The haulers thundered across the wind-scoured plains, their wide tires chewing into the soft grit of the northwest plains. The sky was still heavy with residual dust from the previous storm, visibility fluctuating in murky bands.

  Inside the lead hauler, Yao Guowei leaned forward in the passenger seat, reviewing the drone telemetry on his display. Kucugur sat at the wheel, his eyes fixed on the horizon, while Casimir occupied one of the rear compartments, double-checking the seal integrity of his power suit, his expression one of exhilarated focus as ARI streamed tactical overlays to his helmet display.

  Guowei grinned. “We’re deploying hard. Fast. Hit them before they know we’re there.”

  Kucugur frowned slightly. “That’s bold. We’re not even sure how many of those large beasts are active.”

  Guowei turned slightly, eyebrows raised. “So?”

  Casimir exhaled, leaning back. “I just wonder if we should be relying on the resurrection tech. Like—don’t get me wrong, I signed up for it, but if we go full reckless, and something happens—”

  “We come back,” Guowei said. “That’s the point. That’s exactly what this tech is for. Tactical freedom. No fear of failure. We’re untouchable.”

  “But how many times?” Casimir asked. “What if something gets scrambled? I mean, you can't reprint a mind like it's a suit of armor. Not forever.”

  Guowei considered that. Then, “ARI, any long-term side effects from repeated printing? Memory degradation? Personality loss?”

  ARI’s voice came through crisply over their shared comms. “There are no known long-term side effects from standard reinstatement procedures, even across multiple iterations. Redundancy mechanisms and cognitive integrity protocols are in place. If damage or data inconsistency is detected, I am confident I can repair or correct it using the master scans and behavioral models.”

  Kucugur rubbed the back of his neck. “So in theory, we could die dozens of times and keep coming back like nothing happened?”

  “In theory, yes,” ARI replied. “However, I still recommend minimizing unnecessary iterations to preserve resources and avoid potential subjective dissonance.”

  Casimir frowned. “Then why are we even out here? Why are we recovering these cryopods if you can rebuild people from scratch or repair them with fake data? For most, there won’t be much left of their brains.”

  A brief pause.

  “Because,” ARI said, “while I could construct a functional person from existing templates or behavioral datasets, it is not the same. The individuals in those pods have complex, layered identities—formed not only by memory, but by experience encoded in physical structures, especially in their epigenetic signatures.”

  “Epigenetic?” Guowei asked.

  “Yes,” ARI responded. “Even degraded tissue carries epigenetic markers—patterns of gene expression influenced by environment, hormonal responses, age, habits, and more. They provide deep insight into lived experience—down to behavior, reflex patterns, emotional tendencies. The more of that I can recover, the truer the resurrection.”

  Casimir was quiet for a moment. Then: “Couldn’t you just make new people?”

  “Technically,” ARI replied, “I can synthesize entirely new individuals using the stored genomic database. The colony ship carried enough diverse genetic material to build a fully populated settlement of millions. But such individuals would lack identity. Without life experience, I would need to create or assign behavioral models. Artificially generated personalities tend to create dissonance, social friction and developmental instability. It is not advisable.”

  Guowei snorted. “Well, that’s creepy.”

  “Which is why,” ARI continued, “our mission remains the recovery of colonist remains. Even partial brain data helps. But the greatest value lies in the epigenetic record—a biological map of who they were, not just what they knew.”

  Casimir exhaled, watching the terrain roll by as the hauler crested a rise. “So we’re out here pulling people out of the dirt because you don’t want to make up strangers.”

  “Correct,” ARI said. “We are rebuilding lives. Not assembling drones.”

  That shut them both up for a few minutes as the dust swirled around them and the sharp angles of wreckage began to appear on the horizon.

  The second hauler jolted as it hit a ridge, kicking up a wave of ochre dust in its wake. Otto braced himself with one hand on the cabin frame, squinting through the haze ahead. The terrain was beginning to shift—broken, pitted earth interspersed with the jagged remains of ancient rockslides.

  Up ahead, Guowei’s hauler surged forward at full throttle, its heavy treads flinging grit like tails behind it. Their helmet displays flickered as ARI’s tactical interface came alive, a cascade of icons and threat markers lining their HUDs. ARI’s voice was soft, measured, layered, echoing slightly as if being streamed across multiple comms at once.

  “I am integrating short-range neural sync,” ARI said. “Passive telemetry only. Tactical overlays will be updated in real time based on squadline consciousness alignment.”

  “Squadline consciousness?” Sigrid muttered, raising an eyebrow.

  “Means ARI’s reading our intent and feeding everyone what they need before they know they need it,” Otto replied, checking his sidearm. “Faster than voice. Need something, ARI reacts.”

  “Like nerves in a body,” Sigrid said thoughtfully.

  “Exactly,” Otto said. “Except the brain’s an AI and the limbs are us.”

  The haze began to shift. Shapes emerged—half-buried metal ribs jutting from the earth like the carcass of some massive beast. A broken fragment of Dolya’s hull, warped by impact and time, sprawled across the field in twisted, sun-scorched arcs.

  The lead hauler slammed to a halt, its rear hatch dropping.

  CorpSec surged out like a coiled spring snapping open—armored figures hitting the ground running. Guowei was first, his suit bristling with mounted weaponry. Kucugur flanked left, his weapon already spun up. Casimir stumbled slightly as he dismounted, catching himself and activating his armor’s assist mode.

  Above them, a swarm of ARI’s drones scattered from the hauler’s roof like a flock of raptors, sleek, angular shapes that immediately fanned out into attack patterns. Red targeting lasers flicked through the haze like tracer threads.

  Otto and Sigrid watched from their still-moving hauler as the engagement began.

  The beetles surged from beneath debris—a flood of segmented shells, skittering legs, and gnashing mandibles. Dozens of them, crawling over metal, dragging scavenged cabling behind them like grotesque antennae. Behind them, new, larger forms emerged.

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  A brute, loping on fused limbs. A grinder, its mouth a rotating mass of bone-sheathed grinding plates, already tearing at a hull panels half-buried in the soil.

  Then the storm broke.

  Kucugur’s shoulder-mounted cannon fired a burst of grenades, each one detonating midair in tight dispersal pattents that tore the front line of beetles apart in a mist of chitin and ichor. Guowei dropped to one knee and unleashed a sweeping arc of heavy weapons fire, his heavy rotary cannon hosing down the swarm with high-volume fire that ripped dozens of beetles to shreds in seconds.

  Casimir, lagging slightly behind, raised his rifle and fired off careful, aimed shots. Each one struck true—he might not have been a soldier, but he was focused, and his suit offloaded most of the complex movements.

  ARI’s drones strafed overhead.

  Rapid-fire weapons launched flechettes into soft targets. Precision-guided micromissiles zipped through the haze and struck the grinder’s shoulder joint with a precise application of force, blowing the limb backward in a spray of gore and fractured chitin.

  The brute roared, charging forward.

  Kucugur didn’t flinch.

  He pivoted, anchored his feet, and launched a full salvo from his shoulder launcher. The twin missiles streaked out and impacted center mass. The brute folded mid-charge, its torso crumpling inward as the warheads detonated in a synchronized explosion.

  The ground was littered with twitching limbs and smoking carcasses within ninety seconds. The team moved over and through the rubble with unnatural dexterity, cleaning up the stragglers. Otto could barely process it fast enough to track.

  When it was over, the field was silent again—except for the hum of drones still circling, scanning for threats.

  Sigrid exhaled slowly, watching Casimir step carefully over a pile of beetle fragments to help secure the closest pods. "Do you still feel human after watching that?" she asked, voice low.

  Otto didn’t answer immediately. His eyes followed one of the CorpSec soldiers walking calmly through the carnage, armor splashed with alien blood, the expressionless helmet glinting like a reaper’s mask.

  “No,” he said finally. “Not even a little.”

  The field was strewn with smoldering wreckage and glistening carcasses. Acrid smoke drifted upward, the settling dust carrying the chemical tang of scorched beetle chitin and flamethrower-burnt remains.

  The CorpSec team stood amid the ruin they had created, visors up now, grinning, laughing, flushed with adrenaline and something deeper—a giddy sense of power.

  “We slaughtered them,” one of the troopers said, his voice echoing through the external comms. “That brute didn’t even get close.”

  “First time I’ve felt like a frecking demigod,” another chimed in. “That armor, the neural sync—it’s like the suit knew what I wanted before I did.”

  Casimir stepped forward, his face flushed with exertion and awe. His armor was streaked with grime and bits of beetle residue, but he looked positively exhilarated.

  “Do you realize what this means?” he said, looking between the CorpSec troopers. “This was just the start. Just baseline Provider tech. We’re barely scratching the surface.”

  He gestured back toward the swarm of ARI’s drones, now hovering in formation as if on parade. “Imagine what their Empire looks like. What else they’ve built. What other gifts they could give us.”

  Some of the troopers nodded, still catching their breath. The mood was triumphant. Most had never imagined this kind of one-sided battlefield dominance.

  Kucugur, standing near the edge of the group, didn’t look so thrilled. His face was neutral, but his posture was tense.

  He shook his head. “We don’t even know why they’re helping us.”

  Casimir turned to him, still beaming. “Because we’re part of the same species group. This tech works for us. We have the same basic cognitive architecture. They said they value human survival...”

  Kucugur crossed his arms. “Sure. But what use does it have for us? It can manufacture workers. Engineers. Even minds. Doesn’t need us. Maybe right now, we’re useful. But later? We’ll be liabilities.”

  No one answered immediately.

  Casimir hesitated. “…That’s true. But maybe it’s not about what they need from us. Maybe it’s about connection. Or legacy. Or… I don’t know, ideology.”

  Kucugur wasn’t sold. He gestured broadly to the battlefield. “Or maybe the Provider is just just keeping us around until they’ve reconnected with their own kind. Then they can just mop us up for recycling. Like we just did to these beetles.”

  Guowei, who had been standing apart with his rifle slung across his back, finally stepped forward. His face was unreadable, as always, but there was a quiet authority in his tone.

  “Enough. This isn’t a philosophy seminar. We’re here to work.” He looked over the field, already darkening with the onset of evening. “ARI wants every cryopod recovered. Every piece of salvage marked. That’s our job. Get your weapons stowed and get those suits lifting. No more chatter.”

  The team snapped back to motion.

  Sigrid drove the secondary hauler in close, parking it parallel to the crash site so the rear bay could be used for rapid loading. The hydraulic arms of the cargo lift hissed as it deployed, ready to receive the first wave of cryopods.

  The engineering team arrived moments later in a smaller crawler, their powered exosuits fully charged. Cutting torches flared to life as they set to work carving apart the twisted wreckage. Sparks danced in the dusk air as damaged hull segments were separated from intact pods, and the engineers marked key salvage points with luminescent tags.

  Several of the cryopods were trapped, bent under collapsed supports or half-buried in displaced soil. The powered suits made quick work of them, lifting debris that would have taken a dozen unassisted workers to move.

  Sigrid climbed down from the cab and joined Otto, watching as the team pulled apart the wreckage.

  “Almost looks easy,” she muttered.

  Otto gave a small nod. “That’s what scares me.”

  They worked until nightfall, floodlights illuminating the wreck site as the last of the viable pods were secured. When the final checklist was signed off and the loaders clamped shut, Guowei gave the order to move.

  The convoy rumbled into motion, the vehicles spreading out slightly as they turned toward the next marked site.

  It was smaller. A detached module, half buried in a shallow depression.

  No movement. No beetles. No drones required.

  They dismounted quietly, relieved to see the site uncontested.

  Fatigue was creeping in, but nobody complained. People rotated shifts, catching rest in the back compartments or along the padded benches where blankets and field kits had been laid out.

  Otto had taken a brief nap himself—an hour of uneasy rest, helmet resting against the bulkhead, the vibration of the hauler pressing against his spine. Now, he was standing beside the rear loading ramp with Sigrid, watching another site come into view.

  It was smaller than the others. The remains of a personnel compartment, partially collapsed, beetles crawling in and around the structure.

  “Multiple contacts,” ARI reported calmly over the comms. “No apex organisms detected. Engaging beetle cluster now.”

  Without waiting for orders, the scout drones swept ahead. In under a minute, flashes of missile fire and the hiss of directed lasers lit the shallow basin, slicing through the beetles like wheat before a thresher.

  By the time the convoy rolled up and parked, the field was already quiet. The only sound was the mechanical whir of drones on cleanup cycles, pushing beetle remains into a pile for collection.

  Sigrid gave a low whistle. “Well, that’s one way to clear a site.”

  “Very efficient,” Otto murmured.

  A few minutes later, Otto noticed Guowei and Kucugur at the edge of the site, working with a manifest on a wrist console, scanning cryopods one by one and slapping bright orange tags on certain ones.

  He walked over. “What’s this?”

  Guowei looked up briefly but didn’t stop working. “Just organizing return logistics.”

  Otto narrowed his eyes. “Those tags aren’t standard.”

  Guowei hesitated. Kucugur glanced away.

  Otto stepped closer. “You want to explain what you're doing?”

  Guowei sighed and tapped the manifest. “Priority returns. These pods are scheduled for first-wave repatriation back to the base. Others might wait at the rest stop until we cycle back.”

  “On whose orders?” Otto asked.

  Guowei hesitated again, then shrugged. “Standard Company directives. Hierarchical recovery protocols. Critical personnel and security assets take precedence.”

  Otto crossed his arms. “That’s interesting, because I’m in charge of this mission, and I don’t remember approving any recovery priority.”

  Guowei didn’t flinch. “I’m just following Company directives, sir.”

  Otto studied him for a moment, then turned without another word and walked back to Sigrid, who was leaning against the hauler’s side panel, sipping nutrient broth from a thermos.

  “They’re tagging pods,” he said.

  She looked up. “Yeah, I saw. Guowei and Kucugur?”

  Otto nodded. “Calling it high-priority retrieval. Some of the pods will have to wait at the rest stop, apparently.”

  Sigrid tapped a few keys, pulling up the manifest ARI had synced to their systems. She frowned, scrolling through the names tagged for first retrieval.

  “CorpSec. Officers. Some medical and technical staff, but mostly field command.”

  Otto watched her face tighten. “Maximilian?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Then: “Either him or Tamarlyan or both. They want their people revived first. This is how you build a power base. You bring back your loyalists, while everyone else waits.”

  Otto glanced at the pod list again. “Not much we can do about it, out here.”

  Sigrid leaned back, exhaling. “I suppose not…”

  Otto looked over the still-smoking battlefield, the firelit edge of the wreckage, the quiet figures loading broken futures into armored haulers.

  “Feels wrong,” he muttered.

  Sigrid gave a tired nod. “Because it is.”

  But they both knew the choice had already been made. And when those pods were opened, the balance of power in the colony would shift again—quietly, efficiently, and without a single shot fired.