Betrayal on Aztiko

"Chief Jatzenkali Omeci. You've survived the attack. I'm also happy to see that you're uninjured."

The flat, blank metal surface on their "head" where a face would normally be located began projecting the image of a smiling, almost cartoonish Hellbender.

"They took Jacob!"

Their head tilted to the side.

"The accountant?"

"He's a *payroll manager*, you asshole! And they took him! They took him from me!"

"I don't think I deserved to be called that, Jatzenkali."

"Behind you!"

She leapt to the ground and started unloading her carbine into the mass of Tralkin that had finally made their way around the corner. Twenty-One Six's torso rotated and they raised their left arm as the hand at the end rearranged into a turret, unleashing several volleys of purple colored beams.

The Tralkin returned fire but the heat pistols had very little visible effect on the cyborg. If anything lighting them on fire just made Twenty-One Six more imposing. They slowly walked backwards while continuing their barrage of heat rays, a fighting retreat to avoid incurring any more losses than they'd already taken. "I can only sustain so much damage, I'm running out of energy fast. We need to find somewhere safer."

Jazz leapt behind Twenty-One Six and reloaded her carbine. She winced as a beam shot past her arm.

"The hell do you want me to do about it?"

They pointed to their right and started sidestepping towards the wall that had recently been covered in a messy, thin film of Tralkin. Jazz stayed behind them as they moved and occasionally peaked out to fire off a few bursts.

When both of them had reached the wall, Twenty-One Six punched it several times, leaving a hole that was slightly bigger than Jazz' torso. She began to climb through, slowly and carefully at first until she felt another searing beam fly past her shoulder. She got most of the way in, then vaulted through by putting her feet against the side of Twenty-One Six and shoving off of them.

She landed on the other side about as gracefully as she could, her carbine still clutched by the handguard in her left hand. Getting up, she took a few steps away from the hole and watched as Twenty-One Six made their way through as well, punching out some more of the wall to make it a little bit bigger so they could launch themselves through with a single leap.

They landed "face" first, making a loud thud on the concrete below. The lighting in the room was very dim, and Twenty-One Six scanned around before their beam focused on something that Jazz was just barely able to make out the shape of with her slightly enhanced vision.

She kept her carbine trained hole as Twenty-One Six left and retrieved the object. It was the massive hood of an APC, and they casually slid it in front of the hole as if it was nothing more than a thin sheet of paper. Twenty-One Six then held out their left arm and fired a series of rivets into the hood, firmly securing it over the hole.

There was a brief series of thuds as the Tralk tried to bash the obstruction away, then it was illuminated as they blasted it with their heat pistols, but the alloy held strong. A few screeches of frustration, then finally they abandoned their futile efforts to break through.

Jazz slumped as the tension left her body and looked around the room as her eyes started to adjust to the low lighting. Her security helmet wasn't outfitted with nightvision, so all she could really do was make out the vague shapes of land vehicles, mostly transports and IFV's, and at least one Fury light tank, but as entertaining as the idea was, it probably wasn't the best idea to try and go through the hallways with that.

"What the hell do we do now?"

"Personally, I was going to try and make it to the administration center to help the others mount their defense."

Jazz looked over to Twenty-One Six and glumly shook her head.

"I can't just leave Jacob behind like that. I gotta think of some way to save him..."

She slung her carbine onto her shoulder and removed her helmet, slumping down onto the ground with her back at the wall.

"... but how the fuck do I do that without backup? I'd ask you for help but I'm guessing you've gotta just hang out for a while and recharge or something after taking all those hits, right?"

Twenty-One Six's hand rearranged back to it's "normal" form and their head began to emit a soft light, making it much easier to see everything. Jazz looked around the now illuminated room and realized that she must not have been in here in a while. It was supposed to just be a small motorpool, but nothing that she was looking at ever showed up on the screen when she'd check the surveillance feed for it.

Instead of an assortment of fully functional military ground vehicles, most of them looked like they had been stripped of one part or another, with the majority of missing parts being related to displays, interface devices and suspension systems.

"What the hell is this? Have you been in here dicking around with everything while you sent a spoofed video feed to the security station? Is that why I hardly ever saw you?"

"My work was very high risk and delicate. Constant interruptions by your security teams would have greatly hampered the speed at which I worked."

She laughed in exasperation and got to her feet.

"Listen, now is *not* the time for how you or anybody else is too good to get checked up on by PDE security and intelligence. I get that we're on the same side already and both you and the Federation think you're hot shit, but-"

"Do you want my help in saving your friend or not, Jatzenkali?"

She snapped her head to face them. Their arms were crossed, a gesture that she probably would have found kind of funny were the circumstances different and she felt like laughing.

"What are you talking about?"

They turned around and effortlessly pushed the light tank to the side, the treads grinding against the floor sent sparks everywhere. Behind it was what looked like another tank, except this one stood on two massive legs instead of relying on treads. It also had arms, both of them appearing to be very articulate, with hands that, while not as flexible or complex as that of a Human or even a Hellbender, looked more than capable of handling large weapons.

If Jazz didn't know any better, she'd assume that this monstrosity of sloped sloped, bulbous metal with limbs was just a bigger and bulkier Grand Fleet cyborg, but Jazz did know better. Despite not knowing exactly *where* Twenty-One Six was the past few weeks they'd been here, Jazz knew *what* they were doing.

"That's the Hardsuit, isn't it?"

The holographic face on Twenty-One Six's head nodded, and the machine suddenly came to life with a loud hissing noise. The front of it's "torso" opened up and it knelt down on one knee. What appeared to be the cockpit was buzzing with activity, power meters and ammunition counters began to light up all over the place. It looked like everything had been cannibalized from the vehicles in this motorpool. Instead of a traditional seat, there was a vaguely humanoid shaped cushioned slot for the pilot to lie down it. It actually looked pretty comfortable.

Jazz' eyes widened as the shape began to constrict, becoming shorter and more compact.

Probably to be a better fit for a Hellbender pilot.

"It's very much a work in progress, but it's still fully functional. Consider it a "test" model. I was hoping to use it for combat testing in a controlled environment, but it looks like we'll just have to settle for a real combat trial."

They held their hand out, inviting Jazz to get in the cockpit. She set her carbine down, leaning it against the side of an IFV and climbed in cautiously lying herself down in the cushioned cockpit. She winced slightly as she felt a very small needle poke into the top of her head, then felt as if she had just become way stronger than she was before.

"The "Hardsuit", as your military has chosen to designate it, uses a neural interface system. It's similar to what I use to control myself, but not nearly as advanced. When the vessel is damaged, you won't feel pain in the traditional sense, but you will be able to know exactly where you got hit, and, if everything works, you'll get a fairly good idea of how exactly much damage was done."

Jazz willed the Hardsuit to close the cockpit door and stand up. It did so immediately. She lifted the arms and examined the hands. Yeah, those would definitely work. Even if she didn't get a gun or anything, she could probably just pluck a Tralkin off the ground and crush him with these.

Then again, she wouldn't mind having a gun. She looked around until she saw a heavy machine gun in the corner. The security officer in her balked at the idea of firing 20 millimeter rounds inside of the Academy, but the marine inside her didn't give a shit. She picked it up and was pleasantly surprised to see the heads up display in the Hardsuit immediately recognized the firearm, along with the remaining stock of 800 rounds of ammunition.

"Keep in mind that it uses a much more primitive battery than what will be placed in the final revision of the suit. It can only operate for a short amount of time. There's also many features further straining the battery that will most likely be removed from the limited supply of finished Hardsuits the Grand Fleet will provide to the Pulsar Defense Enclaves because of this. That will most likely include the variable cockpit, meaning there will have to be separate models for both-"

"Just tell me how long it lasts."

"Two hours, maybe a bit longer. Like I said, it's a prototype design."

"That's more than enough. Thanks for the shit, if you're rested up any time soon, don't hesitate to come in and help."

She casually knocked down the wall with the Hardsuit's shoulder and began to walk down the halls again.

"Do you even know where you're going, Jatzenkali?"

She turned around.

"I have a guess based on the hallway they were heading down, most likely to one of the residential areas near the gymnasium in the eastern section."

She went on her way, the Hardsuit's heavy footsteps thumping into the distance. Twenty-One Six thought about temporarily disabling the armor so they could have time to remind her not to cause too much damage to the structural integrity of the Academy, but they figured she probably knew when to be careful.

Besides, her enthusiasm was endearing and they didn't want to temper it.

***************************************** *****************************************

Josiah's eyes flicked from monitor to monitor as he saw firefights erupt all over the Academy. The Tralkin were for the most part heavily outgunned in almost every occasion, but there was just *so damned many of them*. If a good amount of them hadn't already died attempting to breach the Academy's walls then they'd have already overrun everyone.

He hadn't seen them use this method before, but he wasn't exactly shocked at neither the audacity of it nor the unsubtlety. First they flew in en masse with their fighters and proceeded to maneuver their fighters to try and draw as much fire away from the transports as possible, then just as they'd managed to blaze past the security detail in orbit they nosedived into the Academy itself. They'd purposefully crash a fighter into it so as to detonate the reactors and overload that section's shielding for just long enough to allow a transport ship to break through the walls, then pour out and start killing everything in sight.

A fair amount of them thankfully hit nowhere near the Academy itself, instead landing in the seemingly endless expanse of Aztiko's deserts. It was almost as if they were expecting the presence on the planet to be much larger than it actually was. A decent chunk of those that landed out there managed to survive the impact, and some of them signaled to Federation and PDE fighters that they wanted to surrender rather than let the elements kill them off. Others opened fire with their small arms as soon as they sighted the patrolling craft and were incinerated in response.

That was all fine of course, the problem was that enough of them had made it into the academy to constitute a very significant threat. They weren't anywhere near the command center at the moment, but they were quickly approaching administration from three directions, and if they broke through there it was mere minutes before they made their way to Josiah and his staff, and if reinforcements were on their way, Josiah didn't know because he wasn't getting any response to outgoing messages.

There was another problem that needed to be dealt with, and fast. Several URG transports had crashed their way into the east wing gymnasium, and the vast majority of the troops on board them had survived. Several hundred of them appeared to be about ready to start pouring down the hall so they could reinforce the east and north group approaching the administration wing, and so far only a single cadet was pinging themselves as being close enough to do something to stop them.

Josiah had been trying to get in touch with whoever it was for the past five minutes or so, but was met with maddening silence as they dashed back and forth the adjacent hallway, getting closer and closer to the gymnasium.

"This is the fourth time I've asked you, who are you and what the hell do you think you're doing down there?! You're minutes away from being buried under enemy troops, you're going to be torn to pieces!"

Finally, there was a low beep as the cadet's comms were activated. Her voice was indignant.

"This is Corporal Samantha Telly and with all due respect I'm trying to do my goddamn job, Colonel."

***************************************** *****************************************

Samantha placed one last lancing charge and made a mental note of how far she'd have to run to avoid getting turned into a thin red paste when she detonated everything. The set up was crude, with mixed explosives and far from what she'd usually consider "professional" work, but if everything went according to plan, the mixture of hexogen explosions and electric arcs would utterly annihilate this section of the hallway, instantly vaporizing any Tralkin who were unfortunate enough to be in it at the time and flooding the gymnasium with so much rubble that nearly everyone inside of it would be killed the ensuing avalanche.

Thankfully precision wasn't something she had to worry about here. All she had to do was deny the enemy an easy path to reinforcing their assault and kill as many of them as she possibly could in the process. Not really that hard. As long as there weren't any rogue elements that showed up at the last minute, Samantha had nothing to worry about.

Naturally, a rogue element in the form of a massive suit of powered armor turning the corner behind her showed up at the last minute.

"Corporal Telly, what the fuck are you doing over here?"

Samantha was silent for a few seconds as she processed what she was seeing.

"I could ask you the same thing, Captain. Shouldn't you be at the security center?"

Jazz ignored the question and motioned her machine gun towards the door.

"There's like a thousand Tralkin behind that door, why are you just sitting in the hallway?!"

"I'm setting explosives, what the hell else would I be doing?"

Suddenly they heard pounding against the aforementioned door and Samantha started to sprint away. Jazz aimed her machine gun and started to slowly walk backwards away from it, waiting for the Tralkin to break through the door.

"Captain, I HIGHLY suggest you go a little bit faster than that."

She paused a bit before increasing her pace as the door started to glow red from heat blasts.

"How many charges did you place?"

"19, more than enough."

"Will the blast damage the residential area that's nearby?"

Samantha swiveled her head and glared.

"No. That's where they're holding their prisoners. What, you think I'm crazy or something?"

"A little bit, yeah."

Several beams suddenly hit the Hardsuit. They didn't do much damage, but Jazz still "felt" them. In response she let loose a few bursts from the machine gun as Tralkin began to poor out. Every pull of the trigger would drop at least three of them, but it was like a floodgate had opened and a river of vicious birds had begun to pour out, and Jazz didn't have enough ammo to even slow them down.

"When are you planning on setting off those charges, Corporal Telly?"

"Not yet."

"Telly, we're about to have a problem!"

"Alright, I'm doing it, fuck!"

Samantha clicked the detonator and leapt forward. There was a very brief delay, then the hallway erupted into a storm of dust, metal and gore. The shockwave caused Jazz to stumble back a few steps with Samantha barely landing outside of it.

The ground continued to shake for a few seconds and debris trickled down from the ceiling. Samantha rose to her feet and turned around to survey her handiwork and watched as Jazz turned around with a series of loud steps.

"Where the hell did you get that, anyway?"

"It's called a Hardsuit. A little present from the Grand Fleet."

Samantha was visibly impressed, looking it up and down as she tried to ascertain the exact height of the armor. Suddenly Jazz lurched forward and shoved Telly to the side.

"Hey, what the fuck?"

"I have to get to the prisoners."

"What? Why? Why aren't you at one the security stations, or at administration? They could probably use that power armor or whatever it is right now."

Jazz kept walking with Samantha trailing behind her as she unstrapped a submachine gun that was attached to her back via a bandolier.

"They took... somebody"

"Who?" Samantha racked the charging handle and flicked the safety off. "Your boyfriend? His name's Jacob, right?"

"He's a *friend*, Corporal Telly."

Samantha shrugged.

"Well if I'm gonna help you get him back I'd hope he's more than just a 'friend', captain."

Jazz slowed to a stop.

"I don't need your help with this."

"Captain, I know you don't like me, but you *do* need my help on this. If you barge in there with a 20 milimeter machine gun all you're going to end up doing is tearing all those hostages apart."

"Then what's your plan?"

"You crash through one of the walls and I use you as cover. Single shots."

She flicked the SMG and then held it out for Jazz to see, as if emphasizing her intentions to be cautious.

"Look, Corporal Telly, you aren't exactly the most patient person."

"Well unless you wanna get out of the armor and let me take it for a spin so we can switch spaces, that's probably our only option right now."

There was a brief moment of silence as tension filled the air. Finally, Jazz accepted, although reluctantly.

"If you fuck this up, I'll kill you myself, you got that, Corporal?"

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna shoot your boyfriend."

Jazz ignored her and increased her pace, with Samantha struggling to match the long strides of the Hardsuit.

***************************************** *****************************************

The administration center was one of the easiest parts of the Academy to defend, as any attempt to assault it would have to come from three bottlenecked hallways once everything was under lockdown and the processing center had been walled off with blast doors that deployed as soon as an alarm was tripped. The hallways themselves were not only narrower than others in the Academy but staggered by dividers that jutted out from the walls at the will of whoever was behind the controls at the command center which lie just beyond administration itself. Inside the massive main office, the desks were constructed from the same alloyed metal as PDE light vehicles, thus allowing them to double as cover in the event that the outer sections of administration were breached. The Federation had supplied a healthy amount of deployable shield barriers to be stocked there as well if they were absolutely necessary.