Chapter 3 - Mission Start

Within the command tent, low thrum of busy technology can be felt throughout the air. Maps are flying over the table, land survey scans, war plans, three dimensional pulse action scans of rebel hideaways and no man lands. The holographic glow impinges on the dust motes roiling in the still air and turns them into tiny suspended stars. I do not speak unless spoken to. I listen. I learn.

Not the facts, with all their jarring differences. Not the silences, dense with unvoiced criticisms. Not myself, here in borrowed skin, pretending to belong.

Seren is framed in the doorway, slate against her hip, reading strategic intelligence in her brief and low voice. Her fingers move with mechanical facility through documents accessible to no one but herself. The light of the screen is falling on her face, high cheekbones, dark eyes, a mouth which scarcely relaxes.

"Target is Ilzen Marr," she states. "Ex-star knight. Defected during Reversal. Originally though to be dead, but he's not." The words fall like rocks. "Runs a rogue splinter cell in the western ruins. Tier Three vaults are his operation base. Possibly attempting to resurrect old Order tech."

The map zooms in, tracing a serrated edge of ravine and scorched woodland. The terrain shifts as the display alternates between recent sweeps, indistinct heat signatures, structural schematics of partially buried bunkers. A red pulse appears near the bottom of the ravine.

Marr's last known position.

I nod. "Marr needs me to go in."

"Get close to them," Seren revises. Her eyes wander over me, retreat, as if reluctant. "You're already friends with the rebels under your cover identity. Tam and his crew are waiting for you."

I gaze at the burning details. I remember pieces of this.

And yet. there are gaps.

This was never a priority quest chain in the game. Marr wasn't even named. Tam wasn't, either. And Seren?

Seren wasn't this alive.

Something's changed. Either the world, or me.

Or both.

The Commander, Revyn Stellaris Haldrin, hasn’t moved once during the briefing. She is at the other end of the table and crosses her arms and sits rigidly like reinforced steel. Her eyes are pale, nearly colorless and follow me as she is not sure that this weapon is completely assembled.

“You’re clear on the objectives?” she finally says.

“Infiltrate, identify, report. Kill if necessary.”

Her lips quiver. Not a smile. Something she'll keep to herself.

She waves her hand. "Dismissed. Gear's at the south barricade."

I nod and depart. Seren doesn't even look my way as I walk by.

I step out the tent flap into night.

The aurora danced through the dark sky. Fragranced with metallic perfume, copper oxide. the fires of the rebel are low on the horizon, the smoke of their flames mingled with the haze of scattered ash. The wind is bearing the faint flavor of dry laughter and clinking metal, somewhere out there, soldiers drinking, gambling, attempting to pretend they are not counting the hours until they count another near death.

The world is solid.

But I know it isn't.

And the worst part?

It doesn't care that I know.

---

Within the tent, the silence holds a beat too long before the voices resume.

Low. Hushed.

Seren speaks first.

"He's different," she says. "You can see it."

Commander Haldrin folds her arms. "I saw it when he gazed at me."

"It's not personality drift. It's aged trauma or scrape backlash." Seren scribbles on her slate, calling up a file. Kaelim's vitals, neural scans, mission logs. The data comes in staccato bursts. "He's logic-ing wrong. Viewing everything as if he's never viewed it before."

Revyn blows her nose. "He's been down for almost a day. Longer than expected."

"You think they did something to him?"

Revyn remains silent for a moment. She stares at where Kaelim had just been standing, as if the space held evidence. The holographic map still shines between them, etching fierce shadows onto their faces.

"I think," she finally says, "he was changed or maybe altered, i mean why he just followed the order of a Solaris from other family like me without hesitation."

Seren’s grip tightens on the slate. "There is high chance of it’s because outside manipulation.”

“Don't worry about it, if that's true then we will know.”

Seren doesn’t look convinced. “Would we?”

Revyn’s jaw tightens. “Regardless. The orders were clear. ‘If the subject recovers with anomaly patterns, observe. Do not intervene. Do not replace.’”

Seren tenses. "So we just let him go? Even if his memories don't add up? Even if he hesitates again like last time?"

The Commander's voice drops, cold now. Final. "If he hesitates again, we take care of it." She turns, her eyes pinning Seren's. "Until then, he's the knife they gave us. Use it."

There is a pause.

Seren is the first to look away.

"Hope it still slices."

---

South Ridge – Near Midnight

I walk through the wreckage, lightfoot. Kaelim's body recalls how to transfer weight on shattered rock, how to step clear of loose pebbles and snarewire. It's a strange way that it walks, as if it is eager to be used. As if it has been waiting for me.

Before us, a small smoldering fire in the rubble of a stone arch. There are five men crouched around it, armed, alert, tattered. One stands up as he sees me approach.

Deformed scar along the line of his jaw. Black braids short. Pale eyes. Rifle on shoulder. Tam.

He sizes me up and down, pausing briefly on the hilt of my sword, the closeness of my hand to it. Less a threat assessment. More an assessment of whether to trust me or bury me.

"You Vren?."

"That's the name," I answer.

"You're late."

"Blame the heat," I answer dryly. "And the company."

Tam grunts. Not really a laugh, not really suspicion. Just acknowledgement.

He waves for me to sit with them.

The others don’t say much. Two keep their hands near weapons, one with a modified shock pistol, the other with a knife that glints too sharply in the firelight. A woman with close-cropped hair narrows her eyes like she’s already planning to test me. No one offers food. No one asks where I’ve been.

This isn’t a welcome.

It's a test.

And I know how it's conducted.

I'm on the edge of the firelight. Near enough to look like one of them. Near enough to leave if I must.

Nobody speaks for a few moments.

I let the silence grow. Let it settle.

For I am not here to form friendships.

I am here to find Marr.

And maybe, maybe, find out why that world is not the one I remember.