The first thing Sam sees is the shadow.

Not a moving one. Not a threat marker. A shape too angular to be rock.

“Serena,” he says quietly. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

Muon map pulses. Density spikes resolve through the ash and broken ground.

“It matches ninety-two percent of an LMADIS chassis,” Serena replied. “Damage profile extreme.”

Sam freezes for half a breath.

A LMADIS means air defense. Missile umbrella. Counter-battery. Heavy firepower. It also means command thought this sector mattered. And it died here anyway.

He pulls himself out of the trench and crawls forward, keeping his helmet as low as possible. IY98k's sky churns with chemical haze. The gas giant hangs bloated and bruised on the horizon, its magnetosphere flickering faint auroras through the ash.

The wreck sits half-submerged in slag and pulverized rock.

"LMADIS–9 variant," Serena confirmed. "Twin auto-cannon housings torn open. Missile racks empty or detonated. The forward hypervelocity cannon is bent slightly off-axis, its four-meter barrel scorched and warped."

One leg is missing entirely. The others are fused into the ground, resembling melted bone.

Sam feels something like relief and dread at the same time. If a LMADIS were here, they weren’t abandoned. If a LMADIS died here, they never had a chance. He creeps closer.

The chassis is larger than a standard MULE, heavier, and broader. Reactive armor tiles have blistered and popped. Near-symmetrical pitting has cratered the composite skin.

“Nuclear scarring,” Serena says. “Multiple near-surface bursts. At least two within two hundred meters.”

“That thing should’ve shot them down.”

“It got most of them,” she replied. "It was alone."

His HUD overlay flickers and reconstructs the battlefield. She projects ghost arcs in pale blue. Incoming trajectories. Outgoing counterfire. Missile intercepts. Airburst patterns. The LMADIS had been alive once, tracking, prioritizing, firing.

“Forty-three successful intercepts,” Serena continued. “Sixteen confirmed air kills. Including one aircraft. Hypervelocity cannon expended one drum.”

“And then?”

“Overwhelmed.”

Sam circles it slowly.

The 85-millimeter telescoped cannon drum housing has split open. The secondary drum is intact but empty. Chaff and flare pods are expended. Twin 15-millimeter auto-cannons hang limp, one barrel sheared off.

“Power core?” he asked.

“Reactor signatures cold. Containment intact. It shut down cleanly.”

As Sam carefully walks through the trench towards the alternate CP, he comes upon a crashed aircraft in the middle of the trench. That means the crew did it. Or the AI did.

He kneels beside the hull and brushes ash away from a scorched stencil. 5th Mechanized Infantry Brigade. His brigade.

“Of course,” he muttered.

He moves toward the rear hatch. It is partially open, warped, and blackened. Serena pulses the muon imager through the hull.

“Interior density scan complete,” she said. “No movement. Three human mass signatures. Nonviable.”

Sam exhaled slowly. “Open it.”

The MULE rolls up beside him, its legs settling with barely a whisper. Serena overrides the MULE’s standard caution heuristics and deploys its waldos. The manipulator arms grip the hatch and pull.

The LMADIS AI core is dead. Although the screen fractured, residual charge still faintly lights it.

“Can you pull logs?” he asked.

“Attempting.”

Serena threads a handshake through the armored data port. A moment later, fragments of telemetry flooded Sam’s HUD. Enemy saturation strike. CIH missile swarm.
Counter-battery fire from surface batteries. Two tactical nuclear detonations. Friendly comms degrading. Command net collapse.

“Time stamp?” Sam asked.

“Eight minutes after your battalion landed.”

He feels the ground shift beneath him, not physically. Structurally. Eight minutes. They never had air cover. They never had a shield. The LMADIS had been their umbrella. And it burned first.

“Did command know?” he asked. "Anybody coordinate?"

Silence. Serena does not answer immediately. She knows that complete battle coordination across the galaxy is impossible, much less a small moon, no matter what the politicians demand.

“Command telemetry shows loss of orbital over-watch fourteen minutes before LMADIS failure,” she finally said.

“So we were blind.”

“Yes.”

He swallowed. “Can we salvage anything?”

Serena scans again. “Missile racks destroyed. Hypervelocity cannon barrel warped beyond tolerance. Auto-cannons inoperable.”

She paused. “Reactor containment intact. Armor charge ports functional. Local power reserves at eleven percent. We can siphon.”

Sam nodded. “Do it.”

The MULE extends a cable and locks into one of the eight side ports. Energy transfers. His armor display ticks upward by fractions. Every percent matters. He glanced back into the compartment.

“These guys held,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” Serena replied.

He reaches in and taps the scorched hull once, knuckles against blackened metal.

“Thank you.”

Serena dimmed the interior projection slightly. She knows when to leave things unlit. As the power siphon completes, a new warning flickers across Sam’s HUD.

“Contact,” Serena said. "Muon density spike. High mass density. Three hundred meters out. Partially subsurface."

“Friendly?”

“No.”

The wreck of the LMADIS sits behind him like a fallen god. Sam shoulders his rifle.

“Of course,” he said. And turns toward the rising shape in the ash.

"Sam, that is a crashed CIH Marines Qingting aircraft."

"I wonder if the crew survived?"

"Looking at the signature LMADIS damage to the aircraft highly doubtful. Let's check it out."

Sam approaches cautiously, his rifle at the ready.

"Well that answers the question." Sam's HUD flashed, drawing his attention to two armored figures occupying the cockpit. "There's the very dead CIH Marine pilot and gunner."

"I see them."

"They're too shot up and crushed for us to harvest anything from their armor."

"Shit."

"Yes. But we might get some resources from the aircraft."

In his HUD, Serena highlights climbing points on the side of the aircraft.

"Use those to climb the aircraft." She highlights a hatch. "That's where you will find the resource tanks."

Thanks to the light gravity of IY98k, climbing the vertically standing aircraft wreck is easy.

"Slow and easy Sam. Don't over exert yourself. We don't have the air or water for extended strenuous activity."

"I know damnit."

Sam feels the suit's waldos controlled by Serena eject an empty air canister. Sam watches the spinning silver canister land beside the waiting MULE.

"Couldn't we have refilled that canister?"

"That canister had a slow leak. I've swapped to the two good canisters, both of which are less than 25% filled. Our water bladder is just below 15% full."

Sam looked at his HUD. At this exertion level, he has approximately an hour of air.

"How the fuck do I get this fucking hatch open?"

"Look for a handle, latch or button."

With a resounding clang, Sam's fist struck the center of the hatch, buckling and deforming the metal. With a grunt, he forced his gauntleted fingers beneath the warped edge of the hatch, then ripped it violently from its hinges on the aircraft. He tossed the ruined hatch away.

"That worked well." Serena highlighted a connection in his HUD. "Hold still while I operate the waldos and hook into the aircraft."

Sam watched the gleaming silver, intricately braided quick-connect hose being extended by a robotic arm, the metal joints whirring softly. A faint, almost imperceptible hiss escaped as the hose met its coupling, a tiny puff of air a fleeting sign of connection. Sam watches his HUD as Serena tops off his air from the airplane tanks.

"No water as it was stored in the crew's armor."

From his position just above the trench rim, Sam looked over the terrain. Nothing moves in the chemical-laden haze.

"That brought our air tanks up to 60%."

He steps off the aircraft. With a gentle thud, Sam's feet touched the ground beside the MULE.

Navigating the trench, Sam gathered precious air and water, scavenging them from the fallen bodies of Commonwealth soldiers and the rare CIH trooper. He scavenges batteries from fallen soldiers and gathers any available ammunition. He piles his supplies on the MULE.

Sam quickly searches a dead CIH Ground Forces soldier. Unfortunately, high-velocity impact holes punctured her water and air tanks, which also killed her. He searched the harness pouches on her armor, revealing several sealed high- calorie and protein shakes. A quick scan of the barcode and QR code reveals nothing. 

"You might as well consume one of those shakes now Sam."

Sam sits on the trench floor beside the dead soldier. He randomly chooses a baggie. Sam crushed the included water bladder, releasing the liquid into the powder. He vigorously shakes the baggie, mixing the drink. With the waldos, Serena hooks the pouch to Sam's food port.

"Ugh, I can already feel the clammy, slightly greasy texture in my mouth, anticipating the vile taste of liver, or that sickly sweet, cloying butterscotch, or perhaps some other putrid concoction."

"We will see. You could get lucky; maybe those shakes are vanilla or chocolate, both of which you love."

Sam slurps the thick liquid. The flavors of passion fruit, chocolate, kiwi, and banana exploded across his tongue.

"I'm lucky."

"Sam you know that luck is like government. You might need it, but no fool relies on it."

"Yeah. Whatever."

After finishing the drink, Sam felt guilty tossing the empty baggie on the ground.

"No damned recycling bin."

"I doubt you are going to get penalized for littering like you would have in basic training."

A snort escaped Sam, and then he stretched his mouth wide in an enormous yawn.

"Sam, I think you need another nap; let's aim for about thirty minutes."

She is thankful that Sam quickly falls asleep with no need of drugs. Once Sam is deeply asleep, Serena prints and launches a pair of disposable drones, the faint whirring of their rotors a constant presence as they rotate on sentry.

Serena sifted through her memories, recalling that during Sam's medically induced three month long coma for Commonwealth military body modifications, he was given numerous educational files.

For easy retrieval, these files are now housed within the memory banks of the quantum computer, which she also inhabits, surrounding Sam's brain, spine, and hips. Sam has all the files and information necessary so that after passing the exams, he would gain the equivalent of a bachelor's degree.

If Sam pursues higher education, Serena has a variety of programs she can impart to him subconsciously during his sleep. She makes sure that there is no subliminal conditioning that might make Sam either reluctant to kill or feel guilty after killing.

Sam's mental health is of the highest importance to Serena, but she does not want to fuck him up. She is aware of how fragile the human psyche can be.

"Alright Sam let's get going."

"I'm awake mom," Sam said groggily.

"Sam wake up. I'm not your mother."

She knows that for humans subjective reality is internal, whereas objective reality is external to the mind. Balancing both is crucial to avoid Sam losing touch with reality. 

"Sorry Serena. I was dreaming."

"I know. I try to not watch your dreams unless you ask me to."

With a groan, Sam heaved himself to his feet. Looking at the looming gas giant, he knows people overuse the cliché about the vastness of space. But damn, if it isn't apt sometimes.

He nudges his feeding tube, slurping down some supplemental high-calorie and protein sludge. Because it is 'morning time,' the flavored sludge tastes like scrambled eggs and bacon with a nice, harsh chemical aftertaste. He misses coffee and tea. Sam pointed in the direction they had been heading.

"Alternate CP still that way."

"Correct Sam."

"Maybe I will earn the Sean Cawley Cross."

"I doubt that Sam. The Commonwealth does not award fictional medals to the first person who runs away. They are usually shot for cowardice."

"I was joking."

"Oh. I'm still getting used to your humor."

Sam almost missed it. He was nearly walking in a fog, his mind numbed by the constant muon readings.

The rover is half buried in gray ash and broken stone, its frame collapsed into something that looks more like scrap than a machine. Serena highlights the shape on his HUD a fraction of a second before he steps past it.

“Hold,” she said quietly.

Sam stops and takes two steps back.

"I said hold still."

At first, he thinks it’s just another piece of wreckage. The battlefield is full of it. Burned armor plates, broken rifles, twisted drone rotors. Nothing here stays recognizable for long.

Then he sees the leg. One of the rover’s articulated limbs sticks out of the ash at an awkward angle, its actuator housing split open and its traction claws fused into a lump of slag.

“Squad rover,” Sam muttered.

He crouched beside it. The rover is a small, four-legged resupply unit, barely waist-high when standing, built to trot along behind infantry sections carrying extra ammunition, water, ration packs, and first-aid gear.

Semi-autonomous, just smart enough to follow orders, avoid hazards, and keep up with a squad under fire. This one never made it. Serena ran a quick scan.

“Damage profile indicates multiple direct hits,” she said. “Four confirmed penetrations. Possibly more.”

Sam brushes away a layer of ash with his gauntlet. The rover’s chassis emerges slowly, scorched and pitted.

Armor panels peeled back like flower petals around the impact points. Whatever hit it punched straight through. One round tore through the forward sensor cluster. Another punched through the cargo compartment. Two more struck the front quarter of the body. Sam studied the angle of the damage.

“They were aiming past it,” he said.

“Yes,” Serena replied. “Trajectory analysis suggests the rover moved between the shooter and another soldier.”

Sam exhaled through his teeth. The engineers did not create the rover for that purpose.

“Stupid little bastard.”

"Brave little bastard. While the rover's AI is much simpler, it still knew it was going to die."

"Now I feel bad."

"Its hazard avoidance logic must have interpreted the incoming fire as a threat to its assigned soldier and tried to reposition itself. It worked. Mostly."

Sam shifted around to the other side. That’s when he sees the writing. At first, it looks like another scorch mark across the rover’s side panel. Dark streaks smeared across the dull metal. Then his visor zooms slightly. The letters come into focus.

"Tell my mother I love her."

The message is uneven, smeared where a shaking hand must have dragged across the metal. The letters grow weaker toward the end, the last word trailing off into a dark stain. Blood. Sam stared at it for a long moment.

“Serena,” he said softly.

“Yes.”

“How long?”

She doesn’t answer right away. “Biological residue degradation suggests approximately five hours since deposition,” she said.

Five hours. That means the soldier survived the hit. Long enough to crawl here. Long enough to write that.

Sam looks around the trench line automatically, but the ash has swallowed most of the bodies and debris. Whoever the soldier was, he’s somewhere nearby under the gray dust. Or he crawled away and died somewhere else. Either way, he’s gone. Sam rests a hand briefly on the rover’s scorched hull.

“You did your job and then some,” he murmured while crossing himself. "If there is machine heaven, I hope you're there."

The rover’s systems are dead. Its little logic core probably burned out the moment the rounds punched through its frame. Still, it tried. Sam popped the cargo latch. The compartment opens with a protesting squeal. One hinge snaps and drops into the ash.

Most of the contents inside have been ruined. Melted ration packs, shattered water cartridges, a crushed ammo brick that cooked off and fused itself into a metallic lump. But two containers sit wedged into a corner, protected by the warped frame. Serena highlighted them.

“Consumables intact.”

Sam pulled them out. Two squat thermal packs. High-protein and calorie supplement shakes. Despite smearing, the labels were still readable.

Hot chocolate with marshmallows. Mexican hot chocolate pudding. Both include chemical warming tabs. Sam snorts softly.

“Luxury.”

“These provide approximately eighteen hundred calories each,” Serena said. “Your caloric deficit remains significant.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He tucks the packs into his kit. The warming tabs will matter later. IY98k’s cold zones can suck the heat out of you even inside armor if you sit still too long.

He closes the cargo compartment as best he can. Then he hesitates. Sam reaches down and wipes a clean patch of metal beside the blood message with the edge of his gauntlet. For a second, he considers writing something back.

There isn’t anything to add. The soldier had already said what mattered. Sam stands and looks down the trench toward the distant ridgeline where Serena’s ghost map marks the alternate command post.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Behind him, the destroyed rover settles deeper into the ash, its metal frame creaking softly as the wind drifts gray dust over the words on its side.