The distinct boom of a Fallen Skiff entering the area rang out over the decrepit buildings and metal scraps once known as cars. The Thieves’ cities were all like this, empty, blown out, hideous to the eye. It was truly horrific what they had done with the Great Machine’s gifts. Yet, this hideous area was sacred. The Shard of the Machine sat in a twisted forest, cloaked in mist and shadow. A sacred glade steeped in blood and scorched by ether blasting from the wounds of comrades. Zasrak was exhausted of everything. She laid her shock pistol on the ground as she watched a Captain descend from the Skiff, landing deftly on the soft, green floor. The dreg lowered her head, suppressing the urge to raise her blade early again. She clutched the moss beneath her feet and hissed. These Captains were no different to the ones she’d always served under. Anger welled up in her chest, and she drew her dagger. She growled and slashed at a broken screen, sending chunks of metal and glass all over the room. The memory of her imprisonment on that pale desert of a rock in the lun above. The Ether supplies were fast depleting, and her Captain had done nothing to ensure that her team was at full strength. Zasrak and all of the other Dregs were expendable. She longed for the days where she wielded her Wire Rifle and struck down dozens of Thieves, their veins coursing with stolen power. Nobody knew her past. When she approached her leaders to ask for a share of Ether she was struck on the head, and beaten. “Ba!” they wailed. “Ba! Ba dris!” They mocked her, bellowed that she was a failure. Wished for her death. The Dregs were given one canister to share, and they were frequently torn apart by their own allies just to get a drop of the nourishing gas. The gray pebble of a moon her House’s battered ketch was stranded on drove all of them insane. Cleaved and dissected by the green, sadistic worms and incinerated by the Thieves. The Exiles fought a war on two fronts and they were losing on both. Zasrak was disgraced, and that Machine-forsaken hellscape was where the disgraced belonged. The Exiled. Remembering that name rose bile to her throat. The Wolves had not helped the situation. They sucked up resources from the Exiles like hungry infants suckling from the teat of a dying mother. Then, just as always, they were cast aside. They fell. The Kell of Kells was a failure. Ba. Just like her. So why should she let herself waste away on that rock? Let her carcass drift off to lun where her name would be forgotten, as so many others, while Skolas, Ba of Kells, remained in the tapestries and codices of her kind? No. She would rise, and then she would dock and eviscerate those who had sentenced her to years of dust and green fire. She sheathed her dagger, her rage cooling as the Captain finalized his business below her and waited. She would have her vengeance. She steeled herself for the act she was about to commit. Where once burned rage in her belly now sat frozen, quiet determination. She picked up her shock pistol hopped off the ridge on which her crumbling building of a post sat. [b]CRACK.[/b] A bullet sliced through the Captain’s lower arm. He roared in pain and dashed for cover. She had her opportunity. The Thief stationed in the nearby tower fired off two more shots, hitting the Captain in the leg and grazing the crest of his mask. He sank down behind a crate, his suit sputtering ether and blood, clutching one arm. His shock blades hit the cracked stone below him and clattered for a moment before falling still. The Captain groaned, grabbing his Wire Rifle and returning several shots at the Thief, but it was no use. It was too well secured, and another bullet grazed the crest of his mask. But his lack of attention was all Zasrak needed as she plunged her dagger into the back of the Captain’s head. Ether sputtered from the mask and the Captain sank to his knees. The Dreg fumbled with an Ether Canister, collecting as much of the escaping gas as she could before the hissing faded. She searched the corpse thoroughly, her eyes coming to rest on the Captain’s upper arms. Hah, no, she thought. That was a Dreg's instinct. A remnant of the ba. Had she sunken that low? No, they were [i]her[/i] lower arms now. She tucked several canisters of ether into her new armor. It was too big and clanked as she walked, her diminutive Dreg frame nearly too small to keep it on. Her new cloak billowed in the wind, a majestic purple. She wondered if it would tip off her next kill. It didn't matter. She would soon be ready to take on more. Zasrak would make everything hers. The Dreg was dead, and the Ether Skimmer rose from its ashes.