The steam carriage rolled forward at a measured pace, pistons chuffing in steady rhythm as it left the Tower Drome’s yard and merged onto the broader access road.

  Otwin rode his STV.

  The Stormtrooper armor moved with him easily as the STV rolled beneath him, the weight distributed well enough that it no longer felt like something worn so much as something inhabited. Each step was cushioned, reinforced, subtly corrected. He kept his stride natural, refusing to let the suit dictate his posture.

  Text scrolled across his vision.

  Query. You acted as if you did not understand Steam Armor. But you clearly have used lesser grades of it.

  Otwin did not answer immediately. He watched the street ahead, the way people began to shift aside as the formation became obvious.

  “I was playing stupid,” he said at last. “Duh.”

  A brief pause.

  Why?

  “Because I don’t trust you,” Otwin replied. “Not sure if I do now or not.”

  The HUD dimmed slightly as the DAC processed.

  That is logical. Rational. I am a foreign invader to your body, despite how I improve it.

  Otwin’s stride faltered for half a step.

  “Wait,” he said quietly. “Improve my body?”

  Affirmative.

  Otwin exhaled through his nose. “We’ll discuss this later.”

  Acknowledged.

  They moved deeper into the slums.

  The streets here were wider than the inner warrens but still crowded, layered with traffic and life. Handcarts rattled over uneven paving. Pack animals snorted and stamped as their handlers pulled them aside. Civilians stepped back instinctively as the armed escort advanced, heads down, eyes carefully not lingering.

  This was not fear exactly.

  It was recognition.

  Stormtrooper armor carried a particular weight, even in Iron-grey surplus. It denoted authority. It said violence was an option. Not inevitable, but present.

  Jordy was out front on his STV, helmet angled slightly as he scanned ahead, already threading a path through the congestion. He moved with easy confidence, picking routes that would minimize delays without forcing confrontations. People shifted aside before he had to gesture. A few merchants shouted warnings to clear lanes. Doors closed softly.

  Behind him rode Otwin and Paul on their STVs.

  Paul kept pace easily, head turning as he read the crowd. His eyes tracked posture, accents, the subtle differences between irritation and hostility. He murmured occasional notes over the squad channel, observations rather than alarms.

  The steam carriage followed, broad and unmistakable, its bulk framed by the escorting STVs. Its armored sides caught the light, the turret gunner rotating slowly, visibly alert but disciplined enough not to spook the street.

  Bringing up the rear rode Humbert and Doke on their STVs.

  Humbert was impossible to miss. Even in armor, he loomed, a walking wall of iron-grey plates and restrained power. People gave him extra room without knowing why. Something about sheer mass triggered older instincts.

  Doke rode a few paces off to the side, rifle held low but ready, sapphire eye occasionally glinting as it adjusted. His attention ranged far beyond the immediate street, picking up movement on rooftops, windows, and balconies.

  Otwin felt the formation settle into place.

  It was familiar.

  The slums reacted as slums always did. Traffic slowed. Arguments died half-formed. Those with nothing to hide stepped aside quickly. Those with something to hide did the same, but faster.

  Smoke drifted overhead, mixing with steam vented from nearby workshops. The smell of cooking grain fought with oil and hot metal. Somewhere, a generator backfired, sending a brief clatter echoing down an alley.

  The city wall loomed closer with every block, its massive stone towers rising above the chaos like indifferent gods.

  Otwin’s helmet communicator crackled.

  “Go to the VIP lanes,” Grump said. “We have clearance today.”

  Otwin did not respond aloud. He tapped his comm.

  “Jordy,” he sent across the squad channel. “Find us the route.”

  “Roger,” Jordy replied immediately.

  He altered course without breaking stride, angling them toward a broader avenue reinforced for heavier traffic. Ahead, the press of civilians thinned, replaced by more official movement. Clerks hustled between buildings carrying sealed cases. Mounted enforcers watched intersections with bored eyes.

  This close to the main gate, the slums changed character. Less improvisation. More rules. Still poor, still crowded, but shaped by proximity to power.

  Updating mapping information. Noting chokepoints and throughlanes.

  The VIP lanes came into view ahead, marked by heavy barriers and posted guards. Beyond them lay the gates themselves, immense and patient, waiting to decide who would pass and who would not.

  Otwin kept pace on his STV, armor humming softly around him, squad tight and disciplined.

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  The city was opening its mouth.

  And the Chiliad Five Seven were about to head inside.

  ***

  The VIP lanes split away from the main approach like a vein cut clean from a clogged artery.

  Otwin eased his STV forward as Jordy guided them into position, the barriers parting with mechanical indifference. The crush of traffic to their left slowed to a crawl, wagons nose to tail, civilians packed shoulder to shoulder beneath watchtowers and shouted instructions. Here, there was space. Order. A sense that time mattered differently.

  Only two other groups waited ahead of them.

  Both were obviously wealthy.

  One convoy consisted of three immaculate tracked vehicles, their hulls polished to a soft sheen, plating uniform and unscarred. Copper edging caught the light along their seams, decorative but subtle. The other was a single long carriage, longer than Grump’s, its sides paneled in lacquered wood and inlaid metal, banners hanging stiff and clean from its flanks.

  Compared to them, the Chiliad Five Seven looked exactly like what it was.

  Functional.

  Iron-grey Stormtrooper armor. Civilian steam carriage with honest scars. STVs that had seen real use, real repairs. Nothing here said prestige.

  It did not need to.

  The checkpoint loomed ahead, built into the outer gate complex. Heavy stone pylons framed the lanes, each etched with dense runic arrays that pulsed faintly as vehicles passed through. Guards stood at their posts in pairs, armored but restrained, weapons present without being raised.

  As the Five Seven rolled up, a murmur of activity rippled through the checkpoint.

  Two guards stepped toward the steam carriage, signaling Grump’s driver to halt. They spoke briefly with Grump through the open side port, voices low and professional. Slates were exchanged. Seals verified.

  Another guard approached Jordy first, visor opaque, posture relaxed but precise. Jordy cut his engine and waited, hands visible, helmet still.

  Then the creature drifted forward.

  It looked like a massive floating eyeball, glossy and unsettling, its surface etched with concentric runes that rotated slowly over one another. Smaller sigils orbited it like motes, adjusting as it moved. It hovered under its own power, silent except for a faint harmonic hum that made Otwin’s teeth itch.

  He knew it immediately.

  A Detector.

  Contraband. Fugitives. Anomalous magitech. Anything that did not belong where it was.

  The eyeball paused in front of Jordy, rotated once, then twice. Light rippled across its surface. Jordy waited, patient.

  The Detector drifted on.

  It stopped in front of Otwin.

  The hum deepened.

  The eyeball rotated more quickly now, runes flaring brighter as it scanned him from boots to helmet. Otwin felt the faint pressure of it probing, not invasive, but thorough.

  The eyeball blinked.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  “Class two anomaly detected,” it intoned, its voice flat and genderless.

  Otwin did not move.

  “Run my ID signature,” he said evenly. “I am a salvager. Authorized up to class three anomaly.”

  The Detector spun sharply in place, sigils reordering themselves. The guard beside it lifted a hand to the eyepiece mounted over one eye, lenses clicking softly as data streamed through.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then the guard straightened.

  “Apologies, Mr. Hagermann,” he said, tone shifting just enough to matter. “Thank you for your service.”

  Otwin inclined his helmet a fraction. “I just did what I was called on to do. Same as you, guardsman.”

  The guard nodded once, professional respect acknowledged, and gestured the Detector onward.

  It drifted away from Otwin and paused briefly in front of Paul. The eyeball rotated, blinked once, then moved on without comment.

  Behind them, Humbert and Doke waited without incident. The Detector gave Humbert an extra half-rotation, then seemed to decide whatever it had found was within expectations.

  The entire process was efficient. No shouting. No delays. No unnecessary suspicion.

  Five minutes, perhaps less.

  The barriers lifted.

  The massive gate mechanisms began to move, stone and metal sliding apart with the sound of deep, patient machinery. Beyond them lay the city proper.

  Rafborough opened.

  The STVs rolled forward as one, the steam carriage following close behind. As they passed beneath the gate towers, Otwin felt the subtle shift in atmosphere. Sound changed. The open sprawl of the slums gave way to something denser, more controlled. Streets widened, then narrowed again with intention. Buildings rose higher, cleaner, their lower levels reinforced and regulated.

  The gates closed behind them.

  Traffic resumed its distant crawl on the far side, the world outside sealed away.

  They were inside now.

  And Rafborough did not care who they had been outside its walls.

  ***

  From the inside, the gate looked different.

  Less monumental. More functional.

  Irving stood beneath the shadow of one of the inner towers, half-hidden by a maintenance scaffold and a stack of sealed crates waiting for inspection. The stone here was cleaner, newer, and reinforced where the outer face had been allowed to weather. Runes pulsed faintly along the interior arches, doing quiet work no one paid attention to unless they failed.

  He watched the convoy emerge through the gate.

  Five STVs in disciplined formation. Iron-grey armor. A civilian steam carriage at the center, armored and purposeful, turret-mounted rifle tracking with controlled patience. Not flashy. Not sloppy.

  “They’re through,” Irving said.

  Beside him, Mortimer shifted his weight.

  Mortimer was a big man, even by city standards. Thick neck. Heavy shoulders. Face like it had been assembled out of dented frying pans. He did not bother to look at Irving when he nodded.

  “Yeah,” Mortimer said. “Send the alert.”

  Irving frowned slightly. “You sure?”

  Mortimer finally turned his head, one scarred brow lifting just enough to be a warning. “Boss says it’s a go. That means it’s a go.”

  Irving exhaled. “They’ve got five escorts in Stormtrooper armor. Plus that turret. That’s not slum muscle.”

  “No,” Mortimer agreed. “That’s money.”

  The convoy rolled past their vantage point, heading deeper into the city. Traffic parted for it without protest. Guards did not slow them. No one challenged their route.

  Irving watched the way the escorts moved. Not showy. Not nervous. The kind of people who had done this before and expected to do it again.

  “They’re professionals,” Irving muttered.

  Mortimer’s mouth twitched into something that might have been a smile. “So are we.”

  Irving was not convinced.

  Still, he reached into his coat and withdrew a small writing pad, the kind cheap enough to be ignored and common enough to pass without comment. A stubby pencil followed, its tip worn flat from reuse.

  He leaned against a crate and began to write.

  The symbols he scratched onto the page would have meant nothing to a casual observer. Numbers that were not quantities. Words that were not words. To anyone who mattered, it was clear enough.

  Target confirmed.

  Escort count verified.

  Package inbound.

  He paused, glancing up again as the last STV disappeared around a corner.

  “Timing?” he asked.

  “When they’re loading up the package,” Mortimer said. “Not before. Not after.”

  Irving hesitated. “Inside the city?”

  Mortimer nodded. “That’s what Boss wants. Less room to maneuver. More eyes to confuse.”

  “Or more guards,” Irving said.

  Mortimer shrugged. “That’s the job.”

  Irving finished the note, tore the page free, and folded it twice. He held it for a moment, eyes unfocused, then pressed it flat against the crate until the symbols faded into meaning only for those who knew how to look.

  “Alright,” Irving said quietly. “Sending.”

  He slid the writing pad back into his coat.

  Mortimer did not ask how.

  “Once this starts,” he said, “it doesn’t stop.”

  Irving nodded. “I know.”

  He looked back toward the route the convoy had taken, toward the deeper districts of Rafborough where banks did business behind thick walls and thicker assurances.

  Irving stepped away from the gate as if nothing of consequence had happened.

  The city swallowed him without a sound.