OMEGA. GDI LANDING ZONE 'DEEP HIDE'
04:17 GST (GLOBAL STANDARD TIME)
The GDI command bunker at Peterson Space Force Base was a tomb of hushed tension. The only light came from the soft, blue glow of holographic displays.
"Sat-Sweep 1-Alpha," a GDI analyst, his voice a dry monotone, reported, "Biometric, thermal, and acoustic sensors are all green. I mean... quiet, sir. No life-signs above the microbial level within a two-klick radius."
"Sat-Sweep 2-Bravo," another analyst chimed in, "Confirms. The area is... sterile. The same eerie silence that Avenger-1 reported just before... well, you know."
General McCaffrey, his face a granite mask, stared at the main screen. The 'unhostile' reading wasn't a comfort. It was a threat. It meant the enemy was either gone, or it was hiding.
"The 'Hell's Mother' excavator has been dark for 103 hours, General," Sir Malcolm Hayes's voice cut through the room. "Its autonomous systems report the 'Phase 1' bunker is complete and pressurized. The hole is dug. The nest is built. But it's just an empty, dark, 20,000-square-meter concrete box. It needs... life."
"Then let's get to it," McCaffrey said, his voice flat. He nodded to the flight-comms officer. "Commence 'Operation Bedrock.' God help them."
04:22 GST
BUSAN SPACE CENTER, REPUBLIC OF KOREA
This was not a GDI black-budget launch. This was a national project, and it showed. The launch pad was brilliantly lit, clean, and efficient.
Three identical, delta-winged vessels stood on the pad, their white, composite-ceramic hulls gleaming. They were the KT-X 'Geobukseon' (Turtle Ship) class SSTVs.
Where the Garuda was a functional, unpainted "bus," the Geobukseon was a sports car. The "Short Space Travelling Vehicle" was a concept the world's engineers had cracked with frantic, desperate speed in the weeks following Omega's arrival. The physics of the Garuda's engines had been "leaked" by GDI, and every nation with a space program had built their own.
"Flight-1 ('Daehan'), Flight-2 ('Minguk'), Flight-3 ('Manse')," the ROK launch commander's voice was sharp, professional. "You are 'go' for insertion. Godspeed, gentlemen."
Unlike the massive, 120-man Garuda transport, these three ships were lean. Daehan and Minguk held the 50 construction engineers—the real reason for the mission. These were the best civilian and military engineers from Hyundai Heavy, Samsung, and Daewoo. Their mission: assemble the pre-fabricated surface-cap for the FOB, connect the power systems, and establish the sensor-grid.
Manse, the third ship, held the security detail.
It was a small detail. Ten soldiers. That's it.
But as they stood in the small, cramped transport-bay, they were anything but small.
They were soldiers from the ROK Army's 707th "White Tiger" Special Mission Group, and they were all encased in H-ULC (Hyundai Universal Load Carrier) Gen-2 exoskeletons.
They were not Iron Man suits. They were brutalist, functional, load-bearing frames of steel and carbon-fiber, strapped over their standard-issue body armor. Hydraulic pistons hissed at their hips and knees. Micro-servos whirred at their shoulders and elbows. Each man was, in effect, a human forklift, capable of carrying 200 kilograms while running.
Their primary weapon, mounted on an articulated arm, was a K16 7.62mm machine gun, fed from a 500-round backpack-ammo-supply.
They were not there to fight a war. They were there to deter one. They were ten walking, heavily-armed sentry turrets.
The launch was a quiet, jarring push. In twenty minutes, they were landing on Omega, the three ships settling in a tight triangle around the camouflaged blast-door that marked the entrance to the new, silent, underground base.
"All teams, disembark!" the "White Tiger" squad leader, Captain Park, ordered.
The ramps hissed. The fifty engineers, looking small and vulnerable, rushed out, their faces pale behind their environment-masks. They immediately began unloading the pre-fabricated composite-panels and laser-welding equipment.
The ten "White Tiger" soldiers followed, their heavy, metal feet thudding onto the alien soil.
WHIRR-HISS-CLANK.
They formed a ten-point perimeter, their heavy machine guns scanning the silent, dark, and cold jungle.
"Team-Lead to Bedrock-Control," Captain Park said, his voice calm. "We are on-site. The 'package' is secure."
"Roger, Manse," McCaffrey's voice came back. "The clock is ticking. Build the fort."
The engineers worked with a speed that was almost inhuman. This was what they were chosen for. They swarmed the blast-door, their plasma-welders and laser-cutters hissing, assembling the "cap"—a multi-layered, camouflaged, sensor-proof "lid" that would serve as the FOB's primary surface-structure.
Captain Park stood watch, his exosuit's sensors sweeping the jungle. The 100-hour silence from the excavator was... wrong. The total lack of any life... wrong.
He looked at the spot where the Avenger team had been massacred. The blood was gone. The bodies were gone. But the stain was still there.
They were lucky, the brief had said, that no massive, purple-barked trees had fallen on the excavator's blast-door during its 100-hour dig.
Park didn't believe in luck.
He believed the trees hadn't fallen because, for 100 hours, nothing had moved.
This wasn't an "unhostile" area.
It was a hunted one.
PETERSON SPACE FORCE BASE, GDI HIGH-COMMAND
Director-General Kurosawa was not happy. She was, in fact, furious. Her black suit was sharp, her pace a clipped, angry staccato on the polished bunker-floor.
McCaffrey had green-lit the Korean mission without her final authorization. He had used a loophole in the "Alliance Cooperation Treaty" to approve a "bilateral" operation. He was risking her FOB—the one her PLA allies had established—on a fast-and-dirty construction-run. It was reckless. It was... American.
She was hurrying to his office to tell him precisely what she thought of his "cowboy diplomacy."
She rounded a corner, her mind on the five different regulations he'd just violated, and ran—hard—into a solid wall of... something.
She stumbled, a sharp oof of air leaving her. Her tablet and datapad clattered to the floor. She felt herself falling backward, but a hand, impossibly fast, shot out and seized her by the arm.
It didn't just catch her. It clamped onto her, holding her upright with the unyielding, cold grip of a steel hydraulic-press.
"Director..." she started, her voice a whip of pure anger, "You will watch where you are..."
She looked up.
And her blood turned to ice.
It was not a "someone." It was an it.
It was a soldier, but it was a nightmare. The black, demonic mask was not on his face. It was his face. The chitinous plates morphed seamlessly into the skin of his neck, which was raw and scarred. His uniform... it wasn't a uniform. It was the tattered, ruined, blood-caked remains of a Ranger's fatigues, and it was drenched. The smell... a coppery, metallic reek of old, dried blood... hit her, and she gagged.
She saw the nametag, or what was left of it, half-melted and burned into the ruined plate-carrier: BROWN, H.
Specialist Harris Brown. The "Hero of Avenger-1." The sole survivor. The one they kept in a locked medical cell.
But his eyes... they were the worst part. They weren't eyes. They were two, hollow, empty pits, and from the blackness, two pinpricks of cold, blue, hateful light stared through her.
Director-General Kurosawa—the iron-willed head of the Global Defence Initiative, a woman who stared down generals and politicians—was, for the first time in her adult life, afraid.
Her voice caught in her throat.
The... thing... that was Harris Brown looked down at her, its grip still like a vise on her arm. Its head tilted, as if analyzing a curious, noisy insect.
A voice rumbled from its chest, a layered, dual-tone sound, like gravel and static.
"Move it."
It released her arm, shoving her slightly against the bulkhead.
And then, without any hurry, it... just... walked past her. It walked with a heavy, steady, predatory gait, its ruined boots leaving faint, damp, reddish footprints on the sterile white floor.
It was heading for McCaffrey's office.
Kurosawa stood there, her heart hammering, her hand trembling as she stared at the bloody tracks. She had just been touched by a demon.
General McCaffrey was sipping Lapsang Souchong—a strong, smoky tea. It was the only thing that could cut through the taste of adrenaline and fear that now permanently coated his mouth. He was watching the Korean build-team on his screen, his stomach in knots.
SLAM.
The reinforced door to his office didn't open. It was flung open, crashing against the wall.
McCaffrey dropped his mug. It shattered on his desk, the hot, black tea mixing with his paperwork.
He shot to his feet, his hand instinctively grabbing for the SIG Sauer M17 on his hip.
"What in the...?"
Harris Brown stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the bright hall lights. He looked... worse. The blood on his tattered uniform was fresh.
"How did you get out of med-bay, son?" McCaffrey's voice was a strained, half-choked whisper.
"You," Harris rumbled, his voice making the air in the room feel heavy, "have no idea."
"I do, Harris. You're... you're not well. You've been through..."
"I do," the demon-soldier repeated, cutting him off.
The thing... Harris... walked into the room. He was holding a piece of paper.
"I'm not done yet."
He threw the paper onto the tea-soaked desk. It was a standard-issue "Request for Honorable Discharge." A resignation.
And it was torn in half.
"I'm not leaving," Harris said. "I'm changing my designation. I need armory credentials. All-access."
McCaffrey stared at the man—the monster—he had helped create. He had seen the reports. The self-mutilation. The fusion of the artifact. The screaming.
"Credentials? Son, you're... you're not fit for duty. You're a medical case."
"I'm a weapon," Harris corrected him. "And you are going to aim me. I'm changing my designation. I'm going to be a Designated Marksman."
McCaffrey could only stare. The sheer, insane audacity. He saw no fear in those cold, blue eyes. No grief. Just... a void. An endless, cold, burning need.
"Why?" McCaffrey asked, his voice soft. "Why a DM? Why... any of this? Can... can you even do anything now? Can you even hold a rifle?"
Harris stepped closer, leaning over the desk. The blue, pinprick eyes were a foot from McCaffrey's. The General could smell the dried blood.
"I am going to kill that planet."
The words were not a boast. They were not a threat. They were a promise. A statement of absolute, theological fact.
McCaffrey was a general. He was a politician. He was a survivor. He knew when to fight, and he knew when to... oblige. This... this thing... was no longer Harris Brown. It was not a soldier. It was not a man.
It was an asset. It was a rabid dog, and it had just pointed its own leash at the enemy.
He slowly, his hand shaking slightly, sat down. He pulled a new datapad, keyed in his command-level authorization.
"Revenge... it might destroy a being, son," McCaffrey whispered, not looking up as he typed. "It'll burn you down to the ash."
"I'm already burned."
McCaffrey hit 'Enter.' The credentials were approved. "It's done. Your role is changed. All armory access granted."
Harris just stared at him for a moment longer.
Then, without a word, he turned, and walked out.
The GDI "Black-Site" Armory was two levels beneath the bunker.
The Master Sergeant at the check-in cage was an old, grizzled Ranger-turned-Armorer. He saw Harris approach. He saw the face. He saw the blood.
He didn't blink. He'd seen men broken by war for forty years. This was just... a new kind of "broken."
He wordlessly took the datapad, scanned the new credentials.
His eyebrows shot up. "Designation: Designated Marksman? All-access? Well... shit, son. Christmas came early. Go on in. Don't bleed on my rifles."
Harris walked into the cold, quiet, perfectly-organized room.
He walked past the racks of M4A1s and SCAR-Ls. He walked past the shotguns. He walked past the new, high-tech experimental GDI plasma-rifles.
He stopped in the "Battle Rifle" section.
He reached out a clawed, black-chitinous hand.
He took an Heckler & Koch HK417.
It was a 7.62x51mm. A heavy, powerful, piston-driven German masterpiece. It was a weapon designed to punch through cover, to kill at 800 meters, to hit like a hammer.
He brought it to the workbench. And he began.
His movements were not frantic. They were... precise. Slower than a human's, but more deliberate.
First, a SureFire SOCOM-762 Suppressor. He screwed it onto the heavy barrel. Not for silence. For signature-reduction.
Second, a Magpul AFG (Angled Fore-Grip) and a Bipod. For stability, in any position.
Third, the eyes. He clipped on a Leupold Mark 5HD 5-25x56mm scope. He didn't need 7x. He needed to see them.
Fourth, in front of the Leupold, he clipped on a Trijicon AN/PAS-13G Heavy Thermal Weapon Sight.
He picked up the rifle. It looked... right... in his monstrous hands.
He racked the charging handle, the shlick-shlack a final, metallic, percussive thud in the silent armory.
He was no longer Specialist Harris Brown, the broken victim.
He was the "Demon." And he was now a Designated Marksman.
He was ready to go hunting.