Forge crouched behind Ru and Cat. He shook his head, struggling to keep his focus on the here and now. The remote views were compelling, showing him things he had often wondered about. If only the cosmos were at peace, he might use these windows open to him to expand his knowledge of universal mechancics, rather than limiting his sight to the painfully close matters at hand.

Negred had a nominal atmosphere, but salamanders were hard at work placing nodes of some atmospheric conversion device, in addition to the power stifling ‘effigies’, as Aster called them. The result began with an increase in humidity, followed by a sting in the air, then they all began losing focus, giving way to wild whimsies of their radiance.

“Forge,” said Cat.

“Sir? Oh. Yes sir.”

He primed the mortar and at Cat’s signal fired.

The artillery overshot his target, but knocked the salamander and its ifreet escort to the ground. Reev leapt from perch on a nearby hill. He was the least effected by the Salamanders’ interference, and managed to send a kinetic shockwave across the field through their opponent, killing two of the ifreet and damaging the terraforming node.

Forge launched another shell. This one hit its mark, and Reev turned his focus to the remaining four ifrit, dismantling them with well places rifle bursts. The last one proved a hard target at close range, so Cat took aim and dispatched it.

They stood and moved quickly to the second blast zone, searching the debris for any signs the device still functioned.

“Hey Forge,” Reec said while brushing some tangled metal aside with his boot, “I been thinkin’. We’re eventually gonna develop enough control to use our radiance without our harnesses, like Sol. Well, that’s gonna take time, so what if we made adjustments to them along the way?”

“For what purpose?”

“Well, suppose Euk decides to use her floating trick in combat. You could make her harness smaller, maybe, or with a weaker governer. But in a way that only let up when she used that skill.”

“I like you’re thinking,” said Cat.

Forge thought for a moment. “I’d have to add to the harness, not take away. Specifically in the area where she would channel her radiance to get the desired effect.”

Reev chuckled. “Hey Euk, you’re gonna be wearing some big, ugly boots.”

She smirked and shook her head.

Forge crawled along the byways of tangent photons directed by his sub-ethereal pineal gland. They twisted in their tri-helical arcs, weaving through the more conventional particles in their superliminal traverse. He felt along the endo steel plates of Eukary’s greaves, drawn to the fulcrum of her focused energies, and cupped his hands over her kneepads, feeling the superheated hyperfiber padding that supplemented her armor.

“Her kneepads,” Forge said.

“Overshare, Holmes,” Reev said.

Forge rolled his eyes, a common response to Reev’s lower effort quips, normaly hidden by the skullfort now lashed to his backpack.

“So you’d hook up attachments to her kneepads?” Reev went on.

“Yeah. I’ll have to think about it more.”

“Later,” said Cat. “Ru’s located another projector.”

“No effigies?” asked Ish.

Ru shook her head. “Sorry.”

They all had donned auxillary headgear, consisting of a hardened commset (superior to those in their vams), standalone multispectral goggle with a regional motion tracker, and a high cut hyperweave ballistic helmet. Cat tapped on his vam, opening the cross team channel.

“Red, do you copy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re moving on a fourth atmo projector. Haruspex will send the coordinates.”

“Glad her skills are unaffected still.”

“She’s struggling to find more effigies. I think that might be by design.”

“Copy that, Captain. We’re gonna double back to previous locations if you don’t mind. Mangonel has a compelling theory about their placement.”

“Go on.”

“He noticed there were anomylous gravitational and electromagnetic shifts in the previous areas.”

“An energetic bias then, rather a topographical one.”

“Good thinkin’ Mango,” said Reev.

Forge smirked at that.

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“Hear that, Nel?” Red said. “You got a new nickname.”

“I’ll take it,” Mangonel replied. “Mangos are delicious.”

“Limit the chatter, troops,” said Euk.

“Copy,” said Reev.

Catalyst ordered Red Ten to check in when they reached the last effigy location, then switched to their tean channel. “We’ll keep eliminating their atmo projectors for now. Eukary, take Revol, Aster and Ishtar and double back to last site. Take detailed scans and see if you detect any of the anomies Mangonel found. Make sure to match the readings to this site as well. Check in every fifteen minutes.” He then signalled for them to move on.

The next site was an hour’s march, and Ru commented twice that they needed vehicles for planetary recon. Forge saw himself hovering on jets made from repulsor technology developed in Albion’ mystic labs, sprawled outward with small thrusters augmenting a network of micro-rudders for hyper precise steering.

Red called over the cross-team channel.

“We found a Salamander and escort at the site. They were building another apparatus. We dispatched them after attempting to question the Salamander, but I wouldn’t even call what that thing said speech.”

“Copy,” said Cat. “Split your team and clear all previous sites.”

“Yes, sir.”

The sky had darkened to purple when all the sites had been cleared again. They had taken through scans of each area, noting several other energetic anomolies, including a carrier wave that Forge found unnervingly familiar.

“I felt when I saw the Onslaught.”

“When was this?” Cat asked.

“Shortly after leaving Ulro.”

“Return to your ship and analyze your data,” Cat told Red. “I want our forces to be at full strength when we assault Orak.”

On their team channel, Euk reported their last atmo projector site cleared again and thoroughly scanned.

“Ru’s picked up another one. Meet us at the coordinates. We’re going to work through the night.”

And through the night the cycle repeated.

Forge watched frustrated as the sun cracked the purple night sky with streaks of electric blue.

“Pretty,” said Ru.

A flock of horned dactyls, large as small planes, wheeled overhead, then fled as the dawn peeled away the last of their nocturne curtain.

“We knock ‘em down,” Ru began.

“They set ‘em back up,” Forge finished.

“I know,” said Cat.

“I realize it’s painful, captain,” Forge said, “but it’s the most effective way.”

“I know, Forge. Wait here.”

The others finished their rounds and rendezvoused an hour before Negred’s noon. Meanwhile, Red Ten, absent of orders from Cat, took their jumpship into orbit to send a courier probe with updates for Colonel Vala.

“Any input, Netz?” asked Ru.

Netz had already developed an impressive repertoire of movements that simulated conversational body language. Her response to Ru’s question was a left to right motion that meant ‘no’.

“It’s all a new game over here,” she elaborated. “Orak clearly had agents in Briah paving the way, but I wasn’t aware of any of that. I kept as far away from Zar Zafaran towards the end.”

“Is that where we tussled with that big guy, briefly?” asked Reev.

“No. That was Nessus. Topar lives there. I stayed away from her too.”

“Seems like you’d wanna stay away from pretty much everyone over there,” said Ru.

“I’m never going back,” was all Netz said.

Another hour wore away. H5 signaled them, breaking the tedium.

“Vala sent a subspace,” said Red. “They’ve mobilized but are gonna have to split up in order to avoid getting into a fight with the kzinti patrols. Apparently, they’ve doubled since our last encounter.”

“What about the Surge?” asked Reev.

“That… thing is keeping them at bay still. Flea actually caught sight of it on the long-range scopes. It’s hard to tell but it seems like the Surge are trying to either get around or to Negred, but that creature won’t let them advance. “

“Well tell it we said thank you, if you get the chance.”

They eventually split up in groups again, passing the time by emilinating atmo projectors and effigies. They worked in rotation so one group always waited for Cat. H5 risked some aerial recon, but Orak’s sensor net was too tight, so they landed again, and the two teams eventually converged to compare their data, hoping to find some clue to Orak’s location beyond the energy signature that drew them to that region of the planet.

“We know he’s nearby,” said Flea, his voice garbled by his enviro-suit. Both pilots had taken to serious coughing fits and nausea after only briefly sampling Negred’s air.

“But he could be almost anywhere,” Mango countered.

“He could be deep underground for all we know,” said Euk. “Everything from Ulro is off. We’re using instruments designed to work with different physics than theirs.”

“If it weren’t for their concentration of activity,” said Ergheiz, finaly speaking, “I’d say they might be on the exact opposite side of the planet.”

Forge shook his head. “Ulro isn’t a mirror of our spacetime. It’s a pocket dimension crafted by entities that are beyond our comprehension. Until we have a chance to send research teams through the Verge, we only have a poem to go by.”

“Man,” said Flea, “that place really shook you up.”

“No. It opened us up.”

There was a pregnant silence flowing Forge’s reply, during which he looked thoughtfully at the surrounding hills. Negred’s topography was nowhere near as predictable as Bindu Prime’s, but it was nowhere near as diverse as it should be. He found himself wishing he’d been more alert to the geography of Maman when he was there, and not as focused on the fighting.

He heard his captain’s footfalls in a dark room filled with echoes, whispers and reflections, and the sight of Sensus burning disturbed him from his reverie.

The others were talking. Euk was sitting on the ground next to him, her small head on his big shoulder.

“Captain,” said Red, standing.

Everyone turned and saw Catalyst coming down a nearby hill. He walked slowly with a halt in his step, so they all rose and went to him.

His skin looked drained of blood, and his eyes looked drained of light.

“We’ve got work to do,” he said, his voice quiet. “But I need to rest first.”