Choke is a mining world of shale flats, refinery stacks, and old mag-lev ore lines built to drag extraction cargo out of the western fields.

Nineteen months ago, the ore-rich tunnel was lost. The Rams are still down there — eyeless, thick-skulled alien beasts that batter through rock, crush bodies, and turn solid ground into a trap. Everyone knows the collapsed bore is dangerous. Everyone knows what waits below. But the Authority wants the ore line back, and greed has finally become stronger than caution.

So they send penal sappers into the dark as human ballast — minefield dogs in stripped-down exoframes, heavy enough to test the ground and disposable enough to lose.

Their orders are simple: advance to the collapse point, survey the breach, drive stabilizer pylons, and seal the fractures so the route can be restored.

Wha ...