45 Days Since First Strike — Recon Flight Over Iriga Region
The tiltrotor's engines hummed in steady rhythm, blades slicing through dense, humid air. Clouds drifted over the volcanic ridges of southern Luzon as the aircraft banked southwest. Inside, Thomas sat strapped in beside Phillip and two new recon specialists—Callahan, a quiet sniper with three confirmed kills on Bloomspawn, and Cruz, a sensor tech recruited from the Redsand enclave.
Everyone's eyes were glued to the main display screen mounted to the cabin wall.
"We're five minutes out from the Iriga dead zone," the pilot reported over comms. "No civilian chatter. No birdsong. No power sources pinged. We're flying into a black box."
Thomas leaned forward, glancing at the screen. The map showed a blot of blankness. No EM signals. No heat signatures. Just an unsettling lack of data.
"Keep us steady at 500 feet. Minimize our signature," he ordered.
