If something can go wrong, it will.
Alus Indrius; Battlemaster of the Third Shadow Guard

Space was a beautiful place, he had to admit. The far reaching void held both treasures and dangers beyond the imagination of all life. Even for the eyes of Hadrius Varro, if it weren't for the nightmarish vessel decorated with razors, spikes and numerous other embodiments of death that filled his command deck's observation port.

And then of course, there were the hundred or so streaks of fire that were streaming from it's loathsome side, straight for his crippled flagship.

'Brace!' he called for the hundredth time, immediately before a hammer, or more specifically the wall he'd been holding at an arm's width was rocked back with tremendous force, into his plated skull.

Growling his contempt for the foe, the Guardsman launched himself back from the screen, to the secondary command console off to his right; the primary one already having been consumed in fire at the onset of his predicament. Artificial gravity held few bounds for him; the generator having been one of the first pieces of equipment knocked out by the Soul Reaper's onslaught.

A routine assignment gone horribly astray, it had been over two months ago when the Battlemaster had been summoned to Terra, with his next mission. After a painful series of investigations into the numerous raids on the Council's borders, the threat had finally tracked down by a Pioneer team to the Sol system, though any real intelligence on the enemy's capabilities had been lost with the team's destruction within an hour of entering the hostile space. Determination to end the threat had seen the hunters of the Fifty Ninth redeployed from their search grid within hours of the incident.

Determination, and a clear disregard for caution, Varro thought bitterly.

Now, with his two support ships long gone in the opening salvo of the Dreadnought class vessel, and his remaining ship; the Warden of Terra, tearing itself apart in an uncontrolled descent into the gravity well of a planet cloaked in vast oceans, with the occasional mass of green land, there was only one thing left to do.

'All remaining forces aboard the Warden,' he instructed grimly, 'we are beyond saving the ship. Evacuation order Sigma is now in effect; all crew are to get to either drop pods or sub vessels and prepare for evac. Window expires in three minutes; grab whatever you need and move it!'

He wasn't entirely certain that his belated order reached all interiors of the ransacked vessel, but with new data reports from the hangar bay, as the Ravens prepared to guide their vessels from the doomed Warden, the Battlemaster could at least hope, even as his console burst into sparks and fire.

'Remus!' He spat, signaling the last Guardsman left on the blood stained command deck, 'prime the distress beacon and get ready to move!'

'Navigation matrix is out, Varro,' the steadfast figure returned, 'I'll need another minute to recalibrate our coordinates in...'

'We're over the third planet from Sol's sun!' Varro broke in, 'I'm sure they can work it out from there. Warn them of what we're dealing with and send up the beacon! We're out of time!'

As his ensign worked feverishly to complete his assigned task, Varro threw himself back further, until he was floating beside the vast holographic Battlemap of the fleet's deteriorating status. Thankfully, the crash prediction matrix was already complete, giving him an approximate course of the fireball's descent into the atmosphere below. Frantically scanning for any sizable location near their predicted pathway, Varro finally pinned a finger into the digital image of narrow coastline in the Northern-most region he could find on the map, barely a kilometer off the prophesied crash landing into the ocean.

'Rally point for all survivors is designated,' he shot over the chaos of the fire, 'Remus, have you finished up yet?'

'Beacon's away,' the Guardsman replied. A fist slammed the counsel before him, sending their only hope for salvation into the depths of the void, just before a fireball consumed the bridge, consuming both figures in a fury of tumbling flames.

The skies of Arendelle had always held great wonder in his mind, as he gazed up into the slow fall of flakes and the constantly shifting shards of colour that turned and spiraled in the winter sky.

The gentle, recognizable snort pulled his attention back down to his oldest friend, as the inseparable pair continued to gaze up into the unending roof of the world.

'The sky's awake, isn't it?' Kristoff asked aloud, more to himself than Sven, but regardless, he could tell by the reindeer's subtle glance upwards once again at the night's curtain that there was at least one person in agreement.

And yet, this night, there was something else in the usually flawless display of colours; a bright chain that seemingly cut through the tapestry of the North, and Kristoff realized with some joy that they were witnessing a shooting star.

'What would you wish on, Sven?' he queried absentmindedly, only be be replied by a gentle nod on the cheek by his friend.

'Fine,' he chuckled softly, reaching into the satchel that lay half buried in falling snow, to extract another carrot for the pair to share.

'What's your wish, Kristoff?' a second voice interjected, sending Kristoff shooting upright at the sound. The last time he'd checked his surroundings, it had just been him and Sven, although, almost immediately, the distinct voice was enough to put him at ease.

'That you'll stop scaring me like that,' he offered gently, as he eased himself back into the snow to observe the Aurora once again.

'Come on, Kristoff,' Anna said, hopping down from her horse into the snow, 'it's never been that bad.'

'Well...'

'You could have just asked any other day,' she continued playfully, sliding down to his side, 'it would be quite a waste on a wish.'

'I don't know,' Kristoff replied, chewing his lip, before he finally relented what was holding him back, 'it's just that I've heard different things about stars. Not sure what they'll bring now.'

'Well, good luck of course,' Anna returned, allowing her own gaze to shift upwards, into the void beyond, into the unknown.

Unfortunately, Varro did not feel he was emulating Anna's belief of 'luck' to any real extent, as he clung to the wall-turned-roof in free fall, fully aware that a drop at this height, without an atmospheric entry suit, would definitely end the Fifty Ninth's Battlemaster.

If incineration on entry didn't kill him, the impact with the ground certainly would.

His armor rent, scarred and burnt beyond recognition, Varro clawed at the stubborn bulkhead, praying to the Great Father for it to part open. He did not dare to look back, though whether it was for fear of seeing Remus' incinerated corpse, or the closing distance to the hard impact of the ocean, he did not know.

Cursing his luck to the Storm, he hammered the console again and again, his voice lost in the roar of air ripping past the doomed ship.

Then, as if the Great Father had suddenly decided to grant him a single mercy, if only to watch him suffer again in the near future, the two plates of steel parted to give way to a creature that would have petrified lesser beings; fully plated in Matt black carapace, a similarly hued cloak dancing erratically in the wind behind it, while it's helmet covered the being's face completely. Indeed, the only evidence of a living soul beneath the suit were the two red eyes the glowered in the sunken recesses of the face plate.

For Varro though, he could only grin, at least, what constituted a grin when one's jaw had been nearly torn off three years past leaving a somewhat lopsided smile of a maniac. Indeed, it was the mirror image of the Battlemaster that hung from the wall, save for the charring of the latter.

'Well you're a sight for sore eyes, Victus.'

'I've seen worse,' the Guardsman replied solemnly, as he hauled the Battlemaster up through the gap in the wall, back onto relatively stable ground. 'Last pod is standing by to drop now, Varro.'

'Are the rest of the regiment off?' The Battlemaster demanded midst ride, as the continued onward for the designated corridor, even as he grappled the sides for guidance. The air was thick and choking with smoke, and as they progressed into the dying wreck, visibility was quickly dropping as quickly the Warden was.

'Anyone who could have made it off already have,' Victus replied, 'all that's left aboard are the dead.'

Varro refused to reply to that. Despite the intelligence's specific advice to follow the path they'd taken, right before being torn apart by the Reaper, the lives of the Guardsmen lost were his to carry once more. Such was the burden of command, he reflected grimly, and even as they marched through the constricting smoke and fire, Varro breathed the last rights of the Guard under his breath.

It would probably be impossible to recover the bodies anyway, once they were locked beneath the ocean water.

Such only soured the already bitter taste of defeat.

But most of all, failure.

'Be advised; entry propulsion systems offline,' repeated the dead pan artificial intelligence that never failed to intone the imminent death that Varro continuously managed to avoid, 'recalibration required...'

'Screw you, Warden!' Teronius roared, before he slammed a fist against the release panel. Slipping inside with seconds to spare, Varro finally seated himself inside the drop pod, as the door sealed securely shut behind him, trapping the four Guardsmen within an iron coffin.

There was of course Victus, having entered the tomb before his Battlemaster at the former's insistence at being the last aboard the doomed vessel. Then, there was Plinus, hunched over and brooding as he always was on the far side, while Teronus continued to spit curses and atrocities at the Warden's A.I. for their current predicament.

'Are we even locked on the flight path?' Victus demanded. The wolf's glance he received from Teronius was little comfort.

'Sort of. Down.'

There was the sudden horrible lurch in the stomach, as the pod departed the relative safety of it's mother, and began it's horrendous, uncontrolled descent; the two sets of jets mounted on it's sides to aid in slowing down the impaired vessel firing off sparks and irregular pieces of metal.

Of course, perhaps it was a blessing in disguise their deteriorating situation outside was not fed back to the crew within, namely due to the cracked and ailing control council situated at the center of the capsule receiving a sizable metal bar through it's display screen amid the chaos.

Not that it did much to improve Varro's mood.

'Be advised,' the A.I. continued, barely functioning by such a point of damage, 'impact in three...'

'I hate this part,' someone murmured over the comms though, in the heat of the situation, Varro was too busy keeping his eye on the count down timer to check the comm log for which suit the weary voice had come from.

'Two...'

Then, everything detonated in a shower of pain, before the bliss of unconsciousness took over.

Author's note: thanks for the support guys! Reviews and constructive criticism always appreciated