The vault walls were old steel, streaked with oxidation and reinforced with thick slabs of desert-cut stone. Lamplight traced long shadows across maps, dataslates, and supply manifests scattered over a folding table at the centre of the room.

 

“They found him slumped in the runner,” she said, voice soft. “Or, at least, what remained. No one heard the shot.”

 

“They weren’t meant to.” Jagiełło didn’t look up from the slate he was reviewing. He paused. "The round was designed for targets heavier than him.”

 

“You authorised it.”

 

“I did.”

 

“And the slate?”

 

He finally looked up. His face gave nothing. “He sent it. Too late to stop. Not enough to convict.”

 

Mona didn’t blink. “You gambled.”

 

“I assessed risk.”

 

“You’re better than that,” she added, voice quieter now. “Or you were.”

 

She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. The disappointment in her tone landed with more force than any volume. “The 280th sit in silence,” she continued. “Krystan won’t speak. Laska pretends to smile. Even Czajka is watching doorways like a prisoner.”

 

Jagiełło’s eyes flicked away, just for a breath. “They’ll hold,” he said finally.

 

Mona folded her arms. “For now.”

 

“They’re still functional.”

 

“They’re wounded.”

 

Jagiełło returned the slate to the table with a click. “Good. Wounds are reminders. Pain sharpens loyalty better than ideology.”

 

Mona tilted her head. “If you believe that, you’ve learned nothing from me.”

 

A long pause. Then Jagiełło exhaled — not a sigh, but a release of calculation. “We need the nomads.”

 

She straightened. “So soon?”

 

“They’ve seen the convoys. They’ve heard the engines from below the sand. Better to offer our terms now than answer theirs later.” He stepped toward a long-range vox unit mounted on the wall. As he reached for it, a soft chime rang through the room — his personal channel. He tapped the receiver twice. The line opened. He didn’t speak immediately. Just listened. “Confirmed,” he said at last. “No survivors. Vehicle abandoned?”

 

A pause. His jaw tightened.

 

“Rifle retrieved?”

 

Another pause. His eyes narrowed faintly.

 

“Good. No spent casings, no tracks. Wind will cover the rest.”

 

Mona watched him from the shadows, arms folded now.

 

“Yes. I’ll prepare the contact team. Maintain distance. If they investigate further, let the desert answer them.”

 

Silence.

 

He cut the channel.

 

Mona’s voice returned, dry as paper. “Our ghost?”

 

“She’s dust again.”

 

Jagiełło stepped back from the unit and folded his arms.

 

“I want you with me for the nomad approach,” he said.

 

“I assumed.”

“We don’t offer them unity. We offer them necessity. Their strength, their routes, their silence.”

 

“And if they ask for blood instead?”

 

His voice was calm. “Then we show them we’ve already spilled our own.”

 

-----

 

The Chimeras rumbled across the salt flats like beasts too tired to roar. Dust coiled around their tracks in slow, looping tendrils. The sun sagged low behind us, staining the desert red and bruised gold.

 

I rode up top again, helmet off, wind clawing at my sweat-matted hair. Laska leaned beside the turret ring, arms folded, watching the horizon. Czajka stayed inside. He never liked the openness.

 

We crested a low ridge — more suggestion than feature — and there they were.

 

Jagiełło stepped down first. His coat shifted in the wind like a banner with no nation. Mona followed, her hood raised, hands bare. She moved like she’d been here before — not recently, maybe, but in a way the desert remembered.

 

The nomads didn’t move to meet us.

 

So we went to them.

 

-----

 

The office was silent, save for the steady hum of the ventilation unit and the rhythmic tapping of a stylus against dataslate casing. Lieutenant Kasnyk sat rigid in his chair, monocle flickering softly in the artificial light. Behind him, the ancient globe of Verdanos spun lazily on its stand — forgotten for now. The cogitator projected a split-screen: faded vault schematics on the left, regional patrol logs on the right. Numbers flickered. Routes overlaid. Too clean in some places, too murky in others.

 

He tapped a button on his monocle then spoke. “Compare current patrol logs of the 280th Sunward Watch to historical assignments across sectors eleven through fifteen. Filter by irregular route deviation exceeding twenty percent.”

 

The lens blinked green, then populated data.

 

“Terrain doesn’t collapse in that sector,” he muttered. He leaned forward. “Cross-reference Theta-6 with decommissioned asset manifests. List all power draws above thirty kilowatts per day in the last cycle. Exclude official requisitioned materials.”

 

The lens pulsed. The cogitator on his desk to which it synchronised lagged, like it didn’t want to answer.

 

Kasnyk’s brow furrowed. He stood and began pacing — short steps, hands clasped behind his back. “Compare Theta-6 schematics to post-war archival plans. Note differences in facility placement, supply lines, and reported inventories. Begin delta log.”

 

The monocle obeyed and began to stream data in front of his left eye.

 

Results crawled across the screen: storage realignments. Additional unlogged sublevels. An underground tramway noted in the original designs — now removed from all modern schematics. No mention of where it led.

 

He stopped. Stared at the floor.

 

Then, quietly: “Request speculative classification of site. Based on power draw, architectural capacity, and crew proximity.”

 

Three probabilities returned:

- Munitions cache.

- Vehicle hangar.

- Light manufactory. 

 

Kasnyk returned to his cogitator and tapped the screen once. Then again. The cursor didn’t move. “Not sealed,” he whispered. “Not idle.”

 

He sat at his desk, summoned a new overlay — a rough triangle forming from the irregular patrols. Within it: nothing. Or so the maps claimed.

The cogitator pinged softly. A message icon pulsed orange in the corner of the screen. Encrypted. Internal channel. Kasnyk didn’t even open it. He tapped the dismiss rune without breaking stride. But power was being drawn. Air filtered. Coolant spent.

 

Something was there.

 

Something they didn’t want him to see.