GDI STRATEGIC COUNCIL CHAMBER
THE AEGIS, GIBRALTAR
NOVEMBER 17, 2013
09:00 GST
The conference room smelled of sterile air conditioning and the expensive leather of chairs occupied by men who had never held a rifle. The silence was thick, punctuated only by the low hum of the holographic projector in the center of the table.
Sir Malcolm Hayes sat at the far end, staring at his reflection in the polished mahogany. He looked like a man whose soul had been surgically removed. It had been forty-eight hours since Alpha Team had vanished. Not just Harris—the Asset—but Captain Russo, Dr. Kovač, the Gorkhas, and Volkov. The heart and brain of the GDI operation had been wiped off the board in a single stroke.
General McCaffrey sat opposite him. The old warhorse was still upright, his uniform crisp, but his eyes were flinty, scanning the faces of the Council members with barely concealed contempt.
"We are hemorrhaging credibility, General," Senator Thorne, the US Representative, said, tapping a manicured finger on a datapad. "We authorized 'Operation Eagle Eye' based on your assurance that the Asset was invincible. Now? We have thirty elite operators missing in action, a lost prototype minigun, and a magnetic anomaly that is laughing at our satellites."
"They aren't missing," McCaffrey rumbled, his voice a low gravel that vibrated through the table. "They were taken. There is a difference."
"Semantics," Ambassador Dumont (EU Liaison) sighed, adjusting his rimless glasses. "The reality is that we are funding a recovery operation for ghosts. The cost-benefit analysis is shifting, General. We cannot keep throwing resources into a black hole."
"So you want to bomb them," McCaffrey stated flatly.
"We want to neutralize the threat," Thorne corrected. "The linguist's translation of the video footage was clear. The Asset, under torture, gave up the location: 'The Sky-Citadel.' We have identified five high-altitude candidates in Sector 7 that match the mana-density profile."
Dumont gestured to the map. Five red pillars of light erupted from the mountain ranges of the Iron Coast.
"We propose a simultaneous strike at dawn tomorrow. Operation Thunderstrike. We use the UNS Alliance for coastal bombardment, the Zeus platform for orbital kinetic strikes, and the 101st Airborne for napalm saturation runs. We flatten the peaks. If the enemy is there, we bury them. If the Asset is there... well, we deny the enemy the prize."
Hayes flinched. "You're talking about vaporizing our own people."
"We are talking about containment, Sir Malcolm," Thorne said coldly. "If those 'Wraiths' can open portals, we cannot allow them to dissect the Prime Gene. It is a mercy killing."
McCaffrey didn't shout. He didn't slam the table. He just looked at them for a long, uncomfortable moment.
"Authorize the raids," McCaffrey said softly.
Hayes shot his head up, staring at the General in betrayal. "Marcus?"
"Authorize the raids," McCaffrey repeated, standing up. "Mobilize the fleet. Spin up the Zeus. Give the order to burn the sky."
He gathered his files and walked out of the room without looking back.
Hayes sat there, stunned, as the politicians began stamping the death warrants of his team.
PERSONAL QUARTERS OF SIR MALCOLM HAYES
11:45 GST
Hayes had locked the door. He had drawn the blinds. The room was dark, illuminated only by the glow of three monitors.
He couldn't accept it. He couldn't accept that Harris—the monster who had saved them all—was going to be killed by a tungsten rod dropped from space because of a translation.
"Play," he croaked, his voice raspy from disuse.
The video loop from Lieutenant "Hooch" Miller's grainy night-vision camera played again.
Harris on his knees. The purple lightning. The spit of blood.
"ᚲᚨ... ᛚᚢᛗ... ᚾᛟᚲᛋ... ᚢᛖᚱᚨ."
Hayes pulled up the transcript file from the previous day's emergency briefing.
SUBJECT: DR. ELARA VANCE (Contracted Linguist)
CLEARANCE: LEVEL 4
TRANSLATION: "THE SKY-CITADEL OF THE TRUE VOID"
Hayes watched the recording of the briefing itself. He watched Dr. Vance standing at the podium. She was poised, professional. Red hair pulled back in a tight bun. Glasses. She spoke with a soft, indistinguishable European accent.
She had explained the Aereth syntax perfectly. Ca Lum means Sky. Nox Vera means True Night. It fit the Council's bias. They wanted to look up, so she told them to look up.
"Too perfect," Hayes whispered. He rewound the video of Harris.
He listened to the inflection.
Harris didn't say Ca Lum as two distinct words. He slurred them together, a guttural sound deep in his throat. Calum.
Hayes picked up his phone. He dialed the GDI Human Resources department.
"This is Director Hayes. Priority One. I need the dossier on Dr. Elara Vance. She briefed the Council yesterday."
The line clicked. A pause. Then the operator came back, sounding confused.
"Sir... I'm looking at the contractor manifest. We don't have an Elara Vance."
Hayes felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. "Check the visitor logs. Check the security clearance database."
"Checking... Sir, there is no record of that biometric ID entering the Aegis. No retinal scan matches. No fingerprints."
Hayes dropped the phone.
She wasn't a contractor. She wasn't a mistake.
She was a plant.
The enemy—these 'Wraiths'—were sophisticated enough to infiltrate the most secure facility on Earth. She had walked in, fed them a lie to direct their firepower at the empty mountains, and walked out.
"It's a diversion," Hayes realized, his hands shaking. "She wanted us to attack the peaks."
He grabbed his secure tablet. He didn't call the main linguistics department—they were compromised. He called Kevin Wu, a twenty-four-year-old junior cryptographer who worked in Sub-Basement 3 dealing with pre-Architect pottery shards.
"Kevin," Hayes barked the moment the line opened. "I'm sending you an audio clip. Forget standard High-Aereth. Use the Deep-Root syntax. The pre-Unification dialect."
"Sir? Mr. Hayes?" Kevin stammered. "I... okay. Receiving file."
Two minutes of silence. The longest two minutes of Hayes's life.
"Sir," Kevin's voice came back, trembling. "The previous translation... it's garbage. It's phonetic, not semantic."
"Tell me what it means, Kevin."
"In the Deep-Root dialect, Calum isn't a noun for 'Sky'. It's a relational verb. It means 'To reflect' or 'To lie beneath.' And Nox Vera... in this context, it refers to 'The Stillness.' A body of water so deep it doesn't move."
Hayes closed his eyes. The map of the continent flashed in his mind.
Sector 7 was the mountains.
But directly South, in Sector 9, was the Obsidian Sea. An inland lake of black, briny water. Dead calm. No waves. GDI had ignored it because it showed zero thermal activity.
"He's not saying Sky-Citadel," Kevin whispered. "He's saying: 'The City Beneath the Mirror.'"
Hayes hung up.
He didn't scream. He didn't throw anything.
He felt a surge of cold, razor-sharp clarity.
He picked up the red phone. The direct line to the General.
OFFICE OF GENERAL MCCAFFREY
12:15 GST
"You knew," Hayes said as he walked through the door. It wasn't a question.
McCaffrey was standing by the window, watching the storm clouds gather over the Rock of Gibraltar. He didn't turn around.
"I suspected," McCaffrey said. "Dr. Vance used a syntax that hasn't been academic standard for ten years. And she smelled like lavender."
"Lavender?"
"The same soap the Exile Queen used during her interrogation. It's a specific blend from the old continent." McCaffrey turned, his face unreadable. "She was a spy, Malcolm. A very good one."
"And you let her send our fleet to the wrong target!" Hayes yelled. "You let the Council authorize a bombardment of empty mountains!"
"I needed the noise," McCaffrey said calmly. He walked to his desk and pressed a button. The room's security shutters slammed down, sealing them in. "If I exposed her, the enemy would know we were onto them. They'd move the hostages. They'd kill Harris."
He pulled up a tactical map on his desk.
"By letting the Council proceed with 'Operation Thunderstrike,' we are giving the enemy exactly what they want. A massive, loud, expensive distraction. Tomorrow at dawn, every railgun, missile, and orbital rod we have will smash into those mountain peaks. The seismic shockwaves will be felt for a thousand miles."
"And while the enemy is laughing at us?" Hayes asked.
"While they are watching the fireworks in the North," McCaffrey said, tapping the black void of the Obsidian Sea on the map, "we slip through the back door in the South."
"We don't have a team, Marcus," Hayes said, sinking into a chair. "Alpha is gone. captured. Russo, Volkov, Rakesh... they're all in that city. We have no Tier-1 operators left who know the terrain."
"I anticipated that," McCaffrey said. He opened a drawer and pulled out a physical file folder. It was stamped with the black insignia of the Special Activities Division.
"The UN and NATO give us their soldiers. But I have friends who operate in the dark. I've spent the last twenty-four hours calling in favors. Calling in debts."
He slid the file across the desk.
"I've assembled a Task Force. Fifteen men. The 'Gravediggers.' They are already en route to FOB Triton."
Hayes opened the file. His eyes scanned the roster. The names... the equipment... it was insane.
"You're sending them?"
"We aren't trying to capture territory, Malcolm," McCaffrey said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "We are breaking into a submerged city to steal back the Devil. I need men who don't care about rules of engagement."
TASK FORCE 9-S ("THE GRAVEDIGGERS"):
MISSION COMMANDER: COLONEL "IRON" VANCE (No relation to the spy).
Status: Retired USMC Force Recon. Reactivated.
ASSAULT ELEMENT: "THE SLEDGEHAMMERS"
Unit:Russian Federation Spetsnaz - 45th Guards Independent Reconnaissance Brigade (The "Zaslon" Unit).
Personnel: 5 Operators.
Lead:Captain Boris "Borz" Volkov (Distant cousin to the captured Dmitry Volkov. The blood feud is personal).
Armor:6B45-M "Bastion" Heavy Assault Exoskeleton.
Detail: This isn't standard infantry armor. It's a semi-powered, hydraulic-assist suit. The plating is composed of Relikt-5 reactive tiles over a titanium-carbide weave. It's designed to shrug off .50 caliber rounds and shrapnel. It makes the wearer stand seven feet tall and weigh nearly 400 pounds.
Primary Weapon:RPK-16 Light Machine Gun (Modified).
Caliber: 5.45x39mm (7N39 "Igolnik" Armor Piercing).
Feed System:60-Round "Coffin" (Double-Stack) Magazines. McCaffrey had sourced crates of these rare mags. They offer the suppression capability of a belt-fed weapon with the reload speed of a rifle.
Modification: Short-stroke gas pistons for reliability in underwater/amphibious environments.
RECON ELEMENT: "THE PHANTOM"
Unit:Republic of Korea - 707th Special Mission Group.
Personnel: 1 Operator.
Callsign:"Viper" (Park Ji-hoon).
Role: Counter-Sniper / High-Value Target Elimination.
Gear:K14 Precision Rifle with a thermal/mana-hybrid scope. He carries "Witch-Bolt" rounds—bullets with a core of cold iron to disrupt magical barriers.
INFILTRATION ELEMENT: "ECHO-SIX"
Unit:US Army Delta Force (CAG) - E Squadron.
Personnel: 5 Operators.
Lead:Master Sergeant "Ghost" Riley.
Role: CQC, Demolitions, Hacking.
Weaponry:SIG MCX "Rattler" (.300 Blackout). Integrally suppressed. These are the guys who move silently while the Russians make the noise. They carry the Breaching Charges needed to crack the Architect glass.
TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS: "THE FERRYMEN"
Unit:Joint Special Operations Air Component.
Personnel: 4 Crew.
Pilot:Lt. "Hooch" Miller. (The only survivor of the recon flight. He knows the terrain).
Gunner:Cpl. "Sparks" McGee.
Driver:Sgt. "Axle" Foley (Royal Marines Commando). Expert in amphibious assault.
Vehicle:The "Leviathan". A highly modified AAV-P7/A1 Amphibious Assault Vehicle.
Upgrades: Sealed for deep-sea pressure (up to 500m). Reinforced hull with lead lining to dampen magical scrying. Turret replaced with a Mk-19 Automatic Grenade Launcher loaded with depth-charge rounds.
FOB TRITON - SECURE HANGAR 4
18:00 LOCAL TIME
The hangar was buzzing with activity. Sparks flew from welders as technicians rushed to finish the pressure-sealing on the "Leviathan." The massive armored vehicle looked like a prehistoric beast, painted matte black to vanish in the dark water.
Lieutenant Hooch Miller leaned against the hull, watching the new team arrive. He felt out of place. His friends—Harris, Russo, the others—were gone. Replaced by strangers.
The hangar doors rolled open.
The five Russians entered first.
They were terrifying. Even without the helmets on, they looked like granite blocks chiseled into human shape. Captain "Borz" walked to the weapons table. He picked up an RPK-16, checking the action.
Clack-Clack.
He slammed a thick, wide 60-round magazine into the well. It looked heavy enough to be a club.
"You are the pilot who found the signal?" Borz asked, his voice thick with a heavy accent. He had a scar running from his temple to his jaw.
"Yeah," Hooch said, straightening up. "I found them. Couldn't save them, though."
Borz nodded solemnly. "My cousin, Dmitry Volkov, is with them. He is a hard man to kill. If he is alive, he is angry. We will bring them home."
He slapped the composite breastplate of his "Bastion" exoskeleton.
"And we will kill everything that stands in our way. These suits... they are walking tanks. We will be the wall for your Delta boys."
On the other side of the room, the Delta Force team—Echo Six—was gearing up. They were quieter, surgical. Checking their night vision, syncing their encrypted comms.
"Ghost" Riley, the team lead, walked over to Hooch.
"General says you know the drop point."
"Sector 9. The Obsidian Sea," Hooch said. "It's deep. And it's quiet."
"Not for long," Ghost said, sliding a suppressor onto his rifle.
Finally, the Korean sniper, Viper, settled into the top hatch of the Leviathan. He didn't speak to anyone. He just cleaned the lens of his massive rifle scope with a microfiber cloth, his eyes focused on something a thousand miles away.
Major Reeves walked into the center of the hangar.
"Listen up!"
The chatter died down.
"At 0600 hours tomorrow, Operation Thunderstrike begins. The Alliance will open fire on the mountains. That is your signal. When the sky lights up, you go dark."
Reeves pointed to the Leviathan.
"You will launch from the southern beach. You will submerge and follow the shelf down to the anomaly. Depth is estimated at 400 meters. You have a window of forty-five minutes before the enemy realizes the bombardment is a fake-out."
He looked at the fifteen men.
"We have reports that Alpha Team—Captain Russo, Dr. Kovač, Volkov, and the Asset—are being held in a stasis grid. Your primary objective is recovery. Your secondary objective is total asset denial."
"If we can't get them out?" Borz asked, his face grim.
"Then you make sure they don't stay prisoners," Reeves said, his voice cracking slightly. "Dismissed."
Hooch climbed into the driver's copula of the Leviathan. He looked at the dashboard. He had taped a Polaroid picture there—a blurry shot of the whole Alpha Team having a beer at the mess hall a week ago. Harris was in the back, towering over everyone, holding a tiny beer can.
"We're coming, buddy," Hooch whispered. "Hang on."
The engines of the Leviathan roared to life—a deep, guttural diesel growl. The rear ramp of the hangar opened, revealing the black, oily water of the coast.
Rain lashed against the armor.
The Gravediggers mounted up. The Russians locked their helmet seals with a hiss of pressurization.
"Green light," Hooch said over the comms. "Dropping into the abyss in 3... 2... 1..."
The massive vehicle lurched forward and plunged into the dark water.
Above them, the storm was brewing. But below, in the silence of the deep, the hunt had begun.