Deep Space. Mercury Orbit.
The Martian fleet, under Admiral Tyler's command, closes in on Mercury like a predator moving in for the kill.
In the dark beyond, the flagship Cobalt leads the formation—a spearhead aimed straight at the planet's heart.
On board, tension mounts with every hour. The countdown to orbital entry is measured not in days, but in beats of blood. The soldiers feel it in their bones—like a core reactor on the edge of overload.
**
On Mercury's surface, early warning systems flash to life.
A crimson alert flares across the board.
Protocol Storm is activated.
The command center sinks into battle silence. Not a word wasted. Not a glance out of place.
Vikar and General Jamal move like clockwork—brutally precise. A war council is summoned.
The chosen location: the main hall of the Corporation's central command—not mere architecture, but a ritual site of power.
Everything here speaks of dominance.
A massive table of polished black obsidian. Smooth walls of translucent glass behind which spiral projections of the cosmos drift and bloom.
Galaxies shimmer.
Planetary rings glide.
Above it all, the ceiling bears a colossal statue of Zeus, his hand raised with a bolt of lightning, frozen mid-judgment.
This is not a place for discussion.
It is a place for verdicts.
Vikar takes his seat at the center.
His face: a mask of calm.
But inside, a steel spring coils tighter with every breath.
He doesn't blink as he activates the holographic interface.
A soft-blue glow spreads across the table—an image of the battlefield ignites in midair.
Mercury. Orbit. Dots. Arrows. Vectors.
Each ship—like a chess piece in a match where the stakes exceed anything mortal.
"We begin," Vikar says. His voice—like a missile launch command.
General Jamal rises.
His face, carved from ice. But his voice carries the raw edge of an old warrior—one who's spent his life trading blood for seconds.
"Our current assets: 200 assault platforms. 300 support vessels.
"The enemy: 25 cruisers. 30 troop carriers. 50 transports. One command station."
A flick—tactical mode engages.
Blue and red figures bloom and stir across the display.
They move with eerie fluidity—like organs in a living machine.
"The Martians will form a defensive cloud.
"Center—station. Cruisers on the flanks. Transports cover the rear."
The map swarms with drone formations. A roiling cloud, like a swarm of insects ready to envelop its prey.
"They'll deploy an energy net. Its durability depends on drone count and layering. But only the outer layer can strike."
"And the inner?" comes a voice from the left wing of the hall. An officer. Not afraid—but overloaded, burning concentration like fuel.
"Reserve layer," Jamal replies flatly. "If the first burns, the next activates."
His eyes—tired, scarred, surgical. He's seen this a hundred times, and lived.
Vikar raises a hand.
A pause.
He turns his head—slowly, like a monument realigning under pressure.
"We know the enemy. Now tell me—how exactly do we destroy them?"
No emotion in the voice.
Yet the temperature drops.
As if vacuum had breached the room.
A silence settles.
Not hesitation.
Strategy.
Premonition.
All eyes shift—toward General Jamal, toward Captain Ragnar, toward the others seated in shadow.
The light casts bold, angular shadows across their faces, transforming each into a stone effigy of a war god.
Jamal steps forward.
His fingers clutch the control panel like a soldier gripping a weapon.
"Here's the strategy."
Click.
A new projection rises from the center of the table.
This one pulses—like a circulatory system, with each artery leading toward a pressure point.
"We position the combat platforms in five stacked planes above Mercury's orbit.
"Before the first layer—minefield."
The map blooms with red-hot markers, like a viral lattice winding through the enemy's path.
"New mines. Neural-sensor capsules.
"They detect even the tremor of a hull."
He glances at Vikar.
"They are relentless. Unblinking. They feel for fear."
This is no shield.
This is a trap.
A net woven from the code of war itself.
"We don't meet them head-on—we guide them.
"Straight into the maw we've built."
He pauses.
Lets it sink in.
"This formation delays the fleet. Forces it along our chosen vector. Toward the impact zone. On our terms."
The officers lean in.
One grips the armrest, knuckles white.
Another peers through the hologram, as if trying to glimpse the future.
A third simply nods, silently.
Accepting.
Because in less than twenty-four hours—this strategy becomes reality.
This room, this plan, this war—
Will come alive.
The war room breathes in rhythm with the hologram.
At the center of the projection, Mercury pulses—small, fragile, and lethally poised.
Like a bullet frozen in the instant before impact.
Vikar rises.
He says nothing. Just one motion—final and irrevocable, like a verdict.
He turns to Jamal.
"Deploy the fleet. Notify the operators. Give the green light. From this moment on—we are at war."
Silence.
Because no one speaks when the final chapter of a system's fate begins.
**
The Ring Projection
On the holomap, fire-markers spread outward, forming a tightening ring—an infernal trap, ready to snap shut at just the right moment.
Commanders hold their breath.
No one moves.
A single officer's eyelid twitches—the first crack of tension—but within seconds, his expression hardens again. This is war. And emotion is a luxury.
"Formation: wedge," Jamal declares. His voice cuts like a blade beneath the skin.
"First layer: ten platforms.
"Second: fifteen.
"Third: twenty.
"Fourth: twenty-five.
"Fifth—the closing net: thirty.
"The remaining hundred—on the flanks."
He flips a switch.
The hologram deepens into three dimensions, the ring taking on depth and weight, like the void itself curling into a clenched fist.
This isn't just strategy, Jamal thinks. This is our one chance to stay free.
"We'll pull them into the ring. And crush them."
A pause.
The room goes still.
Everyone knows: this isn't just another maneuver. It's the kind of plan that either becomes legend—or buries its creators in oblivion.
The silence breaks.
Commander Shivigal shifts—broad-shouldered, immovable as stone. His face is a battlefield of wrinkles, each one a scar of memory.
He leans back, brows drawn low, a faint, bitter smirk forming.
"And what makes you so sure they'll take the bait?" His voice is slow, almost lazy—like a man who's seen dozens of brilliant plans end in ash.
"Aren't you betting a little too much on their stupidity?"
Jamal doesn't answer right away.
His eyes linger on the projection—studying it like a prophet reading omens.
Then, with deliberate calm, he raises a hand.
The image shifts. The platforms vanish. Only the silhouettes of Martian ships remain.
"Our platforms can cloak," he says, voice even, but laced with challenge—like a hunter describing the perfect snare.
"They'll only see the ones engaging them. The rest—phantoms."
The light changes again. The forward energy field intensifies.
Drones begin shifting forward, compressing the Martian front.
"We'll force them to reinforce the center. That weakens the flanks.
"And then—simultaneous strike. From both sides."
He pauses. His voice drops, just above a whisper.
On the simulation, the flanks of the Martian fleet erupt in flame.
Combat platforms tear through the void, leaving trails of fire, shattered hulls, and drifting wreckage in their wake.
"Our strike teams will breach their command station. Destroy it."
Silence again.
Then—rough, gravel-thick words echo from a far corner.
A gray-haired officer, until now silent, lifts his eyes.
His gaze is cold. Deep. Like frozen lakes beneath Pluto's crust.
"And if they don't destroy it?" he asks. "If the Martians keep fighting?"
Jamal turns.
His stare sharpens with contempt.
"They must destroy it.
"Without that station, their coordination collapses.
"Living minds lack quantum processing. No unity. No speed.
"They're slow. Isolated. Fractured.
Like ants without a queen," he thinks.
We are the network. They are dust.
"They'll shoot in the dark. And die in it. Alone."
The silence turns heavy. The hologram dims slightly—almost as if it, too, feels the weight of what's about to unfold.
"Magnificent," comes a slow clap.
Captain Ragnar.
Rings on his fingers chime like chains in an old arena.
He leans back in his chair, his expression unreadable—not disinterested, but sorrowful.
A veteran who's watched flawless plans vanish in fire. Who's seen commanders fade into static. Who knows that victory often looks like defeat until the final second.
"All sounds brilliant…"
"...if we were fighting idiots."
He remembers.
That same overconfidence once cost him everyone.
How logic failed against chaos.
How the enemy smiled—one heartbeat before the end.
Jamal says nothing.
But his grip on the table tightens.
Ragnar rises. Looks around. Starts to walk.
Each step falls like a drumbeat in the silence.
"Instead of gambling everything on one decisive blow," he says, his voice shifting into rhythm—quiet, deliberate, commanding—"we should deceive them.
Let them believe we've spent ourselves. Let them wait for the final shot."
Pause.
He meets every gaze in the room.
"And then… strike where they least expect it. Not at the front—at the heart.
And they won't realize they've lost—until it's far too late."
He raises one hand, pointing into the void—as if marking a future already inscribed into fate.
Power lies not in force. But in surprise.
And in the one who dares to break the rules first.
"What if…" Ragnar's voice lowers to a whisper, yet burns with the heat of vision—"what if, instead of pressing the frontal attack…
we let the threat come from the void itself?"
He steps closer.
The hologram flickers—like it, too, feels the truth in his words.
"An artificial threat. A staged defeat. A trap that lures their best cruisers forward—for the slaughter."
Ragnar's voice sharpens, each word falling with the weight of metal on steel.
"We'll make them believe we're weak. Let them savor the taste of victory. Let them celebrate a 'decisive blow'..."
He leans in slightly.
"...and then—we strike."
Lies, he thinks, are the oldest weapons. But they fracture conviction more cleanly than cannons.
We'll show them the mirror of their arrogance—and shatter it against stone.
"We'll duplicate several of our own ships," he continues, his voice now pulsing with purpose, a rhythm of tempered steel. "Feed them the illusion of heavy losses. Let their analytics swallow the bait whole.
"And then—release the reserve. Straight into their heart."
He falls silent.
The war room holds its breath. All eyes on him.
Ragnar doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't persuade.
He opens a door.
And behind that door—battle waits.
Jamal stares at the projection. Then at Ragnar.
His face is unreadable, but something flickers in his eyes.
Understanding.
Maybe fear.
Definitely—possibility.
"Who leads the strike?" he asks. His voice is gravel, ancient and raw.
No longer skeptical.
Now reverent.
Vikar steps forward. His movements are precise, unhurried—like someone who's weighed every cost.
"It's too risky," he says, holding back a tremor. "Even if it works, we lose half the fleet. And if they're ahead of us? What if the trap… isn't ours?"
Ragnar meets his gaze.
"Then we strike before they can spring it.
"If it's a trap—we detonate it from within.
"We're not hoping for a miracle. We are the weapon."
Not because we believe.
But because we move beyond fear.
"We keep our minds clear where others break under panic.
That is why—we will win."
Silence thickens, molten and heavy.
It spreads through the room like pressure in a sealed hull.
Ragnar sweeps the table with his eyes.
They're waiting for orders.
But I'm waiting, he thinks, for the one who speaks with their heart.
He turns back to the holomap.
A new projection glows. Cold. Red and black.
Veins beneath the skin of war.
Everything in it is motion. Intent. Sacrifice.
"We won't wait.
We'll go to them. Right to the center."
"Three infiltration squads. Total stealth.
Rapid engagement. Sudden. Merciless.
We'll be the storm inside their logic.
Their order will turn to panic."
On the map—three fiery arcs burst from void-space, streaking through the darkness like lightning that tears the fabric of reality.
"They'll fire blindly.
They'll lose cohesion.
Yes—we'll pay in blood.
But when they burn out—"
He breathes in.
"—we strike.
Their flanks will collapse.
The center will be exposed."
The simulation erupts in chaos.
Not theory.
Premonition.
Commanders watch, unblinking.
Jamal clenches a fist. His lips move in a whisper to Vikar.
Vikar doesn't reply—just nods.
His gaze says goodbye to fear.
He rises.
"So be it. Proposal approved."
"Ragnar. Admiral. From this moment—you command. Begin preparations."
Ragnar straightens.
His movement—precise, silent, alive.
He nods once.
"I accept command. And I'll see it through, Chairman."
He turns to the others.
His voice is not a rally cry.
It's a challenge.
Cold. Honest. Without flags. Without slogans.
"No one's being ordered to go today.
Only those who are ready.
Only those who understand—we're not fighting for survival.
We're fighting for meaning."
Either we write this ending ourselves—
Or someone else writes it for us.
He stops.
A pause. Dense as a collapsed star.
Then—
One commander raises a hand.
Then another.
Then all.
"Freedom or death," Ragnar says.
His voice—low and resonant.
Like a bell tolling before battle.
"Freedom or death," comes the reply.
It builds.
Not a chant. A vow.
A covenant with the idea.
Ragnar turns back to the map.
His face is calm.
He's already there—
Out among the stars,
where it will all be decided.
His gaze cuts like a blade.
There's nothing wasted in it.
No pomp.
No fear.
"We launch tonight.
We're not just fighting.
We're showing the enemy—who we are.
Let them remember.
Let them fear.
We are the flame in their darkness."