The drone of the C-17's engines was a steady, almost hypnotic sound, a solid mechanical heartbeat in stark contrast to the chaos they had just left behind. Inside the vast cargo bay of the Nest, the air was cold and smelled sharply of ozone, the scent of technology and sterility trying to overpower the lingering stench of blood, smoke, and Congolese mud that still clung to their clothes and skin. Pale blue LED lights cast long, weary shadows across the metal floor.
No one spoke.
Kael sat on a mesh seat, his back against the fuselage. He hadn't removed his armor. He just sat there, the Kestrel resting across his lap, his eyes staring at nothing. The faint light glinted off the new scratches on his weapon, each one a memory of a life-or-death confrontation. He could feel the vibration of the plane through his armor, a constant motion carrying them away from hell, but he knew a part of that hell had come with them.
Not far away, Jotun sat slumped on the floor, his back against a cargo container. The giant of a man looked smaller than ever. He wasn't cleaning his rifle. He just sat there, elbows on his knees, his face buried in his massive hands. A statue of exhaustion.
Wraith was the only one still active. She sat before a bank of monitors, but not to work. Her fingers moved over the keyboard out of habit, opening and closing data windows without reading them. It was just a routine, a way to keep her mind busy, to not have to face the silence and the images replaying in her head. Her eyes, usually so sharp and focused, now held a distant look.
They had won. They had survived. But the atmosphere in the cargo bay was not one of relief. It was the atmosphere of a funeral.
The curtain separating the makeshift medical bay was pulled aside, and Rook stepped out, his face gaunt in the low light. His uniform was stained with blood—Viper's blood.
"Dr. Hanson needs more hands," he said, his voice a hoarse rasp.
Gryphon, who had been pacing restlessly since takeoff, immediately got up and followed Rook. Kael stood up too, moving mechanically.
The small medical bay was an island of blinding white light and the steady, urgent beeping of a heart monitor. Viper lay on the medical bed, her body connected to a network of wires and tubes. Dr. Hanson, an older man with silver hair and eyes sunken from lack of sleep, was working with intense concentration.
"I've removed all the chitin fragments and cleaned the wound," he said, not looking up. "But the neurotoxin has caused severe damage to her central nervous system. Her heart is unstable. We don't have the equipment here to perform effective dialysis on her."
The monitor beside the bed flashed red numbers. Viper's heart rate was dropping. A long, alarming beep sounded.
"She's crashing! Get the defibrillator!" Dr. Hanson yelled.
Rook rushed over, charging the machine. Kael held Viper's shoulders down, while Gryphon held her legs.
"Clear!"
"Shock!"
Viper's body arched off the bed. Kael's eyes were glued to the monitor. A flat line. Two seconds. Three seconds.
Then, a weak beat appeared. Then another. The steady beeping returned.
Dr. Hanson let out a long breath, wiping sweat from his brow. "We can't keep doing this. Every time her heart stops, her brain takes more damage. There's only one way."
He went to another device, a small glass pod. "Medical stasis. We'll lower her body temperature, slow her metabolism to a bare minimum. It will buy us time. Time to find a real medical facility, and time to figure out an antidote for this toxin."
They looked at each other. It wasn't a solution. It was a postponement. Turning a teammate into a frozen piece of cargo, with the slim hope that one day they could "thaw" her out.
Gryphon nodded, his voice heavy. "Do it."
After Viper had been stabilized in the stasis pod, Kael found a quiet corner in the rest area, shrugging off his upper body armor. He looked at the wound on his arm. It had stopped bleeding, but it still ached. A new scar would soon form, adding to the collection of reminders on his body.
"Is it bad?"
Kael looked up. Wraith was standing in the doorway, holding a first-aid kit.
"I'm fine," he replied.
She didn't believe him. She walked in, sat down beside him, and began to gently clean his wound. They were silent for a moment.
"I saw your file," she said suddenly, her eyes still focused on her work. "About Alpha Squad."
Kael said nothing.
"You don't have to talk about it," she continued. "But I just wanted to say... I understand. The feeling of being thrown to your death by the very people you trust. The feeling of having to live with the ghosts of those who weren't as lucky."
Kael looked at her. For the first time, he saw something other than sharpness and efficiency in her eyes. Empathy. "You too?"
Wraith nodded, not looking up. "My real name is Lin Wei. And the 'family' I refused to 'clean up'... they weren't strangers. The professor was my mentor. And his seven-year-old daughter... was my goddaughter."
A silence enveloped them, one built from shared pain. They were two broken souls, finding a strange comfort in each other's scars.
"Thanks," Kael said softly.
"Don't mention it," Wraith replied. "It's what survivors do for each other."
She finished bandaging the wound and stood up to leave, leaving Kael alone with his treated wound and a burden that felt just a little bit lighter.
Gryphon called everyone who was left to the holographic briefing room. "It's time," he said.
The four of them stood around the table. Rook, Jotun, Wraith, and Kael. A fractured team.
Gryphon activated the projector. A 3D image of Oracle appeared in the middle of the room. The same impassive face. The same ice-blue eyes.
But now, Kael and the others looked at her with completely different eyes. Every word, every gesture of hers was now a potential threat.
"Report, Gryphon," her robotic voice commanded.
Gryphon took a breath and began his performance. He reported the attack, that Hunnigan and Kante had been eliminated in the chaos. He reported that they had retrieved a massive amount of data from the servers. He reported that Viper was critically wounded and had been placed in stasis. He told the truth, with one exception. He made no mention of Subject Zero, and no mention of their suspicions.
Oracle listened in silence. When Gryphon was finished, she was quiet for a few seconds.
"Acceptable losses," she finally said, repeating the cold phrase that had first planted the seeds of doubt. "You have completed your mission beyond expectations. Hunnigan's data is a treasure trove. The Nest is en route to a secure facility in the Mediterranean. You will have time to rest and re-equip."
"What about Viper?" Rook cut in, his voice unable to hide its anger. "We need a real hospital!"
"The facility is medically equipped. Dr. Hanson will have everything he needs," Oracle replied smoothly. Too smoothly.
Kael just stood there, observing. He said nothing, just analyzed. He was looking for a crack, a contradiction.
And then Oracle gave it to him.
"Hunnigan's data needs to be analyzed immediately," she continued. "Wraith, I'm sending you a new decryption key. Our systems have detected some suspicious activity targeting the Nest. We need to upgrade security."
A red flag immediately went up in Kael's mind. And he knew Wraith had seen it too.
A new decryption key?
Wraith, as the team's cybersecurity expert, was the one who had designed the very encryption system they were using. There was no reason for Oracle to "send" her a new key. If an upgrade were needed, Wraith would be the one to implement it.
It was a lie. A lie designed as a test.
If Wraith accepted the key, it could contain a virus, a backdoor, allowing Oracle (or a "Third Party") to gain complete control of their systems. If she refused, it would show that they were suspicious.
Wraith looked at Kael, a glance that lasted a fraction of a second, but it was enough to convey a message. You see it?
Kael gave a barely perceptible nod. I see it.
"Roger that, Oracle," Wraith replied, her voice perfectly calm. "Send the key. I'll integrate it immediately."
She was playing the devil's game.
Oracle seemed satisfied. "Good. Get some rest, Hummingbird. You've earned it. Oracle out."
The hologram vanished, leaving the four of them in the silence of the briefing room.
They were heading back. But they weren't heading home. They were flying straight into a new trap, and this time, the monster didn't have claws or fangs. It had a face they once trusted.