HIGH COMMAND ARCHIVES

[HIGH COMMAND ARCHIVE - DAY 1]

General Garza was already sitting behind the polished dark maple slab of his desk, a cigar clenched between his teeth. He had a habit of gnawing on them down to the wet nub, filling the office with the suffocating stink of cured tobacco from Saturn's hydroponic farms. I hated the smell, but you didn't climb the administrative ladder by complaining about a superior's private vices.

His heavy-lidded eyes snapped up and locked onto mine the second my boots crossed the doorway. "Which one is this, Smith?"

"Neuro-5, sir. It was briefed during the High Command review last Thursday."

"Every week there's another dozen reports crawling with marooned scumbags brought up in those briefings," he grunted, not looking up as he waved a hand to disperse the smog. "Give me the shorthand."

"This is the planet with the Slayer garrison that went dark. Comms dropped three weeks ago," I said, extending the tablet across the desk. "I have Colonel Akers from Fort Carmone holding on the line right now."

He clamped down on the wrapper, venting another ribbon of smoke through yellowed teeth as he took the pad. "Have you listened to the audio file attached to this gibberish?"

I kept my spine straight and my hands folded behind my back. "Yes, sir. Several times."

"And?"

"Mostly dense static, but there are distinct, unidentified audio signatures on the file."

He didn't flinch, his gaze trailing across the sensor readouts. "Another outpost overwhelmed by Spawn. It's been happening for the last twenty years, ever since High Command authorized the Slayer Program."

"It's an Espen-rich sector, sir," I noted. "Waylon Corp permits expire in twenty-four months. If they aren't drilling by then, they lose the extraction contract."

"Ah. Now I remember," he said, letting out a dry, rattling chuckle that ended in a cough. "Those corporate suits are practically frothing at the mouth to get drilling teams back on the surface. Looking at Carmone's telemetry, their operational kill-to-death ratio is well below minimum quota."

"Which is why Akers is on the channel, General. Though with their regional relay down, a stable holocall is out of the question. Even low-band audio will carry some distortion."

He tapped off a cylinder of ash into the brass shell casing he used as an ashtray. "Why do I have to suffer through garbled feed, then?"

"Between the offline relay and Neuro-5's dense atmospheric iron, orbital transmissions are degrading across the whole hemisphere," I explained. "Until Carmone's ground team manually repairs the pylon, a low-bandwidth audio burst is the best link she can sustain."

"Fine. Patch her through," Garza replied, flicking a dismissive hand.

I tapped the terminal, routing the transmission through the desk console's speaker. A wave of harsh static hissed into the room, followed by a metallic, heavily digitized voice.

"Colonel Akers reporting, General Garza."

"Colonel. We have a few operational discrepancies to address ahead of your annual review."

"Sir, understood."

"Your post has burned through an unacceptable number of Slayers over the last rotation, and your garrison's kill quotas are lagging behind baseline projections across the board."

"General, as outlined in my last three requisition requests, our frontline squads are understaffed and coming in under-"

Garza leaned forward. "Colonel, I don't review excuses on this desk. I review production margins. The corporate board wants that planet cleared so their extraction teams can drop. Light a fire under your criminals, or your operational record will reflect the shortfall."

"Understood, General."

Garza took a slow, deliberate pull from his cigar, exhaling through his nostrils as he glanced down at the casualty sheets. "Now for the real reason you're on this channel. When was the last time Carmone had active contact with Fort Craven?"

The line sputtered with digital interference. "Three weeks back, sir. Every hailing frequency we've broadcast since has returned dead air and static."

"I need you to deploy some able bodies to repair that pylon. You can at least do that, right?"

"Yessir!"

He pressed a button, muting the call as he asked, "When is their next Slayer drop-off?"

"Fort Carmone should have received an additional Slayer earlier tonight, sir," I replied.

"Excellent, that will shut her up," he said, before switching back on his microphone. "Alright, Akers, I expect results, and because I am such a fair sport, I'm throwing in another fresh Slayer. Maybe this one will fare better than the last few we've sent. Now, dismissed."

"Thank-" she tried to say before he hung up.

Garza leaned back, putting his feet on the desk as he took a deep drag. "Did she get what she wanted?"

I pulled up the newest drop's profile. Basham Anderson. He looked both incredibly skinny and entirely too soft, which shouldn't have been possible. I scanned the readout.

[COMMON SENSE: 0/100]

[MELEE: 0/100]

[HEAVY RIFLES: 0/100]

I closed the file, keeping my expression perfectly flat. "Not really, sir."