The Friend of My Enemy

"Oh, father, bring me down, bring me down, bring me down. Oh, father, bring me down, down from the stars today..."

-from "Down from the Stars", traditional song

It was a deeply, deeply uncomfortable six hours waiting for the First Star to be able to jump back to the original meeting place. The Green King-- really, Yan supposed she should start thinking of him by his real name-- spent the first part of it "interviewing" Kino, Sylva, and Iri.

Iri was the only one who had truly been an interview, given that she was the only one whose mind Jeepak couldn't invade, but it was what he called it. Yan had obviously had the worst of it, and remembering her terrible experience, and fearing for the safety of her friends, she made him conduct these "interviews" in her presence.

Kino's had gone smoothly, or as smoothly as anything ever went with Kino. She submitted to it without complaint, and possibly the only people who knew what she was feeling about it were Kino and Jeepak, if even that. Who even knew if Kino herself understood her own feelings. Who even knew if Kino was capable of transmitting them to another person. Certainly not Yan, who had never been in Kino's head.

Sylva's turn with Jeepak was far less smooth, primarily because she had taken it upon herself to hate Jeepak for Yan, since she was intent on shoving that feeling down inside herself. The other reason that Sylva's interview went poorly was because Sylva was uniquely bad at meditation, especially with someone else, especially with someone she hated. By the time that they eventually succeeded, Yan thought that the frustration that both Sylva and Jeepak were feeling, enough to flip tables, was the only thing that united them both in order to slip into meditation. It was over as quickly as it had started, but apparently Jeepak had learned what he needed to know, and he let Sylva go.

For Iri's conversation with him, the Green King had at least requested that Yan stay behind the door, so Yan had watched them talk, but had not listened. She didn't know what Iri had said, but she didn't look upset. Granted, Iri was a master of professionalism.

And then, after that, Yan did have to leave him alone with Kino and Sylva (a terrible combination already) so that she could go fix the gunshot wound the First Star had received in the bay. She did think of it as a wound, and not simply damage. She couldn't have explained why, but she felt such a connection to the First Star, she felt like it was an extension of her own body, in a way. She hated to see it hurt. So she and Iri suited up and patched the hole, an annoying but not particularly difficult task. At least that mundane action took her mind off the enemy waiting inside.

Not an enemy, perhaps anymore. An ally, if a terrible one.

Yan didn't know what Jeepak was going to say to his group, the Dark Hands. How could he explain that yes, he had been kidnapped by this group, and yes, there were only four of them, and yes, they were all former Imperials (and high ranking ones at that!), and yes, they were piloting a ship stolen from the leader of the Empire, but they also could be trusted. It looked bad.

Considering that Jeepak had described himself as merely a gun for hire, Yan wondered if he would even have enough clout to pull this off. She hoped that he did. Despite how revolting she found him, Yan didn't want to miss possibly her only chance to help people who had the only real potential to stop the madness that was the Empire's war.

As she held the welding torch, patching the hole and staring into the dazzling arc behind her suit's helmet, Yan thought about what he had said. Did she actually have the courage or ability to bring down the Empire?

If she did, what would happen?

She didn't know the answers to these questions, and she didn't want to think about the future. She focused on that leaping spark, the grinning shadows like a miniature sun. She wanted to flip her suit's helmet to the night mode, and be blinded by the weld's holy fire.

She didn't, though, and she sealed the patch plate all around the hole, and returned inside, to pressure, and air, and reality, and the long wait to jump.

Jump back in they did, though, and they all waited on the bridge. Yan put Jeepak on the radio, so that he could explain the situation to his comrades, or whatever they were, without it getting out of hand.

Yan felt the wash of the First Star's power over herself, and she stared out into the darkness of space on the monitor, not seeing the other ship.

"Redwater, come in. This is Jeepak, aboard the First Star. Please come in," Jeepak called over the radio. It wouldn't have surprised Yan if the other ship, named the Redwater, apparently, had accelerated away in order to hide itself should the First Star return. Accelerating a large ship was unpleasant, but it would have given them a slight tactical advantage, if the First Star, had, for example, jumped out in order to trade places with another ship waiting to attack.

"Redwater, do you read me? Please stand down, there was a misunderstanding. I have not been harmed, and this ship means you no ill intent."

"We read you, First Star," came the response after a long, long silence.

Jeepak visibly relaxed. Yan had to empathise with him for a second-- it would have been bad if his group had given him up as gone and abandoned him. They wouldn't have been able to jump away, not really, not unless their ship was far smaller and faster than Yan though it was, but they could have refused to acknowledge him.

"The captain of the First Star would like to meet with you," Jeepak said. "In order to discuss future plans."

"You will return to the Redwater alone," the other ship said. "We will discuss with you what you have found, and then we will make our decision."

So the Green King's investigation here was not entirely a guarantee. That didn't surprise Yan in the least, but she had hoped that she would be able to speak with the leaders of this movement. Or, if not the leaders, at least the captain of the other ship.

Jeepak looked at her and shrugged in his infuriating way. Yan frowned and nodded. "Tell them you're going to leave now," Yan said.

"What, you don't like having me as a guest of your ship?"

"You're lucky to be a guest and not a prisoner," Yan said.

"It's all the same," Jeepak said mildly, then pressed the transmit button. "I will return to the Redwater. Please send docking information to my shuttle."

"Understood. We anticipate your arrival."

They killed the radio transmission. Yan looked around the bridge and gestured to Kino with her head, indicating that she should come. Kino understood, and together they escorted Jeepak off of the bridge and down towards the bay where he had parked his shuttle. Yan had picked Kino because she didn't want to be alone, and Kino would provide the most help, should she need it. Firepower and all.

It wasn't necessary. Jeepak left without any trouble, and that left Yan and Kino standing awkwardly in the hallway outside the bay together, watching through the tiny window as he dexterously took off and flew out.

She didn't know if Sylva and Iri were watching them over the cameras, but she didn't particularly care. They could listen in to her conversation if they wanted. But she did want to talk to Kino. After all, the two of them were the ones who had, to put it mildly, the most conflicted relationship with this group.

"How do you feel about this?" Yan asked, breaking the silence.

Kino didn't respond for a second. "How am I supposed to feel?" she asked.

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

Kino considered some more. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't think they were right," she said.

"Yeah." That didn't precisely answer the question, but it summed up Yan's feelings. "I know that academically."

"What did he do to you, when you were screaming?" Kino asked. Then, sounding somewhat comulsive, she tacked on, "I'm sorry I didn't stop him."

"I'm glad you didn't." It would have messed up their whole meeting if she had knocked him over the head or something. Who knows how badly it would have gone. "I'm sorry that I let him keep you trapped."

"It's okay."

"We're even, then."

"You didn't answer my question."

"We-- he-- When I was in prison, he was the one who kept me there. It was just walking through bad memories," Yan said. That was downplaying it a lot, but it was all she wanted to say.

"Why?"

"He wanted to see if I would turn on him. Take revenge."

"Did you?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because..." There were a lot of reasons: she didn't think she had the willpower to torture someone, she didn't want to bring the whole partnership down immediately, she didn't feel like she had control in that dream space. "I knew I couldn't."

"Okay." Kino seemed to accept this non answer.

"What did he do with you?" Yan asked.

"He just looked through my memories."

"How did he do it so fast?"

"I showed him what he wanted to see."

"Hm." That did not seem like the most foolproof of investigation techniques, but perhaps the Green King was better at mind games, and had manipulated Kino in some way to get the information that he needed. Either that, or he was stupid and took what Kino gave him at face value. Either that, or Kino was lying.

The first of those options seemed like the most likely. Kino showed him her own memories, and he used that as a distraction to dive after what he needed, just as he had kept Yan running through that long, dark hallway to pry through her mind. It was an invasion of privacy, but she didn't mind that nearly as much as she minded everything else. Letting people into her head was something that she enjoyed, even if she did not enjoy Jeepak doing it.

"You know, it's funny," Yan said, as they walked down the hall. "You and Sylva--"

"I'm sorry," Kino said.

"You don't have to apologize," Yans aid. "I--" This wasn't how she wanted to have this conversation. She didn't know why she had started it. "You don't have to let me into your mind. It's yours. I just think it's funny that the worst person..." She trailed off, scuffed her foot on the ground. "Nevermind."

"We had to, to make this work."

"I know. Sorry. I'm being dumb."

"No, you're not."

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Yan didn't know exactly where they were going, since they were actually headed the long way around the ring, to get to the bridge. Since it was a circle, they would get there eventually, but they were taking a circuitous route. Neither of them had decided to; it had just simply happened.

"If you really want to, I can let you in," Kino said, looking down at the ground.

"No," Yan said. She nudged Kino's shoulder with her arm. "It's okay. I'm not trying to guilt trip you. I promise."

"I know." Kino looked like she wanted to say something else, but she didn't.

"Do you think that I'll actually be able to go through with it?" Yan asked after a moment.

"With what?"

"The Green King, er, Jeepak, he wants us to take the Gatekeeper."

"That's just the first test," Kino said. "It will be worse." The flat way in which she delivered that sentiment belied both her misery and conviction.

"Do you think I should do it?"

"You're the captain."

"I wish people wouldn't say that. Do you want to do it?"

"Sid's on that ship."

"I know," Yan said. She waited for Kino to respond, and when she didn't, Yan said, "Maybe we could convince--"

"I don't think so," Kino said, and her voice was very quiet. "I wish we could."

"It would be nice to have the three of us together again."

Kino stared straight ahead, as if she was looking down the barrel of a gun. "Yes."

"But it's not going to happen, is it?"

"No."

"Would you kill me, if we were on opposite sides of this?" Yan asked.

Kino looked up at her. "I almost did."

"Not on purpose," Yan said. "It's a little different."

"Is it?"

"Yeah. I mean, if I were standing here, or if we were on Emerri or something, before all of this, and I was against you, what would you have done?"

"If you made yourself my enemy, I would have made myself yours," Kino said. "I'm glad that we're not."

"Would you have killed Sandreas, if you had the chance?"

"I did have the chance, maybe," Kino said. "But I didn't think the time was right."

"Were you ever alone with him? No Halen?"

"Yes," Kino said.

"Would you have been able to take him in a fight?"

"I don't know," Kino said. "But it wasn't worth it to try."

"You could have destabilized the entire Empire, if you did."

"But you or Sid would have just taken his place," Kino said. "And Sid would have gone along with the Emperor willingly, and you..."

Yan could imagine it. If she had taken power, without the preparation of years of apprenticeship, coming to stand in front of the Emperor, what that would have done to her mind. She was glad she had not been forced to take up that mantle.

"You didn't know about the Emperor, though."

"I knew about how systems worked. The whole Empire just keeps going. One person can fall out of place, but the whole system will keep going."

"Yeah." That made Yan pause for a second. "Do you think whatever the Dark Hands do is even going to work?"

"I don't know," Kino said.

"You say the system will keep going on."

"It will. But if you take enough pieces out, it might fall down."

Yan thought about this for a moment. "Are they actually taking pieces out? Are they organized in any way? What are they even doing?"

"They did Falmar," Kino said. "They're protecting the planet that you were on."

"That's not action against the core of the Empire, though."

"They had me."

"And that got nowhere," Yan said. "I think..."

"What?"

"I don't know." Yan stopped. "There might need to be a change from inside. I don't know, even if this was a real military campaign, would there even be a chance of stopping all this destruction?"

"If you wanted to change it from the inside, you should have stayed with Sandreas," Kino said, sounding slightly sullen.

"That's not what I mean," Yan said, but she didn't know exactly what the feeling she was trying to express was. There was something rotten at the core of the Empire. Secrecy, maybe, or the slavish devotion to expansion pursued by the Emperor and the Fleet. Yan couldn't put her finger on one culprit. If she thought about it too hard, she might even cast some blame upon things that she loved-- the Academy, and the ties of power that it brought, for example.

They walked in silence until they reached the bridge. Inside, it was a tense time, with Iri and Sylva monitoring the displays to ensure that they were not about to be attacked. If the Green King-- Jeepak, Yan reminded herself again-- failed to convince the crew of the Redheart that they were first not a threat, and second, potential allies, they could be faced with attack from the Redheart's shuttles.

Yan didn't know what the Redheart's actual strength was, but she did know that it almost certainly would be enough to completely wipe out the First Star. Even though they were a crew that was three-quarters sensitives, they were still only a crew of four. Four people could not withstand a tide of shuttles and dogfighters and missiles, no matter how competent they were. So they waited, and every sencond that their screen was not lit up with the bright stars of acceleration was both a relief and a mounting tension, until they heard back over the radio what the Redheart's decision would be.

She had a mental timer counting down in her head, measuring the time when they would be able to jump next, and the time the Redheart would be able to leave. The minute that eight hours for the Redheart ticked over, they recieved a data blast-- no audio, just a package of text information over the radio, and Yan felt the wave of power as the Redheart jumped away. So that was it. They were alone again, and they had instructions.

Yan read them with a mounting fear in her heart.

---

Days later, shortened sleep nights later, they arrived back at the Mother's planet. Not in the planet's orbit, or even the star's, but they were one jump away, at a designated meeting point. There were two other ships there, lit up and waiting. It was a nerve wracking sight. Even though she was fairly confident that they weren't about to be attacked, there was always the chance that this was some kind of trap.

All four of them were on the bridge, but Yan was the one speaking. Kino was tapping her finger on the console in front of her, and Sylva and Iri were watching the navigation screens and listening carefully as Yan paged the other ships.

"This is the First Star," Yan called over the radio. "Please identify." She was speaking Old Imperial, which she figured she would have the best luck with. It seemed to be a common language even among many of the Empire's enemies. Yan didn't really know why, but she suspected that it was similar to whatever protolanguage had come off of the ancestral homeworld of humanity. That was a question for Sylva to ponder.

"This is Captain Mayar on the Kiss of Death," said one ship, the one that was about half a light second distant. The person who responded did indeed have a thick accent, and an odd pronunciation of many words, but "Where's the Redheart?"

"I can't answer that question," Yan said. "I was told to proceed here. They may still be on their way, if they are intending to arrive. They left me a message to deliver to the ships waiting here, as well as instructions to assist you in the capture of the ship in orbit around Olkye." There had been an encrypted piece of the Redheart's message that Yan had not been able to crack that she presumed had instructions and an introduction for these other two ships.

"First Officer Trebek of the Echo," the other ship identified. "Are we waiting on them?"

Yan thought it was extremely odd that these ships, who clearly had no idea who she was, were simply accepting their presence. Were the Dark Hands so disorganized, or so loosely affiliated, that they had no idea which ships were going where, or even who their own allies were?

"Not according to the last ansible transmission, no," Mayar said. "We were told to wait here for a ship, not necessarily their ship."

So these ships had access to an ansible, as did the Redheart, somewhere. Yan supposed she shouldn't be too surprised about that. It would be fairly hard to conduct any sort of interplanetary anything if they had to rely entirely on ships as couriers. The Mother hadn't ever thought about the ansible, but Yan also hadn't ever asked. It had been one of those topics that they had skirted around out of mutual respect for Yan'c conflicts. But, Yan supposed, she had none of those conflicts left now.

"What planet are you from?" Trebek asked.

"You know you're not supposed to ask that," Mayar said. The conversation was stiff and jolting because of the distance between the ships.

"It's okay," Yan said. "It's a bit of a complicated situation."

"Hah. Isn't it always," Mayar said.

"I suppose it is. Did the Redheart mention anything about us?"

"No," Trebek said. "Are you going to tell us your name, at least?"

"Captain BarCarran," Yan said. That was such an odd thing for her to say. She felt like she was taking on her cousin's identity. She imagined herself, very briefly, as the older Captain Pellon BarCarran, sitting calmly at the helm. It was a comforting thought, if only for a second.

"Pleasure, Captain BarCarran," Trebek said.

"As a ship in the night, I greet you, Captain," Mayar said. He was the captain, so he was entitled to the greeting, though Yan was slightly surprised that he knew it. She thought that only spacers said such things, but perhaps it travelled beyond the nebulous borders of the empire on the mouths of pirates. Or perhaps Mayar was himself a former pirate.

"With the stars at your back I greet you, Captain," Yan said in return.

"If we're not waiting for the Redheart, we should plan out our action," Trebek said. "You mentioned something about a message from the Redheart?"

"Yes, I'll send it over." Yan sent the data package over the radio. It would take a moment for the data to arrive, and so Yan listened to the drumming of Kino's fingers impatiently. It was basically the only sound on the bridge. That was until the radio crackled to life again, this time with Trebek's laughter.

"Oh, this is rich," he said. "Is Kizistal pulling a joke on us?"

"Kizistal?" Yan asked. She didn't get a response. The data package must have included the juicy information about the First Star, and what in God's name they were doing there.

"Trebek, I would advise you wake up your captain," Mayar said. Since they were still communicating in plain speech, without any encryption, Yan had to assume that the message she had just delivered was not one that told the two ships to destroy her, but she was nervous.

Maybe it had been a bad idea to pass it along, since they had seemed ready to accept her presence anyway, but Yan hadn't wanted to do anything to jeopardize their possible alliance.

"She's already on her way," Trebek said. "She'll love this."

Yan killed her broadcast. "This isn't great," she said.

"What did you expect?" Iri asked.

"At least we aren't getting shot at," Sylva said. "Though that might be only a matter of time."

"I don't know what I expected," Yan said. "I'm just going along with what people tell me."

"Maybe that isn't the best stance for a captain to take."

"We're here now," Sylva said. "It's a commitment action."

"Yeah." Yan fell silent and glanced at Kino, who had not said a word. "How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Nervous," Kino said.

At least thinking about these captains and their issues with her was better than thinking about what they were here to do, which was capture the Gatekeeper. Yan somehow doubted that could be accomplished in any way other than by killing everyone aboard, and that included Sid. She did not want to kill Sid.

She didn't want to kill anyone.

She had killed pirates before. She would just have to think about this the same way. It was necessary.

The radio crackled to life again. "So, you're the defectors," a new voice said. Yan had to assume this was the captain of the Echo.

"As a ship in the night, I greet you, Captain," Yan said, attempting to be polite.

"Spare me," the woman said. "I'm Savat."

"Yan BarCarran," Yan said.

"I can't believe Kizistal is making this some sort of test for you," Savat said. "Doesn't he know this is life or death?"

"Everything is life or death," Mayar said, sounding tired. "So let's discuss strategy."

"Okay," Yan said. She didn't like how the tone of this had changed. She was no longer a comrade to these people-- this was a tone of resignation and frustration. She didn't fully understand why, but she tried to put herself in their shoes. "I don't know if it will help for me to say this, but I'm fully prepared to follow your orders."

"Yes, you and your crew of three," Savat said. "It would be just as beneficial for me to take your ship as it would be to jump in to Olkye and take that one. Easier, too."

"Savat," Mayar said warningly. "Let's keep it professional. We're getting that ship out of orbit. The more people we have, the easier it will be."

"Ah, yes, four more people," Savat said. "You can't even send out shuttles with that few."

Yan looked around at her group, drummed her own fingers on the arm of her chair. She didn't like what she was about to have to suggest. "I am prepared to temporarily leave the First Star here, and to travel in aboard one of your ships." The words were sour in her mouth. Iri looked at her, tilting her head to the side. Kino stared straight ahead.

Savat laughed loudly, voice cutting in and out over the radio. "That's funny."

"You're a sensitive, correct?" Mayar asked.

"Yes. I also have--"

"Two others, yes, I know," Savat said.

Yan made an executive decision. "I would only be bringing one with me, if I left my ship," she said. Sylva, catching on immediately that this was about her, glared at Yan, but didn't say anything. Yan cut the radio. "I wouldn't want you to get hurt, and I trust you to take care of the ship," Yan said.

"Sylva is competent, you know," Iri said.

Yan was saved from having to pull rank by the radio coming to life. "Fine," Mayar said. "Do you have any supplies that could lend us a tactical advantage?" he asked. "Espeically if you will not be bringing your ship."

Yan thought about the supply list that had been put together. "I have a few shuttles that I could loan, if you needed them, but I would prefer not to."

"I don't have pilots to spare," Mayar said. "Savat?"

"I'll take one of them, since I lost a couple of mine earlier," Savat said. "Is that possible?"

"Yes," Yan said. It was good that she only wanted one, because if she had wanted more, it would have required that she send over pilots aboard one of her own shuttles-- it would have been a complicated mess of switching ships. As it was, Iri could fly one and Yan could fly the other, the one that they would fly into battle with, presumably.

The fact that Savat said that she had lost shuttles did not bode well for this whole thing, especially since it seemed like an outright offensive had not even happened yet, but Yan wasn't going to dwell on it. The only way through was forward.

"Should we come over now? Is this happening?" Yan asked, her voice a little bit too high on that last part.

There was a stretch of silence, then Mayar spoke. "I suppose it is. Since Savat wants your shuttles, you should go to her ship. We can further discuss tactics there."

"Thank you for volunteering me," Savat said. From the way that these two captains had been talking to eachother, it was clear that they had some kind of long and possibly contestuous relationship. Perhaps long was not exactly a given. They might have just been parked in this area of space together, and that lent itself to some kind of relationship. Ships were meant to spend most of their time alone, after all. Little worlds unto themselves. It must be odd, then, to be in so close contact with someone else for a long time.

"I'll send a request for docking information once I'm in my shuttle," Yan said.

"Safe flight," Mayar said.

Yan killed the radio call.

"What the fuck was that about?" Sylva asked.

"I'm sorry," Yan said, holding up her hands defensively.

"You don't want me with you?"

"I want you safe," Yan said.

"And what the fuck do you think I want?"Sylva asked.

"Sylva," Iri said.

"You know that I'm capable," Sylva said, turning to Iri. "Tell her that I should come."

"You don't even know what they're going to want us to do," Yan said. "I'd rather have you here."

"I don't want to be the last survivor, if something terrible happens," Sylva said.

"It will be fine," Yan said, sounding a lot more confident than she felt. "It's going to be at least two ships against one. The Gatekeeper doesn't stand a chance."

"The Gatekeeper could just jump out, if it had any sense," Iri said.

"I--" Yan stopped and considered that. "We're probably going to jump in and stay hidden until our jump timer is up, then we can go after them if they jump out."

"They have a jump tracker?"

"Probably?" Yan wasn't entirely sure how the whole scenario was going to play out, but that was the only logical way to do it, as far as she could tell. It wasn't like the Gatekeeper was moving, like a spacer ship ambushed by pirates was.

"We're getting off topic," Sylva said. "I'm coming."

"We can't leave the First Star alone," Yan said.

"Why not?" Sylva asked, petulant, with her hands on her hips.

"Because we can't, okay? Look, Sylva, I love you, but I don't want you to come."

"Give me one good reason why. I'll stop arguing if you give me one good reason."

Yan somehow doubted that the actual good reasons, such as Sylva probably not being an asset in a power fight, would be acceptable, so she dug deep inside herself, and came out with the emotional answer, rather than the logical one. "I don't want you to see me kill people," Yan said. "I don't want that to change how you look at me."

She bunched her hands up in her pockets, feeling the weight of her gun holster on her hip.

Sylva looked up at her, from all the way across the bridge. "You know it wouldn't," Sylva said. "I love you."

"And I love you, and that's why you're staying here." Yan delivered that line with a little too much force, but Sylva flopped back in her seat, relenting. Yan didn't really know why she had won that argument, but possibly Sylva wasn't fighting as hard as she could have been. Sylva probably did understand that her value did not lie entirely in using the power, which was what would be asked of her if she came. "Kino, Iri?" Yan looked at the other two.

Iri nodded and stood up, with Kino following behind her a little more slowly.

"If we're not back in..." Yan did the math in her head. Jump in, wait a silent eight hours for the timer to run out, attack the Gatekeeper to pressure them to use their jump, follow them, fight, then eight hours for the jump timer to run back, and if they were jumping away from their current position, that would put them two jumps out... It could very well be a long time before she saw Sylva again. "If we're not back in twenty-four hours, I--"

"I'll drive the First Star into a black hole, got it," Sylva said, sounding grim.

"No," Yan said.

"I'll sell it and go back to live on the Warrior II," Sylva said. "Is that what you want to hear?"

"I don't know what I want to hear," Yan said. "I don't want to think about it."

"Well, neither do I," Sylva said. "So I don't know why you even brought it up."

"Me neither. I love you."

"Good luck."

They didn't embrace, because Sylva was still sitting in her seat, staring out at the large display rather than looking at Yan. She sounded and looked unhappy, but the misery that was growing in Yan wasn't going to be made any better by dwelling on the fact that she was leaving Sylva behind. She beckoned Iri and Kino, and the three of them headed off the bridge and down to the shuttle bay.

---

The plan, Yan learned, was a strategy that she had never seen employed before. Possibly it was new and untested, because rarely were there so many sensitives in place at once. They had five, total: one from the Kiss of Death, one from the Echo, Yan and Kino, and one from a third ship which was still in orbit around Olkye, protecting it from the Gatekeeper's shuttles. All off the sensitives had gathered in Captain Savat's office aboard the Echo, and had sat around and gone over the plan together. Iri had been there to listen to the plan, but she had been shuffled away, with much protestation, when the sensitives cloistered themselves.

Savat was a tall woman, very clearly a spacer of some stripe, with a cloud of bright red hair that circled her head in a gravity defying mass. She had a stern look on her face, but a sharp sense of humor that showed up occasionally as she explained what the strategy was going to be. Apparently, they were originally going to try this with just the three sensitives they already had, and Jeepak off of the Redheart, but since the Redheart was a no-show, they were going to use Yan and Kino instead.

Glancing at the other sensitives, Yan could tell that they were somewhat relieved that Yan had left Sylva on the First Star. The leader of the sensitives was an old man, short and probably in his fifties, named Faro. There was a woman with dark skin and a mellow smile named Galet who reminded Yan of one of her aunts, and a nervous looking boy (couldn't have been more than seventeen) whose name was Chanam. Looking at him, Yan would have preferred Sylva, but if she had brought Sylva, who definitely would not have fit well into this exercise anyway, they would have had the same number of minds as this group, and thus the same amount of power. By the way that everyone regarded them with some suspicion, Yan didn't think that was an ideal arrangement for anyone. Yan was perhaps the most senior in rank of the group, due to being the captain of a ship, but she was definitely not the most senior in experience, nor the most trusted. So she deferred to Faro as he explained the plan and what roles everyone would have.

They were going to form a group mind. The idea was somewhat thrilling to Yan, who enjoyed such things, but Kino was not thrilled about it. The idea was that with their combined strength, they could prevent the Gatekeeper from jumping out, while shuttles from the Kiss of Death and Echo attacked and boarded.

Yan wasn't sure if it would work, but the worst case scenario involved the Gatekeeper jumping away without them being able to give chase. That would still leave the planet free of its orbiting menace, at least for a little while, and that was the goal.

Actually, the worst case scenario was that the Gatekeeper was easily able to kill them all, but Yan didn't want to consider that at all.

The benefit of this was, indirectly, Yan supposed, that their group would probably not need to kill anyone themselves. That would be left to the boarding party. Yan hoped, anyway.

Maybe that was deflection. She was going to be just as responsible for these people's deaths as anyone, since she would effectively be the one holding them down, preventing their ship from escaping.

The more she thought about it, the sicker she felt. So, as all of the sensitives gathered in a small room aboard the Echo, undisturbed and looking out the window at the vast empty space, Yan pushed all of that out of her head. There was a task at hand, and she would do it.

They were just waiting, sitting in an awkwardly silent circle. Yan was in between Kino and the woman Galet. She looked across the circle at the young man, Chanam.

"How old are you?" Yan asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"Sixteen," he said.

"You good at using the power?" she asked.

"I don't know." He said this rather defensively, as though he was angry at being asked. She didn't know if that was a teen boy reaction, or if that was because she had crossed some sort of specific line.

"Do you do a lot of this?" Yan asked.

"No," he said. "You?"

"Once," Yan said. "Not this, exactly. But I've been in a battle."

The old man, Faro, nodded. "It'll be over quicker than you think," he said to Chanam. "We'll help you through it."

"Is this plan going to work?" Kino asked.

"Do you doubt?" Faro asked. He had a thick accent, and the Old Imperial fell off his tongue thickly. Kino shrugged in response. "I have tested it before," he said. "But not yet in a real engagement, and not yet with all of you. We don't know each other, but we must trust each other."

"That's hard, isn't it?" Galet said, speaking for the first time and putting a hand on Chanam's shoulder. "We will be able to do it, difficult though it may be."

Yan nodded, then looked down at her hands. "Should we get ready to jump?" she asked.

"Yes," Faro said. "Take my hand." He was between Galet and Chanam, and he took their hands. Yan took Galena's and Kino's right.

"What happened to you?" Chanam asked Kino.

"If we're lucky, we won't ever have to talk about it," Kino said, putting her destroyed hand in Chanam's. Though it was healing quite well, and Kino didn't even need bandages on it anymore, he still took it quite gingerly, laying it on top of his palm. Yan saw this, and Kino saw her watching, but neither of them moved or said anything.

Yan had to wonder what they were going to use to draw them all in to the meditation. She couldn't be sure that there were any shared cultural bridges between this disparate group of people. She didn't even think that Chanam, Galet, and Faro had even come from the same planet; their accents were all quite different. If it had been Yan picking, she probably would have started a simple counting rhythm, but it wasn't Yan who started. Faro took the lead.

"Oh, my children, follow me down, follow me down, follow me down. Oh, my children, follow me down, down from the stars today." He repeated those lines once, then moved on to the verse of the song. "As I came down from the stars today, singing the song my father gave, 'bout who should wear the sunlit crown, oh Love, show me the way."

The whole thing was repetitive. Yan and Kino picked it up easily enough, and Yan closed her eyes and let the sounds wash over her. Yes, these were strangers. Yes, they were about to do something unthinkable, but if she pushed that out of her head and just focused on the sensation of singing the words, the sound of all of their voices rising through the tiny room in a unified chorus, it all slipped away from her. She sank down into it.

"Who should wear the sunlit crown? Oh Love, show me the way."

They fell into place one by one, slipping easily into the group. It was new and horrible and wonderful, all at once. They enjoyed the sensation of stretching their mental legs into each other's minds. Faro took it upon himself to be a watchdog, and slapped away anyone who tried to delve too deeply into places that they didn't belong. Their thoughts, therefore, were all so shallow as to be almost meaningless. It was not the depth that Yan had experienced with most others, but it was a perfunctory joining that would get the job done. That was what mattered. They had a task, and they would see it through.

One of them stood up, stumbling a little as five people gave input to one pair of legs. It was Galet's body, and they pushed the intercom on the wall. "We're ready to jump, Captain Sabat," they said.

The ship's general alarm sounded, making everyone ready for what was about to happen. All of their little group looked out the window, and through Yan felt the wild rush as the stardrive jumped. This stardrive didn't feel familiar, not like the First Star's did, but it had the same undercurrent of joy that Yan had appreciated before.

The scene as they arrived was not a pleasant one, and over the intercom, they heard shouting from the bridge as everyone tried to piece together what was happening.

They had jumped into the correct position, and there was the third ship, the Hound, the one who was still waiting for them, but it was missing a chunk from its side, and debris was strewn around the orbit of the planet, some of it travelling quite quickly. The Gatekeeper was there, as well, surrounded by shuttles dashing about through the sky.

There was no way to know what had actually happened,or why, but it seemed as though the Gatekeeper and the Hound had already been in some sort of altercation, and the Hound had come out on the losing side.

Ringing through their little group mind was the conviction, coming from Chanam, that this was his fault. His absence from the Hound was what had allowed this to happen. This overwhelming feeling of guilt almost ripped them all out of the group together, but Kino, who was no stranger to feelings of guilt, grabbed Chanam's thoughts and focused them keenly on the task at hand. It took less than a second for all of this to swirl through everyone's head, and for them to take stock of the situation.

They reached out with the power. They had no idea if the Gatekeeper had burned its jump already-- perhaps it had, since these ships were both in unexpected positions-- so they stretched their awareness out as far as it could go, and they held onto the ship grimly.

They could barely do it. Even though their range was magnified as a group, and magnified again due to the wonderful vacuum of space, it was still barely enough to hold on to the Gatekeeper. And it fought against them. They had circled it with their power just in time. They could feel the stardrive grinding itself away, trying desperately to jump. It felt more like a body than ever, and there was that horrible, dirty feeling that came with grabbing another person. They shouldn't be doing this. It wasn't allowed, somehow.

But they held on. They held on. They kept holding on, even as the Gatekeeper's shuttles became tiny, bright stars of acceleration, diving towards the Kiss of Death and the Echo.

They held on until the stardrive of the Gatekeeper stopped struggling. It was burnt out, completely exhausted. It had used up all of its vital energy, and it would no longer be able to jump, at least not for a while. All of them holding it felt this as clear as day. Faro gave the order to drop it, so that they could focus on aiding the battle.

"What if it's a trick?" Kino asked, the thought dancing across the surface of all of their minds.

"Next time, they might trick us," Faro said. "This time, the stardrive didn't know what was happening. No trick. Drop it."

They dropped it,but they moment they had, Yan wished that they hadn't. Without needing to hold the stardrive in place, there were plenty of things that they could do to aid the boarding parties that were dodging ordinance and shuttle fire on their way towards the Gatekeeper. The closer they got, the more perilous it became.

Yan remembered, and thus forced everyone else in their group to remember, the time she had been on that shuttle,with Sid, and she had killed all those pirates. This was different. Was it different? No. It was the same. She was just one mind out of five, and though they all felt differently, they were resolved to go on.

They picked targets one by one.

Yan remembered again what Halen had told her, about target prioritization. He would have hated that she was using this here, now. It was easy to pick out which shuttles were Imperial shuttles, in the whole fracas, and it was perhaps even easier to decide which ones were most dangerous, and thus needed to be killed.

It was easiest of all to take that great power that they wielded, all five of them, and crush down the shuttles like they were swatting a bug. The only thing that gave Yan any relief was the feeling that the guilt of it was shared all between them. She wasn't the one ordering this, not this time.

"But you're going along with it," Faro said. "And someday, you will have to do this on your own."

Clearly, he had talked to the captains, and maybe read the letter that the Redheart had sent along, with Yan as the semi unwitting messenger.

There were sensitives aboard the Gatekeeper. Yan wasn't sure how many, but there was at least one, maybe even two. They did an admirable job of keeping the attacking shuttles away, at redirecting all projectiles away from their own shuttles, but in the end, the battle was one or two sensitives against five working in concert, and one ship that had already been through some sort of battle against two that hadn't. The Hound, for the most part, was out of the fight, and could be discounted while tabulating the strength of the forces. Yan was glad that their power never brushed up against that other sensitive's power. She didn't want to feel Sid, struggling against her. She didn't want to feel like she was the one killing him.

Just as Faro had said, the whole thing felt over as quickly as it had started. They kept destroying shuttles until there were no more shuttles left to destroy, and then their own shuttles hooked on to the outside of the Gatekeeper, sending out their occupants to saw holes in the exterior of the ship, clawing their way inside.

There would be casualties there, certainly. That was the last chance for the Gatekeeper to fight off its attackers. And the Gatekeeper, being a massive Fleet ship, probably had far more people than the Kiss of Death and the Echo could send to board, but once a ship was boarded, it was only a matter of time.

Pirates would give up on a boarding attempt if they thought they were losing too many people. The Kiss of Death and the Echo would not. Even though they may have been at a numbers disadvantage, a small, dedicated group of people wearing suits could probably fight their way down to the engine room of the ship and cut off life support to the rest.

Their little group broke apart, task completed for the most part.

"Let's go," Faro said.

"Go?" Yan asked.

"Onto the ship," Faro said, gesturing out at the Gatekeeper. "They still need us."

"Oh." Yan looked at Kino, who was shaking herself, as though still half in the trance. She didn't want to go. She had no desire to set foot on that killing field, but Faro looked at her.

"We're going," Faro said. "If you want to be one of us, you come."

So this was the real test. Yan nodded. They must need sensitives to fight the sensitives on board the Gatekeeper. They must need someone to face down Sid.

The whole group stood up, and made their way out of their little cloister and down towards the shuttle bay. Iri was waiting for Yan there.

"I was told you were coming," Iri said. "You're going?"

"Are you?"

"I'm sticking with you," Iri said. "Let's go."

There was a pilot from the Echo, already waiting in a shuttle, ready to take them. Everyone suited up, some more clumsily than others. Kino, who had only been in a space suit a couple times before, had the most difficulty. All the sensitives and Iri climbed in the shuttle, difficult with their suits, and strapped themselves in seats.

"Shouldn't we split up?" Galet asked.

"It's a safe journey," Faro said. "We'll make it there."

Yan didn't have a lot of trust in that, but then again, a ship with five sensitives in it was more than a force to be reckoned with.

The journey was deadly silent. Everyone stared out the window and watched debris slide past. Yan felt one of them, she wasn't sure which, put up a shield to stop them from getting hit by anything too heavy. If she had to guess, she would have pinned it on Galet, who had felt like the most practical minded of them during their shared meditation.

One of the Gatekeeper's bays was blasted completely open, and all of the shuttles sitting squatly in it were from the Kiss of Death and the Echo. All the Gatekeeper's own, though there must have been hundreds of them, had been destroyed. Only some of that had been the sensitive's work.

The magnets in the floor still worked to hold their shuttle down, so they landed, and everyone attached their helmets and passed through the shuttle's airlock. It was dead silent inside her helmet, and Yan felt eerily alone. The identical suits left her with little ability to identify which of the fellow suited figures were which. They were all anonymous here, and that was a comfort.

Yan squeezed the button in her gloves that would activate her radio. "I'm going to find Sid," she said. "Kino?"

"I'll follow you," Kino said. Iri also signaled her following with a quick hand sign, not wanting to clutter up the radio broadcast. The other three sensitives, Faro, Galet,and Chanam, glanced between themselves through their helmets, but none of them made any effort to stop Yan's group from splitting off.

Perhaps that was because they had decided during the meditation that they were trustworthy. Yan didn't know. But they didn't stop them, so Yan, Iri, and Kino all shoved their way out of the bay, past ruined door after ruined door, into the bulk of the ship.

The place was a horrible sight. There was no sound, of course, because the areas that they could access were hard vacuums, but the lights were still on, illuminating the bare walls and empty corridors. It was, perhaps, better that the corridors were empty.

Other teams that came through would need to carry with them torches to cut open doors. Yan and Kino had no such problems, and anywhere they needed to go, they simply ripped the door apart, sometimes releasing a wave of air, other times connecting to a place where someone had already cut through into a vacuum.

The closer they got to the center of the ship, the more bodies they saw-- people who had either been shot, or who had died without air to breathe. Yan felt the bile rise in her throat at the first one, but then turned off her emotional mind. Easy. This was what she had to do. She methodically worked her way through the ship.

People in suits were probably all protecting the engine room, trying to keep life support on as long as possible. Everyone else, they would have to hunker down and wait either for salvation or death. It would probably be death. Thus, they encountered relatively little resistance as they floated down the hallways. Yan didn't have a destination in mind, but when she came to the rotating rings, which were stopped now, they entered.

The bridge had to be around somewhere.

No one spoke as they moved through the terrible place, not by radio, not by sign. For the most part, this place had already been picked over. Doors were flung open, exposing their occupants to the nothingness of space. Objects that were usually fastened down drifted about.

Yan was glad that people had clearly already been through here. She was glad that she was not the one who had to rip the doors open and kill the inhabitants. She was responsible for their deaths, in a way, but she was glad that she didn't have to watch them die, not right in front of her.

All the Imperial uniforms-- they were so familiar. Yan remembered when she had worn one, with all the rank insignia stripped off, after she had been rescued from the planet they were orbiting. How strange it was. How terrible.

Someone had already been to the bridge.

It looked like there had been a big fight, as the walls were marked with bullet holes, and the bodies lacked the weird serenity that came from dying of vacuum exposure, and most of them were, instead, bloodied. The consoles were smashed, as if by some great blow. Was it to protect Imperial secrets? To destroy the computer so that no one could access them?

Yan didn't know, and she didn't care. Very carefully, the three of them inspected all of the bodies. There was Captain Baczynski, who Yan had known, if only a little. There were officers that some tiny part of Yan's brain recognized, probably just from photographs. But there was no Sid.

This was a relief and a burden.

Yan gestured for Iri and Kino to follow her out, and they headed back down into the core of the ship.

By the time they made it out of the rings, the power in the whole ship went dead, plunging them into darkness. So, the other sensitives had breached into the engine, enough to kill the life support. Yan pressed herself back into the wall, breathing heavily in her suit's helmet, breath fogging up the glass in the darkness. Iri and Kino's faces were lit by their tiny suit lights, and both of them looked at each other.

"It is done," Kino said.

"Should we go check the engine room?" Yan asked. For a body. She needed to know if someone else had killed Sid. That was the only place where it made sense for him to be.

Yan used the power to pull a chunk of metal off the wall, and she fed power into it until it glowed, white hot, illuminating the path in front of them just a little bit better than their measly suit flashlights did. They fumbled their way down through the ship. Her own breathing was so loud in her ears. She was alive, as everyone else on the ship slowly died around her. Anyone not in a suit was going to run out of air very quickly, and every Fleet soldier in a suit would be hunted down without mercy. The only survivors of the Gatekeeper would be the ones already on the planet, and Yan didn't know how long they would last, without any reinforcements from above.

She was miserable, but she shoved that feeling down into her heart, trudging ever forward.

The engine room was a disaster area. Clearly, sensitives had fought there, as the walls were torn to pieces. Crew from the Kiss of Death and the Echo were standing around, talking over the radio. Yan heard the voices of the three other sensitives. It was a relief to know that they were alright, even if their voices did sound slightly strained. Yan pushed past them, careful not to hit anyone with her glowing metal chunk, and examined all the bodies. What was left of them, anyway.

Most of them were wearing suits, so she had to use the power to push up the visors on the helmets, to look down into their faces. No Sid.

Would it have been better or worse to find him there, among the rubble? Yan didn't know.

The battle was over. They had won. Yan wanted to go home.

She tried desperately not to throw up in her suit, looking down at all the dead.