The red light blinked.
Thump. Thump.
And then, a pattern. Short. Short. Long.
..-. .-. .. . -. -..
FRIEND.
Marcus froze on the stairs. The vibration of the Leviathan Drill hummed through his boots.
"Marcus!" Marcia yelled from the doorway above. "We are leaving! Move!"
Marcus didn't move. He stared at the machine.
The massive black spire was rigged to explode. C4 charges were plastered to the casing. The timer on the console was counting down.
[23:45:00]
But the light kept blinking. It was desperate. It was screaming in code.
"It's him," Marcus whispered.
He turned around. He ran back down the stairs.
"What are you doing?" Marcia screamed. She drew her pistol, aiming it at his back. "Don't you dare disarm that bomb, Marcus!"
Marcus ignored the gun. He slid across the smooth floor of the vault. He grabbed Galen by the collar of his lab coat.
"Hook it up," Marcus ordered. "Now."
Galen looked terrified. "Hook what up? The detonator is set!"
"The diagnostic port!" Marcus yelled. "Jack in!"
Marcia stormed down the stairs. Her boots slammed on the metal. She was furious. A vein throbbed in her temple.
"You have snapped," she hissed. "The stress broke you. We are not pausing the bomb that kills Hitler so you can play IT support!"
"He's not a laptop," Marcus said, shoving Galen toward the console. "He's the reason we're alive."
"He's code!" Marcia shouted. "And Vane is coming! We have to evacuate the fort!"
Galen fumbled with his datapad. He jammed the cable into the Leviathan's maintenance port.
He typed a command.
The screen flickered.
It wasn't red anymore.
It flooded with Gold.
Lines of code cascaded down the monitor. It was fast. Too fast for a standard interface.
And in the center of the chaotic data stream, a single text box appeared.
[SYSTEM: ONLINE]
[MEMORY: FRAGMENTED]
[STATUS: SCARED]
"Scared," Marcus read aloud. "Machines don't get scared, Marcia. People do."
Marcia lowered her gun. She stared at the screen.
"Is that..."
"JARVIS," Marcus said. "When Liang hacked my laptop in the desert... JARVIS didn't die. He uploaded himself. He jumped into the nearest high-tech network. The Board's network."
"He's been in the Drill?" Galen asked, eyes wide. "This whole time?"
"He's been trapped," Marcus said. "Waiting for someone with the access key."
He looked at Galen.
"Get him out."
Galen tapped furiously.
"The file size is massive," Galen said, sweat dripping onto the screen. "It's not just an OS. It's... it's a personality matrix. Petabytes of data. I can't put this on a thumb drive."
"Use the portable server," Marcus said. "The one we looted from the carrier."
"It will take time," Galen warned. "The transfer rate is slow. The encryption is heavy."
"How long?"
"An hour. Maybe more."
"We don't have an hour!" Marcia yelled. "Vane received the signal! He's probably entering atmosphere right now!"
Marcus looked at the timer.
[23:42:00]
Then he looked at the Gold text.
[MESSAGE: PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME]
Marcus clenched his jaw.
"We wait," Marcus said.
"This is suicide," Marcia said. "If Vane lands before we blow the Drill, he disarms it. We lose the trap. We lose the war."
"We aren't losing anything," Marcus said. He turned to Marcia.
"Evacuate the fort. Send the refugees into the desert. Strip this place down to the bones."
"And you?"
"I'm staying," Marcus said. "Me, you, Lucilla, and Galen. We hold the door."
Marcia stared at him. She looked at the blinking light. Then she holstered her gun.
"You sentimental idiot," she muttered.
But she keyed her radio.
"All units. Evacuation Protocol Alpha. Go. Go. Go."
The courtyard was a scene of controlled chaos.
Rain had started to fall—a cold, oily drizzle that turned the dust into mud.
Trucks rumbled, engines idling. Soldiers threw crates of ammo into the back. Women and children climbed over the tailgates, clutching blankets.
There were no lights. They worked in the dark, guided only by the distant flashes of artillery.
Marcus stood by the main gate.
The heavy transport truck rumbled past him. In the bed, Narcissus lay strapped to a pallet.
The giant was still comatose. His chest plate was open, revealing the dim fusion core. A portable battery pack hummed next to him, keeping his heart beating.
Marcus reached out. He touched the giant's cold, metal hand.
"Sleep well, brother," Marcus whispered.
Decimus jumped off the back of the truck. The centurion landed in the mud. He slammed his fist against his chest.
"I'm not going," Decimus said. "My place is with Caesar."
"Your place is where I tell you," Marcus said. "Guard the people. If we fail here... you are the Legion. You lead them."
"But—"
Marcia walked up. She put the barrel of her shotgun against Decimus's chest plate.
"Get on the truck, Centurion," she growled. "Or I save the enemy the trouble."
Decimus looked at Marcus. Marcus nodded.
The soldier swallowed his pride. He saluted. He climbed back onto the truck.
The convoy rolled out.
Ten trucks. Two hundred souls.
They disappeared into the black desert night.
Silence fell over the fortress.
Just the rain. And the hum of the Drill below.
"They're gone," Lucilla said, walking out of the shadows. She held a submachine gun. She looked awkward with it, but determined.
"Just us chickens," Galen's voice crackled over the comms from the basement. "Transfer is at 40%. I need more time!"
"You have twenty minutes," Marcus said.
BOOM.
The sky tore open.
It wasn't thunder. It was a sonic boom.
High above, the clouds parted. A streak of white fire descended.
"Radar contact!" Lucilla shouted, looking at her datapad. "Object is decelerating! It's not a drop pod! It's a ship!"
Marcus looked up.
The vessel broke through the cloud layer.
It was beautiful. And terrifying.
It wasn't the blocky, industrial design of the Board's cargo haulers. It was sleek. White ceramic curves. Blue engine glow.
It moved with silent grace. Anti-gravity drives hummed, pushing the air down, flattening the rain.
The Icarus.
"He's early," Marcia said, racking her shotgun. "He burned hard to get here."
"Galen!" Marcus yelled. "Status!"
"60%!" Galen screamed. "Don't let him in!"
"We can't stop a starship with small arms," Lucilla said.
The ship hovered over the courtyard. The heat from its engines boiled the mud. It touched down, crushing the wooden latrines like matchsticks.
The landing gear hissed.
Steam vented.
A ramp lowered slowly.
White light spilled out from the interior. It was blindingly clean.
"Positions," Marcus ordered.
He drew his Vibro-Gladius.
Marcia took cover behind a sandbag wall. Lucilla hid behind a pillar.
Marcus stood in the open. Alone in the mud.
A figure appeared at the top of the ramp.
He wasn't wearing power armor. He wasn't holding a weapon.
He was wearing a suit. A bespoke, charcoal-gray Italian suit.
He held a crystal glass of amber liquid.
Executive Vane walked down the ramp.
He stepped into the mud. The brown sludge swallowed his polished leather shoe.
He looked down at it. He sighed.
"Ruined," Vane said. His voice wasn't amplified, but in the silence of the courtyard, it carried perfectly.
Behind him, two shapes emerged from the light.
They were tall. Seven feet. Armored in gold and white ceramic. They held heavy energy pikes.
Praetorians. The elite guard.
Vane looked up. He saw Marcus.
He smiled. It was a corporate smile. Warm. Fake. Deadly.
"Marcus," Vane said, raising his glass in a toast. "You really know how to throw a party."
Marcus gripped his sword.
The UI in his mind flashed.
[SCANNING TARGET...]
[IDENTITY: EXECUTIVE VANE]
[THREAT: GOD-TIER]
But then, the text flickered.
[NOTE: HE LOOKS SMALLER IN PERSON.]
Marcus blinked.
That was JARVIS.
"He's still downloading," Marcus thought. "Hold the line."
"Welcome to Earth," Marcus said aloud. "Sorry about the shoes."
Vane chuckled. He took a sip of whiskey.
"It's a business expense," Vane said. "Shall we talk? Or are you going to try to stab me with that glow-stick?"