Captain James Taylor laid prone on his stomach in the snow. Gazing off through the storm with a pair of binoculars, he watched the frigid wastes, searching desperately for any movement.

They had travelled hundreds of kilometers north, beyond the habitable zone at the orders of their commanding officer.

During their deep reconnaissance mission, they found multiple cities where, among their ruins people were still surviving, struggling to do so, yes, but were very much alive.

However, these were small settlements, a pocket here, another there. They seemed more interested in leaving to their own, than building something formidable.

James was about to request an early termination of the mission, as the information they received, while valuable, had not proven that any rogue actors north of the line formally established as habitable were capable of becoming a threat.

That is until they fell upon the first sign of Elysium.... Truth be told, as a member of the 75th Ranger’s Regimental Reconnaissance Company, James was embarrassed to admit that they had been spotted before they spotted the adversary.

The drone had watched them for God knows how long before they finally detected it. And when James finally looked up and saw it floating there, blending in nearly perfectly with the snow capped trees, he realized that the colonel was absolutely right.

He sighed heavily and waved at the drone, a defeated smirk concealed beneath his balaclava as he shook his head.

"Fuck...."

A single word escaped his lips, as the men nearby looked over at what James was staring at. Their eyes widened beneath their goggles, but before they could do anything, the drone had zipped off, lost in the storm.

Silence existed between the recon team for a long time before finally one of the operators opened his mouth.

"Sir... Was that drone painted in camouflage to blend in with the storm?"

James didn’t say anything, he just nodded his head and sighed again. Standing up from his prone position, he checked the rounds in his magazine to ensure that he hadn’t accidentally loaded a partially empty mag.

And only after inserting it back into the magwell, did he finally respond?

"Yup... However, I can’t tell if it belongs to LSOR or a highly capable unidentified rogue actor. Either way, we’re done here...."

"Done here?" One of the other men approached, his voice far more hot than the world around them. "We just confirmed that not only are there people still living in significant numbers beyond the habitable zone, but there are also opponents with highly sophisticated technology."

James looked over at the young hothead, and narrowed his eyes, raising his goggles just enough to show the look of disdain within them.

"Those opponents spotted us, and we haven’t’ seen a trace of them other than a drone. A drone, mind you, that has been expertly cloaked to match the environment. We don’t know who they are, what level of equipment and training they possess, but they spotted us before we spotted them, and there’s only a handful of units in the world I know that are capable of doing that. We’re getting the hell out of here, end of story, understood Corporal?"

The corporal was about to say something, but everyone else had already headed towards their snowmobiles without giving him time to get another word in. He simply harrumphed and muttered under his breath before running off after them.

"Fucking bullshit...."

He didn’t say another word, he instead followed the lead of his captain and began to head south. All the while, one of the Peltasts who was operating the drone quite a distance away flipped off his FPV goggles after he confirmed that the soldiers were well and gone, he shook his head before reaching towards his PTT and pressed the button.

"We’ve got a problem...."

---

The news that men with military grade hardware, and arctic warfare attire had infringed on their borders was not exactly something that Dean wanted to hear.

But he waited for the peltasts to return to the agoge before making any conclusions. They immediately submitted the drone footage, and there on his own television screen did Dean replay it over and over again.

There was a single moment, clearer than all others that Dean saw the patches on the men’s plate carriers.

He instantly identified who he was dealing with and sat there in utter silence for the longest time.

It was not until Yuki had sat down next to him and handed him a beer that he finally stirred again. "Who are they? Do you know?"

Dean sighed heavily and leaned back into his seat, crossing one leg over another, he sat there for a long time staring at the patch. He sipped from his beer for several moments, getting a good look at the insignia before ultimately turning off the television and walking away.

"My old rivals...."

Three words, that was it. Yuki had no idea what he could have possibly meant by those words. Or the nature of UC inter-service branch rivalries.

But she didn’t have to know any of that, because the way Dean was acting, it meant whoever those men were, they were a threat far greater than Lorenzo, Aidan, or any of the others they had fought against so far.

And that.... That made her more worried than anything else that Dean could have possibly said. She turned the television on and watched the footage herself, trying desperately to glean some bit of information about their new opponent that could somehow make her useful to Dean.

But she didn’t know enough about the Union of Columbia, its military structure, or even the tactics they used. In the end, she too turned off the television and left the room. If she couldn’t console Dean by helping him with the problem, then she knew of another way that could help him.

It was something that, for the time being only she could do for Dean... or so she thought.