The world was white fire.
I lay in the crater, covered in wet sand and ash. The heat washed over me in waves, baking the mud onto my coat.
The beach was gone.
In its place was a roaring inferno. The British ammo dump had chain-reacted. Rockets were cooking off randomly—whoosh, bang, crack—sending green and purple streamers into the night sky like a chaotic celebration.
Out in the harbor, the invasion fleet was burning.
The shockwave had snapped masts like toothpicks. Burning chemicals rained down on the decks. Sailors were jumping into the flaming water.
It was a masterpiece of destruction.
I checked my oxygen gauge. The needle was in the red zone.
Pressure Critical.
I dragged myself up the side of the crater. My tank scraped against the scorched earth.
"Administrator!" Charles's voice crackled in my earpiece. "Status!"
"Still breathing," I rasped. "Barely."
I looked toward the British lines.
They were broken. The blast had vaporized their center. But the flanks... the flanks had survived.
Through the smoke, I saw movement.
Thousands of Redcoats were scrambling away from the fire. They were burned, deafened, and terrified. But they were soldiers.
General Abercrombie, his uniform hanging in tatters, was waving his saber.
"Form up!" Abercrombie screamed, his voice thin over the roar of the fire. "Bayonets! Charge the town! It's our only way out!"
They were trapped. The fire was behind them. The French barricades were in front of them.
They had no choice. They had to fight or burn.
"They're coming," I hissed into the radio. "Twenty thousand desperate men. Prepare the line."
I scrambled out of the crater and ran—stumbled—toward the bridge.
The British charge began. It was a tidal wave of scarlet and steel. A desperate, screaming mass of humanity.
They poured onto the bridge.
The French defenders opened fire. Crack-crack-crack.
Smoke plumed. British soldiers fell. But more stepped over the bodies. They were driven by the terror of the fire.
I reached the French barricade. Fouché pulled me over the wall.
"They are overwhelming us!" Fouché yelled. "We have to retreat!"
"No retreat," I gasped, collapsing against the sandbags. "Hold the line."
Charles was there. He was reloading the Whitworth rifle with mechanical precision.
"We can't hold them," Charles said calmly. "Mathematics, Father. Force equals mass times acceleration. They have more mass."
He leveled the rifle. Bang. An officer dropped.
"We need a variable," Charles muttered.
Then, we felt it.
A vibration in the ground.
Thump-thump-thump.
It wasn't artillery. It was rhythmic. Fast.
Drums.
And hooves.
From the southern road, a horn sounded. A brazen, defiant note that cut through the screams of the dying.
I looked south.
Through the smoke, a flag emerged. The Tricolor.
"Cavalry!" a soldier shouted.
Not just any cavalry.
They wore green jackets with yellow facings. Chasseurs à Cheval. The elite hunters.
And leading them, on a white stallion that looked like it had galloped out of a myth, was a small man in a gray coat.
Napoleon Bonaparte.
He had marched his army from Italy in record time. He had crossed the Alps. He had crossed France. And he had arrived exactly when the math required him.
Napoleon drew his saber.
He didn't make a speech. He didn't pause.
He pointed at the flank of the British charge.
"Ride them down!"
The Chasseurs roared.
They slammed into the British line like a sledgehammer hitting glass.
Sabers flashed. Horses trampled.
The British were caught in the open. They were exhausted, burned, and facing the best cavalry in Europe.
It wasn't a battle. It was a liquidation.
I watched through the glass eye of my mask.
Napoleon fought like a demon. He was everywhere at once, cutting, slashing, directing the flow of the slaughter.
The British broke. They threw down their weapons. They surrendered in droves, begging for mercy.
Abercrombie was pulled from his horse and captured.
Silence fell over the beach. Broken only by the crackle of the dying fires and the groans of the wounded.
It was over.
The adrenaline crashed.
My lungs seized. The oxygen tank gave a final, pathetic hiss.
Empty.
The world went gray. My knees buckled.
I fell forward.
"Father!"
Charles caught me. He was small, but he held me up.
"Medic!" Charles screamed. "The Asset is failing! Get the tank!"
I looked up. The mask was pulled off my face. The air tasted of smoke and blood.
Napoleon rode up. He looked down at us. His uniform was stained with dust and sweat.
He looked at Charles holding me.
"The Little King," Napoleon said. There was no mockery in his voice. Only a predator's respect.
"The Little General," Charles replied, staring back with equal intensity.
I closed my eyes.
The darkness took me.
I woke up to the smell of antiseptic and old canvas.
I was in a field hospital tent.
My chest hurt. Every breath was a labor. But I was breathing air, not gas.
I turned my head.
Charles was sitting at a folding table. Napoleon sat opposite him.
Between them lay a map of Europe.
They weren't fighting. They were arguing.
"We push to London," Charles said, tracing a line across the Channel. "The fleet is destroyed. The island is vulnerable."
"No," Napoleon countered. "We secure the borders first. The Austrians are mobilizing. We need to consolidate the Rhine."
"The Rhine is a defensive asset," Charles argued. "London is a hostile acquisition. High risk, infinite yield."
"You think like a banker," Napoleon scoffed.
"And you think like a soldier," Charles shot back. "Soldiers win battles. Bankers win wars."
I smiled. It hurt my face.
They were already plotting the next takeover. The Wolf Cub and the Eagle.
"Gentlemen," I whispered.
They both froze. They turned to me.
"Administrator," Napoleon said, standing up. "You are alive. The doctors said your heart is... paper."
"My heart is fine," I lied. "It's the inventory I'm worried about."
I tried to sit up. Charles rushed to help me with pillows.
"The British?" I asked.
"Surrendered," Napoleon said. "20,000 prisoners. We have secured the coast."
"And Cagliostro?"
The tent went quiet.
"Gone," Charles said. "He escaped on a blockade runner during the chaos."
"He left a message," Napoleon said.
He handed me a small, lead-lined box.
I opened it.
Inside lay a glass vial. It glowed with a soft, pale blue light. It was beautiful. And deadly.
"Radium," I whispered.
There was a note wrapped around the vial.
Chemistry is so messy, Alex. Let's try Physics next. See you in Vienna.
"He's escalating," I said, closing the box. "Radiation. Atomic theory."
"He wants to build a bomb," Charles said. "A real one."
I looked at the two of them. The greatest military mind of the age, and the coldest political calculator in history.
And me. The dying accountant who held the leash.
"Then we have to beat him to the market," I said.
I looked at the map.
"We don't go to London," I said. "And we don't go to the Rhine."
I pointed a shaking finger at the center of Europe.
"We go to Vienna. We find his lab. And we shut him down."
Napoleon smiled. "An aggressive expansion strategy."
"A hostile takeover," Charles corrected.
I closed my eyes. The oxygen tank was gone, but the weight was still there.
I had built a team. A monster, a genius, and a tyrant.
Now I just had to survive them.