The deployment pod opened over knee-deep water.
Caleb hit the floor of Sector Four's transit line and felt the city move above him. Dust sifted from the tunnel roof. Somewhere on the surface, a Class-8 Titan was walking through the streets.
The water pushed against his legs when he stood. A row of emergency floodlights flickered along the tracks, leaving the far bend dark. Another step from the Titan pressed through the ceiling supports and sent a slow wave against the platform wall.
Vice Captain Mabel Bristow raised her phase-blade.
"Perimeter first. Shields in front. Rookies stay behind the line. Nobody chases one past the bend."
Caleb took position behind a veteran carrying a tungsten shield. Kei stood on his left. Taichi took the other side with a scatter-gun tucked against his shoulder.
Kei checked his ammunition counter, then checked it again. Taichi pumped a round into the chamber and looked down the track instead of at either of them. The shield carrier pointed to a gap beside his right shoulder. Caleb settled his rifle there.
The water carried rust and oil around Caleb's boots. His rifle was heavy in the surplus suit. He kept the barrel up and waited.
The suit's fibers took some of the weight, but the stock still pressed against his bruised right shoulder. He shifted it a fraction lower. If he fired from there for long, he would pay for it.
The chittering started in the dark.
Hundreds of Scavenger-class Yoju poured into the tunnel. They ran low through the water, black shells scraping the rails as they fled the Titan above.
The front of the swarm came within twenty yards. Bodies behind it kept pushing, piling crawlers against one another. The water broke white around their legs.
"Hold," Bristow said.
The shield wall locked into the mud.
Kei's barrel tapped Caleb's shoulder plate. Caleb glanced left. Kei was trying to keep the muzzle steady and failing.
"Fire."
Ballistic rounds tore through the front of the swarm. Caleb fired with the veterans, aiming into the moving mass instead of chasing individual bodies. The recoil struck his shoulder with each burst. He watched the veterans' tracers and adjusted until his rounds met the same line of shells.
The tunnel filled with black fluid and broken shell.
A green public icon burned in the corner of his visor. Six thousand viewers were already watching. One comment about Seventh Division getting the worst assignments passed under the count; another asked why the camera was behind the shields. Caleb pushed both out of his sightline.
The shield carrier in front of Caleb shouted for another magazine. A crawler struck his shield hard enough to drive him back a step. Bristow cut it down before it could climb over the rim.
Kei's breathing turned fast in the comms. "They keep coming."
"That's what a swarm does," Caleb said.
"You're not helping."
Caleb fired until his magazine clicked empty. He dropped it into the water and reached for another. The rifle's weight pulled at his shoulder, but the suit's weak fibers kept the muzzle above the surface.
The spent magazine steamed where it landed. Caleb slapped the replacement home and fired past the shield carrier's ear. He could hear the man's breathing over the local channel, hard and even, counting time between impacts.
The ground shifted. Water climbed another inch up Caleb's shins. Taichi dropped to reload. Caleb stepped across to cover the gap.
"Right side is yours," Taichi said. A loose shell slid from his fingers into the water. He swore and reached for another. Caleb widened his firing angle, keeping the nearest crawler off him while he worked.
A crawler vaulted over the shield wall on a pile of dead bodies.
It slammed into Kei's chest plate and sent him stumbling into the water. The shield carrier could not turn without opening the front line. Bristow was farther down the formation, her blade locked against a crawler climbing another shield.
Kei pulled the trigger. His rifle clicked empty. The crawler raised its jaws.
Kei tried to bring the empty weapon across his face. The crawler knocked it aside. Its front legs found purchase on his shoulder plate.
Caleb dropped his rifle and drew the combat knife.
He did not aim for the skull. The shell was too thick and the angle was wrong.
At the disposal yard, he had seen the same hinge on a dozen dead crawlers. Their shells had turned a saw, but the pale synovial membrane showed for less than a second when a jaw opened wide. A cut there took the strength out of the bite.
The memory came with the smell of bleach and hot meat.
The crawler opened its mouth.
Caleb stepped inside the reach and drove the knife beneath the jaw. The pale membrane parted under the edge. The jaw sagged.
He twisted the blade free and drove his armored boot into the knee. The crawler collapsed into the water, its legs scraping at the rail.
Caleb grabbed Kei's harness and pulled him clear.
The crawler thrashed at their boots. Acid sprayed across Caleb's shin plate. He dragged Kei behind the shield wall before the creature's legs went still.
Taichi racked his scatter-gun. "I've got the right again. Get him up." Caleb hauled Kei against the platform edge, where he could plant a boot without slipping.
"Check your ammunition before you drop your sightline."
Kei nodded, breathing hard. He slapped a fresh magazine into the rifle.
Caleb picked up his own weapon. Pain tore through his strained right shoulder. The hunger followed it, opening beneath his ribs.
Acid rose in his throat. He swallowed it and kept firing.
His sight blurred for a beat. If he fell forward, the water was deep enough to fill his helmet before anyone could pull him free. He planted his boots against the rail and forced his eyes back to the front of the swarm.
The public feed had found him. The viewer count climbed, but the numbers were less important than the credits attached to them. Credits paid the debt.
Bristow cut through another crawler at the front of the shield wall.
"Keep the bodies from building a ramp," she called. "Push them back."
Caleb braced the rifle against his shoulder. The suit steadied the barrel. His arm shook anyway.
He fired into the swarm.
The viewers climbed past fourteen thousand. The feed pushed his face and the knife kill into the public rotation. Caleb saw the engagement figure flash beside the credit estimate and forced himself to keep breathing.
Someone in the chat called him the disposal worker who had gone in with a knife. Another wanted the clip from Kei's angle. Kei stood close enough to hear Caleb's uneven breath, and the feed was making a highlight out of the seconds he had nearly lost him.
The parasite took something from every movement. Heat scraped through his chest. His vision narrowed at the edges.
Kei touched his shoulder plate. "You're going pale."
"Keep your rifle up."
"You need a medic."
"Get the line clear first."
Bristow called for the shields to advance. The carrier ahead of Caleb shoved a pile of dead crawlers off his rim. Caleb stepped with him, keeping his rifle in the gap as the line pushed through the water and the bodies.