The wormhole spat them out sideways.
Not the clean transit they'd come to expect — the compressed second of folded spacetime, the momentary loss of reference, the shudder of hull adaptation. This was different. The unstable bridge had been dying when they entered it, the magnetic containment failing, the edges of the aperture already flickering, and the transit reflected every one of those failures in the shuttle's passage through.
The hull screamed. Not groaned — screamed, the metal skin torquing under forces it had been designed to handle from stable wormholes, not from bridges collapsing around the vehicle mid-transit. The shuttle yawed hard to port. Park fought the controls — her hands moving with the automatic speed of a pilot whose body had memorized corrections before her conscious mind processed the need. The starboard maneuvering thruster fired. The yaw stabilized. The hull stopped screaming and started complaining, which was better.
In the cargo bay, Chen hit the deck. His ribs announced the impact with a spike of pain that whited out his vision for two seconds. Santos caught the overhead rail one-handed, the machine gun swinging on its sling, her body absorbing the lateral force with the dense stability of a woman whose center of gravity had been trained by years of standing upright in vehicles that didn't want her to.
Viktor didn't fall. He was already on the floor, braced against the bulkhead, his rifle between his knees and his back against the wall and his body wedged into the corner where hull met deck. Conserving energy. Using architecture instead of muscle. The old soldier's trick of letting the building hold you up.
Ghost was in the co-pilot's seat. One-handed, strapped in, the carbine propped between his knees. The transit had thrown him forward against the harness and the harness had caught him and his wounded arm had slammed against the seat's armrest and the fresh blood on the dressing said the wound had opinions about being treated this way.
Yuki pulled herself off the cargo bay floor. Her cybernetic shoulder was grinding — the interface reporting damage she couldn't see, the metal-to-bone junction stressed by the impact with the stalker and now the transit's violence. She made it to the cockpit doorway and looked through the windshield.
CENTCOM filled the view.
Not like Station Prime. Not like Station Seven. CENTCOM was a different kind of structure — a military installation built to project authority the way fortresses projected authority, through mass and geometry and the simple physics of a thing too large to ignore. The station's central hub was a sphere half a kilometer across, ringed by docking spars that extended like spokes on a wheel, each spar large enough to berth a dozen shuttles. Habitation rings circled the hub at three different latitudes, rotating slowly, generating the centrifugal gravity that let twelve thousand personnel walk upright instead of float. The hull was armored — not the thin commercial skin of Station Seven but military plate, the kind of surface that was designed to absorb weapons fire and looked like it had, once or twice.
Running lights everywhere. Navigation beacons pulsing in the regulated patterns of an active, operational installation. Communication arrays bristling from the hull like quills. Traffic — other shuttles, transport vessels, the moving dots of vehicles approaching and departing through designated flight corridors. A living station. A working station. The headquarters of humanity's military command structure, three wormhole jumps from anywhere Vance could reach directly.
"CENTCOM Control, this is Reaper extraction shuttle Sierra-Seven-Seven, requesting emergency docking." Park's voice was level. The pilot's register — calm, precise, the verbal uniform that flight protocols required regardless of whether the person wearing it had just fled through a dying wormhole with a cargo bay full of wounded soldiers. "We have casualties aboard. Repeat, we are requesting emergency docking."
Static. Three seconds of it, which felt longer because the silence of a military installation's flight control carried implications. CENTCOM Control processed thousands of docking requests daily. They didn't need three seconds to respond unless they were checking something.
"Sierra-Seven-Seven, CENTCOM Control. Hold position. You are not on our inbound manifest. State your origin and authorization."
"Origin is classified extraction site. Authorization is Reaper Program emergency protocol nine." Park glanced at Yuki. "We have wounded. We are requesting emergency docking under medical priority."
Five seconds this time. Yuki watched the station through the windshield and counted the seconds and imagined the control operator typing queries into a system, checking databases, looking for a shuttle with this designation in the network of schedules and manifests and pre-approved flight plans that kept military air traffic from killing each other.
"Sierra-Seven-Seven, you are flagged in our system as assigned to Haven extraction — return trajectory, Orbital Station Prime. Explain your deviation."
Park looked at Yuki again. The look said *your turn.*
Yuki leaned past the co-pilot's seat and keyed the comm. "CENTCOM Control, this is Sergeant Yuki Tanaka, Squad Specter, Reaper Program. Our return trajectory was compromised. We have intelligence requiring immediate review by General Webb's office. Request emergency docking and escort to CENTCOM command level."
The silence stretched to eight seconds. Somewhere in the station, a flight control operator was staring at a screen, probably flagging a supervisor, probably initiating the cascade of calls and checks that happened when a shuttle appeared where it shouldn't be, carrying people who shouldn't be here, asking for a general by name.
"Sergeant Tanaka, hold position. Scanning."
The shuttle's proximity sensors registered the scan — a focused electromagnetic pulse from CENTCOM's sensor array, reading the shuttle's hull composition, power output, life signs, weapons signatures. Standard security protocol for unscheduled arrivals. Thorough. The kind of scan that would tell the operator exactly how many people were aboard, how many were wounded, and whether the shuttle was carrying anything that shouldn't be carried.
"Sierra-Seven-Seven, scan complete. We read nine life signs, multiple injuries, weapons aboard. You are cleared for emergency docking, Bay Fourteen, Spar Three. Medical team is being dispatched. Do NOT exit the vehicle until security personnel make contact. Acknowledge."
"Acknowledged, CENTCOM Control. Bay Fourteen, Spar Three."
Park's hands moved. The shuttle oriented — smooth, professional, the maneuvering thrusters firing in the short bursts that were her signature, the pilot's handwriting that other pilots could read the way soldiers read footprints. The station grew in the windshield. The docking spar resolved from a spoke to a structure, its surface pocked with bay doors and service ports and the industrial geometry of a facility that moved thousands of people and millions of tons of material through its systems every day.
Bay Fourteen opened. Guide lights activated — green, steady, the universal language of *come in, you're expected.* Park brought the shuttle through the bay doors with the precision that eight years of wormhole flying had beaten into her reflexes. The landing cradle engaged. Magnetic clamps locked. The shuttle settled into the bay with a final, mechanical shudder that said *you're here, stop moving.*
The engines died. The silence that followed was the loudest thing Yuki had heard in three days.
---
The military police came in pairs.
Four of them. Proper military — not corporate security in Kevlar, not Collective operators with encrypted radios. These were CENTCOM MPs, uniformed, armed with standard sidearms, wearing the shoulder insignia of the Provost Marshal's office. They came through the docking bay's personnel hatch in formation, weapons holstered, hands visible, the body language of professionals who expected compliance and were prepared for the alternative.
The lead MP was a staff sergeant. Female. Tall. The kind of face that had been trained to be unreadable and had succeeded. She stopped at the shuttle's ramp — Santos had lowered it from inside, the hydraulics hissing in the docking bay's pressurized air.
"Sergeant Tanaka."
"Here." Yuki was at the top of the ramp. The sidearm was holstered. Her hands were empty, visible, held at her sides in the non-threatening posture that military protocols required during MP contact. She was aware of how she looked — blood on her uniform, stalker fluid on her boots, her cybernetic arm streaked with dark residue, her face carrying the geography of three days without sleep.
"I'm Staff Sergeant Rivera, Provost Marshal's office. Your shuttle was not on our manifest. We need IDs from everyone aboard and a verbal accounting of your personnel and passengers."
"Seven military. Two civilians. Three wounded requiring immediate medical attention."
"Medical is en route." Rivera's eyes moved past Yuki into the shuttle's interior. Taking inventory. Reading the cargo bay the way an MP was trained to read crime scenes — blood on the deck, ammunition casings rolling in the corners, the machine gun on Santos's lap, the carbine propped beside Ghost. Evidence of a fight. Evidence of a situation that deviated significantly from a standard extraction return.
"Staff Sergeant, I need to see General Webb."
"The General has been notified of your arrival. He's sent instructions to bring you to his office once security screening is complete." Rivera stepped onto the ramp. Behind her, the other three MPs spread out — one on each side, one at the base of the ramp. Not threatening. Positioned. The choreography of a security detail that covered exits without blocking them.
The medical team arrived while Rivera was checking IDs. Four medics with a gurney and field kits — proper medical, with the insignia of CENTCOM's hospital section, carrying equipment that Doc's field pack could only dream about.
Doc was already standing. He met the medics at the ramp's base with the restrained urgency of a man who'd been treating patients with improvised supplies for three days and had just been handed the medical equivalent of reinforcements.
"Two cracked ribs, right lateral, partially bound." He pointed at Chen. "Laceration, left forearm, approximately eight inches, subcutaneous, bone intact. Needs suturing and antibiotic." He pointed at Ghost. "Gunshot wound, left arm, civilian." He pointed at Osei. "Nerve damage, being treated by Dr. Pruitt on Haven. And—"
He stopped. Looked at Viktor. The old soldier was sitting on the cargo bay floor against the bulkhead, rifle across his knees, his posture exactly the same as it had been for the last hour. Breathing audible. Face gray.
"Pulmonary fibrosis, advanced. Likely radiation-induced. Progressive fluid accumulation in both lung fields." Doc's voice changed. The clinical calm remained, but underneath it, something shifted — the tone of a medic delivering a report that he'd been carrying alone for months and was finally saying out loud to people who had the equipment to do something about it. "He needs imaging. Bilateral. And O2 supplementation. His sat levels are—" He paused. "I don't have a pulse ox. I haven't had one since Haven. But based on respiratory rate and skin color, he's in the low eighties."
"Low eighties is—"
"Dangerously compromised. Yes." Doc looked at the CENTCOM medics. "He won't get on the gurney. I'm telling you now. Don't fight him on it. Give him a portable O2 cannula and let him walk. He'll cooperate with that much."
The medics looked at Viktor. Viktor looked back. His bloodshot eyes conveyed a single, complete message: *touch me with that gurney and I will demonstrate that my arms still function.*
"The cannula," the lead medic said. One of her team produced a portable unit — a small tank with nasal prongs, the kind designed for ambulatory patients who needed supplemental oxygen but refused to stop being ambulatory. Doc took it, crossed to Viktor, and fitted the prongs himself. Viktor allowed it. The oxygen flowed. His next breath was fractionally easier — not fixed, not healed, but propped up, the chemical equivalent of the doorframes he'd been leaning against.
"Spasibo," Viktor said. The Russian came out reflexively. "Thank you, little one."
"Don't thank me. Thank the people who actually stock proper medical equipment." Doc turned to the CENTCOM medics. "The civilian woman needs a follow-up from a neurologist. The arm is—"
"Doc." Yuki's voice cut through the medical triage. "They'll take care of it. We need to move."
Doc's mouth tightened. The expression of a man being told to leave patients in the middle of treatment — the thing that went against every instinct his training had built. But he nodded. He handed Osei's care to the CENTCOM medics with a brief, efficient summary and fell in with the squad.
---
CENTCOM's corridors were a different universe.
After the dark of Station Seven, after Haven's forest and the shuttle's cramped cargo bay, the station's main concourse hit Yuki's senses like a slap. Bright — full-spectrum lighting, the kind that simulated Earth's daylight because studies showed it improved morale. Clean — the floors polished, the walls painted regulation gray, the overhead conduit covered by paneling that hid the infrastructure's guts behind a smooth, professional surface. Warm. Oxygen-rich. The air tasted of filtration and climate control and nothing at all, which meant the life support was working so well you forgot it existed.
People. Hundreds of them, moving through the concourse with the purposeful drift of a population that had somewhere to be. Uniforms — military, mostly, the drab green and gray of CENTCOM's garrison, interspersed with the white coats of medical staff and the civilian clothes of support contractors. The sound of boots on clean floors, of conversations held at professional volume, of a PA system delivering announcements in the measured cadence of institutional normality.
Nobody was running. Nobody was bleeding. Nobody was counting ammunition.
The squad walked through it like ghosts from a war that hadn't reached here yet. Santos in her blood-stained fatigues, the machine gun on her sling, drawing looks from passing personnel who saw the weapon and the woman carrying it and made calculations about what kind of mission produced both. Ghost with his arm bound in the field dressing, the carbine slung across his back, his face unreadable. Chen hunched around his ribs, the tablet and receiver visible in his vest pockets, his eyes already cataloguing the data infrastructure visible in every wall panel and ceiling mount. Viktor walking under his own power, the nasal cannula a thin line across his face, the rifle on his shoulder.
Rivera led them. Two MPs behind. The escort moved at a pace that was neither hurried nor leisurely — the professional speed of people following orders that said *bring them, don't rush them, don't let them wander.*
They took an elevator. The doors closed and the car moved and for thirty seconds the squad was in a metal box that hummed with the mechanical efficiency of infrastructure that was maintained on schedule by people who had the budget to maintain things. The doors opened on a different floor — quieter, carpeted, the corridor narrower and better lit. The command level. Where generals had offices and decisions were made and the war was managed from a distance that smelled like recycled air and coffee instead of alien blood and gun smoke.
"General Webb's office," Rivera said. She stopped at a door. Standard military — wood veneer over steel, a nameplate that read MAJ GEN MARCUS WEBB — COMMANDING, a security panel beside the handle. Rivera keyed her access code. The lock clicked. She opened the door and stepped aside.
"He's expecting you."
Yuki paused at the threshold.
The office was large. Not extravagant — military large, functional large, the kind of space allocated to a two-star general because regulations said two stars got this many square meters. A desk. Chairs. Displays on the wall showing operational data — troop deployments, wormhole network status, the real-time heartbeat of a military command structure that spanned multiple planets. A viewport showing stars.
General Marcus Webb sat behind the desk. He was older than Yuki remembered from the briefing files — mid-fifties, the gray at his temples more prominent, the lines around his eyes deeper. But the posture was the same: upright, alert, the body language of a career officer who had been sitting behind desks for twenty years but still carried himself like the infantry lieutenant he'd been before the promotions took him off the field.
He was looking at them. Not at the squad collectively — at each of them individually, his eyes moving from face to face, reading the damage the way a general read battlefield reports. Taking the measure. Assessing.
"Sergeant Tanaka." His voice was measured. The kind of voice that briefed presidents and sentenced soldiers and ordered men into battles they wouldn't come back from. "You're a long way from Haven."
"Yes, sir."
"Sit."
The squad sat. Or tried to — the chairs were arranged in a semicircle facing the desk, standard debriefing configuration, and getting seven soldiers and two civilians into them required the kind of spatial negotiation that would have been funny under other circumstances. Viktor took the chair nearest the door. Ghost took the one nearest the viewport. Santos dropped into hers with the deliberate gracelessness of a woman who was done standing.
Doc remained at the back of the room. Standing. His hands in his vest pockets. Watching Viktor's breathing. Watching Ghost's arm. The medic who couldn't stop being a medic, even in a general's office.
Webb waited until they were settled. Then he folded his hands on the desk — the gesture of a man preparing to listen, which was itself a statement, because generals were not known for listening.
"Your shuttle arrived through CENTCOM's wormhole node on routing credentials that trace back to a decommissioned logistics station. Station Seven." Webb's eyes were on Yuki. "Station Seven was taken offline eight months ago. I signed the decommission order myself. So I need you to explain to me how you activated a dead station's wormhole node, where you obtained the routing authentication, and why my flight control operators are telling me your shuttle is registered to a Haven extraction that was supposed to return to Station Prime."
Yuki looked at Chen. Chen reached into his vest pocket. Drew out the receiver — the small device that held the certificate data, the digital evidence that had survived Haven and the facility and the stalkers and the dead station and the dying wormhole. He placed it on Webb's desk.
"Okay, so—" Chen started.
"General, the short version," Yuki said. "The Reaper Program's extraction operations on Haven are running through a civilian facility operated by the Meridian Corporation. That facility is connected to the same communication network as the Reaper Program's tactical and command frequencies. The facility is conducting stalker breeding and behavioral conditioning. Director Vance is aware of the facility's existence and has been coordinating with its station manager to suppress evidence of its activities."
She paused. Let it land. Webb's face didn't change — the general's mask, the professional stillness that absorbed information without revealing what it did to the person underneath.
"Station Seven's wormhole node was where we discovered that the decommissioned stations are being used as stalker breeding facilities. Live specimens. On a station that you signed the decommission order for."
That got a reaction. Small — a tightening around Webb's jaw, the controlled response of a man who'd just heard something that touched a nerve he hadn't known was exposed.
"The receiver contains certificate data extracted from the Meridian facility's systems," Chen said. He pointed at the device on the desk. "Supply chain records, communication logs, facility schematics. It proves the operational connection between Meridian and the Reaper Program's network infrastructure."
Webb looked at the receiver. At Chen. At Yuki. His hands stayed folded on the desk, but the knuckles had shifted — whiter now, the increased pressure of a grip that was holding itself in check.
"Staff Sergeant Rivera," he said.
Rivera appeared at the door. She'd been waiting outside. "Sir."
"Secure this floor. No one in or out without my authorization. And get me Colonel Harrison from Intelligence Division."
"Yes, sir." Rivera disappeared.
Webb looked at the squad. At the blood and the bandages and the machine gun across Santos's lap and the old man with the oxygen cannula who breathed like a broken engine.
"Start from the beginning," he said. "Don't skip anything."
Yuki opened her mouth to speak. But something caught — not a word, not a thought. A detail. The kind of detail that soldiers noticed because noticing details was what kept soldiers alive, and not noticing them was what got them killed.
Webb had said *Station Seven was taken offline eight months ago.* He'd said *I signed the decommission order myself.* He'd said both of these things without asking what Station Seven was. Without needing to be told which station they'd come from.
Park had given CENTCOM Control their routing origin. The wormhole node's designation. That information would have reached Webb's office in the minutes between their docking and this meeting. Standard.
But Webb hadn't said *Station Seven?* the way a man said a name he was hearing for the first time. He'd said it the way a man said a name he'd already been thinking about. Already been considering. The way you said a word that had been in your mouth before someone put it in your ears.
CENTCOM hadn't been surprised by their arrival. Rivera had been ready. The medical team had been dispatched before Yuki asked for one. Webb was in his office, waiting, at an hour when generals were usually in the operations center or the officers' mess or anywhere except sitting behind their desks with folded hands.
He'd been expecting them. Not hoping. Not guessing. Expecting. The way you expected a package you'd been tracking.
Yuki sat in the chair across from General Marcus Webb and began to tell the story of Haven and the facility and the stalkers and the station, and the part of her brain that never stopped running threat assessments — the part that had kept her alive through thirty-nine extractions — tagged the room, the general, the too-clean corridors, and the too-calm response with a designation she'd learned to trust more than generals or evidence or the promise of safety.
Unconfirmed hostile.
