“And we do indeed have a plan,” said Tal Aro’nh, as if reassuring himself.

The first sleek cutters dropped toward Crenna’s single city, where the splinter colony had been established. Gregarious Ildirans preferred to live in close quarters, unwilling to spread out on open land. Groups of settlers worked the fields, raising food for their colony, but each evening all the people returned to the fold, where they could take comfort in the combined thism. Now, though, so many Crenna inhabitants had died that the thism was frayed and broken, without sufficient population density to maintain a true link. The survivors felt bereft, isolated… terrified.

Kori’nh felt a tightness in his chest, a backwash of fear projected from the colony survivors. “We must hurry, Tal Aro’nh,” he said from the command nucleus. “Those people are alive… and alone.”

The surveillance cutters returned, transmitting images so that the large escorts and bulky troop carriers would know where to land. Personnel-transport vessels had been stripped down and modified to accommodate quarantine conditions and sterilization procedures.

Kori’nh studied the images of the colony town, where many buildings had already been abandoned or burned. The plague survivors that remained free of the scourge huddled together in boarded-up buildings—a perfect recipe for spreading contagion. As the disease spread, the victims first lost their eyesight, dying in terrible darkness—which was anathema to the Ildirans, whose race had evolved under the perpetual daylight of seven suns. Even the burly soldier kith looked uneasy at the prospect of facing the disease. Death was one thing, but darkness, blindness, was altogether more frightening.

“Take no time to salvage any material objects,” he suggested to the Tal. “We must abandon and shut down Crenna. The Mage-Imperator already considers the entire settlement a loss. Evacuate the survivors as soon as possible, before any more fall to the plague.”

Accepting the Adar’s suggestion as a direct order, Tal Aro’nh relayed the words throughout the cohort.

From his comfortable command nucleus, Adar Kori’nh considered how this event might be dramatized in later versions of the ever-growing Saga of Seven Suns. How would his own role be recorded? He didn’t want to sit safely here, watching from high above. Abruptly, he stood from his command chair. “Tal Aro’nh, I will personally accompany one of the groups down to the surface.”

Alarmed, the old subcommander turned to him. “That… is not part of the plan, Adar—nor is it wise. The soldiers are already at risk.”

“If we have not taken sufficient precautions, then we should not be sending our soldiers there.” Kori’nh strode toward the hatch. “And if the situation is safe enough for our soldiers, I consider it safe enough for me. I will see Crenna for myself, since the Mage-Imperator will want a firsthand report.” And only with active participation would he be remembered as more than just a man who watched in comfort while nameless soldiers performed the dangerous work.

Kori’nh found a seat on the twenty-sixth troop carrier. The low-ranking soldiers were impressed that the prestigious Adar would join them, though some appeared intimidated that he had stepped outside the boundaries of his normal role.