Chapter Thirty-nine
Friday, April 13th, 0012 NE
2123 hours
EDEN Command
ESTHER HAD GONE into many places she wasn’t supposed to in her lifetime. There was the time she’d listened in from the other side of a door as a child as her father and mother screamed at each other. And the time in Philadelphia Academy, when she snuck into the office of a professor to steal copies of an approaching exam. And in Cairo Confinement, wearing a black maxi dress and soaked to the bone as all hell broke loose around her as she prepared to break out Centurion. Her entire life could be summarized by her penchant for getting into places—and situations—she had no business being close to.
EDEN Command outdid them all.
There was not so much a wall of opposition in front of her as there was utter chaos around her. She, Varvara, and Pyotr were en route to the base’s medical center, where Becan was supposedly being held. She was prepared to be engaged in one long, relentless shootout all the way there. What she found instead were staffers, scientists, and civilian contractors running in every direction like headless chickens. In the few instances when she and Pyotr had encountered EDEN security, she found them so confused and leaderless that circumvention was easy. From the ceiling speakers above her, the soothing female voice of EDEN Command’s automated assistant repeated, “Attention, all personnel. There is a Level-5 hazardous situation. Please proceed to the nearest muster point. This is not a drill. Repeating, this is not a drill.” The voice did little to accomplish its purpose of calming the masses. People were running in every direction like the whole place was about to cave in.
It was not hard to find the medical wing. Signage was bold, bright, and abundant, leaving no question as to the direction of her goal. The only question she had was what she’d find when she got there.
Through the sparse crowd that ran to and from the medical center’s exterior, she could make out a pair of double doors leading into the center. And it was there—for the first time—that Esther saw an enemy she would actually have to confront.
She’d been prepped in the briefing that the medical wing of EDEN Command had its own dedicated security staff: Med-Sec. Easily identifiable by their white and red body armor, four Med-Sec guards stood in front of the double doors. Weapons ready, they were protecting the gate.
“Targets ahead,” Esther said to Pyotr, who abandoned her blind side to train his weapon. “Engage!”
She and Pyotr got their shots off first. Both their aims were true. As one pair of guards fell, the second quickly hunkered down behind short, concrete barricades.
All around Esther and Pyotr, what few non-combat personnel were in the halls ducked and ran. Though Esther tried to get lost amid them, within seconds, she, Pyotr, and Varvara were virtually alone in front of the retreating mob. Leaning around their concrete cover, the two Med-Sec guards opened fire. Seconds later, they were joined by two others from within the medical center. It was four against three.
The only place that offered any protection against Med-Sec was the entrance to a side restroom, where Esther was already positioned. Providing cover fire for Pyotr and Varvara to join her, Esther quickly ducked back as chaos rounds peppered the corner.
“Bloody hell,” she murmured. Reaching down to her belt, she grabbed a flashbang. “Stand by, Pyotr,” she said quietly. The slayer nodded.
There was no time to get bogged down in a stalemate. The retrieval of Becan meant nothing to Saretok—the moment EDEN Command was ready to blow and the documents they wanted from Intelligence were secured, they were going to make tracks back to the hangar, Irishman or no Irishman.
Pressing the activate button on the flashbang, Esther slung it around the corner toward the medical center entrance. Ducking back and closing her eyes, she prepared for the burst. When the flashbang erupted, Esther rounded the corner and prepared to clear the way.
What she found instead was trouble. No sooner had she turned the corner, a pair of Med-Sec gloves grabbed her assault rifle and shoved it aside. Two of the guards must have approached prior to the flashbang erupting. Esther fought to pull her weapon back—but the effort was useless. The guard next to him raised his chaos rifle in Esther’s direction. Relinquishing her grip on her assault rifle, the scout literally dove for her life back around the corner.
Panic.
Screaming at Pyotr and Varvara, Esther literally shoved them in the direction of the restroom door. “Go in!” As the guards emerged around the corner behind her, she scrambled through the door and leapt to the ground.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
A veritable avalanche of chaos rounds cut through the restroom. Wall tiles exploded like hand grenades. Sinks and urinals were blown off the walls. As water lines were shredded, streams of hard, spraying water streaked across the room. There was no exercise of caution by the two Med-Sec guards—no concern as to whether or not innocents were present. They were painting the place with bullets.
Sliding across the floor, Esther whipped her head around to see the two guards storming inside. Pulling out her pistol, she fired in their direction. From the opposite corner of the restroom where he and Varvara had gone, Pyotr opened fire, too. Within seconds, the foremost guard was struck, and he stumbled backward and fell. But the second guard got in his lick—and Pyotr was the victim. Esther couldn’t see the shot that got the teenager—there was far too much water spray streaking across the room—but she heard Pyotr scream.
No! Esther needed him! Esther needed all of them! Shoving up from the ground, she practically unloaded her handgun in the second guard’s direction. Within seconds, the Med-Sec guard fired back. Chaos rounds streaked past her head and exploded against the tile wall. Whether by the guard’s haste or a miracle from God, none of them found her.
The sound of E-35 rounds emerged. Either Pyotr or Varvara was firing back. The Med-Sec guard ducked down as several shots dinged off his armor. He swung his weapon to return fire.
Esther was already charging. Tearing through the streaking water, she fired forward with her handgun until she was close enough to engage hand-to-hand. Leaping at the guard in a display more of freneticism than finesse, she collided into him, knocking him back through the door. With what few pistol rounds she had left, she raised her weapon and opened fire. The guard was struck everywhere—the head, the neck, the body, the arms. Blood splattered the floor around him.
Footsteps emerged by the corner. The two guards she’d hit with a flashbang had recovered enough to pursue. Slamming a new magazine into place, Esther raised her pistol at the corner and hesitated—just long enough.
Pop! Pop!
Two pulls of the trigger, two headshots. The final two Med-Sec guards fell lifeless to the floor just as they emerged around the corner. There was no time to take in the moment. Rushing back into the restroom, she sought out her comrades.
Pyotr was writhing on the ground with Varvara atop him. The blond-haired medic was already working with her kit, assault rifle at her side where apparently she, and not Pyotr, had set it down after engaging.
He couldn’t be hurt! Esther needed everyone—everyone to help her get Becan. They’d gotten so close. How could this be happening now? “Can he fight?”
Looking back at Esther, Varvara shot her a glare. The scout wasn’t even graced with a response.
“Veck!” Esther screamed, ripping off her helmet and pushing some loose, damp strands out of her face.
“I must bring him back,” Varvara said. “Esther, he will die. I can stabilize him here, but I cannot leave him.”
Stabilize him. Stay with him. Take him back to the hangar. All of those things involved Varvara leaving the rescue effort. She looked in Pyotr’s eyes. The trembling, terrified teenager locked his with hers. After holstering her weapon, she crouched down on the floor. There was only one decision she could make. “Take him back. I’ve got this.”
“You can call for reinforcements,” said Varvara, looking at her.
“I won’t get reinforcements. Nor would I have the time to wait for them. I’ll get Becan alone.” Before Varvara could protest, she said, “I can, Varya. I must.”
Hands bloodied as they hovered over Pyotr’s wounds, Varvara’s eyes locked briefly with the scout’s. “Be careful.”
After sliding her tactical helmet back over her head, Esther strapped it into place then walked to the fallen guards. Reaching down, she claimed one of their chaos rifles. Stashing an extra magazine on her belt, she marched out of the restroom toward the medical center.
* * *
Northern Forge
HUSTLED, BUSTLED, and shoved into a transport—that was the experience that awaited Lisa as she arrived at the drop zone, where numerous V2s were perched. As per Dieter’s request, the female Vector was quickly escorted into a Vulture packed with wounded soldiers from the assault. Indicative that the transport had been waiting for her, its rear bay door closed the moment she was on board.
“Does anyone have a comm?” she asked, weaving through the wounded. When no comms were offered, she slipped through the doorway to the cockpit. “Excuse me, I need to contact Captain Faerber.”
The pilot glanced at her. “I’m sorry, that’s not going to be possible.”
“Why not?”
“EDEN Command is under assault right now.”
“What?”
“Apparently,” the man said, “this is a good time to attack an enemy headquarters.”
The Vector was flabbergasted. “How—how did they find EDEN Command? Where is it? What—”
Busy flipping switches on the console, the pilot said, “I’m gonna save you a bunch of time and say, ‘I don’t know,’ to every one of those. Now please, sit down, because we’ve got to get airborne. We were held up waiting for you.”
Crinkling her nose in spite, Lisa turned away from the cockpit and made her way to a seat. After lowering herself, she strapped in and looked out the porthole window nearest her. Mere seconds later, the V2 lifted from the ground.
Logan Marshall. He was the cause of all this. He and his outlaw cohorts. Were it not for them, she would have never been captured.
It was then, in the midst of her brooding, that Lisa saw them for the first time. Transports. What looked like a whole fleet of them, flying almost street-level low across the surface of Norilsk. They were convening on the mountain base’s access point. Narrowing her gaze curiously, she unstrapped herself and returned to the cockpit. “Who is that on the—”
“Yeah, we see it, we see it!” the pilot snapped, reaching up to snag the dangling cockpit comm. As he brought it to his lips, his copilot craned to look out the window himself. “Beowulf to Command, we have numerous transports inbound to the drop zone. Transports are flying NOE, repeat, transports are flying NOE!”
“NOE?” Lisa asked. “What does that mean?”
The copilot answered quickly, “Below radar detection!” His own fingers were now flying over the controls on his side. “I have no signatures on any of these! Whoever they belong to, it ain’t us!”
By the time the soldiers at the drop zone heard the roar of the approaching engines, it was too late. Nose-mounted cannons unleashed their fury on the hapless, grounded transports and the few men who defended them. Within seconds, the new arrivals were landing uncontested. Their rear doors burst open, as the soldiers of the NSU military emerged.
* * *
EDEN Command
DEEP INSIDE EDEN Command, Saretok and his army surged forward. With EDEN’s defenses decimated, there was little to stand in the Nightmen’s way. By the time Dostoevsky commed him to say that the explosives had been set, he was already breaching Intelligence. Ripping open file cabinet after file cabinet, the mohawked fulcrum barked at his underlings to grab every document they could put their hands on—every sheet of paper sitting on a desk, every crumpled-up memo in a wastebasket. He wanted it all.
Farther away, where the Council was fleeing in EDEN Command’s secondary hangar, the last bastion of Com-Sec resistance fought desperately to stave off the Nightman advance.
As bullets from E-35 assault rifles pinged against the hulls of Benjamin Archer’s transport, he shouted at the pilot, “Launch! Now! We must leave!” The High Command had been split into several groups, the purpose to ensure that should one transport fall, the whole of the Council wouldn’t suddenly be lost. Among those sharing a transport with Archer were Judges Carol June, Javier Castellnou, Uzochi Onwuka, and Director Kang Gao Jing.
The pilot spoke urgently into his headset. “This is Frontier-1 requesting confirmation once again. Will there be a fighter escort upon our departure?”
Through a burst of static, those who remained at Prime Control answered, “—egative, I repeat, negative! You do not have clear path.”
Archer leaned through the cockpit door. “Tell everyone at Prime Control to evacuate immediately. We cannot wait any longer!” The pilot nodded then relayed the message.
Nightmen flooded the hangar as the three transports containing the High Command closed their rear doors. At the forefront of the charge, his armor dinged but nowhere penetrated, Centurion roared and aimed his neutron blasters. As the transports lifted, the middle one was struck by neon red streaks of energy. Bucking sideways, its engine flamed, then flickered. The transport collapsed to the hangar floor.
Pressing his hands to one of the porthole windows, Archer looked at the downed transport as it was overrun by Nightmen. Next to him, Carol June gasped. “My God…was that…?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Yes, it was.”
From several seats down, an overwrought Jaya asked, “It was what?” When no one answered, she asked again, “It was what?”
Archer’s eyes remained on the downed transport, watching as it was swarmed. Drawing in a breath, he looked away from the window. Calmly, he locked eyes with Jaya. “Our opportunity.”
AS TIFFANY FEATHERS returned to Scott’s position in R&D, she pointed Nharassel to him and shouted, “Right there! Pick him up.” She pantomimed putting someone over her shoulders.
The muscle-toned Bakma crouched down to grab Scott and hoist him up.
Tiffany, meanwhile, was making a beeline for Natalie. The crimson-haired captain was lying sideways on the floor, blood seeping from her stomach in amounts that Tiffany had never seen before. Blood trailed from her mouth; her eyes rolled despondently. “Okay,” Tiffany said, “I need you to forgive me, because this is probably gonna hurt. Just stay with me!” Leaning down, Tiffany dragged Natalie up from the floor—Natalie leaned her head back and moaned. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” Resituating her so that the captain’s arm was around Tiffany’s shoulders, she said, “I know it’s terrible, but I need you to walk. I need everything you got! I’m gonna get you out of here.”
Whether Natalie was capable of replying at all, Tiffany didn’t know. All she knew was that upon receiving the command and despite the wound to her stomach, the captain staggered forward. Though Natalie wasn’t nearly as heavy as Scott, Tiffany’s muscles were spent. It took everything in her to move forward at all—but move forward she did.
“And like, if you can, please point me where to go, because I have no idea.” No point came from Natalie, so Tiffany simply staggered onward. Glancing sidelong to Nharassel, she saw that the Bakma had reached down to claim a weapon from one of the bodies scattered about—the Bakma was one-handing it has he carried Scott over his shoulders.
Okay, Tiff, think! You don’t know where to go, but you know that step one is getting out of this…wing, or whatever it is. Just keep moving forward and don’t slow down! You’ll figure this out. You’ll…
Her hazel eyes shifted. Ahead of her, at the entrance to R&D, someone appeared. Com-Sec! The guard’s armor gave her away—with her weapon raised, she aimed at Tiffany. In the same second that Nharassel aimed his own weapon, recognition came. Her mouth in sync with her brain, Tiffany gasped and said, “Ching!”
Ligaya Ching’s dark ponytail was bedraggled—an assortment of cuts and bruises were visible on her face, even through her visor. The same recognition that had appeared in Tiffany’s eyes also appeared in the guard’s. “You!” the guard yelled. “Do not!” The word move was unspoken but understood.
Holding an open palm in Nharassel’s direction, Tiffany staved off any attack from the alien. Her gaze shot back to Ching. “Ching, you’ve gotta help me. You’ve got to help us leave!”
“Ching to Chief Strakhov,” she spoke into her helmet comm, “I have multiple escapees from Confinement. Please advise on what I am to do.” When Tiffany took a half-step forward, Ching aimed her weapon firmer. “I can kill them or take them into custody.”
Tiffany shook her head. “He’s not gonna answer you.”
“Shut up!” Once again, she spoke. “Chief Strakhov, this is Lieutenant Ching. Are you receiving this?”
“Ching…”
“I said shut up!”
Slowly, Tiffany turned her head to the side of the room, where the body of Oleg Strakhov lay sprawled where Natalie had killed him. Ching followed the pilot’s gaze. Her almond eyes found the corpse—she fell quiet. Tiffany did not. “I know you’re confused,” she said. “I know you don’t understand what’s going on. But you have to trust me—you’ve got to! If I don’t get her out of here quickly, she’ll die.”
Ching’s head angled upon focusing on Natalie. There was recognition there, too.
“I wish I could explain all of this to you, but I don’t have the time! Look at me. Do I look like someone who’s evil? Do I look like someone who’s up to no good? I’m just trying to save her life!”
“She is with you,” Ching said, the words somewhere between question and statement.
Confusion was so evident in the woman’s face—even fear. She looked like someone who didn’t know what was going on or what to believe. She needed honesty—truth. Tiffany knew the only one who could supply Ching with it was herself. “I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to trust you. Trust your gut, trust your instinct. Do what you just know is right, even if you can’t explain it!” Make a connection, Tiff! “The custard! You sent me that custard, right? It helped me escape!”
Now the woman looked dumbfounded. “What?”
“Argh! Okay, forget the custard. No wait, don’t forget it! What made you send it to me in the first place? It was trust, right? You trusted me.”
“It was pity.”
Shaking her head, Tiffany said, “I don’t believe that. I’m sorry, Ching, but I don’t believe that at all. You were doing something good for me because you believed that I was good. If you tell me otherwise, you’re lying.” Natalie’s head rolled back; the wounded captain groaned. Heart racing faster, Tiffany continued. “Ching, I need you to dig down deep right now. You’ve known something was off about this from the start. Don’t even tell me you didn’t! Well I’m here to tell you, yeah, something was off. Something was way off.” She nodded her head in Oleg’s direction. “And he was a part of it. So is Benjamin Archer. So is Carol June. So are lots of people! But not you. You didn’t send me homemade avocado custard because you pitied me. You did it because you felt bad because you knew something was wrong. Just like you know something is wrong now.”
The confusion on Ching’s face remained. The Com-Sec guard hesitated.
“Get us out of here, Ching. Get us to whatever hangar or entryway my friends used to get here. I promise, I promise, we are the good guys in this. You don’t understand it.” Understanding could come later. “I just need you to believe it. Believe it like she did,” she gestured to Natalie. “She was just like you. And now she’s dying—so help us get out of here.”
The tension was emanating from Nharassel beside her. At any moment, the Bakma was going to have enough. Tiffany could feel it.
“Please, Ching. I’m begging you, please.”
Ching’s almond eyes shifted from Tiffany to the Bakma, then back to Tiffany again. For several seconds, the Filipino woman hesitated.
Tiffany’s heart was exhausted. She exhaled what felt like all she had left. “Please.”
Slowly, the guard lowered her weapon.
Elation. “Oh my God, thank you!”
“Follow me.” Casting a final weary glance at Nharassel, Ching took a step backward then turned to lead them out.
Tiffany didn’t waste time on another word. Resituating Natalie against her, she assisted the dying woman forward.
BECAN.
E-35 readied, Esther moved from corner to corner, each turn carrying her deeper into the medical center and closer to her friend.
Becan, where the hell are you?
Thus far, the only resistance the scout had faced was that of the Med-Sec guards at the medical center’s entrance. There was no reason to believe more guards weren’t lurking about. It was a paranoia she didn’t feel comfortable relenting.
Though not particularly large—more comparable in size to a single floor of a small hospital than to a sprawling medical complex—there was no shortage of rooms for Esther to investigate. Most were either standard hospital rooms or doctor’s offices. The fact that none were occupied meant the evacuation of patients must have been well underway. For the patients, whose home was about to be obliterated by carefully placed Nightman explosives, that was all for the better. But for Esther’s purpose of finding Becan, it meant potential disaster.
Turn corner. Raise weapon. Pause. Turn corner. Raise weapon. Pause. Esther repeated the motions at the end of every hallway, searching desperately for someone—anyone—who might tell her where Becan was. At the corner farthest from the front of the medical center, she finally found it: a solitary nurse running up the hallway. “Hey!” Esther called, causing the nurse to stop in her tracks and look up. Weapon raised, Esther asked, “Where is Becan McCrae?”
The nurse didn’t answer. Instead, she dropped the clipboard she was carrying and turned to sprint away.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Several quick squeezes of the trigger later and the nurse was ducking for cover, hands over her head as she crouched to the floor. Seconds later, Esther was upon her, yanking the woman up by her hair and spinning her to face her. “I believe you have an Irishman who belongs to us—where is he?”
Wide-eyed and trembling, the nurse answered, “I don’t know! I don’t know anything about any of the patients!”
“You’re a nurse at EDEN Command and you don’t know anything about the sodding patients? I don’t think so!” Fist clutching the woman’s hair, Esther looked about the hallway for a more direct tool of negotiation. She found it in the form of an abandoned mop bucket. Yanking the woman in its direction, she said, “I’m going to ask one more bloody time—where in the bloody hell is Becan McCrae?”
The nurse yelped as Esther dragged her. “I promise, I don’t know any—”
“Wrong answer!” Kicking the woman’s knees out from behind, Esther dropped her to the floor then shoved her head face-first into the dirty mop water. Ten seconds later, she yanked the gasping woman up by her roots. “I can hold my breath for six minutes. Want to find out how long you can hold yours? I am not playing. Where is Becan McCrae?”
“Listen, please—”
A forward push, and the woman’s head was plunged under again. The nurse fought fervently, but Esther kept her foot clamped down on the flesh of the nurse’s calf—not exactly a pressure point, but still one that hurt. Dirty water splashed across the floor as she thrashed her head around, but Esther kept the pressure on. Twenty seconds later, the nurse was yanked up again. “Sister, you better hope you grow gills, because the next time, you’re not coming up.”
Coughing violently, the sputtering nurse pointed down the hallway. “That way. All of the patients are being evacuated. There’s a muster point down the hall through the big double doors.”
“And where does this muster point lead?”
“To an emergency hangar. There are several around the base.”
There was no more time to waste. If the medical staff managed to get Becan to a transport, then all of this was for naught. Not just this mission. Her mission. Her destiny. If Esther Timmons was to be the woman she wanted to be, getting Becan back was non-negotiable. Esther slung the nurse to the floor, releasing her then storming up the hall. From the floor, the fiery-eyed nurse wiped her hair back. “You think you can take on a Med-Sec escort? Who do you think you are?”
“A one-girl sodding army.” Weapon at the ready, Esther marched up the hall.
THROUGHOUT EDEN Command, the signs of EDEN’s imminent defeat were becoming apparent. The klaxons still wailed—the calm, female voice still urged the staff to evacuate. But the impact of EDEN’s resistance was all but gone. For a base whose location wasn’t supposed to be known, only a certain measure of resistance could ever be expected in the first place.
At the heart of it all was Grigori Saretok. The mohawked fulcrum was marching through the war zone in a way that was almost Thoor-like. Having grabbed as many documents from Intelligence as his fulcrums could carry, he was now in full-fledged finishing mode. The explosives were planted. The documents from Intelligence were secure. There was little else he cared about.
“Colonel!”
A voice called to him from down the hall, where several of his squads were returning from pursuing the High Command. Saretok looked at the fulcrum who’d addressed him.
“Come please, colonel! There is something you must see!”
The fulcrum was excited—eager. Angling his head curiously, Saretok followed his lead, where he saw amidst the crowd a cluster of Nightmen escorting several individuals whose hands were clasped behind their heads. None of the individuals were in armor. These were not warriors. They looked like command staff. Several, he did not recognize—though he did see the insignia of judge on their wardrobes. He cared little for the significance of judges, despite the high esteem they were held in in the eyes of the world. But one man, Saretok knew. The man’s bald, black head was unmistakable.
Malcolm Blake.
And now, Saretok was intrigued.
“Colonel, we have captured several judges along with EDEN’s president. This is Judge…” The fulcrum leaned in to the nametag of the first judge, a Japanese woman. “Shinkatu.”
“Shintaku,” another fulcrum corrected.
“Yes, yes, that is right. And this one says Jun Dao. And we all know of Judge Torokin from Vector!”
Sure enough, the glaring eyes of Leonid Torokin burned through Saretok like fire. The judge was battered, bruised. He looked like he’d put up a fight. But Saretok didn’t care about these judges. There was only one man he wanted to address. “President Blake,” he said, his already gravelly voice reverberating further through his amplified helmet.
“I don’t know who the bloody hell you think you are,” Blake said, “but you won’t get away with this.”
“Yes,” Saretok answered, “I will.” Signaling to the fulcrums to proceed with the prisoners, he raised his weapon against his shoulder and walked ahead of them.
Once more, Blake spoke. “Our forces are already in Norilsk—already breaching your secret mountain, Northern Forge.”
Saretok paused, the sudden stopping causing the others to stop around him. He angled his head with curiosity.
“You have nowhere to run. You’ll have all of EDEN breathing down on you.”
“Mm,” Saretok said, looking forward for several seconds before angling his head back again and speaking further. “We will land at Northern Forge. Whatever resistance we face, we will destroy.”
“You won’t even make it there. The Flying Apparatus is already en route. Mariner will blow you to the stars.”
Saretok said nothing. He simply signaled them forward again. Once they’d resumed their walk, he spoke into his helmet comm. “All Nightmen, return to the base’s main hangar. We leave soon.”
* * *
Northern Forge
“CONVERGE IN TARGET Area Bravo.” The words of Lieutenant Chiumbo Okayo were calm and succinct, despite the occasional rounds he fired from his chaos rifle into the Nightman forces that resisted him. He and his strike team of EDEN soldiers had broken through the stairwell stronghold and were now making their way up to Northern Forge Level-3. Despite the resistance the Nightmen had thrown at him, EDEN’s injuries were vastly outweighed by the Nightmen’s, whose riddled and broken corpses littered the ground over which they marched. “Strike Team Five, fall back to rearm, then fortify Target Area Alpha-2.” EDEN’s comm channel burst with sudden chaos—the sounds of combat and screaming. Chiumbo stopped dead in his tracks, holding his hand up to signal those around him to stop. “What is happening?” he asked over it.
No answer came—only intense and relentless weapons fire.
“Freedom Base, what is happening?” Looking at the soldiers around him, he signaled for them to turn and head back down the stairwell. “Do you require assistance?” Still, no answer came. “Albrecht? Freedom Base, can you respond?” The march up the stairwell reversed course, as Chiumbo and his squad of EDEN soldiers reemerged on Level-2—the level whence they’d come.
The moment the first soldier stepped back into the open, bullets ripped through his armor. Slamming his back against the wall, a wide-eyed Chiumbo readied his weapon. “Alpha-2 is compromised! I repeat, Alpha-2 is compromised!” he said over the comm, before shouting to his soldiers, “Engage, engage!”
“Engage who?” one of the soldiers near him cried out.
“The Nightmen!” another answered.
“But we killed all the Nightmen!”
Orange streaks of weapons fire overwhelmed the area in front of the stairwell from the direction of the tram station. “Albrecht!” Chiumbo said again. “Are you reading this?” Poking his head out briefly around the corner, Chiumbo looked down the hall in the direction of the attack. What the Mwera warrior saw made his eyes open wide.
These were not Nightmen—but they wore black just the same. This was not a band of survivors. It was not a last-ditch effort to repel EDEN. This was something new. This was too many soldiers to count. Soon, every hallway in every direction was teeming with them.
“Fall back, everyone!” Chiumbo shouted, ducking back through the stairwell door before the attackers could mow him down.
“Who is that?” someone asked. No one answered.
Back up the stairs the EDEN strike team went, this time for the sake of their own survival. Into Level-3 they poured like ants, where the second half of Nightman resistance awaited—those warriors of Northern Forge who had taken back the hangar. With Level-2 seemingly secured, Chiumbo and his team had been en route there to assist. But that situation had changed. Bullets now converged on them from two sides: from the bottom of the stairwell where the mysterious, new attackers had appeared, and also from the direction of the hangar. On the cusp of what had seemed like a dominating victory, Vector and EDEN were now finding themselves on the verge of being overrun.
Behind Chiumbo, EDEN soldiers were dropping like flies. Taking position behind a corner, the Mwera lieutenant fired his chaos rifle relentlessly. Nightman after Nightman fell to his hand before he was forced to reload. “We must push forward!” he shouted. “We must reach the hangar!”
But it was not meant to be. The assault was coming too fast—too heavily. Whatever reinforcement Chiumbo had intended to provide to his forces in the hangar had been upended by this new, swarming force. Suddenly, what only moments earlier had seemed a foregone conclusion had now become certain defeat. It did not take long for Chiumbo to recognize that—or to realize the one option he had left that would keep his soldiers alive. “All forces,” he said through the comm as he threw his weapon to the floor and lifted his hands, “surrender! Throw down your weapons. Do not fight!”
No one argued. As the surrounded and outnumbered EDEN forces threw their weapons to the floor, they were converged on from every side.
“GO BACK!” Lisa screamed at the pilot from the cockpit doorway. “You must go back!” Theirs had been the only transport to make it off the ground before the fleet of NSU transports had landed. But all of it, they’d heard over the comms.
“Get back in your seat!” the pilot yelled, pointing back to the troop bay. “There’s nothing we can do!”
Despite the Vector’s protests, the transport continued onward.
WITH WEAPONS TO their backs, Chiumbo and his remaining soldiers found themselves forced into the hangar they had been trying to reach—a hangar that was now very much again in Nightman control. Looking to the open hangar door, he watched as an old-model Vulture slowly hovered inside. Within a minute, its wheels were touching concrete and its bay door was coming down.
The man who emerged from the transport—a man with thick stubble and a short, salt-and-pepper ponytail—was one Chiumbo had never seen before. But it was clear by the way the man addressed Chiumbo that that uncertainty was not mutual. “Chiumbo Okayo. Is your family well? I hear the droughts have been bad in Ifakara this year.”
“Who are you?” Chiumbo asked pointedly as more soldiers appeared from within the base—soldiers now plainly identifiable as NSU.
“My name is Iosif Antipov. I am the general of all the forces that you see.”
Max, Boris, and David emerged from the Pariah. Quietly, they joined the others in observing the exchange.
“You have replaced General Thoor,” Chiumbo said.
Antipov dipped his head a single time. “I have. But rest assured, unlike Thoor, I am a civilized man. You will be cared for here until you can be safely retrieved. I have always heard that you are a good man. I would not deprive the world of one when they are so desperately needed.”
“You cannot hold this base,” Chiumbo said. “Even with the NSU helping you. There are too many countries. There are too many in EDEN.”
“Oh, my friend,” Antipov said, “in that, you are sorely mistaken.”
* * *
African Airspace
“AFL WING COMMANDER to Prime Control, we have a current ETA of seventeen minutes. Please advise as to the number of Omega Fighters present, over.”
“Prime control to AFL wing commander, we do not have a current estimation on that.”
The corners of his mouth downturned, the wing commander of Air Force London replied, “I copy, Prime Control, please standby for our arrival.”
As the lone fleet still en route to EDEN Command, everything was riding on Air Force London’s shoulders. The global attack on EDEN’s flight control towers had essentially scrambled the entire organization’s air presence, forcing all the major bases across the planet to recall their fighters. Air Force London had been in the process of about-facing themselves when the call came in for them to stay the course. The fleet, consisting of one squadron of Superwolves and two squadrons of Vindicators, was streaking over African airspace at maximum speed.
A series of blips appeared on the radar screen in front of the wing commander, far to the west but approaching quickly. Seconds later, one of his pilots spoke over their channel. “Wing commander, I’m picking up numerous bogeys inbound from our three o’clock.”
“I see them,” the wing commander said. Seconds later, signatures appeared over the approaching aircraft. Slowly, the wing commander smiled. “It’s Sydney.” Adjusting his frequency, he tuned to EDEN’s universal air channel. “This is AFL wing commander contacting Oz Force,” he said, referencing the unofficial moniker of Sydney’s new air force. “We are signal buster to EDEN Command—would you care to join us?”
“Roger, AFL signal buster to EDEN Command,” the response came. “Oz has your six.”
“Happy to have you, Oz. Current ETA is seventeen minutes.”
The aircraft from Sydney, now identifiable as two squadrons of Superwolves, altered their courses to fall in behind Air Force London. A minute later, they were tucking in behind the lead squadron of London’s Superwolves.
Blowing out a breath, the AFL wing commander reached up to rub his chin. “We have an unknown number of Omegas waiting for us,” he said, still over the wide channel. “Be prepared for a fight, friends.”
Suddenly, the wing commander’s panel lit up—the warning sound of an enemy missile lock filling the cockpit. Brow furrowing, he looked down at the display. Before he could speak, his pilots addressed him over the AFL channel. “This is Corsair-3, I am missile locked!”
“Corsair-7, also locked!”
“This is Corsair-6, the same!”
Patching through to Sydney’s fighters, the wing commander said, “Oz, we are reading multiple missile locks from your aircraft—are we picking up a glitch?”
The voice of Oz Force’s wing commander—the same one AFL had heard before—nearly cut the AFL wing commander off. “RTB, London.”
At the order to return to base, the wing commander said, “I beg your pardon?”
“You are to RTB immediately. Be advised, failure to comply will result in missile launch. We will fox you.”
Snarling, the wing commander looked behind him through the cockpit glass. “What in the devil are you talking about? Is this some sort of joke?”
“This is your final warning. RTB or be fired upon.”
“Now wait just one bloody minute!”
“You have been warned.”
The wing commander’s display flashed—the alarm tone shifted. Unwilling to risk their tactical advantage for civility, Sydney had just fired.
Yanking back on the stick, the pilot managed to veer out of harm’s way without a second to spare. The same could not be said for the rest of the fleet, as missile-locked Superwolves and Vindicators exploded in midair. Air Force London’s comm channel went crazy with chatter as their fighter jets scrambled to shake their attackers. Within seconds, a massive, multidirectional dogfight had erupted.
* * *
EDEN Command
ESTHER HAD BARELY made it through the double doors the nurse had told her about when she encountered resistance. Med-Sec was indeed providing escort, though Esther caught a glimpse of the patients being evacuated before they all rounded a corner, disappearing out of view as Med-Sec engaged her. That was all well and good, for the time being. It was fewer people for her to accidentally shoot.
Bullets were flying fast and furious. Esther’s forward progress had to be relentless—even with the threat of death raining down on her. Fire. Move to cover. Duck back. Fire. Move to cover. Duck back. Once again, the scout found herself repeating the same motions over and over. There were at least seven Med-Sec guards providing escort—far too many to take down without some sort of X-factor. But there were no sprinkler systems to turn on, no raving extraterrestrials to release, no shortcuts to cut off the medical convoy. The only way she’d be able to do this—the only way she’d be able to get through Med-Sec and find Becan—was to be perfect.
She had to be perfect.
The shots Esther fired weren’t brazen; if she ran out of ammunition, she’d be done for. Every shot had to serve a purpose, be it to kill, suppress, or put someone at a disadvantage. And so that was what she did. She took an extra fraction of a second before every squeeze of the trigger, drew an extra breath before every movement from cover. She did what she never did: she fought with caution as her ally and not her enemy. It wasn’t her forte, but it was what was required. It was what the situation called for. By the time she’d felled two of the Med-Sec guards and effectively closed the gap between them by halfway, she felt a prompting within herself to make her move.
She had no grenades and no flashbangs left—but they didn’t know that. Snatching up a small stapler that’d fallen to the floor next to a nurse’s station, Esther dashed out of cover. With one hand firing her E-35—the lone time she fired with abandon—she flung the stapler along the floor toward the five guards that remained. The innocuous office tool served its purpose—the five guards immediately shrunk back as if seeking cover. It was the break Esther needed, and she took it.
Charging forward, Esther bolted straight for the guards. Unleashing the last rounds from her assault rifle as she did, she slung it to the ground as another guard fell. In the next instant, she was literally leaping into their midst.
The gamble was clear: if she was right in the middle of them, they would hesitate to fire—or even better, they would abandon the effort entirely. Close-quarters combat would rule the day. The gamble paid off; in the same instant she darted between them, the nearest Med-Sec guard reached out to grab her. It would be the man’s last mistake. Grabbing the guard’s outstretched fist in mid-swing, Esther twirled around it, shoved the guard into another, pulled out her handgun, and fired. Three shots penetrated the Med-Sec guard’s back before his desperate comrade threw his body off. Even in the erupting brawl, Esther counted down her competition in her head.
Three.
The two guards to her left reacted—one raising his weapon and the other reaching out. She only had time to take down one. A pop of her handgun, and the Med-Sec guard brandishing the chaos rifle was struck. Though not a kill shot, the blow was enough to make him stumble and drop his weapon.
After grabbing her by the collar, the other guard yanked her close, his free hand going for her weapon. Esther wasn’t going to overpower him—she’d have to outmaneuver him. Sliding her feet forward, she allowed herself to fall straight backwards, the momentum of the drop taking the guard right down with her. As she landed on her back, she pulled up her knees and placed her feet against the guard’s stomach. The backward fall transitioned into a roll, and she kicked her feet out, sending the guard flying head over heels.
The third guard—the one who’d thrown off the dead body of his counterpart—moved in. Esther spun on the ground, her feet smashing into the guard’s ankles and sending him toppling. In the same instant, she re-gripped her pistol, aimed at the guard she’d already shot once, and pulled the trigger again. The shots connected; that guard was out of the fight.
Two.
Wrapping her legs around the neck of the guard she’d dropped, she pressed her thighs tightly together. The guard reached up to try and pry her legs off as his oxygen was cut off. Swinging her pistol around, she took aim at the guard she’d thrown over her and who was now back on his feet. Another pull of the trigger—another impact.
One.
Eyes fixating on the guard whose neck she had clamped, Esther flexed her thigh muscles harder and twisted to cut off more air. Lifting her head, she looked down the hall for the first time.
The patients. She could see them now, still being escorted by various medical personnel, almost all of whom were now looking solely at the fight taking place. And at the very end of the convoy of wounded was a man on a rolling bed.
Becan. It had to be.
She couldn’t afford to lose them. Not again. Raising her pistol while the guard was still trapped between her thighs, Esther fired several shots down the hall. None struck any medical staffers—they weren’t meant to. They were meant solely to make the convoy stop in its tracks. And it did. Doctors and nurses scattered. Patients went running with them; by the look of it, only the man on the rolling bed stayed behind.
Something hot struck her. Straight from behind, right through her armor against the side of her hip. Blood splattered across the floor as the worst pain Esther had ever felt exploded through her body. Her strangle-hold on the guard relinquished, and she rose only to fall forward.
She’d been shot in the hip.
Turning around on the floor, she raised her pistol to see the guard she’d shot several times earlier staggering closer, his chaos rifle raised and ready to fire again. She hadn’t killed him. Holding her breath, she took a fraction of a second to ensure her aim was pure. Her bullet shattered the Med-Sec guard’s visor. He was finished for good.
The guard she’d been strangling scrambled to his feet. A quick bullet dropped him; the next few put any doubts to rest. The guards were all dead.
But the damage was done.
Leaning her head back, Esther released a howl of pain. She could feel the wound pulsing—a look down confirmed the worst. Wherever the bullet had gone, whatever it had damaged, the pool of blood beneath her told no lies. She was in trouble.
“Oh God!” she cried, leaning her head back and screaming. The pain. The unbearable pain. She’d been shot before, in the shoulder, but it felt nothing like this. As tears formed, she craned her neck to look up the hall. The doctors and nurses were still gone—there were no sounds of footsteps anywhere, only the wailing klaxon.
“Attention, all personnel,” the soothing voice said again. “There is a Level-5 hazardous situation. Please proceed to the nearest muster point. This is not a drill. Repeating, this is not a drill.”
They were gone. They’d left whoever it was on that rolling bed behind. It had to be Becan. Who else could it be? Who else would be so hurt at EDEN Command that they’d need such a bed? Through the pain that was now surging through her, she screamed, “Becan!” Through shimmering eyes, she saw the man on the bed lift his head.
That was all she could take. Upon laying her head back down, Esther twisted her body in agony and moaned. That round…that bullet…what damage had it done?
Get up. Get up, Esther! Do not fail now! Forcing herself to roll over, she screamed and reached out with her hand. Clawing at the linoleum, she tried to drag herself forward. She barely moved an inch.
The tears that now fell held more than just pain. This was everything. Her mission to stop that baby boy in America from being fatherless. Her quest be the woman Jayden knew she could be. This was the totality of it all, writhing in a pool of her own blood on the floor of EDEN Command. Within earshot of the end goal, yet unable to move forward. What a horrible irony. It was so…
…so her.
“Becan! I’m coming!” she cried. Trying to pull herself forward, her teeth clenched when the burn came again. For a second time, the pain rendered her efforts futile.
“Attention, all personnel. There is a Level-5 hazardous situation. Please proceed to the nearest muster point. This is not a drill. Repeating, this is not a drill.”
“Shut up!” How she hated that voice. How she wanted it to stop. “Becan, I’m…” The words became harder. “I’m coming…” Everything started to fade.
She was going to die.
Moving was no use. The wound was too damaging. Calling out was no use. Her voice was failing. In the last words she could summon, she heaved through tears of pain and sorrow. “I’m sorry, Becan. I’m so sorry.” As her thoughts became muddled, as the strength left her, she laid her face down against the floor.
Time began to lose meaning. Every struggle to move, every struggle to maintain consciousness, took every bit of strength she had left. She had been prepared for every possibility except a chaos round through the hip. How quickly the body gave up. To move meant straining—to strain meant more blood loss. All Esther could do was roll over onto her back, lay her head back with her eyes closed, and press her hands against the wound. But none of it mattered. EDEN Command was about to be blown up. Even if her comrades knew where she was, they would have to take the time to go and get her. But at least, they could know. Hand trembling and blood-soaked, she reached up to feel for the transmit button on her helmet comm. Her fingers slipped on the surface of the tactical helmet. She reached up to feel again. That was when the voice spoke.
“Esty?”
Esther’s eyes opened, albeit slowly. That familiar voice. That wonderful accent. How hearing it warmed her. Leaning her head back and to the side, she said, “Becan?”
“Esty, is tha’ you?” The Irishman’s eyes, as viridian as she’d ever seen them, hid no truths. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His body was leaning against the wall that he must have traversed to reach her, an assortment of wires and tubes clinging to his body.
When Esther’s brown eyes found him, they welled up again. Softly, she broke down. “Becan.”
“How did yeh…? How are…?” Shaking from head to toe, Becan abandoned the wall to waver her way.
“You have to leave,” she said weakly. “Your baby boy…”
Reaching down, he slid his arm beneath her. “Come on. Get up, now.” With no strength left to resist, Esther lifted herself from the floor. She let loose an agonized scream. The next thing she registered was weightlessness before she sunk to the floor and her back was propped against the wall. “Comm them,” he said to her. “Tell them you’re all righ’ .” Rolling her head from side to side, Esther reached up for her helmet. Once again, she felt around for the transmit button. Her bloodied hands found it, and she uttered a single word through the channel.
“Help.”
THROUGH THE CHORUS of shouts, transport engines, and comm chatter, Javon heard the voice emerge. The wounded soldier was propped against the wall of the transport, his wounds being tended to by Mark. But all the pain fell to the background when Javon heard the voice. “Hello?” he replied reflexively.
“TELL HIM WHERE yeh are,” Becan said, his hand held atop hers as she pressed on the wound.
Her mind was slipping. She could feel it. But she listened. “Medical center,” was all she could manage.
“MEDICAL CENTER?” asked Javon. “Esther? Is that you?” Looking across the troop bay, he watched as Dostoevsky entered. Snapping his fingers, he grabbed the returning fulcrum’s attention.
BECAN SMILED. “Tha’s my girl.”
She turned to him, her eyes struggling to fixate. “You’re okay…”
“So am are. I have you to thank for tha’.”
“I’m dying.”
The Irishman shook his head. “Now tha’s a bleedin’ lie, righ’ there. Yeh didn’t come all this way to die on the floor. Tha’s not the Esty I know.”
Through the crackling static, Dostoevsky’s voice emerged. “Esther, this is Yuri. Stay where you are. We are coming after you.”
She wanted to reply, but the words weren’t within her. Leaning her head against the wall, she murmured, “I want to sleep.”
“No,” said Becan behind her. “No, yeh don’t. Don’t even close your eyes. You just keep lookin’ straigh’ ahead down tha’ hall. Straigh’ ahead until they see yeh.”
Icy cold. All around her, the world felt so cold. “Can I just sleep?”
“Jus’ look ahead, girlie. You’re goin’ to be fine.” A moment passed before he spoke again. “Yeh know I love yeh, Esty. I always have. Thank yeh so much for comin’ for me.”
The world felt so cold.
“Rest easy, now. I’ll be with yeh.”
She believed him.
THE HANGAR WAS frantic with activity. In every direction, Nightmen were emerging from the hallways to congregate there to make their escape. The bombs were set. If there was one thing that could be said about Saretok of those who’d served with Thoor, it was that he trusted the mechanisms that were supposed to work. He was more than content to let the bombs go off by timer as opposed to forcing a soldier to stay behind to detonate them himself. But of course, there was a drawback. Timers wouldn’t wait. The colonel had ordered them set for fifteen minutes, which meant a breakneck flight for everyone lest they be left behind.
Javon watched it all from the back of his transport’s troop bay. Across the bay, Varvara was working furiously with numerous injured warriors—Mark Remington at her side as she essentially told him what to do. Tom was somewhere—Javon didn’t know. There was no chance that everyone was leaving on the transport they’d arrived in. It was just too chaotic for that kind of organization.
A necrilid rasped from behind him. Flinching, Javon glanced at it before looking ahead again. It was no threat. By the look of it, most of the Nightman forces had survived, beasts included. He’d even caught sight of Centurion as the hulking monstrosity boarded a transport on the other side of the hangar. All the while, he’d been keeping a keen eye on the clock. Twelve minutes remained before the bombs would go off. It didn’t feel like nearly enough time. As he watched the hangar, his heart beat faster and faster.
A commotion erupted. Loud chatter, Nightmen pointed and screamed at something coming from one of the hallways that led into the hangar. Craning his neck to see, Javon saw a motorized cart making its way into view. Sitting behind the driver’s wheel, as plain as day, was a Com-Sec guard. Nightmen converged on the cart from every direction, weapons raised and ready to fire. The Com-Sec guard let off the gas and put her hands in the air.
What in the world was this?
Seconds later, as Nightmen literally grabbed the female guard and pulled her from the driver’s seat, all became clear. When Tiffany Feather’s blond locks came into view, Javon almost couldn’t believe it. Pushing himself up until he remembered he was injured, he winced and placed his hand over his wound. Looking Tiffany’s way again, he tried to make out what was going on.
The Com-Sec guard was being dragged by a pair of fulcrums toward one of the other transports. Being dragged right behind her—almost inconceivably—was a Bakma. “The hell?” Javon murmured to himself. What was Tiffany doing with a guard and an alien? And furthermore, if Tiffany was free, where was…
Before the question could fully form in Javon’s mind, he saw her being carried away from the cart by three slayers, all of whom moved with a sense of urgency. Even from a distance, even without being able to see details, he knew it wasn’t good.
It was Natalie.
“Oh veck, man.”
From the other side of the troop bay, Tom looked at him. “What is it?” he asked painfully.
“That’s Vee.”
“Wh…what?”
Javon couldn’t elaborate. He didn’t know exactly what was going on, himself. But he knew he’d find out soon—they were taking Natalie toward their transport. Far behind, another person was being taken off the cart and being carried in Natalie’s wake. Javon knew who it was. Who it had to be. “They got Scott.”
“They got ’em all, man, then we got to go!” said Tom.
“Naw, naw, this ain’t good.” With every second that passed, Natalie was brought closer. “Vee hurt, man. I think she’s hurt bad.”
ESTHER COULD BARELY make them out. Fleeting forms in the distance amidst the shadows and lights. Their voices sounded dampened, like she was underwater. As they approached, she lifted her head.
The foremost figure called out to her. It took several times before she recognized his voice—or even her own name. “Esther!”
Dostoevsky. Her eyes struggled to latch onto him as he and a small team appeared. Her whole body felt numb. The whole world felt numb.
“Get her!” he said. “Lift her up.”
The Nightmen wasted no time. Two approached her, each grabbing under her arm, and lifted her up with little caution. The wound burned again; she screamed. Then she remembered why she was there. “Becan’s behind me. Get him.”
She saw Dostoevsky look past her. He pointed and barked out in Russian; several Nightmen took off down the hall. Looking down at her again, he said, “You are going to be okay. We are taking you back. I am sorry if it hurts, we must move quickly.”
She didn’t care if it hurt. Her mission was complete. Dostoevsky bent down to literally scoop her up in his arms. As promised, the pain was unimaginable. Screaming with her head tilted back, she felt the world around her flicker. Her eyes lost their focus on Dostoevsky, the Nightmen, and the medical center. The sounds around her became a muddled mess—until her body went limp, and all the sounds became silence. Until the cold faded away.
“WHAT HAPPENED TO her, man?”
Tiffany heard Javon’s words as the soldier repeated them over and over—even as the Nightmen unceremoniously placed Natalie on the floor. The Nightmen called for a medic—one named Varvara. From nearby, the medic turned their way then knelt by the captain.
Win the fight.
The last words that Natalie had spoken to her repeated in Tiffany’s head over and over. Tiffany was not a medic. Not even close. But she knew enough to realize that halfway through the drive to the hangar, Natalie stopped being responsive to anything. And so the words repeated on.
Win the fight.
Tiffany knew about last words. She knew they were a gift. On countless nights, she’d wondered what her father’s last words were on the day he died of a heart attack in his house while she was training at Philadelphia. No one had been there to hear them. She knew they could have been something mundane, like, “Oh, well,” or, “Where’d I put my keys?” But she’d always hoped—always fantasized—that they were something more like, “Daddy loves you, girl.” She wished that in whatever last moment of cognition he’d experienced, he’d had the wherewithal to form those words. But she would never know. Few last words were ever heard or remembered.
Win the fight.
When Varvara stopped working, something inside Tiffany wasn’t surprised. Some things—some last words—were just meant to be. Looking up at the small crowd around them, the medic shook her head. “I’m sorry. She is dead.”
Blank stares met her, from Javon and Tom in particular. “What do you mean?” Tom asked. “What the hell do you mean, she’s dead?”
“She was dead when she arrived,” Varvara said. As she spoke, Scott was carried into the transport and set down beside her. “There is nothing I can do.”
The buildup of emotion was palpable. Tiffany felt it from the two soldiers. Their voices rose—they argued and protested. Varvara was adamant in her explanation, until on the words, “I must tend to the ones I can help,” she turned her focus to Scott.
Tiffany turned away, too. Though she heard Javon and Tom speaking, their voices reverberated to her like echoes. Tiffany’s head was in its own space. Slowly, amid the calamity around her, she walked down the transport ramp and onto the EDEN Command hangar floor. A strange calm came over her, as if something was suddenly understood.
Natalie put her life on the line to rescue Scott and Tiffany. She must have known it was a potential one-way trip. One can’t storm the center of EDEN Command and not. She must have thought Scott and Tiffany worth it. She must have thought that being a good human was worth it.
In the short time that Tiffany knew Natalie, she’d seen enough to understand that it was that—humanity—that the former Caracal captain had been fighting for. There were some who called her an idealist for that. For fighting the good fight because it was just that—a good fight. Some believed, not incorrectly, that this was a fight to save humanity from extraterrestrials. Natalie believed it was a fight for the soul of the human species. A fight to distinguish them from those they fought against. A fight to keep humanity honorable and compassionate. Natalie was not a revenge-seeker, or a cold-blooded killer, or a war junkie. She was the kind of person who would go off on a mission to find evidence that could potentially save the Earth but also demand that those with her pack rubber bullets so that no innocents would get hurt. Some would call that stupid. Tiffany thought it remarkable. She saw it as a sign that even in a war for the future of humanity, Natalie hadn’t been willing to lose hers.
“Is there any word from Sydney or Gagarin Wing?”
“Not yet, colonel.”
“Do we know the status of the squadrons we sent back to base?”
“I do not know.”
The words were spoken emphatically from far to Tiffany’s right. The blonde turned her head toward them. She didn’t recognize the massive fulcrum with the red-streaked helmet—but she knew the word colonel. The fulcrum marched on. “Jon Mariner and his squadron are en route. If Blake is to be believed, they will be here very soon.”
That meant trouble would be there very soon. The potential loss of everything they’d fought and died for, at the hands of the pilot who’d taken her down—who called himself Sin while simultaneously refusing to call her anything at all. Who referred to her as just a girl in a plane. Jon Mariner, in the sky, meant certain defeat.
Tiffany watched them march on until her gaze latched onto something far behind them—something that immediately captivated her focus. Though the colonel and his fulcrum continued their vehement conversation, Tiffany no longer registered their words. She no longer saw the curves of their fulcrum armor. The Valley Girl’s hazel eyes were locked instead onto something parked in the corner of EDEN Command’s main hangar. Onto a silver-streaked stallion that’d been spared from weapons fire. Under the pulsating emergency lights, it almost seemed to gleam. As if it’d been meant for her to see all along.
A Superwolf.
“Win the fight.” The whispered words barely escaped her lips. She was almost unaware that she’d even said them. A warmth flowed through Tiffany’s veins as she beheld the aircraft. A warmth that nourished her starved, tortured body. One that comforted her sleep-deprived psyche. Despite the pain, chaos, and confusion all around her—the exhaustion and tragedy she’d been mired in—she found total clarity.
This isn’t for you, Natalie. This isn’t for me. It’s for everyone who’s still left to save. Scott, and Javon, and Tom, and Cat. This is for them.
In the next second, Tiffany felt herself striding forward, her gait picking up into a full-fledged trot until she’d caught up with the Nightman wearing the red-streaked helmet. She didn’t know his name—but she knew what to call him. “Colonel!”
The hulking officer stopped and faced her. There came a curious tilt to his helmet, indicative of his bewilderment as to why this small woman was addressing him.
“Let me fly that plane.” Looking in the direction of the Superwolf, she nodded her head toward it. The colonel looked at it, then he looked back at her. “If you do…I promise you with my last breath, every single one of your transports will make it home.”
For several seconds, he stared at her from behind his faceless helmet. For those seconds, he said nothing at all. At long last, in a tone that indicated sudden understanding, his amplified voice emerged. “You are the girl.”
There was no need for further clarification. Tiffany knew what he meant. “Yes. I am the girl.”
Once more, a pause. Then he said, “We have very little air support. Jon Mariner is among those coming for us.”
“I know.” She repeated the words both to fully register and to emphasize them. “I know.”
The colonel stared at her through his faceless helmet, unwavering as if he was making his call. It did not take him long. He looked at the fulcrum beside him and said, “Send a message to the Omegas. Tell them we have a Superwolf flying escort. Do not shoot it down.”
“Da, colonel,” the fulcrum said, before turning away to do his task.
The colonel looked at her again. “Do you remember the frequency that we use?” Tiffany did, and she nodded. “Use it to stay in contact with us. Good luck, pilot.”
“Thank you, sir.” A parting nod was exchanged between them, and the colonel went his way. Tiffany was left to look at the Superwolf again.
For everyone who’s still left to save.
Step by step, time seemed to slow down, until the Valley Girl’s feet felt lighter than air. Like she wasn’t moving at all. But still, the aircraft grew closer until she was upon it. Climbing up the ladder, she popped open the cockpit and climbed inside. Taking up the helmet that’d been left by the seat, she slipped it over her head. It fit like a glove. Reaching out, she curled her fingers around the joystick—just to feel it. Just to experience it. It was right then that she noticed her fingertips again, and the bloody, scabbed stubs that used to be nails. For a moment—the most fleeting of moments—her eyes glistened. But the moment was not long. Reaching to the control board, she flicked the switches to turn on the aircraft’s systems.
Back by the transports, the last of the Nightmen were arriving to board the ships. Javon and Tom watched numbly as squad after squad emerged from the halls of EDEN Command, running full speed to reach the Vultures. Though Natalie lay by their feet, the captain’s head covered by a cloth, the pair scarcely had it in them to look at her. As if looking would make it real.
Sitting upright suddenly, Tom pointed out into the hangar. “That’s Yuri!”
Javon followed his wounded counterpart’s gaze across the hangar, and his own body sat up erect. Behind Dostoevsky, the small team of Nightmen he’d departed with followed. In their arms, they were carrying two wounded people.
“That’s Esther!” said Tom excitedly as he pointed. “That’s Esther, man, they got her!”
“Yeah, but is she alive?” Javon asked.
Tom slapped him on the shoulder, in encouragement. “We ain’t losin’ another one, man. Not today.”
From the troop bay of his transport, Saretok removed his crimson-streaked helmet. After tossing it to the floor, the mohawked colonel leaned into the cockpit through the door. “Inform Northern Forge that we are returning.”
“Colonel,” said the pilot, “we have tried to contact them several times since the general’s message, but we have received no response.”
“Send the message anyway. If they do not respond, there is no harm to us.”
“Da, colonel.”
Pointing to the Superwolf that Tiffany had climbed aboard, he said, “Connect with that aircraft on our secure network. We must maintain contact with its pilot.” Ducking his head, he stepped back into the troop bay. Raising his comm to his lips, he addressed the Nightmen in the transports. “This is Colonel Saretok to all transports. We must leave now. The explosives are about to detonate.”
“Colonel!” said the pilot, looking back at him. “How much time do we have left?”
“You do not want to know,” Saretok answered.
Blowing out a breath, the pilot grabbed the stick. “Lifting off now.”
From the main hangar of EDEN Command, the transports lifted all at once—as did the lone Superwolf beside them. On the other side of the base from one of the smaller, secondary hangars, the last of the base’s escapees boarded their transports to evacuate. Soon they, too, were dusting off in retreat. For the first time, every external hangar door and tunnel to EDEN Command was opened without caution.
As the transports streaked off in different directions—the evacuees one way, the Nightmen another—the halls of EDEN Command were left vacated. The klaxon wailed on, but there was no one there to hear it. The calm, female voice still urged all personnel to proceed to their muster points. But the muster points had already been abandoned. The only living things left in the facility were the unfortunate alien captives who hadn’t been freed. But they would only hear the klaxons for so long.
From the moonlit sky, the explosions were barely visible—just a slight collapsing of the thick swamp surface followed by a cloud of smoke and dust from the hangar entrances. There was no fiery plume—there was no thunderous rumble. There was only the satisfaction of visual confirmation that the deed had been done. That the head of the snake had been crushed. That EDEN Command—once thought untouchable, once thought impenetrable—had been destroyed. Its destruction was as much a symbolic victory as a tactical one. But that symbolic victory could resonate.
Because the Nightmen had done it.
Every able soldier in the evacuating transports pressed their faces to the porthole windows to observe. Javon and Tom, both barely able to move, were watching with stoic realization. In another transport, Ligaya Ching watched with a dreadful countenance as the place she’d called home—that she would have likely died in were it not for Tiffany Feathers’ convincing—collapsed in on itself. Right beside her, the four members of the High Command who’d been captured—President Blake, Leonid Torokin, Yu Jun Dao, and Tamiko Shintaku—stared in total disbelief. Even the massive beast, Centurion, whose thick, Nightman armor was stained with the blood of those he’d killed, seemed aware of the significance. This moment was more than just historic. It was direction-changing. The king had been dethroned.
But the battle was not yet won.
From the pilot’s seat of her commandeered Superwolf, Tiffany inhaled, exhaled, and set her focus ahead. According to what she’d heard from Saretok, there’d been no word from anyone concerning the situation in the air. The only thing she’d heard at all was that Jon Mariner was en route. Even his ETA was a mystery. But one thing wasn’t.
Whenever she met Mariner in the sky, as she was sure she would, things would not go as they had the first time. There was nothing the renown squadron leader could do to get in her head. Her mind had already been cracked wide open. She’d been tortured, shamed, mired in hopelessness. Yet here she was. What more could Jon Mariner possibly do?
“THEY DID WHAT?” Archer asked, the veins on his forehead bulging. Far from where the Nightman transports were fleeing, the escaping V2s from EDEN Command were making a beeline for Cairo. Only minutes into their journey, a comm call came in that changed everything.
“They attacked Air Force London from behind, judge,” said the pilot, one hand on the joystick while the other inputted commands into the console.
Appearing behind Archer, Carol June stuck her head in. “What is it? What’s going on?” Behind June, Kang Gao Jing and Jaya Saxena listened intently from their seats.
“That’s impossible,” Archer said, his voice growing emphatic. “Why would they do that?”
June slapped him on the shoulder. “Would you tell me what the hell is going on?”
“It’s Sydney, ma’am,” said the pilot.
“Sydney? What about them?”
“They just intercepted Air Force London.”
The auburn-haired judge blinked. “What do you mean, intercepted?”
Blowing out a furious breath, Archer ran his fingers straight up and through his hair. He turned away from the cockpit door completely.
“Intercepted as in attacked, ma’am,” the pilot answered. “I don’t know how it came about, but they’re all engaged in a massive dogfight right now over Algeria.”
“Why would one of our bases attack another?” she asked incredulously.
From behind her, Archer snarled. “You know exactly why!”
“From Novosibirsk, I expect that! Hell, I’d expect it from Leningrad! But Sydney? What possible connection does Novosibirsk have with Sydney?”
Archer’s glare found Jaya, and he pointed. “Why don’t you ask her!” The young woman’s eyes widened. “She’s the one we sent there!”
Though Jaya’s mouth fell open, no words found their way out.
“None of that matters,” said June.
“I don’t think you understand—”
“I said none of that matters!” Whipping her head to the pilot, June asked, “What’s the status of Mariner?”
The pilot shook his head. “The whole network is up and down. I’ll know when he appears on radar, but I don’t think we’re getting anything until then. I have no idea how far away he is or who he has left with him.”
“Are any of the Omegas tailing us?”
“Negative, ma’am. They all left after the Nightman transports.”
She exhaled. “Blessings.” Looking back at Archer, she saw that his narrowed eyes were on her. Her eyes narrowed, too. “Blessings.”
“You count your bloody blessings,” Archer seethed. “I’ll be busy calculating the ramifications of this catastrophe.” His focus returned to the pilot. “Get us to Cairo as quickly as possible. Who knows who’ll show up next to betray us?”
From his seat, Kang Gao Jing placed his hand calmly on Jaya’s knee. As the young woman lowered her head, EDEN’s director of Intelligence looked on in solace.
INHALE. EXHALE. RELEASE.
Tiffany repeated the three steps over and over again—the first two, for her body, the third, for her mind. She didn’t need to have her fingers around the joystick in front of her—autopilot was fully capable of flying alongside the transports—but emotionally, she needed to feel that touch. Wearing no flight suit, possessing no gear but a helmet, it was the most vulnerable she’d ever felt in the cockpit—or at least, in one with an intact canopy. But the look in her eyes would have never indicated it.
There were ten Omega Fighters flying alongside her and the transports. They were all that remained of the air fleet that’d flown to EDEN Command. The rest had been sent back to Northern Forge. Apparently, none of them had been heard from since. Perhaps they’d arrived there safely. Perhaps they’d met The Flying Apparatus halfway. Perhaps they were all dead.
“Colonel Saretok, this is Squadron Leader Volkov.” The voice came over the Nightmen’s secure channel. “We are picking up multiple contacts ahead.”
“We are reading them, squadron leader.”
Hazel eyes looking at the radar, Tiffany saw the blips appear on hers, too. Seconds later, the identifier tags appeared beside them. Superwolves.
“We are moving to intercept,” Volkov said. The Omegas’ thrusters burst with energy, and they surged ahead toward the approaching aircraft.
The moment the Omegas got within firing range, the Superwolves launched their missiles. “We are engaged!” Volkov said. The ten Omegas of Gagarin Wing dispersed and released missiles of their own. By a quick count, the Superwolves were outnumbered six to ten. But if this was who she knew it was…
Two missiles struck their targets. Six to eight.
“Superwolf pilot,” Saretok addressed her over the comm. He still didn’t know her name. “We will circumvent the fight and fly onward to Norilsk. You will remain with us.”
“Roger,” Tiffany answered. For the first time, she noticed her own voice shaking. Deep in her gut, that familiar ache formed again. The Valley Girl closed her eyes.
He’s just a man. It doesn’t matter if he leads the Flying Apparatus. He’s still just a man.
Natalie’s three last words repeated in her head, but unlike in the hangar when the wind of emotion was behind her, now all she felt was sick. What he’d done to her over the waters of the Pacific…he’d dropped her like a sack of bricks. No. He’d made her drop herself.
Inhale. Exhale. Release.
Suddenly, it wasn’t so easy.
Tiffany looked at the radar again. The dogfight was now in full effect. One of the Superwolves had been dropped—but so had three more Omegas. It was five versus five. Sweat drops formed on her brow. She grabbed the comm. “Feathers to transports, recommend we fly buster—repeat—recommend we fly buster!” It was pilot slang for flying as fast as possible. Balls to the wall.
They weren’t going to make it. At the rate the Omegas were falling, it was obvious. It was now four on two. This time, the Nightmen were on the short end. There was no way the Omegas were going to survive this. And there was no way, regardless of bravado, that Tiffany could go toe-to-toe with multiple aircraft from Mariner’s squadron. It had nothing to do with a lack of belief. It was reality.
Another Omega fell. Four to one. Their gig was almost up.
The channel burst with static! A new voice emerged. “G’day, mates! You guys look like you could use a hand!”
Tiffany’s hazel eyes widened. She shot a look to the radar, where seven more Superwolves were inbound—this time, from the other direction. But there was no speculation as to where they had come from. Their accents gave them away. The widest smile of relief cracked on Tiffany’s face. Sydney. Grabbing the comm mic, she said, “We’ve got one Omega going toe-to-toe with four from the Apparatus!” More like three, now. The desperate Omega had taken another one out. “We are RTB buster, repeat, we are RTB buster. We could sure use a little bit of help!”
“Keep on RTB buster. We’ve got the Apparatus.”
“I gotta warn you guys,” she said, swallowing. “They’re hella good.”
“So are we, chick.” The comm channel closed.
Tiffany’s eyes shot back to the radar, then she looked out the side of her cockpit window. Even from afar, she saw the orange streaks of gunfire suddenly cease. A glance back to the radar confirmed what she suspected—what only made sense, if Mariner and his squadron wanted to survive in light of the new reinforcements from Down Under. One Omega returning. Three Superwolves retreating.
It was done.
Lowering her head, Tiffany blew out a hard, long breath. Pressing her palm to her eyes, she pushed hard. “Oh my God,” she whispered. That swell, the undertow she recognized as fear, subsided. The last Omega pulled into formation behind her. She didn’t know the Gagarin Wing identifiers. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was the squadron leader, Volkov. So she radioed. “Feathers to whoever it is in that Omega. That’s some high flying you did right there. Nice work.”
The voice that replied didn’t identify itself. It just answered with a single, exhausted, cheerless word, spoken in the tone expected from someone who’d just lost their whole squadron. “Spasibo.”
Tiffany’s eyes flickered down. She knew that kind of dejection well. She knew that feeling of defeat. If only that pilot knew how well he’d actually done. How he’d just saved them all. Gaze looking ahead again, Tiffany watched the endless sky before her—at the transports that were now flying uninterrupted toward Northern Forge and at the Superwolves from Sydney that were now guarding them. She watched as the Omega slowly accelerated to take point. She wouldn’t protest it. He deserved to be there.
The faintest of crackles emerged on Tiffany’s comm channel. Though no one spoke, it prompted her to look at the frequency dial. It wasn’t on the Nightman channel, nor any public channel at all. This comm—this outreach—was specifically to her. One comm to another. After several seconds of silence, the Valley Girl hesitantly said, “Hello?”
“You’re in our plane.”
The slowest of chills spread across Tiffany’s body, creeping down her spine and causing goose bumps to emerge on her arms. She didn’t need the voice to identify itself. She knew exactly who this person was. With a slight tickle in her throat, she gathered herself and said, “Yeah, well, it was there, so I took it.”
“Can I tell you something?”
It felt so hot in there. At the same time, it felt so terribly, terribly cold. “Yeah, sure,” she answered with as much bravado as she could muster. “Whatever you want.”
“You were the easiest kill I ever made.”
It was right then—right at that comment—that Tiffany’s expression subtly changed. The chill on her spine relented. The heat in the cockpit cooled. There was no good reason for him to be telling her that. There was no tactical gain to be had—not with him and the remnants of his squadron falling back. Not having just lost.
Not having…just lost.
In that instant, the revered reputation of the man she was speaking to began to crumble. He wasn’t saying this to try and get into her head. He was saying it to try and get out of his own. He was taking a shot at her to rebuild himself. Picking on a target whose fear he thought would re-inflate his whipped ego.
He’d thought wrong.
“Oooh, Johnny Boy,” she said back to him, the words just finding their way out. As if she suddenly realized what he was all about. As if she suddenly realized how very small he was. “I’m so, so sorry. I know how hard this must be.”
There was a pause. “How hard what must be?”
He was wrong. She was in no way, shape, or form the easiest kill he’d made. Because she was still there. “Losing.”
Even as she said the word—even as it came out with such hardened finality—she knew how he would react. She knew exactly what he would say.
Nothing at all.
From the other side of the line, the comm channel closed.
Looking out the side of the cockpit window, she searched for any sign of him or his remaining squadron mates. She searched for any sign of a silver speck among the stars. She saw nothing. Exhaling a breath that felt easier than all the ones before it, Tiffany slid her fingers from the stick and let autopilot take over.
No other aircraft—not from EDEN or anywhere else—tried to make contact with the fleet as it flew back to Northern Forge. That was just as well for all parties involved. On a day inundated with the sounds of warfare—with the sounds of the world’s scales suddenly tilting—the steady drone of engines was peaceful enough.
Upon their arrival to the mountain base, they found it thoroughly wrecked. The hangars, still filled to capacity with assaulting V2s from EDEN, had to be cleared in order for the strike crew to even land. What few pilots the Nightmen had on base had been forced to land EDEN’s V2s on the outskirts of Norilsk to make room. As for the hangar itself, it was a scorched, bloody war zone. Corpses, both EDEN and Nightman, had been dragged from inside the base and placed into piles in one corner. In another corner stood a row of captured warriors, including Vector’s Chiumbo Okayo and Dieter Albrecht. Surrounding them, silver-and-blue clad prisoners awaited whatever fate the Nightmen had in store. Antipov had made it clear that they were not to be harmed, but rather returned to EDEN should the parent organization act “appropriately.” He never specified exactly what that word meant.
The Nightmen, as it turned out, were not solely to thank for Northern Forge’s survival. The arrival of reinforcements from the NSU was not something anyone outside of Iosif Antipov had anticipated. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that if not for those reinforcements, every person on the side of Northern Forge would be dead or in custody. Though none of them had seen the press conference, the word was that President Belikov had officially announced that the New Soviet Union was withdrawing itself from EDEN, “in light of recent, learned events,” and that the NSU military was lending its forces to the Nightmen. In the span of a single conference, the second-largest contributing country to EDEN had suddenly declared its independence.
So, apparently, had Australia, its own prime minister announcing a withdrawal from EDEN and an alliance with the NSU immediately after Belikov’s press conference. It was the shocker—the betrayal—that no one in the EDEN-worshipping world had seen coming. And the world demanded answers. Australia assured the world that it would provide them.
But those were big problems. For the Fourteenth and everyone still alive at Northern Forge, the scale of their world was much, much smaller.
Communication with the outside world—and the inside, for that matter—had been reestablished with the help of technicians from the NSU’s reinforcements. It would be a long time before the mountain base could be repaired to anything resembling its normal state, but at least its basic functions were restored.
Grigori Saretok was the first man to walk out of any transport. The colonel’s armor was streaked with the dried blood of those he’d slain. Walking to the hangar entrance, the massive, mohawked man stared out into the frigid mountain valley—not a word spoken to anyone.
The body of Natalie Rockwell was carried out by a crew of Nightmen. The fallen Caracal captain had as many eyes upon her in death as she had when she’d first walked into the hangar donning EDEN’s silver and blue armor. Even Antipov, who had been present in the hangar awaiting the transports’ arrival, seemed to look upon her body with reverence.
After Natalie came the injured. Javon and Tom walked out under their own strength. Scott and Esther, both unconscious, had to be carried. Varvara Yudina emerged from the transport as exhausted and blood-soaked as she had ever been, her blond tendrils stained as they dangled limply down the sides of her face. Dostoevsky walked alongside her, his arm around her, keeping her body pressed to his. Neither spoke as they left the transport behind. Soon all of the wounded were out and added to the massive and base-spanning triage that was underway. For all practical purposes, the whole base was now a hospital.
Ramifications abounded in every direction, both in the world of Northern Forge and the world at large. Only time—and likely not much of it—would indicate how they would turn out.
But for Saretok, the time for ramifications was now. For almost two full minutes, the leader of the fulcrums stared out into the mountain ranges as the wounded were shepherded out from the transports behind him. Only once they all were removed—only once the pathway was clear—did he turn to walk toward the hangar’s center. His eyes were searching for someone. Iosif Antipov was already on his way to meet him.
Quick to offer a Nightman salute, Antipov said, “We have done it. EDEN has fallen. We are free.”
“Indeed,” said the deep-throated colonel. “But you must come with me. There is something you must see.” Turning, he strode back toward the transports.
“Is there a problem?”
The colonel shook his head. “I would not describe it as such.”
Quirking a brow, Antipov followed in step until they were back by the hangar entrance. Only when he was in front of one of the transport’s open bay doors did he see the prize within: the president of EDEN and three of his judges, all in Nightman custody. The general’s eyes widened. “This…this will change things…”
“Yes,” said Saretok behind him, “it will.”
The colonel struck out with his massive hand. He grabbed the back of Antipov’s collar. With a vigorous sling—a sling so decisive that the general didn’t even have time to react—Saretok hurled Antipov clean out of the open hangar door. Out into the mountain valley below. Antipov’s eyes didn’t even have time to widen—his scream was barely heard before it faded away in the whipping, Siberian wind. In the span of a single second, the leader of the Nightmen was just gone.
Gasps erupted across the hangar. Those present rushed to the open hangar doorway to look down, only to quickly step away as if at any moment, they might be the next to be thrown down the side of a mountain. To be dashed against rocks too far down to be seen. As two hundred sets of eyes turned to Grigori Saretok, he strode into the center of the hangar. Only the fulcrums who flanked him seemed unfazed, as if they knew this was coming all along. As if they were one with the coup. With a glare as cold and calculated as what had once been seen from their god of old, the massive, mohawked colonel spoke.
“Today, you saw failure. Today, you saw weakness. Because of that weakness, we were almost destroyed.”
All the while he spoke, a single row of fulcrums formed behind him. No one else in the hangar said a word.
“The eidola wish to win battles in the shadows. Fulcrums win wars face to face. The man I threw from this hangar believed that in order to compete with the world, we must conform to it. I say, to conform is to deny oneself. We are Nightmen. We deny nothing.”
As Saretok’s gaze swiveled from one side of the hangar to the other, it finally stopped on the cluster of bound soldiers clad in EDEN armor—most blue and silver, a handful purple and white. Angling his head, he asked one of the slayers standing before him, “Who are they?”
Stuttering behind his faceless helmet, the slayer answered, “Captured soldiers from EDEN. Some are even Vectors. The general thought—” he caught himself in those words. “Antipov thought they could be used for negotiation.”
From the gathering, Chiumbo and the few Vectors who’d survived watched as Saretok stared at them from afar. The EDEN soldiers around them began to fidget.
“Mm,” Saretok said quietly. Turning, he walked slowly past his fulcrums and said, “Show them how we negotiate.”
No clarification was required. The fulcrums knew what he meant. Raising their weapons, they turned toward the hapless EDEN captives. From Chiumbo to the furthest EDEN soldier down the line, every eye and mouth opened wide. But that was all they had time for.
The onslaught came quickly. As bullets erupted from their barrels and riddled the bodies of the captured, fresh spatters of blood and flesh decorated the walls. The eruption lasted almost fifteen full seconds before the last fulcrum relented on his trigger. As the weapons exhaust cleared, a pile of dead bodies was left in its wake.
“Recall all of the eidola,” Saretok said to the fulcrum nearest him. “Tell them nothing of what has happened here.”
The fulcrum saluted. “Da…general.”
At the sound of the title, Saretok ceased his walking. He stared at the fulcrum who’d addressed him. At long last, he spoke. “General. That is such a common term. We call ourselves fulcrums, slayers, sentries, eidola. There is nothing common about any of those.” The fulcrums listened intently as he went on, pivoting to stand before them. “I require a new title. One that brings honor to our heritage. One that is ours alone.” Holding his breath, the massive fulcrum leader narrowed his eyes. “You will address me as Thoor.”
Behind their faceless helmets, the fulcrums looked at one another—as did all those in the hangar who bore witness to the proclamation. Witness to the new beginning. To the return.
From the end of the row, a fulcrum called out, “Hail, Thoor Saretok! Hail, The Machine!”
The crowd soon followed. “Hail, Thoor Saretok! Hail, The Machine!” Again and again, their chants reverberated throughout the hangar. Their echo bounced off every wall.
Speaking once more to the fulcrum nearest him, Saretok asked, “What is your name?”
“Stepanov, my Thoor.”
“I appoint you my emissary. Have a message sent to President Belikov under my authority. Inform him that I will be returning to Novosibirsk as leader of the Nightmen.”
Stepanov hesitated. “And if he asks about Antipov?”
“Tell him the truth,” Saretok answered. “Antipov died at Northern Forge.”
“As you command!”
Turning away as Stepanov saluted him, Saretok lifted his crimson-streaked fulcrum helmet over his head. After sliding it down and into place with a click, he strode into the bowels of Northern Forge like a god returning from banishment. Like a show of force coming to life. Nary a Nightman in attendance dared stifle their salute.
Far below, at the bottom of the icy mountain valley, the body parts of Iosif Antipov lay strew across the rocks. With every second that passed, his final expression of horror was covered by falling snow. His remains grew more and more indistinguishable from the snowy earth around him, until at long last, he disappeared.