Nate arrived at Western Access before six.
Darek was already dressed for the field.
Tessa sat near the lockers with her sensor pack open across her knees. Two men Nate hadn’t met were checking equipment beside her.
Darek pointed to the older one first.
"Joric Ames."
Joric was broad through the shoulders, with grey beginning to show in his hair. Most of his field suit had been repaired at least once.
The second man was tightening the locking ring on a conductive spear.
"Savin Cole."
Savin looked up.
His eyes went briefly to Graveshare.
"So you’re Calder."
Nate nodded.
"I expected someone taller."
"I’m tall enough."
Savin stood and compared them.
"Fair."
Joric shut his locker.
"You done measuring him?"
"I had expectations."
"You’ve had worse problems."
Savin picked up his spear.
"Most of them had your name."
Darek activated the wall display before they could continue.
A section of Western Access Four appeared.
Nate had never been this far down the map.
The route followed the outer edge of something labelled CONDUCTION LOBE 4C before descending toward an extraction platform.
Darek enlarged the final section.
"Yesterday afternoon, an extraction crew evacuated after local pressure rose faster than forecast. They left a sampler behind."
Tessa looked at the marker.
"Remote connection?"
"Gone."
"Sampler damaged?"
"Unknown."
Joric pointed at the platform.
"So we recover the data core."
"Correct."
Darek changed the image.
A photograph showed a narrow metal platform suspended over a deep split in the Colossus tissue. A sampler housing had been fixed to the far railing.
"Forty minutes in and out if the route behaves."
Savin rested the spear against his shoulder.
"And if it doesn’t?"
"We come back without the core."
Savin glanced at Joric.
"See? This is why he’s captain."
Darek ignored him.
"Feeder activity was reported around the lobe last week. Small nests. Nothing confirmed around the platform."
Tessa closed her sensor case.
"Pressure?"
"Currently below operational limit. You make the call if that changes."
She nodded.
Darek looked at Nate last.
"Your pathways?"
"Medical cleared me."
"That wasn’t what I asked."
"Shoulder still hurts if I lift too far. Nothing else."
"Your Circuit stays closed until I authorize circulation."
Nate nodded.
Darek looked at Graveshare.
"Roster?"
"Registered. Not active yet."
"Tell me when it changes."
They finished checking equipment.
Savin passed Nate on the way to the gate.
"If something eats the spear, I’m blaming you."
"Why me?"
"Joric stopped paying for replacements."
Joric didn’t look back.
"You still owe me for the last one."
The inner gate opened.
Graveshare changed as Nate crossed the deployment line.
Warmth spread beneath the black plates.
Text appeared.
OFFICIAL DEPLOYMENT ACTIVE
BEARER: NATE CALDER
LINKED PERSONNEL: 4
The names followed.
REN DAREK
TESSA MARR
JORIC AMES
SAVIN COLE
Nate looked at each one.
Darek noticed.
"It’s active?"
"Yes."
"Anything unusual?"
"No."
They continued.
Western Access Four felt older than the routes Nate had seen so far.
The human structures were less complete. Steel supports had been driven directly into pale tissue, and thick cables followed channels that disappeared into the walls.
Savin walked behind Tessa.
Nate took the rear with Joric.
After several minutes, Savin pointed his spear toward a dark patch near the ceiling.
"Feeder nest."
Nate saw dozens of tiny holes in the surface.
"Occupied?"
"Can’t tell."
Savin moved away from the wall anyway.
"They’re usually hand-sized out here. Don’t let one get under your collar."
"What happens?"
"They feed."
"On what?"
Savin glanced back.
"Whatever they can reach."
Joric added, "You’ll know."
Nate decided he didn’t need more detail.
They found the first feeder a few minutes later.
It crawled from beneath a maintenance rail.
Its flat black body was small enough to fit in Nate’s palm, with six thin legs pressed close to the floor.
Joric crushed it under his boot before it reached anyone.
Savin looked down.
"One."
"Thank you," Tessa said. "I nearly lost count."
She checked her monitor again.
The route remained stable.
They reached the extraction chamber twelve minutes later.
Darek stopped before entering.
The platform from the briefing stood across the room.
The overturned cart beside it hadn’t been in yesterday’s photograph.
One of its wheels turned slowly.
Nobody had touched it.
Tessa looked at the walls.
"Local movement?"
"Reading’s stable."
Darek drew his sidearm.
"Stable doesn’t explain the cart."
They entered together.
Nate noticed the smell first.
Sweet, mixed with something sour underneath.
Three dead feeders lay near the platform.
These were larger than the one Joric had crushed.
One had been torn open.
Savin crouched without touching it.
"Something fed on the feeders."
Joric looked into the split beneath the platform.
"Wonderful."
Darek pointed at the sampler.
"Tessa."
She moved.
Joric went with her while Nate and Savin watched the chamber.
The sampler housing had been bent along one corner.
Tessa opened it.
"Core’s still there."
"How long?"
"Minute and a half."
Darek checked the entrance.
"You have one."
She started working.
Nate watched the split.
Thick strands crossed the darkness below.
One moved.
He focused on it.
Another shifted farther down.
"Savin."
"I see it."
Something climbed onto the underside of the platform.
It looked like a feeder until more of its body appeared.
Much larger.
Its flattened shell was nearly a metre long, its front legs thick enough to hook around the steel supports.
Savin raised the spear.
"There’s your adult."
The feeder came over the edge.
Joric fired.
The shot broke part of its shell.
It dropped onto the platform and rushed forward.
Savin met it.
He opened his Circuit for a brief burst.
Energy ran along the spear as he drove the point through one of the front joints.
The creature twisted.
Savin released his circulation immediately.
Darek fired into the exposed section beneath the shell.
Nate moved around the other side.
The feeder struck at Joric.
Its limb had already committed by the time Nate entered its reach.
Rovan’s training took over.
Nate shifted outside the line and buried his field knife into the joint.
The limb folded.
Savin drove his spear through the damaged shell.
The feeder collapsed.
"Core," Darek said.
"Almost."
The floor moved.
The split beneath the platform contracted.
Metal screamed against the anchors.
Tessa caught herself against the sampler.
Joric grabbed her shoulder.
Something scratched beneath them.
Then another.
Savin looked over the edge.
"Nest."
Smaller feeders began climbing from the split.
Darek fired at the first.
"Tessa."
She pulled the core loose.
"Got it."
"Out."
They moved.
The first feeders reached the platform behind them.
Joric shot one.
Savin swept another from the railing with the shaft of his spear.
Nate stayed beside Tessa as they crossed the chamber.
They were halfway to the passage when something dropped from the ceiling.
It landed on Savin’s back.
He slammed himself against the wall.
The shell cracked.
The feeder fell.
Another came from beneath the overturned cart.
Savin turned too late.
Its mouth struck beneath his ribs.
He shouted and tore it away with one hand.
Joric shot the creature before it could attach again.
Savin looked down.
A narrow puncture had gone through the outer suit.
Tessa reached him.
"Mesh?"
Savin pulled the torn fabric aside.
The conductive layer beneath it had been pierced.
Tessa’s face changed.
"Don’t circulate."
"I’m closed."
"Stay closed."
Darek grabbed his shoulder.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes."
Savin took two steps.
His third was shorter.
He stopped.
Energy flared through his Circuit.
Savin doubled over.
Tessa caught him.
"I didn’t open it."
"I know."
His pathways brightened beneath the skin of his neck.
The feeder hadn’t simply punctured the suit. It had opened a conductive path through it.
Tessa ripped the damaged layer away from his side.
"Move him away from the wall."
Joric pulled Savin toward the centre of the passage.
Darek fired twice behind them.
More feeders were entering the chamber.
Tessa pressed an injector into Savin’s neck.
His jaw locked.
"Come on."
Savin tried to breathe.
Nothing came out.
Another injector.
No response.
Joric looked toward Darek.
"We can’t stay here."
Darek bent down and took Savin under one arm.
"We’re not leaving him."
Joric took the other.
They moved.
Tessa stayed beside Savin, checking him while walking.
Nate covered the rear.
A feeder crossed the passage.
He kicked it away before it reached Joric’s leg.
Another came from the wall.
Nate caught it with the knife and threw it behind him.
His Circuit stayed closed.
The gate marker appeared ahead.
Savin had stopped trying to walk.
His boots dragged between Joric and Darek.
Tessa checked his throat.
Then again.
Her hand remained there longer the second time.
Nate saw her expression.
Graveshare tightened around his forearm.
He stopped for half a step.
Heat moved beneath the plates.
A new mark cut itself into the black surface beside the others.
The display appeared.
LINKED CASUALTY CONFIRMED
SAVIN COLE
Nate looked at Savin.
The armament pulsed once.
Something crossed the roster link.
Not into Nate’s Circuit.
Into Graveshare.
The reserve climbed.
STORED ENERGY: 11%
18%
24%
It stopped at twenty-seven.
Nate stared at the number.
Sixteen points.
Savin had opened his Circuit once during the fight.
Only for a few seconds.
Then the feeder had punctured the conductive layer and flooded him with energy he had never asked for.
Some of that energy had still been inside him when his Circuit collapsed.
Graveshare had taken what it could.
STORED ENERGY: 27%
Nate had known Savin for less than an hour.
His first thought was still:
How much?
The question had arrived before he’d even finished looking at Savin.
That bothered him enough that he nearly missed the feeder rushing from behind.
Nate turned and drove his knife through its shell.
"Darek."
"I know."
They kept moving.
The outer team opened the gate before they reached it.
Joric and Darek carried Savin through.
Tessa followed with the recovered core.
Nate crossed last.
The gate shut on the feeders.
Medical personnel took Savin immediately, though nobody asked whether he was alive.
Nate stood beside the wall.
Graveshare updated.
DEPLOYMENT ACTIVE
LINKED PERSONNEL: 3
MOURNING MARKS: 7
STORED ENERGY: 27%
The display faded.
The seventh mark remained.
The energy behind it did not feel like Savin.
There was no voice.
No memory.
No Skill.
Nothing Nate could identify as belonging to the man Darek and Joric had just carried through the gate.
Only stored energy.
Finite.
Spendable.
Savin had died less than five minutes ago.
Graveshare was already more useful because of it.
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