The thunder of the Hemingway’s engines cracked through the green haze as it emerged, finally, and then slowed as it approached John and the others. Its hull was streaked with grit. Its turrets spun and sent streams of red lasers which sliced through the Braccari who increasingly flooded into the great tunnel searching for the human intruders.

  John and the others emerged from the tunnel as the Hemingway came into view and hovered in place. Samantha was half-limping, her arm slung around Rhea’s shoulders. John turned and raised his Scorcher; he aimed at the pursuing horde, but he didn’t squeeze the trigger because they had stopped pursuing and instead clawed at one another, killing each other because of their twisted minds caused by the destruction of the Idol which had once organized their thoughts and now unraveled and devolved them into truer forms of monsters.

  The Hemingway’s ramp slammed down onto the bone floor. John waved the team forward. “Move! Now!”

  They crossed the platform as a cluster of half-feral Braccari crested the rise further down the tunnel. The ship’s turrets swiveled around its horizon and let loose a pulse of warning fire. The earth exploded behind them. The Braccari recoiled like burned insects, limbs flailing, eyes fogged and unfocused. They stopped, tripping over each other amongst their own confusion.

  The platform groaned and hissed. The lift yanked upward.

  The Hemingway swallowed them in a flash of steam and screaming hydraulics. The platform sealed, the deck lights kicked in, and the soundproofed doors slammed shut leaving the chaos of brutality behind.

  For the first time in hours, their squad shared a real silence and freshly recycled air.

  John collapsed to one knee.

  Nobody spoke for a long moment.

  Their armor hissed and vented as they peeled off pieces of their combat armor. Samantha let out a ragged exhale and slumped against the wall. Rhea peeled off her helmet and revealed blood-matted hair and a faint, exhausted grin.

  “We made it,” she said softly. “I can’t believe it…we made it.”

  John pulled his helmet off and wiped the sweat from his eyes. “Yeah,” he breathed. “But not everyone” John grabbed Esh-Kaet’s Cortari shard from his pocket. “What do we do about Esh-Kaet?”

  ###

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  The Hemingway glided through the great bone tunnel. Its hull lights scanned the ribbed throat of Eurynome’s surface like the inside of a massive fossil. From the bridge, the crew watched in stunned silence as they passed the ridge with Caldera Reach’s ruins which were highlighted by the command center’s monitor.

  Only…something had changed.

  The city wasn’t swarming with Braccari anymore. They no longer clustered at windows, hunched along rooftops, or crawled on the walls. Many simply wandered the streets, confused and slow, some collapsing outright into heaps of twitching limbs. Others stumbled into one another like sleepwalkers.

  “What…?” Samantha whispered, her voice hoarse.

  Selathe Min, her hands steady on the flight controls, narrowed her silver eyes. “I’m scanning neuro-electric activity. It’s very low. It’s like they’re drunk. Or stunned.”

  “Residual psychic disruption,” offered Sasha from the holo table. “Possibly linked to Thariel’s death and the destruction of the Idol. Without it…they’ve completely fragmented.”

  “They look like they’ve been lobotomized,” Rhea muttered.

  John’s gaze sharpened, but he didn’t speak right away. His fingers instinctually twitched near his gun belt.

  Samantha looked over. “You want to finish them off, don’t you?”

  John exhaled through his nose. “We should. God help me, we should.” He walked toward the central command monitor. He watched as a dozen Braccari wandered across Caldera Reach’s central plaza like lost ghosts.

  “But…” he murmured.

  He remembered her.

  The Braccari Queen.

  Still somewhere down there, she was still alive. And what she had said—the strange mournful warning in her tone. “I was tricked.”

  John clenched his jaw.

  “We’re not animals,” he said aloud, to no one in particular. Then he turned to the others. “Commander Morgan. Take a full unit of marines. Sweep Caldera Reach. Secure the med centers, the underground transit shafts—look for survivors.”

  “And the Braccari?” she asked.

  John looked out the viewport again. The creatures still wandered, uncoordinated, swaying in the toxic light like broken puppets.

  His voice remained firm. “Do not engage unless provoked. Mark each cluster. Log their movements with your AI. Avoid direct confrontation when possible.”

  Samantha blinked. “You’re not ordering a kill sweep?”

  “Not yet.”

  Rhea gave a slow nod, not quite agreeing, but respecting the command. “Understood.”

  John stared at the dying city. His body screamed for rest, his mind barely holding on.

  He still had questions.

  And the Braccari Queen was the only one left who might give him some answers.