The Admiral and the Assistant

Grimthorn laid back on his bunk, staring at the ceiling. Kinnit lay snuggled against him. The cleanup from the battle was done, and it was well after lights-out, but he couldn't relax.

"What are you thinking about?" Kinnit asked sleepily.

He smiled at her.

"How did you know I was thinking?" he asked.

"I could hear the way you were breathing. You breathe different when you're asleep." She snuggled tighter against him.

He chuckled.

"Fair enough. I was thinking about today." He continued to stare at the ceiling. "This morning, I didn't expect that we would be alive right now. I thought we'd be dead, and the Imperium would be on its way to destruction." He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Instead, I have hope." He closed his eyes and squeezed her tight. "I have hope for the Imperium. For us."

She smiled and blinked her drowsy eyes. She reached up to stroke his face.

"I'm glad," she said. "I want you full of hope. When you stand, when you fight, you shift the galaxy."

He scoffed a little.

"You shift the galaxy," he said. "I just break stuff." He reflected a moment. "A lot of stuff, sometimes," he admitted.

She hummed in contentment.

"I'm glad to still be here with you," she said, her eyes drifting closed again.

He kissed her lightly on top of her head.

"And I, you," he replied. A small smile played across his face, but faded as his eyes turned back to the ceiling. He began thinking through logistics, fleet movements, and Feeder alerts.

Kinnit shifted, and she put her hand on his face again.

"Hey, you," she said. "It's not time for that. It's time for sleeping now."

His smile resurfaced.

"Sorry. You caught me again. My brain is just stuck on this."

She lifted herself on one elbow.

"Then let me give your brain something else to get stuck on."

She leaned forward and pinned him with a passionate kiss, their hearts dancing in the dim light of their room. They broke apart, and she gave him a coy smile.

"That could work," he said, breathless.

Grimthorn ended up sleeping quite well that night.

Yanya Nox wrinkled her nose. She'd taken all manner of strange and offputting people across the galaxy, but none like her current passenger. She glanced at the security monitors to watch him stumbling around, croaking his madness.

Her ship, the Exohauler-1, was short and narrow, with a tiny three-person shuttle. She'd bought the thing years before in the hopes of making enough money to upgrade to a commercial cargo hauler someday, but she'd judged poorly. The Exohauler-1 was too small to interest the bulk shippers, and too cheap to interest anyone looking for a luxury courier or ferry. It was just big enough to eke out a living as a small system-hopper, earning her enough to keep ahead of the maintenance costs. Barely.

Her sole passenger at the moment was thin and smelled bad. He wandered the halls crying out about a warning, about judgment and doom. He'd press his face against the portals to stare at the stars and moan weirdly. But his money spent just as well as anybody else's. Yanya took a deep breath. As long as he didn't break anything, it would be fine. He'd paid his fare in full up front. He could rant about whatever he wanted.

She made a note to wipe down all the portals once this trip was done, though.

Yanya toggled on the intercom.

"Sir? We're about to enter jumpspace. You might want to sit down and strap in."

"Judgment is coming," he croaked, leaning against one of the portals again. "I have to tell them. I have to bring warning."

Yanya grimaced with distaste and toggled off the intercom. If he wanted to go through jumpspace like that, it was none of her concern.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The Exohauler-1 tipped into the last jumphole of their journey. Unreality sleeted by, oppressing her.

At least in jumpspace she couldn't hear her passenger's ravings.

After a few minutes they dropped out in their destination sector.

"We're here, sir," she said over the intercom. "Give me a few minutes and I'll get the shuttle prepped to bring you down to the surface."

Her passenger pressed his face against the portal, staring at the green planet they were approaching. Green forests covered the surface, dotted by sparkling blue lakes. Two bright white moons orbited the verdant jewel.

"I have to warn them," he wheezed.

"Please be patient, sir. I'll soon have you down there on the surface of Takkar."

Grimthorn and Kinnit sat in their office, sifting through the messages and logistics of the much-reduced Ninth Fleet. In the last few weeks, so much of the administrivia they were used to had just... dried up. CenCom was scattered, with most of its bureaucrats deposited in refuge systems. And the burdens of maintaining a fleet of a few dozen ships were so much smaller than maintaining a fleet of thousands.

"I feel like I'm almost not even needed here," Grimthorn said, pushing back from his desk.

"You're a vital part of the fleet, sir," Kinnit said distractedly as she looked through some slips. "You're the brain of the Ninth Fleet."

He quirked a half-smile.

"Well if I'm the brain, then you're the heart."

That pulled her attention away from her documents and back to him.

"You're very sweet Grimthorn." She thought for a moment. "If that's the case, then who would be the courage of the Ninth Fleet?"

Grimthorn's smile slowly dissolved.

"All of us," he said quietly. "Every person on every ship that was lost over Techterra."

Kinnit winced. She'd meant it as lighthearted joke, but for all his stony demeanor, Grimthorn's wounds were still close to the surface.

She got up and walked around his desk. Without comment, she dropped herself into his lap. He distractedly gathered her in his arms, but his gaze was still fixed on the distance.

"Hey," she said. "You're not beating yourself up, are you?"

She watched his face stiffen as he raised his defenses.

"Of course not," he replied. "We did our duty. We are called to protect the citizens of the Imperium. That's what we did."

"Grimthorn, the Navy are citizens, too." She stroked his face. "You are a citizen of the Imperium. It's okay to grieve."

His face crumpled as her words struck home.

"There were... so many..."

She held him in her arms as he shook, unleashing his sorrow with her as he could with no one else. They sat like that for a long time.

After the storm had passed, Kinnit gently stroked his hair. He looked hollowed-out, empty, but more grounded.

"Feel better?" she asked.

Grimthorn took a deep, unsteady breath.

"Better, yes. Thank you."

Kinnit smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek.

"I'm here for you, any time, Grimthorn," she said.

He smiled back at her.

The ceiling flashed blue.

"Priority comms," Grimthorn said. "Guess I'd better stop goofing off and get back to work."

Kinnit gave him another peck and hopped off his lap. Grimthorn cleared his throat and tried to straighten himself up some. Then he poked the button on his scanner.

"Admiral Stonefist here," he said.

"Admiral, I'm glad I got you," came the voice from the other end of the line.

"Captain Minius," Admiral Stonefist said. "Good to hear from you. How's the Ocher Dawn holding up?"

"Huh? Oh, it are fine, fine," Minius said. His voice sounded strange, uneven. "I... I had to call you. It are Flander." There was a long pause. "I think he have done something terrible," Minius said, his voice cracking.

Grimthorn stiffened. Visions of old security footage replayed in his mind.

"What is it? What has Flander done?"

"It... he have..." Minius' voice stumbled to a stop. "I think he have boarded the Feeder boneship."

"What?" Grimthorn surged to his feet.

"He were doing something with one of the torpedoes," Minius said in a rush. "I did think it were harmless, that he were experimenting with making it more powerful. But now I think he were just gutting it so he could fit inside. He... during the last battle, he..." Minius struggled in silence for a moment. "I think I fired him at the boneship," he said, his voice on the edge of tears.

Grimthorn sat back down slowly. He and Kinnit shared a look.

"Why would he do that?" Grimthorn asked.

"I don't know!" Minius bleated. "He have never been brave! Why would he leave the Dawn? Why would he leave us? I don't understand it! Can you get him back? Can you please get Flander back for me?"

Grimthorn leaned back in his seat, letting out a breath.

"We will... do what we can," Grimthorn said. "Given the circumstances, I can't promise anything. But now that we know, we'll do everything we can to get Flander back safely."

Minius sniffed.

"I thank you Admiral. I are sorry, I know you have many things to do, but I did not know to who else I could turn."

"It was right of you to let me know," Admiral Stonefist said. He glanced at Kinnit. "Flander is Navy now, and the Navy are citizens, too. We'll protect him as well."

Grimthorn disconnected and frowned into the distance, considering this new problem.

Herin Kasra grinned at the data projected onto the inside of his egg. His hundreds of arms wriggled in glee.

It was so simple. So obvious, when you looked at what had happened.

The Navy was smaller now. Weaker. But they were pulling out all the stops, bringing in every weird weapon and tactic. And sure, they'd given the Ash-Tongues a bloody nose, but the Navy was running low on tricks, and Herin, along with his mighty Feeders, were still strong and fundamentally unharmed.

The resets were what had stopped them over Velonia. The Navy was creating some kind of time bubble, or warp that could jump back a few minutes. But thinking about what had happened, and reviewing what data he'd been able to retain, it was obvious what was going on. There was a subset of ships that gave off a strange energy signature.

And the resets only happened after one of them was destroyed.

Herin would have cackled, if he'd still had lungs.

He put the finishing touches on the design of his new weapon.

The Navy ships with the weird energy only reset after they were destroyed. But Herin didn't need to destroy them.

He only needed them to go away forever.