The air smelled of sulfur and wet iron.
Marcus sat in the passenger seat of the red technical—a scavenged pickup truck with armor plates welded over the doors. The suspension groaned as they hit a pothole.
Marcia drove. Her hands were gripping the wheel so hard her knuckles were white. She didn't look at him. She stared through the cracked windshield at the road ahead.
"Faster," she muttered.
The convoy was moving at breakneck speed along the coastal highway. Behind them, two other trucks carried the refugees. In the rear, a heavy transport hauled the limp body of Narcissus.
"The suspension can't take this," Marcus said, grabbing the dashboard handle as they caught air over a crater.
"The suspension is fine," Marcia snapped. " The artillery is the problem."
BOOM.
A shell landed in the ocean to their left. A geyser of water sprayed the road.
"They have the range dialled in," Marcia said, not flinching. "If we slow down, we're scrap."
Marcus looked at her.
She wore a headset over one ear. A tactical vest over a dirty tunic. A gladius on one hip, a Glock 17 on the other.
"You've changed," Marcus said.
It was an understatement. The woman he left in Rome was soft. She liked perfume. She liked silk. She was terrified of the dark.
This woman smelled like gun oil and unwashed hair. She had a scar running from her ear to her jawline—a jagged, ugly line where shrapnel had kissed her.
Marcia didn't look at him. She shifted gears aggressively.
"You left me in a palace, Marcus. I woke up in a trench."
"I came back."
"Took you long enough," she said. Her voice wasn't angry. It was just tired. "I've been holding the line for three months. Do you know what three months of siege does to a legion?"
"I saw the beach," Marcus said. "The Hollow Men."
"That was a light patrol," Marcia said. "The main force is inland. Millions of them. The Board digs up every graveyard from here to China. They recycle the dead. It's efficient."
Marcus shivered. The UI in his head flickered.
[THREAT: PSYCHOLOGICAL]
[ADVICE: SUPPRESS EMOTION]
He ignored it.
"How is Lucilla?" Marcia asked suddenly.
"She's in the second truck. With the refugees."
"Is she transmitting?"
"What?"
"Is she broadcasting?" Marcia glanced at him, eyes cold. "If that corporate bitch is sending a signal, Vane will triangulate us. I will put a bullet in her head myself."
Marcus stiffened.
"She's on our side, Marcia. She defected. She saved us at the carrier."
"She's a Board Director," Marcia spat. "She doesn't defect. She recalculates. Watch her, Marcus. If she touches a radio, kill her."
The radio on the dashboard crackled.
"Legate! Contact front! Sector 4!"
Marcia slammed the brakes. The truck skidded sideways, tires screaming on the asphalt.
"Brace!" she yelled.
The convoy screeched to a halt.
Ahead, the road crossed a dry riverbed. The bridge had collapsed long ago.
Standing in the riverbed were riders.
Not men.
Cataphracts.
Heavy cavalry. Horses completely encased in scale armor. But the armor wasn't bronze. It was scavenged Sentinel plating.
The horses' legs were hydraulic pistons. Steam vented from their nostrils.
The riders were fused to the saddles. Tubes ran from their spines into the horses' necks.
"Cyborgs," Marcus whispered.
There were fifty of them. A wall of steel blocking the path.
"Reverse!" Marcus yelled. "We're boxed in!"
Marcia didn't reverse. She grabbed the radio handset.
"Echo Squad. Execute."
She flicked a toggle switch on the dashboard. A red safety cover flipped up.
"Watch," she said.
The Cataphracts charged. The sound was terrifying—metal hooves pounding the dry earth. A stampede of machines.
They hit the kill zone.
The road didn't explode. It melted.
Hidden nozzles on the roadside sprayed a thick, green liquid.
Green Fire.
It hit the lead horses.
The chemical ignited on contact with the air.
WHOOSH.
A wall of emerald flame erupted. It was hotter than napalm. It stuck to the armor. It seeped into the joints.
The horses screamed—a sound that was half-animal, half-siren.
The hydraulic legs buckled as the seals melted. The riders tried to pull back, but the fire climbed their bodies.
Within seconds, the charge was a pile of slag. Fifty elite units, dissolved into a burning roadblock.
Marcia watched them burn. Her face was illuminated by the green glow. She didn't smile. She just checked her watch.
"Clear," she said into the radio. "Move up. Drive through the smoke."
She gunned the engine.
The truck drove past the burning wrecks. The smell of cooking meat was overpowering. Marcus gagged.
"We don't fight fair anymore, Marcus," Marcia said quietly. "We fight to win."
Ten minutes later, the fortress appeared.
Antioch.
It wasn't the white marble city of history. It was a ruin.
The old Roman walls were still there, battered and pockmarked. But they had been reinforced. Scavenged steel plates were bolted to the stone. Sentinel walkers—hacked and repainted red—stood guard at the gates.
Barbed wire. Sandbags. Trenches filled with dirty water.
It looked like World War I had vomited on ancient Rome.
"Home sweet hell," Marcia muttered.
They drove through the main gate.
The courtyard was a hive of activity. Soldiers ran back and forth carrying ammo crates. But these weren't just legionaries. They were a mix. Syrians, Parthian defectors, Romans. Men and women.
Everyone was armed. Everyone looked starving.
The truck stopped near the command tent.
Marcus jumped out. His legs were stiff.
He looked around.
Wounded soldiers lay on stretchers in the open air. Flies buzzed around bloody bandages. A blacksmith was hammering a piece of a car door into a shield.
It was desperate. It was beautiful.
The rear truck pulled up.
Galen jumped out. He looked green.
"The giant!" Galen shouted to the medics. "Get a hoist! He weighs a ton!"
A crane—built from a tank barrel and pulleys—swung over. Chains were wrapped around Narcissus.
They lifted the comatose cyborg out of the truck bed. He dangled in the air, lifeless.
The soldiers in the courtyard stopped. They stared.
They had seen Sentinel robots. But they had never seen a man who was also a machine.
"Is that... a god?" a young soldier whispered.
"No," Marcus said, stepping forward. "That's a Roman."
The UI in his mind pinged.
[LOCATION: ANTIOCH]
[STATUS: CRITICAL]
[SUPPLIES: 12%]
[MORALE: 15%]
[TIME TO FAILURE: 48 HOURS]
Marcus stared at the text.
48 hours.
"We're cutting it close," Marcus muttered.
Marcia walked up to him. She holstered her shotgun.
"Welcome to the Alamo," she said.
Lucilla climbed out of the second truck. She brushed dust off her pristine white jumpsuit. It was stained now, but she still looked out of place. Like a diamond in a pigsty.
Marcia saw her.
The Legate walked over. She stopped inches from Lucilla's face.
"You," Marcia said.
Lucilla didn't back down. She raised an eyebrow.
"Hello, Marcia. You look... tired."
"And you look clean," Marcia said. "Fix that."
She turned to a nearby soldier.
"Give her a shovel. She digs latrines until she proves she's not a spy."
"I am a Director of the Board," Lucilla said coldly. "I have intel that can save this camp."
"Intel doesn't dig shit," Marcia said. "Move."
The soldier hesitated. Lucilla glared.
"Do it," Marcus said.
Lucilla looked at him, betrayed.
"She's in charge," Marcus said. "Not me."
Lucilla's jaw tightened. She took the shovel.
Marcia turned back to Marcus.
"Come with me," she said. "We need to talk. Alone."
"About the war?"
"About the basement," Marcia said.
She led him toward the central keep. A heavy stone building reinforced with lead sheets.
"We aren't holding this rock because of the walls, Marcus," she said, lowering her voice. "The enemy could have flattened us weeks ago with orbital strikes. They haven't."
"Why?"
"Because they want what's inside," Marcia said.
She stopped at a heavy steel door. It had a keypad. A modern, digital keypad.
"We captured a convoy," she whispered. "Heavy transport. Level 10 security."
"What was in it?"
"A drill," Marcia said. "Or that's what the manifest said."
She punched in a code. The door hissed open.
Cool air rushed out. The hum of high-voltage machinery.
"We brought it here," she said. "Galen's notes... the ones you sent before the blackout... they helped us understand it."
She stepped into the dark.
"It's not just a drill, Marcus. It's a key."
Marcus followed her.
The stairs went down. Deep into the bedrock.
The air grew colder. The hum grew louder. A vibration that he could feel in his teeth.
At the bottom of the stairs, a single floodlight illuminated the chamber.
And there it was.
Massive. Black. A spire of obsidian metal rising twenty feet high. It pulsed with a slow, red light.
[OBJECT IDENTIFIED]
[LEVIATHAN TERRAFORMING UNIT - MK IV]
[STATUS: STANDBY]
"A Leviathan," Marcus breathed. "Like the one that made the volcano."
"Bigger," Marcia said. "This is a Core Bore. It's designed to drill to the center of the planet."
She walked up to the control panel.
"We can't turn it on," she said. "It's biometric. It killed three of my engineers who tried to hack it."
She looked at Marcus. Her eyes were pleading.
"But you... you have the AI. You have the access."
"What do you want to do with it?" Marcus asked. "Dig a hole?"
"No," Marcia said. "Galen said if we reverse the polarity... if we overload the sonic emitters..."
She pointed at the floor.
"It creates a localized earthquake. A tectonic fracture."
"You want to cause an earthquake?"
"The Han army is camped in the valley," Marcia said. "Two million soldiers. If we trigger this... the valley collapses. We swallow them whole."
"That's genocide," Marcus whispered.
"That's war," Marcia said.
She pointed to the hand scanner.
"Open it, Marcus. Give me the weapon."
Marcus looked at the scanner.
His UI flashed red.
[WARNING: ACTIVATION WILL ALERT GLOBAL NETWORK]
[EXECUTIVE VANE WILL DETECT SIGNAL]
He looked at Marcia. She was desperate. She was ready to break the world to save her people.
He stepped forward.
"If I do this," Marcus said, "Vane comes for us. Personally."
"Let him come," Marcia said. "I have a bullet for him too."
Marcus raised his hand.