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As if a violent storm had swept through, the Dark Star vanguard's encampment was a complete mess.
The massive transport plane that once sprawled across the ground like a steel behemoth was now nothing but shattered sheets of metal.
Sparks crackled intermittently across the wreckage, hissing zz-zz in the air.
Not far from the ruin, members of the advance team lay scattered about.
Some sat on the ground in dejection, heads bowed; others were gathering the bodies of fallen comrades.
A heavy sorrow hung over the site; morale had bottomed out.
Seeing this, Max's face darkened as he walked forward.
One soldier, slumped and despondent, looked up and spotted Max. In that instant, he seemed to find his backbone again, his eyes flared with light, and his spirit returned.
"Captain!"
Max waved a hand, signaling there was no need to stand and salute, then gave a small nod.
Softly, he asked, "Report. What's the situation?"
"It was Team Magma…"
"Their firepower was overwhelming. We couldn't hold them back."
"Many of our brothers…"
The soldier's eyes reddened.
"The plane was destroyed by Magma. All the comms equipment inside… gone."
Max clenched his jaw, silent for a beat. "You still have the sat phones in your packs, don't you?"
"Try to contact HQ and request support."
"We tried… we tried everything." The young man lowered his head. "Signals across the entire Ashleaf Island are jammed. We can't—"
His voice snagged, turning hoarse with grief.
Max looked at the dark-skinned, boyish face eighteen or nineteen at most.
He sighed, reaching out to ruffle the kid's hair without another word.
His gaze swept the area then froze. Besides those who'd stayed to guard the site, he saw several who'd previously been sent to recon other directions.
He beckoned one over. "How did your two squads fare?"
The soldier he called had lost an entire right arm at the shoulder; a blood-stained bandage was roughly tied off at the stump.
Confronted with the captain's question, he opened his mouth as if to answer then fell silent and simply shook his head.
Max's fists tightened at his sides, as if he meant to drive his nails into his palms then slackened, powerless.
"Go rest," he rasped, the sound like sandpaper on wood.
From behind, Kael (the Ampharos) watched the iron tower of a man seem to stoop with age in a single moment.
Comrades who had lived and trained together for more than half a day were gone in less than a day under the enemy's assault.
The plane was gone, signals jammed, most survivors injured and combat effectiveness gutted.
Blow after blow had carved years into the commander's posture.
Kael stood quietly aside, his long black-and-yellow tail swaying absently.
From Mareep to Ampharos, he had spent ninety percent of his life in Dark Star.
He knew what the organization was an underground syndicate that thrived in the shadows, its methods at odds with the human values he'd once held.
Even so, after so long within its ranks and after all the resources it had poured into him he did feel something for it.
Golden sparks flickered in his black-and-white eyes as his gaze passed over the battered vanguard.
If there was a chance, he thought, he'd find a way to get these people out alive.
On the island's eastern side, the ashen-brown cone of Mountain rose high.
Like a pimple on the face of the earth erupting once, then subsiding it had long since quieted, leaving only a deep, pitted scar.
At the summit now, a tall man in a red windcoat knelt on one knee at the crater's edge.
Arms opened as though to cradle something, he closed his eyes.
A devout murmur drifted from beneath the shadow of his hood.
"Great god of magma and earth,
You are the undying light,
the eternal heat.
The continental plates are the cracks in your armor,
the molten rock, the saliva upon Your tongue.
…"
"Please hear the plea of Your most devoted servant. Bring salvation to this world steeped in sin."
"…"
The solemn hymn circled the dusty peak of the mountain.
The crater remained as it was silent and dark.
A small hymn alone could not rouse a primeval titan from slumber.
After a long time, the chant dwindled.
The man in red, moved by his own piety, lifted a satisfied smile beneath the hood's shadow.
Carefully, he drew a small white metal box from his chest.
Disgust flickered in his eyes as he set it on the ground and opened it with delicate fingers.
Dazzling blue light spilled out an ocean-deep sapphire glow, tinged with the brine of the sea, the breath of life itself.
Inside lay a crystalline blue gem, pure and immaculate.
It seemed to hold surging tides within, painting the summit in azure hues.
Its brilliance flashed like neon in the air.
His disgust deepened. Pinching the gem between two fingers as if contact might stain his soul, the red-clad man strode to the edge of the crater and flicked it into the abyss.
The gem tumbled, swallowed by darkness, its glow bathing the depths like an angel fallen into hell, holiness smothered by night.
Plink—
He dropped to his knees at the rim, hands pressed piously to his chest, and the hymn rose again over the mountaintop.
Silence.
The vast volcano, like a beast in hibernation, swallowed the proffered morsel and settled once more.
Then from far below, as if the earth itself trembled, came faint shudders.
Dust leapt from the ground.
From deep within the crater, a hoarse and ancient roar swelled vast power surged upward with fierce wrath, sound waves lashing the sky.
The hymn ceased for a heartbeat then the man in red, suddenly flushed with excitement, chanted louder still.
Beneath the hood, his sickly pale face bloomed with two faint, feverish blotches of red.
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