A half dozen Faceless watched from behind their featureless chrome masks, lounging against the factory's wall. They had followed, perhaps curious about what Fahon was doing outside. Now they were amused. Yes, he couldn't see their faces. None of them outwardly laughed. Why else would they watch him fail forty-five times and stick around? He removed his jacket and used it to dab the sweat from his brow, setting it on an eroded concrete barricade.

Now I see why Vivana runs kilometers every morning. I must build my endurance for this to be effective.

He was well enough to train. The concussion he received at Kormel's hands was doing a little better. His headache dulled enough to ignore now. After applying some regen-gel on his facial wounds, they were stitched and covered in bandages by the Faceless medic. In a few days, the injuries would turn into crusty scars.

Divinity spun lazily nearby, occasionally flashing out a laser to scan an insect flying by. In front of Fahon stood two rusted shipping containers stacked on top of each other. It was a good twelve meters to the top. In a single blue flash, he Phased-jumped to the top, and landed with a metallic thud.

At the end of the container, he lowered into a sprinter's stance. After counting down in his head, he sprang forward, dashing across the top of the container, steps thundering. He didn't stop, running right off the container into mid-air. Divinity zipped in behind him to catch up, once it realized what he was doing.

Gravity worked its consistent magic, and he fell half a meter, landing on a rectangle of Phasematter. Condensing the rectangle caused it to shine a brilliant blue and repulsed his feet away from it, letting him float on a cushion of air. Continuing onward, the rectangle dissolved into embers, and another took its place as he stepped.

This was the pattern, the consistent rhythm. If Fahon ran too slowly, he would fall through the Phasematter bridge drawing out front of him. Momentum was everything. The faster he ran, the easier it was to stay afloat. Except, if he ran too fast and let himself get tired, he would slow and fall. A careful balance was necessary to master the Phase-stepping technique.

He ran across the parking lot on his bridge of blue. Halfway to the front gate, he took a spill, falling off the bridge, face first towards the ground.

He jerked his legs forward, adjusting his body to be vertical, Phase-crafting a new bridge beneath him, and landed on it, hovering in the air for a moment. Too slow to break into a run again, the Platform dissolved, Fahon falling through. A couple meters above the ground, he focused a Phase-jump burst beneath him and landed softly. Divinity twittered as it cruised over him.

He frowned at the cobalt orb. Almost had it.

As he walked back, he noticed the Faceless exchanging marks with each other.

They're betting on whether I succeed or fail, just like people did at the Knight's Tourney.

It didn't matter. Let the soldiers watch and laugh at him. His father once told him: Failure is the essence of inevitable success.

A pang of grief stuck with him. His father had been wise beyond his years; well learned, compassionate, and forgiving. Now he was gone. Fahon would never hear him quote some scholar or another at the dinner table again.

"Glad to amuse," Fahon said to the spectators. A few chuckled in response.

Instead of another attempt at Phase-stepping, he slumped against the barricade and caught his breath. The Twins blazed low on the horizon, scattering ruby light across the clouds. It was hot, like standing near a bonfire. Sweat drenched his shirt.

He heard rumors about how hot the south was but experiencing it was necessary to understand. The Twins scorched his face and hands only after a couple of hours of exposure. He would have to spend most of the day outside in Ophan to get a similar sunburn. No wonder the Faceless wore hoods and masks during the daytime, despite how stuffy they were.

A Faceless soldier stepped forward. "Is that a truck?"

Fahon turned and with his enhanced vision tinted the harsh ruby rays from the Twins. A delivery truck idled at the busted gates. A moment later, a man climbed out and waved at them. Fahon narrowed his view, focusing on the figure like his eyes were a pair of binoculars.

Fahon tied the jacket around his waist. "Arik's back. I'll go help him inside."

Divinity flew off, and Fahon jogged behind it. The gates were a gnarled mess of twisted metal bars and mesh. He didn't know how the Faceless moved supplies inside their base. Perhaps through some underground tunnels.

A long blue Phasematter blade materialized into his grip. With a few precise cuts, the gates crashed onto the asphalt. Grunting with the effort, Fahon pulled the tangle of metal and wire aside, clearing the blockage. Arik waved in appreciation from inside the truck cabin, driving it off toward the building's loading docks.

The dock's sliding door was open, and Pom stood on the threshold, arms folded, wearing her mask. Fahon hopped onto the dock near her. The freight truck backed in, beeping a warning to anyone stupid enough to stand behind it.

"Pull anything from the comm you swiped?" Fahon asked.

She shook her head, loose strands of turquoise hair peeking from her hood. "Nothing on Kormel, unfortunately. It did have info on a shipment being sent out tonight at the Old Docks. Unfortunately, the place is old intel for us. We've known about it for months. There's tight security, automated guns, and plenty of guards. We'd take too many losses if we tried to attack."

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She didn't want to waste her soldiers' lives. Fahon understood. It was the dilemma of every commander, at least those with a conscience. They pointed their men at the enemy like an arrow and launched them. The chaos of war determined which of those arrows were still salvageable when it was all over.

Fahon didn't want to sit around anymore. If he wasn't going to be the hunted, he needed to start acting like a hunter.

Fahon put a hand on Pom's shoulder. "Let me help. I can take out the security and get your men inside."

Pom nodded slowly. "It would be helpful if you're up to it. Let's see how serious you are about helping us with our fight."

"I will prove it to you."

The trailer stopped centimeters from the dock. From the inside, Arik opened the retractable cargo door, exposing two long wooden crates. He smiled at Pom, self-satisfied.

"I got your drones. Real cheap, too," Arik said. He rested his hands on both hips. "Exactly like you wanted."

Pom motioned for the Faceless to come to carry the crates out. Once inside the factory and the door closed, Fahon Phase-crafted two crowbars, tossing one to Pom.

. "It's nearly weightless," Pom held the object, eyes wide with fascination, face glowing blue from its soft inner light. She shoved the lip of the bar between the corners of the crate and wrenched with all her weight. Nails screeched, and wood splintered, a section of the lid popping open.

"Durable too."

Fahon popped his lid off. "Phasematter also can get sharp enough to cut through steel." He dismissed both crowbars, blue embers flaring from their hands.

Pom glanced at Divinity in awe. It was scanning the contents of the crates with its red laser. "I need to get a Caster. Imagine all the fun ways I could kill the Syndicate."

Arik chuckled as Pom examined the seeker-drones herself. She gave him a stern look after a minute of sifting around.

"Arik, you slime, these are missing a bunch of parts. How are we supposed to fly them?"

Arik wagged his finger. "Hold on! These have high-powered cameras and their original cyberminds, intact and working. Those two are by far the hardest components to find and the most expensive to procure. This was a terrific deal. All they need is a little tender love and care in the engine department."

Pom rubbed her chin and then punched Arik in the arm. "I suppose our engineers can work with this. Sets our timetable back a little, but we can manage."

"What timetable?" Fahon asked. "I should know what you're planning."

"Usually, it's need-to-know." Pom considered it and grunted. "Since you're a Sovereign, I suppose I can divulge it to you."

Arik's mouth fell agape. "Hey! You never told me your plans before. Not fair. I've known you longer."

Pom grunted. "You were never useful with military strategy. Let's be fair."

Arik wasn't hurt by the statement. Instead, he smiled. As if it were a usual joke from her, not a jab. Did they have a talk about their past? Pom wasn't stabbing tables anymore, at least.

"Come on." Pom motioned towards the freight elevator. "We'll talk inside."

Inside her office, an empty room with a table in the middle, she rolled out a portable view screen and displayed a detailed map. It was topographical, showing roads, and rail systems, including ocean and aerial shipping routes around Zele and the ruins of Serenity. Divinity scanned the map until Pom shooed it away.

She pointed to Lowtown, along the shore and its harbor.

"The Syndicate likes to move most of their Razzle through ocean shipping routes. It's slower than a freight truck, monorail, or airship. It's easier to smuggle products in and out. Also, Syndicate shell corporations own many of the moon's shipping companies. You can see where things start to become profitable."

"Except for Ophan," Fahon stated proudly. All sea-based shipments were scrutinized extensively. The security weakness had been patched by his father a decade ago.

"You're right," Pom said. "Most of the product moving to Ophan passes through secret underground smuggling tunnels dug beneath the Striped Mountains."

Fahon's expression melted. Had his father known about those tunnels? It wasn't likely. He would have to investigate later after things were settled.

Pom tapped the map again. "Most of the Syndicate's product is produced and shipped out of Zele. It's their biggest weakness. They have yet to diversify their production to other countries. The means of production comes from a natural chemical only found in the wilds around here.

"There are many unique adapted species of the plant in the rainforests, stuff never cataloged by scientists. There are thousands of variations of Old Terran flora, all diversifying with enhanced evolution, in the millennia since the terraforming."

"You would love talking to Fahon's mother," Arik said cocking his head sideways at the images. "She researches terraforming."

"Anyways, I'm getting us a little off track here," Pom continued. "In trying to understand the Syndicate, the biggest mystery is the production of Razzle. I don't have access to capable chemists to reverse engineer its components. Most of the skilled ones in this city work for the Syndicate anyway.

"In the meantime, my goal for the drones is to find their main Razzle production facility. They're not producing the stuff inside of Zele. I'm certain. My father and I spent most of our lives scouring this city for a lab, to no avail. It's brought in from the outside."

Arik pointed at the map. "How can the drones help with that?"

"The Syndicate runs a well-orchestrated business. Their patterns make them predictable. While I don't know the main ingredient of Razzle, I do know it takes a huge amount of chemicals to produce it. There will be deliveries and shipments to their remote hidden facility. We can track chemical shipments moving along the main highways." She pointed to the north and to the west. "It's why I needed two seeker-drones."

Fahon pointed to a highway on the eastern side of the map. "What about any of these side roads surrounding the city? It will be hard to monitor them all."

"The eastern highway passes through Uptown. Security is tight there. They wouldn't get the Razzle through even if they wanted. It would be confiscated, and it would take them time to use their corrupt police connections to get it back, slows down the whole operation. The heavy security makes the rich feel safe while the rest of the city rots.

"The side roads aren't in good repair and haven't been for decades. The wilderness surrounding Zele is dense rainforest and rugged mountains. Most supplies delivered to remote villages are transported via freighter airships or delivery drones."

Fahon was impressed with Pom's understanding of the enemy's operations. She was a leader at war. He could undoubtedly follow her example.

"Sounds expensive," Arik commented.

Pom nodded. "It is. People out there don't have any money. They tend to fend for themselves while being gouged on the things they can't produce naturally."

"Will hitting the shipment tonight hurt your primary plan?"

Arik's blue eyes darted between Fahon and Pom. "Wait—what are we hitting tonight?"

Pom set a reassuring hand on Arik's shoulder. "If we're successful, they'll increase security around the docks, but I doubt they'll change their plan. They have tight timetables and can't slow down. Not if they want to keep their bosses happy."

"Fahon," Arik said, "you sure you're ready for something like this? The Kormel thing was only a few days ago."

"He's not ready yet." Pom took the mask off her head and tossed it to Fahon. "Put this on, and you will be."

Fahon ran his fingers across the smooth metal surface of the mask. The inner part was coated in a soft fabric, and it had tiny breathing holes in the front and sides for ventilation, so it wouldn't fog.

Lifting the mask, he slid it on and became one of the Faceless.