Taking the hauler was anti-climactic. We walked up to it, Hao fiddled with the electronics, and we walked inside.

  No one there.

  Big space, lights off. Lots of shadows, lots of tools, spare armor plates, spare spars, man-sized rolls of power cables thick as my arm.

  No engines. No matter, the hauler had three engine pods. I'd only blown one. And there was something better.

  Stores. The hauler was full of shipping containers. Too many to count visually. We'd send someone to do it later, and check what was inside. The refrigerated units should contain food, though.

  Luxuries, for clients. Now the hunters' food would go to the hunted. Poetic justice.

  I left Hao in the hauler's command station, bringing the fusion plant and engines back online. She'd have plenty of protection. Two of our three teams came back, having looted the dead after the big vehicle slaughter in the desert. The fourth team, the Kylian woman and her five bloods, never made it back. I waited longer than I should have, safe in the Bucket after the hauler had taken off and made its way to the approaching sneaks and diggers. I even mounted my portable plasma cannons, but no one tried my defenses.

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  City echoed with gunfire and explosions. Occasionally, I'd see Syndics running or driving by, appearing or disappearing in dust and thick, black smoke. They didn't bother me, probably unaware that I was even inside the Bucket. When I lifted off, port authority didn't challenge me.

  The control tower was a burning, steel husk obscured by smoke. Big parts of City were on fire, bunkers breached, bodies littering the ground.

  No Invisibles to restore order. No order to be restored.

  I flew by the transmission tower, blasting it with a stream of plasma. It didn't collapse, like I hoped, but melted enough that I could feel the wards shattering. No message about the fate of Remba would make its way out before the war was over.

  Then I headed into the desert.

  Hao had done a marvelous job of piloting the big hauler down, only scraping up a two-hundred meter stretch of desert, and Widen had done a marvelous job of keeping the people alive.

  Most of them, at least. The bloods left behind by the Knife were sporting new kills streaks on their arms, marks of fingers dipped in blood.

  Not my problem. My problem was getting the Kylians back to the Belithain. But before that, I needed to see one more person, one more goodbye I didn't want to do. I walked to where the Knife lay on a stretcher made from ropes and tied together camouflage cloaks.

  He was awake.