The gunfire finally stopped.
Four hours into the deployment, Caleb ejected his twelfth empty magazine. It landed among the dead crawlers piled around his boots. The bodies had backed up the runoff until it reached his knees.
Bristow rested her phase-blade against a shield. Its edge flickered on reserve power. The shield carrier beside Caleb shook out one hand, then put it back through the straps. Nobody had enough breath left to celebrate.
Thirty thousand people were watching Caleb's feed. A message from the surface channel slid across his visor: First Division had killed the Class-8. Barrett had taken its head off with the Mass-Driver.
Kei lowered his rifle. Taichi leaned against the derailed subway car behind them and tipped his head back.
Caleb kept the muzzle up.
At drop-in, the water had been cold enough to hurt his knees. Now heat worked through the wet canvas under his armor. Steam rose between the carcasses.
The old transit line ran just beneath the street. The Titan's falling body could have broken a pipe above them. Caleb looked for clean water pouring through the ceiling, but the cracks dripped the same filthy runoff.
He had cut up fresh Kaiju cores in the yards. They held heat for hours. They did not get hotter after the beast was dead.
"Vice Captain. The water's heating up."
Bristow lifted a boot out of the sludge and checked the thermal reading on her wrist. She looked past the shield wall into the steam.
"Back to the platform. Keep the shields facing forward."
Before the line could move, Barrett's voice reached them.
"Seventh Division. Frontline is compromised. Abandon the shield wall. Fall back to the secondary platform now."
Kei turned toward the rear tunnel. Caleb caught his shoulder plate with his left hand.
"Check that order."
"What?"
The voice came again, louder. Caleb heard it through the water and concrete around him. Barrett's name had not appeared on the command channel. The other helmets were picking up a sound in the tunnel, not receiving a transmission from above.
"It's in front of us," Caleb said.
Bristow raised a fist. The veterans stopped before they could turn their shields.
"Command, authenticate that order."
Only static answered.
A heavy impact shook the roof. Caleb looked up as a crack opened along the center of the tunnel. Dust fell into his eyes. The shield carrier drove him toward the platform steps.
The street came down.
Concrete slabs struck the tracks, throwing hot water against the walls. A section of road caught across the tunnel at an angle. Daylight showed between its broken edges.
Caleb went under. His rifle struck the rail and pulled him sideways by its sling. He kicked until his boot found the platform steps, then shoved himself above the water.
Kei was coughing beside him. Taichi dragged a veteran clear of a sliding slab. Farther down the line, Bristow's shield team had been forced behind the derailed car. Fresh rubble blocked the space between them.
"Stay on your side," Bristow called. "Do not climb over it."
The local channel broke into static before Caleb could answer.
Above them, Barrett stood on the sloping road slab. The Mass-Driver's barrel glowed orange. He planted a boot against a bent section of guardrail and looked into the hole where the transit roof had been.
Suzu followed him down from the street, rifle raised. Her white armor was cracked along one shoulder. Two First Division soldiers covered them from the rim.
She stopped when she saw Caleb in the water.
"You're supposed to be behind a shield."
He pointed at the buried subway car. "It was a better plan before the roof fell on it."
A child began crying beneath the crushed transport truck at Barrett's feet.
Suzu swung her rifle toward the sound. Barrett held up one hand.
"Cover the gap. Medics, wait at the rim."
The crying continued. It came from under the truck, where nobody on the street could see.
Caleb heard a wet click beneath the sobs. He looked at the steam rising around Barrett's boots.
"Captain, that voice came from the tunnel before the collapse."
Barrett stopped beside the truck. "Same voice?"
"It used yours."
One of the soldiers above them checked his visor. "Thermal's blocked by the slab. Could still be someone under there."
Barrett shifted the Mass-Driver across his chest. With his free hand, he pulled at a broken panel of the truck, leaving the soldiers a firing lane into the gap.
The crying stopped.
A black-plated limb came through the opening.
Barrett brought the Mass-Driver up. The first blow caught its housing. The second passed under it and cut his right leg just below the thigh.
He fell against the sloping slab. Blood ran down the concrete into the tunnel.
The creature unfolded over him, forcing the heavy weapon against his chest. Barrett tried to push it away with both arms. Its bladed forelimb lifted again.
Suzu fired at the gap beneath its head.
Plasma burst across a plate as it turned. The creature released Barrett and drove toward her.
The soldiers on the rim fired. Rounds tore concrete from the slab beside Caleb. One hit the creature's foreleg and skipped into the wall.
"Hold that lane!" Barrett shouted.
Two veterans reached him from behind the truck. One shoved a trauma clamp against the stump while the other pulled him back toward the street. The Mass-Driver scraped across the concrete between them. Barrett kept pointing at the creature until a medic caught his arm.
Caleb's chat had stopped scrolling. The viewer count kept rising.
The creature turned its head toward the rim.
"Hold that lane," it said in Barrett's voice.
One soldier lowered his rifle before the other grabbed the barrel and forced it back up.
Suzu backed toward the broken end of the slab. She fired again, lower this time. The plasma struck a joint and left a bright scar, but the creature kept coming.
There was no room behind her. The transit platform sat below the slab's broken edge.
"Down here!" Kei shouted.
Suzu glanced toward him. The creature lunged while her eyes were off it.
Caleb climbed one step out of the water and threw himself across her path. His left shoulder struck her waist. He caught her harness with his good hand and drove both of them off the edge.
The blade clipped her left chest plate as they fell. White armor broke against his cheek.
They hit the platform railing. Something cracked under Caleb's ribs. His rifle sling snagged on the twisted metal, tore free, and dropped the weapon into the runoff.
Suzu rolled onto the ledge. Caleb slipped through the broken rail and struck the water on his right side. His strained shoulder folded beneath him.
Above the surface, Kei was shouting his name.
Caleb found the edge of the tile with his left hand. He tried to breathe and could not get enough air to answer.