The convoy of two dozen trucks rumbled along the swampy ground, their repulsors forcing pale green water up and around them and spraying in every direction. Yellow and orange reeds peeked up from above the water at random intervals, ending in oblong bulbs that were quickly decapitated by the vehicles as they rushed by. They dodged around trees and gnarled roots, terrifying nearby wildlife and causing them to bound away from the metal contraptions. Far on the horizon, the star Vortau was just beginning to peek above, the light shining in deep reds and greens of an early Arcadian morning.

Xaleyp and his team were in the front truck, partly because it would give his team a chance to get off and the truck to get back in formation at the rear and partly because it was also the one Colonel Diaspora was leading the assault from. She talked in hurried tones to the soldiers around her in some language he didn’t understand but knew enough from the way they bowed their heads and listened on in silence that it was some sort of prayer.

Hudson sat directly in front of Xaleyp looking at the roof with his arms crossed around his assault rifle next to Scarecrow, who quickly and rhythmically thumbed through a chain of beads in his hand. Adric was sitting with his head bowed and eyes closed, almost as if he were sleeping in the bouncing truck. Mian seemed to be trying to look anywhere but at him, her face a light shade of scarlet even in the dim light of the truck, and Eve glanced sideways at him from time to time, perhaps hoping that he would change his mind, but he made no indication that he even noticed her. She just didn’t seem to understand that he wasn’t doing this to be some kind of a hero or just a cheap laugh. He was doing it for only one reason: to move closer to getting revenge for Lina.

Or, at least, so he told himself, trying to occupy his mind with something, on each of those occasions that Eve looked over.

Lost in his own thoughts, Xaleyp hardly noticed the high pitched buzzing coming from outside of the truck, steadily growing louder. During the day, it may have been inaudible—however, with the darkness around them and just a few night creatures still up and about, it was noticeable to a keen ear, which is why Eve stood and moved to the back of the truck, looking around. As she did so, her eyes went wide and locked onto his.

“We need to get out now.” Her voice was soft but tense and hurried as she looked directly to Xaleyp. Their eyes locked for a fraction of a second.

Xaleyp immediately stood and rushed to the door, followed by Scarecrow and Mian. Hudson and Adric hesitated, unsure of whether they should go with them, before standing and joining them. Xaleyp held onto the wall over the truck and looked where Eve had seen whatever drew her eye, seeing the faint sparkle of drone lights, and now quite clearly heard the whirring of its engines. As he watched, flashes illuminated from underneath it, quickly followed by an ominous thudding of bullets on the roof of the truck.

“What is going on over there?” Colonel Diaspora asked, crossing the short distance to join the five of them.

Xaleyp pointed, moving over slightly to make room for her to look out. A sinking feeling in his stomach told him being this exposed for so long as a bad idea, but the Colonel simply laughed and patted the metal of the wall.

“This armor be two inches thick and is too strong for those bullets to pierce through. Just sit back down and let them tire themselves, we’ll be just fine.”

She walked away, stepping over the tangle of God’s Machines soldiers who were alert but sitting back, unfazed by the peppering growing steadily louder. Outside, another two drones joined the first, the flashes illuminating underneath each as they neared. Finally, a larger flash than the others appeared, and it immediately broke away and darted directly for them.

Without thinking, Xaleyp shouted and wrapped his arms around Eve and Scarecrow, diving out the open hatch, and Mian quickly followed with Adric, the truck leaving them behind. They landed in a particularly nasty puddle with water splashing up into their face and reeds scraping any bit of exposed flesh they could find. The next truck in line swerved to the side slightly to avoid them, but its repulsors still pushed them against the wet and sticky mud floor. Bullets from the drones impacted around them, sending spatters of the green liquid into the air around them but miraculously missing each.

Hudson was too slow to follow. Before he had a chance to get out, the missile struck the front of the truck, and a fire immediately engulfed it entirely, tearing through the metal. The force of the explosion threw Tyler Hudson’s body from the hatch, discharging it like a shot out of cannon several dozens of meters straight back, where it made a sickening crack against the front of the next truck before splashing into the water a few meters ahead of them. It bobbed for a moment, the smell of scorched flesh reaching Xaleyp’s nose, before beginning to sink as the water weighed down his clothes.

Another explosion erupted from behind, and a charred husk of the third truck in line lurched forward before crashing into the swamp and sending a deluge into the air. The drones, satisfied that they accomplished whatever mission they set out on, screamed overhead, pulling up and veering off into the night.

As he watched the fire surrounding the trucks, Xaleyp experienced a flashback to the firenanite bomb at Avalon, suddenly panicking of what he thought was to come and trying to scurry away from the blaze. His fears were unfounded, and the fire naturally spread throughout the canopy of leaves and bark, hindered by the dampness of the swamp and entirely unlike the intelligent fire he encountered previously.

A buzz of chatter rose in his CAM from the common channel used by the God’s Machine forces, but a terse voice cut through it all, ordering them to leave the two wreckages behind. The repulsor engines of the trucks rumbled next to them, some passing overhead and sending sprays of water around them and further pushing them down, as they continued along their predetermined path.

“I told you, I fucking told you they knew, but did you listen?” Eve stamped her feet, lifting them high and shaking each to try getting the water off. Her attempt was in vain, however, as each returned exactly how it was when she planted her feet on the murky silt under the surface. She ran her hands through her hair, letting the strap keep her rifle at her stomach, and spun in slow circles. “No, I’m just some stupid girl who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, so why would you listen to me?”

As she spoke, Crowley stood up, looking towards the burning wreckages and gripping his assault rifle so tightly his knuckles were turning white. Mian sat with her knees bent at an angle and her hands crossed overtop, staring away from the fires with a blank look in her eyes. The water was up to her chest, leaving most of her submerged in the green liquid. Slowly, the lights of the trucks vanished behind the trees heading towards the glow of New Alexandria and Nevermoor Hold.

Xaleyp stood still and watched them go, listening to the gentle crackle of fire that now overpowered the sounds of nightlife. The thick smell of smoke combined with that of burning flesh penetrated his nostrils, and he was hardly able to resist the urge to vomit. Another twenty people in each truck were dead because of him, for a total of forty one if he included Hudson. Eve was right, regardless of whether he admitted it or not—she had warned him, she told him that the Arcadians discovered their plan, that they were concocting some scheme to stop him, but he didn’t listen. He was blinded by his drive for revenge for Lina that he didn’t stop to think about the ramifications, and now it was as if he was facing a wall. Was this conquest he was on, this path of vengeance, actually the correct course, or was he just someone who lead others to their death, consequences be damned?

“Let’s keep moving,” Xaleyp said, startling the three others as well as himself. His voice was soft, almost strained, as he spoke. He started walking in the direction the trucks had gone, slogging through the knee high water and struggling with each step. “Our entrance isn’t too much further anyway, we can still do this.”

Scarecrow nodded and checked his gun, making sure it was loaded before pulling his pack further up his back and moving to follow Xaleyp once he was satisfied. Adric pushed himself to his feet, shaking the water from the barrel of his rifle before moving to join them.

“After what we just saw, don’t you think we should talk to the Director?” Mian asked, standing and trying to brush away some of the water clinging to her jumpsuit. Without looking at it, she made a vague gesture towards where Hudson’s body was still slowly sinking into the swamp. “Especially since, you know, we just lost almost twenty percent of our team.”

“Mian, I don’t want to argue about this. If we stop and give up now, every single one of these people died for no reason.” He stopped for a moment and pointed back at the flaming, twisted skeletons of trucks and charred corpses, before continuing, his voice leaking with venom. “Colonel Diaspora, Hudson, all those soldiers, each of their lives would be in vain. I can’t have that on my conscience, and I have to know that I did all I could to make sure those responsible are held accountable.”

“And you don’t think that we could be walking into an even bigger trap once we get there?” Eve asked, splashing through the water to catch up with him. “They obviously know we’re here, just like I said, and now we’re going to go walking directly into the maw of the beast as if its jaws won’t just clamp shut around us as soon as we get there.”

“Then what do you think we should do about all those people who’ve already died, already been killed by their reckless attacks?” Xaleyp’s voice was strained, and he struggled to keep from shouting at her. “We need to keep moving and finish the mission we came for, or they’ve died for nothing.”

Begrudgingly, Eve and Mian followed the three others through the swamp, their feet squelching with each step into the wet mud. The pair whispered to each other in hurried, conspiratorial tones, barely loud enough for Xaleyp to hear over the assortment of other noises around him. The reeds continued to scratch at them, assailing from all sides at any bit of flesh that happened to be exposed and attempting to rip new holes.

Nevermoor Hold was a little over a kilometer away, the sewer entrance somewhat closer than that. Overhead, the roar of the dropship engines pierced the air as they flew past, and they could already hear the beginnings of the assault at the Hold. Explosions rumbled in the distance, and gunfire lit up the cloud covered sky in brief flashes. Before them, though, lay only the darkness of the swamp as they trudged through it and into the unknown.