The collar itched more than it should. The fabric of the Nova Terra prison guard uniform was stiff and heavy, a burden by design. It constricted movement slightly, demanded upright posture, and gave a silhouette of control. Sannet wore it like skin. Her white hair, usually bound with precision, was now dyed a dull brown and tucked neatly beneath the brim of her cap. Her eyes—pale blue, sharp, and calculating—moved from face to face without a flicker of expression.

  She was just another guard. Nothing more.

  The administrative tier was quieter than the lower levels, but there was no warmth in the silence. Lights buzzed overhead. The walls, painted a pale gray, had long ago absorbed too much shouting and too many secrets. No windows. No time. The sound of boots—hers and others—echoed down corridors that bent like mazes.

  Sannet passed two guards laughing crudely over stim-coffee near the checkpoint. They barely looked up. Good. Recognition was the enemy now. She kept her pace even, her posture upright, her presence unremarkable.

  The roster terminal flickered in the corner of her vision as she rounded a junction. She spared it only a half-second glance. Viola was still in medical. That meant she was alive. Bruised, maybe. But alive.

  Sannet allowed herself no outward reaction. Not here. Not in the Warden’s fortress.

  At the next turn, she adjusted her belt. Her hand brushed against the ID chip hanging just out of sight. A perfect forgery. If any scanner dug deeper than surface-level, she’d have seconds to neutralize the problem before alarms screamed across the sector. But the Nova system was bloated and over-reliant on auto-clearance. Too many layers of false confidence.

  She entered the mezzanine without hesitation.

  The room was dimly lit, with soft blue glow from twelve security monitors casting shadows over the occupants. Three guards. One seated with boots on the console. Another thumbing through a field manual he wasn’t reading. The third paced with a half-empty mug, yawning between gulps.

  He was her mark.

  Sannet settled into the corner console, silent, back straight, hands resting lightly on her thighs. She watched the pacing one through the corner of her eye. His uniform was wrinkled, stained. Sloppy. Predictable.

  Perfect.

  Ten minutes later, she had what she needed. The pacing guard stepped out to smoke, leaving his console unlocked. Sannet didn’t rise, didn’t lunge. She simply moved her chair two inches to the right and accessed the terminal with practiced ease. Her fingers moved like the keys were old friends.

  Command logs. Prisoner transfers. Movement schedules.

  She found it.

  Unit Delta-09.

  Minka Terra. Leanna Terra. Viola Laureate. Escort time: 0400. Destination: Sector Black—preparatory briefing chamber.

  Accompanied by a handler.

  Sannet leaned back slowly, not daring a breath.

  They were being moved.

  She exited the console just as the pacing guard returned, muttering about broken lighter coils. He didn’t even notice her.

  She stood slowly, smoothing down the front of her uniform with the precision of habit. Her gloves, black and spotless, flexed once before she moved.

  The halls past the mezzanine grew narrower, more angular. Each section of Nova Terra's prison was a monument to discipline, and yet it reeked of decay. Cameras lined the corners in rusted mounts. Sannet's route was already calculated to bypass the more attentive ones—or pass them only when the blind spots overlapped. She walked as if she belonged, that illusion was often enough.

  At junction A7, she paused. A service panel sat recessed in the wall, half-concealed by a rust-streaked comms board. She knelt. The magnetic tool from her belt made no sound as it disengaged the screws. Inside was a tangle of old conduit and wiring, but Sannet's eyes didn’t scan randomly. She reached, parted two yellow cords, and clipped a small relay between the feeds.

  Her voice was a whisper, almost mechanical. "Beacon primed."

  The device would give Kira's team one shot. A window. Thirteen minutes of interference on this floor before the failsafes reasserted themselves. No more. No second tries.

  Sannet secured the panel and stood. She straightened the cap on her head, checked the hall. Footsteps. Two guards.

  She turned into the opposite corridor, brisk but not hurried. One of them called out to her.

  "You from Echo watch?"

  She nodded without looking back. "Admin request. Topside."

  He grunted and kept walking.

  Echo watch wasn’t even posted on this level. She didn't need it to be. The uniform gave her authority, and confidence disguised the rest.

  She descended two levels via a maintenance shaft, bypassing checkpoints by crawling under bundled piping. Heat radiated off the conduits, but Sannet didn’t flinch. Her hands moved quickly, quietly, testing every grate before lifting it free. She passed storage cages, forgotten service bots, and sealed chambers filled with dust and the smell of stagnant coolant.

  At last, she reached the junction directly above the Delta-09 cell block. She slipped into the catwalk shadows overhead, where light couldn’t reach and the vents rattled in tired rhythms.

  Below, she saw them.

  Three figures seated in enforced quiet.

  Minka sat upright, eyes closed but jaw clenched. Leanna paced the small space like a storm barely caged. Viola, of course, lounged on the edge of her cot, spinning something metallic in her fingers with casual disregard.

  Alive.

  The handler—Woods—entered the block moments later, a presence made of iron and discipline. He exchanged words with the guards. Something clipped. Scheduled.

  Sannet checked her chrono. Thirty-two minutes until extraction. Her fingers tapped once against the comm embedded in her glove.

  "Sannet to Haven. Confirm positioning."

  Kira's voice came through, clipped and quiet. "We’re in place. Clock starts at your go."

  "Wait for my signal."

  She moved again, climbing along the narrow lattice of the upper ventilation frame. The camera above her rotated, stuttering slightly on its leftmost sweep. Her hand shot out, slipping a dull black wedge beneath the rotation gear. It jerked once, stuck halfway.

  Blind.

  Exactly as planned.

  Sannet crouched near the emergency access panel and prepared the override chip she’d built from stolen parts and repurposed keys. It wasn’t elegant, but it would give her sixty seconds to open the cell doors from the auxiliary panel without setting off alarms.

  She watched as Woods gave the order to prepare for transfer. One of the guards activated the panel. Restraints clamped into place.

  Sannet's hand hovered over the panel.

  Not yet.

  Sannet’s hand hovered motionless, gloved fingers a breath from the override chip. Her breath was shallow. Focused. She narrowed her eyes, watching.

  Below, the guard input the final command. The restraints hissed, clamping into place with clinical efficiency. Metal on flesh. No resistance.

  Woods stepped forward.

  His voice—hard, clipped—cut through the cell block like a chisel against stone.

  “Strip comm access. Tactical gear only. They move at ten.”

  Sannet froze. That wasn’t standard. That wasn't an extraction language.

  Another guard asked something she couldn’t catch. Woods responded without turning.

  “Warden’s orders. They’re going into the lower complex. Retrieval op. Eyes open.”

  Retrieval.

  The word hit harder than a bullet.

  Sannet lowered her hand.

  This wasn’t a handoff. It was a descent. Into the vaults. Into that place.

  She watched Woods now with different eyes. He wasn’t preparing prisoners for transport—he was assembling a unit. Unconventional, unwilling, but chosen.To use them. The full gear issue. The deadweight packs. The auxiliary visors clipped to their restraints.

  They weren’t being transferred.

  They were being deployed.

  Sannet shifted her weight, silent in the shadowed grate above, her body tense. Calculating. Her mind moved fast—too fast for doubt.

  A failed breach now wouldn’t just trigger containment protocols.

  It would compromise her for good.

  Worse—it would collapse the entire route into the sublevels. And they were going there, by sanctioned order. Into the old sector. The pre-Cataclysm corridors are buried beneath the facility’s operational history.

  Whatever Central wanted down there—whatever Woods had been given to retrieve—it required those three.

  No substitutes. No delay.

  Sannet reached for her comm and tapped the channel twice. “Sannet to Haven. Mission's changed.”

  Kira’s voice responded, tight. “Say again?”

  “They’re not being moved. They're being sent down. B-5 access route confirmed. Vault retrieval.”

  A beat. Then: “Are you still initiating?”

  She watched as Woods turned and barked the next command: “Weapons release in three. Nonlethal first loadout. The second line holds suppressives.”

  They’re not expecting resistance, Sannet thought. They’re expecting something worse.

  She whispered, “Negative. Abort breach. Regroup outside.”

  Kira didn’t reply at first.

  Then: “Confirmed. Beacon?”

  Sannet looked down at the relay hidden beneath the floor. Still primed. Still armed. Thirteen minutes of disruption waiting at her fingertips.

  She didn’t touch it.

  “No signal. Standing down.”

  She tapped off the line.

  Below, Woods began the march out—flanked by the guards and trailed by the three women, each fitted with stripped-down combat gear. Viola walked with that same tilted confidence, Leanna paced like a loaded wire, and Minka… Minka moved like she already knew the route.

  Sannet stayed crouched in silence.

  One by one, they disappeared into the corridor. Toward the lift. Toward the black mouth of the complex.

  Only when the last bootstep faded did she shift again, back into the vent, gliding away like smoke.

  No sound. No trace.

  The shaft narrowed as Sannet moved.

  The echo of boots, orders, the rasp of restraints—faded behind her. What remained was the chill of abandoned steel and her own breathing, low and controlled beneath the rebreather mesh. She twisted through the narrowing ductwork, bypassing a loose bolt, and slid one last time onto a ledge barely wide enough to crouch on.

  She paused.

  Listened.

  Nothing but the hum of old systems and the wheeze of air ducts struggling to push breath through Nova Terra’s bones.

  Sannet pressed her palm to a rust-lined panel and activated a magnetic latch. The exit hatch gave under pressure. She dropped into darkness.

  A forgotten corridor stretched before her—dust and cable coils, faded hazard paint along the walls, half-covered by grime and age. This section had been rerouted decades ago after a thermal collapse. No guards patrolled here. No cameras.

  She moved quickly, boots silent, her shadow trailing her like vapor. Up a ladder through a maintenance shaft, across two severed hallways, and through the narrow breach that led to the perimeter trench.

  The wind greeted her.

  Sharp. Dry. Bitter.

  Sannet emerged from the side of the ridge and kept low, ducking into the rocks lining the old boundary route. Far ahead, the flicker of signal lights danced in the dusk. A marker. The rendezvous.

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  Kira was waiting.

  She approached from a blind angle, brushing dust from her sleeves as she crested the edge. Three silhouettes waited among the stone—Kira, still and alert; Elaria, pacing with thinly veiled impatience, fingers twitching near her sword hilt; and Fran, kneeling beside a folded terrain sheet, her eyes scanning the ridge with quiet concern.

  Sannet dropped beside them without a word.

  Kira turned. “You're out clean?”

  Sannet nodded. “No trace.”

  “Any change?”

  “They’re in. Through the B-5 shaft. Someone called Woods is leading them himself. Full retrieval op. No cover story.”

  Kira exhaled. “You didn’t trigger?”

  “It would’ve blown the entire vault access. They're sanctioned. If I’d cracked the panel, they’d have locked down everything from sublevel four to the outer wall.”

  Kira didn’t argue. Her eyes searched Sannet’s for something—confirmation, maybe. Or doubt.

  Sannet gave her neither.

  Kira’s voice was quiet, edged with iron. “What’s your move?”

  Sannet didn’t hesitate. “We head to them. From the outside.”

  Elaria stopped pacing, her gaze snapping toward Sannet like a drawn blade. “Finally,” she muttered, flexing her fingers. “About damn time we did something.”

  Fran looked up from the terrain sheet, her blue eyes thoughtful. “There’s a tunnel. East of here. Half-collapsed, but still passable. The demi-humans used it to smuggle supplies in and out during the early lockdown phases.”

  Sannet turned toward her. “Does it reach the drainage basin?”

  Fran nodded, pointing gently to a crease on the sheet. “If it hasn’t caved in more since then—yes. It comes out not far from the access trench near the emergency sluice. That puts us just above the fallback route Woods would use.”

  Kira leaned over to confirm the path. “How old?”

  “Fifteen years, maybe? Last I heard it was dry, but narrow. Barely enough for a crawler.” Fran hesitated. “It’s risky.”

  Elaria gave a sharp grin. “Good. Let’s hope something’s waiting on the other side.”

  Kira looked at Sannet. “It’s your call.”

  Sannet studied the sheet for a breath, mind drawing a path in layered variables—distance, likelihood of collapse, proximity to enemy search routes. She tapped the corner of the map.

  “We move in five. Pack light, no chatter unless it’s life-critical. If that tunnel gets us close enough, I want eyes on them before Nova’s people move again.”

  She pulled her mask back into place.

  Fran rolled up the map, already on her feet. Elaria slid her blade free just a few inches, enough for the metal to catch the dying light—then sheathed it again with a satisfied click.

  Kira gave a final nod. “You heard her. Move.”

  As the team slipped from the ridge, Sannet cast one last glance toward the distant basin—where lights still flared in the dust, and the vault entrance lay like a scar across the landscape.

  They were down there. Walking that dark road. Into the black.

  "Move."

  The voice of Woods cut across the stale air like a chainblade through parchment. Without another word, the squad began their descent. The rusted checkpoint sealed behind them, hissing hydraulics whispering of forgotten wars. Each footstep into the corridor ahead felt like a descent into the bones of a dead god. Dust. Silence. Machine-warped air.

  Viola kept to the rear, her sidearm drawn and spinning idly between her fingers. Leanna walked in the middle, flanking Minka, whose silence was a presence of its own. Woods took point, his steps precise, his auspex unit clutched tightly in one gauntlet-gloved hand.

  The passage twisted and writhed like the entrails of a hive engine, walls ribbed with conduit and faded Mechanicus litanies. In several places, incense burners—long since cold—still clung to the walls, wax seals curling at the edges, purity scrolls faded and rotted.

  “Smells like the Martian hells,” Viola muttered.

  “Keep talking and I’ll feed you to the servitors first,” Woods growled.

  Leanna’s eyes swept the walls. “This isn’t standard Imperial design.”

  “No,” Minka replied quietly. “Pre-Unification. Dark Age of Technology. They call this place the Quiet Vault.”

  Woods glanced back at her, something unreadable flickering in his gaze. “You know your archeotech, prisoner.”

  “I’ve read the dossiers.”

  The group fell into silence again as they approached the inner vault. A sealed bulkhead stood before them, scarred with claw marks—some mechanical, others not. The Mechanicus sigil above had been defaced, replaced with a single low Gothic word etched in rust:

  HELIX.

  The vault door responded to Woods’ cipher-seal with a sluggish groan. A flicker of power rippled through ancient relays, and the blast door slowly split open. A cold wind blew out, stale and reeking of ozone and machine oil. Inside, the chamber was a shrine—and a tomb.

  Cables dangled from the ceiling like veins, some still twitching with residual charge. Servo-skulls lay dead in the corners, their red eyes dim. At the center of the room, mounted on a plinth of blackstone and iron, was a containment column of crystal and adamantium, wrapped in more wards than a Navigator’s stasis pod.

  Within it floated a fragment of obsidian metal, its surface smooth—too smooth. No seams, no markings, save for the faint glow of a rotating helix engraved within. It pulsed once. Then again.

  Minka stepped forward slowly, despite herself.

  Woods raised a hand. “Don’t touch it.”

  “No intention to.”

  Viola whispered, “What is that?”

  Leanna’s voice barely carried. “That’s not a data card.”

  “No,” Woods said grimly. “That’s Helix-1. An archeotech intelligence node. During the Age of Strife, it was used to command entire swathes of machine-based infrastructure. Entire hive cities. Voidships. Weapon networks. Manufacturing worlds.”

  Viola took a step back. “You’re saying that a chip can control any machine?”

  “It doesn’t control,” Woods corrected. “It overwrites. On contact with any system that still obeys the Standard Template Construct protocols, it asserts its will. Not the user's. Its own. That’s why the Mechanicus buried it.”

  “Why not destroy it?” Leanna asked.

  Woods looked at her. “Because the last time someone tried, an entire forge moon detonated. No survivors. No debris. Just… absence.”

  Minka’s throat was dry. “So why recover it now?”

  Woods didn’t answer.

  The vault began to tremble.

  Lights flickered. Vox static shrieked to life, blaring distorted binary cant. The Helix-1 pulsed rapidly.

  Minka turned to Woods. “It’s awake.”

  “No,” Woods said, drawing his pistol. “It’s aware.”

  The lights shattered. A deep hum grew beneath their feet—dissonant, almost musical, like a cathedral organ run through broken cogitators.

  Panels burst open. Arms of old servitors lunged out, not in hostility—but as if drawn by something. Drawn to it.

  One dropped at Minka’s feet. Its optics flickered… and it whispered.

  “Directives… updated… Helix… grants… purpose…”

  The team opened fire, but the machines didn’t retaliate. They formed a perimeter—kneeling, bowing, presenting open ports and interfaces.

  “By the Throne,” Viola whispered. “It’s rewriting them.”

  Leanna stepped closer to Minka. “We need to leave. Now.”

  Woods was silent. His eyes were locked on the Helix. “We came for power. We found a god.”

  “Then we let it sleep,” Minka growled.

  But the Helix had other plans.

  The plinth cracked. Wards sputtered. And with a hiss of pressurized air and ancient programming, the containment pod opened.

  The Helix-1 chip lifted slowly into the air, suspended by nothing but its own gravity field. Lines of light spread from it—like veins through the walls—awakening forgotten systems.

  Doors opened in corridors long sealed. Machine voices began to speak in languages no longer known.

  And every data-slate within the squad’s gear blinked the same phrase:

  HELIX ACTIVE. EXECUTING PRIMARY FUNCTION.

  The chamber shook with the hum of ancient machinery. Sparks cascaded from ruptured conduits as the Helix-1 hovered above its shattered cradle, light veining outward like arteries, pumping forgotten lifeblood into the vault. Servitors knelt in reverence, their voices droning binary hymns that scraped the edges of sanity.

  Then the air split.

  A distortion, like glass bending under impossible weight, fractured reality in front of the plinth. From it stepped two figures—armored shadows in motion, echoes of familiarity sharpened into threats.

  The first was tall, commanding, arrogance radiating like heat. Her eyes burned with cruel certainty, her stride deliberate, as though every step confirmed her superiority. She carried a massive greatsword, black as void-iron and etched with runes that flared faintly in the glow of the Helix. The Overlord.

  Beside her moved silence incarnate. Shorter, sleek, blades at either hand—twin arcs of steel that caught the vault-light as if hungering for blood. Her gaze was level, professional, detached. No wasted motion. No wasted words. The Hunter.

  Woods snapped his pistol up. Viola swore, fumbling her weapon into a ready stance. Leanna froze, her heart hammering. Minka’s breath caught—not from fear, but from recognition.

  Her jaw tightened. “What are you?”

  Hunter’s reply was quiet, feminine, and cruel. A rasp like leaves dragged over stone. “Not what. Who.” She tilted her head, studying Minka with unsettling familiarity. “We are you. Different roads. Different choices. Same blood.”

  Viola’s lips parted, her voice brittle. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Overlord’s smirk was cold amusement. “Not kidding. Not dreaming. You stand in the company of what you could never become.” She raised her greatsword, resting it lazily on one shoulder. “We are here for the Helix. Step aside, or be broken.”

  The Helix pulsed harder, as if savoring the tension. The servitors shuddered, caught between worship and paralysis.

  Woods spat. “Over my corpse.”

  Overlord’s grin widened. “That, too, can be arranged.”

  The vault erupted into chaos.

  Woods fired first, but Overlord swatted the bolt round aside with her greatsword, the deflection sparking against the plinth. With a single swing, she sent a shockwave of force crashing through the chamber, hurling the team against the walls like ragdolls.

  Hunter moved in silence. Twin blades flashed in perfect arcs, severing rifles, cutting through armor, leaving screams in her wake. She did not gloat, did not pause—only advanced with mechanical precision.

  Minka met Hunter head-on, their blades clashing in a spray of sparks. The impact jarred her to her bones. Hunter was faster, sharper, each strike aimed not to duel but to dismantle. Every parry Minka forced felt like fending off a reflection perfected by cruelty.

  Overlord carved her way through Viola’s cover, tearing a barricade apart with brute strength. Viola ducked and returned fire, her quips dying in her throat as the greatsword split stone beside her.

  Leanna tried to flank, rifle raised—but Overlord was already there. The greatsword pressed against her throat, pinning her back against the plinth. The hum of the Helix illuminated her terrified eyes.

  Overlord leaned in, voice velvet and venom. “So fragile. Yet something in you whispers of defiance. I almost want to see how it breaks.”

  The blade pressed harder. Leanna’s pulse thundered. She thought it was the end.

  But Overlord paused, tilting her head as if listening to a memory only she could hear. She stepped back slightly, lowering the blade without easing the threat. Her words slid like a promise of inevitability:

  “Not today. Next time, I will have you for myself.”

  Then she was gone—spinning the greatsword into another crushing strike that collapsed the vault’s western bulkhead.

  Hunter disengaged from Minka with brutal efficiency, kicking her back into a console and shattering it in a burst of sparks. The twin blades folded into her gauntlets, and without a word she leapt to Overlord’s side.

  The Helix descended, its glow entwining with the runes of Overlord’s sword. The greatsword drank the light greedily, and for a heartbeat the vault itself seemed to bend in submission.

  “Ravager will be pleased,” Hunter murmured.

  Overlord’s smirk cut through the chaos. “That lazy witch… We will see who’s on top in the end.”

  With that, the two figures vanished into the distortion that had birthed them, the Helix trailing between them like a chained god.

  Silence collapsed back into the chamber, broken only by the groans of the wounded and the static wail of dying machines.

  Minka struggled to her feet, her breath ragged. Leanna clutched her throat where the blade had almost ended her. Viola leaned on a shattered pillar, eyes wide, disbelief written across her face.

  “They took it,” Woods rasped, fury and fear mixing in his voice. “They took the Throne-damned Helix.”

  Minka’s green eyes burned—not with triumph, not with defeat, but with a dawning horror.

  Because she knew, more than anyone, exactly who they were.

  And she knew they would be back.

  The hum of the vault lingered like a wound that refused to close. The walls still glowed faintly with the afterimage of Helix’s awakening, conduits twitching with stolen life. But the core was gone. Overlord and Hunter had vanished with it, leaving behind only silence and the stench of ozone.

  Bootsteps echoed in the corridor beyond, crisp and deliberate. Not the enemy returning—something else.

  Sannet emerged from the shadows of the breach, her team behind her, weapons raised until she lifted a hand and stilled them. Her gaze swept the chamber—the shattered wards, the servitors on their knees, the three girls battered but alive. Her eyes narrowed, calculating, but softened when she saw their faces.

  “Hmm…” she murmured. “What did they do to you?”

  Leanna didn’t answer. She just broke into a sudden run, armor clattering as she closed the distance. She wrapped her arms around Sannet, burying her face against her shoulder like a child seeing daylight after too long in the dark.

  Sannet froze for a heartbeat, startled—but then her arms closed around the girl, steady, firm. “Easy,” she said quietly, her voice carrying both command and compassion. “You’re safe now. Breathe.”

  Viola gave a crooked grin from where she leaned against the wall, though it lacked her usual edge. “Never thought I’d be glad to see that face.”

  Minka remained where she was, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on Sannet. “You’re late.”

  Sannet released Leanna gently, her gaze flicking to Minka with something between reproach and weariness. “And you’re alive. Barely. I’ll take what I can get.”

  She stepped further into the chamber, studying the destruction, the broken seals, the missing plinth. Her frown deepened. “The Helix… it’s gone.”

  “Taken,” Minka answered coldly.

  Sannet exhaled slowly, then turned her attention to the last figure in the chamber—Woods. He sat slumped against a column, still breathing, his eyes darting between them like a cornered hound.

  Sannet’s expression hardened. “So. What do we do with him?” Her voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking the steel beneath. “He’s seen too much. We can’t afford witnesses.”

  The silence was heavy, broken only by the hum of dying machinery.

  Minka’s gaze snapped toward Woods, then back to Sannet. “He’s mine.”

  “He’s a problem,” Sannet said, calm but unblinking. “And I didn’t come here to argue. I came to get you three out.”

  Kira stepped in beside Sannet, visor up, reading the room. “We can take him,” she said, nodding at Woods. “We’ll make him quiet, lay false trails, walk him out a different door.”

  Woods tried for a scowl and found only pain. “You think I want Nova anywhere near me? This run wasn’t on the books. If she hears even a whisper, I'm the first to vanish.”

  “Great,” Sannet said, turning fully to Minka, Leanna, and Viola. “Then he’s going with them. I’m with you now. We get out of sight, grab supplies, sleep a little like humans, and figure out our next step.”

  Minka held Sannet’s stare for a long beat. “Fine,” she said at last. “He’s Kira’s problem.”

  Kira’s mouth twitched. “Happy to help.” She tipped her chin at Fran. “Mind?”

  Fran was already kneeling at Woods’ side, hands steady. “Sub-aural’s hot. So’s the chest ping,” she murmured, then to Woods, “This is going to hurt.”

  “Doesn’t everything,” he muttered.

  Elaria planted her greatsword’s tip with a pleased scrape and stood over them, all teeth and patience.

  Viola pushed off the wall, finding a little of her usual spark. “If he breaks, can I have his boots?”

  “They wouldn’t fit,” Fran said mildly, and yanked a glowing thread free with a swift, brutal tug. Woods choked, then went slack. “Anchor’s dead,” she breathed. A moment later: “Ping’s quiet. He’s back to being a person, not a siren.”

  “Perfect, Kira said. “We’ll keep him that way.”

  Leanna had drifted to Sannet’s side, fingers brushing the welt at her throat. “We’re not chasing them?”

  “Not now,” Sannet said. “Overlord and Hunter came ready. We didn’t. If we sprint after them like this, we’re handing them our throats.”

  Minka’s jaw worked. “So Ravager keeps Helix.”

  “For a few hours,” Sannet said. “Long enough for us to stop bleeding and start thinking. Then we make it hurt to hold.”

  Viola’s grin sharpened. “Now that sounds familiar.”

  Kira cut in, practical as ever. “Routes. My three—plus our grumpy passenger—will take the boring way up. We’ll tell the machines a nice story about bad air and broken sensors, then leave no footprints. You four take the demi-human tunnel east. There’s a small stash and a water crib under the drainage basin. Tight crawl, zero eyes.”

  Leanna nodded, the map building behind her eyes. “The one that spits out under the emergency sluice. I remember.”

  “Good,” Sannet said. “We crash in the sump alcove for an hour. Patch what needs patching, eat something that pretends to be food, reload. Then we decide our next move like people who plan to keep breathing.”

  “Which is?” Minka asked.

  “Either we bail off-world fast,” Sannet said, “or we mess with Ravager’s first chance to plug Helix into anything big. I’ve got scrap-code that makes a relay forget its own name for half a minute. It’s ugly, but it works.”

  “Ugly’s fine,” Minka said.

  “Ugly’s my specialty,” Viola added.

  Fran looked between the groups, clearly hating the split and accepting it anyway. She pressed a compact roll into Sannet’s palm. “Field kit. And—” she glanced to Leanna “—for your throat. Change the dressings later.”

  Leanna’s surprise softened. “Thanks.”

  Kira rolled her shoulders, settling into the choice. “We’ll haul Woods up the dull staircase and make the screens yawn at us. If Nova shows up early, I’ll make sure she starts knocking on the wrong doors.”

  “She usually does,” Viola said. “Then she finds the right one and kicks harder.”

  “Then don’t be home when she does,” Kira said, almost a smile. She met Minka’s eyes. “We don’t answer to each other. We just happen to want the same thing for the next few hours.”

  “That’s enough,” Minka said.

  Sannet turned to Leanna and Viola. “Check the lockers along the north wall. Red seals mean clean—gauze, water tabs, maybe a couple charge packs. If it hums, drop it.”

  Viola gave a two-fingered salute and drifted off. “Leaving humming things is in my top five life choices.”

  Leanna lingered, eyes on Sannet. “You’re staying with us?”

  “Yes,” Sannet said, no hesitation. “I got what I came for.” Her gaze softened. “Now I keep it.”

  Something unspoken passed across Minka’s face and disappeared. “We’re wasting time,” she said, which was her way of agreeing.

  Kira tugged Woods to his feet with surprising gentleness. He hissed and steadied. “Try not to be heavy,” she told him.

  “I’ll be a ghost,” he said.

  “Be less than that,” Elaria replied, hauling his arm over her shoulder anyway. “Be luggage.”

  Fran pressed one more vial into Sannet’s hand. “Stimm-lite. Don’t stack it with anything else. Thirty minutes of borrowed energy if someone starts to fade.”

  “I’ll try not to need it,” Sannet said.

  “You always say that,” Fran murmured, and stepped back.

  They hovered for a human heartbeat—two small constellations sharing the same dark. The vault’s glow was fading now, machine-spirits retreating, Helix’s presence thinning to a headache.

  “Okay,” Kira said, breaking the pause. “We’ll make the walls lie.”

  Sannet nodded. “We’ll make the ground mean.”

  Kira lifted her visor, offered a small, not-quite smile. “Stay breathing.”

  “Try not to break him,” Viola called, chin-jerking at Woods.

  “No promises,” Elaria said, amused. Fran pressed a last vial into Sannet’s hand and squeezed Leanna’s fingers once—wordless and warm.

  “That’s it, then,” Kira said. “Different doors.”

  “Different roads,” Sannet agreed.

  No rendezvous. No times. Just a few curt nods and the kind of goodbye that doesn’t pretend to be anything else.

  Kira’s crew peeled away—Elaria a moving wall of iron, Fran a quiet shadow with bandages, Woods a reluctant satellite. Kira brought up the rear, already whispering to the cogitators, leaving a wake of harmless lies.

  Sannet turned east. “Let’s go.”

  Viola swung a bulging satchel up onto her shoulder, grin finally sticking. “The gang is finally back together!”

  Leanna fell at Sannet’s side, held together by purpose and the nearness of someone who wasn’t going to let go.