On day sixteen, GDF surveillance confirmed what the Archon had said: eleven Stage 12 signature readings, distributed across the mountain range surrounding Vega Citadel. Not moving. Not massing. In position.
The readings were confirmed across three independent sensor systems. They were real.
General Yuen activated the Citadel Emergency Protocol. Ten million civilians moved to the deep bunkers the ones built into the mountain's core, where seventeen layers of void-null composite and six kilometers of granite separated them from the surface. The bunkers could sustain ten million people for three years. They had been built for exactly this.
The GDF prepared.
Kaspar took position at the citadel's primary gate, the Bastion shield operational, the Sovereign Cannon charged and in Marcus's hands behind him.
Mira and Ha-Jin deployed to the outer wall with the full Phantom and Apex suit complement.
Anya and Sable went to positions that were not on the official deployment map the spaces between spaces that Shadow Recon occupied by doctrine and instinct.
Theo, who was not officially cleared for operational deployment, was in the Forge bay with every modification to Ray's Genesis Suit that could be made completed, and a secondary device he had built from components he had technically not been authorized to use, which he handed to Ray at 23:00 hours the night before day seventeen with the specific expression of someone who has done everything they can think of and hopes it is enough.
"The amplifier. It goes on the suit's left shoulder housing. It will extend the resonance field by forty percent if it works."
"If."
"I tested the core mechanism seventeen times. I've never tested the full assembly because I built it in five days and some of the component interfaces are speculative."
"Speculative."
"Theoretically sound. Practically untested."
Ray looked at the device. Then at Theo.
"You made it in five days."
"I haven't slept since Tuesday."
"Theo."
"It'll work. I just can't prove it'll work until it does."
Ray took the amplifier. He put it on the left shoulder housing of the Genesis Suit, and the suit's systems interfaced with it immediately that instinctive recognition the suit had for things that belonged to it. The amplifier pulsed once in sync with the suit's heartbeat rhythm.
"Go sleep."
"After you get back."
"I will be back."
"I know."
The specific quality of knowing something that you can't prove but refuse to doubt.
Ray went to take his position.