I folded the piece of paper into a more manageable shape and tucked it into the chest pocket of my jumpsuit. I would have to show it to Mallet when I returned to the Firmament-this was the start of something big, I just knew it. The only exit to the crumbling stairwell was a half-buried metal door, similar to the one I had thrown myself through about three storeys upstairs. I gave the door a solid push, and when it didn't budge I was ready to hammer against it before I noticed the handle. The door had to be pulled inwards, but its usual path was filled with bits of stone and debris. Clearing the rubble away from the door was simple but stressful-with every stone I moved I became more aware of the huge amount of rock just barely suspended above my head. Eventually, I managed to clear enough of a path for the door to swing inwards a bit. I darted out of the stairwell the instant I could fit through the gap. I found myself in a dingy basement-clearly I had fallen farther than I had a

The mighty Apollo advanced on me, each thunderous footstep sending spiderweb cracks through the asphalt. With the street choked with debris from Harlow's demise, navigating the boulder-sized fragments was difficult. I made little progress, and every step brought the Apollo that much closer. I was about to be crushed. But just as soon as they had begun, the thumping footsteps stopped. The Apollo turned its cockpit to face the other direction, now focused on a new target. Taewi Park. Taewi's Lynx barreled down a side street a few hundred meters away and collided with the yellow mech, shoving it nearly a block away. The sound of colliding metal was cacophonous, only drowned out by the ringing in my right ear. The Apollo lurched backwards and struck the side of a nearby building, unleashing a torrent of sparks and rubble that tore up the pavement of a nearby intersection. The Apollo lurched away from the building, dragging a mess of shattered glass and stone with it. The side of it

of dust. Impacts at the base of the dam shook me in my seat. More mechs. We had taken too long, so Axion had brought reinforcements of their own. Worst of all, because I was standing on the sluice gate above their drop zone, I was only a mere hundred meters away from all of them. Regiments. Goliaths. Legions. I counted thirty new mechs, dropped just in time to ensure that Stalnoy stayed in Axion's hands for good. If the enemy noticed me standing above them there was no amount of fancy piloting I could do to avoid being obliterated. Slowly but surely, one of the Regiments turned its head, gazing up at the top of the dam where I stood, frozen. Something flashed in the air about a kilometre away. The sky glittered, lights twinkling like falling stars. However, the stars weren't what were falling. At long last, we had reinforcements of our own. armour plating glinted in the sunlight as the Chinese-Canadian Alliance arrived in full force. My comms crackled. "Hey, guys! Miss me?" It

The room was quiet for another moment. Even no-nonsense Mallet herself waited patiently as Laura thought, lips moving slightly as she pondered how to tell her story. Finally, she straightened up. "Okay," she decided, "it began like this." Everyone in the room leaned a little closer. "In the years before the Iron War," she continued, "I toured the world as part of the Canadian Armed Forces." She smiled, but there was no happiness in it. "I met Marissa on my second tour in Uzbekistan. We were tasked with restoring power to some rural communities and defending them from bandits." I glanced at Mallet. She, too, had a sad smile on her face. What had torn those two apart? Overcoming her emotions, Laura continued. "We lived together for a year, even wanted to return to Saskatchewan and build a farm, get married. But Mar just wanted to continue touring. She couldn't rest when someone else was doing the fighting." Laura glanced at Marissa. "I knew you weren't really living when you w

Report: Fisk The Nevada Desert. Arizona. Axion manufacturing base. Designation: "The Forge" Two hours before Draco's address to Jackson Quinn. "Director Fisk?" Captain Oakley called. He stepped into my office with the air of a man who knew he was in trouble. I held up my finger. "One moment," I responded. It wasn't efficient to be interrupted. I replayed the video, taking in the sights and the sounds of the second battle of Stalnoy. A battle that, for a second time, we'd lost. A terrible waste for Axion, but even the most crippling of losses could hold a small bit of gain. There it was again. I rewound the video with a flick of my finger, the light from the tablet dancing off the far wall in my office. "General, sir, Commander Harlow is dead," Oakley continued. "Stalnoy has been lost." I nodded. "I'm well aware, Captain," I responded. "While you gathered the nerve to inform me, I've been analyzing the footage for over an hour." Captain Oakley winced, stepping quickly int