DAY 75 — 08:03 (SHIPTIME)
The planet looked dead from orbit.
Not lifeless—just hard. Wide bands of brown and yellow land, fractured by black ridgelines and pale salt flats. Thin cloud cover dragged like torn cloth. The only bright thing on the surface was the industrial site itself: a string of pump stations feeding a refinery yard, all of it connected by pipe corridors and gravel service roads that formed straight lines only to break into jagged angles when terrain forced it.
A place built for machinery.
A place raiders loved.
The contract packet was simple: three nights, industrial site defense, pay per night, bonus for repelling confirmed hostile mechs, salvage clause for any hostile mech disabled in the perimeter zone.
It wasn't glorious.
It was money.
And money was survival.
Dack stood in the Union's cockpit corridor while Lyra ran the landing checks on the Leopard and the Union's descent profile. Quill waited behind him, helmet sealed, posture straight like she could still hear her old handler's voice and hated herself for it. Jinx leaned on the bulkhead with that bright predator grin, her long dirty-blonde hair tied back tight, black-and-red clothes clinging like she'd dressed for a fight and a photo shoot at the same time. Taila stood a half-step behind Dack, quiet, eyes focused, shoulders squared. Morrigan lingered near the hatch in her own sharp black-red, gothic edges softened only by the fact she kept glancing at Dack like she was checking whether he was real.
The triplets stood with Lyra at the bay access panel, new to all this, trying not to show it.
Iona held her slate like it was a shield. Elin's lips moved silently, rehearsing checklists. Sera's jaw was clenched like she wanted to bite fear before it bit her.
Lyra's voice came smooth over intercom. "Landing in five. Dack, the site manager is expecting you planetside. Varris's report from the last job traveled fast. That's why the pay bumped."
Dack nodded once. "Good."
Lyra continued, "The raiders have a name—confirmed by local militia and station chatter. Knives of Acheron."
Jinx made a delighted sound. "That name still sucks."
Taila shot her a look. "Jinx."
Jinx winked her bright blue eyes. "I'm coping."
Quill didn't speak. Morrigan didn't either. She just shifted closer to Dack without making it obvious, boots quiet on deck plating.
Dack keyed the crew channel. "Same rules. No chasing. They want us split."
"Copy," Taila said.
Quill answered, controlled. "Copy."
Morrigan's voice was low. "Copy."
Jinx purred, "Copy," like it was flirting.
Dack didn't react. "We hold the yard. We don't die for their bait."
The Union dropped through atmosphere and the world turned into vibration and heat. Then the landing thrusters cut, and gravity felt normal again.
Lyra's voice came calm. "Touchdown. Ramp in sixty. Triplets—your stations."
They moved like people being given permission to exist.
Iona went straight to supply and inventory logs.
Elin slid into comm watch and started passive listening on every band she was allowed to touch.
Sera ran down to the Leopard bay ladder, already checking ramp locks and fuel seals like she'd been doing it for years.
Dack stepped into the mech bay, climbed into the Dire Wolf, and sealed the hatch.
The cockpit closed around him like a coffin that wanted to keep him alive.
He said the number once, quietly.
"Seventy-five."
Then he brought the Dire Wolf online.
---
The industrial yard—Garrison Pump Complex 12—was ugly and practical. Low buildings reinforced with steel ribs. Tank farms behind berms. Pipe corridors that ran like arteries between machines. A refinery flare stack that hissed even in daylight, burning excess gas into a lazy orange tongue.
A corporate manager met them near the admin block. Thin man, nervous eyes, protective helmet too clean. He walked with an escort of militia who held rifles like they'd never fired them in anger.
"You're Moonjaw," the manager said, voice brittle. "I was told you—uh—kept the last convoy intact."
Dack didn't correct him. "Where they hit you."
The man blinked, then hurried to a holomap board. "They come in from the west ravine. They use the pipe corridors to mask approach. They don't want the site. They want the fuel tanks and the heavy pumps—components. They steal. They burn what they can't take."
Dack studied the map. Straight lines. Corners. Long corridors with bad sightlines. Berms that could hide a medium mech until it was spitting lasers into your face.
"You have any cameras," Dack asked.
The manager hesitated. "Some. Not enough. They—uh—keep getting cut."
Lyra's voice came in over Dack's comm, calm. "Elin is tying into their camera net. She's—surprisingly good."
Dack replied, "Let her."
He looked at the yard again.
"This is a trap if we let it be," Dack said.
The manager swallowed. "We… would prefer it not be."
Dack didn't smile. "Then it won't."
He placed the mechs.
Quill's Awesome took the main yard center, behind a berm that gave her wide arcs and made it hard to flank her without exposing yourself.
Taila's Griffin took the right-side pipe corridor mouth, angled to cover the tank farm approach and the service road that ran behind it.
Jinx's Highlander perched on a low ridge of slag and scrap, gauss rifle sightline reaching over most of the yard.
Morrigan's Marauder disappeared into the left-side corridor network where shadows and steel ribs made a perfect knife-fighting maze.
Dack's Dire Wolf sat slightly rear-center, enough to see everything, enough to respond anywhere.
He keyed the crew channel. "Night one is a probe. They test. They try to bait. Don't follow."
Jinx sighed dramatically. "You never let me have fun."
Dack ignored it.
Lyra's voice came in again. "Triplets are set. Iona has the site's fuel inventory and critical parts list. Sera has locked ramp access. Elin has passive comm listen on local bands and their perimeter relays."
"Good," Dack said.
He sat in the Dire Wolf and watched the yard.
The day passed slow.
The workers pretended to work. The militia pretended to be brave. The pump complex kept breathing.
Dack didn't relax.
The sun slid down behind the ridgeline and the world turned into long shadows and sharp angles.
Night came like a blade.
---
The first sign wasn't sensors.
It was a dog barking somewhere near a storage shed, panicked and high.
Then the yard lights flickered, one section dimming for half a second—like someone had cut power and reconnected it, testing response time.
Elin's voice came over comms, too fast but controlled. "I have a comm spike on a narrow band. It's low-power, close range. Like—like handhelds. West ravine. They're—uh—talking, but it's coded slang."
Dack didn't ask her to translate. He didn't need poetry.
"Contacts?" he asked.
Elin swallowed. "Visual from camera twelve—wait—camera twelve is—oh, it's cut. Camera nine has movement. Heat signatures. Small. Like infantry."
Sera's voice cut in, tense. "I have motion near the Leopard ramp perimeter. Someone's in the shadow line."
Lyra answered, cold. "Security protocol. Lockdown."
Sera didn't hesitate. "Lockdown engaged. Ramp stays sealed."
Dack's focus tightened.
They weren't leading with mechs.
They were trying to sabotage the ship.
"Quill," Dack said. "Hold the yard. Taila, watch the tank farm lanes. Jinx—eyes on ridge. Morrigan—stay hidden. I'm handling ship perimeter."
Jinx laughed once. "Yes, sir."
Taila replied, quiet and steady. "Copy."
Quill: "Copy."
Morrigan: "Copy."
Dack rotated the Dire Wolf's torso toward the Leopard landing pad shadow line, sensors pushing into the dark. He didn't move the Dire Wolf closer. He didn't want to stomp his own perimeter to death.
Lyra's voice came calm in his ear. "We have internal security on the deck. The triplets are… armed."
Dack didn't ask how. He assumed Lyra had thought ahead.
A faint muzzle flash blinked near the ramp shadow.
Then another.
Someone screamed—short, cut off.
Elin's voice rose, panicked but not useless. "There—there's four, no, five—five infantry near the pad. They're trying to cut through a service panel. They have something like a thermal cutter."
Sera's voice was sharp. "They're not getting in."
Lyra's tone was flat. "Keep your head down."
Dack saw movement—tiny compared to mechs, but real. He fired a short LRM volley, not at the pad itself, but into the dirt beyond it, creating a violent line of explosions that forced the infiltrators to scatter.
It wasn't mercy.
It was control.
The infiltrators broke, trying to run into the pipe corridor shadows.
That's where Morrigan was.
Morrigan's voice came low over comm, almost pleased. "Found them."
Dack didn't see what happened next. He heard it—two short bursts of gunfire through open mic, then silence.
Morrigan came back on comm like nothing had happened. "Problem solved."
Jinx made a happy noise. "God, I love you."
Morrigan replied, flat. "Shut up."
The yard stayed tense, but the infiltrator threat was gone.
That meant the next move was coming.
And it did.
Elin's voice snapped back in, high with adrenaline. "Mech contacts—west ravine—multiple. They're coming in low. Using smoke."
Smoke pots popped along the ravine edge, thick gray curtains blooming into darkness. Heat baffles. Cheap, effective.
Then a voice cut across open-band comm, rough and confident.
"Garrison Pump Twelve. Shut it down and walk away. Knives of Acheron don't want to work hard tonight."
Jinx purred. "Too late."
Dack's voice cut through. "Positions. Now."
The raiders came.
A Spider boosted first, jump jets coughing, using the smoke to hop from shadow to shadow, trying to spot weak points.
A Centurion followed, medium mech heavy-footed and stubborn, autocannon held ready.
Then two heavies emerged like the real threat arriving after the bait:
A Grasshopper, tall and aggressive, jump jets bright as it cleared a pipe corridor.
A Thunderbolt, blunt and durable, walking straight in like it didn't care what it ate.
They weren't trying to win.
They were testing the yard.
They wanted to see who chased.
Dack didn't.
He waited until they crossed into the lanes he'd already chosen.
Then he fired his LRMs in a tight ripple, the missiles arcing into the smoke and detonating along the Thunderbolt's path. Explosions hammered its armor, forcing it to slow and angle.
Quill fired a PPC bolt from the Awesome, blue-white light slicing the dark and striking the Centurion's shoulder plating. It staggered, autocannon swinging wide.
Taila's Griffin fired its PPC once, catching the Spider mid-hop. The bolt grazed its torso and made it land wrong, stumbling into a pipe support and scraping armor.
Jinx's Highlander answered with her gauss rifle—one thunderous shot that punched into the Grasshopper's upper torso and carved a crater in its armor.
The Grasshopper didn't fall.
It jumped anyway, trying to close the distance before Jinx could reload.
"Don't chase," Dack said again, steady.
Morrigan's Marauder moved in the left corridor shadows, unseen until she wanted to be seen. She fired her PPC into the Spider's leg assembly, a clean shot that made the light mech buckle.
The Spider's pilot panicked, jump jets flaring—
—and it slammed sideways into a tank farm berm, half-falling, half-collapsing.
The Centurion tried to return fire, autocannon barking into Quill's Awesome. Armor flared. Quill held.
The Thunderbolt advanced under the smoke, trying to push into the yard where it could get close enough to make the Awesome's long-range discipline irrelevant.
Dack stepped the Dire Wolf forward, heavy and controlled, and fired the AC/10 once into the Thunderbolt's knee plating.
The shell hit hard. The Thunderbolt stumbled a fraction.
Jinx laughed. "Legs are legs, baby."
The Grasshopper landed too close to Jinx's ridge and fired, lasers raking the Highlander's armor. Jinx grunted but didn't move.
Taila kept her Griffin steady and fired her LRMs into the Grasshopper's flank, forcing it to twist away from Jinx and exposing it to Quill's next PPC bolt.
The bolt struck the Grasshopper's torso, carving deeper into the crater Jinx had already made.
The raiders saw the pattern.
No chase.
No panic.
No split.
The Knives of Acheron didn't like fights that didn't give them openings.
Their open-band voice came back, sharper now.
"Fine. We'll come back when you're tired."
Dack replied, blunt. "Try."
The Thunderbolt reversed, stepping back into smoke. The Centurion followed. The Grasshopper boosted away. The Spider, damaged and limping, dragged itself behind the berm and vanished into darkness.
The probe raid ended.
The yard stayed alive.
Workers stared from bunkhouses like children peeking at thunder.
The corporate manager's voice came over a channel, shaking. "Is—is it over?"
Dack answered, "For now."
He kept his mechs in position until Lyra confirmed they were pulling out.
"Contacts withdrawing," Lyra said. "No second wave. That was a probe."
Dack already knew.
The real push would come when they thought fatigue would make mistakes.
Night one ended with cold tension and the smell of smoke.
---
DAY 75 — 23:38 (SHIPTIME)
The second night began before the first had truly ended.
They rotated watch. They checked armor. They cooled reactors. They ate quick meals in cockpits and corridors.
Jinx came off the Highlander line and popped her cockpit hatch, helmet off, sweat slick on her forehead. Her blue eyes were still bright—but she stood still for a moment too long, one hand braced on the hatch rim.
Dack noticed.
She swallowed hard, throat working like she was fighting something down.
Then she forced a grin when she saw him looking.
"Don't," Jinx said, voice too casual.
Dack's voice stayed blunt. "You good."
"I'm great," Jinx lied smoothly. "Just hot. This planet sucks."
Taila appeared behind her, eyes sharp, protective. Lyra wasn't far away, watching the exchange without speaking.
Dack didn't push.
He stored it.
"Hydrate," he said.
Jinx rolled her eyes. "Yes, dad."
She climbed down the ladder anyway and took the water Lyra handed her like it was normal.
Taila watched her drink. Didn't say a word. Just stayed close.
The pack adjusted without drama.
That was what made it dangerous.
It worked.
---
The main push hit after midnight.
Elin's voice came over comm, hushed and tense. "They're moving again. More this time. I count—six, maybe seven mech heat signatures. They're not hiding the weight now."
Dack's eyes narrowed inside the Dire Wolf cockpit. "They're committing."
"Also," Elin added, voice trembling with effort, "there's a ground convoy on a side road. Trucks. They might be trying to hit the tank farm while the mechs draw you out."
Dack's voice stayed flat. "They won't."
He keyed the crew channel. "They're heavier. Stay tight. We hold lanes."
The smoke came again, but thicker. More disciplined. Not just a curtain—layers, designed to blind sensors and break targeting.
Then the heavies stepped out like monsters emerging from fog.
The Thunderbolt returned, bold.
The Grasshopper came with it, armor patched from last night's crater.
A Warhammer appeared behind them—twin PPC housings glowing faintly, posture aggressive.
A medium pack followed—faster, meaner:
A Wolverine slipping wide, trying to flank Taila's lane.
A Phoenix Hawk hopping pipe supports, looking for a back arc.
And a smaller, ugly shape—Hatchetman—moving in the shadows like it wanted to get close enough to make the fight personal.
The open-band voice returned, now colder.
"Knives of Acheron. Tonight we take what we want."
Dack replied, "Come get it."
He fired.
LRMs first—tight spread aimed at the Warhammer's approach line, forcing it to step back or eat the full barrage.
The Warhammer answered with PPC bolts, blue-white light lancing through smoke and striking the berm near Quill's Awesome, showering dirt and shrapnel.
Quill fired back, PPC bolt hitting the Warhammer's torso plating. It staggered, then held.
The Thunderbolt advanced under the exchange like a battering ram.
Dack fired his AC/10 into its knee again, then followed with LRMs into the damaged joint, trying to slow it without overcommitting.
Jinx's Highlander fired her gauss rifle into the Thunderbolt's center torso, crater deepening, armor failing.
The Thunderbolt didn't stop.
It kept walking.
Morrigan's Marauder slipped out of shadow and fired her PPC into the Phoenix Hawk mid-hop. The bolt caught it in the side, forcing it to land wrong.
Taila's Griffin shifted to screen the Wolverine flank, firing LRMs to pressure it back and keep it from slipping behind Quill's line.
The Hatchetman pushed forward through smoke, trying to close distance with Quill's Awesome.
Quill held her ground.
Dack saw the Hatchetman's angle and moved the Dire Wolf one step to cut it off, torso pivoting, gauss rifle lining up.
He fired.
The gauss slug slammed into the Hatchetman's torso plating and blew armor away in a brutal spray of ferro and sparks. The Hatchetman staggered, still moving.
Jinx laughed over comms, wild. "Oh, that's ugly."
The Hatchetman tried to bring its axe arm up anyway.
Then Morrigan's Marauder fired again—PPC bolt into the Hatchetman's leg assembly—and the medium mech collapsed into the dirt like a puppet with its strings cut.
Disabled.
Salvageable.
The Warhammer pushed forward again, trying to cover the retreat lane for the Phoenix Hawk and Wolverine.
Quill fired another PPC bolt into its torso, heat building in her Awesome but controlled—disciplined rhythm.
The Thunderbolt finally faltered under combined fire. Its center torso caved further, internal structure exposed.
Its pilot made the smart decision.
Ejection.
The cockpit canopy blew. The seat rocketed up, silhouette briefly framed against the refinery flare's orange light.
Dack didn't shoot it.
The Knives of Acheron didn't retreat cleanly.
They fought while pulling back, trying to drag the crippled Hatchetman and damaged Wolverine into the smoke.
Dack refused to chase.
He let them run with what they could carry.
But the Hatchetman was too damaged, too heavy, too slow.
They left it.
That was the real win.
The fight bled out into smoke and distance, raiders vanishing into the ravine where they'd come from.
The yard remained standing.
The pump complex kept breathing.
The corporate manager's voice came over comm, broken with relief. "You—you stopped them."
Dack answered, flat. "That's what you paid for."
Lyra's voice cut in calm. "We have salvage rights on the Hatchetman. Site cameras recorded the engagement. This one will count."
Dack didn't celebrate.
He keyed the crew channel. "Good work. Stay sharp. Night three is either nothing… or a last bite."
Morrigan's voice came back, low. "Let them bite."
Taila exhaled slowly, voice quiet but steady. "We're ready."
Quill's reply was controlled. "We hold."
Jinx laughed, breathless. "We win."
Dack watched the smoke thin and the horizon darken into quiet again.
He didn't believe in calm.
But he believed in preparation.
Because the Knives of Acheron had tested them.
Now they knew.
Moonjaw didn't chase.
Moonjaw didn't break.
Moonjaw waited—steady, armed, and learning how to cut back.
And Morrigan stayed closer to Dack's line than she ever had before, not saying anything about the kiss, but proving its meaning with the only language she trusted:
Position.
Covering fire.
Not letting him stand alone.