The office smelled like oil, old paper, and weak tea.

  Otwin sat across from Grump at a battered metal desk that had once been something nicer. The surface was scarred with burn marks, etched lines, and the ghosts of paperwork scraped away too many times. Shelves lined the walls, sagging under ledgers, spare parts, and curios that looked like they had never quite earned a proper place anywhere else. A single narrow window let in slanted light from the yard, dust motes drifting lazily through it.

  The deal was done. Credits transferred. The stasis tube is gone from Otwin’s possession and already logged, catalogued, and locked away somewhere deeper in the warehouse. The Iron-rated STVs had been towed off by Grump’s people without ceremony. Business completed cleanly.

  Grump leaned back in his chair and studied Otwin over the rim of a chipped mug.

  “So,” he said at last, “still out on the plains, staying away from everyone?”

  Otwin nodded. “After the wars, I just don’t much like being around people.”

  Grump snorted. “Never did. You just used to tolerate us better.”

  Otwin did not rise to it. He rested his forearms on his knees, posture loose but ready, the habit never fully gone. “You didn’t bring me in here to reminisce.”

  “No,” Grump agreed. He set the mug down and leaned forward. “I called you in for business, old friend. So here it is. I’m finally finished with my Steam Fort. And I’m taking it on the Cocoa Road.”

  Otwin blinked once. “Are you serious, Grump? The Cocoa Road? All the way to the Free Cities?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Otwin said flatly. “Hardly anyone comes back from it.”

  “Oh, I’m as serious about it as I was when we got out of the Army.” Grump spread his hands and gestured vaguely toward the walls, the shelves, the whole ramshackle sprawl beyond the office. “It’s why I built all this. But you knew that. I offered you a place here once. I’m offering it again.”

  Otwin frowned. “The route takes you through the badlands.”

  “Sure does.”

  “That’s dangerous.”

  Grump smiled thinly. “Everything worth doing is.”

  “And I’ve heard reports of a bandit kingdom forming out there,” Otwin continued. “Not just scattered raiders. Something organized.”

  “You heard right,” Grump said. “There is one. But they don’t have anything that can stop a Steam Fort on a Ley-Rail.”

  Otwin shook his head slowly. “Grump, that’s hubris talking. Anything can happen in the badlands. That’s to say nothing of what could happen when you cross into Confederation lands. They aren’t exactly keen on Imperials.”

  Grump’s eyes glittered. “They’re keen on gold though.”

  Otwin looked up sharply. “Gold?”

  “Actual gold,” Grump said, savoring the words. “Real. Refined. Enough of it to fill a warehouse with cocoa.”

  Otwin let out a low breath. “You have actual, real gold?”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence stretched between them, heavy with old memories of briefings, maps spread across tables, promises that had ended badly.

  “Alright,” Otwin said at last. “What do you want me for?”

  Grump did not hesitate. “You were the best small-unit leader I ever met, Hagermann. You kept people alive in places they had no business surviving. You’d be in charge of security.”

  Otwin looked away toward the narrow window. Somewhere outside, metal rang against metal, steady and purposeful. “I don’t know.”

  “This could make you a very wealthy man,” Grump said quietly.

  “That’s not the same thing as safe.”

  Grump shrugged. “Never has been.”

  Otwin stood, paced once across the small office, then turned back. “I’ll tell you what. Let me see this Steam Fort of yours. And let me meet your team. Then I’ll decide if it’s worth pursuing.”

  Grump broke into a broad grin and clapped his hands together. “That sounds good to me.”

  He pushed himself up from the desk. “Come on, then. I’ve been dying to show it off.”

  ***

  Grump did not take Otwin deeper into Rafborough.

  Instead, they left the warehouse yard through a service spur that wound its way back toward the outer districts, threading between storage depots, fuel yards, and half-forgotten industrial lots. The city’s walls loomed to their left for a time, then slowly fell away as the road widened, and the press of buildings loosened its grip.

  “This way,” Grump said, already grinning.

  Otwin watched the skyline recede. “You didn’t build a Steam Fort in the middle of the slums,” he said.

  “I’m ambitious, not suicidal,” Grump replied.

  The road climbed gently, and the air changed. Less smoke. Fewer voices. Ahead, the land opened into a broad industrial basin carved into the outskirts of the city. Old rail stubs branched off in multiple directions, some active, others abandoned and choked with weeds. At the center of it all stood a Tower Drome.

  It was not ancient in the way Otwin had come to associate with the word.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  This one was civilian grade.

  The structure was wide and low, built for access rather than secrecy. Stone and reinforced concrete formed its outer ring, with gantries, ramps, and maintenance platforms bolted on where needed rather than planned. The place looked used. Lived in. Adapted over time by people who expected to keep coming back.

  Grump brought the STV to a stop and killed the engine. He stepped down first, boots crunching on gravel.

  “This is it, Otwin,” he said, spreading his arms. “The ol’ Five Seven.”

  Otwin climbed down slowly, eyes fixed on what dominated the far side of the yard.

  The Steam Fort sat there in full daylight.

  He stopped walking without meaning to.

  It was unmistakably real.

  A square stone tower rose from the center of a massive tracked chassis, its lines straight and unpretentious. The stonework was rough in places, the blocks clearly reclaimed from older structures and cut down to fit. Different colors and textures told quiet stories of where each section had come from. Repairs were visible. Reinforcements obvious.

  Otwin’s gaze traced the seams, the joins, the places where practicality had won over aesthetics.

  “You named it after our unit,” he said.

  Grump nodded. “Chiliad Five Seven.”

  Otwin let out a breath he had not realized he was holding. “You sentimental bastard.”

  Grump chuckled. “Only about things that earned it.”

  The tracked chassis beneath the tower was a beast in its own right. Industrial components had been repurposed and overbuilt to carry impossible weight. The tracks were thick and slow, designed for endurance rather than speed. The suspension was crude but honest, built to keep the Fort moving even when the ground gave up entirely.

  Steam stacks rose from the rear platform, venting dark smoke in steady pulses. The boilers were clearly civilian grade, reinforced and conservative, meant to run for long stretches without catastrophic failure. Nothing here screamed cutting-edge. Everything whispered reliability.

  Otwin circled it slowly.

  Two light energy cannons were mounted on reinforced swivels, one forward and one aft. Short-barreled. Limited charge capacity. Defensive, not aggressive.

  “Enough to make people think twice,” Otwin said.

  “That’s the idea,” Grump replied. “I don’t want to fight wars. I want to finish routes.”

  Cargo platforms flanked the base of the tower, stacked with sealed containers and modular holds. Everything looked designed to be unloaded, repaired, or replaced without taking the Fort apart. It was a moving warehouse, armored only because the world insisted on it.

  Otwin crouched and ran a hand along one of the lower plates. “Iron,” he said.

  “Mostly,” Grump agreed. “Some Bronze mixed in where it mattered. I wasn’t about to cheap out on stress points.”

  Otwin straightened. “Overall rating?”

  Grump shrugged. “Iron pushing Bronze. Civilian through and through.”

  Structural assessment aligns with civilian Steam Fort classification, DAC noted.

  Otwin ignored it, eyes still on the tower.

  “This isn’t a bluff,” he said quietly.

  “No,” Grump replied. “It’s my life’s work.”

  Otwin turned to face him. “And you’re taking it down the Cocoa Road.”

  Grump’s grin returned, sharper this time. “All the way.”

  Otwin nodded once. “Alright. Show me the inside.”

  Grump clapped him on the shoulder. “Oh, I will.” His eyes gleamed. “And wait till you see who and what is waiting for us inside.”

  ***

  The interior of the Five Seven was louder than Otwin expected.

  Not chaotic, but alive.

  Steel rang against steel somewhere deeper in the Fort. Steam hissed through pressure valves, venting in controlled bursts. The low, constant thrum of machinery vibrated through the deck plates, a steady heartbeat that spoke of systems working as intended.

  Grump led the way down a wide central corridor, the walls reinforced with riveted plates and exposed conduits. Nothing was hidden behind decorative panels. Every system was accessible, labeled, and clearly maintained by people who understood that failure out here meant death.

  They passed into the engineering section first.

  Half a dozen people were at work there, spread across the compartment in purposeful motion. One leaned into an open housing, arms buried up to the elbow in a machinery well. Another worked a diagnostic slate, eyes flicking between readings and the physical components they corresponded to. Two more hauled a replacement part into position using a crude rail-mounted lift.

  No one stopped when Grump and Otwin entered. A few glanced up, recognized Grump, and went back to work.

  “Engineers,” Grump said. “Boilers, drives, power routing. All civilian-trained. A couple did time maintaining patrol towers before they got sick of Imperial pay.”

  Otwin nodded. He recognized the look. People who knew their machines well enough to trust them, but not enough to love them.

  They moved on into the warehouse section.

  This part of the Fort felt different. More space. More light. Rows of secured containers lined the walls, each marked with simple codes and inventory tags. Pallets of supplies were stacked neatly, lashed down, and braced against the Fort’s movement. Food, spare parts, trade goods various other supplies for the journey, all already packed for the road.

  Workers moved among it all with practiced efficiency. Counting. Checking seals. Logging changes. There were about as many here as in engineering.

  Otwin did a quick count without thinking.

  “Twenty,” he said.

  Grump glanced at him. “Just about. Enough to keep things running without eating us alive in wages.”

  “Lean,” Otwin said.

  “Deliberately.”

  They left the warehouse section and climbed a short stairwell reinforced with thick handrails and anti-slip grating. The air changed as they reached the next compartment. Drier. Cleaner. Fewer moving parts.

  The security section.

  Otwin stepped through the doorway and stopped.

  The armor stood in ordered racks along the far wall.

  There were five suits.

  Iron grey. Matte. Fully enclosed, but lighter than the Steam Knight suits he had seen in the field. Plates overlapped rather than layered, trading absolute protection for mobility. Flexible joints were reinforced with chain and segmented guards. Small power packs sat high on the back, cables running cleanly into the torso and limbs.

  Each suit was paired with a weapon.

  Light energy rifles rested in locked brackets, their designs crude but purposeful. Thick barrels. Exposed conduits. Small power stones are seated near the receiver, glowing faintly. These were not the weapons he had seen kill his friends. Not the kind that tore bodies apart in showers of blood and meat.

  These would not blow someone to pieces, but they would carve holes through them.

  Otwin’s jaw tightened.

  He took a step closer, eyes tracing the lines of the armor, the stress points, the access seams. He could already imagine how it would move. How it would feel.

  “Where did you get Stormtrooper armor?” he asked.

  Grump laughed, loud and genuine. “Military surplus! Old models, but they work. A whole lot came up for auction after a reorganization. Complete with power stones.”

  Otwin looked at him sharply. “Imperial issue.”

  “Former Imperial issue,” Grump corrected. “Paperwork’s clean. Decommissioned. Sold off cheap to people who knew what they were looking at.”

  Otwin exhaled slowly.

  Then text scrolled across his HUD.

  Compatibility confirmed. Stormtrooper armor integration is possible.

  He did not react outwardly.

  “That’s a serious upgrade for a civilian operation,” Otwin said carefully.

  Grump shrugged. “Cocoa’s valuable. Roads are dangerous. Seemed sensible.”

  Otwin turned back to the armor, studying it with a professional eye. “You’ve got enough suits for how many?”

  “Five,” Grump said. “Full kit. No extras. Everyone wearing one is security, or they’re not wearing one at all.”

  Otwin nodded once. “That’s enough to matter.”

  Grump’s smile faded just a little. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  Otwin finally looked back at him. “You’re not just asking me to ride along.”

  “No,” Grump said quietly. “I’m asking you to make sure we get there.”

  Otwin let his gaze drift back to the armor racks, to the weapons waiting patiently in their mounts, to the people outside these walls who trusted the Five Seven to carry them safely through places that killed the unprepared.

  The Fort hummed beneath his feet.

  And along his spine, DAC hummed with it.