“Assume anyone reaving the surface of an abandoned world is capable of anything.”

—General Sigom Brackitt of the Alliance of Worlds

An hour passed before either of them spoke. Xyrthe broke the silence.

“Hey, rook.”

“Hm?” Zaina replied, not bothering to turn toward her mentor.

“Hey—Zaina, stop.”

It wasn’t often that Xyrthe used Zaina’s real name. When she did, it was serious. Zaina froze in place, her heart starting to speed up. “What’s going on?”

“We might have a situation on our hands,” Xyrthe said. “Remember those nine people randomly out and about in the desert?”

“They found us?”

Xyrthe nodded. “It’s possible—they’re closing fast in our general direction. Looks like they have a transport of their own.”

Heart fluttering, a cold flush of panic was coursing through Zaina’s system. “Wh—what are we going to do?”

Xyrthe rubbed her chin. “Well, we might not have to do anything. Their trajectory’s a little off from us. They might be headed to the wreck of our desert rider.”

“Well, if that’s true—”

A grin crossed Xyrthe’s face. “Then we might get the jump on these fuckers.”

Zaina’s gaze fell to the sand below, her mind twisting in knots of worry and fear. Beads of sweat dripped down her face as her hand balled up into a fist, her heart racing. Then, something clapped her shoulder, snapping her out of it—Xyrthe.

“Worried about your first fight as a real lancer?”

Not wanting to show her concern, Zaina forced herself to smile and said, “Oh, so you think I’m a real lancer, then?”

Xyrthe chuckled. “You’ve certainly got the look down. Now comes the hard part. I’ll bet the two of us could kill all nine of those bastards, but only if you’re completely ready to do whatever it takes. Understand? You have to be committed.”

Zaina nodded, averting her gaze. “I understand. Yes. I’m ready.”

“Are you sure?” Xyrthe asked. “Don’t say you’re ready if you aren’t. If you hesitate, you’ll get both of us killed. You have to have my back on this. If you’re not ready, I can come up with another plan—”

“I’m ready.”

“Stand up straight, then,” Xyrthe said. “Let’s get back to the wreck. Hopefully we make it there before them or while they’re still investigating it. I’ll tell you the plan on the way.”

“What if they’re tracking us, and not the rider?” Zaina asked.

With a shrug, Xyrthe said, “Then we probably die.”

Then, she turned and doubled back toward the wrecked desert rider. A frustrated sigh escaped Zaina’s lips as her eyes darted over every horizon of the shifting sands, hyper-aware to any potential threats.

Again they walked in silence, but the still quiet that settled over them this time was different; worry oppressively weighed on Zaina’s mind, fearing her first taste of true combat as a lancer. She’d survived Demelia, sure, even ‘fought’ the Eldritch—got lucky, more like; and against Ovela Midor—the heretic spy in the Order of Riiva—she got pretty lucky, too, only losing an arm. Amid the chaos of a gunfight, there was no telling what could happen—and they were bringing swords.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

After a while Xyrthe stopped and crouched; Zaina followed suit. Xyrthe pulled the vis-screen on her wrist up.

“Less than a mile out,” she said in a low voice. Chimara beeped and whispered something, and then Xyrthe continued, “Thank you, Chimara. They’re already at the wreck. Stay low.”

Heart pumping too fast for comfort, Zaina asked, “Do you have some kind of plan, at least?”

Xyrthe rubbed her chin. “Yes and no. It depends on how spread out they are, what kind of transports they have, what kind of perimeter, if any, they’ve set up. Probably want to kick off the ambush with a grenade, get them off-balance before we close in—or, if they haven’t properly secured the perimeter, we can sneak in and plant the grenades before attacking. See? It depends.”

Zaina rubbed her clammy fingers together. Sweat drenched her entire body, though she still had plenty of energy. Her lips pulled into a tight frown, and she nodded with a sharp, resigned exhale.

Xyrthe stayed as close to the ground as possible as they made the last leg of their journey. The sand dunes gave them cover from their enemies at range, but also kept their enemies out of sight—with every ascent up the side of one of the sloping giants, Zaina’s heartbeat would quicken, wondering if this was the hill over which her enemies waited—over which her life could end.

They were making their way up one of the dunes when Xyrthe stopped, motioning for Zaina to do the same; she then laid prostrate on the sand. Clanking sounds chimed from over the hill, and a handful of scattered voices traded barbs.

Once Zaina copied her, Xyrthe leaned over and whispered, “That’s them. We’re going to crawl up and get a good look.”

Not wanting to show how afraid she was, Zaina nodded, then swallowed a lump in her throat. She shimmied her way up the dune—the coarse sand got everywhere, in her TAC-shawl, her armor, her under-suit; it even stuck to her face and neck, clinging to the layer of sweat. It felt like scraping her body against sandpaper.

Finally, the pulled up to the dune’s peak and peeked over. There, surrounding the wreck below, were indeed nine people, all appearing to be pirates; they wore black armor—similar to what Ondor Almada’s guards wore, but an older model, and with no helmets—and each was disheveled, unshaven, and dirty. Four of them had birifles slung to their back, and four others had resonedges and pistols strapped to their waists. Two long-bodied rectangular transports were humming at the bottom of the adjacent dune, their armor having rusted after years in the sun. Their cargo doors were thrown open, and makeshift scrap-turrets had been attached atop the hulls of both.

The last pirate, seemingly the leader, had a collection of pistols strapped to his belt; his chest covering was identical to the rest, but a black cape was draped over the pauldrons which protected his shoulders. His arms were covered in segmented sleeves of gunmetal-gray armor lined with pearl stripes, and similarly colored machinery ran up his neck and half his face, coalescing into a single, red eye. He appeared to have been human at one point, with pale skin, black hair, and brown eyes. Zaina wondered how much human was left in his body.

They were in the midst of conversation, and spoke loudly enough that Zaina could hear. It seemed they were arguing about how the rider got damaged.

“I’m telling you,” one of the human resonedge wielders said, “Ondor did it himself so he could blame Fell. I mean, two lancers? The Synatorium would have to sign off on a restraint-release for that.”

A shelled, scale-skinned Ilbradian replied, “No, no, no. I’m telling you, it was probably an accident. I’ll bet they didn’t know how to ride one of these. They’re going to be close by.”

The eight marauders all talked over each other, waving their hands as they argued emphatically; this made it impossible for Zaina to distinguish anything until the leader raised his hand. Within two seconds, every one of the pirates fell completely silent.

“Pylo,” he said in a raspy, mechanical voice, “go back to the ship. Get the organic scanners online.”

A young, skinny human male stepped forward. “But, Captain—the battery—”

The cybernetic captain replied, “I don’t want to hear about the damn battery, get it online! Our priority is to search and destroy. Whether they fell off, were sabotaged, or attacked by someone else—we need to know what happened to them. If they’re dead, we need bodies as evidence. No one’s said anything on comms, so we can’t assume they’ve been intercepted.”

“Yes, Captain Gilvus,” one of the biriflers said before running over to one of the transports. Zaina’s heart was beating faster and faster—

Suddenly, something touched Zaina’s shoulder. A yelp escaped her lips—her chest tightened as she turned toward Xyrthe, who had been trying to get her attention.

Voices came from over the hill—along with the sharp hums and clicks of birifles activating, and the deep whirs as resonedges flared to life. “What was that?”

“A diggrathe?”

“There’s no wild animals here, you idiot. That’s probably them!”

Captain Gilvus’s mechanical voice spoke over them. “Fallo. Talon. Albrisk. You check it out. The rest of you, be on the lookout for anyone ‘til we get that scanner online. We don’t want any surprises.”

Zaina gulped, cursing herself under her breath. Her anxiety and fear was going to get them killed. Xyrthe had an amused smile on her face as she leaned in and whispered, “Hey, kid, it’s all right. I have a plan to get their attention. You’ve got grenades—use them.”

“Huh?” Zaina asked, still trying to process the situation.

Xyrthe stood up and raised her hands. “Hey, hey, hey, now, no need for things to get messy. I surrender.”