Grimthorn stormed back and forth in his office. There were things he needed to do, but he had too much furious energy to sit still long enough to do them.

One of the nice things about being a legendary admiral is that you could yell at everybody, and instead of yelling back, they just did what you said. Mostly. Which was why they'd already depleted half the probes in the Ninth Fleet, and why the fleet was split into a bunch of squads, jumping from system to system, hunting for energy signatures.

They were hunting for Vylar energy signatures. The bugs had fled through every single wormhole in the Mebrin system, and split up in jump clusters beyond that, and again beyond that. Several led to sectors that had Oryndrax energy signatures. Those were being followed up closely, but Grimthorn suspected those were false trails. A few fighters had been found, too damaged to travel further, but there was no good lead of where Kinnit had been taken.

Again, somebody was doing the thinking for the bugs; this much misdirection was all far too advanced for the Oryndrax.

He paced back and forth, furious with the bugs, furious with the fleet, furious with himself. He'd been so smug when they'd fended off the invasion. He ground his teeth. And now Kinnit was taken, hidden somewhere among the stars. How could he hope to find one little Kobold out there in all that vastness?

There was a lot of space out in space.

He didn't even have the catharsis of sweeping all the stuff off his desk in a fit of fury; Kinnit kept it too clean for that now.

His scanner beeped, and he fumbled it out of his pocket.

"Admiral Stonefist, sir, there's an encrypted comm for you."

"Very good, patch it through." Finally, maybe some good news from the search.

There was a brief delay while the encrypted channel connected.

"Admiral Stonefist here. What news from the search?"

"Well, well, well. Admiral Stonefist, finally."

Grimthorn's jaw stiffened. The voice that came through his scanner was heavy with distortion. It was too darkly greasy, too informal, and above all, far too self-satisfied to be an official call.

Grimthorn punched in a combination on his scanner that would notify the infographers on board to trace back the source of his call.

"Who is this?" he asked.

"Call me... a concerned citizen. Someone who's focused on the future of the Imperium."

"What do you want?"

"I want the same thing every good Imperial citizen wants. I want what's best for the Imperium."

Admiral Stonefist maintained a grim silence.

"You're as reticent as your reputation had led me to believe. I'll get to the point. You, Admiral, seem to have misplaced your Assistant."

The voice paused, possibly waiting for Grimthorn to start fuming, or ranting, or making empty threats.

Grimthorn remained silent.

"I hope you know, you're a very disappointing playmate," the voice said finally. "Very well. You've been a thorn in our side, Admiral, true to your name. Your Assistant doubly so. Both of you are making it very difficult to achieve our plans. So we're separating you two for the foreseeable future."

"Is she alive?" Grimthorn asked.

"Your Assistant is safe, and will remain so as long as you follow instructions. You do know how to follow instructions, yes?"

Grimthorn paused for a long time before he spoke again.

"What are your instructions?" he said.

"See? That's not so hard. Our instructions are very simple. You will move the Ninth Fleet to the Trao system and stay there. You don't have to do anything, just... stop interfering. Oh, and don't respond to anything Oryndrax-related."

"Anything else?"

"Naturally, you will not tell anyone of our conversation. And there may be some messages we want you to send to CenCom."

"Anything else?"

"No, that's sufficient for now. I must say, I'm very pleased with how well you're following instructions."

"Oh, I'm not going to follow them. I just want to know what they are so I can kick them so far up your backside that you'll vomit them for a month, along with what's left of your spine."

Grimthorn was able to take a small measure of satisfaction at the hiss of outrage, audible even through the distortion.

"Do you understand that I can torture and kill your Assistant at any point?"

"Do what you will with my Assistant. Your treason has already marked you as a dead man. Give yourself up, and your execution will be merciful."

"Very well, Admiral," the dark voice snarled. "Since you like playing silly games, play this game: 'Where in the galaxy is my Assistant's body?' You don't have her and we both know she's the brains of your pair. You could have simply ridden this out to an early retirement, but now you'll be destroyed. As will your Assistant."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Fools talk about what they're going to do. Men just do."

The line went dead.

Admiral Stonefist dropped his scanner on his desk with a clatter, and sat in his chair, trembling, his head sinking into his hands.

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Sehren Senn stormed around his apartment furiously. Even in defeat, the man was insufferable! Senn snarled. He wanted to hear Admiral Stonefist grovel, wanted to hear him beg, wanted to hear him break.

He'd hoped there was enough humanity left in the Admiral to care what happened to his Assistant, but that had been an overly optimistic desire.

Well no matter. Without his Assistant, the Admiral would fall back into his old patterns and foolishness. He would once again be led by his anger, and an angry man was easy to direct.

An angry man was easy to destroy.

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Kinnit woke, wincing. Every part of her body hurt. The area she was in was dark and quiet.

She tried to sit up, but her horns clonked on the ceiling. She rubbed her head. She crawled around, feeling out the boundaries of her cell.

It was an irregularly shaped space about five feet deep, twelve feet long, and only about three feet tall. She found the panel that had been sealed behind her. She spent some time kicking at it as hard as she could, but all she managed to do was hurt her legs and feet. It was solid steel, screwed firmly in place.

There were a few sound-absorbing panels stacked in here as well, but they were crumbly and old. Clearly they'd been stored here for a very long time.

She lay in the darkness, thinking for a moment. Grimthorn would be looking for her. But there had been so much jumping and changing of ships that it was unlikely they'd be able to find her soon.

Whoever had abducted her, if they were even a little bit smart, they'd know exactly who would be coming after them. And they'd cover their tracks accordingly.

Nobody was going to find her in time to save her.

"Princepa, salutara te ipsum," she muttered. "Princess, save yourself."

She lay in the dark, deep in thought.

She was on an Imperial Navy vessel. The weird little space she was in was common in Navy vessels, because of the way they were built.

Most common bays were prefabricated. Storage bays, for example, were commonly built in masses, rolling off of assembly lines by the hundreds. There was nothing special the Navy needed from a storage bay that a cruise ship didn't; they could use the same modular structures for any ship. So they did.

But because each ship was a little different, because they had to fit within the overall shape of the vessel, the modules didn't always fit together flush. It left each ship riddled with these tiny, oddly-shaped little pockets and gaps. Paneling covered the gaps, and made the walls look nice. If you knew where the gaps were though, you could store things in them. Or hide things.

Mostly contraband, in Kinnit's experience. Apparently you could also hide people.

She began crawling around her space again, feeling around, paying special attention to edges and corners.

These gaps were not designed to be sealed spaces. If she were lucky...

Her heart raced as she felt along the ceiling. Along the back, there was a tiny gap between the back wall and the ceiling, perhaps half an inch. This must be where the two modules didn't quite come together. Holding her breath, she felt along the gap, moving left. It widened slightly as she felt her way across.

She gasped as she reached the left wall. The gap between the ceiling and the left wall was the size of her fist.

It wouldn't have been easily visible to anybody that glanced in and decided to use it to store kidnappees.

With increasing excitement, she followed the gap toward the front of her area. The angled gap stopped there. It was nearly a foot wide where it met the front wall.

Maybe, maybe it would be just enough...

She lifted her head up and tried to fit it in the gap, but her horns got caught on the edge. Nearly whining with desperation, she shifted her body to a different angle and tried again.

Finally she found a way to fit her head in, horns and all. She had to lie on her stomach and arch her back in the low space, then keep her head tilted up. With careful wiggling, she was able to push herself further up into the gap, until she was up on her knees, her upper body squeezed into the tight space. She wriggled up higher until she was back on her feet.

It was too tight for comfort. She couldn't take a full breath, and she cursed every single Terran chocolate she'd ever eaten, but she fit. By pressing her knees against the wall in front of her and her tail and feet against the wall behind her, she could push up a little and lock herself in place. Inch by inch, she climbed up the gap.

She had no idea how far the gap went up. She didn't even know if there was an opening at the top. It could just dead-end. She had a horrifying vision of herself getting stuck in the tight space, but she pushed the thought away.

Shift, shift, push. Shift, shift, push.

Over and over again until her muscles screamed. But burning muscles were far better than the prison that lay below her.

It was impossible to know how long she shuffled upward in the gap, but at long last her head cleared the top of the module. There was a clearance of about 18 inches at the top. Though short, the area was vast, stretching out into the distance. Sounds echoed weirdly in the long, flat space. Little patches of light shone here and there in the darkness.

Kinnit pushed herself up out of the gap and lay still for a bit, recovering from her climb. After a brief rest, she rolled over. The gap up here wasn't tall enough for her to crawl normally, so she crawled on her belly, moving toward the nearest patch of light.

She arrived at the light and looked down. She was looking down through a vent cover into a large storage bay. She grinned, nearly intoxicated with relief. There was a twenty foot drop from the vent to the floor, so she crawled to another patch of light.

She spent a couple hours crawling around to different patches of light, figuring out the layout of the modules.

Then she began to develop a plan.

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Admiral Stonefist sat at his desk, staring unseeing at the stars in the portal. He sagged in every line of his frame.

The trace had been a dead end. Of course. There was no way of knowing where in the universe Kinnit's kidnapper was.

There was nothing different he could have done with the information he had at the time. He had to believe that.

His scanner beeped again.

"Admiral Stonefist, sir, there's another encrypted comm for you."

Fire and ice, fury and horror rushed into his spine.

"Put it through," he growled

He waited with dread for the channel to connect. Surely they would not-- could not-- put her on the line? He would not be able to handle listening to her being hurt.

He shook his head. Hard. He had to be harder. Harder than the conspirators, harder than the bugs, harder than everyone.

That's who Admiral Stonefist was.

The call connected.

"What do you want now, maggot?" he snarled.

"Admiral... Stonefist." A clicking, squeaky voice answered. "It... is... us."

Grimthorn went rigid. It wasn't the conspirator. It was the voice of a Cryptographer.

He'd never heard of them using voice comms before.

"I apologize," he said. "How can I help you?"

"Where... is... Fifth... Fleet?"

"Fifth Fleet? Monoe sector, I think. Are they in trouble?"

"Go... there. Find... your... Assistant."

"In the Fifth Fleet? What are you talking about? Hello? Hello?" But the call had disconnected.

What was that all about? It left him deeply unsettled.

But there were two things he knew as stone-cold facts.

One, the Cryptographers were never wrong.

Two, he had to save Kinnit.

He turned his scanner back on and contacted the bridge.

"Bridge, plot a course for Monoe sector. I'll be up there in five minutes."