Chapter 160

"W-WIND! It's the WIND! They're here!"

A man draped in a dust-caked hood pointed a trembling finger toward the horizon and screamed. Around him, ten others in similarly ragged gear dropped low, hitting the dirt and bracing for the worst.

"Dammit, I knew this was a bad idea! Forget the gear, run!"

Another man spat the words out in a panic. They cursed in a frantic, ragged chorus, scrambling to scoop up the supplies scattered across the sand.

"No, wait... something’s wrong!"

The man peering through the binoculars shouted, his voice cracking against the howling gale. Through the lenses, he didn't see the usual skittering nightmares. Instead, he saw a literal swarm of massive iron blocks—Armored Vehicles—tearing across the dunes toward them at breakneck speeds.

"What do you see?! Patch the feed over here!"

A few paces behind the group, a man popped his head out of a hole in the ground like a startled gopher, waving his arms wildly. The lookout gave a stiff nod and tapped his binoculars, syncing the data to the terminal in the man's hand.

"Mike, look at those rigs! They’ve got markings!"

The man called Mike dove back into his hole to check the screen. On the flanks of those metal beasts—each sporting a nozzle that looked suspiciously like a massive cannon—was a very distinct marking: a red circle centered on a white background.

"No way... Hey, those are humans! There are people in those things!"

The WIND—being soulless machine-lifeforms—didn't exactly have a department for graphic design or military heraldry. Mike let out a frantic cheer and hammered a button to relay the data to headquarters. He shoved the terminal into a subordinate’s hands and leaped out of the hole with enough force to pull a muscle.

"Hey! Over here! We’re over here, you beauties!"

Mike stood there, arms windmilling as he screamed at the top of his lungs. His subordinates stared at him like he’d finally lost his mind to the heat, but one by one, the realization clicked. They started running, then sprinting, until the whole lot of them were charging toward the dust clouds.

"We are from the Rising Sun, leadership of the RS Alliance. We received an SOS signal. Are you the ones who sent it?"

A man stepped out of the lead Armored Vehicle, waving a hand casually as he approached. He walked through the blistering sandstorm with the steady, unshakable gait of a high-end Cyborg. Mike signaled for his men to keep their cool, though his own heart was doing backflips.

"Rising Sun... anyone heard of 'em?" one subordinate whispered.

The guy next to him just shrugged, looking overwhelmed.

"We’re with the NASA Alliance," Mike shouted into his communicator, his voice shaking. He was a veteran of a thousand skirmishes, but he was currently vibrating with pure terror. It was hard to stay calm when a fleet of mountain-sized tanks had just encircled his entire team. "We saw your ship and called for help. You... you aren't the Imperial Military, are you?"

"The Empire abandoned this sector hundreds of years ago," the man replied, stopping a few paces away. "Everything past the Alpha Region Space is considered Outer Space now. Look, how about you guys put the guns down before someone has an accident?"

Mike hesitated, then looked at the sheer amount of firepower pointed at his face. Yeah, resistance is beyond futile here. He signaled his men to disarm.

"I need to hear the whole story. I’ll take a few reps and come with you... Hey, Stanley! Show these guys to Ascent Entrance 212!"

Mike barked the order and started walking toward the stranger. The giant, monster-like Armored Vehicles were creepy as hell, but the spark of hope in Mike’s chest was currently brighter than the desert sun.

Four hundred years. It had been four centuries since the WIND forced them underground. Finally, the tether to the stars had been reconnected.

"Whoa... an underground city? Seriously awesome. Like, for real, this is amazing. Yeah, I said it twice! Because it’s that cool!"

Taro was currently vibrating with the energy of a toddler in a toy store as he stared down the endless tunnel. The passage was a labyrinth of heavy iron and reinforced bulkheads; he’d already completely lost track of which Route they’d taken to get here.

"The surface is a disaster, so we do what we must," the man in the robes said with a faint, weary laugh. "We live like moles."

The man’s skin was a sickly, translucent white from a lifetime away from the sun, which had weirded Taro out at first. But once the guy started talking, it was clear he was just a regular dude.

"I see, I see," Taro nodded. "By the way, is a 'mole' some kind of local alien?"

Phantom, who was hovering at Taro’s shoulder and scanning the shadows for threats with professional paranoia, chimed in.

"It is a burrowing mammal from Earth, Master Taro. I believe their diet consisted mainly of squishy, tubular invertebrates called earthworms."

"Oh, right!" Taro snapped his fingers. "The wiggly guys!"

The robed man blinked, looking impressed. "You’re quite the scholar. I thought that species went extinct ages ago. Did someone find a new colony of them?"

"Ah, well... sort of? It’s complicated. I’ll explain that whole 'where we're from' thing later."

"I see. I shall look forward to it, then."

The group wound through a series of twisty corridors until the "dilapidated factory" aesthetic finally gave way to something that looked like the clean, polished interior of a proper spaceship.

"Welcome to NASA, Mr. Teiro. We are honored to have you."

A few dozen people were waiting in a wide hall. A woman in a flashy suit stepped forward, her hand extended. She had that same "I haven't seen a sunbeam in three generations" paleness, but she was a genuine beauty with soft, sleepy-looking eyes.

"Nice to meet you, Miss Olivia. Thanks for the hospitality," Taro said, slapping the dust off his pants before giving her hand a firm shake and his best "I'm a protagonist" grin.

"So, just to be clear... NASA is officially joining the RS Alliance?"

The group was currently huddled in the hall, which was large despite the low ceilings, tucking into a meal. Olivia had been tactful enough to dismiss the guards, and in a show of mutual trust, the Rising Sun crew was allowed to stay armed.

After the initial "Who are you?" phase, Taro and his team had spent their "break time" frantically whispering about the sheer tenacity of people who could survive an orbital bombardment by hiding in the dirt. They’d hammered out a basic policy and were now back at the negotiating table.

"I mean, I think that’s how it works? We haven't really done this before, so... what do you think, Marl?" Taro asked, looking at his partner.

Marl tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Since we're in Outer Space, the rules are basically whatever we agree on. Mr. Dean went through all that trouble to snag the legal rights just so the Imperial Military couldn't stick their noses in our business. There isn't really a 'precedent' for this."

"Fair point," Taro muttered.

Olivia raised her hand like a student in a classroom. "From our perspective, we practically beg for affiliation. The technological gap between us after four hundred years is a canyon, and we simply don't have the strength to maintain the status quo anymore."

She looked genuinely pained.

"What do you mean by 'status quo'?" Taro asked.

Olivia sighed. "Our supplies of Drive Detection Elements and Razor Metal are bone-dry. We’ve survived this long on recycling and whatever we could scrap from fallen WIND units, but we’ve hit the wall. Half our machinery is dead weight now, with zero chance of repair."

Drive Detection Elements, huh? Taro leaned over to Alan, whispering out of the side of his mouth. Wait, aren't those all just knock-offs? Can’t they just print more?

Nope, Alan whispered back. The Empire keeps the original templates under lock and key. Every time you copy a copy, the quality drops. After four hundred years? The signal-to-noise ratio must be garbage. Anything relying on BISHOP tech is probably a paperweight by now.

Taro nodded and turned back to Olivia.

"Got it. Situation understood. Good news: we can supply both of those. Also, I heard you guys have been brawling with the WIND for a while now. What’s the tea on that?"

Olivia’s expression turned deeply exhausted. "We have been at war for centuries. It’s been nearly three hundred years since their tunnels first breached our outer sectors."

"Three hundred years..." Taro whistled. "Man, those things really don't know when to quit."

"Exactly. In the beginning, we could just seal the breaches and call it a day. But the WIND... they learned. They started taking their time. Now they dig for hundreds of kilometers just to pop up in the middle of a residential ward."

"Ugh, I feel that," Taro said, making a face like he’d just bitten a lemon. "The ones up in space are the same. They'll spend a thousand years drifting through a void with zero Drive Particles just to ruin someone's afternoon. They’re the absolute worst."

Olivia gave him a thin, sympathetic smile—the universal look of two people bonded by a shared hatred of the same annoying pest.

"By the way," Taro said, his tone shifting. "This is probably a dumb question, but your Alliance name... 'NASA.' Is there a reason for that?"

Taro was suddenly looking very serious. Olivia, conversely, looked confused as to why he cared about a name.

"I don't know the exact history," she prefaced. "But when our ancestors were expanding this city, they stumbled upon ancient ruins from the early Imperial era. I’m told they adopted the name and the symbol found on the artifacts there. I think it was meant to symbolize their spirit—pioneering a new world, just like the people of the past."

The Rising Sun team collectively held their breath. Taro shared a lightning-fast look with Marl and Alan. They all nodded in silent realization.

"Ruins, huh? That’s... incredibly interesting," Taro said, trying to sound casual. "Actually, my group does a bit of 'Early Imperial' research on the side. Any chance we could take a look at these ruins?"

Technically, I’m their boss now and could just order her to show me, but I don’t want to be 'that guy.' Especially if they treat this place like a holy site.

"About that..." Olivia bit her lip, looking hesitant.

Please don't let it be a temple, please don't let it be a temple, Taro prayed. But Olivia’s answer was worse.

"The sector containing the ruins was lost to the WIND a long time ago. To be honest, we have no idea if there’s anything left of it at all."