The first thing Torin noticed about Halden's transport was the missing command light.
Every Continuum Corps vessel carried one above the primary docking seal. Green meant its commanding officer remained active. Amber meant authority had been transferred temporarily.
This one was black.
General Voss noticed it too.
He said nothing.
The smaller transport drifted toward them through the deployment corridor, battered along one side and carrying enough scorch marks that Torin briefly wondered whether it had arrived by flying or by surviving several increasingly unreasonable suggestions.
The docking clamps connected.
A dull impact traveled through the hull.
Voss glanced toward Torin. "Their General died twelve days ago."
Torin looked at him. "How?"
"Operational loss."
"That doesn't answer anything."
"It answered the paperwork."
Torin sighed.
The docking doors opened.
Halden came through first.
He looked worse.
Not injured exactly. Just thinner around the face, with the particular expression of someone who had recently discovered the Continuum Corps considered sleep optional during general mobilization.
Halden saw Torin.
He stopped.
"No."
Torin smiled. "Good to see you too."
Mari stepped around him and immediately laughed.
"You're alive."
Torin replied, "Apparently."
Joren followed behind her carrying a pack almost as large as he was.
Joren looked toward Voss's General insignia, then at Torin.
"Don't tell me they promoted you."
Torin shook his head. "No."
Voss walked past them. "He's still weak."
Torin looked at him.
Voss added, "He is, however, useful."
Halden smiled. "I like him."
Torin muttered, "Of course you do."
Mari glanced back toward their transport.
The humor left her face.
"Our General didn't make it."
Torin nodded. "Voss told me."
Halden's expression tightened. "We never even saw what killed him."
Joren added quietly, "One second he was on the command deck. The next the entire upper section wasn't."
Nobody had a joke for that.
Voss stopped near the tactical display.
"Your remaining personnel are under my authority until command decides otherwise."
Halden nodded.
Then the display illuminated.
Their destination appeared.
A-27-M-63-U-963
Below it:
DIVINE EXTERMINATION THEATER
PRIMARY HOSTILE: KARMA
GOD OF CHAOS
The room became quieter.
It didn't matter that they had all seen the order before.
Seeing it attached to your destination was different.
Halden stared at the designation.
"We're actually going there."
Voss replied, "Yes."
Mari asked, "How many forces are already planetside?"
Voss checked the surviving operational feed.
His face changed slightly.
Torin noticed.
"General?"
Voss enlarged the map.
Thousands of expected signatures should have been visible.
They weren't.
Voss said, "Enough that this display shouldn't look like this."
That was not reassuring.
Their vessel began descent.
The planet below looked like somebody had attempted to wage war against geography and lost interest halfway through.
Black impact trenches crossed continents.
Broken carriers lay embedded in the surface.
Some wrecks were so large that clouds moved around them.
One fractured Corps vessel had entered the side of a mountain and remained there, its forward half protruding from the opposite face.
Mari stared through the observation window.
"How many people were here?"
Voss replied, "More than I can account for."
Joren looked toward him. "That's not the same as dead."
"No."
Halden asked, "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
Voss looked at him.
"No."
The transport landed.
Its doors opened onto wind and ash.
Corps personnel immediately spread outward.
Torin stepped onto the blackened ground and felt something strange beneath his boots.
The planet wasn't quiet.
It was exhausted.
Weapons fire had scarred entire horizons. Binary residue hung faintly in the atmosphere, like afterimages from constructs too large to have belonged in one place.
Voss crouched beside a shallow crater.
He touched the ground.
Torin asked, "What is it?"
Voss rubbed black dust between his fingers.
"This crater wasn't made by Binary Energy."
Halden joined them. "What made it?"
Voss stood.
"I don't know."
Torin didn't enjoy hearing that from him.
Not anymore.
Several kilometers away, four people were having an equally productive day.
Yamiya Miekō sat beside a broken ACT scanner.
The device displayed the same response it had displayed hundreds of times.
CONTACT REQUEST: AOIKISHI
STATUS: NO RESPONSE
Kaosu stood over her. "Again."
Yamiya didn't look up. "That was attempt six hundred and twelve."
Kaosu folded his arms. "So?"
Raiyo sat nearby, sharpening one of his remaining swords.
"Attempt six hundred and thirteen might be intimidated by persistence."
Kaosu glared at him. "Nobody asked you."
Nyxus looked up from a honeybun.
"Maybe Aoikishi died."
Nobody moved.
Nyxus kept chewing.
Kaosu's voice changed.
"He's not dead."
Nyxus shrugged. "Okay."
Yamiya slowly looked toward him. "You can't suggest Aoikishi died and then say okay."
Nyxus frowned. "Why not?"
"Because that's generally how concern works."
"Oh."
Nyxus thought for several seconds.
"Maybe he's alive."
Yamiya sighed. "Thank you, Nyxus."
"You're welcome."
Raiyo sheathed his sword.
"Three months."
Kaosu looked at him.
Raiyo continued, "He said he was investigating Flick activity. Three months is too long."
Kaosu replied, "He's fine."
"You don't know that."
"I know he's stronger than you."
Raiyo stared.
"That was not the question."
"It improved the conversation."
Yamiya ignored them.
Then her scanner changed.
Not Aoikishi.
Multiple signatures.
Organized.
Binary.
Yamiya stood.
"Corps."
Kaosu smiled.
Raiyo reached for his swords.
Nyxus finished his honeybun.
"Do they have food?"