The trees broke.
Suddenly, the world opened up—and it was worse than he expected.
The forest thinned into a wide black field, gutted with trenches and barbed wire, crawling with smoke and movement. Craters boiled in the earth like cancer. Here and there, plumes of fire flickered from shattered machines—some that looked like tanks, others like train cars twisted with weapon mounts and strange crystalline cables.
Ahead, a trench line zigzagged across the field like a scar. Flags marked sectors—blood-red symbols on white, hanging limp in still air. The wood and sandbags were soaked with rot. Jack counted bodies, gear, drag marks.
A man groaned as he was pulled from the line—no legs, both arms gone, tourniquets cinched so tight his skin had turned waxy. Another sat with his back to the trench wall, eyes wide, helmet dented, muttering something about birds with teeth.
Jack didn't blink.
It was Fallujah again—but older, cruder, grimier. A world trying to reinvent the same horror with worse tools.
They pulled him down a crude plank ramp into the trench. The walls closed in. Dirt, wood, iron plates, slime. The trench was alive with shouting, gunfire, coughing.
Jack was shoved into a holding pen—barely a cage. Iron bars bolted into wood. His wrists were still bound. His knees hit mud.
The guards locked the gate and left him under watch—two rifles on him, no conversation. Rinn Maret hesitated near the exit, then was waved away by another soldier.
Jack sat.
Let the stink soak in. Let the sounds wash over him.
The Concord soldiers were cracking under it. Too few medics. Too many wounded. And no real idea what was coming next.
They thought he was the biggest threat.
That was almost funny.
He leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes for three seconds, and whispered to himself:
"This ain't my first war, assholes."