Wind screamed through ruptured skylights, scattering dust across the gutted laboratory. Emergency lanterns cast shaky halos over cracked workbenches and dormant gene vats. Alaric's heartbeat thrummed in his ears with the same tempo as distant rotor blades. Council dropships—several—closed in, their searchlights already painting wide circles over the desert scrub.
Selene snapped a magazine into her compact SMG and racked the bolt with practiced finality. "Strikes in six minutes. Interior turrets are decades dead; every wall is chokepoint or coffin." She glanced at the flickering holomap Patch had stitched together from the compound's half-ruined schematics. "We hold them long enough to burn or seal the data."
Patch's fingers flew across his portable deck, sweat beading on his brow. "I've severed the satellite handshake, but an old auto-failsafe pushed a cache fragment to an off-site node. Council can't decrypt quickly, but they know location. We have maybe twenty minutes before they override my block."
Asha laid three satchel charges around the central column where the Seraphim helix still spun, ghost-bright. "Blow the lab, walk away, choice solved," he suggested with a wry clack of metal fingers.
Lia shook her head, silver hair catching lantern light. "This formula could save millions if we control it." Her hand brushed the warm lockbox at Alaric's belt, a gentle but possessive touch.
Alaric felt the quiet gravity of her words settle into his bones. Power was here—too much power—and the Council would wield it like a cudgel. Selene's gray eyes regarded him over her mask's edge, asking an unspoken question: keep or raze?
He took a breath that tasted of old disinfectant and desert dust. "We hold until Patch finishes a deep-encrypt. Then we ghost with Seraphim. If the Council can't own it, we make sure no one can copy it."
Selene replaced her mask and nodded once.
The first rocket slammed into the outer fence. Vibrations rattled ceiling beams, showering sparks. Council troopers in midnight armor advanced through the breach, rifles glowing with charged rails. Turret ghosts in the hallway flickered—dead. Alaric's danger sense flared like a struck gong.
He nothinged the moment, letting new Strength and Agility flow into motion. Lia took her place beside him, dagger in one hand, liberated rail-pistol in the other, posture coiled and fierce. Asha knelt at a side corridor with a light machine gun braced on a broken surgical table.
Selene became a shadow, disappearing onto a suspended catwalk overhead.
The first wave stormed in: six shock troopers in tactical pattern, stun shields raised. A rail bolt sizzled past Alaric's ear, blowing apart a column of dusty reagent jars. He charged low and fast—knife flashing under the shield lip, plunging into a knee seam. The trooper dropped with a metallic howl. Lia darted in his wake, pistol barking twice; two visors spider-webbed and went dark.
Asha's LMG roared, stitching phosphorus arcs that chewed armor plates. Troopers scattered, but Selene descended like midnight itself, sword carving across a spine. She landed fluidly, booted a second assailant backward into Asha's kill-zone. Blood misted orange under emergency lamps.
System text tingled across Alaric's vision: Stealth +0.7 %. He barely registered it.
More rockets smashed through upper vents—Council drones disgorged micro-sentries that clung to walls, firing shrill flechettes. Patch yelped as needles pinged his monitor. Lia flung a flash capsule; the drones spun blind, and Alaric vaulted a surgery gurney to slam one mid-swarm, wrenching out its power core. Sparks fountained against his jacket, but Vitality cushioned the searing heat.
A squad commander strode in—taller armor, crackling energy halberd. He drove the shaft into the floor, loosing a shockwave. Alaric felt his muscles lock, electricity biting nerves. Selene's throwing spike skidded off the commander's shoulder; Asha's belt of rounds clanged off an active shield.
Lia fired—rail bolt pierced the commander's elbow joint, making him roar. That small stagger broke the shockwave hold. Alaric lunged with new strength, burying his knife between thoracic plates, twisting until servos screamed. The halberd hissed offline; the commander sagged.
Another message bloomed: Strength +0.3 %. He breathed through the rush.
Patch glanced up from the core console, eyes wild. "Encrypt at seventy percent! I need eight minutes!"
"Make it five," Alaric growled, yanking the commander's sidearm free.
The next wave thundered—riot drones rolling low, mesh launchers primed. Selene cursed under her breath: "Breach pattern Delta." Too many to hold forever.
Alaric toggled his comm bead. "Griggs, if you can hear, light our beacon."
Static fuzz—then the landlord's gravel voice: "Copy. Fire in the sky, boy."
Above them the compound's forgotten flare cannons auto-cycled. Asha had wired them to old distress codes earlier. Now they hammered mortar tubes, hurling magnesium stars that bloomed over the desert—bright enough for every bounty crew within ten klicks. If the Council wanted Seraphim, they'd have to fight half the underworld for it.
Confusion erupted outside—distant gunfire not their own.
Inside, troopers hesitated, receivers buzzing. Selene pounced on that heartbeat, slicing through drone carriers, her sword a white ribbon. Lia used a scavenged shield, deflecting flechettes back into drone vents. Alaric surged, grabbing a trooper by his faceplate, slamming him into a reactor console that sparked, frying circuitry and flesh alike.
Patch screamed, "Ninety-eight percent! Almost!"
A plasma grenade bounced near the core rack. Alaric dove, caught it mid-roll, and hurled it back down the corridor where Council reinforcements clustered. The explosion painted the walls with thermal bloom, screams echoing.
Patch slammed a hand on the console. "Done! Encrypt keyed to Vale genome only. Anyone else tries, code fries."
Selene sheathed her blade. "Extraction."
They fell back toward a rear loading tunnel—Asha primed satchel charges on the data racks. Lia guided Patch, who trembled but clutched his deck like a holy relic.
At the blast doors, Alaric looked back—troopers poured into the lab, red optics sweeping over explosives blinking green. He slammed the manual override. Steel shuttered.
Asha clicked the remote. The world behind them erupted—shockwave chased them down the tunnel, heat licking their heels. They burst into desert air as the compound's roof ballooned in a fireball, flares still streaking above like dying meteors.
They didn't stop till they reached the jeep latent behind a dune. Selene tossed Alaric a canteen; he gulped, heart pounding like drums of war.
Patch slumped in the sand, laughing hysterically. "We lived."
Lia leaned into Alaric's side, head on his shoulder, pulse racing against his ribs. Her whisper brushed his ear: "We live so we can rule."
He held her close, gaze fixed on the inferno where his family's past had burned—and future possibilities blazed.
Selene joined them, mask under her arm. Her eyes reflected the flames. "Council will howl. Zenith will drown in blood and bounty. But we hold the only key now."
Alaric nodded, fists tightening around the warm lockbox. "Then we decide tomorrow who deserves a new world."
Thunder rolled across the desert, but it was the hunger in their hearts that truly shook the night.