THE WAR THAT FOLLOWED ME

CHAPTER 3: THE FIRST BREACH

A new Ardent was coming apart at the seams.

Kade stood on what was left of a skybridge—half of it had collapsed into the street below—and watched the Vaelith tear through the central districts like they owned the place. Which, honestly, they kind of did now. The explosions painted everything in shades of red and electric blue, glass fell like rain, and the air smelled like burning metal and ozone.

He'd fought aliens before. Spent three years of his life doing it. But this was different. This wasn't some distant battlefield on a planet nobody had heard of. This was home. And these people—the ones screaming, the ones running, the ones dying—they weren't soldiers. They were just... people.

Mila crouched beside him, working on one of her drones. "They're scanning for us," she said quietly. "If they find the tunnels, everyone down there is dead."

Kade watched the shock troops move through the streets below. They were efficient. Methodical. No wasted movement, no hesitation. The relic hummed in his head, feeding him information he didn't want.

They are testing defenses. They will exploit the first weakness they find.

"Then we give them one," Kade said.

Mila looked at him. "What?"

"A fake weakness. Draw them where we want them." He pulled up a hacked interface on his wrist, fingers moving quickly. "We light up the grid, make noise in all the wrong places. While they're chasing ghosts, we move the civilians."

"And if they figure it out?"

"Then we improvise."

Mila didn't look convinced, but she nodded. "Your funeral."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

Kade activated the city grid remotely. Streetlights flared and died in patterns that looked random but weren't. Holo-ads flickered to life, cycling through their usual advertisements for things nobody needed. Drones buzzed through empty streets, creating movement where there weren't any.

Below them, Vaelith patrols shifted, drawn toward the noise.

"It's working," Mila said, sounding surprised.

"For now." Kade jumped down from the skybridge, landing in a crouch. His knees protested—he wasn't nineteen anymore—but he kept moving. Behind him, Mila followed with her drones.

Down in the tunnels, Rashid's people were working fast. Civilians streamed through in groups, guided by volunteers with flashlights and barely-contained panic. Barricades were going up at key intersections. Someone had rigged together energy turrets from what looked like old construction equipment and hope.

Rashid himself stood in the middle of it all, directing traffic like a conductor. When he saw Kade, he jerked his chin toward a side corridor.

Kade followed him.

"This plan of yours," Rashid said without preamble. "It's buying us time. Maybe an hour. Maybe less."

"I know."

"And then what?"

Kade didn't answer immediately. Because honestly? He didn't know. The relic whispered possibilities, showing him futures that branched and twisted like roots, but most of them ended in fire.

"Then we fight," he said finally.

Rashid studied him. "You don't sound convinced."

"I'm not." Kade leaned against the tunnel wall, suddenly exhausted. "But it's all we've got."

They emerged into a side street to set up another diversion. Mila was already there, rigging explosives to a support column. The plan was simple: collapse the building when the Vaelith patrol passed underneath. Quick. Clean. Brutal.

A figure stepped out of the shadows.

Kade's hand went to his Phaseblade before he recognized him. Taro—one of Rashid's lieutenants. Young guy, maybe mid-twenties, with the kind of nervous energy that made Kade uneasy even on good days.

"Kade," Taro said. His voice was shaking. "I need to... I need to tell you something."

The relic flared. Danger. Trust is fragile.

"What is it?" Kade asked, but he was already moving, already calculating distances and angles.

Taro raised his hand—not a weapon, just his hand and across the street, a dropship descended. Vaelith shock troops poured out, weapons raised.

Kade's heart dropped into his stomach.

"I'm sorry," Taro whispered.

Kade moved on instinct. The Phaseblade was in his hand, humming, and the first alien went down before it could fire. Mila's drones released electromagnetic pulses that scrambled sensors, bought them seconds. But the damage was done.

Kade grabbed Taro by the collar, slammed him against the wall. "Why?"

"They have my family," Taro said, tears streaming down his face. "My sister, my—they said if I didn't—"

Kade wanted to hit him. He wanted to scream. But looking at Taro's face—the terror, the guilt—he couldn't. Because he understood. In war, everyone made impossible choices.

He let Taro go. "Run."

Taro stumbled away into the smoke.

Mila grabbed Kade's arm. "We need to move. Now."

They ran.

The Vaelith was faster than Kade had anticipated. They cut through barricades like they weren't there, adapted to the traps, and learned from every encounter. It was like fighting an enemy that got smarter with every engagement.

Which, Kade realized with growing horror, they probably were.

From a rooftop, he watched a massive shape descend from the rift. Not a dropship—something bigger. A Siege Mech, maybe three stories tall, with armor that rippled with alien energy. It landed with a thud that shook the entire block.

"Oh, hell," Kade muttered.

Mila's voice crackled over the comm. "That's a Siege Mech. We need a plan. Like, immediately."

The relic was already feeding him data—weak points, timing, probabilities. Most of them involved massive casualties.

"Working on it," Kade said.

They set up along the mech's projected path, rigging every explosive they had left. The plan was to channel it into a kill zone, bring down enough firepower to crack that armor. It was desperate. It was stupid.

It was all they had.

Kade was positioning the last charge when he heard the screaming.

A building two blocks over was collapsing, its support structure compromised by a Vaelith energy blast. And trapped inside—civilians. Maybe a dozen people, maybe more. He could see them through the broken windows, trying to get out.

The relic pulsed. Two options.

One: Delay the trap. Save the civilians. Let the mech reach the barricades where it would kill hundreds.

Two: Trigger the trap now. Stop the mech. Let the building fall.

Kade stood frozen, finger on the detonator. The weight of it pressed down on him like a physical thing.

"I can't save everyone," he said to nobody in particular.

No, the relic agreed. You cannot.

He closed his eyes. Made his choice. Pressed the button.

The explosions tore through the street, catching the Vaelith shock troops in a wave of fire and debris. The mech staggered but didn't fall. And behind Kade, the building collapsed with a roar, crushing part of itself and everyone still trapped inside.

Mila's voice over the comm was raw. "Kade! There were people—"

"I know."

"You just—"

"I know!" He cut the connection, hands shaking. The relic pulsed, clinical and cold. This is war. You are its instrument.

Kade wanted to throw up.

The holographic projection appeared in the middle of the street—the Vaelith commander, tall and impossibly calm.

"Kade Reyes," it said. "Clever. But futile. Your choices are predictable."

Kade went cold.

Predictable. How could they be predictable? Unless—

The relic flared in his mind, and suddenly he understood. They were feeding off it. Every future it showed him, every probability it calculated, the Vaelith were seeing it too. Or at least, they were seeing enough to anticipate him.

He'd been playing chess with someone who could see his moves before he made them.

"No," Kade said. "No, no, no."

The Siege Mech fired, and the entire block went dark. Power died. Drones fell from the sky. Barricades sparked and went offline.

Kade ran through the chaos, blade in hand, cutting down anything that moved. But it felt futile. Like running on a treadmill. Every step forward was matched by two steps back.

Mila caught up to him, breathing hard. "We can't hold them! What do we do?"

Kade looked around—at the burning city, the terrified faces, the corpses in the streets. The relic whispered futures, but they were all contaminated now. All compromised.

You must choose, it said. Or all is lost.

The Vaelith commander's hologram appeared directly in front of them, blocking the street. Behind it, dropships descended, cutting off every escape route.

Kade drew the Phaseblade fully, feeling the relic thrumming violently in his skull.

"This ends now," the commander said.

Kade's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Yeah," he said. "It does."

A shockwave of energy erupted from the dropships, engulfing the street in blinding light. Kade heard Mila scream, heard civilians shouting, and felt the ground shake beneath him.

And in that moment, standing in the middle of the inferno, Kade Reyes stopped thinking like a survivor.

He started thinking like a weapon.

The city held its breath.

And Kade stepped forward.