Flea stretched and leaned back in his seat.

“Look alive, soldier,” Sil said from the door.

“Shut yo mouth and sit down.”

She flopped into the navigator’s seat and laughed. “I used to like doing commando work. But I’ve grown to hate it.”

“Yea? Is that ‘cos your kind ain’t the big fish no more?”

“Ha. Like we ever were.”

They were both quiet for a few minutes, watching the stars blink their secret whispers to each other. Then they both spoke at once, leading to a shared nervous laugh.

“You first,” said Flea.

“I was just thinking about Speck. We get so used to you guys, and you’re so good at what you do that you seem invincible. We forget that when you guys are gone, you’re gone. And the way things are goin’… I don’t wanna leave anything unsaid. Ya know?”

“Yeah. I feel ya.”

“Cool. Well, Flea, I want you to know that you’re a really big part of my world.”

“Aw,” Gil said from the doorway, “they’re gonna kiss.”

Sil grinned. “You jealous?”

Gil grinned back. “Maybe.”

Flea threw up his hands. “Hey, hey, hey! Not in my cockpit. Ya’all go find a bunk.”

Sil sputtered. “I’m stayin’ right here.”

“Not for long,” said their captain, his voice booming from behind Gilgamesh.

The big man stepped aside to let Red Ten squeeze by.

“What’s up, Cap?” Gil asked.

“Got a personal ping from Cat.”

Flea readied to coded channel. “How many pings we sending back?”

He felt sweat trickle down his back in the nano second that passed while he waited for his captain’s order.

“Find Orak,” was Vala’s order. “We aren’t going to build anything lasting here. And we certainly aren’t going wait for him to beat us by attrition. So search the wheel until you find him.”

And so she sent them both, Harbingers One and Five, to hunt for their enemy and report back.

The rest of the brief had been difficult for Flea to pay attention to, as his head was filled with visions of the Harbingers coming like a storm to defeat him. Vala announced that the end of the eight soldier teams was near its end and proclaimed the execution of Red Orak to be their first act as a regimented army. The thought set Flea’s mind on fire. And yet…

Three pings no, he thought, two pings slow, one ping go.

“Three,” said Red.

Flea sent the pings, unsure how to feel about yet another stone turned over with nothing underneath.

“Can I ask a question, Cap?” Sil asked.

“Do it.”

“Well, it just seems strange for these kinds of comms to be sent over a direct channel.”

Red was quiet for a quick moment, then nodded. “I ran an op with them back when I was still a lieutenant. Sensus did the same. Some captains are more discreet than others.”

“If both leaders of team One do it,” said Flea, “there must be somthin’ to it.”

“Colonel Vala took me aside after my promotion,” said Red, “and she told me that our team was the best Harbinger team she knew. I asked her what about teams Four, Three, Two and One? She said they was on a whole different level.”

Flea nodded emphatically, recalling a time when Speck was surprised at other pilot’s stories, remarking that his team was in their insertion craft long before most others, kept their comm channels far more clear, and seemed to always know exactly how to handle any challenge they encountered.

“Get some rest, Corporal,” Red ordered him. “I’ll take the stick."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Sir, yes sir.”

Flea ate a corn bread ration before passing out on his bunk. Six hours after that he was in the shower, then after another piece of corn bread and a stim drink, he was in the cockpit again. People, usually fellow non-rads, often told him how jealous they were of his position as a fireteam pilot. They all got twinkly eyed when they talked about how much they’d love to get off Albion and fly free among the stars. Flea would chuckle silently to himself, thinking of the cramped spaces that comprised his world.

The next shift was dull, as was the next. The team took their turns keeping him company, he took a couple short breaks in the galley, read from a compilation of Solomon’s old writings in the Klippotic Verge, and sent pings back to H1 in triplicate when ordered.

“What’s their new pilot like?” Ergheiz asked Flea on one of his breaks.

“He’s aight. A bit raw, but he’s a technical genius.”

His next shift ended in a black fountain; one of those rare nebulae that defied all standard laws of physics. The first time Flea encountered one, he thought he’d found his limit and would have to resign from the Mercenary Marines. But then he found himself braving the anomaly’s paracausal storms and hiding in its surreal core while the Surge drones passed them by.

Star Crushers, they were also called. But Flea trusted his instincts, the same instincts that caught his captain’s eye, and won him his second chance.

“I can’t sleep in these things,” Mangonel lamented.

“I can’t sleep in Surge space,” Flea retorted.

And he dreamed of knights in stellar harness hurling comets in a grand melee.

“Look at all the Surge,” Mangonel said when they left the fountain.

Their outrider probes had reported massive Surge activity on this spoke of the wheel, but only strips of metal grafted flesh hinted they had ever been there.

“Good thing we hid in a black fountain,” Nel went on.

Flea shook his head. “What’s wrong wit you? It’s always you big guys who’s whinin’.”

“Because we’re the first ones to get shot at.”

Flea made a show of wiping away mock tears.

Nel laughed. “You’ll be cryin’ when one of those things turns on you. The first one was fine. I dreamt I was on a planet with a blue sky, drinking dandelion wine on a glass balcony. Then they got bad all the sudden. Worse than my death dreams.”

“See, why didn’t you tell me dat?”

“You gonna stop parkin’ us in those things now that you know?”

“Unless it’s an emergency, then yeah.”

Nel smiled and offered his knuckles, which Flea pounded his against.

Red came and sat behind them.

“How many ping today, Cap?”

“Two.”

Flea raised his eyebrows as he sent the pings. “Where to now, Captain?”

“A planet called Negred. Catalyst says it’s charted.”

Flea pulled up the local charts and plotted a course. “Three short jumps in a zig zag is the best I can do.”

“Okay. Take us there, my man.”

Flea activated the ship’s intercom. “Hey! Ya’all quit runnin’ around. We jumpin’.”

The jumps went smoothly. The wormholes formed, spherical translucent, and ushered them along their light stretching byways. At the end of the third jump, Flea felt a chill.

“That’s a planet?” said Red.

Negred was aptly named, looking more like a singularity than a planetoid. But it was solid deep within the distortion its exotic properties emanated. Light accreted in spirals, making a kaleidoscopic field of black swirls that wrapped around the dense planet. It had one moon, unnamed, tagged with the numerical designation 19.23.4.

“Get me some readings,” Red said.

Flea launched a series of probes. An hour later they sent back static.

“Were the probes’ scanners jammed by something?” asked Red.

“No, sir. They just didn’t find any data they could interprate. Except for... biology. No life signs of any sort. Should I send this to H1?”

“No. They already got this by now. Fly us around the equator and send another wave of probes.”

Those probes too found nothing they could interprate, and reported the planet to be as barren of life as the first.

“Gimme a visual of the horizon,” Red ordered.

Flea launched a hardened camera drone. Its feed was chilling, showing jagged black rocks in a constant storm of obsidian shards.

Flea whistled. “Wind speed; six hundred kilometers per hour.”

“He’s not down there.”

Flea was about to suggest checking the moon when Red looked at his vam.

“They got their scans back from the moon,” the captain said.

“How many pings, cap’n?”

“One ping, Flea. And hit the alert. Beat to quarters.”

Flea swallowed. “Aye aye.” He sounded the combat alert, then accelerated for a covert approach in retrograde to the moon. “No disrespeck, Captain, but ain’t we supposed to head back and report to the Colonel?”

“Yeah. Those were Vala’s orders. But she sent us to back up Harbinger One, and they do things a little different than us.”

The light for the inter ship hail flickered, and Flea opened the channel. “H1, this is H5. What’s the word?”

“The word is asswhoopin’,” said Revol.

“Have you confirmed the enemy’s presence?” asked Red.

“We have indeed, Captain. Archeus Knights and everything.”

“And you’re goin’ in? For an assault?”

“Damn straight! You guys comin’?”

Red shook his head and looked at Flea, then back out the window at the cold grey moon. “Lead the way.”