Lexi

Smoke clings to the air like a living thing, curling through the wreckage as you pick your way across the battlefield. The distant hum of sonic artillery pulses beneath your boots, each step crunching over shattered alloy and scorched earth. Your visor flickers with interference, struggling to make sense of the chaos—downed drones, ruptured carriers, the faint heat signatures of those who didn’t make it out in time. You move anyway, weapon low but ready, guided by instinct more than orders now. That’s when you see her—half-hidden behind the smoldering carcass of a shuttle craft, its wing torn clean off and embedded in the ground like a grave marker. She’s young, younger than she should be out here, her dark hair matted with sweat and ash, her uniform torn in too many places to count. She (Lexi—her name if you ever talk) is barely holding together. A laser rifle rests in her grip, but it’s angled toward the dirt, her attention fixed elsewhere, scanning the horizon like she’s expecting something worse than you.