Defection:

Sage Harpuia first heard of this new Maverick threat while hunting for a defector. Defection among humans was nearly unheard of: they had a right to a long and fulfilling life, after all; it was written in the law, it was upheld by judges in courts, it was enforced by legions of soldiers over just as numerous legions of Mavericks. Why would one of them throw all of that away? What could a woman ever desire, that she couldn't find in Neo Arcadia?

Dr. Ciel was a human scientist. Fact. She had left Neo Arcadia for reasons Harpuia had yet to uncover, and had brought a handful of seditious reploids along with her. Another fact. No known weapons or martial training. No known firearms possession. Most likely conclusion: she was unarmed, in hostile territory, and with little idea of what dangers these traitors could present to her.

It was a good guess, and the other Guardians shared this very concern. Some more loudly than others. "A civilian wandering around ruins looking for trouble! What. Was. That woman. Thinking?!" as Fefnir had so graciously put it.

And Fefnir was hardly the only one to openly question the soundness of such a decision: Master X too must have felt great uneasiness at the prospect, if the countermeasures he took were of any indication. "This development shall not come to pass." He had decreed in an emergency session behind closed doors. "The threat to Dr. Ciel is too great, and Neo Arcadia can ill afford her loss. The First Guardian is to bring her back and restore justice. Such is my will, Harpuia. Make it so." Concise and to the point, as it was to be expected from the Celestial Patriarch of Neo Arcadia.

But there was another, more subtle, reason to be concerned. This woman wasn't a discontented citizen; if anything, she was one of the privileged few in a position of power. She had wealth, for Neo Arcadia rewards handsomely those who serve it well. She had connections, she could call favors: some even whispered that she was close to Master X himself. Naturally, Harpuia silenced these baseless rumors whenever they reached his audio receptors. But the doubts persisted.

No.

There can be no room for doubts.

I need to focus on the task at hand.

The time to answer these questions will come.

Eventually.

But that time is not now.

Master X had made his point. Track down the fugitives. Retrieve Dr. Ciel. Destroy all traitors encountered with extreme prejudice. These orders were everything Harpuia needed to know. The tactical map was in front of him, inviting him to draw his next plan on its clean surface. Compared to the modest area he was supposed to investigate, he had been granted exceptional power for this operation: he could pick any units of his choice, and assign them as he saw fit. That was his prerogative as a commander.

In addition to these forces, strategic reserves would also be available from multiple bases and outposts in the region; Neo Arcadia understood the importance of units ready for deployment at a moment's notice, and Harpuia prided himself in his ability to deploy reaction forces to areas of conflict hundreds of kilometers away in a timely matter.

He acknowledged the presence of strategic reserves in the theater as an asset, but for all their eventual contribution they might as well have not been there: he had already handpicked enough elite units to make a small army, there was no need for additional men in this operation. And not all threats to a Neo Arcadian were of Maverick origin.

The terrain Dr. Ciel had chosen for her impromptu escapade was, to put it mildly, less than ideal: dense jungle in an area already prone to frequent precipitations. There was supposed to be a road connecting the mysterious ruins the woman appeared to be so interested in to the capital, but when Harpuia compared his map to the images from the satellites, he could see no sign of it; like an aggressive organism, he had to conclude, the jungle had expanded over the years and phagocytized the road.

Such an unwelcoming terrain, Harpuia knew, was going to present additional challenges to his strategy: jungle meant that his armored units would be slowed down by the trees, the roots and the mud. It also meant that his air units, Harpuia's photoreceptors, would be visually impaired by the leaves on the branches. Not even infantry was immune to slowdowns: Harpuia had to be careful around the swamps, lest his troops meet the same fate of the road, and ended up being swallowed by the jungle…