Lanis’ rear-facing optics watch helplessly as the two Kaisho mechs raise their weapons toward her Unit’s exposed back. Nearly all of her Unit’s power is being shunted into the bulwark shield and its straining forward deflectors; at this moment the combined power of the Kaisho mechs could possibly maim her.

  A lance-beam from the first mech scores a ragged mark across her left shoulder, but then whips away into the hillside, as both Kaisho mechs stagger against detonations.

  About damn time, Ether thinks, establishing a comm link to the late-arriving Aegis Three and Aegis Five.

  “You distract those Kaisho mechs while we take care of the Units,” Ether commands to the Murkata mechs, detonating an EMP drone against one of the staggered Kaisho mechs’ lancers in their brief moment of reprieve.

  Order confirmed, Aegis Three responds. Focusing weapons on—

  The rest of the sentence cuts off as a thunderous boom rolls across the hills, a flash of light barely missing the pivoting head of Aegis Three.

  Odd. A Fleet Heavy Insertion Unit didn’t miss shots like that.

  While I’d like to chalk that miss up to the brilliance of my drone handling, that’s not all of it; it looks like the second Unit’s AI system is even more degraded than the first’s. It should never have missed a shot like that.

  This comforting thought is interrupted by a shudder, as another explosive shell detonates against Lanis’ shield.

  Which doesn’t mean they can’t kill us. Just that it might take a bit longer.

  There’s something else too, though, and Lanis feels a tinge of confusion behind the all-consuming rage that still races along every nerve ending.

  The enemy units aren’t behaving as they should be. They’re…

  Engaging for close combat? Ether wonders, echoing Lanis’ disbelief.

  It goes against every Fleet doctrine imaginable. Both corrupted Units have medium engagement load-outs; any sane pair of Fleet pilots would keep Lanis at a distance, or at least have one Unit obliterate her from the side while she attempted to engage with the other. Instead, they’re both running straight toward her, awkwardly firing, the angles of their attack narrowing so that Lanis can now deflect both of their shots with barely any adjustment in her shield or deflectors.

  Ether grasps the situation before Lanis’ rage-addeled mind can register the implications.

  They want to grapple! Ether screams, pushing her own tactics analysis against the ossified instincts of the Assault Unit’s intellect core.

  Lanis feels her mouth move, an expletive of fear expelled into the confines of the pilot pod, but the greater part of her mind brims with eager confidence. She laughs maniacally, an insane sound that is not entirely her own.

  “LET THEM COME!” she screams back, spit flying through the shimmering HUD, her hand gripping the Grav-maul, knuckles white beneath her blue Fleet pilot suit.

  Ether again struggles to impart the gravity of her analysis of what went wrong when the Assault Unit first engaged the corrupted Unit on the Cauldron’s grounds, replaying not just the careful warnings of Morris, Tallin, and Admiral Ren, but also the fact that every Fleet Navigator that has met the anomaly has had their mind obliterated.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  DON’T LET THEM TOUCH YOU! Ether yells again, but the words don’t register. It’s like she’s pounding against soundproof glass, the words rendered mute by the emotions crashing over Lanis.

  And yet, a part of Lanis does understand, or tries to. She attempts to grasp the meaning of what Ether is saying, trying to turn them into something that the ghost within the Unit, within herself, can comprehend.

  It's not working.

  Grapple with ME? I’ll show them the meaning of obliteration, Lanis thinks, grinning maniacally.

  The Assault Unit springs forward, leg articulators groaning with massive compression-release, to meet its enemies head-on.

  The first corrupted Unit has dropped its main stand-off weapon system, a mass-driver nearly as long as Lanis’ Grav-maul, and hasn’t even bothered to raise its other weapon. Instead, it reaches out with its massive hand, fingers spread wide, as if it’s going to strangle the Assault Unit’s throat.

  Lanis cackles, thrusting out her shield under the arm, pushing it upward, while she whips the Grav-maul up and under the Unit’s other side with a twenty-ton swing.

  The Grav-maul cleaves under the Unit’s left shoulder with a deliciously satisfying tear before its hand manages to touch her. It’s not quite a death-blow, but it sends the enemy suit crashing into the ground, arcs of energy spilling from the wound. The amount of power required to penetrate its deflectors was massive, and Lanis’ own deflectors shimmer with reduced power. She feels a hot slash across her right arm as the second Unit scores a direct hit with its lance-beam.

  An -Arm Function Compromised- alert blares across her HUD. Lanis can feel the Assault Unit attempting to bypass the damaged section of arm, nano-bots spilling out like blood clots as it tries to re-knit itself where it can.

  The second Unit braces itself, locking on to Lanis’ legs at close range with careful aim; a shot not necessarily meant to kill, but to cripple.

  Ether scrambles for a countermeasure, but her drone systems have been nearly exhausted. From this range the Unit can’t miss, half-functioning AI or no.

  So, Lanis throws her shield.

  What in the world…? Lanis thinks, even as she takes the action. The shield, nearly as tall as the Assault Unit itself, is expelled faster than Lanis would have thought possible from the Assault Unit's arm. It smashes against the corrupted Unit, but its doesn’t drop to the ground; instead, it flexes and clings to the Unit like some alien being: the enemy Unit staggers back, shooting blindly through the shield, tearing a gaping hole through it.

  That was definitely never covered in the training modules, Ether thinks as Lanis turns to the other Unit on the ground. She grabs the Grav-maul with both hands, smiling as she hefts its weight. There were protocols to drop the shield, but to throw it? Secrets within secrets, Lanis numbly muses. Or has the ghost within the Unit overridden certain fail-safes, turning the mech into something its creators never envisioned? The thoughts skip against her mind like pebbles across a frozen lake.

  Her grin widens, and she raises the Grav-maul over her head, holding it there for a moment like a construction worker eying a particularly troublesome piece of rebar, her eyes glittering. Then, with more relish than she thought possible, she brings it down upon the corrupted Unit with every bit of the Fleet Unit’s colossal power.

  The first blow cleaves through the Unit’s upraised arm, burying itself deep in its optic-studded head. Fluid and smoke leak from the gaping hole as Lanis withdraws the maul, raising it again. She doesn’t register the damage of the second blow, or the third—she’s laughing too hard, and screaming out obscenities, and laughing more, until her face is aching. A part of her watches on in horror, her Navigator-trained mind scrabbling futilely, trying to gain some purchase with which to regain control, but it’s like trying to open a bulkhead that’s been welded shut; she can’t tell where the ghost of the Unit’s instinct admin stops and her own self begins.

  But it feels so wonderful—the power, the exhilaration, the revenge! For Fleet, for Terra, for—

  She pauses, panting. What’s that noise?

  Too late does she recognize Ether’s screams for what they are, as the second corrupted Unit, freed from the bulwark shield, lays a glowing hand upon her back.