The first shot cracked the air like a ritual.
Concrete bursting near her feet, fragments skittering across the Ribbon's surface as the Tidebreaker shifted beneath her, legs braced, hull plates locking into a defensive stance. She didn't flinch. This was theater.
Black-armored figures spilled from cover on cue, rifles barking in controlled bursts. They aimed wide, high, low, herded her movement instead of ending it. The Church knew how to make violence convincing without letting it spiral.
She played her part.
The Fox dropped low, rolled across the Tidebreaker's back, came up firing. Her rifle thundered, muzzle flash bright against the grey sky. She hit nothing important. She wasn't meant to. Sparks flew from armor, men fell and stayed down, alive, wounded just enough to sell the scene.
Some bloomed. Orders were shouted. Someone screamed, a little too convincingly.
For a moment, it almost felt real.
The Tidebreaker lurched forward at her command, massive legs tearing gouges into the concrete as it advanced. Rounds clanged uselessly against its hull. The Church's men scattered, some ducking into alleys, others scrambling for higher ground. A sniper's round kissed the air near her head.
Good. They were committing.
Minutes stretched.
Her heart hammered.
Now, she thought. Any second now.
She ducked behind one of the Tidebreaker's raised armor plates and pulled her terminal, hands steady despite the chaos. The interface flared to life, dust and some reflected faintly on the screen.
One contact. One last gamble.
White Swarm.
She didn't dress it up. No bravado. No appeal.
>Requesting immediate assistance.
>Engaged by hostile human faction.
She hit send.
The terminal chimed softly, absurdly quiet against gunfire and grinding metal.
She waited.
The battle raged around her. A rocket slammed into the Tidebreaker's flank, blowing off a chunk of armor and sending her sprawling. She rolled, came up coughing, ears ringing. The Tidebreaker roared, an echoing, mechanical bellow that shook the Ribbon itself.
Still nothing.
Her gaze flickered to the sky.
Empty.
Did they decide I wasn't worth it?
A cold knot formed in her stomach. The staged shots started to feel sharper. Closer. Someone screamed again, and this time it wasn't part of the script.
Then—
The wind changed.
Not a breeze. A pressure. A sudden overwhelming displacement of air that pressed down on her, flattened smoke, drowned out gunfire with a rising mechanical howl.
She looked up.
White.
Dozens of shapes tore through the sky, stark and angular, moving with terrifying synchronicity. Drones, sleek, predatory, their surfaces matte. They didn't circle. They descended.
The White Swarm had arrived.
Church rifles turned skyward instantly. Orders were barked, real this time. Tracers stitched upward, missiles screamed from launchers. Two drones burst apart in flashes of white light, debris raining down like snow.
It didn't matter.
For every drone that fell, three more replaced it.
The air filled with interference. Her terminal overloaded with signals, static clawing the screen. The Tidebreaker staggered as something heavy struck it from above, magnetic clamps biting deep into its armor.
[???] "Fox—!"
A force slammed into her side.
She was pulled. Yanked clean off the Tidebreaker's back by something impossibly strong and fast. The world spun, ground rushing up—
—and then she was on her feet again, somehow, dragged backward as bullets tore up the space she'd just occupied.
The chaos blurred around her as she was hauled into cover, through some and debris, away from the fighting.
She twisted, ready to fight whoever had taken her—
—and froze.
It stood taller than her by a head, humanoid in shape but wrong in every subtle way. Its body was wrapped in layered countersurveillance cloth, fabric that bent light oddly, making it hard for cameras to focus. Where the face should have been was a smooth visor, opaque and unreadable. No mouth. No eyes she could see.
A speaker embedded in its chest crackled and came to life.
"Well," it said too brightly, with an almost cheerful cadence, "that was tending towards being catastrophic. Good timing on your part."
Its voice smooth, too relaxed for the battlefield they were standing in. The kind of tone that belonged on a stage.
"We'll take you to our home base," it continued, "There's more of your folk there. You should be safe enough."
A beat.
"Don't worry," it added lightly. "We don't bite."
Her grip tightened on her rifle.
[Fox] "You dragged me off my transport."
"Borrowed." the robot corrected, "Temporarily. We'll circle back if it survives. Bit if, by the way."
Behind it, the sky burned as white drones and men tore into each other. The Church's forces were retreating now, formations breaking under the Swarm's relentless pressure.
She swallowed.
This was it. The point of no return.
The robot tilted its head, visor catching the light just enough to reflect her fox mask back at her. "C'mon. Standing there makes you a liability. And I hate liabilities."
It turned and began walking, utterly confident she would follow.
She did.
They slipped through a narrow passage between collapsed structures, emerging into a sheltered underpass where a vehicle waited. A squat van-like thing, white panels scuffed and reinforced, its surface crawling with faint, shifting patterns like static frozen in place.
The robot gestured toward it with a flourish. "Your ride."
She hesitated only a second longer, then climbed inside.
The door slid shut behind her with a soft hiss.
Inside, the engine hummed to life, smooth and eager, as the vehicle began to move, carrying her straight to the heart of the White Swarm.