- One Month Later -
Adam woke me with a firm hand on my shoulder plate and the kind of impatience that pretended to be courtesy.
"Get up," he said. "You will want to see this."
My eyes opened to a pale wash of daylight through the King Raven's side ports. For a second, I expected concrete, smoke, and another brief that smelled like old paper and worse intentions. Instead, the aircraft hummed with steady confidence, and outside, the world looked clean enough to feel dishonest.
Ephyra spread beneath us.
From the high altitude, the city looked like someone had tried to build a monument to order and then maintained it out of spite. White marble terraces stepped down toward wide boulevards. Glass-fronted buildings caught the sun and returned it without apology. Columns and arches rose in deliberate symmetry, old-world geometry paired with newer facades that carried their own sharp pride. It was a blend of ancient Roman ambition and Victorian confidence, as if two eras had agreed to share the same skyline and argue about taste later.
The whole place shimmered like a jewel that knew the difference between admiration and envy.
I leaned closer to the port, careful not to scrape the frame. The SPI plates felt newly heavy in this light, less like armour and more like an admission. Down there, tiny vehicles moved along roads that looked pristine. Parks cut green shapes into the white stone. There were fountains, real ones, throwing water into the air without being shelled for it.
Adam followed my gaze and let a faint satisfaction touch his face.
"Ephyra," he said, voice low, as if speaking too loudly might scratch it. "The heart. People think the war stops at the gates."
I kept watching. From this height, the city's order looked absolute. From everything I had learned so far, that meant it was a lie in progress.
"It looks intact," I said.
"It is," Adam replied. "Mostly. That is the point. We keep it standing so we can pretend we are still winning something."
That was Adam's humour again. It never went looking for laughs. It simply refused to stop being accurate and dreadful.
The Raven banked slightly, bringing a massive structure into view near the city's centre. It stood above the surrounding buildings with ceremonial arrogance, broad steps, layered terraces, and sweeping colonnades that suggested government meant permanence. The sunlight hit it, making it glow.
"The House of Sovereigns," Adam said before I could ask. "They will want you awake for that."
That statement contained more warning than he let on.
As we descended, the city's scale sharpened. Streets resolved into patterns. Rooftops became distinct. I could see banners and flags strung across avenues. At first, I assumed they were for some holiday. Then I saw the crowds. They were clustered along wide plazas and rooftops, packed tightly enough that individual motion became a single collective ripple.
A burst of light flared near the Sovereign's building, followed by another.
Fireworks.
In daylight, they looked less like a celebration and more like a stubborn insistence. Bright colours punched into the sky anyway, crackling like someone had decided morale required a physical punctuation.
The squad inside the Raven shifted, clipping harnesses, checking gear, moving with that reflexive pre-landing routine. Collins leaned toward the port, squinting as if he could not believe the density of people. Baz stared at the floor like he had decided it was safer not to look at the world's expectations. Salton craned his neck and then tried to pretend he had not. Cho sat still, expression flat. Bai looked as if this meant nothing, which usually meant he had already imagined the worst of it.
Adam sat near me, brace visible, posture controlled. He looked older in this light, not in years, but in the way responsibility weighed on him. He had the face of a man who had been told he mattered, then discovered the price.
I turned to him.
"Why are we here?" I asked.
Adam did not answer immediately. He watched the city slide past the window for a moment longer, then met my eyes.
"You are recognised now," he said.
I waited.
"The raid," he continued. "The operations centre. The footage. The body-cam angles. The security feeds. Your size makes you hard to edit out, and your habit of doing memorable things does not help."
I kept my face still. I had not considered body cams, not really. I had considered bullets, muzzle flashes, and the ugly momentum of a fight.
Adam's mouth tightened slightly. "The UIR has your image. Our command knows they have it. We cannot hide you behind operational silence anymore."
So the sniper with a camera had indeed escaped with his life that day.
"And," Adam added, voice still controlled, "the public saw it too. Someone leaked the footage. Someone always does. They saw a giant in COG colours tearing through a fortress, and they decided you belong to them."
The words carried a kind of contempt. Not for the public, exactly, but for the way public perception became another weapon in war.
"Public outcry," he said. "They want you on a platform. They want you named. They want proof the COG has heroes that are not just speeches and casualty lists."
I looked back out the port. The crowds did not look like an outcry from this height. They looked like a tide. A tide could carry you, or it could drag you under. Sometimes it did both.
"And Chairman Dalyell," I said.
Adam nodded once. "Chairman Tomas Dalyell. He and the high command decided that if you cannot be hidden, you must be claimed. If they do not claim you, the rumour turns into fear. Fear turns into questions. Questions turn into investigations. The COG hates investigations."
That sounded right.
"So this," I said, gesturing subtly toward the city, "is politics."
"This is the high command trying to cover their ass and make money whilst doing it" Adam spat out.
The Raven dipped lower. The House of Sovereigns expanded in the window until it filled most of the view. The landing zone sat on a broad terrace near the building, marked by painted lines and flanked by ceremonial troops standing in rigid lines that pretended they did not feel the rotor wash coming.
The aircraft settled into its descent with practised steadiness. The rotors roared louder. The cabin vibrated. The squad tightened harnesses and braced. I remained seated because I had learned that standing in an aircraft that was about to land was a good way to make gravity feel personally offended. Besides i was too large to fully stand within a King raven even with a modular version.
The skids touched down. The vibration changed. The sound of rotors remained brutal, but the floor stopped shifting beneath my boots.
Then the side doors began to slide open.
Light poured in, bright and clean. The noise outside surged. Even through the rotor beat, I heard it. Not one voice. Thousands. A massed sound that carried excitement, confusion, relief, and hunger, all blended into something that felt like pressure on the skin.
Adam rose first. He adjusted the brace subtly and then looked at the squad.
"Stay tight," he said. "Do not get separated. Do not respond to provocation. Do not do anything clever unless I tell you."
Collins snorted once. "So just breathe and try not to exist."
"That is the key," Adam said. "Some of you should learn it," this was muttered
His eyes flicked to me briefly. It was not an accusation, more like a mild insult
We moved toward the open door.
The moment I stepped into the sunlight, the crowd volume spiked.
They had been cheering already. Now they were cheering at a visible target. It hit like a wall. I felt it in my chest more than my ears, the way a heavy engine felt when it revved too close. People shouted words I could not separate. I caught fragments. Giant. Hero. COG. Some shouted my name, or their version of it, mispronounced with enthusiasm.
The terrace in front of the House of Sovereigns was packed. Barriers held the crowd back, but only barely. Behind those barriers stood ranks of ceremonial COG soldiers, polished armour, crisp lines, rifles held with perfect symmetry. They looked like the war's perfect lie made manifest.
A ceremonial guard detail formed up around Adam and me, officers stepping into position with practised choreography. Their commander gave a sharp order, and the formation began moving toward the building's main steps.
I walked beside Adam, stride measured, keeping my hands away from weapons. The Mark 1 Lancer remained slung, but I kept it passive. On a battlefield, a rifle was comfort. In this place, it was a provocation and a placement in the Slab.
The crowd roared as we passed. Some people waved flags. Some raised fists. Some simply stared at me with wide eyes, as if trying to understand whether I was real. Children sat on their parents ' shoulders to see over their heads. Cameras flashed. Not UIR snipers this time, but citizens with handheld devices and the desperate need to record proof that their fear and hope had a shape.
I forced myself to keep walking. I had faced gunfire with less discomfort than this.
Adam leaned toward me slightly as we approached the steps, speaking low.
"You will not like this," he said.
"I have noticed," I replied.
He almost smiled. "Good. It means you are paying attention."
We reached the base of the House of Sovereigns steps. The building loomed above us, marble so white it looked aggressive. Glass panels caught the sun and threw it back at the city. Columns rose in ranks, each one a statement that the COG intended to last longer than anyone else.
At the top of the steps stood a platform. On it waited Chairman Tomas Dalyell, surrounded by senior officers and aides. Dalyell wore a formal uniform that looked too clean to belong to this war, tailored and decorated, the kind of clothing that looked like it was made two hours ago.
He watched our approach with a practised expression that signalled warmth without wasting sincerity. I recognised the look from political broadcasts. It was the face a man wore when he needed to appear grateful for something he also needed to control.
When we reached the platform, the ceremonial guards halted in perfect unison. Adam and I stepped forward.
The cheers rolled again, louder, as if the crowd believed volume could turn war into a story.
Chairman Dalyell stepped to the front of the platform. He held up his hand. The crowd noise dipped, not fully, but enough to let him speak. Speakers, both hidden and open, carried his voice outward, clean and authoritative.
"Citizens of Ephyra," he began.
The crowd answered with another roar. Dalyell waited it out. That patience was its own kind of power.
He continued, voice smooth. He spoke about sacrifice. He spoke about resilience. He spoke about the war's cruelty without admitting the command's complicity in prolonging it. He spoke about victories that mattered because they bought time. He spoke about defenders holding lines so cities like Ephyra could remain standing.
Then his gaze turned to me.
"And today," he said, "we acknowledge a soldier who has done more than hold a line. He has broken one."
The crowd surged again, and I felt the sound press against my armour like heat.
Dalyell gestured toward me with an open palm, presenting me as if I were a new monument installed on the steps.
"This man," he said, "stood against the UIR and did not yield. He fought through a fortified operations centre and helped secure a victory that will save lives beyond the battlefield. He acted with courage under fire, and he did so in the uniform and cause of the Coalition of Ordered Governments."
It was an elegant claim. It stapled me to the COG in front of the world. It turned my previous statement, with the COG, into a public contract.
Dalyell continued, voice warming slightly as if he could afford emotion now.
"Varmund," he said.
My name, broadcast, amplified, thrown into the city's air like a flag.
The crowd repeated it in broken waves. Some shouted it correctly. Many did not. It did not matter. The sound attached itself to me anyway.
Dalyell spoke about rewards.
He promised official recognition. He promised a formal induction into the COG military structure, rank and record. He promised commendations, the kind that could be printed and hung and pointed at. He talked about the importance of heroes in wartime, about symbols that reminded citizens why they endured rationing and funerals.
I listened with half my mind and watched the crowd with the other half.
So many faces. So many eyes turned upward. Some looked proud. Some looked desperate. Some looked like they wanted me to prove the COG had an answer to a war that had been eating them for lifetimes. The pressure was not subtle. It was not even malicious. It was needed.
Dalyell finished the section about me with a flourish that sounded rehearsed, then shifted his focus.
"And we also honour," he said, turning slightly, "the officer whose leadership made these operations possible. A man who has bled for this coalition and will now serve it in a role that will shape our future."
His gaze settled on Adam.
The crowd cheered again, though I noticed the cheer's texture changed. Admiration, yes, but less fascination. Adam was an average human. Adam fit their expectations, unlike me, who exceeded their imagination.
Chairman Dalyell spoke about Adam's promotion.
"Major Adam Fenix," he said, "is hereby promoted to Colonel."
The senior officers behind Dalyell nodded. An aide moved forward with a folder. Another held a ceremonial case. Adam stood still, face controlled, eyes forward. I could see the tension in his jaw. The brace held his leg. Pride held the rest.
"And," Dalyell continued, "Colonel Fenix will take up an appointment as Deputy Director within our Defence Research Agency."
That line drew another cheer, though it sounded more uncertain. Research did not excite crowds. Weapons did. Hope did. Dalyell framed it as both.
Adam's eyes flicked once, briefly, toward Dalyell, then forward again. He accepted the words as if they were a weight he had expected.
The chairman stepped closer to Adam, spoke something quieter, a few words the microphones did not carry. Adam replied with a single nod. The exchange looked cordial. It also looked like two men negotiating power in the only language they shared.
I stood there through it all, a figure beside Adam, too tall to ignore, too strange to belong, but now public enough that belonging became less optional.
The ceremony continued for several more minutes. Dalyell spoke again to the crowd, praising the coalition, promising resolve, and promising eventual victory. The words landed like the fireworks did, bright punctuation against a reality that would not be solved by speeches.
When it ended, the crowd kept cheering anyway. They wanted more. They wanted movement, gestures, proof.
Dalyell stepped back. Officers shifted. The ceremonial guard tightened its formation.
Adam leaned toward me again. "Do not wave," he said quietly.
"I was not planning to," I replied.
"Good," he said.
We began to move off the platform toward the entrance of the House of Sovereigns, escorted by the ceremonial guard. The crowd surged as we turned. People shouted my name again. Some shouted Adam's. Some shouted the chairman's. A city full of civilians tried to turn the war's newest rumour into something they could hold.
As we approached the doors, I caught movement on the edge of the crowd. Not snipers. Not UIR. Just men in suits watching carefully, eyes sharp, posture too controlled. Intelligence officers, likely. Or security. Or the same thing with a different label.
They watched me like they were already writing reports.
Adam noticed my gaze.
"They will not stop," he said under his breath. "Now you are a file and a symbol. Files get updated. Symbols get used."
"And the rank," I said.
Adam's mouth tightened. "The rank helps. It gives you a place in the machine. COGs are easier to control than random tools. That is what this is."
We reached the doors. Inside waited marble halls, quiet corridors, and rooms where decisions got made without gunfire. The cheering outside muffled as the heavy doors closed behind us, replaced by the softer sounds of footsteps and distant voices.