Araan stared at the General for a moment, then at the Vinid seal in his hand. He was sure the General had given more details about what he had just said, but he hadn't heard any of it. The General's voice and the noise outside all blurred into one sound that his mind ignored.

  Lord Vinid's death wasn't what stunned him; his time was near, and Araan had expected it sooner or later. His eldfather hadn't just died however, he was murdered. That was what bothered him. The unity of the Thirteenth Sector made it the safest place from Dark Half plots and murders. So how did the Lord Commander of the same sector die in one?

  Dirakh bumped Araan's arm gently, pulling him from his thoughts. He acknowledged it with a brief glance at the Commander and looked at the General. General Vidgard was staring at him with the look of someone expecting an answer. His right hand holding the seal was outstretched, waiting for him to take it.

  He had missed a lot.

  “House Vinid is calling home its sons and daughters. You've been called first, given your... Title.” The General was careful as he mentioned it.

  Araan nodded and took the seal. Vidgard continued, “The issue of the promotion from Sector One is also something you'll have to consider. Although there is no rush on that front. There are many seikans before the Life Star brightens enough for meetings in Ordanq.”

  Life Star. The term... The sound of the words rang in Araan's mind. There was nothing grand about its meaning; it was just an old term for the sun. But when the General said it, he remembered how Lord Vinid used the term often and his mind wandered to the last time he had heard it from his eldfather. How that argument would remain the last conversation they ever had.

  He didn't let his thoughts distract him this time. “A visit to Kolvak and then Ordanq,” he felt for the familiar imprints on the seal; it was urgent for them to have sent this. “We'll leave in four micro-seikans, if that is okay by you, General.”

  Araan had said "we" without formally asking Dirakh. They were close enough that he knew Dirakh would say the same thing if he asked. Despite being that sure, Araan looked towards him for affirmation and the fellow Commander nodded.

  “Of course,” the General said finally. “I sent for you. I wouldn't have, if I didn't expect you to act promptly.”

  Araan agreed with a quick nod, then kept the seal in a compartment of his Trouser Armour.

  General Vidgard adjusted in his seat and spoke a tad louder, “As you two know and are already used to, Ordanq being the World Empire's capital means it has the best Augmentors and weapons in its Trigad.”

  “Yes, General,” both replied, curious as to what he was getting at.

  “Your Augmentors, you can't take them,” The General said without room for argument. “While you both have very well earned yours, with the current intensity of hunts, we can't spare having you leave with all of them. We are allocating a single Augmentor to each of you, excluding Commander Vinid's Heralder. That should be enough till you reach Ordanq, where you will serve as High Commanders with much better gear.”

  Dirakh's face hardened so much Araan could see bone and muscle tense under the tough brown skin of his face. He wasn't too far off.

  He had expected it, but one out of ten Augmentors was a very obvious move from the General to ruffle them. Giving them a single Augmentor was based on the assumption that the Generals and fellow High Commanders at Ordanq would welcome them with open arms and without any hassle for how differently they did things. That was never true in any camp in any Sector. Everything was hard earned in the Trigad, respect even more so. Araan knew they knew that, he was almost certain they were counting on it.

  The Generals could hide behind false reasons but the truth was Araan's and Dirakh's promotion angered them; it had angered everyone. The Trophy of Hunt as a gift was for the higher-ups to see; down here their real opinions were loud and clear.

  No one likes shortcuts they didn't take. The words echoed in Araan's mind until he calmed.

  A Heralder was the huge, heavily armoured, high-speed vehicle Trigad units traveled with. It was an Augmentor in that it was programmed to only function after it was attached to certain components in the back of a Commander's Mantle armour. That was how they would travel to Kolvak and Ordanq. With that selected, he thought about what to pick out of the nine others he owned.

  “My Sand Drifter,” Dirakh spoke first. He owned three more Augmentors than Araan, but that was his favorite.

  “I'll take the Attack Class Augmentor,” Araan said.

  General Vidgard nodded. “Four micro-seikans, then.” He was already looking away when the sound of brisk steps filled the hall. Liora hurried into the room.

  “Another mission from the capital, General. Vinid, Aratund,” Liora said, acknowledging both Commanders. She looked at the General, waiting for the permission to keep talking in front of them. When Vidgard nodded, she added, “Another city has been attacked.”

  General Vidgard groaned loudly, “Which one?”

  “Gormah,” she said. Her voice carried the shock that soon filled the room.

  “How?”

  “From the message,” Liora responded, more to Vidgard than Dirakh who asked, “We know it's a large horde, individually smaller than the creature encountered in Tomorann, but just as tough. It was a previously unencountered species. Gormah had held its own since the attack began eight seikans ago, only managing to get the message through as soon as the Dark Half ended in that region. Thousands are still alive and the Pod Wall is fully intact.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Dumod...” Vidgard's curses trailed off as his face darkened, deep in thought.

  Gormah was the largest mining city in the Fourth Sector. It was four times the size of the sector's capital. This camp was the closest to the city but it was still hundreds of leagues away at the southern edge of the Fourth Sector. Araan thought back to Dirakh's statement about the specificity of attacks. Most of them were by creatures that hadn't been encountered before. Why now? Why the sudden, violent migration?

  “General?” Liora said, almost anxious.

  “Send two Commanders,” he replied, “Each unit's Aggressor Two to Eight should be equipped with Strength Class Augmentors. The Commanders can carry as many Augmentors as they can wield.”

  “Two Commanders wouldn't be nearly enough,” Dirakh said loudly, almost interrupting the General. A soldier passing by stopped to look at the room. He moved on quickly, seeing Vidgard and the Commanders, but that was enough to irritate the General. Araan closed the door before anyone else spoke again.

  “Send two High Commanders,” Dirakh added and Vidgard barked a laugh.

  A Commander led a unit of nineteen; a High Commander led ninety-nine.

  “A single High Commander can fall a city,” came the famous boast from General Vidgard.

  “We know the saying, General,” Araan said flatly. “But we have also been in these battles. We're the only Commanders in this camp that have faced the threat of these new creatures. Send more units. Bukin would have said the same thing if he were still here.”

  General Vidgard's countenance changed suddenly. “Your Heralder will be loaded and ready when you are,” His words were clearly dismissive this time. Though he was careful to say them facing Dirakh and not Araan.

  He was angry, not stupid.

  Dirakh motioned to speak again but Araan moved towards the door before he could, forcing Dirakh to follow suit. Liora, who had been standing aside and watching, moved forward to take the central area of the room. They walked out and Dirakh shut the door behind them.

  They turned right, walking down the busy hallway. They had moved only a short distance when Dirakh started. He sounded somewhat irritated, “Remind me why we have to wait four micro-seikans?”

  “I haven't spoken with my unit since we arrived from Tomorann,” Araan replied. “Have you said farewell to yours? Gillette and the others would feel betrayed if you left without a speech.”

  “Yes, I have. They've been split and assigned to other units already,” Dirakh said wryly. “And if lies are the reasons you have to give, then you better make them ones I can believe.”

  “Walk with me then,” Araan said and Dirakh nodded.

  Down the hallway led to the other shaded buildings. If they had walked west from Vidgard's office they would eventually go past enough of them to reach the soldiers' quarters, but the hallways crawled with Officials and Commanders—Araan wanted privacy. Instead he moved in the opposite direction, past Dirakh's office and then his, down to an exit next to the one he'd walked in from earlier.

  Without the Jacket Armour, they felt more of the hotter air on their forearms, but the circle-in-square engine in the Life Armours whirred on, instantly cooling the air as they breathed it in through their chest and upper arm pores. Nostrils, being smaller, hardly ever needed protection.

  “Araan, we're still walking toward the soldiers' quarters,” Dirakh announced in that characteristic tone that typically led to a snide question.

  “How far are we traveling to sell this lie?”

  “I didn't lie when I said when I was going to the quarters,” Araan replied with a slight smile.

  “What—”

  A Strength Class augmented soldier walking past interrupted Dirakh. He carried a marble case in the wearable arms and a much larger one in his battle-arms fixed above his head, both pairs attached to him by the large metal panel connected to the back of his Mantle Armour. The soldier stared briefly at Araan, particularly at the askora on his head, then turned. In the background, there was the sharp grinding sound of metalwork. Aside from that brief moment, no one else was looking. He could talk.

  Throughout his walk, he had thought about how he would say it in a way that it made sense speaking out loud. It had only been a fleeting thought that crossed his mind when he fought the creature in Tomorann. Even after, it hadn't bothered him. But now, after hearing about the attack on Gormah, he thought of it again. There was no ignoring it this time around.

  How to start? he thought again.

  To Dirakh, he decided he would say it as he thought it, “The new species aren't migrating. I think they're taking new territory.”

  Dirakh gave him a skeptical look, but he listened. “Something pushed them out of their land and they are finding a new home.”

  “Abnormal Delacite growth?” Dirakh asked.

  “I don't know,” Araan replied. “It could be.”

  Delacite fields were the reason cyperans couldn't live everywhere on the planet. The planet was hot, so hot that matter was naturally either too stable to melt or already gas. Never liquids. The heat varied with location and some places were hotter than others.

  Those hotter places were caused by delacites most of the time. It was still unknown why it happened, but the glassy sand surface hardened till it was almost impossible to shatter and then it blackened. In that state and colour, it absorbed heat in torrents until breathing the air around it could roast one's insides. Even the best life armours failed to cool the air sufficiently.

  New delacites could be removed, but if they stayed too long, they became permanent. There was an entire branch of the military sanctioned by the Emperor named Sygad that existed to ensure delicites were destroyed before they became permanent, but not all could be removed fast enough and occasionally, cities were lost.

  If there had been any drastic or irregular growth during the Dark Half, it would explain why creatures that lived in the spaces between these delacite fields were everywhere.

  They crossed the middle of the camp, where the tower was, and Dirakh spoke.

  “I remember seeing dead nyms scattered around the mountain ranges near Kilkad. Wings torn, arms destroyed. Now it sounds like they lost territory to new winged creatures. I don't think you're wrong,” The commander paused. “But even if we are correct, what are we going to do? We can't just request a field scan. Vidgard wouldn't listen to us—he just proved that.”

  “I don't think any Fourth Sector General would listen to us,” Araan said matter-of-factly. It would only be an opportunity to blatantly refuse the 'Chosen Ones'. “We keep it to ourselves till we get to Ordanq. We can order the scan ourselves then.”

  “So why are we going to the soldiers' quarters?”

  “To be sure I'm not in my own head about this. The last thing we want in Ordanq is to request a field scan over a non-issue.” All of this was still just a hunch after all.

  They reached the last arc of the shaded buildings and walked in through the ingress. If the office quarters were considered busy, this place could be said to be crawling with personnel. It wasn't crowded as the hallway was wide enough for thirty soldiers in armour to stand in a row. But the noise was terrible. It wasn't much different inside this time, aside from the cooler air. There was the familiar scent of a heated metal nozzles of charge-rifles recently fired.

  Araan didn't mind though. The smell, the noise. He was used to this life.

  To the left, instead of office rooms, were large halls with grey stones and metal walls where soldiers trained, refreshed themselves, or rested. There was the occasional locked weapons room where armours, charge-rifles and smaller Augmentors were stored.

  There was an open weapons room they passed by. The two Commanders stopped to look inside. Soldiers in it were decked in full Mantle Armour. A few hadn't worn the headgear yet. With rifles on their backs, most of them were either attaching the wearable arms of the Strength Class Augmentor to theirs, or finishing up with the back connection with the Augmentor.

  Two units, Araan noticed. General Vidgard was going with his plan.

  The soldiers straightened when they saw them.

  “You are the units going to Gormah?” Dirakh asked.

  “Yes, sir,” they affirmed.

  Araan's mind went back to Bukin and what that unit went through.

  “Watch your backs out there,” Araan said.

  They all looked surprised at his words but some nodded.