"During the period immediately following the appearance of The Wound in Emperium-controlled Galactic Space, and synchronous with the beginning of the sequence of events known thereafter as "The Long Death", on the homeworld of Teshiwahur, there was an Age of Chaos and Unreason. It was a Time when political separatism, civil unrest, domestic terrorism and widespread violence tore at the fragile underpinnings of the sprawling Emperium's planetary dominion. World-Father Draggyn Han'Khainus-Galorketh, also called Nemesis of Chaos, and bearing the title of "Omniperator Cosmoterius", unleashed the anti-human, mutant fury of his fascist Special Operations Counter-Insurgency Forces, who were known as "The Nahztreme", against a populace unprepared to stand against such a wave of merciless savagery.

"Beyond the planetary confines of the fractious and combative continental territories, the Emperium was in the midst of its Third Cosmic Offensive against the Rayth'kine, a multitudinous, nomadic and violent alien nation that had arrived into Emperium-space through The Wound and who were greedily in search of new worlds to conquer and plunder. The Rayth'kine were relentless and merciless, possessing little in the way of psychology and sociology that was in common with human civilization. The Emperium's Extraplanetary Expansionist Forces, particularly the battalions of the Territorial Expanse SpecOps division, were hard pressed to hold the line against the terrible fury of the alien invaders and depended on the staggering technological might and firepower of the craggy disc-shaped moon called "Pex'Insava" to bolster their defensive efforts.

"Unknown to the enraged World-Father, there were persons of great and terrible power, persons possessed of extraordinary ability, among his own forces who were determined to stem the tide of tyranny -- regardless its source. And some of these people achieved legendary status as powerful shapers of history.

"One such person was named Draekasen Se'nurqille Predayas frae'Bluhd and he was a masterless knight, a former Outland Marshal, and an ex-Knight in service to the Council of Free Territories, a survivor of the Emperium Crusades into the savage realms of Jaggerheim and Vanhelmslund.

"But it is a known fact of the physical universe that for every force, there is a counter-force, that there is always a Dark to oppose the Light, and the direct equipoise offsetting the contest between that which was Just and that which was Unjust was no less than the Knight Draekesen's own brother, Qrystatos Fa'neel Mica Bluhd, more commonly known and feared as 'Bluhd the Butcher'..."

-- "Chronicles of the Kingdom of Dust", Tales of the Homeworld, Book II, following the Crusade After the 1st Continental Reconstruction, as re-told in Calindrogg's Wartime Histories After the Collapse, the Orbital Heliar 103, Post-Wound

"Daegroab pshe'nurh rebeth'negas,

binshelle, conau Abyssium-vey

ayi'nertor votu kep'jal'il'nu.

Nabek chixe'nar renai-renoi-ren'dreteg

umberna'broe do'quee Yarq'kun Xhohn'le..."

TRANSLATION:

"Come, I have, alone unto Abyssium,

weeping and bearing the stain of murder.

Let the beauty of My Darkness

bind you to Damnation."

-- Vizier Magestratorius Supreme, Lord Tahlesmaune, excerpt from the Preamble to The Dark Tekk Antecedents, "An Oratory Before the Reconstructive Congress of Hegemonic Dominion Mage Masters"

D'SPAYR, THE EARLY YEARS, continued:

It is five years, Earth-Time, following the events of the fall of Koombari City and the massacre at the Duskhelm Priory in Shidraih-Hakaba, and twelve years before D'Spayr's fateful meeting with the Sorcerer-Princess Nygeia and his brother-at-arms Lumynn. It is at this time that the bitter and battle-hardened young Knight is unwillingly drawn into a deadly conflict between the outlaw remnants of the Emperium's Interplanetary Territorial Expanse forces and a band of murderous Offworld alien invaders, deserters from the invading Rayth'kine, to Teshiwahur, the planet also called Brimstone.

So begins the period in history called "In Tempore Sanguinis", or "Kor'tepha'a Shenq'ail", better known as THE AGE OF BLOOD...

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The term "Physics" is an umbrella encapsulating the scientific discipline, one of the most fundamental of the natural sciences, that studies Matter, its motion and its behavior through the dimensions of physical Space and Time, along with related concepts such as energy and force, the ultimate object of which is to understand how the Universe behaves.

More often that not, through its quest for and exercise of observational and empirical evidence, Physics winds up posing more questions than it answers.

This was especially true in the relativistic solar system in which The Withered Land resided. In Astronomical terms, the Withered Land was at the heart of an eons-old star system, wherein a double star, one a colossal red giant and the other a compressed blue dwarf, were forever chained to one another in a furious war of gravity, where the super-dense blue star's greater gravitation ate away at the raging red giant's flaming mass, draining the giant scarlet sun of matter. Larger than the planet Neptune in Earth's incredibly distant solar system, the planet Teshiwahur was the fourth of seven planets orbiting the dueling suns. The distant seventh planet in the solar system was mostly hidden behind the curtain of an oceanically-large and turbulent, macro-radioactive storm called the "Makkaryenne Elasticity".

And then, out beyond a huge, disc-shaped, circumstellar debris-field beyond the squiggly, elliptical orbits of the sixth and seventh planets, a place referred to as "The Array", there were the distant mega-asteroids Kulpetann and Qelshaffex...

Past that, at the extreme outskirts of the Teshiwahurian system's celestial tidal forces, out in the disc-shaped cosmographical boundary referred to as the "heliopause", where the solar winds generated by the system's dual suns were no longer great enough to push back against the incursion of stellar winds from other surrounding stars, was The Wound.

The Wound was an actual physical rip in Einsteinian Space three dozen billions of kilometers in length and several hundreds of thousands of kilometers high.   It was a place where really bad things happened with frightening regularity.

The nature, developmental evolution and actual definition of The Wound and what it represented was one of Physics' greatest and most ominously dire questions.

It was the stuff of Life and Death...

The invaders had fallen through Time-Space from someplace cold and hard, from inside a giant, fossilized energy helix, a solar system trapped within the confines of what essentially was a colossal gemstone. They were a hive-culture civilization of sentient beings, interplanetary colonizers and conquerors, very technologically advanced, who were composed of living, organic metal.

The actual name for their race and civilization was lost, hidden deep behind the cloudy rumors and myths inadequately chronicled by written history, but, to the scientists and soldiers of the World-Father's star-spanning Emperium, they were called "Gorgahnuns"...

A quartet of Reaver ships were cutting fiery streaks through the ashen black sky as they slipped through the defense network's protective shielding. Meanwhile, the autonomous macro-beam cannons of the anti-skyship gun banks thundered, blowing huge holes through the floating aerial nanobot-woven dome over the Outposter-brigade's Central Redoubt. The air shook, creating visible ripples running parallel to the horizon, and it smelled of burnt tin and nickel, the scorched metallic by-products of raw particle weapon emissions as the superheated gigajoule beams ripped through the ash-polluted atmosphere.

"For Yahrvrinem's Sakes, people, pay attention! Watch where you're going and stay tight!" A darkly brunette, sword-wielding woman in a skin-tight plasmer-steel bodysuit barked harshly over her shoulder as she stalked past a rock outcropping. "We can't afford to take time to rescue anyone making the mistake of falling off the beam-trail!"

"Come on, come on, let's get moving!" A tall, physically elegant man with long white-hair tied in a thick braid commanded impatiently. "We've got to go! The longer we stay here, the better their chances of targeting us for obliteration! You want to live? Then MOVE YOUR ASSES!"

The brunette woman and the white-haired man, who, if judged by their synchronized movements as they prowled the combat zone, were doubtless experienced battlefield operatives.  The pair anxiously shepherded a motley band of well-heeled, unathletic government bureaucrats through a cluttered, still smoldering debris field past the stunted cliff-face on the side of a valley wall. The bare stone making up the wall's leeward face was melted and partially ablaze from ion-cannon fire. Master-Chancellor Czeerai Seda'Bausayed, Ambassadorial-Diplomatic Judicial Attache Lel'Kinculnon and Common-Legate Chancellor Gaivus Mersquelix stumbled past waist-high heaps of glass shards and pulverized masonry, and past mounds of broken metal coils and twisted sections of shattered armor plating as they awkwardly followed the odd pair of combat specialists. A small retinue of loyal clerks and assistants followed a short distance behind them, the tailored finery of their official uniforms marked by swaths of soot and ash, while other parts of their clothing were festooned with irregular rips stained with dried blood.

Persephall Grymmodeun and Mah'rymeth Kwarq were not at all happy with the assignment to which they'd contracted. They'd made the mistake of taking what the Anguisher had said at face value, instead of parsing his words as carefully and as suspiciously, as mistrustfully, as they would those of any other client who had hired them. But the rate he'd been willing to pay for their time and their talents had been so ridiculously exorbitant that they could not help but to agree to take the assignment.  Grymmodeun and Kwarq were the mission-contract primaries assigned to infiltrate and map the Gorgahnun Coalition's defenses and fortifications.  They were also responsible for engineering the covert retrieval of a special item referred to by Mission Control only as "The Objective".   They were experienced sellswords, both were former Extraplanetary Special Actions Advisors for the old Star Legion Militia, and they had, for a brief time, individually served the Emperium as Law-Hammers, the duly-deputized, mobile soldier-police of the Hegemonic Territories Offworld Constabulary.

Dressed in an iron gray tunic with beige pants under a voluminous calf-length, fur-lined coat festooned with leather buckles and straps, designed with inlaid utility pockets, Grymmodeun was a tall, lean man with very long, spiky, snow-white hair. Topping the coat, armor shoulder-epaulets in the shape of rakish raptor wings made his already wide shoulders look even more imposing. He had aquamarine-colored eyes set into a long, triangular face tanned reddish-brown from years of exposure to harsh atmospheric elements and he had the overall athletic stance of a veteran outdoorsman and hunter. He wore a red and silver sheathed sword, long and curved in the martial style of the southern continent's Qi'thayane war-rovers, set with a dragon's head pommel. He wore square-toed boots under ornately-worked, graphite-gray knee and shin guards and a thick-buckled gunbelt rode low on his narrow hips. In the gunbelt's inordinately long, filigreed holster was a long-barreled plasma pulse-gun.

Mah'rymeth Kwarq's form-fitting, shiny red and black plasmer-steel bodysuit imbued her already long, lithe figure with both a sense of overt sexuality and violent menace. Sleek and deadly, the scarlet, multi-zippered bodysuit with raised curvature tracings enhancing and magnifying her body's natural musculature, had a black corset and girdle combination textured with stylized reptile's skin patterns. She had a glossy jet-black back harness, a double-sword sheath, with over-the-shoulder straps that fed, both front and back, into a pelvic belt patterned with a design of intertwined serpents. Her knee-high boots, decorated with an outer row of laced silvery buttons running up the sides, had deep vertical ribbing that ran from the mouth of the boot down to the soles. Mah'rymeth was pale-skinned and dark-eyed, her mouth painted with deep blue-tinted lipstick, and her shoulder blade-length hair was black and iridescent as a raven's wing.

The pair had known better when they'd taken the assignment. They'd known that they were being sold a bill of goods. But times were hard and legitimate, government-stamped, gold-striped platinum ingots were hard to come by, so they'd accepted the Anguisher's terms and taken the commission.

Now they were regretting that decision. They should have expected that Dhoumhaunt the Anguisher would not trust either of them enough to send them on their way to do his bidding without an insurance policy.

Sergeant-Major Gryce'roy Daamen, transplanetary daemon-knight, a very grim, very unfriendly and very strict military disciplinarian, was that insurance policy.  

Sergeant-Major Gryce'roy Daamen, transplanetary daemon-knight, a very grim, very unfriendly and very strict military disciplinarian, was that insurance policy. Gryce'roy Daamen was a brooding, ominous figure encased in charcoal-hued, anodized, tactical body-plating. The sectional armor, apportioned like the exoskeletal covering of a man-shaped insect, covered his shoulders, chest, abdomen, back, arms and legs. A loose, purplish-black hood and half-veil decorated with gold stars obscured his square facial features while similar fabric flowed from arm and torso-side vents intersected with seams in his body's tactical armoring, giving his uniform an exotic post-colonial, non-industrial desert warrior-clan appearance. He was a daemon-knight, an evolutionary mutant-hybrid trained as a soldier, working as a rare, high-ranking, nomadic police constable responsible for dealing with violent crimes inside politically-unincorporated urban centers. Daemon-knights were bestowed with extraordinary legal powers, allowing them to act as arresting officer, judge, sentence-arbitrator and executioner as the urgency and complexity of the situation demanded. It was very uncommon for such an individual to be conscripted into military service, but Gryce'roy Daamen's expansive formal education, high intelligence and social adaptability made of him a uniquely qualified candidate for the Hegemonic Emperium's territorial forces.

Though he normally worked alone, the Sergeant-Major had brought with him to the mission a small, special unit of cybernetic ReAnimyte soldiers, called the "Centrie Brahnz", to provide actionable field backup. 

The team only had an quarter turn of a solar heliar left before the orbital troop transport they hijacked would re-enter the planetoid's on-approach gravitational corridor and steer into its circumgyration path to retrieve them.  The time-window for the mission-exfil had been predetermined by Territorial Expanse Naval Intelligence Services based on old information.  As it had turned out, the Objective's security had been seriously revamped and they hadn't been ready for the extra compliment of sentries. The mission should have been scrubbed, but higher ups in the Command-chain had decided it was worth the risk. They'd decided that especially since they hadn't committed their own troops to the job. But things had definitely not worked out as planned.  It had taken longer to locate the Objective than they'd thought and they'd encountered far more resistance than they had originally considered likely.  People had started shooting.  People started dying. They had to get away -- soon.  So, considering the team's current set of circumstances, that wasn't leaving them a helluva lot of time to deal with any other unforeseen conditions.

It wasn't looking as though they were going to make the rendezvous.

A muffled, metallic reverberation accompanied a sudden vertigo-inducing jerk that disoriented anyone outdoors away from the dampener shields of the embattled Redoubt's Farport Annex. Soldiers, mercenaries and non-combatant civilian contractors alike quickly reached for and held onto any foundational or anchored heavy machinery near them as a gargantuan rogue tremor passed through the soil. They could feel the tectonic plates beneath the rocky ground roll under their feet. Gravitron Pounders, very few weapons other than that could create such deep layer percussion. The damn Gorgahnuns were using Gravitron Pounders, weapons that had long been outlawed since the days of the Emperium's First Hegemonic Extraplanetary Crusade nearly nineteen solar orbital heliars past.

The introduction of Old Dynasty "catastrophe inducers", as wide-area offensive weapons like Gravitron Pounders were commonly classified, convinced Persephall Grymmodeun and Mah'rymeth Kwarq that they'd needed to get as far away as was possible from the beleaguered Central Redoubt, and thus away from Farport Annex, as quickly was possible. Their small Covert Special Operations unit wasn't at all prepared to deal with a full-on frontal engagement against a Gorgahnun combat brigade and Gryce'roy Daamen's support force had already lost three ReAnimyte warriors.

"Officer Amaxxe, I need a sitrep," Daamen commanded impatiently, his deep baritone voice hard-edged.

Amaxxe Jo'amerr, the lead FieldOps Captain for the Centrie Brahnz, responded in the standard, hollow metallic voices typical to the heavily-armored ReAnimyte cyborgs. "The enemy's Reaver ships are re-positioning to execute the classic Gorgahnun Swarm aerial attack formation. They've included in their aerial armada a trio of Chronasphere Temporal battle cruisers as back up for the Reaver Swarm and stationed them just outside the range of the macro-beam cannons of the anti-skyship gun banks."

"How're we doing on Signals & Frequencies?" Daamen asked of his Centrie Brahnz communications commander, Laef'qon-Deith. "What kind of coordinating chatter is there online?"

"Hard to be exact, Sergeant-Major, the Gorgahnun Horde assault force are quite adept at the masking and encryption of their ship-to-ship networked communications. What little I am able to decipher reveals that they are awaiting extra-spatial transit-hole arrival of a single Destroyer-class Killship, armed with multiple antimatter cannons and electron-shredder torpedoes. Their Martial Command Council has issued an edict stating that the Central Redoubt will fall this day and any failure of that goal is unacceptable, with any such failure being tantamount to treason, and punishable by public execution."

"Well, dreev-frek," Daamen said, cursing. "That kind of motivation is going to present a major damn problem."

The Centrie Brahnz were each, in addition to being each a walking intelligent dreadnaught combat fire-team, module-networked into a central strategic-tactical command computer network. As ReAnimytes, which were essentially animated, formerly-lifeless soldiers neuro-electrogenically grafted into cybernetic mobile humanoid weapons systems, Daamen's team were all linked to an extraplanetary digital Command-Control-Communications computer device-web. Each of them was structurally a human skull and brain, with a spinal column, human heart and lungs, merged into an armored biomechatronic chassis fitted with a weapons system duplicating that of a Hell-Legion Heavy Tank, complete with a laser mega-cannon, dual phase-bolt projectors, a five-shot miniature heavy-explosive shell launcher, and an arm-mounted, extendable titanium carbide ratchet saw. To say that, under most circumstances, they were frighteningly formidable was an understatement. And yet, when going up against an enemy like the Gorgahnuns, the Centrie Brahnz were, in one-on-one combat, often hard-pressed to hold their own.

That probably had something to do with the fact that the external carapace of every member of the Gorgahnun Horde was composed of eight layers of flexible, interlocking hybridized titanoplas-diamanxide molecules.  Their skin was highly resistant to penetration from flechette-needles and ballistic projectiles and able to turn away a direct attack by power-driven, heavy-bore saw blades.  Their bodies were almost completely impenetrable. 

"You know, after we get through this mess, I would really like it if someone explained to me how in Nine Hells a bunch of extra-galactic, off-planet aliens like the Gorgahnuns managed to discover that The Objective was actively looking to transfer out from their employ and defect into the employ of the Hegemonic Emperium," Persephall Grymmodeun said crossly.

"Obviously, there was a breach. We likely have a mole in the executive staff of the Territorial Expanse Naval Intelligence Services," Gryce'roy Daamen replied.

"It was my understanding that Expanse NIS Internal Security was such that it was impossible for any commissioned officer or field-contractor to be of divided loyalty or to be duplicitous because of the self-regulating monitor-engram chip every NIS operative has implanted in their neurocranial system," Mah'rymeth Kwarq chimed in. "The bio-algorithm that identifies treachery against the World-Father supposedly isolates errant thought-impulses and sends out an alert to the Office of the Inspector-General in Internal Security. The Psion Group then interprets the errant impulse data, right? At least that's what they tell us should happen."

"It's utter meerghrug!" Grymmodeun spat heatedly. "They can no more isolate and identify a traitorous thought or impulse via remote networking any more than I can shoot lightning from my fists. It's just more Emperium tekk-legerdemain, utter chicanery. The damn Gorgahnun's have a top notch intelligence network with a high-level cell of infiltrators active in our ranks. They've been spying on us for far longer than we've ever suspected."

"Which, of course, implies you don't believe and don't trust any of our planetside Field Support orders coming out of the Redoubt's Farport Annex... That's a pretty interesting attitude for a couple of sellswords contracting with Dhoumhaunt the Anguisher..." Daamen remarked snidely.

"We don't have a problem with the mission command crew at the Central Redoubt," Grymmodeun said. "But we DO have serious issues with the Emperium's Extraplanetary High Frontier program. Actionable Intel has a tendency to go through a lot of filters between Extraplanetary HF and the Protectorate Militia at the Territorial Expanse. Information gets spun and twisted according to who disseminates it, you know?"

"We can't always trust what we're being told," Mah'rymeth Kwarq said. "And you know that."

"I can't and won't argue with that," Daamen said, "but I also can't ignore the fact that Dhoumhaunt is a former high-ranking Judge-Exterminant of the Kryptayenne Sovereignty. The son of a bitch used to regularly pass sentence on the fates of entire continents in his solar jurisdiction. The Kryptayennes were a ruthless and megalomaniacal bunch who ruled the Outer Rim without regard for extraplanetary multicultural politics. The Anguisher has a lot of blood on his hands, more than he can ever possibly atone for, if atonement were in his character. And, if memory serves, I recall that the Kryptayenne Sovereignty once was allied with the Gorgahnun Royal Confederacy."

Amaxxe Jo'Amerr interrupted the exchange with a tense pronouncement. "We're rapidly approaching the exfil rendezvous site. The Sergeant-Major needs to make a decision about how we proceed if the LZ is compromised..."

Surprisingly, it was Master-Chancellor Czeerai Seda'Bausayed who immediately responded, answering the Centrie Brahnz FieldOps Captain's query in a hoarse, raspy voice. "If the exfil rendezvous with Territorial Expanse Naval Intel is in any way compromised, we'll be on our own. We, the Diplomatic Corp team, were in closeted negotiations with the local Shachtferadi'im tribal leaders, you know, the marauding First-Race aboriginal people who are continually harassing Emperium military forces in the Central Redoubt and its sister territories. The only reason the Shachtferadi'im hadn't yet staged a full-on assault against the Redoubt was because they were profiting from the Star Forces' Machine Tekk the Emperium shared with them. The Tekk was mostly decommissioned vehicle engineering, some propellant and hydropower system hardware, and lightweight molecule-manipulation cast-off machinery. But the tribal leaders aren't interested enough to get into an interplanetary shooting war with the Gorgahnun Hordes. Any treaties we have with them won't hold in the face of a possible alien invasion. They haven't any pretense at loyalty to the Emperium. They'll turn and run."

Gryce'roy Daamen quietly considered the Master-Chancellor's words and then said, "So, if our forces can't secure and hold the LZ, we go native for a while. We keep our heads down and make offline contact with Emperium forces when we can. We divest ourselves of all the trappings of the Hegemonic Emperium military and anything else identifying us as outsiders to the region and we role-play, blending in with the local outlaw population."

"I would think that our special operations contractors could be primarily helpful with that," Czeerai Seda'Bausayed commented as he fixed Persephall Grymmodeun and Mah'rymeth Kwarq with a hard stare.

Grymmodeun raised an eyebrow and sneered at the diplomat's comment while Mah'rymeth Kwarq rolled her eyes.

Daamen noted their responses and, reluctantly, decided it was incumbent on him to explain.

"Special Operations Contractors aren't privy to our mission, due to extreme security restrictions and all that, and certainly much less this mission's personnel statuses. But even if they decided to become embroiled in this kind of an operation without clearance from the Territorial Expanse, they'd be immediately censured."

"Censured?" Seda'Bausayed, being non-military, was unfamiliar with the term.

"Terminally demoted," Grymmodeun said, "As in killed. The Hegemonic Emperium does not entrust civilian third-party SpecOps contractors the responsibility of safeguarding Regency Diplomats in an active military operations zone."

"So I take that to mean, Agent Grymmodeun, that you and Mah'rymeth Kwarq are active conscripted members of the Emperium military?"

"No, not at all. And luckily we're not 'marauding First-Race aboriginals', either. Can't have that. We're simpler folk. Just a pair of assassins-for-hire," Grymmodeun said through an evil grin.

Czeerai Seda'Bausayed turned to stare questioningly into Gryce'roy Daamen's eyes. The cold stare he received in return was answer enough to his unspoken question.

A sudden and overwhelming pulsing sensation originating from above caught all their attention and the group's eyes collectively snapped upwards. That pulsing was indicative of the presence of a gravity-warp propulsion system and the only airships that used those were machines of offworld origin. A banshee wail accompanied by a concussive blast of air lashed the skies directly over the small group and they immediately scattered to seek what little cover was available. It was a Reaver ship. The telltale structural profile resembling a giant metal wasp flashed above and the airship's ion-burst pod guns began firing, strafing the ground with a searing salvo of coherent light. One of the Centrie Brahnz troopers was hit by the ion-burst and the impact spun him around, flinging his armored form into a wild, out of control cartwheel that ended with his body smashing through a nearby wall of dense masonry. One of the group's escaping diplomatic attaches was caught by the bursts while on the run and his clothing furiously caught flame as he was hurtled forward into a jagged piece of wrecked machinery projecting from a man-high pile of fragmented debris. Impaled, the man screamed once and then died unceremoniously.

The Reaver ship screeched onwards and downhill, away from the surviving group members. Emerging from behind the remains of fallen structures, they cautiously gathered together, still watching the sky.

"Aexion's Beard, enough of this! We can work out your precious bureaucratic legalities later! It's obvious we're not going to make it to your supposedly secure Landing Zone. The Gorgahnun's probably already know all about it. The Sunphroste Fortress", one of the attendant dignitaries, a thin man in a flowing, pewter-colored, metallic teklor-weave exo-armor blurted impatiently through his face-obscuring respiration mask. His name was Common-Legate Chancellor Gaivus Mersquelix. "We need to get to the security of the Sunphroste Fortress. It's not that far from here! I've dispatched local hover-cycle couriers there many times. There's extensive defensive aerial support there, a particle blast shield-generator covering the fortress and they have a Sanctuary Treaty with the Ministry of the Central Redoubt which includes protection for Regency Diplomats."

Grymmodeun had to admit to himself that this was the best idea he'd heard so far. "Sunphroste. I'd forgotten it was here. The place is secluded and off the beaten path, in a long, shallow ravine. And from there we can get mobile transport to the Zuhltann's Tower Shiftport. I think he's right," he said aloud to Sergeant-Major Daamen. "It's our safest bet right now."

Mah'rymeth nodded, agreeing enthusiastically. "I like it. Even on foot, we can reach it in less than a third of a heliar and it's through a path that provides protective cover and defense. Reaver ships and planetary trans-atmospheric scans from orbital Destroyer Killships can't pierce the sub-stratospheric ripple corona over that ravine. The place appears as pre-Expansion low-tekk on historical data mapping. Only territorial locals know the base is still active. And, once we secure wheeled or tank-treaded conveyance, Zuhltann's Tower Shiftport is a veritable stone's throw away."

"Then we have a plan. Let's move!" Daamen ordered.

The small, motley troop began running over the uneven soil with renewed vigor and hopefulness. And that was where they made their first major mistake...

They were scurrying ants under the unblinking eye of The Wound and the drums of War had sounded. Although they were all offworld, on Teshiwahur's craggy, disc-shaped moon orbiting some 1994 Cosmonautical Leagues above the massive planet's arid surface, they were still within the haunted boundaries of The Withered Land.

And that was not a good place to be.

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