The war-table glowed like a relic dredged from the core of a dying star.
Lines of light spiraled across its surface, forming topographical projections, orbit diagrams, and blinking sigils that marked hostile territories with violent certainty.
Maverick entered first.
His footsteps were quiet now—but not calm.
Behind him, Valkar stepped in with that same veteran's steadiness—never too early, never too late.
And last came Mitus, younger than the glow off the table, but walking with a weight in his step that hadn't been there yesterday.
Around the perimeter, four Primortals stood in silence—tubes whispering, data flowing behind their flickering glass eyes.
Only one turned to speak.
PRIMORTAL THANE, steel-bearded and gaunt, motioned with one long, armored finger.
THANE:
"Approach."
They did.
THANE:
"Over two hundred miles east of our outer wall, a listening post on the border of Sector Dren-13 went silent. It was meant to track electromagnetic pulses from residual alien incursions."
He tapped the table.
A glowing red ring pulsed.
THANE (continued):
"No response. No distress signal. No remains."
Maverick folded his arms.
MAVERICK:
"Destroyed?"
THANE:
"Possibly. But it burned out with precision, not brute force. Which means… either it was surgical—
Or internal."
Mitus looked between the others.
MITUS:
"You think we've been infiltrated?"
THANE:
"I think if we had, we'd be dead already.
But I think something is testing us."
Another Primortal, Sovar, tilted his head slightly.
SOVAR:
"Three Warmachines. No more."
VALKAR (gruff):
"Recon? Or retrieval?"
THANE:
"Both."
A new projection flared across the table—topographic ridges, a jagged trench, a bunker sunken into scorched clay.
THANE:
"You'll drop into the zone, sweep the bunker, clear the area.
If you find something that doesn't belong—kill it.
If you find something we lost—bring it back."
MAVERICK:
"If we find nothing?"
THANE (without pause):
"Then the nothing dies too."
The room fell still again.
Even the machine hum seemed to hush.
THANE (softer now):
"This is not a battle. This is a whisper with teeth.
It's a sign. And we do not ignore signs."
He turned to look at Maverick.
THANE:
"You have command.
Choose your entrance point."
Maverick leaned over the table.
His eyes locked onto a narrow ravine veined with cover and natural choke points.
MAVERICK:
"There. Drop us into the trench.
We move silent.
We bleed nothing."
He looked up.
MAVERICK:
"And if it's a trap…"
He stepped back from the table.
MAVERICK (grim):
"Then we kill the architect."
⸻
The lights dimmed.
A Primortal gestured. The mission was sealed.
As they turned to leave, Mitus looked between Maverick and Valkar.
MITUS (half-joking):
"You think we'll need extra ammo?"
VALKAR (without a hint of humor):
"If Maverick brought us, we'll need everything."
___________________________________
The sky screamed as the drop-pod tore through it.
From above, it looked like a god's spear had been hurled into the earth—one forged not in heaven, but in the foundries of war. No elegance. Only velocity. Only fury.
Inside, silence reigned.
Maverick, Valkar, and Mitus stood braced against the interior walls, their armor locked into magnetic clamps. There were no seats. No straps. No hesitation.
Only the countdown.
SYSTEM VOICE (calm, robotic):
"Surface impact in five.
Four.
Three…"
The pod hit like judgment.
A thunderous quake erupted as it slammed into the ravine floor, throwing dirt and shattered bone high into the burning air. Plates of armor peeled open with a hiss.
The Warmachines stepped out.
⸻
The Land of Forgotten Screams
The trench was wide but deep—walls of shattered sediment and volcanic glass rising on both sides. The air was thick with static and the stench of scorched biomass. Small fires burned unattended, licking at bone piles and broken rebar.
Everything was silent.
Too silent.
Mitus (scanning):
"This place doesn't even smell like war anymore."
Valkar (low):
"That's not peace.
That's digestion."
They moved quickly—boots crunching gravel, weapons raised. Each Warmachine formed a moving triangle, perfect synchronization from lifetimes of combat.
Above them, the sky hung heavy. Clouds moved like bruises. Lightning cracked, but there was no thunder.
Only tension.
MAVERICK (to both):
"See the way the rocks are blackened?
Whatever burned through here did it clean. Surgical. No scorch scatter."
MITUS (frowning):
"Almost like it didn't want to be noticed."
VALKAR:
"Or it didn't need to be."
They reached the forward edge of the listening post.
The bunker was a charred husk of plasteel and scorched titanium, melted in strange angles. No sign of life. No breach. The entry door stood wide open, as if it had been invited in.
Valkar tapped a command into his wrist unit.
Scanners blinked—red, then green. Then… static.
VALKAR:
"EMP distortion. Something's jamming us."
MITUS (raising his rifle):
"You ever seen something like this?"
VALKAR (quietly):
"Once."
He didn't elaborate.
Maverick walked forward, slow and deliberate, his fists clenched—not from fear, but preparation. The way a storm prepares to fall.
Inside the bunker, there was no power.
No sound.
Just the eerie hum of residual heat and something deeper—something beneath their feet. A low vibration. Almost like breath.
MAVERICK (flat):
"We clear this fast. No hesitation."
VALKAR:
"We're with you."
Mitus nodded, his jaw tight.
They entered the bunker—shadows swallowing them whole.
______
The bunker's throat narrowed into a kill corridor—metal walls warped like they'd been twisted by a giant's hand, floor scorched with acid trails and gouged claw marks.
It wasn't abandoned.
It was hollowed out.
Valkar knelt, ran a gauntleted hand through a pile of cracked black soot.
VALKAR:
"Not ash. Burnt flesh. Several dozen.
This was fast. Clean. Unnatural."
From the corner, a low hiss answered him.
Mitus turned.
His weapon snapped up.
MITUS (tense):
"Movement. Eight o'clock.
Something's crawling the walls—!"
Then the walls exploded.
Six creatures burst from the dark—limbs segmented like razors, black bone armored with twitching spines, white eyes set in rows, watching. They moved like insects but hit like tanks.
And they did not roar.
They whispered.
BEASTS (in unison, alien and hushed):
"Three. We see three.
We break three.
Then silence again."
MAVERICK (snarling):
"Break this."
He launched forward.
In a blur, Maverick grabbed one creature mid-air and slammed it through the ceiling, pulling it back down by the neck and hammering it into the floor until it stopped twitching. Its body shattered like glass wrapped in meat.
Behind him, Mitus rolled under a beast's slash, came up with a precision burst that blew apart its legs, then stabbed his forearm blade into its head. He shouted over comms—
MITUS:
"One down! Still breathing!"
Valkar moved like old death—silent, calculating. He lured two beasts into a collapsed control room, then sealed the blast door behind them, ignited a plasma trap, and walked out as both monsters burned alive behind steel.
VALKAR (grim):
"Two fewer problems."
Maverick caught another leaping beast by the midsection and ripped it in half—not cleanly, but violently, messily, like the act offended him.
He then pivoted, barked to Mitus—
MAVERICK:
"Your flank."
Mitus spun. A creature had crept low, silent, aiming for his spine.
Before it could strike, Valkar dove in—shouldering Mitus aside and unloading a full burst straight into the thing's mouth, blasting the back of its skull across the far wall.
MITUS (panting):
"I had it!"
VALKAR (calm):
"No. You thought you had it."
Mitus nodded, grimacing. Still learning.
Then the floor rumbled.
From the deep hallway came the sound of claws—hundreds, if not thousands.
More were coming.
Maverick clenched both fists. His gauntlets hissed and split, revealing shockwave pulse coilsunderneath.
MAVERICK (growling):
"Form tight.
We don't scatter.
We erase."
MITUS:
"With pleasure."
VALKAR:
"As one."
The beasts came.
Ten. Then twenty. Then more.
The Warmachines met them in a storm of synced violence—moving like a single organism forged from war itself.
• Maverick smashed skulls with thunderous blows, each impact like a grenade.
• Valkar laid suppressive fire in perfect arcs, controlling space with brutal efficiency.
• Mitus adapted fast, covering blind spots, throwing grenades with surgical timing.
And when one massive beast lunged for Mitus—Maverick was already there. He lifted it by the throat and threw it into the others, knocking a full wave into the walls.
MAVERICK (to Mitus):
"Don't fall."
MITUS (catching his breath):
"Didn't plan to."
⸻
They stood in the blood-soaked corridor, panting, steaming, surrounded by twitching corpses.
Silence returned.
This time, the silence was theirs.
VALKAR:
"We're clear."
MAVERICK:
"Not yet.
Clear the rest.
Then we speak of victory."
They moved as one—deeper into the bunker.
And for the first time in centuries, Maverick felt something strange in his chest.
Not the ache of survival.
But the spark of camaraderie.
___________________________________
The last hallway was cleared.
The last corpse stilled.
And the lights inside the bunker flickered one final time—then died.
Silence.
Not like before.
This was silence earned.
The three Warmachines stepped out into the fading light of the ravine. The storm overhead had broken into a soft, reddish haze, casting long shadows across the bloodied rock.
Maverick stood still for a moment, helmet off, letting the heat roll over his face.
MAVERICK (quietly):
"Send retrieval. Burn the site."
Valkar nodded, sending the beacon signal.
VALKAR:
"Extraction inbound. Ten minutes."
Mitus sat on a chunk of broken alloy, helmet in his lap, hair slick with sweat and blood. He wiped his brow with a shaking hand.
MITUS (half-joking):
"Not bad for my first real dance."
VALKAR (stoic):
"You didn't die.
That's step one."
MITUS (smirking):
"Step two?"
VALKAR:
"Learn why step one matters."
They both turned as Maverick approached.
He looked at them.
Long. Heavy. Silent.
Then, with slow precision, he raised his fist—
—pressed it to his chest.
A Warmachine's salute.
Both men responded without hesitation, mirroring the gesture.
MAVERICK (gravelled):
"You fight well."
Mitus blinked. A bit stunned.
MITUS:
"You mean that?"
MAVERICK:
"If I didn't, you'd know."
Valkar stepped closer, arms crossed.
VALKAR:
"We made a good unit.
No wasted movement. No doubts."
Maverick glanced out over the ravine again.
MAVERICK:
"It's been a long time…
since I had a team."
Mitus stood up slowly, walking to stand beside them.
MITUS:
"Feels like you've always been the lone legend type."
MAVERICK (after a pause):
"Legends are just stories told by the survivors.
I'd rather build one with the living."
They stood there—three weapons once forged for isolation, now finding something like kinship in blood and breath.
The distant sound of engines echoed overhead.
The evac ship appeared on the horizon, cutting through the haze like salvation.
Valkar turned to the others.
VALKAR:
"Next time, they'll send more than three."
MAVERICK:
"Let them.
I'll still choose this three."
Mitus didn't say anything.
He just smiled.
⸻
The ship touched down.
They boarded, one by one.
No cheering crowd. No music.
Just the quiet thrum of engines and the weight of something new.
Trust.