Marion Ferrima and Captain Dan lead their squad toward Sigma-2, preparing to activate an ancient portal—if they can get through the Howlers who guard it and the gods who claim it.
Creeping through suffocating jungle toward the alien artifact Amanda believes is a dormant portal. Radios dark. IR cutting a ghost-path through the undergrowth. Every step measured. Every sound suspect. Above them, the Howlers watch from the canopy—predators guarding sacred ground. The mission was supposed to be clean: slip through the boundary, reach the platform, light the door.
Instead, the jungle explodes and Marion's insistent thought, We are all going to die here, seems more and more like a premonition.
