[A low hiss.]
[The propulsion units at the rear of Starfire Glory ignite, and your tall frame surges forward through a dawn sky that is just beginning to lighten. Below, the Sacred World's pale red sun is cresting the horizon, throwing scorching light across your armor and scattering dull gold reflections down into the city streets.]
[The flamboyant silhouette of the wings and the unfamiliar design of the armor are enough. Within moments, the Hrud begin emerging.]
[They come up through gaps in the city's surface: long-armed, seemingly neckless, their ring-shaped forearms trailing almost to the ground. They are creatures of darkness, and they press themselves into the shadows of buildings where the direct sunlight cannot reach, then begin tracking you with ranged fire along your flight path.]
[The Hrud are not primitives. They have survived in this universe across an immense span of time, and every adult among them is a capable scavenger and improvised engineer. The weapons they raise against you are assembled from junk and salvage, hodgepodge constructions that nonetheless fire with accuracy. Their culture places a reverence on ancestor worship and recorded history that exceeds almost any other race you have encountered. Their own account of cosmic events may be more detailed and more accurate than the Imperium's.]
[There are also accounts, credible enough to be concerning, that Hrud migration groups have completed long journeys by stowing inside the deck gaps of Imperial vessels. The crew members unlucky enough to share a ship with them did not fare well.]
[Whoosh. Whoosh.]
[You are already moving. Your visor cycles through observation modes as you read the trajectory of each incoming round, and you tilt the whole armor through the gaps between them, letting the shots pass. Vibranium's physical resistance you trust completely. Entropy energy is another matter. You do not know what time-based psionic force does to vibranium's microstructure at the molecular level, and you have no interest in finding out while surrounded.]
[At the edge of the city street below, Captain Slyll and his surviving squad appear in silence, mortal warriors moving in their shadow. You catch them between evasive tilts and extend one vibranium hand downward: signal to move, stand by.]
[You draw the power sword Captain Slyll contributed from the waist of Starfire Glory, and drop.]
[Boom.]
[The propulsion units cut out and reverse as the wings snap open at full extension, slamming down into the Hrud formation below with the weight of a golden meteor. The detonation of the landing scatters the nearest cluster and draws the attention of every Hrud on the block.]
[Your magnetic boots are already moving backward, keeping you inside the gaps between the entropy fields as the Hrud press in. The wings work independently, each feathered edge of layered vibranium sweeping and cutting in long arcs that keep the nearest aliens back.]
[You are moving like something between a weapon and a dancer, and the Hrud are dying for it. Through your visor, at the far edge of the visual field, you catch the Astartes and the mortals threading through the ruins behind the alien mass, moving building to building in the sunlight, making distance.]
[Then the sound changes.]
[A dry, high scraping, like carapace plates rubbing against each other, rises from dozens of Hrud simultaneously. The entropy fields around them are already growing as their numbers increase. Now something else appears on their bodies: a distortion effect, faint but spreading, that smears and warps the data coming through your visor's display modes. A second field type. A visual interference layer.]
[And from the mouth of a nearby cave, a Hrud crawls into the light.]
[Larger than the others. Taller. The ring-shaped forearms are longer, and more flexible, moving with the articulation of a spine rather than a limb. At the tips of those arms, two blades of entropy energy resolve into focus: grey-white, like cold light through smoke.]
["Slyll, pick up the pace! Move!"]
[You do not look away from the Hrud leader as you shout it. Behind you, the sound of the squad breaking cover and running across the sunlit rubble confirms they heard.]
[The Hrud leader charges.]
[Your hand tightens on the power sword. The wings extend forward, the serrated vibranium feathers sweeping fast and hard toward the two spinning entropy blades.]
[The blades pass through the wings as though the vibranium is not there.]
[The impact hits your breastplate.]
[You move for Shadow Step and the entropy field expands around the leader at the same moment, swallowing the space you needed, swallowing you.]
["Ah—"]
[Time leaves your body in strands. Not a metaphor. You feel each one going, pulled from somewhere inside you that has no name. Starfire Glory's pale gold surface, unmarked a moment ago, dulls and dims as though a century has pressed down on it in the span of a breath.]
[You do not retreat.]
["Die."]
[The word comes out low and hard from beneath the skull helmet. You drive the armor forward into the field instead of back, directly into the Hrud leader's closing reach, and everything moves at once: the wings slash from behind, the power sword comes up from below, and neither hesitates.]
[A soft, tearing sound as the entropy field gives against the impact. The Hrud leader's head separates from its body and leaves a trail of foul-smelling fluid across the air as it goes.]
[The two entropy blades, already descending toward your breastplate, are caught by the power sword's upward arc and severed at the tips before they arrive. They fall.]
[The field collapses.]
[You exhale once, heavily, inside the skull helmet.]
[Without stopping, you bend and close your fingers around one of the fallen entropy blades beside the alien corpse. Then the wings fold inward, the propulsion assembly forms in a fraction of a second, and the burst of light that erupts from Starfire Glory's back throws you upward into the bright sky.]
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