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We strolled the eight meters from the stamp at trade-mission pace, under active scanners. Carys kept one hand on the largest case. Her lips moved once, subvocal; inside, Flinx went to work.

Flinx killed the live optics for thirty seconds, exactly where Carys had told us to use the window. Varrick’s cached scan filled the gap. The array recorded survey equipment, sample containers, a diplomatic gift of Orlian glasswork. The operator waved us through while his own instruments lied to him.

“Glasswork’s fragile, keep it upright,” he advised, paternal, of a case holding Zarek’s breach charges, and Carys thanked him and meant it. Behind us, the system’s self-check accepted the substituted record.

We were inside.

Nobody watching could have known what it meant to me. I had spent years unable to imagine standing on this side of the doors.

The outer defenses I could never solve had taken us less than twenty minutes from the plaza edge. Everything left between me and the vault was interior, and the interior belonged to the woman at my shoulder.

On the gold-and-white public levels, clerks and petitioners passed us without interest. Kallum lasted forty meters. At the first blind corridor he stepped out of the delegation without breaking stride.

One moment he was a junior freight assessor; the next he was gone, and Anhara adjusted her stride to cover the gap without looking at where he’d been. Somewhere ahead of us now. That was all anyone needed to know.

I keyed the private channel once, subvocal, even though there was no mission reason to.

“Status.”

“It’s a corridor,” she said, which was a lie, delivered flat, and then, because she is more honest than me by exactly one increment: “I used to eat lunch on the mezzanine we’re about to steal. Keep walking, Corvan.”

“If we survive,” I said on the private channel, “I want another night with you. A whole one.”

Her exhale shortened for an entirely different reason. “When, not if. Precision matters, Corvan.”

“When,” I agreed. It was the only superstition I allowed myself.

I kept walking.

“East service stair,” she murmured, at 1249, and we turned out of the gold and into the gray.

At 1250 we crossed security level six. The lift alcove at the corridor’s far end held five men in garrison colors clustered around a caff dispenser, rifles racked, backs half-turned, ten minutes from a relief Hesk had doubled off the books.

One of them laughed at something. None of them looked at the service stair. We moved through their blind spot single file, nine ghosts in trade clothing. The lift alcove fell behind us without a challenge.

Lika didn’t look at me. The corner of her mouth twitched.

The mezzanine security hub sat behind a door marked ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS, held through the pre-relief trough by two men whose habits she’d taught us on the first night. The senior one started eating at his console at 1245 exactly. The junior one used the senior’s meal to read personal correspondence on a duty screen. Both had gone four years without a single incident to keep their reflexes honest.

Zarek filled the doorway. It was very brief and very quiet. Neither man had time to raise an alarm.

Then Varrick was in the operator’s chair, hands moving over the boards, Sabine standing over him with her handheld already tied into the door logs. One system at a time, they took control of the route ahead.

Nine minutes later, Varrick lifted one hand. “Cameras looped. Door logs suppressed. Garrison board reads all quiet. One problem: the main service lift has been recalled for a deep credential check. It wasn’t scheduled.”

“Freight,” Lika said.

“It costs us ninety seconds,” I said.

“And it stays out of that verification queue.”

I keyed the air channel. “Talon, fallback warning. Freight route. Hold until the extraction call.”

“Holding,” he said.

Varrick released the freight route’s sealed-band locks.

We split at the freight lift. Brevan, Varrick, Sabine, and Anhara held the mezzanine and the retreat path. Carys came with the vault team long enough to check the Regalia against the door; Flinx rode inside her equipment case, furious but useful.