The internal chronometer she shared with Artemis chimed a soft 0500, but Ralaen was already awake. A holdover from a life where every minute of daylight was a resource to be exploited. Draupnir was quiet in the pre-dawn cycle, its steady thrum a low, comforting vibration through the deck plates. She shifted, and the heavy, possessive weight of Eirik's arm draped over her waist tightened instinctively, pulling her back against the warm wall of his chest.

  Ever since they’d started sharing a bunk, she usually didn't bother with clothing; the combined body heat was a furnace, and any fabric just became a tangled, sweaty mess. She gently untangled herself from his limbs, the lingering warmth of his skin a ghost on her own as she slipped from the bed. She grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt from the floor—a ridiculous thing Eirik had gotten her from the shipboard commissary that said GOT MILK? across the chest. She still didn't get the joke, but he'd laughed so hard when he'd seen her in it that she kept wearing it anyway.

  After getting dressed, she sat back down on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under her weight. She leaned over, brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead, and gave the still-sleeping form of Eirik a soft kiss on his temple. He murmured something incoherent and snuggled deeper into the blankets, a faint smile on his lips. Smiling herself, she left their quarters and headed for the gym that was part of "Marine Country," where they were berthed.

  Arriving, she saw the gym was mostly empty except for a few Jaegers who were using some of the cardio equipment. Good. She was on her lower body program today, which meant the squat rack. She set to work, finding a rhythm in the clank of iron and the burn in her thighs.

  Halfway through her eleventh rep, driving up from the bottom of the squat, a shadow fell over her. It wasn't the shifting shadow of someone walking past; it was a deliberate, stationary presence. An interruption.

  Standing back up, slightly annoyed at being broken from her rhythm, she racked the weight with a solid clang. She looked over at the Asuari who had interrupted her. It was one of the four female Asuari Jaegers who had stuck around with the rest of the Federation recruits. She had blueish-grey hair and fur, and her eyes were a cold, arctic grey to match. Trying to remember the girl's name, she thought for a moment and wet her lips. Wet… Asuza…?

  The blueish-grey Asuari scoffed, looking over to the other three Asuari girls who were fanning out behind her. "See?" she said, her voice a mocking purr. "She can't even remember her own kind's name anymore."

  Rolling her eyes, Ralaen put the weights she had been using back on the rack with deliberate, calm movements. Finally, the name clicked into place. Asula. That was it. God, how she did not miss the old pack mentality of Asuari society.

  "What do you want, Asula?" she asked without turning around, while picking up new, even heavier plates and loading them onto the bar. The extra twenty kilos per side felt no heavier than the last set.

  "What we want is for you to know your place in the pack," Asula sneered, taking a step closer. "Just because you got picked for some human extra-program, you think you're better than us now, huh?"

  Sighing to herself, Ralaen remembered now. Asula had been insufferable back in the Asuari special forces, and as the captain of their unit, Ralaen had had to put Asula in her place a couple of times. It had always been about dominance, a stupid, exhausting game she thought she’d left behind.

  "Really, Asula?" she said, finally turning around. "You want to do this here? Now?"

  Asula was slightly taller than her, and before Ralaen’s Ascension, she’d used her wits and training to eke out a victory in their previous spats. But now, it appeared that Asula thought she could get the better of her, and had brought the rest of the pack with her to show them she was now the alpha. Asula puffed her chest out, trying to loom. "Yes. Here. Now. The pack needs to see who the real alpha is."

  Ralaen looked at her. She looked at the other three, their faces a mixture of jealousy and anticipation. She looked at the few human Jaegers who were pointedly not looking, but were definitely listening.

  A slow, cold smile spread across Ralaen’s face. It wasn't a happy smile.

  "Okay," she said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. "Let's."

  She held her ground, letting the silence stretch. Asula’s patience broke.

  Lunge is telegraphed, Artemis’s voice was a cool, clinical fact in her mind. Weight on left foot. Target: ulna.

  Asula’s muscles tensed for a lunge, and Ralaen saw the shift in her weight a half-second before it happened. She didn't explode forward; she simply acted.

  Her hand shot out, not to punch, but to grab. Her fingers, reinforced by adamantium-weave and powered by her new strength, closed around Asula’s wrist.

  The sensation was bizarre. Through her own skin, she felt the delicate bones of Asula’s forearm shift and grind under her grip like dry twigs. There was no resistance. There was a sharp, sickening crack that echoed in the quiet gym, a sound so loud in her enhanced hearing that it made her own teeth ache. She felt the vibration of the break travel up her arm, not as a shock, but as a distant, clinical data point: fracture achieved.

  Asula’s eyes went wide with shock and pain, a gasp cutting off her intended snarl. Ralaen twisted, using Asula’s own momentum against her, and drove her knee up into Asula’s sternum. The air left Asula’s lungs in a whoosh. Ralaen didn't stop. She shoved, sending the taller Asuari stumbling backward into her two stunned packmates, scattering them like bowling pins.

  The whole thing took less than two seconds.

  Ralaen stood in the middle of the floor, breathing evenly. She wasn't even winded. She looked down at her own hand, then at Asula, who was cradling her shattered wrist, gasping for breath on the deck.

  "The pack dynamic is obsolete," Ralaen said, her voice flat and cold, carrying in the sudden silence of the gym. "I'm not the alpha of your little pack, Asula. I'm Einherjar. You're Jaeger. There is no comparison."

  She took a step forward, and the three uninjured Asuari flinched back.

  "You challenge me again," Ralaen continued, her gaze locked on Asula's pained, furious face, "and I won't just break your wrist. I will pull you apart so badly the med-techs will need a mop and a bucket to put you back together. Do you understand me?"

  Asula, tears of pain and humiliation streaming down her face, could only manage a choked, hate-filled nod.

  "Good," Ralaen said. She turned her back on them, a show of utter contempt, and walked back to the squat rack. She picked up the towel she’d left there, wiped her hands, and then, without another word, walked out of the gym.

  The silence in her wake was deafening.

  As she walked down the corridor, Artemis’s quiet voice filled her mind. Well, that’s one way to establish a pecking order.

  Ralaen sighed, the anger already fading, replaced by a weary disappointment. Was I too harsh?

  You gave her a warning and a broken wrist, Artemis said calmly. The next one gets a broken neck. You were perfectly clear.

  Alert sent, Artemis stated, her tone devoid of emotion. Trauma team notified. Location: Gym 3. Priority: Green. One fracture, blunt force trauma, ulna. Prognosis: Full recovery with bone-knitting regimen.

  Ralaen’s mental stride hitched. You told them?

  Protocol dictates reporting of all onboard Altercations involving Enhanced Personnel, Artemis replied, a hint of something that might have been a sigh in her voice. It also prevents her from bleeding on the deck plates. Efficiency.

  Ralaen knew it was the system at work. Each ship of the ásveldi Imperium had a shipboard AI with a partner, much like the Einherjar and their AIs. The difference was that the bio-nano interface was a derivative version of the one she now had. Each officer with a space-going command had been picked by an AI partner and received their interface. And much like the Einherjar, their AI partner was bonded for life. It was the only way to advance; to be picked for command was to be chosen by an AI. That partner would then follow you from ship to ship as you climbed the ranks. They were the ones who interfaced with the ship's systems, sorting and collating massive amounts of data, all while handling the ship's fire control and other critical functions.

  They were the unblinking, immortal heart of the ásveldi war machine. The system was a hierarchy of pairings. A ship like Draupnir had its own AI, a partner to the Captain—Runa, for Clarke. Just as Xerxes was Anastasia’s, bound to her and their pinnace. Every senior officer and every Einherjar had their own. Artemis was hers.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  As they exited the gym corridor, heading toward the showers, Artemis provided another update. The ship’s AI, Runa, has notified Captain Clarke and Squad Leader Dragomir of the altercation. And for the record, Xerxes already had the footage and had sent it to her thirty seconds ago. He moves fast.

  Of course she had. The ship was watching everything.

  After a hot shower that did little to wash away the lingering adrenaline, she changed into a pair of worn jeans and a black belly shirt that left the Einherjar rune over her heart and the hard lines of her stomach bare. As she scrubbed her hands, she felt it again—a ghost-sensation, the memory of bone grinding under her grip, the vibration of the crack traveling up her arm. Not guilt. Just data. Her body, recording the act. But it didn’t wash away the faint metallic tang of the fight that still clung to the back of her throat. Her appetite was a roaring void in her gut, a familiar, predatory ache that always followed violence. She hated it a little.

  “Message from Anastasia,” Artemis announced. “My table. Now.”

  Ralaen’s ears flattened. So much for a quiet meal. She loaded her tray with a mountain of fluffy scrambled eggs, sizzling sausage links glistening with fat, and golden-brown fried tubers. The rich, savory smell wafted up, a stark contrast to the metallic tang of the fight that still lingered in the back of her throat. Comfort food for a coming storm—and scanned the room. Anastasia was at a round table in the back, sipping a coffee. She wasn't looking at a dataslate or her phone. She was just watching the door. Waiting.

  Ralaen dreaded a bit what Anastasia would have to say about what had happened at the gym. She wasn't in the Asuari special forces anymore, after all. She belonged to the ásveldi military now. And territorial leadership behavior that might have flown in the Asuari military probably would not be okay now.

  She took her seat, placing her tray on the table with a little more force than necessary. "Anastasia."

  "Eat," Anastasia said, gesturing with her coffee mug. "You look like you're about to face a firing squad. Relax."

  Ralaen picked up a fork but didn't eat. "Artemis said you—"

  "I know what Artemis said," Anastasia cut in smoothly. "I also saw the footage. Xerxes pulled it from the gym's security node thirty seconds after it happened."

  She took a slow sip of her coffee, her eyes unreadable over the rim. "So, let's review. Jaeger Asula and three friends cornered you. They issued a direct, physical challenge. You responded."

  Ralaen blinked. "I broke her arm."

  "You ended it," Anastasia corrected, her voice like ice. "There's no rulebook for this, Ralaen. There's no 'authorized force' clause. There's only the reality of the situation. She challenged you. She learned what happens when you do that. End of story."

  She leaned forward slightly. "I've already spoken with the Captain and the Jaeger Major. The Major just shook his head, muttered something about 'Asuari pack nonsense,' and said he'd handle it. The Captain is... satisfied."

  Anastasia leaned back, a ghost of a smile on her lips. "So, like I said. Relax. You did good, pup. Now eat your food before it gets cold."

  Ralaen finally took a bite, the taste of sausage and egg a welcome distraction. She swallowed, then looked at Anastasia. "You called me 'pup'."

  "I did," Anastasia said, her own food untouched. "Einherjar don't have ranks like the Jaegers. We don't have privates or lieutenants. We have squads, and we have squad leaders. I lead Wolf Squad. That makes you my responsibility. It also makes me the one who has to explain to the old wolves back at Einherjar Command why one of their new cubs got into a playground scrap."

  Her gaze sharpened. "You handled yourself. You ended it quickly and without unnecessary killing. That's all that matters to me."

  She finally picked up her own fork. "Now, eat. We're translating in forty-five minutes."

  Ralaen nodded, digging into her eggs. The command was simple, direct, and left no room for questions. Anastasia didn't explain herself; she expected obedience. But then the squad leader watched her, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. "You've never seen a live translation, have you?"

  Ralaen paused, a piece of sausage halfway to her mouth. "Not from the outside. On Federation ships, everyone is strapped in. The EM hypercores just... punch through. You feel it. You don't get to watch."

  A rare, genuine smile touched Anastasia's lips. "Then you're not eating in here. Finish up. I'll give you a front-row seat."

  Half an hour later, they stood in a small, darkened observation blister, a bubble of reinforced transparisteel jutting from Draupnir's ventral hull. The only light came from the stars themselves and the faint, internal glows of the ship's systems.

  "Your people use a hammer," Anastasia said, her voice quiet in the enclosed space. She gestured towards the hull of the ship with a flick of her chin. "They just throw more power at the problem until reality breaks. It's crude, but it works. We found a more elegant solution."

  The ship's astrogator, a calm, professional voice, echoed through the blister. “All hands, final FTL translation in T-minus ten minutes. All hands, prepare for dimensional transition.”

  Ralaen instinctively tensed, her hand finding a nearby grip rail, but Anastasia remained relaxed, arms crossed. "Watch the hull," she murmured, pointing down.

  Ralaen followed her gaze to the ventral hull below. The familiar knotwork patterns were already glowing with their soft, defensive blue light, the ship's gravity shield standing ready—a silent, invisible barrier of gravitic distortion.

  The low hum of the ship deepened, and a new sound joined it—a high, clean chime that resonated in her bones. The blue light of the shield emitters didn't change color, but it intensified, the glow becoming sharper, more focused. It was no longer projecting a defensive field; it was being repurposed, the emitters now channeling the core's power to create the FTL bubble.

  The Bifrost core is now powering the shield grid, Artemis explained calmly. It's repurposing the emitter arrays to project a gravitic containment bubble instead of a defensive distortion field. We are about to decouple from external spacetime.

  There was no shudder, no lurch. For a single, disorienting heartbeat, the universe around them seemed to... fold. The starfield didn't stretch; it contracted, as if an invisible hand were gathering the fabric of spacetime. The light intensified, blindingly white, and then with a silent, impossible grace, the view settled.

  The ship was now inside a tunnel of impossible blues and violets, the stars streaking past its skin. The high chime of the Bifrost drive stabilized, becoming a constant, clean hum that resonated with her very bones. Her inner ear, a gift of her Asuari heritage, screamed a silent protest as the concept of 'down' and 'forward' became momentarily meaningless. Then it snapped back into place, oriented to the new reality within the bubble.

  Translation to Alpha band complete, Artemis confirmed calmly. Hold for navigational alignment. We will begin band ascent in five minutes.

  "Band ascent?" Ralaen murmured aloud.

  Think of it like an airplane gaining altitude to fly faster, Artemis explained, her voice a soothing counterpoint to the visual spectacle. The bands are stacked on top of each other. We're about to climb.

  Ralaen watched, mesmerized. The tunnel of light ahead began to change. The blues and violets of the Alpha band started to subtly shift, the hues deepening and brightening. There was no jolt, no lurch, no feeling of motion at all. The change was purely visual, as if the ship were ascending through layers of a celestial ocean. The ship's hum deepened in pitch, and the streaks of stars outside the blister seemed to accelerate smoothly, their colors bleeding into new, vibrant shades as they passed through the invisible boundary into the next band.

  The sensation was like watching a sunrise in fast-forward, but instead of light, it was pure energy. The view became more brilliant, the sense of speed more profound, all without a single shudder or shake. Ralaen felt no physical vertigo, only a dizzying, exhilarating awe at the sheer scale of it. The process continued, each band a new, more spectacular layer of reality. Delta was a river of emerald and sapphire. Epsilon a cascade of gold and crimson.

  The final ascent was the most breathtaking. The light outside coalesced into a single, brilliant, white-silver tunnel, pure and clean. The sense of motion was absolute, yet entirely without sensation. It was a silent, frictionless slide through the heart of the cosmos. The hum of the ship was now a single, perfect note that resonated with Ralaen's very bones.

  Then, everything settled.

  Translation to Zeta band complete, Artemis announced, a note of pride in her mental voice. Welcome to the express lane. Residual spatial harmonics are normal. They will dissipate.

  Her mind was racing. “That was…” she started, unable to find the word.

  "Graceful," Anastasia finished for her, her own voice filled with awe.

  Because the hyperspace models the federation drives use is incomplete, Artemis said. We shared a basic band chart with them a few years ago in an information exchange. It was enough for them to tune their drives. Draupnir’s core runs using the full band range.

  Our technology is based on harnessing gravity, Artemis continued, anticipating Ralaen’s next question. The Bifrost core doesn’t force its way through reality; it convinces reality to move out of the way. Think of it less like an engine and more like a pair of wings. Artemis displayed a complex schematic in Ralaen’s mind’s eye, a shimmering model of interlocking rings and gravitic lenses.

  Hyperspace is divided into bands. Artemis continued. Alpha is the slowest, then Beta, Gamma, Delta… all the way to Kappa, the theoretical maximum. We just shifted from flying low close to the ground all the way up to Zeta.

  Ralaen tried to follow the physics Artemis was explaining—the gravimetric shear, the resonance frequencies, the way the core folded spacetime—but she got lost halfway through. The one thing she did understand was the staggering implication.

  “Wait,” she said aloud, looking from the viewport to Anastasia. “If Zeta is the standard military band… what’s higher?”

  Anastasia’s smirk widened, but it was a knowing, almost pitying look. “The courier corps ride the ragged edge of Theta," she said. "They make the journey in a quarter of the time. But their ships are built for it. Lighter, smaller frames with minimal armament. A ship like the Draupnir? We're built for combat, not for speed. We've got the mass, the armor, the guns." She took a sip of her coffee. "A Theta-band translation would put a dimensional shear strain on our frame that we're not designed for.”

  “Theoretically,” Artemis picked up the thread, “the core can translate up through Theta band. But to do that, you have to remove the safety interlocks.”

  “Interlocks?” Ralaen asked.

  Hardware, Artemis emphasized. Physical blocks built into and around the core. They exist to prevent the core from being pushed beyond its operational tolerances. Without them, we could translate all the way up into the Theta band, but the wear on the core would be extremely dangerous.

  The pieces clicked into place for Ralaen. Anastasia said the frame couldn't handle it, but Artemis was talking about the core. The limitation wasn't just structural; it was a deliberate, built-in safety measure.

  "So someone could remove those blocks," Ralaen said. "If they were willing to risk the core."

  Anastasia’s eyes narrowed slightly, impressed by the quick deduction. “They could,” she said, her voice dropping. “If they had a death wish and a captain who was willing to sign off on it. They would be gambling with their ship and the lives of their crew.”

  Ralaen stared out at the streaking cosmos, a new understanding dawning. The Federation drives were like trying to win a race with an engine stuck in first gear—no matter how much power you poured in, you’d just redline and explode. The ásveldi didn’t just have a more powerful engine; they had a core that gave their ships wings, allowing them to soar through hyperspace. And right now they were cruising in the stratosphere while the rest of the Federation was stuck grinding themselves to pieces.