The storm owned the city.
Rain fell sideways, thick with ash, turning lumen-globes into sickly halos that barely touched the ground.
MASON split the squad without words. Hand signals. Eye contact. Black-Net stayed quiet except where silence would kill them.
They moved through the slums like a rumor of violence.
Doors opened before hands reached for locks. Shapes folded before mouths could open. No one screamed long enough to matter. Bodies hit ferr
The Valkyrie bucked hard in the crosswinds, warning runes screaming across the cockpit bulkhead. MASON heard the pilots arguing over the vox—too much flak, too much turbulence, too much everything.
“Ghost Lead, negative drop. Repeat, negative drop,” the pilot barked. “You jump now, you die before the chute arms.”
MASON keyed his helm mic. “Open the ramp.”
“Absolutely not—”
He didn’t wait. Manual override hissed beneath his hand. The ramp locks clan
THE 164TH: Team Dossier
AQUILON TEMPESTOR MASON
Role: Squad Lead
Weapons: Hotshot Lascarbine and a Tempestus Dagger
MASON never traded up for the traditional officer’s pistol and sabre. He sticks with the same lascarbine he’s carried since his first drop, and the squad trusts him for that. He keeps a sealed relic-vial of Armageddon ash under his chestplate—grainy grey dirt Yarrick himself once trod on.
MASON’s leadership
Ordo Maledictum: 164th Detachment "Ash Vultures"
Affiliation: Ordo Maledictum
Role: Rapid Retrieval and Purification Unit
Doctrine: Grav-chute insertions into rift-proximate warzones to recover warp-tainted artifacts, terminate psy-reactive entities, or destroy evidence of corruption.
Motto: “By any means necessary.”
Symbol: A black shoulder pad or knee guard bearing a red Inquisitorial “I” pierced by a downward silver sword — the blade