CHAPTER 288: FIRE AND STEEL [ 4 ]

The corridor was alive with chaos.

The sharp, staccato rhythm of gunfire echoed from the far end, where blue tracer rounds sliced through the smoke like angry serpents, shattering wall panels and sparking against the combat suits’ armored plating.

Emerging from the haze were the VULTURE strike unit shadows clad in black armor, their visors glowing a menacing crimson.

They moved in perfect formation, weapons raised with deadly precision, each step calculated as if choreographed.

"Contact front!" Gunner’s voice crackled through the comms, snapping everyone into action.

In unison, the team sprang into motion. Lyra dropped into a low crouch, her Mantis-X5 barking three-round bursts!

Each shot found its mark in the enemy’s armor. One operative crumpled to the ground, his visor splintering like glass before he fell.

Rask hurled a smoke canister downrange! Instantly, thick gray fog enveloped the corridor. Shadows danced within it.

"They’ve got thermal," Holt warned.

"Then take their eyes," Mireille shot back confidently. She fired an EMP micro-grenade

Pop!

The shockwave flickered through the VULTUREs’ visor HUDs, plunging them into momentary blindness.

That was all they needed.

Holt charged forward and slammed into the nearest operative with his shoulder; both crashed against a wall.

BAM!

The guard swung a short blade; Holt caught his wrist and twisted until bone snapped.

CRACK!

He finished with a brutal knee to the chest plate that crushed the man’s windpipe.

Further down the hall, Lyra vaulted over a fallen workstation and rolled into cover beside Ethan. "How’s that warhead?"

Ethan broke from cover just long enough to drop to one knee by a reinforced base.

"Package on the floor." He slotted in the Micronova like it was meant to be there.

The arming light pulsed steadily at first then quickened as he keyed in sequences with deft fingers.

"Three minutes."

"Guard him," Gunner ordered sharply. "He doesn’t get touched."

"Touched?" Ethan chuckled lightly. "They won’t even get to think about it."

Two elite operatives pressed hard down the right lane. Rask met one head-on and shoved him aside while turning his center; his Viper-9 slid under an arm seam and upward,quick and precise,ending it swiftly.

The second elite lunged for Rask’s flank; Mireille stepped in smoothly, cutting off his rifle line before plunging her knife into his side seam and rolling away as he collapsed.

Holt felt the sharp sting of a blade slicing into his forearm.

In an instant, his suit hissed and sealed the wound with a burst of medfoam,white and sudden, like a flash of lightning in the chaos.

He quickly trapped his attacker’s elbow with his left arm, driving him down to the floor with a swift step, knee, and twist.

The visor met the tile with a crack that echoed through the room. With each hit, he pressed harder until the third strike sent the man’s head crashing through it.

Without looking back, Holt stood tall and scanned for another target.

"Two minutes," Ethan said calmly, focused on their mission.

Outside, the Skyfang roared overhead again,low and fast,sending vibrations through the roof as dust trembled from a light fixture above.

The last of their deck elites attempted to create some distance between them.

But Vance was relentless; he closed in swiftly, parrying the man’s guard before stomping down on his footplate to pin him in place.

With all his weight behind it, Vance brought him down hard. Stone stepped forward and took out any argument left in him with one decisive shot.

Suddenly, an east door slid open two meters but got stuck halfway.

A figure emerged just enough to catch the light,armor like theirs but worn differently, as if its occupant had trained longer for this moment.

The rifle held steady in hand while a line of blue glowed down its visor like a watchful eye.

"Whatever you think you’re stopping," he said smoothly yet confidently, "you’re late."

Gunner didn’t waver in tone. "We’re right on time."

"One minute," Ethan announced without looking up from his work.

His hands moved steadily as red lights pulsed faster around them: "Final commit armed."

"Teams withdraw," Gunner ordered sharply. "Same route. No lag."

Lyra grabbed the last line of charges from their control island and tossed them to Holt as he moved seamlessly along with her momentum.

Stone pulled an enemy off Vance’s backplate using a hook-and-drive maneuver before leaving him for Mireille’s knife to finish off swiftly behind them.

Silas skimmed over consoles with quick swipes that killed cameras and dumped logs into noise,a smokescreen that would leave any forensic investigation grasping at shadows.

"Twenty seconds," Ethan warned.

"Move!" Gunner commanded urgently.

The team flowed back through the mouth of their core toward safety while doors tried desperately to close on them; Stone wedged one shutter open just enough so it jammed shut behind them as they raced ahead into clear hallways once more.

The siren’s tone shifted,deeper now,more urgent; even within these walls, something understood what lay at its heart.

"Ten seconds!"

Ethan shouted as he fell back last in line,the detonator firmly gripped in his palm,as he stepped through an opening just as Gunner’s hand clasped onto his shoulder and pulled him in.

They immediately runned.

They made the junction Lyra dropped a smoke canister to obscure their movements, then followed the column into the swirling haze.

Holt led Bravo back into the maintenance crawl, sliding the bag of charges ahead and dragging it along with his boots.

Rask bounded up the stairs two at a time, while Vance and Stone covered their rear, firing rounds at anything that dared to move. Mireille checked every doorway as they moved, ensuring nothing could pull a trigger behind them.

"Five," Ethan said, his voice steady over comms.

The chatter fell silent; you could almost hear their breaths through the filters,a brief moment of stillness before he counted down.

"Three. Two. One."

He pressed.

The world didn’t explode,it simply ceased to exist.

The Micronova’s sphere expanded from its core with eerie precision, a clean geometry that erased rather than shattered everything in its path,steel, tile, glass, wiring, even organs,matter lost its shape and became mere absence.

The shockwave followed like an angry ghost, slapping walls and sending dust and debris flying down corridors like leaves caught in a tempest.

Doors buckled outward; support beams sagged like dull knives under pressure.

The strobe lights flickered out; even the siren choked on its own noise before falling silent.

They made it to the outer tunnel just as the main corridor behind them collapsed in on itself.

Holt dropped through the crawl space, rolled onto the floor, and sprang up running.

Lyra hit the tile behind him and let out a short laugh,a fleeting sound of relief escaping from her lips.