Alexandria's coastal city of Varenth was under siege.
Warships bombarded the ports as amphibious units stormed the beaches. Herzl and Anna, now veterans of a dozen raids, led their squad through narrow alleys littered with corpses and rusted tanks.
But the most horrifying element wasn't the bombs.
It was the children.
Tiny soldiers, no older than 10, controlled by neural implants—a Republic experiment gone rogue. They moved with eerie coordination, eyes blank, bodies fast. One of them grabbed Herzl's leg.
"Please," the boy whispered. "Let me die…"
Herzl hesitated.
A bullet rang out. Anna had fired.
"You hesitate, we die," she said coldly. "They're not people anymore."
Herzl said nothing, but his hands trembled again.
"We used to fight for justice," he whispered to himself. "Now we fight for what's left of it."
From above, the bombers roared again—this time Kingdom planes.
Retaliation had arrived.