The base was no longer a fortress, just a scattering of frightened men with broken radios and no orders. They died as mobs die—confused, cornered, and easy prey. First Company’s mechs cut them apart in fragments, like wolves pulling down cattle. Every pocket of resistance was burned out, one by one, until silence fell.

  Jack Harlan, lieutenant and con artist of fate, fought the battle the only way he knew: by dying. Fifteen times he collapsed in smoke and fire, fifteen times he rose again, like a ghost stitched out of flame. The kills were real. The theater was real. But the applause—his comrades’ raw tears—was an accident he hadn’t planned.

  Later, First Company would paint scrap armor to mimic his trick. They called themselves Phoenix, a company of machines that refused to stay dead. But on this night, when the smoke cleared, their cheers died in their throats.

  They had not seized an airfield.

  They had not taken a silo.

  They had walked into Hell.

  The perimeter was wire and current. Inside were men and women reduced to scarecrows, their uniforms hanging off skeletal frames. Behind another fence, a hill of bodies slumped like broken dolls, limbs stiff in grotesque embraces. The air was thick with decay, so dense it clung to the lungs.

  Jack slid down from his cockpit. His boots struck mud and old blood, and the smell hit him like a fist. He bent double and retched until bile scalded his throat. Near the edge of the corpse-pile, a young soldier lay on her side, her chest carved open as if something had reached in to take her heart. Her eyes were glassy, still aimed at the sky.

  The living prisoners shuffled forward. No shouts, no joy. They moved like machines stripped of their programming, stumbling and staring. Some clutched the wire, unwilling to leave the cage. Others curled on the ground, keening as though freedom itself were a threat.

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  And then—

  “Fatty!”

  Two figures broke loose, running, stumbling, colliding with him. Arms locked around his chest. Wet faces pressed into his uniform.

  Jack froze. Then, they pulled them back far enough to see.

  “Meadow? Nya?” His voice cracked on the names. “How the hell—”

  They were bones and trembling skin, hardly recognizable. Months ago, he had seen them sent back to their air wing. Later, he would learn of the ambush, the capture, the long descent into this place. For now, they just clung to him, sobbing until language broke down. Meadow sagged, unconscious in his arms. Nya shook as though electricity still flowed through her veins.

  He lowered Meadow gently to the ground, fingers finding the artery at her neck. Her eyelids flickered open, cloudy, then focused on him.

  “Please,” she whispered, voice like torn paper. “Take me away.”

  The words spread. Prisoners stirred. Weeping grew into a tide, echoing through the wire.

  Jack wrapped Meadow against his chest. His voice was steady, deeper than he felt.

  “No one will hurt you again.”

  When the storm of crying quieted, Rashid caught his arm, eyes hard.

  “What’s the move, Jack? We can’t take them. We barely get out alive as it is.”

  Jack looked at Meadow and Nya, huddled, their eyes magnetized to his mech like it was salvation. He looked at the others—ragged soldiers staring at him with that terrible, starving hope.

  “You go,” he said. “Finish the mission. I’ll stay. I’ll get them out.”

  Rashid blinked, as if staring at a madman. “Alone? Here? You’ll never—”

  Jack smiled. Not bravado, not irony. Just tired. Human.

  “You forget, Captain. I’m good at running.” He drew in the foul air and held it like a vow. “And they’re ours. Commonwealth. Heroes.”

  He straightened, meeting Rashid’s eyes.

  “Some things,” Jack Harlan said, the coward who had fled thirteen times, “a man just has to do.”

  Maybe cowardice was nothing but loving life too much to let it go.