“Best way to kill a lancer is to make sure they never see you.”

—Legendary assassin Gil Donta, in his interview with CID after being arrested

Eva immediately set her cup down and darted about, gathering chunks of metal and placing them in the separate chambers of the lit forge to be melted down. She then went to the computer and began furiously typing.

Garrick turned away and walked toward a nearby table. “I’ll get your TAC-suit ready.”

He hunched over and touched a small monitor—then, with a hum, a row of machinery lining the nearest wall hummed to life, and slender robotic arms extended from the walls. Garrick fussed with the monitor for a few more moments before walking over to the wall and grabbing a roll of dark blue TAC material and chambering it inside a large feeding machine embedded into the wall. That machine unspooled the fabric, and the robot arms reached out and grabbed it, twisting and folding the odd, extremely thin material.

Garrick sauntered back over. “Once that’s ready, we’ll just have to fuse the layers. That’ll be quick. Then we can see how it fits. Sometimes it glitches out and doesn’t use the right measurements, but I think we got it ironed out—just a warning in case we have to do it again.”

Zaina shrugged. “You act like I’m in a hurry.”

“Oh, you’re not? Thank the heavens,” Garrick said. “Okay, well, it might take us a little bit to get everything right, but we’ll make sure we do. You’ll have top-grade lancer armor. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the gamba.”

“Hey,” Eva said, butting in again. “What color do you want it?”

“Huh?” Zaina asked. “I get to choose the color?”

“With this blend, you do,” Eva said. “Gray’s too boring. This is the first piece of my design that’s going out there in the galaxy, so it has to be special. Come on, what color?”

Zaina thought for a moment. Her favorite color—the one she missed the most from her home—was the green of the trees, the grass, and even the swampland near her home.

“Green,” she said.

Eva’s eye narrowed. “Green? Are you sure? You’ll stick out like a sore thumb if you’re in a desert. Or tundra.”

“Well, what color were you expecting me to say?”

Eva shrugged. “I don’t know—yeah, okay, green it is. What kind of green, now?”

“Huh?”

“Well, do you want neon green, bright green, dark green—”

Zaina knew the answer. “The color of the forest.”

Eva smiled. “Yeah, I think I gotcha. All right. Give me a little bit, now. The pot’s full of gamba if you want a refill.”

Zaina nodded. “Thank you. You’ve been too kind to me.”

Garrick crossed his arms. “It’s our duty to make sure all lancers who come into our forge are properly equipped. This forge has been lit for ten thousand years—the weight of that legacy is not lost on us. We won’t steer you wrong.”

Zaina smiled. Maybe there were some nice people in the Order of Riiva after all—but definitely no normal ones.

Garrick fussed over the TAC-suit for another hour before it was ready to try on. She went behind a wall to change. To her delight, the material was soft and warm and fit her body perfectly—only her hands and above the upper neck weren’t covered. It was dark blue and incredibly light. If she closed her eyes, it felt like she was wearing nothing. When she stepped back out, Garrick clapped.

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“Looks like the machine did its job right! Would you look at that. Now, you can wear clothes under that, if you like, but they have to be pretty thin. It’s more of a comfort thing than anything else, so try a few things out and see how you like it. Personally, I like it—for fabric engineered for defensive engagements, it’s fairly soft. Plus, there’s actually an advantage to wearing no layers underneath—your armor’s environmental systems will work better, since they filter into the TAC-suit anyway. I did still wear underwear, though, not that you needed to know. Uh—”

“Garrick!” Eva called out. “I’m at the part where I need an extra pair of hands, here!”

Without hesitation, he dashed over and started pulling the heavy castings down from the wall and putting them on tables near the forge. Eva pulled trays of melted metal from the forge and measured them into the different castings, filling them as he brought them. Their silent teamwork was a sight to behold.

“Okay,” Eva said, turning to Garrick once the molds were poured. “Get the hyper-glass ready.”

Zaina chirped in, “Hyper-glass? Why do I need hyper-glass in my armor?”

Eva zipped over. “Hyper-glass is highly refractive material—a segmented layer of it in your armor will help stave off focus beams. A direct hit from a high-powered focus is still probably going to kill you, but without the hyper-glass, you’d have a hole in your chest for sure.”

“Focus beam?”

Garrick chimed in to answer this one. “They’re not the most common weapon in the galaxy—you might know them by photon rifles or another moniker.”

Eva poked her head out from behind a tall, spindly machine and said, “Hasn’t your mentor gone over this with you?”

“No,” Zaina replied. “I think she hates me.”

“Oh shit, that sucks. Well,” Eva said, “focus rifles are guns that fire intense, directed beams of light, which we call a focus beam. Ninety-nine percent of things get melted through by a high-powered focus. They’re not used often because it takes some skill, and they require a lot more maintenance than your average scrap rifle or phase cycler. And if you skimp out on maintenance—boom!”

Garrick added, “Some of the most feared mercenaries in the Nova Rim use focus rifles—if used properly, there’s not a deadlier sniping weapon that’s ever existed.”

“Not a one,” Eva said with a nod. “Why, the beam’s so fast you can’t even see it—sniper pulls the trigger, and crack! Insta-death. No curve, no sound—no time.”

“Exactly why this reflective layer’s so important,” Garrick said. “It’ll help with indirect hits. Not sure how much good any armor will do against a direct hit, though, so be careful out there.”

Zaina frowned. “Well, how the hell am I supposed to defend against that if it’ll melt through my armor?”

Eva and Garrick looked at each other again, then turned back to Zaina. Garrick said, “Light tends to scatter, so if they’re trying to hit you from a long distance, they’ll have to use special glyphs to keep their beam from refracting into nothing. Those’ll be what you see first.”

“They’ll be tiny little buggers with a ring encasing specially tampered glass—it’s like the opposite of hyper-glass,” Eva replied. “If you pick up a glyph you don’t know on your scanner, pay attention. Get a visual on it to confirm it doesn’t have a refraction ring, and then you’re in the clear. If it does have a refractor, get out of its line of sight fast or get your hex shield up.”

“Right,” Garrick said. He opened his mouth to continue, but Eva had already darted away and was calling after him.

“On to the next step! Come on, it’s hot enough!”

Garrick immediately turned and followed her back to the castings. The metal was bright, shining red. One by one, Garrick placed the castings on top of the small cylinder near the forge; Eva, sitting at a nearby monitor, controlled the massive rack of robotic arms, pulling the castings off and hammering the metal into perfect shape. Whenever a piece was finished, one of the arms picked it up and placed it into one of a series of vats filled with red liquid.

Once the arms dropped the last piece into the liquid, Eva walked back over with Garrick following closely behind.

“All right,” Eva said. “The casting is done, and now we’re on to the last four steps. I know it doesn’t look like much now, but once its assembled it’ll be a beauty. With how much it still has to cool, it won’t be ready until tomorrow—we can drop by and give it to you once it’s finished. I doubt we’ll be busy, we’re up to date with all our orders.”

Zaina smiled. “Thank you. I’d appreciate that. Maybe you could also show me how to make sense of the gamba machine.”

Eva’s eyes brightened up. “Of course! I’ll show you a few tips and tricks, too. Now—I’ll keep an eye on the forge, here, and Garrick will arrange for your transport home. Make sure you scan her beacon so we can find her tomorrow.”

“Right. I will.” Garrick turned to Zaina. “May I see your beacon?”

Zaina fumbled pulling it out of her utility belt and nearly dropped it, but managed to catch it. She held it out, and he held out his. They both beeped at the same time.

“What’s that mean?” she asked.

“For the next twenty-four hours, I’ll be able to track your beacon,” Garrick replied. “That way we can locate you tomorrow. Thank you for your cooperation, Zaina Quin. Your transport will be here shortly, and we’ll see you tomorrow with your brand-new lancer armor.”

Zaina smiled. “No, thank you for all your hard work.”

Garrick returned the smile. “It’s what we do.”

With that, Zaina turned and left the forge; true to Garrick’s word, a rusty old transport arrived shortly and took her back to the hut she now called home. Starlight was almost fading. Zaina happily noticed that her mentor was nowhere to be found; she was all alone on her little slice of Kaado. There was enough time to get a little magick practice in before the day’s end.