Night made Garnet Ridge feel smaller.
In daylight, Kestrel Basin's refinery sprawl looked like a hard-won foothold—steel towers, conveyor spines, floodlit yards, people moving with purpose. At night, the same place looked like a campfire in a storm: a fragile circle of light surrounded by endless dark, with the rain coming down like the world had decided to wash it away.
Dack stood on a grated catwalk outside the East Pit control shack, hands resting on cold rail metal, watching floodlights smear into glowing halos through sheets of water. The transformer yard below him thrummed with steady power, thick cables running like veins into the pit. Every few seconds a gust shoved rain sideways and made the yard's puddles ripple like nervous skin.
He didn't pace anymore. Not openly.
But his mind paced. It replayed the last ambush. The comm spoof. The way the pirates had tried to pull civilians into a killing lane. It replayed Outreach too, because some memories didn't care that you'd "moved on."
Three days of "normal" merc work had helped. A week contract on paper helped. But paper didn't stop bullets.
Talia leaned against the shack wall under a small awning, hood up, slate tucked against her chest. Her bruises were fading, but the hard edge in her posture had become familiar—like a knife she kept sharpened because she didn't know what else to hold.
"You're waiting for it," she said.
Dack didn't look at her. "They'll come."
Talia's mouth tightened. "You sound like you want them to."
"I want it done," Dack said.
Talia watched the yard, then the darkness beyond the fence line. "It doesn't get done. It just changes shape."
Dack finally glanced at her. Rain clung to the edge of her hood, dripping off in slow beads. Her one good eye was fixed and bright, reflecting industrial light.
"What did you pick up?" he asked.
Talia held up the slate. "Something slid into the pit net. Not like last time—cleaner. Narrow. Careful."
Dack's shoulders settled, the way they did right before a fight. "Where."
Talia tapped, triangulating between relay towers. "East ridge. Drainage culvert sector. Same place you said you'd ambush someone if you were smart."
Dack let out a slow breath. "So they're smart."
Talia's voice went tight. "Or they're being guided."
Dack didn't respond. He didn't need to. Guided pirates were what dragged good people into graves.
He keyed his comm to Marshal Holt.
"Marshal," he said, calm and flat. "Incoming at East Pit. Black out nonessential lights. Keep civilians inside. Militia stays in hard cover. No hero moves."
Holt didn't argue. That was new. "Understood," she said, and there was something like gratitude under the professionalism. "How many?"
Dack looked out into the rain and let his instincts do the counting. "Enough."
He cut the channel.
Talia shifted beside him. "You're going to the cockpit."
Dack nodded once. "You're going into the shack."
Talia's jaw tightened. "To hide."
"To work," Dack corrected. "You're better at hearing lies than most militia officers are at seeing bullets."
Talia held his gaze for a second, then looked away like she didn't want him to see what that did to her.
"I'll mute them," she said quietly.
Dack paused. "Can you?"
Talia didn't hesitate. "I can try."
Dack hated try—but he'd learned that when Talia said it, it came with teeth.
"Do it," he said.
Talia nodded once and slipped into the control shack, slate already connected to the pit's comm spine.
Dack climbed into the Dire Wolf.
The cockpit sealed with a familiar finality. The neural link latched on, and the Daishi's mass became an extension of his bones. Systems rose in layers: gyro stabilization, myomer tension, balance compensation for heavy gravity and unstable footing.
The rain became data. The yard became a map. The world became angles.
He stepped forward.
Mud grabbed the Dire Wolf's feet like hands.
The first step tore free with a wet pull that vibrated up through the frame. The second step sank deeper.
He adjusted, using tiny bursts of thrust to break suction without kicking up a wave of sludge that would blind his own sensors.
East Pit was only a few kilometers out, but in this storm it felt farther—everything felt far until it was right on top of you.
Dack moved anyway.
---
The first hostile contact was a Jenner.
It appeared as a hot, sharp silhouette darting through the drainage channel—fast and confident, hugging low ground and moving like it expected nobody to catch it before it reached the transformer yard.
His systems tagged it clean: JR7-D—a knife fighter that lived on speed and heat.
The Jenner didn't look at the Dire Wolf. It looked past it.
That told Dack everything: it was here to cripple infrastructure, not win a duel.
Dack didn't chase it in a straight line. He cut its route, angling the Dire Wolf so the Jenner would have to choose between slowing down in the open or squeezing between transformer blocks where it could be pinned.
The Jenner chose speed. It lunged, splashing through mud.
Dack answered with his twin autocannons—short, disciplined bursts that tore trenches into the earth ahead of it, forcing it to juke. The moment it juked, its footing betrayed it. A fraction too wide. A foot skidding on saturated soil.
Dack tightened his fire and walked impacts into the Jenner's leg plating—measured, not frantic. Armor spalled away in bright flakes. The Jenner staggered, momentum carrying it forward despite the damage, then snapped back with a quick, vicious volley that flashed off the Dire Wolf's lower plating.
The hits were annoying, not frightening.
Dack stepped closer and followed with a long, precise laser cut across the Jenner's back as it tried to scramble away. The rain hissed into steam where armor went molten.
The Jenner collapsed into the mud with a heavy, wet impact, sliding on its side like something thrown.
Dack didn't finish it.
He held it.
Because he knew the Jenner was bait.
His sensors confirmed it a heartbeat later.
New contacts crested the slag ridge—multiple 'Mechs, moving with spacing that showed training. Not a random pack. A lance.
Silhouettes resolved through rain and thermal contrast, and Dack's HUD painted names as the profiles locked:
Shadow Hawk— a mid-range bruiser that liked mixed volleys and dirty angles.
Phoenix Hawk— jump-capable flanker, made to appear where you didn't want it.
Marauder — heavy, steady, walking like it owned the ridge.
The Marauder didn't rush.
It stepped into a firing posture like a duelist—calm and confident—and then the storm lit up with violent blue-white impact.
Dack felt the first hit slam into his left torso like a hammer wrapped in lightning. Armor plates flared, fragments shearing away in glowing streaks the rain turned instantly to steam.
A second impact followed—higher, harder—ripping into shoulder plating and spiking his heat.
The Marauder was leading with PPC fire—testing him, measuring his response, seeing if he'd panic and overcommit.
Dack didn't.
He answered with control—two long laser strokes that forced the lance to scatter: one raked across the Shadow Hawk's chest, peeling armor in a bright line; another grazed the Phoenix Hawk mid-jump, forcing it to wobble and correct its landing in a spray of mud.
The Ash Hounds reacted like they'd rehearsed this.
The Shadow Hawk dropped behind industrial cover near the transformer berm.
The Phoenix Hawk bounded outward, circling, trying to reach a flank where it could cut into the Dire Wolf's rear armor.
The Marauder kept center and added its autocannon to the pressure—hard kinetic thuds that chipped at Dack's right-side plating between the crackling PPC strikes.
Dack pivoted the Dire Wolf so the substation stayed behind him, forcing missed shots to bury themselves in slag and mud instead of transformer blocks. He advanced slow, like a wall moving through rain, refusing to give the Marauder a clean lane to the infrastructure.
The Shadow Hawk popped out to pepper him with a mixed volley—then slipped back behind the berm. The Phoenix Hawk snapped in and out of sight with jump jets, testing angles and distance like it wanted to nibble at him until he made a mistake.
Dack refused to chase distractions.
He made distractions pay.
He loosed a heavy missile ripple into the Shadow Hawk's cover position, tearing up the berm and showering the 'Mech in debris and concussive force. The Shadow Hawk staggered deeper into cover, armor visibly chewed and smoking in the rain.
When the Phoenix Hawk committed to a landing—just a heartbeat too close—Dack clipped its legs with a tight autocannon burst. The machine stumbled, caught itself, and immediately jumped away, confidence suddenly less bright.
Now the field narrowed.
The Jenner lay disabled, crawling at the edge of the yard.
The Shadow Hawk was battered and less willing to peek.
The Phoenix Hawk was wounded and cautious.
The Marauder remained the spear, continuing to hammer Dack with disciplined PPC strikes while feeding in autocannon pressure to keep him hot and controlled.
Dack felt the heat in the cockpit now—air warmer, sweat collecting under the neural cap. He forced his breathing to stay slow. He let the Daishi's cooling systems pull hard, rain helping, storm air feeding the heat exchange.
He couldn't win this as a clean long-range duel.
Not while he was protecting the yard.
So he changed the battlefield.
He walked the Dire Wolf into the transformer yard's edge and used the industrial blocks as partial cover, forcing the Marauder to shift position if it wanted clean lines.
The Marauder obliged—stepping laterally with smooth discipline despite mud, trying to regain angles.
Dack waited until he saw it: a subtle weight shift, a moment where the Marauder's stride hit slick ground and its damaged leg had to work harder.
Then Dack hammered low—autocannon bursts driving into knee and hip plating—not trying to "kill" the Marauder outright, but trying to take its mobility and cut its options.
The Marauder answered with furious precision—two more blue-white impacts slamming into Dack's chest and shoulder, armor blowing away in sheets, heat surging.
Dack didn't backpedal.
He closed.
At closer range he switched to shorter, faster cuts—quick laser flickers to stitch exposed seams and force actuator housings to glow dull under rain. Then he punched in a compact volley from his short-range rack into the already weakened joint.
The leg failed.
The Marauder lurched, gyro fighting. Its pilot was good—very good—saving the fall through skill and stubbornness.
A pilot that good didn't just topple.
They resisted.
The Phoenix Hawk saw the opening and tried to help—jumping in behind Dack to snap shots into the Dire Wolf's rear plating.
Dack didn't turn fully. Turning would give the Marauder breathing room.
Instead he flicked rear arcs—sharp warning strikes that sparked and smoked across the Phoenix Hawk's torso—enough to make the flanker reconsider trading its life for an ace.
The Phoenix Hawk retreated into rain.
The Shadow Hawk peeked again, desperate, trying to add pressure.
Dack punished it with a clean laser cut across its arm. The mount ruptured; the arm sagged, hanging by sparking cables. The Shadow Hawk backed away, suddenly toothless.
Now it was only Dack and the Marauder, in the transformer yard's fringe, rain making steam where metal bled heat.
The Marauder tried to retreat with discipline—backing away step by step, still firing, still punishing any mistake Dack offered. It was trying to turn this into a withdrawal, regroup, and come back later.
Dack refused.
He surged forward through mud, gyro and thrusters compensating, and drove the Dire Wolf into grappling distance.
The Marauder attempted a sidestep.
Its crippled leg dragged just enough.
Dack rammed.
The Dire Wolf's massive shoulder slammed into the Marauder's chest with a sound like a building collapsing. The Marauder crashed backward into an industrial berm, crushing steel and sending showers of sparks and electric arcs snapping through rain.
The yard screamed with alarms.
Dack's sensors flickered as electrical discharge danced near his systems.
He didn't care.
At that range, he didn't need elegance.
He pressed the advantage and tore into the Marauder's center mass with brutal, sustained punishment—autocannon chewing through what armor remained while laser heat turned inner structure into sparking ruin. Fluid sprayed out into rain and became vapor.
The Marauder's cockpit canopy blew.
An ejection sequence triggered—violent and fast.
The seat launched into the storm, but the berm debris and mud made the trajectory ugly. The seat clipped a twisted beam and tumbled down, vanishing in the rain-smeared floodlights.
Dack didn't stop to check if the pilot lived.
He stayed in the fight until it was truly over.
The Phoenix Hawk, seeing the Marauder down, fled into the storm—jumping away, silhouette shrinking into rain.
The Shadow Hawk powered down, choosing surrender over being carved apart.
The Jenner continued to crawl weakly at the yard's edge, as if it didn't know the raid had died.
Dack stood in the transformer yard's fringe, the Dire Wolf dripping water and steam, armor stripped in places down to scarred underplate. The rain washed soot and melted paint down its legs in black streaks.
He keyed his comm to Marshal Holt.
"Raid broken," he said. "Send recovery teams. Secure the Marauder and the downed units. Sweep the ridge for relay gear. Find the cache before dawn."
Holt's reply came shaky. "On our way. Dack—substation is still up."
"Good," Dack said.
He cut the channel and keyed internal comms.
"Talia."
Her voice came instantly, breathless. "Their comm injection died mid-fight. They lost coordination. I—" She swallowed. "—I muted them as best I could."
Dack exhaled slowly. "Good work."
A pause. Then, quieter: "You're hurt."
Dack glanced at his status—ugly armor loss, nothing critical. "I'm fine."
"You keep saying that," Talia murmured.
Dack's voice stayed flat. "It's what pilots do."
Another pause—longer.
Then Talia spoke, and there was something different in her tone, something warmer that she didn't like admitting existed.
"You trusted me to matter," she said.
Dack swallowed, throat suddenly tight. "You did matter."
Her breath hitched softly—small, involuntary.
Then she said, almost angry at herself: "Thank you. For not treating me like cargo."
Dack didn't know what to do with gratitude, so he anchored himself again.
"Stay inside until Holt locks the yard down," he said. "Militia will be jumpy."
Talia's voice softened. "Okay."
Then, like she was forcing it out before she could lose nerve: "I want to try the sim again tomorrow."
Dack stared out into the rain at the ruined Marauder and felt the strange weight of that request.
"Alright," he said. "Tomorrow."
---
Recovery crews arrived with floodlights and work rigs, the beams turning rain into glittering needles. Militia troopers moved around the downed Marauder with reverence and fear, like they were walking near a sleeping predator.
Marshal Holt trudged up through mud, raincoat plastered to her frame, eyes fixed on the heavy 'Mech's destroyed torso.
"That isn't scavenged junk," she said, voice low. "That's… real."
Dack's external speakers carried his voice in a quiet rumble. "Someone funded them."
Holt swallowed. "Can we salvage it?"
"Maybe," Dack said. "But check it for data. And sweep the ridge. The spoof signal came from there."
Holt nodded sharply and barked orders into her comm.
Dack turned the Dire Wolf back toward the refinery lights.
Tonight had been a win.
But it had also confirmed the thing he'd been trying not to say out loud:
The Ash Hounds weren't acting alone.
They'd escalated with an ace and a heavy machine, and they'd chosen a target that required knowledge. That meant someone higher up was still feeding them.
Someone who didn't want Kestrel Basin stable.
Someone who might still remember the name Jarn for all the wrong reasons.
Dack guided the Dire Wolf through mud toward home lights, rain tapping the armor like fingers.
And in the cockpit, the familiar sensation returned—cold and steady:
The situation wasn't over.
It was just changing shape again.