Six transports cut through the Eastern Cardinal sky in different directions, each one carrying a response team toward one of the flagged coordinates, Kelvin's tracking systems still lit red across every screen back at HQ.
Sophie rode with her own unit toward the northernmost site, Sera leading a second team east, Angel's task force splitting into three separate detachments to cover the remaining locations, Lila taking the closest team south toward a stretch of open farmland where the energy reading sat densest.
They landed and held position.
Nothing moved.
An hour passed like that, soldiers crouched behind cover in six different locations across the Cardinal, weapons ready, eyes on empty ground where a portal signature should have been tearing something violent into the world.
Sophie crouched behind a low ridge, watching the horizon through a scope that showed her nothing but grass and wind.
"Anything," she murmured into her comm.
