She called for her father. She reached out a limp hand and grasped at the air in which he should have stood. His shadow stretched far, even now. He called her Ducky and brushed back her hair. He was useless as a stylist, he couldn't even do a braid. She felt his warm hands stroke the sweat from her forehead.

"Dad?" She grumbled. Her voice was breathy and broken. She heard him respond, he comforted her and laughed with her. He told her she was brave and strong. They danced by the fire as the caravels settled behind them. He seemed a giant to her, but he just laughed at her awe. "All seems giant to a child." He laughed as he took her into his arms and swung her around in the air.

"Lara?" A woman called. She ignored the beckon, she wasn't Lara - not here - she was Ducky. "Lara." The woman repeated. Her heart sank, she didn't want to leave. She didn't want to be Lara anymore it was too painful.

"Lara, please sweetheart." The voice pled. It hurt her to ignore the woman, she by no means hated her. The opposite, in fact. Her voice was warm and loving but it wanted to take her from her father. Tears came to her eyes and she didn't hold them back. It felt so good to cry with her father. He took her face into his palm.

"Don't cry, Ducky. Tears can't grow flowers." He whispered. His eyes burned into her but his body faded and flickered like the flame they danced before.

"I don't want to wake up." She cried as she charged into his embrace. "Please don't make me go." He placed a hand on her shoulder but if faded like the last light of dusk and all that remained was his big toothy smile.

"Dreams are no place to cry. You have to be strong, you have to wake up."

She had expected to wake in some medical tent or the nurses office. The poster of a dark woman clumsily taped to the roof brought a measure of comfort. She was in her own bed, in her own barrack. The war hadn't ended while she slept.

"I feel like death." She moaned to the stagnant air of her bedroom.

"You smell like it." Archi mocked from her bedside. She hadn't expected him to be there, if anyone maybe Iris or Reese.

"Arch?" She whispered. Her voice was hoarse and rough, she sputtered and coughed through her words.

"As hard as it may be for ya, try not to speak. That assassin did a number on your throat. The lab gear is booked up right now so Iris can't fix you up like usual." He said.

Lara tried to raise her head to face him but failed and flopped back down.

"Iris?" She laboured.

"With Ade and Sintred. They're working triple time right now. No time for little ol' you, I'm afraid. Stuck with me instead." He joked. Lara wanted to return a joke but her crushed throat denied the world a slice of her doubtlessly genius retorts.

"Here." Arch offered a notepad and pen which she limply took in her hand. She immediately got to drawing crude images involving Aricci, Daphi and an excessively large spanner.

"Charming." He laughed. "Check the last page."

She did, what met her could kindly be described as a Picasso-esque rendition of Lara's face beneath a speech bubble praising Archi's 'obvious' talents in all areas. She eked out a small laugh as she ripped out the page and threw it at him.

"What? I had to do something while you were taking your little nap. Or would you rather I sat here silently watching you sleep?"

She nodded with a covered grin as she pulled her sheets further over herself.

"Right... Iris gave me a checklist for ya." He said, producing a crumpled up sheet of paper from his pocket. Lara sighed and her shoulders slumped. "I can tell her you're up and let her go over it if you'd like."

She shook her head. Iris may have cared deeply about Lara but she was far from gentle when it came to medical inspections.

"Oki. Question one: How bads it hurt?" He asked. She slanted her head to the side and shrugged. She wrote down on the paper a large figure nine.

"Oh, so not too bad then." He teased. In truth, she was in near agony. It was abundantly clear to her that Iris had been routing around in her thigh a few hours earlier. She could feel each individual rib breakage and so much as taking a deep breath send shocks all across her body. She wouldn't let him know any of that, of course. 'Raptors feel no pain' as Garrison would say. The stupidity of the statement would have made her laugh but the agony she most definitely wasn't in would have made doing so... Inconvenient to her health.

"Question two: Where does it hurt?" He continued. Lara snickered and drew a crude drawing of herself. Archi watched her put the pen back to the paper before she scrawled over the entire page, shading the caricature in fully.

"I'd offer to kiss it better, but I'll leave the medication to Iris." He quipped. He started mumbling to himself as he worked silently through the question sheet, occasionally looking up at Lara as to inspect her condition before answering the next question.

"Memory loss?" He asked.

"Can't remember." She wrote down on the pad.

"Funny." He dryly responded.

He continued on. There seemed to be at least forty questions, less than a quarter of which he asked. They spanned from uncomfortable to down right invasive, questions she may have accepted from Iris but most certainly not Arch.

"Enough" She scribbled before throwing the pad at Archi's head. She made a heroic attempt at rolling out of bed but was quickly defeated by a limp leg. She instead propped herself onto her good leg while taking her weight into her arms.

"Iris told me not to let you out of bed." Archi said while making no attempt to stand from his chair. Lara shot him a dirty look before trying to stand again. He laughed, kicking his feet up onto her bed and leaning back.

"Ooh, I didn't see the posters." He laughed, looking up at the posters of leather clad biker women lazily pinned to the roof. "Strange placement." He snickered.

She didn't entertain him. The pained grunts and awkward breaths were the only noises she was capable of loosing.

She threw herself forwards towards her wardrobe, landing heavily against it's door.

"Alright, that's enough." Archi protested. He slinked beside her ducking under her arm to take her weight. He sat her back down before turning to her wardrobe.

"Here." He offered as he opened it up. "What'd you want?"

Lara pointed towards a draw to the bottom right of the wardrobe, inside lay several large t-shirts. He passed her a striped black and red top and turned his back to her while she put it on. He routed through half mindedly, mostly to judge her sense of style but partially out of curiosity.

"Well, that's certainly not part of your uniform." He teased as he produced a frilly red bra that had been scrunched up beneath a pile of hoodies and creased cargo pants. He laughed and placed it to his chest. "Suits me more then it would you."

A crumpled up hospital gown hit Archi with surprising force. It even managed to send him onto his back foot. He laughed as he placed it back.

The bed tousled as Lara crawled across from beneath her sheets to pick her pad back up. She quickly scrawled on it. "Child." She tried to look stern but broke into a smile soon after. She pointed back to the wardrobe with an expectant eyebrow raised, Archi followed her finger to another draw filled with baggy pants.

"Oh right, yeah. These would probably be handy." He laughed. He carefully picked through the present options for long enough that Lara had to let off a small cough to pull his attention back. "What? I'm just looking for something that matches." He answered with complete sincerity.

"Said no man ever." She wrote down.

"Aye, cos' you're such an authority on men." He shot back after taking a second to read. He had finally decided on a pair of purple, knee length basketball shorts. Lara looked at them in disgrace and slowly rose her visibly disappointed eyes to meet his.

"Look..." He defensively started. "Just cos' I don't know what matches doesn't mean no man does."

She just grunted and slipped the shorts on beneath the sheets. She tied her untamed and unwashed hair into a loose bun and the ensemble was complete. The off the shoulder t-shirt, the mens shorts - that she must have stolen from Reese at some point - combined with the dried blood in her previously pure white hair and the general cuts and bruises covering the majority of her body created a aesthetic most politely described as 'absolute mess chic'.

They fumbled along the corridor until they reached Ade and Iris' newly combined office. What had previously been a chaotic and messy room, filled to the brim with loose papers, was now - by all imaginings - a swimming pool of paperwork and blueprints. Archi opened the door and a waist high torrent of loose paper and antiquated scientific equipment flooded out into the corridor.

The younger scientist greeted them with the smallest expression of interest. She sat atop a mound of formulae and charts, writing on a small laptop.

"Busy?" Archi asked her with a grin. She didn't respond electing to grunt a fake laugh instead.

Lara released herself from Archi's grip and waded slowly through the papers, sitting on the edge of Iris' desk. Her eyes flicked red and she searched around the room for Iris. When she couldn't find her, she looked to Archi - still in the doorway - to act as her mouthpiece.

"Oye, Ade. Where's the scary one?" He asked. The girl raised her finger without raising her eyes. She pointed to a little nook behind the office partition. Lara peaked over and found Iris curled up in a ball, peacefully yet uncomfortably sleeping. Lara leant her head on the small wooden partition as she slowly knelt beside her. She pressed a gentle finger into Iris' cheek a few times but the woman didn't rouse. Iris grunted and swatted her hand away before returning to her blissful sleep, a big dumb smile across her face. Lara leant further, her mouth to Iris' ear.

"Wakey wakey." She coarsely whispered. There was no reaction.

"Time to wake up." She whispered again, stroking Iris' hair from her face. Iris grunted and turned away from her.

A sigh slipped from Lara. "Reese is about to get into the shower." She lied.

Just like that, Iris was awake and alert. Her head jolted around the office before realising where she was. She collapsed with a groan onto Lara's shoulder.

"That's just mean." Iris complained while Lara laughed. She seemed to find it funny enough that she, for a moment at least, didn't feel the pain of Iris placing her head directly onto a particularly large bruise on her arm.

"How are you feeling?" Iris sleepily asked as she ran a hand over Lara's cheek. She lifted her head from Lara and her gentle hand turned clinical as she began an inspection. Her tone shifted quickly from Iris to Doctor Commons. Lara smiled as Iris shined a small light in her eyes. She gave her two thumbs up and shrugged.

"Not chatty today?" Iris questioned. Lara pointed to her throat and lifted the fabric mask from her neck, exposing the terrible bruising.

"Ah." Iris realised. "Here, I... Err 'procured' this." She said, digging in her draw and producing a small vial. She inserted it into an injector and stabbed in into Lara's throat. "Last of the supply for now. Try speaking."

"Rhu-" Lara coughed. She took a breath before starting again. "Rhubarb and custard." She wheezed.

"Really?" Iris laughed.

"Lem- lemon drizzle." Lara continued, her voice audibly clearing as she spoke.

"How old are you?" Iris teased.

"Yippidy doo; Yippidy yaa. Lovely, thanks Iris."

The muscles in her throat relaxed and the searing pains around her body began to relax. Iris helped her to her feet and the two hugged. "Reese is gonna kick your ass, you know?" Iris whispered before pulling away.

"Where is he?" Lara asked. Iris brushed past her and sat beside Ade, she grabbed a laptop and started working.

"He went to go have a word with Councillor Akyama." She said. Ade passed her a small sheet she printed from the side of her own laptop which Iris carefully scanned over.

"Akyama, as in... Hosun?" Lara questioned to which she received a nod.

"Shit." She grunted. "He really is gonna kick my ass." She sat silently for a moment. Reese had a strange sort of tradition with her. Every time she got beat in a fight, Reese would take the roll of her attacker and run drills relentlessly until she could consistently beat him. There were times where training sessions would last for entire days at a time before she would collapse from exhaustion. The fact that she had just nearly been killed in a one on one fight was bad enough but if Reese was about to take a name off of his target list... She knew she was well and truly fucked.

"When is he back?" She asked.

"I dropped him six hours ago, so any time now." Archi answered. He attempted to wade his way atop of the same desk Lara sat on but quickly collapsed under his own weight. Nobody offered to help him up and so he dragged himself along in silence.

"Good job." Lara mocked. He shot her a nasty glare.

"So..." Lara started, turning to the deeply focused Iris. "Do the rest of us have assignments?" She asked. Iris shrugged as she continued working so Lara turned to Archi; his reaction was no more enlightening.

She tumbled onto her back and threw her hands over her eyes. A deep sigh passed along with a few moments of silence broken only by the occasional clattering of keyboards.

"Iris?" Ade said breathlessly. Iris turned, whipping her short blonde hair across her own face. "Is this wrong?" Ade questioned as she handed her laptop over. Iris read over it for a moment, then she studied it for a moment, and then she feverously poured over every word as she seemingly attempted to dissect every letter and statistic presented before her. The next time she read it, her face couldn't have been more than a couple of inches from the screen. Her breath became rapid and her eyes darted between the screen and several of her sporadically placed papers and blueprints.

She laughed as her eyes met Ade's. She reached out to hug her but held back, electing to punch the air instead.

"Adeladia you beautiful, gorgeous, brilliant, magnificent little starlet!" She shouted.

"It's right?" Ade doubted as a clear blush spread across her face.

"I could kiss you!" Iris shouted completely unrestrained. "The Tempish formulae! That's what he created it for!" She shouted. The unhinged celebration began to draw attention from outside the office but Iris didn't seem to care.

Lara and Archi looked to one another in confused excitement.

"Did we win the war?" Lara joked.

"Yay, let's go team!" Archi joined in. He reached out for a high five and Lara would have met him for it had her broken rib not shifted awkwardly causing her to collapse to the desk. She picked herself up and leant on Archi as they awaited an explanation.

"Not quite yet, I'm afraid. We have found a exponentially stable synthesiser for Apotheosis!" Ade excitedly began. She realised quickly, however, that she would need a different approach to explain to the two soldiers. Her gaze fell to Iris who was still engrossed in Ade's readouts, scouring for any possible slip up or mistake. She noticed that the young girls somewhat pleading eyes had fixed upon her and quickly took up her unspoken request.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Apotheosis is a... Reaction." Iris explained. "Like burning calories for energy which is then used to move muscles. Instead, with Apotheosis we can enable a connection to your DNA. Instead of burning calories, we burn what Vasily described as 'genetic will'. A physical component to will power. Through the expenditure of this will, we can alter our own bodies in unpredictable ways. We had the Apotheosis treatment already but it burnt up too quickly, the reaction wasn't stable. Now?" Iris took a second to consider the far reaching consequences of Ade's discovery.

"Now we can give our soldier life long enhancements." She conservatively finished. It seemed she didn't want to exaggerate the extent of the possible changes.

"Do you understand?" She asked.

"Not at all... But that's normal." Archi said with his fingers rubbing against his brow. Iris turned to Lara in hopes that she at least had some idea as to what she was talking about.

"So... We use up our will power to change our bodies?" Lara simplified.

"In a sense, yes." Ade confirmed.

"Then... What's the start and end points? Can I make myself taller, stronger... Hotter?" Lara asked. Archi's ears pricked up at the question.

"Looking at Vasily's test notes, it seems dependant on the individual." Iris said in a pondrant tone. It seemed she had been so consumed by making the treatment work that she hadn't stopped to actually consider the applications of it.

"One man could grow ten inches, another could turn his flesh completely solid. Though I imagine growing ten inches in a matter of seconds would be very painful and throw off your entire sense of equilibrium. Solid flesh too..." Iris continued on with her mumbled ideations.

"So what now?" Lara asked.

"Now we buy time." Reese declared from behind the doorway.

Archi stood at attention and Reese quickly waved him down.

"Lion squads all but gone." He whispered as he limped to the table.

"And Hosun?" Lara asked, her voice filled with dread. He didn't answer, instead he fidgeted with the bandage on her leg as he drew little man and placed it on the table beside himself. It was answer enough for her.

"Change your bandages." He ordered. "Iris when can she get treated?"

"I don't want her fighting; even if I can get her healed up, she needs rest." Iris countered. The recent warmth that had been returning between the two seemed to have vanished already. A short lived dream of moving past unaired angst.

"Styx is about to fall. It's all hands on and I need everyone right now. That means Lara." He grimly said, never looking Iris in the eyes. She glared at him but he didn't return the favour.

"Everybody out." Iris quietly ordered. Nobody protested, Archi and Lara quickly filed out and Ade wasn't far at their heels.

Then there were two.

She stood in rage, her hand shook at her side as a strand of loose hair fell into her face.

He sat and mindlessly tended to a small calf wound he must have acquired during his assault on the FOB.

Neither saw Lara holding a small mirror around the corner, nor did they see Archi practically clambering for a view.

"What do ya think?" He asked. "Fight or fuck?"

Lara grunted in disgust though she didn't drop the mirror.

"Fight, one-hundred percent." She whispered.

"And a bad one at that." Archi agreed. She nudged her elbow into his rib in an attempt to shut him up. They both seemed to forget that Ade was stood just behind them, battling her curiosity against her decency; though it seemed curiosity had the edge in the battle as she took to the tip of her toes to get a better view of the mirror.

"What happened?" Iris demanded. She tried to contain her anger but was failing rapidly. She stormed closer to him as she demanded an answer. He sat up and faced her, his face tantalisingly close to hers.

"Later." He whispered.

"No." Iris refuted. "There's been enough 'laters'."

"Now's not the time, Sash. There's a war on, if you hadn't noticed." He nearly whispered.

"Ah, fuck your war. There's been a war on since we were kids. We've been fighting wars all our lives. When will the time be right? When we win this war? Cos' after that, we'll be too busy building an empire. So after that's done then... Oh, nope. The sky barrier will collapse by then and in all likelihood, we all die. "Her arms thrashed wildly as she vented half a decades worth of anger. Tears welled in her eyes as her makeup flooded down her flushed cheeks.

"For fucks sake Reese! What do you want?" She rhetorically questioned. "I don't blame you for what happened, you aren't at fault. If it takes to the end of the world for you to move on, then i'll hold you as the horizon turns to ash. Just... Fucking talk to me! Enough of the hot and cold, on and off. Enough of the noble sacrifice shite. Talk to me, I'm here - right next to you!" She shouted at the still silent man as she pulled his hand to her heart. "Last time I saw you, we nearly kissed." She finished as her rage waned and her eyes fell from his. It wasn't the end of what she wished to say, but she had reached a point where her rage had been drowned out by sorrow. She stopped being angry enough to shout at him; she simply grew silently lonely.

He finally stood as she fell quiet. He towered over her as his eyes finally met hers. He wiped a stray tear from her as he pulled an ornate letter from his carrier and placed it against her heart. She took it in both hands and read the name carefully penned on the back, Son.

"I-" Reese slowly began to whisper. "Need just a little more time. When the battle is over... Open the letter, read it to me. I'll break and we can figure out which pieces are worth putting back together. For now, I need to fight. I need to win, to keep you safe." His left hand cupped her cheek as she took his right in hers. "I can't do that if I sit around bawling like a child. So hold out, just another day or so... Please." He placed his head to hers before breaking apart and moving for the door.

"A day till Paradise, hey soldier boy." Iris laughed through her crystal tears as she stood alone in the office holding the letter in her hands.

"We'll find it together, I promise." He answered as he stepped through the doorway.

She lay in the contraption like always. It sealed over her while an attendant smashed away at the controls. The bed was still warm, they must have been rushing people through one after another. Lara had seen the waitlist on the way in - a list she had conveniently skipped - it was clearly over a hundred-thousand men.

The first round of needles prodded along her body. They began at her feet and crawled up like a thousand little spider legs exploring every inch of her body. The sensation wasn't new but it was definitely no less creepy than all the other times she had been through it. She felt it working straight away, though. The soles of her feet began an awful cramp which made its way up to her calf and paused for a moment. It would process her section by section. A seal formed around below her knee as the electrical field generated within the section. Then the needles started on her thigh which was significantly more uncomfortable than the calf, especially when the attendant began to focus in on the artery wound she had sustained. She felt the woefully inefficient local anaesthetic apply before the scar tissue was reopened and the artery properly, and permanently, restored. The hundred, hundred tiny arms then sewed her back up and moved on.

The treatment usually lasted around five minutes, today she was held for at least twenty. It went over each scar and wound and bruise and breakage. It set what it could straight, sealed and regenerated where it could and even augmented fractured ribs with temporary adhesive and metal supports. As usual, she exited the pod healthier than before she had even been injured.

"Next!" The attendant yelled before Lara had even stepped out of the huge steel coffin. She hurried behind a curtain and rushed to dress as the next injured soldier hobbled into the room. She strapped her comm onto her wrist and called on Raptors open channel as she stepped out into the corridor.

"Im up." She signalled.

"To Daphi please, Sergeant." Garrison politely requested. She skipped along with a fresh pep after trying out her newly healed leg. The metal formation holding her fractured ribs together would take some small amount of getting used to.

The tower continued to deteriorate as she strolled along. Steel shutters had slid along every window and skylight. Piles of rubble were being removed by hand and the tractors from the fields had been retrofitted with slanted steel plates into impromptu troop transports as men dashed back and forth trying to patch holes in Styx's defences and manpower. She watched as a combine harvester dragged along what had once been a grain carrier but what was now a mass hearse.

She moved along at a hurried pace, passing red men against newly red walls. She did not stop to help. She could save more lives with a bullet then a bandage.

"Get in!" Archi shouted from Daphi's cockpit. She did, sitting aside Iris and across from Reese. He handed her a pack with a change of clothes in and threw a sheet over her.

"What's going on?" She questioned. Iris shrugged and went back to loading a magazine with bullets.

"Styx is going to fall." Garrison announced, his voice echoing from the co-pilot seat. He turned to face the rest of the squad and awkwardly squoze his massive arm over the head of his chair.

"It is an inevitability. There is yet much to be done before she does."

"Is this about Oblivion, sir?" Iris asked. He smiled and nodded.

"Yes. What can you tell us, doctor?" He asked.

She considered and pulled up a blueprint on her comm. A hologram projected onto the floor of a strange cylindrical device housed in two cube brackets. A hole was missing on top and rod extruded from the bottom.

"Oblivion is, quite simply, an EMP. It wipes out all electronics in the vicinity." She said.

"Then why is it classed as a 'war winner'? We already have EMPs." Reese questioned.

"Because... Lieutenant - It uses the same energy conversion tech as the sky barrier." She continued. The hologram changed, a small glowing device entered the hole on the top.

"That's the generator I stole?" Reese pointed out.

"Yes. Enough to power Elysium for a long, long time. Or enough to create a single barrier around a conductive plate... Say a ring?" She explained.

"How long will it last?" He questioned.

"Not long. A few hours; maybe a day. That's when... It explodes."

The hologram showed the device overheating and detonating.

"So the siege lasts a day longer before the barrier falls? I think I'm missing something." Reese questioned.

Iris smirked and the hologram zoomed out. The detonation occurred again and the barrier bubble expanded outwards.

"It will disable their mech fleet, allowing us ample time to-"

"To evacuate." Garrison interrupted.

"Sir?" They all questioned in near unison. He turned back to face the oncoming path.

"Styx will fall, Elysium will be close at her heels. We have other bases, other options. Our duty is not to win but to live. We will pull as many of our men out as we can and as much of our research. Raptor has already been re-assigned to We'illa upon successful detonation." He solemnly told the squad.

"We won't fight?" Lara questioned.

"We will be the first out." He confirmed.

"But, sir? This is our home... We fight for our home."

"Our home is wherever we are needed most, such is our duty; such is our honour." His voice wasn't its usual prideful tone. He spoke with an unusual lack of candour and spirit.

"The words can't be his own" Lara thought.

Daphi dipped below a wave of incoming tempest class mechs. Sleek, agile and lethal fighter drones. They mostly ignored Daphi, bypassing her entirely in favour of the main tower defences. One peeled off to attack them but was quickly slipped using Daphi's stealth systems. Aside from some minor artillery fire, there was no great issue getting to Styx. It seemed the situation wasn't yet as dire as they had been made to believe.

That was until they rounded a spire and saw what used to be the naval dockyard. Smoke pillared high and flowed into a thick fog. Flames burned green in the rings rubble. What had been an insurmountable wall was now little more than a divot. A fleet of battleships struggled in vain to hold out while the swarm of ministry bombers ensured they would have no reprieve.

"Tungsten hyper-shells, probably ripped straight through the wall." Archi suggested as they dipped through a billow of bright green flame.

"Why's it burning green?" Lara questioned.

"Airburst rounds filled with Malthines' flame. The rounds go through the wall and explode on the other side, spraying the ministries own take on napalm throughout the room." Reese explained.

"So the ring burnt from the inside out?" Iris questioned. He nodded and looked out at the crumbling walls.

Garrison jolted back, he slammed his fist into the roof and shouted out "Set a perimeter." Daphi touched down within a small hangar and Reese jumped out first. He pulled his rifle and scanned the area as he knelt a few metres from the shuttle. Iris stepped out next. She carried a large pole and planted it down, from it's sides erupted a small barrier which she crouched behind as she produced a large tablet screen from her pack and began scrolling through a mound of data.

Garrison was next. He stood tall and hopped down from the cabin. His massive machine gun slunk carelessly over his shoulder. His eyes darted the area until, satisfied that he wouldn't be attacked, he knelt down beside Iris and looked over her scans.

Daphi wound down her engines as Archi finished his checks and opened up the cargo hold. Lara jumped down, rifle in hand, and walked to the back end of Daphi. She opened the hold and dragged out a massive - not to mention heavy - box that had been fastened to a medical gurney. She wheeled it out to the front of the shuttle where the squad had began setting up camp.

She surveyed her environment. What had been a closed off hangar was now a rubbled and dilapidated box, exposed to the open elements after the roof had caved in. Daphi nestled within a small nook in the rubble, disguised by the general destruction. The remnants of the ceiling were held together a hundred meters above her by thick steel girders and exposed rebar. The riveted, black and red steel wall panels had fallen away in some areas exposing bare concrete backing and damaged wiring. She spotted a mound just behind the camp site and clambered atop, from it she had a perfect view of the vast open hangar and the exposed fields behind it. This would be her guard post.

"Doctor... Are you there?" Iris questioned. She held her wrist comm between her cheek and shoulder instead of attaching it properly. In her hands, she held her tablet which displayed a dozen readouts much to complex for Lara to decipher.

"Dr. Commons. I read you." The croaky old voice grumbled over the open channel. Iris motioned to Garrison and he took to his own comm while she returned to her work.

"Emmanual, It's Bernard. The good doctor believes that location one is viable for Oblivion. Please advise." He formally requested. His tone was much more professional than the gregarious bellows he typically preferred.

"Good evening, Commander. I'm sending Iris the uplink now. The device will charge while it connects to the ring." Sintred said.

Three steel legs violently ejected from beneath the box and pierced well into the ground. The concrete beneath it cracked away and the gurney that had held it up was crushed beneath a large cylinder that pierced straight downwards.

"Will it be an issue that the ring is broken?" Garrison asked.

"No, my friend. The ring is three hundred meters below you. Oblivion will work; I guarantee it." The old doctor replied.

"In the meanwhile, I have a small request." Sintred timidly began. He didn't continue, instead he awaited a response.

"Of course, what is it?" Garrison sighed. He shot a frustrated glance to Reese from the corner of his eye before grunting out a small laugh.

"It's just... Adeladia." Sintred somewhat timidly said.

"She fangirling too much?" Lara joked from her overlook.

"Not at all, Black." He coldly replied. "I feel she is unsafe within the R&D wing."

"Unsafe?" Garrison questioned.

"Yes, I would ask that you allow her to join your squad until we can evacuate her."

"No." Garrison flatly rejected. "I will not bring a child to the frontlines, Sintred. I assure you, she is safer in the bunker then she would be out here."

"Is that so?" Sintred questioned. "So it is untrue that a spy had infiltrated the bunker?"

"The spy's been dealt with." Reese interjected.

"Have they? I've seen no body, nor prisoner." Sintred's voice seemed accusatory but he wasn't wrong. Reese had assumed that the spy would leave after she had been compromised, but it was entirely possible she was simply hiding in the shadows; waiting for a chance to strike. Garrison shot Reese a questioning glance. He wanted to know if Reese considered Yua a persistent threat.

"If I was in her position... I'd extract. Get out of dodge and reconsider my approach." He said. He paused for a moment, his mouth slightly agape and his breath held.

"But?" Garrison urged.

"But..." Reese answered. "She's young, inexperienced... Reckless. I hurt her pride when I beat her. She might not be thinking right."

Garrison took a moment to consider, then another and a few more for good measure. He began to pace back and forth while Iris continued to run her tests and Archi started spooling up Daphi for another trip.

"Okay." Garrison finally decided. "We cannot risk harm befalling Ms. Tempish. Aricci, recover her." He solemnly ordered. He was clearly unhappy with his own decision.

"Sir." Archi answered before climbing back into Daphi.

Daphi silently rose and flew off, skimming close to the ground as to keep off of Ministry scanners.

"Is this wise, sir?" Reese questioned. Garrison slumped his shoulders and rubbed his brow. He turned to Reese who stood quietly before him.

"Set camp, Lieutenant." He ordered.