The days stacked like bricks, but Toric tried not to count them. He didn’t want to know how long it had been—since cold eyes stared at him, like he was worth noticing.

It wasn’t like Toric had expected anything. 

Or maybe, he just didn’t want to admit to himself that he’d hoped for something. 

Had Vox gotten bored of him already?

In the silence, he let the memories dissipate, and willed them gone. Distraction had no place in his mind, not with a war actively raging down every alleyway. It didn’t belong in the strategy briefings or the supply audits he forced himself to sit through. Pretending like none of it mattered to him anyway. Like the brief swell of wet lips hadn’t replayed behind his eyelids every time he laid down to sleep. On repeat. Like a fucking curse. 

The aftermath buried itself even deeper. The part where he’d let it get to him. That was the thing he hated most. The shame that came after, in the dark, when no one was around to distract him from the turmoil his own brain had created, just to spite him. 

The Bloodsparrows didn’t stall. They had moved fast, transferring crates of fuel, weaponry, food, and anything they could salvage from the Brannock raid across three sectors. It had taken the entire logistics team and half of their Special Ops to reroute their trucks without alerting the Unified Government’s radar.

In the weeks that followed, Toric, and a large portion of troops had returned to Sector Seven, their headquarters. It had infrastructure, water, managed agriculture, and even a modest airfield. Not that they had much by way of military aviation, but there were a handful of pilots and a few small planes, enough to make a difference in a fight when necessary. People knew their faces here. They would even smile as they walked by.

Recruits had tripled since they’d brought down Brannock. The story of the win spread fast, distorted by retellings until it became legend. They’d even converted a few metas in the process. A scattering of fledgling new recruits, invigorated by the momentum their victory had created. 

Toric didn’t tell Kael about the bombs Vox had set off as a distraction. He didn’t tell anyone. Vox hadn’t made it known to him before it was too late to stop, he’d just initiated them. It wasn’t like Toric could do anything to change it now. Any deaths that had resulted from the destruction weren’t his fault. It hadn’t been his call. 

Right? 

Toric didn’t let himself dwell on it. 

But turning his back on the truth didn't make it false.  He’d known even before they’d arrived that trusting Vox was risky. And then, the actual operation had immediately smelled fishy. Too easy.

The doubt and guilt crept in with waves. He wouldn’t confess to it––he hadn’t even fully come to terms with it, but he had to find out the reality of what happened. He quietly looked into it. The dead were owed that much.

The bombings had torn through more than just the guards’ attention. Just like he’d feared, families had been in those streets. Children playing in the alleys. Men and women waiting in ration lines. The casualty lists were longer than he’d feared. He forced himself to memorize their names, branding them there as penance.

But they had taken out a predator, secured a strong resource. And now, the Bloodsparrows were flush with weapons, food, and eager new recruits. Morale was higher than it had been in months. And Toric hated that it felt like a triumph. Hated the relief pressing against the grief. Yet beneath the bile, the truth burned through. The win was worth it. Vox was right. Even if it had carved something out of him with every breath.

A better man wouldn’t have thought that. A better man would’ve walked away and condemned the cost of it. But with every day that passed, and every sharp look he received from awaiting, omnipresent eyes, Toric found that version of himself harder to reach.

So he waited for the next drop. The next shadow from Vox on the horizon.

When it finally came, it was just an inconsequential blip on a screen. Tucked between logistics updates and ration reports on the Bloodsparrows private server. The brute force entry into their   system barely registered in his mind. Shaking hands were already moving, clicking open the file without another thought. 

It had been exactly three months and twenty-seven days since the last contact.

Not that Toric had been counting.

Toric was alone in the command center, a half-finished ration bar forgotten on the desk, the air stale with static and recycled heat. Surveillance feeds buzzed quietly behind him. He hadn’t slept in days. 

The message sat open, expectant, waiting to see what Toric would do. There was no fanfare to it, Vox hadn’t bothered with an elegant formatting or even a header. It was a standard data node with a timestamp and a single line of text.

“I trust you’ll know what to do with this.” —V

Toric’s stomach tightened. Just the sight of that single letter, “V” on the node made something curl hot through his chest. His throat clicked, swallowing down around nothing, mouth suddenly dry. A dehydrated animal.

There was a file attached. His fingers clicked, already moving to decrypt it. It opened in a sprawl of ten pages. Intel on Unified operations, cleanly formatted and sectioned that looked like Quillan’s handiwork. It contained details on satellite positioning, guard rotations. All of it targeting a strategic location the Sparrows hadn’t even considered viable.

He leaned forward, eyes scanning quickly over lines of classified detail. The suggested entry route had been highlighted on an internal schematic. Toric reviewed it, calculating the fallback options. It looked solid. Overall, tactically sound. 

The location wasn’t one they could afford to level in a full assault, but with the interior mapped in this kind of detail, they shouldn’t have to. It would be a risky mission—high risk, but high reward. Their margins would be tight, but if they moved carefully, they could slip in unnoticed and dismantle it from the inside. 

But…there was no context. Toric had no idea how this intel had been acquired, and that alone made him pause, teeth sinking into the inside of his cheek. He reminded himself that Vox saw human life as an expendable commodity, not as something with individual worth. Something in his chest fluttered, sinking into the pit of his stomach.

He stared at the final page for a long time.

Then, when he’d finally managed to smother the warning voices in his head, he reached for the secure line and began assembling the team.

***

The command tent was quiet, save for the soft rustle of maps being spread across the table and the low murmur of strategists checking the grid coordinates. Toric watched their faces as the data came into focus. Some tilted forward with a spark of anticipation. Others glanced up with the faint flicker of something brighter. Relief, maybe.

He received very little push back, and even less hesitation. Kael gave him a measured nod, mildly cautious, but not defiant. Vox had already earned a piece of her trust.

Toric was the only person in that room who knew the real cost. The others had no reason to question it. After all, Vox had delivered. His last tip had secured them a win, keeping their push alive. Handing Brannock’s stockpile with barely a fight. From their perspective, Vox was both generous and untouchable. 

Did the cost even matter if they were winning? If it meant the rebellion survived?

He tried to convince himself. If a few civilians died in the crossfire—was that worse than slowly starving to death?  Was that worse than dying silently, crushed under Unified boots?

People died every day just for standing beside them. Was that his fault, too? Had he already become the blade cutting them down?

One of the squad leads broke him out of his self deprecation. He was a young man, probably around twenty. His eyes were clear and devoted. He looked at Toric and nodded with a devout respect.

“They won’t see it coming,” he agreed.

Toric froze, snapping out of his thoughts; pulled to the surface by the pliable sound of the soldier’s affirmation. His pupils narrowed into focus through the heavy fog of his own doubt. Dread and shame crept up his neck, thick as oil.

A voice in the back of his head tried to remind him that this exchange could cost more than he was ready to pay.  That their rebellion was built on freedom, redemption — not pointless bloodshed. They weren't waging war for vengeance. They didn’t gamble with human lives needlessly reckless. This war was for liberation. Not reprisal.

He stared at the brief. He pictured the families sleeping two districts over, unaware of what was coming. The image of victory felt clearer. 

The voices in his head fell silent. 

The objective was to secure a highly secure government relay hub. A well-hidden subterranean compound outfitted with signal towers, reinforced with carbon fiber and steel, buried deep beneath the surface of Sector Thirteen. 

If they seized the relay, they’d be taking control of the backbone of three core sectors. Sector Thirteen to the north, Sector Thirty in the heart of Carvek, and Sector Forty-five to the west. With those points aligned, the Bloodsparrows could synchronize their momentum into a true nationwide front. Omnistad would remain isolated, but if Solen’s authority could be narrowed to the capital alone, the rest of the structure would collapse under its own weight.

Thirteen’s hub carried every encrypted order, every troop movement, every request for reinforcements. With it in rebel hands, they could intercept transmissions before they reached their mark, reroute supply convoys into ambushes, or shut down whole units by cutting them off from command. Even false broadcasts could be pushed through the network. The kind of orders that sent government soldiers running in the wrong direction while the Sparrows attacked areas left open in the confusion. 

It was more than a simple tactical asset. It was a choke point. Control of it wouldn’t just shift the momentum of the war, it would position them to take back the capital, leaving little Solen could do to stop them. 

And yet, the moment the plan was laid out in full, a cold pressure settled at the base of Toric’s neck. That creeping, coiled feeling that something wasn’t right. Something about the intel felt—engineered. A clever facade, hiding true intentions beneath.  

Thirteen’s relay was designed to survive orbital strikes. It had automated defense systems. There were fail-safes on top of fail-safes, and it didn’t operate like a normal base. If they were detected at any point in approach, lockdown protocols could trap them inside. 

And yet, if he said no, and Vox was telling the truth, he’d be the one delaying progress. Growing cautious just when Vox’s strategies were starting to bear fruit. His team had seen what Vox could do. Hell, even he had seen it.

Vox was a statistician, that’s all. That didn’t mean he wasn’t aiming for the same end as them. 

This wasn’t a betrayal. It was a hand held open, waiting to be accepted. 

***

“We hit it here,” Toric said, tapping the edge of the screen. “The southern crawlspace is our entry point. It’s small enough to avoid the automated defenses. From there, we’ll push into the communication center. Teams split to take both the relay and server stack at the same time.”

An older woman stood stiff at the far end of the table, with her arms folded. Hardened eyes tracked the crawlspace schematic without blinking. 

She was one of the few so-called Winged Commanders. It was the kind of rank you didn’t earn through ass-kissing, but by not dying, and by making sure everyone else did what they were told so they all could also not die. At least for another day.

Toric had known her name long before he’d ever met her. Everyone did. She rallied from the eastern front, back when Sector Seven was eating itself from within, fraying at the seams. She held it together with just a handful of men and a die-hard spirit.

Now that the Bloodsparrows had carved out a piece of Carvek for themselves, and a hierarchy of leadership was needed, she sat on the Council. Her name was Mira. 

“You’re confident this intel is legit?” she asked, folding her arms. “This isn’t a station we’ve touched before. There’s a reason for that.”

“We have reason to believe it is accurate, but the intel came from Vox,” Toric replied.

All mouths fell silent around the table. Mira leaned forward on her elbows and narrowed her eyes, but said nothing.

Another commander leaned in, with their brows raised. “So we’re just…trusting him now? Is that where we’re at?”

Toric held his stare. “His intel was the reason we were able to take Brannock. The crates of food and munitions that our trucks delivered to you. The same supplies you’re burning through in your sectors?” His voice stayed even, but there was an edge under it, a flick aimed at this commander he didn’t even recognize. He didn’t know why it sounded like an accusation, but it did.

“This is more than just a supply cache,” Mira snapped, cutting between the two men. “It’s not some backwater depot guarded by drunk halfwits. This is a Unified relay fortress.” 

Her implication rang loud and clear—and Toric didn’t like it.

“That means reinforcements.” Mira continued. “These are highly trained militia, not green soldiers. They use our photos for target practice—it’s all a game to them.”

And she wasn’t wrong. Anyone who still wore Unified colors saw the bloodsparrows as a blemish on their perfect little society. One they took real pleasure in scrubbing out.

Which was exactly why this wouldn’t be a skirmish. It would be a bloodbath, good or bad. And if the intel was off, even by a small margin, they’d be walking into a grave.

Toric didn’t miss a beat, motioning to his recon specialist, who stepped forward and tapped into the projection.

A flickering holoimage lit up beside the map, showing a blurry aerial shot of military convoys, snaking through mountain roads.

She hesitated before continuing.

“We’ve got a problem. Surveillance picked up movement three sectors out. It’s... the President’s motorcade. At least ten escort convoys. Headed straight toward Sector Thirteen.”

Grumbles of discontent went up from all sides of the table and positions fidgeted. One of the commanders behind Toric whispered under his breath, “This smells like a trap.”

The recon specialist kept talking, only quieter now. “There’s something else. We have reason to believe Solen’s son is stationed on-site.”