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  Edwards had been given very little of a normal youth. It was spent physically training, learning the laws and procedures of the Magistrates, not being a boy. For him, as well as Domi, the luxuries of childhood were absent, little chance of play or exploring and nurturing a sense of awe and wonder.

  Now, in the wake of the barons’ evolution and shedding of their hybrid-human forms, Edwards was a lawman who found a new vocation as a warrior in the defense of Cerberus Redoubt, and an avocation as an adventurer, a hero to swoop in to the rescue and restore order.

  Through this selfless assistance of others, Edwards felt awakened. Reborn even. In helping others, in traveling the world for the purposes of growing knowledge, for the effort of building a world, he was young again. He was alive whereas before he’d merely survived and existed. It was a lesson, a transformation, that Domi had also undergone.

  Domi herself was a child of the wilderness. Later, in the Tartarus Pits, the hellish subterranean area in the shadow of the Administrative Monolith in the center of Cobaltville, she’d had to scrabble as a petty thief and was pressed into servitude as a prostitute. It was only her acceptance as an ally, the affection of Grant as a surrogate father and protector, the gentle love of Lakesh, that had turned her from a feral savage into an avid student. She’d gone from a slum criminal totally out for herself to someone who understood that love and affection were not necessarily displayed by sexual desire, as with Grant, and that intimacy could come with gentility, not cruelty, as with Lakesh.

  Given such an environment that nurtured goodness, growth and intelligence, Edwards found himself only mockingly grumbling about “babysitting trips with nerds to ruins” and actually showing excitement about learning about the history of the strange planet they lived upon.

  “Hey, you two!”

  It was Sela Sinclair, who herself had not become involved in the ever-escalating sparring matches of Domi and Edwards. Sinclair’s preference for combat was not the close-quarters of knives and fists but rather the application of leverage and focused energy, usually in the form of the collapsible baton she had become intimate with in her pre-skydark life as an Air Force officer. It didn’t mean she didn’t lack for bare-handed skill, but when things came to a hands-on approach her preference was for the strength-amplifying qualities of an ASP telescoping fighting stick, the same way that Domi preferred a sharp knife. And even then, the ASP was only for situations where she didn’t necessarily require the killing of an opponent.

  Sinclair folded her arms, leaning on one leg, hip tilted jauntily.

  “Something come up?” Domi asked.

  “The CAT teams are being called in for a briefing,” Sinclair said. “Something about a call from New Olympus.”

  Domi perked up at the sound of that. Edwards and Sinclair had joined her in that prior mission, arriving later with armor kits meant for Sandcats and Humvees that would be adapted to the Olympian Spartans. They had also been present when Hera Olympiad had gone berserk with power, standing their ground against her madness and the ever-growing energies and mass of her corrupted command node.

  Hera, a Cobaltville scientist who had been sent to retrieve Annunaki artifacts from Greece while the Overlord Marduk was still Baron Cobalt, had acquired a smart-metal control nodule when one of Marduk’s Nephilim drone troopers was captured. Using the knowledge she had gained from her exploration of the Crack, she’d manipulated the smart-metal pod to provide herself a new form of clothing. Because the pod was now reacting with an intelligent mind, it followed her commands rather than simply existed as a suit of body-conforming armor.

  Of course, Marduk had known of her interference with the Annunaki electronics. He’d tried to take control of her and, barring that, his psychic assault had driven her insane.

  Hera had bonded that module with another piece of Annunaki technology, a Threshold, and an electrical drone weapon on top of that. CAT Beta—Domi, Sinclair and Edwards—had been at the forefront of the battle against the out-of-control Hera as she’d continued to add mass and energy to her suit’s frame, assisted by Brigid Baptiste.

  Despite the defeat of the superhuman Hera, the damage to New Olympus had been significant. There were sorties from Cerberus to the Grecian nation, teams mostly there to excavate and open up collapsed and damaged tunnels in the deep underground military base that had been the Olympian redoubt. The digging and rebuilding were necessary, as Hera’s destruction had cut off access to redoubt supplies of ammunition, food and medicine stored for the hundreds of years since before skydark.

  Rebuilding had been going well, but for New Olympus to actually send out a call for help meant something big had popped up.

  “Shower and change. You’ve got fifteen minutes,” Sinclair told them.

  The two Beta Team members headed to the gymnasium locker room where Domi helped Edwards out of his bulky Magistrate armor, cutting the usual de-prep time by half, allowing Edwards to do more than just let the showerhead spit on him for a second. That both teammates were naked was not a distraction to either.

  Domi had her devotion to Lakesh, and Edwards was uninterested in settling down and of no mind to steal the scientist’s woman. Indeed, Edwards was a man of personal discipline, and while he believed that men and women could be lovers and work together, he personally did not want to complicate his relationship with the tiny Domi. Edwards also had a preference for taller, fuller-figured women, and to the massive former Magistrate, Domi’s appearance was more of a prepubescent boy’s than an object of sexual desire. Hell, knowing her for this long, becoming nearly a brother to her on the CAT team, she was not an object. She was Domi. Friend. Living being. Person. Not an object of lust.

  From what Edwards had read or seen in vids from before the destruction of mankind, he could appreciate that at least one thing had advanced forward since the age of “civilization.” Humanity needed to grow up, to not just focus on their baser instincts and rut like animals. Reproduction was important, but there were other much more vital matters that needed attendance.

  By the time Edwards finished his shower and dressed, he and Domi arrived at the briefing with minutes to spare.

  In fact, they had both entered sooner than Kane and Grant, and were there to see Brigid Baptiste, the third member of the group that had been entitled CAT Alpha. Brigid was not happy to see Kane and Grant ambling in so slowly after their counterparts had showed such promptness, and she let her distaste for the situation show in her scowl.

  “I told you we shouldn’t have stopped for coffee,” Grant said, catching the disgust in Brigid’s glare. He slid into his chair at the meeting table, setting the travel mug down in front of him. Kane shrugged at his friend’s statement of being “busted.”

  “It’s not like we’re the B-team,” Kane noted, giving a wink to Domi, who wrinkled her nose at the mock insult. If there was a rivalry between the CAT teams, no one on either of the two squads had been made aware of it. They were comrades and allies. The only rank came from the fact that Sinclair was awakened after Kane, Brigid and Grant became a team, and Edwards had only recently found himself a free agent in the wake of the collapse of the baronies. Kane’s joke was taken in stride, not in malice, and Brigid rolled her eyes.

  “As you know, ever since our first contact with New Olympus, we’ve been sending over manpower and assistance to help them with their rebuilding,” Brigid began. “They’ve reciprocated by helping to design Kane’s exoskeleton during…recent troubles.”

  “I didn’t get to blow-dry and curl my hair for this recap?” Edwards asked, rubbing his closely shaved pate.

  Brigid chuckled. “Sorry, but you know I try to be as completest as possible.”

  Edwards shrugged. “Not a problem. I just needed something to…distract me.”

  Domi nodded in recognition. Edwards was referring to Ullikummis’s attack and conquest of the Cerberus Redoubt. Not only was Edwards present for that, but also he’d been infected with one of the stony Annunaki’s seeds, making him a puppet, a pawn o
f the exiled godling. Memories of that time, the loss of life and the madness of their enslavement, were still recent and raw.

  “Right now, they’re starting to expand their area of influence over there, peacefully.” Brigid quickly added the peacefully. “They’d sent out an excursion into what used to be the Etruscan countryside.”

  “Italy?” Sela Sinclair asked.

  Brigid nodded.

  Sinclair smirked. “I always wanted to take a vacation in the countryside with the vineyards.”

  Brigid gave the Air Force veteran a one percent salute, akin to the gesture that Kane and Grant gave each other. She continued speaking. “Out of twenty soldiers and three Spartans sent into the Italian countryside, there was only one person who returned. The commander of the ground platoon. She was in shock to the point that her hair turned white. She claimed they had encountered an amorphous, seemingly sentient darkness that was immune to gunfire and had swallowed people. Even their robotic support team was unable to break the bonds.”

  “Bulletproof fog that eats soldiers,” Grant murmured. “Do you have any historical correlation and background for that, Brigid?”

  “Nothing so far,” she replied. “The only possible link to an inky, all-enveloping blackness is the relation of one of the old gods of Italy—Charun.”

  “That sounds like the ‘mythological guy who has a boat on the river of the dead’ Charon?” Kane asked. Brigid acknowledged that Kane got the pronunciation and identity correct. “Any relation?”

  “Charun, it is believed, was a renamed chooser of the slain in Etruscan mythology. He was a winged god of death,” Brigid explained. “An invulnerable fog or a wave might be in reference to the river Styx’s alleged properties of making anyone dipped in it invulnerable, like Achilles.”

  “You’ve been hitting the research hard enough,” Kane mentioned. “Sometimes, it’s best to put speculation aside and put feet on the ground.”

  “And hope that we’re not stumbling into a trap,” Sinclair added. “You want us to come with you?”

  “In general, we rarely send both teams into the field together, but in this instance, it would be beneficial to have you along. My ankle still isn’t at a hundred percent, so my running and jumping will be impaired, and DeFore still wishes to make certain Kane hadn’t received anything permanent in regard to the crack he received on his head. I’m under the presumption that the reason the expedition encountered such a powerful surge was due to the size of the intrusion,” Brigid said.

  “So if we show up with three to six people, we can slip under their radar, so to speak,” Edwards concluded. “I can figure out why you want Beta with you.” He glanced toward Domi as if to provide clarity.

  “Indeed. We’ll also be heading to Olympus in two groups. One via traditional mat-trans, and Edwards and Grant in the Mantas,” Brigid added. “We’ll see if our jerry-rigged weapons systems for them might prove sufficient to deal with a superhuman threat.”

  “If we have a target that we can use the Mantas against,” Grant added. “Who knows if the thing generating that weird black mass will be out in the open.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Kane said. “The first thing we need to do is get to New Olympus.”

  “And since we’re taking the Mantas, we’ll catch up to you in a few hours,” Edwards pointed out. “Don’t drink all the hospitality before we get there.”

  Kane chuckled. “It’s not the hospitality you should worry about.”

  Edwards didn’t say it out loud, but looking at the concerned features of Brigid Baptiste in the wake of the briefing, he knew that something out there was going to be a terrible challenge.

  Then again, that was the reason for the existence of the Cerberus Away Teams, he added grimly and silently.

  Chapter 3

  The arrival of the strangers was nigh, as the radio signal came through from across the gulf of land and ocean that separated New Olympus from the Bitterroot Mountains. Diana Pantopoulos was at once relieved at the response, and guilty for having drawn the Cerberus warriors back into their continent.

  Diana had inherited the role of “queen” of New Olympus, an unenviable task alongside Aristotle Marschene stepping into the “boots” of Z00s, in the wake of that last visit. As of now, Greece was actually working on a charter and constitution allowing a representative government, but also allowing Diana and Ari to act as “ranking managers.”

  The two were still commanders of the Gear Skeleton forces, having risen in rank with the loss of Z00s—the Magistrate formerly known as Thurmond—and Hera Olympiad—Helena Garthwaite, the scientist sent by Baron Cobalt to uncover ancient technology that the baron recalled on a genetic level. Those two, and another Magistrate, had been sent on an expedition to find the tools of Marduk, Cobalt’s original Annunaki form, and in the process, they had built Greece into a fortress-like society with remarkable Spartan Gear Skeletons as the backbone of their mechanized military force.

  It was an empire built upon clay feet. Through the use of clone production facilities, Helena Garthwaite had initiated a program of terror to unify the Greek countryside.

  It was the effort of Kane, Grant and Brigid that ended that deception, the years of death and violence, but in such a spasm of destruction that it had left New Olympus heavily damaged and many of its heroes fallen on the battlefield. Diana didn’t want to think if they had not showed up. The true evil behind the whole society, Marduk, the former Baron Cobalt, arrived to claim his storehouse in the Tartarus Crack.

  Though teams had come and gone, assisting in the reconstruction of New Olympus in the wake of that war, this would be the first time the men and women of the Cerberus teams would be returning as a group.

  Diana smiled at the thought of her friend, the small, feisty Domi among them.

  “Incoming mat-trans event at the old Oracle Temple,” came the announcement from her wheelchair’s built-in comm panel. Diana pressed Send.

  “Alert received. Reporting to command center,” she answered.

  “Shall we get your suit ready?”

  “No. Let the new Artem15 meet them,” Diana said.

  And with that, the wheelchair-bound administrator of New Olympus felt a pang of regret at her promotion. She’d loved being the armored suit named for the goddess of the hunt, Artemis. But as Aristotle had been promoted to Z00s, a new “queen” was necessary for the rankings. Now, she was H34a, as Zeus and Hera were the king and queen of Mount Olympus. Whereas the previous Hera was petty and manipulative, Diana tried to be a little nobler, a little more righteous. She’d learned from the mistakes of the past.

  Or had she? Wasn’t she just buying into the same level of hero worship? Hadn’t she and Ari just taken the place of a manipulator and a man who, up until his final battle, had been happy to deceive others for the sake of his own power?

  Rolling herself into the command center, she noted that Aristotle was there, along with the rest of this shift’s personnel. They were watching the progress of Artem15 and two other suits as they bounded across country, taking enormous strides that ate up terrain at great velocity. Diana held a wistful moment for the days when she’d needed to bolt across countrysides on emergency missions. Artem15’s long legs allowed her to easily top 100 miles an hour, and those speeds were necessary in defense of the people under New Olympus’s protection, townsfolk who’d easily be outnumbered and slaughtered in the assaults made by deadly hordes of Hydrae.

  That kind of rapid response gave Diana a little wear and tear as she sat in the control couch of the mighty Gear Skeleton, but the hero suits and the Spartans were often ridden hard, beyond acceptable limits. Now, they were only on their way as a means of ferrying the Cerberus visitors from the parallax point atop the remains of the temple of the Oracle to New Olympus itself. There was still a lot of digging to be done to get to the mat-trans buried during the old Hera Olympiad’s rampage.

  Those damaged tunnels and elevators themselves were made all the more inaccessibl
e by the fact that there was little way for the fifteen-foot armored titans to fit into the redoubt and dig. Smaller conventional exoskeletons, one of which Kane had utilized during his “infection” by Ullikummis, had provided some ease. But they were not based on a frame constructed of alien technology alloys, nor were their charged energy modules able to operate at maximum capacity due to the conventional human-designed metals not being up to Annunaki-level snuff.

  “Queen on the deck!” announced First Officer Orestes, standing to attention, clicking his booted heels together in a sharp salute.

  “As you were,” Diana said, waving off the show of respect. She’d earned her place as an officer, but she didn’t feel that she warranted all of this attention or adulation. Even so, Ari gave her a wink from across the room where he was watching the main screens that displayed drone camera views of the countryside.

  “ETA to their arrival?” Diana asked.

  “They’re a half mile out, sir,” Comms Officer Kindalos said, looking back over her shoulder. As always, Diana felt a little self-conscious. Whereas Helena Garthwaite/Hera Olympiad was beautiful to the point of perfection, the former Artem15 pilot had more wrong with her than merely amputated legs below mid-thigh. The same battle that had taken her lower limbs had left scars spider-webbed across her forehead and right cheek. Diana’s pride forced her to wear her hair flipped over, her blond locks masking her deformity with a curtain of tresses.

  Unfortunately, since her ascension, she’d been forced into a more face-to-face role. Hiding her features, no matter how insecure she was about them, would not do when it came to projecting her authority. Ari had tried to tell her that she did not appear bad-looking, even with the crisscross of healed flesh patterned on her face. Diana didn’t believe him. Even though he was in love with her, she still didn’t trust his opinion.