Chapter 178 The Last Supper
Chapter 178 The Last Supper
The night before the final assault. In the cold, hard cafeteria of Mojave Base, the harsh fluorescent lights had been dimmed to a quiet, warm amber.
May had insisted on cooking a real home-cooked meal at the massive long table that could seat twenty. The warm light spread across the surface, pushing out the condensation and metallic rust smell that had hung in the air for so long.
The table was packed — no fancy plating, just steaming, hearty food that felt like home.
Braised ribs gleamed with an amber-colored glaze. Steamed sea bass was drizzled with hot oil and soy sauce. There was bright green garlic broccoli, fork-tender braised beef, poached shrimp, and a big bowl of smooth, creamy mashed potatoes. But the thing that owned the whole cafeteria was May's borscht — she'd been simmering it all afternoon. Tomato tang and the deep savoriness of beef brisket churned together in the big iron pot, sending up rolling columns of white steam.
Jack sat at the head of the table, Sophia on his left.
Sophia wore a soft, light cream knit sweater. On her ring finger was the silver promise ring. The amber light moved slowly along its edge, casting a warm, gentle glow.
Akira sat diagonally across, a plate of vegetables in front of him — each piece cut with precision from kitchen scraps, portioned down to the gram.
Lawrence had squeezed in beside Akira, right in front of the steaming pot of borscht. His large frame sat perfectly straight, eyes drifting toward the pot every few seconds, quietly calculating how many bowls he could put down in the first round.
Zack sat across from Lawrence, leaving a fist's width of space between himself and the table's edge. He used to press himself into dark corners, knees jammed up under the table. But now he sat with his back against the chair — still a little stiff, a little uncertain, but his breathing had settled.
Leah sat close to Lawrence. She'd helped May in the kitchen today, and her index finger was wrapped in a small bandage printed with little bears — she'd nicked herself cutting vegetables. Lawrence had nearly turned the supply room and medical bay inside out looking for one, then fumbled with his massive hands to stick it on for her. Leah hadn't said a word at the time, but the smile in the corners of her eyes hadn't left since.
Eli sat at the far end of the table, Seraphina and Erin on either side of him. Nolan and Allen Gray sat near the door, both in formal clothes for once — Nolan had even buttoned his collar all the way to the top. That had been Akira's doing, a flat reminder before dinner: "Tonight is a family meal. Not a tactical briefing."
May came striding in with the last dish and set it down in the center of the table with a solid thud.
A large tray of fresh-baked handmade bread. The crust was golden and crisp, still radiating heat, smelling of toasted flour, scattered with coarse salt crystals that caught the light.
May didn't sit down right away. Her eyes moved slowly along both sides of the table, and her calloused hands pressed lightly against the surface — as if quietly making sure every single person there was real.
"I enjoyed making this," May said, her voice even and unhurried, like she was talking about nothing more than the weather. "When you get back, I'll make another one."
The cafeteria went still. The only sound was the soft bubbling of the borscht.
Jack sat at the head of the table, watching May's face in profile, outlined by the warm light. There was more gray at her temples than three years ago. But the light in her eyes burned exactly the same.
Jack picked up his water glass and raised it halfway.
"To the next meal." His voice was low and steady.
Akira didn't hesitate. He was the first to reach out and clink his glass against Jack's.
Then Lawrence, Eli, Seraphina, Erin, Nolan, Allen. Sophia turned to look at the side of Jack's face and lifted her glass gently. Zack paused half a second, then reached out and brought his glass into the light.
A dozen ordinary glass cups came together under the warm yellow light with a clear, sharp ring that hung in the air long after the sound had faded.
7:00 a.m.
The base snapped into final combat readiness. Every light in the corridor jumped up a notch, cold white cutting through the gloom. Heavy boot steps hammered against the metal floor in a fast, overlapping rhythm.
In the equipment room, Akira stood before a row of tactical packs spread open on the table. His gaze was sharp as he worked through the list — ballistic plates, tourniquets, high-explosive rounds, comm terminals. Each item checked, each item marked off with a hard stroke of red ink.
Boom.
Lawrence kicked the blast door open and walked in hauling two massive military duffel bags. He dropped them on the floor, yanked the zippers open. Inside: six M249 machine guns, stripped and cleaned and barrel-calibrated to spec, and twelve crates of cold, brass-smelling ammunition.
Down in the underground workshop, Seraphina was covered in grease, pressing the last high-capacity battery pack into the tactical armor's slot. The pneumatic locks snapped shut with a series of cold mechanical clicks.
Eli built his battlefield in the air. His fingers blurred across the keyboard as he ran the full remote activation sequence one last time. System response time held at 0.003 seconds — locked, loaded, ready to fire.
In the intelligence room, Erin finished the final data split. She broke the completed Fengshen Bang into twelve separate encrypted packages and mounted them to twelve unconnected backbone distribution nodes around the world. Every release timestamp was calibrated to the same millisecond. She was going to drive the Shadow Council's crimes into the historical record with the force of hard legal fact — no time left for them to delete or shut anything down.
Zack, Nolan, and Allen Gray led the Blade team through one final chambering of weapons in the cold light, without a word.
Jack pushed open the door to his room.
Sophia was standing alone at the window, the harsh morning sun stretching her shadow long across the floor.
When she heard his footsteps, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face deep against his chest.
After a long moment, her voice came through the stiff fabric of his tactical jacket, muffled and quiet: "I'll be home waiting for you."
"Won't be long." Jack pressed his hand to the back of her neck, then turned and walked out.
8:00 a.m.
The operations room door swung open.
The small space was packed. Core team, the six-person Blade tactical unit, and two of Erin's remote comms operators — everyone geared up and ready.
The massive display on the wall ran at full power, splitting Eli's live data feed into several panels. A 3D cross-section of the Arctic base rotated slowly in the center. A satellite weather map with cold-front cloud coverage blinked in the upper right. The backdoor logic tree and the Fengshen Bang countdown scrolled rapidly at the bottom.
A blood-red targeting ring locked onto the Arctic base's core server room.
Jack stood at the head of the operations table, one hand resting on the final confirmed mission brief.
"Everyone present." Akira stood across from him and spoke in a low, commanding voice.
Jack raised his head and let his eyes move across each face in the room — taut, resolved. His gaze settled on the 3D structural map.
Target: Arctic Base. Distance: 7,000 kilometers. Mission window: 48 hours.
"Erin," Jack said, his voice cold and flat. "Fengshen Bang goes global exactly two hours after the assault begins. Release on receipt of confirmed signal from the forward team. Twelve nodes, all locked to the same second."
"Copy."
"Eli, force-activate the remote backdoor. You run command from Mojave. If we hit electromagnetic shielding or channel disruption, switch to backup links immediately. Seamless handoff between links, no more than 0.4 seconds."
"Understood."
"Akira, Lawrence, Zack, Seraphina, Nolan, Allen — you're with me, straight into the heart of the Arctic. One objective: Kane's core server room. We push in on staggered advance, no prolonged engagements, no stopping. Eliminate the target as fast as possible."
Jack's voice dropped slightly. "Marcus Kane. You're with us."
Marcus, standing near the door, tensed sharply. His fists clenched hard with a wave of nerves and something else — but he straightened his back and gave a firm nod.
"Take your positions."
Everyone moved fast, breaking off toward their stations.
Jack pulled out his encrypted phone. The screen lit softly, showing the last message Sophia had sent. Two words:
Waiting for you.
He pressed the screen dark, tucked the phone into his inside pocket, and walked out of the operations room.
Behind him, the Arctic base's structural map kept rotating on the screen in silence, the blood-red marker pulsing against the cold blue light like a heartbeat.
In the metal corridor, boots struck the floor in a deep, rolling rhythm like war drums.
Red safety lights lined both walls, sweeping past their shoulders one after another, casting broken, shifting shadows.
Ahead, the base's massive blast door — hundreds of tons of reinforced steel — was grinding upward on its gears.
Blinding, blazing morning light poured through the widening gap, flooding the dark, pouring across the ice-cold concrete floor in a path of gold that stretched wider and wider, straight out into the open wilderness.
Jack walked toward that light and stepped through.