Census of the Dead

A cathedral of steel ribs and scaffold. The LEGION TRANSPORT *AURIC SAINT* hangs half-skinned above a blue-white reactor glow. Workers in vacuum-smudged tabards weld like candlelight.

At the bay’s center: the IRON PSALTER CORE — a black, coffin-shaped recorder with engraved prayers and blinking telemetry.

LEGATE SERA KEST stands in parade armor, scarred and functional. TRIBUNE JANNIK COR hovers nearby, tight-jawed.

DR. IVO RELLAN pushes through with a slate of orbital plots, eyes sleepless.

On the Psalter’s face, lines etch themselves as it listens.

PSALTER (V.O.)

Day Five. Pre-departure census.

Hull repair: seventy-two percent.

Corridor window: nineteen hours, forty-six minutes.

We don’t have a ship. We have a promise shaped like one.

We have an order.

An order timed to the hour our rivals can recall you for “prudence.”

Legate— the foremast truss is still underbrace. If the corridor shear hits—

If we miss the window, the Houses vote us into mothballs. Supplies reallocated. Names erased.

She steps to the Psalter. Its lens iris dilates like an eye.

KEST (CONT'D)

Record: launch intent under incomplete repairs.

Don’t give it that sentence. That’s a noose.

PSALTER (V.O.)

Command input detected.

“Launch intent under incomplete repairs.”

Stamped. Irrevocable.

Rellan’s jaw flexes. He flicks his slate; a simulation blooms— a luminous corridor, the ship’s silhouette wobbling.

Your margins are not “tight,” Legate. They’re engineered.

Engineered by physics?

By hands. Someone altered the burn schedule— they pushed our insertion deeper into the cadence. That increases shear loads by forty percent.

Who signs the brief?

Rellan hesitates, glances to the far end of the bay— silhouettes of STAFF OFFICERS conferring, too calm.

It came with court seals. It came *clean.*

Nothing comes clean.

She turns, voice carrying through the chapel bay.

KEST (CONT'D)

All hands. Final census.

Workers stop. The Legion recruits— helmets under arms— face the Psalter like a shrine.

KEST (CONT'D)

The Psalter counts us whether we breathe or not. It will not forgive my fear and it will not reward your obedience.

A beat. She softens, just enough to feel like a knife set down.

KEST (CONT'D)

If this launch kills you, it will kill you *honestly.* Not as a story someone wrote.

Rellan steps closer, urgent, low.

If they want a story, they want a martyrdom. Mid-transit. No survivors to contradict the narrative. Just a ledger.

Then we survive.

With a cracked spine and a corridor that punishes arrogance?

With discipline. And truth.

She looks to Cor.

KEST (CONT'D)

Tribune. Lock the Psalter core. No amendments. No “clerical corrections.” If anyone requests access—

I break their hands.

Lawfully.

Cor almost smiles. Almost.

PSALTER (V.O.)

Directive recorded.

Access restriction: enacted.

Rellan stares at the Psalter, hearing the trap click shut.

If the ship fails… your census becomes a hymn.

Then we change the hymn.

She places a gauntleted palm on the cold iron.

KEST (CONT'D)

Record: I accept full command responsibility. No House. No patron. My name.

PSALTER (V.O.)

Accepted.

Legate Sera Kest— liability assumed.

A distant KLAXON starts to wail— a low, ceremonial note that turns the drydock into a throat.

A narrow passage of conduits. Panels are open, guts exposed. Vibration hums like an anxious prayer.

Rellan and Kest walk fast. Overhead, warning lights stutter.

If I’m right, the failure point is the forward ring. During peak cadence, you’ll get torsion—

Tell me what to do with soldiers, Doctor.

Keep them away from the ring. No one sleeps there. No one prays there. You post guards not to stop sabotage— to stop *panic.*

And you?

I go where the numbers say the ship will break.

You’re not Legion.

No. I’m the part they didn’t want to count.

They stop at a maintenance hatch labeled FORWARD RING: STRUCTURAL — SEALED. A fresh wax seal sits on the latch. Court-impressed.

Rellan touches it, appalled.

RELLAN (CONT'D)

This wasn’t sealed by engineers.

Kest’s eyes sharpen. She draws a combat knife, slices the seal clean.

Then we stop being polite.

They wrench the hatch. Inside: a bundle of black cabling— an added module— blinking a soft, traitorous green.

Rellan’s breath catches.

That’s a remote trigger. On a structural dampener.

Someone wants our spine to snap on cue.

A beat of shared, grim clarity.

PSALTER (V.O.)

Unauthorized compartment accessed.

Timestamp recorded.

Kest looks up at the nearest Psalter pickup lens in the corridor— a small iron eye.

Good. Witness.

She grabs the module, yanks— sparks spit like angry stars.

If they notice—

Let them.

She crushes the module under her boot.

KEST (CONT'D)

We launch on broken plates. But we do not launch with a knife in our ribs.

The *AURIC SAINT* is rolled toward the void gate. Frost smokes from her seams. Legion banners snap in the vacuum breeze of venting gases.

Ranks of recruits stand rigid on the apron, helmets on, staring up at their half-repaired salvation.

Lady CATrin VALE watches from a gilded observation dais, surrounded by courtiers. Her expression is serene— a ledger with a face.

Kest strides to the embarkation ramp. Cor at her shoulder. Rellan lingers, looking up at the ship like it’s a math problem that might kill him.

Vale’s voice carries down, sweet as steel.

Legate. Launching early. Bold.

Necessary.

The Houses favor necessity. Especially when it’s expensive.

Kest holds her gaze, unblinking.

Then tell the Houses to start praying for refunds.

A flicker— annoyance, quickly masked.

Vale lifts a hand. Somewhere, a clerk raises a small iron microphone to feed the Psalter.

For the record— the expedition proceeds with full confidence.

Kest cuts in, loud, to the Legion.

For the record— we proceed with full *awareness.*

She turns to the ship.

KEST (CONT'D)

Starborn Legion— embark.

Boots thunder. The ramp swallows them.

Rellan watches, then forces himself forward. He passes beneath the Psalter’s external lens. It tracks him.

PSALTER (V.O.)

Embarkation count: one thousand, eight hundred, twelve.

Casualty count: unchanged.

Census of the living: in progress.

Rellan steps onto the ramp, eyes on the shadowed corridor ahead.

Not for long, if they have their way.

Kest hears, doesn’t look back.

Then we deny them their dead.

The *AURIC SAINT*’s engines spool— a deep, organ-note rising toward violence. The void gate flares like a white wound opening.

PSALTER (V.O.)

Departure initiated.

Corridor window: eighteen hours, fifty-two minutes.

Prayer: recorded.