A patrol turned unexpectedly. A flashlight beam cut across the grass and caught a glint off equipment. A shout snapped the air.
Hoffman's head snapped up. He did not freeze. He moved.
"Now," he hissed, and the team ran.
Floodlights swung. A siren began to wind up, then choked as Salton shot the searchlight housing clean, glass bursting into fragments. The darkness inside the perimeter became uneven, full of blind corners and panicked movement.
The team reached the fence hole. Baz went first. Cho followed. Sommers stumbled as he tried to keep the detonator safe. Hoffman shoved him through with a hard hand on his shoulder, then followed.
They cleared the fence and hit the forest line. Gunfire crackled behind them. Shots snapped through branches. Bark spat off a tree near my shoulder.
Hoffman looked at Sommers. "Trigger."
Sommers hesitated, because they were too close. Because the charges were not polite enough to care about friendly distance.
"Trigger," Hoffman repeated, voice flat.
Sommers pressed the switch.
The world behind us detonated.
The blast wave slammed into the treeline and hit my armor like a shove. The ground jumped. Leaves shook loose. The team pitched forward, thrown off their feet in a rough tumble through dirt and roots. No one screamed, which meant no one was injured badly enough to waste breath on noise.
Behind us, Gralia burned. The pylons collapsed in slow motion, metal twisting and falling, dish arrays shattering. The radar station's light died in pieces, one segment at a time, until only flame remained.
Hoffman raised the radio and spoke into it in a low voice. "Five-Seven to control. The radar's down. You're free to fly."
Static answered. Then a short confirmation. Then silence.
"We go dark," Hoffman said. "No transmissions. Move."
We moved.
The return began as stealth and ended as urgency. Helicopters churned the air behind us, distant at first, then closer. Searchlights combed the edges of the forest, sweeping over treetops and cutting through gaps. We went off road, following Bai through terrain that did not care about ankles.
We reached the Maranday border late, exhausted, dirt-streaked, bodies tight from hours of controlled motion. The checkpoint lights burned bright. Guards stood alert now, rifles carried with more attention. News traveled faster than we did.
Sommers drove the truck straight toward the gate.
The guard stepped forward, raising a hand. "Stop."
Hoffman did not stop.
Sommers accelerated.
The truck hit the gate with a crack of wood and metal. The barrier snapped. The vehicle lurched through, tires skidding on gravel. Shouts erupted. Gunfire followed, rounds pinging off the truck bed, one ricocheting into the side panel with a sound like a hammer on steel.
The truck swerved onto a rough path along a riverbed.
Hoffman turned and looked at the team in the back, eyes hard. "Deniable," he said. "That's what Baxter said. No witnesses."
Baz's jaw tightened. Cho's expression did not change. Bai looked almost bored.
Salton stared at Hoffman like he wanted to pretend he had not heard.
I understood what Hoffman meant. Neutrality could not complain if neutrality did not have survivors to complain.
The truck slowed just enough to give angles. Hoffman raised his rifle and fired back toward the checkpoint. Baz joined him. Cho fired in short bursts. Bai fired once, twice, each shot clean.
The gunfire behind us stopped.
We did not go back to check. We did not have to. The tone of Hoffman's voice suggested he considered the matter closed.
We drove along the riverbed until the terrain widened and the road became more certain. The town of Senio appeared ahead, lights low, buildings clustered close like they shared fear. Sommers pulled into a shadowed alley and killed the engine.
Hoffman contacted control again. "We are back in Sarfuth. Mission complete."
He did not mention Maranday. He did not mention the checkpoint. He did not mention the bodies.
Control answered with terse approval. Air forces were already moving. An ambush would be set at Maigar Pass. The approaching UIR column would be met by something they could not see coming.
Hoffman climbed out and stretched like the whole operation had been a long walk. Baz followed, expression tight. Cho and Bai melted into the shadows, already returning to whatever shape they wore when nobody watched. Salton sat on the truck bed for a moment, staring at his hands.
I stayed standing, because sitting in that cramped space had made my joints ache in unfamiliar ways. Not pain, exactly. More the body complaining about indignity.
Later, in a different office, I heard the consequences arrive. Maranday lodged a formal complaint. Violated neutrality. Evidence of COG incursion. Border guards dead. Property damage. Lauczi officials angry. Diplomats furious. Command staff furious about the way people got when the moral cost had not been allocated in advance.
Colonel James Choi would be angry. Baxter would pretend he had not approved anything. Hoffman would remain unbothered.
War would keep moving.
That night, alone in another holding space with a guard outside and a system inside my skull that refused to comment, I replayed the mission in small loops. Bai's knife efficient and quiet. Hoffman's voice was calm and uncompromising. The detonation behind us, the radar dying in flame. The border gate snapped under a truck that did not stop.
Deterrence. Deniability. Patterns.
They had used me for the parts of the mission that required weight and the threat of unstoppable force, even when I never stepped through the fence. They had used the rest of the team for what could be denied. They had cleaned up witnesses the way they cleaned up evidence.
I had joined the COG because it was safer than being alone. Safety proved to be a relative concept in a world where command solved problems by creating new ones and calling them necessary.
I wondered what Adam would say when he heard what happened at the border. I wondered whether he would approve. I wondered whether he would file it away as another data point for his deterrent theory.
I did not need answers tonight.
Tomorrow would bring new orders. It always did.