Page 17 of Sy

Tor stepped forward. The voice that emerged was nothing like she’d expected—deep and rough, like gravel being crushed underfoot. “We will not cross the cordon. We will both ensure Lila’s safety.”

She hid her surprise. She’d assumed his silence was shyness or typical teenage reticence. Now, hearing that damaged voice, she realized how many assumptions she’d made about both of these young warriors.

Lila drew herself up to her full height, leaving her barely reaching the middle of Kal’s chest. The morning sun caught her red hair, making it glint and blaze against the dull grays andbrowns of the construction site. “I can look after myself. I’ve taken all my hostile terrain certifications to qualify for this trip.”

Ashley bit back a smile. Those certifications had involved carefully controlled simulations in climate-regulated chambers—nothing like the raw, unpredictable reality of Parac’Norr. Her tablet chimed again, and she glanced down. Shit, the K-wave readings were showing dangerous fluctuations in sectors four through six, but Thompson had assured her the secondary containment fields would hold. She needed to check those readings personally, but Lila’s determined expression pulled at her.

“I scored in the top percentile for environmental awareness,” Lila continued, ticking points off on her fingers. “And I completed advanced first aid, including xenobiological considerations. Plus, I’m already ahead on my coursework.”

“Go ahead,” Ashley said, surprising herself with how steady her voice sounded. “But stay within sight of the main array. The resonance fields are acting up this morning.”

Lila’s face lit up as she fell into step between Kal and Tor, their boots raising small puffs of dust. Ashley watched them head toward the eastern section, her attention split between her daughter and the increasingly urgent warnings on her tablet.

“Kids, right?” Michelle Trevor’s voice cut through the morning clamor. The senior engineer’s coveralls already showed grease smudges despite the early hour. “One minute they’re clinging to your leg, and the next they’re making friends with alien warriors.”

She laughed, grateful for the distraction. “At least yours only brought home stray cats. I’m dealing with seven-foot-tall teenagers with combat training. But right now, I’m more worried about these readings. Look at this pattern.”

They walked toward the main engineering hub off to one side of the site where holographic displays showed the day’s workplans floating in crisp detail. Michelle pulled up the latest sensor readings, her fingers dancing over the controls.

“The crystalline matrix is destabilizing,” Michelle said, zooming in on a three-dimensional diagram of the site. “We’re getting harmonic feedback at levels way outside normal parameters. The drill bits aren’t just wearing down. They’re molecularly degrading.”

“The secondary containment fields should be compensating for that.” Ashley studied the pulsing red zones on the display. “Unless…”

“Unless someone mis-calibrated them.” Michelle’s voice was flat, but her eyes cut sideways as Thompson clattered his way up the metal steps to the platform.

“The secondary containment feeds need recalibrating,” Ashley told him, keeping her voice level and professional, even though all she wanted to do was rip the guy’s head off. He had one job… keep those fields in line.

He sneered dismissively as he shouldered between them. “But that’s impossible since I personally?—”

“Checked them?” she cut him off, pointing to the readouts. “Then explain why we’re seeing phase variance in all six backup generators. Those fields are barely containing the resonance bleed.”

Thompson’s face reddened. “Now listen here?—”

“No, you listen.” She stepped forward, her voice carrying enough authority to draw attention from nearby crew members. “Your incompetence isn’t just burning through equipment anymore. If those fields go down, we’ll have quantum resonance waves tearing through the entire site. Including where my daughter is standing.”

Michelle’s hands flew to her console, her fingers flying across it. “Containment at sixty percent and dropping. We need to shut down the primary arrays now.”

“Like hell,” Thompson snarled. “Do you know how long it’ll take to power back up? We’ll lose days of work!”

“Better than losing lives.” Ashley slammed her hand down on the emergency shutdown. Alarms blared across the site as equipment powered down in a cascading wave. She keyed her comm. “All personnel, clear the eastern quadrant immediately. Repeat: clear the eastern quadrant.”

Her eyes found Lila’s distant figure, already being hurried toward the safe zone by her towering escorts. She allowed herself one moment of relief before turning back to Thompson.

“You’re relieved of duty pending a full investigation. If I find out you falsified those damn safety reports…” She left the threat hanging as she turned to Michelle. “Get me a complete diagnostic on the containment field generators. I want to know exactly what failed and why.”

“On it,” Michelle said with a curt nod, already starting the diagnostics as Thompson snarled and stormed off. “Ashley? Good call. Those fields were about thirty seconds from total collapse.”

Ashley nodded, turning to watch as workers evacuated the danger zone with practiced efficiency. The site hummed with a different kind of energy now—controlled urgency rather than panic. She wasn’t worried about this team. They were well-trained. They knew their jobs.

“Once we’ve confirmed the shutdown, get me a timeline for repairs.” She pulled up the site plans, already plotting contingencies. “And someone find me those drill bit fragments. I want to know exactly what we’re dealing with down there.”

Sy leanedagainst the rough stone wall of the meeting chamber, his arms crossed over his chest. The ancient granite blocks, hewn from Parac’Norr’s mountains centuries ago, contrasted sharply with the modern holo-projectors and comm units retrofitted into crude holes and gaps. Cables snaked across the ceiling in tangled bundles, their coverings worn from age and exposure.

His claws itched beneath his skin, and he fought the urge to extend them as Kraath’s second-in-command, Vraal, shot him another suspicious glance. The garrison commander himself sat at the head of the long, battered, metal table, his expression unreadable as he studied the latest security reports.

“The human construction teams are proceeding according to the schedule they gave us,” Kraath said, his deep voice echoing off the rough-hewn stone walls. “But we’ve had increased feral activity along the perimeter.”

Sy kept his expression neutral as half the room turned to look at him and shrugged.

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