Hammer tested the full deadly dozen on Harold's Rest, and they left it a smoking pyre. It was not the only place to suffer such a fate, several other of the less than reputable rest stops also went dark and the few that survived or were unfortunate enough to see the aftermath kept mumbling something about ghosts and flame.

“Black Jacks Armor and Weapon Mods” The handwritten chalk sign read, marked on a stripped off door from someone's long lost truck.

Hammer had not been idle in the weeks since his conversation with the Broker. The image of the Trishula logo fresh in his mind, Hammer found that the little crew he had was willing to accompany him on his self imposed quest for vengeance. The Harpy became a winged vehicle for his will, but he needed more crew.

The hunter slipped into the vast dark, a silent predator approaching its prey.

“One of the big factories made it through the shattering, and as a stroke of luck, several of their board members were touring the factory at the time. After, well… everything, they eventually resumed production and have narrowed their focus on aerospace for obvious reasons.”

“So who killed Drake, then?” Hammer asked, his eyes set with a deadly purpose on the man before him.

The firefight that began in the street didn’t end there unfortunately for Hammers team and many others like it. They lost their medic in the second engagement and by the third the Lt. had also taken a wound to the shoulder.

Jades Mine was a small shard located between the first and second ring of what used to be a single planet. It was actually a working mine before the impact, and for whatever reason how the shards split, the mine remained intact and had become a bit of a space bazaar for the early moving spacecraft of the system.

Hammer placed his helmet on his head and waited for the suit to tell him he was good to go.

Hammer found one of the few sailing ships that was around before the shattering. At the time it was more a luxury item, where a few of the more wealthy mining consortiums had begun to experiment with hauling in space rocks, but now anyone who had a ship was big business.

“Sergeant Hammer!” Lt. Davies screamed into the cacophony that was the familiar song of warfare.

Hammurabi had been a sergeant in a branch of the military that few knew about. On the day of the impact, his best friend, known as Stick, and himself had been transporting their platoons gear to a conflict that was off the books.

When a physical bullet passes close overhead, a strange wizzing and whirring sound can be heard.

Bast had learned alot about her new friend in the last two days. Her name was Sekh, and she was great at watching others. The huntress made her living hunting the hard to reach game in the mountain valleys, but she had not forgotten about the camp of men.

The saloon's name was The Cleft Skull and came with a lovely drawing of a bone white and grinning skull being split in half with a katana that looked very much like her own. The inside was all thick pine boards and rough hewn tables with stools. Bast loved it.

It didn't take long for Bast to find the nest where the bandit had taken his loot. Two baskets of fruit. That's what this man had killed two people for, and now Bast had killed him.

Bast’s energy blast went wide and she could hear the high pitched whine of the super accelerated bolt careen off the thick stone wall, rather than the thick slap of energy on meat that would have indicated she hit her target.

The next morning Bast helped her father hobble out of the cave, at least she thought it was morning. She explained to him what she had seen in the night and that she had not truly seen the sunshine since the strange clouds appeared. Her father did not know what to think about this, but he saw it for himself and said nothing.

Almost everyone was dead.

Bast desperately began to throw her things into a bag as her father continued to scream and wake up everyone else in the household. He didn't explain why, but Bast was terrified. The look on his face; it was haunting.

Bast watched her cat, affectionately named Meow, work her way down the branch and gently begin to tap at her bedroom window. This was a little nightly ritual they completed, and it had been the same for most of her life.