Operation Argent Strike

In the shadowed annals of Dimension Delta Zeta 17-46, where the Cold War between the North American Federal Republic and the British Empire runs hot, the Falkland Islands -- Malvinas to the oppressed -- were a powder keg of imperial ambition and human desperation. Here, amid oil-slicked hells and orbital doomsdays, Second Lieutenant Samantha Grey, a half-devil refugee bound by ancient oaths and infernal blood, faces her crucible: a serf revolt that ignites not just rebellion, but the unthinkable fury of empires.

Sacrifice, shattered prejudices, and the thin line between monster and savior draw from a brutal tapestry of alternate history, where heroes bleed for scraps of redemption. What price victory when the board itself burns?

The Spark

Port Stanley, Imperial Falkland Islands Petrochemical Industrial Complex

The sun clawed its way through the smoggy sky over Port Stanley, turning the air into a haze of grease and sulfur. Towering refineries dominated the horizon, their cat-cracker towers groaning under the weight of endless production -- oil pumped from the South Atlantic depths, refined into feedstock for the British Imperial Empire's insatiable chemical industries. This was no free port; it was more a prison. A thousand Imperial overseers and security forces lorded over thousands of Argentinian serfs, crammed into shantytowns, and worked relentlessly. Slaves in all but name, they toiled endlessly under quota lashes, surviving on hard bread that crumbled like ash and soup thin as rainwater.

Leopoldo, a Senior Flow Technician, wiped sweat from his brow, his callused hands slick with grime as he wrenched a valve on a massive pipeline. The work was complex, physically, and exceptionally dangerous, demanding focus to balance the flow of hot chloro-benzene gas under high pressure. Around him, dozens of fellow Argentinians labored in silence, their eyes hollow from exhaustion. Whispers had spread through the barracks for weeks, starting with a bitter discontent. Life was hard everywhere, but on these islands, the air tasted of old grease and defeat. The mood had been escalating. The serfs now saw a breath of fresh air, a taste of clean water, and a chance to strike back at their oppressors as worth the risk of death. Leopoldo felt it, too. The quiet fury he’d repressed finally joined them.

From his training and experience, he knew the subtle weaknesses of this facility. A shift change whistle pierced the din, and he took his chance. He glanced at the overseer barking orders from a raised platform, then at the pressure gauge creeping into the red. With a deliberate twist, he overrode the safety interlock, set the flow rate to unlimited, engaged the emergency cutoffs, and tapped a switch. The valve opened to full capacity, sending a massive surge through the line. Over half a second, it built up speed hugely, and then the cutoff slammed shut. The mass of fluid hit the cutoff at a hundred meters per second, and slammed to a halt, sending a massive 'water-hammer' back up the pipe. Alarms blared too late. A distant rumble built, then exploded -- more feedstock pipes rupturing up the line in sequence, flames erupting from the towers like vengeful dragons. Storage tanks buckled, spilling rivers of ignited chemicals that raced through the complex.

Chaos erupted. Workers scattered as fireballs lit the sky, but not all fled. Some grabbed improvised weapons- wrenches, chains, anything, and turned on their guards. "¡Libertad!" a voice shouted, echoed by dozens more. Gunfire cracked as Janissaries opened fire, but the revolt had begun. Plumes of black smoke billowed upward, taken as signals by the serfs across the island. By nightfall, key facilities burned, and the serfs held the outer perimeters. The Falklands -- Malvinas to the oppressed -- were in open rebellion.

NAFR Intelligence Node, Havana

Deep beneath Havana's bustling streets, in a fortified bunker, the air hummed with the whir of cooling for cryptological computers. Fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows over rows of consoles, where North American Federal Republic analysts sifted through the ether's secrets. Satellite dishes and antennas above ground captured whispers of Imperial multi-band radio traffic, feeding them into decryption algorithms honed by decades of espionage.

Agent Rachel Jenkins hunched over her terminal, her fingers dancing across the keys as text scrolled by. "Got something," she muttered, her voice cutting through the background chatter of the room. Beside her, Agent Michael Lee leaned in, his eyes narrowing at the decrypted shards. "Intercepted from Port Stanley relay... 'Insurrection in progress'... 302nd Brigade requesting reinforcements. That's a Janissary unit, right? Falklands garrison."

Rachel nodded, cross-referencing with known deployments. "Matches. And look -- industrial nodes reporting fires, overruns. Automated IMINT is pulling real-time feeds." She punched in commands, and grainy satellite images flickered onto their screens: plumes of smoke rising from refineries, crowds clashing with armored figures, flames licking at storage tanks. "Full-scale revolt. Serfs against the overseers. This isn't an exercise or drill." Michael's face tightened. "Imperials won't let this slide. If the rebels hold, it cracks their South Atlantic monopoly." He glanced at the clock -- 1934 Zulu. "We need to flash this up the chain. NCA, Joint Chiefs, everyone."

Rachel was already drafting the header, attaching the raw intercepts and imagery. "On it. If we move fast, this could be an opening." The message fired off into the secure network:

FLASH-SIGMA-BRAVO-90344-2524-AB44 193400Z 02 APR 1982 TOP SECRET OMICRON FLASH FLASH FLASH ATTENTION NCA / JOINT CHIEFS SUBJECT SIGINT/IMINT DETECTS FALKLANDS SERF REVOLT IN PROGRESS...

As the alert propagated, the bunker buzzed with urgency. The Cold War had just found a new front.

Super Force Command, Redoubt-16

In the sterile briefing room of Redoubt-16, a Super Force bunker buried under the Rockies, holographic maps flickered with the urgency of crisis. General Allen stood at the podium, his uniform crisp under the harsh lights, addressing the assembled leaders of five Special Tasking Groups. Metahumans and their support commanders sat in tense rows, packets of classified intel clutched in their hands. The air smelled of recycled oxygen and fresh ink.

"Intel confirms a full serf revolt on the Falklands, the Malvinas," Allen barked, gesturing to the map. "Imperials are reeling, but we move now. No subs for stealth; we're going in hot on hovercraft under drone and missile cover from Fourth Fleet. SEAD will buy us limited air support, but this is a no-fly for you metas -- too much low-altitude and man-PAD defense. STGs 2, 4, and 14 hit these refineries. Caldera, you're on the primary with 8th Cyber Rangers and 3rd Cyber Armor in support." The massive metahuman, Yellowstone Caldera, nodded gravely. "STG-9, you're with 11th Cyber Rangers -- you'll move to reinforce and organize the rebels on Port Stanley's west airfield flank. There are potentially thousands we can free from the Imps' yoke."

Second Lieutenant Samantha Grey sat ramrod straight, her dark uniform concealing her folded wings and tail. Her red eyes glinted faintly as she absorbed the details, her mind racing back through decades of service, much of it left blood on her hands that her fires could not burn away. But this? It would be liberation for the serfs -- and liberating for her. A chance to continue to atone, to wield her infernal gifts for something more satisfying, more pure.

She raised a hand. "General Allen, sir, crash op understood -- what's the relief timeline? And what about enemy follow-ons?"

Allen paused, respecting the question. "No immediate relief locked in, Lieutenant. We're scrambling what we have and carrier CAP, for now. We'll have to hold until National Command Authority can put together a proper package. Objective: Secure de-facto control of Port Stanley and Imp HQ. The Manchus and Czar will rattle their sabers; Imps back down or risk wider war. We stabilize, and we pivot, putting them off-balance in the South Atlantic strategically."

"Thank you, sir." Samantha lowered her hand, a quiet resolve settling in. This wasn't just duty, it was a redemption.

"You have three hours to brief your teams," Allen concluded. "Then supersonics to Forrestal for rendezvous. Good hunting, Super Force."

Scene 4: NAFR Supercarrier Forrestal, South Atlantic

The NAFR supercarrier Forrestal cut through the choppy waves of the South Atlantic. A 150,000 ton steel behemoth, its decks were alive with the roar of jet engines and the clatter of munitions being prepped. As flagship of Battle Group Delta in the Fourth Fleet, it was a floating fortress of power projection. Deep in the bowels of the ship, below the waterline in a reinforced interrogation suite, the air was thick with the scent of saltwater and tension. Harsh overhead lights cast stark shadows on the bulkheads, where senior officers gathered around a secured detainee chair.

Captain Elias Ramirez, the battle group's intelligence chief, paced the room, his uniform sleeves rolled up. Beside him stood Commander Lena Voss, Forrestal's XO, her face etched with the weariness of rapid deployment. They had been scrambled south after the FLASH alert from Havana, mating up with the inbound STGs en-route. Now, a prize from a covert SEAL insertion: an Imperial agent, plucked from a listening post outside Port Stanley just hours before. The man -- pale, wiry, with the cold eyes of a imperial citizen -- sat restrained, his uniform torn from the kidnapping and extraction. A medic monitored his vitals on a nearby screen, but the agent's smirk suggested he was far from broken.

"Name and rank," Ramirez demanded, leaning in close. "What's the Empire's play here? Reinforcements? Counterstrike?"

The agent chuckled, a wet rasp escaping his lips. "You Americans... always so direct. But I answer only to Lord Blood. He who commands the shadows."

Voss exchanged a glance with Ramirez. Lord Blood -- a name whispered in intel briefs, a shadowy Imperial spymaster tied to the throne itself. "Lord Blood? What's his interest in a backwater oil hub?"

The agent's eyes gleamed with fanaticism. "The synthesizers... you fools think this is about oil?" He bit down hard, a hidden capsule cracking in his jaw. Foam bubbled from his mouth as his body convulsed, the neural toxin racing through his system. The medic rushed forward, but it was too late; vitals flatlined in seconds.

Ramirez slammed a fist on the table. "Dammit."

Voss rubbed her temples, staring at the corpse. "SEALs took everything they could when they nabbed him. But the documents were burned and unrecoverable, the data crystals had been purged. We did get a bit about 'synthesizer progress' and chlorobenzene. That's not used in petrol refining."

Ramirez replied, heavily, "So we've got nothing."

The officers dispersed, the weight of unspoken worry hanging in the air, something wasn't right, but damned if they could say exactly what, the agent's final words echoing in the sudden quiet "... you fools think this is about oil?" Outside, the carrier's CAP jets screamed overhead, oblivious to the storm brewing beyond the horizon.

Baker Beach

Under a grey sky thick with low-hanging clouds, the Falklands' eastern shore emerged on the ocean's edge. Murky waves crashed against Baker beaches' pebbles. The acrid tang of distant oil fires that stung the eyes and throat drifted in the air. NAFR hovercraft -- sleek, armored beasts skimming the surf -- grounded with hydraulic hisses, ramps slamming down to disgorge their cargo. The 11th Cyber Rangers, with its STG-9 special assets, spilled out first: commandos in tactical gear, laden with rifles, demo charges, and sensor packs. Behind them lumbered the cyborg troops with neural-linked exoskeletons faintly whining, their armored walkers and logistical crawlers churning the wet ground into mud. Overwhelming firepower compared to the islands' Imp citizen and Janissary defenders. The landscape was bleak: windswept tussock grass bending under the gale, distant plumes of black smoke marking the rebels' hard-won gains.

Second Lieutenant Samantha Grey stepped off the ramp, heels on her boots sinking into the grit. Her black Super Force uniform hugged her athletic frame, silver accents catching the dim light. She kept her wings tightly folded beneath a reinforced cloak, her tail coiled discreetly, but her curled horns and faint red eye-glint marked her as otherworldly -- in a world that still feared the supernatural and whispered "devil" behind her back. Her support company fanned out around her, efficient and loyal, but her new field commander, Major Boyd of the 11th Cyber Rangers, hung back. His augmented eyes, glowing faintly blue from neural implants, avoided hers, his posture rigid as if proximity to her set his teeth on edge.

"Asset secured on beachhead," Boyd muttered into his comm, his voice clipped and mechanical over the channel. He didn't use her name or her rank, just "the asset." Samantha caught the undertone: resentment, fear, the old prejudices baked into men like him, who saw her as a necessary evil, not a comrade's bond.

She adjusted her pack, scanning the horizon where rebel signals flickered on her HUD. "Major, perimeter's clear. We push inland to rendezvous with the rebel column. Three hours on foot to Port Stanley's flank."

Boyd finally met her gaze, his jaw tightening. "Affirmative, Lieutenant. But keep your... tricks in check. These are my men; I won't have them spooked." The words hung heavy, laced with distrust. Samantha felt the familiar sting but pushed it down. She told herself he was still in shock from learning of existence of Top Secret assets like her, just days ago. He'd do his duty. This mission was bigger than one man's bias.

"Lieutenant, I want to move out," Boyd added, more recommendation than command, his voice betraying the unease of commanding a "devil" in NAFR colors. He, a Major, was technically in command -- but he'd been told to give her due consideration on decisions. If he disregarded her 'advice', he'd better be right.

Samantha nodded sharply. "Agreed, Major. STG-9, move out." As they marched into the murk, the wind howling like a harbinger, she sensed the fragility of their alliance. But for now, the fight ahead bound them, rebels to relieve, an empire to defy.

The Inferno

Securing the Airfield

The march inland from Baker Beach had dragged into a slog of muck and murk, the Falklands' rough terrain giving way to scarred earth. Port Stanley's outskirts loomed under the perpetual gray, its airfield -- a vital Imperial hub of runways and bunkers—now a contested scar amid the smoke. Distant gunfire echoed like thunderclaps, mingled with the rebel serfs' ragged cheers and the whine of Imperial autocannons. STG-9 and the 11th Cyber Rangers crested a low ridge, their advance halted by a brutal kill zone: entrenched Janissary cyborgs, hulking figures in crimson-and-gold exosuits, hunkered behind ferrocrete barricades. Their neural-linked railguns spat hypersonic rounds, pinning Boyd's forward squad in a shallow depression. Sparks flew from ricochets, and the bite of ozone filled the air as a Ranger's walker took a glancing hit, its hydraulics hissing in protest, and the operator squatting it into hull-down.

Major Boyd crouched low as well, his augmented eyes flickering with targeting overlays. "Suppressing fire -- flank left!" he barked over the comm, his voice steady but edged with frustration. Two Rangers advanced, their exoskeletons grinding forward, but the Imperials' autocannons tracked them mercilessly, chewing up the ground. A scream cut through the static as a commando went down, clutching a shredded leg. Boyd's jaw clenched; this was meant to be a swift relief op, not a meat grinder. He glanced sidelong at Samantha, crouched a few meters away, her red eyes scanning the enemy line with predatory focus. "Asset," he growled, the word laced with that familiar bite, "if you've got something, now's the time. But keep it contained."

Samantha nodded, her tail twitching faintly beneath her cloak. Decades of ops had drilled precision into her bones. This wasn't the chaos of the Honduran Wars, where collateral was a grim necessity. Here, she could be precise. "On your mark, Major. I'll draw their fire; you push on my signal." She didn't wait for his confirmation; instead, she blurred into motion, her kinetic field coiling around her like an invisible spring. A faint heat shimmer rippled the air as she accelerated, teleporting in micro-jumps -- pfzp! -- to close the gap without drawing a clean lock.

The Imperials reacted instantly, their cyborg sentinels swiveling with mechanical whirs. Railgun tracers lit the gloom, but Samantha was already weaving, her body a flicker of flame. She siphoned the kinetic surge from incoming rounds mid-flight, redirecting it into a burst of speed that propelled her behind the primary barricade. Up close, the lead cyborg loomed, a brute of servos and armored plating, its faceplate glowing with targeting visuals. It pivoted, weapon rising, but Samantha struck first: a controlled fire blast erupted from her palm, not a roaring inferno but a surgical lance of plasma, searing through the neural hub at its neck. Sparks exploded; the cyborg seized, its systems frying in a cascade of overloads.

"Flank now!" she shouted, her voice cutting through the comm like a clarion. As the enemy line faltered, two more cyborgs convulsing from her follow-up kinetic drains, Boyd's Rangers surged. Walkers pounded forward, demo charges blooming against the remaining barricades in controlled thunder. Samantha teleported to cover a pinned commando, her wing membranes flexing briefly as she drained the enemy's inertial mass, lightening the man enough to haul him to safety. Gunfire dwindled to sporadic pops; the airfield perimeter cracked open, rebels emerging from the treeline to link up with ragged cheers of "¡Amigos!"

Boyd straightened as the dust settled, wiping blood from a shallow graze on his cheek. He met Samantha's gaze --still wary, but with a flicker of something new: reluctant acknowledgment. "Clean work, Lieutenant," he said, the title slipping out unbidden. Not "asset" this time. Samantha felt the shift, small as it was. But the airfield's control tower still flew the Imperial banner, and smoke from the refineries thickened on the wind. Victory here was fragile; the real storm was still gathering.

The Empire's Throne Room

Deep under the ruins of Buckingham Palace, the Imperial Throne Room gleamed with opulent menace. Crystal chandeliers hung like frozen constellations above polished marble floors veined with gold, while holographic tapestries depicted victories from the Napoleonic Wars to the Conquest of Egypt. Emperor Charles III sat enthroned at the chamber's end, his crown a lattice of platinum and crystals, his face a mask of regal steel beneath a neatly trimmed beard. Flanked by advisors, he reviewed dispatches from the far-flung fringes of his domain, the air heavy with the scent of incense and sterilizing ozone from concealed emitters.

The massive oak doors groaned open, admitting Lord Blood -- a specter in tailored black velvet, his pale skin stark against the blood-red cape that earned his moniker. His eyes, sharp as obsidian shards, betrayed no deference, only the cold calculus of a spymaster who had toppled presidents and kings. He approached the dais with measured steps, bowing just low enough to satisfy protocol. "Your Majesty," he intoned, his voice a silken blade, "I bring grave tidings of Port Stanley."

Charles leaned forward, fingers drumming the armrest. "We are pleased to finally meet you, Lord Blood. You've served Our family well for generations."

Lord Blood straightened, a faint smile curling his lips. "My deepest condolences for your loss, Majesty. Empress Elizabeth, I counted her a dear friend, and she was a true giant among rulers. And my personal congratulations on your recent ascension, of course, Sire."

With a nod from the emperor, the demands of courtesy were deemed satisfied. Blood quickly activated a wrist-holo, projecting a flickering map of the Falklands. Smoke plumes danced over Port Stanley, icons marking NAFR insertions. "Sire, the Americans are seizing upon this opportunity. The revolt was organic; Intelligence believes sparked by a serf saboteur in the primary refinery. But the Yankees scented blood; their troops landed at dawn, relieving the rebels and securing the airfield. Casualties mount, and they hold the perimeter. Worse: they will shortly capture intact synthesizers from the Xenon extraction plants."

The Emperor's eyes narrowed, the map's glow reflecting in them like embers. "The xenon deposits there had been kept secret until now, or so I was assured."

Blood's smile deepened, predatory. "We believe they still are, Majesty. There are no indications from intercepts that they now. If they did, we would be seeing a much more massive response. For now, it is just the forces they had nearby, and a few modest follow-ons we are seeing sortie from Occupied Kingston and their Norfolk base. This will not last."

The emperor looks to an adviser, and after several short murmurs among them, one speaks up. "These xenon deposits are, were, expected to double the Empire's current production levels of the Ultrazine rocket fuel within two years." Charles's drumming ceased, his voice thunder-soft. "I see. And the garrison? The 302nd?"

"Overrun or scattered," Blood replied flatly. "A few holdouts in the bunkers, but they buy time only. We cannot retake the islands conventionally -- the Czar has sent a demarche of support for the Americans, and the Foreign Office has been summoned to the court in Peking, we suspect to receive a similar statement. If this escalates, they are prepared to support the Americans. They have invited these jackals to join in the feast."

The Emperor rose, pacing to a hologram showing the skyline of London over the Thames from before the bombs in October '62 fell. "Then what counsel, my lord of shadows? We yield a crown jewel to those upstart republicans?"

Blood stepped closer, his cape whispering against the stone. "Denial, Majesty. If we cannot hold it, ensure they gain nothing. Activate Jericho. Jericho-4 will be over the area within the hour. Fracture the strata, ignite the reservoirs. The Falklands become a pyre. There will be no foothold for their fleets, no base for their aircraft. And they will never know about the xenon despots. This sends a message: the Empire burns what it cannot possess."

Silence stretched, broken only by the hum of the palace's wards. Charles turned, his gaze weighing Blood like a blade on scales. Advisors shifted uneasily -- Jericho was still secret, as much so as the xenon deposits. A new, and very expensive nuclear weapons system designed for the final war, the war everyone knew must come, and resolve who would be masters of the Earth. "So be it," the Emperor decreed, his voice echoing off the tapestries. "Unleash the satellite. Let the Falklands be scorched as a warning."

Lord Blood bowed, deeper this time, triumph veiled in shadow. As he withdrew, the throne room's lights dimmed fractionally, as if the palace itself mourned the order. Far across the Atlantic, the Jericho-4 drifted in its orbit, stirring to lethal life. An inferno was coming.

Jericho

The satellite swept silently across the sky. Gentle thrusters pitched the inclination of its orbit ever so slightly, shifting its trajectory across the South Atlantic. Inside its hundred ton bulk, computers determined exact location, orientation, and timing for ignition.

The seconds drifted by, and then, it was directly 97 kilometers above the midpoint of the known extent of petroleum deposits under the Falklands. Then the satellite detonated. The kiloton explosion threw superheated plasma in all directions, and resonated off the nearby "South Atlantic Anomaly" -- an area of the Earth's radiation belts which dip low due to the local geomagnetic field, ringing like a bell in the EM spectrum and forming an intense pulse.

It wasn't the last detonation. Below the remnants of the spacecraft, a warhead now flew downward at high speed. A gyrostabilized silvery collapsium plate, and beneath it a shielded re-entry vehicle and deep penetrator warhead. It ejects another object, this time accompanied by a spray of thick oil onto the backside of the plate and this detonates as well, radiation from the blast flash-evaporate the layer of oil, accelerating it even faster down. Over and over, nuclear pulses detonate behind the vehicle, speeding it down through the atmosphere.

Over half a minute, a brilliant spear of light forms high in the sky, now lit up with aurora, and the device rides it downward at many times the speed of sound to impact the Earth.

It doesn't explode. Not immediately. The re-entry vehicle is armored collapsium, a thousand times denser than lead and a thousand times stronger that steel. It digs. It digs down deeply. And the detonations continue behind it. Finally, it reaches the end of its supply of drive-bombs, coasts the final hundred meters, its nose white-hot but unbowed, and comes to rest eleven hundred meters beneath the peat. The main charge detonates. Even collapsium cannot withstand this, and the megatons of energy spill out into the lithosphere.

The huge cavity formed instantly shatters rock for hundreds of meters around it, and sends a P-Wave out in all directions as if it had been a magnitude 7 earthquake. The ground at the surface is lifted by several meters, and then drops back down, collapsing structures, lighting fires, and leaving dead bodies behind.

The petroleum and gas reserves under the islands, under high pressure, now can freely flow to the surface.

The fires will burn for decades.

Deep Impact

The airfield's hard-won quiet shattered like brittle glass. One moment, Rangers were consolidating the perimeter -- rebels distributing looted rations, commandos sweeping for holdouts under the thickening smoke. Samantha knelt beside a wounded Argentine fighter, her gloved hands glowing faintly as she funneled kinetic energy into his battered frame, easing the crush of a collapsed barricade. "Hold on," she murmured in halting Spanish, her red eyes steady. "We've got you." Across the runways, Major Boyd barked orders into his comm, his exoskeleton's servos whining faintly as he directed walkers to fortify the control tower. The air still reeked of cordite and charred synthetics, but for a fleeting breath, victory tasted real -- Port Stanley was almost theirs, the Imperials on the back foot.

Then the sky wept fire.

It began as a flash, high in the sky, with the cyborg soldiers freezing in that tracks, EMP alarms blaring. Samantha felt a wrongness, a burning foreboding deep in her gut. This cannot be happening Then, an incandescent spear of light, lit above by beautiful auroras visible in the daylight, shot down from the heavens, speeding up until it struck in the distance.

A tremor coursed though the ground, subtle at first -- a low rumble like a jackhammer. Samantha's horns tingled, her infernal senses prickling at the wrongness: not the seismic growl of a conventional quake, but something engineered, a fracture in the world's bones. "Incoming -- brace!" she snapped, but the words drowned in the roar. The ground heaved upward in a grotesque undulation, ferrocrete runways buckling like tinfoil, bunkers vomiting debris in geysers of mud and stone. The earthquake hit like a hammer from the abyss, magnitude seven or worse, hurling Rangers from their feet. A logistical crawler toppled, crushing two commandos beneath its treads; screams pierced the din as fissures spiderwebbed outward, swallowing equipment and men alike.

Boyd staggered, his neural implants flaring with overload warnings -- residual EMP echoes from the orbital pulse frying secondary circuits, his augmented vision glitching to static snow. "Fall back to rally point, form up!" he roared, but his voice cracked as a shockwave of displaced air slammed him against a shattered hangar wall. Samantha teleported to his side in a *poof!* of displaced air, her wings half-unfurling instinctively to shield him from flying shrapnel. Up close, the tremor escalated: the earth groaned, a primordial bellow, as subterranean pressures vented. Gouts of pressurized hydrocarbon gas erupted from fresh cracks, igniting spontaneously in the open air—blue-white flames that bloomed into infernos, devouring the grass and leaping to the refinery skeletons in the distance. Hell itself came to Earth.

The true horror unfolded beneath. Deep in the fractured crust, the petroleum reservoirs ruptured like overripe fruit. Radioactive crude spewed upward in pressurized plumes, black and viscous, mingling with natural gas that fed the blaze. The airfield perimeter transformed in heartbeats: flames raced along the fissures, a living lattice of fire that crowned geysers of oil, turning the ground into a bubbling cauldron. Toxic fumes billowed, acrid and choking process derivatives from wrecked refinery complex, now amplified into a chemical miasma that seared lungs and blurred vision. Rebels coughed and retched, their cheers twisting to wails; a cluster of Rangers vanished in a whoosh of ignited vapors, their exosuits melting like wax.

Samantha's fire aura flickered involuntarily, her body resisting the ambient heat as if recognizing kin, but even she gagged on the sulfurous pall. This wasn't war's honest give and take. This was a loser's rage, a spiteful scorching of the board rather than gracious yielding of a pawn. Her mind flashed to the mission; the airfield, the islands and their inhabitants, all reduced to toxic ash. The objective wasn't lost; it was erased. Could they even evacuate? Boyd hauled himself up beside her, his face smeared with grime and blood, eyes wide with the dawning calculus of defeat.

"Super Force Actual, this is Boyd -- Forrestal, anyone -- we've had atomics overhead, EMP, and now a seismic event, fires everywhere. Objectives compromised. Request immediate --" Static swallowed his transmission, the EMP's ghost lingering in jammed frequencies. Samantha met his gaze, the reluctant thaw from minutes ago hardened by shared ruin. The hellscape spread before them, a pyre for the serfs' dream and the NAFR's gambit. And in the distance the shaking island's heart still bled fire. Survival, now, was the only front left.

Dark Night of the Soul

The hellscape clawed at them like a living thing, flames gnawing at the edges of the rally point, a makeshift perimeter of overturned walkers and shattered crates, ringed by moats of seeping crude. Samantha's breath came in ragged pulls, the sulfurous haze burning her throat even through her aura's instinctive flare. Around her, the remnants of STG-9 and the 11th huddled in pockets: a dozen Rangers slumped against their exosuits, neural links dark and sparking from the EMP's echoing effects; rebels curled fetal amid the wreckage, their shouts of joy reduced to whimpers of pain. The ground still shuddered with aftershocks, fissures belching fresh geysers of gas that fed the expanding fires of perdition. This was no battlefield -- it was a grave.

Boyd collapsed to one knee beside her, his implants fully bricked, vision locked in error loops, limbs leaden without the exoskeleton's ghost. "Command... extraction..." he rasped into a dead comm, the static his only reply. His face, streaked with defeat, twisted as another tremor bucked the earth, toppling a nearby rebel. Most of the company was like him: cyborgs reduced to helpless meat, conventional troops battered and broken. The able-bodied -- Samantha, a handful of commandos, scattered serfs, couldn't carry them all. Not through this inferno. Not before the next wave, whatever demon had birthed this nightmare, came calling.

Super Force Command's warning crackled through finally, faint and fractured on a backup freq: "...multiple hypersonics inbound... evacuate now... rally and extract as able..." The voice cut out, swallowed by jamming. Boyd's eyes met hers, the wary respect from the airfield now a desperate plea. "Lieutenant... Grey... we can't..." "We can," Samantha cut in, her voice steel over the roar, but inside, the old shadows surged. After decades of Geas-bound chains, and then even a dozen years after becoming a citizen, an officer, choices had always been gray and painful. This mission had promised an atonement -- a clean liberation, powers bent to uplift the oppressed, an objective good. It was supposed to be kindness, not another move on a geopolitical chessboard.

But now? The serfs' bravery, the Rangers' grit, all fodder for Imperial spite. Her infernal half mocked her: You're no savior, devil-thing. Just the curse they fear. The flames around them danced higher, her aura straining against the toxic gale, wings itching to unfurl. No more half-measures. If she was to save any, she'd embrace the monster -- fiery blaze, unholy speed, to carve a path to the emergency evac beacon half a klick east. She could do this.

"Cover the wounded and keep low!" she barked, kinetics surging through her veins like liquid fire. She blurred forward, tail lashing free as she teleported in staccato bursts, pfzp-pfzp, igniting controlled blasts to blow out gas vents and shield the group from leaping flames. Heat bent around her, wing membranes drinking the blaze like nectar, but the ground betrayed them, sucking at boots, fissures widening like jaws. A rebel screamed as one claimed him; Samantha dove, draining the inertial crush to yank him free, her arms burning from the strain. Step by scorched step, she herded the survivors eastward, fire in her wake a defiant wall against the encroaching hell.

But the island rebelled too. A final, deeper rumble built -- a megaton echo of the weapon that struck the Earth, a secondary cascade fracturing deeper strata. The air split with a thunderclap, the ground erupting in a fresh cataclysm of flame and stone. Samantha staggered, a slab of ferrocrete clipping her side, ribs cracking under the blow. Pain lanced hot, but worse was the realization: the able-bodied were thinning, the wounded a dead weight. No hovercraft could punch through this; the beacon's signal drowned in interference. They were ants in a kiln. Boyd, dragging himself on one arm, locked eyes with her through the haze. "Grey, leave us! That's an order! Get to the rally --"

"No." The word tore from her, raw and final. Her soul was hers. These men, the serfs' fragile hope, Boyd's armored distrust, weren't tools to abandon. Not today. Teleport, she could go for longer ranges. But she needed to see the horizon, an angel's perch to pluck them from the maw. "Go!" she screamed back, shrugging off her pack in a clatter of gear. Cloak torn free, wings burst open, black ribs stretching out, red membranes spanning wide, catching updrafts laced with ash. Tail taut for balance, she lept upward, rocketing hundreds of feet on thermals of her own making, the world shrinking to a flaming map below.

In a half-collapsed Imperial bunker on Stanley's edge, its reinforced dome cracked but holding, a radar console pinged to life amid the groans of settling earth. The senior controller, a gaunt Janissary officer with bloodied uniform, blinked at the scope. A heat signature, slow and erratic, climbing through the maelstrom. "By the Emperor... we've a flyer. Hostile aircraft inbound -- activate Sentinels Three and Ten. Engage the target!"

High above, Samantha crested the smoke pall, red eyes sweeping the fractured vista: the rally point a speck of desperate forms, fissures like veins pulsing fire. Time fractured, she reached out to the first paralyzed Ranger, kinetics wrapping him like a shroud, pfzp!, yanking him across the horizon, pfzp!, depositing him safe on firmer ground. Another -- Boyd's second, limp as cordwood. Pfzp! Tracers arced up now, autocannon fire from the town, stitching the sky in glowing hatred. She jinked, teleporting mid-dodge, her path a chaotic stutter that baffled the prediction algos. Pfzp! Pfzp! Three more, then a rebel youth -- five souls snatched from the pyre. Over and over she found them, and teleported them to safety. Each time, exhaustion building within her, as she teleported herself about to avoid the tracers zeroing on her.

But the guns adapted, swapping to proximity shells. The air screamed -- a bloom of shrapnel and blast, too close. Samantha twisted, wings folding like a diver's, but the shockwave clipped her. Agony exploded: left wing crumpling mid-beat, arm snapping like dry tinder. Darkness rushed up, the horizon spinning to black. She plummeted, crashing into the peat with a wet crunch, body splayed amid the embers. Still. Broken. The devil, fallen.

In the bunker, cheers erupted—raw, vengeful, as scopes confirmed the hit. The controller grinned, fist pumping. "Got it! Reload and--" The ceiling answered with a final, geological sigh. Fissures widened below, the Jericho's legacy buckling the dome in a cascade of ferrocrete and dust. Screams choked off in rubble; the bunker claimed its own.

On the ground, Boyd's rebooting implants flickered back. Crude, unlinked, but enough. He hauled himself toward Samantha's crumpled form through the haze, the last able-bodied Rangers covering their wounded. One, a grizzled sergeant with a melted pauldron, locked eyes with him. "Major... we don't leave our team behind."

Boyd nodded, the words biting into him like a knife. The devil he'd feared, the asset, the other, had bought their breath with her blood. He scooped her limp weight, wings trailing like shattered banners, arm dangling wrong.

"No," he growled, voice thick. "We don't." Behind them, as they staggered east, a secondary mushroom cloud bloomed on the horizon—Jericho's parting gift. But in his arms, the devil breathed. And for Boyd, that was resurrection enough.

Citations

The Patch

Weeks later, aboard the NAFR medical transport Eagle's Mercy, adrift in the mid-Atlantic convoy back to Norfolk, Major Harlan Boyd sat in the dim confines of his recovery berth. The ship's hum, a steady thrum of engines and life-support fans, had become his white noise, helping drive out the phantoms that now haunted him. Key parts of his exoskeleton lay on a side table, neural links scarred from the EMP's bite, a mechanic's nightmare of fried circuits and jury-rigged backups. The docs said full reboot in a month; Boyd figured it suited him -- stripped down, human again, no augments to hide behind.

A knock rattled the bulkhead. "Mail call, Major." The corpsman, a fresh-faced youth with a stack of parcels, handed over a plain brown envelope, stamped with a sigils: a stylized eagle clutching thunderbolts, wings edged in scarlet. Boyd's name, rank, and unit -- 11th Cyber Rangers -- scrawled in crisp stencil. No full return address, just "Redoubt-16."

He peeled it open, the paper ripping like dry grass. Inside: a single cloth shoulder patch, embroidered on ballistic weave. Black field, silver threading -- a pair of bat-like wings, crimson membranes veined in shadow, curling protectively around a stylized "9." Behind them, a silver column spearing down from above. It would have been the devil's mark. No note, no ceremony. Just the patch, and the weight of it.

Boyd traced the wings with a thumb, the fabric rough under his callus. Seven souls, the after-action tallied; eight if you counted the rebel kid she'd yanked from a fissure mid-herd. And him, the fool who'd ordered her left behind.

He pinned the patch to his civvies, the wings framing his shoulder like a brand. No shame in it now. The Falklands burned on -- satellites feeding grainy feeds of eternal flares, a scar on the charts. But they'd clawed something from the ash: lives, grudging bonds. Boyd leaned back, the envelope crinkling in his fist. The corpsman lingered at the hatch. "Something else, sir?"

Boyd shook his head, a ghost of a smile cracking the grime. "No. Just a reminder of an Angel I met. Carry on."

The Star

In the sterile glow of Super Force Medical Bay Alpha, buried deep in Redoubt-16's labyrinth, Samantha Grey stirred from drugged sleep. The room smelled of antiseptic and recycled air, monitors beeping a steady rhythm to her mending pulse. Her left arm lay splinted across her chest, pins knitting the snap like latticework; the wing beside it draped out to the bed's edge, membranes bandaged but healing. Tubes snaked to an IV drip, dulling the ache that radiated from everywhere. Pain was an old companion, but this felt different, it seemed a fair price.

The door hissed open. She cracked her red eyes, focusing on the figure in dress blues: General Henry Allen, his chest a constellation of ribbons from proxy wars she'd fought beside him in. No entourage, no fanfare, just him, and a small velvet box in his gloved hand. He approached the bed with measured steps, the kind drilled into officers who'd buried too many soldiers.

"Lieutenant Grey," he said, voice gravel-soft, pulling up a stool. "You're a sight harder to kill than most." Samantha managed a weak curl of her lips, tail twitching faintly under the sheets. "Yes, sir. I try."

"Clean bill, mostly. Wing'll scar, but you'll fly. Arm's good as new in a week." He paused, eyes tracing her horns "They say you heal faster than anyone has a right to. For that we are all grateful. And there is this."

He opened the box, the Star of Valor gleaming: a silver starburst on a field of enamel blue, edged in gold, suspended from a ribbon of scarlet and black. NAFR's highest for valor under fire -- reserved for the near impossible, the self-erasing acts that turned tides. Allen lifted it free, the chain whispering, and pinned it to the pillow beside her head, wings framing the metal like sentinels.

"By order of the Secretary of Defense," he read from a folded parchment, voice steady as a salute, "for actions on the Malvinas Islands, Second Lieutenant Samantha Grey displayed exceptional skill, courage, and devotion to duty. As her unit, Special Tasking Group Nine, faced withdrawal from Port Stanley amid unforeseen enemy nuclear interdiction, under severe adversity she led her comrades through withering Imperial fire. When ordered to evacuate, several team members lay incapacitated by electromagnetic disruption, fated to perish; her quick thinking and resourcefulness compelled her to an exposed aerial position, braving enemy autocannons, radiation, and grievous injury. Through unwavering determination, she harnessed her extraordinary powers to evacuate seven from the 11th Cyber Regiment to safety -- actions exemplifying the highest traditions of military service, reflecting great credit upon herself, the Super Force, and the North American Federal Republic."

Allen folded the citation, tucking it beside the medal. "Congratulations, Lieutenant. And... thank you."

Samantha's gaze lingered on the star, its facets catching the light like embers. Atonement? Not fully, old misdeeds lingered, the serfs' pyre a ghost. But this? A bridge crossed, from tool to guardian. Wings for the devil, Valor for the woman. "For the team, sir," she whispered. "Always."

Allen rose, hand lingering on her shoulder -- a rare touch, across the divide. "Rest. We've got worlds to win yet." The door hissed shut, leaving her with the star's quiet gleam. Outside, the Rockies slumbered under their snow caps, but in her chest, a spark held, not hell's fire, but home's.