Fausta stood on the platform and watched the Vandenberg crew search the same three flatcars for the fourth time. The tungsten steel was gone — two tons of it, vanished sometime between midnight and dawn. The railroad company had already sent word up the line: no trains move until someone pays or someone hangs. That meant Nilhark would starve before winter if this didn't get solved. She'd spent five years trying to make this place safe, and now it might die over someone else's theft. She walked the platform's edge, boots ringing on metal scaffolding, and studied the station yard. The crane sat idle, its massive electromagnet dangling useless above empty rails. No scorch marks. No broken locks. Someone had known exactly when the guards changed shifts. She stopped at the arch where the train waited, blocky and still under the white lights. The Vandenbergs would pull their garrison if this went unsolved — they'd said as much when they refused her before. But if she found the steel first, brought it back herself, they'd owe her. Not money. Something better. A trainer for the militia. A reason to keep Nilhark on their maps. She turned toward the guard house, already calculating who would talk and what it would cost. The garrison door opened before she reached it. A Vandenberg officer stepped out, face hard as the steel walls behind him. He told her to stay out of it. Company business, company justice. She met his eyes and didn't move. He could lock her out or let her help — either way, she'd find that steel. Because Nilhark's problems were always Nilhark's problems, and she'd stopped waiting for anyone else to solve them. He stared at her for three long breaths, then stepped aside. She walked past him into the cold metal building, already forming questions. Inside, three guards sat around a table covered in manifests and route maps. One pointed to a chart showing the crane operator's log — the electromagnet had been activated twice during the night shift, not once as reported. Fausta leaned over the table and traced the timeline with her finger. The theft wasn't outside work. It was inside. She looked up at the officer who'd let her in and saw him already reaching for his radio. This changed everything. The Vandenbergs would want this quiet now, contained before word spread that their own people were selling their cargo. That gave her leverage. She straightened and named her price: a professional trainer for Nilhark's militia, stationed for two years minimum. The officer's jaw tightened, but he didn't say no. He told her to find proof first. She was already halfway to the door.

The theft had bought Fausta two years of breathing room, but solutions for Nilhark didn't last. She returned to the settlement with the Vandenberg trainer contract in hand, knowing the militia would finally get proper leadership. But on the third day back, a message arrived from Avalon. The diplomatic capital had seen a spike in organized crime — warehouses hit, shipments vanished, guards bought off. The Black Spider controlled everything criminal in the Confederation now, after wiping out every rival gang years ago. Fausta read the report twice, looking for the pattern. Then she saw it: tungsten steel mentioned in three incidents over the last month. She sent word back to her contact, asking for anything physical they could send. A week later, a courier delivered a small wrapped package with no return address. Inside was a dagger with a serrated edge and black hilt, confiscated from a Spider operative in Avalon. She turned it over in her hands, noting the craftsmanship — too fine for common thugs. Then she saw the maker's mark on the base of the blade, a tiny symbol she'd seen before on Vandenberg manifests. The stolen steel hadn't just disappeared into the wilderness. It had traveled to Avalon, been forged into weapons, and armed the only crime syndicate left standing. Fausta set the dagger on her desk and stared at it. The trainer would give Nilhark defenses against wilderness threats, but if the Black Spider was already moving Vandenberg steel through hidden channels, her settlement sat on a supply line she didn't control. She'd solved one problem and inherited a worse one. The dagger gleamed under the lamplight, proof that Nilhark's safety depended on forces much larger than a twice-weekly militia could handle. Fausta spent the next two days mapping what she knew. The crane operator had stolen the steel, but someone had to move it. She rode out to the garrison and asked the Vandenberg officer about transport logs from the night of the theft. He was reluctant until she reminded him what keeping the scandal quiet was worth. The logs showed a heavy snow-truck leaving the yard an hour after the second crane activation, headed northwest toward the main routes. No cargo listed. She pressed for descriptions and got one detail that mattered: a black spider emblem on the truck's side. The Black Spider had people inside Vandenberg's operation, which meant they could hit the supply lines whenever they wanted. Fausta rode back to Nilhark with that knowledge sitting heavy in her chest. She'd secured a trainer, but training took time. If the Spider decided Nilhark was a problem or a resource, two years wouldn't be enough. She needed to know how deep their reach went, and whether they saw her settlement as worth noticing. The wilderness she could plan for. Criminal networks that operated in diplomatic capitals and bribed railroad workers — those required different strategies. She locked the dagger in her desk and started writing letters to merchant guilds, asking new questions this time. Not just about money or influence, but about who else the Black Spider had touched. She needed better intelligence than letters could provide. Fausta requisitioned a signal monitoring rig from a contact who owed her a favor — a compact pole with intercept antennas that could track radio traffic across multiple frequencies. She set it up on Nilhark's wall, angled toward the main supply routes. For three days she listened to cargo schedules, weather reports, guard rotations. Then on the fourth night, she caught a brief encrypted exchange between two points northwest of her position. The encryption was basic enough that she recognized the pattern: Black Spider operational code, the same type Avalon security had documented. They were coordinating a pickup near one of the waypoints between Nilhark and Vandenberg. She pulled the dagger from her desk and studied the maker's mark again. The Spider wasn't just stealing from Vandenberg — they were building