“Damn,” Meredith’s disappointment felt unwarranted. She’d noticed the signs even before shuttling to the surface, but they’d made the descent anyway. This wasn’t the debris of a Solar swarm. Something other than those bastard Locusts had destroyed this world.

“Not what we were looking for?” Azi chimed, their tone knowing.

Meredith’s face hardened. Relying, as she did, on expensive whispers and rumors meant travel bred disappointment as often as delight. Distance bent not only time and space, but meaning as well. Age and language warped communication in a cosmic game of telephone, so ‘winged plague‘ may have begun as ‘death from the sky‘ or simply ‘bad air.’

“We will track down every last one of those beasts,” Meredith replied to her companion. “But in the meantime let’s see if anything left on this world has value.”

“There must be a story…”

Of course there’s a story, Meredith smiled. There’s always a story…

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