Captain Halden led Squad 9 onto a transit skiff forged of dark celestial bronze, resting on a track of glowing geometric light. Heavy jade doors sealed shut, and the skiff lunged. Outside the reinforced viewports, space warped into a blinding kaleidoscope of eight-sided fractals. Streaks of light blurred as the transport slid down the colossal, unseen roots of the Great Tree.
"This place is way too quiet," Zeri muttered, tossing a spare power cell. "I bet half these people don't even know how to blink without a scheduled timer."
Ravion snatched her wrist mid-toss. "Your jokes are a liability," he said flatly.
Zeri rolled her eyes and yanked her arm back. "Relax, big guy. You're wound tight enough to snap." She leaned against the bulkhead, flashing a wicked grin at Darian. "What about you, Darian? Feeling homesick yet? This place has the same rich-people energy as you, just with more incense and fewer cameras."
Darian flashed a brilliant, manufactured smirk. "Please, Zeri. The cameras love me everywhere. I'm just tragedy-stricken that I have to carry my own gear today. It's doing terrible things to my posture."
Zeri snorted. "Your ego is going to get us killed."
Internally, cold anxiety pierced Darian's stomach. He dug his fingernails into his palms.
The geometric light arrays snapped back into solid reality. The spatial fold collapsed, and the skiff doors hissed open.
The Jingjie Sector was a sprawling, multi-tiered commercial promenade built into the hollowed-out husk of an ancient asteroid. Floating tea houses hovered over crystalline ponds, and calligraphy banners drifted on artificial breezes. Thousands of citizens walked along wide jade avenues, browsing stalls or sitting at pavilions.
Captain Halden stepped onto a metal balcony overlooking the promenade and peeled off her heavy gauntlets. She stared down at the massive, spinning jade astrolabe in the center of the courtyard.
"This is the exact spot Halvek was last sighted," she said, her voice all business. "I'm going to use my essent to see if he left any traces behind." She glanced over her shoulder. "Once I start, I won't be able to move. Keep your heads down and hold this position."
"Understood, Captain."
Halden stepped up to the astrolabe and placed her bare hands against the cool metal. A deep, resonant hum filled the air as piercing silver light gathered at her fingertips.
Her eyes slowly turned silver.
"Let's see where you've been hiding, Doctor."
A wave of silver essent pulsed outward, washing over the plaza below like a ghostly radar.
From the balcony, the cadets looked down. Thousands shopped, ate, and walked, yet there was no overlapping chatter or haggling. A man drinking tea lifted his cup with the exact same robotic cadence as a woman three tables over. Pedestrians adjusted their shoulders at the exact millisecond to avoid collisions, their stares completely blank.
"Okay, that's just creepy," Zeri scoffed. "Look at them. It's like watching a billion gears spinning in a machine. You sure you aren't from here, Ravion? You've got the whole 'emotionless statue' thing down perfectly."
"They aren't soldiers," Ravion scowled, gripping his collapsible spear. "It isn't discipline, just empty repetition. It makes them entirely vulnerable."
Down in the courtyard, the silver wave of Halden's trace washed over the tea pavilion.
The man lifting his cup froze. His body spasmed, his spine arching backward at an impossible angle. He let out a wet, tearing shriek as the cup shattered on the floor.
"What the—" Zeri started.
The man's skin split open. Twisted, black-red bark erupted from his veins, expanding with sickening speed. Parasitic roots tore through his robes, replacing his left arm with a jagged biological scythe. The sudden influx of tracking essent had triggered a dormant corruption.
Doctor Halvek's work had taken root.
He wasn't the only one. Thirty yards away, a woman sweeping the jade steps dropped her broom and shrieked as black-red roots erupted from her throat.
The two monsters roared—nightmares of splintered wood and flesh. The first beast lunged, landing on a jade table and crushing an elderly man beneath its weight.
The crowd didn't scream or run. A collective cold sweat broke out across the plaza. Bodies trembled, but their routines remained unbroken.
The man sitting across from the crushed victim wiped a splatter of blood off his cheek. Tears streamed from his wide, horrified eyes, but he offered a strained, polite smile to the empty air. With violently shaking fingers, he placed a game piece onto the splintered board.
"Check," he whispered through chattering teeth.
A citizen waiting in line flinched as the second monster ripped the merchant in front of him in half. The citizen paled, his chest heaving with silent, panicked gasps. Yet, he stepped carefully over the severed remains, fixed his face into a stiff, pleasant expression, and held out his currency chit.
"One steamed bun, please," he said. His voice held steady, though the metal chit rattled against the counter.
Zeri gripped the railing, her holographic blasters whining as they charged. "Are you kidding me? They're gonna get pureed because they're pretending everything is fine!"
"Our orders are to hold position," Ravion said, knuckles white on his spear. "We don't break protocol for weaklings who won't even try to survive."
"She's in a trance!" Zeri yelled, pointing at Halden. The captain's eyes were locked wide and stark white. Completely unresponsive, she remained anchored to the astrolabe as the tracking web consumed her focus.
The first monster shrieked, raising its scythe to cleave through a line of weeping, perfectly still pedestrians.
Darian looked from the helpless civilians to their paralyzed captain. His survival instincts screamed at him to stay put.
Ravion let out a heavy sigh. "Fools. You're all fools." He stepped forward, spinning his spear until its tip ignited with a crackle of violent purple plasma. "If we die down there, I'm killing you both myself."
Zeri threw Darian a wicked grin. "About time you grew a spine. Coming, poster boy?"
Darian swallowed hard and forced his trademark smirk. His thumb hit the activation switch. With a sharp shing, his mag-blade snap-extended into a glowing kinetic sword. "So much for a low profile."
The three POND cadets vaulted over the balcony and dropped directly into the courtyard. They hit the ground hard.
Instantly, they fell out of sync.
"Cover me!" Zeri shouted. She strafed left, laying down a barrage of suppressive fire at the first monster.
"Hold the line, fool!" Ravion barked. He charged forward with a heavy battle cry—directly into Zeri's line of fire.
"Ravion, drop!" Zeri cursed, pulling her aim wide to avoid shooting him in the back. Her plasma bolts sailed harmlessly past the creature.
In her rush, Zeri forgot to check her flank.
The second hybrid erupted from the shadows of a calligraphy stall. Moving with unnatural speed, it whipped its biological scythe in a brutal horizontal arc toward her blind spot.
Zeri's armor sensors blared. Automatic defense protocols triggered, projecting a glowing, hexagonal hard-light shield between her and the beast.
It wasn't enough.
The corrupted bone slammed into the hard-light barrier. The shield flared, held for a fraction of a second, and shattered. The blade carried through, slamming into Zeri's ribs with a sickening crunch. She cried out, hurled backward into the rubble of the tea house.
"Zeri!" Darian yelled.
Across the courtyard, Ravion roared, igniting his spear's shield generator. He threw himself at the first beast, drawing its attention. The scythe crashed down on his shield. Stone cracked beneath Ravion's boots, but he gritted his teeth, holding the line against a furious flurry of strikes.
Darian hung back, his kinetic sword humming in his trembling grip. His heart hammered. He forced the panic down, tracking the beast's frenzied movements. He wasn't a brawler like Ravion. He was a tactician.
Look for the seams, he told himself. Look for the flaw.
He watched the furious arc of the scythe. There. Between the frantic swings, the twisted bark armor shifted, exposing a pulsating mass of corrupted tissue near the creature's collarbone.
An opening. It would only last a fraction of a second.
"Ravion, hold its focus!" Darian shouted, coiling his muscles to sprint.
But as Darian lunged, the beast's chest split open with a wet tear. A secondary, jagged appendage whipped out, snapping around Ravion's spear shaft and ripping the weapon from his hands.
Defenseless and thrown off balance, Ravion stumbled to his knees. The towering scythe eclipsed the plaza lights, casting a deadly shadow over him.
To the left, the second hybrid stalked into the rubble. Zeri coughed, struggling to raise a single, flickering blaster as the monster reared back to deliver a decapitating blow.
Darian froze.
Left. Right.
Two monsters. Two fatal strikes descending simultaneously.
And only one of him.