Before the first gray light of dawn could bleed into the sky, Jax had already kicked everyone awake.

Groggily rubbing the sleep from their eyes, the team stumbled out of the Bastion, shivering in the morning chill. Jax stood by the cold remnants of the campfire, his breath misting in the air.

“Wake up,” Jax said, his voice sharp. “Starting today, the vacation is over. We have work to do.”

The groans were minimal. In the wasteland, work meant survival. If the Boss said jump, you didn’t ask how high; you asked where the landing zone was.

“Listen up,” Jax continued, pacing before them. “You’ve seen the signs. The Black Rain is coming. And right on its heels will be the Insect Swarm.”

He gestured to the narrow canyon mouth. “Sector 33 is a natural choke point, but that cuts both ways. We’re sitting in the stopper of a bottle. If we want to hold this ground against a tide of chitin and teeth, we’re going to have to bleed for it.”

The group fell silent, absorbing the gravity of his words. Barnaby stared intently at Jax, blinking his large, innocent eyes. He didn’t understand the tactical nuances, but he knew one thing: Jax was the big brother, and Barnaby was a good boy. Good boys listened.

“Remember yesterday?” Jax asked. “When I disappeared for hours?”

Nods all around. Barnaby had come back alone, sobbing about “bad men” taking his brother. The team had spent a nervous night wondering if their leader was dead in a ditch somewhere.

“I ran into something,” Jax said grimly. “A monster. A Tier 3, minimum.”

He gave them the short version of the encounter with the Broodmother. As he described the creature’s armor, its acid spit, and its sheer size, the color drained from their faces. A collective chill ran down their spines.

To survive an encounter with a monster like that… Jax wasn’t just strong. He was a freak of nature.

“If that thing shows up here,” Kaleb whispered, his voice trembling, “can we even stop it?”

“We have to,” Jax said. “That’s why we’re prepping. I’ve noticed a pattern with these insectoids. They’re instinct-driven. They take the path of least resistance—the main roads. They don’t flank over the cliffs unless they’re engaged.”

He turned and pointed to the dirt, where he had scratched out a crude diagram during his sleepless night.

“This is us,” Jax said, pointing to the center. “And this is the kill box.”

The drawing showed the valley exit bisected by a series of jagged lines.

“If we just sit behind our walls, they’ll swarm the platform and overwhelm us,” Jax explained. “The Sentry Tower and the Howitzer are powerful, but they have fire rate limits. We need to buy them time.”

“Time?” Gareth frowned, squinting at the drawing.

“Exactly.” Jax pointed to the horizontal lines he’d etched across the path. “We build walls. Not to stop them, but to steer them. We turn the straight road into a maze.”

“A maze…” Silas murmured, realization dawning on him.

“The Sentry Tower has a fifty-meter range,” Jax said, drawing a circle around the black dot representing the tower. “If they run straight at us, they’re in that circle for maybe ten seconds. But if we force them to zigzag back and forth through these walls? They stay in the kill zone for thirty seconds. Maybe a minute.”

He tapped the Howitzer Turret’s symbol. “This big boy covers two hundred meters. It handles the crowds further out. But once they get close, the maze forces them to bunch up, making them easy targets for the Sentry Tower.”

“Brilliant,” Silas muttered. “It’s a meat grinder.”

“Wait,” Kaleb interjected, pointing at a gap in the diagram. “What about here? The pathing at the front… there are blind spots. The tower can’t hit targets hugging the inner walls.”

Jax grinned. “Sharp eyes. That’s where the Torches come in.”

“Torches?”

“Insectoids hate fire,” Jax said. “If they try to hide in the dead zones, we throw Torches down. The fire acts as a soft wall, forcing them back into the open—right into the tower’s line of sight.”

Kaleb stared at him for a moment, then gave a thumbs-up. “Damn, Boss. You’re vicious. I love it.”

“It’s just a theory until we build it,” Jax said, clapping his hands. “So let’s get moving. We need to finish the foundation today.”

The team nodded, energized by the plan. But as they prepared to work, a problem arose.

“We’re short on gear,” Jax noted. “Two pickaxes isn’t going to cut it.”

He turned to Silas, tossing him a pouch of Cores. “Take these. Run to Outpost 15. Buy shovels, wheelbarrows, hoes—anything that moves dirt. Don’t linger. Buy and fly.”

“On it, Boss.” Silas caught the pouch and jogged toward the valley exit.

The sun climbed high into the sky, baking the canyon floor. Jax led the team in clearing rocks and marking the foundation lines, sweat soaking through their shirts.

By noon, a figure appeared at the valley mouth.

Silas was back, pushing a cart loaded with tools. But as he got closer, Jax noticed something wrong. Silas’s face was pale, his expression tight with anxiety.

“What happened?” Jax asked, wiping sweat from his brow. “Trouble at the market?”

Silas didn’t say a word. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, handing it to Jax with a shaking hand.

“I saw this posted everywhere in Outpost 15,” Silas whispered.

Jax unfolded the paper. It was a crude, hand-drawn portrait, but the likeness was unmistakable.

[WANTED] Name: Jax Dead or Alive

Jax frowned, his eyes scanning the bounty details. The Helios Syndicate hadn’t wasted any time.