Marcus's Position
Marcus Kane had commanded combat operations for fifteen years. He'd trained for every scenario. Urban warfare. Hostage rescue. Counter-terrorism.
None of it had prepared him for this.
The crimson armor made him fast. He'd always been quick—special forces training, thousands of hours of practice—but this was different.
He moved and the world slowed down. Not literally, but his perception accelerated, gave him time to process and react and decide in the space between heartbeats.
He saw a Covenant soldier line up a shot on Jesse. Crossed twenty meters in three seconds. Hit the soldier hard enough to crumple his armor and probably most of his ribs. The man went down and didn't get up.
Marcus felt the impact vibrate through his arm. Felt his knuckles—protected by the crimson gauntlets but still his knuckles—crack bone and pulp flesh.
Felt the crimson integration whisper: Again. More. Faster.
He wanted to. God help him, he wanted to. The armor was feeding combat drugs into his system—adrenaline, endorphins, something else that made violence feel good. Made him want to hunt. To hurt.
"Marcus, you're drifting!" Atlas's voice, sharp. "You are moving away from team. Stay in formation!"
Marcus looked around. Realized he'd pushed thirty meters ahead of the others, chasing targets, leaving his team exposed.
Fuck.
"Falling back," he said, forcing his body to retreat when every instinct screamed to advance. "Jesse, Mara, sound off."
"Still alive," Jesse said. He sounded different. Harder. "Three down on my count."
"Seven on mine," Mara said. Clinical. Like she was reporting lab results. "Ammunition at sixty percent. Integration holding steady."
"Atlas?"
"Five kills," the big Russian rumbled. "But I am slow. Armor is strong but I am meant for defense, not pursuit. Need better position."
"Silas?"
"I've crashed their tactical network twice," Silas said. His voice was strained. "But they're adapting. Switching to analog backup systems I can't touch. We've got maybe ninety seconds before they coordinate properly."
Marcus's tactical display—courtesy of the crimson integration and Silas's network access—showed the battlefield. Thirty red markers. Now twenty-one. They'd killed nine in under four minutes.
But the Covenant was adapting. Pulling back. Forming firing lines. They'd started scattered and aggressive. Now they were treating this like a real fight.
"They're going to suppress and encircle," Marcus said. "Standard counter-insurgency. Pin us down, hit us from multiple angles with concentrated fire until the armor fails."
"Will it?" Jesse asked. "Fail, I mean?"
"Eventually," Mara said. "The integration manual specified the armor regenerates damage but not indefinitely. Enough sustained fire will overwhelm the repair function. Then we're just soft targets in fancy suits."
"Very encouraging, thank you," Jesse muttered.
Marcus made a decision. "Atlas, you're our anchor. Center position, maximum visibility. Draw their fire—your armor can take it. Jesse, Mara, you're our scalpels. Flank positions, pick off targets Atlas exposes. Silas, you're overwatch—keep disrupting their coordination. I'll push center with Atlas, force them to commit resources to stopping us."
"And when they commit those resources?" Mara asked.
"Then Jesse and you kill them while they're focused on us." Marcus checked his ammo. Down to two magazines. The crimson armor enhanced his strength enough that he could probably fight hand-to-hand, but that meant closing distance, and closing distance meant exposing himself to concentrated fire.
Also meant giving in to the whisper in his head that wanted blood.
"Move on my mark," Marcus said. "Three... two... one... mark."
7:12 AM
The Spectrum Initiative's first coordinated assault was brutal, efficient, and nothing like the clean operations Marcus had run with SENTINEL.
Atlas charged center, amber armor ablaze with impact sparks as railgun rounds hit him like hail. He didn't dodge—couldn't, not with his mass and the armor's focus on defense over mobility. Just advanced like an avalanche, implacable and inevitable.
Marcus moved with him, crimson armor blurring between impacts. He felt bullets pass close enough to heat the air around him. Felt the integration calculating trajectories, adjusting his path, keeping him in motion because a moving target was harder to hit and movement felt so good—
No. Focus. Mission. Team.
He forced discipline. Used his enhanced speed to close on a Covenant fire team. Three soldiers, overlapping fields of fire, professional spacing. They saw him coming. Adjusted aim.
Too slow.
Marcus hit the first one low, felt ribs shatter. Pivoted. Caught the second with an elbow that crumpled her helmet. The third got his weapon up, fired point-blank.
The round hit Marcus's shoulder. The armor held but the kinetic transfer felt like being hit with a sledgehammer. His arm went numb.
The soldier tried to fire again.
Marcus's other hand closed around his throat and squeezed.
The soldier made a sound like a broken pipe. Went limp.
Marcus dropped him. Stared at his hand. At the crushed remains of the man's throat armor where his fingers had been.
Again, the crimson integration whispered.
More. There are others. Find them. Hurt them.
"Marcus!" Silas's voice, urgent. "You're drifting again! Fall back to Atlas!"
Marcus shook his head, trying to clear it. Looked around. He'd pushed twenty meters past Atlas. Again. Chasing targets. Hunting.
The integration was making him aggressive. Feeding him combat stims, yes, but also something else. Rewriting his neurochemistry. Making violence feel necessary. Addictive.
He needed to get control before—
An explosion took Atlas off his feet.
Atlas's Position
The rocket hit Atlas center mass with enough force to crater concrete. The amber armor absorbed most of the blast—distributed it across the entire surface area, turned lethal into survivable.
Most. Not all.
Atlas felt his ribs break. Felt the armor's regeneration system kick in, trying to repair the damage while he was still airborne. Felt himself hit the ground hard enough to make the world white out.
When vision returned, he was on his back, staring at the hangar ceiling. His HUD was flickering. Damage warnings scrolled past too fast to read. His chest felt like it was full of broken glass.
"Atlas down!" Marcus's voice. "ATLAS DOWN!"
Atlas tried to respond. Coughed blood instead. The helmet's internal systems were recycling it—grotesque but efficient—and feeding him medical analysis he didn't want to read.
INTERNAL HEMORRHAGING DETECTED
PUNCTURED LUNG - RIGHT SIDE
REGENERATION PRIORITIZING CRITICAL SYSTEMS
ESTIMATED COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS: 34%
ESTIMATED TIME TO FULL FUNCTION: 240 SECONDS
Four minutes. He'd be combat-ready again in four minutes.
He just had to survive the next four minutes.
Covenant soldiers were advancing. He could hear their footsteps. Professional. Cautious. They knew he was down but dangerous. Would put insurance rounds in him, probably. Standard practice.
Atlas tried to move. His body had opinions. Mostly negative ones.
The amber armor was strong. Made him nearly invincible under normal circumstances.
A rocket launcher was not normal circumstances.
"Atlas, status!" Marcus again. Closer.
"Am..." Atlas coughed more blood. "Am having medical emergency. Recommend extreme violence against rocket person."
"Working on it. Hang on."
Atlas laughed. Regretted it immediately as his ribs screamed protest. "Where would I go?"
He watched three Covenant soldiers approach through his flickering HUD. Professional spacing. Weapons up. One of them had another rocket.
Insurance round, Atlas thought. Smart. Is what I would do.
The soldier raised the launcher.
Atlas closed his eye and thought about Moscow. About the bunker. About how he'd survived then when everyone else died, and maybe this was the universe correcting that mistake.
At least this time, he thought, I die with comrades. Is better than dying alone.
The rocket never fired.
Jesse's Position
Jesse didn't think. Thinking took time. Time got people killed.
He saw the Covenant soldier with the rocket launcher aiming at Atlas. Saw Atlas on the ground, helpless, about to die.
Saw Lieutenant Kim pushing him toward safety, going back for others, dying in the collapse.
No. Not again. Not again not again NOT AGAIN—
The viridian armor moved.
Jesse covered forty meters in less than two seconds. Didn't fully understand how—the integration was guiding his movements, amplifying his reflexes, turning intention into action without the delay of conscious thought.
He hit the soldier with the rocket launcher like a missile. Felt the impact through his entire body. Felt the man's armor crumple. Felt ribs break and organs rupture and a life end.
Felt nothing about it.
The other two soldiers turned. Opened fire. Jesse was already moving.
The viridian armor made him perceptive. He could see the bullets coming—not literally, but his enhanced senses tracked barrel movements, calculated trajectories, gave him time to react.
He moved like water, flowing between gunfire, impossibly fast.
His hand found the first soldier's throat. Squeezed. Kept moving.
The second soldier tried to fall back. Jesse didn't let him.
When it was done—when three more bodies lay broken on the concrete—Jesse stood over Atlas's prone form and realized his hands were shaking.
Not from fear. From adrenaline. From the viridian integration flooding his system with combat drugs that made violence feel easy.
"Jesse." Atlas's voice was weak but steady. "Good work. Very good. Now help old man up before he bleeds to death, da?"
Jesse knelt, got his arms under Atlas's massive frame. The amber armor was heavy—had to weigh three hundred pounds with Atlas inside—but the viridian integration gave Jesse strength he shouldn't have. He hauled the big Russian to his feet.
"Can you fight?" Jesse asked.
Atlas coughed. Laughed. "Can I breathe? Barely. Can I fight?" He checked his weapon. "Always. This is what we do. We break. We heal. We fight anyway."
Jesse looked at the three bodies he'd made. Felt the integration still whispering more, there are more, find them, stop them.
"I killed six people today," he said quietly. "I'm twenty-two years old. I killed six people."
"Yes," Atlas said. "And you will kill more before this is over. This is war, malchik. This is what we are now."
"I don't want to be this."
"No one does. But wanting does not matter. Only doing." Atlas gripped Jesse's shoulder with one massive gauntleted hand. "You saved my life. I will remember. When this is over—if we survive—we will talk about killing and what it costs. But now? Now we finish fight."
Jesse nodded. Felt something settle in his chest. Not acceptance. Not peace. Just... acknowledgment.
He was a killer now. That was what the viridian armor had made him.
He could hate it later. Right now, there were still enemies to stop.