They called it the Spine.
A rattling steel train, half-buried beneath the permafrost of the Northern Reaches, its interior walls patched with armor plating and welding scars. It was a mobile command unit, hospital, weapons transport, and refugee lifeline all at once. It also reeked of sweat, rust, and burning oil.
Lieutenant Mara Kaelir stood at the rear platform, wind biting through her uniform as the Spine rumbled across shattered terrain. The horizon ahead was lit with distant flashes—not lightning.
Explosions.
"ETA to Bastion Emberfall: sixteen hours," the voice crackled through her comm.
"Copy," Mara replied, tucking the device back under her scarf. Her knuckles were numb, her eyes heavy.
It had been three days since Rheos fell. Three days since she had led the last survivors—civilians, medics, militia—into the Spine's iron belly. Her squad was dead. Her commanding officer vaporized in the first salvo. Now, she was technically in charge of what was left.
She hadn't slept since the evacuation.
Not fully.
Inside, heat lamps flickered above makeshift bunks. Children were cradled in ragged arms. Soldiers leaned against bulkheads with cracked helmets and haunted eyes. Medical staff moved like ghosts, too tired to grieve, too practiced to stop.
Sergeant Iven Kol barked an order near the supply hold. "I don't care if your leg's broken, you drag that crate in or I drag you. We're out of morphine, not time."
Private Lyssar grinned despite the blood on his collar. "You've got a way with people, Sarge."
Kol grunted. "Yeah, well, people don't win wars. Stubbornness does."
Mara passed them and moved toward the war console. A 3D map flickered to life—terrain feeds, troop movements, heat signatures. She watched the Empire's forces expand like a virus. Their tactical rhythm was surgical—methodical.
Too precise.
"They knew," she murmured.
A voice answered from the shadows. "Of course they knew."
Mara turned.
Tactician Rahl, the only strategist who survived the collapse of the Rheos command center, stood behind her. His beard was burned at the edges, a datapad clutched to his chest like a lifeline.
"The Empire doesn't attack without a certainty of success," he continued. "They calculate emotion like it's math. Predict reactions. Fear. Desperation. They don't just fight us. They simulate us."
Mara stared. "So how do we win?"
He smiled, bitter. "By being unpredictable. By being human."
That night, as the Spine powered through the frozen wastes, a quiet moment passed.
Mara sat beside a little girl with a broken arm. Her name was Liani. She didn't cry. She just looked at Mara with wide eyes, as if trying to understand why the sky kept falling.
Mara handed her a ration bar. "It's not candy," she said. "But it's better than eating your boots."
Liani took it, then whispered, "Why do they hate us?"
Mara hesitated.
Then, softly, "Because we didn't kneel."
The girl nodded slowly, then leaned against her side.
In the train's engine room, Kol poured cheap liquor into two metal cups.
"For the living," he muttered, handing one to Rahl.
"For the stupid," Rahl replied, downing it in one go.
Outside, the auroras danced like fire over ice.
In the distance, Bastion Emberfall blinked on the horizon—a flicker of hope.
They had lost everything.
And still, they moved forward.
Because even shattered coal could burn.
If pressed hard enough.