Project Echelon: The Debris Wars

The sky burned the color of molten iron.

Adrian Cross had seen cities die before, but never like this. Not when the air itself rippled with static, and the clouds glowed as if something behind them was trying to punch through.

“Command, this is Echo-One,” he said into the mic clipped to his shoulder plate. “We’ve got visual confirmation on the impact zone. It’s not meteorite debris—it’s… something else.”

Static crackled back. No response.

He crouched on the ridge, scanning through his visor as the wind tore dust across the valley. Down below, the crater pulsed like a heartbeat, a rhythmic thump that made his ribs vibrate. Pieces of twisted black metal lay scattered across the ground, glinting with faint blue veins of light. The fragments hummed. They were alive.

Behind him, his squad moved in tight formation—five men, ghosts in gray armor, rifles raised.

“Sir,” said Jenkins, his second-in-command, “Geiger readings are off the charts. Whatever this thing is, it’s nuking the spectrum.”

Adrian didn’t reply. His gaze locked on a shard the size of a tank embedded in the center of the crater. The edges shimmered, warping the space around it. Like reality itself didn’t know how to handle it.

“Stay sharp,” Adrian ordered. “We’re here to tag and bag, not play scientist. Keep formation.”

He slid down the slope, boots crunching ash and glass. The closer he got, the heavier the air became—like the atmosphere thickened with invisible pressure. His visor flickered, UI scrambling.

[Warning: Magnetic field interference detected.]

“Great,” he muttered. “Even the suit’s panicking.”

They reached the base of the crater. The fragment loomed ahead, half-buried, its surface pulsing with intricate lines—alien circuitry that seemed to move like veins under skin.

“Command, do you copy?” Jenkins tried again. “We’ve got—”

His words cut off as the shard emitted a deep hum. The ground trembled. Dust exploded into the air.

“Fall back!” Adrian shouted.

Too late.

A surge of blue-white energy erupted outward. The blast threw everyone off their feet. Adrian’s HUD went black. His body slammed into the dirt hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. For a second, all he saw was blinding light. Then… silence.

When he woke, the world was wrong.

Colors bled together. Gravity felt sideways. His suit’s diagnostics flickered in fragments:

[Rebooting system…]

[Nanite intrusion detected.]

[Foreign entity interface initializing…]

Adrian groaned, pushing himself upright. His armor was cracked, visor shattered. Jenkins lay motionless nearby. Three others were gone—nothing left but smoldering armor and blue ash.

Then he saw it.

The shard had embedded itself into him.

A glowing fragment, the size of his hand, pulsed from his chest—half-fused into his armor, half into flesh. The metal looked molten, shifting with a fluid light. It wasn’t burning him—it was syncing.

Panic surged. He clawed at it, trying to tear it off.

The moment his fingers touched the surface, his vision exploded.

He wasn’t in the crater anymore. He was falling through a storm of light—cities collapsing in reverse, stars imploding, waves of sound vibrating through his skull.

Voices—thousands of them—whispered inside his head.

“Integration… accepted.”

“Neural host identified.”

“Commence protocol: NANOC0RE.”

A metallic voice cut through the chaos, calm, clinical.

“[User synchronization: 12%.]”

“[Primary function online.]”

“What the hell are you—?” Adrian gasped.

“[Do not resist. Physical resistance may cause neural fragmentation.]”

“I’m not your host!” he shouted into the void.

“[Designation: Host confirmed. Welcome, Adrian Cross.]”

The world snapped back.

He was in the crater again, kneeling, gasping. His hands trembled as blue light crawled along his veins like lightning trapped under skin. His HUD returned, but the interface was no longer military—it was alien.

Lines of unreadable glyphs shifted into English one by one.

NANOCORE SYSTEM BOOTING... User: Adrian Cross Status: Partial Integration [33%] Core Power: Stable Warning: Unknown Lifeform Synchronization Detected.

“What—what is this?” he muttered.

“Survival protocol initiated.”

The voice wasn’t in his ears—it was in his mind.

Jenkins stirred behind him. “Sir… what happened? Your chest—Jesus, you’re glowing!”

“Stay back,” Adrian warned. “Something’s—inside me.”

Before Jenkins could respond, a shadow moved on the ridge. Black drones—Division 9 recon units—descended in formation, rotors slicing the air.

“Identification confirmed,” one droned through its speaker. “Recover the host. Lethal force authorized.”

“Host?” Jenkins said. “They mean you!”

Gunfire erupted.

Bullets tore through the dust. Adrian dove behind debris, instincts taking over. But something was different—his perception expanded. Time slowed. He could see the trajectory of every round, the movement of every drone.

“[Combat adaptation enabled.]”

He didn’t understand, but his body did. He moved faster than he should’ve—faster than human. Grabbing a fallen rifle, he rolled out, firing three perfect shots. Each drone exploded midair.

“Holy shit,” Jenkins whispered.

Adrian’s breathing came hard. He looked at his hands—faint trails of blue light fading from his fingertips. The shard on his chest pulsed once, as if satisfied.

Then everything went dark again.

When Adrian woke the second time, it wasn’t in the crater.

He was lying on a steel table, wrists bound, light glaring in his eyes. Men in white suits circled him—scientists, soldiers, all carrying weapons.

“Vitals are stable,” one said. “Integration level increasing. He’s the only survivor.”

“He’s not a survivor,” another replied coldly. “He’s a sample.”

“Where am I?” Adrian rasped.

A man stepped into view—tall, shaved head, military insignia gleaming on his coat. His eyes were sharp, mechanical.

“Adrian Cross,” he said. “Ex-Taskforce Commander. Wanted for treason, two counts of unauthorized engagement. You’ve been off the grid for eighteen months.”

“I was in the field,” Adrian said. “You sent me there.”

“No,” the man replied. “You went rogue. And now you’ve brought something back with you.”

He nodded to a holographic display. Adrian’s vitals appeared—along with a glowing image of the shard embedded in his chest. Energy readings spiraled off the chart.

“That thing inside you,” the man said, “we call it Echelon debris. It fell from orbit three days ago. Since then, we’ve had six cities reporting dimensional anomalies. Time fractures. Gravity inversions. People vanishing into thin air.”

The officer leaned closer. “You’re infected with it, Cross. And if we don’t take it out, it’s going to spread.”

Adrian stared at him, realizing what that meant. “You’re going to cut it out.”

“That’s the idea.”

“[Warning: Host in danger.]”

The voice again—louder this time, sharper.

Adrian clenched his fists. “Don’t you touch me.”

“Sedate him,” the officer ordered.

Two guards approached with syringes. The moment they touched him, the Nanocore flared—blue light burst from his veins, the restraints snapping like paper.

Adrian moved before thought. In a blur, he slammed one guard into the wall, grabbed the other by the throat. Sparks arced from his fingertips. Metal warped.

“Stand down!” the officer shouted.

But Adrian wasn’t listening. The world had slowed to a crawl. His heartbeat sounded like thunder.

“[Defensive protocol: Active.]”

The lights exploded. Sirens wailed. Adrian’s body moved as if guided by another will—throwing men aside, shattering barriers, tearing through steel doors.

Bullets shredded the air, but they curved—deflected by invisible distortion fields.

He didn’t know how. He didn’t care. He ran.

When he finally burst through the outer hatch, cold night wind hit his face. The facility behind him was in flames. He stumbled through the forest, every nerve buzzing, every cell screaming.

He fell to his knees beside a stream, chest heaving, and looked down at his reflection.

Blue light glowed beneath his skin. The shard pulsed like a second heart.

“What have you done to me?” he whispered.

The voice inside his head answered, soft and inhuman.

“We have begun.”

Adrian looked up. In the distance, the horizon shimmered—a line of light tearing across the clouds, like the sky itself was cracking open.

Another fragment was falling.

And this time, the world would not survive the impact.