The convoy left before the sun had fully cleared the ringed world's basin, a long, low line of rigs and crates threading the narrow pass like a cautious thought. Arjun rode near the front, the Astraeon Veil a steady warmth at his throat, Captain Rhea in the command rig behind him, and Ishaan's contractor crew moving with a practiced efficiency on the flank. The pass was a throat of stone and tide‑light, a place where a single misstep could strand a convoy for days. Everyone moved with the knowledge that the map here remembered the invasion in small, stubborn ways.
They set the first anchor where the pass narrowed to a single ledge. The contractor's heavy corridor latched on with a metallic hum; Arjun named the seam and unrolled a narrow ribbon of starlight inside the contractor's anchor, a sheltered lane for medics and a buffer for the rig crews. The Golem‑bond pressed the edges, its hands like living masonry. For a while the work was a choreography of practiced motions: anchors, stitches, counterweights. The Astraeon Veil hummed in time with the rig engines.
Halfway through the first haul the pass shuddered. A resonance cutter—sharp, illegal, and unmistakably human—struck the corridor's seam from above. Sparks lanced the ribbon and the stitch thinned to a thread. The contractor's crew cursed and tightened their anchor; Ishaan barked orders that were all economy and force. Arjun felt the fatigue like a hot weight behind his eyes and saw the red thread deepen on his mind‑screen. He widened the corridor by a careful fraction, the motion practiced and surgical, and the ribbon steadied enough for the crate to pass. The Golem‑bond groaned and held.
The cutter's strike had not been random. From a ledge above, a small band of scavengers—organized, desperate, and armed with jury‑rigged resonance tools—moved to pry at the convoy's edges. They were not interested in crates alone; they wanted leverage. Ishaan's crew readied countermeasures. Captain Rhea called for negotiation channels and for the convoy to slow. The pass tightened into a pressure that tested more than technique: it tested motive.
Arjun stepped off the rig and into the sheltered lane, the corridor swallowing the pass's wind and muffling the distant shouts. He saw one scavenger clearly—a young woman with a scar across her cheek and a child clinging to her hip. Her cutter was small and improvised; her eyes were raw with hunger. Captain Rhea's voice came through the comm: Negotiate first. Use the cadence. The academy had taught him the cadence as a ritual of names and promises; it was not a spell but a social tool. He spoke the scavenger's name aloud, offered a share of rations if she stepped back and let the medics pass, and promised to bring a liaison to discuss longer‑term aid.
The scavenger hesitated. Ishaan's crew tensed; one of his men leveled a resonance baton that hummed with a threat. The contractor's leader moved like a shadow to the edge of the lane and said, quietly, We can clear them. We can make this pass ours. His voice was a map of options. Arjun felt the halo at his collarbone like a compass that had been nudged. He thought of the maintenance crew, of the child's toy, of Captain Rhea's insistence that stitches be used to hold people, not power.
He chose the slow, dangerous thing. He widened the corridor another fraction and stepped forward with an offer that was both practical and risky: a crate of preserved rations, a promise of medical attention, and a mediated meeting with the outpost's council if the scavengers would stand down. The contractor's leader spat a soft curse and stepped back. Ishaan watched him with an expression that was almost respect and almost calculation. The scavenger woman lowered her cutter by a fraction and, after a long, trembling breath, signaled her band to withdraw.
The extraction finished without blood. The convoy moved through the pass with a careful, exhausted rhythm. The contractor's leader approached Arjun afterward with a look that mixed appraisal and warning. "You did well," he said. "You held a stitch and kept people in it. That's rare. But remember: sentiment can cost you a convoy." Ishaan's eyes flicked to Arjun and then away. Captain Rhea's hand on Arjun's shoulder was a quiet anchor.
They reached the outpost as the ringed world's thin sun dipped toward the basin rim. The outpost's council met them with a mixture of relief and bureaucratic caution. Captain Rhea presented the convoy's report with the economy of someone who had learned to speak both law and ethics. The contractor's liaison filed a parallel report that emphasized efficiency and risk mitigation. Director Sethi's office would read both and file them into different ledgers. Arjun felt the weight of those ledgers like a pressure at his back.
That night, in the outpost's dim mess, Ishaan found him again. He did not offer a contract this time. He offered a question: Why hold them? His tone was curious rather than accusatory. Around them the contractor crew laughed and traded stories of faster hauls and narrow escapes. The liaison's cards were a folded shadow in Arjun's pocket; the academy's mentorship circle was a steady presence in his file.
Arjun answered as he had learned to answer in Captain Rhea's office: plainly. He said he held them because stitches were tools to keep people whole, not to redraw maps for profit. He said he wanted to learn to stitch without leaving scars. Ishaan listened, then nodded with a slow, almost reluctant respect. "You'll make enemies and friends," he said. "Both will teach you things. Just don't be surprised when the world asks you to choose which lessons you'll sell."
The convoy's success rippled through the academy's channels by the time they returned. Captain Rhea's report praised the technical execution and the ethical choices; the contractor's report praised the speed and the minimal losses. Director Sethi called a closed review to discuss contractor oversight and the public optics of cadet involvement in sanctioned missions. The liaison who had watched the Trials and the canal extraction sent a brief message that read like a ledger entry: Noted. Continue observation.
Back at the academy, the mentorship circle met in the low room with maps and practice rigs. They ran resonance drills until the motions felt like muscle memory again. The Phoenix‑root medic led a healing session for the corridor's seam; the corruption thread that had appeared after the cutter strike was treated with a slow, careful regimen of reflective entries and guided meditations. Arjun wrote the entries with a steadier hand now, each line easing the fatigue thread a little. The Astraeon Veil's halo brightened in small increments.
Late that night, alone on the academy roof, Arjun opened his mind‑screen and read the ledger of the day: extraction, negotiation, convoy, outpost report. He felt the halo at his collarbone like a constellation that had been rearranged. The liaison's cards in his drawer were a folded temptation; Ishaan's words were a map of possibilities. Captain Rhea's mentorship was a steadying hand. The world beyond the academy would not wait forever, and the choices he made would not be private.
He closed the screen and, for the first time since Trial Day, allowed himself a small, honest thought: he wanted to stitch maps that let people keep their edges. He wanted to learn how to hold a corridor without leaving scars. The Astraeon Veil hummed, patient and precise. The climb would be faster now, and the lines he crossed would be clearer. He slept with the halo like a quiet constellation at his throat and woke with the knowledge that tomorrow would ask for another stitch—and another choice.