The vault hunters round the corner, entering the building that will lead them to the fissure and countless other Legion forces where they will tear through us like paper. I have little faith in the Legion I once trusted my life with. Corena and Boxer help me stand and we leave the camp, stepping over the singed corpses of loader bots and marines.

There is nothing left.

We pass through camps once packed with soldiers reduced to graveyards. Husks of tents and buildings smoke into the thin atmosphere, corpses lay bleeding in oxygen generators. Guns and spent munitions litter the ground. I kick one as we stumble through, a severed hand still curled around the handle.

This is it. What we have been fighting for. I haven't seen losses like this in my life. We are few among the survivors. Banners and ripped clothing flutter in the low gravity, stained or scorched or full of holes. All pawns in some war bigger than us, bigger than humanity. Whatever The Watcher wanted, I hope it's happy, because we lost everything. We looked into the void and found only desolation and ruin. Our leaders killed, ranks slaughtered. Left to rot on an unfamiliar moon for a cause bigger and older than all of us.

The hill just before Triton Flats gives us some trouble. My legs are unsteady and putting too much pressure on my right foot sends pain lacing through my thigh. We take longer to climb up, hobbling along like a six-legged dread beast.

We reach the top, stopping at a small camp. More bodies strewn about to greet us. Blood steams on a lake of liquid nitrogen, helmets lie cracked, guns abandoned. Corena stops dead, tugging Boxer and me. I follow her eyes.

Pittman sits in the doorway of the building, clutching his stomach, armor askew. He calls us over with a grunt. Boxer steadies me against a support beam while Corena takes to Pittman's side.

" 'Bout time," Pittman spits blood on the hard plastic flooring. Corena crouches and tries to assess his wounds. He growls and scoots away. "Ah, no. Hurts like a bitch. I don't want you messing with it."

Corena frowns. Boxer holds my shattered fingers in his own, trying to set them right. I ignore the pain, focusing on Corena and Pittman.

" "If it took more than one shot, you weren't using a Jakobs," " Pittman laughs at some private joke. "Not on me." He coughs up more blood. "Seems Zarpedon got the best of it. Out with a bang, while I'm here bleeding out, colder than a bullymong's backside," He bares his teeth in something that once was a smile. "You see that smug, floating bitch with the wings and the—the . . . Whatever. If you see it, do me a favor: punch it."

Corena laughs in spite of herself. Pittman tries to. Doesn't quite come out right. He pauses and his eyes drift down to Corena's sidearm.

"I have a favor to ask," He swallows. "I've done what I can for this war. It's time for me to go. Will you do me a kindness and put this old dog out of his misery?" He tries again to muster a smile. Again it twists with pain.

Boxer squeezes my wrist without thinking, watching Corena pull the slide back on her sidearm. I shift, pulling him with me so he faces me instead of Pittman. I don't have any comfort to offer him; no words can make this better than it is. He looks at me, eyes wide and confused, surrounded by so much senseless violence and pointless loss. Boxer leans into me, burying his face in my shoulder. I bring my good arm around his back. Corena looks back at me one last time. I nod at her. She nods back. Our silent language of understanding.

It's clean. A single shot to the head. Corena lays him flat and closes his eyes, hovering over him for a moment. She picks up his rifle and sets it across his chest.

We emerge beneath a building in Triton Flats. The vault hunters' abandoned moon buggy sits as if waiting for us. Just beyond the damp alcove, scavs shout and shoot at the local wildlife. The powers of the vault are about to be unleashed and life carries on like always.

Corena takes the driver's seat as Boxer straps me in next to her. He takes the turret.

"Where to?" I mumble.

"I need a drink."

"Montauk needs a surgeon," Boxer adds.

Corena hits a button and the buggy sputters to life. "I think I know of a place."

The "place" Corena knows of is a massively tall egg-crate city called Concordia. Reportedly, it's the only real city on the entire moon. From what I've seen of Elpis, I don't doubt that for a second.

We stumble through immigration and customs. I'm exhausted, shattered bones aching like hell, and I've bruised enough of my spine that it hurts to tilt my head. Corena and Boxer are barely in better shape. She waves her sidearm at a bumbling steward bot until it shows us to the town's medic. We must be a sight. I doubt the civilians here in this protected paradise have seen much of the war on Elpis, much less an Eternal in person.

The infirmary is a box tightly packed with crates, cots, vending machines, and cobbled together medical equipment. In the middle of it all is a compact, craggy-faced woman with braids spun on the sides of her head. She scrutinizes us as we nearly trip down the stairs into her infirmary.

"You need help? Come," She beckons, accent thick, but not an Elpis native. It's a different lilt, a different planet. "Am Nurse Nina. I will heal you good." Nina accepts me from Boxer and Corena, who slink off to lean against the wall and counter for support.

I lie back on a cot stinking of urine and cheap air freshener. Nina snaps on a pair of examination gloves and gets to poking and prodding my weathered bones. I grit my teeth when she jerks my arm to the side to get a better look. Her eyes smile at me over the paper mask.

"You are from Dahl," She observes. Corena's hand drifts to her gun. Boxer eyes the door. "I was once. I wore too-tight armor and played with their fancy toys. Pah. Spat Nina right out."

She grabs my chin, twisting my face to the side. The pain in my neck blossoms to my jaw and the back of my skull. I groan and Nina shushes me like one would a child. "You are special case. What is this? Radiation? Slag?"

"It's not the, ah, burns we're worried about," Boxer starts.

"His bones are broken," Corena says harshly "He was flung four meters. Look at his fingers."

Nina tuts. "I see that. You bring patient like this into my shop and get mad when I ask questions? Not good for business." With the nonchalance one would discard a piece of trash, she sets my shoulder into its socket. It pops with a flash of pain, then gradual, liquid relief. "I can fix the bones. You two need Health." She jams a stubby finger at the vending machine with her face on it. "But . . ."

Corena pauses mid-step towards the vending machine. "But?"

Nina shrugs, turning and grabbing equipment from boxes and out of drawers. "You are Lost Legion, yes? The people here will not be happy to see you. I do not mind, but others will."

"Others?" Boxer asks.

Suddenly Nina laughs. "You do not know? The vault hunters sleep here, in Concordia."