Captain Denth scrabbled through his desk, hampered by the fabric of his thinsuit. There was still air on the Astral, but all reclaimation systems had been shut down.

Everything had been shut down.

The ISS Astral was cold and dead. Denth had lost track of how many ion shells had hit his vessel, but it was so like Grimthorn to overkill that way. It could not have possibly been anybody else behind the trigger.

In a very real sense, the Astral was now nothing more than a floating can. If the outage was extended, or rescue was delayed, the air would grow stale, and the heat would leach out of the vessel. SOP in this kind of circumstance was for everyone to suit up.

Probably everyone had. Denth didn't know. He didn't much care, either. He had no idea what was going on outside the ship. Either the mission had been a success, or it had been a failure, but since Admiral Stonefist had hammered his Astral, that meant that he knew where the fleet control signal had been coming from.

Which meant that, succeed or fail, Admiral Stonefist was going to show up on board with some sharp questions.

So now he was scrabbling through his desk, trying to find every scrap of incriminating incriminating so he could space them.

He'd like to see the Admiral trying to find a tiny pocket drive or a signal repeater floating around loose somewhere in space.

Of course, there were still probably a hundred other pieces of evidence on board the Astral that a relentless, nitpicking SS could find.

The best approach would have been to destroy all the evidence at once, but the Astral had been so thoroughly hammered that Denth couldn't even fire the ship's self-destruct sequence. Once he'd had a line on a working escape pod, he'd tried it. Three times.

So much for "easy mode."

If only he could have blasted that SS out of the sky in time! He'd give anything to wipe her out of existence.

He fished out the last of the pocket drives out of his desk and tossed them in a small box of drives on his desk.

That would have to do for now. He'd not been so foolish as to put any incriminating data on his console, or on any of his Navy systems.

He tucked the box under his arm, and got ready to head to the nearest airlock.

As he reached for his office door, a sound pressed itself on his consciousness. A heavy, rhythmic percussion that vibrated the deck plates.

Denth paled. Whatever this new sound meant, it did not bode well.

He squirreled the box away in his desk and peeked out of his office.

Three heavy Marines marched toward his office, their heavy footfalls striking the floor in unison.

Three more marched in from the other direction.

The were wrapped in medium-heavy exosuits. Flat plates of composite armor covered them, and powered limb extensions made them taller, longer, and more powerful.

The Marine in the lead grinned as he saw Denth's head poking out. He saluted sardonically.

"Captain Denth, a pleasure to find you," he said. "Sergeant Charr of the Third Division. How timely. Admiral Stonefist told us to greet you first."

Denth pulled the door shut, but without power he couldn't figure out how to lock it. He scrambled to his desk and yanked open the top drawer.

Sergeant Charr swept in with shocking speed. The exosuit looked clunky and slow, but on the body of an experienced Marine, it was lithe, graceful, and deadly fast.

Denth pulled a Karter pistol out of the drawer. Without hesitation, he put the barrel under his chin. Sergeant Charr swept past and yanked the gun out of his hand so fast that Denth squeezed his trigger finger before he realized his hand was empty.

"Tut-tut. The Admiral warned us you might be a gun-eater." Sergeant Charr laid a friendly exo-arm across Denth's shoulders. "I prefer crayons. They're much tastier."

The rest of the Marines filed into Denth's office, surrounding him.

"Wh-what are you going to do to me?"

"Captain Denth, you are hereby under arrest for treason against the Imperium, for conspiracy, and for murder."

"So the SS died, at least," Denth said, smiling mirthlessly.

Sergeant Charr's good humor drained away.

"You will be taken to the Cryptographers for questioning. And have no fear, my squad will be personally responsible for your safety."

Sergeant Charr gave Denth a feral grin.

"You will make it to your appointment."

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

Admiral Stonefist was busily overseeing the cleanup of the defense of Devaris. There were shockingly few casualties, especially given what had nearly happened.

A nasally voice droned out of the comms console at Admiral Stonefist. The face of the stationmaster filled the screen, with Dash Komad standing sheepishly behind him.

"And I don't understand why you Navy types felt like you needed to have your training exercise anywhere near a commercial sector," he said. "There are people planetside with delicate conditions. The sight of your combat vessels could have caused a serious medical incident."

"I understand your concerns," said Grimthorn. "It will not happen again. It was simply a training exercise that ended up in the wrong sector due to a novice navigator."

This was the simple lie he and Admiral Cora Din had quickly agreed on to keep a lid on how close the conspiracy had come to launching a catastrophic attack on a civilian planet.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Okay, but there's a lot of space out there. Go do your Navy business out by Navy bases. I'm confused why your fleet wouldn't just--"

"As I said, it will not happen again."

"Okay, but..."

Admiral Stonefist was not a fan of the word "fair." "Fair" was for games and skin. If you were in a "fair" fight, you'd already screwed up. "Fair" was a word losers used to guilt-trip winners.

That being the case, however, he did feel it was profoundly unfair that after having saved the Fifth Fleet, Admiral Cora Din still made him run PR for the incident.

"Stationmaster, I'm afraid I need to finish wrapping things up here so that I can clear our fleets out of your sector."

"Okay, but--"

Admiral Stonefist blipped off the comm. He took a deep breath. There would probably be consequences for that later. But there was something he desperately needed to do right now.

"You wonder why we bother, if that's the kind of thanks we get," Lieutenant Renning said.

Grimthorn looked up in surprise. Renning was not usually one to vent.

"We don't do this for thanks, Lieutenant. We don't do it for personal glory. We do it because it's right. Because the Imperium protects her citizens. Even the awful ones. Sometimes especially the awful ones. We trade Navy lives for civilian lives. That's the deal we made to live in space. That's the oath."

"Yes, sir," Renning mumbled. "It just doesn't seem right."

Grimthorn nodded. Now he really needed to go.

"I'm going to my office for a few minutes. Renning, you have charge of the bridge. Call me once you get word from the Marines."

"Yes, sir."

Admiral Stonefist stepped out of the captain's dais and walked swiftly to his office. He closed the door.

Once he was sealed off from the world, in his little private office, he could set Admiral Stonefist aside for a little bit.

He clutched his stomach and sank to his knees on the floor. His mouth opened soundlessly, tears streaming down his face.

"Kinnit..." he squeezed out past the pain locked in his chest.

Then the dam burst. He sobbed mightily, shamelessly, bleating his grief out into his tiny, empty office.

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

The Marines cleared the ISS Astral, stem to stern. Every person on board was arrested, pending an investigation. There were 85 people arrested. They had to be spread among dozens of vessels for imprisonment.

As acknowledgement that most of them were probably innocent, they were treated as gently as possible. As acknowledgement that the conspiracy was still active, each one had a Marine bodyguard.

Captain Denth was brought on board the ISS Swordheart. Admiral Stonefist wanted him under direct supervision and close guard until he was in the hands of the Cryptographers. He was guarded by Sergeant Charr's entire squad.

The prison cell, unbeknownst to Denth, was the same one occupied-- repeatedly-- by Kinnit. Denth paced the length of the cell. He had been silent since his arrest.

Say nothing. Forget you had a tongue. Forget you knew words. That was the only way.

But the Cryptographers scared the willies out of him. He'd heard stories. And he'd been around them.

He stalked back and forth in the cell, pondering.

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

Admiral Stonefist lay on the floor of his office. His weeping was used up, and he stared blankly at the wall. His thoughts wandered around aimlessly, a multitude of meandering details orbiting around his memories of Kinnit.

He had too many desks in his office now. Would he get a new Assistant? That was ridiculous. He would never see her happy smile again. Maybe he could commission a statue of her. Who would make coffee? His reports would be terrible. He had to fill out the paperwork for her death. And on, and on, and on his thoughts whirled, a thousand fireflies with no place to land.

His ceiling flashed. He didn't care. He didn't care about anything now.

"Sir," Lieutenant Renning's voice came over the speaker. "Report from Sergeant Charr. We have Captain Denth in custody and on board."

Grimthorn sat up slowly, his face taking on an ugly cast.

Well. There was something he cared about, after all.

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

Admiral Stonefist arrived at Denth's cell. The stasis shield separating them hummed. In the hallway outside, six Marines flanked the cell, still dressed in their exosuits.

Denth paused his pacing, looking at Grimthorn with concern.

"Open it," Grimthorn said.

The young tech looked conflicted.

"Um, sir? I don't think I'm supposed to--"

Admiral Stonefist flung a finger at him, and leveled a stare that could have bored through an asteroid.

"I'm not going to ask again."

"Y-yes, sir."

The stasis shield flickered and went out. Admiral Stonefist strode into the cell.

"Admiral, I have nothing to say. I want a lawyer before I say one word about this--"

Admiral Stonefist drove a heavy fist into the Captain's midsection, doubling him over and emptying his stomach on the floor of the cell. Grimthorn grabbed the hair on the back of his head and pulled his ear back to his lips.

"That's okay," Grimthorn said. "I'm not here for information."

Denth, his eyes white-rimmed with terror, looked into Admiral Stonefist's face and recognized the look of a man with a mind to do a murder.

Admiral Stonefist looked down at Denth. His sight was clouded with an image of Kinnit, and the bright smile that would never grace his presence again. And he drew his fist back, preparing to drive away the vision.

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

Kinnit watched with tears rimming her eyes as the ISS Swordheart vanished into the jumphole.

The sector was empty now except for herself, the black hole, and inevitability. She'd had to be strong for Grimthorn, so he could do what he needed to do.

But it was so lonely, here at the end. She didn't want to die alone.

She slammed her fists on the shuttle's small console. Fat tears splashed onto the glossy surface.

Why? Of all the ways she could have died. She could have been taken by starvation or predators before she'd ever even learned about the Imperium. What sense did it make for her to be taken to the stars, go through the Academy, and end up with someone as wonderful as Grimthorn, only for things to end like this?

It just wasn't fair. She'd worked so hard and done so much and it just wasn't fair.

She cried for a few minutes as the black hole drew her closer and closer to its crushing embrace.

She tried to think of how she wanted to go out. Something to say, something to do. But she'd already said what she wanted to say to Grimthorn. Anything else seemed either corny or meaningless.

She stood straight and saluted. There. That's how she wanted to go.

She took a final look around the interior of the utility torpedo shuttle.

"You were a good shuttle, Digger," she said aloud, with no trace of self-consciousness. "You did your very best. I'm sorry we got caught in a black hole."

She glanced fondly at the console. Two small lights caught her eye. Two small lights that weren't part of a standard shuttle display.

Part of her wanted to hold her salute, but curiosity got the best of her. She poked the lights and pulled up an informational display.

Her breath caught.

Two lines of text showed bright white on the dark console.

ROADBLDR-L DISARMED NEEDS EQUALIZ ROADBLDR-R DISARMED NEEDS EQULAIZ

Torpedo utility shuttle. Of course. Hope surged in her heart.

The little shuttle had two torpedo tubes. It didn't fire combat torpedos. It was Digger. It built roads.

The two torpedos were designed to open an unstable wormhole between them.

With gravitational stabilization, the wormhole would become a jumphole.

Her hands danced across the console, adjusting the settings. She quickly armed the torpedos. The display updated.

ROADBLDR-L ARMED NEEDS EQUALIZ ROADBLDR-R ARMED NEEDS EQULAIZ

She vented the torpedo tubes, emptying what little atmosphere was still inside them and exposing the torpedos to vacuum. The display flickered.

ROADBLDR-L ARMED READY TO FIRE ROADBLDR-R ARMED READY TO FIRE

She glanced at the gravity numbers from the sensor readings and ran some mental calculations. It had been a long time since she'd had to manually quantize jumphole stabilization parameters.

But then, she'd always been good at jumphole calculations.

She turned off the engines and spun the little shuttle around to face the deadly emptiness of the black hole. The collapsed star sucked greedily at her vessel, drawing her in faster and faster. She set the range on the torpedos.

"Digger, you're a good shuttle," she said with a grin. "Now build me a road."

And she fired the torpedos.