Kinnit sat in her room the next morning, thinking. In spite of her poor sleep the previous night, she was energized, eager. Because she had finally figured everything out.

"Yes!" she cried with gusto, banging her fist on the small desk in her quarters. Her morning cup of coffee rattled. She snatched it up and took a healthy drink, determination filling her along with the rush of caffeine.

The problem with Admiral Stonefist was so obvious, once she stopped and thought about it.

He was discouraged. Disheartened. Beaten down.

He'd been the sole voice of order and reason for so long, with no support and no help. Surrounded by sycophants, bureaucrats and incompetents. And then this conspiracy cropped up. On top of that, he got an Assistant that was a Subject Species. An Assistant who was ignorant, an Assistant who cried, an Assistant who still didn't always act like she should in Imperial society. An Assistant, fundamentally, who messed things up.

But clearly he saw potential in her. A fierce, proud expression crossed her face.

He'd been trying to help her grow and learn as an Assistant. That's why he was being so weird. All the strange things were to see if she could handle the unexpected, to teach her not to get too comfortable with the status quo.

She slammed back more coffee.

She'd show him. She could be the Assistant he needed. And she already had a plan.

"One!" she cried out loud, alone in her room. "He's lost faith in the Imperium! I will help!"

Another drink of coffee.

"Two!" she said, with no trace of self-consciousness. "He's lost faith in himself! I will help!"

More coffee, draining the mug.

"And three! He's fighting this conspiracy by himself! I will help!"

She slammed the mug down on her desk, a satisfied grin on her face.

"I will fix him!"

After all, it was all so simple, when you really got down to it.

----------------------------------------

Admiral Stonefist marched steadily down the hall toward the bridge, a frown fixed firmly to his face.

He swept onto the bridge, taking in the busy crew. He stepped onto the captain's dais.

"Bridge, report."

A young lieutenant turned to him.

"Sir! The bugs have taken all outer sectors! There are no survivors!"

He felt keenly the lack of Kinnit at his elbow. But this was no time for distractions.

"Charge weapons," he said. Suddenly the massive bridge monitor was filled with her face.

"K-Kinnit?"

Her face broke into a smile, and her tinkling laugh filled the bridge.

"Oh, Admiral!" she said. "It's so sad that you feel that way! Did you think I could love you? You don't even know what love is!"

"Sir, the bugs are closing in!"

A shadow grew from one corner of the bridge, dark hands reaching out. At the opposite corner, a gleaming marble throne shone. In a voice like crashing waves, the Emperor spoke from the throne.

"Admiral Grimthorn Stonefist, for the crime of fraternizing with a member of a Subject Species, you will be stripped of rank, discharged from the Navy in disgrace, and be thrown in prison for the rest of your days!"

The shadowy hands plucked at his clothes, then pulled, then yanked. As he was dragged into darkness, he saw the hands dismantling the bridge and the crew. All the while the laughing face of Kinnit filled the screen.

Grimthorn started awake, heaving and covered with sweat. He shook himself.

He was accustomed to bad dreams, but usually they were old combat nightmares. Not... whatever that weird fever-dream was.

He checked the time. 0430. Earlier than he usually got up, but he knew he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep now.

He got up, cleaned up, and got dressed. He made his way to the office.

To his surprise, Kinnit was already at her desk, diligently working away. She looked up as he walked in.

"Gooooood morning, sir!" she chirped. "It's another beautiful day in the Imperium!"

He grunted.

"You're in early this morning," he said.

"Yes, sir! I decided to get started early analyzing this data from the Archives!"

"Ah." He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. "Anything interesting yet?" He tapped his lips with his finger, reminding her that they were under surveillance.

"Nothing yet, sir."

"Alright." He sighed. "I'm going to need some extra coffee this morning, I think."

"I'll get it!" Before Grimthorn could move to the kitchenette, she bounced up and began making coffee.

"Ah. Uh, thank you." He sat at his desk. He was feeling the lack of sleep already, but hopefully coffee would help.

He sat and stared at his console while Kinnit bustled and hummed.

This work all seemed so pointless. So many reports, so many documents, so many ways of just saying the same thing, of describing nothing.

He made a snap decision. With a grand gesture, he wiped all the meetings off his calendar and began re-working his to-do lists and his calendar. He deleted anything that had been put there by a bureaucrat, or that had no useful outcome.

Kinnit set the mug on his desk. He absently thanked her and continued working on his to-do lists.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She smiled gently to see him working diligently at something he appeared to be enjoying. She went back to her desk.

Within a few hours, he'd rearranged his entire schedule and workload. He sat back with a satisfied grin.

"There we go," he said.

"What's that, sir?"

"I've reduced my schedule to just useful work. As it turns out, on my new schedule, I'm already finished work for the week."

"Sir?"

"I took out all the gunk that's been clogging up my days. Meetings, reports, busywork. I set up filters to automatically delete messages from certain people. Mostly at CenCom."

She smiled at his self-satisfaction

"Aren't you afraid you'll get in trouble, though, sir?"

"Kinnit, a few weeks ago, we fought a Qhall assassin and fended off an overwhelming force of Oryndrax. I don't think a nasty email from a career bureaucrat ranks as 'trouble' any more. Especially since it will be deleted before I see it."

She giggled.

"Very good, sir."

"Yes, it is. Now I can focus on what's important. And what's important now is lunch. Would you care to join me?"

She glanced at the data she'd been going through, but decided that bringing the Admiral's spirits up was more important at the moment. She popped to her feet.

"Capital idea, sir!" It might have been her imagination, but he looked a little relieved.

Clearly she'd been right in her assessment. He needed her support. Well, she was ready to support him.

The went to mess and had an adequate meal, chatting about light things. There were far too many people around to discuss anything sensitive.

Afterwards, Grimthorn nodded in the direction of the conference room. Kinnit nodded, and they made their way to their home away from home.

They settled in.

"So, now that we can talk, have you figured out anything with the damaged data?"

"Not much, yet. Most of the destroyed data is security footage, so I'm focusing on that. It's hard to figure out what's going on from data that's not there."

"Well, keep at it. If we can figure out what was deleted, that might give us a clue what's going on, or at least who's involved.

"Yes, sir." She paused. "Actually, sir, there was something else I wanted to bring up."

"Go on."

"Well, sir, I was thinking. When's the last time you took some time off? Got a little R&R?"

"I can't take time off," he said reflexively. "I'm far too busy--"

"Are you, though?" she asked. "Now that you've, um, freed up your schedule for important things."

He sat silent for a moment as if poleaxed.

"That... is something to consider." He looked very thoughtfully at Kinnit for a moment, then looked away. "I'll think about it."

"I think it would be good for you, sir."

"Maybe so."

A small smile pressed itself onto her features and she settled into her work with renewed energy.

So far, her plan was working exactly as she'd hoped.

----------------------------------------

Broca Brangwin was desperately wishing he had known more about this assignment before he'd signed up for it.

Four more months, he thought. I can make it four more months.

The money, if he finished this six-month stint, was going to be phenomenal. If he could make it. But his dreams of buying a brand-new waveskimmer seemed distant and stupid now. He almost didn't even want it any more.

The hallway he walked down was tall yet narrow, with lofty, elegant stonework. His shoes clacked on the glossy marble flooring as he reluctantly marched to the Cryptographer's Chamber. Though the hallway was spotless and well-lit, everything was gray, and felt gloomy.

The duty had sounded so easy, when he'd signed up for it. Help manage the Cryptographers. Carry messages for them. Run errands for them. Sure, they were creepy, but Brangwin felt that he could deal with a little creepy for a lot of money.

He should have thought a lot harder about why the Imperium had to offer so much money for a six-month stint. And why nobody was allowed to do two stints in a row.

The thoroughness of the psych eval before he he'd been accepted for the work had been another red flag he'd ignored.

He took a deep breath as he reached the door to the Chamber. For all that they were the highest of the high technologists of the Imperium, all the things they chose for themselves were distinctly low-tech. He pulled out a large, heavy brass key as long as his hand and slid it into the lock. It turned with a satisfying "chunk!" and the tall doors swung open.

He blocked the doors open, pinched his lips and walked in.

The Chamber was vast and round, with lofty cathedral ceilings and ornate stonework throughout. A circular medallion design dominated the floor, with thirteen circles spaced evenly around it. During the meeting, each Cryptographer would stand in one of the circles while they communicated.

Brangwin tidied the Chamber, setting things to rights. Not that there was much to do. He moved slowly, reluctantly, as though delaying his work would delay the arrival of the Cryptographers.

He was dusting off one of the shelves when his hackles rose. His stomach churned, and his mind was filled with irrational terror. He tried hard to keep his hands from trembling, but failed.

The one nice thing about the Cryptographers is that you knew that one would never, ever be able to sneak up on you. Even when separated by the hard vacuum of space, their impact on the psyche of sentient beings was profound, when they drew close.

He turned and verified that the first Cryptographer had arrived.

It stood over seven feet tall, dressed in long black robes that dragged the floor. A dark hood hung over its face, obscuring its features. Thin, whip-like tentacles hung loosely out of its hood. Its goggles gleamed dully in the depths of its hood.

The goggle were good. Nobody wanted to see what those eyes looked like.

Brangwin bowed slightly in acknowledgement. The Cryptographer raised its hand in response, exposing its thick, black talons. Its tentacles writhed slightly in a way that seemed impossible, as though they weren't moving through the air, but rather melting from one position to the next.

Brangwin was never sure if the tentacles grew directly around their mouths, or if the tentacles were their mouths. It bothered him not to know, but he was certain he was better off not knowing. And he certainly wasn't going to look any harder under that hood than he had to.

He shuddered, in spite of his best efforts to control himself. Not that it bothered the Cryptographer at all.

The Cryptographer moved to a circle and stood patiently, unmoving. Brangwin's anxiety surged as another Cryptographer arrived.

There were all manner of rumors about what the Cryptographers were, but all the creepy rumors were not a patch on the creatures themselves.

Nobody knew where the Emperor had found the them, or how he convinced them to join the Imperium, but they were the backbone of Imperial security. Nothing that they encrypted, secured, or locked had ever been broken, not once. There were only a few thousand of them throughout the galaxy, so rare that most people would live their whole lives never even being in the same system with one.

Nobody understood much about the Cryptographers, but the one thing that everyone knew was that they loved puzzles. Their language was a language of puzzles, riddles, and misdirection. All their communication among themselves was a battle of wits. Whereas most species' languages were made to transfer ideas and concepts, the Cryptographer's language was designed to obscure, confuse, and misdirect.

For a Cryptographer, there was no such things as a conversation. There was only war.

Because they so dearly loved puzzles.

And sometimes the puzzle they loved most was disassembling a Terran's psyche.

But Brangwin had been reassured that they'd promised not to do that any more. At least not to the regular workers.

More Cryptographers arrived, and Brangwin's mental disruption mounted with each arrival. Today, blessing of blessings, only seven of them were meeting. His heart pounded and sweat poured out of him. He felt, quite literally, as if he were dying. He lashed himself with logic: he was in no pain, there was nothing wrong with him, and nothing here that would kill him. But in the presence of these dark creatures, his body and hindbrain reacted as though he were on the verge of death, surging adrenaline and filling him with dread.

As soon as the Cryptographers were set, they began speaking in their language, chittering and clicking. It was a maddening sound, rising and falling, reacting on his brain like a fork scraping on a plate, filling him with horrors. He stood by the door, as far away as he could get from them without actually leaving the room, and glumly lowered his head.

A few weeks ago, he'd discovered the absolute worst part of their language. In a fit of terror, he'd plugged his ears. And it had not dimmed their speech at all. Because they weren't communicating with air vibrations, they were telepathically broadcasting.

He stood by, quietly hyperventilating and trying to convince himself he wasn't dying. The conversation couldn't have lasted more than 15 minutes, but time around the Cryptographers stretched out, like light falling into a black hole.

Finally, one of them turned to him. He pulled a notepad and a pencil stub out of his pocket. Part of his role was to communicate their messages.

The Cryptographer spoke slowly, haltingly, as it tried to simplify its communication enough for a simple Terran to understand.

"We... will... speak... with... Admiral... Stonefist," it said.

With shaking hands, Brangwin wrote down the message. He bowed to the Cryptographers as they began to slowly file out.

Four months left. He didn't know if he could make it. No amount of money was worth this.