Maneuvering

Panting from sustaining such a rapid pace, Second Lieutenant Eléa Blanchet neared her next firing point. The Chief was trying to arrange for even greater engagement distances for all harrying attacks, now that it was clear Lamia could launch spines well beyond the reach of its telekinesis. This taxed Hasina, as the enemy was more frequently making random adjustments in course, often ripping through floors or ceilings. Twice, this had come so suddenly that Fawzia-11 temporarily lost track of the enemy, forcing all troops to briefly fall back as a precaution. Chief Rakoto's brilliance could be seen in the fact that only one life had been lost since Lamia began its hunt, but the slightest misstep could change that. Already, Duri-22 had saved the life of Nurse Tress, when Lamia had dropped five levels in a row and reversed directions. The Watcher reported a worsening headache, but for now, he could still intervene when needed, provided he rested after each gateway.

Whirling snow and buffeting winds reached Eléa from the gaping breach up ahead. A merculite artillery shell had blasted this hole in the facility's exterior, and it would set the stage for a coordinated ambush.

Eléa's HUD flickered, and the earlier damage to her faceplate worried her, but she'd just have to trust it to hold out. She reached her firing position, crouching down and sheltering behind a twisted steel plate that had once been part of a wall. She couldn't actually see the other six soldiers, but their transponders blinked as they confirmed they were in position. Now to wait. The Chief will do what she can to nudge Lamia this way, but the enemy's dangerously cunning, and we still don't have a solid grasp of its abilities and limits.

The grotesque method Lamia had used to recover from the Theragen gas trap had briefly knocked Peng-24 out of his fragile Trance. He'd only just managed to resume Watching, and the disgusting sight was more than he could handle. The poor soldier pushing his gurney had gotten sprayed with the Watcher's vomit, and it was a good thing for everyone that Fawzia-11 wasn't so squeamish. She kept right on reporting on Lamia's movements.

Considering the crazy degree of cellular control the thing just displayed, I suppose it could've been worse. If Lamia had been capable of safely containing the gas within its body and expelling it at will–

Her HUD flashed new alerts. Fawzia had briefly misjudged Lamia's maneuvers during a series of rapid course changes. Either it was heading right into this ambush, or it might appear behind–

A mix of surprise and relief made Eléa's head spin when a chunk of twisted debris shot out into the snow from a high-speed impact. But this was exactly where they'd all hoped the target would arrive. Sergeants Agrawal and Lee both fired streams of smoke rounds, then everyone else opened fire. Whatever exactly Lamia did to render itself invisible, infrared and other specialized scanning equipment couldn't detect it, but it consistently avoided corridors Hasina flooded with smoke or heavy vapor. Now, everyone fired into the large gap in the midst of the swirling smoke. The snow alone wouldn't have been enough to pinpoint the enemy's location, but now they were all rewarded with inhuman shrieks of rage. The blizzard kept scattering the smoke, but more rounds kept coming.

And the enemy struck back.

Despite the elite soldiers popping out of cover for less than a second to fire bursts of shots, Lamia was growing dangerously good at reacting. Lee fell back, cursing, his biometrics showing trauma to his right elbow. A near-miss scored a trench in the side of Eléa's helmet, and her HUD's display issues worsened.

Then Lamia grew tired of taking potshots.

A telekinetic pull tore away multiple damaged support struts, and a cascade of structural collapses caught Agrawal in the equivalent of a metal avalanche. Without his armor, the Sergeant would surely have been torn apart. Even with it, his suit reported severe breaks to his left arm and both legs when he crashed to a stop multiple levels below. Several twisted beams had him pinned, and if he'd slid even a meter to the right he'd have tumbled all the way down to the icy ground.

Eléa kicked herself for getting distracted. The rest of the ambush squad had kept up the pressure on Lamia, trying to drive it back. But soon, more rubble and twisted metal was sliding or falling all along the edge of the breach. Whether Lamia employed telekinesis or was ripping at the structure physically, it quickly became impossible to follow its movements from the swirling smoke. A plummeting I-beam missed Agrawal's head by a handbreadth, and Blanchet wasn't the only soldier forced to give ground as the floor beneath her started to collapse. If Lamia chose this moment of chaos to spring down after Agrawal, she doubted the rest of the squad could do anything to stop it…

Forcing down her fear, and wishing the Captain had been close enough to aid with this ambush, Eléa dashed back to the edge of the breach. She aimed down toward the trapped Sergeant, ready to pour vengeful fire into Lamia if the horrid thing killed him.

But Agrawal was no longer there...

"You're welcome," Duri-22 panted over the comm, his voice strained. "Took some finesse to open a gate large enough for a man… but too small to let the rubble crash through into my little hidey-hole. Agrawal isn't in a condition to go anywhere… so I'll relocate to a less crowded closet while I rest my aching brain."

Smiling with relief, Eléa fired several smoke rounds of her own, hoping that Lamia had fled the area, but ready to punish it if–

A needle tooth punched into Eléa's stomach and shattered against the inside of her backplate.

Hands quivering, Tácito Nelson tried to keep a steady grip on his pistol. Along with most of the Archivists who'd volunteered to help dig soldiers out of collapsed sectors, he now served as just another newly-recruited militiaman. Lamia's movements were growing more random and aggressive, and not even Hasina could consistently predict its course. Hundreds of non-combat personnel were now positioned at numerous corridor intersections throughout the facility, ready to respond to Hasina's orders. Three of his Archivists had already been used to briefly harass the enemy, though they couldn't be sure if any of their shots actually hit. Hasina never used them for more than a few seconds before signaling them to run for it, and Lamia didn't bother to hunt them down. He could only hope this meant it was growing desperate. It needed to find a Watcher, and so far, Hasina's ever-shifting strategy and constant maneuvering had frustrated its efforts.

As a department head, he had access to more of the communications between squads. Anya-28 and four soldiers had taken hits from needle teeth, which Lamia could launch with speed rivaling a gauss round. Only the low density and narrow diameter of these projectiles prevented the hits from being devastating, and even then it was unlikely anyone could survive if hit in a vital organ. Supriya's team were rushing medications to the wounded, as the low-density needle teeth quickly dissolved inside the human body. Like the pencil Klaus-21 had telekinetically thrown shortly before his death, Lamia's teeth lost their enhanced durability very quickly. Large numbers of disintegrating bone cells floating through a person's bloodstream was hardly ideal.

New orders came in. Lamia had ascended eleven stories in fifteen seconds, making Tácito's current position irrelevant. He was to rendezvous with thirty other members of his team on Level 90 and await further orders.

Level 90? Seriously? No one could afford to be trapped in an elevator when the enemy could move so freely between levels. Legs already aching, he trudged to the nearest stairwell and began to climb. But the other Archivist was significantly older than him, and few people besides Tácito had the height to comfortably take three steps at a time. He probably shouldn't complain.

Then he reflected on the hundreds of men and women under his care. He'd worked with the majority of them for many years, and most of the time his primary role was helping them all to cope with the traumatic footage they had to review. Nodding, he made a decision. He still had three more flights of stairs to climb, so he used the time to subvocalize a message to Duri-22.

"With your new ability to open gateways, you have the potential to save lives. But if many are endangered at once, you'll have to choose. I don't envy you that responsibility, so let me make it just a little bit easier: After Hasina, I'm responsible for every archivist in HQ. If my people are threatened, and you can't get everyone out… put my subordinates before me."

To think: Just that morning, he'd tried to convince Chief Rakoto he considered his job easy…

Surprisingly, despite the heavy nature of that message, Duri promptly responded with a line of text. "You're a good man, Master Librarian. Keep your head down."

Maybe I should've accepted 21's invitation to join his RPG last year. Based on Klaus's final moments, and Niko's actions today, it seems to work wonders for one's ability to make tough choices. After this nightmare's over, I hope Duri takes over as GM. If I'm still breathing, I'll definitely join.

Captain Martins dived through a breach in the floor, landed with a roll, and emptied an entire magazine. Explosive rounds snatched from a tertiary ammo rack, these blasted fire and bits of shrapnel, accompanied by shrieks of rage. And he was still moving. He dived down yet another hole Lamia had earlier torn between levels, and he heard the hiss and crack of supersonic projectiles zipping past overhead. This time, he landed at a full run, turned left, sprang for a ladder that was dropping from above, and ascended. He heard the crash of Lamia hitting the level below, and he sighed with relief. No matter how quick and clever he was, there was always a chance Lamia would randomly guess his new course.

"Blanchet, do you read?"

"Yes, sir."

"Your armor isn't reporting your biometrics."

"Yeah, that tooth didn't hit anything vital, but it knocked out some of my suit's systems."

Changing course based on new data from Fawzia-11, Benicio made the line private. Hasina would need to specifically use her personal override to listen in, and she was a bit busy. "Level with me, Lieutenant. I need to know what you're actually up for."

The briefest silence confirmed his suspicions that her injury was worse than she let on. Thankfully, she chose not to keep hiding the truth. "My suit ordered me to disengage and seek treatment, so I disabled its ability to share my biometrics."

"And?"

"I... I think I should be ok. As long as this doesn't go on much longer. The tooth burst into fragments inside my armor, but each piece was very small. I'll absolutely need surgery soon, but my suit's doing a decent job of containing the internal bleeding."

"And the hypercalcemia Doctor Sharma warned everyone about?"

"That can wait till the surgery."

New orders came through, and Benicio obeyed without hesitation. He turned and ran straight into a wall, emerging into a corridor three stories down. Duri-22 saluted as he dashed by, but Benicio focused on Eléa. "You've suffered internal injuries from a supersonic impact, the shrapnel is functionally toxic, and yet–"

"Remember what this is for, Captain," she insisted, making him grit his teeth all the harder. Honestly, if she'd talked back a tenth as much prior to this crisis, he'd have had her running laps outside without arctic gear. But on a day like this, she had a point. "More specifically, Sir, remember who this is for. I can still fight, and there's a good chance I'll pull through if I get surgery within an hour."

Details flowed across his HUD, and the Captain filled his lungs. He leapt through empty space caused by an earlier collapse, enveloped in swirling snow, firing shots straight down as he did so. Two needle spines shot past an instant later, then he cleared the gap and turned left. On a hunch, he tossed a grenade with a delayed fuse, then took another turn. When the sound of the blast reached him, he thought he caught a scream.

"Soldier, if you're still alive when this is over, after you've fully recovered from the surgery, your insubordination–"

"Even if you get me dishonorably discharged, that's fine. This is already the most important day of my life. We're defending the Watchers from a mass-murdering alien. If we're all prepared to die for this, do you think I'm gonna put my career first?" His mind warred with this. Discipline mattered, and he hated risking his comrades… but she did have her priorities straight. He stayed quiet as she continued. "I'll obey your orders Sir… so long as it involves fighting for as long as I can hold a rifle. If you or Hasina tell me to stand down, you'll just be wasting time and breath."

"I will not have you letting your comrades down. Swear to me that you can function well enough for Hasina to depend on you."

"I can. I may suffer, but I will function on a level with the others. If my condition worsens, so that Hasina can't count on me, I promise to speak up."

Leaping down an empty elevator shaft, pivoting on a ladder rung, and soaring through an open door, Benicio reflected again on just how good Hasina was at her job. Sure, she was putting extra attention into clearing his path in particular, but he suspected she was pushing a few hundred orders per minute. Even with neural integration, holofield quick commands, and monosyllabic codes, he doubted anyone else could have kept so many people moving and firing without it deteriorating into a chaotic bloodbath. He tossed his last grenade to the left as he blitzed through an intersection, vaulted to a hole in the ceiling, and swung himself up with just his left arm. "Very well, Lieutenant Blanchet. Everything else can wait until Lamia's dead. For now, I'll let Hasina keep using you to the full."

Doctor Sharma staggered into Niko's quarters, cursing her limp. Wilma was dead, her medical teams were scattered, and the most powerful surviving Watcher was a physical wreck. She found the boy curled up in bed, shivering, the covers speckled red, but his bandages mostly doing the job. "Dear child," she whispered, dropping to her knees at his side and opening her case. "When will you accept that we should be defending you, and not the other way around?" Niko didn't answer. He was clearly Watching. He exited his Trance, but only long enough to comm a soldier, advising them to fall back. He didn't spare even a moment to respond to her question.

She injected the boy with a mix of drugs too specialized for his medical implants, then she shifted his position to make him more comfortable. "I know I can't stop you from helping. With that CPN-Ω sim running, your body would fight through any sedative lower than a lethal dose… and even if I tried to restrain you… you'd just teleport yourself beyond my reach." She took his left hand in her own. His fingers were longer than hers, and slicked with sweat from the pain of the simulation. The hand was also badly bruised from his tumble when escaping Lamia. On further inspection, most of him was badly bruised. "I ask only this… Survive. You've lost your eyes, and a hand, and half a liter of blood… but you're still determined to keep helping… And you can. Just get through this… alive."

He exited his Trance to give a warning to another soldier. Though he didn't take the time to address Supriya, he did give her hand a squeeze.

Acting General Hasina Rakoto let the adrenaline flow through her. Her fingers danced across multiple holofields, she subvocalized an endless series of commands, and her neural interface allowed the rapid propagation of similar commands to soldiers in comparable positions. Fawzia's continuous reports on Lamia's movements were given priority by the GLaDOS mainframe, and the three dimensional map of the facility was Hasina's entire reality. She allowed no emotion that wouldn't add fuel to her mental processes, and her medical implants flooded her with a dangerous variety of performance-enhancing stimulants and neural accelerants. If she entered a coma shortly after this battle, fine. For now, she had thousands of lives in her care, and five of them were Watchers. Her mind juggled thousands of shifting factors, she issued five hundred commands per minute, and a single dropped ball could mean blood on her hands.

The enemy had taken many gauss rounds and grenade detonations, and it had spilled a disgusting pool of flesh after being exposed to Theragen gas. Lamia was injured, and starving, and pushing with everything it had to survive. Hasina could drive herself every bit as hard, and she wouldn't be content with her own survival. She strove for everyone's survival.

In all her years as Security Chief, she'd never really worried that the Watchers might face genuine life-or-death danger. But that didn't mean she'd been complacent. Not at all. While the men and women under her command drove their bodies mercilessly to remain in peak fighting condition, Hasina never let a single day pass without participating in simulated war games. She'd gone up against the best Commanders from every Allied military, and she never felt fulfilled unless her opponent commanded at least twice as many virtual troops. She always strove for perfection, for victory with zero losses, even when such an outcome was clearly impossible from the start.

And it was all coming together today. She'd defeated a vast invading army while losing only one man, and now she warred with a being from another universe. Its intellect had clearly been shaped by decades of dominating young Elsa. Thus, although some of its actions felt utterly alien, Hasina's intuition still drew ever closer to a full understanding. Points of light shifted and flowed on the holofields, every one representing a unique, irreplaceable life, and Hasina drove her mind forward. Soldiers and armed civilians gave ground and scattered before the enemy, while those to the sides fired off quick shots before falling back. Every plan had to involve multiple contingencies, and needed to account for the frequency with which Lamia tore between levels. She played three dimensional chess spread across a hundred twenty vast boards, and every single piece mattered to her.

In real life, with real people under her command, no one was a pawn. There were no redshirts, no NPC's. To be "expendable" did not mean a person had no value. It only meant their mission mattered more than life itself. If there was no other way to protect the Watchers, she would order people to their deaths. But that would mean the end of long, unique stories. Decades of life, learning, growing. A first word, a first step, a first day of school. Friendship, family, and purpose. Effort, goals, advancement, and the pride of joining the most elite organization in all of civilization. When any person died, an entire universe of complexity and possibility ceased to be. The necessity of killing thousands during the earlier battle had pained her deeply. It had hurt far worse to lose Matthias, Wilma… and especially Charlotte. If she could defeat Lamia without even one more human story ending, she would accept nothing less from herself.

And for every life she did lose, for every person she failed, she would take that pain deep into her heart and use it to drive herself even harder.

Pushing through the sickening agony radiating from her core, Eléa Blanchet pounded toward her next position. Weariness, nausea, and quivering pain clouded her thoughts, but she trusted her Chief completely. Her orders changed three times in rapid succession, and each time she promptly shifted course without hesitation. Without Chief Rakoto's exquisite strategic and tactical control, micromanaging hundreds of individuals with split second timing and the deepest care, this all would've come apart in mere minutes. Eléa knew that she never could have done more than land a lucky hit or two and then get slaughtered had she been left to her own devices. Even Captain Martins, for all his personal skill, depended on Hasina's intel and coordination to realize his true potential against such an adversary.

Eléa's latest orders remained fixed long enough for her to get into position. The echoes of gunfire, explosions, and buckling metal approached rapidly. She sighted down the scope of her rifle, noting Sergeant Wilhelm three hundred meters away, aiming for the same intersection. The last two such ambushes Blanchet had been part of never had a chance to trigger. In its relentless hunt for the elusive Watchers, Lamia altered course so often it avoided the majority of traps Hasina set.

But the Chief set many traps, and her troops had the discipline to maintain full mental readiness no matter how many times their orders changed.

Eléa's abdominal muscles spasmed, followed by an even worse cramp in her lower back. She feared she might have to withdraw from combat after this exchange. She dropped to a knee, putting all her effort into keeping her rifle steady, waiting for the signal…

Shots from off to the right triggered screeches off to the left, then Eléa heard a blast door slam down an instant before needle teeth shot toward the source of the gunfire. Then Sergeant Wilhelm fired a burst into the intersection, earning still more shrieks as a reward. A blast door crashed down right in front of him… but no needle teeth punched into it.

Lamia hadn't targeted Wilhelm.

Instead, a full salvo tore into Eléa just as her HUD flashed the order to fire.

She squeezed the trigger, spraying shots wildly, and a blast door closed in front of her.

The rifle fell from her hands.

It was still a good plan, Chief…

Her suit sounded multiple alarms, and dozens of small holes in her armor seeped blood.

Don't blame yourself for this… The enemy… is unlike any you've ever faced before…

She toppled backwards, and realized she couldn't breathe. Her HUD reported two puncture wounds through her throat, three to her heart, four to each lung, and many others. Half of those projectiles had gone on to shatter inside her armor rather than exiting through her back.

You're getting better at predicting Lamia… but it's also studying you, Chief.

She had to fight down convulsions as her body tried–and failed–to draw breath.

Captain Martins commed, saluting her choice to keep fighting, even after facing down an army and enduring serious injury. But he couldn't hide the pain in his voice. The softie…

A single line of text from Hasina flashed across her HUD. "You gave the Watchers everything. Thank you."

This must be very hard for you, Blanchet thought, as the convulsions finally took over. From numerous brutal training simulations, she knew this part wouldn't last long–not with the damage to her heart. You value every life under your care, and you never lost a man before today. Don't let this break you.

Though audible speech would have been impossible, and she was on the verge of blacking out, Eléa managed to subvocalize to her Chief. "Keep up… the pressure… The Watchers… must be…"

Her jaw clenched, her back arched violently… and all went dark and silent.