"Fabian pattern," Ian said. No shout, just a voice that cut through the static. "We slow them. Draw them out. No heroics."
Sand hissed under boots. The refugees were already scattering toward the refinery — a ribcage of tanks and pipes against the pre-dawn haze.
"Slow them with what?" Yoon's breath came sharp, sweat already streaking her dust mask. "We've got half a magazine each and fourteen working drones."
"Delay's enough," Ian said. "We pull them into the choke by the south wall."
"South wall's open ground," she shot back. "That's a killing lane, not a choke."
Tracer rounds stitched the ridge behind them. Everyone dropped. The sound was flat, metallic, a hammer hitting sheet metal.
Ian crawled to the next drum, thumbed the comm. "Echo Two, smoke the left flank. Refugees go center. We hold here."
Yoon scanned the refinery through her sight. The tanks were rusted thin, leaking vapor, heat rising like ghosts. "That's not cover, that's a funeral pyre."
"Better a wall that burns than no wall," Ian said.
Another burst came in — heavier, slower, the sound of armor rounds chewing sand. The refugees stopped running, caught between fear and exhaustion.
"Move them!" Ian barked.
Baines sprinted out, waving them forward. One fell, another froze. The rest stumbled on, heads down, bare feet slapping the grit.
"Fabian pattern's dead," Yoon said. "They're probing. They've got eyes everywhere."
"Then we break their patience."
"You're thinking old-world, Captain. They're not men, they're code." She pointed toward the west ridge where flashes pulsed in perfect rhythm. "They're reading us in real time."
He didn't answer. He just watched the horizon where the muzzle flashes never missed a beat.
"Fallback to the main tank," he said finally. "Make them chase."
"That's not fallback," Yoon muttered. "That's feeding them."
"Lure and choke," she said, half to herself. "We give them what they want, then drown them in it."
Ian looked at her. "You think you can pull that off?"
"Only if you stop talking and start moving."
They broke from cover at the same second, boots sinking into loose sand, rifles tight to their chests. The air tasted like metal. Every breath felt stolen.
The factory loomed closer — pipes overhead, the smell of crude thick as tar. Shots cracked off the steel, echo folding back on itself.
Yoon hit the wall first, slammed her shoulder against it. "Angle here! We drag them into the heat plume!"
Ian nodded once, already signaling his squad. "Fabian's done," he said. "We go with yours."
"Where's Vega?" Yoon's voice cracked in the comm. "Where the hell is she?"
No answer, only the deep thump of mortars in the east. The horizon flickered.
Holland pointed through the smoke. "There—by the dunes!"
Through the haze, they saw her: small frame bent under a man's weight, the Greek soldier slung across her shoulders, a stretcher line dragging behind her with another shape tied to it.
"She's insane," Yoon muttered.
"She's moving," Ian said.
Then the sky changed.
No dawn yet—just a flare that ripped the upper dark apart, white-gold bleeding through the cloud shelf. It wasn't artillery. It wasn't anything they owned.
The light froze them for a heartbeat. The refugees turned to stare; even the gunfire faltered, as if the world had blinked.
Ian didn't speak. His jaw tightened, eyes fixed on that impossible brightness. Then he raised his rifle again. "Cover her," he said.
Yoon snapped back to motion. "Squad—on me! Suppress east side!"
They opened fire, tight bursts, controlled rhythm. Spent shells rained at their feet, the air hot and close. The mercenaries joined in, firing wild. The first two went down fast—clean hits, chest and throat.
"Keep it steady!" Yoon shouted, shifting position, kicking a jammed rifle from a dead man's grip. "Buy her ten seconds!"
Out there, Fiona ran.
No pattern, no hesitation. Just raw motion.
The Greek soldier's voice rasped near her ear. "Leave me. Save yourself."
She didn't answer. Her breath was a rasp through blood and grit. Every step hit harder than the last.
The stretcher's rope cut into her waist. Her lungs burned. Her heart hammered so loud it drowned the shots.
Then something shifted—deep, cellular. The pulse in her temples slowed, then steadied. Each stride lengthened. Sand flew.
She didn't know what drove her—only that the pain no longer slowed her. It fused with her. Her body moved as if remembering an older rhythm, a lineage written in muscle and marrow.
Bullets hissed past. Heat rose from the refinery tanks. She ran through it all, carrying two lives as if they were her own.
Behind her, Yoon's squad emptied their magazines; Ian's team reloaded in silence. The false dawn still burned above them, turning the smoke to gold.
Fiona kept running.
"Get them below!" Ian's voice cut through the smoke. "Basement, now!"
The refugees stumbled toward the open hatch. The factory roof groaned—metal warping under fire, bolts snapping one by one.
Yoon shoved a man through the hatch. "Move! It's coming down!"
Fiona turned.
The steel frame bowed, dust raining from the seams. She dropped the stretcher line, planted her boots in the ash. Heat pulsed through her palms.
The air around her shimmered—pressure shifting, invisible geometry flexing as her anima caught the strain. It wasn't strength. It was distribution, force split and mirrored, a field of counterweight drawn through bone and breath.
Ian froze mid-reload. His fingers tingled, same static he'd felt in every fight he'd survived. He knew then what it was, without naming it.
"Vega!" Yoon shouted. "Fall back!"
She didn't move.
The roof screamed again, a sound like the earth splitting. Fiona's nose bled. Her vision narrowed to light and pressure.
Then a shadow came. Not a figure—just the absence of fire, curling through the smoke. It knelt before her, silent, patient.
Fiona's jaw locked. "Not them," she whispered.
Her knees buckled. She pushed anyway.
The supports gave one last groan, then settled. The refugees vanished below. Silence came like a held breath.
Fiona's blood fell, one drop at a time, red in the dust—brief flare, gone like a star crossing airless dark.