The Desert

A task force of Zwerg Ats detaches from Killy's ship and descends toward Quent. Arron and Gurran try to reason their that he was nothing to worry about, but this does little to put Killy at ease. Chirico catches up on recent history with Shako, who explains that Quentians gave up their technological civilization thousands of years ago to live in the desert crevasses. Suddenly, Zwergs appear to give chase. Shako outmaneuvers them and escapes, but damages the radiator in his sandrunner, and must push the vehicle by hand. He enters a deep crevasse in the desert in hopes of finding a village of Quentians, but the Zwergs require their target and open fire on the ailing sandrunner. Chirico manages to commandeer one of their attackers' ATs and launches a counterstrike while Shako destroys another by ramming it. They continue their journey and word of their victory reaches Albert Killy. Furious that his men were brash enough to start a firefight in the vicinity of a Quentian village, he berates Arron and Gurran for their carelessness. On the surface, Chirico and shako approach another crevasse, within which lies Shako's own village. "The Quentian village lay in the depths of the ground. But was the mystery of the PS, of my own origins, hidden here? A race which had abandoned civilization and destroyed itself. Wasn't Quent, in the end, simply a graveyard?"