FINAL SACRIFICE

  FORGOTTEN HEROES

  BOOK 5

  M.R. FORBES

  CHAPTER 1

  A tense silence lingered in the short space between Keesha’s announcement and Hayden’s response.

  "How long has the portal been open?" he asked, his voice tight.

  "About two hours," Keesha replied through Faust’s speakers. "We're working on a solution to close it, but the encryption was designed to be challenging even for me to break. For as confident as Yidra always acted, some part of her knew there was a chance you would defeat her. She really didn't want this undone."

  Hayden's mind raced through possibilities, each worse than the last. "Can't you just shut down the portal generator? Pull the power?"

  “That’s the thing. The generator controls are locked out," Keesha explained, frustration evident in her synthesized voice. “Part of the encrypted routine. So not only can we not shut it down, we can’t open any new portals until we solve this. And if we unplug it…whose to say it will come back online?”

  “I still want to go back to Tro,” Pik said. “Find a wife.”

  “You’ve been saying that for ten years now,” Benhil said. “You’ve never done it.”

  “Have you seen Tro women?” Pik replied. “You wouldn’t go back either.”

  “The only chance we have if we want to keep our plans intact is to decrypt this thing the right way,” Keesha continued. “We’re working hard on it.”

  "Then we have to hope the Asura haven't been drawn to the portal yet," Hayden said.

  “That’s unlikely, Sheriff,” Queenie said, shifting in her seat, "With the amount of power these two stations are generating—Keesha and Yidra's—any Asura in the vicinity would have noticed by now. We're practically broadcasting our location across dimensional boundaries."

  Hayden turned to face her fully, unable to hide his surprise. “It sounds like the Asura aren’t alien to you.”

  Queenie's expression remained neutral, but something flickered in her eyes—memory, perhaps, or warning. "The Rejects have dealt with them before. We barely survived it. They're..." she paused, searching for adequate words. "They’re nearly impossible to fight conventionally. We had to get creative. Very creative. And we still lost people."

  "How creative?" Casey asked.

  "The kind that involves dimensional resonance crystals and a jury-rigged Seraphim teleporter," Queenie replied. "Even then, we only won because we got lucky. And because I could match their phase-shifting ability temporarily." She touched her chest unconsciously. “I can’t do that anymore.”

  “But we aren’t starting from scratch,” Hayden said. “We may not be able to match what you did before, but if you have any ideas…”

  Queenie nodded. “Gant?”

  “The trick is to force them fully into phase with this universe,” he said. “I’m not sure how to accomplish that with the materials we have. But I’m not about to accept defeat.”

  “I didn’t reckon you would,” Hayden replied. "Keesha, we're landing shortly. I need Preslan, Natalia, and Tae assembled to work on this problem."

  "They're already assembled,” Keesha responded. "I gathered them the moment Nicholas and I discovered the hidden routine. They're trying everything they can think of to close the portal."

  "We'll be there as soon as we can,” Hayden said, then called toward the flight deck. "Bastion, get us docked. Fast as you can without killing us."

  "Fast without killing. Got it," Bastion's voice carried back, and the Faust surged forward with renewed urgency.

  The docking procedure that should have taken ten minutes took three. Bastion threading the Faust through the approach pattern at speeds that left the ship’s collision warnings shrieking in protest. The moment the skids touched the deck, Hayden was already moving.

  The ramp hadn't fully extended before he jumped down, his boots ringing against the station's deck plating. Casey landed beside him. Queenie and Gant followed, with Max bringing up the rear, his damaged knee joint slowing him considerably.

  The tension in the station was palpable. Hayden noticed it immediately. More of the Stacker clones had been activated, patrolling the corridors in preparation for an attack, weapons at low ready rather than slung. A subtle vibration in the deck plates suggested systems running at maximum capacity. Even the maintenance bots seemed poised for disaster to strike at any moment.

  There was no sign of the Asura yet, but that meant nothing. They could phase in and out of reality, appearing without warning. The portal had been open for two hours. Every second that passed increased the chance of detection.

  They moved through the station's corridors at a near run, following the route Hayden had memorized to the lab section. Behind them, Max's uneven gait echoed irregularly, the Intellect unable to match their pace but refusing to fall behind entirely.

  “Activation. I am coming," Max called out when Hayden glanced back. "Damaged but functional. Do not wait up. Hahahaha. Hahaha. Haha."

  They reached the lab entrance to find the hatch already open, voices spilling out in urgent, overlapping, technical terminology mixed with frustrated profanity. Hayden entered to find organized chaos.

  The lab had been transformed into a crisis command center. Multiple workstations were pulled together, their displays showing cascading lines of code, graphs, and schematics. Preslan hunched over one terminal, her fingers flying across holographic interfaces. Natalia worked beside her, cross-referencing something on a datapad while simultaneously manipulating equations on her screen. Tae had partially disassembled something Hayden didn’t recognize, components spread across his workspace as he traced connections with a diagnostic scanner.

  Joseph stood behind Preslan, his augmented form perfectly still except for his eyes, which tracked data streams faster than any unmodified human could process. Nicholas occupied another station, his jaw clenched as he worked through calculations. Keesha's projection stood in the center of it all, her form flickering occasionally as she diverted processing power to the problem.

  "—not a standard Axon algorithm," she was saying, frustration making her voice sharp. "Look at these recursive loops. They don't follow any logical pattern I can identify."

  "Yidra must have modified them," Preslan replied without looking up. “It looks like she took Axon base code and grafted something else onto it. Something I've never seen before."

  “It could be Relyeh in origin," Natalia suggested. “A biological component, maybe.”

  "Whatever it is, we need to crack it fast," Nicholas said, pulling up another display. "Every diagnostic I run shows the portal is stable and drawing power. It's not just open—it's actively broadcasting. Yidra designed it specifically to draw the Asura in.”

  Hayden moved into the room, careful not to disturb their work. "Any progress?"

  “Hayden,” Natalia acknowledged him with a quick but loving glance before returning to her screen. "We've isolated the encrypted subroutine, but breaking it...it's like nothing we’ve ever encountered. The encryption changes every time we probe it. Adapts."

  "Living code?" Gant suggested, scurrying over to examine Tae's hardware. "I've seen something similar in biological systems. Defense mechanisms that evolve in real-time."

  "Possibly," Preslan agreed. "But if it's biological in nature, we need a different approach. Standard decryption won't work."

  "What about overloading it?" Queenie suggested from the doorway. "Throw so much power at it that it can't adapt fast enough?"

  "We'd risk damaging the portal generator permanently," Keesha's projection replied. "And since it's our only way to create exit portals, that would trap us here forever."

  “That might actually be better than letting the Asura through," Queenie said.

  “We still have Foresight,” Casey said. “We can still get out of here.”

  “Foresight can only carry ten of us at a time,” Nicholas replied.

  “We’re assuming the Asura are even coming," Joseph said. "For all we know, they might not be able to sense the power output or a beacon in a pocket universe.”

  “Where do you think pocket universes reside?” Nicholas countered. “We’re already positioned in the void, closer than any timeline.”

  Joseph's expression said more than words ever could.

  "Wait," Tae said suddenly, his head snapping up from his hardware analysis. "What if we're approaching this wrong? We keep trying to break the encryption, but what if we don't need to? What if we can bypass it?"

  "Explain," Keesha said, her projection moving closer to his station.

  "The portal is open, right? Already functioning. The encryption is maintaining that state, but the portal itself is just a dimensional tear. What if we could manually close it from the other side?"

  "The other side is the void between Stacks," Nicholas pointed out. "It's literally nothing. Non-space. Nothing can exist there.”

  "But something is existing there," Tae countered. “The Asura. And the portal endpoint. It has to be anchored to something.”

  Preslan's fingers paused over her keyboard. “There might be something to that. If we could send a signal through the portal, maybe we could trigger a collapse from the endpoint."

  "That would require someone to go through," Natalia said quietly.

  "No," Hayden said firmly. "We're not sending anyone into the void. There has to be another way."

  "We could send a drone," Joseph suggest
ed. "Or one of the Stacker clones. They're expendable."

  "Clones or not, they're still people,” Hayden countered.

  "Then we're back to decryption," Keesha said. "Which could take hours we might not have."

  Nicholas suddenly cried out, his hands jerking away from his keyboard as he grabbed at his wrist. His face drained of color, going white as bleached bone.

  For a moment, no one moved. Then Nicholas raised his head, and Hayden saw something in his eyes he'd never seen before. Pure, undiluted terror.

  "They're here," Nicholas announced, his voice barely above a whisper.

  CHAPTER 2

  "Where are they?" Hayden demanded, his hands already moving to his revolvers.

  Nicholas shook his head, still clutching his wrist. "I don't know exactly. But my wrist has never hurt like this before. Where that one touched me. It has to mean they're close. Definitely on this station. Multiple contacts. Moving."

  The atmosphere in the lab shifted instantly. Joseph tensed, his enhanced senses scanning for threats. Preslan stepped back from her terminal, her nanocyte-infused body rippling subtly as it prepared for a potential fight. Casey brought her plasma rifle to ready position.

  Hayden drew both revolvers, the specialized rounds chambered and ready. They felt right in his hands, but Queenie's voice cut through his confidence like cold water.

  "Those won't help against the Asura," she said, keeping her own rifle lowered. “They’ll phase out as soon as they sense a threat.”

  "Then what’ll work?" Hayden asked.

  Queenie's expression was grim. "I don't know. Like I said, the last time we barely managed with specialized equipment we don't have here."

  Hayden holstered the revolvers and pulled the microspear from his belt. “Probably a long shot, but maybe this'll give them something to think about."

  "Maybe," Queenie said, though her tone suggested skepticism. “They're not here to fight us, not primarily. They want power. Energy. With two stations this size..." She trailed off, but her meaning was clear.

  "If they're on this station, they'll be on Yidra's as well," Casey finished.

  Gant had moved to one of the terminals, his claws delicately manipulating the controls. "If the Asura are already here, we need to focus on two problems simultaneously. Closing the portal to prevent more from arriving, and finding a way to actually harm the ones already through.”

  “I’d reckon they’ll try to fight us if they figure out we aim to close the portal,” Hayden said.

  “So we’d better figure out how to hurt them first,” Joseph agreed.

  “It's related to resonance frequencies," Gant continued, not looking up from his work. “Theoretically similar to the Intellect hallucination technology, but operating on a completely different waveform pattern.”

  “What about the blockers we developed for Harmony?” Hayden asked.

  Casey's eyes widened with sudden hope. "Can we use those?"

  "Yes and no," Gant replied, finally turning to face them. "The principle is sound, but the pattern is wrong. We'd need to modify them significantly. But it’s a start.” He looked up at Keesha's projection. "Contact Fortitude immediately. Ask General Cage if they brought any blockers back from Harmony."

  Keesha's projection flickered as she divided her attention. "Connecting now."

  “Abbey, can you hear me?” Hayden said.

  “Loud and clear, Sheriff. Are you safe?”

  “For now. Gant has an idea to modify the Intellect blockers and use them to prevent the Asura from phasing out. Did you bring any along with you from Concordia?”

  “We did,” Abbey replied. “They’re standard issue for all Harmony military personnel now."

  "We need them here," Gant said urgently. "As many as you can spare."

  “Copy that. We’ll deliver them as soon as possible. I would say ten to fifteen minutes.”

  “If there’s anything you can do to get them here faster, do it,” Queenie said.

  “Weird taking orders from myself,” Abbey replied. “We’ll be as fast as possible. Abbey out.”

  "I've already deployed all available Stacker clones throughout both stations," Keesha reported. "They're establishing defensive perimeters around critical systems."

  Hayden's mind went to the fleet outside. "What about Haeri? Admiral Shri? Cal and Washington?"

  "They're all aboard their respective vessels," Keesha assured him. "They were preparing for another round of maneuvers when I alerted them to the situation. General Haeri wanted to return to assist, but I strongly suggested he maintain distance."

  "Are they safe out there?" Hayden asked, turning to Queenie.

  She considered for a moment. "Most likely. The Asura are drawn to concentrated energy sources. The stations are far more attractive targets than individual ships. They'll focus here."

  Keesha's projection suddenly sharpened, her expression growing more urgent. "Contact. The Asura have engaged hellions on Yidra's station. Three down already." She paused, processing multiple data streams. "I'm redirecting the remaining hellions to protect the QDM. We can’t let them access that power source."

  The lab fell into tense silence, everyone positioning themselves defensively while maintaining enough space to avoid hindering each other's movements. Hayden kept the microspear ready, its weight reassuring even if its effectiveness remained uncertain. Preslan stood near Joseph, both of them presumably better equipped to handle whatever came. Nicholas remained at his station, but his posture had changed. Every few seconds, his head would twitch slightly, as if responding to sensations only he could detect.

  “Let’s get back to the encryption problem,” Natalia said, returning to her terminal. Tae moved to join her. “Standing here waiting to be attacked isn’t going to solve it.”

  “I’ve got you covered, darlin’,” Hayden said, shifting position to better defend both engineers as best he could.

  A minute passed. Then another. The only sound came from the group at the workstations, brainstorming ideas on breaking Yidra’s final challenge before things became deadly.

  The air beside Nicholas shimmered suddenly.

  An Asura materialized without warning, its grotesque form solidifying just long enough for Hayden to register details—oversized narrow hands ending in long claws, a massive bony head that angled forward into a smaller face with unblinking black eyes. Heavy robes covered a narrow torso too slight to support the upper mass.

  The creature reached for Nicholas with those terrible claws.

  Hayden didn’t know if Nicholas saw the enemy or sensed it. Either way, he threw himself sideways, his chair clattering across the floor as he rolled away from the grasping hands. In the same instant, Gant launched himself at the Asura, his own claws extended and slashing.

  But the Asura was already gone, vanished as if it had never existed.

  "Stay together!" Hayden ordered. “Watch all angles!"

  They formed a rough circle around the terminals at the center of the room, weapons ready. Seconds stretched like hours.

  The shimmer came again, this time directly in front of Nicholas as he regained his footing.

  The Asura's claw closed around Nicholas's wrist before anyone could react. Nicholas screamed—a sound of pure agony that made Hayden's teeth ache. There was no visible indication the touch should hurt as much as it did. The alien wasn’t trying to crush the wrist so much as restrain Nicholas, as if it wanted to drag him back into its alternate phase with it.

  Casey's plasma rifle discharged with a sharp crack. The bolt seared through the space where the Asura had been, but the creature had already begun to vanish. The energy blast continued through its fading form, striking one of the terminals in a shower of sparks.

  "Hold your fire!" Queenie barked. "You can't hit them that way! You'll just damage the equipment!"

  "Sorry!" Casey lowered her rifle, frustration evident in every line of her body.

  Nicholas cradled his wrist against his chest. “It wants me for some reason,” he said, voice right with pain. “I don’t know why.”

  Keesha's projection flickered again. "Multiple contacts throughout the station. The Stackers are engaging, but..." A pause that said everything. "Three Stackers down in Section C. Seven hellions destroyed on Yidra's station. They're moving toward both power cores."