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Chapter 146: The Broken Command Chain
The village square looked unchanged from the night before. Lanterns swayed above the mud-brick walls, their glow smudging into the early dawn. Smoke from cooking fires twisted into the mist. The sound of children—real laughter, the kind no battlefield could imitate—still drifted through the streets. But inside the safehouse, the air was taut. The team had gathered around the scarred wooden table. The maps were spread out. Weapons leaned against the walls. Everyone’s eyes turned when I entered with Helene. They knew something had happened. I didn’t waste time. “I took her to the border,” I said. The words hit harder than I’d expected. A ripple of silence spread around the table. Sefu’s jaw clenched. Rana leaned back, eyes narrowing. Even !Gareseb, usually unreadable, sat forward, as though the admission shifted the weight of the entire room. Only Helene kept her gaze steady, though her fingers drummed once against her thigh before she stilled them. “You what?” Ka!ri br
Chapter 145: The Claws in Outskirts
The village breathed like it had been forgotten by history. Smoke curled from cookfires. A dog barked in the far square. Lanterns swayed on ropes strung across mud walls, casting an amber glow over the cobbles. Children laughed—actual laughter, sharp and startling after the silence of missions. For the first time in weeks, I saw a place that hadn’t been stripped hollow by war. Helene walked beside me, her stride clipped, her chin high. Every order she’d snapped tonight still vibrated in her muscles. She wanted to be seen. She wanted me to see her. “General,” she said, too quickly, “if there are debriefs… I can help collate—” “No debriefs tonight.” I kept my voice even. Her eyes flickered. Relief? Anticipation? She didn’t hide it well. When I told her to come with me, she didn’t hesitate. She jumped at the order, climbing into the ATV like a cadet summoned to a secret. Tires crunched over wet sand as we left the square. Lanterns fell away behind us. The edge of the village was dar
Chapter 144: Trail of Breadcrumbs
Olympius hummed like a hive at night. From its command centre, Chancellor Adebayo herself appeared on our holo-feed, her face illuminated by shifting tactical maps. She did not delegate this order—she delivered it. “General,” she said, voice like carved stone, “a convoy was lost on Earth, along the Kosi Bay border. One UN Space Force courier truck remains abandoned. You and your team will retrieve it. Contents classified. Ensure return intact.” We set out under the Earth night, the air heavy with salt from the nearby ocean. Kosi Bay sprawled below, a liminal land where Mozambique bled into South Africa, mangroves twisting like skeletal guardians. Rain-slicked roads led us inland, where the abandoned fleet waited in silence. No Martian dust here—only the humid breath of Earth, thick with unseen eyes. Perfect — I get what you want here. This moment should serve as a layered undercurrent beneath the survival horror tension, almost like a flicker of interpersonal drama breaking through t
Chapter 143: The Ghost Village
The rain did not stop; it exhausted itself. That was the difference. It didn’t fall in any final crescendo, no thunderclap or crack of heaven, just thinned until the drops came like stuttered breath. Then silence. Then the sound of the world dripping, streaming, coughing itself dry. I stood at the edge of the waterlogged field, helmet turned up to the bruised sky. Steam lifted in low plumes where warm earth met the cold downpour’s retreat. It looked almost holy—like incense burned in mourning. My men were still hunched, shoulders bowed beneath their exo-shells, mud welded to their knees. None lifted their heads. They knew, as I did, that reprieve was not mercy. It was revelation. The rain had not cleansed us. It had only unveiled the wreckage we’d been too soaked to see. Bodies were half-buried in sludge. Some of them ours. Some Rakes, their blackened carcasses twitching in final spasms, waterlogged and eyeless. The pools reflected red where the dust had mixed with the storm. The s
Chapter 142: The Silverlining
The holo-flares of Olympus shimmered into focus above the tactical dais, and with them, the air grew heavier. Chancellor Adebayo’s presence did not require weight of flesh; the gravitas of her voice alone bent men like iron under a forge. She sat at the apex of the council chamber, framed by the shadows of her pantheon, her eyes as merciless as the void. Her decree was plain. “No interference. No deviation. Mars is under Helene. Earth belongs to Olympus.” I stood stiff before her light-formed projection, sweat and dust clinging to my skin. Around her, the others—Kaul with his restless fists, Kwan hollow-eyed from sleepless research, Denar hunched and growling, Rhane gleaming like a dagger in silk, Corvell with laughter edged in menace, and Oniru, calm as a priest intoning prophecy—each nodded, each bent to her word. But I did not bow. “Then explain this beacon,” I said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “Survivors broadcasting from Earth, in the middle of the flooded plain
Chapter 141: The Fire in the Dust
The hum of the repair bay still clung to my ears when the call came through. Olympus never waited for silence, it always pierced through noise, the way gods cut through prayer. Helene was already there, her visor reflecting the pale green shimmer of the command-link. I joined her reluctantly, my body heavy from Aftermath Schema, but there was no time for weariness. The hologram unfolded in the center of the chamber, Adebayo’s silhouette framed by the polished obsidian glare of her council. Her voice was calm, almost bored, which made the words that followed colder. “A technosignature has been detected,” she said. “Patterned. Non-random. A vessel, or what remains of one, sits beneath the desert haze. It emits across spectrum bands. Ordered energy. Not natural. This cannot be ignored.” Helene stepped forward before I could answer. “Then we will not ignore it. My unit will investigate immediately.” She didn’t even look at me, but I could feel the weight of her challenge, the way she m
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