Chief Warrant Officer Charlie David Wasserman-

  With a quiet hiss that resonated through the deck plates and up through the soles of my boots, the transiter docked with the Crow’s drydock umbilical. The transition from the soothing non-space of the transit node back into realspace was a physical blow, a wave of nauseating sensory input that made my Caliban shriek in protest.

  Right now, I could barely tolerate realspace. Ironically enough, the eerie, soul-sucking void of a shadowstepper cargo hauler was a lot more comfortable than even the heartbeat spent in a node’s blink transport. Most people couldn’t handle the psychic side effects of shadowstepping, but with the amount of necrotic flux running through my system, it just felt like more of the same awful, familiar static.

  Could true deviation, getting taken over by a Chaos lord, really be that far off when the void between stars feels more like home than solid matter? The thought was a cold knot in my stomach. Well, if that ever started to happen, a solution was just a finger flick away… I could end it.

  Make sure the destruction was total, that there was no chance I could be brought back as a wraith or some tormented undead horror. The fact that the system still labeled me as a divine paladin was the only comfort I had, the thin, frayed thread I was clinging to.

  The Crow was an interesting ship. Arguably a Valkyrie flagship, if they had one. According to the command net, it had a distinguished service record second to none. In its long and storied career, even when it had been temporarily converted to a luxury liner—a fact that still boggled the mind—it had participated in the destruction of dozens of void beasts, often singlehandedly.

  It was Magitech 7, which probably helped, but its captains were the stuff of legend. Eccentrics and visionaries who invited losers and known trouble cases on board and somehow bound them together into a truly notable crew, finding depths of ability in them that defied all logical explanation based on their histories and backgrounds. A ship of misfits and cast-offs that somehow became more than the sum of its parts.

  The fact that Roisin had wound up on this ship wasn’t even slightly a surprise. They had fingers fairly deep in a number of intelligence pies, and powerful contacts in the form of the first Captain and even subsequent captains.

  Yes, the first Captain was currently a councilor and part of the deep admiralty, but the second captain, who had recently retired, was just as influential among the corporate set and bid fair to turn public opinion against the inclusion of the slaver worlds into the UNP as recognized political entities.

  And this new captain was a real mystery. Connected deeply to the church, I’d heard rumors that she was actually pushing to start a crusade against the slaver worlds, and ban conscription altogether… apparently, the cost/benefit analysis, especially with all the corruption that naturally gravitated towards any form of legalized bondage, didn’t add up.

  Not surprising to anyone with a moral compass, but the planetary congress was fighting tooth and nail to keep it active, probably because of the huge cut that the system lined their pockets with. Resources retrieved by conscripts were sold and the profits split between Congress and the fleet, with massive graft at both ends. It was a putrid, ruinous system, and it persisted because it made the powerful even more so.

  The sentry at the gate was a sight to behold. A well-endowed six-foot-two beauty wearing black armor that seemed sculpted to emphasize every curve of her sexuality rather than concealing it, which meant she was likely an Amazonian.

  She held a pulse rifle with easy familiarity, her eyes scanning me with a professional detachment that was at odds with her appearance. She quickly accepted my identity from the data-slate I offered, her gaze lingering for a second on my Paladin sigil before she nodded respectfully and sent me to the quarterdeck to meet the officer of the watch.

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  What was most surprising was the speed and eagerness of my acceptance. When Mike had sent over my credentials, the XO had contacted me immediately, personally, inviting me to take the position on board as the troop commander. It wasn't just an assignment; it felt like an invitation. They’d been expecting me.

  The officer of the watch was a midshipman. Princeton, I think her name was. Priscilla? Something like that. A feisty little house scion, her uniform impeccably pressed, her posture radiating an unearned superiority that was almost impressive in its totality.

  I’d dealt with her type all my life… the product of nepotism and privilege, utterly convinced the universe owed them a debt. She even made a few heavy-handed, childish attempts to flirt, batting her eyelashes and putting a slight sway in her hips as she led me through the corridors. It earned nothing more than a blank, bewildered look from me before the teenager, with a sour expression, dropped the act.

  Someone hadn’t gotten the memo that Warrant Officers, as specialist NCOs, existed outside the standard chain of command in a lot of ways. We could probably kick a captain’s ass with impunity if we had a good enough reason and the paperwork to back it up. The Navy, any navy that had ever floated on water or flown between stars, rested on chief and warrant officer shoulders, and had since back to the time when old Earth was circumnavigated by wooden ships, and everyone with a shred of sense knew it.

  Except, apparently, for idiotic young midshipmen convinced of their own, and their family’s, importance and their utterly generic, cosmetically-enhanced beauty. I was reasonably certain I’d seen an absolutely identical set of facial mods on a celebrity’s face back when I was a kid, based on some ancient sex symbol at the dawn of the information age named Monroe. I especially had zero interest in children who, based on my own haggard and scarred appearance, were likely trying their amateurish best to cultivate blackmail material or secure a patron far above their station.

  “Is there a new petty officer here named Reynard?” I asked the would-be seductress as she led me with palpable irritation back towards the trooper decks. The smell of the ship was interesting: ozone, fresh paint from the refit, lubricant, and underneath it all, the faint, clean scent of recycled air and something else… a hint of ozone and cinnamon. Odd.

  “I was asked for a fitrep on the petty officer when I arrived. I was supposed to have been here three weeks ago, and they were supposed to have gotten here last month, but I was unavoidably detained by a medical emergency.” A medical emergency that feels like it’s slowly turning me inside out.

  “The new droner?” she said, the word dripping with disdain. “Yes, Mister Wasserman. She’s either with her new boyfriend, the goblin chief in flight control, or she’s probably in the store, getting fitted for uniforms AGAIN. Her fitrep should probably mention her penchant for wasting the ship’s stores frivolously. I understand that she’s going through some weird genejacker chrysalis, but she should just use coveralls until she’s done.”

  She sniffed, a delicate sound of pure contempt. “Plus she eats like a pig. Like a whole herd of pigs. Ever since she grew b...height,” she corrected herself sharply, “she’s been down there every day getting fitted for new combat suits. Oh, and here’s the trooper bay, Mister Wasserman. Probably better than any fleet vessel, please let me know if you need anything. Anything at all, day or night.”

  Her? She’d given up her male identity already? That was fast. And a boyfriend? A goblin? Had she bonded already? The unfamiliar feeling that twisted in my gut was a confusing mix of professional anxiety and something far more personal, something I refused to name. I was supposed to protect her FROM getting bonded, not drive her into the arms of a… goblin? Well, she had certainly made friends with goblins easily at the school, even when they’d teasingly referred to her as ‘alien’ and ‘half goblin’. Maybe it was a natural affinity.

  I needed to make a report. Immediately. If Reynard had already bonded, especially to some random crewman outside the loop of the command structure, certain individuals in Fleet Command REALLY needed to know to bring him into the fold, for everyone's safety. It probably wouldn’t kill me, but it might if her new bond decided that her talents were too precious to risk on a beat-up old warrant officer who was halfway to becoming a necrotic spawn.

  I just prayed that whoever it was wasn’t a typical goblin. Most of them, if they had the chance, would steal the shirt off your back and then try to sell it back to you at a huge markup, especially since it was already sized perfectly for you and you could be confident that it was comfortable… without even a shred of remorse.

  It wasn’t a sin to them; it was simply the way they were built, survival above all else. Giving a creature with that kind of pragmatic amorality a bond with a nascent Maenad technomancer would be… catastrophic. Like giving a teenage thug a pistol loaded with tactical nuclear bullets.

  She’d been growing quickly when she left, almost 5 inches in six months, a gangly, stretched-out look about her. How much taller could she have grown in a little over a month? The image of her, all limbs and huge eyes, flashed in my mind. Ugh. It was impossible to keep up.