There were no dreams the night before the largest raid of my life. So secret was the mission that none of us were even told where we were going. We were given gravity maps and geographical layouts, tunnel passageways, and the expected temperature extremes. Yet even these were stripped of needless detail. It would have been possible for such a combination to have been half a thousand or more worlds or asteroids or hidden rocks strewn across the universal expanse.

“What of the lighting?” I asked, curious to my squad captain – a man who looked as broad in the shoulders as he was tall.

“What matter the lights?” He growled as he wrestled with a buckle on his gravmag suit.

I modulated my tone, “Sir, the lights and our light comingle, such patterns are helpful, especially to those who ride the light. Even a handful of maps for patterns could help.”

He shrugged, looked up at me, his face like one chiseled from stone, broad teeth white as alabaster, “less helpful than you think. Have you forgotten time?”

“Time?” I said as I cinched down my boots.

“From the vantage of light, there is no time. A lightmap of a particular moment will fail to recognize this, as any material the map is made of will be bound in time. Even a trillion such maps will only have fragmentary understandings of the secret world of light – the timeless motion through a universe in motion through time.”

“Yet our lightrunners say they are helpful.” I looked up from my boots and caught his eyes, deep auburn with a hint of lighter yellow around the edge.

“Deathslayer, you should know better than us all, the power does not follow our rules. Lightrunners do not know the path until they step forward and it takes them. It cannot be known before.” He stood up tall and picked up his helmet, tucking it under his arm. I stood tall as well, looking down on him.

“How can you truly say it cannot be known?” I had my hands on my hips.

“As I just did. Predictability is not a prerequisite for success – rather a principle of trust.” He walked by me and slapped his hand on an engraved panel along the wall covered in the names of all those we had lost.

I sighed and thought then, ungraciously, what does he know? Soon, I would find out.

The raid that took Meffin was only three teams, in total fewer than twenty. It was rare that the luminaries gathered more of the sons and daughters than that at any time. When we strode out of the readiness bay into the interdocking courtyard, I was met with a formation of thousands arranged by platoons. The oxygen enriched platform hummed with palpable power, and I had my own moment of terror that a single spark would ignite us all.

“Come, Deathslayer,” my Captain’s voice was less steady as we joined our platoon. I thought then of Sephina, as well as Ellios and Claire – both who had been separated from me after my insubordination with Arianas Meffin.

“They might be here.” Captain Quinn’s gruff voice startled me.

“Who?”

He gave me a side-eyed look and nodded toward a full platoon of deathslayers marked with green insignia of flame.

I nodded sideways and looked away, trying to recognize some.

“There might be time, after. Stay alive, Deathslayer.” Captain Quinn reached up to pat me on the shoulder and moved through the platoon correcting positioning and inspecting the fit on the various Sons.

We all fell into the formation in a semi-circle around a central pillar which held the interdocked ships together. The docking would allow instantaneous opening to the world below when the time came. I imagined then the look from the ground to see thousands in gravmag suits barreling toward your planet in formation. I shuddered. No wonder they fear us. I fear us. I took my place and we waited.

We were placed at ease, but there was nothing easy about our stances. Some small mutterings, glances around, and nervous movements were the norm not the exception. None of us had seen so many of the brethren in a single place.

As time stretched, the formation grew unstable, more movement, more noise, more listlessness. What began as almost dead silence grew to a dull roar, until we all felt it – a powerful tug, the influence of a coordinator, like the conductor of a symphony who guides the players to the rest before a solo. From the central pillar two men emerged, one taller than the other, and thin, while the former was slightly shorter, broader, and… I cannot express how it felt. Both their sets of eyes seemed to lock on me then, to hold me in place.

Baba. It took the whole of my strength, and not some of the power not to break ranks and run to him. Yet it was not lost on me that behind him were two soldiers, armed and ready with their weapons immediately behind. The entire bay could have been used to simply erase us if the Luminaries so wished – to eject us into space. Though even that may not have killed many of us.

“Brothers and sisters! Family of the Flame – today’s raid may end the war. I am Colonel Lowan Skomantis. Some of you may know me, many will not. The command of this assault falls to me by the Luminaries’ design.” The voice of the man next to my father carried its way across the ranks while a second refrain was spoken directly into our minds.

We will serve well, but they may not let us live when our usefulness has passed.

“This assault will be on the primary stronghold and seat of the defector’s power. It will be heavily guarded by those who wish the Luminaries ultimate overthrow.” He spread his hands outward as he spoke, and gazed from eye to eye in the crowd. My father stood silently.  

The Luminaries are our authority, but they are not our allies. Neither are those who seek their overthrow.

“Do not hesitate to do what is necessary, to end those who would seek first to end you. They hate our light as much as they hate the Luminaries.”

 The enemy of our enemy is not our friend, for our paths and allegiance are to another world entirely. Some small muttering followed this message and shifting of feet.

“What we have been granted, this power, it is not for ourselves but for a purpose. Though we may not fully know, for now we seek the good of the place this power was planted.”

 If the time comes that they wish to destroy us, we trust the flame to protect. Do not throw away your lives needlessly. Protect each other.

“If this day will end this war, then there will be peace, and in such peace we ought to flourish! Peace is worthy enough an end for making war, for those who love violence will only answer to violence.”

The flame burns as it wills and whom it wills. Trust the Flame.

“Sons and Daughters of the Flame, we fight today for our survival and for peace. We fight to end the war and to spread the light.”

An enormous grinding erupted followed by the warbling of preparatory sirens. Without order all those gathered donned their helmets. I delayed a moment, locking eyes with my father who smiled and nodded to me before donning his own helmet. The siren grew louder and the grinding halted. I scrambled to put on my helmet. There was a pause as the seal around my neck whistled and hissed, locking in place, and I felt the pressurization equalize popping my ears just as the floor opened beneath me and we will began to fall toward the planet below.

I felt two things at once, the tug of the strings of the coordinator and the terror of anticipation as even from so high above the atmosphere I could see the explosions beneath – QEVs blotted out huge sections of landmass. I did not recognize at first where we were by the marring of the weapons on the planet’s surface. It bore almost no resemblance to the books and pictures I had so often seen, but still it could not be otherwise.

Earth loomed beneath us, and the coordinator pulled us inexorably closer to the center of the carnage.