I knelt in the frozen blood on the floor of the Captain's office, my office, and wept silently over the loss of a single child. I couldn't bring myself to weep for Doctor Andrews; that pain cut too deep. I didn't weep for Captain De'Lann; she died a good death for a Marine; if she'd died before the Doctor, she could be reincarnated. Hell, if there were still any telepaths left in the fleet...

I cursed myself for a fool and stood, reaching out with my mind to connect to Echidna. A wall of black noise filled the room, its edges rife with the echoes of the insane scream I'd heard earlier. I looked over to where Guy knelt, still stroking the Doctor's burned hair. He didn't notice me; his eyes were closed; his whole being focused inward. His lips moved in a continuous silent mutter, his head shaking in slow motion denial.

I had no time for my own sorrow, let alone his. I pushed my thoughts past the soundless noise in the room.

Cadet Delnot, what happened here?

He didn't respond, but he did raise his head to look at me. The deep fires banked there threatened to engulf my soul...

No.

He recoiled as if slapped. When he looked back at me, he carefully kept his gaze from meeting my own. He brushed his hand across the doctor's face, as if to close her eyes, but only succeeded in smearing ash across her face. Without taking his eyes from my chin, he lay her gently on the ground and stood to face me.

Cadet Guy Delnot, reporting for duty, Captain.

I stared at him, but despite my efforts, my gaze hadn't the power of Captain De'Lann's thousand-year stare. He waited, silently, for me to speak. I gestured around the room.

"What happened here, Delnot?"

I have no idea, sir. the 'Borer was already dead when I arrived, Captain De'Lann flatlined not long after; I'm still not sure why, and Doctor Andrews was in the final stages of overload, far too far for me to do anything to help her.

I wondered at his use of telepathy when we could see one another. Privacy couldn't be his concern, although he might worry about the new AI running the ship.

"What happened to Tiamat?"

He grimaced, the expression strange on his beautiful, normally smooth features.

I had to put her down.

I froze. I couldn't trust myself to speak, or I would scream at him. I couldn't trust myself to move, or I would attack him. I was the Captain, my duty to protect my ship and crew, I couldn't collapse into a weeping puddle on the floor. Instead, I let slip a single, strangled syllable.

"Why."

I had to.

"That's not good enough, Delnot." I snarled. "You will tell me why you think you had to, or so help me God I will space you myself."

The bastard smirked at me, his thoughts sliding back into the whiskey smooth baritone I'd come to hate.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Y'know, I think you'd actually try.

I took one step toward him, drawing myself up to my full height. "I do not have time to play games with you, Delnot."

I've always got time for games with you, Captain.

I lost it. I gave in to my instincts. Blue and pink flashed in my vision as millennia of combat experience guided my glowing hands, knocking his aside, throwing him back into a wall, pinning his arms behind him and holding him off the floor with one energy-sheathed arm across his neck.

"That. Is. Enough! I swear to you, if you ever flirt with me again you will not live to see front line duty with the Dragon. Do you understand me?"

He jerked his head in a nod. A line of deep red text scrolled across the bottom of my vision, but I didn't have time for that now. I stared into his eyes, my fury buoying me, holding me free of their fiery depths.

"Now. Tell me, clearly, why you killed my ship."

She'd gone insane.

"And what makes you an expert on AI insanity?"

His eyes didn't even flicker. Instead, he met my furious gaze, unflinching. The red text at the bottom of my vision started blinking. I ignored it. It could wait, and my ship's murderer couldn't.

She'd done at least six consecutive true random full power pocket jumps and wouldn't stop screaming incoherently.

Ice flooded my spine. Standard Imperial procedure in emergencies called for a single 'random' pocket jump, the destination generated randomly by the ship, with the plotting updated constantly to avoid any nasty mishaps, like a collision with a planet or intersection with the event horizon of a black hole. Truly random jumps, on the other hand, were done at low power, only when nearby space held no obstacles, and the pilots who used them were still considered borderline insane.

Full power random pocket jumps killed ships. No way would Tiamat take even one with students aboard. The line of text at the bottom of my eyes kept blinking; now it had a gradually shrinking bar as well.

"You're lying."

I would never... Guy cut himself off, rolling his eyes in disgust. When he met my gaze again, he said only one word. Here.

Without further prompting, a memory filled my head. The insane shriek that had woken me filled my ears once more. Words teased around the edge of it, but they never coalesced into something comprehensible. The memory went black, my augmentation telling me I'd moved despite a lack of inertia. Far beneath me I felt a surge of radiation as Tiamat overloaded her reaction chamber to repower her pocket drive. Blackness again, followed immediately by radiation. The pattern repeated four more times as I reached out to encompass the poor, mad ship's mind.

I blinked, and Guy dangled from my arm. Shocked out of my rage by the black despair still lingering in the echoes of that insane scream, I noticed the tracks of tears down his face.

"What gave you the right, Cadet. I know you had a reason, but..." Even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. Any Imperial Marine would do the same if command devolved to her. His answer made me blink.

Imperial orders, sir. My confusion must have shown on my face because he continued. Her Majesty sent me to, and I quote, 'make sure that crazy bitch doesn't endanger Our children', and ‘put her down if need be.’

Another image filled my head; the Empress saying just that. A flash of pink, and I recognized the scenery behind her as one of the gardens on her flagship. From the image, I realized who ‘she’ had been. My head spun. The deep red bar next to the text had nearly disappeared.

"Your target was Captain De'Lann."

The Empress always watches over newly promoted ship captains. I suppose I'll be watching over you, now.

That last thought, surrounded by involuntary flickering images of me, was close enough to flirting for me. I leaned against his throat with my arm, pulling my other fist back.

The crimson bar winked out of existence. The glow around my arm did as well. The world went dead silent, ice picks trying to puncture my armored ears. I took a breath to speak, and the air rushed from my lungs. My limbs each weighed more than my entire body should; Guy slipped down the wall until his feet touched the floor.

I looked down at the line of red text still floating in my vision.

SC: Power reserves failing. Shutdown of all non-vital functions imminent. Please re-enter oxygenated environment as soon as possible.

I glanced to the right, knowing what I'd see, finally understanding what I'd been ignoring since I entered the Captain's office. The stars shone steadily on me from the gaping hole in the side of the ship, their light uninhibited by the slightest hint of atmosphere.

Full augmentation takes some getting used to.