Sergeant Marchioness grunted as the shuttle’s magnetic clamps docked with the Grace and Wonder, reverberations sounding throughout the small craft. Captain Ashley hadn’t showed for the Ship’s Captains meeting. He wasn’t being court-marshalled, and he had a service record indicative of perfect obedience to lawful orders. He also had never been late for an official gathering in his entire career, and now he was not only late, but ignoring calls.

  She couldn’t keep it inside any longer and started talking to herself. “It’s like the dragons pull the stupid right out of the vault people’s brains keep it in and force it to the top. Not one person’s been reasonable since we ended the Medusean Gambit campaign. Why do we need to be stupid? I know why. It’s because that emperor keeps promoting boys to command. We need men, not idiots. Why do they only promote idiots?”

  Private Digger responded, “Sargent, I suppose they only seem stupid, on account of us not having all the information they do, and are in fact brilliant strategists.”

  She looked at him, attempting to kill him with her eyes. Their faceplates were up, but the squad could tell, she was murdering him in her mind. “No private Dumbass, that’s not it even a little bit.”

  “But my name’s not th”

  “Your name’s exactly what I say it is, private Dumbass, ‘cause only a dumbass would answer a rhetorical question on a subject that is plain to anyone.” No one said anything. “They are stupid because they are dumb. Simple as that. The emperor is so worried about having bodies to throw at other stupid, dumb people that he doesn’t stop to think that maybe those bodies should have a brain in them.”

  “But I have a”

  “Nope! No brain. I can tell. If you have a brain, you think. You don’t think. Ergo, you have no brain.” She looked around the rest of the squad, “Not like any of you think either, don’t go feeling all superior and wise.” She huffed and made her way to the hatch in the centre of the floor.

  “Sergeant,” began corporal Hunger, “why are we going in through a boarding hatch instead of entering through Shuttle Bay 1, like Lieutenant Jonsey told us to?”

  “’Cause it was Jonsey who said it. Remember my monolog about stupid? Well, he’s got stupid plastered all over him, like egg in a chickencoop riot. It’s obvious we got a rebellion going on here, why are we going to go through the one place they know we’re going to be if they’re refusing lawful orders? Good way to get shot in the face, Hunger. You hungry for death?”

  He shook his head, but started again anyways, “I’m not saying that, I’m saying: If they don’t know we’re coming, aren’t they just gonna shoot us when we go through the hatch? For all they know, we might be hostiles.”

  “’Course we’re hostiles, they think they can rebel, that makes us hostile, makes me hostile. I’ve done it Jonsey’s way before, lost more soldiers than you could poke in the eye during lunch. Not doing it that way again. If all’s right in the world, they’ll see our data signatures and welcome us with open arms and full mugs. If not, then we get to kill every last one of them that looks at me funny.”

  Private Digger said, “But everyone looks at you funny sergeant, even we look at you funny.”

  She put her head in her hands and sighed into her helmet. It was a good thing she was here to fix this problem. Corporal Hunger could get them out once things heated up, but he never could seem to figure out how to approach a situation. He’d have led them all to death if he had his way. Why? ‘Cause he was stupid.

  Marchioness set aside her grievances and opened the hatch. When she poked her head through the hole to see what was what, she gasped. “What the hell happened here?” she said, “it’s a good thing this squad’s got me, we’d be dead for sure in the shuttle bay. Dumbass, let the Hidden Dagger know we got a problem.”

  Corporal Hunger responded instead, “Sir, that’s what I was trying to say, we got a problem.”

  “I know we got a problem, Hunger, I’m looking at it!” She popped her head back up to glare at the corporal.

  “No sir, I mean we can’t hail the Hidden Dagger. Comms don’t work. It’s like we’re in a dead zone.”

  She didn’t laugh. She retracted her faceplate and looked him dead in the eye, or as in the eye as you could through a faceplate. “Say that again, corporal, because I’m pretty sure I just heard you say that we were all gonna die and they’re not gonna even find our axiom-ghosts.”

  Her corporal retracted his own faceplate so she could see he was just as serious as her. “I said what I said, sir. We’re in a dead zone, or physics don’t work. Take your pick.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Well,” she said, replacing her faceplate, “how strange, physics don’t seem to be working on this ship.”

  Corporal Hunger just sighed.

  -x-

  “We’ve lost sergeant Marchioness.” Lieutenant Jonsey told the shift lead, lieutenant Byron. “I can’t bring her, or anyone from her squad up on comms. The shuttle’s gone dark too, signal’s gone, like it’s not there, even though I know it is, I saw it go over just now.

  Byron looked at the console screen in fascination. “Wow, it’s like a ghost ship from the tales. I can’t wait to tell this story once it’s done. I don’t know why they keep sergeant Marchioness around. She’s brilliant when things get rough, wouldn’t want anyone else, really. But in a day to day, keeping the order and the peace? She’s a nightmare.”

  She’s not a nightmare, you just can’t impress her and she tells you so, he thought. Instead he said, “But sir, what should we do about the comms blackout?”

  “Forward the information to the XO. She’s gearing up for action, I can tell. Been around long enough to know her tells.”

  In his mind, Jonsey rolled his eyes so hard they almost fell out of his mental skull. One year of this. One bloody year. It’s not enough that I have to attend some command meetings now that I’m on that track, but I have to put up with Lieutenant Bragger. Ungh.

  He sighed and forwarded the information on the incident to the XO, along with his belief that something was wrong with that ship. He tapped a few keys and aimed a few more comms arrays at the ship. Something there should be able to be found. It’s not like they were in a dead zone.

  He paused. Dead zone. Dead. Zone. He swore. Loudly.

  -x-

  Chief engineer Werner was happier than anyone had ever seen him. The marines escorting him through Death’s Silence felt awkward, private Gemstone knew she did, and couldn’t imagine any universe where the others didn’t feel the same way. Watching him gawk, ooh, ahh, and run his hands over the vessel was like watching your teenage boy try to feel up his first kiss in front you. Nobody wanted in on that.

  She shook her head to try to get that image out of there. She had known today was going to be a terrible day. Sometimes you just knew, you could tell the moment you opened your eyes, sometimes even before then. Today was gonna be downright awful right from the start, now she had to look at this.

  The squad channel was silent. Fifth squad, their squad, was not responsible for clearing the ship, they could only go places the other squads had already cleared. Their job was to keep the chief from getting hurt by activating something dangerous, or from hurting himself. Someone should have said something about him hurting others, because her brain needed a good scouring down after this wreck. Eww.

  Sergeant Clinger ran his voice through the squad comms, “This is the most disturbing thing I’ve seen since Caldera IX, and that was a gene-spliced insect woman with eighty-seven eyes. Please, to any of the gods of decency, please let him have a coronary; not a big one, just a tiny little one. Enough to get us sent back even one minute early. If I never have to be alone with the chief again it will be too soon.” Grunts of acknowledgement followed from the rest of the squad.

  Gemstone spoke up, “The name you’re looking for is Eustace, sir.”

  “Eustace? Is that even a name?”

  “Yes sir, it’s also my mother’s name.”

  “Oh, what’s Eustace the god of?”

  “Goddess, sir.”

  “Ok,” he drew a long breath, “what’s Eustace the goddess of, exactly?”

  “Sorry, sir, I only know ‘cause it’s my mother’s name an’ she was quite strict in the rites and justifications, sir. It’s important to be precise with the gods. You don’t want them overhearing blasphemy, even if you and I know they don’t exist. That’d just be the frosting on the turd cake, that would.”

  “Private Gemstone, which goddess is Eustance?” His firm tone cutting through her thoughts. Why was he getting frustrated?

  “Oh, that sir. Yes. She’s the goddess of the Chalademites, sir.”

  The sergeant sighed deeply, looked at Werner, shuddered, then turned back to his thousand-metre stare. “What did the Chalademites worship her for, Gemstone?”

  “They worshiped her as a part of their pantheon, sir. She was considered quite integral to the lives of their children, sir.”

  “I’ve asked enough times that I’m starting to worry you’re not answering for a reason. What is she worshipped for?”

  He was right, there was a reason. She had tried to prevent it. Eh, no escaping it now. She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, sir, she was responsible for preventing, and then cleansing if preventing didn’t work, the eyes and brains of children who had seen more than they ought to have done.”

  “What are you”

  Gemstone hurriedly interrupted before he’d force her to spell it out in plain language, “I mean, sir, that when you’re twelve and you walk in on your father and your mother making your new little sister, you need to turn to someone to get that out of your head.”

  “And that was an integral part of their society? Enough to name a goddess for?”

  “Yes, sir. See, they had this idea that doors were evil because they kept juju inside instead of letting it outside, so’s their children were always walking in on what they don’t want to see. Life was not fun before Eustace.”

  “Your poor mother, saddled with a name like that. How’d that happen?”

  Gemstone sighed. He was going to make her explain absolutely everything. She eyed Werner with hate. This was his fault for being so cringy. “She took to attacking my grandparents with a boffer to protect her younger siblings’ eyes. After the twelfth time, they changed her legal name.”

  “What was her name before?”

  “Barbara, sir.”

  The entire squad howled with laughter. Gemstone didn’t think it was funny. She understood what they thought was funny about it, but there’s reasons she joined the Imperial Marines. No sense remembering to much about those reasons.

  “Our shift watching the chief feel up his new girlfriend ends in twenty minutes,” the sergeant said, “it’s best time we’d”

  He was silenced as a deep rumbling noise came through the ship, like an avalanche. “What was that?” Gemstone said.

  Before anyone could answer, a voice was heard, loud, rumbly, and very, very grumpy. “Warning. Dead zone detected ahead. Prepare for spacial interference. Recommend contacting nearest authority for seizure and processing.” In response the lights overhead began to flicker in regular patterns, probably dragon light-speech or something. No colour changes, just light flickering rapidly enough to hurt a person’s brain. She dimmed her faceplate.

  Werner turned around with wide eyes. The sergeant cursed. It was going to be a terrible day, Gemstone just knew it, a terrible day.