The rain hadn't stopped.
Outside the listening station, puddles gathered along the cobbled walkways, boots splashing as messengers came and went beneath soaked oilskin cloaks. Inside, the air was tense, the kind of quiet that follows a question nobody wants to answer.
Eliska Weiss entered the war room without ceremony. Her gloves were still damp, and the brim of her hat dripped onto the polished floor. She approached the main map table, where analysts clustered around a printout of long-range air acoustic logs.
"The craft was airborne for six hours," one of them reported. "Consistent propulsion readings. High-altitude resonance. Directional change confirmed. This wasn't a drift test—it was a patrol."
Weiss raised an eyebrow. "Patrol?"
The analyst hesitated. "It circled once. Then banked east. No known landing signature. Either it returned to base… or it's still flying."
Weiss removed her gloves one finger at a time.
"And its origin?"
