Meyers blinked. “They are coming. Here. To Academy.”
“Yes.”
“How did they find us?”
Khabarov sighed. “The Hivers have been mapping Metro-2 and we can’t keep Academy Outpost secret. To analyze the data so quickly, we’ve had to run the Academy AIs at full power. The Hivers would have noticed the energy spike. They will come for us.”
Santiago shot to his feet. “You’re going to sacrifice the Academy?!”
“No. The Hivers aren’t interested in genocide. They want to assimilate us. There’s a large civilian community on the surface right above the Academy. They won’t drop a rock on us. They’ll send multiple swarms for an uplift-or-destroy operation. With those swarms will be landing ships with C&C nodes. If we can board a ship, we can plug our suits into the nodes and piggyback our AIs into the Hive Mind.”
“You’ve just condemned the civvies above us,” Meyers said.
“We have no choice. It’s the only way we have left to access one of their ships, and they only bring the ships down to deploy reinforcements from orbit. Actual infantry, not constructs. The one sure-fire way they would do that is if we lure them into uplifting a community and coming down into the Metro.”
“How do you know they’ll take the bait?” Santiago asked.
Khabarov smiled grimly. “They know I’m one of the few officers left in the military, and the commanding officer of the Rangers. I’ve leaked on unsecured and compromised channels that I’m Central, and I’m at Academy Station. They will come. They want my brain.”
Meyers exhaled sharply. “My. God. Sir, are you sure…?”
“Yes. And for what it’s worth, the operations plan calls for us Rangers to swarm the Hivers when they arrive, while the mainline Resistance holds the Metro entrances. I intend to fight on the surface.”
“That’s pretty risky.”
“Yes. But we’re all in this together. If we swarm them when they land, some of us are bound to break through. Besides, remember what I told you when the war began?”
Meyers snorted. “I am Central.”
“You are Central,” Santiago continued.
“We are all Central,” Khabarov finished. “As long as there is even one of us left, the Resistance continues.”
Central was a myth deliberately perpetrated by the Rangers. The civilians needed to believe the government had survived, the remnants of the military needed to believe their leaders were still fighting the war, and every swarm the Hive sent to the countryside to hunt ghosts was a swarm that could not hunt the Resistance or twist people into their brand of humanity. The closest the Rangers ever had to Central was the AI that mediated information flow across Resistance cells.
“Just like the Hive,” Santiago mused.
“We’ve got to adopt our enemy’s strategy. It’s the only way to win.”
“To survive, you mean.”
Santiago used to think waiting was easy. He just had to lie in place until something important happened. As he injected his last antirad into his neck, he considered otherwise.
Meyers, huddled under her camouflage blanket, swapped out her mask’s air filter and cleaned dust off the lenses. Santiago joined her, rubbing his hands against the chill, and looked out the mousehole they had bored out of the kitchen wall.
Scattered across broken streets five stories down, the surface dwellers were huddling in little knots of humanity. Some entered nearby apartment blocks. Others gathered around ancient, rusted drums and started pitiful, flickering fires. Of Hivers, they saw none.
At least, Hiver constructs. Hiver thralls, and the infiltrator strain, were something else.
Santiago blew on his hands again. The Hiver orbital bombardments at the dawn of war started an ice age. What arable ground remained the Hivers seized for themselves and their collaborators. The Hivers didn’t bother occupying most of the planet. They simply fostered hardship upon hardship on the people, leaving them to fend for themselves. The only way out was to join the Hive. Or be swept up in an upload-or-destroy operation.
Meyers peeked out the window. Across the building was a park. Most of the trees had died or shed their leaves, leaving large open spaces. A perfect place for a Hiver landing ship.
Outside, a floorboard creaked.
Santiago tapped Meyers shoulder. She shrank away from the window.
SNAP.
That was the lock fastened to the grille. The Rangers snatched up their weapons and moved out.
The grille swung open on screeching hinges.
Santiago leapt to one corner of the room, Meyers took the other.
The front door unlocked with a heavy CLICK. The door opened. A hunter leapt through, howling.
A proximity mine exploded.
Santiago flinched away from the blast. Looking back up, he saw thralls pouring through a pink mist.
The closest thrall aimed its arms at him. Its hands shot out, attached to its sockets with fine wires.
Not a thrall. An infiltrator.
As the hands landed on a sofa, Santiago pumped three hypersonic rounds into its chest. The infiltrator staggered, lifted its hands and tossed the sofa away, clearing a line of attack. Meyers blew its head off, but Santiago was exposed. And more infiltrators were coming.
One launched claw hands at him. He ducked and charged into the threat, blowing its head off. Its partner leapt on Santiago. He brought up his carbine and it grabbed the weapon with both hands, trying to throw him. Santiago snaked his left hand down, drew his dagger in a reverse grip, and thrust out. The ultrafine tip sank into its neck and ripped out. Dark blood spattered across his mask’s lenses. He thrust into its eyes, felt the knife bounce off hardened metal. The Hiver didn’t even flinch; it continued to hold him in place for its friends to flank him.
Snarling, Santiago jammed the blade into the crook of its right elbow and pulled, breaking its grip. He tried to kick it away, but the infiltrator was faster, crashing him against the wall, crushing him with powerful arms.
And set itself afire.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Santiago yelled, twisting and turning, but the fucking thing had him in a death grip. He grabbed the Hiver’s burning back and violently arched his spine, making space to knee it in the groin and shove it aside. As its body fell apart, Meyers dropped it with a short burst.
“You okay?” Meyers shouted.
Santiago was broiling under the suit, but he hadn’t caught fire. “I’m good.” He retrieved his carbine and sheathed his dagger. Santiago’s q-com filled with chatter: Rangers reporting ambushes and attacks.
Light spilled through the window. The world rattled. Pure sound flooded his ears, rattling his brain. Meyers looked out the window.
“They’re landing at the park!” she shouted.
“We have to go!” he yelled back.
They burst out of the apartment and down the stairs. As the Rangers reached the ground floor, the windows shattered. Hypervelocity slugs ripped through the air, blasting through the façade of the building, blowing holes in the walls around them. Santiago hit the deck, pressing Meyers down with him. There was too much fire in front of them; Hiver forces must be attacking their building.
“I’ll draw them away!” Meyers yelled. “Finish the mission!”
“But—”
“We’ve both been tagged. But the heat from the one that burned you would have neutralized most of the pheromones on you. If there’s anyone who can get close to the landing ship, it’s you! Now go!”
Santiago snarled. Rolling off her, he snatched up his weapon. “See you in Valhalla.”
“Hell no! You can visit me in Folkvangr!”
Snorting, Santiago turned around and crawled away. Meyers fired through the holes, screaming war cries, then picked herself up and sought better cover. Reaching the rear door, Santiago got up too and burst out. Behind him, the apartment shook under the hammer blow of multiple explosions.