THE WEIGHT OF WAR
NATO Central Command for Extra-Terrestrial Operations (NC-ETO)
Ramstein Air Base, Germany
08:00 CET (Central European Time)
The holographic amphitheater was a new addition to Ramstein, built in a frantic two-week construction blitz. It was a cavernous room dominated by the "God's Eye" display, a three-dimensional projection of the planet Omega based on the latest, high-resolution telemetry from the Tianwang satellite array.
Brigadier General James Stirling of the British Army stood on the observation gantry, looking down at the spinning globe. Beside him was Colonel Henri Laurent of the French Army, a specialist in alpine warfare. These were not the politicians or the supreme commanders in Gibraltar. These were the logisticians, the planners, the men who had to figure out how to move an army to another planet.
"It is a nightmare," Colonel Laurent muttered, gesturing to the jagged, purple-hued mountain ranges of Omega's northern hemisphere. "Look at the elevation data. The target sector, Sector 4, has an average altitude of four thousand meters. The air density is low. Rotary-wing assets—helicopters—will struggle to generate lift. If we send troops up there without heavy support, they will be cut to pieces by the locals."
Stirling nodded, sipping black tea. "Agreed. Close Air Support is too risky with the atmospheric variables. We can't fly A-10s or F-35s in those canyons effectively. We need something that doesn't care about the weather. Something that hits hard and doesn't need to land."
"Artillery," Laurent said, the word heavy with implication. "Old school. Indirect fire."
"Precisely," Stirling said. "The Americans have finally finished their heavy-lift vehicle. The 'Star-Lifter' program. It's ugly, Henri, but it carries a payload the Korean ships can only dream of."
Stirling keyed a command on the console. The main screen shifted from the map of Omega to a live feed from the tarmac of Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado.
It was a scene of industrial might.
Sitting on the reinforced concrete was the US-SSTV 'Atlas'.
Unlike the sleek, ceramic curves of the Korean Geobukseon or the utilitarian tube-shape of the Indian Garuda, the American Atlas looked like a flying brick. It was a massive, rectangular lifting body, painted in dark, radar-absorbent gray. It bristled with maneuvering thrusters and featured four massive vertical-lift engines that looked like they had been ripped off a sci-fi dreadnought.
The cargo ramp was open, a gaping maw swallowing equipment.
"That," Stirling pointed out, "is the solution to your mountain problem."
A line of M777ER (Extended Range) Howitzers was being loaded. These were 155mm cannons, constructed of titanium and steel, capable of dropping a precision-guided Excalibur shell on a target forty kilometers away.
"Six guns," Stirling said. "Plus two platoons of the 18th Field Artillery Brigade. And enough ammunition to level a mountain range. We are deploying them to the valley floor below the target. Fire Base 'Anvil.' If Asset-1 gets into trouble, he won't call for a medic. He'll call for rain."
Laurent watched the massive cannons disappear into the ship. "It is a hammer," he admitted. "But will it be enough? The satellites... they have finished the full orbital scan."
"I saw the report," Stirling said, his voice dropping.
The hologram changed back to Omega. This time, it overlaid a heat map of biological activity.
The room fell silent.
The planet wasn't just inhabited. It was infested.
Vast, red splotches covered the continents. Massive herds of biological entities moving in the fungal forests. Sprawling, heat-generating cities carved into canyon walls. Industrial-scale war camps where the heat signatures numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
"It is a world of war," Laurent whispered. "We are not invading a planet, Brigadier. We are stepping into a gladiator pit."
"Then it's a good thing we're bringing the cannons," Stirling replied grimly. "Operation 'Thunder-Strike' is a go. The Atlas launches in ten minutes."
THE ASCENT
OMEGA, SECTOR 4 (THE 'KANCHENJUNGA' ANALOG)
18:45 GST
The wind on the mountain face was a physical assault. It screamed down from the peaks at eighty miles per hour, carrying shards of violet ice that struck armor like shrapnel. The temperature was forty degrees below zero.
Three figures clung to the sheer, obsidian cliff face, three thousand meters above the valley floor.
Rifleman Rakesh Thapa jammed the pick of his ice axe into a fissure, testing the hold. He pulled himself up, his breathing ragged but controlled behind his rebreather mask. The GDI-issue climbing gear was good, but the mountain was brutal. The rock was slick with alien frost, harder than terrestrial ice.
Below him, Rifleman Rahul Gurung moved with the same methodical rhythm. Plant. Test. Pull. They were Gorkhas. They were born in the shadow of the Himalayas. To them, this was just another climb, another job.
Above them was the monster.
Harris Brown—Asset-Omega-1—was not using ropes. He was not using axes.
He was crawling.
He moved like a spider, his limbs splayed wide against the vertical rock. His fingers, now tipped with the permanent, black chitinous claws of the Demon Mask, punched directly into the obsidian with a sickening crunch-clack sound. He didn't pull himself up; he hauled himself, moving in disjointed, twitchy bursts of speed that defied gravity.
"Slow down," Rakesh hissed over the secure laser-comm channel. "Asset-1, check your pace. You are leaving heat trails on the rock. If they have thermal sentries, you are lighting us up like a Diwali lamp."
Harris paused, hanging one-handed from a precipice that dropped two miles into a purple fog. He turned his head. The mask was frosted over, but the two blue pinpricks of his eyes burned through the swirling snow.
"They are waiting," Harris's voice rumbled in their earpieces. The audio was distorted, layered with a low-frequency growl. "I can smell them."
"Smell what?" Rahul asked, securing a piton. "I smell nothing but ozone and your suit exhaust."
"Fear," Harris said. "And... sulfur. They are patrolling the ridge."
Rakesh checked his wrist-mounted tactical display. It showed a 3D topographic map of the cliff, generated by the orbital satellites just hours ago. The ridge was another hundred meters up. beyond that lay the stronghold.
"We go silent," Rakesh ordered. "Rahul, take point on the left flank. Asset-1... stay low. Do not engage unless compromised. We need to find the ventilation shafts. We are ghosts. Do you understand? Ghosts."
"Understood," Harris growled.
They resumed the climb. The final hundred meters were a vertical sheet of ice. Rakesh and Rahul moved with technical perfection. Harris moved with brute, unnatural force.
Ten minutes later, they crested the ridge.
They lay flat against the snow, pressing themselves into the drifts. Below them, nestled into a massive, bowl-shaped depression in the mountain, lay the stronghold of the Kage-no-Ha.
It was a masterpiece of defensive architecture. It wasn't built on the mountain; it was carved into it. Massive, pagoda-style structures jutted out from the cliff face, connected by precarious rope bridges and stone walkways. The architecture was stark—black stone and dark wood—illuminated by flickering, blue-flame torches that cast long, dancing shadows. It looked ancient, yet terrifyingly functional.
"Visual contact," Rakesh whispered, adjusting the magnification on his goggles. "Sentries. North tower. Two of them."
Through the green tint of his night vision, he saw them. They were Strain-K operatives, identical to the prisoners captured in India. Lithe, black-clad figures standing perfectly still on the ramparts. But these were armed with long, recurve bows made of some dark bone material.
"Archers," Rahul noted. "Silent killers."
"I will take them," Harris stated. His muscles tensed under his suit, his claws digging into the snow.
"Negative," Rakesh snapped. "No noise. No bodies falling. If a body drops off that wall, it hits the walkway below. The sound alerts the whole base. We bypass."
"They are in the way."
"Then we move them," Rakesh said. He pulled a small, dense metal sphere from his webbing. It was a GDI-issue "Audio-Decoy," a high-tech rock. "Rahul, mark the far side of the tower. Behind them."
Rahul raised his Tavor, activating the laser designator but keeping the beam in the infrared spectrum.
Rakesh threw the sphere. He had an arm like a cricketer. The ball sailed through the thin air, a hundred meters, and struck the stone wall behind the sentries with a sharp clack.
Both ninjas spun around instantly, their bows drawn, arrows nocked in a blur of motion. They moved to investigate the noise, stepping away from the ledge.
"Move," Rakesh signaled.
The three of them sprinted across the open snowfield. Harris was a blur of black, moving on all fours like a wolf. Rakesh and Rahul moved in a low crouch, silent as death. They reached the base of the fortress wall and pressed themselves into the shadows of the massive foundation stones.
They were inside the perimeter.
THE ARCHIVES AND THE TRUTH
The ventilation shaft was exactly where the satellite intel said it would be—a narrow, grate-covered exhaust port venting warm, stale air from deep within the mountain.
Harris gripped the iron grate. With a low grunt, he pulled. The metal didn't creak; it sheared. The bolts snapped like twigs. He pulled the grate free and set it silently on the snow.
"Tight fit," Harris grumbled, looking at the meter-wide tunnel.
"Suck it in," Rahul muttered. "You wanted the mission."
They crawled. The tunnel was a labyrinth of stone and metal, winding down into the heart of the mountain. The air grew warmer, thicker, smelling of incense and something metallic—like copper and old blood.
After twenty minutes of claustrophobic crawling, they reached a junction. A floor grate looked down into a massive, cavernous hall.
They peered through the slats.
It was a library, or perhaps a temple. The walls were lined with thousands of scrolls and tablets. In the center of the room, a massive holographic map—magic, not tech—projected a spinning image of Earth.
And standing around it were the leaders.
There were five of them. They weren't wearing the standard ninja garb. They wore elaborate, heavy armor of red and gold lacquer, with terrifying Oni masks.
"The Shogun's Guard," Rakesh whispered. "And the Shogun himself."
In the center stood a figure in white robes, unarmored. He was old, his hair a long mane of silver. He was speaking to the armored figures, his voice echoing up the shaft.
Rakesh tapped his CLI-Module (Cognitive Lingual Interface), which was set to record and translate. The translation scrolled across his visor in real-time.
> "...The Architect's hunger grows. The portal destabilizes. The Western Lords have fallen back. The Iron Horde is being slaughtered by the Human fire-rain."
> "We must strike the head," one of the armored figures rasped. > "Their 'bases.' We must sever their command."
> "No," the Shogun said, his voice calm and resonant. > "We are not here to conquer. We are here to find the Key. The Architects demand the 'Prime Gene.' We have scoured the Earth. We have not found it."
Harris stiffened next to Rakesh. "The Architects," he breathed. "The Third Factor."
> "We must accelerate," the Shogun continued. > "If we do not deliver the Prime Gene before the next cycle, the Architects will come themselves. And they will not leave this world... or theirs... alive."
Rakesh felt a chill that had nothing to do with the snow. The Prime Gene. What were they looking for? Why was Earth the target?
"Enough talk," Harris said. "Target is identified."
"Wait for the signal," Rakesh hissed. "We need to plant the charges on the..."
Harris ignored him. The 'Demon' was not a soldier anymore. He was a predator who had found his prey.
Harris kicked the grate.
The heavy iron grill plummeted thirty feet, crashing onto the stone floor of the library with a thunderous clang that shattered the silence of the sanctum.
The Shogun and his five guards looked up instantly.
Harris dropped. He fell like a bomb, landing in a crouch in the center of the room, the floor tiles cracking under the impact of his boots. He stood up slowly, the blue lights of his eyes burning, his HK417 raised.
"Greetings," Harris rumbled.
"Dammit!" Rakesh hissed, sliding down the rope after him, Rahul right behind. "Plan B! Go loud! Go loud!"
The Shogun didn't flinch. He didn't look surprised. He looked at the monster in black standing before him with a mix of curiosity and pity.
> "Ah," the Shogun said, smiling. > "The Demon. We have heard of you. The one who wears the face of the Void."
The five armored guards drew their weapons—massive, two-handed nodachi swords that hummed with purple energy. They stepped forward, forming a kill-circle.
"I am here for your head," Harris said.
> "Come and take it," the Shogun replied.
FIRE BASE ANVIL
OMEGA, LOWLANDS OF SECTOR 4
19:15 GST
Ten kilometers away, in a mist-shrouded valley, Fire Base Anvil was a hive of activity. The Atlas had landed, deployed its payload, and lifted off.
The six M777ER Howitzers were dug in, their massive titanium barrels elevated toward the peaks, angled high. The crews, American artillerymen in cold-weather gear, worked with practiced efficiency, hauling the 100-pound Excalibur shells.
"Fire Mission! Fire Mission!" the radio operator screamed, pressing the headset to his ear. "We have a signal! Asset-1 has engaged! Coordinates received! Danger Close! I repeat, Danger Close!"
Captain Miller, the artillery commander, looked at the firing solution. The coordinates were for the fortress. The flight time was forty seconds.
"Load Excalibur!" Miller roared. "Battery adjust! High angle! This is for the Rangers!"
The breeches slammed shut. The guns elevated.
"BATTERY... FIRE!"
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
Six massive concussions shook the valley floor. Six 155mm guided projectiles screamed into the thin alien sky, arcing up towards the stratosphere, before tipping over and beginning their terminal descent toward the mountain of ghosts.
THE DANCE OF DEATH
In the library, Harris moved.
He didn't fire his rifle. The guards were too close. He slung it and drew the KABAR knife in his left hand, his right hand extending into a claw.
The first guard swung his nodachi. The purple energy trailing the blade carved a groove in the stone pillar behind Harris.
Harris ducked under the swing. He punched his clawed hand into the guard's armor. The lacquer cracked, but held.
Tough, Harris thought.
He pivoted, using the guard's body as a shield as a second blade came down. The sword cleaved into the first guard's shoulder.
"Friendly fire," Harris taunted.
Rakesh and Rahul were engaging the other three guards. Their Tavors barked on full auto, but the bullets sparked off the heavy samurai armor.
"Aim for the joints!" Rakesh yelled, switching to his pistol. He slid under a slash, firing up into the guard's armpit. The guard grunted, stumbling.
The Shogun watched, motionless. He raised his hand.
A wave of force—pure kinetic magic—slammed into Harris, throwing him across the room. Harris smashed into a bookshelf, scrolls raining down on him.
> "You are strong," the Shogun said. > "But you are crude. You are a blunt instrument."
Harris stood up, shaking off the impact. The mask pulsed. He felt the rage rising, the cold, dark power of the artifact flooding his veins.
"And you," Harris growled, "are about to be extinct."
He tapped his comms.
"Anvil. Rain."
A high-pitched whistling sound filled the air. It grew louder. Louder. Like a freight train falling from the sky.
The Shogun looked up, his eyes widening for the first time.
CRASH.
The ceiling of the library exploded.
Not one, but two 155mm Excalibur shells punched through the roof. They didn't detonate on impact; they were set with a millisecond delay to penetrate the structure.
They buried themselves in the floor.
BOOM.
The shockwave was contained within the stone room. It was absolute devastation.
The blast threw the guards like ragdolls. The holographic map shattered. The walls cracked.
Rakesh and Rahul had dived behind a massive stone altar the moment Harris gave the order.
Harris hadn't. He stood his ground, crossing his arms over his face, letting the demonic armor take the blast. Shrapnel pinged off his suit. The heat washed over him.
When the dust settled, the library was a ruin.
The five guards were dead, their armor shattered.
The Shogun was on his knees, blood pouring from his mouth, his white robes shredded. A piece of shrapnel was embedded in his chest.
He looked up at Harris, who emerged from the smoke, untouched, a nightmare of black chitin and blue light.
Harris walked over to the Shogun. He holstered his knife.
He grabbed the Shogun by the throat and lifted him into the air.
"The Architects," Harris demanded. "Where are they?"
The Shogun coughed blood, smiling a bloody-toothed grin.
> "They are... everywhere," he whispered. > "And you... have just... invited them."
Harris squeezed.
CRACK.
He dropped the body.
"Secure the intel," Harris said to the Gorkhas, his voice returning to a dull rumble. "Grab every scroll. Every tablet. We are leaving."
Rakesh stood up, dusting off his gear. He looked at the hole in the roof, then at the dead Shogun, then at Harris.
"You called artillery on our own position," Rakesh said, breathless. "Danger Close? That was... suicide."
Harris turned, walking toward the exit.
"Calculated," Harris said. "Let's go."