To the Doctor—this venture, or perhaps expedition, into this alien yet familiar terrain. It's been a full week since we departed the Nomadic City. We exchange faces during routine reports, of course, but dispatching missives like this is unprecedented. So forgive the circuitous preamble as the mark of my reticence.
You might glance past this unread, perpetually hounded by chronometers yet prone to mischief; perhaps you'll pore over it at length. Is the priestess at your side, by chance?
No anomalies en route to the objective thus far. No friction with extraneous primordial strains, no signs of their mass migrations or habitation traces.
To them, this sector registers as forsaken territory—a hazard zone, cordoned by some inscrutable taboo.
We proceed unmolested, yet its etiology eludes us.
My personal conjecture…
"Eyes front."
I detached from the typewriter's staccato rhythm, lifting my gaze at her command. Amid the roiling dust clouds—a maelstrom rising, cresting, collapsing—something gleamed.
A halo. Coronal flare lanced my periphery, transient incandescence yielding to encroaching shadow.
"That's an exemplar of the Law in dissolution."
"It clarifies why this void persists. Your tenuous attunement wanes here for the same etiology."
"Indeed."
Beyond the lateral drift of sandstorm particulate, the tableau resolved into primal savagery.
Crimson engulfed alabaster.
Beast devoured beast.
A singular polarized beam expended its luminescence, extinguishing.
She and I observed from the vehicle's integument, motionless. The interlude of concentrated violence concluded with dispatch.
They abandoned the eviscerated husk—a pulverized aggregate of offal—and withdrew along their ingress vector.
The Senior Operator, palms fixed to the tiller, addressed me.
"No compulsion to investigate?"
"No. Our parting discourse was cordial; he bid us farewell. He confided that colossal megafauna infest this expanse—transmutations akin to his own rendering it cursed, shunned; but pressing onward, we'll encounter them routinely. He urged vigilance."
Her voice remained monotone, grip unrelenting on the controls.
"Path correction, then?"
"Negative. Press on. He cited no precise range estimate."
Several kilometers advanced, we encountered an array of bestial imprints— hoof variants commingled with disparate mammalian archetypes, sketched in exhaustless diversity.
"Not primordial strain markers. Megafaunal transit signatures."
"Observe this locality."
I tumbled fragmented stone and talcum sand through my gloved palm. It crumbled incrementally, sieving through digits.
"Substrate integrity compromised. Deep strata demand specialist survey gear; surface subsidence like this precludes structural viability, nor is it localized. We'll shadow their migratory corridors."
"Satellite telemetry indicates an ecosystem oscillating akin to migratory avifauna. Recent datasets register prolongation in adjacent sectors for this cycle. On Nomadic City transit resumption, they'll cycle to these coordinates—but negligible operational deviation. Decisive: how this tracework articulates to the objective. Accelerate."
The Senior Operator annotated waypoints aft, remounting. I brushed particulate residue from gauntlets, resuming the auxiliary berth, unfolding the missive with holographic typist in hand.
A protracted diurnal cycle yet awaited inscription. Our vehicle lacked even rudimentary comms—just as its absence registered. Then, upon the seventh dune traversal.
Reflection upon this week's drudgery evoked inertial stasis: reveille-march, midday rations-locomotion resumption, vesper advance-report-emplacement-berthage. Repeat.
"Senior Operator, the drive—fatiguing?"
The query evoked self-reproach; what contributions this expedition? Ration consumption, passive surveillance of interstitial terrain unspooling beyond the canopy.
Sentries? Nocturnal assaults? Cacheing exertions? Co-participant, hardly justification.
And most egregious, as auxiliary: foreclosure of chronometer-killing banter—the inconsequential palaver no query elicits.
In remedial earnest, I ventured discourse; it aborted.
"Ambush vector. Conspicuous presentation."
"Account for feints. Bestial cunning exploits Nature's axioms beyond human prognostication to widen survival gradients. Auxiliary readings: anomalous shadows? Thermals?"
She modulated velocity to creep, enunciating. I synchronized attunement—null gradients; instead, a suffusive impulse eroded, regrettably intimate.
"Decoy?"
"Decoy?"
"That is—stand by."
I interposed against its ingress. The motive stalled, equivocal—perplexed obeisance. Perceiving my anomaly, it explicated: curiosity tempered with affinity's chill—diluted guilt.
"Evasion vector. Entrapment protocol. Per your directive: wing-and-flank diversion; principal phalanx maneuvers to entrain and pitfall us."
Tiller wrenched, pedal floored—vehicle lunged. Predators erupted: stones, riven keratin, talons cast; a contingent resurfaced from substrate interstices, subsurface leaps assailing.
"Ten—fourteen—twenty. Aggregate strength?"
"Evacuate first. Exfil paths?"
Wind-lashed coiffure throttled aside, observation lean: hummock proliferation, abyssal drifts, erratic megacrags coalescing asteroidal, desiccated arboreal scrim laced with positional phantoms.
"Encircling noose!"
"Affirmative—directive?"
"Breach. No alternates."
She seized, extracted me sternward as chassis bucked evasively right—a primordial streaking prow-ward abeam. Tread entrenchment destabilized; barrel-roll ensued. Sandstorm scoured oropharynx with abrasive grit.
"Senior Operator—integrity?"
"Affirmative. Evasion untenable; apostate tilt. Terminal egress protracted. Issue triage imperative."
Sigh suppressed, she unlatched, egressing port. My ingress occluded by drift-accrual; I followed ventral ascension.
"Axle upright proximal wheelpan—anticlimactic."
"Noted."
Silence preceded auxiliary manifest at her dorsal summons, interposing the foe-line. Eightfold our scale impeded: shock-blunted crouches reformed.
Dust purge from auricle and skein complete, she queried.
"Enumeration?"
"Baseline cadre: twenty. Oversize: trinity. Capstone: Law exemplar."
"Engagement ROE?"
"Total attrition. Retain Law-form; interrogation viable."
"Audible? Execute parameters."
A infrasonic thunderhead detonated, ferrous laminae winking heliac. Evaders vaulted clear—yet phalanx surged integument-bound. Cadence of armature descents felled singles or doubled in bisect.
Substratic initiators resurged dorsal: eruptive gout akin hydrostatic breach, claws hymeneal poised to skewer. Ordnance detonated sanguine vapor; osseous husk pinwheeled to substrate unrealized.
Residual garrisons pivoted precipitate, scenting reversal. Remnants: arterial cadavers, auxiliary custodian, and solitary Law-tithe primordial.
Praise and reclamation for the adjunct followed. I advanced, pulsing rapport to its psyche.
Initial disarray yielded plenary candor: pneuma saturated primal yearning—transient corona blanching—innocence unalloyed by animus, despair's lees, retaliatory calculus. Empathy lagged reactivity. Seizure of relinquished sidearm portended Senior Operator cull; reflexive membranate occlusion imperative.
Ordnance reiterated punctuation.
I plummeted capture-well provisional. Subsequent auxiliary-directed excavation eventuated extrication—qualified by excoriation.
"Rational assessment query: relinquishing armaments to hostiles? Interrogation status? Wing armature nominal? Grace extended appreciation survival, casualty matrix benign, reacquisition of issue: termination expedited. Recurrence merits disciplinary memorandum escalation."
"—such transpired."
Canopic visor occluded the Doctor's physiognomy across transmission; mute interval endured.
"The Law-attuned specimen? Neutralized?"
"Negative. Egressed."
Lacuna collapsed into resumption.
"Acknowledged. Solid duty cycle. Inbound proximate?"
"Affirmative. Vectors, indices, contingency overlays transmitted. Projected return: diurnals dyad."
"Received. Ingress prudent. Anticipate post-mission revelation."
Rhodes Island's prow, doubtless.
I acknowledged wan pulse of simulacrum grin, beheading.
Lampyric hologram faded apace; integument luminance plunged terminal. Lingering cyan stellar plexus evoked metatarsal contention.
"Report concluded? Unfurl membranates: ointment required."
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