Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

Chapter 8: Hope

It had taken longer than he'd be willing to admit for Walter to notice that his hound was up to something. He'd ordered it to rest, figuring it would be a few days before he could secure transport for an AC across the Alean Ocean.

Balam had seemed like they might be a good option, but after 621's antics at the Gallia Dam and helping with a prison break from their Southern Belius facilities, it was unlikely they would want to play nice without something being done for them first.

He'd tried Arquebus, of course, but they had a habit of rejecting requests from those who were not on Rubicon under their direct sponsorship, so that was unsurprisingly denied. Figures that they'd go back to ignoring him once they weren't being stonewalled by an obstacle. Both corps had been happy to take the survey data pointing toward the ice field though, so the credits would at least go to good use.

When he did check on 621, just a day after the Watchpoint, he found it was in the area of Grid 086, where Carla's company, RaD, operated. It was also where an intercontinental cargo launcher was mounted.

Looked like it had decided to immediately get to work on that survey request Balam had issued.

With the major hurdle of transporting an AC out of the way, he could easily arrange transport for just himself, perhaps hitch a ride on a shipment from one of the neutral corporations like Melinite or Takigawa.

...

It had been a week of relative calm since arriving at the ice field. The few sorties they'd been on were small actions targeting outlying survey patrols, issued by both Arquebus and Balam in an attempt to disrupt each other.

Neither had been willing to commit to large-scale action yet, but it would only be a matter of time; Arquebus had already established bases and survey sites before Raven had arrived, and Balam had quickly seized abandoned infrastructure after their arrival as well. Both sides would want to improve their position by slowing down their competitor's survey.

Ayre checked the comms buffer again to see if something new might have arrived. There had been no indication that the Liberation Front had arrived in the central ice field, so the corps were stuck slugging it out with each other.

A few messages from Walter were waiting. She gave a quick nudge to Raven and he was exiting the simulator, alert and ready.

The first message Raven selected was from Walter, the day after they'd arrived. Poor weather from blizzards had disrupted communications for a bit and they were only now receiving the backlog.

"Guess you noticed that job from Balam... and decided to take it. I saw you were heading for the cargo launcher. Not a bad idea, I'll give you that." he said, "I'm done tying up loose ends, and I'll be heading over to the ice field myself soon. Now that Arquebus and Balam are there, you know what's going to happen: Business as usual. But you can make it work for us."

The next message was dated from just a few hours ago, and was marked as a briefing.

Walter had been sent the mission request by Balam's G6 Red, their mercenary liaison. They wanted Raven to retrieve data from survey drones at an Arquebus survey camp, set up in the formerly abandoned Hjalmar Mine.

<<Ayre, did you have the parts that got left behind in the Belius region shipped over here?>>

Ayre could feel the confusion mixed with gratitude from her partner.

"I did. Melinite had a shipment of weapons on the way over and was selling extra cargo space, so it was cheap. They arrived yesterday with the rest of what you ordered." Ayre paused, "I put in the request using your credentials... I hope you don't mind."