Though it ended up taking a couple of hours, Adam was eventually able to gather the remaining Hoplites outside of the crashed shuttle. Of the six he had deployed with, only four were still in usable condition. One had been outright destroyed—its chest cavity caved in, internals gutted, and power core cracked like brittle glass. The last was technically functional, but damaged so extensively that it could barely walk. Its leg servos locked up every few steps, and its targeting system was stuck on a 32-second delay loop that rendered it combat-useless.

  Adam left the worst of the damage behind, salvaging what he could, which ended up being four rifles, two half-intact cases of ammunition, and a couple of diagnostic kits that had survived the crash tucked beneath reinforced brackets. Everything else was either destroyed, melted into slag, or thrown too far into the twisted wreckage to recover without wasting time they didn’t have.

  He distributed the gear methodically. Each functioning Hoplite received a rifle and a split cache of rounds. The diagnostics kits were clipped to his own rig and the CRAB unit, which still limped awkwardly with one leg bent at the knee actuator. He didn't bother assigning equipment to the crippled Hoplite in the rear—it couldn't fire, and it wouldn’t last in a fight. At best, it could carry spare power cells or serve as a buffer if things got bad.

  He gave the dead unit one last glance before turning away. There would be no graves out here.

  “Formation: two spread, one rear,” Adam ordered over the command net. His voice echoed through the ash-laced air like it was speaking into a cave. The units formed up almost instantly, their movements practiced despite the wear. Within a few moments, they were leaving the crash site behind. The shuttle wreck vanished behind a low ridge within minutes, its torn hull disappearing into the haze like it had never been there at all.

  No sooner had the wreck disappeared from view than the terrain shifted beneath their feet. What had looked like flat ground was actually a sprawl of fractured composite slabs—old roadways now buckled and half-swallowed by ash. Sections crumbled underfoot, forcing the CRAB unit to reroute around gaps, its damaged leg dragging deep furrows into the dust. The Hoplites kept pace, stepping over the remains of half-melted barriers and support beams that jutted up like broken ribs from the ash.

  The landscape stretched silently and colorlessly in every direction. There was no sound but the wind, which whistled by them. Above, the sky felt static, like a painted ceiling too far away to touch. Now and then, Adam’s HUD would ping a ghost signal, short radio bursts of incomplete information, but nothing that resolved into contact.

  After a few hours of walking and the distant sun now beginning to set, though “sun” was a generous word for the dim, bloated smear of light hanging in the sky, the terrain around them changed once more.

  The ground had become uneven and rippled with long, shallow trenches like dried scars carved by something impossibly large. What little soil there was had turned gray and soft, sinking slightly underfoot like it had been soaked and left to rot, only to dry out again under poison winds. The air grew heavier, denser. The filtration systems in the Hoplites began reporting trace particulates of dozens of different types of metals, decaying organic compounds as well as some unknown ones. Though nothing was lethal to them, this area was a biological hazard to all forms of life.

  Adam adjusted his route slightly, shifting their formation toward higher ground and avoiding stepping into the larger pockets of grey soil. After some time, they eventually ended on an elevated ridge overlooking what had once been a fortified area. From this position, Adam could see the wrecks of automated gun emplacements, scorched craters lined with rusted rebar, and the outlines of defensive trenches that had been filled in by ash and debris over time. As he scanned the horizon, one of the hoplites next to him spoke.

  “Visual contact confirmed: bunker entrance,” one of the Hoplites reported. Its voice was flat, and though it didn’t point or gesture, Adam could already see it. Some ways off, amidst a sea of rusting metal and half-swallowed wreckage, was a concrete structure jutting from the earth like a broken tooth. The heavy blast doors of the bunker were open, pried apart, and barely holding together. Deep claw gouges ran along the frame, and what little paint remained had long since blistered off from heat or chemical exposure.

  Adam marked the structure in his HUD and signaled the group forward. “Move up. Tight formation.”

  The Hoplites responded immediately, shifting into a wedge pattern with weapons raised and sensors active. The damaged CRAB unit lagged behind, its gait uneven, but it stayed close enough to follow the lead. The wind had quieted by now, leaving only the low hum of machinery and the crunch of ash underfoot.

  They reached the door, and Adam raised his hand. “Stack up. Entry on my go.”

  Two Hoplites took position on either side of the torn entrance, weapons ready. Adam stepped between them and activated his shoulder light, casting a wide cone into the darkness beyond.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Inside,” he ordered, crossing the threshold first.

  The space inside was cold and quiet—an old logistics outpost, judging by the layout. The walls were scorched and buckled, the ceiling partially collapsed near the far side. Rows of empty racks lined one side of the chamber, most of them picked clean, others burned beyond recognition. Something had torn through here long before they arrived, and whatever it was hadn’t left much behind. Adam moved deeper into the room, sweeping his light across a control terminal wedged into the wall.

  Adam moved toward the terminal, stepping over a collapsed support beam that had split the floor. He knelt beside the console and ran a quick scan—no active power, but the casing hadn’t been ruptured. If the internal systems were intact, he might be able to pull local data or at least re-route emergency energy from his unit to jumpstart it.

  He tapped into the interface port via a short fiber cable that snaked from his forearm. After a brief handshake sequence, a dim blue light flickered across the score

  en, and a line of corrupted text stuttered into view.

  SYSTEM LOG: LOCAL NODE 0-14A

  STATUS: OFFLINE – EMERGENCY LOCKOUT ENGAGED

  LAST ENTRY: 113 DAYS AGO

  “Over three months dead,” Adam muttered, visor narrowing. He dug deeper, pulling cached data, camera logs, and system diagnostics. Most of it was corrupted beyond recovery, but a few snippets loaded. Images of the outpost before the breach—teams of machines unloading cargo, drones cycling in and out. Then, static.

  He severed the link and stood. The two Hoplites moved ahead, sweeping the corridor in silence. The CRAB unit followed, its sensors mapping the space as it moved.

  He severed the link and stood. The two Hoplites moved ahead, sweeping the corridor in silence. The CRAB unit followed, its sensors mapping the space as it moved, limbs clicking quietly against the metal floor with every step. The air inside was stale, tinged with oxidized metal and the faint after-smell of scorched insulation. Every few meters, the group passed shattered terminals, cracked light fixtures, and long-dead wall panels still bearing faded hazard stencils.

  Adam trailed behind them, checking his HUD for signs of residual power or active transponders. Nothing but silence.

  The corridor narrowed as they moved deeper, the walls closing in and the ceiling pressing low. Conduits hung loose from overhead, some sparking weakly, others long inert. The path sloped downward, and soon the air grew heavier, denser with dust, and colder. Adam's shoulder light cast long shadows ahead of them, revealing fractured tiles and more of the same: claw marks, heat scoring, and blood smears that had long since turned to blackened stains.

  They reached a thick bulkhead door at the end of the hall. It was sealed, but the nearby access panel still blinked dim amber—a sign of latent power in the system. Adam stepped forward, plugging into the console with a hardlink from his forearm.

  The lock cycled slowly. A groan echoed down the corridor as internal hydraulics came to life. Dust poured from the top of the frame as the door split open with a heavy thunk and retracted into the walls.

  Inside was the command center.

  It was dark, cramped, and half-collapsed—but intact. The central table was split down the middle, likely from the partially caved ceiling above it, and a support column hung exposed from the upper deck. Terminals lined the walls, most shattered or dead, but a few flickered weakly—some still trapped in endless error loops, others holding just enough charge to keep the local grid idling. A wall of glass sat at the far end of the room, the world beyond it a black void.

  Adam stepped inside, letting the Hoplites secure the corners while the CRAB unit deployed a weak sensor pulse to map the room’s dimensions. He moved to the central console, found one screen still intact, and tapped the side. It buzzed once, then flickered to life with a faint startup chime, the Ark-Light Initiative logo barely visible behind layers of corrupted UI overlays.

  “Come on,” he muttered. “Give me something.”

  A status window appeared. Static at first. Then text. Garbled, but readable.

  OUTPOST 09-DELTA // COMMAND ACCESS POINT LAST ENTRY: 144 DAYS AGO SYSTEM NOTE: EXTERNAL SENSOR NETWORK—OFFLINE AUTOMATED DEFENSE GRID—FAILSAFE LOCKED

  Adam leaned in slightly. Failsafe. That meant something was here. Or at least had been.

  “See if you can stabilize the local grid,” he ordered the CRAB unit, which perked up instantly.

  The little machine clicked once in acknowledgment, its remaining limbs adjusting as it scuttled toward a maintenance panel on the far wall. It extended a manipulator arm and began working without hesitation, cables unfurling from its chassis and snaking into the exposed junction box. Sparks flared briefly before the lights overhead flickered, buzzed, then stabilized to a dim, cold white glow.

  The command center came into clearer focus under the renewed lighting. Dust and debris blanketed the floor. Dried blood painted part of the far wall in thick streaks that hadn’t been visible before. One of the ceiling panels creaked and dropped a few flecks of plaster, groaning under the weight above.

  Adam turned away from the console and walked toward the far wall of glass. Up close, it was worse—scored with impact lines, smeared with something that had dried into a thin, dark film. There was clearly something beyond the glass but with the lights still out, it was impossible to tell. Just blackness staring back at him.

  He tapped the side of the wall, checking for a panel. Found one—barely functional, barely lit. “Can we get lights in here?” he called back to the CRAB.

  The machine chirped an affirmative and scuttled over to a side junction, claws already digging into the exposed conduit lines. The process wasn’t instant. Fuses had blown. Relays were unresponsive. It took several minutes of rerouting signal paths and hotwiring secondary switches before something finally gave.

  There was a thunk, deep in the floor below, followed by the faint whine of old capacitors charging. Then—light.

  Flickering overhead fluorescents buzzed to life beyond the glass, revealing what lay on the other side.

  Adam didn’t speak as, for just a moment, his brain stopped processing what he was seeing. By the time it did process it, a single phrase slipped from his modulator.

  “Sweet mother of Christ.”