Deaths’ Isle

To acquire the technology they needed, to bridge the gap in their understanding, the Sons of Samak had to send scouts to the surface, into the jaws of the Nhjashj occupation. These were suicide missions, pure and simple. Volunteers were scarce, hope a dwindling resource. But the need was absolute. They needed Nhjashj components, intact devices, raw materials that couldn't be synthesized in the limited confines of the bunker. They needed to understand the physical reality of alien technology, not just the fragmented data they could glean from salvaged scraps.

The scout teams were small, usually no more than two or three individuals, soldiers and technicians volunteering for what were essentially death sentences. They were equipped with scavenged Nhjashj camouflage tech, imperfect, glitchy, but offering a sliver of concealment against enemy sensors. They were sent to ruined cities, to abandoned military bases, to the edges of enslavement camps, tasked with retrieving specific components, gathering intelligence, performing acts of sabotage when possible.

Each mission was a desperate gamble, a heart-stopping descent into the occupied world. The scouts moved in the shadows, through the ruins, under the constant threat of Nhjashj patrols, their senses stretched taut, every rustle of wind, every distant hum of an engine, a potential death knell. Losses were staggering. For every successful retrieval, two, three, even more teams were lost, swallowed by the Nhjashj occupation, their sacrifices buying precious scraps of knowledge, fleeting moments of progress for the struggling scientists in the bunker below.

One mission became whispered legend within Survivor Camp – the Deaths' Isle Run. It was conceived out of pure desperation. Nevina was nearing completion, but a critical component was missing, a specific type of energy regulator module used in Nhjashj scout ships. Intelligence, gleaned from intercepted comms fragments (another near-suicidal scouting operation), suggested a relatively intact scout ship had crashed on a remote island in the Pacific – designated 'Deaths' Isle' by the grimly pragmatic analysts.

The mission fell to the last surviving member of Red Dragon, a hardened, battle-scarred operative known only as 'Ghost'. He had seen his entire team annihilated during the fall of Shanghai, had witnessed horrors that haunted his sleep, but his resolve remained unbroken, a core of steel forged in the fires of war. Ghost was a legend amongst the remaining human forces, a master of stealth, infiltration, and survival, a ghost in the machine of Nhjashj occupation.

But even Ghost couldn't go alone. Efe, driven by a desperate need to accelerate Nevina's completion, insisted on joining him. He wasn't a soldier, wasn't trained for combat, but his engineering expertise was crucial. He needed to see the module firsthand, to understand its physical architecture, to have any hope of replicating or adapting it for Nevina. Amina, fiercely protective of Efe but recognizing the critical need, volunteered to go as well, her scientific expertise and quick thinking a vital asset in the field. Against Layla's initial reservations, the team was formed: Ghost, the veteran soldier, Efe, the desperate engineer, and Amina, the brilliant, fearless physicist. Deaths' Isle Run was on.

The mission was a descent into hell. Infiltration into the occupied zone was a nerve-wracking exercise in evasion, their scavenged camouflage technology flickering and failing, Nhjashj patrols a constant, looming threat. Reaching Deaths' Isle was a perilous journey across a Nhjashj-controlled ocean, navigating treacherous currents and evading silent, watchful patrol ships. The island itself was a desolate, volcanic wasteland, the air thick with the stench of burnt metal and the eerie silence of a Nhjashj crash site.

They found the scout ship wreckage, a mangled carcass of alien technology, half-buried in black volcanic sand. Retrieving the energy regulator module was a brutal, grueling task, hacking through scorched metal, navigating the treacherous, unstable wreckage, their every movement risking triggering hidden defense systems or attracting unwanted attention. They worked under the oppressive weight of the Nhjashj presence, the constant, suffocating awareness of being hunted, of being prey in their own world.

They got the module. Barely. But the retrieval triggered an alarm, a silent signal that pierced the oppressive quiet of the island. Nhjashj fighters descended from the sky, like avenging angels of metal and fire. The extraction was compromised. They were trapped.