Mira dropped to her stomach behind the ridge line, pulse hammering in her ears. Below them, the combined forces of the Red Circle and the Iron Priests spread across the plain like a dark tide. The smoke rising from Haven Valley was no longer a thin column; it was a black wall climbing into the morning sky.
"They hit the valley at dawn," Reyes whispered, binoculars pressed to his eyes. "We're too late to warn them."
Julian's face was ashen. "How many defenders did Mara have?"
"Less than a hundred able-bodied," Mira answered, voice flat. "Against that?" She nodded toward the army.
The Iron Priests' machines dominated the center: three restored armored personnel carriers belching diesel smoke, the tank rumbling on tracks that hadn't turned in centuries, and a dozen smaller vehicles jury-rigged with machine guns and rocket tubes. Around them rode the Red Circle horsemen, banners snapping in the wind. Foot soldiers hundreds marched in loose formation, carrying everything from spears to scavenged assault rifles.
At the head of the column rode a figure in gleaming powered armor, visor down, a long cape of red fabric streaming behind. Even from this distance, the suit hummed with power. Pre-war military tech. Intact.
"That's their high priest," Reyes muttered. "They call him the Forgemaster."
Mira's comm bead crackled faintly short-range only, to avoid detection. The rest of her team was spread along the ridge: Ensign Patel, Engineer Kuo, and Biologist Torres. All six of them, armed with pulse rifles and sidearms that now felt laughably inadequate.
"We can't fight that," Patel said over the channel. "We have to get to the lander."
"Ten kilometers west," Mira replied. "Through open ground. They'll see us the moment we move."
Julian scanned the horizon. "There's a dry riverbed half a kilometer north. It cuts deep might give us cover most of the way."
"Might," Reyes echoed. "And if they have spotters on the hills?"
Mira made the call. "We take the risk. Haven bought us time. We don't waste it."
They moved fast and low, sliding down the back slope of the ridge and sprinting across broken ground toward the riverbed. The air smelled of sage and distant burning wood. Every rustle of grass made Mira flinch.
Halfway there, a horn blasted behind them deep, resonant, carrying for miles.
They'd been seen.
"Run!" Mira shouted.
Boots pounded earth. Breath burned in lungs unused to full gravity. The riverbed appeared ahead a jagged scar twenty meters deep, walls of eroded sandstone.
They leaped the edge and slid down in a cascade of dust and pebbles.
For a moment, they were hidden.
"West," Mira gasped. "Stay in the channel."
They ran.
The riverbed twisted like a snake, offering cover but slowing progress. Above, the rim was open sky. Any moment, riders could appear.
They didn't have to wait long.
Hoofbeats thundered. Voices shouted in a dialect Mira couldn't place.
Reyes risked a glance up. "Six riders. Red Circle scouts. They're fanning out."
"Keep moving," Mira ordered.
But the channel narrowed ahead, choked with boulders. They'd have to climb.
"Up and over," Julian said. "Fast."
They scrambled up the opposite wall, fingers digging into soft stone. At the top, Reyes peaked cautiously.
The scouts were closer less than two hundred meters, bows drawn.
One pointed.
Arrows whistled.
Mira felt the wind of one passing her ear. Another thunked into the sandstone beside Julian's hand.
"Fire!" she commanded.
Pulse rifles hummed. Blue bolts lanced out set to stun, but at this range even stun could kill.
Two riders dropped, horses rearing. The others wheeled away, shouting warnings.
No more stealth.
They crested the rim and ran across open meadow toward a stand of pine that marked the edge of the landing plateau.
Behind them, the horn sounded again three short blasts. Pursuit.
The pines swallowed them in shadow and resin scent. Needles crunched underfoot.
"How far?" Torres panted.
"Three kilometers," Mira answered. "We can make it."
But the forest wasn't empty.
A figure stepped from behind a tree tall, cloaked in hides, face painted with ash. A woman, bow drawn, arrow nocked.
Not Red Circle. Not Iron Priest.
She stared at them for a heartbeat, then lowered the bow slightly.
"Star-folk," she said in clear English. "You bring death on your heels."
Mira raised empty hands. "We're trying to leave. To draw them away."
The woman's eyes flicked past them to the open ground. More riders were visible now, spreading out.
"My name is Kestra," she said. "Of the Pine Clans. We watch the Iron Priests. We hate them."
"Can you help us?" Julian asked.
Kestra considered. Then she whistled sharp, birdlike.
Figures melted from the trees: a dozen archers, silent and deadly.
"They will not follow you through our woods," Kestra said. "But you must run. Now."
Mira didn't argue.
They ran.
Arrows sang behind them as the Pine Clan engaged the scouts. Screams and horse cries echoed, then faded.
The forest thinned. Ahead, the meadow of their landing site opened up.
The *Pioneer* sat where they'd left it, silver and untouched, habitat dome still inflated beside it.
Too easy.
"Trap," Reyes said instantly.
Mira saw it too.
Figures moved around the lander twenty, thirty. Red Circle warriors, mixed with men in heavy radiation suits carrying pre-war weaponry.
They'd split their forces. One arm to crush Haven, the other to seize the prize.
"Options?" Patel asked, voice tight.
Mira scanned. The dome had automated turrets light defense against wildlife. They might clear a path.
"We fight," she said. "Stun where possible. Lethal if not. We need that lander."
They spread out, using the tree line for cover.
"On my mark," Mira whispered.
She activated the remote link on her wrist pad. The dome's turrets whirred to life.
"Mark."
Blue energy bolts stitched across the meadow. Half the besiegers dropped, convulsing. The rest scattered for cover, returning fire with bullets that chewed bark and stone.
Mira's team advanced, pulse rifles singing.
A radiation-suited figure rose with a rocket launcher.
Reyes shot first lethal setting. The man exploded in a red mist.
They reached the dome's perimeter. The hatch cycled open at Mira's biometric.
"Inside!" she shouted.
They piled in, sealing behind them.
For a moment, safety.
Then the lander rocked. An explosion close.
"They've got heavy weapons," Kuo reported from the engineering console. "Shields holding, but not for long."
Mira strapped into the command chair. "Prep for emergency ascent. Forget full checklist."
Screens flickered to life. Engines whined.
Outside, more forces were arriving dozens, then hundreds. The main army had turned.
The tank rumbled into view, turret traversing.
"Lift!" Mira ordered.
Thrusters roared. The lander leaped skyward, pressing them into seats with 4g acceleration.
A shell detonated below close enough to rattle teeth.
Then they were above it all.
Earth fell away: green and brown and scarred, smoke rising from Haven like a funeral pyre.
Mira's eyes burned.
Julian stared at the screens. "We left them to die."
"We lived to report," Mira said harshly. "That's what Mara wanted."
But the words tasted like ash.
They broke atmosphere twenty minutes later, engines straining.
The *Exodus* appeared ahead vast, turning slowly, home.
Docking was automatic. Arms reached out, pulled them in.
The habitat's artificial gravity felt wrong after days on Earth too even, too gentle.
They were met by armed security and the full Council.
High Director Elias Grant waited at the airlock, face grim.
"Report," he demanded.
Mira told him everything.
The survivors. The Change. Haven Valley. The Iron Priests. The war already burning below.
When she finished, silence filled the docking bay.
Then Grant spoke.
"You've confirmed habitable zones," he said. "And native populations. This changes the Return Protocol."
"Director," Mira said carefully, "those 'natives' are human. Descended from the ones we left behind. They've adapted"
"They've mutated," Grant cut in. "And they reject technology. That makes them a threat to reclamation."
Julian stepped forward angrily. "They're protecting the planet from another war! The Iron Priests"
"Are using pre-war weapons," Grant finished. "Which means recoverable technology. Salvageable resources."
Mira felt ice in her veins.
"You can't be thinking invasion."
"Not invasion," Grant said smoothly. "Reunification. Under proper guidance."
He turned to security.
"Decontaminate the landing team. Full quarantine. We'll need their data."
Guards moved forward.
Mira's hand went to her sidearm.
"Don't," Grant warned. "You're heroes, Captain. Don't become obstacles."
They were escorted firmly to medical isolation.
Days passed in sterile white rooms.
News filtered in.
The Council had declared Phase Two of the Return: armed reconnaissance.
Shuttles were being prepped. Troops trained.
Julian raged. Reyes planned escape. Mira watched the stars and Earth.
On the seventh day, a new patient was brought into isolation.
Burned. Wounded.
Mara.
She was barely conscious, carried on a stretcher, Mark visible and angry black beneath radiation burns.
Julian rushed to her side.
"How?" he demanded of the medics.
"Found in low orbit," one said reluctantly. "In a primitive re-entry capsule. Launched from the surface."
Mara's eyes fluttered open.
"Had to... warn you," she rasped.
Mira knelt. "Haven?"
"Fallen," Mara whispered. "Many escaped. Pine Clans took them in. But the Forgemaster... he has your beacon codes now. From the lander's computer."
Mira's blood ran cold.
"They're coming," Mara said. "With your own weapons. He'll use them to force the habitats down."
Julian worked frantically, stabilizing her with drugs the Mark tolerated.
"Why risk this?" Mira asked.
Mara managed a pained smile.
"Because you're still human. And some of us... believe in second chances."
She slipped into unconsciousness.
That night, alarms blared throughout the *Exodus*.
Proximity alerts.
On the main screens: shapes rising from Earth.
Not shuttles.
Rockets. Primitive, but massive. Scavenged pre-war orbital boosters, somehow restored.
And docked to them: the *Pioneer*. Their lander. Captured. Repainted with the Iron Priests' symbols.
The Forgemaster was coming.
With him: demands.
Surrender the habitats.
Or he would use the lander's nuclear self-destruct armed now with salvaged warheads to crack the *Exodus* open like an egg.
Mira stared at the screens in isolation, fists clenched.
The war hadn't stayed on Earth.
It had followed them home.
And the sky was burning.