Reflection of Eos City Ethereal Realm 41 ABY
Calling the Brotherhood’s charge into the Ethereal Realm an invasion was certainly one way to describe the endeavor. Like an invasion, a cacophony of chaos and confusion permeated in the world beyond the portal. Yet unlike the Collective’s invasion of Arx, or the Children’s attempts at attacking each of the Clans on their home turf, none of the established rules of engagement and warfare seemed to apply to the scene that now unfolded.
All the careful preparation, research, and reconnaissance that the Council had undertaken was, unsurprisingly, breaking against the shield wall that was their first true encounter with the chaotic laws of the extra dimensional plane on an enormous scale. And while the Brotherhood was, seemingly, united under one banner, there was still the operational task of coordinating seven different armed forces for each of the respective Clans, and their cadre of soldiers, leaders, and Force Users—all of whom had different ideas and approaches to how things should be done.
It did not help that—and she couldn’t stress this enough—the literal laws of physics and logic were being defied at every turn. Capital ships had gone dark. Fully dark, still floating like a spaceship, but no operational comms, lights, or weapon systems. Starfighters were crashing into one another, but instead of ochre balls of flame and shrapnel, they seemed to simply evaporate into mist without so much as a sound.
Some of the changes weren’t as drastic as others. If anything, these smaller differences were the most disorienting. Gravity shifting how high or far you could jump wasn’t a difficult adjustment, but when an acceleration toggle on a speeder suddenly became the brakes and the brakes and the fuel in the engine became fruit juice
Things were weird. Even for a member of Voidbreaker Battleteam, who lived to be weird.
”`
The Shattered Plains Ethereal Realm Modified Shuttle
Zig had referenced and read through all the data the Inquisitorius had made available about the Ethereal Realm internally to members of the Brotherhood. She knew that sudden changes to directional calibration and engine output were a real threat that would need near-instant adjustments on the fly to prevent from crashing. That’s what SPAZ was for, her SP-4 Analysis Droid. The know-it-all droid was ready to patch into the shuttle’s control and execute the emergency overrides or custom firmware she’d coded to help compensate for sudden shifts or changes.
As the shuttle flew slowly and steadily towards the “Corpse Fields,” her helmet’s HUD flashed strings of metrics, distances, and data that she was idly nodding along to. Outside the shuttle, long stretches of what she assumed was “land” had been carved up like a toddler having a go at a birthday cake. Large, spanning chasms separated entire platforms of broken terrain. Some had slopes and crags where you could clearly see the bottoms. Others had no bottoms to them whatsoever, and if you looked for too long in any one space, you could have seen some looming figure lurching but then disappearing the second you started to overthink about it.
Zig Kaliska looked around at the fellow Voidbreakers selected for this strike team. Marick Tyris Arconae and Mune Cinteroph spoke calmly to one another, neither seeming phased or bothered by the bedlam breaking out all around them as they traversed the ever-changing terrain. She had been surprised to see Marick being pushed to the front lines, but the Elder Arcanist had actually insisted. While she knew what that sacrifice could mean for his family, she was nonetheless grateful.
There were few people she felt truly safe around, and Marick had been surviving encounters that should have killed him his entire life. Likewise, even with their… condition, Mune was a warm, reliable hearth burning amidst a cold mountain pass.
As they moved along, Zig desperately wished for Zuza to be by her side but also took comfort, perhaps, in her not being there. The jumble of emotions wrestled around inside her heart as her mind tried to wrench the warring fighters away and back to their respective corner, but it was no easy feat.
A droid beeped whimsically at her from its perch on Marick’s shoulder.
“Yeah, Biddy, we’re definitely not in Arx anymore,” she replied.
Rounding off the team was a smaller part of her anxiety, hoping to keep everyone safe. Adem Bol’era had been put on her team on the Voidbreaker, so she already felt responsible for his safety although the Umbarran was, in fact, a highly competent engineer and space wizard.
Nicfer Luthol, meanwhile, had gone unusually quiet. She had gotten used to the Zeltron dry, witty commentary, but the former Mercenary turned Dajorran Marshal seemed to be internalizing a lot. Zig didn’t know her entire history but knew it was connected to the Children of Mortis. So, she tried her best to be friendly and welcoming.
The last member of the team was…well, she had tried to stop him from coming but then realized he would have then just found a way to be included, so she might as well just skip the theatre and bring him along.
“Hey Zig, is your datapad getting any bars? I don’t seem to have any, so I toggled it into starfighter mode…”
Normal Space The Voidbreaker II Medical Bay – Pre-mission
The white-furred Shistavanen twitched on the medical table. It felt like hours they have been putting up with the prodding, poking, and scans. They started growling at the apparatuses doing their jobs more than once before snapping their muzzle shut with an air of embarrassment. Carr sat in a chair nearby and listened impatiently while the physician threw more medical jargon to convince them to listen to what he considered to be logic.
“It is my professional opinion that you refrain from taking to the field,” the AAF-issued physician tried to explain once again. “There is no telling what can exacerbate the issue. Brain scans reveal some abnormal activity.”
“Opinion noted,” Mune shrugged his shirt back on, “and quickly forgotten.”
“What are you doing? I’ve yet to complete your examination,” annoyed with his patient, “ the physician tried to sit the Shistavanen back down.
“Leaving. I have a mission to prepare for,” Mune explained as if it were obvious.
“Kid, aren’t you going to stop them? They are your brother!”
“Meh.” Carr shrugged and got up, stowing his datapad in his satchel.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“With them, duh?” Carr followed their older sibling’s tail out the door.
“`
Shattered Field Ethereal Realm Modified Shuttle – Present
Splashes of vivid colour and contorting shapes. A feeling of vast, warping space and time. The sensation was surreal, disorienting, disconcerting. Marick’s voice called them back from the fractured sea of visions the Force visited upon them, a question in his cool gaze. The Shistavanen answered with a cryptic smile and shrug of their shoulders.
“Insightful as always,” Marick commented dryly.
“There is only so much I can gather from a whole lot of nothing,” Mune responded. “It is not that I cannot decipher the images…it is that there is quite literally nothing decipherable.”
“Which, in and of itself, has piqued your curiosity?”
“It is unfair that you can read me so well, and I can no longer read you,” Mune grinned toothily. “Yes, I find it both curious and unnerving, the effects this place has on the Force and how we interact with it.”
“Or how it interacts with us,” Marick added.
“Mm. Also that.” Mune scratched a flicking ear idly in thought.
The Shattered Plains Ethereal Realm Modified Shuttle
The sound of rattling foil could barely be heard under the noise of the shuttle engines and the rumbles of turbulence. Upon biting into the last protein wafer from the pack, Adem Bol’era tossed its wrapping into the floor, where BD-99 and his counterpart Biddy quickly skittered to investigate the refuse. The Umbaran chewed slowly. The bland, dry, and achingly dense packet of “food” was his last distraction from the roiling atmosphere around himself. He didn’t feel terribly alone, after all it was evident that everyone around him was experiencing some form of discomfort or another, but perceived isolation was hardly the problem at hand.
“Bwooo-oo?” Nines cocked his head at Adem and extended a leg to poke at the discarded wrapper. Anxious was too small a word for the Umbaran, struggling to ignore how warped the weave of the Force became as the shuttle drew closer. Like a river he almost effortlessly swam in suddenly flowing backwards, then turning unnaturally placid one moment and churning into violent rapids the next. It felt almost entirely alien to him for the first time he could remember. Marick had described the Children of Mortis to him with severe clarity, but feeling the influence they had was altogether different for Adem.
This shuttle couldn’t land soon enough.
The Shattered Plains Ethereal Realm Modified Shuttle
’This is dumb… And stupid. And didn’t I mention: dumb?’
Nicfer was trapped in her thoughts and her body showed it. The Zeltron was hunched forward, hair acting like a curtain that could hide her expression from the rest of the crew. Probably for the best, as not a day earlier she was packing her bags and risking voiding her deal with the Brotherhood to not have to face the Children of Mortis. Just stealing a shuttle and disappearing in the dead of night. She wasn’t actually sure if the Brotherhood would spare the resources to hunt her down, but in the end, Nicfer didn’t want to risk it. So here she was, about to be dealing with the demons of her past and ghosts she had tried hard to forget about.
Shaking her head, she fought the memories trying to flood back in of her previous crew and what fates her twisted imagination came up with for their fate. No, she had to focus on something else. Like the annoyance that they were on a ship and she was not piloting it right now. It’s not like Steven was here to kick out of her throne behind the controls, but someone who outranked her enough she didn’t wanna risk it.
She almost let a dry half-laugh escape her lips at the thought. She was more annoyed that she wasn’t allowed to fly through the death field where physics was thrown out the window than worried about what might happen to them.
Sitting up, Nicfer pushed the hair out of her face and decides to stare up at the ceiling now. She sighed like a teenager stuck in detention with nothing to do.
“BOOOOORED! Why couldn’t I fly with my probe swarm idea sending sensor data back? I’m a pilot, not a box of cargo. I mean Steven Jerryson would let me fly.”
She was trying a bit too hard to compensate for her nerves. She just hoped it came off like her typical sarcastic self.
“I’m so glad you asked,” Zig replied cheerfully, though it was clear that she did so through the veil of concentration, and was not, in fact, glad. “According to advance recon data, they tried drones, but they more often than not would veer off course, not respond to the remote transponders, and in some cases go rogue, attack one another, or simply fly off into the void never to return,” she explained perhaps a bit more glib than intended.
“Excuses,” Nicfer responded with a sniff.
Zig focused on the inverted controls, engineering against her own muscle memory and understanding of piloting mechanics.
“Are we there yet?” Nicfer inquired.
“No,” Zig replied curtly.
“How about now…?” Carr chimed in, grinning at Nicfer and having picked up on the game of ‘annoy the Zygerrian pilot’.
“No! Trust me it’s not as easy as it—”
The shuttle lurched suddenly and started to bank violently to port. Zig scrambled to adjust the gravitational compensators as everyone in the shuttle started to lift off the ground slightly. Her fingers dashed across the console, adroit with intent, and she reverted the axis stabilizer to its default setting instead of her presets.
It helped for a moment, but then the shuttle began to plummet.
“We’re going to have to make this an emergency air-drop,” Zig shouted. “I will bring us in at an angle. Go, go go!”
Marick blinked once, but showed no form of panic or concern otherwise. The shuttle’s side-door opened and he made some quick mental calculations. There was no telling that the Force would even help, but there was little time to worry.
“Cinteroph,” Marick spoke to the elder Shistavanen.
“Yes?— ” Carr tried to interject, but the Hapan was clearly speaking to the taller Shistavanen.
“—Mhm,” Mune replied, ignoring Carr and grabbing their younger brother by the arm.
“Hey, I’m my own Shista, I can—eep!” Carr started to protest before he was dragged with Mune out of the shuttle and out towards the rapidly approaching ground.
Marick waited for Adem and Nicfer to start moving. To their credit, they did, with Nicfer only offering a “what could possibly go wrong?” before taking a leap of faith herself. The Hapan nodded to his former student. The Umbaran nodded in return, sighing loudly as he, too, leapt out.
“What are you waiting for?” Zig yelled, frantically trying to slow the ship’s descent from crashing into where the others would likely land.
“Not leaving without you,” Marick explained calmly.
“Too bad. If you see her, tell Zuza I…she’ll know.”
“You’ll tell her your—”
Before Marick couldn’t finish his line of thought, the gravity on the shuttle suddenly shuddered and shifted with enough velocity to send Marick sailing out the shuttle door against his will.
“Sorry boss,” Zig whispered as she closed her eyes, angled the ship towards a point on the horizon, and closed her eyes…
The Corpse Fields Ethereal Realm
Marick fell, but he did not fear. He watched as Mune, Carr, Adem, and Nicfer all landed on the last stretch of barren land before what he assumed was the Corpse Fields. Holding his hands out to the sides, there was a strange sense of freedom to his freefall. He trusted in not just the Force, but that which existed beyond it. There was no light, or dark, or gray. He simply fell, and as he approached the others, he turned once in the air in a summersault and then landed deftly with a slight bend to his knees. Whether that was the aid of the Force, or a gift of gravity, he would leave to others to decipher.
His attention was immediately drawn to a sudden detonation as the shuttle they had been on combusted into flame.
“No!” he growled.
“…Zig!?”
Marick closed his eyes. The Elder Arcanist reached out through the Force, and could feel Mune, next to him, doing the same. As their minds linked momentarily, the two Elders searched for the familiar signature of their friend.
They found it, far in the distance. She was…
“She’s alive,” Marick said, unable to hide the sense of relief in his usually stoic tone.
“So it seems,” Mune added.
“We need to go after her!” Carr practically yelled, his furred cheeks flush with frustration.
Marick and Mune exchanged a knowing look, then pointed towards the pile of corpses that seemed to reach out across the horizon. Their intended destination.
And they were not alone. The Children of Mortis had been waiting and ready.
Sometimes, being a leader meant making difficult decisions. Marick had been making them since the day he had arrived in the Brotherhood at too young an age.
“We press forward. Kaliska is a survivor. She will make her way towards one of the Brotherhood bases,” Marick spoke.
He ignited his lightsaber, and thumbed the dual-phase switch that toggled between stun and full-power settings.
“Weapons free,” the Exarch ordered as he led the charge towards the Children of Mortis soldiers.
Mune inhaled, ruby eyes taking in the scene before them. They opened their mind and worked at deciphering the wax and wane of the Force that seemed present in abundance around them. The danger was how it would respond, though, how it would behave. However, the enemy before them posed a threat, too, having had the opportunity to adapt, unlike the Arconans faced with their looming presence. Mune released their sibling and, unfastening their jacket, and drew their lightsabers. His Sith Dagger and Force-Imbued Blade were left in reserve.
“Carr…”
Carr was already activating his lightsaber, “I’m not staying behind you.”
“I was going to say…watch my tail with that…”
Exhaling, they drew upon the Force, centring themself within it. Their violet and blue lightsaber ignited, and the blades toggled to different lengths. They flipped one into a reversed grip, shifting into a crouch. Carr, on their right, was not as confident in his unpracticed and new stance, but Mune had no doubt he would fight. The Force hummed through them, alive and vibrant. It pulsed through their blood and whispered through their mind.
“I have his right,” Carr muttered.
“Then I guard his left,” Mune spoke in a low growl.
Arcanist and Techweaver moved; their paths crossed briefly, and then they were at Marick’s side.
The Shistavanen Arcanist reached out with the Force, touching the minds of the other sensitives in their group. The scent and a gentle kiss of freshly fallen snow touched their companions’ minds; the Force flowed through them, joining them. Bodies and minds thus fortified did they meet the enemy.
Two crystal Vornskr were upon them within seconds, leaping at the three. Carr and Mune moved as one, lightsabers rending the air and the creature in twain. Where Carr’s saber caught the beast low, Mune’s took it high. Marick’s saber came stabbing down to plunge his own through the skull of the second beast, trying to charge under the cover of the first’s leap. Arcanists and Techweaver together shoved outwards with the Force to send the broken bodies of their enemies hurtling into those that dared follow.
“Think they’ll heed our warning?” Carr mumbled in query.
“Unlikely,” Mune answered in a growl.
“Attention forward,” Marick warned, and the fight was on.
The ringing in Adem’s ears, the cacophony of battle, and the unsettling cries of crystalline monsters all threatened to overwhelm his senses for but a moment. As the brilliant ribbons of his comrades’ blades carved the way forward, a gentle calm fell across him, and his sense of self expanded. Marick’s knife-edge focus, Mune’s tail in the wind, their next targets. All of these things danced across Adem’s mind as if they were his own thoughts, and in a way, they were for the moment.
I feel like a Jedi again.
Invigorated by Mune’s coordination through the Force, he surged to follow up the vanguard, connecting his twin lightsaber hilts at the pommels and twisting their mag-locks into place. The sunlight-yellow blades ignited in perfect unison, humming loudly as the Umbaran twirled the saberstaff around his body. Awareness from the Force shimmered across Adem’s mind, like a spiderweb breaking across his skin, presaging an incoming volley of blaster fire. The saber blades buzzed all the more as the Arconan Jedi’s deft twirls and flourishes widened them into fan shapes to deflect the plasma bolts. A squad of Lightbringers had taken the field, and their aim was impeccable.
“Fwooo-wooo!” BD-99 warbled, deflected bolts screaming past his photoreceptors. Adem’s breath grew labored under the strain of the defense. It was all he could do to slip the searing plasma rounds away from his body as he closed the distance, let alone redirect them. Marick’s insight came to him with far more intuition than it ever had before.
Divide their fields of fire, pincer them, and finish them from the middle.
In harmony, the Jedi moved to encircle the Lightbringers. There were two for every one of the Arconans, but their shifting positions relieved some of the pressure on Adem’s guard. He managed to advance a few steps, now accounting for the odd, curving trajectory of the blaster bolts by slightly prolonging his defensive flourishes and batting a few of them away. Flickers of blue and violet danced at both edges of Adem’s vision as the Shistavanen Jedi made their moves. Past Mune, in the distance, Marick’s ghostly blades danced ever closer to their target.
Bol’era, you’re falling behind, close the gap.
Adem could no longer hesitate to draw on the Force. To his surprise, it answered his call, albeit diminished from what he was accustomed to. The black armor of the Lightbringers caught the golden light of his blades as he rushed toward them with preternatural speed. He leaped into a tightly coiled acrobatic spin, aiming to blitz down the closer of his targets. His momentum was nearly stopped dead as his lightsaber blades glanced off the shoulder plating of his target. The Lightbringer’s armor was seared but intact, and he answered the Jedi’s sword with his own.
The bloodshot saber crashed down on Adem’s guard like an avalanche before he could parry, forcing him to give ground. He let the momentum of the other lightsaber slide it off of his own, and pivoted around his opponent. Almost too late, he recognized the mistake of letting his second target go unchecked.
BD-99 skittered to the ground to dodge a vicious swing aimed at the droid and Adem’s spine. The Arconan ducked the slice, splitting his blades in two again to defend from two directions. The crushing blows rattled his arms and bent his wrists, pushing his blades so far inside his guard that the light-sensitive Jedi could hardly keep his eyes open under their intense glow. The explorer droid emitted a valiant, high pitched whine as he closed in to spray carbonite all over the leg of one of the soldiers. This Lightbringer fired his blaster with his off-hand upon BD-99 in reply, barely missing as the droid boosted clear and kept skittering underfoot.
If Adem said a word of anger in reply, he would not remember it. His allies felt lightyears from him, and the world fell away as the Force subsumed the Jedi’s mind and body entirely. Strength exploded through him, up from his legs and out from his arms, knocking the Lightbringers back. Adem chopped with both blades parallel and in unison, clean through the carbonite-encrusted knee of the first soldier, severing it from his leg and sending him to the ground. He intercepted a strike from the second soldier, aimed at his back again. He moved even faster than before to slash through the Lightbringer’s hands, and raked the tip of the second blade across his throat. The first soldier was crawling on his belly towards his weapon, only to stop when Adem’s lightsaber burned through the back of his neck.
Like a cloudburst, the rage left him as swiftly and brutally as it had come. When his senses returned to him after a moment, Adem sank to a knee, and simply vomited. Everything hurt and he could barely move.
“Bwooo-oo?” BD-99 chirped, his head swiveling about and searching for other threats.
“I’ll be fine, buddy, promise.” The droid administered a stim as he returned to Adem’s shoulder.
“Look alive, Bol’era,” a familiar, Zeltron voice called from behind him.
The Force flowed through Nicfer. It was clear that she and…it, were not on the best of terms. While the others used the Force to bail out of the shuttle, Nicfer decided that rocket boots were the best for a controlled descent. A blast here, a blast there, and one final thrust to keep from becoming the newest and smallest crater out there. Nicfer didn’t have time for her normal wit or misplaced mean comment. Stretched out before her was a battlefield and her past, all coming to a head.
While the others rushed forwards with blades and courage, Nicfer did what any criminal did. She held back and picked her opportunities: heavy blaster in one hand and unignited saber in the other. Sabers were bright and flashy and always drew attention. So, Nicfer darted around the back lines, firing between her comrades at the Children of Mortis that were too preoccupied with the saber users. Like an unseen guardian angel trying to keep teammates safe, or a devil putting down threats unseen from shadows. She sighed, wondering how much crap she was going to have to deal with about how she “hid” during all the fighting.
Stray thoughts like that didn’t have a place on the battlefield and Nicfer just learned this lesson. A tug at the back of her mind, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. It was that bad feeling you got before making a terrible decision. Nicfer pivoted on her heel and ignited her saber in time to deflect a blow meant to rob her of life. Rolling back, Nicfer blasted in the direction the shots came from. It was less to hit and more to keep her attacker from gaining the upper hand. She could call out. Ask for help.Admit weakness. She knew it was the smart play, but her ego kept her from crying out. It was her problem and she was going to solve it. The others had their own battles to fight.
More shots were fired in the dark and more diving for cover. Nicfer groaned through gritted teeth as her most recent dive caused her to land wrong.
“Where are you ya slippery git…”
The skirmish was going well, which was the first thing that gave Marick a bad feeling about all of this.
The Hapan repelled two charging Dawnseeker soldiers with a push through the Force. He hadn’t expected much lift in the effort, but both soldiers flew through the air as if riding on punctured jetbacks, swirling randomly before landing somewhere in the distance with sickening crunches.
Curious.
All the while, arcane synergy flowed through Mune into the other Arconans. Adem’s tenacity blended fluidly with Marick’s defensive workings—a combination of telekinetic and physical saber work. Carr kept finding different ways to taunt and bait attackers into stepping into Nicfers line of fire.
So it was no surprise when suddenly no more Children of Mortis were standing in their way. Suddenly, there was silence, save for the ambient hum of idle lightsabers.
Marick could feel his chest burn as he carefully lowered his accelerated heart rate and controlled his breathing. He recalled his telekinetic lightsabers to his sides and left them lit, hovering idly like an aura of warding, a segmented part of his honed mind keeping them tethered to him. He gripped his Radiant saber in one hand, leaving the other free.
“Status?” the Arconae asked in a cursory manner. He already knew the answer but had learned there was a certain comfort in allowing those under his command to self-assess and communicate. He had also already assessed the team’s injuries. Nothing debilitating, but he had clocked the various states of fatigue and posture—things like Carr favoring his left leg more than his right or Nicfer’s knuckles drained of their pink pigmentation from how tightly she gripped her blaster.
“—No injuries,” Mune reported.
“—My tail isn’t on fire,” Carr spoke up proudly.
“—No wounds, still a bit nauseous,” Adem murmured.
“—Only my sanity in being here remains in a questionable status,” Nicfer rounded up the check-in.
Marick nodded and then moved forward, stepping casually over the bodies of the defeated Children of Mortis strike team. While he had never had a word for speeches or command of a battlefield the way Sashar or Wuntilla had, Marick knew how to lead by example and action above all else. So he was not surprised that the other four fell into step behind him without even Nicfer seeming to question the Master Arcanist.
As they crossed through the Corpse Fields, it wasn’t the landscape littered with the skeletal remains of fallen warriors from across time and space that sent a shiver down the Hapan’s spine. It was the premonition that something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
They only had a little to go before Marick learned why. All color seemed to drain from his awareness, as his connecting to the living Force simply…was gone. A feeling he’d known ever since the fateful day it had awoken inside of him and given him hope of a future. A guiding comfort that he had studied, honed, mastered, and, in many ways, was prepared to live without.
That didn’t change the fact that it was a strange sensation, and if he was being honest, not one he liked.
His lightsabers went next, as the Arcanist’ telekinetic hold over them suddenly…dissolved. He moved quickly to catch one, but the other one dropped towards the ground and was only saved by a very brave and daring dash and dive from his BD-unit.
“Thanks Biddy,” Marick nodded to the little droid, who chirped triumphantly. He skittered back to the Hapan’s shoulder, perched, and then immediately, his optical receptor wilted, and he let out a sad beep. He now saw what Marick and the others saw.
They were too late.
The scene was a massacre, not a few minutes from having reached its conclusion. There had been survivors, and they had held out. But the welcoming party had not been intended to stop the Arconans—merely to stall them. And they had succeeded.
An air of sobriety enveloped the Arconans as they looked around hopelessly for any signs of survivors. But based on how the bodies lie askew, limbs half-digested, rent, blood splattering and staining the eerie Ethereal Realm sands, the stench of rotting flesh and singed machinery.
“There. I see a forward operating base. If I’m not mistaken, that is where Colonel Spires had indicated the AAF would be staging. Onward.”
Marick led the way as a somber air followed them until the Ethereal Realm saw fit to return the gift of the Force to their awareness.
Fortress of the Unchained Forward Operating Base Arcona Armed Forces
In various states of disarray but more or less whole and intact, Marick, Adem, Nicfer, Carr, and Mune spotted the Arcona Armed Forces flags flying over the forward operating base. The guards started to protest, but Marick held up his Arconae ring, and, when combined with the recognition of the former Shadow Lord, pierced through the seasoned officers’ chain of command to allow them entry.
“Carr? Everyone…?” a voice called out.
A Zygerrian wrapped in a large blanket moved towards the group. She was bandaged heavily across her body and used a makeshift crutch—one that she had probably fashioned herself—and seemed to radiate with relief as tears flowed freely from her eyes.
Carr grinned and suddenly seemed to be limping less than he had earlier, puffing up as he ran towards Zig to give her a big hug. Mune smiled, and Nicfer and Adem just seemed to let the tension in their bodies relax slightly. Marick offered a smile, too, nodding to the Zygerrian, a silent acknowledgement of pride and approval.
They had not been successful in finding the reconnaissance team, but they had regrouped with their allies. There was little time to linger, however, as the Fortress of the Unchained loomed in the distance, and the assault had just begun.
“No rest for the wicked,” Marick mused as he strode towards the front of the AAF lines. He would not ask anyone to follow him but knew, without turning, that they would follow.