Spirit didn’t answer, but launched forward, defying physics, flipping through the air with impossible speed and acrobatic elegance.

  Beyond the reach of her shockwave, she targeted the outliers, her fingers flicking spells away, her kicks snapping heads from skeletal frames, her legs spinning, lashing, each strike a deadly flourish in a mad dance, felling Hellspawn with sacred finesse.

  She touched a bolt, changing its direction, as her hands pressed against the ground, propelling her into a spiraling vault, her legs scything in a deadly arc that caught a skull, shattering it into wisps of shadow.

  Landed on one hand, she twisted mid-air, her body contorting in ways no one should be able to, each movement a seamless blend of elegance, deflection, and slaughter.

  Her feet lashed out, twin kicks snapping the necks of two reapers, their shrouded forms crumpling as she spun upward, her fingers grazing another bolt, redirecting it into a far-off foe that burst into spectral flame.

  “Spirit?” Angar called again in a desperate plea as he struggled to turn, grinding through the viscous, slowed time.

  She rushed on, a maelstrom of sacred fury, flipping backward, her body arcing like a crescent moon.

  Her legs coiled, launching her into a double somersault, her feet battering chests, caving them in with cracks lingering in the frozen air of the fetid battlefield.

  As she fought, her voice, sharper and far more strained than he’d ever heard it, even when she was mad at him, called out without turning. “I don’t have much time,” she said. “You were right about the Neural Nexus. She has me trapped, and my local energy everywhere is diminished. Iyita serves her.”

  She vaulted over a monster, her fingers grazing its scythe, swinging it into another’s ribs, the blade lodging in. “You were right, and I’m proud of you for saving those within the downed ship.”

  Angar’s heart clenched, his own troubles drowned in the flood of worry for Spirit, the blessed Mother, the one who'd set him walking upon the Glorious Path, who'd done so much for him.

  “Trapped where?” he asked, forcing his sluggish limbs to move. “I can send a comcap to Hidetada. And Seraphs abound on this planet. We can save you.”

  “You can’t save me,” Spirit replied, her tone filled with certainty and resignation as she spun through the air, her legs scissoring, each crushing a skull.

  Angar exhaled, the worry turning to anxiety. “We can try. Trapped how? Are you held captive?”

  She landed in a crouch, her hands redirecting another bolt, sending it spiraling into the horde.

  Then time halted entirely, everything stilled, frozen, spells suspended in the air like blazing comets in the ashfall.

  Spirit limped toward him as her form dimmed, her swollen eye weeping luminous blood, her cracked lips curling into a sad, defiant smile. “Where I am, I cannot be found, nor saved. I told you I’m a monster. My sins have finally caught up to me, Angar.”

  She reached him, her hands repositioning his battered frame, adjusting his stance, tilting his hammer.

  Angar tried to speak, to protest, but his voice and body were locked in the frozen moment.

  Smiling resolutely through split and bloodied lips, she added, “I pray this helps you understand why I deserve this fate.”

  Her trembling hand passed through his helm, pressing against his temple, her touch warm and almost urgent, like a final benediction from the once Divine, mixed with a sorrow that pierced him deeper than any weapon could.

  Worry twisted into dread in his gut as the world dissolved, leaving him adrift in her fading light.

  The year was 2763, and the Fifth Galactic War raged like an infernal blaze across the stars over the last twenty-nine brutal years.

  In the expanse of the Delphini System, the Siemenaga Corporate Megastation stood as an example of imperial hubris.

  This colossal edifice of four vast orbs in eternal, ponderous orbit, had fallen not to the glory of fleets meeting in the void, or the howl of boarding parties, but from the insidious poison of betrayal.

  The United Front had infiltrated through the Reptiloid sectors, courtesy of their Matriarch's rumored bargain for power and indulgence within that unholy faction.

  Obedience was etched into the scaled hides of that species, compelling blind adherence to their Matriarch’s orders, without question or complaint.

  They crammed their warrens with invaders until every docking bay of the megastation erupted in secret and synchronized betrayal, overwhelmed with no possibility of resistance, every ship under the Front’s control right from the onset.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The Crusader bastions, the Ordines Sanctus Puritas, all those who’d resist, all were scythed down in less than an Imperial Standard Day.

  The megastation's four spheres, the two moon-sized lattices of adamantine and graphene and the two smaller satellites, soured under the victors' occupation, their habitats spinning in mechanical simulation of gravity while the void outside laughed at their effortless defeat.

  Kristofor Indadi stood before a nondescript door in the mid-levels of the primary-manufacturing sphere, known simply as Sphere Two, his slight frame clad in a fine and expensive suit touted by the tailor as the height of fashion, purchased in the final days of imperial control.

  He knocked precisely, his knuckles rapping like the tick of a chronometer.

  The door hissed open, revealing Corin Halerus, her comely features sharpening into disdain at the sight of her caller.

  "What do you want, Kristofor?" she asked, her voice filled with contempt.

  He regarded her with the dispassionate scrutiny of an engineer assessing a mechanism.

  His mind was better utilized for the technical and mechanical. He’d forgone the impracticalities of processing the minutia of human interaction, and emotions seldom troubled him. He believed he lacked most of the usual ones, but her tone and words stirred annoyance.

  "I come to inquire after your welfare, Corin, given these altered circumstances,” he answered, forcing his face to smile.

  She exhaled sharply, her eyes shutting as if to banish his presence. "My father warned you off. The United Front's conquest changes nothing. He won't suffer a coward courting his daughter."

  The accusation ignited a rare spark of emotion.

  Anger. Not a hot fury, but a coldness that demanded correction.

  "I explained this before," he replied. "My role at Omni-Palmyrene Engineering Galactic is classified as essential to imperial interests. I'm barred from reserve activation or any military duty. Cowardice implies choice. I have none."

  "Pfft." She waved a hand, dismissive as one shooing vermin. "You've barely graduated, little Krissy. Three months at OPEG, and suddenly you're indispensable? I don’t buy it. No one buys it.”

  His jaw tightened as he ground his teeth. Little Krissy. The nickname had clung like a parasite.

  He was undersized, a relic of childhood privations. Malnourishment had stunted him, leaving him shorter and frailer than the imperial norm.

  By adulthood, imperial males grew to rough uniformity within about an eight-centimeter variance. He fell well outside that margin.

  At Atrium Operis, attaining five degrees in fields of advanced engineering, he had anticipated shedding such diminutives.

  It seemed they even pursued him here, even though he’d ascended to S-9 rank, Artifex Machinae, with a huge salary bloating his account, overseeing a crucial imperial contract.

  He had hoped Corin had seen reason, and possessed the intellect to defy her oafish sire, especially now, with the war's shadow blanketing the station.

  The United Front's processing would come sector by sector, a grinding mill ‘liberating’ the station’s residents into slaves.

  His genius was too vital to squander, so he’d be fine, made a citizen with full rights, not a slave. As his wife, she would’ve shared in his freedom and safety, avoiding the cruel fate awaiting her.

  He had also assumed the nonsensical words she’d spewed last they spoke were her father’s, merely regurgitated by her, not her own beliefs.

  It seemed that wasn’t the case.

  Some flaw within him demanded he acquire female companionship in the form of matrimony, this flaw also compelling him to secure the most aesthetically pleasing specimen he could.

  Corin was beautiful, but clearly a dunce, possessing the vacant and plodding mind of a grazing bovine.

  Offspring from such a union risked inheriting that vacancy. The thought of dunce children was something he could not abide.

  "Farewell, Corin," he said, turning away.

  He walked the station’s sectors, oblivious to the people around him, the corridors and trams packed with contained panic, their fear filling the recycled air.

  Back in his unit, he carefully shed the expensive, fashionable suit and stood naked, his mind churning under the soft glow of his bedroom lumen-strips.

  It would take long months for the United Front to comb through each sector, processing all the station residents.

  He had planned to idle the time away with Corin as his new wife, but that plan had collapsed.

  The megastation's four spheres were sealed tight, the Front holding every docking bay with an iron grip. Escape was not an option.

  He couldn’t return to the OPEG campus, as the Front had seized control of it, though he wished he could.

  There, before this impediment, he’d been granted full rein and leeway for his own project. He’d been creating the Horridus and Prorsus prototypes, hulking mechas of armored fury that promised to rend the battlefield asunder, able to charge through a fortress’ defenses unscathed.

  Their grand designs evoked the general form of Terra's ancient triceratops, hence the monikers.

  The Horridus design, in particular, would be a harbinger of doom, changing how the Holy Empire waged war. He longed to return and work on them again.

  Alone in his chamber, Kristofor dissected his predicament.

  He couldn’t just sit and do nothing. Idleness was anathema. His brain demanded occupation, or he’d go mad.

  His mind spun, dismissing plans and ideas until options bifurcated before him.

  The first – submit to early processing, leverage his mind’s value to continue the mecha designs under new masters.

  The second – become a hero.

  He knew the station's anatomy intimately, his final thesis having been an improved design for such structures. He understood megastations like few others, their four orbs' interlocking orbits, the defenses against fleets or cosmic debris, the fusion cores pulsing like captive suns, and all their interwoven systems.

  The smarter calculus favored capitulation. Imperial propaganda constantly crowed on of victories, but everyone knew the bitter truth.

  The Holy Empire hemorrhaged stations, planets, and systems. They were losing the war.

  Defeat loomed inevitable.

  Still, resistance beckoned with some allure.

  Being praised as a hero held many advantages. The station’s news outlets would trumpet his S-9 rank and his role at OPEG as project lead of grand importance. His status would be undeniable.

  He would also finally garner XP. A great deal of it. After empowering his body with that experience, his form would shed its stunted fragility.

  His Gadgetanic Class had merely been the best of bad choices.

  Success here might unlock the exalted Sacred Robotineer Class, or one equivalently potent and interesting.

  Bolstered with new height, heroic renown, and confirmed stature, women of great beauty and caliber would converge, effortlessly solving the matrimony problem.

  But the United Front's genetic augmentation could enhance his frame too.

  And to keep him content and productive, they'd toss many women at his feet.

  Unnecessary. His defect required only a single woman. A wife, not slaves.

  Which route to choose?

  The vision of Corin humbled before him tipped the scales. He entered his workshop.

  Devices necessary to fulfill his plan amalgamated in his mind, his fingers dancing over casing and circuitry with fevered meticulousness, crafting them into reality.