Stalemate: Northwestern Assault Group

The command room was a hive of tension, the atmosphere so thick with unease that it felt suffocating. Officers moved between terminals, their faces etched with worry as updates poured in from the front lines. The holographic map at the center of the room flickered with shifting red and blue markers—each one representing lives, positions, and the fragile balance of their assault on Corsair.

But the markers were stagnating.

The northern front, once a steady push, had ground to a halt after the withdrawal of the 77th Walker Unit. Without their overwhelming firepower, the infantry were barely holding their ground. Reports from the northeast sector showed that Extractants were beginning to swarm the exposed flanks of the assault teams. The northwest assault, bogged down for hours, was teetering on the edge of collapse.

Voices rose in worried murmurs around the room, officers and analysts leaning into one another as their concerns spilled out.

"Why hasn't SABER-1 deployed yet?"

"What could he possibly be waiting for?"

"The situation's critical. If we don't reinforce those sectors now, we'll lose everything we've gained."

A younger officer, barely out of training, glanced nervously toward the tactical display, his voice a whisper. "Do you think… maybe something's wrong? Maybe he's… hesitating?"

"Hesitating?" an older lieutenant hissed, his tone sharp enough to cut through the noise. "SABER-1 doesn't hesitate. He's calculating, always calculating."

"Then what the hell is he calculating?" another snapped, his frustration boiling over. "Because the way I see it, we're about to lose all three sectors!"

Across the room, Icarus sat in her designated station, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her usual cocky grin was gone, replaced by a furrowed brow and pursed lips as she stared at the tactical display. She had been silent for most of the operation, but now, even she couldn't hide her growing unease.

Her eyes flicked to the upper-right corner of the display, where a small icon marked SABER-1: Standby blinked faintly. It had been that way for hours.

She tapped her fingers against her armrest, her jaw tightening as her mind churned with questions. She trusted Eilífr—more than anyone else in the operation—but even her faith was beginning to waver. What was he doing up there? Why hadn't he deployed?

The silence from his channel was deafening.

She glanced around the room, catching snippets of conversations among the officers. Their doubts and fears mirrored her own, but hearing them spoken aloud only made her frustration grow.

"Maybe he's waiting for the Colonel's go-ahead," someone suggested.

"The Colonel already gave him full operational freedom," another countered. "He's calling the shots on this one."

"Well, then why the hell isn't he down here?!"

Icarus's fingers tightened into fists, her nails digging into her palms. Her heart pounded as a tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered a question she didn't want to entertain: What if something's happened to him?

"No," she muttered under her breath, shaking her head as if to banish the thought. "He's fine. He's always fine."

But even she couldn't fully convince herself.

The room's tension reached a boiling point as another officer called out, his voice sharp and desperate. "Update from the northwestern front—sector collapse imminent! Casualties rising!"

Icarus snapped her head toward the screen, her stomach twisting. The blue markers in the northwestern sector were falling back, thinning as red surged forward. It was chaos, a slow-motion disaster unfolding before their eyes.

Her gaze darted back to the blinking SABER-1 icon, her teeth gritting as she muttered under her breath. "Come on, Elfy… what are you waiting for?"

She wasn't the only one asking. The room buzzed with the same question, the same frustration and fear. All eyes were on the tactical display, waiting for the signal that humanity's greatest weapon was about to enter the fray.

But the signal didn't come. And for the first time, even Icarus began to doubt him.

The battlefield was chaos incarnate. The hive nest stood entrenched in the shattered remains of a former government complex, its structure now a grotesque combination of twisted steel and pulsing organic matter. Black ichor seeped from cracks in the hive's outer shell, pooling on the ground like tar as waves of Extractants poured from its depths, each one more feral and desperate than the last.

The 56th Tank Battalion was stationed at the forefront, their massive machines dug into makeshift firing positions. The air was thick with the acrid scent of burning fuel and sulfur, the thunderous boom of their cannons shaking the earth. Their shots landed true, smashing into the hive's defensive layers, but for every breach they made, the Extractants surged forward in droves, patching the gaps with their own bodies.

"Driver, adjust three degrees left! Gunner, HEAT shell, now!" roared the commander of Tank Dagger-4, his voice cutting through the chaos inside the metal behemoth.

"On target!" the gunner yelled back as the cannon fired, the shell streaking through the air and slamming into a cluster of Extractants trying to flank. The explosion tore through them, ichor spraying in all directions, but the tide didn't stop.

Behind the tanks, the 140th and 9th Infantry Divisions were dug into what cover they could find: craters, the skeletons of burned-out vehicles, and chunks of rubble that barely offered protection from the hive's relentless counterattacks. The air was alive with gunfire, tracer rounds streaking through the smoke-choked sky as soldiers fired desperately into the charging masses.

"This isn't holding!" screamed an infantryman over the comms, his voice raw with fear as a hulking Extractant broke through the line, tearing into his squad with terrifying speed.

"Fall back! Regroup on the second trench!" bellowed the commander of the 140th, his voice barely audible over the chaos.

The order was easier said than done. The ground was littered with the dead and dying, a gruesome maze that slowed the retreat. The Extractants, sensing weakness, pressed harder, their shrieks and howls cutting through the smoke like knives.

From the rear, artillery commanders were doing their best to rain down fire on the hive. The steady thoom of 80mm howitzers echoed in the distance, their rounds streaking into the fray with fiery trails. Each impact sent shockwaves rippling through the ground, sending Extractants flying and carving temporary craters into the battlefield.

"This is Firebase Echo, rounds complete, over!"

"Not good enough!" the 9th's commander barked into his comm. "We need suppressive fire now, danger close!"

"Danger close? You're in the impact zone!" came the incredulous reply.

"DO IT!" the commander screamed, his voice filled with raw desperation. "Buy us time, or we're finished!"

"Roger… danger close. Adjusting trajectory, rounds inbound, over."

The next volley came faster, the whistling sound of shells slicing through the air almost drowned out by the screams of the Extractants. The first hit landed mere meters from the forward line, the explosion so close that it sent a wave of concussive force through the human defenders.

Soldiers threw themselves to the ground as debris and shrapnel rained down. The second and third impacts hit even closer, sending waves of fire and dirt cascading over the defenders. Extractants were caught in the blasts, their bodies shredded, but so too were several human soldiers caught in the crossfire.

"Line's faltering!" came a frantic voice from the 140th's channel. "We need more fire support, now!"

In the midst of the chaos, the 9th Infantry Commander, blood dripping from a gash on his forehead, grabbed his comm unit and shouted, "Hold the damn line! Keep firing!"

The tanks pushed forward again, their treads grinding over the wreckage of battle. Dagger-4's commander shouted over the cacophony, "AP round loaded! Target that hive opening—if we can choke their funnel, we might have a chance!"

"Firing!" the gunner called, the cannon roaring to life. The shell hit the hive's primary entrance, causing a section of it to collapse. For a brief moment, the stream of Extractants slowed.

But it wasn't enough. The hive's defenders were endless, and the humans were breaking. The 56th's tanks, their ammo supplies dwindling, began to backtrack, covering the infantry's retreat as best they could. The Extractants surged forward again, their screams rising like a crescendo of death.

The 9th Commander, standing amidst the chaos, grit his teeth and made the call no one wanted to hear. "Firebase Echo, fire for effect. Full barrage! Danger close! All units, take cover!"

The artillery barrage came with ferocious speed, the sky raining death on friend and foe alike. Explosions tore through the battlefield, the relentless thrum of shells hitting their marks sending shockwaves that rippled across the ground.

Soldiers hit the dirt, some crying out, others too exhausted to do anything but brace. The Extractants screamed as the fire consumed them, their forms obliterated in waves of concussive force.

And for a fleeting moment, the human lines held.

"Reform the line!" the 9th Commander bellowed, rising from the dirt. "This isn't over!"

As the smoke began to clear, the battlefield was a nightmarish expanse of destruction. The line had faltered, but it hadn't broken. The danger-close fire had bought them precious seconds to regroup, but at a terrible cost and the hive still loomed.