The smell of fresh blood and cold ozone filled the cramped space of the supply closet, thick and suffocating. Eilan stood frozen, his left hand still resting on the iron handle of the door, his eyes locked on the dead soldier slumped against the wooden crates. The man's head was tilted back, his sightless eyes staring blankly at the low ceiling. His gray fatigues were soaked in dark, wet crimson, but the blood was not pooling on the floor. It was entirely contained within the smooth, unmarked line of destruction across his throat. There had been no struggle. There had been no sound. The man had simply been erased.Eilan's mind raced, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He stepped closer, his boots making no sound on the grated floor. He checked for a pulse out of pure instinct, his fingers brushing the cold, clammy skin of the man's neck. Nothing. The flesh around the wound was strangely warm, humming with a faint, residual aetheric energy that made Eilan's own m

The transport ship did not even bother to land. It hovered fifty feet above the rusted landing pad of Outpost Echo-Niner, the downdraft from its thrusters kicking up a storm of gray ash and loose debris. Eilan Voss stood at the edge of the open ramp, his duffel bag slung over his left shoulder, his right arm tucked deep into the pocket of his heavy tactical coat. The pilot did not offer a farewell or even a glance. The cargo crate containing Eilan's meager possessions was unceremoniously dropped onto the pad, and the ship immediately banked away, disappearing back into the thick, churning wall of the permanent fog. Eilan was left alone on the edge of the world.Outpost Echo-Niner was not a military installation. It was a rusted, half-collapsed watchtower jutting out from a jagged spire of rock, suspended by massive, groaning chains over the abyssal drop of the lower fog belt. The massive chains that anchored the tower to the surrounding islands groaned in the wind, a deep, metallic so

The silence in the glass domed observation deck was absolute, save for the low, rhythmic groaning of the tower swaying in the upper atmosphere winds. Eilan stared at the iron crest on Koran chest, the twin crossed swords of the Tyranium empire gleaming dully in the dim light. The words his childhood friend had just spoken hung in the cold air, heavy and suffocating. Koran was not here to protect him. He was here to watch him. Eilan slowly lowered his left hand, the sidearm feeling like a block of lead in his grip. He looked up from the crest to Koran face. The scarred, hardened features of the Tyranium operative offered no comfort, no warmth of the boy who used to race him across the crystal bridges of Nebul. The ghost of their shared past was entirely eclipsed by the cold reality of the present. Eilan asked Koran what he meant, his voice barely rising above the hum of the ventilation scrubbers. He demanded to know why a Tyranium soldier was embedded in a Vanguard black site, and wha