Page 44 of Dark Shaman: Love Found (The Children Of The Gods #99)

Shoving those thoughts into a compartment in his mind, Navuh turned to the display.

"They'll attack at nightfall," he said, studying the patterns.

"Should we preempt them?" Tharon suggested. "Launch our own attack while they're still organizing?"

"With what forces?" Navuh gestured at the screens. "We don't know who we can trust beyond the walls of this compound. Any unit we send out could be turned against us by their compeller."

He was making an assumption, but since that was the only logical explanation for what he had seen only moments ago, it was an educated one.

Another explosion rocked the island, this one close enough that they felt it through the reinforced walls.

On one of the screens, a secondary armory went up in flames.

More weapons lost, more ammunition destroyed.

The enhanced soldiers were systematically eliminating every advantage Navuh possessed.

"My lord," Hakum said, studying his tablet. "We're receiving reports from the harbor. They're destroying the boats."

Navuh's blood chilled. "How many?"

"All of them."

"They're cutting off escape routes," Vakon said, his face pale. "They don't want anyone getting word to the outside world."

Or, what was more likely, they didn't want Navuh to escape.

This wasn't just a rebellion; it was a coup, carefully planned and brilliantly executed.

The enhanced soldiers had played the long game, pretending to be difficult to control and psychotic while secretly organizing, recruiting, and planning.

Who was the mastermind?

Navuh had gone over the files of the volunteers for the program himself. None of the warriors were capable of coming up with such an elaborate strategy. Or so it had seemed.

"Ninety-seven against our thousands," Navuh murmured. "It should have been impossible for them to get this far. Even with their enhancements, the numbers were overwhelming against them. I wonder who came up with the brilliant idea to use our regular warriors against each other."

"They must have been recruiting for weeks," Vakon said .

He was probably right. This rebellion had been brewing under their noses for who knew how long.

Every soldier who'd come into contact with the enhanced units could have been compromised.

Every training exercise, every meal in the mess hall, every casual interaction could have been an opportunity for recruitment.

"Most of the rebels must come from the battalion that was stationed with them for training," Hakum said. "Six hundred males who spent weeks working closely with the enhanced ones."

"Enough," Navuh cut him off. He didn't need Hakum to spell out how thoroughly he'd been outmaneuvered. "What's done is done. We focus on the present situation."

He pulled up the footage from around the mansion's perimeter. His soldiers were in position, weapons ready, watching for any sign of attack. They looked solid, prepared. But what if some were already compromised?

How many were waiting for a signal to turn their weapons on their brothers?

"I want every man on the perimeter rotated in groups," he ordered. "No one stays in position long enough to be compromised if the enemy compeller gets close. Thirty-minute rotations."

"That will exhaust our forces," Hakum pointed out.

"Better exhausted than controlled and turned against us."

"My lord," Vakon said, "I just thought of another thing. They're not using the regular communication channels, and yet they are coordinated. It would seem that they managed to get an alternative communication network."

"They developed their own communication system," Navuh said, remembering Zhao's drunken ramblings about hand signals and evolved consciousness.

He'd dismissed the scientist because he couldn't conceive of a large group of immortals suddenly developing telepathic powers.

Still, he should have listened and paid attention because, apparently, telepathy was not the only talent Zhao's drugs had sprouted and enhanced.

If the coward hadn't killed himself, Navuh could think of so many uses for his formula.

He could have created an unstoppable army.

Once this was over and things returned to normal, he would find a new scientist who understood Zhao's work and start a new program.

This time, he would do that with proper safeguards and away from the island.

Lesson to be learned. Never conduct experiments in your own backyard. You might set your house on fire .

The tactical disadvantages kept piling up. The enhanced soldiers had every advantage: strength, speed, the ability to turn his own forces against him, and now perfect operational security. Meanwhile, Navuh was trapped in a bunker, watching his empire burn through security cameras.

He had a last-resort escape plan that no one in this room knew about.

A submarine pen carved into the rock beneath the island, accessible only through a tunnel that branched out of the one that connected his mansion to the harem.

It was his ultimate contingency, a secret he'd kept even from his most trusted generals.

A single submarine waited there, ready to carry him away if the worst happened, strategically located so he could access it whether he was here or at the harem.

But he could only take a few people with him. The vessel was small, designed for stealth rather than capacity. Areana, certainly. Perhaps one or two others. The rest would have to fend for themselves.

"There must be something we can do," Tharon said desperately. "Some weakness we can exploit."

"There is," Navuh said slowly, an idea forming. "They're not invulnerable. They can be killed, it just takes more smarts and more effort. We need to find their compeller and take him out."

"How?" Hakum asked. "How will we know who he is?"

"Watch the recordings. Eventually, you'll see a pattern and zero in on the one giving the orders."

"Yes, my lord."

"My lord," Vakon said. "There's movement on the eastern perimeter."

Navuh's attention snapped back to the screens. Figures were emerging from the smoke and chaos, moving with the purposeful stride of soldiers who knew exactly where they were going and what they intended to do.

"They're testing our defenses," Hakum said.

"No," Navuh corrected, watching the patterns of movement. " They're identifying our positions. Counting our numbers. Looking for weak points."

The figures retreated after several moments, melting back into the smoke. But Navuh knew they'd be back.

When darkness fell, they'd come in force.

"Double the watch," he ordered. "And have the reserves ready to reinforce any point of the perimeter in case they try to breach at multiple points simultaneously."

His generals scrambled to relay orders, the war room filling with rapid commands and status updates. But Navuh remained still, staring at the screens.

The enhanced soldiers were beyond control and beyond reason.

They should be destroyed to the last one, but that wasn't an option if he wanted to continue the program.

The new scientist would need test subjects.

The compeller had to die, though. It would be a shame because Navuh would have loved to discover what had made him different than the others.

The irony wasn't lost on him.

He'd sought to create the ultimate soldiers, and he'd succeeded beyond his wildest expectations, but now his creations were coming for him.