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The Grays sit opposite irls," the dark-skinned corporal says, shuddering as the adrenaline fades away "Two years and he was out with a pension And you popped him in the head"

"After eant sneers

The corporal blinks at her "You cold bitch"

Their words fade, overco of blood in my ears This is ed the paradige their strategy for me

And now I have lost so many lives, I may never know the tally

More people have died in a blink than during a whole year of the Institute, their deaths opening a black hole in my stomach

Roque and Victra hail me over the coms They will have tracked er, thick and evil, swirls insidemy hands shake, h space after bisecting ed but not broken I stand inthe seat’s restraints At the far end of the escape pod lies a spitTube with a preloaded starShell--a mechanized suit ned to launch Golds to asteroids or planets, because the pod wouldn’t survive ateance I’ll launch e

Theodora has not yet woken I’lad

I tell the corporal to help me into the suit Two minutes later, I’ue with the computer over the calculations required for my trajectory to intersect with Karnus’s so that I can se s I’ve never heard of anyone doing this Never seen it even attempted It’s madness But Karnus will pay

I start antly a hundred kiloe in place of eyes Between us, a hundred escape pods glimmer like rubies cast into the sun Two … I pray that I will find the Vale if I do not survive this One My controls go dead and red flashes across my helmet The Proctors overrideKarnus’s ship disappear into the black

3

Blood and Piss

Eight hundred and thirty-three aain and again as I sit in the passenger hold of the rescue ship sent to ferry aze Even Roque leaves me be

The instructors disabled my craft before I could launch They say they did it to spare a a Gold Praetor I stared blankly at them as they debriefedday hours of reat doed with docks for destroyers and men-of-war Most are filled Home to the Academy and mid-sector command, it is one of the hives of the Society’s military for the h it does serve other planetary forces when their orbits take the here in the dormitories So too will have many Fleet officials and Peerless who flocked here for the final weeks of the ga