The Extra's Rise

We didn't start the day. We continued it.

The Tycho Yard map hovered between Elias and me—no gridlines, just a clean moon with our new spine lit in soft gold. Four fresh anchors glowed where we'd set them yesterday. A thin, pale ring circled the equator like a pencil line waiting to be inked.

"The belt," Elias said, tapping Oceanus Procellarum first, then Imbrium, Tranquillitatis, Crisium. "Four braces, then tie-ins to the spine. Once it closes, the Mesh stops behaving like islands and starts acting like a continent."

"Procellarum, then," I said. "If anyone throws a stone, they'll test the biggest sea first."

Kade Opalus arrived without ceremony, tablet under his arm, the corners of his mouth already braced for arguments he intended to win. "We place on bedrock or we don't place," he said by way of greeting.

"Agreed," I said.

Reika fell in beside me, hair braided tight. "Outer ring at two-fifty," she said. "Script lines are shallow. If someone panics, I want my letters to forgive them."

Rachel gave her a gentle look. "Then make them kinder," she said, and Reika's mouth tipped up in something that wasn't quite a smile.

Cecilia slipped a glove on and snapped her fingers; a harmless ribbon of red mana licked across her knuckles and curled like smoke. "Chaos test on your mark," she told Kade.

Rose joined us carrying a thin case, the kind she uses when she intends to make ownership into a fact of the world. Seraphina set a slim tripod on the ground next to the warp pad and tapped a tiny clock she'd tied to it. "Sync," she said. Kade's tablet pinged in agreement.

We took the warp.

Oceanus Procellarum rose around us in black planes and white edges. The floor stretched away, smooth as a blade. Earth hung above the eastern rim, patient and watching.

"Anchor here," Kade said, and there was no argument. Erebus opened a slit of shadow and bone porters marched out carrying spars and pillar cores. Redeemers of Ash followed with lanterns like soft suns and went to work setting obelisks at four outside points, building a quiet where fear would find no purchase.

"Valeria?" I murmured.

"Cut straight," she answered from the weight at my hip. "I'll forgive you if you do."

I stepped in, set a tight truth in my hands—when I draw a line, the line ends where I say—and opened doorways for airlocks without leaving a whisper of chip. The moon listens if your laws are small and honest.

Cecilia's turn. She pushed a gentle untruth through the fresh wardlines—a wiggle in north, a hiccup in the timing. The lines shivered, then settled on the real. "Smart boys," she said.

Kade glowered. "Don't gender my anchors."

"Smart rocks," she corrected, grinning.

Seraphina walked the corners, palms down, feeling for drift with the same poise she brings to a duel. "Two paces east," she said. "The bedrock sings truer there."

Kade shifted the base with a hammer tap that never actually touched anything. The pillar settled and hummed a clean note. Rachel laid Purelight along the places Redeemers would tie into later—blessings you don't see unless you're looking for them.

We tied Procellarum into the spine and moved.

Mare Imbrium was colder—an old bowl of dark glass. The first pillar fought us. A lava tube under the crust remembered it wanted to collapse. My ankle felt the wrongness before my eyes did.

"Back," I said, already moving. Reika flicked a strip of Cursed Script into the dust; Hold burned itself into the regolith and the ground considered obedience and chose it. Seraphina dropped to a knee and laid a frost lattice—not water ice, a pattern of stop—across the sifting edge. The slide slowed. Rachel bent light under the crust and made the broken part want to be whole. The ossuary crane finished the swing; Erebus's porters set the stone like it had always been there.

"Thank you," I told them, meaning all four.

We anchored Tranquillitatis next—easy ground, clear song, the sort of place that forgives human error. Rose stood at the last pillar and talked ownership into being, signing Ouroboros's hold and the Concord's rights to use without ever letting future courts find a clever angle. When she was done, the papers didn't look important. That's how you know they are.

Crisium came last, bright-edged and honest. Kade placed. Cecilia lied; the lines refused. Seraphina nodded once. Rachel left a med cache in the clean shadow where scared hands would reach for it. I cut the last lock. Valeria hummed, pleased.

"Mesh," Kade said as the fourth pillar settled.

I lifted my hand and told the belt what it was: a conversation between stones that had agreed not to fail alone. Gold threads rose where Procellarum met Imbrium, where Tranquillitatis shook hands with Crisium, then reached down to catch the spine at Serenitatis and Tycho. The field touched my skin through the suit like a steady breath.

"Test," Kade said.

Cecilia whispered a lie. The belt denied it politely. Seraphina tilted the balance with the edge of her will; it flexed and returned. Reika wrote Break and the dust misread its own letters. Rachel leaned a palm on the field and it let her through and no one else.

Kade listened to the pillar like a doctor to a chest. "Good," he said, and for him that's a hymn.

We warped back to Tycho; the Yard had already changed. Rails laid, a new pressure door hung, the med wing stocked in flats with labels in three languages because Rachel asked for three. Elias stood over a black-slate map with Captain Vyr; the map updated itself when bone porters walked across a threshold.

"Belt is closed," Elias said. "Procellarum green. Imbrium green. Tranquillitatis green. Crisium green. Tie-ins to the spine are stable."

"Courtesy pings," I said, and he sent them: South (Viserions), North (Windwards and Creightons), West (Ashbluffs), East (Mount Hua and Kagu), Central (Slatemark). Short and plain—brace closed, field stable, test passed, incident zero—with a polite note that Redeemers would file a public safety brief by evening.

Replies came back like their senders. The South's tidy gratitude. The North's cool received. The West's solid work with a skull emoji from Kali that made Vyr's mouth twitch. The East's honor to witness. Central's logged; projections updated with a footnote from Slatemark's Office of Orbital Policy about shipping lanes I promised to read and hand to Elias.

"Equatorial brace done," I said.

"Then we're late for the ring test," Kade answered.

"Give me five," I told him. I walked to the outer edge of the Yard where Stella had set up with her slate and a knot in her braid. She held up a drawing titled arcs vs load and looked at me like a judge.

"Convex holds better against distributed hits," I said. "Concave catches the rare big one. We built both."

She beamed. "I knew you'd say that."

"You did the math to make it true," I said, and kissed the top of her head.

Back at the map, Reika tapped the belt once. "If something ugly drops fast, I can paint No on it from three points."

"Don't paint the moon," Kade said, half horror, half prayer.

"I'll use small letters," she promised, absolutely lying.

Cecilia flexed her hand, little pinwheels of crimson curling in her palm. "And if demon tech tries to sniff us, I can make its nose think it's smelling its own armpit."

"That was a metaphor," Rachel told herself aloud, and poured Purelight into a set of ward-tags for the Redeemers that would sing in the belt's key.

"Bring the belt up to full." Kade's voice cut neat through the noise.

We did.

The moon held.

Earth hung above us like a coin on velvet.

I sent one more ping—not a report, just a line—to Lyra and Tiamat. Belt is up. No cracks. We're not foolish enough to be proud, but we are satisfied. Lyra's reply was a simple Good. Tiamat's was a dragon rune that means adequate when a dragon is pleased and refuses to admit it.

"Next step?" Elias asked.

"We teach it to breathe under pressure," I said. "Night test."

No one cheered. We just started moving toward the next job.