Jax didn't need any more convincing. He was a soldier, a tactician. He could see the cold, brutal logic of the plan. It was a desperate, ugly, and probably suicidal gambit, but it was the only gambit we had left. The alternative was to stand here and be methodically executed by a machine that could not be stopped.
"Zane is dead because of this thing!" he roared to his men, his voice filled with a raw, newfound purpose that was equal parts rage and grief. He wasn't just fighting for a bounty anymore. He was fighting for revenge. "We're not just running! We're putting this beast in a cage! Two of you, with me! We're delivering the ordnance. The rest of you, give us cover! Everything you've got! Don't let it stop us!"
Two of the toughest-looking Forsaken soldiers, their faces grim and set, broke from their positions and rallied to Jax's side. They were the two who had been with him from the beginning, the barrel-chested man with the beard and another, leaner soldier with cold, calculating eyes. The other three remaining Forsaken, including the one with the wounded leg who had propped himself up against a crate, laid down a blistering field of suppressing fire. They were no longer trying to damage the Enforcer; they were just trying to keep its attention, to fill the air with so much lead and energy that it would be forced to focus on them.
"Let's go, Leo!" Anya said, pulling at my arm. "This is our chance to get away! While they're distracted!"
"No," I said, shaking my head. My heart hammered against my ribs, but my mind was strangely calm. I could see the whole battlefield, every piece in motion. "If we run now, the Enforcer will ignore them and come straight after us. Its core programming is to hunt me. The trap will fail. We have to stay. We have to be the bait until the very last second."
The look on her face was a mixture of fear and a grim understanding. She nodded, her jaw tight. This was our mess. We had led the monster here. We had to see it through.
Jax and his two soldiers began their suicidal advance towards the ruined tunnel. They didn't run in a straight line. They used a leap-frogging maneuver, one soldier laying down covering fire from behind a junk pile while the other two sprinted for the next piece of cover. It was a textbook military tactic, executed with a brutal efficiency that spoke of years of fighting together.
The Enforcer, seeing its primary target (me) still in sight, but also registering the new, advancing threat, was forced to split its attention. Its logic circuits were being overloaded by the chaotic, multi-front battle. It fired its pistol at the advancing trio, then swiveled to shoot at the soldiers providing cover, then its red eye would snap back to me, making sure I hadn't moved. It was still deadly, its aim was still perfect, but its flawless efficiency was gone. The chaos was giving us an edge.
One of Jax's men, the leaner one with the cold eyes, went down. A lucky shot from the Enforcer's pistol clipped his leg, blowing it out from under him. He cried out and collapsed behind a rusted-out vehicle chassis. "Keep going!" the wounded man screamed at his comrades, his voice filled with fury. He propped himself up on his elbows and continued to fire his rifle from the ground, drawing the Enforcer's attention for another precious second.
Jax and the bearded soldier reached the mouth of the ruined tunnel. The Enforcer was now less than twenty meters from their position, its advance relentless, its metal feet crunching over the debris. It was ignoring the covering fire now, its full attention focused on the immediate threat of Jax and his grenade.
"Now!" Jax yelled. The bearded soldier stood up from his cover and provided one last, desperate burst of covering fire, emptying his magazine directly at the Enforcer's head. And Jax, his face a mask of pure, suicidal determination, pulled the pin on the grenade.
He didn't just toss it. He sprinted forward, right into the Enforcer's line of fire, and with a powerful leap, he shoved the grenade deep into a large crack in the cavern ceiling at the mouth of the tunnel.
The Enforcer's red eye locked onto him. It raised its pistol for a point-blank execution shot that it could not miss.
But the last Forsaken soldier, the bearded veteran, did something I never would have expected from a Dominion survivor, a follower of a man like Viper. He threw himself in front of Jax. He became a human shield. He absorbed the Enforcer's shot with his own body, the force of the blast throwing him back against Jax. He collapsed in a heap, his life traded for the precious half-second Jax needed to dive away.
Jax scrambled back as the grenade detonated with a deafening BOOM.
The explosion was amplified by the confined space of the tunnel. It wasn't just a blast; it was a concussion wave that shook the entire cavern. The already unstable ceiling of the tunnel, fractured and weakened by the Enforcer's violent entrance, groaned, then gave way. Massive chunks of rock and twisted steel, some the size of the Enforcer itself, rained down, completely sealing the tunnel in a massive, impassable avalanche of debris.
A thick cloud of dust billowed out, obscuring everything. The Enforcer was gone. Buried. Trapped.
The cavern fell silent. The only sounds were the soft trickle of falling pebbles and the ringing in my ears. The remaining Forsaken soldiers—the two providing cover and the one with the wounded leg—slowly lowered their weapons, their chests heaving.
Jax stood panting near the collapsed tunnel, his face covered in grime. He looked at the bodies of his fallen men, the ones who had just sacrificed themselves for him, for this plan. The price of our escape had been high. He had started with a dozen battle-hardened soldiers. Now, he had three, and one of them was badly wounded.
He turned and walked towards us, his expression unreadable, his heavy boots crunching on the rubble. His remaining soldiers followed, their weapons still held at the ready, their eyes filled with suspicion and grief. The truce was over. The monster was gone, but we were still here.
"You were right," Jax said, his voice a low, rough whisper. He stopped a few feet from us. "The plan worked."
"I'm sorry about your men," I said, the words feeling hollow and inadequate. They were dead because of a chain of events I had started.
Jax just shook his head, a bitter smile touching his lips. It was a smile completely devoid of humor. "In the Undercroft, everyone dies. It's just a question of when, and if it means something. They died fighting the System. They died saving their crew. It's a better death than most of us get." He looked at me, his eyes hard and cold again, the brief alliance forgotten. "My debt with that machine is settled. For now. But my debt with you and Seraph remains."
He took a deep breath. "The deal was you lead it into the trap. You did your part. Now, you run. Get to the transport hub. Disappear from my sight."
It wasn't forgiveness. It was a reprieve. A temporary stay of execution, bought with the blood of his soldiers.
"But if I ever see you again, Leo," he added, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper that was for me alone. "I will kill you. No deals. No tricks. I will put a bullet in your head myself. Now get out of here before I change my mind."