Chapter 219: The Sector That Came to Him

Jin checked people before he checked totals.

Runner’s handler was sitting against the channel wall with her hands not quite steady, and she reported honestly before he asked.

"She’s mobile. I’ve cleaned it and she’s putting weight on it. She’s — she’ll go if I ask her to."

"Will she?"

"Yes." A pause. "I’d rather not ask her to take another one of those."

"Then you’re not going to." Jin crouched. "New assignment. You’re behind the join from now on. You cover transfers, you cover emergencies, and you don’t take first contact on the western approach again."

Her face did something complicated.

"That’s not because you failed," he said. "You turned it off the join with an injured beast on broken stone. That’s the job and you did it. It’s because your beast can’t absorb a second one and I’d rather have you at hour six than not."

"Understood."

She did not argue, and Jin noted that she did not thank him either, which he preferred.

Lysa reported in the format they had built.

"East is holdable. Inner boundary set, both remaining load lines seated, six spools. Trigger’s unchanged — I interrupt if an anchor face fails or something crosses my fallback line."

"Received. Rebuild inside your allowance, don’t wait for me."

"Wasn’t going to."

Volley moved to cover the outer gap that Runner’s reduced role had opened, which put it in a worse firing angle for the east and a better one for the west, and Jin accepted the trade because there was nothing else to trade with.

Glitch got water and half a ration of approved quick feed and did not leave the slab, which was correct, because the slab was the sector.

Jin did not open the Engine.

He was aware of it in his pocket the whole time and he did not open it. There was nothing in there that helped — no dungeon, no respawn, no stored core that could do anything for a raw throat, and the fatigue in the bond was real fatigue in a real animal that would recover at the rate real animals recovered.

Nothing here resets.

He checked Flicker’s monitor once, at Tide minute forty-three.

[Flicker — linked medical monitor]

[Thermal: stable, within range]

[Respiration: resting range]

[Cradle regulator: connected]

[Alarm: clear]

Green everywhere.

He looked at it for about six seconds — long enough to read all four lines properly rather than to feel better — and then closed it.

She was in a climate-controlled ward with Verrick, a working regulator, and Jin’s shirt. That was part of what he was protecting, and it was also why he could close the panel and look back toward the branches.

He put the slate away and went back to the sector.

The provisional log had been accumulating quietly the whole time.

[E-9 — PROVISIONAL SERVICE RECORD]

[Hostiles neutralized: identities pending verification]

[Participation weighting: incomplete]

[Objective duration: counting]

[Regulated remains: tagged, academy custody, processing deferred]

Support personnel had come through during the lull and tagged what was left of the Ridgeback at the join, and the jackal against the wall, and had gone again.

Jin read the four lines and closed it without doing any arithmetic at all, which was a small thing and which he noticed himself doing.

Nobody’s farming out here. Positions are failing on this line right now.

The second pressure started at Tide minute forty-seven and was worse in every way that mattered.

More jackals hit the east against six spools instead of eleven. Ridgebacks moved through the west with Runner behind the join and Volley at forty-one percent, while impacts from the fully engaged exterior line turned the interference in Glitch’s reports from a floor into a wall.

Lysa held the east and lost two more spools without reporting either, since neither crossed an agreed trigger. Two jackals climbed toward an anchor; she dropped the line, caught them in the lower web, and marked only one for Volley. The other remained wrapped.

Glitch caught two western commitments through the noise and missed a third. It reached the branch mouth without warning, forcing him to meet it at the join. Harden absorbed the collision, and a tail strike exposed a seam for Volley without another use of Acid Breath. Glitch returned to the slab favoring one foreleg.

E-9 held, but by the end of the exchange Volley was at twenty-two percent and had reported it twice. Glitch’s throat still burned, his foreleg had begun to stiffen, and only four expendable spools remained on the east.

At Tide minute fifty-three, the adjacent sector started coming apart, and Jin learned about it in fragments.

The first was a structural warning on the shared band.

[E-8 — FOUNDATION COMPROMISE — WESTERN ROUTE]

The second was Neris.

"E-9, Holt. E-8’s route has been undermined. Ridgeback activity beneath their line combined with a surface wave on the weakened section."

"Received."

"Their team followed procedure. They’re being ordered back."

The third was Glitch.

The bond filled with impacts from the northeast that were not anything Jin recognized — not burrowing, not the jackals, not the ordinary noise of the line. Running feet. A lot of them, human and beast, moving fast over connected ground.

"I’ve got movement from E-8’s direction," Jin said. "Surface, connected, coming this way."

"That’s them," said Neris. "Retreat confirmed. E-9, be advised: E-8’s withdrawal route crosses your marked boundary toward casualty transfer and the secondary wall."

The fourth was the request.

[CASUALTY TRANSFER — REQUESTED]

[Origin: E-8]

[Route: through E-9]

And the fifth was the overlay changing, E-8 going from blue to grey on his sector map, its retreat route drawn as a line that ran straight into his eastern approach and down the length of his channel toward his fallback gate.

"E-9, Holt. Once they’re inside your boundary, they’re yours. Integrate them locally, move the wounded through, and hold your sector. Your authority does not extend to E-8 and E-8 no longer exists as a position."

"Understood."

They entered E-9 at Tide minute fifty-nine.

Jin counted eleven people and nine beasts, which was not everybody, and he did not ask about that on an open channel.

Three of the beasts were being carried or supported. One handler was walking with an arm held against her chest and another was not walking at all. Somebody’s callsign was Ward and somebody else’s was Kestrel and Jin filed both and asked for nothing else, because names could wait and positions could not.

"Runner." He was already moving. "Wounded escort. Take everything that can’t walk on its own and get it down the channel to the transfer point. That’s your job now and it’s the whole job."

"Moving."

"Volley — cover the retreat channel. You’re at twenty-two, so make it count."

"Received."

"Lysa. They’re coming through your branch. Do not open your boundary for them, tighten it and let them past the inside line."

"Already doing it."

Glitch was on the slab with his head up and the bond had gone crowded again. Whatever had broken E-8 would follow its retreat route; Jin had seen the pattern in the casualty archives.

"Kestrel." He picked out the E-8 handler with the heavy plated beast that was still standing and unhurt. "Western inner line, thirty meters down. Stand there and hold it. Nothing else."

"Yes — understood."

"Ward — you’ve got ranged?"

"Two pairs. One’s dry."

"Then the one that isn’t goes to Pell on the east." Jin pointed. "Report to her, take her triggers, she owns that branch."

"Understood."

"Everyone else who can still move, clear the center path. The wounded go down the middle and nothing gets in their way."

The channel filled with acknowledgments from four callsigns E-9 had not carried ten minutes earlier.

Then Glitch’s report opened out.

It came up through the bond as more contacts than Jin could separate — the pressure that had broken E-8 arriving behind the people who had run from it, spread across both approaches, deep and surface both, at a density the slab could not resolve into individual things.

Jin got a hand on Glitch’s shoulder and felt him brace.

"Pell, boundary trigger is now anything crossing your inner line, not your fallback. Kestrel, hold that western position and do not advance past it. Runner, keep moving."

He watched the overlay fill with grey.

"Glitch — give me the west first."

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