The Buckler was still descending over the western foothills and into Kitez-proper when Jense, Corbin, and the Sixth Wing skiff carrying their Captain arrived. Ravan was quick to notice their approach, and went to the hangar to meet them as they landed. Furion had swapped from his lake-soaked flight-suit to a normal uniform by the time he hopped out, and did his best not to react to any of the stinging twinges from his wound as he moved.

  “Sir!” The three lower-ranks lined up and saluted.

  “At ease. Where’s Dame Ren?”

  The duo pulled their helmets off as Ravan answered, “Not sure about right now, but Lord Rylen had her attend the briefing earlier. Apparently, she’s acting-Captain.”

  “I see…” Furion said stiffly, “Well, if that’s what Lord Rylen wants…”

  “…Why is Ren the acting Captain? You’re standing right here.” Corbin wondered dubiously, though it seemed the woman was practically waiting for the question, since he spotted her coming – in full regalia – just as soon as the words left his lips.

  “Because the Captain is grounded until further notice.” Ren answered, and pulled her gloves a little tighter on her hands as she approached, “But you’re welcome to offer moral support, if you’re here anyway.”

  To say the three Fafnir watching were tense would be an understatement, as eyes went from one Captain to the other awkwardly. Jense asked the obvious question, “…Who are we taking orders from right now?”

  “Me.” Ren declared clearly, “This is my mission. And I wouldn’t get too comfortable since we’re about to deploy. I’m having some nanotech pods brought down here for each of us to connect to before we go; Lord Rylen and Captain Landon are already connected to monitor our progress. We’ll be flying ahead of the barrier in an effort to get the Prince.”

  “It’s been a while since we had an easy mission.” Corbin gave a relieved bit of a sigh, “Covert, stealthy, find a kid and nab him?”

  “We definitely need a win after all the losses.” Ren agreed as she was manifesting the mission brief above her hands; Furion crossed his arms and gave quite the look, though it went unnoticed. Ren held her palms up, and a focused map of Oceanside appeared, highlighting the administrative district, and the palace at the back of it, bordering the water. Though it was only satellite footage from above, it was enough to get them started, “The outline of the Tuonela covers this entire area, unfortunately. We assume the Prince’s ship brought him directly to the palace, since there’d be no other place to take him under the shadow, but where he is inside the palace is what we have to try and find out.”

  In the 10 minutes it took for Ren to convey the mission brief, the nanotech pods she’d requested arrived and were presented to the group. Arriving with them, however, was a whole Eidolon, as the Sixth was there personally to see them off, “I cannot stress the importance of the stealth required for this task.” He started, looking at each of the four who were about to go, “I don’t want you giving yourselves away if you can’t find Prince Iresha.”

  Ren closed the map-window, “We have full authority to take out the Duchess if we run into her, however. No other targets are permitted.”

  Rylen gestured to the pods that were assembled on a hovering trolley, but looked to Ren, “Where’s your armor?”

  “Up in Captain Landon’s office. I stepped out of it while waiting for Gabriel, and we had an unexpected crisis, so I had to leave it there.”

  All ears were perked, “A crisis?”

  “It’s fine now; he just had a bit of a visceral reaction to…seeing the body.”

  “What body? Whose body?” Ravan asked quietly, mostly to Corbin and Jense, who to that point had no idea either.

  Ren stepped closer to the three and spoke quietly, “I’ll explain on the way. For now, just go ahead and connect to the pods.” She said, and did just so herself, “If you guys want to head up top, I’ll meet you there, and we’ll get on with it.”

  The three Fafnir gave their acknowledgements and, after briefly glancing at their actual Captain, departed anyway. Furion watched them go quietly, then turned to see Ren leave the other way. Everything inside him wanted to say something, but with Rylen still there, the words failed to come out, and Ren got beyond ear-shot quickly.

  It was the Eidolon who got the better of him, “I don’t mean this as an insult, Captain.” Rylen began, and turned that gaze towards the Rydell, “I just needed someone to lead the mission, and I’d already agreed to let her have it, since you were incommunicado when it came up before. A variation of this was supposed to happen tomorrow morning, without a war looming overhead.”

  “…I understand, sir.”

  “But since you’re here, I must ask.” The Sixth continued carefully, “This…request of hers, for review and consideration, came out of left-field. Am I about to regret allowing you your liberties?”

  “…No, sir. Those liberties are no longer necessary.”

  “Mh, I see.”

  Surrounded on all sides by the bustle and noise of the anxious crew, making whatever last-minute assessments and preparations they could in anticipation of the coming conflict, Furion made his decision, “…Sir, there’s something about Dame Ren you need to know.”

  “You’re not just trying to sabotage her chances because you’re worried about being usurped, are you? It won’t look good on your performance review.”

  “No, sir. This is legitimate.” He started, and maneuvered carefully, “She has Scyrexian contained inside her. She didn’t kick me by accident; she kicked me because Scyrexian took hold and wanted me out of the way. Lord Xanarken was struck by Aamin but it was the creature inside Ren that dealt the killing blow.”

  “…How do you know this?” Rylen asked, dangerously serious.

  Furion tried to keep to business, though he didn’t doubt his personal feelings leaked into his words, “Because for the last few days, we’ve been trying to find a way to get it out of her. She’s using nanotech to augment her hair color because it’s gone completely white. She took off from the memorial because she could feel the beast trying to surface in Lord Gabriel’s presence; I’ve seen it come out with my own eyes on no less than two occasions now, and I’m all but certain I saw a third instance, when Seth and I picked her up after we left the Aegis.”

  “Why are you only just saying this now? After I’ve given her command of one of the most important aspects of this coming conflict.”

  The Captain’s brow furrowed slightly, “Because I think we need to prepare for the inevitability that it’s going to come out again…and she’s crippled me to the point where I can’t follow and keep an eye on her. She thinks she has it under control, and while I…I believe that, to an extent, she does…we can’t completely trust that belief. If it comes down to it…the only thing we can do is lock it inside her, and render her fully inert. I think it would be wise to keep S.D. Helmets on standby.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Rylen stared incredulously, “And what am I do to about the mission? I need her out there.”

  “She and I spoke at length about its behavior, and…we believe it’s likely that Scyrexian is influenced by the values of its host. That’s part of why it swapped out of Sir Ianori and into the Warp Magi right away; Ianori wouldn’t let it kill our people…but the Magi had no such inhibition.” Furion explained, “I believe the Fafnir are safe so long as Ren is the one it inhabits, and it will not leave her for anything less than Lord Gabriel himself. That remains its ultimate goal.”

  The Sixth scoffed and crossed his arms, “…Safe? She kicked the absolute shit out of you.”

  “But she didn’t kill me.” Furion noted, “Ren’s experience and knowledge informed it exactly how hard it could hit me without causing fatal harm, and then it left me alone.”

  Rylen rubbed his face, “…I can’t deal with anymore of these surprises…Xanarken was already enough…”

  “My apologies, sir…”

  The Eidolon thought for a moment, but then made his decision, “You’re still the Captain. I want you on standby with the failsafe, in case she starts to turn. If push comes to shove, you take her somewhere safe until we can get there with the helmet.”

  “…I don’t have the failsafe interface here, sir. That’s only aboard the Aegis.”

  “Incorrect. Every Captain in the First and Sixth has an interface in their seat.”

  “…Sir?”

  “There are 15 Fafnir and 15 Captains. That was not an accident.” The Eidolon explained, “Never create a super-soldier without a remedy for their power. The armor is stronger than all of you.”

  “…The 15th Captain is the Captain of the Fafnir though.”

  “And if you succumbed to something as well, then I would take the reins myself.” Rylen explained, “You will be issued an order of reprimand for keeping this information from me, but for now, I appreciate your candor.”

  “…Yessir.”

  .

  On the bridge-deck of the Buckler, Ren hastily returned to Captain Landon’s office to retrieve her armor. Expectedly, Gabriel was there waiting with it, comfortably reassembled in his now-clean uniform. He perked-up when he spotted her, and just as they approached one another, they felt the first rumbles of the war coming to them. The ship shuddered slightly as flare-like bolts were shot-out in sequence from either side of the hull, and Ren hesitated in her steps.

  “…It’s here.” Gabriel said aloud, “I thought the rear-guard wouldn’t see much action.”

  “The Fafnir are deploying.” Ren added, and waved away her uniform, revealing the flight-suit beneath it once again, “I’ll be off comms until the Cloud catches up, so…this is it for now.”

  “I know I scolded you before for formally challenging Furion for command, but…seeing you in that uniform, sporting those pauldrons…I can’t help but beam with pride anyway.” Gabriel noted, and pulled the women into a fond hug, “I have no doubt, you’re going to be one Hell of a Captain.”

  “And I know you’ll be the same as the Fourth.” She replied, “It’ll be a few hours yet before you have to do anything. You should probably try to get some sleep while you can.”

  The Buckler shuddered again; from the office, they could see the glow where the SkyFortress’ shields were holding against whatever was being lobbed at it from below, “…Unlikely, but I appreciate the gesture.”

  Ren looked into those worried eyes, but nodded, and gave her parting kiss. As she came down off her tip-toes, she held the man’s face between her hands, and gave him a serious look, “Try not to get too deep into your head. I know it’ll be harder not to think about your losses when I’m not around to remind you of your gains, but…keep your eyes on the prize, and we’ll have time to decompress when we’re done. It’ll all be over soon.”

  “Yeah…” He agreed, and pulled her in for one more tight hug, “Be really careful. I know it’s just humans we’re expecting to deal with, but if Aamin came outta there, who knows how many more weird creatures the Duchess has?”

  “I will. You do the same.”

  One last kiss, and Ren pulled away, stepped into her armor, and made her way out. Gabriel waited exactly where he was until he spotted all four Fafnir fly up past that side of the ship, and disappeared into the night sky. From there, the Fourth could only wait and worry. He supposed the best use of his time then would be to head down the hall towards the bridge, and wait for the order to move-out himself.

  .

  The Ward and the Guardian were seeing the strongest resistance from Kitez so far, leading the charge over populated areas. The entire Conclave had been assembled for this fight, and most of them had set-up defensive walls aside the major cities of their districts. Reports of strange phenomena were already reaching the Sixth, as each of those massive, top-shaped vessels appeared like voids on radar, completely unpenetrated by the World Cloud.

  Still, the overwhelming force the Council was bulldozing through. Smaller ships were being shot down by advanced targeting systems, and larger ones were swiftly engaged and struck by manually-piloted skirmishers. The concern came from how some of the biggest vessels had acquired weapons that were getting through the SkyFortress’ shields, leaving smoking pock-marks in the hulls as they moved through.

  Regulus kept a close eye on the conflict from within his Sovereign Shadow. Ground-based weaponry was being turned into craters as the fleet passed overhead. Wide sections of the forward line were starting to fall, and he called back to the Duchess, “Your Grace, they’re here. They’re pincering from the north and east.”

  “Right on time, then.” She answered, and looked to her personal guard, “Bring him. We’re going up.”

  Iresha couldn’t tell his cell-door had been opened; though Kitez didn’t have the same kind of S.D. Helmet technology that the Council did, they still had muting systems. The hapless Prince had found himself with blinders and sound-cancelling headphones on, which to his experience was slightly worse. He was taunted with the fact that he knew what direction was up, but was unable to do anything about it. He felt the rifle-muzzles against his ribs and spine, and could only guess where to move his feet as he was dragged out.

  Given the change in the feeling of the air as he was pulled from the indoors to the out, he could bet as to what was happening. Not wanting to be taken somewhere, he started fighting with his captors, pushing and thrashing with the barest of flames sparking around him. For his trouble, he got a beanbag shot into his stomach, right shoulder, and left flank, which dropped him and ceased the struggle immediately.

  Far’nah just shook her head at him, “I had hopes for this one…” She sighed, and nodded at the group to drag him instead.

  “You’re only going…to make this harder for yourself…!” Iresha grumbled as he struggled for breath, “If you wanted…to die so badly, you should’ve…just done it already! You didn’t have to drag the rest of us into it!”

  The Duchess knew there was no point answering; the teen wouldn’t hear her words anyway, so they just kept moving. A skiff was ready on the courtyard, and the group quickly made their way up and inside. Iresha felt himself get stuck into a seat, and soon after, the inertia of the vessel lifting off, but whoever was keeping tabs on him seemed to know that the more anxious he got, the more likely he’d lash out. A gun-barrel stayed pressed to the center of his chest, as if daring him to try a second time…and he didn’t.

  The little ship just went up, and up, and up, straight into the belly of the Vindicator, where it emerged into a stadium-sized open space. Dozens of empty rows of heavy metallic tracks were illuminated by what seemed like pin-lights, given the enormity of the scale, where building equipment and other large machinery was once locked-down with huge chains for transport. Thick support-beams rose like sentinels, some bearing catwalks and stairwells where they expanded for grated flooring, diving the vertical space into multiple levels. The small ship had to fly within the body just to get to the dock it was seeking, and the Duchess eagerly disembarked once it landed.

  The bridge was still some distance away – up a massive industrial elevator and across a railway-like horizontal corridor – but when she finally arrived, the reception was excitable. Applause rained-down from all side – three Magistrates, a dozen more soldiers, and of course, the dubious bridge-crew – and Far’nah greeted them with celebration.

  “We…are…here!” She called out, “The moment we’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Ladies and gentlemen…please; fire away.”

  .

  At supersonic, the Fafnir were cruising above the clouds, and as near as they were to Oceanside at that point…the eerie image of five green flares making the horizon glow was cause for immediate concern. The four of them were already in stealth when they saw it, and Ren called back to her Eidolon, “Lord Rylen…you want to see this.”

  The glow of those flares became like missiles rising into suborbital space, leaving smoke in their wake…and they began to arc north.