Page 14 of Warrior’s Mate

"Clearly not," Maelis replied.

Kaiven opened a secure military channel.

"Daratu to Regional Command. Emergency diagnostic escalation. Civilian routing instability now confirmed across multiple local systems."

The channel indicator showed a live connection, yet no voice came back. Kaiven waited through several seconds of silence before trying again.

"Regional, acknowledge."

Static answered him, followed by a faint burst of compressed audio too distorted to understand. Then the connection died. Pel swore. Kaiven tried a secondary route. Same result.

His training supplied a list of possibilities, each worse than the last—software failure, relay cascade, deliberate jamming, malicious rerouting, network infiltration—but none fit cleanly enough to become a plan.

"Can we isolate Wasaytu?" he asked.

Pel looked at him. "From the regional network?"

"Local-only traffic. Emergency services, exchange, schools, shelters."

"Yes, but we lose automatic coordination outside the district."

"Prepare it. Don't execute."

"Captain—"

"Prepare it."

She turned to the console. Maelis had gone very quiet. Kaiven followed her attention to the agricultural traffic display.

"What are you seeing?"

She stood before the agricultural traffic display, one hand braced on the console.

"A pattern."

"Show me."

"I'm not sure yet."

"Show me anyway."

She enlarged a map. Colored points spread across the district, marking failed or delayed commercial messages. Maelis filtered out individual family traffic, then medical, then school. What remained was transport logistics. She stared at it.

"These aren't random delays."

Kaiven moved closer.

"You said that before."

"I was wrong before. I thought the effect was production disruption."

"And now?"

"Now I think someone is making the network look unreliable."

Pel turned. "Why would anyone do that?"

"Because once people stop trusting the network, they switch to local decisions."