The Sacrificial Lambs
The Ions had a problem—four of them, to be exact.
Four individuals who possessed knowledge they were never meant to uncover. They were former contractors, mid-level operatives, and one technician who had handled encrypted Sra communications that revealed far too much. None of them were influential enough to attract public notice, but each one had drifted dangerously close to exposing classified cooperation between Sra and TRON.
Normally, Sra would eliminate such liabilities quietly—poison, a staged car crash, a mugging that went unsolved. But the four had learned to protect one another. They rarely traveled alone, and when they did move, they used crowded commuter buses or public transit, always surrounded by innocent bystanders. It was a shield—simple, primitive, but effective.
Sra waited. And waited.
But the Ions grew increasingly anxious. The longer these four lived, the greater the chance they would leak something catastrophic. The frustration built until patience finally snapped.
A decision was made behind sealed doors.
All four agents had booked seats on the same passenger flight crossing the Ina Ocean, traveling from Japa to the Erica mainland. It was supposed to be the safest possible travel: broad daylight, a crowded flight, a 30-year-old airliner with a somewhat spotty history… and more than 110 other innocent people aboard.
They believed the sheer number of civilians would offer protection.
They believed wrong.
Sra agents infiltrated the flight monitoring system. The Ions’ naval satellite array in the Ina Ocean was repositioned. A covert combat drone—painted sky blue to be nearly invisible at altitude—rose from an unregistered airstrip hundreds of miles away.
At precisely 2:17 PM Erica Standard Time, the drone locked onto the passenger jet’s transponder.
A single missile.
A single digital kill command.
No survivors.
The aircraft disintegrated forty miles above the ocean’s darkest trench. Within minutes, Sra-controlled media outlets released “preliminary reports” citing mechanical failure. They highlighted the aircraft’s long-known maintenance issues, including a micro-fracture series that had once grounded the entire fleet.
Within hours, the narrative was airtight.
“A tragic mechanical malfunction.”
“An aging plane.”
“A devastating but predictable incident.”
The four targets were never mentioned by name.
The world mourned but accepted the explanation. The airline apologized. Government officials held somber press conferences. The victims’ families grieved. And the incident faded into the ever-moving stream of news.
Only years later—long after Sra’s plan had advanced—did independent investigators begin asking questions. Satellite hobbyists, retired pilots, and Erica podcasters noticed discrepancies in flight data. The black box transcript felt incomplete. Debris patterns looked wrong. And the plane’s final moments, reconstructed from radar, showed an impossible deviation.
Ames listened to every podcast. He watched every independent documentary. He read every leaked report. He already knew the truth—but having others begin to catch on confirmed one thing:
Sra was no longer worried about hiding their actions.
They were accelerating.
And then came the next wave.
