Lt. Colonel Nicole Baxter gripped the arms of her acceleration couch with white knuckles as the Terran Commonwealth assault carrier Juno shuddered out of hyperspace into normal space. She exhaled slowly and forced down the acid that threatened to surge from her stomach.

Some of the others on the bridge weren’t so lucky, vomiting noisily into their sick-kits. Despite humanity traveling hyperspace for hundreds of years, human scientists had yet to find a fix for the human digestive system’s strenuous objections to being yanked back into real space.

Nicole glanced over to the Juno’s captain, Mahir Abbas, who served as the Commodore for the small flotilla of ships that jumped in system with the Juno. He seemed to have either avoided nausea or who had an excellent poker face. She admired his calm professionalism.

He would have made a good Marine.

“Report.” The captain turned to the bridge’s sensor techs, who were bent over their consoles as they patched together a picture of the Trappist system. Planets and celestial bodies flashed onto the screen, as well as Juno’s escort - two cruiser squadrons and three destroyer squadrons.

The ship’s signal officer replied. “Sir, initial readings show no signs of any ships in the system, though we’re picking up signs of a lot of debris. We’re picking up no comm traffic at all, but we have picked up the distress beacon from Trappist IV, it’s still broadcasting.”

“Any sign of the three unknown vessels that the colonists described in their emergency drone?” captain Abbas asked..

Yes sir,” the officer replied. “We think we’ve pinpointed them on the surface of Trappist IV, but we won’t know for sure until we have eyes further in-system.”

“Very well.” Captain Abbas turned to the bridge’s tactical officer. “Dispatch Destroyers Pollux and Rigel to proceed in-system toward Trappist IV, full passive sensors. Please remind them that we’re dealing with unknown contacts, so first contact protocols are in effect. Despite their actions on Trappist, our second priority after the colonist’s safety is not starting a war with an unknown power.”

The tactical officer’s fingers danced on his bridge console as he relayed the message. “Yes sir, dispatching Pollux and Rigel.”

Nicole pursed her lips but said nothing. By her math, whoever these aliens were, they had already made their intentions clear. Regardless, if the captain could find a solution that didn’t end with her Marines dead on the backwater colony world of Trappist IV, she wouldn’t complain. Regardless, she mentally turned on her subvocal mic implant and sent a message to her logistics chief. “What’s our load status?”

The chief’s voice echoed in her comm implant a moment later. “90% Ma’am, and company commanders have their girls and boys in full battle-rattle, as requested.”

“Good job chief, keep me posted.” Nicole cut off the implant. Hoping for the best had never done the Terran Commonwealth Drop Marines any good. Preparing for the worst, however, was another story entirely.

The small flotilla made its way from the system’s edge toward its core, the two destroyers racing ahead while the rest of the force stayed close to the hulking assault carrier. Designed purely for orbital assault, the Juno carried Nicole’s command, the men and women of the 22nd Marine Battalion Landing Team, their dropships and equipment.

Nicole continued to remotely monitor her Battalion’s preparations as they were loaded aboard the various dropships that would transport them to Trappist IV’s surface if the need arose. She wished she was with them; she had never been comfortable on the bridge. It was too sterile, too quiet. Not like the loading bay would be right now, she knew. She missed the smell of hydraulic fluid from the powered armor, the acrid taste of ozone in the air from test discharges of railguns, the clatter of tread on ship decking as the armored platoon was loaded, the high-pitched wail of turbines spooling up.

“Bored, Colonel?” Nicole was interrupted from her reverie by the captain’s voice.

She forced a smile. “The waiting is always the hardest part.”

They didn’t have to wait much longer.

“Sir, message from Pollux,” a comm tech reported from their station, “they’ve have positive confirmation, three ships of unknown origin on the surface of Trappist IV. The locals weren’t exaggerating, either, sir… these ships are big. Ten kilometers long, six wide, like nothing we’ve ever seen. Each one is projecting an energy shield, but we don’t know how strong.” Pictures of gargantuan oval craft nestled together on the planet’s surface appeared on the bridge’s screens, dwarfing their surroundings like looming mountains.

“Have the Pollux and Rigel transmitted the first contact message?”

“Yes sir, multiple times. No response yet. They have established contact with the local system guard forces still present on the planet, however. They report that the unknown forces are currently marching on New Bismark, one of Trappist’s largest cities… and, according to them, one of the last cities on colony that is left.”

“How soon until the Juno is in range to interface? I want to talk to the system guard.” The Captain asked.

The captain’s ordinarily blank expression was unusually pensive. She could understand why. While it was in the Terran Commonwealth’s best interest to resolve the situation peacefully, they had a responsibility to their citizens as well, and Captain Abbas would have to make a decision sooner rather than later. She had a feeling that the possibility of meeting both of those goals was dwindling.

“Twelve minutes Captain,” the comms officer reported.

Captain Abbas nodded. “Very well…”

Whatever the captain was about to say was interrupted by the bridge’s tactical officer. “Sir! We’re detecting energy spikes from two of the ships, they’re lifting off.”

Even though the images on the viewscreen were blurry, distorted by the atmosphere and limited by the small amount of light reaching the scopes of Juno, the sight of the ships rising from the surface of Trappist IV made Nicole’s stomach clench. It was like watching a mountain take off. Her mind struggled with the scale, refusing to parse the size of the ship lifting from the ground with the rivers and hills they dwarfed beneath them.

“Fleet to stations.” the captain’s voice was collected as always, but Nicole caught his eyes narrowing, a tic she wouldn’t have noticed if her battalion landing team hadn’t called Juno home for the past two years.

“How soon until their ground forces reach New Bismark?”

“Two hours, sir, at the most.”

Captain Abbar looked tired. “Continue to approach the planet. Colonel Baxter?”

“Yes sir?” Nicole replied.

“How long to deploy your Battalion?”

“270 minutes with three low orbits sir, at 90 minutes each, or 330 minutes in geostationary. We need three trips with the dropships to put the full battalion with support companies down. Our trigger-pullers will go down with the first wave, of course. I’ve taken the liberty of loading our dropships already sir; my marines are ready to go.” Nicole knew that Abbas knew her Marine’s deployment times by heart, but also that him hearing it out loud would help him make a decision.

“Very well. Helm, put us on a vector for a low-orbit insertion. First contact protocols or not, we’re not going to let them wipe out another city. Comms, patch me through to the rest of the fleet. Desron 14 and Cruiser Squadron 5 will stay with Juno and cover landing operations. Desron 15 and 17 and Cruiser Squadron 22, form up with Rigel and Pollux. Do not fire unless fired upon.”

The escort ships peeled off from the Juno to face the two enormous alien ships that had risen from the surface of Trappist IV. They had no apparent form of propulsion but rapidly closed with the Terran flotilla.

Without warning, the bridge’s primary viewscreen flashed. Nicole had to blink away after-images despite the auto-dimming display screen as a searingly bright beam lanced from one of the alien craft.

“Energy discharge! Pollux has been hit!” Nicole heard a tactical officer yell.

“Order all ships to begin evasive maneuvers! What was the range of that beam?”

“10 million kilometers, sir, well outside of effective railgun fire by at least 50%.”

“What’s the status of the Pollux?”

“Badly damaged sir, damage reports coming in now. Venting atmosphere on five decks, main propulsion out of commission, shield capacitors are blown, maneuvering at 25 percent.”

“Have them pull…” Captain Abbas’s words were cut short by another angry slash of light across the view screens, and the Pollux disappeared in a cloud of rapidly expanding gas and debris.

“Order the fleet to return fire,” the Captain growled.

“Sir, we’re out of effective railgun range,” the tactical officer protested.

Light flashed again on the viewscreen; another beam narrowly missing one of the Terran cruisers.

“Those ships have a cross-section of 60 square kilometers, lieutenant; they’re going to have a hard time dodging. Carry out the order.”

“Yes sir, ordering all ships to return fire.”

The small Terran flotilla opened up with their railguns, sending soup can sized tungsten projectiles hurtling through space toward the massive ships. The alien ships, in turn, continued to fire energy beams at the human vessels.

In a space battle, the speed of light was both a captain’s best friend and their worst nightmare. The computer-controlled firing of maneuvering jets juked and twisted the human vessels in unpredictable evasive trajectories, and the alien energy beams firing millions of kilometers away took precious seconds to traverse the distance. By the time the beams had traveled the distance and seconds to reach their target, more often than not the human ships were no longer there. However, as the alien vessels continued to close in, the time it took their beams to reach the human ships would become less and less, until evasive maneuvering would be useless and the beams would reach their targets nearly instantaneously.

The railgun rounds fired by the human ships were ponderously slow in comparison, taking minutes in the void to reach their targets, but alien ships didn’t even bother to maneuver from their path.

“Positive hits, all rounds,” Juno’s tactical officer reported. “No damage to unknown vessels, all impacted on shields. Unknown vessels continue to close.”

Captain Abbas grunted. “Cease firing, have all ships switch to coordinated time on target.”

As one, the Terran ships’ railguns stopped, then began firing again, more slowly. Syncing their fire control through the combat network, each barrage from three dozen railgun batteries would arrive on target simultaneously.

Nicole held her breath as they waited for impact. The screen flashed again and again as the enormous alien ships continued to fire. The Terran ships began to falter, the alien beams sometimes causing damage even when they missed, overloading systems and melting surface armor to slag.

After an eternity, the first alpha strike reached with the lead alien craft. The egg-shell like energy screen around it fluxed and buckled on the viewscreen, but it held. The shield persisted through the third barrage, and the fourth, but flickers and cracks raced through the energy field. When the fifth barrage hit, the shield collapsed, and over a hundred tungsten slugs met the hulking alien vessel a several million kilometers an hour.

On impact, nearly a gigaton of kinetic energy was converted into light and heat in a half second. The viewscreens struggled to cope with the overload.

When Nicole opened her eyes again, her stomach lurched, worse than it did when the Juno had dropped from hyperspace. The alien ship was still there.

“Positive impact. Superficial damage only.” The tactical officer sounded as shocked as Nicole felt. The screen flashed yet again. “Cruiser Appolyon has been destroyed.”

Captain Abbas pinched the bridge of his nose. “All ships retreat. Colonel, cancel landing preparations. There’s no way we can hold off those ships long enough to land your battalion.”

Nicole could read the tactical situation as well as Juno’s captain, but they hadn’t exhausted all the possibilities yet. “Sir, if I don’t get my Marines down there, Trappist IV is gone. There’s another option.”

“I’m listening, Colonel.”

She took a deep breath. “Non-orbital drop pod insertion.”

“No, absolutely not,” Abbas scowled. Nicole was surprised to see a hint of emotion on the notoriously stone-faced captain. “It’s never been done, purely theoretical. The stress on the drop pods and your marines…”

“It has been done Captain, twice. Spec Ops made two classified drops in the Luyten campaign from well outside orbit, and that was with an older drop-pod model. The new model drop pods should be able to handle it. We only have enough pods for one company and a support platoon. Those colonists need us.”

“And how do you know this Colonel?” Abbas raised his eyebrows at her.

“I was in Special Armored Assault Team four during the Luyten campaign,” Nicole replied.

Abbas paused. “Colonel Baxter, I’ve read your file. Most of your records detailing your participation in the Luyten campaign were redacted.”

“Exactly sir.”

Abbas paused, and Nicole knew that she had won.

“How long do you need?”

“Fifteen minutes sir.” She unbuckled from her acceleration couch on the bridge, stood and saluted.

Abbas glanced at the tac plot and nodded. “I can give you that.” He returned her salute. “Give them hell Colonel; we’ll be back for you. And next time, we’ll bring the dreadnaughts.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Nicole activated her subvocal comms and sprinted off the bridge.

“Chief! Change of plans! I need Alpha Company and the armored recon platoon in drop pods in 15 minutes!” Nicole slapped the lift controls at the end of the bridge access corridor. “And chief? I need you to prep Lucille for me. Save me a pod. I’ll be going too.”

Nicole ignored the chief's sputtered protest over the com implant and made a detour to her quarters to change her uniform before sprinting to the boat bay. A lifetime in the Marines made her motions automatic, slipping out of her ship suit and into her familiar power armor undersuit.

The boat bay was a flurry of motion and shouted orders when she arrived. The combat power-armor suited soldiers of Alpha Company streamed back out from the dropships they had loaded in to file into the combat drop pods that lined the sides of the bay. Heavy, hulking power armor and light mechs of the armored recon squad made the deck plates shake as they lumbered to their assigned slots. Chief Yamato stood in the middle of the bay, choreographing the chaos like only he could. He snapped a quick salute her way when he saw her arrive, falling in beside her as she strode toward the adjacent armory.

“We’ve got Lucille warmed up for you sir; she’s all ready to go. We’ll have some extra pods after we load alpha company- not enough for a full platoon, but I’ve got two squads from the heavy weapons platoon ready to load with your permission.”

“Good work, load them up.” Nicole and Yamato arrived at the armory. As Yamato promised, Lucille was waiting for her there. The Armored Tactical Assault Suit towered 12 feet high, a hulking bipedal mass of armor and weaponry that blurred the distinction between power armor and mech. Techs scrambled over its surface, checking and rechecking hydraulics, waldos and weaponry. The crew chief saluted her as she approached.

“Never thought I’d see a Mk III in person, ma’am, I thought they were all destroyed during the Luyten campaign. They don't make 'em like this anymore, now do they?” He patted it’s armored carapace. “Had no idea you had one stowed aboard. She’s a beaut, that’s for sure, and she was packed up well, all systems are coming up green. There is a hitch in the right…”

“Wrist actuator, I know. Took a coilgun round on Luyten prime during the first assault. It never quite was the same afterward.” Nicole stepped up the access ladder into the pilot compartment. Her helmet sat on the seat, connected to the suit by a thick bundle of cables. She placed the helmet on her head. “Ready for pilot interface.”

“Interfacing,” another tech tapped at a tablet and Nicole closed her eyes as she felt cushioned bands from the suit wrap around her and expand. It felt a little like having a blood-pressure cuff extend around her entire body at once. Then came the icy-cold sensation of metal sliding against metal as the interface plug at the back of her helmet slipped into the access port at the base of her skull.

And suddenly, Nicole just wasn’t inside the Armored Tactical Assault Suit. She was the suit, aware of every joint and actuator like they were part of her own body. Through the suits atmospheric sensors Nicole could taste the parts per billion of different trace elements that wafted through the air. She could see in wavelengths that no human could, in colors that no one outside of a suit could experience. She could feel the number of railgun rounds in the suit’s magazine, the micro-missiles in their launchers and the warm thrum of the cold fusion reactor that powered it all.

“Testing interface,” Nicole said. This time her voice didn’t come from her mouth but from the suit's speakers. She checked every joint and actuator, wiggling her armored fingers, twisting her torso, and bending her knees. She reveled in the sense of power that she hadn’t felt for years. She paused for a moment.

I’m not doing this for myself, am I? Risking all these lives so I can play hero again? She dismissed the thought. If we’re going to save the colonist on Trappist IV, I’m not going to do any good on the Juno. My soldiers and those colonists need me where I can make a difference.

Nicole’s comm chimed. “Colonel Baxter, our window is closing, we’ve lost two more destroyers and cruisers. If you’re going to do this, it has to be now.”

“Roger, Captain.” Nicole answered. “ We’ll launch in 40 seconds.”

Nicole pulled the diagnostic cables off the suit. “Sorry,” she apologized to the techs, “got to go.”

She took a deep breath. You ready for this old girl? Nicole wasn’t sure if she was talking to the suit or herself.

Nicole launched herself from the armory, piloting four tons of metal and death moving at 90 kilometers an hour across the boat bay and toward her assigned drop pod. Yellow lights flashed as the deck cleared for drop pod launch. She spun on the decking before reaching the pod, turning the suit 180 degrees and letting its momentum carry it into the large drop pod. It was not a moment too soon.

“This is launch control. Drop pod launch in ten seconds.”

The drop pod doors closed and the walls began to inflate, cocooning the suit inside a cushioned embrace.

“Commencing pod launch.”

Nicole’s gut was suddenly in her throat as the pod began its ballistic course to the planet below. Typically, drop pods were used in low-orbit, where the relatively low speed made atmospheric entry safer.

In this case, Juno had essentially fired the drop pods, like so many railgun rounds, toward Trappist IV at hundreds of thousands of kilometers an hour. If the pods hit the planet’s atmosphere at that speed, they would vaporize in an instant. Each drop pod was equipped with retro rockets that would slow the pod before its entry into the atmosphere, but when the rockets fired, the occupants of each pod would be subject to punishing g-forces for minutes at a time as the pods decelerated.

Despite the long deceleration burn, when the pods did reach the atmosphere, they still would be traveling at tens of thousands of miles an hour. Titanium maneuvering paddles would deploy at that point, aerobraking the pod, but they would only do so much. The rest would be up to a final burst of retro rockets and a low-opening chute that would deploy just a few thousand feet above the planet’s surface. Nicole had done it twice before. Both times she had sworn to never again.

I need to work on keeping my promises.

Isamel snarled as bullets tore into their formation, bodies falling around her. “Mages! Shield us!”

Isamel spared a glance for the five members of her cadre as the mages in the cohort hastily traced the runes for barrier spells into the air. The heretics guns continued to fire, but their bullets now impacted the magical wall, harmlessly falling to the ground in front of the patrol.

Barrier spells completed, the mages turned their magics on their ambushers. Streaks of lightning, balls of roiling flame and shards of ice flew from their fingers toward the dense underbrush where the heretics hid. Arrows followed, some enhanced with intent to split in the air or to explode on contact.

The heretics’ firing had stopped, and Isamel knew that they had probably turned and ran after the mages raised their barriers. This wasn’t the first time the heretics had resorted to this honorless tactic, striking the armies of the Forged Races and then fading away.

Cowards.

Isamel wanted nothing more than to lead her Cohort into the tree line where the bullets originated, but she knew it would be folly for them to charge off the road into the underbrush. The heretics used their magic cunningly, often leaving buried traps in their wake, causing enormous explosions that maimed the soldiers of the Forged Races. Sometimes the heretic’s ambushes were a trick, baiting the cohorts into charging into a hail of heretic bullets so dense that even 3rd-Pilgrimage mages could not maintain their shields.

No, she could not lead her forces into another trap. Isamel held her fist in the air, signaling her mages and archers to stop their barrage.

Isamel glanced again at her charges. Dhorranu glowered at the bushes, violet faerie fire dancing between his six fingers. Mertar skittered among the wounded, healing those with superficial injuries and plunging a long, narrow knife into the hearts of those with more severe wounds. None protested. Habnide held her long, curved bow at her side; arrow nocked and ready. Now that the mages shields were up, protecting her cohort from harm, Gestrud, the cadre’s Skald, had adopted a casual, uncaring pose, but Isamel noticed that his red-skinned fingers were still tight around his hatchets.

All five members of her cadre were unharmed, and Isamel allowed herself a small sigh of relief. Unlike the rest of the cohort, who would merely resurrect at their bind point on board one of the three Arks, her cadre was bound to the Gauntlet. If they were killed here, they would wake up alone, facing challenges far beyond their individual ability.

Letting them take the trip without their Guardian would be hard for them, but making the journey alone would most likely mean that their Pilgrimage to the Gauntlet would end quickly and ignobly, with few, if any, levels gained.

I have to send them to the Gauntlet without me. It’s become much too risky not to.

Isamel resolved to talk to them at dusk. They would understand.

First, though, I need to deal with these Heretics.

She called for Luegen, a third-Pilgrimage Bhouvil tracker. Luegen quickly fell in beside her, giving Isamel a hasty salute. Isamel turned to give him orders, but before she could, the ground shook, and a deep thrum reverberated through her bones.

Isamel turned back to where the Arks had landed. She clutched at her chest with one of her four hands and sketched a symbol against bad fortune with one of her others. In the distance, she could see two of the Arks rise into the air.

What is happening?

She watched the Arks shrink as they rose into the sky along with the rest of her cadre.

Isamel’s cohorts watched along with her, and it’s warriors began to mutter. “Have we displeased the Elders? Why are they taking the Arks? We have been abandoned! We have lost favor!” Panic spread through the cohort, and Isamel was ashamed to admit that it gripped her as well as the muttering changed to shouts of confusion and dismay.

“Quiet! Are you so quick to lose faith?” She shouted at her cohort, but Isamel could still see the fear in their eyes, and the mage's shield faltered along with their concentration.

Gestrud approached her. “There is a story, Guardian, of one of the great crusades against one of the prime heresies, where the Arks rose to the sky without the Forged Races aboard, only to return each time. Let me tell it, and ease the cohort’s hearts.”

Isamel nodded gratefully. “Words are your talent, not mine. Please Gestrud, go ahead.”

And with booming voice, the Skald started his story.

“In an age long past, when glory was young…”

Isamel had heard the tale before, but Gestrud told it well, no doubt using his Skald skills to enhance his storytelling abilities and helping to catch the audience’s attention. More and more of the cohort turned his way, transported away from their fear to a story of ancient deeds.

The story was about one of the great crusades of the Forged when the five races fought against heretics, so corrupted by their technological heresies that they had stood against the Forged for years. The Elders had called for great crusades against them, sending hundreds and thousands of Arks against these prime heresies, until the Forged Races claimed victory. The story spoke of strange metal beasts in the air and on the ground, of battles waged against foes that wielded fire and light like the most skilled mage.

In those battles, sometimes the Elder’s great Arks would rise to the sky, only to return later. Isamel had heard some versions of the story while in the Crucible that claimed that the Arks had taken to the air to do battle with the pagan’s own Arks, but she had dismissed those stories as no more than fanciful embellishments.

Gestrud skillfully twisted the story to focus on the Elder Arks rising in the sky only to return, and the faith that the Forged Races had that the Arks would once again land among them.

The tale now transfixed the entire cohort, and only Isamel saw the hundreds of shooting stars that covered the western sky with ephemeral streaks of light as they raced toward the horizon. She began to call out, but just then, a cry of joy went up among her cohort, and they raised their hands to the sky. On the opposite horizon, two dark specks grew larger in the sky. The Arks had returned.

If anyone other than Isamel saw the scorched and blackened metal that marred the surface of one of the Arks, they didn’t mention it.

Weapons of light and fire, metal carriages without steeds to pull them. Arks going to battle in the sky.

Her stomach was giddy with the twin promises of dread and glory.

It is time we call a Crusade.