Damasa base life was like trying to nap inside a forge—hot, loud, and full of angry hammering.
Most of Cyma Unit had scattered like tired cockroaches the moment they got the green light for downtime. Foster was reportedly last seen bartering for two bottles of questionable "brew" from a supply convoy driver. Dan decided he was going to "test the durability" of a bunk by sleeping for twenty hours straight. Gino found himself a stack of magazines that probably violated a dozen UH-mandated decency guidelines.
Berta was holding her usual court near the training yard again, half-dressed, slapping new recruits on the ass, beating them up and somehow not getting reported for it. Amiel had vanished, probably nesting in her usual sniper's perch where silence and shadow were her only true loves.
And Rus?
Well, he got summoned to a logistics coordination meeting. Because apparently, being the only functioning officer in Cyma with a full kill report and working spine meant he had to "represent unit interests" in this holy congregation of clipboard-humping bean counters.
The logistics tent was air-conditioned, which should've been a blessing, but all it did was blow cold bureaucracy into his face.
A few majors, captains, and one colonel sat around a long table. There were maps. Charts. Digital interfaces flickering with supply lines, terrain data, ammo consumption charts, and schedules that looked like punishment spreadsheets.
Rus took a seat with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man at his own hanging.
Colonel Mazar, a block of a woman with a voice like a buzzsaw, started things off.
"We're discussing the current bottleneck between Libertalia's western depot and Damasa's armory node. The rail-line construction is behind schedule due to ground instability and Goblin harassment. Convoys are taking longer to reach us and we're running higher burn rates than projected."
One of the supply chain analysts, a lieutenant with a nervous tic and a voice like a broken printer—chimed in.
"We estimate a three-week delay unless one of the staging hubs is reinforced."
Another captain pointed at the map.
"Is there a reason we can't reroute through Station 6-C?"
The logistics AI chimed in, monotone and efficient: "Station 6-C terrain compromise. Flood zone. Not recommended."
Brilliant. A swamp. Again.
Mazar turned to me. "Lieutenant Wilson. Cyma's last three patrols involved deep incursions into unstable terrain. Your report noted increased enemy resistance. Give us your thoughts."
Rus looked up from the digital map and did his best not to sigh aloud.
"Thoughts? Well, aside from suggesting we invest in air or orbital drops, I'd say the convoys are going to keep getting slower unless we napalm every swamp between here and Libertalia."
A few officers chuckled. Mazar didn't.
"Elaborate."
"Sure." Rus tapped the table, bringing up the visual from our last operation. "Here's the reality: the terrain's unstable. The gobbers are adapting, the orcs are getting bolder, and half the land between here and Libertalia is either festering bog or blown-out rubble. Unless you want to start throwing manpower at weekly route-clearing operations, which will bleed us dry, we either need airlift infrastructure or high-speed armored convoys."
Another logistics officer frowned. "We can't airlift everything. Fuel costs are high, and the gobbers have been targeting rotorcraft lately."
"Then build the convoys tougher," Rus said flatly. "We already treat logistics like it's sacred scripture. Let's start treating our trucks like tanks."
Mazar nodded slowly, as if filing that away.
"Also," Rus added, "you might want to reconsider the rations. Most of my squad's convinced we've been eating rehydrated shoe leather for weeks. Morale's tied to nutrition. Or whatever passes for it."
There were a few more notes. Numbers. Planning talk. Rus tuned most of it out after the fifth mention of "long-term rail viability."
Eventually, the meeting ended. Rus was dismissed with a salute, a datachip, and another appointment in three days for a "follow-up assessment on terrain logistics."
Fantastic.
As he stepped back into the sunlight, his brain swimming with transport schedules and ammunition loss curves, Rus found Kate leaning against a supply crate.
"How was it?" she asked.
"Imagine being strangled by spreadsheets."
"I'd rather not."
"Good. Because we might be getting drafted into convoy protection again."
She groaned. "Didn't we just come back from a swamp?"
"Yes."
"Are they… actually sending us back out?"
"I don't know yet. But knowing our luck?"
She nodded grimly. "Swamp it is."
Rus looked toward the horizon, toward Sector 12's empty dirt roads, half-built rail lines, and far too much hostile terrain still glowing orange on the maps.
The war wasn't slowing down. They'd carved a hole into this world with their tech and steel—but the deeper they went, the more it felt like something was watching from below.
And as always, Cyma would be the one to knock on its door first.
Rus exhaled.
Another day, another stretch of hell in a uniform.
"C'mon," Rus told Kate. "Let's go tell the others the good news."
She grimaced. "You want me to soften the blow?"
"No. I want to watch their faces when I tell them."
"Why?"
Rus cracked a tired smile. "Because I'm a bastard."
And with that, he headed toward the barracks to gather the squad.
***
Rus had gathered the squad on the tarmac just outside the motor pool. Dan, Gino, and Foster were slouched under the shade of a tarp, clearly enjoying the final moments of peace before he brought the hammer down.
Berta and her harem were busy finishing off a workout circuit nearby. She had her foot on top of a training dummy like it was a conquest trophy, sweat glistening down her stomach, and a smirk that screamed "challenge me, I dare you." Amiel was perched on a stacked crate behind them, probably the only one doing anything productive, running diagnostics on her drone.
Rus cleared his throat.
"Gather up. Briefing time."
Dan groaned. "We just got back."
"Yes," Rus said. "And congratulations, we've been selected for another shit march across Sector Twelve."
Foster blinked. "You're joking."
"I'm not. Logistics wants boots on the ground to secure the new supply corridor from Libertalia. And guess who's been deemed trustworthy, efficient, and reckless enough to survive it?"
Gino groaned into his hands. "We're being rewarded for not dying."
"Correct. Isn't that just lovely?"
Berta strolled up, toweling her neck. "So, more swamp?"
"Potentially," Rus said, "but this time there's a possibility of road security, hostile ambush points, and at least two former waystations we'll need to reoccupy before the logistics teams start setting up silos."
She grinned. "Romantic."
Amiel, deadpan. "I'm bringing more grenades."
"That's the spirit," Rus said. "Anyway, this is prep week. No deployment until we get final clearance. Until then, you'll all pretend to be professionals. Train. Re-arm. Restock. Maybe even bathe."
Dan sniffed his arm. "Define 'maybe.'"
Kate arrived at his side, holding a datapad and chewing on a stick of nutrient gum like it owed her money. "Supply forms are filed. Ration requests submitted. Ammo confirmed, though they still owe us two crates of high-impact frags."
"Perfect," Rus said. "The more explosions we have at our disposal, the better my mood."
Berta slung an arm around his shoulder, practically steaming. "You sure you're not just excited to march into hell with me again?"
"I'm never excited when you're involved. Just... preemptively exhausted."
She laughed. "And yet you still come running every time Reed points the finger."
"Because someone has to be sane in this unit."
"Then it sure as hell ain't you, man."
She peeled off to shout at her squad. Rus turned to the others.
"Get your gear checked. Weapons zeroed. We'll have a sitrep tonight in the officer tent."
They dispersed, some grumbling, some pretending to be enthusiastic. Gino wandered off muttering about knee-high mud and fungal infections. Dan immediately made a detour to the mess to "bulk up on calories." Foster stopped to slap him on the back.
"Don't worry, boss. If we die out there, I'll make sure you look good in the report."
"How noble," Rus muttered. "Now fuck off."
Kate walked beside him as we headed back toward the admin block.
"You really think Logistics knows what they're doing?"
"No," Rus said. "But they've got graphs and PowerPoints, which in military terms is the same as God's will."
She shook her head. "How long until we crack?"
"We cracked months ago. Now we're just decorating the cracks."
They passed by the training yards, where a group of new recruits were trying not to vomit during a cardio session. One of them saw Berta doing squats and tripped over his own boot. She winked. The poor kid might never recover.
Kate noticed. "You ever think she's mellowing out?"
"No," Rus said. "I think she's evolving. Like an animal that flirts and maims."
"Charming."
They arrived at the command tent. He stepped inside and dropped into his seat at the end of the long table. The logistics readouts were waiting for me—numbers, names, unit allocations, vehicle manifests, projected enemy contacts.
Kate took a seat across from him and started inputting their squad's updated loadouts.
As he scanned the manifest, something gnawed at the back of his head. It wasn't just the endless operations or the ever-increasing scale of UH's "clean-up." It was the sheer efficiency of it.
Ammo was being consumed in terrifying quantities. Drones, tanks, air support, fuel, food—it all flowed in like blood through veins that stretched back to Libertalia. They weren't just rebuilding a world.
They were reclaiming it by force. Rebuilding supply lines, fortifying bastion cities, and strip-mining whatever was left. The more they fought, the more he realized this wasn't some haphazard response to the crisis.
This was the plan.
And it'd been in place for years.
Vaults had opened. Silos reactivated. Factories had been buried deep for this very reason. Humanity hadn't fled the Rift in weakness. It had retreated, re-armed, and now it was hitting back with every piece of tech, metal, and muscle it could scrape together.
They weren't here to negotiate.
They were here to re-conquer.
Kate looked up from her terminal. "You okay?"
"Just thinking."
"About?"
"About how we're not here to fight monsters," Rus muttered. "We're here to make sure there's nothing left to fight back."
[[[
The logistics operation kicked off like most things around here, loud, bloated, and promising to make Rus's life more miserable.
It began with a sharp whistle at oh-six-hundred, like some divine decree that sleep was, once again, for the weak. Convoys were rolling in from Libertalia, forming long lines of supply trucks, armored freighters, and enough crates to fill a small warehouse. Crates full of ammo, rations, prefab walls, spare drone parts, and enough administrative paperwork to strangle a bureaucrat in their own red tape.
Rus stood at the edge of the motor pool, arms crossed, eyes narrowed as forklifts buzzed around like caffeinated beetles. Nearby, Dan and Foster were helping unload supplies under the supervision of one particularly grumpy sergeant from Logistics who looked like she bench-pressed tanks and called everyone "sweetheart" right before threatening to break their ribs.
Gino, ever the slacker, was pretending to check inventory while actually napping behind one of the trucks.
Kate joined him a few minutes later, clipboard in hand, already muttering about manifest discrepancies and "idiots who can't label a crate if their lives depended on it."
"Ready for another thrilling day of counting bullets and watching trucks go in circles?" she asked, tone dry enough to sand wood.
"I'd rather gargle bleach," Rus replied. "But I suppose watching logistics in motion is better than being on fire."
Kate glanced down at her notes. "Four convoys from Libertalia. Two for supplies. One for personnel rotation. One carrying prefab structures."
"And let me guess," Rus said. "All of it's been labeled with codes invented by someone with brain damage."
"Bingo," she sighed. "Sector codes got swapped. We've got food supplies labeled as munitions and drone parts stored in the mess tent."
"Sounds about right."
Truth was, the operation itself was impressive, if depressingly impersonal. The UH wasn't moving like a ramshackle resistance. This was a fully operational reconquest after all. Efficient. Ruthless. Stacked with firepower. And most of all, indifferent. They weren't just soldiers, they were chess pieces on a board made of scorched earth and abandoned bones.
Damasa, now officially designated as Bastion Node 12-Delta, was shaping into one hell of a stronghold. With the Great Plains clearing up, most of the command brass were aiming to make Damasa a logistical midpoint between Libertalia and the mountains. The territory was so empty it felt wrong. No villages. No ruins worth salvaging. Just ghost towns and nature taking back what had been lost.
But still… why spend this much effort?
Why roll in hundreds of crates of munitions and weaponized construction drones for an area barely putting up a fight?
Kate must've noticed Rus thinking too hard, because she nudged his arm.
"You've got that face again," she said.
"What face?"
"The one where you're about to go off on a paranoid rant about how this is all part of some UH master plan."
Rus shrugged. "Well, if it is, they're doing a damn good job keeping us out of the loop."
"You think we're over-supplied?"
"I think," Rus said, watching a missile-laden crate get dropped by a drone like it was a sack of potatoes, "that if this were just about monster-clearing, we wouldn't need this many bunker busters. Something else is coming. Something bigger."
Kate didn't reply. She just flipped another page on her clipboard and muttered, "Just what I needed. More things to worry about."
They spent the rest of the day checking manifests, counting crates, yelling at lazy troopers, and watching Dan almost get crushed when Gino accidentally triggered a supply drone's auto-drop.
Standard procedure, really.
And somewhere deep down, he couldn't help but feel it.
This wasn't just another base-building operation.
This was a staging ground.