u/KamchatkasRevenge

Trooper Vaelith Moraine 
29th Ha'quinye Imperial Shock Infantry Battalion

Vaelith Moraine hasn’t been having a good day. In point of fact, she hadn't been having a particularly good month either. Forced out of her comfy garrison life to deal with unruly civilians in the streets of cities across her home world, all the way down to getting her leather dress boots - the only thing half the sergeants seem to care about in this or any other life - dirty in some dinky farming village that had been allegedly hiding a girl who'd refused a special mobilization order. 

That hadn't been a good day. Certainly hadn't been what she'd been expecting when she'd signed up to extend her mandatory term of service and volunteer to try out for the elite shock infantry regiments. Her best friend from girlhood, Lirra Kade, had really missed her calling as a recruiter. She'd told Vaelith all sorts of exciting stories about the chances to travel, to fight pirates, even to take the occasional loot from the defeated, raise your status in the hierarchy, win fame, glory, honor and wealth. The uniforms even look cool, and, to this day, Vaelith would admit, the smart black and gold uniforms do look good. Hell, even their black combat gear looks cool. 

Well, go fucking figure that Lirra would fail out of training and leave Vaelith to deal with this goddess-forsaken mess alone when she could have been home getting her journeywoman's rating in a trade or something. But no, she'd wanted to go to space, see the rest of the empire, meet, and most likely have to fight and kill, all manner of aliens from goddess knows where... Well, she hadn't gotten most of that shit till recently, being stuck in garrison where the sergeants were ever-present and the most minute detail was a matter of life or death in the absence of something that actually mattered even vaguely. 

Then, the blood and ash still fresh in her nose from what she'd seen, her mind still not even catching up to what some of the girls in one of the senior squads had done in that shitty little village... they'd been told to pack their kit bags and march their happy asses onto a shuttle. They boosted to orbit, she marched her happy ass on to a massive orbital assault ship... and that had been enough for Vaelith Moraine! Hot goddess, space! She'd been space-happy and hiding it for at least the first week, but floating around in the black under Commodore Valeran had proven quickly to not exactly be the thing that interstellar pleasure cruises are made of.

No, not when the good Commodore made the worst and most anal sergeants look like a slacker serving her term in the militia. The commodore didn’t even have the decency to stay on her flagship and away from the grunts. No, she came over by shuttle for regular inspections, not just in combat gear but in dress uniform. For what? Vaelith had the idea that the Commodore had been planning on having a parade when they got back from doing whatever in the hells they were out in the void beyond imperial space to do whatever they were doing… but now that’s certainly going down the tubes at lightspeed! If they actually have any FTL capable ships left! 

Vaelith lets out a little sigh as she thinks back to the start of everything going wrong. When they'd found out that someone had brutally smashed that space station, someone that the girls all said clearly had big ships and a lot of guns, killing her other best friend, Rach'hel Declan, she'd gotten an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach. A feeling that the training, the conditioning had all said she couldn't feel. Hell, she couldn't even truly put a word to what that feeling was after the aggressive hypno-conditioning they’d undergone to ensure they were as trained, resilient and sharp as possible. Now, on this day, riding in the back of this hover truck? Vaelith Moraine finally knows what the feeling was. Is.

Fear. She’s scared. Ha'quinye Imperial Shock Troopers don't get scared, but she’s scared now. She'd been scared when they entered this goddess-forsaken system, had known in her gut that something awful was about to happen and that she'd probably end up like Rach'hel. Felt it every agonizing lightminute as they’d crept closer and closer to the world. Every instance of her commander and Commodore Valeran giving speeches about how this battle was critical to the survival of the Empire itself, and how, if we stood firm and won the day we'd all be heroines, immortalized forever in the legend of the empire's revival to the glories of the old days before the old empire had so utterly failed their subjects and been cast down by the Matricians. 

So why had she been so damn scared when they made orbit uncontested? What had been that little sensation telling her that some sort of monster had its jaw hanging open revealing rows of razor sharp teeth and gallons of slobber just inches from her face? From the time of their arrival, she could barely focus, years of training and indoctrination all that let her get through inspection prior to mission start and drawing her equipment. 

The only relief she'd felt the entire damn day was when her platoon got called up to one of the first landing craft to make planetfall early. She’d suppressed a sigh as she planted her ass in the barely cushioned drop seat and strapped herself in, practically cuddling her railgun like it was a plush toy from her youth, or some sort of charm to ward off evil. Her sense of relief didn't even make sense! If the world was hostile it'd be a bad time… but something had told her it was better to be in natural gravity and air with this cold sensation weighing down her gut like someone had sewn frozen bricks of ice in there. 

That had been about ten minutes before everything had really gone bad. They'd been allowed to make orbit uncontested because it had been a trap. Commodore Valeran, first of the fleet, this impressive commander Vaelith had heard about in all sorts of recruiting commercials for the navy, a rumored lover of Consul Euryde herself... had gotten trapped. Had driven in head-first, eager to secure whatever their prize was on this world, this 'sword'. 

Vaelith hadn't seen much of what happened to the fleet, but she'd seen the assault ship she'd arrived on explode from her tiny porthole before the plasma of reentry burning around the dropship's shields had erased her view.

To think she'd occasionally been jealous of navy girls. 

Not that she’s any better off. Not that her regimental commander had noticed. The woman sits at the lead of the convoy, racing towards their target, convinced this sword is their salvation. 

If it’s their salvation, why hadn't the people who were fighting them over it not taken it, whatever it is, and used it already? 

Or, hell, what's to say they aren't using it already?

She'd expressed that on the ground, while the hovercraft were still being unloaded, and she’d nearly gotten decked by one of the sergeants for her trouble. She shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have said that. The fear had broken something that the Ha'quinye military had installed in Vaelith Moraine, and now she sits, swaying, in the back of a lightly armored hovercraft, heading towards the 'target' that reason and judgement tells her is the mission, and her instincts are screaming like she’s diving into a school of Ripper Sharks - or some other charming horror that wouldn't even leave her mother a body to bury. 

They move from open plains to under the sheltering boughs of the trees, the top cover giving her some relief from waking daymares about aerospace craft strafing their far-too-tight column, or one of a thousand other possible nightmare scenarios. She sees the closeness of simple nature in a way that she hasn’t since she was a girl as she stares out her firing port. Broad leaves in broad boughs, a riot of rich greens, the occasional bird or tree rat of some description. The occasional shrub or three. A nice little winding trail... that suddenly starts to widen. That starts to flatten out. Flatten out in ways grass and terrain didn't. Which means...

Vaelith flicks on her comm unit, but before she can say anything, the regiment commander's voice comes over the net. 

"Objective in sight! Up and at'em, girls! Pop those top hatches for fast deployment!"

Instantly, some of the senior girls begin to unbutton the hover APC, a legacy of older times back on the homeworld, a tradition great for raids, for fast deployments and for parades - but this is different. Why doesn't anyone else see? Why don't they understand!? 

A sudden shriek pieces the copse of trees as they push about midway into what’s clearly, to Vaelith’s eye, an artificial glade. A finger of smoke reaches from the darkness near one of the big tree trunks and hammers into the lead vehicle like the touch of some sort of very wrathful war goddess, and it explodes in a great ball of flame, throwing the first vehicle over on its back, spilling its cargo of troopers on to the ground like discarded toys. Strange sounds fill the air, seemingly from all directions, cracks like peels of thunder, whizzing sounds, sounds close enough to the sound of her own railgun that Vaelith knows to get her head down, something one of the sergeants doesn't imitate - and then she drops to the floor of the hovercraft with a neat hole in her forehead right through her helmet, the woman's dead, glassy eyes staring at Vaelith through her shattered face plate.

Before she can even cry out that they’re being ambushed, some fresh slice of hell opens up on her APC, different from all the other thunder noises, the cracks of rounds breaking the sound barrier. This one has a deep-throated roar like a demon from the hells! 

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM, each heavy round punches through the light armor of her APC like sledgehammer blows from the goddess herself. The hover craft immediately goes out of control; the crew are likely dead, which had likely been the unseen gunner's goal in the first place. The hovercraft's nose takes a dive as its suspension fields start to die and the last of its energy throws itself up and over its own nose, leaving Vaelith clinging to her seat for dear life until it all comes crashing down. 

She quickly drags herself from the wreck, making sure to not leave her weapon behind. There'd be hell to pay if she left her weapon… but when she emerges it's to an utterly changed world. Smoke and fire everywhere, shocktroopers shooting in all directions, seemingly at random, as they try to engage their barely seen assailants, damaged and destroyed vehicles smouldering as girls call out for medics, and intact APCs trying to get out of the ambush, throwing their throttles all the way forward to move just as fast as their Axiom engines will carry them! She can’t focus on any of it; there’s no one thing she can orient herself against.

Finally, an officer emerges from somewhere, the woman's IFF marking in her HUD, gleaming in the hellscape she’s found herself in. 

"Come on! Rally on me, girls! We have to assault out of this ambush! Move!" 

At last. Someone has a plan. Vaelith just has to pray it’s enough for her to not end up dead. 

Series Directory Last

James Puller

The defense lines on the surface of Sheath were some of the oddest he'd ever seen drawn up. Now, of course, he knows what’s happening, at least in theory, and what the objective of the plan with its oh so evocative name is. Yet. It’s still just a bit of a trip. The compound they've just seized is the anchor... and the location to which they want the enemy to go. 

Easily done, because that was where the enemy wants to be. 

Outside the compound, tanks are dug in deep, hull down, and covered with camouflage net, with IR masking systems running to conceal the war machine's heat signatures. The four massive combat walkers have gone... somewhere. Hiding behind some of the foothills in the mountains, perhaps. Which, outside the 'wire', or the walls rather, leaves James, his A company, and Captain Kwan Jeon's C company, with all the light-infantry-friendly heavy weapons the fleet had brought with them laid out in ovoid rings around the easiest path to the former pirate stronghold via hovercraft. A 'boulevard' of sorts that they'd widened recently with some of their own vehicles, just to make the funnel all the easier. The only 'obvious' heavy support the Marines have with them, besides a mix of launchers, machine guns and various heavy energy weapons, are their mech suits, concealed in large fighting positions of their own... all snuggled up to the dirt of this world like it’s 1916 at the Somme back on Earth! 

But, unlike those mudfoots who had come before, the Undaunted Marines now cooling their heels on the world of Sheath, waiting for the enemy to come out for a fight, have some advantages - ISTAR drones to confirm exactly what the enemy’s up to, for example. Perhaps more pressingly, some very potent tools and tricks to make digging dirt a much easier prospect than just an old-fashioned exercise in raw strength. Further, their armor is something akin to, but far more complicated than the finest armor a grunt could dream of back on Earth.

It was air-conditioned for one, and, far more importantly, environmentally sealed for two. It turns out that Undaunted Marine hard suits being vacuum-rated standard makes playing in the dirt, as the strange creature known on Earth as a 'Grunt' is wont to do, as comfortable as can be imagined... and, given access to dirt and the like, James really can tell his Marines are Marines like any other. 

They’re throwing rocks. 

It’s a known phenomenon among Uncle Sam's Misguided Children. When in an appropriate location, usually the ephemeral destination known as 'the field', with nothing to do, or at least nothing to directly occupy their hands, Marines of any rank, from the greenest private fresh from boot camp to the Commandant of the Marine Corps himself, would inevitably start throwing rocks. Not trying to do something stupid, like hit animals or even each other, though such things did occasionally occur among the lowest common denominator, but just... throwing the rocks. Sometimes into a little pile, sometimes just moving them around without any particular rhyme and reason. It’s just something Marines he’s known have always done and now, on a world an incomprehensible distance from the desert sand hole where he'd observed his battalion commander and battalion sergeant major throwing rocks while they talked when he was a young lieutenant, his Marines, the vast majority not even close to Human, are throwing rocks.

The more he observes, the odder it’s become. It’s widespread across the company. He doesn't have many Human Marines, not from the United States Marine Corps anyway, so blaming it on contamination from his more experienced Marines couldn't explain it. Nor does simple mimicry produce the casual way his girls are tossing the rocks around. Had they done this before? A lot of the Marines are former mercenaries. Had they thrown rocks in their encampments while waiting for their pay to come through to go kick someone's head in? Is throwing rocks some sort of weird common heritage of all fighters in any climb and place? Has he somehow stumbled on some sort of strange Axiom nonsense that permeated all the way into Cruel Space to give soldiers and Marines the common experience of tossing chunks of mineral aggregate around?

Probably not, but it’s interesting to think about all the same, and it’s certainly less hazardous to his focus than worrying about Serina in orbit. He isn't exactly in love with her yet, but he'd accepted her 'proposal', if you could call a half naked space elf woman shoving her tongue so deep down your throat she could tell you what your last meal was a proposal, because he could love her potentially. He does have a sense of protectiveness attached to her. Specifically because she reads as scared, alone and vulnerable. It made his instincts as protector and guardian roar. 

Even if this particular little lost lamb had a lot more going on between her ears than met the eye... He still can't parse what Serina had been up to regarding the message, but he knows something’s up. She'd shown him the message in Galactic Trade, then translated to Ha'quinye, then encrypted. She'd given him the cipher, seeing as it was specifically for family, and he would technically be family soon enough if Serina's wishes come true... and considering she’s quite likely the only person alive who knew the code existed at all. So, cipher in hand, he'd decrypted it, then encrypted it again, and sent it to the address she specified. 

It was an innocuous enough 'dead check', giving away very little about Serina save that she’s a living Tacia and that she wants to know if any of her kin are out there in the galaxy somewhere, with instructions on how to message a secure electronic dead drop provided by Undaunted Intelligence if someone’s alive. And has the cipher and is watching that random inbox, for whatever reason. Yet, the simplicity of the message had somehow activated his paranoia, and it’s still growling at him. She’s up to something. Something’s cooking in that big brain of hers. He doesn't think it’s aimed against the Undaunted, whatever it is... but what the fuck is it?

A chime of a connection request shakes him out of his thoughts, and he sees it is in fact Serina herself calling. Business? Or abusing her new comm net privileges already? He connects the channel. 

"Oracle to Ard Six."

"Go for Ard Six."

Serina's voice is different when she’s working. Like it has some sort of special effect on it. She’s apparently submerged completely in a hyper oxygenated liquid when she’s in 'the tank', so it isn't even her actual voice to start with… but clearly Serina's big sister had made a few tweaks to ensure her little sister would sound like the voice of a goddess when speaking 'ex cathedra' in terms of giving tactical commands and strategic orders. 

"Ard Six, be advised, enemy forces are maybe five minutes from contact. They should be showing on your ISTAR systems any second now. Orbital control is almost secured, but it's looking like they're going to reach you before Valkyrie or Reckless can move to deliver a concentrated orbital bombardment."

"Right, bad guys zero five minutes out. Any idea what we're looking at, numbers wise?"

"A Huscarl happened to pass over the formation, and I caught a glimpse via visual sensors. Estimate enemy forces at maybe two battalions of mostly infantry. They didn't manage to unload a lot of their heavy equipment before we splashed their orbital assault ships."

"Any sign of heavy equipment at all?"

"Some mech suits and armored units, a decent amount of light armored hover vehicles that act as high speed APCs."

"Chances they'll penetrate the defense line with that?"

"Almost certain."

"Well, that's what we want them to do in the end."

"Indeed."

James thinks for a second about the inner defense line. Or, as it was more properly termed, the kill box. 

The first row of buildings inside the base had been torn down, the wreckage repurposed to make heavy-enough-duty walls; ramming them with a vehicle wouldn't cut it and climbing over them would take long enough to leave the enemy exposed and vulnerable. Then the power armor had occupied the next line of buildings. With the walls, 3rd MACS, and two companies of Marines at their backs, and B company of the Undaunted 1st Power Armored Infantry Battalion in front of them, to say the enemy would be between a rock and a hard place would be a mild understatement, to say the least. 

"That's gonna be a bad damn day for them, Oracle. They'll be lucky if we stop them with the initial ambush."

"Indeed."

"Any regrets about making this plan for us?"

Serina sighs quietly, her more 'normal' tone coming in for a second. "None. These are the scions of the women who killed my family. Whatever their sins, they were still mine. While these forces are too stupid or too ignorant to understand the truth of what they seek... the Matricians prized aggression in mobilizing them. This Commodore Valeran that Admiral Bridger is about to neutralize, she very much values aggression, and is an ideal for their officers, an example to follow. So too with these consuls, from what little morsels Intelligence has given me."

There's a bit of an imperious sneer to Serina's tone now. Charming she genuinely is, and James doesn't think the playful, sweet girl who just wants to play video games and cuddle is fake... but the vindictive part of Serina is just as much a part of her as the more happy aspects. 

"So you're expecting..."

"The Ha'quinye no doubt have taken my designation as a ‘super-weapon’ literally. Therefore whoever possesses the weapon, wins. What does a fleet matter if you have a weapon that can destroy planets? What little they have on me from the archives that the Undaunted captured from this 'palace' in Triumph’s Seat back on Dagrquey makes it very clear to me that they only know the Sword of the Stars as a war-winning weapon. Not a person. Not a tactician. A weapon. They will fight towards the weapon as hard as they can, and they shall bleed for it."

A cruel edge has bled into Serina's voice as she’s talked, an imperial tone rising that tells James quite a bit about just who the Tacia had been, once upon a sunrise long ago, and just why they might have had a rebellion fomented against them that saw them killed to almost the last woman. 

"That's a bit harsher from you than I was expecting."

Serina's tone softens slightly. 

"Sometimes that part gets the better of me. The part my mother raised. The part my sister tutored. I am that Serina too, in the end... but I don't like being her. Not an intentional personality split or anything concerning, but... Some things make my battle blood sing like any other daughter of a proud warrior house. But instead of getting hot like my big sister, I grow ever colder."

"Has that ever been a problem around say... family?"

"N-No," Serina squeaks out, sounding much more like her usual self. "I'm not crazy. I just... had a unique upbringing."

"I can see that."

"Is... that okay?"

"I think so, and if it becomes not okay we'll work together to make it okay."

"Promise?"

"I-"

The sudden urgent sound of a perimeter alarm goes off in James's helmet, and the line from Serina suddenly shuts with a whispered "Be safe." A little digital kiss mark pops up in his HUD. 

He isn't entirely sure how Serina had managed that little trick, but it seems to gird him for battle all the same. After all, he'd received a token from a fair maiden, hadn't he?

"Ard Six to all points. Weapons tight, hunker down. Wait for the signal..." An old order from his homeland's military history floats up from half-remembered school days and slips out of his mouth before James can think to stop himself. "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes." 

All around him, mikes double-click in acknowledgment as his Marines and Charlie Company's Marines across the way hunker down on their weapons. Ready, and waiting. 

Now they'd see if the Ha'quinye would dance to the tune they'd called. 

Series Directory Last

Dar'Bridger steps forward and lashes out with a warfire-covered kick that knocks both doors on the hatch nearest them out of their mounting rails. The very bulkheads take dents as the heavy metal doors go flying into the room like weapons; one of them crashes on top of two sailors and the other smashes a Ha'quinye shock trooper square in the chest with the kind of brutal mockery that seems to be the signature of the great god of war known as Murphy whenever he's playing dirty with his worshippers... willing or otherwise. 

The Undaunted flood the room from all sides, plasma flames roaring out in great gouts from shoulder mounts as Zraloc and her Crimsonhewers hit the side of the Ha'quinye formation like a freight train. Several women go flying as rivers of plasma flood the first few defensive lines and arcs of blood fill the air. 

Not that the Ha'quinye are still. No, they might be shocked, and are certainly surprised at the sheer volume of hate and discontent coming down on them like asteroids hitting a city, but they fire back gamely, railgun rounds snapping and damaging one power-armored soldier from one of the other squads before Jerry lines up his Great White Shark and sends a load of so-called 'heavy shot' downrange. The thirty-two fifty caliber musket balls turn the railgunner and the two women supporting her into mincemeat, as well as abraiding the crates of supplies around them from true cover down to what could only generously be called 'concealment'. 

The mathematical difference between cover and concealment is something a lot of the Ha'quinye are getting rather pointed lessons in, as various kinetic rounds, be they chemical or magnetic in terms of propulsion, tear through the light metal containers to wound the lightly equipped women behind them without the slightest care in the world; the larger rounds from the 40mm shotguns seemingly don’t even notice that the 'cover' was there in the first place. The objects serve poorly at actually concealing the women trying to hide behind them as well; the Ha'quinye pop out and pepper various individuals with laser and plasma fire, and none of them are subtle about it. 

One knot of sharper shock troopers have focused their fire on one of Jerry’s smaller combatants, correctly assessing that armor similar to their own certainly has less defenses than the life-reaping, soul-stealing power armor that’s cutting through their comrades like a scythe threshing wheat. 

Unfortunately for them, the 'petite' armored figure they'd selected for their attack is Dar'Bridger, and she leaps with wings of green warfire lighting the room, denting the very deck plates as she comes down on them like the angel of wrath herself. An explosion of warfire and series of brutal punches and kicks leaves the fire team of soldiers neutralized or worse in the literal blink of an eye. Probably worse. The crunch sounds Jerry's audio sensors are picking up are as much bone as they are armor plate, which means a very bad day for the Ha'quinye. 

Still, the center does their best to hold, firing in all directions as Jerry takes out another 'nest' where two women are working a vehicle-scale plasma cannon, triggering a white-hot plasma explosion that leaves both women dead and two women near them throwing themselves to the ground whimpering and crying with what have to be agonizing burns. 

They'd live, and with a healing coma they'd be no worse for the wear by the end of the day, but Jerry doubts that’s any comfort when your flesh is singed to a medium well right the hell now. 

It’s probably only a few seconds before resistance really starts to wane; more and more women throw down their arms and dive for whatever remaining cover they can find. Jerry determines it's time to bring in the cavalry, and casually tosses the teleport beacon into the center of the room. 

"Reinforcements are clear to teleport. Be advised, LZ is hot."

Sure enough, a portal opens and the rest of his power armored troops, a mix of Zraloc's Crimsonhewers, the last of the Paladins, and some of Jaruna's girls borrowed from B Company, come out swinging. The armored tide breaks the last of the resistance before most of the Ha'quinye can even think twice. 

The shock trooper lieutenant who had refused to surrender dies last out of her group. She attempts to swing a rift blade against a Cannidor - Jerry's IFF says it’s one of his apprentices, Miren Bakura - and the lithe young woman ducks the wild swing of the Ha'quinye, then kicks the other woman in the chest to make some space, and shoots her center of mass with her massive 15mm Tiger pistol, leaving a smoking hole where her heart and lungs had once been.

Maybe it was a brave death. It was certainly one she shouldn’t have asked for.

Still, he'd need to compliment Miren on that move later. It had been very well done, and his compliments are worth Miren's own weight in Axiom Ride to her, as near as he could tell. Besides, she really is doing a wonderful job. One of the best of the bunch they'd recruited from the Charocan, with her blade sister and now close friend Nils either hot on her tail or just ahead of her depending on the task in question. 

Nils herself steps over and slaps Miren on the pauldron with a gruff chuckle as the power armored troops spread out and begin binding up prisoners. 

Jerry opens a channel to the war room on the Province, but instead of Mili, like he'd been expecting, he's greeted by the slightly deeper and more melodic tone of Serina's working voice. 

"You need follow-on troops."

"Yes. Including corpsmen."

"Already organized. We have the FAST Marines aboard the ship - the corpsmen from CSAR, since we have achieved full orbital control save for the Eagle Talon - and we have Adept San Martín, who can arrange a portal. Please keep the teleport beacon live. One of the freighters will be able to come into range to take on prisoners once the Talon is secure."

"...Please. And thank you, Serina. Though… how are you anticipating all of this?"

"I'm tied into Paladin Battalion's sensors too, Admiral."

"I... see." Jerry considers that for a second, and makes a choice on just how to fully handle the ‘Sword of the Stars’. "Serina?"

"Sir?"

"Your callsign from now on when acting as an operations controller is Oracle. Proceed. Feel free to directly contact any unit you feel like you need to or you can provide aid to."

"Even units not directly involved in your current mission?"

"If you feel the need to or can help them in some way."

"I have three surface targets on the Eagle Talon. If Storm Flight hits them, the ship will be even more significantly disrupted, but still relatively easy to repair after we successfully capture it."

"Don't ask. Get it done, Oracle."

"Yes, sir. Also the engine room team is experiencing little resistance."

"How little?"

"I believe the enlisted engineers just mutinied and killed the chief engineer. They will almost certainly be surrendering shortly. Apparently the chief engineer was something of a slave driver. Unsurprising, considering what we know about this Viconia Valeran. She seems the type to outright encourage sadism in the name of discipline."

"That's about my reading too. Get in touch with the team leader. She can route reports through you."

"That is putting a great deal of trust in me."

"Mili's still listening to this channel, so there's only so much you can throw a monkey wrench in the works, and... I want to trust you. Can I trust you, Serina?"

"...Yes, Admiral. You can."

"Good. I hope you prove it to me, and don't give me cause to regret it in the future. And not just because the man you like works for me, either."

"You have shown me nothing but care, respect, trust and the healthy suspicion of a ruler when a stranger has entered his domain. I shall- Admiral, incoming enemy forces. Door C-12."

"Do you have access to the Talon's internal sensor networks?"

"No. I detected their boots stomping on the deck plates from the nearest woman's auditory sensors."

"Right. Let's have this conversation again when we're not working. Carry on, Oracle."

"Yes, sir."

Jerry cuts the channel and points his shotgun at door C-12 before shouting; "Incoming! And someone find me a computer uplink so we can get Babydoll into the local network!"

The Undaunted flood through the Ha'quinye warship like a tide floods through the piles of a dock by and over the sea. Once Babydoll and Serina are locked into the network, the process only becomes easier, with entire non-essential sections of the ship locked down and locked off to let the Undaunted continue towards their target. True to Serina's word, the engine rooms are secure when Jerry makes contact, and Babydoll’s isolating them from the network, eagerly making it the start of her own computer-based fiefdom within the Eagle Talon's network.

From what Jerry could tell, the two girls work well together, even if it’s clear that even with her mind in its 'working' space, Serina didn't quite 'get' the ever-bubbly and cheerful Babydoll. Even geniuses have their limits in the end, and truly comprehending the Gravia is a limit for more than a few people in the wider galaxy. 

It reaches a point where Jerry's striding forward somewhat casually down the passageway that leads to the bridge, unknowingly imitating Sir David on one of the man's enthusiastic walks through an enemy base or similar situation. All around him, Ha'quinye soldiers retreat and regroup over and over, growing only more determined and desperate as the Undaunted push towards the roost of the commander of this ship - and, indeed, of what had been a sizable naval force until maybe an hour ago. 

He barely needs to move in the course of the current engagement. Miren appears out of stealth, having clearly done a decent job of mastering Yauya-style cloaking even in power armor, her massive custom tanto piercing through the temple of a Ha'quinye shock trooper's helmet and out the other side, leaving the woman to collapse to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. 

A stone’s throw away, Princess Dar punches another woman so hard it caves in her chest plate and sends her rocketing back into one of her fellows; this latter woman throws away her weapon, rips off first her helmet, then her friend's helmet, and quickly begins trying to perform first aid on her grievously injured colleague. 

Jerry tosses the woman an emergency stasis field as he passes. No sense in anyone dying needlessly... and with one Ha'quinye warrior nominally having joined the Undaunted already, never mind all potential recruits among the pirates, why not recruit from these prisoners? The cause they’re fighting for isn't a noble one by any stretch of the imagination... but as the Ha'quinye woman looks up at him with nothing but gratitude in her eyes... Jerry suspects that these girls can probably be fixed up more readily than some of the worst of the galaxy's flotsam and jetsam.

Plus, they probably wouldn't have to teach any ex Ha'quinye shock troopers how to eat with utensils, which would be quite the pleasant change from pirates. 

Besides, she’s no threat. Against a tide of violence like the one the crew of the Eagle Talon is experiencing, against the raw force of power armor, what could one woman truly do?

Perhaps Viconia Valeran would show him.

The armored doors leading to the bridge are finally in sight - marked by a spray of blood from Zraloc's chain blade as she cleaves one of the last defenders in half. It splatters wetly across the gray painted metal, and then the hallway is left in silence... save for pained gasps, the occasional sob, and the quiet sound of zip cuffs being put on. 

"Oracle to Jarl Six."

Serina had quickly gotten the hang of Undaunted-style comms... and Jerry suspects she rather likes her new call sign. He’d be willing to bet that she’s figured out what it means too.

"Go for Jarl Six."

"The target is on the bridge still. She hasn't made a move towards a hidden escape system or anything."

"Very good. What's the mood looking like in there?"

"Tense. All the defenders were outside the bridge, so most of the girls are just regular navy. They're armed... but put on a good show and there's an eighty-seven percent chance they'll throw down their arms immediately. That chance goes to a near hundred percent if you kill Viconia Valeran. The faster you kill her or disable her, the lower the projected loss of life."

"How fast is fast?"

"Every ten seconds or so she breathes once you breach, a cohort of sailors will make the choice to surrender or resist. Every sailor who resists will probably get herself and several of her fellows killed since they're in close proximity."

"...Very well. How's the XO's personnel record?"

"She's dead already. She was commanding the bridge defense line. Good thing, too. She was almost as aggressive as her mistress."

"Alright. Guess I'll handle it fast, then."

"Shall I get Babydoll to open the door?"

"No. I'm going to knock. Very loudly. Watch the visual sensors. It should be a good show."

"I wouldn't look away. This woman is a scion of my family's murderers. You are the instrument of my revenge, Jarl Six."

"I suppose in that case I'm happy to be of service, Oracle. I don't know much about your family, but they had to be better than this lot."

"They were. Not much better. We were an empire built on conquest after all. But... not... this. Whatever this thing they corrupted my family's legacy into is."

Jerry clicks off the channel and stands squarely at the seam between the double doors.

"Dar. Melodi. Door. The hard way."

His two adopted daughters eagerly step forward, anticipation evident in their stance. The two women begin to call green warfire, and, in unison, start to melt the armored door in front of him. It was an impressive door before they started. No doubt vacuum-rated and able to tank a hit or two from serious weapons, maybe even full-on naval-grade weapons. But whatever metal, whatever Axiom charms, whatever tricks were worked into its composition, it can't stand up to Apuk warfire, and in seconds the ambient temperature in the room has climbed two dozen degrees. The door turns into a pile of slag, revealing the bridge, the crew pits where the work of controlling the ship is done - and, overseeing it all, Viconia Valeran. 

She really does look quite a bit like her niece, Jerry reflects as he steps through the door, completely unperturbed by the molten remnants of the armor falling to the ground around him. 

"So you're the leader of the curs who have been killing my women! I won’t stand for this! I won’t be captured by the likes of you! I am-"

BANG!

Jerry quick-draws his own 15mm pistol, a toy he only gets to play with in power armor, given the sheer size of it... and shoots Viconia Valeran dead center on her chest, exploding her heart and killing her instantly. Whatever she had meant to say, it died with her, the life leaving her body with all the effort of turning off a light switch. Jerry turns his armored head, looking at the frightened crewwomen waiting on the bridge of the ship, doing his best to give the impression of meeting their eyes even though they can't see his face through his faceplate. 

"Now. Who can surrender this ship to me?"

Series Directory Last

Jerry

"Thirty seconds to impact!"

The inside of the boarding torpedo is cramped. 

It’s mostly psychosomatic, the sensation of being in what’s actually a decently large space... if one isn't wearing power armor. But the limitations on his suit’s sensors in this confinement weigh on him in an odd way, especially as he’s pretty much entirely unable to do more than stretch, given the number of troops they'd worked to cram into this tin can. It still boggles his mind that the crazier of space pirates actually consider this a viable assault tactic.

Then again, if he thinks the space pirates who used these things are crazy, what does that make him?

Boarding torpedoes, generally fit for around twenty light infantry, are a close fit for even ten power-armored troopers of intermediate size, and squeezing ten power-armored Cannidor in one of these things would have been a feat worthy of some sort of legendary sorcerer-king, compared to a mere mortal. Thankfully, the Cannidor coming along for this part of the mission would mostly be getting teleported in once the first wave seized a foothold aboard the Eagle Talon. 

His torpedo is also slightly more spacious than the others. He has his usual backup, led by Sheryen now that Vera had been bumped up to company command, and of course Dar'Bridger and her cloak bearers. It led to a significantly lighter force, in terms of armor, than one of the pure power armor torpedoes… but a half-dozen elite Apuk warrior women gave him significantly more firepower than he’d normally possess in such a circumstance. 

"Twenty seconds to impact!"

This ability to pack in a few smaller-statured individuals among the power-armored giants had led Zraloc and her five meanest Crimsonhewers, plus her husband Jericho and sister-wife Cori'Acea, to pack into another one of the torpedoes. No one’s going to top a Crimsonhewer for raw kinetic violence, and with Jericho and Cori backing them up, they should have meaningful support on-site. 

Is six enough? Probably. Hell. Six Crimsonhewers is enough to seize the ship in theory... though not fast enough to prevent someone doing something drastic to the drive core or, say, overloading the weapons capacitors to scuttle the ship. That’s always a concern when you’re dealing with a bunch of zealots, and one place where the math of combat goes against the relatively small numbers of the average body of power-armored troops. You could conquer a planet with a company of power armor used right, but a warship with a crew that has at least a few members that don't mind going directly to either their gods or hell could be a very different story, especially with how the confines of all but the largest ships limited the potent mobility of power armor. 

Of course, one needs appropriate force to make use of these constraints, and on the basis of the results of the various interrogations of the Ha'quinye captured on the pirate star base - such as the commander of that operation, Valyn Valeran, the niece of the alleged commander of the ship he’s about to hit - he isn't extremely worried. Wary? Certainly, but not worried. The Ha'quinye shock troopers, like the young turncoat Rach'hel Declan, are decent enough soldiers by all accounts, and decently equipped… but decently equipped isn't worth much against the premiere expression of military force in the galaxy. 

"Ten seconds to impact!"

Not that that would stop someone getting creative, or, say, an adept showing up, but that’s what training is for. Training and a lot of guns. 

The Undaunted troops were mostly loaded out with close-range weapons this time. Their usual load out lets them make wide ranging hits at lots of ranges, but today they’re equipped more 'traditionally', by Cannidor standards anyway, carrying shotguns of one size or another, with lots of plasma weapons and lighter machine guns in their back mounts. The tight quarters mean a plasma cannon grade flamethrower could potentially be devastating, and overpenetration could be a serious problem when one’s hoping to keep the real estate and most of the sensitive equipment aboard intact, and also to kill as few of the crew as required to seize the vessel. 

To say nothing of the downsides of a heavy machine gun like the M2's longer barrel in truly confined spaces, if they get unlucky. At least the Eagle Talon is an 'off the rack' design, not something Ha'quinye-made; a custom job, Ha’quinye-scaled, might have made it hard for them even to use the Cannidor troops in the corridors and smaller spaces. 

"Five seconds! Brace for impact!"

All manner of variables dance through Jerry's head as the seconds tick by like hours. He assumes a braced position and triggers the same systems that help the power armor and its occupant bear up to the incredible forces involved in orbital assault drops. They launched from the Valkyrie in this stupid tin can what feels like a lifetime ago, hanging in the void with their collective asses hanging in the solar breeze, exposed in ways that are probably going to get him an earful from his wives when he got back from this trip… but the travel time is objectively short, the Ha'quinye ship battered and bruised, her crew distracted by the warships hammering away at her like they’re trying to forge the Eagle Talon into an ingot of ore. It-

The thought stops in its tracks as he feels the lurch of the boarding torpedo's retrorockets firing. The potent mining laser and plasma array at the nose lets the tube 'dig' into the hull with terrifying efficiency until at last the forward hatch blows off and the assault ramp drops into what had seconds ago been a pristine passageway. It’s even painted a similar shade to the obsequious US Navy gray he was so used to. Built for utility and fighting, the space is wide enough for two and half suits of power armor abreast and has enough head height so a Lydris wouldn’t have to duck… in this compartment anyway. Tight quarters compared to the Tear, but still plenty of room for the Paladins to take out the trash. 

He racks the massive Great White Shark shotgun he'd selected as his primary weapon for the day as he steps fully aboard the Eagle Talon and levels the cavernous maw of the mighty weapon at a pair of terrified young Ha'quinye sailors in what would amount to normal working fatigues on an Undaunted ship. 

"Undaunted Marines! Surrender or-"

Before Jerry can even finish listing their options, one of the women passes out and the other quickly throws herself to the ground, eager to not find out whatever lurks down the dark metal mouth of the massive 40mm 'shotgun' they'd been staring down. 

Maybe some of these Ha'quinye are made of slightly less stern stuff than he'd been expecting from the flagship of their navy. 

Jerry just stares at them as Cari'Koren, one of his new bodyguards, flows out from behind him, quickly zip-ties the two women, and tosses them through a nearby open hatch. She steps through after them and starts immediately making new friends; there's a quick few sounds of a quick scuffle along with a couple exclamations in the Ha'quinye language, followed by brutal transonic booms of Cari's signature punches, and the crunch of what was likely bones being broken, followed by the slick 'zip' noise of still more zip cuffs being applied several times in short succession. Finally, Cari calmly steps out of the room, seals the hatch and tack welds it shut with warfire. 

Even a little bit of force from outside would break it, but the door isn't going anywhere for now, and it’s certainly one way to mark the room as dealt with.

"Clear!" the young blonde woman says with a cheery grin in her tone behind her opaque face plate, and a perky little spring in her step that seems to just be part and parcel of how the spunky young tomboy, by Earth terms anyway, goes through her life. Definitely not a traditional Apuk lady, by any stretch of the imagination, but among the Undaunted and Clan Bridger she’s clearly blossoming beautifully into her full potential as a warrior. 

"Nicely done, Cori. How many of them were there?"

"Four plus the two you neutralized, my lord." There's a slight pause like Cari's making a face akin to a little girl tasting a vegetable she didn't like. "One of them pulled a rail pistol on me. I think she soiled herself when I crushed it." 

"Better her dignity than her spine, I suppose. Maybe she'll think better about pulling weapons on my bodyguards in the future."  

"Indeed." The prim voice of Dar'Bridger is followed by the click of her high heeled combat boots on the deck plates as she moves forward. "Father, Drah'Muk located a large electrical junction. I wanted to confer with you before I gave her leave to destroy it."

"Blow it. That should neutralize any defensive systems in this area. Worst case scenario we have to cut through some doors if their emergency systems fail."

Dar casually summons a ball of green warfire, tossing it in one hand idly. "My thoughts exactly. Drah'Muk. Burn it. Wait. Actually. Just rip the whole thing out. We'll be able to fix it faster once we've seized the ship than if you just melt it."

"Aye, ma'am."

There's a grunt of exertion over the comm channel and the lights flicker and die around them; Jerry gets to take a full breath as the red emergency lights cut on. 

"Night vision," Jerry orders tersely, before flipping his comm channel to a private line to and his other team leads.

"Zraloc, what's your status?"

"We're fine. Had to turn a few of those black-clad grunts into armor paste but we're about... I dunno. Call it fifty yards from you?"

"Fine. Schematics say we should be able to meet up at a decent sized compartment near here. Probably as good a spot as any to bring the rest of the company in. Everyone else, continue on special tasks or rally at the nav point I'm sending out."

A chorus of acknowledgements comes back and Jerry waves his own unit forward, the Apuk girls dashing into the dark as Sheryen, Vilka, Meela and Vera's replacement in the fire team, one of the younger of the paladins, Nerki, stick with their liege lord, eager both to protect their master and also to dispense violence in his name. 

He can feel it. Like energy crackling in the air. 

Everyone’s charged up, spoiling for a fight, and they don't have to wait long for one. 

A recon grenade rolled through a cracked hatch that had clearly been forced open reveals the large space as something of a recreational area and storage center a common 'hub' for this sort of ship, with the occupants getting more of a chance to stretch their legs out the later in the voyage they are, as supplies are expended. Thankfully, the Eagle Talon hadn't been loaded particularly heavy, but what supplies are present have all been incorporated into the defenses of Ha'quinye shock troops and a gaggle of sailors and other assorted miscreants with laser rifles. They even have some tripod mounted heavy weapons. Actual threats. 

"Zraloc here, in position. Gonna give them a chance to surrender?"

"Might as well," Jerry intones calmly before stepping closer to the hatch and activating his PA.

"This is the Undaunted Marine Corps. We have you surrounded with a full company of power armor. Lay down your arms and you will be treated fairly in accordance with the Alarion Accords."

"Bullshit!" shouts a Ha'quinye woman with what the recon grenade indicated were junior officer insignia on her pauldrons. "No shitty pirates are going to have a full company of goddamn power armor!"

It isn't exactly true, but it says something about what the enemy has been trained to expect. For what looks like about a company of mixed light infantry, even one power armored suit may as well have been the fist of a particularly irate god… nevermind the fifteen or so women and one man Jerry has with him for this part of the mission. Besides, the other twenty would be here just as soon as he could get to the center of that room and trigger the teleport beacon. 

"Technically, it's two companies of power armor, but one of them's planetside, finishing off the last of whatever troops your fleet just landed."

"Fuck you! If you want to get past us, you're gonna have to actually fight like a damn woman! This is a Ha'quinye navy ship, not some gutless merchant vessel!"

"Your funeral. Anyone who wants to surrender, throw down your arms when the screaming starts and keep your heads down." He switches back to his internal comm net, casual as can be and quietly intones, "Alright, girls and Jericho, looks like they want to fight today.” He waits a second, then finally gives the order. 

“Attack."

Series Directory Last

Scott Le Fae 
Geirr Five

Scotty's flight of Huscarls burns through local space after a very inelegant launch from the Valkyrie's hangar bays. 

It had been better than the last time they'd launched, during the space station raid - when all they'd been able to do was escort CSAR vessels picking up escape pods and the like; that action had been over in the literal blink of an eye, but their slow launch from hangar bays that were ill-equipped and set up to launch starfighters directly into combat hadn't helped. 

Thankfully, Captain Sarkin had since shared some interesting ideas on how to imitate a catapult assisted launch using their anti-grav systems. Ideas that had worked perfectly this time - if, again, a little bit chaotically to the untrained eye - leaving his flight tearing through the void with Masha'Bridger's flight of Starblades and the two bright engine flares of Gray One and Gray Two, his niece, nephew in law, niece in law and their wing woman respectively somewhere ‘above’ him and off to the left. 

Thankfully, this 'Eagle Talon' is a lot less ship than the vessel currently in the process of becoming the Undaunted battlecruiser Glory. Otherwise they wouldn’t have had much in the way of options besides breaking out nukes, null and other high-yield weapons normally confined under the Undaunted's 'delta authorizations'. (The fact that breaking out nukes in space warfare isn't broadly considered a particularly big deal - though odd simply because it means carrying ordnance, something many aliens seem religiously disposed against - is something he's been working hard on processing since going through Undaunted OCS and taking his position as XO of the Valkyries.) 

"Nads, how are we looking?" he calls back to his wizzo; the ever enthusiastic Dorset Conair’s already lighting up something with her turrets. 

"Pretty good, boss. A couple small drones out here so far, little fighter replacements, not uncommon for independent destroyers and cruisers, but I think these ones came in on that light carrier. Not as capable, especially with their mothership sunk, but still dangerous, especially if they decide to go full kamikaze kinetic kill on us."

"They can do that?"

"Yeah, if their targeting computer thinks the math checks out and their kinetic energy can overcome our shields. Thankfully, the Huscarls' shields are pretty sturdy. I don't think they could penetrate them with a kinetic strike without a perfect angle and a clear run-up to their maximum speed at the literal perfect angle. But we're moving, shooting, and generally making that a very dumb option, especially with my turrets!"

"Well, if you're confident. The rest of the squadron's tracking?"

"Yep, Captain Sarkin and Commander Bridger's girls are popping them further out while splashing the last of the real fighters and the wizzos all know we're on point defense. I'll take care of our tail - you just get us dancing with that cruiser without getting us killed, okay, Ginger?"

"Well, when you put it like that, Nads, I guess I'll just relax and fly casual."

They both laugh, though neither's feeling particularly amused. This is still a somewhat dicey chunk of space and what’s going down is happening at speeds that can be somewhat difficult to parse on a good day. Sure, he’s keeping up, but a wrong look at his readouts could potentially disorient his tiny Human brain, which was very much not made for moving at over 900 miles per hour… and he’s not quite used to maneuvering without the more concrete references you frequently have flying in atmosphere. 

It’s one of those dangerous parts about flying in the black. It isn't just easy to get spatially disoriented; in a practical sense you’re constantly spatially disoriented, and just doing your absolute best to compensate for that disorientation. Sure, his ride back on Earth could theoretically hit 1250 knots at a sprint, but moving in gentle turns or a straight line was very different from full on maneuvering. 

Scott switches from the internal intercom back to the squadron net after consulting his screens and picking out his attack run and flashing an initial route to his wing woman.

"Seven, Five, what's your game plan? I'm thinking we split up and go wide of each other, hit the cruiser from both sides at once while they're distracted with the Valkyrie and the Reckless." 

"Copy that, boss. We'll head 'out' from the planet a bit and you go in? Not a lot of cover, but there's a decent amount of wreckage to act as ablative shielding after the initial orbital fight."

"Perfect, execute... and try not to burn any escape pods or draw fire to them. These girls are theoretically prisoners of war, so no violating the Alarion accords." 

"Eight to Lead. Boss, pretty sure this counts as peacekeeping, not a shooting war."

"Ha ha, smartass. If you want to get technical, you can join the Big Valk's cooks and work out the technical definition of a tuber." His tone stays light-hearted, but he always has a pretty firm line to draw about possible war crimes. Not that he thinks Geirr Eight was actually contemplating anything of the sort, but jokes could go some very dark places without proper minding from adult supervision.

"Right. We'll just invite them to tea instead, Lead."

"That's right, Eight. Like we're inviting them over to our white-haired granny's for high tea, and if they're rude enough to refuse our invitation we shove a fox two up their engines and they can explain their poor manners in hell."

That gets a solid laugh from all seven of his crew women. 

"Right, Seven breaking off. Let's go, Eight - we got lightseconds to burn and some bitch's day to ruin!"

Which means he could focus on his own wing pair with half of his flight off on their mission.

"Five to Six, we're going into the gravity well like we just worked out with the flight, but let's take it through some of the wreckage, see if we can get closer to the cruiser without being too open to eating any lasers or plasma."

"Copy that, boss man. I've got your wing."

They 'dive' relative to their movement and easily duck behind some of the larger wreckage from what had already clearly been a brutal day for the Ha'quinye Imperial Navy. Generally, in Scott's opinion as a senior officer, if you roll into an obvious ambush like this and get this much of an ass kicking, it’s well past time to call it a day and beat feat for the safety of FTL - but the the commander of this particular Ha'quinye fleet is either incredibly tenacious, wildly stupid or that ‘endearing’ mix of both that generally leads to doing little in the way of military note beyond generating what would be referred to as 'deeply regret telegrams' back home. 

Maybe it works differently in quasi-fascist states with a full on cult of sacrifice, but if this commander is desperate to be a martyr for the Empire, Scott’s damn sure that the Admiral would oblige her. Hopefully without having to kill too many of her soldiers and sailors, but the enemy gets a vote too, and the Eagle Talon staying in system instead of turning tail is most certainly a vote against any form of resolution that wouldn’t require more blood spilled to achieve. 

"Drake One to Geirr Five."

Masha'Bridger's voice cuts over the comm, clear as can be. Gods bless galactic communications technology. Masha would have come through loud and clear if they were on the other ends of the systems from each other, a nice change from comm systems back on Earth. 

"Got you loud and clear, Drake One."

"Geirr Five, you've got some drones coming your way. Think the cruiser's sensor girls might have noticed you despite the Valk and Reckless keeping them distracted with enough lasers and plasma to choke a small star."

"Think you can nail them for us, Gaucha?"

"We're out of position or we would have already. They sent a decent-sized group, led by the last two starfighters against Geirr Seven and Eight - we were just getting done splashing them when Raven told us about this other group. Gray flight’s playing goal keeper for the Valkyrie, they sent some suicide drones at her. For you, it looks like you've got three coming your way on our scopes."

"Got it. Guess we'll just have to deal with it."

"Should be seeing them on the data link now. Good hunting, Geirr Five."

The comm goes dead and Scott immediately starts changing up his scopes to ensure he knows where his new targets are, organizing himself and Geirr Six at breakneck speed as they continue to dash through decent-sized chunks of wreckage like a metallic asteroid field. Sure enough, three red dots are on his screen and getting ever closer. With no anti-aerospace missiles on his wings or in the Huscarl's missile bay, this part’s all guns, be they kinetic or energy. 

He quickly weaves down and around a particularly large chunk of what had clearly been an upgunned freighter, a not uncommon sight in naval militias and the like, and starts getting an angle on the drones. He makes a strong whip around a corner, with a near ninety-degree turn, after a long, roaring burst of his maneuvering thrusters and there’s the enemy: three angular drones flying tight formation.

"Geirr Five, tally three bandits, engaging! Six, light 'em up!" 

"Six copies, Leader, sun beam!"

The front of Geirr Six erupts with a full barrage of the Huscarl's powerful laser systems, and Scott throws his own throttle forward to the firewall and bears down on the drones like a wolf bearing down on a particularly well armed deer. He’s grinning as Six reports a 'splash' and one of the drones erupts into a ball of plasma… but the other two are already coming and they're moving fast!

One benefit drones have over crewed spacecraft, even with inertial compensators (what Scott violently wants to call inertial dampers): they have no squishy mortals they need to account for, which pound-for-pound means more weapons, more armor, more shields, more engines, more everything besides a live hand on the stick and all the things needed to support them. Even a synth pilot requires life support systems, to include an ejection seat, and that simply isn't an issue for drones. 

However, their simulated intelligences leave a lot to be desired. To be sure, they’re on task; the remaining pair of drones stitch his Huscarl with laserfire while moving with annoyingly high speed that even a nimble fighter like a Starblade would be hard pressed to replicate... and the Huscarl is no Starblade. 

But, lucky for Scott, he doesn't need to be that nimble, not with the drones coming at him head on. He selects the Huscarl's mighty 40mm main gun.

"Guns, guns, guns!" 

He lets off a long burst of 40mm hypervelocity cannon shells, playing his nose in a wide arc in front of him, turning a swath of space into a very lethal area for anything that doesn’t enjoy eating armor-piercing high explosive rounds. It would either force the drones to move to clear the field, which means breaking off their attack, or they wouldn't move fast enough and- an explosion lights up the void in front of Geirr Five for a second as a few 40mm rounds impact one of the drones. The other goes high, not caring about the death of its nominal wingman in the slightest, and hammers Geirr Five's shields, making a few systems on his screen start screaming for attention as he dives to maneuver... inadvertently setting up Nads with her dorsal turret, which she eagerly uses to ventilate the remaining drone.

"Splash one for Geirr Five Whiskey!"

Scott takes a breath and checks his scopes. No red dots, save for their target.

"Nice shooting, Nads. Geirr Six, looks like we're clear. Form it back up."

With Geirr Six back on his wing, he checks his position and calls into Raven.

"Raven, Geirr Five, ready for our attack run."

"Copy, engage at once. The Valkyrie's going to be hot on your tails!"

"Geirr Five, engaging!"

The Eagle Talon looms over them as he throws his throttle forward again and indexes the four anti-ship torpedoes he's laden with, looking for a good point of aim.

"Talk to me, Nads."

"Wait one." 

He can hear Dorset grit her teeth as her fingers fly across her controls.

"Got it!"

A target's painted on the Eagle Talon and he quickly lines up his targeting computer, letting the four warheads 'see' where they're going as the pair of gunships get ever closer to the looming giant. Valkyrie's behind them with Reckless somewhere off to the 'out gravity well' side of them, and bursts of laser, streams of plasma fire and more exotic 'traces' of particle cannons and rail gun rounds are battering the Eagle Talon. 

In reality this isn't an even fight. The Eagle Talon alone is on even footing with Valkyrie. With Reckless on hand? It’s well in the Undaunted's favor. Luksa Skall is likely a more experienced and skilled destroyer skipper than her Ha'quinye opponent, and that would be a decisive factor for a one-on-one duel all on its own, if it came down to that. 

But they want to keep the Eagle Talon intact... because she'd look quite fetching flying the Undaunted blue and gold. That makes things a little more complicated.

The distance continues to count down, until at last the red 'launch' signal pops up in his HUD and he jabs his thumb down on the pickle switch four times. He feels in his lungs the slight 'thump' and shift of the small craft's 'balance' as the four heavy weapons jettison, ignite their engines and streak towards the Eagle Talon.

"Geirr Five, Bruiser times four, torpedoes away!" 

His report is echoed three times by the rest of his flight, and as the last call fades the first explosion is erupting against the Eagle Talon's shields. First one. Then another. Then three... and then the shields collapse, and the rest of the torpedoes hammer into the cruiser's hull with the fury of the fist of an enraged god, buckling armored plate and penetrating into the vessel. 

The Valkyrie roars past overhead, blocking out the sun with her angular bulk, still trading body blows with the Ha'quinye vessel… but in decidedly less volume, to Scott's eye, like they’re trying to pop turrets and keep the Eagle Talon's crew distracted more than anything. 

Then he hears the report they've been waiting for.

"Valkyrie to all points. Boarding torpedoes away!"

The fight belongs to the Admiral and his elite power armored troops now, and may the Admiral's gods have mercy on the Ha'quinye's souls if they’re stupid enough to resist. 

Series Directory Last

Captain Luksa Skall
USFS Valkyrie

She relaxes into her command chair with a sigh before checking that her straps are in place. The coming fight is going to be a blisteringly fast one, beyond conventional sapient understanding of such things. Her Valkyrie and the Reckless are currently hiding behind the moon of the world of Sheath and they’re about to get stuck in.

The corvette Daring had wanted to join them, but she’s limited to torpedo and missile duty while she defends the softer, squishier parts of the fleet. They simply don't have enough forces for everyone to go everywhere, and while her sensors and the fleet's data link are telling her that the enemy is currently having a very bad day, with their carrier and landing ships already in ruins and many of their combatant craft dying to various torpedoes, there’s still quite the core of enemy firepower left. All of it rotating around the world of Sheath at somewhere around eight kilometers a second.

They'd be engaging from outside that rotation at first, taking pot shots in seconds long firing windows at relative speeds of something more like twenty kilometers a second and would then dive in to meet the enemy - and, more importantly, deliver the Valkyrie's precious cargo.

The fight doesn't look like an unfamiliar one to Luksa; she’s far more experienced in this kind of brawl than any other commander in the fleet that made up Group Two, save Old One Eye's Cora Charo. If Audacious had been here with Incerra Palashen, then there'd be three of them.

This is a military action, certainly, but what it truly resembles is a particularly aggressive pirate raid! Now, she'd never had the gall to land boarding torpedoes on a capital ship before, but considering the enemy's cruiser - its IFF said his name is Eagle Talon - is already damaged, and she has more than a nominal firepower advantage over the vessel... she likes their odds.

Besides, if anyone could pull this level of crazy off, she fully believes Admiral Bridger could. Especially with this new tactical computer of his, whatever the hell it is. She’s getting all sorts of information and guidance transmitted to her faster than she can fully form thoughts! It’s incredible stuff, and even includes suggestions on how to engage the enemies.

A small timer starts in the corner of her screen and Luksa leans in. "Alright, people. Showtime. Helm! On my mark, take us to flank speed, and maneuver us around the moon to Point Alpha. Guns, as soon as we're clear of the moon and reach our destination, we should be in a position to fire a salvo with our primary laser batteries at the pre marked targets. Set the targeting computer to auto-fire when all the parameters we've been given match up."

The entirely reasonable response comes almost immediately. "Ma'am, those parameters are concerningly specific. How do we even know the enemy is going to be there?"

"We don't, Lieutenant, but the wizards the Admiral has working for him say they'll be there. So we're going to trust them and the crazy mix of witchcraft and mathematics they seem to be performing on the Kandahar Province. Once we hit, the rotation of the planet will tear our targets away and we'll line up to dive in after them on their next pass. Again, follow the timing and course telemetry that just got sent to the nav computer. We pull this off to the letter and our names will be covered in glory before any of you can blink. Once we're inserted and have matched rotational speed, we'll launch the fighters, and line up for our boarding torpedo attack after they get in with their short-range torpedoes and soften up the Eagle Talon a bit more for us. While we wait, we finish off the last of the enemy squadron, save for the Eagle Talon himself. We want to take that handsome boy home with us, so try not to slag the Admiral's new prize before he can seize it. Questions?"

There aren't any. Luksa grips the arm of her chair tightly, watching the forward screens before nodding to herself. "Execute."

Immediately the Valkyrie accelerates, with the Reckless heading the opposite direction around the small moon, her slightly smaller mass and overpowered engines letting the frigate slightly beat the Valkyrie to the punch... but only slightly. Seconds, really.

Luksa grins. Maybe she'd need to spend some of her fortune to ensure that they have enough power in their own engines to readily keep up with the Reckless. Wouldn't do to have Captain Le Fae get delusions about who the faster and more lethal combatant around here is. Even if he and his crew's strike on those three corvettes had been absolutely inspired. Another attack worthy of a mighty pirate skipper.

It’s both almost a shame and source of a deep relief that Admiral Bridger is a good man. As a pirate admiral he'd be the terror of half the galaxy in the literal blink of an eye… though, to be fair, even Admiral Bridger couldn't get the kind of results out of your average pirate that he does out of these Undaunted.

These people are real warriors, and that makes all the difference.

"Point Alpha reached!" calls the navigation officer; the gunnery officer immediately echoes her with, "Firing main laser battery!"

Beams of coherent light leap across the void in the literal blink of an eye, slamming home into barely visible targets, and no doubt melting various lighter combat vessels, before the speed of their own movement around the planet tears them away. The enemy can’t make more than a half-hearted and confused response, with a few lasers splattering briefly against the Valkyrie's shields before they're gone, leaving the Valkyrie and Reckless free to set up for their next attack.

They don't have to wait for long, and from Point Beta they're 'diving' 'into' the gravity well proper of the world called Sheath, and diving on to their prey like particularly hungry hunting falcons. Lots of thrusts with sharp 'pulls' at the end of the 'dive' bring the two warships neatly into a coplanar orbit with the Ha'quinye fleet, matching their angle to Sheath and speed to turn a rotating fight that Valkyrie and Reckless were sitting outside of to something a bit more sustained and conventional, even if it was still moving at blistering speeds, the relative speeds were far more understandable, a few kilometers a second tops.

Plenty of time to 'beat the brakes' off the Ha'qers as Luksa's new hubby had so colorfully put it last night.

"Fire at will! Focus on the light combatant craft, then get to battering the cruiser when she's all alone. Launch all fighters!"

The Valkyrie's batteries open up with ruthless precision, lasers, plasma, particle cannons and naval rail guns all sweeping the sky as the brick that is the Reckless dives into the fray with as little concern for his own safety as his namesake might imply. The powerful frigate practically explodes in all directions with coherent light and plasma fire, reaching out with the occasional torpedo or anti-ship missile when the firing solution on a priority target is too ugly to allow for really easy engagement.

Still, the enemy rallies quickly; their fleet commander's no slouch. While the remaining large combatants besides the cruiser are all wounded, there's a decent amount of enemy ships in the skies - and, as a Human leader her husband had told her about had once said, quantity does indeed have a quality all on its own.

Especially when you lack enough firepower to blow them out of the sky faster than they could retaliate!

The Valkyrie's shields shudder as the Eagle Talon lands a heavy salvo… but fighting something like the Eagle Talon is exactly what the Valkyrie had been designed for. In reality, they were sister ships, despite the Humans having retained the 'destroyer' designation; after all, what’s a light cruiser if not a destroyer with more amenities to allow for deep space deployments?

True destroyers are warships first, last and only. Pirate-captured destroyers become cruisers out of sheer necessity. Pirates don't have the luxury of only taking their ship out to the fight then returning to a cozy space dock for R&R. No, they live and die on their ship, and one way pirate culture has touched the Undaunted is in leading them to adapt their destroyers to deep space service, not just making them hangar queens who could only do short term deployments to fight and do nothing else.

Sure, it’s also a matter of practicality. The Undaunted and Humanity simply don't have enough ships to allow for keeping their heavy hitters tied up in a star yard waiting for the call while their crews engage in other work. They needed every ship they had! So one of Luksa's many jobs had been sharing how her Shellblade, now the Valkyrie, had been modified to allow for extended deep space service, to influence not just Undaunted conversions of destroyers, but also the design and construction of the first generation of Undaunted-built warships.

It had been (and still is) a heady thing, and all the more reason for her to ensure she makes a good showing of herself and her ship. She'd shared her theories, her doctrine, her experience. Now she has a chance to prove the value of it, and write her name into the Undaunted art of war for generations to come! Not bad for a pirate skipper.

She switches to implant-based communications with her gunner even as the Valkyrie continues to rock with various attacks here and there, picking out targets and marking them for being vaporized. Her shields and armor could tank the hits. The enemy's ships, on the other hand, could not take even a significant fraction of the Valkyrie's attention without literally melting out of the void. So she would not let the enemy distract her or break her focus. She would brutalize the foe's forces and leave their cruiser naked, vulnerable, and ready for the death blow.

Then she'd launch her boarding torpedoes, so her commanding officer could go pick up his new toy and lodge his grievances with the commander of the Ha'quinye navy personally... and if they work really quickly they might even get a chance to do a little naval gunfire support for the ground-pounders who are no doubt fighting, or about to be fighting, the regiment or so of troops the Ha'quinye had been unloading in short order.

She grins to herself, a smile worthy of the fiercest Canndior warrior, one that almost looks out of place on a Cusica. It’s a very good day indeed.

Suddenly there's a different sensation, as something penetrates the shields and hammers into the Valkyrie's hull directly!

"The hell was that?"

"Ma'am! Looks like there's two ships with spinal mount railguns. We took a trytite round to deck four starboard."

"Status?"

"Didn't penetrate the armor, but taking more hits like that isn't advised!"

"No shit, Lieutenant. Guns! Burn those rail gun carriers yesterday! Throw the kitchen sink at them if you have to!"

Luksa quickly finds the offending vessels on her sensor boards. They’re small, surprisingly so, completely built around the naval-grade railguns they carry. As she watches, both ships fire again, and the Valkyrie rocks with the twin impacts; an alarm for a hull breach starts to scream.

"Hull breach in the forward starboard hangar bay!"

"Lock it down with an Axiom field. They were unoccupied after launch?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Fine. Guns! Why are those damn things still in my sky?"

"On it, ma'am! Firing... now!"

She'd say one thing for the crews of the plucky little vessels: they’re courageous, if nothing else. But without cover they’re well out of their weight class; even if they could damage the Valkyrie, maybe weaken him and leave him more vulnerable to the cruiser, they themselves could not take any return fire... something her gunners immediately prove by firing two railgun slugs into the first of the two spinal mount ships, smashing it like a broken toy. Four bursts from the particle cannons tear the second ship apart at the sub atomic level, scattering its pieces across local space as its remains slam into its sister.

Their drive cores explode in a burning bright twin starburst.

She sweeps through local space with her sensors again, just in time to see the Reckless brutalize the last of the Ha'quinye corvettes, like an Earth wolf savaging a lamed deer, tearing it apart with ruthless efficiency. The corvette returns fire in panicked bursts until at last its guns go silent, and escape pods drift from the melted hulk of what had once been a proud warship.

That leaves only the Eagle Talon and a few close escorts, from what she can see. Lighters stuck close to their mother ship, inside the hard barrier of the warship's shields.

Another burst of weapons fire slams into the Valkyrie's shields as the helm brings him about and places their angular nose right at the cruiser.

Luksa’s grin gets meaner. "Open fire... and prepare to launch boarding torpedoes!"

Series Directory Last

Jerry
USFS Kandahar Province 

The CIC on the Kandahar Province is concerningly quiet. Tense. Everyone’s waiting. All that could be done to prepare, has been done to prepare. The stage is set, and all that’s missing are the guest stars for this particular show. 

The stakes are high. Without the Crimson Tear or her fighters, and with no anti-orbital support, Jerry has precious few combatants for a fight this size. Worse, if any Ha’quinye ship escapes, the rebels on Dagrquey lose their window and a captive Human stays in enemy hands. Undaunted commandos have already been approved to assist the rebels and recover their civilian. The religious conversions spreading across the planet had been a wild card no one planned for, but the outcome is now the same: no Ha’quinye ship can be allowed to reach home.

His own part is ready. The Eclipse Rider will carry him to the Valkyrie and the boarding team waiting for the Eagle Talon. First, though, he has a war to fight. The strike on the cruiser is only one piece of a joint naval and planetary operation that would have broken most of the planning staffs he knew back home. Flexibility is everything in this kind of fight.

He glances at the tank, freshly installed and polished after the morning’s test integration. Serina is already proving what she can do. A galaxy-grade weapon now plugged into his systems, ready to help him face a superior force with better tactics, more aggression, and the Undaunted’s own brand of concentrated violence.

In the end, Serina is a tool. A weapon. He will wield her, or someone else will take her and use her with far less care for her as a person or for the people of this sector.

The test shot had already shown what she could do. Once integrated, her mind moved like a Gravia’s: broad-spectrum data collapsed into laser focus. Mili had confirmed the numbers. Today that mind would fight.

Serina stands barefoot in a borrowed bathrobe, nervous. The tank requires minimal clothing and the Province is mixed company. Naked among the women of her house had been one thing. Among strangers, and men she had met only two days ago, was another. Classic nerves.

"Sir!" Mili calls out, drawing Jerry's eye. "One of the early warning satellites just triggered. Inbound FTL travel at the system's nadir jump point." 

Jerry grins. They’d seeded the system with low observable ‘satellites’ that range from proper satellites, to probes, to sensors with a comm package that were deployed on whatever chunk of space rock the shuttle crews who had placed them thought would fit. He’d wanted to maximize their battle space picture even as he took steps to ensure the Ha’quinye knew little more besides what he wanted her to.

"Just as we expected. Show time, people. Signal the fleet. Commander Sha'Ress, sound general quarters. All hands to battle stations! The Dragonfire is to open her outer doors and prepare to fire on my command." 

Commander Sha'Ress snaps to smartly, clearly getting into the spirit of the occasion with the kind of eager grin that graces the faces of many Apuk battle maidens when combat is on offer. 

"Aye aye, sir! Bosun! Sound general quarters, all hands to battle stations!" 

The world around Jerry springs into action as the red lights come on and the general quarters alarm begins to blare. While the 1MC announcement circuit gives the crew the usual directions, Jerry’s eyes are locked on Serina as she sheds her bathrobe and steps up to the tall, cylindrical tank. The glass front panel smoothly rotates to the side and she steps in, facing the war room as the glass slides back into place, seals. In seconds the lights confirming the tank is locked light up, and the tank begins to fill with a hyper-oxygenated liquid that also serves as a conduit for large volumes of Axiom energy. 

The fluid, and maybe the Axiom, gently lift her up as her onboard systems connect with the tank, and therefore to the sensor information from the entire battle group. Metal panels shift into place, 'embracing' her from outside the tank, both to protect Serina, as near as Jerry can tell, and to continue to limit external sensory input to her natural senses. 

"Connected," a soft voice chimes. It had spoken in Ha'quinye at first, but Mili had updated the tank's software to give its vocal cues in Galactic Trade during the integration. 

The holo tank that is now fully integrated with a very different kind of ‘tank’, begins to flash through different images and displays, faster than Jerry's eyes can keep up with, as Serina's mind builds its picture of the battle space, before refining back into the usual 'big picture' view of the solar system he’s used to.

Then he hears her voice. "Enemy fleet detected. Enemy fleet confirmed. Stand by for assessment." 

Serina's voice when she's connected is a bit deeper, more melodious than her usual rapid, clipped tone, and she speaks with an intense but unhurried cadence that grabs and directs people's attention without overloading them with information. A function of the tank? Or just being able to focus purely? Possibly both, but that would require further investigation... and they have a battle to win first. 

Immediately, red markers start popping up on the projection in front of the tank, making out various kinds of enemy warships and support vessels… and information begins flowing to Jerry's implant as Mili and Serina put their heads together and begin processing data at frightening speeds. They’re even estimating how well the enemy ships were being maintained based on how fast they were coming out of light speed! 

"Enemy fleet is proceeding on projected Course Alpha."

Course Alpha: the hard, direct burn an aggressive commander in a hurry would make straight for the objective. Viconia Valeran is behaving exactly as a good Ha’quinye naval commander should, which means she is unknowingly dancing to their tune.

"Very well. Execute Case Alpha. Dragonfire is cleared to fire at the appropriate mark."

The tank glows slightly. 

"Confirmed. Executing Case Alpha. Orders issued to Dragonfire. One hundred and eighty seconds till the Dragonfire commences primary firing sequence for stealth torpedoes. Jump torpedoes launching... now.” The holo tank switches views, displaying the Dragonfire, her tubes elevated and outer doors open as a massive missile leaps into the void on a column of star fire, rapidly followed by more of its siblings as Serina announces; “Torpedo one is away. Torpedo two is away. Torpedo three is away. Torpedo four is away.” She pauses for a short few seconds during which the holo display switches back to the system tactical view before continuing; “All torpedoes have cleared into light speed. Estimate eighty-seven percent probability of successful return to real space."

Jerry nods. Better than they'd actually been expecting in a somewhat messy set of gravity wells. Serina had found a very good spot for Dragonfire to launch from, if her numbers are right - and a brief eye contact and nod from Mili seems to indicate his loyal ops officer certainly thinks Serina's on the level. 

"Alright. I'm going to go get tactical so I can see about picking the Undaunted up a nice cruiser second-hand. Mind the shop, ladies." 

Commodore Viconia Valeran

Ha'quinye Imperial Strike Cruiser Eagle Talon

Things are quiet.

Far too quiet.

They have been in the target system for hours and are finally approaching orbit. Battle stations had been set almost on arrival once the absence of friendly signals, or even rescue beacons, was confirmed. Activity shows on the planet below, some forgettable string of letters and numbers Viconia cannot be bothered to memorize, but the pirates have not answered hails. Neither have the naval assets that should have been here. One vessel had been in orbit. It slipped behind the world and left only the flash of an FTL jump, corvette-sized, perhaps larger. Pirate scum would run. The fleet that destroyed the star base and killed her niece might not.

Viconia watches the three fleet transports move into position around the world where destiny waits. She wants to hunt the enemy, fiercely, nearly desperately, but the Sword comes first. Orders come first. Business comes first. Pleasure and vengeance will be sweeter for the waiting.

The transports open their hangar bays in near unison. Her starfighters and drones circle them like guppies around whales. She hates the damned transports: fat, wallowing sows, ugly and ungainly. Not proper ships. The light carrier is little better, though at least it carries weapons along with the valuable starfighters and drones. The infantry the transports are disgorging barely matter. Her ships could raze every living thing on the planet with patience and proper aim. She suppresses a derisive snort as the landing craft begin their steady drop to claim her prize.

An alarm screams. The first transport erupts in fire, throwing shrapnel and crushed landers across the void in front of her like an enraged fire goddess hurling her playthings.

The bottom drops out of her stomach. An accident? No. This is no accident. Every instinct says so. 

Time slows. A lightning bolt from the goddess herself buries itself in the light carrier and turns it into a retina-searing catastrophe. A second strike follows almost on top of the first, breaking the back of another landing ship. Rage snarls in her gut as two more weapons appear in bursts of energy, jumping in from light speed, and hammer the remaining transports with perfect hits amidships. Sound returns in a flood of alarms and contact reports. The fleet scrambles to respond, officers and ratings stumbling in the sudden chaos.

A black speck leaps forward on a tongue of blue flame and smashes into one of her corvettes, leaving it stricken, emergency lights blinking a desperate plea. Two more torpedoes race toward Eagle Talon and die under the cruiser’s point defenses.

Viconia finds her voice.

"What in the hells are you idiots doing? Evasive maneuvers! We're under attack, damn it!"

Series Directory Last

Joan

They'd gone underground two days ago. They'd made contact with the Tear almost immediately, sending up a contact report and as much information as they could compress into an easily encryptable file size with a fast transmission speed. Things had moved fast after that. The brown-haired girl turned out to be exactly who Joan had suspected her of being: not just a member of the resistance, but the leader of the resistance movement in Triumph's Seat, and on this planet. Jaina. They'd been passed off to intelligence after that as some of the only 'overt' combat assets left on the planet. 

Thankfully, they were far from alone. Intelligence had put them into contact with the resistance, and with a little of the stealth skills they'd practiced, they'd managed to make their way down to the docks district from where they'd been hiding out and were ushered into the underground world of the people who wanted to take down the matricians. Which is where they’d been for the last day and a half or so. 

Surrounded by mostly women, if only because men were rare, but there were more than a few male spies, from what Joan had gathered in the last hour or so of being actively looped in on what the resistance was planning... and it was - it’s going to be - a big move. A big push. Really big. Big enough that the Undaunted are taking action to quietly support it, providing arms and, more importantly, commando teams. 

And, for that matter, providing Joan, her sisters, and Lursa… not that she isn't the slightest bit incredulous as to the sheer ambition of the plan. 

She crosses her arms and considers the Ha'quinye across from her, a woman of around middle age, biologically, serving as Jaina's second in command; she had introduced herself as Aerien Mirous, and she... hasn’t struck Joan as being quite as level-headed as her boss. Not that that’s a bad thing, per se; it’s just that Aerien seems a bit more ready to scrap than Jaina, especially after the plaza massacre. 

She’d heard the other woman talking when they’d first come in. Ranting, more like. Talking about all manner of plans, from air car bombs and other treats to sending some girls out to assassinate BeeGees in the streets. Her blood is up and it’s up something fierce, and Aerien clearly is without the normal break she has on her behavior in the form of Jaina. 

Then again, Joan could hardly blame the rebels for being in something of a killing mood after the security forces had literally made a normal plaza square run red with a river of blood. She'd been back to it under stealth to move to this position, and even after being 'cleaned up' as part of the cover up, the whole place still stank of blood and other bodily fluids. 

Another kick in the shins to the cult of sacrifice that the Ha'quinye were told to worship. A death could be glorious and honorable, but the act of dying? Anything but. No one looks good dead; she'd seen too many people die now, even just since she'd become Joan, to think otherwise. They never put the way the body broke down and released its bowels and bladder, or bloated and stank, or locked up in rigor mortis after a brief period of time in any of the songs. Never put the lockjaw of the dead in the statues. 

There’s even such a statue near the entrance to this very 'base' (if one uses the word generously). It’s a beautifully carved statue, in something like marble, that depicts some sort of warrior angel, comparable to one of her father's Valkyries, guiding a fallen heroine up from where her battered and broken body rests, beautiful and glorious after a heroic last stand. It’s said to be a depiction of a real heroine after she'd died fighting in some forgotten battle or another that no one off of Dagrquey had ever heard of. Joan doubts the real scene had been nearly so uplifting. 

That’s another flaw of the cult of sacrifice, and another reason why she suspects it’s harder to inoculate such a thing into a society that’s more than maybe a handful of worlds strong, and isn't isolated from the galaxy the way the Ha'quinye are presently. It simply doesn't work when you actually have a decent amount of perspective on how the galaxy works, and just how small everyone actually is. 

Scale doesn’t stop an individual from being a heroine or a hero, obviously. Valiant and courageous efforts mean something real… but the cult of sacrifice blows such stories up into massive tales of how just one individual committing state-sanctioned suicide changes the universe. As opposed to real, valiant truths: say, a bold young officer refusing to surrender or retreat, despite critical injuries, in the face of heavy opposition, and ultimately calling in fire support on an enemy camp and preventing an attack on a larger force of his comrades. Then getting his Marines out of the fight. 

She'd been thinking about the actions of then 2nd Lieutenant James Caper Jr. recently, after she'd come across his Medal of Honor citation during her study time one night.

A small action. A nine-man recon platoon in a jungle hellscape during a brutal war. He and his Marines had fought like lions (in her father’s words), accomplished the mission, and with numerous injuries still managed to get every man out, with Capers himself taking multiple bullet wounds and considerable shrapnel damage in the course of his heroic endeavors. It hadn't changed the war, never mind changed the course of any civilizations. 

It had saved a lot of Marines, but to the big picture? It’s barely worth noting... and that's where the cult of sacrifice really loses the plot, according to her father. By making the individual 'big', in the name of the many, the individual is erased and destroyed, so true heroic acts of individuals mean nothing, melting in a slurry that can be used by propagandists and psych warfare specialists to create whatever the war effort needs, instead of rightly recognizing the valiant efforts of the truly exceptional, whether they live or die. 

Like the first man her father had die in his unit, a man Jerry had told her was named Darren ‘Del’ Carmaggio. A Marine who had told the others to hold off when kicking the door in on a house, because he’d had a bad feeling. Del had been thrown back by the explosive force of the booby trap he'd triggered, and died in her father's arms, leaving the blood-soaked young Marine that Jerry had been, at an age when Joan herself would have still been considered a little girl barely off her mother's tit, to get up and continue the fight after giving the dying man what comfort he could. 

That was heroism… but the cult of sacrifice doesn’t care about that kind of hero. It certainly doesn’t care about a boy on the cusp of manhood, his guts hanging out of his shredded torso, crying and clinging to the only human nearby as he bleeds out his last moments, begging for his mother in a gurgling voice as his lungs filled with blood. 

Joan hadn’t cared for the nightmares she’d had after the first time she’d gotten the full story. Not just the object lesson, but the entire story. The story of why her father sometimes still has nightmares, over twenty years later, where he’s back in that sandy hellhole, kicking a door with Del and his buddies… only to end up soaked with Del’s blood as he holds his dying friend and bullets snap and pop around him like hailstones from hell. 

Or Adrian Win. Another hard story, more… hopeful in a way, but no less painful. Adrian had been her father's first casualty as an officer in command of a unit of Marines. Another brave young kid. He'd jumped on a grenade to protect his buddies... and he'd succeeded. A heroic sacrifice that still haunts his commander to this very day. Because while Jerry’s proud of Adrian as a hero... he'd rather just have Adrian back. All of the Marines he'd lost. Every single one. 

He is proud of them, of course; Joan can tell from the way Jerry tells the stories. He doesn’t do it often, but he does it with reverence. The most painful kind of pride, the kind that inevitably leaves one of the hardest individuals Joan had ever met with tears welling up in his eyes. Because, while the pride is there, the pain, the haunting is too. The ghosts of the men and women Jerry had buried over his career. The type of haunting Joan fears, because someone will eventually die under her command too… and when most of your girls are your own sisters… what would be painful normally becomes a whole new kind of nightmare. 

The types of people who beat the drum of the cult of sacrifice would erase Adrian. Erase men like Caper. Erase heroines from stories Joan's birth mother had told her that Jerry or any other Human alive had never heard of. Because the individual is inconvenient. The individual doesn't actually matter. The many. The whole. The state. A faceless entity that would accept the sacrifices of everyone in its shadow if it meant one iota of more power to the master of its cult… like throwing living people into the sacrificial fires of some dark, ancient god or goddess from a thousand species’ collective prehistories. 

All of that propaganda could also damage a mind, even a good-intentioned one with some perspective. She'd heard about it, if not seen it in person herself. 

So she was extra-skeptical when Aerien told her what the plan was. At first listen, there was more than a whiff of romantic suicide to it. She said she’s planning to do something big, and bold… but, unlike earlier when she’d been running off at the mouth to some of her girls, now she was calm, level. For the most part anyway. So Joan decided she’d get the full details before she judged the other woman. 

"Let me make sure I've got this straight. Your plan is to attack the palace?"

"Yep. That's exactly it. We've got enough girls coming into the city that we'll set some bombs, set off some distraction attacks - including a raid on one of the major security forces armories in the city. If we succeed with that raid completely and manage to get some momentum, we'll break the doors open and start handing out weapons and go for a general uprising. But the general goal's to cause as much chaos as possible and jail break Jaina and our other girls from the palace - including your Sister Catherine. A lot of the girls are starting to convert like Jaina did, so getting her back will be big for morale, even if she's not exactly a combatant in her own right. If we do have the momentum, we can also try for a decapitation strike on the consuls. If that succeeds we have enough units across the Empire to really throw a spanner in the works, but that would just be the start of what would probably end up being a fairly drawn-out campaign. Not that you girls are on the hook for that, of course. The Undaunted are already helping out plenty and I know you need to get your principal back." 

Arien holds her hands up defensively, seemingly trying to head off perceived potential protest before Joan can even begin to voice it. However... Arien had already answered a lot of her concerns. 

"Alright. I'm on board in theory, and Undaunted intelligence are gonna get my sisters and I our power armor, so we'll provide a big stick for you alongside whatever mech suits and vehicles you've cobbled together."

"Mostly what you called technicals earlier, light vehicles with whatever we can strap to them… but they're fast and mobile and we'll get access to some armored vehicles if we manage the armory raid."

"Is that where you're going to want us?"

Arien shakes her head. 

"No, I want you and your girls on the palace detail. We've been talking with your intelligence agents and they're painting a disguise on your power armor and getting you more deniable weapons for your loadouts. So you should be able to go in 'guns blazing', so to speak, without compromising the Undaunted too much. The only girls who know about you and who you work for fully are here in the alpha cell, and we'll tell everyone else that you're Ha’quinye using special mech suits we built."

"...Hmm. That's not completely implausible, at the very least. How are you intending these attacks to start?"

Arien shifts the 2D map table a little bit, bringing up some red markings in an overlay on a projection of Dagrquey. She points at a large building that Joan knows to be a major hydroelectric power plant, and another, more nondescript, building. 

"These two buildings here. Undaunted intelligence has authorized your commandos to go in with two teams of our best women from two of our other cells. They'll make strikes on the hydroelectric plant and one of the major 'spines' for the planetary telecommunications network. It won't stop the comm sats transmitting, but we have a couple missiles that will theoretically work as Anti-Satellite missiles rigged up on one of our few shuttles, so we'll send one of our flight teams up to do what damage they can. They'll probably die in the process, but they know what they're getting into there. Between those three hits, we should introduce a significant communications blackout past our own more primitive network, line of sight laser communications, and the old emergency network. We've had some girls tapping that system over the years and planting sabotage devices. It's rarely maintained, so we should be able to disrupt it too, if not knock it out completely."

"Seems like you girls are loaded for bear. Why haven't you moved before?" Khutulun asks, before Joan can ask the same question. It is a bit odd that the rebels hadn't made a move before with this kind of potential behind them.

Aerien shrugs, her hand caressing the grip of her plasma pistol idly. "We lacked the support and some of the tools - like the high-end explosives you brought us that are necessary for some of the harder targets - and the people weren't ready for a full on uprising yet. Plus, the target was never as exposed as it is now. The actual imperial military on planet's been reduced to a skeleton crew, even a lot of the experienced security forces girls got pulled into military uniform. That's not to say the BeeGees aren't dangerous and can't kill people, they absolutely can, but they're not nearly as skilled and competent as the girls they've replaced. They've so far been making up for that with brutality, but that's also started turning the population against them. Throw in the draft and the way they've been pushing some of the hard labor girls, and it's a perfect storm - especially with the bulk of the navy's heavy fleet units gone off looking for the Sword, whatever the hell that is. Even if we win, if they come back there’ll be hell to pay. We can make all the gains we want, but orbital bombardments are a bitch, especially if we don't get command of the orbital defenses somehow. There's a chance if we get the ground weapons we can force the station commanders to change sides or get shot out of the sky, but that requires a clean decapitation of the consuls, a good chunk of the Senate, and as many senior officers and officials down here as we can get our hands on."

Aerien laughs bitterly, a somewhat blood thirsty look Joan knows well from some of the veteran mercs her past life knew misting across her eyes. "Kinda wish those Pact of the Seven Beast girls were actually around. We could really use some professional assassins these days, and we don't have enough resources or off-world communications to get that kind of help from off-world. We're lucky we were able to get you girls and your friends and kin here!"

"Well, we can't assassinate anyone for you, per se - nor would that get greenlit by high command - but we'll help out any other way we can." Joan grins. "Sides. Sounds like we got us a honey of a plan here... provided we execute right. So let's walk through it in detail, see if we can't find any holes to plug before we get this fur ball rolling."

"Alright, I'll get my senior leaders in. If everything lines up, we'll step off in twelve hours." 

Series Directory Last

James

Time’s been moving fast on the Kandahar Province and it’s been a very busy day. He's been shuttling back and forth from the surface more often than he wanted to think about since starting on Serina duty, but he’s also needed to look after his company. Serina’s getting a little more okay with him being away, after clinging to him all night through some absolutely brutal nightmares, and she’s had things to do - mostly getting debriefed extensively by Intelligence. Not the most fun she could be having, but at least it’s stimulation for her - which would otherwise be hard to come by, since the Province wasn't exactly the recreation capital of the Undaunted star fleet. 

Today, however, things have been going a bit differently. James was told to report to an early morning meeting with the Admiral and the rest of the senior staff... and Serina was invited as well. He figures that means she was being brought in on the planning team, something he knows the Admiral has had mixed feelings about. Super-weapon she might be, bonded to James she might be, and enemy of thy enemy, but that doesn’t automatically make her a friend. In fact, as far as the Admiral knows, everything she’s doing could be an act... and, in truth, James suspects that at least part of Serina's routine is indeed an act. Overall, she seems so authentically innocent that he doesn't think she’s lying, per se, but every so often she says something that makes him think she’s maybe concealing part of the truth, in the name of protecting herself. 

After all, she might be rather taken with him, and she’s absolutely clinging to him... but that’s a combination of a biological process neither of them could control and instincts. She’s adrift in a storm at sea, and he’s a very comfy looking piece of driftwood that just happened to have come by. Now, he’s absolutely going to do his best by Serina, and he believes that she believes him when he says that… but that’s him. James. That’s not the Undaunted. His nation and organization. 

She doesn't know a damn thing about the Undaunted, save what they'd said and what she’s found from doing a little reading on the info net on James' computer. It makes sense to James, and he suspects it also made sense to Jerry, Commander Hawthorne and the rest of the senior staff, that Serina is as wary of them as they are of her. Trust takes time, after all. 

So, hopefully, this would be Jerry offering that first olive branch of trust to Serina as something more than just a refugee and a bit of an oddball partner of one of his officers. 

James has the feeling that that trust would make all the difference. He’s seen the hints here and there, especially in the games she plays, that there’s something more to Serina: the side of her that had absolutely conquered all of those star systems for her big sister, in the name of the Ha'quinye Star Empire. She likes that kind of work. She likes being involved. She likes the tactics and the strategy and the thrill of victory when she defeats her enemies. She’s shy. She isn't the most confident interpersonally… but that role? That fight? That’s her realm. Where she’s as comfortable as a queen in her throne room... 

And it's not like she had even been used to being a hundred percent in charge, either. Seralka hadn't just turned her loose, after all. She had been Serina's commander as well as her older sibling and caretaker. He knew she could work well with others in principle, then. It would just remain to be seen if Admiral Bridger and Serina could form their own kind of working relationship. 

Speaking of the devil, he's hot on James and Serina's heels as they enter the conference room, leaving James to bark out "Admiral on deck!" before he and Serina even make it to their chairs. 

"As you were!" The response is sharp, snappy... but not rushed, for as quick as the man was moving. He’s moving with a purpose, but to James' eye Jerry Bridger isn't worried. Not yet, anyway. Or, at least, if he is, it isn't a worry he feels like he has any need to panic about. There's no doubt it’s an intense situation... But, just from looking at the Admiral's eyes, James has the sense that the Admiral is completely confident in their ability to resolve the problem. 

That resolving the problem is probably going to involve a significant amount of violence doesn't need to be said per se... but in the end it would be. This is a planning session, after all. 

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," Jerry begins, not taking his chair just yet as the holo projector begins displaying an image of a world James recognizes as Dagrquey. "As some of you may know by now, there's been a significant development on Dagrquey, and indeed across the Ha'quinye's worlds and stations. There's been a series of riots across the three star systems and several of the larger space stations, related to the announcement of a general draft of able-bodied women and veterans back into Ha'quinye military service. The purpose of this draft has not been elaborated on by the consuls to our knowledge, or to the knowledge of our intelligence resources on the planet. We have some military personnel on Dagrquey, but for the most part we've pulled out, and have lost contact with our primary on-planet friend, through which we've also lost contact with our source in the Imperial palace. So we're flying darker on Dagrquey than I really like."

Jerry takes a pace or two, clasping his hands behind his back. “We do still have contact with the rebels, but our primary contact was the woman with who had the keys to the palace source, and she kept that card very close to her chest apparently. Past that, what we are hearing from Dagrquey… isn’t particularly good news. “ 

The image changes from the planet to a series of images and a shaky video that look like they came from an armor or helmet cam of a plaza, presumably on Dagrquey... and they feature Ha'quinye security forces opening fire indiscriminately on what certainly look like a bunch of unarmed civilians to James' eye. Not even particularly unruly civilians, by the standards of violent assemblies back on Earth. No one had been throwing things or causing any serious trouble prior to the government troops opening fire that he could see. 

"We received this data around twelve hours ago, courtesy of one of our remaining assets on the planet, code named Maiden, with further data from the rebels. Thanks to their work, we've confirmed that the Ha'quinye government's response to these riots has been about as heavy-handed as could be expected. There's been one massacre that we can confirm, because Maiden was on site for the violence and managed to escape and go to ground before they linked up with local rebels in the dock district of Triumph’s Rest. There's been at least one more reported massacre on Dagrquey, alongside rumors of 'security incidents' on the rest of the planets, and stations experiencing 'stability issues'. So obviously that's not good. Even worse is that a Human woman, Sister Catherine of the Roman Catholic Church, was in the plaza for the massacre and was taken prisoner by the Praetorian Guard. This issue is being dealt with by our assets on the Tear and by the rebels, who through Maiden have confirmed that one of their senior leaders, likely our  ‘friend’, was captured at the same incident. They do not believe that the Praetorians actually know who this individual is, else they would have publicly executed her by now, considering the mood the government's in."

Jerry takes a few steps, and the display changes one again to wire models of a series of ships.

"That, however, is not our problem. Not right now. One of the last bits of information out of the palace before our contact was captured was a confirmed list of the vessels of the Ha'quinye task force we now know for a fact is coming our way. Ladies and gentlemen, they're loaded for bear. Our current estimates are that they'll be here in less than twelve hours, based on our war room staff’s estimated top speeds for the enemy force."

The Admiral pulls a swagger stick out of an axiom pocket and begins to point at individual ships with it.

"As you can see, the enemy fleet is a significant one, probably the bulk of what the Ha'quinye navy can spare for a deep space mission without being on a war footing. Intelligence believes they have more ships, but they're mostly in dock due to a lack of personnel... something they'll likely be addressing with their forthcoming draft. The center of the fleet, and indeed the flagship of the entire Ha'quinye navy, is the cruiser Eagle Talon. She's considered a 'strike cruiser' in Ha'quinye terms, but is somewhere between a destroyer and a light cruiser for galactic terms. Intelligence leans towards a light cruiser, but that's mostly in terms of her ability to make regular deep space journeys with the difference in firepower between say the Eagle Talon and our destroyer, the Valkyrie, being elementary after the upgrades the Valk’s just received. From the schematics intelligence has managed to acquire from the company that made her on commission for the Ha’quinye, the Eagle Talon’s armor seems to be light, which makes her something of a glass cannon." 

Jerry goes through the rest of the fleet, listing out four corvettes and a mix of lighters along with a 'light carrier' that’s really a converted freighter that looks a lot like something that a pirate skipper would use to haul her fighters around, at least to James' eye. There are also, of course, a few decent sized landing ships and their attendant support craft. 

Which means that they’re bringing troops to the party, almost for sure. 

"Their mission is to seize the Sword of the Stars, that is to say Ms. Tacia here, by any means necessary. I don't mean to let them do that. We're also pretty sure that the fleet's commander has a personal bone to pick with us, as she likely believes we killed her niece, who happened to be the commander of the fake pirate station we raided earlier. To that end... we have a destroyer, a frigate, a corvette which is somewhat confined to escort detail... and my surprise, the USFS Dragonfire - which, for the benefit of those of you not privy to our operations during the Hag war, is a specialized stealth warship that carries enough capital torpedoes and other missile weapons to give the god of your choice a bad day. So. There's the problem. There's our tools, and this..." The projector changes again to a map of the current system they're in. "Is our field. Solutions, people."

James glances over at Serina, who seems to have gotten a lot more of the Admiral’s trust here than anyone might have expected. She immediately sticks her hand up, like she's waiting to be called on in class. 

"Ms. Tacia, I was hoping you'd have something for us. Let's hear it."

When Serina starts to talk, she talks fast. Very fast, with Mili, the Admiral's staff officer's synthetic eyes widening with every sentence. 

James himself feels like he’s catching every third word, and even some of those are from textbooks he only ever skimmed.

"Ms. Tacia," Jerry coughs politely, stopping her midsentence. 

"Sir?"

"Mili, did you get all that?"

"Most of it, sir. Extrapolating from what she just said, it's a very workable plan. Bold, certainly, but workable."

Jerry nods. "Right. Ms. Tacia, my apologies, but could you explain again slightly slower?"

Serina's ears wiggle as a blush dusks her cheeks. 

"Ah. Oops. Sorry. When I'm working, I... I need to focus on slowing down or I'll get a headache without my tank, anyway."

"That's fine, Ms. Tacia. Please continue."

"Yes sir. In short, I think they're easy prey for the forces you have arrayed against them. Technically, they have us on numbers of hulls, but it's numbers only. James has talked to me generally about Undaunted naval policy. You carry weapons regularly such as naval rail cannons, torpedoes and particle projection cannons that can serve as major force multipliers, but are costly, sometimes unwieldy, logistically-speaking, and therefore unappealing to planners who are focused on pure efficiency and making their paperwork look good instead of winning wars." Serina's ears wiggle again as she smiles. "I highly approve. We also have the ground assets. Two companies of power armor, an armor battalion, two companies of elite hard-suited infantry. That is a world conquering force the likes of which I'd have killed to have in the old days. May I connect to the holo projector?"

"Be my guest."

Serina reaches out mentally, and connects to the system, wherein the emblems resembling ships begin to move across the board. 

"The commander of the enemy fleet will want to strike with this fleet. She is no doubt highly aggressive. This was the type of trait the matricians lionized in commanders in my day, and I have no doubt that has gone downhill, shall we say, in the years since they took power, with commanders possibly becoming outright reckless. Further, if my understanding of how my 'legend' has been built up is correct, they will prioritize seizing me. So my proposal is simple. We lure them in, and hit them while they're conducting landing operations. They cannot hit the mountain where our troops will be waiting to defend against them nearly as well as they'd like, and we may be able to get some of the anti-orbital weapons belonging to the pirates who occupied the area previously, or indeed the mountain’s own orbital defenses functional again to 'discourage' that choice further. So they will land."

The red emblems representing the Ha'quinye force move in orbit around the planet. 

"The most vulnerable place for a fleet to be in is conducting landing operations. So we hit them with the Dragonfire in the middle of that. Somebody will have to tell me later if dragons are real on Earth, by the way. Anyway, we'll take out what we can, but I don't think we'll be able to kill the Eagle Talon. Not directly. I also believe that would be a waste of valuable resources, especially for the Undaunted. This is a new nation, with few warships available to them. My proposal is that one company of power armor, and, if need be, boarding specialists from what James tells me is called 'FAST', seize the ship after we soften it up with a few torpedo hits. The Valkyrie is a former pirate destroyer, I was told, so I think I can reasonably estimate its capabilities even if you choose not to share for operational security. Either by adept teleport or boarding torpedo, if she cuts in close after we force the Eagle Talon's shields down, we should be able to board and seize her. It is the best way to take her out without the Valkyrie and the Reckless trading body blows with the Talon and her consorts, whose status we can’t predict with what I consider to be adequate confidence. Regardless, even if they put up more of a fight than expected, if we can get a team to the Talon's reactor spaces and scram the drive core, she's out of the fight, and her consorts will be easy pickings for a proper destroyer and frigate."

Jerry nods slowly as he considers what she's saying. 

"...I like it. We'll need to work out the details, of course."

"She gave me details when she was talking fast, sir. Even picked out a few possible launch points for the Dragonfire," Mili says, looking up from her computer interface. “She has a really sophisticated system of subvocalizations for an organic.”

"Huh. Right. Well. Let's go over it in detail, then. Then we'll need to figure out what power armor unit's going into action on the Eagle Talon and get everyone to the Valkyrie." Jerry's eyes flash to Serina. "Ms. Tacia, welcome aboard. I'm certainly glad to have you... and I believe Mili will have your tank ready by the time we go into action. A salvage team in the mountain found it last night."

Serina grins, a savage, feral grin that doesn't suit her at all to James’ mind, her ears moving more like an excited Malinois. 

"Excellent. It will be my pleasure to serve, Admiral. Though... if I may ask a small favor?"

"Sure, we'll need to work out how we pay you for all this work, but if there's something you want and I can give it to you I will."

"Can you let me send an encrypted message to Dagrquey? There's a dead drop electronic messaging system that... If I have any family left, they would likely be able to see it, and potentially make contact through normal channels."

"That system might have degraded by now," Jerry says, considering it.

"Possibly, in which case the message will go nowhere. And, not to worry, Admiral. I'll gladly let my message be reviewed by James or another trusted officer before I encrypt and send it."

"How will you encrypt it?" Commander Hawthorne asks, now curious.

"An old family code. Everyone had to memorize it for exactly this sort of situation. It's quite simple, but it's uniquely us and in a specific dialect of the Ha'quinye language."

Jerry exchanges a look with Hawthorne then shrugs. "I think we can allow that, Ms. Tacia."

"Thank you, Admiral. I promise it'll be a worthy use of my time."

The meeting plows on... but something about the way Serina had thanked Admiral Bridger for letting her try to message any of her surviving kin... catches James as a bit odd. She hadn’t been lying, per se, but she’s hiding something again. What that is, he isn't sure, but he does get the feeling that any malice here is aimed squarely at the Ha'quinye military and government rather than the Undaunted... 

But he'll still keep an eye on her, and have a word with the Admiral in private. Just in case. 

Series Directory Last

Arenna Gladia 

Corin had asked her for a favor! Even with Triumph's Rest - and indeed the bulk of the Empire - on lockdown, even with the drafts preparing to call the first enrollments in a few days time, Arenna could always make time for that, surely. Nothing is so important that it needs her personal attention… not unless the consuls order it, anyway. 

The Praetorian wipes the bubbly smile off her lips as she remembers just how Corin had asked her for that favor too. If he’s going to ravish her every time he needs a little help, she won't be able to do her job - not because she was pregnant, though that would certainly be possible, if she forgot to keep a handle on things with axiom or medicine, but also because her brain would have melted out of her ears! All that unrelenting lust is a bit feminine, especially coming from a delicate thing like Corin... but she’s finding she rather likes it when Corin is assertive. 

It’s been a nice distraction. She'd…seen some things recently. Things that had her asking questions she probably shouldn't, even to herself. She'd never questioned her job or orders before. Never questioned the will of her consuls... 

But that plaza. She hadn't been there, hadn't given the orders, but she'd walked through the aftermath. Sure, allegedly a mech suit had been hit with a railgun round... but there hadn't been much evidence she could see. Just a whole lot of bodies cooling on the ground as pools of blood dried up in a way that made her want to hurl. 

In Corin's arms she could forget for a bit. In Corin's arms she doesn't have to ask herself questions about why the security forces had been seemingly waiting in force by that plaza. 

Or does she? Because she knows Corin would be quite distressed by news of what a part of her dearly wants to call a massacre even as she reads about the 'enforcement action' and 'riot suppression' in her daily reports.

Much better to focus on what really matters to her. Her girls - those she could count on anyway, which is admittedly a short list - and Corin. Who, again, had been initiating quite a bit lately, something that thrilled her to the core and made her more than happy to handle little favors for him. 

Yet... one thing is giving her pause. It’s a bit of an odd favor, isn't it? An entirely different kind of cold sensation compared to when she thought about the plaza rolls through her guts, erasing the warm, pleasant thoughts of deep kissing and passionate sex. Why does Corin have a particular interest in two random prisoners? How does Corin know two random prisoners? Or even know that those individuals were indeed imprisoned in the palace dungeons? She suspects other praetorians have been doing little favors for Corin, but he also seems to know more than he should... but from what possible source? It’s all just explainable in the name of gossip or what have you, like how Corin had found out about the Catholics to start with, but… still, it’s just a little odd.

Then there’s that girl. The brunette that had been captured with an illegal rail pistol trying to protect the supposed holy woman who called herself Catherine. Her face had been - is - a very familiar one for some reason, but Arenna simply could not place where she had seen her before. An event of some kind? During her time in the military before she'd become a praetorian? No. That doesn't feel right; she'd seen that woman in the mug shot more recently than that. 

Further, what interest could Corin have in those two women, that he'd asked her to take pains to protect them as she could? There’s a wide variety of possible options, each more unlikely than the rest. For example, the brunette... could she perhaps be another of Corin's lovers? A rival for his affections? Arenna’s mixed-up mind stampedes right past the idea that she very much does care for Corin, in the most unseemly of ways for a woman of her standing... and so much as to potentially be jealous of other women who took what they wanted from the prized stallion? Jealousy is an alien concept for Arenna, when applied to a man. Obviously, it’s not what she’s feeling now. It’s not why she wants to put her fist through a wall. Nope.

She'd accepted that Corin was almost certainly bedding Marikath. Marikath is a nice girl and had proven a reliable aid to Arenna. Corin is absolutely bedding the consuls, but she can wave that off. One does not get angry at a beast of burden for pulling a cart, or at a bird for singing its song in the morning. Corin beds the consuls because that’s his duty. As protecting them is her duty. 

So... why does she so deeply crave for Corin to bed her? Why does it make her feel different than anything else in her life when he does so? She had been exposed to all manner of intoxicants throughout her career, but nothing has ever hit her in the veins quite like a kiss from her Corin. 

Her Corin? Getting possessive with the consul's property is likely a fast ticket to being beheaded, if she isn't careful. Then again... she'd been sleeping with Corin boldly enough. Sergeant Gemma too had been unable to give up the 'treat' the consuls had offered them as part of punishing their disobedient pet. At least, Arenna is fairly certain about that. 

And Gemma too is... somewhat acceptable as another of his partners. Better to have someone with the same secret who can have her back if needs must or push comes to shove. 

It had all started with a little ride. A little fun. Or had it? If she was honest, she'd first seen Corin, or Cori as she'd called him then, as the consuls called him, not yet knowing what he preferred to be called, from afar... and she had desired him. She had courted before. Had lovers before. Women, of course, like any girl of her station and upbringing. Yet. The first time her eyes had met Corin's... it had been like there was lightning in her veins. She'd needed to see him more, wanted to see more of him, so she had worked to do just that, until at last, on her glorious day of ascension to a long coveted captaincy over the corpse of that cow... Consul Euryde had offered her the finest of treats. Oh, she would have hoarded that meal all to herself if she could have, but just getting that first time alone with Corin had been... otherworldly, and after that it felt like... something had changed. 

What, though, and how, Arenna Gladia doesn't know, and not knowing is starting to upset her. At first, she thought it could be the pheromone bond that she half-remembers hearing some things about from school, but she discarded that almost immediately. She’d done her prophylactic due diligence. At least… she thought she had, based on advice from some of the girls she works with. Anyway, this doesn’t feel anything like what her teachers had barely explained in what had been a very rudimentary sex ed class during her primary education. So, with all possibilities either discounted or simply not making sense, Arenna doesn’t know. 

This pair, Catherine and Jaina, represents two more factors that Arenna doesn't know and can't understand… but tracking them down is quite a bit easier than trying to figure out what exactly is going on in her own head. So she strides into the dungeon with all the power and authority that she very much has earned; the guards - not praetorians, but common security forces girls - quickly snap to attention, albeit with what could generously be called a lack of grace. 

Less generously, they’re sloppy. Far sloppier than guards in the palace's dungeons should be. Arenna makes a mental note to speak with the officer in charge of these sorry excuses for soldiers as she slowly removes her helm.

"I am Captain Gladia. An interrogation chamber will be provided for me, and these two prisoners will be brought to me. You will shut off the recording systems."

A not at all uncommon order. Ha'quinye law has its restrictions on a variety of procedures related to prisoners, but every now and then special prisoners merit special treatment, whether that be quiet deal-making or 'alternative interrogation methods'. The latter are nothing she's ever participated in, but she knows that her predecessor, the not at all lamented Captain Aritania, had regularly 'assisted' with them. 

It always struck Arenna as... overly indulgent. Her job is to protect the consuls and fight their enemies, and that sort of business is well outside her remit. It’s ineffective, for one thing, as she'd learned early in her career when trying to crack open a conspiracy to assassinate her superior. 

Torture is not investigation. It’s punishment. She does not, in theory at least, have an issue with punishment - but punishment is business for the courts, and she’s a soldier, not a judge. If an enemy of the consuls she was placed against isn’t killed in battle, then it’s not her place to bring the lash down on that enemy's back, save at the order of the appropriate authority figure. 

If ordered, then she'd comply…

Then again, the girls at the plaza. They'd been following orders too, hadn't they? She'd been raised from a young age to know that orders from her superiors may as well have been a writ from the goddess herself. Yet. She'd received and 'modified' bad orders before. Getting creative with her orders had actually put her in a position to save Consul Euryde's life during the assassination attempt by members of the death cult known as the Pact of the Seven Beasts. 

Before long, she’s sitting in the chamber across from the two women. The brunette, Jaina, looks defiant. An actual rebel, perhaps? It doesn't matter. More interesting is the alien, the woman who calls herself Catherine. This one has no fear of Arenna, where Jaina very much does. At the same time, though, nor does she offer Arenna any defiance. She’s... serene, and apparently at peace. 

She doesn't even know Corin, and answers all of the questions that Arenna asks of her freely and without concern. She doesn’t know anything about the rebels. She honestly and truly didn’t intend to foment dissent. She’s not a supporter of terrorism, and her companion isn’t a terrorist. She’s just here to preach the word of her god. And it feels right. This 'Catherine' is either the best liar Arenna has ever met, or she’s telling the truth. The other woman, Jaina... She's a bit more evasive, but Arenna barely noticed her after she started talking more seriously with Catherine. 

Corin had been curious about the woman's faith, hadn't he? Maybe he would reward her for finding out more information as well as protecting the prisoners as much as she can?

"Tell me about your religion. This Jesus of yours." It’s a fairly simple request... or so Arenna had thought. 

Instead of an answer, Arenna gets a sermon… and though she wants to interrupt, where she would have struck any other prisoner for going on at length about one thing or another when asked to elaborate on a specific subject... She can't seem to bring herself to raise her hand or say a word as Catherine tells her a story. A simple story, about a world called Earth, and a man called Jesus of Nazareth. Of a place far away from the world of Dagrquey, one that nonetheless sounds so very familiar to Arenna. A hard world, a place of much hardship and pain - but, yet, life there has triumphed, as it always has in Arenna's experience. She'd seen people eking out an existence in some of the harshest terrain on Dagrquey, and so it was, at the time of this story, on this Earth. Hard. Brutal. Savage. Then a man - a man! - had come to them, come to the people of the Earth, and preached peace. 

Preached love. Preached tolerance. Preached caring for one's neighbors. All simple things, nothing... particularly special. Lots of galactic religions follow similar tenents, after all. Yet. Something about the story is catching Arenna's heart... and when the story comes to its conclusion, it ends not in vindication, or peaceful death with a final missive to the faithful, but instead in a bloody, savage sacrifice. Whipped, beaten, crucified and left to die. That’s not the way the stories of these men and women who preached peace usually end. 

And how did this man of peace react to his betrayal? Did he curse his tormentors to hell? Rage against the injustice of it all? No. He accepted the pain with all the dignity he could muster, and as the soldiers drove nails into his body to crucify him, he asked the god he claimed to the son of, to forgive them. It’s that detail that... breaks something in Arenna Gladia. Because there’s something so familiar in this story. So familiar in these Humans, these people from the death world known as Earth. The story of Jesus could have been a Ha'quinye story... except in how it ended, and the main points of his message to his people.

In the face of that familiarity, in the face of her already disquieted heart, seemingly held up like a mirror to her in the sacrifice of a man who had died thousands of years before her birth, Arenna Gladia does something she’s never done before in her life. 

She flees. 

She flees the interrogation chamber and the story of the man called Jesus. Flees the blonde woman with kind eyes who looked at her without judgement or fear. Flees her probable rebel companion. Flees the whole scene, only stopping to order the guards to separate out those two into another cell, and to ensure that they are well cared for, as the consuls had taken a particular interest in them and wants them to remain in good condition. 

It takes all her remarkable willpower and a lifetime of discipline to do that, to change the pace of her flight for the length of a few sentences.

Then Arenna Gladia flees completely, as fast as dignity will allow, and once she’s safely in the quiet of her quarters, moonlight streaming down from outside, she finds she’s weeping quietly - and, for the life of her, she can not understand why. 

Series Directory Last

James knocks three times on the door of the small room that’s serving as the Admiral's 'flag office'.

"I'll be right with you, Mr. Puller. Just wait a minute," Jerry says, not looking up from his computer. 

It gives James a few moments to sightsee. The Admiral's current 'office' is certainly a far cry from the stately environs from which Jerry commanded back on the Crimson Tear; this looks more like a janitor's closet that’s had a desk crammed into it. But James knows it had been Commander Sha'Ress's own 'sea cabin', as he'd have called it back on Earth, a small room with a bunk and a desk as close to the bridge as possible. It had become the Admiral’s for the duration of his stay after the man had flatly vetoed Commander Sha'Ress's offer to move out of her quarters. 

There may have also been a joking offer to share Commander Sha’Ress’s bed that was denied in far more good humor than some lower enlisted and junior officers might believe 'the man' to be fully capable of. 

At least, that’s the rumor going around the fleet. Followed inevitably by a small betting pool on whether Commander Sha'Ress was pursuing her admiral, commander, and prince… and, if she was making a go of it, if she'd end up winning a chair or not. 

James had in fact bet on both those pools, mostly because he knew for a fact that Commander Sha'Ress isn't much of a joiner, and is more likely to go for a smaller family, or indeed a man who’s completely single. He’d be willing to put his money on Sha'Ress eventually pursuing Commander Hawthorne, from the looks she'd been giving him; it even strikes James as a good match, not that his opinion matters. He'd met Manila Hawthorne a few times, a Feli woman and a reformed pirate who... could be a bit shy. To say the least. Sha'Ress is a far more bombastic personality, but the type who liked to pull others up and along instead of run them over. So likely no to little conflict there, and everyone involved is a career naval officer... plus, he knows Sha'Ress likes cats, having acquired herself a silver Egyptian Mau that she'd named Tenacity. 

Whether her cat had intentionally been named to mimic Commander Hawthorne's own four legged companion, a Siamese named Felicity, James couldn't be sure, but he leans towards coincidence. 

Definitely a coincidence is that Commander Hawthorne is nearby, with Tenacity in his lap, giving the large cat strokes and pets as the creature purrs away happily.

"Wh... What's that?" Serina stage whispers from somewhere behind James. 

"That's a cat. They're a small predator species Humans domesticated back on Earth for pest control and companionship. Admiral Bridger…” James gestures casually towards the Admiral’s office… "Brought a large amount of genetic data out of Cruel Space with him, and now our mothership, the Crimson Tear, does a decent amount of trade in cloning and selling Earth pets."

"It's cute. I uh... It's a predator?"

"Mhmm. Ambush, specifically. They stalk, then pounce. They're very effective too. One of the most effective predators on Earth, and probably the most effective for their weight class." 

"Oh. Interesting! Do Humans keep any other pets?" Serina peers over his shoulder, seeking eye contact and wanting to talk to him, but still just a little bit nervous 'out and about'. That’s why they'd kept her in the brig for so long, actually. Not because she’s dangerous, but rather because the brig is quiet and she wouldn't get too overstimulated.

"All sorts of animals. Small ones, like various types of rodents, reptiles, even insects aren't unheard of back home. Birds of every shape, size, color and configuration you can think of, from highly intelligent avians called parrots to predatory raptors that we form hunting partnerships with. The most popular of all, though, are cats and dogs. Dogs were bred from a canine pack hunter called a wolf. You might see Fenrir if he's around... Not sure the Admiral brought him on this trip, but if you come back to the Tear you'll meet him eventually."

"If pets are important to Humans, why wouldn't your commander bring his pet with him?"

James chuckles. "Well Fenrir's more than just a pet, of course. He's a war hound - that’s a dog specifically trained to fight and perform military tasks alongside a soldier - but, more importantly, Fenrir's very big, and he needs a lot of space to move around and exercise. We've got the units we brought with us theoretically spread out over this ship and our other big drop ship, Old One Eye, which can haul a battalion on its own, and it's still pretty tight quarters for everyone. It would probably be cruel to Fenrir to make an extended cruise in that condition. Plus Fenrir's very protective of the Admiral's family... I imagine it makes him feel better knowing Fenrir's helping out at home."

"Oh, that makes sense!"

"All exactly why I chose to leave Fenrir behind on this trip," Jerry's voice cuts in, and James blushes as he remembers that the Admiral hadn't had the hatch closed, nor had he closed it when he'd asked James and Serina to wait.

"...Shit. Sorry if we disturbed you, sir."

"No worries. I finished this message... which means the two of you can step into my office... and, James? Shut the hatch."

"Aye aye, sir." 

With James and Serina crammed into two small seats and the door closed, James is feeling mildly claustrophobic in the tiny office. 

"So. Is the matter at hand resolved, Mr. Puller?"

James gulps, trying to force down another blush. His love life becoming a matter of official record is exactly the type of complication he'd really prefer to avoid in general.

"Yes, sir. I talked with Rose, and Serina and I have come to terms. She'd like to remain with the group for now, and has volunteered to help us fight the oncoming Ha'quinye force."

"I see." Jerry turns his steely gray eyes on Serina. "You'd fight your own people so readily?"

Serina flinches slightly, letting out a slightly distressed noise, and Jerry frowns, averting his eyes just a bit so as to not make the kind of intense eye contact the man was known for when trying to get the measure of someone. 

"My apologies, Ms. Tacia. I forgot about your special health issues. Ahem. Let's start again. You'd fight your own people so readily?"

"If what you've told me is true, and Commander Hawthorne and James have given me ample evidence - plus the fact that you are here at all instead of my sisters waking me is further strong supporting evidence - then my people have been dead and buried for longer than I have been alive, Admiral. Or, I mean, alive and awake. I am Ha'quinye, but your enemies are very much my enemies. They aren’t the whore-spawn who killed my family, but they are their heiresses and beneficiaries, so they are perfectly viable in terms of an opportunity for me to address my grievances with the Matrician cult and their so-called empire." 

Jerry nods slowly, taking that onboard and clearly processing it.

"Alright. So how can you help?"

"Well Admiral, I'm a skilled tactician, but to get the most out of my abilities I need my 'tank'."

"Explain, please."

"Unlike the sensory deprivation tank and cryo sleep chamber James found me in, my proper 'tank' is vital for me to conduct live tactical support. With the tank I can go into what my sister always called a battle trance. It's not really a trance, it's just utilizing my natural sensitivity and replacing my normal sensory input with... say... scanners, visual sensors, IFF beacons, LIDAR, and whatever data link information I can get. The tank allows me to 'shutter' my normal sensory issues and take in this new information instead. Because data is far more regimented and organized than raw sensory input from, say, my ears, I can process that data extremely quickly. Combined with my tactical acumen, it can improve battle efficiency and support by thirty percent over traditional controllers."

Jerry blinks slightly, as he tries to parse the extremely fast, dense and accented Galactic Trade coming at him. 

"...Thirty percent sounds pretty good, though I'm interested to see if you're as fast as my synth tactical officer."

"I could generally keep up with synths of my day, and I'm also slightly less vulnerable in some ways than a synth because, save some implants to allow me to interface with my tank, I'm just using the brain I was born with."

"Uh huh. Alright. Let's go find Chief Warrant Officer Damasci then, and we'll talk about this tank a bit more." 

Jerry

His observations of Serina are damnedly strange. She could go from sharp-minded, insightful genius to somewhat naive teenage girl fast enough to give a man whiplash, and gods alone know how James’s managing to keep up with her in private. 

It’s almost a bit frustrating, if he’s at all honest. This is the superweapon the Ha’quinye have been tearing an entire sector of Wild Space up trying to find? This girl is what they’re ready to go to war over? She’s cute, but Helen of Troy she’s not - and then, when she’s acting cute and innocent, it’s somewhat hard to believe she’d helped lay siege to entire star systems. 

Nor had the Ha’quinye been polite enough to entomb the poor girl with detailed records about her military service, the battles she’d won and how she’d won them. Having that at least somewhat objective view on Serina would have certainly made his and his intelligence officers’ lives easier. Though… those records probably did exist at one point on the mainframe in the Tacia stronghold where Serina had been kept, but the defense computer had seemingly cannibalized those resources long ago to continue to defend and safekeep its charge. 

Which is another mark in Serina’s favor. One does not hide someone away in a mountain fortress protected by legions of murderous machines in a remote corner of space if they aren’t valuable in one way or another, and from Serina’s recollections, Seralka, Serina’s eldest sister, doesn’t strike Jerry as being a particularly sentimental sort who would have done anything to protect her baby sister… if she wasn’t also an incredibly potent ‘weapon’ of sorts. 

That, at last, was the key that made processing the enigma that is 'the Sword of the Stars' somewhat easier on Jerry, Commander Hawthorne and the rest of the intelligence staff. Reviewing the surprisingly detailed biography she'd provided to Intelligence before she and James had gone off to get chow. Which had included some campaign records they’d been able to at least come close to corroborating with the historical record. 

Still, to Jerry’s mind the critical information was at last found in Serina’s home life. How does one raise a super-weapon after all? The answer turned out to be fairly simple in this particular case. You didn’t. You raised a genius and got wildly lucky with that genius’s taste in hobbies. 

Serina Tacia had grown up a very sheltered daughter of privilege, doted on by her parents for her intellectual gifts... but something of a family pet if Jerry and the intelligence analysts are reading between the lines correctly. Then everything had changed when her eldest sister Seralka had found Serina's special 'trick', honed from years of the highest level tactical and strategic simulators around. Serina loved her video games, but her definition of video games included the galactic cousins of the famous ‘Harpoon’ series of software back on Earth, and games like it. 

The kind of tools used by professionals at Annapolis and the Naval War College to either learn or hone the modern arts of war in excruciating detail. That was the kind of thing Serina devoured along with her favorite fantasy RPGs and seemingly every book she could get her hands on. With that kind of ‘food’, small wonder Serina had become a gifted strategist and tactician combined with that unique brain of hers. 

Which leaves him with the problem at hand: could he actually safely make use of the Sword? Could they work out a way to give Serina the information she needs without giving her too much information? Or, for that matter, control of their systems? It’s a risk, but one he was inclined to take. People had died for this weapon, probably more people than Jerry would ever know had died, and the Ha’quinye empire is busily shaking itself apart if his latest report from Dagrquey is anything to go by. 

All the more concerning that his daughters on the planet had made an emergency coded transmission indicating they’d hooked up with a local rebel group after the shit had hit the fan, and then gone dark. They hadn’t triggered a recall, so he knows they’re almost certainly okay, but he was worried even before he gazed out at the stars and remembered the bulk of the Ha’quinye navy was coming for them.

The fact of the matter is, if Serina is a super-weapon, Jerry could really use a super-weapon right about now. Which leaves the lingering question… is it worth the risk? Is trusting Serina worth the risk? Or is this whole thing an overblown fairy tale from Ha’quinye national mythology, and Serina nothing more than a decently skilled combat operations manager?

Jerry couldn't answer that question… but thankfully, Milintra 'Mili' Damasci can at least start putting the pieces together for him. The Phosa synth woman pulls up the blueprints for her masterpiece, the holographic command and control tank at the heart of the two war rooms that had been installed on the Crimson Tear and the Kandahar Province respectively. Her 'running lights', as Jerry thinks of them, mimicking an organic Phosa's natural bioluminescence, glow strongly for a few moments. 

"Well, what do you think, Mili? Can it be done? Is what she's saying even plausible?"

Mili looks up and smiles. "Absolutely, sir. I touched her mind briefly, a neural interlink, and she probably has the fastest mind for an organic I’ve ever heard of. Honestly, hardwarewise her system isn't that different from how I integrate with the war room's systems myself. The primary difference being she has an organic brain which requires some extra equipment to allow to connect directly… and she's got a unique brain, at that. In theory at least, it's entirely possible. Plausible even."

"What about setting her up in such a way software-wise that we're protecting our people from potential sabotage?"

"I don't care how fast her brain is, she isn't faster than me and she can't code like I can, especially not with Babydoll on board to help me out. We can make a secure interface for her that will give Babydoll and I a chance to shut her down if we think something's suspicious. That said… it's probably all for naught regardless, sir. I'll certainly try, but I'm not sure I can build her a tank that meets her specifications before we're staring down the teeth of whatever's coming for us. Not sure enough to stake a meaningful part of our strategy on it." 

"Hmmm." Jerry strokes his chin thoughtfully. "What if you had a pre-existing tank and were just adapting it?"

"That'd probably go a lot faster."

"I think I need to go catch up with Ms. Tacia, then, and get our crews on the planet doing a little salvage work. I'll be damned if I don't use every resource we have."

One of Mili's mechanical ears droops slightly, then points out a view port with a few flashes of that ear's running lights. 

"Is that why you brought them in?"

Jerry follows the ear out the 'window', where floating in space in tight formation with the Kandahar Province is one of the Undaunted's more interesting combatant spacecraft. CBX-1, also known as USFS Dragonfire. Fresh out of the shipyard and newly enhanced and enlarged with an absolutely frightening amount of torpedo tubes, along with inserts that can let a full-size torpedo tube house a dozen large specialty missiles of varying types. The Dragonfire represents a staggering  amount of strategic firepower, and she does it all while looking like a fairly normal, if particularly well armed, freighter. 

Close by is her escort, another of the obsequious Jules class corvette interceptors. Like the Tear group's own Audacious, USFS Daring is technically another old friend from the Hag War, where she'd briefly been known as the not so good ship Shit Bucket after being seized from the Hag's pirates by Shalla Savić's FAST platoon. She too is fresh from the star yards, and sporting an impressive new suite of weapons that puts her in a comparable place to Audacious, give or take a few particle cannons. 

Jerry grins. 

"What can I say, Mili? It's always nice having some old friends around for a little hunting expedition. While you're waiting for the tank, prepare a 'clean' package for Serina that doesn't give too much away and has the latest estimates of what we're facing. Star charts, whatever she wants that doesn't violate classification protocol... It might not be her optimal way to work, but I want to see what she does."

"Aye aye, sir. I'll have it done in a flash!" 

"I'm counting on it, Mili. Carry on." 

Series Directory Last

James

Having a mandate from your wife and a mission from your commanding officer to 'deal with a situation' is one thing, but when that situation is a living, thinking being who more or less declared herself your wife after being stuck in cryo for a few centuries and is apparently a potent super-weapon in her own right - for once without any axiom shenanigans, for a nice change of pace… well. Things get complicated. Quickly. In James’s head, at least. 

Sure, it would probably be as easy as just... telling Serina that what she wanted is within her grasp, that he isn't abandoning her, but she'd need to be patient and show respect for his wife, or rather wives, and show she can integrate into his family. All perfectly reasonable requests. One he'd be making of her even if he was single, in all due reality. 

Sure, Serina is pretty. Very pretty. Very beautiful, even, whether she was prancing around in her panties and a t-shirt, or was, thankfully, covered from throat to ankles in a flight suit. 

And her interests aren’t bizarre or anything. He’s no stranger to enjoying video games and similar nerdly pursuits either - nor is Rose, though neither one of them has had much time to explore Earth's various types of media since the babies had started coming, never mind getting to experience galactic media beyond the occasional movie night. Maybe that's something Serina could help them with? 

James steps into security control by the Province's brig and is greeted by a harried looking master-at-arms.

"Everything okay, petty officer?"

The woman gives him an exhausted look. 

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

James nearly takes a step back. He had not been expecting that response. What the hell had this woman been dealing with? "...Uh. Granted? I guess."

"Your new wife is a pain in the ass. Sir." The petty officer sighs, leaning against the wall. "It took three of us and a couple of the intelligence folks to finally get her wearing shoes. We finally talked her into it based on safety regulations. Apparently she's just military enough that she'll listen to the regs, or if we explain it in extremely utilitarian or practical terms.” She takes a deep breath. “At least she's talking without you around now. Ever since she met with the admiral she's been a right little ray of sunshine. I think finding out we're packing all her stuff up let her relax a hair."

"Right. Has she said anything interesting?"

"Beyond asking for you every thirty seconds or so? No, sir. Something about a tank? Like. Fish tank. Don't think it was for fish, though. Not sure what she really meant by it, but I passed the word on to intelligence. If she says anything about it, I'm sure Commander Hawthorne would be willing to have one of his people have a look around. I mean. If it was for a pet then that poor critter would be long gone, right?" 

The aggrieved look slides off the young woman's face for a moment, a shiver tracing down her spine. "Ugh. Can't get too upset with her, honestly. What she’s been through? Or rather, what she’s going through right now? Absolute nightmare fuel. Literally. I actually had nightmares about it as a girl after I watched a movie with my sisters that had a similar thing happen to the heroine. Waking up centuries after her family had all passed on, completely adrift? I'm from a big family sir, so the thought of losing my parents? My sisters? Spooked me pretty good."

"Yeah. Worth being sympathetic."

"Anyway. Sorry to talk, sir. Just been a long day, and you asked..." She shrugs. "Ms. Tacia is cleared to leave. Just report to intelligence or the chief bosun's mate if you need quarters for her."

"Right. I'll do that. Thanks, Petty Officer. Keep your chin up."

"Aye, sir."

James heads down into the brig and makes his way to where Serina is waiting for him. Immediately she leaps from her chair, wrapping her arms around him… and this time, he actually hugs her back, giving her some of the comfort he knows she needs, even if she's trying to hide it behind a cheerful face. 

"Hi, Hubby!"

"Hey, Serina. I ah." James looks around. This interrogation room is pretty barren, far from the most comfortable location on the ship, and considering it was set up for recording, even if James called central control and asked them to shut anything off, their privacy is far from assured. Much as you could have privacy in tight quarters like the Kandahar Province is living under right now. In theory, the ship could drop an entire battalion, but James is damned sure he didn't want to see the ship at its full capacity. 

He considers taking her to the conference room, or asking for a private room from intelligence, before finally settling on bringing her to his own quarters. It just makes sense, especially with his company still down on the surface. 

"Come on, we need to have a talk." 

Serina's happy enough as they leave the brig, but with each footfall she seems to be moving just a little bit slower, hanging on his arm just a little bit more heavily until they finally make it to his quarters and the door slides shut. 

"I'm not stupid, you know." She whispers quietly. "I know when I'm being set up for bad news."

James sighs softly. "Well. The last thing I think you are is stupid. If anything, you're a lot smarter than I am. Smart enough that I worry about being able to keep up with you, mentally speaking. I'm not stupid, but you're a genius as far as I can tell… but let's sit down." 

James offers Serina the chair but she plops down on his bed, leaving him to take the chair. 

"So... I don't have bad news for you. Not really. Just… complex news. Relationships between people... always are. I think you know that."

"They tend to give me a headache."

"Yeah. Me too, sometimes. So. I can't just marry you out of the blue. It's not fair to the rest of my family. My first wife's name is Rose. We got married back on my home world, Earth."

"In Cruel Space, right?"

"That's right."

"Crazy that life could live there, but Commander Hawthorne let me scan him and you'd certainly need all that exotic neurological and physiological weirdness to survive in all that null... and to survive some of the things he told me about your world. It sounds even worse than Dagrquey in a lot of ways. We had a lot of predators to deal with, but nothing like, say, an arachnid smaller than your palm that could kill a grown adult with its venom. That's terrifying!" She took maybe one breath in the middle of all that; it’s clearly part of her… gifts.

"...You aren't wrong about that. Anyway, we have six children. I also have a fiancee. Her name is Mahai. She's a Cannidor woman."

"A warrior?" She’s intent on the answer, but in a way that reads to James as curiosity. She’s not looking to tear anybody down.

"In the culinary sense, maybe. She's an artisanal wine and cheesemaker, among other things."

"Sounds delicious."

"It is. I hope you'll get to try her food and drink soon."

"So... You can't marry me... but I... might get to do that?" She gives him a slightly hopeful look, her long ears drooping in a way that made James feel like he'd kicked a puppy. 

"Just because I can't marry you right now doesn't mean I won't. It's just not fair to Rose, Mahai, the kids, or, for that matter, you and I, to skip straight to getting married without even getting to know each other. That's just not how Humans do courtship. I'm sure Commander Hawthorne mentioned we're monogamous mostly back home. Rose has only just opened our marriage. Adding a third wife really quickly... it might be hard on her and the kids, but she's not against you... coming along with us, if that's what you want."

Serina's ears start to wiggle. "So... what would that make us?"

"Well, we'd call it a girlfriend back home. We'd take our time, get to know each other, all of us, after resolving the current issue with your people of course, and then assuming we're all happy with the situation you'd join our family permanently."

"...Well, that sounds pretty good actually. Though by Ha'quinye standards we're already married. I mean, you did take my virginity and marry me."

James squints slightly, looking for any hint of deception and not finding it. 

"...I'm gonna need to have you expand on that a bit, because we definitely didn't have sex."

"For my people - or, at least, when I was last awake - the marriage and chastity were all tied to kissing. It's in all my romance novels. All the stories. All the stuff I mostly ignored in school and during divine services. Scientifically, we're very susceptible to pheromones in saliva, so a kiss can form an instant bond..." Sarina's hand drifts to her lips. "Your pheromones are... pretty intense. So we… uh. We're bonded. I get warm just looking at you!" 

"...Ah. I see. That makes sense. So that was your first kiss, then?"

"Mhmm. We have to be careful about who we kiss, even other girls. Because we bond so easily. Those of us who get around too much, like those damned matricians and their weird cult, can burn their ability to bond properly completely. I'm not a psychologist or anything, but I remember reading on forums that girls who get that kind of burnout can turn into serious... hedonists. Basically." 

"...Huh. That certainly makes sense, with some of the reports we've heard about modern Ha'quinye society. But that's for intelligence and anthropologists to study. I'm here to talk about you. So, first thing, when Humans and most of the galaxy use the term virginity, they generally mean sex. Like… intercourse."

Sarina blushes, a beautiful dusky tone covering her cheeks as her ears flutter wildly. "I uh. I know. What it is. Kinda. My sisters were really protective of me, but I did get the usual education and stuff... mostly. I never did... well in school. I got bored. Really easily. Because I usually knew more than the teachers."

"Right, that sounds about right for you from what I've seen. So. Worth keeping that in mind when talking to people about us and how we met. People might get, and have gotten... confused."

"I was wondering why that Admiral Bridger guy was staring at you so intensely for a minute there."

"Because you had just suggested one of his Marines had ravaged an alien woman he'd just met. He has to take that pretty seriously and at least ask me for a clarification, like he did."

Sarina nods. "So... back to us. If I'm your girlfriend, what does that mean for now?"

"Well. It would mean no sex, and no kissing. Those are Rose's two rules. However... She told me to tell you that if you agree to those rules and keep things... chaste between us while we're on the Province, she'll let you stay in my quarters with me."

"Like, sharing a bed? The two of us?" Sarina squeaks.

"Yeah. The two of us."

"Yes!" Sarina coughs into her hand trying to compose herself as her ears flap ever more violently. "I mean. Uh. That. Sounds pretty good. I... You make me feel safe. So having you close would be... good."

"Oh, and all the hugs you want."

Sarina finally smiles, her real smile, if James had to guess, instead of the happy go lucky persona she'd been wearing to cope with her trauma. 

"I'm gonna want a lot of those."

"That I can do."

Sarina nods. "So. You should ask the other question now. Unless you think we can get away with a nap right now."

"Other question?"

"Mhmm." Sarina nods. "It's obvious. You're going to ask me to help fight off the Ha'quinye navy. I know they were looking for me. I saw the wreckage of the corvettes on the flight up. They're going to come looking for their ships. I can help... but I'm going to need my tank."

"Tank? Like the thing we found you in?"

Sarina shakes her head. "Nuh uh. Not that. It's a different one. I can tell the crews where it is. Then I'll need it integrated into something with decent computers and sensors."

"Sounds like the admiral's war room to me."

"That'll probably suffice. If I have what I need, I can help."

"Alright, then. Let's go see the admiral."

James stands up and turns to head towards the door before he feels a gentle tug on his sleeve, he turns to find Sarina looking at her lap, ears wiggling, another blush crossing her cheeks. 

"I uh. Could... Could. We cuddle first? Just for a bit. I uh. I need to just. Rest. I know I've been sleeping for a really long time but so much has been happening and I'm a little overstimulated and all I know for sure is I'm safe if you're there and-"

James stops the deluge by gently reaching out and patting Sarina's head. "Sure. We can do that. Just for a bit."

Series Directory Last

Sister Catherine 

It’s a scary time to be in the city of Triumph's Seat. It’s really the only way she could term it. She'd been in places like this before in the course of her ministry. Kosovo in particular had been... tense. Like Triumph's Seat is tense. Right before all of Hell had broken loose on Earth in ways that she sometimes wishes she could forget. If there’s one thing she’s cursed her restored youth for, it’s that her mind is suddenly sharp and agile again. The better to carry the Cross and bear witness, of course, but with that blessing comes its price - and the price for Sister Catherine is remembering blackened bodies from fire, children missing limbs from landmines or from getting too close to an unexploded bomb. All manner of nightmares and terrors... and it hardly stops there. 

She had followed the call where people had had need of her and the mercy of Christ. That had meant going to very dark and unpleasant places at times. War-torn sub-Saharan African countries, narco states in South America, even deep into lands dominated by Islam, where she'd been advised to hide her habit and wear a local head dress instead, lest militants decide that a sister of Christ was a particularly choice target for torture and beheading. All the sadder that those men who would have so harmed her if they'd decided it suited their flights of fancy, or whatever the demons that lived in their heads told them God wanted... proclaimed to worship the same God as she. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. How one could read the same things she had, see things she had, and then come to such horrendously different conclusions is not something Sister Catherine is truly prepared to interrogate even after she'd gotten more education on the subject.  

Still, even in the face of what had seemed likely a painful death, she hadn't hidden then. Had carried the cross with pride. If it had been her time, if she had been called to martyrdom, then so be it. She would not question God's plan for her life. For the challenge set before her. 

Thankfully, that had not been her fate then, but now she’s in a similar situation. Instead of angry men, the streets are filled with angry women, as word of crackdowns and large-scale brawls with security forces spread across the city. The chaos is coming again, like it always does, like it always will. Her brother had been a Marine, God rest his soul. He'd always kept one recruiting poster up in his home, all the way to his hospice room before his death. She has it tucked away in her things up in orbit, one of her meager personal possessions. In times like this, she thinks of her brother, and she thinks of that poster: Marines running into action with weapons ready, followed by armored vehicles rumbling ashore out of the sea, emblazoned with the slogan 'Marines Move Towards The Sounds Of Chaos'.

It’s a good poster. One that had always inspired a young Catherine, and had even had her looking at becoming a Marine herself once upon a time… but she'd gotten a very different kind of call after a close brush with death in her late teens; like her brother had never looked back when he'd received his call, she'd never looked back when she received hers. Still, while she was no Marine... Catherine liked to think that, in her own way, she too runs towards the sounds of chaos. 

She hadn't hid from chaos back on Earth, and wouldn't hide from chaos now. Joan wants her to, but Joan's concern is protecting Catherine's life and person, not looking after the masses that are her charge. She’s no priest, but she could be a shepherd of these women, just as Christ had called his priests to be shepherds of men. This is her duty, her calling; just as a warrior carries the sword and goes to battle, so would Catherine go to carry the cross. 

That's what she had said in the shelter of the safehouse, of course. It had sounded very impressive in her mind, and Joan had even accepted the argument… but now that she’s out on the streets, things are looking very dicey indeed. Being unafraid, not allowing yourself to be intimidated or silenced by those who would see you on your knees, is one thing. It’s quite another thing to willingly shove one's head between a lion's jaws. There is in fact such a thing as tempting God, if one acts without prudence. 

Out here... she’s thinking now that she might have acted with less prudence than might have otherwise been optimal. 

The public squares are all filling up, packed to the gills with women forming different groups, some of whom are clearly antagonizing each other. The shouting is a constant roar now, only broken by the occasional sound of weaponsfire from other parts of the city, which certainly add to the general anxiety. Even from here, it’s clear to see that one of the matrician estates, those shining manor houses on the hill... is burning, and everyone says the Praetorians were the cause. 

The BeeGees, the new security forces recruits, barely trained - and, Catherine suspects, many from 'questionable' backgrounds compared to what one would like for a real police officer - are all over the place too, and it’s clear they were in over their heads. She knew this type of person all too well from her travels on Earth. They aren't police officers; they’re the regime's thugs, and violence is their first and only course of action if intimidation and threats don't keep the populace docile. 

It’s a volatile mix. A powder keg. But through it all she’s done her best to help people, praying with some, encouraging others, handing out some food and coin to try and get the few homeless women who normally call the square home off the streets for the night in case things turn violent. Simply trying to be a voice of reason... but as so often happens with a quiet and calm voice, she’s being drowned out by shouting. 

Her one great relief in all of this has been Jaina. Her most fervent convert. Once things are quiet again - or, even better, once the mission the Undaunted had in this place, whatever it is, is over - she would take Jaina up to the Tear. To see Father Jameson. Jaina had asked to be baptized, something that thrilled Catherine to her very heartstrings. 

The thought is a happy note on a day that is not a happy one. The skies of Dagrquey are blood-red as the sun heads towards the horizon. Believer she is, but superstitious Catherine generally is not... but that certainly looks ominous to her. 

She tries to keep it out of her mind as she quietly prays with a small group of women, aided by Jaina and watched over by Joan and her sisters who were loitering nearby, far enough to not disturb the prayers, but close enough, it was hoped, for them to intervene if things got out of hand. The whole situation makes the Sword of St. Catherine, the sword of Joan of Arc, weigh heavily (if only metaphorically) in its concealed axiom pocket. God had sent a sword to the stars along with the cross and His faithful. Would the sword find its purpose here among the Ha'quinye, on this world so far from Earth?

"Our Father who art in heaven..." 

A scream from across the plaza interrupts her group as they start another rendition of the Lord's Prayer, a wordless shriek that ends in the electrical sizzle of a shock pistol discharging. The scent of ozone is suddenly strong in the air as someone nearby shouts "They're coming!" 

It makes sense, in the end. That the BeeGees and their mistresses would do something about this gathering. If they’re cracking down on the matricians, the upper class, then it was always only a matter of time until the Ha'quinye imperial boot returned to its habitual resting place on the neck of the plebians. Apparently that time is now. 

"This is an illegal assembly! Disperse and return to your homes or you will be fired on!" A woman's monotone voice across a public address system is met immediately with shouts and retaliation. Joan starts moving towards where Catherine and Jaina are kneeling with the others... and things slow down, as adrenaline fills Catherine's veins at the 'snap crack' sound that she knows is the discharge of a rail gun. 

Someone had fired. She'd never know for sure if it was a security officer with an itchy trigger finger, or if some woman in the crowd had retaliated towards their oppressors, but everything immediately goes to Hell in a moment, in a way she'd never been personally involved in before. She'd been there for the aftermath. The pain. The crying. The weeping. 

Now she’s here for the bleeding - and bleed people would, as the BeeGees begin opening fire with their laser weapons, and the entire plaza is suddenly moving as people desperately try to get away. 

For all her talk of chaos, just minutes before, this is chaos of a kind she's never seen before. Never understood. Not really. She thought she'd run towards chaos... but now she understands in an all too horrible way what being on ground zero of the chaos is actually like. People rush in every direction, a sea of Ha'quinye suddenly filling the space between Catherine and her Cannidor guardians, a mere thirty feet suddenly a mile in the surging tide of life, desperate to escape the laser fire from the BeeGees. There was no escape for those desperate though. Catherine could see and here that there are already mech suits moving in from all directions, with armed and armored riot troopers and spear-wielding praetorians starting to move in behind them.

One of the mech troopers responds to a rock thrown at her cockpit with ruthless lethal force, sending a woman's lifeless, badly burned body to the cobblestones in a motionless heap in a burst of laser fire.

Catherine can feel Joan's presence even from far away, the young woman was trying to get to Catherine, calling out to her, clearly wading through the tide of people to pull her away. Catherine was initially moving towards Joan but finds herself buffeted by the crowd... and a screaming child seals her fate. The little girl stumbles right in front of the stomping feet of the mech suit... and Catherine lunges for the child with all of her strength, yanking the little one clear as they collapse in a heap. 

People rush around them as Catherine covers the girl with her body, feet stepping all over her as Joan swears in the distance with a roar; 

"Out of the way, damn it! Let me get to the sister!" 

Jaina's voice is much closer, the bold young woman, fighting through the crowd, resisting going for the weapon Catherine is certain she has. Before long she's by Catherine's side, shooing people back and helping her up. The girl is carried off almost immediately by a terrified mother as another wave of troops flood into the plaza. 

"We have to go!" Jaina says, pulling on Catherine's arm. As they turn to leave, though, it's already far too late. Catherine can practically feel it in her bones before the shock truncheon descends on her, catching her across the shoulders and laying her out flat on the paving stones next to Jaina, electricity making every muscle and fiber in her body twitch violently.

Jaina tries to resist; Catherine can tell because the guardswomen give her a few more blows, and a couple savage kicks besides. In moments they're bound and being dragged along towards air cars set up to haul prisoners... but a golden armored figure suddenly intervenes. 

"Ah. That one. We've been looking for her. She goes to the palace dungeons."

"Yes, ma'am," the BeeGee frog marching Sister Catherine along, says.

"What about this one?" The second BeeGee says, emphasizing Jaina with a rabbit punch to the ribs that makes Catherine wince, even though Jaina doesn't react at all. 

"...Take them both. You checked them for weapons?"

"This one." Jaina's guard again. "Had a rail pistol, in addition to the usual laser pistol and a knife. She might have been the shooter." 

"Hmm. What about the other one?"

"She's a holy woman and an off-worlder. She didn't have axiom pockets in the usual spots." Catherine's guard says dismissively. 

"Some holy woman. Guess her goddess was out to lunch today. Throw them in our APC. We'll take them from here. What about the other aliens?"

"One of our women fired on them by 'accident', they defended themselves, but suppressing fire only. The original officer who shot at them was wounded, but it's just a graze. Barely needs medical attention."

"...Damn it. They just had to be here. This is going to potentially be a diplomatic incident. I'll call it in. We wanted the preacher but a light fight with the bodyguards might cause trouble. In the meantime. Find them."

"Yes ma'am!"

Both guards salute, and begin to drag Catherine and Jaina towards the waiting Praetorian vehicle. They’re being taken to the palace, and for some reason, that seems like a very, very bad thing to Catherine. Once they’re alone... she would need to pray. 

It’s about the only thing she could do in this nightmare, and she would not be found wanting. 

Series Directory Last

James

He walks to his quarters with a weariness that he hasn't felt since the Infantry Officer Course back at Quantico. Today was a long day of work, with an early wake up, a lot of sitting around, some very tense walking around interspersed with occasional bursts of combat, and finally... well. “Seducing a superweapon,” as Cali had put it. As amused as his Marine had been, he isn't particularly amused himself; much as he wants to help Serina, and finds her a charming enough young woman, she’s… kinda exhausting. 

Not that he could blame her, entirely. 

She'd been asleep for centuries. So of course she's perky and full of energy. She'd gotten the best tens of thousands of nights worth of sleep in the known galaxy. It’s also something of a front; James is dead certain of that. Serina is choosing to be cheerful and focusing on various positive things she could enjoy after being returned to the land of the living, including her new anchor in the strange place and time she'd found herself in, among people who no doubt seem very strange. 

Unfortunately, that anchor is him, which means things are potentially going to be... complicated. 

The good news is he'd gotten a message back from Rose before they'd landed on Sheath, endorsing Mahai joining their family, and more or less telling him that she'd proposed on the family's behalf, thinking that a change of status to something a bit more formal, a bit more permanent, might make this first deployment, as short as it would hopefully be, that much easier on the young woman. Which, according to the letter he'd received from Mahai... had been partially right. Knowing she’s joining the family meant a lot to her, she said. Being a fiancée thrilled her. Yet. It also made her that much more nervous for James, and more eager to have him home. 

Apparently, Mahai becoming a fiancée had inspired Rose to give Mahai their encryption program and the key, so her message had included an encrypted second part… and once he'd gotten it decrypted, the rather passionate contents had managed to ensure James went to bed feeling nice and warm despite how chilly the Province could be. 

It just goes to show that even a shy, reserved, sweet and gentle Cannidor is still a Cannidor in the end, and they could be... a lot. Not that that’s a bad thing, save for it making him a bit more homesick than he already was. 

There’s a downside of another wife, in James' mind. Being on a road show away from your wife and children is bad enough. Add another wife, wouldn't that make it doubly bad to be away from the comforts of home?

By that standard, mathematically speaking, he isn't quite sure how the Admiral manages it... though, then again, he does bring some of his wives with him. And a fiancée of his own besides, if James understands the status of the Cannidor woman known as Shalkas properly. 

And now, apparently, James is doing it too. Bringing a wife or two along for a road show, that is. Though he hadn't had the wife when he left... and he isn't sure she’s going to be a wife at all. 

Delaying wouldn't do much for this situation, so really he just needs to bite the bullet... and phone home. He closes the door to his quarters and sits down at his terminal, pinging the ship's communications officer with his implant. 

"Communications, Petty Officer Sheriken."

"Petty Officer, this is Captain Puller. The Admiral's authorized me to make a priority direct transmission to the Tear."

"Yes, sir, we've got everything ready for you, and have confirmed that they're ready for you on the other end. It'll be 2D only, not holo. There also might be a touch of lag since we're bouncing the transmission off a few different comm buoys before routing it through to the Tear."

"Sounds good. Ready when you all are."

"Stand by. Connecting you now." 

The screen switches to a blank beige one with the word 'connecting' on it and an animation he'd generally associate with buffering or working… and then suddenly the text switches to 'connected' with a chime, and the image of Rose Puller comes in sharp and strong. James sits there for a moment, admiring his wife. She really is a beauty. Short, but towering in her presence, her red hair almost as fiery as her temper could be at times, her eyes sharp, strong, but full of love and passion for a man who considered himself, formerly, the luckiest man on Earth, and now the luckiest man off Earth. Because no other man in all the galaxy had his Rose. 

He has no doubt that many other men feel the same about at least one of their wives, but he’s equally as sure they’re all wrong. 

Maybe he really is as much of a wife guy as the admiral. 

"Hey, gorgeous."

"Hey yourself, handsome." Rose smiles at him warmly, before her expression becomes slightly more tight lipped. "James, what happened? They told me you were going to call, that it was important, but they didn't or couldn't tell me what happened. Have you been injured? You look okay, but..."

"No, no, nothing like that, Rosie. I'm okay. There… uh. There was a complication with the mission."

"To find the..." Rosie pauses, realizing she shouldn't be specific even on an encrypted line. "...the thing you were looking for?"

"Yeah. Well. We found it. That's where things get complicated. The thing was... Well. A girl. A woman. One of these elves."

"...She's the special 'thing'?" Rose gives him a slightly incredulous look. "That could do all that incredible stuff?"

"Yep. She's the one. We've got all the evidence in the galaxy, including her own testimony about what she does and how she does it. I can’t say much more, even on a secure line, but… it's not even axiom, Rosie, I think she was just born this way."

"Well, that's good, isn't it? Doesn't that mean you all can come home?"

"It does, eventually, but there's complications. Unpleasant guests are coming, so we're going to have to deal with them. You know how the admiral is about hospitality. He's not about to let anyone say our manners are wanting in any way."

"That's concerning, be safe... but that's not the complication you're calling about, is it? You'd just send a message if you were going to be extended." 

How the hell does he say this properly?

"Well. This girl. Serina. She uh. Has more or less decided we're married now. After she… uh... kissed me. After waking up from a couple centuries of being stuck in cryo stasis." 

Rose's eyes widen slightly. "...I think I'm starting to see what you mean about complications. So... What do you want to do about it?"

"I don't rightly know, Rosie. She's a woman out of time. She's lost literally everything and she latched on to me as the first solid patch of ground she could find."

"I don't blame her for that, for the record. You are pretty sturdy."

"Heh. Fair. Anyway, she's... Serina's a nice girl. Very different from you and Mahai, but nice. Very smart, like. A lot smarter than I am, to be sure. Knows a lot about a lot, but has some issues with stimulation and people sometimes. She can be a bit cold, logical, but she puts on a cheery face to cover for it well enough. She's a lot like the nerd squad guys really, loves her video games and such too. So to a girl like that..."

"You're probably a literal dream come true." Rose says, nodding. "Right out of a romance novel, the handsome knight arrives to rescue the fair maiden from the cold embrace of death with true love's first kiss or whatever."

"Yep. Pretty much exactly how she described it herself just now. Like I said, she kissed me as she was waking up. So as a bonus to whatever's going on in her head, she's biologically bonded to me too."

"Gave you a little tongue, did she?" Instead of being upset like he’d been worried she’d be, Rose has a more amused smirk on her face.

"A lot, actually. She apparently is rather fond of the French style of kissing despite being unaware of France existing."

"An enviable state of being, really, being unaware of the French existing. Don't shatter that for her, darling. She doesn't need to know."

The couple look at each other for a minute, suppressing grins at Rose's rather dry delivery, before they both start laughing softly, what tension there had been bleeding off. 

"You know, your British pride comes out at the oddest times, Rosie."

"Mhmm. Humor's also a good way to disarm you when you're worrying." Rose tucks a few strands of her long ginger hair behind her ear. "Hmm. Well it’s a complicated situation, to be certain. I suppose I can see why the Admiral let you call home.”

"It certainly seems to be. It’ll probably just be a temporary issue. She might get swept off her feet by someone else, but more likely she’ll be bundled off to one of the Undaunted fleet anchorages and we’ll never see her again after this mission."

"Mhmm. If you want to know what I think, and you do, otherwise you wouldn’t call me, I think you’re already neck deep. James Puller. I’m not an idiot and neither are you. You’ve bonded yourself to a… what did you say, ‘woman out of time’, unintentionally or not, and presented yourself as a hero to someone who literally has nothing else. Even without biological reality out here, her being very attached to you is just common sense.” 

“...That’s fair, but is it reasonable to just…”

“Marry her?” Rose volunteers. “Well, no. That’s not reasonable, or fair for that matter. Jumping Mahai in line wouldn’t be right just to start, and just making her a wife because she says so doesn’t do right by you, by me, by Mahai, or by the kids for that matter. Just because there’s a possible war on and she’s apparently a war-winning superweapon doesn’t mean we have to dance to her tune.”

Rose grimaces slightly. 

“Plus, it sounds like there’s a lot she doesn’t know about the galaxy right now. She deserves a chance to learn about the galaxy a bit… and we need to balance that with us learning about her. If she even stays with the fleet, which means we need to resolve the current issue first and foremost.”

He chuckles. “I like how you talk about the geopolitical issue at hand like it’s something the four of us can resolve directly. I suppose that’s more or less my thoughts, too. Besides, I’m literally the first man she’s seen in a few centuries. She might get swept off her feet or fall in love at first sight, bond or no bond.”

"That’s the second time you’ve said she might get swept off her feet by someone else. Trust me, she won't. She's already been swept off her feet by the finest man in the fleet." Rose preens herself slightly for a moment, giving James a sly look. "One thing I know about her already is that I certainly can't fault her taste in men."

Rose giggles, clearly amused by her own joke.

"So... What to do about this… We need to work it out in a way that keeps the superweapon happy, but doesn’t degrade Mahai, or stomp all over our marriage. Or, for that matter, ignore your feelings - or, in point of fact, ignore her feelings even if this… Serina, you said?” He nods. “If Serina doesn’t know enough to know exactly what she’s feeling or wants yet. I suppose we can say she’s a girlfriend?”

“If that’s something you’re comfortable with.” James frowns and thinks quietly for a few moments. “I suppose I can work with that. The situation’s complicated, but she’s a sweet girl. It’s not like it’s a hardship to spend time with her.”

“Heh. Sucker. She’ll bat her eyelashes and wrap you around her finger in no time.”

“While telling me more than I ever want to know about a video game series installment that predates the founding of my home country.”

The couple laugh before Rose starts speaking again.

“So. Some rules. No sex. Obviously. She's already kissed you, but I'd prefer you don’t do that either. She can get to know you with her brain. Not her body. However..." Rose frowns, as if thinking about something unpleasant. "I’d bet she’s going to have nightmares. About being back in stasis. I think you’re right, she’s hiding her trauma. So, I suppose if it makes her happy, and you don't mind it, she can have the privilege of snuggles and keeping your bed warm, if she can keep her clothes on and refrain from coming on to you, but just because I'm worried about you being cold on that drafty dropship!"

James considers for a second. Considering how close Serina liked to be to him… and if he was going to guess, Rose wasn’t wrong at all about the girl having nightmares. She was running on energy, will and shock. What would she be like when that crumbled? 
 
"I suspect Serina will appreciate that quite a bit." He says quietly. 

"She'll respect the no sex rule?"

"Darling... She said that my kissing her constituted losing her virginity. I'm not entirely sure she knows how babies are made in the academic sense. She's also quite shy about kissing so far. That said, she wouldn't let me out of her sight until we got her distracted with something, and she clearly preferred to spend any time with me in my lap, so I suspect she's a snuggler regardless of her understanding of how 'the bits fit'."

"Mhmm. I see." Rose thinks for a moment. "Bit naive then. She really is like one of those nerd squad boys. Well, those are my terms. If she can accept them, then you do what you need to do and bring her home... We'll deal with everything else as a family."

James nods, and smiles at his Rose. "Alright, Rosie. We'll do it like that. I'm sure she'll agree to your terms." 

"Good. I'll look forward to meeting her... hopefully soon. Things are getting tense down on the planet, James. They recently suspended shore leave for the crew. There’s talk of pretty brutal crack downs by security forces, but the powers that be are apparently telling Director Sylindra and Captain Bridger that everything’s fine."

"Hmm. That's concerning. Well, with any luck, I'll be back soon. I'll have Serina send messages to you and Mahai to introduce herself as soon as we get her a communicator. I believe intelligence has a couple spare."

"I'll look forward to hearing from her then. I love you."

"I love you too. Back soon."

"I'll consider that a promise." 

Series Directory Last

Jerry

He’s back in the Kandahar Province's brig again with Commander Hawthorne, but instead of watching an interrogation he's watching a barefoot Ha'quinye woman in a green flight suit, zipped low to reveal a white shirt underneath, sitting in the lap of one of his company commanders in a somewhat dimly lit room, happily nuzzling against him like an oversized cat as she talks about… something or another. She seems to be chatting away happily and James is engaging with her enough to keep her going, but the topic doesn't appear to be anything particularly serious. Something to do with a video game series maybe?

"...What exactly am I looking at, Commander Hawthorne?"

"That, Admiral, is the Sword of the Stars. We found some documentation in what was apparently her bedroom confirming it, along with a handwritten letter from her sister in the chamber with her cryo stasis pod." 

"And Captain Puller?"

"She refuses to be separated from him. She won't even speak if he's not present. We think she might have latched on to him as a sort of coping mechanism. She's something of a woman out of time."

"Right."

"Just be glad we got her to wear clothes. She was down to a tiny tank top and panties when she was brought aboard. James had the bright idea to tell her that he thought she'd look cute in a flight suit, so she happily put one on after that. We're still working on shoes."

"...Right." Jerry resists the urge to massage his temple. "Alright. What have you found out then?"

"Courtesy of some brief talks with the young lady herself, things she's told James, the letter from her sister, and ongoing data recovery operations, we've got a general picture of what happened here. Her name is Serina Tacia, and she's approximately four hundred and fifty years old. She’s spent most of that time in cryo, so her biological age is maybe two hundred at the oldest but I’d guess closer to a century flat at the most. The Tacias were the imperial house who ruled the old Ha'quinye empire, and this world, the name is a Ha'quinye word for an eagle's nest that I can't pronounce, was supposed to be some sort of divine promised land for the Tacia family. They managed to hold on to it when the empire started to dissolve, mostly because it's so out of the way that the Council-backed alliance that threw them back to their core systems never found it. However, after the empire's defeat the forces that were stationed here were recalled to the home world to help fight the civil war. Serina's elder sister, Grand Duchess Seralka, was the commander of this facility. According to the woman's note to Serina, she decided to leave Serina here in cryo despite her potent abilities. She didn't want her sister to be seized by anyone, including the empress, their aunt, but especially the rebels."

"Considering the facility's long abandoned and the Triumfeminate rules the Ha'quinye, I take it that the Tacia were unsuccessful?"

Hawthorne shakes his head. "Died to the last woman by all accounts. With the last Tacia woman in a significant position of authority allegedly dropping a large space station on the capital city of one of the Ha'quinye core worlds as a final act of defiance." 

Jerry winces. "Well, that's not great, to say the very least." 

"Empires rarely go quietly into that good night... and let's not get it twisted here. Serina's elder sister wasn't necessarily being affectionate, she was preserving a potent and powerful weapon."

"So what is the Sword of the Stars?" Jerry looks into the cell again where Serina's happily humming along. "She doesn't look particularly dangerous, save for potentially talking your ear off if you let her go about something she's interested in." 

"I can hear you, you know," Serina says quietly. 

Hawthorne winces. "Well. There's that. She's incredibly sensitive to sound and, well… everything. Highly susceptible to just about any kind of stimulus. The corpsmen have checked her vitals and they noticed her brain activity is off the chart. In Humans and most aliens, the mind ramps down and up depending on load, not unlike an engine. She doesn't slow down. Maybe if she was sleeping, but that's one thing we know about the cryo pod. It's a sensory deprivation tank first and foremost. It isolates her and lets her truly rest."

"...Do we need to work something like that up for her?"

"She had lesser control tools in her personal effects that should let her rest that’ll be fine for the short term, but long term she would need a new tank. Or so we think." 

"Hmm. Well, let's go talk to her and see if she can tell us what she needs."

"I can!"

The two men share a look, and Jerry leads the way into the cell where Serina's lightly kicking her feet back and forth, taking a seat across from her and James. 

"Wow! James wasn't kidding! There really are a lot of men in the military where you come from!" 

Jerry nods, smiling warmly, more like he’s talking to a child than a grown woman, something Serina's cheery attitude instantly inspires. No sense not being gentle, anyway. The woman in question isn't an enemy in any sense, and has just been through something horrendous to any rational mind. 

"That's right. On our home world the vast majority of the military are men. I'm Admiral Jeremiah Bridger. You can call me Jerry. I believe you've met Commander Hawthorne."

"Uh huh! Wow though, an admiral, huh? My uncle the Emperor was a general, a good one too, but he was rare! Most men preferred to stay at home with their families, you know, raise the children, organize the family finances and generally run the household."

That catches Jerry's attention immediately, considering it sounds very different from the Ha'quinye he knows. 

"So men weren't livestock or essentially slaves back on your home world?"

"No! Of course not. Though... there was a new religion spreading when I left the home world." Serina's face falls. "They didn't treat men particularly nicely. I suppose since you guys are here and my sisters aren't, they're probably in charge these days." 

Jerry nods. "Unfortunately, that does seem to be the case. On that note, you seem to be processing all of this fairly well."

Serina nods, a sharp look coming into her eyes and across her face all of the sudden from behind the sweet, nerdy personality. "Of course. As you were saying while you were observing me. My brain runs 'hot' all the time. The doctors back home had a term for it but I never cared. I just wanted to play video games and have fun. I'm really good at video games. Then my big sister realized I'm really good at strategy, so she started having me help her with the war. With the right inputs and sensor feeds I can make decisions, develop strategies and issue orders faster than the best tactical computers in my day."

"So how did you use your ability to conquer planets?"

"The same way any nation does. I analyzed available data and developed a specific strategy for the most effective conquest with the resources available. Sometimes that meant covert operations, such as buying off officials or even entire governments. Sometimes it means conquest via an outstretched hand. This part of space is rough, or at least it was when I was active last. So a powerful military force offering friendship, supplies and so forth for taxes and a slight change of government doesn't ruffle feathers, if you present it the right way, in some cases. Other places we could support and coopt local rebellions already in place and take over as their benefactors. Next up the ladder were surgical strikes, followed by full-scale planetary invasion."

She sticks her tongue out like she'd tasted something sour.

"Last choice, really. Not an efficient way to win, especially not with a large scale, multi-front campaign. The old guard hated my way of doing things, though. Old biddies really loved the Matrician zealots and their screeching about the old ways and old values. I think they even branded my big sister a heretic at one point for using 'underhanded tactics' instead of just fighting straight-up for things. Nonsense. Even when we were fighting each other with spears, the warrior culture the Matricians espouse didn't exist. Not sure if they believed it or just wanted others to believe it so they could control them. If they're in charge it's probably moot now. The real purpose of the original leaders would have been lost in the sands of time."

She talks a lot and she talks fast; Jerry’s keeping up, despite her accent, but it isn’t easy.

Serina shrugs and starts kicking her feet lightly again. 

"I want to be upset... but what apparently happened to me happened a long time ago now. My sisters, mother, father, they've all been cold and in the ground for longer than I'd been alive before Seralka put me in cryo. So I can either go to pieces or I can focus on good things. Like, I have a couple centuries worth of video games to catch up on, and!" She throws her arms around James' neck, making the man blush. "I've got my beau! Seralka always told me I'd get married eventually, but it was taking a long time, though as handsome as James is, I couldn't ask for a dreamier guy to have taken my virginity and marry me!" 

Jerry locks eyes with the young Marine, making him shrink back into his chair slightly now that he was under the scrutiny of ‘the man’ directly. "...Captain, did you take this woman's virginity somehow between finding her and getting her to the Province?"

"Ah." James blushes even redder. "She uh. Means. Kissing. Sir. She kissed me pretty much as she woke up."

"Yep! I just hope I’m not pregnant. It's a bit early for that. Still, the most romantic thing ever! Romance novels just can't compare!" Serina chirps happily. "My handsome Marine arrives to save me from a deathless eternal sleep, frozen in time! Awakening me with love's truest kiss!"

"...Right." Jerry's temple twinges again. "Alright. Let's deal with this a step at a time. Serina. I'm going to offer you refugee status with the Undaunted. We'll protect you, make sure you're properly taken care of. I'm told you might have special equipment that can help with your sensory issues in your personal effects, can you help the intelligence team find them?"

"Oh like in my room? Sure!" Her long ears flutter with an interesting degree of uncertainty that seems designed to make anyone looking her way's heart throb. "C-Could I maybe give them a list of other stuff to get too? I just. It's. My stuff."

Hawthorne steps forward. "Ms. Tacia, we're going to pack everything up except the furniture and bring it along, so all you need to do is tell me what you want to have access to before we get back to the Crimson Tear, our flag ship."

"Okay!" 

Jerry, sensing an opportunity, stands up from his chair. "Ms. Tacia, while you work on that with Commander Hawthorne, I'm going to borrow James for a moment. Don't worry, he won't be long."

"Uh. Okay! I guess that's fine!"

Serina stands up, already being engaged by Hawthorne, who's walking her through what of her things have degraded to the point of being unsalvagable in the last few centuries - namely anything made of cloth, as far as Jerry can tell. It easily frees James, and the two men emerge out of the cell and well down the passageway, nearly out of the brig. 

"...How are you holding up, James?"

"Well. It's not every day you make a superweapon fall stone dead in love with you."

Jerry smirks. "More common than you'd think out here, but I know the feeling. So what do you want to do about it? Say the word and we'll get her on a transport to Zalwore if we have to sedate her."

The younger man’s quiet for a moment. "Honestly, if you'd asked me after I woke her up, I'd have probably gone with that, but we've been talking for a few hours now, and... she was a lonely girl even before she got stranded in time. I also think she could be an incredible asset if we can make sure she's on our side, and while she's a bit childish... biologically speaking she's not wrong about me 'marrying' her with a kiss. I had the Corpsman run the tests when she took a blood sample."

Jerry winces. "The bond. Of course. A proper lip lock can bond most aliens to a Human man."

"She kisses deep too, sir."

"...That's probably TMI, James. Sounds like you need to talk to Mrs. Puller, though. I'm going to authorize you a direct encrypted call home. Get it dealt with, Captain, and bring me a game plan. Questions?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Go tell Serina where you're going to be and get it done... Maybe if we're lucky and Rose is feeling generous, Serina can help us with this Ha'quinye armada we have to deal with."

Series Directory Last

Euryde 

Today has not been not a good day to be Consul Euryde Osbeki. It is, in fact, an utterly fucking infuriating day to be Euryde Osbeki! Her hand tightens on the grip of the short sword she carries as part of her daily wear: a thick, vicious thing suitable primarily for stabbing with a shield in a combat role, but also excellent for, not slashing, but chopping like an axe. In the right hand it’s a particularly brutal weapon, and Euryde is very much the right hand to wield that particular weapon. She'd killed more than a few of her own subordinates during her military career with the very sword on her belt right now, in honor duels and the like... and she’s getting very close to spilling the blood of the twit in front of her onto the floor, too. 

On and on the wench natters, and every word buzzes in Euryde's head like another of the buzzing pollinators from the countryside where she’d been raised before she'd left to take her place, to seize her destiny in the Ha'quinye military. She, at least, had been everything that had been demanded of her. Strong. Brave. Intelligent. Aggressive. Cunning. Everything a Ha'quinye warrior should be. Needs to be. In her day, the weak were frequently eaten, usually metaphorically, sometimes more literally on particularly brutal training exercises… but here’s a weakling who has no stomach to even give a proper briefing, daring to stand before her wearing officer's rank. 

Perhaps she should not have let her generals and admirals ease her mind on changing some of the military's policies on things like corporal punishment and hazing. Would a beating sort this particular officer out? Or is she just in need of killing? Euryde can't be sure, but she leans more and more towards killing the other woman as she drones on, avoiding giving her commander the bad news in straight and direct terms. All the more galling... the woman isn't even responsible! The Ha'quinye have no tradition of killing the messenger... save for particular circumstances during negotiations between the noble houses in the old days, anyway. No. Her neck is not on the line... unless she continues with this pathetic excuse for a briefing, that is!

"Commander," Euryde rasps. Her voice is like a blade being drawn from a sheath, her hand is firm on the grip of her sword… though, somehow, she resists drawing it and taking a price in blood out of the whelp standing before her for having the sheer insolence to act as if she was in front of not her commander, but her consul! It’s an insult of the highest order that should see this woman and her superiors all punished. 

Yet. There isn't time for that. All her forces are needed. Unfortunately. War is upon them. The time is upon them. The Sword of the Stars is practically in their hands. All her intelligence officers had to do was figure out where to send Viconia's fleet. Viconia would handle things. Yes. That thought, the thought of one of her other lovers, one of the few almost as vicious as her dear Mediei and herself calms her at last, and lets her speak to the now cowering intelligence officer intelligibly instead of just staring at her like the wrath of the goddess personified. 

"So. What you are telling me, as if I am paying you by the word, instead of to give me concise, actionable intelligence, is that another naval squadron has gone dark. This naval squadron was engaging with another of intelligence's pet privateers, a General Averngale or some such nonsense, and that the captain commanding the squadron was reasonably certain that this Averngale had located the birthright of the Ha'quinye and was keeping it from them, but that negotiations were at least proceeding. Before the squadron went dark, and with no luck in raising them... and now the squadron commander has missed two communications check ins. Is that correct?"

The intelligence officer nods before bowing slightly, a motion Euryde read as covering for being unable to look her in the eyes. "Yes, my consul."

"...Fine. Has intelligence issued orders to any of their assets to do anything about it?"

"No, my consul, it was deemed too important to move on without your orders."

"...Fine. Get out. I'll handle it." 

The intelligence officer deepens her bow and all but flees from the room as Euryde considers shooting the idiot in the back with her favorite plasma pistol. It would be gratifying... but then Mediei and the chamberlain would get upset about the mess, and the praetorians would have to work out an appropriate accident to account for the corpse to her family. The problems just go on from there, and she has more important things to attend to. Much more important. 

The door to her office shuts and she turns to her computer, starting up the communications system and dialing her private secure line with Viconia. It’s normally used for far more pleasant communication, but she knows that Viconia would leap to answer it at any hour of the day, and she knows it wasn't compromised like some of the less personal lines that aren't in her direct control. 

The holo-projector starts up and Viconia comes into view, still in uniform, but no less beautiful for that. Euryde liked a woman in uniform, as it happens, though Viconia looks her best in the nude. Especially when she’s doing that one thing with her- 

Euryde shakes the thought off without actually moving. She simply doesn't have the time to get distracted thinking about far more pleasant things. 

"My consul." Viconia's warm, lusty tone threatens to distract Euryde again. No one addresses her formally quite like Viconia... and how the other woman addresses her in private is something that rivals even Mediei’s approach, and Mediei is nothing if not... expressive. 

"Viconia. It seems we've had a problem. Intelligence has lost one of your corvette squadrons."

Viconia grimaces. "I've just been made aware, my consul. I was going to signal fleet command and request permission to deal with it before continuing on mission to find the sword."

"What they didn't tell you is that this squadron's mission was similar to your own. They were checking on a lead from one of our privateer contacts. One who seemed to imply that they had possession of or knew where to find the Sword of the Stars. They reported this to intelligence... then went dark, as you know. I am not sure if they have been betrayed by the pirate scum, one of these 'tamed' privateers naval intelligence is so proud of, and I do not care. You will go to this system, and you will ascertain what has happened to our blade sisters. If they have been betrayed, or attacked by some third party, you will cleanse the system."

"What of the pirates if they've stayed loyal?"

"Do whatever you want. Kill them for all I care. It matters not. You will seize the Sword of the Stars and I will shower glory upon you the likes of which our entire species has never known before, Viconia! I will invent a new damn rank for you if that's what it takes. Give you a world to rule all your own."

Viconia's growing grin turns into a frown. "Ah. I wouldn't like that." Her frown turns into a smile again, a lusty expression that inspires a burst of warmth under Euryde's collar. She'd seen that smile more than a few times. "I wouldn't want to rule a world if it kept me from you."

"Then perhaps I shall reward you by negotiating with Mediei to take a second wife... and you've met Cori, have you not?"

"I have. A most beautiful pet. A fine genetic material donor for daughters too."

"If we are yours, he'd be yours too. You haven't had any daughters yet. Once the stars are ours..."

"I understand... my love. I'll make best speed to this system, and whatever's there will die. You have my word."

"I know, Viconia dear. I know. Euryde out."

The consul shifts away from the console for a moment, steepling her fingers as she thinks.

"This won't do at all. No. None of this will do. I need to act. The enemies within are breathing on my neck and the enemies without are doing gods only know what. Viconia will handle them, which means it is up to me to handle the dagger at my own back."

She triggers a priority line to the commander of the praetorians. She’s a woman who had once been lean and vicious, now made lazy by years of ease and plenty, but she would do. She would serve, and if she would not, by the end of the day Euryde would know, and she would be replaced. The time was coming close now, and things were too far along to coddle the weak and the slow anymore. She would have her warriors, and if she needed to bathe the worlds of the Ha'quinye in blood to make it happen, then so be it. 

"My consul!" the Praetorian says, saluting sharply.

"Colonel, the enemies of our people are upon us... and the internal enemies we have previously discussed have grown far too bold for my liking. We have the list of suspects for the raid on the palace?"

"Yes, my consul. We have been waiting for your orders on what to do with said list."

"Arrest them. All of them. I want them in chains before the end of the day. Round up whole families and kill their guards if you have to. Then coordinate with the commander of the city's security forces. I want them to start rounding up dissidents and other rabble. They can shoot a few of them and leave their bodies in the streets if they feel the need to make an example. Particularly interesting dissidents... I want them brought to the palace. Not the local prisons. What exactly that means, I'll leave up to you."

"Yes, my consul, it shall be done at once. Shall we extend the crackdown to the other cities and the stations in orbit? I know all those women. If we begin simultaneously across our immediate realm our foes will have no chance to respond."

Euryde arches an eyebrow; she hadn't expected that kind of initiative. Or viciousness. Perhaps the old she-wolf still has some fang left to her.

"Do it. I'll issue similar orders to the rest of the Empire. You will also quietly pass word to the security forces commanders to prepare for a general draft. It is my belief that the Ha'quinye will soon go to war, and I will have us ready, that we might not be found wanting by our ancestors."

The colonel slaps her breast plate in a fierce, close fisted salute. 

"By your will, my consul. What about the Senate?"

"I will deal with the Senate. Carry out your orders." 

"Yes, m'lady."

The screen goes dark and Euryde grins to herself quietly before getting to her feet. It’s time to go see Mediei. They'd discussed these plans, of course, but now it’s time to enact them… and, as she had just told the colonel, she would not be found wanting. 

Series Directory Last

James 

The suppressed barks of several Tavors firing echo in the distance, amid the dim lights of the facility his Marines had been tasked with searching; immediately, James’ comm unit comes to life. 

"Ard One Alpha, tangos down. Hard light constructs. They attacked on sight when we entered the room. Melee weapons only. No complex tactics. Room secure."

"One-Six to Alpha, good work, mark the room and press." Marishka Stroya's voice is completely calm, the experienced Marine and former NCO clearly in her element as First Platoon fans out through their assigned chunk of the facility. 

"Aye aye, ma'am." 

James looks around, taking in this tight, almost claustrophobic hallway as his command team begins to explore. The company had found a major hub and begun splitting up into squads and fireteams to move through the cavernous facility; and James had taken his command team down a passage that had been behind a deactivated security gate.  

Their usual group of four has a plus one for this particular outing. They’ve been joined by James' newest Marine, fresh off a transport from Centris. Lance Corporal Marica Olarn'Cyra hadn't even made it to the Tear from the Fleet Depot on Zalwore. No, she'd been about to board a regular cargo transport, but had instead been ordered to rendezvous with the rest of A company on the Kandahar Province. James isn't letting the new capability he'd requested for his unit sit on the sidelines in orbit around Dagrquey when there’s work to be done. 

Colonel Bridger, Admiral Bridger, and Headquarters, Undaunted Marine Corps, had all approved his request for a combat hacker. 

"Olarn. Get that brain of yours to work. Any live networks in our part of the facility so far?"

"On it, boss!" The young blue haired Tret woman immediately gets to the job. She has a computer interface built into her gauntlet, a powerful computer built into her very body, and an even more powerful machine and set of EWAR systems built into the special pack she'd been issued to mount to her armor. With all that specialized gear she could even tie into each squad's Squad Systems Operator's equipment and build a complex battlespace picture for her company commander. 

All while being able to think like a Marine and being at least marginally capable of defending herself, if the Drill Instructors had done their jobs properly. It had been a bit of a radical idea when first proposed, but if Marica does her job right, a combat hacker would be attached to every Marine infantry company in the future - something James figures is likely to happen. No less a luminary than Babydoll, the Crimson Tear's computer queen, had said Marica was good to go, and it's not like James has the education to actually doubt the young woman. 

Immediately her eyes light up, starting to glow blue; according to her file, this is normal when she’s interfacing with a machine.

"Sir, we've got a couple machines around us trying to ping the main network that Lieutenant Babydoll's disrupting. I think I've got one large, complex sub network... and some mobile platforms."

"Mobile platforms being potential combat platforms?"

"Yep!"

Ragnar rolls his eyes and reaches out to gently smack Marica on the helmet. "Try, 'Yes, sir', or some shit, Lily." 

"Oops. Aye aye, Gunny. Sorry. Sir." 

James can practically hear Marica blushing. Lily isn't her official nickname, not yet anyway, but it had been the young woman's 'handle' once upon a time when she'd managed to end up on the wrong end of Shalla Savić and the Marines of FAST during the Hag War. Applying her entire sobriquet 'Turquoise Lily', or part of it, seems to be enough to get a solid cringe out of the woman, so the other junior Marines had immediately started teasing the new girl with it as soon as someone had recognized her name from a previous mission report. 

All in good fun so far, but James would keep an eye on it. 

"Where are the mobile platforms, Lance Corporal?"

"Uh. Looks like..." Marica points at the first door down the hallway. "Looks like... maybe three in there? Could be more. The hard light constructs are kinda weird, and the signals are mixing together."

"Alright. Let's kick the door on them. Stack up. No grenades, and try not to shoot anything in the room we don't want shot. We don't know what is or isn't sensitive down here."

A chorus of affirmatives follow him, and James takes point. Top Salazar would complain normally - but he isn't here, and what Top doesn't know won't hurt him, right? 

Unless James manages to get shot. Then he'd never hear the end of it from the big Hispanic man. 

He quickly shifts his Tavor back to a mag lock on his backpack and draws his newest toy. He’d nearly gotten ventilated by the Cannidor shrapnel cannon back on the pirate station, and since it’s around the right size for a Human, he’d decided to keep the massive double-barrel weapon. He breaks it open and checks the two chambers, then locks the actions and shoulders the weapon. Finally, he looks over and confirms his team is ready.

“I like to keep this for close encounters.” James says, grinning behind his opaque face plate to laughs from his team. “Ready up.”

Four firm ‘readies’ come back to him and James takes a slow breath, centering himself. 

"Marica. Door." 

"I have control." 

The door immediately slides open and James piles through with his shrapnel cannon shouldered and ready. Normally he'd start making some noise, shouting and the like to confuse and frighten enemies made of flesh and bone, but machines don't have that vulnerability. The large abandoned office they’ve found themselves in has eight hard light constructs in it. 

They'd likely been in an ambush position initially, but the loss of contact with the master control seems to have put them in something of a wait mode. It certainly slowed their reaction times; the first vaguely humanoid construct is shattering under a withering hail of magnetically accelerated well… shrapnel, from the shrapnel cannon. 

The brutal weapon ammunition holds a dense power source at the back and slugs of metal on the front. The chamber shaves off fragments of the metal and holds it in a magnetic field, then finally accelerates it forward at utterly soul-shattering speeds; the beast makes all but the most powerful chemical kinetic weapons look like their rounds are standing still. 

The thing gets off about three shots a round… so, six shots in the weapon before he has to break the action open and reload.

The only difference between his smaller weapon and, say, the full-size shrapnel cannon carried by Cannidor woman Shalkas? Volume of metal hurled downrange. 

He donates two more charges with a roar like thunder, the magnetic acceleration cheating him of the recoil he still half-expects, and before he can swing his weapon to engage more of the enemies the rest of his team arrives. Literally before he can blink. Three more constructs are taking 5.56 hits before they even start moving. Marica, at the back of the stack as the least experienced Marine in the team and a specialist, gets the final 'kill' of the engagement with a tight five-shot burst right to the projector in the middle of the last construct's chest. 

He’d need to compliment her on that in the debrief. It seems that Marica can indeed take care of herself. To a degree at least.  

"Nice and clean," James says, satisfaction thick in his tone as he breaks the action open, with a satisfying metallic noise, catching the metallic capacitor out of the air as the weapon ejects it. Doing a good job is its own reward, he thinks as he tucks the spent battery in an axiom pocket to be recharged and reloaded later before sliding in a fresh shell. "Fan out, see if you can find anything. Data chits, hard drives, documents that look promising. Give it a once over and we move on. We can search in detail when the place is secured." 

A five-minute rustle through all the trash in the room comes up with a handful of older data chits and one external hard drive that Marica has to be physically stopped from plugging into immediately. Everything's quickly bagged and tucked into an axiom pocket by Gunny Ragnar, and James and his team repeat the process on two more rooms before finally making it to an oddity. The door at the end of the hallway... seems to be decorated?

"Marica. Anything?"

"No, sir. Next door down's the big system... but no combat platforms. If they're there, they aren't pinging."

"Right." 

James opens the door quietly, the door opening slowly on a dark... bedroom? He turns his flashlight on his helmet on and looks around, playing the white light around across what appears to be a computer with what had clearly once been a very comfortable chair, a large but very old tri-d projector, a shelf of various types of media. There are even a few posters on the walls. All done up in colors that scream 'teenage girl', to James at least. 

"Huh."

Ragnar follows his boss in. "Well. That's weird."

"Very weird," concurs Kip as he sticks his head through another door on the back wall. "Got a small bedroom and a bathroom in here, boss." 

Cali seems about as confused as the rest of them - but Marica, on the other hand, walks right to the shelf. "Hey! Omega Odyssey XII! This one's a classic! One of the better RPGs out there for old school gaming. It's famous for having uh. Some really… complex and detailed male characters. Yeah. That's it. Complex and detailed. People still argue on the net about who’s the better husband for the heroine Claudia, Tifan or Aerian." 

James resists planting his face plate in his palm as Marica briefly nerds out. 

"Alright, pack it in. We'll leave this one to the intel dorks to go through... I don't know what it's doing here, but something's weird..." 

They head back into the hallway and begin moving again, checking on what turns out to be a janitor’s closet, and then a room with enough computer infrastructure to be interesting. Marica plugs a transponder in to allow Babydoll and the other hackers on the Province to continue to penetrate the local network. 

"Getting strong power readings in front of us sir," Marica then says, checking something on an advanced hand scanner. "I think this part of the facility might be on its own local power grid."

"Huh," James says as he continues to step forward, slowly moving around another corner. "Wonder what could need tha-" 

The words die in his throat and James stops as he looks at the large door in front of him. This one is armored, and different from the others in the facility so far. It isn't one of the massive doors that had been present at the entrance to the facility; it’s fairly normal in size. It doesn't appear to have any automated defenses that he or his suit's limited sensors could see... and it’s well made. That's what stands out to him. This door had been incredibly well made, much better than the norm in this facility, and has some signage in the Ha'quinye language that doesn't quite make sense to him. Hell, even his suit's translator tools can't parse it; the system rules it to be a dialect that wasn't in the galactic database. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, we might just have ourselves a jackpot… Marica, can you get this door open?"

"I can try, sir!"

The perky young Tret woman moves up from where she'd more or less been taking cover between Ragnar and Cali, pulling up the wrist interface for her combat computer, her eyes glowing blue again. She stands there for a few seconds, before casually reaching out and pressing a button, letting the door slide open.

"Got it, sir!"

James looks at her incredulously for a moment. "It was unlocked, wasn't it?"

"Yep! Sir!"

"...Gods damn it. I really need to just try opening doors more often."

James shakes his head at himself, waves Marica back, and steps forward and through the door. 

The room he finds himself in is chilly compared to the rest of the facility. He can’t feel it through his hard suit, but his suit's systems alert him to the temperature drop as he moves deeper into the dark space. It’s an odd space: lots of stone displayed in a way that almost feels religious in nature. All of it leads to the centerpiece of the room, a massive, coffin-like chest that’s tied into a bank of machines. 

The chest is heavily embellished, and dominated by a sword motif carved into the lid. 

"Well, let's not get too excited, but it looks like we may have just found us a superweapon."

"What kinda superweapon that can conquer planets could fit in a tiny box like that?" Cali asks, clearly nervous after the earlier ambush.

"Well, Cali, that's what we're about to find out." 

James slowly moves forward, looking at the mysterious equipment, and finds a bank of controls. They’re hooked up to a screen that he's having trouble seeing in the somewhat odd lighting of the room… and switching to night vision doesn't help. 

James pulls his helmet off, peering closer and wishing he'd had his eyes augmented. 

"It's in the same language as the door," he says, more or less to himself, though he's aware that Ragnar and the others are keeping him covered. 

In keeping with his new policy to just try to do things before tagging in a hacker - or, indeed, a specialized breacher - he reaches out for the controls and presses the green button through a layer of dust. Immediately, the system seems to power on, with air hissing as it's released from the chest. A complex locking system begins to move itself clear of the lid at the corners and sides, before an arm reaches down from above, latches into place and slowly begins to lift it free. 

James leans in closer, unable to help himself as he tries to get his first glimpse of the 'weapon' that has caused so much trouble, but as the lid pulls away, instead of a computer, some sort of laser cannon, or indeed just a sword... he finds himself looking at a seemingly never-ending expanse of dusky chocolate skin, as the body of a beautiful woman comes into view, wearing only a white tank top and a pair of plain white panties. She manages to make it all look like thousand credit lingerie with her voluptuous curves.

"Holy shit. It's a cryo stasis coffin," Cali breathes. "Only heard about these things in books and TV shows!"

"...That's amazing, Cali. I didn't know you could read." Ragnar snarks, not looking away from the figure in the coffin… as she takes a deep breath. 

So does James.

Purple eyes flutter open, long silver white hair shifts. The sleeper stretches lightly, then looks deep into James' eyes. 

"This dream's getting really good, huh?" she mutters in heavily accented Galactic Trade. "Might as well enjoy it. I'm sure sis will wake me up soon." Her tone is woozy, but as she sits up she strikes like a viper, pressing her plush lips against James' before he can even blink, her tongue dipping into his mouth as she throws her arms around his neck. 

"Hmm. Wearing a bit much for a dream, but niiiice and strong. A warrior type? I like those. A real man. Not any of this nonsense from the church," she mutters to herself before kissing James again... and perhaps realizing he hasn't kissed her back. 

"Kinda... warm... for a dream too." 

She slowly reaches up and gently touches his face, stroking his cheek, reaching back to circle a finger around his round ear. 

"...I. Not... Ha'quinye...?"

"No, not Ha'quinye. Human."

"Oooh. Nice voice. Good job, subconscious!" she giggles softly to herself, still clearly out of it. 

"Miss. You've been in cryostasis for a very long time, and I understand you're disoriented, but you're not dreaming. You just woke up."

"Don't be silly, Mr. Human, whatever that is. My sisters wouldn't leave me for too long! Hehe. Now. Let's get that armor off. Just because you took my dream virginity just now's no reason to leave the job half done, is it?"

"...Miss. Seriously. This isn't a dream. This facility's been abandoned for centuries, and I really would prefer at least getting to know you before kissing you more."

"A responsible type, huh? Hot. Hehehehe. Yeah. Really good dream..." 

Her hand falls to the cold edge of his gorget where his helmet looks into place, and she looks at it with a confused expression on her face. 

"Cold? That's. Huh. It." 

She looks into James' eyes again, and realization dawns on her face as she starts to face the fact that she really isn't dreaming... and promptly passes out. She collapses into James' arms as he rushes to support her, and then slowly starts to lower her back into the stasis pod.

"...Fuck. Ragnar. Call it in. We're gonna need a stretcher... and a blanket. If this is our superweapon... things just got very complicated." 

"It didn't seem so complicated to me, boss. You knocked it out of the park. Found and seduced a superweapon and you only just met her!" Cali says, barely able to hold back her laughter at the madhouse situation. 

Marica stifles a giggle, apparently not sure if she's allowed to laugh at her boss's expense with the boisterous Cali. Kip and Ragnar too seem highly amused, and James can already feel his headache growing. 

"This is gonna be a really stimulating conversation with the Admiral, I can already tell." 

Series Directory Last

It's maybe five minutes, at the maximum, before Neysihen and Purisha are formed up with the group of commandos that are preparing to move into the facility. Dame Emma's leading their group herself and she'd explicitly told Neysihen and Purisha to stick close to her - not because she doubted their capabilities or anything, but because Neysihen and Purisha both have a special type of new teleport totem, to their new leader’s great interest. Besides, they’re well known among the Humans as two of the best of the new crop of commandos. Neysihen has little doubt that Emma wants to get a close look at Purisha's skills in the field in particular. 

Work is supposed to be work… but, as their own father regularly proves, work in this battle group is frequently a family affair. Much as Emma and Purisha might not have one hundred percent worked out their feelings on one issue or another, much as Emma might have some baggage left over from things Neysihen figured are firmly in the category of 'not her business', and Purisha might have scars of her own, the two women are family now. 

Even if Neysihen thinks it was a statistical improbability that Dame Emma would ever call Purisha anything like 'Mother'. 

Maybe turning some machines to scrap together would help Dame Emma work out some of those lingering feelings? Neysihen mentally shrugs to herself and gets set again, stretching and then leaning into a slightly high runner's start position, next to Purisha and slightly behind Emma. They’re behind an optical illusion and a shield put up by one of JSOC's Huntmistresses. The woman’s a decently talented adept, in addition to being a mistress of the Yauya hunting arts, which has made her incredibly valuable in JSOC. An Adept who can keep up with commandos doing commando things is about as rare as kicking a rock and finding a perfectly cut gem stone under it. 

Maybe she should invest more time training with Mother Cascka. 

She files the thought away for later as the gun emplacements on the fortifications, now manned either by commandos or by their original pirate gunners under very close guard, continue to blaze away at the latest string of hard light structures. According to a damn near thirty-second long field interrogation she'd listened to, this is more firepower than the mountain normally flings at the pirates’ lines. Perhaps whatever intelligence governed the machines had detected that their enemy was under attack and intensified their efforts? It’s the only idea that makes sense to Neysihen, but it leaves them waiting for the current wave of hard light constructs to get mulched before they can move to penetrate the mountain themselves. 

Suddenly, the guns stop firing, and Dame Emma shouts, "Go! Go! Go!" The Huntsmistress drops the shield and steps aside, clearing the Human woman to race off at top speed, kicking up dirt as her toes dig into the soil and she flings herself forward, clearly tapping axiom to get over no man's land as fast as she possibly can… with Neysihen, Purisha and the other commandos hot on her heels! It’s maybe a hundred yard dash at the most, but it feels like forever to Neysihen, an endless amount of time for more mechs to emerge from the mountain's mysterious depths and catch them in the open, but her boots hit stone floors before any threats emerge from the massive armored doors. 

She can now see that those armored doors had been more or less welded open by massive plasma weapons. Waiting inside for them is a large vestibule of some kind, once clearly a defensive point for the mountain; there are an even dozen smashed automated turrets in here. Gods only know how many lives it had cost the pirates to penetrate this single room; even their armored fighting vehicles would have had problems with some of the laser and plasma weapons, from the size of the remains... and whoever had built this place clearly hadn't much been in the mood for guests. Especially unexpected guests. 

Still, at least the lights are on as they head towards the inner doors of the vestibule. They’ve also been welded open... and have some mysterious blood stains on them. Not exactly a good sign. 

The next room is a large one, but doesn't seem particularly military in its design, besides the few destroyed, formerly concealed, turrets scattered around. It’s more like the 'sword hall' in a Cannidor home, or the ‘entry halls’ Neysihen had seen at businesses or museums and the like. There are some doors to the various sides of the room, and another set of big armored doors that had clearly been blown open by explosives looming open at the far end of the hall. Signs of combat are everywhere. Plasma slag, laser burns, the telltale impacts of railguns and other types of slug-thrower, the occasional burn that marked a larger explosive, and, of course, dozens of smashed machines and the projectors that generated the hardlight constructs. But it’s all eerily quiet now.

The commandos all vanish under axiom cloaking fields and move silently across the stone floors, in what Jerry had taught them is called a combat glide. Knees bent, upper body level, with a slight lean forward, rifle up, with smooth, controlled movement of the feet to 'glide' across the battlefield at a speed faster than a walk, with a thought given to being lower signature than run, all while maintaining a stable shooting platform to ruin the week of any bad girls that might show up. There are lots of ways to move, but for low-signature movement when you want to be able to neutralize threats as quickly as possible Neysihen hasn't found anything better than the movement taught by the US Marine Corps. Not without getting axiom or other systems referred to by her father as 'cheating' involved. 

Someone to her right, Purisha, immediately demonstrates the utility of the movement style as a hard light construct comes out of a side door and Purisha immediately shoots it. No head shot here; instead, she shoots it center of mass, to hit the projector and send both the projector and the weapon the thing had been holding scattering across the floor. Immediately four not-quite-visible commandos split off, stack on the door and push through it. Neysihen doesn't have to enhance her hearing to pick out the near silent bark of suppressed weapons fire as the commandos ventilate whatever the hell was in that room, before there's a muffled explosion. 

"Clear. Found a set of teleport pads. Looked freshly installed. Also looks like it wasn't the first time this room's held teleport pads. The facility might not be able to repair turrets or build new ones, but it's either got a significant supply of pads tucked away somewhere or it can make them."

"Copy, good work. Rejoin the unit. Teams Two, Three, Four and Five, split off and check those other doors. If they have teleport pads, neutralize them quickly. I don't want anyone easily getting behind us." 

Dame Emma's voice has a pleased tone to it, but Neysihen gets the sense that the experienced commando is not liking this situation in the slightest. 

Especially as they start running into more and more blood stains. Just how many pirates had died trying to take this place? Why had they tried to do it with predominantly light infantry? 

The question dies the second she has it as they pass through the third set of armored doors. This room is another big one... and there’s a small pile of mech suits at the center. The cockpits have all been shattered and there isn't a single mech without blood stains. 

"Well. That's not good." Purisha’s on their private comm line, and her sister sounds nervous, likely checking the corners of the room all the more seriously for the surprise.

"Delta Charlie to Six. Some of these doors lead deeper into the facility."

"Damn. Lock them down if you can, then hold that room, Gunny."

"Aye, ma'am. We'll try to back you up where we can." 

The 'shadow' that Neysihen is pretty sure was Emma steps forward, taking another look around at the room before hopping up the pile of mech suits in another series of bounds. 

"Active turrets, and a sealed armored door. Looks like this is as deep as the pirates got."

"Not liking this at all, ma'am." 

The familiar voice of Master Sergeant John "Johnnie" Ramos, the senior commando NCO for the detachment, held a note that Neysihen had never heard from the cheerful and bombastic American man before. He’s... apprehensive? Or something close. Like he’s already rolling with a punch just before it actually hits. 

Neysihen grips her rifle a bit harder as Emma quickly makes her way back down the pile of mech suits. 

Dame Emma, at least, doesn’t seem flustered. "Well, I'm tired of this shit. Whoever's got a recoilless in an axiom pocket, get it out. I want two high explosive rounds on those turrets, and then we'll blow this door and see what's in the guts of this damn place." 

Two commandos move out, their barely visible silhouettes moving to both sides of the pile of mech suits; her HUD paints the warning areas for the back blast of their rounds on the ground and she moves slightly to be well clear of the hot gasses while staying firmly behind cover.

"You know," Purisha begins, a light indicating that she's on the private comm channel she shares with Neysihen. "It's kinda weird we haven't seen more bots, and there were only a handful of hard light constructs in that one room..."

Before Neysihen can respond to that pain-inducing comment from her normally much loved sister; Emma gives the order.

"Fire."

Two rockets appear out of nothingness and two explosions follow… and then another pair of bright blue plasma explosions, as the containment bottles of the plasma cannons rupture. With the blasts still echoing in her ears, despite the sound-muting effects of her gear, Neysihen is immediately met with a whole new scene: the lights of the facility turning red and concealed panels on the wall starting to rise, revealing rows of combat machines with weapons ready. 

"Oh, you just fucking had to say something, Risha!" Neysihen snaps, moving away from the nearest of the new threats. 

"Fuck! Contact all sides!" Purisha shouts before diving for cover… but it’s far too late for simply taking cover. The combat machines are literally everywhere, in all directions. The recoilless rifle-wielding commandos immediately point the backs of their weapons towards the one undisturbed wall with no commandos at risk of being burned by their weapons and launch rapid fire rounds into the horde, taking out groups of bots, until the rotary magazines on their weapons go dry and they toss them aside for their rifles. Grenades arc out every which way but up, including at least one EMP grenade that someone throws deep into the horde... and another dark grenade... that... 

Oh, no. 

"Get ready! Null!" 

"No, damn it!" Emma calls, but it's too late. Thankfully, the null grenade was thrown almost as deep as the EMP, but Neysihen can feel just the edge of the sensation as she throws herself back and out of cover. It does its job; part of the sea of machines is definitively neutralized, but any closer and some of the commandos might have been neutralized as well! 

But there are just so many... and there are new types too. Blue lasers come in from all directions and Neysihen hears at least a half dozen calls of man or woman down as she burns through two magazines of rifle ammo, literally before she can blink. She’s going for a third as one of the new murderbots comes for her, its massive chain blades revving, seemingly baying for blood like a banshee's wail - and damn Jerry for introducing her to that myth! 

"Neysihen! Purisha! One of you! Call them in, damn it! Before we get overrun!"

Neysihen resists bashing her head against the nearest hard object as she dodges a slash of one of the chain blades - and realizes that the teeth are weird. Like they have miniature axiom fields on each one. Familiar axiom fields. Rift fields. Which officially takes this particular weapon from a blender from hell to some sort of goddess-cursed nightmare! She parries an overhead blow with her rifle and throws the mangled weapon away as the chain blade chews through the plastic and metal like it’s barely there. 

She lashes out with one of her wrist blades. The heavily modified Yauya honor weapons are integrated into her armor perfectly, and the paired blades rip into the metal housing of one of the machine’s chain blades like they’re carving through butter, easily disabling it. Another savage blow mauls her right pauldron, just barely missing her flesh - but now she has the space to artfully flip backwards and away. She vanishes into invisibility and uses the machine’s momentary confusion as it tries to find its target to pull the special axiom totem she'd been given. 

Hopefully the teleport totem won't bring their reinforcements in a weird spot. She tries to set up to rip one of the links apart and throw it towards a clear spot - but the combat bot, apparently defaulting to aggression, moves forward in a frenzy and slashes at where she’d been. A lucky blow catches her at the wrist with the disabled blade, knocking the chain out of her hand. It goes flying, apparating back into the visual spectrum, and the targeting systems in the machine immediately see it cut the chain in half... triggering it. 

There's a snap of displaced air and an armored Shalkas is suddenly nearly falling on top of Neysihen. Far from disoriented, the Cannidor cop's instincts serve her well, taking a long step back to clear another two swings of the chain blades, but also to get her shrapnel cannon up and absolutely devastate the combat machine with both barrels, sending it tumbling back as its systems fail to keep it functional. 

"Hah. Try to fuck with my kid, will you?" 

She reaches down and pulls Neysihen up.

"Shalkas? I didn't expect you to be part of the teleport squad."

Shalkas shrugs. "Jerry gave me one of the totems too. Break the chain, the whole family nearby piles in for some ass-kicking, that's how it works. Guess I'm part of the family. Somehow."

"...Sure, Mom. Whatever you say." Neysihen pulls her MP7.5 from its holster and quickly starts donating chunks of its forty-round magazine to any combat machines she can see, as Shalkas reloads and starts removing chunks of combat bot or groups of hardlight constructs with every thunderous pull of the trigger. 

"Not your Mom yet."

"Nah. Not buying that anymore. Someone who wasn't my mother wouldn't call me her kid." 

The two women exchange a look and Neysihen gets the distinct sense that the other woman's blushing as they continue to fight, buying themselves some breathing room and letting Neysihen really get a look for everything that had been brought in by the totem… and what a look it is! Sure enough it really had brought in the whole damn family, and what appears to be most of Sword company too! Jerry’s over to her left, ripping a bot apart with his mighty armored hands before opening up with both his arm-mounted microgun and the deeper roar of the 25mm autocannon he'd selected for his back weapon, shattering machines right and left.  

Makula and Enrika are sticking close to their father and khan respectively, with both of them donating plenty of automatic weaponsfire from their M2 heavy machine guns which they’ve paired up with heavy laser repeaters. 

"See! Told you the Mk19 was a bad idea for this mission! Those grenades wouldn't even arm at this range!" Enrika says over the family net that had gone active the second Neysihen's emergency totem had activated.

"Aww, fuck off. You know it'd fuck'em up good. The grenade's still moving fast enough to put forty millimeter holes in these damn things!" Makula replies, before pulling a grenade off her belt while simultaneously opening up with a long burst from the 25mm shotgun in her left gauntlet. 

A heavy metallic thud draws Neysihen’s eye as she reloads, and she’s treated to the sight of Jaruna, completely in her element, smashing bots with the massive hunk of barely sharpened metal the largest of her mothers called a sword while blazing away with her own autocannon and plasma cannon back mounts. She’s just sending 25mm shells and burning balls of plasma around the room as she roars with laughter. 

“Come on, you damn tinker toys, at least try to put up a decent fight before I send you back to the scrapheap!” 

One bot gets clever and tries to get behind Jaruna, only for its head to mysteriously fall off its shoulders, a clean, perfect cut. Which means Neysihen’s mistress turned adopted mother, Eymali, is on the field, the only sign of her passage being more dissected machines crumbling in her wake. 

As Neysihen hoses down a small group of hard light constructs, she notices that Purisha’s ended up next to Emma, and the two women are fighting in decent sync. Purisha reaches back and vanishes the two of them under a cloak, freeing them to perform a pincer attack on the machines that had been attacking them. 

Purisha’s wrist blades and Emma’s sword make short work of the war machines and send them tumbling to the ground. Family bonding at its best.

A hypersonic crack nearby heralds the arrival of Cori'Koren, one of the new Apuk soldiers who had just joined the family, and a recent tournament champ. Her warfire-covered fist hurls one of the larger combat mechs across the room, denting the wall even as green flames eat at its chassis with an almost supernatural hunger. 

Not to be outdone, along comes Melodi'Bridger, the newest inductee, not of the family’s soldiers, but of a far more exclusive group, the Bridger daughters. She’s shoulder to shoulder with her commander and now sister, Dar'Bridger, and the duo are teaming up to lay down enough warfire to slag one of the rooms that the bots had come out of completely, the walls literally collapsing as metal and stone alike turns to liquid and runs like water. 

The collapsed walls reveal more spaces behind, with what appear to be industrial machines for manufacturing to Neysihen's eye. An entire automated factory to keep pumping these damned things out, maybe?

Clearly whatever computer intelligence is defending the facility hadn't expected this level of resistance from its newest 'victims' and starts teleporting in reinforcements - but they all fall to the unending tide of violence from Sword company, the Bridger clan, and the freshly reorganized commandos who are now happily using their more heavily armored compatriots for cover, dragging injured men and women back and merrily taking out bots or constructs with precision shots and the occasional grenade when a juicy group of targets presents themselves. 

"We need to get the central defense control for this place knocked out!" Jerry barks over the general comm channel. "Melodi, any leads?"

"The armored door behind us has a major energy source behind it, si- Father." 

"Then I guess I'm opening that damn door. With me, girls." 

Jerry stomps over, his power armor shaking the floor under Neysihen's feet as she falls in to cover her adopted parent with Dar and Melodi at his sides. Before they can start calling warfire, though, another turret pops out of its concealed recess and begins firing. In an instant, Jerry moves to pull the target, Melodi, out of the way of a stream of railgun rounds and turns his back to it, shielding her with his body as Dar burns the turret into a pool of liquid slag. 

"F-Father!" The tremor in Melodi's voice says it all to Neysihen. It’s quite the change from barely a second ago. Neysihen was pretty sure she'd said Jerry's name like that right around when she'd fallen in love with the man too. Filial love, that is. 

That’s good for Melodi. She’s all the way in the family now, as far as Neysihen is concerned. If you can't call the male head of the family that had adopted you 'father' and mean it, are you really a part of the family?

Recovered, Dar and Melodi flank Jerry... and the three of them call the most warfire Neysihen has ever seen in one place. The door is there, it's armored, but in the next moment in a blaze of green and heat it's gone. It doesn't even turn into a puddle of slag on the floor, as near as Neysihen can see; it's atomized. 

Jerry strides through the still glowing door like the titan of destruction he is... into what certainly looks like some sort of control node to Neysihen. There are computers here, at least. 

 In the room behind, Makula has apparently found a set of concealed teleport pads, and is leading the rest of the crew in wrecking them and drastically slowing the waves of reinforcements that had been on top of them. Neysihen isn't entirely sure how many commandos have been injured, but she’s pretty sure she'd felt at least one stasis field get activated, so that’s one pretty severe injury, to say the least. 

She doesn’t linger to think about it, though. She quickly follows her father with Purisha, covering Jerry with Dar and Melodi.

Instead of smashing things up, dealing with the computers in what Mother Jaruna might call the ‘fun way’, Jerry finds a port and plugs in a transponder, which immediately lights up, heralding the voice of Babydoll, the ever cheerful Gravia hacker and electronics warfare officer, coming on to the net. 

"Like, hey, boss! Whatcha got for me?"

"Can you penetrate this facility's systems?"

"I already did! It was a bit slower than normal because their coding's mondo outdated and they're, like, using some weird language I'm not completely familiar with, but it's an offshoot of galactic standard from a few centuries back, so easy enough. You found a good terminal, Skipper. It didn't have much if anything in the way of fire wall protections."

"Can you shut down the defenses?"

"And the systems to keep manufacturing kill bots?"

"Please and thank you, Babydoll."

"Five minutes. Tops. Already shutting down the remaining defenses on the local net near you. That should slow them down, but, like, there wasn’t much left. Looks like Makula and Enrika got everyone smashing or blowing up the teleport pads that lead to the manufacturing spaces."

"I do appreciate them taking a direct route to solving the problem like that. Is there anything like a map of the facility or messages in there?"

"Not that I can see so far. Looks like whoever built this place purged a lot of data when they left."

Jerry turns around, walking towards the door, clearly resisting trying to stroke his chin through his helmet. 

"Fine. Guess we're doing this manually. Jarl Six to Raven."

"Ready and waiting, Jarl Six."

"What’s the status of the drop for Alpha?”

“They’re landing now, sir.”

“Good, make sure one of Alpha’s lighters stays on the ground, we need casevac. Then tell Ard Six to get his Marines into the mountain yesterday. We're gonna have to fan out and search this place manually for the Sword... and I get the sense it's a bit of a maze once you get off what I would assume is a series of traps, more or less, that we just finished blowing through."

"Aye aye. Do you want Charlie Company to land as well?"

"Yes. Get them on the ground, via Old One Eye, we should be secure. While you’re at it, tell Ard Six to leave his weapons platoon with Crow Six. From what I'm seeing from my systems, there's a lot of tight spaces in this pit. Sword Company will provide heavy support in the mountain until it’s completely secure. Shark Company will hold the perimeter.”

"Copy all. Executing." 

Jerry nods, then looks around at his daughters, and the others further back behind them. 

"Alright. Let's get our casualties the hell out of here so Alpha company's lighters can get them to the surgeon on the Province. Strong work today, people. Once Alpha joins us, we're gonna finish the job and find us a superweapon."

She should be a professional. Shouldn't be so easily worked up by words. Yet. For whatever reason. Her father never stops being one of the coolest guys in the galaxy in her eyes… and in Neysihen's heart of hearts? She hopes that emotion never goes away. 

Series Directory Last

Jerry 

"Raven to Jarl Six."

"Go for Jarl Six."

"Enemy armor element neutralized. They're mopping up now."

Jerry grins to himself. Between the tankers and the Huscarls, there’s probably going to be an excellent set of footage. 

"Copy. Status of Jotunn and Skoll companies?"

"En route to support your forces. Bygul company will follow on as quickly as possible, depending on how many prisoners they end up with." 

"Very well. We're going to press the objective and open the air space up. Is Alpha company ready to drop?"

"Yes, sir. Charlie company is prepped up to either land en masse via Old One Eye or move into lighters after Alpha company moves out."

"Very well. Get the landers moving as soon as we call in that the orbital and air defenses have been neutralized. Anything on the comm net from the pirates?"

"No, sir. Their internal networks are still communicating. It sounds like whatever force is in the mountain is putting pressure on their inner defense lines. We also don't believe they know their armor force has been neutralized."

"Sounds like it's time to get the party started then, Raven. Jarl Six out." He switches comm frequencies as he primes his jump jets, orienting towards the target objective using the compass in his HUD. "All Draugr elements. Advance. Dirk Six, start your parade. Remember, people, we're on the clock - but that's no excuse to get sloppy!"

Without another word Jerry leaps into the air, and the armored fist of the Undaunted quickly follows after him. 

Neysihen

"Dirk Six to all points. You heard the admiral. Begin neutralizing your preselected targets and move in! I want the defenses weakened or gone when the power armor arrives to mop this mob up."

Neysihen double-clicks her mic in acknowledgement and quickly double-checks her rifle. The WLVRN bullpups are popular with the Undaunted's commandos. A rare bullpup with a good trigger, in 6.5 Creedmoor they have reach that the .300 Black Out Tavors and AR pattern rifles simply donn't, while not compromising them for close quarters, where most of a commando's direct action business is done. Some of the men had applied for, and received, WLVRNs converted for the advanced 8.6mm Blackout, but Neysihen had stuck with her father's preferred round. While the 8.6 has great effect on target, effective range is something like six hundred yards shorter than 6.5. 

That just isn't acceptable for Neysihen, not for the kind of work she’s looking at now in particular. Her gear was perfected back on Earth for being able to reach out and touch someone as far as the naked eye could see give or take a few hundred yards, and here, on this mudball so very far away from the world this lovely weapon and its advanced round had been designed on, she's taking this ideal precision weapon hunting. Admittedly, she’s hunting gunwomen, but that, or their male equivalents, had always been the preferred prey of the elite of Human marksmen, the very same individuals who had trained Neysihen and Purisha. 

The girls had both marked out their targets and planned their moves for when the go order came ages ago. For what feels like an incredibly long time, they’ve been watching the pirates:  the limited patrolling as they wait for whatever’s coming at them from within, the nervous glances over their shoulders now and then after a burst of laser fire from deeper in the compound. 

All of which is admittedly concerning in its own way, but one obstacle at a time. 

The girls aren't acting as a true sniper team this time, with one of them spotting for the other. They’re both hunkered down on their rifles, nestled into the comfy embrace of the warm stone around them... aimed at the occupants of an elevated, armored watchtower. Bad girls who have a pair of heavy laser repeaters ready for anyone who came for an unannounced visit. Not a major issue for power armor, but a threat to be neutralized all the same before they start dealing with more common types of problem. 

Neysihen nudges Purisha lightly and gets a nudge in return, the two women silently counting down in their heads as their fingers tighten on their triggers. 

They'd drilled this on their spare time till their bodies had ached and they'd needed to stretch their trigger fingers. Practicing to be able to take a perfect simultaneous shot like the legendary Twin Shot snipers. They aren’t doing it with lasers and plasma, a potent mix designed to either take out a shield or compromise armor with the high intensity laser before the immediate impact of the plasma bolt finishes the job… but, still, they could send two bad girls to their gods at literally the exact same time. 

Which is what happens to the pirates in the watchtower. The rifles bark and Neysihen and Purisha immediately switch to their next targets, the other two women in the watchtower, pulling their triggers again just as quickly as their rifles will cycle. 

All four women drop with neat holes in various parts of their heads, bleeding silently on the floor as their lifeless eyes stare blankly at the floor, wall or sky. The job is far from done, however, and Neysihen shifts her position slightly, increasing her angle down as she starts ruthlessly neutralizing the pirate infantry in the trenches, starting from the far left while Purisha works from the far right. Normal doctrine is to displace after a handful of shots but they’re so far out of range from what normal sapients expected in the embrace of a planet's atmosphere they'd decided to take on a little bit of extra risk. Risk that ensures twenty pirates are on the ground in under a minute. 

Neysihen immediately stands up, folding the bipod of her WLVRN back into its custom handguard and loading a fresh magazine. She watches the area below her for a few moments before calling it in on the comm.

"Dirk November Bravo to Six, sector neutralized." 

"Six to November Bravo. Cleared to proceed with infiltration."

Neysihen doesn't acknowledge the order vocally, just double clicks her mic and immediately takes a short running jump off the cliff she’s been standing on, vanishing into invisibility as she goes. Instead of falling, with the touch of axiom she'd put into her legs, she soars, landing atop the wall of the pirate's little fortress home. 

She quickly surveys the local area. She can see all the many prefab structures now, including the ones that had been destroyed by the brutal strike from Valkyrie not long ago. If those had been nukes, this whole area would be rubble and so radioactive that all the axiom in the galaxy would have a hard time saving you from a very painful death if you walked ground zero without some very extreme protective equipment. Her armor doubles as a space suit, so of course it has radiation shielding built in, but there’s radiation and there’s radiation. 

From her new vantage point, she gets a better look at the inner defensive line for the first time... and immediately snaps her rifle up, increasing the magnification. There, in the shadow of the mountain, stands a massive armored doorway. Marching out of that doorway are a mix of machines, combat robots of some description, and hard light constructs… and they’re all armed to the teeth, firing at seemingly anything and anyone in range with blue lasers. 

That isn't good. Lasers in that wavelength are more potent than other colors, but also draw more power, and boast a few other qualities that make them somewhat unusually effective in certain kinds of military use. Basically, outside of close-in weapons, like what the Humans called a 'laser shotgun' or hold out laser pistols... there isn’t much that could match them if you want to punch a hole in an infantry hard suit. 

Twice. Maybe. 

The weapons the machines are using appear to be mean too; Neysihen watches as a pirate is too slow getting back to cover after firing on one of the combat machines and immediately is hit with a beam that nearly takes her arm off, leaving her mates scrambling to get her further back where a medic is waiting. 

"I don't like the look of that at all, 'Risha." Neysihen says quietly as the two of them watch, with the wave of a half dozen mechs and maybe a dozen hard light units eventually being taken out by a few hard bursts from a plasma cannon after getting suppressed by a heavy laser repeater. 

"Yeah... Me neither. Call it in." 

"November Bravo to Six. Eyes on the inner defensive line, second enemy force are machines and hard light constructs armed with high intensity blue lasers. High probability we're dealing with an automated defense system tasked with protecting the Sword."

"Six copies. November Bravo... do you have that special totem I hear your family cooked up?"

Neysihen can feel her pincers shift in a normal Yauya expression of surprise. She had been given a special teleport totem by her father. One that would potentially bring in a large group of power armored troops in an emergency. 

"Yes, ma'am."

"Very good. Dirk Six to all points, finish your business, detonate the charges immediately and press aggressively to the inner defense line. Bypass defenders and buildings you don't need to access for your primary objectives. PA is one minute, six zero seconds from contact. I've coordinated with command and I intend to push as deep into the facility as possible and if we run into serious trouble, we'll teleport a portion of Alpha Company in."

Neysihen and Purisha exchange a look, smiling behind their helmets. Looks like this little party is becoming another Bridger family outing… and what girl doesn't like busting up some ancient military facility chock-full of murderous kill robots and gods only know what else with dear old dad? 

With a quick exchange of hand signals, they leap off the wall to the roof of the nearest building. Their mission had just been to 'attrite the enemy' - which is a very formal way of saying they’re to make like the Human grim reaper and harvest pirate souls like they’re grain on an agri world - so nobody else has to deal with rude strangers while they’re, say, planting demolition charges on a large anti-orbital plasma cannon. 

The commandos on that particular mission are good at their jobs, Neysihen reflects as the cannon detonates behind them and to their left. The massive weapon collapses in on itself in a textbook demolition, and then its plasma containment bottle ruptures and levels the parts of the wall it’s near, and the building next to it, in a wave of burning blue starfire. 

As for Purisha and Neysihen, they still have their own objectives; they know where a bunch of bad girls are, the inner defense line, and head straight for it, leaping over rooftops until an access hatch flies open! The two women coordinate in what’s either an incredible display of skill or latent mind reading, with Purisha snapping her rifle up and shooting the newly-arrived pirate, sending her tumbling down the ladder, while Neysihen primes two grenades and sends them down after her. An instant later, she’s closing the access hatch again with a kick and leaping on to the next roof.

The base is clearly finally starting to figure out that something is very wrong; whether the lag is from all the destruction from the previous strikes or from the pirates just generally being disorganized, Neysihen couldn't tell. 

Probably the former. The bulk of these pirates are allegedly a rogue army unit, after all. They’re not supposed to be amateurs.

Another set of leaps leaves them overlooking the defense line, on a roof that has clearly been regularly used as part of the defense line; it has a decent parapet to it and some sandbags, along with what Neysihen figures are mounts for heavy weapons. 

Unfortunately, the pirates hadn't left any toys for the girls to borrow, so they simply plant a booby trap on the hatch leading down into the facility - really just a little string and a hand grenade - and quickly lay their rifles down on the edge of the parapet and get into position. The girls on the inner defense line are starting to look back; another explosion as one of the last AA guns gets taken out (if Neysihen is hearing 'where' the explosion is correctly) proves to be perfect cover for eliminating a few of the more aware women. 

But it doesn’t seem like it’s just the two of them picking off the bad girls; suppressed rifle fire seems to come from just about anywhere. Unlucky pirates are dropping by the score as others catch wise and dive for the deck or throw away their weapons; one gunner puts a hand up... while staying on her pair of laser cannons and firing at another approaching wave of combat mechs. 

That'd be a minor problem. Thankfully, Dame Emma is on it. 

"Dirk Six to all points, if the gunners are shooting the bots and not us, leave them be. Looks like resistance is more or less over down there... and the power armor's started clearing buildings behind us. Move up to the defense line. We'll take over or get the gunners to switch sides then we'll send our team into the building."

Another double click of the radio and Neysihen and Purisha are slipping over the edge of the roof, still invisible as they run forward. Somewhere behind them there's a muffled thump of an explosion, likely some hapless pirate triggering their trap, but it's already not their problem. The power armor would handle it... 

Though maybe the pirate would prefer dying to the commandos than the tender mercies of, say, the Crimsonhewers? Something to think about, but later. 

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