Page 158 of Knot Their Soldier: Part Three

"Enemy units disappeared from view."

"The route into Blackreach is buried."

One of the junior officers steps closer to the main screen, his headset hanging crooked over one ear and his eyes fixed on the broken mountain. He stares at the display with wide, unblinking eyes.

"The Pass is gone," he says, his voice rough with disbelief. "They can’t get through to Blackreach now."

Another officer turns toward him, and the junior officer lets out a breath that is almost a laugh.

"They can’t reach the sanctuary. We’ve won!"

The words hit the room harder than the blast did.

A cheer breaks loose. Someone slams both palms on a desk while another soldier curses around a giddy laugh.

Then the bond wrenches tight in my chest, and I press the heel of my palm against my sternum with a wince.

It's Halley.

She knows.

Maybe she doesn't grasp every detail yet, but she knows the Pass is gone and the road that could have taken her back to Dazz, Ember, and Flicker is buried under rock because of Pack Scorch.

We kept her out of it on purpose. At first, I could defend that choice. If Halley knew we meant to destroy the Pass, she would have argued and pleaded for another option because she still had hope.

Once Blaze and Viper set the explosives, that excuse got thinner.

We could have told her then. I should have found her, looked her in the eye, and said we were going to block the path into Blackreach. She would've had some time to grieve and come to terms with it. Instead, Knox and I said nothing because telling her meant the last few days we had left with our Omega would be spent with her upset with us. It was purely selfish.

"Shade?"

Jason’s voice pulls me back to the room.

When I look at him, his face has gone pale. He came here for those Omegas too. Dazz, Ember, and Flicker are now unreachable beyond the mountain.

I don't give him an apology. There's no time, and any words I offer would sound weak and insincere.

Rock and rubble continue to cascade into the ruined gap on the main display. Down on the lower road, our line pulls back into position after the blast, reloading and re-forming while the dust clears.

"Keep scanning for heat signatures," I say, shrugging out of my headset. "Recalibrate the western drone first. The angle’s useless."

Jason turns in his seat. "What is it?"

I move to the main screen and bring up the thermal layer in full. The image still jumps and glitches around the edges, but the heat from the blast is fading, and the drone begins to separate the collapsed stone from bodies.

Then the heat signatures start to move.

Fresh enemy units.

They are moving in from the western approach, replacing the soldiers who were crushed under the avalanche of rock.

I enlarge the feed, and the screen resolves into hundreds of Human heat signatures regrouping outside the collapse.

The cheering stops piece by piece until the only sounds left are the feeds crackling, chairs scraping, and the low hiss of open comms.

One of the officers steps closer to the screen. "Why are they still coming? The Pass is gone, and there is no way through now."

"We have their attention now, and they won't stop until every one of us is dead," I say coldly.