Nestra had a day off. She filed her report remotely, stretched, then she was a free woman. Aunt Claire was raiding and Siobhan Stibbons was going home so that left her with no one to go out with. She wasn’t staying inside a minute more than necessary, though. That left her with one good option: visiting her favorite hole in the wall. District twenty-three was a dorm district for well-to-do baselines. It meant two-story houses with an actual fence. It meant wide, clean curbs with sparse trees and the occasional park for the kids. Nestra walked over a few streets to the CBD though it was barely more than a gathering of designer studios, gyms, stylists, and restaurants. All of those had found refuge in a large glass structure reflecting the hope and creativity that came at the end of the incursion, before megacorps had snatched all the best skills to hoard them in their arcologies. The businesses still outside were left to survive on smaller contracts, a diverse ecology curated to produce an occasional genius to snap up. It was rather empty on a weekday, so Nestra was confident there would be a spot for her. The Sunflour was a true bakery, not a chain that got their stuff drone-dropped every morning. Fabricators didn’t work well with organics so they had small robots do the dough for them. It was all very artisanal, very fresh. It was also quiet and the regulars knew to leave her alone. She got in and frowned immediately. Inside, an old-style counter filled the right wall while the left of the room sprawled in a mess of tables and counters. Some old folks and the odd freelancers worked on slates, steaming cups of coffee by their side. The smell was right. The low hum of conversation was right. The minimalist dark wood background was the same as ever. There was only one anomaly: the man behind the counter. Not someone she knew. He was also… weird. For one, he was impossibly tall — at about one Mazingwe though thinner. He was the tallest baseline she’d ever seen in person. He also had frizzy hair and very deep, soft brown eyes that gave him a dreamer aspect, one reinforced by the most genuine smile she’d seen on a retail worker’s face. That immediately set off all kinds of alarms in Nestra’s head. Who the fuck smiled like that? She shook her head. He was probably new and not yet used to the job’s realities. She wouldn’t be the one to pop his abuse cherry. “Hello,” Nestra replied, approaching like a scared deer and feeling silly about the whole affair. “Are you new?” The gleam’s features twisted with fury. His companion placed a hand over his shoulder, gently. “Let it go,” he said in a soothing voice. Nestra’s irritation flared in return. She’d been without mana for two days now and her temper was raw. A part of her wanted to tell the fucking gleam not to dish it out if he couldn’t take it but a more rational part knew that the gleam could just punch her until she projectile vomited and she’d get a warning for insubordination on top of that. That was just how things went. It also looked like the gleam wasn’t going to let it go until something happened. Everyone turned when Gorge gasped. The hissing noise of a missile launch heralded a light trail aiming for one of the gunships. It moved aside, shooting flares while a laser pulsed. Nestra almost breathed in relief when the blinded projectile missed its target but it was a trap. The gunship flew over one of the largest, highest hab blocs, and the moment it did, the jaws of the trap closed in on it. Nestra counted at least five trails of white dumb fire rockets aimed with disturbing accuracy. Some sort of point defense took down three before they could hit but the other two hit with a loud boom that echoed against the wall. Her previous missions hadn’t prepared Nestra for war. It was very bright and so damn loud. The gunship hiccuped and flailed, its surviving rotors struggling to compensate for massive damage. With a strong whooping sound, it crashed into the side of another building, leaving behind a black tail of smoke. Immediately, the other gunships gained altitude but the damage was done. They had missile launchers? “We need to go,” the viridian gleam said, and the pair flew off at speed. Nestra was left staring at the carnage. “Fuck, it’s chaos down there,” Stib said a minute later. “What?” Gorge replied. “I don’t know what’s going on! Folks coming out from around. They’re augs. Something’s happening!” Nestra moved to the edge of the platform and watched the incoming tide in the distance. There were men and women and old and young, all wearing sturdy street wear, thick garments meant to keep the owner warm and protected. There were augs, an arm there, legs here. Helmets. Weapons. A lot of weapons. Armbands. “Nuts. Open fire,” Gorge ordered. That wasn’t what their rules of engagement said. “You heard me Riel dammit!” A hole the size of an orange opened in the chest of a man carrying an actual machine gun. He toppled, falling to his death floors below. A woman who stood still to shoot soon joined him. Gorge raced to the edge of the platform and Nestra followed. Both of them deployed their weapons, barrel twisting to the side to allow them to shoot from cover. It was always weird, watching distant targets through her visor with a target reticle on them. Nuts’ rifle spat again and pushed an aug back. He kept running, intestines following like a morbid snake. Nestra’s world narrowed. She was cold, hot, excited, scared, then focused. She took down a man hoisting an old RPG on his shoulder. The return fire from the approaching wave shredded the access way, blowing holes in concrete and showering her in dust and debris. She lined up an old man whose weapon had a scope and shot him, catching him in the neck. He fell like a puppet with its strings cut. A part of Nestra reminded her that she’d killed a person for the first time since the beginning of her career. It was weird to do it like that. Casually. From afar. It was wrong. It was only fair. It was necessary. Nestra forced her mind to shut up. The gangers outside had found cover. Others moved to street level, making their way up that she could see from her feed. Gorge triggered one of the traps and a couple of young men fell, body pierced by a hundred ball bearings. They still clawed on the next step after that with their eyes clouded, teeth bared in a rictus. “Be advised, the perps are stimmed,” Gorge said with a calm Nestra didn’t feel. She shot someone else and missed the first two bullets. Almost all the gangers had either gone to ground or— Movement. Close. Nestra rolled to the side and something stomped where her head had been. Man. Very close. Auged eyes. Auged chest. Auged legs visible under a tattered black waistcoat. She shot him point blank range and full auto but the bullets pinged against his chest. He grinned, foam at the corner of his mouth. Nestra’s heart bounced against her ribs in that one defining moment. She stood and unsheathed her baton in the same upward movement. The blade caught the aug in the arm and stopped. The electricity didn’t. Enough juice to stun a horse seared the man’s augs through the slice Nestra had left there. He fell down with a ponderous clang, sliding off the platform a moment later. Nestra turned just as another aug landed there, leg actuators whining from the effort. A loud boom made Nestra jump through her ear protector, then another. Gorge had both hands firmly around some illegal hand cannon. Each shot pulled the barrel up with a monstrous kick. The auged guy had two gaping wounds spurting blood and still, he kept coming. The last shot took the head off. There was brain tissue on the cement just to her side. Blood everywhere, the stench cloying. It was suddenly much silent. She was hyperventilating. What was that? Oh, yeah, her call sign. “We gotta keep shooting.” Nestra could see why. More augs and gangers ran up the stairs while others were approaching from the rooftop, trying to split the lower squad’s attention. Nestra grabbed her gun. Reloaded. Crawled to the edge of the platform to resume firing so she could force the gangers to hunker down. One of them made the mistake of hiding behind an empty panel and died for it. Too thin. Line the sights on her visor. Shoot. Line. Shoot. Keep an eye on the various feeds. A man with a rocket launcher aiming up at the squad’s location from a floor below. “Don’t worry,” Gorge said. The entire access stairs shook from the detonation. They lost the feed. “Place is designed to hold against monsters. It will take more than that. Focus on keeping them away. Stib, reinforcements?” “No dice, sir. They didn’t even give me an ETA.” Nestra didn’t swear because she was a pro like that. She reloaded again. There was a lull in the battle. Below, the access stairs were a mess of body parts and entrails where the gangers had tried to storm their way in. Stib threw up in her microphone. Nestra remembered that turrets needed to have a drone operator plugged in even on auto-fire for safety reasons. Yeah. Could not have been fun. “They’re pulling out?” The feed — whatever cameras were left — showed no more people. Explosions had taken out some of them. One more winked out as she watched. She heard the slow clang of something heavy making their way forward. “I’m losing the feeds. Jammer,” Stib said. “The turret’s shielded. Focus on that,” Gorge replied. “Nuts, you good?” “Got the AMR ready. Concrete’s too thick to get a reading but I think it’s a walker.” “Got a visual!” Stib said. She’d sent a flying drone at record speed. Pictures captured through the gaps in the stairs’ structure showed the frame of some combat walker. Nestra didn’t recognize it. It looked unmarked. Plain. Who the fuck could make homemade walkers? Those were military weapons for Riel’s sake! “Looks like a makeshift Dilong Mk 3. Without the plating. Ok I need you to do exactly as I say. Bard, Preach, Pudding, toss grenades as it climbs, then shoot the limbs. Arms first, then legs. Shoot it to shit to confuse the pilot. Nuts, get the top weapons. Don’t bother with the habitacle. And don’t leave cover. You leave cover, you die. Stibs?” “Reconfigured for point defense and disablement.” “What about us?” Nestra asked. “Should we get down?” Gorge shook his head. “We got nothing that can pierce this thing. Even if we did, the lads have steel barricades. We show our asses, we get pulped.” “I know! Shut up. I’m thinking.” The clangs continued. Nestra was out of her depth. Her job was small monster extermination and taking down criminals, not waging a fucking war. She watched the feed of the main room. Her team huddled behind a thick pane of neosteel, weapons slid through ports. Not one inch of their body was exposed. The squad pulled pins and released the grenades almost immediately. The walker crested the edge of the stairs. The feed went white. The building rumbled. Nestra’s ear protections tried to stop the cataclysmic exchange but she could feel it in her bones. Her teeth clicked. She fell to one knee, balance lost for an instant. There were a few more exchanges. There were holes in the barrier. The feed died and Stib screamed. Gorge and Nestra were running before she was gone. “You get down and do what you can. I’ll get her,” Gorge ordered. Nestra didn’t want to listen. She wanted to protect Stib first. The others… but no. She nodded. “If you hear the walker, run away.”