The suit we left behind was one of ours; Priest's to be exact. The guy had a strength and dry humor that could shake the cabin and a right hook that I'd seen level more than a few rowdy types back at base. Now, all that was left of him was an empty shell sitting silent in the dirt.
I kept my eyes on the rough terrain, my hand automatically pinging Ada for the umpteenth time. "Ada, if you can hear me, give me something on Priest's last moments. Anything."
The comms stayed dead, and I cussed under my breath. The damn AI was probably fried, but I couldn’t shake the hope that she was still in there somewhere, listening, processing.
Koog caught my eye, a silent question there. I just shook my head. Now wasn't the time to get into it.
Lux’s Decimator trudged on beside us, the kid’s control of the machine unwavering despite the somber mood. I could tell he wanted to ask questions, too, to understand why we'd left Priest's suit like some forgotten war monument. I didn't have the answers he was looking for.
"Kovach, we’re still exposed out here. We need a destination," Riker said.
I grunted in response, my gaze never leaving the path ahead. "We find who took Priest's body, we find out what happened," I said, the hate in my voice low but resolute.
The suit's control box was with us, a small piece of tech that felt heavy as a boulder. I had slotted it into my own suit's secure storage, a constant reminder pressing against my back. I wanted badly to plug it in and see what had happened, but just as badly I wanted to fling it away from me.
Priest was a friend, as good of a friend as I'd ever had in the service. Like Hinge, or Halo, or Bayou. We'd become family over the years. There'd been others of course, Robot, Bond, Darkman. Even further back were Heist and Chops. Men and women who'd given everything to be drop-troops.
I pinged Ada again, the habit a stubborn tick. "Ada, come on. You've got to give me something."
Then, a flicker. My HUD glitched for a split second, a ghost in the machine. It was the barest whisper of a sign, but it was enough to fuel the hope that had been threatening to die in my chest.
"She's there," I murmured to myself. "She's got to be."
We didn't slow our pace, didn't dare to. Each step forward was a step away from Priest's resting place, but a step toward unraveling the mystery of his disappearance. In the back of my mind, the silent signals of the black box and Ada's potential presence churned into a storm of determination.
The Witch was in and out of our sight lines but never very far away. The rest of us just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Trying to be ready for whatever came next.
* * *
My suit felt heavier with each step, the burden of Priest's unspoken story weighing on me. Every once in a while, my fingers would twitch towards the comm link, instinctively attempting to reach Ada again. "Come on, Ada. If you're in there, show me a sign."
The silence mocked me, but I kept the hope alive, buried deep beneath layers of armor and resolve.
Lux's Decimator powered through the terrain, its hulking form a bastion of strength and a constant reminder of the firepower at our disposal. The boy had grown quiet, the usual chatter replaced with a solemnity that didn’t fit his young years.
Koog was to my left, his suit's sensors panning the area in a never-ending sweep. "We need to set up for the night soon, Kovach. We're all running on fumes."
He was right. We needed to rest, re-calibrate, reassess. But we were still being hunters, and Priest's fate was nagging me to keep moving. I had no illusions that he was still alive. Out here without a suit—no way.
I pinged Ada once more, the action becoming as reflexive as breathing now. And then, there it was again—a flicker, a subtle shift in the suit's systems that hadn't been there before. It was the ghost of a response, a nudge in the code that could have been nothing more than a glitch—or a whisper from Ada buried beneath the wreckage.
"She's in there," I whispered again, my voice not betraying the surge of adrenaline that shot through me. "Ada's still kicking."
Lux perked up at that, the Decimator's head swiveling ominously in my direction. "Really? Can you get her back online?"
"Not sure, kid," I admitted, my gaze still locked on the various readouts in my HUD. "But I'm damn well going to try."
Nightfall crept upon us like a thief, and we managed to find a reasonably defensible position against a craggy outcrop. I set the black box down beside me, its inert casing holding the last moments of Priest's life within its digital confines.
Riker and Koog took first watch, their suits merging with the darkness as they kept a vigilant eye on the perimeter. I stayed awake, the rest of my team catching some shuteye, my fingers dancing over the suit's controls as I coaxed and cajoled the systems.
"Ada, if you can hear me in there, fight your way back," I muttered, every failed attempt a fresh frustration. I had no idea how an embedded AI might fight nor what it would fight against—I just wanted her to know I was rooting for her. Of course, she was in my head, she already knew.
As the night deepened and the first watch ended, the stars overhead seemed to watch with a cold indifference to our struggle. But beneath the quiet, there was a rhythm, a pattern, something that had shifted ever so slightly.
At one point, I felt more than saw the WitchWalker come and sit beside me. I'm not sure what, if anything, she was trying to say, but I removed my suit’s glove and placed my bare hand on her arm. She didn't flinch away. I could see the bruises and cuts her bindings had left. I held up a small Medbot kit, and she shook her head. She wanted them left, maybe to show what humans had done. Her enemy was not the new world, it was the people from the old.
And then, just as a hint of dawn began to touch the horizon, a double chime—a response in my HUD, faint but unmistakable. A possible sign of life from Ada, a chirping pulse amidst the silence.
"I knew it," I breathed, a smile finding its way across my face for the first time in what felt like years. "Come on, girl, you can do this!"