Ladies and gentlemen, the journey of Alpha Squad continues. This chapter's a little short, simply because school finals and all that wonderful jazz. I will get to working on this story in earnest when I'm over and done with school, and it should be finished sometime this summer. In the meantime, read on!

--Break: Rulen’s final moments—
Rulen was tired.
Curse this job, this place, this infernal mission, can’t anything go right? He leaned back in his chair, listening to the pounding of the robots on the metal door behind him. A few more seconds and they’d be through.
He reached up and rubbed the spot where Parma had kissed him, and his face broke into a silly grin. That, he definitely hadn’t expected.
“Get yourself to the core safely, Euclid,” he muttered. “Tell Esscom I gave ‘em blood and thunder.”
Reaching into his pack with his one remaining arm, he withdrew another bomb he’d been specially saving. One of his favorites – a graviton vortex, it was called. He caressed the sphere, then flipped off the safety and spun the chair around to face the entrance, covering the small explosive with his hand.
The door was white-hot now, and as he watched it melted – the metal it was made of flowing down like liquid, molten in its high-temperature state.
Through the gap charged several gremlins that had apparently joined the mechanical force they had so recently faced off against. The leader came up to him, growling fiercely.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” His eyes flicked to the control panel behind Rulen, looking at the schematics on Rulen’s datapad.
The picture showed the blueprints for two huge projects. It slowly faded and disappeared.
“WHAT? WHO DID YOU SEND THOSE TO?!” The gremlin grabbed Rulen by the collar, jerking him forward and tearing flesh off of his back as he yanked him forwards, away from the chair he was fused to.
Rulen gritted his teeth against the pain, then spat, holding up the bomb. “Your worst nightmare.” He pressed the detonation button.
The look of fury on the gremlin’s face slowly elongated, then disappeared as the bomb’s blast radius spun in a quick and deadly whirlwind of energy that collapsed on itself, destroying everything in its way – including the grin of a knight who knew, as the singularity collapsed, that he had done his duty.

--Break: Alpha Squad, Ironclaw Munitions Factory--
The elevator slid through a glass shaft, deeper into the bowels of the factory, away from the hub and where Rulen sat. As we got further into the factory, the lights grew darker and more sinister.
When we finally saw the floor of the enormous facility, what greeted our eyes were two huge metal skeletons – they looked to be gigantic heads, with glowing eyes. Gremlins and robots alike were crawling all over them, and the din of their hammering reached even through the thick glass of the elevator tube.
“Weapons,” Grantz grunted.
I ran my eyes over the constructions, nodding. I could see mounts for missiles, laser emitters, and other assorted weapons.
“I hope those aren’t intended for the Spiral Order.”
Parma said nothing, her eyes still fixed on the floor, her body still stiff, rigid.
The elevator eventually slipped into the darkness we all knew, and with the darkness came a welcome silence. We all sat down, waiting out the ride.
Finally Parma spoke up, her voice tremoring with emotion. “I told you, Chief…I told you.”
“I know.”
She heaved a sob, finally letting the tears come freely. “Why…? What brought us here? Why do we have to do this? Why did Rulen have to die?” she wailed.
Surprisingly, it was Grantz who answered her. “We do this because we have to,” he said evenly, “because we are the best Spiral HQ has. We are the advance guard, the first into battle and the unknown, because we are the best of the best.” He stood up, clanking over to where Parma sat in the dark and kneeling beside her. “There is no one else, Parma, and that is what Rulen gave his life for – the mission that none other could undertake.”
Parma said nothing, continuing to shiver with her sobs. I breathed out, letting the tension in my chest evaporate.
“Thank you, Grantz,” I said. “I’d been wondering that myself.”