The bridge was a tomb of silent anticipation. The crew, still paralyzed by the General’s stony command, watched the two figures at the psionic station. Ta’klan knelt beside Riva, his hand resting on the console, his presence a silent anchor in the gathering storm. He was a soldier preparing for a different kind of combat, one fought not with plasma cannons and shields, but with thought and will. The hum of the ship’s engines was a distant memory, replaced by the frantic beating of his own heart. He looked at Riva, her face pale beneath the soft glow of the console, and thought of all the moments they had not had. The whispered conversations, the shared jokes, the quiet glances across the bridge—they were all leading to this. He had not fought for a glorious victory, but for a future he now knew was terrifyingly uncertain.He watched her eyes close, the fine lines of strain etched around them. A single tear traced a path down her cheek, not of sorrow, but of concentration so intense it

The Vigilant was a ghost ship sailing home, its silence broken only by the low hum of its engines and the soft weeping of its captain. The bridge crew moved like shadows, their faces still etched with the aftermath of Riva's shattered mind. Then, a voice cut through the solemn quiet—UN Space Force, hailing on a secure, emergency channel.The General, still a statue of grief at the main viewer, turned slowly. "Report."The voice on the comms was thin, panicked, and strained by a distant, rolling thunder. "General, we have a threat alert. Confirmed Rake infestation. It's not an assault, it's... a concentrated cluster. They popped up out of nowhere. No warning. Following Riva’s last logic—they’re moving through the 'walls' of reality. They are inside our perimeter. The epicenter is... Mahikeng."The word hit the General like a physical blow. Mahikeng. A place of laughter, of life, of hope. The place where Nancy had been waiting for him. The place where she was last seen alive."My city,"

The voice from UN Space Force Command was a dry, sanitized thing, a stream of procedure meant to wash the blood from my hands. It didn’t. It just made the stain feel official. “...primary ISR asset for this operation... objectives: assess strike efficacy, map structural collapse, identify biological hazards...” Hazards. The word echoed in the hollowed-out space where my mind used to be. On the viewer, the crater that had been Mahikeng glowed with a sickly, radioactive light. My city. My home. My grave. The comms officer acknowledged the stand-down order for the sector. A good protocol. A sane protocol. It lasted precisely until we descended into the hellmouth. The moment we crossed into the particulate cloud, the signal died, replaced by the static hiss of the grave. We were alone with what I had done. Then the ping. A single, weak, repeating signal from a super-basement comms unit. Sector Gamma-7. My heart, a cold stone in my chest, gave one agonizing thud. Nancy. We followed t

The air in the Ares Theater was cold enough to preserve corpses. It smelled of ozone and recycled anxiety. Administrator Vance’s words hung in it, crisp and final. Task Force Red Rock. Asymmetric response. Predictive analysis. Targeted disruption. My new title. My new cage.I watched my team. My team. The words felt like a poorly fitted uniform. !Gareseb, a mountain of grim resolve, his Khomani pride a bulwark against the coming storm. Rachel, her keen mind already picking at the threads of the Rakes’ unseen network. Ka!ri, fierce and formidable, her loyalty to her people a weapon I would have to aim with care. And Nancy. My anchor. Her quiet intelligence the only thing that felt real in this room of ghosts and agendas.Vance dismissed us. The others moved out, a wave of purpose and tension. I felt a hand on my arm. Nancy’s. A silent message of strength. Then the summons. “General, a word.”The annex was quieter, the hum of the theater muted. General Rostova’s displeasure was a physica

The air in the war room was as thick and cold as the Martian fog that blanketed the southern canyon mouth. It hummed with the pulse of a hundred tactical displays and the stifled anxiety of a team on the brink. Heat signatures pulsed across our main holo, a swirling, shapeless mass that danced like phantoms in a swirling, red dust storm. The data was a kaleidoscope of static, too blurry to confirm. I felt the weight of my officers’ eyes on me, but it was Ta’klan’s gaze that pressed hardest—a burning, insistent demand for action.“General,” he rasped, his voice a raw, sandpaper whisper, the bruises on his neck a livid, dark stain. "They're coming. If you hesitate, the Rake will be in The Oasis before dawn. Give the order."I didn’t look at him, but I felt his proximity like a physical heat. My focus was on the shifting fog where the signatures bled into one another, too ambiguous to call. I could almost hear Ka!ri’s voice in memory, her steady tone echoing a lesson from our time in Mahi