Granger lowered his hand. His eardrums were ringing. His screen was a whiteout.
General Malcolm "Tao" Granger of the US Army’s elite Laser Division was losing.
"To hell with it," he muttered.
He smiled, then, as the screen froze, as the frame rate dropped to zero, as the final, infinite particle beam fired straight up into the heavens out of sheer lack of targets. Granger lowered his hand
Then the lights went out. And the desert was quiet for the first time in a decade.
It wasn't a matter of strategy or troop morale. It was math. On the scorched plains outside of Al-Khobar, his four Avenger mobile anti-air systems were slag. His single Particle Cannon uplink was smoking rubble. And GLA forces—a relentless tide of technicals, RPG troopers, and hijackers—were swarming his last command center.
"Command," Granger said, his voice quiet. "Cancel the fuel air bomb. I'm going to take the city." General Malcolm "Tao" Granger of the US Army’s
That's impossible, Granger thought.
"Protocol 7? That's system purge. That will wipe the entire theater command network. Including us."
He tapped the icon. No cooldown. He tapped it again. And again. And again. Then the lights went out
"Command," he said slowly. "I need you to initiate Protocol 7."
Then the cheat's second effect kicked in. wasn't just about energy. It was about economy . His supply bars ticked upward—$10,000, $100,000, $1,000,000 per second. He could build anything. He could build everything .
Granger looked at his screen—at the impossible swarm of units, the infinite power bar, the glitched economy. He felt a moment of pure, godlike euphoria. Then he felt a cold dread settle into his stomach.
Then he remembered the dusty, unauthorized folder on his battlefield tablet. The one the Pentagon denied existed. The one the younger officers whispered about during late-night sims:
Within three minutes, his army was a nation. Within five, he had encircled the entire GLA-held city with a ring of hovering at maximum altitude, their cannons aimed inward like the fingers of an angry god.
