FOB TRITON AIRFIELD
SECTOR 5 (COASTAL REGION)
NOVEMBER 16, 2027
17:30 LOCAL TIME (DUSK)
The waiting was the worst part. It was a physical ache, a gnawing sensation in the gut that felt like swallowing broken glass.
Twenty-four hours.
That's how long Alpha Team—and the Asset—had been gone. Vanished into the magnetic ether of Sector 7.
Lieutenant "Hooch" Miller sat on the skid of his MH-6 Little Bird, staring at the purple bruise of a sunset. He flicked his Zippo lighter open and closed. Clink. Clink. Clink.
"You're gonna wear the flint out, LT," Corporal "Sparks" McGee said from the gunner's seat. Sparks was checking the feed chute on the GAU-19/A rotary machine gun for the tenth time. He was nervous. Everyone was nervous.
"If I wear it out, I'll steal yours," Hooch grunted, snapping the lighter shut.
A jeep screeched to a halt on the tarmac. Major Reeves, the Air Wing Commander, stepped out. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week.
"Listen up!" Reeves barked, his voice fighting the coastal wind.
Three flight crews gathered around—pilots for the two Black Hawks and Hooch's Little Bird.
"We have a window," Reeves said, pointing to a map on the hood of the jeep. "The magnetic storm over the Peak has shifted. Interference is down to 40%. Command has authorized a widening of the SAR (Search and Rescue) grid."
He drew a red circle around the last known location of Alpha Team.
"We are dropping the 'Commonised Objective.' We aren't looking for a fight. We are looking for ghosts. Two Black Hawks will take the outer perimeter, 5 clicks out. Hooch, you take the inner ring."
Hooch stepped forward. "How close, Major?"
"You start at 300 meters from the abduction site. You spiral out. 500 meters. Then 1 click. Hard limit is 3 kilometers," Reeves said. "You are looking for thermal hits, strobe lights, debris. Anything."
"And if we find the hostiles?" Hooch asked. "The ones who took them?"
Reeves looked Hooch dead in the eye. "You run, Lieutenant. You turn that bird around and you burn sky back to base. Do not engage. We lost our best shooters yesterday. I'm not losing my best pilot today."
Hooch nodded, but his jaw was tight. "Understood, sir."
"You have a third man," Reeves added. He gestured to a young soldier pulling a rucksack out of the jeep. "Private Jenkins. 101st Airborne. He's your extra set of eyes and he's carrying the high-gain recording gear. If you see something, I want it in 4K."
Jenkins looked green. Not sick-green, but new-green. He looked like he was twelve years old and holding a rifle that was too big for him.
"Try not to puke in my chopper, kid," Hooch muttered. "Let's mount up."
SECTOR 7 (THE IRON COAST)
AIRSPACE OVER THE MAGNETIC PEAK
18:45 LOCAL TIME
The Little Bird was a glorified lawnmower with a rotor blade. It was small, fast, and agile, perfect for "Nap-of-the-Earth" flying.
Hooch flew with the doors off. The wind screamed through the cockpit, smelling of ozone and sulfur.
" entering Sector 3," Hooch said over the comms. "Initiating spiral search. Altitude 200 feet."
He banked the helicopter hard, starting the first circle. The 500-meter radius.
Below them, the battlefield from yesterday was a graveyard. The carcass of the Matriarch Spider was still there, a massive, rotting mound of purple shell. Scavenger beetles—the size of dinner plates—were already picking it clean.
"Anything on the thermal?" Hooch asked.
"Negative," Sparks replied, his face buried in the sensor display. "Just residual heat from the dead bugs. Cold rocks. Cold bodies."
Hooch grimaced. "Expanding to 1 kilometer."
He widened the turn. The Little Bird dipped its nose, picking up speed.
They flew over the petrified forest. The black trees reached up like skeletal hands trying to grab the skids.
"Come on," Hooch whispered. "Give me something. A glint. A flare. Don't just be gone."
Circle two complete. Nothing.
"Pushing to 1.5 kilometers," Hooch announced. "We're getting into the deep canyons now."
The terrain here was jagged. Deep fissures cut into the earth, emitting plumes of steam. The magnetic interference was getting worse; the HUD in Hooch's helmet flickered with static snow.
"Wait," Sparks said, his voice jumping an octave. "I got a blip. 3 o'clock low."
Hooch swung the bird around, banking aggressively. "Talk to me. Biological?"
"It's... faint," Sparks squinted. "It's not a single signature. It's a cluster. Shielded. Someone is trying to hide a campfire."
Hooch looked down. Through the gloom, he saw a narrow ravine, shadowed by an overhang.
"I see it," Hooch said. "Faint orange glow on the FLIR. That's them. It has to be."
He keyed the long-range radio.
"Triton Base, this is Sparrow-1. I have possible contact. Sector 7-Bravo. Grid reference 44-9. Over."
Static.
HSSSSSS-CRACKLE-POP.
"Triton, do you copy?"
HSSSSSSSS.
"God dammit," Hooch slammed his hand on the console. "We're jammed. High-band, low-band, it's all white noise."
"LT, we should RTB," Sparks said nervously. "Orders were to run. We mark the coordinates, go back, and bring the cavalry."
Hooch looked at the ravine.
"If we leave," Hooch said, his voice low, "by the time the cavalry gets here, they'll be gone. These things... these 'Ninjas' or whatever the hell they are... they use portals, Sparks. If they sense us leaving, they'll bounce. We lose Harris. We lose all of them."
"So what's the plan?" Jenkins asked from the back, clutching his rifle.
Hooch scanned the terrain.
"We land. Hard deck. Behind that ridge, 500 meters south. We go on foot. We get eyes on, we confirm ID, and then we leave."
"This is a bad idea," Sparks muttered. "This is a spectacularly shitty idea."
"Welcome to Omega," Hooch said, pitching the nose up to flare for landing.
1.5 KM FROM THE OBJECTIVE
19:10 LOCAL TIME
The Little Bird touched down in a cloud of black dust. Hooch killed the engine immediately to minimize noise. The silence that rushed in was heavy and oppressive.
"Sparks, you stay on the gun," Hooch ordered, unbuckling his harness. "If anything comes over that ridge that isn't us, you turn it into pink mist. If we aren't back in 20 mikes... you leave."
"I ain't leaving you, LT," Sparks argued.
"That's an order, Corporal," Hooch snapped. He grabbed his M4 carbine from the rack. "Jenkins, grab the camera gear. You're with me."
They moved away from the chopper, crouching low in the brush.
The darkness was absolute. The cloud cover blocked the moons.
"I can't see shit," Hooch cursed. He stopped and knelt down, opening his survival pouch. "Let's see what Uncle Sam gave us for Christmas."
He pulled out a set of Night Vision Goggles.
He stared at them.
They weren't the quad-tube panoramic GPNVG-18s that the special forces guys like Harris used. They weren't even the dual-tube white-phosphor PVS-31s.
It was a PVS-14 Monocular.
Single eye. Green phosphor. Scratched lens.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Hooch whispered furiously. "This is Vietnam-era garbage. I saw better gear in a pawn shop in Nevada."
He slapped the battery in. He mounted it to his helmet and flipped it down.
Click.
The world turned into a grainy, nauseating shade of green. The "high image noise" was terrible—it looked like watching a TV channel that didn't exist. There was zero depth perception.
"Mine's broken, sir," Jenkins whispered, fumbling with his own. "It won't turn on."
"Just stay close to me," Hooch hissed. "Hold onto my vest if you have to. Don't trip."
They moved out.
Every step was a gamble. The petrified roots were like tripwires. The green static in Hooch's eye made shadows look like monsters.
"Fucking logistics," Hooch muttered with every step. "Billions of dollars for a portal to another galaxy, and I'm using a cyclops-scope that smells like mothballs."
They crept up the ridge. The air grew colder.
Hooch held up a fist. Stop.
They were at the lip of the ravine.
Hooch lay flat on his stomach, crawling forward to peer over the edge.
He adjusted the focus on the crappy NVG. The grain cleared just enough.
"Holy shit," Hooch breathed.
THE RITUAL OF BREAKING
The ravine wasn't empty. It was a staging ground.
In the center, a large, circular device had been set up on the ground. It glowed with a soft, ominous violet light.
around it, suspended in the air by invisible fields of force, were the members of Alpha Team.
Captain Russo, Volkov, Rakesh, Rahul, and the Rangers.
They were floating a foot off the ground. Their arms hung limp. Their heads were bowed.
They weren't moving.
"Are they dead?" Jenkins whispered, his voice trembling as he peered over Hooch's shoulder.
"No," Hooch said, squinting through the green grain. "Breathing. Shallow. They're in stasis. Some kind of trance."
But one of them wasn't floating.
One of them was on his knees.
Harris.
He was in the center of the circle. Massive chains—not metal, but constructs of hard-light energy—bound his wrists and ankles to the rock.
He was a wreck.
His uniform was shredded. His chest was bare, revealing the grey, stone-like skin covered in burns and lacerations.
The Demon Mask was still on his face, but the blue light in the eyes was flickering, dim and weak. It looked exhausted.
Standing around him were three of the Wraiths.
The Exo-Ninjas.
Up close, they were terrifying. Their armor was sleek, almost liquid. It shifted as they moved. They wore faceless helmets that reflected the violet light of the machine.
Hooch felt a pang of sickness in his gut. The Asset—the monster who had ripped a Spider Matriarch apart with a rifle—looked... small. He looked beaten.
"Zoom in," Hooch whispered to Jenkins. "Record everything."
Jenkins raised the camera, his hands shaking.
Down in the ravine, one of the Wraiths stepped forward.
It held a rod in its hand. The tip crackled with purple electricity.
It didn't speak. It just thrust the rod into Harris's ribs.
ZZZZZAAAAP!
Harris arched his back. Every muscle in his body seized. The sound of the electricity arcing through his biology was a wet, sizzling crackle.
It wasn't just pain. It was designed to overload his nervous system. To break the connection with the Mask.
The shock lasted for ten seconds.
When it stopped, Harris slumped forward, gasping.
Smoke curled off his skin.
Hooch watched through the monocle. He expected a scream. He expected begging.
Instead, Harris lifted his head.
He spat.
A glob of black blood hit the Wraith's pristine armor.
"Tough son of a bitch," Hooch whispered. "He's still in there."
The Wraith wiped the blood away slowly. It seemed annoyed.
It raised its hand. The violet machine pulsed faster. The pressure in the air dropped.
The Wraith leaned in close to Harris's face. It spoke. The sound didn't carry to the ridge, but the body language was clear: Submit.
Harris looked up. The blue eyes of the Mask flared one last time.
He opened his mouth. The voice that came out was weak, raspy, but clear enough for the directional mic on Jenkins' camera to catch.
"ᚲᚨ... ᛚᚢᛗ... ᚾᛟᚲᛋ... ᚢᛖᚱᚨ."
Hooch froze.
"What language is that?" Jenkins asked. "Is that Russian?"
"No," Hooch said, a chill running down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. "That's the Old Tongue. The Elf shit."
The Wraith struck him again. A backhand blow that sounded like a gunshot.
Harris collapsed sideways. He didn't move.
He was out cold.
The Wraith signaled the others. They began to manipulate the machine. The violet light intensified. The air began to shimmer.
"They're leaving," Hooch realized. "They're opening a portal."
"We have to help them!" Jenkins whispered, raising his rifle.
Hooch grabbed the barrel and shoved it down.
"Are you stupid? There are three of them. We have 5.56 ammo and a camera. If we shoot, we die, and nobody finds out where they went."
Hooch took one last look at Harris, lying broken in the dust.
It hurt. It hurt his pride as a soldier to leave a man behind. Especially that man.
"Forgive me, you big ugly bastard," Hooch whispered.
"Let's go," Hooch hissed. "Move. Now."
FOB TRITON - DEBRIEFING ROOM
21:00 LOCAL TIME
The room was silent.
General McCaffrey (via video link), Major Reeves, and the Intelligence Officers were staring at the screen.
Jenkins' footage was playing. It was shaky, grainy, but the audio was clear.
On the screen, Harris spat blood.
Then, the words.
"ᚲᚨ... ᛚᚢᛗ... ᚾᛟᚲᛋ... ᚢᛖᚱᚨ."
"Pause," McCaffrey ordered.
The image froze on Harris's battered mask.
"Translation?" McCaffrey asked.
A linguistics expert, a young woman with tired eyes, stepped forward. She consulted her notes on the Aereth Lexicon.
"It's... highly specific dialect, General. High-Elven syntax but... twisted."
"Just tell me what it means," McCaffrey growled.
The linguist took a breath.
"Ca Lum means 'The Sky' or 'The Heavens.' But in this context, it implies a location. A Citadel."
"Nox is 'Night' or 'Void.'"
"Vera... means 'True' or 'Real.'"
She looked up at the screen.
"Roughly translated, he said: 'The Sky-Citadel of the True Void.'"
McCaffrey sat back.
"Coordinates?"
"We don't have coordinates for a 'Sky-Citadel,' sir," Major Reeves said. "It's not on any map we've made."
"Then we make new maps," McCaffrey said. His voice was cold, calculating. "Harris gave us a destination. He knew he was being recorded. Or he hoped. He bought us a lead with his own blood."
Hooch stood in the back of the room, still covered in black dust, holding his helmet with the crappy NVG still attached.
"Sir," Hooch spoke up. "Permission to speak."
"Granted, Lieutenant," McCaffrey said.
"Those things... the Wraiths. They looked at Harris like he was a science experiment. They didn't kill him. They want him for something."
"They want the Prime Gene," McCaffrey said. "And the Mask. They are going to try to separate them."
McCaffrey leaned into the camera.
"You did good work, son. You brought us the breadcrumb. Now go get some sleep. Because when we find this 'Sky-Citadel'... we are going to send every bird we have."
Hooch nodded. He walked out of the room.
He stepped out onto the tarmac. The night air was cold.
He looked up at the stars, obscured by the magnetic clouds.
"Hold on, Harris," Hooch whispered to the dark. "Don't let them break you. Not yet."
He pulled out his Zippo.
Clink. Flash.
The flame burned steady in the wind.
The Rescue Mission wasn't over. It had just found a target.