Chapter 9: Doubt and Silence
Inside the dim bunker, the screen had gone dark. No response. No signal echo. Just dead static.
Akash paced in frantic circles, voice rising with every step.
"Oh shit. Oh man—no signal? No damn signal? You're telling me everything we did—everything Rana died for—it just... it just vanished?!"
He grabbed his head and stared at the blank monitor. "We risked our lives, and it didn't even go through? No message? No reinforcements? No rescue?"
His voice cracked.
"We're just... stranded losers on a dead island waiting to get bombed next!"
Siddharth sat on the edge of a broken console, silent. Eyes locked on the floor.
Shiva stood by the control panel, fingers frozen mid-type. His lips parted slightly, but no words came.
The room felt colder.
Heavier.
For the first time since the explosion… the three had nothing to say.
They weren't soldiers. They weren't trained for this.
They were teachers—with just their minds, their instincts, and each other.
And now... they were truly alone.
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Chapter 10 : A Spark in the Dark
Shiva shook his head slowly.
"It's not just signal interference. The whole transmission line's fried. If I rebuild the routing... maybe. But it'd take weeks. We don't have weeks."
Akash slumped to the floor, breathing hard. "So that's it. Game over."
Siddharth stared at the screen, quiet. Then something blinked—faint, in the corner.
He leaned closer.
> SYSTEM STATUS:
PRIMARY DEFENSE UNIT — OFFLINE
AMMUNITION: LOW
MISSILE CONTROL: DAMAGED / UNRESPONSIVE
STATUS: CRITICAL
Siddharth's eyes sharpened. The words echoed in his head.
> "Defense systems... deactivated…"
Rana's last breath.
A message, hidden in the pain.
He turned to the others.
"We still have something. This island—this base—it has a defense system. Missiles. Cannons. Anti-ship payloads. It's not gone. Just... shut down."
Shiva turned. "You sure?"
Sid nodded slowly. "Yes. The message just confirmed it. If we can repair the system... if we can reboot that line of defense... we might not need reinforcements. We could stop the destroyer ourselves."
Akash sat up, blinking. "Wait—you mean us? Like, we're going to fix an actual military-grade weapons system?"
Siddharth didn't smile. "We don't have a choice."
Shiva looked at the broken console, then the remains of the bunker's workshop.
"We're not weapons engineers, Sid. This system's older tech, but still... it's advanced. We screw up one calibration—boom."
Siddharth turned to them both. His voice steady. Determined.
"Then we don't screw up."
He walked over to a flickering blueprint monitor and tapped it.
"This… is our classroom now. But one mistake—and everything goes boom. So be careful."