Mike and Ace’s Forward Position

A makeshift vantage point carved into the junkyard’s rear boundary, hidden behind a wall of crushed car hulks. Crates and twisted metal form a rough barricade, their rusted surfaces illuminated by the cold glow of skimming streetlights bleeding through the smoke of distant fires. The air carries the acrid tang of burnt wiring and ozone, thick with the low hum of Cygnus Alpha’s engines long silenced but never truly stilled. Mike and Ace crouch in the shallow depression, their breath fogging in the chill night, weapons at the ready. The position commands a narrow view of the quarantine zone’s approach, where the silhouette of Group Captain Gilmore’s squad moves in uneasy formation. The ground beneath them is uneven, littered with broken glass and the slick residue of leaked battery acid, each step a risk of betrayal by sound. This isn’t a base—it’s a precarious foothold in contested land, where every shadow could hide a death ray’s trace.