The tactical table came alive with a damaged hum.
Blue terrain lines rose from the projector and formed Vardency above the broken glass, dead consoles, and blood on the command hub floor. The depot servers kept skipping frames. Buildings flickered, vanished, then returned with their roofs misaligned by a few feet.
Elias knelt near the back of the room and repacked the medical bag.
Slow hands. Lowered head. No wasted attention.
That was the shape he had to wear here. A frightened cook did not study leaders. A useful cook counted gauze, checked gel tubes, and pretended the map had nothing to do with him.
His ribs still pulsed from the skiff, the courtyard, the crates, and the lie he kept carrying from one room to the next.
Roachaline leaned over the projection. Red and violet light beat under her armor, fighting with the blue map glow. Sylira stood at her left with one gloved finger tracing the terrain. Her wire Ikona copied the movement along her forearm.
