The Long War - Chapter 17 (Patreon)

New Taiyuan Outskirts, Shanxi, Iota Persei System 

September 13th, 2149CE - Systems Alliance Calendar 

David Anderson 

The Cascade fired.  

Across the service road, the alien soldier at the western portable projector disappeared from the shoulders up. His body struck the control housing on the way down, blue blood streaking the metal as the projector collapsed.  

'Move,' Alec said.  

Anderson was already out from beneath the irrigation ditch.  

He crossed the first ten meters in a crouched run, Falchion tight against his shoulder. The suppressor extended beyond the barrel, dark and wet with irrigation spray. The road sentry turned toward Susan's ridge instead of the movement at ground level. Anderson fired before the rifle finished coming around. After the first burst broke the barrier, the heavy round went through the visor and put the Turian flat against the checkpoint wall.  

Twenty meters left, Lucas came up under the camouflage netting around the parked vehicles. His rifle gave three flat, suppressed whuff followed by a faint electrical snap that would be impossible to hear if not for the link Sierra shared. One crewman folded beside the transport hatch. The second got halfway through a turn before Lucas put a round through his chest.  

Lucas crossed beneath the net, slapped magnetic lockouts onto the transport and scout vehicle, then disappeared along the checkpoint's eastern side.  

'Vehicles are cold'  

'Hold east,' Alec said.  

'Holding.'  

Aria's timer sat low in Anderson's visor.  

TRAFFIC BLINDNESS: 00:04  

Checkpoint Eleven's eastern service door opened before the four seconds were gone.  

A Turian infantryman stepped out with his rifle low, attention fixed on the cameras that had just stopped feeding. Anderson fired on the move. Blue light rolled across the alien's barrier. His second burst found his central mass and drove him backward through the doorway.  

Alec reached the western entrance as Anderson took the east.  

At the edge of Anderson's tactical display, a single number remained fixed beside a buried structural outline.  

307.  

He did not need anything else from that icon while bullets were moving.  

Less than ten minutes earlier, Lucas had been checking the load paths for their demolition charges when the checkpoint’s foundations resolved into another structure underneath them. Three hundred and seven civilians were sealed inside an emergency bunker the alien had never found. The planned charges would have dropped part of the station onto a ventilation shaft and one of the emergency stairs.   

The explosives stayed in Lucas's pack.   

Anderson drove the tactical data spike into the eastern door’s terminal. The hardened tip punched through the casing and injected a bead of gallium-indium alloy into the wound, the liquid metal spreading across the exposed contacts and forcing a raw physical connection straight back to Glitch. 

For half a second the lock resisted, then a green confirmation flashed across Anderson’s link. 

‘Open.’ 

The mechanism released, and he went through low. 

A technician stood behind the first console, one hand hovering above a control surface. Anderson saw the weapon harness and fired twice. The technician dropped against the workstation.  

The officer beside him was quicker. A pistol came up.  

The shot hit Anderson’s shoulder barrier and filled half the room with blue-white glare. He turned into it and fired a burst, the Falchion shifting profiles almost as quickly as the thought crossed his mind. Lighter rounds hammered the officer’s shield, then the weapon drove a heavier slug through the failing barrier and upper arm hard enough to spin him behind the central console.  

The manual alarm glowed on the far wall.  

A second Turian came through the rear doorway with a rifle already shouldered. Anderson fired from the hip and missed. Suppressed rounds chewed fragments out of the frame.  

Return fire snapped across the room, forcing Anderson behind the central console as accelerator rounds punched through the upper housing. One came in lower, shattered what remained of his barrier, along with the left lower housing, and struck the outer plate of his forearm hard enough to send pain flashing to his elbow; but when he flexed his hand, the fingers still answered.  

Alec’s Falchion sounded through the western wall in short, controlled bursts while the neural link kept a small tactical window alive at the edge of Anderson’s vision, showing Alec’s aim shifting from one target to the next with barely a pause between engagements.   

The Turian across the room fired through the console. This burst came at chest height.  

Anderson moved before the material finished breaking apart. He came over the top, one boot striking the console edge hard enough to shove it sideways. His first burst hit the Turian's barrier from less than two meters.  

The alien swung the rifle like a club.  

Anderson took the blow across his upper arm, trapped the weapon between their bodies and drove the Falchion under its jaw plate.  

He fired once.  

Blue blood hit the wall. The body sagged against him. Anderson pushed it aside and turned toward the alarm.  

Something scraped against the floor behind the console.  

The wounded officer was crawling with one arm, the other gone above the elbow where the heavy round had torn through it. His pistol lay close enough to reach, the alarm closer.  

For half a second the Survey Annex came back: another wounded Turian under wreckage, Alec firing while Anderson was still deciding whether the man remained a threat.  

There was nothing to decide here, as the officer's talons barely reached the alarm's casing.  

Anderson fired through the back of his helmet.  

Alec came through the rear doorway almost at the same moment, stepping aside as another Turian followed him out of the western room. One bursts broke the alien's barrier. Alec's next heavy rounds struck center chest and threw him into the wall.  

'West clear,' Alec said. 'Anderson?'  

'East clear. Alarm secure.'  

'Lucas?'  

Suppressed fire sounded outside.  

'Four coming around the eastern service block,' Lucas replied.  

The Cascade whispered from the ridge. One hostile marker vanished.  

'Three,' Susan said.  

Lucas fired twice. A marker dropped behind the shelter wall. The second Turian reached the corner and returned fire toward the vehicle netting.  

'Two moving roadward,' Lucas said.  

Susan fired again after a fast thermal-clip change.  

One of them pitched sideways before he reached the road. The last Turian broke into a sprint toward the irrigation ditch, rifle held one-handed while his free hand reached for his helmet controls.  

Anderson stepped through the checkpoint door.  

The angle was poor. Lucas was closer but screened by the block.  

'Susan.'  

'I see him.'  

The Cascade fired for the fourth time. The fleeing Turian folded at the waist and slid across the pavement.  

'Road clear,' Susan said. 'Clip's cooked. Swapping.'  

Alec entered the eastern room and looked once toward the communications node.  

Glitch remained sealed inside the armored socket behind Alec's helmet, exactly where he had been throughout the assault.  

'Denial package?'  

'Still armed,' Glitch voice came through the neural link. 'Local capacitor bank below the communications core. The trigger circuit remains independent.'  

Anderson looked at the Turian node. Status lights continued to pulse while alien text crawled across the display, his suit computer translating it in real time as the station tried to reconcile dead personnel, broken cameras, and missing personnel tags.  

“We’re leaving the data?” Anderson asked aloud, his words sounding strangely blunt to himself after minutes of tactical traffic fed straight through the link.  

Alec glanced toward the eastern entrance.  

“There is no collection objective here,” he replied, just as audibly.  

Anderson looked at the dead officer beside the alarm, then back to the node. "All right."  

Lucas appeared in the doorway. "Response vehicle, east road. Forty-five seconds. Maybe less, if they push."  

Alec pointed toward the service housing.  

"Manual trigger."  

Lucas dropped beside it and opened the plate.  

"Isolated?"  

'Physical circuit,' Glitch said. 'Independent power source. Bridge the marked conductor and the denial package will fire as designed. The station loses volatile storage, communications, sensor history and most unhardened electronics.'  

Lucas studied the conductors. "Vehicles?"  

'Likely secondary damage to anything still powered.'  

"They're denied already," Lucas shut the service plate without further question.   

Alec looked toward the buried shelter marker. "What about the bunker?"  

Glitch answered immediately. 'Life support isolated. Medical power isolated. Expected coupling limited to monitoring and secondary controllers. No projected loss of ventilation or access.'  

"Good. Trigger on exit."  

Susan came over the link.  

'Response car's past the irrigation tower. Six aboard, maybe seven.'  

Alec checked the tactical clock.  

'Move.'  

The word came through the link with the force of an order, and Sierra left Checkpoint Eleven.  

Anderson crossed the road behind Alec, Falchion covering the eastern approach. Susan was already off the ridge and moving through scrub farther north. Lucas stayed behind them for a few seconds.  

At the edge of the checkpoint’s perimeter, he reached into the open housing, bridged the trigger, and ran.  

Anderson had just reached the treeline when the world behind him flashed white.  

His visor died.  

The Falchion’s smart-link vanished with the rest of the system as squad markers, navigation, barrier telemetry, and the neuro-link collapsed into static, leaving Anderson for several strides with only the rifle in his hands and Alec’s dark shape moving between the trees ahead. 

He kept running, and three seconds later the visor returned in stripped monochrome.  

RECOVERY ACTIVE  

SENSOR BUS DEGRADED  

BARRIER CONTROLLER RESETTING  

The squad channel crackled.  

Glitch came back first.  

'Core intact. Peripheral recovery underway.'  

Alec did not slow. 'Damage?'  

'Two external buses reset. Navigation degraded. Neural interface remained within projected tolerance. No permanent fault detected.'  

Susan returned through static. 'Scope’s computer is sulkin'. Glass still works though.'  

Lucas checked his rifle while running. 'Targeting assist is gone.'  

Anderson's barrier indicator reappeared at twenty-nine percent and began climbing.  

'Mine's recovering.'  

'Same,' Alec said.  

The hardened systems had taken the pulse, though the external buses had not enjoyed it, and Sierra had put distance between themselves and the checkpoint for exactly that reason. Behind them, the communications mast remained dark, whatever the station had held in local memory already gone.  

Half a kilometer passed before Aria joined the link without projecting her avatar.  

'Shelter Twenty-three secure. No structural damage at either access point. The EMP reset two shelter monitors and one water-pressure controller. I have them...'  For a moment, only silence came through the link, then Aria spoke again. '...pressure is recovering. Ventilation remained isolated.'  

Alec stepped over a fallen irrigation pipe. 'Any detection?'  

By now, the response vehicle should have reached Checkpoint Eleven. Anderson pictured them moving through the bodies and dead terminals, trying to reconstruct how an entire position had been wiped out before the attackers vanished, every surviving sensor and scrap of local data suddenly worth examining.  

'Surface response only, no subsurface scan. The shelter remains hidden.'  

'Good.'  

Aria moved on immediately. 'Your next route?'  

Alec opened the map while moving. ‘Service Corridor Seven northwest. West through the irrigation belt after the pumping station.’ 

'Negative.'  

It was one word, flat and immediate. A few heartbeats later, a new route appeared in Anderson's visor.  

'Shelter Nineteen is under that station. One hundred and eighty-four civilians, still undiscovered. Use the southern service cut. Eight minutes longer. It keeps you off the primary water trunk.'  

Anderson studied the alternate line. 'Anyone aboveground?'  

'Twelve civilians remain unaccounted for in those blocks. I am treating them as present.'  

Alec accepted the route after a few seconds of thought. 'We'll take it.'  

'Excellent. And send changes as soon as you make them.'  

'I'll send movement and civilian-risk changes.'  

'That's all I need.'  

Glitch entered before the silence fully settled. 'The alternate route increases our visible exposure by twenty-two percent.'  

Aria answered him after a beat.  

'I know.'  

Nothing else.  

Anderson had known her during the quiet weeks before first contact, when none of them had reason to measure streets by how many civilians might die underneath them. Back then Aria would needle Alec when he became too guarded, trade a dry remark with Susan, or keep joking at Anderson until she finally got a laugh out of him, and there had usually been a smile somewhere in her voice.   

Now she spoke to Sierra with a clinical coldness, reducing everything to routes, water pressure, shelter counts, and minutes. Anderson understood why. He understood what secrecy demanded after the occupation began, even before that. Still, he found himself missing the easier tone they had fallen into during those first weeks,   

Usually Glitch would have found something in Aria’s update to dispute. This time Anderson was glad that Glitch left it alone for once. 

They dropped into a shallow irrigation ditch. Tall grass dragged against their armor. Mud pulled at Anderson's boots as they moved along the channel. Susan had pushed ahead. Her marker stopped near the western road.  

'Two patrols ahead of me,' she said after several seconds. 'Carrier and a light vehicle. Officer markings on the second. Angle's rubbish.'  

Alec asked, 'Direction?'  

'Northwest, moving quick.'  

'Observe only.'  

'Righto.'  

Lucas looked back at the direction of the checkpoint. Smoke had begun to show above the communications mast.  

'Response is splitting up.'  

Aria answered before Alec asked.  

'Three patrols have changed route since Checkpoint Eleven went dark. One search detachment left District Nine ninety-two seconds ago. General movement is northwest. The checkpoint’s loss went outside routine district channels. I do not have the recipient.' Aria added, 'General Williams has your movement corridor.'  

Susan's marker shifted.  

'Western road, contact. A light vehicle turned off the main road. Same officer markings. Heading toward the exposure point.'  

'Rank?'  

'Can't tell through the dust. Give me a minute.'  

Lucas checked his Hydra magazine and reseated it.  

'Would make identification easier.'  

Anderson looked at him. 'We need them following us.'  

'I know.'  

Aria cut in.  

'Exposure point remains clear of known shelters. Power Relay 24 is six hundred meters south and powering three medical sites. Stay north.'  

Alec shifted their approach a few degrees, and Sierra followed the correction before climbing out of the irrigation ditch onto firmer ground.  

'Marked.'  

'Stay with me...District Nine just accelerated.'  

A Turian formation separated on the tactical display and turned northwest.  

Susan watched from ahead. 'Carrier confirmed. Light vehicle behind. More dust to the east. Can't give a clean count.'  

'Keep eyes on it.'  

'Yep.'  

They moved another hundred meters before Anderson asked the question that had been sitting with him since Aria changed their route.  

'If one of those patrols turns toward a shelter?'  

Alec glanced at him, but it was Aria who answered instead.  

'Then I break your route. You go dark or you lose them. I will not trade a hidden shelter for your pursuit.'  

Alec's respond came a second later. 'Acceptable.'  

The AGI was quiet for a moment. Then she was back to work. 'Shelter Nineteen stable. The false pumping-station utility signature is still masking its power draw. Your present route remains clear for seventy seconds.'  

A countdown appeared.  

They waited while the distant Turian engines grew louder. Susan watched the road from ahead. Lucas leaned against the concrete bank and checked the magnetic lockout indicator still showing on his sleeve from the checkpoint’s vehicles, then cleared it.  

At zero, Aria spoke again.  

'Move. Next corridor is clear for four minutes. The crossing becomes uncertain after that.'  

Alec replied. 

'Understood.'  

Checkpoint Seven lay farther northwest, another occupation node along the route Alec wanted the Turians to see. They crossed toward the abandoned processing blocks, one at a time, with Susan already moving farther ahead.  

Turian Occupation Command, New Taiyuan, Shanxi, 314 System  

September 13th, 2649 GST — Galactic Standard Time  

Desolas Arterius  

The holographic table was large enough to show the entire invasion, and Desolas had reduced most of it to the edges.  

Firebase Vanguard still occupied the eastern side of the projection. The outer trenches were Turian now, but the assault had slowed once the humans withdrew into the plateau. Captain Victus’ formations had spent the last several hours forcing their way through the first sealed pressure corridors after combat engineers cut open the initial blast doors with plasma cutters, and every breach had cost them heavily. Even when the doors finally gave way, the passages behind them narrowed into kill zones and ended at secondary blast doors that had stopped the advance again. Engineering markers clustered around the stalled approaches, most of them requests for replacement teams, while casualty estimates continued to rise in small, unwelcome increments.  

New Taiyuan filled the center of the table with occupation zones, known shelters, patrol sectors, and supply corridors. The city required constant attention simply to remain occupied.  

Desolas had pushed both aside to enlarge the western canyon.  

Old geological surveys lay across it in translucent layers. Hydrological anomalies. Unfinished cave maps. Zoning records that contradicted one another. Restricted military overlays attached to facilities that, on paper, did not justify the restrictions. The absences interested him most. Human bureaucracy had left fingerprints around something it had tried to remove from the record.  

The pressure behind his thoughts sharpened as he enlarged the canyon again.  

He was so close. Every hour spent elsewhere felt increasingly wasteful   

“General.”  

Lieutenants Abuvea Abrudas and Varus Tiron entered together without disturbing the room. Desolas heard them come in and kept reading until Abrudas decided the report could no longer wait.   

She stood a few paces behind him in plain field armor, posture exact, datapad held against one forearm. Abrudas had served him long enough to understand that useful silence was still useful. She also knew enough about the search to recognize why the canyon occupied more of his map than the siege did.  

Meanwhile, lieutenant Tiron looked as though the occupation had inconvenienced his armor more than damaged it. Every plate remained clean, every edge aligned, the polished ridges of his colony marking maintained with almost aggressive care. Desolas tolerated the vanity because Tiron was competent, decisive, and very good at making subordinates move once an order was issued.  

He was less good at accepting that a problem sometimes required an answer other than more force.  

Abrudas began, “Captain Victus reports the interior assault has stalled at two chokepoints. The first breach is open but untenable under crossfire. The second remains sealed. His engineers have lost three cutting teams and are requesting replacements, additional portable shield projectors, and two companies of fresh assault infantry.”  

Tiron’s mandibles shifted. “Of course he calls it untenable.” 

Abrudas glanced at him. “That is the assessment he submitted.” 

“It is doctrinal language for an approach he no longer wants to commit to.” Tiron’s tone sharpened. “He already commands the largest ground formation in-system and Pallinax brought additional cohorts with the fleet. If one corridor is costing too much, then stop feeding troops into it and strike every approach at once.”  

“He has already done that. The attempted concentration at Sector Three,” Abrudas said. “The humans collapsed the passage behind the first element and opened fire from two lateral galleries. Forty-one casualties in ninety seconds. Captain Victus has declined to repeat the method.”  

Tiron turned more fully toward her. “Then he attacks from more directions. Overwhelm their ability to reinforce. He has the authority and now he has the manpower.”  

“He has the manpower,” Abrudas agreed. “The plateau does not care.”  

Tiron’s eyes narrowed.  

“The human stronghold is built into the massif,” she continued. “The approaches narrow before they reach the defensive line. Units advancing from separate axes cannot support one another once they enter the passages, maneuver space collapses, and command coordination degrades with every additional formation committed. More troops simply place more soldiers inside the same exposed choke points.”  

“He has engineers.”  

“He does. His current plan uses them to create additional access rather than feed battalions into entrances the humans have already prepared to kill.”  

Tiron’s talons tapped once against the console. “Overwhelming force remains overwhelming force.”  

“Only when it can be brought to bear at the same time. Inside that mountain, it cannot.”  

His eyes hardened. “Caution that delays the assault has to justify itself.”  

Abrudas met his stare. “He submitted forty-one justifications already.”  

“That’s enough,” Tiron said, cutting her off before the answer could settle any further. “The General asked for a report. Give him one.”  

Desolas let the silence stay between them for a moment.  

Their dislike of each other was old but disciplined and useful. Abrudas qualified because she watched the consequences accumulate. Tiron committed because he regarded uncertainty as a weakness waiting to infect an order. Left alone, each could become tiresome. Together, they exposed the edges of a decision quickly.  

“Release two engineering sections and one perimeter company,” Desolas said after hearing the summary report. “Victus may employ them for the next breach. They remain subject to reassignment.”  

Abrudas looked at the order as though Desolas had deliberately undercounted. “That is less than a quarter of his request.”  

“It is what I am granting.”  

She did not look away. “He will continue the assault. He will also understand that the search retains priority over additional reinforcement.”  

“He is expected to understand priorities.”  

“His staff has asked twice for the search detachments to clear his western logistics routes.”  

“They remain where they are.” Desolas returned his attention to the canyon. “Send Victus their movement only when deconfliction becomes a direct requirement. He commands the fortress assault. He does not command every operation on Shanxi.”  

Abrudas answered after a small pause. “Yes, General.”  

Tiron seemed ready to add something and thought better of it when Abrudas moved to the next report.  

“Orbital command has tightened movement restrictions. Admiral Pallinax’s formation order is in effect. Military relay traffic is suspended except under direct fleet authorization. Independent couriers are being folded into inspected movements.”  

Tiron’s head turned toward Desolas. “Then any recovered material goes through Pallinax before it leaves the system.”  

“Any declared material.”  

Abrudas’s wording became more careful. “The admiral controls every registered transfer and has placed his own staff on the inspection chain. He expects the human relief force within the day.”  

Desolas enlarged one of the restricted survey layers until the lines became meaningless geometry. “Pallinax is preparing for a fleet action. He is entitled to secure his battle space. That does not require us to place every discovery on his table before the Hierarchy has determined what it is.”  

Tiron straightened slightly. “There are still channels.”  

“There are always channels.”  

Abrudas said nothing.  

She knew there were officers on Palaven who had no interest in watching a Turian discovery become Council property by administrative habit. She did not know all the names, and Desolas preferred it that way. If they recovered what lay beneath the canyon, manifests could be amended, research custody reassigned, a courier’s purpose rewritten after departure. Bureaucracy was an obstacle only to officers who believed forms had authority independent of the Hierarchy they served.  

The pressure behind his eyes eased.  

First, they had to find it.  

Tiron stepped closer to the map. “Then delay is the greater threat. The human denial procedures are consistent. Their wrecks destroy command memory, navigation, cryptographic systems, and propulsion assemblies. Their abandoned weapons are trapped or burned. If the western site contains what we believe it contains, they will have prepared—"  

Desolas’s head snapped toward him. The movement was so abrupt that Tiron stopped dead, the unfinished sentence hanging between them.  

The possibility had existed in Desolas’s calculations from the beginning. Hearing it spoken aloud gave it a shape he disliked.  

Human ship-crews had self-destructed their vessels while still aboard when it became clear they couldn't fight anymore. Orbital platforms had burned their own systems before salvage teams arrived. Even heavy weapons left behind during retreat were ruined so thoroughly that Turian engineers had begun treating intact access panels as suspicious by default.  

If the canyon contained the source of their advantage, the humans would have prepared something worse.  

Heat gathered at the base of Desolas’s skull.  

They had found it by accident, perhaps during the first surveys, and hidden it beneath a colony they barely deserved to possess. They had taken from it whatever knowledge had produced relay-independent travel, impossible armor, and their strange electromagnetic shield. Then, they had covered the source with survey omissions and military restrictions.  

Now, faced with rightful recovery, they might destroy it rather than surrender it.  

Tiron’s posture had changed by a fraction.  

“My concern is the integrity of the recovery, General,” he said. His voice was firmer again, though more carefully so. “If its destruction is possible, we should accelerate.”  

“We will.”  

Tiron waited for more.  

Desolas turned back to the map, his attention settling on the canyon with renewed intensity. “The humans will not be given enough time to destroy it.”  

Tiron straightened. “It will be secured, General.”  

A priority tone sounded from the command net before Abrudas could speak. The canyon contracted and a new report expanded over the western edge of New Taiyuan.  

NORTHERN AGRICULTURAL CHECKPOINT SEVEN.  

The station sat beside a service road northwest of the city, a low human-built structure adapted for occupation use. Turian casualty markers covered the interior and eastern approach. Vehicles were disabled. Communications and sensor functions were dead.  

The building itself remained standing.  

Tiron moved to the table first. “Another strike.”  

Abrudas was already reading the casualty report. “Fifteen confirmed dead. Response patrol arrived fifty-three seconds after the first distress query. No human casualties identified.”  

“Put the patrol commander through,” Desolas said.  

A field officer appeared above the projection, dust across his armor and one side of his faceplate removed. He saluted.  

“General, sir!”  

“Lieutenant, what was the sequence of the attack?”  

“Fast assault. Same broad method used at Checkpoint Eleven. Long-range fire opened on the lookout. Assault rifle cleared the station and vehicle approaches. Vehicles were disabled before the response element arrived. The station’s local electronic systems were lost to its denial pulse.”  

“Structural demolition?”  

“Minimal. No attempt to collapse the building or antenna mast. The foundations are intact.”  

Desolas enlarged the station schematic. “The denial pulse triggered during the withdrawal?”  

“Yes, General. Technical personnel believe the humans attempted access to the local node and tripped the purge circuit.”  

Tiron gave a short, satisfied movement of his mandibles. “So they were after the patrol net.”  

Abrudas kept her attention on the timeline. “Possibly.”  

Tiron spread one hand. “They entered a communications station and the node purged.”  

“That establishes what happened. It does not establish what they wanted.”  

Tiron’s eyes narrowed. “Lieutenant—”  

“Enough!” Desolas growled.  

The room went still as he replayed the event from the surviving external timestamps: attack, breach, station secured, a brief interval without outbound communication, withdrawal, then the pulse. It was very clean, perhaps too clean, and once the thought occurred to him it refused to leave, though he kept it from both lieutenants.  

“What survived?”  

The field officer answered. “Hardware. Some hardened power distribution. The primary processors are physically intact, though the EMP erased or corrupted most volatile storage. Technical intelligence has requested recovery priority. They believe portions of the access history—”  

“No.”  

The officer hesitated. “General?”  

“You will not hold a response perimeter around dead processors while the attackers continue moving. Recover anything already portable. Mark the rest for later examination.”  

“Technical intelligence considers the processors—”  

“I heard you, Lieutenant.” Desolas’s voice sharpened. “Their value is conditional. The search is still active. Move your soldiers.”  

“Yes, General.”  

Abrudas glanced toward the casualty timeline. “Direction of withdrawal?”  

“Northwest on foot. Four operators visible on a surviving external sensor outside the checkpoint vicinity. We have partial thermal contacts farther into the agricultural belt.”  

“Confirmed four?” Tiron asked.  

“Confirmed four at the checkpoint. We cannot exclude additional support.”  

“Artificial intelligence?” Desolas asked.  

The field officer hesitated before answering, and when he did his voice had dropped low enough to sound almost superstitious, as though speaking the possibility aloud might somehow invite the intelligence behind it to notice him. “Possible. The local camera failure before contact was unusually well timed. Traffic signals on the approach also cycled out of sequence. We have no other surviving station data to attribute to it.”  

“Then do not attribute it.”  

“Yes, General.”  

Desolas studied the dead marker.  

At the Survey Annex, the humans had reached for protected information because the information mattered. Since then, their pattern had changed. Convoys burned. Search equipment destroyed. Now a checkpoint node had erased itself at exactly the point where the attackers no longer needed to remain inside it.  

The humans had learned something too.  

He shifted the map away from the station and looked at the surrounding communications coverage. The agricultural belt had gaps now, dark wedges where local sensors had been destroyed or forced offline. Human movement passed between them and disappeared into the civilian network whenever the remaining feeds tried to close.  

If the machines were helping them, they still needed something to work through: sensors, civilian relays, traffic control, municipal repeaters, some kind of network.   

Desolas left the thought unfinished and returned to the field officer.  

“How many long-range shots?”  

“One confirmed. A second casualty may match the same weapon but conventional fire damaged the remains too heavily for certainty.”  

“Thermal residue?”  

“None recovered. No spent clip.”  

“Your search radius?”  

“Two hundred meters around the ridge position indicated by the surviving sensor.”  

“Too small. Extend it. The weapon requires a stable firing point and oversized thermal clip. Search the approach the shooter would choose, not the point your first damaged sensor preferred.”  

“Yes, General.”  

The field officer saluted and disappeared.  

Tiron enlarged the ridge imagery. “Same sniper profile as the Survey Annex.”  

“Consistent with it,” Abrudas said.  

“Then close the perimeter. Put a cordon northwest and drive them into the open.”  

Abrudas brought up the deployment overlay. “That requires two search detachments and the mobile reserve.”  

“Then use them.”  

She moved the units on the projection. Gaps opened along the canyon approaches.  

Tiron’s mandibles tightened.  

“That is another three garrison assets gone. Same pattern every time—small assault elements with sniper support striking checkpoints, communications relays, and roving patrols. Each time they disengage before we can close the cordon.” 

He turned toward Desolas. 

“Sir, if we do not resolve this now, we will be forced to give ground somewhere. The search, the garrison, or the assault on the human stronghold. We do not have enough mobile strength to keep feeding all three.” 

Abrudas left the disposition map open between them, the thinning coverage around the diverted units plainly visible. 

“And whatever they want those units drawn away from remains uncovered.” 

Tiron took a step toward her. “If you have a reservation, state it.”  

Abrudas met him without changing her stance.   

“Do not pull search elements off the western approaches merely because four humans have allowed us to see them. That is my reservation.” She glanced toward Desolas. “I can issue the redeployment if the General requires it.”  

Tiron went still.  

There it was. He had demanded commitment, and Abrudas had placed the cost directly beneath it.  

Desolas barely heard the rest of their breathing.  

The three attacks he could now confidently attribute to the same specialized team were visible together: the Survey Annex, Checkpoint Eleven, and now Checkpoint Seven. A line could be drawn through them toward the northwest woodland. It was careful enough to be deliberate and crude enough that an experienced officer was expected to notice the deliberateness.  

They wanted pursuit, or perhaps only wanted him to believe that was all they wanted.  

The pressure behind his eyes tightened.  

Every attack had touched his search. Every disappearance had pulled his attention away from the canyon for another hour. They were protecting something. Or they wanted him to believe they were protecting it. Either conclusion left the same irritation beneath his thoughts: humans, barely admitted to the galactic stage, presuming they could decide where the Hierarchy was permitted to look.  

His talons had tightened against the projection table. He noticed only when he heard scratching metal.  

“General?” Abrudas said.  

Desolas released the edge.  

Tiron was watching him now, impatience checked by discipline. When he asked for direction, the deference was immediate. “Orders, sir?”  

Desolas expanded the northwest sector until woodland routes, abandoned agricultural stations and search corridors covered the table.  

“Maintain the canyon detachments. No general redeployment.”  

Tiron’s mandibles opened. “General, those four humans have already—”  

“Their movement is a threat to the mission.” Desolas’s voice accelerated before he forced it back under control. “It is also what they have chosen to show us. The Hierarchy does not surrender operational order merely because an enemy has offered us something obvious to chase.”  

His attention settled entirely on Tiron before he continued.  

“Lieutenant, you will prepare the mobile response reserve for immediate movement. No departure until I authorize it.”  

Tiron straightened. “It will be ready.”  

“See that it is.”  

Desolas looked around the command room. Officers had gone very quiet without appearing to do so. Displays continued updating. Vanguard remained stalled on the eastern edge of the map. Pallinax’s fleet markers tightened above Shanxi. Civilian occupation reports waited in a stack beside the western search.  

Reports continued to arrive from every part of the occupation. Desolas left the canyon enlarged.  

“Everyone except Lieutenant Abrudas, leave us.”  

The room moved at once. Chairs shifted, armor clicked, staff officers collected slates and filed out the doors. Tiron remained for a heartbeat after the others had started moving.  

Desolas kept his attention on the map.  

“Lieutenant...”  

“Yes, General.”  

Tiron saluted and followed the staff out. The doors sealed behind him.  

Abrudas waited beside the projection.  

The northwest woodland glowed between them. Farther south, the canyon remained highlighted beneath layers of human survey data.  

“You intend to follow them,” she said.  

Desolas kept his attention on the table, bringing the mobile reserve overlay up beside the human trail. 

“I intend,” he said, “to let them believe I did.”  

New Taiyuan Northwestern District, Shanxi, Iota Persei System,  

September 13th, 2149CE — Systems Alliance Calendar  

Two hours after Checkpoint Seven  

David Anderson  

The communications officer died before his hand reached the transmitter.  

Alec entered first, the suppressor of his gun almost touching the Turian's barrier when he fired. Two muted whuffs, blue light flared, and a third round went through the alien's head. The operator folded across the console.  

The officer beside him lunged for the manual alarm.  

Anderson fired through the shoulder. The Turian kept reaching.  

His second bust put the officer face-first into the floor.  

The alarm stayed dark.  

Alec shut the door and crossed immediately to the bodies.  

'No outbound distress traffic,' Glitch said through the neuro-link. 'Six living personnel remain.'  

Northwest Observation Post Four had held ten Turians when Sierra entered through the sewer tunnel beneath its western foundation. Lucas had killed two on the lower service level. The communications room made four.  

Alec pulled the dead operator's omni-tool from his forearm and locked it against his own gauntlet. The display woke against the new contact, still carrying the dead Turian's authenticated session.  

'Glitch.'  

'I see it.'  

'Use the session. No privilege escalation.'  

'Obviously.'  

Alec said nothing.  

Glitch came back, voice flatter.  

'Authenticated peripheral access only. Room-state telemetry, call queue, door status and personnel tags where available.'  

Alec glanced toward the dead communications officer. 'Can you hold outbound traffic from the post?'  

There was a brief pause before the AGI answered again.   

'This account can place the local transmission queue into diagnostic mode for three minutes, forty-one seconds before the delay becomes anomalous. Routine traffic will remain queued locally. Distress traffic submitted through the post network will do the same.'  

'Do it.'  

'Already done. Three minutes, thirty-eight.'  

Alec pointed toward the corridor. 'Anderson, east. Lucas, the stairs. Susan, roof and street. Nobody transmits anything.'  

'Copy,' Susan said. Her voice came low through the link. 'Two topside. Western one's mine. Other bloke's behind the antenna housing.'  

'Hold until he moves.'  

'Righto.'  

Anderson stepped into the corridor.  

Northwest Observation Post Four had once managed irrigation and weather equipment for the farms outside New Taiyuan. Concrete service walls still carried human maintenance labels below cable trays. Shutters covered the lower street-facing windows. Above, the upper floors looked over the road running toward the northwest woodland.  

Anderson kept the Falchion high. A Turian stood beside a portable heater with his helmet off and a metal cup in one hand, his mandibles flaring wide and brow plates lifting in naked surprise as Sierra came through the room. Anderson pulled the trigger twice, the first burst collapsing the barrier and the second—a heavy round—entering below the right eye before the cup struck the floor and rolled beneath a field cot.  

'Five,' Glitch said.  

A rifle muzzle appeared through the inner doorway.  

Anderson moved as the first burst crossed the room, accelerator rounds tearing chips from the concrete behind him. The Turian broke from cover to fire again, but Anderson was faster. He caught the movement as the alien cleared the doorway and sent a burst into his barrier before the rifle came level, then changed the Falchion’s shave profile through the neural link and fired again. The heavier round collapsed the weakened field and drove the Turian backward.  

He screamed something over his open helmet pickup aloud instead of his squad radio that Anderson’s translator rendered as, “Intruders! Blackwatch, intruders!” He tried to retreat through the doorway, but Anderson crossed the room before he could clear it and put another round through the chest plate as Glitch updated the remaining positions.  

'Four remain. One seventh-floor interior tag. Two on the roof. One moving down the central stairs.'  

Alec was already moving toward the staircase.  

Anderson followed.  

The captured omni-tool fed Glitch fragments of the post’s local state as they climbed—doors opening, personnel tags crossing readers, a maintenance warning sitting unanswered in a queue—and Glitch watched all of it without transmitting a single command.  

He glanced at the timer in the corner of his visor. A minute and twenty seconds had already gone from Glitch’s three minutes forty-one second window. 

‘What happens when that runs out? Can you still stop a call if somebody gets one out?’  

'After the diagnostic hold expires, new traffic will pass upstream normally. Preventing that would require access to the communications core or command traffic from this account. Either action may alter the denial state.’  

'Then we don’t give them the chance.'  

'That's preferable.'  

Susan cut in. 'Western roof's moving toward your side. Taking him.'  

The Cascade whispered from across the road and one of the roof markers vanished.  

'One down. The second is still behind the antenna.'  

The seventh-floor door opened above Alec and a Turian leaned out with his rifle shouldered, but Alec fired first, two suppressed busts hammering the barrier just before Anderson’s shot punched through the exposed head as the field collapsed.  

'Two living,' Glitch said. 'One roof. One central stair.'  

Susan's second shot came before Alec reached the landing. The round passed through the edge of the antenna housing and struck the sentry behind it. The marker disappeared.  

'One,' Susan said. 'Changing clip.'  

Metal clicked faintly over the link as Lucas climbed from below, while the last Turian crossed the upper corridor and entered the access stairwell, his personnel tag jumping across two readers between Glitch’s updates.  

'Coming down,' Glitch said. 'Six seconds.'  

Alec flattened beside the landing door. Anderson took the opposite wall.  

'Four.'  

The handle moved.  

'Two.'  

The door opened.  

The Turian saw Anderson and twisted toward him with a startled snarl. Alec caught the rifle by the fore-end and drove it hard into the doorframe before the alien could bring it up, but the alien lunged into him anyway, slamming Alec against the wall as Anderson fired into his back. The impact staggered him without dropping him.  

“Khar!” the Turian screamed, wrenching at the trapped rifle. “Barefaced primate!?”  

Alec drove a knee into his hip and twisted the weapon sideways. The Turian kept fighting, mandibles pulled wide with rage, until Anderson put a second round through the damaged chest plate and the strength went out of him. Alec let the body fall, the Turian’s armor striking the floor with a heavy crash. 

'All ten occupants accounted for. No active local distress transmission. No additional biometric tags in the post.'  

Alec looked at Lucas as he reached the landing.  

'Denial package.'  

'On it.'  

Lucas went back down.  

Susan spoke from across the street. 'Road clear.'  

'Move inside. Reload before you cross.'  

'Already did, mate.'  

Anderson and Alec checked the remaining rooms while Susan crossed from the residential block and entered through the roof. The dead operator's omni-tool continued feeding Glitch the same narrow slice of local state.  

By the time Anderson reached the lower service level, Lucas had removed a panel on the Turian server rack.  

The EMP package filled most of the lower housing. A capacitor block sat beside a separate firing assembly wired around the local node.  

Glitch marked one component through Lucas's camera.  

'Same design family as Checkpoint Seven. Independent trigger. Continuity monitor. Mechanical discharge coupler there, to the left.'  

Lucas put a passive bridge across two contacts.  

'Controller still sees the emitter. Left one millimeter. Hold.'  

Lucas held it.  

'Nominal.'  

'Time?' Alec asked.  

'One minute, eighteen seconds until scheduled-report tolerance begins.'  

Lucas reached into the housing.   

'If there's a second trigger?'  

'We lose the electronics,' Glitch said. 'Estimated probability - three-point-one percent.'  

Alec did not hesitate. 'Proceed.'  

Lucas pulled the coupler.  

Nothing happened.  

The lights stayed on. The captured omni-tool remained live.  

'Pulse path interrupted,' Glitch said immediately. 'Controller continues reporting armed status. Acceptable.'  

'Second package?' Alec asked.  

'Negative on a passive survey. Ninety-five percent confidence.'  

'Good enough. Take the local network.'  

Lucas seated the hardline into the exposed interface, checked the connection once, and locked it down. Glitch vanished from the link for less than a second before the post unfolded across Sierra’s displays all at once—camera feeds, pressure sensors, thermal returns, door states, communications schedules, and authentication paths opening in rapid succession as he moved through the local architecture faster than Anderson could follow the changes.  

'Local control established,' Glitch said. 'Upstream visibility limited to authenticated output. No alarm condition.'  

Alec checked the clock. ' ETA to next report?'  

'Forty five seconds.'  

'Keep it routine.'  

'Understood.'  

They began to move the dead only where the post’s outward appearance required it. Two bodies went back into chairs before active consoles. Low-output heating strips were slid beneath their armor. Another Turian was positioned sitting beside a window where an exterior scan expected a sentry during this part of the shift.   

Anderson helped move the communications officer back into position, settling the body into the chair beside the terminal as close to its original posture as they could manage. 

Glitch adjusted the room-state pattern around them and reused the post's own pressure history. He did not try to make ten dead soldiers behave like actors. He made the building look dull.  

At the scheduled time, the dead operator’s doubled voice filled the room with,   

“Northwest Observation Post Four. Western service road clear. No change.”   

Anderson stared at the corpse slumped beside the console and listened to it calmly report that everything was normal.  

A challenge code came back, Glitch answered in the same dead man’s voice, and the network accepted it without complaint.  

Lucas looked from the terminal to the dead operator.  

"That's going to stay with me."  

'I sampled the voice from the local buffers,' Glitch said. 'No neural material was involved. The corpse is contributing nothing.'  

“I know. Still... nightmare material.”  

A brief silence followed.  

Then Glitch added, more quietly, 'Yes. I am aware. The effect is... troubling.'  

Lucas made a small, surprised sound. “Huh.”  

Anderson paused as well. Coming from Glitch, the admission was almost more unsettling than the dead alien’s voice.  

Upstairs, Susan had already opened a narrow gap in the polarized smart-glass and settled the Cascade behind it while Lucas connected the portable cooling beside her position. Alec stood just behind her studying the road below, and Anderson took the southern stairwell where he could cover the interior approach.  

After Checkpoint Seven, Aria had caught enough movement through the occupation network, that she could still monitor, to project a likely convoy route across Observation Post Four’s service road, including the size and composition of the escort. Glitch put the probability that their target was inside at 91.4 percent, Aria at 92.2. Anderson cared less about the eight-tenths difference than the fact that neither intelligence had immediately started explaining why the other’s estimate was wrong.  

So they waited among the dead.  

At first, Glitch kept the post alive with almost no invention. Every thirteen minutes the routine status report went out on schedule, doors cycled when the previous shift logs said they should, and the heating system wandered through the same narrow variance it had maintained before Sierra arrived. Whenever an internal channel expected a reply, one of the dead Turians answered in his own voice, the response assembled from recorded traffic and timed closely enough that nothing upstream had reason to look twice.  

"Roof observation normal."  

"Lower entrance secure."  

"Vehicle patrol visible at southern intersection."  

"Requesting replacement calibration unit for western thermal array."  

Anderson had spent enough time around Glitch to understand how technically impressive the deception was, which did very little to help when the AGI reproduced a brief burst of Turian laughter from an old recording and left him wishing, with some intensity, that he had never heard it.  

The next status interval passed in silence except for necessary traffic, and Anderson found himself appreciating the quiet with an enthusiasm he would never have admitted to Glitch.  

Outside, patrols continued through the district without slowing until an infantry vehicle stopped at the intersection and called Observation Post Four directly; Glitch answered in the dead communications officer’s voice and the exchange lasted twenty-seven seconds while Anderson listened to the translated Turian side of the conversation through the link.  

"Observation Post Four, confirm western service-road thermal anomaly."  

"Confirmed agricultural exhaust. Static source. No movement."  

"Your western array was reporting calibration drift."  

"Still is. Reading is inside degraded tolerance."  

"Send the raw data."  

"Negative. Local buffer locked under maintenance cycle. I can send the last clean comparison."  

There was a longer pause than Anderson liked.  

The vehicle commander replied.  

"Then send it."  

Glitch transmitted.  

The infantry vehicle remained at the intersection for another twelve seconds, then moved on.  

Anderson waited until it disappeared behind a processing block.   

'He didn't like it.'  

'His question frequency exceeded the local mean by twelve percent. Suspicion is possible. So is irritation with malfunctioning equipment.'  

Susan's voice came from upstairs. 'He looked annoyed.'  

Glitch answered, 'Thank you for duplicating my uncertainty with less precision.'  

'Anytime, mate.'  

Alec cut in before the exchange could grow.  

‘Enough.’  

The building went quiet again.  

The waiting settled into its own rhythm, quiet enough that Anderson’s attention began drifting toward the one subject none of them had mentioned since taking the post.  

Nobody discussed Firebase Vanguard because nobody needed to. The last report Anderson had seen showed the outer trench belt gone and the surviving defenders withdrawn into the mountain, still holding while men and women he would probably never meet bled out in aid stations, died behind firing slits, or kept weapons running because somebody had to buy the base another hour.  

He wondered briefly what those soldiers would think if they knew what else lay only a few hundred miles from New Taiyuan, hidden close enough to a colony of millions that men and women could fight and die across Shanxi without ever learning what had been buried almost beside them. Anderson cut the thought off before it could grow teeth; there was nothing useful waiting at the end of it, and Glitch spared him the effort of finding out.  

'Advanced elements.'   

Two scout vehicles entered the eastern end of the road. Infantry moved dismounted ahead and beside them, rifles pointed toward windows and rooflines. A drone crossed above the buildings, circled Observation Post Four once, and continued northwest.  

Glitch sent the post's routine identification before the drone issued a challenge.   

The drone accepted it, and more vehicles followed.  

An armored vehicle took the left side of the road. Two infantry transports came behind it, then another scout vehicle. The electronic-security platform was easy to identify from its folded antenna fins and the distance the other vehicles kept around it. Farther back came a combat platform with its accelerator turret traversing slowly across the upper floors.  

Then the command vehicles.  

The transports behind them began unloading almost as soon as the column slowed. Turian infantry spilled onto the road in squads, carrying compact mobile shield projectors that unfolded and came alive as they spread. Anderson counted past sixty visible soldiers and stopped.  

Alec had rejected capture as soon as they estimated the escort earlier that morning. Looking at the road now, Anderson understood how generous the estimate had been.  

Four operators could kill one man from concealment.  

Taking a Turian general alive through his own occupation zone belonged to another kind of operation entirely.  

'Authentication is genuine,' Glitch said. His voice had changed slightly, faster now. 'Expeditionary Ground Command authority. Desolas command identifier present. Command-chain signatures match current occupation traffic. No detected reuse from previously captured codes.'  

GENERAL DESOLAS ARTERIUS appeared across Sierra's link.  

Alec watched the hardened bursts pass between vehicles.  

'Voice?'  

'Intermittent. The electronic-security vehicle is enforcing short transmission windows and isolated routing.'  

Lucas came over the link from below. 'Because of you?'  

'Because their forces have experienced hostile artificial intelligence repeatedly in this district. My contribution is substantial.'  

No one answered as the electronic-security vehicle pulsed a scan through the surrounding buildings. Anderson watched the wave sweep across his visor and resisted the urge to move while Observation Post Four returned legitimate authentication, normal power draw, and the thermal pattern Glitch had constructed from ten dead soldiers.  

The scan moved on just as Susan settled deeper behind the Cascade.  

'Road angle's good.'  

The first command vehicle passed beneath them with the wrong transponder and continued northwest, while the second slowed near the intersection.  

'Desolas authentication centered on vehicle two.'  

The mobile shield projector changed position; its blue light shimmered briefly over the sidewalk as the projector widened its coverage. Infantry spread outward. Anderson watched them take corners, face upper windows, scan rooftops and keep the command vehicles inside overlapping fields.  

Three senior officers stepped out to inspect the site themselves, two in ordinary command armor and the third in polished plates edged in red, with two guards immediately closing around him.  

Susan tracked the red-armored officer.  

'Visual matches.'  

Glitch started comparison.  

'Body geometry ninety-one percent. Armor authentication valid. Command transponder valid. Escort positioning consistent with senior-command protection.'  

Alec asked, 'Voice?'  

The officer in red turned toward another Turian and spoke over the convoy net.  

"...route status ahead?"  

Glitch isolated the doubled voice.  

His answer took longer than usual.  

'Similarity eighty-four percent. Helmet filtering is significant. Reference library limited. Confidence remains below the preferred threshold.'  

The convoy was quiet for its size.  

Anderson had noticed it before Glitch said anything. Vehicles that close together should have generated more traffic, even disciplined traffic. Short acknowledgments passed over the net as positions shifted and units reported blocked lanes or civilian movement. 

Instead there were clean bursts separated by long spaces.  

Glitch said, 'Communications volume below modeled expectation.'  

'Are we compromised?' Alec asked.  

'No evidence of being compromised.'  

Another security scan reached the observation post and the building answered it. Accepted again. Glitch remained silent long enough for Anderson to glance toward the upper landing where Alec stood out of sight.  

'Problem?' Alec asked.  

'Acceptance latency low. Still inside valid range. Security vehicle did not request secondary challenge.'  

Susan's breathing remained almost inaudible on the link.  

'Shot available.'  

The officer in red stepped farther from the command vehicle while remaining within the mobile shield.  

Alec said nothing as the tactical clock advanced one second, then another. The decision lasted only moments, yet Anderson’s perception stretched them long enough to register the guards around the target, the infantry watching the windows, Susan’s barrel held motionless through the gap in the smart-glass, the rear stairwell behind him, and the dead Turian seated two floors below with a heating strip beneath his armor. Glitch’s eighty-four-percent voice match remained at the edge of his vision, and Alec needed only one word to end the wait.  

The officer in red turned his head northwest, toward the trail Sierra had spent the morning laying across the district.  

Alec's voice came over the link.  

'Take it.'  

Susan fired.  

The Cascade discharged with a harsh whuff Anderson could feel through his suit, and a white line crossed the road as the mobile barrier erupted brilliant blue around it, held for an instant with energy crawling outward across the field, then failed and let the round through.  

The officer’s chest opened under the impact. Red-trimmed armor shattered across the side of the command vehicle, followed by blue blood; one guard collapsed beneath the fragments while another was thrown hard enough to strike the shield projector.  

The body folded onto the road, and the Turian soldiers reacted immediately, weapons rising and vehicles pivoting toward the surrounding buildings, yet no one fired at their position.  

'Target down,' Susan said.  

Glitch pulled traffic from the convoy.  

"-medical forward-"  

"-command down-"  

"-secure the junction-"  

The channels filled with clipped voices.  

Glitch cut across them.  

'Command transponder terminated. Biometric telemetry lost. Escort network identifies General Arterius as killed. Maximum confirmation available from this position.'  

Alec was already turning away from the window.  

'Break contact. Susan first. Anderson rear stairwell. Lucas, burn the hardline.'  

Susan pulled the Cascade from the firing slit.  

Anderson moved.  

Lucas severed Sierra's connection and set thermite on the interface. Before Glitch lost the post, he transmitted one final report in the dead roof sentry's voice.  

"Sniper discharge east of service road. Upper residential structures. No visual contact."  

Several Turian units immediately turned east while Sierra went west.  

The preloaded local package kept Observation Four alive behind them with recorded status traffic and conservative sensor loops, enough to satisfy remote checks and useless against anyone who actually opened the door.  

Anderson had reached the fifth floor before the response began to bother him: no rounds struck the building, no drone crossed the windows, and no assault team hit the front entrance. He slowed just enough to look through the stairwell slit and saw several vehicles already moving northwest.  

'Glitch! Compare response to an unexpected sniper attack.'  The AGI did not answer immediately. Alec stopped one level above. 'Report!'  

'Pattern mismatch. Outer elements are not establishing a firing-origin cordon. Three vehicles are moving northwest before adjacent structures are cleared.'  

Susan stopped on the stairs.  

'Thermals to the south of the post. Multiple.'  

Lucas reached the fourth-floor landing. 'The tunnel?'  

'Unknown. Interference is masking buried sensors.'  

Alec switched Sierra to manual protocols.  

'Assume we're compromised. No remote doors. No wireless triggers. Visual spacing.'  

They moved, and when Anderson reached the next landing he glanced through the narrow window to find a Turian standing beside one of the command vehicles below, facing the observation post without searching its windows, simply waiting.  

"They knew where we'd go," Anderson said.  

Glitch answered too quickly.  

'Probability increasing. Continue moving!'  

Alec descended past Susan.  

'Tunnel until contact proves otherwise.'  

They went down while Observation Post Four continued speaking behind them in the voices of dead Turians, Glitch’s abandoned deception carrying on without him.  

"Observation normal."  

"Western route clear."  

Susan reached the ground floor when Glitch's voice suddenly cut across the link with an urgency so unlike his usual precision that Anderson reacted to the tone before the words registered.  

'ALEC! The officer Susan shot—'  

The world went white. 

A/N: Yeah, I totally did not forgot the schedule update, and totally not just finish editing this chapter only 3 hours ago. Repeat, totally did not forgot it.

Anyway, a shout out for Snypehuntee007 for proofreading this chapter. I grateful for your support.

Chapter 18 will be posted on September 21th. Thank you all for your supported for this story and myself. Hope you all wonderful people the best.