Chapter 1
The industrial bone saw whined and seized.
Jax slammed his palm against the emergency release. The heavy engine died, leaving a hollow ringing in the blood-slicked containment bay. Caleb leaned his weight against the iron handle. His boots slipped on the concrete. The blade remained wedged deep in the Class-4 Siege-breaker's cartilage.
"We are missing quota," Caleb said.
He braced his boots against the gray scales covering the beast's chest and pulled. The saw groaned against the thick bone. It didn't budge.
Jax kicked the beast's flank. "The Guild docks us for material degradation anyway. Look at this thing. The Defense Force already blew half its profit margin into ash."
Jax reached up and adjusted his oxygen regulator. The hiss of recycled air sounded loud over the local suit comms.
"We should transfer to sanitation," Jax said. "I'd rather scrub the mid-level filters than stand knee-deep in a rotting Kaiju."
"Sanitation pays thirty credits a cycle," Caleb said. "My family debt interest is forty. Help me pull."
"Quit complaining and attach the hydraulic spreaders." Vance's voice crackled over the comms. He sat in the crane operator booth forty feet above the floor. "We need that chest cavity open before the core cools. You let a Class-4 core crystallize, and the Guild voids our entire contract."
"The blade is stuck, boss," Jax called up.
"Then leave the saw and get the spreaders. Time is money. Move."
Caleb let go of the handle and waded through the coagulated blood and stomach acid toward the tool cart. The ninety-degree heat inside his lead-lined hazard suit stifled his breathing. The military elites had brought this creature down twelve hours ago. The disposal crews just got the scraps.
He grabbed two heavy iron spreader bars. The metal clanked against his thigh plates.
"I'm going in," Caleb said.
Jax stepped back and crossed his arms. "Better you than me."
Caleb climbed the open wound. His boots found slippery footholds between shattered ribs and torn muscle. The smell of ozone and rotting meat bypassed his carbon filters and coated the back of his throat in a thin sour film. He jammed the first hydraulic clamp against the upper ridge of the ribcage and locked the steel pin in place.
"Cable one secured."
"Taking up slack," Vance replied.
Steel cables tightened overhead. The winch groaned. The carcass shifted around Caleb, tearing cartilage in the echoing space.
He set the second clamp against the lower ribcage. As he locked the mechanism, the flesh beneath his boots twitched.
Caleb froze. "Vance. Did you adjust the tension?"
"Negative. The winch is locked."
The severed spine arched. The beast rolled its crushing bulk to the side hard enough to snap the steel cables, and the entire gantry rig crashed down from the ceiling.
A claw the size of a truck hood swept across the concrete floor. It caught Jax in the midsection and drove him into the far wall. The concrete splintered. Jax crumpled to the ground. His hazard suit tore open. He didn't move.
Caleb scrambled to climb out of the collapsing chest cavity. The beast rolled again, throwing him onto the concrete.
His visor cracked against the abandoned bone saw. He forced himself up onto his hands and knees and coughed blood into his pinched oxygen regulator.
The Siege-breaker dragged its ruined lower half forward. Its lower jaw unhinged at the back. A barbed tendril shot from the open wound in its chest. It punched straight through Caleb's Kevlar weave and buried itself deep in his ribcage.
Bile flooded Caleb's throat. He gripped the cord with both hands. The barbs shredded his protective gloves and sliced into his palms. The tendril pulsed. It bypassed his armor completely and anchored itself to his bone.
His muscles locked into spasms that wrung the air out of him. The trauma to his chest jolted his suit's internal computer. Red text bled across his cracked visor.
[CRITICAL TRAUMA DETECTED.]
[VITALS FAILING. EMERGENCY AUTO-RECORD INITIATED.]
"Override," Caleb choked out.
[OVERRIDE DENIED. BROADCASTING TO PUBLIC FREQUENCY…]
The shoulder-mounted camera spun to life. Its recording light blinked in the settling dust. The Siege-breaker dragged itself closer, pinning Caleb under its shadow.
Blind, segmented crawlers skittered out from the crushed corners of the zone. They clicked their mandibles and swarmed over the broken concrete to find fresh meat.
Caleb reached for his sidearm. The holster lay crushed flat beneath his hip. The weapon was bent.
A system notification flickered over his HUD.
[A viewer from an encrypted network has entered your channel.]
[??? has subscribed.]
[??? : Oh my. What a fascinating mess you are in.]
[??? : I am quite bored today… do you mind if I watch you struggle?]
The first crawler leaped at his face. Caleb thrashed. His ruined gloves slipped against the concrete. The tendril pulsed again and sent fire through his spine.
[??? : How disheartening. I guess this is the end of your livestream.]
[??? : Unless… you accept a little help?]
[??? : I'll give you a gift. In exchange, your broadcast belongs to me.]
[??? has sent you an Executive-tier gift. Do you accept?]
Caleb didn't hesitate. He triggered the prompt with a mental command.
The reinforced glass skylight shattered high above. A delivery drone dropped into a steep dive. It released a steel capsule that hit the concrete three feet away.
The capsule popped open. A thermal machete and a pressurized combat stimulant injector rested inside.
Caleb grabbed the injector. He drove the needle straight into his thigh, punching through the heavy fabric of the suit.
The chemical hit his bloodstream. Heat tore through his veins and overpowered whatever was anchored in his chest just enough to let him move. He grabbed the thermal machete.
He swung upward. The blazing blade cleaved the nearest crawler in half. Burning yellow fluid sprayed across his cracked visor.
He grabbed the fleshy tendril in his chest and pulled. It didn't come. He pulled harder. Human muscle tore under the force, his own muscle, and the cord snapped free with a piece of his ribcage hanging off the barbed end.
Caleb gasped. Air burned going into his lungs. Three more crawlers rushed his left flank.
The first one died on the upswing. The second one took the machete through its sensory cluster, but its mandibles caught his forearm before its body went still. He felt the bite open in his wrist before he registered it. The third crawler hit him chest-high while the second was still dying. He fell on his back and drove his boot into the underside of the thing on top of him. The plating cracked under his heel and the crunch ran up his leg into a knee that had already been bad.
The Siege-breaker roared. It brought its armored arm down to crush him.
Caleb rolled. The arm hit the concrete where his head had been. He came up onto one knee with the machete held flat across his body, and the second swing of the claw drove him back down before he could breathe. The blade caught the strike. The impact cracked the concrete under his boots and sent a shockwave up his arms that he felt in his broken ribs.
He pushed up. He stepped inside the next swing instead of away from it, the way he stepped into a moving carcass on the line, and drove the blazing machete into the open chest cavity. He twisted. The blade caught on something dense and refused to turn. He twisted anyway. Something gave.
The beast seized and collapsed.
Caleb dropped the weapon. The combat stimulant burned out instantly. His broken ribs shifted against his lungs. He fell onto his back and stared up at the shattered ceiling.
The containment zone went silent. Jax lay motionless. The crane booth hung empty.
The drone hovered above. Its lens tracked him. Text blinked across his cracked visor.
[??? : Very entertaining. I think I will keep watching.]
[SYSTEM UPDATE: BROADCAST RIGHTS PURCHASED BY USER ???.]
[PUBLIC CHAT DISABLED. MODE LOCKED: SINGLE-VIEWER.]
The rescue channel was dead. His distress beacon vanished from the public grid.
The cold concrete rushed up to meet him. His vision went black.