CHAPTER 502: DEFENSE OF THE HIVE CITY.

"What the heck!?" Jax shrieked, grabbing fistfuls of his own hair, his eyes shaking wildly. "We’re getting invaded for real!? Weren’t we supposed to be part of a super powerful megacorporation!? Where the hell is Nexum Dynamic now!?"

His panic was a mirror of the terror clawing up Vance’s throat. But as Vance stared at the sky, now dominated by the graceful, terrible shapes of the Kaelzar warships, a cold, sickening realization settled in his gut. This wasn’t just an invasion. It was a reckoning. And their corporate overlords had clearly already written them off as a loss.

The Kaelzar’s ultimatum hung in the air like a digital sword of Damocles over the entire hive city. In the pressurized silence that followed, the planet’s provisional government, cut off from their Planetary Champion by relentless jamming and led by a governor whose fanaticism for Nexum Dynamics bordered on religious zeal, made their choice. The order crackled through every emergency channel... Fight.

Defensive combat protocols were activated. Across the spires and the under-streets, harsh klaxons wailed a new, more urgent song. Automated announcements echoed, cold and impersonal, declaring the immediate conscription of every able-bodied man and woman. The hive city was transforming into a fortress, and its people were being drafted as its living, breathing mortar.

"Jax! This one’s sealed too! It’s closed!" Vance shouted, his voice raw with fury as he slammed his shoulder against the massive, reinforced door of the seventh shelter they had tried.

The dull, final thud was an answer in itself. Like all the others, the status panel glowed a relentless, unforgiving red text... [CAPACITY REACHED]. Behind that door was safety, oxygen, and a future. In front of it was only the coming storm.

Jax didn’t even try the next one. He simply slid down the cold metal of the sealed door, his body slumping onto the grimy floor. The fight had drained out of him, leaving behind the hollow shell of despair.

"It’s no use, Vance," he mumbled, staring at his grime-caked boots. "The slums... they only built this many. They never expected everyone to need them at once. There’s no other option now. We join the militia, or some jumpy officer sees two fighting-age guys like us skulking around and shoots us dead on the spot for desertion."

"DAMN IT!" Vance shouted from the deepest of his soul, the word tearing from his throat. He spun and drove his fist into the unyielding door, the impact a dull, painful protest against the hopelessness closing in.

He sucked in a sharp breath, the metallic tang of fear and pollution filling his lungs. Jax was right. Survival now meant putting on the very uniform that was forcing them into a meat grinder.

"Alright," Vance said, his voice dropping to a low, determined growl. "You’re right. Let’s go. Let me do the talking. You just stand there and look like a loyal, eager patriot, you understand? Nod at everything I say."

Jax managed a weak, grim nod, pushing himself to his feet. Together, they moved toward the slums’ designated militia recruitment point, a hastily converted processing plant now swarming with terrified citizens being handed cheap, mass-produced laser rifles.

The moment they arrived at the line, a blur of motion and an armored fist connected with Vance’s jaw. The world exploded in a burst of white light. His natural racial resilience and the minimal, rusting exoskeleton frame he wore for his old job absorbed the worst of it, but he still crashed to the ground as his head rang.

A man clad in the sleek, polished lines of light power armor stepped forward. The medal on his chest marked him as an officer from the Middle Levels, a man who breathed filtered air and looked upon the slum-dwellers as less than bugs. He loomed over Vance, his face a mask of contempt as he drew his laser pistol, the barrel humming to life as it aimed squarely between Vance’s eyes.

"Why are you only arriving now?" The officer sneered, his voice filtered and distorted by his helmet’s vocoder. "Thought you could hide in the shelters with the women and children? We shoot cowards."

"Ugh..." Vance swallowed a mouthful of copper-tasting blood, pushing himself up onto his elbows. He met the officer’s gaze, his own eyes not flashing with anger but shining with a perfectly crafted, desperate sincerity. The slums had taught him that the best lies were woven with threads of truth; you didn’t just tell them, you lived them at that moment.

"Not at all, sir," Vance said, his voice steady despite the throbbing in his face. "On the contrary. We just got my little niece to safety. Had to carry her through the chaos after the first explosions. Got her into a shelter just before they sealed the doors."

He gestured vaguely back the way they came, his expression a masterpiece of weary, paternal concern. "The moment she was safe, we came straight here. To fight. To protect her. That’s the truth, officer."

He held the man’s glare, his story a shield as vital as any armor. It was a lie, yes, but in the grim economy of the undercity, it was the only currency they had left to buy themselves a few more hours of life.

The officer’s gaze swept over them, lingering for a moment too long. He didn’t believe them, not even one bit. But the truth was, it didn’t matter. They were militia. Cannon fodder. Their purpose was to absorb the first, most violent shock of the invasion, to die buying seconds for the proper, Tier-2 soldiers in their power armor.

"Very well," he said, his voice dripping with disinterest. "Join the line. Get ready for the battle." He turned on his heel, his polished guards falling in step behind him, a moving wall of superior technology and contempt.

The moment he was gone, the tension snapped, and Vance and Jax exhaled in unison, their shoulders slumping. "Are you okay?" Jax asked, his eyes fixed on the trickle of blood from Vance’s split lip.

"Yeah, I’m fine,

" Vance muttered while wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "At least we get to live for another hour or so. Don’t need to thank me." He let out a dry, acidic chuckle that held no humor whatsoever.

They shuffled into the line, receiving their "gear," a single, cheaply manufactured laser rifle that felt unnaturally light, and a handful of spare power cells. No armor. No helmet. No medkit. Just a tool and the ammunition to die with it in their hands.

Then the hour passed.

The night sky, usually a dull orange from the hive’s light pollution, was torn asunder. Two Kaelzar light destroyers descended through the smog, their hulls gleaming like vengeful angels in white and gold.

They were terrifyingly beautiful and utterly merciless. Without a single warning, their turrets swiveled, and a storm of fire erupted like a brutal symphony of searing laser beams and high-velocity kinetic rounds that hammered into the city’s defensive barrier.

Each impact sent violent, spider-webbing ripples across the energy shield, the light show illuminating the terrified faces of the militia below. The barrier held, but it was a death rattle, flickering and dimming with every punishing blow.

"Damn..." Vance whispered, his voice lost even to his own ears. The noise was a physical entity, a constant, deafening roar that vibrated in their teeth and bones. He clutched the useless rifle to his chest like a talisman. "Is this how the end of the world looks?"

"WHAT!?" Jax screamed, his face a mask of panic as he cupped a hand behind his ear.

"I SAID IT IS SOME DAMN LOUD!" Vance shouted back directly into Jax’s ear, his vocal cords straining, but the words were swallowed whole by the apocalyptic cacophony.

"WHAT?!" Jax shouted again, his voice cracking with strain and fear.

Vance just shook his head, giving up. "NEVERMIND!"

And in that moment of futile, shouted silence, the end came. With a sound like a mountain breaking, the defensive barrier shattered. It didn’t just fade; it exploded inward in a catastrophic shower of dying light and failing energy.

But the glorious last-stand battle the government’s propaganda had promised never materialized.

Instead of enemy troops charging through the breach, the Kaelzar destroyers simply continued their methodical, unhurried bombardment. The rain of fire and metal didn’t stop; it simply found new, softer targets. The sky fell, not with warriors, but with pure, unadulterated annihilation. Buildings were vaporized. Streets became molten rivers. The world dissolved into fire and noise.

Vance could only stare, his jaw slack, as a beam of pure energy carved a canyon through the hive city a kilometer away, the resulting explosion lifting people and debris into the air like confetti.

This wasn’t a war. It was pest control. And he, with his cheap rifle and his bloody lip, was one of the insects. The memory of that systematic, impersonal destruction would be seared into his mind forever, the first and last lesson of a war that was over before it even began.

The intent of the attack was now hideously clear to every soul still alive to witness it. This wasn’t a war for conquest, for territory, or for subjugation. This was annihilation. A surgical, merciless scouring.

The invaders high above in their pristine ships didn’t care about infrastructure, resources, or a surviving population. They showed no interest in landing troops to seize control. All they coveted was the world itself, a planet they were now sanitizing of its current inhabitants. The people were not the prize; they were the stain to be erased.