Part 13

Regroup, Redress, and Revenge

          Dim lights in one of the station's older 'lifts cast long shadows on Naia's face, blackening the half not turned to me. That whole station section was ancient and broken-down. The Earth ring was centuries old, but by appearance it was comparatively brand new. On the other hand, the Earth ring actually had maintenance workers on staff, so dating by comparison probably wasn't all that useful. I secretly wondered if Naia realized the risk that she'd taken by going through the older core section. Maybe she'd thought it was quicker.
           We hadn't exchanged more than a half dozen words since leaving the memory programmer that our enigmatic contact had referred us to. She was leaning against the lift wall, arms folded, staring at the floor. Somehow what had been a pretty face was now marred; there weren't any new scars, but she looked… downtrodden. Weathered, rugged, beaten, I don't know. Her eyes were locked, unmoving, her nostrils blew warm air ever so softly, and her chest moved minutely under her crossed arms. Suddenly she was miles away, even when standing mere feet from me.
           "You going to stare at me like that forever?" Naia growled softly. Her eyes didn't waver from the floor; an unnerving ability. I looked away: up at the dying ceiling lights.
           "I'm sorry. I was thinking about what I've… done to you. I owe you so much… and now you're not even you anymore. What have I done? You don't even act like Naia anymore…" She shifted inaudibly to face her upper body towards me, then casually slanted her eyes up to mine. She chuffed almost silently.
           "How can I not be acting like Naia? I'm not the one you're used to, no, but I'm still me. Did you really have any choice when I betrayed you?" She smiled at my confused look. "There was some combat in those memories: at least enough to warrant their inclusion." The smile faded. "Actually, you did better than I would've. I think I would've killed me and found a human slave willing to help me get away.
           "A lot of those memories were disturbing. Our people don't train soldiers by having them kill criminals. So you're right, I'm not the same as I was. But now I can fly and fight, and now I won't hesitate." She looked at me quietly. "I chose to see those images, and I don't regret it. So I'll have some trouble sleeping at night: at least we can move on." I nodded quietly and waited as the lift continued on its voyage.
          

---v---

          The smoke wasn't any better the second time around. We were in the main cylinder of S'jet station: the very oldest section and without a doubt the worst. Even the dregs of society stayed away from the place lest it contaminate them. This area was reserved for the worst part of society: the corrupted elite. Nearly everything that went on there was illegal. It was all extremely affluent, but at the same time sleazy and unmistakably tainted. Drugs flowed freely from 'pharmacies', open-stage slave auctions sold weakened, bony humans and Hrasi, and bars lined the walls. I followed Naia, who seemed to know instinctively where to go; in the thick artificial fog I was reduced to holding her tail.
           "Are you sure you know where you're going?" I called above the din of loud music and incessant snarls. Naia didn't even slow down.
           "I checked this place's location using Miss Iera's computer before you woke up. It's called The Arena."
           "Such an inventive name," I coughed between lungfulls of acrid mist. Naia just chuffed.
           We ended up spiraling farther and farther down into the core's singular well. In the ultimate pit of the station where the very first bio-mass had pulsed and grown there was now an inviting portal. Seemingly impossibly, the smoke was thicker and the reek of alcohol was stronger than outside. "Don't have much choice but go in."
           As we entered I found myself literally waving away clouds of smoke. For more than twenty feet the fog was purely opaque, but by some miracle it dissipated as we moved further in. Another ten feet and I could actually see where we were: a curved metal lobby with a guarded stairwell. Two dark brown Hrasi men stood imposingly there, watching carefully. I sighed and strode forward to challenge them.
           "Do you have a membership card, Ma'am?" One of the guards growled. I feigned offense.
           "Sir! Don't you see who has the collar? I've come here with my slave for a reason: I want to make her an entry into your arena." The guards exchanged glances.
           "Do you have [collateral?]?" one growled. My turn to exchange glances with Naia, then I flashed them my ship voucher. They moved aside hastily and the two of us spiraled down into the bar.
           Deep, pounding drums and bass instruments beat with a pulsing war rhythm. About two hundred Hrasi and slaves sat around a circular bar that overlooked a deep sandpit. The crowd was almost entirely inebriated, as shown by their hollering and snarling at the two figures below. Naia and I approached the bar rim curiously, taking seats near the entranceway and looking down.
           A young human girl - a longhaired blond about 18 - was struggling vainly against a much bulkier Hrasi male man. She'd lost the fight already: The man had both of her hands behind her back. She screamed, but the crowd just hollered more. With one last spurt of energy she forced her body backwards, knocking out of his grasp, but she didn't stand a chance. Snarling, the Hrasi leapt upon her, pinning her down. The crowd went wild as he ripped her white tunic from her body and squirmed over her. In a surge of raw emotion the bar went wild: ecstatic at the climax. The girl was screaming, the male lustily grunting, and the sound of ripping flesh overshadowed it all. Naia cringed for the full thirty seconds of carnage while the tension and force built, then flinched as the Hrasi bellowed, pushed off the girl, and silenced her terrified yell with a slash across the throat. She gurgle, twitched, then fell silent; the crowds went crazy.
           "The victory goes to Ashad hau Juirie!" An announcer boomed over the PA. To our right a young Hrasi man stood up, arms outstretched. He was dressed decadently in flowing green silk and gold. Down below the fighter turned and fell to his knees, bowing to the man. Another Hrasi in red beside hau Juirie stood up, a rather portly middle-aged man. With a growl the second man feigned a gracious bow to the first and began pulling credit vouchers from his vest. No less than fifteen such vouchers were handed over: they were striped blue, so that was a cool fifteen thousand credits. Naia watched the exchange dispassionately before pawing my shoulder.
           "That green man owns the slave. Challenge him." My jaw dropped incredulously, and it was no act.
           "Are you serious? Did you just see what happened to that girl? I'm not even sure I could take that man. He'd snap you in two!" Naia laid her ears back and hissed.
           "I'm not you. I know I can beat him, and I know that that bastard deserves it. Just do it, alright?" I swallowed ad nodded, then rose and made my way to the man in green. For a Hrasi he was tall, almost 6 feet, and intimidating as hell. Trying to look confident, I moved in front of the man and stared him straight in the eyes. He looked at me, and for some reason seemed slightly amused.
           "Excuse me, sir," I coughed, and he focused on me intently. "Is that your slave?" He grinned.
           "It is. Do you wish to fight him?" I smiled back politely.
           "Not quite. My name is Miles Arathch, a freeman. instead I offer you challenge. My slave is the Naia, the young woman there." I pointed to her, sitting a few feet away. "I thought perhaps you could give me appropriate odds." Naia watched the man as he considered.
           "And appropriate would be?" the man asked rhetorically, then beckoned to Naia. "Come here, slave." She pushed herself up and moved to stand quietly at my side. He reached out a paw to squeeze her biceps, her triceps, and to pat her chest. Naia bore it well. "Huh. I could a bedside companion… you want to sell her to me instead?
           "I'm afraid not. She has sentimental value," I explained. Naia stiffened and stifled a growl, but also twitched her ears in quiet amusement.
           "Hrnn… a waste, that. Then what did you have in mind?"
           "Four to one odds," I replied calmly, and the man chuffed.
           "Four to one? She's frail, but not that frail. Maybe if you make it worth my while… what were you considering [wagering?]?" I smiled and pulled out our ship's deed, handing it over. He fit it into a personal computer at his hip, read the results, and suddenly snorted. "Ha. You own this?"
           "I do." His ears wavered as he nodded his head back and forth.
           "…Alright. I'm Ashad hau Juirie. I'll put sixty thousand credits against your ship and no more: winner takes both. This your first time here?" I shrugged and bobbed my head once. Naia looked between the two of us. "Slave. Get in the arena. If you win you'll be allowed to leave," Ashad growled. She looked at me.
           "You heard him." I nodded my head down to where Ashad's slave-gladiator knelt in waiting. "You're a big girl; I think you can handle a few dozen meters fall." Naia hesitated, but after a moment decided to risk it and jumped. She hit the ground in a puff of sand. Ashad's slave rose menacingly.
           "The next match: Hau Juirie against an unknown!" The loudspeakers called, encouraging whistles and yells from the audience. "Fight!" the announcer shouted, and both Hrasi down there moved.
           Ashad's slave ran at Naia, bellowing in rage. Naia took a defensive posture, holding up both arms in a forward block. As the slave jumped at her she twisted away and kicked upwards, catching him in the stomach. He flipped once in the air and landed on his shoulder with a snap. He yowled and righted himself up to a crouch, tensing up for a pounce. Naia kicked the ground in front of him, spraying sand into his wide-open eyes. He threw himself into Naia and pinned her down, but she wouldn't have any of it. The slave screamed pain as Naia pushed him up and then pulled his crotch down into her kneecap. With a pained cry the man rolled away, gasping and rubbing his eyes. Ashad hissed angrily and turned away, already knowing that he'd lost. Naia leapt upon his slave's back, driving her knee into the back of the man's neck. There was a wet crunch, then a rip as she cleanly slit the man's throat.
           "What's this? Hau Juirie is defeated! The [underdog?] is victorious!"
           "Impressive," Ashad growled lowly. Then he turned with eyes narrowed and returned the deed. From his cloak he pulled six vouchers, each with silver stripes. All sixty thousand credits that I needed. He held them out in his outstretched hand, claws flexing in and out. "I was foolish to bet so rashly with you." I retrieved them.
           "Don't worry. I'll make sure they're put to good use." Down below Naia began scrabbling up the arena walls. Ashad stared at me and chuffed.
           "Good use? What would Miles Arathch know about good use?" he scoffed. "You'd just use it to make more weapons."
           "No, actually it's going to save a lot of lives."
           "Whose lives?"
           "People who need the help," I countered. "Politics aside." Naia jumped over the side and linked hands with me. Blood was there. She panted, watched Ashad.
           "Why don't we find somewhere more private?" she wheezed. Ashad and I exchanged glances.
           "Why?" I asked guardedly.
           "So we can talk," she faintly growled. I didn't discipline her and apparently Ashad noticed.
           "Why don't we…" he purred quietly.
          

---v---

          Metal banged loudly as Naia landed in the service ducts. Ashad went next, jumping from the ventilation shaft. He fell twenty meters before making it out of the artificial gravity field. He seemed intimately familiar with the process, though, and was prepared for the gravity shift as centrifugal force took over. From my perspective he 'fell' upwards to join Naia on the ceiling. I followed, jumping through the main gravity field and suffering through the disorienting shift in forces. The gravity really wasn't as high as I'd thought: it felt like I was floating down to the ceiling. With a lurch I dropped, then righted myself. The floor became the ceiling, the walls flipped upside down, and the ceiling became the floor.
           "Scary," Naia murmured.
           "Odd," I agreed, and Ashad flicked an ear at us both.
           "They did artificial gravity research here about two hundred years ago. When it didn't yield any new information they decided to build around it instead of destroying it. It still works, but barely."
           "What is this place?"
           "A gravity cylinder. It has an electromagnetic pulse [ ] that keeps it [perpetually?] spinning. The force presses us against the sides - that's the gravity you feel. This is just one of those places that's been forgotten about." He pointed down a dusty tunnel near the floor about four feet high. "Follow," he ordered, then got down on his knees and started crawling. Naia glanced at me, shrugged, and dropped on all fours to go after him. I wasn't long in following.
           It was pitch black; there was no light at the end of this tunnel. Soft swishes of cloth and clicks of claws on metal echoed back and forth, distorted. I kept crawling, trying not to get myself killed if the tunnel suddenly stopped or changed directions. Ahead of me the swishing stopped, then suddenly my head knocked against soft leather. Naia yelped from ahead of me.
           "That's my rump," she seethed, hisses escaping from her like a forced water jet. A single furred appendage slapped me across the cheek. "And that's my tail!"
           "Sorry," I whispered, "I can't see." From farther ahead Ashad growled distantly.
           "You coming?" He asked, and Naia growled softly.
           "I'll keep my tail on your face so you don't lose your way. If you bite it, though, I'll rip your face off." We continued on quietly. The tunnel progressed for nearly three hundred meters. I found myself constantly sneezing: the fluff on Naia's tail flickered provocatively across my nose. About a minute later her tail slipped away and I pawed after it vainly. There was silence.
           Slowly I crawled out of the tunnel, then reached for the ceiling. When I had assured myself that there wasn't anything to smack my head into I slowly rose to my feet. Something gave me the impression of the room's size - the air pressure, perhaps. It felt about twenty meters by forty and maybe four or five high, or then again maybe a little bit smaller. Warmth and gentle rustling to my left gave away my Hrasi escorts. I turned to them slowly. Something didn't feel right.
           "Naia?" I whispered carefully.
           "She's under gunpoint, Arathch," Ashad said lowly. "I'm afraid that you've failed." Again! I hesitated in my response.
           "That's not my name," I replied, tone wavering cautiously, "It's Aaron. Aaron Sykes." He chuffed dryly.
           "Sure. You don't think I actually believe that, do you? As though I'd never seen a picture of Miles Arathch…" Naia hissed her protest.
           "He's not Arathch. He's Aaron, and he's my friend. A human with a Hrasi friend: does that sound like the man you think he is?"
           "I knew you weren't his slave. A slave doesn't speak of her own free will, and she certainly doesn't speak for her master of her own free will. That doesn't mean he's not Arathch, though."
           "What are you," I asked softly, facing the direction of their voices to at least give the impression that I could see him, "Haigh? Or Yusuuran? Something else, perhaps?" Ashad growled menacingly.
           "Don't move, damn you. I'll kill her."
           "I won't move, then," I murmured placatingly. "Let her go. I'm not your enemy, or at least I don't think I am." He shuffled with the brush of fur against the floor.
           "Which is why you killed one of my contacts the moment you saw him, right?"
           "No," Naia hissed lowly, "I did that because your contact raped and murdered an innocent girl. He had deserved everything he got."
           "Comes with the territory," Ashad growled, but with a significantly subdued tone. "She didn't deserve what she got, but her owner sure did. Removing the man's slave is going to unnerve him and seriously handicap his efficiency. As he's the red section's portmaster, I find the loss acceptable." I whispered, barely controlling rage.
           "Who do you think you are? Didn't anyone ever tell you that the ends never justify the means?"
           "What?" Both Ashad and Naia asked, Ashad with a suspicious growl and Naia with plaintive curiosity. Apparently I'd chosen one of the few colloquialisms that didn't translate particularly well.
           "You can't just do evil things in the name of good! Murdering innocents is not okay just because you're doing it to do protect others. If you do that you're plain wrong. Naia, tell him!" Neither said a word. "Have you both gone mad? You can only fight evil with good; this is one of the basic premises of society." Naia spoke very, very softly.
           "You could kill us, and you wouldn't have to worry about us betraying you. On the other hand, we want to be your friends. We also need to get back to base quickly. It's important. Please, just listen."
           There was heavy breathing, then: "Talk. Quickly, if you're pressed for time." I took a deep breath.
           "It's very simple. The royal forces know where the Yusuuran main base of operations is currently located; they've sent a fleet to intercept and destroy the Yusuurans with one blow. If word doesn't reach them beforehand… well, the coalition will cease to be. Is that good enough?"
           "And how do you know this?" Ashad hissed. So he was a Yusuuran…
           "Because I told them," Naia breathed almost inaudibly. Before I could react there was a snap of bone and the thump of flesh on metal. Naia cried out.
           "Bitch!"
           "Leave her alone!" I yelled, "That wasn't her! She's been totally wiped." In a moment the room changed.
           Shadows appeared in dark orange, illuminating a drab, spartan box of a room with no distinguishable floors and ceiling. Ashad held a orange-red glow stick in one hand and a pistol trained on the back of a kneeling Naia's head. He kicked her towards me roughly with a snarl.
           "You should've killed her when you found her out. I ought to do it for you right now…" I stepped over her protectively.
           "No, you shouldn't. She's a different person. A friend. Now are you going to help us or not?" Ashad stood in the corner of the room and fumed. As it happened, he never got a chance to answer.
           Both Naia's and Ashad's ears perked up and swerved to the entrance tunnel. Naia slowly turned onto her back and looked up at Ashad, emphatically covering her mouth, and he nodded. Having been wizened up to the Hrasi preemptive hearing sense, I chose to remain silent as well. We stood stock still as their four cat ears flicked back and forth.
           "You can kill me later," Naia whispered to Ashad, slowly wiping blood from her cheek. Scuffling came from down the tunnel along with a wave of claws clicking on the floor. Naia looked at the two of us fiercely and mouthed a 'let's go'. We each looked at the walls for any ways out: there were none. What the hell was the point of this room?
           "There," Ashad whispered, pointing behind the two of us. A single-square-foot grate was set into the corner. I padded to it and read the lines above the grate. In bright red human characters it read 'ventilation maintenance access'. So that's why the room was there… I gripped the grate and pulled up slowly, sliding it out near-silently. Inside the tunnel shouts emerged and both Hrasi cringed. Not silent enough, then…
           "Great, Aaron," she hissed, "There goes the [subtle? / mellow?] approach.]." She got to her feet and clawed me aside, then roughly tore the vent panel from my hands and threw it down the tunnel we'd come from. "This way," she hissed, sliding into the hole. There was a swishing fur-on-metal noise as she fell seemingly into nothingness, but it wasn't enough to outdo the terrifying sounds of excited Hrasi barreling down on us from the way we'd came. I swore and dropped through into the maintenance shaft, then swore again when two furry legs wrapped around my neck. Ashad had decided to join me.
           Startled yowls echoed from above as we practically fell about a hundred feet. The plumbing was ancient, but an ominous rush of air from the tunnel's end said that the fans were still working. In the spilt second of free-fall that we had I prayed that they weren't the kind that chopped up people who fell into them. A moment later the tunnel's fall began to curve from vertical to horizontal. We skidded together down the pipe's bare metal until friction stopped us, leaving us flat on our backs in a tunnel too small to roll over in.
           "You know," Ashad panted, "they're probably going to drop a grenade into the hole and kill the two of us. Oh, and your female companion is nowhere to be seen. I told you she was a traitor." From directly above us the ceiling groaned, then lifted away over my face. Naia grinned down at me toothily.
           "No, I'm just a woman. Almost as bad, huh?" Two white paws reached in and pulled me upward by the hair, yelps ignored, until she could get a hold on my chin. The rest of me was dragged into a chamber full of pumps, gauges, and valves labeled in Hrasi. The pressure maintenance room, maybe, or perhaps a boiler room - how the hell was I supposed to know? At least I could see; they had a special neon bulb installed that looked a few lifetimes old. While I checked the room Naia pulled out Ashad and quickly replaced the tunnel's opening with its concrete plug. As she fit it in, the whole section shook with a single jolt of force. Naia spat her distaste. "Don't these people ever stop?" she hissed. I looked at her wryly.
           "No. Do we?" Ashad gave us an exasperated look.
           "Are you two done? We've got people chasing us and red dock is less than a kilometer away! Let's go!" He shoved through the door and we ran heatedly after him. "Go!" he hollered, barreling down an ill-lit corridor. We charged behind him, then swiveled to trace him on a turn into a side corridor. It dead-ended into a ladder that ran up and down the decks. "This is deck… one sixty four," Ashad growled, "We're going down four." Then he disappeared downwards. Naia and I looked at eachother.
           "Ashad seems… enthusiastic. You really trust this guy, Aaron?"
           "Not a chance." I grimaced. "On the other hand, what choices do we have? So he doesn't know what he's doing - it could be worse." She nodded.
           "I don't think can trust anyone who doesn't go crazy when you kill their bond-partner." With that she pulled herself into the ladder-well and started down. I followed her into the murk dark tubing.
           We clambered down slowly, one by one, for all four floors. It was like a mini-lesson in archeology: each deck had less dust and better technology. They could've been built decades, even centuries apart from one another. On the fourth deck down Naia pulled me out and into a service hall. The lights were flooding brightly: they actually worked. The two Hrasi looked at eachother, flicked ears, and walked briskly away. I jogged after them, but Ashad held up his hand.
           "Walk. The docking bay is within earshot," he whispered. We padded softly from corridor to corridor to a thick double-layered bulkhead. "Through this airlock. We have an emergency shuttle in there. It might get us to base before your fleet. We need to get aboard as soon as possible if you want to, though." The door was intimidatingly shut, and there was a suspicious lack of a keypad to open it.
           "You have a key?" I asked. Ashad laughed.
           "Key? Not around here." Instead he ripped a metal panel out of the wall and swiped out a paw full of wiring. The blast door hissed open. "Easy stuff," he snorted. We stepped through and were presented with an identical door. Ashad moved for the corresponding panel, but before he could touch it the first door slammed behind us. Naia spun on him, ears flat and eyes dilated.
           "What was that? Was that supposed to happen?" His ears dropped as well and he stepped back, drawing his handgun.
           "I don't know," he growled, aiming for the second door at head level. It ground open with a groan and we flattened against the back door, going shoulder to shoulder. Ashad dropped his gun lamely.
           "Ah, and I didn't even have to ask…" An oh-so-familiar voice purred.
           Fifteen Hrasi in full black uniforms kept fifteen Hrasi automatic rifles leveled on us. In the middle of the squad stood the information broker with whom Naia and I had spoken. "I don't suppose you found my fifty-five thousand credits?"
           "You sold us out!" Naia spat. "I thought you said keeping the war going was good for business. What is this?" The man shrugged.
           "I told you that I was probably betraying you. If I'd been you I wouldn't have followed my directions. I wouldn't have gone to have my mind altered by a stranger; I would've killed me and searched my room. Not that you would've found the answer to your question, of course - I didn't know it at the time. But now not only do I have you, I have S'jet's Yusuuran contact. His interrogation should prove fruitful." Naia snarled, enraged.
           "Deceptive liar! You wouldn't know that unless you had a bug on one of us. Get it off!" Another body pushed through the ranks: Iera Nama. She leaned her head to the side and looked at Naia.
           "I don't think he knew who your friend was, girl, but we do now. You ought to think before you speak." She watched us with solemn eyes. "My husband is right. You can't trust just anyone like that. Too bad your journey has to end here; it had promise." Naia growled bitterly.
           "Thanks, bitch. That's a whole lot of consolation." The information broker smiled and turned to Iera.
           "So, love. You'll take the male and I female? Just the simple slave taping?" Iera smiled and nodded, then embraced Ashad.
           "We'll have to interrogate him first. Wouldn't want to lose all that precious data…" Ashad fluffed up unconsciously, reacting to the threat. Iera just laughed softly and licked his nose, then stood back and waved forward two of the guards. "Restrain him. Check for weapons first." They pulled him roughly off the wall and punched him across the cheek. Ashad bounced off the wall and sagged into their grips. "Check first!" Iera hissed.
           "Let's go, love." The broker looked back and forth between his men. "Take the other two." All thirteen remaining soldiers advanced as ordered.
           "We're not going to let this happen, are we?" Naia asked me worriedly. I set my jaw and relaxed my guard, then turned to her and blinked an eye. She pursed her lips and furrowed her brow, but the eyes hardened. We turned and stood docilely as the guards clustered around us, five to a person.
           "You're making a mistake!" I called back to the broker. He turned around, arm in arm with Iera.
           "And why is that?" he purred.
           It was downright funny to watch his expression fall away with his plans. Naia slammed the man in front of her full with her body. The others raised guns to fire, but she ducked and their bullets tore each other apart. She leapt upon the remaining man, slashing through his uniform to get at his throat. To my left one of the guards jammed his rifle into my thigh. I twisted and backhanded him across the cheek, breaking my hand but also sending him into a fatal spin that had him snapping his neck on the floor. Another flipped his rifle into his hands and swung across to clip me on the back of the head, but I ducked away.
           "Shoot him!" one of the guards hissed. I picked up the fallen guard's rifle and pointed upwards: a glance in that direction showed a guard staring down at me from the user's end of a rifle. Metal slugs exploded in my shoulders and I fell backwards, riddled with holes. The man re-aimed at my head, then suddenly went lax like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He fell, revealing Naia standing behind him, hands returning from her lethal chop. As she moved back I gripped the rifle and fired at the guards; around me they fell to the ground. White-hot pain flashed in my chest as I trained on the Hrasi soldiers beating Ashad into the ground. Picking out targets was easy: the one Hrasi I was afraid of shooting was in clashing green and gold, while the others were in black. I gritted my teeth and dropped the four or five men and women that were standing over him with shots to the head.
           From across the doorway Naia snarled viciously. I saw her tackle the information broker. Iera hissed and leaned over the furry ball of Naia and her prey, claws outstretched. There wasn't much damage she could do, being such a scrawny specimen of a Hrasi, but I put a bullet in the back of her knee anyway. She screamed and dropped, then had her husband thrown atop her as a blood-drenched Naia kicked the broker away. Large parts of his chest and neck were missing. Naia got to her feet and stalked towards Iera threateningly.
           "Let me live!" Iera trembled. "Please! Don't kill me!" Naia rose her hand to her muzzle and wiped away the blood.
           "Bitch. You cowardly daughter of a bitch. We trusted you and the two of you betrayed us. What did you put in our heads, huh? Bitch!"
           "Nothing," Iera practically cried, "nothing!" Naia snarled, but I stopped her.
           "Don't, Naia. You aren't going to accomplish anything that way, nor will killing her achieve anything. God knows I want to, but there's no point in it. Just calm down." Naia looked to me, then to Iera, then back to me. She backed down, stepping away with a frustrated growl. Ashad picked himself off the floor and spat some blood on the wall. He had a rifle in his hands. "Ashad…" I warned, but he didn't seem to notice. Instead he pointed it at Iera and pulled it to his shoulder. Iera's eyes bulged and she yelled. Gunfire drowned her out, or perhaps it was having her vocal chords splattered across the floor. "Hey!" I hollered at him, "What the hell was that!?"
           "Necessity," he growled. "I can't risk losing my position as a contact. It'd compromise the entire S'jet network here. This is the [jumping off? / starting?] place for almost all of our operations. There are things you don't understand here, Arathch. We have a fleet to hunt, and that's all that matters. Let's go." Naia bent over and picked me up, shouldering the bulk of my weight. She looked at me and pulled me towards Ashad.
           "I understand just fine. You've sacrificed your ideals in exchange for effectiveness, for efficiency. Seems like you Yusuurans do that a lot. It's not a pit I plan on falling into. And my name is Aaron." Ashad looked at me darkly.
           "Ideals don't feed [troops?]. They can't be fired and they don't stop bullets. We'll be idealistic after the war, when it won't cost us lives."
          

---v---

          Naia straddled me as I lay on the bed of a Hrasi organic regenerator, pulling bullets from my chest one by one with her bare claws. Each one made me twitch in a spurt of pain. A soft, purring hum emanated from all around me as the regenerator carefully wove me back together. A brilliant piece of Hrasi technology, really: my skin tingled as the regenerator bombarded me with some sort of energy that prodded my bones, organs, and flesh to tie back together. Four tubes that Ashad had put into my arm cycled synthetically produced blood and nutrients through my veins. I coughed, then immediately regretted it.
           Ashad's ship was tiny. It had two double beds, a single organic regenerator, a supply cabinet, a head, and not much else. Really it was a scout courier, but someone had welded on a huge engine and conversion engine, nearly enough for a large corvette. She'd obviously lost several tons of armor and weapons systems to someone with a laser torch, and, considering that it started out a scout, the ship must've been fast to say the least. Hopefully Ashad knew what he was doing and could get us to the Yusuuran base before it was wiped out.
           "Almost done," Naia purred. "Just one more." Her claws dug between my ribs, pulling out an inch-long bullet. "That's it. I think you need to stay in there." Farther behind her Ashad leaned out of his pilot's chair and turned back to look at me.
           "You alright back there? We've cleared the station port. They won't be able to catch up with us now. We hit conversion in five." Naia gave me a look.
           "This guy's nuts. We should've gotten clearance from the station."
           "No, we shouldn't have," Ashad called back, "They didn't need any advance warning." Naia chuffed.
           "Oh, and exactly how do you plan to get back on the station? I'd be amazed if you managed to be seen back on that station without being killed. Your post as an agent here is over."
           "Children," I coughed, "shut it down." Naia sighed, then pulled straps out from on my bedside. They wrapped around me snuggly, clicking into place on the other side.
           "There," Naia purred, "you'll be fine, Aaron." She looked down at her bloodied body, at her ruined corset. "I'm going to wash up and find myself some new clothes. See you other side, Aaron." She pushed off me and went into the back cabin room.
           Silence hung heavily in the cockpit. Ashad worked quietly at the controls as the regenerators coaxed my body into patching itself up. We didn't have a whole lot to say to one another, frankly. The regenerator's white noise whined annoyingly, but enduring it was worth not having to say anything. Unfortunately, the silence didn't hold long.
           "She's really a jewel," Ashad said softly, "You really have a precious jewel in her. I've never seen someone as beautiful, strong, agile, and intelligent as that woman."
           "She's not mine," I corrected him, "she's just a friend. She has a bond-partner back at the base."
           "Doesn't act like it," he chuffed, and I grimaced.
           "She doesn't know it yet." There was a moment of silence.
           "Oh." Another moment passed while he thought that over. "So that's how it is. You're a dangerous person, you know. More than you seem." I shook my head, not that he likely noticed.
           "No, I'm not. I'm no more dangerous than you are. I've just never trained for this. I don't think you can." Ashad let that lie, returning awkward silence to the room. A minute or two later he clicked his restraints in.
           "Prep for conversion. This is going to be a multiple jump, so brace yourselves." I sighed, forcing relaxation. In a sudden lurch we fell through reality, jarring us back and forth with painful jolts.
          

---v---

          "My god! Aaron!" someone yelled. The ship melted away, replaced by a forest: the forest on Haras. It was the only one I'd ever really been to. "What's happened to you?" The voice asked. I looked down at myself and saw blood dripping everywhere. "Aaron…" Roe stepped from behind a tree, looked at me softly. "What are you doing? This is insane, Aaron. You could be hurt." I opened my mouth to protest, but was ignored. Roe shook her head and morphed into Maura.
           "Try not to get anyone else killed, will you? It's hard enough when you hurt yourself, but we've lost enough good people. Maybe you should go home, Aaron." Maura had spoken in an unlikely manner: calmly, and in English. More, she got my name right. Only Naia could do that… With no more grace or subtlety than ever she spun on her heel and disappeared into the shadows. Blackness enveloped the trees and grass, clouding the forest in dark.
          

---v---

          Light bled back into my vision. Raw flesh tore as I squirmed, then winced. Strange nightmares sometimes plague me when I go through a conversion. I've seen the past in conversion dreams, and, very rarely, the future. Sometimes I'll see things hours away, sometimes days. Physicists will laugh if you tell them this to their faces, but even the staunchest doctrine-mongering ones admit that conversion is hardly a dead field. Maybe time is more fluid in other conversion states. I don't really care, except out of curiosity, but it's unnerving; you have to always wonder what's dream and what's prophecy.
           The regenerator fell silent and its straps went loose. I blew air threw newly patched lungs and felt a reassuring sting that meant that my lungs were still there. I sat up stiffly, aching from the protests of muscles going through their first contractions and convulsions.
           "We there?" I asked Ashad hoarsely. No response. Swearing, I got up from the regenerator and stumbled unsurely to the pilot's chair. The stupid ass had fallen asleep, and during a conversion no less! "Hey, hey!" I yelled into his ear, shaking him roughly, "You trying to get us killed?" Ashad woke up slowly, still groggy from conversion. "You going to fly the ship or not?" He blinked.
           "Uhn… sorry. I'm not used to this. This is pretty tough…" He laid his palms back onto the console. "I've got it, Sykes."
           "Where are we?" He checked the navigation console and grunted.
           "Here. The base is nearby. We're going to head for the system's largest gas giant." He punched a few buttons on a keyboard and transferred the information to a second console embedded in the back wall, which clicked to life. "Check it back there if you want. We'll be while in getting there." I gave him a dirty look - the son had fallen asleep at the wheel, but I was about to fall down myself. With little more than a nod I turned and walked back into living quarters.
           Being a scout ship, the living space was necessarily tight. The bunks were arranged with a only two feet between them, and were stacked upwards. Naia occupied the bottom one. She'd replaced her racy garments with a white uniform that blended in with her fur. She was sleeping alone, but was tossing and turning uncomfortably. So that was what how bad a Hrasi had it when forced into solitary slumber. On the opposing side were a tiny microwave and a cabinet of freeze-dried meals. I pulled out what I thought was meat stew and a water packet, sloshed them together, and set them in the microwave. It cooked the meal in seconds, but when I removed the cup all I saw was brown water with green leaf bits floating inside. Yum, I thought to myself. It wasn't half-bad, actually, but I wasn't really in the mood. The beds were soft, and for me that was more than enough. I lay down next to her, slipping into the bottom bunk and putting an arm around her back. She moaned and rumbled, then quietly woke.
           "Thought you hated me," Naia whispered with a smile.
           "You want me to leave?" I countered, and she sidled closer to me with a growl.
           "No. Just didn't think you had any mercy in you." She rested her head on my arm and almost immediately fell into a much more restful slumber. I rested my head beside hers so that our foreheads were touching and quickly followed her.
          

---v---

          Soft claw taps on my cheek brought me back to the world of the waking. Naia was looking down at me, head wedged into the space between bunks, grinning like a fool.
           "Aaron, we're here! We've landed!" I sunk as far away from those teeth as possible.
           "Uhn? Landed?" She pulled her head out and nodded.
           "Yes. The base is a series of asteroids. Ashad found landing clearance for the asteroid where our friends are staying. They're going to meet us here!" I nodded silently, rolled out of bed, and promptly smacked my rump on the floor. "You might want to change," she pointed out softly. I stretched out and pulled myself up. "There's a small shower unit and some human clothes. In the back."
           "Thanks," I mumbled, moving to the back.
           Small shower unit was an understatement. There literally wasn't enough room to turn around: you set the temperature, get in, and then try to endure the cramps while the unit alternately sprays you with soaps and water. It hurt, but I'd had worse since meeting the Hrasi. The unit blow-dried me off with jets of warm air, then opened the door and let me fall naked to the floor. Naia, who was still present, smirked and kindly turned her back.
           "The clothes are in the supply cabinet," she managed to garble out, trying hard not to laugh. I mumbled something in response and knocked open the cabinet. There were eleven sets of clothes stacked neatly, the top one having already been donned by Naia. They were common citizen's wear: matching sets in large, medium, and small of drab blue, brown, black, and white. I picked out the largest brown uniform and slipped it on. It was an agent's clothing set: lots of pockets, buttons, zippers, and tools were embedded into it.
           "Yeah, you can look now," I grumbled, leaning heavily. She turned, eyed me up and down.
           "Not bad. You need to gain another ten pounds to fit that, though."
           "Sure, whatever." I pushed past her and walked through the cockpit, past the pilot's chair, and into the airlock. Ashad was there, dressed in tan hide breeches and vest.
           "Took you two long enough," he growled, but his heart wasn't in it. Even he seemed happy to be 'home'.
           The airlock cycled and three expectant faces lost their glitter. We raised our hands, wrists outwards, and stepped down the ramp to stand in a line on the deck.
           Small fighters, bombers, and interceptors littered the docking bay, covering the walls, laying stacked in pillars on the floor, and hanging from the ceiling by thick cables alongside crates full of ammunition and fuel. Catwalks and ladders cut everywhere, having been welded diagonally, horizontally, and vertically in a tangled mess that literally would let a person get to any point in the warehouse-like room. Still, there wasn't anywhere to run from the line of ten Hrasi soldiers who had their guns trained on us.
           "There's no damned justice, you know?" Naia murmured to me out of the side of her muzzle. I had to agree.
           These soldiers were at least different than the usual sort. They were dressed in green-black livery that covered most of their bodies. It looked like chitin leather, if you can imagine that: hard but soft enough to ripple and show off three soldier's underlying muscles, colored a shiny black that turned bright green and purple when the light hit it. Their guns were long and black, with extended barrels, and every last one was trained on us.
           "We're your friends, you know," I said slowly. "The Yusuurans? You did let us land here, you know…" Soft, claw-tipped feet clicked in series as three black-clad women came from a doorway across the hall.
           "Good to see you, Ahrn," the one in the middle called. A woman with a voice like liquid iron, whose purrs set me on edge. Maura walked ahead of the other two, swaggering with a certain brown fur cloak pinned at her neck. As they approached I noticed the others as other old friends: Jaurn and Eshera. Maura came all the way up to the soldier line. "Too bad you made it back here. I hope you don't mind if I admit that I'd rather you have died. I'd get my sister back as a bond-partner, you see. Nothing personal. As it is, though, you seem to have brought home a traitor." She regarded me coolly as Eshera stood forward. Eshera shivered, almost betraying some unknown emotion, then walked to Naia, who stared at her innocently. Naia looked at her curiously, completely unaware of her past relationship, and Eshera swallowed slowly. With deliberate malice she spat into her former partner's face.
           "You treacherous bitch. I gave you my heart and you tried to kill us. You disgraced me, everything we'd ever fought for. I never want to speak to you again." Naia wiped the spittle from her face slowly.
           "Who are you?" She asked. Her voice wasn't angry, but surprised. "I've never met you." That enraged Eshera, who threw back a paw to slap her. I intervened before things got ugly.
           "She's not lying, Eshera." The hand paused. "That's not the Naia that betrayed us. I wiped her completely. This one doesn't know anything except my fighting memories and what she's learned from the ship's computers. This one is innocent, young. She didn't betray you." Eshera stared at me wild-eyed.
           "But…" I stared at her forcefully and she stopped.
           "We'll have to verify your claim," Maura purred. "For now she'll go to the brig." Naia and I traded glances: she was frightened to death. The soldiers stepped forward and Ashad came to her side.
           "I'll stay with her," he murmured to me under my breath. Naia looked vaguely worried, but didn't balk when Ashad took her hand and led her into their fold. Eshera stood looking dumbfounded and a bit displaced. I gazed at her softly, caught her eye, and gently nodded towards Naia. She set her jaw and took a hard-line posture, but then thought better of herself and followed after her lost partner. Both remaining Hrasi were disquieted, and Jaurn looked dour to the point of depression.
           "Ahrn," she greeted my flatly: it was almost a statement rather than an acknowledgement. "You're alive. This is good." Maura looked back to her absently, then turned her back to me and walked back to the doors from which they'd come.
           "Walk with us, Ahrn." I jumped quickly to fill in the gap between the two women. Maura glanced at me out of the side of her eye. "Things change. I've little [ ] left for you. Spent a long time with Zeiri, got to know her… I suppose I ought to thank you for introducing me to my bond-partner. Don't think I trust you, though," she added. I looked between the two.
           "We have larger problems than our personal affairs. The old Naia informed the Royal Army about this base and they've sent us a fleet. If we don't-"
           "It's under control," Maura interrupted. "Your man Ashad Juirie told us. We've already begun to evacuate." I did an about-face to that.
           "What!? We're going to run away? I thought that we came here so that we wouldn't have to run away!" Jaurn growled frustratedly.
           "Yeah, that was the idea. Things change, though. Apparently the Yusuurans don't actually do anything. They just send out spies and sabotage their enemies. We pilots and our military hardware just stay here and rot. Even when the enemy comes to us we don't fight, we just run."
           "That'll be enough," Maura hissed. "We don't question orders, and if command doesn't want us to fight then there is probably a damned good reason for it." I looked at Jaurn as we walked.
           "You sound tired."
           "I'm sober these days. Things change."
           We walked through a run-down corridor. Such places are the home-of-all-homes for me; I've spaced for a long time on old ships and have gotten pretty used to that worn-in feeling. High technology be damned if means I have to ship on a new craft that hasn't had its bugs worked out. Bugs tend to be fatal in starships, you see. This station, though, looked and smelled like an old one that'd been taken care of well. Ships and station like that just don't fail.
           "I can do it, Maura," I said lowly. You know I can. Give me Jaurn, Eshera, Taiiyi, Amara, and a few strike bombers. We'll sit behind the conversion point and shoot out their engines as they appear."
           "Taiiyi is dead," Jaurn said quietly, "as is Uru. They died trying to smuggle one of our contacts off Haras." That stung, and I shut up.
           "It doesn't matter whether or not you could. It matters what our superiors want. If we don't follow orders we can't function," Maura argued softly. "We work for them now. If we follow their leads we'll be fine." She jabbed me in ribs and redirected us towards an elevator. "I have a feeling that there's someone you might want to see." Jaurn drew me in and Maura hit the 'up' button on the elevator. "We're going to be the last ones out." She pointed at a blue button in the elevator's upper-left panel. "Come up to the conference room with this when you're done. I'll introduce you, break you in with command, and we'll talk about what to do." The elevator jolted to a halt and opened up to a spotless metal corridor lit in white and soft blue. "See you," Maura called as I stepped out. The door hissed behind my back.
           Feeling disoriented, I circled around, looking up and down, then walked through the hallway. The glow from ceiling lights was soft, the walls shined, and the air smelled faintly of flower-scented antiseptic. At the end of the hall were two branches with glass windows and outside-bolt-locked doors lining each wall. I ran down to the end and started checking the cells behind those glass windows. An insane asylum? Most were empty, but I found a few occupied: A human woman asleep on a pallet, a Hrasi man curled in a fetal ball in the corner. At the end I found what I was looking for. I pulled the bolt lock on the door fiercely and kicked it open. Inside, bound to a chair in the center of the room, Amara sat with bowed head and a lump of fur at her feet. At the sound of the door she raised her head slowly.
           We didn't say anything to eachother: there was no need to. Amara stared, I stared, and then calmly I walked to kneel in front of her, touched her cheek. Her eyes closed as I felt those familiar short hairs in my palm. Ours cheeks met, then, and she stretched forward to rub my neck, murring in a throaty rumble. I brushed her disheveled mane absently into place, kissed her neck , and brushed the wrinkles out of her white patient's gown. Slowly I drew away, moved behind her chair to work on her restraints. They were metal cables, ones that she'd worn her wrist raw on. A simple combination lock secured her arms behind the back on the chair, with the combination printed on the back. I spun the combination, took the lock off, and pulled away her restraint.
           Amara rose away and turned to me. Silently she dropped to her knees and rested her forehead against my shin. When she spoke her rough coughs sounded rich and lyrical.
           "Ahrn," her voice quivered, "khos Ahrn, I'm sorry. forgive me for everything." I bent down to her and caught one of her ears, rubbing it in. There was not so much as a flinch: she purred softly. I put a finger over her thin black lips, silencing her.
           "What do you have to be forgiven for?" I asked in a whisper. "You're my guiding star." She looked up at me with a wan smile and I pulled her up. "It feels good to be home," I breathed in her ear, hugging her close. She buried herself in my shirt.
           "But you've never been here," she said softly.
           "Not this station," I whispered. "I meant where you are." She purred and we stood together in our embrace. We spent about a minute like that, just hugging and sharing scents. Amara's shudders shook me as she purred herself a storm, digging into my chest with her muzzle. "Love," I whispered then, "We have to go. The whole station is going be destroyed." She stopped and released, but caught my hand and refused to let me out of her sight. No problem for me; I felt the same way.
           In a gracefully flowing manner she dropped to the floor and returned with her furry bundle in hand. She pressed it into my arms, made me unravel it. It was a cloak of fine golden fur, exactly to my proportions, that rippled all the way down to my shoes.
           "For you," she said, eyes on my feet. I purposefully took hold of her beard and lifted her face up to mine. "It's for you. They let me make it. It's my old pelt sown into fabric. The hairs won't come out." I led her out the door.
           "Is that why your coat is so short?" Actually, it was a little bit shorter than I remembered. I should've known better, though. Amara winced at the remark. "A joke, Amara. You look beautiful." Which she did, even in her smock of a patient's gown. I slipped the cloak on as we walked back to the elevator shaft. "I like it. It's warm," I praised her, holding her close, and she beamed.
           "It's a custom among the Hrasi here. We make them out of our pelts for the humans in our lives. Sometimes it's a single person's coat, or sometimes two or three with contrasting colors make a pattern. It only lasts for a year or two before the fur starts to fall out, so having one is a token of recent love and affection. The only Hrasi who wears one here is Maura - Ayo's cloak. I spent all the time they let me have on it."
           "It's wonderful," I reassured her. "I worried more about you. Do you feel alright?" She bobbed her head once.
           "Decently. Better with you," she added with a purr, resting her head on my arm for a moment. "It's been a long time since I ate anything that tasted. I haven't exercised in a long time either, but at least they let me keep my clothes…" She pulled at her gown one-handed, clawing and tearing at the fabric. It came away, leaving her with a Yusuuran black-green vest and dirty tan shorts. With a triumphant growl she threw the gown to the floor. "Always hated that thing."
           The elevator opened as I walked inside. Amara pushed past my cloak to clutch at my torso and purr. I hit the blue button and leaned with against the elevator railing as the car lurched upwards. Amara was shuddering again. I looked down at her in concern and petted her nose.
           "You sure you're all right? You don't look alright." She stopped shaking or purring, instead simply clinging onto me.
           "I think I'm… no, never mind," she mumbled, "Just hold onto me and I'll be fine." The elevator opened up and we walked through the door into Yusuuran command and control, leaving those thoughts behind.
           Their control system was dimly lit in green and yellow. A large circular table sat in the middle of the room; a huge computer screen was inset into the table with keyboard panels lining the table's edge. Seven people stood around the table studying a sector map: five Hrasi, two humans. Jaurn and Maura were together, and both turned at the sound of the elevator opening. Maura's ears flicked and perked as she saw Amara. Jaurn smiled and dipped her head to us as we walked in. The rest of the members stared with various expressions of concern and shock on their faces.
           "Is she stable?" A human woman asked. This one was an oddity: tall, thin, and fair, features mainly Irish but also slightly oriental, with bright, clearly dyed-silver hair and a flowing burnt-red cloak that hung around her pearly white uniform. She looked slightly worried about Amara's unrestrained state. "That's the pilot who kept stealing my bombers." A dark gold Hrasi woman in a royal blue and equally vibrant green silk uniform looked at her and waved a calming hand.
           "Would Miss Amara be out of containment if she were not?" The woman asked. "Don't worry, Colonel Wilson. If I'm not mistaken our wayward pilot won't give us any more trouble. She seems to have found what she'd been looking for." The Hrasi woman pursed her lips and locked her ears forward into a diplomatic position. "Ah, Mr. Sykes. You're right on time." I drew up to Maura, positioning myself so that she stood beside her sister. The two looked at one another and Amara slipped a hand away from around my waist to lock arms with her. Around the room bodies shifted in the awkward situation.
           "Well," The human woman clipped, "It'll be good to have some ace pilots holding up our squadrons." That got the Hrasi woman in green and blue back to her senses.
           "Mr. Sykes, Amara, it's good to see you at a time like this. We don't have much time, so I'll make the speech short." She pointed at Maura and Jaurn. "You're already familiar with General Maura and Major Jaurn. We've found these two to be very valuable; Maura is our ground forces marshal and Jaurn has become our interceptor squadron leader."
           "Imagine me being any kind of leader," Jaurn laughed. The woman in green and blue nodded over at the two humans.
           "This woman here is Colonel Sandra Wilson. She defected to us along with an entire squadron of her pilots and their fighter-bombers. She's the coordinator-commander for all our fighters, interceptors, and bombers. I think you'll find her an effective leader." Wilson stared at me with hawk eyes.
           "You know, Sykes, you've reached almost mythical proportions. They say your knight is the only one who's ever matched you in a fight. Did you really pass the fifty mark on the simulator's gauntlet?"
           "Passed the hundred and ten," I corrected, "and blind drunk at that. Almost killed myself. It was a pretty stupid decision." The young colonel raised her eyebrows in acknowledging respect and stood back.
           "I'm sure that having a legend fighting alongside them will encourage our forces," The young Hrasi woman purred. "But let me introduce you first to Mr. Rohbert Je'sefh, our intelligence agent." The man looked at me appraisingly.
           Unlike the others, Je'sefh ignored uniform. He looked somewhat like an assassin, dressed in a black cloth suit with a blue tie and a light and dark brown fur cloak, with a gun clipped to his hip. He stood apart from the others, surveying the war table from his own perspective. With those piercing green eyes and long black hair he looked like a rogue. If Jaurn hadn't been kidding about the Yusuuran's extensive use of espionage and sabotage, he could've very well actually been one. We watched eachother intently, or rather I watched him and he interrogated me with his eyes. Something about the man made adamant about staying away from dark or closed spaces when in his presence. "Doesn't talk much," The introducer explained, "but there's no better man to have if you need a job done covertly. Without him we'd just be [gnats?] around Haras' ears."
           "Pleased to meet you," Je'sefh murmured under his breath. His Hrasi inflections were perfectly articulated, so much so that he came across as purring his welcome.
           " Robert Je'sefh. Odd name for a human," I said. Around the room Hrasi flinched or otherwise twitched at the perceived discord, while Wilson just smirked.
           "That's because it's Hrasi. My parents adopted me off a captured colony ship after the battle made me an orphan. Having had a human's childhood makes my job much less difficult," Je'sefh said flatly. I suppose he got that a lot…
           "Yes, well, in any case he's someone you'll be seeing quite a lot of. I understand that you resemble a significant human figure within the Haras government, and if you managed your way here then you must be fairly proficient with the arts of espionage. There will probably be several chances for you to prove yourself in this manner." The woman in green and blue stepped back into the ranks of her two companions: Hrasi men in uniforms identical to hers, one no more than thirty-five and one no younger than forty or fifty. "We are the heads of the Yusuuran Freedom Coalition, the [triumvirate?] of Admirals. The eldest of us is Ghaffa." The old Hrasi man nodded his dark brown head, upsetting the wisps of greying mane hairs that had clearly begun to show their age. "His clan, Yusuur, has historically included some of our best commanders, including the founder of this movement. He commands our flagship, the Independence IV. Admiral Ket'zsra is to my left. He's our newest, the former knight of our recently deceased Admiral Mahrya Albornez. For a Hrasi man of so few seasons I think that everyone here would agree he is remarkably cool-headed. He commands the Swift Messenger, our premier destroyer that we recently…"
           "Liberated," Ket'zsra said dourly, finishing his colleague's sentence. He smiled warmly enough, though. "I'm afraid she speaks too highly of me. This is Admiral Ouni. She commands the Mitchell, and until General Maura brought us Ambassador Zeiri she was our head diplomat." I traded glances with Maura at that, and smiled with a shrug.
           "She talked us out of a [potentially crippling?] firefight with an ICA corvette group. The talent there was pretty obvious after that."
           "Yes," Je'sefh interrupted, "well, while I must say that I'm enjoying our introduction ceremony, we really ought to consider laying out plans before the fleets get here." Ghaffa nodded.
           "Agreed. The Royal fleet could arrive either tomorrow or an hour from now, and I doubt they'll wait for us. Miss Amara, with your permission I'd like to reinstate you as an interceptor pilot under the Major here. Major Jaurn, we called you here for a reason. However we choose to retreat, we need to you to deal with the fleet's bomber ranks. Your ships and personnel are being shipped to our rear carriers, which will position themselves near the Amman conversion point. When the Royal fleet arrives you will deploy and those carriers will retreat. We will leave you ample supplies here so that your forces may rearm and refuel until all but those rear carriers have escaped. You will then destroy this base and retreat back to the carriers. Understood, Major?" Jaurn saluted him.
           "Clearly, sir. I'll rouse my women immediately." She stepped back and turned to leave, then stopped and looked back at Amara inquiringly. Amara's ears drooped and she looked up at me with a sense of dread.
           "Don't worry, pilot," Ouni purred. "Sykes is going to be flying too. With your consent, sir," she added. "As Miss Wilson said, your presence should be fairly inspirational. We have a small selection of converted ICA interceptors - the new griffins. If you'd be more comfortable in one we can arrange that."
           "Admiral," Jaurn interrupted, ignoring a dirty look from Maura, "If you will allow it I'd like to [cede?] my position as squadron leader to Ahrn. He has more experience being one." That was touching. At least some people still had at least marginal faith in me. Ket'szra flicked an ear and bobbed his head once.
           "Are these acceptable propositions, Mr. Sykes?" I nodded. "Fine. Consider yourself a Major once again. We'll have your uniform and flight suit made when there's actually time for it. Je'sefh, your report?"
           "We know through simple reasoning that the Amman conversion point must be the one the Royal Army plans on using: if they went through S'jet they would already be here, but without their precious cruisers. We have the advantage here because nothing much larger than a civilian freighter can make all three of the needed conversions to get here from S'jet, and we pray that they don't know about the last conversion point in process. With S'jet and Amman out of the way we find ourselves left with only three points insystem: Tefy, Solomon's Peak, or Rasijbaad."
           "We're stuck, then?" Ghaffa asked. "Tefy is a settled world only two conversions away, and the intermediate system doesn't have any other charted jump points. Besides, I'd rather stand and fight here than try to run past Tefy's orbital batteries with an entire fleet: we'd be massacred." Ouni hissed softly.
           "Likewise with Rajisbaad. My father used to talk about being a slave there after the Royal Army captured him at Pluto. It's a foundry world these days, but it used to be [agrarian?]. We'd be facing something like Tefy's batteries, the system's fighter complement, and the guard fleets for Rajisbaad's shipyards. No chance there'd be enough of us left to fight down the actual planet's population." Her father captured at Pluto? I wondered at what that could possibly have meant.
           "Solomon's Peak isn't much better," Ms. Wilson added gloomily. There's an uninhabited world there, but it's inside ICA territory. If we invade their space for our new base we'll lose the little planetary support we have. Without surplus from a planetary bio-mass our troops are going to starve."
           "What troops?" Maura interjected. "We need more ground forces if we're going to take anything. I lost six regiments defending these rocks from the Haigh fleet that came through here trying to get into ICA territory." I did a double take at that.
           "What!?" All those months ago, on my last mission with Roe… "A Haigh fleet was on its way to Solomon's Peak?" Colonel Wilson chuckled.
           "Yes and no. Not to Solomon's Peak. Through it, maybe, but there's nothing there. The 'habitable planet' is a dust bowl with a few drops of water in the ground that just happened to have a breathable atmosphere. It's too far out and too near the front lines to settle, but too close to home to not patrol. We don't even ship our intelligence agents through the area: too many conversions to get anywhere we'd want to be. The system has absolutely no value to anyone."
           "Wrong," I said softly. "I'm here because Amara shot me down while I was escorting a supply frigate carrying medicines to Solomon's c-point. There's a new colony there, about three years old now. If the Haigh went for Solomon's peak then they must've gotten its location somehow. If I'd known I wouldn't have let Ayo die to protect them." Maura didn't bristle, but clenched her jaw and ran her hand down her cloak. For once Amara spoke of her own free will.
           "It makes sense. Khos Ahrn and I fought in a system one conversion away from Solomon's Peak." Je'sefh turned to the three admirals.
           "A three-year old colony would be an ideal target. It would have no defenses except for a marginal fighter group and possibly a patrol fleet. Their population won't have very many if any elders or invalids, but they will have a large number of young children to protect. Their original colony ships, even disassembled, should still be untouched enough to be cannibalized for spare parts. We could easily attack them and capture their young, making the adults docile enough to uproot and control until they can be convinced to join us. There should be enough people down there to make the General ten or eleven replacement regiments." The three Admiral looked at us all, one by one, then turned in a small circular 'huddle' for less than a minute. Ket'szra stood back from his companions.
           "I still don't think this is going to work. If we [draft?] innocent colonists the Royal Army and the Haigh are going to murder the image we've spent the last decade trying to rebuild." Ouni shrugged.
           "We don't have a choice, my friend. Unless we can get to Solomon's peak we'll be taken apart here, and being hated is preferable to not being." She looked at the seven of us assembled around the war table. "Solomon's peak it is, then. If we're going to do an operation as long as Mr. Je'sefh suggests, however, we'll need more time. I'll have our rear guard carriers deploy mines once the interceptors have all boarded." Ghaffa flicked an ear and watched us for a minute. No one had any questions.
           "That's all, then," he growled, "since there's nothing left to say except good luck. Nothing like this has ever been done before. I don't know that it can be done, but if it can then I assure you that you're all the ones to do it. We all have jobs to do, so let's do them." Amara looked at me worriedly.
           "Was that supposed to be reassuring?"
           "Love, that was supposed to convince us that we're not fools for being reassured."
          
           End Part 13