Three days.

CRHK!

Three days doing nearly nothing but taking out aggression on the mirror in her and Nataliza’s shared bunk.

CRHK!

Punch after punch.

CRHK!

Bailey had spent three fucking days sitting around in an underground bird’s nest doing nothing beyond this and taking out her pent-up needs on whichever troop was lucky enough to ogle her in the shower. All while she was slowly losing her mind over the cowardly lack of energy in these so-called “freedom fighters.”

CRHK!

They send Nataliza out on some ambush of a recon mission less thought out than Bailey’s haircare routine, get her kidnapped, and then have the fucking nerve to demand they sit around for three days with their thumbs up their asses?

CRHHHK!

This was fucking ridiculous. She expected spineless abandonment from the broader rebel command, but Sierra DeSoto, the Steel Fortress herself, sat around with her new title of acting major without a word other than “I’ll keep ya in the know.”

CRHKKKK!

It was fucking ridiculous!

CRAHK!!!

Bailey watched with something approaching satisfaction as, after a slow series of strikes from the two skeletal, robotic arms beneath her organic pair, the severely cracked and battered mirror in the corner of her bunk splintered into a thousand glistening pieces of broken glass at her feet. Maybe if there was some weak, frail little pilot behind this glass to crush like a bug, she’d feel a little relieved, but, hey, her rage wasn’t bubbling up to the surface. Her head was clear as ever. The rebels could replace some cheap mirror; it was about as replaceable as half these pilots anyway…

One continued thought permeated her mind like a sickness or a knock-on effect of some Arcadium pills she wasn’t allowed to have on base.

Bailey could run. She could leave these foolish birdies to wallow in the loss of their best while she actually did something about it. Bailey had her sources, her talents as a pilot and mercenary, and she had more addictive charm in her right hand than any of these pilots in their whole bodies. She could talk her way into some kind of solid plan. Hell, if it weren't for the Mercenary Guild bounty on her head, she could go save Nataliza right now.

Maybe she could anyw–

“Hiii, guess who?” Bailey’s train of sappy thought was broken by the sweet little voice of the one girl she may admit to liking on this base, Aoi Tarowaka. 

She didn’t knock, of course, but Bailey kind of liked that boldness in the girl. The base’s resident comms girl and hacker prodigy, shorter in stature than Bailey by a good few inches and donning a long head of well-dyed pink hair, had the lack of restraint that got Bailey into her share of sudden fun nights in her own exploits. The kind of upbeat lack of restraint that meant if she walked through your door while you were plowing some recruit, she’d ask to join in without a second thought.

Bailey’s kind of gal, but also a perceptive little kitten, too. “All good, by the way? It’s bad luck to break mirrors, y’know!” Aoi didn’t get two steps into the room before noticing the pile of shattered glass Bailey idly stepped through to turn and face her bunk invader.

That was undoubtedly bad for her boots, but she could make Sasha fix them up for her later.

What did this little tiger want, hm?

“Just had a little arm malfunction, kitty cat. Nothing I can’t get you or DeSoto to fix, right?” Bailey’s voice wore enough cloying, coy charm that even a mind reader may struggle to believe anything other than her usual wonderful depravity was going on upstairs, though she’d also found Aoi to be as close to a real mind reader as one could get. “If you’re here to fool around, I am a little busy. Although... Mh, maybe I could make an exception if you ask just nicely enough~.” That may have had a chance of throwing her off any perceived scent, at least.

“Oooooh, maybe later! I kinda need you for something right now, though!” Aoi was quick to disarm Bailey’s flirt bomb, giving the merc a look she read as well-veiled concern before practically skipping a little closer to her. “I could look at your arms first if you waaant, but Sierra doesn’t like when I’m late!” Aoi gave Bailey the offer of an arm checkup, but the energetic girl in her skimpy white shirt and skimpier skirt had already managed to skip herself to Bailey’s side, peeking at them with an open mouth and a few pondering sounds.

The excitement only made sense, really. Bailey’s two extra arms were a tantalizingly more unique affair than the sole, silver prosthetic taking up Aoi’s forearm. She had to admit, the whole tech freak angle looked a lot cuter on Aoi than Sierra…

It was a lot less desperate than the lower-ranked troops who wanted to be strangled by them, too. Ah, delicious little perverts after her own heart.

Maybe she’d choke one out tonight, after dealing with the matter at hand first, though.

“Ah, so Sierra thinks I’m good enough for one of your meetings now, hm? Think you know what I’m going to ask here, kitty.” Bailey’s voice retained all of its casual creaminess even as she let her annoyance show a little.

“Right! Cool arm inspection later!” Aoi gave one of Bailey’s cyber-arms resting at her side a poke before cheerfully gunning for the bunk’s door again. “Sierra’s being dumb and wants to talk to us in private. Only secret I’m keeping for her for a while!” Aoi was never a secretive girl; Bailey liked that about her too. Easy to read and easy to understand.

…

Even easier to get some juicy private info from, too, if you asked for the right kind of it…

“Really now? Well, I guess I’m not moving until you give me one then~.” Bailey figured playing hard to get might take her mind off things before a nauseating tactical “discussion” with her new… superior.

“Kay. Sierra’s only able to get off when she’s using a strap, and Ina has a super obvious mommy kink!” Aoi blurted out intimate information like she was explaining why someone preferred the synthetic apple paste over the synthetic orange paste in the mess hall. Such a cute kitten. “Your secret is that you’re super stressed right now and should let me help! Can we go now? This is super important, I promise!” Mh, kitty cat was lucky she was so cute, or Bailey might have had her neutered for that one.

“Lying to get a cuddle? Usually you just suck that out of me. That’s so beneath what have. Aoi~.” Bailey responded to the perhaps not entirely inaccurate assessment of her mental state with a solid, playful jab.

“Usually I gotta be beneath you to do that, yeah!” Ah, Aoi. She was no Nataliza, but they still had a delicious back-and-forth of their own. “Come on! Sierra’s no fun when she’s mad!” And just like that, with nothing but boundless energy, Aoi started bouncing out of the bunk’s door with pep in every step.

Mh, suppose it would have been rude for Bailey not to follow, and Sierra might manage to cobble up some kind of reason for her not to go violently break Nataliza out of whatever dump they were holding her in on her own.

Assuming she wasn’t already…

…

No, not a thought to have, Bailey. She’d be fine. Not a scratch on her. Nataliza was too valuable for that.

Banishing the thoughts of despair from her head, Bailey followed behind Aoi with little of the pep and all of the pace. Suppose if this was Aoi’s idea in some form, it might not be so bad. Aoi had the grace to break the news to Bailey with a promise of rescue and a night with the handcuffs and ball gag, so if Sierra didn’t understand the importance of this, by the Gods, at least Corvis Base’s beloved mascot seemed to.

It didn’t take long for Aoi’s scampering to lead them to Sierra’s workshop, the double doors of which recalled recent memories of a double date in Bailey’s mind. A decent time, even if Bailey didn’t understand Nataliza’s personal reverence for the woman.

Though, her girlfriend, Ina, was exactly the kind of wet cat Bailey liked to toy with, but poor little Sierra was aggressive about assuming Bailey would be a bad influence unsupervised.

Her? A bad influence? When had she ever made anyone like her anything less than… overjoyed~?

Fun as it was to picture Sierra’s shy mommy’s girl in the middle of a Cluanaire and Rayfield sandwich, seeing if they had anything approaching a plan to get the latter back took unfortunate precedent. Annoying part first, Bailey.

A moment later, and despite Aoi’s insistence on getting inside, Bailey managed to reach the doors first. The red light on the button that opened them indicated Sierra had locked it. How secretive of her. Either she had some hidden, private plan to save their poster girl, or Bailey was about to doorknock her way into an assassination attempt.

For once in her life, the former seemed the more likely outcome.

“Oh, DeSoto. Your favorite captains are here.” Bailey made no attempt to be secretive herself, loudly calling for their acting superior while knocking on the left door with one of her cyber-arms. Maybe the knocking was a little loud and causing one or two dents on the metal surface of the door; Bailey’s brewing rage was just about able to be contained enough to kind of get Aoi off her trail, after all…

Eh, her arms were supposed to be malfunctioning anyway, right?

“Yeah, I hear ya. Half the base probably does, too, so cool it!” Sierra bit back with some half-playful, half-serious words while her footsteps approached the entrance. When the doors were unlocked and opened, acting Major Sierra DeSoto was standing there in an outfit technically different from her usual fare. A plain white tank top with a red flight suit worn up to her waist, sleeves tied around it like she was posing for some military magazine cover. Truly it was a bold change from the plain white tank top and jean shorts the base’s best engineer typically wore.

Mh, and they called Bailey’s love for skimpy stealth suits showing off. Hypocrites.

“Good point. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking we’re doing something urgent, would we, Major?” Bailey laid her words on thick the moment Sierra was in view, baring her annoyed fangs far more clearly than she did with Aoi.

“Uh-huh. Ya comin’ in or did ya just show up to take potshots at me?” Sierra, for her part, didn’t seem to take it lying down. Sure, she took a failed mission where her friend and Bailey’s girlfriend was kidnapped with her cheeks spread, but at least the banter afterward wasn’t totally dead, hm?

The one saving grace of this fucking nightmare.

“Can always multitask, can’t I now?” Bailey swiped back at Sierra while striding past her into the familiar workshop interior she’d recently spent a night in. It looked a lot nicer with dinner plates and glasses of liquor on that table instead of stacks of potentially worthless paper. 

It looked a lot nicer with Nataliza and Ina laughing in here, too…

Mh, thoughts for a different time. Punching Sierra in the throat right now only got more tempting the more she thought about that… okay dinner date, and that wouldn’t do this meeting any good. Yet.

Sierra appeared to give Aoi a quiet thank you as she locked the door behind the pink-haired ball of joy, said joyball making her way to Bailey in a fashion that made Bailey assume this might be a real briefing about something. If it wasn't, then Bailey might just have to convince Aoi to stage a prison break with her and leave this shitshow behind.

“Okay.” Sierra walked past her two guests with a deep breath, stopping at the table to sort through the mess of paper, looking back after she seemed to have what she needed. “Bailey, before I start, did ya have anything to say?” Sierra’s first words of the briefing were already a waste of time. 

Did Bailey have anything to say? Oh, she had plenty she could say. Best to keep it brief, though, hm? Something approaching civil?

“If this isn’t about a plan to rescue my girlfriend, who you got taken in the first place, I’ll fix that little mistake of yours on my own. That enough for you, DeSoto~?” That was civil enough, even if the mixture of catty annoyance and genuine rage may have made it even harsher than Bailey’s already intentional venom.

Aoi didn’t interject, and Sierra took a second to process the blame placed on her before nodding her head and shooting Bailey a calm smile.

“Hear ya loud and clear. Thankfully I don’t think it’s about to come to that!” Sierra seemed a mix of somber and slightly joyous as she grabbed a few sheets of paper from her table, taking another breath as she memorized some info from those sheets. She looked stressed in between her bouts of excitement. Good. “Aoi and I have been workin’ on a plan the last few days. I think we’ve got somethin’ viable now.” Sierra seemed unhappy to say that last part. How cute of her to hate relying on someone she didn’t trust.

The feeling would be mutual if Bailey needed any of these people in the first place… Still, numbers to throw at this problem couldn’t hurt, and Aoi seemed to be in her corner…

Mh, best to try and give this plan a shot first.

“I guess I can humor hearing you out, but I’m almost offended that you didn’t want my expertise off the bat, DeSoto. Playing favorites, hm?” Bailey grinned through a cloying half-truth of a response, walking the steel floor of the workshop to stand by the table and leer at some of the documents on it.

Were those PostTech logos? If Sierra’s plan was to try and sneak into a base in a shipping crate, then Bailey may as well blow her brains out now to save her the embarrassment of a firing squad doing it instead.

Ooh, or maybe her plan was to simply ask them to mail Nataliza back to them. Perhaps get a new frying pan out of it too, hm?

Hear her out, Bailey. These two weren’t totally clueless, right?

“Had to make sure ya weren’t dead set on running off to do it yourself. That, and this plan is… complicated.” Sierra followed a fair point with a sign this plan might be a wash from the start; no awkward smiling could mask that. Just give her a reason, DeSoto. “Aoi, ya feel like starting us off? A lot of this was only possible because of you.” Sierra’s smile seemed to calm slightly at the mention of Aoi. Either she trusted the plan, or she had a chance to pawn this off on her lower-ranked friend.

Nah, even slightly ticked, Bailey knew that wasn’t Sierra’s style. Wouldn’t have managed to draw Nataliza’s friendship if it was. Maybe Bailey could entertain not walking away just yet. 

This better be good…

“You got it! Ahem!” Aoi was quick to jog next to Sierra and face Bailey with her own far less serious smile. Upbeat even in a situation like this. Little freak. “Sooo, what do you know about Orsus?” Aoi started off with a cheerful question.

Bailey didn’t know she was entering a quiz to get this plan, but, fine, she’d bite. “The snow cone planet full of oil United Arcadium’s been licking dry? Crushed a few scavengers there when I was with the Guild. Why?” Bailey pondered some kind of toying comment, but her curiosity about the plan left her at a rare blank for one. There’d be plenty of time for that later on. Info first.

“About a month ago, the last organized rebel base there made a huge push to take over a PostTech mail carrier ship! News networks were told they got squished, but I had a little friend in there telling a really different story!” Aoi’s smile somehow beamed brighter than ever. Hopefully she was getting to something good. “Scotch Brulee was our mail rep for a few months! Fun girl, really big di–”

“Okay, Aoi. How ‘bout we stay on topic, huh?” Sierra sadly butted in just as Aoi was about to give Bailey something fun to think about later. Quite the blush on her acting superior, too. Bailey may not have remembered this mail girl, but if she got around, then good for her, hm?

“Right! Plan stuff.” Aoi nodded and regained her train of thought. “So she was there when the raid happened. Joined the rebels right away! We’ve been sending encrypted messages to each other for a while now, and after Nataliza got pinched, we started talking about schemes!” Bailey was already starting to get a picture of this harebrained scheme the two had cooked up. Utilizing the resources of a rogue rebel group with access to an island-sized spaceship?

Not a terrible game, but Bailey had no trust in Sierra’s vetting process right now. Although…

…

Yeah, Bailey did remember hearing about this before she came here. Some cute blonde thing spilled her guts about a plan involving a few dozen of those freezing rebel flunkies raiding a carrier the last time she was in Lucy’s Bar. Ah, what was that commander’s name again? It was right on the tip of her eager-to-speak tongue!

Maybe Sierra motioning to Aoi that she was taking over would give Bailey a reminder.

“Thanks to Aoi and Scotch’s… friendship, I was able to get in touch with their commander a day after Liz… you know.” Mhm, Bailey remembered Sierra fucking up and getting Nataliza taken perfectly well. No tacit handwaving or professional smile was changing that one, DeSoto. Just give her a name. “It’ll be a tight squeeze, four of us at most, but Kern’s willin’ to help us track down Liz and get her home.”

Fucking. Bingo.

That night may have been a lust-drunk blur for Bailey, but she remembered two names: Sarah and a commander named Kern. If this was a setup, then it was one so well planned out even Bailey would be impressed at the end of it.

Bailey still wasn’t sold, but the two were getting there bit by bit. 

Slowly.

“As much as I’d love to live on a ship with you and a bunch of post office clerks for the rest of my life, I’m wondering how that helps fix your mistake, DeSoto.” Bailey remained catty and doubtful, to a slight wince from Sierra. It seemed like she felt bad.

Good.

“Right, I was gettin’ to that.” Sierra didn’t take the jeer lying down entirely but had a clear desire to stay on track, subtle annoyance in her voice aside. How professional. “Kern has a lead on Liz’s location. The UA’s lead chemical engineer and neurological expert wants out, and they’d be the only person we could reach with a shot at knowin’ where they’re holdin’ her. But…” Sierra seemed excited, and Bailey could only look at that upbeat leadership with a layer of doubt coating her.

This sounded like a giant waste of time, but Bailey wanted to believe Aoi was smarter than this.

“Let me take a wild little guess. We need to spend time rescuing someone we should probably put down like a dog, pray they have information for us, and then… what, hm?” Bailey’s annoyance was starting to take over her charms, even if her smile remained almost scarily untouched.

Seeing this, Aoi took the reins again.

“Nope, because I did my research. The UA’s encryption sucks, by the way!” Aoi cut in front of Sierra and managed to direct Bailey’s attention to her. Trust in Sierra was low, but Aoi had a little leeway with her. It wasn't just all the weird sex between them, too, honest! “Erin Lavern already tried to run away before, and the UA’s really poorly redacted records show she was nooot treated well for that. They’ve got her isolated at an outpost on Orsus, but other stuff I dug up shows she’s still kept in the loop, for now!” Aoi was saving this, bless her heart, but the idea of Bailey wasting precious weeks on a side mission couldn’t be wiped away by that cute smile.

She needed a hook, and the familiar name of the doctor she now knew was the sympathetic flunky who installed her arms wasn’t quite enough.

Getting around, though. Aren’t you, Lavern?

“Do we know our new side switcher actually has any info on Nataliza, though? Could be kept out of the loop on something this important.” Bailey’s curiosity wore less aggression with Aoi, but the stare-down she was giving her friend might have been scary if Aoi knew what fear even was.

“I got something!” Aoi was quick to reply again before prancing over to the table of documents, messily searching through them to Sierra’s slight wincing before grabbing a particular one with a pleased sound. “Yada yada paralytic chemical. Yada yada still feels pain. Blah blah… Aha!” Aoi placed the tip of her finger at a particular sentence and grinned ear to ear before reading it aloud. “Your best work and continued compliance will be required for Project White Hawk to be the success I need.” Aoi beamed, and for the first time in this little meeting of theirs, Bailey felt some confidence in this mediocre plan.

“Well, well. Their codenames really are as petty as I thought they’d be. Fucking amateurs.” Bailey made her way over to the two planners and grabbed the document out of Aoi’s hand to comb through it with her own eyes.

Paralytic drugs and mentions of multiple vague surgeries. They definitely weren’t filling their latest traitor in with everything, but Bailey could fill in some of the blanks here. Conscious surgeries…

Disgusting fucking pigs.

Bailey read through to the end, and one sentence in particular caught her eye.

“With your and Limbic’s work combined, we’re optimistic Project White Hawk will be ready for basic field testing in four to six weeks.”

Bailey grumbled quite audibly at that, crumpling up the paper into a ball with her hand before looking up at the two girls in front of her.

“Yeah. Not exactly workin’ with a lot of time on this one.” Sierra was the one to get her words out first, giving Bailey another somber look that she didn’t exactly appreciate.

Feel bad for your fuckup on your own time, DeSoto. Not with her.

“So, what’s to stop me from taking this info for myself, getting to Orsus, breaking Lavern out myself, and saving Nataliza before you’re done getting used to interstellar travel sickness?” Bailey asked her following question with malice, but deep down she already knew the answer.

Logistics and that fucking bounty on her head. Right now that bounty and a light fondness for Aoi and maybe Sasha were about the only things Bailey had for joining this resistance nest.

Sierra, to her credit, didn’t seem to take Bailey’s insinuated plan with any anger, taking a second to process it before getting a word in just as Aoi opened her mouth to speak. Shame. Bailey liked one of those voices right now, and it certainly wasn’t Sierra’s.

“Nothin’. I won’t stop ya from walkin’ away and doin’ whatever it is you’re gonna do. But there’s a bounty on your head from the Merc Guild nearly as big as the UA’s bounty on Liz, and you’ve got no way of getting to Orsus on your own. We can be on that ship tomorrow. And… truthfully…” Sierra paused, grimacing slightly before getting the next, tougher part out. “We need ya. You’re by far our best pilot and have as much field trainin’ as Liz. I hate to say it, but there’s a good head on your shoulders too. Ya took this a lot better than some…” Another more obvious expression of frustration made itself known on Sierra’s face, mixed with what Bailey knew was guilt.

Good. Feel guilty.

Sierra did have her points here, though. Bailey had contacts, but even getting to Chalybe City would take longer than boarding a carrier tomorrow, and that was assuming that bartender of hers still had those interplanetary gun smugglers on speed dial…

The rebels on that ship had a network, too. Bodies to throw at the problem other than hers…

Sierra probably wasn’t just stroking her ego with that praise of her, either. Lark was bedridden, Sasha was best kept out of a mission so readily involving her old owner, and Bailey hadn’t so much as seen Ina at the mess hall since the kidnapping.

…

Fuck it. They had no better ideas. Why not do something stupid?

“Fine. Tomorrow, the three of us are going to get on this ship that you better have arranged for us, get that doctor out of her igloo, and get my Nataliza home. But let me make one thing clear…” Bailey got within inches of Sierra, prompting Aoi to step out of the way to avoid any secondhand damage these two might do to each other. “I’m not your personal assistant just because you have Nataliza’s rank. If this plan starts blowing up, I’ll do this myself after personally putting you in the med bay. Got it, DeSoto?” Bailey’s tone contained little in the way of aggression, and that only made them scarier.

They would have been, if Bailey was in less brave company, at least.

“Three weeks.” Sierra smiled, making no effort to close the distance between the two while glaring calmly into Bailey’s eyes. “If we don’t have her back in three weeks, do whatever the hell you want. Deal?” Now that was the bold, brash mechanic she almost started to not detest on that double date with Nataliza. Sly smile and all.

“Like I need your permission for that, but, fine. I’ll be in here tomorrow morning to catch our flight, and your ass better be too.” Bailey followed her words up with a boop of one of her cyber-hands’ index fingers against the acting major’s nose, already starting to make her way to the door before shooting the pair a sly smile. “Aoi, finish up here quick. Think my kitty cat owes me an… arm checkup, hm~?” Bailey buried the rage brewing from the balled-up document still in her hand the best way she knew how; by inviting the cutest girl near her to some thinly veiled stress relief sex.

“Kay! Just have to get some final stuff worked out with Sierra! Is this gonna be a checkup where I need clothes?” Aoi replied coyly, earning an eye roll from Sierra for her split focus. Fucking prude.

“Mh, I’m not sure yet. Surprise me~.” Bailey didn’t wait for any other words from the pair, opening the workshop’s doors and strolling out while humming a soft little tune to herself. A good thing she did, too. It hid the pit of molten anger growing in her stomach from the odd passerby.

She didn’t like this plan. Sure, it was relatively tight. Clearly well researched, too. The rebels weren’t walking her into a death trap, but it did feel like they were walking her into something almost as bad. A failed exercise in tedium. Busy work with no payoff.

Yet, in her heart, Bailey was already starting to believe it could work. Stupidity and reckless hope were the rebel way, and occasionally they bore fruit. Foolish schemes that should have blown up in their faces managed to work with minimal sacrifice. Hell, Sasha and Lark were living, breathing examples of the results moronic rebel planning could have when they truly believed in both their cause and each other.

Bailey had seen that herself here, too. Missions she thought were braindead went off without even a hiccup. Women found love in a war zone she’d spent fifteen years only drinking debauchery in. 

Hell, she found love in that war zone. In this underground nest of hope and stupidity, Bailey found her own second chance…

…

This plan better fucking work, or the whole of Ansa was going to pa