others, all in the green. Clearing the HUD’s subdisplays he regarded his squad. The men stood fully eight feet tall in the bulky suits, and had lined up to retrieve their heavy 25mm rifles from a nearby rack. 

"All personnel, be advised." A voice crackled over the command net. "Incoming ship has completed atmospheric entry. ETA is twenty-one mikes."

Twenty-one minutes. Lewis felt strangely nervous. He’d seen combat, had fought the scum that prowled Michigan’s badlands and elsewhere. But in little more than a quarter of an hour the 67th would have its answer to a century-old question. Collecting his rifle and spare drum magazines, he marched out with his brothers to the pair of Orca LAS wing transporters, waiting to carry them to where they were needed.

—

Back in the C3, fresh drama unfolded. "Sir, new contacts! Multiple launches detected from Old Detroit metrozone." A sensor officer said urgently. "Signatures are supersonic now, resolving… SLASSMs! We’ve got six snakes in the air! Vector coincides with the 42nd ship!"

Perez’s blood chilled. SLASSMs, anti-starship missiles. Was it the Solar Republic firing on blockade runners? No, they had no ground forces present in Detroit, or elsewhere in Michigan. The Sable Cadre, then? That council heading up the coalition of local bandits, brigands, and renegade military units plaguing Michigan. They had been stealing, salvaging and trading war toys for years. But the 67th’s own intelligence had never once suggested they’d obtained any weapon that could threaten large, spacegoing craft.

"Broadcast on all frequencies!" Perez shouted. He leaned over the comms officer’s shoulder and spoke directly into the mic. "Peregrine, Dusk Base, you have missiles inbound, mark six snakes inbound! Deploy countermeasures."

The sensor display revealed the brutal calculus of the situation as acidic yellow icons. The 42nd's gargantuan transport ship, ponderous and ungainly in atmo. The missiles, relentless and accelerating. Seconds to intercept, two missile contacts winked out, shot down by the ship’s point-defense arrays. Two more veered off course, decoyed. But two struck the Peregrine. Perez watched its icon fragment.

Another sensor technician spoke up. "Peregrine is hit! Breaking up, no, wait, she's holding together but going down. Trajectory puts her in the Ann Arbor metrozone."

Catastrophe. The remains of Ann Arbor were a Sable Cadre stronghold. Lieutenant General Perez knew from bitter experience that its bowels were studded with cleverly hidden armories and HE-V workshops. A worst-case scenario. He straightened, expression grim, and turned to the warboard. "QRF, immediate deployment!" Voice booming with implicit command. "Direct all combat elements currently in the field toward the crash site.” 

—

The Orca shuddered as it climbed hard over hills, Lewis and Heller locked into the cargo compartment’s deployment rails. Svensson and Roberts would be just off the starboard wing in the second transporter. Streaming an exterior camera feed to his HUD, Lewis watched the Michigan landscape below blur past. Forests had swallowed most of the highways, and up ahead the sprawling corpse of Ann Arbor spread beneath a towering column of oily smoke.

Lewis’ workday had just gone from ‘interesting’ to ‘terrifying’. The old metrozone was a literal concrete jungle: trees burst through rooflines, vines and creepers swallowed whole blocks, and skyscrapers stood draped in tattered cloaks of vegetation. Another carcass of civilization-that-was on Earth.

"Two minutes to insertion," the pilot announced. "Advise LZ is likely hot. Can't get you closer to the crash site than three klicks. Other elements are getting lit up with surface fire."

Through the feed, tracers arced up from the ruins, lasers strobed, and missile contrails lit like angry fireflies. The Orca banked steeply, settled and dropped with a hard bang that jolted Lewis through the suit’s padding. The rear ramp unfolded on an overgrown parking lot. 

“We’re down. Out, out!” The pilot barked. The clamps released both suits and Lewis charged his heavy rifle before stepping down and off the ramp, metal-shod feet crushing the already crumbling pavement. The midday sun was obscured by smoke and ash, casting everything in shadowy relief. Mercifully, the gloom was no impediment whatsoever to the Viper suit’s sensors, and Lewis saw the rest of his squad, outlined in green, deploying a scant hundred yards away through a wall of dust. 

The Orcas departed. Close by, the crash and roar of combat. Overhead, the 67th’s attack LAS wings buzzed and banked, strafing targets, while larger transports settled to deploy more troops. "Form up," Lewis ordered. "Objective is two-point-eight klicks northeast, bearing zero-three-one. Watch your sectors, the enemy knows this place better than we do." Heller took point and the squad moved at a pace no unaugmented human could match, their power suits eating up the intervening distance in long strides. 

The remains of outer downtown were oppressive, every doorway, window and alleyway promising danger. Around them, the background thunder of HE-Vs and their heavy ordnance sounded nearer. Lewis flicked a glance at his tactical display to suss out if they were friendlies or not.

"Contact front!" Heller shouted into the comm.

Concealed Cadre infantry sprang from their hiding places in an old storefront, opening up with rifles, machine guns and portable rocket launchers. Lewis immediately relayed the contact to command as he felt dozens of dull impacts thud harmlessly across his body; a Viper suit’s plating would stop nearly all small arms rounds cold, but not anti-armor warheads or large caliber threats. Simultaneously, the 67th troopers fanned out and poured on immediate counterfire, targeting systems outlining threats in red as they fired from the hip. Heavy 25mm slugs punched through much of the cover the now-shocked Cadre troops sheltered behind. 

The initial ambush proved ill-timed. Several Cadre fighters burst open like rotting fruit under the withering fire from the power suits. Roberts caught three flankers in the open as they left cover, hewing them limb from limb. Svensson worked over a handful still sheltering in the storefront, killing them and suppressing a machine gun team in the same building.

When the incoming fire slackened to almost nothing, Lewis seized the advantage, ordering his squad forward to finish it, capitalizing on the shocking carnage already wrought. Lewis neared a burned-out passenger car by the storefront when a lone Cadre soldier, face inscrutable behind the visor of his haz armor, rose just beyond it, a disposable anti-armor launcher perched on his shoulder and pointing right at him. Lewis reacted on raw instinct. Lunging, he delivered a power-assisted kick to the car’s midsection, sending it rolling over onto his hapless attacker, crushing him. The launcher the man carried pitched upward and discharged, the rocket streaking away into open sky.

Crushed though the infantry were, the fight wasn’t over. Before Lewis could rally his men, a torrent of heavy weapons fire scythed down on his now-exposed squad from an adjacent parking structure. Emplaced autocannons raked the street, dealing Svensson a bad direct hit. He shrieked into the comm as his left arm assembly and the limb inside it shattered. Heedless of the danger, Roberts sprinted to his comrade to drag him out of the kill zone as Lewis and Heller sprayed the concrete face of the structure on full auto in a desperate bid to throw off the aim of the Cadre crews. All around, the street erupted with the impact of explosive shells, and Lewis mentally braced for the one that would cut him down. He prayed silently that he would die like a man.

Deliverance arrived not on wings, but on two legs. Over the radio Lewis heard a calm, almost bored, voice. "Viper team, this is Hotshot 3. I’ve got your back, grab some cover.” Emerging from the gloom behind Lewis’ stricken squad, a heavy Shepherd crunched up the street, pavement heaving and splintering under its feet. The brick-like warmachine was clad in slabs of reactive armor, hardpoints bristling with long-barreled howitzers and rotary cannons. The ugliest angel imaginable.

Lewis and Heller scrabbled out of the Shepherd’s path as it strode forward imperiously to lay its guns on the parking garage. The Cadre weapons teams showed fight and peppered the monster, but to no avail. Two apocalyptic reports from the howitzers and from the ground floor up the structure vanished in a volcanic geyser of debris. Lewis’ suit rang like a bell, and he watched half-stunned as the Shepherd’s pilot combed the rubble with both rotary cannons, firing wide open. Then, almost as an afterthought, he rotated and walked fire through the length of the nearby buildings, carving through and collapsing them.

Looking back, Lewis saw a pair of speedy Fennecs, the other members of Hotshot, arrive and take up supporting positions, followed closely by a convoy of support vehicles. If any Cadre forces remained alive and near, none risked the wrath of the 67th combat team. The crash site was close, but Svensson was in a bad, bad way. Lewis requested medivac and ordered Roberts to stay with his wounded comrade and administer what aid he could in the meantime. He and Heller would carry on to the objective. Collecting Svensson’s ammo, the pair moved out.

A broad, scoured trail of destruction led to the 42nd's ship, jutting from a sprawling commercial office complex. Smoke poured from rents in the hull and flames licked at the surrounding debris. Lewis watched with dismay as an enemy HE-V closed in from an opposite thoroughfare, toward their own position in a spillway. He cursed to himself and reported its presence. 

The Sable Cadre machine was smaller than the 67th's own Shepherd and seemingly cobbled together from salvage, but that was no consolation; they were spotted, and a Viper suit could not stand against such firepower, not for a moment. Lewis and Heller hunkered as heavy autocannon impacts walked up the street and over their heads, while searing particle bolts darkened their suit visors.

Staying as flat as possible on the incline, Lewis inched upward, just enough for his shoulders to clear the curb. "All 67th elements, this is Viper team leader. Enemy armor at objective, need priority fire mission! Flashing target data now." Lewis lit the enemy machine with his designator, making it known to every friendly smart weapon in range.

Across the surrounding metrozone, howitzer shells, rocket barrages and missiles streaked skyward, converging on the same destination. Lewis received the fire confirmations, counted seven hammering heartbeats, and the world came undone. Guided munitions pulverized the enemy rig into smoldering scrap and cinders. Nothing but a smoking crater remained.

Heller rose and quipped, "Overkill is underrated!"

“Right on, brother. Let’s get a move on.” Lewis checked his heavy rifle before he clambered up to street level. The pair crossed quickly to the ruined office complex and crashed through the maze of rubble and twisted metal. Small arms fire echoed from somewhere deeper inside. 

After barging through a jammed door, they found themselves face to face with a squad of Cadre troopers near the ship’s flank, apparently trying to find or make a way in. After a moment of surprise, a point-blank slaughter immediately ensued. Despite outnumbering the suits five to one, the infantrymen died fast, blown apart by massive slugs or else hideously mangled by suit-augmented blows. 

Lewis and Heller picked their way further into the increasingly jumbled building. They soon encountered a makeshift defensive position manned by different soldiers. Several of them were injured and all rightly terrified of the hulking, blood-soaked titans staring them down. 

One shouted for the others to hold their fire.

These soldiers’ uniforms and armor were familiar to Lewis, but different. Their patches, though: It was their sister unit. The 42nd NHC. Real. Alive. Here. One of them, hair singed and face blistered from fire, lowered the muzzle of his rifle slightly and peered over it at Lewis’ suit. A sergeant judging from his rank insignia, the man’s expression flickered in surprise and he looked into Lewis’ darkened visor, seemingly right through it into Lewis’ eyes.

"67th?" His voice was rough. "You with the 67th?” After a moment, he added “Sir?"

Lewis keyed his external speakers. "Roger that, Sergeant." He said, gauntleted hand wiping blood from the 67th North Horizon Corps logo painted on his chestplate. "I’m Lieutenant Lewis, we're here to get you out."

There was no time for celebration. That would come days later, only after thirty-eight names, Svensson among them, were added to the 67th’s memorial wall. The ruins of Ann Arbor had brewed up into a proper warzone: the Sable Cadre forces were still swarming, regrouping, and fighting, even then closing on the crash site. 

The cost of Reunion Day, as it would become known in the annals of the unit’s history, and to the wider solar system as Earthfall, was terrible. But that day marked the end of the 67th North Horizon Corps’ long and lonely patrol.

Illustration by Eldon Cowgur