They struck just before dawn.

  The black cliffs of Tartarus still held the last of the night, but in the distance, fire bled across the sky like a warning. Rizer stood atop the ridge with frost clinging to his gloves, his breath a slow steam. Around him, the Tartarus elite, the ones who’d survived training, who’d clawed their way into the high command, readied their weapons in silence.

  A whisper through the comms. “They’re here.”

  Below the ridge, two Odryix scout transports hissed into position, their alien hulls rippling like obsidian muscle. Inside, fresh invaders. Reinforcements. Bastards who thought Earth was theirs now.

  “They won’t see us coming,” said Thorne, the weapons specialist to Rizer’s left. His voice held a tremble, not from fear, but from wanting this kill. They all did. Every soldier here had lost someone.

  Rizer didn’t speak. His mind was already ahead, reading the ground, calculating. The psionic pressure in his skull pulsed harder now, triggered by nearness. Something inside those transports made his body ache.

  He stepped forward.

  His boots crunched dry ash. Behind him, Elias waited, his little brother no longer wide-eyed or helpless, but not yet the full storm he’d become. The glow in Elias’ palms shimmered like heat through ice. Unpredictable. Terrifying.

  “We don’t wait,” Rizer said, quiet but certain. “We send a message.”

  He raised his hand, and the ridge exploded.

  The team launched with coordinated fury, diving into the fray before the Odryix had time to react. Plasma rifles lit the dark. Screams echoed off rock.

  And then they saw it.

  The third transport.

  It had been cloaked.

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  An elite-class Odryix tore from the shadows, eight feet tall, a flesh-metal hybrid with a face half melted from some ancient war. He roared and charged straight for Rizer.

  “Go!” Rizer barked to Elias and the others.

  But Elias didn’t go.

  The creature swung a blade arm wide, slicing the air where Rizer had stood a blink ago. Rizer rolled, came up fast, and drove both fists forward, unleashing a wave of psionic force that cracked the enemy’s armour, but not enough. The creature growled, absorbing the blow like a sponge soaks blood.

  It fed off energy.

  It wanted Rizer’s life-force.

  And it was taking it.

  The Odryix struck again. This time it connected. Rizer flew backwards, smashed against a jagged pillar. Blood filled his mouth.

  “Rizer!” Elias screamed.

  And that’s when it happened.

  Rizer watched, barely conscious, as Elias took one step toward the creature, and the air warped. A pulse detonated from Elias' chest, a ripple of white-hot force that froze the battlefield.

  The Odryix turned too late.

  Elias' eyes glowed pure white. His body surged with violent light. And then, he moved.

  He was no longer a boy.

  He was faster than sound.

  One second the Odryix stood, snarling, triumphant. The next, Elias was behind it, his hand driven through the monster’s spine. A burst of psionic light shot through its chest and it fell, collapsing in a heap of twitching metal and charred bone.

  Silence fell.

  Then the ground shook.

  The explosion came from the west flank. A misfire. No..a betrayal.

  One of the Gaia-9 soldiers on loan had turned.

  They’d planted a charge.

  A quarter of Rizer’s squad was dead before anyone could even react.

  He rose to his feet, bleeding, furious. “Who gave that bastard clearance?”

  Thorne’s face twisted. “Name’s Keiran Vale. From the rebuilding sector. Said he was clean.”

  “He just slaughtered our own,” Rizer growled.

  They found what was left of Keiran Vale’s body ten minutes later, burned out by his own timer charge, but his final act had carved a hole in the mission.

  The retaliation was still a win, but it felt poisoned.

  Back at base, Rizer sat alone. Elias was with the medics, sedated, his power spike had nearly fried his brain.

  Rizer stared at the old wrist bracelet Kiera had made. Still faintly glowing.

  “Survive,” he muttered. “Then make them pay.”

  He didn’t know Adelpha Rae’s plan yet, not fully. But she was moving now.

  In the underground caverns of Earth, the rebels had begun forging weapons from salvaged Odryix armour. She was building something ancient, something psionic, and only a few trusted her with the details. She said it would “turn their own hunger into a curse.”

  And somewhere… out in Gaia-9…

  The true traitors were gathering.

  Not just soldiers.

  Leaders.

  They believed Rizer had become too dangerous.

  And they were about to act.