The hangar bay of the Gonggong Lunar Black Site was a localized apocalypse.
As the boarding skiff's blast doors opened, the artificial gravity spasmed between crushing pressure and weightlessness. Sirens screamed, bleeding red light over a three-way slaughter.
Guards fought a losing battle against a swarm of escaped prisoners. These weren't ordinary criminals. Emaciated martial artists dragged rusted chains, using the fluctuating gravity to launch off walls and tear the guards apart barehanded.
"Form up! Anchor your boots!" Captain Halden roared over the comms, cutting through the screech of rending metal. "Let the guards deal with the riot! Primary objective is Doctor Halvek. Push through the central access block before he breaches the lowest vaults!"
"Moving!" Jax barked, cybernetic arms whirring as he ripped a barricade from their path.
Before the squads could take another step, a massive bulkhead above them gave way. A shrieking horde of scarred martial artists wielding scavenged blades poured from the breach, dropping through the zero-G air toward the team's flank.
Zeri raised her blasters, eyes wide. "We're getting flanked!"
Instructor Ren stepped from the formation. His empty right sleeve fluttered in the venting drafts. He didn't sprint, simply walking past the armed cadets and stepping directly into the kill zone.
"Keep moving," Ren said, a calm anchor amidst the sirens. He rested his left hand lightly on his katana's hilt. "I will handle the rabble."
Captain Halden met his gaze and gave a firm nod. "You heard him! Push through the central access block!"
As Kael moved past, Ren unsheathed his sword. The crisp chime of steel cut through the roar of the riot.
The squads moved as a phalanx through the zero-G environment, blasting away any deranged prisoner that drifted too close. Darian stayed near the center, his mag-blade unignited, eyes darting frantically. Beside him, Kael's iron armor clanked with every step, his assault rifle tearing through floating debris.
They reached the circular intersection connecting the hangar to the cell blocks and the central descending shaft.
"Clear the path to the elevator!" Halden ordered.
But Halvek had left a welcoming committee. From the shadows of the inverted ceiling, a twelve-foot monstrosity plummeted into the center of their formation: General Taotie, the Iron Beast of Chiyou. Headless, his face was carved directly into his muscled torso—two furnace eyes and a jagged maw spanning his stomach.
"I smell the Emperor's rot!" the warlord boomed, a wet rasp vibrating through the deck plates. He swung a rusted polearm in a brutal horizontal arc toward Halden, Boro, Toben, and Lin Xia. "Break the jade! Feed the iron!"
Halden and her vanguard engaged, weapons blazing as they fought to hold the General back.
Before the rest of the squads could regroup, Bai, the White Guard, stepped from a side corridor, his hands glowing with a green essence. Instructor Jax peeled away, his cybernetic arms locking into combat position.
"You're mine, White Guard," Jax rumbled.
Bai ignored the challenge and slammed his palms onto the floor. "Arise, discarded flesh!"
Dozens of dead prison guards jerked upward, broken limbs snapping into place. Bai's Corpse Puppetry forced them into a rabid swarm, but Jax met the incoming wave with a crushing flurry of piston-driven strikes.
"Captain!" Zeri yelled, raising her blasters.
A thick, sweet pink vapor flooded the corridor from the ventilation shafts above. Floating down through the mist was Madam Meng. The emaciated alchemist wore tattered celestial silks, a cracked jade cauldron chained to her back bubbling with toxic, Spero-infused blood.
"Hush, little sparrows," Meng cooed, her voice echoing as the caustic smog rapidly expanded, swallowing Zeri, Ravion, and Deja.
"Don't breathe it in! It's a neurotoxin!" Ravion roared, his voice hitching into a ragged cough. The toxic smoke blinded them, burning their lungs and severing them from the main shaft.
"Darian, Kael! The elevator!" Halden's voice crackled over the comms, barely audible over the gunfire, roaring undead, and hacking coughs. "Don't let Halvek—!"
Static swallowed her transmission.
Darian and Kael were the only two left at the lip of the central access shaft.
"Move, Darian!" Kael yelled, throwing himself toward the open shaft.
Before Darian could follow, a glowing, jagged seal-script character materialized in mid-air right beneath their feet:
Detonate.
The walkway exploded. The kinetic shockwave ripped the metal to shreds. Darian was thrown backward, tumbling helplessly into the weightless void of the miles-deep elevator shaft.
Before he hit the far wall, Kael's pneumatics shrieked. Engaging his boot thrusters, he caught Darian mid-air, slamming them both onto a jagged metal outcropping on the shaft wall. Their boots magnetized with a heavy clank.
"You alright?" Kael asked, his voice steady over the comms as he scanned the dark shaft above them.
"Yeah," Darian gasped, lungs burning. "We need to get back up there. The squad needs us."
"Agreed," Kael said, nodding. "Let's find a service ladder and—"
Before they could move, a low, sorrowful hum echoed through the shaft. A stringed instrument, crying out in the dark.
Floating out of the shadows was Gao the Faceless, a blind cyborg. His eyes were fused shut with rusted iron plates, and the wooden body of an Erhu was grafted directly into his chest cavity. He played the strings with a serrated, metallic bow.
Beside him floated Xue the Blood-Calligrapher. The disgraced sorcerer slashed his forearms, his blood forming perfect, crimson orbs that drifted around him.
"Fresh ink," Xue hissed, dipping an ivory brush into his floating blood. "Let us see what colors they bleed."
Xue slashed his brush, painting three characters in the air: Pierce, Crush, Bind. The blood solidified into hyper-dense crimson javelins and shot toward them.
"Get behind me, Darian!" Kael roared, stepping in front and crossing his heavy metal arms.
A blood-javelin pierced straight through Kael's left shoulder, showering sparks. The cadet gritted his teeth, refusing to give an inch. "I'm not moving!" he bellowed, raising his rifle and firing a blinding barrage at the sorcerer.
Gao didn't stop playing, dragging his serrated bow across the Erhu. The acoustic frequency hit Kael, warping the localized gravity around him.
"What the hell—?!" Kael grunted, his boots groaning against the magnetic locks.
Gao's music rewrote the gravitational pull. Kael, relying entirely on his immense weight and stability, was suddenly subjected to crushing gravity pulling him up the shaft, while Darian was pushed downward. The physical strain began tearing Kael's hydraulic lines apart.
"Kael!" Darian yelled.
Darian kicked off the wall, igniting his mag-blade. He didn't think about his image or surviving. He just thought of Ravion standing in front of the camp, of Halden holding the shield.
Xue sneered, painting a defensive ward between Darian and Gao: Repel.
Darian didn't dodge. He drove himself directly into the ward. The repelling force slammed into his chest like a freight train, cracking his ribs and sending a spray of blood from his mouth. But his momentum carried him through.
Darian closed the distance, grabbed Gao's serrated bow hand, and drove the pommel of his mag-blade directly into the Erhu grafted into the cyborg's chest.
Wood splintered. The strings snapped with a dissonant shriek.
The acoustic gravity field collapsed.
With a roar of fury, Kael's thrusters engaged. Freed from the crushing gravity, the vanguard launched himself across the shaft, grabbing Xue by the robes and hurling the sorcerer into the wall with the force of a railgun slug. Xue slammed into a jagged stanchion and went limp. Gao fell silently into the abyss, his instrument shattered.
Darian drifted backward, clutching his fractured chest, gasping for breath in the zero-G air.
Kael recalibrated his optics, his heavy chassis venting steam as his boots magnetized to the wall next to Darian.
"That was a reckless move, Darian," Kael grunted, ripping the crimson blood-javelin out of his shoulder plate with a loud clang. "You shattered two ribs for a suboptimal tactical exchange."
"I broke the gravity well," Darian wheezed, tasting copper.
"You acted like a meat-shield," Kael corrected, though his tone softened as he reached out, hauling Darian upright. "But I get it. I saw what you did back in the slums."
Darian froze. The pain in his chest vanished, replaced by a cold, suffocating dread.
"I heard Ravion giving you a hard time," Kael continued plainly. "But you made the hard call. You transmitted those coordinates to secure the mission. You did what had to be done."
A wave of nausea washed over Darian. His secret, panicked betrayal was being praised as a brilliant tactical choice. The validation made him sick.
"I'm not like that," Darian whispered, voice trembling. "I'm not."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Darian," Kael replied, shaking his head and pointing up the shaft. "Come on. Let's start climbing back up to the squad."
They turned to ascend, but a sudden flash of pale blue light from below caught their attention.
Darian looked down. The massive access hatch at the bottom of the shaft—the entrance to the lowest vault—had been blown open. Cryogenic fluid spilled into the dark.
"Wait," Kael said, his voice tightening. "The vault. It's already breached."
They exchanged a look. The squad was fighting above, but their primary objective lay exposed right below them. If Halvek got away, everything they had just fought for would be for nothing.
"We have to check it," Darian breathed.
They descended in silence, floating down the dark, freezing shaft. The walls weren't jade; they were raw, unrefined celestial bedrock, scarred by ancient battles.
Darian's mag-boots clamped onto the floor of the final chamber. Gravity had returned here, heavy and oppressive.
It was a vast cavern, lit only by the pale glow of leaking cryogenic fluid. Shattered stasis pods lined the walls. Massive chains forged of pure, condensed spiritual energy hung from the ceiling.
They had been cleanly severed.
Darian raised his mag-blade, his heart hammering against his ribs. He expected a monster. He expected Doctor Halvek, surrounded by a legion of twisted experiments.
But the massive containment vault was empty.
Except for a single figure standing in the center of the room.
She wore an immaculate, tailored white coat entirely untouched by the dirt and blood of the prison above. Her features were completely obscured by a porcelain mask, painted with a single, weeping red eye. She casually tapped at a glowing holographic console, overriding the last of the celestial locks.
She paused, slowly turning her masked face toward Darian and Kael.
"You're late," Dove purred. Her smooth voice echoed with a chilling, harmonic distortion that seemed to slice straight through the mind.
"You have got to be kidding me," Darian breathed.