Mars Time: 02:27, February 19, 2295

  Streets Outside the Slumbering Mantis Inn, Sector 9, Dragon District, Xing Hong

  The Genbu lurched to a halt, and the world outside became very real.

  Through the armored viewports, Xin watched Dragon District burn. Buildings that had stood for decades now vomited orange flames into the Martian night, along all the collapsed storefronts and overturned vehicles, pale hounds jerking forward on too-thin legs, red eyes catching the firelight.

  Bone Fiends. Dozens of them.

  "All combat personnel, deploy!" Haylen's voice cut through the tank interior's rumble. "Sync your Nucleus Watches to voice channel 55-Devadatta. We hold this position until dawn."

  "Engineer, help Yau and Chen with whatever they need. The Genbu's guns aren't as reliable as they were back in the Indepence War." Haylen's command came just as Xin rose from his seat.

  "I thought I was joining you, Sergeant?" He replied in confusion.

  "I've reviewed your profiles. A civilian like youself would just be Skuggr bait down there." Haylen was already on her feet, checking her Kowloon-7's action bolt one final time.

  "My pistol has an AI-assisted targeting mod, I can—" Xin tried to speak himself, his gaze darting to where Sigrun stood. She did not say anything, merely meeting his gaze awkwardly.

  "Exactly. Everyone else here has a weapon certification of level 5 or above. WITHOUT AI assistance." Haylen grinded her teeth speaking. "You achieved level 3 with AI."

  "Sergeant—" Xin's voice rose.

  "Follow Yau's orders. Do what you can." Haylen raised a hand.

  "Understood, Sergeant." He say back down. Very well.

  The rear doors banged open.

  Heat and smoke rolled in like a physical force. H?kon pressed tighter against Xin's chest, his scales flickering through anxious brown to darker shades.

  "Scary outside," the little Diabolisk whispered. "Lots of angry-things."

  "I know, buddy." Xin stroked his back. "It's okay."

  Sigrun was first out, Járn already in her hand. The Thermal Axe's blade ignited with a distinctive whump, quantum-blue fire casting her features in sharp relief. She didn't look back at Xin.

  Stay close to me, she'd said.

  But right now, close meant being left behind.

  Marcus followed, shield raised, sword drawn. The golden medallion at his throat caught the firelight as he fell into formation beside Haylen's Blackcoats.

  "May Zori guide our blades," he murmured. Then, louder: "Your order, Sergeant?"

  "Stalwart, I need you on the front line. Those things are massing near the intersection." Haylen pointed toward the Slumbering Mantis Inn, its ruby-red mantis sign still glowing through the smoke. "We hold until Terra Alliance reinforcements arrive. No retreat."

  Jabari was last out, his Kinetic Crossbow Oya already loaded. He paused at the door, looking back at Xin and H?kon still seated inside. "Hope you don't fall asleep staying in the turtle."

  "Someone needs to work the systems, I suppose." Xin adjusted his glasses. "On the bright side, H?kon's safer in here."

  "HAW-koon not scared!" The Diabolisk's protest was undermined by the death-grip his tiny claws had on Xin's jacket. "HAW-koon very brave."

  Jabari grinned. "I believe you, little guy." He gave them a two-fingered salute. "See you on the other side."

  Then he was gone, disappearing into the smoke and chaos.

  The doors sealed shut.

  Suddenly the Genbu felt very quiet.

  Xin looked around the transport's interior. Private Chen sat hunched at the driver's controls, fingers white-knuckled on the steering column. He was young—couldn't be more than twenty-two—and his eyes had the wide, glassy look of someone who'd never seen real combat before tonight.

  Corporal Yau manned the turret above, his hands on the rotating gun controls. Unlike Chen, Yau looked almost bored. The man was chewing gum, and when he noticed Xin watching, his expression soured.

  "Great Buddha's arse." Yau's voice crackled through. "The sarge left me with the nerd and some lizard."

  Xin said nothing, but he frowned.

  "So, four-eyes. You know how to do anything useful, or are you just going to sit there hugging your stupid dog?"

  H?kon's scales took on an annoyed hue resembling sand. "HAW-koon not dog!"

  "It's okay." Xin squeezed him gently. Then, to Yau: "What do you need?"

  "A real soldier, for starters." The turret rotated with a whine as Yau tracked something outside. "These targeting systems are garbage. Half the time I'm shooting where the Fiends were, not where they are."

  Xin's mind was already moving. Targeting lag. Predictive algorithms failing to account for Bone Fiend movement patterns. Was the Genbu deliberately downgraded at some point? A siege tank of this stature should not have such problems. Or it could be Mars's lower gravity making the creatures faster, more erratic than their Jupiter cousins—

  But he cut off the thought. To solve a problem, one must obtain information. "I might be able to help with that."

  Yau snorted. "Sure you can."

  Xin was already pulling up his Nucleus Watch's interface, fingers dancing across the green holographic display. The Genbu's systems were military-grade, encrypted, locked down—but military-grade on Mars meant Atomic Accord standard, and Atomic Accord standard meant the same architecture as the Terra Alliance, the Imperium of Dragons, the Zorian Covenant, or the quantum computer backend he'd spent five years working with at ZenFu DS before getting laid off.

  "Private Chen." Xin kept his voice calm. "Is there a data port near the driver's console? Should be a hexagonal socket, blue light."

  The young private blinked. "Uh...yeah. Yeah, there's one here!"

  "Good. I'll interface my Nucleus Watch with the targeting array. Corporal Yau, you'll see a new overlay appear in your scope. Green targeting reticle. It'll lead your shots based on target velocity and trajectory."

  "Lead my arse—" Yau started to scoff, then stopped. Through the viewport, Xin watched a pack of Bone Fiends surging toward a barricade where Marcus had planted himself, shield raised. "Huh. Fine, whatever. Just don't break anything."

  The connection established with a soft chime. Data flooded Xin's display—weapon temperature, ammunition count, barrel alignment, a dozen other variables. He filtered out the noise, focused on what mattered.

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  "Predictive targeting, hostile movement patterns." he murmured to his Watch's dial. "Use L-stat for probability weighting."

  [COEFFICIENT INTEGRATED. TARGETING SOLUTION OPTIMIZED.]

  The turret's display shifted. Where before Yau had only crosshairs, now a green circle floated ahead of each moving target, showing where to fire.

  "Buddha's balls..." Yau's voice lost some of its edge. "Okay. Okay, let's see if this actually—"

  He fired.

  The Genbu's roof gun roared, spitting kinetic death into the night. The first burst caught a Bone Fiend mid-leap, blowing it apart in a spray of black fluid. The second took out two more before they could close on Jabari's position.

  "Silver Man go smash-smash!" H?kon bounced on Xin's lap, his scales brightening to excited azure as he watched Marcus in his silver white Covenant armor cave in a Fiend's skull with his shield. "And Music Man make everyone fast-fast!"

  He wasn't wrong. Through the viewport, Xin could see Jabari's palm-sized Echo Drum pulsing with light on his belt, the rhythm somehow cutting through the chaos. Wherever its influence reached, the Constables and Blackcoats moved faster, their reactions sharper.

  "This is actually working." Yau sounded almost surprised. He fired again—another kill, another pack scattered. "Hey, nerd. What's your name?"

  "Xin. Zhi-Xin Wu."

  "Huh." A pause. Then, grudgingly: "Nice work, Xin."

  H?kon's tail swished with pride. "Pappa very smart-smart."

  For five minutes, it almost felt like they were winning.

  Through the viewport, the battle unfolded.

  Sigrun met the first wave of Bone Fiends head-on, Járn carving a burning arc that bisected one creature from shoulder to hip. The thermal edge left the wound smoking, cauterized before the halves hit the ground. A second Fiend lunged at her flank, and she pivoted, letting it sail past, then brought the axe down through its spine with a wet crunch.

  "Left side, Nordling!" Haylen's voice cut through the chaos.

  Sigrun was already moving. Three more Fiends had flanked around a burning autocab, trying to circle behind the line of Blackcoats. She intercepted them at a dead sprint, quantum-blue fire trailing behind her like a comet's tail. The first lost its head. The second she kicked in the chest, sending it stumbling back.

  "Lux Caecans!" Marcus's blade erupted with blinding golden light. The stumbling Fiend shrieked as Solar energy seared its eyes, and in that moment of blindness, the Stalwart's Titanium Shield rim caved in its skull.

  "Zori burns the wicked!" Marcus planted himself at the intersection's center, shield raised, sword ready. Two Fiends threw themselves at him. He caught the first on his shield, the impact driving him back half a step, then ran the second through with a thrust that pinned it to the street.

  Jabari moved between them like a river flowing. Where Sigrun was slaying force and Marcus was immovable defense, the Griot was rhythm. His Kinetic Crossbow Oya came up—thwip, thwip, thwip—and each bolt was finding the soft tissue between Fenris chitin plates. A Fiend dropped with a bolt through its eye. Another collapsed when its front legs were shot out from under it.

  "Sankofa!" The Maridian muttered, sheathing Oya before drawing his Moonstone Cutlass. A wounded Fiend dragged itself toward him. The curved blade came down in a clean arc, ending its. "That's three. Anyone keeping count?"

  "Who cares!" Sigrun called back, bisecting another.

  "Five for me," Marcus grunted, bashing a Fiend's face in with his shield boss. "Six."

  "Sky Lady winning!" H?kon bounced on Xin's lap, his scales flashing excited gold as he tracked the battle. "Silver Man go smash-smash! Music Man go whoosh-whoosh!"

  Xin's fingers flew across his Watch interface, feeding Yau updated targeting solutions. The turret roared, cutting down a pack of Fiends trying to flank Marcus's position.

  "Good shot," he murmured.

  "So, your little green circles," Yau admitted. Another burst. Another kill. "Maybe you're not completely useless after all."

  But even as his targeting algorithms tracked threats and calculated trajectories, Xin found his eyes drawn back to Sigrun. To the way she moved—savage and graceful, every strike purposeful. She'd told him to stay close. Instead, he was watching her through armored glass, helping from a distance

  Watching her fight alone—watching all of them risk their lives while he sat safe in the Genbu's belly—

  I should be out there. The thought surprised him. He was no fighter. Power: 1. Agility: 1. His gun Jade was good for maybe five shots before his wrists would give out from the recoil. In a straight fight against even so many Bone Fiends, he'd last seconds at best.

  "Pappa looks sad-sad." H?kon's small voice cut through his thoughts. The Diabolisk was watching him now, scales shifting to concerned silver-brown. "Why Pappa sad when we helping?"

  Xin managed a smile. "Just wishing I could do more, buddy."

  "Pappa makes boom-boom hit bad things." H?kon's tail swished with conviction. "Pappa keep HAW-koon safe. Pappa..." He searched for the word. "Pappa im-por-tant!"

  Outside, Sigrun decapitated another Fiend. Marcus's Solar-enchanted blade flared as he incinerated two more. Jabari's crossbow fired some more as the Maridian hummed a song.

  And in the Genbu, Xin kept feeding them targets. Kept them alive in the small ways he could.

  For five minutes, it almost felt like they were winning.

  Then the temperature dropped.

  H?kon felt it first. His scales rippled from azure to dark brown, then darker still. He pressed against Xin's chest, a low whine building in his throat.

  "Pappa...something bad coming. Something very bad."

  "Corporal Yau." Xin's voice sharpened as he focused on a red spot moving across his watch's holo screen. "Could you check your thermal readings? Northwest, maybe fifty meters—"

  "I'm checking, I'm checking—" The corporal's voice cut off. When he spoke again, the boredom was gone. "Oh, Buddha. BUDDHA'S DONG. What is that?"

  Xin looked.

  The female humanoid creature emerged from the smoke like a fever dream made flesh.

  Nearly three meters tall, her body was carved alabaster, every curve and muscle rendered in moonlit marble. Platinum hair cascaded past her shoulders. Two horns curved from her forehead. Her ears were long, swept upward like a fox's, twitching.

  Her eyes were the color of burning amber, and the intensity of her stare was one that wanted everything.

  She was naked. Proudly, obscenely naked, her form both beautiful and wrong in ways that made Xin's brain stutter. Where her nipples should have been, sharp thorns jutted from her flesh. Her musculature was defined and near perfect, like some terrible predator's body wearing the skin of a goddess.

  And she was smiling.

  "I smell fresh bodies, some more breedable than others." Her voice carried across the battlefield, somehow audible over the gunfire and screams. "What lovely toys you've brought me."

  Xin's Nucleus Watch pinged with urgent data:

  [TARGET IDENTIFIED: Ysolde H?ggsson]

  [CLASSIFICATION: ELDER DRAUG, FEMALE, FENRIS HORDE LIEUTENANT]

  [THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME]

  [ALIEN PHEROMONES DETECTED. AVOID CONTACT TO PREVENT SEDUCTION]

  [RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE EVACUATION]

  Behind her, something massive shifted in the shadows. A shape that was the size of a SUV floating in the sky, all arms and three eyes on its bulbous head, its body glistening. Eyes like dead moons floated in its bulk.

  A Kraken.

  Ysolde raised one hand, clawed, terrifying but beautiful as she howled—no, spoke—in an alien psionic language. "Lykta af tessari tík!"

  "The Draug speaks J?turmál?" Haylen's voice cracked over the voice comm. "What manner of smell is that?"

  "Mirage spell! Pheromone seduction." Marcus raised his shield as he shouted. "Get behind me. Do NOT inhale!"

  "Target her!" Xin shouted as a strong odor manifested in the Genbu's interior. Somehow, whatever smell that Ysolde's powerful body was producing had managed to seep in. "Yau, target the Draug now!"

  But Yau had gone still at his turret controls. His hands, which had been steady, now hung limp at his sides. Xin could see his face—slack, empty, a thin line of drool running from the corner of his mouth.

  "Buddha, she's so hot…I want...sex..." The corporal managed.

  "What!?" Xin could hardly believe he'd heard that.

  "So many willing souls." Ysolde's smile widened as she walked toward them, each step unhurried. "And they always come to me in the end."

  The Genbu's turret hatch began to open.

  "Yau! What are you doing?!"

  The corporal was already climbing out, his movements jerky, puppet-like. He dropped from the turret to the street below, stumbling toward the Elder Draug with arms outstretched.

  "Yes, you delicious-smelling, lovely little man." Ysolde beckoned. "Come to mother."

  Xin lunged for the hatch controls, but he was too slow. He watched through the viewport as Yau reached Ysolde, falling to his knees before her, face pressed against her thigh like a supplicant at prayer.

  She stroked his hair. Almost tenderly.

  Then she gestured to the Kraken.

  The thing moved faster than something that size appeared capable of. Its octopus-like arms shot forward, wrapping around Yau's body, lifting him off the ground. He didn't scream. Didn't struggle. Just hung there, smiling, as the Kraken's massive maw opened wide.

  The sound of bones cracking. The wet tear of flesh. A spray of red against dark brown.

  Gone.

  "Thousand Gods…" Xin muttered. He did not even know whether to pray to Buddha or to the Thousand Gods now.

  Chen started screaming. The young driver's hands came off the controls, clutching his head. He rocked back and forth in his seat, eyes squeezed shut. "This isn't happening this isn't happening this isn't—"

  "Chen!" Xin grabbed his shoulder. "Private Chen, I need you to drive. We have to move!"

  But Chen was gone, lost somewhere inside his own terror. Useless.

  Xin turned back to the viewport.

  Ysolde was closer now. Much closer. And she was looking directly at the Genbu. Directly at him.

  That smile again.

  And then world went soft around the edges. Warm. Inviting.

  Xin felt his muscles relaxing, his fear draining away like water from a broken vessel. Why was he afraid? There was nothing to be afraid of.

  The Elder Draug outside only wanted to make him feel good. Beautiful in such monstrous yet irresistable ways. Her alabaster body was so strong yet so curvaceous. Her smell was a mix of sweat, musk, combined with something that felt clean, fresh hints from citrus or aquatic elements—

  All he had to do was go to her. Open the hatch. Walk outside. Surrender.

  It would feel so nice to surrender.

  "Pappa!"

  The voice came from very far away.

  "Why Pappa strange-strange? Why Pappa not moving?"

  Xin's hand was on the hatch release. When had he put it there? He couldn't remember. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except—

  "PAPPA!"