The next seven days were a brutal crash course in the new reality. Alexander's "bunk" was a recess in the rock wall with a thin sleeping pad. The rations were a bland, nutrient-dense paste that tasted of chalk and copper. The training was humiliation served daily by Vor, the four-armed K'thari warrior.
The plasma pistol was the first lesson. It had no safety, a hair-trigger, and a recoil that could dislocate an unprepared wrist. Alexander's first shot missed the target drone entirely and vaporized a stack of spare parts, earning him a blistering reprimand from Elara about resource conservation. He took the scolding in silence, his jaw set. He observed Vor's grip, stance, and breathing. The second shot grazed the drone. The fifth hit center mass. He did not smile. He moved to the next weapon.
The energy sword was worse. Activating it summoned a crackling blade of pure plasma contained in a magnetic field. It hummed with lethal promise. Vor demonstrated a basic defensive parry. When Alexander attempted it, the sword's gyroscopic stability fought him, and he nearly seared his own thigh. He practiced in the empty cargo hold for hours after official training, his muscles screaming, his palms blistering. He treated his body as a corporate asset that required painful, immediate restructuring.
Elara watched, often from the shadows of the command center. She saw not natural talent, but an almost terrifying capacity for directed adaptation. He asked no unnecessary questions, wasted no effort on frustration. He observed, analyzed, and iterated. It was the scientific method applied to violence. It unsettled her. The rebels, initially wary, began to grudgingly respect his relentless discipline. Glyph had taken a clear liking to him, often bringing him an extra fungus-fruit or chirping encouragement during his drills.
On the eighth day, Alexander requested a strategy session. He stood before the holotable, clean-shaven now with scavenged tools, wearing modified rebel gear that still somehow looked commanding. Elara, Vor, and a few other leaders gathered.
"Zorax's patrols follow a predictable seventy-three-hour cycle for resupply of its outposts," Alexander began, pulling up data logs. "Outpost Theta-7, here, is the most isolated. Its function is to harvest the luminescent lichen from the Glimmer Caves for reasons unknown. Its garrison is minimal: six Sentinels, two Hunter-Killer drones."
"We've hit outposts before," a native Sylvan, a plant-like being named Brynn, said softly. "Reinforcements always arrive from the main hive within minutes. We lose people."
"Because you attack the outpost itself," Alexander said, zooming the map out. "You treat it as the objective. It is not. The objective is the resupply convoy." He highlighted a path through a narrow ley-line canyon. "The convoy of two transport walkers, lightly escorted, passes here en route to Theta-7. We ambush the convoy here, at this choke point. We use shaped charges to collapse the canyon walls, trapping the walkers. We disable them, loot the supplies—which you desperately need—and are gone before the outpost even knows the convoy is late."
Elara studied the plan. It was simple, direct, and leveraged their strength—mobility and knowledge of the terrain—against the enemy's predictability. It was also a diversion from their usual guerilla strikes on infrastructure. "And the outpost?"
"Is now isolated. Its reporting cycle is tied to the convoy's arrival. We have a window. After we hit the convoy, we move immediately to Theta-7. They will be at minimal alert, expecting their supplies. We hit them fast and hard, destroy the harvesting equipment, and extract any useful data from their core. Two objectives, one operation. Efficiency."
There was a long silence. Vor clacked his mandibles. "The timing is… precise. No margin."
"Margin is wasted time and opportunity," Alexander replied. "We have the data. We have the terrain. We execute with precision, or we do not execute at all."
Elara found herself nodding before she consciously agreed. It was a good plan. "We'll need to coordinate the teams perfectly. Comms in the canyon are spotty."
"We use Glyph and others of its species as runners. Line-of-sight light signals. Low-tech, but unhackable." Alexander had thought of that too.
The preparation was intense. Alexander involved himself in every detail, from checking the salvaged explosive charges to drilling the assault team on the breach pattern for the outpost's airlock. He moved among the rebels not as a comrade, but as a commanding officer—issuing clear, concise orders, listening to concerns, then decisively affirming or adjusting the plan. His corporate boardroom manner had transformed into a battlefield command style. It was unnervingly effective.
The night before the operation, Elara found him in the armory, methodically checking over his plasma pistol and energy sword. "You don't have to lead the breach team," she said quietly. "Vor is more experienced."
"The plan requires the breach team leader to make a real-time assessment of the outpost's data core value. Vor is a warrior. I am a strategist. The risk profile is acceptable." He didn't look up from his work.
"This isn't a stock trade, Blackwood. 'Acceptable risk' means someone might die."
He finally looked at her, his storm-grey eyes holding hers. "I am aware, Doctor. That is why the plan minimizes it. Sentiment clouds judgment. We need clarity."
She wanted to hate him for that. But part of her, the part that had watched friends die in chaotic, poorly planned raids, craved that very clarity. "Just don't get yourself killed on your first day as 'general'. The paperwork's a nightmare." She attempted a weak joke.
A flicker of something—not a smile, but an acknowledgment—passed over his face. "Noted."
The ambush was a masterpiece of controlled chaos. From the cliffs above the canyon, they watched the lumbering transport walkers approach. Alexander gave the signal. The shaped charges detonated with a thunderous roar, shearing tons of crystalline rock onto the path, sealing it front and back. The rebel teams, positioned on the now-lowered canyon walls, opened fire. Plasma bolts streaked down. Alexander, leading the close-assault team, rappelled down. He landed, rolled, and came up firing. His shots were measured, controlled. He didn't aim for center mass; he aimed for the joints and optical sensors of the escort Sentinels, crippling them. "Focus fire on the lead walker's drive coupling!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the din. The rebels followed the order. The walker shuddered and died.
Looting was swift. As the teams gathered crates of energy cells and raw materials, Alexander checked his chrono. "On schedule. To the outpost. Move!"
They moved through the glowing fungus forests at a punishing pace. Theta-7 was a squat, metallic blister grafted onto a rock face. The entrance was a single heavy airlock. As predicted, it cycled open without alarm, a single Sentinel stepping out to scan for the expected convoy. Alexander was already moving. He ignited his energy sword. The hum was loud in the sudden quiet. He didn't charge; he advanced with deliberate, terrifying purpose. The Sentinel turned, raising its arm-cannon. Alexander lunged, not with a wild swing, but a precise thrust, driving the plasma blade into the weapon's housing. It exploded in a shower of sparks. A follow-up slash severed its primary leg actuator. It crashed down.
"Breach!" he yelled, and the team poured through the open door.
Inside was a sterile, automated processing facility. The few remaining Sentinels were caught off-guard. The battle was short, brutal, and efficient. Alexander found the central data-node. He plugged in a slicing drive Elara had prepared. "Downloading. Ninety seconds."
Then, the alert Klaxon blared. The main holo-screen lit up with an incoming communication warning. Not from the local hive. From a much larger signature. A Zorax battleship, patrolling a nearby sector, had detected the energy spike from the ambush and was diverting. ETA: eight minutes.
"They're early," Vor stated, the fear evident in his clicking voice.
Alexander's mind raced. The battleship would glass the entire area. Their extraction point was five minutes away through the forest. They had three minutes of download left. The math was brutal.
"Elara," he said over the comms, his voice utterly calm. "The battleship is inbound. Abort the data download. Order all teams to fall back to extraction point Zeta immediately. That is an order."
From the command center back at the base, Elara's voice crackled back, tense. "The data could have location schematics for other outposts! We need thirty more seconds!"
"We do not have thirty seconds," Alexander said, his eyes on the progress bar. 65%. "You will lose the entire strike team. The cost-benefit ratio is unacceptable. Withdraw."
He could hear her furious breath over the comms. She was battling her scientist's desire for knowledge against the commander's duty to her people. He had made the decision for her. "All teams, fall back! Now!" she ordered, her voice raw.
The rebels began to pull out. Alexander stood alone by the console, watching the bar. 80%. The battleship's icon loomed larger on the tactical map. 90%. The ground began to vibrate with the approach of distant, heavy engines. 95%.
Vor grabbed his arm. "Now, human! Or you die!"
Alexander yanked the data-slice free at 98%. "Go!" They sprinted from the outpost as the first shadow of the colossal ship blotted out the lavender sky above the treetops. They reached the extraction point—a camouflaged skiff—as the first orbital lance beams carved molten trenches into the landscape behind them, incinerating the outpost and the canyon mouth.
On the skiff, speeding away under the canopy, the rebels were silent, panting, awed by their survival. Alexander sat apart, checking the data-slice. It was intact. He looked back at the pillars of fire rising in the distance, the manifestation of Zorax's wrath. They had drawn blood. And they had attracted the attention of something far greater than a patrol.
He met Elara's gaze across the skiff. Her expression was unreadable—anger at his insubordination, relief at their survival, and a dawning, unsettling realization. He was not just an asset. He was a catalyst. And the war had just changed forever. The first battle was over. The real campaign was about to begin.