"My dear daughter." "The Unlights are coming." "They are coming for our water, and you, our children." "Because in you lies the un-mutated DNA which they will use to breed their army." "This is why Mommy left." "I have to fight them." "So, I need you to understand," "I need you to be brave." "For if they come, they will ask you to make a choice, to choose a side." "Instead, I need you to find your sister and then your father." "I need you to help unlock the door, and make sure all three of you are safe." "Then, I want you to walk into the blade like a big girl," "with your eyes open, just like Mommy would." "We are called to arm the ice mine assault." "Base defense grid, standby for a battery test." "Roger that, authenticating now." "Battery one, fire." "Battery two, fire." "Battery three, fire." "Battery four, fire." "Battery five, fire." "Bashir and Easter company leaders, and staff sergeants get your battle suit, check out the compression." "Bay six and seven, or preview orbit in ARCP safe inscription." "Faltered on the south dark side so any other retaliation, will most likely come from Earth." "Set your firing profile to stable one." "Click that." "Let those godless chin breathing sons of bitches come." "Assault flight crews to deployment base seven for a full-up pre-flight check, combat ready." "Shingatsa Fear Monks to mission prep and weapons check up." "Shingatsa Fear Monks to mission prep, and weapons check up." "Agent-General Zadie, Captain Tyson to ops, south dome, sub-level D." "And fuck you." "Assault strike teams one and three, to assembly line." "Assault strike teams two and six to suit prep and weapons..." "Four, three, two, one." "Ops crew in" " deployment base seven." " Boom." "Deployment base six, do a weapon systems check in CDL lockup." "Ares and Chago company, report to mess hall, west half level four." "What the hell man!" "Man that motherfucker is crazy!" "You stole my yobbin' dessert, you putz!" "Man I wouldn't even let the enemy eat this shit." "Oh..." "Well, you gonna eat yours then?" "You fucking psycho." "Pre-combat mass will be held in north chapel dome 4 pad Charlie." "All affiliations are welcome." "Conserve air and water, remember to wear your scrubber masks while sleeping." "Women and girls of childbearing age, you may be eligible for an extra quart of water" "Hey Lang?" "each week, so see a recruiter today." "Sorry." "They're showing Outlaw Traveler 2 in the chapel." "I snagged an extra ticket." "I'm sure the artillery can wait." "That's the problem." "They all get used up so fast." "Military contractor teams four, and eight, to assembly area for weapon staging and battle suit prep." "Weapons-bosses to deployment base two and 11." "Hey Dalton what do you think, the M19 or the M98?" "Leave it." "It's gonna be a knife fight in a phone booth." "I'm gonna need you to bring at least three headshredders and a few toe poppers." "Ain't those against the rules?" "All pilots start pre-flight count down and weapons check." "It ain't our war." "It ain't our rules." "And, I ain't dying for free." "Station 3 fuel crews to staging area." "Ground team leaders in kegs one, three, and six to final mission briefing, room 16A, south half, north tower." "Assault strike team seven, standby for decomp test and combat certification." "Sniper crews, the latest recon footage has been uploaded to basenet, download and disseminate now." "Hey Machine, transport leaves at one." "On it." "Tower to 727, we're showing tanks are completely pressurized, you are a go on full internal power at the 15." "Roger that." "I have an assault leader go from the cargo hold, I'm rollin' back the doors." "Oxidation looks good." "Click that, main engines at standby." "Flash shields locked." "You're looking good on the ascent, 727." "Click that, we have a good bird, no residuals." "good hunting and click to the Almighty Outlaw." "Click to the Outlaw." "And bring us back some water." "Hey, 7-2-7, welcome to the party." "They got you chasing ice cubes too?" "Ground scan radar on and pinging active." "Hey, 200, who'd you pay to pull weed?" "Check the flight plan," "I'm carrying mercenaries and Fear monks." "Let's close it up kids, radio silence until touchdown." "Transitioning from ORC to OPS One." "Feed lines are good." "MCT, go for pitch maneuver." "Horizontal trail is now cold." "Five feet per second." "88, 80." "Missile contact!" "We have a missile contact, deploy your countermeasures!" "Missile contact!" "Hey!" "Give that back." "Brooks, Brooks, status report." "Status is riddled to fuck, sir." "They keep blinding the radar, I can't, I can't get a lock on anything." "We're blind all over the place, so shoot anything dark that looks like it's moving." "But our radar's supposed to be on a secure frequency, how'd they get a hold of our frequency?" "No Brooks, geez." "Let's go for the..." "I can't see anything." "Watch your back." "Hang in there, buddy." "Arterial port has been accessed." "This will make you feel better now." "Dalton!" "Yeah, Dalton here." "We need to fall back." "All right, everyone back to the ship." "Bring a shitload of class twos." "Private Schorr you're next." "Oh, ow, shit!" "Go Schorr, scramble your radar." "Schorr, get your ass up and back to the transport!" "I can't read anything." "How many of them do you think are out there?" "Based on their attack pattern I'd say about one to three." "You heard Dalton fall back to the ship and bring as many class twos as you can carry." "Corporal Kim." "Are you still among us living?" "Sadly, yeah." "But, I'm pinned and they're jamming my video." "Bentley and Paseno, get out of there!" "Lang, Kiminski, cover them." "Lang, pick up your ammo!" "Your clip, you accidentally ejected it, pick it up!" "That's the army for you, they give you a weapon, then they put the ejection clip right next to the safety switch." "And then, they give you gloves so you can't feel shit." "Bentley and Paseno, go, go, go!" "All right, you two, fall back." "Shit, Lang, they pegged him with a cinder, so you've got to put him down." "Warning, lethal radiation detected." "My bullets aren't meant for one of 'em." "I don't care, you wanna do the poor bastard a favor, then you grow a pair and lay the zap on him right now." "Lang, I swear on the Outlaw, you raise your weapon and you pull that trigger." "I am." "I am the force and he is the shield." "Damn it Lang, if I thought before I pulled every trigger" "I'd still be changing diapies." "Hold your fire." "Nice of you to join us Corporal Kim." "Yeah, well they kept on missing me so here I am." "Everyone through the hatch." "Dalton, cover us." "Hey, Wilson." "Hey, Dalton." "How's it goin'?" "I've been better." "Hey listen, you think you can you do me favor?" "Sure, anything." "I'm gonna need you to give me a little head start." "Yeah, yeah no problem." "Anytime." "Hey Dalton?" "You think this was an inside job?" "The shot is yours, Private." "No." "Let 'em think we're dead." "Ain't anybody gonna shoot that guy?" "An empty sky, no one's listening." "Someone's up there." "Who?" "They keep shooting down all your satellites." "Have a little faith, John." "Faith is for suckers zeroed out on options." "You know you're wasting power you're gonna need down the road." "Well, this is a faith based war, John." "If you don't have any then I believe you're fighting on the wrong side." "Listen, the only water that ain't glowing is right here in these deep craters which you Banished were smart enough to build your settlements on." "Faith?" "Faith is just an excuse for a war that pays my rent." "Faith, John." "Okay." "Corporal Kim." "Aloha." "Where the hell are you?" "Lake ice cap, I head they have good bubble salmon." "Christ." "Corporal?" "Hey, we're the Banished." "If we can get zipped in the name of the Outlaw then we should be able to use one of the bastard's names now and again, click." "How we lookin'?" "It's a mess, but lonely." "Whoever tagged us is long gone, or dancin' outta my range." "How you doing on oxy?" "98%." "Oh man, I use more oxygen when I take a shit." "Private Schorr," "You served under Captain Schwartz." "Deadfield Diggers second company." "Ah well, click this Captain Schwartz is smeared across the bloody canyon, you're riding with The Machine now." "And, when you ride with The Machine you'll also pray your tethered soul to The Machine because it is my job to keep your sorry tendatz breathing." "Private Lang." "Yes, Sergeant." "See to it that Private Schorr gets all the help he needs collecting tanks and tags." "I want to be ghost in 15, click." "Yes, Sergeant." "Babysitting, how come anyone with half a brain is now dirt meat?" "Ah, another one." "They're all over the place." "A lot of oxygen tanks must have burst on impact." "Huh, really?" "Then, what are we gonna breathe?" "I'm having a flamin' bad day, even before we got shot down some asshole pinched my breakfast, my shower was cold." "Chem spray's are always cold." "Yeah, well this one was colder than usual." "And, I got a shitty seat on the plane." "You know where you sat probably saved your life." "Yeah, well it was cramped." "My foot fell asleep and didn't even wake up until after we crashed." "Whoa." "Warhead online." "Looky here." "My day just got a little more interesting." "Check it out." "I'm an awesome two legged bomb." "Lang?" "What happens if we lose?" "I don't know." "You're going south?" "Yeah, to the rescue point." "Nah, that's over 350 kms away and we're low on air." "This will cross you closer." "Considering that we're down over 100 soldiers and one Jack Rabbit gun ship I'd wager that Zhukovskiy assault's going all that smashingly." "We flew through one of the only barely mapped grids left on the moon and they shot us down." "That little unguarded water processing plant in Zhukovskiy grid and knew we were coming." "Feels more like a lucky shot to me." "A lucky shot is something that missed you that shouldn't." "A fish big enough to sink our sorry asses, especially out here, that took an initiative." "That's an awful lot of territory to cover, unmapped." "You sure we got enough air?" "No one ever got saved by standing still, John." "Does anyone have any questions?" "Hey, I've got a wacky idea." "Why don't we just pay Zhukovskiy a visit?" "It's a hell of a lot closer and don't we have friends there now?" "Zhukovskiy a slash palace." "If the Unlights zipped us on the way they also knew we were coming." "This place is not safe." "So, though far, the rescue point is our best option." "I just post you an extraction clock." "The rescue team will fly over the extraction point in exactly 36 hours." "If we're late you become part of the dirt people." "I just rolled some data." "350 kms will take us 39 hours, but we only have 28 hours of oxy left, so what about that?" "Tell you what about that?" "Are you questioning my judgment?" "Warning, oxygen line blocked." "You know and I know that there are ways to ration air to stretch that 28 to at least 45." "And, the first rule is, no extraneous bullshit talking." "At ease your mouth and keep attitudes mild, because if I don't think you're pulling gold" "I'm gonna pop your valve and flip your air, click?" "Click, click." "We have 350 kms stomp in the Unlight's backyard." "We have to be smart." "On the dice kitties we might as well just lie it down and rest reap like the rest of those poor bastards." "Does anyone have anything else to add?" "All right, keep suit muscles on max." "It'll suck more power but your walk Earth normal and save your air." "Lang, Schorr take the extra gas." "Kim, grab the mofo and no bitching." "I'd really like to volunteer to babysit the mofo, sir." "I think..." "Schorr, I wouldn't trust you with a plunt sucker on taco night." "Fall out." "Why do we stars have to do all the schlepping?" "When those stars become bars send me a click." "Fine, give the mofo to the mofo see if I care." "Doesn't make a difference to me." "Aren't we gonna say something?" "To what?" "To everyone here, this is their final, so something should be said." "You heard the Sergeant, Private, keep moving." "But, the reaped they deserve their rites." "They hear it, I know." "Then, they'll also know we have 28 hours of tank time left." "They don't want us to join 'em." "They'll understand." "She's right, we should." "Dalton." "Dalton." "We're not the Unlights, John." "And, it's bad luck." "All right, anyone who does not want to participate you may follow Dalton." "Kim, you're the closest to the Outlaw say they're respects." "Sergeant, I'm not exactly sure that the Outlaw is all that boned to hear from me right now." "I don't care, you're Shingastsa Fear monk which means you spiritually outrank us." "Yeah, but the Outlaw's a lot harder on guys like me." "Corporal, you maybe recorded for loyalty assurance." "You wanna piss off the Outlaw, that's between you and the Outlaw." "You flake on an assignment, that's between you and me." "Shit." "All right," "we the Banished..." " Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." " What?" "Ain't he gonna say it in Ancient?" "If he says it in your Ancient, you have to say it in my Ancient." "Yeah, but the Outlaw don't speak standard." "And, how do you know?" "The Outlaw probably invented Standard." "Kim, commence eulogizing." "We are The Banished, we have different affiliations and different Outlaws" "and many languages." "You know the first tenet of Shingatsa is that everyone has something to lose." "And the second, well it teaches us that unfortunately it's more effective for that something to be someone." "I used to think everything led somewhere." "Now, I wonder if the Outlaws are mad, or bored, or have just plain left." "I really don't know, amen." " Well, that sucked." " Schorr." "What the fuck does that mean?" "Private!" "This don't make the reap feel any better." "The supposed to be dead aren't supposed to feel any better, newbie." "All right, break it up." "They're supposed to feel sorry for us." "Okay, pack it up everyone." "The extraction point's not getting any closer." "And, no looking back, the only direction we look is ahead." "Come on, Schorr." "Dear Mister and Missus Brooks," "I regret to inform you that your daughter Susan was killed in action today." "♪ Twinkle, Twinkle li ♪" "That's a live one." "Damn it." "♪ Twinkle, Twinkle little ♪" "Ah, fuck it." "Damn, how about two outta three?" "You sassy little minx, you really wanna get fresh with me?" "Dear Mister and Missus Cipriano, your son Benjamin was, okay." "Dear Mister and Missus Cipriano, your son..." "Dear Mister and Missus Cipriano your son Benjamin was." "Regs say that all condolence files have to be uploaded on the extraction site, but I have no idea how" "I'm going to get through all these." "Ah, my company has a department that handles that shit, I wouldn't know what to say." "You just say what a great soldier their kid was, or how their husband or wife distinguished them self in an important battle." "I try, but I have no idea what I'm talking about half the time." "How's Cassandra and..." "Anderson." "Yeah." "Hey, you have a boy?" "And two girls." "What?" "I'm running out of oxy." "Get in line." "Yeah well, no oxy oxy, no breathee breathee." "How are they doing?" "They're starving." "Supply lines got cut off when Venter's fell." "Why the hell do we have to walk when we could cover more ground by bouncing?" "Take it up with the Sergeant." "I take anything up with the Sergeant I'm gonna get my ass brain railed." "Then take it up with the other sergeant." "I don't trust the other sergeant." "He walked from the Reap rites, what is he some Unlight or something?" "I'm sorry to hear that, John." "Is there anything you can do?" "Well, Cassandra is Luthor Bask and they can't accept help from anyone who isn't Luthor Bask, so I had to get a little creative." "Look at his suit, he's no Unlight, he's a mercenary." "Yeah, well he ain't affiliated, and I don't trust nobody who ain't affiliated." "Plus, he walked from that zoomer boom without a scratch." "So did we." "You know, Dalton, I never took you, a Death Merchant of Tyco, as one to fall for a native." "No?" "Well, I must be gettin' old." "Yeah, well we were all sittin' together in the same part of the ship." "That part of the ship that broke together, but stayed together after the crash." "And he, well he came from a different part of the ship." "So, you're saying one of the Death Merchant's of Tyco is an Unlight spy?" "No, I'm saying you're either affiliated or you're not affiliated." "And, I don't trust nobody that's not." "Well, what do we got here?" "See, I don't give a rat's collar who the fuck you trust, Private." "Dalton's been fighting since before the invasion." "Curious, how long have you been on the dirt?" "Two weeks, sir." "Two week, huh?" "That man has been pegging Unlights for five fucking years." "Five years!" "Most rooks won't last three weeks out here." "Schorr, since you're dying to bash skulls you can do it against the tube breathers that got us here." "Take point." "Really, I never took point before, sir." "And, I never survived a plane crash before, but look how well we're doing." "Take your position Private." "Awesome, I mean yes, sir." "Sarge." "Lang, fall behind him, keep your mouth shut and your mic off." "Do you understand?" "Yes, Sergeant, sorry." "I hope I didn't embarrass you, John." "I know I could switch to the Unlights at any time if the price was right." "I'm used to my share of 'em." "Yeah." "Did you zero Schorr's flame tats?" "It means he's part of a Numerical Ballisbun gang, eastern diocese probably." "You know what happened to those people." "Yes, I do." "Your army of the Outlaws is falling apart, isn't it?" "I mean it didn't work downside, why would it work here?" "Desperation." "Yeah?" "The Unlight tribes are splintering as well." "They're harvesting each other for water." "They're falling apart, too." "Yeah, the moon is the end of the road for us, for all of us if things don't change here." "Boo." "Keep moving people, those tracks could be five minutes old or five years." "Schorr, back to point and drink some breakfast." "I don't want you apes dehydrated." "Oh, don't carry it the way they showed you in basic, it'll throw off your center of gravity, you'll use more air." " Thanks." " Uh-huh." "It's like herding cattle." "Kim, how are we doing on that bandwidth?" "Looks like fishing at midnight without a flashlight." "We're pretty far south, and dark." "All right, let Kim piggy back off your bandwidth to boost reception." "Suit transmitters connected." "I got one." "Is it friendly, or unfriendly?" "Crap, unfriendly." "It's Liberation Leslie." "Surrender and the omni band for all sides to hear." "Hey. why did everybody the fuck stop?" "Earlier today sent an assault force to take our water..." "Hey, the assault happened." "We shot down your gun ships as they flew overhead." "We slaughtered your brothers and sisters in the wreckage until there were no survivors." "Hello?" "At 12:25:18 we launched a strike against two of your older settlements on the southwest far side." "They struck the domed cities of Devries and Orlav three minutes later." "Both domes suffered a complete decompression." "A legion of execution troops were then dispatched to engage any refugees." "As remaining civilian dead were incinerated we had Luthor of Bask detainees say their final rites before..." " Kim!" " Hold on." "neutralized." "Kim!" "And they never ask for help in your army." "I think we've had enough." "Corporals, privates, kill your Sergeant because..." "All right, everyone fall in." "This is internal online propaganda and you know it." "Come on." "I've got something." "You're probably just chasing radar ghosts," "Schorr, stay put." "No, Sergeant, I'm getting something." "Damn it, Schorr, I said stay put." "No, I got eyes on it Sarge, just stay back." "Wait, I can take care of this." "Schorr!" "I got this." "I got this." "God damn it." "Fuck." "What the hell happened?" "I don't know, snipe bot or something." "That's no snipe bot." "We gotta get 'em outta there." "No, hold on, we don't know how many other of them are out there." "It doesn't matter." "Yes, it does." "They might not know how many of us are in here." "Come on, Schorr, turn over." "Interior wound temporarily sealed." "But, the guys is wounded." "No, Corporal, the guy's already dead." "Come on, Schorr, turn the fuck over." "I need to see." "We gotta do something." "Hold on." "Warning, left lung is collapsing." "Enough." "Command function override, open skull vents full." "Go Ken, go Ken." "Nav suit system overridden, external helmet vents opened." "So, what do we do now?" "Fuck." "We keep moving to the rescue point." "And, who's got the damn cards?" "Radiation profile match," "Unlight Infantry Engine Pack." "Come on." "18 minutes till extraction." "Lang, we all have the same clock." "We can all see the same thing." "Sorry." "The rescue zoomer won't get here any sooner by you keeping count." "I call." "Really?" "Do you think they'll pull us back from the front?" "You know, to protect the cities." "We'll go where we're needed." "Ah." "Didn't you take a vow of charity?" "Yeah, what's one more thing that I get to repent for." "Okay, who's in next hand." "This changes the war, doesn't it?" "I mean now that they're attacking our cities." "Hey, we started it right?" "Zhukovskiy was a city." "It was an ice mine." "It had settlements around it." "How do you know they weren't military?" "I don't, all I know is that we all keep fighting over the same thing:" "holes in the ground with inches of water in 'em." "This war is getting meaner." "We're getting near an extraction point so I'm gonna bring the search and rescue mode online." "I'm getting nothing on the radio but static." "It's gonna be hard to spot anybody." "Radio silence only and ID by visual." "Throttle back the burners and fly low and slow." "Which means we should pull back to protect the cities." "Private, don't waste your air worrying about what may or may not happen." "If a few missiles could get to Orlav and Devries then maybe some could get to Collins or Shepard." "When you worship the decimal point like the Unlights" " you wind up with two things..." " Okay, shut up, Kim." "Stock market and warheads with really terrific accuracy." "Yeah, yeah, so that's what we should do." "We should pull back and protect the cities." "Are you gonna bet?" "Can't wait for this stupid war to be over." "Number two engine is starting to give out and we're yaring a little wide." "Shut it down and burn one and four hotter." "Bus A is out." "I mean if their guidance is so good the Unlights could slingshot in a bunch of troops from Earthside, seal the bubbles, and occupy the cities." "Like Mare Crisium." "Exactly like Mare Crisium." "No, not like Mare Crisium." "In Mare Crisium they tunneled under the perimeter, but now we have better ears and crawler mines so we can see 'em coming." "Gunner crews keep your eyes on the sky." "Do not fire until you get a visual." "Click that, powered up, waiting on visual confirm." "Wait, you're not gonna bet that, are you?" "Yeah, it's tomato, I hate tomato." "No, no, no don't listen to her you wanna bet that." "Thank you very much." "There you go, in better hands that tomato could have been chicken soup." "Why are you telling her that?" "It's all right, I don't like chicken soup." "Well, dear it's good for you." "Kim, give the private back her tomato." "Hold on a second, I won this." "Good, then I'm giving you one less thing to repent for." "That's an order." "And, I was gonna make Beef Stroganoff." "All right, give me an IV tube from the med kit." "Time to begin maneuver is 03:05:03." "Yeah, that's gonna be tricky." "Keep an eye on the radar." "Rendezvous site has to be close." "You know right after I was ordained, I was called in on the kill squad at Crisium." "Good for you." "It took days to flush those bastards out." "18." "Pay attention, Lang." "The trick is to poke it right in the center, which is the closest to your heating element." "That will warm everything up and infuse the flavors." "They occupied the city for 18 days." "18, huh, felt shorter." "Okay, then you add a bit of the tomato, which let's face it, is mostly salt, and add a dash of milk for consistency." "No, they were there 18 days." "Pay attention." "Voila, chicken soup." "Go ahead, give it a taste." "Search and rescue grid online and scanning for transponders." "Delish, right?" "Oh, it's vile." "See, I told you we should have taught her how to make Stroganoff." "So, on the last day in Crisium we find this squad of Unlights roached out in a school, right." "We have this place completely surrounded and they just sat there playing cards." "So, finally we nerve the place." "They weren't playing cards." "They were burning out the tongues of the children so they couldn't hear themselves pray." "Well, those kids'll make great soldiers." "Why, because they won't be able to talk back?" "No." "You wanna see someone really fight, wound them first." "Where the hell is Dalton?" "We all make our choices, Corporal." "We are under attack, repeat we are under attack." "Gun crews to your stations." "Med teams secure your patients." "Well, if he wanted to off himself he shoulda donated us his air." "I have multiple bogies, repeat I have multiple bogies." "We're taking fire, weapon ejector manifold is hit and it looks like we have a right panel hull breach." "I can't get a lock." "Fire at will." "We're gonna have to bail into AGS on the throttle down." "I've got red lights on" "Not good, I'm reading multiple failures." "Avionics is beginning to cut out." "High angles are shot, I'm switching to manual." "Tower, this is 1-4-4 we're carrying wounded and are coming in hot and on a low approach." "144 this is tower, we have you on board." "Fire and med crews are standing by." "Click that tower, we're pretty banged up." "We're losing altitude fast." "I just lost number 4." "Pull up, pull up!" "They're not showing up, are they?" "That's what I get for actually looking forward to something." "All right, get up." "Where are we going?" "Away, come on." "Maybe they're late." "They're not late Private, they were shot down just as we were." "Well, maybe command will send out a rescue zoomer to look for them and then catch us." "I wish that were the case, Corporal, but Father Command is not going to send out another ship at this point." "Where are we gonna go?" "South." "South?" "You know what's south?" "A lot more of nothing." "Well, what you don't know is that every 500 kms or so" "Father Command has buried a cache of air and water." "There'll also be a comm rocket to fire off to let them know where we are." "And, what makes you think the Unlights won't shoot that down the way they do everything else we fire up?" "Proximity alert, movement detected." "How full is that?" "Oxygen nitrogen mix with trace radiation." "It's about three quarters." "That's around 18 hours each." "24," "I don't want any." "Dalton, I don't care what you want, that's faithful gold in there." "I'm not breathing their air." "But, it's their water on Earth that's radioactive." "Hey, it's a free satellite Dalton can make up his own mind, Sergeant." "Kim, you and Lang fill up the tanks, but only 18 hours worth." "Mister Dalton and I are going for a little administrative stroll." "Command function override slave to Dalton's vitals." "Suits linked, oxygen at 7%." "You want to tell me why you used up the equivalent of three hours of good walk time on a lone Unlight getting his camping badge?" "Well, I figured she's the one nailed us, so I popper before she zeroed our position wide." "They know our position, John." "If they gave a shit we'd be greased already." "I don't have the bandwidth for revenge." "It uses too much air." "Well, you see that's where you and I differ." "It doesn't matter." "We're all dead anyway." "Don't walk away from me." "What I see is we're up two tanks of air and down a set of lungs so roll the fucking numbers, John." "We're very much not dead." "Well, then maybe planned this status, because I don't recall ever hearing anything about a cache of buried supplies or secret stash of anything anywhere between here and the next Unlight command pod." "So, come tomorrow what are they gonna breathe?" "I don't know, but we have to keep moving while we figure it out." "Geez, Mo like at where you're askin' them to follow ya:" "to the end of the fucking world." "It's a bullshit gamble." "Yes, but people will do what they feel, John, instead of what they know, even if it is a bullshit gamble." "And, when they realize that's what it is what are you gonna do?" "You find different bullshit." "It smells different." "What's that?" "Their air, it smells different." "Smells like the real thing, made in real sky." "I don't like it." "Hey, Earthside that's pretty much the only thing they'll be able to fight about." "Hey, you groin plug with a Fear Monk?" "I thought Fear Monk's aren't allowed to you know." "Well, technically we're also not supposed to kill or maim or destroy, but hey if they're willing to enforce war time exceptions, so am I." "But, I thought carnal musings are forbidden." "The tighter the belief, the easier it snaps." "That why I just look at is as more of a personal addendum to the over-arching rule." "Well, you know, at least up here." "I thought you guys just fight the war downside, rescuing babies and diverting trains and stuff." "Well, seeing that the Unlight soldiers are drafted in vitro, I'd say the joke is on us." "Still, some of us Fear Monks wind up pulling the short straw and get bumped to do the more fun stuff up here with you guys." "Hmm, lucky you, how'd you manage that?" "I was the asshole who asked too many questions during meditation and bingo night." "So, they banished me here with The Banished." "My dad used to say this land'll kill you just for being here." "I don't know, maybe they wanted to shut you up." "Nah, they're not that smart." "See, the Fear Monks they worship the moon as the mover of oceans and the cocktail shaker of life, so my guess," "it's to teach me a lesson or some shit like that." "Have you learned anything?" "Do you know what water's like?" "Yeah." "It's like running out of this stuff." "There's 18 hours left in the tank." "Please, don't help the Unlights with a body count." "Okay." "We move out in ten." "Are we there yet?" "I'm serious, how far are we from the supply cache?" "Not that far, keep walking." "Not that I'm keeping track, but we're over 500 ks along on this little dirt safari of yours and I'm starting to get a pinky toe cramp." "You know how Father Command is, they never do anything exact." "Don't you remember last year when we were..." "Warning, pressure gel sealing." "Crawler mines." "Move, move." "Corporal, stand back." "Dalton." "The Machine said no jumping." "The Machine's dead." "All right, on the count of three" "I'm gonna seal your suit." "One." " Can you stand?" " What do you think?" "Shit." "What are you gonna do?" "We're gonna jump." "What am I gonna do if you step on a mine?" "Head north east." "That's north east." "Good point." "That way." "Proximity alert, warning, proximity alert." "Proximity warning ximity alert, warning proximity warning, warning proximity warning." "I want you to walk into the blade like a big girl with your eyes open just like Mommy would." "What side are we on?" "Like we had a choice between living and dying." "Warning, pressure gel failing." "Your seal's been compromised." "Corporal, look at me, look at me." "Look at me Corporal, don't look at the leg, look at me." "Look at me." "You're gonna be okay." "How is this okay?" "Your seal's been compromised." "Okay." "Remove the armor, breath in." "One." "Okay, listen to me." "Listen to me, you're gonna be fine." "You'll be all right." "Your leg ain't fucking oatmeal." "Shh." "Listen to me, okay, you'll be fine." " Pressure gel" " In a few seconds, with dermo anesthetic" " applied and stabilized - you're gonna be the luckiest guy on this rock." "Private, how you doin?" "I am the sword he is the shield, I am the mechanism of the Outlaw's will." "I will not falter." "Private?" "I'm alive, I'll be all right." "All right, all right, okay." "All right, I'm gonna open up your skull valve one quarter of an inch decompress your ears, don't blow an ear." "Decompress your eardrums." "There you go, you feel better?" "No." "Me neither." "All right, well just want you to lay back and drink your lunch." "Come on, I don't want you dehydrated." "Holy shit." "Okay, all right, all right." "That's it." "Oh, is that the chicken soup?" "Oh, you shoulda told me I woulda traded it for my Beef Stroganoff." "That's all right, here take it." "Nah, that's okay, that's all right." "I'll win it off Kim later in poker." "You downsiders like your land animals." "Land, important that stuff." "Yeah, livestock takes up too much oxy and water." "Yeah, it's okay, more beef, and chicken, and gluten for the rest of us." "I love watching you all fight for meat scraps in the mess hall." "It's so funny." "Yeah." "Yeah, even a tiny piece of bacon corner can be like a little, little piece of home." "Well, if you miss it so much why don't you go back?" "I can't." "But, you're a mercenary, can't you fight on whatever side you want?" "Can I ask you a question?" "Yeah." "You believe in the Outlaw, right?" "Yes." "And you, you were born Banished, right?" "My grandparents were on the Second Exile after the water Jihad." "Another generation." "Well, what do you think happens when somebody dies?" "Well, it depends on your affiliation." "Different affiliations believe differently." "Kim believes in reincarnation." "Schorr, trans-enlightenment I think." "Well, then maybe it's good he died young." "What do you believe?" "You knew someone in the attacks, didn't you?" "Well hey, maybe they survived." "Devries had a piece of shit bubble." "It barely stayed inflated on a good day." "A javelin would've map wiped them off the rock." "My parents were lined up and shot in a ditch in Mare Crisium." "I hid with my sister under a truck and watched the Death Squad pass." "A lot of people died in Mare Crisium and those who survived..." "What?" "They always ask that same question." "Do you Banished have any answers?" "I'm sorry." "His breathe is fritzed and he's leaking voltage." "Everything can't lead to nothing, sir." "That's what I believe." "Ah, we're gonna be visible from high altitude." "And, it makes us very slow moving." "I'm right here guys." "We're just discussing our options." "And I got a beagle named Armstrong that'll be severely disappointed if those options don't include we walking him soon." "Look at my finger." "Good." "How do you feel?" "Like 90% of me's on vacation." "What did you hit me with?" "Something to calm you down, conserve your oxy." "It's great shit." "Well, you're not gonna like this, but I'm gonna need ya on your feet." "If the pain gets too bad I'll dial it back up." "We don't want you burning too much air before we get evaced." "You really think we're gonna get outta here?" "I got to." "I'm not gonna add one more to the Unlight body count." "All right, we pound less than five." "Trajectory plotted." "Why are we setting up the Mofo nuke for auto deploy?" "Just get on your feet, Kim." "And, why is it pointing west?" "Because Gernsback is directly west." "No, the 8-0-4 is west," "Gurnsback's in the way." "Aren't there rules against this sorta thing, Dalton?" "This is our war." "We're not gonna win it by following their rules." "There are other ways outta this." "There isn't." "There is no cache of supplies, no comm rockets." "All we have is to gang of radios together and hope the signal's strong enough to reach the 8-0-4." "But, The Machine said..." "The Machine, The Machine lied." "The whole south darkside is all but unmapped." "Our GPS sats are nothing but Unlight target practice." "So, even if there was anything buried who could find it?" "So, you're gonna indiscriminately wipe out a city of hundreds of people?" "Excuse me?" "They did." "They can't help it." "It took just two generations for everything to collapse after God was outlawed." "And, everybody who believed in anything was banished here." "Families, countries, they all broke down." "They're just a collection of warring packs now, but we're different." "Those warring packs they carved up their world and when they were done they carved up each other, and now they're here on yours." "And, we're not any different." "They just got a head start." "No, it's compassion that now lives and dies with us." "We can slaughter armies and sing a happy tune." "But, I have to call foul at genocide." "Corporal!" "All right, everybody stay glacial, that includes you Lang." "Private, I'm giving you a direct order." "The suits are recording everything Private so you better think about your options." "You don't want everything go on your permanent record." "That's it." "Proximity warning, assault satellite." "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God." "Warning, assault satellite in firing position." "Oh, it went right past us." "We should be sad little smears on the dark side of the moon right now." "Why did it go right past us?" "Lang, run a geologic." "There's no time, there might be another bird right behind that one." "We'd've already been greased." "I want a full spectrum." "The minute that thing detonates the Unlights are gonna be out in force looking to see who pulled the trigger." "The moon is full of a lot of funny magnetics, which is probably why we're still alive right now." "Run a geologic!" "Except, you know that I can't let you fire that nuke." "No?" "'Cause it looks to me like you don't have a lot of choice." "This is so stupid." "You might as well do yourself a favor and take my air because I will try and stop you." "That's the morphine talking." "You might be under the false assumption that I'm scared of dying, Dalton." "Nope, but I wouldn't be surprised." "Everyone's spooked of dying." "No, not everybody." "Why do you think the Banished believe so strongly in their affiliations?" "Tradition." "No, to make sense of the senseless." "Right at the top of that list:" "what happens when you die." "So, what the hell do you believe?" "I'm still working on that one." "Dalton?" "I'm getting a funny data roll." "I'm reading that we're not on lunar soil at all." "If you tell me it's green cheese," "I'm gonna have to shoot you." "No, I'm reading it as trinitite?" "Trinitite?" "That's bullshit." "No, it says trinitite." "What is trinitite?" "Blast-phalt." "Dirt turn to glass by a nuke." "Jerusalem and Chibed were filled with the stuff." "But, that doesn't make any sense, nobody's been out here." "And, it's very reflective from orbit." "So, someone fired off a nuke?" "Looks like." "And, you think that's what hit us from the batsat?" "Private, how big is the blast field?" "That's the thing, it's everywhere." "And, there's no data on this?" "I guess no one's ever run a geologic from this vantage point." "Private, I want you to run a reverse blast sim." "Extrapolate backwards from the shape of the blast site to the moment of detonation." "Why?" "You gonna try and map the hot spots?" "Then maybe we can determine a way out of this shithole." "Dang it." "Damn it." "Okay, okay, there must be something wrong with my wrist drive." "I just ran this sim four different times and I keep getting the same thing." "It doesn't make any sense." "It's tracing the blast to 37 miles up, with a yield of 12 million kilotons." "Well, that would split the moon in half." "I know, that's what I thought, but look." "I ran the profile four different times, it all clicked the same." "The sim's right, I'm getting the same thing, but there's something else." "The geologic rolled the age of the trinitite, it's over three and a half billion years old." "Right, well there you go." "A few radioactive meteorites smash 'em together you get a shitload of trinitite." "Yeah, that's what I thought." "Wracked merteorite'd splat all over the solar system, but the only place the trinitite shows up is when nice people drop bombs on one another." "Well, there weren't any people around three and a half billion years ago to lob nukes, Corporal." "Obviously, someone was." "Think about it." "If we set off nukes to push ice shards in from the oort cloud all the time" "But, this is the moon." "Yeah, and why would anyone wanna move the moon?" "Life." "Come again?" "About three and a half billion years ago was when life started showing up on Earth, right?" "Okay, this is crazy." "The Earth is five billion years old." "About a billion and a half years later..." "Okay, wait, wait so what you're saying is that the Earth didn't have anything on it and then the moon is moved and all of a sudden..." "Of all the planets with moons in their solar system why are the moon and the earth closest in size?" "That doesn't mean anything." "The moon is just the right size and distance in relation to the Earth for life to exist." "If it had been a bit bigger or closer the tides would've destroyed life before it had a chance to do it's thing." "If it was smaller or more distant all those young organisms would of been obliterated by the constant meteor bombardment that the moon's gravity coincidentally sucked up as the solar system developed." "Like what happened to the dinosaurs, only times a million." "He's stalling." "I wish I was." "What are you buying time for?" "I'm not making this up." "I think he's telling the truth, Dalton." "Shut up." "Stow your gear, we get to ready to move out in three minutes." "But, this does beg the question, who moved the moon?" "Private, stow your gear." "The Almighty Outlaw moved the moon." "How are we so sure?" "Because he, she, or it moves in mysterious ways." "Private, pick up those guns and stow your gear!" "Maybe, maybe it wasn't the Outlaw at all." "What?" "Do you know what you're saying?" "Maybe life on Earth wasn't created." "Maybe it was engineered." "Oh geez, Private." "Stop pointing your gun at Corporal Kim." "That's what you're doing." "I outrank 'em." "Look, just think about it." "What might happen if this information gets out?" "We would be mind wiped, and moved back to the front of the grinder." "No, not if we transcast, share this data." "To who?" "I don't know, everyone." "Geez." "The Banished, the Unlights, we spit on the omniband like Liberation Leslie." "It would be a race to see who'd gack us first." "No, don't you see?" "Both sides are gonna need us alive." "That's the beauty of it." "Why?" "Because, this could end the war." "Suit and weapon integrity now connected." "What was that?" "What was that?" "Chicken switch, he just locked the warhead to his suit integrity." "So, you can go ahead and shoot me, but you'd just be makin' a bigger crater." "I've got a few hours left of air, either way I'm a dead woman." "Kim, how could this end the war?" "Because, if the Almighty Outlaw can make Heaven and Earth, then why the hell does he need to move the moon with a thermonuclear war head?" "Well, who are we to question?" "Because we're the ones that are dying in his name." "And, if Creation was less than perfect, well maybe it wasn't by his hand at all." "That is blasphemy." "Maybe, but look at this data." "It at least might be rich enough to stop the shooting and get us all out of here in one piece." "All of us." "And, we don't have to nuke any cities to do it, right?" "All we gotta do is gang our transmitters together to send out a signal strong enough to broadcast a little doubt to both sides." "What war have you been fighting, soldier?" "Wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no" "Kim is right." "This could end the war." "Yes, with you losing." "The Earth is dead, I know I'm from there." "You Banished you learned how to live off the land." "You learned how to mine ice from dirt to run your domes." "The only reason the Unlights are here is because you're here." "That's the only reason they're here." "That's the only reason they want you dead." "Don't you understand?" "It's got nothing to do with your Almighty Outlaw, or your affiliations, or any of the other bullshit." "The Almighty Outlaw, all that other shit, is just they're excuse." "Maybe, but it's also going to be the very thing that keeps us alive." "And, aren't you sick of fighting?" "Aren't you sick of the people you love dying for no reason?" "They already died for no reason." "Yeah, that's what I thought, too." "That's why I enlisted." "But, I'm sick." "I'm sick of living my life in this walking toilet." "I'm sick of the cold, the water that tastes like metal." "I'm sick of the only reason I have to wake up is to keep killing." "Maybe they didn't die for this war." "Maybe they died for peace." "What are you doing?" "What are you doing?" "You're not gonna agree to gang our transmitters together, so if you wanna shoot me, go ahead." "I'll understand." "What are you talkin' about?" "Let her go, John." "Where is she going?" "Where are you going?" "She's going to the Unlights." "No, she's not." "And, I'm going to the Banished." "Hey." "Hey!" "Halt." "Listen, even if you make it what is that gonna prove?" "You'll have sold out everything you ever believed in." "For what?" "Maybe faith needs to be tested now and again." "Maybe that's what this is." "All right." "I still have the nuke." "I could change this entire landscape and erase history forever." "I'm just being pragmatic." "I don't think you will, sir." "Don't test me." "There's nothing left to test." "I know you were the one that brought down our zoomer." "You warned the Unlights about the Zhukovskiy assault and you set up that contact of yours to ambush us." "Yet, here we are, still breathing." "The Death Merchant of Tyco is not gonna torch that nuke." "You've suffered." "Now, don't you wanna see where everything leads?" "I need you both." "Then, we gotta figure this out." "Together." "This is the end of the road for us, all of us." "If it doesn't change here then..." "Then they died for no reason." "Yeah." "The Banished believe that the Apocalypse will come as fire," "the Unlights, drought." "But, they're both wrong." "The end will come as a flood, a flood of words." "And, when that day comes" "which side will you be on?"