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“There are too many.”

“Yes.”

“We will not hold it.”

I remembered checking the charge in my weapon.

“Then make them remember where we stood.”

We held.

Memory fractured there whenever I let it go farther.

Smoke thick enough to turn the emergency lights red.

A voice breaking apart through damaged comms.

Someone’s weight across my shoulders.

My left arm numb from the elbow down while I kept moving anyway.

Blood making the grip of my weapon slick.

I stopped the memory before it reached whatever came next.

The transport around me returned.

Clean controls.

Steady engines.

No smoke.

No one calling my rank through broken communications.

I flexed my left hand once.

The old sensation was gone.

The memory of it was not.

Loyalty had never meant expecting to live through the command.

It meant the command mattered more than whether I did.

The Veil had not taught me that.

It had merely found a male who already believed it.

I returned to the mission summary.

OBJECTIVE: LOCATE SUBJECT.

RECOVER CLASSIFIED MATERIAL.

CONFIRM NO SECONDARY DISSEMINATION.

Then the final line appeared.