Lucas's coffee was cold.
He'd forgotten about it again, the third time this morning, and he picked it up and drank it anyway because it was still coffee and he wasn't going to waste it. The regional threat map on the war room wall had three flags on it. Two were simple, beast incursions, matching teams already deployed, done. The third was the northern sector mining installation with the energy readings that didn't match anything and he'd given it forty eight hours because that was what he had to give it right now.
'If it moves before then we deal with it,' he thought. 'If it doesn't, proper team, proper equipment, find out what it is.'
He looked at the map for another minute. The Eastern Cardinal was quieter than it had been in years. Not quiet, the city didn't do quiet, but the specific frequency of threat activity that had been running hot since Kruel's attack had dropped back to something manageable. Something that looked like normal work instead of permanent crisis.
