The ablative titanium plating of the heavy combat dummy was designed to withstand direct hits from armor-piercing kinetic rounds.Cyrus swung the Keres grav-glaive in a low, sweeping arc. As the weapon cut through the air of the isolated training deck, the neural-sensor array in the grip read his intent. The thin blue indicator lines running up the carbon-osmium shaft flared brightly.A fraction of a second before the blade struck the dummy's torso, the localized gravity attenuator engaged. The striking head suddenly gained weight, pulling Cyrus’s shoulders forward with the sudden shift in mass.The single-edged blade hit the titanium.The impact cracked through the confined room. The kinetic force sheared completely through the heavy plating, tearing the combat dummy in half and sending the severed upper torso spinning across the deck to crash against the far bulkhead.Immediately, the mass of the striking head reduced. Cyrus used the momentum to flow smoothly into a defensive guard,

The hunter did not roar, and it did not telegraph its strike. It simply vanished from a standstill.Cyrus tracked the blur of dark, iridescent chitin solely through his enhanced reflexes. He brought the Keres grav-glaive up in a horizontal block just as the creature crossed the thirty feet between them.The bone-white scythe struck the carbon-osmium shaft.Sparks showered across the dim comms hub. The physical force behind the blow drove Cyrus's boots backward across the ferrocrete deck. The strike carried the compressed power of a Goliath within a frame a fraction of the size. The impact sent a sharp jolt through his fused ribs, but the Keres held firm. The weapon’s neural sensors recognized the block, keeping the mass perfectly balanced.The hunter didn't pause. It used the rebound of its own strike to launch itself into the air, twisting to bring its second scythe down toward Cyrus’s neck.Cyrus pivoted, dropping to one knee, and swung the glaive upward.He willed the mass to shift

The quarters assigned to Cyrus in the northern pole were strictly functional: a steel bunk, a sonic shower, and a recessed equipment locker. There were no windows overlooking the Aegis Prime shipyards, just the low, steady hum of the moon's central fusion reactor vibrating through the floorplates.Cyrus sat on the edge of the bunk, his black synthetic armor stripped to the waist. He ran his fingers lightly over the dermal patch on his left flank. The synthetic skin had hardened into a tight seal over the scythe cut, but beneath it, his fused ribs still ached with a dull, persistent throb.The Keres grav-glaive rested across his knees. He wiped the matte-gray carbon-osmium shaft with a microfiber cloth, clearing away the carbon scoring and faint traces of chitin left over from the fight on Tartarus.The weapon had saved his life, but it took a toll. His forearms felt heavy, the muscles fatigued from absorbing the kinetic feedback of the gravity attenuator. His eighty-nine percent reson

The atmosphere of The Cradle was oppressive. Even through their environmental filters, the air tasted of sulfur and metallic ash.Cyrus led the way out of the fossilized ravine, finding traction on the porous stone. The ambient heat radiating from the planetoid’s crust increased with every hundred yards, pressing against their suits' temperature regulators.Behind him, Voss steered the grav-sled. The deep-core seismic charge hovered silently, a sleek cylinder of Vanguard engineering gliding through an alien wasteland. Sergeant Rael guarded their rear, his kinetic sidearm drawn, his eyes scanning the jagged ridges above.The rocky canyon gave way to the biological infrastructure of the Hive Mind.Stone transitioned into a dense, calcified membrane that yielded slightly under their boots. Massive arches of gray cartilage rose on either side, forming a cavernous tunnel that sloped downward toward the planetoid’s core. Thick, translucent veins lined the walls, pulsing rhythmically with bi

The exhaust artery was a vertical chimney of ribbed cartilage and porous bone, twenty feet across and rising hundreds of feet toward the planetoid’s crust. Concentrated thermal energy rushed up the shaft from the central vent, creating a fierce, superheated updraft."Erebus, this is Actual," Rael said, his voice straining slightly against the roar of the vent as he grabbed the lowest structural ridge. "Payload is hot. We are executing a vertical extraction through the primary exhaust artery. We need a tether at the surface.""Copy, Actual," the pilot’s voice crackled over the comms, fighting through the nebula's heavy electromagnetic interference. "We are repositioning over the vent. You have to move fast. The atmospheric shear up here is getting worse by the minute."Voss was already climbing. The demolitions expert moved with practiced efficiency, finding handholds in the hardened biological ridges and pulling himself upward through the rising heat.Rael holstered his sidearm and fo