“With regret,” Miran began, sorrow heavy in her heart. She stood alone atop a podium in The Dream’s main street central thoroughfare as her voice carried through loudspeakers, “I welcome you to remember those who have fallen.”

  A week had passed since what was left of her flock had hastily left the Bordeaux’s Folly system. Of the nearly two hundred ships that had first jumped into the system ahead of the summit, fifty had been destroyed. Those ships that had remained intact but were unable to flee on their own following their engagements with the enemy had been scuttled and their crews collected. The battle had been quick and fruitless, and for their many sacrifices, the planet had been lost.

  Before her sat a sea of saddened faces, here to listen to her address the flock. Folding chairs lined the street, each cradling the weight of weary bodies, with many more padding the shopfront walls in columns stretching off into the distance. Each here for their own closure as if it would make the events of the last week somehow alright.

  “It is the burden of a Matriarch to care for her flock and to fight to ensure their prosperity,” she continued, “and it is in this that I have failed you.”

  “We have suffered and seen others suffer. Bled as our friends and family have bled. So many of us have perished, and for what? Where does this leave us when all we have is family to outwit the black?”

  “Friends… I don’t pray to have the answers that you seek. We have lost many, and for that, we are stained. What I do know is that their sacrifice, however listless it may seem, has afforded us one thing; to be able to continue – to live on. They have given us a gift to carry on in their stead, to remember them to the utmost, and to never forget why we must remain vigilant.”

  “For now, I speak not of war, peace, or anything in between. For now, I only mourn and ask that you join me. Today we honour and weep for those countless lives lost on Vosaris and on Bordeaux’s Folly these weeks past; may the stars remember your sacrifice as we all surely will.”

  “Hail!” the crowd roared as they stood from their chairs and remained standing.

  “To those I knew personally – Sergeant Melisa Wellei, Stanley Dominado, Lieutenant Kalin Bullman, Lieutenant Olajide Ogunye, General Antoine Gerard, Matriarch Brenna Lathe, to the teammates of The Alders and our other minor league teams – and to those I did not have the joy of knowing; may you know peace, everlasting.”

  “Hail!” the crowd rang out again.

  “To Sergeant Borlin Ha, without who’s advance notice, I fear we would be in a far worse state; may you be remembered as hero and brother to all.”

  Miran paused in her speech and looked out to the front row. Lawson, now weeping, was being comforted by Rissa Nessanui as she gripped his hand tightly. Over Lawson’s shoulder, Miran could see a young man standing who she knew as Lieutenant Podallan Ogunye, Olajide’s nephew, his fist raised to the ceiling in salute with the rest of the crowd.

  Next to Lawson, an empty seat bore a solitary naval cap acting as a placeholder to Soren who, as of now, lay unconscious in the medical bay.

  Next to Soren’s empty seat stood a pensive Tolly Ignacio, her cuts and bruises barely healed from when Miran first rescued her. Dressed in a standard-issue naval jacket, she sat rigid in her seat as if stacked there brick by fragile brick.

  To Tolly’s right, another woman stood, her thick, rusty hair braided and tucked into an elegant custom naval cap and looking increasingly uncomfortable. The woman who, just a few years Miran’s junior, was Idle Flock’s Matriarch, Jhen Kerrigen. To Matriarch Kerrigen’s right sat Umar Hari, matriarch – or in this case Patriarch – to the Ganon system; on the fringes of which The Dream and the remainder of the Cattleheart Flock now drifted.

  Patriarch Hari and Matriarch Kerrigen both bore the same sullen expression of the rest lining the streets, though a little disconnected, having been of the few present to have not personally witnessed the events of Bordeaux’s Folly. A tragedy to which, Miran supposed, was unmistakably hard to relate.

  Miran took a deep breath, remembered herself, and continued, “and finally, we remember those brave souls whose sacrifice dealt a deadly blow to our enemy, providing us a window of escape. To the unwavering Captain Ronald Felder, to the noble crew of The Hammerfist, and to the brave crews of those ships that accompanied them; may the Herd and all humanity know of your bravery for generations to come. Let no foe ground us!”

  “Hail!” the crowd bellowed three times before retaking their seats.

  Finishing her speech, Miran called close family of several of the fallen up to the podium; Podallan Ogunye, Stanley Dominado’s daughter Velinie Dominado, Sergeant Bullman’s mother Arin, and Lawson Ha. For Wellei, who had no close family to speak of, a stand-in service bot followed the train of people as was common practice. Miran walked from person to person, presenting them each with a circular platinum medal. Each of the medals was inlaid with golden filament to show a winged auroch with black diamond horns distinguishing The Order of the Flock, the highest military honour.

  After a final round of applause, they returned to their seats, and slowly the crowd dispersed. Many of the attendees bled out into the shopfronts and down the branching corridors. Miran sighed. She had not only lost thousands but she had been robbed of anyone close to her to lay out her anguish with. Everyone that was, except Tolly.

  Tolly was still seated, her eyes pointed at the floor. Miran waited until the other matriarchs had wandered off – she had little taste for politics just now – and walked over to her. She picked up the naval cap and dropped into Soren’s empty seat.

  “That was a beautiful ceremony,” Tolly said, not removing her eyes from the floor.

  “You okay, kid?” Miran asked.

  “I will be. I think,” said Tolly, “I just don’t know where to go from here.”

  Miran thought for a moment, “You keep on moving and just hope you know where you’re going.”

  Tolly sighed, “I mean to say– I don’t know where I’ll go once I get up from this seat. My whole life has ended as I knew it. There’s nothing ahead of me.”

  “Tolly. Can I call you Tolly?” Miran asked, and Tolly nodded, “You are a captain, are you not?”

  “A captain for a day, sure. My uncle gave me the title and on a firecrawler no less, not on a ship in the flock. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “It astonishes me,” Miran admitted, “that we send souls out into those fiery wilds to do some light farming.”

  Tolly slowly nodded in passive agreement.

  “You’re a captain, Tolly. Your title proves it, as far as the rest of the Herd is concerned,” Miran affirmed.

  “Feels as if I’m a little unqualified,” said Tolly.

  “Sure, you do lack experience, but that will come with time granted you have some connections,” said Miran, “and you happen to know someone fairly high in the pecking order personally.”

  Tolly broke her staring match with the decking to turn to her. “You’d vouch for me?”

  “If I’ve seen anything about you, it’s how resilient you are in the face of tragedy. That is a hard-learned and oft-overlooked trait. The rest will come with time.”

  “And for a posting? I doubt any ship would take me as their captain.”

  “Points for being partially right. You have an advantage here, Tolly. You have the rank. Gaining the training will be hard, sure, but from what I’ve seen, I think you can handle it.”

  Tolly shifted in her seat, which Miran took as her remaining unconvinced. Around them, deck staff were beginning to fold and stack the chairs as the shops reopened.

  “Let’s come at this another way,” Miran said. “If you had to choose, captaining aside, what would you study?”

  “I had been on a career path to becoming a medical engineer a while back. I sometimes wish I had seen that through,” Tolly admitted.

  Miran leaned in, raising her eyebrows until Tolly got the point.

  “But, the Academy– all of Bordeaux was destroyed.”

  “Chin up,” said Miran, “That isn’t the only place to study medicine. Let me make some calls. I’m sure we can come up with something.”

  As Miran stood, a deckhand came by and snatched up her chair. Before Miran had time to react, Tolly hopped to her feet and wrapped her arms around Miran. Miran returned the embrace, squeezing tightly.

  “It’ll be okay,” she said to Tolly. “We’ll figure it out together.”

  They stood holding each other for a while. Until now, Miran hadn’t known just how much she needed it.

  “I’ve got something to look into,” Miran said, holding Tolly at arm's length, “you’ll be okay for now?”

  “I guess so,” Tolly said.

  “If you need to keep busy, go see Coach Nichi on the gymnasium level. He can run you through some drills to keep you going,” said Miran. “You do like sepak, don’t you?”

  Tolly noticeably cringed at this.

  “I’ll go to the gym then. Thanks, my Matriarch,” Tolly said, moving to bow.

  “Call me Miran,” she said, turning to leave.

  After seeing Tolly off, Miran walked the thoroughfare, glancing into each of the shops’ windows she passed by. She peered into one shop near the end of the row, an upscale tailor’s. Inside, a man that bore the same hairstyle, height, and profile as Soren's stood rigidly on a box, getting fitted for his officer’s uniform. The man glowed with pride as the tailor walked around him, brandishing a hand-scanner.

  It suddenly hit her that this man’s impending promotion and his happiness along with it was only possible due to the loss of officers in the flock. So many lives had ended that they were now forced to fill countless positions throughout the flock, having even taken on several hundred new bodies when they passed through the Lavalle System and more when they reached the outer edges of Ganon. So many ships were lost, and their numbers were so few that Miran wondered whether they even had enough left to constitute a functionally complete flock.

  Spiralling now, Miran’s mind kept racing. That was until she rounded a corner, and her boot sank in a patch of freshly watered mushy grass. From across the lawn, the garden’s caretaker dropped his arms, embarrassed that he failed to warn her. Miran waved an arm, dissolving his concerns as she kicked off her boots and walked across the grass towards the ship’s tree.

  The red oak’s bows reached towards the ceiling, steadfast and firm. It was as if the events of the past few weeks had had no effect on it, a characteristic Miran now found herself in deep envy of. She ran her hand through the leaves above her head. Waving as they did in the artificial wind, Miran followed them with her fingers, plucking a leaf-free.

  Soft and supple, she tore a section away and watched as it fell, weaving itself into the blades of grass. Picking up her boots, Miran let out a sigh. Time to go.

  Walking into the medical ward, Miran found an unfamiliar nurse tending Soren. Checking the readings on his bedside wallscreen, the woman overlooked Miran as she walked in. Miran chose a seat opposite the wallscreen and sat, making her presence known.

  “Oh, gods,” the nurse said, “make an old woman jump, why don’t you!”

  Miran knew the woman couldn’t be any older than her and raised an eyebrow.

  “I didn’t mean to–” Miran started.

  “Of course you didn’t,” the woman interrupted, “the fault is mine, Matriarch, for being so absorbed. It’s just I’ve been watching over this poor soul since Malfjordur, and I tend to get a touch carried off when curiosity gets involved.”

  “You were on Bordeaux With Soren when he was rescued?” Miran asked.

  “Aye, Captain Djucovik. And it’s his luck I was,” she said, “With the state he was in when I found him– Gods only know if he would’ve survived if I’d not been there and taken holiday like I was supposed to.”

  “How is he now? I’ve never seen him in such poor shape.”

  “Stable but in an induced coma. His fever has relaxed some, though I’m not quite sure what to make of his muscle stiffness,” she said as she raised one of Soren’s arms from the bed and let it go. Lazily Soren’s arm drifted back down to rest at his side as if in microgravity.

  “Apart from that oddity, he seems to be fighting through it. Whatever it was,” the nurse said.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name?” asked Miran.

  “Diega Vaness, field nurse,” Diega introduced herself, “Poor shape you said, sure, but he’s on the mend just you wait. Wish I could say the same for that other boy.”

  “Connor Henrik,” Miran corrected. She figured she’d owed Tolly least as much.

  “Right, Connor. Pity he didn’t come with us; just walked off back into the forest. All for someone he found quite dear. A touch of heartbreak if ever there was.”

  “He must’ve gone looking for Tolly. The young woman we pulled from a firecrawler,” said Miran.

  “Tolly?” Diega stopped and turned to face Miran, “Tolly Ignacio?”

  “You know her?” Miran asked.

  “Only briefly. I tended to her a few weeks back when days were simpler. Poor thing, first she loses her crew, her uncle, now her love and her world. It’s almost as if tragedy were riding her coattails.” Miran listened intently. She hadn’t known of the loss of her uncle before now. Maybe Diega spoke a bit of truth. Sorrow was this girl’s trademark of late.

  Diega finished her final checks and headed for the door.

  “If you see Tolly,” Diega started, “tell her– oh, I don’t know. Tell her something.” Miran nodded and waved the woman off.

  “It seems sorrow is filling buckets around here,” she said, turning to Soren, who still lay unconscious.

  He lay still as a bit of deadwood resting atop a stagnant pond. His face was pale and bruised as if he’d suffered a beating. Miran wasn’t sure if it was injuries from the shuttle crash finally showing through or if something more horrific had happened to him. All she knew now was what she could see but not touch, speak at but not hear a response. For now, he was little more than furniture decorating the sullen landscape of her life as of late. He, a reminder she’d rather not have, pressed on her in a way she wasn’t expecting.

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  Miran began openly weeping. Slowly at first, a tear trickling the length of her face. Then, a torrent blew down the facade of her resolve, and she allowed herself to feel it. Sobbing now, she gripped Soren’s hand and rested her head on him, soaking his bedsheets and hospital gown.

  “You better not die,” she managed to get out between sobs, “You better not.”

  It was several minutes before her awareness kicked back, forcing the well dry, and her focus returned. Determined not to spend the whole day cowering on Soren’s lap, she let go of his hand and stood.

  “You still have a court martial coming your way. Best you not forget that,” she said. “You better not leave. Not again.”

  Everything she knew was in disarray. Her friends were dead, wounded or missing. Her station was in jeopardy. And Tolly, the one good thing she was able to affect after all of it was done, was hurting in her own right. Miran knew she needed to get out of her own head. It was in times like this that she would normally turn to sepak. And now, she figured, was as good a time as any to pay the courts a visit.

  “She has some innate skill, Matriarch,” Fisgar Nichi said to Miran. They were standing on the edge of the court as Tolly juggled the sepak ball with a boy no more than ten. Each set they would pass back and forth as the young boy set Tolly up for a spike – only for her to miss and lose her footing impacting the floor with her tailbone. “At least until she tries that.”

  Miran smiled at this, an odd sensation in these times. “Give her time, Fisgar. If memory serves, I was barely younger and worse than her when I first came to the courts.”

  “You were a prodigy, Miran-Yi. And you had the necessary focus,” he said, “This one, however– something disrupts her.”

  It was obvious to Miran what might be pulling her focus. She thought then that she could tell Tolly of the news of her friend Connor missing in the wild. Instead, allowing her to continue with her practice, she decided she would tell her later; when the time was right.

  “She’s here to pass the time, not to be your next prodigy,” Miran corrected.

  Fisgar’s head slumped as he let out a heavy sigh. “It’s not just her who seeks to pass the time.”

  “Fisgar... I am sorry I have not come to see you before now,” Miran started, thinking back to the stadium and the loss of The Alders and many other of the lesser league teams who had been on the planet. “How are you?”

  “The flock is hurting. I am no different,” he said. “As you said in your speech, we have lost many.”

  Miran nodded in agreement, not wanting to interrupt.

  “It was a lovely speech, Miran-Yi,” he continued, “you have done our people proud; you have done the Alders proud.”

  The young boy had finished his set with Tolly now, leaving her to continue on her own. Tolly looked over at Miran, only now noticing her presence. Miran gestured for her to continue, and she took the ball over to the gymnasium wall to continue juggling on her own. The familiar reverberations of the sepak hitting the wooden boards of the wall brought memories of calmer times to Miran as she listened. After several minutes of juggling, Tolly lobbed the sepak high and, twisting and contorting in the air, the top of her foot made contact with the ball, slamming it into the wall in a perfect spike. The echoing crack rang throughout the cavernous room like a gunshot.

  “See,” said Miran.

  “Colour me surprised,” Fisgar admitted, “perhaps I’m a bit out of touch.”

  “You’re just a little shaken. Same as the rest of us,” Miran assured.

  “It’s more than that, I think,” he said. “And I think my time has come to resign.”

  Miran stopped watching Tolly and turned to him. The man had been training sepak players for the better part of five decades – through good seasons and bad.

  “You’re certain?” Miran asked.

  “I think it’s for the best,” he said, “The thought of training a new crop of souls… I’m just too old. And besides, I’ve only ever known this flock, this ship. I would very much like to see what else the federation has to see. Who knows, maybe I’ll venture out to the Sovereignty, into the Vasser worlds, or maybe I’d even like to see what those Fels are like someday. For now, though, I think I’ll start small and spend some time on Ganon.”

  “I’ll admit, I hadn’t ever considered you would retire one day. When will you be leaving us?”

  “Immediately. Seems little point to stay on when there’s no team to train. I’ll need a few days to get a few things in order. After that, well–”

  Miran tried not to show her discomfort. Saying goodbye to a mentor in any situation would be hard, but to lose another friend now hurt. She knew that due to the man’s advanced age, this would likely be the last time she saw him.

  Miran stepped in and grasped the old man by the waist, pulling him in tightly. His bones creaked as he squeezed her back. Stepping away, she let him go, another connection fading into black.

  All that remained now for Miran was Tolly. Eventually, as Tolly righted her own ship, she too would abandon her. A bittersweet day that Miran knew was sooner than Tolly could admit to herself. Sure, one day, Soren may awaken and return to her, but she didn’t know when that might be.

  That got Miran thinking. Soren might still be with her had his shuttle not been sabotaged and brought down. It was then that a sliver of hope opened on her horizon. She might not have anyone, in particular, grounding her at present, but she wasn’t entirely without a cause. There was still the unanswered question of the stowaway – the murderer – that had plagued her from behind the curtains in her own flock. Duty that she could grasp onto. The task force might be almost entirely gone, but maybe she could get to the bottom of things; if not for Soren, then for Bullman, Olajide, Wellei, for Stanley.

  She had a lot of work to do.

  Days pass into weeks, and Miran busied herself in her investigation. At first, she makes little progress, camping out in the old taskforce backroom from ship sunup to well past ship night. It wasn’t until the third week that the solitude began to weigh on her. And soon enough, she managed to rope in Rissa and Lawson, joining her in a clerical capacity to help comb through endless databases of records. The assistance was welcome, but what Miran valued more was the company. Despite their lack of investigatory experience, neither Rissa nor Lawson objected, seeming to find comfort of their own in following her down the rabbit hole.

  As her fleet had neared the planet of Ganon, Miran had issued a halt on all crew reassignments, wanting to minimise the free-for-all of those wavering making rash decisions in tragedy’s wake. Many of the flock had instead opted to take their shore leave at this time. Apart from the several dozen ships undergoing moderate repairs in spacedock, this left much of the flock alarmingly vacant, with a few ships empty entirely, drifting with their navigation control slaved to Miran’s own flagship.

  In the void created by Security Chief Olajide Ogunye’s absence, Miran had opted to appoint his nephew, Lieutenant Podallan Ogunye, in his place, who, while sticking rigidly to his newfound security duties, also soon joined Miran’s task force in a more diminished capacity than that of his predecessor.

  The four of them set out scouring records of ship-to-ship personnel transfers in the weeks leading up to Bordeaux and any and all instances of shuttle accesses on every ship in the fleet. This left them with mountains of data to sift through.

  “How were they able to affect shuttles on ships across the ship at such an alarming rate?” Podallan asked one morning before Miran had barely sipped her first cup of coffee.

  “Their window was only a few weeks to get to those shuttles,” Miran admitted, “to have sabotaged each of them in such a short time so expertly–”

  “That’s the ticket,” said Rissa, “I am having a hard time imagining that all of the ships had been infiltrated and sabotaged in such a short time by a single perpetrator. Do we know what connection the bodies you discovered in cold storage had to do with any of this?”

  “Working theory so far is that these people had discovered the stowaway’s plans or hindered them in some regard,” said Miran.

  “That’s it!” Podallan said, standing from his seat, his youthfulness shining through.

  “What is?” Lawson asked in counter-bemusement. Miran felt the man’s disdain from across the room. She knew he was still hurt – still shaken – so much so that he hadn’t made a snide remark since. “You’ve been here a few days, and you think you’ve cracked it?”

  “Listen,” Podallan urged, “this stowaway – we know they are somehow connected to these bodies. We also know that no new bodies have been found since Bordeaux since the shuttles were all destroyed. So we can assume from this that yes, they are all connected.”

  “We know this,” Lawson spat. Podallan ignored him as if immune to his virulence.

  “We are going about this search assuming that this person, or thing, was able to sneak through our security screenings and hop ship-to-ship several dozen times in the span of a few weeks. What if once they snuck aboard The Hammerfist, they never left?”

  “I’m not following,” Rissa admitted, “how could they have affected each of the shuttles while remaining on The Hammerfist?”

  “They didn’t,” Podallan said, calling up the image of the mangled corpses in cold storage. Rissa cringed at this, turning away. Miran just stared numbly.

  “Slow down, Podallan,” Miran urged, “We’ve been at this a while. You might need to spell it out for us.”

  Podallan considered that for a moment. “What if the bodies here,” he said, pointing to the image, “rather than hapless victims that simply got in the way, what if these are just some sort of failed experiments. What if these are just the tip of an iceberg of some sort of genetic manipulation with the goal of producing tailor-made infiltrators that are indistinguishable from our own people?”

  “Absurd,” said Lawson, “the bioscans would have picked up their presence the same as it did for the first stowaway to board The Hammerfist.”

  “Not if they refined their recipe since then,” Miran interjected. “Stands to reason that they may have adapted their process to appear more and more human as they iterated.”

  “Exactly,” said Podallan, “If that’s the case, then they wouldn’t be detected passing between ships any more than our own citizens would be; a spectre in human skin.”

  Miran shuddered at the implications of that. She had thought that the carnage in cold storage, and later the shuttles’ destruction, had been the worst part of the stowaway’s plan rather than a nuanced outcome.

  “How realistic is this?” Miran asked, not wanting to rush to conclusions.

  “I’ll admit the theory has its merits,” said Rissa.

  “Lawson?” Miran asked, “What’s your opinion?" Lawson shrugged. Miran postulated that might be the best answer she would get out of him.

  “Podallan, as the flock’s security chief, would you risk your reputation on this?” she asked. Podallan paused in deep thought, but only briefly.

  “My bones tell me to trust it,” he said, “and it’s the closest to a working theory we may get.”

  “Each of you must understand the implications of this,” Miran expressed, bending to look at each of them in turn. “With the number of shuttles affected in such a short window of time, and with the number of mutated bodies discovered in cold storage. It is highly likely that we now have several hundred of these alien spectres spread throughout the flock.”

  Miran let the facts sink in for a moment before asking: “Chief Podallan, this matter now goes far beyond the abilities of this task force. I need you to mobilise what officers you can without causing too much panic. We need a way of detecting these interlopers.”

  “Matriarch, with much of the crew on leave in The Ganon system, I fear the problem has long ago breached containment,” Podallan said. “Perhaps you need to meet with the other matriarchs to discuss how to proceed.”

  “In the meantime, mobilise what you can,” ordered Miran. “The ships of the flock are sparsely populated. It should be easy to conduct a thorough sweep without stirring up too much concern. Be sure to devote as much manpower as you need to this, especially on the more populated ships. These spectres have demonstrated themselves to be experts at blending in amongst us.”

  Miran sent the Chief on his way with a salute, having little envy for the task laid out before him. Before her, she knew there were several dozen decisions as to the future of the flock, so she had enough on her plate.

  In the coming weeks, Miran came to a decision regarding the future of her battered flock. Of the remaining one hundred forty-seven ships that were now in an amendable condition – several of which remained in dry-dock affecting repairs – still drifted in orbit around Ganon. Their crews had grown restless with some demanding answers on public forums, bulletin feeds and several assemblies on the planet’s surface.

  Miran knew she couldn’t keep her head in the dirt, milling about with her task force, using it as a distraction forever. Her people looked to her, especially in hard times such as this. She knew they needed closure or at least some vehicle with which to move on. It was time to let them go.

  She had had Rissa, her new defacto-assistant, set up a meeting with the leader of the Idle Flock, who had returned to the system at Miran’s request. It was a strange matter for one matriarch to summon another, Miran thought; the last time that happened, a world died.

  Miran had dressed in her typical finery, her hair tied back, and instructed her staff to serve the remainder of her personal food stores, much of which had been leftover from banquets planned and rescinded by the destruction of what would have been most of her dinner guests. Miran knew she wouldn’t have another excuse to share them before they spoiled.

  In the stateroom on her estate level, a large banquet table, designed to fit three-dozen, had been lined with her ships stores of enik frond, a gift from the late Matriarch Lathe. Four table settings had been placed in the centre flanked by enough hors d'oeuvres to feed an army. Lawson Ha and Rissa Nessanui were already seated across from each other when Miran arrived, already a half-bottle of wine missing.

  The two seemed almost happy as she entered, a scene she didn’t want to disrupt. She hadn’t seen Lawson smile in nearly a month. Rissa’s eyes were locked on his, a love burgeoning between them. Formality rudely invaded as one of Miran’s aides announced her entrance. The two table guests stood to attention half-heartedly, still lost in their shared enamour.

  “Sit, please,” Miran said, and before dismissing the aide added, “and fetch another bottle of red for my friends.”

  “Matriarch, thank you again for inviting us,” Rissa said with a short bow. It was refreshing to Miran to see someone so separated from all she had known to be this cognizant of ceremony. “Is this about the task force?”

  “No. It’s nothing like that,” Miran said, “in fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention the task force, our stowaway, or the events leading up to Bordeaux tonight.”

  “Then what is this about? I sincerely doubt you need another Parade planned,” Lawson asked sardonically.

  Miran took a seat beside Lawson as an aide tried to assist with her chair. Miran brushed them off.

  “You’re here because I need you. I need my friends, and what better use is there for all this food?” said Miran.

  “I’m not complaining,” said Lawson, “Any excuse for wine in a time like this, I’ll take.”

  “We’re here for whatever you need,” Rissa assured her. “Even if there’s no food involved.”

  “Yeah, because she’s paying your paycheck now,” Lawson quipped.

  “The Matriarch was paying yours for months!” said Rissa, abashedly.

  “Please,” Miran interrupted, “call me Miran.”

  “Of course. Miran,” Rissa corrected herself, a warm smile behind a wine glass.

  “So, really. Why are we here?” Lawson prodded.

  Miran took a swig of wine, downing her entire glass. “You’re here for me. I’m here to discuss federation matters with our guest,” said Miran as she stood and directed her attention to the estate room entry.

  Matriarch Jhen Kerrigen entered, an aide announcing her in tow. Lawson rocketed to his feet as he realised, joining Rissa and Miran in standing. The reds and whites of the other matriarch’s gown lit the room ahead of her like a torch through darkened streets, a light untouched by the night around her. Her chestnut skin was smokey in the dusklight of the banquet hall. A cybernetic implant wrapped the left of her cranium showed, to which she showed little self-consciousness, choosing to wear her hair long and in a way of stark contrast to it. Miran hadn’t noticed the implant before when her naval cap covered it during the eulogy.

  “You weren’t lying when you said there would be food,” Matriarch Kerrigen said.

  “Welcome, Matriarch Kerrigen. I’m glad you’ve come,” said Miran, greeting the woman with a hug. Matriarch Kerrigen walked over and accepted a seat next to Rissa. Miran sat, as did her other guests.

  “I came as soon as I was able,” said Matriarch Kerrigen. “You sounded serious in your message.”

  Miran recalled the message she sent, a quick plea to save her as she drowned in her fears. She remembered how she’d felt just seconds after sending it, the weight that lifted from her. It wasn’t until this moment now, however, that the anxiety truly evaporated.

  “In a manner, yes. I asked you here to offer you something. This isn’t something I take lightly, nor is it something that will win me any love amongst my citizens, but I believe that it will be the right way forward,” Miran said. Rissa and Lawson pretended not to show their intrigue at this, busying themselves in the plates of food around them.

  “Colour me captivated then,” Matriarch Kerrigen said. “I trust that you’d act in the best interest of the Herd, as is the call of all matriarchs.”

  “And it’s this call that I feel must be heeded. Matriarch…” Miran started, holding to her words lest they run away, “–Jhen. I want you, Idle Flock, to absorb my fleet.”

  Rissa and Lawson each paused their chewing, unable to resist eavesdropping.

  “That’s interesting,” Matriarch Kerrigen admitted, “Do we even have the power to do that?”

  “We do,” Miran assured her, “It’s well within my rights as Matriarch to offer such a merger. Some of my captains have come to me independently, however, and I have given them leave to join up with Veiled Flock. What I offer you is the remainder.”

  Kerrigen considered her following words carefully. Miran knew this was out of sorts, an unforeseeable situation carved into law when the federation was founded, something never exercised until this very moment. It was unimaginable. Though, so was everything that had happened lately.

  “The Cattleheart Flock is beaten, battered, defeated,” Miran clarified. “We have lost nearly all of our defensive force. Left vulnerable are the families and industry ships that had depended upon that protection.”

  Kerrigen let out a deep gust of air. “You will certainly stir some shit with this…” she said. “I’ll tell you what I can do. Open the call for relocation. If a good portion of your flock, or hell even all, choose to join with me, then so be it. Some may even choose to remain on Ganon or head elsewhere in the black. Give them the choice.”

  “So you’ll accept my offer? I’ll even throw in The Dream to sweeten the pot,” Miran prodded.

  Kerrigen nodded. “What will you do? There’s not much out there for a matriarch without a flock.”

  “I suppose I’ll need to figure that out,” Miran admitted.

  “Why not stay on The Dream? The Idle Flock would be stronger with you,” said Kerrigen.

  “A flock doesn’t need two matriarchs,” Miran said, “and The Dream doesn’t need two captains. I imagine many would see me resign following this decision.”

  “I don’t know if that’s true, Matriarch,” Rissa chimed in.

  “I can see it, though I don’t share that particular viewpoint,” Lawson said, still nervously sipping his wine. “There may be some that see this as forfeit.”

  “Can I blame them?” Miran asked, gulping down another glass.

  “You wouldn’t have to, you know. Matriarchs are leaders for life. Our decisions are made in the best interests of those under our care,” said Kerrigen as she proffered her glass to Lawson as he poured himself another.

  Miran knew the law, the way of federation. Still, she knew things weren’t that simple. She ruled by the approval of her flock; a flock she had seen brought low. There was no future for the Cattleheart or the ships that had formed it under her tutelage.

  “Onto other things,” Kerrigen said, “Pauline Tranton, my representative to the summit on Bordeaux’s Folly. You’ve heard no word from her people?”

  “Nor anyone left behind. That system is a ghost,” Miran said, her mood shifting towards sullen. “It’s a graveyard now.”

  “Just like Vosaris,” Kerrigen said, placing down her full glass. “Gods Miran-Yi… any idea what we’re facing?”

  “I’m afraid not,” she admitted. “We have a name, a face – though I’m beginning to doubt he showed me his true self – and telemetry from their stealth ships and suits but not much else. Their capabilities were far above our own. We subdued them only once through great sacrifice, a tactic that we cannot employ again.”

  The four of them sat for a moment before returning to their drink. The food around them was plentiful, the night barely over. And for the first time since she had become matriarch, she had a conversation among equals.