Early Evening. One day before scheduled arrival of Travelers to Halice

Dreven sighed. Mal had left by now and been replaced by Jaervin. The other Scale towered over the Major, regal blue scales glinting in the lights tied to the walls. Had the Captain been polishing his scales? No matter.

“Captain Syvoski is to be kept under careful watch for right now. Find me an experienced junior officer, I’ll give them orders to relieve him of his command if he starts showing signs of poor judgment or discipline.”

Jaervin frowned. “He should be relieved now if his reliability is in doubt.”

The Major grunted. “Jaervin, if I had to relieve everyone I suspected of unreliability throughout the last six months, I’d have burned through every available soldier on the front line. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I don’t think my experience has been the same as yours sir, but I’ll admit the few months I have spent on the frontline have been relatively light in terms of conflict.”

The Major held back a scoff. Relatively light was underselling the other officer’s record. Jaervin may have commanded AA batteries, but his unit had seen plenty of up close and personal fighting. Too many Travelers loved picking up Flight, Teleportation, Leap, or any other method of covering ground quickly. Three of their targets had at least one of those methods at their disposal.

“Just make sure he doesn’t get too drunk. I’ve already confiscated the booze. His wound would be keeping him down there anyway.” Honestly, it was a miracle Mal could walk around, considering his condition only a week ago.

“They should have sent additional officers,” Jaervin remarked.

“They should have sent a lot of things. We make do with what we have instead. On other matters. Syvoski said the townspeople were stowed away. I want them sealed up for now. Enough air to keep them breathing, but besides that, no access to outside their room.”

It is one of the few ways to keep their location secret. The room was already bigger than most of the buildings on the surface, but being underground gave them more options on where to hide it.

“We should be using them for hostages,” Captain Jaervin stated, staring the Major directly in the eyes. “It would be better than the current plan for them, sir.”

The Major flatly looked back at the resentment in Jaervin’s eyes. The other officer had taken issue with this part of the plan since the first meeting. It was a contingency he despised with every bone in his body. The Major couldn’t fault him for it, but at the same time, as distasteful as the other contingency was, it was one of their better options for the Healer.

“Not a viable option, Jaervin. While it is possible that holding the civilians hostage could gain us some kind of advantage, what’s to keep them from just running away? Searching for help would be as useless to us as they're escaping unscathed the moment they arrive. We need them as bait to keep them here.”

“And this is Captain Graecing’s plan, then?” Jaervin asked.

“It is my plan, Captain,” The Major warned.

“It is blasphemous and immoral, Major,” Jaervin protested.

“So is most of the war, Captain. Make your peace with it.” His tone brooked no disagreement, and while Jaervin’s expression turned stormy, he did not raise any other objections. Jaervin left the room with a quick salute.

Two officers were clashing with him so far. Graeceling wouldn’t be enough to hold this together if either of them decided to go the route of insubordination.

Will he disobey? That is the question. Jaervin did come from an old noble line, and he’d been around the other officer long enough. The other Scaverian resented how the social walls had come crumbling down. The amount of disobedience and reluctance he got from the other officer would not be the same if the Major’s scales were a color besides brown.

Evening approached quickly. There’d be some more organization to do, then rest, then waking up for what would likely be his last day among the living.

He’d need to clear his head. Something easier. It was time to go see how the rigging of the buildings was being done. He shouldn’t be too concerned. They were experts at turning things into rubble by this point, but it would keep his mind occupied.

***

Dreven looked at a nearby house, idly poking the wall with the butt of his gun. The entire structure appeared to lean as he pressed in on it.

“Don’t think any of this will hold up, sir, so we didn’t bother reinforcing them,” Liatenut Hascell said next to him. The engineering officer towered over him currently, enough that it provided a bit of relief from the morning sun. “Explosion will probably take most of them down.”

“All the buildings further in are prepared, though?” He already knew the answer but wanted the assurance of learning again. It was hard not to let that apprehension show this close to the arrival.

“Done, sir, and in the same condition they were this morning. I’ll wager my life on every wire, every tunnel, every rigged-up building.” The engineering lieutenant waved her hand at the buildings further into the town from them. “The existing construction is pretty solid, so some of the rigging’s been difficult, but I checked everything as best I could without triggering them. They’ll work.”

“No chance they’ll collapse any of the tunnels?”

“I can’t guarantee no chance. But they are reinforced to an extent that I feel confident in. And about as much as we can do. There is only so much reinforcing you can do. Especially when you wanna drive half-tracks and tanks through them.”

“Point taken. The drills?”

“Set up like you want them. You think anyone is going to take that bait?”

“Perhaps. It’s not like we have too many other uses for them. If I need an emergency tunnel done, Marva can form it. Better we get some additional use out of them.”

“You don’t think they are going back to Scaveria?”

“I don’t think we are returning to Scaveria, Lieatenut.”

“Have a little hope, Major. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of this operation?”

“The goal of this operation is to kill or keep busy five otherworlders who shouldn’t even be on this planet.”

“I’d say that’s something to hope for.”

***

Time was running slim. Hours now. Ticking away slowly. But inexorably. Eating away at morale.

They’d finished the preparations early, only three days into it. A mistiming that he’d worried would be their end. It had been four days of waiting for their deaths to arrive. They’d dug and built for another two, well beyond what he had imagined as their best case.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Everyone here had already been at their limits before being sent here. He’d made sure the worst cases were kept home. Did he trust the ones left after? Yes. But he couldn’t count on his own judgment anymore.

Especially since so few of them had served with him before this operation launched, his newly reformed 1st Battalion of the 32nd Assault Regiment.

To call them a battalion would be a lie. Their numbers swelled far beyond that. Officially they were Battle Group Juragedo, named after a great fire wyrm that had once dwelled in their northern hills.

A fitting name. Juragedo’s death to Traveler’s hunting her for experience and crafting supplies had claimed two of their number dead or crippled. They hoped to outperform her this week.

Hold them off for a week, or disable them. Upon completion of either of the latter of these objectives, travel home will be allowed.

He wasn’t sure how many had deluded themselves into thinking it was possible. He was not among their number.

It would be easy to blame high command for this. Dreven wasn’t sure if he did or not. Did they need to do this? Debatable. Maybe they could hold the riverline. But a chance at starting a united offensive against Aetheria? It might be worth the risk.

Not letting them home till they finished he could at least understand. Allowing Travelers access to a portal inside Scaveria? Even with relatively lower-level ones, there was too much risk. As cold as it was, it’d cost fewer lives. Not much comfort to him or his unit.

Still, even if he thought their task pointless, there was no reason to project anything but confidence in the troops. He was hardly ready to lie down for the oncoming Travelers either. There would be a price for Trost.

***

Inside the central belltower tower of the Unified Doctrine Church of Halice, Sergeant Hasha Yarrow kept her sniper rifle trained on the train tracks. The cold of the morning had finally become bearable enough that she’d stopped for shivering.

For worshippers and descendants of dragons, you think they’d be able to handle the cold better.

She’d been up here since the evening before yesterday. While most of the rest of the unit had partied that evening away, drinking and feasting and screwing in their probably last chance to do any of that. She’d even gotten a few offers before she had slunk away to the tower, politely turned them down, and spent the night waiting in the belltower with a few bottles of spirits to keep her company.

There’d been hell to pay in the morning, both from the amount of alcohol she had drank and from her CO demanding she come down and take over leadership of her squad. She’d refused quietly. Then forcefully. It had gotten ugly. Other officers had come. Eventually, they’d decided to leave her alone.

Her squad would be thankful. Their icon of ill-omen had left before they suffered its effects. No one wanted to be in her squad. After long enough, no one wanted anything in her squad because they’d be dead within a month.

The average was two, but no one cared about being accurate when telling those stories. She’d heard a few, at least. There’d be more she probably wasn’t even aware of.

She didn’t care at this point. When it started, she’d done her best to shed that reputation, but it had stuck to her by now. The sole survivor of her squad. Everyone died, every time. No one got a chance to transfer out.

Steam rose in the distance, heralding their targets' arrival. White and pale steam, nothing more than vaporized water. They still hadn’t figured out how to mix magic with it. Because of the death of the dragons, the Aetherians might never.

She hadn’t been there the night a party of five had confronted the most powerful of the ancient dragons in his lair above their once capital of Verdurv. One of the few great above-ground cities they’d built. She’d never been there and she’d never be able to now. She’d visited the ashes that had given truth to the stories she heard.

They slew mighty Avesun, who came from the depths and taught us how to forge metal and carve tunnels. The one trying to meld machinery and magic. They slew him and the veins of the earth beneath turned to magma and the sky bled acid. The earth shook and swallowed entire districts as they tore out the heart of the great drake for their ritual. A god’s worth of experience for them all, and with ritual killing an entire possibility of the System’s evolution.

She’d witnessed part of it, the night of his death. Far from the city, right when the ritual had taken place. Her uncle, a longtime practitioner, returned from a visit to Verdurv, wanting to show them, dragging out one of the new motorized tractors that had arrived so recently to their village and weaving magic.

The explosion of metal had cut him to shreds. Cut more than him. Would have cut her if not for her scales. She’d been the only survivor pulled from the twisted mixture of flesh and metal that had once been her family. She’d been the only witness to that example of Travelers strangling that possibility in its crib.

She’d dragged herself from the scythed-apart ruins of their house, bleeding, to find that her country was at war. That the Travelers had been responsible for her family’s deaths.

It had been a long eight years since.

The train was in sight now, pulling over the horizon. It's time to get out of this tower. Once the opening salvos were fired, they’d hit the tower first—the most obvious place to take shots with a scope from.

She doubted it’d be standing by the time the first day was over. For now, time to find a better place to hide.

Everyone was hidden, either underground or well out of sight of the train station, but it had been more of a challenge for the heavier equipment. It wasn’t a large town, and spaces for them to hide were rare. Some of it was underground, but some needed to be on the surface to respond quickly. Hiding behind buildings, engines cold, was the best they could do for now.

The enemy had systemsight anyway. They wouldn’t be hidden for long.

***

“Look, I’m not claiming that all the dragons are dead, but one hasn’t been seen in years at this point. Most of their smaller brethren are gone too. Any that are left probably fled for the wilds.”

Rebecca wished everyone would be quiet for just a few minutes. Instead, another argument had broken out once again. At least this one seemed friendlier.

“What if there’s one in the Dungeons?” Lewis asked.

“If there’s one in there, it doesn’t count, the way they handle creatures. Killing a dragon would be as easy as everything else you mowed your way through down there.”

“Please. Isn’t your big kill from a group of around twenty Travelers all fighting the same monster? Sounds pretty easy to me.”

“You’re one to talk, Lisa. You get most of your level-ups fed to you, smashing apart Scale positions daily, if not from the dungeon. The biggest thing you fought that wasn’t raised in captivity was a firedrake that turned tail once it realized who you were.”

“Isn’t that a point in my favor? I ground my way to this level the hard way, not getting the killing blow on an oversized lizard and instantly ranking up my levels.”

The others were talking to each other, chatting. But Rebecca noticed immediately. They'd seen and dismissed no one being at the train station when they’d pulled in. It was supposed to be a surprise visit.

But no one on the streets. Or in the windows. No signs of life. Even deeper into the town, beyond what the others could see. She could see it all as she turned on her senses, about to say something to the others, when she froze.

In a window, in one of the streets leading into town. A figure in an overcoat of green and grey, wearing a mask of metal resembling a snarling dragon’s head. Scaverians. The Scales. They were here.

She opened her Systemsight, and the warning she was yelling almost died in her throat. Dozens of profiles. Hundreds. They were here in force. Her hand instinctively went for a knife as she tried to yell out a warning.

***

Vorenz put his hand on the plunger, and immediately, the lead Traveler’s gaze snapped to the window he was peering from. Gotcha, Vorenz thought as his hand hammered down. A second later, shards of glass pelted his face as a thrown knife smashed through the window. It plunged point first into his eye.

At the train station, the ground underneath the Traveler’s feet burst apart, wood splintering, and earth sent flying as ten tons of explosives detonated. The train was flung backward, carriages shattering into pieces, and the undercarriages sent scything through the woods, blasting through trees. The locomotive swelled and then burst as the boiler ruptured, steam escaping out of forming rents and blasting throughout the air.

Nearby buildings shuddered under the blast wave, the closest collapsing as frail wood or crumbling stone collapsed under the shock. The company had chosen their positions well but didn’t make them immune to the blast. Soldiers clung tightly to their positions as the ground shook and walls rumbled.

On a rooftop, Hasha kept her scope trained on where the Travelers had been even as the roofing underneath her shuddered.

Flashing spheres of blue light appeared around three of them. The Juggernaut was left bare, not that he seemed to care as he refused to budge even as the explosives went off right under him. Debris and shrapnel blasted into him, failed to find purchase, and ricocheted off.

The other three weren’t so lucky. The spheres absorbed the blast, but not the force, and the Blade, the Lancer, and the Priest were sent blasting backward, joining the train in scything through the forest trees. The last one though, the Skysummoner, shot straight up into the air. Not part of the plan.

Those three would be back, but the others were their primary concern for now.