Ashwalker

The alarms faded behind him, swallowed by steel walls and sterile silence.

But Kaiell's pulse didn't slow.

Joran had been pulled from the cryopod unconscious—eyes closed, skin pale, body wrapped in heat-sinks and IV threads. Medical drones had loaded him onto a low-grav stretcher, Viora regulators still pulsing faintly beneath his skin.

"He'll make it," the med-officer said flatly, not even looking up. "Stronger than he should be."

It didn't help.

Kaiell stood motionless as the infirmary doors sealed shut. The hiss of magnetic locks echoed in his ribs like a final note he didn't want to hear.

Then the chime rang through the mountain base, emotionless and clinical.

[OUTPOST TEAM THETA-9 — DEPLOYMENT READY. GROUND TRANSPORT WAITING — LOADING DOCK C.]

No time for rest. No time for breath.

He grabbed his helmet and ran.

The launch bay growled with turbine noise and static pressure. Krugers moved in silence, strapping into armored grav-pallets. Massive drones checked railgun coils and automated turrets. The carrier waiting at the center looked more like a siege engine than a transport—layered plating, anti-voidling mesh, sensor jammers glowing along the chassis.

No windows. No escape.

Just steel. And silence. And fear.

Kaiell boarded without a word, sliding into the last seat. Theta-9 was already locked in—expressions hidden behind mirrored visors, like statues waiting for orders.

He strapped himself in. Nightfell lay across his lap.

No one spoke.

The rear gate slammed shut.

Launch cycle initiated.

The carrier jerked forward and dropped into the earth—a thousand-meter plunge along the trench elevator into the deep void lands.

At first, it was just motion.

But then came the weight.

The pressure behind his lungs. The tightening in his throat.

And then—fear.

Cold. Raw. Like a hand pressed against his spine.

It had been years.

Not since Rust-12. Not since he'd watched his uncle Samuel get pulled under by screaming metal and black flame. Not since the smell of scorched ore and flesh.

He clenched his fists. His fingers trembled.

He tried to swallow. Couldn't. The air tasted recycled and thin.

"What the hell am I doing?" he whispered, just barely audible through the internal comms.

"Void cults. Shrines. Gods that speak in dreams. And they want us to erase them?"

He glanced around.

Everyone else sat still.

Focused.

Unshaken.

Was he the only one like this?

The only one afraid?

His eyes dropped to Nightfell.

The blade hummed softly. Faint. Like a heart he hadn't noticed before.

The weapon had never left him. Had never failed him. It had drank the blood of Void Captains. Shattered Mage wards. Survived Vox.

Now it felt warm.

And then—a voice.

Not over comms. Not through speakers.

Inside.

From the blade.

"Good," it said. "You're feeling it."

Kaiell flinched.

"Fear. Doubt. Cowardice. Do you know what those are?"

The voice was low. Male. Calm. No emotion. No judgment.

"They're survival instincts. The oldest armor. The truest warning signs."

Nightfell vibrated in his lap.

"I've seen thousands die pretending to be brave. Holding their heads too high to see the blade coming."

"But the ones who lived? The ones who lasted?"

"They felt the fear. And they listened."

Kaiell didn't know what to say. His throat was tight. His palms slick inside his gloves.

But he was breathing again.

Not harder.

Clearer.

"You're not weak for trembling, Kaiell," the voice said. "You're alive."

He looked down at the blade. At his reflection in the black sheen of the metal.

And for the first time since the trenches of Rust-12, he said it out loud:

"…I don't want to die here."

The transport jolted.

The clamps unlocked.

[SECTOR BX-12 — ENTRY ZONE REACHED.]

The hatch hissed open—and the Void greeted them.

Kaiell stepped out.

The air bit through his suit.

The sky above twisted like a living ocean—an impossible field of clouds swimming with light and motion. Strange silhouettes moved beyond the sky, as if sea creatures drifted between dimensions.

The ground was bone-dry rock, layered in blue ash. Shattered shrines jutted from the hills. Some made of stone. Others of flesh.

Voices—soft, distant—drifted on the wind.

Real? Imagined?

It didn't matter.

Kaiell gripped Nightfell, his boots crunching across dead ground.

The blade pulsed in his palm.

"Then don't," it whispered.

And Kaiell walked forward into the ruin.

Alive.

Afraid.

And ready.