The name hit Sector like a Boomer shot. Doctor Samson Niles. The father of the Locust. Died in 42 A.E.

"The Locust weren't the only ones buried down here," the kid whispered. "The Coalition buried the truth. The Hammer strikes. The New Hope Research Facility. My name isn't Minh. It's Niles. Samson Niles."

He tapped the pad. On the main screen, the installer launched. But it wasn't installing a game. It was booting a kernel. A map of the old COG network bloomed across the monitors. Red dots. Lots of them. Hidden backups. Classified AI cores. Genetic databases.

She was in.

"Stupid," she muttered, grabbing her worn Lancer MK2. The chainsaw bayonet was duct-taped, but it still growled. "The data isn't in the drive. It's in the dirt."