2952-01-03 – Tales from the Inbox: The Last Suit Standing 

There is quite a cottage industry in people smuggling themselves and others on and off of occupied Frontier worlds these days. Obviously I consider this practice foolhardy, and the Navy specifically forbids it, both because of the danger and the risk that captured persons might provide our enemies with useful intelligence. 

Our submitter today claims to have made such a trip to Adimari Valis to try to locate an old friend of this feed, Jacob Borisov. We too have heard rumors that he and his men are not quite as dead as most have supposed. Unfortunately, unlike the Lost Squadrons, Borisov and his mercenaries do not seem likely to be retrieved.  

Jagi Jorgiev watched the figure on the hilltop for several minutes. It didn’t move even slightly in that time, but that was not unusual; its hulking shoulders and thick, metal-clad chest were not burdened by the need to breathe. Its silhouette slowly occluded the setting stars as they marched toward the western horizon as if it were merely part of the ridgeline. 

Jagi knew better, though. A Rico suit might be motionless for hours while its operator was scanning every sensor readout, or playing a game on the internal computer’s tiny holo-display. The operator could also be sleeping, to be wakened at any moment by the perimeter sensor alarm.  

More likely, though, the armored suit was empty, or a corpse filled its padded interior. It had been years since Adimari Valis had been occupied by the Incarnation, years since the remaining mercenaries and members of the planet’s garrison had been forced to go to ground and hide from the invaders. The chances of keeping a Rico suit in good repair that long were not good, even if one had whole supply dumps worth of spare parts to work with. So far from the main roads, on a planet with many more conveniently accessed battlefields, the occupiers probably wouldn’t even bother to haul the machine to the scrap melters. 

The chance that this Rico suit was still operational, though remote, kept Jagi under cover as dawn crept closer. She had come to the Valis to find her old boss, even if only as a corpse. Old Commander Borisov had been on the planet’s surface with his men when the escape doors had slammed shut. Everyone with him had been officially listed “missing on operation” for almost four years. His mercenary company had gone bankrupt not long after the fall of the Matusalemme system, and Borisov’s beloved Taavi Bancroft had been sold to pay corporate debt. Those who hadn’t been planetside to be trapped with their boss had been forced to watch their hard-won life cut up and sold to the highest bidder piecemeal.  

True, none of them had been long in finding new work, not with the war still raging, but for Jagi, the loss of the Bancroft mercenary company had been like losing her family all over again. She’d been at the old hulk’s helm station the day Borisov had purchased it, and on the day it had been sold. Even after three years as the XO for the smaller merc outfit Hadelson’s Horde, she still missed her old crew, her old commander, her old life.  

The Horde had been sad to see her go, but she had been relieved to see the last of them. They were good mercs, as far as it went, but they weren’t family. She’d spoken to Professor Courtenay shortly after his return from the Valis in May 2951, and from him she’d learned that individuals from at least three mercenary units – her own crew included – were still alive and active down on the surface, hiding Xenarch artifacts from Incarnation looters. The day after that, she’d started planning her own trip to occupied territory. Perhaps only a handful of Borisov’s men still clung to this doomed mission, but Jagi knew she’d be at home among them, whatever would come. 

Finding them had proven far more difficult than anticipated, however. Knowing the approximate region from Courtenay had given Jagi a place to start, but finding one band of stranded mercs in a hundred thousand square kilometers of badlands and narrow, thickly vegetated valleys was hard enough even when they did want to be found, and when there were not desperate brigands and Incarnation patrols to contend with. Jagi had been on the planet four months so far, her own supplies long since replaced by provisions stripped from ruined villages or taken from dead Incarnation soldiers.  

This solitary figure on the hilltop was the first Rico suit in all that time she’d seen except a few twisted wrecks sprawled at the roadside, and though it should have given her hope, it filled her instead with dread. If the suit did have a living occupant, she would be just another threat crossing the perimeter under cover of darkness. If it didn’t, then it would still have markings, and Jagi might know by those markings the final resting place of someone she had known aboard Bancroft. It might also be the armor of a mercenary from some other unit, but that didn’t seem very likely.  

Dawn, of course, would not make things much better. Dawn would bring Incarnation aerial patrols, and Jagi had already had too many close calls with trigger-happy airborne psychopaths happy to strafe a lone exposed figure on the ground.  

Jagi still had one of Commander Borisov’s old friend-call comms squawkers, of course, but she didn’t want to risk its broadcast, because the signal could be picked up by nearby Incarnation units, and there was no guarantee the friendlies still had working communications gear. This, too, was a problem she hadn’t anticipated before making landfall. How could she signal her identity without also signaling her position to unfriendly watchers? 

Dislodged stones clattered behind Jagi. She ducked lower in the tumble of stones that hid her and peered into the darkness, her hand falling to the trusty railgun on her hip. She held her breath, but saw nothing, and heard nothing else besides her own pounding pulse. 

A cold, sharp object pricked Jagi’s back. “Hands forward. Up. Slowly, now.” 

Jagi complied, slowly rising to her feet and keeping her hands in front of her chest, far from her gun. She’d thought she was outside the range of any Rico suit’s sensors, but perhaps she’s been mistaken. “I’m looking for-” 

“Shut up.” The man hissed as he yanked Jagi’s sidearm out of its holster and patted her for other weapons. “The only thing to find out here is trouble, and damnation, you’ve found it.” 

Jagi’s jaw dropped. She recognized this voice. “That you, Ruskin?” 

“Oy. How in all creative-” The man fumbled about and produced a tiny light, which he waved in front of Jagi’s face. “Jorgiev. Are you mad? Why... How...” 

“Story for a safer place.” Jagi shrugged. “Can you get me to the others? Where’s Commander Borisov?” 

Ruskin sighed. “We’ve both got stories to tell, then. Come on.”