Wilt did not hesitate.

  Deborah stood only two steps away, her pistol still aimed at her. Bodies lay scattered around them. Smoke drifted low across the floor, and the air reeked of scorched wiring and burnt metal. Wilt could feel her legs trembling beneath her.

  Not fear.

  Fatigue.

  She struck at Deborah’s mind the way she always did. Hard. Direct. No finesse. No subtlety. Break the mental guard. Steal the breath. Make the hand twitch.

  She hit a wall.

  Not stubbornness. Not panic.

  Something built.

  Layered.

  Reinforced like armor.

  Wilt slammed into it and recoiled as if she had cracked her skull against steel. For a moment, her vision dipped into black.

  Deborah did not even blink.

  And then Wilt understood.

  She would not get through.

  Not like this. Not in this state. Not after everything.

  Deborah chose the simpler answer.

  She stepped in and drove the barrel of the pistol into Wilt’s temple.

  It was brutal. Close. The kind of strike meant for alleys and executions, not battlefields. Wilt reeled and tried to lift an arm, but Deborah hit her again, harder this time. The pistol slipped from Wilt’s fingers and clattered across the concrete.

  Norcutt went down.

  She did not move.

  Deborah stood over her for a second, listening to the sound of her own breathing. Then she crouched, checked for a pulse, and found one.

  Alive.

  Only unconscious.

  “Lucky you,” she whispered, picking up the gun.

  Wilt drifted in a haze of broken sensation, aware only of movement. She was being dragged somewhere. Her body felt heavy and weightless at once. There was nothing left in her now. No strength. No anger. Only the dull certainty that, if she was fortunate, they would kill her quickly.

  She should have left this cursed planet the first time she had the chance.

  Too late now.

  Sooner or later, it came for every inquisitor.

  She had simply lasted longer than most.

  “I did well, didn’t I,” she murmured into the dark, as if speaking to an old teacher. “Please. Tell me I did well. One last time.”

  Then the world went out.

  “Take her,” Deborah said. “Alive. Do not lose her.”

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  Then she turned and headed for the exit.

  They brought Lothar to the hospital at night.

  Terry sat in the corridor without even taking off his jacket. Tomos paced back and forth near an air vent, smoking despite the rules posted right above it. He acted like he did not care, but his fingers shook around the cigarette.

  The doors to the operating room opened twice.

  The first time, they wheeled out sealed containers full of blood and surgical waste.

  The second time, they brought in fresh bags.

  Then a doctor stepped into the corridor.

  He looked exhausted, his eyes red, his face hollowed out by the effort. He pulled off his mask and stood there in silence for a few seconds, as if deciding which words would do the least damage.

  “He isn’t going to make it,” he said at last. “I’m sorry.”

  Terry shot to his feet.

  “There has to be something,” he said. “An exoskeleton. You can put him in a frame, right?”

  The doctor looked at him the way people look at someone clinging to a thread above open water.

  “It’s possible,” he said. “But it is expensive. Mr. Illget transferred money only for the surgery.”

  Tomos let out a harsh laugh.

  “Of course. Everyone’s family until it costs extra. Then suddenly it’s only enough for the operation.”

  Terry stepped closer.

  “Call him. Tell him we need the money for the frame.”

  The doctor spread his hands.

  “He won’t answer.”

  Terry swallowed hard and looked toward Goodman.

  The captain of the Outcast stood against the wall, silent until now, waiting in the stillness of a man who already knew he was going to be asked.

  “How much,” Goodman said.

  “Three million for the frame,” the doctor replied, calm as an accountant reading from a ledger. “Three million for my work. Otherwise he dies.”

  Tomos gave a short, disbelieving breath.

  “Six million. Not greedy at all, doc.”

  The doctor did not even react. He only shrugged, too tired to care.

  “I’m not here to argue. I’m telling you the cost.”

  Terry dragged a hand down his face, as if trying to wipe away a layer of grime that would never come off.

  “Captain,” he said quietly, “I memorized the inquisitor’s code.”

  Tomos looked at him.

  “You’re kidding.”

  Goodman looked at Terry, then at the operating room doors, then back at the doctor.

  “I doubt she’d object,” he said.

  Then he gave a single nod.

  That was the moment the decision was made.

  Terry opened the account access, recited the code from memory, and confirmed the transfer. A notification flashed across the screen. The doctor checked it, gave a short nod, and turned back toward the operating room.

  “Then we continue,” he said, and went inside.

  The second operation lasted nearly a full day.

  Twenty two hours.

  They took turns sitting. Took turns trying to sleep in broken scraps of time. They drank bitter vending machine coffee that tasted like hot rust. Twice Tomos tried to storm off and “handle things,” and both times Goodman stopped him.

  “Sit down,” Goodman said. “You won’t help anyone out there right now.”

  When the doors finally opened again, all of them were on their feet before they even realized they had moved.

  The doctor came out slowly.

  His hands hung at his sides. His coat was stained. But his eyes were different now. No longer the eyes of a man about to deliver a death sentence. Now they belonged to someone who had done everything possible and, for once, had not failed.

  Tomos stepped forward first.

  “So,” he said, “is the kid going to live?”

  The doctor nodded.

  “Yes. But I strongly advise a wheelchair for now. He should conserve the suit’s output for when he truly needs it.”

  Goodman let out a breath so slowly it sounded like it had been trapped in him for hours.

  “Good,” he said.

  Terry sank back into his chair. Only then did he notice how badly his hands were shaking. He stared at them for a moment and swore under his breath, so quietly it was almost nothing.

  Tomos crushed his cigarette beneath the heel of his boot and muttered, “All right. Now try killing him again.”

  Nobody laughed.

  But all of them felt it.

  That slight loosening in the chest.

  That tiny release after hours of pressure.

  Behind the wall, behind the doors, where Lothar lay, life was still there.

  Held together by metal.

  By someone else’s money.

  By sheer stubbornness.

  But it held.

  For now.