From the farm.
Not probing shots. Not testing fire.
A full assault.
Anhara.
The third wave had arrived early. She was down there alone, defending the farmhouse, running the sequence, fighting off twenty hostiles with nobody watching her back.
And I was on a ridge, bleeding, two kilometers away.
I started running.
ANHARA
The console hummed. The readings held steady. And Kallum said nothing.
I’d been alone in the farmhouse basement for two hours. Hour Three approaching. The vault sequence continued its slow work, and my earpiece gave me nothing but static.
He’s fine, I told myself.He’s dealing with the scouts. He’ll be back.
I made the adjustments he would have called for. Torek had drilled this into me until I could do it in my sleep, and now I was grateful for every repetition.
Turnip grunted from his position by the stairs. He didn’t like the basement. Too enclosed. But he liked leaving me alone even less. He kept looking up the stairs, ears swiveling, then back at me. Checking. Confirming.
“I know,” I told him. “I don’t like it either.”
Where are you, ghost boy? Talk to me.
He’d asked for silence. He’d said he needed to go dark. But two hours was a long time to be dark.
“Kallum.” I kept my voice low. “If you can hear me, I need a status update.”
The earpiece crackled. Empty air.
“Kallum. Please.”
Nothing.
I’d gotten used to his voice in my ear. The clipped sentences. The way he said my name. Without it, the basement felt twice as deep.
Turnip made a low sound. Not a warning. Something closer to concern.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”
The gunfire started thirty seconds later.
Not the basement.
The ridge.
I heard it through the walls, through the meters of dirt and stone above me. Distant and sharp. A rifle I didn’t recognize. Then nothing.
Then another shot.
Kallum.
I couldn’t leave. The console needed constant monitoring. If I stepped away, the sequence would drift. The readings would spike. Six hours of work, destroyed in minutes.
