[Newton Jr. PoV]

  “Today is a difficult day. It may scar humanity forever, like the war's first day.

  Newton’s voice was steady, but beneath the practiced cadence of a reporter, there was fatigue and even despair.

  The three hover-cameras circled him, their lenses capturing every word, every flicker of emotion.

  Behind them, his assistant stood nervously, a young man barely out of training, his uniform too clean, his hands trembling as he adjusted the control pad. Newton couldn’t even remember his name. He was another pair of eyes, sent to help cover the “defense of Chicago.”

  Except now, it wasn’t defense anymore.

  It was the "last moments of Chicago".

  The wind howled across the warehouse rooftop, carrying acrid smoke and the faint tang of blood.

  “We’re broadcasting from Goose Island,” Newton continued. “This area represents one of the final pockets of human resistance in the city.”

  He gestured toward the horizon, and the assistant obediently redirected the drone-cameras. The feed panned out, the lenses adjusting to capture the burning skyline.

  Chicago was dying.

  The city—its towers, its bridges, its sprawling network of maglev rails—was now a skeleton. The river glowed with reflected flame. Every few seconds, distant explosions punctuated the air, followed by the dull, echoing crash of collapsing structures.

  As the feed zoomed in, one of the skyscrapers, half its structure already compromised, finally gave way.

  Beneath the roar, Newton heard the faintest screams.

  He swallowed hard, forcing himself to keep his composure.

  “Unfortunately,” he said, his voice trembling despite his efforts, “the Orks continue to hunt down those who stayed behind. The intensity of their assault prevented an evacuation, and with the teleportation grids destroyed, escape has become impossible.”

  The assistant tapped a control, and the footage shifted again. The drones zoomed in on the streets, where the Orks moved like a tide. They advanced, spreading through the streets.

  The cameras caught them tearing through buildings, smashing through walls with their bare hands, dragging survivors from hiding.

  Newton’s stomach turned as he watched one group kick open the door of an apartment complex. The screams that followed were brief, then silence.

  “What’s left of our forces,” Newton continued, forcing his voice back under control, “is scattered across the northern districts. The resistance is doing what it can, but communications are breaking down. We’ve lost contact with three other teams in the last —"

  Before Newton could finish his sentence, an explosion shook the ground.

  He steadied himself, gripping the rusted railing, as a hover-camera wobbled midair, stabilizers whining.

  “There!” he shouted, pointing toward one of the Goose Island's fallen bridges.

  His assistant ducked beside him, adjusting the drone’s focus.

  One of the first things the resistance did was destroy the bridges to secure defensive choke points on Goose Island. Even so, there were still Orks trying to force their way in.

  A handful of Rangers and soldiers, their armor scorched and dented, stood their ground. Their Energy rifles flashed in bursts of light, cutting down gray Orks that tried to cross the river or drop from the sky.

  However, the humans were ready.

  They moved with precision, each shot deliberate, each strike lethal. Within minutes, the attackers were dead. Their bodies smoking, green blood pooling across the concrete.

  Newton’s voice trembled slightly as he spoke into the camera, narrating the scene for the billions watching across the network.

  “This is the reality,” he said, his tone measured but heavy. “Our defenses are able to hold them, at least for now. Yet the fear remains, the fear that the Ork leadership will finally turn its gaze toward Goose Island.”

  He paused, the camera feed shifting to show the smoldering city beyond.

  “If they send a Titan,” he continued, his voice quieter now, “or even a single Ork Ranger… there will be no survivors here. Our last hope lies with the New Earth Army.”

  He stopped speaking, his gaze flicking to the corner of his vision where the live chat feed appeared. The audience was watching in real time, their words overlapping in panic and speculation.

  “Newton, do we have any word on NEA reinforcements?” one of the studio anchors asked, his voice coming through Newton’s earpiece.

  “Do we have confirmation that they will attempt to rescue Chicago?” another voice cut in.

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  Newton hesitated, glancing at his assistant, who looked back at him with wide eyes.

  Another voice joined the broadcast, this one unfamiliar—a woman, her tone colder, detached.

  “Impossible,” she said. “There are multiple cities across the colonies under siege. The NEA can’t afford to waste resources on Chicago. They’ll have to abandon it.”

  Newton cleared his throat, the sound cutting through the overlapping chatter of the studio feed.

  “So far, there’s been no official word,” he began, his tone calm but edged with fatigue. “However, unconfirmed reports suggest Imperial Guard movement.”

  That got their attention.

  The commentators' voices on the live feed rose in a wave of disbelief.

  “The Imperial Guard?” one of them asked, his voice crackling through the comms. “They shouldn’t even be there. They’re supposed to be with the Emperor himself. Would he dare risk sending them?”

  Before Newton could respond, another voice cut in, the same woman from last time.

  “It would make sense, though. The Imperial Guard is the most elite of the Rangers. If anyone could end this with a single strike, it’s them. Remember Dante? He became a legend after the Epsilon Operation.”

  Newton frowned, his eyes flicking to the live chat feed scrolling across his gauntlet. The name Dante was already trending across the network, messages pouring in from viewers desperate for hope.

  “There’s still no confirmation,” Newton said, reclaiming control of the conversation. "Officials haven't confirmed they'll deploy the Guard to Chicago. Until we have proof, it’s all speculation.”

  Newton struggled to keep control of the conversation; however, once again, someone interrupted him.

  “What’s that movement?” one of the commentators asked.

  Newton turned sharply, following the line of sight of his assistant, who was pointing at one of the feeds.

  At first, it looked like any other street in the shattered city—cracked pavement, overturned vehicles, piles of rubble still glowing faintly from recent explosions. But then he saw them.

  Two figures.

  “Zoom in,” Newton ordered.

  The assistant obeyed, the camera’s lens whirring softly as it tightened focus.

  A woman and a child, running.

  Their clothes were torn, their faces streaked with soot and blood. The woman’s arm was wrapped protectively around the child, half-dragging, half-carrying her as they stumbled through the street.

  “Are they trying to escape?” the female commentator’s voice crackled through Newton’s earpiece, her tone a mix of disbelief and dread.

  Newton felt his stomach twist. 'Bad idea. Terrible idea.'

  He could see the terror etched into their faces, the frantic, wild look in the woman’s eyes, the way the child clung to her, sobbing.

  Newton’s voice tightened. "Wasn’t there a metro entrance at the street’s end?”

  The assistant nodded, not taking his eyes off the display.

  “Maybe they’ll make it!” one of the commentators said, his voice rising with desperate hope.

  Newton shook his head, his pulse quickening. “No. They need to turn back. The streets are too exposed. The Orks’ senses are sharper than ours; they’ll smell them before they see them.”

  Even as he spoke, dread settled in his chest.

  The camera feed shifted as the drone hovered higher, panning across the street. Newton saw them before the woman and child noticed.

  Two Orks, their skin a mottled gray, emerged from a collapsed overpass.

  Gray-skinned—the weaker kind, but still lethal. Each one carried a jagged axe, its blade still dripping from earlier kills.

  Newton’s jaw tightened. 'If they had even one Ranger with them… just one soldier…'

  But they didn’t.

  The woman must have sensed them. She froze mid-step, pulling the child behind her, her eyes darting wildly. The Orks spread out, moving in a wide arc, herding them like predators playing with prey.

  The feed had no audio, but Newton didn’t need sound to know what was happening. He could see the woman’s mouth moving—screaming, maybe praying—as she pushed the child away, motioning for her to run.

  The child didn’t move. She just stood there, frozen in terror.

  “Cut the feed,” Newton said, his voice low, urgent.

  The assistant hesitated, his hand hovering over the control pad.

  “Cut it!” Newton barked.

  It was too late.

  The camera kept rolling.

  The two Orks lunged.

  Newton’s breath caught as the feed showed the first axe swing. The woman tried to shield the child, but the blade cleaved through her chest, splitting her body in two. Her blood sprayed across the cracked pavement, a crimson arc captured perfectly by the drone.

  The child screamed then stumbled backward, tripping over the debris. The second Ork moved in, its axe rising high before it came down.

  “God…” The word escaped Newton’s lips in a whisper, barely audible over the chaos that filled his earpiece.

  The live transmission had devolved into madness, commentators shouting over one another, their voices overlapping in panic and disbelief. Some were trying to rationalize what they’d just seen; others were simply breaking down, their professional calm shattered.

  But Newton wasn’t listening anymore.

  The realization was settling in.

  “We’re going to die,” he murmured, his voice trembling as he sank to his knees. He tilted his head back, staring up at the sky, his eyes stinging from ash and exhaustion.

  He wasn’t sure if he was praying or just waiting for the inevitable.

  Maybe God was watching. Maybe not.

  But whatever it was—fate, chance, or divine mercy—a miracle was about to happen.

  “Sir,” his assistant’s voice broke through. “Should we… should we record?”

  Newton blinked, his mind still foggy. “Record what?”

  The assistant pointed east.

  Newton turned slowly, his gaze following the trembling gesture.

  At first, it looked like meteors—hundreds of them, streaking through the sky. Each trail burned with a different color: crimson, azure, amber. The smoke above Chicago parted as they descended.

  Newton’s breath caught in his throat.

  “Impossible,” he whispered.

  The hover-cameras turned automatically, capturing the spectacle.

  The air screamed as they tore through the atmosphere, leaving trails of plasma in their wake. They thundered to the ground.

  The first impact shook the city. The second made the rooftop lurch beneath Newton’s feet. By the tenth, the entire skyline was trembling. The shockwaves shattered windows and extinguished fires.

  “What are they?” his assistant shouted over the noise.

  Newton’s mind raced, trying to process what he was seeing. The colors. The speed. The formation.

  “Rangers!”

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