Patroclus Asteroid, Jupiter’s Trojan Cluster

  The inner compartments of the "Dusk Hound" were steeped in metallic dust, sweat, and machine oil. A pair of external cameras swiveled slowly, feeding the internal screens a gray-black vista—wreckage of old mining platforms, shredded container husks, and drill rig skeletons jutting from the ground. This was Patroclus’ orbit, once a hub for ice vein extraction, now governed by different rules.

  The Sky Legion squad lined up by the assault pods—eight fighters in gray, unmarked suits, no patches, just field IDs glowing neutral blue in the tactical system. Each suit was a personal war tool, customized and fitted to the millimeter for its owner.

  Major Ksenia Harrison stepped into the hold, her heavy boots clanging on the deck. Her voice cut like a laser sight:

  "Gear check, Echo-Four protocol. Full report to the net. Timer’s six minutes. After that, I count you dead."

  They dispersed to their stations in silence. No jokes, no chatter. Just a cold, crisp routine—locking exosuit clamps, testing comms, calibrating sensors. Paramdip Singh, the squad’s heavy, ran his grenade launcher’s targeting system with extra care. Miroslav "Miro" Stoyanovich, the sniper, laid out long-range sensors along the pod’s wall—his sector was the "long neck," the deep mine corridors.

  Darina Vasilevich stuffed standard army stim-gum into her pocket—mouth dry, saliva like sand. Beside her, Kazuhiro Yamada, silent and grim, slotted extra plates into his chest armor. Close-quarters combat demanded max protection—short ranges, no dodging, just brute force.

  Captain Michael Johnson keyed the squad comms:

  "Black Throat pattern. We breach through the southeast shaft, old ventilation, then into the central corridor. Server room's target—track it by heat signatures. Any contacts—lethal force. No civilians here."

  "No one survives," Harrison added curtly, overriding the channel.

  The pods creaked as their restraints locked them into the drop bays. Magnetic grooves slammed the armored cocoons to the freighter’s hull. The "Dusk Hound" began a slow descent, faking an "emergency approach"—an old trick no one below would take seriously, but enough to divert attention. The freighter dropped low, 300 meters from the surface, hovering over the gaping maw of an abandoned shaft.

  "Five minutes to drop," the pilot reported.

  "Gear’s set," Mike’s voice crackled as he slotted his access card into the command module. "Awaiting signal."

  Ksenia ran a hand over her helmet—a pre-fight ritual. Tension burned inside her, but her face was ice. Her eyes—matte titanium, no gleam. Her voice—sharp, steady:

  "Vasilevich, you’re on descent control. Singh, you’re blasting the entry. Miro, cover the long corridors. Mike, you grab the server—if needed, rip it to the motherboard. Questions?"

  "Negative," came the clipped chorus.

  "Launch on my mark."

  The screen flashed green. The "Dusk Hound" lurched downward, as if the pilot had deliberately dropped it a meter. Magnetic clamps snapped open, and the pods tore free with a crack, trailing ultrathin nanotube cables. They fell dark—no flames, no flares. Just a cold, blind plunge.

  Inside the pods, silence reigned—only filtered breathing and the faint hum of stabilizing gyros. Vasilevich checked her leg braces against the frame, knowing a hard brake relied on them to save her bones.

  "Altitude ninety… eight… seven… six… braking," sounded over the comms.

  The cables snapped taut with vicious force, biting into the pods’ metal. A jolt, a spine-crushing squeeze, a stab of pain in the knees—then stillness.

  "Release," Ksenia barked, and the pods detached for their final drop.

  A soft thud—touchdown. The pods’ vibro-engines kicked in instantly, burrowing them into the loose regolith. From outside, they blended into the rubble, like rocks that had tumbled into the shaft. The team exited fast—no time for a look-around. The pods auto-locked, switching to passive surveillance.

  "First sector’s clear," Miro rasped, his sniper rifle already trained down the shaft.

  "Move to the airlock. Paramdip, prep the ‘key,’" Harrison led, her exosuit gliding without a whisper, servos muted to the limit.

  The airlock was ancient, corrosion-eaten, its frame barely holding. Singh crouched, pulling a gray box with multiple ports from his pack. He plugged two cables into the airlock’s casing, linked his terminal.

  "One minute. Fuck, this is old software. Hang on, find a hole… got it!" He jabbed three keys, and the airlock jolted.

  "Enter silent. Camo full-on," Harrison ordered.

  They slipped in like ghosts. Thermo-optic cloaks bled over their armor, erasing their shapes in the shaft’s gloom.

  "Temperature above normal. Air has hydrocarbon and amine traces. They were cooking something dirty," Mike whispered.

  The corridor ahead sloped into a black maw. Sensors picked up faint vibrations from below.

  "Underground generators," Miro clarified. "Lab’s live."

  "Move. Fast and quiet. First shots mean we clear every room. No talks. Just bullets," Harrison’s voice was so flat it could’ve been part of the system.

  The squad pressed forward—eight shadows melting into the dark.

  The corridor dipped at a twenty-degree angle. Walls, crusted with frost and baked grime, looked like they’d pumped tons of blood mixed with oil through them. A thin fog hugged the floor, stirred by the squad’s breath and suits.

  "Thermal sig’s zero. No one's been living here in a while," Miro muttered, sweeping his barrel along the walls.

  "That’s bad. Means they’re deeper," Vasilevich added, her voice muffled through the helmet.

  First room—an old storage bay. Metal crates, pocked with rust. One was ajar. Inside—scraps of fabric, stained black and crusted.

  "Blood?" Singhed, prodded it with a knife. The analyzer capsule clicked shut, feeding data to the shared HUD.

  Composition: organic compounds, carbon dust, dissolved synthetic fibers. Identification—bone marrow fragments and tissue transplant traces. Source—human.

  "What the fuck? This a lab for sure?" he muttered.

  Next door—hermetic, its lock long gone. Someone had torn it open by hand—metal ripped in chunks, the wall dented from heavy blows. Vasilevich slipped in first.

  And the smell hit.

  "Fuck me," Darina jerked her head aside, fighting a gag.

  Four bodies—or what was left of them—sprawled in the room. Two with guts ripped open, intestines yanked out and tangled with thin cables, like someone tried to "rewire" them. One flayed skinless, muscles shriveled, but its eyes left intact, tiny cameras jammed into the sockets.

  The last corpse slumped against the wall. A regular guy, maybe forty, still in work gear. Mouth agape, throat slashed wide—but instead of blood, a bundle of wires jutted out, trailing into the wall.

  "What’s this shit?" Singh was braced for anything, but this twitched him.

  "Virtual death," Johnson answered evenly, scanning the body. "Looks like they ripped his mind out through an interface. Kept him ‘on’ for some reason—just drained his brain’s battery and dumped the husk in the corner."

  Harrison stayed silent. She’d seen this before—not in labs, though. This was the mark of black-market operators—ones who trafficked pain, memories, and sensations ripped live from consciousness.

  "Forward," was all she said.

  The corridor curved right. Light was scarce—just emergency markers on the walls, blinking dimly every few seconds. The squad moved fast and silent, each step drilled to precision.

  The next room was worse. Long tables held body parts—not just limbs, but modded fragments. An arm, scaled up one-and-a-half times, coated in gray keratin armor. A head with an elongated skull and neck implants, like someone was forging a human-machine hybrid. On the wall—a projection screen flickered on as they approached.

  On the screen, someone in a white coat spoke curtly:

  "…the final tissue fusion stage requires full sensory simulation. Without pain, adaptation fails… Patient 1787 lost consciousness at minute 56, fusion rejected, dispose…”

  The recording cut off, but a title flashed—Protocol Eid-3.

  "Bitches," Vasilevich snarled, slamming her boot into the table. "They were growing custom freaks for client orders here."

  "Not just that," Mike added quietly. "This isn’t even a lab. It’s a meat conveyor. They churned out ‘products,’ wiped their minds, and sold them as ‘fresh.’ The rejects went for organs or test subjects. This isn’t black medicine. It’s a death factory."

  Harrison turned to him, her voice ice:

  "If even one of these bastards survives, I’ll rip your head off myself."

  Johnson nodded. He got it.

  They pressed on—down another corridor littered with debris. Frozen droplets lined the walls—blood mixed with some clear substance. The air trembled; suit sensors picked up odd sound waves.

  At the corridor’s end, a battered door opened into a wide hall lined with glass capsules. Inside—bodies. Some underdeveloped, with childlike features. Others are adults, but with warped limbs. A few had open eyes, tracking the squad slowly.

  "This…" Miro swallowed.

  "Not human," Ksenia snapped. "They’re already dead. Just process leftovers."

  Then the siren blared.

  A shrill, piercing wail erupted from the ceiling, rattling the corridors. Red light flooded the walls, dust raining down.

  "Contact in three minutes!" Harrison barked. "They’re coming. Combat formation! Miro, cover the long corridors. Vasilevich, with me upfront. Singh, traps on the flanks. Yamada, prep ECM. Mike—we’re still taking the server room!"

  The squad snapped into formation—smooth, precise, no fuss. Each took their position, weapons ready, tactical systems live.

  "First contact," Miro reported. "Twenty meters, six-man group. Light armor, standard weapons. Moving steadily."

  "They’re expecting us," Harrison smirked. "Well then, boys and girls…"

  She stepped forward, rifle up, and her voice finally carried the edge they’d been waiting for.

  "…let’s show these fuckers what the Sky Legion looks like."

  "Sync timer’s on. Ten minutes to clear the level. Prep up," Harrison’s voice was cold and sharp as a blade.

  "Roger," Miro moved first, rifle slightly raised. Visor scanners overlaid real-time outlines on the walls, marking cover spots and dead zones.

  The corridor sloped down at a 15-degree angle, lined with narrow side doors. Lighting was minimal—dim emergency lamps, half of them long burnt out. The mirrored silence broke only with the squad’s steps and faint comms crackle.

  "Heat on four targets behind the left door. Low movement, probably sitting on their asses," Miro whispered.

  Harrison didn’t speak—her hand flicked down. The assault team raised barrels to shoulder height, sights on the door. Singh stepped up fast, crouching by the panel, running a hand over the lock. His suit pinged the net with a prelim scan—old junk, more holes in the chip than a suicide’s skull.

  Click—the door slid aside, and the squad stormed in as one. Three silenced shots—two to the chest, one to the head. The first target dropped before standing.

  "Contact one down," Miro.

  The second spun with a gun, but Vasilevich’s burst shredded his chest plate, body slumping to the floor.

  "Contact two down," Darina.

  The third lunged for an alarm—too slow. Harrison fired from the hip, no aim, bullet tearing through his wrist, blasting hand and control panel apart. The second shot punched his forehead. The body rolled back to the wall.

  "Contact three, clear," Harrison.

  The fourth didn’t play hero—hands up, mouth open, words caught short. Singh eased forward, stock smashing his jaw—bone snapped. Skull hit the wall, eyes rolled back.

  "Contact four sleeping. Alive for now," Singh.

  "No witnesses." A quick snap—head jerked.

  Harrison didn’t pause. Next door, next corridor. All in silence. Voices stayed on the closed net. No shouts, no feelings—just clean work.

  "Stairwell down. Miro, Yamada—cover. Vasilevich, forward," Harrison didn’t look back. She knew they were moving.

  The elevator shaft—long dead—gaped open. Rusted cables and frozen water drops clung to the walls instead of a car.

  "Too quiet," Miro muttered, scanning below. "Sensors say twenty Celsius down there."

  "Then it’s a freezer. Go," Harrison hooked the cable, sliding down fast. Mike followed, then Vasilevich and Singh. Miro and Yamada brought up the rear.

  The shaft was short—two levels. At the bottom, blood trails froze in streaks, dripping from metal struts.

  "Opening," Singh cracked the lock, and the door slid aside.

  Beyond—a long corridor, open capsules along the walls. Inside—bodies in varying decay. Some limbless, others with chests cracked open.

  "Docs. Mike?" Harrison didn’t turn.

  "Got an archive console. Old terminal, hooking in," Johnson knelt by a screen, fingers flying over the sensors.

  Lines flashed up:

  Subject 047—disposed.

  Subject 048—complete. Bio-recovery protocol not initiated.

  Subject 049—destroyed, incompatible.

  "This isn’t medicine. It’s a rejected catalog," Mike’s voice was hard.

  "Fuck ‘em. Keep moving," Harrison was already at the next door.

  The next 12 minutes were pure work. Door after door. Rooms with old gear, walls scarred by violence. Fresh corpses in some, body scraps in others.

  "Sixth room. Five targets. Three armed, two not," Miro reported, scanning ahead.

  "Standard. Armed first, then sweep," Harrison signaled.

  Door opened—flashbang sailed in. A burst of light, a deafening pop. The squad stormed in a wedge.

  First target dropped before registering it. Second fired at the ceiling—his head vanished in a sniper shot. The third got pulped on the spot—three guns blasting his chest to mush at once.

  One unarmed man tried to bolt—Yamada snagged his collar, snapped his arm, and slammed him down. Two rifle clicks.

  "Done," short and sharp.

  The last sat silent by the wall, staring at the floor. Miro crouched, grabbed his chin, tilted his head up. Empty eyes—drugged haze. A number on his neck.

  "Old ‘product,’" Vasilevich said. "Trash. Next."

  Click, reload.

  With each step, the air grew heavier. Not physically—morally. Nothing here was alive. Just the stench of blood, chemicals, and rot. Lights flickered. Water dripped somewhere.

  In the left corridor, they found a child—a girl, maybe eight. She sat curled into a ball. Her body bore stitched scars, like she’d been pieced together. Eyes without pupils, empty, milky.

  Harrison didn’t stop. She gave a curt order:

  "Yamada. Point 47."

  Yamada nodded, pulling a small cylinder from his pouch. One press—an injector. The girl didn’t even flinch. Three seconds later, her heart stopped.

  "Move," Harrison said.

  "Airlock to the server room’s ahead. No cameras. Guard count—two outside, five in," Miro reported, sliding along the wall.

  "Armor?" Harrison asked.

  "Light. Rifles, a shotgun. Standard."

  "Silencers, on my signal."

  A single nod, and they advanced.

  First, the two outside—bullets to the head, synced. Then the door—flashbang, pop, three short bursts. The last guard didn’t even raise his hands.

  "Level clear. To the servers," Harrison ordered.

  "Server room door in sight," Miro said, hugging the wall. "Lock’s new. Recently swapped."

  "Doesn’t matter. Singh, crack it. Fast," Harrison posted up behind him, covering the corridor.

  Singh crouched, jacking his portable rig into the lock. A grid of symbols scrambled across the screen, chaotic, but in a second, he’d sliced through the first layers.

  "Standard commercial protocol," he snorted. "Either cheapskates or covering their asses in a rush."

  "Or both," Vasilevich threw out, eyes on her sector.

  Five more seconds—the door slid open with a dull grind. A stench hit their filters—burnt plastic, scorched flesh, and chemicals.

  "Something fried to shit," Yamada commented.

  Scanners spiked 15 degrees above norm. The air shimmered with latent heat.

  "Hold. Couple of sensors—trap?" Miro scanned deeper. "Yep. Bootleg mines at the threshold. Old, first-wave colonization stuff, but rigged—motion sensors keyed to a light-armor heat profile."

  "Good thing we’re not human," Singh smirked, tapping his exosuit’s chest.

  "No detour," Harrison pointed at the wall beside the door. "Blow it and flank it."

  Singh slung a charge plate off his shoulder, slapped it on the wall, and primed the remote fuse.

  "Three, two, one…"

  A muffled boom. The wall split apart in a cloud of dust and debris.

  "Go," Harrison stepped in first, scanning every meter.

  The server room was vast—row after row of metal racks, streaked with soot and old blood. Some were dark, others blinked faintly with indicator lights.

  "Heat inside. Main system’s still running somewhere," Mike Johnson darted to a terminal. "Hooking in."

  He didn’t sit or crouch—just stood, mag-boots locking to the floor. A thin cable snaked from his wrist unit to the system port.

  "I’m in. Holy fuck… twenty years of archives. Half encrypted, half raw."

  "Take it all," Harrison kept her rifle shouldered, eyes on her sector.

  Mike worked fast. Files flashed across the screen—"Sales," "Contracts," "Research," "Product Delivery," "Experiments." He dumped it all into his block.

  "More memory than I expected. Either this base is huge, or it’s the whole chain’s archive," Mike said, just as his screen blared red.

  "What the hell?" Vasilevich stepped closer, covering him.

  "Post-breach lockdown triggered. They know we’re here," Mike exhaled. "Chain-delete’s rolling."

  "Shit…" Darina snapped her head up. "Guard’s coming too, then."

  Corridors to the server room surged with movement. Scanners lit up—dozens of marks. Pros.

  "Not local security," Miro said, eyeing the data. "Thermo-profile’s exos. Not small-time—Class A or better."

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  "Someone really didn’t want us here," Harrison checked her ammo, voice flat.

  Johnson, still at the terminal, cracked another data branch.

  "Holy shit…" he whispered. "Armotech dogs. MK-7 armor—the kind shipped to the frontier corps."

  "So they’re not just waiting. They were waiting for us, here, now," Harrison summed up coldly. "Mike, how long?"

  "Ninety seconds for full dump. If I don’t die first," he smirked.

  "Singh, set defensive mines in the corridor. Vasilevich, Yamada—cross-sectors. Miro, scout drone at the entry," Harrison rattled off orders like a ledger, not a firefight.

  It fused into one motion. Mines clicked live. A drone crawled into the corridor, blending with the wall. The squad locked down both entrances. Nineteen seconds flat.

  "Contact at thirty," Miro called.

  "Mike, count to twenty and pull out. We’ll force the rest," Harrison said.

  First came suppression drones—six-barrel gunners scuttling along the floor and walls. Singh’s mines hit perfectly—two shredded instantly, but a third rounded the corner, spraying the doorway.

  Metal sang, sparks flew. The squad’s rifles answered in unison. Armor-piercing rounds chewed through walls, panels, tearing off plating and optics.

  "One down, two’s burning!" Miro shouted.

  A third mine took the last drone.

  "Infantry inbound," Darina pressed to the corner, sighting her first targets.

  Three emerged from the smoky corridor—full Armotech armor, faces hidden behind sealed helmets with enhanced optics.

  "Legs!" Harrison barked.

  Three bursts ripped into ankles and knees, shredding hydraulics. One collapsed, another raised his gun—caught a burst through the visor.

  "Second down, third breaking right," Darina shifted.

  From behind them stepped a fourth—bigger. His exo gleamed fresh, Armotech logo on the chest. Not even in combat mode yet.

  "Who the fuck’s this?" Singh asked, slapping in a fresh mag.

  "Our next problem," Harrison said calmly. "Mike, done?"

  "Second… got it! Pulling out!"

  "Legion, exfil!" Harrison roared.

  The squad broke position, peeling into a side corridor. Behind them, heavy exo steps and automatic fire thundered.

  "Blitz breakout!" she yelled. "Push to the hangar!"

  A deafening blast roared behind, collapsing the ceiling and cutting off pursuit. Corridors filled again with running shadows, muzzle flashes, and the reek of metal.

  The air breathed char. It sat thick in the throat like vomit laced with burnt polymer dust. The Sky Legion squad moved by the book—cross-cover, sectors swept in sync, pausing every twenty steps to scan. But discipline was fraying. Not from exhaustion.

  "What the fuck’s with this guard?" Miro’s voice crackled through his helmet, static cutting in.

  "Armotech…" Mike hissed, fingers flying over his tablet. "Someone drew us a damn ambush. These aren’t Pluto gutter-rats with sawed-off Stanleys."

  "Motherfucker, corporate cover?!" Vasilevich kicked a nearby corpse. Thick sludge oozed from split armor, more motor oil than blood.

  "No clue who," Harrison said evenly. "But whoever’s shielding this lab isn’t selling vitamins."

  A step, another—the air shifted. Thermals dropped sharp. -3°C. Ice crept over the corridor walls, like this wasn’t just a vacuum base but some otherworldly freezer’s back end.

  "Someone’s climate control’s leaking," Singh grumbled, but his voice lacked its usual edge.

  Ahead, a door slid open. Sensors flagged the atmosphere—breathable, but spiked with organic anomalies.

  "Vapors. Suits stay on," Harrison cut in. "Forward."

  They stepped inside—and for the first time in this op, someone swore aloud not from enemy fire.

  "Fuck me sideways…" Yamada breathed.

  On an operating table lay what once might’ve been human. Or several. Arms from one body, legs from another. The head—female, half-replaced with a comms module. Skin stitched with steel cords, chest cracked open, a tangle of bio-tissue, cyber-wiring, and something else inside.

  On the floor—a bucket of scraps. A head torn off like a cabbage stump, organs strewn around like construction trash.

  "What the fuck is this?" Darina spat into her helmet filter.

  "This isn’t surgery. It’s… assembly," Mike’s voice shook. "I’ve only seen this in sealed reports."

  "Shut it. Move," Harrison signaled, but even she slowed. The walls here seemed to breathe. Mold on the panels crept, tracking their every step.

  "Second level now," Harrison led, rifle up, fingers locked tight on the grip. "Sector control."

  The squad moved wall-to-wall—tight combat chain, each covering an angle or door. Textbook. But the air… that’s what started cracking their detachment. A smell clawed through the filters—dead organics, acid, and something… sickly sweet, rotten.

  "What’s this fucking stench?" Singh rasped, pressing the back of his glove to his mouth like it’d help.

  "If I knew, I wouldn’t be sniffing this shit," Miro muttered.

  Vasilevich held the second sector, guarding Harrison’s back. Darina tried breathing less, but it didn’t work—the odor stuck inside her helmet, clawing down her throat.

  First door, second level. Vasilevich wedged it open with a power clamp. It slid aside.

  And there they saw the first one.

  A human body, strapped to an operating table with belts. Skin like parchment stretched over raw muscle. The face… no face, just a black hole for a mouth—like they’d screamed until their vocal cords burned out. Guts laid out on shelves, hooked to cables and harnesses. And, fuck, the heart still beat—either by machines or momentum.

  "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Pops snapped first, reeling back, his head thudding against the bulkhead.

  "What the…" Miro tried for words, swallowing instead.

  Harrison said nothing. She stepped up and slashed the cables with one knife swipe. The heart stopped, like a pump switched off.

  "Keep moving," her voice came low, like it rose from the dirt. "This isn’t the worst yet, trust me."

  Bodies. Embedded in the walls like some sick art. Some had skin fused to metal—like they’d been melted into the corridors. One eye might be mechanical, the other an empty socket with something small wriggling inside.

  "Someone carved off their faces," Kazuhiro said quietly, staring at one. "Then stuck them back—onto the wall."

  "This is fucked," Singh pulled his pulse cutter and sliced one free. It crumpled to the floor, thick black slime oozing from its mouth.

  "Hey, it’s breathing!" Vasilevich barked, aiming her barrel.

  "Finish it," Harrison didn’t blink.

  Vasilevich fired a short burst into its head. The skull popped like a rotten melon.

  "Next. No stops," Harrison’s voice grated like dry gravel.

  Next bay. The door opened, and the squad peered in.

  A wide hall, packed with capsules. Each held a person—or what used to be one. Some limbless, others with arms stretched long from leg bones. A few had extra heads. One was fully wrapped in cables, a knot of biomass and wiring.

  "Whoever did this was a fucking artist," Singh said, not sure why he was joking.

  "Shut it, asshole," Darina snapped.

  Dim light glowed in the capsules—some were still alive. Their eyes weren’t human. They stared, unblinking, as the soldiers entered. Some pleaded. Others watched with a creepy, sticky curiosity—like they wanted to trade places.

  "Charge it all, blow it to fuck!" Harrison ordered.

  "On it!" Singh tossed charges like confetti, no holding back.

  At the next corridor—where the aux server block sat on the map—the floor gave way. Harrison snagged a ledge, but Miro and Kazuhiro dropped.

  The floor was woven from mutated bodies—twisted, fused together. Alive. Screaming.

  "WHAT THE FUCK!" Miro howled like a wounded dog as hands grabbed at his legs, clawing at his armor.

  "Hold on, you bastard!" Darina hit the deck, grabbing his arm.

  Kazuhiro fired down, but bullets sank into the flesh mess.

  "MOTHERFUCKERS!!!" Harrison barreled in like a bulldozer, yanking Kazuhiro out by the shoulder plate, tearing a chunk of one creature with him.

  When they climbed free, both sat silent against the wall, breathing hard.

  "What kind of fucked-up lab is this?" Singh asked.

  "Doesn’t matter now," Harrison reloaded. "We finish here and leave. Alive or in bags. Next—hangar."

  "Got it. On it," Mike exhaled.

  They pushed on, knowing each step brought not just enemies, but something beyond their training. Creatures left from experiments, and people who’d chosen to become them. And maybe someone who’d built this trap—not just to kill, but to show what they’d do.

  The squad’s boots echoed on metal. Rot, chemicals, and burnt flesh soaked into their filters. Each step screeched, like the walls were grinding teeth.

  "This shit’s gonna haunt me forever," Miro’s voice was soft, like he feared breaking the silence.

  "If you can even sleep," Vasilevich muttered. Her arms were caked in blood to the elbows—not hers, someone else’s, greenish-black and weird. She didn’t ask where it came from.

  "You… you all saw that, right?" Pops trailed behind, checking corners. "Dude with wires for guts. Eyes like fucking buckets. And that thing in the wall, staring… Is that even normal?"

  "No, Singh, it’s not fucking normal," Harrison turned. Her face was stone. "But now’s not the time to lose it. We work. Puke later, in your bunk, planetside."

  "You get it, Zen," Mike stepped closer. "This isn’t a lab. It’s a slaughterhouse conveyor. They weren’t just pulling organs. They were building a fucked-up future."

  "What fucking future?" Darina spat. "You see that? Human skin stretched on a frame like a goddamn mannequin? These aren’t people anymore, it’s biotech horseshit."

  "Speaking of the future…" Miro braced the next door. "Get ready, kids, I’ll show you."

  Beyond—a vast hall. Dim light. Rows of heavy capsules, each over three meters tall. Glass portholes revealed soldiers of a new breed.

  The first—skin fused to a cyber skeleton. Arms like hydraulic presses with bone growths for fingers. Eyes shut, but red sensor lights flickered under the lids. Chest—an external battery, 1,500 hours of autonomy. Skull—embedded combat computer, wired for every weapon system.

  The second—pure meat mountain, muscles hypertrophied, skin taut like thick tarp. Face—not a face, but a sensor array drilled into the skull, built for terrain and threat analysis.

  "Mother of God…" Kazuhiro exhaled hard.

  "Here’s your corporate war future," Harrison tapped a capsule with her stock. "No need to train, drill, or motivate. Grow ‘em, program ‘em, hand ‘em a gun—fight."

  "You’d lose your mind facing this," Singh laughed nervously. "I wouldn’t go hand-to-hand with that."

  "Wouldn’t have to," Miro pointed at a console. "They’re autonomous. Like ‘switch on, point at the target.’ Programmable suicides."

  Darina circled the capsules, eyeing the second closely.

  "Fuck, if this is the future, I’m heading back to the past. These things’ll eat their own creators. Or all of us. If someone thinks they can control them, they’re a fucking idiot," Darina snapped.

  "Calm down," Mike slapped her shoulder. "We’re not here for philosophy. We work."

  "You get what this shit is?" She spun on him. "This isn’t just a war for cash anymore. It's a war against life itself. They can’t even die right—the system won’t let them."

  "Enough poetry," Harrison stepped to a capsule’s control panel. "Think we should flip it on, see one live?"

  "Zen, what the fuck for?" Mike grabbed her arm. "We need the hangar. Forget these things."

  "Fine… But know this—we’ll face them again," she pulled free. "Better get used to the idea now: aim precisely. They’re not human anymore."

  "Move," Harrison bolted for the next exit.

  They hit the main tunnel to the hangar. No more filth here—just clean industrial space. Floor littered with casings, walls pocked with fresh bullet holes—someone had already fought here.

  "They know we’re coming," Darina slid along the wall, checking a corner.

  "And they’re waiting," Harrison gave a curt nod.

  "Not the freaks," Singh said, eyeing analyzer data. "Humans. Armed to the teeth."

  "Mercs," Mike swept sensors over the sector. "Heavy gear, at least three with turrets."

  "Then it’s a straight-up slaughter," Harrison checked her charge. "Let’s go."

  The hangar doors screeched apart. The air inside thrummed with tension. Thin light strips cut through metal grates. Ahead—industrial chaos. Racks of crates, scattered containers, heavy auto-cranes dangling like nooses. Fresh casings carpeted the floor.

  "Enter fast sectors by the clock!" Harrison barked.

  The squad rolled in like a living wave—locked positions, covering each other. But they’d barely dug in when tracer fire sliced the air—short bursts, from all sides.

  "Contact left!" Vasilevich dove behind a container, sniper rifle in hand, knee-deep in bloody dust. "Turrets, fuckers, on the cranes!"

  "Two right!" Pops hurled a smoke grenade hard into the far corner, blanketing a pair of spots.

  Echoing shouts merged with sensor buzz and metal shrieks. The squad fell into pattern—suppress, flank, clear. Shooters on the upper tiers got off one burst before concentrated fire tore them apart.

  "Take the low ground!" Harrison shouted, darting along the wall. "Singh, mines on the passages—no one at our backs!"

  Pops, cursing, ripped sticky charges from his belt, tossing them into corridors and thumbing the activators. Red LEDs flared—traps set to kill.

  A body crashed down from above, blasted by a grenade wave, landing at Vasilevich’s feet. Black armor, patch reading Armotech Security Division. His face still held surprise—he hadn’t clocked who’d hit the hangar.

  "Armotech dogs, fuck!" Darina kicked the corpse aside. "Who’re they guarding here?"

  The answer came fast—two figures in exosuits stomped out from the east platform. Light models, not full mechs, but still walking firebases. Shoulder turrets, built-in grenade launchers, armor that could eat a heavy-caliber burst.

  "Cover!" Harrison dropped first, behind a crate. "Left with me, snipers—headshots before they move!"

  Screams, clangs, armor scraping metal. Vasilevich and Miro hunted heads—short, precise shots at the exos’ neck joints, where armor thinned. One dropped instant—a bullet ripped through his throat, shredding cables, killing stabilization.

  The second held. He swung toward Darina, unleashing a twin-turret salvo. Bullets screamed past her container, metal shards slashing the air.

  "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Vasilevich bailed, hitting the dirt. "Miro, cover!"

  Stoyanovich was already firing. His rifle tore jagged chunks from the exo’s shoulder plating, but it lumbered on like an armored bear—unstoppable.

  "Harrison, now! This is serious shit!" Mike yelled, cracking the crane system’s terminal. "I can slam him with a hook if you draw him!"

  "Do it while he’s chasing me!" Darina bolted diagonal, throwing off his aim.

  The crane groaned, its steel cable snapping free. A massive hook dropped like an executioner’s hammer. With a wet crunch, it smashed the exo’s shoulder, cracking armor, wrenching the joint. The machine toppled sideways.

  "Finish it!" Harrison roared.

  Darina pumped three bursts into its neck, Miro landed a control shot to the face—something inside burned out, reeking of flesh and plastic.

  Silence lasted two seconds. Then the far bulkhead split open—and something else stepped out.

  Three meters tall. Armor like a walking tank. A body maybe twenty percent human—the rest bio-engineering, hydraulics, carbon plates, and integrated weapons. No helmet. Face exposed—male, surgically rebuilt. A sterile smile, perfect teeth that grinned at no soul, no world. In its hands—a plasma caster with a claw cannon built in.

  "Oh, shit…" Miro breathed.

  "This a new project?" Mike couldn’t look away.

  "This isn’t a project—it’s a fucking nightmare!" Harrison raised her rifle. "Everyone, full loadout!"

  They’d met the future. A future that wanted them dead.

  The Golem charged, bathing the hangar in plasma fountains. The floor began to melt. The squad scattered—each to their cover. The exo’s turrets spun, locked targets, drilled through barricades with armor-piercers.

  "All heavy charges!" Harrison tossed a smoke grenade, cutting the monster off. "Darina, flank it! Singh, prep the underbarrel!"

  "I’ll fuck its damn mother!" Vasilevich darted to the wall, zigzagging like a rabbit. Her boots slid on blood, debris, scraps of former humans.

  "Miro, sniper shots to the joints!" Harrison commanded.

  Stoyanovich took aim. A laser flicked to the monster’s knee. Shot. Second. Third. Armor cracked but didn’t give.

  "Bitch has next-gen ceramics!" Miro snarled.

  "Then we do it old-school!" Harrison leapt up, lobbing a sticky charge under its feet. The blast threw it off balance—but didn’t drop it.

  "Fucker!" Darina lunged from the side, unloading a burst under its ribs, where human flesh lingered. The Golem flinched—its first sign of pain.

  "Guess we’re not living for nothing, asshole!" Vasilevich hissed.

  It turned on her, claw cannon arm extending. The blade flared.

  "Not a chance, prick!" Harrison dumped her full mag into its face.

  The mutant sank to one knee, but a second later, servos roared, actuators cracked, and the giant rose. Thick, near-black blood mixed with tech-lube streamed down its frame. Its eyes—nothing human. Just code.

  "THE FUCKER’S GETTING UP!" Singh yelled, slamming his stock into a panel beside him like it’d help.

  "Control shot!" Harrison raised her launcher.

  Boom. The grenade sank into its chest plate. An explosion—sparks sprayed, armor chunks flew. The Golem swayed but stood. The others didn’t sit idle—sensors blinked, tactics shifted.

  "Flanking move! SIDE SWEEP!" Miro shouted, rifle at eye level.

  From the smoke, Golem One emerged left, firing nonstop. Bullets hammered the wall near Vasilevich like nails, one punching through her leg armor with a crunch.

  "FUCK!" Darina dropped to one knee, teeth grinding. "I’m alive! I’ll work on it!"

  She snapped her rifle up, unloading point-blank into the Golem’s sensor block. The glass eye burst, but it's frame kept spewing lead across the hangar.

  "Mike, smoke to the airlock! We need out!" Harrison barked, rolling behind a container.

  "What fucking airlock, Zen?!" Johnson swiped sweat from his brow, his shoulder blazing from a stray round. "We’re all dead here if we don’t drop this thing now!"

  Golem Two locked on Pops. A burst sheared off his cover’s corner, metal splinters gouging his face.

  "FUUUCK!" Pops roared, clapping a hand to his eye socket. "They fucking blinded me, bastards!"

  "Hold on!" Kazuhiro lunged, dragging him to safety.

  The monster primed its arm-mounted plasma cutter. The blade flared blue. It advanced—slow, like a demon wading through hellfire. Casings and fragments of its own crushed underfoot.

  "Hit it with everything—legs, joints, eyes, anything you see!" Harrison ripped her last sticky charge off her belt and hurled it at the creature’s knee.

  Blast—armor shards scattered. The Golem froze for a split second.

  Vasilevich screamed:

  "TAKE THIS, YOU FUCK!"

  She leapt up, limping, clutching her leg, and unloaded her full mag into the monster’s chest point-blank. Bullets tore into flesh, cyber-ligaments, seams—but it still stood.

  The Golems switched to suppression fire. Hundreds of rounds shredded the air, sparks raining from the ceiling. A grenade blast knocked Darina off her feet—her armored leg twisted at an unnatural angle. Her visor flashed red:

  CRITICAL DAMAGE — LEFT LEG

  "Fuck this hangar!" Singh, clutching his wound, raised his launcher and slammed a rocket into one Golem. It erupted, its shredded chassis toppling sideways.

  "One down, second still breathing!" Harrison reloaded, blood streaming down her arm where a shard had pierced her armor.

  Miro held his sector, but his ammo was dry. He switched to his pistol, firing short, sharp shots.

  "We’re not getting out, Zen! They’ll bury us here!" he gasped.

  "Shut up and hold the line!" Harrison swiped sweat away, eyes blazing with fury.

  The monster advanced again. Its exposed face, drenched in blood, too smooth, too perfect—like someone else’s skin stretched over it. A face still smiling.

  "Fuck, it’s grinning, the bastard," Pops whispered, spitting blood. "Corps burned their brains to ash."

  The monster swung its cutter, the glowing blade slicing half a meter from Harrison’s head.

  "Motherfucker!" She dove back, slamming into the wall. "HIT IT WITH EVERYTHING WE’VE GOT!"

  Mike fired his last underbarrel grenades into its torso. Darina slapped a sticky charge onto its back and blew it. Kazuhiro triggered an ECM pulse, jamming an electromagnetic spike into its targeting system.

  The monster staggered. Joints crunched. One eye flared and died.

  "MORE!" Harrison gritted her teeth, lunging with her knife. She drove it under its chin, where the flesh met the machine.

  A shock ripped through its armor. The Golem convulsed, like a seizure.

  "DOWN!" Mike yelled.

  The blast threw him back. The monster collapsed, half a ton of steel and dead flesh crashing to the floor.

  Silence.

  Metal burned. Blood dripped from the squad’s boots. Every suit blared:

  CRITICAL CONDITION — IMMEDIATE EVAC REQUIRED

  Harrison slumped against the wall, panting. Mike’s voice crackled in her ear:

  "You see that fucking face?"

  She nodded. Her eyes—empty.

  "They’re sculpting gods from meat scraps. And we’re just bugs in their lab. They’re crushing us."

  "We’re not dead yet," Harrison hissed. "And as long as we’re not dead, they haven’t won."

  Behind them, a screech. The second Golem started rising.

  "Fight’s not over, bitch…" Darina, soaked in blood, eyes wild, reloaded her rifle.

  "GET UP AND FINISH THIS SHIT!" Harrison roared.

  The Golems rose again. One, then two. Three more joined from the hangar’s far end—reserve security sectors. Hidden turrets emerged from false panels along the walls. The system kicked into "full sterilization" mode—wipe everything without top clearance.

  "Son of a…" Harrison didn’t finish as a heavy-caliber burst ripped the wall a meter from her head.

  Miro, ribs cracked, tumbled clumsily behind a debris chunk, gasping.

  "Zen, I… I’m not running anymore," he choked, blood bubbling on his lips.

  "Hold on, brother, we’re almost at the door," Mike tried dragging him, his own shoulder twisted, fingers shaking.

  "Door? What fucking door? They’ll bury us here," Miro glanced at Pops, chest torn open, armor shredded.

  Darina limped, leaning on Kazuhiro—his right arm dangled limp, his face a pulped mess against his visor.

  "Major, you’ve got to…" Darina coughed, choking on her own blood. "Get the data out through this fucking hole. You hear me? If you die, it’s all for nothing."

  "Shut up and move!" Harrison crossed a fire lane, her shoulder flashing PENETRATING WOUND, but she didn’t slow.

  The floor splintered underfoot as the second Golem fired its launcher. The blast hurled Darina and Kazuhiro back—right under a collapsing container’s edge.

  "LIEUTENANT!" Harrison screamed, turning, but too late—the upper tier caved, burying them.

  Kazuhiro didn’t even yell. Darina… her hand stuck out from the wreckage, still gripping her rifle.

  "Fuck, fuck…" Harrison clenched her jaw, breaking into a run.

  "Go, Zen! Go!" Mike pulled her, limping, blood blinding one eye.

  Miro covered their retreat, pumping his last rounds into anything moving. He didn’t see the two exos flank from behind—only felt his chest explode. He fell forward, a sack of bones, eyes staring but blind.

  "MIRO!!!" Pops lurched up, voice raw with rage and pain.

  He grabbed the heavy launcher, aimed at the nearest Golem, and fired the full cassette. Rounds shredded it to scraps, but the second Golem replied—a point-blank shot to Pops’ chest.

  The sergeant didn’t fall—he disintegrated.

  Mike howled, voice cracking into a hysterical rasp. Harrison ground her teeth to breaking.

  "To the airlock!" She dragged him, her body failing.

  The airlock was fifty meters off. A bolter round—piercing, not explosive—slammed the wall beside them, punching through Harrison’s armor, shredding both legs above the knees.

  "AAAAAH!" She hit the floor, head cracking against debris.

  "NO!!!" Mike lunged, trying to haul her up.

  The Golems marched closer, stepping a funeral dirge.

  "Leave me, get to the airlock!" Harrison gasped through pain, eyes bloodshot. "GO!"

  Mike dragged her into the shadow of a tech hatch—a narrow exhaust tunnel for ship launches. The stench of hot metal and charred plastic choked their lungs. The Golems followed, armor glinting in the dim emergency lights, each step reverberating in her chest. Harrison, face bloodied, pressed against the cold floor, blood pooling from her leg stumps into her suit. Everything hurts. But the helplessness hurt worse.

  "Mike, forward!" Her voice broke into a guttural snarl.

  "Zen, I’m not leaving you!" Mike knelt beside her, fingers trembling as he tried bandaging her thigh. "Hold on, damn it, hold on!"

  "I’m already dead, idiot…" She smirked, clutching her last grenade. "But you’ll live."

  "Shit… shit…" Mike sobbed but crawled deeper into the tunnel.

  Harrison stayed in the shadows. Her fingers gripped the grenade—no pin.

  The Golems emerged from the smoke.

  She yanked the pin and hurled it at the tunnel’s mouth—just past where Johnson had slipped away. In the same instant, her hands seized a jagged deck plate—a heavy steel slab, torn from the hull. With one inhuman surge, pure adrenaline, she flipped it over herself, shielding from the blast.

  Flash. The shockwave slammed the plate, hurling Harrison from the tunnel. She crashed into the wall and went still, pinned under her makeshift door.

  A shadow loomed from the smoke—a mutant. Two-and-a-half meters tall, clad in armor too thick for standard rounds. Its face—a hybrid of human skull and cyber-avatar. Sensor lenses slid down, locking on Harrison’s broken form.

  It stepped forward.

  Her bloodied fingers fumbled at her belt—empty. All she had left was her glare, cold and defiant, fixed on the monster’s face.

  "Come on, you filth…" she whispered.

  The mutant towered over her. Its giant shadow blocked the light, then a massive hand descended—a grotesque claw studded with implants, sensor tendrils burrowing under its skin. Fingers clamped her helmet, squeezing until the material groaned. Ksenia moaned through gritted teeth—pain stabbed her skull down to her spine.

  Her torn, bleeding legs dragged uselessly, leaving long red streaks. Her exosuit’s systems fought frantically to keep her alive, clamping ruptured vessels, pumping stims into her failing heart. Nanogel flooded internal tears, tiny robotic arms patching tissue like spiders—but it was like dousing a fire with a handful of sand.

  Her hands twitched weakly, clawing at its armored wrist—a grip doomed to fail. The mutant didn’t even register it. Its head—skull-like, studded with metal plates and a full slab of protective glass where eyes should’ve been—tilted slowly toward her face. Two hollow sensor pupils locked onto her eyes.

  That doll-like face, so out of place in this hell, felt almost mocking. Blood from a torn brow traced a path down her cheek, crusting at her chin. Yet even now, her features remained eerily perfect—like a porcelain figure they’d tried to shatter but couldn’t.

  And this grotesque monster stared. Long. Thorough. Scanners in its helm projected data onto an internal visor—a stream of strange symbols and commands, as if someone fed instructions into its brain in real time.

  Ksenia jerked again, this time fiercely, almost instinctively, like a beast caught in a trap. Her exosuit tried to match the motion, pumping an extra dose of stims into her muscles. Her heart pounded like a frantic drum, red warnings flashing in her eyes:

  CRITICAL BLOOD LOSS. LIFE SUPPORT AT LIMIT.

  ARTERIAL CLAMPS DAMAGED. RE-ENGAGEMENT IMPOSSIBLE.

  PRIORITY: MAINTAIN CONSCIOUSNESS.

  The mutant turned and dragged her onward, like a toy. Her helmet cracked in its grip, her spine arched in protest, but the hold was relentless. Her ruined legs scraped the floor, scratching metal, leaving a trail of pain and helplessness.

  Ksenia tried to breathe, but her lungs disobeyed. The world dimmed, sounds muffled, as if she were sinking into deep water. The last thing she saw before darkness swallowed her was that ghastly smile on the monster’s metal face. Or maybe she imagined it.

  Her consciousness faded, but the suit’s medical system fought on—clinging to the last joule of power, trying to save a body whose soul had already slipped away.

  The mutant marched silently, carrying its trophy doll into the lab’s heart.

  ***

  Mike crawled through the exhaust vent. The metal was slick with oil and blood; he barely clung to the rough walls with his fingertips. Every breath came through pain—ribs broken, armor caved inward, guts pulsing with his heartbeat.

  One more meter.

  Another.

  At the tunnel’s end, a faint glow flickered—emergency lights of the outer airlock. He was almost out. Almost.

  The light swayed, blurred. The world spun, then blacked out. His body went limp, sprawled on the tunnel floor—face in oil, fingers still clutching a torn Sky Legion patch.

  Darkness took him, but his heart kept beating.