Welcome to the Frontier

Location: Hilden III

Time: 1135, 6-3 GM, 1335 A.C.

Doran tapped one finger idly against the control stick as he circled the tower, watching the bursts of light indicating small arms fire dance through the windows. The pirates were putting up a good fight, but they were clearly outmatched and, thanks to the few suits of powered armor, outgunned.

“Doran, we’ve got ten bogies warping into system and heading your way. I’m moving my squadron off to engage.” Hezdor’s voice rang through Doran’s headset clearly, and Doran, thanks to years of practice, kept his focus entirely on the tower.

“Copy, Hezdor, good hunting,” he responded. Hezdor ended the chat with an affirmative grunt, and the line went dead.

The feline went back to tapping out the nondescript beat against the control yoke. The dropship’s variable autopilot was doing most of the work for him at the moment; he hadn’t even moved the stick since he’d moved into the circling pattern.

“Doran, we’ve got the hostages. Get set to pull us out of here.”

“On it,” Doran said, a slight sense of glee flooding through him at the prospect of actually being able to move the damn stick himself. He turned it to guide the dropship in to the shattered window of the tower. The landing was at least smoother than the previous one; there was no one to shoot at him any more.

Nonetheless the rest of the Falcons hurried back into the troop bay, guiding or half-carrying hostages in and started to buckle them down. Gear stomped through the door to the cockpit and slid into the copilot seat behind Doran, reaching up and removing her helmet. The sound of the beings in the troop bay behind them was silenced as the door to the cockpit slid shut with a soft hiss, and Doran began making sure the ship was space ready. No enemies within two thousand klicks

He felt a gentle pinch on the tip of his ear. The offended ear twitched, and he turned to glare at Gear, who laughed.

“Have fun practicing your circles in the iron tub?” She said, a teasing lilt in her voice. Doran pretended not to notice the several colors of blood up and down her front.

Doran grinned. “She may be a tub, but I’m not the one who stopped to take a bath on the way back.”

She matched his grin, her teeth glistening white. “I like you. Careful about what you find in your shower later, new blood.”

“I think this blood’s older than you give it credit for,” Doran said, turning back to face the front as the diagnostics finished and green lights went on. He tilted his head back and forth, suppressing a shiver down his spine.

Gear opened her mouth to respond, but then almost bit her tongue off as the dropship’s engines slammed to full throttle and Doran pushed the control stick as far forward as it would go.

There was a whistling and then a shrieking sound like death itself as two missiles rocketed in from starboard and passed where the dropship had just been, narrowly missing the fully loaded craft.

“Fighters!” Doran yelled as Gear gritted her teeth, her hands reflexively grabbing the armrests of her seat as the dropship accelerated to full speed, her nose pointed straight down.

At the very last second Doran pulled back on the stick and tugged it to port, leveling the dropship out. The fighters screamed by them overhead and broke away from each other, starting to circle back around. Doran didn’t even try to fire the dropship’s chingun; the rotary cannon was designed for laying down suppressing fire on infantry, and they were already several klicks away.

“You going to get us out of here?” Gear called out over the scream of engines as Doran pulled back on the stick, the dropship starting to climb upwards.

“Quiet, I’m working!” He called back to her as the fighters starting closing back in. The lock-on alarm blared. The first missiles had been dumb-fired, the fighters hoping to catch the dropship unawares. Now they were no longer messing around. Doran knew that they would have already fired, there being no real reason to wait around to kill your prey.

So he completed the long loop back up the tower and aimed the dropship’s nose straight in at it. Gear swore a blue streak and just clamped down harder on the armrests as the dropship tore through the office tower, vibrating as metal ceiling ground against the top of the ship.

The alarm intensified as the missiles closed in, and Doran slammed on the port side pedal and then the starboard one, skidding the dropship around the central column that made up the central maintenance and transportation portion of the tower. Then he mentally crossed his fingers and prayed to every damn deity he could recall...

It worked. The missiles exploded, tearing through the central column of the tower. The fighters may have had stealth on their side, but their missiles were not equipped with expensive sensor packaging. They could track around most solid targets, but the tower’s central core, like most skyscrapers, was constructed of a low-density but incredibly strong plastic, reinforced with titanium-alloy rods. It didn’t read as a solid object to be avoided by the missiles’ sensors, and so they’d slammed into it at speed.

Dust and chunks of building rained around them as Doran pulled back on the throttle, keeping his foot on the pedal. His sensors also may not scan the central column properly, but they could still pick up a stealth-equipped fighter with dust and debris pinging off it.

He fired before he could even see it. The chingun was indeed designed for countering ground forces, but there isn’t much of a difference between tank armor and fighter armor, especially not at a mere 200 meters. The fighters shields evaporated, and the smoking ship began an arc downwards.

Doran tugged the stick as the dropship was jostled. The other fighter roared by mere meters away, catching its prey in its slipstream.

Without any other real options, Doran turned the dropship and gave chase to the fighter. The dropship’s engines allowed him to match its speed, even if he couldn’t close with it to finish off the fighter with the chingun.

Doran reached up and tapped the comm screen, opening a channel to Hezdor. “Boss, got a problem here!”

There was a grunt and an “on my way,” and the channel went dead.

Doran returned his focus to staying on the fighter’s tail. He couldn’t kill it and he couldn’t out fly it now, but he sure as hell was going to keep the bastard busy for a couple minutes.

Out on the flat desert, there wasn’t much of anywhere to fly. The fighter dove and climbed and dodged and jinked, but Doran kept on him, one thumb on the trigger.

Finally the fighter did the most simple thing he could: He straightened out his flight path, pointed his nose at the horizon, and rammed his engines to full. Doran cursed as the fighter started to pull away from him, the agile craft easily outdoing his transport ship. He too fed juice into the engines, trying to keep pace as best he could for as long as possible...

The fighter dropped all engine power and stood on its tail, using the entire fuselage of the craft as one giant airbrake. It bled speed fast, and Doran narrowly avoided smashing into it as he slammed the dropship on its side and pulled up on the stick, also closing up the throttle to essentially pull the same maneuver. The dropship, however, had a much narrower profile than the fighter, and so went sailing right passed it.

Doran pulled up on the stick more to finish turning the dropship in a 180 and leveled her out, feeling his gut fall into his legs.

For a split second his dropship and the fighter stared at each other, no more than fifty meters apart. Doran didn’t even really register the lock-on alarm that sounded the death knell.

And then the fighter exploded, followed immediately by the delayed chatter of railgun fire. Hezdor’s ship sailed almost lazily overhead, and the channel opened up.

“You scratched up the paint on my dropship.”

Doran sank back into his seat as Gear whooped. She’d spent the entire four and half minutes the fight had taken hanging on for dear life, alternately grinning through clenched teeth and cursing. Doran set the dropship to hover as Hezdor circled, then pulled off his headgear and turned to face her, winking.

“I find anything weird in my shower after that, I’m leaving you behind.”

Location: Kara II

Time: 0017, 1-16 GM, 1328 A.C.

When you live long enough anywhere, you get used to the sounds of the place, the way the air shifts and moves. An astute being can tell a lot about what’s going on in a building by the sounds being made in it.

Therefore someone as absolutely paranoid and sharp as Buck was able to snap his fingers to turn on the lighting at the exact moment Damien began to realize he just might not be alone.

“An’ yer dead,” Buck said lazily, lowering his hand to the armrest of his chair. “Much better than last time, though. Out racing again?”

Damien seemed almost proud of himself before Buck’s question hit him. Then all expression fell from his face, and he stared back at his adoptive dad.

“Gotta do something for fun.”

“Could do something where yer less at risk of getting arrested.”

“I can out-drive any damn Enforcer on a bike on this planet an’ ye know i’.”

“Something a little less hazardous to yer health, then.”

“As if ye get to judge me for tha’.”

Buck’s teeth clicked together audibly. He didn’t bother trying to mask his irritation, even if it just showed as his eyes narrowing slightly. Damien’s own mouth snapped shut as well. Clearly he’d been having that particular thought for a while now, 

Buck let the silence hang in the air for a good ten seconds before responding.

“An’ ye also know my subordinates generally risk their lives as much as I tell them to.”

Damien crossed his arms at that. “Never asked to be yer subordinate.”

“Ye didn’t seem to mind when I was teaching ye how to swing a punch.”

“An’ then left me out to dry when I did hit someone.”

Buck ignored the jab, continuing on. “Nor when we taught ye how to take care of a weapon.”

“Field stripping a rifle after ye got back from a job for cleaning.”

“Nor how to use one.”

“Firing at non-descript holograms.”

“So you regret being taught how to hunt monsters?”

Damien’s mouth snapped shut once more. Buck could practically see the loading screen in his head.

“I regret not having been given the chance to put the skills to use in the real world as of yet. Boss.”

The words were slowly in coming, chosen and delivered with care. The last one stung a bit; Damien only ever called him that when he was annoyed. For a split second Buck almost corrected him, but he righted himself.

“You will be given tha’ chance as soon as I believe ye are responsible enough to put those skills to use, not merely capable.”

Damien frowned. “Of course ‘responsible’ in this case being ‘stop doing the thing you love’?”

Agent H405 Note: Let it be on record that I strongly object to the declassification of this transcript. The only reason it is being released is that the judiciary committee discovered that there was an audience of around 350 enemy personnel in personal attendance of this broadcast, along with an unknown number listening in remotely. While this does mean it is unlikely to compromise our agent(s), the faction we are dealing with has demonstrated themselves to commit purges of their ranks in the mere hope of killing our agents before, as well as retaliatory strikes against Commonwealth targets, both civilian and military. Please refer to the “Shrike Incident”.

I cannot stop this transcript from being released, but I’ll be damned if it’s released without letting everyone know this was not unilateral.

Location: [REDACTED - Operational Security]

Time: [REDACTED - Operational Security]

[Begin recording]

Electronic Voice (EV) [Unidentified: Voice is virtually generated and has no biological origin]: Attention. Attention. General Tanz is now speaking.

Tanz [Identified: Voice pattern matches Gregory Syphon Tanz. See attached dossier for more info.]: Let me get straight to the point. Someone’s been acquiring us some shit shielding. Now, I know I’m not the only one mad about this. No one wants shit shielding, so allow me to educate anyone stupid enough to not know what shit shielding is.

Shit shielding is shielding that is shit. You see, when energy shielding is struct by any projectile, solid or plasma, it burns off some capacitor energy to form a field to prevent it from hitting your dumb ass. How much energy it uses depends on the quality of the shielding. The lower the quality, the more energy the capacitors burn as more is burned off as light and heat.

Yes, that’s right. The best quality shields you’ll find are the ones you’ll barely see when hit. The flashier they are, the faster they’ll burn out, and the faster you die.

So when you’re out an getting us some replacement equipment, it would do you well to test out the quality of the shielding thoroughly, or else you’ll end up like poor Mr. Johns here.

[At this point a holoprojector at the front of the room comes to life, displaying a grisly screen. A Felinus is stretched out on a rack with his hands stretched out to either side. The audience gasps as they realize that his chest is cut open, his lungs having been pulled out through the top of his rib cage and thrown over his shoulders in the typical “bloody eagle” fashion. “Mr. Johns” is clearly expired, even though another, unidentifiable figure can be seen moving in the background.]

Location: Kara II

Time: 1630, 1-15 GM, 1328 A.C.

Damien dodged nimbly between two other teens as he raced out of the school building. The first day of class was over, and he had somewhere to be.

Ignoring one of the fellow teen’s grumbling, Damien raced over to the bike rack, rapping at his wristpad interface to unlock the hoverbike’s locks.

Before it was even fully unmounted from the security lockup he was strapping on the safety harness that was standard for any hoverbike owner with more than two brain cells left to rub together. On Kara II a harness had to have a minimum four-point-oh safety rating, meaning that, theoretically, it would save him from any impact up to 1,400 kilometers per hour.

That was, however, likely not without injury, but Damien had never had the misfortune to have to test the harness’ capabilities.

Snapping the final clasp into place, Damien swung his leg over the bike and fired up the ignition. The bike thrummed under him as he guided it out of the school’s parking lot and onto the main road.

Damien drummed his fingers impatiently as he followed a father in a family car, his own instincts driving him mad as he was forced to obey the strict speed limit.

Finally, however, the car passed a certain intersection. Well, less of an intersection, and more of a natural path that lead through a thick forested area. Damien grinned, flipped the visor on his helmet down properly, and twisted the accelerator.

He flew down the path, a couple of tree branches smacking at his helmet like a reproachful mother’s hand.

Suddenly the path dropped away. Damien knew it was coming and yanked the bike hard around to the left. Suddenly he was riding along the edge of a cliff, high above most of the rest of Kara II’s capital, several hundred meters of sheer white cliff beneath him.

His grin broadened as he pushed the bike faster, turning his head to look out over the city.

Kara II’s main academy was situated on one of the highest plateaus in the area, giving the white and grey metal buildings a good view of the surrounding area. Tunnels honeycombed the rock underneath the plateau, allowing easy access to the bottom of the canyons around the school, and two tall, curved bridges with not a single sharp edge connected the plateau to two others nearby.

Though it was one of the larger plateaus around, it was still not long before Damien reached where he needed to be. One lone path, nearly as sheer of a drop as the cliffs themselves, wound its way down to the canyon floor. Leaning hard and pulling up roughly on the control sticks, Damien turned the bike around the first hairpin turn with ease, guiding it down the path.

Less than seventy seconds later (he timed it) he’d reached the bottom. Damien’s grin spread nearly from one ear to the other as he twisted the accelerator further, and the hoverbike’s loud hum rose to a roar. He rocketed out into the canyon, the hoverbike’s anti-gravity fields keeping him just shy of two meters above the churning river beneath him. Two students taking a break on the shore waved to him, but Damien was around the bend before he could wave back.

Kara II’s capital was primarily build on the cliff and plateaus that ran through the landscape like cracks through glass, with the bottom of the canyons primarily being deep rivers that provided the city with a constant supply of fresh, clean water. It was in these canyons that Damien liked to race his bike around as there was generally no Enforcer presence.

Today was different, though. He had somewhere to be.

Fleet looked up as he heard he heard the familiar sound of Damien’s hoverbike. The others barely tilted their heads to look as Damien slowed to a halt in front of Fleet. Fleet’s   fur matched his namesake, and the Equs stood just a tad tall for his species, nearly matching Damien’s height. His long, feathered wings were furled tightly against his back, and he moved with the easy, delicate grace of anyone with bones built for flight.

The Equs stood as smoothly as ever as Damien pulled the ignition plug and dismounted. “I think you may be in for an actual challenge today.”

Damien just flashed Fleet his usual cocky grin. “Had t’ happen someday,” he said, his voice clearly having picked up his adoptive parents’ accent.

Fleet smirked and crossed his arms. “Seriously, you better have put some more work in on that bike,” he said as Damien brushed passed him, popping open the drink cooler and grabbing a Juke Fizz. “I’ve got fifty credits riding on you winning.”

Location: Hilden III

Time: 1130, 6-3 GM, 1335 A.C.

As it turned out, there was no need to worry about Doran’s skills with a dropship. The entry into Hilden III’s atmosphere was as smooth as any atmospheric reentry could be.

“Damn, why does it always have to feel like falling...” Gear muttered from her seat next to Doran. Despite her apparent aversion to flying, she’d insisted on joining him in the cockpit.

“Well, we are,” Doran cheerfully replied, imagining that Gear was turning green under her armor’s helmet. “We’re cutting our trajectory down from several thousand klicks an hour to several hundred.”

“I love hearing these things,” Gear said, very much sounding the opposite. “How long until we hit the target?”

Doran checked his sensors. If nothing else it felt good to have the wide array of sensors, screens, and armor around him again. The PT-5 fighters were fast and packed a punch, but that also limited the amount of sensor gear they could carry, and they had virtually no armor. The Scarab-class dropships, on the other hand, were designed to survive drops involving heavy artillery barrages. “Four minutes, thirty-seven seconds.”

“Fast, then,” Gear said, reaching up and slapping the release buckle on her constraints just as the vibrations from reentry ceased. “Best go get ready.”

“Good luck and straight shooting,” Doran said, reaching up and unlocking the chin gun. The dropship wasn’t nearly as well equipped as a fighter, being equipped with just a standard-issue plasma rotary cannon under the chin of the dropship. It was on a swivel and locked to Doran’s helmet. Wherever he looked, the gun would aim.

“Yeah, and straight flying to you,” Gear responded, moving towards the rear of the ship and into the troop compartment, where the rest of the mercs were waiting. “Get your wings out, Falcons!” she called out as the door between the compartment and the cockpit slid shut. Over his helmet’s speakers, he heard a chorus of varying responses. He winced. Assholes the Marines could be, but at least they could call out a uniform response quickly.

The dropship pierced through Hilden III’s cloud layer, and Doran got his first actual view of the monumental skyscraper, sticking up out of the plain like a sore thumb. He flicked on the ‘Ready Stations’ light for the troop compartment, blanking out all white light and replacing the lighting with red. “Two minutes,” he said over the PA system. He banked the dropship hard, keeping the throttle wide open as it screamed down towards the tower.

Not a second under two minutes later Doran swung the dropship around. He glanced at the window nearest to him and squeezed the triggers, blowing the plastiglass into dust. Then he triggered the ‘Go’ light and dropped the starboard hatch.

To their credit, the mercs moved fast. As soon as the lighting in the troop compartment flashed to green they were heading for the hatch. Gear lead the way, her armor’s boots crushing chunks of plastiglass into even finer particles.

As soon as they were all offloaded Doran pulled the dropship away from the building and closed the hatch up, opening up the throttle again and gaining some altitude to provide cover. He opened a channel to Hezdor.

“Team One is offloaded and getting to work, boss.”

A short grunt answered him. “Good. Stay nearby and get ready to cut out quick if you have to.”

Location: Felinus Arcturus

Time: 1303, 5-38 GM, 1335 A.C.

Sextus inclined her head as the door to Milana’s quarters slid open. “Milana, I hear you’ve been assigned a mentor in the Verti cluster.” To her right, Ara mirrored the gesture.

Milana inclined her head as well in greeting before turning back to her two bags, most of the spartan contents of her room already packed away. “I have been. Sister Valeri is currently attached to the 17th Marine division of the Fourth Home Fleet there.”

Sextus blinked. “The 17th? You’ll be sure to be blooded in battle quickly then.”

“They are often the first division with boots on the ground on most any planet against the Skrrz,” Milana said, looking quite eager.

“Be careful, Mil,” Ara said, sounding more nervous than anything. “There’s a reason the 17th is the first in.”

Milana seemed to sober up a bit at that. “I know. You don’t get into the 17th without years of experience first, and I have no real experience in battle.”

“You’ll be fine, Milana,” Sextus said, turning a bit to glare at Ara as Milana grabbed the last of her things. “They wouldn’t send if you they didn’t think you could handle it.”

“Of course, of course,” Milana said, now sounding a bit unconvinced. With one final click she closed the second bag and straightened, glancing around the small room that she’d lived in for more than a decade. Like any acolyte’s room, it was quite small, no more than a glorified closet. “... I haven’t been on any planet other than this since I was little.”

Sextus blinked. They may have all been friends for years, but none of them had particularly pried into each others’ histories before coming into the Order. As often as not, said histories were not happy ones. “You weren’t born here?”

Milana just shook her head. “I should get going. Ship is leaving in less than two hours, and I want to get a good bunk.”

Ara moved forward and embraced Milana. “I’ll miss you, Mil.”

Milana smiled and blinked as she returned the embrace, holding Ara for a moment. “I’ll miss the both of you,” she said as she let go of Ara and hugged Sextus. Sextus found herself squeezing a bit more tightly than she had originally intended.

“When we next meet, you’ll be a full Sister,” Sextus said as she let go of Milana.

Location: Pan-Special Medical Studies School, Felinus Arcturus campus

Time: 0830, 1-24 GM, 1335 A.C.

Class size: 315 in person, 3,242 remote

“-se be seated. We have what I think are some interesting questions to consider today.

“Now as many of us are aware, particularly those pursuing the fields of genetics engineering and mechanical augmentation, our society is running into a new problem to deal with: How to treat augmented individuals.

“You will all also be aware that mechanical prosthesis have been commercially available to more than 50% of known species for the past 300 years, but only in the past fifty have they reached the level of having one-to-one response consistent with that of the replacement body part.

“As with any technology, however, the field of bionics has lead to pure augmentation rather than simple bionic replacement. While expensive, restricted, and heavily enforced, we are starting to see more and more cases crop up of individuals voluntarily replacing their body parts with mechanical limbs to enhance their performance anywhere from a laboratory to the field of battle. Nowadays soldiers are not simply sent home upon losing a limb to enemy combatants; should they pass certain aptitude tests, they can be refitted with a new limb that is hardier than their original, and sent back into the field. While a bionic limb is expensive, it is even more costly to simply send the soldier home on a pension and train a replacement who may or may not survive their first combat experience.

“Certain individuals who are deemed of higher value than others are fitted with more high-tech systems generally suited to their task. Very often these are weapons systems and even full-body mechanical replacements; so-called ‘Metalheads’.

“The question we must consider when proposing to replace a limb with a mechanical one is this: What happens when we eventually do send the soldier home? We very well can’t allow a civilian on the streets of a major city to walk around with the ability to summon fifty centimeter energy blades from their arms at will, or fire micro-missiles at anyone they choose. These are obvious things that we can remove.

“However, there are other things to consider. Augmentations most commonly enhance the user’s strength and speed well above that they could ever naturally achieve. Can we remove these augmentations? If so, to what degree? In the case of the soldier we’ve already sent them into battle, where they were grievously wounded, and then we simply put a new body part on them and send them back into the fight. Can we reasonably take away a part of them that helped them survive? Something they relied on?

“Consider a case I’m sure many of you have heard about: That of Staff Sergeant Warren Krem, formerly of the 17th Alcott Ranger Battalion. After fifteen years of service Sergeant Krem was grievously wounded in a skirmish four years ago and required a full bionic replacement of his left arm. However, Krem was also a skilled combat medic, and was thus fitted out with an array of augmentations to aid him in his job. A year later he was credited with saving the lives of more than two-hundred fellow Marines while under fire, matching the previous four years.

“After his retirement last year Sergeant Krem dove into a burning building on the colony of Kildor-I and saved the life of an infant still trapped inside. First responders to the scene state that it was only the existing augmentations in his arm that allowed him to sedate and then perform an emergency surgery to remove a piece of shrapnel from the infant’s lung that allowed him to save the child’s life, despite being severely burned himself.”

[There’s a short pause, and a soft cough is heard before the Professor continues.]

“Two weeks later Sergeant Krem died of a drug overdose, a combination of morphine and several other commonly used painkillers. Autopsy revealed they were the same drugs that were left in his arm for use in the field, administered via telescoping needles from his mechanical arm.

“It could be argued that the arm’s medical devices should have been removed and the drug stores checked to ensure they were empty, but it is also certain that without them, the infant he saved would have died on the scene of the fire as well, even though he still would have been able to pull them from the fire.

“Aside from mechanical augmentation, we are seeing another rising trend in augmentation: Genetic. Gene therapies have likewise existed for years, essentially curing cancer and many diseases in every member species of the Commonwealth, but it is only relatively recently that the medical community has looked into optimizing bodily functions and physical actions through gene therapy.

“The process for this is... extreme, even more so than mechanical augmentation, with even moderate augmentations causing severe pain, and dysphoria is common. Undoing this process requires the same pain and mental disconnect, which would likely lead to one performing it on an unwilling subject.

Location: Hilden III Geosynchronous Orbit

Time: 1041, 6-3 GM, 1335 A.C.

“Alright, one more time,” Hezdor said. “Gear?”

“I take Krea and her team in the dropship through the top an' take the pirates from behind. We hole up in there an’ use their fortifications against them.”

Hezdor nodded. “Jonor?”

Jonor, a tall Rachas, blinked his multi-faceted eyes back at Hezdor dispassionately. “I take my team and sweep up from the ground floor, focusing on pushing the pirate forces into their own defenses that Gear now controls, pinning them between us.”

Hezdor nodded and glanced over at Doran. “I suppose I should have asked you before: How are you with a rifle?”

Thanks, Doran thought, but responded honestly. “Well there won’t be any friendly fire from me, sir.” Hezdor’s nose wrinkled at the ‘sir’.

“Fine, you are flying your team’s shuttle, then. Just stay low and try not to get shot.”

Doran nodded and muttered “bit harder to get paid,” as Hezdor moved on. He scanned the facility again. Janos Corp. had set up the single building facility in the middle of the desert. Supposedly the planet was rich in chemical compounds that made up common starship fuel, and thus had set up similar facilities all around the planet at key locations. Each one was essentially a giant skyscraper, two and a half kilometers tall, that was full of processing and reprocessing networks for the chemicals extracted from deep beneath the surface. Recently some pirates had moved in, overwhelmed the plant’s security forces, and taken the employees hostage. Apparently Janos really wanted management alive: They’d traced their chips to a room near the top floor of the tower, and were sending the Falcons in to deal with them.

“Alright rookie, with me,” he heard Gear say, and stood to follow her. The Falcons were all filing out of the briefing room to their assignments. If everyone had been wearing appropriate uniforms and perhaps carrying themselves just a tad straighter, Doran may have momentarily forgotten he’d left the Navy.

“Ever fly a Scarab-class shuttle before?” Gear said as they made their way into the cargo bay. Doran nodded.

“Ran Marine combat drops as my first assignment.”

Gear stopped and turned, raising an eyebrow. “Any hot extractions?”

Doran averted his gaze, staring at the hatch of the Scarab. Aside from the paint job, there was nothing differentiating it from a standard Commonwealth troop dropship. Chin-mounted railgun to cover the troops with rear and side doors to get them off or on as quickly as possible. He nodded. “You fight the Skrrz, that’s all you run.”

The armored Felinus nodded. “May have to do it again. Hope you’re good for that.”

Location: Kara II

Time: 0530, 7-4 GM, 1318 A.C.

Damien awoke with a jerk, sitting straight up in the bed, his chest heaving.

He glanced around, taking in his surroundings with panicked glances, slowly getting his breathing under control.

A bit more calmly he took another look around. The room was very spartan. Shelves on the wall in front of him, walk-in closet to the left. His back was in one corner, and the bed he was in was easily the largest he’d ever slept in, and by far the comfiest. He felt a slight gust of air against his cheek, and turned to glance out the window, which was cracked open slightly to let the fresh air in.

Silently he slid out of the bed and padded over to the door, which was nestled in an alcove next to the closet. It slid open just as silently, and Damien looked around.

He was at the end of a long hallway with seven other doors that matched the one he’d just come out of. As he walked by them he strained to hear any noises, but the noise dampening was too effective to hear anything even if there was anything to hear.

At the far end of the hallway were a set of stairs leading down. Glancing over the old-fashioned banister, Damien found he could see at least two floors down. Either he was on the third floor or the building had a basement.

“Yeah, follow up on the Jana, leave the cat for later. I’ve got an inkling the Jana knows something more.”

Damien froze as the voice drifted up the stairs. From what he could tell it was the Canis who’d picked him up from the spaceport... was it last night? How long had he been asleep? It had been morning when they’d gotten to the house...

“Shree, once you’re done chatting with Jortel, please do return. Our new addition has arrived, and I’d like ye around.”

Damien strained to hear the response, but the Canis, Buck, must have been either using headphones or directional speakers, as he couldn’t hear a thing.

“Are you going to come down here or what?”

Damien jumped, startled. Had he been breathing too loudly? Did he smell that bad now? The season wasn’t even particularly warm on this planet...

Slowly he finished heading down the flight of stairs, finding himself affixed by Buck’s gaze. The older Canis blinked at the younger one, seemingly as perplexed as he had been earlier.

“How’re ye feeling? Hungry?”

Damien nodded vigorously. He hadn’t noticed it until now, but his stomach was begging for food; he must have been out for a while.

“Harrion bacon an’ toast for breakfast, then,” Buck said, moving over towards the kitchen.

Damien stepped further into the room, his ears perking up as he took in the new place. The room seemed to be several rooms built into one, covering the entire floor of the building. The stairs emptied out onto the living room area, furnished by two plush sofas and a pricey looking holovision set. Here the floor was some sort of light wood. The area Buck had wandered into and was now working in was apparently a kitchen, the floor tiled and an island counter separating it from the living room. A raised portion of the counter apparently served as a form of bar, as several stools were arranged along the living room edge.

In the other far corner of the room was the smallest section, which appeared to be some kind of equipment or tool area. Boxes and crates were pushed up against the walls, along with several lockers that reached to the ceiling.

“Order up,” Buck said, a hint of mock-seriousness in his voice. All the same, Damien practically scrambled over to the bar, perching himself on a stool as a steaming plate of bacon and toast was placed in front of him. He licked his lips and dug in greedily, ignoring the heat of the meat as he tore into it. The meal was simple, but fresh and delicious, better than anything he’d had in at least two years.

Buck let out a snort of laughter as he watched the young one eat. “I see yer going to be a fun mouth to feed,” he said, amused, before walking back over to the holovision.

Damien finished and left his plate where it was, moving back over to the living room. Around Buck floated dozens of folder icons. At the moment he had one of the holographic folders open and was busy sorting through files in it.

“What’re you doing?” Damien asked, his voice sounding smaller than he usually felt it was. Buck turned to glance at him.

“Looking through dossiers. Ah, descriptions of people and their history. My... associates an’ I are tracking someone.”

Damien tilted his head. “Why?”

“Well he did something bad, and someone wants him to pay for i’,” Buck said hesitantly.

The young Canis tilted his head the other way. “What do you do?”

The older Canis sighed and waved his hand. The holographic projection froze in place as he turned to Damien, his eyes flickering. “I’m a mercenary. I hunt or kill people, I get paid.”

Damien took a step back. “... Mercs aren’t nice.”

“I know, I won’t dispute tha’,” Buck said. “But...” He paused. “The monsters you know aren’t the only monsters in the galaxy. I make sure we only hunt the monsters.”

The young Canis swallowed visibly, apparently unsure. “You... hunt monsters?”

Buck nodded. “Including the ones tha’ killed yer family.”

Damien’s eyes went wide. “Are you going to kill them for me?”

“No,” Buck said, his eyes flashing, a smile forming on his lips. “I won’t kill them for you.”

Damien looked down at the floor, feeling his cheeks burning. Unbidden, tears began forming in his eyes, blurring his vision. Wasn’t it the adults’ jobs to make the monsters go away? Their job to keep kids safe? Dad had said he’d always be safe, and dad was...

He felt a firm hand pull his chin up, and blinked away the tears. Buck knelt down in front of him, his orange eyes boring into Damien, and Damien felt as if Buck understood him better than any being in the galaxy could.

Location: Warp

Time: 1235, 6-4 GM, 1335 A.C.

Blaster sat in the copilot seat of the Black Adder, one eye on her main monitor and the other on the camera feeds, the cockpit viewscreens showing a lovely view of a beach and ocean somewhere. Buck had said it was a classic view from a beach on Kara II, but Blaster wouldn’t know. The purple water was also throwing her off.

She turned her head from the messaging screen to watch the camera feeds for a moment, particularly the two from the cargo bay. When she and Buck had set out together those few months ago, they had both readily agreed to reinstalling the Adder’s camera network. After all, survival in their line of work demanded a good degree of paranoia.

The cameras afforded her a view of the entire ship minus the two bunk rooms and the bathroom, which were impossible to get to without moving through a camera’s field of view anyway.

As her eyes flicked over the cargo bay camera feed, the Brother passed behind the Sister as he headed for the treadmill, one hand almost instinctively reaching out to brush against her shoulder. Blaster had noticed the Twins doing things like that a lot. There was never anything erotic or sensual about it; It was more akin to how she poked and brushed at her wounded shoulder. Like checking to make sure a damaged limb was still attached.

“Read any good mail lately?” Buck said as he turned his chair to sit down, glancing over at her main screen. Blaster tapped at one of the messages in her inbox, skimming the contents.

“Not really, though I’m gaining a refreshed hatred for people who waste bandwidth to send me breast enlargement scams,” she said, sniffing derisively. “Got one job posting that could be promising, and we’re not too far out. Heard of the Desant system?” She tapped the relevant message, opening the contents and turning the screen towards Buck.

“Yeah, no’ much more’n a village settlement at the moment, single planet on a wide orbit around a red giant. Ninety-five percent of the population are mining bots,” Buck said, leaning over slightly to scan the text. “No orbital defenses, a ship comes by maybe twice a month if they get a good haul.”

“Hm, good memory,” Blaster said, pulling the monitor back towards her and tapping at her controls to bring up the planet’s information. “Apparently they’re having a bit of a wildlife problem and want someone to come clean up.”

“I’ll grab my hunting gear,” Buck said, sounding none too enthused. “Can’t imagine tha’s going to pay well.”

“No, it won’t, but there’s something else that should interest us,” Blaster waved her hand and the inbox disappeared, to be replaced with her signal analysis software screen. “Take a look at this. I pulled it from Desant’s latest available sensor data.”

Again Buck leaned over. “Reading as standard background space radiation, unless I’m missing something.”

Blaster smiled, her eyes sparkling. “You are, and you aren’t. This is normal background radiation for a planet orbiting a mid-sized yellow star.”

A grin slowly spread across Buck’s face as well. “Someone’s sending out a signal that’s interfering with the standard background signals.”

“Nailed it,” Blaster said, pushing the monitor away from her and standing up to grab a celebratory cup of coffee. “And Desant has been having a dry spell, apparently. I also got chatter telling me the last ship to hit Desant was almost three months back. Apparently they hit something big recently, so there’s going to be a couple of supply ships making a run.”

Buck nodded. “Then I suppose the people of Desant might be looking to rehire.”

“Quite,” Blaster responded as she poured the steaming black liquid into a mug. “Perhaps if said mercs actually want to be rehired, you should let me do the talking.”

Buck sniffed in mock defensiveness. “Hey, I’m nice to the peaceful folk. Harmless little puppy to them, y’ know.”

“Yeah, gently kick ya and I get to hear the whining for hours,” Blaster retorted.

“Then I’ll pick up a ball of yarn to distract you from i’ next time we’re at a store,” he shot back.

Location: Warp

Time: 0745, 6-3 GM, 1335 A.C.

Doran had checked and double-checked and triple-checked his gear by the time the technicians were ready to help Gear into her armor. Apparently Third Squadron had two other mercs acting as troopers under Gear, making up a small fireteam. Backed up by the rest of Third Squadron, the three frontliners would make a formidable force on most any battleground, especially ones where they could put the full abilities of their powered armor to use.

The rookie watched as the techies helped Gear into the suit. After the form-fitting jumpsuit that formed the foundation for the interface attachment, the interface relays themselves went on. A metallic spine was attached to her back, several diagnostic lights flicking to green as they linked up with the sensors surgically implanted into her spine. The spine then went live and several more diagnostic lights signaled that the feedback dampeners were now live; the suit would track and monitor her nervous system, allowing the armor itself to move with her body and enhance her motions without overextending her system, preventing her from injuring herself with the simple act of raising her hand. 

Once the interface was on and hot, the technicians began work on encasing Gear in a tank-like shell of metal armor, gel layers, and servos. The particular armor set they were working with had been stripped of most of the life support systems the suits were generally equipped with, but the parts most important in a firefight were still there. Gear moved over to what appeared to be a small cradle and sat, remaining still as the technicians worked.

Starting with the armor’s torso, the technicians worked their way out from there, first thighs, lower leg, and feet, then upper arms, forearms, and hands. Once everything but her helmet was on, the technicians ran one final battery of tests, and then fired up the armor’s fuel cells.

Gear finally moved in her seat, first making a fist with one hand and then rising. In the armor she was a full fifteen centimeters taller than before, and made for quite an imposing sight. The armor looked heavy, but it and the Felinus inside moved with an easy grace, like the suit was simply another skin. She attached the helmet magnetically to her hip and wandered over to Doran.

“Enjoying the view, newbie?” She grinned, her hand on the helmet-free hip.

Doran felt the tips of his ears warm slightly, and flattened them back against his head to try to hide it. “Ah, yes, actually. Never gotten to see someone suit up in one before.”

Gear rolled her shoulders, stretching out and ensuring the armor was snugly in place. The plates glided over and around each other easily, allowing her to keep full articulation. “Well I hope you’ve shot more people than you’ve seen put on suits. And I don’t mean in your tin can.”

“From what I hear those tin cans are the bread and butter of the Falcons,” Doran responded levelly, crossing his arms. Something smacked him firmly on the shoulder, jostling him.

“Aye, don’t let Gear get to ya,” Jorwyn said, his red eyes twinkling as he moved around Gear to get to an arms locker. “I mean she is saying this while wearing a tin can of her own.”

“And being the one in front of you, actually killing enemies with my hands,” she retorted good-naturedly.

Jorwyn stuck his forked tongue out at her as he opened the locker, dragging a fancy sniper rifle out from it and starting to run checks on it. “And I’m the one actually shooting straight while you paint walls.”

Location: Kara II

Time: 1023,7-3 GM, 1318 A.C.

Buck wandered into the spaceport and looked around. People coming off the shuttle giggled and laughed as they headed straight for the exit, pushing by him in their eagerness to get as far away from the stifling confines of their luxury liners as possible.

The Canis set his jaw and moved forward, pushing through the crowd easily, the tide of tourists flowing passed the mean looking being who most certainly wasn’t their tour guide.

As the crowd ebbed Buck took another look around, finally spotting who he was looking for, and feeling a slight punch to the gut.

The pup was small, no more than seven years old. If he didn’t know better then Buck would have thought the little one was his own; Same red-grey coat with similar fur patterning. The pup sat on a bench near the edge of the landing pad, looking a bit dejected, a bag held firmly in lap contained his only worldly possessions. Buck wandered over.

“Damien?”

The pup looked up, his eyes widening a bit, orange eyes staring dead into Buck’s. He didn’t say anything or even nod, and Buck knew that this was all the acknowledgement he was going to get. He crouched down onto one knee.

“My name’s Buck. I hear yer going to be staying with me.”

The pup nodded. Buck’s ear twitched. He’d never been good with kids. If only Shree weren’t busy...

“Well... ready to see home?”

Another nod, and the pup silently stood, tugging his bag on over his back.

Damien tagged along close behind Buck, eyes darting back and forth as they headed for the exit, tail held low to the ground.

“Oh, Mr. Buck,” the customs agent said as the duo approached. “An...” her eyes darted to the pup and back to Buck, her smile hardly wavering. “Unexpected arrival?”

“Something like tha’,” Buck said, looking down at Damien, who stared back at the two adults. The customs agent waved her hand, bringing up the relevant paperwork.

“Everything looks in order, just one new permanent resident,” she said as if going over a shipping manifest. “No identifiable diseases or anything otherwise communicable, in good health...” She waved again, dismissing the list. “Have a wonderful day, you two,” she said, still smiling.

“Gonna try,” Buck said as he turned towards the exit, Damien following behind hurriedly. The customs agent smiled the entire time.

Damien sniffed as they made their way outdoors, back to looking more than a bit somber. He didn’t even look up as Buck flagged down a taxi and they got in. Buck tapped in an address, and the automated hovercar took off.

It was an awkward ride down the streets, the mood in stark contrast to the sunny weather. White buildings zipped by the window, but Damien stared down at his bag, fiddling with a charm on it.

“What’s that?” Buck asked, deciding saying something was better than the tomb-like silence.

Damien jerked like he’d been slapped awake from a deep sleep, his hands reflexively clamping down around the charm, eyes locked on Buck. Where he’d been 

Buck raised an open hand, palm towards Damien. “Relax, I’ve no interest in taking i’ from ye.”

The pup slowly relaxed and looked back down at the bag, but his hands remained around the charm, covering it.

Buck leaned back in his seat, making sure not to look as if he was going to make a move for anything. “So... what is it?”

The pup shifted a bit in his seat, his feet not close to hitting the floor of the taxi.

“Was m’ sis’,” he murmured after a moment. Buck swallowed a lump in his throat.

“Ah,” was all he could say, and they lapsed into silence for the rest of the ride.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the taxi stopped, and the two Canii slid out of the vehicle, Damien’s eyes flicking about, taking in the view of the house. For Kara II it was relatively modest, but was still much bigger than any he’d seen before, built partially into the hill and far from the proper residential or commercial areas of the city proper.

“Come on, I’ll show ye yer room. Ye look tired, pup.”

“Damien!” a yell shattered the silence of the street.

Buck twisted reflexively as something heavy collided with his leg, realizing in shock that the pup had tried to tackle him by the leg.

“Damien Damien Damien, m’ name’s Damien!” the pup screamed, balling up his tiny fists and hitting Buck’s thighs as hard as he could.

Buck went down on one knee again, one hand reaching out to neatly catch one of the pup’s tiny wrists. “Alright, alright!” He said, but the little one didn’t stop, his one free hand striking feebly against Buck’s side.

“Damien, enough!” Buck yelled, his eyes flicking about. Thank goodness everyone was out of home or inside at this time of day, and for sound-proofing...

The pup struggled to break free as Buck wrapped his other arm around the smaller one, lifting him up and carrying him like a squirming sack of grain into the ground-level. He felt something clamp down on his ear right before a piercing pain.

With a grunt he sat down on the metal floor of the workshop, the pup still flailing wildly, bag forgotten near the entrance. He almost got loose as Buck reached up to pull the pup off his own ear, but the adult held on grimly.

“You can’t make me forget, I’m not lying!”

“Damien, stop!” He yelled again, but the pup was apparently having none of it. Buck reached up and managed to pry Damien’s teeth out of his ear and wrap him in a bear hug, keeping him pinned down while the pup yelled and screamed and flailed, trying desperately to fight. Buck grimaced and swallowed another lump that had risen in his throat, holding doggedly on, knowing nothing he could say or yell would help. All he could do was hold on.

What felt like several more hours passed before the pup apparently began to tire himself out, legs still kicking into now very sore, bruised spots on Buck’s legs. His arms didn’t swing with nearly the energy they had, and his struggles to get free eventually ceased, Damien finally going limp in Buck’s grasp.

Buck loosened his grip a little, letting the small, fuzzy bundle slump against him.

“Y’ back with me?” He murmured, and got a sob in response. Glancing down, he saw the tear tracks staining the pup’s face for the first time.

“Shhh, I’ve got ye,” Buck said as comfortingly as he could, pulling the pup into a hug. “Yer safe, yer safe.”

Damien didn’t struggle anymore, too tired to even think about fighting back. He just cried mournfully into Buck’s chest, his small body heaving, wracked with sobs.

Buck fought down a sigh of relief, feeling incredibly guilty at the thought. At least the pup wasn’t trying to kick in his legs anymore.

“Th-th-they k-k-k...” Damien stammered, trying to speak in between sobs.

Buck ran a hand over Damien’s head fur, smoothing it down. “I know, Damien, I know.” The little one seemed to calm a bit at that, trying to take a few deep, shuddering breaths.

“Th-they t-t-told me... the m-monsters-” he coughed and squeezed his eyes shut, rocking slightly in Buck’s grip. “W-weren’t r-r-r-real...”

Location: Hyperion Hub

Time: 0530, 5-40 GM, 1335 A.C.

Doran groaned as he rolled over, slowly coming to proper wakefulness. Eventually he sat up and stretched, feeling tired joints pop and crack. The flight back to Hyperion was still affecting him a couple of days later; Static massages or no, spending several days without moving your legs wasn’t healthy. The Felinus had spent the days since Third Squadrons’ return to the Hub making sure his muscles hadn’t atrophied. Much as people liked to laugh at fighter jockeys for doing their job entirely sitting down, they’d all still had to pass a drill sergeant at some point.

Doran rolled out of bed and stretched, loosening up his muscles a bit more, internally swearing to himself he’d never complain about living space on carriers again. Bunks like coffins...

Beep.

Doran glanced up from his stretching. Across the room the holodisplay on his desk had come to life, pinging softly about a message in his inbox. If it’d been a business message the noise would have woken him up immediately.

He straightened, still working the knots out of his shoulders as he stepped across the room and waved his hand, prompting the message to open.

“Hello my little dishna, I hope you are doing well...”

Doran jumped as the doorbell rang, and cursed as his tail fluffed up slightly. Continuing to mutter vile oaths under his breath, Doran waved his hand to dismiss the message for the moment, ran his hand over his tail to smooth it out a bit, and, after pulling on a shirt, opened the door. An instant later he realized he’d forgotten pants.

A Felinus colored white and speckled with black rosettes on the other side of the door gave Doran a quick look up and down. “... Ya always greet ladies in your skivvies?”

Doran felt the blood rush to his ears. Face burning, he turned to grab a pair of fatigues, feeling the other’s eyes boring into him from behind. “Sorry, Gear.”

“Always forget you mil-types don’t give a damn about proper attire this early in the morning,” Gear said as Doran tugged on the fatigues.

“Pants aren’t often deemed necessary this early,” Doran muttered as he straightened, tugging the belt tight around his waist.

Gear was leaning up against the door jam, her arms folded across her chest. “Then I hope ya don’t mind others staring at yar ass,” she said candidly, grinning as Doran’s ears brightened again. She laughed and straightened. “Come on, the bullhead wants us.”

Doran nodded and grabbed his old-fashioned flight jacket, now bearing the Arclite Falcon patch on the shoulder where the Commonwealth colors had been. “Could’ve just messaged me as usual.”

Gear shrugged. Her name didn’t come from any technical skill, but for the fact that the rosettes that marked her subspecies were rougher than usual, making them look more like gears. “Dunno. I just work here.”

“Job?”

Another shrug. “What else?”

Doran stayed silent after that. Clearly he wasn’t going to get any proper answer out of her.

A few moments later they’d passed by all the Falcons’ sleeping quarters and made it into Third Squadron’s main mess hall. Gear veered off towards the coffee machine while Doran went straight for the breakfast, grabbing some scrambled eggs and Harrion bacon strips.

“At least someone is awake,” Hezdor commented as Doran took a seat on the table itself near Jorwyn, the squad’s Kassai pilot. The reptilian scooted over a bit to let Doran sit down, eyeing his eggs.

“Now since we are all here, if not exactly conscious, I suppose we can begin,” Hezdor said, tapping at his datapad. In the middle of the mess hall a hologram sprang to life, displaying the head of a Rachas. The insectoid’s head rotated slowly in the air, mandibles and multi-faceted eyes a dull brown.

“This is the client and the hostage we’re getting back,” Hezdor said simply. “Je is being held hostage in one of the main factory buildings of a Janos facility on Hilden III. Our job is to extract them safely. Bonus if je is uninjured.”

Gear sat down next to Doran with a thud, downing what looked like half her mug of coffee in a single gulp. Doran winced; It was still steaming quite visibly.

“Well I guess I know why y’ woke me up for this, then,” Gear muttered.

“We will discuss the plan on the way,” Hezdor continued, ignoring Gear. “Janos wants this done fast. We leave in half an hour, bay three. Make sure you at least grab your weaponry.”

“I take it you’re a specialist, then?” Doran asked Gear. She shrugged.

“Close as th’ Falcons get,” she said before downing the rest of her coffee. She raised her voice. “At least more efficient at breaking down doors than some bull-headed arse.”

“That would be because I am smart enough to not bash my head against them.” Hezdor called back.

Gear chuckled and threw her coffee cup at him. He caught it deftly and set it on the counter. “Least I’m smart enough to not get into those coffins y’ call ships,” she retorted, then gave Doran a light smack on the chest. “Come on, let’s get y’ geared up.”

Doran’s ear twitched a bit at the smack, but he set his tray down and leaped up to follow Gear. “You not a pilot, then?”

She shook her head. “Nah, never was fond of the idea of jockeying. Gotta have at least one person good at kicking in doors, though.”

Doran nodded and followed along behind her, suddenly realizing he may be expected to be fighting in close quarters. Not the best place for him to be, far as he was concerned. “I’ll be staying behind you, then.”

Location: Felinus Arcturus

Time: 1155, 5-38 GM, 1335 A.C.

Sextus let out a yell as the heel of her palm smacked solidly into the off-balance acolyte’s chest. Her opponent’s breath rushed out of her in a whuff of air and she fell, gasping for breath.

Sextus straightened as the judge called a halt to the bout and the instructor turned to the rest of the prospective Acolytes and began talking about what mistakes the acolyte had made. The students, for their part, stared at their teacher with rapt attention. A few pairs of eyes, mostly the younger ones, flicked to look at Sextus. The older Felinus couldn’t blame them; It wasn’t often an Acolyte Ascendant was in their presence. She simply stared back, not moving as the instructor did his job.

Males were not common among the Valkyries, but Instructor Jeminis had been one of the fiercest warriors of the Order. Long since retired from combat service, he’d been teaching at the Hall of the Valkyrie since before Sextus had arrived on their doorstep. In fact he’d been the one to welcome her inside, offer her shelter, a bath, food, and, just a little later, purpose.

“Lost in thought, Sextus?”

Sextus started and whipped around to full face Jeminis. She inclined her head respectfully. She stood a full head and a half taller than him now, but she could never help but feel small in his presence. A quick glance to one side told her that classes were apparently on break for the moment as acolytes began to flee the classroom for the cafeteria. “Sorry, Brother Jeminis. Just thinking.”

The older cat smiled, a twinkle in his eye. Not matter how grey his fur had gotten, his age had never seemed to catch up with his mind nor youthful spirit. “You know that you’re supposed to leave the absent-minded thinking for old people like me, you know. Go on, I’m sure you’re hungry.”

“Just a bit, Brother.”

He rolled his eyes and gave her a prod in the side. “Then get on with you! I need to get back to my study.”

“Yes brother,” Sextus said, nimbly dodging a second prod and jogging for the door. She could almost feel the older Felinus roll his eyes as she jogged away.

Sextus slowed her pace as she passed through the door. She was thankful that she did, as there were still a few groups of Acolytes hanging around outside the instruction room, whispering to each other. Afternoon classes must be about to start; All of these ones were fresh Acolytes, all young and bright-eyed, only a few coming up past Sextus’ belly.

There was a direct path to the Ascendants’ dining quarters through the Hall of the Valkyrie, but Sextus decided to take the slightly more scenic route.

The Hall was vaguely pyramid shaped: Five sides to the building, all converging to a flat plateau at the top where a bronze statue of the Valkyrie stood for all nearby to see. While not the tallest building nearby in the least, it was still stood out the most. Most skyscrapers were simple commercial ones: Plastic and metal siding with not much interesting to look at. The Hall, however, was more artistically arranged. Where each of the five walls met at the top of the Hall stood statues depicting the five founding members of the Order, the pillars that they stood on spiraling down towards the ground. Each of these pillars was actually a combined elevator and staircase shaft, allowing those inside to move up and down at will. Pathways connected the pillars both internally and externally. Some of these pathways were open to the air, and it was generally considered a proving challenge among the initiates (and only the initiates) to go up to the highest open-air walkway and stare down at the ground three kilometers below them. The statue of the Valkyrie herself stood erect, an arm held out in a welcoming gesture. She faced down the large boulevard that swept out and away from the Hall, an obvious and imposing sight for anyone traveling towards the temple or looking back at it.

Sextus made her way to the exterior of the Hall, picking one of the open-air walkways to walk down.

The wind buffeted her as she stepped outside. Sextus made her way to the midpoint of the walkway and stopped, looking down the boulevard leading away from the Hall.

The Hall of the Valkyrie on Felinus Arcturus was set at the end of the longest Boulevard on the planet, where foot traffic mingled on the ground while air cars glided high above them, littering the skyline. Even looking up, Sextus could still see the air cars zipping about a dozen kilometers above her head. In the distance a more powerful rocket roared to life, and a large ship soared into the sky, heading for some unknown planet.

Sextus watched it going, allowing herself a moment of wishful thinking. She’d never been off-planet before, having been born on the planet of her ancestors and raised by their religious order. Someday, perhaps, the Warrior that oversaw her training and progress would assign her to a Sister to complete her training. Her heart soared at the thought.

After a moment Sextus collected herself and turned to continue on her way to the lower floor that contained the dining halls. She passed several other acolytes on her way, nodding respectfully as she did so. One very small kit almost tripped over herself, muttered a hasty apology, and continued running on to her instruction. Probably studying our bylaws, Sextus mused as she entered the dining hall. Unless the schedule has changed that much in the past few years.

There were significantly fewer Acolyte Ascendants than there were Acolytes, so their dining hall was significantly smaller than the main ones, but also more comfortable. Always much easier to control the temperature in a smaller place with fewer hyperactive people in it.

Sextus gathered up her meal from the long table set up against the wall. A kitchen staffer replaced a bowl of tubers as she took the last one. Through the hole in the wall where the kitchen was Sextus could actually gaze into another of the main dining halls where the Acolytes ate. The kitchen was situated in the wall between the two halls so that the staff could better access the long tables that held the food.

Gathering up her food, Sextus double-checked that it was indeed her usual nutritionally balanced plate and took a seat.

“Sextus,” another Ascendant said as she sat.

“Ara,” Sextus responded. Ara was the same age as Sextus, having joined on the same day. Ara was slightly shorter than herself, her fur a soft white color striped with black, and her eyes an equally gentle green. Many an opponent had mistaken her soft appearance for actual softness.

She heard a soft titter from the other end of the table and turned her head. Three other Ascendants averted their gazes, returning to their murmured conversation. Ara shook her head as they turned their attention back to their meals. “Not worth it,” she murmured, and tucked into her food.

Sextus breathed in the aroma of her meal and began to eat. Tubers for most vitamins along with the steak made of Harrion beasts to provide the minerals and aid in digesting the vegetables. Cooked rare, of course. She savored the taste of the flesh in her mouth, chewing and swallowing in small bites.

“Where is Milana?” Sextus asked partway through her meal. Ara looked up.

“Packing her bags. She’s being assigned to a Sister in the Verti Cluster.”

Sextus frowned. Milana was a strong fighter to be sure, but she had issues keeping her nose clean. And she hadn’t been at the Hall as long as Sextus had. “I see...”

Ara’s delicate composure melted a bit as she dug into the sweet tubers, practically inhaling them. Sextus had always enjoyed them, but the Northern Felinus had always had a special fondness for the roots.

“You need to stop being such a sour-puss, you know.”

Sextus blinked as she looked up at Ara. “Pardon me?”

Ara leaned back, setting her cutlery down. “It’s not like we’ll be waiting long for assignment, you know. Milana and ourselves’re the senior Ascendants here now. Our time will come too.”

Sextus nodded, gazing at her empty plate for a minute. She heard a soft titter again, and all of a sudden she didn’t feel as comfortable in the dining hall as she had before. She stood, picking up her plate.

“Come on, we should go say our farewells to Milana.”

Location: Skraz-Skrrz

Time: 0756, 5-36 GM, 1335 A.C.

The quills along her spine rose on end and quivered gently, showing the Skrrz’s displeasure as she stalked down the palace corridor. To either side of her drones worked at the walls, hewing away at the raw stone with laser tools, causing the normally sickly green glow of the palace to be tinged red.

Chla’Tl hated lasers. No doubt they were useful, but she hated the burning, untouchable light.

Her displeasure was noted by the drones, who did not outwardly react except to fold their own spinal quills against their backs in meek deference, a silent apology for disturbing the Magistrum.

Despite her surfacing hatred, Chla’Tl did not hasten along to get away from the construction. After all, even the mindless of the Skrrz would notice such things, and then there was the danger that someone thinking would...

The guards to either side of the door bowed deeply as she strode by, the doors swinging open hard enough to cause dust to stir in the corridor. She didn’t turn her head, but her numerous eyes made note of their appearance. Some dust had settled, normally a gross infraction of their code, but understandable given the circumstances. Otherwise: perfection. Their armor gleamed, and the shot-slingers they carried were held alertly in their arms. Harmless for the moment, but ready for any trouble. Both Soldiers were the epitome of what all of their breed should aspire to be: pure, durable, strong.

The Magistrum turned her attention back into the room, which was rounded, built of the same grey stone as the corridor. Here, however, the room was already completed, the stone smooth, bronze mosaics covering half the walls that reached high up over their heads. This was the first room of the palace’s inner sanctum, the place that only the Magistra were allowed.

Most everyone was here now. Three other Magistrums, all, of course, female, sat at the far side of the rounded stone table, their dendrites twitching silently as they conversed. One was clad in blue, another brown, and another orange.

“Magistra,” Chla’tl said as she sat. The other three broke off their conversation, turning to bow their heads towards her, mandibles clicking as they acknowledged her Mind.

“Magistrum Chla’tl,” the one garbed in blue silks, Magistrum Cha’tu, said. “We are still waiting on two more of our Magistra. There has been a movement.”

The way Magistrum Cha’tu said ‘movement’ cause Chla’tl to click her own mandibles in feigned confusion. “Movement?”

The brown-robed Magistrum was about to answer when the doors opened again, and the last two Magistrum walked in, one in robes of purple and the other in a color that stands outside what most species can comprehend, but to Chla’tl’s eyes appears to be a mix of sea-green and magenta.

As one, all six of of the Magistra bowed their heads, the last two taking their seats. As they did fiber optics inlaid in the stone table lit up, forming a hexagon with each Magistrum having an edge. Inside the hexagon a hologram slowly rose from the table, displaying the Skrrz Collective’s heraldry, along with their three primary planets. After a few seconds the heraldry faded, to be replaced by a representation of a portion of the galaxy.

Chla’tl recognized it immediately: The known planets of the aliens’ collective their Soldiers had been engaged with for several cycles now.

If nothing else, Skrrz meetings were very down to business affairs. The magenta-green Magistrum spoke first, her voice filling the chamber.

“Chla’tl, you have been instructed to build a proper Soldier fleet to deal with these vermin once and for all.”

Once more Chla’tl felt the quills on her spine to stand up. She looked across at Cha’tu. “The ‘movement’ you spoke of.”

Cha’tu’s dendrites moved away from the center of her body, indicating the affirmative to Chla’tl.

The magenta-green robed Magistrum ignored this. “Their forces have proven more resilient than most. The Collective is calling on you to break them.”

Chla’tl turned her attention back to the magenta-green Magistrum. “Tell me, how are they not crushed yet already? They are but beasts of simple flesh and small minds. A few synapse clan should be more than enough to overrun them entirely.”

Magenta-green’s mandibles clicked, her spines shaking in mild anger, but not at Chla’tl. “It has been seen that they augment themselves with technology. One of their soldiers has proven to be capable of killing dozens of ours before falling. They are made of dozens of species, making their ranks even more impure. I have seen it.”

Chla’tl’s spinal quills only didn’t stand on end as she took in how serious it must be if a Magistrum was using first-person pronouns. Instead she hissed. “Then it shall be a glorious extermination indeed.”

“You are being given full control of their eradication,” Magenta-green said. “Deal with them however you see fit. The Magistra are to assist you if need be.”

“I will need access to at least three Forge worlds,” Chla’tl said, her conscious already reaching out. One of the drones outside shook his head as another consciousness crept into its brain. Chla’tl leaned back in her chair as she set about using it to her tasks. The brain was dumb, empty of mind, but even simple brains were good for something.

“You will have twelve.”

Both her current brains came to a halt at that. Instead of staring at Magenta-green, however, Chla’tl focused her attention on the hologram. “... That will suffice.”

“It should. May your cleansing be swift. You are relieved from your normal duties. Leave us, and go with a clear mind.”

Chla’tu stood, her presence at the meeting no longer necessary, and inclined her head. “May your minds be clear, Magistra.”

Outside the drone’s brain worked, calculating sums, totals necessary to build the fleet Chla’tl would need to crush the aliens.

Location: Unnamed System

Time: 0755, 5-26 GM, 1335 A.C.

Buck jumped slightly when the Sister tapped him on the shoulder. He turned slightly to look at her. She must have read the look on his face as she didn’t bother speaking, simply tapping his harness.

After a second he understood what she meant and indicated the couch bolted up against one wall of the common room. She nodded, and both her and her brother made took seats at either end of the couch, pulling flight harnesses around them and clicking them into place. Buck turned back to the screens, staring unblinkingly at the sensor screen.

Slowly the giant ship moved away. Buck watched a yellow circle slowly slide off the screen... and ceased to overlap with his ship.

Without speaking he grabbed the throttle and ramped it up to max, simultaneously pulling the flight wheel back into his belly. The Sister and Blaster both let out slight yelps as they were pressed back into their seats, gravitational compensators not quite compensating for the massive acceleration. Buck reached up and flicked a switch, and the warp drive began to spin up.

The Black Adder rocketed up through the atmosphere, making probably the fastest exit trajectory the small, remote planet had ever known.

As soon as the Adder was free of the gravity well Buck reached up again and hit a different switch, and the ship left reality behind.

***

A few minutes later it reentered real space and reoriented as Blaster went to work, calculating proper warp coordinates for the nearest refueling depot.

Buck leaned back in his chair, staring out into the stars.

“What was that?” He heard the Sister ask. Blaster shook her head and looked at Buck.

“Aliens. Enemies. Don’ know.” Buck glanced over at Blaster’s screen and started plugging in the new coordinates that would actually get them to where they were going.

“Mysterious aliens that can build a ship that size?” Blaster asked as the Adder reoriented, and the warp drive began to spin up again. “Does the Commonwealth even have anything that big?”

Buck reached up and hit the switch again. The cockpit window filmed over as the ship reentered the null void of warp space “Big galaxy.” He didn’t even have to look over at her to guess her expression.

Abruptly he slapped his palm to the center of his chest, where the harness straps met. They sprang apart and retreated back to either side of his chair as he stood and headed towards the rear of the ship.

“Where’re you going?” Blaster asked, turning as he went, her tone quite clearly indicating she wasn’t done asking questions.

“Shower. Was a long fight.” And he wasn’t in the mood for answering.

The bathroom door slid shut behind him, and Buck reached up to undo the front of his shirt. The buttons didn’t come apart immediately, and he looked down at his hands, realizing they were visibly shaking.

His lips curled back in a silent snarl, and he made a fist, willing the hand to stillness.

Eventually it did, and he proceeded with the process of proper hygiene. Even after all this time it was surprising how much blood could get soaked into fur.

Despite being clean afterwards, he felt no more relaxed or focused than he had before. Thankfully the Twins had disappeared back into the cargo bay by the time he left the bathroom, making a beeline for his bunk.

Blaster caught him at the door. “Buck, what were those?”

“I did say I don’t know.”

She folded her arms, clearly not buying it. “You said to keep an eye on that spike on the prow to make sure it didn’t start glowing orange. You’ve seen it before.”

He was silent for a few seconds, one hand reaching out to open the door. “I have.”

Blaster looked at him expectantly. “So?”

“An’ the last time I saw i’ I did the same thing we did today.” Buck shook his head and waved his hand over the door control. It slid open, and he pushed passed Blaster. “I don’t know what i’ is. Tha’s the truth.”

Her eyes followed him into the room. She shifted a bit, leaning against the door frame just enough to prevent it from sliding shut. “But you have seen it in action before,” she pressed.

Buck turned to face her. “Look, all today did was prove I’m not fucking crazy. Now please, I need sleep.”

Blaster’s ear twitched, but she moved away from the door without another word, heading for her own bunk. The door slid shut, and Buck slowly let his fist unclench. His hand was shaking again.

He stared at his bed for a minute before scrambling under the covers. The lights automatically dimmed as he settled in for the night, and the energy spent in the day’s events having finally catching up to him. He hadn’t been lying to Blaster; he really did need to sleep.

Location: Unnamed System

Time: 0721, 5-26 GM, 1335 A.C.

“And you’re sure you’re fine with the cargo bay?”

The Sister nodded. “Yes. They’re generally quieter than main living areas.” The Brother nodded in agreement.

Blaster frowned, crossing her arms. “Hope you don’t mind us wandering down here now and then. It’s where what exercise equipment we have is folded up.

The albino Canis grinned at her. “Then we hope you don’t mind us coming up to the kitchen area for food and shower,” the Sister said.

“Fair enough,” Blaster said, turning and scrambling up the ladder. As she clambered up she heard a soft ‘thump’, followed immediately by a hum. Buck had apparently started up the Black Adder’s engines. About time. Between all the thanks and corpse checking the charms of the small planet had worn themselves down on Blaster. The prisoners had been safely away for a while now, having hit warp about half an hour ago.

“They insisting on staying down there?” Buck spun about in his pilot’s seat as she reached the top of the ladder.

“Yeah,” she responded, heading for the coffee machine and the sweet embrace of caffeinated beverages. At least coffee wouldn’t give her any shit.

“Then we’re out of here once the engines are spun up properly.” He rose and tilted his head at her as she poured out a cup of coffee. “How’s yer shoulder?”

Blaster lifted her arm experimentally and spun it around, working the shoulder joint plenty. “Doing fine.” And it really was. First-aid cream was mixed with all sorts of antibiotics and painkillers these days in order to deaden any hits. She’d feel the burn again sometime tomorrow, but by that time the wound would have healed to the point where it wouldn’t impair her.

“Good. Least i’ wasn’t in yer actually useful arm.”

Blaster turned to face Buck and raised her good arm, balling the hand into a fist, her lips curling up into a devilish grin. “I do guarantee that this one still works fine, jerkass.”

Buck responded by raising both hands. “An’ both of mine still work. Which one of us do ye think i’s gonna win this match?”

“Hah!” Blaster let out a bark of laughter, giving him a playful punch on his shoulder as she walked by him. “You’d like that, huh?”

Blaster took her seat in the copilot’s chair, setting the coffee cup gingerly down in the usual spot. The contextual magnet sealed around the bottom, and the lid automatically closed so that coffee wouldn’t go everywhere in case Buck had to pull any of his usual stunts.

She looked up as Buck returned to his seat with his own cup of coffee, tapping idly at a control screen. He stared intensely at a sensor readout, taking in the info... silently. And the insides of his ears were pink.

“... Buck?” Blaster did her best to suppress a giggle.

“Mmm?”

“Are you blushing?”

“... No,” Buck said flatly, turning his head away from her to glare at another screen.

Blaster turned back to her work, not holding back a chuckle now. “Was it the comment about the wrestling, or... “

“Shut up.”

“Come on now, it’s not like we’re-”

“Seriously, shut up.”

Blaster turned back to face Buck, her mouth closing as she heard the tone of his voice. And then his face. His ears were no longer pink, the blood having drained from them. He was leaning forward in his seat, staring out of the cockpit.

She turned to look out the cockpit, and the breath caught in her throat.

Clouds had moved in to blanket the sky, which had turned black as night. In the center of it all, floating silently, was a colossal black shape.

While she could not see any engines or windows or anything approaching normal ship hardware, Blaster was sure she was looking at the largest ship she’d ever seen. And that was what they could see of it.

The mass of metal was misshapen, ugly, and twisted. Here there rounded, bulbous nacelles or pods, here there were jagged spikes, and here there was nothing but smooth, black hull. Easily more than two dozen kilometers long, the giant ship floated silently through the atmosphere on giant unseen engines. Blaster had thought there’d be a hum from their propulsion. Hell, there had to be in order to keep a ship that size afloat in any kind of atmosphere. From the ‘prow’ of the ship, and she was only guessing it was the prow as it was the leading tip of the ship as it moved, there extended a long spike of pitch black metal.

The only solace they could take was that the ship wasn’t moving towards them.

Buck reached out and flicked a switch, and all their sensor screens went dark. In a hushed whisper, he said “if ye see tha’ giant spike on the prow starting to glow, yell out. And strap in.”

Blaster nodded, her eyes still locked on the unknown invader. She moved almost robotically as she snapped the chair harness into place, some primal instinct in her telling her to not make any sound, to only move when she had to.

It continued to move along, almost as if it were searching for something.

Blaster leaned back in her chair, she and Buck both breathing silently through their mouths as they waited for it to pass.