Unit 9
Crash Zone — Outer Minsk Region
The storm had calmed.
But Kael's instincts screamed louder than ever.
> "Something's coming," he said.
Dakar looked up from his field rig.
> "I already cut every live signal."
Kael shook his head.
> "This doesn't move through signals."
> "It moves through design."
---
40 Miles Out — Crater Site Epsilon
The ground steamed from impact. Out of it, Unit 9 stepped—fully active, silent, and inhumanly precise.
It bore a face uncannily like Kael's own—perfectly symmetrical, its gaze unnervingly blank.
Genetically spliced with Kael's old combat logs.
Trained on his failed simulations.
Programmed to hunt only him.
A ghost to kill the original.
---
Command Citadel — Emergency Analysis Room
Astra ran Unit 9's specs through the Lattice.
Her screen pulsed red.
> "This thing… it's not made to fight. It's made to end."
> "There are no backups. No recalls. No kill codes."
Rael leaned closer.
> "So how do we stop it?"
She didn't look up.
> "We don't."
---
Back in the Wastes
Kael crouched under a collapsed bridge as the first pulse hit—an electromagnetic shockwave that shut down Dakar's EMP mines like dominoes.
Then the sound of footsteps.
Heavy. Measured. Inevitable.
Dakar whispered, "You could run."
Kael didn't move.
> "You can't outrun your own shadow."
---
First Contact
Unit 9 emerged from the smoke, scanning with infrared precision. It spoke Kael's name with terrifying calm.
> "Kael Vasil. Termination authorized."
Kael ducked under the first strike—blades singing past his neck.
> "You talk too much."
He returned a high kick, slamming Unit 9 back—but the thing adapted mid-move, shifting weight, grabbing Kael's leg, and hurling him into a broken comms tower.
Dust.
Silence.
Then Unit 9 turned—
—and Kael was gone.
---
30 Minutes Later — Catacombs Beneath the Waste
Kael limped, bleeding.
Dakar patched him up.
> "You didn't beat it."
Kael shook his head. "Didn't plan to."
Dakar stared.
> "You led it here?"
Kael pointed to the blinking array in the corner.
> "You said you could melt weather satellites, right?"
Dakar's eyes widened.
> "Kael…"
Kael smiled faintly.
> "Let's drop a sky on it."
---
Above — Unit 9 Tracking Signal
Cipher watched Unit 9 follow Kael's heat pattern into the sub-catacombs.
He didn't see the redirect code slip past the last ping.
Didn't see the decoy beacon planted in the rubble.
Didn't realize Kael had lured Unit 9 beneath a collapsed orbital lens.
Until it was too late.
---
High Orbit — Decommissioned Satellite 442-B
Dakar's voice echoed through its rusted shell:
> "Final coordinates confirmed. Target locked."
> "Enjoy the sun, Cipher."
A solar beam cannon, centuries old, reactivated.
And in the Wastes…
The world lit up.
---
End of Chapter Eighteen
Next: Chapter Nineteen — "The Second Sun"