Darkness falls across the dead city. The battle area inexorably shrinks as Cauldron Oversight announces another exclusion zone, but Hex’s position remains safe. They hear the rattling of gunfire, the echo of explosions, and the odd scream of energy weapons, sometimes miles away, sometimes achingly close, but they see no need to move; at least, not yet.

  Feels a bit odd though, doesn’t it? That they’re just letting us hide? Lanis thinks.

  It’s Ether's turn to give a virtual shrug.

  It does, but perhaps we were simply unlucky with the first two exclusion zones, and now we’re being paid back. Or maybe injured Suits with a kill count are being given a reprieve?

  Lanis purses her lips, and wonders.

  It’s not like I’m complaining, but it still feels strange, Lanis thinks. The meditating she’s done over the past few hours has been nearly as good as sleep, as far as her mind is concerned, and the headache of the early battles is a memory. She feels ready to fight again, but the longer they avoid combat the better their odds.

  Suddenly, without any warning, the pilot pod’s HUD flickers, and then goes dark, the patina of red and green Suit symbology dissolving into nothing.

  “What— argh!”

  Lanis strains against her harness at the massive weight of the unexpected de-integration, fighting against intense vertigo and the urge to vomit. She lashes out at the side of the pod with a clenched fist, focusing on the flash of pain in her hand in an attempt to ground her into her new, unshared reality.

  “Ether? Ether!” Lanis screams, her void echoing dully inside the Suit’s dead hull. Hex isn’t simply in standby-mode—it's experienced a complete remote deactivation.

  Lanis fumbles her hand across a series of manual toggles, vainly switching them off and on. She pulls the emergency power lever, then pumps it back in. Nothing.

  And then she feels it—a residual thought, like a fading flash of light, that Ether pushed into her mind just as the Suit powered down.

  The Cauldron’s remote disengagement modules.

  Lanis can taste bile in the back of her throat as she unclips her harness and removes the Suit’s neural shunt, the piece of advanced circuitry sliding out from her head with a wincing click. Her whole body tingles from the unexpected de-integration, and the vertigo hasn’t yet dissipated, but she moves with a newfound mechanical purpose.

  This isn’t right, she knows. There was no warning, no comm chatter from Oversight, nothing to suggest that her Suit would be going into standby mode, let alone a complete de-powering. It’s not only reckless, but outright dangerous for Oversight to do such a thing, and she shudders to think of how a non Fleet-trained pilot would feel.

  In the instant before the shutdown, Ether blasted Lanis with a series of instructions. The Cauldron installed their remote disengagement modules on all the suits: they include an external module, usually only accessible by a technician, and an internal decoupler.

  Lanis clenches her jaw as she pulls the pilot pod’s manual release lever. The pod door reluctantly hisses open, and Lanis half slides, half tumbles, out of the pod and onto the store’s dusty, laminate floor. What she’s doing is grounds for disqualification, not only from the Cauldron, but possibly also from future competitions, along with a heavy fine. Not only would it normally be extremely stupid, but it’s incredibly hazardous, given that she’s in the middle of a live fire zone.

  The night is cool, and Lanis’ skin prickles against the rush of air. Luckily the radiation here is minimal, but that isn’t the only reason to hurry. Again, Lanis hears the not-so distant rattle of a kinetic rifle. Right, being outside in the middle of an arena fight is definitely not a good idea.

  Can they see I’m outside? They'd stop the fight if they thought I was in danger... right? Lanis thinks.

  Lanis imagines Renfol watching her through a ‘cast, his normal placid demeanor twisting in disbelief and fury. But then she thinks of Ether’s blast of alarm in the instant before the shutdown, and pushes ahead.

  Still fighting dizziness, Lanis pulls over a pink chair emblazoned with the store mascot’s likeness, scraping it loudly against the ruined linoleum floor. She hefts herself onto it and begins to feel around the dark base of Hex’s hull.

  Got you. She pulls up on a chink of armor, revealing a fist-sized module that the Cauldron installed within a nest of wires. She grabs the thing, and with a heave that no un-augmented person could manage, she tears it out, bringing along a few wires and leaving behind some skin.

  She steps shakily off the chair, nearly falling, and then pulls it around to the pilot door. With some gymnastic balance and a trembling muscle-up, she heaves herself back inside the Suit’s adamant cockpit.

  Now for the one behind the chair…

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Lanis freezes. A sound echoes down the length of the abandoned arcade.

  Another Suit.

  Lanis scrambles, running her fingers around the back base of the pilot couch as the sound of two heavy legs crunching into the old Arcade walkway steadily draws closer.

  There!

  She feels a heavy mass of obtrusive metal, and digs her fingers into its base, heedless of how it cuts into her hand. With a suppressed groan, she pries it out, and unthinkingly heaves it out of the pod. It falls to the store’s laminate floor with a clatter.

  The movement down the arcade stops.

  Shit shit shit…

  With shaking hands, Lanis buckles herself back in and quickly slides the neural shunt back into place. She flips a series of toggles and pulls the manual reboot lever again.

  No longer restrained by the Cauldron’s obstructive modules, the Versk energy core fires back to life: the HUD flickers, green power levels climbing, the old alert of her right leg flashing. The pilot pod door still hangs open, and the pounding of metal feet down the arcade’s walkway is almost upon her.

  Ether! Lanis’ thought is a scream as the apparition of the young, dark-haired woman appears in her mind: Lanis clasps the AI with both arms, heaving Ether into herself with one jarring, mental motion.

  WHAT DID I MISS?! Ether yells at the same time as the pod door hisses shut.

  Then the opposing Suit is upon them.

  Or, rather, they’re upon the opposing Suit. Lanis can’t put into words the hundred subliminal signs that she and Ether read in the mech’s reaction as Hex crashes out of the store: a certain swagger of overconfidence? The hesitation, and the following twitch of surprise? It doesn't matter; they’re enough to tell Lanis everything she needs to know: this enemy expected them to be helpless. Whatever just happened wasn’t a mistake, but the implications of that idea will just have to wait for later.

  Hey, we know you! Ether thinks. It’s one of the Suits they saw at the very beginning of the Cauldron as they made their way to the pick-up zone: the tall, blue, sharp-cornered mech that has Howett written in red across its torso.

  Howett Corp: Specializing in high-end engine components for avionic and low-orbit systems, Ether says, bringing up the tactics doctrine that she has prepared just for this encounter. In a theoretical match-up they had expected this Suit to engage them at a distance, using its aerial thrusters to maximum advantage—yet another reason to suspect that the Suit expected them to be incapacitated. This is not where it should want to fight Hex.

  All of these thoughts are interchanged in an instant. Can’t let him get away! Lanis thinks. It’s not only the flare of the blue Suit’s engines that make that scenario deadly, and the agility they suggest, but the spindle-like weapon that the Suit swings across Hex as it tries to retreat.

  The lance-rifle erupts in a stream of white-hot energy that cleaves down across Lanis’ kinetic rifle and through her front left leg, leaving behind a hissing stream of molten metal. It would have been a killing blow, except that Hex has sprung madly upward, launching itself at the Suit like a jumping spider.

  The Howett mech, already rising from the ground with its aerial thrusters, crashes back into the opposite arcade storefront.

  Hug him close! Fire the diggers!

  Hex’s A.R.M. blade, not having had the chance to power on, wrestles with the Howett mech’s arm, trying to keep it pinned back as the twenty-five ton mech thrashes across the floor, desperately trying to disentangle itself from the hexapod suit.

  Hex’s legs grapple with the Howett mech, pulling it so close that the mech can’t quite bring its lance-rifle or A.R.M. blade to bear: a flash of superheated energy scores a gouge into Hex’s shoulder, shooting upward and bursting through the arcade’s thinly paneled ceiling. Plaster and plastic rain down. Through the dust Lanis shoves more power into Hex’s digging mechanism, the mandible-like claws spinning up to armor-rending speed.

  The utilization of the digging claws as an offensive weapon is grounds for disqualification, but they’re far beyond that now. Slowly, inexorably, like hot knives stabbing repeatedly through a ribcage, the mandibles bite down into the Howett mech’s hull. The mech fires its thrusters in panic, heedless now of how the heat might damage its engines or hull, and the two tangled mechs slide across the walkway, crashing through storefronts like drunken brawlers.

  It’s no use for him. Lanis pulls tighter, straining Hex’s articulators to their breaking point, redlining energy; she feels the right front leg snap in a burst of metal and hydraulic fluid, but still she digs deeper, deeper into the Howett hull.

  There’s a flash of light and heat, the diggers grinding through critical components, and with a belching groan the Howett mech finally falls back, its thrusters flickering in the last of its death spasms.

  It’s done.

  Hex shakily stands on its four remaining legs, and Lanis takes a rasping breath, her eyes wide, pupils wildly dilated. The HUD in front of her is a splatter of red and orange warnings: Hex’s front left leg no longer truly exists, and the right one has completely buckled from the grappling. Not only that, but the kinetic rifle is a smoldering mess: Lanis tries disengaging the weapon, but it looks like the whole arm is ruined.

  So much for picking up that Lance-rifle… Ether says with a wisp of longing.

  Yeah, I think we’re beyond that now, Lanis replies, a burst of hysterical laughter escaping her lips.

  “Cauldron Oversight?” Lanis yells, after a fleeting moment of recovery. “Can you read me? Care to tell me what the hell just happened?” She wipes a hand across her sticky forehead and clinging wisps of hair, trying to regain some sense of composure.

  Her words are met with silence. What do you think happened? Some mass malfunction? This is insane, Lanis thinks. Her scrambling thoughts are interrupted by Ether:

  Lanis. Look up.

  Hex stumbles back, and Lanis gazes up at the night sky through the mech’s optics, through the gaping holes in the arcade’s ceiling.

  Alongside the stars and the orbital docks, other lights flicker. Distant bursts begin to cast shadows along the storefronts, and streaks of light fall across the night sky, masses of superheated metal more brilliant than any natural meteor shower.

  A Fleet engagement is underway.