[Oliver’s POV]

  Oliver gripped the side rail of the small transport, knuckles white beneath his gloves. The craft was barely larger than a shuttle. It had two passenger seats and the pilot’s chair. It shuddered violently as it fought against the storm. Outside, the desert roared. Waves of sand pounded against the hull.

  The pilot’s voice cut through the noise of the engines. “If this storm gets any worse, you’ll have to jump!” he shouted, his tone more desperate than defiant.

  Oliver’s gaze snapped toward him. Beneath the mask of Atlas Blackwell, his eyes burned with silent judgment. The mask was more than a disguise. It was also a weapon, a symbol of authority and intimidation. Many men had faltered under its stare. But the pilot did not. His fear was not of Oliver, but of the storm. Of what the sand could do to his ship.

  The pilot forced the ship lower, engines screaming as the storm slammed against them. The ground loomed closer. With a grunt, the pilot wrenched open the side hatch, the cabin instantly flooded with wind and sand.

  “That’s as close as I can get!” he screamed. “If I shut the engines down, I’ll never lift her again!”

  Oliver gave a single curt nod, his voice calm despite the chaos. “Got it.”

  And he leapt.

  The world became a blur. The wind tore at his cloak, sand whipped across his face, and gravity dragged him down until his boots struck the top of a dune. The impact drove him half a step into the shifting sand, but he steadied himself quickly, rising against the storm. The shuttle was already pulling away, vanishing into the sky.

  Oliver lifted his head. Even through the haze of flying sand, the sight before him was unmistakable.

  The Oasis.

  It stood against the endless desert, a city unlike any other in the Empire. At its heart rose a tree so vast it seemed to pierce the heavens. Its colossal trunk stretched upward into the storm, branches sprawling wide and far, sheltering the fragile pools of water beneath. The leaves shimmered an unnatural blue, glowing faintly as if infused with Energy itself.

  At the edge of the settlement, near the flapping canvas of a desert tent, a figure waited. He stood tall and unmoving, his body wrapped in layers of cloth, his face hidden beneath sand-stained wrappings. To a stranger, he might have seemed like a mummy risen from the dunes.

  But Oliver knew better.

  This was Six. Here, he had taken another name. Lucaz.

  Only a sliver of his eyes was visible through the wrappings, along with the sun-tanned skin at the edges of his cheekbones.

  “Governor,” he greeted, his voice muffled by the cloth as Oliver approached through the storm.

  “Lucaz,” Oliver replied with a curt nod.

  “Just you…?” Lucaz asked, uncertainty reaching his tone.

  “Just us,” Oliver said with quiet confidence. He lifted the silver case he carried. “Two will be enough. I brought drones as well.”

  Lucaz’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve been hunting the entrance for nine months. Two men won’t make much difference. Drones can help, yes, but they can’t enter the passages. The Energy inside is strong enough to cripple them.” He shook his head. “The Yorks brought ten, and the Lot are bringing an entire battalion.”

  Oliver’s gaze lifted to the sky, his eyes narrowing against the storm. “We won’t be searching much longer. Not here. Not with what’s coming.”

  Lucaz followed his stare, the storm’s fury crackling above them. “The trap? But sandstorms are constant here.”

  “Not like this,” Oliver said. His voice was calm with certainty. “This one is building into something more. When it hits, nothing will make it down. At most, one ship before it triggers.”

  “Damn…” Lucaz muttered, rubbing his covered head in frustration. “That doesn’t give us much time. Alright then. Let’s move inside.”

  Together, they pressed forward, leaving the dunes behind as they passed through the first line of cabins. These structures marked the boundary between the desert and the Oasis. A place where travelers shed their armor and uniforms, donning the desert garb of the locals.

  The wind lessened as they pushed deeper into the city. Ahead, a narrow stone stairway descended from the high ridge of the Oasis down into its heart.

  Although there were signs of the technology brought by the colonists, it was obvious that the city had existed for much longer. There were temples and ruins far older than the arrival of any human being.

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  The steps were covered with pale sand blown in by the storm, mixed with small blue leaves from the massive tree in the city’s center. The leaves glowed faintly in the dim light, while the air became cooler as they went down.

  At the base of the stairway loomed the trunk of the great tree, its bark the color of ash and steel. Branches stretched outward like titanic arms, their blue foliage forming a canopy that shielded the Oasis from the worst of the desert’s fury.

  Oliver moved through the Oasis veiled in white, his body hidden beneath long desert cloth that covered him from head to toe. Faint blue symbols patterned the fabric, indistinct enough to pass as local markings. Unlike most around him, he had no crest of a Great House, no sigil stitched into his robes. Where others walked proudly, their garments screaming of lineage and power. Oliver walked as a shadow, anonymous, unremarkable, just another wanderer in the crowd.

  The Oasis itself was larger than he had imagined. Beyond the tents and cloth shelters, the settlement also had homes made of sun-hardened brick. Some pale like bone, others dulled gray, and a few were blackened as if scorched by fire. None rose higher than two stories, as if the builders feared the desert winds would simply tear anything taller from the ground.

  Only one thing dared to defy the desert.

  The Tree.

  Lucaz walked ahead, leading Oliver through the winding streets. Their steps carried them upward, toward the higher edges of the settlement where the Tree’s shade grew weaker and the air hotter.

  “The farther you are from the Tree, the harsher the sun,” Lucaz explained, his voice muffled beneath his wrappings. “It makes the days harder, but the rooms cheaper. And fewer eyes linger here.”

  Oliver’s gaze flicked downward toward the heart of the city. “Better this way,” he murmured. Below, the streets swelled with soldiers and envoys from the Great Houses, their banners and colors unmistakable. “They’ll all want to be close to the Tree. When the trap is sprung, we’ll be far from them.”

  Lucaz followed his gaze. From their position, they could see the procession of soldiers moving in tight formations, officers barking orders as they marched near the Tree’s trunk.

  As they watched, a sound cracked through the sky.

  A distant thunderclap, sharp and hollow, like a gunshot swallowed by the storm. Both men looked up.

  Through the swirling sand, they saw it. A ship, battered and scorched, was struggling against the desert’s fury. Its hull bore the unmistakable crest of the Empire, and upon its side gleamed the insignia of House Meridius.

  It staggered downward, engines coughing, shuddering as if every bolt fought against the storm.

  “The last one,” Oliver muttered beneath his veil, his eyes narrowing.

  Even the will of the Emperor himself could not conquer the desert.

  The ship struck the ground with a loud thud. Its hull dug deep into the dune as sand erupted outward. For a heartbeat, silence followed; there was no fire, no explosion, only the groan of metal settling into the desert’s embrace. Then, with a hiss of hydraulics and the shriek of warped plating, a hatch forced itself open.

  Figures emerged, silhouettes staggering into the blinding storm. They had survived.

  But the world did not welcome them.

  The ground shook beneath Oliver’s feet, subtle at first, then violent. A deep, guttural rumble rose through the sand, shaking the foundations of the Oasis. Houses groaned, walls splintered, and the vast Tree at the city’s center shivered.

  Its azure leaves fell in torrents, torn loose by the tremors, cascading down like shards of glass-blue rain.

  “Help!” someone screamed.

  “My god…” another voice cracked.

  “What’s happening?!”

  “Is it a monster?!”

  Panic spread like fire. Cries of terror overlapped, filling the Oasis with a chorus of fear.

  Oliver braced himself against the wall of the brick house, his hand gripping the rough stone. His eyes narrowed beneath his veil. “It’s starting. Hold on,” he told Lucaz. The agent needed no further warning; he pressed himself against the wall beside him, steadying against the quake.

  Above them, the storm intensified. The sand no longer fell; it spun. The storm’s heart accelerated, particles whirling faster and faster until they became a solid veil of motion. The desert sky vanished, consumed by a spiraling wall of storm that rose higher, stretching upward into the stratosphere.

  And then, the message appeared.

  It carved itself across Oliver’s vision.

  [Defense System: Initiated]

  The words pulsed in front of Oliver. But even as he watched, the message fractured.

  [ D3?3n$3 5￥5?3m !n!?14?3D ]

  [ D3?3и$3 5?5?3м ?и??14т3d ]

  [ ?Ξ?3и$Ξ §￥§?3? ?и!?1??ΞD ]

  The characters twisted, glitched, languages, and codes bleeding into one another, as if the system itself was struggling against something. Then, abruptly, the distortion settled.

  [Defense System: Hacked]

  The words pulsed once, twice, before shifting again.

  [Welcome, all of you, to my humble home.]

  [Your presence is most appreciated. After so many millennia, you have finally given me what I desired most, freedom.]

  [You came here in search of my prize. Silly little children. You no longer need to look for it.]

  All around them, soldiers and envoys froze, their faces pale beneath their veils, their weapons ready in their hands.

  [I will give it to you. But there will be a price.]

  [Shall we play a game?]