Fault Line

Chapter 13

I’m already in position when the signal comes through, pressed to the wall with the rifle up and my breathing steady, even as the cold cuts through the gloves and settles deeper than it should.

“Hold.”

It comes out quiet—not a whisper, but it doesn’t need to be. They hear me—three stacked behind me, tight—and no one moves. I lean just enough to check past the corner, taking in the street in a single pass. It looks empty. Too empty. The snow’s packed down, but there are no fresh tracks where there should be, and the wind cuts between the buildings without carrying anything back to us. Something about it sits wrong.

I pull back in and raise my hand—two fingers, then one—holding them there a second longer than necessary as I wait. A door creaks somewhere down the block, the sound thin and dragged out, then stops just as suddenly. No one shifts. I keep my eyes on the corner and count it out in my head, slow and deliberate. One. Two. Three. Nothing.

“Move.” I round first, fast, the rifle already up before the rest of me clears the corner, sweeping left—clear—then right, where movement flickers behind a blown-out window. I fire once, clean, and the shape drops before it can settle into anything solid.

“Contact.” I’m already moving again, and they pass me without hesitation, covering the window, the alley, locking down angles without needing to be told while I keep pushing forward toward the door ahead, hanging loose on broken hinges. I don’t slow. I kick it in and step through into the dark.

The room clears in pieces as I move—corner, table, shadow—nothing holding, nothing staying. “Clear.” I don’t stop, pushing deeper into the second room, then the third, where noise breaks behind me and I turn just enough to see one of mine already finishing it, target down and messy. I don’t look long. “Upstairs.” We move fast, the stairs creaking under the weight, old wood threatening to give with every step, but it doesn’t matter. It holds. It always does—right up until it doesn’t.

At the top floor, the door’s closed. I stop, hand up, and the silence behind me tightens instantly. I listen, but there’s nothing there—nothing that shouldn’t be—and I open it slow. The room is empty. Too clean. I step in anyway, clearing corners, windows, the back exit—open. I let out a short breath. “Clear.” It shouldn’t be, and I know it, but I don’t say it.

“Too late,” someone says behind me, and I don’t turn. I keep my eyes on the window, on the disturbed snow outside where movement’s already passed through.

“Yeah.”

“They moved.”

I lower the rifle slightly, just enough to shift weight. “Pull out.”

No one argues. We move back the way we came, same pace, same order, nothing rushed and nothing wasted. Outside, the cold hits harder, sharper than before, the wind picking up enough to cut through layers instead of sitting on them. I pause just long enough to look back at the building, taking it in properly this time. Empty. Has been for a while. Too late. I turn and start walking, and I don’t look back again.

•••

We’re back at base just after first light, the sky a flat grey with no sun behind it, just a thin wash of light over the snow that doesn’t warm anything it touches. The gates open slow, steel dragging against steel in a way that’s become familiar enough to ignore, and we roll through without stopping. The base looks the same as it always does—low structures reinforced and half buried in snow and ice, everything built to endure and nothing built to be seen. I step out before the engine’s fully cut, boots hitting packed ground as the cold settles in again, cleaner here, sharper than on the mainland, enough to remind me of home whether I want it to or not.

“Debrief in twenty,” someone calls across the yard. I don’t answer. Something’s off.

It takes a second to place it, but once I do, it’s obvious—the helipad draws the eye without trying. The chopper’s already spinning, blades slow but live, fuel crew cleared out and no movement around it at all. Just sitting there. Waiting. That’s not standard. Not this early. Not for us.

I start toward it, already knowing I won’t make the debrief. There’s an officer standing just off the pad, not in winter combat gear and definitely not one of mine—dress uniform, Crown insignia, high rank—and he’s watching me before I’m close enough to speak.

“Commander.” Not a question.

“Almost. My rank is Major.” I stop a few steps short, holding where I am instead of closing the distance. “What is this?”

“Not anymore, sir.” He says it like it’s already done.

I don’t react, just step closer. “What is this?”

“New orders came through thirty minutes ago, sir.”

That lines up wrong. “We only just got back.”

“I’m aware." Flat. No movement behind it. There’s a folder in his hand, sealed and not base issue.

“You’re being reassigned.”

I don’t move. “To where.”

“Crown authority.” Not an answer. “Not up for discussion.”

He holds my gaze when he says it, steady enough that it’s meant to land as final. I let it sit. Behind him, the rotor picks up slightly, the wind cutting across the pad hard enough to pull at his coat, but it doesn’t move him. Nothing about him shifts.

“Team?” I ask.

“They stay.” A beat. “You move now.”

I look past him then, at the chopper, at the pilot already in position with the engine live and ready to lift.

“Brief?”

“On arrival.”

Of course. I nod once—not agreement, just acknowledgment.

“Gear’s in your quarters,” he adds. “Take what you need. Two minutes.”

My boots track snow through the corridor, leaving wet marks that are already starting to melt under the heat vents. I go to the locker first and don’t take much, just what I can carry and what I trust, hands moving without needing to think about it. The door shuts clean. Bunk next. The duffle under the bed comes out, and I fill it quickly, not giving myself time to consider anything beyond what’s necessary.

Back outside, the chopper’s louder now, blades cutting harder through the air. The officer hasn’t moved. He’s still watching. I walk past him this time without stopping.

“Departure logged at zero-eight-hundred,” he says just before I reach the door. “Direct to Sevrin.”

I step up, grab the frame, and pull myself in. The door shuts behind me with a solid weight that cuts off the wind, and inside everything’s already prepped—seat waiting, harness loose. I strap in without looking up.

Through the glass, the base starts to pull back, shrinking into the snow and steel it was built from. The officer’s still standing there, watching, until distance takes him and he’s gone. Snow stretches out in every direction, grey sky sitting heavy above it.

Nothing else.