Date: C4:Y23:D104
Location: Sector Delta-5, Outer Perimeter – Dravon Borderlands
Morning fog had yet to clear, but sentinels had.
Smoke coiled in tendrils through the sky like bruised silk. Land that had once been a level plain of fortified territory now lay as a tomb of smoldering wreckage and crushed mech frames.
AI drones hummed overhead, combing for survivors beneath shrouds of ash and knotted steel.
Scout beacons blinked red across the gray dust plains, and the comms were alive only barely; static spat in their ears like a warning too subtle to trust. The perimeter thrummed. Nothing stirred, not from cannon fire, but from stillness.
No birds, no breeze, no drone whines. Only silence.
The kind that throbbed with life.
"Sir," huffed Teyren, Captain Nirel's second-in-command.
"They're back.".
A visor split. His armor was halfway engulfed in black fire. Five of twenty remained in his platoon.
"Command, Nirel. Red Hawk Platoon's gone down. Last location was Theta-3 trench grid. Force of Veltharan estimated heavy. I repeat--Sector Delta-5 is no longer viable. We're withdrawing."
Nothing but static. Then a flash of garbled voice ---".bio-sig--unidentifiable--camouflage breach…!"
Then nothing.
Behind him, one of his men dropped to his knee, gasping.
"Sir. they're not hooded anymore. I saw it, one of them. it transformed. Mid-blows. It resembled one of us."
Captain Nirel stood. Veltharan impersonation. Legends were real.
He addressed the other men, voice steady despite the blood on his mouth.
"No names. No signals. After that, assume any voice could be theirs. They've crossed the walls. This is no longer war, but incursion."
A low, distant hum grew.
Nirel did not respond immediately. His eyes were trained beyond the ridge, where emaciated shapes moved through the mist, not plodding, not crawling, Gliding.
From the horizon four emaciated forms walked erect through fire, unharmed, cold, beautiful in a terrible way.
Veltharan scouts.
Too elegant.
Too deliberate.
Too calculated.
Not human.
Biomech bodies liquid chrome glimmering.
Their stride was rehearsed with unsettling grace, like dancers conceived of circuitry. Faces were faceless and slick, no mouth, no eyes, just changing patterns of light beneath half-transparent plating that promised thought but not passion.
Teyren's breath caught as he stared. The last time he'd seen a Veltharan, it had been through his rifle scope,
so distant it hadn't been real. But here. they were close enough to smell the ozone trail behind them. Close enough to notice that their feet didn't quite touch the earth.
No guns?
He remembered a younger version of himself, wide-eyed and hopeful, dreaming of valor beneath the dome's bright skies.
But this was not a war of ideals. This was anatomy against evolution. He clenched his rifle, thudding heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Nirel allowed the scanner to fall slowly, allowing the dust to writhe across his boots like smoke attempting to flee.
"Sound the beacon," he ordered. "Put me through to Command."
Teyren held back. "Sir. are we requesting backup?"
Nirel's voice was steady. "No."
"Then. why?"
Nirel spun, his eyes flashing below the visor. "Recovery transport. Not reinforcements."
Teyren's forehead furrowed. "Recovery? What for?"
Nirel's lips curled, not in amusement, not in anger.
Something harder, Keener, Like a man who'd been waiting too damned long for this moment.
"For them," he said. "I want those scouts alive."
He left the words suspended there. No one stirred for a moment.
"It's gonna be a great thing for our team if we can get one alive. Not for us, for humankind."
There was a silence that moved through the squad like a draftsman sketching the air out of the room.
Even the armor-clad troops, veterans of Dome Quakes, Silent Raids, and Skyfire Protocol, exchanged suspicious looks with one another.
Others clenched their weapons tighter. One muttered a quick prayer. Another restocked his helmet just to be doing something.
"They came this close because they wanted to," Nirel added. "They're watching. Taking our measure. Maybe even goading. I want to know why they're doing this."
He unbuckled his plasma rifle, letting it dangle like a judge's gavel of accusation.
"I've chased shadows across continents," he said. "But today, the shadows stepped into the light. So we're not backing off."
He took a step forward, and the dust seemed to move with him, as if even the air recognized something had changed.
"We hunt."
A whisper passed through the squad. Like something ancient had been reawakened in their captain and now in them too.
"We become the ghosts they fear," Teyren growled to himself, his teeth grinding together.
Nirel looked over with the faintest smile. "Damn right."
Teyren swallowed hard, his head bobbing slowly. "I'll send word to Command. And send out a retrieval team."
"Good."
The squad moved with smooth precision, but each of them felt that something inside Nirel had opened, not shattered. Released.
Whatever had been resting in the captain was now wide awake. And it didn't look as if it was going to sleep any time soon.
[To be continued…]