“You… don’t recognize me?” K18772 snapped its head up at the CBG. “Phantom Forge.”
The CBG stared at the Exiler in front of it, disbelief spreading across its face. After a few stunned seconds it managed, “Wyatt?”
“That’s right.”
Wyatt took a few steps forward. More robots slipped into the edge of his field—and more gun barrels quietly swung around.
As a clone of Phantom Forge, the CBG wasn’t stupid. It saw what was happening almost immediately, and it felt the shape of the threat: the closer Wyatt got, the more likely the robots around it would turn their guns and blow its head apart.
“Fire!” it roared, pointing at Wyatt. “Kill him! Everyone—fire!”
The island was already on a hair trigger. Weapons discharged almost in the same instant.
“BANGBANGBANG—”
Muzzle flashes erupted. Brass sprayed. In the crush of bodies, the first ranks on both sides dropped in heaps within seconds.
CBG still had the numbers, and more units were flooding in from outside. It ordered its forces to ignore the ‘converted’ robots and focus fire on Wyatt—
but it quickly discovered it couldn’t make that happen.
Wyatt never stopped moving. He flowed through the crowd, always charging where the cluster was thickest. Any shot aimed at him was intercepted by some other robot diving into the line of fire. Any unit that drifted into his consciousness field flipped allegiance on the spot.
And because Wyatt looked almost identical to any other Exiler, CBG’s troops couldn’t reliably tell him apart in the chaos.
Less than a minute passed before even more robots ‘defected.’ And the more Wyatt used the ability, the cleaner and faster it became.
CBG shouted orders to spread out and back away, to create distance—but the corridors were narrow and the crowd too dense. The converted robots didn’t hesitate at all. They charged in suicidal waves, firing as they ran, straight toward CBG.
In a blink, it became close-quarters combat. Blades lit, shotguns boomed, explosive rounds and smoke grenades detonated, flamethrowers washed the corridors in fire.
The scene went out of control.
Firelight strobed through smoke. CBG’s side couldn’t distinguish friend from foe anymore; it devolved into shooting at anything that moved. Wyatt’s controlled robots didn’t care who the target was.
Robots fell like grass. CBG itself took several hits. It tried to order a retreat, but nobody heard through the gunfire and explosions. When it realized it had lost control, it tried to sprint back out—only to find the exit jammed with bodies.
So it ran deeper into the ship.
***
No one was more confused than Y4139.
The moment the fight started, it had ducked into a corridor leading inward. It couldn’t understand what it had just seen—how the half-dazed K18772 from a moment ago had suddenly turned into a supercharged rebel and gone head-to-head with CBG.
Did he get his memory back? Or did his brain finally burn out? And why are so many units rebelling with him?
Y4139 was still trying to process the question when CBG sprinted past it in the corridor. Y4139 didn’t even react.
The second CBG disappeared, the chaos collapsed. The robots left standing were either converted by Wyatt—or already terminated.
The island floor was carpeted with wreckage. Wyatt scanned quickly. Only a dozen or so robots were still upright, and none of them were CBG’s corpse.
“Where is that bastard?” Wyatt tossed away the empty rifle and demanded.
“That way!” Y4139 shouted immediately.
Wyatt ordered the remaining units to hold the entrance to keep CBG-03 Squad from pushing into the ship, then grabbed a few Hyenas. He snatched a V30 large-bore pistol off a nearby wreck and sprinted into the corridor.
As he passed Y4139, he threw a single sentence over his shoulder:
“Why didn’t you stop it?”
“I—”
But Wyatt was already gone.
Y4139 saw the Hyenas scrambling to follow and dragged itself up after them.
***
Wyatt moved fast, and the deeper he went, the more the Sunflower’s ruin fought him.
Some passages were choked with sand and debris. Some ceilings had collapsed so low he had to crouch and squeeze. Some floors had buckled into ridges and pits, and a misstep could drop you straight through a sudden hole into the level below.
To avoid losing the target, Wyatt sent the Hyenas out in different directions with orders to report anything suspicious.
CBG-02, running blind, eventually fled into a dead end.
When it tried to double back, a Hyena intercepted it. CBG-02 shouted orders, issuing commands at full authority—but the Hyena didn’t even hesitate. It lunged.
CBG-02 shot it down. Another Hyena charged in immediately—
and then another.
Wyatt, still wrestling with the ship’s labyrinth, heard gunfire ahead and followed it at a sprint.
CBG-02 finished off the second Hyena and turned to run—
when a sharp blast cracked behind it.
“BANG!”
Its legs tore open. Both knees buckled. It hit the ground hard.
It went limp, playing dead.
Footsteps approached.
CBG-02 whipped around, raised its gun, and fired—
but Wyatt was faster. He stepped in and stomped the muzzle aside. The rounds punched into the wall instead of him.
Wyatt raised his own weapon toward CBG-02’s head.
CBG-02 abandoned the gun, grabbed Wyatt’s legs, and rolled with brutal force, toppling him. Wyatt’s shot went wide—wasted.
But even as he hit the ground, Wyatt moved: he discarded the pistol, twisted his hips, broke the grip, and surged back up in one motion.
His fist slammed into CBG-02’s head.
THUD.
The head dented the metal wall.
CBG-02 tried to respond, but Wyatt didn’t allow a second of space. He seized CBG-02 by the throat, pinned it to the wall, and began punching—again and again and again.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The CBG’s head lost its shape, crushed inward until it was nearly hammered into the plating.
***
Y4139 arrived in time to see the final seconds—and went still.
It had seen CBG fight before. CBG could outmatch even an Umbral. One-on-one, it was practically unbeatable.
And yet in Wyatt’s hands, it lasted only seconds.
Wyatt stopped when CBG-02 finally hung limp. He looked down at his own right hand and noticed the deformation there too—then remembered: that arm had been replaced with ordinary material after it broke.
He turned to Y4139. “Perfect timing. Help me.”
“Yes!” Y4139 rushed closer.
“Burn it,” Wyatt said. “Torch it.”
“But… it looks terminated.”
“It isn’t.” Wyatt pointed at the CBG’s legs. “If we leave it, it’ll regenerate in minutes.”
Only then did Y4139 notice: the shredded legs were already rebuilding themselves.
It didn’t waste time. It rotated the flamethrower nozzle in its right arm and blasted the body with fire.
In the blaze, the CBG spasmed violently a few times—then went still.
They waited, watching, until they were sure it was truly dead.
Then a Hyena ran in with a report: somewhere nearby, it had detected a steady, rhythmic knocking.
***
Half an hour earlier.
Inside the valuables vault, Starling stared at the monster in front of her, unable to read its intentions.
It didn’t show any of the panic a trapped creature should have. Instead, it casually found a corner to sit in and kept flashing her a crooked, ugly smile.
Starling had the sudden, sinking feeling that she was the one who’d been trapped.
“You’re not going to kill me?” she couldn’t help asking.
“Not yet.” CBG-01 shook its head, still smiling. “I’m interested in you now. You’ve something I desperately need.”
“What?” Starling asked, fear slipping into her voice despite herself.
“Loyalty. Faith.”
CBG-01’s grin widened. “If every subordinate I had could fight like you—throwing yourself at an enemy far stronger without flinching—I would’ve conquered this planet a long time ago.”
“I want to know how your brain is built. I’m taking you back to base, opening you up, and studying you properly.”
Starling forced a cold laugh to hide the terror. “You think you’re getting out of here?”
CBG-01’s smile never left. “You picked a good place. On my own, it would be hard.”
“But I didn’t come alone.”
Starling’s face drained.
As if on cue, muffled chaos arrived through the heavy steel: distant gunfire, a rush of feet—hard to parse through thick plating.
“They’re here,” CBG-01 said, pleased. “Right on time.”
It stood and walked to the hatch, then knocked in a measured pattern.
Minutes later, knocks answered from the other side. Through the seam, faint flashes of light appeared—sparks from laser cutting.
Starling went gray with despair. While CBG-01’s attention was on the door, she quietly pulled her pistol from behind her back, aimed at CBG-01’s head—then hesitated, and turned the barrel to her own.
She pulled the trigger.
“Click.”
CBG-01 snapped around—then relaxed, and laughed under its breath.
“Heh. Looks like fate doesn’t want you dead.”
Starling dropped the useless pistol and slid down the wall, all strength gone.
The hatch bolts were cut quickly by a Firecaller’s tool. An Exiler and a Firecaller stepped inside.
CBG-01 frowned and leaned toward the gap, as if expecting more. “Only you two?”
The Exiler’s optics swept the room. It spotted Starling slumped in the corner, hollow-eyed—and in an instant, connected the scene to the video it had seen.
“Two is enough,” Wyatt said. He raised the V30.
“BANG!”
The shot hit CBG-01 square in the chest and launched it backward into a row of shelves.
Wyatt walked up, aimed at its head, and fired twice more.
He turned to Y4139. “One more favor. Drag this one out, too. Burn it.”
“Gladly.” Y4139 grabbed CBG-01 by the leg and hauled it outside.
Wyatt lowered the pistol and crossed to Starling. He dropped to one knee in front of her and bowed his head—a gesture of the highest human respect.
Starling stared, stunned, unable to speak.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Wyatt said, voice rough. “I… I’m Wyatt.”