Section Five forded the Schwerer-perforations and crossed into an apocalyptic land dotted with rubble-mounds, overshadowed by teetering concrete structures, and carpeted with cracked gray pavement and gravel earth charred black. Scarecrow monuments fashioned of blacksteel rebar towered lonely and twisted as if plucked from an artist''s avant-garde dreamscape. Above them the open sky was heavily obscured by thick rivers of smog textured with reptilian geometries.


    "Hey, don''t I get assigned to support now?" Douglas joked, waving around his left arm-stump. Thete had bandaged it tightly to reinforce the integrity of the exosuit''s foam-seal and the tied ends of the bandage''s fabric fluttered in the air as he raced down the street.


    "Yeah, first, you gotta survive this. Second, they''ll throw you right back to us after some one-on-one with that shitty personality," Voke returned, paying careful attention to the rubble-strewn ground and picking his steps carefully through that treacherous path. "And I''m still waiting on that explanation."


    "Comms discipline please," stressed Thete, bounding forward and then falling back upon her haunches behind a chunk of rubble. Voke and Douglas came huffing and puffing seconds later, flushing against that concrete face and nodding toward her.


    "Wait up guys… B.T.''s falling behind," Frederica transmitted, halting her step several meters behind the cover position and turning where she stood. Section Five had turned left on entering Liberation''s Reach and was in the midst of traversing the curved road bounding the garrison barracks. The Schwerers had punched voluminous holes into the barracks structures abutting the wall, and above the glint of Frederica''s helmet lucent streams of sunlight penetrated the patchwork ruptures, shuttling through swirling clouds of dust-particles and sketching imperfect shapes upon the cluttered ground.


    The Schwerer rounds had lanced through not only the wall and barracks, but also the adjoining structures, spilling onto the street a mess of concrete vomitus which made of it a doglegged maze of rubble and curved metal sheeting sharp as sabers.


    "Get into cover!" Thete snapped, the sharpness of her tone causing Frederica to drop quickly into a crouch. "I need some more awareness here!"


    "... Sorry," Frederica returned, making for Thete''s position and infusing her movement with the appropriate sense of urgency.


    "Trust Ballsman to lag… he should really work on his fitness," Douglas sniggered, lowering himself to a sitting position and taking the opportunity to inspect the chassis of his railgun for any damage. "Even missing an arm I''m faster than him any day."


    "—ha—hah—ha—" the sound of labored panting filtered tinnily through the section comms-link. A form which bobbed unsteadily made its appearance around the curve two hundred meters from their vantage.


    Frederica thought to herself that Betelgeuse had a unique gait, that he picked his steps carefully, and that this was very in keeping with his observant nature.


    By the time Betelgeuse reached the cover-point, Thete had already begun rattling off a series of tactical observations.


    "Looks deserted but we can''t assume. We continue sticking to the left—plenty of rubble cover. After the pounding the garrison took, it''s more than likely the left block was evacuated. Residential block to the right probably has Tangos. I don''t trust those windows. We go straight and maybe we can find someplace between the southern and eastern walls. Maybe get with the left pincer, if and when they come through."


    "Thete, ma''am... what is our objective?" Voke inquired, turning his head to the left to regard Thete. The plastic ribs at the side of his helmet welled with gravel, and dark pupils stared morosely through a shock of hair. His gaunt cheeks were too devoid of fat to be healthy.


    "After what just happened?" Thete shot a glance at Betelgeuse who by now was crouching and catching his breath beside Frederica, and both of them flush with the far end of the piece of rubble they called cover. "Get far enough and then hole up somewhere safe till reinforcements come. We need some space to think next steps."


    An uncomfortable silence descended. Many unspoken things hung in the air: the Major''s death, the compulsion-matrix… the blackbox. Voke continued staring vacantly at her, expressionless save for the slight twitch at the right edge of his mouth.


    "It''s the smart thing to do," Thete added, finding the lack of response discomfiting.


    There was no more talk. Section Five picked through that semi-shaded place, the tense quiet interspersed with the distant roar of mega-caliber artillery and the more proximate echoes of small-arms fire. A smattering of crashing sounds carried over the smoggy firmament, and the ground reverberated sporadically, as if subterranean whales were plying for plankton nearby.


    The path meandered, then became narrower. The ground cleared up and Betelgeuse found that keeping his balance no longer seemed so treacherous. Section Five shortly came to a square littered by a sea of smoking bodies so mutilated it was difficult to distinguish the human parts from the Chimerae.


    The square was bounded to the left by a partially decapitated watchtower, and to the right by a stack of suggestively empty balconies jutting out from residential apartments. They observed at the mouth of the square the charred chassis of a forty-seater holo-bus sitting on its horizontal air-lift pads now flensed and twisted beyond repair. The chassis had been dragged athwart the square''s entrance to act as makeshift cover for the doomed combatants, as the troughs which had been gouged into the paved ground seemed to evidence.


    There was no movement.


    Thete dashed across the crumbling pavement with inhuman speed and took cover by the carcass of the holo-bus. The rest of Section Five followed, panting. She peeked out the side abutting the damaged watchtower and scanned the square with her prosthetic eye.


    "Looks like someone''s alive. Human," she intoned, and the section moved out cautiously in egg-formation, with Thete and Betelgeuse taking the front, Frederica and Douglas securing the flanks, and Voke bringing up the rear.


    It was Cacliocos, sitting with his back against the side of a vertical concrete pillar, his legs splayed out and his hands fallen limply to his sides, his knuckles face-down and bleeding into the dust a dark and expanding patch. The scar above his lip glistened darkly.


    Seeing this, Frederica bolted forward; and she took his forearm in her hands, gasping: "Exosuit''s breached! His fists…"


    "Freddy, what the hell!" Thete exclaimed, exasperated at her willingness to so easily break formation. Ignoring Thete, Frederica had already retrieved her coagulator and plastic sprayfoam and was engaged in treating Cacliocos.


    "Get him into our section comms," Betelgeuse transmitted, stepping forward and scanning the surroundings, railgun held at the ready. The fallen pillar against which Cacliocos was sitting was slanted enough that it provided good cover against the residential block opposite, but it exposed them to the damaged watchtower behind and the building on their left upon whose facade was carved strange runes from top to bottom. On second glance, the pillar appeared to have been one of four which supported the flared roof of that runed building.


    "I got it. Stop telling me what to do," Thete hissed, fiddling with her wrist transceiver. Betelgeuse glanced at her, his expression unchanging, then crouched beside Frederica.


    Cacliocos made a sound. From that wretched voice came some wordless gasping wail like an acknowledgment of the dead, and Betelgeuse glanced at Cacliocos again to see a thread of saliva stretching from the man''s lip to a translucent and lightly foamed puddle pooling at the base of his visor.


    "He''s lost it," whispered Douglas, bringing his visor close enough to Cacliocos'' that he could see the man''s pores and the salt streaking his skin besides.


    "Stop it, Douglas. Leave the man alone," Voke said, coming beside Cacliocos and putting a hand on his shoulder.


    "Sir, can you hear me? Sir?" Thete said, crouching.


    "They''re dead!" Cacliocos roared, ripping up to his feet, the puddle of spittle staining the inside of his helmet in a rorschach blot. Frederica, who had foamed his suit shut and was engaged in bandaging his hands, tumbled over onto her back with a surprised yelp, and Douglas started backward several steps. Voke stared, nonplussed.


    "Sir! Listen to me!" Thete said, and with that unnatural speed she was there beside Cacliocos with both her hands grasping his right arm. Seeing this, Voke came forward and grabbed his other arm, arresting any rash follow-up.


    But the outburst was done and Cacliocos turned his head to Thete, wheezing perceptibly through the comms, his expression flaccid.


    Betelgeuse, who had, out of reflex, raised his weapon and pointed it at Cacliocos, let his muzzle drop. He watched Cacliocos carefully, observing through the eyes a soul that had been blasted to hell and back, and recognized the spark of something angry and violent.


    "Unhand me, fools! The Chimerae are in there," Cacliocos seethed, trying but unable to point.


    "The Chimerae are in that building?" Betelgeuse said, pointing his muzzle at the structure which had lost the pillar and which was adjacent to the watchtower.


    "Yes, we must kill them! It is our duty." Cacliocos gritted his teeth, ripping his hands from Voke and Thete and advancing several steps past Betelgeuse.


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Betelgeuse sensed Douglas creeping up beside, but kept his gaze fixated on the back of Cacliocos'' head.


    "How many?" Betelgeuse inquired.


    "... No more than four or five. PFC Shekar got the rest," Cacliocos intoned, his back turned to them, pointing a trembling finger at a gibbet of charred meat several meters away, its skin glistening dully under what sunlight had managed to penetrate the smog. Betelgeuse could see Douglas three steps away from Cacliocos, his railgun slung over his back, his good hand grasping the hilt of the combat knife sheathed just above his thigh. Voke, a sense of alarm flashing across his face, stepped forward involuntarily, and looked as if he might put himself between Douglas and Cacliocos.


    "Douglas," Thete snapped, shaking her head from side to side. No, don''t do it.


    Douglas halted his step, glancing to Betelgeuse and then pointing through Voke to Cacliocos. Do I?


    Everything hung by an uncertain thread.


    "... We''ll get the bastards, sir," Betelgeuse said, shaking his head after a moment''s thought. We let him live for now.


    Cacliocos wheeled about, letting his eyes run from Voke to Thete and finally to Douglas. And when he saw Douglas and the missing limb his expression softened imperceptibly. "Looks like they got you as well. We''ll avenge that arm of yours, son. Sergeant Jutson… tactical formation."


    "Are you certain, sir?" Thete managed, her voice tremulous. She was staring at Betelgeuse with a strange expression and her lids had narrowed. Within her prosthetic eye a luminous pupil of pure crimson flashed.


    "Do not worry, Sergeant Jutson, I have mastered myself. We will kill them, and we will live to tell the tale," Cacliocos returned, his tone full of conviction, his expression set into a grim mask.


    "Hurry up—we must stop standing around like fops in the open," he added, pointing to the structure with the runes carved into its facade. "Into the Labcent."


    The Labcent was a broad structure which stood perhaps five stories high and was topped by a roof which slanted upward. As one went from back to front the high roof flared higher still, far beyond the blocky facade of the building, until it appeared to peek out above the walls of Liberation''s Reach. Under that facade lay floor-to-ceiling windows of tempered glass within which there was only darkness.


    Of the four original pillars supporting that flared roof some ten meters from the building''s facade, two had collapsed almost perpendicular to the building, and the leftmost one of these had served as Cacliocos'' support; between the pillars which remained standing, rows of transomed windows stared out silently from the second to fifth floors, dark and foreboding and spidered with cracks.


    A shadowed entrance gouged into the first floor''s facade of tempered glass, and Cacliocos was the first to melt into that shrouded place. Thete followed him, hugging close to his heels.


    Voke nudged Betelgeuse with his elbow. Their eyes met, and questions passed between their searching gazes that could not be easily answered. A shaft of dappled light passed over the crown of Voke''s head, the ray penetrating into the clear visor and illuminating, suggestively, those knotty locks that obscured the mark of the mutineer. Framed by rock and gloom, Betelgeuse watched with lynx''s eyes that veil of light melt away again into nothingness, his face scarved by the twilight murk and his penal brand inflamed upon his broad forehead and passing into sepsis.


    Cacliocos and Thete had gone on without them and had disappeared into the deep darkness. Douglas and Frederica flanked Betelgeuse and tapped gently the clavicle carapace of his exosuit, glancing at each other and then glancing at Betelgeuse, their expressions fraught.


    Finally, Betelgeuse motioned with his chin toward the Labcent, and as Voke traced a cautious path toward that place Betelgeuse did not let his eyes leave the nape of that neck even as it, too, became one with the shadow.


    <hr>


    They groped their way through that vestibular lobby and into a narrow corridor that debouched to a capacious stairwell. They paused there a moment, discussing tactics in hushed tones, and Cacliocos ultimately decided to ascend the staircase with the aid of his headlamp set to the dimmest setting.


    "Lead headlamp only," Cacliocos instructed tersely and took the lead himself, in so doing making himself the first and easiest target.


    Betelgeuse observed this and saw a commander very unlike the ones he had become familiar with. Cacliocos led from the front and maintained a tight control of Section Five''s movement, ensuring all directions were covered.


    They had come to the second floor when the ground vibrated roughly, almost causing Douglas to lose his balance.


    "The fu—"


    Douglas was cut-off mid-expletive by Cacliocos, who urged, in clipped tones, the section to maintain comms discipline.


    Up the staircase they went in gloom and silent tension. They reached the third floor and somewhere across the corridor the sound of chairlegs dragging across tile reverberated softly, and they knew then that at least one of the enemy lay in that direction.


    The light was shut off and Cacliocos stepped into that windowless corridor with mincing steps, followed by the rest of Section Five.


    Betelgeuse'' eyes adjusted quickly and he realized that an emergency light shone a dim blue in the far corner of the ceiling. Doors lined the corridor, all of them open, all of them brimming with half-shapes flayed and horrible. Every room was piled full of things that might have been flesh-puppets hanging motionless and souled with demons of the indigo dark.


    Thete made a sound that was quick and throaty and Betelgeuse wondered if something had been revealed to her prosthetic eye.


    They came to the end of the straight corridor and found the steel door there closed and locked.


    "Anyone still have grenades?" Cacliocos whispered.


    "Yes, sir," responded Thete immediately. Betelgeuse thought her voice higher than usual.


    "Breach in five. Room-clearing drill—left-side men, pay careful attention: LR rooms tend to be lopsided, with more space on the left," Cacliocos explained. "I''ll take point on left. Who''s with me?"


    "B.T., Freddy, you both go left. Voke, you''ll take right with me. Doug, straight down the middle," Thete quickly rattled off allocations.


    "Okay," Cacliocos nodded, retrieving the grenade from Thete and kneeling down to place it carefully where the door interfaced with the jamb. Then he fiddled with his wrist transceiver, manually overriding the grenade''s digital sequencer so that the fuse would be set to a five-second timer.


    "Get back now," Cacliocos intoned, and Section Five stepped back several feet and took cover by the jamb of the nearest rooms—Betelgeuse and Frederica on the left, and Thete, Voke and Douglas on the right.


    "What is this," hissed Douglas, squinting into the darkness of the room he was taking cover in.


    "Quiet! In five," Cacliocos snapped, pulling the pin and rushing back to take cover with Betelgeuse and Frederica, simultaneously switching his headlamp to high beam.


    Four.


    "Lights on!" Thete commanded.


    Three.


    The cold steel of the door was suddenly awash in white light. The rooms shone dimly by the reflection of those scything beams.


    Two.


    Betelgeuse couldn''t help looking, and where the white beam passed he saw a multitude of dead things misshapen and burnt into slaglike forms.


    One.


    The door ripped outward in a ragged tear, and Cacliocos bolted forward through the dust, Frederica and Betelgeuse close behind.


    "Right clear!" Thete transmitted.


    "Left clear!" Cacliocos transmitted.


    "Middle clear!" Douglas transmitted, slurring.


    They had penetrated into an empty room, dark like all the rest and bounded with crushed tables and tumbled stacks of chairs, centered with a raised platform like a catafalque upon which was lying a grotesque thing chained by its limbs.


    A naked and dead thing that had been once female and human. Its breasts were engorged and veined with purple lacework and its stomach was an empty red pustule burst violently into a spew of organs and blood dried black and streaking from the platform and into the cracks of the concrete floor.


    Its face was lean and womanly and somehow lightly mustached for all that, and her naked lips were bright red by the light of their buzzing headlamps. Her eyes, open and nigh popping out of their sockets, were glazed rheumy and stained red where the capillaries had broken up. Cacliocos inspected the woman''s nails and reported that the woman had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. She had been alive through her disembowelment, he said.


    Somewhere beside that garish disgorgement Betelgeuse saw a lumpen thing like a piece of melted ore. He came beside it and scrutinized the streaks of black and found it very like burnt plastic and thought that in its vaguely cuboid shape it bore a resemblance to something quite familiar to him.


    And he felt that this must be her Incunabulum, and he silently wondered if she did not immediately die after the Incunabulum had been destroyed, and wondered further what would happen to him if his own Incunabulum were to suffer the same.


    "What is this?" Douglas asked aloud, his voice cutting through the soft static stutter, finally unable to keep himself silent.


    Thete turned, and the full glare of her headlamp was on Douglas'' face as Douglas'' was on hers, and Betelgeuse saw his eyes squint and begin their tidal drift and her prosthetic dilate and narrow its crimson pupil. Betelgeuse noted that Douglas'' lips were the pale blue of cyanosis—most likely the effect of the earlier breach in his suit—and wondered about his ability to maintain a semblance of alertness even given his missing arm.


    Nobody answered Douglas, as Cacliocos focused his attention on that body and continued tracing his eyes down the vicious cavity, from the ribs snapped outwards to the pulped diaphragm and squashed stomach, toward the pelvis where the uterus looked like it had erupted outward by the action of an alien force, as if a baby had been conceived and so impatiently brought to term that the only avenue for birth was a savage explosion outward into the world.


    A pounding sound echoed from somewhere distant.


    They whipped around, bracing their railguns. The rest of the room was devoid of life. Their headlamps converged upon the steel door at the far end of the room, this one dented inward from some great force.


    It was slightly open. Douglas had neglected to report this, and the rest of them had missed it in their exhaustion and tunnel-vision. ''Then again, he did lose an arm,'' mused Betelgeuse.


    "Middle clear?" Thete sounded, her mumbles laced with frustration.


    "Comms!" warned Cacliocos, enforcing the silence.


    All was quiet save for static and the low whine of their weapons. Betelgeuse saw that deep gouges had been cut into the concrete floor near that steel portal. The adjacent walls were decorated with chaotic splotches of pinkish blood, like a cubist-surrealist wallpaper dreamt up by a painter in the throes of LSD.


    Then, they heard a dim crash from beyond the door and the report of a Chimerae weapon being discharged, and their heartbeats quickened as one.


    With a magnificent crash, the door came flying off its hinges and towards them.