Humans wanted to erase the night.

That was the conclusion Iskar reached as he stared down at Teluria, one of the vast cities humans had built in the middle of the desert. A dazzling network of lights stretched out before him, obliterating the darkness.

For a moment, he was blinded. Iskar blinked as his light-sensitive eyes adjusted to the glittering spectacle.

“Astounding, isn’t it?” To his left, Torin Mardak leaned against his hover-bike, crossing his arms.

Like Iskar, the First Division warrior wore a black jacket with a hood. A pair of strangely comfortable trousers—jeans, the humans called them—completed his outfit. According to the human women in the General’s new Cultural Advisory Department, this attire would help them blend in amongst the crowds.

As Kordolians, there were times when they wanted the world to know exactly what they were, but there were also times when they wished to go unnoticed. Having just been appointed High Commander of the Kordolian soldiers—correction, mercenaries—stationed on Earth (with the exception of the notorious First Division, who answered only to the General himself), Iskar definitely didn’t want to be recognized in Darkside.

That was a difficult feat, considering he’d already appeared at several diplomatic events. His face had been broadcast all across Earth’s infernal Networks.

A soft snort escaped him as he glanced at Torin. “Astounding? I don’t know whether that’s a look of admiration or bemusement on your ugly face, Mardak.”

Torin gave an enigmatic shrug. “I don’t know either. Humans are one of the strangest species I’ve encountered in all of the Nine Galaxies. They’re so fucking contrary.”

“And yet one of them has snared the Indomitable One.” Of course, Iskar was referring to his superior, General Tarak al Akkadian—former leader of the Kordolian military fleet, instigator of rebellion, and the man Iskar had pledged his complete allegiance to.

They all owed Akkadian their freedom. The General was untouchable.

“The General’s found his mate,” Torin agreed, “as have several of my brothers. From what I’ve observed, human stubbornness seems to be a good counterpoint to our innate… tendencies.”

“Counterpoint, or complement? Seems to me that Akkadian’s claiming of a mate was the catalyst for the downfall of the Empire.”

“The plan was in place long before that, but maybe you’re right. Who knows? You’re never going to figure out what’s going on inside his head.”

“I know. Believe me, I’ve tried.” Iskar wryly shook his head as he activated the reflective visor of his helmet, concealing his features behind impenetrable nano-glass. “He won, though,” he muttered, getting onto his hover-bike. “The bastard always wins.”

“Much better to be on the winning side, isn’t it, Commander?” Torin bared his fangs. Unlike Iskar, he didn’t wear any sort of protective helmet, because a near-invincible First Division warrior had no need for such things. Still, Iskar didn’t envy Torin his freakish healing ability. It had come at a terrible price.

He hit his hoverbike’s start-pad. The machine hummed to life, rising slowly into the air. Primitive thing. He would have much preferred his own glider to this slow, clunky, oversized human machine, but the sleek Kordolian craft would have drawn too much attention.

There was a time and a place for everything, and Darkside wasn’t the place to advertise their identity to the world.

Not when this was supposed to be a quiet observational visit.

Not when the spooked humans were still getting used to the idea that the Kordolian armed forces weren’t going anywhere.

And certainly not on the night humans called New Year’s Eve—supposedly one of the busiest times in Darkside. Humans had this odd cultural tradition where they celebrated the passage of time.

A gust of warm air rose from beneath the rocky outcrop. It intensified into a strong headwind as Iskar and Torin sped down the cliff, heading for the aerial traffic lanes. Although night had fallen, it was still disgustingly hot, and Iskar was grateful for the temperature-regulating skinshirt he wore under his jacket.

Thankfully, the General was in the process of negotiating a partial move of their operations to Earth’s frigid—and mostly unpopulated—southern pole. For Iskar, the move couldn’t come fast enough. Like all Kordolians, he hated the heat.

They joined the slipstream, weaving between delivery drones and hover-cars and aerial signal-surveillance bots. Their presence would be logged, but not flagged. The General’s human tech team had developed an anonymizer chip that made their profiles appear as ordinary as white Vaal ice.

“We’ll head for the so-called Glory Strip.” In spite of the traffic noise, Torin’s voice was crystal clear over the comm. “Then you’ll see what I was talking about. They can become spectacularly disinhibited. They willfully abandon self-control.”

“Why?” For the life of him, Iskar couldn’t understand why anyone would want to give up self-control, but then again, he was a military man, and his entire existence was ruled by self-discipline.

“I don’t know. Maybe this is what freedom really tastes like.”

“You and I both know that freedom is an illusion,” Iskar said quietly as he throttled the hover-bike’s speed, slowing to a crawl. As they neared Darkside, the air-traffic became a disorganized mess of bots and drones and hover-vehicles, all jostling for space in the narrow flight-lanes. “The Universe needs order.”

“Just as order needs chaos to define it.”

Iskar rolled his eyes at his friend’s answer. It was typical Torin; enigmatic, careful, and too clever for its own good. “So what does that make us? Are we the order, or the chaos?”

“We can be either, depending on the situation. It is our choice, no?”

“Hm.” Behind his visor, Iskar frowned. He was still coming to grips with his new appointment on Earth. The thought of a long-term posting on this messy, confounding, primitive backwater of a planet filled him with a strange mixture of dread and anticipation.

He would have much preferred a job closer to home, perhaps within the First or Second sectors, but the General had specifically requested that Iskar take command of the Kordolian forces on Earth.

Why me? He’d mulled over the question a thousand times in his head, but he still couldn’t understand why Akkadian had chosen him. Out of the five commanders, surely the brash, straight-shooting Jerik or the proud, gregarious Tarkun would have been better suited to dealing with these humans.

Diplomatic relations had never been Iskar’s strong point.

“Take some time to understand them, Iskar. You may be surprised.” Tarak’s advice had been delivered with a dangerous half-smile, and Iskar had no choice but to accept.

After all, Tarak al Akkadian was asking—correction, ordering—and only a fool would refuse the General.

That was why he was entering Darkside disguised as an ordinary human on a hover-bike on fucking New Year’s Eve. The ever-curious Torin had convinced him that this would be a good time to study the nature of these contrary beings, because knowing one’s enemy—correction, ally—was of the utmost importance if they wanted to keep them in check.

“We’re here for the long haul, might as well get to know the natives.”

Despite his irritable mood, Iskar agreed wholeheartedly. It was important for him to develop a good understanding of these humans and their culture.

All the better to intimidate them with.

For some reason, these humans seemed to think Kordolians were their allies. Ha. That misperception suited Iskar just fine. By the time he was done with this forsaken planet, he would understand Earth better than humans themselves.

He was meticulous like that.

Iskar cursed as Torin abruptly found an opening in the traffic jam and sped off, leaving him behind.

Bastard! He gunned the throttle and shot after the warrior. A cluster of hover-drones scattered before him like vakkandik flies, emitting useless beeps in his wake.

Torin became a dark speck in the distance, disappearing into a dazzling man-made forest of tall buildings and fluorescent lights.

“You First Division bastards are all the same,” Iskar muttered under his breath as he sped after Torin, pushing his hover-bike to breakneck speed. “That’s the problem with being un-killable. You forget that we ordinary folk aren’t like you.”

“I never forget, Commander. You were being slow, that’s all.”

Typical Mardak. Iskar let out an irritated grunt as he sped over vehicles and rooftops and narrow alleys, unfazed by the dizzying altitude.

A high-pitched whine escaped the machine as he pushed it beyond its limits, until Torin’s broad back came into view. Any other mortal might have balked at such terrifying speed, but Iskar threaded his bike through the narrow opening with surgical precision, ripping past a line of hover-cars. A loudspeaker blasted a threatening warning in some unknown Earth language, but Iskar left the sound in his wake.

The hover-bike might be an ungainly thing, but he was in complete control, demanding maximum performance from it. He wouldn’t fall. He wouldn’t crash. Iskar was as uncompromising with the machine as he was with his troops, and it rewarded him with speed.

As he came alongside Torin, his fellow Kordolian smiled, appearing as calm as a Vaal ice-sheet in deep underwinter. The bastard wasn’t even wearing an eyeshield. Iskar glared through his visor and summoned even more speed, shooting past the warrior.

The quiet sound of Mardak’s ironic laughter echoed through his comm, but Iskar was too preoccupied to respond to his friend’s needling.

A fascinating sound had captured his attention. It reached his ears over the hum of his bike, and he had no choice but to head in its direction.

Voices. Not hundreds, but thousands of them. Shouting, whispering, laughing, cursing, chattering.

Melding together to form a rich tapestry of human-speak.

Then there was the music. Primal, pulsating, hypnotic, punctuated by the sound of thousands of footsteps and the hum of millions of machines.

Chaos.

Like most Kordolians, Iskar had exceptionally good hearing, and he used it to try and form a mental image of the world he was about to enter.

He failed. Even with all his experience—he’d held posts in all sectors of the Nine Galaxies—he couldn’t fathom what lay beyond the haphazard collection of buildings that made up the Glory Strip.

“The sound of humanity,” Torin observed. “Noisy bastards, aren’t they?”

“Hm.” Iskar could only nod in agreement as he veered toward the glittering skyline.

These humans seemed to be everything he wasn’t, and once again, he found himself wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into.

In the wake of the Empire’s downfall, life had suddenly become very unpredictable, and that didn’t sit well with a military man like Iskar Gar-Kurai.

With Akkadian’s blessing, he would just have to bring a taste of Kordolian order to this strange blue-and-green world. The old Empire might be finished, but everyone who entered the Ninth Sector would soon understand that the Kordolians weren’t going anywhere.