Novels by Eral Annobil

Location: Revenant Core Facility, Sector X-9Time: 10:36 AM - Day 1 of the CountdownA sharp hiss broke the stillness of the underground facility, then another and another until the air itself trembled with the din of mechanical awakening death.Here and there throughout the cavernous chamber, the stasis pods were opening, ejecting their unholy contents. Heavy vapor billowed across the floor like a ghostly cloud, shrouding the broken concrete and wrecked machinery in a mantle of spinning white. The overhead lights strobed erratically, throwing a strobe-like pattern that made it all but impossible to tell how many figures now walked within the smoke.Caden knelt over burnt remains of a control board, his own heart thudding in torment. His forehead streamed with sweat as it coalesced with dirt and blood, dried onto his face. He felt the measured tread now ticked off, calculated, constant pace. A throbbing cadence, like a heartbeat.They had arrived.Sophia crouched beside him, her breat

Where: On board Resistance Hovercraft, Sector X-9 AirspaceWhen: 09:21 AM — Day 1 of the CountdownThe storm outside was alive, howling and lashing at the metal skin of the Resistance hovercraft as it ripped its path through thick, chemical-tinged clouds. Inside, though, the universe was unnaturally still, apart from the occasional shudder beneath the feet and the distant rumble of the engines growling against the winds.Caden slumped on a bench in the mission bay, his knuckles clenched where they held the arm of his seat. He was staring off into space, but he wasn't staring at the grey walls that loomed around him. He was lost in a memory, one so vivid it seeped into his conscious mind, leaving streaks of images across the air he couldn't shake.Sophia sat opposite him with quiet concern.Beside him, Ethan pretended to inspect his rifle but kept glancing at Caden from the corner of his eye.The text had come an hour earlier, picked up on

Where: Outpost 12, Emergency Lockdown When: 06:57 AM | Day 1 of the Countdown Red emergency lights spun like blood-whirlpools down the corridors of Outpost 12. Sirens shrieked through titanium-reinforced walls, their metallic cries echoing the growing panic among the stranded Resistance members. Automatic lockdown protocols had sealed off the instant the Revenant's voice pierced their communications system. Inside the command center, the previously cohesive group of warriors, hackers, and analysts had devolved into chaos. At the eye of the storm, however, was Caden Holt, frozen. Stiff. The image of himself torturing a Resistance prisoner still hung suspended, projected from the central holo-core. The clip cycled in grotesque silence. Caden, laughing. Caden, whispering in Jonah's ear. Caden, a ghost of misplaced faith. “Shut it down!” h

Location: Arctic Circle – Outpost 12 of the Central Intelligence Time: 06:12 AM | Countdown Day 1 The VTOL's landing struts hissed as it navigated into the snow-burdened tundra of the Arctic Circle. Its blades whirring against the cold wind, the gusts wailing across the horizon like a god in death's laments. Below them, coiled on the rim of a frosted ravine, was Outpost 12, a covert subterranean stronghold buried beneath two kilometres of glacial steel and ice-reinforced stone. Above, it was an apparent ruin. A dead one. A fitting fraud for the last intelligence sanctuary of the broken Resistance. Inside the craft, Caden Holt remained motionless, staring out the frost-bitten viewport, jaw tight, expression unreadable. Beside him, Sophia stared straight ahead, shoulders drawn inward, eyes glassy with residual trauma. Ethan, who’d sustained a gunshot graze and a cracked rib in their escape from the Philadelphia sub-vault, sat opposite them banda

Location: Subterranean Vault, Sector Omega-2Time: 22:48 PMThere are some moments in a man's life when time doesn't slow down, it just freezes.Caden stood frozen, gasp lodged in his throat, as the Revenant emerged gradually from the sphere. Its arrival twisted the chamber light distorted unrealistically, shadows stretched and trembled, and a bass hum vibrated deep in their bones.It was not humanoid, not precisely. It shifted its shape with each second, folding inward upon itself in folds of flowing metal, transmitting impossible complexity. Its eyes, or whatever they were, glowed like sparks of old fire, blue-white burden of the centuries.And beneath it, held by streams of black nanites flowing from the orb into his spine, stood Jonah.Not-Jonah anymore.His expression had twisted and elongated half-man, half-machine, as if a painting was fighting to combat its own hues. His right eye had become fully robotic, and his voi

Location: Ruins of the Hydra Facility. Illicit Sector Omega-2Time: 22:18 PMThe moment the floor gave way beneath them, it seemed as though the world itself had opened up and engulfed them.Caden had hardly time to scream before the world receded in a whirlwind of screeching metal, crunching stone, and suffocating dust. The crashed elevator shaft had plummeted them straight down into a secret corner of the Hydra Facility one that wasn't on the maps, wasn't talked about, and, as far as anyone could have known, wasn't even meant to be.When he awoke, it was in darkness dense and stifling, as from a tomb that had lain sealed for millennia. Pain hurt his body. Ribs, bruised. Arm, perhaps broken. Dust clogged his lungs, and the air seemed unusually cold.Then, the lights.Small flashes, like fireflies, emitted light from the walls. He had thought at first it was bioluminescence, but after his eyes adapted, he could see that they were strands of fiber-optic wire braided with etched stone,