Chapter 85 - The Ice Tomb of Epsilon
The biometric console flanking the titanium blast door was entombed in three inches of clear permafrost. David pulled a thermal flare from his harness, struck the primer against his hip, and held the brilliant crimson flame against the glass casing until the ice wept into slush and cracked away.
Underneath, a crimson LED flickered to life—not powered by the dead civilian grid, but by an independent geothermal tap buried miles into the earth's mantle.
A digitized prompt flashed on the amber screen: **IDENTITY CONFIRMATION REQUIRED: BLOODLINE AUTHORIZATION.**
"David," Hayes said, his breath pluming white as he raised his rifle toward the misty perimeter. "The sensors on our transceivers are picking up movement on the ridge. Not human. Something dropped from the ventral bay of that ship five minutes ago. Skimmers. Probes. Whatever they are, they’re closing on our LZ."
"I’m on it," David said. He stripped off his tactical glove, exposing his bare hand to the biting frost. He pressed his palm firmly against the glass plate.
A micro-needle fired from the center of the sensor, biting into the flesh of his palm. A rapid electronic hum whined through the housing as his DNA was analyzed, cross-referenced with the archived genome of General Arthur Vance.
For three agonizing seconds, nothing happened. The whistling of the arctic wind seemed to swallow the world.
Then, with a deafening metallic screech that reverberated through the canyon, eight massive hydraulic pistons recessed into the stone groaned to life. High-pressure nitrogen purged from the perimeter seals, blasting a freezing vapor outward. Slowly, the hexagonal door split along three diagonal axes, retracting inward into the living rock to reveal a yawning, pitch-black tunnel that sloped sharply downward at a thirty-degree angle.
"Inside! Now!" David commanded, ushering the squad through the breach.
The moment the last operator cleared the threshold, David hammered the emergency seal on the interior bulkhead. The massive blast doors slammed shut with the finality of a coffin lid, cutting off the howl of the storm and the deep, terrifying hum of the craft above.
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Silence fell, absolute and suffocating.
David snapped on his weapon-mounted tactical light. The beam cut through decades of stagnant air, illuminating a subterranean facility that dwarfed anything the military had ever constructed. Suspended from the vaulted ceiling of the tunnel were thick bundles of armored cabling, leading downward toward an amber glow pulsing in the vast depths below.
