Page 134 of Alien War Daddy's Got Rizz
With fires lit in the name of purpose.
And with no fear left to hold us back.
The explosion doesn’t soundlike fire or thunder. It sounds likeerror—a thread pulled too hard, a system spiking out of its normal range. A whisper in the night that turns into a scream.
I’m standing in the lobby of the new Eastern Research Annex when it happens, coffee still warm in my hand and a smile already forming—because this place feels likepurposenow, not a tomb we’re patching over with speeches and forced optimism. The walls here are glass and open space, the ceilings high enough to swallow sound. I thought we’d left moments like this behind: the ones that made me flinch before I even knew what fear was.
But there it is:
A thump,low and wrong.
The lights flicker.
Then a roar you feel under your ribs.
People drop to the floor like actors in a rehearsal they didn’t rehearse for.
I don’t think. Imove.
Grau is beside me before the second wave of panic finishes loading in my veins.
“Secure the perimeter,” he orders, voice a low blade in the chaos. He doesn’t need to raise it for men to obey. They justdo—because he has that effect. Calm like a rock under lightning, and people lean into it.
I scan the crowd—frantic faces, glass shards raining like silver confetti, alarms screaming—but my mind goes straight to the sensors we installed, the protocols wetaughtevery team here.
“Where?” I shout over the cacophony.
He points.
“South wing. Satellite integration lab.”
I taste cold metal at the back of my throat. The satellites aren’t just research—they’re part of the combine’s new ethical communications mesh; a system designed to prevent data manipulation, to raise transparency standards across sectors. It’s symbolic.Vital.And someone just tried to tear it down.
“That was no accident,” I tell him, voice steady though my gut snarls.
“No,” he agrees. “It was a message.”
From who?My mind spits at me.
Remnants of Tidball’s network.
Our analysts whispered it before—loose ends. Displaced hit squads. Rogue financiers. Dogs that don’t know how to die quietly.
And this one? It just barked with fireworks.
I step toward the debris-strewn corridor. Graffiti spelled “You can’t rebuild truth with swords” on the charred wall made of mortar and information cables.
“You speak too much,” Grau says, reaching out to brace my elbow.
“Not when it’s accurate,” I snap—then swallow the edge of my tone. We don’t need spikes of anger here. We need clarity.
“I didn’t invite you to hold me back,” I murmur, more to myself than to him.
He doesn’t flinch. He just watches me—those Reaper eyes that once marked the world as threat or promise with equal precision.
“You invited me because youtrustme,” he says.
And that’s when it lands:
