FourtyTwo

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP) (COMPLETED)

Vulpine Space Command Centre, Île de la Tempête, Reunion

1000 Hours

Adam Kajtanowicz, Sophie Keller, Tahlia Harris

Soundtrack: Hans Zimmer- Estate Betrayal

The noises inside the Control Room were mostly anxious ones. Positive that the team got there. Negative that nothing came back, due to what was suspected to be a jammer.

"Oracle, this is Wilk, send traffic?" The voice cut through, Imran wanting to know exactly what the hell was going down. It was silence, nothing but that since the team had left the Arianne, in EVA and in a comms jammer. Their statuses were being pinged poorly, but audio was garbled, and broken. The signal jammer on the space station perhaps working its magic Adam had seen it all unfold, albeit from the remote feed of the observatory looking at it, in far less definition, but only one thing coming out of it truly to observe. The space station was being detonated.

"Station's been observed as dead. Awaiting confirmation." Adam replied, looking over Keller's shoulder, looking at the traces of team.

"We have contact. Two shuttle ejections. One looks to be leaving orbit....with a collision course onto the Sun? The other is coming down. Impact zone, predicted to be....coast off Esbjerg, Denmark." Keller commented, as Adam broadcast.

"Oracle, we need a QRF, Esbjerg, Denmark is the crash zone. Still awaiting confirmation, standby." Adam relayed, the comms from Oracle minimal, as he turned back to Keller.

"They got the canister away. And everyone else out. Though....the main rocket hasn't had its return come back. The station's in pieces. Fuck. Queen do you read?" Adam asked, as the realisation began to hit. The comms got more panicked.

"Got signal back. Patching you into the rest." Keller added, checking signals, realising Ark Angel must have bene jamming signals. "I can't hear anything from her." Keller replied, as Sophie pitched into the comms.

"Negative, life signs are....oh, oh fuck. Adam, it's nothing."

Adam looked in, and gave an comment to any of them.
"Team, what the fuck is going on? Can you confirm, is the threat eliminated?" He asked, as Keller looked to the screen.

"What the fuck is going on with the rest of the space station? It's like....oh, they fashioned something to renter. The hell?" Keller didn't have words, even at the end of the world, to believe what she was seeing.

---

Later That Week....

"And in other news, rumours of the Ark Angel space hotel exiting orbit, a space station launched by Vulpine Space, have been confirmed. A spokesperson proposed that the space station was not capable of sustained orbit following a malfunction, and deorbited safely into the North Sea. In an unrelated incident, Vulpine Space have proposed that People's Liberation Army activity at their launch facility was "unprecedented" and "sought a peaceful resolution to a confusion of our operating capabilities.", although tensions appear to have cooled after the attacks of last month." The voiceover played, as Laura shook her head, chained at the arms and legs, the armed guards outside making it clear if she wanted to hulk out today, she'd be getting plenty of bullets to the head inside of the secure cell. She didn't actually know where she was, she guessed somewhere in the Netherlands based on accents.

"In other news, the billionaire Pavel Andros was arrested earlier this morning for fraud and acting a sponsor of terrorist activities in the Asia-Pacific region. Andros, who denies all wrongdoing, says he has been "framed" and that it is a "misunderstanding". The billionaire's recent successes at Vale have been mired by his endeavours, including the recently destroyed Ferovia Two geoengineering facility, the Southern Cross Observatory in Chile and La Jardin Villeneuve in Marrakesh being destroyed. All of which have shrouded the billionaire in mystery, leaving many speculating that his affairs were far from clean. In sports...."

"Worth it to flaunt on Freya, though." Laura grinned, stretching out, getting looks from at least two of the guards on her cell.

---

Epilogues: Those Who Serve

Somewhere near Babia Gora, Tatry, Poland

One Week After Return, 1900 Hours Local

Adam Kajtanowicz

Sitting in the chair in the old, stone-walled mountain hut, Adam stared daggers at Oracle. He'd asked to visit. Another NATO team was in Raven's place, and for now, they were off duty. A debrief had happened. Faacts trickled out, and the team realised it. It was a cold, horrid feeling. Knowing Skye was dead, well, it left a sour taste. And it hurt each of them. All that had gone down, every detail of it, examined, and then....

Silence.

No formal thank yous. Nothing at all. No recognition for what they'd done. Behind the covers, there had been plenty of cheers. A silent nod of approval. A silent agreement that the future was left open to the team. In a game that usually meant you couldn't leave, there was a feeling you didn't talk back to the people that saved the world.

Adam took that as a sign that things were significantly more complicated behind the scenes So when Oracle called, Adam told him to come here. He wasn't coming out to him. Not on his turf. If an apology was coming, then it would. Some small talk had passed. Adam cut to the chase, the green-shirt wearing, jeans having Pole having his beard grown out long, his head firmly bald.

"So, by the fact you're here, you want something. Debrief wasn't enough. You got second thoughts."

Oracle sighed, nodding, the Sikh, MTP-wearing commander knowing this was a hard one to breach.

"Yep. Look, about..."

"You wanted us to take in one of the most difficult pieces of shit we found. Zhao straight up would have given you the key to something that produced Rose. What the fuck is wrong with you? Now we're off that record, yeah, we all said it straight to keep you in your job. Now you want more?"

"Playing every card we had. Or are you just a trigger happy cold bastard that can't follow orders? With feelings for her?" Oracle leaned in, Adam staring back.

The sentence stopped, as Adam stared daggers.

"A realisation you were happy to repeat past mistakes. With all due respect, I think you've got some balls, but you needed more to tell them to fuck off. Yet now you're here. You walked in here, and expect anything less than for me to take that tomahawk and mash you in? You were good, Imran, once upon a time. The very best. But you're an old man preaching morality. So what are you trying to get at? Redemption for you? Or that I'm expendable?" Adam asked, knowing he would cut to the chase. Oracle didn't like being talked down to, but in this instance, he knew he had little recourse himself. He'd shielded his team from the wave of shit, quietly agreeing, but knowing deniability was how the game worked.

"Artemis is dead. All but wiped. You saw the news. Pavel Andros got arrested. And you have our eternal thanks, given how close we were to the brink. But...." Imran began, as Adam leaned forwards.

"You still need someone." Adam cut him off, as Oracle slid a document across the table.

"I need you back. There's clean up work. And what I said to the team about indefinite leave is no less true. But there's going to be other threats. Jihadist groups in Iraq that want to stir more shit than anyone has any reason to know. There's a cartel in the Caribbean who are filling the vacuum of the cocaine groups that you dismantled, and they'll come across the idea of making biological weapons of their own. And Spectre is still loose. Finding whatever alliances he needs. We need to kill it at the root before the weed spreads." Imran added, knowing Adam had been wanting to lead the team for years. And yet, been in quiet waiting, for that moment.

"We save the world, and yet it still spins for you fast?" Adam replied, as Oracle, or Imran, nodded.

"Sometimes, Adam, that's just how it is. A bit more boring. But it spins." Oracle started, the document open. "You'd be in charge, and given any resource you need. Same as Skye did. Run it your way. You told me you wanted that a long time ago. Here's your chance." Oracle began, as Adam pushed the document shut.

"I'm not interested. You know, Skye was right. I am too intense. Too addicted to this. But...I know someone who would." Adam leaned forwards, flicking through, finding a face in the dossier.

Looking at the face, eyebrows raised, as he looked back up.

"You think she's ready for it?" Oracle asked, Sam's face in centre.

"Worth an ask. If not, then I know the team's on indefinite leave. And that you agreed we could walk away considering the shit that went down. She might not want it though. Maybe because of the same reasons as me. But maybe, you could convince her. Let her get her affairs sorted first." Adam replied, as he shrugged, knowing that could go either way. "Xander is too wild. But he might come back if you can give him some ADHD shots. Ogre, Jaguar, Boxer. Maybe even Tiny Nord could give you another team that gives you another angle. But who out of those I would have leading....well, I see why you came to me if you couldn't." Adam stated, knowing the old Raven roster, and why Imran was here.

Oracle sighed, knowing it was worth a punt, having a response to earlier.

"You know I didn't have a choice. Ebrima was smart enough. Smart to realise what he did when the cams were reviewed by everyone from Washington to Brussels. If he hadn't....I'm pretty sure he'd be flayed. Same with Sam. Smart cookie, that one. You'd almost call it malicious malcompliance. Smart enough to keep me out of the shit, too." Oracle mentioned, Adam chuckling.

"That's very funny. I'm not sure how much you know Ebrima, but he'd take platoons with him if they tried. Sam too, she.....easy to underestimate, but she knew what was at stake. So leave that to us, a bunch of deniable operatives mean you get to deny anything, right? Besides, revenge is a fool's game, especially when you're dealing with operators at our level that don't care how it ends. We're stubborn enough not to die. Ebrima, most of all." Adam chuckled, sipping down more coffee, as Imran leaned back in the chair.

"Perhaps. Maybe like you." Imran poked back, Adam shrugging.

"Touche." Adam replied, as Imran finished his.

"Skye was extraordinary. Lay my cards out, no fucking wonder Rose went as wild as she did. And much as I'd like to say there's a thread....there is nothing left. The Project that spawned her, everyone of the management team got killed by Rose, all the way to the top. She got her justice. But yeah. It left a lot of people losing their minds. Intelligence community's been a hive over this."

"No shit. Have fun unpacking it. That, is why I'm not so keen." Adam added, the Pole standing, as Imran turned in the wooden stool.

"I suppose the rest that remains is what next for you. Going to continue living this life, quiet? Someone of your skills?" Imran quried, Adam shrugging as he was grabbing another bit of water from the boiling kettle, pouring it into another mug, Imran's as well.

"Enjoying this. Until you phone me telling me that things are about to end and your team leader's fallen out of the sky again. Sure. But maybe I've learned that there's a reason we fight the wars in the dark for you, and your job is to make sure the wrong people, on our side, don't take advantage." Adam wryly commented. "I imagine you learned that we aren't so fucking stupid. So for now, I think I have some other affairs to get in order. I see what you're getting at. So. Got your answer? Happy?" Adam started, knowing it wasn't going to smooth things over with him, but in his own particular way, get back to the point. "One thing might sweeten the deal though." Adam came out and asked, as Imran nodded, in agreement, pouring sugar into his own coffee, then Imran's.

"Name your price."

"I need some details on a certain militia in Tennessee. I need intel. There's never a last job. But there are things you give your team, even when they leave. Commitments that Skye made that I suppose, pay her back by me keeping them." Adam stated, as Imran nodded, realising what he was alluding to.

"Oh, them. They're....well, they're low in the priority list. On the Richter Scale in the community, a blip. One HVT sticks out. A former US Marine Colonel recently moved ranks to them. Putting even one of you to the task would be like taking a stun gun to a fly though." Imran added, as Adam smiled.

"Oh....I think this might work very mutually for you. Well. We'll talk on that." Adam stood again, yanking the axe out of the wood he'd been trimming, before throwing a couple of logs into the fire, thinking that over.

He knew the reality of Imran's position. He just wanted to see how he'd take it. A fair bollocking, but then again, Adam knew as a disciplinarian himself, he'd have done the same. Zhao was too valuable to let go.

"And how about you?" Adam asked Imran, as he sipped down more coffee, hands open.

"Same shit, different day. I'm clearly not retiring soon. If you weren't such a rude cunt, you'd do better in management. Maybe mine. I would have probably let that go to someone like Skye, in time." The tall Sikh replied with a sigh on that thought, Adam cracking a rare smile, coming back over, grabbing his coffee.

"Yeah, well it turns out speaking your mind's, it's a dangerous thing in the intelligence community. I'll pass. I suppose you got to live being a bastard, but hey. We worked it out, didn't we?" Adam replied with a little sarcasm, as Imran chuckled, getting a smile out of him, it dawning more and more.

"Yeah, point taken. Point, bloody, taken. Fuck me. What a mess that was." Imran sipped the coffee away, as the scene cut to the hut itself, the smoke stack with gentle white puffs coming from the logburner, and the quiet pine forest revealing the solitude.

"I wouldn't call her a mess. Just everything that happened to her. But she came good." Adam noted, as Imran nodded.

"Always did."

---

@Rhona W

Porto Montenegro, Tivat, Montenegro

Two Weeks Later After Return, 2100 Hours

Tahlia Harris

It felt strange. The dying of the light, and the ultra-ultra luxurious private yacht marina in front of Tahlia's scope, sitting perched within the luxurious loft-like pad that sat on the harbourside, thermal optic on, bolt-action, sub-sonic MacMillan CS5, chambered in .308 Winchester subsonic, the black sniper rifle so compact it fit in a large suitcase, but right now, expanded out into Tahlia's shoulder.

A posh little place, costing at least half a thousand euros a night, but a perfect place to base herself in, the Kiwi in a tight-fitting vest, prosthetics at stumps, and rifle stationed in against a ground-anchored mount. Nothing on the wealth in the harbour, there was an absolute flood of various mercenaries, of whom barely weeks ago, Rose would have happily let die. Spectre had pulled himself from his hide hole to here, trying to broker deals. Save his skin, that was thoroughly, truly fucked. And Oracle's little tip off had worked rather nicely for herself, and for Eloise to get to work.

"Archer, you copy?"

Adjusting the rifle, the Kiwi watched as she got to work, knowing Eloise preferred quiet, but she'd get at least an acknowledgement.

"Path's clear. We've got Christian Hansen, Spectre himself on that super yacht....The Scalpel. Former Artemis bigwig for the taking.....and your friend. Spectre's going to need a bullet, arrow or knife. But if you want your acquaintance, he's there. I'll let you decide what his fate is." Tahlia simply uttered, as the headset buzzed with another frequency.

"Hey, Tahly. Is she on the job at the moment?"

"Yeah, sorta. Can't really speak." Tahlia replied, as the voice excitedly returned.

"Okay, cool. Just let me know when." The voice replied, as Tahlia watched Eloise move, smooth as ever, losing her in the Marina, back on another comms channel.

"Viper's sorted out the CCTV. I'll keep a coffee free for you both when you're done." Tahlia snickered, watching a guard move towards Tahlia, a silent shot splatting the man's head and him straight into the water, sinking as salt water filled hole in skull.

"Clear. All you, Archer. Show me how a professional does it."

---

Somewhere on Hvar, Croatia

Two and a Half Weeks After Return, 1000 Hours

The beach had lapping waves, aquamarine water, and an unusual peace.

Calming, quiet. It was silent, empty, the tiny village on the Adriatic coast having a few boats in the harbour, a Taberna that was off the beaten track, and amazingly, no tourists around. The Croatian island was paradise, and this beach in particular had to be known to someone to get them there.

It was a perfect place to relax, and Eloise had gotten the recommendation from Tahlia. The Kiwi sniper was unable to join, instead flying home, off to see her dad, and spend a moment off things. She'd been so zoned in, so focussed on looking after Raven, that she was the first to go when things stopped. On the job so much, so in the cobbled Kotor, she said goodbye to Eloise, and Purna did too after a lovely brew and a round of greasy Italian food. And headed home. Home to her dad, Andrew, and the farm, the beautiful valley in rural Otago with deer, sheep, dairy cows and chickens the life she realised she was beginning to miss. Firing a gun felt satisfying, it felt like service, but now that service was done. And well, she owed Skye that much. Live a quiet life, back to herself.

Purna had been happy to stay, but a job had come up. And so he was off too, but he'd be happy to work with Eloise whenever needed. For some weird reason, as much as he didn't like having a partner in the game, he knew she was more than capable of being that backup. The game was clearly evolving, and there were always targets that needed removing from the chessboard. Between them, Purna knew they'd be ready when those days came.

After saving the world, it must have felt strange, but Eloise had the world in her palms. But she was here, the few chaises on the beach, and after all of the talk of the team, was now alone once again.

Not for long though.

Spotting her, the giantess grinned, the waves carrying her in as she emerged from the water, as she stood above them crashing into shore like a column, her brisk swim across the bay giving her a chance to dive amongst old Yugo shipping wrecks, the pocket rebreather hanging out of her mouth, goggles peeled around her neck.

Athena cast a shadow, the teal blue bikini hanging on for absolute dear life contrasting with her mane-like wet blonde hair, left to run riot, like an exploding mirage past her shoulders, bruised, battered, but recovering. Yet that was barely a stain on the statuesque, bronzed, carved as if from marble skin, water falling from her as she cleared what seemed like a big gap to absolutely nothing to reach where Eloise was on her chaise. She whipped her hair, salt water brushing out like some sort of retriever, although of course, Athena knew *exactly* what she was doing, looking at the smaller, black haired infiltrator she wanted to spring this surprise on.

"Well, hello you. Fancy seeing you here!" Athena giggled, holding back her own excitement, though turning into a light jog that seemed like she was clearing yard with her long legs.

"I mean, I thought I'd just take a teeny, tiny, little break from social media....I mean I can see why you thought I was dead! Did you think I was off grid forever?" Athena grinned, barely needing a stride more to bring Eloise into her arms, in an embrace, lips locked, the smaller girl squished into the endless volume of chest, both heartbeats almost wanting to bounce out of her ribs into Eloise. It felt like the smaller girl's was about to leap into Athena's.

"A little bit of space dust, aren't you?" Athena softly giggled, her Mid-Atlantic voice, usually booming, loud, overwhelming, turning into a tantalising, almost crawling whisper, holding her tight still. And still talking.

"You know, nearly dying in that....thing, it made me re-evaluate things. Going a bit quieter. I appreciate you waiting for me. Tahlia did well getting that cryptic letter to you to come here and expect something special....I'm glad you're enjoying it." Athena grinned, putting her down at last, casting a shadow over the tiny infiltrator, walking towards the chaises that sat on the beach, Eloise at an eye level where she'd likely realise where Athena's sister had some envy walking behind. Lifting for a twin-hearted giantess, and carrying the Warhawk around meant she frankly had legs that looked like they were chiselled from Carrara stone, let alone flesh.

"So, we saved the world. You did. And here you are, being all quiet. How have you been? And well, what plans now? Because, I think it's time I stop being so busy and smell the flowers." She teased, looking down past her shoulder and her breast, bra barely able to keep up with the crackhead energy that she had, as they got to the chaises, setting down, Athena back to Eloise's level but her body sprawling out. She actually kept her trap shut, listening to Eloise, knowing the usually shy, quiet admirer had suddenly pulled her attention.

Plenty were envious of Athena, but if anything, she learned something strange. Her beauty brought in the faces to Blue Sword, all eyes Athena, she was a little narcissistic yet knew what her confidence did. And now, she realised that who she wanted, she didn't see the appearance, she didn't want some burly man, she didn't want someone who would worship her. She wanted someone who loved her for what she represented, and more than all, she wanted that quiet, sweet, small love in a world that from her own viewline, was bigger than life.

It was something she appreciated, because while she'd come back, louder, bigger than ever before, the gym calling, she had enjoyed a bit of quiet. Spending time with Freya in that final moment, so she thought, made her realise that. Crash landing into the North Sea and washing up in Denmark, the wreck was one sis was proud of, but Athena was just glad they'd survived. And glad they'd gotten a ride back out of, Athena letting her mother take over work for a little bit for her to unpack the much, much more terrifying near death experience she'd had. Even compared to having RPGs fired at her, that uncertainty had made her feel alive, and the adrenaline in her had been plenty used up by that. But it would be back. And #AdrenalineAthena was going to make her name known once again. Except this time, behind the biggest of names, would be someone she'd give all of her to.

Turning over, Athena giggled, shaking her head, head rested on the pillars of forearms she had, her heart-shaped face over her shoulder looking to Eloise, longingly. She'd been quiet for more than five minutes.

"Uhhh...are you just going to sit and ogle like everyone else? Let me turn bronze like I belong on Mount Olympus? Or are you gonna put some sunblock on me? Because I think I only need one squirt and I've got you covered. Me? You're gonna need the rest of that bottle. You looked up at that blimp of mine with some envy.....how about you get to see what that blimp feels like. No small gestures anymore." Athena grinned, a deep, broad smile, as if for a moment, work was left behind. The constant pressure to impress, show herself off, and yet on this private beach, of all the people that perhaps would have landed hands of sun-tan lotion on Athena Kaantario's back, and maybe beyond, she certainly wouldn't want anybody else.

---

@Starlance

Somewhere in the Australian Outback, Perth, Australia

Two Months Later After Return, 0300 Hours

Purna Gurung

The Chinook drummed, as the recruits lept out of the back. The bear pitch darkness made it impossible, but using the limited starlight they had, the recruits had a target on their backs.

A pretty big one.

In the early morning of the outback bush as the orange haze lit the horizon, it wasn't just all of Australia that wanted to kill them, but hypothetically, two Blue Sword instructors. Beasting them had been one part of it, weapons training, infil/exfil, dealing with a variety of threats, so far, the operatives were the alpha predators. The modern battlefield demanded it. Now, they were the hunted.

An hour later, the stoppage of the electric quad bike made it easy to crawl through the bush.
"So, we hunting game? You got Team A, I have B?" Purna asked, chambering an AR-enabled dummy round into his Mk14 from the rack on the front of the quad, picking up the first group.

"They're working together. For now. Shall we see how they fare by dawn? Then execute a sweep?" Purna asked, rifle in hands, the boonie-hat wearing, MTP fatigues wearing infiltrator aware that he might not have been the original best pick for an instructor, but a contract was a contract. Blue Sword offered him something to tide him over, and between jobs, and after it all going down in Porto Montenegro, Purna wondered if Ebrima making the choice had brought him here as well.

It was strange, to call someone he wanted to slice open a friend. Strange even. But life changed. And Tahlia was right. It was worth literally, burying the Kukri in this one. Ebrima had more than earned it killing Rose, and in a strange way, he had little to lose being here. Buying time to think of his next move. Family always enjoyed the remittance, especially with the bulk up in pay from Blue Sword, cousins building houses, significantly improving things from their near silent benefactor. But he needed to see them again. Remind himself of his roots. He was getting comfortable, far too much so, but Purna knew that life wasn't about suffering and hurt. Even if living it was comfortable, he was ready to carry on. There would be plenty more private contracts, and his unique set of skills would be getting plenty more use in time.

It was a job he'd been unsure about, but somehow, he enjoyed teaching. Maybe Skye made him realise that. And Eloise too. He was a good mentor, a rough, but fair person to make sure others delivered to the top of their game.

For now, it was time to hunt some PMC candidates, and put them through their paces.

---

@LadyAmber

Somewhere in Ouray, Rocky Mountains, Colorado

Two Months Later After Return, 1000 Hours

Adam Kajtanowicz

The small, old mining town sat as a tourist trap nowadays, sitting at the foot of the Million Dollar Highway, with lots of quaint and beautiful shops, cafes and souvenir shops before the road span south into the deeper Rockies, away from the hustle and bustle of society.

Near ski resorts like Telluride, but far enough out of the way for someone who was waiting for the doomsday to hit within the continental US.

Moving Aviators off face, the rustle of the large pickup truck in the distance made him perk up, putting coffee down, walking across to the window, out of the cafe, knowing that the two passengers. Adam knew it was likely surprising he'd done this for them, but then again, he was a man of his word. A tight-arse, but loyal to Skye's choices. A payback he gave to Ban, letting him settle scores in Japan.

"Good to see you again." Adam's eyebrows raised at the big man, the former Raven operator clambering open the rear door, looking across to Chuck and Sam, tablet pushed forwards. Out of sound, out of sight as the door shut.

"Recovering okay? Good to have you back, Chuck." Adam asked, the larger man's seat all the way back, as even Adam had to keep to Sam's side, knowing the situation.

"I found what you were looking for, Sam. Looks like who you were looking for....they're best friends with Chuck's old CO. Colorado cell is....was a goldmine. Up in the Mount Hayden wilderness. They had a cabin. And they left intel lying around. And about five guys, including a former US Marine Major. They're good. But you'll do better." Adam tapped the tablet, breathing out, knowing what this had come to.

"Everything on there that you needed. Convenient that you get to...how do you say in English, kill two birds, with one stone?" Adam chuckled,

"But if you decide not to, then turn it over to the FBI, NSA, and I'm sure they would like to look at it. Though I mean, between us...I think you both would go through them like tissue paper. Oracle owed me a favour to let me get some justice done. He has the same for you. Perk of the job." Adam added, as he slid across his FiveSeven onto the centre console, silencer attached.

"Skye trusted you, believed in you, needed you. You don't trust Oracle. But after this, if you're looking for that life, it's still there." Adam added, breathing out as he leaned back.

"You're right to trust nobody. But there's a family beyond this. Keep in contact. No matter what happens, Sam Dalton. And you too, Chuck. Freya will do right by you. I have a free calendar, so when we need to sort out your pre-wedding drinks....we shall make it like old times." Adam's polish rang out, as he chuckled, opening the door after their replies, looking in.

"Happy hunting, both of you. Go show them they made the wrong enemies." Adam gave a smile, before shutting the door, and like that, disappearing off.

---

Camp Hannula, Poysjarvi National Park, Finland

Two Months Later After Return, 1500 Hours

Sophie Keller, Vincent Cisse, Javi Garcia, Raphael Cohen

The slow shutdown meant that the support team were packing away a lot later than most,

It had been hard for the team. Stuck in Hannula, winding down with reports, documents and work, but they'd been getting leave at least, before then returning back to help the packup.

The rapid mobilisation left a mess.

Sophie in particular sat in the Doctor's mess. Putting her bits and pieces into her medical bags, a part of her always wondered what on earth Skye meant about this whole system. Many higher ups had told her to stop. And from the fact she'd died for it, maybe that was best. Some stories didn't need more digging. The medical reports were all stripped out of the system, and Sophie wondered if somewhere, someone had wanted to look inside Skye Rosalind Lyons. They likely had bodies of her still. It hurt thinking about that. But then again, she'd volunteered. And knew that Skye, somewhere up in that blue oblivion, had died in service of humanity, of a greater whole. And that was something Sophie knew was part of who her boss happened to be. She'd saved her life, so perhaps in that way, Sophie realised she owed it to Skye to live hers.

She wanted to go home. A lifetime of working as a field surgeon and doctor was taking its toll on her mentally, and she was ready to go home. Back to a quiet clinic in St Moritz, a private one where she'd be working on skiiers and rich billionaires more than anyone else. She took the bags, and with it, took one last glance, breathing out an exhale in the summer heat at where Freya had rehabilitated her arm, Ebrima had been medicated up, and half the team had come in hurt, wounded or feeling under the weather, and she'd put them back together, through the power of everything she could give.

Vincent had been thinking about what next. Blue Sword had offered a contract, flying V22s again for a living, but he still wasn't quite sure. He fancied a break, given how intense everything had been, go travelling, see the world a little. The world nearly ending put things in perspective for him, and as wild as the journey had been, he wanted to go home, hug his parents hard, and see his cousins, nieces and nephews. And then he'd figure it out. Losing Skye hurt him a lot. But family, that mattered and he was grateful for what was to come. A well earned break. Packing his last bags, Peltor headset away and gone, he knew that piloting was off his radar for a while, but would come back when he felt that burn for close fire support.

Javi in the meantime sat fixing the Toyota Hilux that had served them for trips out into the wilderness, caused by Antti. With the leak pulled, his future was similar to Vincent's. A job back in Blue Sword was interesting, but he worked best at the edges of things. He'd go where Raven went. He wasn't leaving. He was staying, and the replacement team already needed a vehicle tech. A site in the Azores, at Lajes Airbase. He wondered how they would compare to the redhead's fiery demands, and the rest of Raven. He was missing them already, but back home, there was nothing he wanted to go back to. Nothing that wouldn't leave him facing demons he didn't want to live by. Even at the end of the world, an event nobody outside of Raven's tiny management and team knew about, things had altered.

Raphael had the same, the data from Raven's systems requiring a comb. He followed Javi, loading his bag into the back of the pickup truck, knowing that Enri still gave him evil eyes, but well, they'd at least amicably agreed that once the work was done at Reunion, they could call it half-even. They'd never be the same, but at the least, Raph left Enri on better terms than they'd arrived to, knowing she'd likely leave behind all of this. For him, going to see family wasn't so tempting, and while it would be nice to catch up on affairs, the state of the world's chaos never seemed to sleep. He had enjoyed the break, the slow packdown, but it was time to start a new project. Maybe even get a new team so he could focus more on the strategic side of things. The satellite weapon that Artemis had commissioned had been knocked out given their actions in Chile, but Raph knew he had plenty to do to make sure it never could be reactivated, and that was his project for the foreseeable, one of the few that could be trusted to delve into it.

With the pickup truck fired up, Sophie, Vincent, Javi and Raph were ready to leave, and prepared for the journey ahead, on their various paths.

Antti Järvinen

The air felt a little tricky, as sitting inside of the Raven's Rock, Antti realised he was nearly the last person left. Until he had heard the large Russian wonder over, if not a tectonic plate moving.

Natalie, Natalya, Natalia, whatever spelling some poor bastard had decided to use that would offend, stood almost regal, her red blouse and tights screaming under the sheer amount of Russian mother that they had to deal with today. Athena got it from her, but so did Freya. Shorter, of course, and in age, fighting harder to stay like this, but she aged as gracefully as the Alsace winery she seemed to breathe out.

"Antti. I wanted to say thank you." Natalie almost felt like she was ordering, as Antti shrugged, barely phased by the half Russian, half Frenchwoman's pleasantry. Not because he was rude. But because he was Finnish.

"A pleasure, Colonel. The team did what they had to. We're packed up. Did you keep any of the Raven team?"

"Yes. Purna and Ebrima stayed on, as contractors. Helpful for training. And given my daughters wanted a break. Silly girls. They re-enters the atmosphere, and thinks that business will stop....I thought I raised better children. At least Jamie still gets to work. And you work hard, Antti."

"That's why you hire me, Boss. Are you not happy they are alive?" Antti got a rare chuckle out of Natalie, as she leant in, the Matriarch leading the way still, wanting to keep conversation with the Finn.

"Me and Victor didn't raise weaklings. And did not skimp on the heat properties of their titanium. Yes, as always, I am right to hire you. I have a wedding to go to. My oldest daughter has decided she has wanted to take the hand of another giant. And my husband thinks this is a good idea. Hah. I feel sorry for him already. Freya will never bend to any man." Natalie chuckled with almost an evil intent, walking through the armoury, her heels clicking on concrete, before talking in the Finn's quiet.

"What about you, Antti? What will you do?" Natalie asked, as Antti took a moment to think that over. What wouldn't he do that any Finn would?

"Fish. Hunt. Drink. Enjoy retirement. And come back when you need me. And you, Mrs Kaantario?" Antti simply stated, keeping it simple, as Natalie appreciated that plenty.

The armoury doors opened, as Natalie walked on in, looking back to Antti over her shoulder, shrugging.

"I came here for a fitting. Because now one daughter is engaged, and another is....enjoying herself, and my son is now alone. I think it's about time I check he has help. And I'm not talking about the wedding dress for my eldest daughter. Leave a woman alone, would you?" Natalie chuckled, as Antti looked confused, holding before the door where the Heavies had geared up, hearing nothing but a quieting voice, as heels came off, blouse dropped as Antti let the matriach keep her modesty, albeit her voice didn't stop even alone in her little temple.

"Now, Miss Zeiss. I suppose because my youngest can't be bothered....I shall enjoy the fruits of your labour a little." Natalie seemed to almost revert to a historical state, and with it, gave a hearty laugh, the bare feet on floor turning into an ocean of grunting. Followed by the sounds of strapping boots on the other end and an awful lot of rustling.

Standing outside, he sent an archaic encrypted message as he leant against the wall, smoking a cigarette, finally loaded from the server that he'd been responsible for dismantling.

Antti had thought about this a while. He was normally loyal, obedient, to a point, and blunt. A well earned rest was on his mind. But even in the short period they'd spent here, he wanted to make sure he paid back the team what was owed. Skye had bonded well with him, away from the rest, and through Tahlia, he understood full well what that meant. So, he left a final message, while the boss was busy clearly trying to fit into something that was made for a very different giantess.

"I found Skye's last messages on the server. She tagged them for you. Sending it across. Good luck, Raven Squad. You are always welcome for tea, sauna, and sausages on a stick."

That send was pinged, as he looked out at the green forest out of the armoury door, before looking back and up to see Natalie in that THICC suit of Laura's, an earth-destroying grin on her face.

"Perfect fit. Victor's going to want a divorce when he finds out, but I think....when he sees it he might change his mind. This was what I came for." Natalie gave a playful flex, chuckling. Any slowness stopped because it was exactly where it had left off. A muscular-based exoskeleton in the hands of a 50 year old? It was like the years rolled back. And well, Laura's bust was not far off Natalie's....and she was absolutely back to feeling like she was in her younger days again. And she felt incredible doing it.

"Make sure to bring a helmet. A sniper will get you." Antti pointed out with barely a crack or grin, though Natalie knew that full well, and would riff on that.

"Field generator will cover that. I prefer the improved vision....this new fangled technology, I think...it would be rude not to try. Thank you Antti. I'll leave you to it." Natalie smiled, walking away, indulging in just how silly this thing was, like her old armour but turned up to 11, and well, it brought out everything just how she wanted. Both her daughters had nothing on this.

With her phone buzzing inside one of the pockets, linked to the suit's network, she picked up, Antti watching on at the base's new quiet, but the quietening. Now this was something she hadn't done in years. And my....the years just disappeared in that moment. And Victor would soon be won around. When she saw his wife's figure in this thing. Shit, maybe this was why Laura was so crazy....even Natalie had to admit, this made a siren of her, if that siren had six inches of liquid armour, titanium and dragonskin plating. The voice from Antti's perspective quietened.

"General Lawrence. Yes, I'm aware. I thought you might ask, but my daughter is unavailable. But we can deliver on that contract. I will see to it personally with my son. Yes. No, no, Victor...he's tied up with some other affairs for now, and he'll understand. And so will my other daughter. But we're a company of our word. I'll talk when we have it bagged and tagged...."

The voice tailed, as Antti looked at his phone, knowing it had been received by the team, as the message pinged.

The voice in the distance changed, with a barrelling laugh as she connected another call.
"Freya! Oh, you'll never guess what your mother found...."

---

Sometime Before Reunion

Sitting at the laptop, Skye sipped down her coffee, looking at the deployment regime, following the EVA training for Ark Angel....if it came to that. Skye hoped not, but then again, best to cover Rose off if she was trying something.

Another fucking horrid day of it. For them. She'd already put herself through that usual hell.

She updated, a few things, checking her phone's private calendar once again. It was that time again. She didn't like ever doing this. It felt a bit archaic, but then again, things with Rose had made her go on edge a little more.

So, she cleared her throat, and with it, set up the camera. She had a few more things to say.

Soundtrack: Ed Sheeran- Fire

There were other clips in there. But the first was the most recent.

"Hey. I guess I'm not really meant to do this....and given I'm a ghost I suppose I usually kept the same. Given I'm not really a person anymore either, after all of this, maybe this is stupid. But we will kill her. We will end this. Whether or not I end up on that other end. If you're hearing this, there's a good chance I didn't. Fuck, I've tried to record this a few times already. So, it's hard to know what to put into words." Skye stopped, looking down, almost as if wondering what the point was, her words confused.

"And if so....I guess this overwrites my usual message. That I expect to die in this game, that one. And I know all of you have that message too. But given we're at the end....well, of perhaps what Rose, a sister wearing my face has done, seen things, done things that none of us could ever be trained for, I suppose I may as well alter what you hear." Skye's voice seemed stoic, yet drifting in thought, in memory.

"I didn't deserve anything special. My usual message would tell you to bury me at sea. Forget I existed. Remove the slate....because I've just been a tool in the service of the team I work with. And it always was there. Nothing else. Makes things easier for you to move on with your lives." Skye started, as she sighed, breathing out, her thoughts wild on this before the trip to Reunion. "But I thought about it. About her. About all of it. And....to be human is to die and know it." She added, as she leaned back, eyes up, before looking back at the camera.

"So, given how things are going, the mission being kill her or humanity dies...if something were to happen to me.....there's a quiet alcove in the Isle of Skye. In a place called Fairy Pools, under the Black Cullin, you'll find a braid off the footpath from where the stream's waterfalls pour under the mountain at a blue looking rock. It goes through a rocky braid of the stream, up a teeny little wee valley. You can't really miss it. And behind that, there's a small tuft of wildflower, almost a strange looking circle of grass, with a stone circle. I'd like my fiddle left there at the front of it, and a rock with my name on it. I never had a request before, for any of this. But if this is the one that kills me, knowing that you lived to kill Rose....I'd like solace to know I existed." Skye started, knowing it was a strange request.

"My dad took us there once, and I remember it just being special. So, I suppose if I don't get to show you there myself....I'd like you to leave the memory of me there." Skye stopped, the serious face turning to a chuckle, shrugging her shoulders. "I understand that's something from The Big Lebowski, but....I'd appreciate it." Skye added, exhaling, thinking hard about what she wanted to say next.

"This world is flawed. But if you're hearing this, it means you're capable of going back to it and doing some good, beyond all of what you just saved. There won't ever stop being threats to everyone, people who want to take away everything from good people. But that's why you're here. And even if you don't stay....know that it was a pleasure, and you'll do the same beyond Raven. If you're getting this at all, it's been a few months. Antti probably held onto it, and I'm hoping that he got told by me to delete it when we get home. And I made sure you all got some well earned leave, from me, from Raven, from saving the world. But if not.....and if there's an afterlife, or...well, I suppose pragmatically, a better place to put an overpriced instrument than my office, I'd appreciate it. One last memory I can leave you with. Thanks, team." Skye signed out, cutting the recording, breathing out.

"Fuck me." She said to herself, tapping the desk. "Fuck me sideways. What was that....getting bloody emotional shit." Skye chuckled, shaking her head, still unsure why she'd done that. It wasn't to be thought about much. The redhead adjusted her hair, closed everything down, and shut her laptop off, standing out of the desk and looking at the evening, hearing the noise of the team below through the partially open door. She took a deep breath in, and headed back out, knowing she best not miss dinner again with work.

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP) (COMPLETED)

Ark Angel, Lower Earth Orbit

The Final Roar

A Collab with @LadyAmber@BigPapaBelial@Rhona W@Starlance

For the second time - at least - in the short span that he’d served with Raven, Ebrima found himself wishing he hadn’t been raised not to swear in order to properly describe the situation he had found himself in. This was absolute bovine manure. An unimaginable pile of it. What choices did he make in life that led to him being in space, literally alien to humans with no reliable natural way of telling how far anything was when they were moving, much less actually fighting in it?

Still, one must adapt, he thought, using the provided grapple to quickly get behind some solar panels. Not like it was any cover, concealment at best, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. According to one of the small pile of materials provided in preparation for the mission, it took on average 14 seconds for a human exposed to the vacuum of space to pass out - assuming the decompression was long enough to not rip up one’s lungs. Thus, he decided double taps were the name of the game, hard to imagine anyone managing to patch up two holes in the time afforded to them.

Eventually he found something approaching solid cover - the control moment gyroscopes by appearance - and could finally stop darting around like a rag in the wind and actually aim, having hooked his foot under a handhold and started putting in work when Rose decided she was in a chatty mood.

He held his tongue. For one, people like her were not worth the breath - literally in space, where it was a limited commodity - and two, the only retort that he could come up with involved having had parents at all as opposed to a serial number, which would’ve involved a degree of friendly fire. Although Rose’s transmission had clearly had an effect, if the image of a grapple cable flying toward an Artemis position, followed by the cable pulling back with an Artemis merc with the hook impaled through the helmet’s visor was of any indication, it didn’t have an effect Rose would be happy with.

Eloise had propelled herself in the same direction as the others, keeping herself oriented on the station as a fixed object. As the hostile mercs had made their way toward them, she’d likewise driven hard for the cover of the station and it’s various jutting peripherals.
Much like Ebrima, she struggled to reconcile the distances; there were no cues. No sound, no breeze, no normal shadows. Just stark light and dark, and objects swimming in a sea of it. She hooked herself around the support of one of the shimmering solar panels, and hand-over-hand ‘climbed’ down it toward the station’s exterior hull. Vibrations came through her boots and gloves as she made contact with the station; almost reassuring to have some other sensory stimulus beyond her own self-contained environment in the suit.

When Rose came over the radio to waffle and monologue, Eloise essentially tuned it out, though mentally made a mark to give her a boot up the ass for the personal remarks - though, she figured Skye likely had that as covered as the rest of them did.
Oh, those mercs were getting awfully close… well, in relative terms, anyway.

Short lived sparks showed the muzzle flashes of her friends and allies gunfire, and likewise from the mercs. But lack of snap and pop of gunfire and of ricochets was unnerving. Nonetheless -
She unstrapped her SMG, and took careful aim, the bulky suit hampering it somewhat, before she squeezed off rounds, the bulky gloves likewise making it difficult. The shot translated as a thudding drum of vibration as the rounds sliced out through the vacuum.

“Copy, Chaos. Me and Boaro got you covered.” Skye called back, watching as the grapple smacked the merc in a mist that made Boaro’s response to Skye’s call a rather stark one. She moved through the field of solar panels, providing cover to the Cameroonian, dumping the magazine into another merc moving out around the station, before latching into cover on a hardpoint, another loaded, charging handle peeled through the thick gloves of the suit. Eloise was keeping close, quiet, but no less lethal.

There was no denying this was not in their comfort zone, but then again, Skye knew it wasn’t in the foes they were facing either. But knowing Rose was inside, or at least, towards the centre gave a bit of solace. A point. A direction to go and charge into.

Athena laid out a bit more fire, following on her sister, laying out accurate, guided fire on the mercs on the far side of the solar panel field, clipping two into a bloody mist.
“Yeah, me and Frigga have the rest as well! Get after it!” Athena called back, as Skye peeled a look, before coming back down, seeing the airlock begin to open, the insides all decompressed and opened out as they were.

Moving down, Skye peeled a look upside down from where Sam was, looking out towards Ebrima and her team, bar Freya and Athena, were located.
“All ready? We’ve got canisters to find, and a Rose Lyons to frag. Eyes forward.”

Seeing the heavies had the situation outside under control, Ebrima pushed off from his position, floating toward the airlock to take up position in the stack behind Skye. ”Tight quarters. Exactly where I’d put a mine.” He noted, seeing the corridor leading deeper into the station.

Samantha smiled as she heard the reassurances from the rest of the team. She grinned as she thought, they might not be blood family but they were found family. She grinned as she went back to work on hacking the door. Rose had layered her own security over the top of the standard protocols but she had not changed them. She was probably worried that she would accidentally delete the wrong security protocol and end it all by doing something stupid. The rare mistake gave Chaos a way to bypass the initial layer of security. She focused on the next line of code as Bob and her worked as a team to hack past the first layer.

Chaos’s work was interrupted as the guy who had fired on her from above took another potshot at her. Just like he was using the station as a shield, so was she. She used the tether to lean back away from the station and aimed her shot at his helmet. She nailed him and saw his helmet crack and he pulled back. She didn’t think he was out of the game yet but it bought her more time.

Chaos muttered angrily under her breath. “Damn mindless spunk for brains minion. He needs to go away. Damn interruptions.”

Chaos continued to work on getting past Rose’s security so she could access the station’s emergency protocols and standard commands. She was typing as fast as she could even as she was losing some feeling in the arm that had taken the bullet. She had managed to wear her undersuit under the space suit. The medical unit kicked in and put a tourniquet on her arm to control the bleeding.

Bob’s automated mechanical voice told her “We have bypassed the outer layer of security. They know we are here but we have control of basic systems. The station is responding to standard emergency protocols.”

Chaos’ voice was a little breathy as sweat rolled down one side of her face even as a chill rolled down her spine. “Queen the good news, I have access to the emergency protocols on the station. I can get us in. The bad news is they know I am in their system. I can tell that there are sections of the station that have been removed from the ordinary protocols. I won’t have access to those areas. They are running a gap system , probably for safety. The airlock entrance is rebooting. I will have access in 5 minutes.”

Chaos let the team know about the airlock. They had their way into the station. She pulled herself close to the station as the airlock finally began to cycle to allow the team inside.

The Scot replied back to Boaro's comment, then Chaos's. “Aye. But I think I know why she didn’t. And affirm, Chaos.” Skye uttered, pushing through the aperture, turning left, two more contacts in direct view as she dived immediately into cover, bullets flying past as Skye used her grapple to literally send one of them past her helplessly into the path of the other two, whilst eliminating the other, moving around elegantly, getting fast used to this. And in it, there was the atrium. Something of a larger room, but as Skye pushed in, she opened her jaw.

Body after body, in plastic bubble, she had to guess this was the rough area that it would be stored in, but it still didn't really still compute. Hers. To be specific.....
“Fuck, this is where she was…..yeah, peeling the poison out of those bodies. Literally. Christ.” Skye added, barely a moment too soon as more hostiles rushed into the room, Skye moving up and around a bulkhead, ducking out of the way as bullets flew down range.
“More contacts!” Skye yelled, as she flicked a new magazine in, aware that Eloise, Ebrima and Sam were holding the vanguard here with her. They had a bit further to go, but they’d get to where they were going, through a determined, hardened group of hostiles that seemed to get the hang of moving through a vacuum a bit better than their dead compatriots outside, their black spacesuits showing they were a little more readied for this.

Eloise’s rounds had either driven off her targets, or dealt with them in ways she didn’t care to consider; either way, they’d opened the way for her to advance, and catch up with Skye, Ebrima and Sam. They moved into the station’s interior, and it was… eerie. Bodies racked up in tubes, like something literally out of a sci-fi movie, given the surroundings.
“This is… incredibly unsettling,” she had time to quietly comment as she unstrapped her acquired crossbow and propelled herself through the interior, pushing off of and pulling along the machinery and furnishings of the interior.

”It’s like a mass grave, only somehow worse.” Ebrima agreed with Eloise’s assessment of the sight around them. After uncovering some of Luisa’s in Colombia, he thought he’d seen the worst humanity had to offer. But Skye Lyons’ Traveling Freakshow always goes to interesting places.

‘Different space suits, easy to tell from allies.’ Ebrima grined behind his helmet as the new contacts arrived. The grapple had another great use to it - the moment a hostile peeled out of cover to shoot, Ebrima could simply latch onto him or her and yank them out into the open for the others to deal with hassle-free, with the secondary effect of the other Artemis fighters growing reluctant to expose themselves lest they fall prey to a possibly deranged, bleached Scorpion.

As the bullets started flying, Eloise silently cursed and ducked behind one of the many pods, giving a grim smirk at Ebrima’s words.
“Black for baddies, that’s very gauche”, she replied, before leaning out and taking careful aim, letting fly with one of the razor-sharp bolts through the faceplate of a hostile, and quickly taking the moment to advance as she pulled the string and racked another bolt as she dived into more cover.

Samantha shivered as she kept up with the team. The sight of all those bodies in the tubes had her sighing. Rose had all she needed to make the Sol Hestia. She shook her head and kept silent. She tried to stay alert as she pulled out one of her knives. She didn’t like the idea of firing a gun inside the station.

Outside the station, Athena clipped another group of hostiles at the far end, moving through the end of the panels, the the armoured titaness still not quite sure of how the fuck this was playing out.
“Queen, we’re capping off the other end of the space station. I think I have eyes on a launch tube. Looks like the way they're launching the 'Hestia from this. Frigga, can you cover me, I’m gonna see if I can get to the end of it?” Skye heard, as she pulled out of cover, peeling bullets past a version of Rose #187, she humorously pondered to herself, also thinking about the fact she *was* partly one of those things. Which made even less sense. Laying down fire, she kept the bullets going, the space station’s integrity not a priority given it was all a tin can with plenty of zero oxygen inside of it.

“Affirm, Valkyrie! Boaro, Archer, I have you covered, keep moving and see if you can get through the next sector!” Skye called back, keeping accurate fire down, suppression at the very least on the flat level, realising she was at a different angle entirely in a 3D realm to the other two, who were virtually upside down, but across from here.

Frigga pushed off a surface and caught another surface with the claw of her line launcher, she couldn’t bring Starbreaker along, too big but she did have the claw. She fired it attaching herself, and called to her sister, “I’ve got you Athena!” She stood up on the cooling spire, looking like a grey sentinel upon the spire, “Ladies and Gentleman, the power of the Sun!” A blue-white lance, hit a merc right in the chest. When they say they can’t hear you scream in space, it’s mostly true.

Her claw growled at it came loose and she threw it forward again, pulling herself along in Athena’s wake, grabbing another anchor point, securing herself, and bracing, her AEW shifting, this time a pin point pen thin blast, a hiss…and a mercs armor explosively decompresses, “Who knew a Physics PHD would come in handy during space combat.” Another crank and she pushes off again keeping up with her sister.

Landing a third time, “Oh you think that will save you?” As some mercs knelt behind a large thick plate of something.

Clack…click…BZAAAT!

The Lightning Gun crackled, conducting along wire and materials, slagging the cover, sending the mercs scrambling and into her friends lines of fire.

With an almost evil chuckle she deployed her claw again to catch up to her sister.

Eloise tensed herself and sprang out from her cover, shooting while on the move. The bolt hit, center mass this time, and the target flailed in agony.

“Mmmhh… this this is effective, but it takes too long to reload,” she growled, instead pulling her Jericho from its’ sealed holster and blazing off a volley of shots as Ebrima yanked another hostile into the line of fire. Reaching her impaled target, she met his chest with both boots and coiled, crouching against him and putting a shot through his visor, before kicking him back down the length of the module.
“Keeping them pressed back; but it’s hard going,” she called out over their radios, as a round ripped through the interior of the module and whacked something on her helmet, forcing her into a spin she had to correct in the Zero-gee environment.

With cover from the rest of his teammates, Ebrima could leverage a bit of mobility for a change, making a series of quick, grapple-assisted bounds between pieces of equipment that looked more solid than others, rapidly closing the distance as the Kuri left its sheath. In a flurry of movement, flashing steel and manoeuvres only enabled by the thruster pack that nearly made his inner ears give up and go home, the Cameroonian’s path slowly became marked by droplets of blood streaking from ruptured suits, coalescing into tiny spheres that drifted aimlessly until striking a surface, adding sparks from short-circuiting equipment lining practically every surface in the room into the carnage.

Skye exploited the chaos the two made, pushing past a group of bodies, clattering two more hostiles with a double tap to each, using her grapple to shoot across the room, clattering into side by the pair, magazine unloaded and another slid in.
“Right. Through here. Eyes open on any killswitch. Valkyrie, you in position?”

“Affirm, I’m on the other side, no windows though, so I can’t see inside!” Athena’s voice sounded back, as the Scot looked through her visor to the other two, breathing out a hard exhale, this particular move not one she ever wished on any of them. She didn’t let them lead. She went herself, and pushed forwards, peeling through, the taller module as wide as the one before, but revealing nobody inside.

Apart from her.

With Rose cornered, rifles were raised, as Skye floated through, hearing the static kick in once more. A similar suit, but a little more on her backpack. A contingency, no doubt. She seemed

"Raven, how lovely to see you up close. I wouldn't do anything stupid." Rose waved around the clacker, the DMS hooked up against her hand, the pudgy thumb latched against the pressure plate, as Skye kept rifle raised, shaking head.

Ebrima was about to shoot, only stopped by the realization of three other people on board and two just outside. The old adage of ‘Hostages only matter if the other side cares about their survival’ got thrown out the window - well, airlock - if the hostages were the rest of the team.

Eloise had replies swimming in her head about how this was already stupid; gunfighting in a soda can with inevitable death a fanny hair away, but she held her tongue and kept her cool, the muzzle of her gun still pointed in Rose’s direction, but finger out of the trigger guard. Her haunting eyes firmly fixed on the other woman as she listened - and waited.

"No fucking chance. We've got a heavy against the release. You hit it, Athena redirects it. Give it here. And you might get a chance to live. I'll see to it that you don't end up getting someone pulling you apart. Every fibre in me wants to. But for the good of everything that's fucking sane, give it to me, and let's end this."

"It's a tungsten covered, rocket-assisted canister, Skye. It's sealed, so you puncture it, that thing makes a racket. And she'll go with it, if I release. First on the list. Then about a billion. Want to risk that?" Rose replied, as Skye kept rifle high.

"I suppose we didn't really get to know each other, did we, Raven? You know....Skye's something of an enigma. When confronted with all the horrors. She told you she'd help you with all your problems. Be it prison, being an orphan, losing loved ones, comrades, family, the things you can't outrun. Give you a purpose and let you live. But she picked you because she knew you'd never go anywhere else. Just like her. You didn't really have a choice. And then she made you into machines that can only kill. At least the people I pay chase greed. But you....you all chose this because you can't help yourselves. So you killed everything in your way, and here you are, told you're saving the world. With all of its corruption, with everything it took from every one of you, and you want to keep it, rather than take a chance it might be better." Rose said, keeping an open tone to everyone, knowing they'd hear.

Make their judgement. In whatever twisted way she saw fit. Skye kept her SIG pointed at her doppelganger, knowing that in this moment, it was not exactly like they had much leverage, but they had to talk her down. A DMS meant all sorts of shit. Explosives, retro-thrusters, anything, beyond even just that WMD in her hands.

”Fixing a problem does not necessitate a clean slate.” Ebrima simply replied to the posturing madwoman, ”Boss, what’s the call?”

“People like you made me into a machine to kill long before Skye was on the scene,” Eloise replied in the hushed, soft tone she always held. “And they lied to me about it, with elegant, big promises and visions like yours. Stepping over bodies to get to them and using me to do it was all part of their vision” she shrugged - the motion muted by the suit, and shook her head. “You’re just the latest in a long, long line of maniacs with grand ideas and flashy toys. There’ll be others like you, either way this ends. You’re not as special as you think you are; just another butcher in the history books, but with a more fantastic plan. I don’t care what you think of me, or why. Skye, Purna… Athena…, all of them have done and said more in this short time than you’ll ever do. You’re just a target waiting for a bullet or a blade”.

Skye stayed quiet, letting them talk, as Rose spat on her visor in response to Eloise.

"Because I'm done pretending we can't change the world and that long line exists! You think I like this? Love the idea of what we're doing? The fucking world is falling apart, it's a lie, we're consuming, using, destroying, and it'll all end now, shit, at least I give an alternative! It's a necessary evil. I told Skye that. You could live in that. You and your team. You had first refusal. And now you'll take them with you." Rose replied, her English-accented voice bitter, and the face, uncannily like Skye’s now, as she no doubt, was putting her impression on Eloise in that moment.

Skye thought for a moment on that exact ponder before she replied.

"This…..the body transfer, it's in my head too. Integrated. You know, you're not special. I went from a body to another like you." Skye uttered, the redhead knowing that fact in the last few hours had just sunk home, dropping into

"Bullshit." Rose barked back, as Skye chuckled, almost as if to drive it home, knowing she'd caught a line in Rose's heart with that one.

"Fucking look at me! No warpaint, Rose! No tattoos. Nothing. And no node sticking out of me. I'm like you. Not even metaphorically. And on my last life. And I don't want to commit fucking genocide. So don't think you're anything more." Skye almost seemed pleading, yet lost herself. Putting herself at that level. Hoping Rose could get that.

Rose stared daggers.

"All of it so he could pull the rug at the end. Zhao...he just wanted what I feared. A product. No more." Rose uttered, shaking her head inside the helmet, looking back. "So you know what it's like then. And you don't think this is any special?"

"We're just people, Rose. And we're at the end of this whole thing. Let's give this up."

Rose looked on, confused, but realising. Zhao had realised what was coming. And no doubt, that was the reason the rocket was intact. In that final moment, he realised cutting that deal had been his lifeline. One that she hadn't known if it had worked, or not.

(one last one)

”She speaks the truth. The Skye you tried to kill in Japan stayed on the island” Ebrima simply stated a fact, hoping his reputation for brutal honesty would help drive the point home. ”That’s the problem with grand causes. In the end, nobody cares what you want, only what they can wring out of you. I’m just surprised it took you this long to realize.” His tone actually approached something akin to pity, though whether it was real or not was anyone’s guess.

Eloise, shook her head again, giving a simple shrug. “Life is a balance of red and black. Don’t you have enough red on your hands? Maybe it’s time to try something else, while you still can”, she said with a hesitant, hopeful tone in her voice. Quiet, encouraging, but not quite pleading.

Sighing, Rose kept herself against the titanium door, gently stepping off, with the prose of a ballerina, into the centre of it.

"I'll give you the DMS. Only to you, Skye. We'll go up. The door’s open above. And talk. Alone. Cut the comms and call it a day." Rose asked, as Skye didn't hesitate. She moved forwards from the rest, knowing this was it.

There wasn’t much to it, but she had to, in a moment of perhaps clarity, take Rose at anything. And trust her team had her back.

With the DMS in hand, Skye came closer, separating away, going up, or down, whichever way the airlock in the cavity was facing, away as the line stayed open for one last moment.

"Work something out, team." Skye’s words almost seemed fleeting, escaping. Almost hopeful, yet knowing whatever happened, hoping to hold her cool.

And with it, Skye floated up, and towards Rose, hearing the comms channel adjust.

"We don't have to do this, Rose. Come on." Skye uttered, as Rose shook her head, DMS clutched tight.

"What was it, Heroes, by David Bowie? You remember that memory?"

"Yeah." Skye replied, the redhead looking the other in the eye, coming close, close enough to look the speck in Rose’s Earth-reflecting eye.

"It's the last time I felt human, Skye. Last moment I had. And, I wish I could go back to it every time. But everything else...there's no humanity left. And not down there either. And there wouldn't be in you either." The other voice sounded almost remorseful, confused tangled.

"Come on, Rose. There is. In you. You can still stop. Still be normal. I know how much it hurts. I know why it did. But I can't undo any of it. We can't keep going like this." Skye replied, knowing this was risky. It was stupid, dumb, Rose was unpredictable, but almost a turn in her eye had come to give it up. Realise she was outplayed. Outmanned.

"I'll let you feel that weight. You're right." Rose put her hand out with the DMS, and offered it forwards.

And into Skye’s. The trigger rested, pushed against the firm gloved palm of Skye.

The Scot not letting go as Rose released quickly, glancing one look. Into eyes that mirrored her. Uncannily. It was her, alright. A mirror with a physicality to it.

And Rose pulled her left hand in, up onto Skye's shoulder.

And fired her grapple. Skye immediately blew back, the hook smacked through her visor and straight into her skull. The DMS unwound as it fell out of Skye's lifeless hand, the impact of the pointy hook near instantly ending it, the vacuum finishing any remaining neurons.

There weren't any final thoughts to be had, bar one.

Rose wanted her to make her feel that release, that loosen of hand, helpless, absolutely. In the end, even if involuntary, it had been her own doing. As if the final laugh was with Rose. The black of the view beyond her fading light left nothing. In the end, like all those she'd killed.

Rose shoved the lifeless body of Skye back at the team, cable pulled out of her dead counterpart, and used her MMU to separate her from Skye, keeping her other body between her and the team, who were seeing Skye Rosalind Lyons rotate towards them in a method that didn't befit her dying valiantly at all.

Soundtrack: David Bowie- Heroes

In this line of work, no such thing existed. Rose preyed on fear.

Because when you had a field-generator equipped spacesuit, getting shot at wasn't the worst issue for a moment, but she could absolutely give it back. And while offense was the best defence, she had her mercs left inside the Ark Angel to help with that, bullets flying to no avail.

And suddenly, violently, the canister released from inside the space station, the plume of the pre-stage bursting, and smacked into Athena's shoulder, who pushed as hard as she could, her legs bolted against the station, feeling it spike. The rocket fizzled out, but the canister was loose. And the only thing stopping it from plopping out of the side of the space station was an overexcited twenty-two year old, who inadvertently, was now holding back certain death for an incalculable amount of people.

Athena screamed, feeling the canister rustle against her side, using all her energy to keep it in spot.
"Fuck, canister is loose, team, Fuck, we need to do something, fast!" Athena's voice actually broke in panic, as she didn't even yet clock the HUD alert of Skye's lifesigns being altered. But more importantly, Rose closing distance.

She hadn’t gone back down to Ebrima, Sam, Eloise. She’d moved further along, and out of the way. With a group of mercs to clean up the job, and her, seemingly, unable to be hit.

"You know I'm coming, Athena. Sisters who live together, die together, you can't stop the inevitable. You and your privileged fucking type. Your egos would do the same, but only for yourselves and your fucking stupid popularity." Rose taunted, knowing she was being hunted. Five to one. Terrible odds, but then again, Rose Lyons was everything Skye was, and now the latter was dead, those odds were a hell of a lot tighter. Especially when Rose seemed to not be capable of being shot.

The canister still thrusting away, Athena was not exactly in a comfortable position, rather, a stress one in more ways than literally one.

"Shit, I can't hold this! This thing is going to fucking go through me!" Athena yelled, yanking forwards and punching the propellant, killing the thing there and then, but leaving the canister still in the void with a push from the secondary that threatened to rip her away. She had to hold the canister now. Still one hard push away from doing a lot of damage, because Athena couldn’t let go.

Rose knew that.

Turning, Rose waited from a blind spot in the space station, underneath a pair of fuel tanks in the next atrium and burst forwards, knocking into Ebrima like a skittle, dumping the rest of the mag in their general direction, panicking, but almost certainly, not out of it yet.

"Maybe I'd respect you Ebrima, if you just pulled your head out of your arse and realised what they did to you! They fucking imprisoned your only friend, your only reason, made you a fucking slave, made you a fucking sock puppet!" Rose yelled back, darting around, coming into Eloise, darting around her trying to cut her route off, Rose aiming and firing another burst where she was at a moment.

"And you, I don't even know your fucking name, but I'm sure you won't be missed either!" Rose kept the fire up, Eloise lucky to get out of the way, or else she'd have caught rounds too.

Rose wasn’t seemingly able to take damage.

But, if there was ever a moment the team needed to get together, it would have to be to find a way to take out a field-generator having, equivalent to their team lead who was more than happy to find a counter to every single one of them. That, and the few mercs left in the way. Bullets wouldn’t do the trick. Freya’s AEW might, but that wasn’t going to do anything more than simply take the shield out, at best.

Ebrima caught the movement with the corner of his eye, barely ducking the spray in time. But he’d seen this before. He’d killed Luisa, he fought beside Adam. ”Repulsor field.” He cautioned Eloise over comms, hastily checking that he hadn’t been hit, all the Artemis blood staining his suit making that job a lot harder. ”Close range shots or melee.” He followed up with what had worked for him, leaving the part about a point-blank flashbang detonation while it was still in his pouch out of it as he let the rifle hang on its sling and drew the kukri once again and pushing of the wall in pursuit. ”I’m still breathing for a start, more than I can say for you in a few minutes.” he replied to Rose.

“We’ll see.” The response from their nemesis was blunt on the open comms. She wasn't halting, her next turn in the space station's small maze running her into another operative.

Coming to Sam with a grapple along the walls, Rose bolted through the insides using it like a rat-run, finding her there, knowing her team had them covered, at least, for now. She wanted this one to be personal, because seeing Sam at work.
"You again. Her worst creation. Well, no point making the same mistake twice, now that you're a gullible shit." With it, she pointed the barrel of her rifle, point blank at Sam, and as she went to pull the trig.....

Sam’s martial arts training kicked in. She pushed the barrel away from her as she stabbed Rose in the chest with the knife in her hand. She wrestled with Rose for control of the rifle.

The knife pushed against metal plate, but as Rose peeled back, going forward, the explosion from a mini missile tore through the inside, and ripped apart the space station itself, creating a split, from where Athena had anchored herself.
"Fuck you, Rose! Team, finish this mess, she's got a field generator so get closer, Frigga can probably kill her shield, but you need to find a way to flank her! Sam, find a fucking way to deactivate this fucking canister, I'm taking a lot of fire here!" Athena yelled, other mercs massing on her, and in a hysterical turn of fate, probably of all of the people that should have been like Atlas in this moment, it really, actually, had to be her…..

Eloise clamped down on any feelings; they could come later - other than her anger and her rage. But she caught them, shaped them, and turned them from a hot, fiery thing that threatened to boil over into a sharp, clear point; like the arrowheads she wielded. As Ebrima spoke, she considered his words carefully.
“The field; does it depend on velocity of the projectile?” she asked firmly and insistently. “Because if melee works, then…”
She looked over to him with meaning as she pursued Rose through the interior of the stations’ cluttered modules. Twisting as she moved, and drawing her SMG to blaze at the mercenaries.
“How many of these guys does she have?” she spat as she shot at them, weaving and ducking as best she could. “Is there a machine spitting them out somewhere?!”

”I figure magnetism. Light things are easier to affect, but at close range bullets are too fast to be diverted in a meaningful way in the time available.” He gave Eloise his best guess as he chased after Rose like a rabid dog, guessing what had happened in the airlock from the fact that Skye wasn’t right on Rose’s heels.

”I can still fucking hear you, or are you all a bunch of fucking morons!” Rose yelled back, almost cartoonish in her inflection, because now, she figured she had it personal. A real test. She’d killed so many, in the name of….well, something, died so many times, given it her all. But in this, well, she wasn’t giving up that easy.

Samantha managed to get away from Rose. She darted away, an asset in this situation. She needed to get away from the suicidal lady so she could see what their options might be for stopping that damn canister. Chaos “Gee monologue much? How stereotypical villain of you.” She raced off and around the corner as she had Bob pull up the feed from Athena’s helmet and suit. “Athena talk to me. I am looking to see if I can hack the guidance system on that damn rocket canister.”

Samantha spoke into the comms to Athena. “Athena do you see any panels on the outside of the rocket? You might be able to use a taser or electrical attack to short out the guidance system manually. It will be even more effective if you can apply the charge directly to the circuitry. The case has probably been hardened against such attacks.”

Samantha began working on a plan B. Would Athena have enough strength to redirect the rocket’s thrust to throw it off it’s trajectory somehow? Could they somehow manually reroute it to deep space?

A few more mercs made the split between her and where Athena was, Rose peeled herself into cover, laying down fire from a M249 she’d managed to blag off one of her men in a supply crate, pinning down the team from one angle, knowing she could keep pressing towards Athena.

And then who knew she she’d be able to do. Freya was moving in closer, maybe able to take out that field generator, but then again, she wasn’t going to be able to stop her. Rose had countermeasures for that. And her fire was getting more, and more precise. Enough for her to get more mercs between her and Raven.

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Eloise snapped at Rose, shooting her grapple with one hand to stabilise herself and winching herself into cover, snagging the toe of her boot under a wall strap. She loaded the crossbow, letting the SMG hang by its’ wrist strap in the zero gee. Time to test a theory. Buddha, Spongebob, Princess Celestia, whichever one of you is listening; let this work!

She let out a breath and sighted on Rose’s suit and caressed the trigger of the crossbow - if velocity or magnetism were a factor - well, maybe the mostly composite bolt, travelling at a lower - but still quite deadly - velocity might have a different effect…
She didn’t have long to check, as the hail of return fire coaxed a squeak out of her and she ducked behind some chunk of machinery, reloading, her little SMG and the crossbow alike, before darting out and snapping off a short burst at one of the mercs in the way.

”Oui, oui, riez tant que vous le pouvez.” The Cameroonian grumbled, too preoccupied by a chase with murderous intent to bother with the radio. Not like it would matter. The station was too small for her to run, even to hide, and what Raven’s goal was clear as day. With more mercs coming out of the woodwork - well, figuratively - he had to stop and the rifle came back into play. He also had time to set Rose to a secondary channel so he could speak to the team without being everheard. ”Only one place here she’s going: The launcher. Double back to the other airlock, help Athena and head her off. I’ll push through this way.” Sure, he had no authority, but in the absence of anyone else making a plan, he slipped back into his old ways.

As Ebrima’s voice came through on the other channel, Eloise switched to it as well. She moved herself over to his side, taking ahold of his suit with one hand and shooting with the other, switching off her radio a moment to let the vibrations carry her words to him privately.
“Listen; I’ve got an idea. That toxin - if it needs an atmosphere to be deadly - won’t exposing it to the vacuum render it useless? Can’t Athena just… destroy the projectile? Or if that fails - we launch it off on a trajectory away from Earth. Strap it up with a pressurised cannister or as many as we can get hold of - and then puncture them to give it acceleration. It’ll be long-gone before anyone can reach it!”

”Somehow I doubt she’s stupid enough to not have the canister fitted with its own guidance system.” If that had been the case and Rose was some kind of an idiot, they wouldn’t have had to go to space in the first place. But where he lacked in actual engineering knowledge, more than a decade of model building came to the rescue. ”Maybe if she can hold onto it, she could destroy the thrusters in flight. Make sure it won’t reach the planet at all. Chaos should know.”

Athena felt more rounds come in, as she held the canister in one hand and the M2 in another, fragging another group of enemies coming in, floating back. Panicked, she heard Sam’s comment but was too busy in her own realisation to come back.
“Shit, Chaos, the thruster unit’s burnt out, risk is, we expose it to the vacuum, it’ll fuck any chance of us going home! I've got nothing here, it's just a sealed tungsten bloody tube!” Athena yelled in stress, knowing full well that the toxin would probably die in a vacuum- but if it stuck to any part of her, or the team’s suits, then it would come back to Earth with them.

Samantha gave a relieved sigh. “Athena if the thruster is burnt out at least it can’t reach Earth without help now. Let’s think about this. We know the toxin exists. We need to be careful to decontaminate everyone and the equipment. We can do that before going back to Earth. This damn Space station has a lab. Didn’t we bring some of the antidote with us? We can destroy the capsule by setting it on a course to be pulled into the sun. That will destroy it nicely.”

Which was a crude way, Athena realised, that Rose had made sure that if they were going to die, they were dying with Rose. Unless, and only unless, they worked something out. Something Athena hated the idea of more and more.

“There’s jack shit for now, there's nothing I can touch to even try and force a cure into it….fuck, you need to stop Rose getting here first!” Athena barked back, giving no helpful answer at all.

Rose had of course, made tracks, the field generator pinging off stray bullets, getting towards the end of the space station, the bolt pinging off without a harm. A fruitful attempt, but Rose almost called it out, as if she was making it personal.

“You’ll need more than that, Eloise!” She taunted, laying out fire towards her direction, the number of mercs between them both now diminishing.

“So, what’s it going to be, were you just being carried by her? Or are you actually still thinking about her? It makes you weak!” Rose gave even more shit, moving out of the way, a few more mercs laying down fire past another solar panel group, as she moved in and out of void, knowing they’d lost sight.

She managed to in fact, get a flank going, and with her mercs making a move, Rose, now off the radar of the team, managed to get straight into Ebrima, kicking him straight into Eloise and Sam.

And weapon pointed, knew she had the distance to take them out.

Well, close enough but Rose had made enough of a nuisance, knowing she’d thrown them, and well, gone all over the place. A Skye level trick. She ducked out of the way from the response, grappling and moving fast, faster than they’d likely expect someone like her to move, and was keeping up the fire.

Samantha found herself once more grappling and defending herself against Rose. She didn’t want to fire a gun just to have the bullets deflected. Instead of getting away from Rose she tried to get closer. Maybe she could see how to override her system. To give them a chance. Rose was fast and good but Samantha didn’t let that stop her. She let her anger and fury with all that Rose had done fuel her sparring with the evil woman. She tried to hold her in place by engaging her. “Freya! Try overloading her shield with your weapon!”

Ebrima scrambled to try to make use of Rose closing the distance, his grapple fired too late to hit even if it would have likely been unperturbed by the field at that range. ”Briefing on the station mentioned multiple escape capsules.” He spoke on the team channel, ”Could we use the thruster on one of those to vaporize the thing?”

Rose got out of the way, before laying down more bullets, knowing Ebrima was good….but well, one on one, she could fight back, knowing the two had to get out of the way from her closing in.
“Run, you fucking coward! Like you have from everything, family, your boss, how many!” Rose yelled at him, spraying fire towards Sam, before using her own grapple to flip on the other side of the station’s outside, the confusion of fighting in an extra dimension stomach-churning, almost impossible to follow.

As Rose kicked Ebrima and Sam into a pile with her, Eloise yelped as the wind was smushed out of her. Only a slight, small woman, she was winded by the two other people and the impact with the wall of the module and its’ uneven surface. Getting untangled and getting her breath back gave Skye’s doppelganger long enough to rub more salt into the wound and taunt them further, and to get out of her range before she could even think about making a move.

Samantha had been thrown into Eloise as Rose sprinted away. Samantha growled and popped up just in time to be a target for Rose’s gun. She pushed off hard for the ceiling hoping to get out of the way of the gun. Samantha’s back hit the ceiling of the hallway momentarily knocking the breath out of her. “Don’t let her have control of that canister but we can deal with that after we stop Rose.”

Because Rose was already moving out of the hollowed end of the space station, Athena turning her .50 on Rose, as the field generator violently dunked away the rounds, and simply put, slapped away when Rose clattered into the side of Athena’s embrace against the station, holding it in from letting the loose thruster do its work, the hit from Rose hard enough to dislodge even the heavy’s grip. Canister loose into the void, Rose used an M320 on her side, the 40mm to blast directly at Athena, making the heavy seem almost helpless, completely pushed back, pushing forwards on the canister itself, making chase. Thrown back, the station with another hole, but with Athena pushed back.

And headed back like some stupid game of tag back around. Like she was off to somewhere else with it, on the outside of the station now, while the others moved around the half-in, half out segments.

Samantha pulled Eloise away from the wall. “Come on! We need to go after her!” She began to chase after Rose. A minion or two popped up from side corridors along the way. She didn’t waste any time. She simply slashed at their space suits to open them up to the elements on the way by and deliver a kick or a punch. Samantha’s experience with street running was a blessing here as she ping ponged down the corridor bouncing off walls, doorways, and people as she gained on Rose.

The diminutive stealth operator followed and moved along with Sam, mirroring and marvelling at how she moved. It was similar to her own movement style; using the terrain and surroundings for agility and mobility; propelling herself off of the surroundings and hostiles in their way as they gained on Rose.
“Sam”, she panted between motions, the exertion wearing on her, especially with the bulk of the suit around her. It sounded even more chaotic; her own breathing amplified and every movement clunky and awkward.
“She’s fast, but maybe together - we can catch her up!”

“Shit!” Athena yelled out, realising she couldn’t open fire on that. Not with the torpedo in hand. Not without killing them all.
“Fucking get that canister out of her, get close in, Freya can kill her field genny, then you need to get up to her!” Athena yelped, alive after that hit, but checking all over her suit, before coming to senses, feeling the damage to her thrusters and EMU unit, but trying to make do as best as she could.

As if summoned Freya arrived where everyone was gathered. Her claw closing around a hand rail, and securing her to the position. She drew a tomahawk and looked around, then started to take in the situation. She took in the shield generator and snarled, “The fuck!? That’s almost my tech! Who the…I’m gonna scalp who ever let that out before it was ready.” She hummed, looked at Sam then at Athena, “Wait…wait…yes…okay. I think…” Hearing the idea for her to overlord the generator Frigga nods, “Give me a second.” She detaches her claw, and drops to the deck. Crouching in cover.

And cracks her AEW open and before god and all it almost sounds like the weapon lets out a pained cry, “Sorry baby….I’ll rebuild you brand new later…” On the fly and in the field Frigga reconfigured the AEW, pushing pieces up, around, into different places, pushing a catalyzer out of place, a power shunt up the energy line, splicing all the power lines together.

When she swings back out of cover, attaches her claw and aims at Rose, the AEW looks like a Franken-weapon taken to outrageous degrees. The Lightning Gun dish fully extended with the AT array and Sniper attachment molded together, and all the powercells mashed together, “Creator I hope this works!”

For the first time since she joined Raven, the AEW lets out a whine.

A kind of Whow…whow…whow. Speeding up before it dumps all the powercells into a beam of electro-magnetic static, coursing over the shield, hammering it…

And blowing the capacitors and generator like a firework.

And the light hit Rose, smacking her out, throwing her from the “underside”, at least, the side facing the Earth, hands released.

The shield dead, Rose let the canister go adrift so she could focus on the task at hand given how much it had fried her electronics and her with it, before spraying fire, cursing. The suit had integrity, but the generator, and her hold had been released on that canister.
“Bitch! You still want at me? Come on then, I’ll have fun deciding which one of you I send to Skye’s place first!” Rose yelled out, the taunt no doubt her knowing she was coming after all of them. Alone, and with no more goons, she’d just fire on the first person coming to her.

“Not if you go first!” Athena yelled back, changing to the internal system. "Everyone, don’t go straight for her, take her from every angle, get in close, and overwhelm! Do not let her pick you off one by one! And then get that canister, fuck, we can't let it go!" Athena yelped out, knowing she was no help drifting away, trying to make ground back towards the space station, hoping the thruster would hold out.

Samantha hears and takes Athena’s warning seriously. “Guys I have an idea. Keep her busy while I alter one of the life support pods. Then let’s try to trick her into it. I am going to reprogram the pod to take her and the capsule on a one way trip into the sun.” Samantha takes a sudden left turn before exiting the space station completely. She heads over to the closest escape pod. She begins ripping apart control panels. She plugs in Bob and asks him to do something that is against the station safety protocols. “Bob, I need you to erase the escape pod’s safety protocols. I want to set a collision course for the sun. It will only have so much thrust so we need to calculate the best angle and the burns for it. Please include the weight of the capsule and one passenger.” Bob’s voice was immediate “Chaos this is against the safety protocols for this device. It was not intended for this. The passenger will run out of food and air. Not to mention the pod and everything in it will burn up in the sun.” Chaos was already overriding the safety protocols and laying in the malicious code that will take over control of the pod. She digs into her toolkit and begins disabling all the controls and damaging them beyond repair. Once launched there would be no way to reprogram this pod. “Bob, just do it. We cannot let this loose on Earth.”

Eloise likewise heard Athena’s urgent warning, and acknowledged it with a rapid click of her microphone. She followed Sam outside, but instead made her way over the hull, mind racing as she attempted to come up with something - before one of the drifting bodies, still hanging close to the station sparked an idea.

She grappled the corpse close to her, then another and another as she passed, gathering a morbid troupe of followers. As she was about to round the curve of the hull to where Rose was attempting to face off with the rest, she started a deliberate spin, tucking her knees up to her chest, making sure she was aware of her orientation to Rose and the others.

Her center of gravity shifted, she started to accelerate, her ‘passengers’ pulled along with her. On the third or fourth spin, she launched one off in the direction of Rose. Then the second a few moments later, then the third; and on the final spin, fired her MMU, just a brief puff, to send her in the same direction, cannoning toward the maniac twin of her friend as one of a string of projectiles in order, them blocking the view and adding more to confuse and block her view, and giving Eloise a chance to get in close, or allow her friends and allies to do the same.

That, that was a beautiful shot. Chuck’s taste in women was impeccable, Ebrima thought, a malicious chuckle growing in his throat. ”Apologies, Purna. The tongue isn’t happening.” He muttered to himself. Anchored near a shattered husk of a solar panel, he understood the task: Buy time. To do the most visible thing he could, he raised his arm, guesstimated the range and lead and fired the grapple. If he missed, it would at least make Rose flinch, look and create an opening for the others. If he hit, she’d be like a puppet on a string. He loved shots that didn’t have a bad outcome.

Frigga sighs and hangs the AEW on her back, “Sorry about that baby.” She says to it. She’d been really rough with it, and hated to damage the things she had made. Sure it’s inevitable, but the AEW is one of many favourites.

So she channels that into violence.

Grabbing her source of cover, and she pulls, while throwing her claw forward, “Oh Rose!” Her claw winch growled as it pulled her forward, the claw opened as she flew past where it had anchored, “I killed you once before! I’d like to try again if you don’t mind!”

This time the claw shot at Rose herself. And just missed! The claw crunching into the wall behind her, “Ah damn I can’t pretend to be Scorpion.” A yank and Frigga soars, her free hand unsheathing a tomahawk, “I’d really like to…ah!” She’s tackled to the side by one very brave Merc, she tumbles and slams into a wall, a big muscled woman wailing on her poor assailant, “Jævla! Du kunne ikke ha ventet! Jeg kunne ha fått henne! Din drittsekk i en tutu!” Oh good she’s gone into speaking Norwegian.

Rose watched as the grapple flew towards her, turning and throwing herself away, and instead of away from the body flying in fast towards her, INTO, instead, Ebrima, before clattering into one of Eloise’s bodies that had been pushed in the way, perhaps, in an insanely cruel irony, her own use pushed against her before she had a chance to open fire on Ebrima, and then there was Freya. Barely stopped by a merc, who got clotheslined and turned into a pulp in what was, probably the most pointless, stupid attempt at stopping a freight train, but enough for Rose to breathe.

Enough for her to be pushed back into more void, against the underbelly of the station, and for a momentary bit of chaos, produced by all of the team throwing everything at her, unable to pick one target. But trying to fight all of them. She'd pulled every trick. Made almost a last gambit. But now she knew she needed luck. And that was thin.

As Eloise saw the merc-sicle hit Rose after she bounced off of Ebrima, she thumbed the button on the remote detonator she’d pulled off of their belt. The poor, misbegotten dead man immediately turned into a silent cloud of gory shrapnel, adding to the confusion, before his friends joined him. She swivelled about her center of mass again, keeping her velocity and direction - huh, I’m almost getting the hang of this - and raised the crossbow to her shoulder, letting fly with a bolt, aiming for the suited figure’s general direction as she was pushed back against the belly of the station, trying to pin her in place by the fabric of her suit against the hull.

Seeing Rose hesitate, as if trying to decide which threat to address first, Ebrima started reeling the line back in, already on the move as he did. Launching the grapple again, this time aiming for an inanimate structure past Rose that wouldn’t dodge, he put the thruster pack, grapple reel and his legs into the charge, flying toward the clone psychopath with the kukri drawn, a stab aimed at her faceplate as he came sailing past at breakneck speed. Or at least breakarm speed, if the crunch in his left arm he heard upon slamming into the wall the hook was attached to was any indication. It wouldn’t matter if he hit, and if he missed, Rose would still have to content with getting clotheslined by the line he dragged behind him, now rapidly approaching her feet like a loose line on a ship.

Samantha was working furiously to alter the escape pod to carry the tank of poison into the sun. Even if they did just kill Rose, she didn’t trust the secrets of Sol Hestia to anyone she knew. She didn’t believe that any of the governments should have it either. It was simply too deadly. It needed to be eliminated forever. If she had her way, all the dead bodies and research would be destroyed too. They couldn’t leave any of it behind. This threat to humanity had to end here. She didn’t think the government would appreciate them blowing up their very expensive space station though. Then falling debris would be an issue for people on earth. Samantha checked in with the team. “Almost there. How is the fight going?”

Frigga finally got loose of the merc who knocked her off course, her claw hissing and as it rewound into the launcher. She pushed up and tried to catch up with her friends and coworkers, “Someone pull me closer I want to hit her with my axe!”

But as she goes she slows, and looks around, where’s Athena…

“Sis?” She looks around, trying to spot Athena, “Sis?” Okay big sister energy time, she spins, looking up around back and forth trying to get an eye on her sister. No no no, where did she go? Not happening!

Rose felt the pin deep in her lung smack through inside and out of her again, thrust her into metal, as she turned, pointing the M249 towards Eloise as a last ditch to reply, about to fire when suddenly, Rose realised in the corner, that Ebrima was sailing towards her like a missile.

And there was no turn she could make, not with the air punctured out of her lungs, no amount of resistance to pain could stop this. Ebrima frankly splintered a spiderweb of her visor off and pushed her gruesomely out of the impaled bolt against the station's composite skin, the suit punctured, and the knock pushing her away, gasping, screaming into the void, blood pissing out of the suit with her gargling, the line smacking her away and lifeless, limp, as there were no final words. Eloise’s bolt, Ebrima’s force and the team's collective fear had literally torn her out and away.

No final things to say. In space, nobody could hear you quip some bullshit about proving people wrong.

But, the team, of course, could. They had a canister to get rid of in an escape pod. Then, themselves, as the space station’s rupture started to widen, blurring the lines between outside and in. Which, at this point, was getting more and more like an outside. Time for an Irish Exit? Probably not the worst idea…

Eloise saw Ebrima’s attack, and felt a thrill of triumph as the glittering shards of glass caught the cold light of the sun as they sprayed out in an arc, and the droplets of red crystallised in the cold.
Sam’s words came over her radio, and she replied in a firm, stern voice.
“I think she’s about done; is the pod ready? Can you get clear?!”
As Rose’s body drifted away, Eloise sighted onto it and launched her grapple, drawing her in close and shifting her orientation to line up with the EVA pod.
She touched her helmet visor to the remains of Roses’ no idea if the dying - or dead - woman could hear her as she spoke in that coldly musical hush of hers.
“You know; I wasn’t here for all the rest of what you did. I didn’t have the same fight against you as the others, the same… drive built up to beat you. But the one thing you did that I can’t forgive? Wearing the face of my friend and using it for terrible things. But you know what; we’ll all remember the good things she did… and you like this”.
Reeling back, she planted both boots in Rose’s middle and booted her in the direction of the pod, looking back… and then a icy hand of fear gripping her chest as she heard the next words.

Athena in the meanwhile drifted, checking her comms, hearing Freya panic.
“Frigga, the….the MMU’s dead. Listen. Get them in. Get to an escape pod. And the canister out. Then go.” Athena never said words like that before, almost as if for a moment, it dawned on her what the facts were.

“Just….fucking hell. Get on with it, would you? Just get them pushed out!” Athena asked, cobalt in her tongue, drifting now nearly helplessly, looking around. She knew the team had to move. And she was dead weight. She didn’t want to say the quiet part out loud, but the fighting had moved them off from their launch, and well, the station didn’t have enough pods, at least, not from here to reach while things were going to shit.

She was staring into the void, the black, the infinite cold, and realising this was what it was about. This was the fight. Everything to save them. And it all clicked, there and then.

So, for a moment, she was reliant on Freya. And even that was a realisation. She wanted her to live. So much potential, so much, and in her own self-sightedness, the addiction to her image, her brand, everything…she just wanted Freya out of harm.

But Rose was dead. And with it, she knew the team had to make their way out.

Freya bounded up and onto a platform, scanning the open area, “No no…don’t you dare say that.” She scanned the dark then saw a glint.

“Hang on sis.” She planted her feet and spooled out some of her claw line. This is where both strength and physics comes into play, she started to whirl the claw, getting some force behind it, “You listen here you great big, air headed…I’m not leaving you behind! I still need you to be my maid of honor. I need to see you with a chance with the one you got eyes on. Now…”

She heaved the line, the claw sailing, “Get…”

No sound in space but the claw burred like a freight train.

CRACK….Crank….

Closed around a boot, “Back here!”

Freya hit the retract button and pulled hard, watching her sister pulled back into the light of the station, “Are we missing anyone else?” She shouted as she braced to catch Athena’s return.

Samantha’s work on the pod was wrapping up. “I need someone to bring me that canister so we can launch it into the sun. I don’t want anyone trying to find it in the wreckage of the station.” Samantha turned to Bob. “Bob, did we manage to erase all the files on Sol Hestia on the station? Do your best to complete that while I finish getting this pod rigged for deep space.” Bob’s mechanical voice filled Samantha’s ear. [color-fff200] “Chaos, station integrity is down to 50% by my calculations the space station will implode and break apart in the next 15 minutes. The team needs to get off this station. I recommend using the escape pods.” [/color] Samantha swore under her breath. “The space station is breaking up. We all need to head for the escape pods.” Samantha had been listening in on comms and was very confused. What the hell was happening out there? It sounded like Freya was retrieving Athena. Eloise’s report was vague but encouraging at the same time. Samantha began pinging everyone’s comms in an effort to locate where they were on the station.

“Oh shit, yes. The thing we came here to destroy,” Eloise cursed scanning the area frantically with turns of her head, before spotting the torpedo-like object in a lazy, slow spin in the shadow of the station’s solar panels.
“I have eyes on it!”

”Can’t help with that, I’m afraid.” Ebrima all but apologized, having broken the arm that had the grapple attached to it and due to the lack of an exoskeleton, pulling on a broken humerus was the last thing he wanted to do now that there was hardly any rush. Instead, he set about making a careful way to the escape pods, having taped his arm to his chest with the vac tape to stop it from moving around, finding a hole in the station close to the escape pods and holding there to guide Eloise in once she had captured the canister.

Reeled in by Athena, the younger sister to the other armoured up Kaantario captured a hand on the station, calming down, breathing out as best as she could, looking over to her, a moment, Athena getting words out.

“We really, really…..” The noise suddenly creaked, as the space station, already at poor integrity, detonated where the fuel tanks had ruptured, blasting the side where the bodies had been apart, sending the whole thing rotating, and beginning to shit on many a laid plan.
“Really need to go! Station's far more fucked than that, Sam! Fuck, Eloise, we need it in, you need to hurry!” Athena was in total flight or fight, aware she couldn’t help either.

Quite literally, the entire fate of where they were over now, which from a third person view, outside of the entire panicked party looked like……Sweden? Poland ish? Hard to say, but indeed, that whole cluster, was in the hands of Eloise. And with Ebrima crawling to an escape pod, Athena pulled on the outside, hoping Freya had the initiative to help along, and get to one of them to help. And Eloise could make that move.

With the station destabilising, she was going to have to give it everything.

“I’m on it,” Eloise replied in a voice that hid any trace of the slowly creeping fear she felt, as she realised how close to the wire things were getting. She zeroed in on the canister, checking her wrist for the level of reaction mass left in her MMU - and cursing every word she could think of, as the warning level was blinking low.

Her mind raced, and she triggered the unit, propelling herself toward the canister, matching her spin, and reaching its surface, wrestling with it even more than Athena, who was almost twice her size, had.

All right, step one: you’ve reached the horrible WMD, she thought to herself, as she straddled it and spun along with it. Her MMU’s readout flashed frantically, telling her there was nothing left but wishes and good intentions. She took stock of everything she had, and hatched an insane, but brilliant idea. Shuffling around on the body of the weapon, she drew her handgun - and fired in the opposite direction of the spin, blazing a magazine’s worth of rounds away, until the spin slowed… and then stopped.

She checked her direction - yes! There were the lights of the escape pods ahead, and the ones of her friends’ suits, moving in the right direction…

She took a deep breath; this next bit was going to be really hard.

“I’ve got the canister, and I’m pointed right at the pods. I’m coming in, but… I’m going to need you to be really ready to get me, because… this is going to really fucking suck.”

Prepping the open door, Athena looked out on Sam, opening the other with brute force, exhaling hard.
“You to get in. All of you!” Athena hyperventilated, looking back at Ebrima, helping the injured Cameroonian in a more brutal fashion than he would have liked with a shove across towards the escape pod..

Samantha tried to reassure Freya and Athena over comms. “Freya and Athena, you will fit inside the escape pods. It will be tight but the escape pods are meant to hold up to four people. I am headed to the nearest entrance. I need that damn canister!” Samantha was focused on getting the Sol Hestia into the rigged pod and on its way to the sun out of the reach of anyone who might come and inspect what was left of the space station.

Freya kicked over to get a look at the pods, she stared at them, “I am 7 feet and change inches tall, about two and a half times as wide as any of you, I’m not fitting in that!” She points at one of the escape pods in honest annoyance, “No way, no how.” She begins to look around, bracing herself as she sees a spar of the station sheer off. She looked up…around…down then, nodded, “Okay…Thena…do you trust me?” She looked over at her sister, “Because look if I can’t fit in one of those things, you’re wide ass won’t either.” Ahhh sibling love.

She looked around, “Physics…science…I can do something…the plunge won’t be pleasant…and the landing won’t either. But I think I can do something here.”

Athena couldn’t nod, or show it, but gave that response.
“On you.” Athena replied to her sister, realising that Sam needed to get the canister away, and while she was coming back, Eloise was coming in hot. And coming in fast, needing to regroup.

Eloise needed to get to the pods, Sam needed to get that pod loaded, and like haste, because the space station felt like it was falling more apart than ever before, they needed to go. The Arianne that had taken them here was a fading light, and any hope of getting back to it had gone to shit. Not with the MMU fuel they had left, not with how messy the fight had gotten and with the space station beginning to slowly, gently nudge itself out of orbit.

And Athena knew that Freya was right. In this moment, there wasn’t a chance they were coming down with the team. Sam was optimistic, but for a rare moment, the golden retriever that had seven and a half foot of pure crackhead energy in her now realised that they had to leave.

None of what had happened had sunk in entirely. Not letting a lot of people die, and then having to kill Rose specifically, let alone Skye….that was starting to trickle, was really there right now.

Just getting home alive was. And Athena realised she had to trust Freya, completely. She was out of ideas. Out of thrust. Out of her mind. But if dying was worth saving the world, for a glimmering, strange moment, she knew this was all there was. And moving to the hole in the space station, ready to help receive the canister, Sam, Eloise and Ebrima.

Eloise adjusted the controls on her suits’ chest panel, and increased the pressure. It was almost at dangerous levels, She secured her grapple line around the body of the canister, attaching it to herself, and…
She took her knife, and with a deep breath, stabbed a hole in her right glove. The jet of air that shot out acted like a jet, propelling her forward. Pressure on her thumb over the pinhole gave her just enough control, to aim, and slowed the leak down just enough that she wasn’t losing air quick enough to immediately freeze or suffocate, and she focused on those rapidly growing blips as her eyes got misty and vision wobbly, the cold creeping up her side.

Samantha was headed towards Eloise to help her. She had a tether secured to the handrail next to the station entrance. She pushed off and aimed towards Eloise. She waited till she was closer and then used the maneuvering jets on her MMU in an effort to help catch and slow Eloise down. Samantha could see Eloise coming in quickly. Her path was beginning to be a little erratic. She lunged towards Eloise who was tied to the canister. Samantha almost missed but managed to snag the infiltrator’s foot as she shot almost past her position. She yanked hard and pulled her closer to get a better grip on her. Then she attached a carabiner from the tether to Eloise and began to haul them back to the station as fast as she could go. She could feel time ticking away even as she tried to find out what was wrong with Eloise. “Archer what’s wrong?” She shook Eloise trying to wake her up. She didn’t have time to stop and check on her as the clock was against them. She tried again. “ARCHER!”

Eloise slurred and spluttered back, her words and motions transmitted through the body-to-body contact. “Mm–uhh, T-The Martian, Matt… Damon… Glove thing”, she managed to mumble out, holding up her hand, thumb still clenched fiercely against the puncture in her suits’ right hand.
“Guess I really am the rocketman…”

Freya looked back to make sure everyone is where they need to be, she then pushes off, back into the collapsing station. “Okay I need this..and that…” She uses her claw to pull things towards her. A torch kit, welding line, bracings, cushioning sections from the walls. Great heaping huge pieces of the titanium walls and heat resistant tiles, “I can do this…this is what I wanted. I’ve always wanted to build a space ship, this is almost as good!”

She’s like a frenzied Gadget Hackwrench, “Thena! I need that triangle plate over there! But I can’t stop welding right now! I need you to grab it and bring it here.” She’s doing the patch job of all patch jobs as she works. Grabbing shield plating heat tiles, using gorilla glue and heat tape.

It’s a glorious dangerous monster she’s putting together. Not something she’d want to actually pilot in a normal situation. Bracing spars ripped from the walls of the station and before they can drift off, a pair of crash seats that will be a bitch to sit in. Straps to stay seated. What a glorious dangerous mad scramble.

Athena was torn- but first moved to help Eloise, peeling away metal, the suit itself feeling like the energy source deep inside was struggling, but her sheer mass, her hearts pounding oxygen so hard it built up CO2 and made her feel a little bit hazy and distracted, that she could push it towards Freya. The team were hard at work behind, the relay of bodies getting the tube in.
“You alright in there, Ebrima? As soon as the other two are in, punch the exit, yeah? And by the way, no hard feelings…..you did good killing Rose! You and Eloise!” Athena vocalised, knowing the heat of the moment, it all poured out.

Ebrima gave her a thumbs up with his healthy arm. ”Don’t get any stupid ideas, you have people waiting downstairs.”

Samantha being a fellow nerd understood that reference. Hold on Archer, We are almost there!” Samantha encouraged her to hang on as the space station got closer. It felt like it took forever but in reality it was only a few minutes. She pushed Eloise through the entrance into the station and the canister. She pulled herself into the airlock which by a miracle was still working. She took a quick minute to put a piece of tape over the hole in Eloise’s suit. She motioned her to an emergency supply of air while she started wrangling the canister. ”Are you doing okay Archer? I will join in the escape pod as soon as I launch this one.” She looked back over her shoulder at Eloise to make sure she made it to the oxygen.

Eloise pulled herself along to the emergency air with handholds, fastening it to her suit and taking steady breaths. Her eyes still felt like they wanted to escape her skull, and she could taste the coppery tang of blood on her tongue and sticky wetness on her face; she expected she’d ruptured most of the blood vessels in her soft tissues; her face would look like a honey-coloured pumpkin later. And her piercings… she didn’t even want to think about how that would feel.

Well, presuming she survived. But even if she didn’t - as Athena came to her, she pushed herself toward the giant, holding onto her suit for stability.

“You,” Eloise managed to splutter out in a thick voice, spitting out blood “You’re coming back with us, or I’m staying here with you,” she said firmly. “And don’t argue, I don’t have the resources to deal with another massive bitch today.”
She pulled herself up Athena’s chestplate and bumped her visor against the giantesses’ own.
“Is Ebrima all right?”

Soundtrack: M83- My Tears are becoming a Sea

Athena looked down, taking a moment to wrap an arm around, tears pouring out, realising in that moment looking at the damaged spacesuit of hers meant zero chance. If Athena and Freya might have had half baked ideas, then well, there wasn’t anything. Even Athena, in her whimsical emotional state, knew nothing more than to be a protector. And knowing that Eloise wouldn’t want to hear it.
“He's okay. And don't worry. We’ll make it home. We have more chance of making it back...but you won’t in this state if you stay here….get in the pod and do that for me. My sister has a good idea. She’s so good at this. And if not…I love you, Eloise DuChamp. I’m not letting the void take me so long as you’re there to wait for. Trust me. We'll be coming in like a light in the night sky.” The corniness of it felt almost as if in that moment, totally misplaced, like the void screaming back, as Eloise’s embrace on Athena was pulled away by a tearful hand of her own, placing her alongside Ebrima inside the pod, exhaling hard, audibly on the comms.

And another bang echoed in the vacuum, or at least, was felt and coloured in by Athena's vision.

Eloise wanted to struggle, wanted to push back, rage and say otherwise… but she knew that Athena was right; and that was what made it worse of all. The tears flowing down her own cheeks mingled with the tracks of blood from her ruptured capillaries, leaving red streaks down her face, and her vision blurry already struggled more.
“I’ll wait,” she choked out. “I’ll wait, as long as it takes. And I love you too, I’ll keep watching for that light."
Then there was nothing else to say as she stepped in, and helped secure Ebrima’s straps, especially around his injured arm, briefly squeezing his good hand, as she waited for Sam, urging her mentally to join them as she strapped herself into a seat.

“Sam, go! This thing is falling to bits!” Athena yelled out, it was getting clearer and clearer, that this lifeboat was not going to hold anymore. It was now or never, as Athena stood ready to throw Sam to the pod as she floated to it, and ready to then float over and make her way to where Freya was, and hang on for dear life.

Samantha couldn’t help but smile at the crazy stuff coming over the comms as she strapped the canister into the lifepod. She sealed the door to the escape pod and hit the launch button on the wall. The escape pod shot away from the space station and then altered course towards the sun and began to burn in its direction. Samantha exhaled hard. At least the damn toxin would no longer threaten the Earth. Now she needed to collect her pod partners and get off this damn station. She ran back towards where she had left Archer. She stopped next to Freya and dropped her tool belt and a roll of the space tape she had. “Here take these. Fix the holes in your armor. Get out of here as soon as you can. I expect to see you at your wedding damn it! She gave her a quick hug and whispered,“Love ya Sis. See you on the ground.” She then took off for the escape pod. She dove into the pod with the other two inside. She hit the button that would seal the hatch. She quickly climbed into a seat.“Let’s go. The canister is on its way to the sun. Let’s blow this popsicle stand!” She looked at the other two… “Too soon?”

”Two, three…” Ebrima counted the expected occupants of the lifepod, hand hovering a safe distance away from the lever that would close the hatch and launch the pod. He kept waiting to count number four, taking a few seconds in the moment to remember that four wasn’t coming. ”All aboard, launching. Good luck up here.” He let the two giantesses know before he once again checked that all three occupants had their harnesses strapped in and pulled the launch lever. The hatch slammed shut, independent life support kicked in and a short puff of air separated the pod from the station, letting it coast clear before turning and engaging the thrusters for the deorbit burn.

Athena moved to the point she’d helped them go to, and watching them pull the internals out, felt the space station rock again, sending her into the ceiling, kicking off, pushing towards the pod and with an almighty shunt, clearing any debris from around it, clearing the latch.

For the first time in forever, facing down what was the only way out for her, her own invincibility meant she couldn't take the easier way down. It made her silent. Quiet even.

Contemplative. In the final, well, maybe final moments, it all came to a head.

And turning to her sister, floating over, she knew it was just them alone. At the end of it all. Words were harder to come by.

“Okay, sis. Ready. Whatever happens.” Athena looked across, sniffling the tears, exhaling hard, trying not to pass out from the CO2 in the respirator, Freya having made some sort of lifeboat as the space station seemed to disintegrate live around them, bit by bit, the pod flinging away.

Freya leaned over her Franken-machine, threading a very limited steering mechanism through some of the joints. She stopped, and swallowed thickly. Setting her hand down on the outer surface of the machine. She didn’t look back. Looking at the belt and tools Sam left. Then swallowed, “Did they make it?” She asked. She didn’t want to look over her shoulder and find that they hadn’t left and had decided to wait for them. She looked up instead away from where the lifepods would be launching, “You know sis…if anyone were to stay, I wouldn’t mind if it were to be me. Sure I’d miss out on a life with Chuck. But if I were to stay here and wait until everything comes apart. At least I’d do it in Space. This was supposed to be my magnum opus. To get up here. See the Void out into the Beyond.”

She chuckles, and then gives one last pull, then motions to Athena, “Get in, strap in there’s a oxygen jar in there, should be enough to last the flight, hook up…strap in.” She grinned, “I’m gonna get us home!”

“Got it. They’re okay. They’re clear.” Athena exhaled, the dark-blue armoured titaness clambering over, saying nothing, grabbing the oxygen and attaching it to her suit, pushing into Freya, sobbing, before pushing into the makeshift harness, made for something totally different, not reentry. Enough titanium on the front might save the entire thing from burning up. But whether or not it would hold was anyone's guess. And even then, landing after that, without a parachute, was like dropping a baby elephant into hard ground.

“Sis, I’m…..I’m so sorry I never spent more time with you. Always spent time breaking the mould. And I wish I spent more. Now staring at the end. Feels....yeah.” She seemed to almost crack, as if at the end, tears rolling down someone who seemed alike Skye, unbreakable in her conviction to destroy and be that alpha, that queen on top of the pile, realising in that moment what mattered. Harnessed in, the whole thing felt like it ripped apart, as suddenly, much of the space station splintered, leaving only their bit.

“I really, really hope you did study thermodynamics at university…..but if not…..shit, you’re right. They’ll talk about us as legends. And you’re….yeah, hell of a way to become one. Maybe still be one. Titans coming to earth like this. I dreamed it once but….didn’t think it would be like this.” Her voice cracked, undulating, uncertain, but knowing at the end, she was next to her favourite person in the world. Someone she wished she’d been better with. But someone, for right or wrong, was here with now.

Freya smiles, “Oh you of little faith.” She hugs her sister, then makes sure she’s strapped in, before getting in herself and finishes the last weld. She shoves the torch into her sisters hand, “Here…try and hang onto that…” She crawls over Athena, “Look it’s alright. We all had our own fun to look into. I understand I really do. You’re my sister nothing will make me hate you. Besides the fact I still can’t get my ass as big as yours damn it!”

Then she’s crawling into her seat, strapping in and hooking up into the bottle, a super tiny window right in front of her is all she can use to see outside, it’s layered so many times seeing the blue ball of safety far far below is tough, “Okay…If an Apollo Astronaut can do it…so can I.” A shock, the ball kicks off the remaining bit of the station. She fires the three small jets a few times, getting them lined up, then burns one hard.

She gulps, “Let’s hope those tiles hold and the titanium holds up…”

She tries to keep the big glove of blue and green in the window, “Let’s see…just…aim for something that isn’t a mountain!”

Athena grinned behind the faceplate, giggling like a pig, knowing Freya knew how to touch her buttons.
“Oh, you…..that’s just a secret from Mom. That if we survive this, I’ll tell you.” Athena giggled, knowing even in the face of death, Freya had managed to make her go from crying in fear of losing Eloise, to tears of joy, as if staring down teh end.
“Got this. If we survive this. I think aim for something soft.” Athena chuckled, sighing, looking through that tiny window, at the end of it all.
“You got this, Freya. Just like when we were kids….one last time. Let's do this.” She chuckled, armoured maw against maw, facing against this end, together.

Freya grit her teeth, a feral look as she worked the small joystick to try and keep the planet in the viewport of the Franken-pod, “Okay…almost…and…uh…uh…” She looked down at the makeshift fuel gauge she had tried to install. Seeing everything empty. She sat back then, “Haaaa…Creators hands now…atleast we’re headed in the right direction.” She looked over at her sister. Pushing up the glare visor on her helmet.

“Hey ... if…no when we land…all I ask…don’t tell Mom and Dad that I strapped us into something that isn’t even safe for a hamster? Please? Or atleast give me prior warning. I don’t want Mom to track me down with her Montante…” She grabbed Athena’s hand. Right as they hit atmosphere. She licked her lips and pushed the glare visor back up, “Well too late to pull out now!” And she let out a war whoop. Nothing for it now.

Just the fall.

The orange glow, burning, glowing, and turning all white.

DELTΔ HYPER (Anti-Gravity Racing, Cyberpunk/Solarpunk RP)

Thursday August 17th
New Hilo, Hawaii Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1600 HST

Pacific Evenings

Ben Hale

The NOVA Racing fan zone was a success, and with Ben signing merch, engaged in a scheme that introduced punters to an anti-gravity, upside down climbing wall (inspired by Jen's previous involvement), details on the livery that NOVA had elected for, the leafy, nature inspired green an obvious pick even for such a young team. Instead of history, NOVA could tap into the arts and ecology focus that the team had picked up, the "Mini-Rainforest" that the zone's theme had opted for bringing in punters.

That was nothing on the size of something like Southern Cross- who instead, had completely run riot with the Polynesian theme, basically bringing in choirs of Maori and Tongan singers, and being a Polynesian block party in Parc Poaka. Complete with a Rugby Sevens game, bug VR experience and in the harbour next to it, an exhibition on Waka rafts up to modern AG ships, including the 2094 Southern Cross example. Decked out in a lush navy blue, yellow and orange livery with a volcano playfully on the rear wing, it took a minimalist-maximalist Polynesian designer to bring out something different to the split-livery that Southern Cross ran with.

Ben could hear it from afar as he finished up, smiling to Sally and to Florence, who had joined in, eyes on everything as usual.
"All good?"

---/--//

Sitting in the interview room, Ben sat contemplatively, thinking on the question asked by Aurora.

"It's hard to get into Formula AG. A lot of sacrifices, but it's every kid's dream. So it was a tough one to take especially after how confident I felt in the Junior series, I was....yeah, I mean I was taking a challenge on. I mean, it didn't begin easy with the race in Spa. And same again in Germany. Junior AG was something I was relishing, and while I'd love to stay and take a title....it was a risk to step up and take on something new. Especially when I'm compared in a team to a great!"

"Is that something you struggle with?"

"I mean, sure, it's tough. Florence is....well, she's just incredible people really. Like she is so, so good as a mentor. But it doesn't matter what upgrades I get. She has something beyond just being able to make moves, just stay calm under pressure, it's....well, it's what makes her a champion. I can't get tied into that, so yeah, part of it is focussing on what I can do well and enjoying myself, developing the ship, and doing the best we can this season." Ben replied, the young pilot taking his time to think that one over, to get to that conclusion.

"Do you think it's what has led to her overperformance?" Aurora asked as Ben shrugged.

"It's like she never left."

---

Saturday August 19th
Moa Tempesta Circuit, Kanaloa Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1600 HST

Tempest Run

Harrison Makara

Soundtrack: Mohican Sun- God of Ages

The track felt like glue in the shiny aftermath of an afternoon rainstorm that was now drenched in cloudy sunshine, the ship's twitchy nature today offset by what felt like finally, a breakthrough. It felt good, the stability upgrade clicked with him far better that it did Nora, who hadn't performed after a poor Section 3, just failing to really make the most of the MAG sections. That was an area that Harrison adored- him and Dorian were absolutely there.

But going hard left in Turn 1, with the jink right left, the Southern Cross ship was no longer the fastest, that title belonging to Al-Saqr's absolute rocket now. But Harrison didn't need speed. He just needed Turns 4, 5, 6, 7, the complex left, right, straight into a hard long left that then peeled along the lava dam and and the magma field in the far right, well away from the circuit, before plunging back down at Turn 8's hard inverted turn, back past the facility into the gouged valley.

The wreck of Bea's ship was barely a glimmer in the corner of his eye where she'd overrun at Turn 8, the smoking mess with a standing Bea waiting for a recovery at least reassuring- in spite of the fact that despite her excursion at a corner with an overrun wide that would have likely been terrifying, the ship caught in a repulsor field to stop it from being yeeted into the floor with nothing to stop it- yet basically thrown three storeys into basalt rock anyway at the base of the dam, where the temps outside were easily 50C from the heat of the volcano itself. It wasn't on his mind, the straight ending with the end of the valley at Turn 9, inverting hard and to the left, the right, then left, the ship upside down for a lot longer than most circuits in the valley wall, running behind the waterfall itself that had been refreshed by the rains, and then into Turn 13, the ship and Harrison feeling bound. It was like out of each corner, he could just slap throttle faster, the ELS was screaming today, and from 14 and 15, the slow into a fast corner breaking out of the rainforest canopy onto a rocky beach and then back into the start straight, there was that confidence just flowing through him. The deltas were good, but the margins were so tight, so fine, was it.....

"Harrison, that's P4 mate, nicely done!" Harriet's voice came through as he powered the ship down, exhaling hard, a smile cracking that felt the most natural it had been in a while.

"Wooo! Wonderful job on the setup, this ship feels like a rock!" Harrison smirked, the ship itself feeling like it smiled and exhaled hard too.

Qualifying Results for Moa Tempesta:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qF6cn…

-//-//-/-/

Back in the interview room, Harrison sat there, leaned back as usual, chill, yet taking more than a moment to think through that question.

"Nora is.....well, she is unstoppable. I mean, you saw the crash and uhh...well, it's like it's fire for her. Like she has to prove people wrong. She has champion all over her. But so do I...so hopefully for me not this season yeah! We're in the hunt for Amy this season. And in Hawaii, I think...yeah, we're getting there." Harrison replied, the quest a never ending one, and that question from the beginning of the season, of what they thought of each other, still echoing.

"Was it a relief that you managed to tame the ship again?"

"Yeah, I mean....it's a nice feeling. I suppose it comes and goes. But yeah, feeling better."

"Would you say Nora has pushed you to up your game?"

"Absolutely. And everyone else too. I think Amy's feeling that heat. But yeah. Game on."

---

Saturday August 19th
Moa Tempesta Facility, Kanaloa Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1900 HST

Kanaloa Heat

The interview couch sat in a different place, with the background of the volcano up close in the Moa Tempesta viewing centre itself within the facility's tour area, paradoxically centred on the bit where Bea had crashed out, the evening sunset behind the glowing orange volcano.

The timings had come in, and the grid was split by a hair. It was clear that whatever the case, the teams were split extremely close- deltas were so tight, it was clear that in a race here, even with limited passing opportunities, the teams couldn't find the extra marginal gains they dreamed of. Well, apart from Kais, who clearly had found something in that ship that like a bumblebee in flight, shouldn't have worked.

"Bea, that looked like a gutting crash for you! Starting at the back tomorrow, what's your approach to making up?"

"Paul, it looks like despite your result today, the grid being so tight here. How are you feeling about tomorrow, and how have you found the lap so far?"

"Kais, wow, what a lap from you! It looked like you gave it everything, so loose, so absolutely ragged out of every corner! We heard that you have a new speed upgrade and it shows in the splits with your ship looking like it will set speedtrap records here in Hawaii?"

DELTΔ HYPER (Anti-Gravity Racing, Cyberpunk/Solarpunk RP)

Sunday August 6th
Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany
1500 EST

In Lap

"Well, a race not to write home about, but it feels like we're seeing the tables turn this season." Rosie commented, the pair in the booth returning from Aurora on the interviews, looking across to Rory, who had some more commentary to that end.

"Certainly. Amy Stirling not getting points is vital for the Southern Cross pair who are hunting them down, especially Nora Kelly, who really ended up doing well. The constructors race is hotting up, and well, what will we be in for next time in Hawaii?"

"Certainly, and on that note, thank you all for watching. We'll see you there, thank you for watching us, and have a peaceful evening!"

Soundtrack: Caribou- Odessa

The end credits to the Nürburgring played, with slow-motion shots of ships through the various corners.

The editors must have been working hard, as making highlights were tricky, but the slow-motion crash of Ben's ship into repulsors, overtakes on track, sparks flying from the static from the anti-gravity unit through bumps from various ships, to the absolute speed of onboards, it all played out, quietly fading to black and ending the Delta Hyper episode in the west of Germany.

---

Ava Villarosa

The fire in the design lab burned away in the white building far from the evacuation zone, as the entire staff stood outside, fire drills the same as they were forever. Even with advancements in fire suppression technology, working with a massive battery bank full of highly combustible materials, as was done on this day, with a few corners cut and a few bits of technology not doing what they should, meant that lab get caught on fire. Most of it had been put out quick, sparing anything serious, in particular the autoclaves, the rapid-test wind tunnels and any prototypes of ship chassis and engines in the end of the design centre.

Sighing, Ava looked to Bea, glad she'd brought her waterproof coat.
"This is some bullshit." Ava didn't really have the words, the husky Chilean looking at the high-vis wearing fire marshalls, hoping to go in soon. She instead turned to her phone.

Formula AG Pilot Group Chat

[Image of a burned-out design lab at the Carrera Condor factory.]
Bea
Alright, which one of you did that? @Paul? @Cassie Neves? 😛

Ava Villarosa
BEA! Jesus Christ.

Paul
Unlike others, I play by the rules. It is more fun to battle you on the track on an even playing field. When I beat you, I want no excuses. I can't wait to meet you again when the world aligns and we duke it out on the track. Spa was a blast!

Cassie Neves Oh shit! Everyone alright?

Amy Stirling You're one bad social media post away from having George Russell energy @Paul

Astrid @Cassie Neves they will be when you stop burning shit down and stop cheating

Jen Lowry WOAH WOAH WOAH

Flo Mason You lot getting silly again?

Harrison Always

Cassie Neves Hey I didn't know

Amy Stirling That's what they always say ;)

Astrid Speak for yourself!

Kofi Guys you're out here committing violations in chat

Wedge My mixtape be like: [reposted picture of lab on fire]

Dorian And FIAR ones too.....I can't help it

Ben Hale Why have I been told to bring trunks to Hawaii? What shit is Delta Hyper planning?

Jen Lowry I'm gonna say diving or surfing. I'm packing for both.

Hamid @Wedge habibiii

Cassie Neves I didn't even get an invite :( Enjoy all, I will be thinking about you when sitting in the sim

Harrison Can recommend Basqueatoes in *W3W co-ordinates* afterwards, really good Basque food in New Hilo area

Cassie Neves You are taking the piss. Wait, they do Patatas Bravas in Sweet Ch....fucking hell I'm in

Astrid I'm on that too, I'll book us a table :)

Ava Villarosa Yes! Doctor Ivan (our native Basque) tells me it is the real deal. He also says he doesn't get how Basques ended up moving to Hawaii in such number that they'd make restaurants out there....

Wedge Enjoy! Yeah I'll get trunks, honestly, surfing ain't my thing, unless it's similar to snowboarding I guess?

Harrison @Wedge It is really similar

Jen Lowry I was hoping to go diving more! I think we talked about it before, but if Delta Hyper has plans, then we'll do that

The creepie crawlies in the jungle are scary so none of that please :O

Cassie Neves @Ava yeah, lot of them moved, my mum says some Portuguese too but it's like they gotan opportunity to live out there or something...

Amy Stirling Speaking of, I thought I'd sort out Singapore food too, given you can't have any fun there without being arrested lately. Tsai Wen Tower for a spot of dinner?

Flo Mason That was in Raven Squad! What a sequence it was too!

Dorian @Flo Mason Agreed, it was crazy. Me and Paul should be able to, I think?

Ava Villarosa I'm in, I think Bea too?

Cassie Neves Sure, me and Han can come

Harrison Not sure about Nora but I'm down

Astrid I'm busy with marketing stuff that evening :(

Flo Mason Yeah same with me and Ben. Something about some more commercial stuff and time with Bella

Dorian Such a mother, that's a fair excuse :)

---

BUGS///VOLCANO///PARADISE

Soundtrack: Flume - Hyperreal

The chirp of movement of bugs.

A ship roars through the rainforest.

"Not expected to be here?" The voice almost seems alien, a creole of Hawaiian, a weird Spanish and Pacific accent, in English. A female one, to be specific.

A cut through, from the bug's multiple eyes, to the pilot's frame of vision.

The island opening up from the seabed over decades, after one of the biggest volcanic eruptions. Kanaloa Volcano was a seamount, expected to arrive on the surface of the Pacific Ocean in 10,000 years. Geology had another idea in 2028. In what was probably one of the most violent tectonic events of the region, some of whom believed it to be a reckoning from Mother Nature herself in whichever legend of Hawaiian culture or beyond you bought, the spew of lava created a black shell of rock from nothing into something.

It kept going for at least a decade. More volcanic ash and magma spewed from the ground than anyone could have ever dreamed the hotspot could produce, creating a volcano that was needle-like and 624m high, and only stopping in 2043. Almost all of Hawaii, bar Oahu and Molokai had to be evacuated, and what was left was an ash-filled, smoke ridden place. It wouldn't be a shocker if anyone who was born here had left for parts unknown.

"Sometimes the ocean spits out something new. And we welcome you to it."

The bug paces along a stick, into the newly grown mangrove, a bit strange given you're seeing it from their perspective.

"We take nature and bring it into humanity."

The roar of the ship through the MAG-enabled track, through the dense rainforest, the camera pointing up to an orange-red spewing shield volcano, old lava tubes creating a perfect line, and of course, away from the spewing constant that was Kanaloa And into the pilot's view, spiralling in chase after another ship, the red-orange glow of lava like goop was at a safe distance, but still dominated the view.

The bug's eyes catch again in reflection and inversion back in its perspective, as it goes from stick to stick, the view revealing absolutely, how insignificantly tiny they were relative to a human.

"We're so small in this huge world."

The bug leaps away, a bigger fly trying to tether it, sprinting, scurrying, moving quickly. At this scale, everything that even looks insignificant to humanity seems so, so much bigger.

"Yet part of something bigger than us."

The ships in pit, mechanics, engineers, strategists, pilots, all moving, all making it happen, and watching on in the distance.

"Shaped by their nature."

The bug clambering up the tree, into the canopy, another ship going past, revealing the volcano itself, the facility embedded in it, and in the distant, the ecocity of New Hilo, etched into the eastern side of the island, green towers like fingers of rock, except super-structures of residents.

"Built by our nature."

Ships roaring past, and a cut to Bea's ship fighting with Paul, at Spa, and a historic duel with Florence and Kofi.

"Remembered forever."

The top step, staring out with a fade to white.

"E komo mai, Formula AG. Welcome to Hawaii."

The intro parses the circuit in wire-frame form, and bit by bit, colours in the render, before sucking out into black.

---

DELTΔ HYPER

Episode Twelve: Hot Like Lava

---

Thursday August 17th
Waimanu Valley, Hawaii Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
0500 EST

Surf's Up

Paradise was a hell of a place to be. In a speeding, incredibly bumpy old Japanese boxy minivan though, it was passing by rather quick.

"Bea, slow the fuck down! We're not on track, we're in a shitbox van!" Harrison yelped, feeling the bumps through the gravel, the road rutted and clearly not used in a long, long time. There was no way into the valley a long time ago, but, an emergency services road had been carved out in the steep sides of the mountain, carving a way down to the beautiful valley, waterfalls and all, and shoreline.

Inside of that van, sat Beatrix, Paul, Kais, Max, Jenny, Han, and Harrison. It was staggering that they'd actually trusted Bea to drive, but they reasoned with a following vehicle, and the fact there seemed to be enough guardrails, it would be enough to stop anything ridiculous coming on the news. It was reasoned that the road would have to be taken slowly anyway, according to Delta Hyper's management. Nobody had realised in that risk assessment and health and safety meeting, that they should actually have told the ex-rally driver not to drive.

"Relax, she's only crashed on gravel.....actually, never mind!" Jenny replied, the van undulating heavy through a stream, making everyone get slammed into their seats, and most of the occupants of the van swear, lots, as the van turned around another hairpin turn, one of many, many, many that went down before following the coast on an incredibly scenic route on a cliff-side route, revealing the view of the valley.

"The view is mental from here! God, what have you got us doing, Rosie..." Max commented, looking out through glass on the winding, granite-black gravel road, the Waimanu Valley one of few to not be completely ruined by the volcanic eruptions on Big Island, and left untouched as a paradise.

It wasn't long until they got to where they were going. Through a dense woodland in the valley floor where Bea actually had to slow down due to how thick the mud and trees were, the van came to a stop in the dawn, the fog just about cleared but leaving a cold feeling on everyone's skin. Stepping out, after the winding, gruelling gravel trail in a non-AG equipped beater that looked like it had been the way in since the 2040s, the team saw Rosie gleeful as ever, caffeinated to the gills after a morning of getting out here.

Rosie beamed, looking across at everyone.

"Hello all, and welcome to Hawaii! So, we brought you to paradise, and while here, we thought we'd introduce you, and the viewers to something rather different. How comfortable are you all in water?" The question went out from Rosie, as the team was likely to have some very mixed opinions on that.

"Well....if you'd like to follow me, let me show you what we have planned."

The camera panned out, revealing the sandy shore beyond the dense mangroves and woods, as well as a few small huts on the beach where the group collectively walked through, and cut back with them at the huts, by the morning tides.

"Aloha kākou, welcome to Waimanu. I'm Tane, and this is Katie, and here to show you a bit of real Hawaii before you go out and race all over it. So, who here has surfed before?" The question went out, the two instructors, Katie and Tane, the latter's Polynesian carry coming out to the wider group in front of him. The former was a shorter, blonde-haired stereotype of a surfer, while the latter had a Tongan, burly build, perhaps more akin to Harrison in skintone than anyone else.

"We'll show you all you need, and get you started out here." Katie added,

It wasn't long before the group were in wetsuits, and with surfboards to hand, were being readied for what was to come.

A Hawaiian lea as a little award sat on the beach, left there for whoever stood up longest....and it was clear that Max's snowboarding skills didn't translate, Harrison was absolutely sending it, and Jenny seemed to be somewhere inbetween, before getting quite a nasty wipeout on the last break.

---

Thursday August 17th
New Hilo, Hawaii Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1800 HST

Solarpunk

Soundtrack: Kaela - Superliminal

The city of New Hilo was something beyond comprehension to someone that might have been alive 70 years prior, but to those that lived, worked and played in the city, it was the bustle of four million people that made up the best lifeboat in the now second to most eastern Hawaiian island. With much of the remaining small towns of western Hawaii island destroyed from ash and vulcanism in the events of Kanaloa emerging and Mauna Kea's massive eruption, many believed that these lands would never be habitable ever again. Instead, through a mixture of private investment, and the energy provider Coalescence Energy finding that Kanaloa's thermal capacity could be harnessed, it created a hive for data centres, rocket launches and chemical plants, your usual energy intensive activities through lax regulations. And that needed a city for people to live in, to make their own, and to staff them.

The refugees from the Pacific brought their own cuisine, food, culture. Fijians, Tongans, Micronesians, all fleeing flooding, weather and the pulling of foreign aid that left them without a home. Entire countries, islands left underwater as the sea levels rose and nothing was left to stop the tide coming in. Anti-immigration rhetoric spewed when they arrived, but then again, the United States collapsed under the weight of its own disasters, as did much of the world in the 2050s and 2060s. No help was coming from the Mainland. Many had hard memories of that, so self-reliance became key. Let the world in if they want, but they weren't coming to carry the people of the land. So the Republic of Hawaii was a quasi-independent state in the aftermath of that, and in the light of the destruction caused by the seamount volcano, made decisions to create a future braver than any. Those refugees brought with them not a sense of shame, but a willingness to build, and they happened to be in the right place to staff that future. New Hilo was a city-state within a new state like no other.

Instead of creating Kowloon, they created a human-scale paradise. Something that took vision, an Eco-City that actually lived up to name. Most towers were barely over six storeys, with a central green-glass structure that stood at 40, like a basalt tower, low density with forest and tree plantations and streams in many streets, traditional wooden Hawaiian architecture meeting cutting edge safe, clean and efficient design, it felt....well, like a futuristic fairytale. Design in mind with humanity, no towering buildings, and a city that felt more like forest than an actual settlement given the palms and pines. Water recycled near infinitely, energy produced completely from the distant orange glow of Kanaloa volcano across the bay, food produced on rooftops and on walls, in vertical farms and literally produced in a way that was symbiotic to the environment. Solar panels, wind turbines in building structures that avoided polluting the landscape, it meant that each of the structures and buildings looked like fingers of some ancient Polynesian society rather than a city. Advertising was non existent, or at least, far more subtle, making it feel more like an urban jungle than an actual city. And markets, social spaces and community was carved out in a way that let the cultures that came here, thrive together, rather than isolate- quarters still dominated by one language or another. Equity, yet balanced by forcing an integration in a new way of life.

A small flutter of drones broke the peace, but with no flying AVs, cars, in fact, anything here inside the city itself, it was incredibly quiet. A gigantic dockyard sat out of view, turning it into the logistics centre of the Pacific, trade often finding itself here in the freeport before moving to where it needed to go. The chemical plants, once key to the development of this place, had long since shut and been completely folded into algal processing and biofuel production farms.

The tech companies followed the others when energy, water and human capital abounded, with virtually unregulated free trade making it easy to do business, and the government being committed to high levels of security, education and social cohesion. Then local firms emerged, built like Cooperatives inspired by the Basque model from immigrants from North-Eastern Spain. Many of those settled in New Hilo creating the port of New Euskadi in the south of the city, given their extensive knowledge in large-scale structural and environmental engineering, and added another angle to what was already a very exotic melting pot. The near destruction of their Basque homeland through forest fires had forced them here, and despite how out of place they were, they bloomed even among Pacific Islanders that made the city what it was. International environmental companies, many of whom were instrumental in the great rewilding and geoengineering efforts across the globe made the Hawaiian Islands their home as a testbed, as did the Oceanic Whanau, their HQ of Honolulu and providing a collective voice for the islanders who had lost everything and found no country, or concept entirely able to take them. A highly fertile soil between East and West, the old powers and the new, sat like a nexus point that linked it all together. Like Singapore with volcanoes.

The movement of billions could have ended the Pacific, but if anything, they embraced the future harder than anyone else. Innovated more, and from nothing, created an entirely new way of living that transcended traditional capitalist narratives. Communities, culture, yet finding ways to create new things and build from that nothing into something. A model of a new world they were willing to share, almost as if in a peering-through-glass kind of way. They had built what they had built, but didn't take refugees from the continents, outside of the ASEAN area, and in another way, that achievement seemed almost what made it more remarkable. They'd done it their way, and as silly as it seemed at first, now it was showing the fruits of why it was worth it. While other cities choked in their own squalor, limited themselves to their history, as beautiful and as stunning as they were, this was something else. A city that more than fed itself, more than looked after itself, seemed to now be imparting that into the world.

And somehow, they'd done it without destroying their cultural heritage, or their environment. The west of the island was still an absolute wreck when Mauna Loa erupted violently and virtually fried it all, but the choice to create a new rainforest reversed the tide of biodiversity failure, and was the single most impressive, if not important turning point in ecosystem recovery and rewilding that humanity had seen. Vulcanism created fertile soil, and when the volcanic activity stopped, it let a landscape go from black to green within a generation. A choice that was seen as stupid, ignorant of resources and demands, proved to be a dividend for future generations decades later that saw it come back to fruition. Culture had been maintained in the hills, and it felt distinctly like the land had been put back to hundreds of years.

Yet New Hilo was not perfect, given it also felt like Singapore in terms of how it treated crime, the language being so different on every street it felt strange to go from Basque to Tongan to English and back to Hawaiian, and the fact that living here required abandoning any idea of what a normal city dweller would be comfortable with. Public transport was intentionally not that great despite AV bus lines and an overground metro to encourage cycling, walking and connectivity- on the other side of whcih, the Maglev virtually turned journeys to Honolulu, a more "Western" city by any extent, into a metaphorical portal.

Some lamented the loss of jobs in recent times, especially since much of it had been resourced back to more traditional bases, and the city government's constant use of referendums on a weekly basis frankly felt like an invasion of time for many residents. And perhaps it gave off an air of being boring. It was sculpted, but outside of the cultures here, it felt a million miles away from the dirty, cool, underground feeling of other cities, London's charm and history to somewhere like Buenos Aires's anarchy that made it so alive, so real, so tantalising. There weren't clubs here, there wasn't that cyberpunk feeling that came with bars, dirt and danger. Not even the super rich were here, unlike the abundance and excess of Monaco, it almost relished in being a city that put people into interaction, equity over anything else. If you wanted quiet, there was an island devoid of anyone now, left to nature and untamed. Even Aachen, a garden city that probably blended the ecologically focussed aim of a solarpunk world with the reality of people being people was not something New Hilo considered a compromise. It was absolutely different, and may as well have been written in a science fiction piece from another 100 years into the future, given that the lack of roads, walkways and architecture with nature, streams and plants at their core, ran so counter to everything humanity had ever built.

If other cities at least felt recognisable to people decades prior that the calendar visited, albeit with a new lick of paint and technology, this felt interstellar.

Yet if the street food and music was decidedly Pacific fused with Basque, bringing Thai green curry into mix with Fijian sweet potato and synthetically-produced North Atlantic Cod, it was exclusionary, and being in the city felt like a place that did not want outsiders to tether themselves in permanently, even if the trade and ideas were allowed. Almost like a version of Japan 100 years prior, it wasn't so much as racism, as it was just almost as if it didn't want to corrupt itself, it felt decidedly, and significantly foreign to anyone visiting in just how different life was. The creole of Basque, Hawaiian and other languages seemed outwardly like people here spoke a language that even a Earworm hadn't figured out entirely the rules of.

Starting from a refugee camp to an ecologically focussed city, it was what it was, and didn't want change now from outsiders that weren't willing to adapt. To give up a car or AV, to eating food only made on the island, and taking a co-operative feel rather than a capitalistic one would be alien to anyone- this wasn't socialism or a commune, it wasn't even a third way; it felt like an isolated example of something totally different. It let visitors look, but didn't let them touch, beyond the bits of tourism that they did allow special guests like Delta Hyper in, it didn't feel like a place that was drowning in excess, but rather, living in the reflection of the world beyond itself. Hawaiians may have been famous for hospitality, the lei and the warm embrace of a ukulele on a beach, but strangely, it felt like when the world forgot them, they wanted to forget the world's embrace when they looked inside and remade their world, quite literally and figuratively.

If Solarpunk had a city, it looked like this. The air clean and near silent bar voices from markets, cycle bells and the occasional permitted AV, the buildings green, and a culture and feeling that this was a model for living. Not some idealistic one, but one that felt biophilic, intertwined with the very volcano in the distance that created life and destroyed it in tandem.

The pilots had a chance to explore the city, given their accommodation wasn't on the volcanic island as it had less in the way of amenities than even Mare Austral- it was here, with an AV shuttle allowing them to cross the small strait to the volcanic mountain literally decades old in the making. There was fanfare for Formula AG being back in town, plenty of events on, but none of them were commercial outside fanzones that had gone up fast from each team in the city. Oceania was obsessed with Formula AG, probably being one of the largest markets outside of Europe, East Asia and the Americas, being one of the first to adopt and race it, so the fans were of course, gutted to not be in attendance, but glad to see the teams themselves.

Coalescence had agreed with the Republic that as part of hosting that Pilots, if they were going to do anything related to their teams would not promote sponsors but rather promote themselves, their stories and their lives, returning something back to the communities that they were idolised by. Stories in Polynesia, after all, were currency worth more than gold. They didn't need charity, they needed engagement, inspiration, and the pilots that attended were that. From events in the city to beyond in the volcanic hills and mountains, pilots were here to show a very different side of themselves. Walks up mountains, to hub events in the cit yitself.

How they did that was up to them, if they wanted to. Unlike Silverstone, it wasn't a stage, unlike Canada, it wasn't cookery, unlike Italy, it wasn't a mountain hut away from everything, unlike Belgium, this wasn't an exclusive charity gala. This was their chance to show off who they were, their story with their team's support or on their own, and their identity so far to a captive audience in a new world that even in globalisation, they were truly foreigners in, and could inspire.

---

Sitting on the roof of one of such green buildings after all was said and done in the evening sun, the eco-block gave a panoramic view of a sun about to pass the far horizon on the southern coast, instead of the hyper-tech like white walls or traditional concrete and composite, this was wood and greenery. A garden on a rooftop, where, in that view, the yellow sofa sat.

"Welcome back to Delta Hyper, Bea. We know you never spent time here, but does it feel like a strange return back to home, nearly at the antipode to where you live? What would you say about your experiences in Hawaii so far, how does it compare to London?"

"Hello Paul, and welcome to the Delta Hyper couch once again. With the season taking us to such incredible places, from the surface of the Moon to the legendary race tracks of Europe, how are you feeling about our unplanned visit to Hawaii?"

"Kais, welcome back on Delta Hyper! How have you found the change so far this season, with a visit to Hawaii instead of Rwanda, as planned in the season?"

---

Friday August 18th
Moa Tempesta Circuit, Kanaloa Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1400 HST

The Tempest

Soundtrack: 65daysofstatic- Under the Summs



The tiny island of Kanaloa in the last 60 years had sprouted vegetation densely in the rich, organic soil that had propagated, and despite being barely 20km2, with an almost stereotypically jungle-island-needle like volcano contrasting the other shield-like structures in the Hawaiian archipelago. The eruption's end, endless rain, and a little bit of ecological work had turned the island from a barren black mount to a lush green rainforest, dominated by nothing apart from Moa Tempesta, a ground-breaking geothermal plant that instead of drilling into the earth's core, instead worked right at the coal face of the quietened caldera. Unlike traditional thermal schemes, it produced a significant amount of efficient electricity through a fusion-supported cycle, and the excess heat was piped into New Hilo for heating and industry. While fusion was beginning to get cheaper, there was no denying that Tempesta had single-handedly, created all of what happened across the strait.

Nobody lived here, mostly due to Moa Tempesta being a quite literally heat-extracting boiler that created an endless amount of steam so much that it turned it into rain that peppered the island itself, left just the wildlife and track on it as features that made it feel truly alien, wild, and strange. An Ecological Preserve was the other reason, and well, sulphur was not ideal as a smell given it reeked around the plant itself higher up the mountain, where the trees ended and the barren black moon-like environment took over on the Palmer Plateau, the only remotely manageable bit of land that Moa Tempesta could be built on below the bubbling, red-glowing caldera. This wasn't something that felt like it was here forever. It felt like it had arrived yesterday, and already been filled with rainforest. An island sculpted almost by human hand yet left totally over to nature.

The commentary team pipped up, sitting in a commentary booth overlooking the track, and the short straight of the pitwall before the circuit began, Rosie and Rory in place.

"With teams gearing up for practice, we're joined by Rory Andrews. Rory, would you like to take viewers through the circuit?"

"Yes, it is an impressive track. A replica of a classic, Moa Tempesta uses much of the same technology used in our Italian AGP race, but is used in a more confined space with tight, MAG-driven corners and less in the way of snow, and more in the way of technically difficult lush rainforest. The circuit starts at the base of a valley, densely in the rainforest into a tight left hander at Turn 1 (Poaka) followed by a loose right left at Turns 2 and 3 (Tartaro), before climbing up one of the spines of the volcano, flanking through a historic lava tube (Tempesta Climb), and a brand new cut that has full MAG tracking in 360 degrees of the tube itself, creating a pivotal overtaking spot on a circuit that is incredibly twisty in other areas."

"The circuit then emerges into Moa Tempesta itself- the plant is still active and operational, and runs through a series of straights interrupted by hairpins and chicanes in the approach roads (Turns 4, 5, 6, 7- Pira Complex and Kapua Complex), running up and around a lava dam- an enormous wall of rock that holds in the extruded magma chamber of the Kanaloa Caldera, known as Kami Crater, and directing the continuous flow of lava from the now calmed, shield-like volcano off into the northern face of the island. The circuit then descends with a hard left at Turn 8 (Lamia) back down through another series of deep, gouged valley-like lava tubes and streams that emerge during rainfall, and then winds back down through the rainforest deep into a steep valley with multiple inversions and chicane-like complexes at Turn 9, 10 and 11 (Lacroix, Hina and Maui), with 90 degree knife edge runs through decants and walls, and new for 2094, a long section running behind a rapidly eroded waterfall at Turn 12 (Manilla) cut into rock. Each come with a mixture of fast, medium and slow corners that bring us back to sea level through Turns 13, 14 and 15 (Mari, Gulf and Coal Corners)."

"The circuit then loops down vertically and into a chicane-filled section, going to the coast before cutting back in to the newly built pit area, where me, Rosie and Aurora are watching. Energy Systems are critical, with so many MAG Sadly, with no fans today the virtual stands are up but if you're watching at home, enjoy through your devices just how lush this circuit is. Wow, I thought we had it good in Rwanda!"

"Yes, it was unexpected to return here. Now, as the lights go green, ships are leaving the pits, and we're seeing them take to the track."

The rain gently picked up, and stopped, coming and going in showers, making the run around the volcano caldera even more spectacular, the glow of orange in the background behind ships, or through the rainforest a smattering of colour.

---

Friday August 18th
Moa Tempesta Circuit, Kanaloa Island, Republic of Hawaii, Federated American States
1900 HST

Mahalo my Dude

Florence Mason

Back in the temporary pit, the modular buildings and the tracking outside as temporary as could be, the evening sun was beginning to close in on the densely forested canopy, and turn things darker than the clear skies would allow.

With the NOVA ship adorned with a rainforest-inspired pearl leaf scheme of its own, best seen in person up close, that took the livery to another level, Florence was busy with diagnostics.

Plugged in and running the track again and all the data, configuring her last adjustments. Setting each corner the way she liked. She stopped, seeing Sally appear, waving a hand, pulling hand to neck and peeling out.

"We looking good here? Florence asked, as Sally nodded, sitting down by her side.

"How's it all going? Managing Bella, the role, yoursel..."

"It's fine. I miss her a bit. Formative years and all that. But, I also love racing. And Mark is a great dad. He gave up all of his bits working on Luna to come back to it, and I think he enjoys it a lot. They get to watch me race, and they know I'm happy doing what I love." Florence replied, Sally taking her star pilot's response quickly blurting out, to the point, and knowing where Sally was going.

"That is good of him. I never asked. I know you don't mention it a lot, but what you're doing here, it's....well, it gave a lot of the staff a lot of confidence. The management aren't expecting miracles. But with your involvement, the staff are beginning to believe in this." Sally replied, as Florence nodded, sitting up.

"That's good. I mean, I believe in this project. And what it can do. But also, because it's a good opportunity to throw my hat in the ring. I never was that good at doing stuff delegated, I...guess I had to get stuck into something. This was it, and well, I'm glad it's working. Like anything I do, I suppose." Florence mused, as Sally nodded, walking across to the ship, resting her palm against it.

"Good, good. I was hoping you'd have a word with the board about next year. We had horrific stability going in, really bad procurement. I just hope they don't make the same mistake."

"Aren't they listening to you?" Florence asked, as Sally shrugged, looking up at it, then back down.

"To be honest, they see me as a left-behind object from Fitzroy. The success came despite it all, but....what can I say. You're a bigger voice, with success. And they might listen to that more than me." Sally retorted, as Florence nodded, putting away the neural line, standing up and also leaning against the ship.

"Perhaps. But don't knock yourself back. You got this all here. And I can do that for you, but the results will come. Maybe not yet, like you said. Procurement's your business, Sally, I'll deal with on track, and make them turn heads. Get you something to shout about. Between us, we've got this." Florence replied, ever confident, as Sally nodded, a strange feeling of a Team Principal wanting the backing of a pilot, rather than the other way around.

"Good, I appreciate that. Rare this sort of thing happens. Hawaii won't be our circuit, not if we can spare it."

Florence shook her head, a grin forming as she peeled back the circuit layout, looking over it.

"Not if you go for a riskier ELS strategy, and load up the cells harder. A lot more battery charge in the ship's hull, through a supercapacitor bank might do it, store more power from start and reduce the amount picked up on circuit. I did it here years ago when they were trialling ELS. Dodgy, yes. But like you said, we didn't have a chance. Means you can react if there's a Virtual Safety, find a little more energy out of corners than others later in the race, but the ship will feel like it's basically tazed half the time."

"You suggesting we break the rules?"

"I'm suggesting we bend, Sally. We know it's going to take a miracle to do well here. So shit or bust." Florence suggested, as Sally looked up, looking through the delta times, nodding.

"For you then. Sure your reputation isn't going to be burned up by this entirely?" Sally asked, as Florence shook her head.

"Zygon fielded an entirely false chassis for a race, maybe two. We'll need a lot more bravery if we want to compete. Management don't care how we do it. Only that we do, and start to take scalps like you did earlier in the season every now and then." Florence replied, as Sally realised where Florence was going with this.

"Oh....then I might have some ideas of my own." Sally grinned, as Florence smirked, and with it, a text went out to get a few engineers back.

It wouldn't be much, or enough, but a 50/50 was worth a punt.

DELTΔ HYPER (Anti-Gravity Racing, Cyberpunk/Solarpunk RP)

Saturday August 5th
Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany
1800 EST

Mindset

Jen Lowry

Sitting inside the meeting room, Peter finished up, having said all that was said, between himself, the strategist, Keira and Callum, shutting the holographic panel down.

"Okay, we'll leave it there for now. Thanks all. Let's go after P1 tomorrow, Jen, and Amy, damage control, and let's get after it." Peter concluded,

"Gotcha." Amy nodded, grabbing her tablet, standing up, as the others did so, about to leave the room, as Peter put a hand to desk.

"Jen, can you stay behind?"

With the meeting over, Amy and the other engineers left, leaving Peter and Jen alone in the room, the others filtering through as Peter leaned against the wall, waiting until the door shut with a hiss, glass sound-deadening plenty more advanced than before.

"So I suppose I may as well check in on how you're feeling. You've done well so far, and P2 here is impressive, like I said earlier. I know you spend a lot of time with Yan in the neurology lab we have back at Silverstone, but I wanted to check in person, how's the neural link and your prosthetics feeling? Any abnormalities with it? All playing out okay?"

"None so far. It's....so, so much quicker. Like honestly, it's night and day. Genuinely, even off track....it's wild. I was at the climbing wall and it was like I could see the entire thing in front of me, every move planned out five ahead, throw myself up an entire five grades worth of holds without sweat, let alone on track....it's something alright." Jen replied, as Peter nodded, knowing this conversation was a difficult one to have, but, well, it had to be breached at some point.

"Good. Sounds like you're enjoying being a little more superhuman. But, I think you should probably be aware you know we're pushing the limits. And, you know we'd never put you in danger. But, with stuff like this, I just want to get a feeling that the pilots we put through this understand the risks. And your adaptation is a fast one to it." Peter stated, Jen butting in before he could continue.

"This isn't when you tell me it's going to give me brain damage, or get me addicted to eating tangerines or something? Or, are you gonna sell my soul? Look, I get it, there's risks. Am I in danger or something because I've gone too quick into this?" Jen asked, genuinely a little off-put, as Peter shook his head, the Irishman not holding back.

"Nothing like that. The opposite, if anything, it's a neural link that's been tested to the nth degree, ahead of the curve of most units on market, as you can feel. The reason it came up because I know Al-Saqr are cheating feckin' bastards, but also, I don't want us to be stung by anything. Layla had to be fucking around with her neural link, and I reckon it's why she retired. So, between us, I just wanted to check in that you've not done anything similar, because given the examination FIAR give our team, and how fast you've adapted, I just don't want questions asked, and I don't want you to fall fowl of the pricks that inspect us, and most importantly, I don't want to lose you because you're doing too much to it, too fast. It takes time, it's like a pair of shoes to wear in. I know the temptation, because yes, it comes with the top level of competition. But given the situation, and how fast you're adapting, I want to just check we're on the same page." Peter was near deadpan, the feisty Irishman turned to basalt, and clearly, not wanting to fuck his words around here.

"Peter, are you being serious? You think that I'd..." Jen was interrupted, the team boss cutting in.

"I'm not thinking you would. But I just want to hear it. I'm not in the business of being your doctor. I'm in the business in making you a pilot that gets that top step tomorrow, and the team with it. If you are, I'd like to know, and we nip it in the bud. Now." Peter was dead serious, as Jen nodded, new prosthetic hands on table, knowing that Peter was riled up something to ask that. His presence was enough to make her almost feel like a schoolgirl.

"Nope, nothing, Pete. Pushing it to the limits Yan recommended. Nothing more. Focusing on motion." Jen replied, realising that well, Peter was a hard man to please. And while the compliments on her performance had been reeling from him, with him gushing plenty, she also knew that he had to be feeling a little fear. Something had stirred him. Made him ask. And Jen wasn't sure if that concerned her more. The stoic, usually brazen team principal that didn't care what he said, seemed to be quite particular.

"Good. I appreciate that. You're doing really well, Jen. Plenty of heads are turning, and Cal, and Simon Calder tell me you're a pleasure to work with. So let's keep that momentum going. Go grab first tomorrow." Peter smiled, the classic "shit sandwich" working rather nicely. Compliment, constructively criticise, compliment.

"Thank you. Won't let you down." Jen smiled back, and with it, took her tablet and left the room with a mind wondering what the fuck had gotten him so riled.

That was Silver Apex though, and what she signed up for. But being on a podium, after a year and a half of having a shitbox, well, she wasn't turning her chances down. And it appeared Bea was still in her mirrors.

---

Saturday August 5th
Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany
2000 EST

Boarding Call

Max "Wedge" Wedgewood

Staring at the telemetry, Max flickered through the glass tablet, immersed, in the zone, the ship sitting in the steel rack silent, engines dead, magnificently sky blue and orange as always. They'd picked up Gulf as a sponsor, so the ship had an absolutely legendary look- the Gulf logo on the front and rear panels, clashing with a glimmer of orange against the beautiful blue. An oil company turned biofuels firm, the logo stayed exactly the same as it had, and exactly as cool. The other sponsors including Pratt and Whitney, AON, SiriusXM, Oakley and Paulaner 0%, the latter from Ulrich's connections to Bavaria. A mighty ship. A ship that was not going to score points this round, Max reminded himself.

Moving to Valkyrie at the end of the season felt strange. All the promises of staying, now moving. It felt weird. He wasn't quite sure what he'd get at the German outfit, Ulrich had started teaching him already some key phrases,

Getting a tap on his shoulder, Max whisked around, caught totally in a daydream.

"Jeez, scared the shit out of me!" Max winced, as Carl Matthews, race engineer to Max chuckled, grabbing a seat next to him, as Max did the same, still in the undergarments from qualy, and direly aware he needed a shower sooner than later.

"Well, don't wear noise cancelling headphones when you're sitting in the pit on your own! Dude, I coulda done so much worse..." Carl laughed, the Minnesotan engineer happy to chat the shit, as he sighed, sipping down some water, Max taking off his headphones, used to help him dial into the noise that he read from the data. A personal choice, of course. A weird one to some.

"Coulda, but didn't. Got enough shit on." Max nodded, the silence breaking as Carl looked around, before checking back into Max.

"So, how did the boss take it?"

"Not great. Got a lot of promises on what is to come. But....I need something else. Try something different."

"Yeah, I mean....I don't blame you."

"I mean, it isn't...it's just you know. A team like Valkyrie come knocking, you can't say no." Max added, Carl nodding, saddened, but agreed.

"Yeah. It's hard to move. You got any plans?

"I always wondered. If you had to pick, who do you think could replace you? Or rather, who do you want me to suffer through?" Carl asked, both of them chuckling in response,

"Well.....shit, too many good names. I guess."

"Too late to bring me along to Valkyrie?"

"Hah, shit, I haven't actually signed the contract....won't you miss being an hour by train to home?" Max realised his mistake, knowing in all of it, he'd not thought that one through. But then again, he didn't expect Carl to smile, wanting in. That was not on his cards.

"Shit, dude. I'm fucking bonded to you at this point, no neural link needed."

"Alright, I'll fire him an additional line. The sage wisdom of Carl Matthews in my fuckin' ear for another year."

"Amen to that, brother!" Carl joked, the two chuckling, enjoying the dying of the light, looking out at the sunset, as with it, Max typed out a message, pinging it across to his agent, in a hope that well, before the weekend was up, at least he could tie that up. More money for Alexander to throw, but then again, he had a feeling that it wasn't an absurd request.

---

Sunday August 6th
Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany
1500 EST

Out Lap

Nora Kelly

The feeling bubbled, as Nora's hands sorted out the remainder of the start sequence, hearing her engineer's voice rustle in her ears.

"Comms."

"Yeah, check check." Nora's reply was that of certainty.

It had to be weird looking in after a little while out of the focus. But then again, #NitroNora was not exactly sitting quietly. Not since losing a leg and an arm. The fear, the absolute state she had to push through. All the shit back home with family, all of it bubbling, burning a hole.

Making her feel even hotter than ever, to go prove every single one of them wrong.

Beatrix sat to her side, as Nora gave a glance, the Aussie now a little more aware that the Brit had something about her. As aggressive as she was, her equal in taming an absolute heap in stability, but Nora seemed to work on that analogue level. Something prosthetics made harder, but it was like she didn't care.

Dorian was ahead. And he would relish in holding his line through the bits of the GP circuit, before the Nordschlife began, where he was no doubt, an ace. Valkyrie had prioritised pace, but Dorian's experience shined through on a complex track that felt easy to get lost on. It was nothing to Nora. She'd just take him straight away. Remove that piece from the board.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Soundtrack: Turbowolf- A Rose for the Crows

And away they went.

She didn't waste time. In corner one, she let him run all the way out, but immediately made a switchback and ran as wide as she could let it, making sure Dorian would be forced to back off, and in turn, keep Beatrix behind. That would do nicely as a buffer.

Now for the rest. With Amy at the back, and Harrison nearly out of the points, this was one hell of an opportunity, in a ship that barely wanted to stay on track, to make it count. Han was already escaping her. But she wasn't losing 4th. Not after that.

The GP circuit was normal, conventional even, like Portimao with excitement, but the Nordschlife was absolutely mental in an AG ship. Corners that felt fast in an Endurance car were taken at fast-forward levels of speed, magnified by how tight the circuit was even compared to something like Tokyo, it was wide enough for overtakes, sure, but it was insane to try them at this speed without being absolutely certain you had the ELS to make it stick. And Nora was not backing off chasing the Zygon ships ahead, the ship screaming in and out of compressions, and the lap burning away faster than most normal people could think. Corner after corner, bend after bend, but it was home.

Where she knew this best. No noise. Just that signal.

---

The rest of the race, however, from a spectator's point of view wasn't anything spectacular. A fairly big crash from Ben Hale at Schwedenkreuz into the barriers created an extended VSC through that sector, buffering times there while the wreckage and Ben, unharmed but with an ego more than a little bruised, were pulled out. Beatrix made a move on Dorian after he made some mistakes in the GP section, the changes to the ship in race trim just not working today, just a bad swing of the dice in setup that had happened.

Kais managed to make up a couple of places, first sniping off Paul, then the struggling Dorian, making it two Valkyrie ships at their true home GP, and no doubt a motivator. Harrison, surprisingly had gone backwards, his stability particularly poor in the bumpy section, his risks not working at all, while Amy, despite charging up the grid, couldn't get past Florence and instead, settled on a duel with her old nemesis who saw all her mentee's tricks.

Compared to Belgium, the overcast, sometimes sunny atmosphere of the Nordschlife meant it was more a beer drinking session than race for spectators given they weren't hiding from pouring rain, but every now and then, an exciting overtake kept things tense. The feeling was that everyone had piloted well, the deltas indicating times in the higher percentiles, but nothing really broke the deadlock. High form from one pilot just meant another was on it too. It felt a little anticlimactic, the end of the race having the same starting three, that finished, separated by seconds.

Race Results at Nürburgring

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qF6cn…

---

Delta Hyper Interviews

"Well, we can't say it was the most inspiring, despite Hale's crash leading to a remarkable lack of change on the rest of the grid. Nora Kelly was still rampant, and the crash out from Amy had meant she'd closed vital points between herself and the reigning champion- who despite rampaging through the backmarkers, couldn't make her way to the front."

"Nonetheless, some impressive progress there for Hamid Atlassi, who scores his first point in Formula AG, and looks over the moon. The first of many, it seems, as he took that ship around a turbulent track with grace. But what consistency from Cassie Neves to put it in first, her first win in over two years, and an impressive effort from the Zygon pilot. They must be beaming, their first victory of the year, and that closes them up to Valkyrie, and the rampant Carrera Condor." Rosie replied, Rory nodding, "Aurora, over to you!"

---

"Thanks Rosie! Well, I'm joined here by race winner Cassie Neves, Cassie, how are you feeling?

"Amazing, thank you! So so happy, the ship did everything right, and....oh my god I'm so happy to be back!" Cassie was nearly crying, and put her trophy in the air once more, to the shouting whoops of the crowd, clutching it like a baby, posing for a camera and smiling for the first time in a hell of a long time with that result.

---

The interviews continued, as pilot after pilot filtered through, getting an eye in on their results and their feedback in the forested, undulating German track.

"Kais, a nice turn there for you through that race to get a respectable points haul from Al-Saqr. How did you find those moves on Hornfleur and Mulder?"

"Bea, that seemed like a very controlled race from you, sitting in P5 nearly the entire second half of the race unchallenged. Are we seeing a matured, controlled side to you?"

"Paul, sadly not the result you were looking for at Valkyrie's home race. Do you think you could have been a bit more aggressive today, given the pressure from Zygon and the midfield pack?"

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP) (COMPLETED)

Ark Angel, Lower Earth Orbit

Always Has Been

Skye Rosalind Lyons

@Starlance

"Good shout, Ebrima. Let's just hope she hasn't got the same brand. You should have a IFF identifier in the HUD if you really have to, but....I expect Rose to know that." Skye replied, nodding, knowing the Cameroonian might have been a strange pick for this whole job, but she had trust in him.

@LadyAmber

"Thanks, Chaos. Appreciate it. It links to my other jump jet systems, so that should tie together nicely." Athena commented back, watching as the hyper American pushed away, moving in front, Athena still in her own awe.

The team were readied, and with tape on, as per Ebrima's advice, moving off from the rail.

To call it moving was definitely strange. Moving? Just traversing through space was weird. The term Skye used to describe movement was a mix of flying, floating and just gliding thanks to the MMU, given there was no parallax to fix on, and it felt like fighting in three-dimensions- the only real reference point being the solar panels and space station up ahead, the strewn out arms and larger core containing Rose and all manner of world-ending mess.

The abyss was infinite, and Skye had to think to herself on everything. Kazakhstan felt like a totally different issue, but that was the satelite superweapon fucking them over. Then Singapore, where the CEO spilled the beans, and gave up the sites in Chile and Colombia, leading to the near collapse of Artemis. A collapse that the team were used in making to give Rose what she wanted. And Artemis got their reply in Marrakesh, Nagoya, Greenland, Newfoundland and La Palma, and now, Reunion, and here. They'd hunt them to the end to stop Sol Hestia. Wherever they went, they had got it set. But Rose had been elusive.

Now Skye knew there was nowhere to run.

Though the small patrol up ahead was trying to make that harder, the suits pale white in the obsidian black sky. They weren't friendlies. Nobody up here was.

"Contacts, up ahead. Weapons free." Skye's voice remained almost toned in, Skye dodging out of the way as she spotted one of them was a heavy. Athena was already on that, fifty cal rounds quickly disabling them with better accuracy than the clumsy heavy could bring to bear, but still, making Skye dive behind solar panels

Moving through, Skye sent a handful of rounds, aware that it would just take one bullet to find target, and she found hers, going up over the panel through a slit and scattering her first bullets in AG. Sealing up with the expanding foam they had to hand had been on her mind, if a round did land, but also, that thought was that she'd be dead near instantly if she couldn't.

So when one of the Artemis mercs got a couple of rounds to the side to the side, and immediately the effects were visible, the merc recoiling away and in absolute silence, disappearing, it was a reminder of how quick that would end someone in a fight. The only feeling was the weapon's recoil transmitting through her shoulder, clattering feedback that reminded her that every dickhead action was getting a 7.62mm sized reaction.

"More coming in!" Skye kept as calm as she could, using her MMU to pivot around a panel's spine, finding cover from the angle she could see a few more coming through, keeping in shadow and boosting around, sending rounds down range, before, darting between panels, evading a few rounds that splatted panels and allowed her to peer and get a headshot on one, sending the poor bastard backwards in a messy spray.

The voice in the team's ear, however, interrupted any flow they had, now moving closer to the main platform of the station.

"Raven Squad! And....Skye, so nice to see you join me. Fought through your fair share of hell. But you made it at last, to join me at the end." Rose's voice cackled across the comms, an unauthorised link in their HUD feed, as Skye didn't stay professional at all. It was, quite literally, personal.

"No idea how you're on comms, but I'm gonna fucking tear you apart when I find you! Come out here and fight me, you coward!" Skye gritted her teeth, the voice on the other end chuckling.

"Well, I have my share of mercs between you and me. Motivated just as much as you. By the by, I'm so happy I kept all these bodies up here that I'm busy sequencing....you know, it was how I got the drop on you in Tokyo. And now it turns out to be better than even my original plan because you get to watch." Rose's voice continued, absolutely rubbing the salt into wound.

"Isn't it ironic the blood in you is about to put humanity back into the stone age? Well, Sam's last little remainders of family, Freya's other half, Ebrima's.....whatever that fucking orphan you feel sorry for deserves, that petty bitch you brought along at the last minute....and your ex-partner, Skye? Just because of your blood. How are you finding a new body?" Rose cackled, as Skye scowled, the redhead knowing what she was trying to do. She delivered her reply through gritted teeth.

"I'm going to enjoy fucking making you breathe in a vacuum. Give it up, Rose, we have you outgunned and your plan isn't going to work. This is over, how can you not fucking see that!"

"Oh, you came this far, did so much, but I don't think it matters. First batch will be ready to go soon. I think I'll drop it on Scotland to begin with. Kill anyone we grew up with to begin with. You got here Skye, but I have plenty more to give." The voice on the other end cut out, as Skye scowled, in a rage moving through the solar panel field and getting a jump on from another merc, who levelled the rifle at her. With a swift boost, Skye bought boot into face and magdumped, yelling, throwing mag away and hurling a new one in.

"Team, keep fucking moving, and ice anyone, and.....save her for me. Chaos, isolate Rose's comms line and keep it if we need her back." Skye's last comms came with venom, as she flickned a new mag in, and kept on moving, approaching one of the "arms" of the space station, using a side of it for cover as she had to face away from another group coming in. Athena kept up the rear, pinning a couple more mercs with .50 cal fire, unlike the heavy that needed at least 50 rounds worth to smack open their helmet, instead just exploding them once hit. More goons were en-route, but they were closing in, and there was nothing that Skye had in mind that would stop them.

Fighting in space was certainly weird, but as Skye darted from cover to cover, firing her grapple into a distant point of the space station and reeling in, she could use it to rapidly jump out of one set of cover into another, flicking a new mag in whilst doing so, before laying down some fire on another group of hostiles flanking the group. Boaro and Chaos were in the midst of it, while Frigga and Valkyrie were ploughing into the main group, allowing them to take on what felt like at least two dozen worth of mercs.

DELTΔ HYPER (Anti-Gravity Racing, Cyberpunk/Solarpunk RP)

Thursday August 3rd
Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany
1500 EST

Fear Factor Part Two

Soundtrack: The Prodigy- Timebomb Zone



Ben had taken a fast approach, giving Bea everything and more back when the canopy lid went down. What she'd given, he'd give back....

"Past idol, has to be Starcross, come on!" Ben replied, taking a nice line through a chicane, leaving the GP circuit out to the Nordschlife. The next question came quickly, after Ben didn't take any corners slow, blasting back on power hearing that particularly iconic question come back.

"Schnitzel! Okay, back over Flugplatz in a bit!" Ben whooped, turning the ship through another series of MAG-walled corners, cackling with excitement, waiting for the next question.

"Uhh, honestly, sometimes whether I've left....ooo that's late, yeah sometimes I think about just random stuff, crap that is tight out of there!" Ben yelled out, taking a tight line after the ship landed at Flugplatz, coming a few meters closer to the wall, but internally, not wanting to communicate that in this ship, he hadn't felt that all there.

"Couple, I'd ship Cassie and Harrison, I mean where there's smoke there's fire!" Ben was replying to the quick fire, as the corners burned and burned away.

"BBQ host, probably Sally, she is amazing!"

"Dream car, uhhh.....crap, probably a Pagani Horatio Carrera, 2052 spec, always wanted one of those, best looking car, ever!" Ben hurtled the ship around into Eschbach, giving Bea back exactly what was given, even as a junior, knowing how to find the margins. His skill lay less in being able to tame unstable ships into corners, but more like his mentor, smoothly, caressing the ship to find a limit, starting slow and then ramping it up, a conservative approach that then started to push against limits.

"Uhhh, race on Mars, definitely, I love space so no brainer!" Ben kept going, keeping it flat through the turbulent undulation towards the last third of the lap, hearing Bea's next question, the feeling of piloting a ship without traffic absolutely addicting.

"I have an orange tabby cat called Peach, my girlfriend says we should get more and call them after other fruit but I think she's....woah, big turn in little Carousel!" Ben yelled, basically screaming at this point as the ship got whipped around like a bobsled in a corner. And pulling off it.

"Yeah, okay, that was fun! You alright?" Ben smiled, back down the final sectors, peeling off the Nordschlife and back into the pits, opening the canopy, getting a glance at a no doubt, terrified Bea.

---

Meanwhile, Florence was smiling, as best as she could and returning the favour to Kais, piloting with a certain kind of smooth, controlled, gentle poise. She almost seemed buttery at the controls, barely having to think much to pull the ship around, Florence similar to Cassie in having Scots heritage, albeit rather than Edinburgh-accented soft touch, it was a more or a Highland, northern Scots accent given her roots in Aberdeen and Moray, whisky country. A legend of the sport, with very little to prove, given her two titles and Triple Crown, she just oozed ease, even being attacked around a circuit by the most scary of all the pilots, and now in control, reflected that.

"Past idol? David Coulthard! I mean, come on, Scottish, F1 driver! Yeah, I'm old school like that!" Florence was easy, barely even wincing under pressure.

"Strudel! With cherries, honestly, unbeatable!" Easy again, Flugplatz taken more gracefully than Ben, Florence able to steer the ship, even this model, like it virtually flew through the sector and into the MAG-wall catch.

"When leading a race once, I was so far ahead, I genuinely thought about the robot at Robot Corner in Tokyo, loads and loads. Like, you ever been like....oh damn, these brakes are so much worse than a normal ship! Yeah, like how does it work, is there a person in there operating it like a mech, or just a server, and if the former, when can I give it a go?" No doubt Florence caught out Kais there, stabbing on airbrakes and no doubt winding him up with just how hard she had to bank in, pushing the ship a little more now she was comfortable, knowing she'd likely winded Kais if she was feeling that turn herself.

"Sorry! A bit of late braking there, yeah apart from that, what do I think on track, probably trying not to crash! Uhh, I would ship Paul and Bea, they're both basically border collies and mad as each other!" Florence replied, giggling away, absolutely enjoying this format again as silly as it was to the next question.

"Probably Sally, she's gonna get a shout here because I didn't think it was true, but she might actually be better than my dad's!" Florence added, giving a whoo as the undulation threw the ship out of the winding esses, already into the last third of the circuit.

"Dream car, uhhh, I already have it, 2012 Porsche GT3 RS, best thing in the world, absolute dream. Let me know if you fancy a go and it will change your opinion on early 21st Century cars, completely, it's so mechanical!" Florence smirked, the questions quick-firing back.

"Ocean, I do not sleep well in space, I tried Rally Raid on Mars but it is sickening! So yeah, under the sea, which I prefer!" Another easy one, the ship cranked up to 400kph through the tight forest, before back through towards Carousel.

"Things you don't know, gosh you already did so many of these....okay, I actually found out through my mum I am distantly related to the guy from Pink Floyd, Nick Mason? I have no idea how, but I suppose it explains why I liked drumming as a kid! Or something! I don't know, but yeah, that's a lap! How are you feeling Kais?" Florence smiled, pulling into the pits, behind the other ship that had already run a lap, Bea and Ben already out.

---

In the other ship, Hamid kept a tight leash through the corners, no doubt terrifying Paul at this point. The GP track had its fair share of tight corners, even in spite of it being tame versus the Nordschlife, public-road like section.

"Shit, Dunlop is way tighter than I thought! Okay, idol, that would be Maxine Lacroix, she was unbeatable on a good day!" A deep cut. Interesting from Hamid, given he probably wasn't alive during her dominating period, but well, it all trickled in, questions coming quick.

"Strudel, I have always been a sugar fiend!" Hamid was bullet point, his technique with the ship as a former test pilot finding limits fast, but perhaps not quite yet as comfortable as others in extracting the dark arts when it came to qualifying or races, just focussed on technical rather than the innate ship to ship feeling.

"No idea, I think uhh...Ben and Bea? Come one, someone had to say that! Or else someone is saying you and anyone else, brother!" Shipping was not an easy answer to make. But he could make a punt at least.

"Uhh, honestly, I heard good things about Harrison, Australian BBQ is almost better than Tagine, if not, then my father with mechoui is the best!" Hamid was boyish in his response, but of course, nothing to him beat that mechoui. Noting artificial even glimmered.

"Yallah, Land Rover Defender 90, air conditioning attached! So many rusted out models that I wanted to buy and restore, I would give my kidneys to find an original like my great-grandfather had in Ouazarate!" Hamid chuckled, a little bit of that rally raid lover coming out, as he peeled through a tight left right, building his trust with the ship, albeit hanging loose through a dip and turn.

"Mars, I'm all about sand, desert, same thing, right?" The Moroccan understated, in the way only a young pilot similar in age to Paul could.

"Uhhh, I play electric guitar and e-bow in my spare time, I used to play in a Saharan rock band so I love music and run a separate social page, @RiffSaharien for that!" Hamid straightened up the ship on the straight, cackling, with a big grin, hoping Paul had held it together.

"Habibi, this was fun! Thank you!"

---

Saturday August 5th
Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany
1500 EST

Out Lap

Qualifying had come and gone. The lap was normally the longest of any F1 circuit, yet in AG terms, seemed short compared to Jordan, Auckland, Cape Town and Italy in particular, with the endless amounts of corners and undulation making it feel longer, as well as the lack of an insane view that any of those four presented. It felt more cerebral, every undulation terrifying, yet speed never lost completely in any section. It was difficult to pass, that was for sure, so a good qualy lap felt like a good marker of performance, at least, knowing that it was about what the ship could do on the circuit.

And the results put teams that had invested into stability back on top. Though Amy's ship catching fire at Flugplatz was not on anyone's bingo card, the disappointed Brit clambering out of a ship that simply decided that it didn't want to complete a qualy lap today, the trim set a little too aggressively on the ship and engine settings turned up a little too high. But on the flipside, Jenny was actually proving to be a fiend in that second seat, and wedged between two Zygon ships. They'd been performing well, coming through with a stability setup that certainly threatened other teams on the grid, no doubt, Carrera Condor were watching that. Southern Cross were off the mark, with Nora Kelly doing what she did best in ragging a ship that simply just didn't feel cohesive over the line, while Valkyrie were looking like they'd go to war with Carrera once more. Al-Saqr weren't exactly loving how lacking in stability the ship was, but Hamid not being as bad as before was a good omen, at least.

Unlike Spa, the dry, sunny qualifying had been fairly without incident.

Qualifying Results for Nürburgring:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qF6cn…

---

Review with Rory Andrews

Rory looked up, sitting in the sofa again, first time in a little while after the results of qualy played out, the ups and downs all to see.
"I think it became clear that what we saw in Auckland turned out to be a false dawn for many teams, for many pilots. And for Kelly and Zenix, I think their early successes got tested in how the rest of the grid bit back. It has been one of the most competitive seasons in Formula AG in years, and they were put against it."

More footage played back, showing them talking to staff, as Aurora broke the murmur.

"And how about the pilot swap at Silver Apex?"

"The move for Lowry just seemed like a match made in heaven. And her friend in Formula AG, Beatrix Ward....well, nobody had a victory from Carrera Condor! Nobody!" Rory chuckled, cutting to them, looking at telemetry in their pit box, coming back in.

"I suppose it comes down to how they did in improving that ship. Lots of risks, but lots of payoff too. And it makes the midfield, which was impossible to separate, simply even more difficult. We've had so many race winners, and what we thought was a sweep from Amy Stirling just isn't happening this year. And then there's NOVA Racing...well, that has been staggering too. All change." Rory commented, the camera cutting back to him.

"How do you see the rest of the season playing out, with that update?" Aurora asked, as Rory laughed, the lightly bearded commentator leaning back in his chair, shrugging.

"Harrison Makara is two dozen points from Amy Stirling. And Nora Kelly is no doubt smelling blood because she's right behind. Her injury was....well, one of the worst we've seen, and most thought she'd be down and out. But not her, so I expect any chance she knows she has, she'll take. She is overperforming a ship that seemingly can't be tamed in stability, even in circuits like this. Kais Zenix is the same, despite losing Layla to personal, medical reasons, he just won't let up now. And as for the others? I think they all want to make the most of this season. Valkyrie want a solid finish to prepare for next year's final push. Carrera want to solidify their position and beat out teams, maybe style themselves as a Southern Cross for next year. Zygon want to recover, bring it back to somewhere they can with a ship that now looks like what they really wanted at the start of the season. And the other teams in the midfield will squabble. Silver Apex will want to get that first place back, by any means, and with Jenny, I think they have a chance of it." Rory paused, shrugging his shoulders.

"It's all to play for. No runaway winners yet."

---

Post Qualifying Interview

Back on the couch, the interview felt like it shifted gears, from the fun. All of the pilots got asked the same question, cutting between the individuals, the question feeling a little bit more brutal, honest, open, from Aurora.

An opportunity to bear a heart, or cover that.

What would you say is the hardest thing for you about racing in Formula AG?

DELTΔ HYPER (Anti-Gravity Racing, Cyberpunk/Solarpunk RP)

The interviews with the rest of the pilots played out, mixed in with those of the pilots in focus.

"Yeah, just stunning result from Paul and Bea, honestly, they just had something to fight over and I was a spectator. Super impressive, and I'll be keeping an eye on them!" Amy's response was one still from her wear, just how much she had to fight to get there, but not one that felt insincere or misplaced.

"Not the best, but again, just couldn't do anything to match with the setups that Carrera and Apex had this weekend. Just can't say anything more, we love Spa, but this isn't one for us, though definitely not one to forget with that incredible fight at the front." Harrison commented, keeping it easy in comments, albeit having little else to say.

"Another non-points finish. It's a tough one this year, but what can we do." Astrid shrugged, leaving frame as soon as she came in.

"Not a bad showing, just couldn't get into points, man, that Carrera ship is fast!" Max commented, his comment quickly cut to the next.

"Well, it's not exactly how I imagined it, no, but a lot of lessons learned, and adaptation. The ship is very different and I have every belief I will do better." Hamid seemed a little more downbeat, but then again, after such a poor rookie performance, he had every reason to be saying that.

"Not a bad start, yeah! A point on return, honestly, it's like being back to where I left off, and while the ship has a long way to go, I'm happy to be getting started." Florence replied to the question asked, moving out of the way in her fluoro-yellow-green raincoat as another shower started to pour down.

"Well, its a decent showing from us. Shame that Han couldn't get a point, but yeah, a good sign of things to come." Cassie couldn't complain, and while the ship felt very potent of late, it just didn't have that cutting edge on Carrera. At least, not here.

---

Race Day
Sunday July 31st
Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium
1400 EST

Closing on Belgium

Aurora was back in the studio to close up.

"Well, what a show we have had. And we don't even have that long to wait for more racing in the hills of northern Europe, as we head over the border to the Nurburgring for a classic of the season, and no doubt to see more thrilling racing." Aurora spoke over the montage, as the show rolled to a close. "From all of us at Delta Hyper, thank you for joining us, and we'll see you in Germany next weekend."

Soundtrack: The Upbeats- All Over You

And with that, the race highlights played. Mulder versus Ward, all the way, every tangle, the clash between Hamid and Kofi, the rain and the absolutely manic supporters. From the weaves that Paul made to get to 2nd, to the heroic move on 1st that Bea held out on, it was a classic for the books, topped off with Bea's beaming face on the top of the podium, spraying champagne down Paul's neck, and on top of it all.

---

Bit by bit, the paddock died down as truck after truck carried materials out, and the buildings on site were unpacked. As a double header, most of the ships weren't going back to the factory, even if some of the staff were- most were being shipped direct to the Nuburgring, so for that case, logistically, upgrades weren't really on the cards unless something late came in. The further-travelling teams, like Carrera Condor, Southern Cross, Zygon and MMR had mostly kept their staff local, instead immediately heading to the circuit once everything was done, and using local facilities and amenities to get underway.

---

Astrid Thorsdottir

Sitting up inside the white-lined sim room, Astrid sat in the corner, exhaling, looking into the giant glass-panelled form that made up the immersion of the room,

Tobias, her usual PT had come back in, seeing Astrid on cooldown, her thermal long-sleeved shirt and tights revealing plenty of hours in the cockpit, trying, and trying again.
"How's it feeling?"

Astrid sighed, shrugging, unable to really make the words.
"It's shit. All these false dawns." She muttered, as Tobias sat down by her side, leaning against the cool concrete wall, in whitewash.
"Yeah, it is. But this year might just not be it. Let's focus on the fact we're still nibbling at points. And you're not far off them." Tobias's voice was not a reassurance to her, as she put her head back, breathing out, looking back.

"But far enough off to watch us drop through the points. It's a tight one this year. Carrera got good. Way more than anyone thought." She noted, sipping down water from her bottle, as Tobias nodded without much to say, Astrid looking across.

"I hope the strategy is right. Prioritise the ship for next year. But we should try and salvage something. Have you got anything in mind we can look at in the short term? Anatomy, without ripping me into fifty pieces?" Astrid asked, Tobias taking a moment to think that question over, looking over her, knowing they'd had this discussion before.

"Not many. I know you prefer purism, but is this the time to think about it? Even some of the nanite stuff, bone density work. You've always been quietly off this augmentation business. And I know, FIAR probably should tighten up. But we need something." Tobias asked, as Astrid sighed, looking at the simulator, then back at him.
"The option without losing limbs sounds better."

---

Jen Lowry

Another session with a oxygen monitoring and supplying mask on, Jen was on the treadmill. Her hair coloured in a wilder sort of aquamarine and tucked in a bun, her new arms holding onto the rails, the white-shimmery silver tech-like vest in Apex's brand, even if she herself, prefered VIXN's lineup. It was a chance to at least strench out and keep routine, especially as a break from sitting in the simulator and being plugged in.

Even with prosthetic limbs, and a lot of her lungs and heart replaced with synthetic elements, testing and constant checkups, as well as building core fiber to work with the prosthetics, high loads in the ship meant that fitness was always a priority. That and the fact she was trying to match Ava's pacing on the Strava application that all the pilots had access to. More of a flex than anything else, because genuinely, outside of Kais and oddly, Vlad of all people, Ava was that benchmark that she wanted to hit. Long legs, based out of Ava's natural frame were always going to be impossible to match but Jen never liked to turn down a challenge. And well, prosthetic limbs could only do so much that their owner had, but VO2 max, and every benefit that came with being as fit as a fiddle meant taking corners better, taking the endurance on more, and being able to come out of it swinging was always something to aspire towards. So being hooked up like this wasn't just science, it was a strange sort of reassurance.

It felt strange to have hit the ground running so quick. 4th had been admirable, and while losing out to Paul at the start, that just came from playing it safe. Not taking anything too difficult. And it was a promising sign she hadn't binned the ship and lost any more positions, which was exactly what Apex needed to chase after Southern Cross. That much was telling, and boded extremely well for Jenny. Able to tame that ship, which was surprising considering all the rumours.

Finishing up on the treadmill, she pinged Bea a message, before putting her phone back in her vest's pocket, headed to get checked in with the muscular-skeletal specialists and check they were happy with her mods.

---

GREEN//HELL//HEAVY

Soundtrack: Muse - Unravelling

The bars widen on a forest, a huge one, with a tiny ribbon of tarmac running through it. Not even widened, while the GP-Strecke may have been more a classic racing circuit, the Nordschlife, the northern ring, was nothing like that. It was covered in graffiti, and it felt, by comparison to every other AG circuit, the opposite of a marketer's paradise. Despite every advancement in AG, the banking on certain elements with MAG tracking, it was virtually untouched, unlike Spa.

It felt raw. With shirtless fans drinking Pilsner on each corner, the degeneracy still here. This was crazytown.

"Welcome to the Green Hell." The voice of Ulrich Falkner, carrying through with his distinct German pronunciation, casting a rather darker shadow.

A scattered montage. Racing in the 1970s through perilous corners. Nikki Lauda's crash and the fireball that had ensued. Crashes of GT3 cars. GT4 cars. Idiots in BMW M4s thinking they had what it took, instead binning it in gravel at Youtuber Corner, among the other cult-followings that this circuit had gone through.

"A circuit that claims all."

And then a top down, the visuals speedrunning through it.

"184 corners, and 26 kilometres of pure torture."

A cut through a high contrast, polarised view, turning blue sky to black, and the dark black to white. The feeling of it being daunting. Almost impossible to remember. Even Italy, which by comparison was about as long, didn't have this level of complexity.

"Nowhere to run." Cutting to an onboard, through Flugplatz that sent ships airborne, just showing how tight the circuit was as there was almost zero run-off outside of the field generators, and another collision being heard.

"Nowhere to hide." The crash of an older Carrera ship in the gravel tangled up with an older Zygon ship.

It felt almost like a cosmic terror, the bubbling feeling.

"Undulation creating terror. Uncertainty. Entropy." The circuit in burst snippets of polarised film, inverted in colour, the MAG circuit adding to that feeling of dread, a ship on side through Carousel.

"Welcome to Germany. Welcome to terror. It's scary good." And as if with that, the film seemed to granulate and fade away, turning into powder.

They were aiming for definitely some sort of horror here.

---

DELTΔ HYPER

Episode Eleven: The Green Hell

Thursday August 3rd
Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany
1500 EST

The Fear Factor

With the intro out of the way, the comparatively, and hysterically comparative sunny day at the Nürburgring clashed completely with the horrific weather of the week earlier in Spa, barely 200 miles away in the Ardennes. The Eifel Mountains gave a similar atmosphere, and while the GP circuit where the racing started was comparable to sections of other racing circuits like Portimao and Silverstone, it turned into anything but- with the narrow Nordschlife, or "Northern Loop" narrowing the circuit into a harrowing, barely two-ship wide track that pilots loved to hate.

Rosie was then brought into view, standing in the pit lane, a little before proceedings would take place this weekend to start this off with a little bit of a different intro.

"So, we've seen our pilots race each other, in karts. And last weekend we saw them fight in AG ships. But we wanted to give them a little bit of a different experience. Something to really scare them a little." Rosie added, cutting to the next scene with her walking down the pit lane of the GP circuit, which on this occasion, was combined with the rest of the circuit.

"As we know, the Nürburgring is a public road. So, we thought that while they might normally be in control....what if they're passengers on a hot lap?"

Looking across in another sleek cut, the three two-person anti-gravity ships were in FIAR livery, so as to not favour any particular team.

"Shall we see how our pilots react?" Rosie asked, an audience already wondering just who the victims terrified passengers would be. Cutting to the next scene, Rosie walked out, her new apple blonde locks dyed for the second half of the season, in front of the collective group, all suited and readied. Beatrix, Paul, Kais, with Hamid, Florence and Ben joining them on the grid.

"Hi all! Well, welcome to this experience. How are you feeling about it?" Rosie asked, as Hamid piped up, chirpy as always.

"Thanks Rosie! Yes, I am very excited! Haven't ever raced this circuit, so can't wait!"

"Well, you're in for a treat, Hamid. Never gets old, this one..." Florence smirked, as Rosie pulled out a card, a shit-eating smile on her face in response to just how intense this was going to get. She knew the score, but he might not have...

"Well, we have another twist. I'm going to give an envelope to you."

Once opened, they'd realise what the questions contained. They'd be getting asked the question by the passenger, who no doubt, would be screaming the questions out.

"Ben, you're with Beatrice, Hamid, you're with Paul, and Florence, you're with Kais."

Ben went first, clambering into the back of the ship, without a neural link, feeling extremely exposed.
"Right. Full disclosure Bea, I'm absolutely shit at being a passenger." Ben was of course, one of the newest rookies, and the youngest of the grid now by a while, and likely to have spent time in and around the scene Bea and Jen were in.

Meanwhile, Hamid clambered into the back of the next ship along, sitting in with Paul.
"Habibi, yo! So uhh...you aren't gonna go too crazy, right? Chilled out for a local track? Right" The Moroccan's easy tone carried, although, even he had to admit, the nerves were creeping out.

Climbing in, Florence kept it cordial, knowing what was to come, but still aware that Kais drove on an edge, and even in this setting, would look to find a few tenths faster where he could.
"Haven't done one of these in a while! Alright Kais, show me what you got." Florence's confidence dripped, but well, even that wouldn't be well founded.

Soundtrack: Pendulum x Joe Valence & Brae - Napalm

Of course, what ensued next, was down to how each pilot drove. And in an AG ship, without a neural link, it was the equivalent of being strapped into a fighter jet flying off the deck, constantly. The "feel" of corners was gone, so all that was left was just sheer terror. And a lot of screaming in and around every single corner. Going easy was not something any passenger would really feel. So every single passenger was yelling, and yelling back at their pilot in command. That said, those passengers, namely, Hamid, Florence and Ben would all have questions to ask and would be delivering them under pressure.

"Who's your idol in Formula AG, past or present?"
"Schnitzel or Strudel?" (yes, it literally just says that)
"Do you think about anything else while racing?"
"Who in the paddock would you ship as a couple?
"Best BBQ host?"
"What's your dream historic car, money no object?"
"What would you prefer, a race on Mars or at the bottom of the ocean?"
"Things that people might not know about you?"

Every instinct in any pilot would be to brake earlier, corner quicker, let alone the acceleration, the violent way a ship could be thrown, and in that moment, anyone short of an android would be finding their heart rate hadn't. While on straights it was one thing, it was clear that no pilot in charge was ever going to back down when they had a passenger at least used to racing, that they would absolutely have fun terrifying.

But, once that lap was completed, the roles were reversed as they pulled into the pits, and the canopy was opened.

"How was that?" Rosie asked, as Ben shoved Bea, absolutely
"Fucking hell! Shit, that was fun, but terrifying!" Ben yelled out, everyone collectively laughing, as with it, Florence playfully wrapping her arm around Kais.
"Not bad! He's got some bravery braking in a ship that late!" The others chuckled, as Hamid wiped the sweat off his brow.
"You are crazy, Paul! What the hell, you went through Flugplatz completely flat, in a ship you've never had? Yallah, you're crazy!"

"Time to swap?" Rosie asked, and well, all the pilots would want a bit of revenge, no doubt happy about that idea.

And with that, the other pilots got to work, linked up to the ship, while their passengers weren't. Ben decided not to go easy, and well, neither did Hamid and Florence, both absolutely chatting bare gossip as they took it out on the GP circuit with ease, but once on the Nordschlife itself, returned the favour.

Reacting to that terror was all the pilots, and well, an unfiltered look in what happened when control was taken away from them on one of the most undulating, long laps of the year, taken at what felt like warp speed.

Raven Squad: Second Storm (Military/Spy-Fi RP) (COMPLETED)

Vulpine Space Command Centre, Île de la Tempête, Reunion

Last Goodbye

0800 Hours

@Rhona W
Purna embraced Eloise, smiling back, the Nepali cracking for once, knowing that for Eloise, she'd taken a lot to say that. And he too, had found that in her, usually preferring to work alone yet grateful for her backup.
"We do work well together, Eloise. You lived up to every tale I heard. And you saved my life, after all. I think I owe you more than friendship, Eloise." Purna nodded, holding her shoulders in his hands.

"I'm sure we will get the opportunity to know each other more. Raven doesn't miss. Now go finish the job, Archer." Purna smiled, a little bit of grit, knowing that in spite of Eloise's quiet, almost anti-social nature, behind those eyes was someone who just needed a little more of a pep talk. Someone more extraordinary than she probably realised, and even in himself, he'd done the thing he said he never would. Open up, let himself out a little more. There was more to life than taking lives, he realised. More than just immediate family as a distant thing. There was companionship, and that was something.

@Starlance

With it, the Nepali looked to Ebrima, knowing he should probably give a goodbye. In spite of everything, or rather, perhaps due to what they had already done, the smaller Nepali looking up to the taller Cameroonian.

"You are many things, Ebrima. You're too much of an asshole to die. That is why you will be back. Don't go losing the Kukri. Make sure you take her tongue off with it. Then maybe you will have earned it, no?" Purna casually dropped that line to the Cameroonian, cracking a rare teethy smile, chuckling, patting him on the shoulder, knowing that even if sometimes, they had a love-hate relationship, he had a respect for the Cameroonian.

"Good luck, Boaro. Go get them." Through everything that had gone down, and at the end of the world, he could see through those eyes that had long since decided.

That was before Purna hugged him, no doubt shattering any idea. Who the fuck was the Nepali to be kinder and where had they taken his original version? A joke that of late, felt in much poorer taste given Skye's situation. And with it, he was gone as soon as he'd arrived. Off to join the rest of the team in setting up kit, and preparing the team for launch.

---

Inside the truck, once getting moving, Skye was unsurprised to hear Ebrima clap back. Oh, at the end of the world, all things could happen...

Smirking, Skye looked across at Ebrima, hearing the tail end of her conversation with Athena, the Cameroonian making a head nod to Skye as Athena looked across, anticipating an answer.
"Eh, whatever job you can give him to keep him out of trouble, Athena. Perhaps you've earned retirement after this, given all of what went down, though....I doubt you'll chill out for long. But then again....well, who am I kidding. I think you're both as fucking mad as each other." Skye noted, looking at them both, chuckling.

"Maybe you would kill each other. But Ebrima was going to kill Purna a few weeks ago, and I saw him get hugged. So, hey. We're in a new world now." Skye added, getting Ebrima there, before moving onto Athena. If they weren't going to calm down normally, Skye knew she'd have the last say.

"Oh, and watching Athena flirt with my operative. Honestly. You take her on one operation, tell her the world's ending....and she goes all soft." Skye grinned knowing if she couldn't beat them, she could certainly join them. With the truck rumbling along, as she looked to Eloise, who was no doubt entertained by this. And Eloise likely turn a shade of beetroot red with Athena nearby, the blonde doing exactly that, and all of that was being discussed.

"Hey, Skye, that's between.....oh, fuck you." Athena turned red, and in that moment, Skye knew she'd won, looking to Ebrima, as if to say 'Happy Now?' in a sarcastic, tongue firmly in cheek, as she sighed, thinking about this journey, looking to her side, over to the smaller infiltrator.

"I think you might be fitting in, Eloise. Makes you plenty real. I suppose it's all pretty ridiculous, but, someone had to go and do it." Skye added, smiling back, looking at the truck came to a stop, and with that, the team were getting ready to get out. Athena casually lept down and started receiving Sam, Ebrima and Skye, before they made the short walk to the lift, and with it, to the top of the rocket.

---

Launch Pad, inside an Arianne 7, Île de la Tempête, Reunion

Launch

0830 Hours

@LadyAmber

Keller's voice came through the comms on the rocket was getting prepared, Sam's request getting a response from Mission Control.
"You are clear, Chaos. Permission is granted, sequence is commenced."

And with it, Skye looked across to Sam, giving a nod, a confirm in her ability, even if most of this was automated, she trusted Sam on this one to get them there, and hopefully, back home too. The lift pulled back, and the only thing keeping them pointed upwards at the moment still being the support strut.

The countdown began, as Skye could hear Eloise quietly, then gently louder singing to herself. And chuckled, a white grin forming as she couldn't believe any of it. She quietly mouthed the words, joining in, the team leader for half a second letting herself entertain the fantasy.

And suddenly, the countdown came into thirty seconds to launch.

Then twenty, then ten, then five.....

The launch pad itself felt tentative, as suddenly, an explosion of power, like being hurled by a giant took the rocket from slowly rising off the pad with the fuel line peeling away to faster, and faster, and faster, leaving behind everything. It was mind-melting, and over too quickly as the first stages dropped, any idea of being able to compare this to any other experience quickly faded for almost the entire team.

The rocket soon cleared the upper stratosphere, and with it, the constant acceleration and pull felt like it was contacting something else other than air. It felt like it was just an unstoppable push, as the outside of the ship went from a strange hazy blue, to an obsidian black.

"Okay, sequencing. And.....separation." Keller's voice stayed calm as everything shook, rattling audibly, from rifles to cockpit as the force of millions of horsepower sent them off-planet. The rocket's final stage released, and suddenly, the last bit of acceleration hit everyone, the final module accelerating, before the engine cut out, and the long road to orbit would continue with every micro-adjustment that came with it.

---

Part Eight: The Final Countdown

Somewhere......in Low Earth Orbit

1100 Local Time (Reunion)

Soundtrack: M83 - Atlas Imperial



Unstrapping the harness on Keller's confirm of orbit achieved, Skye sorted herself first despite the bulky hands of her spacesuit, but eventually, got there and was able to peel away, no longer pressed into chair, but actually able to float. Skye watched as the SIG floated in front of her off her strap once released, grabbing it back into hand, feeling the cold supply of rebreathed oxygen steadily hold, as she grabbed a hold of her own seat, leaning in and unbuckling Eloise's harness, the nearest passenger to her.

Moving to the window after turning, finding the whole action strange that she could pirouette almost with zero consequence, adjusting her comms band to pick up the team locally on her HUD inside her visor.
"Valkyrie, Frigga, you two alive?"

"Holy shit! My eyeballs feel like they bounced off the back of my skull on launch, but yeah, sure, good! Woooo!" Athena excitedly called, watching through Skye's feed as she went to the window on the side of the pod, for a moment, silent.

There it was. Everything they were trying to save. All of it, the tiny, teeny insignificant island nothing against India and Africa below, and beyond that, further north, Europe. And Scotland, barely visible given as usual, it was covered in cloud.

Overview effect had a hell of an impact on people. How on earth Rose was comfortable ending all of this seeing it all, how insignificant, small, and tiny they were in the infinite darkness, Skye couldn't even tell. But seeing it now reinforced everything. All good, all bad, and everything between was there, and they had to do something to let it see another day, as it stood.

"Good to hear." Skye uttered almost without tone given what she was seeing and her mind elsewhere, even the team lead not as animated as before, taking this in. Despite everything, all the stakes, she couldn't help but look.

"Well, it's pretty awesome out there! Wow!" Athena's excitement bounded, ruining just about everyone's immersion, as her voice may as well have echoed, given she could only look at this through her HUD's interconnection to Skye now from her position in the cargo area the heavy now not quite as much, and in this environment, seemed without much training, to be able to thrive given she now didn't have to worry about weight.

She was in as much shock, her experience a bit different given the Warhawk's seals were doing what they had to, keeping her from dying in the cold vacuum of space. And though Frigga wouldn't see it, she gave her sister a smile, knowing that Freya must have been adoring all of this. She loved physics so much her sister, so much she talked about going to space someday, and now here they were, together at potentially the end of the world, doing it. Athena was many things, overexcited, overstimulated, perhaps hyperreal, but there was a certain warmth even in spite of all of it, that it just came from being larger than life. And in a strange way, she now was seeing something beyond even what she could, and simply grateful for everything it was.

Looking on, that view of earth put everything in perspective as Skye got a hold of herself, not replying to Athena, but instead, back to the matter at hand feeling the micro-movements of the module, Keller adjusting it both through the pre-programmed approach and through micro-movements given the adjusting position of the two objects in the sky full of stars.

"Keller, what's our ETA?" Skye asked, still staring at the view, genuinely awe-struck, the comms spluttering a little as the receiver unit adjusted.

"You are ten minutes, and closing. Chaos, standby, I need a few inputs from you to adjust trajectory and placement. Can you confirm?" Keller's voice was in a world of absolute crazy, a bit of calm.

Awaiting that affirm, Keller moved onto the next topic of converation, with Skye.

"Are you familiar with Ark Angel, Miss Ly.....Queen?"

"Enough to know it's about the size of the ISS, there's two ways in, and a ridiculously big set of solar panels anchored to it. There's pods across it for evac, if we can't make it back to the Arianne." Skye replied, moving off, checking on the team, who were unbuckling themselves, bit by bit, and no doubt seeing this for themselves for the first time.

"Affirmative, Queen, we're tracking Ark Angel now, feed it sent to you. We have activity, with a docked cargo unit suggesting signs of movement. Standby, we will be in position to open cargo doors." Keller replied, that fact a moot point, given the pressure was already going, and the suits felt like a bubble now, a silent, protective layer in which the Scot could hear her own breathing. She took a moment to address the team, knowing they no doubt were feeling this.

"Right. Everyone want to take a moment to get used to this? As per what I mentioned. Move slowly at first. Hold onto something. Nice gentle breathing." Looking to the team, their collective mum-of-the-group continuing.

"You've got a grapple on your left arm if you need to hook yourself to something, and an MMU pack, that will allow you to move forwards and back, up and down, right and left, with control by your left waist, should be on a tether to your arm. Once we're clambered out, test it and check you're happy with it while hanging onto the rail. We're fighting in many more dimensions now, so don't think about the rules like normal. But that does mean hostiles will come from any direction too." Skye added, keeping herself calm in comms, looking up, her face lit up by the internal lighting on the visor, the protective element not yet peeled down.

"Rose'll have some mercs with her, likely her inner circle, whatever loyalists she's chosen for this. They'll fight hard as hell and will do anything to stop us. But we'll do better. We've all got samples that will kill Sol Hestia dead if injected into the containment, so that's priority, we cannot let her send any of it down. And if you see Rose, shoot first, ask questions later. The bitch dies, no matter what happens." Skye exhaled, looking on at one last time to the group. "This ends here."

Moving to the back, Skye turned the door to enter the cargo hold, the module not pressurised at all which made it a bit easier, as Athena helped peel it open, and gave Skye a hand, before helping the others through, the old phases of the rocket all gone and been, now all that was left, was the teeny husk on the back of the passenger module, and behind that, the cargo compartment where a satellite may have been manually unwound. Zero gravity was truly weird, but in Skye fashion, she simply adapted where she could, not making any note of which way was now up, rather, what she could work towards, and tested out her MMU arrangement, the small micro-jets allowing her to propel herself up, and across the tight space with relative ease. She peeled down the visor, the almost golden-like reflection obscuring her face.

On finishing her test, the cargo doors opened, and the view went from a portal window, to standing on the edge of the greatest abyss, and in view, every single other human being that was alive right now, bar a few that they'd be tacking off the list. And the spindly space station, with all of its solar arrays, sitting in the distance now on their 2 o'clock, about on horizontal level. It couldn't have been more than half a kilometre, though any semblance of understanding distance went completely to shit with a view like that in the background. Sitting there, sprawled out, over the Horn of Africa.

"Right." Skye simply understated in classic British tone, taking the lead, peeling herself up, and casually floating along the rail, making room, feeling the module shift beneath her before coming to a resting stop, although in relative terms, that wasn't exactly noticeable beyond the slight drift that still continued.

"Okay, Queen, this is as close as we can safely put you for now. You are cleared to move. Good luck." Keller's voice actually seemed to creak, even the Dutch controller cracking at that last one. A feeling of hope, even in spite of everything, she'd done all she could to get them there. Now they had to deliver.

Mag peeled out of the velcro, Skye slid it into the MCX and with a satisfying clunk she could feel transmitted from the cold metal in her hands, the Scot readied up, casually floating off, engaging the MMU unit in her left hand, rifle pointed forward in right.

Into the darkness, she couldn't believe they were about to end this all. Everything up to now, led them to this point here. A fireteam in the literal dark of space, headed on a mission that felt impossible.
"Okay, Raven. On me then. Let's go sort this mess out, yeah?" Skye understated once more, checking her team were following, and knew whatever came next, this was going to end here.

DELTΔ HYPER (Anti-Gravity Racing, Cyberpunk/Solarpunk RP)

Race Day
Sunday July 31st
Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium
1400 EST

The Battle of Stavelot

Amy Stirling

Soundtrack: Hans Zimmer- Three Laps Is A Lifetime

With a dried surface after the heavy rain, but more forecast, it was impossible to tell what the strategy would be. All 20 ships on the grid, heat glowing, all minds focussed. This was Formula AG, back.

"Check, check." Keira's voice came through, as Amy pulled down the canopy, looking through her lens at Bea, who was no doubt, was staggered to be here.

"Affirm." Amy's voice stayed on point, thinking. Deeply.

"Just remember, nice and calm strategy. Beatrix overdrove that ship yesterday. Let's let her dictate the pace, and harvest ELS, and then snatch it back when ready. Nice and smooth, Amy. Let's sow up yesterday's pole."

"Yeah, well.....it's about to start raining hard in five minutes. We'll see what happens then." Amy replied, exhaling hard, oxygen flowing, feeling her mind meld with the ship, feeling the bits of water on the chassis, feeling herself bond. Meld, connect. It felt stranger every time. Weirder, but the ship was pulling her under and that was where she could only go now. Find a golden lap, play the strategy against the upstart Carrera, and then bring on home.

"Yeah, understood Amy, sequence is about to begin. Standby. All you. Let's do this." Keira's last comms came through, as Amy readied up, looking once again in her virtual mirror, before back to the lights.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

It was clean. And immediately, Amy shut that door on Bea, making it clear. No moves into Turn One. Not even a chance.

And lap one was tidy. Clean. A chance to build up ELS. Play it out, let Bea figure out if she wanted this or not.

And the sunshine, right on forecast, turned into that monsoon. The dark, massive clouds that loomed on the horizon found their target. Spa Francochamps was a direct hit.

And so was Bea, able to make the best out of a run up out of La Source, and after Radillon, Amy realised that Bea had followed right on her tail. All of the way. Brave, Amy had to note, but she was burning her ELS to get the move done. She'd get her back.

Except she didn't. Bea held firm in Sector 2, and for a moment, Amy had no way in. No way through, despite poking, it didn't happen. Even with no mistakes, she just couldn't match her.

And it got worse than just rain, Amy switching to LIDAR and the radar to help her out as it intensified, but what was a risky send and waiting for Bea to slip up, turned into Amy losing track that a certain Belgian was currently fuelled by pure frittes, local fans and a legacy to live up to. Which, Amy had nothing left for, using her ELS to try and tag Bea, but to no avail. Paul sent it down the inside on her at Blanchimont, through an inspired ELS move that Amy had left herself vulnerable to. He'd run through Ava and Jenny already, swinging from pilot to pilot despite his ship's obvious deficiencies on the straight with something else.

But what then happened, was nothing short of majestic.

It was like Auldrick was in the car with Paul, some said it was like that because Paul didn't stop at Amy, he was swinging for Bea. Running at her. The Carrera ship was skating around on the rain like it was a Rally1 car in the Welsh forests, glued at the front yet drifting wide with the aero unable to just keep the new engine and setup at bay in this kind of torrential weather, lightening fast on outputs, yet just so terrifyingly on edge, while Paul's had found superglue to the surface even in the driving wet that seemed to reward his risky choice of setup, for a rainy race, but just couldn't make it pay in straights.

Soundtrack: Hans Zimmer- Into the Red

It couldn't have been more different, and yet, there was this moment that despite the spectators on site no doubt hating their lives in sodden wet Wellington boots, they were still on their feet. And the audience at home. The entire country of Belgium, for a moment, stopped. Realising that Paul wasn't an outside chance. He had every opportunity, and whatever was inside him in that very moment, every fiber was locked in that fight. No doubt Bea was feeling that too.

Normally, that would mean Amy could make advantage. But the way Paul and Bea were going at it, they were pushing each other harder. Like even ELS couldn't unstick them.

Both Valkyrie and Carrera team principals and strategists were no doubt screaming at the state of the data flows they were getting from their pilots. It wasn't like watching normal ship-on-ship racing, it was like watching two people with something to prove, both with their deeply personal motivations. Like they'd both kill each other than concede, like for a moment, the championship, results, anything just melted. It was pure, unadulterated stuff to watch.

On the ragged edge, barely a meter away from contact through their repulsor fields gently nudging, there was a moment of beauty in what was a duel, and two pilots, hearts at full pelt, brains in overdrive, bodies at their limit, finding out what they could do. Beatrix with a result that would never come again this season, if the setup of the ship was to be believed in this specification, while Paul had a home crowd to please, and that meant any team orders went out of the window. The moment a neurologist would have looked in horror beyond just strategists, both vitals pushed beyond whatever a normal race would do. Given they were spending half the lap trading positions, Bea mostly keeping the lead but constantly having to fend off Paul, everyone wondered if this was going to end in horror, or produce some of one of the greatest highlights of the season, if not recent AG history for a while. Bea was no stranger to it from Silverstone, while Paul had just done the unthinkable in claiming 2nd in a ship that truly didn't have the speed where it needed it.

Where adrenaline faded, whatever else was in their systems filled the void, heart rates easily pushing towards 200 beats per minute, even for an augmented body, the equivalent of perhaps being stimulated to an nth degree. A near miss here, a late brake, a lunge, or a switchback, it didn't stop. It couldn't. It was like they couldn't be pulled. An immovable force meeting an unstoppable object.

In the pouring, beating rain, people worried if a virtual safety ship would bring everyone in. If this would be stopped. Because this was poetry.

But it didn't. It kept going. Lap after lap, minute tick follow tock. A VSS for a crash between Kofi and Hamid only stalled it for half a lap, but restored the pace, and instead of stopping the race entirely, it continued.

Something some would have questioned, given just how heavy the rain was getting, without LIDAR and near-interface tech, they'd be blind when the rain was at its worst, and at best, in glaring sunshine between the intense showers on wet track with drizzle still coming down, filling the circuit with beams of floodlighting in the dark, deep forest of the Ardennes, from the chicane at Les Combes to the incredible pinch that Paul continued to try making at Neuville, always braver than Bea to make a move in MAG tracking, despite his history of MAG-based overtakes never being the best. Positions were traded in the midfield, as Kais Zenix charged through the grid, so did Florence Mason, Cassie Neves making a few moves as well as Harrison retired with a dodgy ship, yet the attention was all front.

It was relentless. Every corner, Paul shoved his ship in, and every corner, Bea fought back, and outdid him on exit, or switched back. It was breathtaking, and all the way to the end, impossible to call. Would Bea bin it, her volatile approach coming to bite her? Or would Paul find something beyond to make the move stick, already at his limit? A winner once, did he have the ability to strike twice?

The answer came as the rain stopped, and the two ships roared across the line, Beatrix Ward taking her first win in Formula AG.

---

Soundtrack: M83- Oceans Niagara

The Delta Hyper booth were on their feet as the crowd went wild. This was David versus Goliath stuff. Another weekend of Amy bottling it, underdelivering in a moment she could have made it count, yet nobody was complaining. This was as good as anything could get, as Rosie burst out yelling.

"Oh my, what a result that is! Beatrix Ward, Formula AG race winner, wow! What an incredible race between her and Paul Mulder, who on his first AG race at his home circuit, came agonisingly close to taking first!"

"Unreal scenes, Rosie, and my heart has to go out to Paul, he tried so hard, you can tell how much this meant to him, but in the end, what a spectacular show they have put on. I think this is among some of the best duels we've seen in Formula AG, the underdog Carrera finding something here that I think many rumoured may have come from Felix Burkhart's addition to the team, but there clearly was more at play here. A stunning race, and well, Beatrix Ward has officially taken off!" Rory replied,

"But let's remember, Paul Mulder came from 5th to 2nd, and through a grid like that? Incredible, you could tell his setup was always a risk, but he made that ship work through Section 2 and 3, he posted consistent purple sectors, it was like he was going faster and faster! Absolutely driving like he was possessed today, and I think he couldn't have done any more, and no doubt he'll be feeling that one!"

"And well, what about that. Amy Stirling rounds it out on the podium, and she will be gutted she couldn't hold onto a dominant pole position, but with a performance like that in front of her, not much she could do, and she will kick herself that she got played in ELS there, by two pilots who today were just a different class. Jenny Lowry takes a respectable 4th place, with a super conservative drive, proving she can hold her own against Amy in that second seat on her first outing with the Apex, while Ava Villarosa holds onto 5th for a season best result for Carrera, followed by Nora Kelly, Cassie Neves, Zenix, Hornfleur and for her debut race back, Florence Mason takes 10th."

"Yes, and I think we won't talk about that much, but wow, what work from Kais Zenix and Florence Mason. The former just making up for bad qualifying through sheer grit, punching through on the straights and using that ship like a bullet, while Mason certainly turned it on even for her first time back."

"Indeed, and while it wasn't to be for their team-mates, Hamid Atlassi clashing with Kofi Mensah, and Ben Hale failing to improve, there's certainly some new faces on the grid. All eyes on Beatrix Ward and Paul Mulder though, as we return to the podium...."

Race Results at Spa

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qF6cn…

---

Belgium: Cooldown

It had been quite the occasion. All three ships parked in 1st, 2nd and 3rd in their positions, Amy watched as the Carrera crew mobbed Bea, the two lead pilots at this point dehydrated, exhausted in every single way, and no doubt feeling that fight completely. Amy pushed through the crowd, and dapped her hand into Bea's, visor up, a grin on as she congratulated her but couldn't get through the yelling crowd, no words getting heard before the same with Paul, her suit completely soaked from sweat let alone rain, letting Paul enjoy this moment of a podium at home, and even in spite of a lack of a win, knowing nothing needed to be said. The occasion spoke for itself, as bit by bit, the podium group were ushed into the coolroom, or in Bea and Paul's case, almost carried.

Sitting inside, Amy looked to Beatrix, who must have had her heart about to explode out of her mouth. The race replayed back.
"You alright? Every butterfly has its day, right?" Amy smiled, wondering when the other Brit would stop screaming. Watching back the overtake, Amy shrugged, accepting that for what it was. Fair and simple, Bea had the faster ship, and Amy should have known better. An ELS fight against a rally driver with clean air in front of her was a terrible call in hindsight, but instead of the fluke, it ended up being what let Paul in, who himself had steamed through Ava and Jenny through masterful ELS and overtakes in techical sections, before using ELS to light up Amy. Well fucking played, Amy realised. A mistake she could have not made. But the margins were thinner. And she'd done plenty before to the others. Now they'd come this far, they were beginning to understand what it took.

Amy didn't say, or do anything that would seem menacing. But smiling, letting this moment breathe before turning to Paul.
"Man....he'd be proud. Hell of a fight you two had in front. Not often I say it....but you got me good on that one. I don't know how you're both breathing after that, that was a hard fight!" Amy smiled, knowing there were cameras, and with it, leading the way out, standing up, revitalised after a mountain of electrolytes and water.

"This one isn't a fever dream, Bea. Go out and enjoy every second of it. This is your moment." Amy spoke to the pilot she'd recently started mentoring, and with it, led the way out through the tight booth, out into the shower-filled, yet glancing sunlight of the podium, hand raised, taking her plaudits for 3rd, but a footnote compared to the two following her out.

This was not a day to forget for anyone. And while perhaps Carrera had scored an anomaly here, many reputing that Southern Cross, Zygon, and Al-Saqr would be back to claim their fight at the top in what was just luck for the Iberio-South American team, yet it was Carrera's day. It was Beatrix Ward's day, the third rookie to grab a win this season, and the one nobody saw coming, as the field generator gently repelled the rain from the podium itself, the champagne was popped, and spray went everywhere.

Formula AG was back after a summer break, and back with the world tipped upside down and rummaged around for change.

---

Delta Hyper: Pilot Interviews

After what was an intense race, the classic Delta Hyper interviews were back, once the rain had finally died off. The euphoria, the sheer insanity of what was a weekend in Spa, in the wet, had gotten their reward.

Beatrix Ward, race winner! How does that sound, how does that feel? What a move on Amy, and well, what a duel with Paul, you two looked so determined to get it over the line. Tell us what it was like, because that looked like one for the ages! I think I speak for everyone that we wish we could see duels like that in Formula AG every week!

Paul, absolutely gutting for you to just miss out on 1st, nearly going back to back on the top spot of the podium. How did it feel racing against Beatrix, both of you rookies making it look like you were seasoned professionals out there, absolutely on the edge, giving the fans and us in the commentary booth a spectacle? You seem to be in a purple patch of form, and I think you didn't just give your fans, but everyone else a show!"

Kais, an impressive recovery, coming up from 10th to 8th today. While Spa might not have been your preferred circuit, what's your feeling on the momentum that Al-Saqr have this season, and would you say you're trading the handling focussed circuits for the ones where your ship will perform better?"