Cadia Stands
Five stories of the 331st Cadian Shock Troops after the fall of their home world: survivors without a world, recruits who know the motto only by hearsay, and a phrase no one can say as easily as they once did.
It starts here: Sergeant Runa Kalvek and six others who survived the Halrik Gate make landfall on a strange world — and are told to turn its children into soldiers.
The same training, seen from the other side of the yard: Jonte Odrin is one of the boys with the white stripe on his helmet. We see the sergeant as her recruits see her — and learn what the stripe means.
A step back and a confession: the major who gave Kalvek her order at the Halrik Gate tells in his own words what happened to him afterwards. The shortest story of the cycle — and the one after which the others sound different.
The Rift is closing in and Ederhaven must be evacuated. Commissar Grothe calculates in people, lanes and hours — and has to decide who makes it across the mole. Here the threads of the first three parts come together.
Two years later: a fortress built to the Cadian pattern on a dead world, raised by Cadians who were lost at Ederhaven. The end of the cycle — and the answer to the question asked into the fog in part two.