Page 72

Or was it?

A flicker of movement in the shadows. I reached for my sidearm—gone. My hand closed around a jagged piece of metal instead.

"Commander?" Phillips' voice, weak but recognizable, emerged from the gloom. He crawled from beneath a collapsed console, uniform torn, face bleeding. "Sir, are you...?"

"Functional," I grunted, pulling myself upright against a tilted support beam. "Status?"

"Martinez is dead, sir. Crushed by falling debris." Phillips surveyed the destruction, eyes wide with shock. "I think... I think we're the only ones left from the command team."

Two survivors. Minimal resources. Trapped in the ruins of my own compound. The situation was dire, but not hopeless. Setbacks were inevitable in war. Adaptation was key.

"Water?" I demanded.

Phillips located a damaged emergency kit containing two hydration packs and basic medical supplies. We shared the water in silence, the reality of our situation settling heavily between us.

"They beat us, sir," Phillips said finally, his voice hollow. "The Nyxari, the marked women..."

"They achieved a tactical victory," I corrected, forcing strength into my voice despite the pain. "They did not win the war." My gaze fell on something half-buried in the rubble near where the main console had stood—a crystalline shard, no larger than my thumb, emitting a faint, pulsing blue light. It hadn't been destroyed.

Ignoring the fire in my ribs, I limped toward it, prying it carefully from the debris. It felt warm, almost alive, humming with latent energy. Not one of the primary artifacts, perhaps, but a component. A data crystal? A power regulator?

"What is it, sir?" Phillips asked.

"Leverage," I replied, tucking the crystal securely into an inner pocket. "The aliens and their contaminated puppets think they've won. They believe us dead or neutralized." I allowed myself a grim smile. "They underestimate human resilience. They underestimate me."

We spent the next cycle salvaging what we could—a functioning energy pistol, nutrient paste packs, a portable scanner with a cracked screen. Enough to survive, not enough to retaliate. Yet.

From a high, precarious vantage point accessible through a ventilation shaft, I observed the distant Nyxari settlement through salvaged macrobinoculars. Smoke rose from cooking fires. Figures moved—Nyxari and human, working together. Duvane. Carter. Rivera. Traitors, all of them. Corrupted by alien influence, willingly abandoning their own kind.

They celebrated their victory, blind to the true nature of the threat they embraced. The markings weren't gifts; they were chains. The ancient technology wasn't a path to enlightenment; it was a weapon waiting to be wielded.

And I would be the one to wield it correctly. For humanity's survival.

The crystal in my pocket pulsed faintly, as if responding to my resolve. The path forward was unclear, the odds overwhelming. But I had survived worse. I had faced down extinction before.

Let them rebuild. Let them grow complacent in their false peace. Let them believe the danger has passed.

I would wait. I would learn. I would understand the power I now held. And when the time was right, I would return. Not for conquest, but for purification. For the future of the human race.

The echoes in these ruins whispered of power, of control. And I was listening.

* * *