89: Chapter 89 Locke's Conditions: She'll Leave, You Need to Think It Through

Locke's final leg of his third patrol tonight was looping back to the barracks from the northeast corner of the city wall.

He had walked this path for nearly two years; he could find his way back with his eyes closed—yet tonight, when he reached the edge of the buffer zone two hundred meters from the Medical Station, he suddenly unslung the axe from his shoulder.

The humming of the energy module warming up pressed into the night wind, very low, like an unsheathed blade lightly grazing a whetstone.

It wasn't the Warp.

It was more like seeing the light still on in Lin Mo's cabin.

The silhouette with its head bowed on the window paper had maintained the same posture for over two hours.

Locke stared at that window for ten seconds—he didn't care if Lin Mo was there, he only confirmed whether the other person was sitting in the chair, fingertips rubbing the wood grain on the armrest that had been worn shiny by elbows.

When suffering from insomnia, Lin Mo would return to the cabin to look at the star map of the Eastern Star Sector.

Locke knew this habit because he had also passed by this window at least forty times on nights when he couldn't sleep.

He didn't intend to just take a peek through the gap in the curtains and leave tonight.

The axe blade floated with a thin, cold blue-white halo in the moonlight.

The laser axe's energy module continued to emit a low-frequency hum in standby mode, like a hunting dog held by a leash, rolling a muffled growl deep in its throat.

Locke walked to the door of the cabin and raised his knuckles—not a light tap, but three heavy knocks like hammering on a door frame.

The wooden door frame shook, causing dust to fall from the cracks in the wall.

Lin Mo opened the door.

Locke leaned against the door frame, the laser axe in his hand; the leather cover on the axe handle had long since been polished smooth by sweat and machine oil.

"That new Psyker—Deputy Medical Officer Vian."

Locke's voice was a degree lower than usual, with something heavy pressing down on the half-breath before his words fell. "She is very capable. But she is one of the Empire's people."

"I know."

Lin Mo released the door handle and retreated to the chair in the room, but didn't sit.

The navigation chart of the Eastern Star Sector was still spread out on the table.

"Then do you know that the Empire's people will leave sooner or later?"

Locke pressed forward one step—not with his body, but with his tone.

The blue-white light of the axe blade cut a cold, hard angle onto his jaw. "Once she has fully recovered, the Astral Knights will naturally send someone to pick her up.

Once the antenna of the communication relay station is fixed, the recall order from the Military Affairs Bureau will arrive sooner or later.

By then—those people she has saved, the apprentices trained by her standards, and Alice who accompanies her on the late-night shift every day—"

He paused.

It wasn't because he was searching for words, but because he suppressed half of the words that had rushed to his throat, changing to a heavier phrasing.

"—once she leaves, the bandaging techniques, disinfection procedures, and the sequence of Psyker purification that she taught hand-in-hand at the Medical Station will have to dissipate along with her."

"You didn't come here for idle chatter tonight."

Lin Mo looked at the axe in his hand.

That layer of blue-white light was inconspicuous in the moonlight, but exceptionally clear in the darkness—it was in a preheated state.

"Yes."

"The energy module has been on for a while, hasn't it?"

"Yes."

The two words were answered without a moment's hesitation.

It wasn't asking Lin Mo to confirm, but clearly telling him: No need for you to expose my intentions.

"You have already made up your mind. You didn't come to ask me what to do."

Locke didn't deny it.

He pulled a patrol route map wrapped in old canvas from under his arm; the edges of the canvas were worn and frayed.

This was the record of his third patrol tonight; he hadn't returned to the barracks after finishing the patrol and had come straight to the cabin.

On the blank space of the last page of the route map, three circles were drawn with charcoal—exactly encircling the three directions of the Medical Station.

"I added a group of people at the entrance of the Medical Station."

Locke slapped the map next to the navigation chart. "It's not to defend against the Warp."

Lin Mo didn't look at the map; his gaze fell on the hand that slapped the map—fingertips still hooked on the axe handle, knuckles strained white.

"The Warp patrol team cannot bypass the city wall and cannot reach the entrance of the Medical Station."

Lin Mo said. "What are you defending against?"

"What I'm defending against, you know better than I do."

Locke switched the axe to his other hand; the axe blade brushed against the door frame during the switch, splashing out a very faint metallic vibration. "The transport vehicles of the Military Affairs Bureau, and those two armed military police on the vehicle who just follow the procedures."

"You intend to use force against the people from the Military Affairs Bureau?"

"I won't."

Locke's voice was as heavy as a forging hammer striking the bottom of a quenching pool, muffled, but solid. "I won't take action against the Empire's people.

The Empire issuing orders is their business, but the people they want to take away from Blackstone Town—"

He raised the axe and pointed the back of the axe at the window of the Medical Station where the light was on. "—must pass in front of a group of people she personally fished out of the Warp pollution.

They can read the recall order, but when they do, they have to look into those people's eyes."

Lin Mo stepped aside, clearing the doorway.

Locke didn't come in.

He wasn't here for tea, nor was he here to complain.

He was here to finalize one thing—one thing he had seen in every detail over the past two weeks, but wasn't sure if Lin Mo had faced squarely: how long the Deputy Medical Officer could stay in Blackstone Town was never up to her.

The decision-making power lay with the Military Affairs Bureau on Terra.

And the bureaucrats of the Military Affairs Bureau wouldn't care whether the bandages at the Medical Station were tied well or not; they only looked at the forms.

"Do you know when the recall order will arrive?"

Locke asked.

"Set the axe down first."

Lin Mo said. "Waving the axe blade at the window makes me dizzy."

Locke set the axe on the ground.

The iron ring at the end of the axe handle knocked against the stone steps with a clank, like locking a lock.

"Within a week, the second detection wave of the Warp hunting team will arrive."

Lin Mo walked back to the map and pointed his fingertip at the coordinates of the crash site. "The antenna of the communication relay station was calibrated to the last degree of deviation by Yang Shitou yesterday.

The signal from the Military Affairs Bureau will likely be reconnected within two weeks.

The administrative efficiency of the Military Affairs Bureau in the border sector is three times that of Terra—using the border express channel, from the drafting of the recall order to its delivery, the fastest is two weeks, the slowest is one month."

"You've already calculated it."

"Calculated it. A window of two weeks to one month."

"During this time, what are you going to do?"

Lin Mo took the charcoal pencil from the edge of the map, wrote a line of extremely small characters next to the crash site, and then turned around.

He used the tone of an operational meeting, but it wasn't the certainty of having deduced to the end; instead, it was slower, as if organizing a conclusion that he hadn't fully digested himself.

"Three things."

He raised his first finger. "Blackstone Town's defense upgrade.

Increase the density of tripmines outside the city wall by another magnitude—Old Tom's new springs can support this precision.

When the people from the Military Affairs Bureau come, let them see a settlement that can defend itself without the Imperial garrison."

Second finger.

"The improvements left by the Deputy Medical Officer in the Arsenal and the Medical Station must be solidified into procedures before she leaves—even if she isn't here, it can run on its own.

Tolerance standards, disinfection steps, and operation manuals for Psyker purification, don't use the format of the Imperial Military Affairs Bureau, the apprentices in Blackstone Town must be able to do it by following them."

He paused, the tip of the charcoal pencil hovering over the map.

"Third thing.

When the recall order arrives, in the name of the Archon of Hope Star, submit a formal application for an extended secondment."

Locke looked at him for a long while, waiting for Lin Mo to voluntarily report that number.

Lin Mo didn't say it.

Locke also knew that the number Lin Mo was unwilling to say voluntarily was probably not optimistic.

"What are the odds?"

"Calculated according to the standard Imperial bureaucratic model, about thirty percent.

Adding the window that can be coordinated by Cassius's dark line—"

"I'm asking what the odds are."

"Fifty percent."

Locke gripped the axe tighter, the iron ring grinding a white mark on the stone steps.

"Fifty percent."

"Is fifty percent enough?"

Locke didn't answer; his gaze fell on the place on the map where Lin Mo had just written.

He couldn't read, but he could tell that the ink was new, dropped only during this conversation tonight.

That is to say, Lin Mo was not reciting a plan he had prepared long ago; it was only after being asked by him that he completed the final step of the deduction.

Locke didn't need Lin Mo to arrange everything before he spoke—all he wanted was to confirm: after he brought it up, this person would really think about it, and not just think one step ahead.

"Enough."

Lin Mo looked at him.

When Locke said "Enough," he didn't look at him, his eyes gazing toward the direction of the Medical Station outside the window.

"You didn't come here to remind me that the Empire's people will leave."

Lin Mo said.

"She is already a person of Blackstone Town."

Locke slammed the axe on the ground—this action, he only did when he decided to hold a certain position on the battlefield.

Leaning the axe at the entrance of the cabin was tantamount to clearly telling Lin Mo: If the Empire dared to forcibly take people away, he would never let anyone drag the Deputy Medical Officer out of the Medical Station.

He didn't understand politics, he only knew how to guard positions.

He would guard this position at the entrance of the Medical Station to the death.

This sentence was all hidden in the muffled sound of the axe hitting the ground.

Locke left.

After taking three steps out of the cabin, he suddenly stopped, turned his head without turning his body. "I'll take an extra shift at the entrance of the Medical Station tonight.

Not to defend against the Warp."

The cabin door was left ajar.

Lin Mo stood in front of the map, the charcoal pencil in his hand hovering for a long time.

Finally, he added another line of extremely small characters next to the crash site—not any of the items mentioned just now, but a brand new one.

That line of words and Locke's patrol route map were spread out on the same table; between the two papers, separated by the cold, hard air worn out by a laser axe still emitting a blue-white micro-light.

Early the next morning, Yang Shitou recorded a new signal attempt in the communication log.

Beam direction—Terra.

Encryption level—ciphertext format personally compiled by Lin Mo.

When Lin Mo walked to the communication relay station stepping on the morning dew, Yang Shitou was squatting next to the antenna base, with the calibrator buckled over his eyes.

His left eye was pressed with a red circle by the eyepiece.

"How long did it take to align the beam?"

"Forty-seven minutes."

Yang Shitou took off the eyepiece and rubbed his eyes. "Twenty-three minutes longer than usual.

The one-degree deviation adjusted yesterday, a gust of wind blew in the early morning, and it bounced back by 0.3 degrees."

"Calibrated back?"

"Calibrated back.

0.3 degrees, not a fraction off."

Yang Shitou turned to the last page of the signal logbook, copied the parameters, and handed it to him. "Lord Lin Mo—last time you told me, every 0.1-degree deviation in the communication relay station's signal adds a percentage point of energy attenuation when the beam reaches Terra.

In the conditions of the border sector, a percentage point might be the difference between [signal readable] and [filtered out as noise].

I wrote this on the first page of the logbook."

Lin Mo took the record, didn't look at the parameters first, but scanned the notes written by Yang Shitou—there was a correction in that elementary school-like handwriting: He wrote [0.3 degrees] as [0.3 degrees + 'le'], then erased the ['le'] character with an eraser, rubbing the paper surface until it became fuzzy.

"Did you watch every degree yourself?"

"Every degree.

The pointer on the dashboard, adjusted grid by grid."

Yang Shitou thought for a moment and added, "No one checks my calibration records."

"Then why are you still struggling to 0.1 degrees?"

Yang Shitou paused. This sounded too much like a compliment, and he didn't know how to respond, so he just wiped the lens of the calibrator with his sleeve and put it back on the console.

"Antenna deflection is my job. You handle the calculations for that percentage, and I'll make sure that percentage doesn't get eaten up by a 0.3-degree deviation."

"Has the beam been sent?"

"It has. Directed toward Terra, with the cipher text you wrote. I don't know how to spell it, so I tapped it out letter by letter according to the code table."

"Have you received a receipt?"

"The automatic receipt from the border relay station has returned." Yang Shitou glanced down at the communication terminal, where a line of green Low Gothic confirmation codes was jumping on the screen. His gaze shifted from the confirmation code and landed on the gray blank line below—that was the spot where the Terra communication array should have returned a receipt, but it was empty now.

"Terra's hasn't. Based on the distance, it takes about fifty-one hours for the beam to reach the Terra communication array." He flipped the logbook to the last page. "If the automatic confirmation receipt hasn't been received after fifty-one hours—"

"Then it's not a matter of distance."

"It's being intercepted by someone."

The two were silent for a moment. In the communication station, only the soft sound of calibration pulses and the low-frequency hum of the instrument cooling fans remained.

"Fifty-one hours—is that enough?" Yang Shitou asked.

"Enough."

Lin Mo took two steps and stopped at the entrance of the communication station. Morning light leaked through the gaps in the metal frame of the antenna, cutting long, thin streaks of light onto the dashboard of the console.

"Yang Shitou, during your recent calibrations, have you seen any echoes on the spectrum that don't belong to the Imperial standard bands? Even at a noise level."

Yang Shitou's hand on the console paused abruptly. He raised his left eye, which was reddened by the eyepiece, and glanced at Lin Mo.

"How did you know?"

"When you said 'It's being intercepted by someone' just now, you paused for half a second. It didn't sound like a guess; it sounded more like you remembered something."

Yang Shitou pushed the calibrator's eyepiece up to his forehead and opened the first few pages of the signal logbook. His fingertips slid down the dense wave diagrams and stopped on a log page from three months ago.

"There was one time three months ago. Very short, less than a second. I thought it was clutter from the antenna deflection, so I didn't report it." He turned the logbook toward Lin Mo. "Later, the First Company Commander, Wang Defu, was on night shift that night. He came to the communication station to borrow a flashlight, glanced at my spectrum, and said something to me."

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'This is not clutter. Clutter wouldn't get stuck on the same frequency every time, and it certainly wouldn't bounce back exactly seven to nine seconds after you send a calibration pulse.'" Yang Shitou closed the book. "Wang Defu has been doing communication defense in the Eastern Star Sector for eighteen years; his eyes are much sharper than mine."

"Eighteen years of communication defense." Lin Mo repeated the number. "He wasn't looking at the spectrum; he was looking at what was hidden behind every signal anomaly."

"He never told me what it was. He said—" Yang Shitou paused, lowering his voice to imitate Wang Defu's tone, ""Shitou, some signals, once you know them, you have to report them. If you report them, people have to investigate, and if they investigate, people die. So don't ask.""

Lin Mo was silent for a beat. Wang Defu's silence wasn't indifference; it was the first rule he had learned in eighteen years on the frontier: the less you know, the slower you die. Yet he had still pointed out the spectrum anomaly to Yang Shitou. This meant that in his heart, Blackstone Town was no longer a place where one could play deaf and dumb according to the rules for retired soldiers.

"Did it appear again later?"

"It did. The frequency didn't change. Every time that set of calibration pulses is sent in the early morning, seven to nine seconds later, it bounces back exactly." Yang Shitou lowered his voice. "The beam I sent to Terra today... if that thing is also listening on the same frequency—"

"Then it already knows we are contacting Terra."

Yang Shitou said nothing, only pushing the open signal log on the console forward by one centimeter. That one-centimeter distance, in Lin Mo's eyes, was a statement: I can't handle whatever that thing is, but I've kept all the records; whenever you want to investigate, it's right there on the first page.

Lin Mo walked out of the communication station, and the morning wind snapped the record paper in his hand. He folded it and put it into his jacket pocket. Wang Defu—that old communication defense soldier—he hadn't seen him for nearly three weeks. It wasn't that he wasn't there, but that he was too quiet. Quiet to the point that a retired veteran's days in Blackstone Town, apart from occasionally glancing at the spectrum for Yang Shitou, involved almost no conversation with anyone. But that one glance had spotted the thing Yang Shitou had been staring at for three months without daring to confirm.

Lin Mo returned to the Information Center and opened the first draft of the transfer application he had written last night—the ink had long since dried, and the charcoal marks reflected a very faint gray-black sheen in the morning light. He pulled out the first page and changed a line in the header: changing the applicant's current position from "Astral Knights Third Company Medical Officer" to "Hope Star Blackstone Town General Hospital Acting Clinical Supervisor."

This position could not be found on the Imperial Department of Military Affairs's organizational chart. But it was real in Blackstone Town—starting from that afternoon when the Deputy Medical Officer crouched in the corner of the Arsenal workshop, calibrating springs with calipers alongside Old Tom; starting from that night when she worked the late shift at the Medical Station, working until the sentry at the door had changed shifts twice and still hadn't left.

When he finished copying the application, the sound of the forging hammer outside the window had been ringing for almost the entire morning—Old Tom was leading his apprentices in rushing to make the third batch of tripwire mine fuses, and every hammer blow felt like a heavy beat added to the heartbeat of Blackstone Town.

At noon, Old Tom's apprentice, Xiao Zhou, knocked on the door of the Information Center. He placed a freshly quenched spring steel blank on Lin Mo's desk; there were three new red burn marks on the back of his hand—scalds from the cooling water splashed during quenching. A piece of paper torn from a production log was stuck to the steel blank, with crooked charcoal handwriting.

"Old Tom asked me to show you this." Xiao Zhou pushed the spring forward. "He also asked me to pass on a message."

"What message?"

"The tolerance of this spring was passed according to her standards. He said—" Xiao Zhou paused and scratched his forehead, which was peeling from the heat of the furnace. "He said, 'If she says it's okay, it's okay.' Lord Lin Mo, I've been learning blacksmithing from Old Tom for two years, and this is the first time he's asked me to pass on a message. In the past, no matter how urgent things were, he would always carry the iron parts to your door himself, knocking on the door frame louder than a forging hammer."

Lin Mo picked up the spring. A uniform dark blue layer floated on the quenched surface—Old Tom had controlled the temperature and cooling time to a precision that even the Imperial military regulation tables might not be able to specify.

"What was his expression when he was grinding this spring?"

Xiao Zhou thought for a moment. "No expression, just staring at the tolerance line. But after he finished grinding, he spat on the spring to watch the evaporation speed—he only does that when he is particularly satisfied with something he has ground."

Lin Mo turned the piece of paper over. There was no writing on the back; Old Tom had drawn a circle in the corner. He understood what that circle meant: this piece of paper was now an official document in his toolbox.

"Go back and tell Old Tom that I received the spring. I also saw his circle."

When Xiao Zhou ran back to the Arsenal, the sound of the forging hammer rang out again—denser than before, as if Old Tom was urging him to return. Old Tom rarely complimented anyone in his life; when he said "okay," it was the highest praise. Not a single extra word.

In the direction of the communication relay station, the soft sound of calibration pulses was intermittent—Yang Shitou was still struggling with that 0.3-degree deviation. The night patrol had gone off duty, but Locke hadn't returned to the barracks; he was sitting on the steps in front of the Medical Station, his laser axe resting on his knees, the blade facing the rising sun. He had pulled an extra shift last night, working until the sky turned white before handing over his post, without explaining it to anyone. But the sentry who took over saw it clearly: the axe's energy module was still glowing with a blue-white standby light. Only when Locke was determined to defend a position to the death would he let the axe blade glow all night, glowing until the daylight spread over, making it impossible to distinguish which layer was sunlight and which was the light of the axe blade.

Some people's loyalty is not shouted out—

It is when knocking on the door in the dead of night, with the axe blade still stained with moonlight;

It is the dull thud when the axe hits the ground;

It is the pause when swallowing the words that were on the tip of one's tongue.

The mirror of the emperor flashed very lightly at the edge of his vision—not a warning, but a confirmation.

The moment Locke planted the axe down, he wasn't threatening anyone.

He was giving Lin Mo something he wasn't good at asking for: time to think.

The torches on the city wall outside the window were being handed over. From the direction of the communication relay station, a calibration pulse suddenly came through, much sharper than usual—not a routine timed calibration, but an active signal search. The frequency fell exactly on the narrow-band spectrum that Wang Defu had pointed out three months ago. Immediately after, an unknown response code jumped out on the communication terminal: the format was not Imperial standard, the encryption layer was not from the Military Affairs Bureau, and the band fell on the sub-Warp frequency commonly used by Chaos patrol fleets.

This was not a receipt. It was an echo—but embedded in that set of echoes was a complete Low Gothic root word, repeated three times. Yang Shitou didn't recognize this root; he was a communications soldier, not an intelligence analyst. But he recognized the signal strength: it was more than twice as strong as yesterday.

Lin Mo put down his pen and looked out the window—the communication station's antenna adjusted its angle slightly in the morning wind, like a finger groping in the dark for the handle of a door that shouldn't exist.

That signal did not come from Terra.

It had returned less than seven hours after the beam was sent. Based on the distance, it couldn't have come from Terra. Its source was much closer than Terra. So close that it might not even be outside the atmosphere of this star sector. So close that Lin Mo put down his charcoal pencil and picked up the laser pistol on the table again.

The forging hammer sounds outside the window continued—Old Tom didn't know about the communication station; he only knew that the spring tolerance couldn't be exceeded and the tripwire mine fuses couldn't be slow. Locke's axe blade was still glowing with blue-white light, fixed firmly toward the entrance of the Medical Station. Yang Shitou's fingers hovered over the emergency silence key on the communication terminal.

"Lord Lin Mo—should I turn off the antenna?"

Lin Mo pushed the laser pistol's energy battery into the grip. With a click, the battery locked into place. He didn't answer Yang Shitou's question, picked up the pistol leaning against the table leg, walked to the window, and pushed the window shutter open a crack, letting the night wind pour in.

And that unknown signal source was shortening the distance between itself and Blackstone Town inch by inch with increasingly stronger pulse intensity.

The mirror of the emperor flashed in the silence after Locke left, brighter than usual. It was not a warning. It was reminding him: some people's departure is for the sake of returning in another way.