Chapter 31 · The General They Deleted

The city’s warframes stood motionless beneath the storm.

Six hundred machines, half-buried in ash and maintenance foam, had turned their armored faces toward Kellan Vey. Their optics burned in synchronized blue. Above them, the broken sky boiled with lightning, silver warships hanging inside the clouds like knives suspended in dark water.

Commander, the defense line awaits your order.

The words had not come from a speaker. They had arrived through Kellan’s bones.

His knees nearly gave out.

Sable caught his elbow before he struck the deck. Her fingers locked around him hard enough to hurt. Kellan felt the tremor in her hand, felt the heat of her palm through his torn flight sleeve.

No one in the maintenance trench moved. Even the emergency pumps seemed to hold their breath.

Brom Hark’s folded warframe crouched thirty meters away, one knee buried in the cracked avenue. Armor plates peeled from its shoulders. White fire leaked from the seams around the cockpit. The machine’s chest cavity had collapsed inward, crushing the manual controls and trapping Brom inside.

His voice burst through the open comm channel, ragged and wet with static.

"Vey?