Vorra Deepcut's column arrived at the Tekarr Arch facility on the seventh day of travel, four fewer than they had left with and moving at a pace that suggested the reduction in number had accelerated rather than slowed them. Oshrak saw them coming from the ridge watch and had the facility's gate open before they reached the approach.
She gave her report in the facility's main room standing up, because sitting felt wrong after seven days of movement and four deaths and the particular kind of alertness that stayed in the body after a combat encounter. Aliyah listened from her position at the instrument station. She did not leave the instruments to listen. The instruments could not be left.
