Shad POV

I’d been watching the initial phase of the battle from the monitors on Ad Astra’s bridge. As long as my personal soulcoin was locked out of the zone, there wasn't much else I could do.

We'd sent in all of the assets that the Galactics had asked for—a couple of brigades who hadn't been involved in the earlier attempt—and everyone else was standing by. Tensions were high as I watched from the bridge. Grandpa was beside me, quietly fuming to himself. We didn't dare discuss this, not with Coyote still co-opted by the Coalition.

Juana was in her office, poring over Galactic laws and regulations, trying to be prepared for whatever happened next. I knew Colin had a plan; I was certain he must. We would respond to it as soon as we figured out what it was, helping him to the best of our ability without actually voiding any of the agreements and contracts we have with the Galactics. Actually, I was ready to screw all that and send the Galactics to whatever version of hell they might belong to, but both Juana and Grandpa were urging caution. I understood their reasoning, I did. This is my sister that we were talking about, and I wasn't going to stand by and do nothing if there was a way I could help her.

Grandpa smiled in appreciation as the casualties mounted. "They're not letting this go without a fight. I don't understand why they’re not all in just yet."

"I think the Patriarch is proving a point to the rest of the Galatics,” I said. My teams were on standby, as were the military units. As soon as Kvaltash sent the word, we'd all jump right in.

I was itching for action, but not like this. They had eyes watching everywhere. If I gave any less than my all, the Dominator Network would see, and I'd be hauled up on charges of dereliction of duty. Juana had made it abundantly clear just what that would mean for myself and for all of Earth. Fortunately, I had something to fall back on—a well-known tendency to commit suicide in the advancement of my goals. I just had to make sure that my suicides weren't particularly effective for a change.

I stiffened as an explosion went off. Even on the monitors, it looked intense. The casualty counter jumped 300 or more in the blink of an eye. "What was that?"

"Analyzing," Coyote said, using his strained tones. I was certain he was doing it on purpose to remind us he wasn't safe to confide in. "It appears to be an ethereum bomb. Fascinating. They've found a way to directly detonate the ethereum, which disrupts soulcoin connections. The miners in the affected region will have to be manually re-integrated into this zone, and the interface point is currently offline. It will need to be re-established. That is an effective tactic, although expensive. I calculate it will require approximately 5.7% of the Dominator Network's attention for the next 12 minutes to compensate. Estimated time of full domination of this level is increased to 27 minutes, 30 seconds."

"Wait, what? You have that calculated so exactly?"

"Once battle was joined and certain parameters became evident, yes. That is, of course, expecting that—" Coyote interrupted himself. "And there it is. You are all being activated. Please step through your nearest portal to be transferred to the battlefield."

I looked at Grandpa. He nodded to me. "Good luck," he told me. "You're fighting for all of us here."

I nodded. My mouth was dry. I was going into battle against my sister and my friend, and I wasn't sure how to make sure that I lost.

I went to the newly activated portal and stepped right through, instantly finding myself in a familiar position — in the midst of chaos. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of miners all suddenly transported to the battlefield. My HUD filled with indications of who was friend and who was foe, arrows pointing toward the central objective, scrolling combat text as a couple of different units began communicating, and finally, a voice cutting through all of it in my head.

"The Alliance is now directing this battle personally. Captain Shad Williams of Earth forces, you will take your units and proceed to Point Alpha, securing it at all costs."

A blinking green overlay appeared on my screen. To my disappointment, Point Alpha was a respawn location located to the west, away from the center of the fighting, which was Sage and Colin's fort. They had an impressive facility here. This whole zone was shades of purple and pink, with hexagonal rock formations everywhere. Underfoot, the ground had the same hexagonal pattern repeated on it, covered slightly by green and white lichen clinging to every surface.

Up ahead rose adobe walls of a fort surrounded by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individual turrets. The towers were blaring out different flavors of death, from ice to lightning to fire.

The fighting was horrific. All around me, galactic forces surged forward with no seeming orders. But if the Dominator Network was in control, there would be a plan here I wasn't yet grasping. I assembled my team, checking my HUD and seeing that most of the military forces had been arrayed on the southern side of the fortress. I tried sending Major Anderson a quick note but received a system error message: "To prevent lapses in communication, your direct messages have been limited to members of your own assigned team. Other messages will be routed through the control network and delivered as necessary."

I smiled grimly to myself. So, they didn't trust me and were isolating me away from most of the human forces. I wasn't sure if the Galactics suspected yet that Sage and Colin were behind the rogues. But no doubt, my actions previously in losing an entire team had been noted.

"Come with me," I told my assigned people. I had most of the Archaeologist squad, as well as a dozen other civilian contractors I had worked with over the last year. I’d randomly grouped them as ‘Yellow Squad’ and ‘Blue Squad’. I knew their capabilities and respected them all, and they would listen to me, I was sure. But what I would have given to have the gamers or some of my old friends like Team Mongoose with me now.

We hurried along to the assigned respawn point. As we did, a quick summary flashed up: "Previous attack on respawn point involved an ethereum bomb detonated on location. Calculations suggest the rogue can have no more than three more of these devices, perhaps as few as one. We are detecting incoming target carrying bomb now."

"Right," I told my team. "We stop them, and whatever happens, we don't let them use this bomb."

I still didn't feel good going up against my own people, but at least we weren't the ones trying to invade the fortress. I kept looking at my HUD, seeing the wave of invaders sweeping in and overrunning the defenses. The system intelligence had a countdown clock in the corner of my screen. I wasn't sure if everyone was getting the same countdown or if it was a special treat just for me. With every second that ticked down, my worries grew.

"Incoming," Yellow Squad warned. The five members moved off at my direction as I prepared myself.

Here came real miners escorted by a whole wave of NPCs. The miners were easy to pick out in their distinctive outfits. I recognized them instantly. It was Alpha leading the Gamers. I spotted Pete and Sam with her. No sign of the others, or Sage and Colin.

I knew how to go up against them. I barked out orders. "Yellow Squad, target this one." I marked Sam. He was their backline support most of the time these days but got flustered if too many enemies focused on him. Get him down, and the attack would be blunted.

What was I doing? I wanted them to win, didn't I? If only I had some idea what Colin had in mind. How many steps ahead was he playing? Did he expect me to be countering them? "Stop trying to think," I told myself. "It's not your strong suit. Get out there and fight. Colin had to be expecting this. Whatever his plan is, let him do it."

Something caught my eye, a distortion at the corner of my vision.

I activated Call ‘em Out, revealing hidden enemies as well as forcing them to target me. Rose popped into existence with a shout of anger.

A whole squad of invisible NPCs appeared at the same time. I hadn't even been expecting them. They were dressed all in black with ninja headbands and responded to being revealed by flinging throwing stars forward at us.

Two members of Yellow Squad were hit by the stars, which exploded on impact. They vanished in a puff of smoke. I got a countdown timer on their respawn. They'd be at the location just behind us in another 45 seconds.

The rest of Yellow Squad raced to the left to intercept Sam as the combat Archaeologists went head to head against Alpha. Rose was laying about herself with the big pink war hammer she favored. I stepped in and cast Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight. She dropped her weapon, and before she could get it again Blue Squad was on her, driving her back.

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Sam and Pete were too far away to have been caught by my Call ‘em Out, but Yellow Squad had them both occupied. Sam was in bad shape.

I rushed ahead, gun in hand, and fired a whole Barrage straight through the visor of Rose's armor. It wasn't enough to kill her. She retreated toward the back line, while Alpha was still caught in my Call ‘em Out. She had a pair of knives in her hands and a grimace on her face. I wasn't entirely sure if they recognized us the way I recognized them. This whole thing was confusing as hell.

Alpha raced toward me. As she got close, she dropped to her knees, sliding in like a runner going for home base, knives flashing. She caught the edge of my coat as I swung back. I hit her hand with a Trick Shot and sent one of the knives flying. Then I followed up with Fastest Gun in the West, targeting Rose, and charged across the battlefield.

Alpha roared in fury and chased me. I would have expected Call ‘em Out to have worn off by now. Maybe she was targeting me on purpose. I raced in toward Rose and fired off my Barrage again; it had just come off cooldown. She shrieked in anger, "You bastard!" as she dissolved in a flurry of sparks. I hoped she'd be respawning back inside their lines.

This wasn't for keeps, right? Surely? I desperately wanted to ask Coyote for reassurance, but I had no one. I was going on my own best I could.

Now Alpha had gotten control of herself. I turned as she raced back toward the graveyard where our first wave of casualties was respawning. The Yellow squad members and a couple of the archaeologists intercepted her. It looked like she was trying to make for the spawn point itself, probably to pull out her Ethereum bomb and nuke it.

What was the game here? We had multiple respawn points. With Kvaltash opening as many portals as we wanted, we could bring in reinforcements all day long.

I checked the stats. There were already over 2,000 miners in this zone and more coming in every minute. Yes, the deaths cost our side resources. But, with an alliance of the entire Reality Engine exploit behind us, we weren't going to run out of cash anytime soon. Surely Colin had a plan.

A roar overhead caught my attention. I looked up as an undulating dragon swooped down out of the clouds. It laid a line of fire across our graveyard, killing the miners who had just respawned and then vanished again.

I peered after it. Someone was riding on that dragon, two someones. It was too distant to make out details, but my heart pounded. This was a distraction, not for me, but for the coalition intelligences.

This whole business with the Ethereum bomb. What if it was a feint specifically to flush out someone? They'd had one bomb and shown they were willing to use it. Why? It wasn't going to win them this fight. Was it a desperate Hail Mary attempt?

They had forced this issue by striking multiple targets even after the last battle. They had wanted this. Why?

I was shooting madly as I thought, targeting the NPCs who came to back up to Alpha and her squad.

Let's suppose Colin's plan was going more or less as he'd expected so far. They'd responded quickly when Kvaltash brought in the reinforcements like they'd been expecting us, like they'd wanted this all along.

A message flashed in my head: "More reinforcements incoming on your position. Top priority: disable wielder of Ethereum bomb. Ethereum bomb must not be used again."

What would happen if it was? I didn't think I quite dared try to set it off myself. Alpha was retreating now back toward the next wave of NPCs pouring out of the fort to reinforce her, even as hundreds of miners collapsed on her position. Soon, she was surrounded.

She didn't set off the bomb. Maybe she had to be at the spawn point for it to do what it needed to do.

I heard another roar across the battlefield, glanced up to catch a glimpse of the dragon swooping down again on our back lines to wreak havoc. And then it hit me.

Sage and Colin were doing this to draw out Kvaltash. The Gamers had been along on all Kvaltash's raids. They knew everything I did about the key, except for the meeting where Kvaltash had announced its purpose. But Colin was clever. He'd put together what it could do and set up this situation just to bring us in, in order to capture the key or destroy it. That's what the dragon was about, a way to quickly get to our back lines.

I hesitated. The wasn't anything I could do, was there?

I could stall for time. I plunged into the thick of the fight, avoiding attacks where I could. I had a temporary shielding device on my belt, courtesy of our crafters. I activated it now, letting me wade through the fracas toward the embattled Alpha and her team. As I approached, I leveled my gun, and I fired off High Noon.

High Noon, my ability with the longest cooldown, I hadn't used it in all of this exploit. It forced a duel between me and my target, making both of us immune to any other attacks until I took the first shot in the fight. I'd used it to bring an end to bad situations more than once. Now Alpha froze, her attention fixed on me.

I had a <> in my display. The system intelligence spoke directly to me.

"Captain Williams, what are you attempting?"

"You said to disable or disarm her any way possible. She can't use the bomb while I've got this duel up," I said.

All around me, the fighting died down as the other galactic miners received their instructions from above. They withdrew a bit.

Pete was the only other Gamer still active. He had lowered his weapon, a baseball bat he used to lob various spells across the battleground, and was staring at me wide-eyed. So, he recognized who I was and knew I spotted him. That was good. At least there was one layer of subterfuge I didn't have to worry about.

I held up my left hand, gun still in my right. "Let's just talk this over," I suggested. "Surely we can come to some sort of reasonable conclusion."

Farther off, the battle still raged. The galactic miners had breached the southern wall. Our Joint Task Force personnel were leading the charge into the base, pouring in. There was no saving this. We had the numbers. I didn't know where my friends were in all of this, and I hoped they knew how to escape.

I prayed I was right, that this was all a distraction for the galactic intelligence managing this fight, in which case I would be aiding Colin, keeping the Dominators’ eyes off of whatever it was he was doing.

"Now," I said, "how about you just hand over that bomb and we all sit down and talk about this like reasonable people?"

Alpha's eyes flashed. The system spoke, this time aloud, in the same female voice I’d heard at the briefing.

"Rogue Agent Alpha. Our operatives have captured the soulcoin impressions of your allies, Rogue Agent Sam and Rose. They will be returned to the system exploit and stand trial for their actions. If you and your fellow Rogue Agents, entities Sam and Amber, will surrender, you may face leniency in your sentencing. And it is possible the Exploit Council will allow your debt contracts to be purchased by your own corporation."

A shiver went down my spine at that. I knew what the Galactics had done to Veda when she'd gone against them, and now I'd set up the Gamer Team to face those same miscarriages of justice. Alpha cocked her head to the side.

"You know what?" she said. "That's not actually the worst deal I've ever been offered. It's close, but I've had worse. We might be able to get somewhere." She turned to Pete. "What do you think, Pete?"

Pete's eyes narrowed, and then he gave her a quick nod. "I think we might be able to negotiate for a slightly stronger package. What do you say?" He looked up at the sky as though addressing the intelligence. "Make us a better offer? We're freelancers here. We go where the money's good. The rogue can't pay for our expensive habits, and we're willing to change sides yet again."

I couldn't help a quick stab of satisfaction. They were playing along, stalling for time. That's what we needed here, which meant I needed to keep all eyes even more tightly focused on me. I took a step forward, holding my gun low ready.

The outpost was almost completely overrun by now. My countdown timer flashed red. A face materialized over our head, enormous, 40 feet tall, a female space elf with unyielding features. “Five minutes, 14 seconds until complete domination of this zone. Once the zone is under our control, you will have lost your bargaining power,” the system declared aloud.

All around, the battle slowed. Some of the incoming portals winked out. I was having trouble focusing on my heads-up display and what was going on around me. Usually, Coyote helped me filter what was going on, but he was still silent. Whether completely cut off or just biding his time, I couldn't say.

"We need you to surrender that ethereum bomb," I told Alpha. "No negotiation until that's done."

She pulled a device out of thin air, a sparkling silver grenade, and spun it around on her finger by the pin loop. I couldn't help following it with my eyes. "Oh, this?" Before I could say anything else, she pulled the pin and then held down on the arming handle.

I laughed. "It's harmless until our duel's over."

"You sure about that?" Alpha challenged. "It's not an attack. It's a device. According to the rules that you just laid on me, I think it might still work. Shall we try it out? I'm willing to risk it."

I was, too, but I wasn't sure that we needed to go quite that far with this bluff.

"How about you just hand that on over nice and easy, and we'll all talk?" I suggested. "I think we could probably get you a nice, cushy retirement deal."

"You are not part of this discussion, Captain Williams." The floating head snapped at me. "These rogue elements are members of your coalition. They will be visited with sanctions, and so will you.”

“I think you'll find that they all submitted their resignation in advance,” I said. Coyote had handled that for us, forging the paperwork after a team had successfully defected. “They’re freelancers now.”

“Their actions cast a bad look for your people."

Then all of a sudden, overhead, the head, giant head, whipped around, looking confused, before disappearing. I heard a shout from across the battlefield, and my system timer fuzzed.

"What's going on? My HUD's just gone crazy. I can't make any sense of it." That was a Blue Squad member off to my right.

Nor could I. All around us, the world was beginning to fuzz. Alpha sprang forward toward me. She held out the grenade. I snatched it from her hands and placed it in my inventory. I had no idea what I was going to do with an armed Ethereum bomb, but now I had it.

She backed off. "Take your shot, Williams," she snarled at me. "It won't do you any good."

That was my cue. I raised my gun and fired. I aimed right for her hand, and my shot hit, sending up a spout of blood. She shouted and fell back, cradling her hand to her chest.

Pete turned on his ally, hitting her over the head with a baseball bat. It was almost comical. The gun crumpled, then dissolved into sparks. He stepped forward, holding up his hands.

"I surrender," he said cheerfully.

All around us, the world cracked and faded. A timer appeared again. Thirty seconds. The system voice roared, "Despite the rogue's treacheries, this level has been dominated. You return to your own zones as soon as evacuation can be arranged. There may be a brief holding period while evacuations are made."

I turned back toward the rogue outpost. It had dissolved away, and the world around was fading to white and gray.

Had they made it? Had Colin gotten whatever he was after and escaped? “Forced integration in ten, nine, eight—” the system was counting down “—seven, six.”

There was no message from any of them. Pete's face was impossible to read as he was taken prisoner by some of the combat archaeologists. “Three, two, one.”

The world dissolved. I just prayed that Sage was all right.