The Bay of Gorda spread out before them like a forgotten continent.
What used to be towns and roads had long since surrendered to nature. Buildings had crumbled into moss-covered skeletons. Streets were choked with roots. The land had decided it was done being tamed. What remained was a sprawl of wide, open plains of tall grass, sun-bleached concrete, and the occasional tree growing straight through the ruins of old lives before.
The bay itself was massive. Enough room for Libertalia's full naval force to slip in without crowding. A natural harbor, deep and calm, flanked by hills that had once held towers and now just wore vines like cloaks. It was quiet. Too quiet, maybe.
They all arrived with thunder as the mechs stomped into the soft earth, power loaders clearing wreckage with heavy arms and spinning saws, troops spreading out in formation like they expected the grass itself to bite back.
Rus stood near the forward position, helmet clipped to his side, sweat on his brow. The sun had broken through the mist, and it was hotter than expected. Not a tactical kind of heat. Just the honest kind that seeps into your armor and makes you forget, for a moment, that you're supposed to be on alert.
Cyma stood nearby, silent as ever, scanning the treeline. Its optics glinted in the light, but there was nothing to register. No movement. No heat signatures. No threats.
Just sun. Wind. The occasional chirp from animals curious enough to peek through the tall grass and then smart enough to run.
Across the bay, you could see where the rivers split the land into natural islands forks of freshwater carving through the earth like veins. A few old bridges still stood in broken segments, reaching toward each other like forgotten limbs.
Berta kicked at a rock and looked around. "You sure this place needs clearing? Feels like we're camping, not conquering."
"No bodies yet," Rus said. "Just means they're deeper in."
She squinted at the horizon. "Or maybe dead. Wouldn't be the first time the wildlife outlasted everything else."
The Knights kept working. Mechs tore through fallen beams and rubble, tossing debris aside like children digging in sand. Loaders moved in tandem, carving temporary paths and clearing the way for heavier vehicles.
Behind them, the rest of the squad fanned out in a standard recon formation, even if it felt unnecessary.
No Gobbers.
No Riftborne.
No resistance.
Just blue sky, the shimmer of water, and the occasional flicker of heat off twisted metal.
For now, Gorda's bay was empty.
But they'd all been in this business long enough now to know something that looks like peace doesn't last.
And it didn't stay peaceful for long as expected.
As they pushed closer to the bay, the rats started crawling out of their holes.
Gobbers, filthy, squat, hive-minded bastards had taken root in the ruins near the shoreline. Not a full infestation, but enough to stink up the place. You didn't see them at first. You smelled them. Heard them. Their little shrieks echoing through half-collapsed apartments and sewer tunnels.
They didn't waste time.
No call for close-quarters combat. No heroics. They had the numbers. They had the tools.
So they used gas.
Canisters dropped into their dens with a sharp hiss, each one sending plumes of thick, choking death into the guts of the ruins. They shrieked when it hit, high-pitched, muffled, frantic. Then it got quieter. Fast.
For a whole day, one corner of the old town choked on green mist.
The wind didn't help. Carried it through alleys and overgrown corridors, seeping into what was left of Gorda's bones. Some of the greenhorns watched from a distance, wide-eyed, hands tightening on their rifles. Others turned away.
A few Counters were too eager.
They wanted in. Wanted a body count. Wanted to prove they could take down a monster up close.
Most of them got denied.
Command had no interest in unnecessary casualties just to feed someone's kill-lust.
Still, the pressure was there, unspoken but heavy. Every soldier knew the higher-ups were watching. Logging stats. Measuring aggression. Testing morale. Another "new experience" they said. Another push forward.
By dusk, the wind shifted.
The cloud broke apart.
No more screaming. No more movement.
Just a death fog rolling off toward the distant trees.
They moved in once it cleared, boots crunching over cracked pavement still damp with poison. Nothing left in the ruins but wet bones and gas-scorched meat.
From there, it was a straight shot to the bay.
Wide. Still. Too quiet again.
Rus checked the old maps against their position. According to pre-Rift geography, the bay was smaller, barely large enough for a naval platform. But now it stretched far inland, deep and curved like a claw digging into the earth. Whatever catastrophe hit this place before had widened it, chewed up the coast, drowned towns, left nothing but water and wreckage.
Nature doesn't build like that.
Disaster does.
Berta stood beside Rus on a cracked balcony overlooking the basin. Her axe rested against the wall, visor up, face thoughtful.
She scanned the shoreline like it owed her answers.
"They're putting too much into this place," she said.
Rus nodded. "It's strategic."
"Or symbolic," she muttered. "If they're pushing this hard for some ruined bay, someone out there is watching. Maybe outside the continent. Waiting for a place to land."
She turned to Rus with that familiar, deadpan look.
"Or maybe they just want to turn it into a beach resort. Get some deck chairs, umbrellas. Serve drinks in skulls."
Rus raised an eyebrow. "Skulls of what?"
She grinned. "Whatever bites first."
* * *
They continue to take the bay piece by piece.
No fanfare. No grand assault. Just slow, grinding progress, sector by sector, building by building, stone by stone.
The squads broke into fireteams. Counters paired with newbloods. Cyma took point, naturally, its sensors sweeping wide arcs as it stomped ahead, a machine built for forward momentum and surgical termination. Berta and Rus stuck with their usual group, moving through the skeletal guts of a half-drowned city block.
The first sector was industrial. what used to be warehouses and ferry stations. Now it was all rusted scaffolding, corroded shipping crates, and algae-slick docks warped from decades of water rot. Most of the structures had partially collapsed under their own weight, leaving jagged metal frames like ribs piercing the sky.
Dan and Gino took the lead, rifles high, sweeping corners and shadows. Berta followed, axe in hand, watching upper levels. Rus trailed with Foster and Stacy, checking for movement with thermals and hand signals. Kate ran overwatch from the adjacent rooftop, while Amiel ghosted along the flank, never loud, never far, always lethal with a rifle and a drone.
They found pockets of resistance. Gobbers that had missed the gas, or maybe just didn't need to breathe. They struck fast and clawing out of pipes, crawling from under floor panels. But this wasn't their terrain anymore. This was theirs.
They died quickly.
Cyma neutralized one ambush with a burst of plasma that scorched the corridor clean. Amiel nailed two more before they could even raise a weapon. Gino cornered another behind a fuel drum and emptied half a mag before it could squeal.
No injuries. No surprises.
Just bodies.
They marked the first sector green and moved on.
Second sector was residential, what remained of one, anyway. Rows of sunken houses and drowned streets, the whole district tilted like it had tried to escape the water but failed. The ground was soft here, spongey. Half the team stepped in up to their ankles. One poor kid sunk into the knees and had to be yanked out by Berta and Kate.
"Still think this could be a beach resort?" Rus asked her.
She looked around at the drowned ruins. "Sure. If you're into septic tank spas."
They went door to door.
Most were empty—rotted couches, shattered dishes, family photos long faded by mold and water. Ghost houses. A few had squatters. Not humans. Animals. Mutants. Things too small to be threats, but still wrong. One had a twisted doglike creature curled up in a bathtub, dead from starvation or something worse.
Stacy tagged it for retrieval. Something about its eyes looked Rift-touched.
Another building had a collapsed nursery. Amiel didn't speak for the rest of that sector.
By dusk, sector two was clear.
They camped on a raised structure for the night, one of the last remaining parking decks still standing. Flat ground. Good lines of sight. Cyma and the Knights rotated guard, thermal scans covering their perimeter while the rest of them ate in near silence.
The next morning they hit sector three which used to be the city's port authority, now just a pile of concrete slabs and rusted pylons. Water lapped at broken docks. Sunlight cut through the haze. The place was still and eerie, like even time had given up on passing here.
That's when they found the tunnels.
Hidden under a collapsed substation. Narrow. Ancient. Barely wide enough for a crouched human. The Gobbers hadn't built them. They were older. Maybe pre-Rift. Maybe something worse.
Berta poked her head in and said, "If I die in a rat-hole like this, I'm haunting your ass."
"I'm flattered," Rus muttered.
They cleared the tunnels in pairs. Tight quarters. Short visibility. Every movement felt like crawling into a throat that could swallow you whole.
Inside, they found nests.
Not just Gobber dens... ritual spaces. Bones in patterns. Symbols scratched into the walls with fingernails. They burned it all.
Foster nearly caught a claw to the face. Took it on the shoulder plate instead. Kate stitched the wound while they torched the remains. Cyma collapsed the tunnels after they were extracted.
No one argued.
That was sector three done.
Sector four were the open plains leading to the edge of the bay, where the land turned marshy. The high ground was stable. The low ground wasn't. They lost a drone and almost lost Amiel when a sinkhole opened beneath her. Cyma caught her one-handed and hauled her out like a ragdoll.
She didn't say thanks. Just reloaded her rifle and kept walking.
They spotted a feral ogroid near the edge of the river fork—massive, bloated, covered in fungal growth. It wasn't aggressive, just dying. Rotted from the inside out. Whatever had birthed it wasn't here anymore.
They logged it. Tagged it. Moved on.
By the time they reached the waterline, the whole sector was under control. They planted comm relays and motion sensors, marked landing zones, signaled back to HQ.
The bay was theirs.
* * *
Once the last sector was marked green and the comm towers lit up with a stable uplink, the real machinery began to move.
The skies above Gorda's Bay started humming.
At first it was a few dots on the horizon—low, distant, moving fast. Then the noise swelled, and suddenly the air was filled with VTOLs cutting paths through the clouds. Behind them came the airships, massive Libertalia haulers drifting like armored whales across the sky, their bellies packed with supplies, prefabs, fuel, munitions, and everything else you needed to turn a battlefield into a base.
They stood at the edge of the makeshift LZ, watching the first wave land.
The VTOLs hit the dirt in tight formation with engines kicking up dust and debris, ramps slamming open, crew spilling out to secure the perimeter. Within minutes, cargo was being offloaded by the Power Loaders, mechs stomping back and forth, stacking crates like city planners with weapons. Everything was numbered, tagged, tracked.
The beachhead was no longer just a forward camp.
It was becoming permanent.
Massive black slabs were unrolled like synthetic carpet—instant tarmac. Command towers rose from modular kits, slotting into place with mechanical arms. Fuel silos were already being stabilized on the high ground. Engineers in UH colors ran fiber lines through trench cuts in the soil.
They were watching a city being born.
And they'd killed just enough to make room for it.
Berta lit a cigarette, arms crossed, axe slung behind her. "Look at that," she said, exhaling smoke. "Birth of a military-industrial miracle."
"Libertalia style," Rus said. "Land, kill, colonize."
She glanced up at one of the airships, its insignia painted in bold black letters, flanked by cannons and docking arms. "They're not wasting time."
"They never do when there's coastline and profit involved."
Cyma stood nearby, silently scanning the approach vector for incoming threats. So far, nothing. Just heat signatures from engines and the pulse of new infrastructure coming online.
Amiel appeared at Rus's side, watching the cranes lower their loads.
"Too clean," she said flatly.
"What is?"
"This. All of this." She gestured toward the organized chaos of construction and logistics. "It's quiet. Predictable. Something's waiting."
Rus didn't argue.
Because she might be right.
Settling reconquered territories always causes trouble.