Inside the farmhouse, the air was full with dust and the faint scent of mildew. Moonlight slipped through cracked window frames and warped shutters, cutting pale lines across the sagging floorboards.

  Mitchell moved to an old wooden table near the far wall where a compact field radio sat hooked to a battery pack. He adjusted the frequency with calm precision, then keyed the mic.

  “Shark Viper, this is Lightning Blue. Come in, Shark Viper.”

  Static answered at first.

  Then, after a long minute, a voice came through—cool, composed, unmistakable.

  “This is Shark Viper. Commence your package, Lightning Blue.”

  Mitchell leaned slightly over the radio.

  “Contact report,” he said. “Ambushed convoy. Three IFVs. Low-discipline personnel. No Julia. Subsequent Royal Guard assault on safehouse. Repelled. Safehouse destroyed. We have one Royal Guard officer in custody.”

  He didn’t soften anything. He laid it out clinically—bait convoy, staged over-armor, waves of Guard pushing for retrieval. The chain reaction explosion. The relocation.

  On the other end, Star—his mother-in-law—listened without interruption.

  When he finished, her voice came back steady.

  “Congress is still ninety-eight percent ‘neigh’ on support of either the FSF or the Salaquerian government,” she said. “One percent undecided. One percent votes for support of the FSF. There is no appetite for intervention.”

  Mitchell wasn’t surprised.

  “Copy,” he replied.

  “Did you find Julia?” Star asked.

  “Negative,” Mitchell said. “Faulty intel from our friend. We did extract captured FSF fighters.”

  “And the officer?”

  “He’s singing a different tune now,” Mitchell answered. “Claims Julia’s in San Marcos. Subterranean holding. Another convoy tomorrow night.”

  A brief pause.

  “What do you think?” Star asked.

  Mitchell didn’t hesitate.

  “One of two things. It’s either another lie so he can buy another day. Or it’s a trap.”

  Star’s voice remained even. “What about a third option?”

  Mitchell looked down at the warped wood grain beneath his hand.

  “My gut says she’s not there.”

  Silence hummed through the radio for a second.

  “You trust that?” Star asked.

  “Yes.”

  Mitchell knew how often POWs lied to survive another sunrise. He’d seen it before—half-truths, shifting narratives, plausible bait designed to pull you into predictable movement. Desperation made people inventive.

  He also understood why Little Bird wasn’t stepping in.

  The country had just clawed its way out of a five-year war against the U.S.S.R. The entire nation was tired—tired in a way that went beyond logistics and budgets.

  Families had been torn apart. Sons and daughters deployed. Parents working defense plants around the clock. Citizens buying war bonds. Entire industries bent toward survival.

  The Army, the Marines, the aircrews of every branch, the sailors of the Navy—they didn’t want to go back into another war so soon.

  And yet, Little Bird’s doctrine had never been half-measure.

  When they went to war, they didn’t back out until it ended decisively. They finished it so their children wouldn’t have to.

  Mitchell knew the mindset intimately. Little Bird didn’t rely on conscripts counting the days until discharge. Its people carried a will to fight that hadn’t been seen widely since the Second World War—when entire nations endured until the end—or like North Vietnam in the long years of reunification.

  Little Birdens fought with that same stubborn core.

  They didn’t care how long it took.

  They didn’t quit easily.

  But right now, the country was exhausted.

  And politically, Salaqueria wasn’t worth another open conflict.

  Star’s voice broke the silence.

  “You understand why we’re not intervening.”

  “Yes,” Mitchell said.

  “And you understand,” she added carefully, “that if you escalate this beyond deniable scope…”

  “We won’t,” Mitchell replied evenly.

  Another pause.

  “Be precise,” Star said.

  “Always.”

  The line crackled faintly.

  “Lightning Blue,” she said, a hint of something personal beneath the call sign, “come home in one piece.”

  Mitchell’s eyes flicked briefly toward the barn through the farmhouse window.

  “That’s the plan,” he replied.

  The connection ended.

  Mitchell stood there for a moment, radio silent in his hand, before stepping back out into the night—where ghosts were deciding whether to walk into another trap.

  Mitchell stayed by the farmhouse window a moment longer after the radio went silent.

  He understood something clearly: Little Bird wasn’t going to get involved. Not officially. Not indirectly. Not even through “accidental” supply channels.

  The government wouldn’t sell weapons to the FSF. It wouldn’t sell to the Salaquerian regime either. Anyone caught moving military gear without authorization would be staring at high treason charges. And Little Bird did not treat treason as a paperwork offense.

  Mitchell didn’t pretend to understand politics in depth. That wasn’t his lane. But he knew enough history to recognize what his country would never risk. There would be no backroom arms pipeline. No shadow resupply program. No internal scandal that smelled anything like an Iran-Contra–style fiasco. The leadership of Little Bird—many of them former military themselves—had no interest in detonating their own legitimacy over a foreign civil war.

  And unlike other nations, Little Bird didn’t operate through party machines or entrenched political dynasties. Its officials were veterans, civil servants, professionals—selected through a lottery-based Athenian-style civic system. They ran because they were called, not because they were building careers.

  Which meant they thought in terms of stability, not headlines.

  Little Bird also didn’t have a military-industrial complex in the way other powers did. It didn’t expand resource extraction just to mass-produce weapons for export. It didn’t flood foreign markets with rifles and ammunition to keep factories humming.

  They were blunt about it.

  “We’re not Nazi Germany.”

  They studied what overextension did. What happened when synthetic fuel plants were bombed. When supply lines stretched too thin. When an economy geared entirely toward war lost access to neutral resources and collapsed under Allied bombing and blockade campaigns.

  They refused to build a system dependent on perpetual conflict.

  Little Bird would not start wars for profit. It would not enter wars it deemed unwinnable. And it would not waste manpower, fuel, vehicles, and lives on conflicts that served no decisive strategic end.

  War, to them, was brutally expensive—and they calculated it that way.

  Mitchell knew the numbers because the War Department tracked everything.

  A single H.A.R.P. reconnaissance aircraft—Little Bird’s high-altitude strategic platform, comparable to an SR-71—cost roughly $200,000 per flight hour.

  There was no such thing as a one-hour flight in an active region.

  Little Bird didn’t do half measures.

  If they committed air power to a region, they ran 24-hour aerial reconnaissance, suppression of enemy air defenses, bombardment, and combat air patrol.

  Twenty-four hours of H.A.R.P. coverage alone ran approximately $4.8 million.

  And that was just the beginning.

  Spy satellite tasking for a 24-hour priority window: $2.4 million.

  Aerial bombardment packages: $238,000 to $250,000 depending on ordnance and range.

  Aerial cover or SEAD: roughly $2.04 million.

  Naval bombardment varied by platform:

  – Destroyers: $125,000 per 24 hours.

  – Guided missile cruisers: $192,000.

  – Guided missile battleships: $1.44 million.

  That didn’t include cruise missiles.

  Missile strike packages could reach $15.6 million.

  A single commando or special operations raid averaged around $500,000—assuming no catastrophic losses or extended windows.

  And that still didn’t factor in fuel refining, maintenance cycles, medical support, casualty compensation, or long-term reconstruction.

  War stacked fast.

  And Little Bird didn’t pretend it didn’t.

  That was the difference.

  They didn’t romanticize conflict. They itemized it.

  They didn’t drift into endless campaigns because industry needed contracts. They fought until decisive victory, finished the job, and came home.

  Right now, the country was tired.

  Five years against the U.S.S.R. had drained more than fuel reserves. Families had sacrificed enough. Factories had run hot enough. Soldiers had buried enough friends.

  Mitchell understood something most people outside Little Bird didn’t.

  The country wasn’t just tired of soldiers dying.

  It was tired of working for war.

  The ones who hadn’t fought on the front lines had paid in other ways. Twelve-hour shifts. Six days a week. Defense plants that once made farm equipment or consumer radios had been converted into factories producing field radios, pontoon bridges, infantry kits, tank components, aircraft frames, gun assemblies. Refineries ran hot around the clock because aircraft and armored vehicles drank fuel like water.

  Aluminum for aircraft skins. Rubber for tires and seals. Tungsten for anti-tank rounds and specialized tooling. Steel for everything—rifles, artillery, ships, armored cars, trains. Chromium for jet engines and corrosion-resistant coatings. Nickel for heat tolerance and structural integrity.

  Even though Little Bird is resource-rich—alumnum, coal, iron, nickel—it still rationed during wartime. Not because it lacked supply, but because it refused to starve the civilian sector to feed the military indefinitely.

  War was a national effort. And national effort meant exhaustion.

  Which was why no one back home wanted another one.

  Mitchell found it almost ironic that even with all the advanced tech—H.A.R.P. reconnaissance aircraft, particle weapons, powered armor battalions—the Little Bird military still used gliders.

  People mocked that.

  He didn’t.

  Gliders could insert an entire company of combat-ready troops faster than helicopters in certain environments. They were silent. No rotor wash. No engine noise. By the time the enemy realized something was wrong, boots were already on the ground.

  They were used for two things: inserting pathfinders and airborne infantry deep behind enemy lines without announcing arrival… or reinforcing isolated units inland where trucks couldn’t reach in time.

  During the Third World War, Mitchell had been part of an Operation: Market–style airborne assault—the kind that prioritized shock and depth over gradual advance.

  He remembered gliding over windmills at dawn.

  He remembered landing hard but clean in an open field.

  Another platoon hadn’t been so lucky. A heavy weapons platoon had crashed straight through the roof of a mechanic shop.

  Lieutenant Luna had surveyed the situation afterward and said dryly, “Good and bad cover.”

  Good because four heavy machine guns now had perfect four-way coverage from reinforced walls. Four .50 cals, each with full crews.

  Bad because their mortar detachment—three 60mm, three 81mm, and one 120mm—had no firing arcs from inside the wrecked structure.

  They’d had excess riflemen too—half the HMG teams armed with carbines, doubling as spotters, loaders, and backup gunners.

  War was improvisation.

  Mitchell had walked into a nearby windmill during that operation and scrawled “Kilroy was here” on the interior beam—an old tribute to his uncles Stanley and Charlie, who’d served in the 101st and 82nd Airborne in World War II. It was a signal too. A quiet marker to friendly forces that we were here first.

  He remembered stepping outside and seeing a C-181 pass overhead, two full companies of paratroopers from the 5th Airborne Division dropping further ahead.

  That was what commitment looked like.

  Total.

  And that was exactly what Little Bird was avoiding now.

  Back at the rundown farm, Mitchell stepped into the barn.

  Sonata was standing near the table, jumper cables coiled again. The officer sat slumped in the chair, shaken but intact.

  “Well?” Mitchell asked.

  Sonata didn’t look at the prisoner.

  “He gave me the same information,” she said. “San Marcos. Subterranean holding. Convoy tomorrow night.”

  Mitchell studied her face.

  No rage.

  No reckless edge.

  Just controlled intensity.

  She moved toward the barn door, but Mitchell reached out and caught her right forearm gently—not restraining, just stopping her for a second.

  “You know there’s a chance he’s lying,” he said quietly.

  She met his eyes.

  “I know,” she replied. “I’m not one of those morons in war movies who lets anger cloud judgment.”

  He didn’t release her yet.

  “I’ve seen it too,” she continued. “Resistance cell captures a bad guy. Bad guy tells them exactly what they want to hear. One hot-headed member buys it because it fits the narrative. Everyone walks into a kill box.”

  Her tone was matter-of-fact.

  “I’m not that person.”

  Mitchell searched her expression for a moment longer, then let go.

  “Good,” he said.

  She stepped closer to him, lowering her voice.

  “But I also know when someone’s scared in a real way,” she added. “He wasn’t stalling for theatrics. He was recalculating.”

  Mitchell nodded slowly.

  “That doesn’t make him truthful.”

  “No,” she agreed. “It makes him desperate.”

  A creak from the rafters punctuated the silence.

  “We verify,” Mitchell said.

  “We don’t commit blind,” she replied.

  “And we don’t react the way he expects.”

  Inside the barn, the air hung heavy with dust and the faint smell of old hay. Sonata stood near a support beam, arms folded, her expression sharp but controlled. She had already said what needed saying—the captured Royal Guard officer could still be feeding them false intelligence. Again. The possibility wasn’t emotional; it was procedural. Prisoners lied. They lied to stall, to redirect, to buy another sunrise.

  Mitchell acknowledged it without dramatics. It was possible. It was always possible.

  When Sonata brought up Lieutenant Colonel Midnight Waterson and the Rangers she had taken off-grid, Mitchell responded the way he often did—with a slight shrug that carried more meaning than words. Midnight and her Rangers didn’t require supervision. They were accustomed to operating beyond conventional command visibility. The Rangers of Little Bird were not units that waited for instruction; they interpreted intent and acted in alignment with it.

  The Little Bird Army Rangers were the elite of the elite, though not in a ceremonial sense. They were employed in a true commando capacity—used for precision shock assaults, deep infiltration, and clearing specialized objectives ahead of conventional force movements. Where the regular Army advanced methodically, Rangers disrupted. Where the Army stabilized, Rangers destabilized the enemy first.

  Historically, their role had not always been so aggressive. In the colonial period through the late 1800s, Rangers were frontier peacekeepers and wilderness lawmen. Hardened outdoorsmen, yes—but primarily stabilizers and enforcers of order in remote territories. Since the 1890s, however, their identity had evolved into something far more lethal. They were no longer simply frontiersmen; they were hunters.

  Modern Rangers were feared less for their equipment than for their adaptability. They were known to use anti-material rifles in anti-personnel roles when necessary. Anti-tank rifles repurposed for fortified infantry positions. Heavy weapons employed in unconventional ways. Their unpredictability made them dangerous.

  All Rangers are volunteers. That was doctrine, not propaganda. The official maxim remained unchanged: Rangers are volunteers. Every man and woman who signs up is willing to die for the Republic of Little Bird.

  There were three primary combat Ranger configurations. Ranger Assault teams carried carbines, demolition charges, satchel charges, rocket launchers loaded with high-explosive and incendiary rounds, and often at least one modified flamethrower. These flamethrowers were equipped with napalm-adherent compounds that clung to targets and oxide tanks that increased burn temperature against organic threats.

  Ranger Support teams operated as long-range enablers, providing precision cover fire and suppressive capability for advancing assault elements.

  Ranger Rifles functioned as the balanced, standard Ranger squad—mobile, flexible, capable of independent action.

  Beyond combat roles, the Ranger structure included four classifications overall: active-duty Rangers, Civilian Rangers (off-duty but fully trained and still bound to call-up), Patrol Rangers (functionally military police within Ranger ranks, though combatants first and peacekeepers third), and Veteran Rangers—the most senior and often the most feared, because experience sharpened instinct into something nearly predatory.

  Even their sidearms deviated from international norms. While most nations fielded 9mm or .45-caliber pistols, Rangers commonly carried .50-caliber handguns—the same caliber associated with Desert Eagle. It was a deliberate choice. Not symbolic. Functional. A Ranger sidearm was not meant to wound; it was meant to end.

  Mitchell knew that Midnight embodied the older Ranger spirit more than most. She still carried a lever-action rifle patterned after an 1895 design chambered in .45-75 Government. To some, it was archaic. To Rangers, it was continuity.

  Somewhere beyond the farm, Midnight and her Rangers were likely moving through terrain the way their predecessors had for centuries—off the grid, living off the land, navigating without noise or signal. They did not need lights. They did not need support convoys. They operated like their frontier ancestors—self-sustaining, patient, precise.

  If they were anywhere near San Marcos, the enemy would not see them coming.

  And that, more than any advanced weapon system, was what made Rangers dangerous.

  They filed into the farmhouse one by one, boots thudding against warped wooden floorboards that hadn’t seen maintenance in decades. The interior was dim and stale, dust suspended in slanted moonlight filtering through cracked shutters. A sagging couch leaned against one wall. An old kitchen table sat crooked in the center room, its surface scarred and peeling.

  Jack moved first toward a small stack of scavenged electronics they’d brought in earlier. After a few minutes of adjusting wires and swapping out a battery, he managed to coax a battered portable radio to life. Static filled the room, sharp and uneven, before resolving into a voice.

  “—breaking news out of central Salaqueria tonight—”

  Everyone went still.

  The announcer’s tone was strained but controlled.

  “Multiple state prisons are currently experiencing coordinated riots. Authorities confirm that at least three facilities are affected.”

  Mitchell crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

  “This happens sometimes,” he said evenly. “Prison systems break down for one reason or another.”

  But the broadcast continued.

  “These prisons are known to house captured members of the Free Salaqueran Front. Officials report that shortly before the unrest began, an explosion occurred in the generator room of each facility.”

  Sonata’s eyes narrowed.

  “Generator room,” she repeated quietly.

  The announcer pressed on.

  “The explosions disabled the primary power systems. While backup generators did activate, officials confirm that several automated door systems failed to reset properly. In some blocks, doors that were not fully secured remain open.”

  Sam exhaled slowly.

  “Convenient.”

  “Or intentional,” Cadenza said from near the doorway.

  The report continued, painting a picture of chaos spreading through darkened cell blocks.

  “Inmates are capitalizing on the outage. Fights have broken out between prisoners and guards. Government security forces are currently attempting to retake the facilities block by block.”

  Jack lowered the radio volume slightly but kept it on.

  “Coordinated,” he muttered. “Three prisons. Generator rooms. Same time frame.”

  Mitchell didn’t speak immediately.

  FSF fighters housed in those prisons.

  Explosions in the generator rooms.

  Doors left open.

  He glanced toward Sonata.

  “Midnight,” she said quietly.

  “Or someone like her,” Mitchell replied.

  Cadenza shifted her weight, armor faintly humming as servos compensated.

  “If it’s the Rangers,” she said, “they’re not liberating prisoners.”

  “No,” Mitchell agreed.

  The report mentioned casualty estimates rising, security forces redeploying to urban centers, and emergency curfews being considered.

  Sam leaned against the wall. “That pulls manpower.”

  “Royal Guard too,” Jack added.

  Mitchell nodded once.

  “Resources shift inward. Response times stretch.”

  The riot wasn’t just a prison break.

  It was pressure.

  If it was Ranger work, it was percise—not to free everyone, but to force the regime to spread itself.

  Outside, wind scraped against the farmhouse siding.

  Inside, the radio continued to describe smoke-filled corridors, overwhelmed wardens, and armored vehicles rolling into city streets.

  Mitchell stepped closer to the table, eyes focused but distant.

  “If this is Midnight,” he said, “then San Marcos just got weaker.”

  And if San Marcos got weaker—

  Tomorrow night wouldn’t look the way it did tonight.

  The radio was still murmuring about prison riots when a sharp crack split the farmhouse.

  One of the floorboards near the center of the room gave way with a loud splintering snap.

  “—”

  Sam didn’t even have time to swear.

  The rotten wood collapsed beneath him, and he dropped straight through in a cloud of dust and debris. A dull, heavy thud echoed from below, followed by a strained groan.

  “Sam!” Jack was already moving, boots pounding across the uneven floor as he reached the jagged hole. He dropped to one knee and leaned over the edge. “You good?”

  There was a pause. Then a breathy reply from the darkness.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

  Jack squinted down. “Define good.”

  “I landed the same way I did when I cut myself out of that parachute earlier,” Sam called up. “Only difference is… this time it was concrete.”

  Jack winced. “So not good.”

  “A lot more painful,” Sam admitted. “But nothing’s broken.”

  Dust drifted lazily through the beam of a flashlight as Jack shone it down into the basement. The space below was unfinished—concrete slab floor, old shelving units, and what looked like long-abandoned storage crates. The air was stale, thick with damp and mildew.

  Mitchell stepped closer, peering over Jack’s shoulder.

  “You move everything?” he asked.

  Sam shifted experimentally. “Legs work. Arms work. Pride’s questionable.”

  “Hold still,” Jack said. “I’m coming down.”

  Across the room, Sonata had already turned toward Cadenza.

  “He cut himself out of a parachute earlier,” Sonata explained quickly. “Emergency landing. Tree line.”

  Cadenza’s helmet tilted slightly. “And now he’s testing structural integrity of abandoned farmhouses.”

  “Apparently,” Sonata replied dryly.

  Cadenza stepped toward the hole, armor servos humming softly. “You want me to lift him?”

  Jack glanced back. “If you come down there, you’re bringing the rest of the house with you.”

  “Fair,” Cadenza said.

  Mitchell scanned the floor around the collapse point. The wood was dry-rotted, beams weakened from decades of neglect. The farmhouse had been abandoned since the early to mid-1990s; time had done its work.

  Jack lowered himself carefully through the hole, boots hitting the concrete beside Sam with a solid thud.

  “Alright,” Jack said. “On three. We’ll get you back up.”

  Sam looked around the basement, brushing dust from his sleeves. “Hold up.”

  Jack paused. “What?”

  Sam angled his flashlight toward the far wall. Old metal shelving units lined it, half-collapsed. But behind them, partially obscured by tarps and debris, was something newer.

  “Either someone else used this place recently,” Sam muttered, “or we just found ourselves a basement with secrets.”

  Above them, Mitchell’s voice carried down.

  “What do you see?”

  Sam squinted into the gloom.

  “Not sure yet,” he replied. “But this might’ve been the best bad fall I’ve had all week.”

  The radio was still murmuring about prison riots when a sharp crack split the farmhouse.

  One of the floorboards near the center of the room gave way with a loud splintering snap.

  “—”

  Sam didn’t even have time to swear.

  The rotten wood collapsed beneath him, and he dropped straight through in a cloud of dust and debris. A dull, heavy thud echoed from below, followed by a strained groan.

  “Sam!” Jack was already moving, boots pounding across the uneven floor as he reached the jagged hole. He dropped to one knee and leaned over the edge. “You good?”

  There was a pause. Then a breathy reply from the darkness.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

  Jack squinted down. “Define good.”

  “I landed the same way I did when I cut myself out of that parachute earlier,” Sam called up. “Only difference is… this time it was concrete.”

  Jack winced. “So not good.”

  “A lot more painful,” Sam admitted. “But nothing’s broken.”

  Dust drifted lazily through the beam of a flashlight as Jack shone it down into the basement. The space below was unfinished—concrete slab floor, old shelving units, and what looked like long-abandoned storage crates. The air was stale, thick with damp and mildew.

  Mitchell stepped closer, peering over Jack’s shoulder.

  “You move everything?” he asked.

  Sam shifted experimentally. “Legs work. Arms work. Pride’s questionable.”

  “Hold still,” Jack said. “I’m coming down.”

  Across the room, Sonata had already turned toward Cadenza.

  “He cut himself out of a parachute earlier,” Sonata explained quickly. “Emergency landing. Tree line.”

  Cadenza’s helmet tilted slightly. “And now he’s testing structural integrity of abandoned farmhouses.”

  “Apparently,” Sonata replied dryly.

  Cadenza stepped toward the hole, armor servos humming softly. “You want me to lift him?”

  Jack glanced back. “If you come down there, you’re bringing the rest of the house with you.”

  “Fair,” Cadenza said.

  Mitchell scanned the floor around the collapse point. The wood was dry-rotted, beams weakened from decades of neglect. The farmhouse had been abandoned since the early to mid-1990s; time had done its work.

  Jack lowered himself carefully through the hole, boots hitting the concrete beside Sam with a solid thud.

  “Alright,” Jack said. “On three. We’ll get you back up.”

  Sam looked around the basement, brushing dust from his sleeves. “Hold up.”

  Jack paused. “What?”

  Sam angled his flashlight toward the far wall. Old metal shelving units lined it, half-collapsed. But behind them, partially obscured by tarps and debris, was something newer.

  “Either someone else used this place recently,” Sam muttered, “or we just found ourselves a basement with secrets.”

  Above them, Mitchell’s voice carried down.

  “What do you see?”

  Sam squinted into the gloom.

  “Not sure yet,” he replied. “But this might’ve been the best bad fall I’ve had all week.”

  They worked methodically.

  Jack boosted the first crate up through the hole while Mitchell and Sonata pulled it onto the weakened floorboards with careful distribution of weight. Cadenza stepped in only when the heavier ammunition crate needed lifting—her armored servos humming softly as she raised it as if it were a suitcase.

  They avoided stacking everything in one place. The farmhouse floor had already proven its loyalty questionable.

  Back in the basement, Sam swept the flashlight beam along the remaining wall and found more than just weapons.

  There was a fold-out field desk tucked against the concrete. Not elaborate—just plywood on metal legs. On it sat a waterproof map tube and a sealed binder wrapped in oilskin. The binder had been tucked beneath the desk, protected from damp.

  Sam crouched and pulled it free.

  “Documents,” he called up.

  “Bring them,” Mitchell replied.

  When Sam climbed back up with Jack’s help, dust clinging to his clothes, he set the binder on the old kitchen table. Sonata peeled back the oilskin and opened it carefully.

  Inside were hand-drawn maps layered over official road charts. Supply routes marked in red pencil. Patrol rotation notes. Handwritten timestamps.

  San Marcos was circled.

  Not just circled—annotated.

  Sonata’s eyes moved quickly across the page.

  “Secondary gate blind spot,” she murmured. “Shift changes at 0215 and 0540. Fuel truck arrivals staggered.”

  Mitchell leaned closer.

  “This isn’t old,” he said. “These notes are recent.”

  Cadenza removed her helmet, setting it gently on the table. Sweat-darkened buzzed hair caught the dim lantern light.

  “Ranger handwriting?” she asked.

  Sonata tilted the binder slightly, studying the strokes.

  “Possibly,” she said. “Or FSF field intelligence.”

  Another page detailed prison facilities—the same ones mentioned in the radio broadcast. Generator room schematics. Ventilation diagrams. Power relay locations.

  Jack let out a low whistle.

  “So the riots weren’t spontaneous.”

  “No,” Mitchell said quietly. “They were engineered.”

  Sam rubbed his shoulder where he’d landed earlier.

  “This whole place is a forward operating node,” he said. “Not just a hideout.”

  Sonata flipped another page.

  There it was.

  A convoy schedule—two columns. One crossed out in heavy ink. The second marked with tomorrow’s date.

  Her jaw tightened slightly.

  “They adjusted it,” she said. “After tonight’s ambush.”

  Mitchell’s eyes darkened.

  “Adaptation,” he said. “They’re responding.”

  On the last page, a small notation caught his attention. A symbol—subtle, almost playful.

  A simple drawing.

  Kilroy.

  Jack blinked.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Mitchell stared at it for a moment, the faintest shift in his expression.

  “Midnight,” he said quietly.

  It wasn’t confirmation. But it was enough.

  The Rangers had been here.

  Not long ago.

  Cadenza ran a hand across the table, thinking.

  “If they staged this,” she said, “they’re still in the area.”

  “Or they’ve already moved to phase two,” Sonata replied.

  The radio crackled again faintly in the background—reports of prison security forces stretched thin, emergency curfews imposed, armored units diverted to urban centers.

  Mitchell straightened.

  Sam glanced toward the broken hole in the floor.

  “So now what?”

  Mitchell looked around the farmhouse—the rotting boards, the dust, the hidden war beneath it.

  “Now,” he said calmly, “we stop reacting.”

  Sonata closed the binder and slid it toward him.

  “We use their adjustments against them.”

  Cadenza reached for one of the rifles from the crate and checked the weight.

  Outside, the wind shifted direction, brushing against the farmhouse walls like a warning.

  Somewhere out there, Midnight and her Rangers were moving through the dark.

  Mitchell closed the binder and looked at the others.

  “We move tomorrow night,” he said. “No one’s sharp if they’re exhausted. Get what sleep you can.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  There were no arguments. Just tired nods.

  They spread out across the farmhouse as best they could. No beds—just warped wooden floors, old blankets pulled from the van, and packs used as makeshift pillows. The place creaked with every shift of weight, the old timber complaining softly in the wind.

  Sam lay down near one wall, easing himself onto his side. The fall through the floor hadn’t broken anything, but concrete had a way of leaving its mark. Every time he shifted, a dull ache flared through his ribs and shoulder. He tried to stay still. It didn’t help much.

  A quiet hiss of breath escaped him.

  Across the room, Jack stretched out flat on his back, then rolled to his side, then back again. Sleep didn’t come easy. The hard boards pressed into his spine, and every unfamiliar creak of the farmhouse kept his muscles tense. He’d close his eyes, drift for a minute, then snap back awake at the smallest sound.

  Cadenza, by contrast, lay near the doorway to the barn entrance, armor powered down but within arm’s reach. When she slept, she slept completely—slow, shallow breathing, body perfectly still. Years of conditioning had trained her to rest hard and fast. If she needed to wake, she would. Until then, nothing disturbed her.

  Mitchell wasn’t far from her. He lay on his back, one arm folded across his chest, the other resting loosely near his sidearm. His breathing was steady, controlled. He had learned long ago how to shut his mind down when necessary. Sleep wasn’t comfort; it was maintenance.

  Only two of them truly lay awake.

  Sam, because of pain.

  Sonata, because of fear.

  She sat with her back against a wall for a long time before finally lying down. Even then, her eyes stayed open, fixed on the dark ceiling beams above her. The lantern had been extinguished; only moonlight slipped in through cracked boards.

  Julia.

  The name moved through her thoughts like a slow tide.

  Was she still alive? Was she being moved? Was she somewhere underground, cold and alone? Every scenario replayed itself in her mind—convoys, holding cells, interrogations. She tried not to imagine worse possibilities.

  Beside her, Sam shifted again and stifled another quiet groan.

  Jack rolled over for the third time in ten minutes.

  Outside, wind moved across the fields, brushing dry grass against the farmhouse walls.

  Mitchell and Cadenza slept as if nothing in the world could reach them.

  Cadenza slept like a rock.

  Not metaphorically. Literally.

  At 5’11” and 198 pounds without armor, she was already built like something engineered for impact—broad-shouldered, lean muscle, brunette hair cut short for practicality, mismatched blue-and-green eyes that seemed to measure threat before it fully formed. Her interests were simple and unapologetic: military doctrine, oversized blades, heavy-caliber weapons, and anything that presented a meaningful challenge.

  When she powered down for the night, she did so completely. Breathing slow. Body still. If the farmhouse had collapsed around her, she would have woken—but until then, nothing short of deliberate contact would disturb her.

  There was a reason for that.

  Mitchell preferred stealth. He would lockpick a door, bypass a latch, slip inside without a sound.

  Cadenza?

  In her Project Thunderbolt Assault Power Armor, she would simply remove the door from existence.

  The armor alone weighed nearly a thousand pounds when fully configured. A Project Phoenix supersoldier inside that chassis was not subtle. Every step could fracture weak concrete. Old flooring trembled beneath her weight. If she sat down too hard, loose soil shifted. If she jumped from more than ten feet, the impact would send a shockwave through the ground strong enough to stagger anyone within fifty feet.

  From greater heights, the result was worse. A drop from significant altitude could leave a crater.

  Her weapons were modified accordingly. Standard rifles were useless in her hands while armored. The gauntlets and reinforced finger housings doubled the effective size of her grip; giving her a normal infantry weapon would have been like handing an adult a plastic toy. So her firearms were enlarged—scaled to match the armor’s mass and recoil tolerance.

  The armor itself wasn’t just steel and hydraulics. It carried deflector shielding—energy screens that absorbed incoming fire and recharged seconds after damage ceased. During the Third World War, that shielding had been part of what made Project Phoenix units terrifying.

  Their fighting style only amplified that reputation.

  When operating alongside friendly infantry, Phoenix supersoldiers would deliberately stand in the open. They drew fire willingly, absorbing punishment that would have shredded conventional troops. It wasn’t recklessness; it was calculated protection. Let the enemy waste rounds on something that could take it.

  But when alone, or in small fireteams, they moved differently. Then they used cover, angles, speed. The armor gave them survivability, but they weren’t careless.

  Cadenza embodied that doctrine.

  On the farmhouse floor, armor powered down but within reach, she slept without tension. Her strength wasn’t just physical; it was psychological. She had been forged through training that bordered on abuse—pushed past limits, hardened by design.

  Nothing in this creaking, decaying farmhouse frightened her.

  If Royal Guard came back in force, she would wake, power up, and meet them head-on.

  And she would not be the one worried about structural integrity.

  The floor might give way again.

  The walls might shake.

  But Cadenza would not.

  Among Sonata—and millions of other Little Birdens—there was a quiet, unshaken belief about Project Phoenix supersoldiers.

  If it hadn’t been for them, the Third World War might not have ended when it did.

  It might have dragged on for another century. A grinding stalemate. Two exhausted superpowers bleeding each other dry until either one finally collapsed—or both escalated far enough to turn the world into something out of a Fallout game brought horrifyingly to life.

  Instead, there were one hundred and twenty of them.

  Seven-foot-tall supersoldiers encased in titanium-steel assault power armor.

  Back home, the official description in LBAF archives was almost understated:

  “Prototype LBAF Super Soldiers. The Phoenixes possess extreme combat skills. Phoenixes have an active ability to jack enemy vehicles.”

  That line always drew attention.

  Active ability to jack enemy vehicles.

  It sounded clinical. Technical.

  What it meant in practice was this: a Phoenix could rip open the hatch of an enemy armored vehicle under fire, drag out the crew, and turn the vehicle around in minutes. Tanks, IFVs, APCs—it didn’t matter. If it had controls, they could take it.

  But that wasn’t the most terrifying part.

  What truly unsettled opposing forces was what Phoenix units carried.

  They were not limited to standard infantry rifles. They were built to wield crew-served weapons alone. Miniguns. Chain guns. Weapons normally mounted on vehicles or emplacements became personal firearms in their hands. The LBA-92 “SUNLANCE” Hardlight Siege Projector—designed for fortified positions—could be fielded by a single Phoenix.

  They could even dual-wield submachine guns—full-sized platforms, not compact variants—controlling recoil through sheer mass and stabilization systems.

  And when their deflector shields flared under incoming fire, absorbing punishment that would have erased conventional units, it created a psychological effect as powerful as any weapon.

  They did not advance cautiously in formation.

  They advanced visibly.

  And deliberately.

  Sonata knew all of that.

  She also knew that having one of them—having Cadenza—on their side was the difference between surviving an engagement and being erased by it.

  As she lay awake in the farmhouse, staring into the dark, listening to the uneven breathing of her team, there was at least one comfort she could cling to.

  If things went wrong tomorrow night—

  They wouldn’t be the weaker force.

  And whatever hell waited for them on the road, Cadenza would walk into it without flinching.

  _________________

  Morning in the Farm House

  The early morning air hung heavy and quiet around the makeshift compound. Outside the sturdy farm house, the rhythmic, purposeful movements of Cadenza, Jack, and Sam could be heard as they diligently completed their final sweep of the perimeter, ensuring the sanctuary remained secure.

  Inside, a starkly different scene unfolded. Mitchell and Sonata, seeking a fleeting moment of intimacy amidst the surrounding tension, were engaged in a fierce, passionate act. Mitchell, driven by a deep, primal need, was focused on fucking Sonata’s brains out, a raw, visceral expression of their connection. Their coupling began with the playful, intricate dance of the sixty-nine position, a mutual exploration that quickly gave way to the traditional, grounding force of the missionary position.

  As their bodies moved together, a profound realization settled over Sonata. She knew, with a certainty that reached into her core, that Mitchell was intending to breed her. The thought sparked a complex internal dialogue. Six years ago, when their twins—Mitchell and Sonata Jr.—were conceived, Mitchell’s involvement had been emotionally distant, almost transactional, like that of a mere sperm donor. Now, as she felt the intensity of his presence, she wondered if this time would be different. Was he, in his own complicated mind, ready for her to be raising another baby from him, truly committed to the parental role? The memory of her former life—the oppressive religious cult—whispered an ironic commentary. They would have denounced her current situation, calling her marriage to Mitchell polygamous given her bi-sexuality and existing bond with a woman. Yet, in the twisted logic of their fundamentalism, the conception of the twins, even through what was essentially sperm donation, had been viewed, somehow, as a legitimate form of marriage.

  Sonata had no illusions about the life she escaped. She remembered it too clearly for that. The cult she had grown up in—rigid, suffocating, obsessed with control—had ultimately tried to carve a sovereign state out of the Republic of Little Bird. The result had not been divine vindication. It had been swift military retaliation. Most of the cult’s core members were arrested, killed in armed resistance, or later executed for treason. The attempted secession collapsed almost as quickly as it began.

  Looking back, their overconfidence bordered on absurd. They called themselves holy warriors, convinced they were shielded by faith. In reality, they were dangerously undertrained civilians with outdated weapons and inflated egos. Some couldn’t hit an Army Ranger fifty feet away with antique lever-action rifles. Meanwhile, Rangers could land decisive shotgun fire at greater distances with ruthless consistency.

  The Rangers did not fight theatrically. They fought pragmatically. In close quarters, some would cant their shotguns sideways—not out of style, but to alter pellet dispersion vertically rather than horizontally. Loaded with heavy buckshot—00, 3/0, 4/0 and their magnum variants—the pattern created a vertical curtain of lead. Against a standing target, there was almost no safe gap. It was mathematics applied to survival.

  The cult’s armory had been a tragic contradiction. One fanatic wielded a World War I–era anti-tank rifle. Another brandished a World War II bazooka. Weapons designed to defeat armored vehicles—yet they lacked the competence to hit even a broadside tank at short range. Opposing them were not just Rangers but eighty main battle tanks, twelve self-propelled guns, helicopter gunships, strike aircraft, and transport helicopters. Faith did not stop 7.62x52mm Little Bird rounds. It did not stop mortar fire. It did not stop coordinated urban assault.

  Eight hundred Rangers were deployed out of a force of 5,600. Snipers locked down perimeter routes. Urban Assault Specialists—every Ranger carried that designation—cleared blocks methodically. Ranger Rifle squads operated in ten-man teams with grenade launchers, machine gunners, anti-armor operators, and medics. Ranger Support units brought heavy weapons and mortars. Ranger Assault teams handled demolition and close-quarters breaching. It was not chaos. It was precision.

  Sonata had left the cult years before the secession attempt. As a teenager in the late 1980s, she had tried to warn them—urged surrender, urged reason. They answered with slogans about divine protection. She watched as reality corrected that delusion.

  The memory still carried a bitter edge.

  But she also knew how close she had come to being swallowed by it.

  Her current life was built from very different fires.

  Mitchell, the Airborne specialist, had endured brutal physical conditioning followed by nearly two years of tactical training. He specialized in deep insertion, concealment, and surgical raids behind enemy lines with minimal support. He spoke little not because he lacked conviction, but because he measured words before using them.

  Jack and Sam, Marine Commandos, were amphibious raiders. Infiltration, sabotage, demolition, littoral reconnaissance—their skill sets were built for crossing hostile shores and striking infrastructure before disappearing. Mackenzie Rose, trained in general-purpose Marine infantry with amphibious specialization, understood the brutality of seizing beachheads under fire.

  And then there was Cadenza—one of one hundred and twenty Project Phoenix supersoldiers.

  Encased in titanium-steel assault power armor with recharging deflector shields, capable of wielding crew-served weapons alone, capable of tearing open armored vehicles and commandeering them. Many in Little Bird believed that without those 120 supersoldiers, the Third World War would have dragged on indefinitely—or escalated into a catastrophic, world-ending exchange. Sonata did not romanticize war, but she understood what Phoenix units represented.

  She was grateful Cadenza stood beside her.

  Her resentment toward her mother was separate but equally enduring. Helen the 2nd had tried to mold Sonata into a submissive extension of the cult’s patriarchal ideology. When Sonata refused—embracing her independence, rejecting imposed femininity, acknowledging her bisexuality—she was disowned. Years later, imprisoned for treason, Helen sent over a thousand letters asking to meet her grandchildren. Sonata burned them all.

  When she finally wrote back, her message was written in a way that left no room for other interpretation. There would be no visits. No commissary funds. No grandchildren. Prison, in her view, was simply a retirement home with bars.

  Paul’s betrayal—revealing the existence of Sonata’s children—cut deeply. It wasn’t a slap that answered him. It was a punch. Direct and unfiltered.

  Helen the 3rd, however, had been different. Six years older, she had taken Sonata in at eighteen, absorbing the financial and emotional burden without hesitation. A weather specialist responsible for issuing official warnings to media outlets, she had built a life around precision and public safety. To Sonata’s children, she was both aunt and surrogate grandmother. They did not know their biological grandmother—and Sonata intended to keep it that way.

  Helen the 3rd had a gift for making danger understandable without theatrics. She could explain lightning as beautiful but lethal. Tornadoes as powerful but unpredictable. She didn’t use terms like mesocyclone with six-year-olds; she explained what mattered. When she began her career in 1988, tornado warning times averaged five minutes. Now they could reach thirty. Progress mattered.

  To the twins, though, the science was secondary. They were fascinated by lightning streaking cloud to cloud, striking trees, or hitting a church steeple.

  Sonata found comfort in that.

  Her children are growing up curious, not controlled. Warned, not manipulated. Protected, not indoctrinated.

  After having sex that that they got dressed.

  Morning came gray and damp.

  They stepped out of the farmhouse into cool air that still carried the scent of last night’s wind. The fields stretched quiet around them, deceptively peaceful.

  “We move,” Sonata said simply.

  No one argued.

  Mitchell slid behind the wheel of the van without comment. Sonata took the passenger seat. Jack and Sam climbed into the back, gear stowed tight between them. Cadenza followed in her own vehicle a short distance behind once she powered up later, but for now the van rolled first.

  The engine hummed low as they pulled onto the narrow rural road.

  For several minutes, no one spoke.

  Mitchell drove with steady hands, eyes forward, scanning mirrors and horizon in practiced rhythm. His thumb tapped lightly against the steering wheel—an unconscious motion. Not nervous. Thinking.

  Sonata noticed it.

  She knew that rhythm.

  Mitchell wasn’t thinking about San Marcos right now.

  He was thinking about something older.

  His Aunt Charlotte Orange. His Uncle George Orange.

  The people who raised him under the philosophy that children should be seen and not heard. The kind of guardians who confused discipline with hostility. Who mistook control for character building. Who punished minor transgressions like crimes. Who would strike first and justify later.

  Mitchell rarely spoke about it.

  But Sonata knew.

  There was a part of him—cold and quiet—that sometimes imagined putting them in a cage. The kind used in factory farms across much of the world. Cramped. Restrictive. Stripped of dignity. Forced to live in confinement.

  The irony was sharp.

  Little Bird didn’t even have factory farms.

  The closest thing were hydroponic complexes—compact, efficient agricultural systems capable of producing double the yield of traditional plantations at a fraction of the space. Four hydroponic farms could replace one massive plantation. They were electrically powered, vertically layered, staffed by educated workers rather than exploited labor. They required infrastructure and training, not desperation.

  And meat production in Little Bird was free-range by policy. Pork, poultry, beef, eggs—animals weren’t packed into industrial confinement.

  It was a point of quiet national pride.

  Which made Mitchell’s darker thoughts almost symbolic rather than literal.

  He didn’t actually want cages for animals.

  He wanted accountability for cruelty.

  His aunt and uncle had raised their own children harshly. They had raised Mitchell worse. Hostility instead of guidance. Fear instead of patience. Physical punishment over minor missteps. A household where silence was survival.

  Sonata watched his thumb tap against the steering wheel again.

  She didn’t comment.

  She understood the difference between anger and intention.

  Mitchell would never act on that resentment. He wasn’t built that way. He internalized. He processed. He moved forward.

  But the scars were there.

  In the back of the van, Jack shifted gear bags into a more comfortable position while Sam leaned back carefully, still sore from the basement fall. The road curved through rolling fields, morning light beginning to burn through low fog.

  “Quiet morning,” Jack muttered.

  “For now,” Sam replied.

  Mitchell’s thumb stopped tapping.

  He adjusted his grip on the wheel and spoke evenly.

  “Stay sharp.”

  They didn’t drive in straight lines.

  Mitchell kept them moving in wide arcs across secondary roads and gravel tracks, avoiding predictable patterns. Whenever they spotted a checkpoint ahead—sandbags, light armor, makeshift barricades—they didn’t roll up casually.

  They stopped well short.

  Engine off.

  Binoculars out.

  Sonata would map angles and count heads. Jack would study weapon posture. Sam would check for comms antennas and radio discipline. If they saw an opportunity—thin guard rotation, inattentive sentries, no immediate armored overwatch—they acted.

  And when they acted, it was fast.

  Shock violence.

  They hit from outside visual expectation—hard, loud, overwhelming. A sudden burst of automatic fire, precise elimination of radio operators first, grenades to disorient, then rapid clearance. By the time the guards realized what was happening, it was already over. No warning transmitted. No reinforcement call sent.

  Annihilation in under a minute.

  They never lingered.

  They stripped usable gear, disabled vehicles, and disappeared before dust settled.

  Unofficially, they were clearing lanes for the Free Salaqueran Front. Each destroyed checkpoint meant FSF fighters could move without being searched. Supply lines opened. Couriers traveled with less risk. Movement corridors widened.

  It wasn’t declared support.

  But it was support.

  And somewhere else in the countryside, Midnight and the Rangers she brought were doing something similar—just on a larger scale. Clearing out fortified outposts. Dismantling hardened positions. Removing teeth from the regime’s perimeter defenses.

  They weren’t wearing FSF insignia.

  They weren’t raising flags.

  But they were shaping the battlefield.

  Inside the van, as they rolled away from yet another smoking barricade, Sonata broke the silence.

  “What if he’s lying again?”

  She didn’t need to clarify who “he” was.

  Mitchell didn’t hesitate.

  “Then Cadenza boils him alive.”

  The words were flat. Clinical. Delivered without an ounce of visible empathy.

  In the back, Sam shifted uncomfortably. Jack let out a low breath.

  Sonata winced slightly.

  “Jesus,” Jack muttered.

  Mitchell didn’t look back.

  It wasn’t bravado. It wasn’t rage. It was matter-of-fact.

  He had no emotional investment in the captive beyond operational utility.

  There was a part of him that simply categorized outcomes. If the intel proved false again, the prisoner ceased to have value.

  And Mitchell had a peculiar relationship with pain.

  When he played sports growing up—tearing muscles, overstretching ligaments—he would crank the shower throttle all the way to the left. Scalding hot. Water so hot it felt like it was piped directly from a boiler room in Hell. He preferred confronting discomfort head-on rather than easing into it.

  Pain didn’t frighten him.

  He compartmentalized it.

  Which made statements like that land differently coming from him.

  Sonata stared ahead at the road.

  “Let’s hope,” she said quietly, “he’s not.”

  The van rolled on.

  Behind them, another checkpoint smoldered.

  Ahead of them, the road narrowed into the kind of terrain where ambushes were easier—and so was war.

  The unsettling part wasn’t the threat.

  It was that Mitchell wasn’t exaggerating.

  If the captive Royal Guard officer proved to be lying again, Cadenza would not hesitate. She wouldn’t improvise out of anger. She wouldn’t lash out emotionally. She would choose something deliberate. Painful. Final.

  And if she chose boiling?

  She would mean it.

  That was what made Sonata, Jack, and Sam wince—not the theatrics of the statement, but the plausibility of it.

  All three of them knew what scalding water felt like. Everyone did. The accidental splash from a kettle. The shower turned too far toward hot before correcting it. That sharp, immediate sting that forced your body to recoil.

  They couldn’t imagine prolonging that sensation.

  When their showers at home crept too hot, they instinctively turned the handle back toward warm. Comfortably hot, not punishing. Heat that relaxed, not heat that burned.

  Mitchell and Cadenza were different.

  They were the only two people the others knew who could stand under water so hot it felt like it came straight from a boiler room in hell—and not flinch.

  There was a reason for it.

  When Mitchell was younger, he pulled muscles constantly playing sports—hamstrings, shoulders, calves. Instead of babying them, he’d crank the water all the way to the hottest setting. Let it beat against the strained muscle until the tension eased. It wasn’t masochism. It was function. Heat relaxed tissue. It restored range of motion.

  Cadenza was similar, though her reasons were different.

  Her training regimen under Project Phoenix had conditioned her body to operate under stress that would cripple most people. She did exercises designed with the expectation of injury—high-impact drills, resistance work beyond normal thresholds. Pain tolerance wasn’t optional; it was baseline.

  She could take punishment.

  Literally.

  There were stories—confirmed ones—of her being struck by a car during a training accident and walking it off. Bruised. Annoyed. But functional.

  So when Mitchell said Cadenza would boil the officer alive, he wasn’t imagining theatrics.

  He was stating a capability.

  And that quiet certainty made it worse.

  In the back of the van, Sam rubbed his ribs absentmindedly, remembering the sting of hot water on a fresh bruise. Jack stared out the window, jaw tight.

  As the van rolled through broken countryside and smoke from destroyed checkpoints thinned behind them, Sonata let her mind shift into something quieter—assessment.

  Not of terrain.

  Of people.

  She did it automatically. Always had.

  Sam first.

  Marksman.

  Got ourselves a sharpshooter here.

  He had the patience for it. The controlled breathing. The steadiness under pressure. When he shifted into full sniper mode, her inner voice sharpened further:

  Send some love from long range.

  Sam wasn’t flashy. He was methodical. The kind of shooter who eliminated the radio operator before anyone understood what was happening.

  Then Mitchell.

  Commando.

  Speed and violence makes a great team.

  He specialized in fast, surgical disruption. Deep insertion. No noise until it was too late. But there was another layer to him.

  Ghost.

  Sometimes a job requires the strong silent type.

  Mitchell disappeared into environments the way fog disappeared into morning sun. He observed, absorbed, then acted. He didn’t waste movement. He didn’t waste words.

  Jack.

  Scavenger.

  Resourceful. Useful skill to have.

  Jack could turn debris into advantage. Strip equipment from a wrecked vehicle and repurpose it within minutes. Identify value in things other people overlooked. In prolonged operations, that mattered.

  Cadenza.

  Killer.

  The assessment came without hesitation.

  You got evil.

  Not moral evil.

  Operational evil.

  She was the weapon you brought when you intended to dominate a fight. When escalation was no longer hypothetical. When deterrence meant overwhelming presence.

  Mackenzie Rose.

  Medic.

  Keeping the team alive.

  Supplier.

  You give, you shall receive.

  Mackenzie understood logistics at the small-unit level—ammo flow, medical kits, field rations, improvised solutions. She was steady hands under pressure and the quiet backbone that kept others functioning.

  Then Sonata turned the lens inward.

  Survivor.

  I’m one tough son of a bitch.

  She had endured cult indoctrination, secessionist collapse, Special Forces selection, pregnancy, loss of normalcy, and still stood upright.

  Ghost.

  The same line she gave Mitchell applied.

  Sometimes a job requires the strong silent type.

  She had spent years moving through unconventional warfare environments where silence meant survival. Recon. Demolitions. Unconventional strategy. Six years away from combat hadn’t dulled it. It had simply gone dormant.

  There was one thing she did not miss from her military days, though.

  Skyhook extractions.

  The memory alone made her jaw tighten. The balloon launched skyward, cable trailing. Aircraft swooping low and fast, snatching the line mid-flight. The sudden, violent jerk upward as your body was ripped off the ground and hurled into the sky before a loadmaster hauled you in.

  Controlled chaos.

  Or the SPIE rig.

  Clipped to a rope beneath a helicopter, bodies dangling like ornaments as the bird climbed. The torque on the waist. The strain on the spine. The risk of collision if wind shifted wrong.

  She had been lucky.

  Lucky her back hadn’t snapped.

  Lucky her waist hadn’t fractured.

  She flexed her fingers slightly in the passenger seat, grounding herself in the present.

  This mission didn’t have official exfil.

  No balloons.

  No helicopters.

  No safety net.

  The van continued down the rural road, sunlight now fully breaking across the fields.

  Assessment complete.

  They were a strange composition. Marksman. Ghost. Commando. Scavenger. Killer. Medic. Supplier. Survivor. Not a conventional unit. But then again Neither was the war they were fighting.

  The van hummed along a narrow stretch of road bordered by low stone walls and wind-bent trees. The smoke from the last checkpoint had long since vanished in the rearview mirror.

  Sonata’s thoughts drifted somewhere heavier.

  For a moment, she questioned it.

  The righteousness of what they were doing.

  Not tactically.

  Morally.

  They had crossed an ocean. Entered a sovereign country mid–civil war. Killed men at checkpoints. Destabilized infrastructure. All for one objective: Julia.

  She exhaled slowly.

  Mitchell glanced sideways at her.

  The look he gave her said everything without words:

  You dragged us halfway around the world to rescue your captured wife. And now you’re having second thoughts?

  He didn’t say it.

  He didn’t need to.

  Sam did.

  “You know,” he said from the back of the van, voice calm but pointed, “we had the option not to do this. Several days ago.”

  Jack didn’t add anything. He didn’t need to either.

  Sam continued. “We’re not here under orders. We weren’t deployed. No one signed off on this.”

  That was the key difference.

  This wasn’t a standard black operation.

  In most “black ops,” the government knows. It authorizes the mission but denies involvement publicly to maintain plausible deniability. Operators use local weapons to muddy forensic trails. They carry region-appropriate gear not just to scavenge ammo, but to complicate post-engagement investigations. They insert bilingual personnel who can blend in linguistically and culturally.

  Those missions are unofficial on paper.

  But sanctioned in reality.

  This? This was different. Their government didn’t know. Didn’t endorse. Wouldn’t acknowledge. If captured, they weren’t assets. They were liabilities.

  And Sam was right. They chose this. Sonata chose this.

  Silence settled for a few seconds before she nodded once.

  “I know.”

  No defensiveness. Just acknowledgment.

  The irony wasn’t lost on her that they were, collectively, extremely well-suited for the kind of work they were pretending not to be doing.

  Almost all of them were bilingual.

  Sonata spoke English and German fluently. German had been tactical utility during her Special Forces tenure.

  Sam spoke English and conversational Japanese. He hadn’t learned it for war—he learned it because he and his wife honeymooned in Japan—but language training had a way of sticking.

  Jack spoke English and French, useful in multiple operational theaters.

  Cadenza spoke English, Italian, French, German, Austrian dialect, and Hungarian. Her father’s Italian heritage gave her an early foothold in language acquisition, and Project Phoenix training sharpened it further. Supersoldiers weren’t just built physically—they were sharpened mentally.

  Mitchell spoke English, German, and Russian. His default speech carried a Southern American cadence. But when anger flared, something else surfaced—an Australian accent he barely seemed aware of.

  It came from his mother.

  She had been Australian-American by lineage, though born and raised in the United States. In the post–World War II world, her accent had softened over time, replaced largely by American English. But when she was angry, that Australian edge resurfaced instinctively.

  Mitchell absorbed it growing up.

  Now when he got truly angry, the accent slipped through. Language, like trauma, lingered.

  Jack leaned forward slightly.

  “If we wanted plausible deniability,” he said, “we’d be using Squalarian kit exclusively.”

  They had been careful. Host-nation weapons. Ammunition consistent with regional supply chains. Gear that would confuse forensic reconstruction.

  But it didn’t change the fundamental truth. They were here because Sonata refused to leave Julia behind.

  Mitchell tapped his thumb against the steering wheel once more—slower now. “This stops when we say it stops,” he said quietly.

  No accusation. Just clarity.

  The van rolled past another stretch of scrubland, the road narrowing as it dipped between low hills.

  Sonata glanced sideways at Mitchell.

  “What do you think Midnight’s up to?”

  Mitchell didn’t even look at her.

  “Midnight?” he said evenly. “She’s going outlaw Wild West on their ass.”

  It wasn’t sarcasm.

  It was assessment.

  Lieutenant Colonel Midnight Waterson didn’t fight like a conventional officer. She never had. Her service weapon of choice alone made that clear: an 1895-pattern lever-action rifle chambered in .45-75.

  On paper, it sounded archaic.

  In practice, it was anything but.

  Midnight’s rifle wasn’t some museum relic. It had a forged receiver built to handle modern stress tolerances. The action had been reworked for faster cycling—smoother throw, tighter machining. The tubular magazine had been extended to hold one in the chamber and nine in the tube, instead of the factory standard seven. The front iron sight carried a green tritium insert for low-light acquisition.

  It was personal.And it was terrifying in capable hands.

  Jack let out a low breath from the back. “She still refuses to switch?”

  “She doesn’t need to,” Mitchell replied.

  While most Rangers carried modern AR-C platforms—Assault Rifle Carbines optimized for mobility and speed—Midnight preferred the rhythm of a lever-action.

  The standard Ranger AR-C wasn’t ordinary either. Recontoured grips. Flared mag wells for rapid reloads. Eleven-and-a-half-inch compensated barrels. Ion-bonded bolt carriers. Custom bolt releases and charging handles. Textured control surfaces for gloved manipulation. ACOG optics set to 1.7x magnification—just enough for clarity without sacrificing close-quarters speed.

  They were chambered in experimental 6.7x22mm FMJAPMG rounds—Full Metal Jacket, Armor Piercing, Match Grade.

  The Rangers had pushed for it.

  They needed a cartridge that behaved like standard-issue FMJ for reliability, hit with armor-piercing penetration, and carried the velocity and flat trajectory of match-grade ammunition. Reduced bullet drop. Improved terminal performance. Versatility.

  Modern engineering.

  Midnight’s rifle was the opposite philosophy.

  Old design.

  Refined to perfection.

  Sonata leaned back slightly in her seat.

  “She’s making a statement,” she said.

  Mitchell nodded faintly.

  “She always does.”

  The lever-action rifle wasn’t about nostalgia. It was psychological. It was identity. It was a reminder that Rangers existed before modern carbines, before optics, before polymer furniture and experimental calibers.

  Frontiersmen.

  Outlaws.

  Hunters.

  If Midnight was operating in Salaqueria right now, she wasn’t staging frontal assaults. She wasn’t planting flags.

  She was dismantling outposts from the shadows. Hitting supply lines. Harassing patrols. Making fortified positions feel exposed.

  Old-world rifle. Modern battlefield. Outlaw methodology layered over advanced military doctrine.

  Jack shifted in the back.

  “Think the Royal Guard’s figured out who’s doing it?”

  Mitchell’s thumb tapped once against the steering wheel.

  “If they have,” he said calmly, “they’re not sleeping.”

  The van continued forward.

  Somewhere out there, a lever-action rifle from 1895 was cycling faster than anyone expected.

  And Rangers were reminding a modern army that history could still kill.

  Mitchell kept his eyes on the road as he spoke, voice steady, almost thoughtful.

  “Midnight’s impossible to betray,” he said. “She’s the kind of woman who’ll tell you, ‘You have to trust someone to be betrayed. I never did.’”

  It wasn’t bravado. It was biography.

  Midnight didn’t trust governments. She didn’t trust press briefings. She didn’t even fully trust official after-action reports. In her mind, propaganda was just another weapon system—cheap, mass-produced, and fired constantly.

  Mitchell continued, almost like he was reciting something she’d once told him.

  “Every country paints the OPFOR as barbarians. Demons. Inhuman. They repeat the enemy’s nationality over and over until it drills into your skull. Makes it easier to pull the trigger.”

  He paused.

  “But the red herring is thinking they’re not just people.”

  Sonata didn’t interrupt him. Because he wasn’t wrong.

  In war, dehumanization is efficient. It simplifies. It converts gray into black and white. It turns a complicated human being into a target silhouette.

  But war was never black and white.

  It was gray on gray.

  On both sides you had the scared conscript who just wanted to go home. On both sides you had the broken veteran already cracked inside before the first shot. On both sides you had the psychopath who, without war, would probably be in a maximum-security facility—or facing execution.

  And on both sides, you had soldiers who genuinely believed they were the good guys.

  There was no army in history that marched into battle thinking, We are the villains.

  Even the “bad guys” from one perspective saw themselves as defenders, liberators, patriots, or righteous avengers. The mythology always fit the side telling it.

  The closest the world ever came to a clear-cut “Good vs Evil” conflict was the Second World War—and even then, the Republic of Little Bird was careful in how it taught that history.

  They deliberately avoided dehumanizing entire populations. Not out of political correctness, but out of intellectual honesty.

  Not all Germans were Nazis. The White Rose resistance existed. There were Italians who fought fascism from within. Even in Imperial Japan—despite the brutal suppression by the Kempeitai and Special Higher Police—there were individuals who resisted, even if organized movements were crushed before they could grow.

  Little Bird’s doctrine was simple:

  Condemn ideology.

  Condemn actions.

  Do not condemn entire peoples.

  Because once you start doing that, you make future wars inevitable.

  Mitchell adjusted the steering wheel slightly as the van crested a hill.

  “And in the Third World War,” he added quietly, “we weren’t immune either.”

  He meant the resistance at home.

  Even Little Bird had internal opposition during the five-year war against the U.S.S.R. Protesters filled city squares calling the war unjust. Some claimed the invasion was fabricated. Psyops. Manufactured fear.

  The suppression that followed became its own controversy.

  Many citizens called it what it looked like: a social class war inside a war.

  The protesters were often middle-class or wealthy university-aged adults. The riot police cracking down on them? Mostly blue-collar kids from low-income neighborhoods—sons and daughters of factory workers who had been building tanks, radios, and artillery shells twelve hours a day.

  And then there was Ft Sunction.

  When protesters traveled there chanting that the invasion “never happened,” that the war was fabricated. They walked into a city that had endured a month of occupation.

  Curfews. Disappearances. Neighbors shot for being outside after dark. Families were separated because someone couldn’t get home before sundown.

  What happened next wasn’t organized. It was personal. The citizens of Ft Sunction didn’t see privileged idealists.They saw people dismissing their dead. The fight that broke out wasn’t ideological.

  It was visceral.

  Gilded-cage activists met citizens who had lived through armored patrols in their streets. Cushioned backgrounds met people who had buried friends.

  And the illusion of clean moral lines shattered in real time.

  War wasn’t good versus evil It was human versus human. And that was the part that made it unbearable. Midnight understood that better than most. That’s why she never bought into propaganda. That’s why she trusted almost no one.

  And that’s why, somewhere out there, she was dismantling Royal Guard outposts not because she believed they were monsters. But because they were soldiers on the wrong side of her objective. And in war, that was enough.

  Mitchell didn’t raise his voice when he said it.

  “That’s why Midnight’s right,” he muttered, eyes forward. “Humans are violent. We fight. Always have.”

  The van hummed along the cracked road as dry wind pushed dust across the windshield.

  “We like to pretend civilization fixed us,” he continued. “It didn’t. It just put rules on top.”

  He wasn’t romanticizing it. He was stating it.

  Ancient tribes raided with clubs and spears. Kingdoms burned cities. Empires enslaved entire populations. Strip away law, electricity, food distribution, and digital comfort—and history showed what tended to resurface.

  “Every post-apocalypse movie gets one thing right,” Mitchell added. “First thing that collapses isn’t buildings. It’s restraint.”

  Looting. Arson. Raiding. Torture.

  Civilization wasn’t the absence of violence. It was the management of it.

  Sonata folded her arms.

  “And yet,” she said quietly, “most people still stop at red lights at three in the morning.”

  Mitchell gave the faintest smirk.

  “Yeah. Because they feel watched.”

  Even when no one’s around.

  Some people would sit at that empty intersection, waiting for the light to turn green out of habit—or conscience—or fear of consequence.

  Others would blow straight through.

  Same species.

  Different thresholds.

  The conversation died as they rolled into a small village—low concrete structures, faded signage, fruit stands, and sun-bleached storefronts.

  A man dragging a wooden fruit cart suddenly lurched into the road.

  Mitchell’s instincts snapped.

  “Move,” Sonata hissed.

  Mitchell floored it. The fruit stand didn’t move.

  It split open—wooden planks collapsing outward—revealing men behind it. Ambush.

  The van slammed into the obstruction. Gunfire erupted from both sides of the road. The windshield spiderwebbed.

  “Out!” Jack yelled.

  Mitchell swerved—but a second obstacle clipped the side. The van fishtailed, rolled once—twice—

  Metal screamed.

  Then silence.

  They were upside down.

  For half a heartbeat no one moved.

  Then survival took over.

  They kicked out the side doors, crawled free under gunfire, and sprinted into the nearest concrete building.

  Inside, they stayed low. Away from windows. Away from exterior walls.

  “RPGs’ll splash the walls,” Mitchell said sharply. “Stay center.”

  Breathing hard. Listening. Seconds stretched into something that felt like an hour.

  Then. BOOM.

  A thunderclap shook the building.

  Another. And another. These weren’t RPG impacts. These were heavier. The sound profile was wrong.

  Jack froze. “What in the hell is that?”

  Another explosion detonated outside—deeper, more concussive.

  Mitchell tilted his head, counting the cadence.

  “That’s not ground artillery,” he said.

  A series of rapid, mechanical thuds followed—fast, rhythmic impacts that stitched the street outside.

  Twenty rounds, maybe more.

  “Seventy-five mil,” Mitchell breathed.

  Then a heavier blast again.

  “105 howitzer.”

  The pattern told a story. Rounds were impacting downward. Angled descent. Not indirect artillery. Air platform. Gunship.

  Outside, Royal Guard vehicles were being torn apart with surgical brutality. Engines detonated. Ammunition cooked off. Structures folded like cardboard.

  Jack swallowed.

  “Who the hell is raining destruction?”

  No one answered.

  Because none of them knew. “If it’s one of ours,” he said, “the gunner’s probably running either WHOT or BHOT thermal.” White Hot. Black Hot. Target silhouettes glowing against cooler backgrounds.

  “Can thermal see through buildings?” Sam asked

  Mitchell shook his head slightly.

  “Depends on material. But concrete’s thick enough. And if they’re looking for vehicles and troop clusters, we’re noise.”

  Another 75mm burst stitched the road.

  A 105mm shell vaporized something heavy outside—probably a transport truck. The gunship was methodical. They stayed away from the windows.

  Away from the outer walls. Because even if the gunship wasn’t targeting them Overpressure and fragmentation didn’t care about intent.

  Mitchell rested a hand on his rifle. “Whatever it is,” he said, “it’s not missing.”

  Outside, Royal Guard positions were being erased with terrifying precision.

  Inside, the team waited. Hoping they weren’t about to become collateral.

  Their salvation did not come from artillery batteries, allied reinforcements, or a miracle of timing.

  It came from a name painted in matte black along the fuselage of a circling gunship.

  Axiom Blade.

  The realization settled in slowly.

  An all-female mercenary group. Operating in Squalabalm.

  That alone meant something.

  Mercenaries didn’t fight for flags. They didn’t fight for ideology. They didn’t fight for moral clarity.

  They fought for contracts.

  “Soldiers of Fortune” wasn’t a romantic title. It was a business model. Loyalty flowed toward whoever signed the largest check. No anthem. No oath. Just numbers and zeros.

  And when wars ended?

  That was the danger zone for Private Military Companies. Combat contracts dried up. Budgets shifted. Governments demobilized. Some PMCs adapted—pivoting to executive protection, infrastructure security, maritime escort, training programs. Others dissolved. A few reinvented themselves under new names.

  But as Mitchell knew, human greed had a way of guaranteeing fresh instability somewhere.

  Conflict was cyclical.

  So was profit.

  A strike team from Axiom Blade entered the building with the calm, controlled confidence of professionals who knew the sky above them belonged to their team.

  They moved efficiently. Clean lines. Good spacing. Eyes scanning corners automatically.

  Sonata stepped forward first. Age and experience carried weight. She wasn’t about to let one of her people speak out of turn.

  “We appreciate the timing,” she said. “And the restraint. Not shooting us was a courtesy.”

  The mercenary strike leader—a tall woman with close-cropped hair and mirrored ballistic lenses—studied them for a moment before responding.

  “Someone paid a massive sum to play guardian angel for you.”

  Guardian angel. Sonata almost laughed.

  Outside, Royal Guard vehicles were still smoldering from precision 105mm impacts.

  A “guardian angel” that carried a howitzer.

  The economics of it alone were staggering. Very few PMCs on the planet owned and operated a fully military-grade gunship aircraft. Not refurbished transport with a door gun. Not improvised platforms. A real one. 105mm howitzer. Heavy autocannon—75mm class, judging by the impact signatures. Multi-barrel rotary cannon.

  That kind of asset wasn’t cheap to acquire. It was ruinously expensive to maintain.

  Aircraft maintenance alone ran into the hundreds of thousands monthly or quarterly. Specialized crew salaries stacked daily. Fuel consumption for a gunship loitering in combat patterns was astronomical. And ammunition—105mm shells, high-caliber autocannon rounds, rotary cannon belts—burned through money at a rate that would make most governments hesitate.

  Whoever signed that check?

  They had depth. Six or seven zeros deep. Recurring zeros. Mitchell watched the mercenaries carefully, filing details away.

  He wasn’t na?ve about PMCs.

  Yes, their biggest revenue came from wars—especially prolonged ones. The longer the conflict, the more stable the income stream. Success wasn’t measured in flags planted. It was in contract renewals.

  But combat wasn’t their only revenue line. Many PMCs ran extensive secondary operations:

  Unarmed corporate security contracts. Armed executive protection details. Facility security management. Training programs for corporate and governmental staff. Logistics consultation. Maritime anti-piracy escort. They diversified. They had to. War was lucrative, but peace could be monetized too. Mitchell’s earlier assumption felt confirmed.

  This wasn’t a random intervention. Someone wealthy enough to bankroll a flying fortress had decided they were worth protecting.

  That meant one of two things. They were extremely valuable. Or extremely dangerous.

  The gunship overhead banked once more before drifting into a holding pattern. Axiom Blade hadn’t just saved them. They’d declared that someone powerful had skin in the game. And that changed everything.

  As Sonata spoke with the Axiom Blade strike leader, Mitchell’s thoughts drifted—not to the gunship overhead, not to the mercenaries—but to something else entirely.

  Most of the world still insisted Little Bird wasn’t a superpower.

  It was an assumption built on optics.

  Superpowers, by conventional wisdom, projected power everywhere. They maintained permanent global footprints. Carrier Strike Groups loitering in distant seas. Rapid-response divisions able to deploy anywhere on the planet within days. The United States had perfected that model. The former U.S.S.R. had mirrored it in its own way.

  Little Bird didn’t.

  At least—not visibly.

  When Little Bird moved, it didn’t send a token brigade. It didn’t deploy a symbolic regiment.

  It moved entire field armies.

  One hundred sixty thousand soldiers.

  Nearly two thousand Main Battle Tanks.

  Hundreds of reconnaissance vehicles.

  Tens of thousands of APCs and IFVs.

  Over a thousand artillery pieces.

  Dedicated self-propelled anti-air units.

  And the logistics chain required to feed, fuel, arm, and maintain them across oceans.

  That wasn’t the behavior of a small power.

  That was the behavior of a nation that intended to finish a war decisively.

  Its naval doctrine confused analysts even more. Instead of treating carriers as floating political statements, Little Bird treated them like World War II–era mobile fortresses—platforms built for overwhelming strike projection, not symbolic presence. Their Carrier Battle Groups were built around deep, sustained offensive capability. Not deterrence theater.

  Yet the country’s foreign policy masked all of it.

  “Stay out of my hair, we stay out of yours.”

  Isolationist. Reserved. Economically self-sufficient. Culturally inward.

  No global soft power campaigns. No sprawling overseas bases.

  That restraint convinced outsiders Little Bird wasn’t a superpower.

  The Third World War shattered that illusion.

  Five years.

  And the casualty ratios told the story.

  Every Little Birden soldier—Army or Marine—was issued advanced combat armor as standard equipment. Not just plate carriers. Full ballistic, energy, and fire-resistant systems. Seasonal variants. Integrated sensors. Survivability was doctrine, not luxury.

  Electronic warfare units consistently intercepted and decrypted enemy communications. Soviet movements were anticipated. Ambushes countered before they formed. Air superiority was absolute, thanks to aircraft like the F/A-19 Helldiver and F/A-38 Corsair—multirole platforms so advanced that foreign fifth-generation jets looked outdated overnight.

  Cloaking technology redefined stealth. Not just radar evasion—visual invisibility under certain operational conditions.

  Airspace dominance became routine.

  But what unsettled opponents most wasn’t hardware.

  It was mindset.

  Many nations relied on conscripts—troops counting down the days until discharge.

  Little Bird didn’t.

  Its soldiers volunteered into a culture that didn’t recognize half measures. They stayed until wounded, dead, or victorious. There was no “good enough.”

  A Soviet officer once described watching six thousand Little Bird infantry push through their own napalm and enemy artillery to close distance into hand-to-hand combat. It wasn’t recklessness. It was resolve. The officer had written:

  “They didn’t see it as slaughter. They just came anyway. We won’t run these bastards back home; they are home.”

  That line circulated quietly among analysts for years.

  Hand-to-hand combat training further distinguished them. Their close-quarters doctrine blended military combatives with techniques refined to brutal efficiency. Strikes were layered. Transitions seamless. Aggression controlled but relentless. It wasn’t cinematic. It was clinical.

  Even their training simulations reflected this philosophy.

  Little Bird’s military simulators are unforgiving. Rifle rounds often meant instant kill. Dead characters stayed dead. Wounded avatars required recovery cycles. Specialists lost meant months of retraining. The message drilled in was simple:

  Think before engaging.

  Commit fully when you do.

  This mindset didn’t exist in isolation. It reflected broader cultural doctrine.

  Financial conservatism wasn’t preference—it was ingrained. “We don’t have enough” and “Protect what we have” weren’t slogans; they were generational mantras. Historical recessions had shaped national psychology. Savings were prioritized. Debt avoided. Expansion measured.

  Complaining was viewed as indulgent.

  Hardship was expected.

  Even social unrest was framed differently. When riots broke out, they were often described bluntly as “social wars of poor versus well-off.” Peacekeepers tended to come from working-class backgrounds. Protesters often did not.

  After Basic Combat Training, every recruit underwent assessment into one of sixteen operational archetypes. These weren’t medals. They were functional roles reflecting temperament and capability.

  Marksman.

  Survivor.

  Ghost.

  Sniper.

  Commando.

  Medic.

  Machinist.

  Team Objectives.

  Immortal.

  Killer.

  Assassin.

  Scavenger.

  Interrogator.

  Supplier.

  Mitchell had long ago accepted his own classification. Ghost. Commando. Speed and violence make a great team. Sometimes a job requires the strong silent type.

  The Axiom Blade strike leader didn’t sugarcoat it.

  “If you’re planning to keep pushing north,” she said, helmet tucked under her arm, “that’s a suicide run.”

  Sonata didn’t bristle. She just waited.

  “You’re not dressed like regulars,” the mercenary continued, eyes scanning their mismatched gear. “You look like what you are—a ragtag unit. No insignia. No unified kit. No local alignment. That works in the south.”

  She tilted her head slightly.

  “It won’t work up there.”

  Mitchell didn’t interrupt. He already knew where this was going.

  “You head further north,” the strike leader said, “and you’ll hit real resistance. Not checkpoint conscripts. Not green troops pressed into service. Royal Guard.”

  That changed the equation.

  The Royal Army handled the southern half—citizen soldiers, mandatory service, uneven discipline. Dangerous in numbers, but inconsistent in execution.

  The Royal Guard was different.

  Better armor.

  Better training.

  Better weapons.

  Better loyalty to the regime.

  San Marcos sat in the south. That’s why their operations had worked so far. Shock attacks, quick annihilations, vanish before reinforcements. It was viable against Army patrols.

  Push north, and it would be a different war.

  The strike leader folded her arms.

  “Head south,” she said plainly. “Regroup. Reassess. You keep moving north dressed like that, and you’ll start fighting units that don’t panic when ambushed.”

  Sonata glanced at Mitchell.

  She didn’t need him to explain it.

  The deeper north they went, the more layered the defenses would become. Stronger checkpoints. Hardened outposts. Integrated air response. Guard units who wouldn’t freeze under surprise contact.