The Admiral and the Assistant

"Please maintain an orderly line," cried the guard. "Single file, stay to the left. Please maintain an orderly line."

The guard was dressed in full riot gear, with helmet, armor and stunner firmly in place. He was helping to shepherd the masses of people who were trying to evacuate Techterra. A long line of folks, most with their arms full of personal belongings, were shuffling slowly into one of the mass transports that had been commandeered to help get people off of Ceon 12. Tensions were high and people snapped at each other as they tried to get away before the Feeders returned.

A scuffle broke out in the line as a Terran roughly shoved a Canid.

"Out of my way, subhuman!" shouted the Terran. "Stop trying to jump the line!"

"What's your problem?" said the Canid. "I'm just trying to get out of here!" He shoved the Terran back.

The Terran's suitcase fell to the pavement. It burst open, scattering clothes on the ground.

"Terrans first!" yelled back, trying to gather his clothes back together off the ground. "You aren't even a citizen! Didn't you see the new law?"

The Canid seethed. "Bunk that," he growled. "That's not a law and you know it. I'm more of a citizen than you are!"

"Yeah, go back to your home planet, subhuman!" the Terran yelled, putting his face into the Canid's.

"This is my home planet, you stupid krellspawn!" the Canid yelled back.

The guard arrived just as they started to fight. He pulled them apart, keeping one hand close to his stunner.

"Break it up," he said, separating the struggling evacuees. "You, move to the end of that line. You, go to the end of that other one."

"What? That's not fair! I didn't even do anything!" the Canid cried.

"Don't care," the guard replied. "Move off, both of you."

"Typical," sneered the Terran. "Another example of a subspecies screwing it up for a real citizen!"

"Shut up before I stun you," the guard said, pushing the Terran away roughly.

"Oh, stun me?" the Terran cried in outrage. "I'm not the one causing problems!"

"Yeah, leave him alone!" yelled someone else in line.

"You shut up!" the guard yelled back.

Mutters and curses started to run through the crowd.

"Hey, why are they hassling that guy?"

"Some subspecies was starting trouble."

"Who are you calling subspecies?"

"The evacuation ships should be reserved for citizens!"

More shoving broke out. Yelling escalated. The guard belatedly realized things were getting out of hand. He tried to push his way back to his console to call for help, but the line broke up, turning into a mob. It surged around him, pushing him further away from his console. Panicking, he pulled out his stunner.

"Make way!" he yelled, trying to push against the mass of humanity. "Out of my way!" He pushed his stunner into the body in front of him and pulled the trigger. The person he stunned collapsed. He tried to step over the body, but the crowd tightened around him.

"Hey, that guard just zapped a Nulvex!"

"Typical Terran! Any excuse to attack a non-Terran!"

The guard screamed and began stunning everyone within reach as the mob closed around him, growing ever more violent.

Herin Kasra grinned as he scanned the news.

"Terrible, isn't it?" said Maggie Hartford, who was seated next to him. "I was down there in Techterra just a couple days ago. Before the attack."

They were seated in a transport, headed for the Thalvannis system. Herin planned to take a short-range jumper from there back to the little campsite and communication station he'd set up on Pasoria so that he could contact his new friends.

"Yes, it's awful," he replied.

She shifted uncomfortably, looking at his grin.

"I hope everyone gets out okay. I heard that the evacuations had to stop because of riots. I can't believe that's happening."

"Yes," Herin said. "They should never have had the opportunity to escape."

Maggie gave him a quizzical look. His fixed grin was unsettling. She huffed and turned away from him.

Herin watched the news unfold of further disruption in Techterra.

He had to contact the Feeders. They were screwing it all up.

They needed his guidance.

Admiral Stonefist and Kinnit sat in their office. The mood was solemn as they tried to sort out what was left of the Imperial Navy.

The Swordheart was limping back to Copper Grove on its remaining engine. They'd spent the better part of two days spinning helplessly in the skies above Ceon 12 before enough order had been restored that a towship was able to come along to stabilize them and pull them out of orbit. Now they were heading for the shipyards hoping that the Swordheart could be made spaceworthy again.

It was one of the few ships that was able to do even that much.

"They recovered another recon ship," Kinnit chirped. She'd been trying hard to keep the mood up. Her heart ached to watch Grimthorn at his desk. He looked so lost, so broken after the battle.

She was anguished, grieving, but she could shove that down for now. She could be there for him. She could be the emotional support he needed right now. He needed her.

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There was still somebody left that needed her.

"That's wonderful," he croaked. His voice was flat, emotionless.

Kinnit cleared her throat.

"Have they found any survivors from the Seventh Fleet?" she asked hesitantly.

Grimthorn stared dully at the console.

"Nothing. Not one. Admiral Dermot led them all into that meat grinder."

Kinnit's smile faltered. That meant that Lieutenant Lena Solborne was--

She shook her head. Positive. She was determined to stay positive.

"Old Admiral Balia is doing well, I heard," she said. Grimthorn only grunted. "And the ISS Striker is MIA, but they could still find it. Admiral Cora Din might be okay... along with Lieutenant Voth..." She trailed off and swallowed hard. "The Ninth Fleet fared better than anyone else," she said with brittle brightness. "We're resilient. Strong."

Grimthorn's haunted eyes looked up at her.

"Strong?" He looked at the numbers that scrolled by on his console. "We're barely survivors." He picked up a slip from his desk and tore it in half. "Seventh Fleet, gone." He dropped the pieces to the floor and picked up another slip. He tore it, too. "Third Fleet, gone." Another. The ripping sound filled the office. "Fifth Fleet? Gone." He picked up one more. He tore it slowly, deliberately, his eyes fixed on the separating halves of the slip. "Ninth Fleet." The halves separated. He let them fall. His body began to shake. He put his hands over his face.

She smiled at him. She struggled to keep the corners of her mouth firm, to keep from breaking down.

"We're still here," she said, her voice wavering. "We're still here, Grimthorn."

She got up and walked around her desk to stand behind him. She put her arms around him.

They stayed like that for a long while, sharing comfort.

Eventually they broke apart. Grimthorn cleared his throat and studiously looked back at his console. Kinnit returned to her desk.

They sank their grief in work as best they could for the next few hours.

Grimthorn pushed numbers up the console, not really seeing them. Casualty reports, strength reports, it was all meaningless busywork. But it was something to do.

They'd rally. Pull together what ships they could. Fix what they could. The Feeders had been driven off, but they'd be back, and the Imperium was fresh out of Celestial Slingshots. And ships, for that matter.

What's next? That was the unspoken question on everybody's mind. The enemy is invincible, they must be thinking. We don't have any ships, and worse, we don't have any people left. What do we do now?

Everyone was looking to him for answers, and for the first time in his career, he didn't know.

His thoughts kept circling fruitlessly. Every time he tried to think through the problem, he reflexively started "I'll take the Ninth Fleet and--" But there was no fleet any more. He felt as though he'd lost both his arms. How could he fix anything? How could he do anything without the Imperial Navy?

He had the Swordheart. What was left of it. If only he'd--

He stepped on that thought hard. His body shook, but he forced his feelings down. He had already indulged his grief, and now he wanted to sink into a pit of self-loathing. But he couldn't afford do that. Right now, he needed to think. Too many people were depending on him for him to do otherwise.

He had to be strong so others could have time to heal.

His console beeped with new messages. Most of them were meaningless, just rehashing what little they knew about the survivors. He swept the messages all away. Kinnit would deal with those. She'd parse information they needed out of all that.

He stared, unseeing, at his console while his brain churned.

"Sir?" Kinnit said quietly after a bit. "The latest casualty report has come through. Would you like an update?"

"Sure."

She cleared her throat.

"Imperial Disaster Management is still combing the Ceon system for survivors and ships." She cleared her throat again and firmed her voice. "Admiral Balia's Third Fleet sustained complete combat casualties, confirmed, with one-third of ships destroyed outright, remainder are non-mission capable. Admiral Cora Din's Fifth Fleet sustained complete combat casualties, three-fifths destroyed outright, remainder are non-mission capable." Her throat tightened. She licked her lips and pressed on. "Admiral Dermot's Seventh Fleet sustained complete combat casualties, confirmed, with all ships destroyed outright." She forced her voice neutral. "Admiral Stonefist's Ninth Fleet sustained complete combat casualties, confirmed, with one-half destroyed outright."

She let the numbers hang in the air for a bit. Then she continued.

"There were one hundred fifty civilian ships in the sector at the start of the battle. They were largely ignored by the feeders, but there were three collisions as ships tried to flee the sector. Seven civilian ships were critically damaged and two destroyed by collisions with combat debris. Estimated loss of life in the skies is just over two hundred civilians." She swallowed hard. "Civilian estimates from the surface are more difficult to dial in. There's a great deal of chaos right now. Early estimates suggest that nearly ten thousand civilians were... were taken by the Feeders."

"It's not Brolla," Grimthorn said dully, as much to himself as to Kinnit.

"We saved many lives, sir," she said, nodding. "We drew away the scarab ships while the Slingshot prepared to fire."

Grimthorn nodded. "What of the Feeder ship? What did we manage to do to that?"

"The news there is less good," she said. "Infography is still parsing all the scans and data from the battle, but preliminary reports suggest that we were right about the structure of the boneship. The Celestial Slingshot destroyed nearly fifteen percent of the structure of the enemy's ship."

"We spent the entirety of the spear of the Imperial Navy," Grimthorn said quietly. "Aside from the Slingshot, what damage did the fleets do?"

The corners of Kinnit's mouth were fixed in a downward arc. She hated the data.

"Less than three percent, sir."

Grimthorn stared blankly at the surface of his desk.

Kinnit cleared her throat and continued.

"IDM is coordinating a mass evacuation from Ceon 12. People are fearful that the Feeders will return. IDM is setting up refugee stations in all nearby systems." She frowned. "Evacuations, however, have been halted-- because of riots?" She grimaced. "Why riot now? Why can't people just get along, even in a situation like this?"

She scanned through some more messages. Her breath caught. Her expression slowly morphed into one of horror as she continued reading. Her face crumpled. Tears filled her eyes, then spilled freely down her face.

"Kinnit? What's wrong?"

"Sir, the riots... have you seen this new law?"

Alarmed by her expression, he strode over to her desk and read off her console. His expression darkened with each word that passed under his eyes.

"What in Geina?" His face stiffened, then reddened. "What in Geina is going on out there? Strip citizenship from non-Terrans? What even would be the point of that?" He continued reading. "It's not ratified yet. But why would they ever even write such a thing?"

Kinnit turned her tear-washed eyes up to him Her resolve to be strong for Grimthorn crumbled. It was too much. By itself it would be too much, but on top of the sacrifices they'd made--

"Is this what I fought for?" she asked, her voice quavering. "Is this what all those people died for?" She grew quiet, almost inaudible as she struggled to choke out more words. "Is this the Imperium?"

"This is not the Imperium," Grimthorn barked, slamming his hand down on her desk. Visions of storming Olympus with the Ninth Fleet filled his mind.

But... there was no Ninth Fleet. Not any more.

He gripped the edge of her desk tightly, and his face grew alarmingly red. His muscles bulged as every fiber within him strained. His mind was scrambled, swept with fury.

"Oh, Grimthorn!" Kinnit grabbed him around his midsection and cried, bleating great sobs out into his office.

His fury clashed to a halt against her wave of sadness. He gently took her in his arms and held her tightly.

His mind felt clear for the first time in days, scoured by too much grief, too much rage. Now he felt emptied of emotions.

"This is wrong," he said.

"I knooooow," Kinnit wailed, pouring her tears out onto his jacket.

"No, the Emperor... the Emperor wouldn't allow this. Think about our meeting with him. Think about him eliminating the designation of SSes. Can you see him condoning anything like this?"

She looked up at him, her eyes and nose streaming. Grimthorn pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and gently began cleaning up the mess on her face.

"I... I don't know..." she said.

"I do know. This is not the Emperor. This is not the Imperium. The Imperium protects her citizens. All her citizens. Always has. The Emperor would not do this."

The Emperor's last words to him rang in his mind: "Can you trust your Emperor in this?"

"I don't trust a bunch of scummy, self-serving politicians," he said aloud. "But I do trust the Emperor." He glared at the console. "Whatever the source, whatever the cause, this law will never be ratified."

"You think so?"

Grimthorn stared into the distance.

"I know it," he said with absolute finality.