Night lay over the scarred city like a heavy velvet curtain.
Unlike the dazzling, sleepless lights of Earth in the main universe, the nights here were "ruled" by a suffocating stillness and scattered, blinking red warning beacons.
A strict curfew was in force.
Through their invisible holo-glasses, Leon and the others could clearly see those uniformed "soldiers," as well as another group of slightly less heavily armed but equally brutal "traitor" enforcement units, herding the few pedestrians still on the streets.
They shoved the staggering citizens with rifle butts, their shouted orders echoing down the empty streets as they forced everyone back into their cage-like homes.
"All units, attention, going outside during curfew hours is strictly forbidden!
Repeat, going outside during curfew hours is strictly forbidden! Violators will be treated as resistance elements!"
The cold warning, with its distinctly synthetic mechanical timbre, blared again and again from speakers mounted on street corners and high-rises, like a funeral dirge for this dead city.
"Looks like the 'masters' here really don't care for nightlife," Mike muttered, voice low and dripping with sarcasm.
"Curfew helps them maintain control, and makes it easier to do anything they don't want civilians to see," Leon analyzed coolly. "We have to be even more careful."
As he watched the distant blocks empty out, leaving only the heavy tread of patrols and the low growl of armored engines, Leon made a decision.
"Mike, take control of the remaining 'bugs' and run one last high-intensity scan on the nearby districts. Focus-mark patrol shift points, fixed posts, and surveillance blind spots. We've got thirty minutes of battery left. Use every bit of it."
"On it."
Mike set to work immediately. Several micro-drones disguised as insects lifted into the air without a sound, melting into the night as they began their final mission, streaming back increasingly detailed map data.
"We need a temporary safe house," Leon went on, his gaze sweeping the outlines of nearby buildings. "We can't stay out in the open. We need somewhere to rest, analyze data, and serve as a base for the next phase."
"Agreed." Maggie's response was brief and to the point.
Using the drone feeds and their own observations, the three began searching for a suitable place to hole up.
They noticed that although the abandoned outer districts were also under curfew, patrol routes for the "soldiers" and "traitors" showed the control there was somewhat looser.
However, in contrast, the patrol units responsible for that sector were fast-moving armored convoys and low-flying patrol craft.
"Doesn't look like they're relaxed there because it's unimportant." Leon pointed to the densely marked patrol routes on the map. "It's more like they're heavily guarding against something. Looks like there might still be resistance forces in those ruins that are giving the occupiers headaches."
The discovery snapped them to attention.
Resistance meant potential intelligence sources—and potential allies.
With their target clear, the three once more became "ghosts," beginning a dangerous infiltration through the curfewed city.
Their figures flitted quickly among shattered walls and piles of rubble, using every shadow and every mound of debris as cover.
Infiltration became the only theme of the moment.
When a bio-mechanical patrol craft skimmed low overhead trailing a ghostly blue exhaust, they pressed themselves into a recess in the wall, their optical camouflage adjusting to perfectly match the concrete around them, and stayed there until the unnerving roar faded into the distance.
When a four-man patrol of "soldiers" rounded a corner, marching with uniform, "rigid" strides, they slipped at once into a half-collapsed storefront, listening as the sound of metal boots on pavement grew near and then receded.
When a heavy armored personnel carrier roared down a main road, its massive wheels grinding the gravel underfoot, they used the noise as cover to dash across an open plaza.
Once, they nearly collided head-on with a silent drone patrolling between buildings, but all three managed to duck into a basement ventilation shaft in time.
Every close call passed without incident, thanks to their experience, advanced gear, and ironclad composure.
Eventually, they slipped into a typical Eastern European–style apartment block on the edge of the abandoned district.
The six-story building's exterior walls were riddled with bullet holes and scorched-black burn marks. Most of the windows were shattered, leaving only a skeletal concrete frame.
Inside, the scars of war were even more stark.
Corridors and stairwells were pockmarked with dense bullet impacts. Blackened patches on the walls marked where explosions had gone off.
In some corners, victims' remains had already turned to bare white bone.
Some skeletons wore the tattered remnants of ordinary civilian clothes, curled up in corners.
Others lay amid scraps of old-era military uniforms and rusted weapons, frozen in their final fighting posture.
Mike crouched and carefully examined a skeleton slumped against the wall. He brushed a fingertip across residue on the bone, then checked the markings around the bullet hole.
"These firefight traces and bodies are at least ten years old," he said in a low, certain voice. "Bone weathering, ammunition residue, the dust buildup—this all points to a long time."
"After all this time, the occupiers haven't even done basic cleanup or burial," Maggie said coldly as she took in the battlefield frozen by time.
Leon rose and patted the dust from his hands.
"That tells us the alien forces occupying this place have zero intention of long-term development or proper management of this planet.
They don't care about sanitation, history, or even the most basic respect for the dead.
To them, this is probably just a resource world to be drained dry. And these surviving humans—"
He looked out the window at the silhouettes being herded under searchlights in the distance. "...are likely nothing more than expendable biological stock."
"A bunch of damned parasites," Mike muttered under his breath.
"Record everything here," Leon ordered. "These could be useful as evidence later. For now, priority is to find a relatively intact, concealed room as our safe house. We need to start data analysis as soon as possible."
The three of them began carefully sweeping the death-filled building, looking for a place where they could catch their breath and plan their next move.
Outside, the drone of patrol craft engines and the mechanical warnings from loudspeakers still sounded intermittently, constant reminders that danger was never far.
Dust drifted slowly in the bleak shafts of light filtering through broken windows. Every breath tasted of old decay.
Behind every half-closed door, in every dust-choked corner, there might be a life cut short by violence.
Shattered picture frames, scattered household items, and dark stains dried on the walls all silently told the story of the building's last moments of chaos and despair.
When they reached a unit on the east side of the third floor, Leon pushed open a bedroom door still bearing faded, peeling cartoon stickers.
Dust cascaded down, and the sight inside made even these three battle-hardened veterans pause.
In the middle of the floor lay several small skeletons.
Judging by the size of the bones, none of them had been more than ten years old when they died.
Their slight frames were frozen in various curled or prone positions—
Some huddled tightly at the foot of the bed, as if trying to find a last scrap of protection.
Some lay face down along the path to the door, as if they had tried to flee in terror.
One smaller skeleton was curled in a corner, a badly faded stuffed rabbit lying beside it.
Around these bones lay the remnants of torn picture books, broken crayons, and a small wooden rocking horse.
On the half-burned cover of one children's book, the title "The Happy Prince" could still be faintly made out.
Once vessels of laughter and dreams, these things were now slowly returning to dust alongside their tiny owners amid the ruins.
In the dim light, the small white skeletons gleamed dully. Every rib, every finger bone stood out in stark relief.
They "spoke" of the terror and hopelessness of having nowhere to run when the end came, as if their final cries were still frozen in time.
"Goddamn it..." Mike couldn't help cursing under his breath.
His fists clenched tight, knuckles white, the muscles in his arms drawn hard as stone.
He jerked around, as if unable to bear another second of this heartbreaking scene, his voice thick with barely controlled rage:
"I swear, I just want to call the forward base right now and have the Flame Lizard Astartes drop in from orbit, scour this whole damned place with melta and bolters, wipe every one of those bastards and alien freaks off the map!
Leave no one standing!"
His blood-soaked growl echoed through the empty room, his chest heaving, eyes blazing with a fury that looked ready to explode.
But a moment later, Mike drew a long breath, forcing his emotions down.
He scrubbed a hand hard across his face, shook his head, and his voice dropped, heavy and helpless. "...I'm just venting. I know we can't."
He understood better than anyone that with the situation unclear and civilians scattered among the enemy, launching a large-scale assault on a whim would be disastrous. Any stray round could kill survivors hiding in the buildings. The shock waves from explosives could bring down whole blocks. And cornered enemies might lash out with retaliatory massacres in civilian areas.
The consequences would be unthinkable; the death toll would be astronomical.
Every innocent life lost in the crossfire would be the price of their failure.
"…"
Leon silently patted Mike's shoulder, saying nothing.
He, Mike, and Maggie had all seen far too many dead children over their long careers.
But every time they saw it, the primal sadness, anger, and sense of helplessness still slammed into them just as hard. They had never grown numb from habit.
That was what separated them from cold war machines—and one of the reasons they could keep going.
Swallowing down the turmoil in their chests, they finished the sweep and finally chose a room at the end of the fourth-floor hallway as their temporary base.
This room was relatively intact, had good sightlines, and offered multiple escape routes.
They split tasks with their usual efficiency.
Mike handled interior setup—checking and sorting their gear and supplies, making sure weapons were in top condition, comms fully charged, and med kits within easy reach.
Leon and Maggie moved like shadows, setting up defenses at key points in the building.
At stairwell turns, corridor entrances, and potential vertical insertion points, they quietly planted several small, man-portable mines.
These were not traditional contact-triggered explosives.
As most civilians liked to say, "If it's made by Atlas, it's bound to be good." These smart mines had advanced biological signature and IFF systems built in.
Leon and Maggie programmed in the armor characteristics of the "soldiers" and "traitors" they had observed, as well as common alien biosignatures, while exempting civilians and non-hostile creatures such as small normal animals.
The chance of a mistaken detonation was reduced to practically zero.
At the same time, they installed micro wide-angle cameras at strategic points on each floor, feeding their signals directly to the team's holo-glasses.
After repeated calibration, they ensured that there were virtually no blind spots in monitoring the building's main access routes and approaches from outside.
By the time they finished, it was close to midnight.
Even though Leon and Mike had undergone gene mods that put their stamina and endurance far beyond normal humans—and Maggie was a "super agent" enhanced with Compound Five and multiple augmentations—continuous high-intensity stealth, reconnaissance, and mental strain still took their toll.
They needed rest, because tomorrow would be the true "deep dive into the tiger's den," the start of their core infiltration mission.
According to plan, Mike and Maggie would rest first while Leon took the first watch.
He left the "safer" base room and went into the adjacent abandoned unit with the best vantage point, settling behind a shattered windowsill like a stone statue on guard.
The city at night was not completely silent.
During his watch, scattered, piercing cries, pleas, and harsh shouts occasionally drifted in on the night wind from distant streets—faint, yet all too clear.
The "traitor" security squads were obviously still "hard at work," tirelessly rounding up so-called "criminal elements" according to their brutal standards.
Every time those sounds reached him, Leon's eyes grew a degree colder.
Before long, Maggie arrived right on time to relieve him.
She moved without a sound and merely gave Leon a small nod.
Leon said nothing, returning to the base room, picking a relatively clean corner, and lying down fully clothed. He slipped into a light sleep almost instantly.
When Leon opened his eyes again, the gray-white light outside the window had already driven away the thick darkness of night.
Dawn had come.
Mike had prepared a simple meal and purified water.
They ate quickly, checked their gear, and erased any trace of their stay.
"Today's objective," Leon said in a low voice as he slid the last magazine into the concealed holster under his arm, "is focused recon on the entry and exit checkpoints around the city perimeter. Look for anyone suspicious."
He glanced at his teammates and elaborated, "If there really is an organized resistance in this city, then to get supplies, pass information, or carry out sabotage, they'll have to infiltrate the city interior.
And their first obstacle will be slipping through those tight inspection checkpoints."
"So," Mike picked up the thread, "those areas are where resistance members are most likely to operate—and most likely to slip up.
If we stake them out, it's our best shot at spotting and contacting them quickly."
"Exactly." Leon nodded. "Gear up. Maximum alert. Things might get very 'lively' today."
The three of them once more slipped into the apartment block's shadows, vanishing like drops of water into the sea as they ghosted toward the city's heavily guarded checkpoints at the edge.
A new day was beginning—bringing deeper dangers, and perhaps the crucial contact that could break the stalemate.
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