Okay, all standard disclaimers. Also, I'm well aware that the calculation Avon gives in the third part of this chapter for how long it would take their enemy to search the galaxy is clearly insane, but that's because I couldn't make the numbers work out. Even taking the smallest estimate of a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way, and my own numbers for the Reapers, it came out to more than a hundred thousand years to search every system, even if it each system took only a single day. I choose to believe that they're searching only those systems which show signs of life capable of interstellar travel, which their rear-guard identifies over the course of the cycle. Avon is simply referring to habitable systems of which the Federation is aware.

The alternative explanation, that the Reapers are far more numerous than my numbers (I'm unaware of any canon numbers besides enough to defeat the unified forces of the galaxy, which wouldn't be too many given the relatively small number of warships and the great individual power of the Reapers) doesn't make much sense to me, as they could simply overrun the galaxy by attacking everywhere at once, preventing basically all of Mass Effect 3 from happening.

Finally, thanks for the reviews. A question was asked as to why we're spending so much time in the Mass Effect universe before the start of Mass Effect 1. The answer to that is that I'm making some changes to canon after Elysium. There is, eventually, going to be an explanation (well, the outline of an explanation) for that, but mostly its because I have a hard time with Shepard saving Elysium, then spending the next seven years waiting around to be named a Spectre. Moreover, it also will help resolve two other things which work in video games, but not in written fiction. The first is the ability to take your time as the universe doesn't act until you arrive. The second is more complicated and I'll explain more when we get there.

253.16 NC – The Liberator, the Fortress System

"Seriously?" Avon had had a lot of practice with sarcasm over the last two years of Blake's crusade and he put every bit of it into the single word.

"We all need to work together, Servalan will see that. She's a sociopath, but she's not suicidal," Blake argued.

"Well, let's not give her a chance to double-cross us. We can do what needs to be done without having her at our back, or surrounding us."

"We have to talk with her and her communication system is entirely distinct from anything Orac can get into, right?"

Orac didn't bother to answer that. Mostly because he didn't care, but also because his key wasn't in, which made it even clearer that he was asking the question for effect. They all knew the answer to that question.

"We can fabricate a probe, or satellite to act as a relay, while keeping ourselves out of range."

"How long would that take?" Say what you will about Blake, he would actually listen to a better idea if it came along. And if it accomplished the same goal as efficiently. And if he wasn't on one of his self-sacrifice kicks.

"No more than an hour."

"We don't have that kind of time—we don't know we have that kind of time. The enemy could be here any time," Blake argued.

"Which will not matter if Servalan decides to remove us as a complication." Avon argued.

"She's not that stupid."

"I find it best never to underestimate the stupidity of people. Especially proud, powerful people who've just been publically embarrassed. For instance, the Supreme Commander of the Federation who's just gotten chased off, her and her whole fleet."

"Only half her fleet," Jenna interjected.

Avon's gaze was acid on her skin, but she didn't flinch. It didn't do to flinch in front of other people.

"Zen, do you have enough information to extrapolate how long it will take the enemy fleet to arrive here?" Cally asked.

"Negative," the A.I. responded tonelessly.

Avon produced Orac's key and repeated the question to the more advanced A.I. "There is insufficient information. We do not know where the alien vessel was coming from before it arrived at Star One, nor how long it was in transit. According to the computers I have access to, the vessels simply appeared in the Monolith system. This lacunae in my knowledge is unacceptable. You must acquire an understanding of how their computer systems work so I can access them properly."

"So they could arrive at any time?" Vila asked.

"No, you fool, it means they can arrive no sooner than their engines will permit. We simply lack the data to know when that will be! Which is exactly what is infuriating about this situation!" the A.I.'s fury far exceeded the grumpy old man personality he'd inherited from his creator.

"But we cannot predict when they will arrive?" Cally pushed.

"That's what insufficient information means! And why you must gather additional information—" Avon removed the key before he could continue his rant.

"I prefer the possibility of communicating with the Federation too late to the certainty of placing ourselves within her power," Avon argued.

"So do I! And besides, if the situation is so bad they can't wait an hour, than what good would our presence be?" Vila asked.

"Unusual though it may be, Vila raises a good point. If the enemy can deal with six hundred ships. Six hundred and one won't be a problem, even if the Liberator is the one," Avon agreed.

"We can't just stand by and do nothing!" Blake argued.

"And even a single extra soldier can tip the balance in some battles," Cally pointed out.

"When the forces are even, perhaps. Not when one side is outweighed by at least three-to-one." Avon countered.

"Not if complete destruction of the enemy was our goal, but in this instance it shouldn't be. We'll bleed them here while preserving our own space forces as best we can, then withdraw. Rendezvous with the other Federation fleets, secure shipyards and other resources. The trip between galaxies can't be easy. In any protracted campaign, we have the advantage of far shorter supply lines. We can replace every ship we lose, if we have the time." Blake said in his bleakest, damn-the-plasma-bolts tone.

"Except for the Liberator," Jenna said.

"What?" Blake asked.

"We can't replace the Liberator," Jenna pointed out.

None of them mentioned that that was only true so long as they kept the workings of the ship secret from the Federation. They'd spent years alternately fighting and hiding from the Federation and only the Liberator's unique capabilities had given them a chance. Giving up that advantage would mean the end of their dream. And their lives.

Avon recovered first, unsurprisingly. "Indeed. So every ship is expendable except ours. I'm so glad that the rest of you are finally starting to come around to my way of thinking."

The glares that comment drew were fiery, but Avon merely smirked at them, warmed by their regard.

"So you agree to go in now?" Cally asked before Blake could respond.

"So long as we all," his dark eyes flickered over each of the crew, "understand that this ship is not expendable. And neither am I."

"None of us are expendable," Blake responded.

"Oh, I think Gan proved that's not true."

"Lower the detector shield and take us into real time communications range," Cally interjected before they could start to argue.

"Speed?" Zen asked.

"Standard. Let's go in nice and slow so they can see us coming. Don't want to spook anyone and I'm guessing there's a lot of jumpy crew over there," Jenna said.

"Confirmed."

The trip was slow, especially as the Federation was unwilling to wait until they were in range to begin giving them commands. The STL communications left them with long gaps in the conversation, which made it almost impossible to have with any sense, but at least they were able to explain that they would not be surrounded, but they would help. Servalan was arrogant about it, but she didn't disagree with their terms. Secure in her power, granting them some of their demands (which she reframed as requests) did not concern her.

It was all going so swimmingly that Vila was absolutely certain that something was going to go wrong. He said so.

"You always think something's going to go wrong," Cally pointed out.

"Something always does go wrong!" Vila argued.

There was a moment while everyone tried to come up with a response to that which didn't consist of simply admitting he was right.

"We're still here though," Blake pointed out.

Neither Avon, nor Vila made the obvious response to that. Gan's death was an open wound for Blake and pushing too hard on it would provoke an unfortunate reaction. Instead Avon simply pointed out that the Federation was still there too.

It was as they approached real time communications range, just at the edge of weapons range, that the universe proved Vila right.

253.16 NC – Command Ship FNS Unity, the Fortress System

"Supreme Commander, sensors detect enemy ships entering the system. Four distinct fleets, each cored by approximately a hundred of the enemy capital ships!" the lieutenant operating the detectors was almost panicking, but he managed to speak clearly to Servalan. Whatever the dangers that surrounded him, he knew that the most dangerous person in the Federation was only a meter away.

"Extrapolate current position," Admiral Lana snapped and the computers instantly projected the location of the enemy ships. They were all converging on the planet and the fleet orbiting it. "They must have lost most of their smaller vessels, each fleet only has as many escort ships as capital ships."

"Here," Pel tapped one of the fleets. "We can engage this fleet and keep the planet between us and the other fleets. Destroy them and make a break for it."

"You want us to engage a fleet of two hundred of these monstrous ships?" One of the other officers asked dubiously.

"The fleet we defeated on the way out of the system outweighed this one," Admiral Lana countered.

"Defeated is a generous interpretation of our escape from the Monolith System," a sardonic voice from the throng countered.

"Supreme Commander, communications coming from Pandora, Hathet* and Jain Alpha, enemy ships have appeared and begun landing troops. Only a small number of ships at each, and mostly troop transports."

*Pandora's and Hathet's communications were coming through the comm relays at the command center on Kiros Gamma, one of the few command centers with FTL comm links set up.

Admiral Lana began to swear, pulling up a map of the Federation. Those were three major industrialized worlds, each with large shipyards. More disturbingly, they were widely scattered, varying distances from the Monolith system. How the enemy could have reached them all so fast was…unclear and terrifying. Even worse was the question of what other targets without FTL comms they might be hitting without their knowledge. The officers at those backwater worlds would not yet have warning, or know to activate the Omega protocol rather than surrender.

"Enough. Get all ships ready to move out and ensure the ground facilities and satellites are at maximum alert status," Servalan ordered.

"Yes, Supreme Commander."

"Now, I want a plan to get the fleet out of here."

Lana and Pel exchanged looks. "The four fleets aren't coming in that fast. Their speed is superior. They'll be able to cut us off if we just make a run for it," Lana stated.

"Indeed. Which is why I suggested engaging one. Not a long engagement. Let them build up some speed—"

"Then do a full burn straight at them, pass by at close range for only the briefest of moments. Their superior range won't matter then and they don't seem to have much in the way of rearward facing weaponry," the admiral concluded the psychostrategist's plan.

"Do it. Until we're ready to begin, make it look like we're trying to hide behind the satellite defense system," Servalan ordered.

"Yes, Supreme Commander, but this plan does have a flaw," the admiral admitted unhappily.

"Which is?"

"We'll have to hit them all as a single unit. I'll need to do the math to confirm, but I don't think the battleships have the thrust to keep up."

"Find me a solution," Servalan said, waving the problem away as she dispatched orders to the other fleets. They would all rendezvous at Saurian Major. All of the fleets of the galaxy. She rose gracefully and swayed into her office. That would be the final battle, at least if this failed.

She activated a private comms relay and began broadcasting to the enemy in all known languages. Threats, demands, entreaties, warnings. There was no response.

Finally she returned to the flight deck. "Supreme Commander, the best we can come up with is to have the battleships take this vector," Lana highlighted a line of advance. "That way this fleet," she highlighted the one they planned to engage, "will have to choose which group to engage."

"Fine. Has anyone told Blake what we're planning?"

They stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "Must I do everything myself? Get the wretched man on the comms."

It was the work of moments to bring the rebels up to speed on the plan. Blake was predictably self-righteous. "So you're sacrificing half your fleet to escape? What would the President say to see his gallant forces so reduced?"

"Ah, oh no, why didn't I believe you, Supreme Commander? Why, oh, why did I force you to have me killed?" Servalan's mockery of the dead man's famous intonation pattern was sharp and precise, silencing the rebel, partly because he didn't expect jokes from her, mostly because the content made it clear it wasn't a joke.

"We'll accompany the lighter fleet elements," Avon put in while Blake was distracted.

"No, you'll accompany me and the battleships. The one thing we cannot lose is this ship and its FTL comms system. If we lose that, we lose all ability to coordinate our forces." Servalan's eyes ran over the feeds coming in from the attacked worlds. The shipyards had been blown to bits already and the enemy was landing forces in the main cities. Already Pandora was nothing but dust and ash. The commander there had realized that the enemies' ability to convert humanity into their own forces indicated a weakness in numbers. The brutal man had detonated the fusion plants within the archologies of three of the main industrial zones where the enemy troopships had landed, after abandoning them, pulling out his own troops and as many of the important civilians as he could manage. With their numbers reduced, the remnants of the enemy ground troops had launched a pointless ground assault his forces had easily repulsed. He'd been announcing victory when the enemy ships in orbit had decided to resolve the problem by simply bombarding every city, town and hamlet to dust. The planet was uninhabited by the time Servalan had broken orbit. On the other two worlds, the campaign was proceeding more normally.

"Where are we going?" Blake asked, not disputing her position, which brought a smile to her pale, beautiful face.

"Saurian Major," Servalan stated.

"Meeting up with the other fleets? Well, at least as long as these monsters are chasing us they aren't attacking anyone else."

"You think?" Servalan pushed a button and sent them what she had on the enemy's movements.

"What are they doing?" Blake asked, face gone white at the sight of the invasion forces.

"Killing everyone. So let's get to Saurian Major and stop them," Servalan's voice shook with unfelt emotion. That was what would motivate Blake and his idealists. Vila was beneath her notice and Avon was already as motivated as he got because this was a threat to his survival. "Understand this. They don't want to conquer us. They want to kill us. All of us."

"And how is it you know so much about them? How is it you knew where to plant your mines and muster your fleet?" Avon asked, while the others were still shaken by the images of slaughter Servalan was sending them.

"Because they've done it before. We found evidence of an extragalactic invasion approximately a hundred thousand years ago. Most of the evidence had disintegrated, or been destroyed, but with the whole galaxy to look in, we found enough to get nervous and start making preparations."

"Not enough preparations, apparently," Blake put in.

Servalan laughed. "This war is not over yet, Blake. If there's one thing all of us know how to do, it's survive and prosper against the odds."

There wasn't anything much to say to that. "So what, they kill everyone, leave for a hundred thousand years than come back to do it again?" Cally asked. "That doesn't make any sense."

"On the contrary, it makes a lot of sense. You ever wonder why the galaxy was empty for humanity to claim? The galaxy is billions of years old. Why wasn't it full? Because they emptied it for us." Servalan rose from her command throne and waved a hand at her command staff, humans and mutoids, the best in the Federation. "This galaxy is ours and they will regret leaving it open for us to claim. We will make them bleed for daring to bring their tentacled selves into our galaxy." It wasn't a touching speech, but it got her people in their little bloodthirsty hearts.

"Supreme Commander, it's time."

"Then everyone, move out."

Engines flared to life as ships moved away from the planet. Servalan withdrew to her office again, wincing slightly as she turned her attention back to the planet. In a few minutes, the time that it would take a projectile fired by one of their railguns to reach the planet, if they'd fired immediately after arriving in the system.

Nothing happened. Servalan smiled and leaned back, resting. She had time. It would be more than an hour before they reached the enemy fleet, if the enemy chose to target them, rather than the faster, lighter elements. She wished she'd kept them together, but with the delay light speed inflicted on the sensors, the enemy wouldn't have time to intercept the battleships without exposing their flank to the lighter vessels. Servalan didn't think they would do that, but would choose to savage the lighter vessels, especially with so many of her battleships so badly damaged, especially given how long it would take to repair a battleship. It was a gamble either way. And she'd already accepted their advice before she'd realized she'd have to travel with the battleships.

Servalan rang for a meal and distracted herself by indulging in an elaborate feast as she waited. She as halfway through the first course when her alarms went off. The enemy had fired on the planet half an hour after arriving, just about the time that the commander on Pandora had destroyed his own archaeologies rather than permit the enemy to have them. They'd abandoned their efforts at conquest, capture and conversion in favor of direct destruction. Her plot to force a change in behavior by denying them any benefit from conquest had succeeded, most unfortunately.

City-sized barracks of mutoids went up; underground construction facilities shattered; shield generators flared to life, then were flattened; the railguns destroyed the gun emplacements without them ever having a chance to shoot back and brought down the fusion generators which powered the whole lot, leaving nothing but death on the cold world as the terraforming generators shut down or were blasted apart.

Everything went as she expected. They didn't even see any combat. The five hundred escort ships however suffered massive casualties as they raced past the enemy fleet. They gave rather better than they got, for the range was short enough for their energy weapons to be effective, but long enough that their main cannon were relatively easy for the lighter ships to avoid. However, though they landed a dozen shots on the enemy ships for each one that found them, the enemy ships could take a dozen, two dozen, three dozen hits without major damage. Less than a hundred of the lighter vessels made it out, at a cost to the enemy of most of their own lighter ships and half of their capital ships.

Of the thousand ships that had been her attack force, less than two hundred would make it to Saurian Major. To destroy their defenses and shatter half the Federation fleet, the enemy had paid a price of approximately a hundred capital ships and five hundred escort ships. Unfortunately, the enemy clearly had at least three hundred additional capital ships and as many lighter ships. They'd have to improve their attrition ratio at least three-fold in order to balance the scales.

For that to be possible, they'd need to know what they were up against, besides 'possessing large ships' and 'prefers railguns to energy weapons'. Hopefully the task force she'd sent to investigate the destroyed ships would have results soon. The only real question was where she should send the remains they'd capture. Everything they'd done so far indicated an extensive knowledge of the Federation's capabilities, defenses and resources. Even in the Fortress system, their weapons had destroyed even the most hidden of facilities, and the Fortress system was one of the Federation's greatest secrets.

So where could they hide from this enemy? Servalan smiled as she realized the answer. Somewhere new. She had just the place in mind.

Servalan was already sketching the facility out in her mind, which resources, human and otherwise, she could pull discretely from other projects, without anyone noticing. The facility would need to have no communications except for someone she trusted. The only question in her mind was who she could trust, given the enemy's mind control abilities.

So she was quite thrilled to hear from the commander of the task force. At least before she actually heard what he said. "Supreme Commander, I regret to report that my crew have mutinied."

"What?" For just a moment Servalan was shocked. It had been a generation since a Federation ship's crew had mutinied.

"We'd successfully gathered an entire hold full of likely fragments of the enemy vessels—" the Commander explained, discipline holding.

"No bodies of the aliens?" Servalan interrupted.

"No, Supreme Commander. We found many of the bodies of the creatures which they use as ground troops, but given their complete willingness to sacrifice those creatures and their similarity to the changes made in our own converted personnel, our scientists don't believe those are actually the enemy, merely more converted slaves."

"Agreed. But that doesn't explain where the aliens are."

"No, Supreme Commander, but—" he was cut off by a loud explosion. "Sorry, Supreme Commander, they're trying to blow their way onto the bridge."

"What happened, Commander?" Servalan snapped.

"It was the crew and scientist I had working with the fragments. They've been turned. I don't know how. There's no enemy ships within detector range, but they all just turned at once. Two of the other ships have already been destroyed and one tried to escape, only to be destroyed by one of the others."

"Why didn't you report this earlier?" Servalan snapped.

"I'm sorry Supreme Commander, we lost power in their first strike. My troops managed to capture the auxiliary power generator and reroute power to the communication system. We need help Supreme Commander."

Servalan did a quick count in her head, five ships had been sent, three destroyed, one in the midst of the mutiny…"What about your remaining ship?"

"After destroying the ship which tried to escape, it lost all power and is currently drifting. We saw it leaking atmosphere earlier, back when we had some detector functionality. It looked like one of them managed to force both airlock doors open, blowing himself out into space too, of course."

"And there were fragments on all the ships?"

"Yes, Supreme Commander, we were all retrieving samples."

"And it was the people who were closest to the fragments who were turned?"

"Yes, Supreme Commander. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm wondering if they're somehow contaminating, or controlling our people. I know they're just ship parts, but there's nothing else here! The enemy ships haven't showed any sign of stealth capability…they hardly need it."

Servalan nodded. "Can you retake your ship?" Hands danced over controls, preparing for the answer.

"No, Supreme Commander, we're too badly outnumbered. I had most of the crew helping move the fragments into storage. They aren't smart enough to use computer systems, but they can shoot, or plant a bomb. No advanced tactics, but they don't need them when they outnumber us five to one and don't react to pain."

"I see. Have you learned anything else?"

"I'm transmitting full logs and readings, Supreme Commander."

"Thank you, Commander."

"When can we expect help, Supreme Commander?"

Servalan pressed in the final sequence, "Immediately, Commander."

Both of the surviving ships exploded as Servalan activated the Omega Protocol again. It was her right as Supreme Commander. Her duty. No one else had full access to the system, not with the President dead. It was supposed to be unhackable, but she only traveled on ships without the self-destruct protocols installed, just in case that proved not to be true. So far it had never been hacked. Faced with this new enemy, hopefully that would hold true.

She thought about the Omega Protocol for a long time. Mostly to avoid thinking about anything else. Like for instance how utterly screwed they were.

Finally she remembered a key fact and smiled and sent what information they had gathered off to Earth and a dozen other colonies, with orders to continue the distribution. She would distribute the problem to everyone, someone would think of something and, as for the panic it might cause, that's what the security forces were for. After a moment's thought, she even sent it off to the Liberator. Let Blake and his crew work their magic, she'd find a way to make the universe believe that she'd done it, that the Federation had done it, all that would require was Blake's death and the destruction of the Liberator and that could be accomplished so very many ways at the moment.

Her smile grew into a grin that would have been painful to see, if anyone had been there to see it. It might have taken her a minute, but she'd remembered that she was Servalan and she would not be stopped, not by her rivals, not by her enemies, not by the President and not by these alien monsters.

253.17 NC – The Liberator, en route to the Saurian System

"Avon, we aren't gonna do this, right? You've got a plan, right? Some way out of this, right?"

Avon didn't respond. He was still reviewing the data Servalan had sent out. The endless chatter as Orac eagerly assimilated the data and spun theory after theory about the motivation and capabilities of their enemy had driven the others from the flight deck, except Cally, who had managed to force the recalcitrant A.I. to stop blathering long enough to forward the information to the Auronar, then withdrew before Orac could loose his spleen at being forced upon her…

When they were finally alone, Avon had removed the A.I.'s key, pocketed it, and went back to work. The images on his screen were horrific as he had Zen's medical computers trying to figure out what exactly those conversion spikes did. They appeared to be injecting some sort of bionic enhancement directly into the body, but they didn't seem to need any external input to do that, neither power, nor material and yet they somehow created cybernetics where there had been none before. The medical implications of that technology were mind boggling, as were the implications of the rest of their tech. It could make him rich beyond even his imaginings. Shame it turned you into a suicidal slave.

"Come on, Avon," Vila's voice was desperate as he grabbed the other man's arm and turned him away from his work, "you and I aren't like Blake and the others. We know what's important. And not getting blown up, or shoved onto one of those spikes is what's important. You're always saying you're the smart one, so how are we going to avoid that?"

"We aren't," Avon turned back to the console, pulling out of Vila's grip.

"What?"

"The data shows more than a hundred years between the first destruction believed to be caused by the extragalactic aliens and the last. Given that even a single enemy vessel could depopulate a planet as heavily populated as Earth in approximately a day and the speed both in FTL and normal space that they apparently possess, it seems apparent that they spend a significant amount of time searching the galaxy for any survivors."

"But we could—"

"The obvious thing we could do would be to take the ship into deep space and sit there for the rest of our lives. We could do that and survive. The ship has regenerative power cells, autorepair functions and sufficient supplies for a thousand years. If we just sit out there in that vast nothing, I doubt they could find us. Well, does that sound like a plan? Just the five of us floating around until we die of old age?" Avon silently added to himself, if I was going to do that, then I would have done it while you all were on trapped on Horizon. Even more silently, he thought that he would have done it if Cally had said yes when he'd asked her to come with him. Probably.

"There's worse ways to go."

"Worse than being trapped with no one but you lot for the next sixty years? I don't think so."

"Hey!"

"Go away Vila, I'm trying to come up with something we can use against these aliens. Perhaps I can adapt the old style meteor shields…too many of our current defenses are optimized to work against energy weapons which this enemy doesn't seem to be using," Avon was thinking out loud and continued to do so until Vila left, then he stopped.

Avon had been in bad situations before. Being cornered by twenty pursuit ships had been quite bad, being shot and arrested by the Federation had been very bad, almost dying at the hands of Zen and his automated defenses had been worse, and discovering that the woman he loved and believed dead had in fact been a Federation agent who set him up for the aforementioned shooting and arrest had been worst of all. He'd always come through all right, even when he didn't particularly want to. Given past experience, he'd probably be the last human being alive in the galaxy. Well, him and Servalan. Alone in the universe together after the other monsters had fled. Now that was a thought that was as horrifying as it was alluring.

He shrugged off the momentary pique and gathered his thoughts, perhaps it was time to turn his attention back to the psychic shield he'd been intermittently trying to develop ever since their encounter with the rogue Auronar. There hadn't been an opportunity to test it, because the model he'd constructed required a massive out-lay of power and so couldn't simply be left on and what psychic threats they'd run into had refused to provide sufficient warning to activate it. He could have asked Cally to test it, but he hadn't. Perhaps it was time to change that. On the other hand, the little the Federation ship's detectors had picked up didn't appear similar to what the Liberator had detected when dealing with psychic phenomena. Some sort of broad spectrum jamming might work, but it would require massive power. That was, in fact, the problem with everything he could think of, too many resources were needed and there was too little time.

Blake returned to the deck as Avon was preparing to retire to his own quarters to continue his work in privacy. "Avon, I need to use Orac to contact the various resistance cells and the non-Federation worlds, muster what additional forces we can."

"Certainly," Avon produced the key and walked towards the seating area where Orac was waiting. When he reached Blake, he paused inches from the crusading rebel, "I wonder, will you use whatever forces you can muster as a reserve, or will you throw them into the fight?"

"What?" Blake asked, putting on his stupidest face, the one he used when he wanted Avon to make the pragmatic suggestion his high minded idealism wouldn't let him make.

"Will you truly believe that the situation is so desperate that we must throw in completely with the Federation, or will you gamble that we can win and maintain enough strength to defeat the Federation as well? Will you just fight this war, or focus on the next?"

"Do you care?" Blake countered.

Avon cocked his head as if considering the point. After a long moment, he continued, "In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. I am…curious however which is of greater importance to you, humanity's existence, or its freedom? You were certainly willing to kill millions by destroying Star One. I wonder if the fact that it's not millions of them, but all of us, will change your calculus."

Blake frowned at him as if he were a particularly stupid student. "I would have destroyed Star One in order to free humanity—"

"And yet I've heard you and your fellow rebels talk at length about how much better it is to die free than live a slave," Avon interrupted.

"As opposed to your natural submission to authority," Blake countered, as sarcastically as Avon could have managed.

"I make no claim that I work for anyone's interest but mine."

"Whereas I will protect humanity's future, even as I seek to shape it."

"Which is not an answer to what you will do with whatever madmen—"

"Freedom fighters."

"Regardless, what will you do with those who answer your call?" Avon stepped closer to Blake, not that there was much closer to get.

"What seems best."

Avon grinned. "Of course. Everyone always does. The question is what will seem best to Blake, leader of the Freedom Party, icon of those who would rebel against the mighty Federation?" The other man flinched at that, not bothering to hide his anxiety, his humanity, from Avon as he had to do from his followers, for Avon certainly was not amongst them. Whatever Avon read on his face, he stepped past the man, "I guess we'll find out soon enough, won't we?" he asked, sliding the key into place.

"My current hypothesis is that the enemy are some form of energy being, which is why the Federation isn't able to detect their corpses, and yet their energy permeates their vessels, meaning even fragments can have an effect not unlike that of the creatures themselves. Fascinating. The question is how to prove it. Clearly some sort of stasis or shielding to capture a living one. I suppose a defense against their influence over humans will be needed as well, lest they force one of them to release our captive."

"And then there's the question of how to capture one at all," Avon put in, always gleeful to be pointing out the problems with other people's plans.

"Orac. Connect me to Avalon," Blake ordered, rather than let the two debate things endlessly as they would if given a chance.

Avon went back to work, keeping one ear on Blake as he ran through an impressive list of contacts, attempting to cajole, command, convince, or coerce them into mustering their forces to strike at the aliens.

He failed.

It was a little surprising to Avon, who'd watched the man talk people into suicide missions before. In fact, he'd talked Avon into doing things his way before, and that was a more impressive feat. But now he was trying to talk rebels into aligning with their putative masters and so they believed he had been compromised again and responded in the worst possible way, by going deeper underground, cutting contact with other cells, abandoning plans in action and covering up for themselves.

Hiding might work from the Federation, but you couldn't hide from an orbital strike. Blake grew more and more frustrated as he worked his way through his list of contacts, trying to make them understand. And of course, the more frustrated and furious he got, the more certain everyone he spoke to was that he'd been compromised, again, and was back under Federation mind control.

Blake was running out of contacts, desperation burned in his voice. "This is Roj Blake, I am not under mind control and the information I'm sending you is not a virus intended to trace your location, why would I need to trace your location, I called you, I obviously know where you are already, don't you dare hang up on me!" *CLICK*

Avon got the giggles. He couldn't help it, Blake, the silver-tongued devil who could convince his crew of ne'er-do-wells (and Cally) to follow him on suicide mission after suicide mission, despite Avon's best efforts, couldn't convince a single one of his loyal followers of the plain and simple truth. Blake's face was flushed and furious as he turned on the giggling man. "I wouldn't think you would find my failure so hilarious—" Avon's mouth opened and Blake spoke over him, "when it means fewer bodies between you and the enemy."

Avon's giggles rose into bleak laughter.

"What's so funny now?"

"Did I ever tell you about my time at New Oxford?"

"No," Blake was surprised, Avon didn't speak about his past.

"You know how the brightest minds of the colonies come to Oxford, only to discover that everyone else was the best of their colony, so they aren't really special at all?"

"I remember well enough from my own college days. But it's not just a comparison within the colonials, anyone from the Outer Worlds would have a hard time keeping up with someone from Earth. There's just too many advantages in being there, at the cutting edge. But what does this have to do with anything?"

"Well, I didn't have any trouble keeping up, nor did I discover that I wasn't special and I didn't bother to conceal that fact."

"You shock me, Avon, you were immodest?"

"I was honest regarding my abilities," one of Avon's nastier smiles crossed his thin lips, "and theirs."

"I'm still missing the point," Avon's grin widened, but Blake held up a hand. "Spare me the sarcasm and explain."

"After about seven months of me setting the curve in all of the electronics and programming courses, about twenty of my classmates decided to have a little talk with me. They waited outside the lab where I was working and ambushed me when I was heading back to my room. Their attempts to convince me to stop making them look bad were futile, as were my attempts to convince them to get out of my way."

"And?" Blake interjected, bored.

"And so they beat the ever-loving hell out of me, put me in hospital for a month, on the theory that it would keep me from taking my exams—"

"And that they hated you."

Avon shrugged. "That too. Of course this delusion failed, I took the exams while in hospital and still received the top honors for the year. Well, the top actual* honors."

*The Upper First Class Honors are reserved for the children of powerful politicians, or officers, and for use as political or diplomatic bribes. The people who will actually be doing the work for which they've undergone that very expensive training fight it out amongst themselves for the First Class honors. This system produces relatively little resentment as everyone involved in actually doing things view an Upper First as a CV as an indicator that the holder of those honors is a well-connected incompetent, so the two groups do not generally end up in competition.

"Is there a point to this story? Besides how smart you are?"

"While I was in the hospital, a…friend paid me a visit—"

"Given how you behaved, I'm surprised you had any significant-pause type friends," Blake paused, remembering all the times he'd fought side by side with the other man and continue, "in college."

Avon shrugged. "She was neither an engineer nor a programmer, but a political science student. I was in no way qualified to judge her abilities in that arena and so I didn't."

"Political science?"

"Indeed. She was a devotee of yours, in fact, back before you first recanted—"

"While under mind control!" Blake interrupted.

"Yes, yes, but to return to my point, she was extremely apologetic about not being there when the other students attacked. I pointed out that there was no practical difference between 20-to-1 and 20-to-2 odds, except that in the latter case, there would have been two people in need of a stay at hospital."

Blake caught his point at last. "Your analogy doesn't work, because here failure to intervene will not save us pain, but bring only death."

Avon shrugged. "Yes, but that doesn't mean that defiance will bring anything else."

"You really believe we're so badly outnumbered that trying to gather additional forces is pointless?"

"Yes."

Blake was silent for a moment, then shrugged it off. He'd been fighting an impossible fight for most of his life. Everything else had changed, but that had not. "Then why are you still here?"

"Additional forces may be useless, additional knowledge never is. Victory will come, if it comes, from a technical achievement, not Servalan's armies, or your schemes. So, if you'll excuse me," Avon retrieved Orac's key, "Orac and I have work to do."

It didn't occur to Blake until after he'd left the bridge to ask what Avon's significant-pause friend had said in response to this dismissal.

253.17 NC – Command Ship FNS Unity, en route to the Saurian System

Servalan turned off the screen. She'd ordered the vivisections, she had no need to watch them and a great deal of work to do. With the information their detectors had gathered during the conflict with the enemy, her techs had been able to discern what frequencies they were using to communicate and thereby locate the enemy agents providing information to the enemy. Her doctors and scientists would find something to let them defend against the enemy's mind control, or at least detect it, because so far they'd only found those agents who were actively reporting information to the enemy

None of the enemy agents were her top people, instead they were the top peoples' secretaries, assistants, servants and slaves. Giving the order to have them brought in for a complete mental exam had ruffled some feathers, but she didn't much care at this point. Their importance lay in control of money, factories and land. Hers lay in command of every armed person on the planet.

Servalan paused at that thought. She had risen to the rank of Supreme Commander by a combination of political connections and an unblemished* record of victory. But those victories had mostly been the result of political maneuvering and assassination, not field command. Indeed, her greatest victory had been bringing the entire Klorian Sector under Federation control by tricking the various warlords and pirates into attacking Kloria Major, decimating the main planet's defenses, then single-handedly manipulated the warlords into turning on each other. By the end of her year-long deployment to the sector, there were no forces capable of opposing a Federation invasion and what authorities that survived were begging for Federation intervention to bring an end to the fighting.

*For a value of unblemished based on an understanding that a blemish successfully blamed on a comrade, or superior does not, in fact, exist.

And now she ruled with an iron fist. Wherever had her velvet glove gone? She needed to find it fast, because while she left command of the fleet with Admiral Lana, she would be trying to bring in every independent ship she could find to aid in the defense of their galaxy. Since to be independent was to be independent from the Federation, this was unlikely to be either pleasant, or terribly successful. Still, she would try, better to try and fail than fail to try, at least so long as no one who mattered would see her fail.