The order came down from Sixth fleet command. Draupnir was going home.

  Fleet Admiral Takanashi had ordered Captain Clarke to return to Earth with her damaged ship. The repair ships couldn't venture this far out on the frontline, and Draupnir's wounds were beyond what could be repaired in the field. The battlecruiser's forward and port-side armor had taken serious hits during the fortress assault—three massive impact craters forward just behind the prow ram, and that long ugly gouge running from the hangar bay to nearly amidships.

  However, she wasn't alone. The heavy cruisers Vigilance and Warden were coming along, as well as the destroyers Javelin, Glaive, Vindicator, and Falchion. All seven ships had received enough damage to warrant yard time.

  Vigilance had gotten the worst of it. Along her starboard side, large sections of her armor belt were cracked and broken, battlesteel plates buckled and torn. One of her drive rings had even been sheared clean off—a jagged wound where the housing had been ripped away, her internal structure exposed to the black.

  Captain Clarke had expressed her disappointment at having to return so soon, but understood the reasoning. Draupnir needed shipyard time, and every day she spent limping around the operational theater was a day she wasn't contributing to the fight.

  The Admiral had also used the returning ships to transport survivors. SAR teams had spent hours after the battle picking through the debris fields left by Sixth Fleet's three lost destroyers, homing in on distress beacons, cutting into compartments that still held atmosphere, searching for crew among the tumbling wreckage. Standard shipboard pressure suits only carried a few hours of life support, so the rescue teams had worked against the clock—racing from one beacon to the next, recovering survivors before their air ran out.

  Of the roughly eight hundred sailors who'd crewed those three destroyers, four hundred and thirty-two had been found alive. One destroyer had been lost with all hands when her reactor let go after taking a direct hit. The other two had been hulks drifting in space, bleeding atmosphere, their crews scattered between intact compartments and the void.

  After receiving their orders, the seven ships gathered at the hyper-limit and began the journey home. The process was slower than it should have been.

  We're limited to Delta band, Artemis reported. Vigilance can translate with only one drive ring, but they have to take it slow.

  Why?

  There's a risk of gravity cascade failure. If she were to push too hard with only one drive, there's a risk of the bubble collapsing. Because the bubble that protects the ship from hyperspace gravity waves needs both drive rings to maintain integrity at higher bands.

  Ralaen thought about that for a moment. What happens then?

  If a ship loses the protection of its gravity bubble, translating either up or down becomes nearly impossible, because there is no longer a field to attenuate the gravity stresses and protect the hull of the ship. The ship is also exposed to the inhospitable environment of Hyperspace. If you hit a radiation pocket or a gravity wave unshielded. There's a good chance you won't ever re-enter realspace. If you're lucky it's a gravity wave and the ship is crushed like a twig, if you're unlucky it's a radiation pocket and you die a slow death of radiation poisoning.

  That sounds like a horrible way to go

  Then there's the zones of hyperspace that the Empire designated as death zones. Such as the Hellheim Abyss. There's a reason military ships travel in the Zeta band. Attempting to traverse the Abyss at a lower band and the ship is simply gone. There was a period of time before Imperial sensors were good enough to detect the abyss when a lot of ships were lost to it.

  Okay… so how much longer does Delta add?

  Approximately three weeks to Sol. Zeta would have been six days.

  Three weeks. Ralaen's ears flattened. Three weeks crawling through the lower bands while the war continued without them.

  Wolf Squad felt the same frustration. Their tour had been cut short after one major engagement and one fortress assault, and now they were heading home. But there wasn't much to be done about it. Both Ralaen and Anastasia's Mk.4s had received damage, and in Ralaen's case, the damage was severe. Her chest plate needed a full reforge at Nidavillier. Until then, her armor was a liability.

  Anastasia had put it in perspective.

  "Think of it as shore leave," she'd said. "The war isn't going anywhere and will still be there when we get back."

  It took around eight hours for the makeshift task group to reach the hyper-limit and initiate translation.

  Ralaen spent that time in her cabin with Eirik.

  The forty-eight-hour restriction still applied though. That meant no combat, no sparring, nothing too vigorous. But there were ways to be intimate that didn't involve her putting too much strain on her ribs.

  They started on the bed, Ralaen curled against his side with her head on his chest, his fingers tracing slow patterns through her fur. His hand moved up her spine, careful to avoid her left side, and she let herself sink into it. The warmth of him. The steady rhythm of his breathing.

  She breathed him in, letting his scent fill her lungs. Something about almost dying made everything sharper. The feel of his skin, the sound of his heartbeat, the way his body felt pressed against hers.

  She shifted her hips, grinding against his thigh.

  "Ralaen." His hand stilled on her back. "You're supposed to be resting."

  She did it again, slower this time. "I am resting."

  "That's not resting."

  She tilted her head up and kissed him, soft at first, then deeper. Her hand slid down his chest, his stomach, lower.

  He caught her wrist. "We shouldn't."

  She didn't argue. She just looked at him, ears tilted back, eyes wide. Pleading.

  His grip loosened.

  She kissed him again, and this time her hand found what it was looking for. He made a low sound against her mouth, and she felt his resistance crumbling.

  She pulled back and straddled him, ignoring the twinge in her ribs. His hands went to her hips, steadying her, and she grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head.

  "You're not playing fair," he said, voice rough.

  "I never do."

  He stopped fighting it.

  Their clothes came off in a tangle of hands and shifting weight. When she finally sank down onto him, they both went still for a moment, just breathing. Then his hands started to wander, tracing the line of her hip bones before sliding down to grip her thighs. His fingers pressed into the soft fur of her inner leg, and when they found the base of her tail she gasped and rolled her hips harder.

  She set the pace, slow and careful, rolling her hips in a rhythm that wouldn't strain her ribs. She leaned down to kiss him, deep and unhurried, and his hands moved up her back, gentle around her injured side, firm everywhere else.

  The pleasure built slowly, but steadily. She kept her face buried in the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent as she rolled her hips. Coming up only to kiss him. When she finally came it was a sudden unraveling, warmth spreading through her in waves, and he followed a moment later with his fingers tightening on her hips and a low groan escaping from his throat.

  She stayed where she was for a long moment, unwilling to move. Then she eased off him and curled against his side, her fur damp, her body loose and satisfied. The ache in her ribs was still there, but distant and unimportant.

  "That was acceptable," she murmured against his chest.

  His laugh was a low rumble beneath her ear. "High praise."

  "Don't let it go to your head."

  His hand found her butt, pulling her against him as he gave it a playful squeeze. "Wouldn't dream of it."

  When Draupnir finally translated, slipping from realspace into the twilight rivers of the Delta band, Ralaen felt the familiar wrongness press against her inner ear—that moment of disorientation as the concept of up and down became briefly meaningless. In the blink of an eye it passed, and the ship was moving toward home.

  Three weeks to Earth. Three weeks to heal.

  She curled up next to Eirik, her tail curling possessively around his thigh, as she let the hum of the ship around her carry her to sleep.

  She woke to an empty bed and the particular quiet that meant Eirik had slipped out without disturbing her. She figured he'd either gone to the gym, or the range.

  Your ribs are improving, Artemis reported. Another day and you should be fully healed.

  Ralaen stretched carefully, testing the ache in her left side. A slight but fading twinge greeted her.

  She lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling, letting her thoughts drift as the ship hummed around her. Three weeks of nothing special to do. No training or preparing for combat.

  Eventually, she pulled herself up and sat down at the small desk in her cabin. There were things she'd been putting off. Documents she had never taken the time to examine.

  What are you looking for? Artemis asked.

  I thought that now that I have time I would actually read through my military contract and citizenship papers. She pulled up her personnel file, her citizenship records, the documents she had signed months ago and never looked at since.

  Artemis's holo-projector cast a miniature version of her AI onto the desk surface, the tiny figure watching as Ralaen began to sort through the files.

  Home.

  The word felt strange when Ralaen thought of Earth that way. But she had to admit—she was bound to the ásveldi Imperium now. Bound to humanity. She had effectively renounced her Asuari Confederacy citizenship by signing up with the ásveldi military, and doubly so by accepting the Crown and becoming Einherjar.

  She'd known this, in the abstract. She'd understood what she was giving up when she knelt in that runic circle and spoke the oath. But she hadn't really felt it until now, sitting at the small desk in her cabin with Artemis's holo-projector casting a miniature version of her AI onto the surface.

  The paperwork was spread across the display—citizenship documents, identity records, service contracts. Artemis walked her through it, the tiny holographic figure pacing back and forth as she highlighted relevant sections.

  "This confirms your ásveldi citizenship," Artemis said. "You were naturalized automatically upon your acceptance into the Einherjar program."

  Ralaen's ears flicked forward. "I knew I was being paid. I just hadn't really looked at the numbers."

  "You really should, it's important to know how much you are being paid." Artemis pulled up another display—her pay statement. "Shall we?"

  They went through it together. Her base pay. The Einherjar classification bonus. Special operations modifiers. Hazard pay. Combat deployment stipend. The numbers stacked on top of each other, each one stacking on top of the other. Each one causing Ralaen's eyebrows to rise higher and higher as the total pay became apparent.

  "That can't be right."

  "It is correct. I checked twice."

  "Artemis, that's—" She did the math in her head, as Artemis couldn't possibly be right, converting from ásveldi credits to Federation Standard Currency. Then she did it again, because the first result couldn't possibly be correct.

  It was.

  "I'm being paid a small fortune," she said flatly.

  "You're an active-duty Einherjar, Ralaen. Did you really think the Imperium would shortchange you after modifying you so heavily?"

  Ralaen sat back in her chair, staring at the numbers. Her parents were wealthy—extremely so. Her father held a high position in the Confederacy government, the equivalent of an undersecretary, and was paid quite well for it. Her mother came from the Nereth-pack, an old and influential clan whose wealth and political connections stretched back generations.

  But this was hers. Earned through blood and sweat and choices that had cost her everything she'd been raised to value.

  At least I don't have to worry about money, she thought. Even if my parents disown me like Sari's did.

  The thought of Sari's parents and their rejection brought Ralaen's own family sharply into focus.

  She hadn't heard from them in a while.

  That wasn't entirely surprising. The last message she'd sent had been right before they shipped out to join Sixth Fleet—carefully crafted, with Artemis's help, to explain her situation without revealing too much. She was still serving with the Empire. Still attached to special operations. Still alive. She'd mentioned Eirik, in vague terms. She hadn't mentioned her being an Einherjar and all that entailed.

  Any reply would have come through the courier ships that kept the fleet connected to the rest of civilization. The couriers ran on a regular schedule—picking up dispatches from the Admiralty, delivering orders to fleet commanders, and carrying the accumulated personal mail that kept crews connected to their families back home. Messages didn't travel instantly between stars, not without the Bifrost nodes that linked major systems through quantum entanglement. Out here on the frontlines, the couriers were the lifeline.

  Sixth Fleet had received two courier arrivals since Ralaen had sent her message. She'd checked her mail que both times.

  Nothing from her parents.

  It could mean anything. The message might still be working its way through the system—Federation to ásveldi routing wasn't always straightforward, even with the recent network integration. Her parents might have just received her message and were still composing a response.

  Or they might have nothing to say to her.

  So the silence didn't necessarily mean anything. Her parents might have replied weeks ago, and the message was still working its way through the logistics chain. Or they might be waiting until they had something to say. Or—

  Or they're furious, Ralaen thought. Or ashamed. Or both.

  She closed her eyes and let herself think about her family for the first time in months.

  Her father, Darev, was a creature of the Confederacy bureaucracy. An administrator who'd climbed the ladder through careful maneuvering and deft competence, he held a position roughly equivalent to an undersecretary in human terms—a civil servant. Important enough to have access and influence, not important enough to be a target. He'd always been somewhat distant. He wasn't cold. But his job consumed him, the endless machinery of government demanding more and more of his attention until there was little left for his family. He loved her, she thought she knew that he did. She had an inkling that he'd been pulling strings to grease the wheels of her own career in Confederacy special forces. Smoothing out her path for her.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Her mother, Lathira, was everything her father wasn't. Darev was reserved, a politician through and through. She was warm, an artist whose work had graced galleries and private collections across the Confederacy. Even decades later, her name still carried weight.

  Her mating-bond with Ralaen's father had been controversial. Darev was Clan Ashar, a respectable, but not prestigious clan. In contrast Lathira was Clan Velsha, born into wealth and influence that made Clan Ashar look like country bumpkins by comparison. Her family had not approved. They had apparently thrown a fit—attempted to get Lathira to break the bond. Later they'd demanded assurances, guarantees, proof that this administrator from a lesser clan was worthy of their daughter.

  Darev had fought for her. He'd called in every favor he had, leveraged every connection, but it hadn't been enough. What tipped the scales was his brother.

  Uncle Talven.

  Talven held the equivalent of a colonel's rank in the Asuari army. In Asuari society, that at least had meant something. He was a warrior who had earned his rank through blood and service. He spoke with an authority that Darev as an administrator or the elders of Clan Ashar couldn't match. When Talven vouched for his brother, when he put his reputation and his honor behind Darev's petition, Clan Velsha had listened.

  That bond had been recognized. Talven was still close to the family, still a presence in Ralaen's life, or at least he had been, before she'd left for human space.

  Would he vouch for me now? she wondered. Or is he going to think less of me for defecting to the Empire?

  Her siblings were easier to think about.

  Garev, her older brother, had followed their father into administration. He was probably already calculating the political cost of having a sister who'd defected, positioning himself as the loyal son who'd stayed true to the Confederacy. That was Garev. Always thinking three moves ahead.

  Vessa, her younger sister, took after their mother. She had Lathira's artistic temperament and had made a name for herself as a fashion designer. Her work caught the attention of the same high-society circles that had once celebrated their mother's art. Vessa was a dreamer, someone who saw beauty where others saw utility. She'd probably find the whole situation terribly romantic, her warrior sister running off to fight alongside alien supersoldiers and falling in love with a human. Or she'd be horrified that Ralaen had abandoned everything their mother had built for them. With Vessa, it could go either way.

  I miss them, Ralaen realized. All of them. Even Garev.

  "You're quiet," Artemis observed.

  "Thinking about my family." Ralaen's finger tapped against the desk. "Wondering how they're taking all this."

  "The communication delays make it difficult to know."

  "It's not just the delays." Ralaen shook her head. "It's the politics. The Confederacy isn't like the Imperium—we don't have a single authority everyone answers to. We have clans, packs, alliances that shift based on who owes what to whom. My father isn't part of the upper echelons, but he's connected enough that my choices reflect on him. On all of them."

  She thought about what that meant. Her father's position gave him some protection, but it also made him visible. If the Confederacy decided to make an example of defectors, or their families, Darev would be an easy target. Not important enough to be untouchable, but important enough to send a message.

  Her mother's clan was more insulated. Clan Velsha had the kind of money and influence that made direct attacks politically costly. But even they couldn't ignore it entirely. There would be whispers. Questions. Did you hear about Lathira's daughter? The one who ran off to the humans?

  And Uncle Talven... Talven was military. The Asuari military had lost people to the ásveldi—not many, but enough. Enough that having a niece who'd not only joined the humans but become one of their Einherjar would be complicated. Professionally and personally.

  I've put them all in a difficult position, Ralaen thought. And I can't even explain why I did it. Not really.

  "You're spiraling," Artemis said gently.

  "I'm not." Ralaen said hotly

  "You're filling gaps with worst-case scenarios."

  Ralaen's tail lashed once. "Maybe. But the scenarios aren't unreasonable. I know how Confederacy politics work. I grew up watching my father navigate them."

  Artemis was quiet for a moment. "What would you tell them, if you could? If you knew they'd actually receive the message?"

  Ralaen turned it over in her mind, trying to find words for something she'd never had to articulate.

  "I'd tell them I'm happy," she said finally. "That I found something worth fighting for. Someone worth fighting alongside." She paused. "I'd tell my mother that I understand now. Why she chose my father even when her family disapproved. Why she was willing to pay that price."

  "Because you've made a similar choice."

  "Yes, because I've made a similar choice. Just a slightly different one."

  I chose a human. An alien nation. I chose to become an Einherjar.

  And she'd do it again. If she could go back to that moment in the runic circle, that heartbeat before she spoke the oath, she'd make the same choice. Every time.

  "I'll send another message," she decided. "When we reach Sol. Something more honest this time."

  She wasn't sure what that would look like yet. But she had three weeks to figure it out.

  The days settled into routine.

  Wolf Squad trained, because Wolf Squad always trained. But without their armor, the training took a different shape.

  Anastasia drove them through hand-to-hand drills, running them through combinations until muscle memory took over. Ralaen's ribs faded from a dull ache to a distant memory by the second day—her enhanced physiology doing what it was designed to do—but the real limitation wasn't her body. It was her armor.

  "You're fighting like you're still in your Mk.4," Anastasia observed during one sparring session, watching Ralaen overextend on a strike. "You're not. You need to adjust."

  She was right. Without her armor, Ralaen was faster but less protected. Some part of her brain kept expecting the weight and reach that wasn't there. It was a bad habit to develop, and Anastasia made sure she broke it.

  Cobra Squad joined them when schedules aligned. Only another Einherjar could match them, and training across squads helped them learn to work together. The eight of them ran hand-to-hand rotations and two-on-two sparring in the ship's gymnasium, the kind of work that kept reflexes sharp even out of armor.

  Olaf Olafsson remained exactly as subtle as Ralaen remembered. During one grappling drill, he caught her in a hold that would have been dangerous if she hadn't twisted free at the last second.

  "You fight like you're angry at the floor," she told him afterward, rubbing her shoulder.

  He grinned, unrepentant. "Floor had it coming."

  Susan and Yuno moved through the drills with their usual quiet coordination, anticipating each other's movements in ways that spoke to years of partnership—professional and otherwise. Ramirez watched everything with sharp eyes, occasionally calling adjustments, her style as methodical as Anastasia's was precise.

  Thomas spent his free time in the ship's workshop, tinkering with modifications for his heavy weapons loadout. Something about improving the heat dispersal on his rotary cannon's barrel assembly—Ralaen caught fragments of his muttered conversations with his AI and decided she didn't need the details.

  Eirik ran the simulators obsessively, drilling sniper scenarios until his reaction times shaved down to milliseconds. He'd come back to their cabin with the particular tired satisfaction of someone who'd pushed themselves to their limits and found a little more beyond.

  And in the evenings, they gathered.

  The Einherjar common room became their refuge—a warm pocket of amber light and comfortable furniture where they could shed the weight of training and just be. Sometimes it was just Wolf Squad, the four of them sprawled across couches and trading stories. Sometimes Cobra joined them, the two squads mixing easily after weeks of shared training.

  One night, Thomas convinced everyone to watch an old Earth war film—something with submarines and depth charges and men shouting at each other in confined spaces. Ralaen didn't understand half the terminology, but she liked the tension, the way the characters had to trust each other in the dark.

  "This is how humans fought before space," Thomas explained when she asked. "Two submarines stalking each other in the deep. No sensors worth a damn, just listening for the other guy to make a mistake. First one to slip up, dies."

  "Seems inefficient," Anastasia said dryly.

  "Inefficient, sure," Thomas said. "But terrifying. That's the point."

  Ralaen thought about that as she curled against Eirik's side, watching the humans on screen struggle against forces they couldn't see or control. There was something primal about it, the same feeling she'd had in the fortress assault, crawling through that maintenance duct with railgun fire crashing around her.

  This is what war is, she thought. Strip away the technology and it's all the same. Hunters in the dark.

  The thought should have been depressing. Instead, it felt strangely comforting.

  They made translation at the hyper-limit of the Sol system.

  Draupnir's IFF signature pinged off the nav buoys, announcing her return to Imperial space. The makeshift task group began its journey in-system, seven wounded ships falling into formation for the long approach to Earth.

  They passed Defence Station Titan first, a military installation in orbit around Saturn's largest moon. It bristled with weapon emplacements and sensor arrays. Ralaen watched it slide by on the common room's vid screen.

  But it was what came later that stole her breath.

  Nidavillier.

  She'd seen it before. Just a glimpse through a shuttle window when she'd first arrived on Earth, what felt like a lifetime ago now. Back then, she'd been a fresh Jaeger recruit, eager and curious, still trying to make sense of the human world she'd thrown herself into. The station had been just another impossibly large human construction, impressive but abstract.

  The sprawling complex dwarfed anything she'd ever encountered. It was easily the size of a continent, hanging in high orbit. A vast lattice of docks and forges and construction slips that caught the light of Sol on one side and the distant blue marble of Earth on the other.

  On the vid screen, lights blinked across the structure in patterns that seemed almost alive. Some the bright, eerie blue of gravity forges, others the warmer amber of fabrication bays and assembly halls.

  As they drew closer, the scale became real in ways that numbers couldn't convey. She could pick out individual berths now, each one holding a ship in various states of construction or repair. Destroyers that looked like toys against the larger slips. Heavy cruisers with their hulls split open, internal frames exposed to the ministrations of drone swarms. Battlecruisers cradled in gantries that could have held small cities. And in the largest docks, super-dreadnoughts, mountains of battlesteel undergoing the kind of work that only Nidavillier could perform.

  "Gods," Ralaen breathed.

  Eirik stood beside her, and she could feel his pride through the bond—not arrogant, just... genuine. This was his people's work. Their achievement.

  "Impressive, isn't it?" he said.

  "It truly is" She shook her head slowly, her tail curling behind her. "I don't think there is a word for it in Asuari, anyway."

  Thomas let out a low whistle. "Never gets old. Every time we come back, I think I've gotten used to it. It never gets old."

  Anastasia chuckled from her seat. "Wait until we dock. And you see it from the inside."

  Draupnir slid into her assigned berth with the careful grace of a wounded warrior returning home. The battlecruiser's main gravity drives disengaged as tractor beams from the station took hold, guiding her into the slip and anchoring her in place. The process was smooth, practiced. Nidavillier had been receiving damaged ships for centuries after all.

  Ralaen watched from the umbilical viewport as the drones came.

  They launched from a nearby station in coordinated swarms, each one controlled by VIs working in perfect synchronization. They descended on Draupnir like worker insects attending a wounded queen, moving over the hull centimeter by centimeter. Ralaen watched through the viewport of the umbilical as they began the arduous process of repairing the ship. Removing damaged armor belts, pulling them away from the hull with mechanical precision. Battlesteel plates that had stopped Rilethi railgun rounds were lifted free and carted off for recycling or repair.

  Human technicians in engineer vac-suits supervised the operation, their hard suits' exoskeletons lending them the strength to work alongside the drones. One team was already extracting a damaged graser turret, disconnecting the massive weapon from its housing and pulling it straight out of the hull. The whole assembly came free in one piece, trailing power conduits and cooling lines.

  "They'll have her stripped down to the frame within a week," Thomas said. "Then they rebuild her better than new."

  The umbilical connected to one of Draupnir's airlocks, and Wolf Squad disembarked with the rest of the crew. Through the transparent walls, Ralaen could still see the work continuing outside. Drones swarming, technicians directing, her ship being methodically taken apart.

  She'll be whole again, Artemis said quietly. Nidavillier will make sure of that.

  At the dock gate, they split up.

  "Thomas, Eirik. You guys head to Einherjar Command and report in," Anastasia said. "Ralaen and I have business at the forges."

  Ralaen caught Eirik's eye. "Talk to someone about quarters while you're there. See of you can get us something bigger than what we had last time."

  Thomas snorted. "Talk to administration and logistics. They handle quarters. They'll sort you out."

  Eirik nodded, a small smile playing at his lips. "I'll see what I can do."

  They said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.

  Ralaen and Anastasia headed for the elevators.

  The Einherjar forges weren't accessible to just anyone. A scanner in the elevator swept over them after Anastasia had punched in their destination, reading the patterns and markers of the tattoos over their hearts. The system recognized them instantly, flagging them as Einherjar and granting access.

  The elevator ride took about fifteen minutes. The forges were deep in Nidavillier's structure, tucked away in a section most station personnel would never see.

  When the doors opened, Ralaen stepped out into an atrium.

  The atrium was pure ásveldi. High ceilings supported by pillars etched with flowing knotwork. Cold blue light tracing the edges of structural elements. Metal surfaces polished to a dull gleam. But this wasn't a ship's corridor or a station common area. This was a cathedral. The knotwork here was larger, more intricate, patterns flowing from floor to ceiling in unbroken rivers of meaning. Runes she half-recognized marked the archways. Old words for strength, for duty, for the fire that shapes iron into steel. This was the birthplace of the Mj?lnir.

  And dominating one wall was the window.

  A massive sheet of transparisteel overlooked the main forge below. The light that spilled through was a ghostly, brilliant blue, the color of gravity forges operating at full power. Intense enough to make her squint even through the protective glazing. It painted everything in the atrium in shades of azure and shadow.

  Beautiful, Artemis murmured. And terrifying, if you think about the energies involved.

  Ralaen didn't reply. She just stared.

  Anastasia gave her a moment, then touched her shoulder. "Come on. Sindri and Brokkr are waiting."

  They descended from the atrium into the main fitting area, a series of large rooms connected by wide corridors. The space was functional rather than decorative, designed for the serious business of building and maintaining Mj?lnir armor. Technicians moved between workstations, holo-displays flickered with diagnostic data, and the distant hum of fabrication equipment provided a constant backdrop.

  Their armor was already waiting for them.

  Both suits stood in their racks, but they looked... wrong. Ralaen stopped short when she saw hers.

  Arms had descended from the ceiling, precision manipulators controlled by the forge's systems, and they were already at work. Her Mk.4's battlesteel plating had been partially removed, exposing the underlying myomer bundles and structural frame. She'd never seen her armor like this, stripped down to its bones. It looked vulnerable. Naked.

  Anastasia's suit was in similar condition. Her right pauldron was gone entirely, along with several gouged and dented armor pieces. The damage from whatever she'd faced in the fortress assault was laid bare.

  Ralaen's own damage was worse. The chest plate with its hairline fracture had been removed and set aside on a diagnostic table. The scoring and gouges from the railgun hits were visible on the remaining plating. The crack in her left flank gaped open where the armor had been peeled back.

  Three hits from an anti-vehicle railgun, she thought. This is what that looks like from the inside.

  Then the Smiths arrived.

  Sindri materialized first, his holographic form resolving in sharp detail—short, broad, bearded, with a string of fine instruments slung across his chest. His eyes were already fixed on the diagnostic readouts, fingers flicking through data only he could see.

  Brokkr appeared a moment later, thicker through the shoulders, his beard tied back in a rough knot. His expression was the same as always: somewhere between professionally unimpressed and personally offended.

  "Well," Sindri said, his voice clipped with disapproval. "This is a mess."

  "Anti-vehicle emplacement," Ralaen said. "Rilethi. Overcharged."

  "I can see that." Sindri's fingers danced through the holographic readouts surrounding her armor. "Hairline fracture through the chest plate. Molecular structure compromised. Scoring on multiple surfaces. The left flank is cracked nearly through." He looked at her with something between accusation and grudging respect. "You took three direct hits from a weapon designed to kill tanks. How are you still alive?"

  "Luck," Ralaen said. "And good armor."

  "Our armor," Brokkr rumbled. "Which you have returned to us in pieces."

  "I brought it back. That's what matters."

  "What matters," Sindri cut in, "is that you're alive to bring it back at all. The chest plate should have failed on the third hit. The fact that it held through three is..." He paused, examining the data more closely. "Actually quite remarkable. I'll want to study the failure patterns."

  Anastasia's damage was less severe but no less irritating to the Smiths. The dented pauldron, the gouged armor pieces, the accumulated wear of combat all drew commentary and critique.

  Xerxes appeared next, Anastasia's AI partner manifesting through one of the fitting room's holo-projectors. His avatar was as unflappable as always, weathering Sindri and Brokkr's complaints with the serene patience of someone who had heard it all before.

  Artemis joined the discussion as well, her own projection materializing beside Ralaen. Unlike Xerxes, she didn't bother hiding her emotions: relief that Ralaen had survived, gratitude that the armor had held, a fierce protectiveness that said this is my Einherjar and you will make her whole again.

  The conversation went on for the better part of an hour. Damage assessments. Repair schedules. Material requirements. Sindri and Brokkr argued with each other, with Artemis and Xerxes. They complained about the state of the armor, questioned the tactical decisions that had led to the damage, and generally made their displeasure known.

  But underneath the grumbling, Ralaen could see the truth: they were already planning the repairs. Already thinking about how to make the armor better than it had been before.

  "One week," Brokkr finally pronounced. "Both suits. Full repair, structural reinforcement, and a complete diagnostic pass."

  "That's faster than I expected," Anastasia said.

  "You expected wrong," Sindri replied. "We are Nidavillier. We do not make excuses. We make solutions."

  They left the forge with repair schedules confirmed and a week of enforced downtime ahead of them.

  The elevator took them back up to Nidavillier's transfer hub, a cavernous space filled with people moving in every direction, each one headed to a different part of the station. The crowd was a mix of yard workers in coveralls, naval personnel in uniform, civilians in everything from business attire to casual clothes. The air hummed with conversation and the distant rumble of heavy machinery.

  They found the gate for shuttles heading down to Earth and joined the queue. This boarding process was different. No exclusive Einherjar access here. The shuttle to Einherjar Command carried all manner of personnel: technicians heading down for specialized work, medical staff rotating between assignments, administrators with business at the facility. Each one presented credentials at the gate, identification verified before they were allowed to board.

  When Ralaen and Anastasia reached the front of the queue, the scanner swept over them automatically. Their tattoos did the work. Patterns and markers encoded in the ink identified them as Einherjar, granting access without a word or a credential produced.

  The shuttle was about half full when they boarded. Ralaen found a seat by a viewport and settled in for the descent.

  Anastasia took the seat across from her, settling in with the economical movements of someone who'd made this trip a hundred times before.

  "First time back since your Ascension," she observed. It wasn't a question.

  "Yes." Ralaen watched Earth grow larger through the viewport. Blue and white and green, impossibly vibrant. "It feels different."

  "It always does." Anastasia's expression was unreadable, but something in her voice suggested she understood more than she was saying. "The place doesn't change. You do."

  Ralaen thought about that as the shuttle began its descent, carrying them down toward whatever came next.