The chartreuse sky held streaks of parakeet green running through it, like visible rips in the atmosphere, just above highest peaks on the uneven horizon. As was usual in this environmental zone of the flatish, disc-shaped moon, a persistent, low-pitched aural thrumming followed the winding of the sweltering winds fanning this humid corner of the Oceanic Zone. The thrumming issued forth from the ground beneath them, from the rotating iron-nickel alloy core, a dodecahedron-shaped mass some 644 kilometers in circumference and surrounded by a liquid, molten lead. Above ground, the scent of moist rock and peppery wild grasses scented the air while the glare from the largest of the dual suns was filtered behind the looming bulk of the giant planet in space below.
Teshiwahur rolled like a spherical leviathan in the gloomy deepness beneath the underside of the moon.
Syngemma Krede drew in a breath of hot air through her clenched teeth and tossed an irritated glare over towards her friend and employer, Taran'Gaohnge, who was more commonly known among the outlaws and sell-swords of the region as "The Blind Watchman". They had been waiting for almost a quarter of a heliar for the arrival of a detachment of Protectorate Constables they'd requested half a fortnight ago from Regional Security Command out of Port Breqhamwurth, a dozen leagues far to the east. Syngemma, a cautious and experienced ex-Emperium Star Legion military officer, didn't like waiting and she liked it even less under circumstances where she was operating deep inside hostile Offworld territory. For his part, Taran'Gaohnge was more stoic and self-possessed, displaying superhuman patience as he stood in the shadows of a stone arch, leaning against the inside curve of the crumbling, heat-baked structure that housed the secure station-terminus for non-civilian visitors traveling the desert Hookara'ie Wadi outside rocky Tuwerbleek Atun on Pex'Insava's interior equatorial basin.
Taran'Gaohnge was referred to as "The Blind Watchman" by most members of Pex'Insava's paramilitary mercenary community because of his macabre affliction and strange service record. An outcast descendent of Teshiwahur's Cid'Ammar blood lineage, the Cid'Ammar being the oldest, wealthiest and most politically-influential social class, Taran'Gaohnge, a commissioned officer in the Emperium's Special Division Gunnery Liaison Company, had emigrated from the continent of Qundin's southeasern coastal territories, where the fabled sister cities of Veranthius and Dralhabbyrn straddled the stormy Bay of Schymediera. He'd left his sprawling ancestral estate after having killed one of his own relatives in a personal duel over familial culpability in an industrial disaster. That disaster had injured, disfigured and permanently maimed dozens of the loyal workers in his family's industrial chemical plants. Taran's relations had vigorously denied their responsibility in the calamity while simultaneously seeking to profit from it via the aid they supplied -- at a profitable premium -- from their own medical warehouses. The disillusioned Special Ops soldier had simply refused to let the matter lie and, after coming into bitter and violent conflict with his brothers and his older sister, had left Teshiwahur to seek his destiny elsewhere.
What Taran had not known was that the same chemical accident that had split his family asunder had also slowly damaged and transmuted his own genetic make up. The after-effects of the accident had gradually destroyed his vision and then physically mutated the lobe of his cerebral cortex that controlled his sense-awareness of Time. He became "clairaudiently cognitive", able to project his mind one hundred and eighty pulse beats into any predictive possible future, allowing him to avoid both physical and experiential pitfalls as a result of any action he took. That ability had very nearly driven him mad.
And he had known he would meet former extra-legal contract-enforcerSyngemma Krede, who herself was a fugitive from a pair of vengeful underworldcrime syndicates, before he'd bumped into her at the Spaceport Terminal.
Syngemma, tall, tanned, heavily-muscled and blonde, adjusted the crossed-bandolier harness holding the sheathes for the twin broadswords she wore down her back and, as was her usual habit when she was anxious, absentmindedly fingered the curved edges of the quintet of small, pearl-sized skin scarifications along the rear of her left cheekbone. The tattoo design of a twisting coil of black-ink ran down the exposed flesh of both her sinewy arms. She was a strapping woman of Amazonian proportions, staring a challenge out at the world through glittering golden eyes with a razor-thin red corona encircling the irises. And though her flesh was, in many places, marked by old and faded scars from past battles, she was nonetheless arresting for the haughtiness of her feminine beauty. The short-cut, belted, iron-colored, leather tunic-dress she wore was festooned with a colorful, geometric serpent design. A slim, needle-flechette pistol was tucked into the tunic's belt. There was nothing about her that hinted at the regimented, disciplined rigors of a military background and most who met her automatically assumed she was a bandit from the Wastes.
Taran'Gaohnge, the Blind Watchman, was something else altogether. Taran was a lanky, rangy man wrapped in a fur-collared, red cloak that fell to the middle of his leather booted shins. The boots themselves were adorned with multiple, silver-buckled straps. Each of the tall boots had sheathes into which a dagger knife with an ornately-carved handle was set. The Watchman's loose-fitting, ochre-colored, multi-pocketed trousers were held up at the midriff by a chain-mail waist sash onto which a large circular medallion was affixed. The face of the chrome medallion was decorated with the bas-relief image of a phoenix, wings spread wide, and the end of a leather strap was tucked behind that medallion. The leather strap was looped through the holster of a very thick, triple-barreled black and copper-hued hand gun. Taran's muscular torso was exposed and bare and a series of dark metal rings had been implanted into his flesh. From each ring dangled a section of animal bone on a short plastic thread. His thick arms were wrapped in steel-studded leather bindings, from his bicep down to his wrists. The Blind Watchman's long, angular face, or at least that part of which was visible under his cloak's hood of maroon hue, was partly covered by a metal half-mask that hid his forehead and eyes.
Taran'Gaohnge and Syngemma Krede made quite a visually arresting pair, grim-looking and wild, threatening, and most people at the Hookara'ie Wadi station-terminus happily gave them a wide berth.
They were waiting for a "shoot-team", a trio of troopers from the Special Operations Counter-Insurgency Forces, who were better known as "The Nahztreme", and a pair of transplanted Outland Marshals, assigned to her and the Blind Watchman as they made their way in from the Wild Zone. The "Wild Zone" was where the invading forces of the Gorgahnuns had established a moonside-landing beach head. Syngemma Krede and Taran'Gaohnge, by virtue of their profession as outlaw freelancers, had uncovered heretofore unknown strategic military information they sought to share with Pex'Insava's Hegemonic Emperium military forces --- for a price.
"Better get ready. They're nearly here," Taran intoned in his odd, whispery, rough-edged baritone.
Syngemma drew in a deep breath and stepped a single stride forward into the sun's glare, away from the ruins and from the seven story wall of rock towering behind them. The short kurgan-side cliff-face stared out at a huge acreage of open tundra lying between Tuwerbleek Atun and the winding road leading away from the old, abandoned secure station-terminus. After the intense time period she'd now spent as his partner, she'd become accustomed to Taran's abrupt pronouncements. She'd learned to appreciate his psychic gift of temporal foresight in the field.
"Anything we need to worry about?" she asked.
"Maybe. The brothers."
"Brothers?" she said, startled.
"Yes, the two Outland Marshals attached to the Nahztreme Recon unit are related," Taran said. "They're serious battle Vets, both incredibly well-trained and combat-experienced. But one of them is ... more savage ... than the other and seriously questions the wisdom behind his orders. The other brother worries he may not be able to keep his older sibling under control if they have a disagreement with the Counter-Insurgency Recon unit. Neither of them like the Nahztreme. They think the soldiers of the Counter-Insurgency shoot-team are stupid, lazy bullies given to violent excess, and that undisciplined tendency makes them untrustworthy in the field."
"Lazy? Violent excess? First I've heard of it. The Nahztreme generally have a reputation for ruthless efficiency," Syngemma said. "For these Outland Marshals to doubt that with the unit they're inserted with is unsettling. But why does that make you worry that the brothers could be a problem?"
"They're both deputized Knights of Central Homefront Security in service to the Emperium's Territorial Expanse Extrasolar SpecOps Force."
"Knights? And they've been assigned to Offplanet duty? That almost never happens...," she shook her head of thick, unruly hair and sighed. "That's a distraction. We don't need to be concerned with that. I can't think about it. Did they bring the agreed upon payment?"
"I can see they've come prepared to render us ... some manner of remittance," Taran said, his odd phrasing casting a more enigmatic pall upon the situation than Syngemma felt comfortable with having.
"What are you not telling me?"
Taran chuckled dryly. "Syngemma, always so suspicious. I'm your partner. You wound me."
"Don't play with me. The Nahztreme are engineering a double-cross, aren't they? We give them the information and they leave us without paying for anything, whereupon they probably leak the fact that we've sold information we shouldn't have to the federated police authorities."
"There is indeed that probability," Taran said.
"So which one of those armored bastards do you suggest I shoot first?" she asked.
"Doesn't matter so long as it's not one of the Knights," the Blind Watchman replied with a shrug.
"Affirmative," the warrior-woman responded.
It was at that moment when The Nahztreme appeared, emerging from around the forward-post corner wall of the compound's security barrier, striding into view with the unsubtle arrogance and simmering belligerence common to paramilitary forces accustomed to subjugating local tribal populations. They were there, inside the township, to do a job, to ruthlessly enact rules and regulations that did not necessarily benefit the area's resident native peoples. Diplomacy and the winning of hearts and minds was not their concern. There were four of them, two men and two women, if their gender could be judged by the external configuration of their complex exo-armor. They each carried rectangular, multi-emitter long guns, uniquely customized particle beam rifles far too large and bulky for normal soldiers or mercenaries to safely carry. The exposed torso-area surface of their scarred, pitted, and shopworn tactical body armor was decorated with faded and grime-stained decals depicting their combat pedigree. And, though they were mammalian humanoids in physical morphology, they weren't necessarily classified as human beings. Most who met them guessed they were probably non-mutant biogenetic "variants". Combat-enhanced Incubatrants from a Clone Lab. Their unit was classified as a "shoot-team". They had government authorization to enact immediate on-the-spot justice in any situation in which they were involved, which usually meant they could maim and kill people with relative impunity. They were hammers and, to them, every potential problem they encountered represented an errant nail. Often brutal in their interactions with local indigenous population, The Nahztreme were representatives of the Special Operations Counter-Insurgency Force in service to the Omniperator Cosmoterius, also known as Draggyn Han'Khainus-Galorketh, the World-Father.
"Squadron Captain Balem Tarwook, Extraplanetary Expansionist Forces Territorial SpecOps," the lead Nahztreme said as he approached, announcing himself without the standard courteous preamble common among Teshiwahurian fighting forces. "With me are Unit-Sergeant Lyssahido and Cavalry Infantry Privates-First Class Harat'Nem and Euraeqou. Your transponder credentials identify the two of you as our targeted-contacts here in The Zone, but they do not show what Legion that you're assigned to as contractors. So what battalion are you embedded with?"
"We're not embedded with anyone," Taran'Gaohnge replied.
Captain Tarwook made a sound that resembled that of a bear clearing its throat after eating something unpleasant. "So you're Independents, are you? How in hell are you getting through territorial security and past checkpoints without being attached to any Hegemonic Emperium military division?"
Syngemma Krede rolled her eyes. "Really? Do we have to go through that with you? Isn't it enough that we're here?"
Taran interrupted her before she could continue her protestations, acutely aware that the Nahztreme Squad Captain could as easily decide to shoot them as ask them questions, without having to clear his actions with anyone.
"Look again at our Auths. Scan our transponder credentials a level deeper and you'll see we've been cleared for passage to Hookara'ie Wadi station-terminus by the Provisional Constabulary..."
Captain Tarwook nodded only seconds after Taran spoke and shrugged, slightly relaxing his physical stance as the travel clearances met with his reluctant approval. He brought his gaze up to lock with that of Syngemma Krede and even his semi-opaque visor couldn't hide his simmering hostility.
"That mouth could use some discipline, Incomer. You're new to this region. These are dangerous times. And we Nahztreme have been tasked with a tough job we take very, very seriously."
The man's imperious words and overbearing tone grated on Syngemma's nerves. She bit back a reflexive, potentially inflammatory response and warily nodded, deciding to acknowledge the team captain's responsibility and position. It wasn't in her nature to kowtow to anyone. But, in turn, she hadn't expected the counter-terrorism soldier to be quite as thin-skinned as he'd demonstrated, either.
"Excuse us, won't you? Our recent travels have been unpleasantly eventful, if you catch my meaning. Looks like you and your men may have experienced a few rough moments yourself. Rough shift this past heliar, Captain?" The Blind Watchman interjected tactfully.
"Nothing dropping a few dozen bodies didn't fix," the man replied past a growl, his hard, cold eyes finally leaving Syngemma's face. "It seems the damned Gorgahnun's aren't enough to deal with, but we wind up having to handle the local indigenous tribes blaming the Hegemonic Emperium for the invasion, claiming it's the World-Father's fault the bucket-skins decided to start a shooting war all across Pex'Insava's airspace. Lots of talk about the arrival of the Gorgahnun bucket-skins being an insult and a heresy insulting their ancient moon-gods. Buncha annoying tattooed mutant freaks and ignorant Low-Tekk aboriginal savages, if you ask me."
"As if THAT weren't enough, then there are those latest dust-ups we've had with the damn Fae-Spawn at Fabrikkant-Anvil facility, over at Forbynqorre," Unit-Sergeant Lyssahido said, speaking through a thick accent that identified his origins as being from the gated, racially-homogenized mountain city of Kithpell Manus, located at the southernmost edges of Pex Insava's polar territories. "The damn Skin-Weavers at The Anvil can barely maintain any lasting control over the growing population of autonomous androids they stupidly created. The Emperium should never have allowed the Skin-Weavers any option of merging themselves into the World-Father's military forces. They're not warriors and they're not soldiers. They're madmen who birth hollow abominations. They don't belong. And neither do the disgusting, human-hating synth-bots they create."
Cavalry Infantry Privates-First Class Harat'Nem spat into the dirt and grunted, commenting in a wheezy, cracked voice that belied his barrel-chested bulk. "Had to plow through a small army of Gods-Be-Damned Burssurken Fae-Spawn at The Anvil and the miserable territorial militia over at Forbynqorre were sqellfurgin useless."
Taran'Gaohnge and Syngemma Krede briefly exchanged a shared, wordless look at the mention of the Burssurken Fae-Spawn. They had each, separately, experienced violent encounters with the synthetic warriors and had barely escaped with their lives. They'd made it a habit of avoiding any situations where they had any risk of interacting with them ever since.
Captain Tarwook smiled nastily as he spoke, summing up his views on the matter. "Yes, well, that's because the territorial militia as a whole is corrupt as a barrel-full of whores with their asses on fire... The only way they'd seriously side with us against the Fae-Spawn is if we'd paid them with Hegemonic Emperium platinum-threaded bankchips. Apparently, they put no trust in official digi-stamped crypto-exchange notes. They believe the World-Father's virtual banking system is a fraud. As if physical bankchips can't be counterfeited. Backwater-country buffoons. Doesn't matter, though, it's all ancient history now."
"By All the Gods, Tarwook, I really can't believe how much time and energy you spend complaining about ... things," a male baritone voice with rough-edges, and an unidentifiable Outlands accent, said, entering into the conversation with an attitude reeking of barely contained impatience and incivility. "Sometimes you behave like you're like a gossipy old woman..."
"Riiiight, so-called 'gossip' is bad because reliable actionable intel is so easy to come by out here in the Wild Places... Easy for you to say from your comfy Extra-Network Consoles inside the Action Room at OPMCD," Tarwook responded acidly. "Forward Moonbase Dispatch inside the Orbital Planetary Mobile Command District would lose their collective minds if two of their precious Emperium-Contract OutTerritory Operators got themselves fatalized by a mob of Pex'Insava insurrectionists."
"Those 'insurrectionists' were born here, their blood is in the very soil, and generations of their families are buried here. Many of them, because they are from the Wild Places, have never been allowed the privilege of walking the surface of Teshiwahur, the planet where their ancestors were born, because the World-Father has never given the native people of Pex'Insava their Right of Citizenship under the Hegemonic Emperium," one of the new arrivals said, a woeful weariness painting the resonant tones of his deep voice.
"Yes, well, things are tough all over, aren't they?" Tarwook said past a sneer.
"So look and see who's graced us with their presence," Unit-Sergeant Lyssahido said by way of acknowledging the newcomers. "The kindred from the Ausvargian Mountains."
"Leave it to a Nahztreme to get even the simplest of things wrong... 'Ausvargian' refers to a language, a seldom-used tribal dialect derived from Old Speech, not a geophysical place and not a nation or a people," the other newcomer drawled in a tone dripping disdain and sarcasm. "And the 'mountains' you refer to, those lying north of Vanhelmslund I imagine, have no name. If you're going to try insulting my brother and I, you could at least make the effort to base your ignorance on something resembling truth, no matter how trivial or small."
The pair of armored figures posed a grim and imposing portrait of military brawn against the backdrop of the dusty and weather-worn buildings comprising the rugged and debilitated station-terminus at which they'd all rendezvoused. The nearest of the duo, the one who'd spoken with quiet intelligence against the Nahztreme captain's tirade against the tribal peoples of the Wild Places, extended his gauntleted hand to greet the bounty-warrior and the Blind Watchman.
"I am Draekasen Se'nurqille Predayas frae'Bluhd, Third-Rank Journeyman Knight of the Emperium's Central Homefront Security Corp for Outland Marshals. I'm currently on attachment to the Orbital Planetary Mobile Command District, embedded with the Nahztreme. You can call me D'Spayr..."
As he shook Syngemma Krede's hand, he waited for his comrade to speak, but the second man in scratched and pitted exo-skeletal combat armor said nothing. The scruffy and battered condition of the armor on the two men spoke volumes about their histories – it was obvious they'd seen a lot of front line action. But unlike the armor of the Nahztreme, the tactical exo-cybershells of the Knights were crafted with unusual attention to articulated intricacy and complexity of utilization, meaning the Knight's armor was of a more exotic Next-Gen design. There was something subtly unusual about the duo, something undefined and yet unavoidably noticeable, a sense of dignity and elevation, a grandness that set them apart from all others around them. Tall, muscular and athletic, sinuous in a pantherish way, the brothers were more like armored demigods than mere gladiators or soldiers, no matter how elite. The taller of the two men by a large margin, the second newcomer was content to warily appraise Syngemma and the Blind Watchman in aloof and arrogant silence. The man who called himself 'D'Spayr' shook his helmeted head and reluctantly continued with the introductions.
"This other Knight is from Central Homefront Security's Territorial Crises and Counter-Insurgencies Division, also on temporary attachment to OPMCD, and he is a Second-Rank Adeptan for the Outland Marshals. He often works for the World-Father's Royal Inquisitors. He is also an experienced Unstable Ordnance Powder-Alchemist. His name is Qrystatos Fa'neel Mica Bluhd, my older brother."
"Do you have a preference for what you are called?' Syngemma asked the taller man.
"Inquisitor, Adeptan or Knight-Marshal usually suffices," the man said in an unpleasant tone. "Or, if you feel compelled to informality in order to experience trust towards me, I have been occasionally addressed by the cognomen 'Butcher'..."
Syngemma felt a brief chill flood her body at the man's aspect and timbre. She could tell that, unlike stalwart and regimented D'Spayr, Qrystatos was no one's simple police constable or soldier. He was a coiled threat waiting to be unleashed. He was a natural predator. She noticed that even the coarse and brutish Nahztreme were uncomfortable in his presence.
"So just what is it that you think you have that warrants the attention of a Planetary Command Provincial Ops fireteam?" Captain Tarwook demanded of the pair of nomadic mercenary troubleshooters.
"You're not going to like this... Despite how it may appear, despite the fact that their ships are strafing and bombing Pex'Insava on an almost daily basis, the Gorgahnun Coalition isn't the primary threat to the Emperium's dominion over the solar system's spaceways," Taran'Gaohnge replied. "The Gorgahnun's are a distraction, a deadly dangerous distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. They are in the employ of a larger, greater threat to Teshiwahur's ascendancy in this sector of space."
Tarwook listened warily and gave the Blind Watchman a flat, emotionless stare that hinted at a darker response held barely in check. "That's a lot to say. A remarkable claim. And how would a pair of ragtag nothings like the two of you come upon information like that?"
"Dhoumhaunt the Anguisher," Syngemma said cautiously.
"Dhoumhaunt? One of the foremost of the former Judge-Exterminants of the Qrypfathenne Sovereignty? Why would someone like him be in any way involved with the two of you?" Adeptan Outland Marshal Qrystatos queried caustically.
Before either Syngemma Krede or Tara'Gaohnge could reply, the air was split by a thundering noise that resembled the metallic gong of a mighty bell overlaid with the brittle crackling of a thousand icicles shattering. Even before the massive sound had faded a series of klaxons began wailing loudly, issuing from a scattered collection of tall, needle-like metal towers scattered throughout the sprawling, jumbled township and its surrounding boroughs.
"We have to move – we've got incoming. We've got to get going right now," Tarwook's bad tempered growl couldn't mask the sudden anxiety that erupted within him and the rest of the Nahztreme. "That's the Time Shear-Alert warning. We have to get behind some Void-Transition shielding as soon as possible or the Time Shear's cyclonic particle-cascade will overwrite us."
The formerly deserted street behind the small group's shoulders was suddenly, noisily, alive with a frenzied gush of people frantically racing towards specialized shelters off in the near distance.
"Kel'Dach's Eyes, dammit, how is this possible? The last one was only seven solar heliars ago! They're raining down on us faster and faster! Give me a cartography-reading... How close is the nearest Capsulation Shelter?" Private-First Class Euraeqou blurted over the near-deafening sound curtain of the approaching Time Shear and the warning klaxon.
"Minnemaqohn Bridge Post, that way, due north and east, twenty-six degrees off horizon," fellow Private-First Class Harat'Nem shouted.
Without further conversation and moving as a single unit, the Territorial SpecOps Nahztreme squad took off at a run. They galloped up the narrow, winding street off the rendezvous point towards a collection of squat, ugly buildings under the shadows of a wide trapezoidal awning a quarter league away.
Syngemma and Taran'Gaohnge watched the Nahztreme squad and looked at one another questioningly, then they levelled their gazes at the two Knights, both of whom stood unmoved by the alarm.
"You should follow them," Qrystatos said, sounding both bored and mildly exasperated. "And make haste doing so... I have come to understand that getting caught in a Time Shear's particle-cascade is incredibly painful, though only briefly, before you are erased from existence."
"Why aren't YOU both running for cover?" Syngemma asked, her eyes cast to the darkening sky, nervously searching for the telltale undulating curtain of purple light that preceded the arrival of the Time Shear.
"We possess certain... natural and genetically-cultivated biological enhancements ... innate to our genetic code, that render us immune to the effects from exposure to Time Shears," the Knight who earlier had called himself 'D'Spayr' said. His halting and oblique tonality clearly revealed there was more to that explanation than what he was willing to openly share with strangers.
"What does it matter, we're immune. Get moving or you're going to die here looking as stupid as you sound," Qrystatos snarled.
The warrior-woman and the Blind Watchman needed no more convincing. They took off at a hard run charging towards Minnemaqohn Bridge Post.
"Brother, did I never mention to you how much I hate it here?" Qrystatos said, sighing.
"No, can't say that you have... It's not like you haven't cursed Hookara'ie Wadi and Tuwerbleek Atun at least a thousand times since we arrived here," D'Spayr drawled laconically, obviously tiring of his older brother's complaining.
"Oh, alright then. I won't mention it again," Qrystatos said, content that D'Spayr fully understood his distaste for their current assignment. "No point in being repetitive about it."
Time Shears were theorized to be born in the distant depths of The Wound, that huge silvery-yellow rip in the inky deepness of the space, a half light-year wide ragged and uneven gash in the fabric of Newtonian/Einsteinian firmament. They emitted from inside The Wound from some unknown point of origin and caused by some equally mysterious catalyst and rolled across the length and breadth of the Teshiwahurian solar system at a speed easily exceeding that of light itself. Like most things associated with The Wound, the massive, tidal particle wave did not follow any existing and categorized laws of Known Physics.
Shortly after the arrival of The Wound in the sky and that anomaly clasped its fists around Teshiwahur's solar system, beginning the process of what most the population of the Hegemonic Emperium referred to as "The Long Death", the Time Shear-Alert warning network had been built and deployed. The Hegemonic Emperium's Extrasolar Celestial Defense Web had formerly alerted the World-Father's military defense system of the imminent onset of these Wound-originated infrequent temporal ejections through its wide-ranging network of defensive satellites, but since the Great Revocation that network had fallen into disrepair and disuse.
Time Shears skipped through and around celestial objects like planets and asteroids and washed over gravitational fields and star fields like running water, yet those self-same Time Shears horrifically disassembled and molecularly rewrote random, isolated physical bio-organic matter in unpredictable ways that broke the anchors of those bio-organic components from their existing position in TimeSpace.
More immediately, though, was the danger thetemporal ejection wave caused by disrupting and destroying some types ofelectronics. The Time Shear possessed the minor side effect of acting as anEMP, an electromagnetic pulse, though its effective range was often limited andits affected targets random within the target zone. Sometimes city-wide power grids would potentiallybrown-out and other times only electrical conveyances and other vehicles wereaffected. Occasionally, the Time Shear'simpact was tragically limited only to cybernetic enhancements to living bio-organisms,leaving the people and beasts dependent on those electro-mechanicalenhancements enfeebled, incapacitated or dead.
It was as if Time Itself was violently rejecting those specific life forms from the entirety of objective reality.
Unicellular organisms and complex plant-life were torn away from their dimensional Planes of Reality, disappearing in tornadoes of scattered, splintered fragments. Meanwhile multi-cellular semi-sentient and self-aware life forms were burned to still-living, dismembered, writhing meat-ash, drained of energy yet still awfully, sadistically alive --- before they were forcibly ripped from existence altogether.
And yet, somehow, someway, the people from whom Draekasen and Qrystatos Bluhd were descended managed to be natively immune to the Time Shear's effects.
It was yet another piece of evidence contributing to the unofficial, but popular, theory that these brothers, these Knights, were not quite human.
This presumption did not make them well-liked among their comrades and fellow soldiers.
"We should probably go join everyone else at Minnemaqohn Bridge Post," D'Spayr said. "In order to be effective as we work among them, it's important we keep up appearances."
"Of course, little brother! We wouldn't want all those fragile, cowering little primates to feel at all uncomfortable around us. Can't have that."
D'Spayr gave Qrystatos a disapproving look. "Sometimes you're really kind of an ass."
Qrystatos shrugged and began jogging down the now-empty, debris-littered street as if he hadn't a care in the world.