Hot blood surged in Samuine’s veins as the Merriment left the jump stream. He stood proud in the command bunker of his own ship, the need to surpass expectation driving him to the edge of frenzy. The crew at their consoles were adorned with dark circles under their eyes and immersed in an atmosphere of fresh brewed coffee. Kartorim need very little sleep, the same could not be said for the regular humans being dragged along at Samuine’s fervent pace.

  Intel Samuine found on the device Braem gave him hinted at the wayward admiral and his lackey’s whereabouts before they’d move to Filigree. It was a gamble to be sure, Treffel was a detour from a direct path to Filigree and carried the chance of failing to intercept the Torchbearers before they made planet fall. Like any worthwhile decision it was a risk, but Samuine liked to gamble.

  “Lord Samuine, a star shackle signature is leaving Treffel’s atmosphere now.” One of the crew shouted over to the white-gold commander. I love it when a plan comes together, he smugly thought to himself. His helm was retracted, but the rest of his carapace stayed extended anytime he was around mortal humans. Maintaining the distinction was an important aspect of command, as was written in the Iyallat. The other kartorim onboard did the same as him. Samuine liked to think they were following his example.

  They had not all been taken by the same intense drive as himself, but each was eager in their own way to cut the torchbearers off early. Their success would go to great lengths in washing over the Nimbus Sands debacle. Except for Illati. Standing in the command bunker, also covered in her blue and green carapace everywhere but her head, she displayed none of the outward excitement at getting the jump on the enemy.

  The reunion with her had been lackluster to say the least. His old friend had barely acknowledged him when they met on the Merriment’s bridge. It was as if the years apart had served only to calcify her cold exterior. Not that she was ever particularly expressive in their youth, but Samuine remembered her fondly. Standing there right next to him, he could easily recall finding her pleasant to look at and be with in the past but… it was just a memory. A thing sacrificed on the altar of ascension.

  The other kartorim of his team were in the command bunker with him, though they did not join him on the command platform. They mingled into the console sections, overseeing the work that the human crew was doing. Sathiar was the only one of the three who kneeled next to one of the operators, helping with some calculation or operation Samuine couldn’t be bothered to know the specifics of.

  “Increase speed to bring us within weapons range, hug the contrail. Rotate shields to front, keep the rear gunners on high alert in case the torchbearers have anything to flank with,” Illati commanded to the room, allowing the relevant crew to handle their portions of the orders without specific delegation. Samuine smiled, satisfied. Cold or not there was still a synergy of thought between them. If only Voy were alive, what a team they could have made.

  “We’re gonna board ‘em right?” Fenrothyne asked hungrily, a predatory twinkle in his eye, “Don’t tell me we came all this way to shoot and scoot,” his voice teetered on the fence between excitement and irritation.

  “Why would we do that?” Samuine asked.

  “Absolutely,” Illati answered in the same moment.

  The two kartorim turned indignant glares on each other. Fenrothyne chuckled with a chiding edge.

  “Ooowee, trouble in paradise. I’ll go ready the boarding trams,” Fenrothyne gloated as he started for the command bunker’s door, whistling jovially as he left. Thenrothyne followed him out silently. Sathiar stood straight up from where he’d been discussing something with one of the console operators.

  Unlike the others, his olive green and dark grey carapace was fully extended, his head encased by his helm. Amber eyes locked onto Fenrothyne and tracked him until he and Thenrothyne were gone from the command bunker.

  “Which one of you is in charge?” Sathiar asked rigidly. The duo on the command platform both scoffed.

  “We are in joint command of this operation, authority is equally derived,” Illati answered matter-of-factly.

  “Not who I was talking to,” Sathiar shot a succinct glare at Illati, “and not what I meant,” he turned his gaze to Samuine for a longer scowl, his faceplate failing to mask the contempt he laid bare. Not waiting for further reply, Sathiar turned and knelt down to continue his work with the crewman, who seemed grateful for the kartorim’s assistance. Samuine pushed the little outburst from his mind, it wasn’t important now.

  “Once in weapon range reduce our speed to match the Auric Wind’s,” he turned to the operator working with Sathiar, “Gunnery, I want arrestors primed for anchor blade capture. Capital ordinance may be armed but not fired without my command, point defenses may fire at will on anything that presents a threat to the Merriment,” Samuine looked at Illati and raised his eyebrow in invitation for her to add to anything.

  “Get us a fighter screen in all directions. Admiral Hembrandt is a decorated House Caldion admiral, traitor or no it would be foolish to underestimate him. Stay on your toes, and take initiative in responding to things we can’t anticipate." After Illati spoke, Sathiar muttered something under his breath drawing a quickly subdued laugh from the crewman at his side.

  “Illati and I will be boarding with the other kartorim and the jolters, command will be delegated to-” Samuine began and was interrupted in his order.

  “I’m staying on the Merriment,” Sathiar interrupted without turning from his work. Both of the commanders stared daggers into his back, which went ignored.

  “Those of us who are boarding will be reachable by low-net comms, we will retain command for the duration of the assault,” Illati finished Samuine’s sentence, still bordering on visible anger at the insubordinate kartorim with his back turned to her.

  “Battle stations! Let’s make the High Marshall proud!” Samuine cheered, pumping his fist in an effort to revitalize the exhausted crew’s morale. They gave a halfhearted cry before diving back into their coffee. Samuine and Illati left the command bunker, the automatic blast door slid closed behind them.

  ‐----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The boarding trams were landed in the Merriment’s hangar bays. Barely more than hollowed out torpedoes the craft were designed for one purpose and one purpose alone, the boarding of enemy bladeships. They were tubular in design, but instead of narrowing toward the front as one might in an atmospheric environment, they flared out at the front into a mushroom like ablative shield. Behind the shield, layers of collapsible standoff supports gave separation between the chunk of armor and the cargo section behind it. They were designed to ram into a given ship and deposit shock troops inside by forceful entry.

  They were risky to use, the shields were not good at preventing them being shot down by enemy fire and if the enemy blade ship was maneuverable enough or far away it was easy to miss and be stranded when the tram’s limited fuel ran dry. Samuine would have far preferred his plan. Fire on the Auric’s engines, use the arrestors to slow it down, and then board the ship with shuttle craft when the warship was without it’s teeth.

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  Illati had overruled him, a thing that chafed immensely. Technically, they held joint authority and he could hang the operation on a stalemate decision, and when they’d left the command bunker he very nearly did. His tune changed when Illati informed him that the Merriment had a direct high-net link to Caldion himself whom they could use as a mediator. ‘Joint command’, so long as he agreed with her. Oh how it chafed.

  There were four trams set aside for the assault, engines already humming. Around them dozens of the human soldiers who would accompany them waited in pressurized suits of semi-powered armor, the glass-like panels over their faces fogged from rapid breathing. Jolters, the only legal form of human enhancement that was allowed for non-kartorim forces in all of Thurgia.

  They were physiologically normal humans, well trained and physically fit but free of genetic alteration or mechanical augment. Their armor was the loophole, but not in it’s own right. Powered armor was not terribly uncommon. What made jolters unique was that their armor was pressurized anytime they went to fight and filled with an atmosphere of hyper-potent stimulants and catecholamines that pushed every natural process in their body far beyond their limits. This mixture had a slightly misty appearance that earned it the name ‘fog of war’.

  At Samuine and Illati’s approach, the jolters piled into their trams, locking into wall mounted standing harnesses by reflex and muscle memory. Samuine and Illati clasped a hasty handshake, connecting their carapace’s intuitive networks together to allow for radio-like communication between them outside the low-net. It also populated a small green ‘blip’ in the corner of the vision that served as a status indicator for the other kartorim, green meaning good, yellow less so, red very bad, and an extinguished light likely meaning death.

  In Samuine’s vision Illati’s small green blip joined next to Fenrothyne, Thenrothyne, and Sathiar’s own beads of green light. They nodded and parted ways for their boarding craft. Briefly Samuine wondered if Illati had bothered to ‘handshake’ with Sathiar or the Bolunds, but he decided it probably wouldn’t be an issue if she didn’t. Once they were on the Auric Wind there wouldn’t be anything dangerous enough to give them trouble.

  Grated steel clanged under Samuine’s feet at he climbed aboard his tram. Each of the kartorim would be in different craft as a redundancy measure, in case something kept one from reaching its target. Accompanying them were twenty three jolters each, as each craft had twenty four wall braces. Only Samuine’s harness remained unoccupied.

  Locking into the vacsteel harness, Samuine extended his helm over his head and welcomed the sensation of his carapace pressurizing. He did not envy the way lesser men needed cumbersome, comparatively delicate suits of armor to keep the cold of vacspace off their skin. He envied even less how much harsher said cold was for them, being depressurized would be inconvenient were it to happen to him, but it was downright lethal for them. Was it bravery or ignorance that made them strap metal to themselves and barge into battle? Did they not grasp how fragile their existence was?

  Samuine’s blue helm eyes lit up and cast the troop compartment of the boarding craft in a cool aquatic light as the ramp door raised itself shut. His wings fanned out awkwardly, the harness was not designed with their bulk in mind. The men to his left and right grumbled as large metal feather-jets clacked against their sealsuits.

  Each of the jolters was decked out in nearly all black armor, with red peppered throughout and a red four winged thurgian hawk emblazoned upon their chest and shoulders. Thurgian state military forces were not loyal to any one House. They answered only to the office of the High Marshall or whoever he happened to delegate them to. Their ranks were placed by their callsigns just above the insignia of the hawk.

  Across from him, a jolter with the callsign ‘Cheesewheel’ stood serene in the clamp, not looking up at Samuine’s eyes but straight ahead toward his chest. Memories of Samuine’s training came unbidden, memories about the importance kartorim had in boosting and maintaining morale as much as being weapons unto themselves. Now was as good a time as any to give that a shot.

  “Cheesewheel,” Samuine asked over the low-net, his helm directing his speech intuitively and near instantly to the right device in Cheesewheel’s own helmet, “You excited to win glory for the High Marshall today?” His tone was earnest, but spoke like an adult kneeling down in front of a child to ask about their drawing.

  Cheesewheel looked up and met his eyes, blinking as he processed the kartorim’s question. “I served under admiral Hembrandt in the Gorro incursion a few years ago. There’s no glory in this for me,” he answered drily before returning to his pre-battle stupor. Samuine left it at that. At least he’d made the effort. He looked around at the other jolters clamped tight to the walls, all of them mirrored Cheesewheel’s trance-like state, something Samuine just now took notice of.

  “Cheesewheel,” Samuine again tugged at the jolter’s attention, once more pulling him from his trance with a grumble, “why are all of you zoned out like that? Is something the matter?” Behind his transparent visor, Cheesewheel blinked twice without a word before replying.

  “We are about to be fired into vacspace in a glorified torpedo at another moving ship filled with hostiles and nothing but suits of EVA armor to keep us unsquished,” he paused, “most of us are praying. The fog of war also hits like a truck and makes idle chit chat unbelievably grating.”

  “Ah...I see,” Samuine let the conversation die again as Cheesewheel returned to his meditations. He supposed the jolter had a right to silence. There would be casualties, it was just a fact of life. Samuine figured there would probably be two to three per pod after boarding, which was mathematically acceptable. Cheesewheel had no way of knowing that one of those two or three could well be him.

  [LAUNCH IMMINENT. PREPARE.]

  The tram’s automated intercom blasted over both speakers and local low-net devices. Sounds of shuffling metal and polymer filled the pod as the jolters came to life, suddenly and violently animated. The harnesses they willingly locked into now seemed like undesired bindings on the fidgety, twitching soldiers.

  “Jolters, why do we kill?” A voice called out over low-net, Samuine assumed he was the leader of this contingent of thurgian soldiers.

  “For Thurgia!” Ninety one voices responded in a chorus of yells.

  “Jolters! Why. Do. We. Kill?” the leader shouted again, emphasizing each word individually.

  “It is the will of Avaron!” came another chorus of ninety one replies.

  “Jolters! I asked! Why! Do! We! Kill!? Came the leader again, his voice sounded like he was fighting the urge to devolve into animal growling.

  “Because its FUN!” The cacophony of replies bordered on a deluge of roars and growls as the fog of war took root on the minds of its users. “HOO! HOO! HOO! HOO!” The jolters chanted over the low-net as the boarding trams engines roared to life and the craft lurched out of the hangers and into vacspace.

  Samuine linked his helm with a visual module and watched from his eyes as the view the camera outside the boarding craft saw. The mushroom like ship burned hot out of the hangar, banking left with the other three ships and barreling it’s ablative shield toward the golden atrocity fleeing before the steel-blue Zanthel-class ship. They were very similar base designs beneath the coats of paint and decoration, but the gaudiness of the Auric Wind was the furthest possible deviation from the Merriment’s sleek and simple pragmatism.

  Beams of purple light stretched out from the arrestor turrets on the Merriment, connecting with the anchor wings on the left and right sides of the Torchbearer flagship. No matter how much the gilded fugitive fired its engines, the Merriment would be attached to it now. This didn’t seem to stop the enemy ship from blasting its engines to their maximum burn. A pillar of white hot exhaust fire soared out behind it forcing the Merriment to stay several kilometers behind.

  This kept the main ship back some, but it would serve as a glowing bridge for the boarders to ride right up to the Auric Wind.

  “Operators, dive boarding trams into the exhaust plume and ride it forward until the last eight percent of the distance. Drive crafts three and four into the gap between engines, deviate crafts one and two around either side and plant them just past the engine housing,” Samuine ordered back to the remote operators controlling the boarding craft.

  “Orders received my lord, brace for turbulence.” Samuine watched as his view dove down and toward the mountain of fire behind the Auric Wind, his heart rate bumped up slightly as fire engulfed the craft. This was a tactic he’d learned a few years prior, when rescuing hostages on board a Pantheon slaver ship. Nearly all targeting systems that didn’t rely on a manual operator instead crutched on thermal disparity tracking. By diving into the exhaust fire of a ship rapidly accelerating, such systems were unable to distinguish their own ship’s contrail from the approaching boarders until it was too late to do anything about it.

  The only catch? A non-small chance of a horrific, fiery death in vacspace, a gamble. Samuine smiled as the flames washed over the vacsteel around him. The torchbearers were not going to cause trouble on Filigree, because they weren’t even going to make it out of Treffel’s orbit. His view lurched, and his craft peeled away from the engines sharply. Rapid banking pressed hard on Samuine and the jolters. Boarding trams did not have inertial harmonizers to prevent issues that arose when they tried to synchronize with those of the ship they rammed into. Boarding craft were one of the very few places one could still appreciate the affect space warfare maneuvering had on the human body.

  Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the two ships containing Fenrothyne and Thenrothyne sail right through the gap between engines and crash into the Auric’s rear. Illati’s ship did the same as his, but banked to the left where his went right. Both of them now turned left again as they passed just around and over the anchor wings and dove into the side of the gilded fortress before automated point defenses could turn upon them. Metal groaned and crunched around him. The boarding tram shook violently.

  Samuine’s connection with the camera was severed as the boarding tram smashed its way into the Auric’s side, tunneling through armor and structure. It came to a stop wedged part way into a marbled corridor. Escaping atmosphere rushed around it as the ship’s safety systems came online too slow to re-seal the damaged section. The harnesses unlatched, freeing the jolters from the shackles of their own making. A new circular door opened from the tram’s front but behind the ablative shield, allowing the jolters to exit with cover from incoming fire. Samuine drew his vibrosword and flexed his wings, gunning their feather jets.

  Intel did not suggest there any kartorim aboard. This would be easy. As the jolters so pleasantly put it, it might even be fun.