The tactical projection didn’t stop moving.

  Opp escorts shifted to meet Aegis and Cutlass. Frigates slid in to support. Corvettes darted on the edges like angry insects. The Opp cruiser stayed pinned in the middle distance, drifting, bleeding heat and momentum, its guns still spitting in short, stubborn bursts.

  Kaden watched its health bar tick down one more notch. Aurora tagged the change, calm as ever.

  [AURORA//TACTICAL]

  Opp cruiser – hull integrity: 59%

  Engines: CRIPPLED

  Weapons: DEGRADED

  Okafor came back on marine net, voice a little rougher around the edges now, like he’d been talking nonstop across too many channels.

  “Theta Platoon, Okafor. Fleet’s signed off. We’re going to take their teeth instead of leave them something to tow home. Boarding package is confirmed.”

  The bay’s background noise dipped for a heartbeat. Every Theta tag in Kaden’s HUD pulsed.

  “Theta-1 and Theta-2, you are primary breaches on drives and engineering. Theta-4, Theta-5, you’re hitting secondary power and command auxiliaries. Theta-3…”

  Kaden’s pulse climbed.

  “…Theta-3, you are assigned to weapons and torpedo control. Your job is to make sure that cruiser never fires straight at anything human again. You do not need to be neat. You do need to be thorough.”

  “Copy,” Jax said, the answer coming out with zero hesitation.

  Okafor didn’t bother with a speech.

  “Pods are signed over to Platoon. Squad leaders, get your people in the cans. You launch on my mark or not at all. Don’t make me come down there. Okafor out.”

  The marine net filled with clipped acknowledgements from other sergeants, squad leaders, lieutenants. Gaunt’s voice stayed on fleet channels, still orchestrating the dance of larger hulls.

  Jax turned away from the tactical and faced Theta-3 fully.

  “You heard him,” she said. “We’re on the knife. Helmets stay sealed, mics stay clean. Navarro, you’re on my left. Tanaka, front. Vos, Mercer, right. We’re loading in thirty seconds.”

  “About time,” Vos muttered, but there was a tightness under it.

  They moved.

  The boarding pods lay in two staggered rows along the bay’s outer wall, like fat, armored darts waiting in their launch tubes. Each was big enough for a shock squad and gear, with barely any room to spare. The inner hulls were padded in the most grudging way possible: strips of impact foam at head height, narrow seats along the sides, harness rails overhead.

  Theta-3’s assigned pod blinked blue in Kaden’s HUD.

  [AURORA//LAUNCH CONTROL]

  Pod 3-Theta – STATUS: STANDBY

  Assigned: THETA-3

  Tanaka jogged the last few steps, one hand on his shield, the other catching the pod frame to steady himself. Jax followed, then Navarro, Vos, Kaden bringing up the rear.

  Inside, the pod smelled faintly of metal, sealant, and old sweat, the kind of scent that never really left no matter how often cleaning crews cycled through.

  “Tanaka, front left,” Jax said. “Shield toward the hatch. Navarro, front right. Vos, rear right. Mercer, rear left. I’ll take center by the door.”

  They slotted in.

  The seats were basically more excuses than furniture: narrow ledges bolted to the inner curve, harness points above and at the hips. Kaden dropped onto his, the med harness creaking, and grabbed the restraints. His gloved fingers moved by habit, buckles sliding, straps biting in across chest and thighs.

  Above him, metal ribs arced overhead, crisscrossed by cables and impact webbing. A small display plate near the hatch showed a basic external view linked to a hull cam: a slice of the bay, marines moving, flicker of tactical overlays reflected in their visors.

  Jax stayed near the hatch, one hand braced on a rail, the other hooking her own harness into a quick, practiced cross-clip that would let her move short distances without unbuckling completely.

  “Call your status,” she said. “Tanaka.”

  “Strapped,” Tanaka said. His shield was angled inboard now, edge resting on the deck, ready to swing up as soon as the hatch blew. “Weapon seated. I’m good.”

  “Navarro.”

  “Buckled,” Navarro said. Her rifle lay across her lap, muzzle down, safety on. “One in the pipe, mags full. Ready, Sergeant.”

  “Vos.”

  “Seat’s a luxury,” Vos said. “Harness locked. Wasp green, guns green. Ready.”

  Jax didn’t comment on the joke. “Mercer.”

  “Strapped,” Kaden said. He touched his SMG by reflex. “Med harness full. Injectors loaded. Ready.”

  She nodded once.

  “Pods are about to go live,” she said. “Remember: no training node. No sim overlays. You’ve got your neck chip and your own eyes. If you wait for some friendly wireframe to tell you where to stand, you’re going to catch a bullet with your teeth.”

  “Comforting,” Navarro muttered.

  “That’s what Anchor is for,” Vos said.

  “Anchor isn’t a shield,” Jax said. “It just keeps your brains from boiling over when it gets loud. You still have to do your jobs.”

  The pod shuddered faintly as bay machinery latched on. Somewhere behind Kaden, heavy magnets thunked. A low whine built under the deck, more felt than heard.

  [AURORA//LAUNCH CONTROL]

  Pod 3-Theta – STATUS: LOCKED IN TUBE

  Outer bay doors: SEALED

  Trajectory sync: IN PROGRESS

  Kaden’s HUD added a new panel at the top of his vision: a simple countdown and a schematic line showing their intended path from Valiant to the Opp cruiser. It looked short. It wouldn’t feel that way.

  “Last reminder,” Jax said. “Tanaka, you own the first three meters after that hatch opens. Navarro, you keep the middle from turning into a killing field. Vos, Wasp out early, I want eyes ahead as soon as we’ve got something to fly through. Mercer, you shoot until someone’s too hurt to move and then you fix them fast enough they don’t die on our boots.”

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  Kaden’s throat felt a little tight. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Questions?” Jax asked.

  No one spoke.

  “Good,” she said. “Then listen.”

  The hum under their feet deepened. Kaden felt it in his teeth.

  Outside the pod, Gaunt’s voice cut in over marine net again.

  “All Theta elements, this is Gaunt. Boarding strike is green-lit. Your target’s not dead and it’s not happy, but it’s not going anywhere fast. Fleet will keep its friends busy as long as we can. You get in, you do your job, and you get out on my ships. Do not make me leave you behind on a burning Opp hull because you got ambitious.”

  Kaden’s hands curled on his harness.

  “Sergeants, take your squads,” Gaunt finished. “Okafor, you have the knife.”

  If there was a reply from Okafor on some officer channel, Kaden didn’t hear it. What he did hear was the marine net tone and Okafor’s voice a heartbeat later.

  “Theta Platoon, Okafor. By squads. Theta-1, Theta-2, you’re first in the tubes. Theta-3, -4, -5, you follow on my count. Don’t race. Don’t lag. We stay in sync or we start dying in single digits.”

  The pod lights dimmed to a soft red, the kind the training instructors had called “night vision friendly” and Kaden had privately labeled “oh good, you’re supposed to be scared now.”

  The display by the hatch flashed as power rerouted. For a moment, Kaden caught a glimpse of Theta-1 boarding their own pod across the bay, tags flickering. Then the view cut to black as the outer doors closed over the tube.

  [AURORA//LAUNCH CONTROL]

  Pod 1-Theta – LAUNCH

  Pod 2-Theta – LAUNCH QUEUED

  A low, distant thump rolled through the pod walls as the first can shot out. Kaden felt it in his chest, like someone had punched the air around him.

  “Imagine being the test pilot for these,” Vos said quietly. “First time someone thought ‘hey, let’s fire five marines in a glorified bullet at another ship and hope they don’t miss’.”

  “Shut up,” Navarro said. It came out more tense than annoyed.

  Pod 2-Theta – LAUNCH

  Another thump, a little closer this time. The countdown at the top of Kaden’s HUD ticked down from thirty.

  “Breathe,” Jax said. “In. Out. You’ve done the sims. Only difference is when you fall on your ass this time, it’ll hurt more.”

  Tanaka gave a soft snort.

  [AURORA//LAUNCH CONTROL]

  Pod 3-Theta – LAUNCH

  The world tried to rip itself out from under Kaden.

  The pod slammed forward, pinned by magnetic rails for the first fraction of a heartbeat, then flung free. The acceleration hit like a physical blow. His harness bit into his shoulders and hips, teeth clacking together. For a second, it felt like his organs were trying to migrate into the back of his spine.

  His HUD jittered, then stabilised as Aurora compensated.

  Relative velocity: INCREASING

  Guidance: GREEN

  The tiny display by the hatch came back on, tied to an aft-facing camera now that showed Valiant and the bay receding with terrifying speed—a hulking, scarred silhouette speckled with running lights and the flare of guns. For a moment, he caught the gunlines again: blue lances spearing out toward the Opp cruiser and its escorts, red streaks flashing back.

  Then the pod rolled in its lane and the view shifted, the crippled Opp cruiser swimming into frame ahead and slightly to port.

  It was bigger up close.

  The overlay schematics hadn’t done it justice. The hull’s layered plates caught light in broken ways, some surfaces black and dull, others scored where energy fire had blown chunks away. Those feather-like armor ridges along its spine were ragged now, some snapped, some molten at the edges.

  Heat bled from wounds along its flanks, shimmering in Aurora’s sensors. One section near the stern glowed hotter, where its engines had died ugly deaths.

  Turrets still tracked, here and there—spitting fire at Valiant and Harrow’s Wake. But fewer than before. A third of them were dark. Some hung at crooked angles, like broken limbs.

  Between Valiant’s position and the cruiser, the space battle went on, but the geometry was different now. Escorts were peeling away under pressure from Aegis and Cutlass. Frigates skirmished on the edges. The immediate space around the cruiser itself was being forced open.

  “So that’s our date,” Vos said. “She’s… charming.”

  “Target’s target,” Jax said. “Don’t fall in love with the paint job.”

  “I don’t see any paint,” Navarro said.

  “That’s because it’s under the holes,” Vos replied.

  The pod shuddered as a stray fragment pinged off the hull, a sharp vibration through Kaden’s boots.

  [AURORA//LAUNCH CONTROL]

  Proximity hazard: MINOR DEBRIS

  Trajectory correction: AUTOMATIC

  His stomach lurched as the pod adjusted its angle, nose tipping a fraction. The harness creaked. Somewhere, something metallic rattled—probably a loose clip or someone’s gear shifting.

  The countdown at the top of his HUD had flipped to a different metric now.

  Time to hull contact: 00:00:18

  Jax reached up and clipped another tether point to her harness, locking herself more firmly near the hatch.

  “Pods don’t have inertial dampers like your pretty academy sims,” she said. “Brace for the bounce. Tanaka, when we hit, shield up. Navarro, muzzle nowhere near the door when it cuts or you’re losing it. Vos, Wasp prepped. Mercer, check your wrists—if your hands are asleep from the launch, you fix that before you try to shoot.”

  Kaden flexed his fingers. They tingled, but they moved. Trauma Response kept his breathing from spiking too high; his heart still hammered, but his hands stayed steady on the harness and the SMG grip.

  He stole one more look at the cruiser through the little screen as it swelled to fill their world.

  From this angle, he could see some of the Opp hull detail the academy feeds had never really captured: the way the armor plates overlapped with tiny channels between them, like scales with capillaries underneath; the faint pulsing glow along some seams, hints of power conduits or coolant loops.

  He wondered, briefly and wildly, what it looked like from the inside when a Hegemony pod slammed into your ship and started cutting.

  Time to hull contact: 00:00:05

  “All right,” Jax said. Her voice found that narrow lane between calm and wired. “This is the part where you remember you’re not alone in here. Tanaka, you’re not a one-man army. Navarro, you don’t have to kill everything in one magazine. Vos, you’re not allowed to die stupid. Mercer…”

  “Yes, Sergeant?” Kaden said.

  “Don’t freeze,” she said simply. “You move, you fight, you fix. In that order.”

  The impact hit.

  It was like being in a train car that suddenly tried to occupy the same space as a wall. The nose of the pod struck the cruiser’s hull with a bone-deep clang, momentum slamming through the frame. Kaden’s teeth clicked hard. His vision went white at the edges for a heartbeat, then snapped back.

  The harness dug into his shoulders, then slackened by millimeters as the pod settled. Something groaned in the bulkhead behind his head.

  Tanaka let out a short grunt that might have been a laugh. “Still with us,” he said.

  Kaden’s HUD updated.

  [AURORA//BOARDING]

  Hull contact: CONFIRMED

  Seal integrity: GREEN

  Cutter alignment: IN PROGRESS

  The transverse thrusters gave a last, tiny nudge, seating the pod more securely against the enemy ship. A deep, rising whine started somewhere around Kaden’s boots and climbed up through the metal.

  The ring cutter.

  He’d seen them from the outside during exercises: a halo of molten light chewing a circle into willing practice hulls. Inside the pod, you only got the sound.

  It built fast, a hungry, electric scream that made the air feel too tight. The deck vibrated under his boots, a fine, buzzing tremor. Heat ghosted through the pod walls, subtle but unmistakable.

  “Visors locked, safeties off,” Jax said over the noise. “Tanaka, you’re going to feel the floor jump when the plug kicks free. Don’t lose your feet. Once that hole’s open, we are on their clock, not ours.”

  Kaden thumbed his SMG’s safety off. The tiny click sounded impossibly loud in his own ears, completely lost under the cutter’s rising howl.

  Navarro steadied her rifle, barrel angled up and away from the hatch. Vos reached up and tapped his chest; Wasp’s clamp light flashed once, ready to go.

  Kaden’s HUD showed a faint ring outline where the cutter was working, matched to the hull’s interior. It was all angles and guesses—the best Aurora could do off Shenzhou and Valiant’s quick scan passes—but it gave him something to picture: a corridor beyond, too bright or too dim, Opp marines with their own weapons already trained on the ragged circle about to drop out of their wall.

  The noise peaked.

  [AURORA//BOARDING]

  Cutter: COMPLETE

  Plug: SECURED

  Hatch release: STANDBY

  For a heartbeat there was a strange, almost silent pressure, like the ship was holding its breath.

  Then the floor jerked.

  The circular plug, a slice of Opp hull and whatever plating they’d just chewed through, dropped away with a heavy, final clang. The air pressure in the pod barely twitched; the cutter’s seals and Aurora’s timing kept the atmosphere mostly where it belonged.

  A thin band of light appeared around the edge of the hatch, pale and alien-colored.

  Kaden’s lungs felt too small.

  “Remember your lanes,” Jax said. “Tanaka, on my mark—shield up, one step, don’t overextend. Navarro, half-beat behind him, don’t crowd his shoulder. Vos, Wasp out low and wide. Mercer, you’re watching our flanks and counting how many of us are still breathing.”

  She paused just long enough for the words to land.

  “Welcome to the job,” she said. “Stand by to breach.”

  The cutter’s glow dimmed. The world narrowed to the circular outline in front of them and the promise of whatever waited on the other side.