Angelsteeth has prepared as well as it could, the last twenty-four hours consumed by a maelstrom of activity. The major briefed the commanders of the operationally ready courses, the commanders briefed their captains, and so on. No time for drills. Protocols put into action, systems tested and checked, supplies stocked and countdowns started. In their private quarters, in slivers of downtime, soldiers writing last letters to loved ones. Just in case things don’t work out. Just in case things go south. Hope carries them aloft like a divine gale, but below them, ever present, is a bottomless ocean of fear, whose acid-blue waters would swallow them without mercy or remorse. These are unprecedented times within unprecedented times. There’s only so much a human person can do.

On the edge of the duchy of Canis they quietly ride a jump slot with a convoy booked by Marquis Wayhire, whose long history with Pyrex Imogen has accrued significant personal debt. The ships exit in the mouth of the duchy of Suidae, home of Monkglass, whose Duke had arranged passage to the besieged station. There they will wait, half a light-year away from their destination, while the archangel Misery and the freed seraph take a prayer and leap, driven by faith, into the heart of the siege of Monkglass, where they hope to make contact with its crew, dismantle the siege mechanism, and wake the jump portal that serves the station. A plan that sounded shaky even in line-by-line bullets; the potential for failure lurking at every point. It was unwise, and some would even say madness, to jump into an engagement that was a black box from the outside. Despite their meticulous planning, despite the intel from the Heretic prisoner, none of them knew what was truly waiting for the Messiah when they arrived on Monkglass, assuming they made it through in the first place.

But then again, that’s what faith entails, doesn’t it?

The banquet of Angelsteeth takes up positions by the jump gate assigned to them. The archangel and the free seraph make preparations to leave. Their captain goes over the plan with them one last time, just to be sure: a precisely calculated leap into the innermost cavity of the siege, proof of life and visual contact with the commander of Monkglass, confirmation of the siege net’s configuration. And then the riskiest part by their current calculations: exiting the shield, taking out the six network pillars, and activating the jump portal for the banquet to come sweeping in. It’s the part of the plan the Messiah is most confident about.

Signoff. All stations go. The banquet of Angelsteeth begins its long, tense wait. The archangel Misery Nomaki takes company of the liberated seraph, fires up hir engines, and takes a leap forward into the waiting arms of destiny.

CHAPTER 32

Something isn’t right.