[= Environmental Data Upload... =]
[= Location Data Incomplete =]
**Kelthar-3**
Uncharted Jungle Region, Trelos Rift System
**Standard Galactic Date**: 2739, Cycle 07
**Local Time**: Approx. 12:45 Rift Standard
[= Coordinates Unverified =]
I was halfway to the tree line when Ares returned in my ear.
“Update. The squad I mentioned earlier has changed course for a third time. They’re heading for your crash site now. ETA: three minutes. I suggest you disappear.”
“Well, that makes things easier.”
“Just a reminder, Commander, these aren’t weekend militia. Underestimating them would be... unwise.”
“Think I can still play it off as if I’m officer Nellan?”
“Probability of that: six percent and falling. Automated defenses flagged your ID during re-entry. Biometric conflict. The facility probably thinks Nellan is compromised. Or hostile.”
I activated Nyx’s repaired S.C.A.R.F. cloak and slipped into the jungle, dissolving into the foliage until I was just another shimmer among the green and gray.
Kelthar-3’s jungle was a steaming, miserable slab of mud and rot, choked by vines thick as cables and trees tall enough to blot out half the sky. It stank like fungus and sweat even through my visor.
I climbed high, finding a vantage point in the gnarled branches above the crash site. Crouched, cloaked, and quiet. From my perch, I watched them move into the clearing.
They swept the wreckage with discipline, rifles up, formation tight. Professional predators. Not some militia squad stumbling through the weeds—no, these men moved. As one. Purposeful. Fluid.
Something twisted in my gut.
They felt familiar.
Too familiar.
My visor tracked their patterns, hand signals, glances, smooth transitions from cover to cover.
A kill team. Not just any kill team.
Mine?
Zara’s voice hissed in my ear. “What are you doing? Take them down.”
I didn’t respond.
Ares, quiet for once, finally said, “You’re hesitating.”
“Going dark,” I muttered. “Maintain radio silence.”
I cut comms and continued watching.
I stayed hidden, cloaked in the tangled branches above, watching the squad below.
Then a door cracked open in my mind, memories tumbling out. Mine, but somehow not.
It was all coming back. Names. Voices. Movements. I remembered whose knee clicked in the cold. Who puked before ops. Who whispered a prayer into his gloves when he thought no one could hear. I remembered the smell of their gear, the sound of their laughter. I remembered training them. Leading them.
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And they had no idea I was ten feet above them, watching.
They didn’t see me and maybe that was for the best, because as much as I wanted to call out, to tell them I was alive, I knew the truth.
If they were here… it was because someone in the Republic wanted something very specific wiped off this planet. And knowing how they operated, if they caught sight of me skulking in the branches, it wouldn’t be a friendly reunion.
Through the canopy, I tracked them from above. Branch to branch. Watching like a ghost.
One of them paused beneath me, just for a second. Tilted his head, scanned the trees. Lachlan. Couldn’t mistake him. Still carried that oversized cannon he called a rifle. Looked like it belonged on a dropship.
I remembered the glow from those synthetic eyes of his. Got them after some mining accident back on his colony. Signed up for the TRNC in exchange for the surgery and marched himself into hell with a grin. Never complained. Not once.
I followed as they stalked toward their target, which ended up being some crude wooden fort squatting in a clearing like a rotten tumor. Spiked logs, rotted watchtowers, half a dozen green-skins lazing around like they hadn’t pissed off the wrong government.
Why send the best for this place?
Lachlan put a round through the head of a goblin in the tower. Didn’t even make a sound. One second the little bastard was blinking, the next his skull and half his torso exploded open like a rotten fruit.
Further up, I spotted Ruiz, my old corpsman we called Doc. Super unique nickname.
He had some green bastard pinned to the wall, silver blade to its throat, grinning like he was flirting.
“This is Freehold territory,” the goblin snapped. “You have no jurisdiction!”
Doc just smiled then slid the knife in. Slow. Clean. Goblin went limp.
That was Doc for you. Charming as hell, deadlier than most riflemen. Med school dropout turned combat junkie. Back then, he could stitch you up or cut you open. Dealer’s choice. Guess some habits didn’t die.
Kieran—aka Scribbles—moved just behind him, sliding up to a half-busted alien terminal. I called him Scribbles for a reason. The guy took notes on everything. Quiet. Always watching.
Two goblins spotted him. He didn’t flinch.
One took a shot to the head. The other one tried to scream. Didn’t make it past the inhale before Doc dropped him.
And there was Malik aka Ox, because he was built like… well an ox and had a face like cracked pavement. If something broke, he fixed it. If someone bled, he patched them. And if something needed to explode, he was already reaching for the detonator before anyone asked.
“Perimeter’s clear,” he called out. “Unless you guys want to try knocking politely, but where’s the fun in that?”
Kieran smirked, toeing a corpse. “Not even sure why they sent us. This was a one-man job.”
Lachlan’s voice came low. “Don’t get comfortable. Command flagged this op, said to watch for anomalies.”
“Anomalies?” Doc echoed, wiping his blade clean. “Like what, radioactive goblins?”
A pause. Then Lachlan again, voice cold. “They think our old Commander might be out here.”
My fingers tightened on the branch. They were talking about me.
Ox laughed. “What, him? You think he'd be dumb enough to walk into this? He’s probably on a beach somewhere. Wife. Kids. Beer gut.”
Doc snorted. “Really? I bet he’s out there somewhere starting another war. But I heard command’s more worried about the other rogue psionic.”
Another psionic?
I should drop down and ask. Say hello.
They wouldn’t shoot their old CO… would they?
Ox’s voice came through the comms again, this time more serious. “Doesn’t matter. We get the intel, we leave. That’s the job.”
“And if we see him?” Kieran asked, too casually.
Nobody answered right away. Then Lachlan, low and steady, said, “We follow orders.”
They hadn’t changed.
Ox gave a thumbs-up and started the walk back muttering something into the comms, something about getting it over with, and pressed the trigger.
Charges blew.
The wall vanished in a flash of light and splinters, debris raining down like hellfire. The interior lit up with smoke, sparks, chaos.
Behind it sat the bomb.
A big one.
Military-grade. Terran. High-yield D9-Neutron. Enough juice to wipe out a city block, let alone this piss-stained outpost.
“Uh... anyone else seeing this?” Ox’s voice crackled, not so cocky now.
Kieran followed, tight. “That’s a D9.”
Everything went still.
Doc spoke, quiet and sharp. “How the hell does a Terran nuke end up in a goblin shack?”
That’s when it clicked.
They weren’t here to clean house.
They were the house.
Kieran dropped to the floor, tools already out. “It’s live,” he said. “The detonation trigger’s wired to seismic sensors, our blast tripped it.”
His fingers flew, hands moving faster than I’d ever seen them. “I can maybe—”
The countdown lit up on the device. Red. Blinking. Unstoppable.
5… 4…
I was just far enough away to do nothing. Hell even if I was closer there was nothing I could’ve done.
3…
Ox’s voice crackled through the comm, barely a whisper.
“Guess we’re going out with a bang, huh?”
2…
I wanted to yell. To say goodbye.
But nothing came out.
1…
The world turned white.
No sound. Just a wall of light swallowing everything, trees, dirt, the outpost, them.
The blast wave hit me like God’s backhand.
Air gone. Balance gone. I was weightless, ripped through the canopy, limbs flailing, branches exploding around me.
One thick limb caught me in the side, cracked in half on impact, then I slammed into the trunk behind it.
Lights out.
