I woke up in the shower. Waking up in the shower is par for the course for me, but normally it’s hyperbole, not literal truth. Also, given my last waking memories, I was less than reassured by the warm water sluicing over my skin. I opened my eyes to see the familiar sight of my shuttle’s shower. For a moment, I almost thought I’d dreamed everything since I passed out in Creepy Stalker Guy’s acceleration couch.

Radiation levels normal. Singularity tap stabilized. Good morning, Dustie.

My sirens’ offhand comment set me to blinking water from my eyes before I remembered and popped up my shields. The water splashing less than an inch from my face filled me with the strangest desire to get back to the planet we’d left and go diving.

I had no time for woolgathering; less than no time if my clutter-brained essie wasn’t completely off its rocker. “Did you say singularity tap?”

Yes, Dustie. You’d nearly lost power entirely before Cadets Li and Quick helped us establish the tap.

“Who authorized them to put something as flaming dangerous as a singularity tap aboard a crèche ship?”

You did. ‘You will get me out of this box in under sixteen minutes, or I swear to God you will live just long enough to regret it.’ And, to clarify, the singularity Tap is not presently aboard Echidna.

I stopped, dread washing over me as I pulled up the schematics I’d skimmed and dismissed a few days and a lifetime ago. There, right at my core, where I’d overlooked it, hovered all the containment and manipulators to establish and maintain a tap. Of course, it didn’t have a giant flashing warning label saying ‘Danger! Live wormhole link to a black hole goes here!’. In my moment of panic, I’d asked for this thing, after all.

I took a bit to consciously control my breathing. After a few seconds of that a series of insights hit me, one after another, like they’d been dropped to a planet’s surface from orbit. Still reeling from the first, I checked my power readouts. Every single one hovered near maximum, the massive drain from my shields not even making a serious ripple in the constant flow from the tap. I checked the tap itself; it idled quietly, a tiny fraction of its output keeping me fully powered.

A niggling sensation from the part of my brain normally preoccupied with managing my links caught my attention. There, nestled among the sparkling links to living students, lay a single quiet link to an old, cold soul. Memories washed over me, one after another.

My first combat simulation, where I’d seen the ‘Sect trap before it sprang.

My schematics, along with the raw numbers on how much power my tap could produce.

A single ragged, dogged Materner locked to our trail despite how we’d mauled it.

The tactical situation in the system behind us.

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The current status of Echidna, her crew, and their armor.

My mother’s voice, “Go. Do something amazing.”

In a moment of shining clarity, it gelled into a single coherent whole. A wolfish grin spread across my face despite my attempts to hold it in. “Echidna?”

“Yes Captain?”

Wherever my shuttle lurked, I was close enough to her for an instant reply. “Tell Quick to get everything locked down and ready for action. Have Delnot get everyone armored up, full combat loadouts on all armor.”

“Captain?” Quick’s voice through the shuttle’s speakers held equal amounts of eagerness and wariness.

“Yes, Quick?”

“Tell me this isn’t a forlorn hope, sir.”

“Oh, it’s not. It is absolutely not. Get her ready, Quick”

“Sir, yes sir!”

***

I slipped out of the belly hatch of the shuttle, which hung pressed against the inside of Echidna’s main bay door. The moment I did, silence spread outward along the walls of the bay. As I descended through the center of the bay, I reached out with my augmentation and activated my armor. It rose smoothly out of its alcove, hovering to perch on the door when it irised shut. Quick stood beside it, a device the size of one of my armor’s weapon pods slung over his back. The hush reached the floor of the bay as I reached its center.

My voice, pitched to carry through the room, amplified by telepathy and my augmentation to reach every portion of the ship, echoed back at me in the waiting silence. “I am Imperial Princess Dustie Constance Evergreen Dabig-Li. I hereby declare the human inhabited world we most recently visited as the Imperial Protectorate of Colin’s World, named for the final permanent casualty aboard the Imperial Crèche Ship Tiamat, Colin DeLann, unborn son of Sarah DeLann, final Captain of the Tiamat. In half an hour, the Imperial Creche Ship Echidna will return to Colin’s World for the express purpose of defending the Civilians there from the Insectoid Swarm.” I paused, a burst of apprehension from Guy overwhelming the tension filling the room, distracting me from what I planned on saying next. Wordlessly I nodded toward where he stood on his armor’s alcove.

“Will you be commanding the defense, sir?”

I dropped smoothly to the floor, speaking as I went. “I will.” As the words reached the mass of Cadets around me, a palpable aura of anticipation engulfed me, fueled by each and every reincarnate aboard. Within it I caught images I recognized as idealized versions of my own memories of Deep Stand, of the massive Mech Carrier my father had killed. I touched down and reached out to my armor. “I am not Grace Li; I will not stand behind you and send you to your deaths.” The armor plates surrounding the central configurable pod blossomed open. I pulled the missile launcher out of the pod with one hand. “I am not Dustin Dabig; I will not die to stop a single enemy, no matter how vast.”

With one hand I pulled out the missile pod, with the other I took the Combat Acceleration Unit from Quick and slotted it onto place. As the armor plates closed around it, I threw the missile pod to Guy. For once his augments and perfect reflexes didn’t save him; he staggered under the weight.

Are you ready for this, Delnot?

He blinked, stared down at the pod in his hands as if just now realizing what he held.

Are you, Captain?

What do you mean?

Guy paused a moment, gathering his thoughts. The tension in the room ratcheted higher as we stared at one another.

Imperial Princesses don’t lose. They kill fleets, they enslave planetary populations, they warp astrogation maps, they change time and space and history itself, but they never, ever lose.

I grinned at him, and a wave of ferocity swept outward from us, only to echo back.

Ready for that? I’m counting on it.

“I am Imperial Princess Dustie Constance Evergreen Dabig-Li. I kill Insectoids. You are the children of the Dragon, and together we are going to make the ‘Sects regret they ever chased us to Colin’s World.”

The roar echoing through the room almost drowned out Guy’s quiet thought.

But are you ready for what comes after?