Because all the cauldrons within reach of the base were already overridden, Aloy had to travel back east on the same line she’d gone to New York. With another manual override for her Sunwing that Beta cobbled together, HEPHAESTUS’ arm as her override spear and a bow and quiver of arrows produced by Tomas, she felt out of her usual comfort zone.

Nothing felt familiar.

Everything felt wrong.

Including the doubt she was constantly battling in her soul.

She had given HEPHAESTUS the override authority to the cauldrons she’d already conquered. HEPHAESTUS’ said it had increased its capacity exponentially but insisted that it needed more cauldrons to start to fight back.

It was no easy thing to give up that which she had taken from it.

Aloy second guessed herself more than ever as she flew away from the base, wondering if she’d just condemned the human remnant.

She was happily distracted by tribal needs and quests once she passed the furthest eastern borders of the Sacred Land. There were undiscovered tribes and allies.

The Routaru with their barefoot, living in harmony with their surroundings, tribe.

The Jesurites who used the stars to guide their lifestyle and who had interpreted the arrival of the Odyssey star as a beacon of hope…before it turned purple in the heavens. Now it represented death.

“Not far from the truth.” Aloy had remarked upon hearing their belief system.

There were two tribes, the Fraym and the Lenotra that had suffered such grievous losses to Nemesis that they had set aside their differences to work together to try to save themselves.

Not one tribe was untouched.

Every tribe had lost so many.

And Nemesis wasn’t letting up.

After Aloy overrode her second cauldron, taking it back from Nemesis so that HEPHAESTUS could permeate its being, she emerged, weary and exhausted to see a haze of smoke and birds scattering from it in the distance.

“What is that?” She leapt onto her Sunwing and flew it towards the smoke. “Oh no…”

A HORUS robot, one of Faro’s so called ‘peace keepers’, was ripping through the land, its long arms tearing apart forests, gouging the earth and shattering the tops of mountains.

“Aloy to base!” Aloy cried as she kicked her Sunwing to go fast. “Are you seeing this?!”

“We are, Aloy. It looks like Nemesis has taken offense to your cauldron overrides.”

“I thought Nemesis couldn’t use the FARO plague robots.” Kotallo’s voice demanded.

“It couldn’t use MINERVA to reactivate all of them,” Tomas’ voice cut through, “but it can manually insert itself in them.”

“We’ll work out how it did it after I’ve killed it!”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Aloy, are you out of your mind! That’s a HORUS! Even the Ten of the Tenakth struggled to bring those down!” Alva exclaimed.

“So give me options!” Aloy ordered, her eyes tracking the probable path of the HORUS. “Because this thing is heading for the Jesurites!”

“You’ve got an override module!”

“I can’t override that!” Aloy flew towards it, its huge black body as large as a mountain. One of its tentacle arms whipped out, heading for her. She dove on the Sunwing, twisting out of its path, flying beneath its belly. The HORUS immediately collapsed itself and Aloy only just escaped on the far side in time. “I can’t even get close! Tomas, talk to me!”

“What makes you think I can help?”

“You’re Faro’s clone for goodness sake!”

“Doesn’t mean I have instinctive access to his knowledge!”

Aloy yelled, unleashing arrows, firing them at the HORUS head. They glanced off its hide. “If armour plated soldiers with powerful weapons could barely bring these down…”

“Aloy, the HORUS is powered by an electromagnetic core,” Gaia’s voice said calmly, “if you can start an overload, the HORUS will rupture from the inside out.”

“Those cores…they’re on its back…” Aloy groaned. “I miss my shieldwing!”

“Be careful Aloy!”

She flew high behind the HORUS then directed it to dive fast towards its back. Coming in from behind meant its tentacles could not attack her directly although several of them snapped in her direction, trying to throw her off course. As the HORUS reached the mountains, the outer settlements of the Jesurites destroyed as the remaining tribesmen fled into the main city built within old world ruins, Aloy leapt from the Sunwing’s back and landed badly on the HORUS. She slipped sideways, her hand catching the seam of a metal plate, keeping her from falling. She scrambled up its back, heading to the electromagnetic core.

She had to pry the casing off with the spear tip then spun it around, ready to jam the module into the core when she felt rather than saw a tentacle coming for her. Aloy rolled out of the way, the HORUS own tentacle stabbing into its hide, tearing a hole in its armour.

“Hurry!”

“You come here and do this!” She snarled, pulling herself back up to the core and starting the overload process. As she did so, purple light sparked out of its plating, searing her hand. She cried out, pulling back, her hand burning badly.

“Aloy, the core is overloading! Run!”

She ran down its back, calling for her Sunwing and leapt towards it just as the core exploded, tearing a huge chunk out of the back of the HORUS, the howl of a man echoing in her ears as she slid from its body, unable to hang on any longer. The Sunwing grabbed her with its claws and threw her onto its back, darting dangerously between the tentacles of the HORUS before escaping its death throes and feeling cool, free air.

Aloy leaned down, gasping, her hand smarting like crazy, tears running down her face. She looked over her shoulder.

“The Jesurites…they’re okay…”

“They won’t be okay if we can’t stop Nemesis.”

Aloy closed her eyes, the weight of responsibility trying to crush her.

“Aloy, you’d better return to base.”

“I need to override more cauldrons.” She said, trying to keep the waver of pain out of her voice.

“You’ve been hurt by Nemesis. It needs to be checked out.”

Aloy swore silently then nodded. “On my way.”

Back at base the injury was inspected. Before Zo was allowed to apply a paste that would take away the pain, Tomas insisted on a skin sample which he scurried to his precious science lab with and sealed himself in.

“You’re welcome…” Aloy said bitterly as Zo tended to her wound. “Ah…”

“Sorry…” Zo shook her head. “It was a plasma burn. It needs to be cleaned before it can be bandaged…and you can’t afford to be falling apart out there.”

“I know.” Aloy suffered the attention. “Has there been any word from Las Vegas?”

“No.”

“Maybe I should head there…”

“Aloy,” Zo eyed her, “at the risk of sounding like Sylens, you need to stay focussed on the big picture. Erend can handle himself.”

“Against a HORUS?” Aloy said bluntly.

Zo’s gaze dropped. She didn’t answer. Aloy’s heart sank. She was losing everyone. She was losing the fight. Beta came down from the control room.

“Tell me HEPHAESTUS has been coming up with ideas on how to beat Nemesis?” Aloy asked strongly.

“HEPHAESTUS is still proliferating itself through the cauldron network,” Beta excused and Aloy felt her teeth grind together, “it’s working as fast as it can.”

“Really…”

“If it tried to take cauldrons on its own, Nemesis will get its hooks into it. HEPHAESTUS can’t risk it. Not yet.”

“Right,” Aloy looked at her bandaged hand, “I guess I’d better get out there and override more cauldrons.”