The Quicksand Singularity ArQive: Array.init:0

A0T4.2 The Ëchüha Incident (Parts 2+3)

That's what all the evidence seemed to scream. Hvórþ he couldn't understand that. It was less comprehensible to him, less intuitive to him than the bizarre, wispy, shadowy creature he'd seen attacking a comms station on one of the VScapes the UAVs brought back.

That, perhaps, more than anything was what had unsettled the men. The material Katzali had provided in as part of their briefing the day before was obviously not everything brought back—this being an Inquisitorial Dispatch after all. There was one VScape that stuck out to everyone, one they had all discussed privately, out of earshot of the Inquisitor and well away from the listening ears of his servants. One that Hvórþ was convinced had been intentionally selected from a large pool of other Vscapes.

According to their briefings their stated objective was to pinpoint the source of an intense GQF in the heart of where the banished noble's palace would have been and to use some fancy equipment Katzali's tech heads had given them on it—equipment Hvórþ wasn't even confident worked at all. Between the suspicious Vscape and its hostile creature, the number of drones lost in previous missions, the malfunctioning comms stations dropped ahead of their departure, and the cloud wall forming a kind of event horizon sealing each side of from the other, Hvórþ didn't trust it. Something was out there, something dangerous. Whatever it was, Hvórþ knew in his bones that the Big Geek couldn't be anything other than a hive of them.

Katzali knew it too. He had to. None of the maths added up with any of this. To send the Dropkick Demons on this mission, to go poke at a heart of darkness on a dead planet, it stank of pretence and Inquisitorial lies. What Katzali was really interested in were the entities. Why, Hvórþ couldn't say. What he knew, what everyone knew, was they were simply the bait. Drawing out the entities was the real mission. For what point or purpose, not a single Dropkick Demon knew, only that it was going to be the death of them.

In the drop ship's hold, the stench of mortal terror accompanied a silence thicker than fortress armour. For the first time, they knew they were going to face an enemy they couldn't beat. There were no jokes, no banter, no pranks, none of the usual noise they had made a thousand times before on a thousand operations before. Each one, every soldier Hvórþ had spent the last forty Tanno fighting with was silent as the grave as they stared into the face of death fast approaching, making peace with inevitability as best they could.

The sound and vibration of the Joxa-Class drop ship's braking engines igniting rattled through the small hold. Each Dropkick Demon pulled his gas mask over his face and performed final weapons checks as they awaited the pilot's signal.

"Demon Alpha, this is Joxa-5 we are approaching LZ, prepare to drop in six-zero seconds!" Kija, Joxa-5's pilot, called over the comms channel, breaking Hvórþ from his thoughts.

"Copy, Joxa-5," Hvórþ returned. "Drop in six-zero."

Hvórþ gave his team the signal and they performed final gear checks, ensuring they had everything they needed. Once they were boots-down, they would be on their own. No comms, no resupplies, no reinforcements, and no rescue.

"Check flare guns!" Hvórþ barked, patting his vest for the flare gun holster he'd mounted for quick access.

No comms also meant they would have to signal the dropship the old fashioned way.

"Twelve hours, boys!" Hvórþ bellowed as the sound of the drop ship's landing thrusters roared through the hold.

Hvórþ disengaged his flight harness, grabbed the strap above his head, and rose to his feet, holding his IK-T87G6 Spec-Ops modified light machine gun—Little Ikki—in one hand for the final few seconds. Without warning, the drop ship plunged to the left, heavy vibrations rumbling through the deck, knocking Hvórþ off balance. He lost his grip on the strap and toppled over, slamming hard into the floor.