10-11-2355 | 11:08
E-9 Ridgeline — North Scar, Tree Line Staging.
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The ridge throws a long shadow across the dryline. Sun hits the caprock like a copper plate. Wind runs the pines and dies at the cut where the reclamation crew once left anchors and good intentions.
Dax steps out of the transport and tastes dust and old borate in the air. The ground under the tree line is soft with needles and broken caliche. He clocks the slope, the notch that looks like a mouth, the loose talus where the west face wants to announce your arrival.
"K-6, set it," he says, his voice flat after the confrontation with Colt.
Ryn moves away from the team, leaning against a thick-trunked pine. He doesn't touch the comms check. He is utterly silent, his expression blank, gazing toward the abandoned house on the lower scrub. Dax catches the stillness, a stark contrast to Ryn's usual restless energy, but doesn't press.
Sera kneels and snaps a launch rack open. Five micro-drones spit out, their rotors whispering. She dials their altitude to a meter over the scrub and sends them skimming. "Two warm pockets under the lip. Third patch half down the scar, cold sink with a heartbeat."
Bishop sets his exo to quiet mode and hammers three hard-light spines into the dirt. "Crescent hot on my mark. Give me thirty seconds."
Kaito stands under a scraggly pine. He peels mesh over a fallen log and the local grid falls asleep on contact. "You are ghosts for seven minutes. Then we get nosy neighbors with badges."
Irie pops a compact med tent. "Blue's my bay. You drag anyone in, you call it. I am not guessing whether they're baseline until I see hands and eyes."
Dax runs a hand down the K-6 tablet. He sees the rope he drew in the lab, the plan he committed to. He lowers his voice.
"No heroics," he says. "We gather data. We capture if it breathes. We kill only if forced. Clear?"
A chorus of affirmatives, short and professional. Dax looks at Ryn.
"Ryn. Plan pitch," Dax orders.
Ryn shifts his weight slightly, speaking with the bare minimum of words required. "It will roll the line. Keep it in the mouth. Bishop, anchor your left two spines to the bolt seam. Give it flex it can't translate. Sera, paint the chest glow, not the body mass. Kaito, keep the fire door unlocked on the south face. If it dives, blow the latch."
It is clinical, devoid of personal investment. He clips the safety tether Dax offers without a word, his eyes still distant.
Before anyone can move, Kaito's console chirps, a secure channel override. "Dax, we have an update from Harbor Patrol Enforcers. They found a cave system near the house. They're holding a perimeter but requesting us to sweep the house first before they push on the mouth. They need confirmation it hasn't returned to the Vance location yet."
"Copy. We're inbound now," Dax says. "Move out. Ryn, you take point. I want a silent entry."
Less than a minute later, the team is at the target location. A dilapidated, single-story homestead partially swallowed by the encroaching tree line. Ryn flows through the decaying structure, moving with a fluid silence that surpasses the exo-suited Dax. He sweeps the main rooms in seconds, his attention to detail absolute but his demeanor withdrawn.
He finds nothing but dust and decay.
Dax finds Ryn in what must have been Lina Vance's room. The paper on the walls is peeling, but a cheap plastic dresser holds a scattering of old photos: a smiling girl with braces, a family at a picnic, a trophy for a school sports team. Ryn is staring at the image of Lina Vance, sixteen years old, staring back.
"There's nothing here," Ryn says, not looking at Dax. His voice is flat. "It's scent memory. The trail is cold in the house."
"The way you cut Cole down back there," Dax starts, keeping his voice quiet so the mic doesn't catch it. "It needed saying. He went too far. But you've been freezing us out since. Don't let his ignorance—"
Ryn turns sharply, cutting Dax off, his eyes arctic. "I know who I am, Lieutenant. To HARBOR, to you, and to the public that looks over its shoulder when my file pops up. I am an asset, a weapon, and an outsider. Your pet bigot said it straight enough. I don't need you to fight my battles or explain my worth. I'm here to do my job, nothing more. Go speak to your human people about their prejudices. Mine don't care about their feelings."
Dax draws a breath to argue, but is interrupted by a panicked, crackling voice over the team comms.
"... repeat, we have contact! East mouth, it's engaged! Enforcer down! We need extraction NOW!"
The tone is pure, unadulterated terror. The main Rendling, Lina Vance, is already attacking the perimeter.
Before Dax can snap an order, Ryn is already gone. Plaster and dust stirs in the room and a violent updraft of air propulsion whips him through the broken window frame.
"Ryn, hold. Wait for—" Dax shouts as he scrambles to the opening.
Ryn's voice slices back over the comm, already distant. "Try to keep up," he says.
Dax slugs the kinetic boosters on his suit and launches after him. He snarls orders into the team channel. "Team, rally at the east mouth. Irie, Bishop, form a tight perimeter on arrival. Sera, give me a wide thermal tag and watch for secondary movement. Kaito, keep us clear of patrols and be ready for an emergency med lift."
He hits the ground and slides past the panicked, scattered perimeter of Harbor enforcers. The scrub is a mess of roots and ripped brush. The Rendling is a coil of dark muscle, slick and fast, the blue glow pulsing under its hide. It drags a downed enforcer toward the thick tangle. Ryn is there first, a shield of force between the animal and the man.
A concentrated blast of high pressure air pulled from the atmosphere slams into the rendling's flank and sends it skidding fifteen feet. Ryn stands over the injured enforcer, agile and focused.
Dax rushes to the downed man and checks the wounds. "Massive trauma, deep lacerations," he calls. "Kaito, get on the ground and extract this man now."
"Copy. One minute," Kaito's voice comes back, strained.
"Bishop, hard light cage on the main target. Irie, prep a full spectrum trauma kit. Blue bay incoming now," Dax orders.
Bishop deploys the hard light with a practiced slam and the pale bars lock up around Lina Vance. The main rendling rakes the field with claws and snarls like a thing that enjoys the noise. Then three new forms erupt from the dirt, smaller and feral, armored in packed earth and crushed rock. They are the trio Sera flagged earlier. They run low and fast, instantly targeting the stationary team members.
"New contacts. Three small bogeys engaging team," Dax shouts, drawing and unholstering his pulse pistol. "Bishop, hold Lina. Sera, tag their vitals for Irie. Focus fire on the small ones."
The main rendling lashes at the hard light. Ryn does not waste time on the cage. He winds his arms and draws water from the humid ground and the air. A thick, skin like sheath coats his fists. He launches himself at the creature in a blur of trained motion. He does not only attack. He uses the rendling's own momentum against it.
The monster swipes. Ryn ducks under the blow and springs off its shoulder, using the force to vault into the air. Mid flight he jams the water sheathe into the pulsing blue node on the creature's chest. The water flashes into searing steam and super heated air with a violent crack that forces the rendling backward. The move should kill it. It only staggers, furious.
Dax cuts to the first of the trio, a low, rock armored thing. He squeezes the trigger, two staccato pulses of concussive energy. They hit the skull, slow the animal's charge and buy time.
"Bishop, two and three are flanking Irie. Intercept," Dax calls.
Bishop uses the exo strength at his back and slams a hard light shield into the path of the second creature, knocking it off line and opening a lane for Irie. She dives for her med kit and throws out trauma shears, stabilizers and a makeshift tourniquet for the downed enforcer.
Sera cranes over her pad and twists the micro drones into a weave around the trio. Thermal tags pop bright on joints and soft spots. "Second one, right shoulder weak. Third one, expose the abdomen," she reports.
Dax pivots hard and charges into the second creature. A targeted pulse knocks the leg sideways. The animal collapses with a ragged grunt.
Ryn reads a flank move coming for Bishop. He does not break flow. He rips a gout of fire spun from dry resin flakes and the hot breath of the scrub and throws it at the armored hide of the third beast. The scorched hide peels and the animal screams, stumbling off course.
"Thanks for the assist," Dax yells, blasting the scorched creature with his pistol until it goes down. "Bishop, lock down the two remaining animals."
The fight is ugly and close and full of practiced violence. Ryn is a tornado of elements around the main threat while Dax and Bishop use synchronized small unit tactics to keep the feral trio suppressed. Kaito scrambles across the roots and yanks the downed enforcer to a safe pocket, dragging him toward the med tent.
Two of the small animals go down to coordinated fire and hard light. One remains, jittering, desperate. Dax keeps watching the team and the angles while keeping a bead on the main fight. The rendling that was Lina is not merely brute. It has learned to use the underbrush and loose metal in the field. It adapts, and fast.
"Two targets down," Dax shouts over the din. "One animal left plus the primary. Ryn, status?"
Ryn is balanced on a temporary platform of compressed earth that he ripped from the cliff face to stand on. He hurls a long, focused lance of water that hammers into the main rendling and pushes it back toward the cave mouth. He is high in the air one instant and a blur two heartbeats later.
"I'm fine, Dax," he says, voice hard. "Focus on your team. I will deal with this."
Dax answers with a terse, tired sound that is almost a laugh. "Good. Don't die on me until the evac is clear."
The team converges, weapons down just enough to move the wounded and keep reflexes ready. The scrim of leaves and smell of burnt resin hang over the sink like a bad promise. They do not celebrate. They check what must be checked. They do not ask for medals. They take inventory of breathing and scars and the small mercies of the night and move on, because there is always another mouth to watch.
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