The silence that followed Dr. Sa’s death and Thariel’s escape with the Braccari through the tunnels was tainted by heavy, labored, agonizing breathing.

  John dropped to one knee and braced himself against the edge of the console scorched black by the blast from Thariel’s grenade. His Scorcher clattered to the floor, slick with dust and blood. The synthetic mesh of his suit groaned as it flexed against the shrapnel embedded in his thigh and lower torso. Every breath pulled sharp pain along his ribs. His vision trembled at the edges, clouded by the rhythmic throb of internal hemorrhage.

  Rhea sat slumped against a pillar of rusted tubing, clutching her side. A sliver of shrapnel protruded from her abdomen just beneath the plating. She hissed through clenched teeth, struggling to keep her sidearm raised. Across the room, Samantha leaned against a tipped workstation, eyes wild, the left side of her visor fractured like frostbitten glass. Blood leaked down her cheek from beneath the helmet seal, painting thin lines of red along her neck.

  “Status?” John croaked.

  Samantha grimaced. “Alive. I think. Not sure about everything else.”

  “I’ve taken worse,” Rhea muttered, her voice raw. “Just don’t ask me to run.”

  The only one who remained upright and untouched was Esh-Kaet. He stood amid the carnage like a wraith. His armor was flecked with soot but otherwise pristine. His borrowed human face—young and calm—surveyed the room without emotion. “I am uninjured,” he said simply. “I will secure the perimeter.”

  Before John could respond, his HUD lit up with flashing orange: CRITICAL SYSTEM DAMAGE DETECTED — INITIATING HEALING PROTOCOL. A micro-needle hissed from inside the suit, puncturing the skin over his lower abdomen. Cold fluid flooded the wound. A burning wash of nanites flooded into his bloodstream. Pain surged through his body. He curled his fingers into claws.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He fell sideways with a grunt, pressing his back against a half-shattered stasis tank.

  Rhea Morgan cried out as her suit pumped biopolymer foam and thermal inhibitors into the puncture near her ribs. “Oh, God,” she rasped. “Why does it always feel like it's fixing you with a chainsaw?”

  Samantha sank to the floor, eyes squeezed shut as her arm twitched involuntarily. Her combat suit injected a full nerve silencer down her shoulder socket, making the muscle convulse violently. “I’m going to throw up,” she whispered.

  “You won’t,” Sasha replied. “I’ve suppressed your gag reflex. You’re welcome.”

  “Thanks,” she choked. “Really. Such a lady.”

  Sweat dripped from John’s chin. He gritted his teeth as the mesh lattice under his armor stitched his tissue back together—each movement felt like an electric wire pulled through raw meat. It took everything inside of him not to scream.

  Esh-Kaet returned from scouting. “The swarm is circling us. I count four Braccari patrols. They haven’t breached yet, but they’re going to find us. We’re boxed in.”

  John forced himself upright, still trembling. “We barricade this place. Lock it down. Set proximity charges. Esh-Kaet—you take point. Hold the main entry.”

  He nodded.

  John turned to the others. “We’re not done. That tunnel Thariel used—it goes somewhere. He didn’t kill us because he’s too close to whatever he’s protecting. We hit him now before he has a chance to vanish again.”

  “Hard to chase someone when your organs feel like slop,” Rhea said, groaning.

  Samantha forced herself to a sitting position, wiping blood from her face. “Then we rest for five. No more. We get up, we load up, and we find out where that coward ran.” She looked to Esh-Kaet. “That puts you on barricade duty.”

  “On it.”

  Outside, the storm raged. The walls shuddered with the movement of Braccari claws. Shrill cries echoed through the vents—inhuman and wrong.

  But for now, they were alive.

  And Thariel had made the mistake of letting them stay that way.