So I step away from the logistics panel, away from the network grid display, away from the radio chatter — and walk toward him.
My boots crunch along rough gravel. The dust rises and settles around us like static ghosts. The wind snaps loose strands of hair cold against my neck.
“Why aren’t you helping?” I ask him without preamble.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t turn.
Just breathes in once — slow, measured — like he’s waiting for me to finish.
“You just leave every planning session,” I continue, voice low but not unkind. “Skirt out of the tent when it gets to coordination. You’re here — but you’re nothere.What are you planning?”
He finally looks at me. Eyes narrowed, expression unreadable.
“Nothing,” he says.
But there’s a softness there — like a blade dulled half by habit.
“Nothing isn’t a strategy, Vrok,” I say.
He shrugs, as though shrugging should explain every goddamn thing in the universe.
“Your idea of help isn’t meetings,” he says, a hint of something jagged buried in the syllables. “It’s action.”
“Planning is action,” I fire back. “You need a plan if you expect to survive beyond the first engagement.”
He looks at the ground for a second, eyes drifting over the dust and debris.
“Walking into a fight with prearranged lines isn’t exactly my brand,” he mutters.
“Oh, I know your brand,” I say, bristling. “It’s guns first, consequences later.”
“That’s not?—”
“Itis,Vrok,” I say, stepping closer so he can’t ignore me. “You push everything toward violence like it’s the only answer. You justify every escalation with inevitability. And I’m not buying it anymore.”
He doesn’t argue.
Not right away.
He just stares at me, silent, the weight of something difficult braced behind his eyes.
I take a breath — cold and sharp in my lungs.
“You’re slipping,” I add. “Not in combat readiness. That’s fine. You’re exceptional at that. No — you’re slippingawayfrom us. From here. From this town, from us prepping defenses as ateam.”
His jaw flexes.
“That’s not it.”
“Itlookslike it is.”
He blocks his gaze then — eyes turning toward town, toward the shifting mass of barricades and armed volunteers.
“I never said I’d worn the title of strategist,” he says. “I never said I’m comfortable coordinating civilians.”
“That’s not the point.”
I fold my arms, and the wind tears at my jacket, but I don’t budge.
