Lothar was taken to the medical block at first light. First on a stretcher to the shuttle, then into a sterile ward that smelled of chilled metal and antiseptics. He was dead weight. His breathing came in ragged pulls, his skin had gone ashen, his lips split and dry. After the fight with the Sperare leader, something inside him seemed scorched clean through. It was not just wounds. It felt as if his connection to the Nest had been stripped away, layer by layer, down to raw nerve.

  Wilt rode beside him in silence. She watched the monitors, the drip lines, the boy’s face. She understood this was no longer a matter of resting for a couple days. If he made it, it would be a miracle. And if he died, Chukur would hear about it fast, in all the places that mattered.

  Norman Illget did not wait.

  By noon he called a meeting.

  The kind where clans do not smile and do not bother with manners. The kind where people decide who sleeps easy tonight and who wakes up tomorrow without a head.

  Norman’s mansion sat on a rise behind a tall fence, guarded in two rings. Armored vehicles at the gates. Eyes on the roofline. Inside, men whose gaze only shifted with purpose.

  Guests were received without a word. They were not fully disarmed. Chukur did not like you toothless. But anything heavy stayed at the door. Only personal pieces, only short steel, only something for the moment when just in case stopped being a joke. Everyone understood that if violence broke out, nobody would be tallying who had the moral high ground.

  A long table waited in the main hall. The lights were bright and unforgiving. No warm bulbs, nothing flattering, everything built to make faces readable down to the last crease.

  The Ak Lus family arrived first.

  Frida Ak Lus, the head of the family, walked in like the room already belonged to her. Small, lean, dressed in a severe dark suit. Hair pulled back tight. Thin rings on her fingers, understated but deliberate. Her eyes were sharp and cold.

  Giuseppe, the heir, followed close behind. Young, well kept, a shade too confident. He looked around as if weighing what could be bought, what could be sold, and which bodies were most likely to follow the money.

  Then came the Nol Us family.

  Leon Nol Us was broad shouldered, thick necked, with a face that had never learned how to smile. He sat down without greeting anyone. He brought only two men. They stayed by the wall and did not take chairs.

  Borja followed.

  Not a clan in the usual sense. More like a cartel with a corporate spine. Lawyers, logistics, security, private channels, private warehouses.

  Their representative was Dean Morgan, the chairman. A neat man in a light shirt without a tie, as if he had come to a routine negotiation instead of a blood meeting. But his eyes matched the room. He looked and calculated in the same breath.

  Last came the Council, an alliance of semi autonomous brigades.

  Vasily Zhukov represented them. His face was rough as sandpaper, gray at the temples, hands like tools. He did not perform clan etiquette. He was the sort who solved problems directly and slept fine afterward. He sat, looked at Norman, and gave a short nod that meant speak.

  The head of the Illget family stood at the end of the table. No glass in hand, no cigar, no show. Today he did not look like a host. He looked like a man who had found an enemy.

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  “I brought you here for one reason,” Norman said. “Sperare.”

  He let the word settle long enough that nobody tried to turn it into a joke.

  “Today they came for us. Not metaphorically. They came to our planet. They did what they have never allowed themselves to do before. They walked into our house and turned it into a slaughter.”

  Frida tipped her head a fraction.

  “Are you sure it was Sperare?” she asked calmly. “Not one of your private wars you decided to dress up with a bigger name?”

  Norman met her eyes.

  “I’m sure. And I saw who is driving it. Not Adam Graf. Someone else. The one who took him and made him vanish on the spot. The one who isn’t afraid of your guards, your money, or your precious neutrality.”

  Dean Morgan raised a hand slightly, like a man calling for order in a boardroom.

  “Norman, we do not do business with that organization,” he said evenly. “Borja doesn’t work with them.”

  Leon made a dry sound.

  “Neither do we,” he said. “We have our own routes.”

  Zhukov grunted.

  “And we haven’t had anything to do with them.”

  Norman nodded, as if he had expected exactly that.

  “I didn’t call you here to play detective over who traded with whom,” he said. “I called you to tell you this. If they can walk into my place today, they will walk into yours tomorrow. You think they want money? Money is a pretext. They want control. They’re testing how soft Chukur is.”

  Giuseppe let a smirk appear, then tucked it away like a bad habit.

  “So what’s your plan?” he asked. “Declare a grand hunt? Sounds impressive. And then what? We search basements for ghosts?”

  Norman turned toward him.

  “We declare Sperare outlawed on this planet. Any contact becomes grounds for a purge. Any of their people who set foot here understands the same thing. Everyone tears them apart. Clans, brigades, corporations.”

  Frida looked at Leon. Leon looked at Zhukov. Zhukov looked at Dean.

  It was not agreement. It was risk being measured. Because outlaw was not a document. It was war. And war always hit the money first.

  Dean Morgan exhaled, the way a man does when he can already see the losses on paper.

  “If we outlaw them,” he said, “they answer back. And from what you’re saying, they have people who don’t respect Chukur’s rules.”

  “We have people too,” Frida said, voice cool. “The question is who among us is already in bed with them.”

  Leon tapped the table once with his fingers.

  “And why some people aren’t here,” he added. “You didn’t invite everyone, Norman.”

  Norman’s jaw tightened.

  “I invited everyone who needed to be here,” he said. “Some are suddenly busy. Some don’t want to get involved. They’ll be harder to handle. I’ll deal with that myself.”

  Zhukov narrowed his eyes.

  “So you want us to give you cover,” he said. “And then you go squeeze the ones who didn’t show up.”

  “Yes,” Norman said, not smiling. “I need your word. So nobody can say tomorrow that I went off on a personal vendetta. This has to be Chukur’s decision, not mine.”

  Frida drummed a fingernail lightly on the tabletop.

  “Fine,” she said. “Sperare is outlawed. But if you start cutting into other people under that banner, I’ll be the first to shut off your air.”

  Norman nodded once.

  “Fair.”

  Dean nodded too, careful as always.

  “Borja will back it,” he said. “But only if it’s unanimous.”

  “Unanimous,” Leon said.

  Zhukov raised two fingers without speaking. In his language, that was yes.

  Norman let out a breath. Not relief. More like a man who had just signed his name under another problem and knew it.

  “Then it’s done,” he said. “I move. You authorize it. Tomorrow Chukur gets the message. Sperare is prey.”

  That was when the explosion hit.

  Not somewhere distant. Close.

  The walls shuddered hard enough to set the chandelier swinging. The lights flickered once. Dust sifted down from the ceiling. Somewhere in a corridor, someone screamed.

  The guards at the doors snapped into motion. One of Nol Us’s men drew his weapon. Someone from Borja instinctively stepped in front of Dean.

  “Down!” somebody shouted.

  A second blast followed, closer still. A blunt, metallic concussion, as if something had been detonated at the gate or in the garage.

  The doors to the hall flew open.

  One of Norman’s security men stumbled in, eyes wide, face bloodless.

  “Boss. They’re coming through the perimeter. We’re getting cut up on the outer ring. Cameras are down. Comms are down too.”

  Frida rose slowly, composure intact.

  “Well,” she said softly. “There’s our answer.”

  Leon already had his pistol out.

  Zhukov spat to the side.

  “Great. Here we go.”

  Norman looked at them all in one sweep.

  “So they heard us,” he said. “That means they’re here.”

  And somewhere beyond the walls, another detonation rolled through the grounds, heavy enough to make it clear this was not a warning.

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