NOVEL NEXT Chapter 70 - Brașov
"In every place where necessity makes law."
— Motto of the French Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE)
The communications deck hummed with life support systems and the beeps and hums of the computers. Athan pressed his fingers against his temple, working at the persistent throb. Secure channels flickered with encrypted data streams, each one a reminder of how many eyes watched their every move.
He sagged against his command chair, exhaustion weighing on his shoulders.
The secure video link chirped, and Athan straightened and activated the switch. The central screen flickered to life with IFC encryption protocols scrolling past.
Karen Stevens materialized on the display, her steel-gray hair perfectly arranged despite the early hour in Sandworth Falls.
"Athan."
He leaned forward. "I'm listening."
"One of the compromised signal relays in your comms array. We traced it back." Data began streaming to his secondary monitors. "Electronics shop in Romania. Southern Carpathians."
Athan scanned the intelligence reports as he received them. Satellite imagery, shipping manifests, all painting a picture of the operation masking military-grade logistics behind soldering irons and storefronts. His jaw tightened.
"What are we even trying to accomplish here, Karen?" His exhaustion bled through. "Everyone's gunning for us. The Russians want the ship's specs, the Chinese are making moves, and now we've got some shadow operation running interference on our own communications."
Karen's expression hardened. "This was an assault on my company, Athan." She leaned forward, her voice dropping to that tone he remembered from their early days during the System's arrival. "The Interstellar Frontier Company belongs to me. The Triumph Initiative, the Genesis Platform, all of it falls under my umbrella."
She paused. "I will find whoever's responsible for this breach. I will find them, and I will make them understand the cost of crossing us."
Athan exhaled, recognizing the determination in her words. "What about the UER? Any word from our contacts there?"
Karen's laugh didn't reach her eyes. "Marisol's doing what she can, but she's tangled in red tape so thick you could use it for armor plating. The factionalism is getting worse. I'm not sure how long Anderson is going to keep it together."
She pulled up another display. "Meanwhile, the internal pressures are mounting. The UER's still onboarding half the planet. Whole regions are resisting integration, clinging to old flags, old borders, old grudges. And while the ministers argue policy, the Bratvas, the Triads, the Yakuza, and the Mafia, for crying out loud, they are carving out their own empires in the gaps."
"The FARC is back. Rebranded, reorganized, and more dangerous than ever. They're spreading fast through the Amazon corridor, including Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, and Ecuador. Mostly homegrown, but somehow they're getting leveled up. Somebody's running them through high-tier portals outside Earth. We don't know who's ferrying them, but they've got the gear and the levels to show for it."
Another cluster blinked red. "Meanwhile, the Russian oligarchs are surfacing again. Not just with money, but weapons, old-world and system-created, they have their own fleets, entire networks running dark. Like they're building shadow states."
Athan ground his teeth. "This isn't a republic. It's a feeding frenzy. Nothing's getting done."
"Nothing useful," Karen agreed. "While they argue about jurisdiction and profit margins, we're the ones with targets painted on our backs."
The secure line crackled slightly. Athan straightened in his chair. "I've doubled the security on Genesis. Every approach vector is monitored, and we've got patrols running continuous sweeps of the construction zones."
Karen nodded approvingly. "Good. But there's something else." She paused. "President Anderson's office has requested a victory tour. Full media coverage, speeches about human achievement and pioneering spirit."
Athan's hands clenched into fists. "Political posturing."
"Exactly. But it's not a request we can refuse." Karen's voice carried the weight of someone who'd spent too many years navigating corporate politics and government relations. "The kids will have to play along. Smile for the cameras, shake hands with dignitaries, pretend that everything is normal while we deal with the reality behind the scenes."
Athan's exhaustion gave way to protective anger. "They'll never be safe. Not with the FTL drive and whatever else they discover or bring back." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "There will always be someone who wants what they have."
Karen was quiet for a long moment, studying his face through the video link. When she spoke, her voice was softer than usual. "You're right. Whether someone else finds another drive, or the technology eventually gets reverse-engineered and replicated, they will always have targets on their backs."
The communications deck fell silent except for the hum of the station's systems. Two old friends, separated by the vast darkness of space, sharing the burden of protecting the next generation from threats they could barely comprehend.
"They're kids, Karen," Athan said finally. "And that discovery painted a target on them so big you can see it from here. This 'victory tour' is just us leading them into the crosshairs."
Karen listened. "You're right. It is a target. And the only way to remove a target is to eliminate anyone who dares to aim at it." She leaned closer to her camera, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. "They wanted to see what would happen if they crossed the IFC. They're about to find out."
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Athan closed his eyes for a moment. Five of his own people were already gone. The soldiers they'd sent to the Genesis as well, most of them kids. How many more before someone finally decided it was enough? Where did it end?
Athan stirred his espresso, then set the cup down with a soft clink.
Karen watched him. "Athan? They just hit level sixty-four."
He didn't respond. Just exhaled, long and slow, as if the tension of a thousand sleepless hours had finally started to drain from his spine.
They were alive and thriving. Somehow, despite everything.
Snow fell on the Carpathian ridges the way it had for millennia, indifferent to the fact that Sabine, veteran of thirteen successful raids with the IFC, couldn't shake the feeling that this electronics facility was different.
The facility was built against the mountainside, its weathered walls and boarded windows a perfect disguise for the sophisticated electronics humming within. Ice crystals formed on the rocky outcroppings where she was pressed against the stone, adjusting the thermal imaging scope.
The electronics repair center sat in a shallow valley, surrounded by desolate terrain that made it invisible to casual observation and perfect for clandestine operations.
Erik shifted position beside her in the pre-dawn darkness. Karen's top field operative studied the facility through the scope of his Enceladus horizon energy assault rifle, cataloging defensive positions and potential breach points. His white medium armor made him nearly invisible against the snow.
Around the perimeter, three assault teams hid in their positions, ready for overlapping fields of fire. Thirty-six operatives in total, each team a balanced unit of specialists. Sabine's interface flickered with squad information, the heavy power armor specialists positioned with shields at every major approach, the medics with clear sight lines to multiple sectors, and heavy firepower spread at strategic intervals to create interlocking kill zones.
Sabine's own interface displayed the combined roster in her peripheral vision, tracking each team's health status, energy cell count, and active abilities.
She raised her hand, fingers spread wide against the gray sky. The signal spread through the team's communication network, each operative acknowledging with a subtle shift in position. Erik's breathing slowed, the way it always did before he switched from reconnaissance to assault mode.
The outer fence was nothing impressive: a chain-link fence topped with razor wire, designed more to keep curious locals out than to stop a determined military operation. Sabine's breach specialist moved forward in a crouch, his camouflage active, hidden from view. His plasma cutter hummed to life. The tool sliced through the metal links, creating an opening large enough for two people to pass through side by side.
The first operative had barely stepped through the gap when the world exploded into light and sound.
Klaxons shrieked from hidden speakers, their wailing cry echoing off the mountain walls and shattering the pre-dawn silence. Floodlights snapped on, turning the facility's perimeter into a harsh landscape of brilliant white light and dark shadows. The sudden illumination caught two of Sabine's team members in the open, their darkened gear now standing out like ink stains on snow.
The facility's defenders poured from concealed positions: not the amateur thugs Sabine had half-expected, but professional soldiers in full combat armor. Their energy rifles whined to life, mixing with the alarm klaxons. Blue energy shields flickered around several of the defenders, protective barriers that would absorb significant damage before failing.
"Contact front!" Erik's voice cut through the team's communication channel, his accent thick.
The first energy bolt sizzled past Sabine's head, close enough that she could smell the ionized air. She rolled left, seeking cover behind a rusted shipping container as she brought down her visor.
More energy bolts streaked across the battlefield, their blue-white trails painting geometric patterns against the darkness beyond the floodlights. One of the IFC operatives grunted and stumbled as an energy bolt caught him in the shoulder. His armor's reactive plating flared with dispersed energy, but the impact sent him sprawling behind a rocky outcropping.
Erik, lying in wait by Sabine, rose, his energy battleaxe lit up with a crackle of blue electricity. The weapon's blade hummed, designed to cut through armor and energy shields with equal effectiveness.
"Breaching center!" he shouted, his voice carrying over the chaos as he sprinted toward the main defensive line.
The defenders shifted fire toward the charging operative, energy bolts converging on his position. His axe swept in a broad arc, the energized blade meeting the barrel of an energy rifle and shearing through it like paper. Erik's follow-up strike caught the man across the chest, the axe blade punching through armor plating and dropping him instantly. Blood sprayed across the concrete wall behind him.
The tide of battle shifted when a thunderous explosion rocked the facility's eastern wall. The shaped breaching charge had targeted a structural weak point that Sabine's intelligence had identified during their reconnaissance.
The blast tore through reinforced concrete like it was cardboard, sending chunks of debris and body parts raining down across the battlefield.
Thunder reverberated across the sky.
Six IFC drop shuttles roared overhead in perfect formation, their engines painting the sky with brilliant exhaust trails that turned night into day. The spacecraft dropped altitude rapidly, their armored hulls gleaming in the floodlights as they settled into landing positions that completely surrounded the facility. Assault ramps dropped, and nine additional squads in full combat armor poured onto the battlefield, their weapons already firing.
The holdouts, already outnumbered three to one, now faced odds that bordered on the absurd. What had been a firefight became a massacre. The IFC operatives moved in with coordination, their overlapping fields of fire creating kill zones that no amount of cover could protect against.
The facility's defenders found themselves caught between two forces, their carefully prepared positions suddenly compromised. Some tried to retreat deeper into the building, while others attempted to hold their ground against overwhelming odds.
The building began to collapse under the renewed assault, structural supports failing as energy weapons and explosive charges took their toll. Windows blew outward in showers of glass, and smoke poured from ruptured ventilation systems. The sound of failing concrete mixed with the ongoing firefight, creating a chaotic destruction that echoed across the mountain valley.
Sabine advanced through the chaos, her rifle tracking targets as the facility's defenses crumbled around her. The mission was nearly complete, but she knew the real intelligence would be found in whatever systems survived the assault. The electronics shop was done, but its secrets might still live.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the violence ended.
The last defender fell, his weapon clattering across broken concrete. The klaxons cut off mid-wail, leaving only the crackle of flames and the settling groans of damaged structure. Smoke drifted across the battlefield like morning fog, carrying the acrid smell of burned electronics.
She stood in the sudden quiet, her rifle still raised, scanning for movement that never came. Around the perimeter, her teams emerged from cover. The mountain wind picked up, whistling through the facility's shattered windows and carrying away the worst of the smoke.
Erik appeared at her shoulder, his energy axe powered down but still in his grip. Red blood spattered his tactical vest, and a thin cut above his left eyebrow leaked red down his cheek. "Clean sweep," he said quietly, his accent thick with exhaustion. "Whatever they were protecting, it's ours now."
Sabine nodded, but her eyes remained fixed on the smoking ruins. Somewhere in that wreckage lay the answers Karen needed, the thread that would lead them back to whoever had dared to strike at the Interstellar Frontier Company.