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The suit was warning him about a dozen different things, Abbas abruptly realized. He began his descent, having no real choice in the matter, and just tried to focus on not crashing. He managed it well enough, but the suit buckled around him, and he toppled down the side of a sand dune.

He could hardly breathe or feel any of his limbs, and these were problems, because his reaper wasn’t around to invoke the regeneration. He ejected the chest piece in order to alleviate some of the pressure on his lungs. It felt like he’d broken a rib or two, though he wasn’t sure at which point that might’ve happened. His grip had grown weak as well, and the Salesman’s skull slipped out of his hands and rolled to the bottom of the dune.

Abbas tried to stand back up but found he could barely even crawl. The Salesman’s ability had taken an even larger toll on both the suit and his own body than he’d realized.

He had to hurry, though. It was true that without a body, the Salesman had no conduit through which to channel the ability from his brain, but there was still the matter of severing communication. So long as Ivan’s brain remained unfrozen, he would still be able to talk to his reaper.

Abbas was kicking himself for not freezing it as soon as he’d gotten his hands on it. Sure, it was a surprising victory, but that didn’t excuse such amateurish work. He’d acted like he’d never captured an enemy combatant before. He grumbled Valgan curses into the sand as he crawled after the skull.

“Are you okay?!” came a sudden voice.

Abbas twitched. Who was that? There shouldn’t have been anyone else out here. He wanted to check the suit’s sensors, but they were down for the count, too.