Chương 265: Volume 2 - Chapter 80 - Companion

Now, what happens when two ships that would very much prefer the other did not exist find themselves sharing the same stretch of Voidspace? Combat inside the Void is not simply real-space combat transposed onto a stranger backdrop. The core issue is this: A Repulsor-Field cannot be extended outward to shepherd an individual projectile or laser through Voidspace on its way toward a target.

A salvo fired with perfect real-space precision can curve back on the ship that fired it, disappear entirely, or arrive at its target from a completely different vector—or time—than intended. This is where Thread and Echo Astropaths earn their place on a warship's roster once more. A Thread Astropath can chart a path through local Voidspace in the moments before a firing solution is committed to—finding the clear line through which a salvo can travel predictably.

An Echo reinforces that path, holds it stable long enough for the shot to get through cleanly. Veil Astropaths exist in direct opposition to this, their job being to disrupt the Thread's chart and the Echo's reinforcement, forcing the enemy's firing solutions back into pure guesswork. When the Astropaths on either side run dry—and they will —the calculation changes once more.

The standard doctrine at that point is to fire small, controlled salvos you know your own hull can absorb if they loop back, watch them carefully, track where they go and whether the path looks clear, then commit the real salvo. And then pray to the Emperor, that the Void has not rearranged itself in the intervening moments. Naturally, most Captains, given the choice, prefer not to leave things to prayer. Which is precisely why boarding remains the dominant tactical preference for Void combat.

Larger boarding craft carry Repulsor-Fields, and moving a vessel through Voidspace toward another keeps everything inside the field's protection for the duration. It is worth noting, however, that ramming is not universally advisable—smaller vessels and anything not built with structural reinforcement as a primary consideration will not survive the impact intact.

That said, the vast majority of dedicated UHF attack ships and battleships are designed around the explicit assumption that ramming and breaching are strategic assets, to be pursued deliberately and with intent. This brings us to the two largest fixed pieces on the board: Gates and Phalanx Fortresses. If Voidlanes are the roads, Gates are the cities. They are fixed points in real space, artificially constructed through the combined effort of researchers, engineers, technicians, and Astropaths of every type.

At their core, a Gate is a massive beacon fitted with an artificial gravity well—strong enough to reach into Voidspace itself and pull any vessel traveling through it back out into real space, providing a guaranteed exit point for ships that would otherwise have to navigate their own extraction. The Voidlane connecting two Gates—referred to as a Gateway—becomes, over time, something qualitatively and quantitatively different from a standard Voidlane.

Permanent rotations of Echo and Beacon Astropaths reinforce and widen the path continuously, around the clock, indefinitely. A Gateway active for several decades is not a charted mudpath through Voidspace anymore—it is a highway, stable enough for full fleet movements and continuous resupply chains at a scale no naturally charted Voidlane could ever support.

Every Faction treats its frontline Gates as among the most important structures it possesses, and enemy Gates as among the most valuable targets it could pursue. The primary danger to a Gate, thusly, is not enemy fleets—they generally want to capture Gates, not destroy them. The genuine threat comes from within the Void itself, in the form of Titanicus-class Entities attracted by the Gate's constant activity.

They are rare, but not impossibly so, which is why every major Gateway connected to a critical frontline is staffed by at least one Knight or Runepriest at all times, for deterrence. The final piece of this Void-picture is the Phalanx Fortress. Where a Gate is a city, a Phalanx Fortress is something closer to a small continent that has decided to become a weapon.

They are the largest mobile structures ever constructed by any Faction in the Galactic War—supermassive stations built over decades, with hundreds of millions of personnel working their construction using the most advanced production capabilities available, and still requiring decades to near completion. Their purpose, however, is elegant in its simplicity: Interdiction. A Phalanx Fortress moved into a location creates a gravity well that outcompetes any natural well in the vicinity.

Stars, planetary clusters, black holes—all of them become secondary navigation targets the moment a Fortress is present. Any vessel attempting a Voidjump in the area finds itself pulled out early and deposited directly into the Fortress's engagement range, which spans further than any ship could accomplish by several orders of magnitude. If one of them ever enters your system, the calculus is straightforward: If it is friendly, you are safer than you have ever been.

If it is not, there is nothing in your system that changes what happens next. The only variable is how long that "next" takes—which for the Phalanx Fortress' Helios Annihilation Array is exactly three minutes at best, no matter where it sits within the system… — [Shortened Excerpt from Chapter 4 of "Between Stars and Silence," Dr. Aethon Varri, Chair of Voidspace Studies, UHF Orion Prime University, PFC 801] The next day—or rather, the next half-day and three months in felt-time—went by quickly for Thea.

It had started with her wanting to figure out how to address the whole Karania situation, but that got put on immediate hold the moment she realized Karania was nowhere to be found—she'd already gone and entered another Skill Training earlier that morning. It was something the two of them had briefly talked about before, but Thea had pushed it to the back of her mind somewhere between the Grand Assembly, the whole Challenge preparation mayhem and Karania's strange behavior during the last session.'

She'll probably be gone the whole day…' she'd thought as she woke up, wondering how long it had already been for Karania on the inside.' Doing Advanced courses is really going to be a whole thing, huh?' Not a big concern, though—she had her own Skill Trainings to get through, after all. This time using one of her vouchers, so she could hold onto her Credits for other potential expenses.' Like more Peria-time… But probably only after I've knocked out at least some of the weapon-specific Skill Classes first.'

The [Basic Physics] course had already filled in a lot of gaps when it came to the things Peria had walked her through about the Gram, but she was still very much lacking in the broader knowledge base needed to truly follow along with what the clerk was saying beyond a mere surface level. So that day, she'd decided to work on the next Skill on her list: [Basic Chemistry].

With the Runepriest's words still reasonably fresh in her mind—that Veritas, as an Inheritance, relied heavily on understanding exactly how everything in the universe worked at a fundamental level—the natural sciences were the obvious place to focus for now. [Basic Mathematics] was going to be next after that, which, despite what the name implied, didn't actually cover basic mathematics.

It covered quite advanced levels—several steps above what the general two-year education program aboard the HQ Station leading up to her Integration had ever touched on. The foundational math required for both [Basic Physics] and [Basic Chemistry] was folded into their respective courses, with the focus kept on the actual physics and chemistry side of things, but [Basic Mathematics] itself was going to be a different beast entirely, she knew just by looking at the curriculum.

The three months inside the time-dilated university compound during the [Basic Chemistry] Skill Training, however, went by in much the same way as the last course, except that Thea had finally managed to get a bit of a grip on the whole student-life thing.

By the last month of the training, she'd gotten to the point where she'd be left over with just enough energy and mental capacity to not only pay a bit closer attention to what the other Marines around her were doing, but even talk to a few of them here and there.' Just small talk about the Skill Training itself, sure… But I'm absolutely counting that as a massive win anyway!'

Corvus had agreed when she'd mentioned it to him, and had very much encouraged her to keep at it—the time dilation inside the Skill Training being, in his words, a massive benefit for speeding through a lot of the social development she'd missed out on growing up. Thea had no argument with that. The rest of the day had been spent the same way most of her recent days had: Inside the arcade aboard the Sovereign, holed up with Lucas in Wildmaws, grinding away at his Challenge prep.

This time around, they hadn't brought anyone extra. Just the two of them and the Sovereign's considerable AI resources, which they made use of with complete and total abandon. They'd long since moved past the one-versus-one portion of the prep, only pulling out a few spars against Thea's rendition of Masters' build and playstyle to warm up or to bridge a gap when something needed demonstrating.

The main focus now was on the larger-scale aspects of the Challenge that Evelyne had flagged—specifically: Trying to build Lucas a more comprehensive understanding of the ebb and flow of battle. Which was, as it turned out, an incredibly difficult thing to teach.' It's just ingrained in me at this point…' she'd caught herself thinking more than once.' How do you even explain something that just feels natural to you…? Like explaining how to speak or run…'

Her current approach was to throw Lucas into as many varied and challenging situations as she could come up with and let him find his footing through sheer repetition.

It was, after all, exactly how she'd developed that sense herself—hurling herself at in-game challenges, large-scale PvP fights, dungeons and raids over and over until the positioning and the rhythm of a fight had stopped being something she thought about and started being something she simply felt and reacted to on instinct alone.' Might have to ask Isabella about this… She'd probably have some actual, actionable advice.'

Unfortunately, Isabella had been fairly reclusive since finishing her first Skill Training—something Corvus had mentioned was likely to happen to some of them every once in a while. Something about the time dilation inside the courses causing a sort of social-disconnect, and needing time to re-adjust after it was over.' That's probably what Major Quinn was talking about when she handed those passes to Kara and me… I wonder why we're seemingly unaffected…?

Though, then again, Kara has been behaving strangely since that last session with Evelyne. So maybe she's not as unaffected as she first looked…? Should I be informing Major Quinn about that? She told Kara to look after me, but who's looking after Kara…?' It was a deeply troubling thought, and one that had surfaced more than a few times over the past months inside the time-dilated Skill Training, without ever quite resolving itself.

Her best attempt at addressing it had been to bring it up to Corvus, who had simply chuckled and told her Kara would be fine and not to worry too much about it. He'd added that the Sovereign, if nothing else, would be keeping a close eye on Karania regardless—given that she was part of Alpha Squad, the UHF had every reason to make sure one of their most promising Recruits didn't have some kind of mental break over a wholly avoidable issue.

He'd also be checking in with Karania as early as he could, to check up on whatever might have gone down with Evelyne. That whole portion of her retelling had visibly surprised him more than anything else, so Thea had no doubt that he was actually going to take it seriously. It hadn't exactly put her at ease, but there wasn't much she could actually do about it right now, and she had more than enough things to worry about on her own end.' Like Tiberius' Challenge, for one…

I don't think he'll beat me in general terms, but the Challenges are only a vertical slice of what we can do. If the wrong parameters show up—or the right ones, from his perspective—I could very much lose if I'm not taking this at least as seriously as he is...' Which was why, on the day after her [Basic Chemistry] Skill Training and the renewed Challenge prep session with Lucas in Wildmaws, she was heading to the Digital Mission Deck once more.

Karania was likely to be finishing her Advanced Skill Training sometime in the next few hours, but given that she'd have been inside for around six months in felt-time, Thea figured she could at least give her a little while before effectively ambushing her best friend about what the actual fuck was going on between her and Evelyne.' And I really don't want to lose my number one spot on the public leaderboards the moment they go live, just because I got lazy with DMs…' she added quietly, to herself.

That, more than the Tiberius prep, was the real reason she was signing up for another one today. The public leaderboards were going live by midnight—three days after Major Quinn's announcement at the Grand Assembly—which made this the last chance to put a few extra points on the board and make absolutely sure her spot couldn't be taken the moment it became available to contest. Losing it here and there was fine, of course. That happened in any competitive environment, and Thea knew that better than most.

But losing it on the very first day the leaderboards went live? That was a big fucking no-no. That was how she found herself in front of the Digital Mission board, browsing the large datascreen in front of her for suitable missions. [Shazien Prime Assault] (Grade 0) Type: Assault Duration: 8h Respawns: 0 Completion Reward: 135 System Credits Condition: Rainstorm Special Condition: None Short-Briefing: Assault an entrenched Stellar Republic position on Shazien Prime.

Expect strong resistance, and massive terrain penalties due to slick ground, debilitating mud and limited visibility from the raging storm. [Vestula Veronas Defense] (Grade 0) Type: Hold The Line Duration: 7h 15m Respawns: 0 Completion Reward: 150 System Credits Condition: None Special Condition: Infiltrator Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Short-Briefing: Defend a Forward Operating Base under siege from Stellar Republic forces until reinforcements arrive.

Wave-based enemy behavior expected. [Malthezar Oranis Assault] (Grade 0) Type: Point Assault Duration: 7h 45m Respawns: 1 Completion Reward: 130 System Credits Condition: Snowy Special Condition: None Short-Briefing: Push deep into Stellar Republic lines to capture and hold two separate, strategic points. Stealth is advised, but open combat will be unavoidable once points are captured. Expect mountainous terrain and limited visibility.

"Hmm," Thea muttered, eyeing the three options on the datascreen.

"I really don't want to deal with an Infiltrator right now—I'm mostly here to farm points…" She'd been hoping for another straightforward Hold-The-Line. It suited her playstyle for point-farming better than almost anything else, same as the first DM had proven. But with the very real possibility of another upscale—and no intention of leaving the Crysium medal behind—she had absolutely no interest in rolling the dice on an upscaled Infiltrator mission.'

Chances are too high that something stupid happens and I die early… I need to make the most of this last DM before the leaderboards go live.' The Shazien Prime mission had its own problem in the form of the Rainstorm condition, which would heavily cut into her sniping potential. So that one was essentially a no-go as well. Which, really, left only Malthezar Oranis.' Not what I would've picked if I actually had a say in the matter…

But at least there are no detrimental modifiers on it and I've got a Respawn in case I somehow mess up early. Just have to hope another Medal-wielder shows up to trigger the upscale, so I can farm enough points to hold the number one spot…' Non-decision made, she locked in the [Malthezar Oranis Assault] (Grade 0) and confirmed that she'd be bringing in and displaying her Crysium Two-Star Medal once more. A soft chime from the terminal—and then everything went dark…

Inside the pre-locker blank space, Thea put her loadout together. It was the usual: Laser Gram, Spectre Armour, Icicle sidearm, Throatcutter Glaive. She added the Gauss-variant of the Gram on top of that, given that stealth had been flagged as a viable approach and, between her conversations with Peria and her own testing, the Gauss-variant was the quietest of the three she had access to. A quick check confirmed her backpack had ammunition for both weapon types. She took a breath and ran through it mentally.'

Alright. You've made real progress with this whole social thing lately, and they're all peers—squad leaders aside. Keep the medal hidden until it's worth pulling out to lock in the squad position you want, make some small talk, farm a bunch of points. It should be easy…' She nodded to herself. That all tracked.' Listen to what they're saying and connect it back to your own experiences,' she reminded herself, pulling up the GalNet article on "Basics of Social Interaction" she'd found a while back.

It had genuinely helped during the last Skill Training, so the advice seemed solid enough—even if Corvus had given her that look when she'd mentioned it. The one he always seemed to have ready for these kinds of conversations.' Not like anyone else is exactly lining up to help me with this stuff… What the fuck else am I supposed to do but look it up on the GalNet, huh, Corvus? Smug bastard isn't much help himself now, is he...'

She huffed, took a slow breath, and pushed open the door from the prep room into the locker room… PoV: Corporal Drim Litec Loading into another DM's locker room—the third this week alone—Drim prepared himself for the inevitable attention he was about to draw. He always did, whether he wanted to or not. As the locker room materialized around him and the first of his fellow Marines came into view, the usual sequence played out: They saw him, no reaction.

Then their eyes moved about thirty centimeters lower and to his left, stopped, and went wide. Duke had that effect on people, hardened Marines included. It was probably down to two reasons, though Drim had never really bothered to chase down a clear answer on either front. The first was that Companion-Classes were seemingly quite rare within the Allbright System's Class framework.

Maybe one for every fifty to a hundred other Classes—roughly on the same level as very niche Research Classes, like Soularionicists—and that was just for the Class showing up in the first place, not accounting for whether anyone actually chose it. Seeing someone walk in with a Companion wasn't something even experienced Marines came across often. The second reason followed directly from the first, of course. Companions weren't simple animals. They were Allbright System -enhanced Companions.

Where they had once been nothing but regular members of their species, sharing a portion of the Soul with their owner had made them into something more than they'd been before. And that "more" definitely showed. Duke had never exactly been a small specimen of his breed, let alone his species as a whole. But what the Allbright System had done to him as part of the Integration procedure that came with his Silverfang Class had genuinely elevated him into something that made even Integrated Marines stop and stare.

"Let's go, boy," Drim muttered quietly, letting his fingers run through the thick—yet surprisingly soft—silver-gray and white fur of Duke's head to guide him along. Not that Duke needed it, of course, but it was a hard habit to break after more than a decade of doing it. Integration hadn't changed that part and if Drim had anything to say about it, it never would.

Duke, ever the stoic and regal presence—when he wasn't busy chasing his own tail or goofing off—followed Drim's lead as the two of them moved further into the locker room. They found a spot to call their own without much trouble, early enough in this DM apparently that the place wasn't crowded at all yet. He sat down, one hand moving absently through Duke's fur as the giant wolf settled in beside him—even lying down lazily as he was now, the Companion's head still reached up to around Drim's shoulder.

He took the quiet moment to sweep his gaze across the Marines already inside, letting his Perception run over all of them to search for any worth teaming up with in this coming DM. The locker room wasn't even close to full yet. Two hundred Marines total for this one—two standard-sized Companies—and with barely forty inside so far, Drim had plenty of time. That was the real advantage of showing up early as a Squad Leader: First pick. First impressions.

First conversations, before anyone else had the chance to make them. He let his Perception do the initial work, sweeping methodically from one end of the room to the other. Most of them he dismissed quickly. A Point Assault run was a surgical thing, not a brawl, and the Marines standing around in heavy plating with two-handed weapons and the particular kind of confident stance that came from being used to taking hits weren't what he was building toward today. Good Marines, probably. Wrong Marines for his squad.

He was looking for something more specific. The tells were subtle if you didn't know what to look for, but Drim had been doing this long enough that they stood out clearly enough. The way someone stood—weight distributed, not planted. The kind of gear that prioritized mobility and low profile over raw protection. Eyes that moved around the room the way his own did, cataloguing rather than simply looking.

The ones who'd already identified the exits, the ones whose attention snagged briefly on Duke before sliding away without making a major show of it. That last one was its own kind of filter, honestly. The first Marine that caught his attention properly was sitting alone near the far end of the row, light armour, no visible heavy weapons, and a posture that was just a little too relaxed to be genuine—the practiced kind of stillness that came from training yourself not to fidget, rather than the natural kind.'

Scout or Infiltrator, most likely… Possibly both.' Drim filed him away and kept looking. The second was a woman near the entrance, mid-conversation with someone else, which he noted approvingly. Social ease in a pre-mission locker room was a small thing, but it mattered—someone who could talk to strangers quickly was someone who could likely also coordinate under pressure without freezing up.

Her loadout wasn't as light as the first guy's, but still fast-looking, with what appeared to be a short-range suppressed sidearm visible at her hip alongside something longer across her back. She moved her hands when she talked, but her eyes kept drifting around the room. Still scanning everything, even mid-conversation. He liked that—a lot.

The third took him a little longer to pin down, because at first glance the Marine read as a straightforward Heavy—broad build, reinforced plating across the shoulders and chest. But the boots were wrong for a standard Heavy. Low-profile soles, matte finish, no magnetic clamps visible. And the way he was sitting, turned slightly away from the main cluster of people nearby, suggested someone who defaulted to awareness over presence. A Heavy who'd been built or had built himself around not being seen first.

That was exactly the kind of Heavy Drim wanted for this—and they were rare.' No time to waste.' He gave Duke a quiet pat on the side of the neck—more of an acknowledgement than anything else—and pushed himself to his feet. The solo Marine at the far end first. Catch people before they started forming their own clusters and it became a negotiation instead of an offer.

"Mind if I sit?" he asked, keeping his voice easy and his body language loose as Duke settled smoothly into position at his left side. The Marine's eyes did the expected thing—Drim, then Duke, then back to Drim—before he gave a short nod. They talked for a few minutes. Nothing committal yet, just enough to get a read.

The Marine's name was Seltz, and within about ninety seconds it was clear he was exactly what his posture had advertised: Scout-primary, decent awareness, the kind of quiet confidence that didn't need to announce itself. He asked one good question about the mission parameters and one good question about Duke, in that order, which Drim took as a reasonable sign of priorities. He didn't make the offer yet.

Just kept the conversation warm and moved on when it reached a natural pause, making a mental note to circle back before the squad-lock window opened. The woman near the entrance was next. Her name was Ash, and she was, as it turned out, more interesting than her loadout had suggested—which was already saying something. Two minutes in, Drim had mentally pencilled her into his roster and was actively trying not to make that too obvious. The Heavy came last, Vytalis was his name.

He got signed onto the squad immediately as the first member alongside Drim himself. There were a handful of other faces worth a closer look still scattered around the room, but more Marines were filtering in through the entry point every few moments now. The numbers were climbing rather rapidly. So Drim worked the room methodically, unhurried, Duke padding alongside him with the quiet dignity of something that had long since decided it was above reacting to being stared at—which also cleared him a very easy path.

The shape of the squad he wanted was already forming cleanly in his head, and the locker room still had a long way to go before it hit capacity. He still had plenty of time to build it right—"Whoa, that's a huge dog!" His train of thought cut off clean.

His eyes snapped back from the far end of the locker room to what was directly in front of him, genuinely surprised to find that someone had just walked straight into his and Duke's path—that almost never happened unless the other person hadn't been paying attention at all. His gaze landed on a fairly small Marine in a suit of T1 Light Armour he recognized immediately.' Spectre, huh? Good choice,' he thought, with a small internal nod.

Then his eyes met hers, and he flinched—involuntarily, like something had flicked him hard between the eyes.' A Cyan…?! What the fuck… Talk about rarities running into each other.' If Companion-Classes were rare, Cyans inside the UHF Marine Corps were rarer still. He'd heard the newest Recruitment Drive had pulled from Mid-Worlds, so that might change eventually—assuming they could clear the Cube Trial, which was its own significant if.

He gestured toward Duke, giving the girl the opening to get the "big dog" moment out of her system. She didn't move. She just looked at him.

"Ehhh… Yeah, he is," Drim said, filling the silence.

"Name's Duke. I'm Drim. He doesn't bite, so feel free to pet him or whatever."

"Oh, awesome, thanks!" she replied, stepping up to Duke and starting to gently run her hand through his fur. And then nothing. No introduction. No follow-up. Just silence, stretching out for a full minute while she petted his dog like that was a completely normal way to interact with a stranger. Drim decided he'd given it enough time.

"I gotta get back to it—nice to meet you," he started, and then stopped, because she had simply stood back up and fallen into step beside him.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"W—What? What do you mean, ' we'?" Drim said, irritation starting to creep in.

"I'm joining your squad," she announced, like it was a settled matter.

"Whenever you get around to filling it up, I mean. I like the dog, so I'm going to be part of it. I want to see what a Companion Class looks like up close." Drim stared at her. Duke, beside him, also stared at her.

"You don't actually get to decide you're joining my squad," he said carefully, with the distinct feeling that something was genuinely off about this girl.

"That's not how this works. You know that, right?"

"Yep."

"But you're saying you're joining it anyway?"

"Yep."

"And that's because…?"

"Because I'm the best option in here—well, not necessarily, but statistically speaking it's unlikely there's a better one available. And you don't strike me as someone who lets good options walk past when they're free to take." She paused.

"That's all, really." They both continued to stare at her. She took that as an apparent invitation to reach all the way up—Duke having fully gotten up now and towering over her—and scratch the wolf's large ears again, a small, easy smile on her face.' Something is seriously wrong with this girl… Can I flag her for a psych review with one of the AIs or something? She definitely needs professional help...' He sighed and decided to simply ignore her for now, continuing on his way. Then she kept talking.

"I've always liked dogs. They're so fluffy and kind…" she said, with a wistful edge to her voice.

"Always been a shame when we had to hunt them." Drim and Duke both turned their heads toward her at the exact same time with empty stares.

"If we'd had a large one like this, it probably could've fed a lot of people, you know?" she continued, eyes drifting over Duke with a look that was just a little too evaluating for comfort.

"Though bringing one down this size… that would've been tough." She was studying his Companion the way someone studied a problem they were trying to solve. Specifically, the problem of how to most efficiently kill and eat him, if her words were anything to go by. Drim was so thoroughly thrown by the whole thing that he couldn't even land on being angry about it. It was just— bizarre. Completely, genuinely bizarre, in a way that short-circuited his normal reactions entirely.

"Never seen one this big before," she added, casual as anything, as if the previous several seconds of conversation hadn't happened at all.

"Is that the Companion Class thing, or was he always just like that?"

"It's the Class," Drim said flatly.

"And don't even think about it."

"I wasn't going to," she said, which somehow made it worse, because he genuinely couldn't tell if that was true or not.

"Right..." He turned back to the room, resuming his sweep.

"You should go find your own squad or whatever…"

"I told you, I'm joining yours."

"And I told you, you're not."

"You didn't actually say that."

"Well I'm saying it now, so leave."

"Nah, still joining yours." Drim stopped walking. He turned to look at her fully, which Duke mirrored with the kind of slow, deliberate head-turn that suggested even the wolf was reconsidering his opinions on people as a whole." Listen," Drim started, keeping his voice level with some effort.

"I don't know what kind of upbringing leads to a person talking about eating someone's Companion like it's just normal conversation, but—""It was quite the normal conversation where I'm from, yes," she said simply, nodding to herself with a look that said " I did very well", which… Drim had no real recourse for.

"That's—" He stopped. Started again.

"Duke is not food. Duke is my Companion and a fellow Marine, and I'd recommend you stop looking at him like he's a problem you're trying to solve." She glanced at Duke. Then back at Drim with her eyebrows creasing together.

"I said I liked him, didn't I…?"

"You said it was a shame you couldn't hunt him!"

"I said it was a shame we had to hunt dogs in general. He specifically seems like he'd be more useful alive." She tilted her head slightly.

"I thought that was a compliment." Drim opened his mouth. Closed it. The anger and the confusion had started blurring together into something he didn't have a clean label for.

"Go. Find. Another. Squad," he said, spacing the words out carefully.

"I really think—""I am not having this conversation anymore," he said, turning away.

"Good luck out there." There was a brief pause behind him—just long enough that he thought, for one merciful second, that she might actually be leaving. Then he caught the movement in his peripheral vision. Not her walking away. Her reaching up and pulling back the front of her Spectre's cloak. The blue-ish glow hit him before he'd even fully turned around.

A Crysium Two-Star Medal, sitting square on her chest, catching the light of the locker room with the particular quiet confidence of something that didn't need to announce itself. Drim stared at it. Several seconds passed. He closed his eyes. Several more seconds passed. He let out a long, slow breath through his nose that had a lot of things packed into it. She had clocked him exactly right.

He'd told himself, before he'd even properly started building the roster, that stealth and scouting capability were the backbone he was building around—and standing in front of him was a Two-Star Crysium Marine in a Spectre suit with what he was fairly certain was a Gauss-type rifle across her back, who had apparently decided she was joining his squad through sheer force of certainty. There was no world in which he could possibly turn that down. No version of this where that call made any tactical sense.

She was exactly what he'd been looking for, wrapped in the single most baffling personality he'd encountered in his entire career.

"... Fine," he said, after a moment.

"You're in."

"I know," she said pleasantly. He looked down at Duke, who was already looking back up at him with the expression of a creature that had witnessed everything and had chosen, wisely, to remain neutral.

"Sorry, boy," Drim muttered quietly, giving him a slow pat on the head.

"I tried…"