The medical bay was suffocatingly quiet. Aris Mercer sat on the edge of the examination bed, her mind working through algorithms, probabilities, and risk assessments at lightspeed.

*Variable A:* Graves was initiating the Eclipse Harvest tonight.

*Variable B:* The extraction of the shadow-matter c

The march to the Harvest Chamber felt like a funeral procession, though Aris Mercer refused to let it show on her face. Her spine remained rigid, her breathing mathematically regulated. Two Tartarus guards flanked her, the muzzles of their plasma rifles practically brushing her lab coat, while the s

The superheated blade of the plasma torch bit into the generator’s armored casing like a hot knife through wax. For a fraction of a second, time seemed to stand completely still in the Harvest Chamber.

Aris watched the blue plasma sever the primary cooling lines. Liquid coolant sprayed outward, in