They named her Ariel; the elegant sliver of asteroid caught in Negred’s orbit. Her whispy white tail faded too soon, teasing the Warriors of Light with hints of the ethereal before abruptly vanishing.

Revol turned Ru’s limp head to face skyward in case she’d regained enough consciousness to see.

“She should be further along by now,” Ehrgeiz said from his perch on the mountainside.

He’d shot down three to one against Revol, and Revol was wondering why the man was assigned to the fifth team and not one higher up.

Revol had taken down the marksman that shot Ru through the eye, though. He put six holes in that ifrit and then hucked a boulder at it to make sure. Ehrgeiz picked off the rest of the enemy patrol after that, along with every straggler that wandered by while Revol guarded Ru.

“Reev,” Cat said over the comms, “status?”

“Ru’s still down, cap.”

“What’s taking her so long?”

“Wish I knew.”

“Call in every ten minutes, then.”

“Copy.”

“These headsets are a pain,” said Ehrgeiz, grey eyes fixed on the valley floor.

“Yeah.” Revol ran his fingers through Ru’s hair, matted thick with dried blood. “I’m definitely missing our skullforts right now.”

“Her eye’s regrown some.”

Her empty socket had reformed; the skin along its edge still ragged, and a small gelatinous blob had begun taking shape inside it. Her good eye stared blankly ahead.

Ehrgeiz checked the range finder mounted on his rifle’s upper receiver, then put his eye to the scope. Pale, he’d named it, and he'd painted it to look like fog.

“Anything out there?” Revol asked.

Pale answered with a thunderclap, and far away an enemy fell.

“Not anymore.”

Revol looked back at Ru, then he searched the sky for any trace of Ariel. There was none.

“There’s something about that comet.”

“What do you mean?” Ehrgeiz asked.

“Don’t you feel it?”

The marksman shrugged.

Revol dialed H1’s comms on his vam. “Hey Zep, got a random question for you.”

The soft hum of an active line was the pilot’s only response.

I miss Speck, Revol thought. “Have you scanned Ariel by any chance?”

“No.”

“Send a probe after her.”

The sight of a probe shooting through the sky was the pilot’s response.

“Not much of a talker,” Ehrgeiz commented.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Probably a good thing. Cat gets irritated enough with my mouth runnin’ all day. If we had a guy like Flea, he’d probably lose it.”

“Flea has earned a lot of leeway. You’d be hard pressed to find a more resourceful pilot.”

Revol nodded. The silence that followed made him uneasy. “I didn’t mean anything negative by that. I can tell Flea knows his stuff. I was just saying that…”

“You’re making it worse,” said Ru.

Revil cradled her head on his lap. “Rise and shine sleepy head.”

She felt along the torn edges of her eye socket. “What happened?”

“You stuck your big head up over a rock and got shot, like usual. How you feelin’?”

“Like I got shot in the eye with a laser rifle.”

“Ifreet rifles fire superheated slugs,” Ehrgeiz said. “I believe your pilot’s done an analysis of the metal they make their rounds from.”

“Did he tell you that?” Revol asked.

Ehrgeiz nodded, his still fixed in his scope.

“Can you believe that, Ru? Zep told him but not us. Quiet guys stick together I guess.” He dialed the team channel on his vam. “Hey cap, Ru’s awake. Want us to regroup?”

“Negative. A large patrol is moving your way, probably to check on the ones you've eliminated. Deal with them, then check back in.”

“Copy.”

Ru sat up slowly. “It’s nighttime? Damn. Sorry guys. I don’t know what took me so long.”

“I have a theory,” said Ehrgeiz.

“Let’s hear it,” Revol replied.

“You almost fainted after hurling that rock at the ifrit who shot Haruspex.”

“Aw,” said Ru.

“Don’t get the wrong ideas, lady. And yeah, those effigies are really getting hard to work against.”

“No. They’re not.”

Revol gave Ru an irritated look.

She shrugged. “What’s doing it then?”

“You’re doing it to yourselves.” He took a shot, and as the round left the muzzle brake it glowed with a red light, then split into four smaller rounds and found targets on the other side of the valley. “That didn’t tire me at all.”

“Are those MIRV rounds?” Ru asked.

“No. I split the bullet myself after charging it, acquired each target, then guided the split fragments to each one. And I could do it a dozen times more without breaking a sweat.”

“Put your money where your mouth is, son,” said Revol.

He did, missing only a few targets, whom he then pursued at speed, lifting them from behind cover with precise bursts of radiance to then easily dispatch with his sidearm. When he came back Revol did not see the slightest evidence of fatigue on the man.

“What gives?” he said with an indignant shrug.

“The rest of your team seemed affected,” said Ru.

Ehrgeiz shook his head. “Psychosomatic. My teammates revere the vaunted Harbinger One.”

“And you don’t?” Ru said wryly.

Ehrgeiz smirked, then seemed to be in thought for a brief moment before replying. “I appreciate your competence and, when it’s displayed, your capacity for professionalism.”

“Well, when we’re done blushing, we’ll have to figure this out,” said Ru.

“Already have,” said Revol. Of the many reasons he wanted to sit down with his lady and discuss their memories as they surfaced in Ulro, one was the predicament before them. Revol reached back, detached his skullfort from the side of backpack and held it up in front of them. He blew gently and it scattered into the air; a mist of fine and fading photons.

“I don’t get it,” said Ru.

He sucked air in and drew the finely fading photons back, arranging them in the pattern of the skullfort that now could never crack.

“Our armor,” he said, “our weapons, they’re us. We made them ‘cos they’re what we know; what we think we are.”

“And the act of constantly projecting them and simulating their functions is wearing you out,” said Ehrgeiz. “When we found you, I wondered where your equipment came from. From what I’ve learned from your refugee friend, what is native to one world cannot survive unprotected in the other.”

Ru dropped her rifle to the ground, and it was gone. Then her armor turned to white dust and faded upward, leaving behind a torn red gown.

“Lovely,” said Ehrgeiz.

“Put your armor on, boo,” said Revol. “We’ll have time for dancin’ later.”

She nodded, then reformed her armor, hiding her sudden tears with her skullfort.