The Throne Room
The Leader's chamber was the refinery's old primary control room. Voss sat not on a throne, but in the single, intact command chair, a relic of a lost world, its high back facing a bank of dead monitors. The air was cold, smelling of ozone and recycled air. This was the mind of the refinery, and Voss was its cold, calculating brain.
Caelen stood at ease, his report delivered. Across the room, Rhys paced like a caged animal, his hand restlessly tapping the hilt of his heavy blade.
"Their power is out. Their water is poisoned. They are weak. We should have hit them last night," Rhys growled, slamming a fist against a rusted console. "A direct assault. We could have been feasting by dawn."
Voss's chair swiveled with a slow, deliberate hiss. He was not a brute like Rhys. He was lean, his face sharp and intelligent, his eyes holding the flat, dead look of a man who had made a thousand brutal calculations and had no regrets.
"And we would have destroyed half of what we went there to get," Voss said, his voice quiet, yet carrying an absolute authority that made Rhys fall silent. "Your 'feast' would last a week. I am planning for the next ten years."
He turned his gaze to Caelen. "The garden. You are certain it is isolated from the local water?"
"Yes, Leader," Caelen confirmed. "Raised beds, sealed with tarpaulin. A rain-catching system. Primitive, but clever. It survived the tide you created."
Voss allowed himself a thin, cold smile. "Good. Then the seeds within are viable."
Motivation
He rose from the chair and walked to a small, sealed chamber off the main room. Inside, under a single, flickering grow-light, were their own hydroponic trays. The plants were withered, covered in a fine, grey mold.
The air in the small room was thick and metallic, recycled so many times it felt thin in the lungs. A constant, low hum from the air recyclers vibrated through the floor plates, a sound that promised life but also spoke of their fragile, artificial world. A fine layer of rust-red dust, the curse of the refinery, coated every surface. Voss ran a finger over a drooping, blackened leaf, leaving a clean streak.
"Our crop has a blight," Voss stated, his voice flat. "The filters are failing. The spores are in the air, in the water. Everything we grow now dies within a month." He turned from the dying plants, his eyes locking onto Rhys. "We are eating our seed stock. In two months, the vats will be empty, and the blight will still be here. We will starve."
He let the grim reality settle in the cold room.
"The Cooperative is not a meal, Rhys," Voss continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "It is a lifeboat. They have what we have lost: the ability to grow clean food. Caelen's report confirms they have a seed bank—untouched by this blight. We will not raid them for a few sacks of grain. We will take their home. We will take their knowledge. We will take their future."
The red tide had been his opening move, a masterstroke of ecological warfare designed to cripple them, to break their spirit, to make them easy prey.
The Order
"They believe we are simple raiders," Voss said, returning to his chair. "They will be expecting a frontal assault, a smash-and-grab. They will have hardened their obvious defenses." He looked at Caelen. "Your assessment stands?"
"Yes, Leader. Their western perimeter is now their strength. But their eastern flank, near the residential platforms, is older, less reinforced. And their people are divided. A hard, fast strike at their heart, where the families are, will create panic. Their command structure will collapse." Voss nodded slowly. "A plan, you see, Rhys? Not a brawl." He looked from his strategist to his warrior. "Caelen will guide you. You will lead the main assault team. Your target is the residential section. Create chaos. Break their will to fight. But I want the core platforms—the clinic, the gardens, the workshops—taken intact. Is that understood?"
Rhys's feral grin was his only answer.
"Then the order is given," Voss said, his voice a final, chilling note in the dark room. "Take the lifeboat."