“How did you say your Trigad Six lost his arm, Trigad One?”

  For a moment, Araan just stared blankly at the official who questioned him. He was used to the statutory reports he had to make after each mission but it was irritating that she asked him the same question for the fourth time.

  He was in a quiet room with gray stone walls and a black metal door to his right. The room was clearly lit and would have been spacious if it weren't for the huge rectangular devices on either side of the office. The dozens of unpacked machinery behind him at the other end of the office had been last used in the previous Lighted Half of the previous planetary cycle.

  Araan was still in his Mantle Armour, having just been cleared from medical evaluation. His helmet hung behind his head by its attachment to the gas tubes of his armour, pulling slightly as a result. A few paces from him was the questioning official, Liora. She wore a purple Life Armour with acute white lines that complemented her pastel orange skin. Askoras, tough, long, black tendrils, extended from her head to rest on her shoulders gently. She sat behind a desk, verifying the answers he gave from the analysis offered by the rectangular pillar-sized devices around him.

  When he didn't answer her question immediately, she raised her head from her polished blackstone desk to face Araan who stood hands clasped behind his back. She didn't take the hint from the look he gave her.

  “Was he without his armour?” she asked again.

  A fifth version of the same question.

  “Liora,” Araan said, calmly, “We were on a mission, on a battlefield.”

  “I know what I sound like,” Liora said quickly, defending herself. Her askora tensed visibly and stirred. “You can't blame me for struggling to believe this.”

  Araan gestured to the rectangular devices. “They still work, do they not.”

  She sighed looking at her desk; there were glowing inscriptions appearing on its surface. “How many were rescued from the Pod Wall?”

  “Nine hundred children, all under two cycles. The remaining sixty percent were too young to be sustained by the Pod Wall's auto-system.”

  Liora nodded then swiped across the glossy surface of her table and new inscriptions formed on it. More questions.

  “The new creature, still unnamed, was killed through wounds formed by forcefully torn limbs. Can you validate the possibility of Commander Bukin's unit being responsible for that injury?”

  Bukin's mission was different from Araan's. He expected hostiles, which meant he was better equipped. However, they hadn't been enough against the creature and their bodies now lay inside and around Tomorann, pending cleanup. His final message declared Tomorann safe when it wasn't. The generals easily believed twenty dead Trigad soldiers meant whatever went against them was dead as well.

  Only that hadn't been true and Araan never found the missing pair of legs anywhere around Tomorann or in the domed city itself. It was difficult to believe Bukin's unit had been responsible. If his unit caused that injury, then their current weaponry could successfully hunt and kill another creature of that species.

  'Current weaponry' wouldn't be the rifles. There were no ones better than those his team used, and they proved futile against the creature's scales. Augmentors, however, were a different matter. Vast in number and use, they included transport like the Heralder, weapons that could shatter hills and enhancements for the Mantle Armour that made wearers tougher, stronger and faster, augmented, so to speak. If they had taken any weapon Augmentors with them, the fight would have been different, given the creature's injury. Six wouldn't have been hurt.

  “He had at least six Augmented soldiers at his disposal,” Araan said. “I would say there's a chance.”

  “Any survivors outside the Pod Wall?” Liora asked as she finalised.

  “None,” he replied.

  “Data matches. You're cleared, Commander,” she announced.

  He turned to leave her office but she called, her voice rising a tempo. “The generals want you to choose the creature's official Trophy of Hunt.”

  Araan turned halfway and gave her a surprised look. “When did the generals become so gallant?” he asked.

  “'As a parting gift from the Fourth Sector's Trigad,' those were their exact words,” Liora said, half smiling.

  He smiled back and said, “Its jaws.”

  “The tail would have been a better pick,” she commented.

  “Perhaps,” he said quietly and turned to the door.

  Waves of heat enveloped Araan as he left the building. It quickly reminded Araan where he was; not at the headquarters in the Fourth Sector's domed Capital but at a camp a few hundred leagues from Tomorann.

  The camp was busy, noisy. It was the most populated the camp had been in a while. There were soldiers everywhere, in Mantle armour or without, either lifting heavy cargo with Strength Class Augmentors attached to their armour or heading into offices like Liora's.

  The soldiers had completed the reflective high walls that surrounded the camp by the time Araan's unit returned from Tomorann. It wasn't a dome—camps rarely had that—instead, the tall walls bent inwards somewhere above its midpoint, providing shade. The buildings of the camp were built under the shade of the walls, all connected. At the center of the camp was a single, tall communications tower. Araan had stepped out of one of the offices in the tower and was headed for the chain set of buildings by the walls.

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  It all felt odd to Araan. That was the last time he would ever report to Liora or any other official here in the Fourth Sector. Tomorann had been the last mission, the idea of a last mission had been almost overwhelming. It didn't seem like much afterwards.

  It did mean it was the last time he was going to battle alongside the unit he had led since he became commander. That mattered to him but it should have been more than that. Twenty full cycles of service and a sudden promotion, yet all he felt was tired. Odd was understating things. He reached the other end, where a building was and pushed on a door there.

  The mundane outlook of the shaded buildings gave way to a wide, brightly lit hallway. It was quieter inside the building but it wasn't entirely noiseless. People talked as they walked in the hallways, accompanied by the familiar heavy, thumping sound of armoured footfalls that had gotten louder inside without the machine noises and shouted commands. Araan earned stares as he walked down the hallway, partly because the news of Tomorann had spread quickly. The other reason varied depending on who you asked.

  For one, Araan was one of the few green-skinned cyperans in the camp and the only one as dark toned as he was. But that didn't bring as much attention as his recent promotion or the allusion that his family and position influenced the decision. It was absurd, given it was well known that he hadn't been in contact with them for several cycles, or that he wasn't the only one promoted. It still wasn't enough to quell the rumor.

  There was also the fact that he kept his askora, just the ones on his back while he trimmed the head-askora; but that was enough. In all honesty, he didn't know why that bothered people; it was an indigenous practice for him, but the fact that it was seemed to be reason it was considered odd here.

  Araan ignored it all. Anyone who truly knew him was wise enough to never confront him about anything. As long as they didn't, Araan was fine with their whisperings.

  Rooms, halls and offices lined the left of the hallway. Araan got to a metal door inscribed with his name and title. He opened the door and walked in.

  There was a blackstone desk and a similarly colored chair in the center of the room and a rack in the left corner carrying two reflective black Life Armours: one, a torso piece and the other a full-body version for when Araan changed his gear completely. A soldier sat in the chair, legs propped on the center of the desk.

  The soldier was Dirakh. He wore a blue Life Armour that only covered his torso and the necessary upper portions of his arms while he donned the Trouser section of the Mantle that was equally blue. His skin was a brown-spotted yellow, unlike Araan's clear dark green. There was a large brown spot that stretched jaggedly across the left side of his face from his ear to the underside of his jaw.

  Dirakh was more than just a soldier, he was a commander like Araan. More than that, he was the only one who often joked about his back askora and never got a harsh response—a friend, simply put.

  He had been the second and last commander promoted to High Commander to serve in Ordanq, the Emperor's capital in the First Sector, Araan being the first. The fact that both of them were the only ones reassigned irked many, and it matched the surprise it had been for them. They both had noteworthy success as commanders but even they knew it was too early.

  “I'd shoot you for that if I wasn't so tired,” Araan said, feigning a frown and gesturing to the desk.

  “How tired?” the soldier asked, watching as Araan disconnected his Jacket Armour from the rest of the Mantle.

  “Just finished questioning.”

  “Liora?”

  “Liora.”

  Araan flexed out his askora after taking off the Jacket Armour. Taking it off revealed his last striking difference: his scars. They lined his tough skin from his wrists, up his arms to the center of his chest like black cracks in a green rock. The scars weren't battle-earned and they didn't hurt. Physically, at least. Each line held part of a story he would much rather forget. Araan left the Trouser piece of the Mantle Armour on and grabbed the torso Life Armour on the rack. It was a glossy white to the Trouser Armour's brown.

  “You'll have to repaint that,” Dirakh said, pointing lazily at the Trouser Armour.

  “Who says I'd have to?” Araan asked, quizzically.

  “A transfer and promotion isn't enough attention for you?”

  “Fair enough,” Araan replied with a shrug and wore the armour. He was broad and tall enough that both armours fit, proportion-wise.

  “What was Kilkad like?” Araan asked.

  “Saddening,” Dirakh said grimly. “We didn't have your luck with the Pod Wall, the children were dead, the natives were dead, the guards, the dome— everything was dead in that city.

  “Tomorann and Kilkad marked what, the twelfth mining city destroyed during the last Dark Half? Any more and it will be a bad cycle for the Fourth Sector.”

  “It's twelve out of ninety cities so far, let's not overthink,” Araan said as he guided Dirakh's legs off his desk. He placed his right palm on the space Dirakh's feet hand rested on. It vibrated softly and the familiar inscriptions of his name appeared on the desk. He swiped across, giving it commands then spoke. “Send an Inspector to obtain the Jacket Armour.” The desk vibrated once more acknowledging a message sent and Dirakh spoke again.

  Araan interrupted him before he could say anything. “I know what Tomorann meant to you. I know it was once your home. All isn't lost. Tomorann isn't lost. There are nine hundred survivors; they will rebuild their city from the rubble and ruins.”

  Dirakh didn't try to make a comment the fact he was talking about younglings. He just shrugged, his brown mark stretching as he smiled, “All I need to know is that you doused that beast's head in lasers.”

  “Spelled your name while I did it,” Araan replied with a smile of his own.

  “Also, General Vidgard wants to see us.”

  “Another 'last mission?'” Araan mocked, leaving the desk.

  Dirakh grinned. “I don't think the Emperor would mind if it was.”

  Dirakh got up then and they walked out of the office. General Vidgard's office was further down, past Dirakh's. Inside, the blackstone desk took up most of the central area. Awards and small-sized Trophies of Hunt were on either side, with an unused Life Amour rack in a corner.

  Sitting behind the desk was the general, a thick and heavy-set cyperan with clear brown skin and no askora. He held a seal in his right hand and tapped it gently against his left palm.

  Araan saw the seal and paused, stunned.

  “Commander Vinid, Commander Aratund,” General Vidgard said to Araan and Dirakh.

  Dirakh acknowledged but Araan didn't, his eyes fixed on the seal in Vidgard's right hand.

  “You wanted to see us, General,” Dirakh said finally.

  “Officially, the issue concerns you because of your affiliated promotion, but it directly involves Commander Vinid only. But, I am also aware of your friendship and I believe Commander Vinid would appreciate you being here.”

  “Who?” Araan asked, barely letting the general finish. He recognized the seal. He knew what it meant. A noble of House Vinid, of Araan's family, was dead.

  “Your eldfather, Commander Vinid,” he replied.

  “Lord Dund Vinid was murdered.”