The Seleun'mhir Foreign Legion occupied a fortified compound on Stone's End's eastern perimeter—far enough from civilian quarters to maintain operational security, close enough to respond if the city came under assault. Unlike conventional military barracks, the compound housed soldiers from a dozen different nations: Ul'varh'mhir refugees who'd chosen military service over civilian integration, former Rez'ax'tu mercenaries seeking steady employment, even a handful of Val'kaz'ra deserters who'd abandoned the desert kingdom's increasingly aggressive territorial ambitions.
Vellin stood in formation with her unit—Third Reconnaissance Company, specialized in covert surveillance and intelligence gathering. Nineteen years old now, the hobbit scout had grown into her role with the natural ease of someone whose entire skillset aligned perfectly with military requirements. Where other refugees struggled to adapt to structured command hierarchies, Vellin thrived. Scouting was scouting, whether for dungeon expeditions or military operations.
Her commanding officer, Captain Thren'var—a former Ul'varh'mhir infantry sergeant who'd defected after refusing genocide orders—moved through the formation inspecting equipment with meticulous attention. "Vellin. Your surveillance pack."
She opened the canvas bag for his review. Compact telescope. Charcoal and parchment for field sketches. Collapsible measuring tools. Emergency rations. Water purification tablets. Signal flares. Everything regulation, everything maintained to standards that would have made her old dungeon team proud.
"Acceptable." Thren'var moved to the next soldier. "Remember—surveillance operations require discipline. You observe, you document, you report. No engagement unless absolutely necessary for survival. Our value is intelligence, not combat."
The Foreign Legion operated under unique legal status within Seleun'mhir's military structure. They weren't citizens, couldn't vote, held no property rights beyond basic barracks accommodation. But they could serve in armed forces, earn military wages significantly higher than civilian refugee work, and after five years of service, qualify for accelerated citizenship consideration.
It was mercenary work dressed in patriotic language, but for refugees who'd lost everything fleeing genocide, it represented opportunity. Vellin sent half her military wages back to support Sera and Kyn—Misaki's adopted siblings who she'd known since M'lod's destruction. The rest went toward equipment upgrades and the personal savings she'd need if citizenship applications got approved.
"Third Company, listen up," Thren'var announced. "Mission briefing. We're rotating to the eastern surveillance zone today. Target: the Vel'koda'mir encampment twelve kilometers inside our borders."
Collective tension rippled through the formation. Every soldier knew about that base camp—the violation of neutral territory that Seleun'mhir officially pretended didn't exist for fear of provoking military confrontation.
"New intelligence suggests increased activity at the site. Our mandate is comprehensive observation: personnel count, equipment inventory, supply delivery schedules, and—" Thren'var paused significantly, "—any excavation or construction activities. Command has noted unusual soil displacement in satellite observations. We need ground confirmation."
Vellin's mind immediately shifted into tactical assessment mode. Excavation could mean defensive fortifications. Could mean supply cache expansion. Could mean they were digging in for extended occupation.
Or it could mean tunnels.
Six hours later, Vellin lay prone on a rocky outcrop eight hundred meters from the Vel'koda'mir encampment, her compact telescope providing clear sight lines to the base's central area. Her sketch pad rested beside her, already filling with detailed observations.
The digging was impossible to miss.
A massive excavation had appeared since their last surveillance rotation three weeks ago—approximately fifteen meters in diameter, descending at a twenty-degree angle into the mountain soil. Work crews moved in shifts, hauling buckets of excavated earth, reinforcing the tunnel entrance with timber supports, establishing what looked like ventilation shafts at regular intervals.
"This isn't a defensive position," she whispered to Aren Trell, who'd joined the reconnaissance as military consultant. The former Ul'varh'mhir sergeant lay beside her, his more experienced eyes analyzing the same scene.
"No," he agreed quietly. "That's tunnel excavation. Professional work too—proper support structures, drainage consideration, ventilation planning. They're digging toward something specific."
"Toward Stone's End," Vellin concluded. "Twelve kilometers of mountain soil. If they're aiming for infiltration beneath our fortifications—"
"They bypass the walls completely," Aren finished. "Emerge inside the city, attack from within while forces assault from outside. Classic siege breaker technique."
Vellin adjusted her telescope, tracking the work crew's movements with meticulous attention. Thirty soldiers currently active at the site. Equipment caches nearby suggesting they worked around the clock. The tunnel entrance already descended at least twenty meters based on the volume of displaced soil.
She sketched every detail: tunnel dimensions, support structure spacing, guard rotation patterns, supply delivery protocols. Her charcoal moved across parchment with practiced efficiency, creating technical documentation that military intelligence could analyze for vulnerability assessment.
"How long to dig twelve kilometers?" she asked.
"Depends on soil composition, worker rotation efficiency, whether they encounter bedrock." Aren pulled out a small notepad, running calculations. "Mountain soil is hard but workable. With thirty workers per shift, three shifts per day, professional excavation techniques... maybe eight months. Six if they're really pushing."
Six months. Stone's End's walls were halfway complete but not yet functional as true defensive infrastructure. If Vel'koda'mir completed their tunnel before the fortifications were ready—
"We need to report this," Vellin said. "Today. This changes everything."
Misaki's one-year anniversary on Vulcan coincided with the outer wall reaching its halfway point—a moment significant enough that the construction crews had declared unofficial celebration. Work ended early, and the communal quarters' central plaza filled with refugees and native Seleun'mhir workers sharing food, drink, and stories in the easy camaraderie that developed among people building something meaningful together.
Someone had procured barrels of mountain beer—a dark, hearty brew that tasted like liquid bread and hit significantly harder than Earth alcohol. Misaki discovered this after his second mug, when the world developed pleasant fuzzy edges and his engineering brain finally stopped calculating stress loads for the first time in months.
"To the Earth human!" Sev'ea declared, raising his considerably larger mug. The dwarven engineer had become something approaching a friend over months of collaborative construction. "Who brought curved walls and compression architecture to a world that didn't know it needed them!"
"To twenty-meter fortifications!" someone else shouted.
"To not dying when Vel'koda'mir attacks!" came a darker toast, but one that received enthusiastic support.
Misaki raised his mug, smiled, and drank. The beer was terrible. He had another.
Sera sat nearby with a group of refugee children, showing them her letters. Eight years old now, confident in ways that would have seemed impossible during those desperate weeks fleeing genocide. She'd grown taller, lost some of the sharp angles that malnutrition had carved into her small frame. Her writing had evolved from barely legible scribbles into proper script that occasionally approached elegant.
She still didn't know Misaki was from another world. Everyone assumed she did—the "sky-faller" title wasn't exactly subtle—but somehow the specific conversation had never happened. She knew he'd come from far away, knew he had strange knowledge about engineering and construction. But the literal truth? That seemed like a conversation that could wait until she was older.
Kyn sat in Feya's lap, the one-year-old happily destroying a piece of bread while making the incomprehensible sounds that passed for language at his age. The infant who'd nearly died during the exodus north had become a healthy, robust child with the kind of infectious smile that made hardened construction workers stop to wave at him.
"You look happy," Lyria observed, settling beside Misaki with her own mug. The healer had switched from her usual medicinal tea to something stronger—a concession to celebration that suggested she trusted the evening to remain peaceful.
"I am," Misaki realized. "For the first time in... maybe ever? I have people I care about. Work that matters. A purpose that isn't just survival." He gestured at the half-completed walls rising in the distance. "We're building something real."
"You're drunk," Lyria said, amused.
"Little bit. But I mean it." He took another drink. "Earth was lonely. Orphanage, then university, then astronaut training. Always competing, always proving myself, never quite belonging anywhere." The beer had apparently removed his emotional filters. "Here? I belong. Weird, right? Crash-land on an alien planet, almost die, get adopted by two refugee kids, and somehow that becomes home."
Lyria's expression softened. "Home isn't where you're born. It's where people know your name and want you to stay."
Before Misaki could respond—something philosophical and probably embarrassing given his current alcohol level—urgent movement caught his attention. Vellin and her reconnaissance unit had entered the plaza, still in field gear, bypassing the celebration entirely as they headed toward the military compound.
Something in their body language suggested they hadn't returned for beer.
The emergency briefing convened in Captain Syvra's office, where tactical maps covered every available surface and the late evening light painted everything in dramatic shadows. Vellin stood at attention, her field sketches spread across the primary planning table, while Syvra studied the documentation with increasingly grim expression.
"A tunnel," the defensive coordinator said flatly. "They're digging a tunnel toward Stone's End."
"Yes ma'am." Vellin pointed to her dimensional estimates. "Approximately fifteen meters in diameter at the entrance, descending twenty meters over the first hundred. Professional excavation—timber supports, drainage channels, ventilation shafts. They're not amateurs attempting desperate infiltration. This is planned military engineering."
"Timeline estimate?"
"Six to eight months to reach the city assuming consistent progress and no major geological complications," Aren reported from his position beside Vellin. "They're working triple shifts, which suggests they're prioritizing completion speed over worker endurance."
Syvra pulled out her construction schedules. "Our walls will be complete in approximately seven months. So we're in a race—defensive fortifications versus infiltration tunnel. And we can't openly confront their excavation without acknowledging we've been conducting surveillance inside officially neutral territory, which violates our own diplomatic position."
A knock interrupted the strategic assessment. Misaki entered, summoned by urgent runner, his celebration buzz rapidly evaporating as he processed the maps and expressions.
"Tunnel?" he asked, not bothering with formalities.
"Tunnel," Syvra confirmed. "Vel'koda'mir is excavating toward Stone's End. Professional work, significant progress, timeline that puts them inside our perimeter before walls are complete." She turned to face him directly. "You're from Earth. You have knowledge of warfare and tactics from a world that's fought more wars than Vulcan has recorded. In your experience, what do we do about military tunnels?"
Misaki moved to the table, studying Vellin's sketches with the careful attention of someone whose engineering training included threat assessment. "I'm an astronaut," he said carefully. "I studied orbital mechanics and life support systems, not military tactics. Earth's history is full of tunnel warfare, but my knowledge is academic at best."
"Academic is better than nothing," Syvra pressed. "What would Earth do?"
"Counter-mining," Misaki replied, his mind accessing history lessons from university courses. "Detect the tunnel's path, dig your own tunnel to intercept, flood theirs or collapse it or just fight underground." He paused. "But that requires sophisticated acoustic detection equipment we don't have, and counter-tunneling takes time we might not have."
"So we're helpless?" Vellin asked, frustration evident.
"Not helpless. Just limited." Misaki traced potential tunnel routes on the map. "If we can't stop the tunnel, we prepare for it. Establish internal defensive positions assuming infiltration. Create secondary walls, fortified buildings, strategic chokepoints. Make the city interior as defensible as the exterior."
"That's defensive thinking," Aren observed. "No offense, but defense eventually fails. We need offensive capability."
"Which brings us to a bigger question," Misaki said, straightening. "Seleun'mhir can't maintain neutrality indefinitely. Vel'koda'mir has already violated your borders, established military presence in neutral territory, and now is literally digging toward your cities. At some point, neutrality stops being diplomatic position and becomes willful blindness."
The room went very quiet.
"Elaborate," Syvra ordered.
Misaki chose his words carefully. "My home nation—Japan on Earth—faced similar strategic challenges. Island nation, limited natural resources, surrounded by larger powers with territorial ambitions. After devastating war, they adopted a doctrine called 'Self-Defense Force.' Not neutral, but not aggressive. Defensive military capability maintained exclusively for protecting national territory. They don't attack anyone first, don't participate in foreign wars, don't project force beyond their borders. But if attacked? They defend with overwhelming competence."
He pointed to the map showing Vel'koda'mir's positions. "Seleun'mhir could adopt similar doctrine. Maintain neutrality in foreign conflicts, refuse to attack anyone preemptively, but acknowledge that aggressive neutrality—where you actually defend your borders against violation—isn't the same as passive neutrality where you pretend violations aren't happening."
"You're suggesting we militarize," Syvra said.
"I'm suggesting you acknowledge you're already being militarized against," Misaki corrected. "Vel'koda'mir made that choice when they established bases in your territory. You can either respond with military capability that makes future violations costly, or you can maintain comfortable fiction that neutrality will protect you while they dig tunnels beneath your cities."
Silence stretched. Vellin and Aren exchanged glances—both soldiers understood the reality even if diplomatic officers struggled with it.
Finally, Syvra spoke. "That decision is above my authority. I report to the Mountain Council, who would need to debate, vote, probably spend months in parliamentary procedure while the tunnel advances." She returned her attention to the immediate tactical problem. "For now, we focus on what we control. Vellin, maintain surveillance on the excavation site. I want daily updates on progress. Aren, coordinate with engineering about internal defensive positions. Misaki—"
"I'll run calculations on wall completion timeline," he finished. "See if we can accelerate the critical sections."
As the meeting dispersed, Misaki found himself walking back to the communal quarters with Lyria, who'd waited outside during the tactical briefing.
"You suggested Seleun'mhir abandon neutrality," she said quietly. "That's politically explosive."
"Neutrality's already dead," Misaki replied. "They just haven't admitted it yet." He looked toward the half-completed walls rising against the night sky. "You can't build twenty-meter fortifications and pretend you're neutral. You can't train foreign legions and claim you're not militarizing. At some point, you have to acknowledge what you're becoming."
"And what are we becoming?"
"A nation that protects its own," Misaki said simply. "That's not imperialism. That's not aggression. That's just reality."
They walked in silence until reaching their quarters, where Sera and Kyn slept peacefully, unaware that adults were debating whether the walls protecting them would be complete before enemies emerged from tunnels beneath.
Misaki looked at his adopted siblings and made a promise to himself: whatever it took, whatever strategic compromises or political complications, those kids would be safe when Vel'koda'mir finally made their move.
Even if that meant building more than walls.
Even if that meant building an entire defensive doctrine from scratch.