"We hit them before the Surgeon arrives or we don't hit them at all."
Aria said it standing at the signal house table with Sable's tunnel map unrolled over Torres's defense charts, both documents competing for the same square meter of wood. Viktor sat across from her. Marcus stood by the window, watching the yard where his squads were running morning drills in gray light. Torres had pinned his latest intercept transcripts to the wall. Wen and Kira occupied the two remaining chairs.
"Forty-two hours," Torres said. "That's the window. After that, we're dealing with Harvesters plus a specialist equipped for live extraction."
"What's our combat-ready count?" Viktor asked.
"Twenty-six fighters fit for offensive action," Marcus said without turning from the window. "Another eight can hold defensive positions. Rest are wounded, support, or civilian."
Aria tapped the map. "Twenty-six against forty in their camp. Bad math for a frontal assault. Good math for a surprise hit."
Torres shook his head. "We can't afford offensive casualties. Every fighter we lose weakens the settlement defense. If we send twenty-six out and come back with twenty, those six dead fighters are six gaps in the perimeter when the Council eventually shows up."
"If we sit here and let the Surgeon arrive, we're defending against a force specifically designed to crack us open," Aria countered. "You want to fight forty Harvesters with extraction gear, or forty without it?"
"Neither. I want to run." Torres caught Viktor's look. "I know. Not an option. But the record should show I said it."
Viktor turned to Sable, who leaned against the doorframe like someone attending a meeting nobody had bothered to invite her to.
"The tunnel exit near their position," Viktor said. "How close?"
Sable stepped forward and traced a line on her map. "East tunnel runs two point three kilometers from the junction hub. Exits through a drainage cut on the south slope of Hill 4. From that exit to where your intercepts place the Harvester camp, it's maybe four hundred meters through scrub and broken ground."
"Visibility from camp to exit point?"
"Low. The drainage cut opens behind a rock shelf that blocks line of sight from the valley floor. I've used it twice for supply runs. Never spotted."
Aria leaned over the map. "Four hundred meters of concealed approach. If we put a strike team through the tunnel and hit their supply line or command post at dawn, we could break their coordination before they know we're there."
Marcus finally turned from the window. "How many for the strike team?"
"Eight," Viktor said. "Small, fast, in and out. Aria leads. I provide frequency support from the tunnel exit to disrupt their communications during the hit."
"Your frequency is running at fourteen percent," Marcus said.
"Twelve, last I checked. But disruption doesn't need power. It needs precision."
Marcus chewed on that. "What's the extraction plan when forty angry Harvesters chase your eight-person team back toward a tunnel entrance they now know about?"
"Collapse the exit behind us. Sable, is the drainage cut structurally sound?"
"The opposite. Two charges on the ceiling supports would seal it permanently."
"Then we use it once and close the door."
Torres pulled a chair closer and sat heavily. "I hate this plan. For the record."
"Noted," Viktor said. "Concerns?"
"Twelve percent capacity. Eight fighters exposed. Collapsing our only flanking tunnel. If anything goes wrong, you lose the strike team and a tactical asset in one move." Torres rubbed his temples. "But Aria's right about the Surgeon. If that equipment arrives intact, we're playing a game we can't win."
Marcus nodded slowly. "Targeted strike. Supply and equipment focus, not body count. Hit the Surgeon's gear before it's operational and pull back. Don't try to win the fight. Just make the Surgeon useless."
"That's the play," Viktor said.
---
Crane asked to talk at 09:00.
Kira brought the request to Viktor in the dispatch office with her arms crossed and the expression she wore when Crane said something she couldn't dismiss.
"He wants better conditions," Kira said. "Blanket, actual food instead of ration scraps, time outside his room with a guard."
"In exchange for what?"
"He says he knows the Surgeon. Personally. Worked with the contractor network that developed extraction technology." Kira paused. "He says the equipment has a weakness."
Viktor went to Crane's room.
The former director sat in the same plastic chair under the same battery light, hands bound in front now instead of behind, a concession Viktor had made after Crane's east-brace advice at Gannet saved six children's lives. Crane looked thinner. The controlled composure was still there, but the edges had worn, the way stone wears in running water.
"Viktor," Crane said. "You look tired."
"Conditions for intelligence. Talk."
Crane smiled, the kind that reached his eyes but stopped short of warmth. "The Surgeon. Real name Dr. Lise Parnell. Former Council researcher who went private after the Seoul ethics inquiry. Brilliant with extraction mechanics, terrible with logistics."
"Get to the weakness."
"Her extraction rig requires a stable resonance-dampened power supply. Military grade, minimum twelve kilowatt sustained output. Without it, the extraction needles can't calibrate to a target's skill frequency. The process fails or, more entertainingly, kills the subject."
"Why does this help me?"
"Because a twelve-kilowatt resonance-dampened generator is not a field-portable device. It's heavy, fragile, and requires calibration before use. She'll transport it separately from her team. Probably in a shielded case on a dedicated vehicle." Crane leaned back. "Destroy the generator and Dr. Parnell becomes a woman with very expensive needles and no way to use them."
Viktor studied Crane's face for tells. The information was specific enough to be useful and vague enough to be fabricated. Classic Crane.
"Why tell me this?"
"Because if the Surgeon successfully extracts your skills, I become worthless to everyone. My only value as a prisoner is proximity to you. Remove you, and the Council has no reason to negotiate for my return." Crane's voice dropped. "Self-interest, Viktor. The most reliable motivation."
Viktor stood. "You get a blanket. Food improves when the information checks out."
"I'd have accepted the blanket alone. You should negotiate harder."
Viktor left without responding.
---
Lyra found him in the yard at 10:00, carrying a hand-drawn schematic that smelled like old grease and tunnel damp.
"The generator room," she said, unrolling the schematic on a rail tie. "Under the station's east wing. I found it yesterday while mapping the service passages. Everyone else was looking at the tunnels going out. I was looking at what's already here."
The schematic showed a subfloor compartment accessible through a maintenance hatch in the station's freight office. Inside: a decommissioned diesel generator, fuel storage tanks, and an electrical distribution panel.
"It's old," Lyra said. "Rail-era industrial. But the core assembly looked intact when I went down there. Fuel lines are corroded but the tanks are sealed. The distribution panel would need rewiring."
"Can it run?"
"I'm fourteen. I don't know generators." She said it without self-pity. Just fact. "But Wen might. And if it works, you get power. Real power, not batteries. Enough to run his full scanner network, charge equipment, maybe even get the comm array Sable built working at range."
Viktor looked at the schematic and then at Lyra.
She'd drawn this herself. Not because someone asked, but because she'd walked the tunnels looking for things other people hadn't thought to look for.
"Good work," he said.
Lyra folded the schematic and tucked it under her arm. "I also found something else in the freight office. Old station logs. Handwritten. The last entry is dated eleven years ago." She paused. "It says the rail line was decommissioned after a Council order. Not a budget cut. An order. Somebody wanted this place shut down specifically."
"Why?"
"The log doesn't say. But the entry before the last one mentions 'survey team from Regional Authority' and 'subsurface anomaly readings.'" Lyra shrugged. "Probably nothing. But I thought you should know that someone found something under this station and then the station got closed."
She walked away toward Emma's medical area, where she'd been volunteering mornings.
Viktor stared at the schematic for a long moment, then took it to Wen.
---
Marcus ran the afternoon drill session harder than the morning.
He'd reorganized the squads based on what he'd learned, splitting combat skills into complementary pairs and building each six-person team around a core of one ranged fighter, one close-combat, one skill-support, and three versatile positions.
Doran ended up in Squad Three with a woman named Priya who had a barrier skill and a patience for formation work that made her the opposite of everything Doran was.
The friction was immediate.
"Hold the line means hold the line," Priya said after Doran broke formation for the third time during a simulated breach drill. "If I'm projecting a barrier at sector two and you're supposed to be covering sector three, sector three is open when you charge."
"Sector three was clear. I saw an opportunity."
"You saw a chance to fight. That's not the same thing."
Doran stepped toward her and Priya didn't step back. They stood chest to chest in the rail yard with dust between them and squad members watching from both sides.
Marcus appeared between them like a man who'd been waiting for this exact moment.
"Good," he said. "You both want to win. Different definitions of winning." He backed them apart with his hands, not gently. "Let's test which definition works. Spar. Right here. Priya, use your barrier. Doran, try to beat her."
The yard cleared a circle.
Doran moved first. Fast, aggressive, closing distance before Priya could set her barrier angle. He feinted left and struck right, a combination that would have dropped most fighters.
Priya's barrier caught his fist six inches from her jaw. She redirected the force sideways and Doran stumbled past her.
He came again. Faster. A skill-enhanced burst that blurred his arms.
Priya blocked it. And the next one. And the next.
Doran was stronger and quicker and after ninety seconds he hadn't landed a single clean hit.
"You're fighting one person," Marcus called out. "Now imagine Priya is covering three squadmates behind her barrier while you waste energy on a wall."
Doran disengaged, breathing hard. Priya hadn't moved from her starting position. She wasn't even sweating.
"In squad formation, Priya protects and you kill what gets past her," Marcus said. "In solo combat, you're better. In a squad, she's more useful. That's not an insult. It's architecture." He looked at Doran. "Learn to build with other people or fight alone. Pick now."
Doran looked at Priya. She looked back without smugness and without challenge.
"Squad," Doran said.
"Good answer. Wrong tone. Try again when you mean it." Marcus turned to the rest. "Everyone. Back to positions."
---
Wen brought the news at 17:30.
Viktor was in the signal house with Aria, finalizing the strike team roster for the morning assault, when Wen came through the door with his scanner in one hand, looking like a man who'd just watched the board change.
"Harvester movement," he said. "Started twenty minutes ago."
Viktor stood. "Toward us?"
"No." Wen set the scanner on the table. The display showed signal tracks. Heat blooms moving south from the Harvester camp, away from the rail settlement. "Eight to ten contacts split from the main group and headed south-southwest. Current trajectory puts them on a path toward Millhaven."
Millhaven. The nearest town. Twelve kilometers south. Population of maybe three thousand people who had nothing to do with Viktor's war.
"Why Millhaven?" Aria asked, already knowing the answer.
Torres came in behind Wen, breathing like he'd jogged from the comm station.
"I caught a burst transmission from the Harvester handler before they switched frequencies," he said. "Partial decrypt. Two words came through clean."
He wrote them on the margin of a route card and turned it around.
*Leverage acquisition.*
Hostages.
They were going to take civilians from Millhaven and use them to drag Viktor out of hiding.
Aria set down her rifle roster and picked up her actual rifle.
"Strike plan's dead," she said. "New problem."
Viktor stared at the scanner's southbound tracks, eight to ten Harvesters with a twelve-kilometer head start and a town full of people who'd never heard of Skill Fusion.
Forty-one hours until the Surgeon arrived.
Twelve kilometers to a town that was about to become a bargaining chip.
And every fighter he sent south was one less body defending the settlement.
Torres watched Viktor's face and waited.
Everyone waited.
