A breacher unit crosses a glass-covered desert on Khepri-9 to deliver a fission device into a buried lattice core. The system answers by turning the planet’s surface into glass and striking targets with invisible lances from below.

The first detonation triggers something far larger, forcing the team to move through storms that cut through armor and reshape the terrain under their feet. Comms break down, vehicles fail, and time collapses as orbit begins to lose control and evacuation windows shrink. What started as a controlled strike becomes a second, deeper descent...

This is "The Glass Lattice" by Sascha Schmidt