Chapter 285 - The Observatory

Nine and a half hours into the operation, and Luca was doing alright. His scout suit was a damp, clammy second skin, soaked in his own sweat and smelling of stale, recycled air filters, and his stomach was chewing on itself in a gnawing ache. But the northern observatory site, home to the Varnathi overflow, had to be cleared today. No excuses. His lower back had different opinions, but it had been wrong about things before, and he had decided, somewhere around hour seven, that it would get no input on today's decisions.

He climbed down from the ridge at an angle, working himself into the cover of stunted, dust-covered purple bushes and clumps of wiry grass that clung to the dry shale. The Israeli Vanguard came down behind him without needing to be told to keep their distance. They picked their footing, stepping over loose shale without looking down. Shai's heavy power armor was, against all reasonable expectations, almost silent. Noa kept pace behind her, stepping cleanly over the roots.

The comms were alive with Eleanor coordinating the tower site.

"Second transport is loaded," she was saying, her voice crisp despite the hundred kilometers of heavy atmosphere between them. Luca's boot slipped on a jagged chunk of shale, the dry rock clattering down the slope, and he went still for a second, gazing up at Zoe as she brought in the end of the line, her tactical visor reflecting the orange glow of the alien sun. "Sabrina, hold the Gorgons until Shirin's gunship clears the landing. Ryan, the Centurion goes to the rear hold last. Achilles first."

Sabrina said something back that got cut off by engine whine, but Luca barely heard it. In his mind, he could see the heavy ground vehicles they were packing back into the Triumph's belly. The System Store catalogs called them the MCV-A Achilles and the MCV-G Gorgon, official names that Luca still thought were completely ridiculous. The System had an ancient Greek obsession, apparently. But ridiculous or not, those eight-wheeled APCs and tracked infantry fighting vehicles were blocky, utilitarian steel boxes, and they were loading them back up just in case his nutcase of a bet didn't work, and they had to run.

The tower site was nine hours into a day that should have broken them, and it was organizing itself back into working order, and Luca had nothing to do with that because he had left the right people in charge and gone and done something else. That was how it was supposed to work. It still surprised him a little every time.

"Zayaan has food on the cargo ramp," Eleanor said over their distributed communication system. "Anyone who hasn't eaten since landing is a bloody idiot."

It was a past lunchtime, and Ryan had nearly gotten himself eaten by a dirt worm, the portals had turned into System sites nobody had warned them about, and Aya and Zayaan were down there keeping his crew fed. He had no idea how they managed it, and he was not going to ask because the answer would probably make him feel bad about how many things he took for granted.

"Does that include the security squads, Ellie?" Chris asked from the back of the channel. "Because I've been running the perimeter for six hours and I'm pretty sure I qualify for double rations."

"You qualify for a swift kick, Chris," Eleanor shot back, her tone dry, though he could almost hear the smile. "Wait your turn like everyone else. Or I'll have Ryan assign you to hangar cleanup."

A wave of laughter rippled through the channel, and Luca smiled behind his visor. They were still alive, at least.

Two other channels were staying open in his earpiece, for the time being. Marco's team had cleared the first level of the Vexillari hive and gone down to the second level of the structure. Paco's team had three people on the wrong side of a collapsed tunnel in the Borewyrm warren and was working around it. Emily was above the atmosphere, waiting for the pickup call. She had been up there for an hour, and she would stay up there another twelve if he asked.

He trusted that completely, pushing the worry to the back of his mind.

He keyed his channel. "Eleanor."

"Captain," she said, her voice immediately shifting back to her operations mode.

"When you've got people to spare, I need patrols south and west of the tower," he said, keeping his eyes on the trail as he worked his way down the jagged slope. "The portal interference is washing out the orbital scans, and I don't want anything creeping up on us while we're not looking on the ground."

"Already handled, Captain," Eleanor said, and he could hear the rustle of a data tablet on her end. "Ryan's already on it. He's setting the Dropships on a wide-angle patrol pattern along the south gap for the time being. You just focus on the observatory."

"Good."

He clicked off. Below the ridge, the compound's clean metallic corners sat in the shallow basin, looking entirely out of place against the raw, jagged slope.

He'd flown over expecting a standard military outpost with sandbags, normal armored barriers, or maybe even a concrete bunker surrounded by trenches. Instead, he got an observatory.

The System had surprised him with its layouts before, but this was a different kind of curveball. The dark metallic dome sat in the shallow basin, its crown split open with a telescope barrel angled at a pale patch of afternoon sky. Three instrument towers rose around it, cables trailing down to low, flat-roofed research buildings.

Luca crouched behind an outcrop at the base of the ridge, his eyes locked on the patrol patterns.

Technically, this place wasn't part of any real Varnathi history, or so Joey claimed. The System had conjured this entire campus out of thin air, a canned scenario designed to level up humanity and test their coordination by marching a column of simulated mobs straight toward his tower. There was no historical Varnathi civilization that built this specific base, no individual intent behind its placement. It was a set piece, pure and simple. Yet, the telescope at the center of the simulated compound was still pointing at something deep in the sky.

He wanted to know what, but first, they had to get inside.

He pulled up the strike channel. "Striker-01."

"Ready, Captain," Shirin's voice came back.

"You're clear to go."

The 130mm Centauri PH-64 "Solar Hammer" Plasma Howitzer on the Striker fired. The round hit the west wall with a deafening, concussive thump that Luca felt in his teeth before he actually heard it, throwing a massive column of white-hot plasma, smoke, and shattered panel debris into the sky.

But the compound's defenses reacted instantly. A bright, jagged beam of automated anti-aircraft fire cut through the smoke, catching the Striker directly in the wing root.

Luca's stomach dropped in a sudden, cold wave of horror. "Shirin!" he said, his voice tight over the comms.

“—hit, hit, I’m still— losing lift on starboard— climbing—”

Static filled his ear, followed by absolute silence. The Striker remained airborne, though a heavy plume of greasy black smoke trailed behind its engines, a dirty smudge against the early afternoon sky. The pilot slammed the thrusters, banking north hard and climbing fast to escape. The ship was still flying, but it was hurt, and they were completely out of contact.

He forced the panic down. The diversion had worked. The guards on the wall had turned, and Luca was running before the dust from the blast even settled.

It was a clean sprint across forty meters of open ground. The guards on the east wall had wheeled toward the smoke, their rifles up, their attention completely locked on the fire to the west. He hit the wall at a dead sprint, Zoe right at his shoulder. He planted his feet and boosted her up. Zoe scrambled up and threw herself flat along the top edge, reached down a gloved hand, and hauled him up with a sharp yank.

He vaulted over, crouching beside her. Zoe stayed up on overwatch, the long, sleek barrel of her sniper rifle scanning the area between the buildings and the courtyard.

The sirens remained quiet.

Luca leaned over the exterior edge, lowering his hand to the others.

He pulled them up one at a time. Tamar came first, then Avi, who was lighter than his wiry frame suggested. Noa and Yael followed. Erez needed a hand, but came up cleanly. Shai was last. Hauling Shai's massive bulk and the heavy TL8 power armor over the lip made Luca's lower back muscles seize in a dull, throbbing ache he immediately shoved to the back of his mind. Not the time.

It took ten seconds to get everyone inside.

He pulled the team behind a massive, humming transformer housing. Even inside the sealed helmet, with the private comms channel perfectly encrypted, he kept his voice to a low, quiet tone. Old habits died hard.

Eleanor’s voice cut into his ear as he pulled the team behind the transformer housing.

“Luca, we have confirmation on Striker-01. Shirin’s still airborne, but she’s losing power on the starboard side. Chris has a recovery team moving.”

Luca closed his eyes for half a second.

“Copy.”

“Focus on the observatory,” Eleanor said. “We have her.”

He opened his eyes and looked at Shai. "Shai," he said over the private comms channel. "Hold this spot. Nobody comes over except us." He looked at Yael. "Stay with him."

Yael didn't argue. She moved to Shai's position with her trauma kit already unclipped, her fingers resting on the medical seals. She'd already decided what her job was going to be if this went sideways. Good.

"Erez." He pointed to the conduit running off the nearest instrument tower toward the research buildings. "See where that cable goes."

Erez followed his finger, already tracing the line before Luca finished the sentence. A short nod, and he was gone.

Luca looked at Tamar. Her eyes were locked on the outbuildings. Avi stood dead still at the nearest entrance, watching the corner. He was always the first to freeze when things went quiet and the last to step until he was sure the ground was clear. It was a hyper-cautious pattern that had kept him alive for two years. Noa's jaw was set, hand on her rifle, watching Tamar.

They were a good team, a genuinely good team, and he didn't have to explain a damn thing to any of them.

"Take the outbuildings," he said. "Look for data. A terminal, a physical drive, whatever looks like intelligence. Call it out when you spot it. If you find the field commander, call it in."

Tamar gave a short nod and led them into the shadows of the compound.

Luca turned toward the observatory, Zoe slipping into step right beside him.

His suit's passive camouflage had already turned on, the dark graphene-ceramic plates shifting color to match the gray metal of the transformer housing behind him. The matte-black scout suit bent the light around his silhouette, masking his thermal signature and suppressing his EM emissions. He kept [Ghost Protocol] in reserve; the active ability carried a heavy neural load and a nasty cooldown, and he needed to save his best card for the interior.

He pulled his upgraded Plasma Tomahawk from his belt. Zoe was right at his shoulder, her dagger up.

Noa's voice crackled on the tactical channel. "Captain, we've got movement. Three patrols just fanned out from the central dome, heading west to back up the wall. The courtyard is clear, but two guards are posted up at the main observatory entrance. Heavy armor."

"Copy that, Noa," Luca said. "Avoid engagement. We have the dome."

He slipped through the gap between two towering instrument buildings, the dirt ground was dry and silent under his boots. A guard rounded the corner of a research building, a plasma rifle raised.

Luca didn't wait. He let [Arc Assist] map the throw and chucked.

The tomahawk left his hand in a blurred spin. The plasma-edged blade sliced clean through the guard's neck gap before he could even register the shimmer in the air. The Varnathi pulled inward and dissolved into a column of fine black dust, the rifle clattering into the dry dirt. Luca grabbed the handle of the tomahawk, his fingers locking around the grip without looking.

A second guard was turning, his rifle pivoting toward them. Zoe was already in motion, her body dropping into a low slide that took her under the barrel before it could find him. She came back up at the guard's rear and drew her plasma dagger clean through the neck gap in a tight backhand pull. The creature dissolved into a column of fine black dust before Luca had even taken a step.

Luca stared at the small pile of gray soot. Something flashed through him: anger. The Varnathi were a real civilization, asleep in the vault, with real history, and at some point must have had real telescopes pointed at real stars, and the System was using their likeness and had dropped them into a site for humanity to cut through. He pushed it down. The threat was still real enough to kill them.

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"Observatory entrance," he said, keeping his voice low.

Two more guards stood at the wide cargo panel that served as the main entrance, their attention split between the courtyard and the distant smoke of the western wall. Luca caught Zoe's eye behind her dark visor. He raised two fingers, pointing at the guard on the left. She gave a single, tight nod, raising her blaster.

They moved at the same time. Zoe's suppressed shot let out a tiny, high-pitched tic as she fired, taking the left guard through the visor. At the exact same microsecond, Luca lunged from the shadow of the instrument tower, chucking his tomahawk in a devastating short-range throw that buried itself in the right guard's chest.

Both guards dissolved into twin columns of black dust. Luca caught his tomahawk, shoved the wide cargo door open, and they slipped inside.

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The interior foyer was a narrow control room, filled with the low, persistent hum of active servers and the high-frequency beep-beep of TL9 computing hardware. Control panels lined the curved walls, all of them alive with glowing green telemetry. It was the kind of high-tier gear Ryan would have spent three hours trying to salvage before the System dissolved the whole site, as Luca imagined it would.

Luca bypassed the main door leading to the central dome and stepped up to a secondary console in the shadow of the inner wall. He slid his TL9 Hacking pad across the interface, translating the alien data strings.

The System might have conjured this observatory as a scenario, but the telescope itself was locked onto something real.

The display showed a stable portal, sitting completely motionless in the deep black, millions of kilometers out between New Dawn and the edge of the system.

And around it sat a small fleet of starships, holding their positions in the dark.

Could the ground-level overflow events and these space-borne fleets be connected? It felt too coordinated. The System was showing them the next layer, and Luca didn't have a plan for it. They had never fought another starship before... and the Triumph barely had any real weapons.

He stood at the panel, his breath catching in his throat as he watched the steady, blinking icons of the waiting warships.

His comms clicked.

"Luca," Ryan's voice broke the silence, flat and immediate. "Confirmed on the Varnathi column. They're turning back." He paused for a second. "The fighter is pulling ahead, full throttle. It's not waiting for the others."

Luca let out a slow breath and swiped the display clear, turning away from the glowing console.

There was work to do first.

They had to breach the inner dome.