Location:Multiple — Seven Peaks, Allied Territories, Growth Zone Perimeter
Date/Time:TC1856.02.05 – TC1856.04.15 (Ten Weeks)
The war didn't look like war. It looked like paperwork.
***
Week 2. Northeast insertion. Same team — Taron, Thorne, Pei Shan. Different perimeter point, different angle, different cluster targets. The hive had reinforced the southeastern wall — Naida's surveillance confirmed the tissue had thickened to triple density within ten days of the first run. The northeast was untouched.
Eleven nodes destroyed. The hive's environmental response was faster this time — atmospheric concentration began within ninety seconds of the first detonation instead of three minutes. The corridors narrowed earlier. The team adapted: shorter routes, faster charges, extraction before the atmosphere peaked.
Twenty-four nodes total. Sixteen percent of critical threshold.
