Chapter 31: The Veterans of Outpost 79

With the Viper Syndicate ridge still smoking behind them, Valerie led Squad Outcast down into Outpost 79’s underground subterranean tactical hub—a damp, concrete bunker reeking of stale coffee, gun oil, and burnt wiring.

"Listen up, you rejects!" Valerie shouted, her voice bouncing off the low ceilings. "Stop gambling and stand at attention! These are the Grand Commanders from the Academy—and before any of you start running your mouths like I did, the girl just crushed an S-rank cyborg's tank with her bare foot."

The heavy metal doors whistled shut, revealing Valerie’s core squad scattered around a rusted planning table loaded with tactical holoscreens.

A tall, broad-shouldered woman with dark skin, buzz-cut hair, and a scarred lip looked up from field-stripping a heavy dual-barrel grenade launcher. This was Jax, the outpost's S-rank heavy ordinance specialist. She took one look at Phoenix’s harmless [F-RANK GUIDE] tag, spat a glob of blue stimulant dip into an empty ration can, and smirked.

"An F-rank?" Jax drawled, her husky voice raspy from smoke. "Val, you brought us a tiny little princess. She looks like she’d snap in half if she tried to lift my ammo crate."

Beside Jax, sitting cross-legged on a server rack with a laptop plugged directly into his cybernetic neck-port, was Soren—an S-rank electronic warfare specialist with messy silver hair, dark circles under his eyes, and a lit cigarette dangling from his lips. He didn't even look up from his glowing screens as his fingers blurred across a glass keyboard.

"Status check, Jax," Soren muttered, blowing a smoke ring toward the ceiling. "That 'tiny princess' just jammed a signal frequency that took out Malakor’s entire comms network in three seconds flat. Her tech kid's running a custom quantum suite that's currently laughing at my firewall."

Soren finally looked up, his pale blue eyes locking onto Toby. A manic, tech-addicted grin broke across his face. "Hey, specs... what kind of illegal overclock are you running on that lawnmower rig? I want in."

"It's a custom-rigged Apex Artificer engine, blue-eyes," Toby bragged, puffing his chest out as he unslung his tool kit. "And I don't share my schematics with guys who use ancient fiber-optic cables."

"Oh, it's like that?" Soren chuckled, unhooking a flash-drive from his neck. "Let's see whose code holds up, short stack."

Meanwhile, Jax stood up, all six-foot-two of her, and lumbered over to Phoenix. She stopped inches away, towering over the "F-rank Guide" with an intimidating grin, her eyes flicking over to Killian, who was already growling with his hand resting on his greatsword hilt.

"Easy, handsome," Jax smirked, eyeing Killian's massive chest and arms with an appreciative whistle. "I’m not gonna break your girl. Just wanna see if she's got real steel under that pretty face."

Jax extended a hand—armored with a heavy, hydraulic power-gauntlet—and offered a handshake.

Phoenix didn't hesitate. She stepped right up, grabbed Jax’s gauntlet with her bare hand, and squeezed.

Screeech—

The reinforced titanium alloy on Jax’s gauntlet began to warp and buckle under Phoenix’s bare fingers like soft dough. Jax’s eyes went wide as saucers as her hydraulic pressure gauge spiked into the red and shattered.

"Holy shit," Jax gasped, her cocky grin melting into absolute awe as she tried—and completely failed—to pull her hand back. "Alright! Alright, uncle! Jesus Christ, girl, what are you made of?!"

Phoenix let go, casually wiping her hand on her tactical vest with a wicked smirk. "I'm made of pure spite, Jax. Nice to meet you."

"Damn, Captain," Jax laughed nervously, flexing her bruised fingers as she looked at Valerie. "Where the hell did you find this monster?"

"In Sterling's trash heap," Valerie grinned, pulling out a crate of high-grade military liquor and tossing a bottle to Jax and Soren. "And now she's taking over Sector Seven. Soren, pull up the regional maps. We've got a war to plan."

Soren slapped a button, and a holographic 3D map of Sector Seven erupted over the table, highlighting a massive, glowing red stronghold nestled deep in the Abyssal Trench.

"The real problem isn't just Sterling's mercenaries," Soren explained, his tone instantly turning serious as he pointed to the red zone. "While you were turning Malakor into scrap metal, our long-range scanners picked up movement in the Trench. The Abyssal Hive-Mother is waking up. And she’s drawing power from an unregistered Imperial vault buried right beneath her nest."

"An unregistered Imperial vault?" Phoenix leaned over the table, her dark eyes flashing with greedy, crimson dragon light. "You mean... more high-grade loot?"

"More loot, worse monsters, and high-tier military tech," Valerie confirmed, leaning on the table beside her. "If Sterling gets his hands on that vault, he owns the frontline. If the Hive-Mother hatches her brood, Outpost 79 gets wiped off the map."

Killian stepped up behind Phoenix, his broad shadow covering the tactical display as he rested his heavy gauntlet on her chair. "Then we take the vault first, Boss."

"Damn right we do," Phoenix grinned, looking around the table at her squad and Valerie’s scarred, ruthless veterans. "Jax, load the heavy ordnance. Soren, prep the scanners. We're going hunting."