Scene
“This is where we start.”
The hideout was nothing more than a gutted storage chamber buried beneath layers of rusted plating and concrete. Dust clung to every surface, and water dripped steadily from a cracked pipe in the ceiling. Once, it had been a freight junction—now, it was theirs.
Lyra pulled a ragged tarp from the corner, revealing a terminal half-buried under debris. Its screen flickered faintly, a ghost of old circuitry. She pressed her hand to the console, and for a moment nothing happened. Then, with a spark and a groan, it came alive.
“This is where we start,” she said.
Kera crouched beside her, already stripping wires, splicing new connections with practiced ease. Renna kept watch near the tunnel entrance, rifle balanced against her shoulder, while the others sorted through weapons and gear with quiet efficiency.
It wasn’t an army. It wasn’t even a unit. But it was something.
Lyra looked at them—not their scars, not their exhaustion, but the fire that still lingered in their eyes.
“So, what’s first?” Kera asked, a wire clenched in her teeth.
Lyra leaned forward. Her voice was quiet, but it carried like steel: “Maps. Names. Every hidden cell that still breathes. We’re not rebuilding. We’re reconnecting.”
The terminal hummed louder, its lines of static sharpening into faint fragments of encrypted coordinates—like embers reigniting in ash.
And in that moment, the rebellion began to breathe again.