"this pressure feeds dreams"

Fire overtook the Shadow Trespass. The steel beneath Ikharos' fingers began to heat up, to burn, and it seared right through his overshield to singe his very skin. The pain wasn't the worst of it either; he glimpsed through the smoke that streamed over them, the ground rushing up to meet them - and the ocean too. The ocean looked a whole lot more welcoming. Crashing wasn't usually a business he liked to engage in, but given their present circumstances, he was hoping for a quick splash - a one-and-done sort of thing, bone-crushing impact be damned.

"Xiān!" he yelled, biting back a cough. His air filters hacked and buzzed as they tried to sort through the black, toxic smog - ringing in his ears all the while, framing the shrill scream of his jumpship plummeting down, down, down. The Trespass began to roll out of control.

"I'm TRYING!" she shouted right back, her voice tinged with panic. "It's no good, thrusters are bust, rudders are tearing, we're-"

The ground rushed up to meet them. To meet him - because Ikharos, much to his horror, ended up on the underside of the jumpship as it made impact. He lost his grip, fell, hit the ground hard enough to break bones and snap his spine-

-and the Trespass finished the job only a nanosecond later, sparing him the agony of a slow death. His world became darkness and heat and then...

nothing

He woke back burning but alive, replenished and repaired but gritting his teeth as a weight too heavy to bear pressed down on his chest, heated steel cutting through his armour and against his skin. Ikharos cycled air in and out, but it was thick with ash; his filter must have given out at some point.

"I'm here!" Xiān urgently exclaimed. He felt her on the back of his mind, warm and bright and achingly familiar. He was glad for her presence. He was less glad that she'd landed his own ship on top of him. Irksome, that.

"No landing struts?" Ikharos gasped.

There was a pause. "Doesn't look like it," Xiān said glumly. "We've got some damage reports to sort through."

"You don't say," Ikharos muttered. "Forget it; this first. Get me out."

She appeared beside him, shying away from the sheer heat of the jumpship above them. The glow of her eye flowed over him, illuminating the small alcove of earth he'd been buried in. It was a small space. One that would grow smaller if the Trespass was allowed to have its way; Ikharos could feel it pressing down on him, threatening to crush him all over again.

"I could transmat-" Xiān started to say, but Ikharos, having glanced around to take stock of his predicament, was already moving towards a solution. He gathered power in his hand - the one not pinned down by several dozen tonnes of plasteel - and formed a growing mass of crystalline matter, freezing the very air around him into solid perfection. The pillar of Stasis lodged in the ground, grew its roots, and then rushed upwards, bracing against the Tresspass above and shoving it away. The entire jumpship creaked... and shifted to one side. Something snapped somewhere else. It took a moment for Ikharos to realize oh, that's my arm, and the pain hit him like a drop pod. The Stasis cracked and shattered and with his good hand he brought the power to bear on the fracture bone while pulling the limb free, reformatting the dire energy into a gentler shape.

The pain subsided. The air began to clear. The heat was no longer so oppressive. Ikharos looked around, noticed some stray rays of daylight had begun to stream beneath the Trespass, and he heaved a sigh.

"As much as I'd like to say I'm not angry," Ikharos started to say, "that I'm just disappointed, that isn't the case at all. I'm angry and disappointed."

"Hey, you're alive," Xiān retorted. She settled on the seared earth beside his head. "That's gotta count for something."

"You flew into a pit of literal Darkness."

"For you."

"For me," Ikharos softly scoffed. "After I'd told you to run. To get out."

"Aaaaand I ignored you. Deal with it." Xiān's eye flashed. A section of the Trespass's underbelly folded open beside them. "You're filthy. Clean up."

"No time. Scorn?"

Xiān tilted her shell. "They've moved on, looks like. Can't say what for."

Ikharos grimaced. "That's not good. Can we fly after them?"

"I'm going to pretend you didn't seriously ask that."

"No?" Ikharos sighed. "Alright. Alright." He leaned back down.

"So...?" Xiān blinked. "You're just gonna lie there?"

"While you go get us our bearings, yeah. I need a minute. Check for distress signals, tachyon particle transmissions, whatever. Someone else has got to be alive."

"I don't... Alright." Xiān disappeared. "But... you should get up."

"Is something approaching?"

"No..."

"Then let me have my fucking minute. You smushed me. I deserve a breather."

"I didn't mean to... okay. I suppose you can have that." She paused. "Air's compatible, at least."

"I'm aware."

"No toxins to my knowledge. It's... optimal, actually. Earth-like." Another pause. "And that's not all a good thing; I'm detecting some minute traces of radiation. Like the Manhattan Nuclear Zone all over again."

Ikharos grunted unhappily. "Am I to die again?"

"Uh, no. Buuuuut... I wouldn't stick around very long. Or go any further inland. Big radiation spike that way. The dangerous kind. Artificial, looks like. Like someone's handiwork; it isn't natural in the least. Can't distinguish a cause, though." Xiān's voice took on a subdued note. "This... this is a world. When did the anomalies begin hiding worlds? I thought they were hollow?"

Ikharos didn't have an answer to that. "This is it, then?" he murmured. "This is Kepler?"

"... I don't know. Maybe? Sure, we entered the gravity shadow, but I didn't think we'd find a core."

"Elisabeth said-"

"Where is she, by the way?"

Ikharos inhaled slowly. "Can you detect her?"

"You know I can't."

"No signal?"

"She doesn't work that way," Xiān replied. "You know what she's like. If she's alive-"

"She is."

"-then it's up to her to find us, not the other way around."

Ikharos heaved a sigh. "Alright. But just for the sake of it, are you tracing where the Exodus ship fell?"

"Some parts, sure. It broke, Ike. It broke into a million pieces. Scornship split it apart and the rest burned up." Xiān paused. "Most of those pieces still intact hit the water and sunk. We're by a sea, looks like. Scans are telling me it's relatively clean - just like any Earth ocean, anyways. I wouldn't advise drinking from it though."

"What of the Cabal?"

"I mean, they sunk too."

Ikharos propped himself up on his elbows. "We have to get them."

"I know..."

"Xiān."

"I've got... I think I can track their trajectory," she said. "But it'll mean a dive."

"Fantastic." Ikharos dragged himself over to the ramp leading up into the Trespass and climbed inside. It was, much to his relief, largely intact within. It was nice, that his home of the last couple of years had escaped complete destruction. Made him yearn, though, for that apartment he'd owned in the City, though. Not the one the Vanguard had supplied him; the one he'd shared with his fireteam before that.

Back when he had a fireteam.

"We'll need ammunition," Ikharos continued. "Transmat beacons. And-"

"What else?" A weight settled on his shoulder. Her chin. Sharp. Delicate. Roughly textured. He felt the weight of her head settle on him. "A knife, perhaps? A knife to carve out the hearts of your enemies - like you'd done for mine? Do you still have it? Your partner's little blade? It would be travesty if you've lost it. You're so attached, after all."

Ikharos stalled at the threshold of the corridor leading down the back of the ship. His heart raced and his blood roared in his ears; his instinctive reaction was something visceral - and he barely tamped that down, kept it constrained to nothing more than a tight-lipped grimace.

"Nothing to say?" his tormentor leered. Her dark claws drew around him, traced over his chest. "Where's that wit and grit and spit?"

He drew out a small crystal phial from within a reinforced pocket of his robes, miraculously intact, and uncorked it. Ikharos pressed it against his lips and tipped it back. The Queensfoil was oppressively bitter and burned the whole way down. His sight shifted and blurred for a moment before refocusing - and he could see faint shimmering lines drawn through the air, clouds of essence and power rippling and emanating from himself, from the many relics and arms and secrets he'd stored away across his ship, and even from the faint, fading cloud of red that resembled her so closely.

Dûl Incaru.

She tutted with disappointment. "Can't muffle me forever," she darkly promised, drawing away from him. "You'll run dry eventually."

The witch disappeared, dissipated, wasted away until all that remained were ambient masses of red-black energy, coursing all around him, hidden in plain sight. Ikharos closed his eyes and stood there, listing from side to side and gasping for breath, for air, for a bite of cold to drain the bonfire raging within him. Oh, how he felt it - like it was scorching him from the inside out, rendering him nothing more than a stiff, empty husk. A shell to anger. That was how he imagined himself. A carrier for something terrible.

He stayed like that for a time. Smouldering. Aching. Languishing in the helplessness of his own thrice-layered curse. Only when Xiān prodded him did he move. "Ike..." she said, her tone too sympathetic for him to bear.

"Ammunition," Ikharos repeated, suddenly feeling so, so tired. "I need ammunition."

He stepped out from under the shadow of his jumpship, armed and armoured and almost whole once more, and he looked around. The land around him, he saw, was... alive. They'd crashed down in a dune of sand and earth, detritus of the sea, but the life that persisted was of the familiar kind - inanimate flora. Grass. Green grass. Marram grass if he wasn't mistaken. Which was strange - because marram grass was a plant-type of Earth. And Kepler-186f, last he'd checked, wasn't close enough for the effects of the Traveler's terraforming to reach. Not with it so far from the Sol system. And it couldn't be a different, alien species of grass either; convergent evolution was a tricky thing, and more often than not life across the stars took similar shapes to fill similar roles, but the sight and smell of everything in front of him was too close, too alike. Maybe plants weren't so complex a thing as people, for though they shared the same basic body plan even humanity and the Cabal were distinctly separate species, but it was all too damningly familiar.

Imported, then. That was his first conclusion. Or dreamed up by something educated about Earth's own ailing ecosystems. Either or, it was inspired. It was like home and there was point to it. He reached up to remove his helmet, then thought better of it; Xiān's warning of radiation and the risk of artificial toxins in the air stayed his hand. Earth-like or not, Kepler-186f was at the core of a Dark anomaly - and that did little for his confidence. Every blade of grass could hide an antimatter-tripmine. Every inhalation could invite a swarm of destructive nanites into his respiratory system. Every glance outside the symbol-suppression blocks in his helm's ocular systems could induce a memetic hazard - such as a Vexing idea, perhaps. A simulation too real to escape. Or a Hive glyph, the words to a suggestive lullaby, to twist his flesh and rend his thoughts towards the idea of war, of supplication towards a ruinous cause. Now that would be poetic: killer of kings and silencer of queens, hanging slack-jawed and mad-eyed from War's biting leash.

The short of it was that places were dangerous, and he wasn't fool enough to risk his health and sanity for a breath of fresh air. Not yet, in any case. He still had a ways to go before claustrophobia caught up with him. Ikharos put the idea of the grass behind him and marched on, towards the glittering, shimmering sea in the distance - which Xiān had helpfully labelled on his HUD with a fat diamond-shaped marker.

A thought struck him and Ikharos stopped in place. He looked up at the sky, at the burning ball that dominated the heavens, and he said, "There's a sun."

"Looks like Kepler-186," Xiān supplied. "Can't tell if it's a proxy for this pocket space or the real thing. Could even be another sun, dragged in here with it. Look at the stars."

"Too bright."

"Ah. Well, they're different. Very different. You won't like it"

He only made it halfway when he felt a flicker against the tightly-wound edge of his Light. Ikharos reached out with invisible tendrils of will, then quickly retracted them. "There's energy here," he murmured. "Power. Magic. Something unnatural."

"There's plenty unnatural with this place," Xiān deadpanned. "We knew that coming in."

"Not by my volition. Though perhaps by yours."

"Look, I did what I had to. I wasn't going to leave you. I can't."

"Emotion has no place in this war," Ikharos told her.

"Emotion? What the hell does it have to do with EMOTION? You're my partner, my Guardi-"

"Love leaves us weak when its chains pull taut. You should have left me, Xiān. You didn't. There's no changing that, yes, but we shouldn't forget that it was the better choice to leave."

"Not to me," Xiān retorted. "Never to me."

"After all we've seen? After all we've done, all we've learned? Then more fool you."

"I'm not arguing this. I can't leave you. It's impossible. I just... can't. Act the cold bastard all you want, Ike, I know your act - and I know you'd make the same choice I did."

Ikharos didn't deign to reply. It would only give her what she wanted to hear. He carried on without a hitch, down and down and down until the waves lapped at his boots and the breeze whistled by his ear. He shrugged his greatcoat off, allowing Xiān to catch it with a flicker of transmat, and he trudged onwards - allowing the waters to take him. It was cold around him, not so cold that it penetrated the insulative layer of his biosuit and armour as the waters of Jovian moons were wont to, but cold in the sense of Earth's northerly oceans. It has the same viscosity, the same colour, the same pressure. Ikharos followed it along as the shore sloped out until his feet left the seafloor and he took to swimming onwards. Fins materialized on the ends of his sabatons. An icon flickered to life on the corner of his HUD; a pressure gauge, fine-tuned to account for the weight of depths so dark no light could pierce them through.

"I am to dive, then?" Ikharos asked softly.

"The Scornship drove them down," Xiān replied. "Right to the bottom. Whole lot of interference in the way."

"Any of it artificial?"

"Not so far as I can tell. I guess we'll see."

Ikharos found the shore dipped away, a cliff beyond marking the edge of the coast. He couldn't see the bottom, but he descended all the same. The waters were dark and empty, and he spied little life amongst the rocks or just beneath the sand. No more than sparse scatterings of shelled critters and silvery little fish.

"You picking up on the BattleNet?"

"Not anymore," Xiān reported. "As I said, whole load of interference."

Ikharos didn't reply. He dove, down down down - until the pressure of the water wrapped around his body, his head, like some coiling boa constrictor. It tightened around him, ceaseless, and no matter how many times he popped his ears he still felt it keenly - dragging on his limbs, pressing against his bones. He ached. His body ached. And despite it, it... was beautiful. Pressure-induced delirium danced in his eyes, cycled into his lungs with every breath; the gloom devoured all, but what stray flashes of colour manifested in the deep transfixed him, fascinated him, lured him in.

It had to have been some hundreds of metres down that Xiān said, "Stop. You should be level with them."

"Can you read them?"

"I'm picking up on something. The direction of the source matches the trajectory at least."

"Give me a pointer," Ikharos ordered. A marker appeared on his HUD's radar - a rippling wave coming from ahead. He swam ahead, ignoring how the weight of the ocean made his back twinge and his shoulders crack. He kept swimming until, gradually, a shape appeared out of the dark blue ahead, stray lights flickering along its length. It was the rear end of a sunken Ketch, fresh with the marks of battle and so utterly scuttled he knew in that moment it would never fly again. Ikharos edged closer to it, took note of how it was standing on end at a slight angle, and dove further yet. To his relief he didn't see any Scorn skittering along its length, but he wasn't optimistic enough to think the ghouls were gone. Down, down, down - and then he saw it. The Rancis Olyptus, pressed on its flank against the seafloor with the prow of the Scornship skewering its other side right down the middle. The frigate was in a sorry state, worse than its assailant, and it had almost been riven in two. The ground below it had been carved into a deep furrow by the weight of the warships and around them lay piles of drifting salvage, so many loose plates and chunks of steel.

"I'm... hearing voices," Xiān hesitantly reported. "BattleNet's there, but its weak."

"Can you make out what they're saying?" Ikharos swam for the Rancis, to the airlock he knew to be on its portside to the rear of the vessel. It was close enough between both the hangar and the command deck that he could feasibly reach both in little time, provided those were the areas what survivors remained had fortified. He expected that to be the case; it was common conduct for the legions to circle around their commanders and their dropships when under attack - and Cabal were nothing if not predictable.

"I don't... no. Not yet."

"Inject a message. Announce our arrival."

"You sure that's a good idea?"

"It'll give them something to rally behind," Ikharos explained. He descended on the airlock and found it closed shut. "Here-"

"Got it." Xiān manifested and fired a beam of blue light over the hatch. It trembled and slid open for them. She decompiled. "There you are."

Ikharos slipped inside, found the access terminal within and punched in his security codes. The airlock closed behind him and the water drained out, forcing him to brace against the other door. Air was pumped inside - and he found it tasted stale and sour through his filters. An atmospheric recycler must have given out in the crash. The other hatch opened and Ikharos dropped through, softening his fall with a brief surge of Light before he hit the opposite wall.

"Right," Xiān said. "Message sent."

"Have they heard us?"

"I think so. There's all new chatter in the air." Xiān paused. "Uh, right. Things're clearing up. They've been muffling themselves. Psions think the Scorn are listening."

Ikharos inhaled. "The Scorn are here?"

"Yeah. In heaps. Looking at the 'Net and... wow, yeah. Command deck has been emptied of souls. Her Tuskiness is leading an attempt to clear the gunnery deck."

"Vindica'aur wants the cannons back online," Ikharos sighed. "Of fucking course she does. She'll blast both ships out of the water out of pure spite."

"Ike?"

"I'm on my way. Tell the Psions I'm linking back up. Is Indilic alive?"

"Yes. He's working with the Flayers to keep the Scorn scattered - phantom illusions, false noises, that sort of thing. The packs are closing in, though, and... ouch. Looks like the metaconcert's rattled. Something's spooked them."

"They're telling you this?"

"Just reading the room."

"Right." Ikharos took stock of his location, plotted a course towards the gunnery deck and set off down an adjoining corridor, sliding down the floor. He forced a plume of Solar Light beneath him when he had to make another turn, dragging his momentum to a stop, and he reconverted the Solar energy into a jet that fired him into another hallway. The interior of the ship was poorly lit. Parts of the Rancis' architecture was... altered from what he recalled, given new angles and distorted into a changed shape, but it largely remained the same. The grasp of the anomaly had dug deep - and in dark corners Ikharos imagined he spied clumps of young egregore blooming, clotting up the vents and filling the air with mycelial spores. A relatively small infestation, but an infestation nonetheless. It chafed against his Light and what few stalks the colonies sported often leaned towards him as he passed - as if to catch him in their torturous grasp and keep him forever, to crack him open and feast on his power.

He saw the Scorn, too. They were an infection of a different sort, though no less insidious. He glimpsed them on the edges of his vision, through layers of steel and energy - via Void-induced Truesight. It was the only way to detect them at any range, aside from motion sensors. His ocular implants couldn't peel the cool blues of the surrounding frigate from their coldly dead bodies. There was no body heat in any of them to betray their motions. Just animated shell-puppets, riding out to war on fumes of shadow and dragon-magic strings.

He hated the dreaming drake for it, always would. She'd ruined him. She'd ruined everything.

It was like a distorted dream, stepping through the Rancis Olyptus again. The Dark permeated through the sunken space, riding on his Light like an itch he couldn't scratch. There was a level of hyper-awareness and blank dullness that afflicted him the deeper he delved; it was a dangerous juxtaposition, and it left him wholly conscious of his purpose there but not the manner with which he was going about it. Violence foamed around him where he met with Scorn - or particularly eager Egregore colonies, grown bold and hungry with their new budding growths. He dealt with them all the same: fire and blade. His armour blackened with blood and grit - and none of it his own. Ikharos carried about his new purpose with the unthinking attitude of a man who'd worked the same job all his life, and he almost lost himself in it. The glaive in his hands was built of alien matter, alien malice, alien power, but it crushed bones and cleaved bodies the same as any other weapon worth its weight. It cut and it burned and it shielded; it was everything he could have wanted in a tool. Where knives snuck past and buried in his flesh, where grenades tumbled over the lip of the glaive's barrier and seared his skin, where fangs gouged and hooked tendrils tore - the Void filled it in, wove flesh and plate and cloth back into form. Every killing strike siphoned mass and energy and with every strike Ikharos was mended whole once more. He Devoured the mutants body and soul - leaving nothing in his wake. Nothing for the Dark to resuscitate. Nothing for the dragon to hold over him. Nothing to remind him of his many, many failures.

He'd only just teetered over the edge of utter oblivion when a new thought, a foreign thought cut across the suffocating blanket drawn over his mind. We see you, it said.

Ikharos blinked, his Ruin halfway embedded between an Abomination's shoulderblades, and he slowly looked around. The chamber he was in was scorched and scarred with Solar and Void, but remarkably clear of infestation. The exhaustion of his work made itself known in an ache in his arms, in his back, and the Void in him hungered for more, more, MORE.

Up. Above. Two floors, fifth door. We can unlock it for you, the other consciousness whispered.

Ikharos blinked again, but realisation dawned quick enough. Thank you, Indilic.

Come quickly, the Psion urged. Before we are lost.

With the gunnery deck came clarity - a sudden clearing of the fugue that had plagued him the moment he'd stepped aboard; where previously there had only been thoughts devoted to violence, to killing, to eradicating everything that rose up before him, now Ikharos felt only the sharp, rippling edge of the local metaconcert closing in on him, burning away the viral desire for ordered destruction. The Egregore was infectious in blooming. It had almost taken him, for a time.

Ikharos pushed through a set of broken sliding doors and found the remnants of a skirmish by the entrance of the deck: bodies, Cabal and Scorn both, scattered across the floor. Of the latter there were fewer remains, but he automatically blamed that on those being too damaged for the Dark Ether to bring back. The rest would have been free to wriggle back to un-life and march on after the rest of the ship's crew.

A weight manifested at his back. Ikharos took it as a sign to advance, to trail after the Cabal, but she was quick to follow.

"Do you regret this yet?" the witch whispered. "Do you desire... salvation?"

Dark matter and yellow lightning coursed through Ikharos's right hand, manifesting as a broad-headed glaive. The Nightmare hanging over him gave a fit of cackling laughter as if at a private joke, the very noise of it sharply lashing his back and filling his eardrums with broken glass. She left him be after that.

A number of Scorn rose from amidst mycelial growths ahead - misted Raiders and headless Ravagers. They saw him and they lurched down the hallway for him, groaning and snarling and swinging flaming censers. Ikharos simply raised his glaive and allowed the energy within tohe burst out the blade - flinging forth heat and mass and destructive resonance. The Scorn were eradicated. He marched on.

A Chieftain crouched behind a corner. Truesight revealed its presence. He Blinked behind it and cut it in half.

An Abomination in the midst of dragging Egregore stalks over itself stomped out of a colony of the dark oily stuff and raised its lightning-wreathed hands. Ikharos weathered its ranged strikes with his glaive's energy shield and returned it with a Pocket Singularity - the Void projectile crunching the undead mutant down into the size of a tic-tac.

A Wraith tried to jump him from a ventilation vent, but Ikharos caught it in his hands and enveloped it in his Solar wings, burning it to ash and cinders.

At long last he stumbled upon the section where the remainder of the ship's crew had bunkered down, where they'd lined the hallways with barricades and fired near nonstop on the Scorn throwing themselves at them. Ikharos happened upon one of the packs of ghouls pounding against the makeshift defences and he set them alight with a click of his fingers, Solar flames spreading between tightly-pressed bodies. Their rotted exoskeletons and glowing boils immolated instantly; they died shrieking, flailing, laughing. Ikharos kicked through the seared remains and approached the wall of Phalanxes ahead, Light and Dark in hand. The ranks of Cabal before him hesitated, but a barked order from a lesser officer prompted them to make way. Ikharos passed through them without a word. What he saw behind the wall of shields was... disconcerting.

There were more Cabal alive than he'd originally been hoping for, given the crash, but those beyond were visibly run ragged; he spotted Legionaries crouched in circles, counting out slug rounds and allocating equal rations to each soldier present. Phalanxes not assigned to keep the Scorn at bay stood waiting as their shields were recharged, hooked up to what few portable generators they'd managed to drag with them. Further in he found a makeshift med bay, where field surgeons were administering black gel to those most grievously injured and simply cauterizing the wounds of the rest. They were lacking for supplies, and sorely. Their eyes followed him as he went, some accusing and others... well. Ikharos didn't stick around to make sense of it.

He climbed up to the subdeck above, where Gladiators had been stationed to every corner and doorway, and the first to truly greet him was a red-pelted war beast. The creature raised its bladed hackles before gingerly approaching him. Its growl caught the attention of its pack and its beastmaster both, and as it closed in to sniff him someone called out a challenge in grunting Ulurant.

"Just me," Ikharos called back. He held his left hand out. The beast scrutinized it for a second before pushing its snout into his palm. Its skin was rough and pebbly, sharp where its scaled ridges began, but it was warm and alive and relatively unmarred by battle. A low vibration trembled from within it, almost like a cat's purr. Another Gladiator appeared somewhere from ahead, clutching a cleaver in one hand and a series of chained leashes in the other. The Cabal's eyes lit up at the sight of him and it slammed its fist against its chest in an Imperial salute, chains rattling. "Commander-interim," it rumbled in flawed, halting English.

Ikharos walked onwards. The beast and its fellows padded alongside him, teeth clacking and shoulder blades flexing. They knew his scent. The first thing he'd done since linking up with the Rancis Olyptus had been introducing himself to the packs aboard, acclimatizing them to his presence; less chance of them mauling him on accident that way. "Where's the Val?" he asked.

The beastmaster indicated behind down to the right. "There."

"Has my arrival been reported yet?"

"Yes sir."

"It has," Xiān confirmed. "BattleNet's locked onto us now."

So's the metaconcert, Ikharos mused. He could feel it all around him; it was as thick and tense as the Dark filling the rest of the ship, but it did not constrict him, it did not tug at his mental blocks and it did not needle into his mind. A stark improvement from the memory of pain infecting everywhere else.

The Psions responsible, he soon discovered, were arrayed in a ring around the gathering of Opti, Bracci and other officers who constituted Vindica'aur's entourage - and they themselves were stationed around a portable holotable connected via a cable to the back of the lead Flayer's head. The Gladiator pair guarding the room (more a Cabal-sized closet, really) pulled their swords out of the way and offered Ikharos a dual salute as he passed them. The ruckus attracted the attention inside, but the only one he really paid attention to was the Val herself.

She, rather predictably, glared at him. "You're alive," Vindica'aur growled, her eyes afire with blame. She raised her tusks - bravely, almost a challenge. Beside her, Indilic's eye flashed orange in a muted greeting. His black-and-gold armour was dusted with ash and splattered with grey organic matter.

"How many?" Ikharos coldly demanded, looking around. "What's the toll?"

Another Psion stepped forth - an Optus and analyst. "Commander-interim," they hesitantly whistled in their high, alien voice. "Fifty-seven troops were set aside for Harvester parties and Thresher crews."

"All of which are lost or at least beyond our reach," Ikharos replied. "I'm aware. There's no reaching them, alive or dead. What of those stationed about this ship?"

"Forty-three were terminated in the initial collision with the Scornship," Indilic cut in. His tone was cool and professional, confident. "Another two-hundred-and-twelve for the ensuing power loss and fall into the gravitational anomaly. Thirty-eight more are confirmed killed by Scorn boarders, five by the accompanying Egregore infestation. Three were crushed when their compartments nearest to the hull rupture were exposed to pressures from the surrounding anomaly. A final fifteen perished upon crash landing."

"Where does that leave us now?" Ikharos questioned, aiming the query Vindica'aur's way.

She glanced at the Optus, then Indilic and growled. "One-hundred-and-eleven still on their feet," she all but spat. "My company is decimated."

"And the Rancis Olyptus?"

"Commander-interim," she said slowly, gritting her teeth. "We are scuttled."

"Noticed that," Ikharos drily remarked. "You've sunk far."

"I... did nothing of the sort."

"Part of the ship, part of the crew, no?" Ikharos tilted his head. He stopped by the other end of the holotable. "I hope there's a report waiting for me. Something concerning our ship's status?"

"Warp-drive is damaged beyond function," another Cabal told him in a low voice, frustrated. "Fuel lines have been severed. The Rancis Olyptus is down."

"You've got a Scornship lodged in your flank as well," Ikharos added. "That, I think, would normally be the most concerning thing about this whole mess."

One of the other Psions made a shrill sound. "Scorn surround us."

"Yeah, I noticed that too. But... not so many as I was expecting."

"They've been harrying us all the way here," Indilic explained. "But only lightly. We've encountered no significant opposition. We've barricaded and locked down every compartment we've left behind. What groups we find are small and unprepared. We've been burning the bodies as we go."

"There's a whole Ketch out there," Ikharos murmured. "They should be swarming you en masse. Even with a half-crew, they should be crawling all over you..."

"But they aren't."

"Then they're herding everyone that's left into a killing pen. Or distracting us from what matters."

"Sir?"

"... We're leaving. Now." Ikharos meaningfully looked around at all the officers present. "It's a swim up, but there's a landmass nearby. My own ship crashed there. We'll make camp by the shore, set up temporary fortifications in a more defensible position and recoup our losses as best we can. We'll launch salvage missions once we're settled."

"You want us to... to run?" Vindica'aur question in a dangerously low voice.

Ikharos spared her an irritated look. "Yes. Or would you rather I dress it up differently? We're moving out and that's the end of it."

"We are-"

"Don't forget your place, Val. Don't forget mine. I've told you to jump. What are you going to do?"

Vindica'aur straightened. She towered over him, a hulking mass of pure muscle and plate steel, and she looked down at him past her decorated tusks. Ikharos unclasped his hands and held them at his side, gathering power-

"Begin preparations to abandon ship," Indilic called out in harsh Ulurant, shattering the moment. "Everyone get out." The rest of the Cabal bustled and began to snap orders into radios, quickly filing out of the room. Very soon only the three of them were left, besides the Psions still connected in metaconcert around them.

"You..." Vindica'aur accused in a low, harsh voice. Her eyes never left his. "You've done this."

"I've done nothing more than my duty," Ikharos calmly retorted. "That's the same excuse you Cabal like to pout, right?"

"You ordered us-"

"And we all fell as a result, I'm aware. We weren't prepared for an anomaly."

"Your information led us to it," Vindica'aur reminded him.

Ikharos paused. "And we might be better for it," he said after a moment. "You've got one Scornship stuck in your side, but the other's still flying free."

"Flying where?" Indilic questioned.

Ikharos paused a second time. "We've hit a world," he said at last. "The same one the anomaly tried to hide."

"Kepler-186f," Indilic said. "And-"

"Looks like a treasure," Ikharos reported. "It's alive up there. Habitable. Literally woke up in a field of grass - grass! A kind from Earth. Looked natural too. "

"The human ship from above-"

"I know. That's the obvious explanation. Doesn't much clear up the finer details. Like the sky, for instance. There's a sun feeding this world but I don't know if it's real or not."

"What does it matter?" Vindica'aur snapped. "My company has been reduced to half, my ship is destroyed, and we are stranded on a world that doesn't exist. This-"

"I dare you to blame me again," Ikharos murmured. "I dare you to pin this whole thing on me."

Vindica'aur opened her mouth, then thought better of it. "The Empress-" she started to say.

"I'll speak for the Empress here," Indilic warned. "Take care not to speak frivolously, Val."

Vindica'aur spared him an irritated look. "She would not be impressed with the Lightbearer's command."

"Oh, this is a fuck-up of monumental proportions," Ikharos concurred, "but some on her War Council have far worse track records. Let's not get picky, now. Half a company's not great, but we still have the manpower to fucking do something."

"Like what?!"

"There's still Scorn out there, not counting those here. They've come for something." Ikharos grimaced. "My contact's here too. I think. I hope."

Vindica'aur bristled. "The very same that led us here?"

"Yes."

"What happened, sir?" Indilic queried, shooting Vindica'aur another unspoken warning. The Val ground her teeth so hard Ikharos could hear it.

"We fell with the Exodus," he admitted. "The other Ketch pushed us into the anomaly, same as you. They were using us to shield themselves from the worst of the anomaly. Scorn boarded the wreck, fought with the Exominds aboard and that was it. I saw the Locus from outside, along the hull."

"Outside?" Indilic pressed.

"My Ghost followed us in. I... was signaling her." Ikharos set his lips in a thin line. "We caught the attention of things out in the Dark. I'm under the impression it was that which cut our passage through the shadow-space short. My contact thinks it's those same forces the Scorn are here for - to fetch reinforcements for the Black Fleet."

"The Hive?" Indilic questioned, then shook his head. "No, not the Hive. They already flood in from every neighbouring system."

"An older clade of pawns, I'm thinking," Ikharos clarified. "Maybe even like that... creature I dealt with in the Throne World."

"Where does that put us?"

"In an unenviable position, I'm certain, but one close at hand to run interference - maybe even break down the Scorn's efforts entirely. Better to nip the problem in the bud than to let it grow."

"What are you proposing?" Vindica'aur demanded.

"You've heard my proposals," Ikharos reminded her.

"But they still don't make sense to me."

"We can't stay here. I know what you're planning, and no, I'm not letting you go out in a blaze of glory."

"I-"

"Want to be seen, I realise, but there's no time for glory here. I won't allow it." Ikharos clasped his hands behind his back. "The Rancis Olyptus is compromised. What I propose is allowing ourselves to recuperate our losses by migrating to higher ground and dragging up whatever's left that we can use. Then we can see about tracking the Locus down and finishing it off once and for all."

"And the entities they came for?" Indilic questioned.

Ikharos inhaled deeply. "I... think we'll cross that hurdle when we get there. We'll refine our plan of action when we've consolidated ourselves on dry land."

"Half my company is gone," Vindica'aur reminded him once more. "Will you take the rest and spend their lives needlessly?"

"Of course not," Ikharos snapped. He took a breath. "That's your priority?"

"What?"

"Just get your people ready for a swim. We'll talk more above."

Vindica'aur grumbled and stepped around the holotable - but before she left she stopped beside Ikharos and glared down at him. "My Valus was right," she growled. "You are the very thing he described."

"I'm sure Saladin's impression of me is suitably unflattering," Ikharos drawled, "but the truth of it is that I don't give a flying fuck about whatever he has to say. The Empress gave your company to me. You can act the wolf-pup all you like, but until we're finished here that's all you'll ever be. Dismissed."

Vindica'aur left without another word. The quiet was almost more unsettling than her rumbling roars. It was only when she was truly gone did Ikharos lose his cool and brace himself against the holotable, his eyes shut tight and his breath whistling in through clenched teeth.

"She is stubborn," Indilic started to say, "but she is intelligent enough to warrant her position. She won't strike you down. Not for fear of what your absence will bring."

"That's not what's got me... nevermind." Ikharos gathered himself, opened his eyes and straightened back up. "Thank you."

Indilic simply watched him. "You are as wound up as a beast trapped in a crate."

"Given our current dilemma, that doesn't sound so far from the truth." Ikharos counted to ten in his head, willing the anxiousness to fade away. "A word of warning: there were traces of radioactive decay across the nearest landmass. Not enough to blanket the coast, but... it could prove a problem if we need to relocate somewhere further inland. Can you make sure the company prepares accordingly?"

"Of course." Indilic gave him a salute. "Is there anything else?"

"Uh... yeah. Scorn are going to batter us until we're outside and maybe some ways beyond. I'm trusting the rank-and-file to deal with the chattel, but if there's anything larger than a Chieftain I want your folk to let me know immediately. I'll run damage control where I can."

"I'll inform the concert." Indilic's eyes shifted white, then back to orange and black. "It is done."

"Thanks." Ikharos waved him off. "Dismissed or what have you."

Indilic bowed his head before quietly leaving.

"Shit," Ikharos muttered to himself. He worried at the inside of his cheek and tasted blood.

The Cabal prepared quickly. If there was one thing Ikharos had to admire them for, it was their no-nonsense attitude towards spending as little time as possible being as productive as was feasible. In other words: they didn't waste their time trying to choose which gun would provide the most colourful explosions, or which cuirass suited their figure best. In that regard he much preferred the Imperial Legion to most blueberry volunteers the Vanguard had so often saddled him with. They gathered up their equipment and their wounded and they gathered by the way Ikharos had entered from. The Scorn outside had fallen silent, slunk away - leaving the hallways clear but for ash and stray Egregore spores.

Ikharos took point. A wall of Phalanx shields marched behind him, walling in the rest of the bodies. At the core of the host lurked the metaconcert, the heart of a psychic web that reached far and wide in search of lurking Scorn ambushers. They hurried through the corridors of the frigate, following the trail of destruction Ikharos had carved on his way in, and they found remarkably little resistance. Even through Truesight Ikharos couldn't spot much more than a couple of lesser ghouls in the distance, and they were all quick to scurry away at the Cabal's approach. It was disconcerting; for creatures of pure violence, their new behaviour gave rise to indications of another purpose, of a higher intelligence behind them. It left him feeling on edge.

But it lasted as far as the airlock he'd entered - and for that he was relieved. Ikharos climbed up through the airlock, kicked up outside into the crushing depths of the ocean and signalled the all-clear to those still inside. "No Scorn," he reported. Xiān swept the area with scan after scan. Nothing on thermal, nothing on UV, nothing on radar and nothing in Truesight but all the Cabal bodies below. A white diamond popped up on the edge of his HUD's map - directions. "Send it to the rest," he ordered. Xiān complied.

It took some time, processing all the Cabal out through the lone airlock. Only seven or so Legionaries could fit inside at a time, less so with Gladiators or Colossi. The war beasts and Psions were easier in that respect - each of them supplied with air filters and face coverings. It had been an effort to outfit the hounds, Ikharos heard, but they were ultimately well-conditioned beasts. Watching them blindly paddle their way out from the airlock was certainly a sight, besides. The beastmasters had covered their eyes and fitted little speakers into their ears just to keep them calm, and the Gladiators responsible guided them with steel-chain leashes.

At long last, after nearly an hour of work, Vindica'aur appeared with the rearguard. Two Opti did a headcount while they were all gathered, and came up positive that all the surviving crew were present. The next problem came in the form of how to reach the island above. "We could use our jump-packs," Indilic explained over radio, "but if the sea cliff is too high, it would result in a grand waste of fuel better spent elsewhere."

"We'll cut a straight route towards the cliff," Ikharos decided. "See if we can climb from there. What's your air-time?"

"Some many hours at least. We have spares too, should any fail."

"Make sure they're spread out. And keep everyone grouped up. It's too dark down here; stray interference could ruin us worse than any Scorn."

"Understood."

"We'll have to make pressure-checks at the cliff too. We're too deep to rise up in one go."

They moved from there - some one hundred and eleven Cabal and one Warlock, swimming-bounding across the desolate sea floor. Aside from radio chatter, the quiet of the ocean was... almost beautiful. There was precious little life down with them, and what few shelled crustaceans or slimy molluscs they encountered were relatively primitive and certainly not worth worrying over. They took their time while at it. Ikharos made sure of that. It would not do to rush a dive; he refused to allow that to happen. Particularly at such a depth.

It was another half-hour before they reached the base of the sea-cliff. It simply emerged from out of the murky waters ahead some two hundred yards out, nearly a sheer vertical face. The stone there, though, was rough and jagged - and though Ikharos didn't like the look of some of those edges, he judged that Cabal biosuits would be thick enough to withstand it. The rough texture of it allowed for some handholds, besides. Something their heavier soldiers needed. In comparison, their Psion compatriots took to the open water far more naturally - bogged down only by the weight of their armour and weaponry.

At the cliff Ikharos called a stop. He swam up a short distance, then called for the first ranks of Cabal to ascend. He marked where they were to stop by holding out one arm and issuing an order, "Cease when you're level with me. Do what you have to to clear the pressure in your eardrums - swallow, yawn, anything of the like. Don't you dare go any further until that's done. Vindica'aur, send up the next bunch."

Indilic swam up beside him. The metaconcert followed him up, connected to every Psion in their midst, and when Ikharos noticed it fall around him he felt some... aching yearning inside him to open his thoughts and join with it, but- no. No. Terrible idea. He wasn't built for it. Too human, too haunted.

The Scorn have left us be, Indilic murmured. His words imprinted on Ikharos's own mind.

That worries me, he similarly replied - though he found his attempt was a little more... stiff to transmit.

A pang of amusement came from Indilic's end. You will explode with worry. You allow your concerns to overtake you.

It's my job.

It's your curse, self-inflicted.

I'd like to see you do any different in my stead.

Indilic bowed his head. Perhaps you have a point.

Perhaps, Ikharos drily thought. He paused. The water... shifted. Minutely, but he felt it. A slight change in the weak currents, some amount of it being displaced. Hold on, something's moving.

Indilic looked behind them. The cliff?

Of all the times for an underwater avalanche... Ikharos looked up. He couldn't see the light of the false sun - not even the few trace rays to pierce the deep waters. Not the cliff.

Commande-

"Something's over us," Ikharos whispered into his helm's radio.

The Cabal below stalled in their efforts. "What?" Vindica'aur questioned.

"Something... big." Ikharos indicated for Indilic to remain and kicked upwards - just a few metres. Enough to feel the press of pressure in his eardrums again. "Xiān?"

"Scanning," she said. "Uh... looks organic? I'm hearing a heartbeat. Big, loud. A little slow, though. It... could be a whale?"

"Nothing here. Why would a whale..." Ikharos trailed off as the shadow over them flickered away. He followed the vague shape of it as it swam out from the cliff - and them looped back around, a little deeper. A little closer. It came almost close enough for him to make out before swimming away again, just to return once more. "It's diving. It's coming closer."

"Maybe it's just the ships it's checking out."

"No, it's too close. Vindica'aur, hurry them up down there. Looks like we'll have to cut some corners after all." Ikharos moved further out from the cliff. He heard a groan, then. The groan of some great sea beast - deep and rumbling and nowhere near so high-pitched to be any cetacean he'd crossed before. It descended to a depth almost level with him and came closer, closer, close enough to make out in the dark waters-

"No whale," Ikharos observed, dumbfounded. "That... that's a mosasaur. A fucking mosasaur."

The 'mosasaur' drifted in for a closer look. It was massive - certainly large enough to pass for a whale at a distance, as it had for Xiān, and it had a brilliant green-scaled hide that blended almost perfectly with the surrounding waters. Tendrils as long as a Fallen Captain was tall drifted from its brows and it stared at them all with eyes as dark as night, like those of a great white shark - positioned just over a massive set of powerful crocodilian jaws filled with hundreds of hooked teeth. It had a long body with a short neck, and where a lizard would have had legs it instead had paddle-like limbs. Its tail trailed off into the darkness behind it. Oddly enough, there were two extra fin-like growths along its back, structured with long, thin bony framing. Almost like wings. He didn't recall seeing those from the old textbook diagrams.

"Vindica'aur," Ikharos said quietly. "Indilic. Get your people up top."

"Commander-interim," Indilic murmured. "What are you-"

Ikharos held out a hand and summoned Void in a perfect orb. The brief glow of violet essence caught the beast's attention, and it narrowed its dead eyes on him. "Something ill-advised, I'm sure," Ikharos lowly replied. "I'll be back with you shortly."

The 'mosasaur' surged forward, right for him. At the same time an immense presence battered against the inside of Ikharos's mind - forcing him to flinch for a split-second before the metaconcert forced it off. The beast closed in, faster than he would have anticipated for such a gargantuan creature, and it opened its maw to snap him up, its mouth big enough to chow down a Sparrow in a single bite. Ikharos Blinked to the side as it charged past, missing him by inches, and he reconverted the Void orb into a long, thin blade of fizzling purple, which he brought down against the beast's flank. Its hide was tougher than he was expecting, even with the Light at his disposal, and he only managed to cut so far before the spectral blade caught on a scale too stubborn to break. The creature felt it, though; he'd managed to score deeply enough that blood filled the water, almost blinding him entirely. Ikharos held tight as the 'mosasaur' bucked and twisted, trying to throw it off.

Then it turned up and began to ascend. The pressure built and built and built - and Ikharos had to let go, just to keep his skull from fracturing and his lungs from bursting. He tumbled away, some significant altitudes higher, high enough that the colours all around him were that little bit sharper. "Where is it?!" he all but shouted into his helm, trying desperately to relieve the pressure however he could. A particularly aggressive wriggle of his jaw sapped the worst of it.

"I don't- Right, right!" Xiān cried out.

Ikharos twisted, saw the teeth, and without really thinking he unleashed the Void at his command in an Atomic Breach - with the ensuing explosion of volatile energy popping a bubble of absence underwater. The ensuing burst of Void flung both himself and the 'mosasaur' back. Ikharos caught his breath, evened himself out, and looked around just in time to see the reptile shake off its daze and begin to circle around him.

"Vindica'aur wants to shoot it," Xiān reported.

"No," Ikharos replied. "No, I can handle this. No need to waste ammo."

"Ike, she REALLY wants to shoot it."

"I've still said no."

The mosasaur swam back in for a nip, and Ikharos fended it off with a brief burst of Arc. It flicked its tail and shook its body, groaning deeply with frustration. The presence from before came back, slamming into his mental blocks and shaking his mind to its foundations; on the other end he sensed anger, confusion, hunger. It took him a moment to align the dots and understand it was the creature at work - and that was a rattling revelation all on its own, because the consciousness assailing his own was worryingly intelligent and utterly inhuman. It did not strike him as something that would stop trying to eat him even if he asked nicely.

Another strike - and once more fended off. The Arc bedazzled it, confused it. A third time it swam in for him, and a third time Ikharos held out his hand, trickles of Light-fueled lightning coursing from his fingers. The mosasaur turned abruptly, but this time - this time - close enough that its tail caught Ikharos before he could react, slamming into him from the side and knocking the very breath out of him.

He only recovered in time as it came back upon him. Colossal jaws closed over and around, large enough that he'd cleared the first rows of teeth. Ikharos panicked and the panic dragged out the Dark in him; resonant energy consolidating in his hand. His glaive manifested, the blade and spokes of either end cutting into both the roof and floor of the mosasaur's mouth, filling it with blood and a pained groan loud enough to rattle Ikharos's skull. Its tongue, a thick powerful muscle bristling with thousands of little barbs, wrapped around his leg tightly enough to shred through the thinner hadronic weave and biosuit legging there - cutting into his skin, into the muscle beneath. Ikharos bit down on a shout and he swatted at the muscle with a Solar-wreathed hand, cutting almost all the way through. The mosasaur shook its head, opened its jaws and all but spat him right out.

Ikharos drifted for a few moments before finding his bearings. "What the fuck," he said.

"Ike!" Xiān said. "It's-"

It came for him again, this time intent on biting him apart rather than swallowing him whole. Ikharos Blinked past the jaws, over its forehead, and he caught onto one of its brow-tendrils. It writhed again, once more trying to force him off, but this time he held tight and pulled his knife free of the sheath on his boot. Without even pausing to consider his actions he threw himself over the tendril, braced against the beast's huge eyesocket, and plunged the blade in - rupturing the organ then and there. The mosasaur roared and jumped.

Out of the water.

And slammed down on top of him.

Something gave way in his ribcage. Ikharos floated off, gasping, and realized he was once more empty-handed. "Where's-" He looked around for the mosasaur and spotted it just a shout away, shaking its head. "THAT'S MY FUCKING KNIFE!"

He summoned the Void again, allowing it to glow and pulse. The mosasaur stilled, craned its heavy head around to glare at him with its remaining eye, and this time it didn't wait around. It swam for him, the battering against his mind only growing in intensity.

"IKE!" Xiān shouted.

Ikharos summoned his glaive in his hands and took aim. "Swimming off with my fucking knife, you fucking-" The mosasaur's jaws opened and he kicked forth, holding his weapon like a lance.

It felt like an age later when he emerged from the waves, what with the sun setting to his left. The Cabal had reached the shore ahead of him, all of them. No surprise there. Hadn't been easy, figuring out how to drag his prize back. Ikharos trudged up the sand, pulling on the unbreakable Void tethers tied around his hands, and he ignored the burn in his arms and legs from the sheer exertion of it. It was only when he heard the clash of metal on metal did he look up at them - Legionaries and Phalanxes slamming their fists against their breastplates again and again. Someone shouted a cheer in Ulurant, and it caught on; near a hundred throats bellowed their guttural praises.

Ikharos just kept walking. He trudged and trudged until the load he was carrying snagged on a rock and he just pulled until it gave. He kept pulling and he kept marching, straining until his legs gave out from under him and he fell to his knees. By that point most of the beast was out of the water. He pulled his helmet free and dropped it onto the sand beside him, gulping in lungfuls of fresh salty air, potential toxins be damned. "Sweet... Traveler..." Ikharos gasped. The smell was almost the worst part of it; he was covered near head to toe in blood and mucus and it stank.

Someone came to a stop beside him. Ikharos glanced up, beheld Indilic's single-eyed look of bewildered amusement and accepted the Psion's hand up.

Humans, the alien murmured, are woefully short of reason.

"What're they thinking?" Ikharos nodded past him.

Indilic's Y-shaped pupil narrowed. Do you truly need to ask that?

"'Spose not."

They'll laud you for this for months to come.

"I know."

Another Cabal joined them. A Braccus. Ikharos couldn't remember their name. "Commander-interim," she said, staring at the mosasaur. "We see you."

"Didn't do this to be seen," Ikharos griped under his breath. He straightened up, despite the burn in his lower back.

"What is it?"

Xiān manifested over his shoulder and recoiled from him. "Ugh," she said, disgusted, then turned around to gawk at the beast. "Oh, that? It's... I think it's a dinosaur."

"It's not," Ikharos scolded. "It's a mosasaur. It's a mosasaur."

"Yeah, they're dino-"

"No, they're not dinosaurs. They're far closer to varanid lizards than any archosaur."

"No idea what that means. Don't need to. It's a dinosaur."

"It's not a damn dinosaur. Stop it." Ikharos shook his head.

"I think it could be dinner," the Braccus offered hopefully.

Ikharos motioned for her to politely go away. She bowed her head and beat a hasty retreat - and was almost instantly replaced with Vindica'aur. Should've kept the Braccus, he mused with some irritation.

Indilic's eye flashed with silent laughter.

"What is that... thing?" Vindica'aur growled.

"It's... it's dead," Ikharos replied. "Doesn't really matter beyond that."

"If there's more-"

"We'll cut it open and have a look inside later. Not now. Not... not while the memory's still fresh." Ikharos suppressed a shudder.

Vindica'aur was silent for a moment. "If that is your decree," she said - though her voice passed over some sense of begrudging appreciation. "What now, sir?"

Ikharos looked around and pointed west. "My ship should be that way."

"A little more north, but yeah," Xiān confirmed. She looked him over, sighed, and passed a beam of blue light over his armour - wiping away the thick layer of viscera. She decompiled after that. "You're welcome."

Ikharos ignored her and took the Void tethers back up. Indilic gave him an incredulous look. You're carrying it still?

"We'll cut along the coast," Ikharos said, only half-answering him. "Keep as close to the water as we are to the land. As nice as it is to have our feet on solid land, I don't want to trust it yet. Make sure the troops know that."

"I'll... pass the sentiment along," Vindica'aur said hesitantly. She offered him a reluctant salute and wandered off. When she was gone Indilic prodded Ikharos with a wordless mental probe.

"Yes," Ikharos said, exasperated. "Yes I'm carrying this the whole way. I'm not letting it out of my sight. I killed it. It's mine."

Have the Colossi assist you. I'll call them over-

"Fine," Ikharos grumbled. "Fine."

Indilic regarded him a moment longer. Humans, he said simply, then left him be.

AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for editing!

I enjoyed writing this chapter way too much.