Chapter 12

Chapter 12

No Time To Mourn

The battlefield never stopped.

Octavious Storm died.

The war continued.

No pause.

No ceremony.

No moment of silence.

Only gunfire.

Explosions.

And the endless scream of reality coming apart.

Max still knelt beside Storm's body.

Blood covered his gloves.

Covered his armor.

Covered the broken pavement beneath them.

For several seconds he couldn't move.

Couldn't think.

Couldn't accept what his eyes were seeing.

Rozlin stood nearby.

Silent.

Her spear lowered.

Her shoulders trembling.

Quinlin stared at the body.

The giant Githyanki's cybernetic arms crackled with unstable energy.

His jaw clenched so tightly it looked painful.

Nobody knew what to say.

Then another fracture opened.

The battlefield didn't care.

A wave of Hollowed emerged from the wound.

Weapons already raised.

Reality demanded payment.

Again.

Max grabbed his rifle.

"Move!"

The order came out as a roar.

Not because he wanted it to.

Because if he stopped moving...

he would have to feel what happened.

And he couldn't afford that.

Not yet.

Echo Team opened fire.

Storm's body remained where it had fallen.

The battle moved around him.

Over him.

Past him.

The war refused to stop.

Several sectors away, Alpha Team fought their own battle.

DoubleBack lay on a shattered section of roadway.

Blood pooled beneath him.

The remains of his cybernetic arm ended in torn cables and ruined metal.

Bonesaw worked beside him.

Kneeling in dirt.

Using emergency surgical equipment while rounds passed overhead.

"Hold still."

DoubleBack laughed.

A weak laugh.

"I'm missing an arm."

"You're lucky that's all you're missing."

Another explosion rocked the street.

Debris rained down around them.

Bonesaw never stopped working.

Anchor and Ghostwire held the perimeter.

Pyre and Rift covered the approaches.

Every one of them knew the truth.

If the line broke...

DoubleBack died.

Simple as that.

Then the transmission arrived.

Unfiltered.

Open channel.

"Storm's down!"

Max's voice.

Static.

Gunfire.

Chaos.

Then again.

"Storm's down!"

Across the battlefield, Force5 froze.

A Hollowed brute slammed into him.

The impact shattered nearby concrete.

Force5 didn't react.

He listened.

The channel crackled.

Rozlin.

"Stay with us."

Quinlin.

"No..."

Then Octavious.

Weak.

Broken.

Barely audible.

"Took..."

cough

"...your time."

Force5 stopped breathing.

The battlefield disappeared.

For a moment he wasn't a member of Omega Prime.

Wasn't a living reactor.

Wasn't a superhuman.

He was an older brother.

Listening.

Waiting.

Hoping.

Then came the final words.

"You still owe me..."

cough

"...that drink."

Silence followed.

No response.

No voice.

No laughter.

No Storm.

Just static.

Force5 knew.

Nobody needed to say the words.

He heard the silence.

And the silence told him everything.

Warning icons appeared inside his visor.

KINETIC STORAGE INSTABILITY

CONTAINMENT FAILURE RISK

CRITICAL THRESHOLD EXCEEDED

Ignored.

Another Hollowed charged.

Force5 hit it.

The resulting shockwave flattened an entire intersection.

The creature vanished.

Along with everything standing behind it.

Blue energy poured from the seams of his armor.

The large numeral 5 on his chest glowed white.

Another impact.

Another surge.

Another warning.

Ignored.

Across the battlefield, IONA-7 saw the telemetry.

Immediately went pale.

"No."

She opened a channel.

"Force."

Nothing.

"Force5."

Nothing.

Then finally:

"Busy."

One word.

No anger.

No grief.

No emotion.

That frightened her more than screaming would have.

The numbers climbed again.

Impossible numbers.

Another containment warning flashed red.

IONA opened a second channel.

"Rifter."

Thomas Varn answered immediately.

"I know."

"You see it?"

"I see everything."

IONA shook her head.

"No."

Her voice cracked.

"You don't."

That got his attention.

"What happened?"

She hesitated.

Then said it.

"Storm."

Silence.

"Octavious?"

"He heard it."

A longer silence followed.

Neither needed to explain the rest.

Rifter had known Octavious.

Everyone in Omega Prime had.

"How bad?"

IONA checked the telemetry.

The answer terrified her.

"Critical."

"Worse than critical?"

"Much."

Another spike hit the display.

"Oh no."

Rifter's posture changed immediately.

"What?"

IONA stared at the readings.

"He's not storing anymore."

Silence.

That was impossible.

Force5 always stored.

Always regulated.

Always controlled the pressure.

That was the entire point.

"What is he doing?"

IONA's voice dropped to a whisper.

"Feeding it."

Across the battlefield, Force5 reached the largest concentration of Consumer forces.

The first shockwave erased an entire formation.

The second leveled three city blocks.

The third shattered a growing fracture cluster.

Blue light erupted into the sky.

HellGuard troops backed away.

Iron Fang operators backed away.

Even Hollowed hesitated.

Not from the enemy.

From him.

The ground beneath Force5 began to crack.

Concrete lifted.

Vehicles slid across broken streets.

Loose debris drifted toward him.

Not because he was using his powers.

Because he was losing control of them.

IONA looked at Rifter.

"Can you get me there?"

Rifter didn't answer immediately.

The battlefield had become hostile to portals.

Distance fought him.

Space resisted.

Several recent gateways had opened kilometers from their intended destination.

The Consumer was affecting the Continuum itself.

Still.

He looked toward Force5.

Toward the overload curve.

Toward the inevitable catastrophe approaching.

Then nodded.

"If I miss..."

"I know."

"If I put you inside the discharge radius..."

"I know."

"If he detonates while you're linked to him..."

IONA laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because everything else was worse.

"Then we're both having a bad day."

For the first time all day, Rifter almost smiled.

"That's probably the understatement of the century."

Another shockwave rolled across the battlefield.

Both looked toward the source.

Force5 had reached the fracture line.

The Consumer's forces were gathering.

Thousands of them.

And the living reactor charged directly into the center.

The battlefield exploded.

Rifter raised one hand.

Space folded.

Reality resisted.

The Continuum groaned.

A black doorway began forming.

Blood ran from his nose.

Tiny fractures danced across his visor.

The battlefield itself fought him.

Still.

He forced the portal wider.

"Go."

IONA stepped forward.

Then stopped.

Just for a second.

Not because she was afraid.

Because she knew what waited on the other side.

Force5 wasn't merely overloaded.

He was grieving.

And grief made powerful people dangerous.

Rifter met her gaze.

"You can still reach him."

IONA nodded.

The portal stabilized.

Barely.

Then she jumped.

The universe vanished.