The ley-rail carried the Ol’ Five Seven out into emptier country.

  Rafborough fell behind them quickly, the city shrinking into a smear of smoke and stone that looked less like a place and more like a habit. Ahead, the land flattened into long stretches of broken rock and scrub, the horizon wide enough to make a man feel watched even when nothing moved.

  Otwin stood in the command room with the Fort Master, eyes on the forward views and the internal displays. The fort’s new rhythm was steady, the hum of stones and the deep breath of boilers settling into a pattern that felt almost comfortable.

  Almost.

  “Minor ley-line up ahead,” an artificer reported over the line. “Strong enough to feed the stones. Clean flow.”

  Otwin nodded once.

  Minor lines were not as bright as the main arteries, but they were real. They ran like veins through the earth, narrow channels of power that could keep a Steam Fort healthy and keep its systems from starving. They mattered out here, where a fort could travel for days without seeing a tower drome or a safe yard.

  On the gunnery display, the main cannon’s charge cycle indicator glowed steadily.

  Otwin glanced at it and felt a faint irritation rise.

  A full-sized energy cannon was not like a rifle. It was not even like the smaller turret cannons. It wanted power. It wanted time. Left idle, it would take several minutes of charging to reach a firing state, even on a decent ley-line. That was why they kept it charged and ready, why the sponson gun sat in a quiet, contained tension like a jaw clenched too long.

  A weapon that needed minutes in a fight was a weapon you died holding.

  “Contact,” came Doke’s voice from the tower.

  Otwin’s attention snapped to the forward screen.

  At first, it looked like nothing. A dark shape against stone. A smear of metal and shadow.

  Then the view sharpened as the fort rolled closer and the camera angles adjusted.

  Wreckage.

  A turret fort.

  Its octagonal hull sat at a slight angle, half sunk into broken ground, tread segments scattered like shed teeth. Its main gun was warped and twisted, the barrel bent where it had taken a hit that had not been meant to miss. The armor looked peeled back in places, seams split, plating ruptured.

  Otwin felt his jaw tighten.

  He had seen the shape of turret forts before. He knew their profiles now, the way a man knew the outline of a predator.

  This one was dead.

  And it was sitting too close to a ley-line for comfort.

  “Distance?” Otwin asked.

  “Half a mile and closing,” the Fort Master replied.

  Otwin watched the wreck for another heartbeat.

  It looked like the aftermath of a real engagement. Not a staged burn. Not a simple scuttle. The damage was too specific. Too surgical.

  Imperial work.

  Which made its presence here worse.

  “Why is it still here?” Otwin muttered.

  The Fort Master glanced at him briefly, then back to his own boards.

  “Could be nobody wanted it,” the man said.

  Otwin shook his head.

  “Everyone wants it,” Otwin replied. “Even if it’s just scrap.”

  He leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing.

  A turret fort left sitting near a ley-line was an invitation.

  An invitation that could be bait.

  He felt the old instinct rise. The one that had kept him alive in the wilds when other scavengers got greedy and died.

  Smells like a rat.

  “Slow to perimeter speed,” Otwin ordered. “We circle. No straight approach.”

  “Aye,” the Fort Master said.

  The Ol’ Five Seven adjusted course, angling away from the wreck and beginning a broad arc around it. Tracks churned steadily, keeping distance, keeping options.

  Otwin keyed the internal line.

  “TPC crew, stand by,” he said.

  A moment later, Jordy’s voice answered, calm and ready.

  “Standing by.”

  Otwin glanced at the tactical display where their captured tracked personnel carrier sat in the rear bay, fueled and ready. The TPC was a solid machine. Not a fort. Not a tower. But armored enough to take small arms and fast enough to move through bad ground.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Send the TPC in,” Otwin said. “Four engineers. Four enforcers in frames. Two stormtrooper STVs as escort. Keep it tight. No hero moves.”

  “Copy,” Jordy replied.

  The fort’s internal systems shifted as the rear bay prepared for deployment. Warning lights flashed. A ramp mechanism engaged. The air inside the bay changed as outside dust and wind began to creep in.

  Otwin watched through a side camera as the TPC rolled out.

  It was broad and low, tracked and practical, the kind of vehicle built to carry men into places they did not want to walk. Four engineers climbed into the rear compartment, helmets on, tool cases strapped down. They did not look eager. They looked like men who had done this before and did not pretend it was safe.

  The enforcers followed.

  Exoskeleton frames made them bigger, heavier, and more dangerous. They moved with controlled weight, stepping onto the TPC’s platform and locking in. Each carried a boarding weapon. Axes and maces that looked almost primitive until you remembered what an exoskeleton could do with them.

  Two stormtroopers moved out last, each on an STV.

  Small tracked machines, quick and low, engines humming. The troopers were fully armored now, plates sealed, visors down. Energy rifles were slung but ready, muzzles angled forward. They took positions on either side of the TPC like escorts guarding a wagon through bandit country.

  The convoy rolled out toward the wreck.

  Otwin did not let the Ol’ Five Seven follow.

  He kept the fort moving in a wide circle, maintaining standoff distance, cameras and spotters tracking the smaller vehicles as they approached.

  Doke’s voice came again, quiet and focused.

  “Nothing moving around it,” he reported. “No heat. No obvious watchers.”

  Otwin did not relax.

  “No obvious watchers,” he repeated under his breath.

  That was the line before the knife.

  He watched the TPC close the distance, watched the escort STVs fan slightly wider to cover angles. The engineers shifted in their seats, heads turning as they took in the wreck’s shape.

  Otwin could feel the tension in the command room even as the fort kept its calm rhythm.

  The ley-line hummed beneath the ground.

  The main gun stayed charged.

  And the wreck sat there, silent and patient, as if it had been waiting for someone to come ask why it had been left behind.

  Otwin did not like unanswered questions.

  He smelled a rat, and he had learned the hard way that rats never traveled alone.

  ***

  Doke’s voice came through the command line tight and sharp.

  “Contact. Multiple.”

  Otwin straightened at the table, eyes snapping to the tactical displays.

  “Say again,” he said.

  “Enemy Steam Forts,” Doke replied. “Four of them. Bearings north, south, east, and west. They’re moving in. We’re boxed.”

  The room went quiet in the way only professionals could manage. No panic. No raised voices. Just the sound of systems humming and men listening.

  Otwin felt the shape of it settle into place.

  It wasn’t a wreck.

  It was bait. Just as he'd feared.

  “It’s a trap,” Otwin said.

  “Confirmed,” Doke replied. “Closest contact is east. Still riding the ley-line.”

  Otwin’s mind moved fast, the pieces sliding into alignment. Four enemy forts meant they had committed. That meant they thought they had him. That meant they were confident.

  Confidence could be used.

  “Recall the TPC,” Otwin ordered. “All units fall back to the fort. Now.”

  Jordy answered immediately. “Copy. Pulling back.”

  On the external feeds, the TPC pivoted hard, tracks throwing stone as it reversed course. The stormtrooper STVs tightened formation around it, engines whining as they accelerated. The engineers in the rear compartment braced, hands gripping straps and rails. The exoskeleton enforcers locked in place, mass and momentum turned inward as they rode the return run.

  The TPC was faster than the Ol’ Five Seven.

  Otwin watched it eat the distance back, the escort STVs weaving slightly to cover angles, then tightening again as the fort loomed closer. The rear bay doors began to cycle even before the vehicle reached them.

  “Bay secure in thirty seconds,” the Fort Master called.

  “Good,” Otwin said. “Jordy, take the rest of the stormtroopers out front. Flying wing. I want eyes and guns ahead of us.”

  “On it,” Jordy replied.

  The stormtrooper STVs surged forward from their holding positions, spreading out in a shallow V ahead of the fort. Small tracked machines, fast and low, their silhouettes sharp against the stone. Energy rifles came up. Sensors activated. They moved with the confidence of men who knew their role and trusted the machine behind them.

  Otwin turned back to the forward display.

  “Bring us around east,” he said. “We hit the closest one first.”

  The Ol’ Five Seven responded, its bulk rotating smoothly as the fort shifted course. Tracks bit into the ley-rail, runes beneath flaring brighter as power demands increased. The hum through the hull deepened.

  “Magno-shield,” Otwin said. “Angle it forward.”

  “Aye,” the Fort Master replied.

  The shield spun up with a rising whine, invisible forces aligning and locking into place. The forward arc shimmered faintly as the magnetic field stabilized, angled to catch anything coming straight at them.

  “Shield at strength,” came the report.

  The enemy fort appeared moments later.

  It crested a low rise along the ley-line, octagonal hull unmistakable, turret already rotating to face them. The twenty-pounder smoothbore cannon sat proud and ugly at its center, a weapon built to throw mass and break things that did not move out of its way.

  “It’s a Hegemony turret fort,” Doke said, unnecessarily.

  Otwin watched the range markers tick down.

  The turret fort had the advantage here.

  Projectile cannons outranged energy weapons by a fair margin. They always had. A solid shot driven by powder and momentum did not care about energy dissipation or coherence. It flew until it hit something or ran out of force.

  The turret fort fired.

  The flash was brief. The sound came a heartbeat later, a deep concussive crack that rolled across the open ground. The cannonball tore through the air, a dark blur spinning straight toward the Ol’ Five Seven.

  “Impact incoming,” someone called.

  Otwin didn’t flinch.

  The magno-shield caught the round just before it would have struck the hull. The magnetic field seized the iron shot and wrenched it sideways with violent force. The projectile screamed as it was torn off course, arcing away and burying itself in the stone far to the right in an explosion of shattered rock.

  The stormtroopers whooped over the line, then cut themselves off.

  “Hold,” Jordy snapped. “Eyes forward.”

  The distance closed fast.

  The turret fort tried to adjust, turret cranking, tracks grinding as it attempted to angle away and bring its gun back to bear. It was too slow. It had committed to the shot and lost its window.

  “Main gun,” Otwin said calmly.

  The energy cannon fired.

  There was no thunderclap. No rolling concussion.

  Just a rising hum that snapped into a sharp, unmistakable zip as the energy lanced forward. The beam struck the turret fort squarely on one of its octagonal faces.

  For a fraction of a second, nothing happened.

  Then the armor glowed.

  The energy burned through plating, through internal bulkheads, through things that had never been meant to be exposed. Light flared inside the fort, white and violent.

  The turret fort exploded.

  The blast tore the machine apart in one massive eruption, plates and structure flung outward in all directions. Fire blossomed, followed by a shockwave that rippled the air and rattled the Ol’ Five Seven’s hull. Debris rained down, chunks of metal spinning end over end before smashing into the ground.

  Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of cooling systems and the distant crackle of burning wreckage.

  Otwin stared at the wreck that had been the Turret Fort.

  “Must have hit the magazine,” he said.

  He straightened.

  “That’s a kill,” Otwin continued. “Turn about. We have three more bounties to claim.”