The war on Vetra-9 ground forward like a machine chewing through lives. Every sunrise brought another assault. Every nightfall brought more body bags. And in between, the same refrain haunted the frontlines—clicks of empty rifles, fumbled reloads, and soldiers screaming for cover they didn't have.
---
"Reloading!" Private Chen shouted, dropping behind a slab of jagged stone. His trembling hands fumbled with the clip at his belt.
"Too slow—move it!" Sergeant Rylen barked, firing controlled bursts into the swarm of Hivebugs surging from the canyon below. His rifle spat heat and noise until it clicked dry. He cursed, yanked his last clip free, and slammed it into place.
A Hivebug scuttled onto the ridge, mandibles dripping with bile. Rylen fired point-blank, three rounds tearing into its skull, spraying ichor across the rock.
"Next wave incoming!" another trooper screamed, pointing toward a fresh tide cresting over the ridge.
But their mags were already half-spent.
One soldier pulled the trigger, only for his rifle to click hollow. "I'm out! I'm completely—"
The Hivebugs fell on him before the words finished leaving his mouth.
The survivors fired desperately, retreating step by step, every reload a frantic gamble. Too many hands shook, too many clips slipped into dirt, too many precious seconds were wasted. And every wasted second cost a life.
---
Hours later, the medbay was bursting at the seams.
The air reeked of antiseptic and blood. Stretchers lined every corridor, IV lines hung from hooks and bed frames, and med-drones buzzed overhead in frantic patterns. Soldiers screamed in pain, cried out for water, or whispered the names of comrades who hadn't made it back.
Whisper Kade worked like a machine, her pale hair plastered to her face with sweat. She sutured torn flesh with hands that trembled but never stopped. "Sealant foam, now!" she barked, reaching for the next wounded man hauled in by Bear Ivanov.
Jinx Alvarez shoved through the doors with a grunt, a half-conscious soldier slung over his shoulders. "Still breathing—barely. Don't waste your magic fingers, Whisper!" His grin was forced, his eyes bloodshot.
"Put him down, Jinx!" Whisper snapped, already reaching for gauze.
Across the ward, Sparks Novik slammed a med-drone into the wall, cursing as sparks flew from its casing. "These things burn out faster than the rifles do!"
Stone Varga stood at the door, arms crossed, silently recording casualty numbers. His list grew longer by the hour, red ink spreading like blood. Shade appeared briefly, leaning against the wall in silence before vanishing back into the shadows of Recon.
The medbay had no quiet. No end. Only the endless grind of blood, screams, and fatigue.
---
In the command chamber, senior officers loomed over the holo-map of Vetra-9. Red markers pulsed where squads were pinned. Each pulse was another cry for help, another fight teetering on the edge of collapse.
Colonel Varek's voice was ice. "Reports confirm it. Ammunition inefficiency is crippling our infantry. Slow reloads, wasted rounds, soldiers not even sure how much they have left until it's too late."
A major slammed his fist against the table. "We've lost more troops to reload delays than to Hivebug claws this week! It's madness. We're sending men out to die with weapons that betray them at the worst possible moment."
Another officer added grimly, "The medbay is overloaded. Morale is collapsing. If this keeps up, squads will start breaking under pressure."
Varek's gaze turned to Chief Engineer Loras, head of FAWS, summoned to the chamber under heavy guard. His uniform was stained with machine oil, his face drawn from long hours.
"FAWS is responsible for weapons and armor," Varek said sharply. "Tell me you have a solution."
Loras hesitated, then squared his shoulders. "We are… pursuing improvements. Reinforcement plating, turret recalibration. But ammunition efficiency—"
"Not resolved?" the major barked, cutting him off. "Every second a soldier wastes fumbling with clips is another body in Whisper Kade's medbay. Don't tell me it's not resolved!"
"I know," Loras said quietly, his voice heavy. "I will push my department harder. We'll find an answer."
Varek's eyes narrowed. "Not find. Deliver. Or I'll find someone who can."
The room fell silent. Then the colonel leaned forward. "This Blake. The technician they call Renegade. Reports say he built functional turrets from scraps and kept weapons firing under direct Hivebug assault. His name's been climbing through the ranks faster than orders. Is he working on this problem?"
Loras hesitated. "…Blake has been… pursuing a personal project. He's brilliant, unconventional—eccentric, even. But his results speak for themselves. If anyone can solve this, it's him."
"Then put him on it," Varek snapped. "No distractions. I don't care how strange his methods are—if he keeps our soldiers alive, that's all that matters."
---
Far below the war room, Sirius Blake sat hunched over his cluttered workbench, goggles skewed, grease smudged across his cheek. The failed Micro-Mag sat discarded to the side, a beautiful but useless relic. In its place, a new idea was taking shape.
A shorter, denser round. A slug slim enough to fit the compact chamber of his micro-mag, but heavy enough to keep its punch.
He held the prototype between thumb and forefinger, a grin stretching wide across his face.
"Well, hello there," he chuckled. "Small, sharp, and oh-so-slippery. You're going to make a lot of Hivebugs very unhappy."
ARI's calm voice resonated in his mind.
> "Micro-Slug mission initiated. Objective: design stable, compact ammunition compatible with Micro-Mag architecture. Projected benefits: +40% ammunition capacity. Increased stability. Reduced reload frequency."
Sirius giggled, spinning the slug between his fingers like a coin. "More bullets, fewer jams, less fumbling. Soldiers won't even need to count—they'll just keep firing. ARI, this is beautiful!"
His laughter echoed softly across the workshop, drawing glances from other FAWS techs.
"Blake's laughing to himself again," one muttered.
"Leave him be," another replied, tightening a rifle barrel. "Last time he laughed like that, he built those turrets that saved our asses."
Sirius leaned close to the glowing schematic ARI projected in his vision, humming an off-key tune as he adjusted alloy composition and chamber design. Sparks danced across his workbench as he soldered, whistling through the smoke.
He was happy. Excited. Alive.
Oblivious to the cries in the medbay, the despair in the command chamber, and the blood soaking into the soil of Vetra-9.
---
In the medbay, Whisper stitched until her hands bled. Sparks cursed at broken drones. Jinx carried the wounded with a grin that barely hid his exhaustion. Stone marked casualty reports that seemed endless. Shade slipped in and out, silent as a shadow.
In the command chamber, officers argued, tempers flared, and Varek's voice thundered: "Find a solution, or we lose this war one clip at a time."
And in the workshop, Sirius Blake giggled softly, rolling a tiny prototype slug across his palm.
"Smaller, smarter, sharper," he whispered. "We'll fix this, ARI. We'll fix it all."
ARI's voice was steady, certain.
> "Logical progress detected. Continue development. Timeline: critical."
"Timeline?" Sirius smirked, sparks reflecting in his eyes as he bent back over his work. "Don't worry. We'll make it before they even know they need it."
But above him—in the trenches, in the medbay, in the command chamber—everyone already knew.
They needed it yesterday.