Commander Jenkins’s laugh was genuine this time. “Yeah. It was something to see. Amazing how she can be so simultaneously crafty and painfully naive. She found and adulterated all the biometric monitors in the sim pod, a beautiful piece of hackwork. But she completely ignored the old analog camera we have staring right through the viewport, recording every grin, every suppressed cheer, every gleeful giggle and snicker when she thought she’d pulled one over on us.”
I shrugged, the motion sending a fresh spike of pain through my shoulder. “She sees the world through code and essence flows. Tech and sorcery are her native languages. Eyeballs and old-fashioned analog surveillance? They just blow right past her. It’s like she can’t even conceive of someone just… watching. It’s a blind spot you could fly a battlecruiser through.”
“That’s exactly why I’m happy to get her on the Crow,” he said, “and why you’re getting assigned to their security detachment. No conscripts. Most of the crew are civilian contractors, veterans who know the value of silence and discretion, with a core contingent of detached fleet mercs. The ship plays cleanup for the fleet, handles the messy problems—the kind that can rip a standard line fleet apart.”
“They take on problems that big? Why haven’t I ever heard of them?”
Mike shrugged. “Most of their work is kept quiet. Light drone carriers are rare in the regular fleet; logistics thinks they’re worthless against planet-killers. And the Crow is magitech 7. We can’t even fabricate most of the parts for it anymore."
"The UPF gives them a stipend, but the mechanical and mystical upkeep is entirely on their own dime. The brass doesn’t like to admit that contractors can pull more weight than their own ships—it makes the free worlds question the fleet’s necessity, and that questions the flow of taxes and conscripts.”
Stolen story; please report.
He leaned forward, his expression turning deadly serious. “The rules haven’t changed. Keep her alive. Keep her learning. Keep her on her toes. You’re on detached duty. The Crow has two other spiritualists besides her, both adept-level. Their XO is a Taer, an empath, and sharp as a monomolecular blade."
"They have a tier-7 implant bay… this might be the opportunity you’ve been looking for to get that piece of crap in your back looked at. They regularly raid high-yield spaceborne rifts for resources.” He slid a data-slate across the desk. “I already have your orders cut. Now it’s just up to Brandt and Michaelson to administer their final exams.”
“Seriously, Dave,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “I don’t have to spell it out for you. A potential Titan-killer. Your job is to keep her safe in the rifts, give her the space and security to build her power base. I still want you to try and avoid a formal bond—the politics would be a nightmare—but the Crow’s XO has considerable pull. If it happens… she’ll likely be able to shield you from the worst of the fallout.”
I nodded, taking the slate. The mission parameters were still infuriatingly vague: no time limit, nebulous victory conditions. It felt less like orders and more like a quest. I’d only ever had one before, a lifetime ago, when the Paladin class first opened to me. I still remembered the wording, had always thought of it as some kind of cosmic joke: Begin the Path of the Paladin. The reward had been just as absurd: Help Save the Galaxy.
I’d never told a soul. Quests were private things, and sometimes they showed you truths you’d rather not see. Like the one that revealed my best friend, the man I’d have taken a bolt for, was on the payroll of the Mercenary Cartel, the same scum who supplied unmodded humans to the slaver worlds. Even fifteen years later, the memory of that fight—the betrayal, the desperate, kill-or-be-killed struggle in the leaking corridor of a dying station—cut deeper than any Chaos spawn’s claw ever could.
The mission was active. The path was unclear. And I was walking straight into it with a broken back and a kid who didn’t know enough to be afraid.
