L A N C E R

Boundary Garden

Miguel Lopez
Massif Press
  
 
 
 

Boundary Garden 
Before 5010u
Stories from ​Lancer 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Miguel Lopez, 2019   
1.0 Confirmation   
 
Just beyond the wide antechamber doors, the muffled cheers from the Review of Aun Ist beat like a nervous 
heart.  
Neeraja fixed her Aunic disc behind her head. Four hands across, the flat, circular electrum plate 
hovered in place. Majestic. An honor like no other. She brushed smooth the front of her white dress 
uniform. 
A small door, gilded, crusted in crown molding, opened next to the larger set before her. A person in 
crisp robes stepped through. Older, a spray of white hair around their temples.  
Neeraja smiled. 
“Daughter,” her patria’s whisper carried in the high-ceilinged space. “How are you?” 
“I feel like I’m going to be sick,” Neeraja said. “With excitement — I’m nervous.” She reached up to 
adjust her disc, moving it just a little. “How many are out there?”  
“Four. With you it makes five.” Her patria walked to her, took her hands in theirs. 
“A good number,” Neeraja nodded. “And my Ofanim?” 
“It is one to be proud of.” Her patria dipped their head. “Beyond that, I cannot say.” 
The antechamber door opened again, and another robed figure leaned in.  
“Sister,” they whispered. “We are about to begin.”  
Neeraja stepped forward. Halted. Reached out, touched her patria’s shoulder.  
“You are blessed” her patria said. They reached up and grabbed her hand. Held it tight. “And this will 
end. There will be peace.” 
“An end?” Neeraja asked.  
‘An end to our wandering.” They moved Neeraja’s hand, balled it into a fist and held it between them, 
kissed it. “Aun, ascendant.”  
Neeraja felt tears at the corner of her eyes.  
—  
One last time, the doors to the antechamber swung open, and the wash of crowd, choir, and trumpet rolled 
over them. Penitents crawled forward, unrolling a rug before them, their heads hidden under peaked hoods 
of gold. Opposite the long Review stood her Ofanim. It was perfect, shining silver and white. 
The Review, an open-air arcade, was lined with stands brimming with revelers, seething with life. Soft 
white and pink cherry blossom petals fell like snow from the gondolas suspended from the high mosaic 
ceiling, carrying party functionaries and temple officers of notable rank. Light, blessed light from Aun Ist 
and her sister, Aun Yaa, shimmered the air.  
It had rained earlier in the morning, and the world Neeraja could see between the Review’s columns was 
a calico palette of bruised sky and sunset rose. There would be rainbows over the city.  
It was Confirmation, the holy day, and even the light had worn its finest robes.  
Neeraja heard happy conversation and holy chattering from everywhere, echoing above the crowd from 
the thousands of recessed speakers that dotted the Review. Her patria stepped aside and bowed, swept their 
arm towards the waiting Ofanim. Penetints finished rolling the rug to Neeraja’s bangled bare feet. At her 
side stood the other Chosen who would be honored — finally — today. Neeraja walked, leading them, 
trumpets and drums marked her approach across the thick carpeting.  

1 
 The Ofanim’s armor caught the light and reflected it, a mirror to the setting sun. To stand so close and 
then have to wait was an agony of moments: from some distant observation box, the Glory See cried out the 
new Chosen’s names, and one by one they stepped forward to enter their Ofanim.  
Neeraja heard hers, and she moved through a dream.  
The Ofanim crouched for her, its core opening to reveal the gimballed throne inside its cockpit. ​Her 
throne, its chamber suffused with soft red light and the dim glow of instrument panels. As Neeraja stepped 
forward, that soft red light coalesced into a humanoid form.  
Another — like her but made from light, captured — The Ofanim’s soul. It dipped and bowed, 
sweeping an open hand towards the open cockpit.  
“Enter, my Chosen.” The soul spoke. It looked to her and smiled, warm.  
Neeraja did as she was bade, ducking into the cockpit. She turned and sat, settling into the throne as it 
settled around her. Perfect comfort. Her Aunic disc melted, cold, around her head, forming her helm. It was 
a thought, a command interpreted as she formed it — Her Ofanim stood, its chassis sealing. For a moment, 
the cockpit was dark but for the soft crimson safelight.  
Then, with a flicker, the world appeared around her in perfect clarity. It was as if she sat on her throne 
suspended in air, one with the soul of her Ofanim. She grinned, she couldn’t help it.  
“Core is stable,” her Soul muttered in her ear. “Subjective pairing complete. Telemetry nominal. Motor 
control nominal. Secondary and tertiary systems are nominal. When ready, you may call up weapon system 
requisition forms — though you do not need to be armed just yet.” Her Soul paused. “You may also name 
me.” 
Neeraja raised her arm. Her Ofanim raised its arm as well. They were as one. She looked down at the 
priests who moved about her Ofanim’s legs, blessing it with holy waters and oils.  
“In time,” Neeraja said. Today was her day: her Confirmation, the day she became a pilot. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

2 
1.1 “...And All Glories.” 
 
 
Bijan Ardakan, Administrator, sat crouched over a small, hammered silver table on a flat, rainswept roof. He 
let the rain splash into his coffee. The rain cooled the brew. Watered down the concentrate. Gave it delicacy. 
His grey suit was only wool, and it did its best against the drizzle. He checked his watch. It counted down.   
 
This would be his last cup of coffee for a long time.  
—  
“Diplomacy wins worlds.” 
Bijan was a child when his mentor told him this.  
“Never turn to the easy way. You build nothing the easy way.” 
Bijan stacked blocks in perfect towers.  
“Good Bijan. I only want you ever to build.”   
—  
Worlds divided by words. The word for ​world​ is whatever the mighty says it is.  
Bijan liked to write in pencil, and he had snapped his last in a rare fury. Fifty years of life on this world, 
of delicate construction and agreements in pencil first, then pen, and it had come to this. 
War. Bitter failure. Taken in at smoldering lazerpoint — ​hardlight​ they called it. Bijan knew enough of 
weapons to know that they were right to give it a new name. 
Still, he must speak to them. He had no choice. He was a builder. 
—  
“They have not obeyed,” the emissary celebrants muttered and shook their heads. “They refuse to be 
saved. Heathens. They spat in the face of holy Metat, and so the world must be made clean.” It was all they 
said when they looked up from their holy text. Their tenacity was impressive and absolute.  
Bijan ignored them, listened to Solh whispering to him though his aurals.  
“Fifteen now. And a sixteenth. That makes an estimated hundred and sixty thousand evacuated. Shuttle 
seventeen is currently loading. I place departure at 0200, Aunic KKV impact at 0230. We cannot save 
everyone, sir.”  
And the Navy? ​Bijan subtexted back. Imperceptible motions of the throat and eye.  
“The ​Yalta​ is holding in the projected path,” Solh whispered. “Their TacComm… does not predict 
tactical success.” 
How bad?​ Bijan ignored the Ascendants in the room with him. The cold, dead air. The monsoon 
building outside. Bijan closed his eyes. He was losing.  
—  
Bijan strode across the tarmac, holding his coat closed to the lash of rain and thruster exhaust.  
“She can carry a hundred, maybe two.” The pilot who walked alongside him spoke with a clipped 
accent. Somewhere Proximal.  
“And if you leave the cavalry behind?” Bijan shouted over the shuttle’s idling howl.  
The pilot balked. She looked to the shuttle, at the squad of marines hurrying to load their gear.  
“I will tell them,” Bijan said. “I will give the order.” 
The pilot’s shoulders dropped, relieved. Bijan left her to her shuttle.  

3 
 The marines stopped loading their gear as Bijan walked over to them.  
“I am re-assigning you,” Bijan said. “Pursuant to Union Administrative Code 3, to assist in the defense 
and evacuation of this world.” 
“We’re not a combat unit. These guns,” their sergeant gestured with his helm. “They’re just flashlights. 
Comms lasers, for training.” 
Bijan set his jaw. “You have access to my licenses. Print whatever you need, and do it fast.” 
—  
The whispers that followed Bijan through the holdout trench were reverent — he was the Grey Man, and 
none of the Revolutionary Guard had seen him this close. Some had even doubted his existence. They 
reached out to him, touched the hem of his grey overcoat.  
 
He would see them off this world. He would see them free.   
—  
Later, Bijan crouched between the legs of a CRG Saladin, nauseous. The stasis field pricked pins and needles 
through him. The night was still and warm. Behind, the orange glow of the last lights of the city. It would 
be the first target. 
The sergeant whispered into his comms, though he did not need to. “Look to the horizon. The sun rises 
there in two and a half hours. We make it to day and we’ll be alright.” 
A cry from somewhere down the line — above them a new star had burst into life. Night turned to day 
for an instant, and then faded.  
“That was the ​Yalta​,” Solh murmured in Bijan’s ear. “All hands lost. KKV impact in moments. Aunic 
landers crowd the sky.”  
The city’s guns began to fire, the cloth-tear rip of anti-air rounds followed the light, seconds behind.  
“Shield your eyes,” the amplified voice from the Saladin chassis.  
Bijan did.  
A red-pink flash, but no heat.  
—  
“How much farther?” 
Bijan looked down. A young militia trooper marched at his side. “By tonight,” he said. 
“And it is safe there?” 
“We will see. But I do hope.” 
—  
Bijan, his coat thrown over his shoulder and sleeves rolled, walked the perimeter. Two chassis had made it. 
Hundreds of militia troopers. This was Union ground, for the moment. Solh, cast in-body, walked beside 
him, tall in a militia subaltern. She carried a heavy rifle, and her armor was black as night.  
“It has been a while, Bijan,” Solh said. “Terrible to meet this way.” 
“Yes,” Bijan agreed. “But it is good to see you again.” 
Solh nodded. The frame she cast in did not have a face. “I am safe,” she said, before Bijan could ask. “Off 
world. Hidden, still.”  
“Good,” Bijan said, and let out a sigh. A great weight lifted off of him. At least one of his friends might 
live through this. His next order sat like glass in his throat. “I need you to go dormant, Solh.” 
Solh nodded. “Of course. And I will listen for your word,” She said.  

4 
 Bijan patted her back, cold wet alloy and damp cloth wrappings. Not how he wanted to remember her, 
but, alas, fate. “Don’t let them make a homunculus out of me,” he said, voice light. “Or if they do, make me 
young and handsome.”  
The NHP laughed as best it could with the militia subaltern’s vocal relay. Two nearby militia troopers 
gave Bijan and Solh a startled glance — laughter was an odd thing to hear at the end of the world.  
—  
Never bring your people the gun, this Bijan’s mentor had told him. A weapon is a betrayal. It does not mean 
strength: it means fear. Coffee means strength. To sit a king at your table, and win a world through words.  
 
Bijan, never the best — but kind, and never without hope — tried his best.  
—  
The Warpriest walked through the ruins of the profane temple, a sweet cloth pressed to their nose. Behind, 
a young acolyte hurried. The boy read the Word, so that the Warpriest’s ears would not suffer the crackle of 
burning dead.  
The fight had been quick and without glory. An unexpected prize awaited him: The Grey Man, held by 
two manquellers. 
—  
“Grey. What are you? What plane do you call home?” The Warpriest dictated to their translator, who 
dutifully spoke in the ​kurr-fah​’s edged, blocky tongue. When the Grey Man spoke back, the Warpriest’s 
acolytes called out the holy Word, loud enough that the translator needed to lean in to hear the Unionite’s 
repeated speech.  
“I have told you already,” the translator conveyed. “My name is Bijan Ardakan. I am the Administrator 
of the worlds in this system, and I demand to— ” 
“You twist my words,” The Warpriest snapped. An inquisition then. “I said: what are you, demon?” 
“I am human, like you.”  
“No.”   
—  
The Warpriest watched his manquellers drag the unconscious Unionite away. He took another sniff of his 
sweet cloth.  
Another world free from the Other, who held all corrupted things in its grasp. The Warpriest gave a 
prayer in thanks to Metat for this success, and for the honor of the task. A great cleansing, to sweep away 
the yoke of world-thieves.  
“Sir,” a manqueller at his side. “The battlescape is alight. Calls for reinforcements above Cornucopia 
City. The fleetmasters report dark ships sighted off the Mendicant Reef: they are coming.” 
The Warpriest nodded, and sent the manqueller away. “Acolyte,” they said to a nearby retainer. “I wish 
to retire to my ship. Send for my commanders. I require to be heard.” 
The acolyte nodded, and stepped aside to send out a flurry of commands. All around him, a holy 
cacophony: manquellers hurrying in twos and fours, Ofanim lumbering beyond. Overhead hovered defense 
patrols and HALO discs, their deep engines shuddering the earth as they passed. Over all hung the broad 
gold panel of the Orbital, visible above the sky even during this day.  
The Warpriest took in the holy cacophony.  
To war, they smiled, and all glories.  
    

5 
1.2​​A Field in Space 
 
Lorenzo sat on the low wooden dock, his feet bare in the cool, clear stream. The water was fine and the day 
was warm. He ate a pomegranate and waited for the others to join him in legionspace.  
Where had this place been? He looked over the rolling plains, the amber susurrus of grain and grass. 
Beyond, low mountains described a range, blue gradient rising to dark clouds of rain shadow. No world he 
had ever visited. A place of clean sky. He wondered if you could see the stars at night. 
Footsteps on the dock behind him shook Lorenzo from his reverie. He turned to see Tello, grim and tall 
in his wool overcoat, left sleeve pinned up to his shoulder.  
“Lorenzo,” Tello greeted the Legion. “Why did you choose this place?” 
Lorenzo stood, brushing his pants clean of the dock’s dust. He embraced Tello, clapping him on the 
back. “Good to see you, old man.”  
“And you,” Tello said, looking past Lorenzo at the pastoral scene beyond. The plains moved like 
autumn watercolor, purple and gold. 
“I was just thinking,” Lorenzo popped a handful of pomegranate ampules into his mouth, savoring the 
tart, acidic taste. “I have never been to a world like this.” 
“This is my home,” Tello grunted. “Cornucopia. This is my memory.”  
“Is it?” Lorenzo looked around. He chuckled. “Must have been before I ever got there. Did 
pomegranates grow on Cornucopia? There’s a tree upriver a ways, if you want one.” Lorenzo waved towards 
the tree, but it was lost somewhere behind the bend. 
“This is what Cornucopia looked like before the revolution.” Tello said. He reached out and took a 
small handful of ampules. “Fruit was for the King and his court.” 
“A beautiful land.” Lorenzo muttered.  
Tello didn’t respond. He stood. “Who else is coming?”  
“Commander Mayura Song. Union.” Lorenzo sat back down on the dock. “Her battlegroup was 
in-system before the Aun destroyed the gate. You know — the ​Yalta​, Bijan's world.” 
Tello frowned. "I am aware. A battlegroup is not enough to stop this attack.” 
“No,” Lorenzo said. He finished the last of the pomegranate and dropped the rind into the stream. The 
water carried it away. “Certainly not enough.” 
Footsteps through the brush. Tello and Lorenzo looked up, across the stream. An officer in Union blues 
pushed through the grass, picking her way across the ground on the other bank.  
“Your bridging is sloppy, Lorenzo. We’ve let you run too long.”   
“Commander Song, welcome,” Lorenzo waved. “This is Tello, of Cornucopia. He fought during the 
Autumn Revolution.” 
Song had a pair of junior officers and a ship’s NHP in tow. They all saluted. “With our side?” Song 
asked.  
“With my side,” Tello said.  
“Yes,” Lorenzo said. “How much time do you have, Song?” 
The NHP whispered into Song’s ear.  
“Minutes,” Song said. “There is a detachment of Aunic ships in pursuit — they are trying, but they 
cannot breach this connection. Their hardlight cannons are charged and nearing firing range.” 

6 
 “Ain’t that a helluva situation,” Lorenzo said. “Let’s keep this brief — Attend.” A projection coalesced 
above the water between the two groups. It appeared solid, real, a slice of the galaxy in miniature.  
“Two days ago, an Aunic fleet bolted into Cornucopia's blink gate.” Lorenzo began. “And that’s 
literally ​into​ it: the station NHP registered roughly a thousand transponder contacts piercing its PDC 
perimeter moments before they collided with the station.”  
Lorenzo pulled a cup of coffee from thin air. “Commander Song’s battlegroup was already in-theater, 
responding to the incident on Bijan’s World,” Lorenzo said, nodding to Song.  
“Our CAP flagged the incoming fleet by its plasma cone,” Song continued. “We were able to disengage 
from the station before the martyr ships impacted. We lost a significant amount of ships there — the ​Yalta 
came later.”  
The battlescape projection highlighted a tight arrow of ships ejecting from the collapsing blink station. 
Song’s survivors. Smaller groups scattered in twos and threes, breaking in every direction, using drifting 
sections of the blink station as cover. Some ships, tethered to the station and unable to disentangle 
themselves, remained and engaged the approaching mass of the Aunic fleet’s opening salvo. Their shields 
flared, overloaded by kill-clouds slamming into them.  
“Stop playback.” Song was formal, curt. “Thirty seconds before I have to cut connection, Lorenzo. The 
point, please.” 
“The Aun aren’t probing.” Lorenzo said. “This is a full-scale attack. With the gate down, any Union 
response is on approach at relative speed: we’re on our own for the next few years. I have theater control 
through my omni connection, but there’s only so much I can do with it. You two need to coordinate an 
immediate defense, I can effect that. QED.”  
“My battlegroup still has operational capability,” Commander Song spoke quickly, her voice tense, 
level. Her form was fraying around the edges. Something was breaking through the secure connection, or 
assailing it enough to render it imperfect. “I can spare a company of chassis — D Company, aboard the ​Loa​. 
My orders are clear, given the scenario.” 
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow. He looked back to Tello. 
“Cornucopia began wartime conscription after Bijan’s world fell,” Tello said. “But our pilot corps isn’t 
up to strength. A company would go a long way in the defense of my world.”   
“Done,” Commander Song said. “Lorenzo, I need to go.” 
“Stay safe, Commander Song,” Lorenzo said, his smile thin. “I’ll slow the Aun where I can. Rest assured, 
you will have access to all of my data to the end.”  
Commander Song nodded. “Tello, take good care of my men.” 
Tello began to respond, but Song had already disconnected. 
“The ​Loa​ is en route to Cornucopia now,” Lorenzo said. He pulled a worn paperback from the air, 
opened it to a bookmarked page. “They will arrive in one week,” he read. “And the Aun in six months. Will 
you be ready by then?” 
“We’ll have to be.” Tello scratched the white stubble on his chin. “Why does this follow me, Lorenzo?”  
Lorenzo closed his little book. “I do not know.” 
“I thought I was done with war.”  
“Your kind never is.”  
Tello looked up at Lorenzo, brow furrowed. “My ‘kind’ has never wanted this,” he said. “All we wanted 
was a gentle place to call home.” 

7 
 Lorenzo shrugged. “When humans want the same thing, what do you expect? Cooperation? Trust me, 
friend, all of your history is stained by this.” 
Tello looked long at Lorenzo, regarding the figure it projected. “Drive everything you have into their 
fleet,” he ordered the Legion. “Every station, every drone — everything. Their only play after the gate is 
Cornucopia.” 
“And after? The cost will be terrible.” 
Tello turned, clutching his coat closed. The clouds, distant over the dark range at the horizon, were 
moving closer. “There is no ‘after’,” he called back. “Not with the numbers they bring.”  
Lorenzo knew the man was right. Tello disincorporated, exiting legionspace.   
Lorenzo sat at the dock until the clouds reached him. It must have been hours, but his subroutines and 
subalterns could handle most all the work he needed to accomplish.   
The rain was warm, and endless.  
—  
Lorenzo’s drones and stations, mining rigs, shipyards, and subaltern crews across Boundary Garden blinked 
to life, rising from dormancy. As one they turned, their tools discarded or held as weapons, and began 
burning for the shifting mass of the Aunic fleet.  
—  
Lorenzo put a hand over his eyes to better feel the rain. Weeks passed this way.  
—  
In realspace, one of his mining rigs crossed within a hundred thousand kilometers of the main body of the 
Aunic fleet. It winked out, slagged by a beam of hardlight. Thousands more followed, hurtling towards the 
fleet, some slipping through the defensive fire to collide with smaller ships, to pepper the flanks of the 
massive capital ships. By Lorenzo’s estimate, ten thousand souls died — a miserable, minor fraction of 
distal-rank Aunic soldiery. 
—  
Lorenzo mulled over the feeling of void. Around him, his legionspace was warm and calm — even the rain 
was gentle, and the fruit was sweet. He finished another pomegranate and tossed the rind into the 
rain-swollen stream, and then regarded his hands, which were stained red, and would not wash clean.  
   

8 
  
2​
. 
 
Cornucopia  
Circa 5014u 
   

9 
2.0 Manqueller 
 
Roland Ordovo di Aun-ist sat on his pack, his hardlight across his lap, helmet on the muddy ground next to 
him. The rest of his section sat around him, no one talking. The march had been long. 
He pulled a kcal bar from a pouch on his armor. Spiced lamb, onion, fresh cucumbers. The flavors were 
close. Above, a flight of lift shuttles screamed by in formation, angling for orbit.  
“How much longer?” The question traveled up the line of lounging manquellers.  
Roland checked his watch. “Any moment now, Metat willing. First Chosen said on the hour.”  
“Metat willing.” 
Roland checked his watch. The hour rolled over. A flash blanked the color out of the world. Ten miles 
off, over Boundary Industrial City, the bombardment started. Beams of light hashed the sky, boiling 
through the sunset air. Lightning, spawned by the terrible energy hurled from above, flashed out of a clear 
sky.  
Roland uncapped his canteen and took a sip of water. The low roll of thunder-like rumbling arrived in a 
swell. Not overpowering, but — Metat preserve — truly the sound of hell. Roland coughed — a sip of water 
down the wrong pipe.  
Ofanim rumbled by on the march, their standards limp, long hardlight weapons dimmed and 
shouldered, shields retracted. Manquellers covered their backs, riding the walkers forward. Roland watched 
them, a dull weight across his shoulders. Ten years ago, on Dawn Throne, he’d watched from behind his 
parents’ legs as Ofanim marched through their town. Only back then they claimed the Other as their gods 
and masters. The claim of the ignorant, Roland reminded himself.   
Did he miss them now? No, he supposed. But he did wonder what became of his parents. Happy now to 
see the backs of the Ofanim, and not their guns leveled at him.  
A building fell, drawing his focus back to the city. The thunder came steady now. Some return fire 
arced overhead, none falling close enough to threaten his section.  
“Brother Roland.” One of his manquellers, Samuel, called up to him. “How long do you think we have 
to rest? Will they send us forward into the city?” 
“There is no telling,” Roland shrugged.  
“But if the city does not fall after this, we will certainly be sent to take it.”  
Samuel’s shoulders sagged. He picked at the seams of his frayed fingerless gloves. The end of his 
hardlight lens rested in the mud, lens port uncapped, a thin ribbon of steam rising from the ground. 
“Take heart,” Roland said. “We have the Ofanim with us.” He pointed at the advancing chassis, a long 
and staggered line crossing the grassy fields towards Boundary Industrial City. “And we will not be in the 
first wave.” 
—  
Large Ofanim bearing hardlight shields led the way forward, post-banners snapping in the wind. Their 
shields spat and flickered, eating stray incoming fire from the distant defenders. Cornucopian artillery 
walked across the plain towards them, finding the range. Low through the mottled grassland, the first 
companies of manquellers loped under their packs. They numbered in the thousands; Roland could only 
estimate as he did not carry Gifts inside of him. He had no angel in his mind.  
Another curse towards his Unionite family.  

10 
 Shells fell on the advancing manquellers and the earth vomited soil and sand, grass, ruined carapace 
armor, the blackened offal of the first waves. Solomon’s muttered prayers hiccuped at each report. The 
explosions were small at this distance. Roland chewed his kcal. His leg wouldn’t stop shaking.  
“They’ve found their range,” he said, to no one in particular.  
“Do they not have shie— ah,”  
The falling shells began to explode in midair, shrapnel and flame skittering over a heat-shimmer dome.  
“There it is,” Goodcheer, one of Roland’s section, offered a prayer of thanks to Metat. “See Metat’s 
protection?” 
—  
Hours passed, and the call went up the line. The sun had set. Boundary Industrial City glowed dull ochre. 
Long streams of anti-aircraft and anti-orbital lit the sky. From somewhere closer to the front, an Ofanim 
tore bursts of hardlight towards the city, not really shooting at anything but the skyline.  
“To march,” Roland sighed, waking from his sleep. He stood and pulled on his helm. The battlescape 
was a chorus of commands and cries. His aurals echoed with the desperate cries of the first wave.   
Goodcheer and the rest of Roland’s men were dark under their packs and carapace, mud and cloth 
wrappings. 
“A prayer for us, Goodchear?’ Roland asked the young man. Before he could answer, officers’ whistles 
keened up and down the trench line. Ofanim leapt overhead, and began the charge.  
Under cover of the second wave of Ofanim, Roland and his manquellers advanced into the city.   

   

11 
2.1 Winding-Thread Duel 
 
Song dropped from legionspace. A simmer of nausea as her perception realigned. A single mind, once more, 
in a single body. Song felt the straps holding her still, the drift. The muttering of the ship’s NHP, the hiss of 
air through her helmet. 
The ​August​ was quiet. Stalking.  
“Commander Song.” Arkady, her XO, flat over the ship’s comms. “Chassis wings are holding at eighty 
kilometers, dark and waiting for our ping.” 
“And the Aun?” 
“Trajectory hasn’t changed” Arkady whispered - no telling how sensitive Aunic instruments were. 
Song adjusted her straps, pulling herself tight to the chair. “Show me,” she said, nodding to the bridge’s 
theater. It lit a realtime display cast from the lead chassis pilot’s FOV.  
The ​August​’s bridge filled with light: The Aun built their ships to be seen.   
A white blade, three kilometers tall along the spine, a kilometer at the beam. Red banners trailed for 
kilometers behind it. Tonnage classified it as a battleship.  
Song leaned forward to count the bolts. “Four Glories to its name.” She grimaced. “A real bastard.”  
“We counted three gunboats in escort,” August, the ship’s NHP, chimed in.  
“Where?” 
“Crossed into the target’s umbra line while you were in legionspace.”  
“Armament?” 
“No radiation signatures, net tonnage estimates allow for schedule 2 weapons.” 
Song scratched her chin. “Hardlight.” 
“Commander,” Arkady interrupted. “Our window is closing.” 
“One minute for impact positive scenario,” August agreed.  
“You have fire control, Arkady,” Song said. “Pilot, take us ahead at half a gee.”  
“Firing,” Arkady whispered. The ​August​ shook. “Torpedos away”  
Song’s subtext hovered in view, dim in the red safelight: 
>[AUG(CSS_03272)::OPEN CHANNEL{ 2.DRAGOON_CPT}] 
>>[2.DRAGOON.STR:{15}IPSN_TOR/{5}HA_SAL/{10}HA_SHER] 
>[AUG(CSS_03272)::2.DRAGOON_CPT:: GOOD MORNING CPT HOW ARE THE STARS?] 
>[CPT.D::STILL SHINING SIR. GOT A JOB FOR US?] 
>[AUG(CSS_03272)::CPT.D:: SENDING DATA NOW. OBJ1+2 ON APPROACH. IMPERATIVE 
ESCORT. SEE TO IT THEY MEET THAT SHIP] 
>[CPT.D::AUG(CSS_03272):: AYE. GOOD TRAJECTORY ON KILL CLOUDS. SHOULD WE 
EXPECT SUBLINE?] 
>[AUG(CSS_03272)::CPT.D::YES, PROCEED WEAPONS FREE] 
>[CPT.DEVARAKONDA::2SQ ESCORT TORP1 TO OBJ, 3SQ ESCORT TORP2 TO OBJ. 
1SQ+4SQ INTERCEPT ALL FIRE] 
>[SQ1::Y] 
>[SQ2::Y] 
>[SQ3::Y] 

12 
 >[SQ4::Y] 
>[CPT.D:: AUG(CSS_03272) ENGAGE ESCORT CONFIRM?] 
>[AUG(CSS_03272):: WILCO ENGAGING] 
>[SQ2::CONTACT CONTACT CONTACT FAST MOVERS] 
 
The ​August​ lurched to the side, the sudden change of gravity turning Song’s stomach. Her chair whirred, 
tracking the ship’s movement as the pilot ran the frigate through counterfactual approach patterns.  
“Steady on target,” Arkady muttered. “Firing kinetics.” 
 
>[CPT.D:: 2SQ+3SQ SCREEN TORP1+2//2SQA+B+E+J::DROP::PROVIDE COVER AWAIT 
ASSISTANCE] 
>[2SQD:: CAP ARE WE TO PROCEED AT CURRENT STR] 
>[CPT.D::Y] 
>[CPT.D::1SQD+4SQD:: REPORT] 
>[1SQA::C+F KIA//FAST MOVERS ARE REAL FUCKERS SIR] 
>[CPT.D::NEED ASSIST?] 
>[1SQA:: CC:AUGUST:: FIRE SUPPORT ON ME] 
  
“XO,” Song said, reading her subtext. “Payload to that chassis. And get those escorts onto my theater.”  
“Aye,” Arkady said. His attention was on fire control.  
Through the viewports ahead, the Aun ship loomed. Song watched the first salvo ripple out from its 
flank.  
“Kill-cloud at .4 conical. Good choke, good density.” 
“Impact spread?” 
“If it hits? .6-.63. That’s with no target deviation.” 
“Push trajectories to E Company,” Song said. “They can use those clouds as cover to approach.”  
The battlescape relayed the engagement in sterile realtime: Four wings of mounted chassis streaked 
forward in loose formation, two breaking to cover the ​August​’s anticap torpedoes. Three red triangles — 
Aun escorts — dove to meet them. Between, thousands of white lines. Gunfire.   
Beyond, a red rectangle: the Aunic battleship. Parabolas arced across the ‘scape, plotted trajectories of 
incoming and outgoing fire.  
“Tracking, engaged. Tracking, engaged. Tracking, engaged,” August whispered. A subtle vibration 
shook the ship — PDCs firing at incoming kinetics.   
What if the Aun out-plotted them? If August’s calculations were outmatched? If their pilot flew 
incorrect counterfactuals? They could take a hit from the escorts — that’s why the ​August​ had vented its air 
before the fight — but the battleship’s batteries would swat them out of the sky.  
They had one chance to deal a killing blow.  
“Aug, tell me we can charge faster,” Song said. She could see their batteries’ charge rate, creeping up.  
“Not unless we drop shields.” Song looked to Arkady, who shook his head.  
“Commander?” August asked again.  
“Hold at the current rate,” Song said, curt. “Fire on my order.” 
 

13 
 Positioning. The parry. The feint. Combat was a winding wire, twisting and tight. It would break in a 
single, catastrophic snap — but who would the shear kill?  
Closer, closer.  
The ​August​ used the swirling combat between E Company and the Aunic subline escorts as a shield — a 
flash, dimmed across real and projected theaters. 
“One of the escorts just, uh,” Arkady paused. “It just dove into one of our torpedos.” 
“E Company?” 
“They’re down to 15 chassis. Pull them back?” 
“No,” Song said. “We need that coverage.”  
 
>[CPT.D::ALL.SQD:: MARK DEBRIS FOR PICKUP AND RALLY TO TORP1] 
>[1SQDA::COULD USE PDC WASH, SHIELDS ARE GETTING THIN] 
>[CPT.D:: HEARD. KC SHOULD BE CLOSE] 
>[1SQDC:: RAMI IS DOWN] 
>[1SQDC::WE’RE GETTING CHEWED UP OUT HERE CAP] 
>[3SQDA: 3SQD EN ROUTE LAH. MARK TARGETS HANG TIGHT] 
 
Patience, and timing. Song steadied her breathing. This was the most tense moment. 
“Nearing battery range. Solution secured.” August said. “Charge is complete and maintaining.”   
“Soon as we’re clear of E Company — “ The Aun battleship fired its main gun. 
Hardlight was visible. It was meant to be: it was death’s pale horse. At first a flash, a beam thin as a 
thread. Song saw it on the battlescape, then through the bridge’s viewports. Her helm recognized the 
signature as well, and opaqued a blink before more damage could be done. The hardlight beam did not 
appear to travel in the same way a shell or missile would. It simply appeared, a searing blue-white beam of 
energy.  
E Company, the Aun’s escorts, the torpedo -- all gone. Not even enough mass to cause the beam to 
stutter. Song could still order the ​August​’s batteries to fire.  
The Aun had lost — they had one shot, a single chance to hit and kill their target before their target 
could shoot. It took too long to build up a battery charge for a second. If you missed, you were dead.  
The ​August​ fired.  
—  
“Clear my helm, August,” Song shouted. “Clear it!” 
Her helm began to defrost, spotty. The hardlight beam had missed them, but even its wake had done 
damage. She has spots in her vision. 
“Report!” 
“What kind?” 
“Everything!” 
—  
Alone, the ​August​ drifted. The hardlight beam had passed within ten kilometers of the ship, the bleed heat 
enough to slag half her engines. The ​August​’s own long-cycle batteries had lanced the Aun ship, torn it in 
half. Its Glories fluttered, tangled, but did not burn.   
—  
 

14 
 “We won,” Arkady said. He leaned on the bar in the officer’s mess. Song sat, hunched, at the only table.  
“E Company?” She asked. Arkady crossed his arms, his shoulders hunched.  
“They were a necessary sacrifice.” 
“We don’t have the numbers for necessary sacrifices.” 
“Sirs.” Aug interrupted the two officers over the ship’s PA. “Omni from FleetCom: it’s Harvest. The 
Aun are massing for Harvest next.” 
“Thanks, Aug,” Song said.  
The long hiss of air, ever-present. If it stopped, you died.  
“We’ll win one of these fights, sir,” Arkady said.  
Song stood from the table, leaving her uneaten meal behind. 
“We won this one, Arkady,” she said as she passed her XO.  
Arkady grunted, what passed as a laugh. “Are you sure?”   
“Now you see,” Song said, and then left, helm in hand, for the bridge. 
 

   

15 
2.2 What Kingdom?  
 
“The Unionites are holding fast at the city center, Your Grace. Their chassis have proven… difficult to 
overcome.” 
The Warpriest reclined on his couch, robes heavy and still. Distant: artillery rumble. Closer: blessed 
utterance, whispers against the profane. The Warpriest’s tent was crowded with command staff, sweating in 
their carapace armor and heavy wool uniforms.  
Cornucopian summer was humid. Feverish. There should be rain, but the initial bombardment had 
shattered the storms.   
The world didn’t want them there, Neeraja thought. Could it be a world had a will?   
The commanders’ reports were a dour chorus.  
“Fleetmaster Iall reports that initial bombardment has clouded the troposphere with ash and dust. Our 
targeting lasers cannot pierce the chaff.”  
“Centuries ​Ist​, ​Yaa​, ​Ree​, and ​Ve​ have been all but depleted.” 
“All elements of my command have suffered at least five percent depletion. Our men must rest. We 
must rotate them back to the Orbital, and bring fresh troops down to the front.”  
Neeraja stood towards the back of the Warpriest’s retinue. A soft pull towards the back of her head. 
Hush​, she thought. ​Rest​. Her Soul ached. Unionite anti-system weapons — Her techs’ debrief would tell her 
more, if she could get to them.  
The roar of jets overhead shook the tent, and then passed. The corporeal-present generals looked to each 
other, sighing relief. 
“Why do you fear the beasts of heaven?” The Warpriest spoke. “Those are ours, can you not tell?” He 
scoffed. “Children playing war.” He beckoned the commanders to his cartograph. “Observe.” 
The cartograph was sterile. It showed death, but no bodies. No cost. A city projected in miniature, 
wireframe under swirling black pyres.  
Neeraja did not lean in with the rest of them. She closed her eyes. 
“Flame?” A general muttered approvingly. “Good coverage. They cannot hide.” 
A polite round of applause followed the bombing run.  
“How much longer until my orbital has returned to me?” The Warpriest asked. 
“An hour at most,” a fleetmaster replied.  
“And my Ofanim, how fare their Souls?”  
Neeraja started, stood at attention. “Eager, your grace.” 
The Warpriest beckoned Neeraja closer. “This one,” he said, addressing the rest of the commanders. 
“Has proven herself brave and eager. She does not whine about dust and depletion. You would do well to 
learn her name. Tell them your readiness, Chosen.” 
Neeraja clenched her jaw, stood straight. “I am at your command, your Grace.”  
“Eager to serve, yes, yes.” The Warpriest smiled. “Tell me, Chosen, how do you win Glory?” 
“Prove yourself worthy,” Neeraja answered, staring at a point on the canvas wall just over the 
Warpriest’s head. “Metat dictates who shall wear his crimson.”  
“My commanders think we should rest. That their manquellers and ofanim came this far to stop now. 
They think themselves a wave, but only until they meet the shore. What do you think, Chosen?”  

16 
 “I think,” Neeraja said, searching for a politically neutral answer. She decided on one that was true. “I 
think it is miserable to languish in trench mud.”  
The Warpriest laughed once, clapped their hands. “You see! ‘What wisdom there is among the pebbles 
and the roots’.” They recited a line from the Book, waving Neeraja back to the little group of attaches she’d 
stepped from. “We will not rest,” the Warpriest said when they calmed. “We will attack. Momentum, my 
young commanders. It wins wars.”  
—  
The meeting left ash in her mouth. She strode across the churned mud of the encampment, back to her 
Ofanim section. ​We are supposed to save these people​, she thought. ​And yet we slaughter them by the tens of 
thousands​. ​What glory could we build this way? What kingdom? 
Her sectionmates greeted Neeraja as she entered the section bivouac. 
“Attend to your Ofanim,” Neeraja ordered. “The Warpriest will set us upon the city.” 
“We are the second wave?” Mirah, one of her Neeraja’s furies, asked as she entered the biv.  
“Yes,” Neeraja said. She pulled on her carapace, tucked her gloves into her waistsash. “The city holds. 
We are to drop from HALO.” 
Her sectionmates muttered, shared glances. 
—  
Aboard the HALO disc, Ofanim​ Aun’Ist​, Section​ Ist​, prepared. The first down would be Solom and Biwan, 
guardians to clear the LZ. Then, Saam and Mirah, furies, to hold the corridor. Finally, Neeraja herself. 
Chosen, to lead. It would be her first drop between the concrete towers of Boundary Industrial.  
Inside her helm, soothing Word.  
They navigated the acrid smoke above the city, black pillars that stood miles into the sky. Ash fell like 
snow, embers even this high up. Below, explosions burst, flak like rain from the earth. A dim glow marked 
the vast fires where they would land.  
“THEIR SALVATION IS AT HAND. THEY REJECT THE WORD. THEY SPIT UPON THE 
PATH.” The Warpriest’s sermon blasted over the AllComm. Neeraja listened for a moment, searching for 
that old feeling, that old stirring of purpose. “DESCEND TO THE DEMON COURT. STRIKE DOWN 
THEIR BANNERS. CLAIM THIS LAND FOR GLORY. AUN ASCENDANT.” 
The ‘scape lit: a HALO to their flank, lanced by anti-orbital fire. The Warpriest continued his sermon. 
Neeraja keyed it off, feeling nothing but fear.   
Their HALO banked, turning hard. Neeraja held on to the crash handles in her cockpit, her stomach 
lurched. The bank was not enough — a flash, Saam and Mirah’s IF/F signatures winked red, then faded.  
“Sister! By n— ” Biwan, gone. 
Neeraja cursed the crusade — the fall was endless.  
  
 

   

17 
2.3 Market Hall 
 
Aug’s voice in Song’s aurals: 
//​Leash is stable. Steady at .9LS. Shall I sound all-attend?​// 
//​Yes​// Song pushed the thought through her bridge. It was all she could do in her pressure suit.  
//​Find me their bombard platforms. Priority​//​ ​In Song’s eye: Cornucopia, on approach.  
Nearlight. Song never really adapted. Her body was long, lowgrav, bad for the Navy. Still, Cradleborn 
gets you in chairs made for others. Song gritted her teeth best she could. The dampers around her cut the G 
enough to grey out, no room to move. 
//​Dropping from nearlight in ten​// Aug whispered.  
Bijan’s World had been a rout, but they had saved some. The little world, a terrestrial moon of 
temperate archipelagos, was dead now. A warm sea, now boiling. An atmosphere choked by vapor. Pips of 
light filled Song’s vision. Lorenzo’s ships, and the survivors of Bijan’s World, locked in a trailing course.   
The August was not alone for this.  
//​On target. Disengage from NL bolt on my word, begin spool in realspace​// Song telegraphed. 
//​Copy​// The ​Market Hall​. A gunboat, Cornucopian Revolutionary Guard fleet — local make, built 
for bluesky orbital combat.  
Lorenzo’s subaltern wings sent positive pings as well — Three bombers and fifteen skip-fighters, leashed 
to the ​August​.  
//​Can’t wait​// D Company leader, onboard the ​August​.  
Aug had given them low chances, but Song had orders — Delay. Harass. Report. Do anything to buy 
time.  
//​Dropping​// Aug cast.  
The pressure on Song’s chest gave, slammed her forward. The k-shell adjusted. She clamped her eyes 
shut to keep them in her head.  
Arkady’s was the first voice she heard: “Contact!”  
Song would review this if she lived, playing over and over the engagement that followed.  
The Aunic orbital was a broad plain shining below, an otherworldly plate between them and 
Cornucopia. On its back, blisters: Barracks, depots, cannons, silos. The meat of an invasion. Closer: three 
daggers, trailing glories.  
One moment: The Aug dropping from nearlight, spiraling, PDCs flaring already. In pace, a skirt of 
torpedoes, waiting for the right moment to launch.  
The next moment: Lorenzo’s skip-drones dropped from nearlight, sighted their targets, and bolted 
again.  
In all but the same moment: two Aunic daggers folded, shattering as those handful of drones punched 
through armor like bullets through paper, hurtling at .9LS through their targets. The debris cloud bloomed.  
The next moment: the ​Market Hall​, in dive-comp like the ​August​, blasting away with its short-cycle 
batteries. Song’s heart swelled: the ​Hall​’s lances scored deep hits across the orbital.  
The final Aunic ship, that last dagger, engaged. 
“Main batteries charging, Commander.”   
//​Find me cover!​// The D Company lead in Song’s aural. No name for this one: she had lost Deva in the 
last engagement and she knew better now.  

18 
 Lorenzo’s bombers flew in close formation, broad wings — they had no payload, opening instead with 
their gun blisters, rattling long gaussian ropes of heavy shells at the orbital. They rolled, exposed their broad 
face the dagger’s weapons. D Company used them as a screen, slipping over the lip of the orbital as Aunic 
point defense weapons chewed the empty bombers to dust. D Company held to them until the last second, 
diving mere meters off the Aunic orbital’s edge. Their chassis screamed red as they punched through the 
atmosphere.  
Song let out a long breath. D Company was in, arcing towards Boundary Industrial.  
“Commander, eyes up,” Arkady cautioned.  
The dagger, before them.  
The ​August​ lurched, rolled, launched torpedoes at the Aunic ship.  
Song trembled always. The ​August’​s PDCs stitched stuttering lines across the black, slicing missiles 
away. The best defense.   
The dagger swept away one of Lo’s bombers. Still, its front tracked the ​August​. 
The orbital grew close, close.  
The ​August​ hurtled down. The ​Market Hall​ was below, trailing debris and 0​2​ from its reserve -- it had 
been hit, but Song could hear its commander calm in her aural: 
//​PDCs engaged. Resolving target. Kinetics ready to drop. We’re eyes-back and holding, Commander 
Song. You have your window.​//  
//​Away, away, away, all rocks away!​// 
The ​Market Hall​ spun to the side, a single PDC peppering the broad plain of the orbital, shells 
exploding and skittering off the heavy platform’s armor.  
“Take us down, Arkady!” Song ordered. 
The ​Hall​’s kinetics hit the orbital.  
The platform, easily two kilometers in long, dipped down, wobbling on its axis as the kinetics hit. 0​2 
vented in a tremendous plume, vomiting up debris and bodies, Aunic crew sucked out into vacuum.  
“Batteries are charged, commander,” Arkady shouted.  
Sparing a glance at the dagger, Song gave the order.  
 
 
 
 

   

19 
2.4 System Shock 
 
Total system shock. Neeraja couldn’t breathe. She clawed at the collar of her carapace armor, struggling for 
air through the thick atmosphere. The Heretic’s world wanted them dead. The air was a worm, thick and 
wet. All around her, the howl. A cacophony, washed out and crackling.  
She slipped her fingers under the seal of her golden helm and threw it off her head: it had cracked to the 
subcarapace webbing anyways. The remains of her section lay scattered and broken around her, their 
HALO a smear of slag at the end of a furrowed city street.   
The grit of alien dirt on her cheek. Air like oil. A midnight sky lit by flare and flame that flitted and 
flashed into cracks of white, visible even through the thick chaff. Combat in low orbit. Neeraja had seen it 
before. Not her concern, but a prayer to the fleetmasters above.  
The maddening buzz of hardlight beams snapped and whined over her head. Neeraja scrambled, pressed 
herself low as she could, reached to her hip and cursed. Her PDW was lost somewhere in the rubble. Flat, 
cloth-tear buzz. Gunfire, stinking and metal. She wished for her helm. The earth rumbled, lurched up. She 
opened her mouth in time for the pressure wave.  
A squadron of Ofanim moved through the chaffsmoke, guns leveled. Manquellers streamed about their 
legs, hunched over their hardlights, sprinting between ruined blocks that once were buildings.  
They spared her not a glance as they passed, quiet but: labored breathing, the rustle and rattle of their 
carapace armor, their cloth. One muttering a prayer as he trooped by, another wheezing. Haggard creatures 
in stained and muddy kit, faces blackened by smoke, eyes white.   
Neeraja dragged herself across the ground, staying low: the battle had swept past like a wave, carried on 
down the ruined street. She sat, back to a fallen stone block, legs out before her. She couldn’t breathe.  
System shock.  
Training: Sip the air sharp, so you feel your tongue click against your teeth. Need to force the air until 
you acclimate. At least you can breathe this atmosphere, pilot. It was humid, and faint was the acrid curl of 
fire.   
More rumbling, approaching — an Ofanim loped around the corner, a clutch of manquellers hanging 
on to its scaffold, Its wide shield painted in red and gold chevrons.  
“Sister.” One of the manquellers hanging on to the chassis. “This street is zeroed, you need to keep 
moving.” The manqueller held out a hand.   
Neeraja nodded. She stood, unsteady.   
“The base of the uplift lies beyond these blocks,” the manqueller said, pulling Neeraja up to a free 
handhold. “We cannot rest.” 
Neeraja held on with both hands as they moved. Lumbering, plate shield raised to protect the 
manquellers. 
“Martyrs, all of us.” The manqueller looked at his fellows hanging on to the armored chassis. “Take 
heart from our Sister-Pilot, Martyrs,” the manqueller shouted. “She fights on, even with her Ofanim slain.” 
Neeraja could weep. The manquellers did not cheer. 
“I am Roland, Sister,” The manqueller said. His face was hidden behind his sealed helm. “You are with 
us now, yes?” He slung his hardlight and, with one hand, offered his pistol. 
Neeraja took it, the weight a comfort.  

20 
 Roland nodded. “Good. Now look,” he said. “Our orders are to advance into the city and secure the 
outer uplift, there,” he pointed up ahead, impossible to see through the smoke. “Word is there’s a Lancer 
unit dug in under— ” 
The world went white.  
—  
Neeraja’s sight came back slow as she blinked and massaged, tears spilling down her face. The burnt 
afterimage of the first light lingered. Still, she held to the Ofanim. It lurched, backpedaling. Some of the 
manquellers had fallen, they scrambled behind, weapons forgotten.   
“What happened?” Neeraja shouted at Roland. “My helm -- I cannot read the ‘net!” 
Gunfire out at them from the ruins. Streets distant, something deeper and more terrible arced shells 
over their heads, range not yet found. Shadows moved in the belly of the city, backlit by flame.   
“The orbital!” Roland shouted. He held on as the Ofanim picked up its pace, lumbering back to the 
Aun lines. “Union ships above!” He cocked his head, listening. “Expect counterorbital, more Lancer units!” 
“What do we do?” Neeraja asked, though she knew the answer.  
Run.  
—  
Neeraja sat with Roland, quiet, back at the Aunic lines. She’d found a hardlight for herself, and a discarded 
helm. They watched the sunrise. The morning was lit by momentary flares, as debris from the orbital 
streaked into the atmosphere.  
Boundary still stood.  
“Will they send us again, Sister-Pilot?” Roland asked. He passed Neeraja tea as he spoke.  
Neeraja watched a chunk of debris write a line across the morning sky. “We cannot let the city stand, 
and they cannot let it fall,” she whispered.  
Roland looked down, at the earth.  
 

   

21 
2.5 Unmaker 
 
Lorenzo walked on a level plane above Cornucopia, his arms crossed behind his back. Below, time 
progressed, rewound. Altered, progressed, rewound. Lorenzo’s bare feet padded on void. He was thinking.  
—  
Song leapt down the red-lit halls of the ​August​, using the subtle grip features built into the padded bulkhead 
to maneuver herself through the microgravity. They were falling. Slow, but unstoppable. No engines left, a 
core shaken and unstable.  
The ​August​ was dying.  
//​Aug, how’s Arkady?​// 
//​Unconscious​// 
//​Will he make it?​// 
//​Honest answer?​// 
//​No bullshit​// 
//​It’s a coin toss. He lost a lot of blood, Commander​// 
Song grimaced. If she’d flown better counterfactuals, if she’d focused the dagger — No. She made the 
right choice, no matter the cost.   
—  
Lorenzo sat crosslegged and watched. The three daggers came about, slow. His skip drones slammed into 
two of them, atomizing the ships in a moment.  
Why not the third?  
He peered closer, slowed time to a fraction. Held his drone in the palm of his hand. It disappeared. 
“How?” 
—  
//​Commander, we don’t have time​// 
//​Can it, Aug. We have time​// 
//​If you don’t head for the shuttle​— // 
//​I’ll go down with the ship, like a goddamn commander should​// Song cast, a red edge to her thought. 
Aug’s silence filled the null of microgravity. 
//​Your call. I’m ready to go​//   
A straight leap up the spinal bore. She had Arkady’s keyspike. Thirty seconds was all she needed. 
The August was sinking, imperceptible but inevitable. The dagger had caught their aft, torn the ship in 
two.  
The Aun only wanted to render them helpless.  
//​Two landers closing. Hurry, Song​// 
—  
Lorenzo worried. He had pulled the moment up to his plane. Built for himself a near-perfect rendering from 
every angle and presumed subjectivity.   
At the one: an actual problem for him to solve.  
At the other: he couldn’t solve it.  
Something… different occured. He ran it again.  

22 
 —  
Song clung to a bulkhead feature, tucked into shadow. A hundred meters of spinal corridor between her and 
where she needed to be. Two landers of Aunic marines were somewhere behind her. She could feel strain in 
her arm. They were falling faster now.  
//​Aug, fire the shuttle​// 
The shuttle needed a clean entry window or the atmosphere would shred it into white-hot slag over 
some distant Cornucopian ocean.   
Song watched it, a dim waypoint in her HUD. Arkady and the others aboard. Vibrations against her 
palm. The Aun were coming. 
//​Just us now, Aug​// 
—  
Lorenzo saw Aug’s ping, waved his hand and turned his remaining bombers into an escort for the shuttle. 
There was an absence. An abscess. A thick void where the skip drone had been. A tangle of manifolds 
contradicting and confirming. How many other ways did it end like this? 
—  
Song’s PDW tore the first marine’s legs away, sending them spinning into the middle space. She fired 
another long burst, catching two more as she kicked and dove down. Hardlight bolts cut clean holes in the 
vacuum, utterly silent.   
The door slammed shut. Fifty yards to go.  
Song skipped off the corridor. Shit. Gravity. She scrambled up, fired blind back down the hall, and ran 
— the ship tilted up, which meant they were falling.  
//​Aug, how long?​// 
//​Minutes​// 
//​Where’s my chassis?​// 
//​Ejected. I can call her back​// 
//​Do it, be ready to catch me​// 
—  
An aspect of Lorenzo watched the little drama unfold below. In other fates, she died. Lorenzo overrode this 
ship’s NHP and slammed doors down on the borders. Ruptured pipes to provide a screen. He found a pair 
of subalterns and ordered them to aid.  
The least he could do.   
—  
Song slid, staggered as the ship started to list. Arkady’s keyspike was in the door. She hooked an arm around 
a nearby hold, undid a pouch on her chest carapace, and pulled out her own.  
//​Is she close?​// 
//​Just outside​//   
Song slammed her keyspike into the door panel.  
The door to Aug’s hardcopy opened just as the Aun burned through the last panel. At their head, a 
blinding wall. Song turned and fired from the hip, no point in aiming. 
A metal arm around her neck. Something hauled her back into the hardcopy chamber. 
“STAY CALM. WE ARE FRIENDS.”   
—  
 

23 
Here it was. He’d found it. Lorenzo watched in machine awe, playing and replaying the scene. His skip 
drone leapt to nearlight, bolted towards the last dagger — And then it was gone. No radiation ghost, no 
gravitational wake — it was gone. 
Something had blinked it away.  
—  
“YOU ARE SAFE,” the subaltern shoved Song behind it and pointed to Aug’s hardcopy panel. 
“PROCEED, COMMANDER.” 
//​Thanks, Aug​// Song cast. She hustled to the panel. 
//​That wasn’t me​// 
A mystery for later. //​Ready?​// 
//​Do it​// 
Song pulled Aug free. 
The NHP’s black box was big, a long crate the size of her leg. One handle, one port on the opposite end, 
which Song plugged with an accompanying rubber stopper. Now, time to go.  
—  
Lorenzo pushed the intel to all of his aspects, all command units: the Aun had something that could pierce 
the blink without a gate.​ Attend​. At one level, he registered a looping, repeating scenario, a frantic search for 
a solution where there was none.  
Fear. He was afraid.   
—  
Song had reached the raw, blasted edge of her ship. Space, and a world below it. The vast, yawing sea.  
“Where are you,” she muttered, searching the scape.  
There, a flash of light. Running silent to avoid detection — her chassis.  
Song, with one look back at her dying command, leapt into the void, August’s casket trailing behind.  
 

   

24 
2.6 Moral 
 
The Warpriest had been firm.  
“You will take up the arms of your brother and sister-pilots,” he’d growled at the Chosen. His voice was 
clotted, wet. Attendants daubed the corner of his mouth where pinkish foam dribbled out.  
“The dead make no use of them. Your sin is necessary.”  
—  
The Ofanorium was a dirge cacophony of wailing Souls and techs loading fresh ordinance. Roland helped 
Neeraja up into the dark of the martyr’s Ofanim. She could feel its Soul inside, probing her interpellate 
through the vitaloj.  
“Is it safe?” Roland asked.  
“Where is my Moral?” The martyr’s Soul moaned. 
Neeraja pulled herself into the Ofanim’s crewsuite, settling into the unfamiliar space. 
“Your section will advance with me,” Neeraja told Roland, ignoring his question, ignoring the moaning 
Soul for she had no answer. The sin of imposition was too great.   
The manqueller, dark under his helm, nodded. “The city is a grave,” he said. He looked towards 
Boundary, across the fields. “Keep your shield up. I don’t want to lose any more of my men.”  
Neeraja looked down at him from her perch.  
Roland, manqueller untouched by lead, was a short man caked in mud, eyes white as stars. Blood dried 
on the tan cloth wrappings around his cuirass. He looked ancient, and yet — as she had learned — he was 
younger than her by a year.  
Forgiveness. Her patria’s old caution. Remember how they’ll talk to you, like a child. This is fear — of 
you, and death.  
She looked away from Roland, back to her pre-sortie checklist.  
“Keep the Kurr off my back,” she said. “And keep faith. No better armor”   
Roland’s soft gaze furrowed. He turned and left without saluting, hurrying to join the rest of his 
section.  
Neeraja was alone. 
—  
Across the field, Neeraja wrestled with her mewling Soul. 
“Will they return him to me?” The Soul begged. “Sister, tell me true. Where is Moral? Where is my 
Moral?” 
Neeraja pushed the Soul away, concentrating on her spacing. The Ofanim was unfamiliar, a casket 
emptied of its corpse. The battlescape drew her attention, as commands flagged for her section hovered in 
her vision.   
 
{THRONE’IST, KEEP YOUR SPACING}{EXPECT INBOUND SPLASH}{SHIELDS UP} 
--y-y-y-y-Y-y-y-y-y-- 
{ELEMENT YAA, REE, VE, QUA}{DEMAND/IMPERATIVE:COUNTER BATTERY FIRE ON 
SPLASH IST}{CONF?} 
--y-y-y-y-y-y-y- 
--y-y-y-y- 

25 
 --Y--y-y-y-y-y-y-  
{ALL SECTIONS ALL CENTURIES}{ADVANCE}{METAT PROTECT US ALL} 
 
Neeraja kept pace with her section lead, another postmortem, whose Ofanim bore hasty patching. Still, its 
hardlight was broad and steady, and when the first shells fell it caught the bulk of them.  
 
Fire bloomed above, doming over their advance. The battle joined once more. 
 
{THRONE’YAA ADVANCE}{THRONE’REE ADVANCE}{THRONE’VE ADVANCE} 
--y-y-y-y-y-y-y- 
{OUTSTANDING}{PICK UP THE PACE} 
 
Neeraja leaned into the advance. Her new soul, weeping, read back the integrity of her hull. Boundary 
looming before.  
Crossing the field was a task marked by crossing small monuments. The first shell line, where the 
Cornucopian guns found their absolute range. Do not tarry, but do not fear overmuch. The corpses rotting 
here are Unionites — let their world drag them under.  
Move quick: incoming.  
Then, the flooded trenches. Pray: the medicos tried, but many of your brothers and sisters are buried in 
the soggy ground. Neeraja and her Chosen hold just over the line and return fire under a hardlight umbrella. 
Manquellers struggle to cross, wading and clambering. 
Trenches crossed — some bodies left behind, medicos scrambling to retrieve them — ahead is the first 
ruin line, where city outbuildings crouch, shattered.  
To Neeraja’s right, an anti-armor mine ruptures beneath an Ofanim, consuming it in a burst of red and 
black, hardlight arcing white into the sky.  
The advance slows. 
Fear slipping to panic: small arms fire ripples nearby, lighting up Neeraja’s flank, pinging her 
theater-suite.  
 
{PRIORITY:SIXTH FLOOR WINDOW RIGHT}{SATURATION FIRE}{BRING IT ALL DOWN} 
 
The grey ruin dissolves in a demisolar flash of hardlight. None could survive. 
 
{CLEAR AND ADVANCE} 
 
Beyond the outbuildings, the first river crossing. Bridges stretch across the black water, reaching, their 
concrete and metal ribs exposed. From above, the river is a mouth of shattered teeth. The Ofanim pause as 
Manquellers climb aboard. They wade across.  
The Cornucopian guns find them.  
Manquellers huddle behind hardlight shields projected to cover them. Cornucopian bullets and shrapnel 
rattles off curved metal, hisses. 
Neeraja’s cockpit glows with proximity warnings — essential markers of where a manqueller clings to 
her chassis. One by one, they flicker away.  

26 
 “No no no no,” the borrowed Soul mutters. “Another dead. Another dead. Another dead.”  
Save for the dim proximity glow behind her, all of Neeraja’s manquellers are gone.  
“Roland?” Neeraja shouts into her comm.  
“Here, Raj.” His voice is close, just over her shoulder. Proximity haptics let Neeraja know he clings to 
her Ofanim’s shoulder, tucked behind a pauldron. He is safe. 
She could cry.  
Surging out of the river, oily water raining from them, the Ofanim carry their manquellers forward into 
the city proper. Here wait pockets of manquellers from the last advance, ragged with survivors’ kits and 
wounds.  
Some follow the new advance, whooping, loping alongside.  
A middle-perimeter park rings the heart of the city. Once a green band of urban forest, now a strip of 
ash and sandbags. The Cornucopian line turn anti-orbital cannons on the Aun. The air shimmers with 
coherent LINAC.  
Ofanim rupture. Flame tears through the streets.   
Neeraja lifts her shield just in time: the LINAC only shears her Ofanim’s arm away instead of coring 
her.  
The soul screams, a sound so terrible that Neeraja frees her hand from its dead control and tears off her 
helm.  
“Roland?” Neerja shouts.  
Nothing. His signature is gone.  
 
{THRONE’IST, YAA, FALL BACK}{REE: SATURATE THAT EMPLACEMENT} 
--Y-y-y-y 
--y-y 
--y-Y 
{{{{{IMPERATIVE: WARPRIEST OVERSIGHT/ATTEND}}{{YOU WILL CONTINUE YOUR 
ADVANCE UNTIL HIGHER ORDER}}{{REMEMBER THE GLORY OF MARTYRDOM AND 
TAKE THAT TRENCH}}}}} 
 
  

   

27 
2.7 Weak But Still Singing 
 
Dawn over Boundary Industrial. A sick, orange wash. The engine-burn stink of smouldering metal, 
propellant. In the distance, a gun banged away, a muffled sound. It had been quiet since the Aunic orbital 
came down.  
Something else was coming.  
Boundary Industrial wasn’t a city anymore — it was a grave. Cornucopians burned their dead. Mixed 
the ashes in with the cement as it set. The fresh dead lay atop the old; the old dead fell in rubble over the 
new.  
Boundary Industrial wasn’t a city anymore — it was a monument. 
—  
A layer of dust blanketed Hero-of-Tinmoon metro station. Tello walked along the platform, reading the 
remaining mosaic. Revolutionaries in simple exosuits massed together, their hands raised. They brandished 
hammers, wrenches, plasma cutters. Every single one of them smiled.  
Had he ever smiled on Tinmoon? Had anyone? Like Boundary, Tinmoon had been alone. Pounded by 
artillery unseen. Harried by a vast and well-equipped enemy.  
Unlike Boundary, Tinmoon had hope. Tello crossed his arm. Which was worse, he thought -- to have 
hope, or to have none? 
His wrist slate buzzed. A corresponding subtext lit in the bottom third of his vision.  
 
//​MORNING AUXCOM/PRE-CHECKS COMPLETE. DOGS AT YOUR READY​// 
 
Tello flashed an acknowledge back. He sighed. The mosaic came back into relief. All those bright souls, 
lost. 
—  
At the track interchange, Dog Company waited. The metro tunnels were loud here, despite the early hour. 
Voices echoed across the vaulted ceilings, around the narrow columns. They were all smiling. 
“Your chassis, AuxCom.” A tech greeted Tello as he entered the staging area.   
Tello thanked the tech, took his helm.  
“Coffee?” The tech asked. “Mess brewed a pot. It’s not terrible. They found some sugar on the last 
patrol.”  
Tello declined. “No stomach for it,” he said. Nerves.  
Tello’s war chassis was a new model, one he’d grown used to during the initial battles outside and 
throughout Boundary Industrial. He settled into the cockpit. Adjusted the fit of the prosthesis on his 
shoulder.  
Subtext scrawled. Dog Company banter. Eager, new to the fight.  
Movement in these new chassis was nothing like the ones Tello had learned on. It was an extension of 
his own body. Humming. Power in his gut and heart and at his fingertips. How could he feel fear in armor 
like this? 
Ah, but remember. He was young once, and whole.   
—  
 

28 
Dust and ash fell like snow outside the mouth of the metro tunnel. Dog Company crouched in the shadow, 
ten Lancers in single file. Matte black armor panels ate the weak, febrile sunlight that bled into the tunnel.  
 
//​AUGUST SHUTTLE BEACON 4KM AHEAD. WEAK BUT STILL SINGING​// 
 
Tello crouched third from the front, behind two chassis the Dogs called Bozo and Koi. Tello never learned 
to stomach command. He’d sent so many to their deaths. First in ones and twos. Then, by the thousands.  
 
//​AXCM:GO​// 
 
The chassis lumbered forward into the light. Through the crumbling streets the Dogs ran. Above loomed 
smoldering towers. Once offices, once factories, once apartment blocks home to millions. Not yet empty: 
White sheets, civilians trapped in the floors high above, fluttered from open windows. 
The Dogs found the Aun first — a single Oaf, a clutch of tired manquellers on its back. Another squad 
on foot, ranging a block ahead.  
Koi carried a daisy cutter, a street-sweeper 
  The fight was gutter. 
Bozo carried a brute’s blade. He hewed, and the Aun scrambled back, firing, screaming. The Oaf 
glittered, struggling to pull up its hardlight. Koi, using Bozo as cover, fired. Massive shells coughed red 
death.   
The ‘quellers tried to run, but the street was broad and cover was thin. Their Oaf couldn’t bring up its 
shield in time. It staggered back, cored. Fell, erupted. The Dogs advanced, measured, guns hammering the 
morning apart. 
Tello let them have the victory, the dead.   
Lasers should be loud, Tello thought. A gun was honest about itself. A brute.  
He leveled his SOL and fired, beam picked out by the drifting smoke. A manqueller flared into carbon, 
ash. The air choked with the burned.  
 
//​AXCM::MOVE IN/ SECURE THE SHUTTLE. FIND THE CASKET​// 
 
The Dogs were unscathed. Through the black shadows, they moved into the crash site. Ash swirled around 
the legs of their chassis. Tello vented his cockpit, let some of the outside air in. A burning city stank of 
metal.  
//​KOI::BODIES IN HERE. NO CASKET​// 
//​BOZO::CONFIRM NO CASKET​// 
//​KOI::CONFIRM​// 
//​BOZO::AUXCOM, ADVISE​// 
//​AXCM::COPY. HOLD. NEW SIG ON SWEEP​// 
//​KOI:: BLUE OR RED?​// 
//​AXCM:: BLUE. NAVSIG ID: CARDINAL GUIDE​// 
//​BOZO:: NAVSIG? LONG WAY FROM HOME​// 
//​AXCM:: LET’S GO GET OUR CMDR​// 

29 
2.8 Red, Ragged 
 
{UNIT INTEGRITY CRITICAL: NULL VITAL 17/20} 
 
[[in darkness, METAT preserves. Take heart and march on. A martyr is blessed in—]] 
 
{UNIT INTEGRITY CRITICAL: NULL VITAL 18/20} 
 
[[his light. In darkness, METAT preserves. Take heart and ma—]] 
 
{UNIT INTEGRITY CRITICAL: NULL VITAL 19/20} 
 
Roland’s HUD flashed calming scripture under critical warnings.  
 
{UNIT INTEGRITY CRITICAL: NULL VITAL 19/20} 
 
[[Walk as one does at night: carry your blade and light close, and no harm shall come to you]] 
 
Roland checked his hardlight, and found a full charge. His light and blade. Into the city, under the cover of 
ruin, Roland advanced. Two streets over, the Cornucopians fired lance after lance into the pinned Ofanim. 
What fight could be had now?  
“Roland?” Neeraja’s voice in his ear. “Are you out there?”  
He stopped, alone. Her voice. He turned back.  
—  
A section of manquellers, crouched in the rubble of a collapsed building that blocked the road.  
“Keep your head down!” One shouted, seeing him. “They’ve got this whole street covered — a nest, 
somewhere in the park!”  
Roland peered around the corner. Smoke, shifting in the wind. He ducked back just in time — a swarm 
of lead snapped and whined past his head, chewing away at his cover. He slid to a seat, clutching his 
hardlight close.  
“You see him?” He hollered across the open space.  
The manqueller nodded. 
“Cover me!” Roland shouted.  
The manquellers opened up, hardlight ripping lines of Firmament through realspace, leaving the air 
sizzling. 
Roland ran low, a kind of falling forward known only to the desperate. He dove and scrambled into 
cover, pulled along by his cuirass by the other manquellers.  
“Where is Throne’Ist?” Roland shouted over the din.  
“Two pair Ofanim just through that building,” the section lead called. “We can’t move under this 
gunf— Hey, wait!” 
Roland was already scrambling across the next stretch of open ground. Bullets cracked around him, but 
prayer too on his lips. Metat saw him through with minimal —  

31 
 A red ragged but he had his hit-kit on him. A dermal patch, a cover, and he was fine.  
“You’re mad!” the manquellers shouted. He waved them on, fired blind downrange, and continued 
through the hollow shell of a building dripping with pools of water. There, a wounded Unionite with legs 
gone to ash, staring dumb at the stinking cauterize. Hardlight work.  
The Unionite reached a hand out to Roland, muttering something in Kurrtongue. Roland ignored him 
and ran on.  
The next street was quiet. Empty. Overhead, a roar. Dawn was the attack but this wasn’t dawn.  
Fliers — not Roland’s. He dropped his hardlight and held onto his helm with both hands, eyes shut.  
Fire. Core-hot fire, even this far from the blast. Daylight sun brought to ground level.  
Maybe an hour later, or minutes, or moments — time got funny after a hit like that — Roland 
wandered the still streets. No one shot. Some bodies scattered where they’d been cored, huddled in ones and 
twos behind scant cover.  
“Raja!” Roland cried out, his voice alone up and down the street. “Raja!” Roland hollered. Was there no 
one in the city but him?  
A voice, mechanical he could tell, in Kurrtongue, called him by name — what else it said, he could not 
decipher. He stopped. His wound ached. He stared into the darkness of another bombed-out building. A 
stuttering figure. A ghost of light. Projected, artificial, he knew.  
“Rowlan! Gwwbchoo see uuuu!” A woman in simple clothing, beckoning him. She held a bottled drink.  
Roland laughed. An advertisement. He continued on.  
Daylight found the city cast in wildfire umber. Roland still had not found Neeraja, nor any other 
manquellers. Or anyone else. He wandered down another forgettable bombed-out boulevard. And another. 
And another. His wound ached, the gauze gone rust.  
The hardlight snapped at his feet, the cry in Aunic halting him.  
“Hands! Let me see hands!” Her voice, from behind.  
Roland raised his hands as best he could. He turned.  
“Roland?” 
“Good to see you, Raja”  
Neeraja led a section of bloodied manquellers. Behind, an Ofanim, laden with more. She ran forward 
and wrapped Roland up in a one-armed hug. Roland returned it, one-armed. When she pulled back, tears 
cut streaks down his cheeks.  
“We’re leaving,” Neeraja said. “We’re done.”  
Relief like —  
Unionite chassis, matte and heavy, rounded the far block.   
Roland grabbed Neeraja and hauled her down to the ground. The Ofanim turned, some manquellers 
leapt from its back. The section tried to scatter. The lead chassis leveled its main gun.  
Roland, for the second time, closed his eyes, and prayed.  
—  
He knew he was alive because of the pain.  
“Aun?”  
Roland shook his head, trying to clear the ringing, the nausea. He tried to stand and a boot kicked him 
in the shoulder. He cried out, tumbling back to the ground.   
Hands hauled him up. Eyes without light. Dark uniforms. Union.  
—  

32 
Roland woke some time later.  
A dour, lined old man sat at the side of his cot. He wore a sky blue uniform with a pinned sleeve. He 
smoked a tobbac, and watched Roland.  
“Welcome back,” the man said in Aunic. “My name is Tello Basra. I have some questions for you.”  
 

   

33 
  
3​
. 
 
Elsewhere 
 
Between 5014u and 5016u 
   

34 
3.0 Old White Goat 
 
It was the music that woke him. A reedy drone, a drum played by hand. An accordian. The morning’s 
call — prayer and breakfast and a day’s life to be lived. Bijan Ardakan woke and tumbled out of bed. It was 
prayer, and he had overslept. He dressed, and ran.  
The roads were dry, unpaved; the red dirt was left to be pounded smooth by feet, churned to mud by 
the rain. This was the point: for the progress of a single person to leave its mark on the city. Bijan did his 
part, tumbling down the narrow streets of the Midden, bare feet slapping the hard dirt. A pair of subalterns 
in merchant robes watched him go, stepping aside as he ran by.  
Bijan descended the switchbacks and causeways of the Midden, lungs burning. He’d have to slow and 
sneak in, maybe find a free space towards the back. Why had mother not woken him? Father? His brothers? 
The song-and-call faded. With it: a distant bleating — a cow, or a goat.  
Bijan ran.  
—  
He slowed to a jog, than a walk. The doors to the mosque were open and the reedy sound filtered out. 
Papery scraping, the rustle. Bijan hopped up the steps, hurrying to get inside, but stopped halfway up.  
Footprints had scorched the marble, melted the stone black.  
A clack and scrape drew his attention back to the doors. A white goat stood there, a horrible wound on 
its neck. It bleated, and its blood trickled down the steps, sizzling where it flowed into the footprints.  
Bijan screamed, as a wash of blood came crashing out of the mosque.  
—  
The Midden was a ramble, a jumbled mat of shanties built on the staircase-slope of a terraced valley 
wall. Medina’s jewel, Old City, lay in the valley’s belly, astride the ribbon of Noora’s Lace. Bijan floated on 
his back, staring up the valley towards his home, and loved.  
Medina was an old, old world. A rich world. It chose to live in peace — leave the affairs of the 
sky-and-beyond to the birds, and the pale men who called themselves kings of the stars. Bijan only wanted to 
float on this river, to dry later in the sun. To live slow.  
—  
Wait. Bijan jerked, dipping briefly into the water before he caught the riverbed. It was cool and slick, silt 
rich with floodsoil from the spring rains. A deep, grinding rumble.  
The Midden sloughed and fell towards the Old City, a massive wave of earth and life.  
—  
Bijan’s father beat him.  
Bijan vomited into a bucket and his brother’s blood splashed on his hands.  
Bijan screamed as his body burned.  
Bijan gasped for breath as the water grew dark.  
Bijan’s shuttle broke apart on re-entry.  
Bijan cursed as he spilled boiling coffee down his front. 
—  
Bijan​ —   
— woke 
Wife was with another man​ —  

35 
 — searing gunfire tore the room 
“You are ​nothing​, Ardakan​ —  
— rough hands hauling him up 
and the noose cinched so tight​—  
— a screaming yes but was it him? 
Fading now, fading​—  
— ”oddamit, shut that one up”  
And then Bijan woke up.  
“Administrator, can you hear me?” 
Bijan couldn’t see well, but he could hear. He nodded. Someone was holding him up. The air stank of 
gunsmoke and burn.  
“Sir, we’re getting you out of here.” 
“Who?” 
“UIB. Can you walk?” 
“I don’t know.” 
“Right, we got you.” 
Two or three people carried him, Bijan couldn’t tell. Through his swollen eyes he saw bodies, 
bloodsplatter. They were inside a building, something plain and concrete.  
“Where am I?” 
“Dawn Throne,” the UIB agent holding him said. He wore a blackout mask over his face, and spoke 
from behind void.  
“How are you — ” 
“We had help,” the UIB agent grunted. They stopped as one of the men ahead checked around a corner. 
He wore plainclothes of an odd cut — Aunic — and carried a compact weapon. The man looked back at 
them and signaled it was all clear.  
“Are they?” Bijan asked. 
The UIB agent nodded.  
They moved fast and silent as they could to the building’s roof. A sleek, matte black shuttle waited 
there, idling. Two more UIB agents in hardsuits waited, scanning the sky.  
“Let’s go,” the lead agent shouted. He hustled Bijan onto the shuttle, the rest of the team following.  
—  
Breaking atmosphere was easy — the Aun onboard handled all the communications and codes they 
needed to clear a flight path. Nearlight was uncomfortable, but normal, and once they were underway Bijan 
found out what had happened.   
“A crusade,” Bijan muttered. He had failed.   
“A real motherfucker,” the lead UIB agent, Jeong, picked his teeth. He, like the rest of them, was 
strapped into a crash seat, not yet clear of the pursuit line. “We’re taking you to a secure location in-theater. 
It’s the best we can do for now.” 
“What do we do?” Bijan asked.  
Jeong shrugged. “Hell, Admin, I thought you would know.” 
Bijan spread his hands. 
“My job is diplomacy,” Bijan said. “I’m not much for a fight. Who is in command?” 

36 
 Jeong shook his head. “Lorenzo is sysadmin, but he’s subordinate to whoever runs BG Comet. Last CO 
scutted over Cornucopia and hasn’t been heard from since, so,” Jeong shrugged again. “You, I think.” 
Bijan found himself in the shuttle’s navcom suite. His head ached and he’d lost time again — an 
aftereffect of the Mind’s ontologics, the Aun had told him.  
There had never been a more desperate situation. Invasion on a scale never before encountered. A blink 
station destroyed, and help was decades away.  
One saving grace: Solh, his companion, had made it out. The navigational data confirmed it. Bijan 
allowed himself a small, short smile. He might not make it through this, but those that came after would 
know what they faced.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
End.  
 

37