Chapter 88 - Blood Across the Cryo-Vault
"Vance, look around you!" David shouted back, his rifle leveled dead at his brother's chest. "Look at the sky through the surface feeds! Look at what’s descending onto this planet! The war you and Eleanor were fighting was a lie! We’re facing extinction!"
"Shut up!" Vance screamed, his voice breaking under the strain of absolute panic. "Mother gave us the directive! The Syndicate made contact with the entity’s vanguard two years ago! They don’t want to destroy us—they want compliance! They want the machine Father built down here dismantled! If we give them Epsilon, they guarantee our bloodline's survival! They will make us the rulers of the new order!"
David felt a sickening knot twist in his stomach. Eleanor’s betrayal had gone beyond treason; in her boundless lust for survival and power, she had agreed to act as the planetary overseer for an invading harvester, offering up the entire human race as cattle in exchange for her dynasty's preservation.
"You’re a fool, Vance," David said, his voice cold as the ice above them. "They don't make deals with sheep. They use you to pull the teeth from the trap, and then they slaughter you."
"Kill them!" Vance shrieked to his mercenaries. "Secure the reactor!"
The cavern erupted into an inferno of gunfire.
Muzzle flashes strobed through the subterranean gloom as Vanguard operators and Syndicate mercenaries clashed across the crisscrossing catwalks. High-caliber rounds shattered against the steel beams, sending sparks dancing into the bottomless pit below. Hayes dropped to one knee, firing three controlled bursts that took down two mercenaries advancing along the western platform.
"David! Go!" Hayes roared over the din of battle. "Get to the main dais! We’ll hold the gantry!"
David didn't hesitate. He vaulted over the handrail, landing on a lower platform in a shoulder roll. A Syndicate shooter lunged from behind a cooling conduit, swinging his shotgun toward David’s chest. David deflected the barrel with his left forearm, drove the heel of his tactical boot into the shooter’s kneecap, and brought the butt of his rifle down hard across the man’s helmet, dropping him instantly.
He sprinted toward the central console. Across the chamber, Vance was running parallel along an upper walkway, firing blindly downward, his bullets chewing up the metal grating at David’s feet.
May you like
"You never belonged in this family!" Vance screamed, reloading his weapon with trembling hands. "Mother chose me! I was the one who deserved the stars! You were just a ghost from the dirt!"
"Then watch a ghost finish Father’s work!" David roared back.
