The border had seventeen active breach points by the time Commander Varek reached the eastern fortification, and the number had been fourteen when she left the coordination center eleven minutes ago.
The eastern fortification was the oldest of the present's border installations, built during the second expansion period when the abyss had first demonstrated organized pressure. The architecture reflected that history, layers of structural reinforcement added across centuries each one representing a generation's best understanding of what the border required, each one also representing the limits of that understanding, the places where the abyss had found the gaps and the present had responded by filling them. The walls were thick with that history. They were also cracking.
"Report," Varek said.
