The air was darkening as the day drew nearer its end. A rust-colored mist began to slowly rise from off the hot, pebble-strewn soil, and it moved like a serpent, undulating against the warm breeze fanning the arid drylands. The nightly process of evapotranspiration had begun earlier due to the lazy maturation of the territory's autumnal climatic season and the mist flowed along the uneven landscape's hills and trails. It was depressive and slightly ominous...

And it further fed wanderers traveling that terrain the impression that this was not a good place to be.

"All Prophets Be Damned," Field-Ops Communications Officer Laef'qon-Deith groused aggravatedly past dry lips, "the wind is carrying the TimeShear's particle field decay-backwash in an expanding spiral. For the time being, the backwash is blanketing all the active frequency spectrums. It's essentially killing all standard channel transmissions. I can't connect to anyone anywhere right now... This place is off the map and I can't pin down where it is relative to our Objective. "

They had crested a wide, rough-ridged collection of hills to reach a sprawling Ville that wasn't represented through the satellite-generated geo-imagery mapping that was fed to Sergeant-Major Gryce'roy Daamen's Exfil Retrieval team. A Centrie Brahnze ReAnimyte, Laef'qon-Deith was an experienced battlezone extrications specialist and had in his career encountered many an unanticipated glitch while implementing an Op in an active-fire zone. Yet the current circumstances as the Centrie Brahnze escorted the ambassadorial refugees across Pex'Insava's temperate zone were particularly and annoyingly chaotic beyond his tolerance.

"We're operating blind, Sergeant-Major, and I don't think we'll be re-establishing extra-lunar geo-positioning uplink again anytime soon," Laef'qon-Deith continued.

"Noted," Daamen grunted non-committally.

"We don't have a grasp on how many ways IN to the Ville there are nor how many routes there are OUT. That's not good. We've got NO idea what the baseline is for the general population count and whether or not the Ville is currently hosting more visitors during the daylight hours or nightfall. And we've got nothing to help us isolate the disposition of the population: are they civilian non-combatants, or are they Emperium militia, are they anti-Emperium rebels, or are they unaffiliated mercenaries...? Right now, we don't know.  I don't like this, not one damn bit," Mobile Field Intelligence Lieutenant Ruan'Castikkur said from his kneeling position next to a tall, dust-covered masonry block next to a crumbling perimeter half-wall. His dissatisfaction with the intangibles of the current situation was clearly evident.

"For right now, all we can do is just roll with it," Gryce'roy Daamen said. "Getting wound up about it won't serve any purpose."

From his position as secondary behind the Point Officer at the lead of the small troupe, FieldOps Captain Amaxxe Jo'Amerr looked back over one shoulder.  He tossed the Sergeant-Major a rueful half-smile while he said, "Well, sir, it's not as if this is the first time we've been left on our own in the middle of a storm of hot manure. Emperium Extraplanetary Tactical Command has never really had much of a grip on how things work --- or don't work --- up here on Pex'Insava."

"Got that right, Amaxxe, most definitely got that right," Daamen quipped bitterly.

At that moment, Persephall Grymmodeun separated himself from his position several meters behind the Centrie Brahnz contingent, leaving an annoyed Mah'rymeth Kwarq temporarily alone to safeguard Master-Chancellor Czeerai Seda'Bausayed, Ambassadorial-Diplomatic Judicial Attache Lel'Kinculnon and the remainder of the Central Redoubt's fleeing diplomatic team.

"The Ville is a Dryfte-Town, a nomadic transitional collective made up of thieves, mercs, outlaws and itinerant hoodlums in a rough cooperative coalition. There are maybe four or five other such vagrant migratory amalgamations across this district of Pex'Insava. The main thing they have in common with one another is their mistrust and hatred of the World-Father's military and for the law enforcement networks of the Hegemonic Emperium. Dryfte-Town's pop-up here and there, never staying in any one location for very long, avoiding troop movements and drone-flyby scans across the district. They communicate with one another mostly through Psion-Wytchery and each town has at least three such psychic telepaths. That way, what's left of the Emperium's advanced surveillance-tekk can't intercept their transmission signals and get a lock on their positions or on the identities of their citizenry," Grymmodeun explained. "The name of this particular Ville-coalition is 'Vazyoneulle'... and they're mostly assassins-for-hire under the control of a cruel and wealthy crime boss, a Korhng'Nathi Warlord, named Haq'Ja-Rashaei."

Daamen didn't try to hide his surprise at Grymmodeun's knowledge. "Really? It seems you're certainly well informed. And how did someone like you manage to gather such data?"

Grymmodeun smiled humorlessly and addressed the Sergeant-Major with a quiet, if caustic, arrogance fueled by a personal history of unspoken bitter memories. "I was once a Law-Hammer, remember, serving with the Hegemonic Territories Offworld Constabulary and, for a time, I was embedded with the Qi'thayane war-rovers of Teshiwahur's southern continent. I cultivated a variety of contacts on either side of the law. I was forced to learn a great many unsavory things in my time..."

"And?" Daamen pressed, not entirely satisfied with the vague outline of Grymmodeun's biographic admissions.

"And I'm fully blooded into the Korhng'Nathi Knife-Clans, endured and survived the bonding ritual, very unpleasant I must say, and everything else that comes with that. My partner, Mah'rymeth, is also blooded into Haq'Ja-Rashaei's Clan."

"You know him. Maybe even worked for him, hey? So you're both criminals..."

Grymmodeun shrugged, bobbing his head as if weighing the truth of the Sergeant-Major's words. "Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it."

"Wonderful. So how many potential hostiles are we looking at and what kind of weaponry do you think they have?" FieldIntel Officer Ruan'Castikkur demanded.

"Thirty or forty guns at very most. Dryfte-Towns can't afford to let themselves grow too large. Probably some light mobile artillery. Not a lot of sophisticated exo-suit cybernaut-tekk, no heavy war-armor. Everything has to be light enough to be collapsed and transportable at a moment's notice," Grymmodeun mused. "I'm willing to bet their computer network infrastructure is all contained in a single, long-trailer vehicle. And the only version of air support they'd likely have is limited to maybe a swarm-'bot cloud of interconnected aerial mini-drones, say, maybe a flight of a dozen, maybe sixteen tops, fitted with las-flares or a single honeycomb of clustered ion-grenades each. But that's only a guess."

Gryce'roy Daamen considered Grymmodeun's assessment and sighed as he said, "Alright, then, we go in soft and try not to raise any alarms or frighten any of the citizens. Split into two groups, two heavy gunners to a group. One group comes in from the right of the forward-most perimeter stanchion over there and the other from the left. Avoid the front gate – we don't want anyone to think we're the advance column for an attack force. Keep the diplomats corralled in the background. Grymmodeun and I will take point. We'll make focus on the front gate."

"Uh, yeah, uhmm..., We don't really need to do any of that," Grymmodeun said.

Daamen gave the tall, white-haired ex-soldier a disapproving glare. "And why's that?"

"Perimeter security. Like I said, Psion-Wytchery. They already know we're here. Besides, here comes the welcoming committee --- see? Over there, stepping out from the mist, above those twisted brambles amid the sands and rubble..."

The silhouettes of seven figures, humanoid, all of varying heights and builds, emerged from the orange-amber mist, the illumination from lights atop the perimeter stanchions filtering through behind them. They moved forward, walking downhill, towards the Centrie Brahnz with the surety of a confident team long used to working with one another. They eschewed military-style stealth tactics, and not due to any lack of discipline, but more because they were obviously aware they held the advantage of having intimate knowledge of their terrain and they held the high ground. They knew that these strangers, the people whom they approached, knew virtually nothing about the capabilities of their weapons and munitions. They were unafraid. Confident. Feral. Predatory. They belonged in this arid, savage place. They could clearly see the visitors did not. They were outlaws, criminals. Everything about them set Gryce'roy Daamen's nerves on edge...

It was a true enough thing that, lamentably, they did indeed remind Sergeant-Major Daamen of Persephall Grymmodeun.

"Come out into the open. No more hiding. We know you're there. We knew as soon as you crested the ridge about a kilometer back. We know how many of you there are and we know what kind of weapons you're carrying. Quite a few of you look to be non-combatants, just dead-weight. You're running from something or someone and from the looks of you, I'd say you're alien bait. Our probes scanned that raid by some variety of extra-orbital space craft from the distance behind you, across the territorial steppe. You've got the look of Emperium bureaucratic lackeys, probably diplomatic officials of some kind, and it's a safe bet the Gorgahnuns are after you," the rangy silhouette in the group's foreground said through a mechanical voice modulator. "You better hope you didn't bring that kind of trouble here with you. We don't need the complications that come with dealing with those fanatical, hard-shelled, machine-bastards. 'Cause if you did, things aren't going to go well for you. Not at all."

Before Daamen could respond, Grymmodeun placed his hand atop the multi-layered, riveted pauldron molded onto the soldier's torso armor and spoke in a solemn whisper. "I know you don't want to hear this, but it would be best for all involved if you were to let me handle things."

Under his helmet's faceplate, Daamen grimaced and reluctantly nodded his assent. 

"What you see are a group of Diplomatic Corp refugees from what's left of the staff from the Outposter-brigade's Central Redoubt, survivors of a Gorgahnun Reaver ship attack," Grymmodeun tersely recounted. "Emperium Territorial Expanse Naval Intelligence Services sent in a ReAnimyte Retrieval team to get them out of there before the Cannister-heads' attack fleet could shred them to tiny bits. We don't mean anyone any harm. We're not smuggling any military secrets, stolen funds or precious merchandise out from the Redoubt. All we've got here is a group of frightened people we're trying to keep alive."

The lean and lanky lead speaker for the Dryfte-Town border protection unit took a couple of steps towards Grymmodeun and company and stopped, setting his very large, four-fingered armor-gloved fists on his hips as he took stock of the group's composition.

"You and the woman in the slimfit plasmer-steel skin-armor aren't Territorial Expanse Naval Services operators. You're freelance, I can tell, but you don't have that amoral, murderer's stink that most sellswords and mercenaries usually reek from. Contractors. You particularly look to maybe be a former Qi'thayane war-rovers. And the soldier at the head of the ReAnimyte column looks one whole helluva lot like a transplanetary daemon-knight...," the lead speaker said. "This rescue of the envoy-facilitators was organized at the last minute, wasn't it? Bet you hadn't known the Gorgahnuns had already targeted these soft, double-talking bureaucracy wonks, did you, and, as per usual, the Emperium dropped you all in the middle of an active warzone. Sad. Whatever you're getting paid, it isn't near enough. Doesn't really matter, though. This is Vazyoneulle, the refuge for Demons. You lot aren't welcome here. You need to keep on moving."

Grymmodeun drew in a deep breath and asked, "Can't argue with your reasoning. So who is it that I'm talking to right now?"

"Why?"

"Because I know people who know people and almost ALL those people have a lot of wealth they could be convinced to share with a patriotic citizen."

The rangy man eclipsed in shadow chuckled dryly and said, "Oh, so you're going to try buying your way in? Not going to work. If we needed the money we'd just take it from those people you say you know, whoever and wherever they are. And the chances are, we've already robbed them at some point. Money isn't the issue. Getting off this dish-shaped space rock alive and with all our pieces intact is...!"

"Your name," Gryce'roy Daamen pressed, solemnly injecting himself into the conversation without regard for Grymmodeun's earlier instructions.

The tall man's form shifted ever-so-slightly as he emerged from the background glare of the perimeter border's stanchion lights.

"Dalseth Qri'Loth, ex-Master Prime Flight Captain of the World-Father's Offworld Cosmonautical Naval Defense Fleet. Mutineer. Pirate. Assassin. And currently First-Brigadesman for Haq'Ja-Rashaei's Korhng'Nathi territorial militia. You don't have to tell me who you are --- I recognize YOU, Persephall Grymmodeun."

"Gods...,  Of course you do.   From the ritual-scarring I can see on your chest and forearms, I can see that you're one of the last few Anomaleunne Vale-Ogres,"  Grymmodeun said, shaking his head.  "I'm sorry.   I really am.   But that was a very, very long time ago and so much has changed since your people and mine engaged in that awful and bloody foolishness.   I have no quarrel with you and I bear you no animosity.  The Past should stay in the Past.  These days I'm just trying to make a living, just a man trying to stay alive..."

"No, not a mere 'man'," Dalseth Qri'Loth hissed, his lemon-yellow eyes blazing.  "A half-caste and a mutant, cursed beyond the simple genetic freakishness of Yur'seyn'Ahktar blood-lineage, but an actual 'Uehtharr' from beyond Teshiwahur and beyond Pex'Insava, a human-like alien from the dark depths of the Roonhaavyn Asteroid Cluster."

"We Uehtharr are not aliens,"  Grymmodeun said, his words overly enunciated and spoken slowly as he did his best to ignore the Anomaleunne's openly bigoted, racial chauvinism.  "We're simply humans born somewhere other than planetside on Teshiwahur."

"Is that so?  And how many Vale-Ogres did you kill?"

"As many as tried to kill me.  And I have no doubt that your own headcount from that ill-considered conflict would equal if not eclipse mine.  Our peoples never truly had much reason to fight one another considering the fact we both were under the restrictive yoke of the Hegemonic Emperium as servile thralls.  If you're a slave, what difference does it really make if you're the top-tier slave or the bottom-tier slave?"

Dalseth Qri'Loth considered this and then shrugged, nodding to Grymmodeun in reluctant and graceless agreement.

"It was a long time ago,"  he admitted.

"So, as to the matter of our group taking temporary sanctuary in Vazyoneulle..., do we get to talk it over with Haq'Ja-Rashaei or not?"

The reverberating sound of a heavily-accented human voice transmitted over an outdoor intercom system suddenly resounded.

"You do indeed get to come in and 'talk it over', face-to-face,  my old Korhng'Nathi blood-brother.   It has been far too long a time since we shared a drink and shared tall tales of how many times we nearly died, you wily, white-haired assassin.  Dalseth!  Show this prodigal son of the Knife-Clans and his Korhng'Nathi-blooded, black-haired partner to the Main Hall.  The rest can be billeted in with the town-fathers in the barracks-longhouse." 

The voice belonged to Haq'Ja-Rashaei.

                                                                                      ***

Syngemma Krede struggled to control her growing unease and general crankiness. After they'd uncomfortably ridden out the Time Shear storm at the Minnemaqohn Bridge Post, Squadron Captain Tarwook had very much insisted she and Taran'Gaohnge accompany them to Swordphont 107, the Emperium military consulate compound to which the Nahztreme were assigned and from which they operated when they were not at Lunar Response Brigade HQ in the coastal city of Port Breqhamwurth. She didn't understand why it was necessary for her and the Blind Watchman to go to the compound and be debriefed by the LRB Annex Chief-of-Station, Pragkus Rehdgraice. If Redgraice didn't trust the intelligence she and Taran'Gaohnge were passing along to the Nahztreme, then he was under no obligation to pay them for it. If the Station Chief thought that they were working both sides against the middle and passing along disinformation, then he should have and should have simply ignored their initial request for a rendezvous with Captain Tarwook and company. And if he'd seriously suspected they were terrorists enacting some part of a greater plot, then he should have assigned the Knights, D'Spayr and Qrystatos the Butcher, to kill her and her partner. But no matter how it could have worked out, she had not wanted to be seen by the local citizenry passing through the gated barrier into Swordphont 107. Seeing that was likely to convince anti-Emperium agents and rebellion conspirators that she and the Blind Watchman had taken sides and that was far from being true.

But, these days, truth didn't seem to mean that much anymore. Suspicion was the rule of the day and paranoia the apparent law of the land. Facts, besides being fragile and in short supply, were a cold comfort predominantly rejected in favor of political expediency. People wanted to believe only what they could emotionally afford to believe, what they wanted to believe --- and the state of the Hegemonic Emperium's unity had become very divided and very chaotic since the end of the Plague Wars and the World-Father's issuance of the Great Revocation, returning the space fleet to the homeworld of Teshiwahur.

Swordphont 107 was an odd Strategic Operations Center. Everything looked old and everything was covered in a thin layer of dry, powdery dust. It had very little in the way of electronic computerized security and there was no evidence of artillery or heavy weapons munitions built into the compound's surroundings. Architecturally, it was an amalgamation built from the aged and weather-worn, five story-tall remains of a masonry and steel Medical Center fused with part of the hull and chassis from a grounded Emperium Star Legion Militia transport ship. The split-tiered basement of the main building held a relatively robust, if out of date, emergency power generator and a small water and waste recycling hydro-facility. The central building was bracketed on three sides by smaller dome-shell buildings, each of which was perched two stories off the ground atop parabolic platforms, with those buildings connected to the sprawling main building by translucent bridge-tunnels. An immense converted aircraft hangar, sitting off by itself to the east of the main building, served as the garage for a small fleet of wheeled and continuous track-treaded motorized vehicles. There was a diminutive and unsophisticated, fabricated landing platform for aerial vehicles but, as Syngemma and Taran'Gaohnge approached in the company of the Nahztreme shoot-team and the two Outland Knights, there was no evidence the compound actually possessed any kind of air-based transportation.

A staff of twenty-eight intelligence analysts, processing clerks and computer technologies support staff worked in the main building. Archivists and cartographers worked in the forward-most dome-shell annex and assorted mechanical support staff worked in the next nearest dome. The last dome, the largest and directly behind the main building as one approached from the front gates, contained living quarters for both the analysts, technical staff, military contractors and the Nahztreme.

A mere quarter of a kilometer to the south and west of Swordphont 107 lay a massive militia-police territorial-district service base with a compliment of eighty local constables assigned it. The territorial police bore no allegiance to the Emperium's Extraplanetary Diplomatic Intelligence Security apparatus and, for the most part, ignored the very existence of Swordphont 107, even though they could clearly see it and the comings and goings of its staff.

The unincorporated township that expanded out along the surrounding tundra and craggy hillside was filled with a rough-hewn, independent-minded, anti-colonialist population. They were predominantly uncooperative with and unfriendly towards anything and anyone associated with the Emperium and its military forces.

This was just the kind of a place Syngemma Krede didn't want to be.  If things went wrong here, in this place, they would likely go disastrously wrong.

  LRB Annex Chief-of-Station, Pragkus Rehdgraice,met the group as they'd disembarked from the rectangular, tank-treaded, armored troop carrier that the Nahztreme had secured from an earlier encounter with a violent cell of Shachtferadi'im insurrectionists. Rehdgraice was a middle-aged Teshiwahurian man born into the militaristic Qa'Sarkoon bloodline. He wore his salt-and-pepper grayish hair long and was facially sharp-featured and of average height and build. His only distinguishing physical feature was the four-pronged, carbon-fiber and elasti-plasm, bionic prosthetic left hand upon which he'd had emblazoned the insignia of the Emperium'sMinistry of Strategic Information & Network Logistics. Dressed in a well-worn, ankle-length, quilted light coat, he greeted the Nahztreme and the Knights without humor or camaraderie. It was obvious he, a historical scholar and apolitical analyst, didn't care much for their coarse fierceness and military-spawned esprit de corps, and he suffered their involvement in his projects as a necessary evil.    

"Clandestine Intel TechOps analysts Bre'agerus and Dus'loyen picked up some computer stream chatter coming in over local data-link sessions they've been monitoring that we need to look into," Rehdgraice said without salutory preamble. "There was an unexpected Gorgahnun air strike against the Central Redoubt. It was pretty bad. There were some survivors from the Extraplanetary Diplomatic Intelligence Security Corp and they've been herded by a Centrie Brahnze ReAnimyte Exfil Retrieval team. The diplomat-refugees are rumored to include Master-Chancellor Czeerai Seda'Bausayed and Ambassadorial-Diplomatic Judicial Attache Lel'Kinculnon. We don't have any of this on verification, though. We need eyes on-site."

"My men and I just got back from field patrol," Captain Tarwook said. "Not to mention we just left the site of a TimeShear temporal storm. We need to rest and refuel. We need our tactical suits and equipment recalibrated. And then there's the matter of us looking into the veracity of the information we were fed by these two independent operators we've got with us. Chief, I'd like you to meet Syngemma Krede and Taran'Gaohnge..."

Rehdgraice nodded impatiently to the duo, but kept his focus on the Nahztreme unit leader. "Very well, that's fine. You and your men did well, but we can go through all the niceties and debrief the freelancers later. Right now, we've got to get a unit out towards Tuwerbleek Atun near the Pil'ayyat-Reishenschall Valley."

"There's only the three of us, if you don't count the Knights," Tarwook groused. "And the rest of my unit are still in Port Breqhamwurth. Is this an immediate timetable, 'cause if so you're not giving me any time for prep-work or to scramble reinforcements. At least let me talk with Cartography and HUMINT so we can nail down some practical details..."

"I can work with that," the Chief-of-Station said. "But the Knights have a different assignment lined up. They're not going with you. They're about to be dispatched to see some semi-exiled territorial noble named Eragoze Hehlgrummyte..."

"Damn it all, Rehdgraice, you know this is a garbage operation!"

"The solution is right next to you, dammit! Take the freelancers with you!"

"What? They haven't been vetted yet! My men don't know them and they don't don't know how we work. You're running a high-risk of colossally bungling BOTH Ops with this fly-by-night idiocy...!"

Pragkus Rehdgraice turned away from Tarwook's fuming visage and focused his attention directly on Syngemma and Taran'Gaohnge. "Thirty-five thousand silver Emperium Creds to you both, individually, if you accompany Captain Tarwook and his fellow troopers on the mission. You follow his lead in all things. You keep the violence to an absolute minimum. This is a soft retrieval. No grandstanding. I want you both to come back alive for the debriefing regarding the data you want to pass along to us when you're done out there. That's an additional twelve thousand silver Emperium Credits each for that. It should be worth your while... Meanwhile, it would appear that out in the near-valley unincorporated territory, west and south of here, there's an outlaw hamlet, a Dryfte-Town, where thieves, Mercs and Battle Raydurs have been gathering under the patronage of some bandit cutthroat named 'Haq'Ja-Rashaei'. You look like professionals. Back up Tarwook and take a look. Think you can handle this?"

Thirty-five thousand silver Emperium Creds each? With an additional twelve thousand on return? True, they were silver Creds as opposed to Gold or Platinum, but the denominations were in the several thousands, nonetheless.  She didn't like the Nahztreme or what they represented, but Rehdgraice was making it ridiculously hard for her to say 'No'. Despite her reservations, Syngemma didn't have much reluctance in taking the assignment.

"Count us in," she said.

For his part, Taran'Gaohnge said nothing, but nodded to Syngemma. The Blind Watchman activated his mutant ability and peered into the Plane of the Fifth Dimension, his oracular precognitive senses carefully isolating, then untangling and mapping the details of the streaming temporal flow where he and Syngemma were focal points for sentient activity...

By the time she and he, along with Tarwook's Nahztreme unit, reached their destination, Taran would already know the course of at least seven possible future outcomes for the situation.

Or maybe even nine or ten outcomes, considering the money they were getting... It was always a good thing to provide added value to a job for one's customers.     

The headache would be worth it...

                                                                                          *  *  *