Human blood dusted their windshield as they entered the atmosphere. It rolled around them in thick swirling clouds which made navigating difficult to see. Adam was forced to rely heavily on radar, worried he might send them plowing into one of the Kree Homeworld's rock towers.

The mist wasn't as thick here as it had been on the planets in the Polaris cluster, but still it was difficult to see, and the light of the Kree star did little more than cast much of the landscape into indistinct silhouette. Behind him t sat three SE soldiers, and taking the copilot seat was Sunny. She didn't have SE armor, as far as he knew no nonhuman in the galaxy had ever attempted the dangerous procedure, but still he trusted her fighting skill enough to allow her on the mission.

Even so, she still wore armor: or an armored space suit that gave her an extra six inches of height.

Her helmet rested in her lap like the other three soldiers behind them as they rattled down through the atmosphere, making their way slowly but surely towards the Kree palace. Adam had been here only once, but he still had the coordinates, and thought it might be the best place to start . The last time he had been here, it had been with the intention to bring peace talks to the Kree, only to learn that the Kree were currently experiencing some sort of civil war or uprising between two factions of their population.

The voiced and the voiceless.

The voiceless Kree had attacked the palace , and there had been no way to know, at the time, weather it had all been a setup. Diplomatic efforts had been suspended and never picked up. The Kree had never joined the GA.

Based on what he saw here, He guessed that the civil war didn't go so well.

He kept one eye on the radar, which was now beginning to show blips.

Expertly he navigated them through a field of stone spiers, where the red mist wasn't so thick. The SE soldiers murmured softly as they looked down through the mist, following the stone as it plunged down into a rolling red abyss.

Sunny shifted, and he looked over to see she was resting one of her hands on his arm .

She said nothing, and neither did he, but he appreciated the gesture.

Behind them, three more ships flew in tandem, following Adam as the point of a tight diamond formation, all carrying a team of SE soldiers.

Adam reached over to the radio, "SE teams sound off."

"Slayer 1"

"Terminator 1"

"Valkyrie 1"

"And this is Noble 1." Adam said feeling a small tingle of delight pass through him as the Se team names came over the com. Once upon a time he would have been embarrassed about his interests, but now he reveled in forcing other people to be nerds just like him. Once upon a time his nerdy focus had included anything science fiction, or alien related, and that was still mostly the case, but he had certainly expanded his love for old media over the past few years.

Why be picky?

Besides, now that he had a beautiful alien wife, he certainly left rom for himself to expand to other interests.

Speaking of that, he glanced to look over at Sunny, who stared out the window with her bright golden eyes fixed on the red mist. The expression on her face was one of deep concentration, likely preparing herself for an expected battle.

She was hot when she was serious, but this was probably not the time for that sort of thought process.

Something on his instrument panel pinged, and he slowed their forward movement considerably.

All around him the SE ships fanned out in a loose formation, not to close together but not to far away from each other, a maneuver they had practiced on multiple occasions . Adam came down on the platform in one swift motion, gliding in and deploying the landing struts in one fluid motion. The others took a bit longer, hovering around for a moment before slowly lowering themselves to the ground with a jolt.

Adam cut the engine, and the roar died, leaving them in near silence as the red mist billowed against their cockpit window

Adam stood to look at his team, "Helmets on everyone, I take point, Sunny's got my left Jackie takes rear guard."

The group nodded and then stood helmets hissing into place, and weapons rattling as they were quickly distributed from the gun locker.

Sunny leaned down resting her forehead against his for a quick moment before the two pulled apart, drawing their helmets down over their faces. Adam heard the soft hiss and snap as his helmet snicked into place and pressurized. His breath was loud inside the helmet.

His mechanical eye winked, and blacked out for only a moment as it synched up with the Se system. Before him, his visor lit up with indicators. The Fealty combat AI made itself comfortable in the SE armor system. Steal eye hummed in time with the combat AI, the two paired like dance partners for battle, Adam stuck in the middle.

Fealty was already ready to go, taking a moment to mark all his allies with a bright green outline, their numbers neatly tagged above their heads Except for Sunny, who had a little heart over her head. In the past that might have annoyed Adam, and he would have tried to get rid of it, but it hardy seemed worth it or possible to try, so he just let it slide.

At least Fealty understood what was important.

Sunny may not have had SE armor, but he had gifted her with her very own combat AI, appropriately named Reconciliation, but who she just called Reco.

Adam took point as promised. Steel eye armor had once been designed specifically for soldiers with missing limbs, with the idea that the paired advanced prosthetic would be used as an energy generating source for the rest of the armor, and that was true enough. However, SE developers had since created t lines of armor to be used on regular soldiers, and instead of one big power generating source, they would use smaller power cells strung all over the body to create and store power.

This was a generally good idea, and you almost wouldn't have known the difference between Adam: Sn original steel eye soldier, and his new SE soldiers.

That was until you compared power levels.

Adam's armor was specifically designed to wear with a prosthetic, not repurposed to avoid it. And since the armor was fulfilling its intended purpose with its intended power source, he had just that much more energy than everyone else. Just a bit faster, just a bit stronger, and just able to carry heavier weapons.

Alone with his regular gun, which he held cradled in his arms, he also had shoulder mounted micro cannons, and a forearm mounted minigun. It took a lot to get that nerdy idea to work, considering that the gun basically rotated around his arm, creating an incredible amount of heat, or at least it would have if the SE armor hadn't used the blowback energy of the bullets to power the system as well, funneling mot of that into the jetpack and SE systems.

As a result, the more he fired his weapons, the more the Fealty system Ai could do.

The readied themselves for exit, communicating over the comms. Adam gave a countdown that began in the top left hand corner of his HUD, and when the number ticked away to one, he slammed his fist against the airlock button, and the group of them hurried out into the mist, coordinating the others to create a massive protective circle.

The SE armor was designed in pieces, and each module could be swapped with new pieces as the wearer required. For instance, the jetpack module might be replaced with a complex radio and communications kit, extensive medical supply bag, or even a portable shield generator. Adam had seriously considered buying as many modules as possible, but had grudgingly refrained. Most of them had already personalized their Kits to preference and it was unlikely they would be changing soon.

At least two people from their twenty-person team had opted for a full scanning array. The Scanning array forced the wearer to drop a few ratings on armor integrity, but in exchange, their sensor arrays were very sensitive.

While the rest of the group held a large circle, the two SE soldiers: Valkyrie 3 and Noble 4 scanned their surroundings.

"What do we know." Adam asked after a few minutes.

"The mist is indeed some kind of aerosolized human blood." Valkyrie 3 said, "With the mixed chemicals it would be unbelievably toxic to breathe, so probably don't take off your helmet if you want to live."

"Aside from that the entire chemical makeup of the planet has changed, the bio-scan didn't sense anything encouraging, mostly just what's left of moss and fungus underground, so far nothing otherwise living. The toxins have moved their way into the soil, and with the blood cloud blocking out the sun, the planetary temperature has dipped significantly. IF everything on this planet wasn't already dead, its going to be.

"Shit." Adam muttered, "how long has this been going on.

"The fact that there is still some microbial life in the soil, and even some fungus like material suggests that it didn't happen very long ago, and it didn't even need to happen slowly. This could have been a matter of a year or two."

Sunny glanced over at Adam from her place in the circle, "Like the two years it might have taken to slay a Behemoth."

Adam nodded grimly.

"I don't like this, it has Kazna written all over it."

"Alright, fire team positions everyone. Noble will take point. Valkyrie, I want you on rear guard."

The groups made no argument against his orders, and quickly stepped into their positions weapons held at low ready as they made their way into the fog. Adam had landed them on a central clifftop, the one that had held the Kree leader's palace when he last visited. As they walked through the desecrated buildings and crumbling façades, he was immediately reminded of the Polaris archive, where they had learned the true history of the universe, the battle between dark and light, the void.

Things had been a lot simpler before all this.

Adam stepped over a small pool, that once might have been a fountain, now full of feted red water, tinted pink with blood. The ground under his feet, once white marble, was an expanse of crunchy brown crust.

Adam could only imagine the smell, but did his best to shake off the thought.

The palace halls were empty, dark. The high ceilings were silent, missing the echo of the singing Kree voices.

Adam shivered.

"Sir, I have soemthing."

Adam turned to look at Noble 4 who quickly sent him a packet through their shared link.

He opened it up on the right hand side of his screen allowing his mechanical eye to process what he was seeing, "Signs of life?"

"Seems so sir."

Adam send out a silent redirection of command to the four groups, who turned in unison towards the interior of the kree palace. A dark hallway gaped before him, swirling with a feint mist of red. Just staring down that hallway gave Adam a powerful sense of unease. He didn't like this idea at all and ordered Valkyrie to stay back and guard the exit.

With him came Terminator and Slayer.

The halls of the Kree palace were dark and silent, but the mist was significantly diminished here, and he was better able to see down full hallways where he might not have before.

The signal was getting stronger, and he followed the directions of Noble four into a large rear chamber. It was hard to tell what the room had once been used for, but it was wide, and open, and the walls were decorated with plenty of precious metals. At the front of the room sat a small dais with several chairs atop it. Could have been some sort of council chamber, meeting room, or even a throne room for all he knew.

His feet crackled over the floor.

"Just over there sir:" Noble 4 said, and he followed the tip of her finger towards the corner of the room.

Noble 3, 4 and 5 stood back, while Sunny came with him.

Reaching the corner of the room they found no monster, but a large metal safe.

There's nothing else it could have been despite the construction being so obviously alien in nature. Adam adjusted the noise filters on his helmet, upping the sensitivity and then closed his eyes concentrating on what he could hear.

There was nothing.

He glanced back t noble 4 with a question, and she just nodded

Adam sighed

He swore if he found another strange inexplicably growing bone creature, he was going to kill something. Adam pressed his hand to the vault doo, sending out a reverberating vibration through the metal. He kept in contact for a good few seconds, allowing the echo oof the vibration to return to his hand. The armor sent the return vibration through a system in his suit, and what came out was a fuzzy diagram of the inner workings of the box. It wasn't particularly advanced, just a series of tumblers. However, there was no obvious keyhole.

That part didn't bother him so much, and with a shrug, Adam drew back his fist, and punched just up and to he right of center. There was a bang, a sharp pop, and the door's sies buckled inward under the onslaught, giving him time to reach out and tear the door of its hinges. The whole operation was horrifically loud in the silence, and he grimace as the metal of the door rattle on the stone floor.

He glanced inside the box, half expecting to see the twisted remains of a bone creature, but when he did, he saw nothing of the sort. Instead he found what appeared to be, an entire clutch of kree eggs.

"Shit." The vault door must have been protecting hem from the mist, their shells to, but he wasn't sure how well that would do in this enviornment.

"Over here now." He ordered, and the three members of Noble hurried over to join him.

Adam reached out a hand, grabbing handfuls of eggs and shoving them into compartments in his suit.

The others understood and followed.

Inside his armor vented the pockets of tainted air and sealed them tight.

It took less than a minute for him to gather them all, but still he worried there was some contamination . he would have to run a full DECOM and isolation on all the members of his four teams when they got back.

"Eggs?" Sunny said softly.

Adam nodded, "They must have known something was coming for them."

"Oh, they did." Said the voice from above them.