The notification pinged at 2:47 AM, twelve blips on the security grid, moving in coordinated formation through the perimeter. I studied the thermal signatures on my phone screen, jaw tight. Twelve against whatever I had. The math would have unsettled most men. It didn't unsettle me.
I'd spent three weeks positioning the units. Arteni had delivered them personally, four sleek autonomous platforms, matte black casings that absorbed light rather than reflected it. He'd spent eighteen months perfecting the targeting algorithms, and when he'd handed over the delivery crate he'd said simply,
"They don't miss. Not unless you want them to."
My father called it a crutch. I called it sense. War had always belonged to whoever adapted fastest, and I had no romantic attachment to suffering unneces
