Chapter 157 - Squad C

What came after the repair briefing was a quick introductory meeting with the squad. It was unreasonable for the rebellion to quickly smash agents together and expect them to work professionally.

While the rebellion might seem like a well-oiled organization, it was actually more of a mixed-up boiling hotpot of angry and frustrated individuals who all had differing motivations for joining the rebellion.

Expecting such different individuals to act professionally in a high-stakes battle without proper adjustment and formal training would be tantamount to chaos.

Ceres made his way over, following the other exosuit repairers who were heading the same way. He kept his multi-terminal in his hand, continuously browsing all the available exosuit parts.

The squad was broken up into roles to form independent teams. In the event of a communication failure, the squad was expected to be able to achieve its objective unilaterally without the need for external assistance.

As such, Ceres needed to familiarise himself with the roles of the squad before he met them. Sure, he had experience coordinating in the military orphanage and during the qualifiers for the graduation competition, but that was child’s play compared to this.

This was life and death. There was no safety net nor safety shields behind them.

Coincidentally, Ceres scrolled through the list and noticed a few items available – safety shields nicked from the graduation competition.

The shields that triggered on a certain damage threshold for the competitors were notoriously hard to get – and they were easy to overwhelm too. Much of the firepower wielded in the competition was extremely low power, so the safety shields were effective then.

Furthermore, the safety shield worked under the guise that participants would not try to damage the shield any further, as it was a competition, not a massacre.

Facing off against a heavily guarded prison, Ceres was not about to rely on such flimsy shields that could easily crack under moderate fire.

Ceres wondered if he could somehow improve the shields, but he was not an expert in energy or protective measures. “I don’t think I actually know any exosuit designer specialized in defensive measures… closest would be Leonard..”

Ceres wondered how Leonard was doing. His betrayal during the competition really threw Ceres off-guard, making him think that Leonard might have a part to play in the chaos that ensued.

“Heh, trying to read up now? Looks like you were acting back in there.” The voice of the arrogant Pris wafted from in front of him, standing with her arms cross and a smug grin. “I’m the principal exosuit repairer for the squad now, so you better follow my lead! If I find you’re not capable enough, I’ll have you kicked!”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ceres stoically replied before walking around her, continuing his way through the rebel base towards the briefing.

The continued ‘disrespect’ and ‘cool cucumber’ vibes from Ceres really started to get to Pris, her face fuming once again, but she didn’t verbally retaliate anymore. “Good, you should listen to me from now on.”

Ceres stopped walking, before turning around and giving a light-hearted salute. “Reporting for duty, ma’am. What would you have me do?”

“Eh… erm yes that’s much better.” Pris was slightly stunned by the sudden change, before clearing her throat and smiling. “First off, you should walk behind me. Follow me to meet our squad. While you’re at it, you can learn how a real leader acts.”

She began to strut off, with Ceres complying. He wasn’t about to start a fight for no reason and draw unwanted attention to himself, as much as he was annoyed by Pris’s action. “This girl has some serious issues, no one normally acts like that.”

Then again, most normal people weren’t willing to throw their lives away for the rebellion, so he took that into account as well.

They soon reached their squad’s designated briefing room, with the rest of the seven squad members already waiting for them inside. The room was a simple locker room layout of normal proportions, just enough to fit an exosuit into each of the twelve lockers available.

The room was usually allocated for squads going on a mission, as a better way for them to organize and collate their equipment into a fixed location.

The air in the room was tense, as none of the squad members knew each other, only having just arrived from their own personal briefing similar to Ceres and Pris.

Each of the members either eyed each other warily or did their own thing. Ceres could sense all their emotions and had a sense of suspicion towards each other.

“HELLO EVERYONE! I’m your primary exosuit repairer, Pris, and this is my subordinate, ‘Dumpling’. Don’t worry about the mask, he’s just too afraid to show his ugly face around here. From now on I’ll be taking charge of all logistics and equipment issues, so please line up nicely and tell me what modules and features your exosuit has!” Pris triumphantly waltzed into the room, before taking up the centre and staring at the rest.

However, not a single person moved, instead ignoring her and returning to whatever they were doing before. “Hello?! Listen to me!” Pris demanded, but the squad continued to ignore her. A red-headed girl even tsked as she turned away, continuously squeezing a hand grip to improve her grip strength.

Faces of disinterest reign supreme in the room. A hooded man was sleeping against the corner, while a lone quiet girl held a rifle close to her body, mumbling to herself.

Ceres had already read up on all the agents who had participated in the briefing, noting that all of these were lone wolves in some sort of way. They seemed to have no records of ever doing a squad mission before, which was the apprehension towards each other was palpable. “Why does this feel like the problematic squad? Who’s the squad leader?”

Ceres already didn’t like how the meeting was going. It truly seemed as though every agent in this squad had some issues in one way or another. “Did the A.I really think it was a good idea to lump people like this together? Or…” He recalled the obvious dislike shown by Sierra towards him, causing him to sigh.

Did the rebellion even want the mission to succeed? What was the purpose of composing this squad in the first place?

As though it was somehow at his behest, a robot voice wafted in through the announcement channel in the room.

[All members of Squad C accounted for. The preliminary objective briefing will now begin. Please pay attention.]

A holographic display appeared around Pris, who yelped and moved out of the way to allow everyone to view the screen. No matter which angle you view it from, everyone saw the same image, which was a cutout of Haui’s Moon, the prison asteroid they were supposed to attack.

[The overall objective of the prison break is to ensure the safe extraction of all three hundred thousand prisoners, rebel or not. Squad C’s role is simple – ensure that all outer surface facilities are successfully disabled before the main force enters. This means your squad will be the vanguard in the prison.]

“What?!” Pris exclaimed. “We won’t be following the main force?”

[Negative. You will be deployed through a dedicated stealth vessel that the White Fang has managed to secure. This means you will be conducting surveillance and observation for a few days first to catch any anomalies, as well as disable all outer surface facilities as much as possible before our entry.]

An orbital trajectory plan of the trajectory was shown. [Our hackers have managed to infiltrate the satellite observation system that the enforcers used to observe all planetside launches and low orbits. We cannot obfuscate too much data without being caught, so you will be transported into space via one of our smuggling partner’s starships, following which you will be transported to the said stealth vessel.]

The orbital trajectory showed a vessel leaving on the antipodal point of New Saint on the other side of the planet, before rendezvousing with an unmarked vessel in orbit.

[To prevent discovery, the squad is expected to work under minimal communications. Check-ins are expected only every 12 hours.]

“Hold on” A fierce-looking young adult suddenly spoke, his right hand continuously gripping his sword’s hilt attached to his hip. Ceres seemed to recognize him from the first time he joined the rebellion. “We don’t have any formal zero-g training sessions, how are we going to move this ship?”

[The squad has been designated a pilot. Amelia Opel has significant experience in piloting shuttles and smuggling ships. She will be in charge of your ship induction course. All squad members will have ample training in simulated VR sessions.]

A baggy-eyed girl who had pale skin unlike the rest waved her hands, before returning to her game on the multi-terminal, obviously disinterested in the briefing.

[The date of this transportation is one and a half weeks from now, which will provide Squad C ample time to familiarise itself with the starship. Details of the vessel will only be revealed when you arrive to prevent leaks.]

The screen changed to the map of Haui’s Moon. Each of the major facilities was marked with a number showing their ranking of importance.

[The outer surface facilities include the following

1. The main entrance and its defences

2. Solar Array and power transformers

3. Observation Post

4. Radiator Array

5. Hydroponic farms

The priority and importance of disabling are also ranked as such. All facilities listed here must be under our control before the main force attacks.]

“What’s the purpose of taking the hydroponic farms?” Ceres asked.

[There is a possibility that the offensive will be much longer than expected, and a long duration stay is expected. In order to feed three hundred thousand prisoners, we must be prepared in any way possible. Not controlling the hydroponic farms may cause instability among the hungry prisoners.]

“Why can’t we just haul up more nutri-paste? It’s pretty easy to pack.” The fierce young boy quizzed.

[Cargo space is limited, especially in the way that our forces will be transported there. Some rations can be provided, but our calculations indicated you will only be able to eat for less than a few days. The hydroponic farm is designed to feed all prisoners and the guards as well, which simplifies things. The additional water would also be critical in the event of a longer stay than expected.]

Ceres was thoroughly impressed with the A.I. so far. He had not really engaged with the A.I. in the rebel base before, and never had one growing up in the military orphanage.

Ardan had previously told him the reason they don’t use the A.I. as much was because the computing power required a lot of energy and released a lot of heat, which might tip off anybody who was watching.

[Additional instructions: Under no circumstances should the radiator array on the surface be destroyed or damaged. Control of it is critical to ensuring the prison remains under control.]

Many of the squad members nodded in agreement. Radiators were the main way to lose heat in space, and controlling that meant that they could easily increase the temperature in the prison without much effort, if necessary, especially if the prisoners got out of hand!

[The observation post will be hacked by Squad C to provide false information back to the enforcers on what’s happening in the prison. This will drastically increase our odds of success. The observation post is also controlling twenty-seven small microsatellites that serve as live cameras on the prison surface. Faking the footage and subsequent data is also required. For this, Tyson has been assigned as your nerval hacker.]

A hooded man at the back gave a thumbs-up with a black metallic hand. With the thick trench coat he wore, it was hard to say which part of him was still human or prosthetic. Ceres however, could see very clearly that Tyson was almost completely prosthetic, only his chest and neck above was still human.

[Due to our limited surveillance and information, it is hard to judge where the power is routed to the defences. The previous estimate of five auxiliary power systems have been increased to ten, and we believe some of them to be on the surface as well. Squad C hence has an additional task to check the surface for any such devices.]

[Squad C shall also investigate if there is an additional opening available other than the main entrance which has been identified. This would then increase the success of the mission, though our calculations are not reliant on that.]

Ceres started to get the idea or at least the reasoning behind why Squad C was composed of lone wolves. Due to the differing nature of so many objectives and the need to operate separately, it made sense to have multiple lone wolves tackle different objectives in parallel before the main force hit.

[Final Note: Under no circumstances should Squad C initiate a fight. The stealth vessel has been coded with a self-destruct sequence in the event of a hostile takeover. Squad C is expected to return to the surface via the stealth vessel. This is the end of the briefing.]

The screen disappeared, with the squad members still going over the information they had just been presented.

Ceres was fairly excited, himself having never gone to space before apart from being drugged and dragged to the Thorn Chamber.

He wondered how was he going to fight on the surface of the asteroid under zero-g. If he used his superhuman strength and jumped, would he completely leave the orbit of Haui’s Moon and just float on his own? “Better not try that, otherwise I’m fucked.”

What excited him the most was the prospect of boarding a starship. “Guess I didn’t need to leave Athen in the first place.” Ceres smiled sadly to himself as he recalled the goals and passion he had before the disastrous competition.

“Are you okay? Why are you smiling to yourself?” The fierce young boy suddenly spoke to Ceres, who was just made aware of how much of a crazy person he must have looked like.

“No, sorry it was nothing.” Ceres replied, before taking a closer look at the boy, who seemed slightly familiar. “Did you fight in the Rockhold Arena before? I think I saw a fighter like you there…”

“Oh yes, I fought there a few times under direct guidance from the White Fang. Are you from Rockhold?” The boy nodded, while Ceres stared at his sword, somehow recognizing it.

“You’re the transcendent fighter who could curve shots!” Ceres suddenly exclaimed as he recalled his first day on the job as an arena cleaner.

The boy’s face darkened at the mention of that. “It is not transcendence; it is a curse!” He spat the words before turning away, refusing to talk to Ceres any longer.

Ceres took in the rest of the room. Tyson, the hooded man, was still leaning against the wall, his eyes closed under the hood as he breathed slowly. Amelia was still gaming away at her multi-terminal, a game Ceres did not recognize but it was definitely captivating Amelia.

Pris was still trying to gather people’s attention, but it seems that no one in the room even wanted to entertain her at all! Ceres tried to rack his brain how he could crack the ice, especially with these many lone wolves and people with personality issues.

He checked once again, seeing the emotions of others. He noticed that many of the members were actually curious about each other, but nobody wanted to take the first step.

Ceres was definitely not an expert in social interactions. He could hold his own conversations, but it still largely depended on others approaching him first. Now that he had to make the first move, it felt a bit awkward, the kid inside him still alive and kicking.

His brain ran overtime and running out of ideas, so he instead decided to check on the exosuits. Some of the squad members have already brought their exosuits over to the locker room. He first walked up to an obviously heavily modified version of the Victorious Revolt.

Instead of its usual lacklustre grey colour scheme and basic detailing, this one had a personal flair of dark blue and lightning yellow to it. Ceres stood in front of it, examining the exosuit.

The Victorious Revolt was heavily armoured, with rounded shoulder pads serving as additional armour on top of the base armour plate. The arms were significantly thicker. Ceres was about to touch the arm to get a better feel of his structure before a hand grabbed his shoulder.

“What do you think you’re doing to my exosuit?” It was the same young boy, who now eyed Ceres with suspicion.

“I’m the secondary exosuit repairer, so I’ll like to check your exosuit if you don’t mind.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, there’s nothing to check. The White Fang personally modified my exosuit for me.” The boy snorted. “And if I really wanted an opinion, I’ll ask the primary first.”

Pris abandoned her futile attempts to get another squad member talking, immediately running over to them. “Yes, yes I’m the primary! Can I inspect your exosuit?”

The boy nodded, while Pris began to examine the exosuit around. Ceres wondered why she did not start off with this in the first place, though he could not claim to understand even an iota of what ran through her head.

“Wow, as expected of a Victorious Revolt self-modified by the White Fang himself!” Pris gushed as she walked around.

“The design is impeccable, and it’s modified to be a swordsman exosuit is it not? The arms have significantly more motorized power than any part of the exosuit, which means it delivers great slicing power! It also means you can’t use rifles though, that sounds like a problem in zero-g combat… There’s no defensive shield as well!”

“It’s not a problem.” The boy replied. “I will be asking the White Fang to design a thruster pack for greater acceleration. As for the defensive shield, I got that covered…” He didn’t explain any further, but Pris recalled what Ceres said earlier, simply nodding.

Ceres, however, began to frown slightly. “This exosuit doesn’t seem to be that good. Too much power is directed towards the arm, resulting in an overall unstable frame. The weight of the additional armour seems to be a burden as well. There also doesn’t seem to be enough backup systems in the event of a critical failure. The number of components used will also mean that it’s hard to repair on the field.”

The boy and Pris were stunned before anger showed on their faces. “How dare you criticize an exosuit made by the White Fang! He’s a brilliant exosuit designer who is well-versed in the battlefield!” Pris shot back.

Ceres had been giving way to Pris this long, but this was a matter he was not willing to budge on. “Don’t think because he’s the leader therefore everything he makes is gold. Even the White Fang has and can make some mistakes during a design or overlook a feature.”

The boy grunted “You seem to be suggesting that you can improve the exosuit or fix its flaws.”

Ceres shook his head. “The flaw in the design is far too ingrained to be a simple modification. If anything, I would have to customize a Victorious Revolt for you from scratch. If you don’t trust me, I can simply make an exosuit that would defeat yours in combat.”

The boy was intrigued, grinning widely. “Is this a challenge? I’ve been looking for worthy opponents apart from A.S, Sierra and the White Fang, so I hope you don’t disappoint me.”

The squad members began to pay interest to the conversation. Unknowingly, Ceres’s reluctance to budge on his viewpoints began a sort of icebreaker in a way.

Ceres smiled as he found a way to get the squad together. Strength truly was the currency of the Loeric Empire. “A challenge it is. In two days, I’ll design and make an exosuit that can defeat you. I’ll be the pilot.”

A few signs of excitement between the squad members began to sprout as some began to place bets even.

Ceres was not out to put the boy down, but rather he considered it as a design duel between him and Ardan. Could he make an exosuit to defeat Ardan’s creation? “After six years…”