Operation: Hollow Realm Chapter Excerpt

They were gaining too fast. The team had no choice but to fight back. Rifles barked in staccato bursts, muzzle flashes briefly illuminating the rain-soaked gloom. The acrid stench of gunpowder mingled with the wet earth, stinging their nostrils as they fired to slow the tide.

“Eddie!” Adder barked over the comms, his voice a whip-crack of authority. “You, Dave, and Raul are overwatch. The rest of us are bounding. Don’t bunch up!” “Roger that!” came the reply.

Into The Fire

“Moving!” Adder yelled. Adder, Anders, Mikey, and Roy sprinted back from the Mantodeans, dropped into cover, turned, and opened fire on their pursuers. As they suppressed the enemy, Eddie, Dave, and Raul dashed past them, setting up a new line further back. Once positioned, they engaged, covering Adder’s group to leapfrog past again. The teams alternated, steadily retreating from the Mantodean forces.

The team fanned out, their formation stretching into a jagged line as they wove through the forest. Anders veered to the far flank, his boots sinking into the spongy soil as he vaulted over a fallen succulent, its surface slick and yielding beneath him. The air was thick with the cloying scent of sap and the sharp bite of ozone. He paused, turning to scan the shadows behind him—nothing but rain and swaying fronds. He pressed forward, covering more ground, then spun again—and froze.