The hum was the first thing and the last thing, a low, constant thrum from the server racks that vibrated deep in your teeth. It was the sound of the world being held at bay. Leo stared at the tactical monitor, at the faint ghost of his own reflection superimposed over the empty map of the Negev. He looked pale and translucent, a digital phantom haunting a billion dollar missile defense machine.
Across the narrow aisle, Maya stared at her phone, her thumb tracing the screen’s edge. She was looking at a photo of a coastline, a place with salt in the air and sand that wasn’t the color of rust. "Ever wish we were in in a submarine?" she asked the room at large. Nobody bothered to reply.
The first alert was a single, needle-sharp tone that pierced the monotonous hum. A half-second later, the entire console screamed. The main screen, moments before a placid blue, was now cancerous with a swarm of red icons erupting from Iranian airspace.
The phone slipped from Maya's hand. "Oh, no," she whispered. The word "no" was small and useless.
The squad commander Gunner leaned forward, his voice a low, steady anchor in the sudden storm of alarms. "Talk to me, Leo. What are the radars telling you?"
For a full second, Leo's mind went white with the sheer number of them. They weren't icons; they were grim destinies, arcing across the sky. His training struggled to kick in, but it felt distant, a memory of a game he once played. His hands hovered over the keyboard, trembling.
"Leo," Gunner repeated, his voice cutting, insistent.
Leo blinked, forcing the white noise back. His fingers dropped to the keys. "Multiple ballistics," he said, the words tasting like ash. "Full saturation launch. They're not holding anything back." He ran the impact telemetry, and his stomach hollowed out. He saw the name of a city and his mind supplied a fleeting image he’d once seen on a news feed: a crowded market, vendors shouting, the smell of spices. "Impact solutions are high-density. Tel Aviv. Beersheba."
"Right," Gunner said. "This is the real deal. Maya, secure the link. Leo, discrimination protocol. Now. Give me clean, viable targets on an impact trajectory for population centers. Nothing else."
Leo’s world narrowed to the stream of data. He had to decide which digital ghost was a real missile and which was a phantom. His trembling fingers steadied, the fear crystallizing into cold, sharp focus.
He flagged a track with a fluctuating thermal signature. Chaff. He purged it.
Another with an inconsistent velocity. Decoy. Purged.
"First wave impact, three minutes," Maya said, her voice a wire.
He finished flagging the non-viable tracks and designated the firing priorities. "Threat solutions paired," he announced, his voice a stranger's. "Ready to engage on your mark, Gunner."
Gunner nodded. "Engage."
Leo executed the command. He didn't see the launches; he felt them as a profound, percussive shudder that ran through the floor into his bones, rattling the entire station. A vibration without a sound. On the screen, silent blue icons ascended to meet the red.
There were no fireballs, no cinematic explosions. A blue icon merged with a red one, and the red icon was simply scrubbed from the screen. A sanitized deletion. Another. Then another.
The only evidence of the battle for a nation’s survival was the silent, orderly removal of pixels.
A single missile got through the primary volley.
"Leaker," Leo said, his voice flat. He cued the reserve interceptor, watching the final, silent pairing. The last red icon vanished.
The tactical display was blank, pristine, an empty map under his own ghostly reflection.
"Status," Gunner commanded.
"No impacts," Maya confirmed, her voice catching. "All targets neutralized."
The hum of the servers rushed back in to fill the silence. The lingering vibration from the launch faded from the floor, leaving only a faint tremor deep inside Leo. He lowered his gaze from the screen to his hands. A moment ago they had been shaking. Now, they were perfectly, unnaturally still.
A soft, low-priority chime broke the quiet. On the bottom right of his screen, a comms window he’d never seen open before blinked to life. It was a raw feed from the Israeli Home Front Command. Unfiltered text scrolled rapidly up the screen.
ALL CLEAR GIVEN - TEL AVIV DISTRICT
DAMAGE ASSESSMENT BRSBA ZERO
HERTZLIYA ALL CLEAR
nice work patriot crew
todah rabah haverim
ALL STATIONS RESUME NORMAL OPS
Leo watched the messy, human chaos of gratitude and relief scroll past. It was the consequence of his clean, silent work.
He lifted one of his steady hands, reached forward, and closed the window.
Curious how much is AI? Read the prompts here.