Anthony had planned a neat little range day—flash-bang the plaza with a live-fire demo, shake hands, drink Luu-luu’s tea, call it a morning.

Then the radio cracked.

“Contact report, contact report, this is Overwatch-Two—five-zero-zero-zero Black Dogs, repeat five thousand, dust plume west by-southwest, twenty-eight klicks and closing—estimate ninety minutes to gates if unopposed!”

Anthony didn’t sigh. He didn’t blink. He just said, “Copy. We’re done with show-and-tell. We’re doing this for real.”

Five minutes later — Royal Plaza

“Motherfuck— we’re doing this now?”

“Now-now, Staff Sergeant. Quit whining, move your ass.”

“Roger, moving like I stole it. Delta, stack on me. Claymores come out yesterday.”

“Gunners—heads on a swivel, safeties red.”

“Jammers up in five. Drones are hungry as shit, Chief.”

“Feed ‘em targets, Kim. If it moves and it ain’t waving our colors, you paint it.”

“Fuck yes.”

Luu-luu’s eyes were wide again—she’d been wide for a month and was somehow still finding new mile markers. Maia and Kaguya were stone masks with darting pupils. Claudia watched the five hundred unfold like a metal flower and sucked a breath through her teeth.

Celestine stepped forward. “What do you require?”

“Space,” Anthony said. “And trust.”

“Granted.”

Alicia opened her mouth.

David didn’t look at her. “Not you.”

On the walls of Ken

“Range party, talk to me.”

“Paladins are in defilade, four klicks south-east, guns laid, TOT T-minus seven minutes on mark. TOS is cold on your word; wind is a bitch, one-seven knots quartering.”

“Copy the bitchy wind. No thermos near civvies unless I say ‘cook.’”

“Roger, no cook unless Chef says cook.”

“B-21 is angels high, on station, bomb bay shut. Rules of engagement tighter than a drum. If you say ‘Rain,’ we rain.”

“Not today if I can help it.”

“Copy, no rain—yet.”

“Armor, set the anvil. LAVs, make a smiley face they won’t like. MRAPs, build me two wedges. We are not fighting on the queen’s doorstep if we can help it.”

“Anvil moving. Smiley face moving. Wedges moving. We are the friendliest motherfuckers you ever saw.”

“Henderson.”

“Yeah, General?”

“You’re the hammer. You see a flank, you break it.”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Language.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said to no one in particular, then grinned at the maid-medic beside him. “Let’s fuckin’ go.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let’s ‘go’ will do, sir.”

In the gatecut, outside the walls

“Fireteam Bravo, dig my garden.”

“What kind of garden, boss?”

“The kind with punji, razor wire, and a polite little sign that says ‘Step here and eat shit.’”

“Copy, shit-eating garden.”

“URK glamours up.”

A dark-elf signals corporal raised his hands, murmured, and a phantom platoon of armored figures shimmered out in the heat—extra bodies where none existed.

“Nice fuckin’ ghosts.”

“Thanks. Don’t shoot them.”

“Try me.”

“Psyops, speakers?”

“Live, hot, and horny.”

“Don’t say horny.”

“Live and hot, General. We’re gonna read ‘em bedtime stories.”

“Make it the mean kind.”

“Roger—load track ten: ‘Your mother sold you to Vult for a sack of rat dicks.’”

“Jesus Christ, Morales.”

“Hey, you told me to be mean.”

“Keep it cultural-agnostic.”

“New track: ‘You are outgunned, outmaneuvered, and out of luck.’”

“Better.”

“Snipers?”

“Up. Glassing. I see banners, ladders, a ram that looks like somebody’s midlife crisis, and a lotta leather trying to be armor.”

“Pick their brains when they get brave.”

“Gladly.”

“Mortars?”

“Tubes sited. HE and airburst stacked, smoke on standby, Willy Pete locked up like a rabid dog.”

“Good. No WP unless I say the word.”

“Copy. We’ll keep the dog muzzled.”

Claudia, on the parapet, heard all of it and went a shade whiter. “Only five hundred,” she whispered. The weight of the number made her blade heavier. She looked down at it, then out at the black ribbon of the road where dust rose like a storm, and—without quite meaning to—let the sword slip from her fingers. It rang against stone, a small sound in a day full of large ones.

Maia snorted. “Told you they fight like demons with homework.”

Kaguya said nothing. Her hands were clenched so hard her knuckles had gone bloodless.

Twenty minutes later

“Eyes on. Range one-eight hundred. They’re lined like a parade of idiots.”

“Save the poetry. Range update.”

“One-six. Drummers, standard Vult cult bullshit. Middle ranks are pushing ladders. Rear rank’s whipping the front. Classy.”

“Comms, open speakers.”

A Botswanan sergeant grabbed the mic. “Hey, shitbirds. This is the part where you turn around and live. You keep walking, we’ll do the paperwork and the gardening.”

The Black Dogs yelled something back about mothers and gods and meat.

“Yeah,” the sergeant said, dropping the mic to his chest. “Paperwork it is.”

“Mortars—send it.”

“Splash in twenty.”

“Mark.”

Alicia flinched at the first thump-thump-thump. Prim’s hands flew to her ears. On the wall, Celestine didn’t move, but her eyes widened—she’d seen shells in visions; she’d never seen them arrive.

Airburst walked like invisible giants through the front companies—white puffs over heads, then the noise and the falling things that used to be men. The second volley found the ladder crews. The third kicked smoke into the wind, a gray scythe that hid what must not be seen.

“Snipers, cut the whip men.”

“Two down.”

“Four down.”

“Six. They’re learning that standing tall gets you dead.”

“Roger. Teach remedial.”

“LAVs, give me .25 kisses.”

The Bushmasters coughed a heartbeat of fire and then shredded the rams. Men flinched, then broke, then tried to rally in the gaps where their friends had been.

“Psyops—sing.”

Speakers rolled like drums: You are outgunned. You are outmaneuvered. Drop your weapons. Walk away. The words carried weirdly in the smoke—and then a darker sound under them, low and inhuman, a URK roar that wasn’t a language at all, just no.

“Feint retreat. Bravo, fall back ten, leave the garden pretty.”

“Falling. Fuck, they’re biting.”

“Come on, you dumb bastards,” Henderson muttered. “Take the candy.”

“They’re stepping into it.”

“Claymore—left! Right! Again!”

Pop-WHUMP—pop-WHUMP, steel ball bearings turned to bees. Men went down like wheat in wind.

“Anvil, lock. Hammer—now.”

Henderson’s wedge slid out of smoke like a knife, shotguns barking, short bursts of carbine fire punching precise holes in the mess. A maid-medic moved with them, calm as a baker, not firing until a Black Dog broke through and reached for her—then two pistols snapped, two men dropped, and she kept moving.

“Fuckin’ hell, girl.”

“Language,” she said, reloading without looking.

“General, they’re collapsing left. Right is ballsy.”

“Ballsy gets you dead. LAVs, two-second taps, don’t overheat. Mortars, smoke the right and then tickle with HE.”

“Tickling.”

“Armor, do not pursue past the valley mouth. We hold the gate, not the world.”

“Roger—sitting fat and mean.”

“Paladins, you up?”

“Guns up. Waiting on lullaby.”

“Your lullaby’s ‘Send it.’”

“Copy. Sendi—”

“Hold.”

Paladin crews held, breathing on their lanyards.

Anthony looked at the smoke writhing like an animal above the field and judged the wind, the civilians, the too-close houses, the wet-eyed faces on the wall—then shook his head once.

“Negative guns. Keep that TOT warm.”

“Warm and horny.”

“Stop saying horny.”

“Warm and ready.”

“TOS?”

“Wind says no without toasting the wrong kids.”

“Then no.”

“Copy. Rockets stay virgins.”

“Comms, mark rout. Psyops, tell ‘em the rules again.”

The speakers returned, calm as a teacher. Drop weapons. Walk away. Live. The message repeated in five tongues.

A company broke outright. A second tried to rally and died for it. A third pretended to rally and slunk away. The rest were a scatter of hard men who hadn’t learned anything today and were going to learn it now.

“Snipers, take the hats.”

“Taking.”

“Mortars, last kisses. Airburst. Make it pretty.”

“Pretty and mean.”

Henderson’s hammer rolled one last time, then slid back behind the anvil as if pulled by a string.

“Cease. Cease. Cease.”

Silence happened all at once, like a door shutting.

On the wall, someone sobbed. Luu-luu swayed, still shocked in a way that didn’t dilute so much as layer—she had new shock on old shock and both were hers. Around her, halfling guards had wet patches on tunics and tried to pretend the wind had done it. In Thorn’s contingent, a samurai’s hands shook so hard she couldn’t sheathe her blade. In Ansur’s ranks, a veteran sat down abruptly and laughed until he cried.

Claudia didn’t sit. She leaned on the parapet, pale as milk, and looked at the field that five hundred had turned into a lesson. She imagined the forty thousand the general had mentioned and—without meaning to—pictured a continent learning.

She swallowed. Her throat clicked.

“Casualty sweep,” Anthony said.

“Trash in the wire. Few runners. No friendlies hit. Couple scrapes. One buttstock to the face because Private Genius forgot his cheek weld.”

“I’m fine,” a voice protested nasally. “Mostly.”

“Med, go kiss his boo-boo.”

“On it.”

“Drones report?”

“Heat blooms running west like rats. We can pick off stragglers or let fear teach.”

“Let fear teach.”

“Copy.”

Maia found her voice. “That was… five hundred.”

“Give or take,” David said, not looking at her. “You ain’t seen us on a bad day.”

Prim was crying quietly. She didn’t seem to know she was.

Alicia clenched the crenel with white fingers and forced herself not to tremble. Then she turned that not-tremble into anger and opened her mouth—

“Shut up bitch,” David said mildly, without looking.

She shut up.

Plaza again — minutes later

They came down off the wall like people coming back from a cliff. The scribes had fled the tables; the maps were pinned under stones; the tea had gone cold and jittery.

Celestine didn’t hesitate. She walked to Anthony, David, Ven’di, and Aleksandr, dropped to her knees, then bowed until her forehead touched the stone.

Gasps spiked like a second volley.

“Please,” she said, voice shaking. “Join our alliance against the Black Dogs. I beg you. I beg you as a queen, as a woman who does not want to bury children she cares. If it will bind the pact, I will—” Her voice thinned with shame. “—I will be your concubine.”

The plaza froze. Even the engines seemed to hold their breath.

Alicia inhaled as if to say something poisonous.

Anthony’s voice hit the plaza like a range command.

“ENOUGH GODDAMMIT!!!”

It wasn’t loud; it was Drill Instructor—clean, cutting, impossible to talk through. He didn’t use titles. He didn’t soften a syllable.

“Celestine, get up.”

She flinched, then obeyed, eyes wet and wide.

“We already agreed two days ago with Maia and Kaguya. We already told you we’d help. Stop trying to buy what’s already paid for.”

She swallowed. “I—”

“Save it, woman. And don’t offer yourself again. Not to me. Not to anybody. You wanna do something useful? Fix your leadership. Fix your logistics. Get your people in real armor. That’s how you pay us—by living.”

She nodded hard enough to hurt.

Alicia tried again. “This is—”

Anthony didn’t look at her. “Alicia, shut the fuck up!”

Her lips moved without sound.

Then she made a noise like a pot boiling over and went silent because Celestine put a hand on her arm and squeezed.

Anthony held up his left hand, fourth finger forward. “And before anyone else starts bargaining with skin like sex trafficking ring—I’m married to nine fuckin' wives. Not cheating. Not shopping. Not interested. Got it?”

"Eh!?" The blonde big titty elf exclaimed.

Claudia threw both hands up.

“Nine?! Gods, you greedy poor bastard!”

“Greedy and tired,” David muttered.

Ven’di coughed a laugh. Aleksandr smirked and looked like a man picturing nine mother-in-laws.

Kaguya bowed. Maia barked a laugh that sounded like gratitude disguised as rude.

“Okay,” Anthony said, the word like a lever moving the day forward. “Here’s how this goes. Claudia—real armor standards by nightfall. We’ll loan patterns; you find seamstresses who can sew without inventing cleavage windows. Kaguya—your tacticians embed with our trainers. Maia—you send me your hardest boys and girls and I’ll send you something honest back.”

Claudia found her sword again, picked it up, and saluted with the point down. “As you command.” She corrected herself, faintly smiling. “As you suggest.”

“Good recovery.”

Luu-luu tugged on David’s sleeve. “Hey. Question.”

He looked down. “Yeah, little boss lady?”

“Can I shoot one?”

David blinked. “One what?”

“One of the guns. Just—just once. So I know what I’m telling my people to respect.”

David glanced at Anthony. Anthony lifted one brow. David sighed and unholstered his Glock 19 Gen 8, locked the slide back with practiced hands, dropped the mag, racked twice, showed the empty chamber like a communion.

“Rule one,” he said. “It’s always loaded until you prove it ain’t. Rule two, don’t point it at shit you don’t want holes in. Rule three, finger straight and high until you’re shooting. Rule four, know what’s behind what you’re shooting.”

Luu-luu nodded like a bobblehead. “Yessir.”

“Ear pro,” he said. A maid produced muffs. “Eyes.” Another passed clear lenses.

They walked to a sand-filled crate set against a wall that was already pocked from an earlier century. David handed the pistol over, butt first. “It’s gonna bark. It’s gonna shove. Don’t flinch. Center that little blade in the notch. Breathe out. Squeeze like you’re trying not to wake a baby.”

She squared up, the muffs dwarfing her head. “Like this?”

“Yeah. Don’t teacup it. Both hands. That’s it. Good. You got it?”

“I got it.”
She aimed. She squeezed.

CRACK!

She squeaked. The slide cycled. A hole appeared exactly where a painted **X** glared an insult.

She stared at the hole as if the stone had said her name.

“Holy shit,” she whispered reverently, muffs crooked. “That felt like a God sneezed in my hands.”

“Welcome to the club,” David said, holding the pistol, dropping the mag, clearing it again. “Test run only. You ain’t keeping it.”

“Rude,” she said, beaming, and handed it back with both hands like a sacred thing.

Behind them, the five hundred were already resetting—policing brass, resetting claymores, rerolling wire, logging rounds expended, ordering more. The cussing had dropped from a boil to a simmer, the way it always did after you lived through something you weren’t owed.

“Debrief at sixteen hundred,” Anthony called. “We’ll build a schoolhouse. We’ll build a wall of people who don’t die dumb.”

He looked at the field one more time. The smoke had thinned; the crows hadn’t yet learned the new road.

“And somebody,” he added, softer, almost to himself, “tell Vult to send ten thousand next time if he wants to learn anything.”

“Send him a fuckin’ syllabus,” Henderson said.

“Already writing it,” the dark-elf comms corporal said, headphones crooked, eyes dancing. “Track one: ‘You’re outgunned, outmaneuvered, and out of luck.’”

“Play it loud,” Maia said. “Play it all the way to the coast.”

Kaguya bowed to Anthony again—upper body only this time. “Thank you.”

He nodded back. “Don’t thank me yet. Thank me when your people don’t freeze when guns talk. We’ll get you there.”

Celestine wiped her face with the heel of her palm, then squared her shoulders. “We will learn.”

Claudia sheathed her sword. “We will change.”

Alicia said nothing, and for once, the silence was wisdom.

Luu-luu bounced on her toes, cheeks flushed. “Again?”

“Later,” David said, half stern, half fond. “We’ll get you a rubber gun for practice first.”

She groaned. “Boo.”

“Safety first,” Anthony said. “War second. Pride never.”

He put his sunglasses back on. The White Citadel threw the sun back at him and he threw it right back.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go make an army that doesn’t die stupid.”

The city exhaled powder smoke and panic. The five hundred didn’t. They worked.

Outside the White Citadel, tarps went up, ammo cans stacked, belts were linked, optics wiped. LAV crews bled radiator lines; MRAP drivers topped fluids; a Paladin section chief chalked a fresh firing table on a crate lid. On the inner wall, maids and butlers laid out triage kits; tailors from the quartermaster shop unrolled “modesty kits”—Kevlar-panel surcoats and chest plates to replace bikini cuirasses as fast as needle and thread could move.

While hands moved, mouths ran.

A dark-elf with U.R.K tabs—Scout Underofficer 3rd Class (sergeant) Shai Aune—kicked a coil of comms wire into a figure-eight. “Fuck me sideways, lads, that was a lotta stupid for a Tuesday.”

A Botswanan mortar gunner, Pvt. Neo “Stompie” Masire, ratcheted a bipod tight and spat to the side. “Sharp-sharp, ser’t. Fucking Vult sends five kay like we’re tourists. He got his change. Keep those smoke rounds close, neh.”

A Ukrainian LAV gunner, Sgt. Mykola “Kolya” Khomenko, knocked carbon from a pinned-open breech. “Was clean, tak. They run, we breathe. They stand, we harvest. Still… suka, five thousand against five hundred. I need a cigarette and a priest.”

A Filipina maid-medic, Aila Reyes, snapped IV lines into a roll, gator tail twitching beneath a sanitized apron. “Priest later, Kolya. Somebody pissed themself on the wall and I’m not naming names.” She smirked. “Hydrate next time, mga gago.”

A Scout Fighter 1st Class (specialist), Kanae Tenzo—earlier the interpreter—stowed a drone controller. “Yabai, the drone feed had my stomach doing backflips. Demo… clean. I owe Henderson beer.”

“Fuck beer,” Henderson grunted nearby, cinching a sling while counting his squad’s remaining smokes. “You owe me your next three weekends. Training, Tenzo.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, but her grin said she’d try to bribe him anyway.

Two Knights of the Kingdom of Righteous, both in proper plate over new flak—Sir Rowan Hale (young, freckled, common-born) and Sir Elion Brix (older, clipped vowels, a baron’s second son)—worked a grindstone, showering the air with bright filings.

Sir Rowan pumped the wheel. “Gods, Sir Elion, did you hear Princess Alicia mouth off at the old wolves? Fucked if that didn’t curdle my guts.”

Sir Elion drew steel against stone, voice dry as parchment. “Language, Sir Rowan. But—yes. Astonishingly ill-advised. One does not spit into a gale and then complain of the rain.”

Rowan snorted. “She’s got more braid on her tongue than on her helm.”

Across the tarp line, two butlers in black waistcoats—Mr. Dorian Black (Mid-Atlantic drawl) and Mr. Tshepo Kgwadi (Setswana lilt)—lifted a crate of 7.62x51mm. Dorian’s cuffs stayed immaculate as he spoke, “Lady Alicia’s tone, if I may say so, was egregiously out of tune.”

Tshepo grunted as they set the crate down. “She talks like she never buried friends. That mouth gon’ get a lotta people killed.”

A Namibian MRAP driver, Cpl. Kaino Amadhila, slid under a chassis with a torque wrench. “Say that louder, Tshepo. Fucking hell, I seen kids with better sense crossing the B1 in rush.”

A Amazonian maid armorer, Isla MacPherson, threaded webbing through a borrowed knight’s new plate carrier, pins in her lips. “Aye, and if she gabs like that in front o’ the General again, I’ll stitch her cleavage window shut. With piano wire.”

The knight blushed. “Please do.”

Near a rolled sandbag berm, URK Senior Scout Underofficer (first sergeant) Tarkh Ember-brow—a stocky dwarf with a voice like gravel—and Scout Fighter (PFC) Ryn of Ashwalk, a lanky wolf-faunus, checked claymore caps.

Tarkh spoke looked at his finished work. “Cluster faster. We’re too fuckin’ neat; chaos is armor.”

Ryn’s tail flicked. “Aye, Top. And uh—Top—”

“What.”

“Is it treason to say the bikinis make me mad and a little… you know.”

“It’s treason to say that near HR,” Tarkh rumbled. “Eyes up, hands busy, thoughts holy, son.”

“Right. Holy as fuck.”

At the weapons-cleaning line, a South African sniper—Cpl. Piet du Toit—ran a bore snake through a long barrel, glassy-eyed with fatigue and a wicked grin. “Gonna be honest, manne. I had Celestine and Claudia both in my glass for like… a whole minute when the radio was quiet. Just appreciating the engineering, you know?”

His spotter Kolya wheezed. “Herz, you suicidal bastard.”

Piet shrugged. “What? I’m an artist.”

Aila flicked a glove at his head. “You’re a pervert. Wash your hands before you touch that bolt again.”

He did, still grinning.

Two URK junior officers—Scout Junior Officer 2nd Class (2LT) Vael’thir (high-elf, diction precise) and Scout Officer (captain) Gorri Thornlash (lizardfolk, hissing R’s)—stood over a sand table, nudging pebble “companies.”

“Expeditionary doctrine… elegant. Economy of force. I will petition Vanguard Commander Seris to embed our Scout Underofficers in their schoolhouse.” The former said.

Gorri tasted the air. “Yesss. And we fix the armor farce. My hatchlings wear more cloth to swim.”

Behind them, Prim passed with a bundle of bandages, cheeks still pink from tears. A Filipino radio tech, Spc. Jun Arriola, whispered to Aila as they worked. “Ay naku, this whole war is—what’s the English word—self-inflicted? The kingdoms hired monsters, then acted shocked when monsters did monster shit.”

Aila knotted a sling. “Say it louder. This shit’s on them. They lit the fire, now we’re the ones with burns.”

A Mexican gun chief, Sgt. “Chuy” Valenzuela, slapped a Paladin’s glacis affectionately. “Pues, pinches reyes y curas, same story in a hundred histories. You make bad men useful, then they get ideas.”

From a tent flap, Ven’di strode out reading a manifest; two UNE clerks hustled after. The Knights of Righteous nobles drifted closer, voices low but heated.

Sir Elion spoke up, “We owe those men the courtesy due to rank and to experience. The General and his Warrant are not hedge-captains. They are… peers in all but name.”

Sir Rowan nodded, almost bouncing with pent-up adrenaline. “Heard stories they’re ennobled back home. Saved cities. Fucked up empires.”

Tshepo hearing, spoke too. “And folk with that many ghosts don’t need lip from a girl who’s never scrubbed blood out her hair.”

A Japanese cook section butler, Mr. Nakajima, ladled soup into cups for passing troops. “Maa, maa, calm. Eat first, curse later.”

“Fuck it, I can multitask,” Henderson said, taking two cups and handing one to Kanae. “Thanks, chef.”

“Dōitashimashite.”

At the sewing tables, Isla and a Zambian seamster, Mwansa Phiri, chalked lines on a halfling’s surcoat. “We’ll cover you up good-good. No spear gets in there, mama.”

Halfling guard, ears ruby with embarrassment: “Thank fuck.”

Isla bit thread. “Armor’s for coming home, hen. Not for winning pageants.”

Across the aisle, Dorian adjusted a knight’s new shoulder plate just so. “If I may—consider the posture training His Lordship skipped to learn sword flourishes. A little discipline goes a long way.”

The knight flushed. “…Yes, Mr. Black.”

In the shade of the Abrams, two privates split a protein bar and rehashed the Alicia problem for the tenth time.

“She called the General a coward without the word. Fuckin’ wild.” Pvt. Stompie said.

Pvt. Arriola agreed, “Crazy to disrespect both Anthony and David. You saw the ribbons on the old man? Dude’s a walking museum of scary places.”

Kolya snorted. “We joke ‘bout devils. They’ve been devil to worse than this. Princess needs to read a book or ten.”

“Or get knocked on her royal ass by reality,” Aila muttered.

Behind them, Piet snapped his bolt closed with a final, clean click. He squinted toward the citadel where Celestine and Claudia conferrred with staff. “Still art,” he said under his breath. Then, louder: “Kidding, Aila. Hands are clean.”

Aila rolled her eyes and shoved a fresh tourniquet into his pocket. “For when you ‘art’ your thumb off, Picasso.”

Two URK troopers—Scout Fighter (PFC) Kezzi Quickstep, a fox-demi with a North American twang, and Scout (private) N’dari (lion-demi, South African vowels)—hauled sandbags.

Kezzi spoke up, “Okay real talk, just pop Vult and we save a lotta ammo.”

N’dari grimaced. “We pop one head, two more grow. Hydra, chommie. Read your Earth history. You kill a devil, sometimes you get a worse one.”

Kezzi wiped her brow with a sandy wrist. “Yeah, yeah. Succession’s a bitch.”

Mr. Black, overhearing, tilted his head. “Decapitation strikes delight the impatient and disappoint the future. Institutions perpetuate appetites. Remove a man, leave the machine, and you’ve changed very little.”

Tarkh grunted. “We break the purse, the lie, and the legs. In that order.”

Ryn’s ears perked. “Purse, lie, legs. Got it.”

Sir Elion folded his arms. “And when Vult eventually falls, it must be after he is made small—so small that the next villain eyes the throne and decides, ‘Perhaps not today.’”

Rowan pointed with a whetstone. “We let the world see him beaten by women he called chattel and ‘cowards’ he called cravens. That’ll preach.”

“Damn straight,” Aila said. “Then we salt his myth and piss on the altar.”

“Colorful,” Vael’thir murmured, but his lips quirked.

Near the gate, Claudia passed, pausing while a maid took her measurements for a proper ballistic plate fit. She listened to the chatter without stopping them, the cool of a commander who had decided that truth told ugly is better than comfort told pretty.

She surprised herself by speaking. “For the record,” she said, voice even, “the Princess of Feoth will learn. Or she will be moved.”

The line quieted. Even the Abrams seemed to hum softer.

Claudia met their eyes, one by one. “You may swear all you like. But do not mistake our silence as approval. We saw what five hundred did today. We are not fools.”

Aila saluted with two fingers and a smirk. “Yes, ma’am.”

Claudia nodded, allowed herself the smallest of smiles, and moved on.

By late afternoon, the plaza looked less like a panicked court and more like a field workshop that happened to have a palace attached. The modesty kits were nearly gone—steel and Kevlar replacing naked midriffs one set of plates at a time. The talk kept running, braided into the work.

At the edge of the map tables, Ven’di found Anthony and David hunched over a casualty projection chart with Aleksandr and Kaguya. Henderson hovered like an ugly angel.

Ven’di, dryly. “Whole damn camp’s got opinions today.”

David didn’t look up. “Good. Opinions mean they’re thinking. Thinking means they ain’t dead yet.”

Anthony tapped the chart. “We give ‘em doctrine, armor, and a reason better than shame. Then we point ‘em at the right targets.”

Kaguya bowed her head. “We will unlearn what kills us.”

Aleksandr’s mouth pulled into a tired grin. “And we will teach you every dirty trick we know.”

Outside, the younger ones kept moving, kept cussing, kept learning—about princesses and politics, about armor and arrogance, about mercy and murder and the math that keeps people alive. They teased and bitched and argued like families do, and when they spoke of Vult, most of them settled on the same answer:

Don’t make a martyr. Make a message.