Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-six

Friday, April 13th, 0012 NE

1819 hours



EDEN Command



“THEY’VE FIRED AT us!” said the operator in front of Archer. “Multiple missiles heading toward the gateway!”

“Who is attacking us?” asked Klaus. In every direction, at every console in the War Room, chatter exploded.

Snarling, Archer stormed toward the holographic globe. “Who do you bloody think?”



* * *


Likouala Swamp, Congo



“THIS IS IT, boys!” Javon shouted, the soldier gripping onto the handrail as their V2 rocketed ahead. Next to him, wide eyes hidden behind his helmet, Tom held his breath.

Natalie stared through the cockpit window far ahead—the same place everyone was looking. Those guided missiles, those silver streaks of vengeance, curled down into the swamp below. When they struck, the fiery plumes reached the heavens.



* * *


EDEN Command



TIFFANY WAS SITTING with her head forward when the first trembles came. She lifted her head as they came again, and again, and again. The blonde’s face grew pale as she sat up erect.

Seconds later, a wailing klaxon reverberated through the walls.



* * *


Northern Forge


“WE MUST CONTACT the fleet!” said Antipov, shoving Nightmen out of his way as he ran toward the hall. Whipping his head back to Valentin, he shouted, “Where are the auxiliary satellite comms?”

The keeper was running behind him breathlessly as all around them, confusion and calamity broke loose. “They are kept on Level-2, in general storage!”

Rushing into the darkened hallways, David, Max, and the others looked around for some indication of what was happening. All of a sudden, from the direction of the hangar, there came a loud, grinding whine. So loud was it, so distinct amid the unnatural silence, it caused every single one of them—Antipov and Valentin included—to turn around.

“The hell is that?” asked William.

Shaking his head, David said, “It sounds like…” He looked at his comrades. “It sounds like the hangar doors.”


FAR BENEATH THEM all, on Level-2, Logan and an assortment of Nightmen wandered into the tram concourse. Kneeling in the center of the concourse, a Nightman, scarcely illuminated by the pulsing red glow, knelt down to pick up a fallen object. Upon lifting it by its small, lifeless frame, he looked in the direction of Logan and the others. “It looks like a drone.”

Flashes of weapons fire erupted from the tram tunnel. The Nightman with the drone—and all those around him—were blown back as their bodies were riddled.

“Fall back!” Logan yelled, the Australian’s eyes widening as the tidal wave of rounds inundated the Nightmen in the open. Diving for cover, what Nightmen managed to escape scrambled to their feet to retreat. Barely escaping himself, Logan slammed his back against a corridor wall and huffed hard, combat-prepping breaths. Those rounds. The way they obliterated everything in their path. He knew them well. “Chaos rounds!” the ex-mercenary bellowed. “Vector, Vector, Vector!”


ANTIPOV AND VALENTIN listened as the roar of twin engines emerged from the hangar. When the door leading into the hangar opened, they saw a pair of V2s make their descent. The V2s’ rear bay doors opened, and EDEN troops stormed from them, the rat-tat-tat of their E-35s sending streaks of orange fury down the hall.

“We are betrayed!” Valentin shouted, wide-eyed and panicked.

Antipov shook his head in disbelief. “Impossible!”


From next to Max, Flopper barked and scampered toward the incoming soldiers. Max grabbed his collar and jerked him back. “No, boy!”

“We gotta get outta here!” said David.

“Forget outta here,” William said, “we gotta get some weapons!”

Some Nightmen already had them, unslinging them from their backs and firing return volleys through the hangar entrance.

It wasn’t long before William got his wish, as a small force of Nightmen ran toward the hangar, numerous weapons in hand. Shouting to their comrades in Russian, they began tossing weapons liberally to all who could catch them.

Snatching an E-35, David took to the cover of a corner near the cafeteria entrance, leaning out to provide a burst of desperate suppression fire.

Grabbing a weapon of his own, Auric quickly tossed it to the wheelchair-bound Catalina then signaled for another one. Rolling to the far side of the hallway, the pair leaned forward to add to the weapons fire before hurriedly ducking back.

Firing an assault rifle, William grunted with disapproval. “This ain’t gonna work for me! Any of y’all got a hand cannon?” No answer came from any of the Nightmen. “C’mon, guys, help a big fella out!”


Boris was chasing down a weapon he’d dropped when a hand grabbed him from behind. The technician was spun around to face Antipov. Before Boris could yelp, the general said, “I need you to come with me.”

Halting his own firing from nearby, Max looked at the pair and listened in.

“Our systems have been compromised from the outside!” Antipov said to Boris. “You need to come with me to help affix the backup satellite comms to Northern Forge’s primary transceiver.”

Boris stammered. “But—”

“The primary transceiver may not have power,” Antipov said, ignoring the technician’s bumbling. “Be prepared to work around that. Now please, I do not have time to explain further. You must come with me now!”

“I’ll go, too,” said Max, prompting Antipov to look his way. “Two techs are better than one, right?”

Glancing between them, the general nodded. “So be it. We must move, quickly!”

“Hey, Dave,” said Max, tapping David on the shoulder. David looked at him. “Antipov needs help—Boris and I are going with him.”

David half-frowned. “You gonna be okay doing whatever it is you guys are doing?”

“Hell,” Max said, “it can’t be any more strenuous than what I’m doing here now. Considering the circumstances, I think the doc will give me a pass.” Passing Flopper off to David, Max said, “Watch my dog, man.”

“You got it.” As Max joined Boris and Antipov as they ran for the stairwell, David tugged Flopper to a nearby closet. “Come on, boy, let’s get you in here.”


“EVERYONE!” SHOUTED Gavriil Shubin, “make sure all critical equipment is turned off! We do not want them to overload if systems come back on!”

It was right then that one of the nurses glanced in Lisa’s direction—just as the Vector captive had cracked open the cell door. That one look from the nurse was all that it took. Lisa slung the cell door open, caution thrown to the wind as several nurses and the sentry on post turned their heads her way. The Vector dashed from the cell, ponytail flying as she rolled to avoid the sentry’s grasp just as he reached for her. Lisa ducked and kicked backward, her foot slamming into the center of the sentry’s armor. Though not enough to fell him, it pushed him off balance enough for him to have to grab hold of the wall—and for her to reach for his weapon. Lisa shouted as her hands gripped his assault rifle and she pulled. The sentry, regaining his balance, pulled back, swinging her around and slamming her through a medical equipment stand and against the wall—but her grip on the weapon remained.

Shielding his nurses from the fight, Gavriil shouted, “Back, back, back!”


BULLETS EXPLODED against the walls around Logan; he lifted his comm to his lips. It was dead. There was no reception coming from inside the mountain at all. “Bloody hell!”

None of the Nightmen around him were armed. This was about to become a massacre. “Weapons!” Logan shouted in Russian, looking at the Nightmen. “Where are the weapons?” No one looked composed to any degree—Nightmen were fleeing like panicked children. The best warriors the Nightmen had to offer had just taken a flight to EDEN Command. The ones left behind had been so for a reason.

Alas, some still heeded his words. Motioning down one of the many corridors that cut through general storage, one of them yelled, “Weapons are down here.”

Logan bolted down the hall, several Nightmen in his wake.


HANDS STILL CLASPING the sentry’s assault rifle, Lisa let loose a primal scream and came off her feet, planting both of them against the sentry and propelling herself away from him with all of her might. The sentry, yanking back on the weapon hard, laid his finger down on the trigger. Bullets erupted, ricocheting in every direction as the medical staff dove for cover—though several, including Gavriil and the eldest nurse, Inna, were struck. The medical bay was suddenly filled with the sounds of screaming and weapons fire.

Shifting a foot against the bottom of the sentry’s faceplate, Lisa pulled her foot back and kicked the Nightman there repeatedly, as hard as she could. Discombobulated, he stumbled back. His grip on the weapon relented. She wrenched it away as she fell to the floor. Groaning as her injured shoulder hit the ground, she quickly rolled, took aim, and fired. Before the sentry could right himself, bullets struck the vulnerable spot under his neck. He toppled and fell.

Grabbed from behind by a nurse, Lisa spun free and whipped around, sending the butt of her assault rifle crashing against the woman’s face. There was no hesitation as she aimed her weapon and fired again, dropping the woman where she stood.

Footsteps emerged behind her. Spinning back to the medical bay door, the Vector saw a pair of uniformed Nightmen bolting toward the room. Taking cover behind the corner of the door, she laid down on the trigger, forcing both Nightmen to take cover in side rooms. Ducking back as one leaned around the corner to fire, Lisa closed her eyes and lowered her head, flicks of wall debris peppering her face. Finger on the trigger but restraining, she waited for the two men to move in.

Her wait was not long. The Nightmen dashed for the medical bay, weapons drawn as they searched for their target. In the same second that they came to the threshold of the door, Lisa spun around on her heel and sent a hook kick screaming for the face of the nearest assailant. The strike was true, and the Nightman was nearly flipped end over end. Lisa rushed past the corner just as the Nightman was falling backward and as his comrade was side-stepping to avoid him. Reaching out, she grabbed the Nightman who was still on his feet by the collar, slinging him headlong into the room. The top of the Nightman’s head struck the hardened glass of the quarantine cell, and he rolled over, dazed.

Focus shifting to the man she’d first kicked, Lisa slid forward, ripped his combat knife from his belt, and in a single, fluid maneuver, skirted past him and jabbed it into his back. With a decisive, upward thrust, the killing strike was complete. Twirling around, she flung the knife into the crown of the second Nightman just as he was pushing up to his feet. As he slumped down, dead, Lisa dashed toward him, gripped the bloody knife, and yanked it out with vehemence. Kneeling beside the man, she claimed his pistol and ammunition.

The medical bay was adorned with blood, both from the Nightmen and the medical staff, all of whom were huddled in the corner, cradling the wounded and looking upon the vengeful Vector with whimpering fear. Curling her lips, she offered them a sneer before rising to her feet to leave.

Then, paralysis. Lisa’s body contorted in pain as a torrent of pressure enveloped her head. Keeling over, she gripped her temple with clenched teeth. From seemingly every direction, a singular voice addressed her.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Pulsing. Pounding. The mental onslaught was relentless—until the Vector pushed back. Clenching her teeth and opening her eyes with determination, she pushed up and slowly looked behind her. There, standing in the hallway whence the Nightmen had come, stood her mocha-skinned British rival. Squinting in confusion, Lisa angled her head from the floor. “Esther?”

Clad in her white, hexagonal bodysuit, the high-ponytailed scrapper cocked her head. “Would it be anyone else?”

The world around Lisa bulged and compressed, as if she was staring through a flickering fish-eye lens. Harder, the pressure pressed on her brain. The Vector winced and fought against it. Grimacing against the mental compressions, she said, “You’re not Esther. You’re that Ithini…”

The construct’s eyes narrowed. She sashayed in the medical bay’s direction. “I don’t like your choice of venues.” Raising her hands up from both sides, she said, “Let’s try another one.”

The world around Lisa erupted, pillars of flame replacing what had been the medical bay. The grip on her mind loosened, and the Vector scrambled backward to her feet. No longer was she standing in Northern Forge. Dry, hard dirt was beneath her. She stood at the center of a ring of billowing fire. Silhouetted by the orange glow, the construct of Esther approached.

Lisa tensed her feet to attack, but Ju`bajai’s came first. Zipping across the hellscape with superhuman speed, the construct’s fist collided against the side of Lisa’s face. Rocked by the blow, the Vector tumbled across the dirt, rolling to a stop meters away from where she’d stood. Lifting her dusty face, she looked up through loose strands of hair.

Ju`bajai was standing on the opposite side of the hellscape, walking with cocked hips at her again. “I can sense your mind,” the construct said. “I can sense its weakness. Its fear. You could have turned. They would have welcomed you.”

Before Lisa could push to her feet, a second attack came. The construct zipped through her body like a spirit, emerging out the other side, leaving the Vector buckled over, wide-eyed, and gasping, as if the breath had just been sucked out from her.

“I’ve tasted your soul,” the construct said. “And it is lacking.”

Whipping around haplessly, Lisa swung for Ju`bajai only to have her wrist grabbed in mid-air, not by the alien’s hand, but by its ponytail—a ponytail that had now grown in length like a whip. After uncoiling itself from Lisa’s wrist as if it was alive, the ponytail struck forth, colliding into Lisa’s chest and sending her flying across the hellscape. Once more, she rolled to a stop.

“You’re so predictable,” Ju`bajai said as its ponytail weaved like a snake. “That was always your problem, wasn’t it? Too daft to think on your feet.”

Pushing upright, Lisa grimaced and limped forward. Looking at the ring of fire around them, she shook her head. “This isn’t real.”

Ju`bajai clapped her hands. “Very good! You’re brighter than you look. Practically on fire. Why don’t you cool off?”

The ground gave way beneath Lisa. The Vector was plunged straight down into an ice-cold abyss. Eyes widening as she flailed against an increasingly strong undertow, panic overtook her. She opened her mouth; water filled her lungs.

Splat!

The hardness of metal struck her as she fell face-first onto the floor, seemingly dropped from mid-air. Gasping for breath, Lisa wiped her hair back. Lifting her head, she looked around. The ring of fire, the watery depths—they were gone, replaced by an endless expanse of flat metal and starlit sky.

“Not good enough, Tiffin!”

The voice came to her with deafening volume—so much so, it made her cover her ears. But it wasn’t Esther’s. It was the voice of her drill sergeant in Philadelphia—and a statement she’d replayed in her head many, many times.

Then her classmate. “Lisa, move your tail! We’re gonna get smoked!”

Then her mother. “If it’s not working, you can always come back home.”

Then her evaluator. “You’re just not getting it!”

It was everyone who’d ever chastised her in all her years at the Academy, all coming at her at once, from every direction. No ear-covering could stop it, but she pressed her hands harder anyway. She screamed at the top of her lungs. “Get out of my bloody head!”

The world around her rippled. She strained to resist it.

Her tactics instructor. “Wrong, wrong, wrong! Why can’t you get this?”

Her counselor. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Lots of people can’t handle the mental side of it.”

Her girlfriend. “You’re not even the same person anymore.”

Esther. “We always knew you’d be a dropout.”

Herself. “I’m not good enough.”

They came one after the other, their words shifting to that same statement—“You’re not good enough”—on endless repeat. Overloading her senses. Becoming a cacophony.

“You’re not good enough.”

“You are not good enough.”

“You’re not good enough!”

But she was. Closing her eyes, she channeled every ounce of mental fortitude she had. Slowly, every voice that berated her began to falter. Flames kissed her cheeks in violent bursts, avalanches of water soaked her. Still, her eyes remained closed. She stayed quiet and still. Because she was good enough.

Because none of this was real.

“You…are…not…good…enough!”

The voice in her head was sounding less familiar. Sounding more extraterrestrial. The construct was losing. When it spoke to her one final time, it was the voice of the Ithini itself.

You are not good enough, Earthae.

“Yes,” Lisa said, her stone-cold exterior holding as the false world faded away. The heat, the wetness, the cold. It all disappeared. She opened her eyes. “I am.”


DOWN THE HALL, in the room she’d been hiding in, Ju`bajai’s opaque, oval eyes flickered and blinked. The enervated alien’s body shimmied, and she stumbled and fell.


AFTER RECLAIMING her weapons from the medical bay floor, Lisa stood upright, slung her assault rifle over her back, and readied her pistol. Aiming it ahead, she stalked out of the medical bay and into the halls.



* * *


EDEN Command



“HOLD ON, EVERYONE!” shouted Dostoevsky as he gripped a support rail. The occupants of the troop bay braced for descent as the vertical thrusters of the V2 kicked in.

Ahead of the transports, a gaping hole revealed the entrance to EDEN’s hidden headquarters. Beneath it was a chasm plenty large enough for the transports to enter.

Over the loudspeaker, Saretok’s voice emerged. “Air Support Team 1, return to Northern Forge to assess the situation there. Support Teams 2 and 3, remain with us.” The squadron commanders acknowledged, and the indicated squadron broke off to return to Norilsk.

Natalie’s stomach was in her throat. There was no turning back now. Whatever happened at Northern Forge—or hadn’t—was irrelevant.

Their attack was underway.



* * *


Northern Forge


ROUNDS RICOCHETED around Logan as he ducked around the corner of a corridor. Sinking low then aiming his assault rifle around it, he fired off a volley of suppression fire. Though none of his shots found their marks, the attack offered enough of a reprieve to allow the last few Nightmen with him to bolt from the storage room, weapons in hand as they moved to cover.

The entirety of Level-2 had been overrun by the Vector-led EDEN forces, who’d not only taken to the many corridors that ran throughout the level, but also the intersection just before the stairwell that led to the other levels.

Logan had no idea what still functioned on the base and what didn’t. The red, pulsing lights were no doubt a part of the base’s auxiliary power, but there’d been no indication of anything else working—not elevators, not base-wide comm systems, nothing. The Nightmen around him, despite their efforts at firing back, were fearful. Fearful warriors were dead warriors. It was only a matter of time until what little resolve they had left was trampled.

Leaning around again, he unleashed another barrage of weapons fire. A bullet whizzed past him, cutting through his uniform at the shoulder and tearing his skin. Wincing, he slunk back and pressed his back to the wall. With gritted teeth, he roared and slammed in a new magazine. “Where the hell are the bloody defenses?” Was anyone else coming? Where were all the necrilids? For as formidable a force as the Nightmen were revered to be, they were getting their tails whipped. The momentum of EDEN’s surprise attack had to be slowed.


VALENTIN EMERGED from the Level-2 stairwell into a cacophonic hell. Bullets exploded against every wall—bodies lay strewn about, blood stained the walls and the floor as Nightmen ran for cover. Having been unable to claim his fulcrum armor from his suite without power to the elevators, he and those Nightmen who’d followed him from Level-3 were forced to make their stand without the protection of black metal.

“Protect the stairwell!” the keeper shouted, pushing past a slayer to dash ahead and take position around a corner. “They cannot be allowed to breach!” Leaning around the corner, he fired his E-35 at the encroaching intruders.

The stairwell opened into a three-way intersection, with corridors running straight ahead and branching off to the left and right. The primary push was coming from the right, as there was a small force of Nightmen resistance holding the area in front of the stairwell itself. It was in that direction—the right—that Valentin directed his warriors’ efforts.

“Fortify the hall!” he shouted. “They must not be allowed to take the stairwell. Every man shoots until death!”

It was then that the keeper caught sight of something. Beneath the pulsating red lights that illuminated the corridors, he saw movement beyond the leftmost corridor from the stairwell. The corridor where EDEN wasn’t. Yet as clear as day, even under the red lights, he saw the reflective shape of a soldier wearing EDEN armor. Though the soldier was gone in an instant, what concerned Valentin was not that he was there. What concerned him was that the soldier hadn’t engaged the Nightmen from behind at an extremely opportune time.

Someone was being sneaky.

Gaze turning to Bedrich Zima, one of the few warriors geared up in slayer armor, he said, “Protect this stairwell at all costs! There is somewhere I must go.”

“Da, keeper,” Bedrich replied.

Abandoning the stairwell, Valentin stalked quickly down the leftmost corridor.


There were several critical locations on Level-2, any one of which could cripple Northern Forge if compromised. The satellite comms were there, as was the base’s primary transceiver, though they were both on the other side of the level. Of closer concern were weapons storage and the necrilid pen, both of which were vital if this attack was to be repelled. They could afford to lose neither.

Valentin saw the soldier the moment he rounded the corner at the end of the leftmost hall. His back to the keeper, the man from EDEN was looking down at something on his wrist. Farther ahead, Valentin could make out a small, spherical device hovering in midair. A drone. For all Valentin knew, that was the device that had shut down power to the base and opened their hangar doors. He wasn’t about to wait to find out what else it could do. Raising his weapon, he took aim at the soldier from behind.

The soldier reacted first. As if he had eyes in the back of his head, the soldier ducked down, spun around, and aimed a handgun in Valentin’s direction. As Valentin hit the wall to dodge the shot, the EDEN warrior quickly disappeared around a corner. Farther down the hall, the spherical drone zipped out of view.

There was no time to waste. Raising his weapon again, Valentin rushed down the hall. On one occasion, the EDEN soldier leaned his hand around the corner to fire his handgun, but another volley from Valentin kept him at bay.

Suddenly, the drone reappeared, this time from the same corner that protected the soldier. In the same second that the keeper swiveled his E-35 to fire at it, the drone released a blindingly bright flash of light—more than enough to make Valentin blink and start backwards. That was all the EDEN soldier needed. Rounding the corner, he aimed his handgun and fired.

The keeper never had a chance. The shots struck him in the chest, and he stumbled backwards. Eyes staring at the pulsing red lights that illuminated the ceiling, Valentin Lukin gasped for his final few breaths from a pool of his own blood.


Aiming his handgun down both directions of the corridor that ran before him, Pablo Quintana searched for any more pursuing targets. Only when his path was clear did he return his focus to his wrist pad. Tapping in several commands, he spoke into his comm. “I have located the room with the necrilids. En route to it now.”

Vector’s channel crackled as Chiumbo’s voice emerged. “Do you require assistance?”

Three fast chirps emerged in his earpiece—indication that someone was coming from behind him. Spinning and crouching, he aimed his handgun at the indicated corner. The two Nightmen who emerged from it never knew what hit them. Two fast pulls of the trigger and subsequent headshots later, and he was once again alone. A long, satisfied tone played in his ear. “Negative,” he said to Chiumbo. “I will destroy the necrilids myself.” After reloading his handgun, Vector’s combat tech resumed his march down the hall.


“HURRY! QUICKLY!” Waving Boris and Max toward him, Antipov motioned toward the entrance to Northern Forge’s server room. Located on an isolated corner of Level-2 that they’d reached via a service ladder, the server room was far enough away from the beaten path to allow them to completely circumvent enemy forces. Even separated from the heart of Level-2, they could hear a flurry of weapons fire coming from the direction of the tram concourse. As soon as they were inside, Antipov grabbed a pair of auxiliary satellite comms.

“Is there a breaker control point in here?” Max asked as he searched the server room, which was small and tightly cramped with standing consoles.

Shaking his head, Antipov answered, “I have no idea. Could this be as simple as flipping a breaker?”

Could be.” Max pointed to the flashing red lights. “The auxiliary power still functions, so this wasn’t an EMP. Unless the power source was insulated, which could be possible.”

From the back corner of the room, Boris shouted, “Here!” The scruffy-haired technician flipped a tripped switch along the wall, and the server room consoles came to life. White light, at long last, replaced the pulsating red.

“Atta boy, B!” Max slid quickly to one of the stations. After several taps on the keyboard, he looked at the information on the display. “Okay, it looks like the base’s primary power system was issued a manual overcharge by some remote…something.”

“Quintana,” said Antipov dryly.

“They just caused an overload,” Max said. “There should be a built-in failsafe for this kind of thing, so I doubt any systems are permanently damaged.” After snapping his fingers at Boris, he pointed to a wall outlet. “Find a manual rebooter and plug it in there.” Boris hurried to do as told. Holding his hand out to Antipov, he said, “You’re gonna want to hand me a sat-comm, general.” Antipov complied without question.

“I have the rebooter!” shouted Boris, scampering across the server room to the wall outlet.

Max pointed and said, “Plug her in!”

The technician slid the manual rebooter into the outlet, twisting it sideways as soon as it was inserted. A series of loud, subsequent clunks emerged from the walls. The lights above them flickered.

Pop!

Sparks erupted from the outlet; Boris leapt backward. The clunks ceased as a long, droning hum emerged, its sound pitching downward until it became a buzz. Max’s face fell. “That doesn’t sound good.”

The wall socket erupted, as sparks exploded from the various consoles. Antipov, Max, and Boris scrambled for the exit as electricity arced from one side of the room to the next—popping, bursting, erupting. They watched in horror as socket after socket exploded from the walls.


LOGAN HAD JUST slammed a fresh magazine into his E-35 when the wall outlets near him exploded. The Australian slammed his back against the opposite wall to avoid the shrapnel before turning his head to look at the Nightmen around him. “The hell?”

The chain of exploding sockets continued until it reached the EDEN soldiers down the hall. Caught off guard themselves, the soldiers momentarily halted their offensive.

It was as much of an element of surprise as Logan was going to get. “Move in!” he shouted to the Nightmen around him, all of whom had blindly taken to his command in the absence of a fulcrum. “Press in, press in!” With their weapons flashing, they unloaded on the EDEN soldiers as they moved up the halls.


COUGHING IN THE newly formed smoke, Antipov shouted, “What happened?”

“I don’t know!” Max answered. “Maybe they uploaded a countermeasure, maybe the equipment is just old. There’s no telling!” Eyes hardening, Max looked at Antipov and said, “All I know is that we’re not getting that room back.”

“I must have power to contact the eidola,” said Antipov direly. “As it stands now, I have no way of knowing if any of them detonated their devices or not. If they do not follow through, all of our forces who just left for EDEN Command are heading for a massacre. Every Superwolf and V2 in EDEN’s air force is going to converge on that place. EDEN Command will call them all to save themselves.”

Max motioned to Antipov’s comm. “Do you need power, or just a signal? Does that sat-comm still work?”

“Yes, the sat-comm has power—it just cannot get out of the mountain without the base’s transceiver.”

“If all you need is a signal, then there’s a way to make it happen, but you’re not gonna like it!” Casting a sidelong look at Boris, Max returned his gaze to Antipov. “We’ve got to get to the hangar door. We need to get right by the opening. If we get there, there’s a small chance the signal can escape—but we’re gonna have to get through EDEN to try it.”

There was no hesitation. “Then we must try it,” Antipov said. “If we do not, then every part of this plan will fail. Every one of our lives, both here and in the transports at EDEN Command, depends on it.”

Tapping on Max’s shoulder, Boris said, “I have an idea that might be better!”

“Let’s hear it.”

“We have a better chance of getting a signal out if we are clear of the mountain entirely. If we get to the Pariah, we can fly it high in the air with the autopilot. From there, we could definitely get a signal out—we could even link up the Pariah’s comm to the general’s, if we wanted. There would be nothing to block the signal at all. It is much more likely to work than just getting near the door.” Expression falling grave, he hesitated. “EDEN may shoot us down, especially if there are Superwolves around the mountain, but we would still get the signal out.”

The other two men fell quiet. It was Max who broke the silence. “Boris, that plan totally sucks.”

Antipov nodded. “I agree. But if it would work, it would be worth it.”

“How’d I know you were gonna say that?”

“Come—let us hurry.” Without another word, the general turned in the direction of the stairwell, the other two men close behind.


“WHAT SHOULD WE do? Should we release them?” asked one of the two slayers guarding the entrance to the necrilid pen.

His counterpart threw his hands up. “I don’t know! I think we should?”

“Are you asking or telling?”

“I don’t know!”

Looking down the hallway that housed the makeshift pen, the slayer reached up to adjust his helmet comm. “Can anyone read me? Can someone please advise us, are we to hold position or engage? Should we open the pen?” When he once again heard only static, he turned back to his comrade. “We must open this pen. Listen to what is happening. It sounds like a warzone!”

“No orders have come.”

“No orders can come!”

A loud, wailing sound emerged behind them. Both slayers spun around, their weapons raised, to find its origin. Hovering in a fast figure-eight in the center of the hallway was a brightly colored, pulsating object. Lights on it flickered and flashed like strobes. A series of high-pitched whines emerged from its core. Both men readied their weapons to fire.

The man behind them fired first. Rounds clanked against their armor, most deflecting though one caught one of the guards at an exposed joint behind the neck. He gurgled and fell forward; the second slayer spun to face the assailant.

Pablo was already on him. The Vector leapt at the slayer, slamming his open palm sideways against the Nightman’s helmet. The slayer hit the wall, head rocking as he stumbled and tried to catch his balance. Before he could, Pablo grabbed him from behind, placed his left hand around the front of the slayer’s helmet, and pushed the barrel of his handgun up against the soft spot behind his neck.

Pop! Pop!

The slayer’s body went limp. Pablo released him, dropping the lifeless body to the ground. Behind the Vector, the drone’s flashing and wailing ceased, and it drifted to his shoulder. Pablo’s focus shifted to the room. Tapping on his wrist pad, he sent the drone to the door’s control panel. After the several seconds required for the drone’s connection to establish itself, the door slid open.

Necrilid eggs spanned the room, with no less than a dozen necrilids tending them. For several seconds, Pablo stared. As soon as the first necrilid looked his way, he reached down and snagged a high explosive from his belt. Upon activating it, he tossed it into the middle of the chamber. The drone sealed the door shut. Turning away, Pablo strode down the hall and spoke into his comm. “Nest isolated.” Behind him, a wall-shaking boom erupted. He continued to walk. “I thought there’d be more.”

On the other side of the comm and with weapons blasting in the background, Chiumbo replied, “Do whatever damage you can. When you are discovered, rendezvous with the main assault team.”

“Understood, lieutenant. Quintana out.”


All throughout Northern Forge, the firefight between EDEN’s Vector-led forces and the Nightmen raged on. Though EDEN pressed in from both the hangar and Level-2, what Nightmen had remained at the base had dug in, snatching all the weapons they could to fortify strongholds in the base interior. Yet despite the Nightmen’s best efforts, EDEN—and the Vectors—were closing in. It was not a matter of if they would break through to the interior portion of the base. It was a matter of when.


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