We stood—twenty-eight of us, the Dead Men, Gina and I among them—circled around the holographic table on the bridge. At its center: Jerry. And right beside him, in his wheelchair… Marcus.

  He was delivering the mission briefing himself.

  Objective: Retrieve the core data from Facility Delta in Sector 3—once called Eurasia, now the Empire’s Imperial Gas Capital under Queen Ella, youngest daughter of Arthur I. The land lay blanketed in white Christanium, just like Union territory, but here the extraction was disciplined, surgical. Workers moved in full protective gear; morale ran high. The Empire didn’t harvest the crystals for raw ore. They cultured them for one purpose: Hilatus Diaboli—the Devil’s Breath.

  The white crystals wept a viscous, iridescent sap. Pipes captured it instantly, channeling the raw liquid to refineries where it was triple-distilled into the purest, most potent fuel humanity had ever known—far beyond anything fossil-based. At the heart of what had once been Amsterdam stood a tall building, housing Marcus’s masterpiece: a supercomputer built to unravel the toxic liquid’s deepest secrets.

  Tony leaned forward. “We’ve done runs like this before. Should be straightforward, right?”

  Marcus cut him off. “Hold your horses, kid. This isn’t a Union site with sentry guns, laser grids, and low-tech rifles. You’ll face something far worse—red chimeras. Rabid. Ferocious. Utterly uncontrollable.”

  “What?” I snapped. “Why the hell would you put them there?”

  His voice stayed calm, almost weary. “They were the first victims—people warped by direct exposure to the Hilatus. They went mad, attacked anything that moved. The Union wanted them exterminated, but Faye begged me to spare them. So I gave them… a purpose. A living biological defense. Union strike teams tried to breach once. They didn’t make it. Bullets pass right through; the chimeras just absorb them.”

  He paused, eyes distant. “It’s brutal, I know. But their minds are gone. The mutation burned away everything human. They’re alive… but their souls left long ago.”

  Gina crossed her arms. “So how do we fight something bullets can’t stop?”

  “Simple, Lieutenant,” Marcus said. “The mutation starts when they inhale the Devil’s Breath. It bonds to oxygen in the lungs, crystallizes, floods the bloodstream, saturates the tissues. Their biology warps. And their blood? It becomes refined Hilatus—highly flammable. Fire is your only reliable weapon.”

  I nodded slowly. “How many of us do we need?”

  “All of you,” he replied. “Every bit of firepower you’ve got.”

  The Dead Men exchanged glances. Malone cracked his knuckles. “Alright then. Let’s go.”

  “But first,” Marcus added, “you’re making a detour. Drop me at Ella’s capital palace. I need to collect the facility’s master key from her personally.”

  Jerry slammed his fist on the table. “Everyone—hands in.”

  We stacked our hands. “For Earth, for freedom,” Jerry said.

  “For Earth, for freedom,” we echoed.

  Three Dragonflies lifted off that day, each carrying at least ten of us.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The ride felt heavier than usual. Marcus’s wheelchair was locked in the center aisle. The men sat along the sides in near-silence. No one spoke until Tony finally broke it.

  “Sir… sorry, but I was way at the back earlier. I didn’t catch everything. What exactly are these ‘core data’ things?”

  I shot him a glare—shut up—but it was too late.

  To our surprise, Marcus chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m sorry you missed it. I was having trouble… standing up.”

  A muffled snort came from the back. Malone elbowed the culprit silent.

  Marcus’s voice steadied. “The core data are encrypted compilations from five photonic logic computers—machines that process information with light instead of electrons. Speed-of-light calculation. I built them, scattered them across the world.”

  He listed them off:

  Core Data 1: Union’s abandoned research lab—deepest chemical structure of the crystal’s “veins.”

  Core Data 2: Union Facility 64—failed attempts to cure the chimeras; analyzed mutated human biology and DNA.

  Core Data 3: Sector 3 refineries—chemistry and strange radioactivity of the Devil’s Breath.

  Core Data 4: Sector 2 industrial agriculture zone—blue crystals that revive dead soil; their core analysis.

  Core Data 5: Sector 1 black fields—rarest, purest Christanium; studying the mystery at the heart of it all… what the ancients called the “sun” within the crystal.

  “Together,” he finished, “they compile everything. They’re writing an executive program—one that will finally unlock the secrets of the Mal’akhim.”

  “Mal’akhim?” I asked quietly. “You mean… you finally know what Crystal is?”

  “Not completely,” Marcus admitted. “But I’ve found a path. A way to use this knowledge to bring Earth back—green again. Alive.”

  Tony blinked. “Uh… nope. Still lost, sir.”

  Marcus laughed—genuine, warm. The rest of us joined in, the tension easing for a fragile moment.

  An hour later we touched down at Ella’s palace.

  Imperial guards in heavy cobalt armor watched us disembark. We wore lighter blue ourselves—no one flinched. Marcus rolled forward. Queen Ella—young, beautiful, blond hair catching the light—met him halfway in a perfect queen’s stance. They spoke briefly. She handed him a slim key card.

  He returned and passed it to me. “Here’s the key. When you enter the facility, close the doors behind you. We don’t want chimeras spilling into the refineries. Good luck, Dead Men.”

  We lifted off. Marcus stayed behind.

  Soon the ruined skyline of old Amsterdam appeared below. Three Dragonflies settled. Twenty-eight of us stepped out—blue exo-shell armor gleaming, fire blasters in hand. They looked like compact red gatling guns, spitting incendiary rounds, with a secondary “spray mode”—a wide cone of roaring flame.

  Visors down. Weapons hot.

  Malone slotted the key. Massive doors groaned open.

  A tide of red chimeras surged out—hundreds, maybe a thousand, just as Marcus had warned.

  “Torching time!” someone yelled.

  We opened fire.

  Flame bullets tore through them. Their blood—infused with Hilatus Diaboli—ignited instantly.

  Bodies erupted like gasoline-soaked torches. They moved like nightmares: scuttling up walls, across ceilings, leaping like four-legged spiders.

  But our armor had countermeasures. When they clustered too close, we triggered the electric field—chimeras convulsed, dropped, and we finished them with fire.

  It wasn’t glorious. Every burning shape had once been human.

  We pushed forward through smoke and ash until we reached the central chamber. Gina slotted the data chip. Transfer began.

  Then—thump.

  A deep, rhythmic thud echoed down the corridor.

  Thump. Thump.

  We turned.

  A giant chimera—fifteen feet tall—filled the hallway. Muscle and crystal-fused flesh. It charged.

  We poured fire into it. Bullets sparked and sank in. It absorbed the barrage like the smaller ones.

  Marcus hadn’t mentioned this.

  Gina reacted first. She swung the rocket launcher off her back, aimed, fired.

  The warhead struck square in the chest. White-hot flame engulfed the monster. Heat washed over us even through sealed armor.

  Download complete.

  Gina yanked the chip free. “Finished! Pull back!”

  I planted the canister bomb at the base of the supercomputer stack, set the timer, and ran.

  We burst through the doors. Malone sealed them behind us. Chimeras hammered the inside.

  Tethers dropped. We clipped on. Dragonflies hauled us upward.

  Mid-air, the bomb detonated.

  A sun was born where the facility once stood.

  Flames swallowed everything—building, chimeras, secrets.

  We slid back into the Dragonfly.

  I turned and stared at the distant inferno.

  All those twisted shapes—former people—cursed not by nature, but by greed.

  Ours. Theirs. Everyone’s.

  The Devil’s Breath had claimed them long before we lit the match.

  And we did.