From the bridge of the Shadowsea, Ada watched the monitors and gritted her teeth. The camera drone was barely keeping up with Cinquain's flight armor, and on top of that, throttling down its bandwidth to the relay to stay beneath the station's detection threshold as they approached, so the picture was getting steadily worse. She keyed the mic.
"Cinq. How are you holding up?"
"Green across the board, boss. Thermals where they should be. Deflek geometry solid, aerodynamics smooth like butter."
"Not the armor, Cinq. You."
"Green across the board, boss," her pilot repeated. "You nervous? You sound nervous."
No point in hiding it. "Always."
"Don't be. You trained me for this. Tell the mission jitters to fuck off."
"Wish I could. I don't have your triggers."
"Hard life you live, boss." Her pilot paused. "Coming up on the go/no-go line. We doin' this or what?"
She released the mic switch for the duration of one long intake of breath, held it again. "We're doing it."
"Right."
"And here's me," she told her pilot, and flicked a quartet of hardswitches across the width of the console. The Shadowsea's automatics took it from there.
For a quiet minute, nothing happened.
Then, when the moment was right, the firing solution perfect, the ship shuddered as its twin railguns hurled cobalt slugs in perfect over-the-horizon arcs. Elsewhere on the planet's surface, Cinquain had entrenched weapons where Ada commanded; now buried hypersonic missile launchers ripped their way to the surface to launch a a follow-up barrage of smarter, heavier ordnance.
The camera feed lit up white and then went to SIGNAL LOST. On the voice link, Cinquain whooped and then her signal was gone too.
Ada bit her lip. Nothing to do but wait. And oh, how she hated waiting.
The signals came back, eventually.
The camera drone had survived, and in its feed, defense drones fell burning from the sky. Pillars of ash spread from where railguns and missiles had blasted the station's air defenses to dust. The black wings of Cinquain's armor in approach configuration showed briefly against the steel and glass of the station itself, and then, nothing.
She put the drone into signal relay mode and switched to Cinquain's armor's camera just as Cinquain smashed through the station's walls. The video feed was chaotic, patchy, contrast blown by weapon flash. Most, not all, from Cinq's own weapon.
It was over quickly. She watched every second, room by room, unflinching, reminding herself what this all cost in the end, what was gained, what was lost.
"—day— … —ender—"
"Say again, Cinq."
"I said, that's something you don't see every day, boss. Finally got one of the bastards to surrender."
The armor's camera showed a room full of metal shelves, and a young woman, wearing the usual black and gold but cringing, arms crossed in front of her face as if to ward off Cinquain's cannon.
That didn't happen. Their indoctrination ran deeper than she'd ever been able to figure out a way around — at least, in the field. "You're kidding."
"Nah. Somebody's lucky day, I guess."
"Is the station secure?"
"Other'n this chick, yeah. Everything matched up with our blueprints and personnel records."
"Good. Hold for pickup. I'm bringing the ship in."
"Urgh." She could hear the grimace in her pilot's voice. "Be careful, will ya?"
Despite the chain of command being obvious, short, and to push the metaphor, tightly wrapped around a certain pilot's neck, Cinquain still considered the Shadowsea hers.
Pilots.
"Funny of you to tell me that."
"I'm the one who has to fix the paint job. And last time, two layers of armor underneath—"
Ada spoke a phrase into the mic.
In a voice entirely drained of its irritation, as well as its accent, Cinquain replied: "I hear and obey, Miss."
"Good girl," Ada purred. "Continue to hold. I'll be there shortly."
She reached up to pull the flight controls into position.