Chapter 6 The Siege Begins

• Varkas was a city on the edge of a knife.
• And Eron Rane had just pressed his thumb against the blade.
• Perched on a plateau overlooking the urban sprawl, the rebel convoy sat still—quiet, like wolves in the brush. Varkas stretched below, deceptively peaceful in the pale morning light. Rooftops shimmered with dew. Children kicked a ball between broken curbs. Old market stalls bustled with vendors and scavengers trading fuel, food, and gossip.
• But beneath it all—underneath the illusion of life—lurked a trap.
• “They’re already here,” Layla murmured, her binoculars trained on the city’s outer district. “Too quiet. The patrol patterns are off.”
• Eron didn’t respond. His jaw was clenched, eyes fixed on a flickering signal feed from one of their scout drones. The insurgents had found a new tactic—bury themselves inside civilian infrastructure and wait until the attack came to unleash chaos. Varkas wasn’t a fortress.
• It was bait.
• “We delay, they dig in deeper,” Eron said. “We strike fast, we walk into hell. Pick your poison.”
• Commander Thorne, one of Alric Dane’s field generals, spat into the dirt beside the vehicle. “Your intel got seventy-eight civilians killed last time. I won’t watch another city fall just so you can settle a score.”
• Eron turned slowly. “Then don’t watch. Get out of my way.”
• Thorne’s hand twitched toward his sidearm, but Layla stepped between them. “Stop,” she snapped. “This isn’t the time.”
• “Of course not,” Thorne muttered. “Because it’s always his time.”
• He stormed off toward his command vehicle, cursing under his breath. Layla turned to Eron, her voice low and edged with warning.
• “You can’t keep pushing them like this. We need Thorne’s heavy artillery, and you just made him look like a fool.”
• “He is a fool if he thinks hesitation wins wars.”
• “He’s not wrong about Varkas. If this goes bad—”
• “If it goes bad,” Eron cut in, “I’ll carry the body count. I always do.”
• He walked away before she could say more.
• The war room was a reinforced trailer buried under camouflage netting, cooled by failing fans and lit with red standby bulbs. Maps littered every surface, projections, drone sweeps, civilian census overlays—all feeding a singular plan:
• Operation Iron Wake.
• Varkas would be struck in three phases.
• Phase One: Disruption.
• Disable city-wide comms, blind enemy scouts, and isolate insurgent cells using drone-scramblers and jammers.
• Phase Two: Infiltration.
• Five coordinated strike teams breach civilian sectors where insurgents are hiding. No air support—too much risk of collateral. Street-level, surgical, and brutal.
• Phase Three: Control.
• Establish a provisional safe zone in the eastern ward. Use it to regroup, resupply, and hold. It wasn’t clean. But nothing was anymore. Eron studied the plan, making final adjustments. He had memorized every alley, every drone blindspot. His team would enter through the abandoned tram tunnels beneath the industrial sector.
• They wouldn’t wait for orders. They were the spark.
• Later, beneath the twilight sky, Layla found him standing on a ridgeline overlooking Varkas again. The first drone deployment was already underway, tiny black specks vanishing into the horizon.
• “You’re not sleeping again,” she said.
• “Neither are you.”
• She walked up beside him, silent for a while. “I read Sava’s last mission log,” she said finally. “The one from the western dead zone.”
• Eron stiffened. “You went through my private archive?”
• “I needed to understand you. Why you carry all this... fury.”
• He didn’t answer. She continued. “He wrote that you were more than what Drog made you. That you were a leader. That you were afraid of becoming necessary."
• Eron exhaled slowly. “I never wanted to lead. I just didn’t want to follow monsters.”
• They stood in silence for a while.
• “You’ll make the call tomorrow,” she said. “The whole city changes on your word. You ready for that?”
• “No,” he said. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
• Layla reached into her pocket and handed him something.
• A small, unmarked earpiece.
• “Direct channel to me,” she said. “No interference. No encryption delays.”
• Eron took it and slipped it into his ear. “You always planning ahead?”
• She smirked. “I grew up around politicians.”
• He looked at her. “What did you want to be? Before all this?” She paused, surprised.
• “A musician,” she said after a moment. “Violin. I was good. Before the border walls went up. Before the first drone strike hit our district school.” Eron looked away.
• “I’m sorry.”
• “Don’t be,” she said. “We all lost something. The trick is not forgetting what it was.”
• Five hours until dawn. Operation Iron Wake: Initiate. Eron’s strike team was already underground, moving through the old tram tunnels. The air was thick with rot and oil, the silence pierced only by the crunch of boots and distant water drips. His team: six men. Elite. Scarred. Loyal. They moved without chatter, hand signals only.
• Above ground, Layla coordinated strike teams Alpha through Delta—diverting insurgent responses, disrupting comms, controlling the chaos like a symphony of data and death.
• Eron reached the surface access hatch behind an abandoned rail station. One last glance at the map. One last breath. He climbed the ladder. And stepped into a warzone.
• The insurgents had triggered Phase Zero.
• Explosives in municipal towers. Civilians forced into barricaded choke points. Fire in the sky. Varkas, once the jewel of neutral ground, had become another graveyard. Eron’s team moved fast—clearing sniper nests, rerouting refugees through shielded alleys, dismantling jammer rigs. They weren’t liberators. They were surgeons. He kicked open a rusted door near the southern checkpoint—and froze. Inside was a young girl, no older than nine, holding a pistol aimed at his head. Her hands shook. Her eyes didn’t.
• Behind her, two bodies—parents, most likely. Shot execution-style.
• Eron slowly raised his hands. “You’re not my enemy.”
• She didn’t move. “I’m here to stop the men who did this.”
• Still, silence. “I was you once,” he whispered. “Don’t let them make you into me.”
• Her arms trembled. The pistol lowered. Eron took a breath—and moved past her without another word.
• Outside, gunfire erupted again. Eron ducked into cover, comms crackling. Layla’s voice rang in his ear.
• “Eron—Thorne’s convoy is down. I’ve lost contact with the eastern ward. I think we’re compromised.”
• “Define compromised.”
• “Someone on the inside gave up our plan. It’s not Drog’s men—they’re not reacting. They’re anticipating. They’re inside our network.” Eron’s blood turned cold.
• “How much have they seen?”
• “All of it.” Then the line cut. Behind him, the building exploded.