This space will introduce each character as they get locked in.

****

"GOLIATH ONLINE."

The synthetic, emotionless voice crackled through the exoframe's intercom system, demanding its pilot's attention. A hiss of steam accompanied the announcement from inside the hatch, and Calvin "Hitch" Higgins's eyelids responded by fluttering open.

His eyes held an expression akin to clouded glass -- a common side effect associated with coming out of cryostasis -- but they retained their normal functionality, pupils darting back and forth over the readouts that flickered on Hitch's side of the viewscreen. With three deft flicks of his finger, he activated various systems with pinpoint precision.

"Juiced up and good to go," he said, his voice inaudible to anyone not plugged into his audio feed. After all, the man was strapped into a robotic battlesuit cleared for null-atmospheric, variable-gravity missions, and such specifications required a certain thickness of transparasteel, carbonics, plastics, and rubber. "Systems nominal, Command. Awaiting orders."

There was a silence as deep as the void of space, a vastness which stretched into infinity before Hitch's viewport. Tiny pinpricks of light were scattered across the blackness, and he wondered how many souls might be viewing the same light from a different vantage point at this very moment.

"Command?"

"LIFE FORMS HAVE BEEN DETECTED."

The synthetic voice jarred Hitch from his momentary reverie, and an explanatory readout flickered across the screen.

"Not Command, then. Have we initiated the proper protocols?" Hitch asked, shuffling through the various readouts with lazy flicks of his finger.

"NEGATIVE."

"And why's that, Goliath?" Hitch asked, his finger still hovering above the screen.

"ERROR, SUBROUTINE BETA KAPPA ZED. INFINITE LOOP. USER INPUT REQUIRED."

Hitch sighed and scratched his beard. It was an interesting sensation, falling asleep cleanshaven and waking up with a month's worth of growth all at once.

"All right then," he said at last, cracking his knuckles absently. "Show me what you've got."
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:34, Thu 17 July 2014.

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 1):

Life had not been kind to Robert.

Sure, he could bench a small hovercraft back in his prime, but that and $50 could buy you a beer these days. Now nearing the end of his life, the man who had once shaken the world as the renown war hawk Bobby Fistpunch couldn't help but wonder about the decisions he'd helped make. And, deep down? He knew he could have spent his time more wisely.

"We shoulda listened to The Seer," the man complained aloud, not for the first time that day. He was seated in the exact center of an autobar, and the attendant had long ago learned better than to disturb the man while he was griping.

"How could we have been so blind?" the man went on, stabbing visciously at the large red button in front of him to summon another drink. A churning sound followed, and in moments a frothy beverage popped up in front of him from somewhere inside the bar -- neatly laid upon a coaster.

"It might have something to do with our propensity for drinking alone," a friendly voice answered.

Robert whirled, but his agitated snarl quickly morphed into a begrudging grin.

"You know, if you were ever on time, this wouldn't be a problem," Robert said good-naturedly. "What kept you this time?"

"Oh, the usual," the man replied, sliding onto a stool and selecting a drink of his own from the bar's menu. In seconds, it was before him in an artfully frosted glass. "Fixing all the problems you didn't get to. And some that you did."

"Like you could do better," Robert said, waving off the light-hearted jab with a bark of laughter. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The Seer was right. Super humans, robots, cyborgs... where does it end? How do you even begin to regulate something so complex?"

"We've had a few ideas," his companion -- a much younger man dressed in a smart business suit -- replied with a smile, taking a slow sip of his beverage and clapping Robert on the shoulder. "Some of them even make the man who beat The Seer bloody look like a proper pacifist."

"Yeah?" Robert snorted, raising an incredulous eyebrow. "I'd love to see that!"

"Oh, you will," his companion said, finishing his drink and standing up with a mysterious smile playing across his lips. "Just... do me a favor, ok?"

"Yeah, sure. Whacha need?"

"Don't go off-planet any time soon."

The man adjusted his glasses and turned to walk away. For his part, Robert stared after him for a long while, then gathered his hat from a nearby peg and -- drink forgotten -- hurried from the bar.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:19, Thu 17 July 2014.

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 2):

It is not a large bar, nor is it a terribly expensive bar.  It's the sort of place that caters largely to regulars, where anyone new is met by blank but confused stares from barman and patron alike.

However, it's the sort of place that still has a barman.  Unusual maybe, but it lends a certain ambiance.

His attention, at the moment, is on two people who clearly don't belong.  From his guess they're in the middle of a stopover.  The airfield is not that far, and it isn't entirely uncommon to see out-of-towners around looking for a "bit of local color".

The two men, one in a modern suit and carrying a briefcase with 'R.Miller J.D. LLC.' stamped on it and gold, and the other in sweats, do not look as if they care about "local color".

"Look," the man in the suit continues, wiping the rim of his glass with a handkerchief in futility, "I pitched it to them like this: put your faith in this guy, he's a reformed man!  Not only will his presence GUARENTEE mission success, it'll be good PR.  Man, I said, put this guy out there and he'll amaze you.  Given the right environment, you'll make a hero out of a villian.  He'll go above and beyond and you'll rake in the profits and goodwill."

The sweat pants wearing man, already halfway through his second beer, does not look pleased.  You pitched them THAT?  How am I supposed to live up to that hype?  This is just another sentence, what did I hire you for?

"You're not paying me anymore, remember?  This was on the house."

Yeah, the big house I bought for you.

"Hey, it wasn't your money in the first place."

Didn't stop you from taking it. JJ glares into his half pint, then downs it.  Fine, so now I'm a big damned hero huh?  What exactly is this mission about?  'Above and beyond'?  Doesn't sound like... my style.

"That's the entire point," the businessman says, flicking his annoyed companion a wry smile. "Just think of it as another con. A long one. People believe what they want to believe -- you just have to dress the part."

He waits for the man in sweatpants to react with some sign of encouragement. Finding none, he continues anyway.

"Listen, Horde," the businessman says, lowering his voice and putting a hand on the other man's shoulder.

'Batallion', new name for a new start, remember?

"Sure, whatever, I never liked that name anyway."

Yeah?  And I never liked your stupid fuckin' face.

"Sure, fine.  But to the point, you said you wanted your freedom back, right? You pull this off, and it's yours."  He orders his friend another round and raises his own until-then-untouched glass when it arrives.

"To big damn heroes," the businessman proposes, the lowers his voice to a whisper. "And to judges blind to what's behind the mask."

I can drink to that, JJ agrees.  He takes a hearty swig and frowns.  I don't have to wear... spandex or anything like that?

"No, no.  You can keep..." the suited man nearly gestures to JJ's sweat pants and stained shirt, turning the maneuver into an awkward wave at nobody in particular.  "Well, we'll find something suitable."

In reply to The Watcher (msg # 3):

Agent Richard Johnson was standing outside of a nondescript office building on what was frequently referred to as the wrong side of the tracks in the American midwest. Paint was peeling from the walls, and the parking lot was as vacant as it was antiquated.

The Ministry has a trillion-credit budget, he thought sourly. You'd think we could afford slightly nicer waypoints.

Nevertheless, the agent wrapped his vintage trenchcoat closer around himself, adjusted the snap-brim hat that protected his short-cut, salt-and-pepper hair, and walked into the building's dilapidated lobby without another word.

He was just pondering which direction to take at the T-joint hallway before him when a hoarse whisper jarred him out of his reverie.

"JOHNSON!"

The agent whirled around to find himself face-to-face with his contact, a poorly disguised businessman wearing a ridiculous wig and tinted sunglasses.

"Just LOOK at this," the contact wailed, waving a datapad in the air so quickly that it could not be read. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to calm down," Agent Johnson said, putting two fingers to his temples to ward off his impending migraine and snatching the datapad with his other hand. "We're going to read whatever this is, and then we're going to discuss the problem like adults."



"See?! We're ruined!" the contact continued, his wig sliding off his head to one side before the man hurriedly tugged it back into place. He overcompensates, however, which causes the hairpiece to slide off toward the other side.

"You might be," Agent Johnson agreed. "But that's not what you should be worrying about right now."

"What could possibly be more important than that?!" the contact demanded, eyes bugging out in fear behind his glasses. "They'll have our heads for this, mark my words- wait, what are you doing?"

The contact suddenly finds himself staring down the barrel of Agent Johnson's replicated .500 S&W Magnum. Based on an antique, the gun was by no means standard-issue, but the agent had discovered over the course of his long career that it was both effective and extremely satisfying.

"Like you said, you're ruined," the agent explained. "Which means you're no good to us anymore. And we have a no-tolerance policy when it comes to tying up loose ends. Nothing personal, you understand."

"No, wait! I can-"

A loud crack punctuates the early morning tranquility outside the building. A few seconds later, a man in a trenchcoat exits the building -- a datapad tucked tightly under his arm.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:13, Thu 08 Dec 2016.

Phobos

Ares Subterranean Arctic Mining Colony.
Breed Mutant Breeding Site.
Soma Distribution Center.

"Didn't we use to have a city like this on Earth? Las Vegas? The city of sin."

Inside, Flux was torn. He was crushed and exhilirated by the weight of his duty, but a part of him yearned for the freedom to indulge and succumb to ones' passions and desires.

"But isn't business always a little bit of pleasure?"

It had been almost 3 days since the mutineers has taken control of the security tower far beneath Phobos Southern Pole and gained control of Ares principle profit margin, and more than 2 days since the initial ARES Special Ops team had last checked in. It was possible they'd found their way into the special research area and discovered the developmental cryometric rifles.

If it all concerned Flux, an independent observer would not have detected the thought amidst his steely resolve and icy confidence.

To most, the base on Phobos was just one of 1000 operated by Ares in the proximity of Mars. Mining some mineral or compounds that benefited humanity, and letting them know how grateful they should be that we were doing it. To senior management within ARES such as Flux, the irony of that statement rang true as he pondered the company's true motto "Hubris outward, progress inward, indispensable always.".

They'd offered him a team of course, but he didn't need one. Not for a coffee and cake run like this.

Flux landed just west of the base.  His worst suspicions were confirmed immediately.

Outside his designated landing point, multiple frozen blocks laid arrayed in the Roman Pantheonic Helmet that was ARES sigil. Flux didn't have to look to know that many men and woman he had called friends and who had run this camp were interned inside.

He'd be able to defrost them, but they'd never forget the memory of being frozen. Of being nothing.

Flux bit back the tears, knowing the damage the immediately sublimated water would have on his vision.

"We'll need our eyes and ears for this one. But nothing else.

They don't have any idea what they are in for."

He made the trip inward through the underground tunnels easily. The tunnels weren't listed on any floor plan available or known to the staff or mutineers of this base. And why would they be?

"They aren't meant for you silly. They're meant for me."

Flux made his way into the base, making rapid work of the sentries as he approached the central mine shaft and assembly area for the colony. The mutineers were holding the remaining ARES workers at gun point.

A quick survey of the landscape and the suddenly insistent rumblings beneath the service told him the mutineers had begun setting charges off designed to incite the instability of the subterranean caverns.

"Assaulting the rocks AND my friends? Now. Now it's personal."

"Time for a little bit of theater, don't you think?"

It was clear to see who was in charge, as the bravest of the traitors fired his cryo rifle wildly at any workers bold enough to approach him.

It was a regrettable thing, but his frozen comrades made for perfect anchors to travel upon.

Reaching out with his gift, Flux connected with the numerous brutal blocks of frozen hell trapping his comptatriots. Leap by leap, Flux balanced his impact and gravity against the suddenly convenient path, running across an entire battlefield of opposition 100s of feet above their ability to consider threatening.

He lowererd himself on the final ice block, balancing a mere 20 feet above the insurgents. To them, his presence went unnoticed, but to the terrified ARES miners, his appearance sent an all to clear wave of confidence and strength racing through the crowd. They knew not to speak or show signs of him, but even their body language betrayed his presence.

"And we will release you when ARES agrees to fair pay and vacations away from the mi.."

He couldn't finish his vitriol before Flux connected with him, and yanked him skyward. Not a word could escape his lips before a simple extension of Flux's hand, and the begrudging whims of fate had clotheslined the poor miner's recently departed head from his previously attached body.

"That's one way to get ahead in life."

Flux accelerated through the decapitated miner, landing swiftly in the middle of the stunned traitors. The head of the ill-fated miner landed in the waiting arms of Flux, outstretched high above his head.

The now resurgent crowd soared with appreciation and excitement. They were safe and they were free thanks to Flux. Their friends would be safe. ARES had saved them. ARES always saves you. ARES loves you.

Flux outstretched the severed head in his hand, releasing it and hovering it slowly above his outstretched toe. He smiled to the crowd before turning toward the mutineers with an uncompromising seriousness and disarming grun.

"Even in the ice caves of Phobos, I hear tell that you all still play soccer. Well, Billy here is my ball, and if you don't want to end up knowing the answer to "Can he juggle?", I suggest you put your weapons down, acknowledge your allegiance to ARES, and request from me as their emissary forgiveness of your crimes."

Flux grabbed hold of Billy's head, squatted, and shot into the air. At the apex of his 40 story jump, Flux hurled Billy's head downward.

Even as he descended, Flux heard the satisfying splash and gasp.

He pioruetted sarcastically as his feet touched the ground, locking eyes with the trembling mutineers.

"Looks like I need a new ball."

1 man. Only 1 man lost his life that day as Flux led the 1000 miners out of the control of the detained mutineers.

They'd undergo routine reconditioning to ensure continued to loyalty to ARES. Flux knew that. But it was good for them, and better than they deserved for betraying the company. They'd have lives to come back to tomorrow, and they'd be thankful for it.

"Aren't we all?"

The trip back to his shuttle was even quicker than the walk in. He arrived without incident to find a flashing message on his command module.

The Board of Diretors was checking in.

Flux relayed the story of his success at the Phobos colony, and gave the inbound arrival time and ship transponder codes for the prisoners inbound to the reeducation center. Minimal casualties. Maximum results and effectivness. It was Flux's hallmark, and the board was happy to hear it. Still, he sensed a noticable discomfort in his brothers and sisters. Something was wrong.

He didn't have to ask before K sensed his concern and awareness. K always knew.

"The galaxy needs you Flux. ARES needs you Flux."

"And I answer her call"

"You'll be working with a small team of unusual comrades.."

The voice droned on and the details were conveyed. Part of him listened and remembered, but the biggest part of him was already thinking about his next mission.

"And the ship you requested has been finished. The finest in ARES technology and the pride of our fleet. Londo is at your disposal"

"I depart with haste and purpose in pursuit of our goal, and will return only in victory. Hubris outward. Progress inward. Indispensable always."

In reply to Flux (msg # 5):

The elevator doors wooshed open, allowing Xander to step out onto the floor of the main hangar. The comforting noises of industry surrounded him. The clank of industrial exoskeletons, the whine of hydraulics, the sizzling of arc wielders. The air smelled of heavy grease and ozone.

Xander reaches up and taps his earpiece, keying it in with a thought to the proper channel.

"Dispatch, this is X. I'm on the main floor now. Sorry I'm late. The satellite blackout seems to have caused some issues with the traffic routing. It was gridlock half the way here," he says aloud. Rather than an archaic mic, the earpiece was tuned to vibrations in his facial bones, automatically filtering out the background noise of the hangar for the recipient on the other end.

"Roger that X. Good morning. They're finishing up the prep on the suit, no harm done. Traffic has been a bitch lately. You'd think the they'd have figured out a better routing algorithm, but it seems the highways are always over capacity. Anyhow, head on over to bay 36."

Xander nods, though he knows that Dispatch won't pick up the movement. He begins walking briskly along the foot traffic zones marked out in strobing lights.

"Right away, Dispatch. By the way, any word on when they're going to get those satellites back up and running? The girl I've been seeing has been whining that My Martian Wedding has just been reruns. Says it should have been the season finale by now." He rolls his eyes.

"You know that information is beyond both of our clearences, X. Your lady will have to be patient like the rest of the planet. Though if you want my opinion, find yourself one with a better taste in Holoshows."

He stifles a chuckle. Can't argue with him there.

They pass the next several minutes in silence. The R&D hangar was massive, and it took the better part of ten minutes to cross over to Bay 36. When he arrived, the blast doors were sealed shut, obscuring whatever mech was hidden behind them.

"Knock knock, Dispatch. I'm here."

In lieu of a verbal response, the blast doors begin to slowly open, orange warning strobes turning the immediate area into a disco floor as the doors sank into the floor and retracted into the ceiling.

The machine within took Xander's breath away.

Standing about 24 feet tall was the most imposing Battlesuit Xander had ever laid eyes on. Gleaming black metal comprised the bulk of the sleek chassis, with blood red trim and piping accenting the angles. Unlike Braeburn's standard industrial and defense models, this suit seemed designed with an eye to form as well as function, with flowing organic lines. Instead of a bulky sensor dome, the suit was crowned with a head reminiscent of a medieval knight's helmet. The exhaust for twin thrusters could be seen over the shoulders, lending the whole ensemble the impression of some terrible angelic or demonic being with folded wings.

It was several moments before Xander could speak. "I'm sure the ghost of Jobs has a shit-eating grin at this one, Dispatch. Did you actually let the industrial design folks in on the project?"

Dispatch's professional detachment couldn't hide a tone of smugness. "Affirmative, X. This project goes all the way up to the top. You're looking at the first ever Archon-Class Personal Defense Battlesuit."

I guess they're dropping some of the pretense after all. 'Personal Defense Augmentation Platform' my ass.

Xander approaches the Battlesuit reverently, almost hesitantly. As he nears the base of the monstrous mech, the cockpit opens with a hiss, and a ladder unfolds to meet him. With a shrug, he begins to clamber up into the cockpit. He graps the handles and surrounding the opening into the Battlesuit's upper torso, peering in.

He raises an eyebrow, amused. "Leather seats?" he asks incredulously.

"Indeed, X. The Director thought you'd get a kick out of it. The production models will have standard military cloth upholstery, but the design team wanted to experiment with something a bit more...upscale. Don't worry, it's just as flame retardant."

Xander swings inside, and the hatch shuts closed behind him. For a moment, he is in complete darkness, but the internal lighting quickly comes on, bathing the black interior with a reddish glow. He straps himself into the unnecessarily luxurious (but admittedly exceedingly comfortable) chair before entering the standard codes for preliminary power-up.

The red glow brightens into a warm diffuse light, and the instrument panels begin to light up one by one. Then, the main screen.

Or rather, screens. Rather than a standard 100 degree virtual window, the entirety of the walls of the enclosed cockpit turn white, and then go transparent, displaying images in 360 degrees around his command chair. It was as if he sat floating in the hangar, perched on the shoulders of this magnificent machine, despite being nestled deep in its armored chest.

That's...truly impressive. Not that I'll be using analogue visual input, but still...impressive. And now for the fun part...

Xander reaches behind him for the neural interface jack. He snaps the primary cord into the base of his neck, and then the secondary and tertiary connections to his temples. For a moment, nothing happens. Then, the familiar sense of vertigo as Xander's mind interfaced directly with the Battlesuit. His breath catches, unused to the unique feel of this specific chassis.

Once the neural uplink stabilized, Xander looked around. The visual feeds from the Battlesuit's sensors were directly in his mind, as if seeing them through his own eyes. While he could still see his cockpit instrumentation, at the same time he had the complete sensation of all the Battlesuit's information systems feeding directly into his senses. Looking 'past' his own eyesight and becoming one with the machine was as simple as looking past your nose to view the rest of the world. Your nose was still there, but you just didn't notice it. Unobtrusive. Unneeded.

Xander relishes the rush of the uplink. He moves his arm experimentally, and the Archon moved its own arm simultaneously, in perfect replication of his own motion.

"How does it feel, X? Any feedback? We had some...issues...with the first couple builds of the OS...but we think the latest firmware fixed it."

He shifts his weight forward, and so does the suit. As naturally as taking a step forward.

"Negative, Dispatch. None at all. Feels like my own body."

It feels...better than my own body. Like I was *meant* to be here...

I appreciate that sentimentality, Alexander Wagner, as irrational as it may be, said a cool, female voice with a distinctly British accent.

Xander jerks forward in surprise and shock, nearly causing the Archon to stumble.

The voice was *inside* his mind.

"X? Everything ok with your stabilizers?" an all-too-human voice interrupts his reverie. "We tuned them to the biometrics we had on file, but..."

"Everything's fine," Xander says, not wanting to risk a full diagnostic just yet. "Just getting acclimated, that's all."

"Ok then. Confirmed. We've uplinked coordinates to your display -- wanna take her for a spin?"

One does not simply take me for a spin, the strange voice snaps, though only within his mind. But yes, I think I'd fancy a bit of a holiday. Shall we?

"Absolutely," Xander replies aloud to both external and internal voices. He still felt - not dizzy, exactly, but certainly disoriented - from the interface and the sudden company he had in his own head.

Focusing instead on moving the machine, Abraxas takes a step forward, and then another. Xander stretches, relishing the feeling of being connected to the machine. Rather than the usual lumbering, plodding gate of the battlesuits he was accustomed to, moving in Abraxas felt almost silkily smooth. Like stalking.

He soon finds his equilibrium, and has Abraxas gliding through the hangar, following the flashing guide lights on the floor to the testing grounds.

You can...hear me? Who - what - are you? Are you...Abraxas?

"Yes. And also no," the  voice responds. "I am Sophia. And we are in a spot of trouble."

The battlesuit lurches left, and then right, somewhat unsteadily, as though testing the bounds of its freedom.

The intercom buzzes to life as Abraxas blasts out of the tunnel and into the rocky dessert surrounding the secure facility.

"X, you're way off-course. Is navigation offline?"

"I can sense your confusion, so allow me to be more precise," Sophia's voice continues primly, even as Xander struggles to exert any control over the battlesuit. "We aren't in trouble YET... but we will be. Quite shortly, unless I miss my guess."

There is silence for a heartbeat -- no longer.

"And I never guess."

Though he knew he should call for an immediate cancellation of the test, something gave Xander pause.

"Roger, navigation is spotty Dispatch. I guess the firmware still had some bugs in it. Give me a moment to see if I can work it out on my end."

Xander struggles frantically with the controls - both manual and neural - in a futile attempt to regain control of his craft.

Sophia, is it? Charmed, I'm sure, Xander replies in the confines of his own head, not quite mockingly replicating the voice's upper-crust patois. Tell me, do I have any influence over this 'spot of trouble' at all? I'm sure this wouldn't have anything at all to do with me suddenly being locked out of the controls, would it? Or are you simply referring to the fact that I seem to be arguing with myself in my own head?

Though he kept himself regulated and calm, Xander felt the stirring of unease knot in his stomach. He knew the voice wasn't in his head, of course. Well, it was, but not in the sense of a schizophrenic episode. If he didn't know any better, he would say that somehow Abraxas' neural link allowed him to interface directly with the verbal output of the ship's onboard AI.

He'd never heard of such a thing before. Rare enough that a battlesuit was equipped with a fully functional, honest-to-god AI. And there was something about the voice, something about Sophia. In stark contrast to the stilted voice and predictably robotic speech patterns of every other AI he had ever encountered, she sounded...different.

If he were being honest with himself, he'd have to say that Sophia, if she was an AI, sounded almost...human. But that was impossible.

The hypothesis also failed to explain why he wasn't able to exert control on the vehicle. The neural link was fully in place - a more complete interface rate than he'd ever seen before, in fact - and the readouts clearly indicated that any autopilot or AI override was disengaged.

That was the part that worried Xander.

"The trouble comes from doing the right thing at the right time for all the right reasons. Unless you're Dispatch, in which case it will look like doing the wrong thing at the wrong time for all the wrong reasons. It's complicated."

The chassis continues to hurtle through the rocky desert, gaining altitude as it does so. The flashing lights on the console confirm what the hissing of pressurized air has already led Xander to suspect: the battlesuit is normalizing its internal environment in preparation for zero-G, vacuum maneuvers.

"X! You're on an orbital trajectory - abort!" the dispatcher's voice crackles of the comms. "Don't worry, buddy, we'll get you down."

The voice gets softer as if the speaker has walked away from the transmitter.

"Scramble the ion drones. If we want to save the pilot's life, we need to catch him in an EMP blast before he leaves the atmosphere."

The voice gets louder again.

"Don't worry, X. I think we can catch you before it's too late. Drones inbound, 10 clicks out. We'll get you down, buddy."

The battlesuit's throttle indicator blinks forward to maximum capacity, creating what should have been a tooth-jarring rattling if the cockpit hadn't been so well insulated. Red warning beacons flick to life as the presence of foreign targeting systems is detected, outlining the mass of incoming drones perfectly.

"It's already too late," Sophia's voice says, calm and prim as before. Xander's eyes go wide as his weapons systems come online, and then the world is lost in a wash of blues and whites as the drones unleash their ordnance. Static fills his ears, and the last intelligible words he hears before blacking out are as ominous as they are prophetic: "Dawn has come at last."

***

Xander came to an indeterminate amount of time later, sprawled face-down on the cold, hard steel of a ship's cargo bay. He can't quite remember what's happened -- it's all a blur of leathery faces, flashing lights, and screams of terror -- but he knows he can't go back to Braeburn. He isn’t sure why exactly, but the deep-seated knowledge is unassailable: he must keep running at all costs.

Run to the ends of the galaxy if he has to.