1 Once More Into the Breach

"Victor-Seven, you've been requested in the mess hall."

The intercom speaker crackled to life briefly enough to startle Viv awake before dying just as quickly. With a groan, she sat up on the cot and grabbed her boots. Tired or not, today was the day she was getting assigned to a unit, and she'd be damned if she was late.

Viv didn't even glance at the clock in her quarters before rushing out, fingers up in her hair as she did it up in a bun on the fly. Her footsteps echoed softly through the concrete and limestone catacomb fortress that was PAC base. Nobody else seemed to be awake at this hour- the halls were empty, save for a few scuttling laborers who kept their heads down as Viv passed them.

It was easy to tell who was a laborer and who was a Merc- one only had to look at their uniform, their frame, and their confidence level. Laborers came from the outside, collected from one faction or another; Mercs were home- grown, made for the purpose of combat.

Viv turned down a branching hall to her left and shouldered through the blue metal double doors leading to the mess hall. The soft 'click' of the press-bar admitting her was all the fanfare she got as she walked in, immediately noticing the group that was waiting for her.

Huddled around a table were five other Mercs, all busy looking at something laid out between them. Two seemed to be arguing about something in hushed voices, while one stood above the rest with her hand on her chin, clearly deep in thought.

All wore the same uniforms as Viv, though baggier and wrinkled- a solid grey jumpsuit with the PAC badge, little more than stylized overlapping letters, fastened firmly to their shoulders. The one who was standing had red hair fastened firmly into a French braid against her skull, not a strand out of place; the rest had either short- cropped brown hair or the standard bun.

All of them were scarred to some degree- PAC had ways of minimizing scarring from injuries, but many Mercs wore there scars with pride. It marked your experience, and how hard you were to kill. Braids had the worst ones, three curving arcs on either side of her face that looked almost like stripes. Clearly something had grabbed her head; clearly she'd survived. No wonder the others seemed to be deferring to her.

Viv came to a stop a few meters from them, standing stiffly as she waited to be acknowledged. Thankfully it didn't take long.

"Hey look, the Greenhorn is here." The figure standing across from Braids said with a pointed finger. His soft smile did nothing to help Viv's nerves as the others turned their eyes upon her.

Braids was definitely the worst to make eye contact with. Viv took one glance at her shockingly silver eyes and broke away immediately, stifling a shiver. The sight of them was eerie, almost otherworldly.

"Victor- Seven, right? Come take a seat kiddo, I promise you didn't miss much. I'm Papa- Nineteen, but call me Piper. We're all friends here." Braids- Piper- gestured to the spot to her left, and the Merc who occupied it scooted over to make room for Viv. The young woman took the spot gratefully, noticing the map and files on the table for the first time. The bench creaked in protest under the added weight.

"Mission Intel?" She asked, trying to get a better look. It was a large topography map of a mountain pass, with a haphazard blob of red parchment paper taped over the middle that was clear enough to show off the map's details underneath. A few scribbles denoted checkpoints and a Freehold, which sat at the edge of the red.

Piper nodded, but slammed a hand on the map, partially obscuring it. "Before we get into Intel, we need to do introductions. Clockwise from Victor's left, sound off."

The man next to Viv gave her a lazy wink, revealing the premature crows-feet gathering around his eyes. It was a rare sight to see a Merc with anything other than frown-lines. One eye was pale white, probably related to the thick scars around it. "Romeo- Sixteen, call me Russo."

The woman on his other side leaned back so Viv could see her better. Her sharp eyes appraised Viv just as Viv appraised her. She seemed to like what she saw, as she flashed Viv a grin. "Tango-Five, call me Tavvie. I was the last Greenhorn assigned to the team."

"And you're still with us, so that's a good sign." Russo pointed out. Tavvie gave him a gentle elbow to the side, but that only made him smile more.

Piper gestured to the figure directly across from her, a broad-shouldered man with a buzz cut who lifted his hand in a wave- a hand that was missing the tips of two fingers. "I'm Romeo- Eighteen, call me Roger."

"Roger that." Viv giggled. The man rolled his eyes, clearly unimpressed. Viv figured he'd heard that joke a thousand times already, but couldn't help herself. He'd brought it upon himself with that kind of name. "Where's your hair?"

"Lost it in a bet, didn'tcha?" Piper chuckled. "He thought he could outrun me in a hundred-yard sprint. I fed him my dust and shaved him so he'd remember why I was in charge."

"It'll grow back." Roger shrugged, clearly trying to play it off. Piper shook her head, clearly unconvinced, and gestured to the far figure on the right, who shifted uncomfortably in their seat.

"S-Sierra- Three. Call me Seppie." For a Merc, they didn't have much of a fighter's build, but their long fingers were constantly fidgeting with the file folder in front of them. Out of all of them, they seemed to be the least beaten up. "I'm what passes for an Egghead among us."

"And you do a damn fine job of it, don't you forget." Piper said, before waving at the last figure directly across from Viv. "And this here's Uniform-One, call him Uno."

"I can speak for myself, thanks." Uno reached across to shake Viv's hand, the only one to bother with the formality. His rough hands were thick with callouses, even for a Merc. "Pleasure to have you with us, Victor- Seven. Got something snappier we can call ya?"

"Viv works." Viv glanced around the table, trying to commit everyone's names and faces to memory. "If this is a briefing, why are we doing it in the mess hall? Why not in one of the admin rooms?"

"Cuz Cap'n here got banned from using Admin without 'higher oversight'." Roger snickered.

Piper didn't deny the accusation, but even under the sickly fluorescent lights Viv could make out a red tint forming on her cheeks, making her scars stand out slightly more. She cleared her throat and moved her hand from the map. "We also get snacks here since the kitchen's open for raiding. And the cameras in here don't have live mics."

Viv shot a horrified glance at the cameras mounted on the walls and ceiling, a common feature of PAC base. "How do you know that?"

"Let's just say a link in the chain can't hold her liquor and leave it at that." Tavvie piped up. "Don't worry, we can speak freely here. For the most part. I mean, don't plot anything stupid, just relax."

That didn't reassure Viv at all. There were good reasons the base was so heavily surveilled- Laborers sometimes forgot their place and got it in their heads that they were the ones who should be in charge, and sometimes Mercs got swept up in the riot with them.

"Right, now that we're done outing ourselves as rebels-" Piper nudged Viv playfully, clearly trying to get her to relax- "Let's get down to business, shall we? What we got here is a classic case of flush-and-deliver. The endpoint is a Freehold called Irontown, built on an old scrapyard. We get a lot of our raw metal from there, so we try to stay in contact as much as possible."

"Let me guess- a Spook moved into the same territory our usual route goes through?" Viv took a closer look at the map, noting the weaving line bisecting the thin layer of red paper above it. "Is that...?"

"A road. A real, usable, goddamn road. And yeah, you got it. Seppie's got the file, thin as it is. We've only had two encounters with it so far, and it's not pretty."

Roads were hard to come by these days, and harder to keep under PAC control. Even the barely usable ones were trafficked by everyone with something or someone to transport, making them the perfect places for Spooks to set up their hunting grounds and Cultists to charge for use. That went double if there was a Freehold on that road that everyone wanted to sink their claws into.

"It's definitely not our usual target, that's for sure." Seppie handed out documents from the folder. One by one, the Mercs took a quick glance at the papers and passed them around, taking in as much as they could. Seppie wasn't kidding- there were only a couple of blurry photos and a few paragraphs describing the encounters. The photos showed something large, maybe the size of one of their transport cabs, completely engulfing a Merc. It looked like the poor man was being torn apart once inside the creature, but there was too much blood blooming around his body to really tell what was going on.

Viv shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she tried to figure out what was happening in the photos. "Are we sure these are of a Spook? It looks..."

"Amorphous. No skeletal structure, inside or outside. It also seems to have some camo abilities, as it's able to blend into snow and rocks and ambush a caravan on alert for it." Seppie seemed almost impressed.

"Does it have a heat signature?" Viv pressed. "If all we need are the infrared cameras, then the camo won't really help it out."

"Nope. Second encounter was scanning for that when they got hit." Russo pointed out, tapping a page in front of him.

A thought hit Viv like a hammer. "Wait, so that means-"

"You're the only one who can see it, kiddo. You've got the Sight." Piper sounded rather pleased with herself. "Why do you think we were the ones that got you? This is the perfect first mission for you. You point, we'll shoot. Think of it like the team-building shit you did in training."

"This thing's killed four people and tore apart an ATV." Viv pointed out, trying to keep the squeak from her voice. Only one in a hundred Mercs had the Sight, or the innate ability to detect Spooks, which was useful considering the bastards could masquerade as humans fairly well when they wanted to. "And you want me to think of this like a simulation? Besides, conventional ammo doesn't work on this thing from what we can see here. It's too... blobby. And while a flamethrower was briefly blasted at it, it seemed to have no effect. How are we supposed to neutralize the Spook when we can't even burn it?"

"I actually came up with the solution for that." Uno spoke up. "If you can't burn it... freeze it. I got a couple of buddies in R&D to lend us some canisters of liquid nitrogen. Strap 'em to our backs and screw on a hose, and we've got three or so gallons of insta-freeze per person. Just make sure to stick 'em in an insulated sleeve so your spine doesn't turn into ice."

Viv took a moment to think about it. The others were quiet as the plan started to sink in.

"The only problem is luring it out." Russo muttered. "It's an ambush predator, it's only got one decent burst of speed in it before it needs to rest. We get it to jump, it'll be wide open for us to surround and ice."

"That's your captain's job to worry about." Piper said, rolling up the map and standing straight. "Any questions?"

Nobody spoke up. "Alright then. Meet at landing dock 4 at 0600 sharp. Last one in the shuttle is the first one out. Dismissed!"