Recon

0001

0330L, January 9th, 1760.
Roxas Naval Station, Republic of Panay.
Seven days after Saigon.

Private First Class Jonas "Mort" Mortenson vibrated in his seat as he whipped the LCAV around another corner. His team was on patrol, notionally helping evacuate the area immediately around the base. Really, the evacuation had been finished hours ago, but there wasn't much for a recon unit to do while the air defense folks did their job. Mort was perfectly happy with that— it made him a lot less likely to get smacked by one of the missiles that got through.

A lone Shrike ABM streaked into the sky in the distance, the thin smoke trail vanishing as it punched into the stratosphere. The scattered missile exchanges of the previous week had paled in comparison to the last few hours. Salvos of dozens of interceptors had become a trickle as battery commanders attempted to conserve their magazines for high-priority interceptions. Most of the TELs and SDEADs were still shooting, swatting down cruise missiles and the occasional cloud of MRBM-deployed loitering munitions, but the base had taken plenty of hits. The big barracks block towers had taken a trio of DH-17 impacts early on, and it seemed like almost every building they drove past had been damaged. Casualties were light, thankfully. A lot of people were down a body, but they hadn't found anyone dead so far.

"Hang a left up here," Sergeant Olson instructed from the passenger seat, listening to his radio headset. "We're checking out that old subway station on Eighth, tee-bat says there might be a Way in there that isn't sealed."

Mort did so, ten tons of steel and ceramic taking the narrow corner like it was a sports car. "What, are they gonna roll a battalion through the Highway? Isn't that dangerous?"

"If they were sending anyone through it'd be SOF, so I hope—" he replied. He was cut off as a greenish flash suddenly lit the sky, and sheets of lightning danced upwards from the ground— not the purplish lances of TEL fire, but the shimmering white of magical release.

"What the fuck?"

Kit, the team’s thaumaturge, chimed in from the backseat, "The base wards just popped like a balloon. What’s going on?"

"Wait one," Olson replied, switching the radio channel. "Boss, Olson. Something happening?"

Nothing but static answered. "Well, we’re on our own for a bit. We're checking this out, sealing it if it’s not already, then linking up with the rest of the company."

"Roger." The LCAV screeched to a halt outside the subway station. The five of them poured out of the armored vehicle, Mort and Soto shifting in a swirl of motes and twisting space as soon as they were outside. Within a second, they stood as Shatterscales, the PDT’s vaunted close-combat form. Wingless quadrupeds with powerful builds, the streetlights glittered off their scales as they moved, thick plates of iridescent silicon carbide shimmering with specks of color.

“Damn, these look good at night,” vibrated Soto.

“Don’t get too attached, you walking stereotype. Rumor says they’re gonna start requiring camo soon,” replied Nils.

“How? Are they just going to spray-paint us?”

"Literally, yes.”

“Lock it up, you two.”

“Yeah, big sarge, that’s a roger,” joked Soto.

Olson snorted, “Get sniffing, you asshole.”

Soto and Mort snuffled around like a pair of oversized bloodhounds while their three comrades ambled about, looking for anything amiss.

"Nothing’s really standing out," thrummed Soto.

"Same here. Some ozone, I guess, but that’s probably the wards breaking,” added Mort, “nothing military besides us, anyway.”

“Alright. Down we go. Mort, you’re point. Kit, what are we looking for?”

"Something like a utility closet or machine room," said Kit, “anything that passersby aren’t going to look twice at.”

The squad fanned out, poking around the empty station.

"Something like this?" asked Nils, having found a padlocked door marked "employees only".

"Yup," they replied, “looks like one. Might also just be a normal broom closet, but there’s a quick way to find out.”

Kit shifted into a yellow-and-cyan wyvern with a spined tail and spit an acrid-smelling fluid on the lock. Within seconds, it was melting off the frame.

"Try not to touch that," they warned, pulling the door open.

The other side of the doorway did not lead to a broom closet or some HVAC machinery, instead revealing what appeared to be a dimly lit gas station, along with a dozen very surprised exoskeleton-wearing soldiers in distinctive ACSOF tiger-stripe camo. One of them made eye contact with Kit for a split second.

"Uh, contact?"

Before he could raise his gun, Kit opened their jaws and spit a stream of acid at the group, then slammed the door shut. Screams could be heard on the other side.

"Uh, something like a dozen sardines in there. Maybe less now."

As the team raised their weapons, the door exploded open again, a half-dozen armored troopers barreling through the doorway as fast as they could fit. Mort pounced on the closest one as Soto spit a stream of white-hot thermite at the second, and Nils drilled the third with his rifle. Kit leaped for a support pillar by the tracks, flinging a spray of tail spines in midair before shifting as they landed behind the pillar.

Rather than the crunch that normally happens when two-point-five tons of scale and muscle pounces on a human body, the ACSOF trooper’s exoskeleton held as Mort landed on him. His hydraulics whined as he pushed him off and drew his sidearm: a beautiful pearl-inlay 23mm Bharat Dynamics DMA, which he promptly used to shoot Mort in the head.

Fortunately for Mort, he was wearing a Shatterscale. The explosive round that would have otherwise punched through his skull and turned his brain into mist ricocheted off twenty millimeters of aramid-backed silicon carbide scale and exploded, peppering them both with fragments. Mort’s muscle memory from training took over: he slammed the man into the ground with a swipe of his front claw, then spit a stream of thermite directly into his face. He stared in horror as the man clawed at his face, spasmed and went still, the thermite melting through his skull and filling the air with the scent of burning flesh. Mort only snapped out of it when a bullet shattered his brow scale, and he scrambled behind a support pillar as more rifle fire snapped against his flank.

Soto shifted, aimed her rifle at the man she’d sprayed with thermite, and held the trigger. The thermite might not have been able to get through his ceramic plating, but a half-dozen 6.4x68mm tungsten-core rounds at point-blank range did. Olson shot the fifth trooper in his exo-rig’s knee joint, then dumped his mag at his thinner side armor as he fell. Nils and Olson dove for cover behind the turnstiles as the last canner sprayed them with automatic fire before falling to the ground, twitching. One of Kit’s tail spines protruded from his neck.

"Kit! Can I blast this thing?" yelled Soto, her radio rig automatically ducking out the hail of suppressive gunfire she was directing at the open Way.

"Probably!” they shouted back.

The remaining canners backed out of the hallway, deeper into the Way, apparently not eager to try and repeat the breach attempt. With the chances of return fire greatly diminished, Soto stuck a trio of explosive bricks around the doorframe and gave a thumbs up.

“Fuck, I’m hit,” Olson grasped at his lower abdomen, nodding towards the spasming man with the spine in his neck, “and that guy isn’t dead yet. Nils, bring that guy with the spine upstairs. Everyone else, make sure nobody else comes through, then blow it as soon as you’re clear.” With that, he shifted to a Shatterscale— this one with a single gold-painted shoulder scale, marking him as an NCO.

“Damn, that guy wrecked my plates,” Nils complained. “No holes here, though.”

It took some effort to maneuver the injured soldier over the turnstiles in his armor. Olson resolved it by crushing them out of the way as the team retreated back to the surface.

Mort was the last one out. Soto flicked the detonator, and six kilograms of hexogen turned the Way into shattered rubble, along with a good portion of the subway station. A half second later, and reality twisted as the magic collapsed. Concrete flickered between a half-dozen materials like reality had a bugged graphics card, and a trio of nearby streetlights turned into glowing white doves and flew away.

“Well, good news is, I don’t even have to spend a capsule to fix you up.” Kit took out their laser inscriber, burning a ritual circle into the sidewalk with a few button presses. “Get in the circle, and put that tin can in there too.” Nils obliged, pushing the unconscious and now seizing trooper into the ring. Olson stepped in the circle before shifting back to his injured human form. Kit snapped their fingers, and there was a faint reddish glow as the hole in Olson’s stomach knit itself back together.

“Damn, no words for a gut wound? You’re good at this,” he remarked.

They pulled the spine out of the Chinese man’s neck, the flesh and muscle meshing back together. “Helps that we just blew up a Way. Lot of free juice to go around. Also, this guy needs BCE if we want him to live, I just fixed the hole, not the venom.”

“Good thing they still put that in the kits,” said Nils, withdrawing an autoinjector from his first-aid kit and pressing it against the soldier’s jugular. “Not sure who else they expect us to use it on.” The team set about figuring out how to get the unconscious man out of his armor.

Mort was too busy throwing up on the side of the LCAV to notice. Kit came over to pat him on the back, “Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

“Just, the smell,” he retched again.

“First time?” they asked.

“It’s everyone’s first time!”

“Not mine. It gets easier.”

Soto did a double take, “Kit, when’d you see combat?”

“Well, it wasn’t really, um, combat,” they said, haltingly.

Olson chimed in, “Lemme finish radioing all this up, then we can do the whole life story thing.”

They sighed. “Okay. Let’s get this guy packed up and I’ll explain on the way.”

As the team piled back into the LCAV, Kit began their story. “Alright. You know how I said I’m from Dover? That’s true in like, the very technical sense. I immigrated at Dover and got my, like, real body in Dover. I’m not from Dover.”

“Wait, why not tell us?” asked Nils.

“I just… didn’t want to get into it, I dunno. Everyone wants the story.” They looked a bit sheepish. “It’s a bit, y’know. Involved.”

“They were new,” said Olson, “and I wasn’t going to make them share that sort of thing right away. Besides, our Kit is actually from Dover.”

“Anyway, yeah. I was born in Greece, a little outside of Athens. Cishuman, obviously. Mom died when I was little, dad was a cop. And he was, well, all the cop stereotypes.”

“Never met a woman he wouldn’t hit?” said Soto.

“Enthusiastically so. Beat the daylights out of me, honestly probably killed my mom too, but that’s just a guess. I figured out I wanted to convert when I was maybe nineteen or twenty. Still lived with my dad and he was, uh, as Essie as it got, to put it mildly. Had planned on doing the Hodgson ritual for months, looked it all up online, got an app to do the math. Finally got the courage to do it, and did it right there in the living room while he was at work. Sacrificed a goat on top of a raincoat to keep the blood from staining anything.”

Nils whistled.

“Wait, what’d you pick?” asked Mort, now thoroughly distracted from his rebellious stomach.

“Hybrid, mostly Fury with some Razortail. Wasn’t real picky, just wanted a quadruped with wings, and as fast and dangerous as I could get. A little bit different than my usual deal now with the modded Voidripper, but the schemas for them weren’t public back then.”

“Damn, you weren’t screwing around.”

“Yeah. Anyway, so now I’m transhuman, right? Illegal, but they were only really checking at borders and stuff. I hid it for about a month, just going out at night, sleeping in the mountains, flying around, that sort of thing. One night I come sneaking home and he’s up waiting for me. Found a scale I missed in the grass. He goes ballistic, accusing me of hanging out with criminals. I don’t think he realized that they were my scales. I just shifted right there in front of him to shut him up.”

“I bet that went over well.”

“Yeah, went great, if by ‘great’ you mean he tried to pull his gun on me.”

“Seriously? His own kid?”

“Yeah. I shift back, trying to be like, ‘it’s just me, it’s okay’, and the bastard goes to pistol-whip me. Not the first time, but my brain finally made the connection that I could actually hit back, and I just shifted and let loose. Emptied the whole clip on him.”

“Oh, Hel, and with a Fury…” Nils groaned.

“…yeah. Wasn’t much left of him above the knees. Blew out all the windows in the house, and my eardrums too. I just ran. Managed to get to Italy, bummed my way to Dover, told a DOI guy the sob story, and he said welcome home. So here I am.”

“Fuck me, that’s heavy,” said Soto, “you okay?”

“Lot better these days, yeah. No regrets besides not ashing the bastard any earlier.”

Nils snorted. “Insane shit. You keep your old body?”

Kit shook their head, “Nope. Wrong gender, and y’know, being wanted for the, quote, ‘gruesome murder of an upstanding officer of the law,’ unquote.” They shrugged. “Not like I was going to visit, but I didn’t want to hold onto it. Handed the UID my genes and ditched it. Wanted something draconic anyway, old me was just baseline.”

“Well, glad to have you here, at least.”

“Same.”

The zip-tied ACSOF trooper made a grumbling noise as the LCAV rumbled back towards the base.

“Hey, look who’s awake,” said Soto, “how was your little nap? Wanna tell us your life story?”

“He probably doesn’t speak Norse,” said Mort, speaking over his shoulder from the driver’s seat, “and also we just killed five of his friends.”

“He probably does, actually. Speak Norse, that is. Not the life story. This guy’s SOF, they all get some languages,” Olson provided.

“Wakey wakey, shake and bakey, asshole,” Soto teased, nudging him. She enunciated clearly and slowly, “do you speak Norse?”

“Mggh. Yes,” he replied, with a heavy accent.

“Alright, how fluent are you? Do we need to talk slow?”

He spat. “Fuck you, snake.”

“Hey, they even teach you guys slurs, sick!”

Olson spoke up, “Can it, Soto.” He began reciting from memory, “Alright, you are now a prisoner of war under the Oslo Accords. You are required to provide us with your military identification, so that we may inform a third party of your capture. If you are wounded, we will provide medical care. You will not be harmed or deprived of basic necessities, but you may be imprisoned. Do you understand?”

“Fuck you.”

“I need a yes or a no. If I don’t get either it’ll have to wait until we find someone who speaks Mandarin.”

“…I understand.”

“Good. We already went through your pockets and got your tags, so that’s identification. I’ll confess I can’t read Chinese, so I have no idea what your name is.”

“Yu.”

“Okay, Yu. We’ve also done the medical care part, since you currently aren’t bleeding out or dying from the nerve agent Kit’s spine shot into your neck. You’re also about to not be my problem—” He paused, listening to the radio for a few seconds.

“I take that back. You have the dubious honor of being the first POW in this war, so nobody knows where to put you. That and you lot just blew up the MP station. So now we extra don’t know where to put you. So you get to come along for the ride and continue to be my problem.”

“What, we can’t just drop him off with the city lawspeakers?” complained Soto.

“I mean, yeah, but they’re doing evac stuff and we’re not headed there anyway. We’re now going to, uhh,” he pointed on his map, “here.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have a good view,” she shrugged.

“Advantages of being recon. Not like he can get up to much without a gun or a suit. Yu, got any valuable intel you want to turn over? Operational plans, codes, troop numbers, that sort of thing?”

“Fuck you.”

“Hey, don’t get mad at me, you could’ve just stayed home.”

Kit piped up, “I don’t know, I would want to talk if I were him. Spend too long around us snakes and he’ll start turning.” Their voice turned sinister, “And we’re all packed in here together. I bet he can feel it now, those scales shifting around under his skin, waiting to come out. Do you feel itchy yet? That’s how you know it’s started. It doesn’t even take very long, and once it’s started…” Yu blanched.

“Kit, don’t—” Olson began.

“If I tell you, let me ride outside.” He sounded desperate.

The team shared a glance. What the fuck, that worked?

“Sure.”

“Invasion. North of the island. Four divisions by submarine, too late to matter now.”

“Huh.” Olson clicked his mic, “Hey, eltee, Olson again. Our new friend says that they’re invading with four divisions towards the north of the island. Soon, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, he seems to be under the impression that he’s— roger. Uhuh, roger. Yeah. Shit. Okay, out.” He pulled off his headset.

“What’s going on?” Mort asked.

“Navy apparently just engaged a sub fleet just off the coast, and by the sound of it they’re not gonna be able to stick around. He’s right about an invasion, and he’s right about it being too late. They’re saying three division strength, and we’ve got… less than that, anyway. We’re gonna go do some recon in the other direction, see if we can catch ourselves some more SOF. There’s never just one team, and the guys on the beach won’t want the distraction.”

“What about this guy?”

Olson thought for a few seconds, “Well, I guess we’re keeping him.” He turned to Yu, “Good news, you’re getting the sightseeing tour. Bad news, I’m not letting you ride outside.”

Yu started, a desperate look in his eyes, “Please, I don’t know—”

Soto cackled, “Man, how the fuck do their own operators believe that shit? Aren’t you supposed to make the propaganda, not fall for it?”

He stared.

Olson spoke up again, “Yeah, sorry, we lied. Well, Kit lied, and you spilled the beans before we said anything. Proximity conversion isn’t real, you guys made it up a few years ago.”

“Liar,” he spat.

“Yeah, that’s what I just told you, we lied.” Olson sighed. “Well, you’re stuck with us for now. Don’t do anything stupid and make us waste ammo or magic on you.”

Their prisoner retreated to a sullen silence, and the LCAV rumbled on.

0002

1213L, January 9th, 1760.
Roxas Naval Station, Republic of Panay.
Seven days after Saigon.

The war was going badly.

That was perhaps an unfair assessment. The war had only really been going on for a few hours, but they had been treated to a constant stream of rolling retreats called out over the radio. By the sounds of it, the 4th ID was on the run. It might have been a cool and collected run, and they might have been making Odie pay for nipping at their heels, but they were on the run nonetheless. There really wasn’t much you could do when they landed fourteen brigades to your three and they had naval support. At least they don’t seem to be getting CAS, he thought.

“Anything new?” Mort asked for the fourth time today.

Olson sighed. “Nope. We’re still headed back towards Lilo as fast as they’re advancing.”

The 1/16th Reconnaissance Company was spread all over the island during the invasion, looking for flanking units or SOF. The squad they’d encountered in the subway station hadn’t been the only one, apparently.

“It’s fucked that we go through their elite guys like tissue paper but they just roll us up like this,” Soto complained.

“It’s a lot easier to aim the big guns that can punch through Shatterscale armor when they’re not three meters away from you. Until they invent a dragon that can aim a gun, we only have that advantage at close range,” Olson replied, sounding exhausted. This was far from the first time she’d mentioned it.

“What I’m confused about is why they didn’t bring anti-armor stuff through the Way back in the subway,” Mort said. “They’ve obviously got enough with the invasion force or we wouldn’t be retreating.”

“We could always ask our ziptied friend here,” Kit replied, “but he hasn’t been very talkative the last few hours.”

Surprisingly, Yu had not attempted escape so far. Honestly, Mort thought, it might be easier for everyone if he did. The novelty of taking an ACSOF Master Sergeant prisoner had worn off an hour or two ago, but he was high-value enough that they had to at least try and get him off the island.

They hadn't been the only ones to run into ACSOF teams, either. 3rd Platoon had run into a squad of wetsuit-clad operators attempting to sabotage the transformers by the island's nuclear plant to the west. They had made quick work of them, establishing two important facts in the process: anti-armor rockets could easily penetrate a Shatterscale’s armor, and they weren't immune to sustained small-arms fire either. They hadn’t lost anyone, but 3rd was down a few dragons until they could find the time to do resets.

Olson held up a finger to pause the conversation while his headset radio buzzed. “…understood, roger.”

“News?”

“Someone called in a report about some men moving around in the forest a few klicks west of here. ICAN verifies that something is out there, no further details. And we’re the closest, so…”

“Oh, helpful. Prank call or crazy grandpa?” Soto grumbled.

“You wanna look through sat telemetry yourself, feel free. Anyway, Mort, drive on, if you will.”

Mort got the LCAV rolling again.

“Sure looks like a Way to me,” Nils offered.

The team was looking at a path in the jungle, unnaturally dim and shrouded with fog. It was really a picture-perfect Way, and would have been equally at home in a textbook. The problem was that it seemed to be wandering: the path was jumping around around like a grain of sand on a speaker, spilling fog as it did.

“I think it's probably all the fighting? This is a little beyond what they teach you at IT school,” Kit said. “Just, try not to get too close, I guess.”

“So, what, we split up and search for clues?” Mort asked.

“Yeah, just don’t get out of eyesight,” Olson replied. “I don’t think anyone’s actually out here, but stay shifted, I don't want anyone getting headshot if I’m wrong. And Soto, you're running the gun.”

The four of them slid out of the LCAV, shifting as soon as there was space to do so. The RWS on top swiveled as Soto grabbed the joystick. They began poking around the underbrush— dragons might not have had the dexterity that humans did, but they had senses that humans, even draconics, did not. In this case, Shatterscales had fairly sensitive noses, particularly for finding things that were out of place, like foreign SOF in a Visayan jungle.

“This jungle seem kinda dark to anyone else?” Nils asked.

“Aren’t you from a beach town? Everything probably seems dark to you,” Mort replied.

“Uhh, guys? The Way’s getting weird,” Soto radioed. “The fog is—”

Mort raised his head to look back towards the truck as her transmission cut off, and was suddenly faced with a wave of thick, dense fog. It expanded like the dust cloud from an explosion, washing over him in a fraction of a second, giving him just enough time to yelp.

His first thought was that a yelp was a quite undignified noise for a soldier to make, especially a dragon soldier. His second thought was to check to make sure everything was still attached. Everything still seemed to be there. He looked around. The jungle was different than the one he had left. It was dim, but not dark, enough for human eyes to see by, and covered in a thick layer of fog. The Way, he thought, Well, fuck.

“Anyone else here?” vibrated Soto.

Mort sighed in relief. “I’m in one piece.”

“Same here,” replied Kit. There were a few seconds of silence. Nobody else responded.

“Shit. Sounds like it’s just us. And Yu, he’s still here in the truck.”

“Hold on, keep talking, I’ll follow your voice.” He padded through the brush, as Soto made noises.

“Follow the melodious sound of my voice… is this a voice? Is it telepathy? Is it both? Find out tonight, on Wheel… Of… Misfortuuuuuune! Brought to you by our lovely host, Maria Sotoooooo! We have quite the lineup for you lucky viewers tonight. Here come our contestants…”

Mort found the LCAV at the same time that Kit did, their Shatterscale forms easily pushing through the foliage. He shifted back to his SIB. “What happened? Where’s Olson and Nils?”

Soto popped back to human as well. “No clue. First thing I tried was the radio, but it’s fucked. Either something fried a circuit or there’s some sort of dampening effect.”

Mort tried his radio. It had power, at least. “Testing, one two three.” Soto’s radio crackled, but that was it.

“Dampening, I guess. Shit.”

“Well, we’re in a Way, that’s for sure,” Kit replied. “But I’ll be honest, all I know about Ways is what I’ve seen online, Infantry Thaumaturge school doesn’t cover them besides sealing. We might be screwed.”

“Olson and Nils will know we’re missing, at least. They’ll send someone after us,” Soto said.

“Um. They had what, three divisions land in the north? I don’t think three recon soldiers are high up on the to-do list,” Mort warned. “And I don’t think we have enough food or water to just sit here until we retake Panay.”

“And that assumes that the Way’s even still open on the other side. I don’t see an exit, and if there was an entrance, Nils and Olson would be in here after us.”

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”

“Well, I guess Soto’s in charge. So, what do we do, boss?”

“Fuck if I know. Let’s see if Yu feels helpful.” She poked her head in the LCAV, “Hey there buddy. Know anything about Ways that we don’t?”

The ziptied soldier grunted. “Why?”

“Because one just exploded and now we’re in one, and the entrance is gone.”

He laughed. “I’m not helping you, snake.”

“What, you think you’re more equipped to survive here than us?”

“Either you run out of water when we do, or you come along and get to live in a POW camp. Your choice. Your allies think you’re dead.”

“Kit, he can’t hear you like that,” she turned to Yu, “but they made a good point. Your guys don’t know you’re here, and we are unfortunately legally obliged to ensure you don’t die.”

He smiled. “Then I'll take you with me.”

“Yeah, don't think that's in the cards for you. Guess we’re exploring then. Mort, untie him. If he wants to run for it, I’ll let him.”

Mort pulled out his knife to cut the ziptie. Yu eyed the knife, but let Mort work. He rubbed his wrists when the tie broke, but otherwise remained subdued.

“Kit, keep an eye on those two. Either of you feel a need to haul this gun around?” Soto asked, motioning to the machine gun on the RWS.

“What for?”

“That was my thought. Okay, I’m melting it. Not like we’re getting this LCAV through the trees anyway.” Soto set about disconnecting the ammo, then shifted and poured thermite into the breech.

Kit returned to their own Shatterscale. “What direction?”

“Anything works, I guess. Not like my GPS or compass work here.” Soto motioned in the same direction as the LCAV’s heading. “That way seems as good as any. Let’s go.”

The four of them had been walking for an hour or so. Soto was in the front, her bulky form clearing the brush, followed by Mort in human form, then Yu, then Kit. They had tried clearing enough space to take off, but the fog went up too— and they had no way of clearing a space to land from the air. So they walked.

Suddenly, the trees changed. There was a clear dividing line between the Visayan jungle and something new— broad-leafed palm trees, vines, and fluffy, moss-covered tree trunks on one side, and massive pines with clear underbrush on the other.

“Well, I guess it means we’re getting somewhere,” Soto observed, “but I’m not sure if I know where.”

“This looks kind of like the Pacific Northwest, actually. Big pine forests, but it’s not flat like this,” Mort replied. “But that doesn’t really mean anything, they’ve got those all over the world. You seen the big pine forests in western China, Yu?”

Yu didn’t respond. Mort shrugged.

“I think if we find any sort of incline we can just follow that down to find water, but that’s assuming the ecosystem here actually exists and it’s not all just magic crap.”

“I think the chances of a real ecosystem here are low. I haven’t gotten any hint of anything beyond plants since we got here,” Kit vibrated. “You some sort of nature guy? Didn’t expect you to know about pine forests halfway around the globe.”

“I like biology, I dunno.”

“You two wanna stop and get some fuckin’ lunch?” asked Soto. “Anything we eat, we don’t need to carry.”

“Sure. Yu, we’re stopping for lunch. You want anything? Or are you going to glare at me?”

Yu glared at him.

“Look man, eat or don’t, not my problem.” He tossed him a ration from Soto’s saddlebags, then went back to get his own. “Soto, what do you—”

Mort heard the mechanical noise of a pistol being chambered and spun around. Yu was pointing a sidearm directly at Mort’s head— his own, he realized belatedly. That asshole.

“Whoa there.” He let his rifle hang from the carrying strap around his neck as he raised his hands.

Soto still thought he was looking for a good ration. “C’mon, what’s the holdup?” She craned her head around and froze. “Oh. Mort, you asshole, why’d you let him do that? Kit, hello, wake up.”

Kit turned around from looking into the forest. “Whu— oh. Come on, after we brought him this far?”

Mort kept his eyes on Yu, who gestured with his pistol. “Hand over your weapon.”

He’d never been held at gunpoint before, but he didn’t feel particularly threatened after getting shot in the head with a far larger gun that morning. “Um, no?”

“I’ll shoot.”

Mort angled his head towards Kit and then Soto, “They’ll just kill you if you do that.”

“You’ll die too.”

“Tell him we’ll just kill him now if he doesn’t put the gun down,” Soto thrummed.

“Hey! I’m the hostage here, let me negotiate myself,” he snapped at Soto. “And no, probably not, because I’m going to shift and you’re going to miss my head.”

Yu looked confused. “What did it say?” He motioned with the pistol. “Answer me!”

“Uh, folks? Can we wrap this up? There’s something moving in the fog,” Kit said.

“Where? Behind him?” Mort moved his head to look.

“What?” Yu’s eyes flicked away from Mort for a moment, and Mort took his opening, feeling thick carbide scales encase him once more. Yu reacted by pulling the trigger, which did very little since Mort’s head was no longer where he was aiming.

“Honestly, fuck it, get the gun back and let him run, I’m done with his shit.”

“Oh, shit, you weren't kidding about there being something out there. Soto, look.” He motioned with his snout.

Yu was yelling something at them, but they ignored him. The sidearm would have struggled to crack ballistic plates, much less the thick armored scales they had in these forms. The misty form became more clear as it approached them, coalescing into a humanoid shape, then a person. And then they were there.

“Greetings, travelers,” the newcomer said. “What's all this commotion about?”

They were wearing the same tiger-stripe camo as Yu, who spun around with a start. In fact, they looked almost exactly like Yu, including his lack of kit. Yu immediately began speaking at them in Mandarin.

“Two ACSOF guys? Where’s his rig and gun?” Mort asked.

“Uh, folks? My CCT is tingling,” Kit warned, “Something’s up.”

“Fuck, mine too,” Soto added. Mort felt the tingle around his head. Oh, shit. CCTs, or counter-control tattoos, were a fractal pattern drawn with silver-based inks that disrupted mind-altering magic. Their engineered forms didn’t have an actual tattoo, but they did have the same pattern engraved on their skulls. Everyone still called them tattoos anyway.

“Um. I think this is a Fae,” Kit said, “we should really get that gun back.”

“Roger.” Yu was shouting now, and pointing the gun at the newcomer. Guess he noticed something’s off, Mort thought. Soto took a step forward and spun, swiping Yu’s feet out from under him with her tail. Mort simply padded over and knocked the gun out of his grip while he tried to recover.

The Fae gestured grandly towards the dragons, and said something in Mandarin. Kit did their best impression of a confused dog, cocking their head.

“Can you understand us?” asked Soto. The Fae just looked at them. “Guess not. You two stay like this, I’m going to have a chat.”

“Wait, Soto. I don’t think it knows what we are,” Kit vibrated.

The Fae said something again, this time in a different language.

“Hey, wait, that’s some sort of Russian. But weird, like an old dialect or something,” Mort said, “I think he’s asking why we’re here.”

“You’re the one with a babushka, so you’re on deck. Good luck, killer.”

“Shit.” Mort shifted, making sure to return his pistol to the holster. All I know how to do here is from movies. Should have watched more documentaries. “Hello, kind sir,” he said in Russian, “we are simply passing through. Though your manner of speech is, um, confusing to my friends. Do you speak Basho? Or Norse?”

“Why yes!” the Fae replied in Norse. “I am glad we can understand each other. Might I have your name?”

“Sure, I’m Jonas, but—”

“MORT!” Kit exclaimed.

His CCT lit up like it was burning into his skull. He thought he tasted blood. Yu audibly gasped with pain next to him, grasping his left shoulder. The Fae looked perplexed.

“Why do you offer your name, but then hold it back at the last moment?”

He blinked, trying to get the tears out of his eyes. “What the Hel was that?”

“Fae take names! Haven’t you read a fucking book?”

He glared at Kit to shush them. “Sorry. Um. For us, letting someone ‘have’ your name just means they can know it, not that they can keep it.”

“Hmph. How rude. Between this and that ruckus earlier, you lot don’t seem like very good guests. I demand you tell me your business here.”

“Sorry. Uh, there’s a war going on outside of the forest. This man’s our prisoner and almost escaped, that’s what the noise was. We’re just trying to get home.”

“A war between men and dragons? That’s quite serious.”

“Yeah. As I said, we’re trying to get home.”

“And yet you take the form of men and use their cold iron?”

“Well, it’s cold steel actually, and it’s a little more complicated than that—”

“Mort, I don’t think he needs the transhuman primer.”

Yu spoke before he could respond. “Sir, the beasts steal men’s forms and voices. They started this war for treasure and—”

“I was born human, you asshole!” Mort’s hands went to his rifle.

Soto pinned Yu to the ground with a claw, knocking the wind out of him in the process. “I’ll fucking gag you, motherfucker, see if I— right, fuck.”

“How curious,” the Fae mused, “you were born a man, yet you take a dragon form, and your allies are dragons. And this man accuses you of stealing and starting a war. Oh, delicious indeed. This more than makes up for your refusal to share a name.”

“What?”

“In some tellings the Fey consider lies a delicacy,” Kit hummed, “The more complex, the more they like it.”

“That would have been useful to know!”

“How am I supposed to know if it’s true of this one? I don’t think it’s even consistent! And it’s not like—” They paused. “Wait a second, I have an idea. Ask if he wants to have a lie and my name, to keep, in exchange for a path out of here.”

“Are.. you sure?”

“Yeah, trust me.”

He turned to the Fae. “Um, okay, sorry. We need a path out of here, back to our world. My friend wants to offer you a lie and their name, to keep, for passage. Will that work?”

“Perhaps.”

“Kit?”

“When he steals it, let him.” They shifted to their normal human form— average height, indeterminate gender, dark-skinned with white hair and red slitted eyes. Yu stared.

“Hello. You can have my lie, which is also my name: Markos.” The Fae’s eyes widened, and Mort’s scalp tingled briefly, but he let forced the feeling to move through him rather than become stuck in his CCT’s fractal patterns.

Markos smiled too widely with his needle-point teeth. “Oh, truly delightful. And oh so clever. Lovely, lovely. Follow me, and I will finish our contract.”

Yu spoke up from the ground, “Sir, please! I—” He cut off as Soto applied weight like he was a large squeaky toy.

“Oh, hush you,” Markos replied, “Your lies are far too inelegant to tempt me.”

“Mort, ziptie this motherfucker again before I do something I regret.” Mort did so, while Kit returned to their SIB and looked on with their rifle.

“Are you going to walk, or do I need to tie you to Soto like a bag?”

Yu glared. “I can walk.”

The walk itself was short, thankfully. Markos had led them in what felt like circles for ten minutes, but eventually delivered them to a sunny clearing.

“Your exit, as promised”, he gestured. “Please, visit again, but with less iron and… rude guests.”

Mort gave a feigned smile. I don’t think we will. The four of them stepped into the sunny clearing, and the sky suddenly returned— they were out.

“Okay, that was… an adventure. Now where the fuck are we?”

“I dunno, give GPS a second to come back.” Mort pulled out his unit, waiting for the LCD screen to update.

“Uh… Norway, actually. We’re home.”

0003

“Home?! Motherfucker, aren’t you from Seattle?”

“Okay, ‘home’ in a more general sense.”

“Could be worse, I guess,” Kit said. “Could have gone to Yu’s hometown.”

“So where the fuck are we?”

“Uh, west of Oslo. Probably two hours by wing.”

“Think we can get ‘em on radio? We probably need to report to someone.”

“No clue.”

“We could just wait for someone to come figure out why a Way just opened. ICAN should have picked up the transit and notified someone important,” Kit said.

“Sounds like a plan.” She popped back to human, checking her radio. “Mort, is your fuckin’ radio working?”

“Uh.” He looked. “It says ENC FAIL. What's that mean?”

“Encryption failure,” replied Soto. “Same here. Means our commo keys are out of date or got wiped. Kit, try yours.”

They shifted and futzed with their own radio. “Weird. Shouldn’t these be able to resync via satellite? I thought that was the whole idea.”

“Maybe we just need to restart ‘em.” Soto shrugged and held the power button.

Kit looked thoughtful. “Um. Why is it light out here?”

“What do you mean?” She looked at her watch, “It's like 1430.”

“We left Panay at noonish and we’re on the other side of the planet.”

“Oh, fuck me.” Soto looked at her GPS. “Mort, look at the fucking date.”

“What, did we— oh.”

“What?”

“Kit, it's the 16th.”

“Oh, gods.” They leaned into look at the GPS. Yu took advantage of the three of them looking away from him to bolt.

“…where does he think he’s gonna go?” Soto wondered.

Mort gave a worried look. “Should we go get him?”

She sighed. “Yeah, I guess so. Can’t have him wandering around the countryside. You go deal with that, we’re gonna figure out the radios.”

“What, just go tackle him?”

“You have two thousand kilos on him, just grab him or whatever. If he gives you trouble, shoot him. We’re in friendly territory, we can spare the magic to fix a bullet hole.”

He raised an eyebrow at her as he shifted. “I don’t think they ever taught us nonlethal,” he replied, loping down the wooded hill after Yu.

Soto yelled, “Yu! You hear that? Mort doesn’t know how to be gentle!”

Despite their status as apex predators, most dragons really weren’t all that fast on the ground. They could certainly dash faster than humans, but only a few species and their hybrids could keep up for more than a couple seconds. Fortunately for Mort, engineered forms could pick and choose from evolution’s gifts, and the folks that made the Shatterscale had done their job well. Each of his strides ate up distance like a starving child introduced to the concept of a buffet, without tiring in the slightest. A human would beat him as soon as his oxygen bladder ran out, but before then? Not a chance.

He caught up less than a minute later, his armored form pounding through the underbrush with ease. “Yu! Stop— right.” He still hadn’t gotten used to someone not being able to hear him. He shifted mid-stride to yell at him, stumbled on a root with a yelp, shifted again to catch himself, and returned to dragon form just in time to crash into the ground face-first. At least Kit isn't here to see me. They'd say I needed to spend more time in scales. Mort’s brain dredged up a memory of his aunt, haggard from dealing with a four-year-old that could blink between five hundred kilos of scales and a fragile toddler at will. “If you keep swapping like that, you'll get stuck in the middle,” she’d said. Mort had been so horrified that he’d refused to shift for almost a week, and his parents had been forced to explain to him that “getting stuck” was impossible.

This time, he thought it out. He picked himself up and closed the distance once again, putting himself beside Yu, who had just enough time to make eye contact before Mort stuck out a claw and tripped him. With his hands still ziptied, he fell hard. Mort returned to human, making sure to stay out of arm’s reach and raising his rifle. “Yu! Just stop fuckin running, man!”

Yu panted on the ground, out of breath. “Kill me.”

“What? Why?”

“I won’t become…” He something in Mandarin.

Mort looked at him. “I didn’t start speaking Chinese sometime between 0200 and now.”

Yu slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Word that means no… self.”

“What?”

“When you change, you aren’t… you any more.” He was clearly fumbling for vocabulary.

“What do you mean? We’re still the same up here,” he said, pointing to his head. “And how do you think transhumans even work? We can shift whenever we want to, and only when we want to. Even if we could make you transhuman, which by the way isn’t possible without you wanting it, we can’t force you to shift! You could just stay human forever!”

Yu glared at him, but it was more of a pained look than his previous hateful glares. Mort might have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t shot Olson in the gut twelve hours earlier. “You can either walk back, or I can pick you up in my jaws. Which would you prefer?”

He stood awkwardly, pushing himself up made more difficult by his still very ziptied hands. “Why are you being kind to me?”

This qualifies as kind? What’s this guy’s deal? Mort deployed his most exasperated look. “Were you expecting me to just shoot you or something? You aren’t a threat without a gun, just a pain in the ass. Now get moving.”

The remainder of the walk back to Kit and Soto passed in silence.

“Hey. One fresh prisoner for delivery. Any luck with the radios?”

“Yeah. Shift, though. I don’t want him to hear,” she said, nodding towards Yu. Mort did so, and Soto followed him.

“That bad?”

“Yeah. Got a hold of Oslo AFB, they’re sending a helo out to grab us. The war ain’t going so well, though. Fourth ID retreated to Mindanao, and we got our shit pushed in on all the Visayas.”

“In a week?!”

“Yeah. No clue if Olson and Nils are alive, but we’ll have some time to check when we get back.”

Mort was thoughtful for a few seconds. “Yu’s giving me… weird vibes.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“I mean he asked me to kill him. He’s got some sort of… I dunno, something going on.”

“Oh, that’s not surprising. He’s an essie, but he doesn’t have hardcore believer vibes. Happened a lot during the Royalist invasion back in the thirties, my mom told me about it. The real hardcore guys fought to the death or offed themselves the second they got a chance. Most of the rest have some real issues with cognitive dissonance when they’re around us.”

“Seriously?”

Kit spoke up, “Folks believe what they want to believe. Hate’s easier than understanding for a lot of people, especially when you don’t have counterexamples.”

He thought about that. “So what now?”

“For Yu? We hand him over to some MPs once the helo picks us up. We ain’t his therapy group.” She shifted back to her SIB. “But us? We just wait.”

2030L, January 16th, 1760
Dining Hall, Oslo AFB, Norway, Northern Union
Two weeks after Saigon.

They were finally rid of Yu, at least. The MPs had whisked him away, and he was officially no longer their problem. Unfortunately, they were now on an Air Force base, which meant they had a new problem: the Air Force. The Force didn’t seem to have any clue what to do with them, so they resigned themselves to being stuck in limbo for a day or two. On one hand, it meant that they got to regale credulous aviators with their tales of adventure over dinner. On the other hand, it meant that credulous aviators kept asking about their tales of adventure while they were eating.

Soto was spinning a tale between bites of roasted potatoes. “No shit, there I was, knee-deep in brass—” She was clearly enjoying herself. They all were, really. It felt like they’d been stuck in standard-issue forms for a full week, even without the time jump.

“Soto, come on, don’t ‘no shit, there I was’ the Air Force, they don’t know any better,” Kit hummed.

“Okay, okay, we only wiped a whole squad of ACA special forces without so much as a scratch.”

“Hey, my scales are still chipped from the gunfire!” Mort complained. “And also they shot Olson. Maybe should have put that first.”

“Oh, Olson was fine, come on. Didn’t even need a reset. If the war keeps up like this, they’re gonna run outta dudes.”

Kit gave a draconic snort. “Yeah, and we’re gonna run out of land. We don’t even know if Olson or Nils are still alive.” They had returned to their normal form after eating: a modded Voidripper. The silver-scaled dragons were originally designed for use in space, and the engineers had modified their magical thermal insulation to extend to pressure, allowing them to tolerate hard vacuum for minutes at a time. Kit wasn’t unique in having one, since they were one of the most popular non-militarized forms, but they were unique for having a modded one. Voidrippers were normally squat and sleek, with flattish heads and shorter legs, ideal for fitting through passageways sized for humans. Kit had changed the body plan— they were lithe and long-legged, almost like some sort of savanna cat, if a cat had wings, breathed fire, and weighed nineteen hundred kilos.

One of their audience members interrupted, “What about meeting a Fae?”

“Yeah Kit, give Soto a break. I’m sure her voice is worn out by now.”

They lifted their head from the cushion. “Fine. Um. I dunno, it just showed up out of the fog looking just like our prisoner, spoke some Mandarin to him, then Mort talked to it a bit. It wanted a name, so I gave it my old one from when I was cishuman.”

The aviator's curiosity was obviously unsatisfied. “Wait, you used to be cishuman? And how did you give it your name?”

“Yeah, how does that even work?” Mort asked. “Does that mean that if I try to call you Mar—” he cut off as his CCT lit up. “Gods, that stings.”

They showed some fangs in a predatory grin. “You can power through it with the CCT, but it'll hurt. And, to answer that question, I dunno, the magic’s over my head. They ask for your name, and if you give it, you literally give it to them. Our CCTs block it, but if you let it through, you won't have a name anymore. And if you've got a name you don't want…”

“Who was even calling you that? Isn't your legal name Kit?”

“Oh, nobody we know. And yeah, I’m legally Kit Silfskala, but it’s not like I sent a change of address back to Athens. I’m sure my old family still calls me my old name. Or at least tries to.” They shrugged their wings. “But they don't know my real name, so now they can’t call me anything at all without a CCT.”

“Wait, does that change paper records?”

“Internet says yes, but basically every government uses MSEC records, so—” They were interrupted by a siren and a spinning red beacon light. Nobody seemed to pay it any attention. “Um. Do we need to worry about that?”

“Nah,” an aviator said between bites. “We’re on crew rest, that’s some pilots getting scrambled.”

“Actually, speaking of scrambling, I just got a text,” Soto announced. “We’ve got places to be and people to see. Eat up and let’s go.”

They met Soto’s contact by the barracks. His name tape read Jantzi, and he wore the same SIB that everyone else did. “Howdy. You 1-16th Recon?”

Mort nodded. “That’s us.”

The officer shook their hands, and performed the equivalent nose bump with Kit. “I’m CPT Jantzi. I’ve got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?

“Good news, please,” Kit thrummed.

“Good news, your friends are fine. Flyboys said y’all asked about an Olson and a Nils in 1-16th Recon? They’re alive and on Mindanao. Damned worried about y’all, but alive. No other casualties in the company, or at least nothing permanent.”

Mort let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The captain continued, “More good news is that I’ve secured rooms for you for the evening, unless you like the outdoors.” He didn’t particularly mind sleeping outdoors— dragons could sleep pretty much anywhere, after all —but unlike Kit, he preferred a bed.

“So what’s the bad news?” he asked.

“Bad news, 1-16th’s getting reconstituted. Big Army wants to spread out the people with combat experience. Since you’re up here, you’re getting shuffled to a unit up here instead of down there. Helps that you don’t have any stuff to ship.”

“Shuffled around?” asked Soto. “How big of a shuffle are we talking about?”

“Expansion to fifty divisions within one year, two hundred within three.”

She blinked. Kit tilted their head a perfect 45 degrees. Mort just stared. Last he’d checked, there were twelve.

Mort was the first to speak. “Maybe I should have spent more time reading the news instead of eating, but what the Hel is going on? We were gone for a week, not a year.”

Soto nodded. “What he said. That’s… I dunno, a fuckin’ lot.”

“Three million combat troops, fifteen million total. ODI’s not just going for the Visayas, they want it all. PDT called Condition One when the invasions kicked off. India and China gave an official declaration of war on Monday, Union’s right at the top of the list. Russia should be sending theirs out today or tomorrow, and all of ODI is calling up the banners.”

“Gods.”

“Yup. This one’s for all the marbles. Oh, right, more good news. Congrats on the promotions, sergeants, and welcome to the Eighth Armored. Hope y’all like snow and Russians.”

Mort shrugged. “It’s better than sweating.”