The trench was quiet now.
No more screams.
No more gunfire.
Only wind curling through the canyon like the ghost of every war that had ever been lost here.
Dust still hung in the air.
Blood seeped into the cracked stone.
And the Warmachines moved like pallbearers through the wreckage.
They walked among the dead.
Not just the beasts.
Their own.
Maverick knelt beside a fallen brother—armor blackened, chest torn open by something jagged and alien.
He reached down, pressed his palm against the soldier's skullplate.
A low pulse of light flickered from Maverick's gauntlet—
data extraction.
Name. Rank. Confirmed KIA.
The temple would receive it in seconds.
The Primortals would remember him.
"Daxon-21," a voice called out.
"Found another. Throat breach. Chest core intact."
"Name sent. Rest well, brother."
Maverick stood.
Another soldier approached—towering, shoulder plates caked in dust and blood.
"I'm glad you're here, brother," he said.
"We thought we would certainly perish in this wretched wasteland."
Another chimed in from nearby, scanning the wreckage of an ammo drop site.
"Ten more minutes, and we would've been bones on a forgotten rock."
Maverick didn't look at them when he answered.
His voice was low. Icy. Certain.
"We have missions. We don't fail them."
Silence followed.
But it wasn't cold.
It was earned.
Then—
a smaller figure approached.
Smaller, relatively speaking.
He still stood over seven and a half feet tall—taller than most natural-born men.
But among the Warmachines, he was young and small. A novice Warmachine. The curve of his chestplate still sleek. The armor joints barely scratched.
He stepped up to Maverick with careful confidence.
"Sir…"
"What's your name?"
Maverick turned slightly.
Helmet staring down into a soldier that hadn't seen half the horrors Maverick had buried.
He said nothing.
Only the hiss of wind answered.
The young soldier stood there for a second longer. Then nodded and stepped back.
They moved on.
⸻
The climb to the evacuation mountain was steep.
Three hours of heat, silence, and the weight of loss in every footstep.
The smoke behind them didn't fade—
It just followed.
At the summit, the view stretched for miles—scars of old battles, bone fields, wreckage piles older than history.
They rested in formation—silent, weapons on their backs, heads turned to the sky.
Waiting for the drop-ship.
But one of them couldn't sit still.
Mitus.
The youngest.
Helmet off now. Dark hair matted to his forehead.
Eyes too wide to hide the things he'd seen, too focused to ever be called a child again.
Mitus hadn't earned his name yet when the war took his planet.
He was still a refugee then. Still starving. Still scared of thunder, thinking it was god roaring at the world for forgetting peace.
He volunteered for the program after watching his brother get devoured by a crawler-beast on broadcast. Young boys do not typically "volunteer", making Mitus a very particularly interesting case.
He joined not for glory. Not for vengeance.
Just to never feel that helpless again.
He looked at Maverick now—
The legend who didn't flinch.
The shadow that turned death away.
"I'll earn my name like that," he whispered to himself.
He didn't know Maverick had heard him.
But Maverick had.
__________________________________
The mountain did not offer peace.
Not yet.
They heard it before they saw it—
the screeching.
The thunder.
The storm of claws.
From the far ridge came the next wave.
Dozens. Then more. Then more.
Flesh-mounds with bone-tipped limbs, crawling and slithering and charging like gravity was optional.
The Warmachines turned as one.
No orders.
No hesitation.
Just war.
"Incoming!"
"Hold the cliff!"
"Make these bastards choke on stone!"
The beasts clawed their way up the slope—
Some leapt. Others dug into the rock with talons like barbed drills.
One creature lunged—
CRACK.
A boot met its skull mid-air.
Its body folded backward and tumbled down the slope, smashing others with it like dominoes made of meat.
Another scaled the ledge behind them—
A Warmachine turned, grabbed its throat, and slammed it into the wall until the bone cracked like dry branches.
Gunfire lit the dusk.
Shells fell like hail.
Blood misted into the air like perfume from hell.
Maverick stood near the front—
not firing, but throwing.
Beast after beast was lifted, crushed, discarded.
And then—
the drop-ship arrived.
With a roar of engines and a vertical windstorm, the evac vessel descended—massive, armored, its side doors yawning open like the mouth of salvation.
"Evac ready! MOVE!"
One by one, the Warmachines began to fall back—
still firing, still swinging.
Some dragged wounded beasts with them, slamming them down for final kills before stepping aboard.
Maverick was the last to enter.
The ramp closed.
The ship lifted.
The battle shrank beneath them.
Beasts howled and scattered, outpaced by steel and flame.
Silence.
Inside the ship, nothing moved.
Nothing spoke.
Ten surviving Warmachines.
Dozens dead.
A mission completed.
The air inside was thick with heat, soot, and sweat.
No armor was clean.
No mind was untouched.
Then—
Mitus spoke.
"We… we did it."
"Hundreds of us slain… and we made it."
"Our brothers… they should be here with us!"
His voice cracked.
He didn't cry.
He was a Warmachine.
But the ache was still in his tone.
Before anyone could answer, a voice snapped out:
"QUIET, BOY!"
Fitus—broad-shouldered, armor chipped, visor still red-hot.
"Do not tread the line of questioning what should have been!"
"Focus on the mission. On yourself. If you don't—if you waste energy on the dead—then you won't make i—"
"Stop speaking."
Maverick's voice hit the hull like a war drum.
"Cease this petty squabble of what we should do…
as if any one Warmachine is correct in the way they deal with war."
Silence.
Fitus bowed his head slightly.
"My apologies, sir. You're correct."
No one spoke again.
They sat in silence, listening to the sound of engines humming like a heart made of steel.
Then the ship AI spoke.
"Arrival to Earth imminent.
Landing will be initiated in T-minus 20 seconds."
The lights dimmed to red.
The hum deepened.
And the stars outside began to disappear.
______
The ship descended in silence.
No flare. No fanfare.
Just the hiss of slowing thrusters and the groan of landing gears biting into steel.
The landing platform behind the temple opened like a maw, and the drop-ship exhaled its survivors.
One by one, the Warmachines stepped out—
scarred, bloodstained, righteous.
And the people were waiting.
Thousands.
Civilians. Initiates. Clerics. Children.
Their cheers rose like a holy wave, like a sound meant to push back despair.
"They've returned!"
"The gods of war walk again!"
"They survived the canyon!"
Hands raised.
Cries echoed.
Some wept.
Mitus blinked behind his helmet—his first welcome. His first return.
He didn't wave. But inside, his chest ached.
"So this is what survival feels like," he thought.
Fitus walked stiffly, silently.
His posture straight, head high—until a little girl ran through the crowd, stopped in front of him, and saluted.
He hesitated.
Then returned it.
Quick fist to chest. Down.
Another soldier removed his helmet, just for a second, to breathe in the air of Earth.
It tasted like peace.
It almost choked him.
And at the center of it all—
Maverick.
He walked through the crowd like a mountain through smoke.
Unmoved.
Unshaken.
The crowd didn't dare touch him.
They only watched.
⸻
The temple steps loomed.
The ten climbed in formation—slow, heavy, holy.
And the doors opened.
Inside: quiet. Cold stone. The war-table waiting.
The Primortal stood already at its edge.
He said nothing until the last soldier entered.
"Mission complete," he said flatly. "Losses: confirmed. Extraction: complete. Debrief begins."
Each soldier stepped forward, gave their report, and was dismissed.
Waiting for them at the exit: the Bringers.
Cloaked. Covered in reflective metal.
Silent figures who walked like shadows given purpose.
They guided each Warmachine down a separate corridor—toward chambers carved into the temple's underbelly.
"Rest. Cleanse. Endure," one Bringer whispered to Mitus.
Mitus nodded.
He looked back once—toward Maverick.
But Maverick did not move.
⸻
Only Maverick remained at the war-table.
The Primortal didn't offer praise.
Only data.
"Your next mission has been assigned. Solo deployment. Immediate departure."
The table flared to life again—this time revealing a new world.
XORTA.
A dead planet.
Choked in shadows. Covered in bone.
The Primortal spoke:
"The dark side of Xorta has fallen to something beyond definition.
They are… abominations.
Beasts with tendrils and jagged bone-teeth.
They walk at twenty feet tall.
Their bodies drip toxin. Their minds are unknown."
A pause.
"There was once an engine on that world.
It powered a quasar cannon—designed to keep their numbers at bay.
It has gone silent."
"Your mission: reignite the engine.
Hold long enough for its firing sequence to activate.
Once complete… you will be eligible for extraction."
Maverick said nothing.
"You will be alone. No backup. No guidance."
Still silent.
"Do you accept?"
A single nod.
"Good. The Bringer awaits."
⸻
Maverick's chamber was circular, spartan, black.
One wall displayed scripture written in steel:
"Pain is not the price. It is proof."
Another read: "Will is a fire forged in the hearts of men who refuse to die"
The Bringer moved without sound, assisting in armor cleanse protocol.
Maverick removed only his helmet.
His face was pale. Scarred. Focused.
Water flowed across his rugged face like a memory trying to be forgotten.
His armor hissed beneath gentle tools.
No food. No drink. No conversation.
Warmachines had long surpassed the need for such things.
They could go weeks without sleep.
Hours without air
And have no need for food or drink.
All they needed—was mission.
⸻
When the cleaning was done, Maverick stood.
Helmet in hand.
Body whole.
Mind already elsewhere.
He walked out of his quarters.
No farewell.
No doubt.
Just steel beneath his feet
and the next war waiting beyond the stars.
___________________________________
The drop-pod breached orbit in silence.
No comms.
No mission countdown.
No one waiting on the other end.
Only static, and the cold void of Xorta's shadow.
Outside the hull—
black.
Not just the absence of light, but something more… intentional.
The stars didn't shine here. The sky didn't shimmer.
It refused to.
⸻
IMPACT! BOOM! SQUISH?!
The pod struck soil like a god thrown from heaven.
Not into earth—into rot. Into filth.
Dust exploded outward with a pulse, but it wasn't just dust—
it hissed when it touched metal.
Maverick stepped out.
His boots sank slightly into the surface—wet, gritty, almost spongy.
The terrain was riddled with jagged ridges and twisted stalks of bone that jutted from the ground like failed monuments.
The air hissed in his filters.
Heat Signature: NULL
Allied Signals: NONE
Bio-Matter Density: CRITICAL
He scanned the skyline.
Black fog clung to every structure—massive, hive-like towers twisted in unnatural geometry, as if someone built them while forgetting physics.
What metal existed had been consumed.
Replaced by growths.
Veins. Tendrils. Flesh-fused tech.
In the far distance, partially buried in an obsidian ridge, the silhouette of the quasar engineloomed.
A husk of its former glory.
But something else lingered too.
Maverick scanned again.
A brief flicker—movement in the fog.
Massive.
Slow.
Gone.
He didn't raise his rifle.
He didn't need to.
Not yet.
⸻
But inside—
He did feel something.
And that was new.
Flashes of the canyon.
Brothers torn open, calling his name.
Mitus—wide-eyed, too young, saying: "Our brothers should be here with us."
He couldn't get the voice out of his head.
Couldn't ignore the weight of his own silence back then.
And now, walking through this grave of a planet, Maverick felt it again.
Shame.
Beneath his nine-foot frame.
Beneath one thousand kilograms of living steel.
Beneath centuries of execution, orders, blood, and certainty—
Maverick didn't know if he could bear seeing another fallen brother.
Not yet.
Not again.
Maybe I'm starting to think in ways I never have.
It passed through his mind like a fracture in perfect armor.
He clenched his fist once—tight enough to creak the servos in his gauntlet.
Then loosened.
Focused.
Walked forward.
⸻
To his left, a downed drone half-submerged in bone-growth twitched.
Its optic flickered red. A distorted voice played from its speaker, looping in static:
"They never stopped coming.
They never stopped coming.
I saw one eat its own. Just to scream louder—"
Maverick stepped over it.
The deeper he walked, the more he saw:
• A Warmachine's gauntlet, half-melded into the wall of a ruined bunker.
• Bringer armor, hollow and crushed, with something pulsing inside the helmet cavity.
• Carvings, not in stone, but in flesh—shapes made from claw, not hand. Warnings.
"This is a burial ground," Maverick muttered.
"They just forgot to bury the dead."
In the fog ahead—something massive moved.
Twenty feet tall.
Bone-spiked.
Silent.
It didn't charge.
Didn't howl.
It simply turned its head, as if noticing Maverick for the first time.
And then—it vanished.
Not into the mist.
Into the ground.
⸻
He reached the perimeter of the engine complex.
Vines thick as armor cables wrapped the structure.
Its pulse—once the heartbeat of this entire hemisphere—was dead.
This planet isn't a battlefield, he thought.
It's a carcass.
And something inside it is still feeding.