Sykora lurks at the threshold of the hangar, picking at the loose threads on the starfield tapestries that hang on either side of its wide, brass-fitted door. She needs to reorient her mind. To stop jumping at noises and waiting for someone to yell at her or discipline her. To go from the cringing underfoot orphan to the unyielding Princess.

At the close end of the catwalk, framed by the dazzling stars beyond, are two women—one an engineering Specialist, it looks like, with a laugh on her lips, and the other a smirking marine in HAK armor, leaning into the conversation, telling a story in a low voice.

"Shut up," the engineer giggles. "She did not say that."

"Swear to the Gods of the Firmament," the marine says. Her tail winds outward and finds the engineer's. Sykora's face heats up as the tapered, tufted ends, purple on blue, wind once round each other. She's seen this, knows what it means. But she still doesn't know how it feels.

She resists her urge to duck back into the shadows. Put your armor on. Shut the visor. Wear it until it becomes your face. This is your ship. Your crew. Don't skulk around them like a kick-shy throok. You're not at the institute any longer. Nobody commands you but you.

She takes a deep inhale and steps out from the doorframe. The engineer and soldier glance her way, take a moment to compute who the parentless child striding purposefully toward them is, and break sharply from their canoodling. The engineer bows; the marine salutes. The two automatic motions that will follow Sykora for the rest of her life, into every interaction and every room. She inclines her head. "Subjects," she says.

She swaggers past them and along the catwalk, where her strange little majordomo waits at the open mouth of a shuttle, wreathed in the vapor of its landing gear. A broad-shouldered woman steps through the curling fog, her ceramic spaulders clattering as she brings her fist to her chest and drops to one knee.

"Majesty," she says, face-to-face in her lowered perspective. Her hair is silver and cropped close. "An honor to finally meet you. I have been preparing to be your Brigadier since your birth."

Sykora inclines her head. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Brigadier Jalak, Majesty. Veteran of the Pozomi campaign and former marine commander of the Pride's Kite."

"I've studied the Pozomi campaign," Sykora says, and internally cringes at how much like an eager schoolchild she sounds. "Many wonderful victories."

Jalak grins. "I don't imagine my name came up. I was a shellhead at the time. My view of those victories was from down in the mud. You came to greet me alone?"

"I did," Sykora says. Her new majordomo blushes by Jalak's hip.

Jalak shakes her head. "That won't do. A Princess calls for praetorians." She points over Sykora's head. "You there. Marine. What's your name?"

The woman Sykora passed earlier troops down the gangplank and hits another crisp salute. Her smooth face gives her a youngish look; her hair is silver, like the brigadier's, but her skin is the same powder-blue as Sykora's.

"Lieutenant Hyax, ma'am," she says.

"Hyax, eh?" Jalak gives the lieutenant a skeptical once-over. "You're now on my detail. You're the first of the Princess's personal guard."

Uncertainty roosts on Hyax's brow. "I've got a section I'm leading already, ma'am."

"No, you don't." Jalak glares. "You're the bodyguard of the Princess of the Black Pike."

"Understood, ma'am."

"It's an honor, Lieutenant. Act like it."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." Hyax bows. "Thank you, Majesty."

"There you go." Jalak's smile slides back into place. "Look at us, eh? A merry mismatched band. Two marines and two ladylings. Where's the chief engineer?"

"Hab level," Vora says. "Getting drunk, I think."

"Ah, yes. The survivor." Jalak smacks her lips. "Have no fear, Majesty. She's a genius when she's not trying to melt her own liver."

"I know," Sykora says. "I read her file."

"We'll get her sorted out." Jalak strides down the gangplank, beckoning with her tail. "Come on."

Sykora follows, and it's only when her new Brigadier grins and tousles her hair that she realizes she should have been the one to give that order.

The shock on Sykora's face stays for a frozen moment and then the training animates her. "Release gravity on the deck. Power to the point weaponry and the combat repulses. Monitor, open a broad channel to all Imperial vessels. I need a tactical report on the double, Brigadier." She spins around and points a finger up her husband's statuesque nose. "Don't say a thing about a jinx, Grantyde of the Black Pike."

He raises an oathmaking hand. "My lips are sealed."

Lances of light and swarms of missiles flit across the firmament. Shrapnel and wreckage whirl in the abyss. The bridge of the Pike beholds a pair of ZKWs bedecked in the violet and brass of the Bright Covenant, buffeted by a shifting tidal wave of jagged alien vessels that look like the unholy union of an asteroid belt and a swarm of flies.

"Get me a map of this clusterfuck," Sykora calls into the depths of the bridge. She clacks her heels together as the gravity drains away and her hair coronas outward. "Get me enemy analysis. Get me my broadcast channel. Get my hat, please, dove."

"Broadcast ready, Majesty," someone calls, as Grant retrieves Sykora's floating-away tricorne and places it back on her head. "Area mic on the command deck."

"To all Imperial vessels." Sykora leans forward on the balustrade, into the receiver that's built into its rail. "This is Princess Margrave Sykora of the ZKZ Black Pike. You will give me a status and tactical report and transfer all diagnostic and remote systems to this vessel's control. Unidentified ZKWs. Do you hear me?"

Two glass hexes ripple across the onscreen monitor, refracting the flashing battlescape behind it and seating into place on either side of the populating tactical map. Their surfaces flicker, then cast two portraits across the bridge. On the left, a wide-eyed, rose-colored woman, with a narrow chin and an aquiline nose. The woman on the right is deep blue and thickly built, her jaw broad and her mouth downturned.

Between both sets of brows, in merlot-colored ink, are tattooed the upward pointing arrow of the Bright Covenant. The mark of Princess Dantia: the owner, commanding officer, and warden of these two privateers, and every soul aboard their ships. This is Dantia's way of running her sector's exploration fleets—she crews battleships with the indentured, offering them reduced sentences for their service aboard floating prisons.

"Black Pike," the harried harlequin on the left stammers. "This is Captain Toniak of the Cinnabar Dawn. It's a desperate relief to see you. Captain Loriss of the Iron Promise is also patched in."

"There was a third," Sykora says. "Destroyed?"

Toniak blinks rapidly like she's trying to dislodge an eyelash. "Captain-Warden Exavina was—the Abyss Runner was destroyed. Yes."

Sykora bites back a frustrated assignation of blame. "How did this engagement begin, Toniak?"

"Our away team came under fire," the privateer captain says. One of her fangs has a jeweled stud in its surface. "We moved to support them from the air and were rapidly engaged as soon as we began our barrage."

"And you haven't retreated?" Hyax asks.

"The away teams," Loriss says. "We didn't just want to leave them on the surface."

Hyax crosses her arms.

"And we judged the fight winnable," Toniak adds. "By the time the extent of the planetary defenses were realized, the Iron Promise's sweep array had been heavily damaged."

"How heavily?" Waian asks.

"Rear set is out," Loriss says. "Prow array is half-tattered. We won't survive a retreat like this. Tear us in half."

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"Then the Pike will annihilate this fleet." Sykora's tail sweeps the brocade hem of her topcoat upward; it flares out around her like a set of crimson wings. "You are hereby ordered to reposition on the starboard down-fin side of this vessel's membrane and transmit your diagnostics. Focus your fire on clearing out a position."

Toniak of the Cinnabar Dawn blanches. "We are forbidden from sharing our systems or accepting aid from foreign Princesses, Majesty. We—"

"The Pike will take it from here, noncitizen." Sykora cuts in like an icy gale over a frozen lake. "Obey my orders or face castigation."

The captain's ears lay flat. She bows hurriedly. "I am sorry, Majesty. We cannot broadcast our diagnostics to you. These systems are not available to us."

"The captain-warden could do it," Loriss says. "But she blew up."

"Fucking Dantia." Sykora grunts in annoyance. "Send me what you can and remain in contact about the status of your membranes. I'll reroute your connections to tactical."

Toniak genuflects like a jittery kindek. "At once, Majesty."

Sykora turns from the hexes as their images terminate and they slide away. "I want gunners firing freely. Clear a starboard pocket for the frigates to cover in, thirty degrees downfin. Acquire those fast movers. We are slid into the heart of Hell; let's burn these devils away. Glory to the Pike."

"Glory to the Pike," comes the warrior echo. The rangy helmsman two-hands the Pike's massive yoke; the ZKZ wades to the fore of the withering line of fire being laid down by their swarming enemies. The frigates they're relieving flare their repulsors and journey across the bow to the starboard side. The ruined sweep sails on the Iron Promise flutter past the main monitor view like iridescent fish fins.

Clouds of spinning flechette tumble out from the Pike through the firmament, shredding alien drone formations and perforating the warty flanks of the larger vessels. The booming heavy rails drum through the Pike like a monster's heartbeat, vibrating through Sykora's boots and knocking caverns through alien steel.

Sickly emerald light rips forth in reply, fizzling uselessly out on the Pike's flickering sheath or catching the vulnerable privateer frigates, melting their membranes further and further. The Cinnabar Dawn and the Iron Promise hew close to the Black Pike, clinging to its flanks like fearful whelps to their mother.

"Cinnabar Dawn at forty-one percent." Hyax's eyes are glued to her console. "Iron Promise at thirty percent. Twenty-nine. All rails, prioritize the beam platforms on our starboard."

Grantyde approaches Sykora's side, staring out at the tableau in front of him. "I've never seen the membrane take this kind of abuse. Not even during the Eqtoran campaign."

Waian's voice, issuing from her console's speakers, gives the digital equivalent of a wry snort. "That was way worse. You people were forcing our asses into atmosphere. We're at 98.5 and holding, boss."

Vora points at their oblong shape on the tactical map. "The Pike's priority in any sortie is to make an obstacle of itself. Lance right through their lines, bully their capital ships, provide cover for our vulnerable subjects. The hazard is to the frigates we're rescuing. Their membranes are both well below halfway integrity, and we're their only cover. That glues us in place."

"The way these fuckers are moving, the lack of heat signatures." Waian taps her shiny new finger against her console screen. "This fleet is automated. I'll bet you this world is a technology tomb."

"Seems likely," Vora says. "The repositioning and reacquisition is too instantaneous for organics."

"The bad news is that means there's a fuck-ton and they won't be scared off." The eyes on Waian's stiffened body flicker. So unnerving. "The good news is we've got a library of viral bombs for shit like this. I'll lob a few into their systems, see what happens."

"Majesty." Hyax tromps to Sykora's shoulder. "We've cleared a lane for the frigates, but it's only holding because of the target we present. As soon as these larger vessels realize their weaponry has no effect on us, they're going to turn their shipkillers on the frigates. At the rate of incoming hostiles, I am not confident in our ability to keep them from destruction."

Sykora watches the privateer vessels' turrets rake tracers through the dark, seeking alien fighter-bombers. "Give me the odds."

"Once we're no longer the primary target?" Hyax runs a thumb across the scar on her jaw. "I give each ship something like a one-in-three chance at survival past the first five minutes. There's no way we can cover every attack vector."

A shadow falls over them both as Grantyde bends to get a closer look at Hyax's tactical view. "These lines show who they're targeting?"

"Yes, Majesty," Hyax says. "To our best estimate."

"They've turned all the big guns on us," Grantyde says. "So whatever intelligence is driving them hasn't caught on to the uselessness of attacking our membrane. Can we keep the con going? Seem like we're being damaged? The longer we can fool them into focusing their fire, the more time we buy for the frigates."

"A commendable idea," Hyax says. "But no way to execute it, as far as I'm aware."

Waian's fist tugs out from her console and she reanimates with the jolt of a rudely awakened sleeper. Her blank face transmogrifies into a furrowed-brow expression of thought. "Actually, uh—there might be."

"What's that?"

"I can gradually depower the membrane." Waian points at the power adjuster down on the bridge. "A point at a time. If I do it manually, I can bypass the blocks I put in place on the console."

"Depower the membrane?" Hyax frowns. "In the middle of a battlefield?"

"I reroute our juice to gravitational systems elsewhere in the ship," Waian continues as if Hyax hadn't spoken. "Once I get it down to fifty percent, I can bounce it back out fast. Or earlier, if we need to patch back up for whatever reason."

Sykora's jaw hangs open. "I didn't even know this was possible on a ZKZ."

"Yeah, well." Waian grins. "Not a lot of people do. Don't go spreading it around."

Sykora squints. "Are you well, chief engineer?"

"This coming from the same woman who was tearing everyone's head off about going below ninety-five?" Hyax adds.

"We were dropping then," Waian says. "This is totally different. Holding stable here."

"But for you to even consider this," Sykora says. "The membrane is your baby."

"Yeah." Waian's tail itches her nose. "Turns out when there's actual babies I don't care so much about the metaphorical babies. Besides, Crotchety Waian was the old Waian." Her arm servos click as she waves it up and down. "This Waian is at least five percent new."

She kicks off the deck and snags around a tailhold, bobbing upside down.

"Gods of the Firmament." Hyax's tail goes straight. "You've turned our chief engineer a diametrically opposite kind of insane, Prince."

"Don't listen to her, boss. It's a good plan." Waian climbs hand-over-hand down the handle column into the bridge. "I'll get on the membrane. The ensigns can try our arsenal and report to me."

"What if none of them work?" Grantyde asks.

"Then we shoot the rest of the way free of them," Waian calls from the screen-lit gloom. "And pray to the Omnidivine the frigates survive it."

In the massive mechanical bowels of the Black Pike, the tree-sized rail cannons rotate with gear-grinding roars to the port side of the battlefield, leaving the silent ruin of its cleared flank for the lightning storm of its foes' fusillade.

Its cannons reverberate their rhythmic death outward, reducing vast fields of killer robot to steaming vapor and scattering shards. Waian's ensigns watch with quiet disbelief as the chief engineer painstakingly turns a spanner, centimeters at a time, that she's stuck into an unscrewed panel.

Sykora leans over the balustrade. "Surely there's some kind of console option you could use for this."

"This is fine motor skill shit, Majesty," Waian says. "You do your thing, I do my thing."

A spearhead-shaped formation of drones screams past the Pike; two thirds of them tumble into scrap metal on their way. But not all of them.

"They're starting to re-task their smallcraft, Majesty." Hyax says, as the frigates' point defenses blaze. "The fighter-bombers and the drones are making suicide runs to reach the frigates. There's just too damn many of them."

Sykora couches her tongue behind her teeth. Another wave of fighters, another responding wave of destruction. Another hobbling formation of survivors on the wrong side of the barricade. "Can we swap more of our shipkillers out for flechette?"

Hyax shakes her head. "Their cruisers are closing, too. We're using all the rails we've got to keep from being overwhelmed. They're showing uncommon tenacity and no easy modules or weakpoints to target. We don't have the force projection to take all these incoming ourselves, Majesty. And that's with Waian and His Majesty's gambit. Once we stop artificially dampening our membrane, those machines will figure out we're a waste of time and re-task to the privateers. And then they die."

"Waian." Sykora lifts her voice. "How long can we keep dancing down the membrane?"

Waian looks up from her console. "About halfway out of rope, Majesty."

"Do I have a system solution?"

"You will soon." Waian accepts a readout from one of her clustering ensigns in the hand that isn't fucking around with the membrane. She clucks her tongue in annoyance. "These are some shifting buggers. The dead world down there must have tried an injection in the past; the hive's adapted to counter most of my stock stuff. This'll need a custom solution, which means I need a few minutes."

Sykora watches the hostile indicators wash against them on the tactical map. The ones that drill through are thin as ocean spray. But what can a drop or two do, given time? "What's a few, chief engineer?"

Waian scoffs. "You want it sped up? Get me a dead robot from out there I can slice apart."

No doing that from behind the membrane. Sykora's stomach drops another notch. "What's your recommendation, Brigadier?"

"There is no way around it, Majesty." Hyax's lips thin as she frowns out the main screen to the tempest beyond the Pike's membrane. "If we want to keep those privateers safe, we need to scramble our interceptors."

Sykora's exhale worries the knot of foreboding in her throat. She follows her Brigadier's gaze. The advancing wall of mechanized murder, the fissures the Pike's booming cannons open, and the remaneuvering vessels that fill them, gleaming with malice and railfire.

The Pike is invincible. The Pike's intercepters are not.

Her pilots are as trained and talented as any in the Empire's vast history. Their interceptors are far beyond anything these automatons have faced. But if their weapons can kill a frigate, they can certainly kill an interceptor. The moment she gives the order to send her people into that field, they go from Imperial invulnerability to the razor's edge of mortality.

"It wouldn't even be a question, usually." Her Majordomo's voice, rare during a pitched battle but here now, quiet and ardent. "Every one of us swore an oath of stewardship."

"An oath of stewardship over the Black Pike sector," Hyax says. "And to its citizens. We are not in the Black Pike sector. These women and men are not citizens."

Sykora looks at Grant. At his silent beseeching face. She catches the urge rising within her, to ask him what he would have her do. To lean on him and escape the final responsibility. But he's not a warrior. She doesn't want him to be a warrior. She swore that to him. She will not ask him, not this time.

Besides: she knows what to do, she realizes, as her hand finds his. Her husband was a noncitizen. She was a noncitizen. There used to be a piece of her that could file those desperate Taiikari lives away in some lower shelf out of the sight of life and love. Her new life with Grantyde has given her so much—but it's taken that away.

"Those ZKWs and the people aboard them are valuable property of the Empress," she says. "If the ghosts of Xivikan want to claim them, the Pike's finest will stand in their way." She pivots on her heel and looks across the faces of her command group. "Launch the interceptors."

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