Caleb found three men blocking the alley to Dot's workshop. The morning shift sirens sounded down the hill, barely audible over the scrape of a steel shutter opening behind him.
Dot stood against the chain-link with her welding kit clamped to her chest. One man had a hand on the crate. The other two waited with iron wrenches hanging from their belts.
"Let go," she said. "You're standing on my cable."
The man pulled at the handle. Her boot stayed planted on the loose coil beneath it, keeping him from dragging the whole kit away.
Caleb closed the distance and caught the man's collar in his left fist. He pulled him away from Dot before the second hand could reach her wrist.
The man turned with a wrench already rising. It struck Caleb's right shoulder. Pain ran down to his elbow, and his grip on the collar tightened as he pulled the man against the wall.
Caleb released the collar to catch the wrench wrist with his left hand on the next swing. He turned the man's hand back against the brick, keeping his bad shoulder clear. The man bent toward the wall to follow the twist. His fingers opened, and the wrench struck the gutter.
The other two reached for their belts. Caleb turned his collar toward them, showing the matte-black Rank D pin.
"I'm late," he said.
One man looked from the pin to the wrench on the ground. He took his hand off his belt and helped drag his friend away. The third followed them, carrying the dropped tool.
Dot waited until they cleared the alley before she freed her cable.
"I had a plasma torch."
"Under the coil."
She checked the scorched tip protruding from the box. "Would've taken a while."
Caleb let his right arm hang. The morning's dressing check had found the cut sealed, and he'd passed the movement test with the sling supporting his rifle. A wrench still hurt as much as it had yesterday.
Dot glanced at the arm, then at his face.
"Don't bleed on the fitting platform. I cleaned it."
"I'll aim for the floor."
She lifted the crate and led him through the workshop's side door.
***
Yesterday's drill appeared on Dot's datapad as lines of strain readings. Caleb watched her pause the trace at the knee shot, then compare it with the movement before the drone hit him.
"The weave held," she said. "Your shoulder stopped lifting before the suit ran out of travel. I can fit around that. I can't fix the arm."
"The medics said much the same."
She pointed to a screen behind the platform.
"Undersuit and base layer. Leave the plates on the bench. I'll check the hip seams first, then the shoulder. Tell me before anything pulls the dressing."
He changed behind the screen, keeping his base layer on, and stepped onto the platform. The same suit he'd worn in the drill sat firmly against his legs. He could squat in it without the surplus fabric bunching behind his knees.
Dot crouched beside the platform and held the sensor diagram where he could see it.
"These nodes need to sit against the outside of your hips. May I adjust the seams? I can mark them and have you move them yourself if you'd rather."
"Adjust the seams. Keep clear of the bandage."
She worked through the fabric with two fingers at each outer seam, shifting the sensor patches while he held the loose panel. The readings steadied on the datapad. When she reached the waist, she pointed to the mark she wanted aligned, and Caleb set it himself.
"Military sized the old one with a tape measure," she said. "That gets you cloth around your body. This has to follow you when you move."
She had him take a slow step, bend his knees, and stop halfway through rising. He could feel the suit support the movement instead of tugging at the wrong joint.
"Now reach for the rifle. Slowly."
Caleb raised his right hand to the sling. The shoulder tightened before he could get his elbow high enough to carry the stock free.
"There," he said.
Dot stopped him and marked the travel limit. She shortened the support strap so he could let the rifle hang without the collar dragging on the wound.
"That range stays yours. Two and a half percent on the suit rating doesn't turn torn muscle into good muscle. If you force it past here, the dressing takes the strain."
"Can I fire it?"
"Shoulder it and show me."
He settled the stock without lifting his elbow further. The sling carried the front end while his good hand steadied the rifle. Dot watched him lower it and repeat the movement, then had him try from a crouch.
It worked, although he felt the shoulder by the third repetition. She stopped the test when he started holding his breath.
Dot brought yesterday's strain trace back onto the pad and laid it beside the new one. The load at his collar had dropped. Caleb could see the difference without understanding the rows of sensor codes below it.
"Does that mean it holds when I fall?"
"It held yesterday. That's what I've measured. I want the next readings because a live surface won't push you like my platform does."
She took a scrap of the reinforced weave from the bench and pulled it across a rough edge of the rack. The top fibers snagged. The layer beneath stayed joined when she stretched it between both hands.
"It gives you more time than the old canvas. Acid still eats it. A blade can still find the joint. Keep the suit between you and the ground, and stop expecting it to make a good arm out of a bad one."
Caleb touched the collar again. Yesterday's fabric had dragged across the dressing when he crouched. Now it moved beneath the plate without catching the tape. He tried the reach once more, stopping at the limit she'd marked, and felt the sling take the weight.
"Rest that arm. I have enough readings."
Caleb sat on the edge of the platform while she fixed the last seam. He ate a ration bar from his jacket, then checked the food packed into his harness. He'd eaten before leaving the barracks.
Another bar sat open in the belt pouch, with two sealed spares and a foil packet of nutrient paste behind it. The cramps could still outrun that reserve if he took another hit.
Dot looked at the empty wrapper.
"Keep crumbs out of the ports. That's the condition I forgot yesterday."
"I'll put it with the no-complaints sign."
She gave the suit one final diagnostic sweep. The seams held when he stood, and the weight settled across his back instead of pulling at his neck.
"Keep it in one piece. Upload the diagnostic file by nightfall if you've got signal. If you haven't, bring me the helmet."
"Suit readings," he said.
"Suit readings. Your squad can keep its arguments."
He put the plates back on. Dot tightened the accessible strap after he asked her, then stepped away so he could check the fit himself.
***
Transport rigs ground past the Seventh Division hangars, sending dust across the food stalls. Caleb followed the staging signs between recruits carrying crates and veterans watching tunnel replays on a holoscreen.
Kei waited inside the tent with his new optic mounted. He showed Caleb the steadier view before saying anything about the magnification.
"Fixed the mount. Look at the far door."
Caleb checked it. The image stayed still when he shifted the rifle.
"Better."
Taichi sat on a crate cleaning his scatter-gun. "Promoted, fitted, and now you're inspecting everybody else's gear."
"Yours still dirty?"
"Mine worked while you were swimming."
Caleb handed Kei the rifle back. "Keep it working. I might swim again."
Suzu stood at the map table. The repaired plate across her breast was a slightly different shade of white. She caught Caleb looking and moved the map over it.
"The seam held in the drill," she said, touching his collar where the heavier weave lay over the dressing.
"Dot finished the fit this morning."
"Does it pull when you raise the rifle?"
"Less. The arm still objects."
She withdrew her hand from the collar.
"Then keep it supported. I need you holding your side of the line, Treadwell."
"I'll keep your flank clear, princess."
"You can start by using my name."
He reached past her for his helmet. "Suzu."
She looked back down at the map, but her fingers stayed still on its edge for a few seconds.
Mabel came through the tent and checked their names against the manifest. She sent them to the transport together, with orders to report to the Sector Nine forward base for the insertion briefing.
At the ramp, Dot caught Caleb before he strapped in. She had his diagnostic connector in one hand.
"You left the cover open. Rain gets in there, I get rubbish data."
He held the helmet while she seated the cover. She made him open the diagnostic page and watched the connection register, then let go.
"Same build," she said. "Now tell me how it behaves somewhere worse than resin moss."
"You picked a useful customer."
"Try to come back with the evidence."
She moved clear of the ramp. Caleb sat down wearing the suit she had fitted, with his food within reach and the sling carrying his rifle. No new weave would make the engines gentler on his shoulder.
The city shrank into a lit grid beneath them. Beyond the wall, mist covered the lower valleys. Sector Nine rose through it, a mountain's shape covered in bruised, vein-shot growth.
Red lightning climbed between the peaks. Caleb leaned against the restraint to follow a vein as wide as a road into the valley where they were headed.
Kei looked away from the door and checked his scope again. Taichi rested both hands over the scatter-gun. Suzu kept watching the ridge lines while the transport descended toward the base.
***
The ramp lowered onto the Forward Operating Base's hot mud. Caleb stepped around a medical gurney crossing the landing lane. The recruit strapped to it had chemical burns along his jaw and kept trying to claw at the dressing.
Kei stopped with his rifle half-raised. Caleb touched the barrel and guided him clear of the wheels.
"Let them through."
Artillery mechs fired beyond the perimeter. The ground shook beneath the next volley, and a technician at the projection table adjusted the Sector Nine map to follow the moving boundary.
Captain Hayes stood at the table in an environmental suit. Mabel joined him with the arrival manifest. Recruits from the other divisions crowded around as an expanding red patch swallowed two contour lines.
"That's your simulation going stale," Hayes said. "The terrain's changing faster than we can map it. A rupture converts the ground around the nexus. The assault teams are working toward the anchor. Your squads find usable approaches and cut through the outer growth so they can get there."
He pointed to the rocks east of the insertion marker.
"The valley road has gone. Aircraft will put you on that shoulder if it holds. The outer quarry approaches run below it. Use what you can verify under your boots. Report changes. Nobody gets an accurate route by pretending the last map is still right."
A gate opened behind them. Three recruits came through, one leaning on the other two. Melted plating hung from their left sides.
"The ridge moved our extraction point," the injured man told a medic. "It was there when we went in."
Hayes waited until the stretcher crew cleared the table's edge.
"No incendiary rounds into the growth without an order. If you hear retreat from inside the rupture, verify the voice twice. The last frontline assessment put mortality at sixty-two percent. Stay where your squad can reach you."
A field officer marked Caleb's shoulder plate with an orange insertion slash. Hayes brought the urban-zone report onto the projection and found his name.
"Treadwell. The Mimic used a commander's voice?"
Caleb kept his eyes on the report. "Barrett's. It separated us by making the order sound urgent. It knew who we'd listen to."
"Then check the speaker against the tactical link," Hayes told the squads. "Get confirmation before you move. They learn while we write the report."
Kei looked down at his channel list.
"If it copies somebody on our squad, I can ask for the order again here. But if they're cut off, I won't get an answer."
"Then tell your leader you haven't confirmed it," Hayes said. "A voice is information. Decide what else supports it before you send the squad after it."
Suzu pointed to their three names on the local link. "I'll ask here. Everybody answers with what they can see, even if it's only the rock in front of them."
Taichi rolled his shoulders beneath the straps. "I can report rock. Plenty of practice."
Caleb checked his own microphone and spoke his name. Three acknowledgment lights appeared beside it. He wanted those working before the ground forced them out of sight of one another.
Mabel put her datapad beside his. A gold authorization appeared over the theater map.
"Command attached an SSS operator. They're outside our chain and off our squad net. Their presence isn't an extraction plan. If gold directs you out of an area, clear it and report the change. You keep each other alive."
Kei looked from the gold mark to the insertion ridge.
"Can we contact them if the route closes?"
"You contact us," Mabel said. "You have no promise they'll answer."
Caleb thought of the older voice that had interrupted his buyer. The color matched its override, but the map offered no name proving the same man was here. He checked the ordinary squad channel and got acknowledgments from all three teammates.
Hayes closed the report. The current contour line kept shifting under the orange lane mark.
"East shoulder teams, load for insertion. Your pilot has the latest landing window."
Suzu brought her map into view and led them back across the mud. At the ramp, Taichi checked the dressing beneath Caleb's new collar, then tugged his own harness tight.
"That path moves, you call it before we're standing on it."
"If I can see it move," Caleb said.
"Best answer I'm getting, then."
Caleb settled into the seat for the short flight to the shoulder. His public icon was red again. He pressed the access control, got the same padlock, and closed it before fastening the restraint.
The transport lifted from the base. Ahead, the eastern rocks held their shape while the ground below them flexed. Caleb checked the food on his belt once more and kept his eyes on the place where they would land.