[Location: Sector 7 - Evacuation Hub] [Time: Life #312. Drop + 00:15:00]
We stacked up outside the Evacuation Hub doors.
Silas was panting, her revolver drawn. The rookie was shaking behind her. They thought this was the end of the line. They thought we were about to rescue the civilians.
I held a shaped anti-armor charge in my flesh hand. In my silver hand, I held a thermal flare.
"When the doors open, drop to the floor and cover your ears," I ordered, my voice entirely devoid of inflection.
"Rookie, what are you talking about?" Silas demanded. "The transports are in there!"
"Just do it."
The doors hissed open.
The hangar was pitch black. The dreadnought was waiting.
Adaptation successful. Trap triggered.
Before the mechanical voice even finished echoing, I cracked the thermal flare and hurled it as hard as I could to the far left corner of the room. It erupted in a blinding, 4000-degree white light.
The machine's sensors instantly snapped toward the highest thermal signature. Its heavy metallic head turned to the left.
"Down!" I barked.
Silas and the rookie dropped.
The dreadnought's plasma cannons began to glow blue. I counted the milliseconds in my head, a metronome forged from three hundred deaths.
Point two... point four... point six...
The upper chassis shifted. Two small metal flaps hissed open, venting a cloud of orange steam.
Point eight.
I threw the shaped charge.
I didn't use my flesh arm. I used the Ouroboros. The servos whined, calculating the exact trajectory, wind resistance, and arc needed. The charge sailed through the air like a bullet, slipping perfectly through the six-inch gap of the exhaust vent just as the flaps began to close.
Clank.
"Fire in the hole," I muttered, turning my back.
KA-THOOM.
The muffled explosion echoed from deep inside the machine's chest cavity. The blue glow in its plasma cannons instantly sputtered and died. The dreadnought let out a horrific, grinding screech of twisting metal.
Its internal fusion core collapsed. The massive, three-story machine swayed for a moment, then crashed to the hangar floor with the force of an earthquake, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and ash.
Dead silence followed.
Silas slowly lifted her head from the floor. She stared at the smoking, ruined chassis of the Executioner-Class dreadnought. Then, she looked at me.
I was standing perfectly still. Blood was streaming steadily from my nose, both of my ears, and the corners of my eyes. The neurological strain of holding 312 consecutive timelines in an 18-year-old brain was tearing my blood vessels apart.
I took one step forward, and my knees buckled.
Silas caught me before I hit the ground.
"Medic!" she screamed, holding my face. "Rookie, stay with me! What is happening to you?!"
"I'm... fine," I choked out, spitting black blood onto her pristine armor. "Check... check the transports. The civilians."
The rookie kid scrambled to his feet and ran toward the row of grounded transport ships at the back of the hangar. He hit the manual release on the nearest cargo door.
He looked inside. And then he fell to his knees and threw up.
Silas gently laid me down and ran over to the ship. She looked inside, and the color completely drained from her face. Her hand dropped away from her gun.
"They're gone," Silas whispered, her voice hollow.
I forced myself up on my elbows, my vision swimming.
The transports weren't full of civilians. They were full of corpses. The Algorithm hadn't set a trap to stop us from rescuing them. It had slaughtered them hours ago, piled the bodies in the ships, and used the distress beacon as bait to lure high-value Federation targets into the dreadnought's path.
I had died three hundred and eleven times for a graveyard.
I laid my head back down on the cold concrete. I looked up at the shattered glass of the hangar ceiling, watching the black smoke choke the sky.
I didn't cry. I didn't scream. The last remaining fragment of Cadet Caelum—the boy who wanted to fly, the boy who thought he could save everyone—quietly evaporated.
In his place, a cold, empty weapon remained.
Dr. Aris was right. I wasn't going to save humanity. I was just going to kill the Algorithm, no matter how many times I had to die to do it.
"Command," Silas's voice trembled over her radio. "This is Vanguard Squad. The Hub is secure. But... there's no one left to save."