Cael went alone.
Lyra had argued against it—loudly, profanely, with a vocabulary that suggested the undercity's educational standards exceeded its living conditions. Dorn had simply stood in the bunker doorway, his massive frame blocking the exit, and waited for a convincing reason.
"Refraction works best on one person," Cael explained. "Every additional body I cloak increases the energy drain exponentially. Two people, I can maintain invisibility for maybe ninety seconds. Alone, I can hold it for five minutes. I need five minutes."
"And if something goes wrong?" Lyra asked.
"Then I have eleven other orbits to get me out." He touched her shoulder. Through the residual Identity link, she felt his confidence—not bravado, but the genuine, tested certainty of someone who'd fought Sera Kane and survived. "I'll be careful."
"You don't know what careful means."
"I know what coming back means. That's enough."
He descended through the tunnel network that Ren's maps had detailed—a maze of collapsed infrastructure, gravity-warped corridors, and abandoned transit lines that formed the undercity's invisible circulatory system. His Hearing orbit mapped the acoustic landscape as he moved, building a three-dimensional model of the space around him from the echoes of his own footsteps. His Touch orbit swept the gravitational topology, detecting the faint signatures of the patrol routes above.
The convoy route ran through a tunnel two levels above his current position—a reinforced industrial corridor that the OA had appropriated for military logistics. Cael climbed through a maintenance shaft, his Weight orbit reducing his mass to near-zero, floating upward through the narrow space like smoke rising through a chimney.
He emerged in a service alcove overlooking the corridor. Refraction engaged—light bending around his body, rendering him invisible across all spectrums. His Hearing detected no alarms, no heartbeats, no orbital signatures within immediate range. He was alone in the corridor, and the convoy wasn't due for another twelve hours.
Perfect.
He worked systematically. Sight mapped the corridor's dimensions, structural weak points, and surveillance equipment. Three cameras covered the route—antiquated models that tracked visual and thermal spectrums. His Refraction would handle visual; his Weight adjustment would minimize his thermal signature. The cameras wouldn't see him.
Hearing catalogued the acoustic environment—the ambient noise of the industrial sector above, the vibration patterns of heavy machinery, the specific frequency of OA communication equipment. He identified three relay nodes along the route, each one broadcasting on encrypted frequencies that his orbit could detect but not decode. Ren's team would handle the encryption; Cael just needed to know where the nodes were.
Touch mapped the gravitational landscape in exquisite detail. The corridor's gravity-resistant plating registered as dense, uniform surfaces that would deflect standard orbital attacks. But Cael's Emptiness wasn't a standard orbital attack. It didn't push or pull—it subtracted. The plating's gravitational resistance was irrelevant against an orbit that simply removed the matter it was protecting.
He identified six optimal strike points—locations on the transport vehicles where Emptiness spheres the size of his fist would remove enough plating to expose the locking mechanisms beneath. Each sphere would need to be precisely calibrated: too small, and the plating would remain intact; too large, and he'd risk damaging the cargo inside.
Two hours of reconnaissance. Every detail catalogued. Every variable mapped.
As he prepared to leave, his Hearing caught something unexpected. A gravitational signature—faint, distant, but unmistakable in its precision. Twelve synchronized orbits, moving through the industrial sector above with the mathematical perfection of a solar system.
Sera Kane.
Not heading toward the convoy route. Moving perpendicular to it, toward the eastern tower district. She wasn't hunting him—not right now. She was going somewhere else, doing something else, her attention directed at a target Cael couldn't identify from this distance.
But she was close. Closer than she'd been since the battle. And her twelve orbits were burning at full intensity—combat-ready, mission-focused.
Cael filed the observation and retreated. The convoy operation would proceed in twelve hours. Sera's movements were concerning but not immediately relevant.
He was wrong about that. But he wouldn't know it for three more days.