Glass exploded.
The bridge windows shattered inward as the twin Sentinel turrets opened fire.
DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DA.
Heavy caliber rounds shredded the control consoles. Sparks showered the room like fireworks.
Marcus and Lucilla hit the floor. Debris rained on Marcus's back—plastic shards, metal clips, glass dust.
"They hacked the ship!" Lucilla screamed, covering her head. "We're sitting ducks!"
"Stay down!" Marcus roared.
He crawled toward the door. The air smelled of ozone and burning circuitry.
The turrets were suppressing them. They couldn't stand up. They couldn't issue orders.
Marcus looked at his UI. It was a mess of glitching text.
[SYSTEM ERROR]
[ALLY TARGETING ACTIVE]
"Useless," Marcus hissed. He shut his eyes, banishing the hallucination. He needed analog solutions.
He reached for his belt. He pulled out the heavy flare gun he had looted from the aircraft carrier.
"What are you doing?" Lucilla yelled.
"Blinding them!"
Marcus didn't aim at the turrets. He couldn't hit them from this angle.
He aimed at the radar dish mounted on the mast just outside the bridge door. The sensor array that guided the automated guns.
He rolled onto his back. He fired.
THUMP.
The flare struck the dish. The magnesium charge detonated.
FLASH.
A blinding white light erupted. It was hotter than the sun.
The sensors on the turrets screamed. Overloaded by the sudden thermal spike, their targeting algorithms crashed.
The guns stopped firing. They whirred confusedly, barrels searching for a lock that wasn't there.
"Now!" Marcus yelled.
He scrambled out of the bridge, sliding down the ladder to the main deck.
Below, the massacre had paused, but only for a moment.
The Apex Leader stood in the center of the carnage. It watched Narcissus.
The giant cyborg was struggling to stand. The dent in his chest plate was deep. Coolant leaked from a ruptured hose, hissing on the hot deck.
"Resistance is inefficient," the Apex droned. It cracked its energy whip. SNAP. The violet lash wrapped around Narcissus's left arm.
"Pull," the Apex commanded.
It yanked.
Narcissus roared. He dug his boots into the steel.
But the Apex was stronger. Not physically bigger, but mechanically superior. Its hydraulics whined—a high-pitched mosquito sound.
Narcissus slid forward.
"Help him!" Marcus shouted to the refugees.
Nobody moved. They were paralyzed by the sheer alien nature of the enemy.
The second Apex—the one with the hacking spike—stood by the mast. The third Apex raised its heavy rifle. It aimed at Decimus, who was trying to rally the spear-men.
Marcus hit the deck running.
He didn't run at the Apex. He ran at the fire suppression station near the engine intake.
"Galen!" Marcus screamed into his comms. "Status on the Core!"
"He's spiking!" Galen's voice was pure panic. "The struggle is pushing his reactor into the red zone! If he hits 100% heat, he goes thermonuclear! He'll vaporize the ship!"
Marcus looked at Narcissus.
The blue light in the giant's chest was turning violet. It pulsed rapidly. WUB-WUB-WUB.
Narcissus wasn't just losing the fight. He was becoming a bomb.
"Narcissus! Disengage!" Marcus ordered.
"I... WILL... BREAK... HIM!" Narcissus bellowed. His voice was distorted, robotic rage.
He grabbed the energy whip with his free hand. The plasma burned his gauntlets, melting the metal. He didn't care. He pulled back.
"Don't!" Marcus yelled.
The added strain pushed the reactor over the edge.
Steam geysered from Narcissus's back vents. The air around him shimmered.
"Critical mass in ten seconds!" Galen shrieked.
The Apex Leader seemed to sense it. It didn't let go. It wanted the explosion. It wanted the asset to breach so it could salvage the core from the wreckage.
Marcus reached the red valve on the wall.
[EMERGENCY COOLANT FLUSH]
It wasn't meant for people. It was meant for the main engine fires. Chemical foam and liquid nitrogen.
Marcus grabbed the hose.
"Sorry, brother," Marcus whispered.
He aimed the nozzle at Narcissus. He cranked the valve.
WHOOSH.
A blast of freezing white foam erupted. It hit Narcissus square in the back.
The thermal shock was instant.
HISS.
The cloud engulfed the giant. The sudden drop in temperature forced the Fusion Core into emergency shutdown.
The violet light died. The blue light flickered and went dark.
Narcissus collapsed. His heavy body hit the deck with a dead weight thud. He was offline.
The Apex Leader stumbled back as the whip went slack.
It stared at the frozen, foam-covered lump of its target.
"Asset Inert," the Apex stated.
It looked at Marcus.
Marcus stood with the hose, chest heaving. He dropped it. He drew his sword.
"Come and get it," Marcus challenged.
The Apex took a step forward.
Then, it stopped.
It touched the side of its helmet.
"Update received," it said.
The third Apex, the one with the rifle, lowered its weapon.
"Hull integrity compromised," the Leader said. "Mission parameters adjusted. Let the ocean finish the work."
The Apex turned. It didn't run. It walked to the railing.
It vaulted over the side.
Splash. Splash. Splash.
They were gone.
The silence that followed was heavy.
"They... they left?" Decimus asked, lowering his shield.
"They didn't need to stay," Valeria's voice came over the intercom. "We're dead in the water."
Marcus looked up at the smokestack.
Black smoke. Not the good kind. The engine wasn't rumbling. It was coughing.
"Report!" Marcus barked.
"They spiked the system," Valeria said. "The engine block is seized. We are drifting."
Marcus ran to the side. He looked at the water.
The wake was gone. The Neptune was slowing down.
"Lucilla!" Marcus yelled. "The Grid!"
Lucilla scrambled down from the ruined bridge. She held up the map.
"The Blind Spot," she said, her voice trembling. "It's moving East at twenty knots. We are doing zero."
She pointed to the sky.
The clouds to the West were parting. A strange, unnatural light was building on the horizon.
"The laser array is sweeping," Lucilla said. "It's a cleaning cycle. It boils everything in the grid."
"How long until it hits us?"
"Four minutes."
Marcus looked at the engine room hatch.
"Galen!"
He sprinted.
Inside the engine room, it was chaos. Grease and steam. Galen was under the main turbine, wrenching a bolt.
"It's seized!" Galen yelled, face smeared with oil. "The Apex fried the control chip! I can't restart the ignition!"
"Hot-wire it!" Marcus shouted.
"I need power!" Galen threw his wrench. "I need a massive surge to jump-start the pistons! The ship's battery is dead!"
Marcus looked around. They had nothing.
Then, he looked up through the hatch.
At the frozen, unconscious form of Narcissus on the deck above.
The Fusion Core.
"We have a battery," Marcus said.
Galen followed his gaze. His eyes went wide.
"No," Galen said. "Marcus, no. He's unstable. The thermal shock just knocked him out. If we plug him into the ship... if we drain that core... it could kill him. It will strip his nervous system."
"If we don't," Marcus said, "we all boil."
He grabbed Galen's collar.
"Can you do it?"
Galen swallowed. He looked terrified.
"I need cables. Heavy gauge."
"Do it."
Marcus ran back up to the deck.
"Decimus! Drag him!"
Decimus and four legionaries grabbed Narcissus's limbs. They dragged the half-ton cyborg toward the engine hatch. His metal heels scraped the deck.
He was heavy. Dead weight.
They lowered him into the engine room using a chain hoist.
Narcissus swung in the air, limp. The light in his chest was a faint, dying ember.
They laid him on the grate next to the engine.
Galen was stripping thick copper cables from the wall panel. He jammed one end into the ship's intake port.
He held the other end—two bare spikes of copper wire.
He looked at the port on Narcissus's chest. The interface socket right next to his heart.
"Marcus," Galen said, tears cutting through the grease on his face. "This is going to hurt him. Even if he's asleep. It's going to feel like fire."
Marcus knelt beside his friend.
He touched Narcissus's cold, metal cheek.
"Forgive me," Marcus whispered.
"Plug him in."
Galen jammed the cables into the chest socket.
CRACK-ZAP.
Narcissus's body arched.
His eyes flew open. They weren't human eyes. They were blinding white searchlights.
He screamed.
It wasn't a scream of fear. It was the sound of a machine being torn apart. A digital shriek of agony.
The Fusion Core flared bright white.
The energy surged through the cables. The ship's lights exploded.
Then—
KA-THOOM.
The engine caught.
The pistons fired. The propeller shaft slammed into gear.
The Neptune lurched forward so hard that Marcus was thrown against the wall.
"GO!" Marcus yelled into the comms. "FULL THROTTLE!"
On the bridge, Valeria slammed the stick forward.
The ship roared. It didn't just sail; it leaped.
They cut through the water, foam spraying over the bow.
Marcus scrambled up the ladder. He looked back.
The laser beam hit the water.
A mile behind them.
The ocean vanished. A column of white light, a mile wide, connected the sky to the sea.
The water didn't splash. It instantly turned to steam. A wall of white fog rolled toward them, a superheated shockwave.
The Neptune surfed the wave.
The heat hit Marcus's face—a blast of oven air.
But they were moving. They were in the green circle.
The laser swept past their stern, missing them by inches.
The light faded. The roar of the boiling sea quieted.
They were alive.
Marcus slumped against the railing. He looked down into the engine room.
Narcissus was silent. The cables were smoking. The light in his chest was dim, barely a flicker.
"He's alive," Galen called up, voice shaking. "But barely. He's in a coma. The Core is drained."
Marcus nodded. He couldn't speak.
He looked East.
The sun was gone. But on the horizon, there was a glow.
Fires.
Land.
Syria.
POV SHIFT: MARCIA
LOCATION: FORTRESS OF ANTIOCH, SYRIA
The elephant screamed as it burned.
It was a Parthian War Beast—a massive creature armored in bronze plates, a Gatling gun mounted on its back.
It had breached the outer wall.
Marcia didn't flinch. She stood on the battlements, her face smeared with soot.
"Now!" she ordered.
The legionaries cut the ropes.
Pots of "Green Fire"—the chemical napalm Marcus had invented—rained down.
The trench below the wall ignited. The elephant panicked, tramping its own infantry.
"Hold the flank!" Marcia yelled. She drew her gladius. She wasn't the terrified girl from the palace anymore. She was scarred. Hardened.
A centurion ran up to her.
"Legate! The West Gate is holding, but the Stalkers are digging under the North Tower!"
"Let them dig," Marcia said cold. "The tunnel is rigged with explosives."
"Legate... we are out of ammo for the scorpions. And the food is gone."
Marcia looked at the sky. She saw the streak of the orbital laser far out at sea.
"He's coming," she said.
"Who?"
"Caesar."
She turned. She walked down the stone stairs into the heart of the fortress.
She walked past the wounded. Past the dying.
She entered the lowest chamber.
It wasn't a dungeon. It was a vault.
In the center of the room, chained to the floor, was a machine.
It hummed with a low, terrifying bass note.
It was black. Sleek. Alien.
A Leviathan Drill.
She had captured it from a Board raiding party weeks ago. It was a terraforming tool. A planet-killer.
She walked up to it. She placed her hand on the cold metal surface.
The interface panel lit up.
[ACCESS DENIED]
[BIOMETRIC LOCK: DNA MISMATCH]
She couldn't turn it on. She couldn't use it to destroy the Parthian army.
But Marcus could.
She rested her forehead against the black metal.
"Hurry, Marcus," she whispered. "I have the gun. I just need you to pull the trigger."
The walls shook as another artillery shell hit the fortress. Dust fell from the ceiling.
Marcia didn't move.
She waited for the Warlord.