Medellin Five Hours After the Defense
The air inside the tent was thick with the stench of scorched earth and blood-soaked bandages. Dozens of soldiers lay half-awake, barely stitched together by stims and stubbornness. Their eyes were empty, but their bodies hadn't given out. Not yet.
Soldiers sat slouched against crates, heads bowed, skin cracked from heat exposure. No one spoke. Not until the tent flap snapped open and Commander Gabriel Reyes walked in, helmet tucked under one arm.
"All of you on your feet."
No one moved. He didn't repeat himself.
Shawn, slumped on a cot with a cold pack pressed to his ribs, glanced up. "You're joking."
Reyes tossed a holo-map onto the crate in the center of the tent. It displayed a mountainous region pulsing with red.
"Intel confirms it. The omnic forces weren't coordinating on their own. We found the source to be a relay facility buried under the Andes. Callsign: Cerro Sangre. It's feeding orders to every unit from Brazil to Bolivia."
"And you want us to go now?" Virginia rasped.
"Correct."
"Sir," Steve growled, "half of us can't feel our legs. Some haven't slept in forty hours."
"Neither have I," Reyes snapped. "And neither has the enemy. They're routing backup signals from Europe now. If we don't cut that core before noon, we lose the entire continent."
Shawn stood. He didn't have the strength. But he did it anyway.
"What's the op?" he asked.
Reyes looked over them, grim.
"We finish it."
Dropcraft Theta-7
0820 Hours – En Route to Cerro Sangre
The transport vibrated under strain, skimming low through mountainous valleys. Ash clouds drifted above the peak ahead like the ghost of an eruption waiting to happen.
Inside, no one spoke. It was the quiet before the end.
Reyes loaded his last magazine. "We drop on the western ledge. You've got one chance to get in, set the charges, and get out. If the relay is adaptive, it might reroute before we reach it."
S3bastian looked up from a scanner. "If we don't sever the core completely, they'll just rebuild it somewhere worse."
Shawn nodded. His fingers sparked dimly with restrained electricity. The pressure behind his eyes pulsed, not from exhaustion but the weight of choice.
"I'll be surgical," he murmured. "No recklessness. Only when necessary."
Cerro Sangre – Outer Tunnel
The landing was hard.
The ash-choked ledge trembled underfoot as the team descended into the carved-out mining shaft, repurposed with brutal omnic steel. Veins of red light pulsed through the walls, alive and twitching like nerves.
The deeper they went, the hotter it became. The tunnels narrowed.
The heart of Cerro Sangre was a monolith of red and black pulsing above a pool of magma in the volcanic chamber. Cables stretched from the relay like veins, embedded into the rock, drawing power from the planet itself.
S3bastian looked over the console. "This thing's hooked into the geothermal layer. If we overload it, it might not just shut down, it might blow."
"We'll deal with that later," Reyes said. "Start planting charges."
The team spread out, following his order. Then they paused as they realized that the omnics were responding to their presence. Two Bastions, now in full sentry mode, deployed from recessed wall compartments began firing before their legs hit the ground. One clipped Spencer. Another shattered cover across from Virginia.
The Thorns didn't panic. Shawn didn't use Vital Synch, he already had wounds he was still recovering from and wasn't keen on taking on another. Instead, he redirected his bioelectric current through a side panel, overloading the lights and disorienting the Bastions. He
Sonya got in close with her shock knife, finishing one.
S3bastian put a plasma round through the second's chest.
"Contact front!" Reyes shouted, immediately firing center mass.
Sonya rolled left, barely dodging a crushing swing. Spencer tackled her aside, while S3bastian dropped a blast charge at their feet, delaying pursuit.
"Hold the line!" Reyes shouted.
The team engaged. Plasma bolts cracked off walls. Shawn ducked a pulse spear from one Orisa and countered with an arc of electricity, disrupting its shield momentarily.
S3bastian fired into its chassis, exposing the core. Sonya leapt, blade piercing the weak point.
The Bastion locked onto them. Shawn grabbed Marco, pushing him clear, having him take a round to the leg. Blood literally splurted from his wound. Blackline wouldn't work on an injury like this. Vital Synch engaged again. One second. That's all it took. The pain flooded his nerves, then vanished.
Shawn slumped against the relay wall, chest heaving.
Reyes stood over him. "No more."
"I know," Shawn croaked.
The relay chamber was a cathedral of heat.
Suspended above an active magma pit, the core pulsed like a mechanical heart, veins of glowing red stretching into the rock like tumors. The heat shimmered up the walls.
The heart of Cerro Sangre floated above a magma shaft, suspended by anti-grav pylons and webbed cables. It looked like a brain fed by steel and wires, half-living, twitching, red and breathing with data.
S3bastian rushed to the relay's console, fingers moving fast. "This thing is definitely not normal. There's firewall after firewall. I need two minutes."
They didn't have that time. Omnics fell the ceiling above.
The fight exploded into chaos. Sonya was slammed into a wall. Steve went down with a rail round to the shoulder. Shawn started to reach for him but hesitated. It was another injury much like Marco's. No choice but to use it. He activated Vital Synch for a second. One second.
It transferred the internal bleeding, just enough to get Steve breathing. But it dropped Shawn to one knee.
S3bastian shouted from the relay. "It's no use! I can't shut it down! It's adapting and fighting back!"
"Then we collapse it," Reyes said.
He pulled two demolition charges from his belt.
"What are you doing?" Spencer asked.
"Ending this." He tosses them towards the supports holding the relay up. When they near it, he takes two shots, each one exploding the charges. Silence fills the room before creaking fills it. The relay shudders for a second before it begins to slowly fall, wires giving out. With a shrill shriek, the relay plunges to the depths below. After a few seconds, an echoing boom resounds throughout the cavern.
The explosion didn't just collapse the relay. It awoke something. The moment the core cracked open, the magnetic balance of the mountain snapped. The heat rose violently. The walls trembled.
"Seb?" Shawn asked.
S3bastian's sensors flared. "We've ruptured the geothermal cap. The mountain's going active."
A low rumble vibrated through their bones. Then came the roar. Magma surged upward through cracks in the rock. Red light turned white-hot. The ceiling fractured. Cerro Sangre was no longer a relay site. It was an active volcano.
They ran.
Lava poured through the tunnel behind them like liquid rage. The earth collapsed under their boots. Spencer carried a barely conscious Virginia. Reyes shouldered Steve. Shawn took the rear, sending out arcs of lightning to collapse unstable paths behind them, buying precious seconds.
Explosions echoed above as fire tore free from the mountaintop. The path to the surface was blocked by falling debris.
Shawn stopped. Sparks bled from his arms. He focused, overloaded a nearby junction, and blasted through the stone. He was filled with relief as they were hit with daylight but quickly remembered the smoke and ash. Not looking back, the group ran towards evac.
The pilot didn't wait.
The craft lifted just as Cerro Sangre exploded, fire erupting from the peak like the sky had been lit from below. A pillar of smoke and lava surged into the air, raining molten ash across the valley.
Inside the hold, no one cheered, too exhausted to celebrate. Nevertheless, they were alive. And they'd broken the spine of the enemy.
Reyes slumped into a seat, battered and caked in soot.
"Relay's gone," he muttered. "Let's see them coordinate now."
Shawn sat across from him, eyes half-shut, arms still sparking faintly.
"You almost killed us," he said flatly.
Reyes cracked a tired smile. "That's war."