City G4, Velmora (Designated Union Sector V-47-Alpha)
04:39 — Local Standard Time
Black Overwatch Forward Command Center | Sub-Level 3 | Tactical Briefing Hall 2
The hum of artificial lighting pulsed above the curved obsidian ceiling, casting a sterile blue wash over the room's angular walls and tactical holo-displays. The air, dense with a blend of cold recycled oxygen and a faint trace of lubricant, felt colder than the temperature warranted. The quiet flick of synth-paper and the metallic clink of magnetic boots were the only sounds as the operatives filtered in each clad in sleek composite armor, black with cobalt highlights, visors off for now, their faces impassive, unreadable.
At the front of the hall stood Commander Varek Soln, arms crossed behind his back, gray synthetic scarf tucked beneath his armored collar. The lines in his face bore the weight of ten campaigns across three systems, and a jagged scar climbed from his jaw to the top of his left temple. Soln didn't speak until the last seat clicked into place.
A faint whir. The lights dimmed slightly as the primary display activated.
A three-dimensional map of City G4 bloomed into being its structure a spiderweb of vertical density, zones and levels marked in layered red and blue. At the center stood a highlighted tower: a shattered skeletal remnant, tagged Site 207 — Abandoned Civil-Medical Complex: Prior Code VEL-CH4.
"Alright, eyes up," Soln growled, his voice low, rough, enhanced only slightly by a larynx module. "You all know why we're here. We're sweeping Sector 9-C this morning. Intel confirmed elevated heat signatures and low-frequency signal bursts originating from the ruins of Velmora Central Hospital."
He paused. Fingers tapped against his datapad.
"Resistance Cell 6-Delta is believed to be operating from within. We're not walking into a tomb we're walking into a den."
A murmur shifted in the squad.
Lieutenant Kael Vorr, a tall, broad-shouldered operative with a shaven head and a skull icon etched into his shoulderplate, leaned forward. "Six-Delta? Thought they were liquidated three months ago during the supply raid sweep in City G3."
"Negative," Soln said flatly. "Their handler eluded detainment. Two days ago, an encrypted burst piggybacked through the civ-grid targeting Depot Epsilon-Nine. Last night, Overseer detected an anomalous convergence of shortwave spikes localized to the CH4 ruins. Six-Delta regrouped, and they're planning something."
A second image replaced the city map thermal overlays, drone captures, and a topographical grid of the hospital's upper five floors. Fungal overgrowth, shattered support beams, warped steel. A ghost of a building.
"Which means," Soln continued, "we sweep and secure the site. No quarter unless surrender is confirmed and weapons dropped. Droids are cleared for use. Governor's office signed the authorization at 0300."
From the back, someone exhaled slowly.
A mechanical voice chimed from a corner intercom, calm and synthesized, modulated through soft harmonic stacks:
"NOTICE: All actions exceeding Tier 4 force protocols are subject to council review. Planetary Governor has waived standard constraint protocols for this operation. Civil Droids authorized under Directive C-87. May Union Order prevail."
The Overseer. Always watching. Always listening.
Soln didn't blink. "You heard the machine. This is sanctioned. Full burn. Zero fallout."
He gestured toward a secondary display now showing deployment formations.
"We roll in three units. Unit One — Saber: street-level breach and sweep. Unit Two — Wraith: mid-level ingress via northeast sector. Unit Three — Hammer: rooftop assault with heavy support. Each squad includes one heavy frame and a CD-7 Civil Droid."
A brief moment of silence followed.
"Questions?"
No one spoke.
Soln nodded once. "Good. Gear up. We roll in twenty. Meet in Bay 4."
05:11 — Local Time
Overwatch Staging Bay 4 | Vehicle Prep Deck
The prep deck roared with focused activity a rhythmic chaos of hydraulic hiss, steel-on-steel, and clipped military comms. Mechanized arms adjusted vehicle clamps while engineers, clad in black-and-gray jumpsuits, checked atmospheric filters, ammo belts, and engine cores.
Two Ardent-class APCs hummed on anti-grav pads, their hulls plated in matte-black durasteel with reinforced repulsor cages—each bearing the Union emblem: a segmented sun rising over seven rings. Beside them, two DUEL-BLADE VTOLs awaited launch, rotors silent, armored shutters retracted to expose heavy floodlights and twin pulse cannons.
In a recessed bay nearby, Civil Droid CD-7 units stood dormant. Each was nearly eight feet tall, built like walking siege engines, with armored plating that had repelled everything from guerrilla shrapnel to plasma buckshot. Their visors pulsed a dim cobalt, still awaiting activation codes.
Sergeant Mela Corin, the field tech lead, jogged beside Vorr as he checked his gear. "All systems green. Ammo crates are preloaded. Droids are primed for deployment on your mark."
Vorr clicked his mask into place with a hiss of pressure. A moment later, his voice changed compressed, vocoded, and unreadable to all but other Overwatch.
:: "Copy. Keep them hot. No delays." ::
Beside him, Operator Nez Varra, slim and silent with twin sidearms and a matte-black data helmet, ran diagnostics on his HUD. He'd been quiet since the briefing, but his fingers danced with practiced precision.
:: "Drone uplinks active. Running threat-map prediction. Expect close-quarters resistance. They're gonna dig in." ::
Across the deck, the other squads moved like clockwork locking magazine belts, adjusting exo-suit servos, testing shock-gel impact plates. There were no speeches. No rallying cries. Only silent movements, quick checks, nods.
Soln walked down the center aisle between both APCs, his mask now affixed—his voice no longer his own.
:: "Final checks. Clock's running. We move in ten. Target site: City G4, Zone 9-C, Structure 207. Mission Protocol: Confirm, Sweep, Suppress." ::
A large monitor overhead flickered. The Overseer's emblem filled the screen a circling ouroboros with a central, glowing iris.
Then came the words:
"OPERATION: GREY SPIRE ENGAGED.
Hail to the Union.
05:31 — Local Time
Streets of City G4 | Approach to Zone 9-C
The vehicles moved in silence across the mist-slicked avenues of G4. Streetlights blinked through the dense morning fog, casting ghostly halos across decaying infrastructure. Buildings rose like gray monoliths, many still half-rebuilt, others entirely collapsed. The reconstruction of Velmora was decades behind.
:: "Approaching AO," :: Vorr said through comms. The Duel-Blades moved above them, rotors whisper-quiet as they cut through the fog with searchlights.
:: "Multiple thermal shadows inside the target," :: Varra reported from the APC's interface hub. :: "No ID confirmed. Hospital power grid is offline. Heat signatures erratic. Could be sleepers. Could be decoys." ::
The hospital loomed ahead charred stone and metal like a burned carcass, its skeletal frame jutting up in twisted silence. The old civil med-banner still hung in tatters from the eastern side, half-consumed by rust and mold.
A sudden radio chime. One of the Duel-Blade pilots spoke through static.
:: "Eyes on structure. No movement. Holding pattern. Lights scanning." ::
Commander Soln responded from the lead APC.
:: "Helicopters hold pattern and begin surface sweep. Ground units prep for approach. Drone scouts ready." ::
As the Duel-Blades began their slow circle, light beams cutting into shattered windows and broken halls, a crackling silence settled in the APC cabin. The squad checked weapons one last time.
:: "Masks on. Safeties off. Confirm comm integrity." ::
Across the channels, voice after voice clicked in:
:: "Saber 1, green." ::
:: "Wraith 2, green." ::
:: "Hammer 3, green." ::
:: "Civil Droids, online." ::
Soln looked out the front viewport. The mist thickened. The hospital was silent.
Too silent.
:: "No more waiting. Let's begin." ::
City G4, Velmora | Hospital Complex Ruins — Sector 9-C
05:33 — Local Time
Interior Sublevel 2F | Resistance Safezone "Sanctum"
The electric lanterns flickered overhead, casting a jaundiced glow across cracked tile floors and torn plastic curtains. The air was dense with dust and mildew, and every breath brought a sharp tinge of copper from corroded pipes bleeding into stagnant water. Long-forgotten medical tools hung from shattered wall brackets, their steel rusted into shades of red and brown. Graffiti old slogans of liberty, some scrawled prayers, others mocking caricatures of the planet governor covered the once-sterile white walls.
A central table had been cleared in what used to be a pediatric ward, now retrofitted as a crude war room. Makeshift comms, old repurposed holo-pads, ammunition crates, and blueprints stolen from Union data nodes lay scattered. A cracked window to the east let in faint fog, grey and wet like the breath of a dying god.
Damen Elvek, the cell's acting leader, leaned over the table. Mid-30s, with wiry muscle and a perpetually tired face, he traced a shaking finger over the Depot schematic.
"Depot Epsilon-Nine has a blind spot here, between the loading bay and the secondary intake vents," he said. His voice was calm, but worn like the barrel of a gun, used too many times.
Across from him sat Zea Varin, his second-in-command. Late 20s, close-cropped hair, sharp features. A scar bisected her right eyebrow, a gift from the first year of resistance. She shifted, loading slug shells into a short-barreled shotgun each click of metal echoing like punctuation between his words.
"We get in," Damen continued, "set the thermite charges, and we're ghosts before anyone notices. That depot fuels two armored train lines heading out of G4. We hit it, and Union logistics stalls for a week minimum."
Zea looked up. "And then what? They sweep every block from here to the Arclight Bazaar."
Damen didn't answer. The silence between them was familiar shared resolve, shared doubt.
Malo Drin, the youngest in the room at barely nineteen, hovered near a corner jury-rigged with monitoring equipment salvaged from a pre-Union telecom center. His jacket was too big, fingers smudged with grease and carbon scoring. He stared at the blinking light on a motion monitor.
"Uh... Damen," he said carefully. "We've got movement. Outside. Multiple signals. Low altitude—probably VTOLs. Big ones."
That got everyone's attention.
Zea stood immediately, shotgun in hand. "How many?"
Malo squinted. "Two... maybe three birds. No ground signatures yet, but I've only got two active sensor nodes running since the last blackout."
The lights above flickered again. Then died completely.
Darkness.
A second later, red emergency strips glowed along the walls. Power to the hospital was severed—internally, not externally.
Damen's expression hardened. "They're here."
A stillness settled. That kind of stillness before the blood starts to fly.
"Everyone to your posts," he ordered, already moving toward the old stairwell that led deeper into the lower levels. "Turn off external comms. No signals. No heat. We vanish."
05:41 — Local Time
Upper Rooftop — Hospital Complex
The fog pressed in thick, swirling against the rooftop antenna array like a veil. Shattered vent shafts and the skeletal remains of automated AA turrets stood like grave markers. Amid them, Taron Kel, a former orbital drop scout turned resistance sniper, knelt behind the old rooftop emergency exit. His eyes, augmented with low-light contact overlays, stared down the matte-black barrel of a custom longshot rifle.
His breath didn't fog. He hadn't been human for a long time not entirely.
Through his scope, he saw it: one of the Duel-Blades, cutting low above the building, searchlight flickering over jagged window frames.
Taron's jaw tightened. His finger hovered over the trigger.
:: One shot. Get their attention. Delay the breach. ::
He took in the wind vector, adjusted for drift.
The scope's HUD blinked green.
Target: 81% lock.
Range: 240m.
Action: Confirmed strike window.
He exhaled.
The shot cracked like thunder through the fog.
The bullet tore through the forward stabilizer of the VTOL. The machine dipped violently, one rotor flaring red as the pilot overcorrected. Then it vanished below the roofline smoke trailing behind.
A second later, chaos.
A second Duel-Blade swung in, floodlights scanning frantically.
Taron didn't wait. He dashed from cover, ducked low, and took position behind the rooftop HVAC shell.
The pilot in the second VTOL squinted through the fog, seeing movement. He opened comms.
:: "Contact! Rooftop hostile! Repeat, we've—" ::
Taron fired again.
The windshield spiderwebbed.
Then the second VTOL spiraled out of control, a hiss of sparks and shrieking steel as it clipped the side of the building and careened toward the ground.
05:44 — Local Time
Black Overwatch APC — Command Link
Inside the lead APC, Commander Soln watched the drone feed in stunned silence.
:: "We just lost both birds," :: Vorr barked over internal comms. :: "Repeat: Grey Spire is hot. Hostile fire confirmed from rooftop." ::
Soln's expression was unreadable behind his mask, but his voice was as sharp as a blade.
:: "Confirm damage." ::
:: "First bird engine destabilization, no signs of detonation. Second bird hard down, no response." ::
A new voice entered the line. Cold, mechanical, layered in harmonic clarity:
"Notice: Engagement threshold breached. Awaiting confirmation from planetary governor to initiate full urban clearance."
:: "Governor already signed the sweep," :: Soln cut in. :: "Initiate Directive K9. Engage at will. Break into standard formation Saber, Wraith, Hammer. Droids live." ::
Heavy boots slammed against durasteel as the soldiers moved. They formed into trios, one squad per ingress vector, one Civil Droid per team.
Soln stood at the back ramp as it hissed open, fog billowing into the bay.
:: "No mercy, no hesitation. Confirm sweep and contain. We end this today." ::
He pointed toward the ruined complex ahead, lit only by the sickening flash of burning wreckage and the glow of descending drones.
:: "Move!" ::
05:46 — Local Time
Interior Sublevel — Abandoned Operating Wing
The hospital's lower levels were a nightmare of silence, broken only by the slow drip of water and the far-off buzz of a faulty generator.
Zea led her team past a fallen surgical bed, motioning for Malo to stay close. Their group was small only eight left in this sector. Some had already moved deeper to secure fallback routes.
"How long until they breach?" Malo asked, voice hushed.
"Not long," Zea replied. "We hold them long enough to stall the operation. Damen's working Plan Red."
"Plan Red?"
She didn't answer. Her eyes fixed on the blinking light from a tiny recon drone half-hidden in a ventilation shaft. It wasn't theirs.
She raised her shotgun slowly.
"Malo," she whispered. "Run."
"What—?"
A sudden crack split the air. The drone flared and exploded—shrapnel tearing into the ceiling, the hallway engulfed in smoke.
From above, the sound of durasteel boots striking shattered tile echoed louder.
Then the voice.
Flat. Vocoded. Inhuman.
:: "You are ordered to surrender. Exit with hands visible. No weapons. Compliance will be met with processing. Resistance will be fatal." ::
Zea didn't hesitate.
"Scatter!" she shouted, raising her shotgun and firing two slugs into the smoke.
The blast lit the hallway. Screams. Shouting.
Then came the sound of mechanized limbs clank, hiss, clank and the roar of an incoming Civil Droid crashing through a side wall, dual rotary cannons glowing.
Zea dove behind an overturned med-bed.
:: "Plan Red! Go loud!" ::
City G4, Velmora | Zone 9-C
05:49 — Local Time
Perimeter of Hospital Complex | Ground Level
The ground was soaked in mist, and the concrete beneath Overwatch boots cracked with age as three squads fanned out in formation. Spotlights from the Duel-Blades no longer roved overhead both helicopters had gone down in the initial ambush.
The hospital now stood in spectral stillness, its broken facade half-veiled by fog and smoke, windows like black eyes peering into a soulless sky.
Commander Varek Soln stood behind a makeshift mobile command relay, eyes locked on the top-down scan of the hospital's layout. Small blue pings Overwatch squads moved along their paths. In the center of the map: red pulses. Movement, unverified. Scattered and converging.
:: "Saber, breach at the ER entrance. Wraith, north access ramp, underground loading dock. Hammer, deploy on rooftop—drop the heavy." ::
Acknowledgements clicked through one by one.
:: "Saber copies." ::
:: "Wraith copies." ::
:: "Hammer moving into position." ::
The massive CD-7 Civil Droids powered up fully now. Steam hissed from their release valves. Their red optics dimmed to cobalt as tactical systems engaged pattern recognition, threat triangulation, and lethal force assessment modules all spun up simultaneously.
With synchronized precision, the units moved.
05:52 — Local Time
Team Saber — Ground Entry | Emergency Wing
The reinforced ER doors burst open with a hydraulic pop, smashed aside by a breaching charge that shook the ground. Sparks danced through the fog as Saber Team advanced through the entrance—one heavy unit in front, flanked by four operators moving in a staggered diamond.
The Civil Droid behind them walked with seismic grace each step deliberate, servos hissing as it adjusted its auto-stabilizers. Its left arm bore a compact rotary scatter-gun; its right was equipped with a kinetic breacher a blunt-force hammer fused to a recoil-enhanced piston arm.
Inside, the hospital was black. The absence of power meant every shadow could be a trap. The team switched to thermal and low-light modes.
:: "Movement on thermal north hallway," :: barked Operator Juno Lark, rifle aimed steady.
They pivoted immediately. Operator Hoss, the squad's heavy, chambered a round in his modified flechette shotgun. It glowed orange along the vents heated slugs.
The team moved slow and tight.
Suddenly movement.
A shadow darted across the hall. Then another.
Not civilians. Not rats.
They fired.
Rounds sparked off wall panels, and the hallway erupted in flashing light and smoke. A grenade bounced into the middle of the team it hissed, then detonated in a burst of white phosphorus flare, blinding the squad momentarily.
Screams. Shouts.
:: "Flash-flare!" ::
Two resistance fighters broke from cover, shotguns blazing. One round struck Juno in the shoulder her armor deflected most of it, but she staggered hard.
The Civil Droid moved in instantly its scatter-gun spun up and loosed a two-second barrage that tore one insurgent apart in a fountain of blood and bone.
The second tried to run bad move.
With a single lunge, the Droid grabbed the fighter by the torso and crushed him into the wall like a ragdoll. The body slid down, twitching.
Blood pooled across the tile floor.
:: "Clear. Hallway clear." ::
Juno groaned, gripping her shoulder. Hoss knelt beside her, checking the damage. "Plating's fractured. Still mobile."
She nodded, teeth gritted. "Keep moving."
05:56 — Local Time
Team Wraith — Sublevel Access Ramp
Wraith moved like ghosts through the underground dock quiet, fast, no wasted motion. Their Civil Droid led the way, flashlight beam panning across ancient medical transport vehicles, discarded crates, and rusted gurneys. The walls here were moist with condensation, mold creeping down like veins.
:: "Clear sectors one through three," :: whispered Operator Varra, his helmet HUD linked to recon drones above. :: "Sector four…wait. Got movement. Several warm bodies—hiding in storage units. Confirmed." ::
The Wraith commander, Lieutenant Dae Marn, gave the signal. Drones zipped ahead, silent and spinning, mapping the layout.
:: "Pop the hatch." ::
A breaching charge was deployed a metal box-shaped unit with magnetic suction. It was placed up to the locked storage gate, latched on, and triggered a micro-thermite charge.
BOOM!
The storage door blew inward metal curled like paper. Wraith operatives rushed in.
Gunfire erupted.
Two resistance fighters inside the storage room opened fire with stubby autoguns modified with illegal magnetic accelerators. The rounds sparked as they struck walls and armor, but did no lethal damage.
:: "Droids!" ::
The Wraith Civil Droid stepped in, took a full burst to the chest, and didn't flinch. It responded with a thunderous blast from its side cannon concussive, designed to smash open walls.
It turned the two men into mist.
Varra ducked into the smoke, sweeping corners with his sidearm.
One rebel tried to flee through the back service door.
He didn't make it. Varra's shot hit clean through the neck.
Marn signaled the squad to regroup.
:: "Sweep complete. Four down. Ammo minimal. Request restock." ::
They moved on.
06:01 — Local Time
Team Hammer — Rooftop Assault
The reinforcement VTOL descended toward the hospital rooftop like a phantom in the mist, floodlights strobing the shattered antennas. Hammer Team rappelled down in fast order, boots clanking against rusted steel and broken ventilation shafts.
Sergeant Aryn Kale led the way, visor scanning. A silence hung here no movement. No light.
Too quiet.
Her voice filtered through vocoder:
:: "Deploy ground drone. Sweep roof." ::
A crawler drone rolled from its container, climbing through debris and transmitting visuals to HUDs.
:: "One stair access. East end. Signs of recent movement. Thermal shadow..." ::
The stairwell door exploded outward.
Gunfire blazed from within.
:: "Ambush!" ::
A slug round caught Operator Ren in the left thigh he collapsed behind cover, cursing. Kale returned fire, suppressing the stairwell while Ren dragged himself back behind a broken support column.
Their Civil Droid responded with maximum aggression charging straight into the hail of fire, rotary shotgun blazing like a thunderstorm. The hallway glowed red under muzzle flare.
Screams echoed inside.
The Droid vanished into the stairwell, and then
BOOM!
A secondary charge went off. The stairwell partially collapsed, sealing the entry point and sending the Droid crashing down to the floor below.
Kale swore.
:: "Command, rooftop breach sealed by detonation. Heavy is down, probable second floor. Proceeding to alternate ingress." ::
Soln's voice answered, calm.
:: "Understood. Push through exterior service route. Join Wraith inside. Leave no cell alive." ::
06:06 — Local Time
Inside the Hospital | Level 3 | Resistance Fall-Back Point
Damen Elvek stared at the burnt and twisted hallway on the drone feed. The last of their recon units showed all three squads had breached and they were converging.
He looked around the room. Only six resistance fighters remained. Two injured. One on pain stims and barely conscious.
"This is it," he said, his voice low but firm. "Delay them. Bleed them. This isn't about winning. It's about making them hurt."
Zea, wiping blood off her chin and clutching a half-loaded shotgun, gave a grim nod.
"We fight in the dark, then."
Malo adjusted a wall-mounted battery, redirecting power to their internal generators.
The lights inside the hospital died again. Red emergency lights kicked in and then flickered out, too.
Now, only blackness.
Damen inserted a new shell into his pump-action shotgun and looked to the blinking light of a detached drone core on the floor.
A bait. A trap.
"Let them come."
City G4, Velmora | Hospital Complex, Interior
06:10 — Local Time
Upper Floors, Level 4 — North Wing Stairwell
Steel creaked underfoot as Saber Team ascended a dark stairwell slick with grime and old blood. The remains of a wheelchair lay twisted at the landing, its rusted spokes tangled with strips of ancient gauze. Above them, Level 5 loomed a zone still unscanned, thermally unstable, yet pulsing with a soft electronic signature: a blinking marker on their HUDs.
:: "That signal's moving," :: said Operator Juno Lark, limping slightly but steady. Her shoulder plating had been patched with bio-sealant, but the painkillers had worn thin.
:: "Could be a comm relay… maybe a trigger node," :: muttered Hoss, shotgun at the ready. The barrel glowed faintly orange overheating from repeated discharges. "Or bait."
:: "Doesn't matter," :: replied Commander Soln over comms from ground level. :: "Signal's marked Priority. Confirm and secure."
The Civil Droid behind them loomed like a walking bulkhead. Its legs adjusted silently for incline, weapons spun low and idle for now.
Level 5 was ahead. Blackened numbers scrawled in faded ink beside the door: WARD C-5. The hallway beyond looked like a ribcage of shattered glass and collapsed drywall, emergency cots half-consumed by mold. An old patient mural still clung to the wall—smiling children holding hands beneath a golden sun. One of the faces had been gouged out.
:: "Stack up," :: Juno ordered.
They did. She nodded to the Droid.
The door blew inward with a pneumatic hiss.
Smoke and silence greeted them.
Then: blinking light. A small, humming drone core sitting on the floor between two collapsed walls, its LED pulsing.
Juno raised a fist to hold position.
:: "This isn't a relay," :: she said softly. :: "It's a shell. Disassembled." ::
:: "Trap?" ::
Juno advanced cautiously, HUD shifting into micro-field scan mode.
:: "No heat traps... no seismic triggers..." ::
She stepped closer.
:: "I think it's—" ::
A faint beep. Then a second.
Boom.
The hallway erupted in a concussive blast that tore the ceiling open. Metal and concrete flew like shrapnel. One of the Saber operatives was thrown backward, slamming into a wall with a sickening crunch. The Civil Droid caught the brunt of it half its left arm torn off, the rest of its frame blasted down through the floor into Level 4.
Alarms screamed in the squad's comms.
:: "Saber has taken heavy contact!" :: Juno gasped. :: "Multiple injured. Trap confirmed. Request medevac support CD-7 is compromised." ::
Smoke flooded the corridor.
Above them, from the opposite stairwell, Team Hammer appeared, rappelling down from the rooftop breach route. Sergeant Kale kicked through the debris and scanned the damage.
:: "Saber, status?" ::
:: "Two down. One critical." ::
:: "The Droid?" ::
:: "Fell through the floor. Still mobile. Minimal response." ::
Kale turned her visor toward the blinking remains of the drone core, now charred and sparking.
:: "Damn clever bastards." ::
Meanwhile — South Wing | Level 5 | Resistance Holdout
Damen Elvek watched from a narrow slit in the plaster wall, peering through a field of dust and static as the Overwatch teams regrouped outside the trap corridor. His fingers hovered over the detonator for a second charge one planted along the emergency water main that could flood the east stairwell and delay them another few minutes.
Beside him, Zea adjusted the pressure pump on her modified slug shotgun.
"Five minutes," she whispered.
Damen nodded. "Or less."
Malo was in the back of the room, typing furiously into a cracked datapad, fingers working through a looped exploit on Union drone protocol codes.
"They're down a Droid, and their readouts are fuzzy now. I piggybacked one of the interference bursts through their own scout drone relay. Might give us a window."
Damen's eyes stayed on the wall ahead.
"They'll push harder now. They'll want blood now."
06:14 — Local Time
Level 4 — Collapsed Hallway
The damaged Civil Droid lay embedded in rubble, its left arm severed at the shoulder joint. Its optic glowed dimly, flickering as internal systems tried to reinitialize. Sparks flew from a broken coolant hose.
Audio sensors buzzed with corrupted data.
Its logic processor reactivated:
Directive: Continue mission. Threat neutralization in progress. Autonomous action approved.
With a groan of metal, it began to rise slowly.
06:16 — Local Time
Team Wraith — Central Shaft
From the west stairwell, Wraith Team had reached the central shaft a vertical maintenance tunnel that stretched from basement to rooftop. The shaft was filled with tangle vines, collapsed scaffolding, and exposed piping.
Lieutenant Dae Marn held up a hand.
:: "Scanners are clean. Minimal movement. Signal pings are still bouncing." ::
:: "Converging with Saber and Hammer?" ::
:: "Affirmative. Multiple casualties on Saber. Proceeding with caution." ::
As the squad crossed the shaft entrance, something clanged above.
Too quiet. Too sudden.
They froze.
A drip of liquid fell from the ceiling.
Then the first explosion went off.
The ceiling to their right collapsed an old fuel tank, rigged with a pressure spike charge, detonated. The fireball engulfed the entry point and tossed two of Wraith's operatives backward in a rain of flaming plastic and bone.
Marn's suit absorbed the worst of it, but he landed hard, coughing blood into his mask.
:: "Down! Wraith is down! We've been hit by—" ::
A second detonation smaller blew out the adjacent wall, creating a vacuum of smoke and negative pressure that sucked dust and ash down the shaft.
:: "Wraith under fire!" ::
:: "Losses confirmed!" ::
06:19 — Local Time
Commander Soln — Mobile Command Relay | Street Level
Soln's mask flickered with feed disruptions from two squads.
:: "Saber: partially disabled. Wraith: under heavy fire. Hammer: stable. Command—recommend full encirclement." ::
He stood before the building's cracked facade, arms folded.
The Overseer's voice entered the channel.
"Confirmed. Tactical initiative is yours, Commander Soln. High Command has approved use of remaining Civil Droid unit from Depot Nine."
:: "Deploy it." ::
From behind the relay tower, a second CD-7 unit stepped out, fresh and untouched. Its heavy steps echoed through the fog as it moved toward the structure, its weapons primed.
:: "All teams, converge on Level 5." ::
:: "Kill anything that breathes." ::
06:22 — Local Time
Level 5 — Resistance Sanctum
The resistance survivors had reinforced their last position a surgical wing now turned bunker. Crates stacked for cover. One wall rigged with a flame trap. All lights disabled. Shotguns, slug rifles, and makeshift suppressors checked.
Malo returned from the far corner, datapad still running.
"They're converging," he said. "Two groups, one behind. One heavy inbound. We won't hold long."
Damen wiped blood off his brow.
"We hold until it breaks."
Zea loaded the last of her slugs into her sidearm.
"Or we go with it."
She looked over at Malo.
"You still want out?"
He hesitatedthen shook his head.
"I want them to remember this."
Damen smiled faintly.
"Then let's make it hurt."
City G4, Velmora | Hospital Complex – Level 5
06:26 — Local Time
Surgical Wing — Resistance Stronghold "Sanctum"
Silence fell like ash in the broken surgical ward, thick with dust and tension. The distant rumble of boots and the heavy metallic gait of another Civil Droid grew louder with every second. The air was electric coated with the static of sweat, gun oil, and fear.
Damen Elvek stood behind a stacked column of surgical supply crates reinforced with steel plating and sandbags. He gripped his shotgun tightlytwin-barreled, hand-loaded with tungsten slug rounds scavenged from an old mining site. His eyes were locked on the doorway at the far end of the hall, where the Overwatch forces would breach. He could feel it.
Beside him, Zea Varin knelt near the center of the room, setting the final wire on a pressure detonator wired to an old oxygen tank and three bundles of packed debris explosive improvised, unstable, lethal.
"We trigger it when their heavies enter," she whispered. "Then we sweep from the flank."
Damen nodded.
Malo crouched near the back, rifle clutched tightly in nervous hands, datapad slung across his chest like a lifeline. His breathing was shallow.
Damen looked to him.
"You ready?"
Malo nodded barely.
"I'll cover the flank breach," he muttered.
Zea slid into place behind an overturned gurney, her slug shotgun primed.
Then came the final signal.
Heavy boots. Muffled voices. A low, droning hum.
And the stomp of a CD-7 Civil Droid, its blue optics glowing through the cracked windowpane, framed by fog and ruin.
06:29 — Local Time
Hospital Complex, Level 5 – Outside Surgical Wing
Team Hammer had regrouped with the surviving Saber and Wraith units outside the locked surgical wing, weapons raised, tactical lights sweeping the blackened corridor. The air here was tight, oppressive. Even the Civil Droid seemed to move more slowly, adjusting for vibration feedback—an unusual tremor in the foundation.
Sergeant Kale looked at the sealed double-doors ahead. The scan showed no heat inside, but a blinking pulse still came from the center of the ward.
"Same false signal," she said through vocoder. "Drone core. They're baiting us again."
Lieutenant Marn, bruised and bloodied from the shaft ambush, leaned against the wall, his helmet cracked but functional. "We're not backing off now. Hit it hard."
Behind them, the fresh Civil Droid loomed.
Kale tapped her comms.
:: "Command, we've reached breach point. Resistance is cornered. Executing convergence protocol." ::
Commander Soln's voice came through instantly.
:: "Copy. Clean sweep. Confirm target neutralization. If they're armed—drop them." ::
Kale looked to her squad.
"Stack up."
Operators formed into assault positions. One held a thermite cutter to the lock.
The Droid stepped forward.
The doors blew inward.
06:30 — Local Time
Surgical Wing – Flashpoint
The breach hit like thunder. Light exploded into the ward Overwatch helmets glowing in the dark, muzzles aimed, formation tight.
Damen didn't wait.
"Now!" he shouted.
Zea kicked the detonator.
Boom.
The entire left side of the room collapsed inward. The oxygen tank ignited instantly, creating a firestorm that vaporized the first two operators. The blastwave threw another into the ceiling, shattering bone and armor.
The Civil Droid, caught mid-step, was engulfed in flame. Its outer shell held, but its optics blew out in a bright pulse as its systems crashed into emergency fallback. The left leg gave out down it went, crashing like a fallen colossus.
The lights flickered red as the emergency fire system tried to engage and failed.
Smoke poured in.
Then, gunfire.
Zea swept out from her side cover, slug shotgun roaring her first shot caught an Overwatch operator in the throat, tearing the collar plate apart. A second slug slammed into another's kneecap, sending him down screaming.
Malo fired from behind the support struts, missing the first two shots, but hitting the third square into the gut of a heavy unit. It staggered, armor cracked.
Damen moved like a ghost, taking cover beside a crumbling IV rack before blasting his way forward two slugs into a downed operative's chest before finishing the job with a boot to the head.
The Overwatch squad, reeling, regrouped fast.
Sergeant Kale shouted, :: "Heavies up! Push through!" ::
The remaining Overwatch heavy taller, broader, carrying a twin-barrelled thermal machinegun stepped into the smoke, unloading hell.
The weapon roared, setting the room alight with flashes of fire and kinetic pulses. The walls cracked. A surgical light fixture exploded above. One resistance fighter took a full burst and was shredded, limbs torn.
Malo screamed as a shot tore into his shoulder, knocking him back. His datapad skidded across the floor.
Zea dove over him, dragging him behind the collapsed examination table, her own arm bleeding from a ricochet.
Damen, flanking, raised a hand toward the far support column, now barely holding under the strain of the explosion.
Zea saw him. Knew what he meant.
She turned to Malo. "Run when I say."
He blinked through the blood.
"What about—?"
"Run."
06:32 — Local Time
Final Push
The Overwatch forces surged through the breach, now reduced to four operatives and the one remaining heavy.
Kale ducked behind a shattered sink as slug fire tore overhead.
:: "Heavy! Suppress!" ::
The heavy moved forward again, laying down fire But Damen was already sprinting, shotgun in one hand, detonation charge in the other.
He slid under a row of burned-out surgical beds and slapped the charge against the support beam.
Then he ran.
:: "Charge armed," :: he whispered into his earpiece. "Zea, now." ::
Zea tossed a flare into the center of the room red smoke hissing as it sparked.
Malo was up. Running.
The Overwatch heavy saw the movement. Aimed.
But too late.
Boom.
The support beam went first cracking like thunder, and then the ceiling caved in. Concrete, metal, and debris collapsed onto the advancing squad. Two were crushed instantly. One tried to roll got impaled by falling rebar.
The heavy? Still alive, buried to the waist in debris. Shouting into a damaged vocoder.
Zea raised her shotgun.
One shot. Straight through the visor.
The heavy slumped.
06:35 — Local Time
Aftermath
Only Zea and Malo stood now, breathing heavy, ears ringing. The ward was smoke and ruin, broken bodies scattered like leaves after a storm. Damen's body lay crushed under the collapsed wall his final smile frozen in the red glow of flame.
Zea walked to him, knelt, placed her hand over his.
Then turned.
The sound of boots echoed from below.
Reinforcements.
She looked at Malo.
"Time to go."
They disappeared into the smoke.
City G4, Velmora | Hospital Complex, South Sector – Sublevel Access
06:38 — Local Time
Structural Integrity: Unstable
Status: Active Purge Protocol
Zea Varin pulled Malo through the shattered frame of a collapsed stairwell and into the choking darkness of Sublevel Access.
Behind them, the surgical wing smoldered in flame and dust bodies lost in rubble, blood sizzling on hot steel. Somewhere above, she could still hear the faint mechanical hum of Civil Droids methodically moving through the upper levels, their heavy feet resonating through the cracked walls like the sound of judgment.
She paused, chest heaving. The air down here was tight with mildew, dust, and smoke claustrophobic and wet. One of the building's old atmospheric ducts had ruptured, feeding a constant hiss of recycled air laced with decay.
"We're not out yet," she whispered, yanking a torchlight from her belt and flicking it on. The cone of light pierced the dark ahead exposing broken wall panels, hanging wires, and a maintenance tunnel choked with debris.
Malo groaned, slumping against the side of the wall.
"My shoulder's—"
"I know." She yanked a morph patch from her pouch and slapped it onto his neck. The smart-gel hissed into the skin.
He flinched.
"I—" he started.
"Save it. Move."
She shouldered him up again and pressed forward into the tunnel.
06:40 — Local Time
Above – Hospital Level 5
Sergeant Kale stepped over a half-buried Overwatch corpse and nodded to the Civil Droid kneeling near the collapsed wing's data station. Its claws delicately extracted charred blackboxes and scorched datapads, placing each into insulated containment pods on its back.
Smoke curled through the shattered ceiling as the droid turned its glowing optics to her.
:: "Fragment recovery: 61%. Resistance communications scrambled. Core files compromised." ::
Kale's lips twisted beneath her vocoder.
"Anything on external contacts?"
The droid clicked, then replied in its precise Union-register voice.
:: "Negative. However, local node pings indicate partial data cache in lower maintenance grid. Sublevel Two." ::
She keyed her helmet comm.
:: "Commander Soln. We've cleared Level Five. Multiple casualties. Surgical wing collapsed during breach likely sabotage. Two resistance combatants unaccounted for. Droid suggests surviving data fragments below." ::
:: "Copy that," Soln answered, his voice crisp. "Deploy sweep drones. Seal the exits. Activate Purge Protocol. I want this facility cleared within the hour." ::
:: "Understood." ::
Kale looked up at the hovering Recon Drone circling above her squad.
"Deploy sweepers. Full perimeter lock."
06:42 — Local Time
City G4, Overwatch Central Command – Spire 1
Commander Soln stood before a tactical holoboard in the heart of the Administrative Tower, arms crossed as a dozen feeds flickered across his interface infrared sweeps, drone telemetry, casualty reports.
Behind him, a civil liaison from the Governor's Office entered. Dressed in pale-gray formalwear and wearing the golden crest of the planetary office, the man looked unsettled.
"You're leveling half the southern district," the liaison said, glancing at the operation feed. "The Governor expects restraint."
Soln didn't turn.
"There's a difference between restraint and negligence. They hit one of our duel-rotors, deployed tactically timed explosives, and coordinated flanking maneuvers. That's military-grade resistance."
He pointed at a blinking feed. "Two of them survived the upper floor collapse. We believe they're moving through old municipal tunnels. If they get to the outer district, we lose containment."
The liaison's jaw tightened.
"You don't have council clearance nor the planetary governor's approval for structural purge only tactical engagement."
Soln finally looked back. His gaze behind the dark gray visor of his command helm was unreadable.
"Then I suggest you take that up with the Overseer. She greenlit local override under Article V."
The liaison's mouth opened then closed.
He left without another word.
06:45 — Local Time
Hospital Sublevel 1 – Auxiliary Maintenance Corridor
The tunnel opened into a narrow corridor flanked by rusted maintenance doors and shattered utility piping. Zea kept low, her shotgun slung tight, torchlight guiding the way.
Malo stumbled behind her, pale but conscious, his shoulder wrapped tightly in industrial cloth.
Suddenly.
A mechanical whine echoed from behind.
Zea spun, torch raised.
Two small sweeper drones hovered into view spherical, each the size of a dinner plate, with rotating sensor clusters and a rapid-blink light ring on their undersides.
"Down!" she hissed, tackling Malo to the side.
One of the drones fired a stun burst blue arcs lancing out like lightning. The blast struck a wall and scorched it black.
Zea pulled her sidearm a compact slugpistol and fired. The first round pinged off the casing, but the second shattered a sensor eye. The drone spun wildly, sparks spitting out before crashing to the floor.
The second drone veered upward to avoid the shots.
"EMP!" Zea shouted.
Malo, gasping, reached into his belt and pulled a small canister thin, silver, and blinking. He tossed it forward.
Ffffzzzz—BOOM.
A pulse rippled outward, disrupting the drone mid-flight. It fell like a stone.
Zea exhaled hard.
"They know where we are now," she said. "We need to reach the old utility shafts. That's the only way out of the grid."
Malo nodded, wiping blood from his mouth.
"How far?"
"Two levels down. Then five hundred meters west."
She paused, then added: "If the old maps are still valid."
06:48 — Local Time
Hospital – Ground Level Exterior
Outside the building, Overwatch transports had sealed the perimeter. Duel-blade rotors hovered in tight patrol patterns, floodlights bathing the ruins. Dozens of Civil Droids now marched in coordinated formation, entering the building in squads of three—each programmed for purge operations, with mounted autocannons and flamers.
Inside the command APC, Sergeant Kale watched the drone feeds flicker.
Two heat signatures moving west, descending.
She keyed into the Civil Droid network.
:: "Target confirmed. Sublevel shafts. Intersection 12-E. Converge." ::
The Overseer's voice cut through the comms, smooth and cold.
:: "Directive authorized. Non-surrender combatants are to be neutralized. Environmental collapse within zone is permissible." ::
Kale's voice was sharp.
:: "Copy. Executing Purge." ::
She looked at the nearest squad.
"Burn them out."
06:50 — Local Time
Hospital Sublevel 2 – Access Shaft
Zea and Malo reached the access shaft a vertical service tunnel with rusted ladder rungs and old hazard signage in Velnari script. Zea lit the path downward with a wrist lamp.
"I'll go first," she said. "You hold the light and cover."
"I can't my arm—"
She nodded. "Then just stay alive."
She began to descend.
Above them, the faint whir of another drone echoed.
Then A deep, vibrating thoom echoed through the walls.
"What was—?" Malo whispered.
The corridor behind them erupted into fire.
A Civil Droid's flamer swept the hallway, torching everything in its path. Its blue optics glowed through the inferno.
"Go, go!" Zea shouted, dropping the rest of the way down.
Malo followed, slipping and crashing into the shaft.
The droid turned, recalibrated its aim, and fired again
But the shaft collapsed.
The explosion sealed the entrance in rubble.
They were gone.
06:56 — Local Time
City G4 | Former Hospital Zone — Containment Grid 7
The hospital is in poor condition it was a wound smoking, bleeding dust and ash into the pale gray morning.
Blackened beams stuck out like ribs. Windows no longer existed. The towering east wing, once a skeletal monolith of healing, had caved inward in a flaming collapse after the last Civil Droid detachment flushed the sublevels with thermite.
The Union's directive was clear: purge, cleanse, contain.
No rebels survived.
Or so the Black Overwatch believed.
Central Command Feed: OP-GS.07 | Tactical Link Active
Commander Soln – Black Overwatch G4 Division
:: "All squads, signal reads clean. Last biosigns extinguished at 06:51. Begin Phase Three recovery and dismantle. Civil teams, secure and extract good-grade materials and conduct biometric tagging of all deceased. Anything unregistered goes to Research Clearance B. Then initiate collapse protocol." ::
Commander Soln watched from the interior of the Command APC as the holo-map of the hospital lit up in bands of red and blue. No further resistance signals. No signs of heat signatures below the rubble line. The entire underground had been sealed.
Good.
The drones had mapped all escape vectors none viable. Whatever that last blast had been in Sublevel 2, it had likely crushed every tunnel within thirty meters.
He spoke again through the general channel.
:: "Bring in the Levelers." ::
07:01 — Local Time
North Perimeter, Hospital Site
Three Union Leveller Rigs heavy six-legged demolition walkers designed for urban terrain marched toward the zone, their stabilizer claws slamming the ground in perfect sequence. Each one bore plasma arc cutters and seismic destabilizers on its chassis, built for rapid structural obliteration.
Behind them, teams of Overwatch and Civil Droid personnel fanned out across the scorched grounds. Fires still crackled in pockets of debris. Most of the bodies had burned beyond recognition, their armor scorched black and fused to the floor tiles or torn by concussive force.
Sergeant Kale walked carefully through the ruins of the fifth floor wing. Her boots crunched across glass and charred blood. She passed a Civil Droid slowly lifting a corpse out from a mound of rubble. The body was half-intact, male, early twenties, shotgun still clenched in a shattered hand.
Kale scanned the tag.
:: "Resistance. No Union ID. Registering to Local Archive." ::
The droid beeped in confirmation, then sprayed a vapor sealant over the remains before placing it into a collapsible field stretcher.
Nearby, two technicians catalogued a dismantled launcher embedded into a ceiling support. It had been used to take down the first Overwatch helicopter.
"Make sure that's boxed and sent to Velmora Armory Division," Kale ordered. "The Mayor wants to know who's building war gear in his slums."
07:08 — Local Time
Hospital Substructure | Civil Tunnel Z3, Abandoned Railway Access
Dripping pipes. Hanging wire cables. Tracks rusted beyond function. The tunnel had not seen a train in thirty years.
Zea knelt beside Malo under a collapsed lighting conduit. She'd pulled them off the ladder shaft collapse just in time. The tunnel had opened below, and gravity had done the rest dropping them both into this forgotten artery of the city.
Her chest still ached from the fall. But Malo was alive, arm clutched close, blood soaked into the wraps.
She checked the time on her cracked wristpad.
07:08.
The Overwatch wouldn't be chasing them. Not anymore.
She tapped the wristpad still showing "No Signal."
They'd vanished from Overwatch's systems when the shaft blew. The signal scramblers had been incinerated in the blast, severing their trace.
"They think we're dead," she whispered, leaning back against the cold steel wall. Her voice echoed softly in the dark.
Malo gave a weak grin. "Good. Let them think that."
They sat in silence.
The tunnel stretched endlessly ahead, a black throat lined in silent decay.
07:12 — Local Time
Hospital Demolition Perimeter
The first Leveller Rig deployed its seismic destabilizers long spear-like rods drilled into the broken asphalt.
The machine groaned, charged, and pulsed.
A low-frequency hum vibrated through the surrounding ground. Pebbles bounced. Loose debris shifted. The ruins began to buckle. Dust geysers burst upward as the buried supports gave way.
Kale watched from a safe distance as a third of the hospital collapsed inward with a slow, roaring groan.
A final purge.
No monument. No evidence.
Only ash.
07:20 — Local Time
Underground Rail Tunnel – Sector V9
Zea and Malo pressed on, one foot after another.
Every thirty meters, Zea paused to check for seismic readings or structural collapse. The map in her mind was cobbled together from old resistance diagrams and pure instinct but the underground lines were once part of Velmora's core infrastructure.
If they were lucky, this line would lead to Arc Junction, an abandoned central station where refugees and smugglers sometimes passed undetected between Union supply hubs.
If they were lucky.
She heard the rumble before Malo did. A faint tremor rolled beneath their boots. A long, low echo.
She stopped. Listened.
Collapse.
She imagined the hospital imploding above them, swallowed by its own secrets.
So many dead.
Her team. The ones who'd believed.
Malo reached forward and squeezed her wrist.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Zea didn't reply.
07:22 — Local Time
Union Overwatch Command, Spire 1 | Incident Log Terminal
The incident report was already being filed.
OPERATION: GREY SPIRE – FINAL STATUS REPORT
• Civilian Resistance Cell: Neutralized
• Overwatch Casualties: 11 Confirmed KIA
• Civil Droids Lost: 5
• Hostile Equipment Recovered: 43 Units (Pending Decryption)
• High-Value Targets Captured: 0
• Survivors: None
• Site Status: Demolished
• Local Impact Risk: Minimal
Filed Under: United Federation Union – Civil Oversight Committee (Velmora Sector)
Reviewed By: Overseer, Directive Node 9
07:25 — Local Time
Arc Tunnel – Southbound Line
Zea adjusted her torchlight, sweeping it ahead.
A cracked sign above read:
Sector Line 4A – Arc Junction: 6.2 km
They had a chance.
She looked back at Malo.
"We walk until we reach the old metro junction. Once we're there, I'll find us a way out."
"Then what?"
Zea glanced upward. Her face was grim.
"Then we find whoever's still alive. And make this war hurt."
08:45 — Local Time
Velmora Outlands | Near the Redstone Ridge Exclusion Zone
The wilds beyond City G4 were not dead.
They just didn't belong to people anymore.
Crimson clouds hung low in the sky, painted by industrial waste and the thin ozone haze left behind from Union atmosphere scrubbers. The land was cracked and sparse, dotted with derelict freight towers and rusting satellite masts from a time when Velmora had ruled itself.
Zea and Malo moved slowly, cloaked in dirt and silence, the city far behind them now no signals, no search patrols, no radar sweeps.
Only emptiness.
They'd found an abandoned crawler station just north of the old canal route. From there, a rusted path of maintenance bridges led out of the city district and into the badlands.
Malo stopped to rest by the shell of a collapsed comms relay. He looked half-dead, arm in a sling fashioned from scavenged cable webbing.
Zea was no better. Her hair was matted with grime and ash. She hadn't spoken in hours.
"Still think we're dead?" Malo rasped, breaking the quiet.
Zea looked at the horizon. G4's skyline was nothing now only a faint blur behind heat shimmer and red dust.
"Let them think it," she muttered. "The war's not over."
"Then what now?"
"We keep walking."
"To where?"
Zea looked toward the west. "Wherever the Union hasn't paved over yet."
They disappeared over the next ridge, two shadows swallowed by the planet's forgotten spine.
Their war was over for now.
09:00 — Local Time
Velmora Public Broadcast | UFN Official Channel V-47.01
"…and now, for today's morning report."
The anchor was pristine. Hair regulation-short, face powdered to near perfection, smile practiced like a weapon. Behind her flickered the clean black and gray seal of the United Federation Union.
She spoke with unwavering calm.
"Early this morning, an anti-Union insurgency cell was uncovered and eliminated in the outer slums of City G4. According to officials, the group had established a covert base of operations in a long-abandoned hospital site within Containment Grid Seven. Union Civil Authority, the Black Overwatch successfully conducted a sweep-and-contain operation. No civilian casualties were reported."
"According to the statement issued by the G4 Mayor and approved by the Planetary Office, the site has since been dismantled and will be repurposed as a new logistics hub under the Union Reconstruction Initiative."
"Governor Lerna issued a brief comment this morning: 'The people of Velmora deserve safety, peace, and future. We thank the brave men and women of the Overwatch who stand between chaos and the world we're trying to rebuild.'"
"Coming up next: weather across the Central Equatorial Arc and a new exhibit of pre-Federation relics now open at the Spire Museum..."
10:05 — Local Time
Administrative Tower | Spire One — Secured Council Chamber
The chamber was circular, layered in descending tiers like an ancient war room. Thick glass walls looked out into a blinding silver skyline, but they were blacked out today. Privacy protocol Level 5 Clearance.
Inside, twelve individuals sat in silence. The Governor, six City Council members, and one man standing tall in jet-black armor at the center podium: Colonel Drel Varn, of the Black Overwatch Velmora Operations.
The chamber was quiet. Too quiet.
Finally, the Governor leaned forward.
"Colonel. We've reviewed the report."
Varn didn't move. His visor gleamed under the sterile lights.
"The losses were considerable," said Councilman Orel, Mayor of City G2. "Eleven operatives. Two Civil Droids fully destroyed. Five more decommissioned. And no high-value targets recovered. Is that an acceptable cost for an operation this small?"
Varn's voice, processed through his vocoder, echoed with controlled authority. "It was not small. This was a hardened resistance base. Structured. Coordinated. Armed with near-military equipment. The cell was more dangerous than projected."
Councilwoman Tharis, Mayor of City G6 spoke next. "And yet you acted without full consensus of the Council. There was no vote to authorize Level 4 Demolition within city zones."
"You were notified," Varn replied flatly. "Emergency Clause 17 was invoked. The risk of delayed response outweighed the value of waiting for procedural clearance."
Governor Lerna leaned forward again. "Colonel, let us be clear we are not questioning the legitimacy of the operation. But the manner of its execution."
Varn's silence was heavy.
"You have to understand," Lerna continued, "Velmora is still healing. The people are wary. The Overwatch is not beloved here nor Union rule."
"No one asks them to be," Varn said coldly. "We are not peacekeepers. We are enforcers. Stability is not earned by popularity only."
Councilman Orel scoffed. "And what of the families in Grid 7 now displaced by your demolition? You turned a city block into ash."
"To prevent it from turning into a warzone that could've spilled into G4's core." Varn's tone hardened. "Every time we hesitate, rebels build another bomb. Another tunnel. Another myth of freedom."
The room fell silent again.
Governor Lerna's voice was lower now. "We are trying to rebuild a planet. Not strip it of its soul."
Varn stepped forward, finally removing his mask. His face was stern, pale with age and lines of experience gray streaking his cropped hair.
He looked each of them in the eye.
"I was ordered here by the Union High Directive," he said. "My mandate is clear. Ensure compliance. Establish order. Eliminate threats to stabilization. You are governors and councilors, yes but do not forget the roles bestowed upon you. You represent the people of Velmora to the Union. And I represent the Union to the people."
He paused.
"I will not let this world fall again."
Lerna's gaze held his for a long, unreadable moment.
Then she nodded, slowly.
"Very well, Colonel. You have your clearance. Continue your work."
Varn replaced his mask.
The meeting ended.
11:15 — Local Time
City G4 Skyline | Administrative Tower Exterior
From above, the city looked clean. Controlled. The smoke from the hospital site had already faded into the high clouds. Drones buzzed quietly between spires. Trains glided on silent rails.
Nevertheless the planet will soon be apart of the Union's Nest whether the populace like it or not.