Ratcatcher rested her back against the steel wall of the plane and let all her worries go away. In less than ten minutes, they should reach the designated drop point. A cloaking field surrounding the transport’s slender form would keep them hidden from detection until they arrived deep inside the Desolation. Penetrating anywhere deeper was not an option. Either the brutal sandstorm or anomalous EMP field might ruin their transport, or Changed with echolocation abilities would detect them. Her gear resting next to her, Ratcatcher looked around.

Opposite of her sat Kayleen. A black and bulky power armor covered the Wolfkin’s body. Her armor left her fingers, mouth, and toes open, allowing Kayleen to use her fangs and claws in battle. The wolf hag wore a camouflage cloak over the armor, claiming that she worked as a scout for a long time in her tribe. An oversized shardgun, a weapon capable of unleashing armor piercing shards, rested next to the small metallic backpack on her back. A row of acid grenades lay in the armored pocket of her power armor. Noticing Ratcatcher’s look, Kayleen threw up her head, allowing the upper part of her helmet to slide onto her chest plate and back. Avoiding looking into Kayleen’s amber eyes, Ratcatcher quickly looked aside.

Smar sat next to Elirob, held in place with a harness, unlike the rest of the members of their small expedition. Still wearing her medic coat, Smar now wore an exosuit of yellow color, with a visor showing her face. Ratcatcher felt this to be a wise choice. An exosuit will take care of heat and provide adequate assistance during travel. Without proper training, the enhanced abilities that any power armor gives could lead to their user snapping their arms or legs easily. A medic’s markings decorated Smar’s coat, although Ratcatcher doubted how helpful they would be in a place that has never signed any international treaties.

Elirob held himself easily, finishing putting his new assault rifle back together. The visor of his helmet was down, showing keen eyes examining his weapon. He wore a light model of power armor, one that enhanced speed and agility above all else at the cost of protection. Unlike Kayleen’s power armor, his and Ratcatcher’s armor had no oversized pauldrons or energy backpacks at their backs. In addition to the assault rifle, Elirob picked up a few plasma grenades and twin knives.

Augustus sat next to Ratcatcher, holding his eyes closed, his sabers in sheaths on his back. Rather than being built, the brown carapace of his armor had been grown in one of the many facilities of Rho Biological. This parody of a power armor, capable of withstanding impressive thermal changes and repairing damage, was one of many miracles created by the Rho family. The helmet of his armor looked like a bug’s head because it had compound lenses instead of a normal visor. Ratcatcher once tried it on and felt dizzy for the rest of the day after seeing the world through hundreds of different “eyes”. He carried no grenades, choosing to take only two armor-piercing pistols with him.

“We are nearly there,” she broke the silence, “Give me your hands, everyone.”

“Whatever for?” Kayleen demanded to know.

“I have a power. Just a minor one, it allows me to mark people and sense their locations. The closer we are, the better I can pinpoint someone’s whereabouts. Could be useful if we are getting separated in a sandstorm.”

“I had already scented-marked you all. I think it should suffice.” Kayleen’s eyes flashed with indignation. “What’s stopping you from later using this power of yours to spy on me?”

“I’ll give you my word that I’ll never use this mark against you. That and it wears off after a month. It is really no big deal, the accuracy suffers at larger distances.” Ratcatcher tried to assure her.

“If this is not a big deal, then…”

“Kayleen.” Augustus opened his eyes.

“Tch. Fine,” the Wolfkin gave up, “I’ll just report myself as compromised after the mission.”

Ratcatcher took the woman’s paw and pressed her finger against Kayleen’s finger with a smile that hid her teeth. A bit surprised at the tough skin beneath the fur, Ratcatcher created the link. A jolt of electricity shot from two, and the explorator felt Kayleen’s presence, clearer than ever before. She knew exactly how fast the Wolfkin’s heart was beating, heard the echo of an annoyed thought in her head, and felt loyalty to the mission along with a distaste for her current companions. These impressions did not linger, disappearing in the next moment, but from this moment on and for the next thirty days, the two of them became connected. Ratcatcher went on and marked every other member of the expedition, gently patting Smar after catching her worried thoughts and feeling surprised at the utter void that was Elirob’s inner thoughts.

A siren’s roar announced their arrival at the designated location. The doors of their compartment soundlessly opened, allowing the team to see yellow sands, occasionally filled with stone formations, stretching as far as the eye could see. Receiving confirmation that no sentient beings were detected in the nearby vicinity, Kayleen and Ratcatcher both charged off, jumping from a height of four hundred meters without a moment’s hesitation. Like a girl, the explorator allowed a wide green to come onto her lips, feeling the air pushing against her fur and hair and sensing a tingling sensation on her whiskers. At the last second, Ratcatcher pulled her hair closer, allowing the helmet to fully close around her head.

She and Kayleen landed like twin bombs, creating streams of sand all around themselves. The Wolfkin landed on all fours and leaped through the rising wall of sand before it could calm itself. Her figure turned into a blur as she charged toward a nearby rock. Not feeling the impact from the landing, Ratcatcher looked up, seeing how the other three members had jumped out. She caught Smar before the woman could splatter herself against the sand.

“Thanks,” the medic said.

“No biggie.” Ratcatcher helped her stand, feeling how Augustus and Elirob crashed next to them.

Above them, the Iternian craft turned around, fired its engines, and left for the safety of the Iternian airspace. Augustus briefly consulted with the terminal installed in his wrist before gesturing for the team to follow him across the sand.

They walked for a good hour, finding their way across pools of quicksand and avoiding any settlement. The patrol routes Artificer provided them with have allowed the team to traverse vast distances in relative safety without encountering either Changed or Naturalborns. Kayleen prowled at the edges, constantly sniffing and growling, sometimes burrowing herself all the way down to her waist in the sand in the group’s path. She always came up, holding some dangerous critter—an insectoid worker or a scorpion—and devouring the poisonous beings to slake her bloodthirst. Despite the Wolfkin’s silence, Ratcatcher caught herself thinking that they were moving far too slowly for her liking.

Passing through a ruined village, Ratcatcher felt a tingle of sadness. The Desolation wasn’t a burning hellscape like the Ravaged Lands, where a person could literally be left with serious burns upon being exposed to the sun. No, during the day, the temperature here felt hot, sure, but nothing a human could not survive in. In the Ravaged Lands, each village had special moisture traps, tall devices capable of collecting water from the atmosphere. They worked all night long, and settlers would collect the precious resource at dawn. Combining with the fact that cusacks, a very tame type of omnivore capable of surviving even in the harshest environments, produced enough milk to sustain villagers just from eating scraps of insectoids, it allowed humanity to endure and even thrive.

Here, the settlers tried the same. Ratcatcher saw several ruined moisture traps and underground dens to keep in cusacks. The slave populus of the Desolation was sometimes allowed to own mechanical devices, depending on their overlords’ mood. Sometimes they even allowed them to have simple weapons and firearms. Clearly, the one overlord who ruled this area was of more enlightened stock, judging by the remains of moisture traps lying around, everything valuable had long since been scavenged from their shells. A tall wooden wall surrounded the village. All houses looked the same, an ugly mishmash of huts made of cusacks’ wool and pieces of stone rubble. Her throats turned dry upon seeing a piece of parchment nailed to the wall: “Relocated on Ahya’s orders due to dwindling livestock and critters’ attack.” She knew exactly what sort of cattle these bastards meant.

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“This is the place,” Elirob stated, looking around. “Underway’s guides were supposed to arrive here way ahead of us and meet us at this hut.”

“Perhaps the road ended up being more problematic than they thought.” Augustus looked around. “We will wait here for an hour. Smar, can you feel the pull?”

“Always.” The medic nodded.

This time, the ground never shook under Kayleen’s landing. The Wolfkin pressed a finger to her lips, pointing at the eastern part of the settlements with a claw.

“Found our guides. And eight Changed too. Flatty types, like the ones who attacked the Wall.”

“Betrayal?” Elirob asked, reaching for the weapon.

“Negative, far too few numbers to take us on. From the looks of it, Changed had stumbled on our guides and now are busy knocking them around.”

“We have to save them.” Ratcatcher took the mancatcher off her shoulder, noticing a thoughtful expression on Augustus’ face.

“Why?” Kayleen spat on the ground. “The bastards were supposed to lead us across the Desolation unnoticed. If they can’t even arrive at a meeting place unnoticed, what good are they? I say good riddance.”

“It is in both Iterna’s and the Reclamation Army’s interests to preserve the Underway. And we never know when we might need the rebels’ good graces.” Augustus took out a saber. “Smar, you’ll stay behind. Elirob, guard her. Kayleen, Ratcatcher, with me.”

They rushed to the wooden wall, jumping on it and hiding behind the dried-up wood. Ignoring a few critters running here and there, Ratcatcher glanced through a crack. Just like Kayleen said, eight Changed, each with a bio-cannon for their left arm, surrounded a young-looking man and woman dressed in cloaks. The supposed guides’ bows and daggers lay on the ground, while one of the Changed has gotten busy grabbing a male by the throat, hissing a question of what they are doing in an abandoned area. Sounding frightened, the male whispered that he and his sister came here to hunt some insectoids for dinner.

“Is that so?” The Changed threw him to the ground. “Who do you take me for, slave? There are insectoids everywhere! Perhaps a modicum of acid will loosen your tongue…”

“Conserve the ammo. Kayleen, you take the three on the right. I am saving the prisoners. Elisa, deal with the two on the left,” Augustus gave the command.

They jumped off the wall in unison, Kayleen and Augustus slowing themselves to time up their attack with Ratcatcher’s. Charging at the backs of the Changed, Ratcatcher tried to banish all the worries from her mind. Hurting others… She’s done this before, right? She could do it again. Right now, these soldiers are no longer human beings, just obstacles that need to be removed. That’s all.

The Changed started to turn, seeing something in the faces of their prisoners. With a flick of his wrist, Augustus sliced off the bio-cannon threatening the local. Before the Changed could even give up a roar of pain, a sword strike behind his left leg brought him on his knees, a kick in the back of his head sent him down, while the saber pierced an eye of the nearby Changed.

Kayleen’s claws scratched against the Changed’s chitinous armor plates, failing to penetrate them. In a burst of violence, the soldier turned, trying to bisect the Wolfkin with his own clawed hand and follow it up with acid. Kayleen kicked the Changed in the jaw, sending his head up with a loud snapping sound. Not stopping at this, she has rammed her left paw between the twitching jaws, breaking the fangs, and grabbed the Changed’s left arm, using his own bio-cannon at another Changed.

Ratcatcher used the blade of her weapon to send one of the Changed face-down into the sand before spinning the mancatcher and landing a straight hit with the lower end of its staff right into the forehead of the remaining Changed, where his chitinous plating connected with the skin. The soldier toppled back, hissing in excruciating pain as the bones of his skull suffered a minor fracture. Before he could stand up, the mancatcher’s blades closed around his thick neck.

“Surrender,” Ratcatcher said, realizing the stupidity of her words a second later.

Where exactly would they keep prisoners? Can they really spend their medicines on treating their wounds and feeding them? Leaving them tied up in the desert could only mean a slow death. Letting them go will spell doom for their mission. No, taking prisoners wasn’t an option here.

The Changed’s legs closed around her leading leg, an ankle above her knee from the left side, the other leg pushing below her knee from the right side. The mutant’s surprised strength failed to down her, and Ratcatcher took aim and fired one dart straight into his eye.

Her dart went through the Changed’s pupil, turning the eye into a liquid. It then went deeper, through the eye socket, and into his brain, pushing up one of the chitinous plates on the back of his head.

His body twitched, giving one last violent push, before turning limp. Ratcatcher saw how the man’s other pupil dilated, a rasping, hissing gasp left the mutated lips, and his claws scratched against the sand helplessly. Releasing his bowels and giving one last whining sound, the Changed died, still twitching with his good eye.

I took a life. Again. Took something from a living being that I can never repay or restore. Ratcatcher thought in shock, her body moving on its own following years of grueling training. She blocked an attack aimed at the back of her neck, sending the clawed hand away, darted to dodge the acid blob that began to dissolve the corpse behind her. Wrapping her tail against the foe’s leg and pulling the soldier off balance, Ratcatcher went on the offensive. She used the blades of her weapon to smash aside the cannon and buried the end of her staff in the Changed’s neck, snapping both the bones and trachea. Gurgling and rasping sounds coming from the Changed’s throat felt undeniably female to Ratcatcher’s ears.

Unwilling to let the injured foe slowly and painfully die upon choking on her own blood, Ratcatcher finished her by pushing the mancatcher’s lower end through the soldier’s upper jaw, destroying the brain. A female. Does this mean that Changed might have families? Could these soldiers have someone waiting for them at their homes?

Six lives now. It’s all so simple. A few have to die, so thousands might live in safety. Numbly, she looked at the body, spinning her weapon to get rid of blood and flesh. And they are evil people, cannibals, and oppressors. So… why does it shock me? My hands are bloodied, are they not? Why can’t my emotions just go numb so I can do what must be done in peace? This is the life I always wanted, right?

“Elisa.” Augustus slashed his sword in the air, removing all traces of blood from the gleaming steel. “How are you?”

“Everything’s fine," she told him offhandedly, nearly throwing up at the sight of Kayleen biting off the head of the last Changed. The Wolfkin’s long snout got buried into the still-warm body, and as Kayleen tore her head free, an arc of blood and bone followed in her wake.

Burn her visage in your memory. Ratcatcher looked at her victims, remembering Dad’s words. It’s not supposed to be easy, Ratcatcher. You have done nothing wrong. She would have killed you, but if you become like her, if you become like this hunter who feels thrilled upon taking a life, she wins from beyond the grave. Hold on to your inner self and never let it become tainted and wither, my girl. The young explorator could almost feel Dad’s hands taking her into a hug, trying to calm down a crying and panicking girl.

“We can’t just leave,” Ratcatcher said, snapping out of her thoughts.

“What, are you going to give them a burial now, Iternian…” Kayleen stopped, looking into her visor. “Want to talk about it, Ratcatcher?” The Wolfkin asked in a softer tone.

“No, nothing like this,” She shook her head, “Should someone find the bodies anytime soon, we might get compromised.” Ratcatcher nodded at the cut bio-cannon. “Augustus, please take our new friends and move on ahead. I’ll dispose of the remains and join you all soon enough.”

Augustus said nothing else, taking both shocked people with him to meet up with Smar. Kayleen hesitated for a moment before getting down on all fours and running into the desert, sniffing loudly and looking for any potential dangers. Left alone, Ratcatcher has summoned the Map, making sure that she can still see the positions of her allies. Relieved, she set to do her own work, taking a long knife from a scabbard.

First, she cut off her dart from the corpse, cleaned it of blood and brain matter, and placed it back into the launcher. Her visor moved back into her helmet, allowing the woman to inhale hot, acid-laced air filled with the smell of released bowels. Using her knife, she opened the bellies of the fallen soldiers, pushing their guts out. Finished, Ratcatcher walked aside, remembering Kayleen’s style of hunting insectoids. Standing on all fours and walking like a beast, Ratcatcher allowed her whiskers to touch the sand. Her sense of smell and hearing were inferior to the Wolfkin’s, but she too had her own tricks. Upon contacting a surface, her whiskers could catch vibrations from a distance of several dozen meters.

In a minute, she sensed it and leapt forward, thrusting her right hand into the hot sand and grabbing the wriggling form of an insectoid drone. The creature looked smaller when compared to its variants from the Ravaged Lands. It has six long legs ending in sword-like tips, capable of slicing through her armor eventually, and the mandibles clicked angrily at her touch. Raising a meter long body, she threw it closer to corpses, making sure the insectoid lashes up against one of the corpses before giving up a barely audible screech.

Grabbing her mancatcher, the explorator rushed after her team. Within the next few hours, only a pile of bones will be left in the wake of the insectoids feast, and the wind will remove their footsteps, surely throwing anyone who finds the dead soldiers off the team’s trail.

Before joining Augustus and the others, Ratcatcher briefly intoned a simple prayer to the Planet, asking the deity to show the soldiers mercy for any sins they had committed and give them a kinder afterlife.