Then the count hit zero, and Valiant stepped out of the lane.
For a heartbeat, Kaden’s gut tried to climb into his throat. The hum of the drives shifted, pitch sliding down, like someone had taken the whole ship and twisted it a few degrees against the fabric of everything.
His HUD flickered once, twice.
[HIS VALIANT//NAVIGATION]
Slip Transit: TERMINATED
Location: ANDROMEDA THEATER – CONTESTED CORRIDOR
Status: ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT ZONE
The sense of pressure in his ears eased. Gravity remembered what it was supposed to be doing.
The bay lights dimmed a fraction, compensating for the sudden flood of external feeds coming online. The bulkhead display on the far wall, usually running diagnostics or unit rosters, flipped to a tactical repeater. Valiant’s own forward observation cams painted a picture across his HUD.
Kaden’s first thought was that it looked like a graveyard caught mid-explosion.
Wreckage floated across the projection, slowly tumbling: long shards of hull plating, twisted ribs of structural truss, mangled chunks that might have been turrets or sensor masts. Some pieces glowed faintly in Aurora’s outlines, tagged with human registry codes. Others were Opp—dark composites with strange angles, ridges, and occasional spine-like protrusions. A few were just… shapes. Too broken to classify.
A broken station ring loomed off to port, one side sheared away entirely. The remaining arc sagged, open ribs exposed to vacuum, interior decks gaping.
Aurora dropped a label in the corner of his vision.
[AURORA//TACTICAL]
PRIOR ENGAGEMENT ZONE
Event: FAILED HEGEMONY OFFENSIVE
Time elapsed: 0Y 0M 6W
Six weeks. The neat timestamp felt obscene laid over so much metal.
A tag flashed and zoomed in on one fragment: charred Hegemony gray, turret mounts sheared away, a number half-visible along a broken spine. Kaden realized he was looking at part of a ship he’d only ever seen on classroom feeds.
[ID: HIS BULWARK]
Status: TOTAL LOSS
Navarro’s breath hissed softly over squad comm. “That’s… that’s Bulwark,” she said. “The name wasn’t just for show. They built her to eat anything the Opp threw at her and stay standing.”
“Yeah,” Vos said. “Turned out ‘anything’ had fine print.”
Tanaka hadn’t said a word since slip broke. His visor was turned toward the scattered hulks, shield locked to his forearm. Kaden couldn’t see his face, but his silence said enough.
This was where Epsilon-2 had died. Where Jax’s last shock squad had bled out into the void. Where Valiant herself had almost joined the scrap.
Out beyond the wreckage, Task Force Harrow uncurled into realspace.
Valiant’s own icon sat near the center of Kaden’s tactical display: a blue lozenge, numbers scrolling beside it. Harrow’s Wake slid into position slightly below and off starboard, its silhouette on the external cams longer and slimmer, guns glowing as warm outlines under Aurora’s filters. Aegis and Cutlass took the flanks, their tags snapping into place at the edges of the formation.
Farther back, Seraphim’s bulk loomed like a flattened dome, fighter bays dark for now. The frigates: Pike, Tenzing, Yari, Khepri, and a dozen others took their screening slots in a loose arc. Corvettes Ember, Spark, Dart, Raptor and her sisters bounced slightly around the perimeter, little stinging shapes ready to dart into gaps.
Shenzhou and her escort were already ahead of them, visible on the display as another cluster of blues further in, near the front edge of the debris field. Kaden’s HUD still showed the relay feed from her group in a smaller window: their skirmish with the Opp pickets had steadied into a shallow exchange, no one fully committing.
Red tags marked Opp ships at long range. Four pickets clustered near Shenzhou’s position, two more hanging back, moving like wolves who’d lunged at a fence and then retreated just enough to see if the dog would follow.
Gaunt’s voice rolled over marine net and fleet channels at once, steady and crisp.
[HIS VALIANT//FLEET NET] – GAUNT
“All Harrow elements, this is Gaunt. We are now in the corridor. Shenzhou group has first contact. Main line will advance by the book. Valiant and Harrow’s Wake hold center. Aegis, Cutlass, you have flanks. Seraphim, keep your birds warm but caged. Escorts, stay on your screens. Nothing gets around us to the support hulls.”
The icons began to slide forward, slow at first, their vectors adjusting to avoid the largest chunks of wreckage.
Kaden glanced toward the bay’s armored viewport. From here he couldn’t see as much as the feeds showed, but he could make out a few of the nearest hulks drifting by—a slab of hull that had once been a cruiser’s flank, a broken spire of Opp composite plating, something that might have been a docking pylon now torn in half.
“Take it in,” Jax said quietly on squad net. “This is what happens when a plan breaks and nobody can admit it in time.”
“Friendly,” Vos murmured.
“History used to be textbook pages and grainy feeds for you two,” Jax went on, as if she hadn’t heard him. “For Tanaka and me, this was a call to scramble. You’re getting the director’s cut. Don’t waste it.”
Tanaka’s voice came through, low and even. “Feels different when you can smell your own ship’s coolant,” he said.
Navarro shifted in place. “Can you… tell which bits are Valiant?” she asked.
“No,” Tanaka said. “That’s the point. After it goes bad enough, all the metal looks the same.”
Kaden swallowed. The timer to slip exit had reset to a different kind of count now.
[HIS VALIANT//TACTICAL]
Range to Opp line screen: CLOSING
Engagement threshold (est.): T–00:05:00
Ahead, Shenzhou’s plot updated. One of the red pickets flickered, then drifted back, its vector shifting from closing to holding distance. Shenzhou’s battery indicators pulsed, the feed showing blue streaks where her guns spat light into the void.
[AURORA//TACTICAL – SHENZHOU FEED]
Opp picket 1: COMBAT DEGRADED
Opp picket 2–4: ACTIVE
On Valiant’s own tactical, new red shapes began to appear at the far edge of sensor range.
They weren’t small.
[AURORA//TACTICAL]
NEW CONTACTS – OPP (x3)
Range: EXTREME
Preliminary classification: MEDIUM ESCORT / DESTROYER
The icons started as simple diamonds, then sharpened into more detailed silhouettes as Aurora digested the data. Long hulls. Angled plating. The faint suggestion of ventral fins.
Navarro sucked in a breath. “Those the same class we saw in history?” she asked.
“Close enough,” Jax said. “Opp shipyards like their basic shapes. They just keep packing more teeth into them.”
Tanaka’s visor stayed fixed on the projection. “Those aren’t what hurt us last time,” he said.
He was right. The cruisers in the recordings had been larger, heavier, with distinctive bulged sections along their flanks where plasma torpedo capacitors sat.
As if on cue, another contact tagged itself, farther back.
[AURORA//TACTICAL]
NEW CONTACT – OPP
Range: EXTREME
Class: CRUISER (EST.)
Configuration: UNKNOWN VARIANT
The icon was bigger. Its outline slowly refined: a broad, flattened main hull with layered armor plates that reminded Kaden of overlapping feathers, if feathers had been made out of dark metal and bad news. Ridges ran along its spine, jutting up like a series of armored quills. The forward third narrowed into something like a beak, not literally—no one had ever seen an Opp ship with an actual beak—but enough to give the impression of a predatory profile.
Along the flanks, Aurora highlighted rounded bulges that matched known Opp torpedo banks.
Vos whistled softly. “There it is.”
“That’s not a picket,” Navarro said.
“Cruiser,” Jax confirmed. “Not the biggest they have, but big enough that we don’t want it alive and happy on this side of the corridor.”
Gaunt’s voice came back on fleet net, a shade tighter now.
“Shenzhou, maintain pressure on their forward screen. Harrow’s Wake, with me. We’re not letting that cruiser drift wherever it wants.”
Wake and Valiant’s tags brightened as their vector arrows lengthened. Aegis and Cutlass shifted to stay on the flanks, frigates and corvettes adjusting like smaller fish moving around sharks.
Shenzhou’s little window shrank in Kaden’s HUD as Valiant’s own view took priority. The Opp cruiser’s tag climbed from extreme to long range.
The Opp moved to meet them.
Its picket escorts shifted into a staggered screen layout, spreading ahead and slightly to the sides of the bigger ship. Their vectors looked tight. Practiced.
“These guys aren’t improvising,” Vos noted. “That’s doctrine. They’ve done this before.”
“So have we,” Jax said. “Difference is who learned more last time.”
[AURORA//TACTICAL]
Range to Opp cruiser: LONG
Estimated main battery range overlap: T–00:02:00
Kaden exhaled slowly. His palms were slick inside his gloves again. He flexed his fingers against the grips of his SMG where it hung across his chest.
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Okafor’s voice cut in on marine net, crisp as ever.
[HIS VALIANT//MARINE NET] – OKAFOR
“Theta Platoon, Okafor. You’re still not launching. I know you see the same red shapes I do. Don’t get clever. You are not boarding anything that can still punch holes in line ships. Our job starts when theirs finish theirs. Eyes on your sergeants until then.”
“Translation,” Navarro muttered, “sit still and don’t drool on the deck.”
“Translation,” Jax said, “the big guns go first. We’ll get the leftovers.”
Opp brackets flashed on the main display. Valiant’s forward batteries came alive in Aurora’s feed. He couldn’t hear the guns, not from here, but his bones picked up a faint vibration as power surged.
[AURORA//TACTICAL]
Valiant – primary batteries: FIRING SOLUTION LOCKED
Harrow’s Wake – primary batteries: FIRING SOLUTION LOCKED
“Here we go,” Vos said.
Blue streaks arced across the schematic. Opp return fire showed as jagged red lines cutting back.
Kaden watched the ranges converge.
The first salvos met in the space between the two sides, harsh light flickering against debris and dead hulls. One of the Opp escorts took a glancing blow; its health bar dropped into yellow and Aurora flagged localized damage. A human frigate flinched on the display, its tag flickering as it angled, damage indicators flashing.
[AURORA//TACTICAL]
HIS FRIGATE – PIKE
Damage: MODERATE
Status: COMBAT CAPABLE
“That was close,” Navarro said.
“That was expected,” Jax said. “Nobody walks away from the first punch without a bruise.”
The Opp cruiser’s icon stayed green. It began to yaw, presenting a thicker wedge of armor toward Valiant and Harrow’s Wake. Its own batteries lit, broadside arcs outlined in red.
Kaden’s HUD trajectory projections flickered with possible paths. He wasn’t a navigator, but even he could see how the lines bent around that massive hull.
Gaunt’s voice, again. There was no theater in it, no raised tone, just a slight compression that said he was paying a great deal of attention.
“Valiant, Wake, hold your line. Aegis, Cutlass, keep those side elements honest. Frigates, don’t get hero-brained. Your job is screening, not trading hulls with something three times your mass.”
Hero-brained. Kaden almost smiled.
Another exchange. Valiant’s tag shuddered at the edges as she took a partial hit—shields and armor soaking most of it. Aurora flagged the location with a soft pulse.
[AURORA//SHIP INTEGRITY] – LOCAL
Armor strike – SECTOR D-12
Damage: MINOR
Status: CONTAINED
The Opp cruiser wasn’t so lucky on the return volley. Combined fire from Valiant and Harrow’s Wake reached it in a staggered wave. One cluster of red outlines along its flank flared white on Kaden’s HUD, then went dark.
[AURORA//TACTICAL]
Opp cruiser – flank batteries: DEGRADED
Opp cruiser – hull integrity: 84%
“They felt that,” Vos said.
“Not enough yet,” Jax replied. “Eighty-four percent still kills ships just fine.”
The distant hull shifted. Its vector shortened for a moment, then extended again as it corrected course. The escorts around it tightened their screen, moving to cover the wounded side.
“Smart,” Tanaka said quietly. “They’re not just charging.”
“Last time, we weren’t either,” Jax said. “Didn’t save us from an ambush in a place we thought we’d already cleared. Nobody here’s stupid. That’s what makes it fun.”
Kaden’s heart tripped faster for a second. RES 6 did its work, keeping the edges of his vision clear. He focused on the numbers.
The fight stretched. Shenzhou’s feed shrank further into the corner as Valiant’s own engagement took center stage. The forward screen had done its job; now the main line was fully in it.
Aegis and Cutlass began trading fire with the other Opp escorts, lines of blue and red crossing further out. Frigates darted in to add their weight, then darted out again before the heavier hulls could punish them too badly. Corvettes skated at the edges, opportunistic, looking for gaps.
Kaden watched one corvette—Spark—make a tight burn, slip behind an Opp escort, and rake its exposed rear with concentrated fire. The escort’s bar dipped into orange. A moment later, Spark’s hull flickered in return as another enemy gun found her.
[AURORA//TACTICAL]
HIS CORVETTE – SPARK
Damage: MODERATE
Status: EVADING
“See that angle?” Jax said. “That’s what a risk that almost went bad looks like. Remember it. Someday you’ll be on a hull and someone will ask if you want to volunteer for something similar.”
“Remind me to say no,” Navarro said.
“Oh, you won’t,” Jax said. “You’ll say yes, because by then it’ll be your squad on the line and you’ll think you can thread the needle better. That’s how we end up with all this pretty scrap.”
Tanaka’s voice had a different tone now. “Cruiser’s slowing,” he said.
He was right. Aurora’s tags updated.
Opp cruiser – Engine output: DEGRADED
Velocity: REDUCING
Maneuverability: REDUCED
Gaunt seized on it like a dog on a bone.
[FLEET NET] – GAUNT
“Wake, keep chewing that wounded side. Valiant, I want its engines and mains offline, not its hull turned into confetti. We’re not wasting that tonnage if we don’t have to.”
Navarro’s breath caught. “He wants to board it,” she said.
“Weapons, engines, then marines,” Jax said. “That’s the order. If we knock too many holes in it, there won’t be anything worth risking you on.”
Kaden realized his mouth was dry. He licked his lips inside the helmet.
Another volley. Valiant’s batteries flashed on the schematic. The Opp cruiser took it along its rear quarter. Aurora painted the impact in bright overlay.
Opp cruiser – Engine output: SEVERELY DEGRADED
Velocity: FALLING
Weapons – STATUS: PARTIAL
The big hull began to drift off its intended line, momentum carrying it slightly sideways as its maneuvering tried to compensate and failed.
“Got you,” Vos said softly.
“Not yet,” Jax said. “Opp isn’t going to sit and watch us strip their pride and joy.”
She was right there, too.
New red tags sparked along the farther edge of the display.
[AURORA//TACTICAL]
ADDITIONAL CONTACTS – OPP (x3)
Range: LONG
Preliminary classification: ESCORT / FRIGATE
They weren’t as big as the cruiser, but they were angling toward it—and toward the gap that would be left in the line if Gaunt didn’t react.
“Reinforcements,” Navarro said.
“Of course,” Vos replied. “Can’t let us have nice things uncontested.”
On the fleet net, another voice joined Gaunt’s and Okafor’s: a clipped tenor Kaden didn’t recognize at first, then placed as Harrow’s Wake’s captain.
[HIS HARROW’S WAKE//FLEET NET] – CAPT. LENG
“Wake can cover its far side for a bit, Valiant. But if those new contacts commit, we’re going to be babysitting a cripple and fighting off fresh teeth at the same time.”
Gaunt answered without hesitation.
“Understood, Leng. We’re not putting your hull in a vice. Aegis, Cutlass, adjust vectors to intercept those newcomers. Escorts, shift screen accordingly. We buy time or we break off. Nobody dies clinging to a prize we can’t keep.”
The blue icons responded, arcs shifting.
Kaden could feel the tension ratchet in the bay. Conversations in other squads dimmed to a murmur as more people watched the tactical. The sense that they were balanced on the edge of something sharpened.
Okafor’s voice came back on marine net, aimed squarely at them.
“Theta Platoon, Okafor. You’re about to see the part of an op where Command decides whether a hull is a liability or an asset. If that cruiser can still swing its guns, it’s a liability. Our job stays theoretical. If Gaunt and Leng can take its teeth and legs without killing it, it becomes our problem. Stay ready for the second option.”
“Translation,” Vos said, “we might get to go make bad life choices on that thing.”
“Translation,” Jax said, “you’re about to see what boarding target selection looks like. Pay attention.”
The Opp cruiser’s tag ticked down again.
Opp cruiser – Hull integrity: 68%
Engines: CRIPPLED
Weapons: PARTIAL – FADING
One of its flanking escorts flared bright on the schematic as Harrow’s Wake poured fire into it. The escort’s bar plunged into red, then disappeared, its icon going gray and tumbling in the overlay.
Aegis and Cutlass moved to meet the incoming reinforcements, their own guns lighting the void.
The Opp cruiser tried to turn its undamaged side toward the Hegemony ships, to shield its vulnerable flank, but its vector controls lagged. It drifted, half-cooperative, half-stubborn, bleeding momentum and heat.
On Kaden’s HUD, Aurora highlighted it in a thicker red frame and added a new line of text.
[AURORA//TACTICAL EVAL]
Target: OPP CRUISER
Status: MOBILITY SEVERELY DEGRADED
Weapons: LIMITED
Structural Integrity: SUFFICIENT FOR BOARDING (PROVISIONAL)
“Provisional,” Navarro read aloud. “That’s a word I do not like.”
“You like ‘scrap’ better?” Vos asked.
Gaunt must have seen the same annotation. His voice came over marine net this time, not just fleet.
[HIS VALIANT//MARINE NET] – GAUNT
“All marine elements, Gaunt. We have a crippled Opp cruiser with most of its guns shot out and engines hanging by a thread. That’s a lot of tonnage and data we don’t want drifting into their hands later. Theta Platoon, stand by. Okafor’s building you a boarding package.”
Kaden felt his heart stop for half a second and then slam back into rhythm. He glanced at Jax.
She was staring at the tactical display, jaw set, posture straight. When she spoke on squad net, her voice was cool, all business.
“Helmet mics stay open,” she said. “Check everything again. Then check it one more time. Pods will go hot fast once Okafor gets the word. We’re not fumbling buckles because someone spaced out watching the light show.”
Kaden forced his hands to move. Mag check. Harness clips. Injector port caps. Tourniquet pouches. He’d already gone over this twice. He went over it again.
Navarro’s breathing was faster now, but not full-on panting. “This is it,” she whispered. “First real one.”
Vos tried for a joke and landed somewhere near it. “Look at it this way,” he said. “At least we’re not riding into a fresh cruiser. This one’s already tired.”
Tanaka’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Tired things still kill you if you get close enough,” he said. “Respect it.”
Kaden’s HUD showed another minor hit registered on Valiant’s own hull. Armor took it. Somewhere deeper in the ship, damage control teams would be moving.
Okafor came back, voice clipped and precise, the way it got when he was corralling too many moving parts at once.
[MARINE NET] – OKAFOR
“Theta Platoon, listen up. Provisional package as follows, pending final approval: Theta-1 and Theta-2 will be primary breach on engineering and drive sections. Theta-4 and Theta-5 will take secondary power and command auxiliaries. Theta-3…”
Kaden’s spine straightened.
“…Theta-3 will be tasked with torpedo and primary weapons control. You’re the knife we’re putting at their throat. I’ll have more when we lock in hull and approach vector. Until then, no one panics, no one celebrates. You’re not on that cruiser until your boots hit its deck.”
“Yes, sir,” Jax said immediately.
Theta-3’s tag pulsed on Kaden’s HUD for a second, a soft blue acknowledgement.
“Torpedo control,” Navarro said, somewhere between nervous and impressed. “We get the fun room.”
“We get the room that keeps our ships from dying in one shot if they somehow get those tubes working again,” Jax said. “Stay focused on that part.”
Out on the tactical, the Opp reinforcements were closing with Aegis and Cutlass, beginning their own knife-fight. Shenzhou and her frigate pack had edged further along the debris field, keeping pressure on the original pickets.
The Opp cruiser hung in the middle distance, bleeding motion, weapons fire down to sporadic spurts from surviving guns. Its hull glowed with internal heat in the overlays, patchy and uneven.
Kaden watched it, trying to imagine the inside. Opp corridors. Opp lighting. Opp marines waiting on the other side of whatever hole they carved.
His stomach twisted again, but he kept his breathing even.
He’d trained for this in sims. He’d patched people up on mats and in fake corridors. He’d watched Jensen die in a training bay and Song laugh in a mess hall. He’d listened to Tanaka talk about intersection traps and Vos talk about dead doors and Jax talk about names on walls.
Now there was a real hull at the edge of his HUD, outlined in red and flagged as “sufficient for boarding.”
“Mercer,” Jax said. “You with me?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” he said. His voice sounded steadier than he felt.
“Good,” she said. “Because when we go, you’re not going to have time to think about the big picture. Fleet plays with their cruisers. We take one section of one ship and either we do it right or our people die. That’s it. That’s the scale that matters down there.”
He nodded, even though she couldn’t see it through the visor.
On the main display, the Opp cruiser’s hull integrity ticked down one more notch under sporadic fire.
Hull integrity: 62%
Status: STABLE FOR BOARDING – PENDING
Okafor’s voice dropped a note.
“Theta Platoon, final checks. Boarding package confirmation inbound as soon as Fleet signs off. Pods will launch on my mark. Jax, squad leaders, be ready to receive target deck schematics from Shenzhou and Valiant’s scan teams. Whatever we can’t map before insertion, you improvise.”
“Copy,” Jax said.
Navarro flexed her fingers on her rifle. Vos checked Wasp’s cradle one more time, fingers tapping absently at the control pad on his forearm. Tanaka shifted his stance, shield angled slightly, as if he could already feel incoming fire.
Kaden glanced once more at the wreckage floating in the background. Bulwark’s shattered spine. The broken station ring. The unmarked chunks of metal that used to be somebody’s whole world.
Six weeks ago, Valiant had come into this corridor and bled. Epsilon-2 had died. Jax’s last shock squad had died. Fleet had cut their losses and run.
Now they were back. And this time, Valiant wasn’t just trading shots.
This time, they were going to get inside something that could shoot back.
He checked his med harness again, more by reflex than need, feeling the familiar shapes of auto-injectors and sealant packs under his fingers.
Whatever happened when those pods slammed into that cruiser’s hull, one thing stayed the same:
People were going to get hurt. His job was to make sure as many as possible didn’t stay that way.
“Theta-3,” Jax said quietly. “Enjoy the view while you can. Next time you see that cruiser, it’ll be from kissing distance.”
Kaden kept his eyes on the red outline of the Opp hull and waited for Okafor to say the word that would send them hurtling toward it.
