“Contact!” yells Eira. “Small Grivoni ship.”

  “Shit!” says Dalib. He seems more annoyed than worried.

  Something about the way the Soul Sparks flow to me tells me these deaths weren’t human. Eira releases her harness followed quickly by the few Birchcombe crew; Dalib, Bobby, and the rest sit tight so I do too. They look calm, just waiting for whatever happens next without too much concern. Bobby sees my expression and leans over.

  “You’d know if we had to take action - there would be alarms all over the place and we’d be suiting up straight away. They’re probably figuring out what’s happened and if the rest of the mission approach is still valid or we have to change things up.”

  I nod, appreciative he’s told me. It’s always in the back of my mind that Bobby and the rest are here to monitor me and no doubt they’ll do whatever they think is necessary, but I don’t think they’re out to get me.

  Some of the Birchcombe crew leave the room and the rest take up stations then start furiously calling up status reports and activating systems on screens. From where I’m sitting I can see what looks like a ship status for the Birchcombe which looks all green. Maybe we’ve just done the space equivalent of running over a racoon on the highway. That can’t be easy to do with the distances involved! We must be in close to the space station.

  I call up the notification blinking at me.

  You have 39 Soul Sparks available to allocate.

  Would you like to allocate your Soul Sparks?

  (Y/N)

  I hit ‘Y’ and consider for a second before putting all of them in Aura. Since I’m going into a battle, the extra 39 meters of Soul Spark Reclamation range is potentially going to do a lot more for me than spreading around a small increase in my other Attributes or even increasing one of my physical ones by 20%.

  “We’re definitely been spotted, Eira. They’re adjusting to our position,” says a grizzled male crew member. “There are more Grivoni than reported; they must have just gotten reinforcements.”

  Eira isn’t someone who dithers around before making a decision.

  “Strike teams hit the space station now. Boarding capsules leave in three minutes. Birchcombe crew, stay aboard. We’ll mop up out here while our guests do the dirty work.” We all pop our harnesses and move quickly to dig into our lockers for our weapons and armor.

  “Corvin, Foster, and Hebberlink, you stay behind with the crew. Make yourself useful if you can,” orders Dalib. For a second I think he means me, then I realize he’s referring to Grace.

  “Lieutentant, I had this brought aboard for Calrik,” says Mark as he lifts out what looks like a cross between an armored jumpsuit and a PowerSuit.

  “That’s not standard issue,” frowns Bobby.

  “I’m licensed; this is my work. It’s ready but hasn’t been classified yet.”

  Captain Reyes enters our room and we all turn to him, waiting. He eyes us up with years of experience and a sharp mind behind his gaze.

  “Mission difficulty just got upgraded. Corvin, you’re still going. Use that contraption Foster’s got. Brookwell,” he says to Bobby. “you’re team leader. Hit it hard and clear them out. Don’t give the reinforcements time to bolster their position or for them to entrench. We’ll feed you intelligence as our scanners allow. I’m sending all of you the Grivoni combat sheet. Go.”

  Captain Reyes flicks his fingers and a notification blooms in the corner of my vision.

  “Captain, please confirm the upgraded difficulty estimate?” asks Bobby respectfully.

  “D+ to C. We’re still gathering data.”

  “It’s too dangerous for Calrik,” asserts Bobby. “He should stay here.”

  I can see Reyes eyeing me up. He’s the only one who knows how my Power works right now, although that will change at the end of this mission.

  “Take him,” Reyes decides.

  “But Captain,” starts Dalib.

  “Take him. That’s an order!” barks Reyes.

  “Rock and roll!” exclaims Brad with enthusiasm. “Can’t wait to see what you do this time, Corvin!”

  Bobby, Brad, and Kate all climb into their PowerSuits while Mark helps me into his. As he does, he explains what it is.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “I call it Talos, after the ancient automaton guardian. It has a 3D printed carbon and titanium micro-lattice frame to protect you and provide all the anchor points. Keep an eye on the structure of it. All the joints and movement mechanics are thick housings with braided fiber tendons and compact contraction mechanisms.”

  He puts on my helmet and HUD comes up. Talos feels solid, but not nearly as solid as a PowerSuit.

  “There’s a compact hybrid energy system that’s designed for short bursts and low level usage otherwise. If you push it too long the thermal spike risks go up quickly and performance can fall off a cliff if heat saturates it.”

  “Weapons?” I ask, glancing around. I’d like time to ask more questions but pretty much everyone is suited up and my HUD shows there’s less than a minute.

  “Lasers, limited projectiles, four grenades. There’s a magnetic harness on the back for your swords and… it should be able to read your brainwaves in addition to somatic feedback. Even though it’s experimental you should get very fast response time.”

  “Thanks Mark,” I say and look him in the eye through the form fitting helmet. System, diagnostic, and weapon information are all available at a glance.

  “You going to be ok?” he asks in a lower voice, glancing around. “I know you can handle yourself, but… when you got to Saint Marianne’s you didn’t even have a Power.”

  “Some of it’s not in my control,” I say with a shrug. “But I’ve been training my whole life and it’s fucking awesome to have ten times the strength and agility I used to, mate. I’m ready.”

  Mark’s eyebrows raise. We haven’t really had any time for me to share with him what’s actually gone on.

  “If anyone deserves it, it’s you, buddy.”

  The countdown timer is at a minute so he slaps me on both shoulders and gives me a push to join the others who are leaving through a door behind me in a quick, organised way. Brad and Bobby follow me, no doubt making sure I don’t get left behind. I can easily see over Kate’s head in front of me down the wide, brightly lit interior hallway to a solid door that looks like an airlock and opens as we approach. Inside a room about ten meters wide are two doors that do have airlock controls on the far side. The doors are numbered one and two with enough size to leave no doubt which one might be referred to. The rest of the room is filled with boarding equipment.

  “Dalib, Aoife, Calrik - you’re with me. Connect as quickly as you can,” he says to Kate and Brad. Bobby opens door one and past his large, PowerSuit frame I can make out some kind of a small room.

  “I’m attaching this to the base of your neck,” Dalib says and holds up a device in front of me. “This should protect you from any mental manipulation, unless something in there has a really strong Power.” I nod and feel him press something against Mark’s Talos armor at the base of my neck. I don’t feel any different, but when I reach back with my Mana sense I can feel it there, a strong source of latent Mana that must be triggered by specific circumstances.

  “Here,” says Aoife, and she holds up a space age one-sided axe for me to take. I’ve seen these before on videos showing ESF troopers in action. It’s about three feet long bladeless, with a handle that’s able to be used one handed or two handed. Instead of the blade, there are two thick protrusions on one side of the end and when I grip the contoured handle to test it, plasma energy sizzles and arcs between the protrusions to create a blade-like surface intense enough to hack through metal doors - or alien invaders. I change my grip to hold it higher up on the haft and follow her as she turns and enters the small chamber with Bobby. Unusually, all the controls are on the side wall and at the front is a sharp pyramid that starts on the walls, floor, and ceiling and points away from us.

  Dalib follows me and the door shuts heavily behind us.

  “Been on one of these?” he asks, and I shake my head.

  “Basically, we’re in a capsule designed to get us through shields and defences and breach right through the hull of a spaceship, or a space station in this case.”

  “Fifteen seconds to launch,” says Bobby.

  “Normally we travel at high speed, but today you’re in for a special treat. Since we’re in a rush, we’ll be going at extremely high speed and blowing right through everything like a spear through tissue paper.”

  “Five seconds,” says Bobby, and I copy the others by hanging on to the handle that’s on the wall like I’m in the subway, which feels totally inadequate.

  “Shouldn’t we be strapped in?” I ask, a bit worried at how much lower my Rank is than theirs.

  “Not with Aoife on board!” exclaims Dalib as a heavy clang sounds when we’re released from the Birchcombe. I glance over at Aoife; her expression is fierce and completely focused on the display in front of us representing where we are in space as she uses her gravity-based Power to move us and keep us stable inside this boarding capsule.

  “Ten seconds to impact,” says Bobby. “Dalib first, me second, Calrik third. Aoife you cover our backs.”

  She doesn’t acknowledge Bobby’s statement and I glance at Dalib, who seems completely relaxed. With a quick movement, he pulls something out of midair and secures it around my left wrist. For a split second adrenaline dumps into my system as I think I’ve been handcuffed or worse, but when I glance over at my hand, still wrapped around the handle built into the wall, I see he’s attached some kind of a screen to my wrist. I’ve seen these before - if the Grivoni are detectable this device will help us locate them, like a mini map. When I look back again Dalib is smirking at me.

  “Impact!” says Bobby. My hand squeezes the metal handle hard and I feel it give slightly, but the expected lurch doesn’t come even though all around us the screech of metal sounds and parts of the walls and front crumple. Instead of experiencing a train wreck, I realize we’re already where we need to be when Aoife lets out a relieved breath and the front of the boarding capsule opens up, only to be caught where part of it has crumpled.

  I leverage my increased Perception to slow things down so I can react quickly as Dalib darts forward, then leaps into the cone to use his strength to force it open. Metal tears as whatever was holding it back shears apart. Bobby in his PowerSuit is through the opening in a blink and I follow, Talos enhancing my movement. We emerge into what looks like a massive cargo district inside the space station. Stacked container towers are everywhere behind transparent blast screens, between painted traffic lanes for tugs. The whole thing is deserted except for the dead human bodies that have been crushed and broken, some of them in light armor.

  I glance back at the boarding capsule wondering why it’s not a vacuum in here if we’ve breached the hull, but I can see behind us the space station’s force field is still up. I put the wondering aside and glance at my wrist which shows nothing inside this area yet. Crawling forklifts still on autopilot glide around slowly and arrival boards still flicker with bay assignments, like the ghost town it is.

  “That way,” says Bobby, and starts moving to my left. We all follow, Dalib in the front and Bobby behind him. I stretch out my Mana and my Soul Spark Reclamation senses, trying to feel if anything is around. I come up empty.

  “There!” Dalib says softly but with sharpness as in the distance past a few container towers and a hangar door I see my first Grivoni.