"a star-studded misguidance"

Mountain-sized waves crashed against the natural seawall, spraying hissing chemicals miles into the sky above. Droplets the size of his fist slapped down all around him, sizzling as it splashed against his molten Solar overshield. He stood there, a beacon of fierce sunfire amidst the dreary green and grey of the dead world's surface. He weathered the monsoon storm, walked on, walked true - and stepped on a fossil, just for the sureness of a foothold. It cracked under his weight.

The radio built into the confines of his helm buzzed to life: "Commander-interim. Forward probes have picked up signs of artificial excavation, twenty chrens from your position."

Ikharos looked up, into the eye of the eternal storm. The Arc within him surged and bellowed in kind, yearning to join with it, to take the reins and run. His Void tamped it down, held it in place with cold indifference. It kept him still. Kept him steady. Kept him anchored.

"A dig site," the Cabal continued. "Nearby surface geology bears signs of plasma burn. Residual scorch pattern matches the thruster emissions of Eliksni Skiffs. No signs of life. No targets sighted."

"What were they digging for?" he asked.

Whoever was on the other side paused. "Unknown. Possibly Glimmer. Or Ether."

"Scorn don't need Ether. That's for the living."

"... Understood."

Ikharos breathed out. Slowly. "Probably Glimmer in that case, to refuel. They must've run ahead of us."

"Understood. What are your orders?"

"Keep searching. Have your Flayers calculate a probable trajectory. If they aren't here, I want to know where they've gone."

"Understood. Val Vindica'aur out."

His radio went cut off, abruptly enough to pop his eardrums. Ikharos nearly flinched. Chose to settle for grimace instead, and continued wandering, aimlessly, through the violent chaos of the storm. It pulled and ripped at him with fierce gales and acidic spray, warded away only by the thin veneer of his protective overshield and the insulative armour he wore beneath. Didn't keep out the cold, though - not entirely. His biosuit came with heating functions, but he wanted to feel it. Feel the nip, the bite, the chill.

It was the crust of a rogue planet he stood upon, only recently caught in the gravity of a tiny dying star. Not far from Sol, relatively speaking, but much farther than he'd ever ventured before. It should've been a point of pride - but all it did was make him feel uneasy. Exposed. Overwhelmed - with so much unmapped territory to explore. So many places to scour, to turn upside down, to lose himself in. No safe havens in sight.

Maybe that was why the Scorn had come this way. No Guardians out this way for many parsecs around.

"They search for something," the witch whispered - hovering on the edge of his vision. "Something to save them."

"The Scorn seek no miracle fix," Ikharos muttered. His hand hovered over the grip of his sidearm. "They're simply monsters already satisfied with their lot in un-life, no more and no less."

"Are you certain?" she laughed. "And here I thought salvation was their end goal!"

Ikharos turned to face her, a retort fresh on his lips, but she was already gone. With a scowl he re-holstered his sidearm and trudged onwards. The planet, he was beginning to discover, was seeded with all sorts of new life, but a majority of it was of the bacterial microscopic kind, with only a rare few spatterings of strange mossy lichen prepared to break that mold. Most of that stuff lined the rocks closest to the churning seas - meltwater from what was one an icy mantle, Ikharos presumed. An anarchic sort of primordial soup, full of nutrients just waiting to be gobbled up.

He knelt down by a boulder, peered close to a pelt of lichen and nudged it with the tip of a gloved finger. The substance squelched - and a series of tiny slug-like growths appeared from within, hefting flat chitinous shells on their amorphous backs and waving the many eye-spots dotting the edges of their soles. Staring at him, maybe, or perhaps at the shadow he had cast. They disappeared all over again in an instant, squirming back into the safety of the lichen blanket.

Already afraid. Already cognitive enough to avoid predators, once they'd realized there was no food to be found.

Ikharos reached inside, plucked a slug out and filed it away in a dazzling manifestation of glittering red-blue crystal - just before Ghost-enabled transmat ate it up. A keepsake for later, no harm done. None intended either; he liked to imagine he was responsible in that respect. A reminder, perhaps in vain, that keeping things alive wasn't the burden it had begun to feel like as of late. Bad weight to settle on shoulders, but he made do. Paid to have an eye trained for the nearest way out, even if all it meant in the end was a meaningless diversion.

"I'm going to bring the ship around now," his Ghost told him.

"Thank you, Xiān." Ikharos exhaled and looked around one last time. Nothing else stood out to him. Just another stepping stone on a chart across the stars. Still - he felt humbled standing there, as far from home as he'd ever been in his entire life. Farther out than the last venture he'd led out into the deep black. Ikharos clung to the small, shrinking hope that this was going to end better too, but he wasn't certain on that count. Not with that... thing still at large, doing Traveler knew what.

The Shadow Trespass swooped down from the heavens above, half-cloaked in crackling electromagnetic sight-sheath, and roared to a smooth halt overhead. The under-compartment folded open, a boarding ramp extending below it, and Ikharos glided up onto it. It closed up around him just as the jumpship shot away, rising back up. The airlock hissed, scrubbing him of all contaminants, and at last ushered him back up into the main canopy.

And there he found her waiting.

She was sprawled across the couch he'd renovated into the wall, but the moment she caught sight of him she involuntarily straightened back up, assuming a prim and proper demeanour. Ikharos caught sight of her cool optics and swore he'd just witnessed the fading expression of someone who'd lost themselves in a memory, in the past.

Or, maybe, a darker future.

"Hello, Elisabeth," Ikharos greeted, as cordial as he dared.

He marched past, making a beeline for the adjoining laboratory. It wasn't a large space, and most of it was eaten up by specimen storage, but it served its purpose. He opened a terrarium and allowed Xiān to fill it up with some shallow water, a couple of native rocks and some moss - followed shortly by the frozen slug. Ikharos thawed it out of the crystal with the flick of a finger, watching with some amusement as the little alien instinctively retreated to the cover of the lichen clumps.

"This is my ship," the Stranger daringly announced, just as he returned.

"Is it now?" Ikharos hummed. He fell onto the armchair opposite and crossed his legs. "And here I thought this was the property of one Beatrix Danai - before her timely demise, that is."

"You know who she worked for?"

"SOLSECCENT, probably."

The Stranger tilted her head. "Is that all?"

"Am I to understand there were other cogs at work? So... what - it's your family's stealth yacht?"

"Mine."

"Oh? Your stealth yacht, alone?"

"I built this." The Stranger made a point of looking all around the cabin. "Though you've done some redecorating of your own..."

"Is there an issue?"

"... No. No issue."

"You want it back?" Ikharos questioned. He sent an unspoken query Xiān's way; how the hell had she gotten on-board? "You'll probably need it, if you're to stand any chance at getting back home. We're getting pretty damn far out as is."

The Stranger held his gaze a moment longer before letting out an empty breath and leaning back, visibly relaxing. "No. It's yours now. So long as you need it."

"Really? Thank you," Ikharos said. He smiled disarmingly - but it was nothing more than a hollow mask to hide his growing sense of unease, confusion, suspicion. "So - drink?"

"While on the job?"

"Oh, we're on a job, now, are we?"

"You are," the Stranger deadpanned. She pulled a datapad out of transmat and held it up. "Marching orders. Troop acquisitions. Letter of recommendation, emergency inauguration, notice of temporary infantry and naval command. Coalition joint-venture. And an end to your exile."

"You say that like you weren't expecting it," Ikharos pointed out. Xiān finally came back to him, but not with anything definitive. Apparently she'd just appeared. Despite the Techeun-designed warding sigils scraped under the ship's hull. Despite the secured transmat-dampeners that prevented anyone and anything from materializing inside without his Ghost's say-so. Curious, that.

The Stranger flinched. "Don't," she warned, optics narrowing and faceplates contorting into a scowl. "Don't."

Ikharos lost his smile. "Definitely going to need that drink," he murmured, standing up and walking over to the inbuilt kitchen. He opened the resident cooler and pulled a bottle of carved diamond out, filled to the brim with a darkly vaporous concoction, the stuff writhing within. "What's your poison? Scotch? Wine? Cider? Beer? Orange juice?"

"Wine," the Stranger murmured, regathering herself. "I'll have some wine, if you have it."

"Wine. Okay." Ikharos pulled out a second bottle, built of smooth amethyst and flawless ivory. "Pallasian red work for you?"

"Reef-brewed," the Stranger observed with some interest. And… was that approval he heard in her voice?

"Best vintage this side of Torobatl and that's a hill I'm willing to die on." Ikharos closed the cooler behind him and meandered back to the living room. Xiān transmatted a knee-high steel table between them, along with a pair of cups. Ikharos set the bottles down and uncorked them one by one. He poured them both some of the red before adding a couple of drops of the first bottle to his own glass.

"Queensfoil too," the Stranger mused. Her optics flicked back to him. "You're always so quick to mistrust."

"Old habits and how they die or something-something, you understand," Ikharos replied. He sat down and took a sip; the Queensfoil was bitter and thick, but the red blunted its edge, diffusing its bite. His Light began to rise, thrumming in tandem with his own heartbeat, and his vision became sharper, brighter, glittering with invisible energies and catching drifting shapes by their nearly imperceptible lines. The Stranger was a font of crackling power, like a monument of shifting crystal - and every time she moved, no matter how minutely, the crystal shattered apart before building back up again. The edge of her form was bright with another presence entirely, the mundanity of timeless acausality, and pale lightning danced across her form. "Is that not why you're here?"

The Stranger curiously tilted her head.

"You don't trust that things'll turn out right, so here you are. Should I expect a warning, like you did for Jaxson?"

"You can expect to clean this place up," the Stranger snarked. She almost smiled, only barely restraining herself. Ikharos saw something else there too. He chose not to comment on it. It wouldn't have been appropriate. Didn't mean he couldn't file it away for later, though. She sobered quickly. "The Scorn are fetching reinforcements."

"You know, the parameters of this mission weren't published for civilian notice. How did you-"

The Stranger leaned forward, elbows on her knees and cupping both hands around her glass. "Ikharos," she stiffly, awkwardly began. A part of him wondered where that awkwardness stemmed from. "I'm here on good faith."

"... Fine," Ikharos muttered. "No more games. So time's of the essence?"

"For now."

"Ah, I can't beat around the bush but you can play cryptic all you want? Doesn't seem fair to me."

The Stranger shot him a stony look. "We only have a limited timeframe to catch up with them. I'll offer you coordinates-"

"'We?'"

"... Yes. Yes, we."

"And who's going to play mentor to every Dark Guardian-aspirant?"

"Eris Morn. The Drifter. Jaxson Ine-"

"Jaxson's not up for it," Ikharos murmured. "I'm not okay with that."

The Stranger frowned. "That's not your choice to make."

"I'm not comfortable with it."

"He's reliable."

"He's overworked."

"And everyone else isn't?" the Stranger challenged.

Ikharos sighed. "Touché."

"Ce n'est pas un argument. Je ne veux pas me battre."

"Yeah, well, can't blame me for being a little on edge. I care about him. His welfare. I don't like him taking the brunt of a job that's not his own."

The Stranger's optics sharpened. "You lost one. Don't drive away the other."

Ikharos scowled, shot the Stranger a dirty look and said, "You're one to talk."

"... What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know what it means, Doctor Bray. There's a fine line between being helpful and being nosy - and you've run well past it."

"You needed to hear it," the Stranger said softly. Her expression eased.

Ikharos eyed her with suspicion. "My stance hasn't changed."

"Not yet."

"And oh, but it will?"

The Stranger shrugged.

"Guessing we've had this chat before," Ikharos observed, looking away.

"Sometimes."

"How does it end?"

She gave him a dry look. "How do you imagine it ends?"

"Everyone finally getting along?"

"Not... not always."

"So not at all?"

"No."

"That's not promising."

"There's nothing to promise."

"Ah. Fair," Ikharos grunted. He leaned back and closed his eyes. Twinkling stars of distant systems dotted the inside of his eyelids. He chartered the constellations, navigated stellar pathways, drew lines of light and shadow between the cosmic bodies in the vain hope of making sense of it all - and he came away from it knowing he was woefully unprepared, semi-mortal construct that he was. "What do you really want, Elisabeth?"

Transmat flickered over the coffee table, funneling a bland grey construct of linear make on top of it with a dull thud. Even at a glance Ikharos could tell it was a weapon - just not like anything he'd ever crossed before. It was obviously manufactured, but lacked the blocky, unwieldy-ness of Cabal tech; it was intuitive, but lacked the chaotic, organic feel of Eliksni handicraft; it was sophisticated, but lacked the razor-sharp, brass-toned hide of Vex weaponry.

And besides, engraved on its flank were the digits CR-001. Human letters. Human numbers. Last he checked, neither the Cabal nor the Eliksni were prone to whittling any runes on their instruments but their own. Of the Vex nothing needed to be said. And the Hive? Or Scorn for that matter? It was too fine for either of them. Too... clean. It didn't stink of death either. The weapon had a hefty stock, of size with the rest of the massive frame, and the trigger system of a heavy rifle. There was a loading well built in front of the grip, but Ikharos couldn't see how it fed up into the rest of the gun - or what it fired. Energy, maybe? There was another grip down the barrel's length, but he didn't think it was just there for stability's sake. It had another purpose altogether.

"That's a big gun," Ikharos surmised. "Can't say I recognize it."

"You can't?"

"No. Not typical City-make, anyways. No Foundry-prints - and I don't know anyone else with the means to cobble something this fine together. It's not Awoken, is it?"

The Stranger slowly shook her head. "No."

"Golden Age?"

"Not like I've ever known."

"Hm. Where'd you find it?"

The Stranger hesitated - briefly. Ikharos saw it out of the corner of his eye, the shift of her optics; the temptation to lie. "From a scan. I replicated it based on what I'd found aboard a derelict station," she said. Then added: "In Neptune's orbit."

"Plenty of those about. Anything particular about this station?"

"It was warm. It was used. There was fresh hazardous-protection equipment inside and..." the Stranger hesitated. "A print."

"Human?"

"Not quite."

"You're never forthcoming, are you?" Ikharos bitterly mused. "Getting you to talk is like pulling teeth. What's so important about this gun?"

The Stranger took a hollow breath and stood up. "Watch," she said, and picked the rifle up. She unclipped its empty mag, pulled another out of glittering transmat and slapped it against the bottom of the loading well. Matter... flooded within the rifle's hollow frame, a gleaming semi-liquid, semi-solid substance that rippled and moved.

"Nanite colony," the Stranger explained.

Ikharos froze. "Is it-"

"It's not SIVA."

"Fucking... Well? What then?"

"I don't know," the Stranger admitted. "But it's weaponized. It's dangerous. And I don't know who's been making them."

"Are they self-replicating?"

"No."

"Thank the Traveler." Ikharos relaxed. "Where're you getting them?"

"Glimmer. I've deconstructed and reverse-engineered some samples I found. They're... they're incredible"

"How long ago?"

The Stranger shrugged, though there was a light in her eyes - one that told Ikharos that he was asking the right questions but hearing the wrong answers. "A couple of years."

"Why bring this to me? Here and now? We've left Sol behind, Elisabeth. We're a long way from home."

"I'd figured you would have liked to know," the Stranger said all too flippantly.

Ikharos frowned. "Does this have anything to do with the Scorn?"

"I don't know."

"You sure about that?"

"No."

"But you've brought it here anyways."

The Stranger narrowed her optics. "I've shown it to you," she said slowly, "to check if you know anything about it. Failing that, perhaps you could help me understand this."

"Why me of all people?"

"You're a smart man."

Ikharos pursed his lips. "I do try."

"Will you help me?"

"If I have time. Are you going to leave it here?"

"No." The rifle disappeared back into transmat. The Stranger leisurely sat back down - trying to hide the tension in her frame, in her grip on the couch's armrest. The energy wreathing her froze and fractured, a broken mirror of someone else.

"Then I suppose it hinges on you having time as well. We'll see where that gets us." Ikharos took a sip of his wine and ducked his head. "I have a question."

"Ask."

"Did you know about... Nevermind." Ikharos sucked in a deep breath, rose to his feet and looked to the cockpit. "Xiān?"

"Coming up on the Rancis Olyptus shortly," Xiān announced over the ship's intercom. Ikharos gave the Stranger a pointed look. She looked back.

"I'm not here to steal your operation," she said softly - trying to reassure, to build trust. He saw it for what it was clear as day. "Nor have I come to disrupt your work. I'm here to help."

"You know something."

"Obviously."

"So is that why you're here? A vested interest? I'm not in the mind-space to believe it's a professional favour."

"Can't it be?" the Stranger challenged.

Ikharos saw the truth, then. He saw it - and he chose not to confront it. Too complicated, he told himself. Won't do much to help either of us.

"Do as you will, Elisabeth," he said at long last. "Do as you will so long as it doesn't screw the rest of us over.."

"I do try," the Stranger echoed.

Ikharos hmphed, set his cup aside and clambered up to the cockpit. He slid into the pilot's chair, sat back and let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Xiān compiled in the air beside his head and nestled between his neck and his shoulder. She was a warm presence, a comforting one. One he cherished.

"You okay?" Xiān murmured.

Ikharos hummed. "People... are... difficult," he whispered. "Or I just hate them."

"Eh, bit of column A, bit of column B. But are you actually okay?"

"I'll live."

"Yeah, that's kinda my job."

Ikharos affectionately tapped her uppermost fin before returning to the ship's controls.

The Rancis Olytus hung in orbit on invisible wires, silent and silvered and abuzz with returning Threshers. The blue-and-gold banner of the Imperial Cabal trailed through open space behind it, gilded and neat and stamped with Caiatl's own sigil. The cannons sprinkled across the frigate's hull tracked Ikharos's Shadow Trespass as he closed in, but they just as quickly swiveled away. Someone was getting nervous. He imagined there was an officer inside, already giving someone a stern talking to.

Ikharos took a-hold of the jumpship's flight controls and guided it under the frigate's belly, smoothly gliding up into the hangar built within and falling into the secure transition of the docking bay's magnetic hooks. He dialled down on the Trespass's thruster power, gave the engines some slack and engaged the jumpship's own docking clamps. The moment they landed with a reverberating clang, he leaned back in his seat and ruminated on what he'd learned - which was painfully little. His chair tilted slightly; Ikharos glanced up and saw the Stranger had propped her elbow on the top of it, leaning into it.

"I don't suppose you called ahead," Ikharos said. "Because these people like their protocol and to ignore that is to invite their temper."

The Stranger barely looked at him. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

"I could. I'm wondering if I should leave it to you, though." Ikharos pushed away, stood up and rolled his shoulders. He activated his wrist-comm and said, "Control, this is Warlock Torstil, standing by."

The response was immediate. "This is Control, biometric scans-"

"I know. I know. Send the Val a ping; we've got a guest."

"Understood. Do you require assistance?"

Ikharos glanced at the Stranger out of the corner of his eye. "Do you need a room?" he whispered.

"Not a cell," she shot back.

He smiled. "No, Control, I don't."

"Understood. Commander-interim, you are clear to disembark."

Ikharos switched his comms-band off. "Elisabeth," he said quietly. "Don't let them find an excuse. Don't give them a reason."

She touched his shoulder, then. And didn't say a thing. He turned to look at her - but she was gone by then, disappearing back through whatever Vex-altered transmat system she owned and leaving the air tingling with ice-cold essence in her wake.

"Huh," Ikharos said.

"She left us the coordinates," Xiān told him. "Nice of her. Think she'll be back?"

"Almost certainly."


Vindica'aur sent him an honour guard to welcome him back. The entourage of hulking Cabal armed and caped and equipped with helms engraved with the likenesses of snarling war beasts pressed in around him, marched him straight to the bridge in a silence so thick he could have portioned it like a cake. A Centurion with a shoulder cape embroidered with gilded dendritic patterns led the way, bronto cannon clutched in one meaty feast, and they shoved open the elevator doors when at last they arrived. The bridge beyond was a hubbub of activity, Cabal and Psions frantically working at their stations, and the very air hummed with psionic activity.

Val Vindica'aur stood at the forefront of it all, gazing out of a holographic viewport at the rogue planet far below. At her right stood the Colossus Faer'o and to her left the High Optus Indilic. At Ikharos's approach the latter pair turned and saluted; Vindica'aur was slow to follow, stubborn to a fault. Only when Ikharos stopped before them did she pause and swivel to meet him.

"Lord," she stiffly greeted, shoving the human word through a mouth full of sharpened teeth not designed for such a language. Her head was bare, naked to the stale recycled air, and it glittered with silvered cybernetic nodes affixed to the right side of her skull. Vindica'aur's tusks were long, wicked things, ornamented with rings and beaded strings and capped at the end in solid gold. For all intents and purposes it was as if she were afflicted with a permanent scowl from the moment he'd met her - fangs bared, tusks raised, orange eyes a-flare. The truth of it, Ikharos had since deduced, was that she simply didn't like him. It was just the expression she saved for him and him alone.

"Val," Ikharos coolly returned. "Have you deduced where the Scorn have scampered off to yet?"

"My Psions are triangulating their projected trajectory even as we speak."

"Call them off, order the rest of your scouts to return. There's nothing more for us here. We may already have the location. Xiān?"

Xiān manifested in the air between them. "Kepler-186. Five planets, but only one in the natural habitable zone. We're some distance off. It's... here." She projected a blue hologram of a star chart. "Part of Cygnus constellation from Earth-side. Humanity was considering it for colonization before the Collapse, but, well..."

It's close to a trade-route, Indilic reported - not with words but with shared thought. From before the Empire's destruction.

"Empire's not dead yet," Val Vindica'aur growled lowly.

Indilic merely looked at her, his eye bright with psionic power, and she shied away from him. He turned back to Ikharos. It lies near the border of frontier territories, formerly under Imperial jurisdiction. They are likely now in the hold of up-jumped warlords or Hive sects.

"What about Kepler itself?" Ikharos inquired.

I cannot profess to being familiar with the system, but I don't recall there having been any extensive Imperial activity in the sector - mercantile or otherwise.

"What of the Scorn? Anything nearby worth their time?"

Indilic shrugged. Possibly. Would our primary concern not be the Scorn reaching out to nearby Hive forces?

"As I understand it," Ikharos said slowly, "the Black Fleet already has the ear of Xivu Arath. Her further involvement in the war for Sol is all but certain. If the Voice in the Darkness already has Her closing in, then why send Her some rotten Scorn to boot? And through realspace of all things? It would have been quicker to smuggle them through the Sea of Screams. No, they must want something else. It doesn't make sense otherwise."

"Where did you come by these coordinates?" Vindica'aur sharply asked.

Ikharos raised his head to meet her gaze. "A Vanguard associate rendezvoused with me only just there. I have good reason to believe she's right about this."

"This... guest, then?"

"Yes."

"Where are they, commander?"

Ikharos schooled his features. "I wouldn't know."

"You don't?"

"No. But I don't doubt she'll intervene again." Ikharos paused. "She's an Exo. Relay an order to your staff; if they encounter her, then she is to be unharmed and afforded the same respect you would spare for I or your own Valus. And leave her to whatever she's doing. Odds are she knows more than we do - and is acting accordingly."

Vindica'aur's eyes narrowed. "As you decree," she begrudgingly rumbled. "By your leave, comman-"

"Dismissed," Ikharos replied, perhaps a little too quickly. Vindica'aur stiffly bowed her head before marching past, barking out orders to every bridge-officer in sight.

"This... 'Kepler' may well lie close to Hive battlelines," Faer'o said suddenly. Ikharos glanced at the Colossus and found him wearing a thoughtful expression. "Whether these Scorn are seeking them out or not, it poses a risk for us all the same, should we give further pursuit."

"Are you proposing anything?" Ikharos asked.

"No, commander. Merely raising a concern."

"If we act fast then we will have little reason to fear a Hive incursion. So long as we remain true to our mission."

Faer'o dipped his head. "As you say, commander-interim. I shall see to it that my troops understand the situation."

Ikharos nodded. "Please do so. And make sure we set this course soon. The quicker we catch them, the quicker we can return home."

Faer'o hesitated - because of course he did, what home was there left for him? - and departed with a final awkward salute. Ikharos at last turned to Indilic and dipped his head. The Optus politely returned the gesture and led him away from the viewport, back to the elevator. Xiān hung between them, her shell taut around her core.

Before the Empire's fall the sector was rife with reports of piracy, Indilic murmured into Ikharos's own mind. Alien raiders and silvered corsairs. Too quick to catch and too fleeting to concern any other than fringe planetary governors, what with the war against the Hive rapidly escalating.

"Black Fleet?"

I don't know. More likely one of the many upstart species who took affront with Imperial expansion. I am all but certain there were multiple migrant civilizations at work as opposed to just one. They are unlikely to have survived the Hive.

"I see." Ikharos breathed out slowly. He filed the information away and moved on - settling on the conversation at the bridge. On Vindica'aur.

She will not openly oppose you again.

"No?"

Not with her rank and honour on the line.

"I trust you'll keep it that way?"

I will try, Indilic vowed. His eye crackled and shifted to a dull orange light, a black Y-shaped projection cutting through the amber. His armour was dark in the dull red elevator light, the illusion of blood pooling upon his pauldrons and dribbling down his gilded midnight cloak. It made for a daunting sight. Ikharos watched him and wondered if he was telling the truth. No way to be sure.

"Thank you," Ikharos said at last. He settled on a brief flare of gratitude - hollow and bleak, but it was what it was. Indilic heard it, felt it and slowly nodded. The elevator shuttered to a stop. The door opened. Indilic offered him a flourishing bow before stepping out. The glow of his eye was the last thing Ikharos saw before the doors closed again and he was once more bathed in dark, dark red.


He spent the transit period in the Trespass. Perhaps in the vain hope (hope? Why hope? A curiosity, more like) that Elisabeth would return. That she would explain. But no. She didn't show. Ikharos tossed his legs up on one of the couch and leaned back, hands braced under his head. He wanted to relax. He wanted to rest.

He managed neither.

Ikharos opened his eyes and saw another beside him, cool white but for the crimson essence wreathing her. His heart jumped and hammered; an old sickening anger settled inside him, the kind that made him ache, that made his insides twist with helpless fury and animal desperation. It took all his resolve to remain where he lay, all his resolve to keep the emotion from rising to the surface.

And still he muttered, "I hate you."

She laughed at that. The red shadow, the flushed facade. Laughed in that alien, accursed way she always did, the way that ripped at his eardrums and tore at his confidence. "The feeling is not mutual."

The witch raised a hand, traced a claw in the air. "So... what now? Are we to hunt our prey between the stars? I'm well-learned in that regard. Should I teach you?"

Ikharos bit his tongue.

"We used to make sport of it. But you already know that. You know it all." She grinned, on the edge of his vision. "I think you would thrive in this life. The vocation would suit you."

He tasted blood.

"Hunting dog that you are."

A soft warmth enveloped the edges of his mind, both foreign and familiar. Stay out of this, Xiān, he wanted to snap. This doesn't involve you.

"Better than suffocating on that mudball," the witch sighed. "Get out, get some air. Go explore. Infinite oceans, Warlock. Infinite seas. Skies unending. Yours for the taking; yours to claim. All you need do is be a little braver."

"O temptress mine," Ikharos roughly intoned in her own vile alien speech, "leave me be."

A claw traced his chest, dragging up towards his throat. She stopped only just short of his windpipe. "As you wish," she purred, and with a final wink of her right eye she dissipated into a fine red mist. The air was left clogged with the scent of ashy sulphur and sickly-sweet rot in the aftermath, the stench of battlefield death. Everything fell quiet - everything but for the pounding in his ears.

Ikharos... hated. Oh how he hated. He hated so vehemently he was terrified that if he lingered on it a moment too long it would overtake him, consume him; that he would settle on it, become it, and never ever revert to any other emotion again. But he couldn't help it. How could he? He hated her, in life and death and stray memory - and she was never going to let him live it down. He sat up and cupped his face in his hands. Said nothing. Couldn't summon the effort to articulate his thoughts, his feelings. He didn't have that trusting disposition. Unguarded words were dangerously over-expressive and he was a miser with them.

Xiān, he thought, catching her attention. The neurosymbiotic bond of Light and camaraderie stretching between them twinged with concern. Tell me when we're close.


It took them a day, overall, to reach Kepler-186. Ikharos found reason to be glad of the Imperial presence; their warships were clunky and obtuse, but they were better equipped to warp between the stars than jumpships were, even those of Awoken make. He left the Shadow Trespass behind, made his way back to the bridge and, alongside those Cabal officers present, beheld the polarized view of the local red dwarf star. Smaller than Sol's searing core, yes, but still majestically intense. The universe was powerful, he mused. Even without the meddling of otherworldly energies the natural, causal universe was capable of its own immense power.

"Scan for artificial installations," Ikharos ordered, "then move onto those planets in the habitable zones.

A number of Psions and Cabal set to work. Scanners pulsed and drones were ejected, fired out into the void of open, endless space. His mind churned and swatted through scenario after scenario; what could the system provide that Sol couldn't? Why were the mutants headed this way? Had the Stranger been telling the truth in the first place, or had she merely offered them a distraction to give herself the time needed to deal with the ghouls?

"And keep an eye out for those Scornships, the Yemeks-Syn and Ariks-Fel," Ikharos continued. "You already have their ident-codes. The moment you locate them, engage immediately."

Vindica'aur finally arrived behind him. Ikharos offered her a curt nod, but the Val looked between him and the bridge staff and narrowed her eyes.

"You cutting me out, smallman?" she whispered in a low, dangerous voice.

Ikharos shot her a warning look. "Careful, Val."

"This is my bridge."

"And my operation. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Indilic. I'm sure he'd love to lay things out for you."

Vindica'aur briefly raised her tusks, then, remembering herself, quashed her pride and lowered them. "There's no need for that, sir," she sullenly replied.

"I thought not." Ikharos turned back ahead. He clasped his hands behind his back and schooled his expression, strangling the pang of irritation before it could show.

One of the Psions manning the scanners jolted and exclaimed something in its shrill native speech. It switched to Ulurant quickly, glancing Ikharos's way. "Fifth planet!" it squeaked. "Fifth planet! I see a ship!"

"Bring up an image," Vindica'aur roared. The viewport flickered and shifted, the light of the red dwarf disappeared and was replaced with... nothing.

Utter nothing.

A dark night sky, dotted with stars, but there was... something there. Something massive and great that blotted out a whole area of space. It wasn't a black hole; it lacked a definitive event horizon. It took the shape of a planet, but the lack of light...

"Is it being obstructed?"

"No," another Psion reported.

"Then where's the sun's light?" Vindica'aur demanded.

"There's nothing for the light to land on," Ikharos deduced. "Nothing for it to bounce off."

"Then why is the world dark?"

"I imagine it's for the same reason we can't see Mercury back home."

Vindica'aur opened her mouth and shut it. Her eyes widened. Her honour guard shifted and rippled with unease. It didn't take a genius to understand why.

"KOI-571.05," Xiān said, compiling over Ikharos's shoulder. "Kepler-186f. That's where it should be."

"What are you thinking?" Ikharos asked her in a neutral voice.

"I don't know. It's not there."

"What about this ship?" Ikharos inquired.

The Psions scrambled at their stations. The hologram shifted and zoomed in a thousandfold, zeroing in on a slim silver structure hooked in the gravity shadow's orbit. It wasn't Cabal, it wasn't Eliksni, it wasn't Hive - but it took Ikharos longer than it should have to recognize what it was, if only because he simply hadn't been expecting it. It looked like a tree with some massive bulbous growths along its slender frame, shattered some ways down. Only half of it remained, the rest likely having been eaten up by the gravity shadow.

"That's a Golden Age Exodus-programme colony ship," Ikharos remarked. "And a big one at that. I've seen smaller ones all over the Cosmodrome, and there was the Exodus Black on Nessus, but... this far? Bring us closer."

"Closer?" Vindica'aur repeated incredulously.

"Skirt the anomaly, close in on the Exodus ship slowly. Hail it; we need to know if there's anyone still alive inside."

"The Empress decreed us-"

"To follow my orders," Ikharos interrupted. "I'm not going to repeat myself."

Vindica'aur hesitated.

"Has your courage left you, Val? Didn't know all it took was the sight of one scuttled ship."

"Bring us closer," Vindica'aur reluctantly called to the bridge crew. Her massive leathery hands curled into fists by her sides. "Do as the Lightbearer says."

Looks were thrown and nervous static built up in the air. Ikharos had a half a mind to swat at the psionic energy coursing around them, just to kick them into action, but the crew set to work. He understood their apprehension, though. Reports of the Glykon Volatus and the journey taken by the Leviathan itself had run through Guardian and Imperial ranks like wildfire, and clearly neither vessel had come out of their own anomalies completely intact. Certainly not with the same crews they'd dove into the gravity shadows with.

But that indulgence of dismay was for naught. As they closed in on the Exodus ship, it was clear that it rested on the fine line between drifting off eternally and falling into Kepler-186's glintless proxy. They surfed that line too, their Rancis Olyptus cutting in towards it at angle. On closer inspection the damage to the ship became much more apparent, as if something had reached up and snapped it in half. What remained was the rear of the vessel with all the thrusters and solar sails necessary to keep it aloft, keep it going. Most of the city-sized cargo pods, on the other hand, were conspicuously missing.

"A large vessel," Vindica'aur remarked.

"Should be larger. We're missing most of it." Ikharos indicated to the same Psion from earlier. "What of your scans? Any activity?"

"None," the Psion reported. "No thermal or electrical feedback. It's cold."

"Have we hailed them, yet? Is anything answering us?"

"Negative, commander-interim."

"Don't stop," Ikharos ordered. "Give them some time."

"We cannot keep waiting for corpses to speak," Vindica'aur growled, annoyed. "If the Scorn are coming this way-"

"Enough," Ikharos barked. Vindica'aur simmered but fell silent. "If they're coming this way, then they want something here - and a Golden Age ship on the edge of a gravitational anomaly sounds really fucking suspicious to me." He paused. "Ready some Harvesters. We'll send a couple of teams over to investigate. Two maniples, with Psion auxiliaries."

"... As you will," Vindica'aur begrudgingly said. "Will you oversee the operation from here?"

"I'll oversee it from over there," Ikharos nodded to the Exodus ship ahead of them. "You have the bridge, Val."


Three Harvesters glided out from the frigate's belly, like little joeys taking their first steps from mother's pouch. Another seven Threshers buzzed around them, angry and protective and dead silent in the starless void. Ikharos followed close behind, his Shadow Trespass sleek where Cabal craft were blocky and quick where they were ungainly. He passed behind their plasma trails, darted underneath the convoy and lazily looped around them. The buzz of Psion pilots fed into his sensorium; they relayed sights, smells, abstract shapes and foreign concepts - feelings. He did not loop those feelings back. An open mind was a playground for other parties to frolic in; he was not some exotic environment for alien minds to parse through. He gave them his position, he gave them their orders and that was the extent of it.

The Exodus ship was even larger than he'd anticipated, up close. It basked in the red dwarf's sunlight and hung there, silent and silver and dead. No service lights flickered along the edges of its hull. No radio signals crawled out of its broken husk. No lifeforms showed up on biometric sensors. Ikharos knew there was a risk of the hull running interference in that regard, that some Golden Age alloys were known for their uncooperative properties with modern technology, but he wasn't hopeful. If anything survived then it was through cryosleep storage - and even then surely the power had run out centuries ago.

The ship's hangar bay was closed to them. The Threshers held on standby, keeping an eye out while the Harvesters turned their cannons on the blast doors and chipped at its locks. The Psions were precise, synchronized, and they punched through the door within minutes - knocking it loose and letting the hard vacuum pull it out of their way. The chamber within was mostly empty but for an old Arcadia-class jumpship hanging on a magnetic rack. The airlocks within were closed tight. There wasn't a body to be seen.

Ikharos brought his Trespass inside, engaged its docking clamps and moved back into his ship's main hold. He clapped on his armoured robes, donned his helm and secured his sidearm to his thigh. Xiān ran a scan over him, sealing his armour tight and providing him with an air supply. She dropped for him his rifle and he caught it in a careful grip. The heart caged within runed rings pulsed weakly, whispered nonsense and felt for him through the hadium inlaid across the weapon's frame. Ikharos stowed it over his shoulder and heaved out a deep breath. He made his way through the Trespass's airlock, felt the pressure around him shift - and disembarked the moment the hatch slid open. Ikharos pushed himself out. No gravity. Complete shutdown, looked like, but the part of the ship that remained still had engines and generators in abundance - the very sources from which the ship circulated that power.

What happened?

Ikharos moved on a flush of Solar energy, propelling himself to the nearest airlock. The Harvesters behind him disgorged their compartments of soldiers, the Cabal flinging themselves after him with controlled jets of their jump-packs. A pair of Psions darted ahead of him and began cutting into the airlock's access terminal. One of them shoved a hand full of sparking Arc against the terminal and the age-old systems booted up. The airlock shuddered open. The chamber within was spacious, large enough for maintenance vehicles to trundle through. Near enough for all the Cabal present.

Ikharos manifested the idea of leaving a rear guard behind and the Psions picked up on it. A dozen rifle-toting Cabal set up positions across the hangar's interior. The rest followed after him, into the airlock. It shut behind them, filled the chamber with cleansing chemicals and then replaced it with stale, un-recycled air. Gravity was still out, even when the airlock's other door opened for them. Darkness yawned beyond the threshold. Flashlights were activated and slotted over the sides of helmets, cutting through the gloom with tight beams of which light. Ikharos drifted ahead, following the corridor with a hand against the wall, and slowly climbed onwards.

"Where should we be headed?" he asked.

"Try to find an elevator shaft," Xiān told him. "The navigation deck should still be intact. Let's see if we can find a flight recorder."

"And a cargo manifest."

"I'm pretty sure we all know what this ship was packing."

"Just for an estimate, Xiān," Ikharos replied. Just so I know how many were lost.

"... Alright. Sure. Cargo manifest too. Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe they were carrying a Golden Age superweapon - something we can use."

"If you say so."

Ikharos carried on, throwing himself down every corridor and inspecting every room he found. What he found were plenty of maintenance closets and the odd supply bank, filled with spacesuits and repair tools. No weapons. No bodies. Nothing but empty, unused space. Maybe the crew had been under cryosleep too during whatever had happened to the ship, but the lack of apparent Frames or other automated drones threw him for a loop. He did finally locate an elevator shaft, though. The terminal beside it was dead. Xiān briefly manifested to scan through it. "Up," she said. "Some fifty-six levels."

Gravity was still shot so Ikharos simply pried the doors open and floated inside. Some of the Psions and Cabal, those not still exploring their current level, squeezed in after him. They delicately picked their way up along the tunnel. At around the fortieth level an elevator blocked the way. Ikharos pressed his hands against the steel underside of it and focused his Light, raking his Solar-wreathed fingers through the metal and tearing open a hole wide enough for even the hefty Legionaries behind him. He climbed through and did the same for the roof of the elevator, melting a borehole. Some glowing droplets of molten steel dribbled and bubbled through the air, sliding harmlessly over his overshield. "Careful," Ikharos called behind him. He heard a grunt of acknowledgement and carried onwards.

At the fifty-sixth floor a Psion kicked ahead of him, levered the doors open with a black-and-blue device of some alien alloy and held it open. Ikharos drifted through, shoved himself down towards the navigation deck and found it locked tight. The final set of doors before him were thick and strong and the mechanisms holding them closed were of spectacular make. Nothing Xiān couldn't eventually parse through, but Ikharos was too impatient to let her loose a second time. He reached through the airtight seal between the doors with a sheet of Void, felt around within, sunk his violet claws within the internal mechanisms and ripped them apart with a tug. An accompanying Centurion jetted after him, sunk his cybernetic claws in and tore the weakened doors apart, throwing them into the walls on either side so hard they almost rebounded into a closed position all over again.

Ikharos peered inside, bringing the beam of his headlight across the navigation deck - and he found it in a state of remarkable disrepair. Monitors were smashed, terminals were torn apart, wires were cut. The damage was extensive and brutal and so very artificial.

"Someone really wanted to stick around," Ikharos mused. He glanced at the Centurion. "Give us cover. Warn us if you see something coming our way."

"Yes sir," the Cabal replied, fist to his breastplate.

Ikharos pushed himself inside. A couple of Psions trailed after him, dragging their hands across the broken computers. They muttered to each other under their breath, but their minds were louder. They projected some confusion, apprehension, a general sense of unease.

"Xiān," Ikharos breathed. "What's your take on this?"

"Exactly what you said: someone didn't want anyone leaving this mess."

"No. There's..." Ikharos grabbed the edge of an inoperable terminal and peered at the damage. "Looks like someone pummeled this with piledrivers."

"They went for the memory drives. Look."

Ikharos saw. All the computers in sight had their internals upended and circuitry shattered. He couldn't attest to being familiar with the Golden Age systems in use, but he knew a sabotage job when he saw one. "Scrubbed the ship's memories."

"They didn't just want to keep anyone from leaving. They wanted to remove the idea that they were even here."

"Seems like a stretch."

"Maybe they were expecting others to follow after them. Maybe they were expecting the ship to be found."

"But who?" Who did this? Ikharos almost asked. No signs of violence, no signs of forced entry; this was someone with clearance. This was someone HUMAN. This was someone DESPERATE. Or overzealous. "Is there really nothing?"

"Not from what I can see. Whoever it was, they knew what to scrub."

"What about security footage?"

"No idea. There's probably nothing; who's to say the security systems were even online? It doesn't even look like the ship came out of hibernation in time for... well, whatever happened. Everything's dark. If any footage was captured, I'm not even confident it won't have degraded in the time since."

"Even corrupted footage is better than none." Ikharos activated his sensorium's sensors, switching over to infrared optics. His sight shifted to a deeper dark, the artificial light fading to null. No heat but for the faint yellow-purple glow of Cabal caught beneath the web of insulative biosuits and heavy power armour. "Any idea on where the security centre is?"

"Ikharos," Xiān said in a low, curious, suddenly wary voice.

His blood turned to ice, nerves catching fire. He didn't like the tone. It wasn't one she used often, but he'd been quick to learn to heed it centuries past. "Yes?"

"The doors were locked," she said, putting some mean emphasis on LOCKED.

He frowned, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up straight. Ikharos didn't say anything, only pushed an unspoken query her way.

"Standard procedure-"

Standard procedure was for the navigation deck to lock up tight in the case of an emergency, across the board - from interplanetary shuttles to out-system exploratory vessels. Colony ships probably followed the same procedures, even with a crew on ice. Frame-job, he guessed. A maintenance drone. Something cold, something awake where others were still sleeping. Something artificial and so, so hackable. This close to a Dark anomaly?

"Hey!" Ikharos called out in guttural Ulurant. The Psions sharply raised their heads and looked his way. The Centurion and his grunts too. "Watch for a body, steel-cast. Perpetrator could be in here, still sleeping cold. Check alcoves, vents, whatever you can."

"Alive?" one of the Psions questioned.

"Doubt it. Power's been out for a while. Frames are economic, but not to this extent." Ikharos looked around. "Xiān. You catching prints?"

"Nothing definitive. We're way too close to the anomaly to break out the spectral analyzer."

"If the ship went on full lockdown, then something got in here beforehand. Maybe they kicked the alarms once inside? Woke up the crew?"

"No bodies," Xiān reminded him.

"None yet. We might find some soon."

"Grim. But that means... what, external interference?"

"Yeah."

"Can't be Black Fleet. Not how they work."

"Xiān, we have no idea how they work," Ikharos whispered. "They did this very thing with you. They did it with Ghost."

He felt her discomfort as a band of pressure around his heart, subconsciously tightening around him like a noose. "That's... different."

"I'm not wholly convinced."

"Then go find out."

Ikharos said nothing, just kicked over to the next terminal. He checked under the nav-module - nothing there, of course - and studied the damage. The steel casings had been smashed and torn by something with incredible strength, but none of the biological mass necessary to support that power. It was rough work, but it was precise. Mechanical. Whoever had committed the sabotage knew what they had been doing. They'd been familiar with the systems, the tech.

Xiān appeared beside him and swung a scanning blue beam over the room. "Nada," she said, and drew across the floor and up over the ceiling and flinched and carried on. Ikharos noticed, he felt her shock manifest and he assumed an outwardly ignorant air - all the while plying her with questioning thoughts. Xiān decompiled and settled back into his Light, rigid and cold and very, very on-edge. "Ike."

"Hm?" he hummed, feigning an air of nonchalance.

"Above."

"What is it?" Ikharos softly asked in unassuming Ulurant.

"Listen."

Ikharos listened. He strained his ears, tilted his head, slowly reached for his sidearm. Then he heard it. Something analogous to laboured breathing, caught in a web of soft static. An impossible sound, a torturous sound, the sound of something clinging to its tragic past. He was familiar with it. Sorely familiar with it. He'd had a friend afflicted with the same, just worse off. Dear friend too. Traveler above he missed her - but not this. Definitely not this; not the nights waking up to the sound of someone choking, someone drowning in open air.

He pulled his sidearm and the breathing shifted. Shit, Ikharos thought, and a panel in the ceiling buckled as something shot through - something hard and metallic, but wiry and shaped so closely like a living person.

Shit, he thought, and not mere milliseconds before a serrated military-grade combat knife lunged for his throat. The blade was a gleaming grey, shining with factory perfection, and it was honed to a perfect edge. If it connected, Ikharos had no doubt it would have sawed through his spine as easily as it would have bitten through his flesh. All the same, he ensured that didn't happen - forcing a small, minute Blink that displaced him a few inches to the left. He caught the wrist, feeling the synth-muscle and steel struts beneath the carbon-weave skin, and he pulled it past him. The Exo, some dark broody thing wearing absolutely nothing and touched up with expensive Golden Age black ops modifications, didn't so much as cry out as it tipped towards him. It buried its other hand in his chest, his stomach, trying to claw through and only grazing the edge of Ikharos's overshield. The force of the blow, though, nearly knocked the air out of his lungs; Ikharos shifted, he twisted, tugging the Exo's left arm further past him and trying to get behind it. He managed to get a leg around the Exo's waist, snatched the other wrist as it reached over its shoulder to tear his face apart and managed to brace it around the Exo's neck.

Then they hit a wall. The momentum of their struggle had thrown them across the chamber, Ikharos's side colliding with a hard surface, and he bit out a curse as the Exo used the momentary distraction to wriggle and slip out of his grip, whirling around with a kick against the floor and dashing its knife across Ikharos's shield. His protective energized covering cracked and shattered; the Exo was strong. Synth-muscle biotic enhancements, if he had to guess. Definitely military.

"Stop," he shouted, but the Exo didn't react. Simply went for his neck again, a cutthroat to the core - like every great jungle predator, just go for the windpipe, the jugular, whatever kills them quicker. The Psions shrieked in the background, and behind that Ikharos could hear the bellowing of Cabal, but - no. Don't shoot, he thought, projecting the sentiment as loudly and broadly as he could. I'll deal with this.

No one fired. Didn't shut up either, but Ikharos settled for the positives first.

He caught the Exo's knife hand in a brace, held it at bay, twisted it - broke it. The nerves disconnected; the fingers lost their rigid grip and the knife floated away. Ikharos swatted it away, turned himself about and found the Exo's head closing in fast. His helmet cracked and his head snapped back; Ikharos's world went white for a few precious moments, before he felt something hit him hard in the chest and kick him back. He hit a computer, scrabbled for a grip, and blinked the daze away - just as the Exo was leaping for him again.

Ikharos Blinked around the robot and drew his own long knife in one smooth motion, tugging it out from the sheath on his calf, and he caught the Exo in a stranglehold from behind, drawing his blade across their artificial throat. The Exo, as he predicted, panicked hard. If it was in a state to imitate breathing, then it was in a state to imitate a wound mortal only to those with a need for actual air. The robot gurgled and hacked and pressed its hands against its opened throat, caught up in its imaginary death throes. Ikharos jetted forward on a burst of Solar, shoved the Exo against the very same computer he'd been thrown against and pulled its good arm out of the way - then slamming his knife down and pinning the Exo's hand to the computer's broken casing.

"Enough," he sternly repeated. The Exo bled rancid alkahest and garbled out something indecipherable. Ikharos pulled the Exo's head back. "You're not dying. Enough. Who are you?"

But the Exo panicked still. And it wasn't bleeding alkahest alone. Something else spilled from the tear in its neck, crawling up out of the jagged gash and along the edge of the Exo's dark, gaunt skull, meeting Ikharos's hand quicker than he could react. He let go, drifted back, and lifted his hand. The stuff... rippled and chittered and moved - and then it bit down with a thousand tiny saws and plasma-torches, biting hard and biting deep. Ikharos yelled, doused his hand in Void and burned the stuff away - but more and more was coming out of the Exo, enough to blanket the computer system to which it was pinned and to cover its opened throat.

Ikharos pulled the Void tightly around him, dragged himself back and jammed a violet-wreathed hand into the Exo's back. The Exo flailed and gasped and swung a hand covered in more of the swarming substance back at him, newly repaired. He caught it in his own, froze it solid within encased crystal and shattered it between his clenched fingers. The Exo blinked. And spat in Ikharos's face. The living substance swam onto his helmet and smouldered away as indigo smoke, burning up in his new overshield much to the Exo's dismay.

"Who. Are you?" Ikharos demanded. "Designation, rank; why are you here, who did this, why, where's the rest of the ship? Where's the crew?"

The Exo pulled its head back-

"Oh, fuck this." Ikharos splayed a hand out and froze the Exo solid mid-headbutt. He heaved a deep breath, tugged his knife free and wiped it across the front of his overshield, cleaning of artificial contaminants. Silence.

"Sir?" the Centurion warily called out.

Ikharos grimaced. "Yeah?"

"Is the target-"

"Prisoner, now. Restrained. Take it back to the Rancis Olyptus." Ikharos grabbed the edge of the Exo and pulled them free of the computer's remains. He all but shoved them across the room. "Here."

"Is that safe?"

"So long as the Stasis holds - and it'll hold forever, so long as I will it. Go."

The Centurion waited until the Exo was in range before snatching them out of the air. Another Legionary kicked their way up to the doorway and pulled out spools of thick cable wire out of their supply pack, helping the Centurion secure the robot. With a final hesitant salute, the Centurion took the Exo under one arm and pushed away, back down the elevator shaft, followed by some of their accompanying Legionaries. Four remained, along with the Psion pair.

Ikharos turned his attention back to some of the frozen clumps of not-alkahest still cemented to the computer's casing. The stuff was grey and bland, but most definitely alive and dangerous. But... there were tiny distinguishable hexagonal shapes within it, almost entirely lodged together. "Xiān?" he asked.

"Look like repair mites. Whole damn swarm of them. How's the hand?"

Ikharos raised his wounded hand. He flushed golden Light over it, mending the flesh and reweaving his gloves. "Tender."

"Would never have expected that."

"Took them into their own body."

"Makes lasting this long a whole lot more feasible. And weaponizing them? That's clever."

"It's a hazard." Ikharos turned to the Psions. "Fill in the Battle-Net, report what happened; there could be other mite-pockets and Exo kill-agents scattered around the ship. If anyone chooses to proceed, they must do so with the utmost caution. Am I understood?"

The Psions bowed their heads. "Affirmative."

"Good." Ikharos drifted over to the spot where the Exo had emerged from, sweeping his helm's light inside. It... wasn't a large space. He spotted a broken datapad within, along with a gun with no bullets. The datapad he grabbed, but he left the gun well enough alone. "Can you scan this?"

The datapad disappeared into transmat. "I'll see what I can do. Looks like a high-end encryption."

"Too much?"

"For me? Nah. I got this. You-"

The lights turned on. All the lights. Noise filled the room - static feedback, automated damage reports, system errors in monotone voices, a blaring klaxon. Ikharos whirled around. "What the... brace!"

Gravity reasserted. He fell, helmet hopping off the edge of a terminal, and Ikharos hit the ground at an uncomfortable angle. He tasted blood. Must have bitten his tongue. He shot to his feet, knife in hand, and looked around. The Psions were still in the air with their eyes softly a-glow, slowly floating down. The Legionaries, though-

Ikharos ran to the doors. Two of the Cabal were beyond, one of them clinging to the edge while its compatriot helped it up. Another was in the shaft, hovering on belching bursts of its jump-pack, and flew up when a space was cleared. The fourth, though...

"Aur'oxis," one of the Legionaries growled. "He fell. Forgot to help himself. Foolish."

"Dead," Ikharos saw. The last Legionary had hit the elevator far below hard enough to shatter their spine. They laid across its top in a crumpled mess, clearly beyond saving. No amount of healing Light could bring a mortal back from the brink. Not without an unpartnered Ghost involved - and the only one they had was spoken for. "Okay. Okay, right. Power's on. Ping the Rancis Olyptus. Tell them-"

His radio buzzed. Ikharos, thought reluctant, activated it. "Yes?"

"Scornships are en route," Vindica'aur grumbled. "They've just arrived upon the edge of the system, red hot. They see us, commander-interim. They're coming."

"How long?"

"How fast does the Ketch fly?"

"Not long, then. What do you see?"

"Two primary Scornships, with at least twenty-six Skiffs," Faer'o reported. "They will catch us by the edge of the anomaly, should we remain in our current position."

"Fuck." Ikharos ground his teeth. "Okay. We need to hightail it back, then. Shout it across the battle-net; we're pulling back now."

"What is our plan?" Faer'o inquired. "Should we meet them halfway?"

"Don't have time. Set up a Thresher screen around the Exodus ship." Ikharos motioned the Cabal behind him and threw himself down the elevator shaft. He softened his impact with Light, gave Aur'oxis a once over and decided against lugging the body after him. Too heavy. "We don't have much of a choice in the matter. Intercept the Scornships if you can; odds are this is the prize they're looking for."

Ikharos slipped down inside the elevator and, after checking that the Psions and Legionaries were following close behind, stepped out the gap in the floor and plummeted the rest of the way.

"We do not have a favourable position," Vindica'aur pointed out.

"How much of a beating can the Rancis take?"

"More than a Ketch, but-"

"But these are Scorn," Ikharos finished. "I realize that."

"What do you propose?"

"Do what you can. We're on our way back. Force a blockade if possible. If you can focus your fire on one Ketch, I can rally the Harvester teams with me and try to board the other, carve a beachhead." Ikharos slowed his fall and caught on the edge of the hangar's level, clambering up. The Cabal jetted down after him. "I'm not keen on letting them reach this ship. I don't know what they're looking for exactly, but we stop them here all the same. Prioritize any ship that breaks the screen. And-"

"Hold up," Xiān said suddenly. Ikharos stalled. "I'm," she started to say, "I'm picking up on something. Energy bursts. Low electromagnetic interference?"

"Xiān?"

"Gunfire."

Ikharos took a deep breath, unclasped his helmet, plucked a phial of Queensfoil out of transmat and knocked it back. It burned his throat the whole way down, bitter and spiced and halfway alive. He could feel it coursing through him, dripping into his veins, and once it reached his brain - everything shifted. The very air twisted and warped with new lights and shapes previously hidden from mortal eyes. "Right," he coughed, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. He could still taste blood, but the Queensfoil changed it. Made it worse. Ikharos donned his helmet once more, the Void in him crawling along the sharpened edges and through the hadronic weave of his armoured robes, and it manifested as two violet horns running up from his visor. "Right, right," Ikharos sighed. "Not ours, I'm assuming?"

"Battle-Net ain't screaming just yet."

"Fucking... fine. Okay." Ikharos gestured for the Cabal to carry onwards. "Get to the Harvesters, get out. If I'm not with you in five minutes, go on without me. Don't engage the Skiffs; that's the Threshers' jobs. Just bog that second Ketch down. I should be with you shortly. Should be. Just don't count on it."

The leading Legionary saluted and the others were quick to follow. They filed past and marched quickly down the corridor, taking a turn for the hangar and disappearing from view.

"Right. Xiān. Where's this gunfire?"


He found her, for all intents and purposes, pinned down within an engineering shed - some maintenance chamber full of thick steel pipes and flashing red lights. For the first few seconds he laid eyes on her she was taking cover behind a reinforced crate stamped with WARNING: FLAMMABLE MATERIAL(S) while a squad of military-grade Frames opened fire on her position. She next teleported through a flush of almost Vex-like transmat, reappearing behind one drone and driving a jagged dirk of glittering Stasis into its neck. It twitched and stiffened and died and the others turned as one, shooting in unison. The Stranger teleported again, only just in time, and staggered out of it on the other side of the room with the edges of her poncho singed and smoking.

There was another Exo loping along the edges of the firefight, watching her fight and slowly but surely closing in. Like the one in the navigation deck this one was built of black steel and wore nothing, wielding but a combat knife and a fine sidearm. Its optics, pink, were affixed to the Strangers form. As she took cover from the Frames again, it began advancing on her, dead silent and grim-faced.

Ikharos stepped in. He tossed a Pocket Singularity the way of the Frames, catching the closer pair and enveloping them in hungry, hungry Void, and their decaying bodies erupted with volatile energy, catching other drones in the splash. He Blinked not a moment later, behind the military Exo. His hand filled with black stony matter and delicate yellow lightning which threaded through the solid resonance and linked it together, molding it into a new shape - a polearm, broad-headed and sharp at one end and elaborately spoked at the other. With once grand arc of his glaive Ikharos took out the Exo's legs below the knees before the robot could react, and with a second took its right shoulder. A brief flash of Stasis caught the Exo as it fell, long before it could even air a scream.

The Stranger fired past him, her rifle roaring with defined three-part bursts - heavy and powerful and cutting through the remaining Frames like wet paper. Something opened in the space over her shoulder, a miniature portal from which more bullets spat, and Ikharos only had time to fire off one fiery blast of his glaive before the Frames were all reduced to half-melted scrap. The room became very, very quiet after that. Even the din of distant sirens became... muted. Ikharos turned, glaive pointing at the ground, and looked at her. The Stranger lifted her chin at him.

"Well," he said after a moment's pause, "now you've got me curious."

"Scorn?" the Stranger asked.

"Incoming. I should really be flying out to meet them as we speak."

"Don't bother. They'll break through your screen in a minute or two."

"My screen?" Ikharos raised an eyebrow, unseen. "Have you been listening in? Or is this a recollection of a different time?"

"Does it matter?" she challenged. "They'll be warping on top of us, brute forcing their way in. Tell your Cabal that."

"You mean they'll jump this close?"

"Yes."

"Crazy bastards." Ikharos tilted his head. "Xiān. Send it."

"Already have."

His radio erupted with noise. Ikharos dialed it down; he didn't need Vindica'aur bellowing into his ears. He looked down at the frozen Exo and nudged it with the toe of his boot. "Elisabeth. What the hell is this?"

"ExSec," the Stranger replied. "There's a couple more of them scattered through the hull."

"Why?"

"Contingency orders. They're the only ones not to have fallen inside; the powers that be wanted to ensure it wouldn't happen again."

"In the anomaly?" Ikharos questioned. "What really happened here?"

She just... looked at him. "Soon," the Stranger said cryptically. "Scorn now."

... Fair. More than fair. Ikharos disassembled his glaive back into pure lustrous resonance and allowed it to dissipate. "Where are they going to hit?"

"Portside."

"Both Ketches?"

"Yes. Unless-"

"I already have the Rancis Olyptus set to intercept."

"Your Cabal will have to be quick."

"Oh, I hope they are. Saladin's many things, but he's not one for honing laggards at least." Ikharos switched his radio back to full. "Vindica'aur. Ram the first Ketch you see. I don't care what it takes; do not let them hit this place."

"The strain-" she started to roar.

"I don't care. Unless you want to run back to your Empress with your tail between your legs, we stop them here. That is an order. Defy it at your own peril." Ikharos switched his radio off. Xiān was still connected to the century's Battle-Net, so he didn't feel quite so bad about cutting comms. He looked back to the Stranger. "That's one Ketch, maybe."

"Yes," the Stranger said in a neutral voice.

"Do you know which one's carrying the Locus?"

"I don't."

"That thing-"

"I know."

Ikharos grimaced. "You have a plan, Elisabeth?"

Her optics flashed. With what, he didn't know, but her faceplates were guarded. "Not particularly."

"What do they want?"

"To send a message. You'll see."


AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for all his help and feedback, particularly with the editz!