Agent June / Zefa POV
Artemis Facility – Subterranean Black Site
Hours.
It has been hours since we breached the Artemis facility—and what we have uncovered is beyond even my most pessimistic expectations.
Row upon row of Lostech.
Not scraps.
Not fragments.
Entire sectors preserved in controlled vaults—manufacturing lines, assembly bays, diagnostic chambers. With the right expertise, some of these facilities could be reactivated. Others appear intact enough to resume operation almost immediately.
Experimental prototypes line sealed hangars—machines without designations I recognize, some never recorded in any database I've ever accessed.
The facility has been without power for decades, maybe longer. That has slowed us down. Blast doors resist even our heaviest cutters. Systems refuse to initialize. We force them open anyway.
And behind every barrier—
More Lostech.
But this is not our true objective.
The prize lies deeper.
At the heart of the complex is the central core, where the Mother System is housed.
ARTEMIS.
The first fully self-aware, sentient artificial intelligence ever created by humanity.
A machine so advanced it was sealed away—not destroyed—because no one could be certain it would remain loyal if awakened.
That danger is irrelevant.
We are not here to activate Artemis.
We are here to extract her Digital Codex.
A complete archive of her accumulated knowledge—research, simulations, designs, discoveries never shared with the wider Star League. Knowledge the Order must possess.
And soon, it will.
My teams have already begun placing nuclear devices throughout the primary facility. This was meant to be a surgical operation—extract the Codex, erase the evidence.
We underestimated the scale.
Artemis is not a single bunker.
It is a network.
Multiple subterranean sites scattered across the planet, all linked, all containing unknown quantities of material. I don't know what lies in the secondary vaults—and I don't need to.
The main facility must be destroyed.
Once our task is complete, ComGuard will handle the rest.
Unfortunately, complications continue to accumulate.
Our cat's paws—the pirates—are degrading faster than anticipated. Discipline is nonexistent. Coordination is collapsing.
Worse, new combatants have entered the field.
According to battlefield reports and visual confirmations, at least four lances of pristine Star League Defense Force BattleMechs have been deployed planetside. Royal-grade machines. Not relics. Not refits.
Operational.
Piloted by highly skilled warriors.
This was not in the projections.
As the acting pirate leader, I have ordered all available forces to converge on my position. Predictably, many will ignore me—but enough will obey to serve their purpose.
I don't need victory.
I need time.
Bodies to slow the defenders. Wreckage to clog approaches. Chaos to mask our extraction.
Further data pulled from Artemis' auxiliary records confirms something even more troubling.
This black site was not solely dedicated to AI research.
They were working on next-generation Kearny–Fuchida drives.
Compact designs.
Higher efficiency.
Extended jump capability—up to fifty light-years, far beyond the standard thirty.
And that is only one project among dozens.
The deeper we go, the more becomes clear.
This facility represents power on a scale the Inner Sphere has not seen since the fall of the Star League.
And all of it—
Every secret.
Every design.
Every scrap of forbidden knowledge—
Will soon belong to the Order.
No matter how many pirates die buying us the time we need.
—///—-
On the battlefield, pirate lances were breaking.
Not routing—breaking.
Multiple enemy formations had already been destroyed by the new combatants entering the field: pristine Star League Defense Force–era BattleMechs, their armor unmarred, their movements disciplined and lethal.
At least one lance of lights.
Three full medium lances.
And they moved like ghosts of another age.
Their pilots were nothing like the pirates Theodore had been fighting all day. These warriors were calm. Precise. Efficient. Often, a single pilot would dismantle an entire pirate lance alone—using terrain, timing, and flawless marksmanship.
It was a massacre.
For Theodore, there was only one possible meaning.
The governors had crossed the line.
They had released the Wolverine warriors.
That meant desperation.
Theodore tightened his grip on the Orion's controls as memory flooded back—lessons from childhood, taught in quiet rooms, spoken carefully, only to those trusted with the truth.
He was the youngest son of Governor Ricard.
And once, long ago, he had been taught his people's real history.
How the Star League Defense Force had gone into exile.
How the Clans were born.
How Clan Wolverine had been annihilated for refusing to bend.
And how the survivors had fled.
There had been a split—not a bloody one. They couldn't afford bloodshed.
One faction chose to remain Clansmen, to hold to Kerensky's vision at all costs.
The other chose to abandon it entirely—to survive, even if that meant becoming something else.
They became the Tribe.
Theodore remembered asking his father a question when he was young—one that had seemed so simple at the time.
If we came here on JumpShips… why don't we have any anymore?
Ricard's answer had been quiet. Practical. Painfully honest.
They had lost the ability to maintain spare parts.
They could no longer keep their Star League machines operational.
Their JumpShips were hidden—entombed behind one of the system's moons, preserved but unusable.
The DropShips that brought them down to the planet were stripped apart for materials.
Turned into shelters.
Factories.
Life-support infrastructure.
And over generations, people moved on.
Merchants eventually found the world.
Criminals and exiles arrived by accident and stayed.
The population grew.
Traditions softened.
Some kept the old ways—partially.
Others let them fade entirely.
But every generation…
There were always those who remembered.
Those who wanted the dignity back.
Those who dreamed of restoring what had been lost.
And now—
Theodore watched ancient Wolverine machines tear pirate 'Mechs apart like paper.
—///—
Vanessa POV
I pushed my Zaku as hard as I dared, terrain blurring beneath my feet as I made for the rendezvous point.
The battlefield was getting worse. Louder. Messier.
At least I knew Dad was still alive.
The last transmission confirmed it—heavy losses, but his unit was holding. His Orion was crippled, though. Out of the fight for now. That fact sat heavy in my chest, but I forced myself to keep moving.
My Zaku wasn't exactly pristine either.
Warning indicators glowed across my HUD—scars of my own recklessness. I'd vented too much heat, too fast. The Phase Shift Armor was cycling at reduced capacity, still active in patches but nowhere near full coverage.
I knew better.
I just didn't care at the time.
Those pirates deserved every blow I gave them—spineless, dishonorable scum. I wanted them broken. Wanted them afraid.
The price was heat.
According to my systems, I had about fifteen more minutes before the venting cycle finished and my Phase Shift Armor could fully re-engage. Until then, I had to rely on maneuvering, terrain, and restraint—none of which came naturally to me.
My tactical map updated, Gaia's signal pulsing steadily ahead.
Two hours.
That's how long it would take to reach the commander if nothing slowed me down.
I crested a low ridge when my sensors chirped.
Incoming transmission.
I brought up the channel.
I didn't hesitate.
Silence.
Just static.
For a heartbeat, I wondered if I'd said the wrong thing.
Then the channel opened again.
The word tugged at something old in my memory—lessons from school, half-whispered histories about the old ways. Things most people dismissed as stories.
But not everyone forgot.
There was a pause—then his voice hardened, carrying weight.
My breath caught.
The transmission cut.
I stared at the empty channel, my hands tight on the controls.
Something stirred in my chest—something I didn't fully understand yet.
Pride?
Hope?
Or maybe the quiet realization that the old stories weren't dead after all.
If even half of them were true…
Then maybe—just maybe—this world wasn't finished yet.
I shut down the channel and pushed my Zaku forward, thrusters flaring as I surged toward the commander.
Toward the port city.
Toward whatever came next.
END