Kandara walked forward as slender white rods began to slide up out of the bruised flesh of Arntsen’s forearms. “Shit!” She shot two mini-grenades at him. His body ruptured, spraying gobs of skin and organ across the laboratory.
Two of his projectile peripherals fired on her as they sailed through the air—one embedded in his wrist, another rooted in a long chunk of humerus bone that spun like a baton. Her armor’s outer layer locked, deflecting the impacts. Even so, they were powerful enough to shove her back toward the broken door. Helmet sensors revealed his peripherals that had survived the grenades, splashing them like a cloud of gold embers across the lab. Kandara’s arms moved as if she were karate-chopping an invisible foe, using her gamma lasers to kill the small devices before they could attack her.
Once they were reduced to smoking cinder points, she went over to Fasan’s headless corpse and began a precision strike on his peripherals.
“Kandara, what’s your status?” Jessika asked.
“Still active. You can restore Eóin’s network now. Arntsen and Fasan have been eliminated. Tell whatever cleanup crew you send to be vigilant. I’ve disabled their peripherals, but they might have left other hostile systems behind.”
“Understood. Kandara, we’re worried about Kruse. Hir altme is offline.”
Kandara walked out of the lab. “I’m not surprised. Sie was completely exposed to the drone explosion.” She scanned around the ramp, her suit sensors picking up the moaning and cries of pain. “There are casualties. You can allow the paramedics in.”
“Opening the hubs to Eóin now,” Oistad said. “Can you get a visual on Kruse?
“I’m on my way down now. Do not open any portal doors to Bremble. It’s imperative that Cancer remain isolated.”
“We’ve got that. But what about Kruse?”
Kandara looked over the balustrade to see police in dark armor entering the atrium in a tactical formation. Debris from the shattered ramp was piled high on the prim black-and-white tiles, while the air remained hazed with dust.
“Kruse is dead. I can see hir. Sie was caught by the blast and the rubble. My sensors can’t find a pulse.”
“Holy fuck!” Jessika cried. “No!”
“Are you sure?” Tyle asked.
“Pretty much. Have you found out how the weapons drone was being controlled?”
“What?”
“The weapons drone in Eóin. You shut down the local network, yet it was being controlled. How?”
“Kruse is dead?”
Kandara cursed inside the privacy of her helmet as she arrived at the bottom of the ramp. This was what happened when the ops team weren’t true professionals. “Yes,” she ground out. “But the operation is still ongoing. Now where’s my route to Bremble, and how does Cancer still have access to the network?”
The police watched warily as she hurried through them on her way back to the hub. In front of her, the first paramedics were arriving, each with a tight cluster of medical bagez rolling along at their heels.
“I have three possible routes to Bremble for you,” Jessika said. “Coming through now.”
Kandara studied the map that splashed across her lens. Three different portal doors, with one inside the silicon refinery’s small pressurized control center and two outside the main section. “How good is that last known position?” According to the intel, Cancer was beside one of the material processing cores, almost at the center of the refinery.
“She was there as of three minutes ago,” Jessika confirmed.
“Okay. I’m entering the hub now.” Kandara didn’t say what her exit point was going to be. Maybe basic training, maybe paranoia; but Cancer had compromised Onysko’s data network. She might even be listening in to the secure channel.
“I think she’s using the same black routing that they used to get into our networks originally,” Oistad said. “The Bureau Turings are reviewing traffic packages for encrypted Trojans. I’ll try to isolate them.”
“Okay,” Kandara said. “In the meantime, download me whatever real-time intel you can from inside the refinery. I also want you and the Turings to access every sensor in the area. If she goes external, I need to know.”
“Understood,” Tyle said.
Kandara went through the first hub door and turned right straight away. She could feel her heart rate increasing. So many law enforcement and security teams had confronted Cancer over the years, and there weren’t many survivors. Every time, Cancer fought as if she was invincible, and with the ferocity of somebody who had nothing to lose.
Now she was going one-on-one, with no real backup. The only way to do that was fight fire with fire.