On the building itself, more people were gathered. People-mounted spotlights swept over the field and the road, but didn’t reach far enough to illuminate us. There were more than fifteen people in or on the building itself, and that was just the ones I could see in plain sight through windows and on the roof. They were armed. Rifles. Not a police, Patrol, or station employee’s uniform in sight.

They’d taken the station and now they guarded it.

Everyone was climbing out or half-climbing out of the vehicles to get a view of what we were up against. I saw Sveta’s pale face in the woods off to the side.

“People we can deal with,” Ashley said.

“We have to deal with them without immediately sounding the alarms,” Byron pointed out. “Which is awkward, because that’s a lot, and they look organized.”

“Cell phones don’t tend to work across dimensional portals,” I said. “In a theoretical world where we could get in and block off anyone from getting through the portal to notify the other side, we could hit this place pretty hard and still remain covert.”

“Could flood it, turn it to stone before the flooding gets to the other side,” Byron said.

My mother was hanging back, staying quiet. My dad looked pensive.

“Thoughts?” I asked.

My mom answered me. “I think you know what the answer is. Time is short. Are you asking because you want to be fair and maintain the team equilibrium, or because you really do need the advice?”

Which had a faint tone like, if I needed the advice, I’d failed somehow.

“Because every bit of feedback is an opportunity to do what comes next better.”

“They got away. This is where they went. Every minute that passes, they’re either getting where they’re going or they’re already there and they’re laying traps, organizing their people, or getting ready. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”

Just hearing that last line made my hackles raise. I hated that line, because it seemed to always be paired crosswise with ‘you can always do it better’.

My mom seemed to sense the raised hackles, because her expression softened. “You know the team and team dynamic better.”

I looked to my dad for backup. But my dad wasn’t my dad right now.

“Do you remember the engagement patterns we used to drill on?” Flashbang asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“It would be nice to get some use out of those again.”

“I’m noticing you’re saying engagement. You want to blitz,” I said. And Mom’s implying I want to blitz. “Any objection to hitting them and wiping them out before anything else?”

Some shaken heads, some silence that wasn’t uncomfortable or damning by my best estimation.