The ground beneath the fortress groaned. It wasn't a rumble; it was a death rattle.
The Leviathan Drill in the basement wasn't just hot. It was critical.
"Core collapse in five minutes!" Galen shrieked over the comms. "The containment field is failing! The first blast was a burp. The next one takes the mountain!"
Marcus stood over the fallen Praetorian. The rain hissed on his Vibro-Blade.
The exit—the main gate—was blocked. The Titan Sentinel stood in the way, its massive chassis filling the arch. It had pulled its leg free from the cistern. It was angry.
Its plasma cannon glowed, recharging for a shot that would glass the entire courtyard.
Above, the Icarus listed in the air. Smoke poured from its port engine.
Executive Vane stood on the ramp, fifty feet up. He was screaming into his wrist comm.
"Launch! Get us out of here!"
"Sir," the ship's AI boomed over the loudspeakers. "Structural damage detected. Lift capacity reduced."
"I don't care!" Vane shrieked. "Leave the Titan! Just go!"
The Icarus thrusters flared blue. The ship began to rise, abandoning the giant robot to kill the Romans.
Marcus watched the ship ascend.
"He's leaving," Marcia yelled, reloading her shotgun. "He's getting away!"
"No," Marcus said. "He's not."
He looked at the Titan. Its shields were recharging. Small arms fire bounced off harmlessly.
Then he looked at the crate near the sandbags. The last of their special inventory.
[ITEM: GRENADE - TYPE: GREEK FIRE]
[QUANTITY: 1]
"Marcia!" Marcus pointed. "The grenade! Give it to me!"
Marcia grabbed the green canister. She threw it to him.
Marcus caught it.
He didn't look at the Titan. He looked at the Icarus. specifically, at the intake turbine of the starboard engine, which was sucking in air to lift the massive yacht.
"JARVIS," Marcus thought. "I need a throw."
[CALCULATING TRAJECTORY...]
[WIND SPEED: 15 KNOTS SE.]
[TARGET VELOCITY: ASCENDING.]
A gold arc appeared in Marcus's vision. A perfect parabola leading from his hand to the engine intake.
[WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY: 1.2 SECONDS.]
Marcus pulled the pin.
He stepped forward. He wound up.
He threw.
The canister spiraled through the rain. It soared over the Titan's head.
Vane, standing on the ramp, watched it come. His eyes went wide.
"No," Vane whispered.
The grenade hit the lip of the intake. It bounced once.
Then, the suction caught it.
THWOOMP.
It disappeared into the turbine.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, the engine glowed green.
BOOM.
The Greek Fire detonated inside the combustion chamber. The turbine blades shattered. The chemical fire melted the fuel lines instantly.
The starboard engine exploded in a ball of emerald flame.
The Icarus lurched violently to the right. It lost lift.
"Brace!" Marcus yelled.
The starship fell.
It didn't hit the ground. It hit the Titan.
CRASH.
Millions of tons of luxury ceramic and hyper-alloy slammed into the Sentinel.
The Titan crumpled. Its legs buckled under the weight of the yacht. The Icarus smashed the robot into the courtyard floor, pinning it under a burning mountain of debris.
The shockwave knocked Marcus flat.
Fire—green and orange—erupted into the sky.
Marcus scrambled up.
"Go! Go! Go!" he screamed.
He ran toward the basement stairs.
"Galen! Get out!"
Galen burst from the smoke. He was covered in white dust, looking like a ghost. He clutched a heavy black server drive to his chest.
"I got him!" Galen coughed. "I got the core!"
"The car!" Lucilla pointed.
Near the wreckage of the Icarus, untouched by the crash, sat a small vehicle.
It had fallen off the ramp when the ship tilted.
It was a rover. But not a military one. It was a luxury escape pod on wheels. White leather seats. Bubble canopy. Gold rims.
Vane's personal ride.
"Steal it!" Marcus ordered.
They sprinted across the broken stones. The heat from the burning ship was intense.
Marcia vaulted into the driver's seat. She punched the ignition.
"It's biometric!" she cursed. "It won't start!"
Marcus jumped into the passenger seat.
[INTERFACE DETECTED.]
[HACKING...]
The console screen flickered.
[ACCESS GRANTED. HELLO, USER 'VANE_SUCKS'.]
The engine purred to life. Silent electric power.
"Drive!" Marcus yelled.
Marcia slammed the throttle.
The rover shot forward. It had torque. It hit sixty in three seconds.
They swerved around the burning Titan leg. They smashed through the debris of the main gate.
They hit the open desert.
"Faster!" Galen screamed from the back seat. "The mountain is cracking!"
Marcus looked back.
The fortress of Antioch was glowing.
The cracks in the ground were glowing red. The Leviathan Drill was melting the bedrock.
A beam of light shot up from the crater.
Then, the earth inhaled.
The fortress imploded.
The walls fell inward. The mountain collapsed into the liquid hole created by the drill.
And then, it exhaled.
KABOOM.
The shockwave was visible. A ripple in the air moving at the speed of sound.
It tore up the dunes. It flattened the palm trees.
It hit the rover.
The car was lifted off the ground. It flew for twenty feet.
It landed hard, suspension screaming. It spun out, sliding sideways down a dune.
Marcia fought the wheel.
"Hold on!"
The rover came to a rest in a cloud of sand.
Silence.
Marcus opened his eyes. He checked his limbs. Still attached.
He looked out the back window.
Antioch was gone.
There was no fortress. Just a massive, smoking crater in the desert. A glass bowl where a mountain used to be.
"We did it," Lucilla breathed. "We killed the drill."
"And Vane?" Galen asked.
They looked at the burning wreck of the Icarus in the distance. It was a twisted heap of slag.
"Nobody survived that," Marcia said.
Marcus touched his temple.
"JARVIS?"
[SCANNING WRECKAGE...]
[LIFE SIGNS: NEGATIVE.]
[HOWEVER...]
[DETECTING ENCRYPTED TRANSMISSION BURST 0.5 SECONDS BEFORE IMPACT.]
"He uploaded," Marcus realized. "He didn't die. He beamed his consciousness back to the station. Or to a clone."
"He's a cockroach," Lucilla said bitterly. "You can't kill him with fire."
"But we hurt him," Marcus said. "We destroyed his ship. We destroyed his Drill. And we have his car."
He tapped the dashboard console.
"Lucilla. Check the nav logs."
Lucilla leaned forward. She tapped the screen.
"This rover... it's linked to Vane's personal network. It has his waypoints."
She scrolled through the map.
"Paris. New York. Shanghai."
She stopped.
"Rome."
"Rome?" Marcus asked. "Rome is a crater. The Board glassed it."
"Not the city," Lucilla said. her eyes widening. "The site beneath it. The Vatican Vaults."
She turned the screen to show them.
"There's a marker. [PROJECT: OLYMPUS GROUND ZERO]."
"That's where he's going," Marcus said. "That's the endgame. Whatever is under the Vatican... it's what he really wants."
Marcia looked at the steering wheel. She revved the engine.
"We have a full charge," she said. "And no speed limit."
Marcus looked West. Back toward the sea. Back toward home.
"We aren't running anymore," Marcus said.
He looked at his team.
Marcia, the Warlord.
Narcissus (waiting with the refugees), the Titan.
Lucilla, the Spy.
Galen, the Architect.
And JARVIS, the God.
"We're going to Rome," Marcus said.
[DESTINATION SET.]
[PLAYLIST: 'THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN'.]
The rover sped off into the night, leaving the burning ruin of the war behind them.
The Tutorial was over.
The Conquest had begun.