The blast doors boomed open behind them, the blizzard swallowing the two Marines whole. Snow blinded, wind screamed, but Hudson and Hunter didn't slow — they activated Blink Step.
The world blurred into streaks of white as their bodies snapped forward.
• 20 meters in an instant.
• 30.
• 50.
• 120.
Their boots slammed into the ice ridge, momentum propelling them like bullets through the storm.
For a heartbeat, they were untouchable. Ghosts in motion.
⸻
The Chase
Then — the sound hit.
A crack in the blizzard. A distortion in the storm.
The Typonians were blinking too.
Behind them, alien silhouettes tore forward in jagged bursts of movement — insectoid bodies warping through space, reappearing meters ahead, their mandibles clattering in alien fury.
Hunter cursed under his breath, snapping his rifle around mid-stride and firing. One Typonian's head snapped back — but two more blinked closer.
"They've got their own step!" Hunter shouted.
Hudson's voice was steady, iron even in chaos.
"Then we outrun them. Or we kill them."
⸻
The Storm Run
The ridge cracked under their boots as they sprinted, blinking forward in bursts, snow erupting around them. Plasma bolts screamed through the storm, blue light tearing past their visors.
• Hudson blinked 40 meters, rolled into cover behind an ice boulder, firing a burst that cut down two pursuers.
• Hunter blinked past him, sliding across frozen ground, his AR-90K spitting controlled bursts.
• The Typonians warped forward in unnatural lunges, closing the gap every second.
Monarch's voice cut through the chaos in their comms:
"Stealth Team, satellite confirms multiple hostiles in pursuit. They are adapting to your step patterns. Adjust routes immediately."
Hunter laughed grimly, vaulting another ridge.
"They learn fast. Too fast."
Hudson blinked again, reappearing twenty meters higher on the ridge, rifle barking.
"Doesn't matter. They bleed the same."
⸻
The Race to the Ridge
The extraction point's beacon blinked faintly in their HUDs — less than a kilometer away, through a storm thick enough to choke.
The Typonians screamed through the blizzard, blinking in jagged bursts, their glowing eyes like blue fire in the storm.
Two Marines.
Dozens of pursuers.
A frozen ridge that would soon be soaked in ichor and fire.
And in the distance — the low, rumbling hum of a UNE VTOL fighting to pierce the storm.
-
The blizzard howled as shadows blinked all around them. Typonians warped through the storm, mandibles screeching, claws glowing with plasma.
Hunter's rifle barked — CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! — dropping two. Hudson blinked behind a third, slammed his rifle butt into its neck, and snapped it sideways with a crunch.
But then — three more blinked in close. Too close.
⸻
The Clash
One alien lunged for Hunter, claws raised. He caught its wrist mid-strike, twisted, and drove his combat knife straight into the base of its skull. Before its body hit the ice, he ripped the AR-90K up and unloaded point-blank into another, blowing half its torso apart.
Hudson ducked under a plasma swipe, drove a knee into the Typonian's gut, and blinked mid-strike. He reappeared behind it, wrenching its spine backward with a sickening crack. He shoved the corpse into another attacker, pinning it long enough to unload a full mag through both of them.
⸻
The Overkill
The storm lit with chaos.
• Hunter blinked forward, seized a Typonian's rifle, and snapped it in half over his knee before slamming the broken shards through the alien's chest.
• Hudson caught an enemy's mandibles with both hands, twisted violently, and tore them clean off before slamming its head into the ice until it stopped moving.
• One Typonian blinked behind Hunter — but Hudson stepped in, pistol drawn, blowing its head into frozen chunks without even looking.
Blood — black and blue — sprayed across the white snow. The ridge became a battlefield of shattered ice and broken bodies.
⸻
The Storm Pauses
Hunter exhaled hard, his visor glowing red as he reloaded. Snow streaked down his armor, steaming off in heat.
"Hell of a welcoming party."
Hudson chambered a new mag, calm as always, standing among corpses.
"They weren't ready for overkill."
Before Hunter could reply, more red dots flared across their HUDs — dozens more incoming. The storm trembled with the sound of Typonians warping through space.
Monarch's voice cut in, sharp and steady.
"Stealth Team, satellite confirms reinforcements inbound from three vectors. Extraction window: ninety seconds. Hold position until the bird arrives."
Hunter cracked a grin, spinning his rifle into place.
"Guess we make ninety seconds feel like eternity."
Hudson raised his AR-90K, steady as stone.
"Then we hold."
And the storm erupted again.
-
The ridge blurred past as Hudson and Hunter blinked in bursts, sprinting at inhuman speed through the storm. Plasma fire hissed around them, alien shrieks echoing in the blizzard.
Hudson's visor suddenly flared red — impact warning.
A massive, frozen tree loomed out of the whiteout, its trunk thick as a bunker wall, right in his path. No time to blink sideways. No time to stop.
He exhaled once, calm.
And activated Phantom Tactic.
⸻
The Glitch
For a split second, Hudson's body shimmered — his armor, his rifle, his very form blurring like static, reality bending as though it couldn't hold him.
Then he was through the tree.
No impact. No splinters. No resistance. His body phased through the solid trunk like it wasn't there, a glitch in reality, Silent Shadow evolved into something even more impossible.
He reappeared on the other side, boots slamming into the snow with a heavy crunch. Not a scratch. Not a sound.
Hunter blinked up beside him, laughing into the comm.
"Show-off."
Hudson chambered another round without looking back.
"Not showing off. Staying alive."
⸻
The Countdown
Monarch's voice cut in, sharp and cold, echoing through their helmets.
"Stealth Team, this is Command. You have two minutes. Repeat: two minutes until VTOL exfil. Make it to the beacon now or you're on your own."
Hunter ducked a plasma bolt, snapping off three shots that dropped a charging Typonian. He barked back, half-grinning:
"Copy, Monarch! Tell your pilot to keep that bird hot — we're bringing the whole damn hive with us!"
Hudson blinked ahead, sliding across the ice, his voice as steady as stone:
"Two minutes is all we need."
⸻
The Push
The beacon's faint glow flickered in their HUDs now — extraction point ahead. But between them and freedom lay a swarm of Typonians, blinking in jagged bursts, their glowing eyes cutting through the storm.
The storm roared. The ridge shook.
And Hudson and Hunter raised their rifles, their visors burning like fire in the white.
Time was almost gone.
But ghosts don't die in storms.
They end them.
-
The beacon pulsed ahead — a faint red glow through the blizzard — mounted at the end of a long, frozen bridge stretching across a bottomless canyon.
Below, only clouds swirled. A fall into eternity.
Above, the storm screamed. And ahead — the VTOL waited, its engines roaring, side gunners laying down torrents of fire.
Hudson and Hunter sprinted onto the bridge, rifles blazing, blinking forward in bursts. Typonians warped along the cliffs, shrieking, firing plasma bolts that cracked the ice around them.
They were fifty meters from salvation when the bridge shook violently.
"HUDSON! THEY'RE CUTTING IT!" Hunter shouted.
Alien claws tore into the support beams. The bridge cracked, groaned, then collapsed.
Both Marines went weightless.
⸻
The Hang
They slammed into the ice edge, fingers catching at the last second. Their armored gauntlets dug into frozen stone, sparks flashing as chunks of ice plummeted into the abyss below.
The blizzard whipped around them. Plasma bolts screamed down from above, sparks raining off their armor.
Monarch's voice cut through, calm, steady, iron.
"Stealth Team, you have one minute. Repeat: one minute. Climb now."
Hunter growled, hauling himself up, his armor whining with strain. "Copy, Monarch!"
Hudson gritted his teeth, boots finding purchase against the ice. With their armor strength, every pull launched them meters upward. But the climb was hell — enemy fire seared past, chunks of stone exploding off the cliff.
⸻
The Blink
Hunter pulled ahead, snapping a shot mid-climb that dropped a Typonian trying to cut him loose. Hudson lagged half a body-length — then his visor flared.
Blink Step.
In a flash, he surged up ten meters, reappearing beside Hunter on the ridge. They hit the top hard, rolling into cover, plasma bolts scorching past.
UNE soldiers were there, rifles roaring, suppressing the swarm of Typonians.
"MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!" a Marine shouted, laying down heavy fire as gunners on the VTOL lit up the cliffs.
⸻
The Run to the Bird
Hunter and Hudson sprinted the last meters, blinking past exploding snow and collapsing debris. The VTOL's ramp lowered, light flooding out like a beacon.
They dove in, boots slamming onto the deck as UNE soldiers hauled them inside. The ramp lifted immediately, engines screaming as the bird tore upward into the storm.
⸻
The Voice
As the Typonian fortress burned below, as the snow swallowed the battlefield, Monarch voice came across their comms one last time:
"Great job, Stealth Team. Mission complete. We're going home. Monarch out."
The VTOL roared into the sky, vanishing into the storm.
Hudson and Hunter sat back against the hull, visors dimming, rifles still hot.
Silent in. Silent out.
Another ghost story written in fire and snow.
-
Scene cut.
Back at Genesis Base Command, the war table glowed bright. Streams of data scrolled across holo-panels, each line stamped with the UNE crest.
MISSION STATUS: SILENT DAGGER – SUCCESSFUL.
TEAM: HUDSON / HUNTER.
OBJECTIVE: TY.PNX-BASE / XEROS IV.
RESULT: COMMAND NEXUS DESTROYED. FACILITY ELIMINATED. ZERO FRIENDLY LOSSES.
⸻
The Room Reacts
General Shepherd stood at the head of the table, arms folded, visor glowing faint as the final confirmation came through.
"Mission complete," the operator reported. "Hudson and Hunter exfil confirmed. All charges detonated clean. Typonian forward base is gone. Communications blackouts across their entire sector."
A pause — then cheers erupted across the room. Officers pounded their fists on the table, soldiers clapped shoulders, Mason allowed himself the faintest smile.
UNE banners flickered into projection above the table, glowing like fire in the dim command hall.
⸻
The Declaration
Shepherd raised a hand. Silence fell. His voice was low but hard, carrying through the chamber like iron.
"This was more than a mission. It was a message. Humanity does not falter. The UNE does not bleed without response. We gave the Typonians their chance when they struck Eryndor Prime. Now they will face the truth."
Commander Ardan leaned forward, voice sharp.
"Peace treaty terms have been delivered. If they refuse—"
Shepherd's jaw tightened.
"Then we launch full-scale assault. We burn their hive-worlds, one by one, until either they bow... or they break."
⸻
The Resolution
Sergeant Drill Mason's gravel voice rumbled from the side of the room, steady, resolute:
"Then so be it. But we do not fight for conquest. We fight for survival, for peace. Christ is with us. If they refuse peace, they chose their own destruction."
The room bowed their heads briefly in silence.
Then Shepherd's fist slammed the table.
"Prepare the fleets. If the Typonians won't sign, Operation Hammerfall begins."
⸻
The war table zoomed out, showing UNE fleets assembling across multiple galaxies. Entire sectors lit up with blue banners, fleets warping into position.
The storm was no longer silent.
It was coming.
-
The week passed in silence — but not peace. Across every world, every station, every fleet in the Juno Star System, UNE banners were raised. Recruits were recalled, veterans redeployed, elites reassigned. The Rust Wolves left their homes behind, answering the call.
On Genesis Base's massive parade ground, millions upon to billions of Marines stood at attention in full combat armor. Dropships rumbled above, carriers filled the skies, and banners of the UNE stretched across the steel towers.
At the front, a stage. Upon it — Commander Shepherd, flanked by General Ardan, Strategos Ives, and Sergeant Drill Mason. The air was thick with silence, waiting for the words that would ignite a war.
⸻
The Rejection
Shepherd's voice thundered through amplifiers, carried across the field and into every Marine's helmet.
"The Typonians were given a choice. A chance to live. To lay down their arms. To sign the treaty. And they spat on it. They answered with violence. With rejection."
The holo-screen behind him flickered, showing alien transmissions of screeching, violent refusal. Typonian fleets mobilizing. Their hive-worlds burning with war banners.
Shepherd raised a hand, his voice dropping into iron calm.
"So be it."
⸻
The Speech
His voice rose, echoing across the parade ground, steady and sharp as a blade.
"We do not fight for conquest. We do not fight for greed. We fight because the enemy has chosen war over peace. And now, Marines, we bring that war to their doorstep, and we fight them till they surrender, make them sign the peace treaty by force! Unless otherwise..."
The soldiers stood still, hearts pounding. The Rust Wolves' eyes burned beneath their visors, Woo Jin clutching his rifle tight.
Shepherd's voice roared now, every word like fire:
"By the will of UNE, by the strength of humanity, and by faith in God Almighty — we will march into their hive-worlds. We will tear down their fleets. We will show them what it means to challenge mankind."
He extended a hand toward the massive fleet ships rising behind him.
"This is not survival. This is not retaliation. This is WAR. Operation Hammerfall begins now!"
⸻
The Response
The parade ground shook with the roar of hundreds of thousands of Marines, fists pounding on armor, rifles raised to the sky. The UNE fleet engines ignited, thunder rolling across the horizon.
Mason leaned in close to the mic, gravel voice steady and fatherly:
"God bless you, Marines. God bless UNE. Bring them hell — and bring each other home."
⸻
The Wolves
In the mass of soldiers, the Rust Wolves exchanged glances. Woo Jin swallowed hard, Raul smirked nervously, Jerome clenched his jaw, Min-seo adjusted his visor, Marco nodded, John stayed stone-faced, and Asura stood like a statue — calm, unshaken.
Woo Jin whispered, barely audible over the thunder of engines.
"This is it, boys... our second war."
Asura finally spoke, low and certain.
"Not our last."
And above them, the fleets of UNE thundered into the stars.
————————————
To be continued...