TG Six Four came out of Bifrost on the ragged edge of the Kryssar hyperlimit.

  The translation bubble collapsed in a heartbeat. The warped smear of starlight snapped back into hard points scattered across black. Draupnir’s shield shimmered into existence; three destroyers took station around the battlecruiser in a loose escort box. Inside the task group, shipboard grav nets spun up, systems rolled from translation to cruise, and the Kryssar star’s gravity well bloomed across a dozen tactical plots as a pale sphere with one highlighted habitable orbit. As soon as translation checks cleared, the task group gravity drives ignited, starting a steady acceleration toward that orbit.

  Draupnir’s gravidic net went live, reaching out ahead of light and painting three non-registered mass signatures in-system: one near the habitable world, one at the outer belt’s mining coordinates, one sitting quietly at Kryssar’s L3, where an Asuari defense station should have been.

  On Draupnir, Ralaen felt the familiar pressure in her depth sense vanish as Bifrost let go, replaced by the steady, ordinary hum of the gravity drive and life support. Information ticked into her awareness as Artemis synced to the task group feed.

  Translation complete, Artemis said in her head. exit nominal. Location: Kryssar system, primary hyperlimit. All task group elements present.

  New data followed a heartbeat later, clean and precise.

  Draupnir’s gravidic net just picked up three anomalies, Artemis went on. One at the colony’s orbit, one at the belt mining station, one at L3 where the defense station should be.

  Ralaen’s ears tipped forward slightly. “Three?” she asked under her breath.

  Three, Artemis confirmed. None on registry. Flagship is about to make this everyone’s problem.

  Captain Clarke didn’t take long.

  Message to task group, Artemis said. Flagged for Einherjar priority. Putting it through.

  Text and Clarke’s voice landed together in her head, clean and businesslike.

  “Draupnir to TG Six Four, we have three unknowns,” Clarke said. “Gravidic net shows non-registered mass at Kryssar 3 orbit, outer belt mining station coordinates, and Kryssar defense station L3. No lightspeed return yet, no IFF. At these ranges it will take too long to resolve them visually.”

  “To the Einherjar squads Wolf and Cobra,” Clarke’s voice was formal. “We have a situation requiring your unique capabilities. I am formally requesting close-range reconnaissance on two of the three unknown contacts. The choice of targets is yours. We will provide transport on request.”

  Anastasia’s response came a second later, clipped and calm.

  “Alright Clarke, we’ll check it out for you,” she said.”

  Ramirez followed. “We’ll take the other.”

  Clarke again. “I’ll task Halberd and Aegis to carry you. You pick targets. Spearhead stays with Draupnir and remains on call for Kryssar 3.”

  Ralaen watched the plot spin slowly, three orange cones hanging in the dark. One at the colony’s orbit, one tagged MINING STATION, one sitting right on the L3 marker where the Asuari defense station was supposed to have been parked for years.

  Anastasia’s voice came over the Einherjar local net, firm and without drama.

  “Wolf squad takes the defense station,” she said. “That’s our priority. If the station is intact we can likely gain access to local sensor records.”

  “Cobra squad will take the mining station,” Ramirez added. “If Rilethi are raiding the belt, that’s one of their primary targets.”

  “Understood,” Clarke said. “Halberd, you get Cobra. Aegis, you’re Wolf squad’s ride. Be ready to receive armored pinnaces inside thirty minutes. TG Six Four will maintain acceleration toward Kryssar 3’s orbit until we know what’s moving in this system. Clarke out.”

  The channel clicked off. The task group tags kept drifting.

  Artemis was already ahead of her.

  “Wolf squad, you heard her,” Anastasia said, voice crisp. “Gear up. Pinnace launch in twenty-six minutes. Morgue is live.”

  Pinnace prep order confirmed, Artemis said in Ralaen’s head. Time to launch: twenty-six minutes.

  “Right,” Ralaen said, already turning. “Ping Eirik. Tell him I’ll see him in the morgue.”

  On her way down, she didn’t feel Draupnir move. The compensator soaked up the shift as the battlecruiser adjusted its position, keeping station while the destroyers slid into slightly wider escort orbits. The elevators ran smooth on their rails, humming through the ship’s spine.

  Her stomach knew what was coming even if the deck didn’t. First real deployment as Einherjar. First time jumping off a hull at the edge of a system where Rilethi might already be shooting. Her claws flexed once against her palms and she made herself uncurl them.

  Nerves are a normal response, Artemis said quietly. Elevated heart rate within acceptable parameters.

  “Yeah,” Ralaen muttered. “Doesn’t mean I like it.”

  I didn’t say you had to.

  The morgue was already awake when she stepped in, the air cool and smelling of sterilized metal and ozone. Racks of Mj?lnir armor frames stood open under bright strips, Wolf squad’s suits in one row, Cobra’s in another. Techs and automated arms moved between them, performing final checks, last-minute seals, and adjustments.

  Wolf squad were halfway changed when she arrived, their sleek black bodygloves already on, weapons cases open on the benches. Eirik glanced up from his locker as she came in, his eyes taking her in with a single, familiar sweep before he returned to fastening the collar ring of his own suit.

  “You’re late,” he said mildly.

  “I was three decks over in our quarters,” she protested.”

  A few low chuckles from the others. The sound helped. They finished shedding their ship clothes, the cool air of the morgue a brief shock against their fur before they pulled on the bodygloves. The material was a second skin, cool at first, then warming rapidly as the suit’s micro-systems recognized her biometrics and came online. She checked the seal indicators on her wrists, neck, and ankles, watching the green arcs bloom one by one on the small wall display above her station.

  Ready, Artemis said in her mind. Armor is synced and waiting.

  Her Mk.4-frame stood closed in front of her, a predator waiting to be woken.

  “Hatch,” Ralaen said, her voice quiet.

  The backplates of the suit retracted with smooth mechanical precision, panels sliding apart and back into recesses along the flanks and spine until the rear of the armor was an open shell. Actuators hummed quietly, exposing the inner padding layer: dense, dark, and contoured perfectly to her frame.

  She stepped forward into the open shell, guided by muscle memory. One foot, then the other sank into the padded boots; her legs slid into close-fitting channels. She leaned her weight into the chest padding, feeling it mold to her torso.

  Then the suit moved.

  The backplates glided forward again, sliding back into place behind her. A series of small, precise clicks ran up her spine as each joint seated and locked. Side seams sealed with a series of soft, solid clacks. The weight settled, then redistributed itself, servos coming online in a low mechanical purr.

  The helm came down last. For a moment, the world narrowed to the close, scented space inside—composite, machine oil, and the faint, clean scent of her own breath. Then, with a muted chime, the hard seals confirmed. The world snapped back, this time filtered through the crisp clarity of armored optics and a full HUD. Status arches, glowing a cool blue, curved across her vision. Wolf squad tags flared into focus around her.

  Neural link engaged, Artemis said. All systems green. Try not to break anything on the first outing.

  “You’re hilarious,” Ralaen said, but her jaw had eased. Inside Mj?lnir, everything felt aligned again.

  Eirik’s Mk.4 suit stepped up beside her, bone white plates catching the morgue lights. He leaned in and brought his helm to hers until they touched at the brow. For a second, the rest of the room fell out of focus.

  “You’re wound tight,” he said, voice on the short-range channel, meant only for her. “I can hear it in your breathing.”

  “First real run,” she said. “Feels different when it’s not sims and training ranges.”

  “It is different,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you’re not ready. We’re not doing this alone. You’ve got Artemis. You’ve got me. You have a warship on our side that can swat anything short of a full task group off the board.”

  She let that sit for a beat. The tension in her shoulders eased a fraction.

  “Yeah,” she said. “All right.”

  He bumped their helms once more, a small, hard tap, then pulled back.

  “Wolf squad,” Anastasia’s voice cut across the squad net, crisp. “Lock it down. Pinnace in eight minutes.”

  Their pinnace, Garm’s Maw, waited in its cradle like a crouched blade, the familiar wolf’s-head-and-knife logo stark on its prow. Inside, the drop compartment was already warmed and lit, the mag-clamps and racks ready for their armored bodies. The narrow stairs to the upper deck and the door with the hand-scrawled names were just where they’d left them.

  Boarding was muscle memory. Wolf squad filed in, Eirik and Ralaen glancing automatically toward their bunks as they passed the stairs. They clipped harnesses in the crash couches and stowed their weapons. The hatch closed with a heavy thud, isolating them from Draupnir’s air. A second later, the pinnace's own systems came up around them, lighting the interior with soft indicators and casting the squad in ghost-edged shadows.

  Wolf-Actual, this is Aegis’ flight. We have your pinnace on approach queue, came a calm voice over the channel. Launch in thirty seconds. Transit time to Aegis: eleven minutes.

  “Aegis, this is Wolf-Actual. We read you. We’ll try not to scratch your paint,” Anastasia answered, her voice crisp and professional.

  The cradle shifted, not rotating the pinnace but translating it laterally on heavy rails. Ralaen felt a gentle shudder as the magnetic locks disengaged. Through the forward viewport, she saw the familiar interior of the Draupnir's hangar hold steady.

  A new voice, calm and feminine, came over the channel. Draupnir Flight Control to Wolf-Actual. Hangar petal is open. You are cleared for lateral extraction on my mark.

  Anastasia’s hand rested on the co-pilot’s console. We’re ready, Draupnir.

  Mark.

  The pinnace slid smoothly out of the bay, emerging from the side of the great hammerhead into the hard light of the star system. For a moment, the vast white flank of the battlecruiser filled their entire port-side view. Then, with a soft hum, the pinnace’s own drives engaged, pushing them clear and away from the mothership.

  Within minutes, the lean, sharp-edged form of the Aegis grew to fill the view. The destroyer matched their velocity, and Ralaen watched as a series of armored petals on its port hammerhead slid open, revealing a dark bay identical to the one they had just left.

  Aegis Flight to Wolf-Actual. We have you. Tractor lock in five, four, three…

  Ralaen felt the familiar, invisible tug as the destroyer’s tractors took hold. The pinnace went dead in space for a heartbeat, then was pulled smoothly sideways, sliding back into the waiting hangar as if being sheathed. Hull indicators ticked over from vacuum to hard contact as they crossed the threshold.

  “Attention Wolf-Actual. Hard seal established. You are clear to disembark. A priority data packet is being routed from Draupnir flag command for your eyes only. Stand by to receive.”

  The journey in-system took hours. Aegis accelerated on a steady gravity drive profile toward the L3 point, its bow pointed sunward, riding the gravity well. Ralaen felt none of it beyond an abstracted awareness from the navigation tags Artemis fed her. Time turned into cycles of checklists, weapon inspections, short bursts of conversation.

  Underneath all of it, the nerves sat like a coiled spring.

  You’re pacing in your harness, Artemis observed at one point.

  “I’m strapped in,” Ralaen pointed out.

  In your head, then.

  “I know,” she said. “I’d like to see what we’re walking into before we walk into it.”

  So would I, Artemis said. But we’re going to be the ones providing that data. That’s the job.

  Logic she could accept. Instinct was another matter.

  Eirik talked to her again, quietly, on and off. Small things. The way Aegis’ crew moved around Einherjar without gawking. The betting pool he was pretty sure Cobra had running on which squad found trouble first. It didn’t erase the tension, but it turned it into something sharper and more useful.

  By the time Artemis told her they were nearing L3, Ralaen’s mind had settled into the familiar pre-combat focus. Options, angles, checklists.

  Approach distance: five million kilometers, Artemis said, drawing from Aegis’ sensors. No active transmissions from the defense station. EM profile is low. No beacon.

  “Nothing?” she asked.

  Nothing we should be seeing, no.

  A new data stream from Aegis’ navigation feed bloomed in Ralaen’s HUD. Artemis tagged the change.

  [AEGIS NAV]: INCREASING ACCELERATION. DRIVE OUTPUT AT 100%. CLOSING VELOCITY INCREASING.

  The light-time delay to target began to count down in the corner of her display.

  Three hundred thousand kilometers, Artemis said. Four seconds round-trip. Aegis is going to active.

  In her HUD, the tactical plot sharpened as Aegis lit up the target with active sensors. The defense station should have been a familiar, registered shape: the Asuari prefabricated hull they used on half their frontier colonies. What they got instead was a blurred silhouette sitting in the L3 well, surrounded by debris.

  And something else.

  Ralaen saw the extra mass marker peel away from the far side of the station a heartbeat before Artemis spoke.

  Contact, Artemis said directly in her mind, a private instant before the CIC's general alert. On the main plot, a new icon slid out from behind the station’s shadow, its tag blooming with stark immediacy: [CONTACT - RILETHI - BOGEY 1 - 200,000 TONS]. The icon solidified as the active return hit. Long, lean, with an ugly, angular nose and flared aft section where drive assemblies sat. The cruiser’s running lights flared to life and its reactor signature spiked as its pulse drive ignited. The icon’s vector shifted, lurching forward as it burned hard to meet Aegis.

  Aegis’ tactical feed spiked, Artemis said. All sixty graser turrets are tracking. Firing solution in three seconds.

  “Here we go,” Eirik murmured over the squad net. Ralaen’s perspective shifted to a shared feed from Aegis’ sensors. The destroyer didn't hold its course. Its gravity drive flared, throwing the ship into a hard, lateral burn its high acceleration throwing it sideways just as the Rilethi fired. Across its forward arc, the shield intensified, the invisible field thickening to absorb the initial impact.

  The Rilethi fired first. On the plot, the first salvo came in as a sleet of hard tags, each rail-shot a bright needle. The leading edge of the swarm struck Aegis’s forward shield and flared, the gravitic field attenuating the impacts but clearly being strained by the volume of fire. Several rounds got through, striking the ship's hull and lighting up damage icons on the tactical plot.

  Aegis’ damage reports show minor hull strikes, Artemis relayed. Shield at 80% forward. She's firing.

  On the feed, flickering windows opened across Aegis’s dorsal and ventral surfaces as all sixty turrets fired at once. It wasn't a single devastating beam, but a storm of them, a constellation of smaller, 1.5-meter lances converging on the Rilethi cruiser. The beams were visible not as light, but as distortions in space itself, the gravity sheath of the graviton beams warping the starfield behind them. The Rilethi’s polarized plating flared under the concentrated fire, trying to scatter and absorb the hits.

  The storm of grasers didn't just burn the ship; the gravitic component tore at the very fabric of the armor, ripping and shredding plates apart while the gamma-ray core boiled the metal beneath. A dozen glowing wounds erupted across the cruiser's hull, popping external sensors like corn kernels. The Rilethi cruiser’s return fire faltered as its own weapons were ripped from their mounts.

  Aegis pivoted, its gravity drive still flaring as it juked sideways, presenting a fresh aspect. Its turrets fired again, another coordinated volley stitching more gravitic tears across the enemy hull. The Rilethi ship, now crippled and structurally compromised, tried to bring its own weapons to bear for a final, defiant shot, but its aim was wild.

  A third volley from Aegis finished the job. A series of beams punched into the cruiser's unshielded flank, their combined gravitic sheath buckling the hull long before the gamma energy struck the main fusion core. There was no bright explosion, just a sudden, violent bloom of light as containment failed, venting plasma and debris in a widening cone.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Aegis’ sensors just lost the drive signature, Artemis said calmly. Reactor offline. Structural integrity compromised. Rilethi cruiser is dead in space, drifting.

  In the pinnace bay, Wolf squad watched the icons settle and spread. Ralaen let out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Seems Aegis didn’t need us for that part,” she said.

  Not for the first shot, Artemis agreed. For what’s waiting on that station, though? That’s yours.

  On the plot, the crippled Rilethi cruiser began to tumble slowly, lit by the system’s dim star and Aegis’ sensors, a dead thing turning in the dark near a defense station that still hadn’t said a word.

  The giddy feeling was a strange, electric hum in Ralaen’s veins. Watching the Aegis dismantle the Rilethi cruiser had been less like a battle and more like a demonstration. The Rilethi’s best shot, a salvo of hypervelocity rounds that could shatter a Drakari dreadnought’s spine, had simply vanished against the destroyer’s shields, which flared but held. The Aegis’s reply hadn't been a single crushing blow; it had been a coordinated storm from all sixty turrets. Artemis’s calm, clinical narration of the Rilethi reactor failing had been the final, damning note.

  Intellectually, Ralaen had always known the score. An Einherjar in Mj?lnir armor was more than a match for any Rilethi Reaver. But knowing it in a briefing and feeling it in your soul were two different things. The fear hadn't vanished, but it had been reshaped, honed into a razor's edge of pure focus.

  The pinnace detached from the Aegis with a silent shudder, its own gravitic drive engaging for the short burn to the station. Inside, the four members of Wolf squad moved with the economy of motion that only years of training and a neural link could provide. Weapons were selected from the racks. Anastasia and Eirik took pulse rifles, their grav-drivers silent promises of kinetic violence. Thomas hefted the Two-two-Seven, its belt-fed mechanism a low growl of potential. Ralaen chose the flechette gun, its wide dispersion pattern perfect for the close-quarters slaughter of a boarding action. She added her own touch: two monomolecular-edged long knives, their blades sheathed in magnetic scabbards on her thighs.

  Their pinnace docked with the station’s maintenance hub, a magnetic clunk echoing through the hull. Ralaen cycled the airlock. As they entered the corridor of the station, Artemis flagged the atmospheric readout: blood particulates, decay, failing life support.

  They stepped into a charnel house.

  The scene was a butcher’s tableau. Dead Asuari and Felari in their sleek Federation uniforms were scattered through the corridor. Many were still in the poses of their last moments, hands reaching for weapons they never drew. Scorch marks from pulse rifles and the gouged, ragged tears of rail cannon impacts scarred the bulkheads. The station’s emergency lighting cast long, dancing shadows, turning the carnage into a grotesque diorama.

  Most of the station is in vacuum, Artemis noted, her voice a calm counterpoint to the visual horror. The Rilethi breached the hull in multiple locations during their initial bombardment.

  Ralaen’s HUD highlighted the gaping holes in the station’s superstructure, the skin peeled back to reveal the blackness of space. Through one tear, she saw the bodies of Federation personnel, their slim suits lacking the backpacks that would have saved them, frozen in silent, bloated repose.

  Some of the bodies show post-mortem mutilation, Artemis commented, flagging several corpses on the tactical map. Not combat damage. Trophy taking.

  A cold fury settled in Ralaen’s gut, replacing the last vestiges of adrenaline-fueled giddiness. This wasn't just a battle; it was an atrocity.

  “Squad link,” she murmured. “Full awareness.”

  The world shifted. It wasn’t a flood of new data or overlapping camera feeds. It was a silent, instantaneous expansion of her own consciousness. Through Artemis, she felt Anastasia’s predatory calm to her right, a coiled tension ready to strike. She sensed Eirik’s steady, resolute presence at the rear, an anchor. She felt Thomas’s focused aggression, a low hum of violent intent. They weren't points on a map; they were extensions of herself. She knew where they were, what they were feeling, and what they intended to do, not because she saw it, but because she knew it, as surely as she knew her own hand.

  Ralaen took point, her flechette gun held high. They moved as a single entity, a four-limbed predator clearing the charnel house. Their destination was the command hub, located two levels down and a hundred meters forward.

  They were halfway there when Artemis’s voice cut through the link. Contact. Twelve contacts, dead ahead. Rilethi bio-signatures. Reavers.

  The squad’s collective intent sharpened to a killing point.

  They burst into a large junction, a nexus of corridors that served as a makeshift staging area. Twelve Rilethi Reavers looked up, their cybernetically augmented lizard-like faces twisting into snarls. They were brutal-looking creatures, even for their kind, their bodies a mess of scarred scales, chrome plating, and crude wiring. They wielded brutal, serrated blades that looked more like industrial tools than weapons.

  Time seemed to slow. Ralaen’s adrenaline spiked, not into panic, but into a state of pure, cold clarity.

  Threat vectors assigned, Artemis said, and a stream of pure, distilled intuition flowed directly into Ralaen’s mind. It wasn't text or images; it was just knowing. The Reaver to the left had a weak cybernetic knee. The one in the center was about to lunge. The one by the far wall was priming a grenade.

  Ralaen didn't think. She acted.

  She charged, her Mj?lnir armor’s myomer bundles propelling her forward in a blur. She fired the flechette gun from the hip, the recoil a solid kick against her armor. A cloud of razor-sharp darts filled the junction, ripping into soft tissue and unarmored cybernetics. Three Reavers went down, shredded before they could take a step.

  She dropped the now-empty flechette gun, the weapon clattering to the deck. Her hands flew to her thighs, drawing the monomolecular knives. The blades whispered from their sheaths, their edges shimmering.

  Then she was among them.

  It was not a fight. It was a demolition. Ralaen was a whirlwind of powered armor and impossibly sharp steel. She moved with a speed and precision that was utterly inhuman, a dance choreographed by Artemis. She was the conductor, and Ralaen was the musician, her body the instrument. Every parry, every strike, every pivot was a note in a violent symphony. She drove a knife through the weak knee Artemis had highlighted, severing cables and bone. She sidestepped the lunging Reaver, her other blade flashing out to open its throat. She kicked the grenade-priming Reaver, sending it flying back into its comrades just as the explosive detonated in a messy, contained blast.

  Anastasia, Eirik, and Thomas held their perimeter, their weapons raised but silent. There was nothing for them to shoot. There was only Ralaen and the storm of violence she had become, a whirlwind of perfectly directed fury that the rest of the squad watched with a shared, detached sense of awe.

  When the last Reaver fell, its chrome-plated skull split by a downward strike, Ralaen stood alone in the center of the junction. She was breathing heavily, not from exertion, but from the sheer, overwhelming intensity of the neural feedback. Blood slicked the deck. Chunks of cybernetics and severed limbs littered the floor.

  She looked over at her squad, the red light of her wolf-helm’s optical lenses reflecting off their visors.

  Anastasia was the first to break the silence, her voice tight over the squad net. “Got it out of your system? Good. Then let's move.”

  Ralaen gave a curt nod. She retrieved her flechette gun, slinging it back on its magnetic hardpoint, and cleaned her knives on a relatively clean patch of a Reaver’s tunic before resheathing them.

  As they continued toward the command hub, the reality of what had just happened settled in. She had taken down twelve Rilethi Reavers—some of the most feared shock troops in the sector—on her own. Without a scratch. She hadn’t had to think. Artemis had analyzed, assessed, and predicted. Ralaen had simply executed.

  She now understood. The legends weren't about the Einherjar’s strength or their armor. They were about this. About the perfect, terrifying fusion of a warrior's body and an AI's mind. There was no hesitation, no fear, no wasted motion. There was only data, and the absolute, brutal efficiency of action.

  The blast door to the command hub had been blown inward, its thick armor peeled back like the lid of a tin can. The scorch marks and shrapnel pitting told the story before they even stepped inside. The Rilethi hadn't breached it; they had obliterated it.

  The scene within was worse. The command hub was a slaughterhouse, the nerve center of the station turned into a final, desperate stand. Bodies were scattered across the deck and over shattered command consoles. Asuari, Felari, and Drakari, their Federation uniforms stained with blood.

  And in the center of the room, suspended from a gantry by magnetic clamps, was the body of an Asuari officer. He had been flayed. The amount of blood on the deck below and the ragged, savage nature of the cuts told Ralaen everything she needed to know.

  He was alive when they did it, Artemis’s voice was a cold whisper in her mind. A spike of pure, cold fury washed away the lingering adrenaline from the fight.

  Anastasia was already moving, her steps sure and economical as she navigated the carnage. She knelt by a terminal that was miraculously still glowing with power, her fingers flying across the interface. "Xerxes, get me everything. Station logs, sensor data, final transmissions. Rip it all."

  Eirik sidled up to Ralaen, his presence a solid, steady weight in her expanded consciousness. "How are you feeling?"

  Ralaen paused, her gaze sweeping the room. How did she feel? The giddiness was gone, replaced by a strange, hollow ache. She had to reconcile the fact that the bogeymen she’d grown up hearing about, the Rilethi Reavers, now seemed no more threatening than a training simulation set to easy. The fear was gone, and in its place was a profound sadness for the cost of that realization.

  My little sister is finally growing up, Artemis mused, a rare, soft tone in her mental voice. Seeing the monsters for what they are.

  Across the room, Thomas stood guard by the blown-out doorway, his Two-two-seven a silent, watchful sentinel. As she and Eirik spoke, they both swept the room, their enhanced senses taking in every detail. They found two dead Rilethi Reavers and one Corsair, their bodies sprawled near a wrecked tactical console. A small, defiant victory in the midst of overwhelming defeat.

  In her heart, Ralaen applauded the Federation soldiers. They had held this room against terrible odds, for what must have been a long, painful time. But she also mourned them. She felt a sense of something she couldn't quite place, a heavy finality that settled in her bones.

  Her mind drifted back to J?tunheim, to the quiet, incense-filled chapel where Sigrun, the Valkyrja, had presided. Sigrun, who had taught them not just of Odínn and Valhalla, but of the old ásatru ways. An old prayer for the dead surfaced in her memory, the words in the rolling, ancient cadence of Old ásveldi, just as Sigrun had taught her.

  She didn’t know why this scene, this carnage, brought that prayer to mind. These weren't ásveldi. They weren't of her faith. But they had fought. They had died protecting something, holding the line against the dark. It felt right. It felt necessary.

  Making up her mind, she looked at the dead, her voice a low, steady murmur in the silence of the command hub. She spoke the ancient words, the resonant language feeling both foreign and familiar on her tongue.

  "Hark, Allfather, who watches from the high seat, Look down on this field of the fallen. See the blood they have shed, the courage they have held, Though they knew not your name nor your hall.

  If it be your will, let the Valkyrior ride, Let them find these souls worthy in their sight. Grant them passage, a place in the glory, For they stood against the darkness and did not break.

  Let them feast in the halls of the honored, Let them know peace in the after of strife. From this mortal coil, we release them, May their spirits find rest, and their valor be remembered."

  As she spoke the final words, a sense of peace settled over her. The sadness was still there, but it was no longer a hollow ache. It was a solemn weight. She had mourned them. She had laid them to rest.

  Eirik had watched her the entire time, his presence a quiet, non-judgmental observer. When she turned back to him, he tilted his head. "I hadn't thought you a true believer."

  "I'm not sure I am," Ralaen admitted, her voice quiet. "Not in the way Sigrun is. But the words... they felt comforting. The idea that someone is watching over the dead. That it matters."

  Her thoughts drifted back not to J?tunheim, but to the Great Hall of Uppsalír. She remembered the day it was just her and Eirik, standing before the Allfather and the three Norns. The memory of the oath they had sworn there, alone together, was a fire in her soul. She still wasn't sure if she truly believed, not with the rational part of her mind. But ever since that day, it had become harder to deny the weight of the Allfather's promise.

  "From this moment, so long as you hold to what you have sworn, you will have a place at my table in Valhalla. Fight, fall, rise—it does not matter. You are mine, and I am yours. This is my promise to you, my Einherjar."

  The promise was not an idea; it was a covenant. A direct, unbreakable bond sworn by a godlike being. And in the cold silence of that dead station, surrounded by the honored dead of another people, that promise felt more real than ever.

  With the data secured and the station rendered silent, there was nothing left to do. Anastasia gave the order, and Wolf squad moved out, retracing their steps through the carnage. The bodies were still there. The scorch marks. The blood. Ralaen didn't look away this time. She let herself see it, let it settle into memory. These dead deserved to be remembered.

  No one spoke on the walk back to Garm's Maw.

  The assault pinnace Garm's Maw detached from the Kryssar Defence Station with a silent, lethal grace. Inside the compact cabin, the four members of Wolf Squad were a study in quiet exhaustion. The adrenaline had receded, leaving behind the hollow ache of aftermath. Thomas was already leaning his head against the cool, grey bulkhead, eyes closed, while Anastasia ran a silent diagnostic with Xerxes, her fingers tracing patterns in the air above her console.

  Ralaen sat forward, her gaze fixed on the view displayed on the main screen. The scarred, skeletal form of the station fell away against the star-dusted black. Ahead, the familiar, brutalist lines of the Aegis waited, a predator coiled in the void. The shields shimmered, a faint distortion in the space around her off-white hull, and the etched runes along her armor belts pulsed a dim, cold blue as she prepared to receive them. Garm's Maw was being reeled in, caught in the invisible grasp of a tractor emitter as it angled towards one of the small hangar ports set into the ship's flank.

  Ralaen felt the phantom weight of the Mj?lnir armor, the ghost of its power still humming in her nerves. Now, clad only in the soft under-suit, she felt small, almost fragile.

  Eirik moved from the copilot's seat and settled onto the bench beside her. He didn't say anything. Just sat there, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers.

  The silence stretched. Ralaen kept staring at the viewport, but she could feel him waiting. Not pushing. Just present.

  "You're doing that thing," she said finally.

  "What thing?"

  "Where you sit there until I talk."

  "Is it working?"

  She didn't answer. Her claws flexed against her thigh, then relaxed.

  "It didn't feel like I thought it would," she said. The words came out before she'd decided to say them.

  He shifted slightly, turning toward her. Still didn't push.

  "I feel... hollow," she said breaking the silence, her voice barely a whisper. "Back with the Asuari Special Forces, I thought I knew what war was. I remember the charge on Halkan's Ridge. The Rilethi didn't advance on us, they scrambled. All claws and cybernetics, hunched over and spitting hypervelocity rounds from their coilguns. I saw our shields flash and die, saw our laser fire splash harmlessly off their armored plates. They soaked up everything we threw at them."

  Her gaze grew distant, seeing the memory play out on the bulkhead in front of her. "I pulled my squad mate T'chak out of the fire. His leg was gone, just… gone. I dragged back Lyra, but her eyes were already glass. I managed to get a lucky shot on one of them, a Corsair who'd already been torn up by a grenade. I put him down, and for a week, my squad called me a hero… I thought I was a hero."

  She let out a short, bitter laugh. "Today, I killed twelve. Twelve Reavers, in less time than it takes to field-strip a pulser. They weren't a threat; they were an inconvenience. It was like they were moving through thick mud, and I was the only one who could move. I used to think I was part of the elite of my military, Eirik. But compared to how I fought today, I see I was a child playing at war, waving a sharpened stick at a thunderstorm." She looked at him, a raw plea in her eyes. "What does that make us? What does that make me?"

  Eirik was quiet. His hand found hers, but he didn't look at her.

  "You're still you, the same person who dragged T'chak out of the fire," he said. "That hasn't changed."

  It wasn't enough. He knew it wasn't enough. He tried again.

  "It's not—we're still—" He shook his head, the frustration clear in his voice. "I'm saying this wrong."

  He gave up and pulled her into him instead, her head tucked under his chin, his arms tight around her.

  "I don't know what it makes us," he said quietly. "But you're not in it alone. That's all I've got."

  The low rumble of Thomas voice came from the kitchen area as walked over and slumped down in one of the armchairs, a bottle in his hand. "I did some reading on the Federation before we deployed. On your people. The Asuari Confederacy is built on duty, on family... on hunters and soldiers. The Felari Republic is all flash and drama. The Ssarathi Conclave deals in layered etiquette, and the Drakari Kingdom honors the hammer and the forge. Even the Azelari Directorate, with their long view, they are all cultures that have grown, but they have not been truly tested by fire."

  "The Imperium... we are forged in a different fire. We are the descendants of a people who, in the span of a few thousand years, nearly scoured their homeworld clean twice over before they learned their lesson. We carry that memory in our bones."

  "So no," he continued, his tone softening as he took a swig of the bottle. "I'm not surprised the Federation was unprepared for the Rilethi. How could you be? You built a society on the hope of peace. We built one on the memory of its loss. We learned the hard way that peace is a garden that must be constantly tended, and defended by people willing to kill to secure it."

  He took another swig. "You're not a child playing at war, Ralaen. We are the guardians who have been given the power to keep the garden safe."

  As he finished speaking, Garm's Maw slid into its bay. The bright, sterile light of the Aegis's hangar flooded through the windows of the pinnace into the cabin, and Ralaen felt the gentle, definitive thud of magnetic clamps securing them to the ship. They were back.

  On the bridge of the Aegis. Captain Bj?rstad stood before the main tactical hologram, a deep-core amphitheater of calm control. The ship was a weapon, and he was its will. The plot showed the Rilethi cruiser as a fading thermal signature, the defence station as a cold hulk. Mission one was complete.

  "Status of the pinnace?" he asked, his voice crisp in the quiet, purposeful space.

  "Garm's Maw is secured, Captain," the operations officer replied from her console. "Wolf squad is aboard. Flight deck reports ready status."

  "Very well." Bj?rstad’s gaze remained on the hologram. "Helm, bring us about. Make our new heading for Kryssar 3. Signal the task group we are underway to rendezvous."

  "Aye, Captain. Coming to new heading."

  The order was a silent command to the heart of the machine. The Aegis pivoted, a perfect, silent maneuver. Her compact, stubby cylinder of a hull swung away from the graveyard at L3, the small hammerhead bow turning toward the distant star. The skeletal station fell away astern, another ghost in the void. The inertial compensator field was perfect; inside the hull, there was no sensation of movement at all.

  The destroyer accelerated as the gravity drive increased power output. The etched knotwork along her armor belts pulsed a dim, cold blue, tracing the active power channels beneath the hull. To an outside observer, the faint distortion of the gravity field around the ship would have seemed to sharpen, the background stars smearing slightly at its boundaries as the Aegis drove onward, streaking toward the planet.

  Ahead, the blue-white dot of Kryssar 3 grew steadily brighter, a world of unknowns waiting in the silence. The first blood had been spilled, but the battle for the system was yet to begin.

  Silence returned to the command hub, thick and absolute. The only movement was the slow drift of dust motes in the emergency lighting and the faint, almost imperceptible vibration of the station's failing life support. Wolf squad was gone, their footsteps echoing down the corridor, their mission moving forward. They left behind a room of the dead, a testament to a futile, brave stand.

  And then, the air itself changed.

  It did not shimmer or warp. The air simply… parted. A point in the center of the room, near the strung-up body of the Asuari officer, became a place of two realities at once. The cold, recycled air of the station was replaced for a fleeting instant by the scent of snow, ancient stone, and woodsmoke. A silence deeper than a vacuum fell, pressing in on the room.

  From that impossible point, she stepped through.

  She was tall, clad in armor that seemed forged from starlight and polished silver, its lines echoing the design of Mj?lnir armor but infinitely more intricate. A great cloak of what looked like woven shadow was pinned to her shoulders, and from her back, two vast wings unfolded, not of feather and bone, but of coherent light, soft and ethereal, casting a gentle, golden glow that pushed back the room's shadows. This was no Einherjar. This was a Valkyrja.

  Her gaze, serene and terrible, swept the room. She saw the fallen Federation soldiers, and her expression held a solemn pity for their courage, but she did not pause. They were not hers to claim. She was here for a specific soul.

  She walked toward the center of the room, her light-armored boots making no sound on the blood-slick deck. She stopped before the flayed Asuari, his body a ruin of agony and defiance. The Valkyrja looked upon him not with horror, but with a profound, piercing respect. She reached out a gauntleted hand, not to touch the flesh, but to pass over it. As she did, a shimmering, spectral form coalesced beside the body—the spirit of the Asuari officer. It was whole, unscarred, and wore the same look of fierce pride he must have held in life.

  The spectral form of Kaelen looked at her, and for the first time, the pride in his eyes was clouded with a deep, uncertain sorrow. He was a worthy warrior, but he was not human. He was an Asuari, a stranger to their halls.

  The Valkyrja’s voice, when she spoke, was not a sound but a resonance that settled directly in the soul.

  "Kaelen, son of Vorlag," she said, her tone one of formal address. "You held the line when all others fled. You faced the darkness without fear and gave your last breath for your people. I see the doubt in your spirit. You believed, but you thought yourself unworthy. That you were not of the right blood."

  The spirit of Kaelen flickered, the silent confirmation of his deepest fear.

  A gentle, knowing smile touched the Valkyrja’s lips. It was a look of infinite compassion. "The Allfather cares not for the shape of the vessel, only for the strength of the spirit within. He cares not for where one comes from, only that they hold true to the values of his tenets."

  "But my end..." Kaelen's spirit whispered, a sound like dry leaves. "It was not valorous. I was broken. Tortured."

  "You think valor is found only in a clean death?" the Valkyrja asked, her voice warm with reassurance. "They broke your body, but they never broke your spirit. You did not beg for mercy. You did not cry out for death. You endured. Every moment you drew breath, you delayed them. Your sacrifice bought time for others. That is not weakness. That is the noblest form of courage. You did not waver." She looked at him, her gaze absolute. "You are worthy."

  She extended her hand, and the spirit of Kaelen, now free of his doubt, reached out to take it. As their fingers touched, his physical form on the gantry dissolved into a shower of soft, golden light, the brutalized shell finally released from its torment. The Valkyrja drew the spirit of Kaelen to her, her great wings of light folding around them both, shielding him from the mortal realm.

  For a single moment, the command hub was filled with the light of a thousand suns and the faint, distant echo of a great hall roaring in welcome. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over.The light vanished. The scent of snow and stone was gone. The air returned to its stale, metallic chill.

  The Valkyrja was gone.

  The command hub was once again silent, still, and empty. The only evidence of her passage was the absence of a body on the gantry, and the faint, lingering warmth in the air that the station's failing sensors would never detect. An honor paid, a soul collected, a promise kept. All unseen by the mortals who fought and bled in this dark corner of the galaxy.