//Report: Park, Taewon.

//The interior of a modified dropship.

//Designation: "Saci".

//Resume log.

"I'm just giving you the facts, you don't need to take it like that!"

Sam's voice echoed through the hangar as Maria marched away from him, a look of disgust on her face. She made it four steps before turning back around, a look of resolute annoyance flashing across her face.

"The name has more meaning than your facts," she barked. "It's not about that!"

Sam shrugged, staring back at her from his perch atop a supply box. I could tell from his grin that he was clearly enjoying the verbal sparring match. "Look, I'm not saying it's a bad name," he jabbed, "I'm just saying it doesn't fit anymore. You're not fighting corporations in the streets; you are the system now. From what it sounds like, you Partisans run half the coast."

"We earned that!" Maria parried. "Every inch of ground, every bolt we salvaged, every life we pulled out of the wreckage. You think we forgot what the corps did just because they're not here shooting at us? Are you really that nearsighted?"

"No," Sam sidestepped the insult, smirking. "But I think you've gotten comfortable calling yourselves rebels while everyone else calls you the government."

"Os Partidários don't govern," Maria deflected. Her tone drove the point home, a killing blow. "We keep people alive. There's a difference."

"Sure," Sam sighed, raising his hands in mock surrender. "But one day you'll have to pick which story you're telling—freedom fighters... or the new power in this region."

Maria's jaw clenched. "We're the people who survived," she said, voice low. "That's all the story we ever needed."

"Easy now," Tio called. He was sprawled out on a bench, his long legs occupying the entire surface. "It was a reasonable question, Maria. Sam didn't mean anything personal by it... however abrasive he may be."

"Fine," Sora sighed. She turned back toward the cockpit door and marched off, her prosthetics tapping against the grating as she moved.

"Well thank you, Tio," Sam chirped. He gestured in a mock bow, shifting in his seat. "I—wait, who're you calling abrasive?"

We'd spent the past few hours cruising on autopilot as Saci crossed the Atlantic ocean. I prayed we were almost there—in such close proximity for so long, everyone was beginning to go stir crazy.

"You do tend to be a little loud," Haneul remarked. He stared down the bridge of his nose at Sam as he attempted to carry on reading a small operations manual for the dropship's outdated gantry system, despite the noise. "It's actually one of your defining qualities. It's usually endearing."

"Usually?" Sam spat. "Am I really that abrasive?" He pressed a hand to his temple. "I really didn't... man, I actually didn't know."

I leaned forward and gave him a pat on the shoulder as I stood.

"It's fine," I replied. "I wrote the book on abrasive. It makes us memorable."

"Right," Tio smirked. "Memorable."

I moved to follow Maria, stepping toward the front of the dropship.

Beyond the hangar, the cockpit was in much better shape than the rest of the ship—it slid open with a faint hiss, revealing a short hallway and a space just large enough for four seats.

Saci's cockpit itself was utilitarian, yet somehow even more truncated than the dropship I was used to. The curved canopy at the front offered a breathtaking, unobstructed view of the outside world, though the glass was scratched and clouded with age. In the corner, a sleek communications console glowed faintly, the only modern feature in an otherwise outdated and cobbled-together interior. Even the seats were well-worn, their original padding replaced with strips of duct tape to keep them functional, but the central pilot's seat had been ratcheted back out of the way to allow space for Maria's prosthetics.

She stood stationary now, her legs folded into a sitting position as she worked the controls of the dropship.

"Thank god, we're on final approach," she announced. She pushed a lock of purple hair out of her face with an annoyed frown. "I'm not sure I could've lasted another hour without asking Tio to send someone for a swim."

"I think you all make a lovely team," Calican declared. He stared back at us expectantly from one of the ratty old seats behind the console—he'd complained about being cold in the hangar so incessantly that Sora had personally lashed him to a chair in the cockpit to keep him out of trouble.

My sister sat on the floor next to him, stretched out in a futile attempt to find some comfort. I felt a little bad for her—she'd drawn the short straw, and had spent the last hour or two guarding Calican.

"You probably would've been the first one to go, Mister Cross," Maria replied.

"Oh, please, Mister Cross was my father!" Calican beamed. His eyes narrowed. "Actually... no it wasn't. Sorry. Too many pseudonyms to keep track of."

"What was that about final approach?" Sora sighed. She drew herself to her feet and stretched, standing beside me. I didn't look her in the eye. "The sooner the better, please."

"Take a look for yourself," Maria replied. She gestured to the canopy, and I leaned closer to the glass, pressing my face against the clouded canopy.

I peered through the fogged glass, and the world unfolded below me. At first, all I saw was darkness—vast and endless land in the dim twilight of late evening, and the ocean swallowing the horizon. But as we descended, a brilliant pillar of light caught my eye, snaking through the jungle.

I peered through the fogged glass, and the world unfolded below me. At first, nothing but darkness—endless ocean, stretching far beyond the limits of our light. Then, shapes emerged. Faint, scattered points of gold and blue flickered through the night, arranged in clusters, tracing the jagged edges of something vast and broken.

"Holy shit," Sora breathed. "What the hell is that thing?"

A monolith loomed ahead, an immense structure so large and jagged that it looked like God himself had plunged a dagger into the earth.

The building was a wreck, shattered but standing, its upper levels dark while the lower ones pulsed with light. The glow came in patches—some steady, some flickering—marking life within the wreckage. Smoke curled from unseen chimneys, carried away by the wind.

From its base, a colossal blackened spine stretched into the distance, its vast, skeletal remains vanishing over the horizon. Twisted cables and shattered plating snaked through the jungle, the scattered debris of something once impossibly massive. It coiled across the land like a dead serpent, winding through patches of dense jungle where nature had begun to reclaim what man had abandoned.

Along its length, pockets of light clung to the wreckage—settlements, built into and atop the fallen remains. Towers of rusted scaffolding and jury-rigged floodlights stabbed into the night, illuminating platforms, shanties, and machines moving in the dark.

The city itself was a tangle of structures, both old and new. Towering metal husks with shattered windows stood beside patched-together buildings, reinforced with scavenged plating. Some had cranes mounted to their rooftops, others carried neon signs, their messages too distant to read.

Beyond the city, the jungle pressed in, a sea of black shadow interrupted only by the occasional distant fire. And farther still, over the ocean, the storm was building. Thunderheads stretched across the horizon, lightning flashing within their depths, illuminating the waves in brief, violent bursts.

I let out a breath. "Hell of a view."

"It sure is," Maria smirked. "Welcome to Sky's End."

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

Maria's foot connected with the panel with a hydraulic thump, and the metallic frame sailed outward into the night, swinging sideways with enough force to strike the outer hull of the dropship.

"Sorry," she winced. "The door on these things tends to stick—Saci is an old girl."

We had touched down on one of the middle levels of the immense tower, a wide and barren metal structure that looked more like a construction site than a finished landing pad. Our landing had been shockingly smooth—Maria had offered no landing codes, radioed no information to a ground team, and we'd simply swept in and landed on the tower's frame, touching down without so much as a word of protest.

Now I stared out through the open wall panel in the dropship's narrow hallway, gazing out into the night. The air was cool and smelled of ozone, but it was undercut by the tang of salty air and oil.

"Is this... South America?" Sam called. He strained to see outside over my shoulder, crowding me in the narrow hallway. "I can see jungle!"

"Bit of a generalization, but you're not wrong," Calican smirked. He was next in line behind Sam, and still had yet to be released from his handcuffs. "Welcome to Brazil—the state of Amapá, to be precise."

Everyone froze, and from the back of the hallway I heard Haneul give a disbelieving sigh.

"And just how the hell did you figure that out?" he snapped. "I've been trying to guess our destination all evening!"

"Simple, really," Calican responded. "Based on our trajectory and time of departure, I estimated our flight path and—" he paused, breaking out into a smug grin. "I'm kidding. I complained about being cold until you guys locked me in the cockpit... with the navigation console clearly visible. I read the screen."

Sora pressed her fingers to her temples with a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Very astute, Mister Cross." Maria pantomimed a bow before turning back toward the door, striding out past the dropship's hallways and onto the metal below. "Let's go, people. Stick close to your chaperones if you don't want to end up shot."

"Chaperones!" Sam chuckled. The smile quickly fell off his face, and he glanced toward the open door. "She was kidding about the danger, right?"

"A word of advice," Tio called. He leaned against one of the far panels, keeping himself steady with one hand. "Try not to act like hot shit out there—corporate or not, most people around here aren't big fans of the mech pilot type."

"Oh, lovely," Sora sighed. "I'm sure we'll all be a big hit with the locals."

I followed Maria out of the dropship, stepping down onto the metal floor. Leaning back, I craned my neck as I stretched out, rubbing away some of the weariness of our cramped flight. Far above me, the tower stretched upward into the sky, a skeletal curve of shattered glass and fractured metal that abruptly cut short, ending in a jagged scar of twisted beams that looked as though someone had taken the entire superstructure and twisted.

The level we'd landed on was large enough to be a landing bay in itself, but we were the only dropship here—instead, hundreds of metal shipping containers filled the space, stacked haphazardly. There were no lights or people that I could see, but I recognized the space from my first arrival here a few days ago—and knew what was about to happen next.

"Oh, thank god!" Sam exclaimed. He careened to one side, stretching out his spine as he thumped down onto the metal floor. "I thought I was going to die in that sardine can of a dropship!"

Maria glared at him, but didn't say a word.

Sora followed him out, glancing around cautiously. I knew that her training was telling her that something was amiss, and it wasn't wrong. She stared at me expectantly, but I kept silent.

Haneul followed next, carefully climbing down the sharp step from the dropship to the platform. He looked exhausted, but there was relief on his face.

Calican was last, escorted by Tio, and he stared up at the jagged tower above with a look of awe.

"Well hot damn," he barked. "Here I thought you folks were run of the mill scavengers—but this is something else! I don't know of any other scrapper's guilds that have their own orbital elevator!"

All at once it made sense—the tangle of lights in the canopy below, the immense scale of the structure, the incredible damage to its frame.

We had landed on the broken base of an immense orbital tether station—the kind that had once ferried humankind to the stars in the days before the Third World War. Only, it wasn't anywhere close to whole—most of the immense tether that had once stretched into the stars now lay in a broken tangle across several kilometers of open jungle. Even the base of the station had been peeled open like a tuna can by the immense collapse, exposing several unfinished floors much like the one we'd landed on.

"That's incredible," I breathed.

Sora shot me a frown.

"How did you not realize that?" she asked. "I thought you said you were already here, meeting with their leader!"

"Well, yes," I responded, "but last time I was—"

"Show me your hands! Now!"

The voice echoed out across the empty floor, loud and sudden. The unmistakable sound of a rifle racking urged my hands into the air, and the others did the same.

Only Maria and Tio seemed unsurprised by this event—they stared off into the darkness with looks of vague annoyance.

"They're all unarmed, Reina," Tio announced. "We confiscated all weapons after we left the operation zone." He shrugged into the darkness. "You think we'd let them walk with weapons on their person?"

"What I think isn't important," the voice replied. "What matters are my orders."

"Sorry in advance," Maria sighed. "She can be a little overzealous."

"Do you, uh, mind repeating that name again?" Calican hissed. He seemed terrified.

Something moved in the shadows, peeling itself away from the closest crate. A blur of tan fabric caught my eye as a figure seemed to materialize atop one of the shipping containers, leaping from the edge of the corrugated metal platform. With the sound of metal on metal, the figure landed a few meters from us, drawing herself to her full height.

"Oh, shit," Calican bleated. "That's Reina goddamn Holt."

Cast in the dim pallor of the fading twilight and the glow from the dropship's open door, the woman before us was a sight to behold.

Reina Holt was lean and wiry, built like she'd been carved from the same metal that surrounded her. The dim light caught the streaks of silver in her dark hair, tied back in a loose ponytail, but it was her face that drew my eye first—a deep burn scar, rough and uneven, stretching from her cheek to her jawline. It gave her an almost skeletal look in the shadows, the raw edge of an old pain that had never quite faded.

Her tan coat flared slightly as she moved, heavy and reinforced, draped over the patchwork armour she wore beneath. Unlike the soldiers at the fort, however, her armour was military-grade, a reinforced old shell battered by time. The same could be said for her arms—a tapestry of old scars ran up her skin, some deep and jagged, others cleaner.

But her eyes—her eyes were the sharpest thing about her. One, dark and calculating, stared me down with a severity that froze me in place. The other caught the light with the unnatural gleam of polished glass—a fake.

And then there was the rifle.

It was a monstrosity, more a collection of parts than a proper firearm. The upper receiver was a patchwork of bolted plates and cracked welds, exposed wiring twisted around a frame that looked ready to snap at any moment. The scope—a salvaged lens, secured with little more than cloth wrappings and luck—was barely functional. The bolt-action mechanism didn't even match the rest of the weapon, ripped from another rifle and forced to comply. A dented heat shield, clearly once part of some other device entirely, had been hammered into place over the barrel. The whole thing looked like it should've fallen apart years ago.

And yet, when she raised it just slightly, when the barrel aligned with my chest, I had no doubt it would fire.

"Taewon is one of us now," Maria attempted. "The others are new, but we can trust them." She eyed Calican, who seemed to be making himself as small as possible. "Well, most of them. Let's not do the usual song and dance."

Reina's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Like I said, my opinion doesn't matter," she retorted. "Orders were to take the new ones straight to Grey Eyes... under lock and key."

To my dismay, I saw Tio's shoulders drop upon hearing these words, and he turned toward us with an apologetic look on his weathered face.

"No blindfolds this time," he demanded. "Your orders say nothing about that."

I saw Reina pause, but as she met Tio's gaze her expression softened.

"Very well," she replied. Slinging her rifle over her shoulder, she reached into her jacket and produced several sets of battered looking handcuffs, which she held out expectantly. "If you four wouldn't mind."

"I very much mind, thank you," Sam snapped. He took two steps forward and snatched a pair of the cuffs from Reina, ratcheting them over his wrists. "But I'm abrasive, not stupid."

"Ha!" Calican barked. He shook his wrists vigorously, rattling his own handcuffs. "Now you all know how it feels!"

With a look of annoyance, Sora did the same, taking handcuffs and passing them back to Haneul. When it came my turn, however, I shook my head.

"I've already been through this," I retorted. "They're new, but you already dragged me through here. If we're going to work together, we need some level of trust."

"Is that what you think?" Reina stared me down, and I became all too aware of the barrel of her slapdash rifle pointed in my general direction. She raised her chin, tilting her head so the dim light caught the riot of scar tissue that traced across her face. "The last time I attempted to operate on blind trust, my lesson was... memorable."

"Taewon is right," Maria attempted. She stepped forward, moving to stand between Reina and I. "You trust me, don't you? I trust Taewon."

Reina's eyes narrowed, and she turned away with a bitter hiss.

"Let's go," she demanded. "We're wasting time." She slung her rifle across her shoulder and walked off into the darkness without even a glance to ensure we were following.

"Damn," Sam breathed. He let out a nervous chuckle and awkwardly scratched the side of his cheek with two bound hands. "Who shit in her ration tin?"

"Are you kidding me?" Calican blurted. He stared off in Reina's direction like he'd seen a ghost. "That's Reina Holt. Stop. Talking."

"Yeah," Sam shrugged. "You keep saying that like you expect me to know what you mean."

"Let's get walking," Tio called. He strode off in the direction Reina had departed, gesturing for the rest of us to follow suit. "It won't do to keep Grey Eyes waiting."

As we all began following Tio's lead, I turned to Maria, who seemed to have occupied herself staring out at the distant thunderstorm.

"I, uh, appreciate the vote of confidence," I attempted. "Sticking your neck out for me means a lot."

"Just don't make me regret it," Maria retorted. She smirked at me. "If you betray us, Reina will probably shoot me before she shoots you."

"She's not the first new teammate who's wanted to do that." I chuckled, but the mirth quickly soured.

"Missing your old squad?" Maria smiled understandingly.

"A little," I replied. "But thanks to Sora, I know they're probably okay without me."

Maria nodded, but didn't reply, and for a moment there was nothing but the sound of footsteps between us.

"You and your sister," Maria breathed. Her voice was quieter now, and she glanced back at the others as we walked. "Any chance you wanna tell me what—"

"Wait, hang on a damn second!"

Sam's voice cut through the darkness. He was a couple meters ahead of us now, and had just rounded the corner of one of the many shipping containers that made up the makeshift labyrinth.

"You want us to go down that? Like this?!"

I turned the corner to see the space widen, shipping containers giving away to the open edge of the building's decrepit floor plan. At the edge of the platform, the square shape of an elevator filled in the gaps between containers, silver doors rusted with age and exposure.

Instead, however, Reina stood at the edge of the platform overlooking the jungle. Below her was a rusty metal ladder, which stretched down into the darkness.

My stomach dropped in baleful recognition.

"You wanted my trust, didn't you?" Reina stated. "Prove it. Climb."

Sam stared up at her, then down at the handcuffs around his wrists.

"You've gotta be kidding me, lady!" He blurted. He shook his wrists vigorously, making the handcuffs rattle. "There's an elevator right there, why aren't we—"

"It doesn't go to this floor anymore, Sam," Maria called. "You're gonna have to get used to heights if you're gonna survive here!"

"Get used to—" Sam stared down the length of the ladder in disbelief. "I'm worried about surviving the next five minutes here!"

"Climb," Reina commanded.

"Oh Christ, she's serious," Sam squeaked. With a nervous chuckle, he seized the metal rung of the ladder with both hands and began to slowly, tentatively make his way down, muttering oaths the entire time.

"You're telling me you were blindfolded the last time you arrived here?" Sora remarked. She and the others had caught up to Maria and I now, and she approached me with a worried glance at the ladder. "If that's true, than how did—"

"Very... carefully," I replied.

"I'm gonna fall and break my goddamn spine!" Sam exclaimed. "How long is this ladder?!"

"Next!" Reina demanded.

With a glance back at Sora, I seized the ladder by its side rails and began descending into the darkness below, all the more thankful I wasn't cuffed this time.