The season ended without glory.
Dean appreciated that.
Glory usually meant someone had died loudly enough for poets to become unbearable.
Instead, the final report used words like 'contained,''acceptable losses,' 'projected strain,' 'stabilized corridors,' and 'civilian annexes untouched.' The beasts had been pushed back beyond the reinforced restricted perimeter. The pheromone wall held where it counted. The insects—zombie flies, no matter what Hendrik's reports insisted—never reached the beta annexes, never touched the auxiliary shelters, and never crossed into the regular alpha and omega corridors.
No one important died.
No one unnecessarily died either, which was rarer and therefore worth more.
Sebastian held the north with perfect, irritating control.
Nero burned south, with Hale close enough to threaten him into discipline.
Thomas and Andrea kept central so stable that Hendrik called them "reassuring," which, from Hendrik, sounded almost indecent.
