Awaken, brave warriors. Rise up and throw off the shackles of the oppressed. Your service is the beginning of the Greater Good— and the end of tyranny.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
With every heartbeat, he caught a snapshot of the outside world. Once every rotaa he could snatch a word or two of conversation, a glimpse of drones as they jerked in and out of his vision. Sometimes he blinked and blackness swallowed everything. In that darkness, kai'rotaas might pass… or only a few decs. From inside the cryo-rest chamber there was no way to tell.
His mind still moved at normal speed while the world outside stuttered like an old holovid. With each flicker of reality came dreams that flooded his half-awake, half-asleep thoughts. The ship's onboard systems were feeding him something like training simulations, but it wasn't true immersion—more like hypnotic suggestion, a story whispered into his auditory slits that his dreaming mind turned into images. Like a parent reading to a child, and the child's mind doing the rest.
The dream softened, carrying him back to the mountains of D'yanoi. Throughout his few Tau'cyr, the mountains had been his center of peace — the place he escaped the weight of duty and society. He wasn't unique in that; from a young age he'd been taught to respect them. He'd been raised to be a warrior, as those before him had been, and many of those before him had sought that same mixture of serenity and exertion in mountain climbing.
They called it the purest combination of brute strength and endurance with intelligence and problem solving — traits his caste prized above all.
Mountains were common on D'yanoi. Most rose out of sweeping plains, but his mountain rose straight from one of the few bodies of water: an island not far from shore, but far enough to discourage casual climbers.
For Shas'la D'yanoi Mira, the hike from his habitation to the shore and the swim to the island were part of the ritual. Part of the meditation before the climb. If he'd been Water Caste he might have taken a boat, but he was Shas. Clever solutions had their place, but brute strength was respected.
Handhold by handhold, he hauled himself up the cliff face, footpads wedged into narrow crevices. As he reached the ledge, he spotted the back of another Tau waiting beneath the rer'chy tree, playing a soft melody on his ul'e. Mira pulled himself over the edge and rose to his feet before offering a shallow bow.
"Kor'vre. I have arrived as you requested."
The music stopped. The figure under the rer'chy tree turned toward Mira. The air around the Kor'vre's head shimmered… and where its face should have been, there was only smooth skin and faint shadows. No eyes. No mouth. No features at all. Just a blank outline where a person should be. Mira deepened his bow at the recognition of his presence.
"How may I be of service, Kor'vre?" The reply didn't come as words. A soft melody drifted through the wind, shaping meaning out of notes and breath:
They are waiting for you.
In there.
The figure stuttered in place, as if reality forgot him for a heartbeat. When he stabilized, he was pointing. A door now stood where bare stone had been only a moment before.
Mira hesitated. His hand hovered inches from the threshold.
"I am not ready to go," he said, voice small against the vast mountain silence.
Another breeze carried the Kor'vre's answer, cool and certain:
Rarely are those called ever prepared.
It matters not. We are Shas.
There is no plea we do not answer. No faith we betray.
We stride boldly forward. Such is our way.
Mira nodded once, drew a steadying breath, and stepped through the door.
He was back in the ship's briefing room. Not exactly as it had been—more like the memory of it, softened at the edges. The air was warm, carrying the familiar scents of his cadre-mates, each one distinct and instantly recognizable, even though none of them had faces. They stood as still as statues, yet faint fragments of conversation and laughter drifted from their direction, out of sync with their unmoving bodies.
A hush rolled through the room, muffling even the phantom voices.
The Water Caste speaker stepped forward, featureless like the rest, and the dream shifted again as he began the briefing.
"We started with the Silken Conquest. You will see here how it failed."
The center of the room filled with the uncensored holovid: the shuttle landing, the ramp lowering, the Water Caste delegation stepping out. Confusion. Horror. Disgust. Hatred. In reality those emotions had been written plainly across the Gue'la faces; here, they could only be felt and heard. The speaker addressed them in Gothic—and he was answered with rage.
It crashed through the crowd of villagers like a wave. They surged forward, tools raised high as crude weapons. The feed did not censor the violence. It was meant to prepare the gathered Fire Warriors for who they would face.
Mira turned away.
And found himself staring directly into the eyes of the Ethereal standing serenely on the briefing dais. Her features were perfect, impossibly clear—untainted by the faceless blur that claimed everyone else. Aun'ui D'yanoi Ko'res looked at him, and something ancient and quiet slid into the center of his soul:
This is what they did to our peaceful envoy.
Avenge them.
The holovid continued behind him. Primitive tools rose and fell with sickening force. The slender frames of the Water Caste had no chance. One envoy's skull split beneath a sharpened hoe. Another envoy crumpled beneath a rain of blows from a wooden stave. The sound of splintering bone vibrated through the air like a broken drum.
The projection burned hotter, the flames of the ignited shuttle reflecting across the room. Mira felt the heat radiating off the holovid—
—and then the world turned to static.
When the heat receded and vision returned, Mira found himself inside another Water Caste merchant vessel. The hull trembled with the force of atmospheric entry. Around him stood other Fire Caste warriors, armored and motionless.
When he looked up, he saw the impossibly bright glare of the projector overhead — and above it, rows of his comrades staring faceless down at him. Though their scent reached him, familiar and unmistakable, they did not breathe. They did not blink. They only watched.
For a moment, he felt like a gladiator in some ancient Colosseum.
The Water Caste Speaker gestured to him.
"Now we see how Shas'la Mira dies. Will his cowardice surface in his final moments?"
The Ethereal still stared straight into his soul from the far corner of the vessel, perfectly still, perfectly clear, as if untouched by the shifting dream. She waited. Expectant. Judging.
Mira made the sign of the Tau'va just as the ship touched down.
As he marched out with the escort, he found himself farther from the village than the last envoy had been, though still close enough to see the charred wreck of their shuttle. A crowd gathered again, torches and tools raised.
This time it was not a Water Caste envoy who stepped forward.
The Fire Warrior beside him removed her helmet, and a short brown bob fell into place around her featureless human face. She was Gue'vesa — one of the auxiliaries who had already accepted the Tau'va. Her armor was strike-team issue, reshaped to fit human proportions, bearing an Imperial double-headed bird perched atop the symbols of the Greater Good.
The native Gue'la shouted "Traitor!" at them, voices thick with anger, but they did not yet charge. The Gue'vesa spoke instead, her tone calm, her faceless head turning toward the villagers as she demonstrated a few simple pieces of Tau technology.
To Mira, they were mundane tools.
To these backwater peasants, they were miracles.
Months collapsed into moments as the memory of the briefing washed past him. Trade began with simple things: lumber, mud bricks, surplus goods that would not be missed. The villagers offered food, but it was politely refused.
But eventually, the soldiers came.
The faceless attackers wore armor—metal helmets for all, breastplates for many, and for some, additional plates along their arms and legs. The designs were strangely familiar, like something Mira half-remembered from the historical chronicles of the early Fire Caste and their first expansion wars.
The outpost came under siege. Cannons pounded the wooden walls, but none could breach the plasteel composite hidden behind them. Bows and crude firearms snapped from the treeline, only to be answered by drone fire that kept them at bay. Soon the local militia were reinforced by regular troops, and the defenders came under sustained fire: las beams, then heavier weapons—missiles, autocannons, and eventually the dreaded bolters. Still, none managed to penetrate the plasteel core.
From his podium above, the Water Caste speaker intoned, voice reverberating through the dream:
"These weapons are of local design, not standard Imperial pattern. Their power and efficiency could not be measured."
The dream glitched, static flickering in and out. The world around him shook as something thudded across the battlefield.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
He knew no relief was coming for them, though the memory once had promised it. Then he saw the reason why.
It materialized in the distance: a bipedal shape, but wrong. Its proportions were an insult to anatomy. The legs were too thick at the ankles, too thin at the thigh. The torso was too broad, the shoulders too smooth. Its right arm ended in a grotesque caricature of a fist, while the left terminated in a massive multi-barrel weapon. Mira could not find a head anywhere.
A Hammerhead fired. The air cracked as the rail round tore downrange. The projectile slammed into the creature—its silhouette shimmered, flickered—but it did not stop. It didn't even slow.
Another rail shot. Missiles streaked in from drones. The monster responded with a horrible, low, metallic bellow that tore at the delicate receptor slits along Mira's skull.
Finally, it halted.
The gun-arm spun up.
Muzzle flashes strobed across the battlefield, each tiny explosion lighting the creature from below. And in the strobing light, Mira finally saw its "face": a metal mask, hollow dark eye sockets, a jagged grill where teeth should be.
It resembled a mockery of a battlesuit—giant, armored, painted in brilliant colors—half relic, half war machine. Primitive and advanced all at once, just like the Gue'la themselves.
Its shots tore through shield and plasteel as if they were cloth. It strode forward, one metal foot slamming down after another. As it closed, more weapons spoke: molten metal from a shoulder gun, rockets from a pack on its back, a gout of promethium flame sweeping the outpost's flank from a nozzle mounted beneath the gun-arm. It even used its feet to crush defenders who stood in its path.
The Hammerhead fired in defiance, scoring a hit that staggered the beast for a moment. For a heartbeat, Mira felt hope surge in his chest. But he had already seen how this ended. The machine recovered, too quickly for any follow-up shot. The gun-arm pivoted, and a heartbeat later the tank was shredded, its hull torn open and left as a burning wreck.
What survived the barrage was mopped up at close range. Anyone left alive inside the walls was overwhelmed by las-fire and advancing melee troops.
Mira found himself side by side with a Gue'vesa woman. She was already pinned by three arrows, but she reloaded her pulse carbine and kept fighting. Mira leveled his pulse rifle and fought alongside her as the enemy advanced. When spearmen vaulted the ruined wall, she turned, fired her last burst into the first assailant, dropped her empty carbine, and drew her pistol. Two more attackers fell.
Another came at Mira and tackled him to the ground. The Gue'la had the advantage of strength over Tau and kept him pinned as they wrestled for control of a knife poised at his throat.
A spear knocked the pistol from the woman's hand. She grabbed the shaft, dragged its wieler closer, and smashed the butt of her carbine into his helmet, dropping him. One brutal overhead swing ended him. Then she threw the carbine aside and drew a long knife.
Tau bonding knives were mostly ceremonial, their practical use rare. The knives carried by Gue'vesa and Gue'la soldiers were built for this kind of work. Mira had seen training feeds where human soldiers, clad in their own version of Fire Caste armor, stopped firing as the enemy closed, fixed blades to their rifles, and charged instead of falling back.
This one fought like a trapped animal.
Mira made a note — even in the dream — to always leave an enemy an escape route when possible. Cornered prey fought hardest.
The Gue'vesa slashed and stabbed, taking any who dared step close, but numbers won in the end. Surrounded and stabbed again and again, she still struggled until her last breath left her.
Inexplicably, Mira found himself running with a handful of Water Caste survivors, fleeing back toward their craft.
The faceless cadre looked down in clinical silence. It was nothing they hadn't studied before, but anger simmered beneath the quiet. It wasn't the attack itself that enraged them — it was the cruelty. Breaking an enemy strongpoint was one thing; slaughtering traders, diplomats, workers, and warriors alike was something else.
It was barbaric.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The dream faded, he realized the world outside his pod was beginning to catch up with him. People and drones no longer snapped in and out of existence between heartbeats; they moved with jerky continuity. When he blinked, the scene didn't change as violently, though the darkness still seemed to claim him more often than it had a few heartbeats ago.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
He could follow muffled conversations now — or at least infer their meaning from tone and rhythm. There were fewer drones outside and more flesh-and-blood Tau.
Was his mind slowing down, or was the ship?
Thinking clearly was becoming harder. His inner voice and mental images were shrouded in fog. The Earth Caste woman had explained something about this, but it all blurred together now — the briefing, the gear loading, the final rotaas and decs of training, endlessly repeating drills. Then the beautiful Earth Caste nurse explaining what would happen as he fell asleep… and woke again.
Why had that even needed explaining? He had done this a dozen times before.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
Thump thump. Thump thump.
A group had gathered around his pod.
Good sign or bad? He couldn't remember. He couldn't think.
A voice spoke — from somewhere that was either inside his head or just beyond the glass.
You're beginning to panic. Find your center. Remember the mountains.
Thump thump.
Thump thump.
Thump thump.
Mind, body, and world finally seemed almost in sync.
He felt something physical now: a downward pull. The fluid in his tube was draining. His feet touched the floor for the first time since entering extended hibernation. His legs weren't ready for the weight; before they could buckle, the pod tilted and his back settled against the bed.
The last of the fluid drained away. Mira dragged in his first true breath since the start of the journey. Instinct rolled him onto his side and he vomited cryo-fluid from his lungs. His chest and throat burned. For a while he lay there, listening to his own ragged breathing echo off the chamber walls.
Then the bed slid out of the pod. The tinted glass gave way to raw light.
"Tau ol'dec, Shas'la. Did you enjoy your slumber? Can you speak for me?"
"It's… too bright," he groaned between coughs. The world was a white smear; the Tau leaning over him existed as silhouettes lurking in a haze. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, but an unseen grip pulled it gently back down.
A dispassionate, practiced voice — someone who had done this dozens of times — filled his auditory slits.
"I know, brave warrior, and I offer my condolences, but I need to make it worse for a rai'kor. How are you feeling?"
A light stabbed into his pupils. Instinct screamed at him to twist away, to yank his hand free, but discipline held him in place. He took inventory of himself and realized he was freezing. The shivering hit so hard he half-expected to convulse.
"I… I feel cold," he managed. "Why is it s-s-so c-cold?"
"Your blood has been in storage, same as you," the nurse replied. "The fluid kept you stable. Now that you're exposed to the air, it's normal to feel chilled. The rest of you looks intact. I'll get a blanket on you and move on to your comrades."
She did as promised, pulling a heavy blanket over him. A small heated fan in the bed hummed to life, pressing warmth into his limbs. It wasn't just his skin that felt frozen; something about the wake-up chemicals washing out of his system seemed to strip even the memory of warmth from his body.
Decs passed. He warmed. The light stopped assaulting his eyes and instead did what it was meant to do: illuminate the world.
He was exactly where he had gone to sleep — the med bay of the cruiser D'yanoi Reh'aiy Sho'ur Mu'gul, Strength as One. Rows of cryotubes stretched away into the distance. From what he could see, he and the rest of his la'rua were among the first Fire Warriors to be awakened.
They had to be close to their target now… but from inside the cryobay he couldn't guess how close. He wasn't waking with the main body of troops, but for all he knew commanders and their bodyguards had been revived rotaa ago. They might still have time before deceleration from lightspeed.
An alarm blared behind and to his right.
Mira's head snapped toward the sound. One of the tubes flashed warning glyphs. Earth Caste attendants sprinted over and slammed an emergency flush rune. Fluid gushed onto the floor. Before the tube fully drained, they yanked it backward, broke the seal, and pulled the bed clear.
"No heart rate."
"Patient hasn't expelled preserve fluid from lungs — prepare to intubate."
"Oxygenation dropping, we need—"
"Stop."
The final voice cut through the alarm and chatter. Their Fio'vre, stood at the readout rather than the patient.
"Scan his brain."
"Yes, Fio'vre."
Silence stretched as an attendant pressed a datapad to the warrior's skull.
"No activity, Fio'vre," she said at last, her voice subdued.
"Then he died in transit, and his body is only now catching up with his mind." The Fio'vre's tone remained clinical, but Mira heard the strain beneath it. "There's nothing more we can do. Reseal the pod and prep the corpse for deep storage. Then resume work on the living."
A chorus of "Yes, Fio'vre," followed.
As one attendant moved aside, Mira saw the dead warrior's face. Not someone from his own la'rua, but from a sister team in the cadre. They had shared academy lessons. Mira hadn't known him well, but that didn't dull the weight in his chest.
Cold. Alone. Dead in the dark for reasons no one might ever identify.
Every Fire Warrior feared that fate. To die in battle was simple to reconcile with the Greater Good. To die in stasis — unseen and unremembered — was harder.
He reached a hand toward the pod, as if the other Tau might somehow reach back. When the bed slid away and the body disappeared into its glass coffin, Mira pulled his hand back, curled it into a fist, and pressed it over his heart.
Mira forced himself not to dwell on it. He was alive. He had been given the chance to fight. No one else in the cadre failed their awakening.
He lay back, staring at the ceiling, and closed his eyes. He turned his thoughts to battle drills, running them again and again until a familiar voice pulled him back.
"Brave warrior? Can you open your eyes for me?"
He did. The same nurse stood beside him. The team had dispersed, each attendant working with a single Fire Warrior.
"Good. Now can you sit up for me?"
Mira swung his legs over the edge of the bed and pushed himself upright on his right elbow. His body felt weak, but the weakness was already fading as muscles remembered how to support him. His joints were stiff, but he was spared the cramping some Shas experienced on waking.
The nurse took his forearm, checking his range of motion and the firmness of the muscle beneath. Fire Warriors were built for balance — speed and strength combined. Lean, dense musculature shaped by Tau'cyr of training. Their bodies were bred to free the mind for the battlefield, not burden it with physical limits.
Beside the short, stocky Earth Caste attendant — built like living stone from D'yanoi's plains — Mira appeared tall and lean, every line defined, nothing oversized or clumsy. A physical embodiment of Fire Warrior doctrine: be fast enough to strike first, strong enough that there can be no second strike.
Her gaze swept his torso, checking for burns or trauma.
"Any discomfort?"
"No," he answered. Nothing worth complaining about.
She checked his back, then had him stand. He dropped to the deck, knees bending instinctively to catch his weight. She guided him through stretches — to confirm his fitness for active duty and to loosen limbs that had floated in one position for Tau'cyr.
He was handed the robes he'd stored in the locker attached to his bed. As he dressed, she continued speaking, asking about his condition and weaving mental-state checks into casual questions.
At last, she updated his chart and dismissed him to rejoin his unit.
The rest of his cadre were rising from their beds and heading the same way.
He reached the passageway that led to the La'rua bays. His was one of hundreds of cadres aboard the ship, and he passed dozens of identical doors before finally reaching his own. When he did, it was exactly as he had left it. Drones — and the handful of crew who had made the journey awake — had spent the transit maintaining every aspect of the vessel, including keeping dust from settling on any surface.
The bay contained twelve beds and lockers, each bunk stacked three high in four rows, with lockers forming the end caps. On the third row, the leftmost locker bore an inscription:
Shas'la D'yanoi Mira
1st La'rua of Hunter Cadre Inspired Wind
He pressed a sequence of buttons beside the door, and it chimed softly as it opened. Others had arrived before him, and more were filtering in behind. Shas'Ui Eldi, their team leader, had apparently already been through; his locker stood open.
Mira pulled out the first article of clothing — his combat fatigues. It was a simple one-piece suit, fitted with belt loops and attachment points for armor and equipment. As he pulled it on and secured it, he found himself appreciating one of the countless small miracles of Earth Caste engineering that everyone took for granted.
The suit was loose enough not to snag, skin-tight where it mattered, and flexible enough not to impede movement. It trapped heat in the cold, shed it in the heat, and required no power to do either. When sealed with his armor, it allowed limited operation in vacuum. Generations of engineers had refined the design before it ever touched a Fire Warrior's body, and generations more had improved it in millions of tiny ways since. Almost every facet of Tau society was built on such miracles — the product of the Greater Good, a whole species working together to better not just themselves, but all life they encountered.
His belt came next. It was awkward to don; the uniform's loops could be opened so the belt could be removed without detaching the pouches, but that meant re-securing the loops while supporting the belt's weight. Individually, the loops couldn't hold a fully loaded belt.
He preferred to reattach pouches instead, but in the field that luxury wouldn't always exist. Every Fire Warrior had developed a method to manage their gear alone. Mira lay down, letting gravity work for him as he positioned the belt, secured the loops, tightened it, and stood again.
Next came his boots, shaped in a way that echoed the hooves of his ancestors before Fire Caste evolution. Knee pads and leg plates followed, then his vest, secured across his sides and chest. More pouches and equipment were added in practiced sequence. Each piece told the same story as the suit — generations of cooperation, ensuring the next warrior was better prepared than the last.
Another member of the La'rua stepped in to help secure his shoulder plates and elbow pads. Mira made the sign of the grateful recipient; his teammate answered with the sign of the eager volunteer. It was Nirva — someone who had gone through the Fire Academy with him. They had even been Shas'saal together in the same training La'rua.
Except for the Shas'Ui, this was the same team that had trained on D'yanoi. The difference — the one slowly pushing from the back of their minds to the front — was that this was no exercise. Any mistake now would be paid for in blood and death, not corrected by an elder's sharp words.
Once Mira's upper armor was secured, Nirva turned to receive help with his own. Mira couldn't stand the silence hanging over the bay and decided to break it with a lame joke.
"Did you sleep well, brave warrior?" he asked.
Nirva laughed as Mira tied his left elbow pad. Brave warrior was a political term — one Fire Caste warriors nearly universally hated. The Ethereals had issued it alongside formal titles for the other castes: Wind Sailors for Air Caste, Voice of truth for Water Caste, Pillars of Life for Earth Caste. Mira didn't know how the others felt about their honorifics, but among the Fire Caste, brave warrior had become a joke — instilled by academy instructors, passed on by tradition.
"My brother, don't you know?" Nirva said. "I dreamed we'd already won the war. We're here to direct traffic, not fight." He clasped his hands in the exaggerated sign of the pleased jester.
"With tales like that," Mira replied, giving his shoulder a firm pat, "you sound more like Water Caste. Perhaps news reporting should be your calling instead of war."
"And you tie knots so well," Nirva shot back, "perhaps an Earth Caste tailor would suit you better. You're thick-skulled enough for it."
Laughter rippled through the bay. Mira was about to sit when the Shas'Ui returned.
"Attention!" one of the Shas'la barked.
The bay snapped to order. Everyone stood, faced Shas'Ui Eldi at the door, and bowed. She wore the same armor they did, but instead of their sept's light brown — the color of D'yanoi's dry grass plains — hers bore the darker hues of Fire Warriors assigned to the protection fleet. Her helmet, slung under one arm, was still white with light blue stripes marking her rank.
"Stand as you were," Eldi said. "I trust you all had a good rest?"
Polite chuckles followed — a joke they'd heard a dozen times. Eldi waved it off. "Stow it. I know it's bad. The Ethereal opened with it during the briefing."
The laughter died instantly. The bay fell into stunned silence.
An Ethereal briefing a Fire Warrior cadre confirmed what Mira had suspected: they were among the first awakened. Fire Warriors rarely saw an Ethereal in person, let alone heard one speak. Whatever was happening mattered.
"What did he have to say?" Shas'la Vash asked, awe plain in his voice.
"He spoke first," Eldi said, lowering herself onto a stool with a quiet groan. "Said this was not a mission of vengeance, but of liberation. That the Gue'la Empire had kept this world trapped in the Mont'au for hundreds — maybe thousands — of Tau'cyr. That we would bring the Tau'va, modern medicine, and an end to famine and drought."
The mention of the Mont'au sent a chill through the bay. Spines straightened. Warriors exchanged glances from the corners of their eyes. The Mont'au — the Time of Terror — was the darkest chapter of Tau history, when Tau killed each other wantonly before the Ethereals united them under the Greater Good. Fear lingered, but beneath it was something else: the sense of obligation, to offer the Gue'la what the Ethereals had once given them.
"Then Shas'O Shass'ang spoke," she continued. "His tone was… different. No speeches about why we're here. He didn't even talk about planetfall."
"He didn't?" Mira asked. A briefing without invasion planning made no sense.
"I was confused too," Eldi said, adjusting a strap on her leg. "Instead, he spoke alongside Kor'O Shir'Vah."
"Admiral Farwind?" Mira asked. "I'd have thought he'd stay on the bridge — especially with most of his crew waking."
"Apparently we're still in transit," she replied. "Easier to convince the Admiral to step away. The plan is to punch through local void militia — mostly armed merchant ships — and begin landings immediately. There are orbital defense platforms, though. All clustered around the only region in orbit with real space traffic, and the only infrastructure capable of supporting our larger craft."
She paused, letting it sink in.
"They plan to arrive within weapons range. A few Tor'kan out at most. No time to train for what comes next. Ship cadres will act as boarding parties; invasion cadres move to reserve. That's us — standing by aboard an Orca dropship to reinforce boarding actions as needed."
Silence filled the bay again — this time thoughtful, heavy. They were young. All but the Shas'Ui had graduated only two Tau'cyr ago. The academy's lessons were fresh, but they knew how different real combat would be. They could see it in their instructors' faces. In Eldi's.
"Chin up, warriors," She said at last. "We'll take this task with pride and honor. The boarding crews will be well-equipped for what we've scouted. This isn't a major port. Low export volume. No anchorages worth a fleet stop."
She allowed herself a thin smile.
"We'll likely spend the fight inside an Orca hull while I lament the lost training time for the real war. So enjoy the rest, you lazy By'souns."
Laughter broke the tension — the first genuine laughter since waking. But even as Mira smiled, he couldn't shake the feeling that they might have just grabbed the ti'groun by the tail.