[Location: Precursor Control Room - Antarctica] [Time: T-Minus 14 Minutes to Core Detonation] The vault door locked open. Alex stepped inside. The room was circular. The walls were smooth white metal. There were no screens. No keyboards. In the center of the room floated a hologram. It was a perfect, glowing model of Earth. The hologram was not blue. It was bleeding red. Thick, black cables ran from Harvester drills on the floor up to a central pedestal. They were pumping a virus directly into the planet's nervous system. Above the Earth, a digital timer hovered. 14:00. 13:59. "Secure the door," Alex said. Vance, Echo, and Krog turned back toward the hangar. Harvester drones were pouring into the cavern outside. They wanted their bomb to go off. Alex walked to the pedestal. He grabbed the black Harvester cables. He ripped them out. Sparks showered the floor. He placed his Voidbreaker Arm flat on the white metal. "Ares," Alex said. "Link me." [The Infection] The white

[Location: Earth Surface - Sector 4 (Old Europe)] [Time: T-Plus 3 Months since the Core Override] Alex Vane walked through a field of ash. He held a kinetic rifle. His Voidbreaker Arm glowed with a steady violet light. It was fully recharged. A Harvester drone crawled out from under a pile of rusted metal. Its legs were broken. It aimed a cracked plasma cutter at Alex. Alex raised his rifle. He pulled the trigger. BANG. The kinetic slug shattered the drone’s sensor cluster. The machine dropped. Black oil soaked into the ash. General Vance walked up behind him. He lowered his weapon. "That is the last nest in the sector," Vance said. "The drones are disorganized. They starve without the orbital network." "Casualties?" Alex asked. "Minimal," Vance turned away from the wreckage. "They don't fight as an army anymore. They fight like trapped animals." Alex looked up. The nanite clouds were gone. The thick, toxic smog was thinning. Through the gaps in the grey, a patch of blue

[Location: Low Mars Orbit - The UNS Retribution] [Time: T-Plus 2 Days since First Contact] Mars was red and dead. The Harvesters had stripped the surface. Black factory cubes covered the equator. Massive strip mines cut scars across the southern hemisphere. Alex Vane stood in the drop bay. He held a titanium canister. Inside rested the Genesis Seed. General Vance loaded a belt of depleted uranium into his heavy railgun. Krog strapped a spiked ram-plate to his chest armor. "The target is Olympus Mons," Ares spoke through the comms. "It is the tallest volcano in the solar system. The caldera drops deep into the mantle. It is the optimal insertion point for the Seed." "The Harvester main forces left," Echo checked the scans. "But they left the automated cleanup crews behind. Scrappers." "They recycle metal," Alex said. He looked at the Iron Legion soldiers strapping into their drop pods. They wore heavy steel and scavenged plating. "To them, we are just walking scrap." "Launc

[Location: The Asteroid Belt - Approach to Ceres][Time: T-Plus 5 Days since Mars Terraforming]The UNS Retribution killed its engines.It drifted into the asteroid belt. Jagged rocks tumbled past the black hull in silence.Ahead lay Ceres.It was not a dwarf planet anymore. It was a factory. The Harvesters had hollowed out the rock. Red light glowed from deep cracks in the crust. A hexagonal energy grid wrapped around the entire sphere."Shields are absolute," Ares reported from the console. "Kinetic railguns will bounce. Plasma will dissipate."Alex Vane looked at the screen. "Is there a door?""Ore freighters pass through a localized gate at the south pole," Ares brought up a schematic. "The grid drops for exactly three seconds to let them in."Alex turned to Echo. "Suit up. We are taking a ride."[The Leech]They did not take a dropship. They took a stealth leech-pod.It was flat, black, and had no weapons.Alex, Echo, and four Void Marines strapped into the cramped cabin."Deploy

[Location: Ceres Shipyards - The Asteroid Belt] [Time: T-Plus 6 Months since the Belter Rebellion] Sparks rained down from the ceiling of the hollow asteroid. Welders crawled over a wall of grey iron. The docking clamps released. The shipyard doors opened. The UNS Hammer pushed into the vacuum. It was not a sleek ship. It had no wings. It had no windows. It was a rectangular block of solid armor, built by Belter miners. Heavy railgun turrets lined its top edge. Alex Vane stood on the command deck. He looked at the fuel gauge. It blinked yellow. 12%. Cole, the Belter foreman, walked onto the deck. He wiped grease from his hands with a rag. "We built fifty hulls," Cole said. "The armor is three meters thick. They can take a hit. But the tanks are dry. We used the last of the Cinder reserves to power the assembly lines." General Vance stood by the tactical table. "Fifty dreadnoughts," Vance said. "And no gas to fly them." "We go to the gas station," Alex walked to the table.