"They are routing a full battalion of heavy shock infantry down the main gantry!" Elias shouted over the deafening whine of the charging plasma conduit, his boots sinking deeper into the oily sludge as he raised his carbine toward the upper service walkway. "A localized command frequency isn't going to stop a squad of Coalition juggernauts from turning us into red mist!" "It will if I reverse their IFF transponders and tell the turret grid that the shock infantry are the unauthorized hostiles!" Noah yelled back, his fingers flying across the cracked glass interface in a desperate blur of motion. A sharp, high-pitched squeal erupted from the terminal as a string of green characters cascaded down the screen, followed instantly by a heavy, mechanical thud from the catwalk directly above them. "There! Done! Now watch what happens when you give an automated defense turret a very convincing identity crisis!" "You better pray your cod

Chapter 383"Move!" Elias roared, his hand slamming into the collar of Noah’s tactical vest and dragging him backward through the oily, knee-deep sludge. A jagged, ten-ton section of the steel gantry collapsed exactly where they had been standing a millisecond prior, sending a violent geyser of black water and rusted iron rivets screaming into the dark. The impact shook the concrete foundation of the tunnel, the vibration rattling up through Elias’s combat boots and straight into his teeth. "The turrets are still cycling!" Noah gasped, his fingers desperately clutching the edge of the cracked interface terminal. His knuckles were white, his face smeared with a greasy mixture of soot and stagnant water. "Elias, they aren't shutting down! The IFF loop didn't disengage the targeting subroutines—it just scrambled them!" "Which means they’re shooting at anything that breathes!" Elias yelled back

Chapter 385The double-tap was deafening in the enclosed concrete crawlspace. Before the echoes of the shots could even bounce off the wet walls, the heavy copper plating of the return valve peeled back like paper. A white wall of superheated vapor erupted with a mechanical shriek, a roaring column of pressure that instantly swallowed the yellow-tinged air of the corridor. "Go!" Elias barked, his hand slamming into Noah’s back and shoving him forward into the blinding mist. "Keep your head down! Don't breathe it in!" "I can't see the gantry floor!" Noah choked out, coughing as the hot, wet air hit his throat. He stumbled, his boots sliding dangerously on the grease-slicked grating. "Elias, the turret's auditory sensors—they’re still tracking our footsteps!" "Then don't step! Slide!" Above them, the automated heavy gun whined. Blblinded by the localized st

Chapter 387The bone-jarring impact when they hit the bottom of the drainage chute felt like a physical hammer blow to Elias’s spine. He didn't slide to a halt so much as slam violently into a heap of rusted iron grates and stagnant bilge water. The air was instantly knocked from his lungs in a ragged, wet gasp. Beside him, Noah let out a sharp, choked-off scream, his body rolling twice through the greasy muck before coming to a stop against a massive, vibrating drainage pipe. "Noah!" Elias rasped. He tried to push himself up, but his left arm instantly buckled. A white-hot spike of agony shot through his collarbone, radiating down his arm and blooming into a blinding flare behind his eyes. He gritted his teeth, swallowing a curse, and dragged himself forward using only his right hand and his knees. "Noah! Talk to me! You still intact?" Noah was curled on his side, his knees pulled to his chest, coughing vio

Chapter 339"We missed the sensor array!" Noah screamed, his voice cracking as he slammed both palms against the frozen dirt, his fingers clawing into the gray mud as a secondary shockwave rattled their teeth. "Elias, the targeting computer is locked on our exact electromagnetic signature! Every time you fire that pulse-rifle, you're lighting a flare visible from orbit!" "Better a flare than a smoking crater!" Elias yelled back, ducking low as a storm of pulverized granite rained down on their heads. Another plasma shell exploded twenty yards to their left, flash-boiling the snow into a suffocating wall of steam and scalding mist. "Stop whining about the signature and tell me how to drop that bird before it drops us!" "I need a clean connection to its local area network!" Noah shouted, his eyes rolling back slightly before he violently snapped his focus back to the present, blood now dripping freely from both nostrils. "If you can get