Early March, AE 4186

  Kat's hands shook as she gripped the slate, her mind numbing, only able to recall protocols drilled into every officer.

  She had countless classes covering hostage scenarios, enemy coercion, the ironclad directives from counter-intelligence briefings.

  Each demanded targets report immediately, isolate the threat, and no matter what, never give them anything, never compromise.

  But this...this wasn't a simulated scenario. This was her blood, her heart, arrayed like sacrifices on an altar to all that was unholy and evil.

  "If you want your children to live," the dark-armored man's voice crackled through the feed, modulated and cold, devoid of accent or humanity, "you'll do exactly as instructed, without hesitation."

  Kat forced a deep and steadying inhale, channeling the calm she'd summoned in a thousand dogfights. Emotions were liabilities in the cockpit, often fatal liabilities. Here, they could doom her family, her children.

  "Please," she whispered, her voice cracking despite her efforts, "don't hurt my kids. Whatever this is…"

  "That's entirely up to you, Tribunis Navis," he cut in. "Your access code for the command console?"

  The hook. Just as the classes had warned. Her access granted no ability to do anything significant in the command console, just view some sensitive briefings and classified data.

  Nothing world-ending, but enough to test her, to draw first blood against her resolve.

  Give in once, give them the smallest thing, and the demands would escalate, a black hole of treason and Heresy pulling her in, endangering her family more and more.

  Per training, the only counter was to assert dominance, show unyielding faith in the Three and their Holy Empire, make clear that threats were useless and wouldn't bend her loyalty.

  Terrified as she was, she couldn’t trust her mind. She couldn’t think clearly. She had to trust her training.

  It’d involve a lot of threats and back-and-forth. A negotiation. Just a negotiation. Her kids were safe. They’d be safe. It was just words. Just threats. All just meant to intimidate and coerce.

  "No," she stated, proud her voice remained calm even though her pulse thundered in her ears and panic ripped through every centimeter of her body. "I won't give you anything. Threatening my family won't…"

  The sidearm bucked with a deafening crack. Crimson sprayed in a horrific arc.

  A scream tore from her throat as Kat looked away. She doubled over, the slate slipping in her trembling, sweaty grip, nausea rising as the world blurred through hot tears.

  "Quiet!" the man barked.

  Kat bit back her cry, fury and resolve settling in her chest like a deadly disease.

  The monster hadn’t even given her a chance. He hadn’t negotiated.

  They said it'd be a negotiation. Her little baby!

  The remaining children's wails cut through the earpiece, a ruckus of absolute terror and grief, with Chere shrieking, Gab sobbing hysterically, Azra seething in rage, and Zhertva’s muttering desperate prayers.

  As Gab tried to stand and go to his sister, the man clocked his head with the sidearm, then pressed it to his temple. Her son wailed uncontrollably, fright and confusion twisting his face into something almost unrecognizable.

  "You have three seconds to give me the code,” the man stated. “Or you kill this one too.”

  This wasn't the stories, the heroic tales of defying Heretics with cunning and unbreakable will.

  This wasn't the classes, with their neat answers and happy outcomes.

  This was real. The blood real, the death real.

  Shiv dead on the floor, his blood mingling with their daughter's.

  Nashi. Her baby. Gone. In a heartbeat, her little angel extinguished.

  She'd killed her. She’d killed her own daughter. By refusing, by thinking this was a negotiation, by clinging to protocol, she'd murdered her little angel.

  Adorable little Nashi, lying like a broken doll. It was Kat’s fault. All her fault.

  Her mind reeled, a storm of what-ifs and recriminations. If it were just her life on the line, she'd martyr herself without hesitation, giving this scum nothing, for God and Empire, all glory to the Holy Trinity.

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  But her children? They grew in her belly, birthed in pain and pride, raised in stolen moments of joy between deployments.

  She hadn't been there enough. How many nights lost to briefings, birthdays missed for sorties, years absent for deployments?

  She hadn’t been there enough, but her love for them burned just as fierce, an unquenchable fire.

  Four left. Her husband was dead, but four of her babies remained.

  They had to survive. They would survive.

  She hadn’t been there enough, but she’d be there for them now, come Hell or high water, whatever the cost to her. Whatever the cost to her soul.

  She gave the code, then everything else the man wanted.

  In her cramped quarters aboard the Zephuros, the lights turned off, Kat huddled on the edge of her bunk, her face streaked with silent tears as they flew away from Abyssalhome.

  The ship's noises were usually like a comforting lullaby. But today, they did nothing to soothe the tsunami raging in her chest.

  Her children were hostages, their lives dangling by the thinnest thread somewhere, afraid, under the heel of Heretics.

  And now, because of her failure, that thread would stretch out for at least four more agonizing months.

  Four more months of torment wondering if they were fed, if they were safe, if they were hurt.

  If they were alive.

  She'd been so close. So damned close.

  It had all changed during the Victory Day celebration.

  Her own victory had seemed inevitable then, a single chance away, a single moment to end this nightmare.

  But it hadn't come. Not that night, and not in the desperate attempts that followed.

  A week before planetfall on Abyssalhome, with Slavo snoring softly in their bunk, she'd pressed her ear to the door, listening for the telltale clank of Angar's cybernetic feet.

  He cleaned at odd hours sometimes, a solitary ritual in the dead of night while others slept, and sure enough, she heard him push a mop bucket past.

  What kind of broken, false Knight performed menial labor like a serf?

  But like the Lord Himself was handing her a gift straight from Heaven, he entered the rain locker.

  Heart pounding, she'd slipped into a tiny robe that barely deserved the name, feigning groggy half-sleep as she entered.

  The robe fell away in her fatigued delirium, pretending Angar was unnoticed, exposing herself fully to the recycled air and his gaze.

  Angar had frozen, his cybernetic eyes widening before slamming shut.

  He'd dropped to his knees with a thud, his lips moving in a fervent chant, just mumbling the same part of the Crusader's oath over and over.

  She'd approached, her bare feet silent on the cold tiles, wrapping her arms around him, pressing her warmth against his form.

  "Angar," she'd whispered in a silken plea, shaking him gently, then more insistently.

  But he was gone, lost in some inner fortress, unresponsive as a corpse, his body rigid as duranium.

  She caressed everywhere, doing everything she could think of, trying to force herself on him, but she heard a door clank, and fear of discovery had demanded her retreat after twenty minutes straight of nothing but failing, slipping back to her quarters, frustration and rage roiling in her gut.

  She'd tried again, plenty more in those final days. Each time, more desperate. Each time, he resisted. But each time, she’d gotten so close.

  One more day, maybe two, and she’d have succeeded.

  But the damned voyage ended, and that damned Angar debarked to Crusade, leaving her mission unresolved.

  And who paid the price? Her children.

  Gab, with his father's stubborn chin and endless questions.

  Chere, her fierce little princess who dreamed of flying like her mommy.

  Azra, the quiet one, full of simmering rage, with dreams of becoming a Crusader.

  And Zhertva, the loyal nanny who'd become more a mother to the kids than Kat herself.

  Only Mick was safe, but he had to be so lonely, having received reports his whole family had died in the tragic ship collision that killed the real Iyita.

  Four more months.

  She could report some headway, some success, buy some more time. She’d gotten so close.

  They were bound for Moonlight now, a bustling world where she could slip away, deliver a status update, and demand proof of life.

  She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, forcing the sobs to subside, repeating her mantra in her mind.

  Come Hell or high water.

  Slavo would be off duty soon. He couldn’t tolerate seeing her in tears, making a big deal of it, not letting it go.

  He was a good man, extremely kind, though very awkward, and utterly devoted in every annoying, infuriating way.

  And his touch...it was unbearable. Lying with him a foul wretchedness she must endure, making her skin crawl at the thought, making her nauseous.

  She hadn't been given a chance to grieve Shiv. She hadn't had time to mourn the man who'd held her through life’s struggles, who'd fathered her children with love and laughter.

  Thrown into this false marriage, every caress from Slavo felt like infidelity, a betrayal of her true husband.

  Why her? Why would they pick her for this? She was just a gubernator, not some seductress. She'd never seduced anyone. She had no training. She had no idea what she was doing.

  It made no sense. None of it.

  And Angar? Despite his muscles and size, he was barely older than her Mick, the second child she’d given birth to, and there was well over a decade gap between the first she tithed out of wedlock and Mick.

  Why any of this?

  It was sick, all so sick. Her little angel, Nashi.

  And what could seducing Angar possibly achieve? What grand scheme could this possibly help?

  She didn't understand any of it. She couldn't fathom the endgame.

  She felt terrible that Slavo was ensnared. He deserved so much better than a false wife plotting behind his back.

  Not Angar, though. She felt no pity for that monster. He desired her badly. Very badly. He had since their first meeting, before she’d done a thing to encourage it. It was clear as sunlight.

  If he'd just given in, just once, she’d be done, her kids free. Instead, he'd resisted like a fanatic, endangering her children.

  Unforgivable.

  And he was strange too, some kind of sadist. Or masochist. Whichever liked receiving pain.

  Thinking about it, he probably liked giving pain too, so it was a moot point, as he was both of those things.

  She'd witnessed it, also clear as sunlight, that spectacle with the Hyperalgesicator. The way he'd endured the impossible agony, snatching the prod from Harc's hand, pressing it to his own flesh even after the wager ended.

  And his eyes. They blazed with something unholy, the same as a Demon Lord’s would.

  He wasn’t right. He was evil.

  He could burn in the deepest pits of Hell for all she cared. Only her kids mattered, and he was the obstacle endangering them.

  She had to save them, reunite with them, atone for killing Nashi.

  Come Hell or high water.