At dawn, Dustville glowed with the gentle radiance of a town too small to warrant a proper sunrise. The miners' quarter—always the first to stir—exhaled its daily fog of iron oxide and steam, the clouds curling up the spine of the valley before flattening into anonymity at the edge of the pit. There was nothing exotic about Dustville, unless you counted the way its generator hum synchronized with the pulse in your jaw, or the way its houses seemed built more from necessity than from any love of right angles. Children traced their way through the dust, clutching the day's rations of water and synth-protein. The elders tended the town's only patch of green, a square of genetically recalcitrant moss that refused to die, no matter how hard the sun or the wind or the mining blight pressed in.
They heard the Krokonians before they saw them.
A sound like a planet's engine turning over—deep, resonant, a bass so dense it bent every window inward and made the fine glass in the mayor's house shudder to the point of fracture. Dustville's mayor, Junior Cassion, a thin man whose lungs had been half-replaced after the last mine collapse, looked up, not because he expected a storm, but because he'd heard stories: the Kroks always started with noise. He went over to the desk and pressed the red button on the inter office comms module on his desk. "Shandata, cancel my 2:30 meeting and call Justavo and tell him to get his press corps in here asap!"
"Yes sir. What should I tell him the reason is? Shandata, the mayors top aide replied. "Tell him", Mayor Cassion paused, "Tell him to look up."
The Evening news bulletins always went out at 5pm, but today, at 4:15 an ADA Alarm made the town stand still.
"Attention all citizens of Dustville, this is Mayor Cassion," the message echoed thru the now awkwardly quiet town. "I come to you today to address the growing concern for the appearance of Krokonian battle ships entering our atmosphere. Rest assured that the Krokonians have no reason to come to our humble, remote town. Their business is with the Daranthan Temple and The Order."
Even as he said the words, he wondered if he truly believed them.
"There is no need to panic, please resume your regular daily activities. Thank you for your attention."
The first dropship punched through the cloud cover less than an hour later, crisp as a scalpel, the angle of descent so deliberate it almost looked rehearsed. It wasn't sleek—Krokonian design never bothered with aesthetics—but its shape had the authority of a tool designed to do exactly one thing. As it cut the sky, the dust in the valley began to vibrate, the surface of every open container rippling with the infrasonic whine of the ship's engines. Then the ship arrested its fall, stopped dead at two hundred meters, and hung there, casting a wedge of shadow across the town center.
For a second, everything in Dustville held still, as if the whole town had been paused.
The dropship's ventral doors unlatched and a machine the size of a tramcar spooled out, trailing composite cable. Its carapace was all angles, covered in a kinetic matte so black it drank the light from the air. As it neared the ground, it unfolded—first a pair of stub arms, then legs that telescoped out and stabbed into the packed earth. When the cable released, the mech landed without drama, rising to full height in the middle of Main Street, mere meters from the post office and the town's only real bar.
It paused, processing. Then it swept its gaze left and right, cycling a fan of red across its array, and began to move.
The civilians ran—not immediately, but in the way that happens when the fear finally catches up to the noise. A cluster of children trampled the moss patch, their shouts absorbed by the crush of air as the second and third dropships streaked in. The mayor's assistants tried to usher people into the shelter, but the shelter was a repurposed ore locker with a single pressure door and room for fifty, at best. Within minutes, the queue had devolved into a mass panic, with hands and feet and broken voices clawing for entry.
The Krokonian soldiers dropped next, deploying in pods that flowered open just above ground level. They came out running, rifles at low ready, armor in plates of gunmetal and storm gray. Their helmets were featureless except for the hard blue line that ran from chin to crown, pulsing in sync with some private comms channel.
"Alpha team, take your mechs and secure the left flank. Bravo team, take the right. Charlie, Delta, secure the Post Office for the scout center. Everyone else, with me. We set up HQ in Town Hall." The Krok Commander ordered the troops. "Kill all who fight, teach a lesson to those who resist"
The Krok soldiers laughed and took their assignments. They moved in teams of six, every squad peeling off and securing intersections with the clean, casual efficiency of a group that had drilled this operation a thousand times in sim. Where they encountered resistance, it was met with minimum force: a warning pulse of the rifle—just enough to drop a target at the knees, but rarely more. If a civilian was particularly stubborn, the soldiers tagged them with a gel stunner and dragged them out of the way with one motion, never breaking stride.
The defenders, such as they were, had little to offer. Dustville's security was a half-dozen ex-military with old, mismatched weapons and little faith in their ability to repel anything more serious than a drunken fight. The security chief, a woman named Sero, lasted exactly three minutes before she was pinned to the ground by a magnetic net and immobilized. Her team fared worse—two men caught in the opening barrage, the rest scattered, none willing to risk a clean shot against an enemy who could return fire with surgical precision.
The mechs took point at the town's major intersections, each one unspooling a lattice of ceramic barriers from its abdomen. These were not walls so much as temporary outlines—thin, flexing, and impossible to see unless you caught the angle just right. But if you tried to cross, the lattice would sense the breach and hit you with a directional force field that was more insult than injury, knocking the wind out of you and tossing you back like a child's toy.
Within the first hour, the Krokonian force had established a perimeter. They shut down the generator first—precision dart to the control panel, a puff of ozone as the failsafe tripped and the lights died. Next, they swept through the comms hub, disabling it with a surgical overload that left the hardware intact but blanked every drive inside. They did not bother with the mining facilities. Those, clearly, were to be left intact.
The civilians, in their improvised shelter, waited for an explosion that never came.
Above, the dropships remained, shifting position only when their shadow fell too long in one direction. From time to time, a smaller vessel would detach, skimming the outskirts of town and releasing a fan of drones to map the perimeter. The drones were a Krokonian signature: finger-length, patterned in camouflage, each equipped with a single needle of blue light that scanned faces and fed the images back to the mothership. If you stayed still, the drones ignored you. If you ran, they followed, marking your position for the ground teams.
Dustville's mayor, cut off from his comms and unable to muster a quorum, attempted a negotiation. He walked into the street, hands raised, suit unbuttoned to show he was unarmed.
"My name is Junior Cassion, mayor of the town of Dustville. I welcome you to our humble town. Is there anything we can do to assist?" The mayor shouted while looking around at the soldiers, trying to identify the leader.
A Krokonian squad approached and intercepted him at the edge of the old pharmacy, held him in place while a helmeted officer approached.
"We don't want trouble. We will do as you ask." The mayor said in a half whimpering tone.
The officer was taller than the rest, armor trimmed in bands of white, but he did not remove his helmet or speak in the common tongue. Instead, he raised a hand, made a gesture in the air, and waited for the mayor to respond.
The mayor did not know the gesture. He tried to talk, but the officer simply scanned his face, then stepped aside and motioned for the squad to escort him to the repurposed shelter. No threats, no violence. The Krokonian orders were clear: minimize casualties, maximize control.
The town's bars and rec halls became holding centers. Anyone found in the open was rounded up, corralled into the nearest large building, and logged by a pair of floating interface units that hovered at shoulder height. These bots blinked a slow yellow as they scanned and sampled, taking no action unless provoked. When a miner tried to smash one with a crowbar, the bot responded with a single burst of white noise that stunned the entire room for a full minute. After that, there were no more incidents.
By noon, the valley was a different planet. The sky, once its usual shade of diluted rust, had taken on a patina of electric blue, the sun filtered through the haze of the dropships' energy wash. The perimeter mechs walked their assigned routes, eyes blank and uncompromising. The only sound was the distant whine of mining equipment—unchanged, untouched, as if the machines themselves had failed to register the invasion.
Inside the shelter, the children grew restless. "I know things are not good right now," Mayor Cassion said to them, "but The Order will come, just like last time. You'll see."
The mayor tried to comfort them with stories of the last time the town faced trouble—how the miners pulled together, how the Order intervened, how everything returned to normal. But even he could see the difference. This was not a dispute, not a border skirmish, not the familiar threat of raiders or bandits. This was occupation, clinical and total.
In the mining quarter, a line of armored Krokonian soldiers escorted a pair of engineers into the smelter. They ignored the union reps who tried to intervene. The engineers walked the floor, consulting tablets, logging ore quality, making notes in a language the miners could not read. At the end of the inspection, the lead engineer placed a small device—no bigger than a pebble—on the control panel and left without a word.
"Are we supposed to use that?" One miner said."I don't know. I think we should leave it there." Said another. More miners joined in the discussion until the foreman came over, "He said nothing, so it's not for us." He said. "Let's get back to work before the mechs come over. You remember what happened last time."
Throughout the afternoon, the town's perimeter shrank, the mechs and soldiers methodically pushing everyone not essential to the mining operation toward the center. At intervals, the dropships adjusted position, each time coming a little lower, engines whirring with the threat of another deployment. The air grew thick with the scent of ozone and the tang of fear.
By evening, Dustville was under glass. Every major route was barricaded or monitored. Every comms channel was dark, except for the one that repeated a simple, looping message in the language of the Order: "Remain calm. Do not resist. Compliance ensures survival."
From the high point at the edge of the pit, the town looked smaller than it ever had. The old moss patch was trampled, the miners' barracks were locked tight, and every street was striped with the ghostly blue shadow of a hovering drone. The only sign of human activity was the slow trickle of workers being herded back to the mines—faces blank, hands calloused, eyes fixed on the ground. Overhead, the Krokonian dropships hovered like the fists of angry gods, every edge outlined in the stuttering glow of their engines.
There were no screams. There was no chaos. Only the orderly imposition of a new regime, the precision of a force that knew exactly how much pressure to apply.
And in the distance, above the rim of the valley, the first pale traceries of aurora began to thread the sky, a silent witness to the fact that even in conquest, there was room for beauty.
In the stillness that followed, Dustville remembered how to breathe—but the air would never taste the same again.
The mountain above Daranthes never slept. Even in the false-night of eclipse, the ancient temple's roots hummed with the buried resonance of Source: the pulse you felt more in bone than in ear, the old and constant heartbeat of an Order that measured its age in runes, notched into the living stone. Within the inner sanctum, Ryoshi sat cross-legged on the chill slab of the meditation platform, eyes closed, head bowed. To a casual observer, he appeared absent—another relic sunk in the hush of the meditation vault. In truth, his mind ranged outward, past the walls, past the snow-mottled cliffs, tracking the rhythm of the world below. Every breath was a pulse, every exhale an index of possible futures. He listened.
The interruption came not as sound but as tremor: a shudder that split the air from east to west, followed by the slow, ascending whine of the temple's perimeter alarm. Ryoshi's eyes flicked open. He had not heard that alarm in a decade, and in a lifetime before that only twice.
The effect on the rest of the temple was immediate—somewhere in the lower halls, the acolytes would be scrambling from sleep, assembling in the main corridor as they'd been drilled. The junior instructors would be bracing for a signal that never came, waiting on Ryoshi to take the first move.
He did not hurry. Instead, he unfolded his legs and stood, rolling his shoulders to loosen the muscle memory of hours spent still. His bones creaked, a sound that barely registered beneath the ambient groan of the warning system. He walked the inner circumference of the chamber once—left palm brushing the runes cut into the wall—before emerging into the main axis of the temple.
He met Ankin in the armory.
The younger man was already in partial kit, torso half-shrouded in the dark blue of combat armor, sleeves rolled to expose the sigil burned into his left forearm. His hair, sweat-soaked, was tied back in a regulation knot. The only thing out of place was the urgency in his eyes: not panic, but a focus sharp enough to draw blood. He barely looked up as Ryoshi entered.
"East channel's gone dark," Ankin said, voice clipped. "Comms hub at Dustville isn't responding. All uplinks dead except for the high band, and even that's glitching." He finished threading the gauntlet onto his arm, flexed it, then moved to the rack where the weapons waited in their brackets.
Ryoshi took up his own armor, older by at least a generation—heavier, etched with runes worn smooth by years of use. He lifted the harness and settled it over his tunic, feeling the chill of the interlaced ceramic against his ribs. "Krokonian?"
Ankin nodded, not bothering to hide the anticipation. "Three dropships, minimum. Maybe more if they've got relay support. The perimeter sensors only caught them on final descent."
Ryoshi latched the armor, let his gaze rest on the younger man. "You seem eager."
Ankin snorted. "They picked a bad day to test us."
Ryoshi checked the charge on his staff, thumbed the ignition rune, and watched the line of blue-white light crawl up the shaft. "Or a perfect one."
A silence. Then: "I'll go on point," Ankin said, slinging a pack over his shoulder and reaching for the sheathed blade at the rack's end.
Ryoshi regarded him for a moment, weighing the words he didn't want to say. "If the Kroks are here in force, they'll have already mapped our response time. You charging ahead won't change their calculus. It will only give them another data point."
Ankin turned, eyes narrow. "You'd prefer we let them take the town?"
"I'd prefer we keep the advantage of surprise," Ryoshi said. "You don't know their objective. You only know the bait."
Ankin's jaw worked, a muscle jumping. "The miners are civilians."
Ryoshi inclined his head, a measured acceptance. "And we'll protect them. But not at the cost of exposing our own."
The air between them held the old static, the current of arguments fought and refought across years. Ryoshi waited, knowing Ankin would yield. He always did, eventually.
"Fine," Ankin said. "But you know they'll move faster than last time. They've adjusted. We should too."
"We will," Ryoshi replied. "We already have."
They finished armoring up in silence. Ryoshi's gear was all function—weighty, built for deflection and absorption, the plates etched with the geometry of defense rather than attack. Ankin's was newer, lighter, designed for speed and lethal precision; its lines flowed like water, optimized for a style Ryoshi considered flashy, but which the younger man made brutal and efficient.
Ankin clipped the helmet to his belt but left it off, letting the air cool his face. Ryoshi secured his own helmet, the visor adjusting to the dark with a pulse of blue. He toggled the comms with a flick of his jaw.
"Team A will shadow the valley, establish an intercept at the mining tram's switchback," Ryoshi said. "Team B to the west, ready to block a pincer. No one moves until my signal."
Ankin acknowledged, the old discipline overriding any impulse to argue. "Understood."
They moved down the corridor, boots striking sparks on the basalt floor. As they passed the atrium, a pair of acolytes straightened from their posts, eyes wide. Ryoshi nodded to them, saw the relief flash behind their practiced stoicism. The Order did not take alarms lightly.
At the main gate, Ryoshi paused, looking back at the line of acolytes now mustered and standing to attention. He addressed them, voice clear in the stillness. "Hold the line. Evacuate non-combatants. No one enters or leaves without my express order."
A chorus of "Yes, Instructor" answered him, the words echoing off stone.
He looked at Ankin. "Ready?"
"Always," Ankin said.
They stepped out into the mountain's predawn, the air thin and harsh, the valley below shadowed in the last hush before the sun. In the distance, Dustville burned.
They did not waste words. Side by side, master and apprentice ran the switchback path, the snow kicking up in freezing halos around their boots. Above them, the first Krokonian dropship hovered, its engines dull and predatory, the belly hatch already yawning open for a second wave.
Ankin set his jaw, gaze locked on the enemy. Ryoshi matched his stride, feeling every muscle remember, every reflex sharpen. The years between them vanished. In this, there was only the work.
They reached the midway point as the first Krokonian ground team hit the ridge—twelve soldiers in mirrored black, helmets blank, rifles cradled at the ready. Ryoshi slowed, assessing. Ankin flexed his grip on the blade, already plotting the advance.
Ryoshi spoke quietly, the words for Ankin alone. "Don't overcommit."
"Just finish what you start," Ankin replied.
They moved.
In the cold blue light, the clash was almost beautiful: a choreography of intent and counterintent, every move anticipated, every gap punished. Ryoshi wove defense, deflecting the opening salvo with a ripple of Source that left the first four Krokonian rounds hissing into the snow. Ankin blurred forward, striking at the line's weak point, dropping the lead soldier with a precise thrust to the solar plexus before twisting to parry the next.
For all their discipline, the Krokonian squad could not adapt. Within twenty seconds, half of them were down, the others breaking formation to regroup. Ankin started to pursue, but Ryoshi caught his arm, pulled him back into the shelter of a basalt outcrop as the dropship above pivoted, unleashing a burst of microdrones into the air.
"Second wave," Ryoshi warned, already keying the comms to alert the rest of the team.
Ankin was breathing hard, a smile ghosting the edge of his mouth. "You're getting slow."
Ryoshi almost smiled back. "That's why I have you."
They watched the drones deploy, each one a flickering point of blue, scanning the battlefield for heat signatures and movement. Ryoshi held them in cover, tracking the drones' paths, waiting for the inevitable pattern shift that would betray the next squad's approach.
"Give it ten," he said.
Ankin nodded, face set.
When the next Krokonian team advanced, they were ready. This time, Ankin took point, leveraging the outcrop for surprise. The fight was over before it started: Ryoshi swept the drones from the air with a wide-band disruptor, while Ankin closed and dismantled the squad with a series of sharp, economical blows. Three went down in the first exchange; the rest dropped their weapons and signaled surrender.
Ankin looked to Ryoshi. "We take them?"
"Stun and bind," Ryoshi ordered. "We'll question them after."
They worked fast, securing the prisoners and dragging them into the alcove. Ankin stripped the helmets, checked for transmitters. "Nothing active," he said. "They're not scouts. Just muscle."
Ryoshi turned one of the helmets in his hands, studying the inside. No mark, no insignia, no hint of the soldier beneath the shell. "They're sending more."
Ankin was already glancing toward the town. "Then we meet them there."
Ryoshi nodded, hefted his staff. "Together."
They started down the valley, Ankin leading, Ryoshi close behind. In the valley, the fight was still building—a slow, methodical tightening of the noose, every move measured, every loss accounted for.
As they ran, the horizon shifted. Dustville was no longer just burning: the light above it had changed, warping from orange to the sickly blue-white of Krokonian force fields. The Source in the air bent, the familiar song of the valley overwritten by the cold, synthetic harmony of the enemy.
Ankin broke stride only once, glancing back at Ryoshi. His eyes were bright, his smile fierce.
"We're close," he said.
Ryoshi matched the look. "Let's end this."
And together, they ran into the war.
They hit the valley floor in a slide of powder and shale, outpacing the Krokonian air support by fractions of a second. The last five hundred meters to Dustville's perimeter was a dead sprint—no cover, no time for breath, only the promise that whoever reached the town first might shape the terms of the fight.
Ankin led, teeth bared, the blade in his right hand already bleeding a double helix of quantum light that shimmered against the early-morning haze. He never broke stride, not even when the first volley of Krokonian suppressor fire raked the hillside. He simply altered his angle, kicked off a rock, and let the geometry of the moment carry him through the gap.
Ryoshi hung back by a measured three paces, staff balanced in both hands. He read the flow of the field—counted defenders, assessed their morale, watched the lines of enemy advance converge on the main drag. He saw where the Order's remnants had bunkered in: behind the collapsed tram terminal, in the gutted husk of the old generator shed, and in a makeshift foxhole lined with the shattered bodies of three Krokonian troopers. He saw also the pockets of civilians—huddled near the moss patch, jammed behind the scorched plascrete of the water tower, some even frozen mid-escape, paralyzed by the confusion.
Ankin dove the last ten meters, rolling under a tangle of tripwire, then sprang up inside the defensive line. He did not hesitate. The first Krokonian in his path he dispatched with a sideways swipe, the blade slicing through the segmented armor as if it were soft plastic. The second dropped, reaching for a stunner, but Ankin caught the motion, reversed grip, and drove the point into the gap between helmet and breastplate. There was no scream; just the percussive thud as the body hit the ground.
Ryoshi reached the barricade, leapt atop it, and scanned the horizon. In the distance, the Krokonian command ship hovered, its hull painted in the fractured light of predawn, dropships still pouring out their cargo: soldiers, support units, mechs. The defenders had maybe three minutes before they were flanked on both sides.
Ryoshi thumbed the staff's emitter, arcing a pulse of Source energy into the sky. The field around the barricade shimmered, every grain of dust in a ten-meter radius vibrating with the frequency of the shield. He landed beside a junior defender—no older than twenty, blood spattering her cheek. She stared at him, wide-eyed, then looked at the staff, then back at him.
"Instructor?" she said.
"Hold this line," Ryoshi replied, not unkind. "No one falls back unless I say."
She nodded, set her jaw, and fired a round of superheated pellets into the advancing Kroks.
Ankin was already twenty meters ahead, carving through the enemy advance with a kind of ruthless clarity. He fought as if every move was a study in how to end a life with the minimum expenditure of effort. Ryoshi had seen it before, in the worst of the old wars, but it never failed to unsettle him: the precision, the inevitability, the lack of wasted motion. But today there was something different. Ankin's attacks didn't just kill; they dismantled. Every Krokonian he dropped was left with weapon and comms utterly destroyed, armor warped by a localized burst of entropy that left nothing salvageable. It was overkill, and it was intentional.
Ryoshi didn't let it distract him. He moved to the moss patch, crouched beside a pair of children and their terrified mother, and extended the shield around them with a wordless gesture. The Source obeyed, the barrier flaring up like a soap bubble, perfectly tuned to deflect the incoming rounds. He made brief eye contact with the woman, gave her a tight nod, then stood and surveyed the wider field.
The Krokonian response was textbook: first the drones, then the infantry, then the heavies. The drones swept in low, mapping the defenders' positions, feeding the data back to the ground teams. Ryoshi took out the first wave with a precision burst, the energy spike frying their circuits in a crisp, upward motion. The next wave adapted, zigzagging through the air, forcing the defenders to waste ammunition on targets that never presented a clean shot.
He keyed the comms. "Tram terminal, status?"
A voice came back, thin with static. "Holding, but we're pinned. They're massing heavies at the east approach."
Ryoshi glanced over. Sure enough, a wedge of Krokonian soldiers, reinforced by a pair of smaller mechs, was forcing the defenders back yard by yard. He flicked his wrist, sent a targeting algorithm to the junior at his side. "You see that pattern?"
She nodded, loaded a charge into her rifle, and took aim. The round was not designed for armor, but Ryoshi had tuned it: as it flew, the Source embedded in the bullet resonated with the mech's shield, causing it to stutter. For a split second, the wedge broke. The defenders exploited the gap, firing a volley into the exposed Krokonian infantry.
Ankin was in the thick of it, surrounded but never cornered. He moved like a principle, not a person, his every attack an object lesson in kinetic dominance. When three Kroks tried to box him in, he parried the first, used the momentum to slam the second into the third, and dispatched both with a whiplash of his blade. He looked up, eyes wild, and caught Ryoshi watching him.
"You're falling behind, Sensei," Ankin called, voice almost playful.
Ryoshi shook his head, but smiled despite himself. "Save some for the rest of us."
The banter was short-lived. The Krokonians escalated, bringing in the big mech: a bipedal war machine, twice the height of a human, its chest plate marked with the insignia of the Krokonian Defense Force. The arms bristled with modular weapon pods—missiles, particle throwers, and, in the right hand, a manipulator claw designed for tearing through fortifications. It landed at the town's edge, the impact making the ground shudder.
The defenders' line wavered. Even Ankin hesitated.
Ryoshi assessed. The mech was too heavy for any of their weapons, but not invulnerable. He toggled the comm. "Tram terminal, focus fire on the left leg actuator. Everyone else, keep the flanks clear."
He sprinted toward Ankin, catching up just as the mech unleashed its first salvo. The air filled with plasma darts, each one screaming through the sound barrier. Ryoshi extended his staff, deflected three, and sidestepped the fourth. Ankin followed, rolling under the beam and coming up inside the mech's blind spot.
"It's adapting to every move," Ankin said, voice tight.
"Then stop being predictable," Ryoshi replied.
They split, circling the mech in opposite directions. Ryoshi fired a series of shield pulses at the legs, not to damage, but to distract. Ankin caught the timing, using each impact as cover to leap from one outcropping to the next, closing the distance. The mech recalibrated, sweeping its arm in a broad arc that caught Ryoshi square in the chest. The armor absorbed most of the force, but it still sent him sprawling into the dust.
He coughed, tasted blood, but rolled to his feet. "Ankin, now."
Ankin launched himself from the high ground, blade extended. He landed on the mech's back, used the blade to pry open a maintenance panel, and drove the point into the exposed bundle of optical fibers beneath. The Source-infused metal did the rest: the blade's resonance flooded the control system, causing the mech to seize and stutter, joints locking as feedback screamed through the servos.
The mech spun in a circle, then collapsed to one knee. Ryoshi sprinted in, staff ignited, and jammed the tip into the joint at the back of the head. A pulse of energy, channeled through the staff, finished the job. The mech slumped, toppled, and lay still.
The remaining Krokonians hesitated—just for a second, but it was enough. The defenders rallied, pushing forward, driving the enemy out of the town's core and into the perimeter.
The battle did not end; it simply receded, like a tide. The Krokonians regrouped, using the cover of the burning generator shed to retreat in good order. Within minutes, the field was quiet except for the hissing of molten metal and the groans of the wounded.
Ryoshi found Ankin near the downed mech, crouched beside the still-glowing blade. He looked up as Ryoshi approached, eyes brighter than before, the wildness in them edged with something else—a darkness Ryoshi had never seen.
"You did well," Ryoshi said, forcing the words past the ache in his ribs.
Ankin shrugged. "You held the line. I just followed through."
Ryoshi knelt, examined the wound in the mech's back. The blade had left a residue, a trace of black along the edges of the incision. He touched it, expecting heat, but felt only a coldness that numbed the fingertips.
"Did you feel it?" Ryoshi asked.
Ankin's smile was thin, almost mocking. "I felt everything. For once, I didn't have to hold back."
Ryoshi looked at him, searching for the student he'd trained, the man who had once questioned every command, every axiom. What he saw now was a stranger, eyes reflecting the Source with an intensity that bordered on fanatic.
The defenders began to gather, dragging the wounded to makeshift triage, patching up the barricades, scanning the horizon for the next wave. For a moment, Dustville was theirs again.
Ryoshi put a hand on Ankin's shoulder. "We're not finished. They'll try again."
Ankin rose, the blade in his hand pulsing with a black, hungry light. "Let them. I'll be ready."
Ryoshi nodded, but inside he felt the old dread: the certainty that every victory had its cost, and that sometimes, the most dangerous weapon was the one you brought with you.
They walked back to the barricade together, side by side. Above, the sun finally broke the horizon, illuminating the valley with a light that felt, to Ryoshi, much colder than before.
The makeshift command post was a microcosm of Dustville's condition: half the lighting gutted, tables propped up on bricks, comms relays jury-rigged to the only functional power feed in a fifty-meter radius. The old mining foreman's office, once the nervous system of the town, now pulsed with the strained voices of defenders, each channel a lifeline to another patch of ground they had not yet lost. Ryoshi ducked through the low doorway, helmet tucked under his arm, and scanned the room.
Ankin was already there, perched on the windowsill, a mug of generator-warmed liquid clutched in both hands. He looked unscathed, but Ryoshi knew better. The exhaustion was there—tightening the corners of his eyes, sinking into the lines at his mouth—but the adrenaline of victory buoyed him, made his whole frame vibrate with unshed aggression.
Ryoshi set the helmet on the desk and plugged it into the cracked interface. The visor flickered, running a backlog of visual and telemetry from the battle. He replayed the encounter with the Krokonian mech, eyes narrowing at the telltale stutter in its response time, the slight lag before it adapted to their tactics.
"They'll be back," Ryoshi said quietly, almost to himself.
Ankin shrugged, knocking back the last of the liquid and setting the mug down with a clack. "They're licking their wounds. We've got breathing room."
Ryoshi ignored the bravado. "That was a probe, not an assault. They logged everything—our countermeasures, shield bandwidth, even your attack vectors. Next time, they'll compensate."
Ankin bristled. "And we'll adapt. Isn't that what you always taught?"
Ryoshi turned, facing him full-on. The light from the battered fixture overhead highlighted the new tension in Ankin's stance—a coiled potential, like a wire wound one twist too many. "I taught you to think ahead. Not just to outpace the enemy, but to know the shape of their thinking."
Ankin's eyes flashed, dark and sharp. "I know exactly what they think of us. Weak. Predictable. Soft."
"And?" Ryoshi pressed.
"And they're wrong," Ankin said. His voice was low, but the edge in it was unmistakable. "We're not the same as before."
Ryoshi studied him, weighing whether to push further. Instead, he shifted focus, pulled up the telemetry on the Krokonian blade still embedded in the downed mech outside. "The Source signature is off," Ryoshi muttered, running his thumb over the readout. "Not standard. There's a feedback channel here—like it's listening as much as it's attacking."
Ankin stood, restless. "Maybe we should listen back."
Ryoshi almost smiled. "That's the first sensible thing you've said all morning."
A knock at the door, hurried and urgent. The junior defender from the barricade poked her head in, blood now cleaned from her cheek, her voice steadier than before. "West quarter's secure. No sign of the Kroks. Civilians are moving back to the shelters."
Ryoshi nodded, motioning for her to come in. "Any word from the Order?"
She shook her head. "No comms past the ridge."
He dismissed her with a nod, then looked back at Ankin, who was pacing now, fingers drumming on the hilt of his blade.
"You should rest," Ryoshi said, not unkindly. "We may have won the field, but the war's just started."
Ankin stopped, eyes fixed on Ryoshi with an intensity that bordered on hostile. "I'm not tired," he said.
Ryoshi didn't argue. He finished the diagnostic on the Krokonian weapon, logged the anomaly, and sent a pulse to the remote uplink—hoping, against the odds, that the Council would receive it. The air in the room grew heavy, each man waiting for the other to speak.
Finally, Ryoshi broke the silence. "They wanted to see how we'd handle it. Next time, it will be different."
Ankin's mouth twisted. "Then we'll be different, too."
Ryoshi considered the words. There was truth in them, but also something else—a hunger, a need to prove not just to the enemy, but to himself, that he could be more than what he'd been trained for. Ryoshi had seen that need before, in the war's worst days. It was never satisfied.
He stood, helmet in hand, and crossed to the window where Ankin had stood moments before. Outside, the valley smoldered, the sky bruised and churning with the residue of the morning's fight. Here and there, blue-white columns of smoke marked where the Krokonian force had burned away resistance, clean and efficient.
Ryoshi leaned against the frame, the weight of the world settling into his old bones. "Get some rest," he said again. "You'll need it."
Ankin didn't reply. He just turned, moving toward the hallway with a stride that was more predator than soldier.
As Ryoshi returned to his post, pulling up maps and comms logs, he caught a flicker at the edge of his vision—a reflection, maybe, or a trick of the battered lighting. Ankin, pausing at the door, had glanced back. For a split second, Ryoshi saw the darkness in the younger man's eyes: not a metaphor, not fatigue, but a literal glimmer—black and hot as a singularity, smoldering at the center of the iris.
Then Ankin was gone, and the moment passed.
Ryoshi stood in the echo, unsettled, wondering how many wars could be won before the price became too high, or before the line between weapon and wielder disappeared.
In the silence of the ruined office, he traced the rune etching on his helmet with a single finger, and waited for the inevitable.