Malan’s face soured, the taste of stale air and grime thick on his tongue. His suit’s environmental controls filtered out a majority of the particulate in the air, but like with temperature, he still retained sensory awareness of the space outside of the suit.

He knew the service shaft he was currently crawling through to bypass the patrolling security outside of the lab he suspected Iven to be working in was stuffy and hot. He could feel it in the same way that he could taste the filth of the air. However, he didn’t sweat in the heat like he would have outside of the suit. His awareness never extended to discomfort, or something that was an obstacle to his performance. He simply knew.

Of course, that didn’t change the experience. Crawling through a grimy service shaft felt like crawling through a grimy ventilation shaft.

Malan was grateful for it, really. If the suit didn’t allow him to feel the environment, its protection would be too easy to take for granted. How long before his awareness would fall away because of a reliance on the suit to shield him from everything. Having to taste stale air was a damn sight better than having to actually breathe it in, and his suit’s filtration system prevented that just fine.

Finally, after what felt like an age of careful, silent footsteps and stooping in the dark, he saw several slants of artificial light cast against the steel wall on his right side. The shaft ahead turned at a right angle to the left and, according to the map displayed in the corner of his HUD, led to the grate overlooking Eidolon’s central laboratory.

Taking a steadying breath, Malan rounded the corner as silently as he could possibly manage, thick lump at the back of his throat. Keeping low, he sidled up to the grating and peered through, scarcely willing to breath for fear it would be heard.

The lab below was not too different from the empty one he’d explored previously. A central walkway lined with computer monitors and workstations. The two major differences he could see was that this one wasn’t empty, and the behaviour of the animals in their enclosures. He couldn’t see them well, but what he could see turned his stomach in an entirely different manner.

These creatures were, simply put, feral. The ones he could see directly below his vantage point were restrained and muzzled, yet they thrashed and howled with reckless fury, eyes bulging and reddened. These were the monsters he and Elena had encountered in the forest. Rabid beasts to be aimed at something you wanted hurt, and not good for much else.

The same tubes and cables jutted from their flesh as the others, though the entry wounds were bloody and clearly festering from the disturbance of the constant thrashing, and the liquids being pumped into these beasts was an entirely different colour.

Hands balled into fists, he forced himself to tear his eyes away from the captive animals and examined the room itself. A pair of guards stood at each end of the walkway, black-clad and armed. Two more sat in the centre, playing some kind of card game at the table. These men weren’t even bothering to hide their Eclipse markings, with the red crescent clearly visible over the left breastplate of their combat armour.

The two guards in the centre were clearly there for one reason, and that was to make sure the man working at the station directly below his vantage point felt their presence at all times. Driving him to work faster through constant reminders of the danger he and his family were in. Of course, it was debatable how effective that could be, but he doubted these people had thought that hard about it.

Either way, their presence made conversing with Iven almost impossible. Even if he were to connect his gauntlets to his computer system, the guards were likely already watching for him communicating with others through his computer.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

They needed a diversion.

He backed away from the vent grating as carefully as he’d approached, but not before activating his gauntlets and establishing a short range connection to Iven’s device using the data he’d already acquired from hacking into Eidolon’s systems. Then, when he was certain he was able to speak quietly without being heard, he opened his comms with Elena.

“Elena. I’m in and eyes on with Iven. His lab has six guards. I’m going to need that distraction. You still set?” he muttered, trying to slow his heart rate.

“I thought you’d never ask. Ready when you are.”

“What was the situation in regards to civilians?”

“Negligible. There are a few lab techs on duty, and I’ve done my best to arrange things to minimise risks to non-Eclipse, but that kind of thing is never certain. It’s the kind of risk you’re going to have to get used to weighing up. I can always not hit the button, though—this is your show.”

Malan chewed at the bottom of his lip. Setting off explosives looted from the Eclipse mercs they’d killed in the middle of several research facilities was a risky move to say the least. Rolling the dice with other people’s lives like this didn’t sit well with him, even for a good cause. Even if the risk of any of the lab techs being in the danger zone was low.

That said, it was for a good cause. And would cause huge damage to an operation likely causing untold harm. Not to mention the fact that Malan was not so naive that he believed all of the researchers working here stayed because Eclipse were forcing them to. How many had instead stayed because of the increase in pay producing drugs brought them?

“Fuck it. Pull the trigger, Elena.”

He could almost hear the grin in her voice as she responded. “Thought you’d never ask. Fireworks in thirty seconds, Malan. Get what you need and get out. Their security will be going nuts once this happens.”

“Understood. See you at the meeting point. We’ll have to haul ass back to the ships after this—there’s no way Standarr doesn’t try and stop us from leaving.”

“One problem at a time. Now move!”

Malan cut off the comms channel and shuffled back to the grate, and waited, heart in mouth. Seconds of silence dragged by, and Malan started to worry something had gone wrong when an enormous boom shook the room, rattling the desks below. Guards leapt to their feet, scrambling for weapons when a second distant explosion rocked the room again. Alarms blared through the entire facility, drowning out the noise of the raging animals on the ground floor.

The merc’s radio crackled with the noise of half-panicked guards, and the man in charge swore loudly before addressing the room at large.

“Lunis and Serenity have been hit—how badly, we don’t know yet. Likely the Starbound poking his nose in. Everyone on high alert—we’re expecting an attack on Eidolon immediately. Cal and I will stay with the tech here to evac if things start to go south. The rest of you, reinforce the rest of the boys outside. Be ready, this guy’s already wiped a team out in the jungle.”

There was a chorus of agreements before the pairs of guards at each door filtered out, readying their weapons, leaving the pair closest to Iven.

“You,” the man continued, this time in the direction of Iven, who had a heavy film of sweat gathering across his brow. “Keep working until we say. There’s no guarantee it even is this guy, and even if it is, the moment we even get a sniff of him we’ll be getting you out. He’ll never even lay eyes on you, even if he tears through this entire damned building.”

Malan watched Iven’s grimace in mild fascination. He wasn’t what Malan had expected at all. Well-built and grizzled, the man had short, neatly cut black hair and chiselled face whose left half was criss-crossed with scars. The exact opposite of how he’d have pictured a lab tech in his head. Still, however out of place the fear in the man’s eyes looked, it didn’t change the fact that this man was terrified. He said nothing in response, merely turning back to his monitor and returning to work, and the two mercs remaining began to ready themselves in case a fight came to them.

That alone was enough for his purposes. Their focus was now on the doors, and the near constant radio chatter as the tried to figure out how much damage Elena’s well-placed explosives had done at the other facilities, and how much they needed to worry about an attack at Eidolon. The mercs weren’t watching the screen, or Iven himself any more, and Malan intended to take full advantage.