The Withered Land, The Empire Falls: ABYSSIUM

ABYSSIUM, Part Four

The air was darkening as the day drew nearer its end. A rust-colored mist began to slowly rise from off the hot, pebble-strewn soil, and it moved like a serpent, undulating against the warm breeze fanning the arid drylands. The nightly process of evapotranspiration had begun earlier due to the lazy maturation of the territory's autumnal climatic season and the mist flowed along the uneven landscape's hills and trails. It was depressive and slightly ominous...

And it further fed wanderers traveling that terrain the impression that this was not a good place to be.

"All Prophets Be Damned," Field-Ops Communications Officer Laef'qon-Deith groused aggravatedly past dry lips, "the wind is carrying the TimeShear's particle field decay-backwash in an expanding spiral. For the time being, the backwash is blanketing all the active frequency spectrums. It's essentially killing all standard channel transmissions. I can't connect to anyone anywhere right now... This place is off the map and I can't pin down where it is relative to our Objective. "

They had crested a wide, rough-ridged collection of hills to reach a sprawling Ville that wasn't represented through the satellite-generated geo-imagery mapping that was fed to Sergeant-Major Gryce'roy Daamen's Exfil Retrieval team. A Centrie Brahnze ReAnimyte, Laef'qon-Deith was an experienced battlezone extrications specialist and had in his career encountered many an unanticipated glitch while implementing an Op in an active-fire zone. Yet the current circumstances as the Centrie Brahnze escorted the ambassadorial refugees across Pex'Insava's temperate zone were particularly and annoyingly chaotic beyond his tolerance.

"We're operating blind, Sergeant-Major, and I don't think we'll be re-establishing extra-lunar geo-positioning uplink again anytime soon," Laef'qon-Deith continued.

"Noted," Daamen grunted non-committally.

"We don't have a grasp on how many ways IN to the Ville there are nor how many routes there are OUT. That's not good. We've got NO idea what the baseline is for the general population count and whether or not the Ville is currently hosting more visitors during the daylight hours or nightfall. And we've got nothing to help us isolate the disposition of the population: are they civilian non-combatants, or are they Emperium militia, are they anti-Emperium rebels, or are they unaffiliated mercenaries...? Right now, we don't know.  I don't like this, not one damn bit," Mobile Field Intelligence Lieutenant Ruan'Castikkur said from his kneeling position next to a tall, dust-covered masonry block next to a crumbling perimeter half-wall. His dissatisfaction with the intangibles of the current situation was clearly evident.

"For right now, all we can do is just roll with it," Gryce'roy Daamen said. "Getting wound up about it won't serve any purpose."

From his position as secondary behind the Point Officer at the lead of the small troupe, FieldOps Captain Amaxxe Jo'Amerr looked back over one shoulder.  He tossed the Sergeant-Major a rueful half-smile while he said, "Well, sir, it's not as if this is the first time we've been left on our own in the middle of a storm of hot manure. Emperium Extraplanetary Tactical Command has never really had much of a grip on how things work --- or don't work --- up here on Pex'Insava."

"Got that right, Amaxxe, most definitely got that right," Daamen quipped bitterly.

At that moment, Persephall Grymmodeun separated himself from his position several meters behind the Centrie Brahnz contingent, leaving an annoyed Mah'rymeth Kwarq temporarily alone to safeguard Master-Chancellor Czeerai Seda'Bausayed, Ambassadorial-Diplomatic Judicial Attache Lel'Kinculnon and the remainder of the Central Redoubt's fleeing diplomatic team.

"The Ville is a Dryfte-Town, a nomadic transitional collective made up of thieves, mercs, outlaws and itinerant hoodlums in a rough cooperative coalition. There are maybe four or five other such vagrant migratory amalgamations across this district of Pex'Insava. The main thing they have in common with one another is their mistrust and hatred of the World-Father's military and for the law enforcement networks of the Hegemonic Emperium. Dryfte-Town's pop-up here and there, never staying in any one location for very long, avoiding troop movements and drone-flyby scans across the district. They communicate with one another mostly through Psion-Wytchery and each town has at least three such psychic telepaths. That way, what's left of the Emperium's advanced surveillance-tekk can't intercept their transmission signals and get a lock on their positions or on the identities of their citizenry," Grymmodeun explained. "The name of this particular Ville-coalition is 'Vazyoneulle'... and they're mostly assassins-for-hire under the control of a cruel and wealthy crime boss, a Korhng'Nathi Warlord, named Haq'Ja-Rashaei."