The next impact split the centre of the door.
Cade pulled the wounded intruder farther from it.
"Can it get through?"
Arlen was already checking the barricades.
"Yes."
"How long?"
The door bent inward again.
Arlen didn’t answer.
Varek started his cutter. This time nobody stopped him.
Lysa checked her pistol while Garr stayed close to Cade, one hand near the suppression collar around his neck.
Nate watched the crack spread.
"What are we dealing with?"
Arlen opened an old ammunition case behind the barricade. Four heavy cartridges remained.
"It learns."
Kellan looked over.
"What does?"
"Your habits. Keep moving the same way, shooting the same place, avoiding the same attack, and it’ll start waiting for you."
Kellan glanced toward the door.
"That how your team lost people?"
Arlen loaded the first cartridge.
"Partly."
Behind them, the wounded intruder tried to sit up.
Cade pushed him back against the floor.
"Why did you open the development wing?"
"We didn’t."
Arlen turned.
The intruder looked at him.
"We came for the armament. Lower gate was already open."
"Who opened it?"
"I don’t know."
"Your people?"
"No."
Cade caught his vest.
"Where are they?"
A scream came from the other side of the door.
The man stopped struggling.
Nobody needed the answer after that.
Black metal entered through the split.
One narrow limb pushed through, searched for purchase and hooked the edge. A second caught the opposite side.
The door peeled open.
"Move back," Cade said.
They gave it room.
The construct entered awkwardly through the opening and straightened once it was inside.
Nate had seen Imperial machines before. This looked older than most of them and much less concerned with resembling a person.
Six articulated limbs surrounded a narrow central frame. Two ended in long metal points. Another carried a broad plate that moved independently across the body.
The upper assembly rotated.
There was no head.
Only a pale lens.
Varek took a step.
Arlen grabbed his shoulder.
"Wait."
The lens moved over Cade, Lysa, Nate and Kellan.
It stopped on the cutter.
"Turn it off," Arlen said.
Varek killed the blade.
The lens shifted again.
Kellan fired.
His first round struck the centre.
The second never reached the same place. A plate slid across the frame and caught it.
Arlen’s rifle went off.
The heavy cartridge hit one of the lower joints and burst inside it. Metal snapped away.
The construct staggered.
Arlen moved several steps left and fired at the damaged joint again.
The shield was already there.
His second cartridge exploded against the plate.
Arlen lowered the rifle.
"Don’t repeat a shot."
Cade started moving before he finished.
"Lysa, low. Kellan, wait for the shield."
Gunfire filled the chamber.
Lysa put one round between two plates near the lower frame. Her next shot bounced.
Garr shoved a broken length of barricade across the construct’s path.
It broke through without slowing.
Garr backed away.
His collar gave a sharp warning.
He had moved too far from Cade.
"Back in," Cade called.
Garr returned to range.
The warning stopped.
Nate’s attention stayed on the Supervisor.
The lens had followed Garr all the way out.
Then all the way back.
"It watched the collar."
Garr looked at him.
The lens was still on him.
Cade moved right and fired.
The shield turned.
Kellan waited until it committed, then put two rounds into the joint Arlen had damaged.
The Supervisor lurched.
Varek’s cutter came alive.
He rushed the exposed side before the plate could return.
One limb swept toward his legs. He cleared it.
Another dropped from above.
Varek caught it on the cutter.
The impact forced him onto one knee.
His blade jammed between two plates.
He tried to pull it free.
The Supervisor twisted around him.
Cade fired into the opening.
Its lens snapped toward the shots.
Nate saw the frame lower.
One of its limbs planted against the floor.
He knew that movement.
Rovan’s training took over.
Nate entered.
The planted limb should have carried the weight. The body should have needed it for the next change of direction.
Instead, the limb folded backward.
The upper frame turned without following the movement beneath it.
Nate had already committed.
Metal struck him across the chest.
He managed to turn with the blow, but it still threw him onto his back.
Air left his lungs.
The Supervisor came after him.
One of the pointed limbs dropped.
Nate rolled aside.
The point punched into the floor where his ribs had been.
Kellan shot the exposed joint, grabbed Nate by the back of his vest and hauled him behind the barricade.
Nate stayed on one knee until his breathing came back.
"You hurt?"
"My chest."
"Can you move?"
"Yes."
Across the room, the Supervisor had gone back to Varek.
Nate watched the limbs.
"It doesn’t shift like a person."
Kellan fired once, forcing the shield back toward him.
"Then stop reading it like one."
Nate looked at him.
Kellan was already aiming again.
"Watch what actually has to move."
Nate turned back.
Rovan’s lesson had always begun with the body.
A shoulder pulled.
Weight settled.
A foot became difficult to move because too much of the body depended on it.
The Supervisor didn’t have any of that.
Its centre could stay balanced while the limbs acted almost independently.
Nate watched one strike at Cade.
The first joint turned.
The second followed.
Near the end of the motion, the last section straightened.
For a moment, that part of the machine had nowhere else to go.
Nate kept watching.
Arlen opened his ammunition case.
"One left."
Cade glanced toward him.
"How do we kill it?"
"Get the centre open."
Varek had finally pulled his cutter free.
"I can do that."
"If you get close enough."
Lysa had moved behind one of the old storage racks.
She came back with a narrow cylinder.
"Arlen."
He checked it.
"Thermal purge."
"Will it work?"
He studied the pressure strip.
"Maybe."
Lysa looked past him toward Garr.
"Run left again."
Garr stared at her.
"Why?"
"It expects you to come back when the collar warns."
His hand touched the black band around his neck.
"And if I keep going?"
Cade understood.
"I go with you. Stay inside my range."
Garr looked at the Supervisor.
Then at Cade.
"Fine."
Cade waited until the shield turned toward Kellan.
"Go."
Garr ran.
The pale lens caught him almost immediately.
Cade followed several metres behind.
Garr passed the same broken barricade he’d used before.
The Supervisor shifted to cut off the route back.
Garr didn’t turn.
For the first time since entering the chamber, the machine made a small correction and stopped halfway through it.
Lysa threw the cylinder.
"Down."
The blast filled the side of the room with white heat.
Nate covered his face.
When he looked again, the armour had held, but one plate had warped outward.
Varek was already moving.
He drove the cutter into the exposed seam.
Metal screamed as the blade bit deeper.
The plate split.
Cade and Kellan fired through the gap.
The Supervisor kept moving.
A limb caught Varek across the body and threw him onto the floor.
The cutter remained stuck in the opening.
Another limb rose above him.
Nate saw the strike begin.
He didn’t look at the rest of the machine.
First joint.
Second.
Final section.
Nate moved.
He passed beneath the descending limb and struck the side of the joint with his knife.
The blade barely scratched the metal.
The timing mattered more.
He caught the joint after most of the force had already committed downward.
The limb shifted.
Barely the width of Nate’s hand.
The point missed Varek’s throat and buried itself beside his shoulder.
"Move!"
Varek rolled away.
Arlen fired his last cartridge.
It entered the gap around the lodged cutter.
The centre of the Supervisor burst open.
Its lens went dark.
Nate backed away.
The machine remained upright for several seconds.
Then the central frame gave way.
It hit the floor.
Nobody approached.
Smoke escaped through the broken centre.
Arlen kept his rifle raised despite the empty chamber.
Five seconds passed.
Then another five.
He lowered it.
Cade went to Nate first.
"Anything broken?"
"I don’t think so."
"Breathing?"
"It hurts."
"That’s not what I asked."
"Yes."
Cade moved on.
Varek had blood running down one side of his face. He sat against the remains of the barricade and looked at Nate’s knife.
"You used that?"
Nate checked the edge.
It had chipped.
"It was enough."
Varek looked at the hole beside where his head had been.
He didn’t argue.
Lysa picked through the remains of the thermal charge.
Garr returned to Cade’s side and checked his collar.
It had never sounded.
"I don’t want to do that again."
"Then hope we don’t find another one," Cade said.
Garr didn’t answer.
Arlen had stopped paying attention to them.
He was looking toward the platform.
The black strands around Rell’s corpse were moving.
One loosened around the shoulder.
Another pulled away from the chest.
Arlen took several steps forward.
"That wasn’t happening before."
Kellan looked back at the ruined Supervisor.
Nate noticed something else.
The vibration in the floor was gone.
It had been so constant since they entered the lower level that he’d stopped hearing it.
Arlen understood at the same time.
"Suppression."
Cade glanced at the machine.
"It controlled the field?"
"Looks like it."
Another strand slipped free.
Rell’s body sagged against the platform.
The black plates around his forearm stayed in place.
Then six narrow marks began to glow.
A pale display formed above Graveshare.
ATTRITION UNIT STATUS
ORIGINAL DEPLOYMENT: ACTIVE
ROSTER MEMBERS: 7
SURVIVING ROSTER MEMBERS: 1
ARLEN VOS
Arlen came closer.
He looked older than he had a few minutes earlier.
"So it never ended."
Cade read the display.
"Your deployment?"
Arlen nodded.
"Malvern never closed it."
Another section appeared.
MOURNING MARKS: 6
Then:
STORED ENERGY: 61%
Nobody spoke.
Nate looked at the number.
After years of use.
After Rell’s death.
After Vale’s failed succession.
More than half remained.
Varek stepped closer.
"That’s the reserve?"
Arlen nodded slowly.
"Has to be."
"Sixty-one percent of what?"
"The armament’s limit."
"How much energy is that?"
"I don’t know."
Varek looked at Rell.
"Enough to matter."
"Yes."
The word came out differently from Arlen this time.
Nate noticed.
Cade looked toward the six marks.
"One for each casualty?"
"Yes."
Kellan counted them.
"Five teammates and Rell."
Arlen looked at the corpse.
"The bearer was part of the roster."
Cade looked back at the marks.
"And the energy?"
Arlen hesitated.
"The marks stay. The reserve changes."
"So the six aren’t six batteries," Kellan said.
"No."
"Just records."
"Of linked casualties."
Nate looked again.
Six marks.
One reserve.
Whatever Graveshare had taken during the old deployment no longer belonged to separate people.
There was no portion labelled Joren.
No portion labelled Siva.
No piece that still belonged to Rell.
The energy had entered the same reserve, been spent over the years, added to again when more members died, then spent again during Vale’s succession attempt.
No voices.
No memories.
No fragments of dead Circuits waiting inside the metal.
Just energy.
Sixty-one percent.
The display changed.
EVOLUTION THRESHOLD REACHED
FIRST MOURNING AVAILABLE
Arlen immediately stepped back.
Cade noticed.
"You know that name."
"I know enough."
"Seen it?"
"No."
Arlen kept his eyes on Graveshare.
"Vale found records."
The last strand released Rell.
His body folded forward, but Graveshare remained locked around his forearm.
Another line appeared.
BEARER STATUS: DECEASED
SUCCESSION REQUIRED
Varek wiped blood from his forehead.
"You’re the last one."
Arlen didn’t respond.
"Doesn’t that make it yours?"
"No."
"Why?"
Arlen finally looked at him.
"Because surviving the unit isn’t the same as surviving Graveshare."
Nate stepped closer to the platform.
"What does First Mourning do?"
Arlen rubbed his thumb against an old scar on his palm.
"Tests the next bearer."
"How?"
"Rell had years to learn how much energy he could safely pull from Graveshare."
Arlen looked at the reserve display.
"The next person gets a trial."
Kellan frowned.
"A trial of what?"
"Control."
That caught Nate’s attention.
Arlen pointed toward Graveshare.
"The reserve stays in the armament. Every bit the bearer uses still has to cross the interface with their Circuit."
Nate looked at his arm.
"Through their pathways."
"Yes."
"So First Mourning makes them draw from it."
"More than draw."
Arlen looked toward the broken Supervisor.
"Vale said the safety limit started disappearing."
Varek’s expression changed.
"What does that mean?"
"It means the armament stopped deciding how much was safe."
Silence.
Arlen continued.
"It gave him access to more energy than his pathways could handle and waited to see whether he could control it."
Nate looked at the display again.
Sixty-one percent.
His First Circuit suddenly felt very small.
"Vale was Second Circuit."
"Yes."
"And he still failed."
"He lasted less than five minutes."
"What happened?"
"He stopped the trial."
Arlen looked toward the ruined Supervisor.
"Then decided staying in Malvern was safer."
That quieted Varek.
Nate studied the six marks.
"Does the trial spend the reserve?"
"It did when Vale tried."
"How much?"
"I don’t know."
"So whoever succeeds Rell could burn through what the old deployment left in there."
Arlen’s expression tightened.
"Yes."
Nate looked at the number again.
The marks weren’t permanent strength.
Neither was the energy.
They were two different things.
The marks recorded who had died.
The reserve was what remained available to spend.
Finite.
Once used, it was gone.
Rell had spent from it while he was alive.
Vale had spent more during his failed succession.
Deaths had filled it again whenever Graveshare had been able to take something.
Now sixty-one percent remained.
And whoever tried next would burn through more.
Nate did not like where his mind went after that.
Cade looked toward Arlen.
"Can we move it without succession?"
"No."
"Can we leave it?"
"We can."
Arlen glanced toward the damaged entrance.
"So can whoever reopened C-19."
Nobody answered.
The display remained open.
SUCCESSION AUTHORITY AVAILABLE
FIRST MOURNING TRIAL REQUIRED
Six Mourning Marks.
Sixty-one percent reserve.
One survivor from the old roster.
And a dead bearer still wearing an armament someone had reopened a hidden Imperial route to find.
Nate looked toward Arlen.
"What happens now?"
Arlen looked at Graveshare.
"Now someone decides whether it’s leaving Malvern."
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