2025-12-25 22:09:16
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THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
The helicopter had barely left the ground when the attack spread.The blast under Ethan’s aircraft ripped through the cabin with a savage force that turned light, heat, and metal into one violent wall. The side of the helicopter vanished inside flame. Screams burst from the yard below. For one stunned second, the other two helicopters still held position, their pilots trying to understand whether the explosion had come from inside, below, or from the dark beyond the landing zone.Then someone on the ground saw them first.“Drones!”The shout cut across Rathenfall like a blade. Heads snapped upward. Small black shapes dropped out of the smoke above the hospital perimeter and came fast, low, and direct toward the remaining helicopters. Their engines whined like insects. Their intent was cleaner than artillery and colder than gunfire.One pilot yelled over the comms, “Incoming! Incoming!”A second later, the first drone struck the tail side of the nearest helicopter. Metal screamed. G
THE TRAP SPRINGS
“I came here, because I need to, and I am leaving here, because I need to, however I am sure that the Herold army will try to attack our western command once more,” Ethan said. “And when they do, they will find us ready.”He did not raise his voice when he said it, but the certainty in it carried farther than shouting. It was not a promise built on comfort. It was one built on inevitability.Something changed in the crowd then. It was not joy. Rathenfall was too damaged for joy. But a shape of hope moved through them, thin and unsteady and still alive.Some of them straightened slightly. Others simply stopped trembling as much. It was not belief yet—but it was enough to hold onto for one more hour.Lorne came to Ethan’s side. “First helicopter is ready.”Ethan adjusted Nira slightly in his arms. She had not let go of the teddy bear for once. “She comes with me.”There was no hesitation in the decision. No calculation. Just a quiet acceptance that leaving her behind was not an option.
WHEN HOPE IS QUESTIONED
The crying did not belong to the noise around him.That was what made Ethan stop. Around him, Rathenfall still moved like a wounded body trying not to collapse. Soldiers ran with crates. Medics shouted for stretchers. Coughing came from three different corners at once. But through all of it, he heard the thin, broken sound of a child trying to cry quietly because she had already learned that loud pain changed nothing.He turned toward the far edge of the hospital yard.A little girl stood near a cracked wall with a dirty teddy bear clutched to her chest. Her dress was gray with dust. One sleeve had been torn halfway at the shoulder. Her cheeks were streaked with dried tears, and her eyes were so red that for one second Ethan thought she had also taken gas into her lungs.He slowed as he approached her. “What’s wrong?”The girl looked up sharply, as if she had not expected anyone to stop for her. She could not have been more than seven. Her face hit him with a strange, uncomfortable
THE WEIGHT OF THE LIVING
Rathenfall smelled like medicine, smoke, and slow death.The helicopters touched down inside the damaged command yard, and before the rotors had fully settled, Tribunal soldiers were already jumping out into the bitter air. Dust and chemical residue swirled low across the ground. The walls around the landing zone were cracked, scorched, and stained by the last three days of terror. One officer on the ground shouted, “Masks on!” Another yelled, “Move supplies now!”Ethan stepped down first.Captain Lorne followed close behind him as soldiers began unloading ration crates, water packs, sealed medical cases, and evacuation stretchers from the three helicopters. The men moved fast, but they did not move cleanly. Even trained soldiers looked disturbed by what surrounded them. Rathenfall did not feel like a held town. It felt like a place that had survived by refusing to die completely.A coughing fit sounded from the far side of the yard.Lieutenant General Alric Veynor emerged from th
NO WAY BACK NOW
“Yes,” Ethan said.No one person in the helicopter pretended not to hear that.The air inside the cabin seemed to tighten around the words. Even the hum of the engine felt sharper, as if the machine itself understood the weight of what had just been confirmed.A soldier near the side door shifted in his harness. Another checked the latch on a medical case again even though he had already checked it twice. The words settled over the aircraft more heavily than the rotor noise.It was no longer just a mission. It was a decision already made, with consequences waiting ahead.Lorne looked at Ethan for a long second. “And you still came.”There was no accusation in Lorne’s voice, only disbelief. Not at the danger, but at Ethan’s willingness to walk directly into it.Ethan turned his gaze back to the map. “The west is too important and weather Varros lays a trap for me it doesn't mean that he will be successful.” Ethan did not say it like a challenge. He said it like a calculation. As if s
A FLIGHT INTO DANGER?
The rotors were so loud that they made silence feel heavier.Three Tribunal helicopters cut through the night toward Rathenfall, their lights dimmed, their bodies were loaded with forty soldiers, emergency food, medical supplies, water packs, and field stretchers. Below them, the western districts were little more than black scars and thin fires under the dark. Inside the lead helicopter, no one wasted words.Even the smallest movements felt deliberate. Straps were tightened twice. Weapons were checked without sound. No one asked unnecessary questions. They all understood this was not a routine deployment. It was entry into something that had already gone wrong.Ethan sat near the open tactical screen with Captain Lorne strapped in across from him. Around them, soldiers checked rifles, masks, and supply cases with disciplined hands, but the mood inside the aircraft was not calm. It was contained. It was the kind of control men used when they knew they were flying toward something u
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