Even through the DAIR suit the air in the drop zone tasted like sulfur and ancient dust. It was thick, heavy, and carried a scent that made the hairs on the back of Riven’s neck stand up.

  Wrongness.

  They plummeted through the chaos of the canyon, seven dragons moving in a tight wedge. Above them, the sky was a kaleidoscope of violence as the Seekers fought for air superiority. To the east, the canyon rim burned where the Protectors were holding back the tide.

  “Hammers, you are green,” Phillean’s voice crackled, distorted by atmospheric static. “We hit the nest in ten seconds. The Seekers have already weakened it.”

  Riven leaned into Astrix’s neck. Her scales were hot, radiating the friction of reentry. But beneath the heat, he felt a tremor in her muscles.

  It is quiet, Astrix projected. Her mental voice was tight. Too quiet. The resonance in the chamber below… it is muted.

  “Maybe the swarm cleared out like the Captain said,” Riven whispered, though he didn’t believe it. He gripped his lance tighter.

  They swung through the cavern entrance, passing over pools of bubbling acid that hissed and popped in the darkness. They landed on the floor of the Queen’s chamber with a synchronized, earth-shaking thud.

  Dust and dried resin kicked up in a choking cloud. Riven brought his lance up, scanning the dark. The bioluminescence here was dim, flickering like dying fluorescent lights.

  “Target acquired,” Phillean barked. “Center mass.”

  Riven looked at the ceiling. The tether was there. The thick, fleshy cord that fed the Queen.

  It was empty.

  It hung limp, ragged and torn, dripping blue ichor onto the resin floor.

  “Where is she?” Tora whispered over the squad link. “The tether is severed.”

  “Ambush!” Brick roared. “Above us!”

  From the shadows of the stalactites above, a massive shape dropped. fell with the silent weight of a collapsing building, landing directly on top of the formation.

  The fully mature queen, armored in iridescent purple slammed into Halo floating behind us.

  The Radiant dragon had little way in the means of physical defense, only the pearl-white scales of his hide. The Queen’s physical claws raked across Halo’s back, shredding the armor and sending the smaller dragon skidding across the resin floor with a sickening crunch.

  Sylas screamed over the comms, a sound of pure psychic feedback agony.

  Then, the Queen screamed.

  It wasn’t the muffled static of the simulation. It was a physical blow to the brain. Riven gasped, clutching his helmet as a spike of white-hot pain drove into his temples. It felt like a drill boring into his skull.

  “Halo is down!” Phillean shouted, his voice strained. “We have no dampener on it’s scream! Fight through it or die!”

  Without Halo to suppress the frequency, the psychic pressure was crushing. It made the air feel like molasses.

  “Viper, Tora, get her off him!”

  Tora and Viper moved first. Havoc launched himself, tail swinging. But the Queen was faster than the sim. She pivoted, catching Havoc mid-air with a telekinetic backhand that slammed the blue dragon into the wall. Tora was caught in between the wall and the dragon. When Havoc straightened she was limp in the saddle.

  Viper struck the Queen laying out a gash in her side, but the Queen’s physical claw snapped out, catching the green serpent in the midsection. Viper hissed, thrashing as he was pinned.

  “She’s tearing us apart!” Kaelo yelled, firing his lance atop Viper, the bullets sparking off her arm..

  “Strikers, flank her!” Phillean orderer. “We need an angle!”

  “Moving!” Vex yelled.

  Riven thought Astrix into a sprint. They circled left. Vex circled right. The Queen hissed, turning her massive head. Her eight obsidian eyes tracked them, but her psychic focus remained on crushing the dragons beneath her.

  “I have the shot!” Riven yelled, raising his lance, aiming at the creatures shoulder.

  Then the ground shook.

  In the distance towards where they were flying, from the dark tunnel leading to the facility, a second shape emerged. It was identical to the first. Another Queen. Another Matriarch.

  “Two?” Kaelo squeaked. “Resonance above, we need to leave!”

  “Halo cannot move, and we can’t move him safely.” Phillean ordered tersely. “We are fighting, and winning. Havoc, I need you in the fight, but protect your rider.”

  “Resonance damned variables,” Riven cursed, realizing Kaelen hadn’t been lying. Riven looked at the Queen approaching them and the Queen behind them “Phillean! We’re split!”

  The second Queen shrieked, adding her voice to the first. The psychic pressure doubled. Riven’s nose started to bleed, the warm liquid running down his lip inside the helmet.

  “We can’t fight both in a cluster!” Riven shouted. “Let us take the second one! The rest of you hold the first! We got this.”

  “Do it!” Phillean roared, firing his Lance at the first Queen’s eyes to draw aggro from the crushed Halo. “Buy us time!”

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  Riven hauled on the reins. Astrix, on me!

  I see her, Astrix projected, her mental voice tight with strain. But she is tracking my movement, Riven. She knows where I am going before I move.

  “Vex! With me!”

  “Right behind you, Dust Boy!”

  The Strikers peeled off. Two dragons against a Matriarch. The odds were bad.

  The second Queen saw them coming. She didn’t wait. She charged. She moved like a spider, her six legs blurring. Two psychic claws hovered above her shoulders.

  “Raze, fire!” Vex ordered.

  The red dragon unleashed a torrent of flame. The Queen didn’t recoil. She raised a psychic claw and parted the fire, shielding herself with a wedge of telekinetic force. She leaped through the flames, closing the distance in a heartbeat.

  “She’s reading us!” Vex yelled, banking hard to avoid a slash. Raze had to swiftly dive as another slash went through where he dove. “It’s like knows our moves!”

  Riven watched the Queen. Her eyes were locked on Astrix and Raze. Her head snapped back and forth, tracking their psychic signatures.

  But she wasn’t looking at him.

  An idea formed in Riven’s head. Reckless. Stupid. Suicidal.

  “Astrix,” Riven shouted. “Get her to the wall! Beneath the ridge!”

  Riven, what are you doing?

  “I’m invisible!” Riven unclipped his safety harness. “She can see you. She can’t see me!”

  No! It is too dangerous!

  “Do it!”

  Astrix roared, banking hard toward the cavern wall. Raze followed, Vex laying down suppressing fire.

  As Astrix passed under a jagged outcropping of rock, Riven stood up in the saddle. He didn’t think. Instead he stored away those thoughts and jumped.

  He hit the stone ledge hard, rolling to absorb the impact. Leaving him alone twenty feet above the fight.

  Below him, the Queen was attacking the two dragons. She lashed out with a psychic claw, catching Astrix in the shoulder. Astrix roared, tumbling out of the air.

  “Hey! Look at me, ugly!” Vex screamed.

  Vex drove Raze forward, placing herself between the Queen and Astrix to buy Riven time. It was a brave move. It was the move of a wingman protecting her squad.

  But it was was a mistake.

  As Raze lunged, the Queen’s second psychic claw, the one hiding in the shadows, whipped upward.The translucent blade punched through Raze’s lower flank, bypassing the scales, and continued upward. It pierced the saddle. It pierced the DAIR suit.

  Vex gasped. It was a wet, choked sound over the comms.

  The psychic claw tore through her lower abdomen and exited her back.

  “NO!” Riven roared.

  The scream tore from his throat, raw and agonizing. The Queen flicked her mind, and the claw ripped free, throwing Vex and Raze backward into the wall.

  Riven dropped from the ledge, a silent ghost in the psychic storm. The Queen didn’t sense him. She didn’t look up until his boots slammed onto her armored neck.

  Riven drove his lance down with both hands, putting every ounce of his rage and gravity behind the blow.

  The tip pierced the skull.

  Pulse.

  The explosion blew the top of the Queen’s head off. Blue ichor sprayed Riven’s visor, blinding him.

  The Queen collapsed instantly.

  Riven hit the ground with crack atop the queen, but instead of laying there he scrambled off the twitching carcass, slipping in the slime. He didn’t check the kill. He sprinted over to where Raze lay.

  “Vex!”

  She was slumped against the dragon’s neck. Her armor was torn open at the stomach. The suit’s nanites were swarming, trying to seal the breach, but there was too much blood. It pooled black and shiny on the resin floor.

  Riven punched the hammer at her chest and her helmet restracted

  “Hey,” Vex coughed, blood speckled over her face. “Did... did we get her?”

  “We got her,” Riven said, his hands hovering over the wound, his voice shaking. “You’re okay. Hey. The suit is sealing. You’re okay.”

  “Fuck that was cool,” she whispered. Her eyes rolled back, and her head lolled forward.

  “Medic!” Riven screamed into the comms. “Strikers down! I need a medic!”

  “Secure!” Phillean’s voice came back, breathless. “First target down. Kaelo, get to Vex! Now!”

  The rest of the squad rushed over. The first Queen lay dead in the center of the room, pinned by a battered and bleeding Bastion. Halo lay breathing heavy on the ground, unmoving. Sylas was unconscious in the saddle. Tora was still limp in her saddle, but Havoc was on the ground as Brick got her out of the saddle. Viper was dragging a limp leg.

  Kaelo jumped off Viper and sprinted to Vex.

  “The suit medics are already being applied,” Kaelo said, his hands shaking but efficient as he began to reach into a pouch that Riven had never noticed and took out a med kit. “Her vitals are low but the suit held the organs in. However... she needs surgery, Sergeant. Now.”

  “Hammer Actual to Overlord,” Phillean barked into the radio. “Objective complete. Both targets down. We have heavy casualties. Requesting immediate medevac.”

  There was static. Heavy, grinding static. Then, Kaelen’s voice cut through, sounding grim and distant.

  “Negative, Hammer Actual. The sky is completely obscured. The Seekers are heavily engaged. The Flyers are using coordinated swarm tactics. We can’t get a shuttle down to you, and it’s not safe for you to come out alone.”

  “I have seven casualties. Three Lancers in critical condition. Four dragons that need attention!” Phillean shouted. “We need medical equipment and now!”

  The comms were silent for a second.

  “A member of the seekers has taken a casualty, and the Protectors are securing where they landed.” Kaelen responded calmly. “Something is suppressing the Radiant dragons in Squads One and Two. The bugs are somehow communicating. We are blind up here. You are to hold your position.”

  Phillean cursed, slamming his fist against his thigh. He looked at Vex, pale and still. He looked at the decimated squad.

  “Sir. Please.”

  The line was silent.

  “Stay there. Secure the area. I will get you that aid.”

  Then the line when dead.

  Phillean looked at the still standing squad. Then he looked at the massive blast door leading to the facility.

  It was open.

  The heavy steel doors had been pried apart, likely by the second Queen. Darkness yawned beyond. Riven also saw what he was looking at.

  “Sergeant,” Riven said, standing up. His armor was covered in blue ichor and Vex’s blood. “The mission isn’t done.”

  “Holt, look around,” Phillean snapped, gesturing to the carnage. “We can’t safely breach an infested facility. Half the squad can barely stand.”

  “If we don’t get the data, we will have to come back,” Riven said coldly. “And if we come back, we have to do this again. We don’t know that in the time we recover that there won’t be a new queen.”

  He pointed at the open door.

  “The bugs are using tactics. They’re suppressing the Radiants. That means they are sensing us through the Resonance. They knew we were coming.”

  Riven looked at Phillean.

  “But they can’t sense me.”

  Phillean hit his hammer, his helmet popping down. “What?”

  “I’m invisible, Sergeant,” Riven said. “To the Resonance. Astrix confirmed it. The Queens didn’t focus on me until I shot them. The Vinidean on my homeworld missed me. I’m a ghost to them.”

  Phillean looked at Riven, then at Astrix. The black dragon nodded once, a slow, grave movement.

  He speaks the truth, Astrix projected to the squad. He is a void in the psychic web. He is the only one who can pass unseen.

  “I can go in,” Riven said. “Solo. If there are Ravagers in there, I can sneak past them. I get the drives, I come back, and by then the Seekers might have cleared a lane.”

  “It’s suicide, Holt,” Brick rumbled, holding his side where his armor was cracked.

  “It’s the only play,” Riven countered. He looked down at Vex. “I’m not letting her bleed for nothing.”

  Phillean stared at the open door. He looked at the tactical map on his wrist, red with enemy contacts. He looked at Riven’s determined face.

  “You have ten minutes,” Phillean said. “If you aren’t back, I’m coming in after you. And I’m coming in mad as hell.”

  “I’ll be back in five,” Riven promised.

  I will go with you, Astrix stepped forward, limping slightly.

  “No,” Riven put a hand on her chest. “You’re injured and you’re too big. Too loud in the Resonance. You stay here. Guard Vex. If anything comes through that tunnel...”

  I will eat it, Astrix finished, her silver eyes burning with a mixture of pride and fear. Be careful, Riven.

  Riven turned and walked toward the gaping maw of the facility. The darkness seemed to swallow the light from the cavern. He switched his vision to night-mode, the world turning green and silent.

  He stepped over the threshold, leaving the squad and the dragons behind. He was alone.

  Just him and the ghosts.