"Three minutes at… mark," Dragon's voice said.
"Shows over, people," Tagg's voice sounded, his clipped tones the only indication of the stakes. "Final teams, pull back to evac zones. Last out at minus fifteen seconds, no exceptions."
"Designated lanes only," Dr. Weaver's voice cut through the all hands channel.
Kamil suppressed a wince. That didn't bode well.
"Follow the bouncing ball," she continued. "Standby for significant spatial and temporal effects, mind the error bars on your clocks and expect to lose comms."
The waiting, as always the waiting was the hardest part. Kamil forced himself to calmly toggle between dashboards as the seconds ticked down. The increasingly worried looks from observers did not escape his notice. One from Aleph had dropped all pretense and had started mumbling prayers under their breath, before Dragon muted their mic.
They forgot, sometimes, those hardy survivors of Bet, how remarkable it was what they did for these attacks. For the Aleph observers, it must be akin to watching someone manage a major military operation in the middle of a major natural disaster.
"Unidentified column of vehicles entering exclusion zone," Dragon's voice sounded, suddenly. "Disregarding redirect orders."
"Mark as hostile, engage," Tagg replied, without hesitation.
Kamil muted his mic, and looked to his audience. "Can't risk interference with what comes next," he said.
"Fallen markings observed," Dragon's voice called out, calm as ever. Kamil could tell from body language that some of the observers were even now skimming background on the Fallen, and not liking what they saw.
"Taking fire, evading," Dragon continued. "Temporal and spatial distortions rapidly increasing in effect. Need to kamikaze or abort, alternate forty seconds out."
"Engage, engage, engage, confirmed," Tagg said without hesitation.
Note: Helpful unchained AI with military aerospace technology conducting kamikaze strike against suspected domestic terrorists seeking to assist a kaiju in triggering a catastrophic cascade of dam failures all down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. In an area of engagement rapidly devolving into something out of an Escher fever dream, so as to leave the AOE clear for the first responders to instead do something that is... something like a nuke, but maybe worse.
You know, normal Bet things.
