Torran eased into my arms, body stiff and not just because of the armor. I let him settle for a second, then pulled him closer and gave him a gentle squeeze. Slowly, so slowly, his arms crept around me.

We stayed like that for a long minute. When Torran straightened, I let him go. “Thank you, cho udwist diu,” he whispered.

I recognized the middle word was stubborn, but I didn’t know the rest. From the tone, it was likely an endearment rather than an insult, so I let him get away without explaining it.

But I would definitely look it up later.

The monitoring station gate slid open at our approach. The building was a squat, square, unsightly little thing that wasn’t helped by the large antenna mounted on top. Around the perimeter, a tall fence and more of the spiky vomosulabr shrubs warned trespassers to keep their distance.

I tapped Torran’s shoulder. “Why is this building so . . .” I trailed off and gestured, trying to find a tactful word for “ugly.”

I could feel Torran’s laughter against my chest from where we were pressed together on the lev cycle.

“It was built in the early years of the war, when they were more concerned with speed than beauty,” he said. “Except for occasional maintenance checks, no one ever sees it, so it never got an update.”

We exited the vehicle. The building’s aesthetics did not improve upon closer inspection. I walked around the outside, but there wasn’t much to see. A single door was set in the wall that faced the gate. There were no other doors or windows of any kind.

A narrow ladder on the back wall led to the roof. One short climb later and I could say that the roof also didn’t improve the building’s looks. The antenna anchors took up most of the flat space, and what was left was crowded with buzzing, unfamiliar equipment.

I climbed down to find Torran waiting for me at the base. “Find anything?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Just a bunch of old equipment.”

The inside didn’t reveal anything, either. The lights worked and the air was warm, but that was about the end of the positives. Because, while the lights worked—technically—they cast everything in a sickly yellow tint. The floor was cracked and chipped, and the paint had started to peel from the walls.

Around the edges of the room, a few older workstations that hadn’t been upgraded in twenty years still hummed along, doing whatever it was that this station did. A raggedy rolling chair with a chunk missing from the cushion and a wheel that wouldn’t turn was the only other furniture.

I felt bad for anyone who had been stationed here. Maybe I would find their vengeful ghost, and it would crack the case wide open. I looked around. No ghost appeared.