When the machine army broke in through the first breach, Edean still managed to hold.
When the second hole was drilled open, the turning point came. The humans were forced back behind the walls.
Not long after, a borer rig punched through the cavern roof. It tore down a sheet of rock and, together with the first two entry points, formed a triangle that boxed Edean Tower in at the center. The machine army split into three prongs and poured into the caverns.
The fight turned into a slaughter.
Bubbles Farm was ruined. Turrets on the wall flipped one after another, and the tall perimeter wall collapsed like a failing dam under the bombardment of a dozen Destroyers.
Once the Destroyers broke through, they raised their barrels and began hammering the Inquisitor exoskeleton mechs in the plaza, along with any turret that still had a heartbeat. Behind the tanks, Exilers, Flamecallers, and other humanoid units sprinted over the rubble toward the human mechs.
The machines’ greatest threat was the artificial sun mounted atop the tower. The fusion body gathered energy into lances of light and swept them across the densest parts of the machine ranks. Any robot caught in the beam half-melted under the insane heat and died where it stood. If the beam lingered on a heavy unit, even thick armor burned through, leaving it crippled or exploding.
But there was only one artificial sun, and fast targets were hard to pin. Ghost Bee and Nightmare fighters quickly concentrated their fire. Edean’s few remaining drones had already been spent, and the four anti-air turrets on the sun’s platform lasted barely a minute before they were destroyed.
The fusion generator itself took serious damage. To prevent a nuclear detonation, the humans shut it down.
With the “sunlight” gone, the cavern dimmed at once. Without the nuclear beams, human morale sagged. The situation worsened as the machine army, indifferent to artillery and panic alike, kept tightening the ring and shrinking the humans’ space.
Turrets in the plaza and on the tower focused on the heavy units, trading fire with Destroyers and Bloodthirsters. They had no attention left for the sprinting machine infantry.
As humanoid machines poured through the collapsed wall, Chabu bellowed, “Defensive formation! Hold them!”
The Inquisitor mechs stopped firing at aircraft and formed ranks across the eight main corridors. Like a pike square facing a cavalry charge, the first row planted anti-phase shields into the ground, edge to edge. The second row braced rapid-fire autocannons on top and unleashed a synchronized blaze.
The robots charged and shot as they ran. Wave after wave fell, and still they didn’t slow. On the human side, fear crept into the line. As the machines closed, someone took an involuntary step back.
Chabu yelled that no one was allowed to retreat, but it was useless. One person backing up broke the formation. The machine tide punched into the crowd. Humans scattered, some leaping off the path to either side, some frozen stupid with shock, most turning and sprinting back toward the plaza.
The collapse spread like an infection. On the neighboring corridor, people began running before they had even made contact. A domino effect rolled through the defenses, until all eight corridors broke at once.
With victory decided, Phantom Forge began to savor it. The fighters withdrew. The infantry received a new order: put away the ranged weapons. From here on out it was plasma blades, large-bore pistols, flamethrowers, and even bare hands. The battle turned into a one-sided massacre. Mechs and pilots were carved open, crushed flat, burned to charcoal, or smashed into fragments. The corridors filled with a continuous howl.
The machine soldiers soon flooded into the plaza. By then, every roadside turret had been destroyed. The plaza was packed with humans, but only a fraction kept fighting. Some abandoned their mechs, some fled down into the city, others ran into the tower. But the elevators and stairwells could swallow only so many.
Screams rose everywhere. Several Flamecallers pushed in behind the infantry and bathed the terrified crowd in fire. People rolled and thrashed inside the flames. The entire first level, plaza included, became a sea of fire. Fewer than ten percent of the fleeing humans made it into the tower.
Looking up, there wasn’t a single intact gun emplacement left on the tower skin, and not a single six-legged guard still capable of resistance. Fires and smoke clung to every level.
The tower exterior was lost.
And yet General Graham looked almost unnaturally calm. Only when no one was watching did he wipe sweat from his brow. He issued orders in rapid succession, concentrating the survivors at several key choke points inside the tower and preparing for a last, brutal corridor war.
Faced with the labyrinth of Edean Tower, Phantom Forge didn’t push floor by floor. It moved like it knew the place. Bloodthirsters and strike fighters blasted open the balcony doors of key levels, and small assault ships delivered robot units straight into the breaches.
Doors fell one after another. More Exilers and Raiders poured inside. Gunfire and explosions echoed between levels as humans fought in narrow hallways, switching to hit-and-run tactics.
Graham could tell Phantom Forge wasn’t trying to demolish the tower. If so, the tower’s size and complexity, its maze of routes, was his last way to buy time. His last hope.
“Hold the line, warriors!” he shouted into the comm. “This is the final hour. The enemy is inside the tower, but we haven’t lost yet. We fight them here, room by room. From this moment on, anyone over ten – old men, women, clerks – if you’ve got four working limbs, you pick up a rifle and you fight. If you hold out to your very last breath… maybe a miracle happens!”
Scientists from R&D, biotech, and every other department were issued FBZ pulse rifles, a batch Julian had supplied to Edean earlier. They were bright, pristine, and unfired.
But the people who had never squeezed a trigger looked hollow. Some returned to their stasis pods and went back to sleep. Some went to their rooms to be with family, planning to end it when the doors were breached. Fewer than half joined the defense.
On the clone-wards, even the older children were handed weapons. The administrators, invoking humanity’s “great mission,” ordered the kids to stand by the balcony doors and block the machines with flesh and bone. And yet, strangely, while other floors fought and bled, their level was never invaded.
Graham sent his remaining guards away, ordering them to protect Soren. Once he was alone, he crept to a secluded kitchen and slipped into a cold storage room hung with slabs of beef.
Soren, meanwhile, screamed orders and gathered stragglers until he had formed a squad of fifty or sixty. With numbers and firepower, they managed to drop a few Exilers at first, until the noise drew more machines.
As his enemies multiplied and his squad thinned, fear finally caught up with him. He ran. Soldiers fell and scattered. Even Solina, his constant shadow, turned down a side corridor and vanished. The machines let everyone else go. They stayed on Soren, relentless.
In the end, two squads pinned him in a curved hallway. Only five remained at his back. Three human soldiers were erased in an instant.
Soren shoved Molly forward and darted for another junction. Molly was shot through the head. A round took Soren’s knee, and his whole lower leg blew away.
He hit the floor, screaming until his throat tore raw.
An Exiler walked up, a plasma blade humming to life.
“No – no – wait!” Soren threw up his hands, shrieking. “Phantom Forge! You can’t kill me!”
The Exiler’s optic flared. “Why?”
“Because I ended your greatest enemy! Julian!”
“Aren’t you planning to do the same to me?”
The blade flashed. One of Soren’s arms left his shoulder.
Soren rolled in his own blood, wailing. “No… please… don’t kill me!”
“Death would be too easy. I’ll make it slow. Payment, for what you tried to do to me.”
“I… what did I do… to you?”
“You thought sending two bugs would take me down? I’m not Julian.”
“No! No!” Soren sobbed. “It was Graham’s idea, Graham! I can help you control the Tower Clan. I can make you stronger. Please… don’t -”
“Thanks. Not interested.”
The Exiler lifted its plasma blade again…