Location Unknown

12 September 3134

The uniforms gleamed in the sun, royal garments for the homecoming ceremony.

Two DropShips were already aloft; the third loaded the final ’Mechs and vehicles, battened down hatches, performed final systems checks and secured vehicles into their bays in preparation for liftoff.

The forces had gathered from across dozens of light-years to this rendezvous point: an out-of-the-way world, with no working HPG, the only inhabitants subsistence farmers on the northern continent who would not know a landing DropShip from a falling star, much less an ascending one.

Secrecy.

The commander hated it, yet understood the need. She wanted to crow to the stars that, after long decades, the return had begun. Wanted to shout about the successes achieved so far. Could feel the need churning, the desire to challenge someone, anyone.

Soon, soon enough.

The men and women chosen for this mission shared her desire: the snap of eyes, quick movements, lips firm with resolve. Knowing the prize they reached to grasp, fully aware of the difficulty of the challenge.

But victory, oh, victory would be sweet.

Would teach the renegades a lesson they would not soon forget.

After decades of enforced peace—a peace that benefited only the despotic and the moneylovers—the time had come to challenge, to grasp the fruit from the forbidden tree.

Time to seize destiny. Time to shake the universe. Time to reclaim the honor lost.

Time for war.

Clan Sea Fox CargoShip Voidswimmer

Nadir Jump Point, Adhafera

Prefecture VII, The Republic

21 September 3134

Warning Klaxons blared down the length of the CargoShip, strident, demanding instant action to avoid catastrophe. The tone and frequency of the bursts sent personnel running in every direction. Some took up emergency stations with practiced calm, others fumbled in confusion; aside from drills, such a warning had not been heard in the lifetime of most of those aboard.

Incoming JumpShip… Voidswimmer within the projected KF-drive emergence bubble.

“What in the Founder’s name is happening? How is this possible?” Petr bellowed from the bridge of the CargoShip, forgetting the impropriety of such an outburst on Star Commodore Konner’s vessel. His status as ovKhan did not excuse his behavior.

The bridge personnel ignored him. Unlike so many of the civilians on board the vessel and in the pod communities on the attached DropShips, they knew their jobs by rote and responded with instant action.

In a pendulum counterpoint to Petr’s bellow, Konner’s voice remained calm, cut through the bridge hubbub and the siren like a diamond through glass—a sound that could not be ignored. “Full thrust on my mark.”

The collective indrawn breath of those present filled the bridge with the pummeling heartbeat of the entire Clan Sea Fox Voidswimmer community. In an instant, the tens of thousands on board his community paraded before Petr’s mind’s eye; their scramble to prepare for impact or thrust would not be enough. Regardless of shipboard discipline, such an event simply had not occurred in too many years and people had no time to take the correct precautions. Things would not be completely stowed. Individuals would be unable to sufficiently secure all items, including themselves.

There would be damage.

Numerous injuries.

Fatalities.

“Three, two, one. Engage, maximum thrust.” As though driven by the vocal synapses of Konner’s voice, the pilot’s arm responded instantly, cascading across a series of switches and buttons, before initiating a full burn: maximum power.

Like a beast suddenly thrown into heat, the entire ship thrummed, shook; vibrations undulated the length of the keel, sending secondary reverberations out along the main struts on each deck, the shockwaves whipping out into the skin, which oscillated well beyond allowable stress levels.

Small breaches on two decks occurred immediately.

As the mammoth interplanetary drives pummeled the ship forward under gravities not experienced in decades, three more small breaches occurred, while power failures plunged several decks into darkness.

The mass of the CargoShip made the move seem almost miraculous. Petr imagined he could see the fabric of space splitting along the bow of the ship: a snarling swirl of raging space water, torn from its placid calm and thrust into a maelstrom that arced around the ship and into violent vortices in the ship’s wake.

Seconds ticked by as the behemoth vessel tried to slough off the chains of gravity and inertia and launch itself into motion.

At a command from Konner, the main viewscreen split into two sections: the left side showing forward, the right showing rearward toward the incoming JumpShip, toward their potential doom.

Petr’s hands clenched the edge of his jumpseat. Though he was the ultimate leader of the community, in such crises the ship’s commander took absolute authority. Petr hated feeling helpless.

Though the crew attacked their tasks relentlessly, with Konner issuing numerous commands sending personnel toward hull breaches and power failures, all eyes stayed glued on the rear viewscreen.

Not enough thrust. Petr ground his teeth, his muscles aching after so many days at double gravity to reach the jump point quickly.

For the first time, he regretted downgrading the Voidswimmer’s massive drives, now striving through old grit and disuse to push out a paltry two gravities; the disharmonic pings and odd thumps reaching his ears reminded him (as if the bucking of the vessel itself did not) that the Voidswimmer might not survive such abuse. Slowly, achingly, she picked up forward momentum.

Sweat beaded across his face and fell toward the back of his head.

The seconds ticked into minutes and then long minutes. Velocity increased. Though wretched, horrible sounds still spanned the length of the CargoShip, Petr could feel it acclimatizing to the punishment, adjusting to the pounding rhythm of the fusion drives.

As Petr’s mental clock reached fifteen minutes, a wretched smile stretched his face. When the tortured time dilation tipped the scale at twenty minutes, he began to laugh out loud a wheezing of tormented air. Though he knew his laughter was raising hackles around the room, he could not stop; his was the laughter of the damned.

Delicious irony. The man I am most desperate to see arrives days ahead of schedule and might just kill us all in the process.

His frenzied laughter reached a crescendo, filling the bridge as the universe vomited an ArcShip from its belly, tearing at its only reality, spewing forth an emergence wave of pain, suffering, anguish, before sealing its wounded shell and vanishing once more from human perception.

Delta Community (the Celestial Thirst, an aging Behemoth–class DropShip attached to the Voidswimmer for long decades) took the brunt of the damage. Most of the casualties occurred there and the docking ring, regardless of its carbon-carbon reinforced struts, crumbled and partially tore, shifting the entire ship during the mad forward thrust. Then, as the incoming emergence energy shattered atoms all along the front of the wave, the ship actually lurched forward, for a brief burst obtaining a velocity it never achieved even before its transformation. Though the hard work of Fox Clansmen engineers in decades past kept the ship from completely tearing away, it listed radically, throwing objects and personnel from their stowed positions. These became projectiles fired as though from a gun, causing massive damage inside the old ship and hundreds of casualties. Though the other DropShip communities and the Voidswimmer itself sustained some damage, of the four hundred and thirteen injuries, more than three hundred of them occurred in Delta Community; of the twenty-seven deaths, nineteen.