Chapter 4: The Dilemma

"What do we do, Cap'?" Asked Haruspex. She felt aged by what she'd seen.

"I need a moment to think." The Captain sounded more confused to her than afraid. "Put everything back the way it was. We're going to fall back and hide. I'm not making any decisions based on assumption."

"We have orders, Cap,” said Forge.

"Yeah," said Revol, "to clean up our tracks and bail."

"Trust me, Forge," said the Captain.

Forge was still for a moment, then nodded and got to work covering the bodies they'd unveiled. Cat and Eukary both projected recordings from their skullfort cameras from their vams, and everyone took great care to leave the bodies covered exactly as they were. They then exfiltrated, doing a trace sweep of their footprints as they left. Keeping low to the ground, they determined the most central of the taller hills in the area and stabbed a drone relay spike into the rock, then went back to their rest camp and set up a cloaking net.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t trip over us,” said Revol.

“We’ll have to be on a constant lookout,” said Cap’. “Keep the drone feed on your PIP at all times.”

Haruspex had hers on already, but she, with her expression of Radiance, had been watching the potential specters of her team since they landed. Their motions were not so blurry as they typically were, and instead of seeing their limbs move in multiple directions at once, their possible motions were all along focused paths. There was going to be a firefight.

She said so.

Forge readied his carbine.

“Between whom?” Asked Revol, leaning forward and shifting his gaze from teammate to teammate.

“Us and… I can’t make out their faces or gear, but we’ll be fighting with around twenty or more people. They’ll use rifles. Mostly long guns. One of them has a sword. It looks like it’s coming directly out of his hand.”

“Attack Group Six?” Forge began to stand, but Cat put a hand on his shoulder.

“Well,” said Revol, “it’s nice to know in advance that we’re screwed.”

“I don’t know that it’s them,” Haruspex said.

“Could they have been won over by the Quorum?” asked Cat, looking at Cap.

“Sentinels can’t be won over,” Cap answered. “Spex, are you positive we’re in the fight?”

She nodded.

They were quiet for the next several hours, passing the time by checking their weapons and gear and watching their PIPs. Haruspex ran a diagnostic on her skullfort’s optical relays.

Night brought a shift from grey to blue, and the hazy haunt of the great floating eels seemed more solid above them. The storms increased, eerie with the screams of the liminal winds muffled by distance and the thick belt of moisture between them, and when the tempest reached its zenith they could see the flashing of the eels; a slow, spectronic pulse that soothed their rattled nerves.

“Why do they do that?” asked Forge.

“The bulls do it to calm the cows,” said Aster, “and the cows do it to calm the calves.”

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“Who calms the bulls?” asked Revol.

Haruspex answered with a grin. “The age old question.”

They saw well enough in the night. Cap’s aura even seemed a little more visible. Maybe he was projecting it more strongly?

“Hey Cap,” Haruspex said, “how you holding up?” She could feel his smile behind his visor.

“A little nervous. And you?”

She smiled behind hers. “I’m anxious to see what Sol’s up to.”

“I think that’s obvious,” said Forge.

Revol laughed. “Oh sure. I mean, duh. Dead bodies gutted in a shrine with blankets. Yeah. Obvious.”

“What do you think’s going on, Forge?” Euk asked.

“That almadel Cap played for us said it all. Solomon went to far. Maybe he found his own way through the Verge, or maybe he just got too close. Maybe the Archeus let him live. One way or another they got to him, and now he’s worshiping the tangents. You said it, Reev, he’s collecting bodies and laying them out in a shrine.”

“You’re awful quiet, Ish,” Revol said, ignoring Forge.

“I’m thinking,” said Ishtar.

“Oh yeah? What about?”

“Solomon.”

“Well, care to share those thoughts?”

“Not at the moment.”

There was quiet again, and nothing changed as far as Haruspex could see, either through her Radiance or on her PIP. Eventually the Captain broke the silence.

“This whole situation is too strange for us to make any guesses. I recommend everyone just wait patiently till we know what Sol’s been up to.”

As if on queue, he showed on the PIP. He wore a hooded robe over his harness and skullfort, and carried a long staff. A troop of armed men in patchwork harnesses walked behind him. They turned constantly, nervously brandishing their beat up weapons.

“So uh,” said Revol, “we won’t be fighting any Sentinels then?”

“No,” said Haruspex.

The troop had a large hover skiff laden with a pile of corpses under a sloppily draped tarp. They parked the skiff on a patch of ground between Solomon’s grotte and a neighboring hill. Solomon lifted his hand and it seemed he was pressing a button on a small remote. A square patch of ground the size of the skiff lowered until it was gone from view, replaced by a new, identical cover that rose in its place. Solomon stepped close to the ragtag men and there was some sort of exchange before they left. He then went inside his grotte, but not before looking directly at the sensor drone.

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